A Second Look at God's Mercy

 Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of the great things about Sacred Scripture is that it is a treasure that can never be fully mined, a spring that never runs out.  I was reminded about that as I was reading over this very familiar parable about the unforgiving servant.  It’s funny how you sort of skim over the parts that you think you know: a servant has a huge debt, he can’t pay it back, so the master decides to sell him and his family to pay the debt.  But the man pleads, and the master gives him more time to pay it back.  But when faced with the same situation where the servant is like the master, and someone else owes him a little bit of money, the servant is not as merciful.  That’s what I thought I had heard all these years.

    But then I looked closer at the Gospel, and noticed that the master didn’t give him more time to pay back the debt.  The servant offered to pay it back, if he could have more time, but the master forgave the entire debt.  That changes the tone of the parable a bit.  I don’t know why I never noticed it (I’m sure a psychologist could have a field day with that), but I always presumed that the servant was expected to pay the money back.  
    It doesn’t take a great Scripture scholar and knowledge of Greek to know that the master represents our heavenly Father in the parable.  Our Lord reveals someone of who the Father is as He shows that, faced with the pleading of His children, He does not give more time; He eliminates the debt.  And isn’t that what we see with salvation?  
    We can sometimes have this idea that if humanity in general, or we in particular, just had more time, we could pay back the debt of sin.  But that’s wrong.  We, whether in general or in particular, could never pay back the debt that was incurred because of sin.  By true justice we should have been handed over to the jailers (Hell) to pay the price of our sins.  But as we pleaded for the mercy of God, God did not give us more time, but forgave us our sins as Jesus paid the price for it on the cross.
    What generosity!!  How prodigal (wasteful) God is with His mercy!  Just thinking about that should make us fall to our knees, not in pleading, but in gratitude for what God has done for us!  No matter what our sins, when we plead with our heavenly Father in the Sacrament of Penance, He forgives us, wipes away our debt, so that nothing stands against us.  As the hymn states, “What wondrous love is this!”  
    But then, the Lord says and the parable clearly teaches, we are to imitate the Father in His mercy.  Just as we receive mercy, so should we give it.  When others offend us, they offend merely another human.  When we sin, we offend God and our fellow man, so the debt is much greater than being offended by another person.  And yet, how often are we quick to plead for God’s mercy, but not show it ourselves?  Oh the irony that sometimes the angriest drivers are the ones who are leaving the church parking lot on a Sunday!
    We are invited to emulate the mercy of God the Father, and, in doing so, fight the fallen powers of the devil.  To do that, we have to wear the armor of God: the breastplate of justice, the shoes of peace, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.  St. Paul also mentions girding our loins with truth, so I guess we could also add the compression shorts of truth to that list.  In any case, we should be surrounding ourselves with prayer and the mercy of God as we go to interact with people.  Yes, people may sometimes be nasty, but the devil can use other’s nastiness to tempt us to fall into sin by being nasty right back.  Earlier in the month on 2 October we celebrated our Holy Guardian Angels.  We can ask for their assistance in helping protect ourselves from the attacks of the enemy.  We can ask them to clear away any temptations to sin, especially if we have to prepare for a difficult conversation.  
    And as we do so, we should keep a clear head that the measure with which we forge, is the measure that we will be forgiven.  Again, a sobering reality.  As we go to confession, it should not only forgive us our sins (which it does), but also allow us to demonstrate the mercy of the Father more readily.  If that’s not happening; if we are not (however slowly) finding it easier to forgive others and be patient with them, then we’re not allowing the sacrament to be as fruitful as God wants it to be.  God intends His mercy to change us, to convert us, to change our hearts.  May we leave the confessional each time feeling well-armored from the darts of the enemy, and ready to enter the battlefield of the world and extend the mercy of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Seeing or Believing

 Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I remember what a big deal it was when I was finally old enough to ride the Space Mountain roller coaster at Disney World.  I was nervous and excited, all at once.  I didn’t realize it was in the dark, and while I survived, that whole experience freaked me out!!  I like to see where I’m going, because I’ll know what to expect and how to adjust appropriate.
    The man in the Gospel whose son our Lord heals at first also wanted to see.  He asked Christ to come and heal his son, who was at the point of death.  Jesus bemoans that it must be seen in order to believe.  But that observation leads to the man having faith that the Savior could heal the man’s son, whether he was present or not.  And this faith led to the healing of the son.  Not only that, but the entire household believed in our Lord.  
    Do we have to see?  My desire to see everything that is coming up is sometimes virtuous, because it helps me to adjust for upcoming realities and plan.  But in other ways, it is pride, because I feel like I have to be in control.  Maybe some of you know that feeling, too.  If we see what is happening, we feel like we are in control of the situation.  When we feel like we cannot see, we don’t feel like we have control over what is going on, and when something else comes to us, we may not be as prepared for it.
    But over how much are we really in control?  During the pandemic, we have seen so many things change in a moment’s notice.  I remember 13 March, Thursday, hearing reports about schools closing down due to COVID, and then Friday, 14 March, the principal at St. Pius X school let me know that we were closed, and we didn’t reopen for the rest of that school year.  As a parish school, we laid off a number of employees eventually, because they were aids and there were no kids to watch over in the building.  I had plans to celebrate my tenth anniversary as a priest in June 2020, and even in March I was sure that it would still happen.  But by May I made the decision to cancel, and celebrated only with my immediate family who could attend a small dinner I held in my house.
    In our life, we control very little.  But God is control of all things.  He directs or allows things to happen for our good, but they don’t always seem that way.  But, through it all, God is in control, and we are not.  And because we are not in control, we are invited to have faith, to put our trust in God.  God invites us to loosen our grip on things we think we control, but we don’t.  He wants us to have confidence in Him as He cares for us.  
    Again, this can be hard for us, because our timing is not always God’s timing.  There are families who go through extreme illnesses; friends or family who are killed in an unforeseen accident; an unexpected child is conceived, or a couple wants to conceive and cannot; an employee loses a job.  In all these circumstances we so often presume that we know better.  We think that if God had simply left the decision up to us, then everything would be ok.  
    But how much really goes ok if we are left in charge?  We may be the best or one of the best in our particular field, but how many small examples of Divine Providence, which we had not organized or even considered, had to happen in our for our success to come about?  How many people had to get up at just the right time and leave the house in order for us to avoid a traffic crash?  If we think about all that happens for a single second to go right, it should make us fall on our knees in thanksgiving for that one second and all that had to occur just for that one second to go the way we want it to.  
    But even when we life doesn’t go as we want it to, St. Paul still reminds us to give thanks “for all things.”  We could write Paul off if his life had been easy.  Instead, the man who tells us to give thanks for all things was himself beaten, whipped, stoned, left for dead, abandoned by co-workers, and was held suspect by some believers.  St. Paul talks about being comfortable in having nothing, in going hungry.  And still, he says, give thanks.  
    It is easy to put our confidence in God when things are going the way we want it to, when we can see the healing taking place.  But the virtue of faith is truly exercised when we can’t see things going right, when nothing seems to be going right, and yet we trust in God anyway.  Faith is witnessed when we cannot see what God is doing, but we trust that He’s doing the best thing for our salvation, just as Jesus healed the man’s son even without the man being able to see that healing take place.
    Our days are evil.  Around us swirls hatred, confusion, division, immorality, idolatry, and a host of other evils too many to number here.  But God called us to live in this time, to be a witness of His love and truth in this time, when so many don’t want true love, don’t want truth.  We may sometimes say, with Frodo, that we wish that “none of this had ever happened.”  But God wanted us to be alive in this time, and He is accomplishing some good.  Further, we know it must be some great good, because it is opposed so much by the enemy.  We cannot decide the times in which we live, but we can decide “what to do with the time that is given to us.”  We cannot always see what God is doing, and the miracles He is accomplishing, but today, and everyday, the Lord invites us: have faith!

Going Deeper

 Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    We, as Americans are very pragmatic.  “Just tell me what I have to do,” could easily be an American mantra.  When we see a goal, we want to know how to achieve it.  The rich young man had this same sort of mentality.  He asked Jesus, “‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  What do I have to do?

    Jesus gives him a fairly straightforward answer: follow the Commandments.  And we should take this to heart.  If we live a life that follows what God revealed as part and parcel of being a member of His Chosen People, then we can have some assurance that we’re on the right path.  But the rich young man already follows the Commandments, and he still feels like there’s more to it than that.  So he asks if there’s anything else, and Jesus responds that the man should sell what he has, give it to the poor, and the follow Jesus more closely.  But the man cannot, because he loved his possessions more than eternal life.
    There is no sense in this Gospel that the man was trying to trick Jesus, or that Jesus was trying to trick the man.  What we heard was an honest exchange between a person who wants to go to heaven, and the one who could reveal how to do that.  In fact, in giving the rich young man the extended call of following Jesus, Mark is clear that Jesus loved the rich young man, and the call that followed was a result of Jesus’ love.  The tragedy of it all is that the man cannot bring himself to follow through with the call beyond the call: what do to when the Ten Commandments are being obeyed.
     When it comes to the spiritual life, there is never “I’ve done enough.”  Yes, the Ten Commandments are the basics of living a God-centered life: love God above all else, keep His Name holy, honor God on the Sabbath, and do not harm your neighbor through murder, adultery, lying, stealing, or envy.  Perhaps some of you have achieved that goal, and you don’t find yourselves breaking the face-value sense of the Commandments.  Praise God!
    But if you have mastered the Decalogue, then Christ invites you to something deeper.  It may not mean giving up all your possessions, but it always means following Christ more closely in your particular vocation.  Even when it comes to the Commandments, Jesus, in teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, goes beyond the face value.  No longer can one simply say, “I haven’t murdered anyone,” but one must consider whether or not one holds a grudge against a neighbor, or insults a neighbor.  No longer is it sufficient to not have sex with someone else’s spouse, one is not to look at another with lust.  And so, for all the Ten Commandments, there are deeper considerations, deeper ways of following Jesus.  
    For the rich young man, it meant giving up money, and that was hard because the man loved his money.  But for us it can mean giving up a grudge, or stopping the practice of keeping up with the Joneses, or working on how we talk about others or think about others, or spending more time in prayer.  For all of us, there are ways that we can go deeper in our spiritual life, but we have to make it a priority.
    Doing this by ourselves is very difficult.  Almost from the beginning, everyday Christians looked towards spiritual guides to help them live that deeper life beyond the Commandments.  Very quickly those guides were given titles of respect, Abba or Amma, Father or Mother, as in Abba Anthony (St. Anthony of the Desert) or Amma Mary (St. Mary of Egypt).  Throughout the centuries saints have guided everyday people to go deeper.  For this reason we talk about Benedictine, or Dominican, or Franciscan, or Ignatian spirituality.  
    But sometimes it also helps to have another person alongside us, on this earth, urging us on as we urge them on.  A few months back I started working out with weights 4 or 5 times per week (can’t you tell?!?).  I had tried to work on physical strength before as an adult, but never really got into it.  A few years back I made a New Year’s resolution to do push-ups and sit-ups 3 times a week.  I was successful for about six weeks, until life got busy, and I found excuses not to do it (plus, it wasn’t really that much fun).  So what made the difference this time around?  What has kept me on track since around June?  A good friend taught me how to start working out.  At first we started with only a few exercises, and we would meet at least once per week.  Both of our schedules have filled up since then, and now we might work out together once or twice a month, if that.  But I still keep at it because we challenge each other to work out when we can, and we hold each other accountable.  
    I would suggest having someone to help you in your spiritual life.  Don’t try to tackle it by yourself.  When you are ready to go deeper, involve a friend or two who can hold you accountable and urge you on.  If it’s reading more Scripture, have another friend read with you (physically, or at least reading the same amount each day or week).  If it’s working on a virtue or a penitential practice, check in with each other.  Notice that Jesus calls the rich young man to follow Him, which meant being in the group of disciples who worked together on being more closely conformed to Jesus.  We tend to do better, and Jesus knows this, with others when we try to grow in our relationship with Him.  
    If you’re struggling to still keep the Commandments, have someone help you with that.  If you’ve mastered the Ten, then find a friend who will not let you settle, but will work out those spiritual muscles with you each week.  Hear and accept the invitation that Jesus is offering you today to follow Him.

"To Thee Do We Turn"

 Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As a Third Order Dominican, the Rosary is something near and dear to my heart.  It is part of my daily prayer habit.  But it wasn’t always.  As a child, I dreaded praying the Rosary.  Even though it only takes around 15-20 minutes, that was like an eternity for me!  My family had a practice that, whenever we went on long trips, we would pray the Rosary at the beginning of our travels.  That was not my idea of fun!
    Ironically, it is in my car most of the time that I pray the Rosary these days.  And it is a beautiful means of meditation, both for individuals and for families (even if the kids don’t always appreciate it).  And also, ironically, while we are often chastened by our Protestant brothers and sisters for worshipping Mary, as they think is demonstrated by the Rosary, it is actually very much a Scriptural prayer.  Obviously, the Our Father is scriptural, and the Glory Be, while not explicitly found in Scripture, is common to most, if not all, Christians.  But even the Hail Mary finds most of its roots in Scripture.  The first part, “Hail…full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” is the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary at the Annunciation.  The next part, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” is the greeting Elizabeth speaks to the Blessed Mother at the Visitation.  And the majority of the mysteries of the Rosary are explicitly found in Scripture, while others are implicitly found there.

   But the Rosary also grew out of a practice for illiterate people to be able to pray with priests, brothers, and monks the Divine Office, the Breviary, the other official prayer of the Church (in addition to the Mass).  In the original iteration of the Rosary, given, by tradition, by our Lady to the Order of Preachers, there were 3 sets of mysteries (joyful, sorrowful, and glorious), which each had 50 Hail Marys, just as there are 150 Psalms (50 times 3 equals 150).  I also pray with the Luminous Mysteries, and find no problem doing so (though we did not add another 50 Psalms).  The Rosary was a way for all people whether able to read or not, to join in prayer together throughout the day and week, following St. Paul’s admonition to pray constantly.

    It also helps ingrain in us these three basic prayers of Catholicism.  I have had priests tell me that they have visited patients who are dying of Alzheimers, who cannot even remember the name of their own spouse or children.  And yet, when the Rosary starts, they join in.  My own sister, Amanda, found the Hail Mary, the staple prayer of the Rosary, as a comfort for her.  When she was in the summer between junior and senior year, she was hit by another car (driven by a young man I had sponsored for confirmation) while traveling at the posted speed of 55 mph.  Her Chevy Astro (van) rolled into the corn field, and landed on her arm (she had gotten moved around a bit as the vehicle rolled).  When the car stopped rolling, she was conscious, but could not call 911.  So she prayed Hail Marys until the ambulance came, which helped keep her calm.
    Those prayers that we memorize, especially the ones in the Rosary, are made for times when we cannot think of our own words to pray.  We all know times in life when we’re just too scared, anxious, or excited for our own words to come to our minds.  At those times, we can turn to our favorite prayers, especially the Hail Mary, to ask our Blessed Mother to intercede for us.

    This feast day also commemorates the victory of the Christian fleet over the Ottoman Turk fleet at Lepanto, and so is a great example of turning to Mary when we need assistance.  The Turks had been “knocking on the door of Europe” for years and had sought a foothold in Europe so that they could take Europe for the Muslim faith.  This was a great victory that signaled the fading of Ottoman military power in the Mediterranean.  
    Where do we turn to, or to whom do we turn, when things look most bleak and dire?  It can be so easy to turn to our own machinations and wisdom, and feel that if we do not take control, then all will be lost.  Instead, as shown to us by Pope St. Pius V, who invited all Europe to pray the Rosary for the success of the Catholic fleet, we should turn to prayer, even while making necessary plans and preparations, entrusting ourselves and the situation to the providence of God.  We should, like Mary, say to the Lord, “Be it done unto me according to [God’s] word.”  It is that confidence in God’s plan that should be one of the hallmarks of our life as Catholics, knowing that God is in charge and He will work all things toward His plan of salvation, even when others, or even we, do not follow His will.  Using the metaphor of a naval battle, the waves may roll around us, and the fire around us may seem like the very gates of Hell, but if we are under our Lady’s banner, then we will not, in the end be sunk or destroyed, but will come out victorious.
    Still, that victory can take a while to develop.  We don’t simply pray the Joyful and Glorious Mysteries.  Sandwiched between them are the Luminous Mysteries which tell of some success and some struggles in preaching the Gospel, and even the Sorrowful Mysteries where it looked like all was lost.  In our life we can expect to have joy, light, sorrow, and glory, each in their own times.  But if we stay close to Mary, and view all of it in the light of Divine Providence, then nothing will shake us, no matter what happens.  
    May Mary, Mother of God and Our Lady of the Rosary, help us to ponder the life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ.  May our life also mirror her abandonment to God’s will, and may Mary be the one we turn to as we go to Christ in our joys, sorrows, and glory of life.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

"Mawwiadge"

 Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
 

The "Impressive Clergyman"

   As a child of the ‘80s, every time I hear the word marriage, I think of the scene from “The Princess Bride” where the “Impressive Clergyman” (that’s the name given him in the credits) is uniting Princess Buttercup to Prince Humperdinck in marriage.  It’s one of the great scenes in a movie that is filled with them.
    But marriage is quite a serious business.  It’s serious business because it’s so beautiful, and we take extra care with those things that are so precious.  I may not care about the paper plate, or even the usual dinner plate that I use for eating, but I take really good care of the fine china that I use.  
    At an Orthodox wedding that I attended at the end of August in Traverse City, the Orthodox priest said that God was creating something new at the wedding, as the couple began their married life together.  Our Catholic understanding of marriage and the Orthodox understanding of marriage are slightly different, but I thought that was a beautiful image of what happens at a wedding: the two become one; something new, a family is created that never existed before.  God, in His love, creates, just as He created in the Garden of Eden.  
    This new creation is meant to be an unbreakable bond, as were Adam and Eve.  They were the perfect helpers for each other.  No other could be a perfect helper: only the woman for the man, and the man for the woman.  And that is part of why Catholic cannot accept homosexual so-called marriage, as Pope Francis recently reaffirmed.  In Adam and Eve we see the original plan for marriage, which is itself a creation by God.  And since God created it, no other, not even a government, can change what God created.  
    This also goes to the indissolubility of the marriage, that was noted even in the Book of Genesis, and reaffirmed by Jesus Himself in our Gospel today.  Because God has created something that is new, because the two are no longer two, but one flesh, no human being can separate that which God has joined.  And so Jesus teaches that if a man were to divorce his wife, or the wife to divorce her husband, and either of them were to remarry, they would be committing adultery.  
    This seems harsh.  I am willing to bet that we all, in our families, have couples who have divorced.  Sometimes we see that the marriage is very unhappy, and sometimes one or both spouses can even be abusive towards each other, in words and, sadly, sometimes even with physical violence.  Certainly, we would say, God does not want the couple to remain together and risk emotional and physical pain, and sometimes even death.
    In those circumstances where a couple cannot (and sometimes should not) remain together, the Church offers the option of separation, where the couple remains married, but has no common life together.  Or, the Church offers the possibility, where appropriate, of a Declaration of Invalidity, and annulment, that looks at the marriage to see if one of the necessary parts of marriage was absent from the beginning, even if it looked like it was there at the time.
    But this also reminds us of the importance of preparing for marriage.  When a society, as a basic part of its culture, helps men and women understand how to love for each other, care for each other, support each other, and promote each other’s dignity, marriage prep is, we might say, something in the water.  But in our current times, that’s not the case.  The scourge of pornography affects men and women across the board, and instills in those who use it the idea that the other simply exists for use and sexual gratification.  Our digital age, too, does not help people develop true friendships, but makes each person easily jettisoned the minute they challenge an opinion we have as we unfriend and unfollow that person.  And even our consumerist mentality creeps into marriage, as we throw away things that don’t work, rather than working on fixing them.
    All this makes a proper understanding and catechesis in marriage all the more necessary for Catholics.  Our diocese is trying to do more with marriage prep, in order to make sure that people understand what they are getting into when they say, “I do.”  We can no longer take it for granted that Catholics understand the Catholic view of marriage.
    But, we also need to support marriages after the wedding.  Weddings have become like baptisms: a big ceremony and celebration, and then you don’t see the person again in church.  Part of that is our (the church’s) fault for not providing more for couples after the wedding.  I know Deacon Mark wants to be active in marriage enrichment, and I would also like to be able to offer times when couples can come together for a date night which also gives them tools to improve their marriage, even if there’s nothing wrong with it.
    Marriage is so important, because it’s the bedrock of any society.  Marriage is so important for Catholics because it is meant to be an icon of the love between Christ and His Church.  It is a new creation of God that needs to be cared for and nurtured, just like the rest of God’s creation.  Let’s commit ourselves today to praying for married couples, and assisting them, to the best of our ability, to live that beautiful vocation as Christ desires.

Like St. Matthew

 Solemnity of St. Matthew

    Probably we take for granted that each church building is named after a saint, or after a mystery of our Lord’s life.  As we look around Genesee County we think of churches and parishes and immediately go to the name of the holy one or holy ones associated with it: St. Pius X, St. John Vianney, Holy Redeemer, Sts. Charles and Helena, etc.  But have you ever stopped to think why we do this?  
    Naming churches is not simply to distinguish one church from another, though that is helpful.  As a young child (some may still think I’m a young child), I was confused for a bit that every town had a First Baptist Church.  How could every town have the first one?  But we name our churches to put that church and the people who enter it, the people of the parish, under the patronage or protection of that mystery of our Lord’s life or that saint.  So we gather to worship God under the protection and with the assistance and intercession of St. Matthew, the Apostle and Evangelist.  He is, in the apse of the church (the rounded part of the sanctuary), looking down at us each time we gather, and looking out at us through the statue at the high altar.  
    We also talk about patron saints.  Certain saints are associated with certain professions or hobbies, and their intercession is sought for those particular needs.  St. Matthew is the patron saint of accountants, bankers, bookkeepers, security guards, and stockbrokers.  The money aspect makes perfect sense because St. Matthew was a tax collector, which was at best as popular then as it is now, perhaps even less popular because St. Matthew collected taxes for a foreign, occupying power.  
    But we also look to our patron saints to inspire us to live like they did.  We are not to “ape” them, just doing everything that he did (collect taxes, move to Israel, write a long story about Jesus’ life, Death, and Resurrection, etc.), but we are to live in our own day in our own vocation following the pattern that St. Matthew set out for us.  And it is on that aspect of our heavenly patron that I want to focus today.

    In our Gospel today we heard Jesus call St. Matthew to follow Him, and St. Matthew did just that.  He abandoned his profession, held a banquet for Christ and his disciples, and then abandoned everything to follow our Lord.  For most of you (but perhaps not all), Christ is not asking you to quit your job.  But He does desire that we make Him the most important thing in our life.  And that is something that we can all do.  Today our Lord is inviting us to follow Him; to put in second (or third or fourth) place the things that usually vex our mind, and to focus on Christ.  
    Notice that our Savior does not call St. Matthew because of Matthew’s perfections.  We don’t know anything about St. Matthew’s moral life explicitly, but if other tax collectors and sinners came to his house for dinner, there was likely some affinity with those who sinned.  Matthew didn’t have it all together, and our Lord didn’t make that a prerequisite for following Him.  All Christ required was a willingness to do what He said.  
    And if we want to be saints, Christ calls us to do the same, under the patronage of St. Matthew.  Christ is not calling us to follow Him because we are perfect.  If Christ waited for our perfection in order to call us, He would be waiting for an eternity.  But He calls us and comes to us because He came “‘to call [not] the righteous but sinners.’”  He wants to heal us as the Divine Physician of any wounds or sicknesses that afflict our hearts.  He knows we need Him, and He hopes that we, like St. Matthew, can recognize that and follow Jesus’ call.
    But following St. Matthew doesn’t stop at simply following our Lord, just as St. Matthew didn’t just follow Him until the crucifixion.  After the Resurrection and Pentecost, St. Matthew went, by tradition, to Persia and Ethiopia.  Having been transformed by Christ’s healing love, and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, St. Matthew could not help but share that Good News, the Gospel, with others.  He did so in writing in his account of the Gospel, written especially to a Jewish-Christian community, and by word of mouth in foreign lands.
    Again, we are not to ape St. Matthew.  I’m not telling you to go to Iran (modern-day Persia) or Ethiopia, though you are most welcome to do that if God is calling you to do so.  But right here in Genesee County, right here in Flint, are people who need to hear the Gospel.  In writing and by our speech, St. Matthew should inspire us to share the Good News with others, and not to keep it to ourselves like a lamp under a bushel basket.  
    I am new here, and so far only a small part of St. Matthew’s long, proud history.  I have heard from parishioners about times when the church would be filled, or at least be fuller than it is today.  And I know people want that again.  We may not ever have a high school again, but we want to have families so that we could.  We would love to have more Masses here like in days gone by, needed simply to accommodate all the people who seek God’s salvation in this church through the intercession of St. Matthew.  It is not impossible.  It’s not even improbable.  But it will take each of us becoming an evangelist, each of us becoming a sharer of the Good News of Christ.  There are so many people who need it, and the beauty of this amazing church draws people to our Triune God who is Beauty Himself.  But they will never get here if we don’t invite them.  And I’m not talking simply about stealing other Catholics from other parishes.  I’m talking about reaching out to those who are not Catholic, those who may be connected to Christ through baptism but who do not have the fullness of God’s revelation which is present in the Catholic Church.  Or even those who are ignorant of God and His ways, those who are unbaptized.  If we really believe that God is such an important part of life, then we are required, as an act of charity, to share it with them!  They may accept or reject it, but at least we have done our part to make sure they know it.
    When was the last time you invited a fellow Catholic and especially a non-Catholic to come to church with you?  Sometimes it takes just one time of entering a gorgeous church like this and hearing the Gospel for the heart to be moved to convert one’s life.  True, only Catholics can receive Holy Communion, but let the reception of Christ’s Body and Blood be the goal that the visitor desires and which draws them to convert their life and join the Catholic Church.  
    Today we ask St. Matthew, not only to intercede for us with God to make us saints, which is very important, but also to help us spread the Gospel.  If we truly want to be sons and daughters of so great an intercessor, if we truly want to call ourselves members of St. Matthew, then may our lives demonstrate that same zeal that St. Matthew had.  Today, let us recommit ourselves to inviting a friend to come to church with us, and sharing with them the Gospel, so that more and more may hear and obey the invitation of Christ to follow Him.

Adjusting Our Seating Chart

 Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I saw a meme on Facebook that said something to the effect of: When I was 18, my father didn’t know anything.  When I turned 30, I was surprised to see how much he had learned in twelve years.  I later learned that this was based upon a quote by Mark Twain, who said: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”  No matter how you say it, they are both very clear examples of the hubris of youth.
    Today our Lord talks about humility in the Gospel.  He teaches us that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted, using the example of a seating chart at a wedding.  Pride is one of the most ancient sins.  In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas says that Original Sin is truly a sin of pride, since Eve (and then Adam) seek to take the place of God and have what God told them they did not need.
    And how familiar is it that we feel we know everything when we are young!?  I remember in college seminary feeling like my classmates and I had the answers to all the Church’s problems.  I think I still felt that way in Major Seminary, and probably even in the first year or so of my priesthood.  The passage of time, the (hopeful) gaining of wisdom, and the increased responsibilities of being a pastor have tempered my own youthful hubris.  
    But pride does not necessarily cease as one takes more and more trips around the sun.  Pride is the temptation lurking like a roaring lion in the grass throughout our life, against which we need to be on guard.  
    Pride is the elevation of our self above others, up to and including God.  We end up making ourselves a false god, the one who determines all things, or around whom the universe needs to rotate.  Again, going back to Adam and Eve, they wanted to know good and evil even though God had told them they did not need to.  St. Thomas Aquinas calls this a coveting of a spiritual good above measure.  Satan’s own words tells Eve that she will be as God.  And into this temptation first Eve, and then Adam, fall.  
    In the parable of the wedding, the person is seeking the higher place, the place of greater honor, which is exactly the sin of pride.  The person, and how many times does this apply to us, thinks he is better than he truly is.  In response to this, our Lord invites the person to take the lower seat, so that, should that person be worthy of higher honors, another will recognize it.  Now, this isn’t some backwards way of achieving the goal of looking better than everyone else.  If we treat it that way, then we’re still falling into pride.
    Instead, our Lord invites us to humility, to think not that we are better or more worthy of honors than others.  Humility is not undervaluing ourselves, but valuing ourselves rightly.  We talk about false humility when we talk about not recognizing gifts or talents that we have.  Indeed, Christ condemns not using our talents and investing them in another parable.  But humility gives an estimation which is accurate, not inflated or deflated.  
    It is so easy to overvalue ourselves, or even to undervalue ourselves.  But if we had to choose the most likely, it is probably overvaluing ourselves.  We live in a world where the ego rules supreme.  I am always right.  My wishes and desires are the most important.  You need to agree with me.  We see this in our inability to dialogue with others, whether on a local or even a national and international scale.  If someone questions our point of view (whether it be our opinion or based upon facts we know), we immediately write that person off and no longer have anything to do with them.  We see it in school systems which no longer provide a wide-education of many disciplines (what we have called liberal arts), but where we only teach one thing to people, and that’s what they want to do.  Unfortunately, so many feel that if they are experts in one area of life, then they are experts in many or even all areas of life.  
    I have seen this happen first hand in the parishes in which I have served.  Every city where I have served as been the home to a university of college.  And there are people who are much smarter than I am when it comes to non-theological disciplines.  But those same people sometimes think that they are experts in the faith, when they haven’t actually studied the faith beyond a few articles from their favorite religious magazine each month.  
    And I can even struggle to avoid those same temptations from seminary days, to think that I know best how to run things on a diocesan, national, or even worldwide level.  Certainly, I have studied the faith.  And even as someone who has been pastor I have gained some very practical experience.  But I am not qualified to second-guess decisions that include information to which I am not privileged, nor do I have the charism to lead a local, national, or international church that is given to bishops at their ordination.  Does this mean that bishops always make the best decisions?  No, and good bishops, like our own, will admit that they make decisions based upon their own experience and the information that they have at the time.  We can certainly dialogue (either externally or internally) about whether or not we think that decision was wise and/or prudent.  But how often do we immediately jump to the conclusion that we know best and Bishop So-and-so or the Pope is automatically wrong?  We’re taking the head of the table at the wedding party, and it’s very likely that we’re going to get moved back a seat or 5.  We are exalting ourself, and so we will be humbled.  

Bishop Carl Mengeling

    Bishop Mengeling, our bishop emeritus, has said a few times that humility is a virtue that often requires others to help us.  Those are our humiliators (in a good way).  They remind us that we are not always right, and that we are not God or the best at everything we do.  They are the equivalent of the slave riding in the chariot of the great Roman general in his triumph through the streets of Rome whispering, “Memento mori,” “Remember you will die.”  Generally, we do need to go looking for our humiliators; they usually make themselves known.  In case you’re wondering, I have mine, and I’m pretty sure I don’t need any more, though I know I always have people ready to step in in case I short a humiliator or two.  
    But we shouldn’t be afraid of being humbled, as it helps us grow in holiness.  And as we are humbled, God looks upon us in love, and exalts us in His way, which, more often than not, is not the way we would be exalted.  Still, stay humble; don’t seek the place of honor or to put yourselves above others.  Humble yourself, that God the Father may raise you on high, where with the Son and the Holy Spirit, He reigns for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Saints Like Us

 Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
 

St. Teresa of Calcutta

   In 2006 when I was studying in Rome on a study abroad, I was required to work with the Missionaries of Charity, the order that St. Teresa of Calcutta founded, each month at a shelter where they fed the hungry and housed the homeless.  Before we started to work with them, though, a priest from Minnesota, who was our chaplain for the study abroad program, who had worked with Mother Teresa, told us about her.  Most of what I heard was not surprising: her love for the poor, her encounter with Jesus who told her, “I thirst,” and how she was to quench Jesus’ thirst through her care for the poorest of the poor.  But he also mentioned that, for most of her adult life, she didn’t receive any good feelings in prayer, what we call consolations.  This was a huge shock for me!  How could someone so holy not feel good about praying!  Not long after my study abroad, a book came out called Come, Be My Light, which detailed how Mother Teresa, after her encounter with Jesus to found the Missionaries of Charity, rarely had any experience that God was even present, let alone good feelings in prayer.
    When we think of the saints, we often think of the finished product.  We think of the incredible stories that are told of the saints doing marvelous things.  We often gloss over the struggles and the ups and downs that they had in their life, even while trying to be a saint.  But throughout the Scriptures, and throughout the stories of the saints, we see people who were very much like we are, prone to the same temptations, who, the vast majority of the time, chose God over self, but who, nonetheless, sometimes struggled.
    Our Gospel today is the perfect example of the similarity of the saints to us.  We hear St. Mark’s version of the commission of St. Peter to be the first pope.  We have heard the story before: Jesus asks His Apostles who others say that He is, and they give the common understanding at the time.  Some say that Jesus is John the Baptist back from the dead.  Others say that Jesus is Elijah, or another one of the prophets.  But then Jesus puts the question to them, and St. Peter, not on his own, but by the grace of God, proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, in Aramaic he would have said something like messhichah, in English we say Messiah.  Matthew’s account is the one with which we are more familiar, and fills out that, after that proclamation, Jesus tells Peter that Jesus will build His Church on Peter, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, and gives Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  This is the great moment that we are used to encountering with the saints!  
    But then, Jesus tells the Apostles that He will suffer, be rejected, and be killed, but then rise on the third day.  St. Peter takes Jesus aside to tell him that this is not what should happen.  Jesus gathers all the Apostles, and rebukes Peter in the midst of them, and calls Peter, the one upon whom Jesus had just said He will build His Church, Satan.  This is not the image of our first pope upon which we like to dwell, or that we are used to sharing with others.  But St. Mark (like St. Matthew) does not hide it, or make Peter seem better than he is.  In fact, by ancient tradition, St. Peter helped St. Mark compose this account of the Gospel, so St. Peter doesn’t even hide his failure.
    The saints were people just like ourselves.  It would be easy to think of them as people who had superpowers, like the Avengers, because we do hear many amazing stories of how they witnessed their faith in word and deed.  But superheroes are easy to honor, but easy to write-off, because they are not like us.  I can excuse myself for not doing the things Captain America does because I didn’t get an injection that increased my muscle mass (despite my hopes that the COVID vaccine would do exactly that!).  I don’t worry about not doing what Captain America does because he and I are so different.
    But the saints are not different than we are.  They are exactly the same, except they end up responding to God’s grace, whereas we often reject those same graces.  But still, they don’t have any super-human advantages that we don’t have.  They are exactly like us.  They, though, did what Jesus said: they denied themselves, took up their crosses, and followed Jesus, in a myriad of different ways.  Some, like St. Boniface, were great missionaries.  Some, like St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, taught in schools and founded religious orders.  Some, like Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, quietly helped the poor.  Some, like Sts. Louis and Zelie, the parents of St. Thérèse, became saints as parents.  And the list goes on and on.  They had some different challenges, based upon the times in which they lived, but they had the same kinds of temptations that we have.

Sts. Louis & Zelie

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

    

Living as a saint always takes work; it doesn’t happen through osmosis or simply by letting each day pass by as normal.  To be a saint means that we “set [our] face like flint” to the challenges that approach us each day, “knowing that we shall not be put to shame,” as we heard in our first reading.  When we choose to follow God, we choose to take up our cross, our death, but God sustains us, and will always raise us up to new life; He will never abandon us, even if the whole world does.  But it’s possible, and the saints show us, through their ups and downs. that if we follow Christ, even if we do not do it perfectly (as St. Peter didn’t do it perfectly), if we remain faithful to God and do everything we can to follow Him, then we can be the saints that we are all called to be, just like St. Peter and St. Teresa of Calcutta. 

Foreshadowing

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  If today’s Gospel were a work of secular literature, we would talk about this passage as a great example of foreshadowing.  Think about it: a son had died, the only child of his mother, who was a widow.  If that doesn’t describe Jesus and Mary at the crucifixion, then you haven’t payed enough attention to the passion narratives.  I can’t help but think that our Lord’s own Passion was on His mind as He came upon this scene, and how it tugged at His Sacred Heart.  The resurrection of this boy is a great act of mercy for a woman who would be in a similar position as the Blessed Mother some time later. 
    But our Lord has the same desire for us, even if we are not a widow or if we have not lost a child.  The Lord desires to raise us up with Him, to raise us to new life, not just a second chance at life on this earth, but a chance at life in a world that will never end, where there is no sorrow, no weeping nor pain, but the fulness of life as we contemplate God for all eternity and worship Him in heaven.  And all of the rituals and practices that the Church has, some, like the Sacraments, given to us directly by our Lord, and others, like sacramentals and devotions, given to us through the Church, are ways that the Lord raises us to new life.

    Think about Baptism, the first Sacrament which opens to the door to the rest of the sacramental life of the Church.  As the water is poured over our heads, we die with Christ, so that we can be raised up with Him.  The old man (to use a Pauline term), Adam, is put to death so that the new man, Jesus, can live in us.  And as Christ lives in us, it is meant to configure us more and more each day to be more like Him, each in our own vocations and avocations.  In fact, this is the way that we rise to new life with Christ: we make His life our own more and more, doing the things that our Lord would do as we go through our day, and putting behind us things that our Lord wouldn’t do. 
    When we don’t quite live that our perfectly, Christ gave us the Sacrament of Penance to raise us from the squalor that we have let infect our souls through sin.  St. Paul reminds us that the wages of sin is death, and so, as we take upon ourselves death through our sinful actions which we freely choose, we need to be raised to new life, which is done through confessing our sins, being truly sorry for them, having a firm purpose of amendment to not sin again, and receiving absolution from a priest.  In that moment, we are raised from the dead.
    Likewise, the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Sacraments, allows our Lord to enter into us.  We are, quite literally, consuming life Himself, which helps us to live that life of Christ each day.  That is why saints, like St. Pius X, recommended frequent reception of Holy Communion (assuming that we are in a state of grace): so that we can more and more receive life, which casts out death.  Without the Eucharist, it is impossible to live the life that Christ desires for us as Catholics, which is why it is so painful when Catholics fall away from the faith, even if they attend other ecclesial communities.  They are depriving themselves of opportunities to receive within themselves, in the closest and best way possible on this side of eternity, eternal life which is given to us through Christ’s Body and Blood.
    But we, too, are called to participate in Christ’s action of raising others from the dead.  We can do this, as St. Paul mentioned in the epistle today, through helping others to know and choose the good, doing so gently, and bearing one another’s burdens.  Fraternal correction and encouraging others to live as our Lord desires is often difficult, because we can seem to be boasting or taking a position of superiority to others (even if we don’t intend that, it can often be perceived that way).  One of the best ways to avoid this is to help others know that we are not perfect ourselves, and that we will help them.  Our Lord condemned the Pharisees for imposing burdens on others, but not lifting a finger to help them.  Let that never be said of us as we seek to help others live a Catholic life!
    But raising others to new life also extends to those who are not Catholic, who are not part of the “family of faith.”  Raising up Catholic children is one wonderful way of spreading the faith, but here in our beloved City of Flint and in Genesee County, there are literally thousands of people who do not know Christ, and who are caught up in works of death.  Homicides are up 50% in the City of Flint from last year to this year.  And one of the many ways to curb that horrible statistic is to spread the Good News about Christ, to be evangelists.  Because people who love Jesus don’t kill other people, don’t take the law into their own hands in violent acts of revenge, don’t sell illegal drugs.  If we truly wish to see change in our city and county, then we have to share with others the life that we have received. 
    Again, it is important not to be sanctimonious in our approach, or even to be perceived this way.  Yes, we have “the way, the truth, and the life,” in our Lord.  But we are working with and walking with others on the path to daily increase in holiness, rather than standing above others.  But the key is that we are, in fact, inviting others to the new life that Christ desires for all mankind.  It can be done through a kind word, through a warm smile, through a cup of water given to a person in need, all the while sharing not just the word, the smile, or the water, but also the reason why we are doing it: to share the new life of our Lord and help raise people from death. 
    We may not seem to be doing much.  Our efforts may not seem to be effective or making any real difference.  But, I would suggest we look at St. Dominic as our model.  While the Order of Preachers was still very young and very small, only with a few friars, and the nuns praying for their success, St. Dominic sent the few out friars to the major universities of Europe to share the Gospel.  What started off small, and often times was not received well (even by local bishops!), soon became a large community that continues to spread the Gospel to this day.  The Lord is inviting us to sustain our own new life in Him, but also to spread that new life to others.  Can we look upon our brothers and sisters who are dying and dead, and not feel pity for them as did our Lord with the son of the widow of Nain?  Will we walk past as the spiritual funerals of so many pass us by?  May we instead share the new life that we have received of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Gollum

 Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gollum (aka Smeagol)

    Many of you know how much I love the “Lord of the Rings” Trilogy.  And in the Trilogy there is an intriguing character named Gollum (also called Smeagol).  When he was younger he went by the name Smeagol, and he was one of the river folk, not unlike a hobbit.  But then he killed his brother, who had found the Ring of Power (an evil talisman), and then was banished to live on his own.  During this exile, he used the name Gollum, reflecting his change from a good-hearted lad to a man closed in on his desire for the Ring.  Eventually Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, takes the ring from him, which he later gives to his nephew, Frodo.  Gollum, still closed in on his desire for the Ring, which he treasures above all things, seeks out Frodo to take the Ring back.
    J.R.R. Tolkien, the author, was a man throughly surrounded by his Catholic faith.  And so you see signs of the Catholicism throughout his work, and the screen adaptations that followed much later.  The Ring, as something evil, can be seen as a cross, as Frodo, who is one Christ-figure, carries it to Mount Doom.  Gollum can easily be understood as what happens when one closes oneself in on evil desires and on oneself.  
    I bring this up because in our Gospel today, Jesus cures a deaf man with a speech impediment.  Imagine being deaf and mute during the time of Jesus: it was a life in many ways, closed in on oneself, not because of sin, but because of the lack of ability to communicate in any great way with the outside world.  Indeed, it is the man’s friends who bring him to Jesus.  And Jesus, to heal him, says to the man, “‘Be opened!’”  Jesus opens this man up to new life, especially physically, as his ears are opened and his speech impediment removed, but even interiorly, to the life of grace.  
    God wants us to be open to His grace and His life which He desires would flow through us like a spring of water.  The life of grace irrigates the desert of life that is ours when we are closed in on ourselves and our desire for sin.  Grace makes us more alive, and allows us to interact with the world in new and spectacular ways.
    Tolkien depicts this in the person of Gollum.  As Gollum tries to steal the Ring, Frodo catches him, and slowly wins Gollum’s trust, even calling him by his old name, Smeagol.  As this happens, Smeagol is re-created, and becomes not a wretched, hacking despicable creature, but a joyful, fun, and even serving individual.  Even Frodo’s choice of a new name, really the original name, is a return to Smeagol’s original youth and innocence, before he was corrupted by the evil Ring and turned in on himself.  Frodo, again, a Christ-figure, is the one who frees Smeagol from his past darkness and restores him to the light.
    Sin turns us toward ourselves and away from God.  While we have a specific sin of selfishness, every sin is selfish.  Love is selfless, and so as we serve God we become less concerned about ourselves and more concerned about others.  Sin, which is opposed to God, is therefore opposed to love of others and cares only for the self, which makes one a shadow of how God created us, and exiles us from God, from others, and even from our true self.  Think about any sin, and you can see the effects of selfishness in it.  Greed is fairly obvious, and we care more for money than God; pride is where we care more for ourselves than for God and others; hatred is where we are more concerned with our injuries caused by others and getting back at them (thus, making us feel good because we got our revenge), rather than being concerned about forgiving the others; lust seeks to use the other person for our own sexual desires and pleasure, whether that person physically close to us or on a screen.  Even smaller sins like gossip are about making sure that we are in control of a narrative, or even that we attempt to make ourselves look better by putting others down.  In all those sins and more, we are closed in on ourselves rather than being open, first and foremost to God, and then also to the people He loves, our fellow human beings.
    Jesus wants to open us up.  He desires a fuller life for us than we can provide when we only concentrate on ourselves.  But the choice to accept God’s grace to open rests with us.  God’s grace always does the first and most important work, but our response is also part of the process.  We have to come to God, or our friends need to bring us to Him.  
    But Smeagol also serves as a good warning, that this process of being opened to God is not a once-for-all event; the choice to allow God to open us is a choice we need to make every day.  Smeagol, who later (wrongly) feels betrayed by Frodo, reverts to his old self.  He turns back in on himself and on his desire for the evil Ring consumes him again, eventually leading to his demise.  So for us, each day we have the choice to open ourselves to God or not; to be a desert and burning sands, or a stream and spring of water.  Ephphatha!  Be opened!