Patience is a Virtue

Fourth Sunday of Advent

One of the most frequently confessed sins, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a male or female, child or adult, is impatience.  Perhaps it’s more prevalent now because technology has made it so that we get most things at the click of a mouse in a few seconds.  If we want to know the weather, we open up our weather app or click on our favorite weather page.  If we want to know what’s happening in the US or around the world, we go to CNN or Fox News or whatever news app or webpage or television station that we prefer.  We are the drive-thru culture that wants everything our way and we want it immediately.  We’re can be a lot like Veruca Salt from the original “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” with Gene Wilder constantly saying, or at least thinking, “I want it now!”  And certainly I’m not immune to these temptations to be impatient.

But God, more often than not, operates with patience.  Take for example that our first reading from Micah, where it was prophesied that the ruler of Israel would come from Bethlehem, was written 800 years before the birth of Christ.  If you think you waited a long time for your Big Mac, imagine waiting 800 years!  

From before time began, God the Father knew that He would send His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, to take flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  But He waited for the perfect time.  We hear that on Christmas Eve at our Mass at night (7:30 p.m.) in the proclamation of the Nativity of  Our Lord Jesus Christ from the Roman Martyrology: “when ages beyond number had run their course from the creation of the world,…when century upon century had passed since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood,…in the twenty-first century since Abraham…came out of Ur of the Chaldees; in the thirteenth century since the People of Israel were led by Moses in the Exodus from Egypt; around the thousandth year since David was anointed King.”  So much waiting!!  

In the face of such waiting we can give up hope.  We can forget that God will fulfill His promises.  The Blessed Virgin Mary is praised in our Gospel today by St. Elizabeth because she “believed that what was spoken…by the Lord would be fulfilled.”  Mary was patient herself, but Mary as the type and image of the Church was patient as she waited through all of those millennia and centuries for Her Messiah to come.  

We, too, are invited to wait for to fulfillment of all time, when Christ will return.  Perhaps we have lost hope that it will happen.  Perhaps we don’t even think that it will happen.  But, at the right time, in God’s time, everything will be subjected to Christ, and God’s Kingdom will be all in all.  But it cannot be forced; it cannot be rushed.  One of the popular Advent and Christmas hymns is “Lo! How a Rose ere Blooming.”  Just as with Jesus’ Nativity in the flesh, so with Jesus’ second coming: like a rose, it cannot be forced open.  The seed must die in the ground first, and then ever-so-slowly rise up through the ground; and then the bud must come forth from the stem, and then the bud start to blossom.  You cannot force a rose to bloom without ruining the rose.  So we cannot rush God to fulfill His promises.  We simply wait in joyful hope that what was spoken to us by the Lord will be fulfilled.  

Patience is a virtue.  I’m sure we’ve all heard that from our mother, grandmother, religious sister, or someone.  A virtue is an acquired habit that has become second nature.  The only way we acquire that habit of virtue is by doing acts of patience.  In these last days before Christmas, the temptation will be to practice impatience in trying to finish last-minute shopping; traveling to see friends and family; waiting to open presents; and so many more ways.  May the Holy Spirit fill us with His grace so that we can be like Mary, the perfect image of the Church, who waited patiently for the Messiah to come and God to become man, as we wait for the fulfillment of the promise that Jesus made before He ascended into heaven: that he would return.  The Kingdom of God is not an app nor is it a drive-thru.  To experience its fullness, we must be patient.  Lord, make us patient people.

Getting Lost

Third Sunday of Advent

When I was younger, I would go camping with my family during the summer.  One weekend during the summer was our family camping weekend, which included my grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins.  One such family camping weekend, when I was in 5th or 6th grade, I decided to go exploring with one of my sisters and two of my cousins.  We were having a grand old time, wandering around, until we realized we were lost.  After the original panic of not knowing what to do, one of my cousins and my sister decided that they were going to try and find their way back by retracing their steps.  I was pretty sure I had no idea how we had arrived at our location, so I decided to try to find another section of the State Campground, and then walk back to our site, following the numbers.  We both eventually made it back, each with our own stories of how we made it.

Today the Church invites us to rejoice.  She does so because we are more than halfway to our celebration of Christmas.  But we also rejoice because of the Good News of the Incarnation.  We rejoice because God was made flesh in order to save us from our sins.  But, in order to rejoice, we have to recognize that we are sinners.  We all get lost.

A savior is only helpful when someone needs saving.  You don’t rejoice at a lifeguard swimming out to get you when you just taking it easy, floating in your inner tube on the lazy river.  You rejoice at a lifeguard when you’re drowning.  Many soldiers celebrated General Patton pushing through in the forest of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, but not Easy Company of the 101st Airborne, because, while they were surrounded by Nazi troops and running out of supplies, they claimed they didn’t need Patton to save them.  We only rejoice at Jesus’ coming, at the true meaning of Christmas, when we recognize that we need to be saved.  Otherwise it’s just another day off from work.

To sin is to be lost.  The Greek word for sin, 𝛼𝜇𝛼𝜌𝜏𝜄𝛼, means to miss the mark.  It has the connotation of an arrow being off-course from hitting the bulls-eye.  Whenever we sin, we go off target.  We get lost, and we need to find our way back to the right path.  The problem is, only Jesus gets us truly back to the right path to God.  We can never do it by ourselves.  

The worst thing, when you’re lost, is not recognizing that you’re lost.  How many times have wives asked their husbands to stop and ask for directions, while the husband assured the wife he knew where he was going, only to end up farther away than ever 30 minutes later when he finally recognized he was lost and needed to ask for help.  We can tend not to take sin so seriously, perhaps an over reaction to decades long gone where we gave sin more power and influence than it truly had.  So many people figure that if they’re not Hitler or Stalin, then they’re doing ok.  They’re just skipping Mass; they’re just lying occasionally; they’re just taking small supplies from the company; they’re just looking at porn by themselves; it’s not like they’re murdering anyone.  Murder is certainly missing the mark.  But so are all those other things.  

The Jews knew they were in need of a savior.  That’s why the crowds asked St. John the Baptist in today’s Gospel passage, “‘What should we do?’”  St. John the Baptist didn’t say, “You’re not that bad, so don’t worry about it.”  He gave them all practical things that they could do to repent, to turn away from their sins, and prepare for the Messiah to reveal Himself.  St. John the Baptist told the people they were lost, so that they could rejoice when the one who was going to lead them back to the right path would appear.

Zephaniah also connects rejoicing and being saved in our first reading.  Zion is encouraged to shout for joy, and Israel exhorted to sing joyfully, and Jerusalem told to be glad and exult because “The Lord has removed the judgment against you.”  The joy that God is granting is one based upon being freed from sin.  Instead of judgment and the penalty falling upon the guilty, God takes it upon Himself, and restores us to right relationship with Him.  God does what we could not do, and that is certainly a reason to rejoice.

In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, Jesus invites us to receive the greatest gift He gave us: the gift of chesed, the Hebrew word which means steadfast love and mercy.  But we can only receive it if we are aware that we need it.  We are dirty; we are in need of the shower of God’s mercy.  But until we recognize that we have sinned and are in need of God’s mercy, it’s like we take an umbrella into the shower with us, to prevent us from getting wet.  Pretty rediculous, right?  

Brothers and sisters, we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  But the Good News is that God has come to save us, and in less than two weeks, we will celebrate when that Good News of the Incarnation became known to the world through the birth of Jesus.  That is truly a reason to rejoice.

"Merciful like the Father"

For my homily on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, I read a selection of the Bull Misericordiae Vultus, by which Pope Francis established the Jubilee Year of Mercy.  The selections I read are given below.  I highly encourage everyone to read the entire text.

1. Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him. The Father, “rich in mercy” (Eph 2:4), after having revealed his name to Moses as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6), has never ceased to show, in various ways throughout history, his divine nature. In the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), when everything had been arranged according to his plan of salvation, he sent his only Son into the world, born of the Virgin Mary, to reveal his love for us in a definitive way. Whoever sees Jesus sees the Father (cf. Jn 14:9). Jesus of Nazareth, by his words, his actions, and his entire person reveals the mercy of God.

[3.]  This liturgical feast day recalls God’s action from the very beginning of the history of mankind. After the sin of Adam and Eve, God did not wish to leave humanity alone in the throes of evil. And so he turned his gaze to Mary, holy and immaculate in love (cf. Eph 1:4), choosing her to be the Mother of man’s Redeemer. When faced with the gravity of sin, God responds with the fullness of mercy. Mercy will always be greater than any sin, and no one can place limits on the love of God who is ever ready to forgive.

9. In the parables devoted to mercy, Jesus reveals the nature of God as that of a Father who never gives up until he has forgiven the wrong and overcome rejection with compassion and mercy. We know these parables well, three in particular: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the father with two sons (cf. Lk 15:1-32). In these parables, God is always presented as full of joy, especially when he pardons. In them we find the core of the Gospel and of our faith, because mercy is presented as a force that overcomes everything, filling the heart with love and bringing consolation through pardon.

[…] At times how hard it seems to forgive! And yet pardon is the instrument placed into our fragile hands to attain serenity of heart. To let go of anger, wrath, violence, and revenge are necessary conditions to living joyfully. Let us therefore heed the Apostle’s exhortation: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph 4:26). Above all, let us listen to the words of Jesus who made mercy an ideal of life and a criterion for the credibility of our faith: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Mt 5:7): the beatitude to which we should particularly aspire in this Holy Year.

13. We want to live this Jubilee Year in light of the Lord’s words: Merciful like the Father. The Evangelist reminds us of the teaching of Jesus who says, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). It is a programme of life as demanding as it is rich with joy and peace. Jesus’s command is directed to anyone willing to listen to his voice (cf. Lk 6:27). In order to be capable of mercy, therefore, we must first of all dispose ourselves to listen to the Word of God. This means rediscovering the value of silence in order to meditate on the Word that comes to us. In this way, it will be possible to contemplate God’s mercy and adopt it as our lifestyle.

[15]  It is my burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty. And let us enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy. Jesus introduces us to these works of mercy in his preaching so that we can know whether or not we are living as his disciples. Let us rediscover these corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And let us not forget the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the afflicted, forgive offences, bear patiently those who do us ill, and pray for the living and the dead.

24. My thoughts now turn to the Mother of Mercy. May the sweetness of her countenance watch over us in this Holy Year, so that all of us may rediscover the joy of God’s tenderness. No one has penetrated the profound mystery of the incarnation like Mary. Her entire life was patterned after the presence of mercy made flesh. The Mother of the Crucified and Risen One has entered the sanctuary of divine mercy because she participated intimately in the mystery of His love.

Chosen to be the Mother of the Son of God, Mary, from the outset, was prepared by the love of God to be the Ark of the Covenant between God and man. She treasured divine mercy in her heart in perfect harmony with her Son Jesus. Her hymn of praise, sung at the threshold of the home of Elizabeth, was dedicated to the mercy of God which extends from “generation to generation” (Lk 1:50). We too were included in those prophetic words of the Virgin Mary. This will be a source of comfort and strength to us as we cross the threshold of the Holy Year to experience the fruits of divine mercy.

At the foot of the Cross, Mary, together with John, the disciple of love, witnessed the words of forgiveness spoken by Jesus. This supreme expression of mercy towards those who crucified him show us the point to which the mercy of God can reach. Mary attests that the mercy of the Son of God knows no bounds and extends to everyone, without exception. Let us address her in the words of the Salve Regina, a prayer ever ancient and ever new, so that she may never tire of turning her merciful eyes upon us, and make us worthy to contemplate the face of mercy, her Son Jesus.

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 11 April, the Vigil of the Second Sunday of Easter, or the Sunday of Divine Mercy, in the year of our Lord 2015, the third of my Pontificate.

FRANCISCUS

Planning for Christmas

Second Sunday of Advent

I am a planner.  Some of you may know that already.  My close friends certainly know that.  I have been known to call friends and see if they want to go on vacation…ten to eleven months before I am planning to leave.  There are a few of my friends who are not planners at all.  And it drives them up a wall to no end when I try to arrange times to get together with them.  They would much rather see if something will work a week out.  Of course, my calendar has a tendency to fill up, so planning something a week out usually means it won’t happen because I’ve already committed to something else…because I’m a planner.

St. John the Baptist may or may not have been a planner.  But we heard today about how he was trying to prepare Israel for the Messiah by preaching in the desert and saying, “‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’”  He was getting them ready for the day when Israel could take off its robe “of mourning and misery” and “put on the splendor of glory from God” as we heard in our first reading.  St. John the Baptist was trying to help them plan for the day when God would clothe them in the righteousness of God, a royal priesthood.  This was not something which the Chosen People could simply fall into or start working on a week ahead of time.  St. John the Baptist was helping the Chosen People prepare to meet their new king.  

How have we been preparing for the celebration when we will meet Jesus Christ the King?  For four weeks the Church gives us the chance to plan for Christmas: not for the parties; not for the decorations; not for the presents; but for the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.  She does not simply tell us one week ahead of time, “Hey, you doing anything 25 December?  We should hang out at Church; I hear it’s going to be a big celebration.”  Instead, she asks us to watch in joyful hope for the coming of our savior, Jesus Christ.  One week out would not give us enough time to prepare.  We need four weeks (and even that doesn’t quite seem long enough) to be ready to celebrate.

And what are we celebrating?  We are celebrating a paradox.  We celebrate that the God who created Time and who guides it according to His will, became subject to Time in the Person of Jesus.  We celebrate that God, Whom the heavens and the earth cannot contain, suddenly was seen as a little infant who took up space and could be located in one place and not another.  But this story, though 2,000 years removed from us today, happened in a particular time.  And that is hat St. Luke also tries to convey to us.  The Birth of Jesus did not happen long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.  It happened sometime before the “fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee…during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.”  God, the Lord of History, in the Person of Jesus became a subject of History as well.  Jesus is not a made-up story, like the Greek or other Middle-Eastern stories about the gods.  Jesus was seen, heard, touched by many people, who spread that Good News to others.

Have we planned enough for Christmas?  Not for the parties, the decorations, or the presents, but to celebrate what Christmas is truly about: God loved us so much that in the Person of Jesus He became man and dwelt among us.  Has the message of St. John the Baptist taken root in our hearts?  Have we prepared the way of the Lord?

Country Club of Heaven

First Sunday of Advent

Ever since 24 June, the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist, there has been less and less daylight in our part of the world.  That changes right around 25 December, the Solemnity of the Birth of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.  But until we get there, it’s dark.  And with daylight saving’s time having ended, it gets dark pretty early.  Today the sunset around 5:05 p.m.  Even though 5 p.m. is not late at all, with the early darkness, it just seems gloomy, especially with the usual Michigan winter cloudiness.

In the midst of this gloom, we can long for the long, warm days of summer, when all was bright and the sun was out until 9 p.m. or even later!  But it can be hard to think that those days will ever be here again when its dark so early, and certainly not as warm (though it is a warm weekend!).  

We get a sense through our weather of what the Jews were going through as Jeremiah was prophesying.  At this point in the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, the city is under siege by the Babylonians, who are about to take Jerusalem.  This will be the beginning of the Babylonian Exile, which exiles most of the Jews from Judah and Jerusalem until 587 B.C.  Those days were certainly dark, and not because of daylight saving’s time!  

In the midst of that darkness, Jeremiah speaks for the Lord a word of hope: “I will raise up for David a just shoot;…In those days Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem shall dwell secure.”  God promises that the dark days will not last forever.  He will give them new life, and a new king from the line of David, the idyllic king, who will be just.  Judah and Jerusalem shall not be besieged, but shall be safe and secure.

Jesus’ words in the Gospel do not sound so calming and hopeful.  Jesus is speaking to His disciples just before His Passion, and is warning them about the end times.  They will be so horrible that people will die of fright simply anticipating what will happen.  “‘But,’” as Jesus says, “‘when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.’”  For Jesus disciples, who are following Him and His will, the terror of the end is like the birth pangs which bring about new life.  So, maybe we can breathe a sigh of relief.  After all, we are Jesus’ disciples, and we have nothing to worry about.  We go to Mass each Sunday, so we’re good.  Right?

Well, Jesus’ next words should give us a little more trepidation.  Jesus warns His disciples not to become lax so that the end catches us off-guard.  And he tells His disciples to be vigilant “‘and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.’”  

Being baptized and attending Mass each Sunday and Holyday is a big deal.  It shows at least a minimal attachment to Jesus and a desire to work at our relationship with Him.  But baptism is not a membership card in the Heavenly Country Club.  It’s not like if we sign up to join (baptism) and pay our weekly dues (going to Mass) that Jesus has to let us in.  Being a disciple of Jesus is not about going through the motions.  Being Catholic is not about the rules.  Being a Catholic and a disciple of Jesus is about growing in our friendship with Jesus and making our lives more like His.  That is the sign that we have accepted God’s friendship, which is offered to all, and that we are going in our friendship with Jesus.  We cannot rest on the laurels of our past good deeds.  We are never at a point in our relationship with Jesus where we can say, “I’ve done enough; I can just coast from here on out.”  Imagine if you treated your friends that way: “I’ve spent enough time with you for a while.  I’ll see you sometime in June.”  You probably wouldn’t be good friends.  Or imagine if you treated your spouse that way (so many saints and even Jesus talk about our relationship in marriage/wedding terms): “I spent every day with you so far in 2015; I’m going to live with someone else for December, but I’ll see you again in January.”  I’m sure that marriage wouldn’t last long.  

St. Paul encourages us to conduct ourselves in a particular way, as friends of Jesus.  We see that in the love that we share with others, but especially in the love we have for God, which overflows into our love for others.  As Pope Benedict said in his Encyclical, Deus caritas est: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”  If we love God, then we don’t simply go through the motions of the sacramental life of the Church and weekly Mass attendance, but we allow those sacraments and the Mass to propel us in loving God and our neighbor in daily life, that is to say, in growing as friends of Jesus.  

Things may seem dark during this time of year.  Things may seem dark in our lives at other times.  But God has a vision of hope for us: the hope of new life in growing in our relationship with Jesus.  That relationship gives us the true Light, Jesus Christ, and prepares us for the unending Day of the Lord in heaven when Jesus returns.

Dona Nobis Pacem

***Please Note: This Homily was given off-the-cuff,

and the text below represents my best attempt to reconstruct what was said***

        This past week as I was looking over the readings for this Sunday, and praying on what the Lord wanted me to preach on, I was led to talk about the end of the world and the end of our life, and how we view death, either as a thief who steals our life, or as a messenger who announces to us the news that the Bridegroom of our souls is ready to greet us at the end of our life.
        But as I turned on the news on Friday afternoon, and learned what all of you have since learned through the television, newspaper, or radio, about the terrorist attacks by ISIS in Paris and Beirut, as well as the martyring of 147 Christians in Kenya by El Shabab, the homily I wrote didn't seem as fitting.
        When horrible events like the ones we have heard or read about around the world this weekend, we can feel helpless and wonder what we can do in the face of such hatred and violence.  It seems so overwhelming, and we feel so small.  But we are not helpless, and there are ways that we can respond to these tragedies.
        The first thing that we can do is to affirm that God never, ever asks a person to do violence in His Name.  Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict, and Pope Francis have all reaffirmed recently that such acts are contrary to God's nature, and God would never invite a person to do violence in His Name.  In Jesus, God revealed that He is Love, and that He would rather die for our sins than have us suffer any violence due to sin.
        The second thing we can do is pray for peace and justice.  We have come together to pray today.  Our Mass prayers today are from the Mass for the Preservation of Peace and Justice.  So we come together at this Mass and we ask God to give us peace: the peace of Christ which is His Easter gift; the peace of God which is not the mere cessation of violence, but which is wholeness.  We come together at this Mass to pray for justice, because injustice is so often the cause of violence and terror.  We pray that God will give us His peace and His justice.
        The third thing that we can do to work against evil is to be people of peace and justice.  If we wish to have peace in our world, we must be peaceful people.  When we are people of peace in our families, with friends, in our workplace, on the road, and with everyone we meet, God's peace spreads to those people, who can spread it to those they know, and so peace spreads.  Peace, like love, is diffusive: it seeks to spread itself.  If we wish to have justice in our world, then we must be people of justice, people who give others the respect and dignity that they deserve as human beings created in the image and likeness of God.  When we are people of justice in our families, with friends, in our workplace, on the road, and with everyone we meet, God's justice spreads.
        In the face of such horrific attacks, we can feel like there is nothing that we can do.  But we can respond by praying for peace and justice, and working for peace in justice in our own life.  In those ways, we will promote peace in our communities and in our world.

A Leap from the Lion's Head

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Early in our pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2017 we are traveling to Petra in Jordan (sign-up on our webpage if you’re interested!).  Petra is the place where the final scenes in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” were filmed, that building that seemed to be carved into rocks.  Yes, it’s real (at least the outside is).  If you remember, in the movie, Indiana, has to face three trials before he can reach the chamber with the Holy Grail, and to do so he uses three clues.  In the first trial, he kneels, as “only the penitent man will pass.”  The second trial deals with the Name of God, which is very inaccurate because the Name Jehovah was not used until much later and is a German invention based upon the Tetragrammaton, the sacred Name of God in the Old Testament.  In the third and final trial to get to the grail chamber, Indiana is faced with a deep chasm, too wide to jump across, but which must be crossed.  His clue is: “only by a leap from the lion’s head will he prove his worth.”  As Indiana says, “It’s a leap of faith.”  I won’t spoil the rest of the movie for you.

Our readings present us with a challenge of faith, not to seek the Holy Grail, but to grow in our relationship with Jesus and be prepared for heaven.  Our first reading and Gospel in particular give us examples of faith to encourage us to have faith.

In the first reading, the widow of Zarephath and her son are about to run out of food because of the famine that God has sent upon the Land.  God sends Elijah to the widow for water and bread.  We hear this story, and we know the end, so of course we know it’s going to work out.  But for the widow, who had no idea, and who was not even a Jew, Elijah’s request must have been horribly painful: “‘Please bring along a bit of bread.’”  She has only a little bit of oil and flour, and after she makes a cake, she and her son will have nothing left, and they will die from starvation.  But Elijah promises her that she and her son will have food enough until the rains return and she is able to get more food.  She complies, and they have flour and oil enough for a year.  Again, we know the ending, so we easily gloss over it.  But imagine that you had only one pack of ramen noodles left for you and your child, and someone who claimed to speak for God, but belonged to a different religion, asked to share that one pack with you, all the while promising that you would have enough.  Would you have shared?  I know we all want to think that we would, but would we truly have faith to share?

Or the poor widow who gave her two small coins to the temple treasury to pay for the upkeep of the temple.  She gave all that she had, even though it was a little bit of money.  As a widow, she had no one to plead her cause, no one to provide her with food, and no one to protect her.  But she had faith that God would provide, and so she offered God what little she had.  Jesus commends that faith in the Gospel passage we heard from today, and makes her the example, though we don’t even know if she knew Jesus, had faith in Him, or ever encountered Him.

Faith is easy when our bellies are full.  Faith is easy when we feel like we have enough to make ends meet.  Faith is much harder when we have nothing and no one to rely on but God.  That happens with all too many people who lack food and drink.  That happens to all too many people who have no money even though they have tried to work and save.  But it is not limited to our bellies and our pocketbooks.  Whenever we feel like the rug has been pulled out from under us, it is hard to have faith.  But that’s when we find out how strong our faith is.  That’s when we find out in what or in whom we really do put our trust.

Some priests on this weekend will preach about money, and donating to the Church, just like the widows did with Elijah and in the Temple.  This is not that homily.  I’m not asking you to give more money, because, as you seen from our bulletin updates, you are already being generous, and I thank you for that generosity.  But I will ask you to give something much more precious than your money to God.  The gift of money sometimes is the sign of the gift that God truly wants, but not always.  God wants your heart, and he’s asking you to make a leap of faith, to trust in Him, and to give Him your love.

When we truly love someone, they become the focus of our attention, and we rearrange our lives around that person.  Parents take off work, and maybe even lose their jobs because they love their children who are sick or in danger.  Do we love God more than that?  Do we love God enough to make our relationship with Him the number one priority in our life?  Not: I’ve got a million things to do this weekend, so hopefully I make it to Mass; not: my bed’s so warm, I’ll sleep a little longer and skip my daily prayers; not: I know our St. Vincent de Paul Society or Knights of Columbus or CCW could use some help, but I’ll do that next month when I have more time.  Instead: Mass is the first thing I plan on the weekend, and everything else fits around that; or: I’m tired, but God loves to hear even my tired prayers; or: how can I serve others with my time?

It takes a leap of faith to make God the number one priority in our lives.  It can be scary.  God can sometimes take us places we never expected to go.  But a relationship with Jesus requires faith: faith like the widow from Zarephath had; faith like the poor widow in the Temple had.  Lord, we want to have faith in you; help us have faith in you more.

The Saints–The Heroes of our Catholic Family

Solemnity of All Saints

A few weeks ago I visited my maternal grandmother.  Her sister, my great-aunt Hilda, just moved from a house she had lived in with my great-grandfather since the 80s.  Of course, there were a lot of things that had to be sorted through when my Aunt Hilda was moving.  One of the things she found was mementos from some of my grandmother’s uncles from when the family was still in Belgium.  When I visited, my grandmother showed me the holy card that was made for her uncle Jules who died in World War I, shortly before the fighting stopped.

When older families members move or die, and we start cleaning out old houses, we can often find family treasures that we might not have even known existed.  Stories are told from one generation to the next about the heroes in our family who did, at least in our family’s estimation, great things.

Today we remember all of the heroes of our Catholic family.  Some of them have been canonized and are celebrated in Catholic churches at Mass around the world.  Others are saints who are in heaven, which is known only to God.  This is so often the case with family members, or particularly holy people we know: we know people who lived holy lives, but whom the church does not canonize because there’s no widespread devotion to them by others.  Today, on the Solemnity of All Saints, we celebrate the people who lived as disciples of Jesus, making Jesus their number one priority, even when it meant giving up other good things.

Jesus gives us the blueprint for how to do that in the Gospel today.  In teaching us the Beatitudes, Jesus teaches us how to be blessed, how to be holy.  We are called to be poor in spirit–to depend on God; to mourn for the sin that still exists in the world; to be meek and not seek after power and glory on earth; to work with all of who we are for justice; to show mercy and forgive; to dedicate our minds and our bodies to the Lord in living a chaste life; to work for peace by living in justice; and even to be persecuted for Jesus and His truth.  But I think that we hear this Gospel so often, that we can forget exactly what that looks like.  So I want to share with you two stories of our Catholic family heroes that hopefully will show you what that can look like.  Having said that, holiness looks a little different for everybody, because how we follow God is as unique as we.  But it always means living according to God’s plan for our life, and living as a disciple of Jesus, following His way, His truth, so as to receive His life.

The first heroes of our Catholic family that I will highlight today are Sts. Louis and Marie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.  They were canonized on October 18, just 2 weeks ago, and were the first married couple canonized on the same day.  Louis and Marie were a middle-class, French couple, who had nine children, though four died at an early age.  They went to daily Mass, made frequent confessions, and lived the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  They tried to share their financial resources for the spreading of the faith, including donating money to build a seminary in Canada, though they lived in France.  They liked to go on walks, go fishing, and travel, when possible.  In 1877, at about the age of 45, Marie died from breast cancer, and left Louis with five daughters, the youngest of whom, Thérèse, was four and a half years old.  Louis later suffered his own illnesses, and died in 1894, at the age of 70.  In many ways, Louis and Marie lived out what St. Thérèse described as doing little things for God with great love.  There was very little extraordinary in their lives, but they lived it for God.

Another hero of our Catholic Family is Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati.  He was born in Turin, Italy in 1901.  His mother was a painter, and his father was the founder and director of the Italian newspaper, La Stampa, who also became an Italian Senator and Ambassador to Germany.  Pier Giorgio went to Mass frequently, and had a strong devotion to the Eucharist and to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  He joined the St. Vincent de Paul society at the age of 17, and spent much of his time serving the sick and the needy, orphans, and injured soldiers from World War I.  While his family was quite wealthy, he spent his money for the poor, without his parents’ knowledge.  He loved mountain climbing, art, and music.  He was a Third Order Dominican, and worked ardently against Fascism in the political sphere.  Pier Giorgio contracted polio (probably from the sick with whom he spent so much time), and died at the age of 24 in 1925.  The night before he died, he wrote a note, asking his friend to take medicine to a poor, sick man he had been visiting.  At his funeral, the streets of the city were lined with many mourners who were unknown to his family–the poor and needy with whom Pier Giorgio spent so much of his time.  The poor and needy had no idea that Pier Giorgio was the heir of a wealthy, famous family.

Those are just two stories of our saints.  Yes, we have a lot of saints who are priests and consecrated men and women (nuns, monks, sisters, and brothers), but here are two who are lay people, like yourselves.  They didn’t do grandiose things, but did small things they could for God.  Their spiritual lives were not overly complicated: go to Mass, confess their sins, and serve the poor.  God is inviting each one of us to be saints right here, right now, in Adrian.  It’s not complicated: love God with all of who you are and love your neighbor as yourself.  God wants you to be a saint so that you can be truly happy.  Will you deny His desire for your life?

Why is there Suffering?

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

In my five years as a priest, I’ve had a lot of questions, both from children and adults.  The questions kids ask sometimes seem silly, but show real engagement with what the Church teaches: Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?; Where is heaven?  Sometimes they’re come more from movies and TV shows.  Around this time of year with Halloween around the corner I often hear: Have you ever seen an exorcism?; Is it hard to get possessed?  After five years, I’ve heard probably every question asked in one way or another.  And most questions I can answer without any relative problem.  But there’s one question, asked by both kids and adults, that is tough to answer: why do bad things happen to good people?  In essence, the question is: why is there suffering in the world?

It’s not an easy question to answer.  And the answer that people often desire is an answer which will make the pain of suffering go away.  We can talk about different types of suffering: there is natural suffering that comes from the way the world was created, like hurricanes, tornadoes, etc., which is just part of the way that the world continues its natural processes.  We can talk about moral evil, about someone experiencing pain because of another person, that is much harder to answer.  We can look back to the story of the Fall, when humanity in Adam chose to sin and disobey God, and how we are all affected by that choice, but that answer doesn’t really satisfy.

When children have to bury their parent at a young age; when a parent has to bury a child at any age; when a loved-one succumbs to the ravages of alzheimer’s and no longer recognizes anyone; when an employer or manager has to lay off employees simply to keep the company solvent; when you’re the employee that was laid off and you don’t know how you will make ends meet for you and your family; when a parent or parents have to make a decision that upsets children in such a way that the relationship is damaged, but which is in the best interest for the children; those are all experiences of suffering that a lot of theology about Original Sin and fallen humanity doesn’t quite take away the pain.  One of my most difficult moments as a priest was trying to comfort a family after the father, Shaye Ramont, died from multiple fights with cancer at the age of 50, and left behind a widow and 6 children that I knew, the oldest of which was in high school and the youngest of which were twins in elementary school.  At that moment, no theological gymnastics could take away the pain that the Ramont family was experiencing.  All I could do was just hug them, love them, and pray for them.  

So it seems like suffering has no answer.  And that doesn’t sound like very good news.  But our readings, the Word of God, give us the good news today, and, while they don’t answer the question of why bad things happen to good people, they do give us comfort.  The Prophet Isaiah today speaks of a suffering servant, whom the Lord is pleased to crush in infirmity, but who, through suffering, justifies many and bears their guilt.  The suffering servant is Jesus, who gave “his life as an offering for sin.”  While Isaiah looked in the future to prophesy the suffering servant, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews looks back at Jesus, and preaches Him as “a high priest” who is able “to sympathize with our weaknesses, [and] who has been similarly tested in every way, yet without sin.”  Jesus knows us, not just in an etherial sense, but in His humanity Jesus suffered and understood what suffering was.  Jesus had to bury His foster-father, St. Joseph; He saw real agony at the funeral of the only son of a widow; He experienced the death of one of His best friends, Lazarus; He was betrayed and abandoned by His best friends and followers; He was rejected by the very people He came to help; and He experienced the physical pain of the crucifixion, as well as the emotional pain of having to watch His own mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, watch Him die in a most agonizing way.

The good news is that our God, in the person of Jesus, took upon Himself all our suffering, and experienced it throughout His earthly life.  Sometimes the hardest thing about suffering is that we feel alone.  No matter who else has gone through similar circumstances, there is a realization that no one else knows exactly what we’re going through, and that isolation adds to the pain of the already painful situation.  But Jesus does know.  Jesus walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, and never abandons us.  Our God loved us enough to sacrifice His Only-Begotten Son so that we would not be alone in suffering, but could always have someone to suffer with.  That is how Jesus came for us: not to be served but to serve, and to give His life for us so that we would not be alone precisely when we feel the most alone: in our suffering.

Whatever our suffering, we can unite it to Jesus on the cross.  We can allow Jesus to walk with us in our suffering so that we are not alone.  It is not an answer to the problem of bad things happening to good people, but it is a consolation to know that whatever our suffering, we are not alone.  Whatever pain you are undergoing at this time, or whatever pain you will undergo in the future, never be afraid to turn to Jesus and say, “Jesus, please walk with me during this time of pain and suffering.  Unite my suffering with yours on the cross.  Help me to know that I’m not alone, but that you suffer with me.”  Amen.

"Rebuild My Church"

Solemnity of the Dedication of St. Joseph Church

While praying at the Church of San Damiano, Francis of Assisi heard Christ speak to him from a crucifix, saying, “Francis, rebuild my church, which you can see is falling into ruin.”  Francis though that Jesus was speaking to him of the physical structure of the little church, and so he started to rebuild it, stone by stone.  But, gradually, Francis realized that Jesus meant that Francis was to rebuild not a physical structure, but the Church, the living stones of God’s temple.  

I tell that story, not because last week was the day which celebrates St. Francis on 4 October; not because our current supreme pontiff is named Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi.  I tell that story because, on this day on which we celebrate the dedication of this beautiful church, Jesus is asking us to do the same.  

Today, Jesus invites us to be rebuilt into the living stones of God’s temple in heaven.  To be honest, that’s a life-long process.  As Bishop Mengeling so often says, we’re not done yet.  We are not done being formed into those living stones until the day we die, and even then, many of us will likely still be shaped through the purification of Purgatory.  And although today is a day of rejoicing, as we look at the status of the Church, we could easily become depressed.  

While the Diocese of Lansing is doing ok, more priests are retiring or are at retirement age, than we are ordaining.  We need more men to respond to God’s call to follow Jesus as a priest and serve His people, especially through providing the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, which, without priests, we do not have.  More and more families are not putting God as their first priority.  We see this through fewer couples getting married in the Church; fewer baptisms; fewer people attending Mass or practicing their faith in any way, shape, or form.  It leads so many parents and pastors to ask, “What did I do wrong?  What more was I supposed to do?”  Fewer and fewer people understand their faith and what the Church teaches.  There is confusion about marriage, about the Eucharist, about sin, even about who Jesus is and the necessity of Jesus and His Mystical Body, the Church, for salvation.  The Church, in so many ways, is in disrepair.  Before this vast undertaking, we can easily ask ourselves a question that St. Francis perhaps asked himself: what I can, an individual, do, to rebuild the Church?  The task is so great!

But Our God is a God of hope, not despair.  And so there is a way to respond to Jesus’ call to each of us to rebuild His Church.  And this divine renovation cannot happen by money; we cannot throw dollars at this problem.  The rebuilding happens with us being shaped into the living stone that God wants us to be.  The plan is the same as it was for St. Francis: become a saint.  That’s all it takes.  We tend to think of the saints as those who did extraordinary things.  And certainly there are some canonized saints who did amazing things.  But as St. Thérèse teaches us, we don’t have to do great things.  God does want us to do little things with great love.  Some God might call to do great things, but let’s all start where we can, by doing little things with great love.

The first way to respond to God’s invitation is to develop a relationship with Him.  Many of us know, at least a little, about Jesus.  But how many of us know Jesus?  You can know a lot about a person without knowing that person  The way that we start to get to know Jesus is not complicated.  Two practices suffice: daily prayer and going to Mass at least every Sunday and Holyday.  Mass is where we encounter God in a most intimate way through the Body and Blood of Jesus.  We receive God into us.  Why do we go to Mass?  Is it because of an obligation?  Is it because we want to hear good music?  Is it because we’re convinced that one of these Sundays Father Anthony is actually going to give a good homily?  Those are all things that might get us into the door, but those reasons won’t keep many of us going to Mass each Sunday and Holyday.  We go to Mass to worship God and to receive God into us.  Going to Mass for any other reason is like going to a football game for the band.  Bands are great!  I love the MSU Marching Band.  But you don’t drop the kind of money you would for a football game just for the band (though some band parents might).  The reason for going to a football game is to watch football.  All the other stuff is extra.  You have received season tickets, worth more money than all the gold in Fort Knox, to a preview of heaven and an encounter with God through sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.  Going to Mass at least every Sunday and Holyday is a great way to start to become a saint.  Now I know that I’m preaching to the choir.  But we all know someone, maybe a friend, maybe a family member, who hasn’t been to Mass in a while.  Invite them to come back home.  Invite them to come to Mass with you.  

Daily prayer is another way to begin to become the saint that God wants us to be.  It is supposed to be the growth from our experience at Mass.  How often do you talk to your colleagues at work?  How often do you talk to your friends?  How often do you talk to your spouse or your children?  If you talk to God less than any of these people, or any others, there’s room for improvement.  The less you think you need to pray, the more you actually do.  And don’t forget to listen.  Conversations are two-way streets.

Those are two simple ways to start becoming the saint that God called each of you to be in baptism.  There are more.  But let’s start with the basics.  Then we can talk about reading Scripture regularly, sharing faith in small groups, going on yearly retreats or to the Women’s or Men’s Conferences.  There’s a lot of disrepair in the church right now.  We can easily despair.  But, if we become saints, in God’s way for us as an individual, just like St. Francis responded to God’s way for him to become a saint as an individual, then God’s church will be rebuilt.  There will be more good news.  And, most importantly, we’ll prepare ourselves to be ready to spend eternity in heaven with God, enveloped by His love with all the other people who were saints and helped to rebuild God’s church.  God is inviting you today: rebuild his Church!