Your chance to meet the King

Homily: 34^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

          Saint Theresa of Calcutta, as most of us know, spent over 50 years serving the dying poor in the slums of Calcutta, India.  She had felt a special “call within her call” to religious life, as she would call it, to attend to those who were dying and poor that she (and the sisters that she eventually gathered around her) would find on the streets of Calcutta.  For the most part, the people for whom she and her sisters cared had no chance of recovery and survival.  That wasn’t Mother Theresa’s purpose, though.  Her call was to acknowledge their human dignity and to make them feel loved and cared for in their dying days.

          Over the years that she completed this service, many asked Mother Theresa, “How do you do it?”  In other words, “How is it possible for you to spend all of your days ministering to people who are physically filthy (because they haven’t bathed in a long time), while breathing intense body odor, dressing open sores and wounds, cleaning fecal matter and throw up, while living in a place with relatively poor sanitation and even poorer ventilation?”  Mother’s answer was always five simple words (which she would count off using the fingers of her hand): “You. Did. It. To. Me.”

          For Mother Theresa, it was her love of Jesus, and Jesus’ promise that he made to his disciples in the judgment parable that we heard in our Gospel reading today, that impelled her on.  For her, Jesus’ judgment warning wasn’t so much of a threat (that is, “look at how you will be punished if fail to do this!”), but rather an amazing opportunity promised to her.  When she read, “whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me”, she saw her chance to meet Jesus, for whom she had fostered and intense love, in the flesh of the poor ones whom she met in the streets of the slums of Calcutta.  In other words, in this phrase, Mother Theresa found the way to order her life rightly so as to demonstrate her love for Jesus in the most intense way.

          Friends, it is true that this passage of Matthew’s Gospel is a depiction of the final judgment.  If we view it only as a fearful thing, however—that is, as something over which we have no control—then we fail to see the beautiful instruction that Jesus gives to us within it.  You see, in telling us how we are going to be judged, Jesus is giving us a clue as to how we are to order our lives rightly.  In effect, Jesus is saying: “If you love me and you wish to serve me, here’s how you do it.”  And what is that way?  To do works of mercy to all those around you.  In doing this, that is, in instructing us in this way, Jesus is demonstrating that he is shepherding his people, just as he promised to do through the prophet Ezekiel centuries before.

          In our first reading, we heard this prophesy from the prophet Ezekiel in which God says that he, himself, will come to tend his sheep.  He is saying this because the shepherds whom he had appointed for his people—that is, the rulers who had followed in the line of King David, the original “shepherd king”—had failed to shepherd his people rightly, which led God to remove his protection from them, which then led to their being conquered by the Babylonians and forced into exile from their land.  This prophesy, then, is a promise that God himself will come and shepherd his people once again and lead them back into their land.  More importantly, however, he promises to lead them into rightly ordered lives, by which they will enjoy God’s friendship for all eternity.

          Today, therefore, as we celebrate this feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, we see that what we celebrate is Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd King—not just of one people at one place in time, but of the whole universe—whom God sent to save us from our exile in sin and to shepherd us into rightly ordered living so that we might enter into God’s friendship for eternity.  As King—especially as a King who has shown us such great benevolence by taking on our human nature so that he might suffer all of the effects of our sinfulness (including, and especially, death!) in order to save us from sin and death—he expects that we will serve him and offer to him works that demonstrate our gratefulness for this grace that we have been given.  Even more so, however, our King expects that our works would not be done out of duty alone, but also out of our love for him who has already demonstrated his love so generously for us.  This latter expectation is what Mother Theresa clung to so strongly in her life and in her work: She loved Jesus so much that she delighted in demonstrating her love for him by performing these extraordinary acts of mercy for those “least brothers” of his.

          My brothers and sisters, Jesus is our great Shepherd King and he longs to shepherd us into his kingdom of eternal life and peace.  And so, how do we allow him to shepherd us?  Well, it would be easy for me to say “by doing the works of mercy”.  Perhaps, however, I can offer an even more practical method: what if we simply tried to be less selfish every day?  You know, if we all tried to be a little less selfish every day (and, therefore, more giving to others), then, before we know it, we’d look a lot more like Mother Theresa.  All it takes is a choice—and it is a choice that we’ll have to make every day—but when we do, we begin to let Jesus shepherd us.  And when Jesus shepherds us, then our lives begin to become rightly re-ordered.  And when our lives begin to be rightly re-ordered, then our world will begin to be rightly re-ordered.  And when our world becomes rightly re-ordered, then what else is that but the kingdom of God among us.  And what more could we want than to have the kingdom of God among us?  Once we experience that, then we have nothing else to wait for than the coming of our Shepherd King, Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, so that death, the final enemy will be destroyed and we will be given back to God to live in the eternal joy of heaven.

          You probably didn’t think that being a little less selfish today could bring about heaven did you?  But it’s true!  Choose heaven today, therefore, by choosing to be less-selfish and you will be choosing eternal life: the shepherding of our King, Jesus Christ—the very same King who we meet here at this altar.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – November 25^th & 26^th, 2017

Sometimes forgotten sins of omission

Homily: 26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          One of the blessed parts of the ministry with which I have been entrusted here is to hear confessions.  Blessed because I get to be God’s instrument of healing for your souls when, because of sin, they have been hurt.  It’s not always the most pleasant experience, however.  In fact, sometimes it can be downright frustrating!  One of the frustrating things that happens more than it should is when a person comes in and forgets whose sins it is that he or she is supposed to be confessing.  If you’re one of those people, please let me make it clear for you now: when you come to confession, you are to confess only YOUR sins, not somebody else’s!  Generally speaking, however, folks do focus on their own sins: those things that they have done which they acknowledge have offended God and hurt their neighbor in some way.

          Nonetheless, in recent months, I've begun to notice that there seems to be something missing in the majority of confessions that I hear.  You see, most of the sins that people confess to me are for things that they have done: that is, for offenses that they have committed.  What I’ve noticed, however, is that I rarely hear people confess the sin of not doing something that they should have done.  In other words, not a lot of people are confessing sins of omission.

          Sins of omission are good things that we fail to do when it was in our power to do them.  If we take a look at our world, we quickly realize that, yes, there are a lot of people committing grave sins every day.  Certainly, however, we can also acknowledge that there are a lot of people failing to do the good that they are capable of doing.  This, I would argue, creates a vacuum—an empty space—in which more sinful acts can be committed.  Thus, the fact that I rarely hear people confessing sins of omission means that there isn't a strong awareness among people that these are, in fact, sins (or offenses against God) and , thus, that these are "confessional material".

          Our scriptures today remind us, however, that it isn't enough simply to avoid evil, but rather that we also must actively pursue the good.  In the first reading from the prophet Amos, we hear him declare “woe to the complacent in Zion”, meaning that very dreadful things were about to take place for the people of the southern kingdom of Judah because of the extravagance with which they dine at their banquets, even while their kinsmen (the people of the northern kingdom of Israel) are suffering from the disintegration of their society.  He tells them that, because they have ignored their kinsmen in need, even though they had the resources to do something, they, in fact, will be the first to suffer when the king of Babylon comes to force them into exile.

          Then in the Gospel Jesus tells a parable that describes a similar situation, only in more concrete detail.  A rich man dresses extravagantly and dines sumptuously every day, while a poor man, Lazarus, suffers at his gate, hoping that the rich man will have enough kindness to give him some of the leftovers from his meal.  After both of their deaths their roles will be reversed and the rich man will be the one who suffers.  Nevertheless, this man’s ignorance is further on display when he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to help relieve his suffering.  Can you imagine?  He ignored Lazarus in his need and now he expects Lazarus to help him in his suffering?  How conceited!

          Notice, however, that neither Amos nor Jesus condemn the sin of overindulgence in food and drink (i.e. gluttony)—even though they certainly could have condemned them for it.  Rather, both condemn overindulgence at the expense of the poor one in their midst—the sin of omission in which they failed to act for the good of the suffering ones among them, even though (and especially though) it was in their power to do so.

          Because she was recently canonized, Saint Teresa of Calcutta has gotten a lot of press lately.  Because of this I have been able to learn a little more about this saint and her work.  One of the new insights that I have gained about her life is that she was as much a prophet as she was a charity worker.  Of course we all know her for her dedication to the “poorest of the poor” in the streets of Calcutta, India.  These works of charity that she and the religious order that she started performed brought plenty of attention to her.  She never desired that kind of attention, however.  Nonetheless, she accepted it, because of the opportunity that it gave her to bring the plight of the poor to the attention of those who had the resources do something about it.  In other words, when the spotlight came to her, she used it to help people who were rich to see the poor and, thus, to invite the rich to help them.  In this way, she was much more than a charity worker: she was a prophet.  A prophet who called out the rich and powerful in the world for their sins of omission against the poor.  A prophet whose words are still very relevant today.

          The famous Irish statesman, Edmund Burke, once said that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  My brothers and sisters, our inaction in the face of poverty and need is a sin of omission of the same order that our scriptures speak of today.  And so, what do we do?  First, we need to pray.  We need to learn how to examine our consciousness and our consciences so as to see the poor in our midst and to acknowledge when we have failed to respond to them.  Then, we need to act.  Once we see where we have failed to act, we must begin to fill the void that was created by our inaction with the acts that we have failed to do.  In other words, we need to be good men who do something so that evil will not triumph in the world; and (perhaps, more importantly) so that we won’t suffer the same fate as the rich man in Jesus’ parable.  Finally, we need to repeat the first two steps constantly.  Elsewhere in the Gospel, Jesus said that the poor will always be with us.  Therefore, once we've acted to fill one void, then we must begin again and pray to discern the next void that God is calling us to fill and then act to fill it.

          Saint Mother Teresa never thought that she could eliminate poverty by herself.  She was simply trying to do her part by loving Jesus whom she encountered most profoundly in the poor.  If each of us would do the same, that is, if each of us would acknowledge the concrete way that God is calling us to act and then commit ourselves to acting out of love for Jesus, then our world would definitely begin to change for the better.  My brothers and sisters, as we approach this altar to give thanks to God for all of the good that he has given to us, especially for the strength that we receive when we receive the very life of God in Holy Communion, let us commit ourselves to this good work so that God’s kingdom may truly be realized in our midst.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – September 25^th, 2016

Greater than the greatest greatness

Homily: All Saints – Cycle B

          “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Although it may seem like an innocuous question at first, this is actually a great question to ask kids as it often opens up a chance to see into their hearts.  For some reason, somewhere around the beginning of high school, we stop asking kids what they want to be and start asking them what they want to do.  As adults, we often stick with that language: resigning ourselves to a life of doing something instead of being something.

          This is why asking kids this question is so great: because a kid is going to tell you the deepest longings of his or her heart.  “I want to be a doctor” or “a fireman”, or “a teacher” or “a nurse” or “a race car driver” or even “a mom” or “a dad”.  And what are these kids all saying when they reply with one of these “careers”?  They’re saying “I want to be great.”  Each kid, when he or she looks at one of these careers, thinks to him or herself “That person is great, and I want to be that person.”  Obviously, this isn’t a conscious thought, because kids don’t think like that; and so perhaps it would be better to say that it is a “movement of the heart” that each kid experiences that speaks to an innate desire for greatness.

          Why is this innate desire within us?  Well, because in God we are destined for glory.  In the second reading from the first letter of Saint John we read: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.  We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”  What else can he mean when he says “we shall be like him” except “we shall be like him in his glory”?  As children of God, we are destined to be like him, who is all-glorious; thus, we are destined for glory: that is, to be great beyond all imagination.  This, my friends, is what it means to be a saint.

          Unfortunately, however, we seem to have lost the connection between achieving saintliness and human excellence.  In other words, we’ve decided, it seems, that “greatness” and “saintliness” are different ambitions; and that if you want to achieve one you have to give up your hopes for the other.  But I’m here to tell you, my friends, that there is no greater greatness that you can achieve that is any greater than becoming a saint!

          It’s true that many saints were despised in their own times and seemed to eschew greatness while on earth—Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Anthony of the Desert, or any of the Martyrs—but that was because in their times the idea of greatness was a distorted one: these saints were great because they refused the lure of a distorted notion of greatness—a “this-world-only greatness”—in favor of the heroic greatness of preserving in virtue in spite of resistance.  Still other saints, of course, achieved great things in this world—Saint Louis IX of France, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary… a king and a queen! …or perhaps a more modern example, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta—yet their worldly recognition was only a reflection of the appreciation that the world gave to them for persevering in heroic virtue throughout their lives.  Therefore, we can see that true greatness—heroic greatness—comes when we pursue saintliness.

          Let’s take a look, therefore, at that last example that I named: Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (or “Mother Teresa”).  I think that most people you encounter would agree that Mother Teresa was a great human being.  This little woman from Albania, who strove simply to respond to the Lord’s call to care for the world’s poorest in the streets of Calcutta, had world-wide influence: not because she was a skilled politician or was business savvy, but rather because she strove for saintliness in everything that she did; and in achieving this heroic greatness she awakened that dormant desire for greatness in the hearts of everyone that she met.

          What Mother Teresa proved—and what all the saints prove, really—is that true greatness is found when we live the Beatitudes: for she was poor in spirit before she was poor, she mourned for the most neglected in the streets of Calcutta, she was meek in how she approached others and in her own perception of her work, she hungered and thirsted for righteousness both for herself and especially for others, she was merciful to all whom she encountered, she strove to remain clean of heart by frequently confessing her sins, she strove to make peace because she saw war and conflict as cause of so much injustice, and she was persecuted by those who wrongly saw in her a veiled attempt to gain influence and power in the world.  Mother Teresa achieved greatness, not in spite of her saintliness, but precisely because of it.

          My brothers and sisters, All Saints Day is celebration of the women and men who have gone before us having achieved greatness precisely in their saintliness.  And it is a reminder to each of us of our need to pursue the greatness that we are destined for—to be glorified like God in heaven—by pursuing heroic virtue in this world as modeled for us in the saints.  Our inspiration?  Saint John gives this to us in our second reading when he says, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God” and “Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.”

          It’s true, isn’t it, that when we know that we are someone’s beloved, and when we desire to be loved by that person, we strive to make ourselves better for that person, don’t we?  Raise your hand if you’ve ever had that sappy romantic moment when you wanted to say to your best friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife, “You make me want to be a better person”.  Saint John is naming that for us in our relationship with God.  If we know that we are beloved by God, and if we desire to be God’s beloved, then we will make ourselves “pure” so as to be found even more favorable by God.  It’s not vanity, and it’s not trying to make God love us; rather, it is a response to being loved.

          My brothers and sisters, this All Saints Day, let’s wipe out the false separation between the two questions—“What do you want to be?” and “What do you want to do?”—and let’s unite them by asking them this way: “What do you want to be?” and “How are you going to be it?”  In this way we will see that all that we do must be ordered to what we want to be.  And if what we want to be are “saints”, then what we do will begin to be colored more and more by the Beatitudes and will move us ever closer to the true greatness that our hearts so deeply desire and for which we are destined.

          Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI famously once said, “The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort.  You were made for greatness!”  This All Saints Day, my brothers and sisters, let us commit ourselves, strengthened by the grace that we have in Jesus Christ through his sacrifice which we re-present here at this altar, to strive for that greatness for which we were made.  For it is in striving for it that we will truly achieve human excellence; and it is then that we will truly be All Saints.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN

October 31^st and November 1^st, 2015

The Virtuous Christian

          This weekend I was able to preach on one of my favorite topics: virtue.  Virtue is about achieving excellence and overcoming mediocrity, which leads to becoming the best version of yourself (that is, the version of yourself that God made you to be).  Hopefully this will inspire some of you to rededicate yourselves to pursuing virtue, which is what inspired Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati to regularly exclaim, Verso l'alto!

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Homily: 25^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          In the film Oceans 11, a gangster by the name of Danny Ocean rounds up a gang of associates to stage robberies of three major Las Vegas casino's simultaneously during a popular boxing event.  Whether you’ve seen the original 1960 version or the more recent 2001 version, you’ll know that, at the end, we’re all left to feel like Mr. Ocean and his gang of associates are heroes, even though they just succeeded in committing a major crime.  And why is that?  I would argue that, in a sense, we’re acknowledging the virtue that was needed to accomplish such a complicated and daring feat.  Mr. Ocean and his gang needed prudence and wisdom in order to plan the heist for success; and they needed courage and temperance during the heist in order to pull it off.  So I would argue that what we commend at the end of the film is not the robberies themselves (hopefully, we all disapprove of any act against the seventh commandment), but rather the virtues that enabled them to pull it off.

          The problem, however, with this situation is that these virtues were used to do something morally reprehensible.  Therefore, instead of being true virtues, they are rather false virtues.  Virtue comes from the Latin word virtus, which means “power”.  Thus a virtue is a power to do something.  But if God has given us a power, then he intended it to be used for good: that is, for the building up of the common good of mankind.  Therefore, if the power of prudence (which is the power to know the right thing to do in a given situation) is used, for example, to take advantage of an elderly lady and swindle her out of her income, then it is an evil use of a good power.  Thus, while it is still a virtue, in this case it is a false virtue.  The true virtue of prudence would be to use this power to help the elderly woman manage her income so as to ensure that she will always be secure, financially.

          In our Gospel reading today, Luke records another one of Jesus’ parables.  This one, however, ought to strike us as odd.  In most of Jesus’ parables involving a master and a servant, the master commends the servant for doing the right things and punishes the servant when he has failed to live up to expectations.  In this parable, however, although we see the master getting ready to punish his steward for mismanaging his property, we then see the master commending the dishonest acts of the steward who seems to be acting for nobody else’s good but his own.  And Jesus, for his part, seems to give the master credit for doing that!  So what is this all about?

          Well, it seems like Jesus can recognize virtue in unvirtuous behavior just as much as any of us can.  For what Jesus is commending is the steward’s prudence—his shrewdness with his master’s debtors so as to garner favors for himself after he has been removed from his position as a steward.  This, of course, is false prudence, but what Jesus seems to be saying is that even false virtue is better than no virtue at all!  For he says, “make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”  What he seems to be saying here is “Go learn virtue, even if for the time being it’s false virtue, because eventually that dishonest enterprise will fail; but you will have learned virtue and, thus, you will be ready to embrace true virtue, which will lead you to eternal dwellings.”  And why does he say this?  Well, because he saw a complete lack of virtue—false or true—among the “Children of Israel”, whom God had chosen for eternal dwellings.  For he said: “the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”

          So let’s say that we brought this up to the current day.  If Jesus appeared here before us and looked at the current state of our society, what do you think he would say?  Probably we wouldn’t want to think this way, but perhaps he would commend our politicians, because even though for the most part they seem like lousy stewards of the responsibilities given to them, at least they are prudent in their dealings.  To them, perhaps, he would even give commendations, because, even though their virtue is false, they at least are showing virtue!

          What, then, could he say about us?  Do we truly practice what we preach?  You know, virtue is not just the absence of doing something wrong, but rather it is the presence of doing something good.  And so, just the fact that we have not committed any sins is not enough to be a virtuous Christian.  Rather, we must also act out of our convictions—in other words, we must do good—in order to acquire virtue.  Thus, to despise the world completely and to cut ourselves off from it—saying “I’ll just stay at home and say my prayers and come to church every week and that will be enough”—is false piety, that is, false virtue (but, at least it’s virtue!).  Of course, the opposite is also true.  To say “I come to church and say my prayers and so whatever else that I do doesn’t really matter” is not only not true, but it is completely unvirtuous and it reveals a heart that is divided trying to serve both God and mammon.  My brothers and sisters, if the Gospel doesn’t seem to have influence in today’s world it’s not because of any fault in the Gospel; but rather it is because, as Jesus observed, “the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”

          “Ok, Father,” I can already hear you saying, “perhaps I have been lacking in virtue and have allowed myself to become divided trying to serve both God and mammon.  So where do I begin?”  Well, why not start with Saint Paul’s exhortation that we heard in today’s second reading?  He says, “I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority…”  Perhaps instead of complaining about our politicians, what if we prayed for them?  When they seem to be lousy stewards of the responsibility that we’ve entrusted to them, let’s offer up supplications to God on their behalf.  And when they do something truly virtuous, let’s offer up thanksgivings that God’s grace has worked in and through them.  For Jesus says, “The person who is trustworthy in very small matters, is also trustworthy in great ones.”  Thus, if we show prudence in this small matter, then God will reveal to us even greater things that he will entrust to us: positive things that will have an even greater impact on our families, our communities, and on our society as a whole.

          Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”  “Small things done with great love.”  I like this as a definition of true virtue.  My brothers and sisters, any move towards virtue is a good one.  Therefore, let us commit ourselves again today to serving God alone by striving to do all of those little things that make up our days with great love.  In doing so we will make ourselves virtuous, and thus ready, so that when everything else in the world fails we too, like Mother Teresa and all of the Saints who have gone before us, will be “welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

Given at All Saints Parish – Logansport, IN: September 21^st & 22^nd, 2013