Remain faithful to the grace of God

Homily: 4^th Sunday in Easter – Cycle C

Friends, this weekend we are celebrating a number of wonderful things: namely, the World Day for Vocations and Mother’s Day.  We also call today “Good Shepherd Sunday”, since the Gospel reading for the day, regardless of which year in the three-year cycle of readings we are in, is taken from the “Good Shepherd” discourse in John’s Gospel.  Certainly, there are many great things to preach on today, but I am going to focus in on a phrase from our first reading that, hopefully, will give us something to take home with us to ponder and to work on this week.

In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear of Paul and Barnabas making their way to Antioch to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to the community there.  Being Jews, they went straight to the synagogue to proclaim to God’s chosen people that the long-awaited Messiah had come: Jesus of Nazareth, who was persecuted and put to death, but rose from the dead on the third day and now lives, having taken his place at the right hand of God in heaven.  They came to proclaim to the Jews in Antioch that it is only in the name of Jesus that they can find salvation.  From the sound of it, they found a positive reception that first sabbath day as it says that many who were there began to follow them.

To those who began following them, Paul and Barnabas spoke to them and urged them to “remain faithful to the grace of God.”  This phrase—remain faithful to the grace of God—struck me as important.  Of all of the things that Paul and Barnabas could have told the ones who were beginning to follow them—for example, “go learn to pray”, or “go study the scriptures”, or “go serve the poor”—they chose to urge them to “remain faithful to the grace of God”.  I think that this is a great Easter message for all of us and it’s a theme that connects with our other readings today.

In the second reading, we continue to hear of John’s visions, recorded for us in the book of Revelation.  In this vision, we see a great multitude of people, too many to count, who are identified as “the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”.  This description is “New Testament speak” for the martyrs: those who have shed their blood for Christ.  And what does “having survived the time of great distress” mean, except that they “remained faithful to the grace of God”?  These who are identified as martyrs—and who, therefore, stand before the throne of God (that is, who stand in heaven)—are the ones who have remained faithful to the grace of God and, therefore, enjoy the reward for their faithfulness.

In the Gospel reading, we hear Jesus say, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish”.  He continues to say, “No one can take them out of my hand.”  This is a beautiful truth about Jesus as the true Good Shepherd.  What isn’t revealed here, however, is that, while no one can take one of Jesus’ sheep from him, his sheep, nonetheless, can wander away on their own.  Jesus’ promise is amazing and should give hope to everyone who comes to him; but it should also stir in us a desire to “remain faithful to the grace of God”, so that, having become a member of Jesus’ flock, we don’t find ourselves having drifted away from him and no longer able to hear his voice.  For when we can no longer hear his voice—that is, when we have failed to remain faithful to God’s grace—then we are no longer protected by his promise.

Friends, this really is the ongoing message of this Easter season.  Having feasted on the joy of Jesus’ resurrection, we perhaps find ourselves like those first followers of Paul and Barnabas in Antioch: excited but not quite sure what to do next.  To us the same instruction is given: “remain faithful to the grace of God”.  What does this mean for us?  Surely it means “Do not return to your life of sin”.  Sin is incompatible with the grace of God and so for us to return to the sin that we strove to leave behind during Lent would be an infidelity to the grace given to us by God (which, in point of fact, helped us to break free from that sin in the first place).  I would say that it also means to be docile to the Holy Spirit.  The grace of God, which we received at baptism, is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  This Spirit dwells in us to guide us and point us to God’s will for our lives.  He is not forceful, however.  We may choose not to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, but rather choose to follow our own will: in which case we stray from Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and make ourselves vulnerable to being overcome by the Evil One who seeks to separate us eternally from God.  If we make ourselves docile to the Spirit, however, we remain faithful to the grace of God and, thus, close to the protecting hand of Jesus.  Thus, enabling us to walk more confidently: ready to share the Good News of Jesus Christ to anyone who will listen.

Finally, I might also add, on this World Day for Vocations, that “remaining faithful to the grace of God” is also the way that we come to know and follow our vocation: whether that be to the priesthood or the diaconate, to the consecrated religious life, to marriage, or to the consecrated single life.  We cannot expect to know God’s will, which is made known to us through grace, unless we remain faithful to God’s grace throughout our lives.  Oh, and by the way, holy vocations foster other holy vocations!  Therefore, if you want to promote vocations to the priesthood, then remain faithful to the grace of God in your own vocation!  When young people see others leading joy-filled lives while following God’s will, it will inspire in them a desire to know that same joy in their own lives and they, too, will begin to discern God’s call.

Therefore, friends, let us spend some time this week reflecting on whether or not we have “remained faithful to the grace of God”; and, if we haven’t, to turn back to our commitment to do so.  In this way, we will stay attuned to the voice of Jesus, our Good Shepherd who leads us to eternal life, and we will also be great witnesses—that is, martyrs—to the joy of a life united to Christ, which will lead others to him, so that there may truly be “one flock” and “one shepherd” throughout the world.  May God bless us all in this good work.

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

100 years after Fatima: We still have work to do

          Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mothers out there!  How beautiful that we celebrate mothers on the same weekend that we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the appearances of our Blessed Mother, Mary, to the shepherd children - Lucia, Saint Francisco, and Saint Jacinta - at Fatima in Portugal.  May our Blessed Mother continue to bless all Mothers with her prayers and intercession so they might be holy Mothers after her pattern.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

P.S. Lucia lived until 2005 and her cause for canonization has begun, but it isn't far enough along yet for her to be beatified or canonized.  Hopefully we will all see the day when she, too, will be listed in the canon of the saints!

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Homily: 5^th Sunday in Easter – Cycle A

          My brothers and sisters, as we continue to celebrate this great season of Easter—this season in which we proclaim with joyful voices that Jesus Christ, the Divine Word of God, who became one with us in human flesh and suffered death to redeem us from the punishment due to our sins, has risen from the dead and now lives so that we may have eternal life with God, our Creator and Father—as we continue to commemorate and celebrate this great event, we also have the happy opportunity to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady to the shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal: the first of which occurred on May 13^th, 1917.  This is important, I think, because there are urgent connections between our celebration of Easter and the messages that Our Lady gave to those children 100 years ago.

          If you know anything about the apparitions, then you’ll know that for six months straight, on the 13^th day of every month, Mary appeared to the three shepherd children—Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta—and spoke to them.  You’ll also know that in these appearances, Mary gave them three “secrets”.  The first two were revealed in 1941, but the third secret was sealed until the year 2000.  I’ll leave you to explore booklets and things to learn more about the secrets, but I want to speak about the first secret, in particular.

          In this first secret the children were given a vision of hell, shown to them in the traditional form of a great lake of fire filled with suffering souls and cruel devils.  This was given to them to impress upon them the terrible consequences of sin and the urgency of praying for the repentance of sinners and of making sacrifices in reparation for their sins so that more souls would not suffer this cruel fate.  This vision reminds us of the two basic things that we know about hell: namely that it exists and that people go there.

          I bring this up today because there has been a movement both within and outside of the Church to deny either one or both of these facts.  In other words, there are many people today who are trying to convince themselves and others either that hell doesn’t exist at all or that no body actually goes there.  Their intentions, on the surface, seem noble: they see the existence of a place of eternal torture and separation from God, and the idea that our God, who is Love and rich in mercy, would allow persons to suffer such a fate, as diminishing the love and mercy of God.  Therefore, they must deny hell’s existence, or, at least, the fact that people go there, so that their idea of a loving and merciful God will not be tarnished.  Unfortunately, this is the great error of all the heretics: that is, it shaves off the corners of a square peg to make it fit into a circle hole.

          My brothers and sisters, let’s be clear: to deny the existence of hell and/or to deny that God would permit anyone to suffer such a fate is a mistake.  Jesus came precisely to save us from this fate; and so, what value would his coming have had for us if there was nothing from which to save us?  Even if we admit that hell did exist before Jesus (and perhaps still exists) and that people went there before Jesus, we cannot claim that people no longer go there.  To do so would deny the truth that one must be in right relationship with God, following his commandments, if one wants to enjoy the fruits of that relationship, which are the joys of eternal life with Him.  In other words, even though Jesus has made it possible to receive forgiveness for our sins (and, thus, to restore our right relationship with God), there is still a necessity for us to cooperate with this grace through repentance and conversion (swearing off our sinful ways and turning towards the way that God’s commandments show us).

          Therefore, the vision of the first secret—the vision of hell as a great lake of fire filled with suffering souls and cruel devils—is a reminder that we need today of these truths.  Still more, the purpose of the vision—to be a reminder of the terrible consequences of sin and the urgency of praying for the repentance of sinners and of making sacrifices in reparation for sins—is still relevant today, perhaps even more so today.  This is not something new, however; rather, it is something that has been part and parcel of the Christian life from its very beginning.

          In our second reading today, Saint Peter calls the first Christians to let themselves “be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”.  A priest is someone who offers sacrifice on behalf of the people.  Peter, knowing that not all of the Christians were priests who offered physical sacrifices (like that of bulls and goats), nonetheless reminds them that Christians are priests who can offer spiritual sacrifices (like prayer and mortifications: such as fasting and giving alms).  And, as we heard in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the first Christians saw this work as so important that, when other works of charity threatened to disrupt the Apostles from it, they appointed other persons to minister the works of charity so that the Apostles could focus on the critical work of spreading this Word of salvation and of making spiritual sacrifices for sinners.  Thus, as we hear these words today, we, too, are reminded that the priesthood of all Christians is to offer these spiritual sacrifices.

          My brothers and sisters, the messages of Our Lady at Fatima simply reinforce this truth: that we, who share in this priesthood of all believers, must take up this work of offering spiritual sacrifices of prayer and mortifications for repentance and reparation.  We must do this because many people are still being lost to the cruel fate of suffering and torture in the fires of hell.  The good news of this, however, is that it isn’t all up to us.  What I mean to say is: the task doesn’t lie on our shoulders alone.  Rather, by taking up this good work, we make ourselves conduits for Jesus’ saving grace to pour out more profusely in the world.  It is Jesus who will bring about the repentance of sinners; and it is Jesus’ blood, shed on the cross, that will make reparation for sins; but it is our cooperation that will open up doors for Jesus’ work of salvation to reach more hearts and, thus, to save more souls from hell.

          The even better news is that this promise is for everyone.  While Jesus’ saving act didn’t save everyone automatically, it is available for anyone and everyone to receive.  This is what he meant when he told his disciples, “In my Father's house there are many dwelling places” and “I am going to prepare a place for you”.  Thus, our work is even more urgent since, literally, every living soul on earth is hanging in the balance between heaven and hell.  Let us, therefore, take up this good work of repentance from sin in our own lives, prayer for the repentance of others, and making sacrifices for the reparation of sins so that none of the dwelling places that Jesus has prepared would ever remain empty.

          Finally, on this Mother’s Day, I don’t think that I can fail to note that God sent Mary with this message.  I believe that He sent her because she is our mother and because he knows that we more readily listen to our mothers when they address us tenderly.  No mother loves us more tenderly than Mary, our Blessed Mother, and so let us honor her this Mother’s Day by taking up this good work so that she might delight that more and more of her spiritual children are saved.  Mary, Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – May 13^th & 14^th, 2017