The Other Works of Mercy

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hollywood has recently become very good at remaking movies.  Sometimes the movies are the same basic movies, but sometimes the remakes take a different spin.  Some of the remakes I’ve seen and are quite good, like “True Grit.”  Some are good, but have slightly different story lines, like “Ben Hur.”  Others I have seen and think the original was better, like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”  Sometimes I wonder if people today realize that “Planet of the Apes” originally included Charlton Heston rather than James Franco.

For the past few years we have been talking a lot about mercy, especially during the Jubilee Year for Mercy that Pope Francis proclaimed.  And during that year most people focused (and rightly so) on the Corporal Works of Mercy: feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; shelter the homeless; visit the sick; visit the prisoners; bury the dead; give alms to the poor.  These still remain important parts of our faith.  It’s not like we can stop doing these things because the Jubilee Year for Mercy is over.  

But there are also the spiritual works of mercy, and I wonder how many of us know what they are?  The Spiritual Works of Mercy are: counsel the doubtful; instruct the ignorant; comfort the sorrowful; forgive injuries; bear wrongs patiently; pray for the living and the dead; admonish the sinner.  This last Spiritual Work of Mercy, admonish the sinner, is especially apropos for today’s readings.  

In the first reading, God admonishes the Prophet Ezekiel that he is to warn the wicked of their behavior.  If he doesn’t, then not only shall the wicked die for his or her sin, but also Ezekiel, because he failed to warn that person.  This admonition is also given to priests every year in our spiritual reading.  Because we are shepherds, we have the responsibility to make sure people know how to make good choices (virtue and grace) and how to avoid bad choices (vice and sin).  If we fail to do that, then we will also bear the same punishment as those who make bad choices and sin.  This is why so many of the saints consider the priesthood not a reason to boast, but a reason to fear for the final judgment.  

But admonishing the sinner is not only for priests.  Jesus, in the Gospel, tells his disciples that when someone sins, especially when it’s against you, to tell the person his fault, and hopefully that person will listen.  But, Jesus gives more advice in case the person doesn’t listen.  He then encourages the wronged party to bring in other people who can attest to the sin, hopefully convincing the person of the wrong that has been done.  But if that doesn’t happen, then (and only then) involve the Church.  If they don’t listen to the Church, then it’s time to stop trying to convince them, and instead, simply pray and fast for that person.

Admonishing the sinner is not, of course, easy.  Especially with certain sins, people prefer sinning to following God’s plan.  And when confronted with God’s plan, people sometimes don’t take it too well.  Sometimes, though, the fault is also with the person admonishing.  Sometimes people want to get back at the person, or rub that person’s fault in his or her face, rather than acting out of love.  That is why what St. Paul says in the second reading is so important: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; […] Love does no evil to the neighbor.”  Love doesn’t mean that sin is not sin; love doesn’t mean do whatever you feel like doing.  But it does mean that if we are correcting sinful behavior, we are doing it for the right reasons: out of love.  Parents do this all the time with bad behavior.  If a child uses violence against another, that child may have to have a time-out, or maybe even be spanked (not abused, though).  But if that is done out of love to help the child, then it can truly be a work of mercy, so that the child doesn’t continue to use violence, or escalate that violence as the child grows older.  

Still, you might wonder how to admonish well.  The USCCB website gives this advice: “In humility, we must strive to create a cutler that does not accept sin, while realize that we all fall at times; Don’t judge, but guide others towards the path of salvation; When you correct someone, don’t be arrogant.  We are all in need of God’s loving correction; We should journey together to a deeper understanding of our shared faith; ‘Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.’”  Those are all very good practical pieces of advice for how to admonish a sinner.

Today the Lord invites us to be our brother’s keeper, to help keep people from sin, or bring them back from sin if they have fallen.  May we do this Spiritual Work of Mercy with love, and be willing to accept this Spiritual Work of Mercy with love, knowing that we all have responsibility for and with each other to live according to God’s plan for happiness and holiness.

You're Killing Me, Smalls!

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sometimes there are quotes from different things that we have read or seen that stick with us and come to mind.  In the move “The Sandlot,” there’s a line that often gets used among people of my age: “You’re killing me, Smalls!”  Or a series of books that I read called the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan includes a line from the protagonist that has stuck with me: “duty is heavier than a mountain; death lighter than a feather.”  When Alan Rickman, who played Severus Snape in the “Harry Potter” series died, his one word response to Dumbledore, “Always,” becomes an oft-mentioned word.  And, on a lighter note, anyone who has seen “The Lion King,” is sure to say, at least once in a while, “Hakuna Matata.”

Scripture is also a great place to find quotes that can and should stick with us.  Bishops, and popes often have mottos for their ministry.  Bishop Mengeling’s phrase was “He Must Increase,” which is from St. John the Baptist in the Gospel according to John, when John says, “He must increase; I must decrease” in reference to Jesus.  Bishop Boyea’s motto is “In manus tuas,” which is Latin for “Into your hands.”  This comes from Psalm 31, and says, “Into you hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.”  It was also the words that Jesus said as He was dying on the cross, and is part of a response that consecrated men and women, and those in holy orders say before they go to bed each night.  In seminary, we had a classmate who was joking about becoming a bishop.  We said that his motto should be, “And Jesus wept.”

Today in our readings, we have four Scripture passages that might stick with us.  From our first reading: “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped”; from the responsorial psalm: “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God”; from our second reading we have two options: “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” and “Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind”; and from our Gospel: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Each of these has its own context.  In the first reading, Jeremiah is fed up with God, because all Jeremiah has done is tell the people what God told him, and yet everyone hates him.  Jeremiah suffered greatly, because the people didn’t want to hear that they needed to change, or else they would be exiled by the Babylonians.  Jeremiah feels compelled to say what God wants him to say, because Jeremiah loves God, but that love of God leads to suffering, and Jeremiah feels like he was tricked, but he can’t stop speaking for God.

In our Psalm, the author talks about how he wants God, desires God, like parched earth for water, so he looks toward the sanctuary to see the power and glory of God.  This is a psalm that is said on every special celebration in the Church’s life by those in religious communities and holy orders, so it’s one that comes to my mind often.

Our second reading with its two passages are from St. Paul, who is urging the early Roman Christians to be faithful to Jesus Christ.  St. Paul encourages the Romans to not simply let Catholicism be a religion of the mind, where we think about holy things and quietly commune with God in our souls, but even to offer our bodies to God, as a form of worship, as a way of giving God praise, so that what we do with our bodies and our souls may both be acceptable to God, whom we worship.  The second phrase, though, guards the Romans against becoming to comfortable in a pagan society, and being modeled on the outside world.  Instead, St. Paul says that they should be transformed by the conversion of what they think is good, so that they might do what is good and pleasing and perfect to God.

Lastly, our Gospel, which sounds like a good admonition to get rid of temptations, is spoken to St. Peter.  This passage follows after the one we heard last week, where Jesus calls Peter blessed and the rock upon which Jesus will build His Church.  This week, after Peter says that Jesus should not suffer, die, and be raised, Jesus says to Peter, “‘Get behind me, Satan!  You are an obstacle to me.  You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.’”  Jesus insists to Peter and the other apostles that suffering is part of the plan of God for the redemption of humanity, because suffering is part of the human condition, and Jesus must take it all upon Himself in order to redeem the entire human condition.

There are other passages in Scripture that we can use.  Memorizing little bits of Scripture can help us as we go throughout our day, in good times and bad, to praise the Lord or ask for His help.  When we feel like nothing’s going right even though we try to do God’s will, we might say, “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped.”  When we feel like we need God to be present to us, we might say, “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.”  When we need to remember that being Catholic is not simply about the prayers we say in quiet, or the thoughts in our head, or that we should not let ourselves become like our fallen, hedonist culture, we might say, “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship” or “Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”  When we are tempted by Satan in any way, or when we are afraid to follow God’s plan because it’s not the one that we want, we should say, “Get behind me, Satan!”  The Word of God can help us in any situation.  Let’s be familiar with it so that we can turn to Jesus, the Word of God, when we want to thank God and ask for His help, in times of sorrow and times of joy.

Knowing and Loving Jesus

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Anthony John Strouse; brown hair, hazel eyes; approximately 6 feet tall, 154 pounds; resides at 3139 Hogarth Avenue, Flint, MI 48532; Catholic priest and Michigan State Police chaplain; enjoys traveling, reading, and watching high school and college sports; oldest of three children.  Those are a lot of facts about me.  Most of those could be found online.  But just because a person knows those facts, does that mean that they know me?  I think we could all agree that knowing about a person is not the same as knowing the person him or herself.

Today Jesus asks the apostles who He is.  The apostles themselves have seen a lot of things, and have spent a lot of time with Jesus.  At the time of Jesus, and especially in Judaism, to be a disciple of a rabbi meant that you went everywhere he did.  Being a disciple wasn’t a hobby or even a part-time job; it was a way of life that changed all your circumstances.  So the apostles knew a lot about Jesus.  They had seen him change water into wine, heal a lame man lowered down from the roof, teach people a new way of life in the Beatitudes, walk on water, and even multiply 5 loaves and 2 fish so that over 5,000 people could be fed.  

And as Jesus asks who others say He is, they give Him the facts, and some of the inferences others are making about Jesus: “‘Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’”  But then Jesus makes the question very personal and requires an answer that takes some soul-searching: “‘But who do you way that I am?’”  The basic facts are not enough when faced with this question.  You can’t simply rattle off stats when a person asks you who they are, because a person is more than just the aspects of his or her life.

Of course, we are familiar with St. Peter’s response; this is one of the clear passages that Catholics rely on to support our belief that Jesus instituted the papacy, not merely as a first among equals (as Jesus gave the power to forgive first to St. Peter, but then to all), but in a unique role, because to none of the other apostles did Jesus ever say, “‘…upon this rock I will build my church…’” and “‘I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.’”  St. Peter, our first pope, does not merely describe facts about Jesus, but identifies who Jesus is: the Christ, the 𝛸𝜌𝜄𝜎𝜏𝜊𝜍 (the Greek word for Messiah), the Son of the one, true, and living God.

We are probably good about reciting facts about Jesus.  We probably remember things that we learned about Jesus in Catholic Schools or religious education classes.  But do we know Jesus?  Not, do we know about Jesus, but do we know Jesus?  Whom do we know better: Jesus or our spouse?  Jesus or our best friend?  Jesus or our children?

Of course, to know someone, we have to know something about that person.  The complaint from many people who grew up with the Baltimore Catechism, and there is certainly some truth to this, is that they knew all the facts, but never realized that being a Catholic entailed a relationship with Jesus, and therefore a relationship with His Mystical Body, the Church.  They could tell you why God made us (God made us to know, love, and serve Him in this life, so to be happy with Him in the next) and recite all the necessary memorized prayers, but Jesus was, more or less, a stranger.  If we fast forward to the next generation, the general observation is that they were very good at knowing that Jesus loves them, and how to make crafts about Bible stories (the joke is that CCD really stands for cut, color, and draw), but they don't know anything about what the Church actually teaches, and often times do not know prayers beyond the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Grace Before Meals.

In reality, both approaches are needed.  We need to know the facts about a person, but we need to build on those facts to a deeper relationship.  If we put it in terms of a marital relationship, this makes perfect sense.  Can you imagine going up to a person and saying, “I know your height, weight, hair color, hobbies, credit score, eating habits, etc., so let’s get married!”?  That would be crazy!!  On the other hand, can you imagine going up to a person and saying, “I don’t know anything about you, but I know that I love you, so let’s get married!”?  Equally crazy!!  

In order to love a person, we first have to know that person.  So many of the annulments that I deal with are from people who admit that they thought they knew the person they were marrying, but it turns out they were wrong.  Learning about Jesus and about the Church is important, especially as a younger child.  We need to learn the facts, the rules, and the prayers that so many generations memorized.  And that doesn’t end in childhood; I’m not done learning about Jesus and the Church, and I have 4 degrees in those subjects!  So we all need to continue to form our mind with the intellectual treasures of the faith.  

But, especially as we are in middle school and older, we also need to develop and emphasize that relational aspect with Jesus.  If all we know are facts about Jesus, then it’s hard to say that we’re a disciple of Jesus, because a disciple is someone who knows the Master intimately, not just at a surface level.  St. James says it this way in his letter: “You believe that God is one.  You do well.  Even the demons believe that and tremble.”  Demons know about God, but they don’t have a relationship with God.  

Today the Lord invites us to know Him better.  Maybe we need to grow in the facts that we know about Jesus.  Maybe we need to grow in our relational part of our friendship with Jesus.  In whatever way we need to continue to grow (and we’re never done, not even after Confirmation!), God promises to assist us by the Holy Spirit, so that we can truly be the friends of God, not only in name, but, more importantly, in deed.

What to Do with the Time that is Given to Us

Solemnity of St. Pius X

This has been, in many ways, a tough year for us at St. Pius X.  But what immediately comes to my mind when I think of our challenges is a scene in “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings” when Frodo and Gandalf are sitting in the dwarf mine of Moria, waiting to see which way they should go.  Frodo says, “I wish none of this had happened.”  Gandalf responds, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Let me be clear: while I have certainly regretted some of the struggles that we have gone though, as a church and as a diocese, over the past year, I have never regretted becoming your pastor.  And I hope that, even if you have not relished some of the adjustments that have been made since I became your pastor, you do not regret being members of this parish.  But our challenge, as St. Pius X parish, is not the struggles themselves, and the difficult time that our parish and city and diocese are experiencing.  Our challenge is what to do with the time that is given to us.  

This Gospel that we heard is one of my favorites.  The apostles had seen the risen Christ many times, but then He must’ve spent some time away, because they seem to despair again, like in the upper room before they saw Jesus.  So Peter decides to go fishing, and the other apostles go with him.  But, as always in the Gospels, Peter can’t catch anything until Jesus, who mysteriously appears on the shore, tells them to cast their nets to the other side, and they catch 153 large fish.  Peter recognizes Jesus, and with his usual impetuosity, jumps in and swims to shore.  After eating the fish, Jesus takes Peter aside, and asks him the three questions about where St. Peter’s heart is.  

That must have been hard for St. Peter to be asked if he truly loved Jesus.  When someone you love asks you if you really care about him or her, doesn’t that hurt?  And Jesus asks three times, which for Peter had to remind him of the three times he had denied Jesus.  Peter looked back at the past 50 days and didn’t have a lot to show for it.

Right after the last verse, Jesus then prophesies for Peter how he will die, and then Jesus invites Peter to follow Him.  But things don’t always go well for Peter.  He will later be rebuked by St. Paul for not being consistent with welcoming Greeks into Christianity.  And even at the end of his life, as the persecution of Nero is closing in on him, St. Peter, by tradition, will try to flee martyrdom.  But Jesus reveals Himself to Peter walking back to Rome.  St. Peter asks Him, “Domine, quo vadis?” “Lord, where are you going?”  Jesus tells Peter He is going to Rome to be crucified a second time.  Peter then repents of being scared of dying for Jesus, and returns to Rome, to be crucified upside-down.  

St. Pius X himself lived in turbulent times: he only became pope after the clear-and-out favorite was vetoed; during his pontificate a group of theologians tried to undo perennial Church teachings; revolutions against governments in Europe and Asia started to develop, which led to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which ballooned into World War I, shortly before St. Pius X died.  How many times must he have wondered why he lived in such times?  But instead of simply bemoaning the bad, he worked to promote the good.

And as we celebrate our parish patron, that is our opportunity as well: to decide what we will do with the time we have been given.  God wanted each of us to live right now.  He wanted you to be a part of this parish, and He wanted me to be your pastor.  And He wanted this because we have what it takes to follow His will and strengthen our parish and school to help it survive and thrive in the future.  Yes, the world may seem very dark right now, and not just our little corner of it, but indeed the whole world seems to be teetering on the edge of darkness.  But God is the sun who can put an end to the darkness of night and usher in the light of day.  

In the Lord of the Rings, Frodo still had difficult times ahead of him: battles to survive, getting lost, getting captured, and even making it to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring (which, spoiler alert, he cannot even bring himself to do).  Frodo becomes estranged from the group of his friends, and even at one point sends his best friend, Samwise Gamgee, away.  But, after all that (spoiler alert) the One Ring is finally destroyed, and the darkness is defeated.  Frodo regains his friends and no longer has to carry the burden of the One Ring.

It is up to us to decide what we will do with the time we have been given.  Will we follow where God leads us in being faithful to the teachings of Christ and His Church?  Will we take opportunities to talk to others about Jesus, and invite them to start or deepen their relationship with Christ and the Church He founded?  Will we fight against the powers of darkness who seek to divide this parish and keep it focused on itself rather than love of God and love of neighbor?  

Or do we simply want to keep the status quo?  Do we want to give in to our self-centered culture which only pursues its own desires, no matter what Christ and His Church says?  Are we content simply to keep our faith to ourselves and not share it with others?  If we are for these last approaches, for giving up because the battle is hard, then we will contribute to the weakening and perhaps even eventual dying of our parish.  But, if we are willing to be transformed by the grace of Christ and continue to spread the Gospel, then we won’t be a victim of our difficult times, but a victor in Christ.  

Today I recommit myself, through the intercession of Pope St. Pius X, to working as hard as I can to do the things that will help this parish grow by being faithful to who we are as Catholics: followers of Jesus, transformed by the Sacraments, faithful to His Church, that joyfully spread the Gospel.  Will you join me in this fellowship?  Will you do what you can with the time that is given you?

"Do You Trust Me?"

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

It doesn’t seem like that long ago, but the Disney version of “Aladdin” came out 25 years ago!  Robin Williams is the voice of the Genie, and it has the famous song, “A Whole New World.”  That song takes place on Aladdin’s magic carpet, and it begins right after Aladdin, pretending to be Prince Ali Abawa, asks Princess Jasmine, whom he likes, “Do you trust me?”  Those are the exact same words that Aladdin asks Princess Jasmine when she is pretending to be a commoner and she is running away from trouble in the marketplace: “Do you trust me?”

“Trust,” we so often say, “is earned, not given.”  Or we might say, “Trust, but verify.”  But in our Gospel, St. Peter takes neither of those approaches.  Jesus has done some amazing things for Peter (helps him catch fish even though they had been fishing all night; changes water into wine), but it’s not clear that Peter knows exactly who Jesus is.  It’s not for another chapter in Matthew’s Gospel that we hear Peter confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.  And it’s clear that most of the apostles think that the vision of Jesus is a ghost, not the real thing.  Peter had no way to verify if it truly was Jesus.  In fact, in Peter’s act of faith (which, admittedly, falters), Peter walking on water was the way he was going to verify it was Jesus.

But Peter must have trusted that it was truly Jesus, and that if Jesus told him to walk on water, then walk on water was what Peter would do.  Think of all the temptations that Peter had before he even got out of the boat: they were being tossed about by waves, it was the middle of the night, and the apostles were all terrified.  And yet Peter stepped out onto the water because Jesus, or something that Peter thinks might be Jesus, tells him to do so.  

But as soon as Peter stops trusting Jesus, as soon as the realities around Peter become the focus and not Jesus, Peter starts to sink.  But even then, Jesus verifies and earns Peter’s trust, by reaching out to save Peter when he cries out in fear.

Do we trust Jesus?  Or do we feel Jesus hasn’t earned our trust, or we need to verify before we can trust Jesus?  Would we be willing to step out on water (and not the frozen kind) to walk to Jesus, or would the fear of drowning keep us from even putting one foot over the side of the boat?

Trusting God can seem hard.  It doesn’t mean life always goes well.  Jesus had to entrust Himself to God the Father even on the cross.  Temptation eats at Jesus, as we hear Him say, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”  But even though tempted, Jesus doesn’t give in to His fears, and will also say, “Into your hands I commend [or entrust] my spirit.”  Even as He is dying, Jesus shows us how to trust God in horrible circumstances.  

What makes it especially difficult to trust is when we feel that we have been let down.  We all have that one person, maybe a former friend, who has let us down, betrayed us, and not been there when we needed him or her.  Maybe that friend was even a spouse.  And now we find it hard to trust again.  That fear of betrayal, of abandonment, can easily bleed into our relationship with God.  We show up, but it’s on our terms, not God’s.  We have expectations about how things should be, and if they’re not fulfilled, then we’ll cut bait and run.  

For many of us, we trust God with certain things: secrets, hopes, fears, etc.  But maybe there’s an area of our life where we don’t trust God.  Maybe we don’t trust God when it comes to money.  Maybe we don’t trust God to guide our relationship.  Maybe we don’t trust God when it comes to conceiving a child or how many kids we should have.  Maybe we don’t trust God to truly forgive us.  All of those are very common ways that we think we know better than God, or we don’t want to involve God in those parts of our lives.  But to that fear, Jesus invites us to trust in Him and walk on water.

Maybe we don’t trust that God will be enough for us, or we don’t trust that we can be alone with God.  In our first reading, Elijah heard God not in the dramatic aspects of life–the strong and heavy wind, the crushing of rocks, the earthquake, the fire–but in a tiny whispering sound.  The only way to hear that tiny whisper is to keep silence.  If we really want to know if we trust God, try being silent with Him.  Silence can be the scariest thing in the world, because we might actually hear God, and maybe we don’t trust that what He says to us will be for our good.  It’s so much easier to play with our phones, to listen to music, to distract ourselves, than to be silent with God.  

After the music stops and while I’m still purifying the sacred vessels (or as some say, cleaning the dishes), can you simply kneel or sit in silence and wait to hear God, whom you have just received in the Eucharist?  It would be comical if it weren’t so sad, how many times someone feels like they have to break the silence by a “cough” or another noise (and I’m talking about adults, not kids).  But it is in the silence where we can so often hear God speaking to us, inviting us to trust Him in every aspect of our lives, not just the ones we want.

Take time in your life for silent prayer with God, a time, maybe just 5 minutes, to entrust yourself to God.  For some of us it may be as scary as stepping out onto the water like St. Peter did.  But remember that God will not let us drown.

Today at the end of Mass, we will also, along with every other parish in the Diocese of Lansing, entrust our parish and all who belong to it, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in an act of consecration.  In a formal way we give ourselves over to God for His glory, rather than our own plans.  We do so on the 100th Anniversary of the apparition of our Blessed Mother to the shepherd children at Fatima.  We entrust our lives to her and ask her to help us to say yes to God, just as she did at every moment of her life.  There is more information in the narthex if you are interested.  May we truly trust in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and His Immaculate Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Jack Sparrow's Compass

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I will admit: when I first heard that Disney was making a movie based on the ride “Pirates of the Caribbean,” I was very skeptical that it would be a good movie.  But, 7 movies later, I am happy to be wrong.  One of the staples in every movie has been Captain Jack Sparrow’s special compass, which doesn’t point towards north, but points towards whatever the person holding it wants most.  The compass helps Jack find the Black Pearl, the fountain of youth, and all the other things and places that Jack or the other characters want, especially rum.  

Of course, a compass that points toward what we want is not real.  It would be a nice invention, but, as far as I know, it doesn’t exist.  If it did exist, though, where or to what would it point?  Would it be a new house, a new car, or something?  Or would it point to a place, or even to a person?

We are a society that generally gets what it wants pretty quickly.  If we want to know something, we simply ask Siri or Alexa.  If we want to buy something, we put it on the credit card, even if we don’t have the money to buy that thing.  Our desires are satisfied quite rapidly.  But we are probably also one of the most miserable societies in this history of the world, because more often than not, our desires fluctuate between very transitory or passing things or relationships.  When it comes to the deeper things of life, many people seem to set those aside.

And yet, our deepest desire is for God.  The cliché phrase puts it this way: we have a God-sized hole in our heart.  St. Augustine, the great Doctor of the Church, puts it this way in his book The Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”  We seek after so many things and people, but what we really want, what all those things and people cannot give us, is a deep relationship with God.  And the things and even other people cannot fulfill those desires because we really want the infinite, and those things and people are finite.  

A person on the road to heaven would have a compass that would point right here, to the tabernacle, because inside is Jesus, who is the deepest desire of our hearts.  The person who is living out the call that God gives to every baptized person to be a saint would want to have God.  Yes, that person would probably have other things–a house, a car, personal relationships–but they would all come second to God.

Is God the treasure that we desire?  Is God the pearl of great price in our life?  The person who is working in the field and finds a treasure, then does everything he can to buy that field so that he can have that treasure.  The merchant who is searching for a fine pearl sells everything he has so that he can get that one, perfect pearl.  What do we do to deepen our relationship with God?  What are we willing to give away?

Because in order to say yes to God, we have to say no to other things.  That’s not just true with our relationship with God, it’s true with everything in life.  Whenever we say yes to one thing or person, we say no to another.  When I said yes to becoming a priest, I was also saying no to every single woman that would cross my path for the rest of my life (in terms of a romantic relationship).  For a married woman, when she says, “I do,” to her husband, she is also saying, “I don’t” to every other man, no matter how handsome or kind he might be.  When a student says yes to partying on a Tuesday night, he or she is saying no to the homework that is due the next day.  Saying yes to anything means saying no to the other options.  That sounds tough, but it’s the way life works.  And it’s true whether the choice is for something good, or for something that is a lesser good.

Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular, is getting more difficult to live.  We no longer have a culture which supports living out our faith.  The truths of the faith which cannot change are so often now opposed by friends, family, and even the government at times.  We have not yet reached systematic persecution in the United States, but the groups who call those who live out Catholicism bigots, backwards, and hate-filled seem to grow every year.  More and more we will have to decide what religion we will say yes to: Catholicism or hedonistic secular humanism–a secular type of religion that tells us to do whatever feels good, whatever we want?  And that decision will be made by what we love the most, what we truly think is the treasure in the field or the pearl of great price.  

If we had a compass that pointed to what we want the most, where would it point?  If it doesn’t point to that tabernacle, more precisely, to Jesus who is inside it, then Jesus invites us to reprioritize our lives.  God has made us for Himself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.  May God be the strongest desire in our life.

Being Patient with God and Ourselves

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Probably each of us has been on the receiving or the giving end of the question, “Are we there yet?”  If we’re on the receiving end of that question, maybe we responded with some form of, “No; and if I hear that question one more time…”  Especially as kids, we may not always have a lot of patience, but even as adults patience can be difficult.  It never seems to fail; whenever I’m in a rush, I always seem to end up behind a person who wants to drive 5 mph lower than the speed limit without a safe way to pass, or I manage to hit every red light.  

Whether we’re young or more advanced in age, we can also struggle with being patient with the world.  We see so many bad things that happen, so often to good people, and we get impatient.  We wonder why these bad things are allowed to happen.  Maybe we even get impatient with God as we get upset that someone we know and love goes through a difficult time and the person causing them a difficult time seems to have everything going right for them.

Things were not much different 2,000 years ago when Jesus preached in Palestine.  He tells this familiar parable about a farmer planting good seed, but an enemy going through the field and planting weeds that start to come up with the wheat.  Those working the fields ask if they should pull the weeds, but the sower tells them not to, lest the wheat get pulled up prematurely as the weeds are pulled up.

It is not a surprise to us that good and evil are so often intertwined with each other.  We may like this good trait of that particular person, but dislike the bad trait of the same person.  Maybe we see a good thing happening, but then it leads to someone else suffering.  Our world seems to be one large, mixed field of weeds and wheat.  And that may frustrate us to no end.  We just want the pure good, we want evil to be defeated and eliminated from the earth.

That desire is good.  It shows that we have a desire for heaven.  In the Book of Revelation, the cry of the martyrs under the throne of God is how long will God allow the evil to continue and His servants to suffer?  But God is more patient than we are, and His patience is meant to allow for conversion, for a change of heart and life.  God’s forgiveness is there to give time, as long as the person still lives, to turn away from evil and turn toward God.

Because it’s not just the world that is a mixed bag; it’s not just the outside world that is weeds sown amongst wheat.  Our own hearts are the same way.  There are parts of us that seek to do God’s will, that are full of His grace and love.  There are also parts of us that prefer our own will, that are full of wickedness.  It can be very easy to demand the justice of God, that evil be finally vanquished.  But if we look into our hearts, how much of us would be destroyed if God were not patient with us, if God exacted His justice upon us rather than His mercy.  I know I would be in trouble.

It is easy to think that the Church herself is a place for good people.  And in one sense, the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is untrained by sin, because Jesus is untainted by sin.  But, in a different sense, the Church on earth in her members, is what St. Augustine of Hippo calls a corpus permixtum, a mixed body which has both saint and sinner.  The Church on earth is not simply for the righteous, but is also for sinners.  Pope Francis used the image of the Church as a field hospital that goes out to treat the mortally wounded.  We might extend that analogy to also say that in a field hospital, some are wounded in minor ways from the ricochet of shrapnel, while others have missing limbs and life-threatening injuries.  That is who we are as a Church.  Some of us are more injured than others, but we all suffer from the wounds of sin.  And if we don’t know that, if we think that we’re good, then we no longer need a Savior.  And if we don’t need a Savior, then we don’t need Jesus.  And if we don’t need Jesus, then we are the most pitiable people of all, and heaven is not the place for us.

Now, all analogies limp, and even as Jesus talks about the weeds and the wheat, and even as our hearts are fields mixed with weeds and wheat, it doesn’t mean we let the weeds go.  We cannot simply ignore our sin because God is merciful and patient with us.  We need to ask ourselves how the weeds got in our fields, and try to make sure they don’t get there again.  In reality, each morning of our life is the time for sewing seed, and each evening of our life is the time for harvesting.  Every day we can ask ourselves what good we did, and thank God for that.  Every day we can ask ourselves what evil we did, big or small, and ask God to forgive us, and help us to avoid those sins tomorrow.  It is especially effective if we confess those evils in the Sacrament of Penance, aka confession, because we receive the very life of God in order to help prevent the weeds from being sewn in our hearts.  

We may struggle with patience, especially when it involves someone else suffering evil.  But if we are impatient with others, then we should ask if God should be that impatient with us, or if we’d rather receive His mercy and give us time to turn back to Him.  And if we want God to do that with us, so we should do with others.

Becoming Rich Soil

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I would never say that I have a green thumb.  In fact, plants inside my room or house tend to die.  I once even killed a cactus that I had in college.  And yet, I love planting things.  Last October I planted a couple of small rose bushes and some mums; this past April I planted some of the left-over Easter plants along the sidewalk, and in May I planted some lily bulbs and a few peonies starters.  Some of them are doing well; others I haven’t seen make it through the dirt yet.

Today Jesus talks about being good soil to receive the seed of God’s Word.  We’ve heard this parable a lot, and I have to be honest, as a preacher, this is one of the hardest Gospels to preach on, because Jesus Himself explains what it means.  I have a kind of dread when this Gospel comes up, because I don’t want to be a boring preacher, and I’m especially afraid of that when this parable is the Gospel for the day.

But I thought that this year what would be helpful would be looking at the kinds of things that we can do to be good soil.  Again, Jesus’ point is obvious, we should be rich soil so that we can hear the Word of God, understand it, and then have it make a difference in our life.  But maybe we’re not rich soil yet; maybe we’re rocky ground, maybe we surrounded by thorns that want to choke the Word of God out.  So how do we change that?  How can we be rich soil?

There are a few things that can change our faith lives to be more receptive.  I won’t give an exhaustive list, but I’ll give a few basic ideas that almost anyone can do to help make them more receptive to God, and to grow in their relationship with Jesus.

The first basic thing we can do to change our lives to be more God-centered, to help in our relationship with Jesus, is to actually read the Word of God.  Other than at Mass, how much exposure do we have to the Word of God?  We have Bible studies from time to time that we offer through the parish.  But even if you can’t make those, read a chapter of the Gospels each day.  Start with Matthew, chapter one, and go through John, chapter twenty-one.  And when you finish that, read the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul’s letters, the other Catholic letters, and then finish up with Revelation.  One chapter per day won’t overwhelm you (hopefully), and most Bibles have footnotes in case there’s a passage you don’t understand.  If you want something more in-depth, you can also get a Catholic Study Bible, or get a Catechism and look up what the Church says about that passage.

Another basic thing we can do to change our lives to be God-centered, to help in our relationship with Jesus, is to pray the Rosary and/or the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.  For some Catholics now, the only time they pray the Rosary is the night before a funeral.  But the Rosary is a beautiful prayer focused on the mysteries of the Lord’s life, beginning with His conception at the Annunciation, and ending with Him crowning His Blessed Mother as Queen of Heaven and Earth.  You don’t have to pray all 20 mysteries every day, but maybe try to pray one Rosary each week, especially together as a family.  Yes, the kids probably won’t like it; I didn’t when I was younger.  But it made a huge impression on me and gave me a way to pray.  You can even now use your smart phone to pray the Rosary.  During each Our Father, Hail Mary, or Glory Be, think about the mystery, joyous, luminous, sorrowful, or glorious, of Jesus’ life, Death, and Resurrection.

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is another great prayer.  We have our Divine Mercy Apostolate that meets on a regular basis, but it’s also something you can do in your home.  And if you feel one Rosary is too long, try the chaplet.  It’s prayed using Rosary beads, but the prayers are shorter.  The Chaplet of Divine Mercy focuses on Jesus’ merciful love for us, shown especially in His sorrowful Passion.  You might have to look up the prayers the first few times you pray it, but it’s easy to memorize them.

Speaking of mercy, another great way to be God-centered and to deepen our relationship with Jesus is through regular confession.  You don’t have to be a horrible sinner to go to confession (though if you are a horrible sinner, you definitely need confessions!).  So-called devotional confession, where one confesses even simply venial sins on a regular basis is a great way to weed the garden of our hearts.  I hate weeding, usually because I let the weeds go a long time, and then it takes a long time to get them out of the ground.  But if I would weed regularly, there wouldn’t be as many weeds to pull (or, in my case, spray Round-Up on).  The same goes for our spiritual life: the longer we let our sins go, the more invasive they become.  Even venial sins add up and make it more likely to commit major (we call them grave or mortal) sins.  And if we go regularly, it’s easier to remember what we need God’s mercy for, and be strengthened to avoid those sins in the future.  We offer the Sacrament of Penance every Tuesday from 5:30-6:00 p.m, and every Saturday from 3:00-4:00 p.m., and by appointment if those times don’t work.  

None of these things is rocket science.  None are overly complicated.  And yet, if we try even just one or two of these simple things, I am confident we will find our spiritual lives changing for the better.  We will become, by the grace of God, rich soil, which is more receptive to His word, so that we can bear fruit “a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

Easy Living: A Christ-centered Life

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Though I don’t play, I love watching golf.  Lots of people make fun of me for this, saying things like watching golf is like watching the grass grow.  And I will admit that, on a Sunday afternoon after Masses, I do tend to doze in and out of watching the final rounds, but I attribute that more to my fatigue than to the game itself.  Probably my favorite golfer is Jordan Spieth.  He seems like a nice man, went to Catholic schools, and plays quite well.  Watching him play, even on tv, makes golf look so easy, though, from having tried to just hit the ball, I know golf is anything but easy!

Our life in Christ can sometimes seem like golf: the pros make it seem easy, but to the rest of us it’s quite hard.  Maybe we look at the saints and feel that they have set the bar terribly high, and those standards are not something that we could ever do.  But Jesus reminds us in the Gospel that “[His] yoke is easy, and [His] burden light.”  Living under the kingship of Jesus is something which is not meant to be a heavy burden on us.

I mention kingship because our first reading is a prophecy about the king, the Messiah, which was fulfilled in Jesus.  We hear this passage from the prophet Zechariah each Palm Sunday as it is fulfilled in Jesus entering His city, Jerusalem, on a donkey.  The donkey was not a sign of dominance for king (that would have been a strong horse), but a sign of humility and easiness.  A king who rode on a donkey came not to enforce his will by brute strength, but to invite people into his kingdom for its good.

Kingship also reflects that we owe our life to someone else.  As Americans we’re not so keen on monarchies and royalty (unless it’s the Kennedys or the younger British royals), but there was a relationship between king and subject, where they worked together to promote the kingdom.  We owe our life, really everything, to Christ, as I preached a few weeks ago.  And Christ our King, for His part, gives us everything we need to be saints, to be holy men and women, to be the best version of ourselves that we can be, so that we enter the kingdom of heaven.

But there is a prince working to undermine the kingship of Christ, and that is Satan.  He wants us to switch our allegiance to him.  St. Paul talks about that in our second reading.  When he encourages us not live according to the flesh, St. Paul means everything in us that is fallen, that gives in to the temptations of the devil.  Sometimes those temptations can be in our very flesh and blood, like the temptations to gluttony, sloth, and lust.  Sometimes they are more in the heart like greed, envy, or hatred, or even in the mind, like pride.  But they are not of the Kingdom of God; they are not the work of the Holy Spirit, who continues the presence of Christ our King in us.

Sometimes living the life of the Kingdom of God seems so hard, and living the life of obedience to Satan seems so easy.  After all, Satan lets us do whatever we want, because it enforces our selfishness, which keeps us from God.  Let’s be honest: it’s sometimes hard to make it to Mass, especially when sports, or even just vacation, is going on; it’s sometimes hard to hold back on amounts of food or even certain types of food, so that our stomach becomes the deciding factor in our life; given our sex-saturated culture, it can be very difficult not to engage in sexual relationships outside of marriage, not to ask for or send inappropriate pictures on Snapchat, not to live together before marriage; it can sometimes be hard not to hate or even simply hold a grudge against someone who has done something that we don’t like, or to speak ill of that person to others.  It can often seem very easy to give in to these and so many other temptations, and it can seem very difficult to live a Christ-centered life.

In the midst of those challenges, Jesus still says, “‘Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.’”  Living for Jesus makes for an easier life, and a life that prepares us for heaven.  Living a life where we give in to our temptations makes life much more difficult, and prepares us for hell.  A life spent trying to be a saint helps us to be more and more free; a life spent following our fallen passions wherever they lead us enslaves us.  Who lives the better, freer life?  The people who want the newest Lebron shoes, a Go-Pro, the newest phone, or Fidget Spinner, and who see if they really need it, and then, if they do, earn the money and buy it?  Or the people who steal it, get caught, then go to jail, then maybe can’t get the job they want, and are restricted to working less satisfying jobs?  

Life in Christ, a life lived by the Spirit of God, can seem tough and difficult, especially when we’re not living it.  And certainly sometimes following God’s will entails challenges and having to say no not only to bad things but also to lesser goods.  But just like watching Jordan Speith play golf, the more we live the life of Christ, the easier it becomes, and the easier it looks to others.  And the more others see a Christ-centered life, the more they will want that freedom for themselves where they live in the Kingdom of God.

"With What Shall I Come Before the Lord?"

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The study of Canon Law, the law of the Church, is one of the least popular disciplines for priests to study after they have been ordained.  Recently, Bishop Boyea appointed one of my good priest friends, Fr. David Fons, to study Canon Law in the University of St. Thomas in the City (more commonly referred to as the Angelicum) in Rome.  Bishop Boyea’s two other choices were either Fr. Gary or Fr. Todd Koenigsknecht, the twins from Fowler who were ordained a couple of years ago.  They were very happy when Bishop Boyea chose Fr. David.  I joked with Fr. David that he should tell Frs. Gary and Todd: “Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me,” quoting the famous line at the beginning of the movie “The Godfather.”

We don’t have to be in the mafia to want to do something kind for those who do something for us.  We hear about the Prophet Elisha who is taken care of by a woman of influence as she gives him room on the roof “with a bed, table, chair, and lamp.”  And without her asking, Elisha wants to do something for her to repay her generosity.  And he promises her that she will conceive a son with her husband, since she was childless and her husband was an older man.

Jesus Himself in our Gospel talks about how those who serve the servants of God will receive their reward: 

“Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward.  And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple–amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

Now, this isn’t a homily about trying to butter Father Anthony up in order to get something in return.  I may call my bulletin article Don Antonio’s Dispatch, but I’m not Don Corleone.  You, my parishioners, my family, are very generous, but you’ll never hear me say, “Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.”

If we really think about it, we have received everything from Jesus.  I dare you to think about one thing, other than your sins, that you have not received from God.  Your talents–from God; your family, spouse, and children–from God; your house–God gave you the talents that helped you find a job that paid you that helped you to get the house, so from God; this building–it was built by the generosity of our parishioners who went before us, and some still here, who paid for it with the money they made from the jobs they worked using the talents they received…you guess it, from God; your priest–some of you might be saying from the devil, but I was sent here by Bishop Boyea, who, when it comes to parish assignments, speaks for God.  Everything except our sin, which is when we try to do things on our own without God, is a gift to us from God.  We are in God’s debt.  There is no two ways about it.  We owe everything to God.  So how can we repay God?

One of the choral anthems played at my first Mass of Thanksgiving and at both my installations as pastor is based on Micah 6:6-8: 

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil?  Shall I give my firstborn for my crime, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.

But Jesus, as He so often does, raises the stakes.  He says that we must give Him everything of who we are.  If we love even our family more than Jesus, then we are not worthy of the gifts He has given me.  Only if we give away our life to Him will we find it.

And in this Mass we have the opportunity to do exactly that, at least as a beginning to our week.  Every Mass we are invited to offer all of who we are–our joys, sorrows, excitements, fears, job, family, vacation, and all that has happened since the last time we went to Mass–and unite it with the bread and the wine that is offered to God and changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus.  I know I’ve said that before, but have we done that?  Have we really put ourselves into what is offered on the altar?  I can tell you that when I do that, especially if I have something heavy on my heart, then as I hold the host in my hands and say, “This is my Body,” and as I hold the chalice in my hands and say, “This is my Blood,” there is a great weight lifted from my shoulders and I almost want to cry because of the great gift of freedom that Jesus gives me as I give Him my all.  And then God transforms it and gives it back to me as something that no longer weighs me down, but that gives me life.  But it’s not just for the tough stuff; it also applies to our joys.  And then, having given God our all in the Mass, we are then much more likely to give Him our all during the week. 

You might think that this is just my shtick as a guy who studied the liturgy–the Mass and the Sacraments.  But I truly believe it.  Give your all to Jesus, because He has already given His all for you.  And He doesn’t want a favor or a service like a mafia don.  The only thing that Jesus wants the thing only you can provide: you.