New Life

Easter Vigil
    It is a special moment in a family’s life when a child first learns to walk.  The child usually takes the first steps a bit gingerly and awkwardly, but as the child’s leg muscles and core develop, and as the child learns balance, he or she gains more independence concomitant with more mobility.  While there is a period where the child will go back and forth between crawling and walking, with the mastery of the skill of walking, the child gains a new form of life, and parents have to exercise increased vigilance over the child in his or her new life.
    Tonight as we celebrate the beginning of Easter at this Vigil Mass, we celebrate new life.  All of our readings told of some form of new life.  We heard about the beginning and new life of literally everything in the first reading as we heard God create the heavens and the earth and all that is in them.  We heard about Isaac’s new life after his father, Abraham, was willing to sacrifice Isaac, though God stopped Abraham at the last minute.  In the third readings we heard about the new life that Israel received after passing through the waters of the Red Sea, with their oppressors, the Egyptians, being destroyed in the same waters after the Israelites made it through safely.  Isaiah prophesies about new life, as he spoke for God in the fourth reading: “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great tenderness I will take you back.”  Israel receives new life from its renewed covenant with God.  Likewise, in the fifth reading, Isaiah talks about the new life that comes when one receives the word of God, just like the fields receive new life from the snow and rain and the seed sown in the ground.  The prophet Baruch reminds the people that life comes from following the commandments of God, and abandoning their sinful ways.  And the prophet Ezekiel in the seventh reading speaks for God and tells the people that, while they turned away from God, and God let them feel the consequences of their sins, He will give them new life and prove His holiness and fidelity, so that the nations may know that He is the true God.  St. Paul talks about the new life that comes from baptism and dying with the Lord so that we can “live in newness of life” by rising with Christ.  And the Gospel is the climax of the focus on new life as we heard the angels proclaim that Christ had been raised, and Jesus Himself met the holy women on their way back to the Upper Room.

    My dear brothers and sisters, tonight is all about new life.  We enter into the new life that Christ won by His Death and Resurrection.  We renew our covenant with the Lord, the covenant began at Holy Baptism when we died with Christ so to rise with Him to newness of life.  And for some of our brothers and sisters, tonight will be the beginning of new life for them.
    Our Elect will receive newness of life through Holy Baptism, as God washes away all their sins, adopts them as His own children, and makes them members of His Holy Church.  Our candidates, those who were baptized in other Christian ecclesial communities, will join with our Elect in receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation, after they profess full faith with us, and they and even adults baptized as Catholics earlier who never completed the rest of the Sacraments of Initiation, will be given the new life that comes from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  And then all those who have not yet made their first Holy Communion will receive new life into them by sharing for the first time in the Body and Blood of Christ, the truly unblemished Lamb who saves us from death, just as the blood of the unblemished lamb over the lintels saved the Chosen People in Egypt from the Angel of Death, which wiped out the first born.  
    Whether we are receiving new life through the Sacraments for the first time, or renewing our covenant of new life with God tonight, God calls us to continue to live in new life, not in death.  It would be odd for a 5-year-old to return to crawling on the ground all the time, rather than walking.  We should approach our old, sinful way of life in the same way: it would be odd to go back to that.  Sin holds us down.  The new life of Christ gives us the freedom to run to God with the dignity of our heads held high on our own two feet.  The temptation will be to treat tonight as a beautiful ceremony, but only a ceremony that doesn’t change how we live.  Instead, God calls all of us to recommit to putting behind us our old habits of sin, and live in the new life of grace that Christ won for us.
    Tonight, Christ has risen from the dead.  Tonight, Christ takes your hand and invites you to walk with Him in the new life of holiness.  Tonight God reminds us that we should be dead to sin, and alive in the new life of Christ.  Alleluia!!

Having a Beer with Jesus–Sacrament Edition

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time–Christian Initiation of Adults/Confirmation

    In his song, “Beer with Jesus,” Thomas Rhett sings about what many a person would like to do: sit down and share an adult beverage with the Lord.  And, as the country music singer muses, he would ask Him numerous questions including: “Do you hear the prayers I send?”; “What happens when life ends?”; “What’s on the other side?”; “Is mom and daddy alright?”  As rational human beings we seek knowledge, we seek to understand.  And yet, as we heard in our first reading, “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?”
    In humility we must acknowledge that we do not always know why God does what He does, nor do we always find an answer on this side of eternity.  Even if we did sit down and drink a beer with Jesus, there would probably be some things that He didn’t tell us, or He’d tell us not to worry about certain things because we don’t need to know some things, even when we think we do.
    But God has a plan, and He calls us to trust Him that His plan will bring about the best result.  This is where faith comes in, where we go along with God and His ways, even when we can’t make out how it makes sense.  And while God sometimes asks us simply to trust, He proves Himself worthy of that trust by what He did for us.  
    It would be odd for God to tell us that we have to take up our cross and follow Him, unless He took up His cross and followed the will of God, even when it meant extreme suffering and death.  And He proved, by His Resurrection, that though following God and trusting in His plan can mean great anguish, that anguish passes and a joy and life beyond all imagining follows.

    Today, as Raegan and Skyler receive all three Sacraments of Initiation, and as I receive Andrew into Full Communion with the Catholic Church, and as Andrew and Nico receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, we see how God’s ways do not always seem clear to us.  Wouldn’t it have been better if Raegan and Skyler were baptized as infants and grew up in the faith?  Wouldn’t it have been better if Andrew were born into the Catholic faith?  Wouldn’t it have been better if Nico had been confirmed as a youth?  At this point, all we can say is that was not part of God’s plan.  Only God knows why, but this was the way, from all eternity, that God would grant different forms of sanctifying grace to all four of these young women and men.
    We see this in the second reading, as we hear about Onesimus, a slave, who befriended Paul and became a Christian through baptism, and his owner, Philemon.  Slavery is not good.  Philemon certainly thought that Onesimus running away was not good.  And yet, God used all of that as Onesimus met St. Paul and came to know Christ Jesus so that Onesimus could return to Philemon, himself a Christian, as a brother in Christ, rather than a slave.  The path didn’t make sense until you saw the ending, and then it made all the sense in the world.
    The same could be said for the crucifixion.  Jesus said today that His disciples would need to carry their cross.  We lose how startling that phrase would have been because we have accustomed ourselves to the cross.  But that phrase certainly scandalized the first hearers.  And it would have continued to scandalize them, if not for the fact that Christ Himself took up not just a metaphorical cross, but an actual cross, a literal cross (to use the word literal correctly), to prove His love for us.  And while Good Friday didn’t seem to make any sense at the time, on Easter Sunday we came to see that crucifixion in a new light: that God redeemed suffering and death and conquered it by Jesus’ Resurrection.
    Raegan, Skyler, Andrew, and Nico, to quote the character Saruman from “Lord of the Rings,” “So you have chosen death.”  You have each chosen to take up your cross, your means of suffering and pain, and follow Christ.  You have chosen to make His way your own, whether through a first choice of baptism, through your entrance into Full Communion with the Catholic Church, or through your reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation.  But in choosing to die with Christ, or deepening how you die with Christ, you have also chosen life.  Because when we take up our cross with Christ, He also grants us the resurrection.  
    And you each will taste the fruits of that Paschal Mystery–the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord–in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist that you will receive for the first time today.  That will be your reminder of what God has done for you.  That will be your strength to help you carry your cross.  That will be your foretaste of victory as you eat Eternal Life.  
    And while we don’t know why God allowed you on the longer path that has brought you to today, we trust that it is the best plan, and that your witness of receiving these sacraments will continue to bring about great good in the Church.  May God strengthen each of you in your pilgrimage towards heaven, and may we all carry our daily crosses according to the sometimes mysterious plan of God, so that we may one day enter into Eternal Life.

New Catholics, New Life

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Today we have the great joy of celebrating the baptism, confirmation, and first Holy Communion of Mia who has been preparing over these past months, growing in her desire to follow Jesus and make the pattern of His life her own.  We also have the great joy of welcoming Kelcie into full communion with the Catholic Church, and then celebrating her confirmation and first Holy Communion.  The prayer of St. Paul from our second reading we make our own for you both: may you excel in faith, knowledge, and love.
    Christ is doing for you both, each in your own way, what he did with the daughter of Jairus: raising you up to new life.  From today on, you begin a life that is meant to be a witness of the emptying of Christ (we use the church word kenosis) for our sake.  There are so many people at the point of death: not physical death so much, but spiritual death, but God does not want it to be that way, as He said through the sacred author of the Book of Wisdom.  God wants us to be with Him for eternity, and He has give us the Church to help us get there.  Really, the Church is a map to eternal life and happiness, helping us know which way we should go, and which ways lead to danger and move away from our final desired destination.  
    When I use the word Church, you may think of the official teaching office which promulgates and clarifies Church teachings.  And there is truth in that.  But you, as our soon-to-be newest members of the Church, also have that mission: to know which way we should go, and to know which ways lead away from salvation.  You might think that is a bit much for someone who is just joining the Church today, but guiding humanity to God is the mission of each baptized and confirmed person, no matter how long he or she has been Catholic.  We all help others to know what to do and what not to do.  Sometimes we know this because we have studied the faith and learned in our head the path to salvation.  Sometime we know this because we have wondered away from God and felt the negative consequences that come with opposition to God, and so we can let others know that we’ve been there, done that, and how it hasn’t worked out for us.  
    You also inspire us today by your choice to become Catholic.  Many here were born into the faith, so to speak.  As infants, our parents had us baptized, and so we take for granted sometimes the profundity of what it means to be Catholic.  But, as we see you, both adults, make a free and purposeful choice, we can be stronger in our convictions that our life in the Catholic Church makes sense, and is something others have chosen who didn’t grow up surrounded by Catholicism in their family.  So it’s not just others outside whom you will impact.  We feel the impact of your faith even now, inside the four walls of this church building.
    In confirmation, you will receive the Holy Spirit again, so that you can have the courage to proclaim the Gospel by word and by deed.  You will be filled with power from on high to live a life that reflects what you believe, and help people understand how the answer to the deepest questions of their hearts is connected to Christ and faith in Him.  

    But, let us now return to the daughter of Jairus.  We also see in this passage something that many pass over, but is also important: after Jairus’s daughter comes back to life through the prayer of Jesus, He tells them to give her something to eat.  New life has to be strengthened by food.  And so, the culmination of her new life on earth is strengthened by food to sustain her newly-animated body.  So your new life that you are given, either through baptism, Mia, or by your profession of faith, Kelcie, which joins you to us in fulness, will be strengthened by the heavenly food, the Bread of Angels, the Eucharist.  
    For children, the order has been changed, but the ancient order of the sacraments of initiation was baptism, confirmation, then the Eucharist, an order restored for the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults.  The Eucharist was the culmination of becoming Catholic and growing in the faith because it is the closest one can come to Christ.  Your entrance into the Catholic Church again confirms that all of our life as Catholics leads to the Eucharist, and then flows from the strength we receive from the Body and Blood of Christ.  
    So today we rejoice with you; we thank God for you; we thank you for your “yes” to Him.  May you remain in Christ’s Holy Church while on earth, and so enter the heavenly Jerusalem, the Church in triumph in heaven, which is the goal of your baptism, confirmation, and reception of the Eucharist today!