The relationship of prayer

 Homily: 17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

“Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?”

          Friends, the readings for our Mass this Lord’s Day point us to reflect on the relationship of prayer.  In the first reading, we see Abraham acting out this relationship of prayer with God.  We see him exploring the limits of God’s justice with each repeated question: lowering his number each time in search of the true answer to his first question, “Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?”  Abraham has a true sense of justice and so he is convinced of the truth that the innocent should not be condemned with the guilty.  He acknowledges God as the all-powerful judge of the world, but he does not yet know whether God will act with justice, and so he explores this with God.  Abraham also knows that God could strike him dead in an instant and so he approaches the question humbly, not presuming to know God’s will, but rather exploring the limits through his repeated questions, hoping to discover that the “judge of all the world” will act with justice and thus demonstrate himself honorable.  Besides revealing to us that God is just and that he will act with justice, Abraham also demonstrates for us the relationship of prayer: that is, that prayer is not only transactional, but relational.

          In a transactional style of prayer, something is asked of another and that other responds either positively or negatively: either “Yes, I will give you that” or “No, I will not give you that”.  If positively, perhaps there’s a cost for receiving the thing requested: “Yes, I will give you that and this is how much it will cost.”  Think of it as going to McDonald’s: You ask, “May I have a Happy Meal?” and the clerk responds, “Yes. That will cost five dollars”.  You hand over the five dollars, the clerk hands you the Happy Meal and the transaction worked as designed. 

          Because our lives are filled with these kinds of transactions, it becomes very easy to take this approach when we pray.  We believe that God is all-powerful and so can provide us with whatever we need.  We also believe that he is good and that he wants to give us what we need.  And so, we approach him like we would a benefactor: pleading with him for the thing that we need and hoping that he will respond generously to our request, always ready to offer something of ourselves as “payment” for what we’ve received.  This “transactional style” of prayer is a very natural and honest way to pray.  Prayer that is a relationship, however, is much deeper; and it is the prayer that God desires for us.

          What Abraham demonstrates for us in the first reading is how prayer is a vehicle for coming to know God more deeply.  At this point in his life, Abraham has had a long relationship with God.  God called Abraham out from his homeland to settle in a new land and the book of Genesis documents that there were many twists and turns along the way.  Thus, Abraham learned to trust in God and came to know himself and God more deeply.  Nevertheless, when God expressed his intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham was confronted with a question: “Is God truly just? Will he sweep away the innocent with the guilty?”  Abraham’s prayer, then, was about exploring this question with God.  He did so, I believe, for two reasons: 1) so that he may know God more deeply, and 2) so that he might test whether what he had come to know about God (that is, that he is just) was really true.  In doing so, his deeper question, “Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?”—a question that addresses Abraham’s understanding of how the world works—would also be answered. ///

          When Jesus’ disciples observe Jesus in prayer and ask him to teach them how to pray, Jesus teaches them: giving them a form for and an attitude to take toward prayer.  In doing so, he teaches them something important about God and about prayer: God is our Father who wants only good things for us, and prayer is our way of engaging in and deepening our relationship with him.  In the examples he gives, Jesus is encouraging his disciples to be bold in exploring the limits of God’s generosity: saying that, “If you sinful human beings can be generous even when you are resistant to doing so, how much more is God, who is without sin and thus never resistant in his generosity?”  Thus, Jesus is teaching us: When we explore the limits of God’s generosity in prayer (or his justice, in the case of Abraham), we come to know him more deeply and intimately, and thus our relationship with him grows.  When our relationship with him grows, we grow our trust in his providential care, and thus become more resilient to the struggles and challenges that we face every day.  And we also grow more capable of facing the bigger questions that the world and the way it operates often presents to us. ///

          “Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?”  This was the “bigger question” that the world and God’s actions presented to Abraham that day.  Abraham knew the answer to this question: “Yes! The judge of all the world should act with justice.”  What he needed to know, however, was whether the judge of all the world would act with justice.  Engaging his prayer as a relationship, Abraham explored this question with God, and he found his answer: God, the judge of all the world, would not sweep the innocent away with the guilty, and thus would act with justice. ///

          Friends, what are the “bigger questions” that you are facing in your life today?  I invite you… urge you… challenge you, even… to take some time to pause today and to try to name them.  Then write them down on a piece of paper and focus on it in prayer.  Instead of simply asking God to give you an answer (in a “transactional” style: "God, answer this question… fix this problem… do this thing… and I will offer you x, y, or z), see if you can engage God in prayer relationally, exploring the limits of his generosity (or his justice, or his mercy… whatever your bigger question demands).  In doing so, you will deepen your relationship with God and, presumably, your trust in him.  This trust, this faith, will strengthen you to face the struggles and challenges that each day brings and will make you a more joyful witness of the call to relationship that God makes to each person, perhaps leading some around you to respond to that same call.

          The Mass is the preeminent place where we collectively exercise our relationship with God in prayer.  As we approach this altar today, let us give thanks for this gift, and let us commit ourselves to growing our relationship with God in prayer so that we might respond more joyfully to the struggles and challenges of our daily lives and thus be greater witnesses to God and his love in the world.

Given at St. Louis de Montfort Parish: Fishers, IN – July 27^th, 2025

The duty of hospitality points towards communion

 Homily: 16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          Imagine for a moment that you are out driving on a country road at night… maybe it’s winter… and your car suddenly breaks down.  As luck would have it, your phone charger broke and your phone battery is dead, and so you have no way to call someone to come and help.  Nobody is on the road at this hour of night, so you decide to start walking to try to find the nearest house.  It’s cold and it starts to rain.  As you approach a house in the middle of the night, wet, cold, and desperate for help, perhaps you pause for a moment and think to yourself, “Are these people welcoming? Or will they just see me as a threat and try to run me off? If they do, what am I going to do? I can’t stay out here all night by myself!”.  If you can imagine yourself in a situation like this, then you can imagine why hospitality to strangers was such an important cultural principle in ancient cultures.  It was often a matter of life and death.  You gave it, therefore, because one day you may need it.

          In our readings today, we see examples of this importance.  Of course, there’s no mention of life-threating circumstances in the reading from Genesis, for example, but nonetheless when these three “strangers” appear before Abraham, he immediately offers them hospitality.  In fact, he begs them to let him serve them.  They, of course, accede and he does.  But this is a foreign concept for us today, isn’t it?  We here in the United States (and even more specifically here in Hamilton County) live in a “single-family-home” culture: where everyone has their “four walls” and strangers who come have motels/hotels in which they can stay (if they don’t already know someone in the area with whom they can stay).  The idea that someone would just walk into our town, unknown to all, and find people ready to give him/her a fresh-cooked meal and a place to freshen up before continuing on the journey is just foreign to our sensibilities, I think.  (In fact, I myself grew up in the “stranger-danger” generation, so I get it.)

          Although this particular idea may seem quite foreign to us, I think it should challenge us to consider the question, “are we truly open to receiving the stranger in our midst?”  I’ll admit right away that the practicalities of doing this without perennially exposing ourselves to bad actors is no easy question to answer.  But the principle of the matter is one we can address: “do I wish to be open to receiving the stranger in my midst and offering him hospitality, as if it was Christ himself presenting himself to me?”  As Christians, this is important for us to answer because, as Abraham has shown us, openness to receiving the stranger and showing him hospitality opens us to the possibility of serving he Lord himself.  Surely the author of the Letter to the Hebrews had Abraham in mind when he wrote, “Do not neglect hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Heb 13:2).

          Let’s presume, however, that we are all open to receiving the stranger in our midst and providing hospitality.  In fact, let’s presume that we all consider hospitality an important duty for us, as Christians.  Starting from this point, we can then engage the story from our Gospel reading and begin to glean some important lessons.

          The story begins with the same principle as the story of Abraham from the first reading: the Lord shows up to a certain place and he is offered hospitality.  What we see in the story of Martha, however, is how the duty can sometimes become an obstacle to deeper communion. [REPEAT] Here we see Martha with a great openness to receive the “stranger” in her midst and to provide hospitality (though we know that Jesus is not a stranger to her; even though he did probably show up unexpectedly).  What we then see is that, for Martha, the duty became the “end” that she was seeking, not the communion that fulfilling the duty promoted.  Thus, when she observes her sister neglecting the duty, she becomes resentful and asks Jesus to intervene in order to shame her sister into joining her in fulfilling the duty.

          Here we should hear echoes of the story of the Prodigal Son.  There, the older son was resentful of his brother who “got away” with spending years in dissolute living while he sacrificed his own desires and remained faithful to his duty to his father.  Here, Martha is diligently fulfilling the duty of hospitality while Mary “indulges” in listening to Jesus (seemingly doing “nothing”).  For Martha, the duty became the most important thing.  She forgot the communion with the guest that the duty was intended to foster.  Martha wanted Jesus to acknowledge the injustice: that one was bearing the burden of duty that both were expected to bear.  In his response, Jesus reminds Martha that, in him, “mercy tempers justice”.  “Mercy”, in this sense, is the “better part” that Jesus acknowledges that Mary has chosen.

          The lesson for us is a warning not to allow our Christianity to be reduced to a duty towards service, but rather to allow our service to draw us into a deeper intimacy with Christ, whom we have the opportunity to encounter in those we serve.  Pope Francis often reminded us not to be “checkbook Christians”.  He meant that we can’t just be people who write checks to support the poor and their needs, as if the transaction (important as it is) is enough to satisfy our duty.  Rather, he was challenging us also to meet those whom we serve with our support (wherever possible and within reason, of course), so that the fulfillment of our duty ALSO supports our communion with the “stranger in our midst”, thus further building the kingdom of God.

          This balance between Martha and Mary is modeled well for us in the Mass.  Each Lord’s Day, we gather to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to him in the Liturgy of the Word.  Then we share a meal (that is, communion) with him in the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  It is a meal that he has provided for us (and which is prepared for us by the work of some in our community), which also serves as our offering of thanksgiving for all that we have received from him.  Then, at the end of Mass, we are sent to go and engage our duty to serve: that is, to be the instruments of hospitality that invite everyone to come and sit at the feet of Jesus and to receive the hospitality that he has provided.  Whether that be here at the Mass (the ultimate good for anyone), or in your food pantry, or in your youth group, or in whatever service you do individually or as a family in your community… All of it should be in a service of selfless hospitality to those around us (that is, not a begrudging duty).  When we go forth to serve in this way, we too "are filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body…" as Saint Paul described himself as doing in the second reading, and thus helping to build the kingdom in our midst.

          And so, my friends, as you sit here today at the feet of the Master, perhaps you find yourself noticing some resentment about your duty to serve (perhaps a lot of resentment, even), or perhaps you find that you have a lack of sense of the duty to serve (or an unwillingness to serve).  If so, then you are called to place all of that at the feet of our Lord here at this table—this altar—and to ask for the grace to receive the good he is pouring out to you; regardless of whether that grace be 1) to strengthen you in your service (in spite of the seeming disparity in service between you and those around you) or 2) to inspire you to take up the mantle of service (and so discover the joy of the greater communion with Christ that service is meant to foster while further building the kingdom of God).

          Above all, my brothers and sisters, let us give thanks in this Mass that God has invited us to this place in order for us to receive from him: for in it, we give him thanks and he gives us the Bread of Life.  What a merciful exchange, no?!  We give him our imperfect offerings and he gives us life!  In response, may our lives become living signs of this goodness for all to see.

Given at St. Louis de Montfort Parish: Fishers, IN – July 20^th, 2025

A mythological-level story, wrapped in a moral lesson

 Homily: 15^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          Sisters and friends, in this Gospel passage our Lord Jesus gives us this incredible allegory that is both practical and theological.  Practical, because it is a shrewd answer to the scholar’s question, right?  This “scholar of the law” was trying to bait Jesus into a debate about the law in an attempt either to show himself the better teacher or to discredit Jesus as a teacher (probably both).  After Jesus deflects his first salvo by first inviting him to answer the question that he himself posed and then agreeing with his answer, Jesus doesn’t directly answer his follow-up question about who one’s neighbor should be.  If Jesus would have responded directly (saying something like, “Your fellow Jews” or “Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, but not the Samaritans”), the scholar could have entered into a debate with him about it.  Instead, Jesus tells a parable that answers the question beyond the question, which is: “What does it mean that we are all sons and daughters of the same Father?” and “Doesn’t it mean that we are called to be ‘neighbor’ to everyone?”  On a very practical level, it was a shrewd answer that defeats the scholar’s prideful intentions while at the same time providing an abiding lesson for everyone, including us here today.

          Theologically, this parable is an amazing allegory about the story of humanity, the fall, and salvation.  Let’s walk through it and see how.  Jesus starts by saying “A man…”  Who is this man?  A Jew?  A Gentile?  We aren’t told.  Therefore, we can presume he is a representative of all mankind.  This man was on the road heading down from Jerusalem to Jericho.  Now Jerusalem is the most sacred place for the Jews and so to be walking away from Jerusalem is analogous to walking away from Eden.  He was heading to Jericho, which is one of the lowest cities of the region (and also, historically, a place of crime and depravity) and so to be heading to Jericho is analogous to walking towards hell.  Presumably, this man is making this trip willfully, which is a symbolic of sin: that is, willfully turning away from God.

          On his way, he’s attacked by robbers.  Again, are these Jews?  Gentiles?  We aren’t told.  Thus, we can imagine them to be symbolic of Satan, who attacks man, strips him of all of the goods with which God endowed him, and brutally beats him so that he can no longer return to Jerusalem on his own (that is, to God and the Garden of Eden).  (Are you all with me so far?  Are you seeing this?  Okay.  Let’s keep going.)  As the man lies helpless and dying on the side of the road, the priest and Levite pass by without helping.  This is a sign indicating that religion alone cannot save a man.  He needs something more.  He needs a personal savior.  Enter the Samaritan.

          Why a Samaritan?  Because it is the most extraordinary and unexpected source of help for the Jew.  The Jews thought they knew where and how and from whom their savior would come, but this parable reveals a different idea.  Although you could conclude that this indicates that the savior wouldn’t be a Jew, it’s more likely that the intention was to show that the savior would come in the most unlikely way.  What does this savior do?  First, he has pity on the man.  In other words, he shows personal care for the dire situation he is in.  Is not this the attitude of the Savior (an attitude we’d want anyone helping us to have)?  Then, he draws close and begins to treat the man’s wounds with oil and wine.  Does that ring bells for anyone here?  Aren’t oil and wine central elements in a number of our sacraments: the very instruments that God has given us to heal us of our spiritual woundedness?  The savior then brings the man to an inn where he pays for his stay and ongoing care.  It shouldn’t take much effort to recognize that the inn represents the Church and the two silver coins represent the ransom that our Savior paid for our salvation.  Finally, the savior promises to return and to restore everything in total.

          This is way more than just a simple moral story about being charitable to everyone, even those you consider your enemies, right?  It’s a mythological-level story, wrapped in a moral lesson, originally meant to defeat a prideful debate.  Incredible, right?

          Sisters and friends, I believe that we should be spending time weekly reflecting on this parable: for it is our lives in a nutshell.  In the beginning, we dwelt in communion with God in the holy place (Eden, Jerusalem, etc.).  Foolishly, we leave that place, pursuing our own way (which only ever leads to Jericho).  Pridefully, we think that we’ll be fine along the way and can turn back if we want to.  We don’t anticipate the attack, however, and we’re disabled: both to continue on our way (and, thus, to achieve what we set out to do) and to return to the holy place.  We are dismayed to find out that mere religion won’t save us.  In other words, praying the right prayers and doing prescribed penances alone won’t resolve the situation.  Only the extraordinary intervention by one from outside of us can save us.  This “one”, of course, is Jesus—the Son of God who took on our humanity so that he could come close to us and save us—literally, the a savior in the most unexpected way and from the most unexpected place.  He has dressed our wounds in the sacraments and has brought us to the inn, the Church, so that we might be safe and cared for until he returns in glory to take us back to the holy place.

          It is of paramount importance that we remember this and call it to mind frequently.  This, for two reasons: 1) so that we never fail to give thanks for what God has done for us, and 2) because of Jesus’ admonition at the end of this Gospel passage—“Go and do likewise". 

          Sisters and friends, what God wants from us is not “high in the sky” and hard for us to discern (as Moses taught the ancient Israelites in the passage from the first reading).  Rather, what he wants is simple and right in front of us: “Have you been rescued?  Then go and do likewise.”  “Who around you needs this extraordinary mercy?  Pay attention and you’ll see him/her right there in your path.”  “Do this, and you will live”.  (Sisters, I dare say that this is even more blatantly obvious for you.  You can’t escape your neighbor!)

          This is the Kingdom of God, here and now: this rescue project that is ongoing until our Savior returns.  Therefore, as recipients of God’s extraordinarily generous mercy, let us give thanks today with our whole hearts in this Mass; and then let us renew our commitment to “go and do likewise” in our lives.

Given at the Monastery of the Poor Clares: Kokomo, IN – July 13^th, 2025

Our Nourishing Mother who supports our mission

 Homily: 14^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          One of the promises that priests make at their ordination is to pray daily for the Church.  We fulfill this obligation by praying what is called the Liturgy of the Hours.  The Liturgy of the Hours are prayers structured around the Book of Psalms from the Bible.  Over a four-week period, at five different “hours” each day, every priest and religious prays through the Book of Psalms.  These hours also include various “canticles” – which are songs from the both the Old and New Testaments.  One of these canticles is the one that we heard in our first reading today and appears in Morning Prayer of Thursday in the first week of the four-week cycle.

          I began to pray the Liturgy of the Hours as a seminarian.  We would pray Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer together in the chapel; and I can admit that, the first few times that we encountered this canticle in the cycle, I found myself feeling a little embarrassed to proclaim (or even just to hear) the words “Oh, that you may suck fully of the milk of her comfort, that you may nurse with delight at her abundant breasts” out loud in the chapel.

          While it was certainly a sign that there was a level of maturity that I needed to obtain in order to overcome my embarrassment at speaking these words, I think that there was another part of this that we can ascribe to how our oversexualized culture has distorted the way that we look at women: because the image of a woman that we are given in the first reading today is that of a “nourshing mother”, which contradicts the way our culture invites us to think of women and their bodies.  If you think that this image is strange, however, let me just ask: Have any of you have ever called the college or high school from which you graduated your “alma mater”?  If you have, then you are already invoking this image.  That’s because alma mater is actually a Latin phrase meaning “nourishing mother”.  And why do we call our schools alma maters?  Well, because they are places where we find nourishment: not only intellectually, but also emotionally, as we form friendships that will last well into the future and are cared for by teachers and staff who help form us to be good persons once we are “sent out” into the world.

          For the Israelites, Jerusalem was this “nourishing mother”.  The canticle from the first reading today was written during their exile in Babylon and it is a song of hope proclaiming that the Lord will return prosperity to Jerusalem and that all of the Israelites will return to enjoy the nourishment and comfort that will be found in her: the milk that will flow from her abundant breasts and the arms that will comfort them like a mother comforts her little child.  In the minds and hearts of the Israelites it would also be the place where they would find strength as a nation to stand strong and faithful to the commandments of God, no matter where life’s journey would take them or what challenges they might face.  Thus, the Israelites longed for this while they were in exile and through Isaiah the prophet they heard this hopeful proclamation that God would indeed restore Jerusalem so they could again enjoy it.

          For us Christians, God has given us the Church to be our “alma mater”, that is, our “nourishing mother”.  She is the “New Jerusalem” that God has established through Jesus to be our place to find nourishment and comfort and, thus, the strength to go out into the world.  It is here that we come when we are weary from the difficulties that we suffer in the world and it is here that we find the strength to go back out into the world and to be faithful to all that God has commanded us and to be witnesses to his love for all of mankind.  Thus, if we consider our schools “alma maters” because they have been places of nourishment and strengthening so that we can go out to successfully complete some work in the world, then so, too, must we recognize how the Church is our alma mater par excellance, in whom we find nourishment and strength to go out and complete our mission from God. /// And the Church, my brothers and sisters, is nothing less than Jesus himself. ///

          In our Gospel reading today, Jesus sends his disciples out to reap the Lord’s harvest.  Up to this point, Jesus had been nourishing his disciples with his word and his fellowship and he strengthened them by giving them his power and authority to work mighty deeds.  Then he sent them out to bring the Good News to all of the cities and towns that he wished to enter.  The disciples went out and did, indeed, do mighty works in Jesus’ name and, thus, brought many to believe in Jesus.  Then they returned to him to celebrate what had been done and to be nourished and strengthened once again so as to continue this work in Jesus’ name.

          But just as Jesus was, in a sense, that “nourishing mother” for his disciples, who strengthened them with his word and gave them his power and authority to go out and do mighty deeds in his name so that the nations would come to know that he had come to save us, so, too, did Jesus establish the Church to be our “nourishing mother” to do the same for us.  And so, just like those first disciples who went out to the towns and villages that Jesus wanted to enter, so we, too, must go out to the towns and villages that surround us – to the people who have not yet received the “light of faith” – to show them the mighty power of God: that is, the faith that has the power to transform their lives in positive ways.  Then we must return, like the first disciples did, to share and celebrate our successes and to be nourished to go out and do it all again.

          And this is radical, isn’t it?  Radical because it requires us to give up some of the things that we want to do in our lives, so as to be about the work of bringing forth God’s Kingdom.  But this, nonetheless, is what we are being called to do and, quite frankly, if we wish to call ourselves Christians, we must do it.

          “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few,” Jesus told his disciples.  My brothers and sisters, the same is still true for us.  One of the shocking statistics of our diocese is that it is only about 8-9% Catholic.  That means that less than 10% of the people who live in the 24 counties that make up our diocese are Catholic.  Perhaps an even more shocking statistic is that nearly half of our dioceses’ population is completely unchurched!  Thus, the harvest is, indeed, abundant and it appears that the workers have been far too few. ///

          First, however, we must be nourished: we must bask in the “light of faith” ourselves.  In other words, we must first find nourishment in our alma mater, the Church, by dwelling in the Word, which she safeguards, and by being fed from this Eucharistic table, which she never fails to prepare for us.  And this is exactly what we do in the Mass each and every week.  We come together to give thanks to God for all of the blessings that he has bestowed on us throughout the past week.  In the Mass we are nourished with God’s Word and receive spiritual strength when we receive Christ’s Body and Blood from this table.  Then we are sent out to do it all again when, at the end of Mass, the priest (or deacon) says “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.”

          My brothers and sisters, if you are struggling to find that nourishment and strength here in the Church, then please ask for help.  That is what we are all here for, to help each other and strengthen each other in faith and discipleship.  If you are apathetic about it all, then please pray to God for the light of faith.  I promise you that it will not be time wasted, because God will never fail to respond to that prayer.  Whatever you do, do something and the light of faith will be given to you, and God’s power will shine through you, like it did through those first disciples.

          Let us, then, be renewed today by our “alma mater”, the Church, and be strengthened by the food she provides, and thus go forth to reap an abundant harvest for the Lord.

Given at St. Louis de Montfort Parish: Fishers, IN – July 5^th & 6^th, 2025