The Greatest Love Story

Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  As a kid I disliked today’s Gospel and the Gospel we’ll hear on Good Friday, both of which are Passion Narratives (today’s from St. Matthew and Friday’s from St. John).  I disliked them because they are so long, and I already knew what happened.  The Lord celebrates the Last Supper, goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, gets arrested, goes through a sham trial, is turned over to the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, carries His cross to Golgotha, and dies.  

    As an adult, the Passion Narratives are still long.  And I still know the story.  But it’s the story of how God showed His love for us.  It’s like “The Princess Bride” or “Band of Brothers.”  I know what happens; I can probably quote a fair amount of lines.  But I return to them because they speak about the deepest meanings of life: love and sacrifice.  But as much as “The Princess Bride” and “Band of Brothers” talk about love and sacrifice, the Passion Narratives tell us about the greatest love and the greatest sacrifice.  The greatest love because God’s love for us is infinite; the greatest sacrifice because God, the source of all life, experienced death so that we, who deserved death, could return to the source of life and enjoy eternal life in heaven.
    In “Band of Brothers,” the early focus, and a theme throughout, is “Currahee,” a Cherokee word which means “we stand alone together.”  In Christ’s Passion, He stands alone.  And yet, we stand with Him now.  We stand alone together as Christ suffers for us and pays the price for sin, death, though He had no sin.  Life contends with death, as we will hear on Easter Sunday in the sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes: Mors et vita duello.  But we know that life will win.  As Westley says in “The Princess Bride”: “Death cannot stop true love.  All it can do is delay it for a while.”  Nowhere is that phrase more true than in Christ, whose heart stopped beating after He died on the cross, but whose love never stopped and will never stop for us.
    We know the story.  We know what happens.  But we need to hear it again, however long it takes, because all time comes back to this one week when the Son of David and Lord of David entered into His city with shouts of joy, and was led out of His city by a foreign government, which was cajoled to act by His own religious leaders and people, and He backed up the words He spoke at the Last Supper with action: “Greater love has no man than this: to lay down his life for his friends.”  This is the greatest love story, the greatest sacrifice story of all time, greater even than “The Princess Bride” and “Band of Brothers.”  But it’s not just a story; it’s the truth.  And the truth has set us free from sin and death.  [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]

A Fragrant Aroma

Third Sunday of Lent
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When we think about powerful senses in humans, the sense of smell may not immediately come to mind.  Sure, for dogs like bloodhounds we might think about the sense of smell as powerful, but human noses aren’t always the most sensitive, especially if you had COVID.  But, in reality, the sense of smell, while not as strong as in other animals, has a certain power to it in humans.  Even though my grandparents have been dead for almost six years now, I can still imagine the smell of their houses, and sometimes if I smell the perfume my grandmothers wore, it brings them immediately to mind.  Or have you ever noticed that schools tend to have the same smell, even after decades have passed since you attended classes there?  Or there’s something about the smell of a roast in a crockpot that just makes you feel at ease.  
    St. Paul, in the epistle today, tells us to be imitators of God and live in love, “as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.”  We probably don’t think about this, but when Jews offered sacrifices in the temple, there was probably a nice smell in the air: the smell of roast lamb, or beef, or even grains and wine cooking.  I’m sure among pagans, people imagined that the gods enjoyed the smell of roasting meat just as much as they did, and that the smell would appease their gods.  Even Genesis 8:20-21 says: “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and choosing from every clean animal and every clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.  When the Lord smelled the sweet odor, the Lord said to himself: Never again will I curse the ground because of human beings.”
    So what is this odor or aroma that pleases God?  Sometimes in the church we talk about the odor of sanctity, though in other speech we tend to use the word odor for a negative smell, which is probably why we use the word aroma when we mean a positive smell.  To me, the smell of holiness would probably smell like Sacred Chrism, which is olive oil with a balsam perfume added to it, or the smell of nice incense.  
    But, of course, St. Paul is not talking about an aroma that our noses can pick up, but rather that we offer ourselves as a sacrifice to God, and that our sacrifice pleases God, like the smell of roast lamb pleases many people.  And the thing that dies in our sacrifice to God consists of our sinful self, while our holy self rises to God like a pleasing aroma.  No longer are we roasting lamb or oxen or birds, nor do we burn up grain, wine, or oil, but we offer ourselves to God the Father, united to the cross of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  We don’t destroy stuff in order to appease God, but we ask God’s grace to destroy in us all that God does not find worthy.  
    In Isaiah 1:11, God says, “What do I care for the multitude of your sacrifices?…I have had enough of whole-burn rams and fat of failings; In the blood of calves, lambs, and goats I find no pleasure….To bring offerings is useless; incense is an abomination to me.”  But in the same chapter in verses 16-17 God says, “Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good.  Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.”  The point of sacrifice was not simply to cook something for God.  God intended the sacrifice to remind the people that they had to destroy that which was evil in them, and live for what was good, especially caring for those who could not care for themselves: the unjustly condemned, the orphan, and the widow.  

    All the sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed to the one efficacious sacrifice of Christ on the cross, the truly unblemished Lamb of God.  But what pleased God with the sacrifice of Christ?  That He willingly gave up His entire self to God, trustingly putting Himself in the providential arms of the Father.  Psalm 50, the Miserere, anticipates this when it says, “For you do not desire sacrifice or I would give it; a burnt offering you would not accept.  My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn.”  Or Psalm 39: “Sacrifice and offering you do not want; you opened my ears.  Holocaust and sin-offering you do not request; so I said, ‘See; I come with an inscribed scroll written upon me.  I delight to do you will, my God.’”
    God does not want sheep or goats or oxen, or even bread, wine, or oil.  What He wants is us: all of us.  But unlike animal or food offerings, when we give them to God, we lose nothing.  In fact, when we offer ourselves to God, we gain everything.  It’s like the exchange in the Eucharist: we give God bread and wine (which is truly meant to represent ourselves), and He transforms it by the power of His grace into the Body and Blood of Christ, a gift we could never achieve on our own, and which strengthens us to give ourselves to the Father by joining us to the one perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross, though we celebrate it in an unbloody manner.  
    This Lent, we should recommit ourselves to smelling good.  Not because we have showered and washed off the grime of the day; not because we have put on deodorant to mask our body odor; not because we use cologne or perfume to make ourselves smell manly or womanly.  But we should seek to have the odor of holiness, a virtuous life of grace, the fragrant aroma of a life offered entirely to the providential love of the Father, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Eden, Heaven, and Sacrifice

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

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

St. Pier Giorgio Frassati

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

The Sacrifice God Desires

Third Sunday of Lent

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  So much of our communication connects to the culture in which we live.  For example, when I say the phrase “March Madness,” almost everyone knows that I am talking about the college basketball tournament.  But imagine, for a second, that you came from a place that had no knowledge of basketball, or even a diminished understanding of the cultural impact of college basketball.  The phrase “March Madness” would probably lead one to believe that there was a mental illness that could afflict people one month out of the year (and some may argue that the amount of attention some people pay to college basketball approaches a mental illness).   
    In the biblical word, sacrifice, as a word and an idea, was likely as ubiquitous as March Madness is in the US today.  Sacrifice was a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly part of life.  Sacrifice usually entailed the destruction of something for the benefit of the gods, so very early on other animals or plants, or sometimes even humans, were used so that one did not have to kill off one’s own race and religion to appease the gods.  When we look at Judaism, animals, plants, and liquids (but not humans) are destroyed in order to thank the one, true God for the gift of life, to ask for forgiveness, and to ask God for some future good.  Sacrifices entail entering into a relationship with God, and agreeing to do or not do certain things in the future.  The English word sacrifice comes from the Latin words sacrum, a sacred thing, and facere, to make.  To sacrifice something was to make it holy, to set it apart for God.  
    St. Paul would have had all of this in mind when he wrote about Christ offering Himself as a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness.  Of course, Christ already belonged to God, but He offered His human nature to the Father through the sacrifice on the cross, an offering which had a sweet odor, as in precious incense, which represents prayers rising to God.  Christ did not need to become holy, set apart for God, but He offered our human nature so that all those who joined themselves to Christ through holy Baptism, could also be set apart for God.

    In times past, sacrifice often included animals.  Noah, after just rescuing animals from the great flood, immediately kills some of them once the flood recedes to thank God for saving him and his family.  Abraham sacrifices a ram, in place of his son Isaac, after the angel stays Abraham’s hand.  And the unblemished lamb is slaughtered and its blood is spread over the lintels of the door to prevent the angel of death from killing the first born of Israel.  Blood signified life, and so the pouring out of blood meant the offering of life of the animal.
    But God, though the prophets, instructs the people that the sacrifice He really wants is a life given, no longer through the shedding of blood, but through right living, following His ways, and loving others as God loves us.  In Psalm 39, the psalmist prays, “Sacrifice and offering you do not want; you opened my ears.  Holocaust and sin-offering you do not request; so I said, ‘See, I come…to do your will, my God.’”  The Prophet Isaiah speaks for God and says that God does not care so much for the sacrifices of the Temple, as for living according to the way of the Lord.  Isaiah says: “cease doing evil; learn to do good.  Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.”  Through the Prophet Hosea God says, “it is mercy I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings,” a phrase that our Lord uses after He calls St. Matthew and goes to dine at his house.
    Through salvation history, God has led His people to think of sacrifice as something we do to an animal or grain or wine, to something we give of ourselves, which is the deeper meaning.  But we don’t have to destroy our physical life.  Rather, God wants to destroy in us by His grace all of the spiritual shortcomings that we have so that we can make more room in our souls for His grace.  God wants us to offer ourselves, not through the shedding of blood, or the burning of grains or incense, but by the shedding of all that is fallen in us, and the sending on high all the good that we desire to do.  God has received the blood that brings us into relationship with Him, the Precious Blood of our Lord, the true Passover Lamb.  He wants our joys and sorrows, our work and our leisure, our going and coming.  
    And God even wants our sins, the things that separate us from Him.  In the Sacrament of Penance, we sacrifice to God the ways that we have said no to God in contrition and with firm amendment to sin no more, and God grants us forgiveness and strengthens our soul to fight temptation in the future.  There is nothing that we have that God does not want to take from us, bless, and then return to us as an opportunity of grace.  May this Lenten season help us to offer the acceptable sacrifice of hearts humble and contrite to God the Father, through Christ the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Lunatic, Liar, or Lord

Passion Sunday
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  
 

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse….You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come up with any patronising [sic] nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to."

These words come from the great Anglican writer, C.S. Lewis in his work Mere Christianity.  And though Lewis never swam the Tiber, he certainly was a man faith in Christ.  

C.S. Lewis

                    Our Gospel and Epistle today lay out how our Lord is different, not just in His style of preaching or even His content, but categorically different than everyone who came before, or anyone who would come after Him.  As Lewis writes, we cannot simply refer to Him as one of a great line of human teachers.  To do so is to ignore the witness of the Gospels and the other New Testament revealed texts.
    The author of the “Letter to the Hebrews” starts by contrasting the sacrificial system of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the sacrifice of Christ in the Heavenly Jerusalem, the temple built without hands.  The Aaronic priests would offer sacrifices throughout the year of many types: atonement, peace offerings, grain offerings, thanksgiving sacrifices, votive sacrifices (those connected to vows made), etc.  Goats, sheep, bulls, lambs, grain, wine, oil: all these things would be offered according to what God revealed through Moses and the sacrificial system expressed in the Books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  And these did bring about ritual purity: the cleansing of the flesh.
    But our Lord offered Himself not with a dumb animal’s blood, but with His own Precious Blood, the blood of a truly unblemished lamb.  And His sacrifice, made once for all, did not only cleanse the flesh, but cleansed the conscience, the soul.  All sacrifices were meant to bring a person into right relationship with God.  They were vicarious ways of saying that the person offering was giving up his life to offer it to God.  Christ’s sacrifice was not vicarious, though, in the sense that He offered something else.  He offered Himself, and in Him all who would be united to Him.  And it wasn’t only to temporarily bring us into right relationship with God, but to change us to be like Christ, adopted sons and daughters in the Son of God, which opened for us eternal union with God in heaven, the ultimate goal of right relationship with God.  
    In the Gospel, too, our Lord distinguishes Himself from all others who came before Him in Judaism.  And the Jews notice it.  They ask if Christ is greater than Abraham and the prophets.  And through the back and forth, the Lord affirms that He is greater, leading up to the climactic phrase of this passage, “Before Abraham came to be, I AM.”  This hearkens us back to the great Theophany to Moses on Mt. Sinai, when God reveals His Name to Moses, “I AM WHO AM.”  And the Jews recognize this, because they immediately pick up stones to stone the Lord to death, the penalty for blasphemy.  Christ claims not simply to be a great rabbi who authentically interprets the Law and the Prophets, but the one about whom the Law and the Prophets referred, the source of their power and authority.  
    What does this have to do with us?  Well, while we’re all here, so we must acknowledge in some sense that Christ is different than any other religious leader, it is very easy in our mind and practices to treat Him simply like another guru.  It is easy to think simply of laws that we need to follow and prayers we need to say, without recognizing the adoration that we owe to the Lord and that we are not simply listening to another faith teacher, but dealing with the Lord who made all the universe.  
    It is also very easy to pick and choose the religious leaders and minds to whom we want to listen.  We like this cardinal versus that one; this author more than another; give one blogger more credence than a different blogger.  And faith always come through someone else, so others participate in fostering our faith.  But we can so often get caught up in lower-level rules and practices, without having any real reference to Christ and what He specifically teaches.  Especially as Americans, we have recently tended to read religious leaders and what they promote through a political lens.  Do we go back to what Christ reveals, He who is God, and evaluate religious leaders and authors by those standards, rather than the ones with which we are more familiar and likely more comfortable, that is, how does this match up with my view of life and my political outlook?  In other words, to what do I give more weight: the Gospels or my favorite blog?
    Jesus is not just another religious leader.  He’s not only qualitatively different, but categorically different because He is the one who shares Divine Revelation as well as the source and content of Divine Revelation Himself.  May we be most concerned with the One who simply reveals Himself as “I AM”: God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

How Much or Little We Prepare

 First Sunday of Advent

    In one of the final building scenes of the movie, “A Few Good Men,” Lt. Daniel Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise, questions Col. Nathan R. Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson.  At one point, Lt. Kaffee asks Col. Jessep what preparations he made to travel from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Washington, D.C., for the trial of two marines under Col. Jessep’s command who allegedly had killed Private Willie Santiago.  Col. Jessep says that he wore his utility uniform on the plane, but packed his dress uniform.  Lt. Kaffee continues asking if Col. Jessep brought his “Toothbrush, shaving kit, change of underwear,” which Col. Jessep confirmed.  Col. Jessep later states that he called a family member, a Congressman, and a friend in DC to let them know that he was coming.  Lt. Kaffee skillfully compares the preparation Col. Jessep made for a short trip to the total lack of preparations Pvt. Santiago made for being transferred from Gitmo for the rest of his life.  Without giving away the climax of the movie, the truth of what happened is revealed through the preparations, or the lack of preparations, made by Pvt. Santiago.
    As we begin our season of Advent, we are in a season of preparation.  We are not Marines begging to get away from a tough commanding officer, but followers of Christ, waiting to celebrate with joy the annual celebration of the Nativity of the Lord, and waiting for our Lord to return.  But our preparations, or the lack of preparations, tell us about how or if we will be prepared for when Christmas comes and when Christ returns.  Because the Gospels are clear, through many parables, that if Christ catches us off-guard, it will not be good for us.
    When we think about preparing as a Church, we generally put more emphasis on Lent as a penitential time to prepare for Easter.  But Advent, too, is a time of penance and denying ourselves so that we can be ready to celebrate with joy.  Advent is a kind of mini-Lent, shorter, and leading up to a celebration that is not as big as Easter.  But it is still meant to help us grow in prayer and the life of virtue.
    We may not always think of sacrificing as a good thing.  But we are good at sacrificing for things that we really want.  Perhaps you are working overtime during these weeks leading up to Christmas to pay for the extra expenses for family and friends.  Kids, who usually like to sleep in, will deny themselves those extra hours of sleep on Christmas morning to see what kind of presents they received.  When we treasure something, we are willing to change our lives for the thing we treasure.  Are we willing to do the same for our Lord this Advent?
    It is easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of these days leading up to Christmas.  Besides our usual responsibilities at work and/or home, there’s the decorations that will need to go up (or have already gone up), the parties with families and friends, and Christmas music has been playing on some radio stations since just after Halloween.  There’s also the stress of trying to find that just-right gift for the ones we love, the question of how much we can afford to spend, and how much we want to travel as snow starts to fall and make our commutes a bit more difficult than usual.  If we are not purposeful about taking time to prepare, before we know it, we’ll be getting ready to go to Christmas Mass and wondering where the time went.  I know that November, for me at least, has flown by; I’m not sure exactly why it went so quickly, but it did.  Even more so will December likely fly by.  So we should make plans now for how we can prepare, rather than fall into Christmas.
    Like Lent, the Church invites us to pray more during Advent.  During Lent we pray especially for mercy and recognizing our sins, as we “turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”  During Advent we can also pray for mercy and seek conversion, the avoidance of sin and the embracing of good.  But we do so with the view of preparing for Christ to return and wanting to keep our baptismal garments white with purity, as our parents or we were instructed to do at baptism.  
    We can also make our own the prayer of the early Church, marana tha, “Come, Lord,” and ask for Jesus to return.  We know that this world is not the way it is supposed to be.  And we know that when our Lord returns He will set everything right.  Our prayer should be for that to happen soon, so that pain, sorrow, and suffering do not have to last any longer, but can come to and end and wholeness, joy, and happiness can be the only thing that we disciples experience.  
    In Advent, we also focus on bringing more light into our lives, namely, the light of Christ.  In our part of the world, it’s dark–a lot–this time of year.  You wake up in darkness, and you eat dinner in darkness.  And yet, we are preparing for the Light of the World, Christ, to come forth from the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to shine upon the darkness of our lives and our world so that we can see clearly.  Our Advent candles remind us of the growing light.  And again, Advent is a time to reflect on our baptism, when we received a baptismal candle and were told to keep it burning until the return of Christ in glory, like the wise virgins with their lamps in the Gospel parable.  How do we keep the light of faith alive in our hearts?  How do we share that light with others so that they, too, can see?  What guides are enlightening our pilgrim path through this world?  Is it simply worldly wisdom, which often leads us away from God, or is it the wisdom of Scripture and the teachings of the Church, which guide us to the sun that never sets in heaven, Jesus Christ our Lord?  
    Advent, like Lent, is also a time of almsgiving, of helping the poor.  We have our giving tree that is up at St. Pius X, and so many organizations collect money and toys for those who do not have the financial resources to celebrate this time of year with food or presents that many of us take for granted.  Especially in the cold, winter months, we can assist others with donating gloves, hats, and coats to keep people warm, especially if we no longer use them and they are just taking up space in our closet.  Service to the poor is a year-round call for us as disciples, but especially as we prepare to welcome Christ at Christmas.  In centuries gone past, the preparation for Christmas began closer to St. Martin’s Day, 11 November.  St. Martin was a soldier who became a bishop in France, but as a soldier he cut his cloak in two to give to a poor man who was cold along the side of the road.  That night in a dream, he saw Christ with that cloak, and knew vividly what our Lord said in the Gospel of Matthew: Whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me.  Our own charity can mimic St. Martin’s in our shorter preparation for Christmas.
    Our end is in our beginning.  Our preparations dictate how the actual event will go.  Advent is an easily-missed season, because it is so short, and because we have so much going on.  But take time to prepare, not only for all that is going on in your work and personal life, but for our Lord’s Nativity and His second coming in glory.  Don’t let Christ catch you off-guard when He comes!

Charging our Spiritual Batteries

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

    One of the great thing about our technology like phones and Apple watches, is the ability to stay connected while one is on vacation, and eliminate the need for paper plane boarding passes.  However, those devices don’t operate on hopes and dreams.  So now, I don’t only have to pack clothes and toiletries.  Part of my packing protocol now is to make sure that I have both my phone charger and my watch charger.  If I forget the charger, then my phone and watch won’t work, and won’t be any good to me.
    As disciples of Jesus, we need to be charged.  The call to follow Christ in all areas of our life takes a lot of work to die to our fallen selves.  We need to recharge ourselves on a regular basis, or we’ll be spiritually dead.  And the way we do that is through the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is the food that strengthens us for our daily pilgrimage with Christ.  It gives us the spiritual nutrients we need to die to our fallen self and live for Christ.  It is, as we could say, plugging in to the source of our spiritual power.  How often do our young people (and perhaps ourselves) make sure that their iPhone has power so that they can text, chat, gram, and tweet?  But do we take care to make sure that our spiritual batteries are charged, and that we don’t run out of juice?  You cannot be the Catholic that Jesus wants you to be without the Eucharist.  Even with the Eucharist, we can reject Jesus, but without the Eucharist, we have no chance to have the fulness of Divine Life that God wants to communicate to us.
    But into what are we plugging ourselves?  Why is the Eucharist so powerful in helping us to be whom God wants us to be?  Our readings for today’s celebration of Corpus Christi remind us of the most important fact of the Eucharist: that it is the sacrifice.
    In our first reading, we hear about the sacrifice that foreshadowed the sacrifice of Jesus.  The people belong to God and show that they will be faithful to Him by being sprinkled by the blood that was sacrificed “as peace offerings to the Lord.”  Jesus’ perfect sacrifice was truly the peace offering that reconciled us to God as His People. 
    The author of the Letter to the Hebrews also takes up this theme that, while the sacrifices of the Old Covenant could bring some holiness, some sanctification, how much more does the Blood of Christ make us holy?  St. John Chrysostom also said that, if the blood of the Passover lamb could cause the angel of death to Passover the doors of the Chosen People, how much more will the Blood of Christ on our lips keep eternal death away from us?
    As we listened to the Gospel, perhaps we think that we moved away from sacrifice, and went to a meal only.  But the meal that Jesus held was a Passover celebration, a celebration of a sacrifice.  And it is in the context of a sacrifice that Jesus institutes the Eucharist.  Yes, it is in a meal, but in the sacrificial meal of Passover. 
    Jesus knew that we needed a connection to His once-for-all sacrifice, which only one apostle would attend.  And He wanted that connection to last through the centuries, not just for the lifetime of the first apostles.  So Jesus instituted this way that we could always connect to Him, connect to His sacrifice that saved us from sin and death, His sacrifice which reconciled us to God and brought the possibility of peace for all people. 

It is that sacrifice which recharges us, because it is that sacrifice that is the source of all of our power in Christ.  Baptism changes us because of the sacrifice of Christ; we are forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance by the sacrifice of Christ; we are able to receive the Holy Spirit in Confirmation because of the sacrifice of Christ, who said that if He did not leave, we could not receive the Holy Spirit; the anointing of the sick heals us by the sacrifice of Christ; marriage finds its fullest expression and model in the death of the bridegroom from His bride; and the Sacrament of Holy Order exists to connect us to the ministry of Jesus through the work of Jesus’ bishops and priests, as well as Jesus’ service through deacons.  All of our life in Christ goes back to the sacrifice of Jesus.  The meal of the Eucharist means nothing without it being connected to the sacrifice of Jesus. 
    And that is why we have the crucifix behind the altar: because through the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, we are connected to the sacrifice of Jesus that is before our eyes in the sacred image.  We look upon and remember what is made present for us and what we receive in our mouths as we consume the Eucharist.  And if we receive it in a state of grace, not aware of any mortal sins, then it recharges us; the Eucharist gives us power. 
    Don’t let your spiritual batter run out!  You will not be as effective, and you may even run out of any power to communicate Christ in your daily life.  Keep your soul like you keep your iPhone or Apple Watch: keep it fully charged by worthily receiving the Eucharist at least each week.  You will be charged by the saving sacrifice of Jesus!

The Language of the Eucharist

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

One of the things I love doing is learning languages.  In fact, from time to time I use a free app on my phone called Duolingo, which allows me to study, in this case, Dutch, at my own pace.  I love languages because it helps me understand people.  It’s like a key that unlocks the doors of those who don’t speak English.

When it comes to the Eucharist, we as Catholics have our own language.  That language, once understood, helps us to open up the riches of our faith when it comes to the Eucharist.  We use words like transubstantiation, which means that the bread and wine truly become, in their substance, the Body and Blood of Jesus.  We use words like host, Holy Communion, chalice, paten, and we use the word sacrifice.

That word, sacrifice, is the key to understanding the Eucharist.  Now, after Vatican II, there was a lot of emphasis on the meal aspect of the Eucharist.  And certainly, Jesus did institute the Eucharist at the Last Supper, which took place in the context of the Passover meal.  But even the meal of the Last Supper recalls the sacrifice of the lamb on the doorposts of the Israelites, the sacrifice which saved them from the death of the firstborn.

The Eucharist is not a community meal that celebrates the unity of the assembly.  The Eucharist is not a social gathering of like-minded people who share fellowship.  The Eucharist is the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, the truly unblemished Lamb of God whose Precious Blood, poured out for us, saves us from eternal death.  That is why the place where the sacrifice of the Mass is offered is called an altar, which is, by definition, a place of sacrifice.  On that altar, Jesus’ one, perfect, and unique sacrifice is made present for us in an unbloody way, so that we can share in what Jesus’ sacrifice made possible for us: life in heaven.  That is why those who offer the prayer are truly called priests, whose central job it is to offer sacrifices.  

When we understand the Eucharist as a sacrifice, it opens up for us the Old Testament.  Today’s first reading highlights the sacrifice of Melchizedek, king of Salem, who offers bread and wine to God Most High on behalf of Abram, our Father in Faith, after he had won the victory of foreign kings.  When we hear about a sacrifice of bread and wine, we should immediately think of the Eucharist.  And, as the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament states, Melchizedek is himself a prefigurement of Christ, as he has no beginning and no end (as evidenced by no genealogy); his name means King of Justice; and he is the King of Salem, that is, King of Peace.  And even Jesus’ miracles, like the one we heard in today’s Gospel, point to the sacrifice to which the Eucharist points.  Jesus offers loaves and fish, which is clearly different from bread and wine.  But, in an early mosaic at the place where this miracle happened, there are two fish, and a basket with four loaves, right in front of the altar, because the fifth loaf was understood to be the bread that was offered on the altar.  

Understanding the Eucharist as a sacrifice also changes our approach to it.  If the Eucharist is merely an old thanksgiving meal, then how we act, how we approach the Eucharist, how we prepare for the Eucharist, doesn’t really matter.  Yes, preparations are necessary for Thanksgiving dinner, but it has to do with the food, not so much with the people attending.  If the Eucharist is simply a thanksgiving meal, then our attendance doesn’t really make a difference; sometimes family members make other plans on Thanksgiving than spending it with all their extended family.  If the Eucharist is merely a thanksgiving meal, then you might have special dishes or special entertainment on TV, like watching the Lions lose, or you might decide to make things easier and go with chinette plates, and you might change up what you watch or what you listen to.  

If, instead, the Eucharist is the sacrifice of our salvation, the means by which we are cleansed of our sins and heaven is opened to us, then we prepare by making sure that we are in communion with each other and communion with God through the Sacrament of Penance regularly.  We prepare by fasting from most food and drinks for one hour before we receive Jesus.  We show up because we are grateful for what Jesus did for us then, and what He continues to do for us each day.  We use special clothes and special vessels, and special music, because it is made for a sacrifice, not for entertainment.  We might even read the Sunday readings ahead of time as a way of preparing, or attend daily Mass as an overflow of our gratitude to God.  

Without sacrifice, we cannot understand the true nature of the Eucharist.  And understanding the Eucharist as a sacrifice also helps us to unite our daily sacrifices to Jesus, because we know that He already did that for us, and we want to return to the favor, even in our own daily ways, big or small.  Understanding the Eucharist as a sacrifice allows us to approach the Body and Blood of Christ, not as if we’re in a line at the grocery store, waiting to get a handout, but with wonder and awe and reverence as we receive Jesus, our Lord, on our tongues and on our hands, as He brings us into union with Him in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.

"Love is in the Air"

Sixth Sunday of Easter
     So clearly, St. John is focusing on love this weekend.  Our second reading, from the first Letter of St. John, says "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God."  And in the Gospel, also from St. John, we heard, "'As the Father loves me, so I also love you.  Remain in my love....This is my commandment; love one another as I love you.'"  As John Paul Young sang, "Love is in the air."
     And this weekend, as we have our second grade students receive their first Holy Communion, we celebrate what love is: love is the gift of self.  Jesus gives Himself in the Eucharist because He wants to remain with us, so that we can remain with Him.  And if we remain with Him, our joy will be complete.
   

 Love, as seen in the Eucharist, is a sacrifice.  We are so often told by basically every secular source, that love is about me.  Love is supposed to make me happy.  Love is a good feeling that I have with another.  Love completes me.  But that's not what Jesus shows us in the Eucharist.  What Jesus shows us in the Eucharist is that love is concerned with making the other person happy; love sometimes is not accompanied by any good feelings; love is about helping the other get to heaven.
   Because in the Eucharist, we receive Jesus' sacrifice of His own life on the cross.  In the Eucharist we receive Jesus' Body and Blood which was poured out for the one He loves, His Bride, the Church (that's us!).  If love was about the self, Jesus would not have died for us.  If love was about feeling good, Jesus would not have been crucified.  As St. John says, "In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins."
     Love is difficult; it's not easy.  Love is difficult even when the beloved loves you.  It's always a joy to celebrate anniversaries of couples at Mass.  When I see a couple that has been married for 25, 40, 50, or even 60 years, I see their joy and happiness with each other.  What I don't see on those days are the days that they maybe weren't so in love with each other, the days when maybe they didn't have good feelings towards each other, the days when the maybe they wanted to kill each other (metaphorically speaking, of course...I hope).  Because we are human we fail at love, because we have a tendency to be selfish, which is the opposite of love.  We are afraid to be selfless, because we are afraid that the love we express will not be returned.  That's part of what makes love so beautiful: it requires great vulnerability.
     But love is even more difficult when the beloved does not love you, even if it's just temporary.  Parents know this all too well: those moments when your own child says that they hate you, that you're a bad parent, that they never want to talk to you again, because you took away their iPhone, or grounded them for bad behavior.  Kinds don't usually mean it, they are generally just taking out their frustration.  But sometimes we do find people that generally have o love for us, who maybe even wish us ill.  But we are still called to love them.
     Love doesn't mean letting them engage in destructive behavior, or letting them do anything they want.  That's not love, that's apathy, not caring either way.  But loves means  we do what's best for the beloved, even if it's not appreciated or understood.
     Jesus tells us that love means laying down our life for our friends.  If anyone could say that, Jesus could, as the following day (this Gospel recounts what happened at the Last Supper), Jesus would lay down His life for His friends, the Apostles, for His Blessed Mother, and even for those who hated Him.  Whenever I hear this passage I think of our military personnel who lay down their life for our country, even if laying down their lives doesn't mean paying the ultimate sacrifice, but is led out by delaying their own plans for life, being away for their families, and daily doing jobs that many others never want to to.  I also think of our police officers, and specifically for me our State Troopers.  Law enforcement personnel daily also lay down their lives for the citizens that they serve.  Sometimes they, too, pay the ultimate price and sacrifice their lives.  Other times it's the nights or days that they're away from their families, interacting with people with whom most other people would rather not come into contact, and running towards danger while everyone else is running away.
     The reason why we especially honor veterans and first responders is because they show love in a way that many of us could not even fathom.  But mom and dads also sacrifice greatly; employees sacrifice for the good of their company; kids sometimes also know how to sacrifice for others in simple, yet profound ways, like sharing a favorite snack with a friend who doesn't have much food.  Love is not only a vocation for the great, it is a vocation for everyone.
     So as we who are prepared to receive the Eucharist today come forward, may we be inspired by love.  Not by a false sense of love which focuses on the self, but on true love that focuses on sacrificing for the good of the beloved.  May the sacrifice of love that we receive in the Body and Blood of Jesus help us to live out Jesus' message that we hear from St. John: love.

Mount Moriah

Celebration of the Passion of the Lord

Around 2,000 years before Christ, Abraham placed wood upon his the shoulders of the son of the promise, his beloved son, Isaac, and started up the mountain.  Isaac quickly realized that, while they had the wood, and they had the knife to kill the sacrifice, they had no lamb to place upon the altar.  Isaac, “like a lamb led to the slaughter,” did not know what was happening, and so asked his father where the offering was.  “‘My son,’ Abraham answered, ‘God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering.’  Then the two walked on together.”  When they reach the top of the mountain, Abraham, an old man at this point, binds his son to the wood.  Isaac must have willingly let himself be bound, because Abraham was more than 100 years old.  And then Abraham took out his knife, ready to sacrifice the son of the promise: the promise that God would make of Abraham through Isaac father of many nations.  But, as we know, an angel of the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand, and did not allow him to sacrifice his own beloved son, but provided a ram in place of Isaac.  Abraham was rewarded for his faith in God, even to the point of letting his son die, and truly became the Father of Many Nations.  Isaac, who was as good as dead, was given new life as he was unbound from the wood.

Fast-forward about 1,000 years, and a temple is built, according to tradition, over the spot where Abraham had been willing to sacrifice Isaac.  It was there, at the place of an example of faith in God such that it put Abraham in right relationship with God, or justified him as St. Paul says, that the sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant would be offered, to remind God of the faithfulness of the Father of the Israelites.  Just outside of that place, almost 1,000 years later, another Son, a beloved Son, would be fastened to wood once more, and offered up by His Father as a sacrifice.

Isaac had asked where the animal was to sacrifice, perhaps his voice starting to crack as he began to realize what could lie ahead of him.  Jesus cried out, “Eli, eli, lema sabachtani?  My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” as the full weight of sin and the punishment that it deserves came crashing upon Him.

But where was the voice of the angel?  Where was the heavenly messenger telling the Father to stay His hand and not touch a hair on the boy’s head, and to replace the sacrifice of a Son with the sacrifice of a ram?  As the Roman soldier raised his arm, ready to hammer the nail into the exhausted flesh of Jesus, which had been scourged to a bloody mess and weakened on the Via Dolorosa, the sorrowful way, no angel stopped that hand, and the only sound was the pounding of the hammer.

Abraham proved his love for God by being willing to sacrifice his own beloved son.  God proved his love for Abraham and his posterity, not just by generation but by faith, not only by being willing to sacrifice His Only Beloved Son, but also allowing it to happen to save us from our sins.  All of the sins that came before that dark Friday, and all of the sins that would follow after it, were washed away as the crimson blood flowed from the mangled body of Jesus. 

What are our sacrifices since last Easter?  What are we willing to sacrifice in the year to come?  In the past year I have buried a father of a family who left behind a wife and 5 kids, as well as my own uncle; I have had friends discover they had cancer; today I bring my frustrations, my joys, my sins, all of who I am.  Many of you have lost loved ones, have found out family or friends are sick and suffering; some of you have lost jobs, or have children who have wandered away from the Church; you have your own frustrations, your joys, your sins, and all that makes you who you are.  Today, bring them here to our own Mount Moriah, and offer sacrifice to God; not the sacrifice of your progeny, but sacrifice of your life united to Jesus on the cross.  Offer to God not only the evil you want to get rid of, but even the things you want to hold on to with your whole heart.  Bring them to the wood which is prepared for this altar. 

Jesus says to us, from just outside Mount Moriah, “‘I thirst.’”  He thirsts for you, He thirsts for me.  Not just part of you or part of me, but all of you and all of me.  Have the faith of Abraham.  Be willing to offer your all to God.  “Take courage and be stouthearted, all you who hope in the Lord.”

"Baby, Don't Hurt Me..."

Within certain age groups, if a person introduces the phrase, “What is love?” and then pauses, the response of those listening will be, whether out loud or in silence, “Baby don’t hurt me,” following the lyrics of the song by Haddaway.  They may even do a headshake gesture.  But this song betrays a real question in modern culture today: what is love?

            We talk about love in a variety of ways, while using the same word.  We love our family.  We love our boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse.  We love our pets.  We love TV shows.  We love songs.  We love particular foods.  Each of these examples of love shows different ways that we apply the word love to different persons or objects.  The temptation is that all of these meanings get blended into one, so that when we say we love a particular band, that meaning of love also seeps into what is meant when talking about a family member.

            In our Gospel today, we hear the oft-quoted, oft-displayed passage John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  Most everyone can quote it, the passage is so ubiquitous.  And yet, as we delve into the meaning, we see something profound about God and about love.

            What this passage expresses about God is pretty clear: God loves us enough that He is willing to send His only Son so that we can have eternal life, rather than eternal damnation.  That’s a very strong love!  God is willing to do everything He can, even humbling Himself to take on human nature and join it to His own divine nature, so that the God who, in His divinity could not be looked at or touched, could not be present to us, face to face, and could cry, could stub His toe, and could bleed.  The God who created the universe and whom the whole universe cannot contain, spends nine months in the womb of the Blessed Mother, and then lives among us with all the limits of human nature, except sin.  That is a powerful love.

            What we learn about love, then, is that it’s not just a feeling.  It’s not simply an emotion.  And love means sacrifice.  Because when Jesus, the Eternal Logos, became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man, the cross immediately overshadowed him.  Yes, the Jews could have freely accepted Jesus, and some certainly did, but God knew from all eternity, because all time is as the present to Him, that the Chosen People, His People, would for the most part reject Him.  Most of His people rejected the light when it came into the world, because they “preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.”  These are tough words, but they are no less true than what John tells us about God loving the world.

            God’s love for us shows us that to truly love means to sacrifice.  God’s love means pouring oneself out for another, as Jesus does eternally for us.  He pours Himself out for us in the Incarnation as He did not grasp at His divinity, but emptied Himself and took on human flesh.  Jesus pours Himself out for us on the cross as He gives all that He is, the God-Man, to atone for our sins.  Jesus pours Himself out eternally for us in heaven, pleading for us at the right hand of the Father.  Jesus is forever sacrificing Himself for us to the Father, not that he dies any longer, but that His very life, even after the resurrection, is still a continuous gift in whole to the Father. 

            That is the true meaning of love: sacrifice.   We see it in so many ways, big and small: we see sacrificial love in realizing that your spouse or children may be glued to the couch during the month of March, watching NCAA basketball, and then going out of your way to pick up the slack so that they can enjoy watching March Madness; we see it in choosing to go to a movie that you know you hate but that you also know your friend or spouse loves.  Love as sacrifice is lived out in caring of a sick family member or friend at all hours of the day or night without any thought of self.  We see it in the love that remains faithful to the marriage covenant, even when one person is not being faithful, or maybe has even left.  There are so many other examples, too, of sacrifices of many other kinds that people make for each other, joining Jesus on that cross on Calvary.

            The danger for us is that in a culture where love is used for the union between a man and a woman in holy matrimony, as well as the union of mouth with hot, greasy, delicious pizza, the meanings can meld together.  Our love of pizza, as good as it is, does not entail sacrifice.  We ought not to do anything for pizza.  We ought to be willing, at least, to give up everything for a spouse or a family member.  We use the same word, but the meanings are as different as night and day.  And if we’re not careful, they meld together, so that love becomes: what can you do for me?  How can you bring pleasure to my life?  Of course, love will bring pleasure and benefits.  But those come as the result of sacrifice, not instead of sacrifice, just as the eternal reward of heaven is made possible not instead of the crucifixion, but only through the crucifixion. 

            Our beloved patron, St. John the Evangelist, could tell us about love which entails sacrifice because, though he at first ran away, he came back to the foot of the cross to see just how far God’s love was willing to go.  He knew and could write that true love means giving all of yourself to another, because He was there when God’s love gave up everything in Jesus, even His own life, so that we could return to friendship with God.  What is love?  Love is the full gift of your very self: all that you are, all that you treasure, all that is dear to you for the other.  To other persons, yes, but first and foremost to the God who is love.

The Sacrifice of the Beloved Son: From Mount Moriah to Mount Calvary

Second Sunday of Lent

            Have you ever been at a movie theater, you’ve got your popcorn and pop that you’re enjoying during the movie, and then, at what you know will be a key part of the movie, you feel like you have to go to the bathroom?  You squirm a little, hoping you can remain in the theater until the end.  But then sometimes you just can’t wait.  So you leave the movie, only to get back, and you wonder, “What did I miss?!?”

            Well, today’s first reading leaves some very important parts out, and if we didn’t read the whole thing, we might miss what the Word of God is trying to tell us in this passage.  So, let me fill in some of the blanks.  Abraham and Isaac are about to go up the mountain where, unbeknownst to Isaac, Abraham has been given a command to sacrifice Isaac (a command which sounds very weird to us, but to the people of Abraham’s time was sadly not uncommon).  It reads,

Thereupon Abraham took the wood for the holocaust and laid it on his son Isaac’s shoulders…As the two walked on together, Isaac spoke to his father Abraham: “Father!” he said.  “Yes son,” he replied.  Isaac continued, “Here…[is] the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?”  “Son,” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.”  […]When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there an arranged the wood on it.  Next he tied up his son Isaac, and put him on top of the wood on the altar.

Then our passage continues, when the angel stops Abraham from killing Isaac.  Now, a lot is going on in this passage.  This is the great test of Abraham’s faith, as St. Paul recalls in the Letter to the Romans, and by which Abraham was justified, or made right in the eyes of God.  But, listen to the details again, this time paraphrased: We have a father who sends his son, his beloved son, up Mount Moriah, carrying wood on his back that will be used for the sacrifice of that same son.  The son is then fastened to the wood for the sacrifice to begin.

            This should remind us of Jesus’ sacrifice.  Jesus, the Beloved Son of the Father takes the wood of the cross, the instrument of His one, salvific sacrifice, upon His back, carries it up Mount Calvary, and is fastened to the wood of the cross for the sacrifice.  Except this time, instead of being stopped by an angel, Jesus dies on the cross, of His own free will, and brings us salvation.  We cannot miss this point of the passage, and we need to read this passage in light of Jesus’ sacrifice.  Otherwise, we end up thinking that God can command us to do some horrible things.  And, as Pope Benedict commented in his first year as pope when trying to dialogue with the Muslim community, God cannot command us to do that which is evil.  Did God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac?  Yes, we have that in Scripture.  But seeing that Abraham’s faith was so strong that it would even be willing to sacrifice his son, God stopped Abraham before it actually happened, because God never wants us to kill an innocent person, either someone else or ourselves, especially not in His Name.  Instead, God used the sacred author to communicate in this story that God loves us so much, that He prefigures in this passage the death of His own Beloved Son, who was not prevented from dying, as was Isaac, but freely chose to give Himself over “for us men and for our salvation,” using the words of our Creed.

            But the darkness of the cross which looms over this story for us for whom the veil has been lifted, is not the end.  Isaac was saved from death, and found life.  Jesus, though He truly died, was also saved from death through the resurrection, and given a glorified body.  And it was a foretaste of that glory which Peter, James, and John saw on another mountain, Mount Tabor.  On that mountain, God the Father reaffirms what was said at Jesus’ baptism, that Jesus is the Beloved Son, and Jesus gives those three chosen apostles the great gift of seeing what was in store for Jesus and all His faithful disciples after death.  But, of course, Peter, James, and John didn’t understand what was going on, and it wasn’t until after the resurrection that they understood what a great gift Jesus had given them in letting them see the end of the story with the effects of the resurrection.

            But, to get to that glory of which Jesus gives us a foretaste in the Transfiguration, we cannot escape the sacrifice and death that comes before.  Resurrection is only possible for those who have died.  The glory of Mount Tabor is only available to those who are willing to sacrifice all on Mount Moriah.  So, the question for us is, what are we willing to give up?  What is God asking us to sacrifice?  Now, again, God is not asking us to sacrifice our children or any other innocent.  But God does ask us to give our best to Him, just as He gave His best, His Only-Begotten, Beloved Son, for us.

            I can hear you thinking, “Oh great!  Here comes the money talk again!  Time for Fr. Anthony to tell us to give of our time, talent, and treasure, but especially our treasure!”  And, with this being our DSA kickoff weekend, I certainly do want to encourage you to prayerfully consider how much you’re giving both to DSA and to our parish.  It’s tough.  Money’s tight.  It’s no different for me.  I have things that I want to do, vacations that I would like to take, and giving more would certainly get in the way of that.  But can I die to myself and be generous with the money with which God has already blessed me?  That’s a question we all have to ask ourselves.  For some, the answer is certainly yes.  For others, there’s no more else to give without endangering the basic goods of life. 

            But, let’s be honest: for some of us, money is all too easy to give.  It’s just a few more dollars, without any real commitment of mind, heart, and soul.  For you, consider what it is you really don’t want to give up.  It was tough for Abraham even to take his son up that mountain.  But, each slow step, Abraham reaffirmed his faith in God who had called him to leave his family behind in Iraq, and now was asking him to sacrifice the very son who was supposed to be answer to God’s promise to make of Abraham a great nation, more numerous than the stars in the sky.

            So what is it that God has called us to give up?  Not just candy, or gum, or chocolate, but things that really are precious to us, but that we don’t need.  What do we need to sacrifice to reaffirm that we trust that God who calls us His sons and daughters will never abandon us and will not let us want for any good thing?  Is God calling us to sacrifice more of our time to spend with Him in prayer?  Is God asking us to make more of an effort to learn about Jesus so that we can love Him better?  Is God asking us to take the time to learn about the teachings of the Church?  If we can sacrifice what is precious to us, truly give it up, then the shadow of Mount Moriah does not have to be the end of the story, but we can continue on to Mount Tabor, and to the glory which is to come in the resurrection for those who were willing to give all they had to God and hold nothing back.