Monday, July 27, 2015

Offer it anyway

          This past week we had to say “goodbye” to our dear friend Fr. Eder.  I’ll admit that I regret not spending more time with him while I was still Associate Pastor.  Nevertheless, he still made an impression on me.  His stories of how he decided to get a pilot’s license and then used it to take youth on trips (on his plane!) and of how, when he was assigned as a chaplain to the State Hospital and they didn’t have enough counselors, he decided to get a degree in psychotherapy in order to help out impressed me the most.  Here was a man who had a rare mix of a servant’s heart and a “can-do” attitude that was inspiring.  Like all of us he came to God without much; but when God asked him to take what he had and give it to the people he did, and what he offered was multiplied to do more than probably he could have imagined, just like the offerings that were made in this weekend’s readings.  Perhaps this week, in Fr. Eder’s spirit, we too could strive to let God multiply our meager gifts by placing them before him and responding in faith to his call to serve.

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Homily: 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
          If you’ve read the books, or seen the film, or have been to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, then you perhaps know the story of Oskar Schindler, a businessman in Germany during World War II who worked to save over 1000 Jews from death in German Concentration Camps.  The film, titled Schindler’s List, is how I came to know him.  It dramatically and powerfully portrays how this, at times, shady businessman turned his prowess towards keeping his factory open and maintaining a mainly Jewish workforce as a way to keep as many of them as he could from the horrors that they faced daily in the camps.
          One of the most moving parts of this powerful movie happens towards the end, of course.  After the Russian forces liberate the camp from which Oskar Schindler was taking the Jews to work in his factory (and he, thus, sees a glimpse of the full horror that those camps inflicted) he begins to feel guilty for not having done more to save more Jews from those horrors.  I often wonder, if he had known the scope of the problem before he started, would he have even begun?  Or would he have thought that he couldn’t have made a difference and so turned away from the problem all together, hoping someone else would do something?  Thankfully, we’ll never know.
          But this is something rather human for us, isn’t it?  That when we look at a problem that seems far too big for us to solve alone we often turn away from it, instead of offering what we can, because we think that our offering won’t make much of a difference.  1200 Jews isn’t much when you think that 6 million were killed and so it’s not unreasonable for us to sympathize with individuals who understood the scope of the killing and could have done something, but failed to do anything because they were paralyzed by thinking that it would make little difference.  When we look at Oskar Schindler’s story, however, and the stories we read in our Sacred Scriptures today, we realize just how wrong we can be.
          In our first reading, we heard how a man brought the firstfruits of his harvest—the “fresh grain in the ear”—to Elisha, the “man of God”, in order to offer it to God.  This was a very common thing to do as a way of showing reverence to God from whom all life (and, thus, the harvest) flows.  Elisha does something dramatic, however, when he directs the man to place it before the gathered people, instead.  The firstfruits offered to God were for God alone and should not be eaten by the “common” folk (who we might call “laity” today).  This reveals, perhaps, that there was great hunger at that time and so it could be thought that Elisha was responding to the truth that “God desires mercy, not sacrifice” by directing that the offering be given to those who were hungry.
          Nevertheless, the man observes that his offering is insufficient to feed the number of people who had gathered and so he tries to object.  It seems as if he thought that because his offering would be insufficient to feed all of the gathered people, that it would be useless to offer it.  Elisha, however, knowing the sign that God wanted to show through the offering, insists that he offer it anyway, which he does.  And, as we heard, the Lord multiplied his meager offering: so much so that there was bread to spare.
          Then, in the Gospel reading, we heard how Jesus asked his disciples how they could get enough food to feed the large crowd who had gathered to hear him teach.  And we heard how Philip responded; thinking that even a Bill Gates’ sized fortune wouldn’t be enough to feed them all.  Andrew, however, found a boy who had some loaves and fish.  He mentioned it to Jesus, acknowledging that this meager amount might as well be nothing on account of there being so many to feed.  But Jesus knew the sign that he wanted to show through this offering, and so he directs the gathered crowd to recline (as if at a dinner table) as he prepares the meal that he will share with them.  What they had to offer was insignificant in comparison to the problem that needed to be solved and so they wanted to give up.  But the Lord multiplied their meager offering: again, so much so that the leftovers were more abundant than what was offered.
          One of the unique characteristics of each of these offerings, however, is their Eucharistic nature.  The man in the first reading brought the firstfruits of his harvest to offer to God as an act of thanksgiving for the abundance of his harvest.  In the Gospel, Jesus takes the gift of loaves and fish and first gives thanks to God for having received them.  In both cases, the thanksgiving offerings were multiplied to satisfy the need.  None of us, of course, has enough on our own to resolve the world’s greatest problems.  Nevertheless, if we would only offer to God what we have, in thanksgiving for what we have received, God would multiply our individual offerings, too, and thus satisfy the needs of those around us.  This is what our beloved Fr. Eder did in his life and, if you were at his funeral Mass this past Friday, you’ll know that because of this God multiplied his offering and so touched many more lives than Fr. Eder probably would have ever imagined he could have touched.
          This, too, therefore, highlights the sacramental nature of our offerings: that in spite of what our offering looks like on the outside, in God’s hands it is always something greater.  Just look at what happens here at this Mass: we bring forward our meager offering of bread and wine and as we give thanks to God for these gifts—united in thanksgiving for all of the gifts that he has given us—he transforms them into the Body and Blood of Jesus for us to receive: an immeasurable multiplication of what we offered.
          My brothers and sisters, our Church, our parish, is not dying: it’s alive!  It will only live, however, if we continue to trust that God will multiply our gifts when we offer them to him in thanksgiving for all that we have received; which happens whenever we respond to the needs of the materially and spiritually poor.  And so, in thanksgiving for all that we have received, let us make our offering today; and then let us go forth in faith to see how God will work a miracle of grace in our lives and in the lives around us.
Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – July 25th & 26th, 2015

Monday, July 20, 2015

Nuestro encuentro comienza en el hogar

          Queridos amigos, nos están vagando como ovejas sin pastor, pero la verdad es que tenemos un pastor en Jesucristo. Cuando ponemos nuestra confianza en la voluntad de Dios, ya no divagar, pero tienen dirección y llegamos a un encuentro con Jesús que transforma la vida. Esa primera parte es tan importante, sin embargo! Tenemos que dar la vida por completo a la voluntad de Jesús si queremos ver a su potencia de trabajo en nuestras vidas, esto incluye especialmente la vida de nuestras familias.

          Planificación Familiar Natural (PFN) es una forma importante en la que ponemos la vida de nuestras familias bajo la voluntad de Jesús. Los invito a todos a explorar sus beneficios espirituales, emocionales y físicos para usted y sus familias. Empieza aqui.

          Que Dios nos bendiga a todos mientras nos esforzamos para encontrarlo a través de seguir su voluntad en nuestras vidas.

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Homilía: 16º Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario – Ciclo B
          Hace cincuenta años, era más fácil ser una persona religiosa. Esto se debe a la cultura en general apoya la práctica religiosa. De hecho, era algo que se esperaba de personas que se consideraban a sí mismos "los miembros de respeto" de la comunidad. Aquellos, por ejemplo, que no asistió a algún tipo de servicio de la iglesia el domingo fueron considerados con recelo como si tuvieran algún tipo de "segundas intenciones". Desde entonces, sin embargo, tanto el paisaje de la Iglesia y de la cultura en general han cambiado drásticamente. El Concilio Vaticano II marcó el comienzo de una época de gran renovación en la Iglesia, mientras que al mismo tiempo el tejido moral de la civilización occidental comenzó a desmoronarse. Debido a esto, el apoyo tácito de la cultura de la práctica religiosa comenzó a desaparecer aquí en los Estados Unidos. Pastores de todo tipo de religión cristiana no estaban preparados, al parecer, para este cambio y así han luchado para adaptarse a las necesidades de las dos generaciones más recientes.
          Por estas dos generaciones más recientes ya no se considera un marco de "estatus social" para ser directamente involucrados con o conectado a una iglesia. Durante dos generaciones ahora, nos hemos enseñado (para bien y para mal) que la fe es su elección personal, junto con decisiones acerca de la carrera, el matrimonio, y similares. En cierto modo, nos hemos enseñado a los hombres y mujeres de estas generaciones a ser sus propios pastores: para guiar sus propios destinos en base a lo que ellos piensan que es mejor. Lo que estamos encontrando es que ahora parece que tenemos dos generaciones de personas que parecen como ovejas sin pastor, que vagan sin rumbo, buscando algo para satisfacer el anhelo más profundo de sus corazones.
          Yo sé que esto es diferente en la cultura latina, porque los latinos todavía tienen un fuerte sentido cultural de la religión. Pero para aquellos de ustedes que se han trasladado aquí, ya está siendo visto el peligro de que la cultura dominante aquí afectará a sus niños que son criados aquí, y por lo que todo esto se aplica a ustedes también.
          Y así, en esto podemos ver un eco de la imagen pintada por nosotros por el profeta Jeremías en la primera lectura. Allí estaba el fracaso de los líderes del pueblo de Israel para reforzar la práctica religiosa y la devoción de la gente, pero el resultado fue el mismo: una cultura que ya no se admite la verdadera devoción a Dios solo—a consecuencia de los líderes religiosos que ya no guiado a su pueblo—y así la gente comenzó a pastorear a sí mismos: lo que les deja dispersas como ovejas perdidas.
          Esta forma individualista de tratar la fe no es necesariamente una mala cosa, pero le falta un elemento importante: un esfuerzo para llevar a la gente en un encuentro con Cristo. En el pasado, el apoyo cultural de la práctica religiosa significaba que la gente vino a encontrar a Cristo un poco más "implícitamente": es decir, lo consiguieron simplemente por estar expuesto a ella en dosis altas a través de la práctica religiosa. Y esto fue efectivo, como se evidencia por los numerosos miembros "más maduros" de nuestra comunidad que se mantienen fieles a su práctica religiosa hoy. Hoy, sin embargo, este encuentro con Cristo debe ser mucho más explícito: es decir, que tiene que ser algo que ocurre de manera consciente y deliberadamente en el corazón de una persona. Cuando lo es, sin embargo, el efecto es el mismo: un compromiso de por vida para seguirlo y la práctica de la fe en una comunidad de fieles.
          En la lectura del Evangelio de hoy, vemos cómo Jesús ha cumplido la promesa de Dios de que él hizo por medio del profeta Jeremías para ser un verdadero pastor del pueblo de Dios. Jesús había estado enseñando, expulsando demonios y sanando a los enfermos-y sus apóstoles habían estado haciendo lo mismo en su nombre, y así cuando volvieron grandes multitudes de multitudes se reunieron para oír más de Jesús. Lo habían encontrado personalmente y por lo tanto nada podía evitar que le seguían: ni siquiera el intento de Jesús para escapar a un lugar desierto con sus discípulos. Eso, amigos míos, es la verdadera devoción. Y eso es lo que sucede cuando los hombres y las mujeres tienen un auténtico encuentro con Cristo.
          Por supuesto, hay muchas maneras de conducir a nuestros hermanos y hermanas de vuelta a un encuentro con Cristo: a través de servicio de los demás, a través de compañía en los momentos difíciles, a través de la adoración eucarística, y con el testimonio de una vida llena de alegría, sólo para nombrar unos pocos. Hoy, sin embargo, quiero destacar sólo uno de ellos. San Juan Pablo II explica a menudo cómo la familia es el lugar donde muchas personas primero vienen a conocer a Jesús. Y por lo que animó a todos los padres para ayudar a fomentar en el hogar sea un lugar en donde el amor se vive: con cónyuges pastoreando, amando y cuidando a uno al otro y sus hijos. En otras palabras, él llamó a la casa de la familia para ser el primer lugar donde la gente se sirven mutuamente, apoyarse mutuamente en los momentos difíciles, y dar testimonio de una vida llena de alegría de la fe con el fin de ser el lugar privilegiado de encuentro con Jesús.
          En su exhortación apostólica sobre el papel de la familia cristiana en el mundo, Juan Pablo II dijo: "Consumado es, de hecho, a las familias de nuestros tiempos que la Iglesia debe llevar el inmutable y siempre nuevo Evangelio de Jesucristo, tal como son las familias que participan en las actuales condiciones del mundo que están llamados a aceptar y vivir el plan de Dios que pertenece a ellos. "Una de las maneras en que la familia acepta y vive el plan de Dios que pertenece a ellos es en la forma en que el marido y la mujer viven el pacto conyugal que se formaron ante Dios. Las parejas tienen una vocación noble encarnar el amor de Dios en sus gestos maritales de la vida y el amor, por el bien de los demás, de sus familias y de la sociedad en general. Los métodos de planificación familiar natural respetan diseño de Dios para el amor conyugal, por lo que la Iglesia apoya sus diversos métodos. La esencia de la enseñanza de la Iglesia es animar a las parejas a celebrar y unirse a su amor con el espíritu creador de Dios, es decir, para encarnar el amor de Dios, y por lo tanto hacer que su hogar sea un lugar de encuentro con Jesucristo: un encuentro que transforma vidas por buena y forma discípulos de toda la vida de Jesús, nuestro verdadero pastor.
          Destaco especialmente el apoyo de los diversos métodos de Planificación Familiar Natural de la Iglesia hoy, porque esta semana los obispos de Estados Unidos están promoviendo una Semana de Concientización de la Planificación Familiar Natural y así quiero invitar a todas las parejas—de los que han estado casados durante muchos años hasta llegar a los que están ahora sólo planea casarse—a explorar PFN como una forma profunda de hacer sus hogares un lugar de encuentro con Jesús y así empezar a reunir de nuevo a él a sus ovejas que han estado vagando como si ellos no han tenido pastor.
          Mis hermanos y hermanas, la cultura en general, aparentemente ha abandonado la religión como uno de los elementos centrales que se sostenía junto. Al abrazar la voluntad vivificante de Dios para cada uno de nuestras vidas, sin embargo, vamos a crear una nueva cultura de encuentro con Jesús que dará vuelta a la marea contra las fuerzas destructivas que dispersaron a las ovejas de Dios de su rebaño. Y vamos a conocer una vez más la alegría de la comunión en él con nuestros hermanos y hermanas perdidos: la misma comunión que celebramos hoy aquí en esta Santa Misa.

Dado en la parroquia Todos los Santos: Logansport, IN – 19º de julio, 2015

Our encounter starts in the home

          Dear friends, we are wandering like sheep without a shepherd, but the truth is that we have a shepherd in Jesus Christ.  When we put our trust in God's will, we no longer wander, but have direction and we come to a life-transforming encounter with Jesus.  That first part is so important, however!  We have to give our lives over completely to the lordship of Jesus if we want to see his power working in our lives, this especially includes the lives of our families.

          Natural Family Planning (NFP) is an important way in which we place the lives of our families under the lordship of Jesus.  I invite you all to explore its spiritual, emotional, and physical benefits for you and your families.  Start here.

          May God bless us all as we strive to find him through following his will in our lives.

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Homily: 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
          Fifty years ago, it was easier to be a religious person.  This is because the culture at large supported religious practice.  In fact, it was something that was expected of people who considered themselves “respectful members” of the community.  Those, for example, who didn’t attend some kind of church service on Sunday were considered with suspicion as if they had some sort of “ulterior motive”.  Since then, however, both the landscape of the Church and of the culture at large have changed dramatically.  The Second Vatican Council ushered in a time of great renewal in the Church, while at the same time the moral fabric of Western Civilization began to unravel.  Because of this, the culture’s tacit support of religious practice began to disappear.  Pastors of every sort of mainline denomination were unprepared, it seems, for this change and so have struggled to adapt to the needs of the two most recent generations.
          For these two most recent generations it is no longer considered a “social status” marker to be directly involved with or connected to a church.  For two generations now, we’ve taught (for better and for worse) that faith is one’s personal choice, alongside choices about career, marriage, and the like.  In a way, we’ve taught the men and women from these generations to be their own shepherds: to guide their own destinies based on whatever they think is best.  What we’re finding now is that we seem to have two generations of people who look like sheep without a shepherd, wandering aimlessly, looking for something to satisfy the deepest longing in their hearts.
          And so in this we can see an echo of the image painted for us by the prophet Jeremiah in the first reading.  There it was the failure of the leaders of the Israelite people to reinforce the religious practice and devotion of the people, but the result was the same: a culture that no longer supported true devotion to God alone—a result of religious leaders who no longer shepherded their people—and so the people began to shepherd themselves: leaving them scattered, like lost sheep.
          This individualistic way of treating the faith is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is missing an important element: an effort to lead people into an encounter with Christ.  In the past, the cultural support of religious practice meant that people came to encounter Christ a little more “implicitly”: that is to say, they got it simply by being exposed to it in high doses through religious practice.  And this was effective, as is evidenced by the many “more mature” members of our community who remain faithful to their religious practice today.  Today, however, this encounter with Christ must be much more explicit: that is to say, it has to be something that happens consciously and willfully in a person’s heart.  When it is, however, the effect is the same: a life-long commitment to following him and practicing that faith in a worshiping community.
          In the Gospel reading today, we see how Jesus has fulfilled God’s promise that he made through the prophet Jeremiah to be a true shepherd of God’s people.  Jesus had been teaching, driving out demons, and healing the sick—and his apostles had been doing the same in his name—and so when they returned great throngs of crowds gathered to hear more from Jesus.  They had encountered him personally and thus nothing could keep them from following him: not even Jesus’ attempt to slip away to a deserted place with his disciples.  That, my friends, is true devotion.  And that is what happens when men and women have an authentic encounter with Christ.
          Of course, there are many ways to lead our brothers and sisters back to an encounter with Christ: through service of others, through companionship in difficult times, through Eucharistic Adoration, and through the witness of a joy-filled life, just to name a few.  Today, however, I want to highlight just one of them.  Saint John Paul II often explained how the family is the place where many people first come to know Jesus.  And so he encouraged all parents to help foster in the home a place where in love is lived: with spouses shepherding, loving, and caring for each other and their children.  In other words, he called for the family home to be the first place where people serve one another, support one another in difficult times, and witness to a joy-filled life of faith so as to be the privileged place of encounter with Jesus.
          In his Apostolic Exhortation On the Role of the Christian Family in the World, John Paul II said: “It is, in fact, to the families of our times that the Church must bring the unchangeable and ever new Gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it is the families involved in the present conditions of the world that are called to accept and to live the plan of God that pertains to them.”  One of the ways in which the family accepts and lives the plan of God that pertains to them is in how the husband and wife live out the marital covenant that they formed before God.  Couples have a noble vocation to embody God’s love in their marital gestures of life and love, for the good of each other, their families, and the larger society.  The methods of Natural Family Planning respect God’s design for married love, which is why the Church supports its various methods.  The essence of the Church’s teaching is to encourage couples to celebrate and join their love with the creative spirit of God—that is, to embody God’s love—and thus make their home a place of encounter with Jesus Christ: an encounter that transforms lives for good and forms life-long disciples of Jesus, our true shepherd.
          I specifically highlight the Church’s support of the various methods of Natural Family Planning today because this week the United States Bishops are promoting Natural Family Planning Awareness Week and so I want to invite all couples—from those who have been married for many years all the way down to those who are now just planning to get married—to explore NFP as a profound way of making your homes a place of encounter with Jesus and so to begin to gather back to him his sheep who have been wandering as if they have had no shepherd.
          My brothers and sisters, the culture at large has seemingly abandoned religion as one of the core elements that held it together.  By embracing God’s life-giving will for each of our lives, however, we will create a new culture of encounter with Jesus that will turn the tide against the destructive forces that have scattered God’s sheep from his flock.  And we will once again know the joy of communion in him with our lost brothers and sisters: the very communion we celebrate today here in this Holy Mass.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – July 19th, 2015

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Remember the mission

          Sorry for the delay!  Adjusting to all of the additional responsibilities of being Administrator means that my routine has been thrown off and I almost forgot to post this.  Blessings to you all!

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Homily: 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
          I don’t know how many of you out there are Facebook users, but if you are I hope you won’t be offended if I criticize it a little here.  Facebook had been around for a few years before I first encountered it.  I had joined the e-mail revolution and thought that it was a pretty efficient way to communicate with friends and to keep up with what was going on in their lives.  I came to know of Facebook in the seminary and I quickly decided that I didn’t need it because it just sounded like another form of communication and, since I was happy using e-mail, I didn’t feel like I needed another thing to “check” on a regular basis.
          As an ordained minister in the modern world, however, I quickly discovered that it would be necessary to have a Facebook account so as to communicate with a much larger number of people.  Thus, I reluctantly opened one.  Since then I’ve come to appreciate its positive aspects (a way to connect with friends that I had long since lost touch with and to share good information with people who share my interests without a lot of work), but have also lamented how it has simply become part of the system that has led us to lose the art of dialogue in the public square.
          Like much of the more traditional media (like TV and radio), Facebook has become a place where debate has devolved into “who can argue the loudest, longest”, and thus where the majority opinion quickly drowns out the voices of those who dissent from it.  And so we see that, in Facebook as in other forms of media, messages that run contrary to popular opinions are increasingly marginalized: that is, pushed out of the public square by the “bullies” in the majority.  This, however, is nothing new.
          In the first reading for today’s Mass, we heard of how the high priest Amaziah was trying to bully the prophet Amos to take his message out of the public square and back to his home town.  In other words, the man in high political power was trying to bully the man without any power who brought forth an unpopular message into retreating back to the margins, thus silencing his message.  “Go back home and preach to your choir”, he seems to say, “and leave us alone.”
          It should be a surprise to no one when I say that the fullness of our Christian message is being increasingly pushed to the margins.  Without directly saying it like the ancient high priest Amaziah did, the political powers of our day are enacting laws and policies that essentially are telling us to take our message out of the public square, because it isn’t welcome there, and so to keep it at home, inside the walls of our churches, thus marginalizing our message along with those of us who proclaim it.  So what do we do about it?
          Some would say that we should retreat, shaking the dust off of our feet in testimony against them, as Jesus instructed his apostles to do when he sent them out to preach.  I’m not so sure, however, that this is the correct approach.  Jesus was thinking about individual towns and villages, not the overall landscape of political power.  He was thinking of dialogue with individuals and groups of individuals, not wholesale rejection by the majority.  Therefore, I think that in order to know what we must do, we must first remember our mission.
          In the Gospel reading today we heard that Jesus sent out his apostles to preach the kingdom of God and gave them authority over unclean spirits.  Later we hear that the apostles went out and preached repentance and both drove out demons and healed many people who were sick.  In other words, they preached repentance in preparation for the coming kingdom of God and demonstrated its nearness by doing acts of great power and mercy.
          My brothers and sisters, our mission is the same.  Thus, if we are engaging in the public square, we cannot be in it for the sole purpose of winning debates and asserting ourselves over others because our message is the most powerful.  Rather, we must be in it for God’s purposes: to preach repentance in preparation for the coming of God’s kingdom and to bring mercy to those who are desperately in need of it.
          To emphasize that he didn’t want his disciples trying to gain political power or influence, Jesus sent them first to small towns and villages, instead of to Jerusalem to engage the ones with great political influence; and he sent them without provisions so that they would remember that they were God’s missionaries, relying solely on His providence, instead of trying to build clout by growing their wealth and political influence.
          And so, Jesus sends us today, instructing us to bring no worldly help along with us—that is, nothing that can help us gain political power.  Rather, we are only to bring his message (repent for the kingdom of God is at hand) and the authority that he has given us as his apostles to do works of mercy.
          Part of the challenge we face today is that the message has lost its credibility because it has increasingly become separated from works of mercy.  This is why Pope Francis is having such a great effect on people.  Pope Francis is pushing to put works of mercy in the forefront so that we might rebuild our credibility and thus gain a hearing for our message.  He is showing us that to retreat from the public square because our message has been rejected would be to fail in our mission.  Rather, he wants us to see that we must first manifest the kingdom of God by doing works of mercy and that, in doing so, we will gain a hearing for our message.  This is because he knows that, in a culture soaked in cynicism and distrust, we must first build a bridge of trust with those whom we hope to reach with our message: which we do when we enact the works of mercy.
          My brothers and sisters, this is uncomfortable work, to be sure.  It requires us not only to go outside of our comfort zones—engaging, perhaps, with someone outside of our normal circles—but it also demands sacrifices of us—forgoing, perhaps, that vacation or purchasing that new car or new couch or new pair of jeans—so that God’s mercy can be worked through us; and this with no guarantee that our message will be heard and accepted!
          We must not let the fear of rejection keep us from going, however, because we have the power and authority of Jesus and have been given a commission by him; woe to us, therefore, if we do not go.  And so, my brothers and sisters, let us go boldly to bring mercy to God’s people so that they, too, might hear and accept God’s call to repentance and thus be joined with us at this table of God’s mercy: the Eucharistic banquet which is a foretaste of eternal happiness that we all long for.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – July 11th & 12th, 2015