Rejoice that the Lord has saved us.

Homily: 3^rd Sunday of Advent – Cycle B

          Gaudete!  Today the Church celebrates Gaudete Sunday.  “Gaudete”, because it is the Latin word for “Rejoice” and it happens to be the very first word that the Church proclaims in the Mass today.  The Mass, as it is written in Latin, begins with the Introit, or “Entrance Antiphon”, which is a short verse taken from the Bible that is said or sung (preferably sung).  The Church allows us to substitute a hymn for the antiphon and so we almost never hear it during Sunday Mass (a hymn with which everyone is familiar makes it easier to engage everyone in the Mass from the first moment); but in the official liturgical books, the Mass begins with the Introit.

          The Entrance Antiphon for the Third Sunday of Advent comes from Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians and reads: Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, Gaudete. Dominus enim prope est.  In English: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near.”  Ever since the time of Pope Saint Gregory the Great in the sixth century this Sunday of Advent has been marked by this phrase which invites us to remember that this time of solemn preparation is also a time of joyful preparation; and it is the reason that we wear a more festive color in our vestments and we light a rose colored candle.  All of this focusing on “rejoice”, however, begs the question: “In this season of joy, in what do we rejoice?”

          For many of us, I suppose that the answer to this question is simple: We rejoice in the coming celebration of the birthday of Christ and that, with it, comes joy-filled time with family and friends following traditions of celebration that connect us to generations of loved ones.  For some of us, perhaps, we rejoice that all of our presents for loved ones have been bought and wrapped and we can spend one last week truly enjoying the season (perhaps, however, that’s only a few of us).  Maybe we rejoice in another year of good health, good work, growth in our families, or accomplishments in our personal lives.  These, of course, are all worthy things in which to rejoice (to greater and lesser degrees).  Nevertheless, not everyone is able to rejoice in these things at this time of year; and so none of these can be the reason why the Church calls us to rejoice.  This, therefore, begs the further question: “In this season of joy, in what should we rejoice?”

          For the prophet Isaiah, the answer was simple.  He had been part of God’s chosen people who had suffered in exile for years.  He had declared to the people how their sinfulness, their disregard for God and his commandments, had led to their exile as a sign that God had taken away his protection from them and that his covenant with them had been broken.  Now, however, Isaiah was able to declare joyful news: that the time of punishment was at an end.  In his own words: “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God.”  Everyone likes to be the bearer of good news, right?  So, no wonder why Isaiah would rejoice.  Notice, however, that this is not the reason why he rejoices.

          In the following verse we hear: “I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul; for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation and wrapped me in a mantle of justice, like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem, like a bride bedecked with her jewels.”  Isaiah proclaimed this joyful news: that Israel’s exile was at an end.  He rejoiced not in the news, however, but in what God had done for him: that, in declaring this good news, Isaiah is declaring that God has brought salvation to him and to his people—and, thus, that he has forgiven their sins—so that they might be restored to right relationship with God; which, for them, meant eternal life.  Now this is something in which all of us can rejoice, right?

          All of us here: those who have been baptized, and even, in a way, those who are seeking baptism, have been “clothed in a robe of salvation” through faith and, thus, it is in this that we must “rejoice heartily in the Lord”.  The Third Sunday of Advent rightly turns our focus from our anticipation of Jesus’ Second Coming to the celebration of his First Coming on the day of his birth (for it is now readily at hand).  We “rejoice”, however, not just because Jesus was born to us (even though the coming of God in human flesh would be reason enough to rejoice!), but rather because of what his birth meant for us.  It meant not just that God was going to walk among us, like one of us, but that our salvation was finally at hand!  And that the long reign of death—and sin that causes death—is now at an end: for God has come to save us!

          My brothers and sisters, if the thing in which we rejoice during this season of joy is not that the birth of Christ was the in-breaking of salvation into the world, then we’ll never understand what Saint Paul says in his letter to the Thessalonians: “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks…”  How could we possibly “rejoice, pray, and give thanks always” in this world that is still filled with so much sadness and pain unless our rejoicing was for something that transcends this world of darkness, which has the power to protect us within it and to lift us up from it?  The answer, of course, is that we can’t.  And so, the Church reminds us: Gaudete in Domino semper: “Rejoice in the Lord always…”

          Friends, if you struggle to “rejoice in the Lord”, don’t worry.  Perhaps, like the priests, Levites, and Pharisees who came out to see John the Baptist you are looking for the Lord in great signs and powerful show.  Or, perhaps, you’ve just let yourself get caught up in the materialism and commercialism of secular Christmas.  If so, allow me to remind you that the Lord in whom you will find a lasting joy has come, yes, and is coming again, yes, but is also already among us; in an appearance, perhaps, that we don’t recognize: the bread and cup that we receive from this altar.  Let us, then, turn to him here, in this humble presence, during this last, full week of Advent, and meet him again; so that, when we celebrate his birth, this joy of salvation might be in us and our joy might be complete.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 17^th, 2017

The necessary bridge of trust

Homily: 21^st Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          Last week I spoke about the pilgrimage of thanksgiving that I took to the Holy Land in April.  I mentioned that now, some four months removed from the trip, I was getting some clarity on what impacted me the most during the trip.  One of the highlights, I noted, was my visit to the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, which was built over the site of Mary’s childhood home and was the place in which she received the message from the archangel Gabriel, announcing that she would become the mother of God’s Son.  “In that place,” I reflected, “the God who created everything, and whose existence cannot be contained even in the vast universe, somehow encapsulated himself in human flesh.”  It was an awe-inspiring moment.

          I reflected on the absurdity of it all: that God, who is limitless, would subject himself to the limits of his creation simply out of love for what he had created.  I then went on to reflect how this Son of God then took the absurdity even further by claiming that for anyone to have life within them they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood.  On the surface, it’s a crazy statement and I challenged those who heard my homily to realize that this statement from Jesus was polarizing: either he is who he says he is and, thus, we have to give credence to what he says, or he’s a madman and we should run away immediately.  I invited them to decide which side they were on and the criteria that I used were these: if he’s crazy about one thing then he’s crazy about everything; but if he’s not crazy about everything, then he’s not crazy about anything.  Since we don’t think that he’s crazy about everything, then he must not be crazy about this one thing, and so we have to give it credence, no matter how crazy it sounds.

          Therefore, when Jesus says, “I am the living bread” and “the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” we have to strive to believe that he is talking about the Eucharist: for the bread that we present is not “living” bread until it is given life when, through the words of consecration at the altar, its very substance changes and it becomes the Body and Blood of Jesus.  Although it still appears to be lifeless bread, it is in reality the flesh of Jesus, who lives; thus, it becomes “bread that lives” and makes it possible to eat his flesh without becoming cannibals.

          On the surface, however, this is still incredible and, frankly, it cannot be accepted outright.  If any otherwise rational person came to you and said, “oh, and if you really want to live you need to eat my flesh and drink my blood” you’d immediately doubt all that you knew about the person.  Accepting something like this—something that pushes you beyond the bounds of understanding—comes only after a bridge of trust has been built with the person who is making this claim.  Just look at our Gospel reading today: “Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’” it says.  And later it goes on to say “as a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.”  These disciples had been only loosely connected with Jesus and had not yet built a “bridge of trust” with him.  Therefore, when he made this seemingly absurd claim, their fragile faith in him was shaken and fell apart.  They concluded that he must be crazy and so they turned away from him.

          The twelve Apostles, on the other hand, stayed with Jesus.  They had experienced so much more from him and, therefore, had built a bridge of trust that supported their faith.  And so, even if they didn’t understand what it was that he was talking about, they refused to write him off as a madman, but instead recommitted themselves to him: “Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

          Jesus knew that some of those who followed him would not believe.  And he knew that their lack of belief would stem from a lack of openness to grace.  Thus he could say, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”  In other words, we don’t come to this on our own.  If the bridge of trust with Jesus has been built in any of us so that we can take him on his word, it is because of the gracious initiative of the Father.  Thus Jesus can say to Peter in another place: “Blessed are you Simon son Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”  Nevertheless, we still must open ourselves to receive it.  This grace is open to all, but not all receive it, as our Gospel—and the state of our Church—reveals to us today.

          So where do we go from here?  You know, I am convinced that those who leave the Church must not be persons who believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  Otherwise, how could they walk away from it?  Peter and the other Apostles believed that Jesus was the Holy One of God and so could not be swayed to abandon him, even when he taught such incredible things.  In the same way, it does not seem possible that someone would acknowledge the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and yet still feel as if he or she could go somewhere where it is not.

          This is not to say that all who stay believe, of course; recent polls indicate that around 33% of you here don’t believe.  Rather, it is to say that those who leave the Church have either never believed in the Real Presence of Jesus or, if they have believed, have turned their backs on him completely.  Thus our task is either to help them to come to belief—that is, to open their hearts to God’s gracious initiative surrounding this—or to help them to return to belief and thus right relationship with God.  My brother and sisters, this is an urgent task.  Pope Saint Pius X, whose feast day we celebrated last week, once said that “Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to heaven.”  If our brothers and sisters have walked away from this and do not believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, then there is no greater mercy and love that we can show them than to gently lead them back to this short and safe way to heaven.

          Let us make it, therefore, our task to seek out our brothers and sisters who need this grace from the Father to believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist and to help them, with our prayers and companionship, to open their hearts to this grace, so that we all might be joined together at this Holy Table to feast on the Bread of Life: Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – August 23, 2015

The Living Bread of the Abundant Life

Homily: 20^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          Perhaps many of you will remember that last April I had the happy opportunity to make a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to the Holy Land, where I gave thanks to God that I have been free from cancer for five years.  After my return many of you asked me what my favorite part was.  At the time, having experienced so many powerful things, I couldn’t name any one experience that stuck out.  A few months removed, now, however, one of the experiences has begun to stand out above the rest and that was our visit to the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

          This Basilica is a relatively modern basilica in that ancient land as the current church was built in the 1950’s.  It is built over the place that tradition holds was the home of Joachim and Ann and thus the place where Mary grew up and received the life-changing visit from the archangel Gabriel.  It is a magnificent structure that proves that modern church architecture can be meaningful without being weird.  It wasn’t the architecture that most impacted me, however.  Rather, it was the little grotto in the lower portion of the Basilica.

          Inside this grotto there is an altar built over the exact place where, according to tradition, Mary received the message from the archangel Gabriel: thus making it the exact place where the Holy Spirit “came upon” Mary and Jesus was conceived in her womb.  In other words, in that humble little place—a peasant’s home in a town nobody knew about—the Word, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became flesh and dwelt among us.  I remember being overwhelmed by the absolute incomprehensibility of that spot: that right there, in that spot, the entire fabric of the universe was changed forever because God—the uncreated creator of all that exists—took on the flesh of a creature.

          My friends, if perhaps you are a little bit numb to this I should point out that this is, in large part, what makes Christianity unique among world religions.  The fact that we are monotheistic—that we believe in only one God—puts us in rare company already, but that we believe that God—whose existence cannot be contained even in the vast expanse of the universe—became a creature: that sets us apart from every other religion.  No other religion would ever dare to say that their god became human: they believe that that would be an insult of the highest order.  Yet we believe that God somehow made the fullness of His being dwell inside the tiny cells of a human embryo, which grew into the fullness of humanity so that He might be made a sacrifice for all humanity, restoring humanity’s original glory through His resurrection and giving it a place of honor at the Father’s right hand in heaven.  The full realization of this is what made my visit to the Basilica of the Annunciation so powerful that all I could do was kneel before that place and bow down before God, whose wisdom and mercy is so far beyond our own.

          The absurdity of the Christian claim doesn’t end with the simple fact of the Incarnation, however.  Jesus in today’s Gospel reading takes His humanity to its fullest absurdity.  The “Bread of Life” discourse that we have been listening to over the past weeks is coming to its climax and today we hear Jesus teach his followers to be cannibals.  Yes, that’s right, I said cannibals.  For those of you who may not know, a cannibal is someone who eats human flesh.  Obviously that is repulsive to any of us, yet look at the words Jesus says in the Gospel: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”  On the surface, this appears to be crazy, doesn’t it?  And it is!  Thus, we can understand the response of the Jews who were in the crowds and argued among themselves, saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  Of course, we have to take everything in the context of the bigger picture and so we now know that John the Evangelist is using this to make clear what the Eucharist is, but we first have to come to grips with what Jesus says; and what Jesus says makes him look crazy!

          Here’s where we have to make a decision.  Because if we hear these words of Jesus and think that he is crazy, well, then he’s crazy!  You know, we can’t have it half-way: either Jesus is who he says he is—both fully God and fully man and the savior of mankind—or he’s a madman and we should turn and run away from him right now.  In other words, if he’s crazy about something, then he’s crazy about everything; but if he’s not crazy about everything, then he’s not crazy about anything, and even these words about eating his flesh and drinking his blood are real, rational statements that we have to give credence to.

          The first clue that Jesus is talking about the Eucharist (and, thus, moving away from the disgusting idea of actually eating what appears to be human flesh) is what he says at the beginning of today’s reading.  Jesus says to the crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven…”  I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen living bread: all the bread that I’ve ever eaten has been lifeless.  So how can Jesus be living bread?  Simple.  It’s called transubstantiation, and it’s what happens at the consecration of the bread and wine at the altar.  When I repeat Jesus’ words over the bread and the wine, they truly become the Body and Blood of Jesus, in substance.  Yes, they still look like bread and wine (I mean, this isn’t a magic show), but substantially—that is in their substance—they’ve changed into the real flesh and blood of Jesus.

          Now the flesh of Jesus is still living flesh, am I right?  I mean we believe that Jesus still has a human body, am I right?  A glorified human body, of course, but a human body, nonetheless.  And we believe that Jesus lives, right?  I hope so!  Because as Paul says in one of his letters, “If Christ is still in the tomb, then your faith is worthless!”  So, if Jesus still has flesh and if he still lives, then that would make the bread that becomes his flesh, while still retaining the appearance of bread, something living, wouldn’t it?  This, therefore, is the living bread, his flesh that is true food, which we can eat so as to live forever.  And the cup that contains his Precious Blood, while remaining under the appearance of wine, is the cup of life: the true drink through which life enters into us.  And this is amazing!  A thing of true wonder and awe, no matter how familiar it has become to us.

          My brothers and sisters, Jesus came in the flesh in order to give us life through it.  Let us, therefore, not waste the opportunity that we have been given to receive it: for to receive it, but then to return to a life of debauchery is empty.  To receive it, however, and thus to go forth filled with the Spirit, giving thanks and praise to God always and in all ways, is the abundant life that God desired for us when he spread this banquet before us.

          Mary, our Blessed Mother, could not have known the fullness of this abundant life that awaited her when she said “yes” to the archangel Gabriel.  And her life was filled with many sorrows following that day—so much so that it would have been understandable if she had given up on it all—but yet she never failed in giving thanks to God and in praising Him; and thus she now enjoys the fullness of this abundant life—body and soul—in heaven.  May we follow her example in our lives so that the banquet that we approach here at this altar may lead us to that same fullness of life in heaven.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – August 15^th & 16^th, 2015