Seducido para encontrar la verdad

 Homilía: 22º Domingo en el Tiempo Ordinario – Ciclo A

Hermanos, hoy nuestras lecturas nos dan otra idea de la enseñanza de Jesús sobre los costos del discipulado. En particular, hablan de las formas frecuentemente paradójicas en las que seguir el llamado de Dios nos revela el significado más profundo de nuestras vidas: es decir, cómo el significado profundo y la plenitud se manifiestan con mayor frecuencia a través de la angustia y las dificultades. Esto es algo verdaderamente fundamental de entender y, por lo tanto, vale la pena echar un vistazo más profundo a las lecturas para comprenderlo.

En nuestra primera lectura, escuchamos al profeta Jeremías lamentarse por el hecho de que se había seducido por Dios. Muy joven cuando Dios lo llamó por primera vez, Jeremías trató de convencer a Dios de que eligiera a otra persona. Dios, sin embargo, insistió en las promesas de que estaría con él para librarlo de quien se le opusiera. Jeremías, sin embargo, no sentía el amor. Cada vez que profetizaba en el nombre del Señor, se veía obligado a hablar de la indignación de Dios hacia su pueblo elegido por haberlo desobedecido durante tanto tiempo y de la violencia que les sobrevendría si no cambiaban sus actitudes. Debido a su mensaje parecía absurdo, y, quizás, debido a su edad joven, Jeremías fue burlado, ridiculizado y, en ocasiones, agredido por hablar tales cosas. Por lo tanto, sintió que Dios lo había seducido para que hiciera esto con falsas promesas de seguridad y hoy lo escuchamos que se quisiera morir por dejarse seduci.

En nuestra lectura del Evangelio, Pedro parece sentirse como si también lo hubieran seducido. Después de haber respondido a la inspiración divina para reconocer a Jesús como el Cristo de Dios, y de haber recibido una aprobación tan entusiasta de Jesús (la que escuchamos la semana pasada: “¡Dichoso tú, Simón, hijo de Juan, porque esto no te lo ha revelado ningún hombre, sino mi Padre, que está en los cielos! Y yo te digo a ti que tú eres Pedro y sobre esta piedra edificaré mi Iglesia.…”), Pedro es ahora confrontado por la proclamación de Jesús de que debía ir a Jerusalén para sufrir y ser asesinado por los sumos sacerdotes y escribas y resucitar al tercer día. Quizás podamos entender la fuerte reacción de Pedro: "¿Qué? ¡De ninguna manera dejaremos que esto te suceda!" Pedro estaba seguro de que había encontrado al Cristo y que el Cristo a quien esperaba sería un rey conquistador. Por lo tanto, sintió que lo habían seducido cuando Cristo reveló que su terrible destino sería sufrir y morir a manos de las oficiales religiosas.

Jesús, sin embargo, aprovechó esta oportunidad para enseñar a sus discípulos una lección importante. El discipulado no lo llevaría a uno al honor y al prestigio en este mundo; más bien conduciría a la vergüenza: la mayor vergüenza conocida por el hombre en ese momento, la de ser crucificado. Sin embargo, la vergüenza sería solo una vergüenza terrenal: por haber perdido la vida por él en este mundo, ellos a su vez encontrarían la vida eterna que la salvación les traería. Y, como veríamos años después de este evento, Pedro eventualmente encontraría el significado más profundo de su vida en la cruz que había sido “seducido” para llevar.

Jeremías también encontraría el significado más profundo de su vida al cargar la cruz que él sentía que había sido “seducido” para llevar. Porque cuando dice que trató de evitar hablar las palabras del Señor, esas palabras se convertirían en un fuego ardiendo dentro de su corazón que no podía contener, que no podía soportar; como si tratar de contenerlos fuera algo antinatural para él, mientras que el hecho de que se derramaran de él le brindara alivio, incluso cuando trajo la cruz del ridículo y la burla.

La mayoría de ustedes no lo saben, pero yo no soy originario de Indiana. Crecí en el área de Chicago y originalmente seguí una carrera en ingeniería. Quería trabajar para uno de los “tres grandes” fabricantes de carros y, cuando estaba terminando mis estudios para obtener mi título en ingeniería mecánica, comencé a postularme para trabajos en el área de Detroit.

No mucho después de graduarme, una de las empresas a las que postulé se puso en contacto conmigo para realizar una entrevista. Me sorprendió que la entrevista no fuera para un trabajo en el área de Detroit, sino en Indiana (Kokomo, de hecho). A regañadientes, hice la entrevista e igualmente a regañadientes acepté un trabajo en Kokomo, mudándome a Indiana poco después, solo con la esperanza de poder transferirme a Detroit en el futuro.

No mucho después de mudarme aquí a Indiana, estaba seguro de que me habían seducido y comencé a buscar otros trabajos para poder mudarme: ya sea a Detroit o de regreso a mi área de origen cerca de Chicago. Sin embargo, me esforcé sin éxito; sino que descubrí que, cuando acepté lo que sentí que me habían seducido y decidí establecerme aquí en Indiana, Dios me reveló el significado más profundo de mi vida, es decir, que me había llamado a ser sacerdote en este en el mismo lugar, y aquí estoy hoy.

Mis hermanos y hermanas, nuestras vidas están llenas de momentos en los que sentimos que alguien nos ha seducido para que aceptemos algo que resultó ser una experiencia mucho más difícil o insatisfactoria de lo que esa persona prometió que sería. Quizás, como el profeta Jeremías, incluso sentimos que Dios ha sido esa otra persona. Sin embargo, si nos tomamos un tiempo para profundizar en la situación, quizás veamos cómo Dios está utilizando estos eventos misteriosamente para revelarnos el sentido más profundo de nuestras vidas: es decir, cómo a través de la cruz nos ha seducido para llevar, nos está preparando para vivir en la gloria del Padre cuando Cristo regrese.

Qué mensaje es este para nosotros hoy, ¿verdad? Vivimos en una época en la que el mensaje de salvación no podría ser más importante: es decir, que hay una respuesta para todo el quebrantamiento evidente en el mundo. Ya sea que ese quebrantamiento sea la pandemia, los disturbios civiles que rodean los problemas raciales, la economía inestable, los cambios en nuestras parroquias, o todas las disputas que los funcionarios públicos hacen al tratar de aprovechar estas situaciones para obtener beneficios políticos, el trabajo que nosotros cristianos debemos hacer es dejar que nuestra mente sea transformada por la gracia de Dios para que podamos discernir sus movimientos misteriosos dentro de estas situaciones angustiosas y proclamar que hay una respuesta definitiva para todos ellos: a saber, hacernos discípulos de Jesús, vivir según su enseñanza (que son los mandamientos de Dios), y por lo tanto para prepararse para la plena venida de su reino cuando regrese.

Quizás por hacerlo nos ponga en riesgo de sufrir rechazo, sufrimiento y tristeza en este mundo; pero como nos muestran nuestras lecturas de hoy, los cristianos que padecen estas cosas por amor de Dios nunca las padecen sin mérito: porque estas cruces siempre producen el florecimiento pleno de la vocación de uno (y, por lo tanto, la preparación para entrar en el reino de Dios).

Mis hermanos, esta verdad nunca es más evidente que aquí en la Eucaristía. Porque a través de la cruz que Jesús se vio obligado a llevar vino la fuente de la vida eterna: el sacrificio de su Cuerpo y Sangre que representamos aquí en este altar y la gracia de redención que recibimos cuando lo consumimos. Y así, hermanos míos, tomemos con valentía cualquier cruz que nuestras vocaciones o estos tiempos turbulentos nos hayan seducido para llevar porque somos discípulos de Cristo: porque allí encontraremos a Jesús, llevando la cruz con nosotros y guiándonos hasta nuestra recompensa eterna.

Dado en la parroquia Nuestra Señora de la Gracia: Noblesville, IN

Dado en la parroquia San Patricio: Kokomo, IN

30 agosto, 2020

Tricked into finding truth

 Homily: 22^nd Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A

          Friends, today our readings give us another insight into Jesus’ teaching on the costs of discipleship.  Particularly, they speak to the often-paradoxical ways that following God’s call reveals to us the deepest meaning of our lives: that is, how deep meaning and fulfillment most often manifest themselves through distress and hardship.  This is a truly fundamental thing to understand and so it’s worth taking a deeper look at the readings so as to understand.

          In our first reading, we heard the prophet Jeremiah lamenting the fact that he had allowed himself to be tricked (or “duped”) by God.  Very young when God first called him, Jeremiah tried to convince God to pick somebody else.  God, however, insisted on promises that he would be with him to deliver him from whoever would oppose him.  Jeremiah, however, wasn’t feeling the love.  Every time that he prophesied in the Lord’s name he was compelled to speak of God’s outrage at his chosen people for having disobeyed him for so long and of the violence that would come upon them if they didn’t change their ways.  Because of the seeming absurdity of his message—and, perhaps, because of his young age—Jeremiah was roundly mocked, derided, and at times assaulted for speaking such things.  Thus, he felt like God had tricked him into doing this with false promises of security and we hear him today “kicking himself” for allowing himself to be tricked.

          In our Gospel reading, Peter seems to be feeling like he had been tricked also.  After having responded to divine inspiration to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ of God, and after having received such a glowing approval from Jesus (the one which we heard last week: “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah…), Peter is now confronted by Jesus’ proclamation that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer and be killed by the elders and to be raised on the third day.  Perhaps we could understand Peter’s strong reaction: “What?  No way will we ever let this happen to you!”  Peter was confident that he had found the Christ and the Christ for whom he was waiting would be an all-conquering king.  Thus, he felt like he had been tricked when Christ revealed that his grim fate would be to suffer and to be killed at the hands of the elders.

          Jesus, however, took this opportunity to teach his disciples an important lesson.  Discipleship would not lead one into honor and prestige in this world; rather it would lead to shame: the greatest shame known to man at the time, that of being crucified.  The shame would only be an earthly shame, however: for having lost their lives for his sake in this world, they would in turn find the eternal life that salvation would bring them.  And, as we would see years on from this event, Peter would eventually find the deepest meaning of his life in the cross that he had been “tricked” to carry.

          Jeremiah, too, would find the deepest meaning in his life by carrying the cross that he felt he had been “tricked” to carry.  For when he says that he tried to keep himself from speaking the Lord’s words, those words would become like a fire burning within his heart that he could not contain, that he could not endure; as if trying to contain them was something unnatural to him, while their spilling forth from him brought relief, even as it brought forth the cross of ridicule and derision.

          Most of you don’t know this, but I am not originally from Indiana.  I grew up in the Chicago area and originally pursued a career in engineering.  I wanted to work for one of the “big three” automakers and so, as I was finishing my studies to obtain my degree in mechanical engineering, I started to apply for jobs in the Detroit area.

          Not too long after I graduated, one of the companies to which I applied contacted me to come out for an interview.  I was surprised (shocked, actually) that the interview was not for a job in the Detroit area, but rather in Indiana (Kokomo, in fact).  Reluctantly, I did the interview and equally reluctantly I accepted a job in Kokomo, moving to Indiana soon after, only with the hope that I could transfer to Detroit in the future.

          Not long after moving here to Indiana, I was certain that I had been tricked and I started looking for other jobs so that I could move: either up to Detroit or back to my home area near Chicago.  I strove with no success, however; but rather found that, when I accepted what I felt I had been tricked to accept and decided to settle here in Indiana, God revealed the deepest meaning of my life to me—that is, that he had called me to be a priest in this very same place—and so here I am today.

          My brothers and sisters, our lives are full of times when we feel like we’ve been tricked by someone into accepting something that turned out to be a much more difficult or unsatisfying experience than what that person promised it would be.  Perhaps, like the prophet Jeremiah, we even feel like God has been that other person.  Nevertheless, if we take some time to look deeper at the situation, perhaps we will see how God is mysteriously using these events to reveal to us the deepest meaning of our lives: that is, how through the cross he has “tricked” us to carry he is preparing us to live in the Father’s glory when Christ returns.

          What a message this is for us today, right?  We are living in a time in which the message of salvation could not be more important: namely, that there is an answer for all of the brokenness evident in the world.  Whether that brokenness be the pandemic, the civil unrest surrounding issues of race, the unstable economy, the implementation of Uniting in Heart, or all of the wrangling that public officials do trying to take advantage of these situations for political gain, the work that we Christians must do is to allow our minds to be transformed by God’s grace so that we might discern his mysterious movements within these distressful situations and proclaim that there is a definitive answer to them all: namely, to become disciples of Jesus, to live according to his teaching (which is God’s commandments), and therefore to prepare for the full coming of his kingdom when he returns.  Perhaps our doing so will put us at risk for rejection, suffering, and sorrow in this world; but as our readings today show us, Christians who suffer these things for the sake of God never suffer them without merit: for these crosses always bring forth the full flourishing of one’s vocation (and, thus, preparation for entering God’s kingdom).

          My friends, this truth is never more evident than here in the Eucharist.  For through the cross that Jesus was compelled to bear came the fount of everlasting life: the sacrifice of his Body and Blood that we re-present here on this altar and the grace of redemption that we receive when we consume it.  And so, my brothers and sisters, let us boldly take up whatever cross our vocations or these turbulent times may have “tricked” to carry because we are disciples of Christ: for there we will find Jesus, carrying the cross with us and leading us to our everlasting reward.

Given at St. Joseph parish: Rochester, IN – August 29^th, 2020

Given at Our Lady of Grace parish: Noblesville, IN – August 30^th, 2020

God's chooses for the salvation of others

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

Friends, one of the things that we who profess faith in God have to reckon with is that God is a choosing God, an electing God, a God who, some might say, is discriminatory.  Don’t believe me?  Just look through the Old Testament.  God chooses Able, not Cain.  God chooses Noah and his family to be saved.  God chooses Abram to move from his homeland to establish him as the great Father of his people.  God chooses Jacob, not Esau.  God chooses the Israelites—a particular race of people—to be his specially-chosen people: to the exclusion of every other race that existed at that time.

Perhaps in our culture of hyper-awareness for any sign of bias based on race, this reminder that God chose a whole race of people to be his specially-chosen people (set apart to be his own) might rub us the wrong way.  It need not, however, because when we take a closer look at it, we see that there is a noble purpose behind this choosing—this discrimination—that justifies it and makes it (dare I say) holy.

Let’s look at the prophet Isaiah, whom we heard from in the first reading.  Now Isaiah is an Israelite through and through, and God’s man, too, through and through.  Yet what we hear him saying in this reading is something that the Israelites (those, at least, who had allowed this notion of being part of God’s chosen people go to their head) would have found shocking and, perhaps, scandalous.  Let’s look at it again: “Thus says the Lord... The foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, ministering to him, loving the name of the Lord, and becoming his servants... them I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer...”  “What?” the prideful Jew might say, “We are the chosen people, not these dogs who are not Jews! Why would God say that non-Jews could ‘join themselves to the Lord’? God is a defense for us against the other races, not an instrument for joining with them!”  This proud Jew would have forgotten the noble purpose for which God chose the Israelites in the first place: He chose them to be precursors: those who would go before others to prepare the way so that God’s salvation could be received by peoples of every race.

If we look throughout salvation history, we can see what God was doing when he chose the ancient Israelites—the descendants of Abraham and Isaac: for what he was doing was preparing a people to be an example to the world.  God chose them, then he trained them in his commandments and taught them all of his decrees.  He taught them the consequences for ignoring his commandments when he punished them with exile, yet also showed his great mercy when he later restored them.  He set them strictly apart from other peoples so that they would see themselves (and others would see them) as clearly distinct among races.  Why?  Precisely so that peoples of every tribe or race in the world would see the distinct righteousness of the Lord God and thus seek to follow his ways.  In this way, the Israelites—God's chosen people—would be a beacon to gather all people back to God.  This God that we worship exercised seemingly unjust discrimination (privileging a people solely based on their race), yet it was not unjust since he chose them in order to prepare them for the mission of sharing his benefits with all peoples of every tribe and race of every time and place.  God didn’t choose Israel for itself, but rather for the world.

Jesus, of course, is the fulfillment of God’s purpose in choosing the Israelites.  Precisely through him, a Jew, the salvation which would be for all people has come into the world.  In today’s Gospel reading we see this fulfillment in miniature.  Jesus—the fulfillment of salvation for the world—goes out from the land of the Jews into a foreign land (the region of Tyre and Sidon).  There he is approached by a foreigner who asks him to heal her daughter.  At first, he resists (perhaps to test her faith and to see, as Isaiah’s prophesy described as a condition of salvation, if she would “join herself to the Lord”).  When she does not get offended by his strong words, however, but rather persists, in humility, in her request, Jesus grants it and thus gives sign that God had chosen the Israelites so that his salvation could go out through them into the world.

This matters for us, of course, because by our baptism we, too, have been chosen by God and chosen for a noble purpose.  The grace of baptism—that is, the grace of being incorporated into Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection—was not something for which we were chosen for ourselves.  Rather, we were chosen—for ourselves, yes—but, like the ancient Israelites, for the world, also.  By our baptism were given the grace of salvation and also a mission to witness to that grace in the world and, thus, to be a beacon that draws others to God and the saving waters of baptism through which they, too, may receive the grace and mission of salvation.

Friends, I know that this will be news to no one here that there is a lot more scattering going on in today’s world than gathering.  This is, of course, very apparent here in the Church.  You’ll remember a couple of weeks ago, I reminded us that Jesus always unites, he doesn’t separate, and that any force that seeks to separate people from each other is diabolical in nature.  The result of this pandemic, in this sense, is diabolical: as it demands us to stay separated from each other, instead of united.  Even in the midst of this pandemic, however, we are called, by the grace of our baptism, to be gatherers, not scatterers.  How do we do this?  Well, just like the ancient Israelites did it: by being precursors—those who learn to know and live by God’s commandments and decrees so that others might see and be attracted to do the same.  This is why, at the beginning of our reading from the prophet Isaiah today, the Lord says this: “Observe what is right, do what is just; for my salvation is about to come...”  The condition, in other words, for foreigners to join themselves to the Lord, is the holiness of those who are already joined to the Lord.

This, my friends, is the reason why Bishop Doherty has proposed Uniting in Heart.  By focusing our personal and parish activities around the three pillars of Mission, Community, and Witness, through which we will grow in holiness and a renewed sense of mission, we will shine more brightly in our community so as to draw our scattered brothers and sisters into God’s Church, united in the Heart of Jesus.  As we say our goodbyes this week and you prepare to welcome Fr. Rowland, Fr. O’Keeffe, and Fr. Faker next week, let us remember that no matter where we are, we are united in the Heart of Jesus and so give ourselves to this good work that our world so desperately needs.

Let us also give thanks for what we have shared together and, even more importantly, what God has shared with us, as we approach this altar and offer the perfect sacrifice of thanksgiving: offering back to the Father, what Jesus offered on our behalf: his perfect love, the salvation offered for all people.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – August 16, 2020

Discerning the voice of Jesus in chaos

 Homily: 19^th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Cycle A

In the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is a spoof on the medieval “King Arthur” fables, there is a scene where the “knights of the round table” have to cross a bridge spanning a deep chasm: a bridge that is guarded by a bridge keeper.  The keeper is made out to be a fearsome, intimidating creature and to get by him each person must answer three questions correctly or be cast by an invisible force into the deep chasm.  Sir Lancelot, the brave, is the first to approach.  Encountering the keeper and with much bravado, he awaits the questions: “What is your name?”, the keeper asks.  “Sir Lancelot of Camelot”, the knight responds.  “What is your quest?”, the keeper continues.  “To find the Holy Grail”, Sir Lancelot replies.  “What is your favorite color?”, the keeper asks.  “Blue”, the brave knight replies, not missing a beat.  His questions answered satisfactorily, the keeper steps aside and says, “Okay, on with you then.”  Stunned at the ease of the questions, Lancelot nonetheless proudly passes onto the bridge.  Sir Robin, having seen this, pushes to the front, expecting to pass with similar ease.  As he arrogantly approaches the keeper he too is questioned: “What is your name?”  “Sir Robin of Camelot.”  “What is your quest.”  “To seek the Holy Grail.”  “What is the capital of Assyria?”  “What? I don’t kno… ahhhhh!”  Having answered wrong, Sir Robin is thrown by an invisible force into the chasm.  Now, while the rest of the scene is worth recounting, you’ll have to go to YouTube or Netflix to see it.  The point of my sharing this much with you is that Sir Robin mistakenly assumed that the questions would be the same for each traveler.  Instead of listening for the particular way that the keeper would question him, he answered without discernment and so was lost.

          In today’s first reading, we hear of an analogous encounter.  In this case, it is the prophet Elijah who is on a journey and God whom he is encountering.  For forty days Elijah journeyed through the desert to Mount Horeb, where he then took shelter in a cave.  Perhaps to us, these facts seem simply to be background to the story of God’s encounter with Elijah.  Yet for the Hebrew people, each of these details would have had a powerful impact on their interpretation of the story.  The forty-day journey in the desert would have reminded them of the forty-year journey of the Israelites through the desert and into the Promised Land.  And, while most of us might not make the connection, the ancient Israelites would know that Mount Horeb, where Elijah ended his journey, is also known as Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments and where God formed his covenant with the Israelite people.  There, God called Moses up to him on the mountain and spoke to him.  When he did, the people heard loud peals of thunder and the earth shook beneath them.  Thus, you can imagine that it was quite a shock to the Israelites when they heard that when God called Elijah to come out to meet him that God was not to be found in the strong wind, the earthquake, or the fire.  Elijah, even though he was intimately aware of the way God had spoken to his people on that very mountain, did not presume that God would speak to him in the same way.  Rather he waited with a discerning heart to hear the particular way that God would speak to him and instead found the Lord in a small whispering sound.

          In our Gospel reading today, we hear the continuation of the story we began last week.  After feeding the five thousand with just five loaves and two fish, Jesus sends the disciples ahead of him, dismisses the crowd to their homes and finally gets the retreat he was looking for to mourn the death of his relative and friend, John the Baptist.  As Jesus spends the night in prayer, Peter and the disciples find themselves fighting against a rough sea.  Thus, as Jesus approaches them, the disciples, already stressed out by the storm and exhausted from complete lack of sleep, react as if they are seeing a ghost.  To calm their spirits Jesus calls out to them in what must have seemed to be a “tiny whispering sound” amidst the crashing of the waves in the tumultuous waters.  Even amidst this chaos, however, Peter, like Elijah, immediately discerned the Lord’s voice and asked that the Lord would call him to him.  Peter could do this because, in times of calm, he spent time with Jesus, building a relationship with him and getting to know his voice.  Thus, in times of distress, he could weather the storm and hear the particular way in which God was speaking to him and calling him close.

          Friends, it should surprise no one when I say that the challenge of discerning God’s voice in the midst of our noisy world is greater than ever and won’t get any easier anytime soon.  That is why it is ever more important to build a relationship with God in moments of calm, so that in times of storm and distress we will know the voice to which we should listen.  A child lost in a shopping mall is made deaf by his anxiety until the voice of his mother breaks through, calling him to her.  This is because he heard the assuring voice of his mother repeatedly when everything was calm, thus training his heart that, if he hears her voice, no matter the situation, all will be well.  Friends, God calls us to this kind of relationship, a relationship in which we come to know and trust his voice, so that when we are tossed about by the waves of the world, we will hear him calling to us in order to calm our spirits.

          So why is this important?  Well, quite frankly, because our response to God in times of distress is the measure of how authentically we are living out our faith, and we are certainly in a time of distress!  When the world seems to be crashing down around us, can we, like Elijah, wait to hear the Lord’s voice?  And when we do, can we, like Peter, trust in that voice calling us out into what by all human standards seems to be certain destruction?  Finally, can we rely on the Lord so completely, that we cry out only to him when all seems to be lost?  These are important questions and they may make us uncomfortable.  Nonetheless, we have to answer them.

You know, I have great sympathy for all those in our schools who are anxious about returning to school.  Most of us are convinced that in-person teaching is the best option for our young people, but the threat of the coronavirus triggers fear and anxiety for those who will be working in our schools and for parents who are sending their children into our schools.  The challenge for them and for all of us is to ask ourselves, “Whose voice am I listening to?”  Am I listening to God’s voice in the midst of this storm, which says to me, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid”?  Or am I listening to the waves crashing around me: the temporary tumult that may threaten my earthly life, but cannot separate me from God, my Rock?

As I said, these are questions that may make us uncomfortable, but they are questions that we must answer.  If your answer is “yes”: that is, that you wait to hear the Lord’s voice in time of tumult, that you trust in that voice who calls you out to him in a tumultuous world, and that you turn only to him when that world seems to be overwhelming you... If your answer to all of those questions is “yes”, then great!  You are in a great place and a witness of faith to others, I am sure.

I suspect, however, that many of us have to answer one or more of those questions with either “no” or at least “I’m not sure.”  If so, that’s ok; I assure you that you will not be thrown by an invisible force into a deep chasm!  What is most important today is that you leave here realizing that your relationship with God may not be where it ought to be—that maybe you’ve lost touch with God’s voice—and that you have a commitment to deepen that relationship once again.  Perhaps the shutdown disrupted your prayer routine, or perhaps you’ve fallen into a sinful habit, or perhaps you’ve just let the voices of fear and anxiety in the world around you become the dominant voices in your head and in your heart.  Whatever it is, if this encounter with the Word of God—the Living Word contained in these Scriptures—calls you to turn back to pursue a deeper relationship with God, then it has fulfilled the purpose for which it was sent.  If it hasn’t, I invite you to look again at this Word and to pray for the wisdom to understand the particular way that God is speaking to you through it.

Either way, let us recognize that in this Church, which is our boat amidst the rough, rude sea of the world, Jesus comes to us in the form of the sacrament offered here on this altar and calls us to him.  Trusting in the faith handed down to us from the disciples who were with him on the sea that night, let us come now—unreservedly—to do him homage and to receive him, who is our stable Rock in the midst of a tumultuous world.

Given at Saint Mary Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – August 8^th & 9^th, 2020

We are called to gather, not disperse

Homily: 18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Friends, after three weeks of encountering Jesus as “teacher”, in which we listened anew to his many parables about the kingdom of heaven—its different features and those who will be included in it—we come this week and encounter Jesus as a “wonder worker”, as we read again this very familiar report of what we commonly know as both the “feeding of the five thousand” and the “multiplication of the loaves and the fish”.  Familiar as it is, there is a richness of meaning in it and, thus, many different lessons to be taken from it: particularly lessons about God and his great love for us.  I cannot possibly discuss them all in one homily, so I’m going to focus on just one aspect today to try to help draw a lesson that can speak to us in our current reality.

Perhaps an overarching reminder in today’s reading is this: Jesus always gathers together, while the enemy always disperses.  Let’s take a look at the reading to see how this plays out.  At the beginning of the reading, we are told that, when Jesus hears of the death of John the Baptist—his cousin and friend—he is saddened and so decides to find a place away from everyone so that he can mourn the loss of his relative and friend.  The reading says that he “withdrew... by himself”, meaning, perhaps, that he didn’t take his disciples with him.  Thus, when the crowds came looking for him, they probably pressed his disciples to tell them where he was going.  The disciples, seeing how desperate these people were to see him, to be taught by him, and to seek healing from him, gave in and told them where he was going so that they all ran to that place to meet him when he disembarked.

When he saw the vast crowds there—that is, in the place where he had hoped to go to be alone for a day or two to mourn the loss of a close relative and friend—Jesus would have been justified in saying, “Please go home and leave me here by myself so that I may mourn in peace.”  His heart, however, was “moved with pity for them” and he ministered to them: curing their sick and teaching them.  In other words, he did not disperse them—dividing them out back to their own homes—but rather drew them in, keeping them together.

As evening drew near, Jesus’ disciples—who certainly also pitied the crowd who were so desperate to see Jesus—began to think, “Okay, this is enough.  Jesus still needs to be alone to mourn.  Besides, there’s no food here and the people are surely hungry.  It’s time for everyone to go home.”  So, they try to convince Jesus to disperse the crowd.  This, of course, was a very rational way of thinking that acknowledged our human needs and limitations; but remember that Jesus came not to show us how to be the “most clever humans ever”, but rather to teach us how to think with God again: cooperating with him to bring about a greater human flourishing than could ever be possible for us alone.

Thus, Jesus refuses their urging to disperse the crowd; not because he denied that they would be hungry, but rather because he had one more lesson to teach them (a lesson prophesied by the prophet Isaiah), who said: “Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy? Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare.”  The crowd had “heeded him” all day and now, instead of dispersing them to “spend their wages on what would fail to satisfy”, he would keep them gathered so that they could “delight in rich fare”.  Although the disciples did not have the spiritual vision to understand what Jesus was going to do, they were nonetheless obedient: bringing Jesus what they had and remaining ready to do his will.  Because of their obedience (that is, because of their willingness to cooperate with the will of Jesus), Jesus worked a miracle and, in doing so, fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy completely when all who were there “ate and were satisfied”.

Friends, the challenge of the Christian life is to be a unifier, not a separator.  There are many ways for us to live this out, of course, but Jesus shows us that one of the most fundamental ways that we do this is by allowing our hearts to be moved with pity for those less-fortunate than us.  When we allow this to happen, we allow others to draw near to us instead of keeping them separated from us: for allowing our hearts to be moved with pity means that we’ve allowed them into our hearts, which is the closest place that anyone can be to another person.

This work of being a unifier does not end with feeling pity for the less-fortunate, but rather continues with concrete action to relieve the need that the less-fortunate are suffering.  As Saint James wrote in his letter: “If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?”  Rather, like Jesus, once we allow them into our heart, we must act to relieve their need: minimally by refusing to disperse them by sending them away.  That minimum act of standing with someone in their need is a powerful act of solidarity that can further our work of being unifiers, instead of separators.  The thing is that, from this solidarity comes a greater unity in giving thanks to One who provides for us all.  When Jesus prevented the disciples from dispersing the crowd and then fed them with the miraculous bread, they all remained together and gave thanks and praise to the One through whom this blessing flowed.  If you can’t see in this an allusion to the Mass—that is, the Eucharist—then I’m not sure if you’re really paying attention.

Perhaps, an example: Yesterday afternoon, a call came in through the parish’s emergency line.  Typically, that is used when someone has become seriously ill or is dying and needs a priest to come to provide the sacrament of anointing or last rites.  Sometimes, however, someone who is in financial need will use that looking for help.  Yesterday’s call was one of these.  A young man and his mother were in Chicago ready to board a train to Lafayette and, when they arrived here, they said that would have no place to stay for the night.  They wanted to know if we could help put them up in a motel for the night and, if we couldn’t, if we knew of anyone who could.  Having taken the call, I knew that, at 6:00 pm on a Saturday, I wasn’t going to find much emergency help and I had to decide, in that moment, whether I was going to take concrete action to relieve their need.  With little of my own resources at hand—most especially time—I did not heed that call and prayed that they would find help elsewhere.

I share this example not to denigrate myself or to seek pity from anyone for the difficult situation that I was in, but rather to illustrate that this work of being unifiers and not separators is hard work, requiring us to allow others to intrude into our lives and disrupt our plans for their good.  Like Jesus’ first disciples, our natural understanding of human needs and our limitations will mean that, very often, we will encounter someone with a need and think, “I can’t help you”.  In those moments, the hard work is to hear Jesus saying to us, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.”  Like Jesus’ first disciples, perhaps we won’t have the spiritual vision to see what the Lord is going to do; but if we nonetheless obey, Jesus will take whatever we offer him to perform a miracle to satisfy their need.

My friends, if we can only move from “I can’t help you” to “I tried to help and failed miserably”, that’s progress!  Because, as I said, even if the only thing that we can do is stand there with them in their need, well, we’ve grown in solidarity, which is a great unifier in itself.  In doing so, we move from a human way of thinking in the world, to begin “thinking with God” again and, thus, to a greater cooperation with him and his will so that his kingdom might grow among us.

My brothers and sisters, it should be clear to all of us that the “prince of this world” is a separator, not a unifier.  Human beings, who should be standing side by side recognizing both our common humanity and our common end—both in greater society and within the Church—are rather standing opposed to each other: divided by accidental differences instead of unified by what is common.  The enemy—the great divider—works unceasingly in this world to perpetuate this illusion: that the basic situation in this world is that it is “us or them”, when in reality the situation is always that it is “us with them” and, therefore, that our basic attitude towards acting in the world must be that it is “us for them”.  This pandemic is both highlighting and exacerbating this point: “Stay away from me, because you might be toxic to me.”  In this sense, those with a spiritual vision of the world can see that there is a diabolic aspect to this pandemic.

Let us not forget, however, what Saint Paul wrote to the Romans nearly two thousand years ago: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Let us strive, therefore, to do the hard work of being unifiers at every moment of every day—to live as if in this world it is “us with them” and, therefore, “us for them”—so that Jesus’ work to gather all people to himself will continue among us and more and more men and women will be united with us to give thanks to the One who provides for all: the perfect act of thanksgiving that we offer here in this Eucharist.

Given at Saint Mary Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – August 2^nd, 2020