A Cubs championship and eternal things

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

          Well, it’s the beginning of November and so you know what that means, right?  Yep, the Christmas assault has begun.  And it’s the first Sunday of November so that also means that we have two more full days before our national election finally takes place and we can end at least one of these assaults on our consciousness.  For us as Catholics the beginning of November also indicates that we are approaching the end of the Liturgical Year.  As we do so, our readings make a shift from focusing on the nuts and bolts of discipleship and onto considerations about the end of time.

          This week, the focus is on the reality of the resurrection of the dead.  This is an important consideration, of course, but not only because of what we believe about Jesus (Saint Paul has said that “if there is no resurrection from the dead, then Jesus Christ is still dead and our faith is useless”), but also because it means something about how we live our lives before we die.  Our first reading illustrates this for us nicely.

          In our first reading today, 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 get them to 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 the strength of their faith 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 that, 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: if there’s no resurrection, eat pork and enjoy your life, while you have it; if there is a resurrection, then we ought to conform to the laws and commandments of 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.  Eternity, I think, can be a very hard thing to imagine, however.  Fr. Larry Richards, who is a parish priest from Erie, Pennsylvania and who travels to speak nationally, has one of the best illustrations about length of time which is eternity and he describes it in this way: 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, 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.

          Those of you who have gotten to know me a bit know that, even though I grew up in (what is now) the far south-west suburbs of Chicago, I’ve always been a “north-sider” at heart.  Thus, you can imagine (and, perhaps, many of you share) my joy that the Cubs finally won a championship after so many years of heartache.  As I reflected on how they won this championship, I began to see a connection in this celebration (and what it took to get there) and our lives a Christians.

          In order to win the World Series, this year’s Cubs team had to battle hard.  Even though they ended the season with the best record in baseball, they still had to fight, day-in and day-out, in order to stay on top.  Then, in the Series itself, they had to battle from behind and win three straight games in order to spark the celebration that would fill them and their many millions of fans with inconceivable joy.  Very often the Christian life is no different.

          When someone acknowledges that the resurrection of the dead is, indeed, real and thus that how they live in this life determines how they will spend eternal life, then he or she begins to see this life as a battle and thus begins to fight, day-in and day-out, in order to win the prize of eternal life in heaven.  Because of our fallen nature, he or she will occasionally have to battle from behind; but nothing will deter him or her as he or she seeks to accomplish this goal: to experience the joy of entering into heaven for all eternity—a joy of which we got a glimpse when we saw the incredible joy of both the Cubs and their fans when they won the championship.

          My brothers and sisters, if we are not living this life as if it is a battle for how we will live after the resurrection of the dead—in holy fear of the one who will raise us from the dead—then we can have little hope both of accomplishing that goal and of experiencing the joy that comes when we accomplish it.  Therefore, we must engage the battle if we hope also to experience the victory.

          Perhaps many of you have heard my prophesy that when the Cubs finally win the world series it will be a sign that Jesus is coming back and that the world is coming to an end.  The jury’s still out on whether or not my prophesy is true (though, if you ask Fr. Clayton, he’ll tell you that he thinks that it is true, but that we have to wait until after Tuesday to find out exactly how it’s going to happen).  Nevertheless, it should, along with the readings that we will be hearing over these next few weeks, invite us to consider once again whether we are fighting to win the battle against the world or if we are, in fact, colluding with it: so that we might change our actions accordingly and fight so as to be ready to enjoy the victory when the fulfillment of God’s promise of resurrection comes to us.

          My brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, is the first fruit of that victory.  As we offer back to God this victory that Jesus won for us, let us ask for the grace to keep up the good fight and thus prepare ourselves to enjoy the spoils of his victory: eternal life with him in heaven.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – November 6^th, 2016

Eternity became visible

          Merry Christmas to all of you.  May the joy of the birth of Jesus, Our Savior, fill your hearts and homes throughout this holy season.

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Homily: The Nativity of the Lord (Vigil)

          It was the fall of 2008 when I sat down to the first session of my Early Church History class at Saint Meinrad (which is the seminary I attended).  In shuffles a rather elderly monk: thin, nearly swimming in his black habit, slightly bent over, a few wisps of gray-white hair still on his head (and on his beard, for that matter), thick glasses, a few books in his hand and a gentle smile on his face.  He set his books on the desk and arranged a few papers on the podium (his notes for class, I assumed) and checked his watch to see that it was time to start class.  He began with a simple prayer asking for God’s wisdom to be with us (Fr. Cyprian’s prayers always felt sincere, never contrived, which revealed a deep, heartfelt spirituality).  Then he looked out at us and said: “History is about making dead skulls talk.”

          Of course, the joke is that Fr. Cyprian teaches Early Church History because he is old enough to have been there to experience it himself; but the truth is that he has a deep love of history—not dates and names, but the true human drama that took place at those times and places—and he loves sharing that experience with others.  If Fr. Cyprian was here today to tell us about this great feast that we are celebrating today, I’d imagine that he’d begin in this way:

“Today, we are celebrating a birthday.  And not just any birthday; but rather the birthday of a king: a king who needs no pedigree of his own but who nonetheless shares one with the ancient people of Israel.  He was born into a peasant family—the son of a carpenter and a poor Jewish girl—but his birth was heralded by nothing less than the full army of heaven’s angels.  Yes, my friends, today we celebrate a day unlike any other: a day in which God made history.”

As you might imagine, I did quite well in his class and I learned from it a love of history.  In his spirit, I think that there are three things that we who are here to celebrate this feast should take away with us today.

          First, we must acknowledge that with the birth of Christ something definitive has happened in history.  The birth of Jesus, the Son of God Most High who took on the nature of a human being without diminishing any of his divinity, is most definitely something new.  Even though we did not read through the genealogy of Jesus, which was an option for today’s Mass (and trust me no one here is more grateful for that than Father Eder over there), one can quickly look at it and see that the birth of Jesus marks something new in history.  After forty-two generations of recounting that so-and-so was the father of so-and-so, and he the father of the next one, Matthew arrives at Jesus and says “Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.  Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.”  Jesus is the only one on that long list whose biological father is not named.  This was definitely something new.

          Then Matthew recounts how the birth of Jesus comes about.  Joseph, who, I’m sure, would have never thought that he would amount to anything more than a small-town carpenter, and who probably never aspired for anything more than to have decent work, start a family, and to leave a patrimony for his children, suddenly finds that his virgin wife has conceived a child.  He can only assume the worst.  As righteous man, he knew he had to divorce his wife (for that is what Jewish law demanded); but apparently he was also a caring man and so he decided to divorce her quietly, so as to keep her from shame.  His dreams, however, began to crumble.  That’s when the angel revealed a new dream.

          Now, I don’t know what my reaction to this dream would have been, but I can assure you that “when he awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him” would not have been one of the options!  I mean who ever heard of a virgin conceiving a child without having relations with a man?  That’s just crazy, right?  Perhaps it was the prophecy that the angel quoted: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”  Isaiah prophesied this to the Judean king Ahaz—one of those kings named in Jesus’ genealogy.  Perhaps Joseph remembered this prophecy and thus, even though he was surprised by its fulfillment, he could have the courage to believe the angel’s message.  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his book about the infancy narratives of Jesus, wrote that the idea of the Messiah was not yet part of the Jewish religious mindset when Isaiah prophesied this to king Ahaz and so what he did was he formed a keyhole whose key had not yet been made.  Over six-hundred years later, Jesus became that key.

          This, of course, was something new: something that could only happen by God, something that would change the course of history forever.  In fact, it is bigger than history itself.  The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar once wrote: “Christmas is not an event within history but is rather the invasion of time by eternity.”  This—that something definitive happened at the birth of Jesus—is the first and most important point.

          The second thing that we should take with us today is that this “invasion of time by eternity” is a gift; and it is a gift for all peoples.  In today’s second reading we heard Paul speaking to the congregation in the synagogue in Antioch and addressing not just the Israelites but all who were present (even the Gentile believers, who were called “God-fearers”).  There is no discrimination here.  The Son of God took on human nature to bring salvation—that is, redemption, hope for a life without suffering, and help in the midst of suffering—to everyone: to you, to me, to everyone here and to everyone who is not here.  Jesus is the common ground where everyone, regardless of background, can meet and see in each other a brother, a sister, a friend.

          The third thing is that the receiving of this gift forms those who receive it into a community.  When any one of us looks upon the child of Bethlehem lying in a manger and sees in him—even if only dimly—eternity somehow present in time and accepts it in faith, that one becomes united to every other person who has ever accepted this same truth into their hearts.  We become a community distinguished by this belief who live by this belief and thus become the privileged place of encounter with Emmanuel, God with us.  Therefore, our acceptance can never be partial.  We can never say, “Oh, I like to celebrate Christmas, but I don’t believe that Jesus was truly God made man.”  This is empty!  It is the beautifully wrapped gift box that has nothing inside.  It is a promise of some joy that ultimately goes unfulfilled.  Either you receive the gift, and become one with the community of believers, or you refuse to receive it, and remain outside of it.

          My brothers and sisters, as we celebrate this great day—the day the Word made Flesh became visible to us—let us remember that something new has happened, something that changed history completely; and that it is a gift to us, a gift that still has the power to change our history, too.  And let us remember that when we receive that gift we receive with it a community of brothers and sisters who share in our joy and who long for the day of ultimate fulfillment when Christ returns.

          Today, eternity was made visible to us.  Here in this Eucharist we come face to face with it once again.  And so, to all of us who have received the gift of faith in the Christ-child I say “come, let us adore him.”

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 24^th, 2014

God notices the smallest

          Although it may not seem like it on the surface, today's readings give us an invitation to put God's care for us into perspective and to let ourselves get lost in wonder at his graciousness to us.  None of us is so small that God doesn't care for us!  If we would only strive to see him, he will not fail to notice us!

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Homily: 31^st Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          My brothers and sisters, today our readings invite us, I think, to consider the eternal nature of God.  Now, because we are creatures who exist in time, it’s hard for us to consider what a timeless existence might look like, but that is exactly what God is and so for us to be able to know him, we must at least strive to comprehend it.  To try and put this into perspective for us, I’ll share with you what I consider the best description of eternity that I’ve heard so far.

          Imagine that you are standing on a beach in front of an ocean.  Then imagine that you pick up one grain of sand and start walking.  Your task is to carry that grain of sand from the beach to the top of Mount Everest and when you get there, to leave that grain of sand at its peak.  Then your task is to return to that beach, pick up another grain of sand, and place it, along with the other, at the peak of Mount Everest.  You task, in fact is to do that with every grain of sand on earth: from every beach, every ocean bed, and every sand box in the world; one by one from wherever you find it to the top of Mount Everest.  Now imagine that every step that you take takes ten thousand years to make.  And so here you are, taking every grain of sand on the earth and moving it, ten thousand years each step, to the top of Mount Everest.  And when you’re finished—billions of years later—eternity will have just begun.

          In our first reading today from the Book of Wisdom, we read that “Before the LORD the whole universe is a grain from a balance or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth.”  In other words, just as billions of years are as but one moment in eternity, so is the whole universe—vast and incomprehensible in size—but as an insignificant amount of weight in a balance or an unnoticeable drop of moisture on the earth.  Yet, it goes on to say, nothing that happens in this universe—no grain falling from a balance or drop of dew falling to the earth—goes unnoticed by God.  Still more, it says that God not only notices every little thing, but that he also looks upon all of it with mercy, which reveals to us something important about God and our relationship to him.

          Sometimes, I think, we can separate God who created the universe from God who rules it.  When we do this, God who created the universe looked upon everything and saw that it was “very good”, but God who rules it does so like some beleaguered manager trying to make something positive out of a mess and who would rather scrap it all and start over than try to fix it.  Fortunately for us, this latter description of God is a distortion of the truth; because God who created the universe (and all that is in it) out of love is also God who rules the universe (and all that is in it) in love.  And since God is Love, then mercy must be the rule with which God rules.

          Man (i.e. the human person), by God’s special design and providence, was the only creature that God had made for himself.  All of the rest of creation was made to serve man, but man was made for no one else but God to be the one creature destined for an intimate, personal relationship with him.  So strong is God’s desire for this in creating man that, even when man sinned, God did not abandon man to death, but rather he set into motion the plan to redeem him so that man might once again achieve his destiny.  As the words from the Book of Wisdom remind us: “But you have mercy on all, because you can do all things; and you overlook people’s sins that they may repent.  For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made…”

          To show us this most perfectly, God sent his Only Son, Jesus, to reveal to us that he indeed had not forgotten us among the vastness of the universe; and in our Gospel reading today, we see a bit of a microcosm of this reality being played out.

          In the Gospel reading, Jesus has come to Jericho, a town deep in a valley between the river Jordan and Jerusalem.  It was kind of a seedy town where crime was rampant and so most travelers just passed through, hoping to make it through without getting robbed.  Nonetheless, Jesus, the Son of God, comes to this town, the lowest place within the Promised Land: which is nothing less than an image of God’s lowering himself to come among us.  Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector (which, by the way, also made him the chief of those despised by the people) and he was very short.  He wanted to get a glimpse of Jesus, but he couldn’t because he felt lost among the crowd.  And so he climbed a tree just hoping to see this Jesus that everyone was talking about.  How surprised he must have been, then, when Jesus noticed him, called him by name, and then invited himself to his house for dinner!

          Zacchaeus felt small and insignificant in the midst of the mass of creation that surrounded him.  Yet, when he made an effort just to see Jesus—Emmanuel, God who is with us—Jesus not only noticed him, but he called out to him and wanted to be known personally by him.

          Then the people accuse Zacchaeus before the LORD, saying that “[Jesus] has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.”  What an image of judgment day this is, isn’t it?  Zacchaeus stands before the Son of God and is accused of his sins.  Confident in God’s mercy, however, he stands before him and says, in effect, “I stand ready to receive your just judgment.  To demonstrate this, I promise before anything else, to give half my possessions to the poor; and if you should find that I have extorted anything from anyone, I promise I shall repay that one four times over.”  And for this act of faith in the one who judges justly, Zacchaeus receives salvation from the one who alone could give it.

          My brothers and sisters, this is the core of the Christian message!  That we, who are seemingly small and insignificant in respect to the vast universe, are nonetheless looked upon with mercy and love by our creator who made us for himself; so much so that he became one of us by sending us his Son to save us and to show us the way back to himself.  And if we are rebuked a little—that is, if we suffer some in this world—it is not because the God who rules the universe is some mean-spirited, vengeful God who wants to punish us, but rather, as the author of the Book of Wisdom states, it is “to remind us of our sins so that we may abandon our wickedness and believe in him”, Jesus, our Lord, who alone can save us!

          And so, my brothers and sisters, let us not be fooled into believing the lie that the all-powerful God, the God who created us and all of the universe, wants nothing to do with us, but lies in wait to punish us for our sins.  Rather, let us, like Zacchaeus, rush to be seen by him, trusting that God’s justice is always tempered by mercy for those who hide nothing from him: for the God of all the universe—the God of eternity—will not fail to notice us; and salvation, the salvation won for us through Jesus, will today be ours.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – November 2^nd & 3^rd, 2013