Pop quiz for the 1st Sunday of Lent

[My format looks weird today because of the way that this homily was set up and presented.  It just worked better this way.  Sorry if it is hard to read in this format!]

Homily: 1^st Sunday in Lent – Cycle A

          Okay, friends, today, on this first Sunday of Lent, we are going to shake things up a bit and start off with a little pop quiz based on the readings we’ve just heard.  Don’t worry about it, though, because you’re going to know most of the answers and there are no grades.  Ready or not, here we go!

•         Is humankind responsible for the presence of suffering and death in the world, yes or no?  [YES]

o   Even though it wasn’t included in the reading today, we all know “the rest of the story”, that Adam and Eve were punished and expelled from the garden so that they couldn’t eat from the tree of life and, thus, would have to suffer death.

•         Has humankind been able to eliminate suffering and death from the world, now that they are present in it, yes or no?  [NO]

o   Just look around.  Suffering and death are still very present here.

•         Is there any reasonable hope that humankind will ever eliminate suffering and death from the world, yes or no?  [NO]

o   Suffering and death have been part of the human condition for as long as history has been recording it.

•         Who is the only human being that ever existed who died, but then raised himself back to life?  [JESUS]
•         Is it reasonable to expect that this could be possible for any human being ever, yes or no?  [NO]

o   Again, human beings have been around for 200,000 years and we ain't figured it out yet!

o   Why then do we stubbornly act like we will?  DON'T ANSWER THAT!

•         If this Jesus has done something that no human being has ever been capable of doing nor will ever be capable of doing, then he must have super-natural powers (that is, powers beyond natural powers), true or false?  [TRUE]
•         Since this Jesus has done something that no other human being has ever been capable of doing, something that we cannot reasonably expect any present or future human being as being capable of doing, is it, therefore, reasonable to think that this Jesus could also do the other thing that humankind has been incapable of doing: that is, is it reasonable to think that Jesus could also eliminate suffering and death from the world, yes or no?  [YES]

o   It is reasonable to think that because we don’t know the limit of his powers.

•         Has this Jesus revealed the secret to unlocking resurrection (that is, the secret for overcoming suffering and death) for each and every one of us, yes or no?  [YES]
•         What is that secret (hint: it’s in the Gospel reading today)?  [OBEDIENCE TO THE WILL OF THE FATHER.]

o   Saint Paul said it in his letter to the Romans:

o   “For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.”

§  The one who was disobedient was Adam and we were reminded of that in our first reading today.

·        Eve said, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’”

·        They ate it, in clear disobedience of God, and suffering and death entered the world.

§  The one who was obedient was Jesus and we were reminded of his first great act of obedience in our Gospel reading today.

·        Satan said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down… Jesus answered him, …'You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”

·        Jesus countered Adam and Eve’s disobedience by his perfect obedience.

·        His final and culminating act of obedience was his passion and death.

•         Friends, this is what Lent is about: returning to the garden through obedience.

o   If our Lenten practices are not freeing us to give our obedience more fully to the Father, then we should stop them and choose practices that will!

o   The first practice, of course, is giving up sin!

§  None of us should be giving up chocolate unless we have first decided to do the work of giving up sin!!!

o   Once we’ve done that, however, we take on physical discomfort (that is, giving up something good that we enjoy or taking up a good task that, perhaps, we don’t enjoy), so as to do two things: a) to show God that we are truly sorry for our sins, and b) to face our spiritual discomfort that God is calling us to still greater holiness (...a call, by the way, that never ceases!)

§  I think that we get “a)” no problem, but how many of us have ever really faced “b)”?

§  Not sure what I mean?  Let me give you an example. 

            Last Friday afternoon, I was working in my office and I had an e-mail that I had to write that was important and complicated to compose.  I was tired and really didn’t want to do it.  So there I am, staring at my computer screen, not wanting to do the thing that I knew I needed to do, and so what did I do?  Well, I opened up a new tab on my browser and hovered over the Facebook link.  Before I clicked on it, however, I remembered that I decided to fast from social media on Fridays during Lent and so I stopped myself and went back to my e-mail.  Soon, though, I was in a new tab hovering over the Facebook link again.  Once again, though, my commitment to what I was giving up one over and I went back to my e-mail.  Finally, I dug in and wrote the e-mail.  The point being that, if I hadn’t chosen to give up a physical comfort (checking out what was going on with my friends on Facebook), then I wouldn’t have confronted my spiritual discomfort (completing the work that I had been given to do).  Fasting from social media, therefore, showed both that I was sorry for my sins and made it so that I could confront this spiritual battle.

o   We have to give up sin, of course, but then we should give up (or take up) something good, both to show God that we are truly sorry for our sins and to face our spiritual discomfort that God is calling us to greater holiness and so put ourselves to work to do it!

§  THIS, in a nutshell, IS OBEDIENCE!!!

§  Obedience, Jesus has shown us, leads to resurrection and eternal life.

          Okay, a couple of more questions a then we’ll call it a day.

•         Is Jesus still alive, yes or no?  [YES]
•         Will we meet him, face-to-face, one day, yes or no?  [YES]
•         What, then, should we do during Lent?

o   A question you must answer yourself.

o   Whatever your answer is, it should be something that leads you to deeper obedience to the will of the Father so that, when Easter comes, you’ll be ready to die with Christ and so rise with him again.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – March 1^st, 2020

God's got a history...

Homily: Christmas – Vigil Mass

          Having been here for close to six months now, I have been asked a lot of questions by many of you as you all try to get to know me a little better.  Many of those questions centered around my family, my interests, where I went to seminary, my life as an engineer before entering the seminary and—much to my delight—what types of food are my favorite to eat.  The one question that I feel like I most often received, however, is one that is probably the most complicated for me, or anyone else for that matter, to answer.  The question?  “So, Father, where are you from?”

          Looking just at the bare facts, answering that question really isn’t that complicated at all.  For many of us here, in fact, it is rather simple: “I’m from Lafayette.  I was born and raised here and I’ve lived here all my life.”  For folks like myself, that answer gets a little more complicated, but it is nonetheless still digestible: “I was born and raised in Joliet, Illinois, I went to college in Flint, Michigan and then moved to Indiana, where I’ve lived for the past 18 years.”  But even this bare-bone answer contains indicators that reveal other things about me, that is, about “where I am from.”  Almost to the person, once someone hears that I grew up near Chicago they assume that I am a Cubs fan (which, of course, is the only valid assumption to make, since being a Cubs fan is the only morally correct choice for any Christian to make: for it is a sign that one is in possession of the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, without which it would be impossible to remain a fan of the Chicago Cubs).

          If we start to ask questions beyond that basic question, however—such as those I’ve already mentioned: how big is your family, where did you go to school, did you play sports—we begin to find that the answer to the question “where are you from” is far more complicated and nuanced (and, perhaps, embarrassing) than we might be ready to share.

          Today, we, as the Church, celebrate God’s coming to us as a human person.  The absurdity of that statement is so great that we could stay here until tomorrow morning’s Mass trying to talk ourselves into a way to rationalize why God—who is without limits—would ever want to put on this limited human nature, but you all would never allow me to do that, so I suppose we won’t try.  No, today we acknowledge—and celebrate—that the eternal God entered time and, thus, that God, who has no beginning or end, no past or future, but only an eternal present, now has a history.  In other words, in celebrating that the Son of God has come to us in the flesh, we are celebrating—at least in part—that he came from somewhere.

          In our Gospel reading today, we hear where that somewhere is.  And much like our own answers about “where we are from,” the Son of God’s newly-acquired history is complicated.  Taking a look back at his genealogy, we find that Jesus’ heritage contains not only shining examples of righteousness and faith, but also men of whom it is safe to say that most followers of Jesus would have rather left out.  In between are men whose lives were a complicated mix of righteous deeds tarnished by poor decisions and others who, quite frankly, were so unremarkable that they’d be all but forgotten if they weren’t part of this lineage.  I’d venture to say that these very same descriptions could be applied to each and every one of our family trees.

          At the end of this line comes, however, Joseph, the poor carpenter from Nazareth.  Although it is noted that he is a righteous man (and rightfully so, for he should be noted for that), if it wasn’t for his role in giving the Son of God a history—that is, a heritage—Joseph would otherwise have been one of those unremarkable names on this list (that is, if it would have even gotten there in the first place).  Notice, we didn’t hear Mary’s genealogy, but rather Joseph’s.  And why?  I mean, isn’t Joseph just a ‘fill-in’ so it doesn’t look strange that the Son of God is raised in a single-parent home?  I mean, can’t we just drop Joseph out of the picture all together?  No, we can’t.  To understand why, we have to go back to the beginning.

          In the Book of Genesis, right after our first parents, Adam and Eve, committed the first sin, God condemns them to a life of suffering: the man must labor to bring forth food and the woman will suffer pain in childbirth.  But then, he makes a promise: that an offspring of the woman (that is, Eve, the mother of all mankind) will one day crush the head of the serpent—that is, the evil one, who tempted Eve into sin.  And so we see that the Son of God who was to come and redeem all of human kind needed to be born of a woman.  Thus, we see Mary’s indispensable role.  As the years went on, the prophets of Israel began to reveal God’s plan that the Messiah—that is, God’s Son who would come to crush the head of the serpent—would emerge from the royal lineage of King David.  Thus, we see now Joseph’s indispensable role: for it is through him that the Son of God received his heritage as a “Son of David.”  And so, while Mary gave God his humanity, Joseph gave God his history.  And the parallels don’t end there.

          In the Annunciation to Mary, the angel waited for Mary’s response: for the Holy Spirit would not overshadow her unless Mary gave her consent, and she had every right to say no.  As we read today in the Gospel, the Annunciation to Joseph by the angel in his dream holds the same suspense.  Joseph had every right to divorce Mary.  He even had the right to divorce her publicly, inducing even greater shame on her.  Because he was a righteous man, however, he had decided to do it quietly, knowing that, although he couldn’t rightfully take her into his home, she would be shamed enough in that culture just by being a single mother.  This is when the angel bursts onto the scene and says, “I know that this goes against every righteous bone in your body, Joseph, but go ahead and take Mary into your home anyway, because God has a plan.”  And so, just as God asked Mary to make space for him in her life, so, too, did he ask Joseph to make space in his.  And just as Mary reversed Eve’s sin of disobedience by listening and responding to God’s will, so, too, does Joseph reverse Adam’s sin of consenting to Eve’s disobedience by consenting to Mary’s obedience and thus receiving her into his home.

          My brothers and sisters, I don’t think that it would be a surprise to any of us if I said that our world has become increasingly hostile to God.  Day after day, it seems, the media culture is closing itself off from God and we are so afraid of being left out that we are rushing to get in with it.  Packed in like sardines, there is, it seems, no more room for God in our lives.  Yet, we are here, aren’t we?  Many of us have been here all year and some of us haven’t been here since last year, but nonetheless we are all here.  Perhaps that means that there is still room for God in our lives.  If so, then there is a message for you here today.

          Now, I cannot know what it was that motivated any of you to come here today, whether you came by your own free choice or out of obedience to a parent, grandparent, spouse or fiancée, but I can tell you this: If you are here today it is because God wanted you to be here.  And if you can hear my voice then I can tell you assuredly that God wants you to hear this message: Do not be afraid to take God into your home, for it is by the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of goodness, righteousness, and truth—that he comes to you.  God wishes to bless you with his presence—his healing, consoling, and strengthening presence—if only you would make a space for him.

          Perhaps, however, we are afraid.  We’re afraid that if we give him a little space, that he’ll take over everything.  Don’t worry, though; just like with Mary and Joseph, he won’t take more than we give him.  He doesn’t need much to start out, anyway: perhaps just a wood box out back with some straw to sleep on.  And if we’re afraid that we won’t know what to say to him when he comes, well, then, why don’t we just start with a simple ice-breaker: “So, Jesus, where are you from?”

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – December 24^th, 2018

Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord

Satan's most dangerous attack

Temptation and the Fall of Eve by William Blake

Homily: 10^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          Although we’ve been back in “Ordinary Time” for a couple of weeks now, we’ve been occupied with the celebrations of Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi.  This weekend, we celebrate the first “ordinary” Sunday in Ordinary Time since February 11^th.  As we know, Ordinary Time is the time for us to focus on growing as disciples of Christ.  One of the ways that we do that is to identify and remove any obstacles to our discipleship.  Interesting, therefore, that our scriptures today speak a lot about the enemies of God and their influence in the world.  Perhaps, therefore, we can take a moment to talk about the ways that Satan attacks us.  In doing so, hopefully we’ll all be a little less fearful of these ways and, thus, strengthened to resist Satan and his influence as we strive to grow and live as disciples of Christ.

          Satan attacks us in many ways: some of them quite dramatic and frightening.  The rarest, yet most dramatic of these of is demonic possession.  This is where an evil spirit gains access to control a person’s body.  Almost always this occurs when someone gets involved with the occult, spiritsm, or witchcraft (Ouija boards included!).  There’s the old legend that a “vampire can’t enter your house unless you invite him.”  The invitation that one gives to an evil spirt isn’t always explicit, but when participating in these “dark arts” activities, the door is opened and a “Welcome” mat is laid out.

          One who has been possessed by an evil spirit will then begin to experience “crises”, in which the evil spirit temporarily takes control of the person’s body and can manifest certain phenomena, such as: extraordinary physical strength and speaking and understanding languages that the person never studied.  To free the person of this evil spirit, the Church offers exorcism.  Exorcism consists of a series of prayers and sacramentals performed by a priest who has been specially trained and designated by the bishop.  This ritual makes the demon suffer so much that, eventually (and if the person is cooperative) the demon will just give up and leave.  Although Hollywood tends to overdramatize the acting out of these rituals, they are, nonetheless, dramatic.  Thankfully, however, the need for such exorcisms is much rarer than Hollywood would like you to believe.

          Besides possession, there are also some other extra-ordinary ways that Satan attacks us.  Sometimes, Satan and his fallen angels cause frightening physical disturbances in certain places or even to our own bodies.  These can take the forms of loud or strange noises, slamming doors or windows, being moved around physically by an invisible force, or even more alarming effects.  When these physical disturbances are concentrated in certain places (a home or a room), they are called demonic infestation.  When they directly affect someone's body (not from within, as in possession, but from the outside) they are called demonic oppression.  When they bother someone's mind (filling it constantly with blasphemous thoughts), they are called demonic obsession.  Blessings, holy water, and other prayers and sacramentals are strong defenses against these kinds attacks.

          These extra-ordinary kinds of attacks are, of course, dramatic and frightening.  But they are much, much less frequent, and much, much less dangerous than the Satan’s favorite tactic for attacking us.  What is it?  Temptation.  While possession, infestation, oppression, and obsession can frighten us (and potentially cause us to lose faith in God), they usually lead us to exercise our faith in order to be rid of them.  Temptation, on the other hand, tries to lead us into sin; and sin is the only thing that separate us from God.  Thus, while much less frightening (in fact, it’s often quite the opposite!), temptation is much more dangerous.

          If we need an example of this, just look at Adam and Eve.  Satan did not possess them, he did not make the trees dance around inexplicably, he didn’t bully them (pushing them around or disturbing their sleep), and he didn’t assail them constantly with thoughts of cursing God.  Rather, he tempted them.  He tempted them to doubt God’s truthfulness and they took the bait.  Having no other reason to keep from eating the fruit of that tree than that God had said not to, Eve perceived no harm could come from it and so took the fruit and ate it; and Adam after her.  Their blindness then removed, however, they could see the truth of what had happened and so felt ashamed.  When God came looking for them, they hid not because they were naked (although that is the excuse Adam used), but because they didn’t want to face God, whose trust they had betrayed.

          What happens next in the reading, however, leaves me feeling a bit jealous of Adam and Eve.  God’s punishment against the serpent was that there would be “enmity” between him and Eve: meaning that Eve would now be frightened to see the serpent, so that she would never trust him or his temptations ever again.  In other words, Adam and Eve would know their tempter and so be better equipped to resist the temptations.

          We are not so lucky.  When we are tempted, quite rarely is our tempter visible to us.  If he is, it is usually someone who seems rather friendly or trustworthy.  It would be so much easier if all our tempters were repulsive to us, right?, like the serpent was made repulsive to Eve.  Still more, because of our fallen nature, we suffer from a disordered desire for the things of this world (which our tradition calls “concupiscence”).  In this case, all we have is the forbidden fruit before our eyes, which looks “pleasing to the eyes”, and which, perhaps, has never been explicitly declared to be “forbidden”, and an urge to take it.  Adam and Eve had a lot more going for them and they still fell into sin.  Given our situation, then, our efforts to resist temptation might seem hopeless.

          For the Christian, however, it is not hopeless; and Jesus’ parables in the Gospel reading show us why.  In today’s reading, Jesus was accused of being possessed by the devil or being in “cahoots” with the devil himself.  Jesus condemns those calling him possessed: for in calling him “possessed by an evil spirit”, they were accusing the Holy Spirit of being evil (which is the unforgivable “sin against the Holy Spirit” about which he spoke).  Then he gives two parables to prove that he is not on Satan’s “team”, but rather stands against him.  The first using logic to say that a kingdom divided cannot stand; and so, if he is on Satan’s “team”, then don’t worry because Satan will soon fall.  The second to illustrate what he is actually doing:  Jesus is the one who has come to tie up the “strong man” (that is, Satan) so that he could “plunder his property” (that is, take back the souls of God’s children).

          This, then, is the reason for our hope: that when we can’t see the tempter working his wiles on us (either because he takes the form of someone seemingly trustworthy or because he introduces sinful thoughts), we nonetheless have the power of Christ available to us and his example of self-sacrifice to guide us to choose God’s will over our own, sinful inclinations.  Christ will bind the “strong man” once again when we call on him in temptation so that we might be liberated from his grasp.

          Still, we have to do our own work: that is, we must pray, frequent the sacraments (especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation), and we must practice virtue in our daily actions.  In doing these things, temptations will become increasingly repulsive to us, because we will be seeing the one who is tempting us, the serpent from the Garden, and we will be strengthened to overcome them.  This, my friends, is our “Ordinary Time” work: to make temptations repulsive so that we can stay focused on Jesus.  Let us take up this good work, then, trusting that God, who has begun this good work in us, will bring it to completion.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – June 9^th & 10^th, 2018

Obedience that leads to freedom

Homily: 1^st Sunday of Lent – Cycle A

          Here at the beginning of Lent, it seems as if God has put us on a 12-step program.  Perhaps many of you aren’t familiar with the 12-step addiction recovery program; and so, if not, let me give you a quick rundown of the fundamental elements of the program:

          The first and most fundamental step to this program involves acknowledging the reality of the situation.  In the case of someone dealing with an addiction, this is admitting that he or she is weak and overcome with a compulsion to engage in destructive behavior.  In conjunction with this step is an acknowledgement that this person is unable to break this compulsion by his or herself.  Next, this person needs to acknowledge that there is a power greater than him/her that can help him/her break this compulsion and, thus, that he/she needs to submit him or herself completely to this power.  Then the person needs to strive to make amends—both with God and with others—for the negative effects that this destructive behavior has caused.  And, finally, he or she needs to strive to help others who suffer from the same compulsivity to achieve the same freedom and healing.

          Given this description (and I pray that I’ve been accurate), I think that we can see that our journey through Lent is not unlike working through a 12-step program.  First we acknowledge that we are sinners and have fallen short of what God expects of us.  Then, we acknowledge that, by ourselves, we are unable to overcome our sin, and that we need God’s help.  The call of Lent, therefore, is to break free from our will (which has led us into sin) and to submit ourselves completely to his will (and to his mercy) once again.  It is a time to take an inventory of all of the concrete ways in which we’ve failed God and others and then to confess these in the sacrament of reconciliation.  It’s also a time that calls us to make amends with those that we’ve hurt and to strive to live renewed lives, obedient to God’s will in all things.  And, finally, it calls us to lead others to follow this same journey so that they might know and experience the freedom that comes from God.

          Today, it seems, our scriptures are emphasizing this point by highlighting some of these “first steps” of the journey.  In the reading from the book of Genesis we were reminded of the sin of our first parents and that, thus, we are weak and subject to giving in to temptation.  In the reading from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans we are reminded that death is the consequence of sin and that, therefore, since all men die, all men, too, are sinners.  Thus, these readings are calling us to acknowledge the reality that we are all sinners (and sometimes compulsively so).

          In the Psalm we hear how the psalmist not only acknowledges his sinfulness, but also that he is powerless to break free from his sinfulness; and so he turns to God, acknowledging that God is much more powerful than himself, and he submits himself completely to God’s power so that he might break free from his sin.

          Then, in the Gospel, Jesus shows us that there is a power greater than our weakness that can help us and sustain us in our fight against sin.  After fasting for 40 days and 40 nights in the desert (which, in biblical terms, means that he’s weak: physically, mentally, spiritually), the devil comes to tempt Jesus.  In each of those three temptations, Jesus chose to submit his will—both his human and his divine will—to his Father’s will, as revealed through the scriptures.  Through this, Jesus demonstrates that by submitting ourselves to the will of God—which we come to know by coming to know what he has revealed of himself to us, both in the Scriptures and through Sacred Tradition (that is, the teachings handed down to us through the centuries)—we can break free from sin and the attacks of the devil.

          Notice, however, that the fundamental act that helps someone move from compulsivity in a destructive behavior to freedom is, ironically, to submit his or her life over to the will of God: in other words, to give up the freedom to choose for him/herself.  Saint Paul confirms this clearly in the second reading when he wrote, "Just as through disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous."  Obedience, therefore, is the key to freedom.  Our sin was to disobey God's command and we were led into it by allowing ourselves to believe that by knowing what was good and what was evil—that is, by becoming more like gods—we would be better off.  History has proven, however, that this has not been the case!

          The fear that Adam and Eve immediately succumbed to—that the other has the capacity to use me for evil means—was evidenced by their desire to cover their nakedness.  By knowing what was good and what was evil, they then knew that they had to protect themselves, even from one another.  By acknowledging that this knowledge has only made us infinitely more susceptible to sin, we can then submit ourselves once again to God's will and, through obedience, find true freedom.

          My brothers and sisters, let's not engage in empty practices this Lent (or, at least, practices that only scratch the surface of what keeps us separated from God).  Rather, let's allow the traditional practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to lead us on this journey to freedom once again: the freedom that we knew at our baptism; the freedom that will be renewed at Easter; the freedom made possible for us through the obedience of Jesus, whom we encounter here in this Holy Eucharist.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – March 5^th, 2017