Hope makes us live differently

Homily: 32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Friends, we are now well into the month of November, which for us Catholics also means that we are approaching the end of the Liturgical Year.  Although the readings for Mass have already been hinting at it for the last several weeks, this week our readings shift our focus away from the nuts and bolts of our daily discipleship and toward consideration of “last things”, that is, the things that will come at the end of time.  This week, in particular, the focus of our readings is on the reality of the resurrection from the dead.

In our first reading, we heard the testimony of three of the seven Israelite brothers who, with their mother, were being tortured by the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes in order to make them apostatize—that is, denounce their faith—by eating pork, which they believed God forbade them to eat.  Each of these three courageously handed over their lives to their torturers rather than denounce their faith in God by breaking the Law that he had given them; and it was their hope in the fact that God could and would raise them to life again that gave them that courage.  In other words, they believed in God’s promise of eternal life to those who remained faithful to his Laws and commandments and so they knew that, if they kept themselves pure according to God’s law, even if they should die at the hands of men, God would one day raise them to life again.  And so, we see that our belief in the resurrection means something about how we live our lives before we die: for if there’s no resurrection, then eat pork and enjoy your life, while you have it; if there is a resurrection, however, then we ought to seek to serve the one through whom the resurrection will come (that is, God), so as not to incur his wrath.

In the Gospel reading, in answering the dilemma that the Sadducees put forth, Jesus doesn’t describe for us how we should live our lives in this world, but rather describes a glimpse of how eternal life will look.  He describes life after the resurrection of the dead as one in which those who have been raised to life “can no longer die”, indicating that it will be an immortal life which will extend through all eternity.  Now eternity, I think, can be a very hard thing to imagine.  Fr. Larry Richards, who is a parish priest from Erie, Pennsylvania, and who travels to speak nationally, has one of the best illustrations about the length of time which is eternity and he describes it in this way: he says, “Imagine that, in eternity, every step requires 1,000 years to take and that you have been given the job to take every grain of sand from every beach and on every ocean floor, one at a time, to the top of Mt. Everest.  You can imagine the countless billions of years that it would take to accomplish this task.  Yet once you have finished this task,” he says, “eternity is just beginning.”  He describes it in this way in order to put into sharp contrast the reality that with our infinitesimally short time on earth (in comparison to eternity) we will determine how we will spend eternity (either in heaven or in hell).  Thus, once again, our belief in the resurrection of the dead means something about how we ought to live our lives before we die.

In his encyclical, Spe Salvi (in English, In Hope We Were Saved), Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote, “the one who has hope lives differently.”  Hope, as he speaks about it and in the Christian sense, is not merely “optimism” about the future—that is, good feelings that, in the end, things will come out positive for us.  Rather, it is the grace of a vision of a real, positive outcome that we see is concretely possible for us to attain in the future, even if it is beyond our power.  Thus, we see how it is possible for one who has hope to live differently: for he/she no longer need worry about what can happen in the present time, because one sees the vision of the positive outcome for him/herself in the future.  This is the hope that the Israelite brothers and their mother had which gave them courage to endure horrendous torture and death: hope that provided the vision of the positive outcome for them—that is, the resurrection to an everlasting life.

Last week, at the end of Mass, we heard a testimony from our parishioners describing how being involved in the ministries of Saint Mary’s has made a positive impact on their lives.  Each one of them was a testimony of hope: that what is sacrificed in this present time is of no account in light of the positive outcome that awaits those who are faithful to the Lord.  I pray that you have reflected on these things over this past week and are now ready to make or re-make your commitments of your time and talent to the ministries of Saint Mary’s.  I pray that your reflection has been full of hope (and, thus, gratitude): gratitude for the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ which has made a life beyond this life possible for us, and hope that, through baptism, we will one day enjoy that life.

Therefore, if you are ready to do so, I now invite you to make your commitment by turning over your time and talent commitment card to us.  Hopefully you brought yours with you today.  If not, there are extras in the pew.  I’ll give you a few moments to complete them, if necessary, before inviting the ushers to come forward and collect them.  They will then be brought forward to be placed at the altar and, thus united to the sacrifice that is our hope: the sacrifice of Christ’s Body and Blood for our salvation.  If you are not ready to make your commitment today, don’t worry.  Know that you can make your commitment at any time.

May God bless you all for your openness to serve and may Mary’s prayers strengthen us to bring these good commitments to fulfillment.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – November 9^th & 10^th, 2019

Faith is the power to stand up for life

          I am indebted to the USCCB Respect Life committee for their excellent scriptural reflection for Respect Life Sunday.  I have only slightly edited their words to make it flow as a homily.  It otherwise expresses deftly and plainly the reality we face as a pro-life people and the gifts of faith and hope that we need to persevere in proclaiming the Gospel of Life.

Homily: 27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Brothers and sisters, in the first reading today we hear the voice of the prophet Habakkuk crying out to God in anguish: “How long, O Lord? I cry for help but you do not listen!”  How often do we feel that God does not hear our pleas for help?  How often do we fear that our prayers will not be answered in the manner that we desire?  The voice again cries out: “I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord.”

I imagine that each of us can relate all-too-well to this feeling today.  When we watch the news or scroll through social media, we are inundated by stories of violence against human life.  The tone of public debate and discourse disrespects the dignity of the human person.  We can often feel that misery surrounds us as abortion, assisted suicide, the death penalty, and other affronts to the dignity of the person find wide public support.

But God, as he responded to Habakkuk, responds to us with a message of hope.  We are assured that the Lord, “will not disappoint.”  And that, “the just one, because of his faith, shall live.”  While God does not promise to answer our prayers on our schedule or according to our plans, we know that He does not abandon us.  While suffering is indeed a part of our earthly life, nonetheless our destiny is to share eternal life with Christ, and this reading reminds us of this today.

In his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae (which translates to “The Gospel of Life”), Pope Saint John Paul II wrote that, “the Gospel of life is not for believers alone: it is for everyone.”  Although faith allows us to more deeply understand the sacred value of human life, the light of reason naturally endows the human conscience with the ability to recognize the dignity of each and every person, and so why does it seem that so many are ignorant of this truth?

In the responsorial psalm, we replied: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”  It seems that many in our world have indeed hardened their hearts to the truth.  They are unable to see the humanity of the child growing in his/her mother’s womb.  They incorrectly believe that a person’s value is determined by his/her abilities (or by a potential to avoid suffering in this world).  They fail to comprehend that one’s worth is not dependent on one’s age or circumstance.  And perhaps, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll see that we’ve allowed our own hearts to be hardened to the attacks against human life.  Maybe we’ve allowed the pain of loss to make our hearts numb, too.

Therefore, in a world that seems to have lost sight of the value of human life, we must pray that those whose hearts have been hardened would hear the voice of God and come to see the invaluable dignity of every person they meet.  And we must pray that our own hearts would be pierced by the suffering of the most vulnerable among us. ///

Because the world in which we live is so often hostile to the Truth, proclaiming the Gospel of Life can be difficult.  In many arenas, defense of infants’ lives, the lives of those disabled or dying, or the lives of any vulnerable human population is met with resistance.  Proclaiming the Church’s teaching on topics like abortion, assisted suicide, and the death penalty can provoke challenging and emotional responses from those who disagree.  Sometimes we may find ourselves afraid to speak up about these issues in our families, among our coworkers, or with students in our school community.  We may fear disagreement, judgement, confrontation, or misunderstanding.  But in the second reading, Saint Paul tells us that, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice.”  Rather, God has given us a spirit of “power and love”—and this spirit should cast out all of our fears.

Saint Paul also encourages us “not to be ashamed of our testimony to our Lord.”  He urges us to “bear our share of hardship for the gospel,” and reminds of our “strength that comes from God.”  Through our faith in Jesus Christ, we know that sin and death have been defeated.   We know that our identity can only be found in our Savior.  And we know that the sufferings and persecutions that we endure in our earthly life glorify God; and, thus, that we are given the strength and grace to persevere in hope.

Faith, my brothers and sisters, gives us this ability to hope.  Through it we are empowered to accomplish amazing things (like ripping up deep-rooted trees and casting them into the sea with only a word).  As a gift, however, faith is not something that we can claim as our own: it’s not something that we earn.  Rather, it is only the graciousness of God that provides it to us, for we are “unprofitable servants” who have done only what we have been obliged to do.  The example of the apostles in the Gospel, however, encourages us to ask God Himself to “increase our faith.”  If we struggle to find the courage to speak boldly about human life, we shouldn’t be ashamed: for the apostles—who themselves lived, ate, and prayed with Christ—needed God’s grace to carry out Christ’s saving mission.  Even still, we needn’t be afraid to take hold of the faith that we have been given: for if we have but “faith the size of a mustard seed,” Christ can give us the power to do incredible things in service of the Gospel.

So today, on this Respect Life Sunday, as we recommit ourselves to upholding the teachings of the Church on the inviolability of human life, may we recall that we have merely “done what we were obliged to do” as followers of Christ; and that this is no small thing, because Christ is our hope, in every season of our lives; and He, who is ever faithful to us, will not fail to snatch us from the snares of death and lead us to the victory of eternal life that He has won for us—the eternal life to which all human life is ordered—the eternal life that we experience, even now, here in this Eucharist.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – October 5^th & 6^th, 2019

Given at Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish: West Lafayette, IN – October 6^th, 2019