Love and (of?) Shamrock Shakes

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

           

On 11 February of this year, Bishop John Doerfler was ordained and installed as the 13^th bishop of Marquette, and 12^th successor of the Venerable Frederic Baraga, in Marquette.  Being the church junky that I am, I watched some of it online.  And I caught his opening words as the newest bishop, his pastoral plan for the diocese: be a friend of Jesus; make a friend; introduce your friend to Jesus.  Pretty easy to remember these three points: be a friend of Jesus; make a friend; introduce your friend to Jesus.

            I’m not as good with sound bites as Bishop Doerfler.  I could only keep my homily to four points, not three.  But the first and the last one are the same, so hopefully it’s not too challenging.  My four points are: love the person; do not condemn; call to conversion; love the person.  Did we get that?  Love the person; do not condemn; call to conversion; love the person.

            That is certainly the message of today’s readings, though the Word of God expresses it better than I do: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” we heard the Book of Leviticus say from our first reading.  First, of course, we must actually love who we are, not with the egotistical, self-centered, narcissistic love that our culture promotes, but with the realization that we are created in the image and likeness of God and so are basically good, even though we suffer under the effects of desiring what we should not want to do, what we call concupiscence.  But if we realize that we are in the image and likeness of God, then and only then can we treat others like we treat ourselves.  Love the person.

            The Gospel continues with Jesus telling us how God loves those who don’t love Him, and that we are called to the same.  He lets his sun shine on the bad and the good, and lets the rains fall on the just and the unjust.  God does not condemn the person.  He does not approve of evil or unjust deeds, but He does not condemn the person as soon as they fall into sin.  Instead, He continues to love them.  Do not condemn.

            To what end?  Why would God love someone who has turned away from Him?  Why would God give good things to those who deserve bad?  He showers His love on them so that they might be changed by His love.  The cliché way of saying this is: “God loves us as we are—but too much to let us stay that way.”  God loves us even though we turn away from Him in sin, but His love that He continues to give us is meant to encourage us to return that love and choose Him rather than sin.  Call to conversion.

            This is the part that our society really has a problem with.  We’re all too ready to say that God loves us.  We’re all too ready not to be condemned by God.  But when it comes to conversion, we shrink back.  We have fallen into the error that loving a person means loving everything that person does.  That is not how God’s love works, and therefore it’s not how our love as followers of God should work. 

Let’s say I had an evil twin, who was the antithesis of who I am, sort of the Bizarro Fr. Anthony (if you don’t know Superman, that probably didn’t make sense).  And let’s say Bizarro Fr. Anthony is just a very angry man and his anger overflows one day because McDonald’s just ran out of the shamrock shake and he didn’t get to enjoy one at all (this is not a true story, just in case you’re wondering), and so he kills the McDonald’s employee.  Does God still love Bizarro Fr. Anthony?  Yes!!  If God didn’t love Bizarro Fr. Anthony, Bizarro Fr. Anthony wouldn’t exist.  But God does not love the murder that Bizarro Fr. Anthony just committed, even if McDonald’s did just run out of shamrock shakes.  The same goes for any sin with any person.  God loves us, but he doesn’t love everything we do.  We, too, can love the person without loving everything they do.  Don’t believe me?

None of you would probably call Pope Francis a hateful person, full of bigotry.  In fact, I would guess that if we had to come up with one word that described Pope Francis, that word would be: loving.  And yet, in the interview Pope Francis gave to a Jesuit priest in September, Pope Francis stated that the Church’s teaching on abortion, gay marriage, and artificial contraception is clear.  Does that mean he does not love certain people?  Of course not!  Pope Francis loves us all!!  And he is an image, an icon, if you will, of Jesus’ love, which is fitting since he is the Vicar of Christ.  And he is teaching us how to love a person without loving everything they do.  And the key is that we love people, not just at the beginning, but throughout, even when we disagree with them, even if they do things with which we cannot agree because Christ has taught us otherwise.  We love them, because God loves us, even when we do things which God does not agree with, and which He taught us not to do, no matter how big or how small.  That is why the fourth point is as same as the first: love the person.

Jesus summed up the law and the prophets in two commandments: love God with all of who we are, and love our neighbors as ourselves.  Everything the Church teaches as true and part of our faith stems from those two commandments.  As we seek to live those commandments out we try with all our strength to love the person; do not condemn; call to conversion; love the person.

Catholic Culture?

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            What would a Catholic culture look like today?  It can often be easier to bemoan the present than to dream of the future.  But let’s take some time to dream, to hope, to imagine what life could be like.  Now, we may think it’s a little arrogant to want to the culture to reflect our beliefs.  And I’m certainly not saying that we would set up a country where you can only enter if you’re Catholic.  But I’m talking about a world where the Catholic view of the world is so well lived that it’s in the air we breathe.  And we want it to be that way, but not because we can be the most powerful.  But if, as Vatican II says, Jesus reveals what humanity is called to be, then what we have we should want to share with everyone, not keep to ourselves.

           

That’s what Jesus means when He says in today’s Gospel passage, “‘You are the salt of the earth.  But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?  It is no longer good for anything…You are the light of the world.  A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden…Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.’”  We are meant to give flavor and light to the culture, to the world, and the more we do that, the more we encourage people into right belief and right worship.  Our life of service is meant to help fill this church.  And our worship in this church is meant to enable our life of service.  If all we do is serve without drawing people to conversion and belief in Jesus, then our service is missing a necessary component.  If our worship and belief do not propel us to serve others, than our worship and belief are empty.  As St. John, our heavenly patron, says in his first letter, if we don’t love the brother or sister whom we can see, how can we claim to love God whom we cannot see?

            In a Catholic culture, we embrace and serve the poor, especially those at our front door.  We do pretty good work here with our St. John Food Pantry.  But it goes beyond food bank.  It is a whole way of life.  Think about your clothes: what do you need, and what is extra?  For me, I have a rule that, because I have basically what I need—my clerical attire, some spring/summer casual clothes, and some fall/winter casual clothes—whenever I want to get a new article of clothing, I also have to donate something to the St. Vincent de Paul store.  I have one daily pair of boots, one dress pair of boots, Sperry’s for the summer time, and one pair of athletic shoes.  That’s all I need.  My parents go through shoes faster than I do, because they are more active with running.  That’s what they need.  Business leaders may need more suits than I do, because they go to more dressy functions, including many major charities.  Living a simple life will look a little different for each of us.  But the key is that we don’t just buy clothes because we want them; we buy clothes because we need them.  And should we feel we need a new article of clothing, we can, in many cases, give something else away.

            Another great question for us is how we spend our time caring for those at the fringes of society?  Our first reading is just one example of how God highlights His preference for the poor and outcast.  Is it because poverty and exclusion lead to holiness?  Not necessarily.  Poverty and being excluded can just as easily lead to hatred, jealousy, and vengeful thoughts and deeds.  But the poor and outcasts have no one else to rely on, and so God takes their cause.  And when we do the same, we spread God’s love.  We live as Jesus’ disciples by following the example of the Master.  In ancient cultures, widows were often part of the defenseless because they no longer had a husband to get them food, protect them, etc.  Widows are not so defenseless and helpless now, thank God, but I was just talking to a widow from our parish the other day, and I asked her how things were going.  She said they were ok, but she was lonely.  This is a woman who goes and has gone to Church at least every Sunday certainly for all of her adult life, and, from my four years here, has gone to many weekday Masses.  And yet no one makes time to visit her.  Sadly, I have not made much time, either, so I include myself in that challenge.  Financially widows find more protection these days, but how do we do at visiting widows and making sure they are not lonely?  In a parish about 3400 families, there should be no reason for any person to feel like they don’t have someone they can turn to, or someone to check in on them to make sure they’re alright.

            On this celebration of World Marriage Day, it’s also important that a Catholic culture is one that supports marriage as created by God.  A loving marriage between a man and a woman, with children lovingly welcomed and cared for is a great way to give people a good beginning to use their gifts and talents for the betterment of their city, State, and country, and for the building up of the city of God.  And working to protect that sacred institution is part of being salt and light.  Being salt and light also means that we welcome and support our brothers and sisters who have a same-sex attraction, and help them to strive, along with all of us—married, single, priests, and consecrated people—to live the chaste life that the Gospel calls us to.  Being salt and light also means that we help women who feel like they have no choice but to abort their babies to choose life, as we assist them through the difficulties of a pregnancy which so often has no other support.

            All of these issues that I just mentioned: poverty, spending habits, marriage and family life, and working to end abortion, are all part of the church’s teaching on social justice.  We can’t just pick the parts that we like.  If we say we are for social justice, then we embrace it all.  There are many in our one parish who are working for social justice in its different facets.  But we always need to challenge each other to make sure we’re doing all we can.  Maybe as individuals we can’t do it all, but as the Body of Christ, we can join together and support another in making our world more saturated with the Gospel as a Catholic culture.

What Are You Doing?!?

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

            “What are you doing?!?”  Maybe some of you who are parents have had those words come out of your mouth, probably with more emotion than I just gave them.  More often than not an answer is not really necessary, as the sight of the child doing, well, what children do, often explains what exactly is going on.  Although, this phrase can also be used when we don’t understand what another person is doing.  I imagine the Wright Brothers had a lot of people ask them, “What are you doing?”

            We might have asked God that question when Jesus was presented in the temple, which is what we celebrate today on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.  After all, Jesus is God.  He doesn’t have to be presented to God in the temple.  And He certainly doesn’t need to follow the Mosaic Law, because He is not a subject of the Law, He is the giver of the Law.  And this prescription of the Law was given to the Chosen People as a way of having them participate in the redemption of the Passover.  Just as God passed over the houses and the Israelites and did not kill their firstborn sons because of the blood of the Passover lamb, so each male child was to be offered to the Lord, but instead of the child dying, the animals would take its place, as a vicarious sacrifice.  But Jesus did not need redeeming.  He was sinless, and so was not under the reality that St. Paul talks about, that the wages of sin is death.  So what was God doing?

            Well, as often happens when it comes to God, in one action God was doing a lot of things.  First, He was returning to the Temple built in His honor.  The presence of God, represented by the Ark of the Covenant, had been absent from the Temple since the Babylonian Exile, when Jeremiah had taken it away and hidden it somewhere on his way to Egypt.  But, as often happens when you hide something, you don’t quite remember where you put it.  And so, after the Jews returned from Babylon, even though they built the temple, there was no Ark of the Covenant to be there.  There are many theories where it was: some say it’s located beneath the rubble of the Temple that Nebuchadnezzar ordered destroyed; some say it made its way down to Ethiopia, to the Queen of Sheba, and has been kept safe by Ethiopian Orthodox priests since the time of Jesus; if you believe Hollywood, Indiana Jones found it and now it’s locked in a warehouse in some government facility.  But it was not in the temple.  And so, as Jesus is presented in the temple, the prophecy of Malachi is fulfilled: “And suddenly there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek, And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.”

            Secondly, God was fulfilling the promise He had made to Simeon, that Simeon would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s anointed, or, in Hebrew, Meshiach (Messiah).  Simeon, who had waited on the Lord, was now so glad that God made good on His word, that he broke into a prayer which has echoed on the lips of clergy, religious, and lay faithful throughout the centuries:

            Lord, now you let your servant go in peace,

            Your word has been fulfilled.

            My own eyes have seen the salvation

            which you have prepared in the sight of every people,

            A light to reveal you to the nations

            And the glory of your people, Israel.

In this way each member of the Church is invited, each night before he or she goes to sleep, to recall how God has been faithful to His promises, and has made salvation know, not only to the Jews, the Chosen People, but also to the nations, the Gentiles, as the darkness of sin is destroyed by the Light of Christ.  What a great way to end our day, by learning this short prayer and saying it each night before we go to bed as we recall the promises God has fulfilled to us!

            Thirdly, God was continuing to humble Himself.  In St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he says, “Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at.  Rather, he humbled himself and took the form of a slave.”  Jesus, through He is the Lawgiver, submits to the law, setting before us a beautiful example of obedience.  Obedience is certainly not a popular virtue.  But Jesus shows us that obedience to God always is the recipe for freedom with others and ourselves.

            Even as God re-enters His Temple in the Person of Jesus, we also know that at the crucifixion the veil of the Temple is ripped in two by the power of God, and God establishes Christ as the Temple not made by hands but destroyed by human hands, but raised up and rebuilt by God.  And Christ makes living temples of those who are joined to Him in Baptism.  We become the place where God dwells.  We become the place where Jesus is presented as we receive His Body and Blood into our very body in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  We become lights in the Light that is meant to scatter the darkness of sin and enlighten others to the joy, freedom, and peace of following Jesus and living according to His law of love.  Jesus is about to enter into your temple.  May the Light of the World find your heart a welcome home, and then give you the courage to share that light with others.

You're Invited!!

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

            In terms of the social life, it seems to me that there is nothing bigger in the mind of a kindergartner than being invited to a birthday party.  It’s a sign that you’ve made it in the innocent jungle of social interactions between 6-year-olds.  And it doesn’t seem to leave us.  Even as we progress through school, we want to be invited to a friend’s house; we want to be chosen for the basketball team; we want to be chosen as first chair in our instrument’s section of the band; we want to be chosen as the lead in the play or musical.  And let’s be honest: as adults we still like being invited over: to a friend’s house; to a sports game; maybe for an adult beverage at the local watering hole. 

            Jesus invites Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John in our Gospel today.  And maybe they, too, were just so happy to be invited and chosen.  But it is amazing that they just left everything.  This Jesus, whom they didn’t know well, called them to follow Him, to be his disciples, and they did.  There were no questions, no caveats, no conditions.  They just followed Him.  And, as we know the rest of the story, their acceptance of the invitation took them many places they never imagined: the Sermon on the Mount; the feeding of the 5,000; Mt. Tabor and the Transfiguration for Peter, James, and John; the triumphant entry into Jerusalem right before Passover; the Upper Room as both the priesthood and the Eucharist were established; the Garden of Gethsemane, again for Peter, James, and John; the foot of the cross for John; and the Upper Room again where they saw the risen Christ.  And then they continued the work of Jesus after Pentecost, “teaching,…proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people.” 

            We were given the same invitation at our Baptism.  We were called to put Jesus ahead of everything else.  We were invited to be a follower of Jesus and to teach, proclaim the gospel of the kingdom, and heal people.  As we celebrate Catholic Schools Week this week, we celebrate schools that can offer that invitation to our children Monday through Friday, not just in religion class, but throughout the entire day.  But have we, no matter where we went to school, accepted this invitation?  Or do we stand at the fringes of our faith, like the Rich Young Man who wanted to follow Jesus, but was not willing to give up anything to follow Him?  Is the extent of our faith life, our relationship with Jesus, simply going through the motions each week, or do we know Jesus personally?  To put it another way, if I were a stranger and I came up to you and said, “Why do you follow Jesus?  What’s so important about Him?  Why should I become Catholic?” what would you say?  Think about that for a second.  What would you say?

            In our preface, our prayer reminds us that even though we had abandoned God through sin, through Jesus’ blood and the power of the Holy Spirit God reconciled us to Himself, made us the body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit, the Church.  That’s the invitation we received: to claim as our own that reconciliation and the gift of God’s friendship.  Because without God’s friendship, we are at enmity with God, as St. Paul says.  Without God’s friendship, we deserve God’s wrath.  But God invites us to His banquet, and to be a part of Jesus through the Church.

            And that Church is supposed to be one as the Trinity is one God.  This past week we celebrated the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  Too often, those who are invited, and who seek that invitation, work against that unity by dividing into camps: “‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’  Is Christ divided?”  Pope Francis recently said that there is one word that describes Christians not being united: scandal.  We have grown too accustomed to the disunity of Christians.  We have grown too used to divided Christians.  Instead, there should be one Church of Christ, united in true belief of what God teaches us through the authority of Scripture and the Teaching of the Apostles and their successors; united in governance under the one Vicar of Christ, the visible sign of the unity of the many Christians spread throughout the world; united in the sevenfold sacramental economy of salvation, where we receive God’s life of grace in the way Jesus Himself established.  If we have friends, and many of us probably do, who have left the Church, how have we invited them to come back home to the Catholic Church?  If we have Christians friends, and I’m sure all of us do, who are non-Catholic Christians, have we done our best to explain our faith to them to promote understanding? 

We have received the greatest invitation, better than a birthday party, or a spot in the band or the play, or a member of a sports team.  We have been invited to be a part of the one Church of Christ and to use our diverse gifts and personalities to spread the kingdom of God and invite others to follow Jesus, not from far away, but in a close, intimate relationship with Him.  Yes, we may have to leave some things behind that were dear to us, like Peter, Andrew, James, and John did.  But we will receive a hundredfold in this life and in the life to come if we accept the invitation from Jesus to follow after Him and become fishers of men.

Happy Anniversary!!

Solemnity of the Dedication of St. John Church

           

1958 Original Church

Ordinarily, we would be celebrating the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord today and closing out the Christmas Season.  That is what our parishioners who today attended our St. Thomas Aquinas site celebrated.  But for us at St. John the Evangelist, this day is a special day of a different kind: an anniversary.  55 years ago today, this Church was dedicated to the glory of God under the patronage of St. John the Evangelist.  55 years ago today Bishop Joseph Albers, first bishop of Lansing, celebrated the Rite of the Dedication of a Church, initiating this place as a temple of the true God.  55 years ago today, prophecies were fulfilled: the oracle from the Book of Malachi, that “From the rising of the sun to its setting…Incense offerings are made to my name everywhere, and a pure offering”; the oracle from the Book of Isaiah that we heard this morning: “foreigners who join themselves to the Lord…To love the name of the Lord, to become his servants…Them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer; Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”.  In this place a pure offering is made.  In this place we, most of us Gentiles, that is, non-Jews, who have been joined to the Lord through Baptism so that we can love the Lord and be His servants, we have been brought to this mountain, represented in the raised sanctuary, and our sacrifices, joined to the one perfect sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, made present for us in sacramental signs in the Eucharist, are accepted by God.  This place is a house of prayer for all peoples.  Brothers and sisters, to quote David in Psalm 118: “This is the day the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it”!!!

            Now, we believe that God exists in all places.  He cannot be contained because of his immensity and transcendence.  And yet, we have this place, this building, which we have set aside for the worship of God and the edification, the building up, of His People.  Why?  For one, we also believe that God, whom the heavens and the earth cannot contain, chose to limit Himself and take flesh, born of the Virgin Mary.  God chose to be contained as the Divine Nature was united to Human Nature in Jesus.  As we say in the Creed, “by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.”  God chose to make a temple for Himself as He joined Himself to us in the Incarnation.  Secondly, we are people who operate by our senses.  Everything we know comes through our senses.  And so we build a place that becomes for us a physical reminder that God dwells among us.  We set aside a place where we can come and offer worship to God: to thank Him for His goodness; to ask for His blessing; to lift up in prayer our brothers and sisters. 

This building becomes a symbol, a sensible reality that points to an invisible reality.  This building is a special kind of symbol, a sacrament.  I don’t mean that we’re adding sacraments to the seven Sacraments instituted by Christ to confer grace.  But it is a sacrament in the sense that it is a physical reality that gives us the opportunity to receive grace, because as we enter the nave of the church and enter our pew, or go to light a candle at the Holy Family corner, or pass some time in prayer at the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, we can receive God’s life, what we call grace. 

This building also is a type of sacrament because it is meant to represent us.  We are the living stones that are being built up into the temple, as St. Peter reminds us in the second reading today.  God desires each of us to be part of his heavenly temple.  He is crafting each of us into an individual stone that will fit perfectly into the New Jerusalem in heaven.  Each of us has a different role to play in the building.  Christ Jesus is the cornerstone, with the twelve apostles making up the rest of the foundation of the heavenly temple.  And we build on that foundation, and add to the structure and beauty of the temple as we are chiseled so that we can fit into the place God has set aside for us.  But, unlike stones which are inanimate, we the living stones, can also form ourselves, and hopefully we cooperate with God in being formed into the right stone for the right place, rather than forming ourselves to our own standards, and risk being thrown out of the construction of the heavenly temple because we have made ourselves have no place in the temple of God.  But, if we let God cleanse our temple, our soul and body, as Jesus did in the Gospel, then we know we can have a place in the building up of the temple not made by human hands, but made by the hand of God.

Our prayers remind us, too, that we are the temple of God, and this building symbolizes what we are called to be.  The Prayer over the Offerings says, “Recalling the day when you were pleased to fill your house with glory and holiness, O Lord, we pray that you may make of us a sacrificial offering always acceptable to you.”  And our preface continues the theme: “For in this visible house that you have let us build and where you never cease to show favor to the family on pilgrimage to you in this place, you wonderfully manifest and accomplish the mystery of your communion with us.  Here you build up for yourself the temple that we are and cause your Church, spread throughout the world, to grow ever more and more as the Lord’s own Body, till she reaches her fullness in the vision of peace, the heavenly city of Jerusalem.”  May we truly be stones that are fit to be a part of the heavenly temple, to which God calls us through Baptism.  Because, as Bishop Albers said about the students (though it applies to all of us) as he dedicated this church on 12 January 1958, “The greatest possession they have today or ever will have in their entire lives is that of their Faith.  Should this be lost, everything will be lost.  And no matter what material success they may attain later on, before God their lives will be a failure.”

I wish to close with words of gratitude, again quoting Bishop Albers: “I wish to use this occasion to express my appreciation to everyone who has helped in the realization of this building whether through contributions, advice, planning, counseling or other ways.  I am especially grateful to the many thousand donors who have given of their means…I am confident that Almighty God will reward them with an increase of Faith and a greater love and devotion to Him and to souls, for their generosity in providing these means to care for the young men and women here at Michigan State University.”

Why are you here?

Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord

            Why did you come here this morning?  Why interrupt the family celebrations, the excitement of opening presents?  Why brave the elements?  Maybe you don't have power.  There are many other answers, too, perhaps as many as there are people in this church.  And there is only one answer: because God wants you here.

            God wants you here like He wanted the shepherds to visit that cave where Jesus was born.  Somewhere in your hearts He sent His angel to proclaim to you the “good news of great joy”, that, “today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.”   And we ourselves joined in the angelic song, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will.” 

            God wants you to be here because He has a gift for you, and a gift He wants from you.  The gift He gives to you is Himself.  The gift He wants from you is yourself.  His gift can only be received if your gift is given.  God’s very life, which we call grace, is offered to you this night.  It is like a bottle of wine waiting to be poured into the glass of your soul.  But in order for the wine to be poured, you first has to offer Him your glass, because God will not force His gift upon you. 

            It’s strange, isn’t it?  That our God, who created all the exists: the heavens, the earth, and all that dwells in them—the  angels, the animals, the waters, the mountains, the stars, the galaxies—God who created all this and who has unlimited power, will not overwhelm us with this power, but waits for our yes to His invitation.  It’s strange that, when our God decided to take on human flesh, He did not come as a Roman Emperor from the West, or as a Persian priest from the East, but as a baby.  But that is exactly what happened.

            We probably all want God’s gift.  Who would not want to receive the very life of God?  Who would not want to love of God, the peace of God, the joy of God to flow through our very souls?  We all want God’s gift.  But we are more hesitant to give God His gift from us.  We all want God’s life, but we shrink back at giving God our life.  We hesitate at the idea that we would turn over to God our time, even our focused time of around an hour each Sunday.  We falter at the idea that God would be in control of our life and direct our actions and words.  We pause when we consider that God might take us somewhere we don’t want to go.

            Fear.  It can be paralyzing.  Fear can stop us from doing what we truly want to do.  We all have fear at giving our gift to God, the gift of our entire life.  I still have areas of my heart that do no belong to Jesus fully.  Why?  Because I am afraid that I will miss that part of my life if I give it away.  I do not trust that God will truly be enough for me.  Yes, much of my life belongs to the Lord, but there are still parts that I hold back.  Maybe you haven’t visited your Catholic home, the church, for a while.  Maybe it took all your courage just to come here today.  First and foremost: welcome home!  We love you and we have missed you.  Maybe you come every week, but the practice of your faith ends as you walk out these doors.  We love you, too, and encourage you to share your faith with others.  We all have parts of our lives that are not fully given over to Jesus.  Some of us have held back more than others.  But no matter how much we have reserved from God, we are all called to band together, to be courageous together, and to support each other in giving our entire lives to God.  We lose nothing when we give ourselves away.  In fact, in Divine Irony, we only lose our life when we fail to give it away.

           

What we celebrate today is the scandalous fact that God, whom the heavens and earth cannot contain, took flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary.  Why?  So that our fear could be melted by one who was like us in all things but sin; so that we could have the audacity to give ourselves entirely over to the Lord; so that the yoke of sin that burdens us, the pole of guilt on our shoulders, the rod of slavery to sin of our taskmaster could be smashed and we could be set free; so that the grace of God, the life of God, could train us “to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ,” as St. Paul says in his letter to St. Titus; so that we could live in the light of Christ, which shines in the darkness of ignorance, falsehood, and lies, and the darkness does not overcome it, as St. John says in the Prologue of his Gospel; so that we could receive from the fullness of God, “grace in place of grace,” again as St. John says in his Gospel. 

            Today God wants you here.  He wants to give you the gift of Himself.  But He will not force His gift on you.  You and I must be open to that gift by giving God our entire life: nothing more, nothing less.  If we are open to it, God will change us to be more like Him, which will give us true happiness.  And if we are like God, then this world, wrapped in the double darkness of sin and ignorance, will also be changed into a light of holiness and truth, the world in which we all want to live.

How Blest We Are!!

Fourth Sunday of Advent

            When I was young (maybe younger is the better word here), I know that I did not understand how blessed I was.  I grew up in a middle class home with a loving family.  We never wanted for anything that we needed.  And yet, as I saw my friends in middle school and high school, all I could focus on was what I didn’t have, which made me blind to what I did have.  We never had video games.  The best we got was Oregon Trail (the old one, mind you) and Sim City.  My dad didn’t like to buy fruit snacks, both because they were not very healthy (that was probably more of my mom’s influence), and because they were expensive (that was certainly my dad’s doing).  We never went on a Spring Break trip to tropical locales like many of my friends did.  In fact, my first Spring Break trip was from St. Paul to Chicago as a freshman in college (not quite the exotic vacation you dream of in cold weather).  But, as I grew older, I have come to realize how blessed I truly was.

            As Catholics we can sometimes forget how blessed we with our faith.  When we grow up in a Catholic culture in our homes, it can be easy to take for granted the great gift we have in the opportunities to grow in our knowledge and love of Jesus.  It can be easy to forget that for two millennia or so, God’s chosen People were waiting for someone to undo the ancient curse that our first parents, Adam and Eve, brought upon the entire human race through original sin.

            God had promised to send a redeemer, but there was a lot of waiting involved.  Right after the Fall, God promised one who would strike at the head of the serpent.  Moses promised a great prophet, to whom the Jews must listen.  Our first reading, which is quoted by St. Matthew in our Gospel passage, gives us one of the Messianic promises of Isaiah, that “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel,” which means God-with-us.  St. Paul reminds the Romans and us in the second reading, that the Good News that God has saved His people from their sins was “promised previously through his prophets in the holy Scriptures.”  Even our preface, the prayer I chant before the Holy, Holy, Holy reminds us of this fact, as it says, “For all the oracles of the prophets foretold him.” 

And at the time of Jesus, there was great longing for the Messiah: partly because the Jews wanted to be freed from their Roman oppressors, but also because it had been hundreds of years since the last prophet.  Can you imagine the anticipation of the Blessed Mother, knowing that the unseen child in her womb was truly the Son of God?  Every mother is excited to see her baby for the first time at its birth, but Mary’s excitement must have been even greater since this baby was not just her baby, but was also God-with-us.  Or think of John the Baptist.  In the womb he leapt for joy in the presence of Jesus at the Visitation of the Blessed Mother to her cousin Elizabeth.  But imagine his waiting, too, at the Jordan River, knowing that his whole mission was to point out the Messiah.  Our preface takes up their excitement, too, as it says, “the Virgin Mother longed for him with love beyond all telling, John the Baptist sang of his coming and proclaimed him when he came.”  Jesus Himself will say to his disciples: “Blessed are your eyes for what they see.  For many kings and prophets longed to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.”  And again He says, “Abraham longed to see my day.” 

And we get to see and receive that Jesus.  We have been blessed in receiving that gift of faith in Jesus, knowing that He is the long-awaited Messiah!  We don’t have to wonder if God will ever make good on the promises He made from Adam and Eve, to Moses, and to the prophets.  We know that God has fulfilled His word in the Word-made-flesh, Jesus.  Do we realize how blessed we are?  Do we think about this in these last three days before Christmas?  Or are our hearts focused on what we don’t have: on the gifts we hope to get, the material things that we cannot afford?  Yes, we have been waiting for almost two millennia for Jesus to return as He promised, but we don’t have to wonder if there ever will be a Messiah or not.  God has given us the Messiah, and since those first apostles, we have passed on that the God who created heaven and earth and all that is in them deigned, lowered Himself, to be seen, heard, and touched.  As the preface will say again, “already we rejoice at the mystery of the Nativity.”  We wait to celebrate what has already happened and so we can be joyful.

We can also be joyful because the same Jesus comes to us in this Mass, as He does at every Mass, in His Word spoken to us through the Scriptures; and in the Eucharist, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of the same Jesus who was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Mother, and who first showed us the Face of God as He was born in Bethlehem.  How blest are our eyes that see God and our ears that hear His Word!  In these last days of Advent, don’t get caught up in the rush to finish all the preparations, but take time in prayer to thank God for the many blessings that we have in our faith, especially for the gift of Jesus, the prophesied and long-awaited Messiah who makes Himself present for us each day, and especially each time we get to come to Mass.

Keeping up the Intensity

Third Sunday of Advent

            I’ve been mentioning at each set of Masses that I have in this new liturgical year that I want to shift my focus a little bit in the homilies I preach.  Last year I tried to focus on the gift of faith and spreading the Gospel.  That certainly will still come up in my homilies, as it is a perennial aspect of our faith.  But this year I want to focus more on the prayers of the Mass and help us understand how they connect to our readings, our faith, and especially the Christian life beyond these walls.

            In our Advent preface, the prayer that precedes the Holy, Holy, Holy, and which has been prayed for these past two weeks, we ask God that, “we who watch for that day may inherit the great promise in which now we dare to hope.”  As Christians, we are meant to be ready, watching and waiting for Jesus to return.  We should live our lives in such a way that should Jesus come back at the end of this Mass, we would be ready to welcome Him, and not afraid of what our judgment would be.  We shouldn’t need a few days to clean up our act and prepare for judgment, but should be ever ready for Christ to judge us.  But we can struggle with this.  After 1,980 years of waiting, perhaps we second-guess ourselves about Jesus really coming back.  Maybe we don’t live life always ready for Jesus to return.  Maybe our faith starts to falter, and we question a life as a faithful disciple, ever obedient to the commands of the Lord.

            We’re not alone.  St. John the Baptist did the same thing as he was sitting in prison.  He had pointed out the Lamb of God, and prepared people by repentance to follow Jesus.  He had even seen the Spirit descend upon Jesus in the Jordan, and had heard the voice of the Father say, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  And now there he was, sitting in prison, and nothing seemed different.  “Maybe it was a mistake,” he thought, “maybe I got the wrong guy.”  And so he sends messengers to ask Jesus if He truly is the Messiah.  The Kingdom hadn’t been ushered in the way John wanted, and so he doubted.

            The early Christians also questioned.  Many of them expected Jesus to come back within their lifetime.  They would pray each Sunday, “Maranatha!  Come, Lord!”  And yet, after all those years of praying, He still had not returned.  That is why St. James tells them in the second reading, “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord…Make your hearts firm…Take as an example of hardship and patience…the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.”  In the midst of suffering (and there were plenty then), St. James encourages them to stay the course and not back out because Jesus has not returned on their timetable.

            Maybe we’re not as concerned with Jesus’ second coming as the first century Christians; maybe we don’t expect the Messianic reign in the same way that St. John the Baptist did.  But it’s easy to question our faith when our lives are not going the way we want them to, and we feel like Jesus is not living up to His promises.  Maybe our prayer is dry, and it feels like just going through the motions.  Maybe there is great suffering in our life due to illness, a broken relationship with a friend or family member, or maybe we are doubting that we will really be rewarded for being a follower of Jesus. 

            Jesus responds to John that the signs of the Kingdom are different than what was expected: “‘the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.’”  That may not have been what was hoped for, but Jesus is instituting His Kingdom in His way.  Jesus responds to us, too, “‘blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.’”  In other words, blessed are those who allow me to work in the lives in the way Jesus wants, not necessarily the way we want.  Maybe the dryness in prayer is actually a vehicle to desire God all the more.  Maybe the illness is a reminder that life is short, and a call to repentance and to join in the sufferings of Christ to alleviate past sins.  Maybe a broken relationship is an opportunity for us to acknowledge how our personality and temperament can sometimes drive people away.  Maybe the doubt is an opportunity to go deeper in trust of Jesus. 

            It can be difficult when we’re waiting to keep up the same intensity throughout a long period of time.  It can be difficult when Jesus does not work on the timetable that we want.  But each Advent we are reminded that Jesus will return again, and that we need to make sure that we are ready to welcome Him back.  I hope we never grow tired of saying with our hearts and voices, “Maranatha!  Come, Lord!”

Exams and Heaven

Second Sunday of Advent

            Now for a little note: in this new liturgical year, I want to shift my focus a little bit in the homilies I preach.  Last year I tried to focus on the gift of faith and spreading the Gospel.  That certainly will still come up in my homilies, as it is a perennial aspect of our faith.  But this year I want to focus more on the prayers that I say in your name during the Mass as a way of encouraging us to participate more fully in the Divine Mysteries in which we partake, and challenging us to take that participation outside the doors of this church.

Final exams week: I remember it well.  I remember the stress, the anxiety, hoping to keep a good grade, or maybe to bump the grade up a bit with a final good grade.  Plus, getting ready, maybe, to move back home for a little while.  And, there’s still Christmas presents and cards to buy.  No big deal, right?  But, imagine this added aspect: when Bishop Boyea was academic dean at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, during exam week he would walk up and down the hallways singing, “It’s the Most Wonderful time of the Year.”  Honestly, I’m surprised there wasn’t a freak “accident” at least once.

            Our first reading sets a picturesque view of the coming of the Messiah:

the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him…not by appearance shall he judge, nor by hearsay shall he decide, but he shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted.  Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.  Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them.  The cow and the bear shall be neighbors…There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain.

Maybe to this we might add: the professor will stop giving exams, and class participation shall be 100% of the grade.  Surely there are no final exams in paradise!!

            The prayer that opened our Mass, the Collect (so called because the priest collects all our silent prayers and merges them into a prayer that he says on all the people’s behalf) said: “Almighty and merciful God, may no earthly undertaking hinder those who set out in haste to meet your Son, but may our learning of heavenly wisdom gain us admittance to his company.”  God doesn’t want us to be distracted right now by any earthly undertaking, including exams.  So, everybody take a deep breath, and whatever it is that has got you wound up tighter than a watch, let it go.  Because, while most things we do are important—in school, in work, with family—nothing is more important than our time right here, right now with the Lord. 

           

Our Gospel passage introduces us for the first time on a Sunday this Advent to St. John the Baptist.  And he sounds quite different than the first reading.  Whereas the first reading seems all nice, warm, and cozy, St. John the Baptist seems more like an angry preacher.  He calling people broods of vipers, telling them the axe is at the foot of the tree to chop it down, and calling everyone to repent.  And yet he is the messenger that Isaiah, the same Isaiah as our first reading, prophesied as “A voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”  That seems a bit odd.

            But what John is pointing out is that we are all sinners: each and every one of us.  I am a sinner.  You are all sinners.  That sounds harsh!  That sounds downright mean to our yuppy culture (to use a Duck Dynasty term).  But it’s true, and in order for us to prepare for Jesus’ coming, we have to recognize our sins.  We have to turn away from them.  Because otherwise, if we do not recognize that we are sinners, then we don’t need a savior.  If you are not lost, then you don’t need saving.  And if you don’t need saving, then Jesus is not for you, because He came to seek and to save what was lost.

            Our prayers try to remind us that we need a redeemer, too.  Our Prayer over the Offerings says: “Be pleased, O Lord, with our humble prayers and offerings, and, since we have no merits to plead our cause, come, we pray, to our rescue with the protection of your mercy.”  What we’re giving God is the best we have, hopefully, but even that isn’t so great.  We don’t have anything that we have done that could put us back into right relationship with God.  Because we owe God everything, nothing that we could ever pay back would work at paying down the principle of the debt we incurred by sin.  When we recognize that, then Jesus becomes all the more important, because we recognize we can’t do it on our own.  We cannot heal ourselves, but need to be healed by the mercy of God. 

            And God gives us His mercy when we ask for it.  He gives it to us under sacramental signs.  He gives us mercy for all our sins when we come to Him in the Sacrament of Penance (and we’ll have our communal Penance Liturgy next Sunday), and He gives us mercy for our venial or small sins when we celebrate His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension under the sacramental signs of bread and wine which are also truly the Body and Blood of Jesus.  Our Prayer after Communion reaffirms this: “Replenished by the food of spiritual nourishment, we humbly beseech you, O Lord, that, through our partaking in this mystery, you may teach us to judge wisely the things of earth and hold firm to the things of heaven.”  When we worthily receive the Eucharist, we are spiritually fed, and as we partake in the Paschal Mystery, that Death, Resurrection, and Ascension that won for us eternal life, we understand better and are given strength to live out better our call to be disciples of Jesus who try to make our life like His as much as we can.

            Yes, Advent is a crazy time of year as we prepare for Christmas because of exams, parties, family coming over, work, buying gifts.  But in the midst of the craziness, don’t let it consume you.  Don’t let these earthly undertakings get in the way of what Advent truly prepares for: the celebration of the birth of Christ, the second coming of Christ, and the ways that Christ comes to our hearts each day.