Love God and find your calling

For more resources about National Vocations Awareness Week, go to https://www.vianneyvocations.com/

Homily: 31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          Friends, today our scriptures ask us to consider the question: “What is our response to God’s love?”  Perhaps this begs the question, however, “Is there any need to respond?”  The answer to that question (and I’m going to ask you to trust me on this one) is “yes”, of course.  The love of God demands a response from us, so much so that responding to God’s initiative toward us is something we model right here in the liturgy.

          Perhaps a number of you know this already, but the “Responsorial Psalm” is not called “responsorial” simply because we “respond” by repeating a verse or phrase after each stanza.  Rather, it is called “responsorial” because the Psalm itself is a response to the first reading.  The idea being this: when we hear God’s word, it moves us to respond.  Sometimes, it moves us to respond in praise: simply singing of God’s wonderful attributes and about how great it is that he has revealed himself to us.  Other times, it moves us to respond like the scribe did in today’s Gospel: who recounted back to Jesus his teaching to demonstrate his understanding.  In fact, if you’d like a summary of the first reading from Mass, one that gives you a little more insight into its meaning, just look to the Responsorial Psalm.  If the reading was one demonstrating God’s power, his glory, or his mercy, then the Psalm might be one of praising those attributes of God.  If the reading contained a lesson, then the Psalm might be one that demonstrates our understanding of that lesson.

          Case in point: today, in the first reading, we hear the teaching that Moses gave to the Israelite people as they were on the cusp of entering the Promised Land: “you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”  Then, in our response with the Psalm we sing: “I love you, Lord, my strength.”  In the reading we are reminded of our need to love God; and in the psalm we respond, expressing our love for Him.  All of this is to remind us that, when we experience and receive God’s gracious initiative toward us, we are called to respond. ///

          Many of you heard my homily for All Saints’ Day this past Thursday.  If you did, you heard me talk about how the idea of becoming “great”—that is, becoming that person we dreamed about becoming when we are kids—is something that’s written into our DNA; and that the greatest greatness that we can achieve is to become a saint.  I also said that our inspiration for pursuing this greatness comes from God Himself: that is, it comes from the fact that we are beloved by God.  This is because when we know that we are someone’s beloved, and when we desire to be loved by that person, we strive to make ourselves better for that person: in a sense, to make ourselves more “worthy” of their love.  This is a response to their love; and it is the response that we are called to give to God and His love for us. ///

          This weekend we kickoff the annual “National Vocations Awareness Week”, in which we focus intently on raising awareness of the need to promote and encourage vocations to the priesthood and the religious life.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 50 years or so, you’ll know that we are in great need of more men and women who will take up the call to greatness in a religious vocation.  Our beloved Fr. Ziegler, who we laid to rest this past week, used to say to seminarians: “We need you young guys to get ordained because us old guys aren’t going to be around much longer!”  Although I am still yet on my way to becoming one of the “old guys”, I keenly feel the need now to promote vocations among our young men, so that I don’t have to feel the same anxiety that Fr. Ziegler felt in his waning years.  Still more, part of the flourishing of Catholic culture here in the United States in the last century was due to the presence and witness of religious women and men within our parishes and communities.  I believe that, in large part, a new flourishing will occur when more and more young women and men hear God’s call to the religious life and respond.  Thus, our celebration and work this week to raise awareness of these vocations is of great importance.

          Friends, God’s call to the priesthood or religious life is not something arbitrary that comes to a person out of the blue; rather, it is something that is discerned when a person makes a response to God’s love towards him/her.  In other words, God’s love comes first.  That is, we must first experience God’s love for us.  Then, we must give our love completely to God.  It is there, within our response, that God will make known to us the vocation to which He has called us.  Anything else is our invention.  Knowing this, how then do we go about encouraging young people to consider God’s call to the priesthood and religious life?  Although it sounds counter-intuitive to what I’ve just said, we must invite them!  We must look at single men and women among us and ask them “Have you considered being a priest?”  “Have you considered whether God may be calling you to be a religious sister or brother?”  If they respond “no” and they ask you “How do I do it?”, this is what you tell them: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone!  Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

          In other words, tell them to open their hearts to encounter God’s love, which is constantly present to them, and then to respond, loving God with their whole hearts, with their whole souls, and with all their strength.  Tell them that they should strive to be the best beloved that they can be for the God who loves them and that it will be in that striving that God will reveal his vocation to them.  To put it simply: when they shema, when they listen, ready to respond to the love God pours out to them, they will hear it.

          Friends, this model of “listen and respond” doesn’t end when we’ve discerned our vocation and begin to live it.  Rather, it continues throughout the rest of our lives.  Even if we’ve seemingly completed the path of our vocation, we must still shema, we must still listen, and strive to respond.  In other words, we must never stop striving to become the best beloved that we can be for the God who has demonstrated his love for us.  This, too, will be a powerful tool to promote vocations to the priesthood and the religious life.  A Christian life, lived mediocrely, can only discourage young people from discerning their vocation, since all they see is that the Christian life leads to a mundane existence.  A heroic Christian life, however—a life striving for greatness, that is, saintliness, regardless of the vocation—will inspire young people, since they will see that a life of loving God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength, is an adventurous life, full of meaning and purpose.

          Therefore, as we respond today to God’s love, poured out to us in this Mass, by loving Him with our whole heart, our whole soul, and with all our strength, let us re-commit ourselves to strive for greatness, that is, saintliness; and, thus, to promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life both by our word of invitation and by the witness of our lives; and, thus, to grow God’s kingdom: the kingdom that even now is here among us.

Given at St. Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – November 3^rd & 4^th, 2018

Stay Calm and Keep Bringing Forth the Kingdom

          Sorry it is mid-week that I am posting this.  I didn't quite to get to it on Sunday and it got completely lost in the busyness of Monday.  I'm almost (kind-of) feeling recovered from the mission trip.  I'm greatly looking forward to 4th of July home with my folks to celebrate my nephew Luke's 4th birthday (he was born on the 16th, but we celebrate on the 4th, because it's easier).

          There is so much going on here at the parish that it is sometimes difficult to keep focused on what it is that I'm doing here (and have been doing here for nearly a year now).  The mission trip has definitely given me some focus, however.  Regardless of what happens in our lives or what society around us is trying to do to us, we need to stay focused on the "one thing", the bringing forth of God's Kingdom here on earth.  God calls, we respond and the Kingdom appears.  If one of those pieces is missing, the result will not happen.  Let me guarantee you, God never fails to call.  Let's open our hearts to hear him calling us once again!

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Homily: 13^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          One of the joys of Spring and Summer for me is that, because the sun rises earlier in the morning than in the fall and winter, the birds also “wake up” earlier and begin their daily routine.  It is a joy because, even though I’m still waking up earlier than I would prefer to most days, at least I know that there is someone else who is awake with me.  One of the things that I notice in those still morning hours is that there seems to be a pattern of communication among the birds.  If you listen to the birds singing, you’ll often pick up on an almost rhythmic “call and response” pattern happening.  One bird will chirp out a couple of notes and a second or two later another bird will repeat it, seemingly in response to the first bird.  I won’t venture to say what that communication is all about, but what struck me about it is that this “call and response” pattern seems to be a very natural form of communication.

          Just think about how we communicate.  When we want to speak to someone in the room, we call out their name and when they respond we then offer our message.  Even when we complicate our communication through technology and various forms of media the same pattern applies.  We send an invitation and we await a response.  We send an e-mail or a text message and we expect a response.  And this is all very natural for us.  One calls out, another responds and communication, dialogue, and relationship happens because of it.

          In our Scripture readings today, we find another lesson about discipleship.  This week, in particular, the readings focus on how discipleship follows this “call and response” pattern.  In other words, they show us that discipleship is a response to a call from God.  Not only that, however.  The Scriptures this week also show us what the response of a disciple ought to look like.  Thus, if we are serious about being followers of Christ (and not just professors of faith in Christ), then we ought to pay close attention to what the Scriptures teach us today.

          In our first reading, we see how the Man of God, Elijah, responds to God’s call to go to Elisha and, thus, call him to succeed him as a prophet.  Elisha’s response was immediate.  After Elijah threw his cloak over Elisha, Elisha knew that he had been called to leave everything behind and follow Elijah.  Although his response was immediate, he still had strings attached.  “Let me go say goodbye to my family”, he asks.  Elijah’s responds somewhat harshly and says “Go!  Do what you feel you have to do; but I’m not going to wait for you.”  Elisha then goes and literally destroys all of his attachments to his former way of life by slaughtering the oxen and using the plow equipment to make a fire to cook the meat over.  After leaving that with his family, he turns to follow Elijah and never looks back.

          In the Gospel reading, we see how Jesus, when the time had come for him to fulfill what God the Father had sent him to do, “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem”.  By resolving to fulfill God’s plan, he responded to God’s call; and he would not be deterred from it even when his way was blocked by his enemies (the Samaritans who would not allow him to pass through their town).  Instead of losing focus by engaging those who wronged him, Jesus remained focused on responding to the call to go to Jerusalem, where he would fulfill that which God had sent him to accomplish.

          Then, when along the way Jesus encountered various “would-be” disciples, he makes clear both the cost of being his disciple and what the response of a disciple must look like.  To the one who was exuberant about following him Jesus replies “Beware!  My disciples must relinquish everything, even the security of a place to call ‘home’.”  And to the ones who wanted first to “tidy up” things in their former lives before following him, he responds, echoing Elijah, “There is no time to ‘tidy up’.  The Kingdom of God will not wait for you.”  What these examples are showing us is that when we receive the call to discipleship our response must be immediate and total, leaving all of what binds us to our former ways so as to be about the business of God, which is to bring forth his Kingdom.

          But isn’t this “being about God’s business just a different form of slavery?  No!  Saint Paul reminds us today that Jesus has called us, and that he demands this total, immediate response from us, so as to set us free from our slavery to sin and the things of this world.  Perhaps an example.  Who among you, upon going into your refrigerator to reheat that delicious dish from the restaurant two nights ago and finding it with mold growing on it, would still eat it?  Wouldn’t you, rather, count it as lost and throw the whole dish out?  Thus, when Jesus says “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God”, this is what he’s saying.  He’s saying that if you have dedicated your life to following me, that is, to eating fresh, healthy food, but then turn and maintain your desire for sin, that is, your desire to eat moldy leftovers, then you are not fit for the Kingdom, because you are still tied to your disordered desires from the past.

          To be a disciple, then, is to respond to God’s call to freedom: that is, to determine wholeheartedly and resolutely to fulfill his call, which is your vocation.  This, of course, is not easy.  Just as the Samaritans obstructed Jesus’ path towards Jerusalem, so too does our modern secular culture obstruct our journey.  When sports or work or projects around the house obstruct us from fulfilling our third commandment duty to honor the Sabbath, that is, to rest and give honor to God, do we resolve to find ways around them or do we give in to their pressures and deny the gift of rest and regeneration that God has offered to us?  My guess is that, more often than not, we give in; and, thus, that we often feel enslaved by these “idols” that have arisen in our lives.

          Now it’s no secret that our government is erecting barriers against our ability to live out fully our response to Jesus’ call in the public square.  And even though, as our bishops have said, we must speak out against injustice in our land and, thus, engage in this political dispute, I believe that a more complete response is to maintain our resolve in bringing forth God’s Kingdom here on earth.  For when we focus on bringing forth this Kingdom in our families and in our community, instead of focusing on winning political victories or exacting revenge on the “Samaritans” of our day, then we will see a change in our world, because God’s Kingdom, when it appears, cannot be resisted.

          My brothers and sisters, God has called us to be about his business of bringing forth his Kingdom and Jesus has shown us that we must resolutely dedicate ourselves to this work; for it is our only path to true freedom.  Let us, then, stand strong in the strength that we receive from this Eucharist and, thus, live by the Spirit, so that we may be true followers of Christ - men and women who are truly free - and, thus, make ourselves ready to inherit the Kingdom that God has promised us.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – June 29^th and 30^th, 2013