Food of the Covenant

Fourth Sunday in Lent

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Growing up I never liked cooked broccoli.  I would eat raw broccoli, like on a vegetable platter, but for some reason the smell or look of cooked broccoli just didn’t do it for me.  At some point in seminary, there was a formal dinner with cooked broccoli.  I didn’t want to pull a George Bush, but I also didn’t want to leave food on my plate.  So I took a bite.  It was actually good.  Granted, it was dripping with butter, but it was really good.  Since then, I have been able to eat cooked broccoli, (as long as it doesn’t have melted cheese on it).
    Today’s Gospel, the multiplication of the loaves, points to the Eucharist.  Indeed, this passage forms the beginning of John chapter 6, what we commonly refer to as the Bread of Life discourse.  Our Lord reveals that He is the Bread of Life, and that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life within him.  John is known for not including the institution narrative of the Eucharist, as the three other Gospel writers did.  But the entirety of John chapter 6 provides its own magnificent exposition on the Eucharist as the flesh and blood of Christ.
    But this heavenly food, this Bread of Angels, is not for everyone.  Christ provides His Body and Blood for those who are part of the covenant, the new covenant sealed in His Blood.  The Eucharist is for the children of the Jerusalem from above, those born of the free-woman.  It is for those who have been set free by Holy Baptism from slavery to sin; those who live in the freedom of the children of God.
    But why focus on the Eucharist now?  In a few short weeks we will be celebrating the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, and entering into the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday, to which the Last Supper and every Eucharist points.  But, if you listened at the beginning of the Gospel passage, it said that the Passover was near, just as our celebration of Christ’s Passover is near for us.
    Every Mass celebrates what Lent prepares us for: the Passion of the Lord.  At each Mass we enter into that one Friday that allowed us to be good with God.  Each Mass we are given the opportunity to enter into the offering of Christ to His eternal Father, and celebrate in an unbloody way the very bloody sacrifice of the Savior on the altar of the cross.  
    The bread we use is offered by us, but is received by Christ and miraculously changed to be enough for all.  We don’t have much, but our Lord makes it “super-substantial” (what the Greek word in the Our Father literally means while we say “daily” bread).  He makes it–by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the ministry of a priest who acts in His Name and Person–a way that we grow in grace, a way that we have our very God inside of us.
    And just as we prepare to celebrate the Passion of the Lord, so we should prepare to receive the fruit of the Passion of the Lord which is the Eucharist.  How do we prepare?  For Lent we fast and abstain.  And so the Church asks us (tells us) that we are to abstain from all other food except water and medicine for one hour before we receive Holy Communion (unless our health requires some other sustenance).  As we give alms during Lent, so during this Mass God asks us to give of the blessings He has given us for the benefit of the Church, and for this parish particularly, to support the spreading of the Gospel right here in Flint.  Lent invites us to enter more deeply into prayer, and so, as we’re able, we should seek to pray before Mass to prepare our minds to focus on the holy things which are present before us, as the veil which separates heaven and earth is pulled back and we join with the angels and saints in worshipping the Father through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.  For some, especially parents of young children, praying before Mass may be very difficult or seem nearly impossible.  But even as parents seek to keep their children from crawling or running away, or walk in the back to try to calm their child down, there is the chance to offer that desire to focus on the Mass as a prayer to God, the sacrifice which is proper to parents in their vocation when the children are young and don’t understand the greatness of what takes place each Mass.

    Later in John chapter 6, our Lord teaches that unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we do not have life within us.  Receiving the Eucharist in a state of grace imparts to us the new life of Christ to which the Passion points.  Lent is not an end to itself.  It always points to Easter, just as the Passion always points to the Resurrection.  Christ wants us to share in His new life, which prepares us for the new life that never ends as we worship God with the angels and saints in heaven.  We usually think backwards when we think about the Eucharist, as we think of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.  But the Eucharist also points forward to the end of time, when God will be all in all.  And so, as we receive the Eucharist in the present, we become partakers in the past, present, and future salvation accomplished by our God.  That is why we can pray with St. Thomas Aquinas:
 

O sacrum convivium!
in quo Christus sumitur:
recolitur memoria passioni eius:
mens impletur gratia:
et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.

Or, as one Dominican translation renders it:

O Sacred Banquet
in which Christ becomes our food,
the memory of His passion is celebrated,
the soul is filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory is given to us.  

Let us pray:

O God,
in this wonderful sacrament
you have left us a memorial of your passion.
Help us, we beg you,
so to reverence the sacred mysteries
of your body and blood
that we may constantly feel in our lives
the effects of your redemption.
Who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Whose Side Are We On?

Third Sunday in Lent

St. Ignatius of Loyola

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I have never done the Ignition 30-day retreat, but many priests I know have, and they talk about how powerful it was for them.  In particular, there is a meditation called “The Two Standards.”  This meditation reflects on two camps (standards being an old word for flags): the camp of Satan, and the camp of Christ.  One Catholic author describes it thus:
 

Imagine the [kingdom of the evil one] to be the vast and wide plain of Babylon (hell).  Satan, in his pride, is seated on a high throne of fire and smoke to intimidate and impose his power.  […]
Imagine the evil one calling his numerous demons to this throne and sending them forth, throughout the whole world, to every person and place.  Imagine this vast army of diabolical creatures going forth on their mission of death and destruction. […]
What is their mission? […]  Saint Ignatius says that satan instructs his demons to tempt God’s people in three initial ways: To first desire riches in their heart. To seek vainglory, honors and worldly recognition. To puff up their pride.

The author, reflection on this meditation, the continues describing the camp of Christ:
 

Christ is found in a humble and low plain near Jerusalem.  He is standing there with crowds around Him.  It is a beautiful and peaceful place.  Imagine the scene of Him with a crowd of faithful followers around Him. […]
One by one, Jesus chooses person after person to share in His divine mission.  He calls them to Himself with gentleness, interior strength and authority.  And then He sends them on a mission.  […] with hearts set ablaze with love they eagerly go forth to joyfully spread His mercy and truth. […]
This is what they are to preach and to encounter. […] They are to preach about poverty.  Interior spiritual poverty and even the value of leaving all for Christ.  If they are rejected by some, then they must rejoice and not lose heart, even if people hold them and their message in contempt.  They are to be humble and receive any humiliation in love.  [from https://mycatholic.life/books/ignatius/part-two-ignatian-meditations-arranged-according-to-the-liturgical-year/meditations-for-ordinary-time/two-standards/]

At first, it may not seem like much of a choice.  The camp and standard of Christ seems so much better, and intellectually we know we should choose that one.  But how often do we go after riches, vainglory, honors, worldly recognition, and embrace the vice of pride?
    The Gospel today reminds us that our Lord is tearing down the camp of the enemy.  He casts out the fallen angels and spirits that oppress and posses God’s children.  Christ is the stronger man who conquers the enemy and regains His brothers and sisters for the kingdom of God.  And because the Savior is also the Creator of the universe, when Christ battles Satan, it’s not even really a battle; Satan has to concede.  To pretend that Satan could ever win is like pretending our legos are going to rise up and defeat us. 
    Having said that, we still have to choose a side, a standard.  For whose cause do we fight?    Do we fight for God or against Him?  How do we know which side we are choosing?  St. Paul lays out a good list today of ways that we’re on team Satan: immorality, impurity, greed, and obscene talk.  The Apostle says that these are all signs of idolatry, of making other things gods in our life.  St. Ignatius, as I mentioned above, had also mentioned making gods out of money and our ego.  We could also say that if we’re breaking one of the Ten Commandments, we are choosing something other than the rule of God.
    On the flip side, choosing the standard of Christ means doing what we can to “live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us.”  It means making the choices that Christ made to humility, obedience, and service.  It means being grateful to God for those things that we have, knowing that they are gifts from God to which we are not entitled.  Choosing the standard of Christ and living in loves means exercising patience, kindness, gentleness, not rejoicing in evil, but rejoicing in the truth, as St. Paul says in his first epistle to the Corinthians. 
    If we are to fight in Christ’s army, then not only do we follow His banner, but we also protect ourselves with His armor.  The best armor against the assaults of the enemy is prayer and service.  Do we turn to God in prayer throughout our day?  It may not mean staying in a church or chapel from 9-5, but making the sign of the cross throughout our 9-5 job, or letting quick little prayers (we used to called them pious ejaculations) like “Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!” or, “Jesus, I trust in you!” Or, “Mary, conceived without original sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee” come from our lips at home, in the car, or in the office or factory.  Do we guard what we watch and that to which we listen, to make sure that we’re not inviting in spies from the enemy’s camp into our mind?  Do we read the Word of God, guided by the Church’s Magisterium, so that we can truly be those blessed because we hear God’s word and observe it? 
    Lent is a wonderful time to recommit ourselves to fighting for Christ in His army.  It is the perfect time to ask Christ to set our hearts ablaze with His love, or rekindle those fires that have started to smolder out.  Christ is putting an end to the kingdom of the prince of this world.  Let’s choose the kingdom that will give us eternal happiness in heaven, where God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit reign for ever and ever.  Amen.    

What We Have

Third Sunday of Lent
    A recent song that I heard frequently a few months ago was thought provoking, and even brought me to some soul searching.  The song is “What I Have” by an up-and-coming country star named Kelsea Ballerini.  She reflects on this constant drive to have more and more, and then juxtaposes it with what she has.  The last two lines of the refrain are, “I’m doing alright right where I’m at / With what I have.”  And then the last refrain has a slight twist from the earlier ones: “I got the air, good eyes to see / Got so much more than I’ll even need. / Even the bad days ain’t all that bad / With what I have.”  
    What do you have?  What do you need?  Our readings point us to three things that we need: water, hope, and living water.  The Israelites are on their way to Mt. Sinai, but are tired of walking.  They saw mighty works from God, including the crossing of the Red Sea, but they doubt God’s care for them, so they cry out for water.  God, in turn, gives them water when Moses strikes the rock.  But the place still garners the name Massah and Meribah “because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the Lord.”  They chose to doubt God, even though He had taken care of them and led them out of slavery in Egypt, and then saved them at the Red Sea and crushed their enemies.  They weren’t content with what they had, which was God.  

    And our Gospel shows us the exchange between a Samaritan, a non-Israelite, and Jesus.  The Samaritan woman doesn’t know what she has, or better, whom she has.  First she wants the living water that Jesus describes, but then she balks when Jesus starts to confront her past and call her to conversion.  She tries to steer the conversation away from her, and engages in what is still the easiest way to get people distracted in conversation: bring up a contentious point of doctrine.  She has the Messiah, but doesn’t realize it at first.  Jesus knows both what she has, but also what she lacks, and seeks to fill up what she lacks so that she can be satisfied, just as He gave the Chosen People what they lacked in the desert when they were going to the Promised Land.
    We are arguably the most affluent society in human history.  This is not to make light of the real struggles of the poor, the homeless, the hungry and thirsty, but so many of us have more than what we need.  We have clothes, and often buy clothes that we don’t even need.  We have a house, and some even have two or three.  We have modes of transportation that are, more or less, reliable, and can take us across States and countries.  Most people have a phone which can bring up any type of information that we desire at a moment’s notice.  We have grocery stores that provide food, not only what is in-season locally, but foods from exotic parts of the world that we could never grow here.  Many of us are used to taking vacations when we feel like it.  
    And yet, with all that we have, in 2020, 45,979 Americans died from suicide, out of 1.2 million attempts.  Suicide is the 12th leading cause of death of Americans.  How could so many who have so much seek to end their own lives?  At least part of the answer is connected to how many people have stopped practicing their faith, have walked away from God.  They are like the Samaritan woman at the well, she’s thirsty, but no matter how many times she draws water, it never satisfies.  And then along comes this stranger, this foreigner, who promises her a water which will satisfy, but she can’t bring herself to accept it at first, because she won’t trust in God’s help.  She’d rather argue about where to worship and who the Messiah is at first than accept the gift of new life that God is offering.
    St. Paul says that we have hope, a hope which does not disappoint, “because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”  Hope is one of the greatest things we can have (though it’s not really a commodity) because it keeps us going.  And we do not have hope because of our affluence, or even because of what we have achieved, but because of what God has done for us.  “For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly.”  Jesus sacrificed Himself so that we could have the one thing we truly need: Him.  He had been doing that from the beginning.  Indeed, St. Paul writes about the first reading we heard in his first letter to the Corinthians: [the Jews] “drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.”  Even in the Old Testament, Christ was prefiguring the gift of Himself when God provided water for the Jews in the desert.  That same gift, the gift of Himself, Jesus gave to the Samaritan woman at the well, and she eventually allowed herself to receive it, which gave her so great a joy that she forgot about the water she had gone to draw from the well.  
    [My dear Elect and Candidate: throughout this past year, you have noted your need for God.  You have sensed Him offering you the living water, and you have responded.  As you celebrate this first scrutiny, Christ seeks to have you acknowledge your past sins, not to condemn you, but that He might heal them in you.  For it is only when we acknowledge that we have strayed from God, that God can heal us and draw us back to Him.  God wants you to have Him, because if you have Him, you have all that you truly need.  And even if you had everything tangible thing the world had to offer, if you don’t have Him, you have nothing.]
    We all have a lot more than any other previous generation had.  The temptations to focus on what we don’t have or what our neighbors have can easily trip us up.  Instead, let’s focus on strengthening what we truly need to be happy: God.  Because as long as we have God, “I’m doing alright right where I’m at / With what I have.”

Getting to Know Christ through the Lenten Gospels

Second Sunday of Lent
    Throughout Lent, we see overarching themes as we enter into this holy season.  Certainly we see mortification and the denial of the body as a way to focus on the higher, spiritual realities.  We are also, certainly, meditating on the Passion of our Lord, and preparing for His ultimate sacrifice which we celebrate during the Sacred Triduum.  And that Passion leads to the Resurrection, as we see in the Transfiguration today.  Our Lord had told the Apostles about His impending Passion, and then He takes Peter, James, and John, and leads them up Mount Tabor, and is transfigured before them, to show that what would happen after He suffered crucifixion. 

Church of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor

    

    But all of the Gospels passages for this sacred time, both in the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, also help us to understand who Jesus is.  The first two Sundays of Lent find the Gospel readings in both forms of the Roman Rite the same: the temptation of our Lord, and His Transfiguration.  After that, the Gospel selections take different paths.  In the Ordinary Form, since this is Year A in the Cycle of Sunday readings, we hear the long Gospels about the Samaritan woman at the well (3rd Sunday of Lent); the man born blind (4th Sunday of Lent); and the raising of Lazarus (5th Sunday of Lent).  In the Extraordinary Form, where we hear the same readings each year, the passages are: the casting out of demons, and the accusation that our Lord does so by the power of demons (3rd Sunday in Lent); the multiplication of the loaves from John 6 (4th Sunday in Lent); and our Lord telling the Pharisees that He is greater than Abraham (Passion Sunday).  No matter which Form of Mass we attend, the readings help us to know our Lord better as He reveals Himself.
    The identity of Christ is no small matter and is perfect for meditation during Lent.  The better we know Christ, we better know our salvation.  And, since we are members of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, the better we know Christ, the better we understand what is in store for us if we stay faithful to Him.
    On the one hand we can talk about who our Lord is objectively, as in facts about Him.  The Gospels show us that He is the Son of God, who has been tempted like us, but has not sinned (first Sunday of Lent).  He is also co-equal with the Father, and sharing in His glory, the God to whom all the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah) point (second Sunday of Lent).  The Savior is the one who brings down the power and reign of Satan (third Sunday of Lent, EF), and does so by convicting us of sin so that we can be healed and receive the waters of Divine Mercy (third Sunday of Lent, OF).  Christ opens our eyes to recognize who He is (fourth Sunday of Lent, OF), and feeds us with miraculous bread, going beyond what any other prophet had done (fourth Sunday of Lent, EF).  Christ is the Resurrection and the Life, who grants eternal life to those who believe in Him (fifth Sunday of Lent), whose day Abraham rejoiced to see (Passion Sunday). 
    But knowing our Lord is more than simply knowing facts about Him.  Knowing Christ means taking all those facts that I just laid out, the facts that we hear from the Gospel, and making a choice about who He is to me.  Even the demons knew facts about Christ, and could probably confess more Trinitarian theology than any of us could.  But they do not have a relationship with Christ; they do not want Him involved in their lives; they do not love Him.
    Following Christ as a disciple means growing in our love of Him.  Lent offers us the opportunity to recommit ourselves to acting like He did in our daily lives.  Do we actively fight temptations and do our best not to give in to the lies of the devil?  Does our glory come from God, or do we seek to glorify ourselves with our own greatness, that does not even come close to shining as brightly as the glory that God desires for us?  How do we fill that thirst that we have for God?  Are we active in cooperating with Christ to tear down the kingdom of the prince of this world and build up the Kingdom of God?  Do we ourselves recognize the ways we want to close our eyes to God’s goodness, and help to open others’ eyes to the truth of the Gospel?  Do we feed on the Living Bread come down from heaven, or do we try to fill our stomachs with food that fails to satisfy and is never enough?  Are we willing to let Christ raise us to new life, or do we treat Him as just another moral teacher, a philosopher, who had some good teachings, but is like all other teachers and philosophers who came before Him?
    Our reading of the Gospels and our participation in this Mass is not simply about gathering facts and putting time in with God.  When we read the Sacred Scriptures, guided by the teachings of the Church, God wants us to understand how we are to find our happiness by putting the old Adam, the one who chose disobedience to God, to death, and rising to life with the new Adam, Christ, who was obedient even to the point of death, death on a cross.  As we worship God in the Mass, God does not only want our praise from our lips.  He gives us the Eucharist, the miraculous Bread from heaven, so that our lives can be transformed and we can have a foretaste within us of the glory to be revealed at the end of time.  God wants us to utilize His presence within us to be more like Him, and to share that presence of Christ when we interact with others.  When family members, friends, co-workers, and others interact with us, do they sense Christ and see, even in small ways, His glory shining through us?  Are they greeted with the love that any person would desire to receive from God, and then invited to participate in the truth that is also God? 
    We are still early in Lent.  There is still time to get to know God better, and to open ourselves to the grace of God which makes deep changes possible in our lives so that we live a life like Christ’s.  Don’t only give up stuff this Lent.  Don’t only know the facts about the great gift of salvation God gave us in dying for us.  Allow what Christ did to become the pattern of your own life, and grow in your friendship with Him. 

Hearing or Listening

First Sunday of Lent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  There would come times my youth when I was sitting on a Saturday morning, watching cartoons and eating cereal, and my mom would be talking to me, letting me know what chores I had to do that day or any special events that were happening later in the day.  I was sure I could do two things at once, so I would try to hear what she was saying while also not missing key plot points in my Saturday morning shows.  She would (often correctly) not believe that I was listening, and would ask, “Did you listen to what I said?”  “Yep,” I would reply, to which she would continue, “Then what did I say?”  My answer would betray whether I was simply hearing or whether I was listening.
    The Gospel we heard today, hopefully to which we listened, deal precisely with those two aspects of receiving sound: hearing and listening.  Maybe that was not clear, but as we heard about the temptations of our Lord, we could garner an important lesson about the difference between hearing and listening.
    To start, though, we should go back all the way to the Book of Genesis, to the beginning, when Adam and Eve were in the Garden [as we heard in our first reading].  God had told them that they could have any good fruit to eat, except the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Perhaps Adam and Eve were listening to God when He was speaking thus, or perhaps they were not fully giving the attention that listening requires, and just responded, “uh huh.”  In any case, Eve certainly did listen to the serpent, the Devil, who asked, “‘Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’”  Eve seems to know what God says, but she has already agreed to listen to the Devil, and so she gives in to the temptation to disobey God.  She then brings Adam into her disobedience, and since Adam represented all humanity, all of humanity fell in Adam’s disobedience (as St. Paul states in his epistles).  
    Hearing means receiving the auditory stimuli.  Listening means understanding what is being said, and taking that understanding to heart.  Look to the Gospel today, and Christ, the new Adam, hears the Devil tempting Him, but does not listen.  The Devil three times tries to get our Lord to listen, by tempting Him with sins against temperance (a disordered desire for food), against trust (putting God to the test), and against humility (putting someone or something else in the place of God).  Our Lord certainly hears what Satan is saying, but pays no more attention to it than a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons when mom is talking.  What Christ does listen to is the Scriptures, as He is able to respond with God’s Word: “‘One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.’”; “‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”; “‘The Lord, your God, shall your worship and him alone shall you serve.’”  The Savior had not only heard what God said, but understood its deeper meaning and took it to heart, which allowed him to recognize the lies of the enemy, and to let them run off his back like water on a duck.  

    Temptation is hearing what the devil says to us, and we cannot help but be tempted, because the devil and his fallen angels so frequently do their best to draw us away from God.  He might say, “It’s not that bad”; or “it’ll feel so good”; or “no one will get hurt”; or even, “What you want is good, so go for it however you can.”  Those are the lies that seek to pull us away from God.  If we only hear them, then there is no sin, just as our Lord did not sin when Satan tempted Him.
    However, if we believe those lies, if we listen to Satan, that is when we act on those temptations, and that is when we sin.  Parents, teachers, coaches, and others probably told us when we were younger that we can only listen to one thing at a time.  When it comes to the spiritual life, that is true.  We either listen to God and take in what He tells us, or we listen to the devil, and take in what he tells us.  If we’re listening to God, we may hear the devil tempting us, but we don’t fall away.  If we’re listening to Satan, we ignore the voice of God in our hearts, what we call the conscience, which helps us know what to do and what not to do.

Tomb of St. Benedict in Monte Cassino

    Listening is so important in our spiritual life.  In fact, the first word in the Rule of St. Benedict is “Listen.”  The full sentence is: “Listen continually with thine heart, O son, giving attentive ear to the precepts of thy master.”  Again, listening means taking something into the heart, and making it our own.  To what should we listen?  To the precepts of our master, the laws of God our Father given to us through the Scriptures, and the laws given to us by our Holy Mother, the Church.
    Lent is the perfect time to work on our listening.  What messages do we take in to our lives each day and each week?  To whose voice are we more attentive?  One of the great ways to make sure that we listen to God is to read His Word.  Yes, Satan could quote Scripture, but when we’re familiar with the entire story; when we take into our hearts the message that God has for us in the Bible, we can better recognize the lies that the devil tells us.  In fact, sometimes I’ll counsel people in the confessional that when they feel tempted, they should, whether outlaid or to themselves, simply say, “That is a lie.”  I use this sometimes in my own spiritual life when I am undergoing temptation.  I’ll say, “That is a lie,” or “That is not from God,” and often times the temptation flees away immediately.  Sometimes I have to repeat it a few times.  But the key is that my mind and my heart are able to block out the sounds of Satan, but hold fast to the Word of God.  Yes, I may have no choice but to hear the temptations, but I do not have to listen to them and give them credence.
    This Lent, let’s work on our listening.  Be attentive to “every word that comes forth from the mouth of God,” so that we do not “put the Lord, your God, to the test,” and do worship and serve him alone [through our Lord Jesus Christ, his Son, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen].

LOVE

Quinquagesima

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Yesterday at our Mardi Gras Dinner Dance, the focus of the music was not just celebrating before Lent began, but love.  There were love songs everywhere, and different descriptions of love.  Whether the dances were upbeat, or whether it was a chance to slow down, most of the music had to deal with love.
    There are a great many love songs, both past and present, in the genre of country music and the genre of pop or lite-rock.  Songs express movements of the heart that words sometimes cannot adequately convey.  Songs like “All for Love” by Rod Stewart; or “Through the Years” by Kenny Rogers; songs like “At Last” by Etta James; or “I Just Called to Say I Love You” by Stevie Wonder.  There’s even the classic song entitled “LOVE” which many crooners have sung, or the more recent “Love Story” by Taylor Swift.
    In all these songs, love is described as some kind of reaction in the individual, a rush of warm, gooey goodness, a delight in the other.  It is, often something that another does to the self, an affirmation of goodness.  And even St. Thomas describes love (as often quoted by Bishop Robert Barron) as willing the good of the other.  But St. Paul the Apostle also describes love in the epistle we heard today, and while I’m not sure you could quite put it to a pop tune or a country melody, because it is the Word of God, it should guide how we understand love in our daily lives, more so than any secular music does.
    This Pauline hymn of love talks about the actions that love accomplishes.  One loves by demonstrating patience and kindness.  Love does not allow envy to enter in, nor seeks ambition over the other.  Love does not lead to anger, nor to evil, nor joy in sin, but, rather, rejoices in the truth.  Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.”  You could have everything in the world, but if you don’t have love you have nothing, and this even includes spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues or prophesying and the ability to move mountains.  Love is not about me but about thee.  
    And as we come to this Quinquagesima Sunday, this last Sunday before we enter into Lent, we see the love of our Lord as He prepares for the Passion ahead of him.  He takes His special friends, His Apostles, and speaks to them aside from everyone else to let them know that they are going to Jerusalem so that the Son of Man can suffer and die.  Love draws our Lord to a task harder than we could ever imagine, not because of how painful it was physically, but because in Christ, it is not just a human going to suffer who suffers each day, but Life itself who was going to die, Holiness Incarnate who would take upon Himself the sins, not just of those around Him, but from every time and place, from the foundation of the world until its final consummation at the end of time.  We suffer and we go from being to non-being because we know that we are finite and we will have a limit on this earth.  Christ was the creator of the heavens and the earth, the eternal Logos whom the heavens and earth cannot contain, yet who went down to the depths of hell in order to save us from eternal damnation.  

    That is love.  It is not just the way you look at me; the only one I see; the very, very extraordinary, or even more than anyone that you adore.  It is so valuing the other that no cost is too high to pay for the good of the other.  Love means there’s no mountain high enough, no valley low enough, no river wide enough to keep us from sacrificing ourselves for the good of the beloved.  It goes beyond delight or physical attraction.  Love goes beyond the way another makes us feel, as good as that can be.  Love means doing whatever it takes for the other person’s benefit, with the highest benefit being, of course, eternal salvation.
    When we think about young love, we do think about the strong flames of passion, the silly and extravagant gestures of a couple who cannot help but smile at each other when they come into each other’s presence.  And that is good, and there is a time for that.  But loves proves itself, proves whether it is merely delight and infatuation, when there smiles do not readily come, but tears are shed because of struggle and suffering.  There is a young couple I know who was dating during COVID.  I knew that the young man was moving towards love for the young woman when the young woman contracted COVID, and he chose to be with her so that she would have someone to care for her, and would not be alone, though it meant the possibility of contracting the virus himself and not being able to see his family because he, too, would have to be quarantined.
    Love is staying up long nights to help a spouse study for an important exam, even though one has to be at work the next morning at 6 a.m.  Love is the mother who holds out her hand to catch the vomit from a sick child.  Love is working at a job that is neither exciting nor fulfilling, but knowing that the work will provide a roof, food, and clothing for the family.  I think grandparents are often beautiful examples of love, because, in many cases, the fires that we identify with young love, are not as strong, and yet the heat of that love is kept in white-hot coals.  Have you ever noticed how a couple who has been married for a long time can just sit with each other, perhaps holding hands, and simply delight in each other’s presence?  That kind of love is the result of each spouse knowing that he or she has sacrificed over the years for the good of the other, and the appreciation of the other for that sacrifice.  
    As we prepare to enter into Lent, we recall, once more, the love that God had for us, the love that emptied itself first by becoming man, and then by sacrificing that Incarnation on the altar of the cross so that, by His immolation, we would gain wholeness; by His Death we would gain life.  May God open our eyes to see clearly the great gift we were given in our Lord’s Passion and Death, so that we may also merit to be with the Beloved of our souls in the kingdom of heaven, where God is all in all: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Humblebrag?

Sexagesima

St. Paul from his basilica in Rome

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  It seems, at first glance, like St. Paul might be doing what we call today a humble brag.  He spends more than half of today’s epistle talking about all the things he could claim fame to.  He starts by sharing the things he could brag about: his heritage, his nation, his connection to Abraham.  Clearly, other ministers in Corinth had been claiming some sort of prestige because they were Jewish.  But St. Paul reminds the Corinthians that his bonafides are no less than any others, and probably greater than many others.  He then continues by talking about all the ways that he has suffered for the Gospel: receiving lashes, beatings, being shipwrecked, in danger almost everywhere he goes, whether on land or sea, getting threatened by Jews, threatened by Gentiles, being betrayed, not having enough food, drink, or proper clothing.  He then continues talking about “someone he knows” who had visions of the third heaven (today we might say: A friend of mine has this thing).  And he ends up by speaking about a thorn in his flesh, which he had asked the Lord three times to eliminate.
    So is St. Paul trying to direct pity and sympathy towards himself?  Not at all.  The Apostle was combatting those who were trying to modify the Gospel according to their own vision, and basing their ability to change the Gospel on their heritage.  So Paul, in essence, is saying, “You think they’re qualified?!  If pedigree is the issue, mine is better, so listen to me!”  And his list of sufferings is then further proof of why the Corinthians should listen to Paul, because he has laid everything on the line for the Gospel and endured much suffering.  And yes, sometimes people get special gifts, special charisms or visions of things about which we cannot even speak.  Probably, Paul was such a person, as he definitely had a special vision of Christ on the road to Damascus, and perhaps at another time, as well.
    But Paul doesn’t put much stock into those.  Rather, he glories in his weakness, so that what matters is not Paul but the power of Christ within Paul.  It is, as St. John the Baptist says, “He [Christ] must increase; I must decrease.”  Whatever helps the Gospel be spread, that is what is most important.
    Part of spreading the seed of the Gospel is trying to make sure that the soil is ready.  We prepare the soil by our witnessing by word and by deed, and doing so in a way that meets that person where he or she is at, so that we can draw him or her to Christ.  Sometimes people need to see a degree or some sort of formal qualifications.  Other times people need to know that you have gone through similar life experiences in order to trust our proclamation of the Gospel.  Other times people need to hear about specific encounters with God.  So as we proclaim the Gospel, we’ll want to get to know what will help that specific person, and tailor the methods we use to the way that they will be receive the Gospel.  It is, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, that what is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.

Harrison Butker

    There is also an important demonstration from St. Paul when it comes to showing the power of the Gospel is not our own power.  We tend to get really excited when a famous person converts.  There was a lot of hay made when Shia Lebouf spoke about his conversion, and how the Extraordinary Form helped him connect with God in a way that the Ordinary Form did not.  Mark Wahlburg often posts messages about how important his faith is, and he spoke about playing Fr. Stu and how that impacted his own faith.  I have recently been intrigued by the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, Harrison Butker, who is a Catholic and attends the Extraordinary Form Mass, and talks about being a disciple first, a husband and father second, and a football player last, but doing all these things with the greatest effort he can.  So praise God for famous people who live the faith.
    But there’s also something to the small people living the faith, the people who aren’t famous, who don’t have everything going for them, or who struggle to make it through week-by-week, but who stay with God and find in Him the pearl of great price.  I think the non-famous people draw us because, when something great happens, we realize that it’s not that person’s natural gifts, but the power and grace of God made manifest.  St. John Vianney, St. Andre Bessette, and Bl. Solanus Casey are perfect examples of this.  From a worldly point of view, they didn’t have much going for them.  And yet, each in their own way, they drew others, often in droves, to Christ.  And the power of Christ was made manifest through their weakness. 
    That should give us hope, because I am not famous, nor are many of you.  As far as I know, none of us are the richest people in Flint, or the most powerful or well-connected.  We each have struggles that we deal with each day and each week.  But in our weakness, God manifests His power.  And those others who are not famous, not rich, not powerful or well-connected can then know that the Gospel is for them, too; that God cares about those who don’t have it all together. 
    We have a lot for which we should give thanks to God.  We have a beautiful church; we have a beautiful Mass; we have a beautiful community here which is committed to the Catholic faith and strives to live that faith out each day as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, children, brothers, sisters, employers, employees, retirees, etc.  Some have had amazing experiences of God through prayers and retreats.  Others experience God in the every-day happenings of life.  Each of us have our own temptations.  But through it all, God desires that we glorify Him in our greatness and weakness, in our joys and sorrows so that others can experience His saving Word, truth, and grace.  God’s great power is made perfect in our smallness.  Let us glory in being small parts of the great work of salvation of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Sweat the Small Stuff

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

   “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”  We’ve probably heard that phrase a time or two.  And in some cases it can be quite good advice.  One can get so focused on little things that you miss the bigger things of life.  Or, to use another cliché, “you can’t see the forest from the trees.”  
    But when it comes to our life in Christ, when it comes to following Jesus, that’s not the message we hear today.  We are still advised to take care of the big issues, e.g. murder, adultery, divorce, and false oaths, but Jesus encourages us to go deeper, to look to the smaller roots that lead to those bigger problems.
    Because those big ones can be easy (at least to some or most) to keep.  Most people are not going to murder another person.  Most married couples do not cheat on their spouse.  Most people do not “swear to God” and then do not follow through.  And if that’s all we think that following Jesus is about, then we probably think we’re pretty good.  Indeed, many have come to think that as long as they’re not a horrible sinner, then they’re probably going straight to heaven after death.  It’s a nice wish, but not one that is in line with the Gospel.
    Jesus reminds us that the small stuff is precisely where the big stuff begins.  If you have enough trees to do get a forest.  In following Jesus, it does not suffice not to be an egregious sinner.  Jesus desires us to have a change of heart.  In Church language we use the Greek word metanoia.  In fact, what we translate as repent, often comes from that Greek word “metanoia,” which could also be translated, “change your hearts.”  
    And a heart that is changed to be more like Jesus is a heart that recognizes how those smaller desires in our hearts lead to action.  Every action comes from a desire, really, but those big sins we see in seminal form by smaller sins and desires that stem from the heart.
    Very few, if any, wake up one day and say, “You know what?  I haven’t murdered anyone lately.  I think I’ll give that a try!”  No, it starts with that person that we find annoying, and an anger with that person in our heart.  It continues with us calling others names, insulting them, giving them the middle finger.  It builds to desiring evil for another person whom we do not like, hoping that some bad happens to them so that they’re taught a lesson.  Those may not always lead to murder, to killing an innocent human being, but every homicide started many steps back with anger in the heart.
    Very few, if any, wake up one day and say, “I haven’t cheated on my spouse” or “I haven’t messed around with my girlfriend” (ladies, you can replace this and later examples with the male counterpart) and then proceed to be unfaithful and unchaste.  It starts with the song we hear on Spotify, or the Netflix drama we watch.  It continues with that longer look we take of the attractive woman at work or in class, or the racy adds we linger on that pop-up on the Internet.  It builds through watching pornography, or being alone in a room with a girlfriend when no one else is home, never intending to cross that line, but hoping to get as close to that line as possible.  
    When our desires and our hearts are rightly ordered, then the big stuff never enters our mind.  When our desires and our hearts run wild, and follow any desire they have for small things, it is much easier to give into bigger evils.  Again, smaller evils don’t necessarily lead to bigger evils, but even those small evils show that God is not number one, which means that we’re not ready for heaven, where God is all in all.  
    Jesus says later in the Gospel according to St. Matthew that, “‘the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent are taking it by force.’”  Following Jesus is not for sissies or wimps or whatever other word you want to use.  Following Jesus means fighting battles day in and day out.  It is not for the faint of heart.  Following Jesus means we fight those small disordered desires in our hearts because even in themselves acting on those small disordered desires means that we’re pulling away from God.  If someone were trying to take our life, we would fight with all we had, using any means necessary to preserve it.  God wants us to use the same, all-out mentality when it comes to our eternal salvation, to eternal life.  Fight with everything we have to deny ourselves those little sins that we often overlook.
    The good news is that, just as we should sweat the small stuff, doing small things for Christ also can help us beyond what we imagine.  Just as small disordered desires lead us away from God, and can lead to much greater sins, so small acts of fidelity to God can build up to greater witness that God is number one in our life.  That excuse for the person who cut us off on the road, thinking that the person may be going to a dying family member rather than cursing them out; that change of the channel when something lewd comes on TV, or going to a different page when the Internet brings us a scantily clad member of the opposite sex; that act of kindness towards a person for whom we do not particularly care; the putting of a filter on the phone or the choosing of an accountability partner who helps us avoid pornographic sites; all those things help change our heart for the better, and make us better disciples of Christ.
    The good news is also that we don’t have to fight alone.  No good, whether small or great, is possible without the grace of Christ leading us there, accompanying us through it, and completing it.  And God showers down his grace like rain at all moments of our life so that we can say no to evil and yes to good.  Pay attention to the small desires of the heart.  Keep what is good, reject what is evil, so that, by God’s grace, we will be as prepared as we can be for our judgment, and hopefully be welcomed into eternal life in heaven.  

Helping Hearts Rest in the Lord

 Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Matthew Church

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  Today we assemble to celebrate and to mourn, to rejoice and to honor.  We celebrate this beautiful edifice, this temple of God which draws us closer to Him through the intercession of St. Matthew.  We rejoice that this church is a visible reminder that God dwells among us, and that we are called to participate in His Church, as living stones of the heavenly Jerusalem, the temple not made with hands.  At the same time we mourn the passing of Fr. Frederick Harold Taggart, OSA, our beloved former pastor, and Augustinian priest who was professed for 65 years.  We honor his service to his parish, and all the souls whom he helped to grow closer to God.
    But while celebrating and mourning, rejoicing and honoring may not seem to go together well, as the author of Ecclesiastes says, there is a time for everything, and a season for everything under heaven.  And, in a way, celebrating this church is a great way to honor the pastor who helped beautify it, and kept this treasure going in downtown Flint.
    A favorite phrase of St. Augustine for many is from his Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  This church is a place of rest, a true rest area off the highway of life.  Architecturally and aesthetically, a church is meant to bring one back to the Temple of Solomon, which itself pointed back to the Garden of Eden.  In Eden, humanity did not labor, but rested in the presence of God.  The dissonance of sin had not yet entered the world, so only harmony resonated between God and Adam and Eve, and between Adam and Eve themselves, and between Adam and Eve and the created world.  As we enter this sacred building, the design of the arches is not meant to confound the eye (making, as it were, the parishioner wonder, ‘How does this stay up?’), but to let it rest in the solidity of the building.  The precious materials used for the sacred liturgy, whether the altar, the ambo (where the Word of God is proclaimed), or the sacred vessels, remind us of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is decorated with all kinds of precious stones and metals.  The stained-glass windows remind us that the saints worship with us, and call us to be the best version of ourselves that we can be.  Though we labor through pain and temptation during our daily lives, inside this building, our hearts are meant to be at rest.
    Fr. Taggart also did his best to let the hearts of all who came here to rest in Christ.  In his 57 years as a priest, only God now knows how many Masses he said for the living and the dead; how many confessions he heard so that hearts weighted down by sin could be relieved through the mercy of God; how many baptisms he celebrated, making children of God out of the children of men; how many weddings he witnessed as two hearts became one; how many families he comforted as they mourned the loss of their own loved ones and friends; how many hearts were poured out in spiritual counseling and guidance.  In the Order of St. Augustine, Fr. Fred had found a place where his heart could rest in the Lord, and his pastoral ministry was a response to that love, and a desire to help others find that same rest in Christ.  He strove to be a just man, and a light in darkness to the upright, as Psalm 112 (111) states.
    [In particular for the Traditional Latin Mass community, Fr. Fred was instrumental in helping to have a fitting place to celebrate the more ancient Roman Rite.  We celebrated the first Sunday Mass here at St. Matthew on 5 July 2015, and haven’t looked back.  While he did not, to my knowledge, celebrate the Extraordinary Form Mass after the newer Mass came long, he did, I believe, use the older forms for baptism when requested, and always sought to celebrate the Mass reverently.  And he certainly provided a church that would serve the needs of this important and necessary part of St. Matthew parish.]
    Did he do this perfectly?  Does this church always grant rest to our hearts and minds?  No.  Like any person, Fr. Fred has his own human weaknesses and failings.  As a pastor, a father of the family, Fr. Fred sometimes had to make decisions that were not popular among all his spiritual children.  One of the stories I heard about Fr. Taggart when I arrived was about his interaction with Ardith Goodroe and the choir here at St. Matthew.  What strikes me as most important about that story is that he and Ardith, after a period of tension, could still be good friends.  And that says something: when a difficult decision needs to be made, and feelings are hurt, that two people can reconcile and renew their friendship with each other.  None of us are perfect, but with grace and understanding we can overcome hurt that we cause each other.

    This church, too, is a work in progress.  We’re still working on stopping leaks in the downspouts, which cause the plaster to break-up and crumble.  There are always repairs and improvements that can be made to any church, like the beautiful floor that was installed some years ago, and the renovation of the bride’s room.  So for us: we’re never done in our relationship with Christ.  There are always ways that we can grow, emotional and spiritual wounds that need to be healed, virtues that need to be strengthened.  Just as we cannot simply let this building sit, so we cannot rest on the laurels of previous periods of growth and holiness in our relationship with Christ.  Christ calls us to deeper and deeper trust in Him, to find new ways that He wants our hearts to rest in Him, since He made us for union with Himself.  
    It is my hope, as your current pastor, and successor of Fr. Taggart, that I can continue help you find your rest in Christ.  Through my ministry, I hope that you can experience the peace and love of God for which He created humanity.  We are not the largest parish in Genesee County, but, as a family, we can help each other rest in God, and encourage others to find that same rest in God through participation in the Sacred Liturgy, service to the poor, and growth in our understanding of God’s never-changing truth.  Like Fr. Fred, I am committed to preserving this temple so that God may be glorified and the intercession of the saints may be sought.  Like Fr. Fred I will sometimes err, but I hope that, with grace and understanding, we can continue to be a family of faith the encourages each other to be the best we can be in Christ.  Every human being is made for God.  Every human’s heart desires to rest in God.  May we, the people of St. Matthew parish, the sons and daughters of our spiritual father, Fr. Fred Taggart, engage in the mission of helping every heart rest in God and find the love and peace that each desires.  Eternal rest grant unto Fr. Taggart, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.  May he rest in peace.  Amen.  May Fr. Fred’s soul and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God [the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit] rest in peace.  Amen. 

For the Right Reasons

 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When I started working out over a year ago, I did so at the suggestion of a friend, who encouraged me to lift weights in order to be healthier.  Along the way, around 9 months in, I was getting pretty frustrated because, while I had lost some weight, especially around my waist, I didn’t seem to be gaining muscle mass.  I had worked out for 9 months, and I didn’t have a chiseled body!  When I complained about this to my friend, he told me that lifting weights and exercising is a good unto itself, and shouldn’t be done just to make one look more toned.  I was doing all the right things, but I had started doing them for the wrong reasons.
    We hear this list in our first reading today about the things God wants us to do: feed the hungry; shelter the oppressed and homeless; clothe the naked; remove oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech.  And this seems to be backed up in our Gospel when Jesus tells us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  So we’ve got our list of things to do.  But, you can do all those things even if you’re not Catholic, even if you’re not Christian.  And I’m sure that there are a number of people who have left the Church over the years who have heard the message preached when they were younger about all the ways that they are supposed to love their neighbor, but mistakenly thought that they didn’t have to go to Mass, or believe in the Eucharist, or go to confession, or abstain from meat on Fridays, or not live with a significant other before marriage, or anything else that goes along with being Catholic.  You can almost hear the person asking why they need to do all those other things, as long as they are doing what Isaiah said in our first reading God wanted us to do.
    That person was like me: doing the right things but for the wrong reasons.  And that person probably heard the same message I did growing up: just love your neighbor and you will be good.  Bishops, priests, catechists, and all those who taught the faith had a tendency to boil the significance of being Catholic down to being a social worker or do-gooder.  And, to be clear, we are called to do those things.  But we do them, not because we earn our salvation by doing certain things, but as a result of our relationship with Christ.  
    St. Paul said in our second reading that he resolved to know nothing while he was with the Corinthians except Jesus Christ.  For St. Paul, knowing Christ (and not just knowing facts about Him) was the most important, and he wanted to pass on the message to the people of Corinth.  Everything in Paul’s life revolved around and was a result of his relationship with Christ.  His missionary zeal came because Christ called him; his sufferings were bearable because Christ was with him; his demonstrations of the Gospel came from the Holy Spirit, who was given by Christ.  But all of it was the consequence of St. Paul’s relationship with Christ, not a replacement for it.
    Being Catholic is not about being a do-gooder, or promoting a social program, or being a philanthropist.  Being Catholic is about being in a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, who saves us from sin and death, from which we cannot save ourselves.  Going to confession and Mass; abstaining from meat on Fridays; not living together before marriage; and all the moral teachings of the Church follow from being a disciple of Jesus Christ, because He has revealed to us the way to salvation and the means of true and lasting happiness.  They are not added on rules form old men who have nothing better to do with their time.  Those, and many others, are ways that we deepen our relationship with Christ and live a life like His (as St. Paul says, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me”).  
    And as we become more and more like Christ, being obedient to the will of the Father, not only do we want to spend time with Him in adoration and in the Church, and mortify our bodies to help us say no to our fallen sinful nature and yes to the divine nature that God implants in us in baptism, but we also want to love the ones that Christ loves, and show that love in a variety of ways.  That love is shown by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and all the corporal works of mercy.  
    If we are truly becoming more and more like Christ, we cannot help but show that love by what we do.  Think of it like a marriage: if we truly love a spouse, then we show it.  But the things that we do are results and demonstrations of that love, not replacements for it.  A person can do all the things that a spouse would do, but if that person is not the spouse, it doesn’t have the same effect.

    Pope Benedict XVI, who should be canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church for his holiness of life, humility, and extremely insightful writings, once wrote in his Encyclical Deus caritas est, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”  Being Catholic is first and foremost about our relationship with Christ, which moves us to do certain things and avoid others.  As Catholics we serve others, not simply as a philosophy of service, but as the consequence of knowing and loving Jesus Christ.  Let’s not just do the “right things,” but do them for the right reasons.