Speaking of Segue

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In conversation, there are times where you really want to talk about something, but it’s not really part of the conversation at that time.  So you just wait for some word that bears some tangential connection to the point that you want to make, and then pounce and try to steer the discussion to the topic you desire.  Or, if the conversation is not going well, or going in the wrong direction, I will sometimes use the cheeky phrase, “Speaking of segue…”

    Last Tuesday I attended the episcopal consecration of Bishop Edward Lohse, the fifth bishop of Kalamazoo.  Archbishop Vigneron, the metropolitan of the Province of Michigan, gave the homily.  And he said something that I wanted to preach on here, but I didn’t know if it would fit with the readings.  The phrase was, “You are no poorer than Jerusalem at the beginning.”  So, when I came, as I prepared my homily, upon the words, “when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem,” I was so excited!
    So, speaking of Jerusalem, speaking of segue, I would like to draw us deeper into these words of Archbishop Vigneron.  He was speaking, of course, of God providing a shepherd to the Church in Kalamazoo, and how Christ pours out all necessary gifts for every local church, just as He sent the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and disciples gathered at Pentecost. 
    But the same applies to us, even without consecrating a new bishop today.  We are no poorer than Jerusalem at the beginning.  We have all the gifts that God gave to His nascent Church in that Upper Room fifty days after Easter.  We lack nothing of what it means to be a true church, an 𝜀𝜅𝜅𝜆𝜂𝜎𝜄𝛼, a people “called out” (𝜀𝜉 𝜅𝛼𝜆𝜀𝜊) of darkness into the light of Christ.
    What are the necessary aspects of being a Church?  First, it is that we are founded by Jesus Christ, and faithful to what He taught.  All other religions in the world are about man seeking out God.  Judaism, and its fulfillment in Christianity, is about God seeking us out.  We don’t make up teachings because we think they make sense to us.  We read and ponder the revelation of God, given to us through the Scriptures, and interpret it through the authentic teaching of the bishops in union with the pope.  We cannot contradict what Christ taught or what Christ did.  We do not refrain from ordaining women priests because we hate women.  Indeed, the holiest person ever is a woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But Christ did not ordain her a priestess, nor anyone else.  It was only to the Apostles that He gave the sacred office.  We do not use rice and rice wine in Asia because we reject those staple food and drink of another culture.  We use bread and wine because that is what Christ Himself used.  We are not the masters of theology, but the servants of preserving it, even as we delve deeper and come to understand it more fully. 
    Even our Protestant brothers and sisters, who are united to us in baptism, while they can point to Christ, cannot claim that their ecclesial communities (things which look like churches but are not, strictly speaking, churches) were founded by Christ.  They were founded by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, the Wesley brothers, etc.  It strikes me that so many of the communities founded on sola scriptura are now divided because at least some in their official governance bodies want to walk away from Scripture because it is no longer fashionable, or seems, to the modern person, discriminatory.  To be a church, we must be founded by Christ and be rooted in what He has revealed.
    To be a church, we need to have all seven sacraments, all the major vehicles of sanctifying grace, that God has given us to become saints.  We share baptism with most of the Protestant denominations (I say most, because some have messed with the necessary words that effect validity).  But we also have six other ways that God makes us holy: the Sacraments of Penance, Eucharist, Confirmation, Holy Matrimony, Holy Order, and Anointing of the Sick.  God  takes these ordinary elements (water, oil, bread & wine, voice, consent, the laying on of hands) and makes them a way that His life is given to us, in a way that sitting in nature, or watching a religious movie never could.  The sacraments, which not only remind us of Christ but actually cause His life to increase in us, help us to develop in our relationship with Him, and then share that relationship with the world. 
    To be a church, we finally need connected to the Apostles.  We are truly an apostolic church, because our bishops can trace themselves back to the college of bishops at Pentecost, with Peter as their head.  Our Lord founded His Church in a particular way, such that those who listened to His Apostles listened to Him.  We mention their names at every Mass (in this form) in the Roman Canon: Peter and Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Jude (and Matthias gets mentioned later in the Canon).  And even every post-Conciliar Eucharistic prayer mentions the Apostles.  Those Apostles laid hands on their successors, giving them the Holy Spirit to continue their work and their connection to Christ. 

   At Pentecost, even in seminal form, all these things were present: right belief; seven sacraments; apostolic foundation.  And we retain all those elements.  And those elements allow us, clergy and lay faithful, to proclaim the Gospel, just as the Apostles and disciples did at Pentecost, leading to the conversion of many peoples.
    It seems like every one to two months, Amanda, our Director of Faith Formation, is telling me about another person who wants to become Catholic.  Some have never been baptized; some have been baptized in other ecclesial communities.  And we don’t just “make them Catholic” and never see them again.  They continue to participate in the life of this parish community.
    We are proud of our two young men, Joseph and Glen, who have heard the call to become priests and will continue to discern that call in seminary.  You strongly participate, whether at home with your families, or in our different formational groups and classes, in growing in your faith and deepening not just your knowledge of facts about the Lord, but your knowledge and love of Him, a real Person who lives.
    We don’t have money for fancy programs.  In many ways our parish, in both ways that the Mass is celebrated, is not culturally up-to-date or cutting edge.  We are certainly not the largest parish in Genesee County, not by a long shot.  But I would argue that we’re doing something right, because we do continue to bring people into relationship with Christ.  How?  Because we are no poorer than Jerusalem.  God has given us everything we need to proclaim His Gospel: fidelity to the teachings of Christ; the sacramental life of the Church; apostolic foundations and succession.  As long as we have that, we will continue to draw others to the truth and beauty that are part and parcel of our Catholic faith, founded by Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Captain Jack Sparrow's Compass

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    When the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie came out in 2003, I was a bit skeptical.  How could you make a good movie based upon a ride at Disney World?  But, the movie was quite good, and led to a number of even decent sequels following (some better than others).

    One of the main characters is Captain Jack Sparrow (played by Johnny Depp), who is a pirate.  He always seems to get in and out of the oddest types of trouble through the strangest set of circumstances.  His goal, especially in the first movie, is to get back his beloved ship, the Black Pearl, of which he was mutinied when he was commanding.  To aid him, he has a strange compass, which doesn’t point north.  It’s not until later that we learn that this compass always points to what his heart desires most, which makes it a little complicated when he falls in love with one of the female leads, Elizabeth Swan (played by Keira Knightley). 
    Jesus today in the Gospel talks about the kingdom of heaven as a great treasure, or a pearl of great price.  Once a person finds it, they give up everything in order to have it.  To those in the parables, the compass would have pointed to heaven (if that were possible).  There is something about heaven that makes it worth everything else that we have. 
    And in some sense, we all probably can intellectually agree with that evaluation.  Heaven is eternal happiness with God.  We no longer experience pain, sorrow, death, or any of the fallen realities of this life.  We see God face to face, and God, who is love, surrounds us and embraces us eternally.  We worship God in His majesty with all those who are saints, whether canonized or known only to God.  That sounds pretty good.
    And yet, like Captain Jack Sparrow, the compasses that reflect the desires of our hearts, do not always point to heaven, but sometimes go every which way.  Perhaps we feel that no one else knows about the treasure in the field, so we figure we can do some other things before getting back to the treasure.  Or we tell the pearl merchant to hold the pearl on lay-away, and will come back some other time to pick-it up.  But we start to value other things ahead of heaven, and we chase after those these, even when we’re not sure what we will find, or if it’s even worth it.

    Part of our call as disciples is to ever-purify our desire for heaven.  I think the last time I preached on this Gospel I referenced the Kenny Chesney song that sings, “Everybody wants to go to heaven / but nobody wants to go now.”  Whether we’re parents training our kids, or simply training ourselves, we have an important role in making sure that we’re fixed on the trail of heaven, like a bloodhound seeking out an escaped convict, or Captain Jack Sparrow looking for his beloved ship. 
    Sometimes, the call to make sure that we’re on the road to heaven means ignoring the other sirens (Greek mythology, not emergency alerting devices) that call to us, and seem very attractive, but actually lead to destruction and death.  There are so many things that we, as followers of Christ, do not need to see or hear, because they lead us away from God.  Of course, we like to think that we are stronger than we are, that we can handle those sirens without being led astray.  But more often than not, we’re weak, and we will run headlong to destruction given the chance.
    At other times, we cannot avoid things that distract us from heaven, because they are all around us, and so we train ourselves to remember just how precious heaven is, or focus on other things that will not lead us astray.  I remember being in college seminary, which was on the campus of a small, Catholic, liberal arts co-ed campus.  As soon as it started to warm up in Minnesota, the college girls would bring out their towels and soak up the sun in the quad.  Our priests would sometimes remind us that, as we walked to class on those warm, sunny days, it was often good to examine just how beautiful the sidewalk could be, how many cracks were there, what weeds were popping up through the concrete, etc., just so that we wouldn’t be tempted to take that second, interested, lustful, sinful look. 
    Our hearts are often a mixed bag.  Age has a way of purifying that which we desire.  Older people tend to be quite serious about where they are going after they die.  But God doesn’t promise us that we will reach 80 or 90 years.  He promises to give us sufficient grace each day to say yes to heaven, and then we, in response, have to decide if we want to accept that grace or not.    Yes, at church, if we had Captain Jack Sparrow’s compass, our hearts would (hopefully) point to heaven.  But our goal is that the compass always points to heaven, not just for an hour on Sundays.  May we truly recognize how precious heaven is (and how sad and easy it can be to lose heaven), and have the strength to give up lesser realities and lesser desires for the eternal happiness of heaven.

Thinking Smaller

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Perspective can change a lot.  There’s a comedic movie from 1989 called “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” where a scientist shrinks his kids (didn’t see that coming from the title, did you?) and two neighbor kids.  Small little crumbs of food become huge smorgasbords of sustenance.  Puny ants become both a large mode of transportation as well as elephant-like enemies.  Drops from the sprinkler go from small globs of refreshment to gigantic showers of death.  What once was small and insignificant, is now a matter of life and death.
    As we hear this parable about the weeds sown amongst the wheat, I know I often think of the big scale.  And, in fact, Jesus Himself uses this macro scale.  The sower “is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom.  The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil.  The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.”  And this reality is very present to us.  As we seek to live according to the Gospel, we also notice that others do not.  But God is patient, and allows even evil to exist, because the work of removing the “weeds” could destroy the good crops as well.
    But I would encourage us to shrink the parable a bit.  Don’t look at it so much from the macro scale as from the micro scale.  Because when we stay at the macro scale, it can be very easy to be self-righteous and to presume that we’re all the children of the kingdom simply by virtue of our baptism.  But, unless you’re very different than I, we do not always live as children of the kingdom.  Sometimes we live more like children of the evil one, choosing to sin when we know we should do good, and choosing to listen to the temptations rather than to our heavenly Father.
    I would hazard a guess that most of us are a mixed-bag.  We are not all good, but nor are we all bad.  Our souls have good seed sown, by virtue of our baptism and the sacraments we receive, but we also allow weeds to grow in our souls by virtue of the times when we give in to temptation and do not do the good we know we should do, but instead do the evil we know we should not do. 
    Because of this, God demonstrates His great mercy in giving us time to pull up the weeds that exist in our souls little by little, rather than destroying the entire crop by spraying Round-Up.    He sees the good that we desire, and suffers the evil that we do, hoping that, in time, He can harvest more fruit from good seed than weeds that will be thrown into the fire.  God doesn’t approve of the evil, and certainly less so desires that it grow.  But He also knows that the good that we do can sometimes be quite fragile, and if the weeds are withdrawn too aggressively, it may also take out what good we could accomplish.
    Does this mean that we should continue in our sinful choices and actions, because God may let it slide anyway?  Certainly not!  God shows His patience so that we can have more opportunity to do good, not so that we can have more opportunity to sin.  And, in fact, as any gardener will tell you, it is still good to try to make sure the weeds don’t overtake the good seed.  But it has to be done carefully, often with painstakingly small successes, and the we often have to pull weeds from the same spot over and over again, because we have not pulled out the roots, but have only gotten the part of the weed that made its way above the ground level.
    How do we pull weeds gently, to increase the room for the good seed to spread, without being so aggressive that we pull up the good and the bad?  Part of it means being patient with ourselves, as God is patient with us.  If we have a bad habit, whether it’s a major sin or a small sin, it will take time to uproot that habit.  If we expect to stop it immediately, we are more often than not fooling ourselves.  Do the little things each day to try to stop the habit.  If you do it each day, try to reduce it to every other day.  If you act on the bad habit each week, try to make it a week and a half, or two weeks. 
    Secondly, God’s grace is, for the weeds of our soul, better than Round-up.  By opening ourselves up to God’s grace by frequent confession, reception of Holy Communion in a state of grace, and daily prayer, we make start pulling up those weeds one by one, and loosening the soil with the water of the Holy Spirit to soften the ground and make it more likely to succeed in getting not just the symptom but also the disease.
    Thirdly, persevere.  When you’re weeding a large flower bed, and the weeds have been allowed to take over a section or even the whole bed, it takes a while.  Maybe start with the bigger weeds, the bigger sins, first, but then go back and start pulling up even the smaller weeds, because, if they are allowed to grow, they, too, will become big weeds.  You may only progress through a few square inches of that flower bed, but at least you know that’s ready for the good seed to grow, and you can move on to the next section.  Don’t be afraid that you’re not seeing great progress, as long as you are cooperating with God’s grace and making what progress you can.
    I am a firm believer that God desires our salvation.  He doesn’t want us to fail, and enjoys seeing us make what progress we can.  Any success is due to His grace, accompanied by our cooperation.  If we keep striving to do the will of God, God will bless that effort, and will help us find success.  Yes, the world is a mixture of weeds and wheat.  But so is our soul.  Before condemning the world, start weeding out the parts of your life that need conversion.  It may be slow work, but it will also help the wheat grow even more, as we witness to the power of God’s grace in our lives.  

No Spirit of Slavery and Fear

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  A week or so ago I felt a little overwhelmed with all the stuff that had to get accomplished, and frustrated with things that I wanted to go a particular way and didn’t.  As I sometimes do, I called up my best friend to vent a little bit and hopefully get a little sympathy.  After I had finished my pity party, and explaining how tough my life was at that point, my friend said something to the effect of: “You act like life is supposed to be easy, and that you’re supposed to be perfectly happy on this earth.  Life is a fight until we hopefully make it to Purgatory or Heaven, and then we can rest easy and not have to struggle.”  What my friend lacks in empathy, he makes up for in straightforwardness.  
    I thought of that as I prepared my homily because of this line from St. Paul: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but a spirit of adoption, through which we cry out, Abba (Father).”  When we look at the state of the world, and even sometimes the state of the Church (or at least parts of the Church), it can be very easy to give in to this mentality of “woe is me!”  We live in a fallen world, and so many things are not the way that they should be.  Further, as the world turns more and more away from Christ, the battle for us intensifies and calls for more fortitude to be loving but firm witnesses to the Gospel.  We also have to deal with others’ sinfulness and sinful actions (just as others have to deal with our own sinfulness and sinful actions), and it gets tiring.  And then there are simply the things that don’t go according to plan, not because of any ill will, but simply because our world is fallen and things don’t always go the way we intend or hope.

    How easy to wallow in the mud of self-pity!  And yet, we did not receive a spirit of fear, but a spirit of adoption, which gives us courage to keep fighting.  God does not call us to cower, but to fight on, each day, for His kingdom.  To return to the “Lord of the Rings,” which I reference all too often, we are each Frodo, carrying a heavy burden to Mount Doom, so that the world can be made right and evil can be vanquished.  And sometimes we say to Sam (those walking with us to Mount Doom) that we’re tired, that we can’t make it.  Sometimes Sam even has to carry us.  But in the end, Frodo finds strength to complete his task.
    Or, to reference another set of DVDs I own, I think back to EZ company in the HBO series, “Band of Brothers.”  Their task was monumental.  Nazi forces were well-positioned all throughout Europe, and fortified against external attacks.  Europe seemed lost.  But the men of EZ company decided to jump out of planes that were going to flying into Nazi-occupied France so that the men who would be storming the beaches of Normandy that following morning would have a better chance to establish their own foothold, from which they could liberate Europe.  EZ company had great victories, like on D-Day, but they also had epic failures, like Operation Markt Garden in Holland.  Days stretched into weeks which stretched into months which stretched into D-Day plus 336 days.  They sometimes didn’t have enough ammunition, were surrounded, lost friends, had to train new paratroopers, and even had to put up with bad leaders.  But they never gave up.  They never surrendered.  They kept fighting on.

    While we can apply this analogy aptly to the world, it also applies to our own spiritual life.  Our own souls are often battlefields, or have paths that lead to attitudes or habits that are contrary to God.  It seems like we all-too-often try to root out the same sins, sometimes taking two steps forward and one step back, or even one step forward and two steps back.  Opening ourselves to God’s grace to allow Him to sanctify us seems like a path that will never end, and fatigue can hit us after trying so hard and not always achieving the success we desire.
    In the midst of that, keep that phrase that we heard today in your mind: “God did not give us a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.”  In Confirmation, the Holy Spirit gave us many gifts, including the gift of fortitude.  Fortitude is the virtue which helps us to keep pressing on when something is hard, to continue to fight in the face of danger, to stand up for what is right, no matter the cost.  If today weren’t a Sunday, we would celebrate St. Apollinaris in the 1962 calendar.  He was a disciple of St. Peter, and traveled with him from Antioch (where Peter founded a local church) to Rome.  He was then made the bishop of Ravenna, and preached the Gospel, while enduring many persecutions.  The pagans locked him in prison and exiled him.  St. Apollinaris died by being beaten to death in AD 79.  St. Apollinaris, like all of the martyrs, are great witnesses to us of what our acceptance of the gift of fortitude can look like if we seek it.  In those early days of the church, not much went as the Christians hoped.  Many rejected their message of the Gospel.  Those who did accept it often struggled with leaving their old life behind (as we especially hear from St. Paul in his epistles to the Corinthians).  Some converts tried to mix their pagan beliefs in with the Gospel (which is where Gnosticism starts to appear).  And more often than not, being a public follower of Christ meant imprisonment or exile at best, and, very likely, execution in a horrible manner at worst.  But they kept it up.  Not because it was easy; not because they were as successful as they wanted to be; not because everything went well, but because they had the spirit of adoption as sons and daughters in the Son of God.  And they knew that remaining faithful as God’s children was worth any punishment or seeming failure that could happen.  
    So today, recommit yourselves, as I also will do, to bringing the light of Christ into a world that prefers darkness.  Recommit yourselves, as I also will do, to staying faithful to Christ when so many walk away from Him.  Do not give in to the spirit of slavery and fall back into fear, but stand strong in the spirit of adoption as co-heirs with Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

True Dichotomy

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  So often we’re nudged in the direction of a false dichotomy.  That phrase, false dichotomy, might sound foreign, might even sound like an obscure body part, but it’s the wrong assertion that there are only two choices.  For example, a person might say, “You have to vote for a Republican or a Democrat,” when, in fact, there are other political parties for whom you can vote.  Or, less weighty, you have to decide whether or not you can put pineapple on pizza.  As I tend to be the pop culture reference guy, it’s like Anakin in “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” saying to Obi Wan, “‘If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.’” 

    But not all dichotomies are false.  Scripture, and especially our epistle today, talks about the dichotomy between sin and grace, death and life.  Sin brings death, grace brings life.  And St. Paul talks about the Romans had previously been slaves to sin and death, but now were raised to life through grace, “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 
    But this is not just St. Paul.  It’s the overarching theme in the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation.  In Genesis, after God creates everything good, culminating in the creation of man and woman in His image, our first parents have life.  They are living in the grace of God.  But then, Eve, followed by Adam, disobey God; they sin.  And by sinning, they welcome death into the world.  They are expelled from the Garden of Eden, and separated from the Tree of Life, so that they experience death. 
    And so throughout Genesis, we see that when evil is allowed to fester, it leads to death.  Think of the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  But, when people follow God, they find life.  Think of Abram leaving Ur because God calls him to go to Canaan, and then becoming Abraham, the father of many nations.  The same could be said for Exodus, where God leads His people from slavery to sin in Egypt to freedom in following His law in the Promised Land.  Of course, throughout the journey, some disobey God, and they find death.  While others, like Joshua and Caleb, follow God, even when unpopular, and they enter the Promised Land.
    This same overarching theme repeats itself in the Books of Joshua and Judges, and then with the Kings of Israel.  The prophetic books are basically warnings from God through His prophets to live according to God’s will, because if they continue in their sin, they will die.  This culminates in the dispersion of the Northern Kingdom of Israel after they start worshiping false gods and oppressing those for whom God has a special love: widows and orphan; and the exile of the Southern Kingdom of Judah to Babylon after they, too, engage in idolatry and mistreatment of the poor and vulnerable.
    Of course, nowhere does this dichotomy appear clearer than with our Lord, who calls Himself, “‘the Way and the Truth and the Life.’”  To follow Him is to have life; to reject Him is to choose death.  The Savior even takes our rejection and the consequence of that rejection–death–upon Himself in His crucifixion, but because He was faithful to God He rises on the third day.  And the rest of the New Testament unpacks that choice between life and death, and helps those who follow the Lord to know what choosing life looks like to the nascent Church.  The Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul’s epistles, the epistles of St. Peter, St. Jude, and St. John all talk about how we can have eternal life and reject the death of sin.
    And at the end of the Bible in the Book of Revelation, we see the cosmic battle between good and evil, a battle that God wins convincingly.  But the Spirit also warns the churches that they have to continue to follow God to have that life.  It was not enough to choose life once or earlier; life must be chosen each day.  In the end, sin and death are defeated forever, and the fullness of the reign of God shines forth, with eternal life for those who remained faithful (and eternal punishment for those who rejected God).
    So which do we choose: life or death?  By our fruits, Christ tells us, you can tell what we choose.  Each time we sin, especially grave sins, we invite death into our lives.  Each time we follow God, we invite eternal life into our lives.  Indeed, though we often think of the judgment as Christ telling us where to go, either to Hell, or to Purgatory or Heaven, really we make that choice each day of our lives.  While the just are surprised that they served Christ through service to the poor, and the wicked are likewise surprised that they ignored Christ through ignoring the poor, they knew that they had served or ignored the poor.  In that way, their salvation or damnation was not a surprise, because they knew their choices, and whether or not they choose to do follow what God had instructed for eternal life.  Sometimes it was one act of following the Lord at the end of one’s life, like St. Dismas, the good thief, who received paradise for his defense of Christ crucified.  At other times it was more choices for the Lord, with some rejections sprinkled in, like St. Peter.  Or, in a negative sense, one great act of betrayal from Judas led him to despair of any chance of salvation.  But Dismas nor Peter nor Judas was ignorant of the choices they made and how each could affect eternal salvation.
    So where will we come out in this great drama and battle between life and death?  By baptism Christ claimed us for Himself and eternal life, and gives us the grace to stay faithful to the choices of life each day.  Each day the enemy works to enslave us once more to death.  Neither Christ nor the devil chooses for us.  We choose if we want death or life.  Praised be to God who gives us all the graces necessary so that we can accept the gift that salvation is, won for us by Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever. 
    

Revenge

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When I was (I think) in first grade, there were these fifth graders at my parochial school who liked to pick on me.  They weren’t horrible, but they would sometimes just grab on to my arms, which I didn’t like.  One time they were holding my arms on the playground, and I could feel the frustration welling up inside of me, wanting to break free of their grasp, but not having the physical strength to wrest myself away from them, so I did what I could: I bit one of their arms.  They let go, and I was free; at least until a teacher found out and I had to go to the principal’s office, and eventually write an apology letter to them.
    Revenge is a primal urge that we all can have.  We experience some sort of injustice, no matter how big or small, and we want to make it right on our own terms.  The sense that something is not right and should be addressed, which leads to the emotion we call anger, is a sign that we recognize good and evil.  If we didn’t want wrong things to be righted, that would not be a good sign of the state of our soul.
    The problem is that our view of what is truly just is not always accurate, since it is limited by our restricted view of reality (as compared to God’s omniscient view of reality), and our passions for justice often goes beyond what is truly just.  When we respond to someone who has done us wrong, we tend to give them a little more than they gave us, just to make sure that they know not to mess with us again.  It’s like kids in the back of a car, where one looks at the other in a funny way, so then the other pokes the first with a finger, and then the first hits the other with a hand, and it just keeps escalating (until mom or dad says, “If I have to pull this car over…” and metes out their best justice to get them both to stop). 
    Which is why St. Peter and our Lord both instruct us this weekend not to give into revenge.  St. Peter tells us not to render evil for evil, but a blessing instead.  And Christ tells us that the true life of God to which He calls us does not suffice not to kill someone, but to stop that anger in the heart, which is where all action begins.  Murder, which the commandment forbids, is the end result of seeking to administer justice on our own terms, which often, as I said, goes beyond true justice.

St. Paul the Apostle

    St. Paul, quoting Leviticus and Deuteronomy, reminds us that vengeance belongs to the Lord.  So our desire to exact punishment on those who have done us wrong is also a form of pride, a desire to supplant God and put ourselves in His place.  St. James takes up a similar theme in his epistle when he writes, “There is one…judge who is able to save or to destroy.  Who then are you to judge your neighbor?”  When we try to take revenge, we are trying to take the place of God, falling to the temptation that the enemy gave to Eve in the garden, when he enticed her to evil by suggesting that eating the fruit would make her like God.
    But if we truly wish to be like God, then we should seek to reconcile whenever possible.  Yes, God is the judge of the world, and He will judge justly.  But He is also merciful, because in Him justice and mercy have embraced.  He is patient with us sinners, giving us so many opportunities to turn away from our sins and repent, so that we can have union with Him.  That is why our Lord not only teaches us that we should seek to root out anger in our hearts so that we don’t turn to revenge, but also encourages us to make sure that we reconcile before we offer our sacrifice to God in the Mass.  How can we be in communion with others through Holy Communion if we are at the same time seeking their downfall? 
    Instead, God wants us to bear others faults patiently, as he bears ours.  This doesn’t mean that we can’t correct and call others to right behavior, but no matter what, not to carry a grudge if others have done us wrong and have not repented.  A great way to accomplish this is through the Sacrament of Penance, which we often call confession.  Through the sacrament, we are not only reconciled with God, but we are also reconciled with the the community, both of whom the priest represents.  We turn to our brother and ask his mercy for our offenses, and then God invites us to be merciful with others, just as He has been merciful with us.  And having been reconciled with God and with the community, our gift is then acceptable to God, because it is truly offered in communion with Him and with the rest of the Church. 
    A good examination of conscience today will ask ourselves: against whom do I seek revenge?  What harm have others done to me that I have not forgiven?  What anger do I bear in my heart towards my neighbor?  What might they bear against me?  If I truly wish to be like God, then I should offer opportunities to show mercy, just as we have been shown mercy by our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Giving Up

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When we think about giving up stuff as Catholics, probably our mind first turns to Lent.  That’s the season when we specifically give up particular foods or practices in our life.  If we were to think about it even more, we might think about religious sisters and brothers, nuns and monks, priests and bishops who give up certain things through their vows (for consecrated men and women) and promises (for priests and bishops). 
    And Jesus talks about giving stuff up in the Gospel today.  He says, “‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,’” and “‘Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’”  He says this to His apostles, and so it can be easy to think that lay people don’t have to give up any of that stuff.  That’s for those people who take vows and promises.
    This is not to say that the life of a consecrated man or woman, or a priest or bishop is nothing but denial.  Our first reading may be the first example of inviting the priest, er, prophet over for dinner.  But getting back to giving up stuff, it’s truly for everyone, not just me, Bishop Boyea, or the sisters.  The call to follow Christ and to abandon certain things is for all who call themselves disciples, not just those who have made a special commitment through vows or promises.  Now, it’s true that not everyone vows or promises to abstain from marital relations (otherwise we’d never have any children); or to obey a superior (though some husbands may argue that, for all intents and purposes, they have a vow of obedience to their wife, with very harsh penalties for disobedience!); or to live simply (like priests and bishops) or not have their own bank account or grasp on to personal possessions (like sisters, nuns, brothers, and monks).  But when we were baptized, we all committed to, or our parents committed us to, give up certain ways of life and certain practices which are inconsistent with being a follower of Jesus.
    That’s why St. Paul can say that we died with Christ in baptism.  Yes, His Death was given to us, so that we could have life, but we also died to anything which is contrary to Him.  And by dying to anything contrary to Him, we live by all the things which are united to Him: life, joy, peace.  Death, which comes from sin, no longer has power over us who are baptized, unless we invite death and sin back into our lives through our individual choices.
    There are two ways that I would invite us to think about living for Christ and dying to that which is opposed to Him this weekend.  The first is thinking about our relationship with Christ in a consumerist mentality.  Almost everything we do today is touched by the reality we have in our economic life, where I get what I want or I go somewhere else.  I am the judge of what is best, and I get what I want, when I want it, how I want it.  That’s not horrible when we’re talking about a restaurant, or a clothes store.  But when it comes to our faith, that approach is an approach of death and the antithesis of what it means to follow Christ.
    We do not follow Christ on our own terms.  We do not get to decide exactly where I want God’s grace, when I receive it, or how I receive it.  That consumerist mentality makes us the master and Christ our lackey.  Or, to use another analogy, the Church is not a country club to which we can belong, where, if we don’t get the service we want, we end our membership and go elsewhere.  Christ offers us eternal life, but He offers it to us in His way, because He is the way.  And if we do not like how Christ offers us life, we cannot find it anywhere else.  When we seek to make Christ and His Church change to our fleeting whims and fancies, we are trying to find our life, but will lose it.  But when we lose our life to conform it to the way Christ shows us, then we actually find eternal life. 
    [Especially here at St. Pius X, we know that there will be changes in the near future and the coming months.  It is fine and natural to mourn a Mass time that we loved and a parish that we loved that has declined in population.  But if we allow that pain to say uncharitable things, to pout like toddlers, and to abandon our practice of the faith altogether, then our desire for what we want has actually become an obstacle to Christ and the grace He desires to give us, especially the grace that comes from suffering with Him patiently.]
    The second way to think about living for Christ and dying to that which is opposed to him is how we view Sunday.  Growing up, there was, for me, two parts of the week: weekdays, and weekends.  But for a follower of Christ, each week usually has two parts: Sunday and every other day.  Sunday is the day that belongs to the Lord, that we assemble to worship God at Mass, that we spend time with family and friends, or doing works of charity, and that we rest.  Our day of rest as followers of Christ is Sunday.  God wants us to rest in Him, to give Him fitting worship, and to build up the relationships of love among ourselves, especially on His day.  But too often it’s just another day of the week, another day of work, another day of sports. 
    Don’t get me wrong, some have to work on Sunday, either because of their field of work, or because of a shortage of workers.  But, to the best of our ability, do we accomplish our chores on the other days of the week?  Do we take time to get off our phones and spend time not with the FaceTime app, but with face time with our family and friends in person?  I am convinced that if we treated Sunday as the Lord’s day, if we died to this secular idea that it’s just another day for work, and rose to the idea that it’s time that we get to eat together as family and friends and share how life is going, many of our problems would go away.  There will always be work to do; there will always be chores that need finishing.  Let Sunday be a day that your worship God at Mass, and relax with each other and with God. 
    When we were baptized, we died with Christ.  The rest of our life is following-up on that dying to everything which is not of Christ, so that we can live for Him.  All of us are called to give up something for Christ.  Will we find eternal life by giving up the works of death?

No Karma for Catholics

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time/Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]. Over the past few years people of all and no faiths have started to buy into this idea of karma.  Whether what is shared is actually the Hindu view of karma or not, I’m not sure, but the basic statement is that if someone does good, then good things will happen to that person.  More often than not, it’s invoked when someone does something bad to a person, and that person hopes something bad will happen back to the other. 

Prophet Jeremiah

   Catholics do not believe in karma.  Nor should we espouse it so blithely.  In our/the Ordinary Form first reading, we hear the prophet Jeremiah talk about his former friends trying to trap him and cause his problems.  Jeremiah does call out to God for retribution, and has confidence that God will take care of things.  But bad things did happen to Jeremiah.  He was thrown into a partly-dry well, and no one listened to him.  What had Jeremiah done to deserve such horrible treatment?  What horrendous things must he have committed in order for “karma” to treat him so poorly?  Jeremiah spoke God’s word.  He did nothing wrong (beyond the daily small sins of any person).  The word God sent Jeremiah to preach was not a popular word, because it was the word of judgement on a people who had rejected God.  But if karma is true, then Jeremiah should have experienced nothing but good things, since he was doing good.  But that’s not what happened.
    Or take St. Paul.  In Romans, chapter 8, [the pericope we heard today], St. Paul says that the sufferings of this time are as nothing compared to the glory that is to be revealed.  St. Paul had done some bad stuff (he had persecuted Christians and consented to the martyrdom of St. Stephen).  But by the time he’s writing this epistle, he’s been doing God’s work for a while, preaching the Gospel, working miracles, and encouraging young communities to follow the Lord.  According to karma, everything should be enjoyable; there shouldn’t be sufferings.  But, of course, there were.  In fact, St. Paul continues that all creation is groaning as it awaits for the fullness of redemption in Christ. 
    Christ, of course, is the nail in the coffin when it comes to the idea of karma.  Christ was sinless.  He did no wrong.  And yet He suffered immense pain and agony.  So, hopefully we can put to rest this idea of karma, and that good things happen to those who do good, while bad things happen to those who do bad.  Those who follow God’s will often have to suffer, and sometimes there is no immediate justice for those who do wrong.  There are many who lie, cheat, sleep around, and have no real practice of religion, and they seem to get richer and richer, not have any problems, and continue to thrive while those who try their best to follow God’s law of freedom have to struggle daily to make ends meet, and have problems with sometimes even the basic realities of life.
    So what do we do?  We stay faithful, even when it’s hard.  We follow the law of the Gospel and the teachings of the Church, even when they seem unpopular, and even when we are persecuted, because, as our Lord says in the Gospel according to St. Matthew [that we heard today], God cares even for the sparrows, and we are worth much more than many sparrows. 
    When Christ invites us to live a certain way or to follow Him somewhere, our best response is to follow His lead and do what He says.  It may sometimes seem counterintuitive, like when Christ asked Peter to put out into the deep waters to make a catch of fish, even though Peter had been fishing the entire night before and had caught nothing.  But when we respond with the obedience of faith, Christ can do things beyond our imagining.  The miracle where St. Peter caught all those fish was not about the fish: it was about God not being outdone when we follow Him.  Sometimes it happens immediately, like with St. Peter.  Sometimes it takes longer.  Sometimes we may not even see the results on this side of eternity.  But God rewards faithfulness, and especially when it is tough.
    And it’s tough for Catholics now, and probably will get tougher in the future.  Last week the LA Dodgers honored a group of anti-Catholic cross-dressers who openly mock the beautiful lives and work of religious sisters.  Those who remain faithful to the Church’s teaching that homosexual acts are gravely sinful and contrary to God’s plan for human sexuality are called bigots and homophobes.  Our own Michigan Supreme Court wants to make a rule that says that a person is to be identified by whatever terminology that person decides, regardless of reality, and our governor openly brags about how easy it is to murder innocent children in the womb and says that people should move to Michigan because of that ease of access to infanticide.  These aren’t so much political issues as they are moral.  We now find ourselves in a culture that is more pagan than the height of the Roman Empire. 
    God calls us to be Jeremiahs, those who speak His word, no matter what those who called themselves friends do to us, no matter what privileges and popularity society grabs from us, no matter what names and epithets others give to us.  We do this, not because of karma, not because bad people will get bad things in their lifetime, but because God’s word is life and truth, and living according to the truth brings happiness, while living according to lies, no matter how popular, brings sorrow.  God gives us the Eucharist to strengthen us so that we have the courage and energy to remain faithful to Him. 
    That is why it is so important to go to Mass each Sunday and holyday: without the Eucharist, the devil can more easily persuade us with his lies to dive into the culture of death.  The Eucharist is our lembas bread (Elvish bread from Lord of the Rings which sustained those who ate it much longer than it looked like it could) which fills our soul to press on, no matter how hard the journey. 

    Whether we like it or not, bad things do not always happen to bad people; good things do not always happen to good people.  Sometimes staying faithful to God means losing friends, power, and prestige.  But, we cannot imagine the good things that God has in store for us if we remain faithful to Him: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Holy Communion

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  This weekend in our Diocese of Lansing we begin our Eucharistic Revival, leading up to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in July 2024.  Why do a Eucharistic Revival?  Because, statistically speaking, Catholics in the US do not have Catholic faith about the Eucharist.  A recent study put faith in the Eucharist as the actual Body and Blood of Christ at around 33% of active Catholics.  Fewer and fewer Catholics go to Mass, which is where we most frequently encounter Christ in the Eucharist.  And there are fewer and fewer Catholics period, as the steady stream over the 2010s of Catholics leaving the faith became a rushing waterfall after 2020 and COVID. 
    We all have a share in the sources for these depressing facts.  We priests have not always preached about the Eucharist, and what a beautiful and sacred treasure we have.  Some priests have not reminded the faithful of the Church’s teachings and disciplines concerning the Eucharist, and some have celebrated Mass in an irreverent way and admitted to Mass things which have no place there.  Some bishops, too, have not always demonstrated respect for the Eucharist in making sure that their priests celebrate according to the way the Church wants Mass celebrated, or admitting to Holy Communion those who, according to our own post-Vatican II Code of Canon Law, should be refused Holy Communion because of the public way they live and the public policies they openly support which are contrary to the Catholic faith. 
    But it’s not just clergy.  How do you approach the Eucharist each week?  Do you make it a priority, or something you get to if it doesn’t conflict with your other activities or schedule?  Do you prepare for Mass by reading the readings ahead of time, fasting for at least an hour before receiving the Eucharist, and showing by your posture at Mass and especially as you approach the sanctuary that you are receiving the King of Heaven?
    So we all have a hand in a lack of due devotion and demonstration of just how sacred the Eucharist is, without pointing out any individuals.  And I certainly cannot solve issues which have arisen in the Church over the past sixty years in one homily.  But I do want to focus, as we celebrate Corpus Christi, on a phrase we use for the Eucharist: Holy Communion.
    Holy Communion as a phrase slides easily off our tongue.  We probably say it without really giving it a thought as to its meaning.  Holy is probably obvious enough, but still worth saying: belonging to God or associated with God.  God is utter holiness, which is why in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and the Book of Revelation, the angels cry out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.”  Communion comes from two Latin words, cum and unio, which, when put together, means union with.  When we are in communion with another, we are united to that person.  So Holy Communion is our union with God, who is the source of all holiness. 

    When we come for Holy Communion, union with God is both the pre-requisite as well as the result of receiving (in a state of grace) the Eucharist.  In order to receive the grace of the Eucharist which brings us closer to God, we cannot be aware of any grave or mortal sin.  Such a state of sinfulness makes reception of Holy Communion an act of sacrilege.  That may sound harsh, but Bishop Vincke uses this analogy:
 

Imagine a woman whose husband goes to strip clubs and repeatedly sleeps with many other women, and she knows about it.  The husband comes home and wants to have dinner with his wife, acting as if nothing was wrong.  He is indifferent to the many ways he has hurt and wounded her.  […] Let’s take this a step further.  The cheating husband now wants to be intimate with his wife.  Again, he shows no remorse for the ways he has hurt her.  At the very least, shouldn’t the husband first apologize to his wife?  […] In a similar way, Holy Communion is a sacred banquet in which Jesus becomes intimate with us.  He desires to be one with us in Holy Communion, much like a married couple becomes one flesh.  Jesus has a heart.  […] When we commit mortal sin or “cheat” on God, we must first apologize and beg for his forgiveness.  We know he will grant it in the saving sacrament of confession.  And then, once our broken relationship has been healed, we can return to the intimate banquet of the Eucharist.

Not discerning whether or not we should receive the Eucharist based upon our actions is like being the cheating husband.  Only when we have confessed our sin in the Sacrament of Penance can we one more return to the intimacy and union that God desires with us.
    But Communion is not only with God.  It is also with the rest of the Church.  The Catholic Church has taught many things which are required beliefs and ways we live our life in order to call ourselves good Catholics.  Some are present in the creed.  Others are present in papal pronouncements or documents of ecumenical councils.  Others are so basic that they are presented in the Catechism, but often taken for granted.  When we come forward for Holy Communion, we are saying that we agree with all those things that are part of the Catholic faith, revealed for our salvation.  We may not always understand it fully (like our belief in the Trinity), but if we reject that belief, or the call to live our life a particular way (like the prohibition against abortion or support for abortion), then we are not truly in union with the Church, and our act of receiving Holy Communion becomes a lie at the most sacred time of any person’s day.  St. Justin Martyr, whom we just celebrated on 1 June, wrote around AD 155: “And this food is called among us Eucharistia, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins.”  It’s not just that a person is baptized, but that they also believe what the Church teaches is true. 
    This applies to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.  No matter whether a person is Catholic or a baptized non-Catholic, if they do not believe the major teachings of the faith, then they should not present themselves for, and should not be given, the Eucharist.  If we are not united in major teachings, then we cannot claim to have the graces of communion with God and the Church that the Eucharist desires to impart. 
    Again, I can’t cover everything about the Eucharist in this one homily, though I will try have more homilies on the Eucharist throughout the Eucharistic Revival.  To be clear, this has nothing to do with being a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or anything else.  Our teaching on the Eucharist is not aligned to a political party or persona.  Our practice around the Eucharist is based upon what the Church believes and how the Church lives, which is based in Christ.  Since the Eucharist truly is the Body and Blood of Christ, and not just a symbol, how we treat the Eucharist is how we treat Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Unity & Diversity

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  Throughout the history of the Church, as people have tried to explain the Most Holy Trinity, whom we celebrate today, more often than not they have fallen into some kind of heresy.  Some have advocated that our one God appeared in three forms, which is the heresy of modalism.  Or others have advocated that God the Father, our one God, created the Son and the Holy Spirit, but made them like Himself, which is the heresy of Arianism.  The best route has always been sticking with what God has revealed through Sacred Scripture (that God is one, and yet God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are somehow one God), and using the terms given to us by the early Church, especially the term Trinity, by which we confess that God is one, but is also Three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

    When we talk about God, who is infinite and cannot fully be explained or understood by us who are finite, we see a unity of substance (one God), but a diversity of Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).  We also know from Genesis that man and woman are created in the image and likeness of God.  So in humanity we are meant to see a reflection of God, who is unity and diversity.  The more we see this, the more that God’s image and likeness shine forth.  The less we see this, the more muddled our understanding of God is.  And like the early Trinitarian heresies, we can tend to overemphasize one aspect or another.
    God desires our oneness or unity to be based in Him.  God wants all human beings to believe rightly about who God is and who we are.  God desires that we confess one faith that properly professes right belief and advocates right action.  God desires that we be united in the truth and in the love which we call charity (the love of God).  From the beginning, God has sent us out to make disciples of all nations, and bring them into the unity of the Church, rightly believing in, living by, and worshipping the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  We desire all people to become Catholic, not by force or compulsion, but by the free assent of the mind which recognizes the truth and the freedom that comes from living according to God’s plan.  And until that happens, our work of spreading the Gospel is not done.  Until all people not only believe the Catholic faith with their mind and heart but also live in such a way that reflects what they believe, we can grow in our manifestation of the oneness of God.
    At the same time, oneness in faith does not mean that we are all automatons who look the same, who all have the same vocation and avocations, and who give up our individual identity to a corporate identity.  Yes, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, and yet the Father is not the Son, the Father is not the Holy Spirit, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit.  They are different divine Persons, united in the one Godhead, or consubstantial. 
    That is why the Church, from the beginning, has welcomed people of all nations, not just Jews, to follow our Trinitarian God.  Indeed, on the day of Pentecost, there were Jews of many nations gathered in Jerusalem, who heard the Gospel proclaimed in their own language.  Very early on even Gentiles, non-Jews were baptized.  People of different skin color, of both genders, slaves and free, rich and poor, and any other grouping you can think of were invited to change their beliefs and the way they lived their lives to the way that God teaches us through His Word and His Church. 
    This diversity is also a reflection of God, who is not one Person, but three.  Each participates in the one work of salvation, but each does so with the identity of the Person, so that we can say that the Son suffered death, but we cannot say that of the Father.  We can say that the Holy Spirit was spirated or breathed-forth, but we cannot say that of the Son. 
    In our own day, we tend to emphasize one or the other quality of God, unity or diversity.  But an overemphasis in our reflection of these attributes of God leads to a disfigurement and poor reflection of who God is, just as the early heresies which emphasized either the unity of God or the diversity of God in one way or another did not lead to the true faith, but marred our understanding of who God is.
    The temptation to overemphasize unity can often be seen in the Mass.  The Mass is supposed to have a certain unity to it, a way that all people can relate to what is going on within that one rite.  But there are 23 different rites or churches who celebrate Mass in a particular way, including the Latin Rite (ours), the Chaldean Rite (from Iraq), the Syro-Malabar Rite (from India), the Coptic Rite (from Egypt), the Maronite Rite (from Lebanon), and the Byzantine Rite (from modern-day Turkey), just to name a few.  We also have diversity in our vocations and the roles those vocations have.  The vocation to consecrated life (religious brothers and sisters, monks and nuns, hermits, and consecrated virgins) show in a most excellent way the priority of the heavenly life following Christ who was poor, chaste, and obedient.  The priesthood continues the sacramental life of the Church, especially the Eucharist and Penance, in a way that no other vocation does.  And married life creates new life through a sacrament which reflects the life of the Trinity in a way that consecrated life and ordained life cannot.  The diversity of rituals and vocations are just two examples of how our differences can be beautiful and express the life of God in a way that only one does not.
    At the same time, there is a temptation to overemphasize diversity, which weakens the unity of the Church and does not reflect God.  We did not allow diverse teachings about who God is, because some of those teachings are wrong.  We do not allow diversity when it comes to recognizing that life is sacred and a gift from God, from conception to natural death.  The diversity of belief that women should be allowed to be priests or that marriage between two persons of the same sex is not based in God, and is not welcomed into the Catholic Church, because it is not as God has revealed reality to us.  For diversity to be a benefit, there has to be some commonality that binds everyone together, not a free-for-all and scattering based on wrong understanding of who God is or how God has called us to live. 
    Just as with the false understandings of the Trinity, so with the human person and the Church today: either unity or diversity is emphasized over and against the others.  Some, in order to advocate unity, would suggest that all Catholics should do exactly the same thing in exactly the same way.  Others, in order to advocate diversity, would suggest that it doesn’t matter what you believe or how you live.  In reality, our Triune God shows us that both unity and diversity are realities of who God is, and that if we wish to live as those created in His image and likeness, we, too, need the unity and diversity of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.