Peering into Jesus' Last Hours

Mass of the Lord’s Supper

I invite you to close your eyes.  Take a deep breath in.  Breathe out.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Calm your heart, mind, and soul.  Put behind you the busyness of the day and just be with God.  Now, imagine for a second that you were going to die tomorrow, and that you only have a few hours to speak with anyone.  Who would be with you?  Would it be a spouse, your immediate family, or a friend?  What would you say?  What would you do?

We gather tonight, glancing in on Jesus’ last hours with His closest friends, the Apostles.  It almost seems like snooping.  The upper room is likely decorated in a noble, yet simple way, ready for the celebration of Pesach, the Passover.  Unleavened bread is on the table.  There are bitter herbs, charoseth, and wine in ceremonial dishes.  But the Passover, the sacred remembering that is more than just calling a past event to mind, is not supposed to be celebrated on Thursday, but on Friday night.  Still, Jesus knows that He will not be able to celebrate it with them on Friday.  As the Apostles enter the room, Jesus takes off His outer garment to wash their feet–feet crusted with dirt from walking, likely with some small sores from pebbles.  He, the Master, performs the task of the slave, giving the Apostles a command, a command they will not understand for at least three days, that as princes themselves of the New Israel, they are to follow the example of the Master and wash others’ feet.

Having finished washing their feet, Jesus begins the celebration of the Passover.  But before the breaking of bread and before the sharing of the cup, Jesus prophesies that one of the Twelve will betray Him, and Judas leaves.  Having, then, only the Eleven who are faithful, as faithful as they can be, Jesus institutes at the same time the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, as He, the Lord of the Passover, changes the Mosaic Rite and adds His own words.  But even in the midst of His most faithful, Jesus also tells St. Peter that he will deny Him before the cock crows.  And then Jesus begins His High Priestly Prayer, speaking to the Father in words so intimate that the Apostles must have simply sat there and listened and felt they were intruding on something that was profoundly personal.  

In His last hour, Jesus gathers His friends, not even His mother, and gives them a way to be connected throughout all time by establishing a presence through the Eucharist and a  presence through priestly ordination and configuration.  In His last hour, Jesus expresses His love and confidence to the Father, even as the powers of darkness are closing in around Him.  In His last hour, Jesus reassures his Apostles, His friends, and tells them not to let their hearts be troubled, and that while they cannot follow now, they will follow Jesus later, because He is the way and the truth and the life.  He promises them an Advocate who will defend them, even as the world hates them.  And then Jesus goes to pray on the Mount of Olives, exchanging the camaraderie of his chosen band for the utter loneliness of knowing what will happen next, as the Apostles sleep, exhausted from the weight and the power of those moments in the Upper Room.

Tonight we peer into that sacred moment.  We begin the three days that are one, the Triduum, with a Mass that will not be concluded until the dismissal at the Easter Vigil.  We recall, not simply in a retelling, but in an event that seems to take us back in time, the mandatum, the mandate of service in the washing of feet; we are connected to Jesus’ Passion once more in the perfect sacrifice of the Son of God, made present to us by the Eucharist, and offered by the Priest, configured to Christ the Head and Shepherd through Holy Order, to join the offering of the entire People of God to that of Jesus on the cross; we walk with Jesus to a place where we can feel the darkness closing in.  

We do not know when our last hours of life will be.  But if we did, who would we ask to be there with us?  What would we say?  What would we do?  As we enter into the last moments of Jesus’ earthly ministry, He gathers His closest friends, serves them, and establishes two ways that His presence would continue through them.  Tonight Jesus desires to be with us, to serve us, and have union with us through the Eucharist.  Will we watch and pray with Him?

The Pilgrimage of Holy Week

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

Cathedral of
Santiago de Compostela

When I was a junior in college, I had the great opportunity to study in Rome for 5 months starting in October.  It was a beautiful experience in and of itself.  But before we settled into Rome, most of the seminarians who were also studying in Rome for those five months and I began a pilgrimage in Spain called the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.  It’s one of the oldest pilgrimages in Christianity, and the goal is the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where the mortal remains of St. James the Greater are kept (for non-Spanish speakers, Santiago is James or St. James in Spanish).  We walked 111 km., the minimum to receive the plenary indulgence, but you can take a pilgrim route beginning in most major cities in Europe, and even as far away as the Holy Land.  But even in just those 111 km., I was able to experience a beautiful country, hills, valleys, injuries, friendship, distrust of other travelers, and the final joy of reaching the Cathedral and attending Mass there.  

Pilgrimages are meant to give Christians a microcosm of the life of a disciple: a long distance, beauty, hard times, easy times, injuries, friendship, distrust, and the final joy of reaching the heavenly destination with the eternal worship of God.  While we’re not going anywhere physically today, we do get to go on a spiritual pilgrimage this week, this Holy Week.  We walk with Jesus on His pilgrimage to his suffering and death, and then we will be able to rejoice in the destination of that pilgrimage: the Resurrection.  

We start that pilgrimage today in joy and triumph as the Messiah enters His city, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah that the Messiah would enter upon an ass’s colt.  The beginning of the pilgrimage is filled with the excitement of the crowd that all of God’s promises were about to be fulfilled, though they knew not the horrible way in which that would happen.  We just had a taste of the hills, the tough part of the pilgrimage, as we heard St. Mark’s account of the Passion.  We get a foretaste of what lies ahead of us in the days that will follow.

There is no substitution for walking a pilgrimage.  Of course, to arrive at the starting point, pilgrims these days often have to fly and/or drive.  But then there is walking–walking with Jesus.  We are not a walking people as much anymore.  We have planes, trains, and automobiles to take us wherever we want to go, and trams and subways to take us the shorter distances.  But on this pilgrimage there is no shortcut, no easy way to get there.  To truly experience Jesus’ pilgrimage, we need to walk with Him, day by day, and take in His experience.  To skip immediately past the Last Supper on Holy Thursday, past the crucifixion on Good Friday, to Easter means losing some of the power of the Resurrection, because the sweetness of new life is only accessible to those who have also known suffering and death.  

So I want to invite you this week to as many Masses and liturgies as you can attend.  We will have our usual Mass and adoration on Tuesday beginning at 5:15 p.m.; Mass Wednesday morning at 8 a.m.; the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday at 7 p.m.; the celebration of the Passion on Good Friday at 3 p.m.; the sorrowful prayer of Tenebrae Good Friday at 9 p.m.; and the joy of the Resurrection at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday at 8:30 p.m., or the Easter Sunday Masses at 8 or 10 a.m.  Very few things are more important than the Masses this week.  Very few other things will help you prepare for Easter quite like the Masses will.  Of course, some of you can’t make it to Mass because of work, health, or other issues.  If you can’t attend Mass, at least read the daily readings either from our parish app or at usccb.org/readings.  I especially want to encourage you to attend the Easter Vigil Holy Saturday night.  The symbols of Easter speak quite loudly, and we will be there to support those becoming Catholic–the newest members of our parish.  

Walk with Jesus on His pilgrimage.  Walk the road that He walked for you.  Walk the pilgrimage from suffering, to death, to new life.

Getting an Eye Transplant

Fourth Sunday of Lent–Second Scrutiny

I give real credit to those who use contacts.  I don’t think I’ll ever be a contacts guy because I hate the idea of touching my eyes.  I don’t know why I have this phobia, but one of the most sickening things for me in movies is when someone gets their eye poked or damaged or even removed!  I see pictures of people having eye surgery and it just makes me sick to my stomach!!

But, if we are honest, we need eye transplants.  Our eyes do not work as they are supposed to work.  They receive the light of the sun, but do they receive the light of God?  Just as our eyes need the light of the sun (s-u-n) to see our world, we need the light of the Son (S-o-n) to see as God sees.  Even Samuel, one of God’s greatest prophets, didn’t fully see by the light of God because he couldn’t see God’s choice for the new king of Israel.  Only after God enlightened Samuel did Samuel understand that David was to be the new king, even though David was not considered to be much by his family.  

So, too, the man born blind was able to tell who Jesus was, even without following Him, because Jesus cured Him.  The Pharisees were closed off to the Light of Christ and so they could not see, even when it was right in front of their faces, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.  Of course, even the blind man needs some help in recognizing just who Jesus is, because Jesus has to reveal Himself as the Messiah.  But as soon as that comes to light, the man born blind believes.

Today we’ll pray again for our Elect, that they might see with the light of the Son of God.  We will pray that they will be freed from being blind to truth, and seeing false values and lies.  And this freedom from lies will happen through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth.  But we also need to pray for ourselves.  We also need the Spirit of Truth to give us new eyes to see as God sees.  What a great gift to be able to see that way.  How differently would we treat each other if, when we saw a person in our work, on the street, and even in our homes, with the eyes of God!  What a difference that would make in our life and in theirs!!  

As much as it makes me a little queasy just to think about it, we need to pop out our eyes that see from a worldly point of view, and pop in eyes that only are work with the Light of Christ.  At the Easter Vigil I will sing “The Light of Christ” as that one Paschal Candle illumines the darkness of the night, showing us in visible form how Christ is the Light of the World who dispels the darkness.  In these next few weeks as we prepare for the Easter Vigil, that Vigil of Vigils, may our eyes be more attuned to the only light that we truly need: the Light of Christ.

Picking the Fruit of the Tree of the Cross

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Very few people I know like to get in trouble.  As children (and sometimes as adults) when we have done something that we shouldn’t, something for which we could get in trouble, we tend to run away and hide.  We don’t like to admit that we’ve done something wrong.  If there’s a broken anything in the family house, it was never one of the kids who did it; it was always done by someone named Idont No.  

We probably get this from our first parents, Adam and Eve.  Back in the Garden of Eden, they were tempted to eat the forbidden fruit, to disobey God’s command.  And they both did it.  But then what did they do?  They hid because they were ashamed.  They didn’t want to face God and what the consequences would be.  To admit that they were wrong was to admit that they were naked, totally seen, by God.

We like this first part of the Gospel today, John 3:16.  This passage may be one of the best know passages in all the Bible: “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.”  We see it at sporting events, especially football games from people in the seats behind the goal posts.  And it is powerful, and needs to be spread more.  It is important for us always to carry this message with us, that Jesus came as the result of God’s love so that we do not have to perish, to die eternally, but so that we can live eternally.  If you read this passage, you’ll notice that it’s not in quotation marks.  This isn’t some that Jesus said (at least according to modern reading of this passage), but is rather John’s commentary on Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus.

But St. John also says something important later in this same passage: “the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.”  St. John, having spent three years with Jesus in His public ministry, the same disciple who was beloved by Jesus and leaned on his chest during the Last Supper, was keenly aware that people prefer darkness to the light that Jesus brings.  And why?  Because we think in the darkness we can hide our sinfulness and get away with it.  We don’t want to get in trouble.  We don’t want God to see our imperfections.

But St. Paul reminds us in our second reading that response to sin is not to hide in the darkness, but to run to the mercy of God.  He writes to the Ephesians that God wants to, “show the immeasurable riches of his grace.”  God sent Jesus not to condemn us, but to forgive us.  But to be forgiven, we have to come into the light.  We have to come and admit our sins which cause spiritual death so that God, who is rich in mercy, can forgive us and raise us to new life.  God’s mercy and forgiveness are the fruit of the tree of the cross, the fruit that God wants us to pick regularly and consume.  And God encourages us and pushes us there.  But only we can pick that fruit of mercy, just as only we can pick the fruit of disobedience like our first parents.  

We shouldn’t want to sin and to do bad things.  But when we do, God encourages us to come running to Him, rather than running away from Him.  God wants us to come to the light, rather than to hide in the darkness.  And the funny thing is that God already knows what is in the darkness.  He knows the ways that we have distanced ourselves from Him.  But when we bring it into the light we find not condemnation but mercy.  We are only really in trouble if we continue to prefer the darkness to the light and hide from God.  Because when we hide from God we show that we do not really believe in Him and His power to forgive.  And, while St. John says clearly that, “Whoever believes in him will not be condemned,” he also says in the same sentence, “but whoever does not believe has already been condemned.”  

We can all help to promote people coming to the light, especially in our families.  Yes, there will be negative consequences for making bad choices.  That is the nature of bad choices: there are bad things that follow.  But what a beautiful thing it is when a child or a spouse comes forward to admit that he or she has done wrong.  In that moment, even though there is often hurt from the wrong done, especially if it’s wrong done to a person, there is also, or should also be, joy in having the wrong come into the light.  To put it concretely, you may still punish your child for stealing $20 to help them to understand that stealing is wrong.  But at the same time there should be some mitigation for that child coming forward in honesty to admit the wrong he or she has done, because that child had the courage to come into the light so that he or she could receive mercy.  When we come into the light and reveal our sins to God (who knows them already), He is merciful to us.  Hopefully we can also live that way and show God’s love by being merciful when a wrong is brought into the light to us.

Blessed with a Long Gospel

Third Sunday of Lent–Scrutinies

As you stood and heard this long Gospel passage today, the Gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well, I am sure that certain words were going through your mind: words like “blest,” “privileged,” and “fortunate.”  Those were the words that were going through your mind, right?

Those should be the words that came to your mind as you heard this Gospel, because this Gospel is only read during this year when the Church is celebrating the Scrutinies.  And we only celebrate the Scrutinies when we have the Elect of God, those who are to be baptized, confirmed, and receive the Eucharist for the first time at the Easter Vigil.  The Elect are the children in the womb of this parish, who are about to be born to new life in the Sacraments.  The Scrutinies, the ritual book tells us, 

are reinforced by an exorcism, are rites for self-searching and repentance and have above all a spiritual purpose.  [They] are meant to uncover, then heal all that is weak, defective, or sinful in the hearts of the elect; to bring out, then strengthen all that is upright, strong, and good.  [They] are celebrated in order to deliver the elect from the power of sin and Satan, to protect them against temptation, and to give them strength in Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life.

Now, this isn’t the kind of exorcism where heads spin and pea soup gets spit out.  This is a minor exorcism, meant to establish in the Elect the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  

This long Gospel is read because it is an example of conversion, to which the Elect have been called, and by which they can be strengthened.  And this is a perfect example of what happens when we encounter Christ.  At first the woman fights the conversion, speaking about how Jews and Samaritans are not supposed to mix.  But Jesus doesn’t give up.  He offers the woman living water, not just the water that she came to draw to quench her physical thirst.  And the woman wants it, but doesn’t quite understand just what Jesus is saying.  When we encounter Jesus, He offers a gift to us, and we may fight it, or may not fully understand what He wants to give us.

But then, as the encounter continues, Jesus identifies the ways in which there is separation between God and her.  She tries to avoid the situation by saying the truth, just not all the truth.  When confronted with the truth by Truth Himself, she tries to avoid again, and tries to start a fight about how worship should go.  But she is still drawn in.  At the beginning of the encounter, Jesus was just, “a Jew.”  After He promises her living water, He is “Sir.”  When He reveals her past, He is “a prophet.”  

When we are in the presence of holiness, our sinfulness has to be confronted in order to be cast out.  This is not always fun, and it’s not something we always want to do.  So we, too, often try to change the subject, rationalize away our sins, or even try to complain about the Mass being too long or celebrated in a way that we don’t like.  But when we truly encounter Christ, we, too, move from just Jesus the morally good guy, to Jesus the teacher, to Jesus the prophet who speaks for God.

Jesus sidesteps her argument about the Mass, and speaks about who God desires her to follow Him and worship God in spirit and truth.  He then reveals Himself as the Messiah, the anointed one of God, the desire of her heart.  And the woman cannot hold in her joy at becoming a follower of Jesus, but tell others.  

Jesus doesn’t stop with our sinfulness.  He tells us how much He loves us and wants us to follow Him and worship God in spirit and truth and reveals Himself to us as the desire of our hearts.  And if we truly have come into contact with Jesus, then we should want to tell others.  We see Jesus as the Son of God, who reveals us to ourselves so that we can truly be happy.  

Our Elect of God started by inquiring about who this Jesus guy is.  They were drawn to Him.  Then they drew closer in starting the process of learning what it means to be Catholic.  And recently, they were chosen by God through the ministry of the bishop to become Catholic at the Easter Vigil.  Let us pray for them that they will continue to know Jesus more fully until they are configured to Him in baptism.  Let us pray for ourselves, that we will also be converted more like the Samaritan woman, and tell those we know about Jesus the Messiah.

Immersed in the Mass

Third Sunday of Lent

German World Cup Athlete

If I were to try to explain the rules of soccer to someone who didn’t play, soccer would likely sound like one of the most boring and complicated sports in the world.  It would sound something like: the point of the game is to get the ball into the opponent’s goal; but you have to use your feet to get the ball there; or you can use your head; if you use your hands it’s a penalty, unless you’re a goalie within the goal box, or unless  you’re throwing the ball in from out of bounds; but if you throw the ball in then both feet have to be on the ground and the ball has to go completely over your heard; but if the ball goes out on the goal line but not in the net, if it was last touched by the offense it’s a goal kick, which means that the ball is placed on the ground and kicked; if it was last touched by the defense it’s a corner kick, which means that the ball is placed on the ground at the corner flag.  And I won’t even get into the offsides rules that confuse so many people!

It sounds like a lot of rules that may or may not make sense.  But when you see a professional athlete play soccer, see how all the rules work together to allow two teams to try to win, and see how the rules allow play to continue without favoring one side or another, the beauty of soccer comes through.  The rules of the system allow the activity to continue in a way that beauty is conveyed.  How often do we speak about the way an athlete plays as poetry in motion!

Jesus, in the Gospel, is crying foul (or blowing His whistle for a penalty) with the merchants and moneychangers in the temple.  It’s easy to gloss over why Jesus gets so upset.  We can quickly jump to conclusions about why Jesus throws out the moneychangers and merchants.  After all, why would there be a mini-bank in the temple?  And the merchants were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and those things smell, are messy, and, if they’ve eaten recently, tend to leave little presents that need to be cleaned up.  But the moneychangers were helping Jews from across the world exchange their money so they could pay the temple tax in the accepted shekels.  They were like super ushers who would exchange money for you for the collection.  And the merchants were really just religious goods salesmen, as those animals were only used for one thing: sacrifice.  And yet Jesus casts them out!  Why?  Because they were not allowing the beauty of the temple and of temple worship to shine through.

We have a lot of rules when it comes to Mass: don’t eat or drink anything besides water and medicine 1 hour before you receive Holy Communion; stand at this time, sit at this time, kneel at this time; the priest and deacon have certain words that they need to say, and can rarely ad lib; all vessels must be made of precious metal which hold the Body or Blood of Jesus; not every song that we like can be sung; and the list goes on.  These rules are meant to communicate the beauty which the Mass is meant to show, namely, the truth of Jesus’ perfect sacrifice on the cross and our participation in the Paschal Mystery.  The less we know about the reasons for the rules, the more they seem capricious or willy-nilly, just like the rules of soccer seem strange to those who are not immersed in the beauty of the game.  But, when we familiarize ourselves with what the Mass is supposed to be, the worship of rational beings to God, joined to the perfect worship of Jesus on the altar of the cross, it’s like watching professional athletes play World Cup soccer: the rules don’t seem as clunky, and, in fact, they allow each individual to use their talents in a more profound way.  

I invite you, if you don’t understand what goes on in the Mass, to read, attend adult faith formation sessions, and learn more about what occurs when the Mass is celebrated.  The more we do, the more we will see the beauty of the Mass as facilitated by the rules, rather than just a bunch of rules that don’t let us do what we want to in the Mass.  

Where's the Animal?

Second Sunday of Lent

What is our reaction to the first reading today?  What thoughts cross our mind when we hear about God asking Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah?  Perhaps we weren’t really thinking about it too much because we’ve heard the story before.  We know that the angel will stay Abraham’s hand and the ram will take Isaac’s place.  But when we do that, we lose the force of this passage.  What if God asked you to sacrifice your child or one of your children?  What would your reaction be?  Would you start marching up the mountain?

This story should make us shudder.  Part of the story wasn’t so strange for the Jews and pagans hearing it, because the sacrifice of the son was part of a few pagan worship practices.  In fact, the Israelite and Judean kings will be blamed by God later for taking upon themselves the worship of Moloch; and the way Moloch was worshipped was by immolating, killing, the first son by throwing him into the fire.  But even while Abraham was probably not surprised that a god might ask for the sacrifice of the son, that didn’t make it any easier for Abraham.  He had sent away Ishamel, his son by the slave woman, Hagar.  He and Sarah were even more past the age for bearing children than when Isaac had been conceived probably around twelve years earlier.  And yet, God had promised that Abraham’s descendants would be more numerous than the stars in the sky or the grains of sand by the sea.  You can imagine the question Abraham has going through his mind: ‘How could this be?  How will I have all these descendants if God is asking me to kill my son?’  

Maybe some of the children could relate to Isaac, too.  Hopefully not because they think their parents would kill them!  But imagine what must have been going through Isaac’s head: ‘Dad says we’re going to offer sacrifice to God today.  And here I am carrying the wood, and the knife, and everything to make the sacrifice, but where’s the animal that we’re going to sacrifice?  It’s just me and dad walking up the mountain!!’  With each step, maybe Isaac got a little more nervous about what was going on.  And Isaac is even forced to set up the wood for the sacrificial fire.  And Isaac even lays down, no doubt asked by his father to do so, as Abraham was an old man, and there was no way he could have caught up to Isaac if he decided to run away, or fight off Isaac if he decided to resist being sacrificed.  Hopefully we’re starting to feel the tension, like in a movie where the hero is about to die, but you’re not quite sure the hero is going to be able to escape and wondering how the plot can continue without the hero.

Even though this account that we hear today is a true account, it also foreshadows a future event to which St. Paul refers: the crucifixion of Jesus.  Isaac becomes a prefigurement of Jesus: he carries the wood for his own sacrifice; he willingly lays down upon the wood to be sacrificed.  But, instead of an angel appearing at the last minute to stop Abraham from killing his own son, God the Father allows Jesus to die.  The scourges fall on Jesus’ back; the nails pierce through Jesus’ hands and feet; the spear punctures Jesus’ side.  There is no ram to take Jesus’ place.  Jesus Himself, the only Son of God, the Beloved, dies, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world.  The hero of the disciples dies, as an unexpected twist in the plot of their lives and in salvation history (at least from our point of view).  

With such drastic suffering that the disciples were going to experience in watching their master be arrested, scourged, and put to death by evil men, God did not want the disciples to be without hope.  And that’s where the Gospel comes in today.  God gives the disciples a preview of the end of the movie: the Resurrection and Ascension as Jesus is transfigured before their eyes.  Peter, James, and John get a preview of the heavenly life and what a glorified body will look like to help carry them through the dark days of the Passion of our Lord.  Of course, they don’t understand that it’s meant to carry them through.  Especially in the Gospel of Mark (by tradition Mark’s source for Jesus’ life was St. Peter) the disciples never seem to understand what’s going on, with a few brief exceptions.  But afterwards, they see how God was preparing them for suffering by seeing a taste of glory.

That preparation is important for us, too.  For many of us, there is suffering in our lives: unemployment; loved ones with diseases; dysfunctional families; a lack of friends.  God doesn’t say to us: deal with it!  He does, sometimes just in fleeting moments, give us a foretaste of the joy that awaits us in heaven.  Mass is supposed to be something of that, as we come together to worship God with precious metals and vestments that remind us of heaven, where we will see God face to face and be embraced by His love and by all those who have been faithful in following Christ.  God gives us the Eucharist to give us strength to make it through suffering, as food for our pilgrimage.  And He shares glory with us in so many other small ways, that we often don’t recognize them until later.  

The same could be said for Lent.  During Lent we focus on suffering: on Jesus’ suffering; on uniting our own suffering and penances to Jesus on the cross.  But it’s not meant to be all suffering.  Even this early, in the second week of Lent, God gives us a foretaste of the glory that comes after suffering through Him, with Him, and in Him.  Lent is not the end of the story.  Jesus’ death is not the end of the story.  God has prepared glory for us, just as He prepared glory for Jesus and raised Him from the dead.  May we recognize the foretastes of glory that God gives to us, so that the joy of Easter carries us through the Good Fridays of our lives.

Spiritual Sicknesses

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Many people, when hearing what the book of Leviticus said today in our first reading, have a very negative view of the rule that was set out when someone had some sort of skin disease.  Many shudder at the idea of a person being ostracized, sent away from the community, because of an illness which, in most cases, was beyond that person’s control.  But, even today there are some illnesses which cause separation from the community.  The community does not want to become infected, and so people are quarantined, or at least told to stay home.  We do not want sickness to be mingled with health.  We need a doctor to heal the person before they can resume their normal duties and be joined once more to the community.

In our Gospel today, Jesus, the Divine Physician, goes right into the middle of that illness to heal that person of their illness and restore them to the community.  Jesus does not condemn the law separating lepers from the greater community.  In fact, He even upholds the law that the leper was supposed to show himself to the priest and offer what Moses prescribed, fulfilling the law.  Jesus cures the man, thus eliminating the separation that the illness created.  Jesus wants to make us whole, and He goes into the very heart of our illness to do so, so that we can once more worship and be united with the community.

Besides physical illnesses, there are also spiritual illnesses.  These illnesses we call sin.  Now, it’s no longer popular for priests to talk about sin.  It’s no longer popular for people to hear about sin.  But it’s a reality in our lives.  It is an illness, and one that can kill our souls!  What kind of a doctor of souls would I be if I didn’t tell you about the current illnesses that are spreading?!?

Just like all illnesses weren’t leprosy and didn’t separate a person from the community, so not all sins separate us from sanctifying grace, the grace which saves us from eternal death.  In the first letter of St. John, we are told, “All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly.”  All sin is bad, but not all sin severs our relationship with God.  These may be sins like gossip, ill-thoughts against another, little white lies, etc.  We should not ignore these and pretend they have no effect on our spiritual health, any more than we should ignore small illnesses.  Sometimes, if not treated, they develop into or make us more susceptible to bigger illnesses.  So certainly we need to deal with them.  One way to deal with them is simply by receiving the Eucharist.  When we receive the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Jesus which saves us from sins, Jesus washes away our venial sins (St. Ignatius of Antioch calls the Eucharist the “medicine of immortality) and strengthens us to not commit those sins again.  Another way is by confessing them in the Sacrament of Penance.  When we confess venial sins, even if they have been previously forgiven through reception of the Eucharist, we are strengthened and receive more grace to avoid sin in the future.

But there are also sins which are deadly.  We also use the term mortal.  Mortal sins are the sins we commit that are gravely wrong (they are grave because they cause spiritual death), we know they are wrong, and we freely choose them anyway.  These sins, like murder, missing Mass on purpose, stealing, major lies, pornography, and unchastity with ourselves or another, etc., deprive us of God’s sanctifying grace, and sever our relationship with God.  We are cut off like the leper in the community.  

And because we are cut off from God, we cannot simply receive the Eucharist, the very Body and Blood of Jesus, and have our sins cleansed.  When we sin mortally, we tell God that we want no part of His rule in our life.  To receive the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin is uniting our sinful state, our deliberate rebellion against God, with God Himself in an act of sacrilege.  St. Paul clearly teaches this in chapter six of his first letter to the Corinthians.  He corrects those who are Christians but who are committing sins of immorality with prostitutes because they are joining prostitution to the Mystical Body of Christ.  St. Paul also says in chapter 10: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons.  You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons.”  He also says in the following chapter, “A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”  For that reason, the Church has held, from the time of the apostles, that no one who is conscience of grave sin is to present himself or herself for the Eucharist.  

But just like in the Gospel, Jesus wants to heal us.  He does not want us to be cut off.  In the Sacrament of Penance, with sorrow for our sins and an amendment to avoid those sins in the future, we cry out like the leper, “‘If you wish, you can make me clean.’”  And through the ministry of the priest and the prayer of absolution, Jesus also says as He did in today’s Gospel, “‘I do will it.  Be made clean.’”  Through the Sacrament of Penance, the ordinary way to have mortal sins forgiven, our rejection of God is healed, and God restores sanctifying grace to us, so that we can live forever.  We are returned not only to spiritual health, like the leper, but are also, like the leper, restored to full worship with the community.  God does not leave us in our sins, but seeks us out to heal us.  But He will not force His healing upon us.  Inspired by His grace, we have to respond and reach out for His help in the Sacrament of Penance.  And God heals us and strengthens us to avoid those sins in the future.  

And we can then proclaim to others how good God is to us!!  We can be like the leper who cannot contain, even though Jesus tells him to, the good news that God has healed us.  What a powerful witness to those who are afflicted with the disease of sin: to know that there’s a medicine which can heal them!  Right now I hear confessions every Saturday from 3:30-4:30 p.m. and by appointment.  What a great blessing it would be if I had to add another hour on a different day of the week to be able to handle all of the people coming to the Lord to be healed, either from small sins or big ones, and restoring those who are mortally ill to full health and the ability to receive the Eucharist.  Don’t doubt the extent of God’s mercy.  Don’t limit the exercise of His healing on your soul.  Celebrate God’s healing in the Sacrament of Penance.  Be made clean!

God Takes On the Life of Job

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

If you came to Mass today looking for a pick-me-up reading, our first reading from the Book of Job was probably not helpful.  We’ve probably all had days like Job, though, thinking that our life is just dragging on and is full of misery.  Remember that at this point, Job has lost almost of all of his material wealth, his children have been killed, and he himself is afflicted with sores.  His wife’s advice in all of this: curse God and die!  Not the loving support you want to hear from your spouse!  Instead, I think in hard times we all would rather that we had someone to sympathize with us; not just someone who feels bad for us, but someone who has gone through the same or similar circumstances.

That is the great news about the Incarnation!  God sees us in our misery, a misery which far surpasses that of Job, but He doesn’t just empathize with us, that is, suffer in us without any idea of what it really means.  Our God takes flesh in the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and comes down to know our pain.  When God takes on our human flesh, not just living in it but truly making it His own, uniting our human nature to His divine nature forever, He takes on our misery, without giving up any of His glory.  

But while He could have avoided the nastiness of our fallen condition, He doesn’t.  In fact, our Gospel reminds us that He went down right into the middle of it all.  He spends time and touches people who are sick “with various diseases.”  He drives out demons.  He even enters into the delicate relationship between a son and his mother-in-law when He goes to the house of Simon Peter.  And, as our Gospel also states, He goes out to preach and to heal and to expel demons in other villages, not just His own.  He takes upon Himself all that it means to be human, but without sinning.  But, though He never sins, He even takes sin upon Himself as He suffers the pain and the penalty of sin.  When we sin, we (hopefully) feel bad enough because we have injured (venial sins) or severed (mortal sins) our relationship with God.  But imagine how much more horrible that must have felt for Jesus Christ, Himself God, to take upon Himself separation from God.  When we think about it, Jesus’ words on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” become even more powerful.  Jesus even shares in our death, the ultimate penalty of sin, as He breathes His last and His body loses the breath of God.

That doesn’t sound like it, but it’s good news.  It sounds horrible that God would have to go through that, and it’s for that reason that people weep when they think about the Passion of Jesus Christ, but it’s really good news.  Our God does not simply empathize with us, but sympathizes with us(which means He suffers with us).  He embraces us as we suffer, and reminds us that He knows the pain that we go through, not as a distant onlooker, but as a participant in our pain.

And that is the good news that St. Paul preaches.  That is the Gospel (which means good news) that St. Paul is obliged to preach, because he wants others to know that they do not suffer alone, and that, after all Jesus’ suffering, new life was won.  That is why St. Paul made himself a slave to all; why he became weak to the weak and all things to all.  St. Paul wants others to know that while life can sometimes seem as miserable as Job, Jesus has passed through pain and death and has transformed it into joy and life.  

Today the Church celebrates World Marriage Day, and next weekend we’ll have a blessing for Married Couples which will coincide with our St. Valentine’s Day Dinner Dance (and the Sunday after).  The call of Catholic married couples is to be a sacrament, a sign instituted by Christ which brings grace.  Too many married couples feel like Job, with life as a drag.  Catholic married couples are meant to show them, through their own living out of the vocation of marriage, that marriage may not be easy, and that sometimes couples might feel like Job, but that Christ has transformed marriage into a way to become holy.  They show it to others by their love for each other.  They show it to a new generation as they conceive and raise children in the faith.  They preach the Gospel by letting Christ sanctify and transform their love for each other so that when others look at them, they see the love of Jesus for His Bride, the Church.  

And we, the Bride, the Church, are not always easy to love, as many married couples sometimes experience.  We, God’s People, are not always faithful to Him; we do not always love Him; we do not always show that love for Him by prayer, spending time with Him, making Him the priority in our life.  And yet, Jesus continues to love us and pour Himself out for us as He sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us.  Married couples: I challenge you to say 1 Our Father with each other each day.  If you do, I promise not that marriage will be easy, but that you will have the strength from heaven to persevere even in the hard times.  High schoolers, college students, and young adults: I challenge you to say 1 Hail Mary each day, asking our Blessed Mother to help show you if you are called to marriage, and if you are called to that beautiful vocation, to show you whom to marry.  For the rest of us, let us pray 1 Glory Be each day for the sanctification of married couples and those discerning a vocation to marriage so that our church, our city, our nation, and our world can be filled with examples of Christ’s love.

Whose Authority?

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Last week I announced that I was going to DJ the St. Valentine’s Day Dinner Dance.  A number of people wondered if I was serious; and though I might get some help, I certainly am!  A number of people asked if the dance was only going to have country music; it won’t.  I do also appreciate other genres of music.  The 9th grade confirmation class asked if I was going to play “All About That Bass,” a current song that is not, despite its title, about a certain register on an instrument or in a voice.  

Musical taste is always a funny thing.  Some people only listen to one kind of music.  Some people listen to many.  Some have genres that they’ll never listen to (like rap or country), while others go back and forth between different styles.  What I love about country music is that, more often than not, the words are profound, funny, or insightful.  What I dislike about many current songs, be they rock, rap, or R&B, is that you can’t even understand the words the artist is singing.  And if you do find out, well, you probably wish you didn’t understand them again.

Music shapes us.  When we listen to a song and we come to know it, it impacts us.  Sometimes the impact is small, especially at the beginning, but it often grows.  When we actually memorize a song, it becomes almost a part of us.  I often chuckle at students who tell me they hate memorizing poems or dates in history, but then can sing me all the words to “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift.  Where do most of the fights occur about the Mass (though not all of them)?  Music.  We hear hymns or other music and they become a part of us.  We are changed by what we listen to.

Moses tells the Jews in the first reading that they need to listen to this prophet that God will send who will be like Moses.  When God wanted to speak to His People at Mount Sinai, he spoke from a cloud, with earthquakes, fire, trumpet blasts, and thunder.  And the people were so scared that they told Moses that they only wanted to hear from God through Moses.  And so at this point in the Book of Deuteronomy in our first reading, Moses promises them another prophet who will also speak for God, to whom they will need to listen.  

Jesus, of course, is the fulfillment of the promise.  Though He is more than a prophet (He’s the Son of God), He speaks for God the Father and reveals God the Father by all He says and does.  And He is not scary (at least not at most times, though Peter, James, and John do find wonder and awe in the presence of God at the Transfiguration), and God speaks through Jesus: just what the people wanted.  And the people recognize that Jesus is speaking with authority, unlike the scribes.  Even the demons obey the words of Jesus; even they recognize His authority. To have authority, one must be the author.  Our English word “authority” even includes the word “author.”  Jesus speaks with authority because He is the Author of everything; He is the Author of Life; He created the world. 

To what or to whom to we listen?  To what or to whom do we give authority?  There are all kinds of businesses, groups, and persons that want us to listen to them and to recognize authority in them.  How easily we can buy into the lie that if we don’t have the newest phone we won’t be happy?  How much would Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC love us to base our life on their reporting?  How much would the New York Times or the Washington Post love us to view the world through their lens?  How much do certain TV shows or songs try to convince us that what they say is right is right?  There’s nothing wrong with buying a new phone, or watching cable news, or reading newspapers, or even watching certain TV shows or listening to songs in and of themselves.  But some of them (more and more I would suggest) are trying to change our life.  They are trying to claim what only belongs to Jesus: the authority of obedience.

Is it a wonder that so many people think sexual acts outside of marriage are not wrong?  We see it (even if not graphically) on primetime television and in popular music.  Is it a wonder than women are treated simply as toys to entertain?  So many movies, shows, and songs treat women as if their only purpose in life is to satisfy the libido of men.  But the more we listen to the world, and the less we listen to Jesus, the more our problems will increase.  Because Hollywood, the media, artists, and businesses don’t care about our ultimate happiness.  They may want to do more than just make money, but I can assure you that Apple, Clint Eastwood, and Taylor Swift don’t truly care about me.  They can’t because they don’t know me.  Jesus cares about me.  He wants me to be happy and be fulfilled.  He knows me, even better than I know myself.  He knows me because He created me, and sustains me in love.  And He invites me to listen to Him, to acknowledge His authority, because He is my Author, and wants to have me with Him forever in heaven, enveloped in love.  But I have to listen to Him.

I enjoy listening to music.  I enjoy watching movies and TV.  But I have to guard my ears and my eyes to make sure that I am not giving more authority to music and shows than I give to Jesus in determining the direction of my life.  To whom do we listen?  Whose authority do we recognize?