The Word of God is not chained

Homily: 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

“The word of God is not chained.”  Saint Paul penned these words to his protégé, Timothy, while in prison.  His point: that although the minister may be bound by chains in prison, the word, itself, is not chained and will continue to move freely about the world.  From those first years after Christ’s Ascension into heaven until nearly 1500 years later, Saint Paul’s words rang true: the word of God truly was not chained and it continued to spread throughout the world.

In the early 1500’s, however, the Church—and I speak of it here using broad strokes: it certainly wasn’t like this in every place that the Church was... which was nearly everywhere—the Church was “resting on its laurels”, it seems, and, while the word of God was still not chained, it was not finding its best witness in its ministers.  Men, therefore, rose up seeking reform.  Finding little enthusiasm in response (except in attempts to silence their voices), they broke away from the Church, hoping to reestablish the Church on its Gospel foundations.  This “protestant reformation”, as we now call it, tragic in that it caused further division among Christians (which had already been divided into “East” and “West” at the time), was, nonetheless like an “intervention” for the leaders of the Church.  The response was to propose an internal reformation, capped by the Council of Trent in the middle 1600’s.  Much more concerned about safeguarding the true identity of the Church in contrast to all of the “reform movements” from outside of the Church, the post-conciliar Church became much more insular—very much “us vs. them"—and this is the way it remained (again, speaking in broad strokes) until the middle 1900’s.

Pope John XXIII (now “Saint John XXIII”), responding to a movement of the Holy Spirit in the wake of the global catastrophes that were World War I and World War II, called for a new ecumenical council—the Second Vatican Council—with the expressed purpose of opening the Church more fully to the world once again.  In calling the Council together, he expressed his desire that there would be a “new Pentecost” in the Church, in which the doors to the cenacle (that is, the “upper room” of the first Pentecost) would again be thrown open and Christ’s followers would go out with the missionary mandate to “make disciples of all nations” once again.  Far from being a call to conform the Church to the modern world, it was, rather, a call to take the Church out into the world—to “unchain” the word of God (which, of course, had never really been chained)—so as to convert what is good in it to the purposes of building God’s kingdom, and, thus, to make more disciples of Christ.

We need no better example of the Church doing just that than the pontificate of Pope John Paul II (also now “Saint John Paul II”).  As someone who grew up under the Nazi regime in Poland and suffered under Polish Communist rule (backed, of course, by Russian communists), John Paul II experienced the threat that these ideologies posed not only to the Church, but to humankind.  Did he call the Church to turn in on itself so as to insulate itself from these threatening ideologies?  No!  Rather, he went to the front lines to engage the modern world with all the force of the Gospel.  His influence, backed by the power of the Gospel, led to the downfall of Communism in Poland, and, in a domino effect, to other places where dangerous ideologies had taken hold.  Although it may be hard to believe, next month will mark 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall!  These facts alone are evidence that, following the Second Vatican Council, the word of God had certainly been “unchained” once more.

In our day today, Pope Francis has again renewed this missionary mandate of the Council.  In his encyclical letter “Evangelium Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), he further urges us to take the Gospel out of our churches and into the streets—to those who are on the margins of society—to bring to others the “joy of the Gospel”, proving once again that the “word of God is not chained”.  Our own bishop, Bishop Doherty, chose for his episcopal motto this phrase, proving that he, too, believes in the urgency of this missionary mandate of the Council.

This truth, declared by Saint Paul, was true even before he declared it, however, as we see from our readings for today’s Mass.  In our first reading, we heard how Naaman, a high-ranking official in Syria, came to the Israelite prophet Elisha—in many ways, the only truly faithful person among the Israelites at the time—to seek a miraculous cure for his leprosy.  Generally speaking, he wouldn’t have sought recourse to a foreigner for aid, but one of his servants was a young Israelite girl who, after Naaman exhausted all of the resources in Syria looking for a cure, suggested that Naaman go to Elisha.  “The word of God” was not chained and, thus, came to Naaman through this young girl.  Having responded to it, and having been healed, Naaman was converted.  He abandoned his pagan gods to worship the one true God: the God of the Israelites.

In the Gospel reading, we heard how a group of persons suffering from leprosy call out to Jesus to ask for healing.  What great faith they had in Jesus!  When Jesus commands them to go and “show themselves to the priests”, they all believed that, through his word, they would find healing; and they did!  Only one, however, found true freedom: the Samaritan—the foreigner—who returned to glorify God and give thanks to Jesus, through whom he received healing.  True freedom, because, while the others went on to show themselves to the priests and, thus, remained under the Law, the Samaritan returned to Christ, through whom he could find fulfillment beyond the Law.  When Jesus says to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you,” he speaks the truth that, through faith in Christ, one finds true fulfillment apart from the Law.  Through this one, too, we see that “the word of God was not chained”; but rather went out to bring healing and freedom to those “outside” of the covenant with Israel and to incorporate them into Christ.

Today, this continues to ring true as we continue to welcome men and women from outside of the Church—men and women to whom the word of God has gone out and drawn to us—to become one with us as part of the Mystical Body of Christ.  Tomorrow/Today, we will formally welcome already baptized men and women who seek full communion with us in the Church and accept those who have not been baptized into the Order of Catechumens as they seek the definitive rebirth in Christ through the waters of baptism.  These persons are proof that, even in our modern times, the “word of God is not chained”.  We must, therefore, be grateful for these persons as it is proof that God is still with us and that he desires his Church to grow and blossom.

Nonetheless, we Catholics are called today to recognize that we ourselves were all once outsiders who, by God’s gracious mercy and the ministry of those around us, have now been incorporated into the true freedom of Christ.  In recognizing this, we are, thus, called to turn away from any complacency that might lead us to take this gift for granted: instead, giving ourselves more and more to an “apostolate of martyrdom”, that is, an “apostolate of giving witness”, so that this “unchained word”, might continue to go out and draw in men and women into Christ’s Mystical Body.

            My brothers and sisters, we are the lepers that have been healed by the unchained word of God that has come to us.  We (hopefully) have returned here to this altar to give thanks.  Let us, therefore, never neglect thankfulness.  For, in doing so, the word of God will remain unchained; and the kingdom of heaven—the kingdom of harmony and peace among all peoples—will be known among us.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – October 12^th & 13^th, 2019

A complete reversal

Homily: 6^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          Friends, in these (what I’m calling) “intervening weeks” between the end of the Christmas season and the beginning of Lent this coming week, we have been presented with an image of Christ who is doing something new.  In the third Sunday in Ordinary Time, we heard Jesus proclaim that the “time of fulfillment” was at hand, meaning that the third Christian age, in which the promise that God made to our first parents after their first sin would finally be realized, had now begun.  Then, in the fourth Sunday, we heard Jesus teaching in the synagogue with his own authority and how he demonstrated his authority when he drove the unclean spirit out of the man in the synagogue.  The people were amazed at this “new teaching with authority” and perhaps began to see in Jesus the one of whom Moses spoke: “A prophet like me will God raise up for you…”  Then last week, the fifth Sunday, we heard how Jesus entered the home of Simon Peter and healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (and, subsequently, hundreds of others from that town).  Although the next morning all came looking for him, Jesus refused to become a spectacle (like many “wonder-workers” of the day) and chose, instead, to leave that place to preach in other towns.  He was truly a “new prophet” and could not be contained to any one place.

          This week, we read a story of reversal.  In our first reading, we listened to the words of the Book of Leviticus, detailing what someone with an ailment of the skin must do.  Here we see a microcosm, if you will, of the Fall.  In the Garden of Eden, our first parents sin and so are marked with death.  God, however, is life and death cannot dwell in the presence of God.  Therefore, Adam and Eve are driven from the Garden and cannot reenter until they have been cleansed from this “stain” of death.  Leprosy (which, in the Old Testament, was a “blanket” term for those with various skin ailments that included, but was not limited to, what we now call “Hansen’s disease”), to the people of ancient times, was an outward sign that death was touching a person.  Anyone marked in such a way could not enter the temple—the place of encounter with God—to offer worship.  Thus, the person also became a threat to anyone who wasn’t so marked and wanted to enter the temple to worship.  Thus, the leper had to stay separated and declare himself “unclean”, lest others be "infected" with death, too.  And, just like with Adam and Eve, who couldn’t cleanse themselves of the sin that caused death to touch them, so too the leper didn’t have any way to cleanse the skin ailment on his own.  He simply had to pray that it would clear up so that he could be restored to the worshiping community.  For a first century Jew, this was just the way the world worked.

          In the Gospel, we then hear the story of reversal.  First, the man approaches Jesus (a bold move for one who was supposed to keep himself at a distance!).  He pleads with Jesus and Jesus does the unthinkable: he touches him!  But, instead of the uncleanness coming out of the leper and going into Jesus, what happens?  Cleanness goes out from Jesus and into the leper: a complete reversal!  And how do we know?  Because, as the scripture says, “the leprosy left the man immediately, and he was made clean”.  After, Jesus tells the man not to make a big deal out of it—in other words, that he no longer has to “shout out” about himself—but what does the man do?  He immediately goes and tells everyone he meets.  No one went around shouting “I am clean”, because it wasn’t necessary.  But this man does so voluntarily, reversing his obligation to declare himself unclean.  Finally, while the man can now reenter the town and join the worshiping community, we see that Jesus cannot!  But is he really excluded?  No!  Because, instead of everyone staying away from the ones outside of town, they all come out to him!  The presence of Jesus causes each of them to recognize that they are "unclean", in some way, and that they have been unable to become "clean" through their own efforts.  Thus, they "separate" themselves from the town (and, thus, the worshiping community) so as to meet Jesus and to be made clean.  And so we see that Jesus takes our helpless story and he reverses it: proving once again that the “time of fulfillment” has, indeed, come.

          If we stop and pay attention for just a moment, we see that this is us!  So much hullabaloo is being made about "identity politics" and ending oppression of "marginalized groups" (based, for example, on race, gender (actual or otherwise), sexual attraction, socioeconomic status, etc.).  The fact of the matter is that we're all oppressed in some way: that is, we all have some kind of leprosy that alienates us in some way.  Take a hard look!  We're all messed up in a lot of ways!  And none of us is capable on our own making ourselves clean.  Thus, the good news that we hear today.  Look at what Jesus did to the leper!  He completely reversed everything that pushed him away.  And how?  By his own divine power, of course.  But what actuated that power?  The man embracing his leprosy and taking a bold step to overcome it.  This man saw his “oppressed” state, but refused to remain a victim and approached Jesus.  And through Jesus, his “oppression” was overcome.

          This, therefore, is the message for our day: stop acting like a victim and try to do something to make it better.  (This isn't a good bumper sticker slogan, I know, but it's darn practical!)  Recognize that you're a mess, yes.  Recognize that you're a mess because life is hard and full of suffering, yes; but also because you've given in to the victim mentality and haven't made good choices.  Then recognize that there is something that you can do about it and start to do it.  Come to Jesus and submit yourself to his will, like the leper from the Gospel reading: "If you will, you can make me clean".  Then ACT!  If there is anything disordered in your life (of which you are the cause), start to put it in order.  Most of us have a God-ordered path for our lives (marriage, parenthood, etc.).  If you don't, you're probably not here.  If you don't and you are here, then your first job is to get yourself on a God-ordered path.  But if you are on your God-ordered path, then look at what disrupts your journey on that path and start to get it out of your life.  For example: almost anything produced by Hollywood, social media (the source of gossip and narcissism!), 24-hour news programming, etc.  You won't fix everything—there's still suffering that just happens in the world—but at least you'll have mitigated a lot of the self-inflicted suffering, right?

          And why all of this?  Because there are real victims out there—that is, those whose suffering is severe and not self-inflicted—and they need real help.  But we help no one when we sit around wallowing in our own victimhood, saying "well, I can't because of x, y, and z."  Well, yes, maybe "x, y, and z", but you can do something.  Whatever that is, you need to do it.  Even if that's just to shout out about it.

          Friends, in Jesus, our long exile has been reversed.  Everything that kept us separate from God is flipped on its head and redeemed.  But if we don't act, we'll never fully realize it.  The first act is to believe: to believe in the power of Christ to flip it over.  And so today, as you approach the Eucharist (whether or not you are able to receive it), pray, before you receive it (or before you present yourself before it); "Jesus, if you will, you can make me clean"; because, I assure you, he does will it.  Receive, then, his healing; and go forth telling everyone how Jesus made you clean and put your life back in order so as to make life's sufferings a little more bearable for you and, thus, for those around you.  Then we will begin to see more clearly the truth that Jesus proclaimed: that this truly is the time of fulfillment.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – February 10^th & 11^th, 2018

Conversion to a life of thankfulness

Homily: 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          There’s one of those “make you think” quotes that runs around on the internet and in social media and which lands in front of me every once in a while.  It asks a very important question that is intended to inspire you to change your attitude for the better.  It asks this: “What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things that you were thankful for today?”  (REPEAT)

          Anyone who has lost a loved one suddenly to an accident or a sudden illness can probably tell you of the regret they sometimes feel that they didn’t appreciate more the time that they had with that person.  When a fire destroys a family’s house and all their personal possessions, they too start to realize what a gift it was to have what they had, even though they weren’t always very thankful for it.  None of us, if we are paying attention to the news, can imagine what it must be like for the people of southwestern Haiti as entire villages and towns and hundreds of lives were swept away by Hurricane Matthew.  In their grief is an inherent acknowledgement that all that they had and have now lost was a gift; and they are thankful for the very fact that they are still alive.

          The question, therefore, is inviting us to realize the truth that anyone who has experienced any of these things can tell us is true: that it is better to appreciate the things that you have, while you have them, because tomorrow they could all be taken away from you.

          Our scriptures today speak of the type of conversion to thankfulness that this internet question seeks to inspire.  Naaman, a high-ranking Syrian official (and, thus, who wasn’t a member of the Israelite people) has been afflicted with a type of skin disease that people in the Ancient Near East simply referred to as “leprosy”.  This was devastating to him as this meant that he would be ostracized from public society for fear of infecting others.  At the prompting of a young Jewish servant, Naaman seeks out the prophet Elisha, hoping to find a cure.

          Elisha instructs Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan River.  Naaman resists, at first, thinking that if all he had to do was wash seven times in a river, that he could have done that from home.  Encouraged by his companions, however, Naaman agrees to Elisha’s plan: accepting that there is something special about washing in the Jordon River, specifically.

          Today we heard that Naaman, after washing in the Jordon, which cleansed him of his leprosy, returned to offer Elisha a gift of thanksgiving.  Naaman was a high-ranking official in another nation and in the culture of that time was not required to return and offer the prophet anything.  Because he had seemingly lost everything, however, he was much keener to be thankful for having something that was very important to him restored to him.  And when Elisha declined his generous gift, Naaman asked if he could take two big piles of dirt back with him to Syria so that he could offer continual thanks to Yahweh, the God of Israel, on the very same ground on which he first encountered him.  Having been saved from losing nearly everything, Naaman converted his life to thankfulness.

          In the Gospel, ten men who had been afflicted with leprosy cry out to Jesus to ask for healing.  Similar to Elisha, Jesus instructs them to do something very simple: “go show yourselves to the priests”.  In faith, they respond and, as they go to show themselves to the priests, they find that they have been healed.  Certainly every one of them was appreciative of the fact that their health had been restored to them.  Only one, however, returned to give thanks.  This one, a Samaritan (who were despised by the Jews because they were “half-breeds” of both Jewish and non-Jewish ancestry), recognized the great gift that he had received and returned to give thanks to the giver of the gift.  Acknowledging that he had been saved through no effort of his own, he converted his life to thankfulness.

          When we recognize something that we have as being a gift—that is, as something that we didn’t earn and were incapable of earning—then we are much more apt to be thankful for it.  When we’ve worked for something and have achieved or acquired it, we tend to look at it as our just due.  Thus, although we certainly enjoy what we have earned, we are much less likely to be grateful for having it.  When we lose such a thing, we tend to be angry, as if a great injustice has been committed against us.  In other words, our reaction is not a residual thankfulness for having been able to enjoy whatever it was, but rather anger bred from a greediness that only desires to enjoy it more.  Now, while we should never be content with injustice, conversion to a life of thankfulness means that, even when we’ve lost something unjustly, we acknowledge the gift that it was to have had it and so give thanks.

          As your pastor I feel like it is my duty to remind you of the reason that we come here week after week.  Many Catholics, I fear, would limit their reasoning for coming to Mass to a sense of duty: to fulfill their “Sunday Obligation”.  This, although noble in itself, is limited and, frankly, unsatisfying.  My reminder to you is that we don’t come here to celebrate the “Holy Satisfaction of our Obligation”, but rather we come here to celebrate the “Holy Eucharist”—that is, the Holy Thanksgiving.  In other words, we come here not to try to satisfy a vengeful God so that he won’t strike us down, but rather to offer him the ultimate sacrifice of thanksgiving for all of the blessings of life (including the blessing of life) that we have enjoyed in the past week.  In it we receive many things, of course, but the core reason we come is to offer God worship and praise in thanksgiving of all of the abundant gifts that he bestows upon us.

          And so, the question comes to us again: “What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things that you were thankful for today?”  My brothers and sisters, if you are worried that right now you wouldn’t wake up with much, then today is the day to take action.  Starting today, if we aren’t already doing it, let us commit ourselves to taking time to give thanks for every good thing that we’ve received in the world.  Then, each week, as we return here to give thanks to God for all of these gifts, we’ll be ready to drop in the collection basket all of the blessings (and even the struggles) for which we are thankful so as to unite them to the sacrifice of thanksgiving that we offer on the altar: the perfect sacrifice of Jesus that won for us the greatest gift ever, our salvation and the gift of eternal life.  In doing so, we will not only find greater satisfaction and joy in our lives, but we will also prepare ourselves for the fullness of joy that awaits us in heaven.  May God’s grace strengthen us as we commend ourselves to this good work.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – October 8^th & 9^th, 2016

The power of a human touch

          Sometimes the healing we need is not just physical, but emotional as well.  Only the loving touch of a fellow person can bring healing of the emotional pain that sometimes afflicts us.  As Lent approaches, may we allow Jesus' touch to bring us healing for all the ways that sin has hurt us.

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Homily: 6^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          One of the most indispensible parts, it seems, of any intimate relationship is touch.  Parents touch their children regularly in order to show them their care and affection.  A husband and wife will hug and kiss each other when they are coming and going or when they get up in the morning or go to bed at night, and various other times in between.  Children who are best friends will walk side by side each other with an arm around the other’s shoulder (“they’re ‘joined at the hip’” is the common expression).  Grown men, sometimes less comfortable with more sensitive expressions of intimacy, will often slap their friends on the shoulder as a sign of camaraderie.  And for young couples, holding hands is often the first expression of a growing affection.  From the opposite standpoint, turning away from touch is often an indicator that intimacy has been broken or damaged, such as when a husband or a wife gives their spouse the “cold shoulder.”

          As a matter of fact, in the Catholic Church we know this very well.  We ritualize the intimacy of human touch in the sacraments, most poignantly in the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  February 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, is designated in the Church as the “World Day for the Sick,” in which we remind ourselves of the special place that care for the sick and dying holds in the life of the Church.  And in the Church’s sacrament for the sick, which is meant to be a spiritual strengthening for “one who has begun to be in danger of death due to sickness or old age,” human touch plays a prominent role, in the laying on of hands and the anointing with oil.  And so again we see that, for humans, touch is important.

          In the first reading today, we heard the instructions given to Moses and Aaron regarding how to handle a person afflicted with leprosy inside of the community. The ancient Hebrews, like any closely knit community, were deeply concerned with maintaining the purity and health of their community.  And so, whenever someone in the community became afflicted with an exteriorly visible sickness—such as the sores that appear on the skin when one is afflicted with leprosy—this person was obligated to separate themselves from the community so as to avoid spreading the disease (because they didn’t understand how this person became afflicted with it and, thus, how it might be spread to another) and so maintain the purity of the community.  Thus, the segregation of lepers was intended to ensure that the rest of the community was kept safe from defilement through contact with them.  As a result, the physical suffering of the leprous person was compounded by an emotional suffering as he or she was literally cut off from all human touch, and, thus, intimacy, for fear of making others sick and “unclean”.

          One only needs to look at the crisis of the Ebola epidemic in western Africa to see a modern example of this.  In this case, we are all well aware of the highly communicable nature of the Ebola virus and thus impose strict segregation on those afflicted with it.  We can all perhaps imagine how depressing it would be not only to be afflicted with a life-threatening illness, but then to endure weeks in which your only human contact is through doctors and medical staff covered head to toe in protective garments for fear of making “flesh-to-flesh” contact with your body.  If you can imagine that, then you will have a sense of what it was like to be afflicted with leprosy among the ancient Hebrews.

          In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, we find a leper who was so moved by faith in Christ’s power to heal him that he completely disregarded the rules regarding the segregation of lepers and approached Jesus in order to beg him for healing.  Jesus knew well the purity laws and what he would have to go through if he touched this man (just think of the reports of what health care workers had to go through if they came into direct contact with an Ebola patient).  He also knew that he would not have to touch this man in order to heal him of his leprosy.  He knew that a simple word would affect the cure.  Yet, he saw more than a physical ailment in this man.  He saw the emotional suffering of shame and humiliation that comes from being cut off from one’s community and he knew that more than just a word was needed to make him whole again.  Thus, the Gospel tells us that Jesus was “moved with pity” and that he first touched the man before he pronounced his words of healing.  No, it wasn’t the touch that healed the man of his leprosy, Christ’s word alone was sufficient.  It was the touch, however, that made him feel human, connected again with the community that was his life.

          Of course it’s easy to see modern day examples of leprosy in our own society.  I’ve already mentioned the situation of those afflicted with Ebola and it doesn’t end there.  We simply need to look around at those who have been marginalized and pushed “outside the camp” of our daily living so as not to defile our efforts to live a “pure” life.  It also would be easy to remind ourselves of our duty to respond to these individuals as Jesus did by reaching out to them, touching them, helping them to find healing, and inviting them to join the community once again.  What is not so easy for us is to look inwardly, at ourselves, in order to discover the spiritual leprosy of sin that afflicts each of us.

          St. Bede, in commenting on this passage, has said: “This man prostrated himself on the ground, as a sign of humility and shame, to teach each of us to be ashamed of the stains of his [or her own] life.  But shame should not prevent us from confessing: the leper showed his wound and begged for healing.”  St. Terese of Liseux has said that shame for our sins should never prevent us from reaching out to Jesus.  In fact, she has said, our increasing awareness of and shame for our sins should make us reach out all the more desperately to him, because the more that we acknowledge our sinfulness, the more that we openly show our wounds to Jesus, the more, in a sense, attractive we are to him, to his mercy, and thus he is more moved to touch us and to heal us.

          My brothers and sisters, the trick to living the Christian life is not just in reaching out to the marginalized in our society, the modern-day lepers with “outward” afflictions, which we must do.  Rather, the trick is being able to first recognize our own afflictions, our own leprosy, and having the courage—or rather the faith—to throw ourselves down before God, before Jesus, and beg for his mercy.

          As his Body, the Church, Jesus wants us to be his hands in this world, bringing his healing touch to those who need it.  He wants his hands to be pure, however.  And so, as we seek to extend Christ’s ministry of mercy to those around us, let us acknowledge also our need for healing and thus seek out the sacrament of reconciliation, so that we might be truly open to share each other’s burdens.  And finally, my brothers and sisters, let us give thanks, as we do here today, for Christ’s saving mercy, so that we may go forth from this place making known the good things he has done for us.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – February 15, 2015