Following Christ May Not be Easy

Septuagesima
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One would be forgiven for thinking that, once one truly believes in Christ, everything goes easily.  We have a desire for doing right, and we want that desire and those righteous actions to carry with them the consequence of ease.  And certainly, even Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics points to how the truly virtuous person exhibits virtue without too much struggle.  A person who truly has the virtue of courage will exhibit courage, rather than cowardice or rashness, in his or her actions, and will not need to think about it much, because a virtue is a stable disposition or habit to choose a particular good.  
    At the same time, a person who exhibits every virtue is rare.  And so there is a kind of struggle that takes place as that person seeks to life a fully virtuous life.  A man may never struggle with remaining faithful to his wife, but he may struggle with telling the truth, or displaying magnanimity (greatness of soul), or tempering his desire for food.

    St. Paul talks about striving for self-mastery and living a virtue, and compares it to running a race.  He notes that only one person wins a prize for first place, and says that we should run so as to win, rather than simply seeking a participation trophy.  He even says that he competes and subjects his body to penances, in order that he might also win.  
    He then also talks about how all the Jews received a sort of baptism in Moses, whether through the cloud or through the sea, and all participated in a foreshadowing of the Eucharist through the spiritual food and spiritual drink that was Christ.  But the Apostle notes that most of them did not please God.  
    What we can understand from this is that just because we are baptized; just because we receive the Eucharist, doesn’t mean that we can rest on our laurels.  While both are important sacraments that, respectively, make us adopted children of God and give us spiritual strength to live as children of God, receiving sacraments doesn’t mean that the graces work in us necessarily.  The fault lies not with the grace that God gives, but with our receptivity to those graces: with how we allow the grace to operate in our lives.
    We refer to these two aspects of the sacrament with two Latin phrases: ex opere operato, and ex opere operantis.  Ex opere operato means “from the work having been worked,” and refers to the objective reality that the sacraments have, as long as they are celebrated as the Church intends (the right words, the right stuff, and the right minster).  Ex opere operantis means “from the work of the one working,” and refers to the subjective reality and fruitfulness that the sacraments have, which is based upon the holiness of the minister and the recipient.  The former steers us clear of the heresy of Donatism, which stated that an evil minister could invalidate a sacrament, even if he did everything else correctly, and the latter steers us clear of magic, which takes the approach that, no matter what, just say the right words and do the right things and a change takes place, no matter whether a person opens him or herself up to the graces that God wants to convey.  

    This helps us understand why some baptized Catholics do not live up to their call to be saints.  Did the baptism not take?  Of course it did (as long as the minister celebrated it validly)!  But that recipient might be putting up a block to those graces through personal sin after the fact, or maybe the minister gave bad catechesis and treated baptism like an empty ceremony that doesn’t accomplish anything.  
    This helps us understand why, after we receive the Eucharist, sometimes we still want to sin.  The joke is that in the church we’re all pious and grateful for the Body and Blood of Christ, but then as we try to pull out of the parking lot we lose our temper and act like heathens who do not know Christ’s command to love one another and be patient.  
    And this is why we do our penitential practices, especially in the upcoming season of Lent.  We don’t do penance to earn salvation; we can’t earn salvation.  That’s the heresy of Pelagianism.  But our penances help discipline us to open ourselves to the graces that God wants to give, because our sin puts up obstacles (the theological word is obex) to the fruitfulness of God’s grace.  When we fast, when we abstain, when we give alms, we recognize our need for deeper conversion and to rely on God, rather than on ourselves or the goods of the world.  We make more room for God so that the spring of grace He has given us in baptism flows unobstructed, and so that the sacramental grace transforms us from the inside out.  
    Some get this from the beginning, like the workers whom the master hired at the beginning of the day.  For others it takes a long time, like those who only worked for the last hour.  But if we allow God’s grace to transform us into the saints He wants us to be in baptism, even at the last moments, then our hope of eternal salvation can be strong.
    We all likely have ways that need to grow in virtue, and our upcoming Lenten season is the perfect time to open ourselves up more to God’s grace so that we can grow in virtue.  May we run so as to win the prize, knowing that it is God who makes any good work possible and completes any good work that we began by His inspiration: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Entitlement

Septuagesima

The Strouse House

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  We live in an age of entitlement.  And we are, in a way, the victim of our own success.  The generations that came before us created great wealth and success, and kids grew up seeing the results, rather than the sacrifices it took to get to those results.  And I certainly cannot claim that I have not lived a privileged life.  First of all, I live in the most prosperous country in the world, a gift I did not earn, but which came to me simply by birth.  Secondly, I grew up in a middle-class family, who didn’t have it all, but we never wanted for anything.  I never knew true hunger (despite what I may have said during my teenage years); I never worried about having a nice home (I grew up in a two-story log cabin).  If I grew out of my clothes, we went to the store to get new ones.  Now, my dad, being the fiscally conservative man that he is, never bought us the most expensive clothes or shoes, and always used coupons to save money for the food we needed (not necessarily the food we wanted) from the grocery store.  So I learned the importance of stretching a dollar and not spending more than I could afford.  But it was normal for our family to go camping in an RV in the summer, and even to take trips to Florida every five years or so.
    But these days, many people I know presume that, when they start out, they have to have everything I had (or more) from the beginning.  They need streaming services; they need nice vacations every year; they need brand-name clothes and the most recent electronics; they need a nice house in a nice neighborhood before they can get married or have kids (though couples seem to get dogs very quickly).  Those are nice, but those are not needs.  If you can afford them, great!  But you can do just fine in a first home that maybe only has two rooms, and needs some TLC; you don’t have to have every streaming service to watch all your favorite shows; you don’t have to go on tropical vacations every year, or even every five years.  And, most importantly, no one owes you any of that.
    But more dangerous that our natural entitlement mentality is the supernatural entitlement mentality that we heard in the Gospel.  The master promises a just payment for a day’s work.  And the people who started at the beginning of the day shouldn’t have expected anything more than what they received.  But when they saw the master handing out what they agreed to, even though they only worked for a smaller amount of time (sometimes only a couple of hours!), they felt that they were entitled to more, since they did more work.  And when they didn’t get more, they complained.

Me as a seminarian

    In seminary, our rector (think president and principal in one job) warned us early on about thinking the Church owed us anything.  “All you are entitled to as seminarians,” he would say, “is a Christian burial, the same as anyone else.”  Here we were, giving up at least a portion of our lives in the prime of our life, for God and His Church, but that did not entitle us to anything special.  It was the call God gave us, and following God’s will should have sufficed in itself.
    In the parable those who started at the beginning were those who had it all together.  They were probably the holy people of the day, who didn’t do anything majorly wrong.  There were probably Pharisees and scribes in this group, but probably not just Pharisees and scribes.  Those who came later were those who came to follow God, though they had not always done so.  These were the people like Jewish tax collectors and sinners.  Those who came at the end of the day may have been likened to the Gentiles, non-Jews, pagans, who heard the message and started to follow our Lord (we hear a couple of times in the Gospels about Greeks who wanted to follow Christ).  To all, Pharisee, sinner, and Gentile, the Savior offered eternal salvation if they followed Him.  But some felt they should get more because they followed more faithfully or for a longer period of time.
    But salvation is not like money.  And all that our Lord has promised us is eternal salvation, as well as our daily crosses; no more, no less.  What seems like a lighter cross to one, may be heavier to another.  We cannot compare.  What seems like a shorter time for one to accept the faith may have come about through many years of strenuous searching, whereas the faith may come more naturally for others and not require as much, even though it’s lived out longer.  It’s like being given a free, all-expenses paid vacation in Aruba, where it’s sunny all day, eighty-four degrees, with a slight breeze to keep us from getting hot, and complaining because our chair isn’t as close to the pool as another person’s.  

    Spiritually, God promises to give us all we need to get to heaven.  And as Catholics, we have it a bit easier.  We have seven primary ways, the Sacraments, that God gives us His sanctifying grace, including the Sacrament of Penance which cleanses us from sin if we do go astray in minor or major ways.  We have the Church to help us know what believing in Christ and following Him should look like.  We have sacramentals and devotions like Rosaries, Stations of the Cross, and blessings that help us in our daily life to strengthen our relationship with Christ.  We have the entire Word of God, both in Scriptures and in the teachings of the Church to assist us in responding to the offer of eternal life that God gave us in Holy Baptism.  What else do we need?  
    But how often do we look at another person and what he or she has, or what he or she doesn’t have to endure, and we get spiritually jealous.  We complain because it seems like God loves that person more.  But if we have the love of God, then what does it matter what the other person has?  Is God’s full love not enough for us?
    God, strictly speaking, doesn’t owe us anything.  But out of His goodness and love He gives us everything we need for salvation, starting with the perfect gift of His Son who died for us, so that we wouldn’t have to be slaves to sin and suffer eternal death.  God chooses to bind Himself to us as a loving Father so that, if we respond to that love, we can be with Him for ever in heaven, in perfect happiness.  May we not be entitled, in any way, but be grateful for all that God has given us: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Blessings of Baptisms

 Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Tate with his parents after his baptism

    One of the great blessings of being pastor of St. Matthew is all the baptisms we have.  Today, during this Mass, I’ll baptize Tate Matthew, and then after the 1 p.m. Mass I have three other baptisms.  Over the last three years I have averaged a little over 18 baptisms per year, which is the highest three year average I have had since Bishop Boyea ordained me in 2010, and that includes being in a parish of some 3,000 families.  Today, as we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, as well as Tate’s baptism, I wanted to reflect on baptism and just what a great blessing it is, not just for me as a priest, but for the whole Church and for families individually.
    To appreciate the blessings of baptism, we have to know what baptism is.  Baptism is the first sacrament by which we receive God’s saving grace which opens for us the possibility of heaven.  Until baptism, we only are connected to God through His will in letting us be conceived and existing.  After baptism, we become a son or daughter in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  We go from merely being the child of our parents to being a child of God.  
    I think that we’re used to hearing this phrase, but it really is quite powerful!  In baptism, God claims us as His own, and promises to support us with all we need to spiritually thrive, much as parents do when they conceive a child.  We could not earn this status as adopted children of God, anymore than a child could earn its parents’ love.  St. John puts it this way: “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  Yet so we are.”  We are not simply called God’s children; we are God’s adopted children in Christ.  Islam sees itself as a slave of God, with the word islam meaning in Arabic, submission.  Through baptism, we rise above mere service to God to joining His family.  
    Because we are joined to God through His Son, we also become members of the Church, as the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ.  This is an extension of God’s family: all those who are configured to Christ in baptism.  It is the Church who helps us grow into the child our Heavenly Father wants us to be.  She dispenses to us from God all the graces He wants to bestow.  We see this especially in the other sacraments that God opens to us after Baptism: Penance/Confession/Reconciliation; Confirmation; the Eucharist; Anointing of the Sick; Matrimony or Holy Orders.  But she also helps us with sacramentals, things like blessings, or holy water, or medals of the saints, or the Rosary.  The Church helps us to be the saints that God calls us to be in baptism.
    Baptism also washes away any previous sins, including original sin.  St. Paul makes it very clear that, before we baptism joins us to God, we are at enmity with Him.  The dictionary defines enmity as being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.  Before sin is washed away in the waters of baptism, it opposes God and His rule in our lives.  Even with the good that we can do without baptism, sin still works against that good and draws us toward evil.
    So baptism is such a great gift from the Father.  Our Lord showed us humility in being baptized, but by doing so encouraged us to receive baptism ourselves to be like Him, though He was already the Son of God, was already the Head of the Church, and did not have sin.
    But baptism is a great gift that calls for a continuous gift.  While it can only be received once, it’s not as if we can get baptized and then walk away from God and hope to enter into heaven, any more than a man could marry his wife, walk away from her, and then expect a big party for the 50th anniversary.  Baptism calls for us to respond each day to the greatest gift we could have, new life in Christ, not just get water poured on our head and then walk away from God.  As we heard in the second reading, baptism helps us to reject “godless ways and worldly desires,” and helps us to live “temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age,” so that we can be prepared for heaven.
    Because heaven, to which baptism points, is not a club where if you have your baptism card you get admittance, no matter what.  Heaven is a way of life that images Christ.  Heaven is the fulfillment of the sonship in Christ.  And we only enter there if we want to be there, which we make manifest in the choices we make each day.  The more we choose to live like Christ in obedience to the will of the Father, the more we ready ourselves for heaven.  The more we choose to live like the world where we do whatever we want and follow each desire, the more we ready ourselves for hell.  
    The French Catholic novelist Leon Bloy said, “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.”  What a sad reality it would be if we received the great treasure that baptism is, giving us everything we need to allow Christ to live through us, but did not act on those graces.  It would be like God giving us $1 billion each day, and all we had to do was invest it in particular companies who promised us significant returns, but we chose to waste that jackpot and ended up broke because we wanted to invest elsewhere, which squandered our investment and left us holding an empty bag.
    Baptism is a great gift, but one that we probably don’t always appreciate.  We live with it every day, but how often do we take advantage of the treasures God gives us through baptism?  We are blessed in our parish to celebrate baptisms frequently.  But the real blessing will be if we each allow baptism to give us the grace to live as Christ desires so that we are ready for heaven when we die, and share in the eternal life God desires for all His children.

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. 

Speaking of Segue

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In conversation, there are times where you really want to talk about something, but it’s not really part of the conversation at that time.  So you just wait for some word that bears some tangential connection to the point that you want to make, and then pounce and try to steer the discussion to the topic you desire.  Or, if the conversation is not going well, or going in the wrong direction, I will sometimes use the cheeky phrase, “Speaking of segue…”

    Last Tuesday I attended the episcopal consecration of Bishop Edward Lohse, the fifth bishop of Kalamazoo.  Archbishop Vigneron, the metropolitan of the Province of Michigan, gave the homily.  And he said something that I wanted to preach on here, but I didn’t know if it would fit with the readings.  The phrase was, “You are no poorer than Jerusalem at the beginning.”  So, when I came, as I prepared my homily, upon the words, “when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem,” I was so excited!
    So, speaking of Jerusalem, speaking of segue, I would like to draw us deeper into these words of Archbishop Vigneron.  He was speaking, of course, of God providing a shepherd to the Church in Kalamazoo, and how Christ pours out all necessary gifts for every local church, just as He sent the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and disciples gathered at Pentecost. 
    But the same applies to us, even without consecrating a new bishop today.  We are no poorer than Jerusalem at the beginning.  We have all the gifts that God gave to His nascent Church in that Upper Room fifty days after Easter.  We lack nothing of what it means to be a true church, an 𝜀𝜅𝜅𝜆𝜂𝜎𝜄𝛼, a people “called out” (𝜀𝜉 𝜅𝛼𝜆𝜀𝜊) of darkness into the light of Christ.
    What are the necessary aspects of being a Church?  First, it is that we are founded by Jesus Christ, and faithful to what He taught.  All other religions in the world are about man seeking out God.  Judaism, and its fulfillment in Christianity, is about God seeking us out.  We don’t make up teachings because we think they make sense to us.  We read and ponder the revelation of God, given to us through the Scriptures, and interpret it through the authentic teaching of the bishops in union with the pope.  We cannot contradict what Christ taught or what Christ did.  We do not refrain from ordaining women priests because we hate women.  Indeed, the holiest person ever is a woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But Christ did not ordain her a priestess, nor anyone else.  It was only to the Apostles that He gave the sacred office.  We do not use rice and rice wine in Asia because we reject those staple food and drink of another culture.  We use bread and wine because that is what Christ Himself used.  We are not the masters of theology, but the servants of preserving it, even as we delve deeper and come to understand it more fully. 
    Even our Protestant brothers and sisters, who are united to us in baptism, while they can point to Christ, cannot claim that their ecclesial communities (things which look like churches but are not, strictly speaking, churches) were founded by Christ.  They were founded by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, the Wesley brothers, etc.  It strikes me that so many of the communities founded on sola scriptura are now divided because at least some in their official governance bodies want to walk away from Scripture because it is no longer fashionable, or seems, to the modern person, discriminatory.  To be a church, we must be founded by Christ and be rooted in what He has revealed.
    To be a church, we need to have all seven sacraments, all the major vehicles of sanctifying grace, that God has given us to become saints.  We share baptism with most of the Protestant denominations (I say most, because some have messed with the necessary words that effect validity).  But we also have six other ways that God makes us holy: the Sacraments of Penance, Eucharist, Confirmation, Holy Matrimony, Holy Order, and Anointing of the Sick.  God  takes these ordinary elements (water, oil, bread & wine, voice, consent, the laying on of hands) and makes them a way that His life is given to us, in a way that sitting in nature, or watching a religious movie never could.  The sacraments, which not only remind us of Christ but actually cause His life to increase in us, help us to develop in our relationship with Him, and then share that relationship with the world. 
    To be a church, we finally need connected to the Apostles.  We are truly an apostolic church, because our bishops can trace themselves back to the college of bishops at Pentecost, with Peter as their head.  Our Lord founded His Church in a particular way, such that those who listened to His Apostles listened to Him.  We mention their names at every Mass (in this form) in the Roman Canon: Peter and Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Jude (and Matthias gets mentioned later in the Canon).  And even every post-Conciliar Eucharistic prayer mentions the Apostles.  Those Apostles laid hands on their successors, giving them the Holy Spirit to continue their work and their connection to Christ. 

   At Pentecost, even in seminal form, all these things were present: right belief; seven sacraments; apostolic foundation.  And we retain all those elements.  And those elements allow us, clergy and lay faithful, to proclaim the Gospel, just as the Apostles and disciples did at Pentecost, leading to the conversion of many peoples.
    It seems like every one to two months, Amanda, our Director of Faith Formation, is telling me about another person who wants to become Catholic.  Some have never been baptized; some have been baptized in other ecclesial communities.  And we don’t just “make them Catholic” and never see them again.  They continue to participate in the life of this parish community.
    We are proud of our two young men, Joseph and Glen, who have heard the call to become priests and will continue to discern that call in seminary.  You strongly participate, whether at home with your families, or in our different formational groups and classes, in growing in your faith and deepening not just your knowledge of facts about the Lord, but your knowledge and love of Him, a real Person who lives.
    We don’t have money for fancy programs.  In many ways our parish, in both ways that the Mass is celebrated, is not culturally up-to-date or cutting edge.  We are certainly not the largest parish in Genesee County, not by a long shot.  But I would argue that we’re doing something right, because we do continue to bring people into relationship with Christ.  How?  Because we are no poorer than Jerusalem.  God has given us everything we need to proclaim His Gospel: fidelity to the teachings of Christ; the sacramental life of the Church; apostolic foundations and succession.  As long as we have that, we will continue to draw others to the truth and beauty that are part and parcel of our Catholic faith, founded by Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us

 Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When we think about participating in the divine, what occasions first come to mind?  I know for me, the sacraments are the most obvious answer.  The mysteries of our Lord’s life, Pope St. Leo the Great says, have passed into the sacraments.  Specifically, I think about the Mass, the joining of heaven and earth that takes place here in our church.  Not only do we hear God’s Divine Word, proclaimed for us in the Scriptures, we also receive God into us through the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is the very Flesh and Blood of Christ.  The Eucharist best exemplifies the way in which we can become like God, as St. Augustine reminds us that the intent of the Eucharist is to make us more like the one whom we receive.
    But another way to participate in the divine is through the act of forgiveness.  We heard this very familiar story about the paralytic being brought to our Lord.  He forgives the man’s sins, at which the Pharisees become indignant because only God can forgive sins.  But, to demonstrate His authority to forgive sins, Christ then heals the paralytic as well.
    The Pharisees were not mistaken in their estimation that only God can forgive sins.  In fact, our Lord demonstrated His divinity to them by this miracle.  So any time you hear someone say that Jesus never asserted He was God, point them to Matthew, chapter 9.  There are other times that our Lord reveals His divinity also, but this is certainly one of those times.
    So, if only God can forgive sins, then how can we say, “sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris”; “as we forgive those who trespass against us”?  How can we forgive if forgiveness belongs to God?
    As a good Thomist, we can consider forgiveness in two ways.  The first way, which is reserved to God alone, is the remission of sins.  When God deals with sin, He eliminates it, wipes it away, and makes it so it ceases to exist.  Only the consequences of that sin remain (and even those can be dealt with through pious acts).  When we examine who forgives our sins in the Sacrament of Penance, it is God.  Yes, God uses the ministry of the priest to convey that forgiveness, but it is God who forgives, which is why the priest is bound to secrecy (we call it the seal of confession).  Those sins have been absolved by Christ through the ministry of the priest, but their use belongs only to Christ, not even to the minister, who then does not divulge or act on those sins in the future.  It is the sacrifice of Christ which washed away the sins of the world, the sacrifice of the unblemished Lamb of God.  We cannot add to that, but we can participate in it.
    But, as with so many aspects of life, God allows us to participate in His work.  We see this in the garden of Eden, as God calls Adam and Eve, not only to continue to care for the garden of Eden, but to create with Him and order with Him, and even to create new life (procreation).  God, further, calls humans to speak for Him when He calls prophets to proclaim His Word, both of comfort and of conversion.  We see that especially with Moses, Samuel, and the prophets that follow them.  God also allows men to exercise governance over His people, as seen through Kings David and Solomon, and the kings of their line.  God shepherds His people through kings who cooperate with His will.  
    But God also allows us to participate in His forgiveness.  He gives us the gift of saying “I forgive you” to a person, and not having it be empty words, detached from reality.  When we forgive someone, something in that person changes, and something in us changes.  We participate in the mercy of God.  It may not eliminate that sin (because a person has offended not only us, but also God), but it does eliminate the attachment of that sin that exists between the two  or more people.  God’s mercy flows through us, and the burden of sin can be lifted from hearts.
    To be Catholic is to be a person of forgiveness, because Christ tells us that the measure we measure out to others, will in turn be measured out to us.  He calls those who show mercy blessed because they will be shown mercy.  And He condemns the servant who was forgiven a great debt, but who could not forgive others their smaller debts.  We are merciful because God was first merciful with us, just as we love God because He first loved us.

    And He showed that love for us by sending His Son to die on the cross so that we could be forgiven.  God’s forgiveness wasn’t an ethereal reality.  God demonstrated His forgiveness by the spit that was hurled upon the face of Christ; by the skin viciously torn out from his back and side at the scourging; by the bruises and scrapes and split skin that came from falling under the weight of the cross as He carried it to Golgotha; by the holes in His hands and feet from the nails that pierced them; by the gall put to His lips; by the thorns pressed into His Sacred Head; by the gash in His side to prove He was dead, whence came Blood and Water that are the streams of Divine Mercy.  God forgave through the crucifixion.  Though He doesn’t ask us to be nailed to the cross in the same way, He does ask us to forgive in the same way.
    And the easiest way to forgive others is to first recognize that we need to be forgiven, not only directly by God, but also by our neighbor.  I wish that I could tell you that I’m a perfect priest, that I always make good decisions, that all my words are the words that our Blessed Savior would speak.  But that would be a lie.  I myself am beset by weakness, and sometimes I act out of my pride; or choose a hurtful word when a loving one works much better; or I choose the easier path instead of the virtuous one; and so many other ways that I fall short of the image of the Good Shepherd, to whom I am configured by sacred orders.  I am a sinner; sometimes it is hard to admit that I am wrong and have followed the wrong path.  And so I ask your forgiveness, as your brother and your father.  For any ways I have hurt you, or not demonstrated the love of Christ the Good Shepherd, I seek your mercy.  And perhaps, to those in your life who have hurt you, you can also show mercy.  
    One of my favorite quotes from saints is from St. Maximus of Turin, who preached, “Sinner he may indeed be, but he must not despair of pardon on this day which is so highly privileged; for if a thief could receive the grace of paradise, how could a Christian be refused forgiveness?”  If our Lord could shower His mercy on St. Dismas, the good thief, in the moments before He died, how could he not have mercy on us whenever we come to Him as He reigns in glory?  And, having received that mercy, our Lord also instructs us: “Go, and do likewise” to the praise and glory of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Now in the Sacraments

 Sunday after the Ascension
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In Pope St. Leo the Great’s second Sermon on the Ascension, the saintly pontiff preached: 

such is the light of truly believing souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eye; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight.  Such fidelity could never be born in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our salvation lay only in what was visible.  And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments.

It may seem odd that Christ ascended into heaven.  Why not remain on earth to be with us, to govern His Church directly, and to continue preaching so that we would know exactly what He would have preached in new circumstances and situations, because He Himself instructed us?

St. John Henry Newman

    Pope St. Leo the Great says it has to do with faith. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman affirms this as well in his Parochial and Plain Sermons.  He writes:

Now consider what would have been the probable effect of a public exhibition of his Resurrection.  Let us suppose that our Savior had shown himself as openly as before he suffered; preaching in the temple and in the streets of the city; traversing the land with his Apostles, and with multitudes following to see the miracles which he did.  What would have been the effect of this?  Of course, what it had already been.  His former miracles had not effectually moved the body of the people; and doubtless, this miracle too would have left them as it found them, or worse than before.  They might have been more startled at the time; but why should this amazement last?

Remaining on earth instead of ascending may not have had any different effect than our Lord’s time on earth before He suffered and died.  Many saw Christ and still doubted.  St. Mark states that even the apostles doubted after the Resurrection.  Many would have likely done the same.  
    Instead, our Lord ascended, but is still present to us through the sacraments.  Indeed, the sacramental life is not only the work of those on earth; its efficacy is based upon Christ.  In one of his letters, St. Augustine says, “When Peter baptizes, it is Christ who baptizes.”  Christ continues His work through His Church, especially through the sacraments which are meant to transform us into the disciples we are called to be.  That work is made possible by the Holy Spirit, who gives power and efficacy to each of the sacraments when administered with the matter, words, intention, and minister that the Church requires.  
    This, of course, takes faith.  It takes faith to have confidence that, when water is poured over a person’s head, and the Blessed Trinity is invoked as the Church requires, that person’s sins are washed away, and he or she becomes an adopted child of God and a member of the Church that Christ instituted for salvation.  It takes faith to trust that, when we go to a priest and confess our sins (mortal sins in kind and number), that those sins are no more; they are forgiven.  It takes faith kneel before that which looks like a round piece of unleaded bread, but which truly is the Body of Christ, the flesh without which our Lord said we do not have life within us.  
    But faith is precisely who we are as a people.  Our father in faith, Abraham, had faith in a God he had never seen, but who called him to travel from modern-day Iraq to the Promised Land, a land which God promised, but which Abraham himself never fully possessed.  He also trusted in God to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, even though Abraham and his wife, Sarah, were well past the child-bearing age.  And then, when God did give them a son, Isaac, the son of the promise, Abraham trusted that God would restore Isaac to life, after God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah.

    So, too, with the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Hers was a life of faith in God.  She had faith when the Archangel Gabriel appeared that, though she did not know man, she would conceive and bear the Son of God.  She trusted God would keep her, Joseph, and the Christ Child safe as they journeyed to Egypt, and then to Nazareth.  She trusted even when her Son was nailed to the cross, and as He ascended into heaven.      Do we trust in what God wants to accomplish with us?  Are we open to the graces that flow through the sacraments, graces that are meant to transform us to be who God desires us to be?  The sacraments always “work,” that is to say, they do what we believe they do when we celebrate them as the Church requires (we use the phrase ex opere operato-from the work having been worked).  But the effect that they have in our lives, what we call “fruitfulness,” is based upon our openness to them and our disposition to receive those graces (we use the phrase ex opere operantis-from the work of the one working).
    Just as Christ said to people while on earth, “Your sins are forgiven,” so through the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance, Christ says to us, “Your sins are forgiven.”  Just as Christ told the Apostles in the Upper Room, “Take and eat; this is my Body; take and drink; this is my Blood,” so He changes bread and wine into His Body and Blood through the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  Just as Christ breathed on the Apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” so through the Sacrament of Confirmation, Christ gives us the Holy Spirit.  Just as Christ blessed the wedding at Cana by changing water into wine, so Christ changes natural marriage into a supernatural marriage between two baptized persons in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.  Just as Christ healed the sick and cured their illnesses, so Christ heals us, especially of our spiritual maladies, but even of our physical illness at times, through the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  And just as Christ commissioned the Apostles and disciples to go and preach the Gospel, to heal, and to expel demons; and just as He said, “Whoever listens to you, listens to me,” so Christ ordains men to act in His person (Christ the Servant in the case of a deacon, and Christ the Priest in the case of a priest or bishop) and with His power.  
    Christ did ascend into heaven.  But He has not abandoned us.  He has not left us.  He still remains with us and acts in our world, allowing His visible presence to pass especially into the sacraments.  May we acknowledge Christ and His activity in the world, and be open to it, so that the grace of the sacraments may be fruitful in us, and transform us to be more like the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Being Transfigured

  [The parts in Italics were used only at the Extraordinary Form Mass]

Second Sunday of/in Lent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]. When I talk about going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I talk about how visiting the Holy Land makes it so that you never read the Gospel the same way, because you see in your mind the places where these things happened.  This is certainly true for the Transfiguration.  I remember the first time I went to the Holy Land, as a seminarian.  We stayed with the Franciscan friars at the top of Mt. Tabor.  To get up there, there are shuttles you have to take for large groups; the big travel busses can’t handle the snake-back roads.  While waiting for the shuttle, I decided I was going to climb up the mountain, and hopefully save some time.  So, with my Birkenstock sandals on, on a warm, May day, I started walking up the side of Mt. Tabor.  It was not as easy as I thought, with all the thorns and bushes.  Sometimes the stones were a little loose, and I lost my footing.  But I made it to the top, quite sweaty and hot, probably a little dehydrated, but proud at my accomplishment.

    I had another experience at Mt. Tabor, as I went inside the church.  There is a beautiful mosaic of the transfiguration in the apse of the church, and as I was praying, the sun shone just perfectly so that it hit the image of Jesus, and illumined Him.  I remember thinking that this must have been something like the apostles saw when our Lord was transfigured.  Combining those two days, it’s even more amazing when Christ was transfigured, as He and the apostles would also have likely been hot and sweaty, and yet Christ’s clothes became as white as light.
    That’s all well and good to understand some very realistic background, but what, we may ask, does the Transfiguration have to do with us?  How does the Transfiguration change my life?  Well, as with so many aspects of our Lord’s life, what He showed us is what He desires to happen to us.  We are supposed to be transfigured as well.  We are supposed to go from earthly dirty, sweaty, and tired, to clean, bright, and glorified.
    That process started for us in baptism.  At our baptism, the voice of the Father may not have been heard, but He said that we are His beloved.  We became configured to Christ for the first time (but hopefully, not the last!).  And from that moment on, we were destined for glory, the glory that Christ shone forth as a foretaste at the Transfiguration.  We call this divinization, or deification.
    God wants us to be like Him.  We cannot be the same nature of God (as we are limited and He is infinite), but He wants us to be transformed so that we are images of Him.  This is the whole idea of the Christian life.  From baptism until death, we are called to become more and more like Christ, the new Adam, and less and less like the first Adam.  St. Paul will talk about this using the terms “old man” and “new man.”  
    How does this happen?  Some of it happens through the sacraments.  I already mentioned baptism, but the Sacrament of Penance helps us be more like God through having our fallen actions (sins) washed away by the Blood of Christ.  Confirmation empowers us to act like Christ in public.  The Eucharist is meant to transform us from the inside out, so that as we receive Christ in the Eucharist, we become more like Him in what we do because we have Him inside us.    Marriage helps us to live for the other, as Christ did for His Bride, the Church.  Holy Orders allows one to act in the name and person of Christ the Head.  Anointing of the Sick strengthens us in illness to trust in God, even in difficult circumstances.  So when we receive the sacraments, it’s not meant to be coming up to receive some thing, like a prize for the just, but is meant to be a way of receiving God so that we can become more like God.  Which is why those in mortal sin have to go to confession first, because, among other reasons, you cannot become like God if you have separated yourself from Him.  Each time we receive sacramental grace, God wants us to utilize that grace to act more like Him in daily life.  
    Also, askesis, asceticism, is meant to help us be more like God.  We say no to things that we don’t need to rely more on the One whom we really need: God.  Especially in Lent, it can be easy to see penitential practices we do as something that we’re required to do, but only extrinsic practices.  Instead, in the Catholic spiritual tradition, our penitential practices are the practical ways that we say no to our fallen nature, and yes to Christ’s divine nature.  Do we see our Lenten penances that way?  Did we choose penances that will help us transform into the people God wants us to be, people more like Himself?  Or is it just “I gave up chocolate or beer for Lent because I would like to lose weight, but I’m going to go right back to it, and maybe even more, once Easter comes.”  It is so easy to pick a penance, and not get to the deeper reality of that penance, or what the penance is supposed to do.  
    Daily prayer is also a great means of divinization or deification.  Our Lord was always in contact with His heavenly Father, and would take specific time away from His preaching and miracles to be alone in prayer.  Is prayer just something that we check off to get it done for the day?  Or do we see it as our privileged time of speaking to and listening to the Father, so that He can change us to be more like Christ?      [Lastly, St. Paul in today’s epistle talks about how even the gift of our sexuality is meant to be transfigured by Christ.  Specifically, he talks about how to find a spouse in a Christian manner, not a pagan manner.  The Christian seeks someone whom they can help go to heaven, not just someone who looks good and satisfies bodily desires and lust.  In Christian marriage, personal happiness is not the goal; the holiness and happiness of the other is the goal.  Again, this is different from a pagan or secular point of view, which views the other as a means to the end of personal pleasure.  The way that we utilize our God-given gift of sexuality changes because of our relationship with Christ, whether we are single, married, in consecrated life, or ordained.  God wants to divinize all of us, not just parts of us.]
    Life is tiring, sweaty, and sometimes a hot mess.  We may always feel like we’re climbing, but never reaching the top of the mountain.  But if we allow God’s grace to be active in us; if we are open to the sacramental graces that we receive on such a regular basis; if we do penances that help us die to our old, fallen self; if we take time to really speak our heart to God and listen for what His heart says to us, then we will arrive at the top of the mountain, and find that God has transfigured us as well, to be a reflection of the glory of His Son, [who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is Lord, for ever and ever.  Amen.] 

Doh!

Fifth Sunday of Easter

    When I was growing up, my parents did not let me watch “The Simpsons” because, I suppose, they thought it too crude and disrespectful.  So, of course, when I was in college seminary, and “The Simpsons” came on TV, I was definitely going to sit down and watch it.  And if you’ve watched “The Simpsons,” or even if you haven’t, you’re probably familiar with the character Homer Simpson, the lazy, glutinous, well-meaning, and sometimes philosophizing dad.  Homer has a quintessential word, or maybe grunt is a more appropriate word, that is associated with him: doh!  You might imagine Homer hitting his head while he says it, which gives it the proper context, a grunt and action of futility and frustration.
    If Jesus was Homer (and that comparison, obviously, is an absurd one), when St. Philip said, “‘Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us’”, Jesus would have said, “Doh!”  For three years Philip had been following Jesus each day, seeing the miracles, hearing the teaching, and now, at the Last Supper, Jesus is giving His farewell address before He dies on the cross.  Jesus comes to His great unveiling to the Apostles of His unity with the Father and says,  “‘If you know me, then you will also know my Father.  From now on you do know him and have seen him.’”  And what does Philip say?  “Jesus, just show us the Father and we’ll be good.”  It’s like the teacher saying, “2 x 3 = 6,” and then the student saying, “So wait: what’s 2 x 3?” 
    Jesus reveals the Father in everything He does.  Jesus is not the Father, but He is the revelation of the Father, so that we no longer have to wonder what the Father is like.  We see it in Jesus.  Jesus only heals at the will of the Father.  Jesus only teaches what the Father wants taught.    Jesus loves with the love of the Father.  Jesus only suffers because that is the will of the Father.  No one can truly come to the Father without the Son.  This is the basis of our claim, that, if not true, would be pure arrogance: Jesus is the only means of salvation.  He is, as St. Peter said the second reading, the “cornerstone,” upon which the entire heavenly kingdom is built.  Without the cornerstone, the whole building collapses.  Without Jesus, there is no heaven for us.  With Jesus, we have a place in the heavenly temple.
    But that revelation of the Father through Jesus continues in our day.  Bishop Barron is coming out with a new series on the sacraments, and I was able to get a sneak peak at episode one, about the sacraments in general and baptism in particular.  Bishop Barron quotes Pope St. Leo the Great: “What was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries.”  That last part of the sentence in the original Latin is: “in sacramenta transivit.”  Mysteries was another way of saying sacraments, and, in fact, in the Christian East, they still refer to the sacraments as mysteries.  But the point is that we see the Father through Jesus, and we see Jesus especially through the sacraments.  The sacraments are our opportunities to encounter Jesus in a powerful way.
    And yet, how often do we think: I wish I could just talk with Jesus?  I wish I could see Jesus?  I wish I could hear Jesus?  As Homer would say, “Doh!”  Through the sacraments of baptism, penance, the Eucharist, confirmation, holy matrimony, holy order, and anointing of the sick, we encounter Christ in a way that He gave us, and through our encounter with Christ, we encounter the Father.  The sacraments are not “church graduations” after we pass a class.  They are opportunities that we can encounter God, a new beginning of, and the fruit of, a relationship that we have with God.
    Why did Philip miss what Jesus was saying at the Last Supper?  Why was Philip confused after Jesus said, “‘If you know me, then you will also know my Father’”?  How Philip was expecting to experience the Father was not the way the Father was revealing Himself.  And maybe, more often than we’d like to admit, we miss it, too, because we want to experience the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit on our terms. 
    How often do we come to Mass expecting to be entertained, or to feel something, or to “get something out of it”?  We can equate those with encountering God, and sometimes we do encounter God in that way.  But we can want the Father to reveal Himself on our terms, in our ways rather than His ways.  I know watching Mass on live-stream, as great of a blessing as it is, brings with it even more challenges to paying attention, participating, and really offering ourselves to the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.  But right now, this is how Jesus is revealing the Father.
    Like St. Philip, we all want to encounter the Father.  Like St. Philip, that happens through Jesus, and therefore especially through the seven sacraments which flow from Jesus’ Mystical Body, the Church.  May both you and I, no matter what, cling to Jesus and the ways that He reveals to us the love of the Father in heaven. 

Encountering the Risen Christ

Third Sunday of Easter
    The question on a lot of people’s minds these days is: what is life going to be like after the Stay at Home order?  Even with financial assistance, some businesses have shut their doors for good.  Will people ever shake hands again, or stand close to each other?  What will next school year be like for the students who have not been in a school building since 14 April?  Will people go back to church in larger numbers?
    What will make the difference?  Is there a magic bullet that will bring back everyone to church and have them practicing their faith?  Is there something that a person can do that will make it more likely to attend Mass and practice the entirety of the faith, rather than simply falling away after this time of not having public access to the sacraments?
    What made the difference in the Apostles and the disciples?  What was it that these generally uneducated men, and made them the greatest group of missionaries in the history of Christianity?  What was it that made the disciples cling to their faith in Jesus even as the government tortured and put them to death in very gruesome ways?
    The difference was that they knew Jesus.  They had encountered Jesus in their life, and they were open to the Lord changing them through that encounter.  Sometimes that encounter happened in marvelous ways, like when Jesus told Peter to put out into the deep, even though Peter had caught nothing after an entire night of fishing; like when Jesus simply looked at Matthew and said, “Follow me.”  Sometimes that encounter happened through curiosity and wanting to find out more, like so many who heard about this itinerant rabbi who was not only teaching with authority, but also healing people.  But they knew Jesus. 
    Knowing Jesus is different than simply being around Him.  Think of the Bread of Life discourse in John, chapter six.  The people there were around Jesus, they even saw Him multiply bread and fish for thousands of people.  And yet, when the teaching got tough, most of them did not stay with Jesus, but walked away.  Think about the crowds who were caught up in welcoming Jesus as He entered into Jerusalem the week of His Passion.  They cheered Him on and waved palm branches.  And yet, this same crowd, five days later, clamored for his crucifixion.  Even most of those who did know Him, the Apostles, were not there when Jesus died.  But then, we heard Peter proclaim in our first reading that Jesus is truly the Messiah, the one chosen by God.  Even after a failure, Peter could practice his faith because He knew Jesus and knew He was risen.
    The disciples on the road to Emmaus had been around Jesus, but it took Jesus Himself opening up the Old Testament and breaking bread for them to recognize Jesus.  But once they did, they were ready to tell others that Jesus was risen.  Their encounter with the Lord, though started in ignorance, ended with a new way of life for those two disciples.
    So for us, have we encountered Jesus?  If we have, then we can survive any tribulation and suffering.  Where do we encounter Jesus?  In the Word of God, the Scriptures.  I would encourage everyone to find a good Bible study and read the Scriptures.  It is through them that we encounter Jesus.  I pray with the Scriptures, like every priest, bishop, and consecrated man or woman, 4 times per day, and I can’t tell you how often I’m reading a psalm or a passage, and I just know that God is speaking to me through it.
    We encounter God in the Sacraments, in the 7 ways that God does great work to make us saints.  While many only happen once, I think of especially the Sacrament of Penance, where we encounter God in His mercy and forgiveness.  Maybe not always, but often the words of counsel that the priest gives me before I make my Act of Contrition, touches my heart and I realize I am in the presence of God. 
    We encounter God in the love and charity that we show to another.  Especially in these trying times, I think that we recognize God through people going out of their way to be loving and charitable to each other, rather than the nastiness to which we have become so accustomed.  As “Les Miserables” says, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
    And last, and greatest, we encounter God in the Mass.  Of course, this isn’t as possible now as before.  As good as it is that I can live-stream this Mass for you, it’s not the same, and it’s not the way the Mass is supposed to be.  You, the People of God, are meant to be here, uniting your sacrifices with the bread and the wine, offered to God the Father in the one, perfect sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  Presence is important.  The disciples on the road to Emmaus finally recognized Jesus in the Eucharist.  And in the Eucharist, we not only encounter God, but God enters into us in a most intimate way.  If we’re not encountering God in the Mass, then we have lacked something that we should be doing, because God is always making Himself present to us in the Mass, and it reminds us that maybe we’re holding back.
    There are other ways to encounter God, but these are four great ones.  And if we have encountered God, before, and hopefully during, this pandemic, then we’ll pick up right were we left off in our faith life.  We will come to worship God; we will share the good news of the Resurrection and the new life that Jesus offers us through Him and only Him; we will let the love of God flow through us like a current of electricity that lights up every one with whom we come in contact.  But that will only happen if we have encountered God.  Think about it: when was the last time you encountered God? 

Transfiguring Society

Second Sunday of Lent

In the afternoon of Ash Wednesday the nation was alerted to what became the most-deadly school shooting in US history in Parkland, Florida.  There were so many tragic pictures and videos, many of them the result of almost everyone these days having a phone or tablet that can take pictures.  Last weekend we prayed for both the survivors and those who were murdered at our weekend Masses, and we certainly need to keep that entire community in our thoughts and prayers.

In the hours and the days after the shooting, there were many suggestions on how to stop such a tragedy from happening in the future.  Different suggestions included more gun control legislation and more help for the mentally ill, among others.  I’m not here to endorse or reject any suggestion that was offered on news sites and television programs.  But as we celebrate today the second Sunday of Lent, we are given a few reminders from God that are very poignant given what has happened in our country in the past couple of weeks.

In our first reading, we heard from Genesis about the well-known almost-sacrifice of Isaac.  While child sacrifice sounds so foreign to us, it was not so foreign to Abraham, as it was practiced in many of the local, near-Eastern religions that surrounded Abraham in the land of Canaan.  Abraham’s faith is tested by God, to see if Abraham is willing to give his most precious treasure up for God.  But before the sacrifice, God stays Abraham’s hand, and provides a sacrifice in Isaac’s place.  In God’s stopping Abraham, we see that God never wants any of His children to sacrifice their own children.  Child sacrifice is condemned (as God will condemn it again and again when the Israelites re-settle in the land of Canaan, the Promised Land), but it also looks forward to when God will allow what He would not require of Abraham, the death of His Son, His “only one,” whom God loved above all.  St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that God did not spare His own Son so that we could be raised from the dead and have our sins forgiven.

From the Church of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor

In our Gospel, though, Jesus is not dying, but being transfigured, being transformed so that His body takes on the quality of a resurrected, not a crucified, body.  “His clothes became dazzling white,” and the prophets Elijah and Moses stood next to Jesus.  And the voice of the Father instructed Peter, James, and John, “‘This is my beloved Son.  Listen to him.’”  And in the transfiguration, we find the key to putting an end to the horrible destruction of life that so plagues our society.

So many of the suggestions to put an end to school shootings, no matter how good they are, treat only the symptoms, and not the disease that has infected the body of society.  The key to ending such horrors is to be transfigured by Christ.  We, individually, and, as more and more individuals are, collectively, have to be transformed by Christ.  Without this transformation, we will sadly see our past national carnage repeated again and again.

How can we be transfigured?  By being open to the work of the Holy Spirit to become more like Jesus.  That’s what the Sacraments are meant to do.  That’s what going to Mass is meant to do.  God wants to change us to be more like Jesus, and we need to be changed by God in order to find happiness and peace and wholeness, and therefore holiness.  Being transfigured by God is the medicine that wipes out the virus, rather than simply treating the symptoms.  

But to be transfigured a certain openness is required on our part.  God will not transform us without our permission.  St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the saints on our icons, said exactly that in Sermon 169: “God who created you without you, will not save you without you.”  If we come to Mass simply to put a butt in a pew, without any desire to hear God’s Word, to be formed and change our lives, no matter how long it may take us, then we will not be transfigured.  If we receive the Eucharist simply as something we were told to do since second grade, without first discerning if we should receive the Eucharist, then, as St. Paul says, we may be eating and drinking condemnation, not transformation, upon ourselves.  We should want to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ each Mass, because that very food transforms us, as St. Augustine also says in Sermon 227, “If we receive the Eucharist worthily, we become what we receive.”   But if we have committed a grave sin and have not gone to confession; if our marriage is not faithful to the teachings of Christ; if we’re chewing gum, reading the bulletin, checking email, or playing games during Mass, then we will not be transformed.  

And if we do not take the graces that we receive in the sacraments, especially baptism, penance, the Eucharist, and holy matrimony, and live them in our day-to-day lives, in the choices we make in our family life, in our jobs, in our driving, in as many aspects of life that we can think of, then we will continue to see horrendous images continue to plague us.  

How do we stop Parkland from happening again?  Formed by God, filled with His grace through the Sacraments, love your spouse more than yourself; love your children enough to be their parent, not their friend, and say no to them and love them even more when they want something destructive; reach out to the people who have just lost a loved one and remind them how much you and God care for them; live and model a life that is based on the Word of God, not the changing ideas and trends of a culture that is based solely on pleasure and opinion.  In short: be transfigured.

Don't Forget the Holy Spirit!

Sixth Sunday of Easter

No one likes to be ignored.  But if there’s one Person of the Blessed Trinity that we often ignore, it’s the Holy Spirit.  We tend to always remember the Father in our prayers, especially the Our Father, or sometimes we’ll just refer to Him as God.  Jesus, as the one who took flesh and was our means of being reconnected to the Father is usually at the front of our minds as well.  But the Holy Spirit tends to get left out.  How many prayers do we being with some form of: Dear Holy Spirit…?  Probably not many, if any, while we are very comfortable with beginning prayers with: Dear God… or Heavenly Father… or Lord Jesus.  

It’s important, then, that in these last few Sundays of our Easter Season, the Church really focuses in on the Holy Spirit.  Of course, every Mass we begin with the Holy Spirit, and He’s mentioned in the Gloria, and our opening prayers always say “in the unity of the Holy Spirit.”  But the readings in these weeks also remind us that the Holy Spirit is God and guides the Church in a special way since the Ascension of Jesus.

Our first reading reminds us of the role of the Holy Spirit in guiding what we are to believe as Catholics and how we are to live as Catholics.  Having discussed whether or not the Gentiles (the non-Jews) had to be circumcised and follow Judaic laws, and with the testimony of St. Peter, St. James sends a message to the Jews who had become Christians about what is required for Gentiles to become Christians.  And he writes specifically, that it was “‘“the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage.”’”  It was not simply a group of old men getting together and thinking of the most pragmatic thing to do.  It was the Holy Spirit, the love shared between the Father and the Son, who guided the apostles to decide that Gentiles did not have to become Jewish and follow those laws to become Christians.  In other words, every time you eat a cheese burger or bacon (which Jews cannot do because it’s contrary to kosher laws), you should thank the Holy Spirit.

But the Holy Spirit did not stop guiding the Church with this decision.  Throughout the 2,000 year history of the Church, the Holy Spirit has continued to guide the successor of St. Peter, the Pope, and the successors of the apostles, the bishops, in making decisions about what we are to believe and how we are to live.  Some of those teachings are crystallized in the Creed.  But also in all the 21 Ecumenical Councils, from Nicaea I in AD 325 to Vatican II in the 1960s, and even in Papal pronouncements in between, the Holy Spirit has continued to teach the Church everything and remind the Church of what Jesus told us.  He has guided us on how many books to have in the Bible; who Jesus is; how many Sacraments were instituted by Jesus; Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Assumption; that only men can be ordained priests; that marriage is between one man and one woman for life; all these are part of Jesus’ words, which the Holy Spirit has helped us to understand and which the Holy Spirit has guided the Pope and the bishops to proclaim as being what is necessary to be believed if we wish to truly call ourselves Catholic.  The Holy Spirit and the successors of the apostles, the foundation of the heavenly Jerusalem, work together to continue Jesus’ teachings into new times and new cultures.

But the work of the Holy Spirit is not limited to the Pope and bishops.  The Holy Spirit wants to give us life.  He helps us to understand what is right and wrong in our conscience.  We receive the Holy Spirit in baptism, and a new gift in the Sacrament of Confirmation, to help us as individuals know what is God’s will in our daily actions and in the major decisions of life: what vocation we should choose, how to use our gifts and talents in a job, how to educate and raise our family.  Of course, the Holy Spirit would never contradict Himself, and we as individuals do not have the gift of infallibility, as the bishops in union with the Pope, and even the Pope by himself on matters of faith and morals has.  So if our conscience is ever telling us to do something that is contrary to what the Church officially teaches as to what we need to believe or how we need to live, we should do some major research on what the Church teaches and why, because it is more likely to be right than what we think our conscience is saying.  But the Holy Spirit is in us, too, and wants to make our living of the Gospel a joy-filled experience.  The Holy Spirit wants to give us the power to say yes to God and no to our fallen nature and to evil.  And by virtue of our Baptism, all we need to do is ask the Holy Spirit to strengthen us.  

It may not come as naturally, but may we also pray to the Holy Spirit, especially when we are making choices.  We can pray in our own words, in conversation with the Holy Spirit, or we can also use that wonderful prayer to the Holy Spirit that we said as a Diocese a few years ago, and which I will lead today.  Please join in if you remember: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faith, and enkindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth your spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.  O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that, by the same Holy Spirit, we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations.  Through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Sensing God's Presence

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Today we come to the end of the Season of Christmas.  It’s the shortest season of the year, usually only lasting 20 or so days.  This year it was only 17 days.  And yet, what we celebrate at Christmas changes everything.  It is more monumental to human history than the discovery of fire; than Aeneas traveling to Italy from Troy or Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon; than the Battles of Lepanto and Vienna stopping the Muslim invasion into Europe; than the storming of Normandy on 6 June; than the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the resignation of Richard Nixon; than the terrorist attacks on 9/11.  

The Incarnation was bigger than all those world-changing events.  God Himself was able to be seen in His Son, Jesus.  When you looked at Jesus, you saw God.  When you heard Jesus, you heard God.  When you touched Jesus, as so many people did for healing, as Mary did in holding her baby, you touched God.  This was a radical change from what had come before.  And it changed radically what would come after.

Because of the Incarnation, God communicated Himself through physical reality.  This includes the Sacraments.  Through the Sacraments, we experience God.  And this is an effect of the Incarnation.  Water remains H₂0, but by the power of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the priest, it also gives God's grace and makes a person a child of God and a member of the Church for all eternity.  Olive oil remains what it is, but becomes a vehicle of God’s grace to strengthen, console, and anoint a person for a mission in the Church.  A promise between one man and one woman remains a valid agreement between two free people, but is strengthened by God’s grace to allow the married couple to share God’s grace with others just by living their married life with God.  The Sacraments are possible because of the Incarnation.  In the Sacraments we encounter God and share in the events of the life of Jesus Christ.  As Pope St. Leo the Great said, “Our Redeemers’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments.”  Every time we celebrate a Sacrament, we are coming into contact with the Risen Lord.

God uses material things to make Himself known.  That is the great news of the Incarnation.  He made us to come to know reality by our senses.  There is nothing that we know that we did not learn, at least at its heart, by our senses.  Numbers, which are immaterial, are learned through physical things: if we add one orange to one orange, we get two oranges.  We learn about history through hearing.  We learn to do so much by experiencing it.  God knows that we learn through our senses because He created us this way.  And so He continues to come to us through our senses.  

Look at today’s celebration, the Baptism of the Lord.  When Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit, like a dove, descends, and God the Father’s voice is heard.  God makes Himself known.  St. John talks about this in our second reading, when he says that, “there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water, and the blood.”  Even the blood of Jesus, a blood that was seen poured out, and the water the flowed from the side of Jesus, and the Spirit who rent in two the veil of the temple, make known God’s presence.  God does not leave us simply to imagine that He exists, imagine that He comes to us, imagine that he loves us.  God shows us that love by physical signs.  God’s presence is effective.  His Word, another way God communicates through our senses, changes us, just as Isaiah prophesied in the first reading: “just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth…so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me void.”

In the Sacraments, we are meant to have an encounter with Christ, no less than when John the Baptist and the people at the Jordan River saw Jesus rising from the waters, saw the Spirit descending like a dove, and heard the voice from the heavens.  In the Sacraments, especially the Sacrament of the Eucharist, we are meant to experience Jesus who helps us to know if we are called to be a priest, a consecrated man or woman, or married.  In the Sacraments, Christ wants to strengthen our priesthood, our consecration, and our marriages.  But we have to be open.  God wants to reveal Himself to you in the Sacraments.  Today, as we prepare to receive the Eucharist, ask God to reveal Himself to you.  If you are open to His presence in the Sacraments, you will know of His presence.