To the Point

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus asked the apostles a question in today’s Gospel that today has asks us: “‘who do you say that I am?’”  Who do we believe Jesus is?  St. James reminds us in the second reading that what we believe about Jesus will be manifested in our actions.  Our actions show what our hearts, minds, and souls, believe about Jesus.  The more that we believe Jesus is who He says He is, the more we change our lives to look more like what He teaches us through the Scriptures and the Church.  What do our lives say about who we believe Jesus is?  Put another, albeit cliché, way: if we were put on trial for being Catholic, would there be enough evidence to convict us?

Be Opened!

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Imagine never hearing your favorite song again; never hearing the sound of your spouse or your children or loved ones say: I love you.  The sense of hearing is so important in our everyday life, and most of us probably take it for granted.

It is hard to imagine what life would be like being deaf.  A person’s world would be totally different.  We can imagine the shock, then, of the man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, after Jesus healed him.  That man’s life was totally different from that point on!  It’s no wonder that the people who were there responded with astonishment.  Perhaps they realized that Jesus was fulfilling the prophecy from Isaiah that we heard in our first reading: “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.”  Perhaps they were wondering to themselves if Jesus could be the Messiah.

The way that Jesus healed the man was interesting, too.  Mark writes, “[Jesus] put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’–that is, ‘Be opened!’”  In our American culture that doesn’t like touching too much, that may sound very uncomfortable!

The Church retains a ritual with a similar name in the Baptismal Rite for children.  After baptizing the child, anointing her with the Sacred Chrism, clothing her with the white garment, and giving the godparents and parents the baptismal candle lit from the Paschal Candle, the priest or deacon “touches the ears and mouth of the child with his thumb, saying: The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak.  May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”  The Church continues to open ears and mouths when people are baptized, but not just of children who are deaf or who cannot speak.  She allows this rite for all children.  Why?

Holy Mother Church is very realistic.  She knows that we need ritual symbols to remind us about who we are called to be, and what we are called to do.  By our baptism, we are called to open our ears and speak, not just to hear sounds and speak words, but to listen for Christ and to speak His Word.  Let’s be honest, there are times where we would rather be deaf to God and not talk about Him.  We need Jesus to open our ears and mouth.

Do we hear Jesus speaking authoritatively through the Church?  Do we treat the Church when She speaks about faith and morals as just one more opinion, or do we treat it as God continuing to communicate in the world, even when it goes against what we think is best or right?  Do we hear the cry of the poor, or have we closed our ears to them because we cannot be bothered with their struggles?  Do we hear people screaming for the love and truth of Christ, or do we just figure that they can find their own way to God?

Do we speak about Jesus?  This past week I was feeling a little lazy, so I decided to go to Hooligans for dinner.  I was one of three people in the restaurant at the time.  The waiter recognized me as a priest (I was in my clerical attire), and mentioned how he tries to go to church every Sunday, but he certainly prays every day.  I felt a tugging to say something about why Sunday is important, but decided just to be quiet.  He served me my meal, and did a very good job.  At the end of the meal, as I was signing the receipt, I couldn’t help, pushed as I was by the Spirit, to say, “Do you know why Sundays are important to Christians?”  He told me it was about fellowship.  But I pressed him even further and said, “Yes, but why Sundays?”  He said he didn’t know, and that started a conversation about how Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, which sets us apart as Christians, and which is a reason to rejoice because of the new life we are offered in Christ.  From there I found out that he is a fallen away Catholic, and we talked about his issues with Catholicism.  I don’t know if he’ll come back to the Church, though I did invite him.  But I know I was docile enough (after a bit of prodding) to the Holy Spirit to talk to Him about Jesus and His Church.  That’s nothing to brag about; that’s my vocation, and I’m more embarrassed that it took me so long than I am proud that I did it.  But Christ encountered one of His sheep through me, and maybe that sheep will return to the Catholic fold.  He might have through someone else, but maybe not.  Maybe I was the only one who could've talked to him in the way I did.  Maybe you’re that person with someone else.  

Christ tells us today: “‘Ephphata!’”–that is, “‘Be opened!’”  “May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”  Amen.

You Can't Cheat God

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sometimes it is made very clear to me what I should preach.  This past Monday, when I looked over the readings, I was immediately drawn to the Gospel where Jesus talks about how the practice of washing hands is not about what happens outside the person, but what happens inside the person.  It struck me that the Pharisees went through the ritual motions of religious life, without letting those actions take root in their soul.  As Jesus says, it is not what is outside the makes one unclean (that is, unfit for worship in the Temple) but what comes from the heart: all our passions that we give in to.

But, as I sat down to write my homily out on Thursday, I found myself drawn to a similar topic, but going in a different direction (how symbols are supposed to be sensible things that communicate an invisible reality).  I had my hook.  I was going to talk about how we misunderstand words, like when English speakers make the mistake of thinking that the word for embarrassed in Spanish, embarazado is a cognate–a similar sounding word–when it really means pregnant, leading to numerous embarrassing moments when a man says, Yo soy embarazado.  I had my main point, how symbols are meant to communicate the invisible through what we can receive through our senses, and how what we do in religious symbols should reflect what is truly going on inside our hearts and souls.  And I managed to talk about all of this and expand on the main topic in the usual Fr. Anthony homily duration (I’ve been told I preach a bit longer than our deacons).

But then Friday I stopped by the Adrian Police Department.  Some of you know that I have been doing ride-alongs with the Police and I have offered to provide any help to the officers that I can.  I went to talk to Clay, who often works the front desk.  I stopped by at about 4:10, and he wasn’t there, but when I asked I was told he was just getting ready to leave.  I waited a little, and then Clay came out and we had a nice little talk.  In the midst of that talk, he said that he didn’t understand two things about Catholics (he’s not Catholic, but is Christian).  The first difficulty we spoke about were the saints and praying to them.  That might be a homily for a different day.

The second thing we talked about took me back to what I first thought I was going to preach on, and caused me to totally rewrite my homily on Saturday morning, between altar server training and confessions.  He asked me about the experience he’s had of Catholics who say they can do whatever sinful thing they want Monday through Friday, then they go to confession on Saturday and Mass on Sunday with a clean slate, and then get back to serious sinning on the weekdays; rinse and repeat.  Clay said that it makes no sense.

Clay is right.  And I explained to him that we can’t cheat God.  Yes, we have the Sacrament of Penance to cleanse us of sin, the Sacrament established by Jesus in Matthew 16 and John 20 when He gave the Apostles the authority to forgive sins.  But I also told Clay that the Church teaches that, for the Sacrament of Penance to be valid, the penitent (the confessee, as it were), has to be truly sorry for his sins and has to make a firm amendment to not commit those sins in the future.  Certainly we sometimes fall into the same sins week after week that we don’t want to.  But if we’re not truly sorry for what we did Monday through Friday, and we fully plan on doing the same thing again the next Monday through Friday, then our sins are not forgiven.  We can’t cheat God. 

And that’s precisely what our Gospel is about.  Jesus did not condemn ritual purification and ritual actions.  But He taught us that the ritual is meant to have an effect in our lives, not to be a meaningless gesture.  Washing hands without washing souls means little in our relationship with God.  And sometimes doing the rituals without the meaning behind it becomes a scandal, an obstacle to other people believing in the Catholic faith.  I’m sure Clay is not the only Christian who thinks that the way some Catholics treat the Sacrament of Penance betrays the fact that these Catholics think that the Sacraments are magic.  They’re not magic.  They are meant to convert us, to change us, to become more like God.  If we’re not open to having God change us, God will not force His grace–His life, His love, His peace–on us.  We can go through the motions, but we won’t receive the effects that those actions are meant to have in our souls. 

Jesus gave us the Good News to help us draw closer to God.  The Good News He teaches us today is that while we can struggle with the same sins each week and be truly sorry, if we are trying to treat the religious rituals like a get out of Hell free card, we’re in for a not-so-pleasant surprise.  This is Good News because it gives us a chance to truly have a change of heart, a metanoia, a conversion, and ask God to purify us from the things that really make us unfit for the Temple.  God wants to truly cleanse us of those things and wash, not our hands, but our hearts.  Will we allow God to wash our souls with His cleansing grace?

Human Freedom by Bishop Boyea

        Moses is pretty clear with the people about what they are to do--they are to observe all the commands which he will give them from God; he adds “you shall not add to what I command you nor subtract from it.  Observe them carefully.”  This is exactly what the Pharisees were doing in the gospel reading from St. Mark.  They were observing the commandments of the Lord very carefully and thus they asked Jesus why his own disciples did not wash their hands before eating, something required in the law.  

Jesus then teaches a new form of morality.  It is not the following of a set of rules and regulations, but rather it is conversion of heart.  What comes out of a person is what constitutes goodness or impurity.  Jesus notes that evil comes not from washing or not washing the hands, but from an evil heart.  Jesus is telling us that what really matters is what is within us.

In essence then, Jesus is appealing to our human freedom.  Because we are free we are responsible for our actions.  We are responsible to shape our lives so that they attain truth and goodness, that is, so that they attain God.  The trouble is, as Jesus was well aware, all too often we do not choose to do the good, but rather we choose to do evil.  That was certainly the case with our first parents, Adam and Eve, but it is also true of each of us.  We are, in a sense, slaves to sinfulness because we keep choosing sinfulness.  

Because we are free, it is clear that we are responsible for this condition.  We need more training in how to choose good rather than sinfulness.  Our actions are good when two conditions are met: the thing we choose to do itself must be good; and, secondly, our intention or reason for doing it must also be good.  Thus something is not good unless both these conditions are met.  If we do the wrong thing (and somethings are wrong in themselves) for the right reason it is still the wrong thing to do (thus the end never justifies the means); if we do the right thing for the wrong reason it is not a good action we are performing, there may actually be a good which results, but that goodness is not credited to us since we have done it for a bad reason.

Jesus also wants us trained to do good, to be good and thus offers us a way out of our choosing sinfulness.  He offers us the true freedom to choose to be God’s children rather than the false freedom to choose to stay in sin.  It is when our hearts rest in Jesus that we are most open to his grace and the true exercise of our freedom.

This openness on our part is what is called our conscience.  This is not just some intellectual thing, for it is also something of the heart.  In our heart can be found our passions or our feelings.  These can help us to do the good.  If we have the most fundamental passion, love, then we are drawn to the good and we take joy in the presence of the good and then we do the good. This same feeling of love will mean that we hate evil and seek to avoid it and we feel sad in the presence of evil.  In a sense we learn to hate what God hates—sin.  Thus what fills our heart will have a direct bearing on what we decide to do, how we exercise our freedom, and thus these passions are part of our conscience.

But conscience is also an act of judgment; it is when we spend enough time to recognize with our intelligence that something is good.  We need to take time to look into ourselves in order to hear this voice.  This voice helps us to see the truth and to apply that truth in specific circumstances.  It is what allows us to be responsible for our behavior.  In order for this reasoning part of our conscience to work correctly it needs to be formed, to be instructed.  This takes a lifetime.  The Gospel and Christ’s cross must be our teachers from our earliest days.  We are helped in this when our passions or our feelings push us in the right direction; we are also helped by the light of the Holy Spirit; and we are helped by the guidance of the Church.  Sometimes our conscience is faced with difficult choices; then we need the help of all three of these.

So, if we, my sisters and brothers, are to follow a moral life as Jesus wishes us to, not merely by following a list of laws, then we must have a change of heart.  We need to do two things: we need to open our feelings or our passions to the Lord so that he can fill us with his divine love; secondly, we need to educate our decision making process so that we will choose the good at all times, even in difficult circumstances.  Jesus listed a lot of evils that come from within us; if he looks deep inside me, what does he see?  A well of love which will lead to good, or an abyss of confusion which will lead to evil?

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

Catechism, #1730-1802

Eating with your Feet

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Pope Francis and Bishop Boyea have been speaking a fair amount about being welcoming people and parishes as part of the New Evangelization.  And it makes sense.  Who wants to come to a church where you are new, or just visiting, and as you are sitting in your pew, quietly praying and waiting for Mass to begin, a person comes up to you and says, “You’re in my seat!”?  Or who would want to join a parish where your family, which includes young children, gets horrible glares when the kids are being a little noisy, or even where someone says to you, “Can’t you control your own children and keep them quiet?!?”?  I wouldn’t want to join that parish!  

There are numerous groups that also feel like they’re not welcome in the Catholic Church.  We are called to be a welcoming community, and to welcome all people to a deeper relationship with Jesus.  More often than not, people are drawn to a relationship with Jesus when they know that others want them to be there, and will support them in living their life according to the Gospel.  It is especially helpful to note that none of us can get on our high horse, because we are all sinners of various kinds, all in need of God’s mercy.  Yes, some sins are more serious than others, but we should always recognize that all of us are in need of deeper conversion–of conforming our lives to that of Jesus.

But, being welcoming is not the end all, be all.  Parents: I’m sure you’ve all had times where your children wanted to have their friends over for dinner and you’ve agreed.  You welcome your children’s friends to your house to eat with you.  You are glad that they are there.  But then, at dinner, as they’re sitting at the dinner table, your children’s friends decide they’re going to eat with their bare feet (kids, don’t try this at home!).  What would you do?  

You would probably tell them to stop (hopefully in kind, yet firm, words).  While your children’s friends are welcome at your house, there are certain rules that exist for the health and well-being of the household, even with honored guests.  And sometimes that means holding firm on certain issues.  We see that with Jesus in the Gospels that we have been hearing over the past few weeks from John chapter 6.  No one would accuse Jesus of not being welcoming.  He drew in so many people who felt ostracized from Judaism and general society to follow Him.  And yet, when it comes to His teaching on the Eucharist, He seems very stubborn.  

Two weeks ago, as I’m sure you all remember, the Jews followed Jesus across the sea.  Jesus didn’t say: “It’s so nice to see you!”  He said, “‘Amen, amen, I say to you, you are not looking for me because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.  Do not work for food that perishes but for food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.’”  That doesn’t sound very welcoming.  

Last week we heard about how the Jews started murmuring as Jesus continue His teaching that He is the bread that came down from heaven.  They said, “‘Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?  Do we not know his father and mother?  Then how can he say, “I have come down from heaven”?’”  Jesus doesn’t respond with, “Oh, you just don’t understand what I’m saying and where I come from.”  Jesus says, “Stop murmuring….No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him….Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.’”

This week, Jesus continues to say that He is the living bread come down from heaven, and whoever eats this bread, His flesh, will live forever.  That really sends the Jews into a tizzy: “‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’”  But Jesus doesn’t say, “You misunderstand me; I’m talking about my Flesh under sacramental signs in the Eucharist, not as in cannibalism.”  Instead, he solemnly doubles down on his previous statements: “‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.’”  Is Jesus not being welcoming?  Why would we follow a God who is not welcoming?

Jesus, of course, is always welcoming, especially to sinners.  But His welcome of them is to His way, His life, His truth.  Jesus was not concerned about winning the largest congregation award.  He was not concerned about converting everybody there, no matter what it takes, though He does desire all to be saved.  Jesus’ welcome is always paired with the truth.

If we are to be a parish formed after the heart of Jesus, then we, too have to hold those two things in tension: welcome and truth.  We have to be kind, understanding, and loving to those we meet, and encourage them to follow Jesus and strive to be like Him, as we try to do.  But that only happens when we also hold firm on what Jesus hold firms to: the truth.  Welcoming others does not mean watering down our faith.  It means lovingly welcoming others to conform their lives to Jesus, as we attempt to do the same thing.  Being welcoming does not mean anything goes.  It does not mean you can eat with your feet.  Being welcoming means embracing anyone with our words and deeds, and walking with them to become more like Jesus.  

Fruit, Not Chocolate, Please

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Many people are surprised to hear that I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate.  I’ll eat the occasional Snickers bar, but for the most part I stay away from almost anything chocolate.  It all stems from a time in 3rd grade where I ate way too much chocolate in one sitting and almost got sick.  My last pastor. Fr. Mark Inglot, who said Mass here in November, would tell me from time to time that he would tell people that I loved to receive chocolate for Christmas and Easter, just so he could eat whatever the parishioners would give me.  Instead, I love fruit.  Berries and cherries are my favorite, but I’ll eat almost any kind of fruit, with the exception of papaya: yuck!!

What we eat effects us in many different ways.  Runners tend to eat a lot of carbs before they run long distances.  Apparently it helps give the body what it needs before a run.  Cross country teams often have pasta parties the night before a meet.  Some people don’t eat meat, others only certain kinds of meat for health reasons or other reasons.  But food changes us in one way or another. 

In our first reading, the angel tells Elijah that he has to eat the bread, “‘else the journey will be too long for you!’”  Elijah needs the energy that the bread is going to give him to continue his prophetic mission from God.  That bread gave him the strength to walk forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb, also know as Mt. Sinai.  

Whenever we hear bread in the Old Testament, we, as Catholics, should be reminded of the Eucharist, the bread that is not bread.  And Jesus speaks about that today in the Gospel.  He teaches the Jews that He is the bread of life, and that while the Jews in the desert ate manna and died, whoever eats the bread of life, that is, whoever eats Jesus’ Flesh, will not die, but will live forever.   

That is why the Church teaches, in fidelity to what Jesus taught, that the Eucharist is not merely a symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ, but truly is the Body and Blood of Christ.  We are not merely reminded about Jesus when we celebrate the Eucharist, but Jesus’ glorified Body and Blood becomes present in our midst under the appearance of bread and wine.  But substantially, what makes a thing what it is, we are not eating bread and drinking wine; we are eating the Body of Jesus and drinking the Blood of Jesus.  And this is the way that we can have eternal life.

The Body and Blood of Jesus, as supernatural food, is supposed to change us and change the way we live our lives because it conforms us to Christ.  St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that, for us who have received Jesus into our very bodies, there should be no more “bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling,” and that we are to be “kind to one another, compassionate, [and] forgiving one another as God has forgiven [us] in Christ.”  The Body and Blood of Jesus are meant to change us to become more like Him.  

We fast for 1 hour before Holy Communion from all food and drink except medicine and water because we don’t want to confuse the earthly food–which becomes part of us–with the heavenly food, which makes us part of Jesus.  We are called by St. Paul to discern the Body of Christ and whether we are in a state of grace–that is to say, unaware of any grave or mortal sins–so that we are not joining our grave or mortal sins, where we radically say no to God, with the Body and Blood of Jesus, which is always about making us more like God.  We need to go to confession first if we have grave or mortal sins before receiving the Eucharist so we don’t join our “no” to God with Jesus’ “yes” to God.  If we do receive the Eucharist in an unworthy state, not only do we not become more like Jesus, but we add the sin of sacrilege to whatever other grave or mortal sins we have committed by receiving Jesus unworthily.

That might not seem very welcoming to tell people they can’t come to Holy Communion.  And Pope Francis has reminded us how we are to welcome others.  Yet, we welcoming others is always at the service of giving people the opportunity to encounter Jesus.  To encounter Jesus means that we change for Him, not that He changes for us.  

So when we come to Mass, we should ask ourselves if we are aware of any major ways in which we need to change to conform our life with Jesus’ life and teachings, both in Scripture and through the Church’s teaching office.  If there are major gaps, then we should go to confession, or set up an appointment with me to discuss the situation and what we can do to remedy it, before receiving Jesus in the Eucharist.  I can promise you that I’ll do all that I can to provide God’s healing for whatever ways that are lives are not following Jesus.  That way, having dealt with those obstacles, when we receive the Eucharist, it will truly make us more like Jesus and give us the strength that we need to live as disciples of our Lord.

The Good Ole Days

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Summer is the time of year when many of us take vacation time.  Whether it’s a little trip down to Cedar Point in Sandusky, a trip to Lake Michigan or Lake Huron, or maybe we have a place somewhere, summer in Michigan always feels like a good time to get away from home.  And yet, as good as vacation is, it is always good to be back home.  I know I was very ready to come back home from my summer classes.  There’s something about sleeping in your own house that is different from sleeping elsewhere, no matter how nice it is.  

Perhaps we can better understand the Jews’ frustration, then, because they were leaving their home (they had been in Egypt for over 400 years!) for a place they have never been, which was to become their new home.  They were not familiar with where they were going, and they were wandering around in a desert.  I think many, if not all, of us would grumble a little if we were put in a similar situation.  

But, their grumbling (and our grumbling, too) reveals how much we trust God.  Do we have faith that God will take care of us?  Or do we idolize the past, even though it had its own challenges.  How silly we probably think it sounds for the Israelites to say, “‘Would that we had died at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread!’”  They were basically saying, “I’d rather be a slave in Egypt and have died there than travel here, because at least I had food in my stomach!”  God had promised to send them to a land flowing with milk and honey, with the basic necessities (milk) and with the sweet things of life (honey), but they weren’t there yet, and so they preferred their past, even though it meant slavery.

In our Gospel, the same thing happens, except in a different way.  Instead of wanting to go back to Egypt, they want regular bread.  Jesus gave them a great sign, a miracle, when He fed the 5,000.  But the miracle was not intended merely for their bellies: it was intended to reveal who Jesus is: the Son of God.  But the people, who are excited about a new way of getting food, follow Jesus to get more.  Jesus understands their hearts, and says, “‘Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.’”  But then Jesus promises them food, “food that endures for eternal life.”  How do they respond?  They go back to the past, they go back to “the good ole’ days” with Moses in the desert and manna and quail.  

But Jesus isn’t promising them manna and quail.  Jesus is promising what manna pointed to: the Eucharist.  Jesus is giving them bread which is not bread, but which is flesh.  And we get a hint of that at the end of the Gospel when Jesus says, “‘I am the bread of life.’”  

We, too, have that tendency to look backwards and pine for “the good ole’ days.”  When exactly those are varies from person to person.  Maybe it was two years ago.  Maybe it was 20 years ago.  Maybe it was the ‘50s.  Whenever it was, it can be hard to leave what is familiar to us and go on pilgrimage to where God leads us.  It means change, which is almost always hard.  It means going towards the unknown, because none of us know exactly what will happen in the future (if you do, let me know, and I’ll start playing the lottery).  But we can’t go back, any more than the Israelites could go back to Egypt.  That was their past; God was moving them into their future.

Maybe this present isn’t the future you imagined 5 years ago.  Maybe your health is not as good as you hoped it would be.  Maybe the culture is not what you hoped it would be.  Maybe there have been unexpected deaths that have shaken your very foundation.  Maybe the Church isn’t what you hoped it would be.  But, I can promise you this: if we follow God and trust in Him, He has nothing but our good in mind.  God did not lead the Israelites from Egypt to Sodom and Gomorrah.  Jesus did not feed the 5,000 and then given them little crackers that would rot after each day.  God led the Israelites to the Promised Land; Jesus gave His Bride, the Church, the Eucharist.  God is leading us somewhere, both as a parish and as individuals.  We’ve never been there before, and the unknown can be scary.  But if we trust in God and trust that He will never lead us where His love cannot surround us, then we don’t need to be afraid, because that place, too, will become our home: the place to which we long to return.

Encountering Jesus

Corpus Christi

If you could meet or have dinner with or talk to any person throughout all of history, who would it be and why?  Think about it.  Whom would you want to spend time with and get to know?  Especially for those who love history, but not limited to them, there’s a desire to meet people who are dead, whether recently or for a long time, to speak with them, to get to know them, and to try to understand that person and his or her choices.  We want to have a chance to more than just read about the person, or watch a movie about that person; we want to encounter that person.

Bishop Boyea, following the lead of Pope Emeritus Benedict and Pope Francis, have been emphasizing the importance of an encounter with Jesus.  How many of you said Jesus when I asked the question at the beginning of the homily (you don’t have to raise your hands)?  An encounter with Jesus is important.  Catholicism, and Christianity in general, is not just a bunch of rules of what to do and what not to do.  Catholicism, and Christianity in general, is not just a set of ethics or a style of morality.  Catholicism, and Christianity in general, is about an encounter with a Person, a Divine Person, Jesus Christ.  Jesus gathered disciples to Himself by inviting people to follow Him.  They, in turn, told other people to come with them and follow Jesus, and so Jesus’ disciples grew in number.  Christianity was able to spread because there were people who had encountered Jesus and found in Him the key to their life.

And it wasn’t just a continuation of their lives, which were usually altogether crummy.  It was a great improvement, and a means of being happy.  Those who encountered Jesus discovered how to be truly happy, even as fishermen, or a tax collector, or a zealot, or even a Pharisee, and wanted to share that with others.  And others shared that same encounter with others, who, through their preaching, encountered Jesus, too, and found a way to be happy.  

How often do we hear, “Mass is boring”?  Some of you may be thinking that right now!  But do we realize that each time we come to Mass, we don’t have to wonder what it would be like to talk to Jesus and see Jesus.  Each time we come to Mass, we have the chance to encounter Jesus and meet Him.  We get the same opportunity the apostles had.  They could see Jesus, touch Jesus, and hear Jesus.  We hear Jesus speaking through the Word of God, and hopefully through the homily.  We see Jesus and we touch Jesus as we receive Him in the Eucharist.  

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ.  We celebrate that our God, in the Person of Jesus, has not abandoned us, but remains near to us in a ways that our senses can experience.  We do not have to pretend to hear the voice of God; we hear it in Scripture.  We do not have to pretend to see God; we see Him under the appearance of bread and wine.  We do not have to pretend to touch God; our hands and/or our tongues receive the same Jesus who was born in Bethlehem, died on Calvary, rose from the dead, and ascended into Heaven.  The Eucharist is not simply a memorial meal to remember what happened, like posing for the Last Supper.  The Eucharist is not simply the spiritual presence of Christ when His people come together.  The Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood, soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, present under sacramental signs, but truly present for us, nonetheless.  

So, the challenge for us is whether or not we treat the Mass as our chance to encounter Jesus.  There are many retreats that give us the opportunity to encounter Jesus, like Cursillo, like Marriage Encounter, like KAIROS, like TEC, like Renew, and the list goes on.  But the Eucharist is the pre-eminent and most excellent encounter with Jesus, and encounter that is unlike any other on earth.  Today, and every Sunday you have the chance to encounter Jesus.  Give yourself to Jesus; He has made Himself available for you to hear, to see, and to touch.

Icons of the Trinity

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

I invite you to look at the two icons to my right and my left for a second.  The icon to my right and your left is an icon of the four evangelists.  The icon to my left and your right is an icon of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  Icons are a beautiful way of praying, because they are like a window into heaven.  We do not worship these images, but we honor them as guides to help us pray.  The gold leaf shows how precious they are in the eyes of God and that they are in the heavenly Jerusalem.  Their peaceful, otherworldly faces show the peace and joy that come from being in the presence of God.  They are meant to remind us that, as we gather in this church, we are not at an earthly gathering like a meeting or a social.  We are in a place which straddles heaven and earth and gives us a taste of heaven in the eternal worship of God with angels and saints singing “Holy, holy, holy,” and the prayers of the just rising before God like burning incense.

As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity today, we may wonder why we celebrate a teaching.  The belief that God is triune, One God and Three Divine Persons, can seem very academic, and removed from the day-to-day cares and concerns of life.  The mysterion, the mystery of the Trinity is not meant to be something only we think about, but something we live.  Mystery in this case does not mean a puzzle to be figured out, but a reality which is unseen and yet fully real.  Our lives, as believers in the Trinity, are meant to be icons of the life of the Trinity, since we are all created in the image and likeness of our Triune God.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we are called to have a multiple personality disorder.  We are radically different from God because He–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–is the Creator while we are creatures.  But while we are different, there is some similarity between us and God, and we are called to become more and more similar to God each day through His grace until we pray that He finishes making us like Him for eternity in Heaven.  In Church language we call this process divinization: to become like God by the power of God.  Our daily prayer life, our sufferings, our worthy reception of the sacraments, and our works of charity are meant to help us accept God’s grace to become more like Him.  St. Athanasius, one of the great Fathers of the Church, who died in the late fourth century, said it this way, in the light of the Incarnation: “God became man so that man might become God.”  

If we are to become like God, then we should know something about him.  We know that God is merciful, like a loving father who runs out to meet his wasteful son; we know that God heals and brings wholeness to His children; we know that God is just and will reward those who follow Him and punish those who reject Him; we know that God has a special love for the outcast and the abandoned; we know that God is Truth; we know that God is Almighty and eternal.  We know that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as reveled to us by the Son.  The list could go on and on.  We learned some of these things from our readings today.  We especially learned from our first reading and Gospel that God is not far away from us, but is near to us for all time.

If then we are to be icons, we have to match those images that we have received from the Deposit of Faith: the Scriptures and the teachings of the Apostles.  To be like God, to be divinized, means to be merciful, even to the point of foolishness; to heal and bring wholeness to the extent that we can by our words and deeds; to stand up for justice; to proclaim and defend truth; to have a special love for the outcast and the abandoned.  How do we receive the strength to do this?  Through the ongoing use of the sacramental grace that we have received; through the worship of our one God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–at Mass; through letting the Holy Spirit empower us to preach the Gospel.  Otherwise, we, as icons, will not look serene, peaceful, and heavenly, but agitated, anxious, and earthly.  Those earthly icons do not lead us to God, but keep us bound up on earth.  They are not windows to heaven, but mirrors reflecting the fallen state of our world.

Marriage is especially meant to be an icon of the Trinity.  Marriage, the union of a man and woman for life, open to new life, is meant to show us God the Father, who pours out all of who He is to the Son, who pours out all of who He is to the Father, and in that sharing of perfect and full love, a new Divine Person is breathed forth: the Holy Spirit.  The Church spends so much time with marriage and the family because married couples and families are meant to remind us of the love of God.  

But for all of us, married or not, by our baptism we were called to be an icon of the Trinity.  One way in particular we can do that is by witnessing the love of God in truth.  We are a narcissistic culture.  We are first and foremost concerned with ourselves.  God’s love, on the other hand, is always open to being shared and creating new life, as we see from the very creation of the world.  God the Father had perfect love in Himself with the Son and the Holy Spirit; He lacked nothing; He needed nothing.  And yet, out of love, God decided to create the world to have new ways to share His love.  Let us be icons of the Trinity; not self-centered, but selfless, and so help others to see the God who love us: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  

Don't Stay in the Upper Room

Pentecost

In 1217 a man named Domingo did the unthinkable.  It was less than a year earlier that his small group of companions, along with a convent of nuns, had been approved by Pope Honorius III as the newest religious order in the Church.  But, even though he only had 16 mobile members in this new religious order, he sent them out: some to Spain, some in France, and some to Italy.  The other members of his small group of companions objected to this radical move.  They needed more members before they could spread out so much!  But Domingo insisted, stating that seeds that are kept in a container rot; only seeds that are scattered and sown can create new life in the ground.  These sixteen companions, along with the convent of nuns, was the beginning of what is known better today as the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans.  Domingo is the Spanish way of saying Dominic.

Today as we celebrate Pentecost, we go back to the group of disciples, some 170 people, who were crammed into the upper room (I’ve been there; 170 people would have been very tight!!).  Throughout the Easter Season we have heard about the disciples and the apostles.  They were scared, much like the first Dominicans would be some 1200 years later.  We heard about the Lord appearing in their very midst in the upper room, though the doors were locked for fear of the Jews.  They see Jesus, and yet, they are afraid.  They stayed in that upper room for some time, and even after having seen Jesus numerous times, they didn’t know what to do.  St. John records an account of Peter and the apostles deciding to go fishing, sometime after they had seen Jesus twice.  Even after seeing the Risen Jesus twice, they still don’t know what to do.  They are held back by their former way of life.  But then Jesus tells them to cast their nets over on the other side, and they catch 153 fish, one representing each known nation at that time.  John recognizes Jesus, and Peter, always the impetuous one, jumps in and swims to shore to see his Master.  It is then that Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?”, foretells Peter’s martyrdom, and then tells Peter to follow Him.  

But even after the Ascension, the disciples are in the upper room again.  They are obedient to Jesus, waiting for His promised gift of the Spirit, but they are there in the room.  It is then that the first Christian Pentecost (it was already a Jewish feast) happens, and the Holy Spirit moves the apostles outside of the upper room and leads them to proclaim the Risen Jesus, the importance of Baptism, and the call to a new life through conversion to all they meet.  The Holy Spirit is the catalyst that gets the apostles out of their comfort zone, out of their past, and into their future as evangelists.  The Holy Spirit gives them courage to conquer their fears and trust in Jesus.

On Memorial Day we remember and honor those who were not held back by their fears.  I’m sure that there were some soldiers in our military who were never afraid.  Perhaps this was a special gift; perhaps it was just rashness.  But I would guess that most soldiers, especially as they engaged in battle, had some fear.  That is natural.  It is part of how we usually stay alive.  And yet, for the greater good of God and country, they fought to protect those whom they served, to defend our freedom, and to defeat those who sought to do these United States harm.  They did not let their fears hold them back.  They acted with courage, even when it meant laying down their life.  What a precious gift they gave us, and it is right and just that we remember them.

But we are all called to trust in the power of the Holy Spirit to move us beyond our fears.  We may not necessarily go into battle with earthly forces, but the Holy Spirit wants to give us the gift of courage, to fight the fears in our lives that seek to keep us in a room.  Few have mentioned it to me, but I’m sure there are some fears with working with St. Mary for religious education, if for no other reason than this is new (at least in this iteration); I know that some of you are afraid because of your own poor health, or the poor health of those you love; I know that some of you are afraid because of the loss of a job, or a new job which is going to call for new gifts; some of you are afraid for the future of your children or grandchildren in their life of faith, and in their financial stability.  Allow the Holy Spirit to bring you out of that room of fear and have confidence that the Holy Spirit will take care of you.

Our 9th grade students received the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit in a new and powerful way at their confirmation this past Tuesday.  One of those gifts is courage.  They will need it, because living as a faithful Catholic is becoming more and more difficult, at least in certain teachings that we have about life, marriage, and truth.  But we need courage, too, to proclaim Jesus as Risen and the Church as His Mystical Body.  We need to courage to try new things, maybe a Bible study or a faith sharing small group.  We need courage to be evangelists in an age where it is much easier to hunker down and hope that we can survive this current time of antagonism to the Church.  

Whatever keeps you in the upper room of fear, today God wants to give you a gift of the Holy Spirit to allow you to proclaim, like the apostles, that Jesus is Lord and that we are called to change our lives to conform to His because Jesus shows us how to be truly happy.  Together now, let us pray for that gift of the Spirit to fill us and give us courage to be, like St. Dominic, an evangelist in the way that God calls us.  Come, Holy Spirit…