Are you tired? Let go!

Homily: 1st Sunday of Advent – Cycle C

I don’t know about all of you, but I am pretty tired.  I’ve been here for five months now and have found that pastoring a parish of this size—one that is also the Cathedral, and all of the trappings that come with that—is a lot of work.  And I mean that in the very literal, scientific sense: for work is energy expended over time and I know that I have been expending a lot of energy over extended periods of time in the last five months.

I would guess that it’s pretty safe to say, however, that I’m not the only one who is feeling this way.  Let me ask, how many here have a new baby?  How many of you have more than one kid under 7 years old at home?  How many have moved sometime this year?  How many have either lost or switched jobs?    And how many of you are working and going to school at the same time?  How many of you have lost a loved one recently?  How many of us are dealing with emotional turmoil from the scandals in the Church?  I’m guessing that this covers most everyone here.  But, even if I didn’t mention part of your situation, I suspect that all of us could identify some things in our lives that are causing us to expend a great deal of energy: either just to keep up with our lives or, perhaps, to cope with the stress of transitioning into something new in our lives.  Regardless of what it is, all of us can probably admit that we are feeling a bit worn down by it all: that we, too, are tired.

As a result, I think that a lot of us hope that we could come here and hear a word of comfort.  Perhaps we’ve come here hoping that the Gospel reading for the day would be something like: “Well done, good and faithful servant, come share in your master’s joy.”  Instead, we walk into this season of Advent and are greeted with an exhortation from Saint Paul saying, “The good that you’ve already been doing, you should do more!”  Then, on top of that, Christ tells us to “be vigilant at all times,” that is, not to take a break.  And, as if that wasn’t enough, he prefaces that statement by saying, “You know, everything is actually going to get a lot worse before it gets better!”  Thus, when we hear Christ’s instruction to us—“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy…”—it really doesn’t seem all that helpful.  And what we come to realize is that our hearts, indeed, have become drowsy.

In many ways, however, we are not unlike the ancient Israelites.  For centuries, they waited for the Messiah—the one promised them by God who would redeem them and free them from all of their oppressors.  Yet, their hearts had become drowsy from waiting as they endured exile away from their homeland, and then occupation of their homeland by foreign invaders after their return.  And so, even though God had sent them prophets throughout these times to remind them of his promises—like the prophet Jeremiah, from who we heard in the first reading today—many of the Israelites still failed to see in Jesus the coming of the One for whom they had longed ///

Perhaps to us it seems as if Christ’s return is also long delayed.  And perhaps, therefore, we’ve allowed our focus to drift away from our eternal destiny, our anticipation of his coming to become dulled, and our discipline in prayer and good works to lapse.  In other words, perhaps we, too, have allowed our hearts to become drowsy from the anxieties, the worries, the stresses of our daily lives.  We’ve lost sight of the goal, it seems, and, thus, feel a bit lost.

At the end of each calendar year, we all somewhat instinctively assess where we’ve been throughout the year.  For some, this is a time of great anxiety as we look back at what we desired to accomplish in the last year and see what remains undone.  For others, the stress comes from seeing how, though great efforts were made, circumstances meant that there was little to show for it.  Still for others, it is a time of despair when we see that, through fear or lack of self-confidence, another year has passed and we have not made any moves to improve a difficult situation in our lives.

This is why the Church, in her wisdom, guided by the Holy Spirit, gives us this season of Advent at the end of the calendar year.  She knows how easy it is to get bogged down by the work of daily living and so She offers us this season as a “wake-up call” and a reminder to us that the promise of Christ’s second coming—the promise that there is something greater yet to come—is still before us.  Advent, therefore, is the great season of detachment: of letting go of those things that tie us to this world and its anxieties, lest we be caught off-guard, cowering in fear after the days of tribulation, when Christ will come.  It is also the season of remembering that we can never accomplish our fulfillment alone: for Christ came to us specifically because we could not effect our salvation on our own.  Rather, we needed the help of Another—who is God made man, born in a cave outside of Jerusalem.

Brothers and sisters, our Christian faith tells us that we have been made for greatness and that our work in this life is to strive for that greatness always.  It also reminds us, however, that our ability to reach the heights of that greatness is limited and that we can never achieve it on our own.  Advent is the season in which we are reminded to rejoice, regardless; because in Advent—which, literally translated, means “the arrival”—we remember that God himself has come, in our human nature, in order to overcome our weaknesses, and that God himself will come again to fulfill his promise to end our anxieties and to draw us into himself: the place of our eternal rest.

And so, my brothers and sisters, if your hearts have become drowsy, then let this be your wake-up call.  Because our hope, Jesus Christ our Savior, is coming—and has already come—to relieve us and to lead us home.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – December 1^st & 2^nd, 2018

Mary's mysterious motherhood draws us back to Christmas reality

Happy New Year!

I pray that our Good God will bless all of you richly in 2017.

May Mary, Mother of God, keep you and protect you throughout the year.

Homily: Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God – Cycle A

          It’s no secret that I am not the world’s biggest fan of all of the secular, year-end holiday stuff that has attached itself to our celebration of the Lord’s birth on Christmas.  I’m talking about all of the sentimental holiday things—like brightly decorated trees with gaily wrapped presents underneath, snow falling in the moonlight, and egg nog by the fireplace while listening to songs that speak about all of these things without ever making reference to the reason why there is a holiday in the first place: the Child born in Bethlehem who is God and the Savior of the human race.  Those of you who heard my homily for Christmas know that I spoke about how all of these things have become signs that we have “objectified” Christmas: that is, we’ve turned what was a subjective reality (a reality in which real people had real experiences) into an object to be manipulated for our own pleasure and amusement.

          You’ll also remember that I proposed a way for us to break free from this objectification of Christmas: a return to an understanding of the original event and what it meant to those involved and to the world.  I invited us to imagine a people suffering under a great oppression—a people of strong faith in their God who had promised to send them a leader who would free them from their suffering—who then hear that the one who had been promised had, indeed, been born; and that through this imagining we would begin to understand the great prophecies that Isaiah had made about the Messiah and how the infancy narratives in the Gospels point to their fulfillment in the birth of Jesus.  I invited us to imagine the smelly, dirty, and yet gloriously real reality of the original event so as to put our modern-day celebration in its proper perspective; thus ensuring that would not objectify it, but rather celebrate it for what it truly is: the day that our salvation came to us.

          I recount all of this today because this day, the octave day of Christmas, the day in which we honor Mary under the title “the Holy Mother of God”, gives us another opportunity to shake off our “objectifications” of Christ’s birth and get back to the real subjects who had experienced this world-changing event.  Today we make a bold statement: that Mary, in every way a human being, is the Mother of God, that is, the Mother of the Infinite Being through whom all things in the universe exist and without whom no things exist.  That’s crazy, right?  How can a human being, who would not exist if it wasn’t for the pre-existence of God, never the less be the Mother of God?  If you’ve never thought of this before, then you’re not engaging your faith enough and therefore your New Year’s resolution is to open your catechism in 2017 and read it through, asking the hard questions and then letting it explain them through the richness of nearly 2000 years of thinking on God’s revelation (Got it?).  If you have thought about this before, then you are in good company.  This very belief was challenged for these very reasons nearly 1600 years ago.

          In 431, in the city of Ephesus, an ecumenical council was held to resolve this issue.  Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople at the time, contended that it was heretical to call Mary the “Mother of God” for the very reasons to which I’ve already alluded.  Since God is eternal, Nestorius argued, to say that God has a mother is contradictory: because for someone to have a mother indicates that there was some sort of birth, or beginning, to that person’s life, which with God simply cannot be.  He contended that she could be called “Mother of Jesus”, but not “Mother of God”.

          St. Cyril, who was the bishop of Alexandria, knew that this couldn’t be true, because he knew that for Jesus to be able to accomplish his saving work for us he had to be both fully human and fully divine and that there could be no separation or “compartmentalization” of the two.  He also knew that in the hearts of the faithful (i.e. the whole Church for the previous four centuries) Mary had been honored as Mother of God, and so he knew that he couldn’t give way to Nestorius’ erroneous thinking and thus contradict what had already been held as true (though not concretely defined as such) for nearly four centuries.

          Legend has it that crowds of people waited outside the basilica during the last days of the council waiting to hear what the bishops had decided the truth was about Mary.  When the bishops emerged and definitively declared that Mary was, indeed, the Mother of God, the crowd erupted with joy that the bishops had confirmed what they already knew in their hearts was true.  They purportedly carried the bishops through the streets along with images of Our Lady, singing songs and praising God that Mary is, indeed, the Mother of God.

          This is important to us today for two reasons: One is that, in preserving for us the mysterious declaration that Mary is truly the Mother of God (because she is the Mother of Jesus, who is the Son of God), who Jesus is for us is also preserved (that is, God incarnate: the fullness of whose humanity made it possible that his death and resurrection from the dead—both in the flesh!—would redeem our sins and make eternal life possible for us once again).  And so we see that, if Mary cannot be called the Mother of God, then there is no reason for us to celebrate Christmas: because without the fullness of Jesus’ divinity (and, therefore, the fullness of Mary’s Divine Maternity), the day of our salvation has not come for us and we must lament that eternal life still is not possible for us.

          Second, in preserving for us the mysterious declaration that Mary is truly the Mother of God, we also preserve the reality that God, in spite of all that he has revealed to us, is still clouded in mystery for us.  In other words, by not having a “how” to explain the “what” of Mary’s Divine Motherhood, we preserve our right relationship with God: the relationship that acknowledges that he is the all-powerful, pre-existent Being and that we are his creatures who will never fully understand his wisdom or his power.  This humility before the mystery that is God helps to prevent us from “objectifying” events like Christ’s birth (and, thus, appropriating it into something that fits into our lives and makes us feel good instead of moving us more deeply into the mystery of who God is in himself), which can only deepen our love for him as we contemplate the great love that he must have for us to act in our lives in these ways.

          My brothers and sisters, this is the example that Mary herself gives us.  When the shepherds came to see the baby Jesus, they revealed to Mary and Joseph all that they had seen and heard in the field: Angels in the air revealing the birth of the child and singing songs glorifying God.  Mary didn’t press the shepherds to explain how all of that could have possibly happened, but rather, as the Gospels relate to us, she and all there “were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds … and Mary kept all of these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”  Mary allowed herself to dwell within the mystery of what had been revealed and there she encountered deeply the One who had revealed it: God in her son.

          As we enter into this new year, the challenge for each of us is to allow ourselves to dwell within the mystery of how God has revealed himself to us so as to open ourselves to encountering there God’s presence in the unexpected: like in a little child, born into poverty in a little town in ancient Palestine, or under the appearance of bread and wine right here on this altar.  If we can do this, my brothers and sisters, the Lord will “bless us and keep us” in 2017.

          May the peace of God, which is beyond all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in the knowledge and love of God and of his son, our Lord Jesus Christ so that you, too, may enjoy this blessing in the New Year.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN

December 31^st, 2016 & January 1^st, 2017

Be like the shepherds for a better 2016

Homily: The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God – Cycle C

          For those of you who know me a little, you’ll know that I’m not necessarily a fan of all of the Christmas hype that leads up to Christmas.  As Catholics, our pattern is always “fast” before “feast” and every year our society hijacks Christmas and makes it “feast” and then “feast”.  It’s exhausting work trying to resist all of that pre-Christmas, Christmas feasting and, to be honest, it took me until a couple of days ago before I could step back and really delight in the fact that it was Christmas.  What a good thing, then, that, for Catholics, Christmas Day extends eight whole days!  That’s right, I said that Christmas Day, itself, is celebrated for eight days.  While the rest of the world has been regretting their bloated stomachs after having feasted on Christmas for over a month, we are joyfully concluding our celebration of the Octave of Christmas.  Thus, while the rest of the world is putting away Christmas, we are here, singing “Glory to God in the highest” as if it was still Christmas morning.

          Now, the fact that there are significantly less people here today than there were on Christmas morning indicates to me that we have some work to do in educating our brothers and sisters about how Catholics celebrate the great feasts of Our Lord.  Perhaps, however, we can see in ourselves those poor shepherds to whom the birth of Christ was proclaimed in the middle of that first Christmas night: as if we have been entrusted with a message that others had not received; and, as we have gathered today, perhaps we can look to them for how to use this celebration as a way to launch us into 2016 towards becoming better disciples of Jesus.

          Saint Luke paints a beautiful picture of those poor, hardworking shepherds making their way to the stable cave in Bethlehem; but, it begs the question: Where did Saint Luke find out about this encounter?  Remember, he wasn't there.  There were no newspapers to cover the story and there weren’t any Apostles yet who could have witnessed it.  So, how did he find out?  Perhaps he heard it second-hand from Jesus through one of the Apostles.  Given the amount of detail included, however, it seems more likely that an eyewitness told him about it.  Given that Joseph was deceased before Jesus had manifested himself publicly and that we have no Scriptural record of any of the shepherds or magi reappearing later as Jesus’ disciples, it’s probably safe to bet that Mary was that eyewitness that shared these stories with Luke.  And we see that, when she told him, she chose her words carefully in order to make the full meaning of these events come out.  Thus, the three “verbs” that describe the actions taken by the shepherds are not mere coincidence; rather, they are the inspired message that reveals a pattern of how each of us can better live our discipleship of Jesus and proclaim the message of Christmas.

          First, Saint Luke tells us that the shepherds "went in haste" to find the child about whom the angel spoke.  Amazed as they were by what they had seen, they were even more eager to meet this newborn Savior, and, perhaps, somehow, to receive his blessing.  The history of humanity is the history of a people lost in darkness and searching for meaning, purpose, and light.  God's promise of blessing, redemption and everlasting life—in other words, the fulfillment of all that we are searching for—is what Christ came to give us and it is the message that we receive at Christmas; which is why we, like the shepherds, should be eager to go and look for the Christ—that is, to "make haste" to find him—each and every day through prayer, reading the Bible, and celebrating the sacraments.

          Second, Saint Luke tells us that the shepherds “made known the message” that had been told them.  The news the angel announced to them was too good for them to keep to themselves and so they felt a need to share it—that is, to tell others about the Savior—which, it can be said, is always a sign of an authentic encounter with God.  I mean, when we have or discover something wonderful, we don’t hold it back, do we?  No, we share it!  (…on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.)  Thus, when we truly experience Christ, even just a little bit, something similar happens. Our hearts automatically overflow with a desire to share that experience.  And if we don't feel that desire, it probably means that our friendship with Christ could use a little maintenance.  What better reason, then, to "make haste" to Bethlehem to have a fresh encounter with our Savior so as to become eager once again to “make known the message” of our redemption.

          Third, Saint Luke tells us that, after the shepherds made haste to come and see Jesus, and after they told their amazing story to everyone who would listen, they "returned glorifying and praising God."  And so we see that, when we seek Christ and share this Good News, he fills our hearts with a deep, inner joy that overflows in words of glory and praise to God.  The shepherds were so full of this joy that they couldn't hold it in.  And so the same can be true for us: if we follow in the shepherds' footsteps this year—actively seeking Christ in prayer, the Bible, and the sacraments, as well as bringing Christ's grace and presence to those around us—everything in our lives will be infused with the joy of Christmas and we, too, will go forth from here, glorifying and praising God for his incredible mercy.

          Nevertheless, we know that life for the shepherds didn't end on Christmas.  Rather, they had to return to the “humdrum” of their daily lives.  And after our holiday breaks, each of us will return to the “humdrum” of our daily lives, too.  And so, how can we keep the meaning and lessons of Christmas shining in our hearts even after we take down the Christmas lights?  For this we look to Mary, whose divine motherhood we remember in a special way today.

          Mary didn't let the hustle and bustle of daily life drown out the beauty and wonder of Christmas.  Rather, as Saint Luke records for us, "Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart."  In other words, she pondered deeply these great mysteries that she was experiencing so as to keep the joy that filled her at Christmas fresh and full in her heart.  This is a pattern for all of us: to keep the great mysteries that we have celebrated here at Christmas close in our hearts so that the joy of receiving the Christ child will remain fresh and full in our hearts throughout this new year.

          My brothers and sisters, today in Holy Communion we will receive the Body of Christ, which was formed in the womb of Mary.  When we do, let's ask our spiritual Mother, the Mother of God and of all Christians, to teach us how to take care of the precious faith we have received and renewed during these days, just as she took care of the baby Jesus.  Then we will be ready to go forth from here, glorifying and praising God, as we make haste to share this good news—that the Christ of God has come to us and that he has saved us.  Halleluiah!  Let me say it again: the Christ of God has come to us and he has saved us!

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – January 1^st, 2016

What happens when we're left in charge

          Happy New Year!  I hope you all had a blessed 1st Sunday of Advent and are entering into this holy season full of hope with hearts open to our Lord for whom we wait in anxious expectation.

          This Sunday also opened the Year for Consecrated Life, in which the Church will celebrate the gift and beauty of men and women who have responded to God's call to live consecrated to Him for service to the Church and the world.  Check out the USCCB's web site for more information.

          Also, check out this series on Lifetime in which 5 women discern a call to religious life.  It is a great peak into what religious life is all about.

Christmas is still four weeks away.  Get into the spirit by living Advent instead of diving head-first into Christmas.  It'll make Christmas even better!

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Homily: 1^st Sunday of Advent – Cycle B

          If any of you here grew up with siblings, you’ll remember that life as you were growing up was a constant battle for superiority in your home.  From who gets the bathroom first, to who gets the preferred bunk, to who gets to decide which radio station you get to listen to and which television program you get to watch, there is always a constant battle to be “in charge” of something in the house.  This is never more true than when mom and dad are going to be away for an evening and leave one of the kids “in charge”.

          Being “left in charge” was like a dream come true for kid with multiple siblings (and often a nightmare for the others who were passed over for the responsibility).  For the one in charge, this was a chance to proclaim your superiority in all matters because if ever there was a dispute, you had the trump card because you were left “in charge”.  Thus you made all of the decisions and did everything your way.

          If you were a teenager when your parents left you in charge, then your power for abstract thinking opened many more possibilities for you.  Perhaps you’d invite some friends over and do things that you wouldn’t normally be allowed to do if your parents were home.  You’d bribe your younger siblings with candy to keep them quiet and then have fun the way you wanted to.

          Of course, your parents left someone in charge for a reason.  They knew that if anything came up there would need to be one person who could make decisions.  They also wanted to be sure that if anything happened, they would know who should be held responsible for whatever happened.  When they left someone in charge, they did so with the expectation that the house would be in the same order that they left it in (if not better); and if it wasn’t, that the one left in charge would be responsible for the consequences.  Often, they didn’t say exactly what time they would be home, but that shouldn’t have mattered because the one in charge would keep everything together until their return.

          This is not unlike the parable that Jesus uses in the Gospel today.  Jesus is warning his disciples to be alert for the day of his return and uses a story about a man who leaves his household for a journey and entrusts his servants to be in charge while he is gone.  His expectation is that his household will be in the same order that he left it in, if not better.  He tells them that he does not know when he will return and so leaves the expectation that the house will be kept in order throughout his whole journey.  Of course, if your parents came home and found you sleeping, then they’d probably figure that everything was fine.  In Jesus’ parable, however, the servants are admonished to stay awake, because being ready to respond to the master of the house when he returns from a journey is a sign that the servants were fulfilling their responsibilities.

          Now, as it sometimes happens, when one of the kids is put in charge, things can get a little out of control.  Perhaps you and your siblings have made a huge mess.  Or perhaps the friends you invited over invited other friends over—perhaps people you don’t know very well—and the gathering got uncomfortably large.  And perhaps you begin to realize that the situation is more than you can handle on your own.  You begin to think things like “What if mom and dad come home right now?  They’ll kill me!” and “Oh, why did they leave me in charge?  Didn’t they know that I would screw up?!” 

          If you ever had a reaction like this (or saw a sibling have one like it), then you know what the prophet Isaiah was feeling when he proclaimed the words in our first reading today.  Speaking during the time when the Israelites were exiled in Babylon, Isaiah is lamenting of how badly his people have failed God.  They had neglected their covenant duties—in particular, to cast off all false idols and to worship God alone—and so now they found themselves exiled—locked out of the house, so to speak—and they were powerless to fix their failures on their own.

          “Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways…” is Isaiah’s way of saying “Don’t you know that we’ll just get in trouble if you leave us alone?”  And the rest of the passage is Isaiah’s desperate call for God to return swiftly so as to make everything right before it gets any worse.  It’s like when things get to the point that you realize that “I’ll be in less trouble if I call mom and dad now and ask them to come home and save me from this mess than if I wait for them to come home and allow things to get even worse.”

          Advent is the time for us to step back and take a look at what has been happening while we have been “in charge”.  It’s the time when we realize “It’s getting late and mom and dad should be home soon, we should start cleaning up!”  If we look at the state of the world that we live in, however, perhaps we’ll begin to feel like the teenager who has let the little gathering of friends grow out of control.  We begin to see that the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket and we feel powerless to do anything about it.

          Thus, our lament at the beginning of this Advent season should echo that of Isaiah: “Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways…?” and our cry for help, too, should be Isaiah’s cry: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down…”  This cry, of course, we direct to Jesus, who we wait for constantly in his second coming, especially in this time of Advent.  As we prepare to celebrate the memorial of his first coming, we are reminded that we are still awaiting his second coming in glory and so call to him earnestly to come now and save us from this mess that we are in.

          My brothers and sisters, Jesus has left us in charge, but he hasn’t left us alone.  When he returned to his Father, he said that he was going to prepare a place for us in heaven and that he would return to take us to be where he is.  His instructions to us were to go and make disciples of all men, but he promised us that he would be with us always.  And so we should not fear to call out to him, even if we’ve failed miserably to complete the work that he gave us; because if we admit our failure before him—that is, before he comes to find it on his own—then he will be merciful to us.

          My brothers and sisters, this time of Advent is a gift—an early Christmas present, if you will—an opportunity to refocus ourselves back on the horizon as we await the dawning of that day when Christ, who has already redeemed us from sin, will return to save us from this world and welcome us into the place that he has prepared for us in heaven.  Let us, then, receive this gift with joy and use this time to begin to put the house back in order, and to watch with hope for our Lord’s return to save us from ourselves and to bring us to the life promised to us even now, here in this Holy Eucharist.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – November 30, 2014

Opening of the Year for Consecrated Life

Can't see the forest for the trees

          Sometimes life can bog us down.  So much so that we miss out on the important stuff, like when Jesus wants to manifest himself in our midst.  Here's to a more reflective 2014 in which we take control of our business and let Jesus be seen by us... and through us!

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Homily: The Epiphany of the Lord – Cycle A

          My guess is that most of us are pretty familiar with the saying “You can’t see the forest for the trees.”  We know that basically it means that one is so preoccupied by the details of something that he or she cannot see the bigger picture of the whole.  In other words, when one focuses too much on branches and individual leaves, he or she misses out on seeing the beauty of the forest.  We often say this about people who get so caught up in the details of their daily lives that they seem to lose focus on where it is they are going; so much that they seem to miss out on something big when it happens.

          In our Gospel reading today, we heard the familiar story of the arrival of the Magi to honor Jesus.  We find among its familiar details that King Herod was completely caught off-guard by these Wise Men from the east who announced that they had come to honor the new-born King of the Jews.  “They had been following his star,” they said.  Apparently, neither King Herod nor any of his cronies spent much time looking up at the sky, for it seems like they had no idea that a new star had appeared.  No it seems like King Herod was much more focused on what was right there in front of him—that is, his daily efforts to preserve and exploit his power as king—and so he failed to notice the rising of the star.  He was so focused on himself that he couldn’t see the bigger picture of the coming of the long-awaited One: that is, the coming of the Messiah.

          We can often be the same way, can’t we?  How often do we get so caught up in filling our lives with occupations, events, and commitments—trying to maintain and exploit our personal comfort and pleasure—that we often miss the bigger picture of it all?  Just take a moment and think about what you did during the month of December.  I mean did you really have time to enjoy it all?  Or did you spend the whole month decorating, shopping, wrapping, baking, and bouncing from one Christmas party to another?  You know, if at any time during the month you said to yourself “Is it December 26^th yet?”, then at some point you allowed yourself to get so caught up in the details of trying to make Christmas enjoyable that you forgot to enjoy Christmas!

          The Magi, however, were open to seeing the bigger picture.  In fact, they spent their lives studying the “bigger picture”, for they were astrologists.  Thus, their lives were spent studying the stars in the hope of understanding what they could reveal to us about our lives and our purpose.  And so, when something big emerged—for example, when a new star arose in the west—they were ready to respond.  They weren’t so bogged down in the details of their daily personal pursuits that they “couldn’t see the forest for the trees” and thus they were rewarded by being some of the first people to see the newborn King of the Jews.

          Every year, the Church gives us an opportunity to step back from our daily pursuits and look at the bigger picture.  We, too, have seen the star at its rising, but often lose sight of it as we progress through the year.  The Christmas Season is placed at the head of the year precisely in order to remind us of what we have seen and to give us another opportunity to respond, like the Magi did, by setting out to look for the new-born king in our lives.  It is an opportunity once again to examine our lives in order to see if we, too, have gotten bogged down in the details of daily living and thus need to reset our perspective so that we can, indeed, see the forest for the trees.

          This, in a way, is the meaning of Epiphany: for an epiphany is a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way.  In other words, it is like the moment when you realize that the branch on the tree in the forest is part of a larger whole and that it can only really be understood when considered in that context.  Applied to our daily lives, an epiphany is when we can see all of our daily acts and experiences in light of the bigger picture of our lives and our vocations.  This means that whether you are chasing your children around from school to soccer to football to basketball to volleyball to dance to play or to band practice or you find yourself alone most of the day awaiting a phone call from a son or daughter or one of your grandchildren or if your daily routine of school and homework seems monotonous, you can see all of these things in the light of the Incarnation of God—Jesus Christ, our Savior—and can accept them as part of God’s plan to make you a saint.

          If you’ve not been able to see these things in this light, then today’s feast is for you; for today the Church invites you to pull back your head from the branches and the leaves so as to see the forest.  God has come down to us and made himself known to all humankind.  Therefore, if anything in our lives is blocking us from seeing that, we ought to put our focus on removing it from (or, at least, changing its importance in) our lives.

          I recently came across a poem from the former Archbishop of Seattle that I think sums up what I’m trying to say pretty well.  He writes:

If as with Herod,
We fill our lives with things,
And again with things;
If we consider ourselves so important
That we must fill every moment of our lives with action;
When will we have the time
To make the long, slow journey
Across the burning desert
As did the Magi?
Or sit and watch the stars
As did the Shepherds?
Or brood over the coming of the child
As did Mary?
For each of us
There is a desert to travel,
A star to discover,
And a being within ourselves
To bring to life.

In this new year, may our resolution be to make ourselves open to experiencing the manifestation of Jesus in our lives; an experience that we celebrate each and every week, here in this Eucharist.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – January 5^th, 2014

New Year's Resolutions with Mary, Mother of God

Ok, friends, I almost forgot to post my Solemnity homily from this past week.  Read fast, because there will be an Epiphany one coming soon!

I pray that the new year will bring you all abundant blessings!

P.S. Back to Guatemala in less than a week!

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Homily: Mary, Mother of God – Cycle C

Well, here we are!  It’s a new year and once again everything seems possible.  Now I suppose that perhaps more than a few of us have spent the last few weeks lamenting all that wasn’t accomplished in the past year: those resolutions we so fervently resolved which, for a multitude of legitimate reasons, perhaps never quite materialized as we had imagined they would.  Nevertheless, today everything is new and full of possibilities.  And it’s likely that many of us have made new resolutions, which, I suppose, means that we are confident that this year we will actually keep them.
You know, I like that about us.  I like the fact that even when we don’t always accomplish what we’ve set out to do, that we don’t let that keep us from starting again.  In other words, we don’t despair that there is something more to accomplish, in spite of the fact that we’ve fallen short.  I think this is a very Catholic attitude, by the way.  As Catholics, we routinely acknowledge when we’ve failed to live up to our expectations—in other words, when we’ve “missed the mark”—and, once we do, we decide to start anew, with a clean slate, and strive once again to achieve those good goals we set for ourselves.  Sounds a little bit like the Sacrament of Reconciliation, doesn’t it?  Putting all of that aside, however, and turning back to our resolutions for this new year, I’d like to consider for a moment what it is that Mary has to teach us about making resolutions.
Throughout these last eight days, the Gospel readings have often reminded us of how, in various situations, Mary encountered things that were distressing, confusing, and astounding; and that, after each of them, how she “held those things in her heart, reflecting on them.”  First was the message from the shepherds of what they had seen and heard from the angels.  Then was the words of Simeon in the Temple, in which he prophesied that a “sword would pierce her heart.”  Finally, there was the losing and finding of the child Jesus in the Temple, in which Jesus’ words confounded her.  After each of these situations, we are told that Mary “held these things in her heart and reflected on them.”  In other words, that she practiced silence.
I would venture to guess that most all of our resolutions involve something active, that is, something we’d like to accomplish: I’m going to exercise more, take that trip I’ve always wanted to take, learn how to golf, or play an instrument, or how to cook.  And these are all good things, of course.  However, they are all things bound to create “mental noise”: a nagging voice in the back of our minds constantly reminding us that we have yet to accomplish the goal that we set out for ourselves.  But what if one of our resolutions this year was to reflect on more things in our hearts?  In other words, what if we resolved to “practice silence” this year?
In his final homily of 2012, Pope Benedict XVI offered advice for how we can overcome the inevitable disappointments—both with ourselves and with the world—that we encounter in our daily lives.  He says “we must be able to remain in silence, in meditation, in calm and prolonged reflection; we must know how to stop and think.  In this way, our mind can find healing from the inevitable wounds of daily life, can go deeper into the events that occur in our lives and in the world, and come to the knowledge that allows us to evaluate things with new eyes.”  In other words, the Holy Father is encouraging us to ponder more deeply the events of our lives and thus to come to see more clearly how our faith shapes our response to them and our own ability to grow within them.
Thus, it seems that our Blessed Mother does have something to teach us about making resolutions.  In all of these events of her life, she did not turn to media outlets to hear what everybody else was saying about what had happened in order to try and make sense of it for herself.  Rather, she turned to silence.  In other words, Mary learned to pray with these events so as to see more clearly how her faith would shape her response to them and her ability to grow within them.
Just this past Sunday, we heard in the Gospel that after the incident in the Temple, “[Jesus] went down with [Mary and Joseph] and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them” and that he “advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.”  I suspect that one of the things that he learned from his Mother—whom we venerate today precisely because she is his mother—was how to reflect on things in his heart: a skill that I suspect he perfected in the remaining “hidden years” in Nazareth before he began his public ministry.
My brothers and sisters, Mary is our mother, too.  Perhaps this year she could teach us how to ponder deeply in our hearts: that is, how to practice silence.  In doing so, perhaps we’ll find that, in doing less, we’ve actually accomplished a whole lot more.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – January 1, 2013

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God