Eden, Heaven, and Sacrifice

Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Matthew Church
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  “I can worship God anywhere, I don’t need to go to church.”  We hear this phrase, sometimes from teens who don’t want to go to Mass, sometimes from adults who feel the same way.  And I think most, if not all, of us have had experiences of God outside the walls of this building, be it a beautiful sunset or a powerful storm, or maybe the calm and peace that come from time spent with a loved one.  

    And while when people enter this building for the first time, most tend to lose their breath for a bit, or look all around and say or whisper, “wow!”, why bother assembling in a place to worship God?  Why do we spend large amounts of money to build and maintain churches like this?  Why does the Catholic Church assign one of the greatest importances to celebrating the day a building was dedicated?
    It all has to do with what churches should do, and there are, I would argue, three primary goals for a church: remind us of Eden, point towards heaven, and celebrate a sacrifice.  The more a church does all three, the more we can truly call it a beautiful church.
    First, churches should point us to Eden.  In the Garden of Eden, God and man walked together as friends.  God was still God, and we were not, but there was a strong and close relationship between humanity and God.  The strain that came from work and the pain that came from childbirth didn’t exist, because they only came to be through sin.  The harmony that existed between God, humanity, and the rest of the created world was the only reality.  Man and woman didn’t lust after each other, even though they appreciated each other.  The break of that trifold relationship of God-man-nature only broke down when Adam and Eve tried to usurp the place of God and committed the original sin, a sin which they passed down to their descendants, even to us in the present day.  
    The ordering of the Church should remind us of the original order and harmony of the Garden of Eden.  We see hints of vegetation in our capitals on the columns, there are ordered other plants in the wallpaper in the sanctuary, like heads of grain and bunches of grapes, there are animals that are staying calm like the pelican image on the front of the high altar and fish in the wallpaper.  There is also a harmony that exists among the created items that make up this building, working together to provide a solid, intelligent structure.  In the church, we also have a harmony with each other and with God, which is why, at the beginning of Mass, we ask pardon from each other for any faults we have committed in the Confiteor.  When a church lacks any sense of the harmony of nature and the harmony that exists between God and humanity, it lacks a certain beauty.  Also, we don’t find this ordering anywhere else, because outside of this building, the effects of sin still run rampant between us and God, each other, and us and nature.  The order that exists here simply doesn’t exist outside in the same way.

St. Pier Giorgio Frassati

    Secondly, a church should point us towards heaven.  Why do we have so many images of the saints?  Why aren’t Catholic Churches just whitewashed walls?  Because heaven has numerous occupants.  It’s never been “me and Jesus” alone.  To be in union with the Lord means that we are also in union with those who are already united to Him in heaven.  That cloud of witnesses, from Abel to the Sts. Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis (to name two of our newest canonized saints), join with us in the in-breaking of heaven on earth.  Churches use precious materials because St. John describes heaven, in the Book of Revelation, as filled with precious materials.  Churches do not only look to the past and the Garden of Eden, but also look to the future and the place we want to end up, in heaven with God.  When we worship God at Mass, all the angels and saints join with us, and we with them, in a liturgy that echoes how heaven is described in the Bible.  As much as Shoeless Joe Jackson can ask Ray Kineslla in the classic movie “Field of Dreams” as he walks into the corn field from the baseball diamond Ray built, “Is this heaven?”, we know that heaven is not a place on earth.  But in the church, we get a glimpse of heaven breaking into earth in a way that happens no where else other than in churches.  
    Lastly, we celebrate a sacrifice.  Churches are not simply lecture halls where one can hear a rousing sermon (though I’m sure you’re moved by the current homily).  Churches are not concert halls where one simply hears music, being Gregorian chant or Christian rock.  Churches are places of sacrifice.  And how do we know this?  From the earliest days of the Church, church buildings contained an altar.  St. Ignatius of Antioch, who died around the year AD 107, who learned the faith from St. John the Apostle and whom St. Peter ordained a bishop, referred to a feature in the Christian celebration with the word thusiasterion, a Greek word that means altar, when talking about the Eucharist that the bishop celebrated.  Tertullian (who died in AD 240) and St. Cyprian (who died in AD 258) also speak about altars when describing the Eucharistic table.  
    But altars only exist for one reason: for sacrifice.  The first Christians understood the Eucharist as a sacrifice, but not as a new sacrifice, but the joining to the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross.  And Christ allowed us to join in that sacrifice through the ritual He Himself gave us at the Last Supper.  In the church building we fulfill the Lord’s command to do this ritual in memory of Him that unites us mystically to the offering of the Lord on the cross on Calvary.  No where else in nature does God randomly change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of His Beloved Son in an unbloody manner.  Only when we come to a church building do we have this opportunity to join ourselves to the sacrifice that saved us from sin and death and opened heaven for believers.  
    So no; you can’t worship God in the same way anywhere else other than a church building.  And that’s why, 107 years ago, our predecessors put aside large amounts of money to begin the building of this church building.  That’s why, through the decades that followed 1919, priests and people worked to beautify this sacred temple to help it reflect Eden, heaven, and the sacrifice of the Lamb.  May we continue the good work they began in Christ, and may this holy building continue to give us rest from our earthly labors and communion with God and each other as we seek to see the Lord Jesus Christ [who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen].

The Catholic Sense of Death

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed

    While we, as Catholics, are used to the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, more commonly known as All Souls’ Day, it doesn’t often fall on a Sunday.  Sundays are little Easters, so it might seem odd to focus on those who are dead.  But Purgatory, the abode where the souls who are not ready for heaven, but have not rejected God, precisely stands as a possibility because of the Resurrection of Christ.  And Purgatory gives hope to all those who are not perfected at the time of their death, and therefore are not ready for heaven, where we see God, Holiness Himself, face to face.  
    We cannot deny the pain and sorrow of death.  When someone we love dies, we know that we won’t see that person on earth again.  And in the face of that harsh reality, tears naturally follow.  But as those who know that Jesus rose from the dead, our grief should be eased a bit by the fact that death is not the end.  That’s the power of the Resurrection of Christ: death is not the end.  That’s the power that the martyrs held as they didn’t fear to suffer for Christ, because they knew that the world threw all pain and suffering at Christ in His crucifixion, but Christ came out victorious in the end on Easter Sunday.  
    But it’s also the power that should help us who remain after someone dies, because our faith tells us that they simply have gone on a long journey to a place where we can’t stay connected through a meet-up, phone call, text, FaceTime, or Zoom, but where we can stay connected through prayer.  Just as we are somewhat sad, but still have hope when a family member or friend goes on a cruise and we can’t contact them with earthly technology, so we should have the same hope when someone we love dies, because death is not the end, but a transition to a new form of life.  
    But as Catholics we can often act like non-believers who treat death as the absolute end.  We forget our faith and the central teaching of our religion, the resurrection, and we do what St. Paul tells us not to do: weep as those who have no hope.  I’m not saying we need to celebrate every time someone dies, though some saints have reminded their family and friends that life will be better for them in heaven, since they followed Christ on earth.  Really, we should only mourn when someone was not prepared to die and did not follow Christ, though even then we commend those people to the mercy of God.  
    Purgatory also gives us hope because while we strive for perfection, if you’re anything like me, you sometimes fall short.  God is perfect holiness, and if you ever read through the Old Testament, you’ll notice that no one is really excited to see God.  It’s not because they disliked God, but because they knew, often better than we do, that the holiness of God destroys any sin, like light destroys darkness.  So to be in heaven, in the presence of God’s perfect holiness, means that we have nothing sinful left in us, otherwise we would be destroyed.  Or, if we think about God’s holiness like heat, it’s so hot that our sinfulness would immediately burst into flames.
    So if we die in a state of grace, that is, not aware of any mortal sins or any rejections of God, but we still have sin, we have the opportunity to still make it to heaven after we have been purified in Purgatory.  It’s not perfect holiness (and heaven) or hell.  We have the chance to still make it to heaven even if we have not fully configured our life to Christ.
    Having said that, Christ still calls us to put sin behind us and make His life our own while on earth.  Our goal should always be heaven.  If our goal is Purgatory, then we’re aiming too low, like a sports team that only hopes to make it to the playoffs, not win the National Championship.  Plus, we often don’t achieve the goals we set for ourselves.  If we set our goal as heaven and fall short, we do have Purgatory.  But if we set our goal as Purgatory and fall short, there’s no safety net, and our eternity could be the eternal suffering of hell.  
    What is also worth celebrating on a Sunday is that, because of the Resurrection and death is not the end, just like we can help each other while on earth to get closer to heaven, we can help those who have died and whom God purifies in Purgatory by His grace.  The souls in Purgatory are not just left to be purified until God has perfected them.  We can assist them in a variety of different ways and speed their way into heaven.  
    And this is something that we have also forgotten as Catholics.  Not only are we worse, after COVID, of even going to funerals (and I know that some employers are less willing to allow employees to attend funerals), but we especially drop the ball after the funeral.  We take on the mentality either that the person is dead and there’s nothing else we can do, or that the person has certainly made it to heaven and no longer needs our help.  Both of those approaches are antithetical to our Catholic faith.
    Because death is not the end, we can suffer for the benefit of souls in Purgatory.  Maybe it’s an illness, or pain, or just a frustrating situation, but we can offer it up, as the sisters used to say, and speed someone’s path to heaven.  During these first days of November we focus on special opportunities to gain indulgences for the souls in Purgatory, but there are numerous opportunities throughout the year to gain an indulgence, not only for our own salvation, but to help a soul in Purgatory get to heaven a bit faster.  For example, under the usual conditions, spending 30+ minutes in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a plenary or full indulgence; saying the Canticle of Mary (the Magnificat) is partial indulgence; using an object of religious devotion that has been blessed by a priest is a partial indulgence; the vocal  recitation of the Rosary in a church or as a family, or a partial indulgence anywhere else; reading Sacred Scripture to grow in holiness is a partial indulgence, unless it’s 30 minutes or more, in which case it’s a plenary indulgence.  None of those require going to Rome or a Jubilee Year (though there are also indulgences attached to the Jubilee Year).  
    Lastly, Masses can be said for the soul of a person who died.  When a Mass is said for a deceased person, the merits of Jesus’ salvific work is applied to purify the soul of that person.  The practice of saying Mass for a person enjoyed popularity with older Catholics, but is important for every person.  And the cost to schedule Mass for the intention of a person is only $10.  So it’s not outside the range for even a young family with kids.  But what a powerful way to help a person in Purgatory!
    As we celebrate All Souls’ Day today, it’s good to have reminders about our faith in the Resurrection, and the effect it has upon how we mourn those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith.  May our faith in the Resurrection of Christ not only remain in our minds and hearts, but truly affect how we live our lives as Catholics and the choices we make to assist the souls in Purgatory. 

On Pilgrimage with our Lord

First Sunday of Lent

Mount of Temptations

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  One of my hopes during this Jubilee Year was to lead a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  There is nothing quite like traveling to the land which our Lord made holy through the Incarnation and Paschal Mystery.  I have been there three times before, but the sites help one go even more deeply into the Gospels by seeing the places where our salvation happened.  As we hear this Gospel for the first Sunday of Lent, I can see in my mind’s eye the Mount of Temptation, which stands near Jericho, the traditional place in the desert where Satan tempted our Lord.  Or, as we get closer to Holy Week, to walk the Way of the Cross through the streets of Jerusalem, or stand at Calvary in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and especially to see the empty tomb in that same church.  
    But most people, whether in the past or in the present, could or cannot physically travel to the Holy Land.  In the past it was expensive and dangerous.  Today the expense is more the issue than anything (the holy sites are generally very safe, even right now with the animosity and fighting between Israel and Hamas).  But St. Francis of Assisi developed the Stations of the Cross, originally just for Franciscan churches, to help people draw closer to the saving events of our Lord’s life from a local church.  And even beyond the Stations of the Cross, we are invited to, even if only spiritually, travel with our Lord in these forty days of Lent.
    During Lent we are meant to be on our own pilgrimage with the Lord for forty days.  We spend forty days in the desert, evoking the forty years the Israelites wandered in the desert between their exodus from slavery in Egypt to their entrance into the Promised Land, as well as the forty days our Lord spent in the desert after His baptism, leading up to His temptation by Satan.
    The desert of Lent is meant to test us, to see of what we are made, and to discover the areas in which we still need to grow.  If we think back to the Chosen People wandering in the desert, at first they were ecstatic about their freedom.  The Egyptians had given their riches to the Israelites, so the liberated slaves had precious materials for their new home to which they traveled.  But fairly early on, they started to regret leaving Egypt, even though they were slaves there, and wanted to go back because, even with as bad as it was, they were familiar and comfortable with the bad, which seemed better than the unfamiliarity with a future, unknown, good.  They cried to God for water and food, and even created a false god after Moses had gone up to Mount Sinai.  The Promised Land was their home, a land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but a land they had left some four hundred years earlier, a land they had forgotten.  While the journey to Canaan was not an exceptionally long distance, because of their lack of faith, just as they were at the door of the Promised Land, they had to wander in the desert even longer than originally intended.
    Instead of lacking faith, our Lord’s forty days in the desert demonstrates what Lent is supposed to be: still difficult, still a test, but a test that we can pass because He did.  Our Lord hungered; our Lord thirsted.  But He did not doubt God’s care for Him, and He did not give in to the temptations of the devil.
    If we are honest, we are more like the Israelites than like our Lord.  Our baptism sets us free from Satan and sin, and God gives us the treasure of His grace, His life, to help us on our way home to heaven, our true Promised Land.  But along the way we doubt God.  We do not trust Him to provide all that we need.  We create false gods whom we feel will lead us better.  We forget that we are made for heaven and union with God, and in our selective amnesia, we make our path to God even longer and more difficult than it needs to be.
    So this Lent, our goal as we travel on pilgrimage with Christ is to be more like Him, and less like the Israelites.  As we fast and abstain, as our stomachs growl, we should remember that we do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.  As we pray, we do so not to put God to the test, but to bring the desires of our heart to God so that they can be purified and answered according to His will, not to our own insecurities and drive to be in charge.  As we give alms, we recognize that true power does not come from money and possessions, the false gods that we create, but from worshipping God alone and allowing Him to exult us.  
    While the desert is difficult, and tests us to trust more in God and less in ourselves, the desert is not forever.  God does not abandon us to wander around for eternity.  Christ has opened heaven by His Death and Resurrection, and wants us to end up there if we will follow His path through the desert.  The pilgrimage to heaven may be difficult at times, and we may want to turn back to what comforts we think that slavery to sin gives us, or look to other gods of our own making that we think we can control.  But if we follow Christ this Lent, and truly seek to allow Him to put to death in us anything which is not of Him, we will find the Promised Land where angels will minister to us as we worship in perfect happiness our true God: [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen]

Sanctifying our Families in the Temple

Feast of the Holy Family

The Holy Family in flight to Egypt

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As we come to this Feast of the Holy Family, we once again have the opportunity to reflect on how we can grow as holy families, whether our family is an individual, a couple, or a couple with children.  The Church sets before us a unique family as a model, as the mother is sinless, the husband and wife are celibate, and the child is God, but they show us the way to be like them, though we are not sinless or God.
    And this year what struck me was the Gradual, from Psalms 26 and 83.  In the English it reads: “One thing I ask of the Lord, for this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life;” “Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord, they shall praise you for ever and ever.”  As the Church has prayed, she has chosen to include these two verses from two psalms into the way we worship God and thank Him for the gift of the Holy Family.
    To be a holy family, our goal must be the house of the Lord.  The psalmist certainly thought about the Temple in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit inspired him to write this psalm.  And for a good Jew, to be close to God one had to go to the Temple, where His presence dwelt, especially in the holy of holies with the ark of the covenant.

    And so for us, no matter what our family looks like, we should strive to be close to God every day.  As a family that may include this temple, where God dwells in the tabernacle in a special way as our holy of holies.  But it also means being close to God throughout the day, even when we cannot make it here to this beautiful temple.  Because, as the Apostle reminds us, we are the temple of God since the Holy Spirit dwells within us through Baptism, Confirmation, and the other sacraments we have received.  
    This should give us comfort when we can’t make it to daily Mass, or even those times when we cannot come to Sunday or holyday Masses because we are sick, or we’re caring for a sick parent or child.  Even if we cannot physically be in a church, God is close to us, in fact, closer than we are to ourselves.  He walks with us each day, whether we go to work, or work at home with or without the kids, or enjoy the rest of retirement, or travel on vacation.  
    In fact, Solomon constructed the Temple to be like a new Garden of Eden.  There were pomegranates and leaves, animals, a bronze sea, lights from candles, and bread.  Genesis says that God accustomed Himself to walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening, and in the Temple one could have contact with God.  But since the veil of the Temple at the time of our Lord was rent, and the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost, we can find God, not only in a building, but also in our daily lives and in the silence of our hearts.
    But, the Temple also created a more stable meeting tent that the Jews traveled with in their Exodus, which God gave to Moses based upon heaven.  And so the Temple points us not only to the past in the Garden of Eden, but also to the future in the heavenly Jerusalem, the temple not made with hands.  And to be a holy family, we should keep our eyes and our attention on that heavenly temple, where we hope to worship God night and day with the angels and saints, singing “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts.”  Whether we are trying to keep our attention on heaven for ourselves, or trying to help our spouse keep his or her eyes on heaven, or trying to teach our children about how wonderful heaven will be and how we have to learn to make choices that get us closer to being there, to be a holy family means to keep our eyes on the prize and keep heaven in mind.  Our family Rosary, or going to Mass as a family, or learning and living out the virtues as a family all help us focus on being with God for ever in heaven, or at least that’s what they’re supposed to do.  It’s not just about the doing or the teaching, but about preparing our family, no matter its size, for the life that never ends, which we hope will be in heaven for us.  
    Keeping our eyes on heaven also means trusting in God, who supplies all of our needs in heaven.  And in that sense, it struck me that our Lord exhibited this in the three days that He was in the Temple area, as Mary and Joseph returned to look for Him.  Our Lord was twelve years old, and yet He survived in the Temple for those three days without parents to feed him.  I imagine he received some help from the teachers with whom He dialogued, but I know that Christ did not worry about what He was to eat or drink or wear, as He would later encourage us to not worry about such things in the Sermon on the Mount.  He was with His Father, and He knew His Father would take care of all things for Him.  So will God the Father do with us who are His adopted children through baptism: He provides, directly or indirectly, for what we need, and invites us to trust His will for our life, especially when it doesn’t match what we wanted to happen or what we thought should happen.  God may not will difficult times for us, but anything difficulties He allows help us to trust in Him and trust how He will take care of us even in the midst of our struggles.
    So, to be a holy family, focus on dwelling in the house of the Lord every day.  Maybe you can’t make it to Mass every day, but make time for God with daily prayer, especially silence, if you are able.  Sometimes it may be a simple sign of the cross as you care for your children, or a fervent prayer, “Jesus, help me!” when the chaos seems more than we can handle.  Or maybe its the less-than-five minutes to pray the Angelus each day at 6 a.m. and/or noon and/or 6 p.m.  Or maybe it’s a holy hour, especially during our Monday times of adoration.  But blessed are those who can dwell with the Lord each day, no matter where they are.  Those who seek to be with God will certainly be a holy family and will prepare themselves for the heavenly Jerusalem, where God–the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit–lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Made for More

Passion Sunday
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  This is the time of year that new assignments start coming out.  Just last Monday we received the notice of the movement of a number of pastors and parochial vicars to new assignments.  I was subsequently speaking with a brother priest and telling him how I received an email a couple of months ago from a parishioner at Immaculate Conception parish in Milan, Michigan (not to be confused with Milan, Italy) who asked me to apply for that parish because I am a young priest with lots of energy.  I joked with my classmate that I am not as young as I used to be.  And, besides that, I really feel that St. Matthew is the perfect fit for me (and I hope you feel that way, too, at least most of the time).  That’s not to say that we don’t have any challenges here and ways that we can continue to grow, not only in population but in our relationship with Christ.  But I really feel like I belong here, that we compliment each other well, and that we challenge each other to grow as a parish family.  As many of you live outside of the territorial boundaries of this parish, I know that you, too, feel like St. Matthew is a perfect place, and you witness to that by driving past other parishes that are geographically closer to you.

My installation as pastor of St. Matthew

    But while St. Matthew seems like the most perfect assignment I’ve had so far as a priest, and hopefully the most perfect parish for you, our epistle today is a good reminder that this is not all there is.  Christ is the High Priest, the Supreme Pontiff, of a greater and more perfect temple, not made with hands, in heaven.  As St. Paul says, we have here no lasting city.  We are made for heaven, and that is the temple into which we should all strive to enter.
    It is so easy to focus on what is here below.  Our church building can rightly be called beautiful as it reflects the truth of what this place proposes to be: a house of God, who is utterly transcendent and awesome.  The precious materials like marble and gold leaf offer to God the best of what we have for His glory.  The images of the saints throughout this church, like in our stained-glass windows, the medallions near the ceiling, and the statues (which are now covered) remind us that what we participate in is not just an earthly affair, but is the meeting point between heaven and earth, where saints and angels worship God together with us.  In this place we not only remember but participate in the offering of Christ in the Holy of Holies, no longer with the blood of a dumb animal, but with the precious blood of the Son of God, the blood which speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.  We join ourselves to the one Mediator between God and men, the God-Man Jesus Christ, who invites us into a covenant not carved on stone by the hand of God, but carved into our hearts; a covenant not marked by the cutting away of flesh in circumcision, but the cutting away of that which separates us from God, original sin; a covenant which brought not temporary purification, but opened up for us the possibility of eternal life in heaven if we keep our wedding garments clean in the Blood of the true Unblemished Lamb in which they were washed.
    But God reminds us today through the readings that His covenant surpasses anything that came before, and, in fact, fulfills them all.  Even that great covenant with Abraham, wherein God made Abraham and his descendants the People of God, looked forward to the covenant with Christ, as Christ Himself noted in the Gospel that Abraham looked forward to the day when God would take union with man and redeem man once and for all.  The Jews picked up stones to kill our Lord because they recognized that Christ was not claiming to be another prophet or religious leader like so many that had come before Him.  The Savior claimed that Abraham rejoiced in Him, which made Himself equal to God.  He also used in some way, that sacred name of God that God Himself revealed to Moses: I AM.  Christ is a prophet, but also greater than the prophets, and the God who inspired the prophets.
    For us, then, the Lord invites us not only to keep in mind His Divinity, but that, while we exercise good stewardship of this earth and all that lives in it, we also keep our minds fixed on what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father.  As good as this earth is, our time on it will end, either by death or by Christ’s return in glory at the parousia.  At the end of time, what is good will be perfected and what is bad will be cast away.  Even the sacraments will end in heaven, because we will no longer need material reality to mediate God’s presence.  We will be able to behold God face to face, no longer dimly, as in a mirror.  The indelible marks of the sacraments will still remain–baptism and confirmation, and for those in holy order, the mark of ordination–but no longer will we baptize, confirm, or ordain, because Christ will be all in all.
    So while we remain on this earth, we also do what so many advise against: keep our heads in the clouds.  Not in the sense that we are absent minded or distracted, but that our attention is ever-split between earth and heaven, keeping before us always the destination for which God created us.  As good as life can be here, something even greater awaits those who remain faithful to the covenant sealed in the Precious Blood of Christ our God.
    So yes, let’s continue to build up St. Matthew parish.  Let’s draw others to this beautiful House of God.  It truly feels like where I belong, and I hope you feel like it’s where you belong as well.  But, even so, may we also remember the tabernacle not built with hands, greater and more perfect than our tabernacle here, where Christ, our High Priest, eternally intercedes for us, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Are You Saved?

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

Powers Catholic Varsity Hockey Team

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

Patience with Us and Others

Resumed 5th Sunday after Epiphany
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I am a perfectionist.  I strive always (even if not always wholeheartedly) to do tasks correctly, without any errors.  In some ways it’s virtuous, but in other ways it is a thorn in my side.  But every human person, whether a perfectionist or not, desires perfection.  That desire for the perfect is really a desire for God, implanted in our soul.  It is, as St. Augustine of Hippo says, that our hearts are restless until they rest in the perfection of God.
    But if this is so, why the reality that the Lord’s parable points to today?  Why does God allow weeds to grow up among the wheat?  Why not deal with evil as it comes up, when it is smaller, rather than waiting until the end to deal with it?
    St. Peter gives us some guidance in his second epistle.  He writes about how some are wondering if Christ ever will return, because it’s not happening as quickly as they would like.  The first pontiff responds, “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard ‘delay,’ but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”  In the mysterious plan of God, weeds can become wheat.  The smallest opening to God’s grace can allow one to move from being a sinner on the highway to hell to a saint climbing the stairway to heaven.  If, by the power of God’s grace, bread can become the Body of Christ, then it should not surprise us that, by the power of God’s grace, a limb separated from the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, can be restored to that perfect society.  So God allows the wicked chances to repent.

    But we should not only look outside at the world and see weeds sown amongst wheat.  We should not only look to the Mystical Body of Christ, which is a corpus permixtum, a body mixed with saints and sinners, as St. Augustine says in his work, The City of God.  But we should also look to ourselves and our own soul, which is itself a corpus permixtum, a mixture of good and evil.
    We can say with St. Paul, “I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate….I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.”  We are not always, as St. Paul encourages us to be, “holy,” or acting with “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving on another.”  We are not always ruled by the peace of Christ; we are not always thankful to God or to others.  Our lives are not always governed by the Word of God.
    And yet, God is patient with us.  He gives us time to repent.  He gives us time to change our ways to become more like His.  He always gives us sufficient grace to choose the good, but our wills do not always see the benefit of living according to Christ’s rule for our life, though it be an easy yoke, and a burden that is light.
    And that patience even extends after we die.  Purgatory is a dogma of the Church.  It is part of the reality of the afterlife.  And it demonstrates God’s mercy for us, who are mixed fields.  Now, to be sure, if some of the types of weeds in our soul are deadly, then they cannot enter, as we hear from the Apocalypse of St. John: “Then the angel showed me the river of life-giving water…On either side of the river grew the tree of life that produces fruit twelve times a year, once each month; the leaves of the trees serve as medicine for the nations.  Nothing accursed will be found there anymore.”  If we die in a state of mortal sin, we cannot go to Purgatory or Heaven.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in paragraph 1035 states, “Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend to hell.” 
    But should we not have deadly weeds in our souls, but smaller venial weeds, God is patient with us and allows those “who die in God’s grace and friendship, but [who are] still imperfectly purified…[to] undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.”  He does not exclude us from the Beatific Vision if, after our life, we have not achieved the perfection proper to our nature.  As long as we have not made a conscious choice to reject Him through a mortal sin, God can extend His patience to us even after we die, so that we can be united to Him for eternity in heaven. 
    I have said this before, but it’s worth repeating: the fact that Purgatory exists as an example of God’s patience and mercy should not make us aim for Purgatory.  Go to the heights, as Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati says, and aim for heaven.  Because at least if you don’t quite make it, you can still make it to Purgatory.  But if you don’t quite make Purgatory, there’s no consolation prize, but only wailing and gnashing of teeth. 

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

    And besides God’s patience spurring us on to utilize the opportunities for growth in holiness for ourselves so that we can go to heaven, God also invites us to be patient with others.  If God is patient with us, so we should extend that patience to others.  And that only happens if we love others.  How many times does a parent put up with those small, but frequent, bad decisions of their children (or sometimes even larger bad decisions as they go through adolescence)?  They discipline their children to help them to know the consequences of doing what is wrong, but they don’t throw them out on the street after the first time they hit a sibling, tell a lie, or break curfew.  Because of the love that parents has for their children, they endure multiple bad decisions and keep working to achieve the desired good behavior.  God does the same for us because of His great love for us.  We, too, are called to love with God’s love, which we call charity, as best as we can, not only with our family members, but even to those whom we do not know.  Patience is, as my spiritual director has told and tells me, and exercise of love for the other.
    The desire for perfection is good.  God calls us to be perfect, that is, to follow His will in our lives according to our human nature.  And our desire for the perfect comes from our desire for God, who is the perfect source of all goodness.  Still, when we see a lack of perfection, whether it be from others or in ourselves, we should not despair, nor should we go on Sherman’s march to the sea, destroying everything along the way.  The Lord invites us today to have patience, to mimic His own patience with us, because change can happen; weeds can become wheat; any sinner can become a saint.  And sometimes the sinner just needs a little more time to repent.  God is patient with us; be patient with others, so that we, and they, may enjoy the eternal peace of heaven, where God reigns eternally: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

True Dichotomy

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  So often we’re nudged in the direction of a false dichotomy.  That phrase, false dichotomy, might sound foreign, might even sound like an obscure body part, but it’s the wrong assertion that there are only two choices.  For example, a person might say, “You have to vote for a Republican or a Democrat,” when, in fact, there are other political parties for whom you can vote.  Or, less weighty, you have to decide whether or not you can put pineapple on pizza.  As I tend to be the pop culture reference guy, it’s like Anakin in “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” saying to Obi Wan, “‘If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.’” 

    But not all dichotomies are false.  Scripture, and especially our epistle today, talks about the dichotomy between sin and grace, death and life.  Sin brings death, grace brings life.  And St. Paul talks about the Romans had previously been slaves to sin and death, but now were raised to life through grace, “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 
    But this is not just St. Paul.  It’s the overarching theme in the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation.  In Genesis, after God creates everything good, culminating in the creation of man and woman in His image, our first parents have life.  They are living in the grace of God.  But then, Eve, followed by Adam, disobey God; they sin.  And by sinning, they welcome death into the world.  They are expelled from the Garden of Eden, and separated from the Tree of Life, so that they experience death. 
    And so throughout Genesis, we see that when evil is allowed to fester, it leads to death.  Think of the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  But, when people follow God, they find life.  Think of Abram leaving Ur because God calls him to go to Canaan, and then becoming Abraham, the father of many nations.  The same could be said for Exodus, where God leads His people from slavery to sin in Egypt to freedom in following His law in the Promised Land.  Of course, throughout the journey, some disobey God, and they find death.  While others, like Joshua and Caleb, follow God, even when unpopular, and they enter the Promised Land.
    This same overarching theme repeats itself in the Books of Joshua and Judges, and then with the Kings of Israel.  The prophetic books are basically warnings from God through His prophets to live according to God’s will, because if they continue in their sin, they will die.  This culminates in the dispersion of the Northern Kingdom of Israel after they start worshiping false gods and oppressing those for whom God has a special love: widows and orphan; and the exile of the Southern Kingdom of Judah to Babylon after they, too, engage in idolatry and mistreatment of the poor and vulnerable.
    Of course, nowhere does this dichotomy appear clearer than with our Lord, who calls Himself, “‘the Way and the Truth and the Life.’”  To follow Him is to have life; to reject Him is to choose death.  The Savior even takes our rejection and the consequence of that rejection–death–upon Himself in His crucifixion, but because He was faithful to God He rises on the third day.  And the rest of the New Testament unpacks that choice between life and death, and helps those who follow the Lord to know what choosing life looks like to the nascent Church.  The Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul’s epistles, the epistles of St. Peter, St. Jude, and St. John all talk about how we can have eternal life and reject the death of sin.
    And at the end of the Bible in the Book of Revelation, we see the cosmic battle between good and evil, a battle that God wins convincingly.  But the Spirit also warns the churches that they have to continue to follow God to have that life.  It was not enough to choose life once or earlier; life must be chosen each day.  In the end, sin and death are defeated forever, and the fullness of the reign of God shines forth, with eternal life for those who remained faithful (and eternal punishment for those who rejected God).
    So which do we choose: life or death?  By our fruits, Christ tells us, you can tell what we choose.  Each time we sin, especially grave sins, we invite death into our lives.  Each time we follow God, we invite eternal life into our lives.  Indeed, though we often think of the judgment as Christ telling us where to go, either to Hell, or to Purgatory or Heaven, really we make that choice each day of our lives.  While the just are surprised that they served Christ through service to the poor, and the wicked are likewise surprised that they ignored Christ through ignoring the poor, they knew that they had served or ignored the poor.  In that way, their salvation or damnation was not a surprise, because they knew their choices, and whether or not they choose to do follow what God had instructed for eternal life.  Sometimes it was one act of following the Lord at the end of one’s life, like St. Dismas, the good thief, who received paradise for his defense of Christ crucified.  At other times it was more choices for the Lord, with some rejections sprinkled in, like St. Peter.  Or, in a negative sense, one great act of betrayal from Judas led him to despair of any chance of salvation.  But Dismas nor Peter nor Judas was ignorant of the choices they made and how each could affect eternal salvation.
    So where will we come out in this great drama and battle between life and death?  By baptism Christ claimed us for Himself and eternal life, and gives us the grace to stay faithful to the choices of life each day.  Each day the enemy works to enslave us once more to death.  Neither Christ nor the devil chooses for us.  We choose if we want death or life.  Praised be to God who gives us all the graces necessary so that we can accept the gift that salvation is, won for us by Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever. 
    

The Victory of Christ

Low Sunday
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  While it has waned a bit, there was a bit of a hubbub in years past about participation trophies.  I think it’s good to promote participation in competitions, to encourage people to reap the benefits of such competitions.  But in any competition there is a winner and a loser.  I myself have been a loser many a time (some may still think I am!).  When taken to its logical conclusion, few really want to eliminate winners, though.  Imagine the Michigan fight song in a woke context without winners: “Hail to the Participants, valiant!” doesn’t quite do it.
    St. John talks about victory on this Divine Mercy Sunday, also called Low Sunday (contrasting it with last week’s High Sunday), also called Dominica in Albis or White Sunday due to the baptized wearing their white robes.  When it comes to salvation and God, there is a victor.  God is victorious.  And we, St. John says, can participate in that victory.  We can overcome the world.

Icon from the place of the Resurrection

    How are we victorious?  We are born of God; we have faith that Jesus is the Son of God.  That is victory.  Sounds good, at face value.  Who doesn’t want to overcome the world?  But that victory does not look like the victories that we are used to seeing, for example in battle or in sports.  When we think of those victories, we think of the utter destruction of the enemy, or the super amount of points of one team over another.
    But while we do talk about the victory of Christ over Satan and all that is fallen in such ways (one Orthodox chant I remember for Easter says something to the effect of: Christ has risen from the dead, trampling death underfoot), Christ is not a demeaning victor to those who opposed Him.  In fact, His victory seeks to gather His opponents onto His team, at least those who still have a choice (i.e., us).
    Christ on the cross does not say: “Crush them, Father!  Make them pay!”  He says, “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.”  To the Apostles, almost none of whom stood by Christ in His Passion, Christ doesn’t say: “You were not with me, so you are against me; depart from me, evildoers, into the pits of Hell!”  He says, “Peace be with you.”  And even when Thomas fails to believe when Christ appeared the first time, saying that he would only believe if he had physical proof, Christ loving rebukes Thomas, but starts by repeating his Easter greeting: “Peace be with you.”  
    Christ does destroy sin; utterly wastes it away.  But with sinners, He is patient, He is merciful.  Which is good news for us.  Because we are all sinners.  We all, even though baptized, switch sides when it seems convenient, to play for the enemy because it feels better and is easier.  When we choose to sin, we become traitors, Benedict Arnolds of our own day.  
    And so the victory of Christ until the end of time will not look like a military, March Madness, or Super Bowl victory.  It is not kill or be killed.  It is not lose and go home.  Christ constantly seeks to have His victory take deeper and deeper root in us, even if we stumble and fall.  St. Peter shows us that even if we deny Christ, we can still return to Him, and even be called to great responsibility as the fruit of great repentance and great love.
    So if we are looking for stupendous buildings as a sign of victory; or vast quantities of people becoming Catholic; or political power and clout, we may not see that victory, yet.  Christ is still victorious, and yet churches may close; many may abandon the faith; we may be politically oppressed and powerless to change laws and policies.  But Christ has still one.  And as long as we continue in faith in Christ, both in our personal trust and in holding fast to the truths of what Christ has taught through His Mystical Body the Church (this means both Scripture and the unchanging truths of the faith), then we will be victorious, and share in the spoils of the one true Victor: eternal life with Christ in heaven.
    But one day, Christ’s victory will take hold over all creation as He returns in glory.  On that day, of which no one knows the day nor the hour, all evil will be defeated; all those opposed to God will be sent to Hell to receive eternal punishment and damnation.  At the end of time, no matter how much power or prestige a person had; no matter what office a person held, any person who opposed the reign of the true king and set up his or her own reign will receive the fruit of a just judgment.  
    Because when it comes to eternal salvation, it is not enough that we simply participated in life.  Our decisions now have eternal consequences in what happens after our death.  Our choices for or against God confirm if we want to remain with God, thus being prepared for heaven, or if we reject God, thus being prepared for Hell.  Keep those white baptismal garments clean.  Wash them clean in the Blood of the Lamb when you have sinned by going to confession.  Stay on God’s winning team, and receive the prize for those who are victorious in Christ: eternal happiness in heaven, where he lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Doing It On Our Own?

 Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

    A year or so I bought a grill for a young couple with whom I am friends who had expressed some interest in getting a combination grill/smoker.  I did some shopping, found what I wanted at a Lowe's in Brighton, and bought the grill.  When it came time to load it into my Jeep, I realized it was going to be a bit of a struggle, as it was much heavier than I expected.  Luckily, an off-duty State Trooper I know just happened to be coming into the Lowe's when I about ready to load it in, so he was able to help me.  This should have been my first clue that putting this grill together was going to require more than one person, given that even simply loading it into my vehicle required two of us.
    I got home, and, when I had a day off, I decided I was going to put it together.  I quickly learned that it was meant to be a two- to three-person job, because some of the parts were supposed to be held as bolts were tightened.  But, stubborn as I am, I found a way, somehow, to put it together.  With the help of another friend, I delivered it, only to notice that some of the screws I had tightened were a bit loose, due, no doubt, to the fact that I tried to assemble the grill/smoker myself.
    When it comes to salvation, we might take the same approach: I can do it myself.  And maybe even today’s Gospel seems to back us up.  After all, Jesus says, “‘Which of you wishing to construct a tower doe snot first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?’”  In other words, we may interpret Jesus to be saying, “Do you have enough to follow me?”  
    But, the fact is, we cannot follow Jesus without Jesus.  That may seem quite obvious when stated that way.  But how many times do we attempt to be our own savior, only to get frustrated when it doesn’t work?  We figure that we simply have to muscle through being a disciple, and then God will be pleased with us and we’ll go to heaven.  When we meet failure (as we most certainly will at some point), it then forces a decision: do we try to muscle through even harder (we failed because we weren’t trying hard enough)?  Or do we just give up because following Jesus is too hard?
    Of course, the better option is to allow Jesus to work within us, rather than trying to save ourselves.  If humanity could save itself, then Jesus and the Incarnation is altogether unnecessary.  If humanity could save itself, then certainly Abraham, or Moses, or David, or one of the prophets would have figured it out.  But, of course, they didn’t.  Not one of the patriarchs, kings, or prophets, no matter how good they attempted to be, could save themselves and follow God perfectly.  They all needed help from above.
    And we cannot follow Jesus without Him.  In fact, He does most of the work, and our job is to cooperate with that work and not get in the way.  When we do fail, it’s usually because we have gotten in the way.  “But Fr. Anthony,” you may say, “Jesus today said that if we do not carry our own cross and follow Him, we cannot be His disciple.”  That is what Jesus said.  But we are not meant to carry our cross by ourselves.  Jesus Himself received the assistance, albeit coerced by the Romans, of Simon of Cyrene to carry the Cross that brought us salvation.  So if even the Master receives assistance in carrying His literal cross, then why do we think that we can do it without any assistance?
    Trying to be our own savior and carrying our cross without Jesus can look very similar to someone who is allowing Jesus to be the savior and allowing Jesus to help carry our cross.  From the externals, it may be exactly the same: we pray, we make time for God, we talk to others about Jesus, we do works of charity for others, etc.  But what is different is the interior disposition.  The person who wants to save him or herself; the person who decides to carry the cross on his or her own, prays, but only because it is required.  That person makes time for God, but only out of fear that if we don’t give God some minimal amount of time, then He won’t let us into heaven.  That person talks about God, but only to increase the size of the parish by adding another member or two.  That person gives money to the poor or to organizations because it’s a nice tax write-off, or he or she likes seeing the name in a donor list.
    On the other hand, the person who allows Jesus to be the savior and help carry our cross prays because it is a chance to spend time with the Beloved, who wants to hear what is going on in our life, and wants to communicate a path forward.  That person makes time for God because that is the number one priority, and the other priorities fall into place after Him.  That person speaks to others about Jesus as a friend or spouse talks about their beloved, and wants others to know that same joy and love.  That person sees Jesus in the poor and the suffering and so does what he or she can to alleviate that suffering in the least of the brothers and sisters of Jesus.  The acts might be the same, but the motivation is totally different.
    You cannot save yourself.  You cannot carry your cross alone.  You cannot earn heaven by anything you could ever do, even in a million years.  Allow Christ to be your Savior.  Let Him work in you, and cooperate with that work, not trying to earn the love of God, but responding to it.  When we do respond to God’s love because of the love He has first shown us, then we will be the disciples that God calls us to be.

What Heaven Requires

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

    There are definitely a few extended family members of mine that think, quite incorrectly, that just because I am a priest and they are related to me, they will automatically go to heaven.  Sometimes people joke about that, but I’m pretty sure some of my extended family members are quite serious.
    There are also probably large amounts of people who think that, as long as you’re not Hitler or Stalin, then you can go to heaven, too.  We presume Hell is only for those who are the worst of the worst, and that you have to do something horribly evil even to be considered for Hell.  In contrast to that, Jesus says in today’s Gospel that “many…will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough” to go through the narrow gate.  It’s not even enough to have dined with Jesus and listen to His teaching.  There is something more that is required. 
    We honestly don’t know much about what exactly it will take for us to go to heaven.  Jesus didn’t give us a list to check off or leave blank, and if we get everything done, and don’t do any of the things on the naughty list, then we’ll get in.  We do know that the ordinary way of preparing to go to heaven is through baptism.  But even that is simply a beginning to our salvation, not the end.  We also know that part of our judgment is how we treated Jesus by the way we treated the least of His brothers and sisters (see Matthew 25, and the parable about the Rich Man and Lazarus).  But even in those accounts, there is surprise: surprise by those who cared for Jesus when He was in need; surprise by those who didn’t care for Jesus when He was is need; surprise by the Rich Man who enjoyed a pleasant life on earth, but then ended up in Hell. 
    I think part of our issue is that we often view heaven like becoming an Eagle Scout: if I get all the right merit badges by the time I die, then God has to give me the reward.  Instead, I believe the Lord, in today’s Gospel, is inviting us to view our path to heaven in a similar way to a marriage.
    After all, a good, happy, and holy marriage is not about doing this and not doing that.  Certainly there are things you should do, and things you shouldn’t do.  Do remember your anniversary and your spouse’s birthday; don’t have an affair.  Do things that your spouse will appreciate; don’t verbally or physically abuse your spouse.  Do things that make your spouse’s life easier and more enjoyable; don’t treat your spouse like you would treat a maid or butler.  And the list goes on. 
    But, the loving husband (the image that comes easiest to me as a guy; but ladies, just flip it around for yourselves as a loving wife) isn’t checking-off the boxes of things that need to be done.  He anticipates his beloved’s needs and wants, and does his best to fulfill them.  He prioritizes his wife above everything other than God, and shows that priority by the way he works, the way he takes time off, the words he says to her, the things he does for her, the way he loves their children, etc.  The couple who has been happily married for 50 years didn’t get there by only having a great wedding and celebration, or only doing the things that were the bare minimum for the relationship.  The happily married couple was always looking for new ways to grow in their love for each other and express it in word and deed.
    Is that how we view our relationship with God?  Because heaven is simply being with God forever, and God will not force us to be with Him if we don’t want to be.  If we’re not in love with God, then we may find the teaching that skipping Mass without a good reason (and no, sports is not a good reason) could lead you to Hell very difficult.  But if we love God, we work the rest of our day, even our recreation, around Him, because we want to spend time with Him.  If we’re not in love with God, then following the Church’s teaching to not use artificial contraception is going to seem “out of touch.”  But if we love God, we see that the sexual act has a meaning given to it by God, and when we go against that meaning, we do not express love in the way God wants us to express it. 
    The key that Jesus gives us today, it seems to me, on how to get to heaven is precisely about if we showed our love for Him by following Him.  It wasn’t simply about being the Chosen People; people “from the east and the west and from the north and the south” would be entering the kingdom of God because they fell in love with God and made Him the most important part of their life.  I think Jesus would say to us that it’s not simply about being a baptized Catholic, or going through the motions of what our faith requires (hearing the teachings of Jesus, getting the right sacraments, and making sure to avoid the big sins).  It’s about being in love with Him and letting that love be manifest by the choices we make in our home, in our office, in our recreation, in our voting, and in every aspect of our life.  Listen to the words of the Letter to the Hebrews: “Make straight paths for your feet.”  Set out for heaven, not as a task to be accomplished with certain actions to be avoided, but as the final destination of a heart transformed by the love of God which seeks to grow ever more deeply in love with the One who first loved us.

A New Perspective

 Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    When I come to a problem, or something that needs fixing, I have a way of seeing one solution to that problem, and proceeding accordingly.  However, sometimes my approach is not the best, or won’t work at all.  It’s not until the problem is looked at from another angle and another approach is taken that the problem can easily be solved or addressed.
    We have lots of issues in society today.  And there are twice as many solutions proposed as there are problems.  But the solutions all tend to focus on an earthly solution; most look to solve the issue.  While laws are important, and policies can help direct funding to needed programs, so many of the issues we deal with cannot be truly solved with earthly solutions.  We need to look to heaven.
    Christians have sometimes been accused of not caring about the world.  They are said to only care about heaven, and so don’t care about the things here on earth.  But more often than not, it is only by concentrating on heaven that we come to see the ways that we can treat, not only the symptoms of what ills our world, but the disease, because the way we deal with our world has an impact on whether or not we go to heaven.  
    Living for heaven takes faith, looking beyond what is seen to what is unseen.  Our long reading from the Letter to the Hebrews talks about Abraham as the model of faith.  He left his homeland in modern-day Iraq to travel to the Promised Land, not knowing what he would find when he got there, or if this God who had revealed Himself to Abraham and called him to sojourn to a new land would care for him.  And then, Abraham trusted that God would give him descendants, though he and Sarah, his wife, were past the childbearing age.  And then, when God asked Abraham to sacrifice that son that they had conceived, Abraham trusted that God would raise him up, so that God’s promise that Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky would come true.

     All of this, from an earthly point of view, seemed foolish.  Iraq has been called the cradle of civilization, and society there was likely more advanced than the scattered and small Canaanite nations to which Abraham ventured.  Abraham was one hundred years old when Isaac was born, and no one would have expected that Abraham and Sarah could even conceive, let along bring a healthy boy into the world.  In fact, Sarah saw things from an earthly point of view, and so, before God promised that she would conceive, Sarah told Abraham to have relations with her slave, Haggar, in order to “help” God fulfill His promises.  But Haggar’s son, Ishamel, was not to be the son of the promise, because God had a different solution.  And lastly, even Isaac was probably concerned when Abraham led them both up the mountain, as they had the wood and the fire for the sacrifice, and they had a knife, but no animal to slaughter.  From an earthly point of view, it would have been better to not even climb the mountain and simply run away from God’s mysterious command.
    But Abraham had faith in God, and trusted that, if God promised, He would deliver.  So Jesus told His disciples and tells us, that we are to take a different view as we go about this world.  We are to act as those awaiting for the Master to return.  If we do, then the Master will serve us.  But if we don’t, if we don’t act in accordance with the Master’s will, and do whatever we want, then we will be punished for our disobedience to the Master.
    What does this practically mean?  It means that the choices we make should coincide with God’s will, as much as we are able.  It means that we don’t look necessarily to earthly fixes to our problems, as to heavenly guidance and solutions. When it comes to our environment, we have a responsibility to care for the earth.  Some would say that we can no longer drive gas cars, or travel in planes, or even eat meat because cows fart too much.  That certainly is an earthly point of view (often enough, sadly, wrought with exceptions for the rich and the powerful).  From a faith point of view, we look first at ourselves, and examine our stewardship of created goods.  Do I waste a lot?  Do I use resources unnecessarily?  How do I treat the environment in which I live?  Laws can help us be good stewards of creation.  But when we have that conversion to live as good stewards of creation, as God called us to be in Genesis, then we find even better solutions than mandating rules that apply to “thee but not me.”
    When it comes to the violence that plagues our nation, from an earthly point of view, it would seem the easiest to simply outlaw all guns, or types of guns, for most people.  I can tell you from my work with the State Police, that there are a large amount of people who don’t care what the laws state; they will do whatever they want, for good or for ill.  So simply passing this law, or outlawing that gun, is not going to stop the violence (though perhaps there are certain laws that would help).  When we look to a heavenly point of view, we see how broken families are these days, and how that affects the development of children into adolescence and adulthood.  We see how much disturbing violence children are exposed to on screens from an early age.  We see that people are not taught constructive ways to work out differences, but those who call themselves leaders tend to yell, scream, and destroy whenever they don’t get their way.  Do I do all I can to be a loving mother or father (or grandfather or grandmother)?  Do I make time for my children (or grandchildren), limit and monitor their screen time and what they are viewing?  Do I belittle others and treat them as less than human when they don’t agree with me, or show that each human being has dignity and value, even when we don’t see eye-to-eye?
    With these, and countless other issues, we can get stuck in a hamster-wheel of trying to find solutions that don’t solve the bigger problems.  We forget God, and forget that God has given us long and lasting ways to solve, not only the symptoms of our human failings, but the deeper disease.  Those who keep their eyes on heaven, and on the fact that they will be called to account for their actions to our heavenly Masters, are precisely the ones who are more likely to be good stewards here on earth.  Don’t just seek earthly solutions.  Seek the answers that come from heaven.

What God Will Do For Us

 Second Sunday of Advent

    Last week I preached about how we prepare during Advent, both for Christmas and for the second coming of Christ.  We should still have that attitude of preparation in mind as we continue into this second week of Advent.  Our prayer, sacrifices, and almsgiving should be increased from usual so that we can be ready when Christ returns and when we celebrate His birth.  
    This week our readings remind us of what God is going to do.  God has begun a good work in us, and desires that, cooperating with Him, that work is brought to completion in Christ Jesus.  God desires that our love “increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that [we] may be pure and blameless,” as St. Paul said in our second reading.
    We can often think that we are the ones who are doing most of the work.  And while our cooperation with God’s grace is necessary (we are not simply passive spectators in the process of our salvation), God does most of the work, and without God, holiness is impossible.  Without God we cannot be free from sin; without God we cannot hope to enter heaven; without God we cannot be the saints that He desires us to be.  God is always giving us what we need so that we can live as disciples of Jesus.
    First, God desires that we take off our robe of mourning and misery, and he puts on us the cloak of justice.  We heard this phrase in our first reading from the book of the prophet Baruch.  Baruch worked with the prophet Jeremiah.  He saw the destruction of Jerusalem, including the magnificent temple of Solomon, in 587 BC.  That would certainly be a reason to mourn and be miserable.  He also saw many of the Israelites be deported from Judea to Babylon, while others who were allowed to stay in Judea, despite God’s warning to the contrary, fled to Egypt.  Again, mourning and misery.  
    But God promises through Baruch to bring the people back, even carried like on a royal throne.  He promises to return them to the Promised Land, and to lower the mountains, and raise up the gorges.  This connects directly with our Gospel, where we heard about St. John the Baptist, “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” the one about whom Isaiah prophesied who would prepare the way for the Lord, make straight his paths, lower every hill and mountain, and raise up the valleys.  And, importantly, Isaiah concludes, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”  
    While God did fulfill the promise through Baruch to bring the people back to their home after the Babylonian Exile beginning in 538 BC.  But this prophecy was meant for more than simply a literal reading.  God gives it a spiritual meaning which applies to us even today.
    First of all, what is the robe of mourning and misery?  It is sin.  We chose, in Adam and Eve, to disobey God and to cover ourselves in sin.  We usually think of Adam and Eve covering themselves up after they sinned, because of their shame of their own nakedness, and their lustful desire for the other.  So they sew fig leaves together for clothes, which were not that comfortable.  But Genesis also says that, after God explained the consequence of their sin, He also made them leather garments for clothes.  He gave them something much more comfortable and durable, even while it still hid their nakedness.  
    When we sin, we cover ourselves in uncomfortable clothes.  But God wants to give us a cloak of justice, clothes which take away our sins and restore us to right relationship with God, which the word justice connotes.   That is our baptismal garment, the white cloth which represents our purity before God.  It’s not simply hiding our sins, but God takes away our sins and gives us His holiness, which we are free to keep wearing, or to throw off when we sin.  Sin is uncomfortable clothes, and causes us grief, and yet, we still sometimes choose to abandon the cloak that God made for us for clothing that doesn’t protect us from the elements.
    The hills are the struggles that we have in the spiritual life, the trials and tribulations that are difficult in life.  It can be a bad break-up of a relationship or friendship; the death of a loved one, especially during this time between Thanksgiving and Christmas; the loss of a job, or an unexpected bill.  These events and realities make life seem like nothing but an uphill climb.  But in the place that God has prepared for us, our true home in heaven, all these challenges have been leveled off so that we don’t have to experience them anymore.  
    The valleys are all the easy ways that we slide into sin.  It can be talking about an annoying co-worker or boss; too much time spent on social media; the white lies we tell so that we don’t have to tell someone something unpleasant; lust in thought, word, and/or deed that looks so enjoyable but leaves one empty.  God promises to fill those in for us so that we don’t coast into a life that pushes Him away.  In heaven, there won’t be those easy temptations that can so quickly lead us astray.
    And lastly, in heaven, we see the full and complete salvation of our God, as Isaiah promised.  If we’re in heaven, we’re there for eternity, and we spend eternity basking in the love of God, who created us to be with Himself.  St. Paul says that right now we see dimly, as is a mirror (mirrors were not as clear then as we have them now), but later we shall see clearly.  Our goal of preparing with God’s grace is so that we can be with God forever.  Because for us, as Catholics, the Promised Land is not a place on earth, but our true home in heaven, where God wants to lead us after this exile through the valley of tears.  He gives us glimpses of heaven in this liturgy, where we gaze upon the same Christ who saved us by His Death and Resurrection, and who saves us each day whenever we cooperate with Him in living a holy life.  That helps us to stay on the narrow path that leads to salvation, and avoid the valleys of easy sins, and gives us strength to climb the mountains that inevitably arise in our lives.  
    But, as we continue to prepare for Christ’s return in glory and to celebrate the Nativity, God promises good for us.  He promises to clothe us in holiness, garments that do not merely cover our sins, but transform us from sinners into His adopted children.  He promises to assist us with grace to climb the difficult mountains and avoid the easy valleys of sin.  He promises to do everything He can to help us see the salvation that He desires for us, which is only possible with His help.  God has set forth for us the goal of our Advent preparations.  He has shown us what He desires for us.  Will we accept His offer?

No Participation Trophies for Heaven

Solemnity of All Saints
    There are those who, when looking at a difficult task, think, ‘That’s so easy, anyone can do it!’  And there are those who, when looking at a difficult task, think, ‘There’s no way I’m going to be able to do this, and I don’t see how anyone could!’  I probably tend towards the latter.  I remember when I was training to run the CRIM in 2019: I had previously thought that there was no way that I was going to be able to run 10 miles; and when I was training, running circles around this parking lot, I still wasn’t sure if I could do it.  But, sure enough, on a relatively cool August day in 2019, urged on by Tommy Rinoldo, one of our seventh grade students here at the school who decided to run, I put one foot in front of the other with my iTunes exercise mix playing in my ears, and I completed the race, even finishing faster than I thought I could.
    Holiness, sanctity, being a saint, or, as the Powers students learned this year, hagiasmos, is often viewed in one of two ways.  We may think: everybody’s in heaven!  You’d have to be Hitler to go to Hell, so very few people have anything to worry about; it’s a shoe-in!  Or we may think: I’m not like St. So-and-so, so I can never get to heaven.  Probably the more popular approach right now is thinking that everybody goes to heaven, as long as they’re not Hitler.
    Honestly, I think that approach, in its own way, cheapens heaven.  If basically everybody goes to heaven unless you commit genocide, it makes heaven not seem like such a big deal.  It’s the participation trophy ideal making its way into our afterlife.  Participation trophies are nice, and I use that word “nice” on purpose, because you are commended for trying, and sometimes trying does take a lot.  But winning is better, and losing is worse.  No matter how you dress it up or try to ignore it, that’s a fact.  If you doubt it, ask the Wolverines how they feel about losing to the Spartans this weekend.  And the Wolverines wouldn’t want they’re own Paul Bunyan trophy simply for playing the game. 
    But, I would also caution us against the view that making it to heaven is like the odds of a high school athlete eventually getting signed to an NFL team.  One study puts that number at 0.08 percent.  That’s .0008 people out of every hundred people, or 8 out of every hundred thousand people.  If my dream were to play in the NFL, that stat would kill my dream. 
    Heaven is difficult to enter.  Jesus says that we get there by a narrow road, not a wide one.  Or, to put it in a cheeky manner, the fact that there’s a stairway to heaven but a highway to hell should tell us something about the number of people expected in either direction.  Heaven is not a default that we slide into by not doing anything horrendously wrong.  But it’s not only for some elite group of people.  Heaven is what God wants for everyone, and God is constantly working to help us get there.  It’s possible for each and every person here, if we cooperate with God’s grace.
    And to prove it, I want to focus on two saintly people.  Both of these people are blessed, that is, one stop short of being a canonized saint.  But it’s a safe bet they’re in heaven, even if they don’t yet have the miracle for the official designation.
  

Bl. Carlo Acutis

The first is Carlo Acutis.  He was beatified this past 10 October, after dying at the age of 15 in 2006 from leukemia.  He liked joking around, and making people laugh.  He loved playing soccer and video games.  His will-power was not so great when it came to Nutella or gelato.  He didn’t give in to those desires all the time; he knew he had to control himself, but he didn’t pretend that he couldn’t like soccer or video games.  His was a simple path of holiness.  He bought a sleeping bag for a poor person he met.  Even though he lived a comfortable life, he did his best to make less work for the people who cleaned his house.  He created a website that tracked Eucharistic miracles around the world.  And in 2006, when diagnosed with leukemia, he was noted to say: “I offer to the Lord the sufferings that I will have to undergo for the Pope and for the Church, so as not to have to be in Purgatory and be able to go directly to heaven.”  He knew responding to God’s grace could be tough, but he was in it to win it.  And now he’s one miracle away from being venerated around the world as a canonized saint. 
    The second was just beatified yesterday, and he is Fr. Michael J. McGivney.  He is the founder of the Knights of Columbus, a fraternal organization that Fr. McGivney founded to assist immigrants and their families with insurance policies in case a member of their family died.  He was born in 1852, the eldest of 13 children, six of whom died in infancy or at a young age.  As a man who had to work at the age of 13 to help support his family, he knew how difficult life could be.  And that life only became more difficult if one of the working family members died, which Fr. McGivney’s own father did in 1873 when Michael was away at seminary.  Seminary was put on hold for a time while Michael earned enough to support his family.  The Knights started small, in his parish in New Haven, Connecticut.  But it is now the world’s largest Catholic fraternal organization.  In 2019, the Knights donated $187 million and 77 million hours of charitable work.  They assist in defending life, especially the infant in the womb, but have also done great work in Iraq to help families who have lost everything through war and poverty.  They are great promoters of the parish, and also raise money each year to assist the mentally handicapped.  Fr. McGivney probably never imagined the scope his work would have, but he did what he could, for whom he could, when he could.

Bl. Michael J. McGivney

    And that’s our ticket to going to heaven.  It is tough; I’m not going to lie.  God’s grace often seems less attractive, especially in youth, and the highway to hell sounds like a ride with more fun.  But if we do all we can, by God’s grace, each day, taking little steps, not worrying about the distance, then we can get there.  It’s not impossible. 
    Today we celebrate all saints, all those who are in heaven.  If we haven’t before, let’s commit ourselves to be saints now, to run the race that is before us, disciplining our bodies, minds, and souls to win the prize of eternal life.  It’s not impossible, but it’s not possible without God’s grace and our effort.  Heaven doesn’t hand out participation trophies, so let’s do whatever we can to be champions in our life of Christ!