Don't give up on waiting

Homily: 3rd Sunday of Advent – Cycle A

Is it Christmas?  No.  There, I’ve just given you every small detail of the website whose sole purpose seems to be to answer that question.  The website’s address is isitchristmas.com and when you go to the site all that you see is a big fat NO in your face.  I’m not sure what happens on that website on Christmas, but my guess is that it’ll either say “Yes”, which is boring, or it will invade my computer with a virus, rob my identity, and cause my computer to self-destruct, which would be much more exciting, for sure, but not the kind of exciting that I’m looking for.

You know that we’re a little bit crazy about Christmas when there are websites whose sole purpose is to remind us that it isn’t Christmas yet.  And I think that this is a sign that, frankly, we just don’t get it.  Every year, it seems, we demonstrate that we are so impatient for our self-indulgent winter holiday celebrations that we can’t wait even the three to four weeks of Advent before we start indulging.  I intentionally use the phrase “winter holiday” here because, at least in my experience, these almost never have anything to do with Christ and his coming among us in our human nature (except, perhaps, as a “pious excuse” for having them).  The fact that “winter holiday” decorations come down on December 26^th is evidence enough that our celebrations were over long before the event itself arrived.

You may call me “Scrooge” for thinking like this, but I tell you this comes from a deep place of concern.  You see, I’ve read the Scriptures (it’s kind of a necessity of this vocation) and I’ve read about what happens to folks who give up on waiting for God.  Let’s go back to the book of Exodus.  There, in chapter 24, God calls Moses up onto Mount Sinai (the mountain of the covenant) in order to give him the Ten Commandments.  Moses goes up and spends 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain.

Then, we hear that the people got anxious waiting for Moses to return and so demand that Aaron (Moses’ brother and the guy who was left in charge while Moses was gone) build them an idol to worship.  Aaron ceded to their demands and fashioned a golden calf before which the Israelites bowed in worship and then feasted: eating and drinking in excess and otherwise celebrating with great revelry long before Moses returned with the Ten Commandments.  God alerted Moses to this and said that he would slay them right then and there.  Moses intervened, however, and God relented.  Moses then went down the mountain to find what God had described and himself became enraged.  He called forth the Israelites who had not worshiped the idol nor had engaged in revelry and had them punish those who had done those things by putting them to death.  The passage ends with this somber verse: “Thus the Lord smote the people for having had Aaron make the calf for them.”  The Israelites refused to wait and instead gave into self-indulgence: for this they were severely punished.

Advent, my brothers and sisters, reminds us that we are in a time of waiting, and that this waiting is not aimless; rather, we are waiting the return of Jesus.  And not just Jesus our friend who has been away for a while (as joyous as that homecoming would be), but Jesus, our King, who will come with judgment and to usher in the fullness of his kingdom in which right order is finally reestablished through all of creation.  Those who are found in faithful preparation will be like the sheep Jesus describes in the parable of Matthew 25, to whom he says “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  To those who are found to have given up on waiting, that is, to have given up on their faithful preparation for his coming, the King will say, “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”  I hope now that you can see why I am so concerned that we have given up on waiting.

In the Letter from Saint James, from which we heard in the second reading, he instructs us: “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord... Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand... Behold, the Judge is standing before the gates. Take as an example of hardship and patience … the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.”  Saint James is exhorting us not to give up on waiting, because our King’s advent, that is, his coming, is closer than we think.  Friends, by dutifully waiting to celebrate until the day of the Nativity of Christ, December 25^th, we remind ourselves that we must dutifully wait and prepare for Christ our King’s imminent return.  We do this both internally, by repenting of our sins and turning again to the Way that Christ has shown us, and externally, by doing the works of mercy and, thus, producing the signs that the King who is to come has indeed already come.  Friends, everything else is secondary.

In our Gospel reading today, we heard how John the Baptist, imprisoned by King Herod, sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”  Jesus, with great love for his dear relative and friend, sends them back with this instruction: “Go and tell John what you hear and see...” that is, that the signs of the Messiah of which Isaiah prophesied—blind who now see, lame who now walk, lepers who are cleansed, deaf who now hear, and the dead who now live—these were now happening through him.

If someone asked any of us today: "Is Jesus the one who was to come, or should we look for another?" what would we say?  Could we say, "Yes! Look, the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised"?  Perhaps you might say, “No, but Jesus isn’t here with us to make those things happen.”  True, but didn’t Jesus say to his disciples, “Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these”?  My friends, we must say "yes", that Jesus is the one who was to come, but we must also manifest the works of the kingdom, that is, the works of mercy, among us so as to declare that he is still to come again.  Otherwise, even the John the Baptists of the world—that is, persons of great faith—may give into doubt and fall away before the time of his coming.

You know, the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist, the apostle James, and those of their time never asked the question “Is it Christmas?”  They, rather, were concerned with a greater question: “Is it Advent?”  In other words, “Is it the Coming of the one who is to come?”  For the prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist the answer would have been a single “Yes”, for they would not live to look for the second coming (in this world, anyway).  For the apostle James, however, and for every Christian for the last 2000 years, the answer is “Yes and yes”: meaning, “Yes, the one for whom we looked to come has come” and “Yes, it is he for whom we are preparing to come again”.

My brothers and sisters, the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus our King that we encounter in the form of bread and wine from this altar is the bridge between these two “yeses”.  As we encounter Him today in this Mass, let us ask for the strength to wait and to faithfully prepare for his second coming, so that we might be welcomed into the fullness of His kingdom to rejoice with Mary and the saints for all eternity.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – December 14^th & 15^th, 2019

Preparing to hail the King

Homily: 1^st Sunday of Advent – Cycle A

Friends, hot on the heels of our celebration of Christ the King, we come to the first Sunday of Advent.  Instead of hearing readings that turn our focus to the Christ Child (perhaps as we’d prefer they’d do), we hear readings that remind us of Christ’s kingship.  And this is totally appropriate since the beginning of our new liturgical year is never a “reset”, but always a “continuation”.  Our declaration last week that Jesus Christ is Lord and King of the Universe necessarily leads us right into the truth that he is yet to come again, and our readings remind us of this.

In our first reading from the prophet Isaiah, we hear the prophecy of how the Lord will come to establish Mount Zion, the hill on which Jerusalem was built, as the “highest” mountain.  As we know, the city of Jerusalem is nowhere near the highest point of anything.  In the symbolic language of the prophets, however, the cities of the greatest prominence—from which the greatest rulers rule—are the ones built on the highest mountains and so Isaiah declares that God will come to establish Mount Zion as the highest mountain so that Jerusalem will be considered the greatest of cities from which the greatest of rulers, the Lord, will rule over all the earth.

This is an obvious allusion to Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, whom Isaiah didn’t know, but nonetheless foretold, and who would, by his death and resurrection on Mount Zion, establish himself as king.  In doing so, he will draw all nations to himself; because, in himself, he has become Mount Zion, established as the highest mountain (for we read in the Gospel of John that Jesus says, “...when I am lifted from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” ~ John 12:32).  Then we hear Isaiah say, “Many peoples shall come and say: ‘Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.’”  Is this not the embodiment of who Jesus is?  The one to whom all peoples go up to be instructed in his ways so as to walk in his paths?  And yet Isaiah continues: “For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”  In Jesus Christ we see this, too, happening.  Carried first by his apostles and then by the faithful throughout the generations, this instruction has gone out into the world.

Bishop Robert Barron, in a recent podcast reflecting on the feast of Christ the King, reminds us that this was the whole purpose of Christ’s coming: that is, to establish a kingdom that unifies the world.  And this is a real kingdom, with Christ as the king, and with the law of God as the universal rule for all peoples everywhere.  In other words, Christ didn’t come to teach us how to be nice people and then to sacrifice himself for our sins only to return to heaven and leave us alone—as if, as he ascended, he could be heard saying, “Now you better behave, because I’m not going to come down their again and save you!”  No, Christ came to establish the definitive kingdom of God under his own kingship.  This is what we celebrate on the feast of Christ the King.  That he will return in all of his glory to take his kingdom unto himself is what the season of Advent spurs us to remember.

This remembering, however, is never static.  In other words, we’re not meant to go “Oh yeah,” and then continue as if nothing is different.  Rather, this remembering is meant to spur us into action: for we are the ones who have gone up to Christ to receive instruction so as to walk in his paths, and we are the ones who are sent to go forth from Christ into the world with this instruction.  And why?  To prepare for the final uniting of all into the one kingdom of heaven.  And so, how do we prepare?

We prepare by first recognizing that this world is covered in darkness: a darkness that only the light of Christ can penetrate and illuminate.  It is fitting, then, that we celebrate this season at the time of year in which the days are filled with the least amount of daylight.  Advent calls us to recognize this darkness and enter into it, so that we can know what is truly the light of Christ and what is the false light that the world puts forth to distract us.

Frankly, I just don’t see how we can do this if we have already filled our lives with winter holiday lights and festivities.  At the end of the prophecy that we heard in today’s reading, Isaiah exhorts the children of Israel to “walk in the light of the Lord”, and Saint Paul, in the second reading from the Letter to the Romans, exhorts them to “throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light”.  Friends, I declare that this is all but impossible for us if we have already decked out our homes with false lights and festivities that have little to do with preparing for Christ’s coming.  We should, rather, be examining ourselves—going into the darkness of our inner selves—to see if we are truly prepared to meet Christ our King and to be judged by him.

Therefore, I exhort you to leave off the lights and festivities this Advent and instead “seek first the kingdom of God”.  For, as Christ himself reminded us in today’s Gospel reading, we do not know the day when Christ will come.  Rather, it will catch us unaware, going about, as it were, our daily business.  Those who are ready for the judgment will be taken up into the kingdom, and those who aren’t will be left behind.  You know, it is really unfortunate that there are so many teachers in the Church today who will argue for universal salvation: that is, that ultimately everyone will be saved.  Unfortunate because it is not biblical.  The biblical teaching is that there are many who will be lost to eternal punishment: most of whom, I would guess, will be lost because they didn’t take care to be ready for the day that the Lord called them to judgment.  And this for me is very distressing, which is why I am preaching this to you today.

You know, there’s a specter running around called “The Christmas Spirit” that convinces people to believe in a domesticated Christmas: a Christmas that’s all about family reunions, meals, and shared gifts.  This, I argue, is a false spirit.  False because Christ himself cannot be domesticated.  The true Spirit of Christmas is the one that leads us to prepare for and hail the coming of Christ the King: a king more powerful than all the rulers of this world, a king who will judge between nations and impose terms on many peoples, a king who can, once and for all, lead people to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, a king who can bring true and lasting peace through justice by uniting all peoples into one kingdom.  Friends, if your “Christmas Spirit” isn’t a spirit that prepares for and hails this king, then I say to you again: it is a false spirit.

The question, therefore, that this first Sunday of Advent poses to all of us is this: “Where is Christ the King in my preparations for and celebrations of Advent?”  If you struggle to find him there, then perhaps you’ll ask yourself, “What, then, am I preparing for?”  Let us all challenge ourselves to discern in prayer at least one way that we can turn this time of Advent and Christmas into a preparation for and a hailing of the coming of Christ the King.  Perhaps we’ll take up a work of mercy, or spend an hour in adoration each week, or read the scriptures a little each day (especially if that means turning off TV, steaming services, or social media), or any number of things.  Making a good and thorough examination of conscience and sacramental reconciliation is probably one of the best ways to put Christ the King into your preparations.  Whatever you discern, be intentional.  Write it down and make concrete plans to do it.  Share those plans with a friend and keep each other accountable to it.  In this way you will keep yourself awake for the day of the Lord’s coming, which may be very soon, and you will be ready to join the multitudes who sing with the Psalmist: “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.”

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – December 1^st, 2019

The Gospel of the Ascension

Homily: The Ascension of the Lord – Cycle B

          Friends, today we celebrate this great feast of the Ascension: the final, culminating act of our redemption.  This is not, of course, the crucial act: that was Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection.  Rather, it is the culminating act: the ultimate reason for which Jesus took on our human flesh; and that is, to re-unite our humanity to God.  This, of course, is a joyful thing.  I mean, just think about your humanity for a moment.  Think about what happens when you don’t take a shower or a bath for a couple of days.  Think about changing diapers on babies or when they spit up on your shoulder.  Our humanity—as we experience it in this world, at least—is a messy (and, quite frankly, often gross) thing.  Yet the Divine Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, took on our humanity, in all its grossness, suffered all of the worst things that it can experience in this world, and glorified it in his resurrection so that it could be restored to its perfect communion with the Holy Trinity: which is to say, into an existence of perfect and eternal bliss.

          Yet, in our Scriptures today, the greatness of this event does not seem to be the message.  The message, rather, seems to focus on the mission that Christ gives to his apostles.  In the first reading from the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, we hear Jesus speaking about the Holy Spirit that Jesus will send to empower them to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  Then, in our reading from the Gospel of Mark, we hear Jesus giving them his specific command: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.”  Notice at the end of that reading, after it describes Jesus’ ascension, it doesn’t say “And the disciples sat around and marveled that Jesus has taken our human nature to be re-united with the Holy Trinity.”  Rather it says that “they went forth and preached everywhere”.  So why would the Scriptures spend so few verses on the Ascension and so many on the mission?

          This is because the Easter season is not only about celebration, but about preparation.  If you heard my homily last Sunday or any number of occasions over these past 40-some days, you’ll know that I’ve been encouraging us to consider this time of Easter as a time of preparation to be re-sent out on mission.  This is what the original “Easter Season” was, as the Acts of the Apostles records for us, saying: “He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.”  What was this, but a preparation for being sent out to be his “witnesses … to the ends of the earth”?  Therefore, as I have said, if our celebration of Easter is going to be anything more than an excuse to eat our favorite foods that we gave up for Lent, and if our celebration of Pentecost is going to be anything more than a brief flash of red at church before going back to the green of Ordinary Time, then we, too, should have been preparing to renew our efforts to fulfill this great mission to proclaim the Gospel.

          But this begs the question… And what is the “gospel” (that is, “what is the “good news”)?  The Gospel is exactly that of which I spoke at the beginning of this homily: that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  “Wait, that’s not what you said at the beginning of the homily.”  Well, yes it is.  The Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ is what “giving his only Son” looked like; and restoring our humanity to its original glory so that it may dwell with God in eternal bliss once again (meaning that each of us with a human nature can also dwell with God in eternal bliss) is the ultimate result of this “good news”.

          Notice, for a moment, what the “gospel” isn’t: it isn’t that Jesus came to show us how to be good persons and, therefore, we are eternally grateful to him for it.  It is that our broken, messy, and often gross humanity has been perfected (that is, glorified) in Jesus Christ; and that, through him, we, too, can achieve and enjoy that perfection.

          Friends, if you need any sign that this gospel is needed in today’s world, you don’t have to look too far.  Did anyone watch the Met Gala last week (or at least see news reports about it)?  If you did, what you saw was disfigured humanity on display.  Not in any raucous bad behavior, mind you, but in how fashion designers proved infinitely capable of desecrating beautiful things while believing that they were improving upon them.  This kind of thinking—that we can perfect ourselves by our own ingenuity and, thus, have heaven right here—is our greatest modern plague; and it usually results in things looking more distorted (and, therefore, less perfect) than they were in the first place.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer for anyone who has gone down this dead-end road.

          Unfortunately, however, many people around us do not even know that there is anything more for which to hope than this disfigured humanity and our attempts to perfect it by ourselves.  Thus, we must be re-sent out on mission.  Just like Jesus’ first apostles, we, too, are called to be his “witnesses … to the ends of the earth” to bring this good news: that life is not just about how good you can make it in this world, but that it’s destined for something so much greater, as Jesus, in his ascension, has shown us.  We are witnesses when we live as Saint Paul exhorts us to live in today’s second reading when he says: “I … urge you to live in a manner worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace…”  In this way we will model authentic human community, built on love, and, thus, attract those seeking a perfect humanity so that they might find it in its fullness through union with Jesus Christ.

          Therefore, my friends, in this final week of the Easter season—that is, the final week of preparation to be re-sent out on mission—let us pray fervently for a renewal of God’s Holy Spirit in us: so that we can be Church—and, therefore, witnesses—for Christ once again.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – May 12^th & 13^th, 2018

Easter Preparation for Mission

Homily: 6^th Sunday of Easter – Cycle B

          Friends, today our Gospel reading presents us with a contrast of contexts, so to speak.  The text is taken from Jesus’ beautiful Last Supper discourse in John’s Gospel.  Next to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, the Last Supper discourse is the longest continual sermon recorded in all of the four Gospels.  In the context of the Last Supper, these words serve as a “farewell speech”, of sorts, to his disciples on the night before he was going to be betrayed, tortured, and killed (that is, the day in which all of his disciples would “have their faith in him shaken”).  We, however, are hearing these words in the context of our continuing celebration of Easter.  Therefore, while they still express for us Jesus’ deep affection for us, his disciples (as they expressed to his disciples at the Last Supper), they nonetheless don’t have the same “dark gravity” for us that they did for the Apostles, given that we are no longer anticipating Christ’s Passion, but rather celebrating his victory over death.

          Nonetheless, in each context, the message that comes to us is similar: Christ is giving his disciples the most important things for them to remember before he leaves them on their own.  For the disciples at the Last Supper, these words would be critical in the days and weeks that followed: not just as they dealt with the intense events of Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection, but also as they tried to make sense of Jesus’ commission to take the Gospel to the ends of the world.  Those were tumultuous times when the prophesies that Jesus proclaimed began to become true: when father would be turned against son, and son against father; and mother against daughter, and daughter against mother.  In other words, when friends became enemies and enemies became friends.  How else could they have survived as a community unless they held fast to Jesus’ commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you”?

          For us here today, these words are also critical: and for much the same reason.  The Gospel is still a thing that creates division: both in our society (for example: pro-life v. pro-choice, sanctity of marriage v. same-sex unions, etc.) and in our personal lives (like when children rebel against their religious upbringing, or choose to take up religion in spite of their parents’ lack of religious practice).  In order for us to survive as a community, we too must hold fast to Jesus’ commandment to “love one another as he has loved us”.

          Still more, and I wonder if this isn’t something that we overlook each year as we celebrate the Easter season, these words are critical for us because we ought to be preparing to be re-sent out on mission.  As I’ve said in a number of different contexts this Easter season, too often, we Christians look at this time of Easter as a time of celebration only.  It is a time of celebration, don’t get me wrong; but it is also a time of preparation.  “Oh, Father, aren’t you confused?  Lent is a time a preparation: not Easter.”  Technically speaking, you’re correct; but I’d like you each to consider Easter as time of celebration and preparation.  And here’s why.

          In a couple of weeks, we are going to celebrate Pentecost—the birthday of the Church—in which the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles to empower them for their mission to take the Gospel to the ends of the world.  The days between Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension (a.k.a. the original “Easter season”) were days of preparation to begin this great mission.  Therefore, if our celebration of Easter is going to be anything more than an excuse to eat our favorite foods that we gave up for Lent, and if our celebration of Pentecost is going to be anything more than a brief flash of red at church before going back to the green of Ordinary Time, then we, too, should be preparing to renew our efforts to fulfill this great mission to proclaim the Gospel.

          And so, we return to the scene of the Last Supper and listen once again to Jesus’ beautiful words: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you.  I no longer call you slaves… I have called you friends.”  This, so that we can be comforted in our times of trial (especially when those trials are the result of our friendship with Jesus) and strengthened to fulfill his command: “Love one another as I have loved you.”  In order to prepare ourselves to fulfill this command, let us reflect briefly on what “loving as Christ has loved us” looks like.

          Loving one another as Christ has loved us means that we must give of ourselves for the benefit of others.  And so, we have to ask ourselves, “What is the very best thing that I can do for someone?”  There are, of course, many good things that we can do for others: giving food and clothing to those in need, giving education to the ignorant, and comfort to the sick and dying… These are what the Church traditionally calls the “works of mercy”.  But are any of these the best thing?  Not really.  Rather, the best thing that we can do for another person is to lead them to friendship with Christ.  This is what our first reading shows to us today.

          In that reading, we heard how Saint Peter brought the Good News of Jesus Christ to Cornelius, a high-ranking official in the Roman army, and to his family and friends who had gathered in his house with him that day.  This was, of course, remarkable in that Cornelius was not a Jew, and so was completely unfamiliar with the history of creation, the fall, and the plan for salvation.  Nonetheless, he was impressed by the Apostles and open to receiving the truth.  Peter, seeing that Cornelius was a Gentile, remembered Christ’s command, loved Cornelius as Jesus had loved him, and led Cornelius to friendship with Christ, which was confirmed through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

          Friends, as the great solemnity of Pentecost approaches, we must prepare ourselves to overcome our prejudices of others, like Saint Peter did, by remembering the generous outpouring of love that Christ has made for us so that we might find the courage to love everyone we meet with that same love: always striving to lead each one to friendship with Christ.  We do this first with our loving actions (that is, with the works of mercy), but then also with our words that invite them know Christ and to allow him to love them as he has loved us.  My friends, this is the greatest good that we can do for others.  Let us, then, spend this remaining time in Easter preparing ourselves well to take up this good work; and, therefore, to experience, once again, the complete joy that comes with being friends of Christ.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – May 6^th, 2018

Advent a time for showing our devotion

Homily: 1^st Sunday of Advent – Cycle B

          It’s no secret that we celebrate a lot of funerals here at All Saints.  As the number of funerals that I’ve celebrated continues to grow, I’m growing in my understanding of how, as a priest, I can best care for the spiritual and emotional needs of the family who is grieving the loss of a loved one.  Being present with them while their loved one is dying is, of course, important.  Meeting with them to pray with them, to let them tell the story of their loved one, and to help them plan the funeral Mass after their loved one has died is also very important.  What I have observed, however, is that the “behind the scenes” work of preparing for the funeral Mass is a great work of spiritual and emotional care for those in grief, as well.

          It seems to me that, when a family arrives at the door of the church with the body of their loved one, if they find everything prepared and that we have been waiting for their arrival, they will be comforted: comforted because they know that they have been cared for.  This sign of devotedness, I would argue, is some of the best spiritual and emotional care that I can provide.

          In ancient times, when the head of a household would go on a journey, he would measure the level of devotedness of his household servants by how ready they were to receive him when he returned home.  If he returned and found the house in order and his servants ready to welcome him, he would know of their devotedness.  If he returned, however, and found the house in disorder and his servants scrambling to make preparations to receive him (or, worse yet, ignoring the fact of his return altogether), he would know of their lack of devotedness.  In that culture, it would have been a sign of great disrespect to be unprepared to welcome an expected traveler.

          Jesus, therefore, uses this example to admonish his disciples about his second coming.  In a sense, he is saying to them: “It’s true, I'm going; but stay alert because I'll be back and I'll measure your devotedness to me by how ready you are to receive me.”  So strong is his admonition that he specifies that there will be no part of the night that will be “off-limits” for his return and so they should not let down their guard for one moment.  In this we should hear echoes of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.  Even though they all fell asleep as they awaited the bridegroom’s return, only the wise virgins prepared for it and brought extra oil.  When they bridegroom returned and they were ready to receive him, they were welcomed into the feast; for they had shown him their devotedness.  The foolish virgins, who had to run off to buy more oil, had proven their lack of devotion and so were left outside and shunned by the bridegroom: so unloved had he felt by them that he even refused to acknowledge that he knew them.

          Thus, as we begin this Advent season, we are renewing this admonition for ourselves.  First and foremost, we are reminding ourselves that our master—the head of the household, the bridegroom—is away and we are awaiting his return.  Then, we are reminding ourselves that, if we are truly devoted to him, we must not let our guard down and begin to forget about our preparations, even if it seems like he is long-delayed in his coming.  Because the fact of the matter remains that he could come at any time; and that, in spite of the fact that God is, indeed, “rich in mercy”, he will not have mercy on those who had been forewarned so clearly through these parables.

          And so, the question comes to us: “Are we so devoted to Jesus as to be ready to receive him when he returns?”  In other words, are we actively preparing and watching for his return? or are we going about our own business, ignoring the fact that he could return today?  If the answer is “yes, I am actively preparing and watching for his return”, then great!  Keep up the good work!  If the answer is “well… not so much”, or, flat out, “no”, then here is your wakeup call!

          Hopefully, if you fall into this latter category (which, I would guess, most of us do), you feel some anxiety about it.  If so, then that’s a good sign!  It’s a sign that you have devotion to Jesus, even though you might be failing at demonstrating it right now.  In fact, even if you do feel like you are actively preparing and watching for Jesus’ return, you should feel some anxiety, also; because we all know that, no matter how much you prepare to receive someone you care for, you’re always a little anxious that it isn’t going to be good enough, right?  If you have no anxiety at all, however, it shows that you are either presumptuous (kind of like the foolish virgins) or that you really don’t care at all (which, then, begs the question: what you’re doing here?).  I’m going to continue, however, under the assumption that all of us here do have a devotion to Jesus at some level, but that we are less than prepared to receive him if he should come today.  If that is the case, then I think that the prophet Isaiah gives us a good “stepping-off point” to begin our Advent.

          Isaiah was frustrated that his people had wandered far away from the Lord, and so he cries out to God and asks him to come and fix it all!  Now, although this comes from a place of frustration, it also expresses a great faith: that the Lord is powerful enough to fix even this, their greatest mess!  Isaiah expresses his desire that, when the Lord comes, he would find his people busy about his work and mindful of him—that is, showing a devotedness to him by being prepared for his coming.  Isaiah knows, however, that they aren’t, but he calls on the Lord, anyway.  In other words, he doesn't panic and try to get everything fixed up by himself before the Lord comes, but rather he sends a note to say: "Hey, I know you're on your way, but the place is a mess and it may not get fixed up before you get here.  In fact, you're going to have to help us clean it up.  Know that we wanted to get it cleaned up for you, though!"

          We, too, should begin our Advent this way: by crying out to God and asking him to come, even though we're not as prepared as we'd like to be.  This, in itself, is a sign of devotedness: that is, that we are being watchful for his coming.  Having begun in this way, we will then be moved to do what we can to make preparations.  And what are those preparations?  Well, we heard them last week: that the hungry are fed, the thirsty are given drink, the strangers are welcomed, the naked are clothed, the sick are cared for, and those in prison are visited.  Jesus promised that, when we do these things to anyone, we do them to him; and so to perform these acts of mercy is great sign of devotedness to him.  Still more, however, when we do these acts of mercy we are making God’s kingdom present among us; and what better way can there be to prepare for the coming of our King, than for his kingdom to be vibrant and shining when he comes.

          My brothers and sisters, through the words of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, God has promised us that he has given us every spiritual gift that we need to make ourselves ready to receive our Lord when he comes.  Therefore, let us begin today to show our Lord our devotedness once again, so as to be ready to receive him with joy when he comes.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 3^rd, 2017

The obedience that conquers fear

Homily: 4^th Sunday of Advent – Cycle A

          Fear is a powerful thing, and rightly so.  Fear is one of the essential tools that all animals use for survival.  When we find ourselves in a dangerous situation, fear of dying causes us either to fight what is in front of us or to run away from it in order to preserve our lives.  For example, if I’m walking through a neighborhood and am confronted by an unfriendly looking dog, I have a decision to make: either I’m going to stand my ground and try to fight him off if he attacks me, or I’m going to run away, hoping that he doesn’t catch me.  Without fear, however, I might be a “sitting duck” to the dog’s attack.  We fear things that threaten us.

          We also fear things that we don’t trust.  In other words, the possibility that what is in front of us might harm us makes us guarded and unwilling to engage with it for fear of what might happen to us.  For example, I might be asked to climb a ladder to hang a decoration or to clean out the gutters, but one look at the ladder might tell me that it might collapse under my weight and so fear of injury makes me say “no” to the request.  Perhaps even my fear of heights—which is not really a fear of heights, but rather a fear of falling from those heights—would cause me not to trust the ladder, even if it was the sturdiest ladder ever made.  This also applies to people, of course, as a lack of trust in an individual—the pilot on your airline flight, for example—could cause you to skip your flight.  Fear, indeed, is powerful: it has the power to decide what actions you take in life.

          For this reason, fear can be inimical to faith.  We need look no farther than today’s Scriptures to see an example of this.  Ahaz is the king of the southern kingdom of Judah.  His kingdom has been surrounded on all sides by his enemies and he is trying to figure out what to do: should he try to fight them (invoking the assistance of the Egyptians to the south), or should he run, or should he just give up?  The prophet Isaiah comes to speak the Lord’s message to him.  He tells him: “Surrender to your enemies.  Do not fear that this will be the end of the kingdom, because God has not forgotten his promise.  In fact, God wills to give you a sign that he will not abandon you.  You tell him what that sign shall be.”  Ahaz, however, didn’t trust God and so, in a sign of false piety, he refused to ask for a sign.  He allowed his fear to overcome his faith.

          Both Mary and Joseph had the opportunity to respond like Ahaz to the revelation of God.  At the revelation of the angel, however, Mary trusted God, even given the fearful uncertainty of what this would mean for her life; and so she conceived Jesus in her womb.  Joseph, too, fearful for being found unrighteous according to the Law, trusted the revelation of the angel and so gave Jesus a patrimony—Son of the House of David—so that the prophecy of Isaiah would be fulfilled.  Both were instructed by the angel, “Do not be afraid”, and both listened.  Thus, God’s great promises to his people were finally fulfilled when two poor Jews from Galilee conquered the power of their fears and put their faith in God: submitting themselves to his will.

          These are examples for us of the “obedience of faith” that Saint Paul spoke about in the beginning of his letter to the Romans.  Obedience of this type is not blind servitude that we think of when we think of slavery as it was often practiced in the early years of this country; rather, it is loving adherence to the will of one, who has authority over you, yes, but who also has responsibility for your well-being.  The obedience of faith, therefore, is the obedience that can say “yes” in spite of a fearful unknown, because the one who asks is trustworthy.  The obedience of faith can say “yes” even in the face of a certain danger, because the one who asks has promised to carry you through.  More than all these, however, the obedience of faith is a readiness to respond in love to the one who has already poured out his love on you, which is exactly what God did when he sent his Son to become one with us and to die for us.  In fact, because of this, the obedience of faith is something we owe God, which is why Saint Paul saw it as his apostolic responsibility “to bring about the obedience of faith.”

          My brothers and sisters, this obedience of faith is that to which we are being called to return during this Advent season.  Our remembrance that Our Lord came to us as a little child to then go forth to suffer and to die so that we might be saved from sin and death forever, and that he reigns now in heaven as King of the Universe until the appointed time when he will return to bring about the fullness of his kingdom, is meant to remind us of our need to examine our lives and to ensure that we are truly prepared to receive him when he comes.  This is the work that we should have been doing for the past three weeks.  And if we haven’t been doing it, then it is the work we are being called to take up in this last week of Advent (and thanks be to God that there is a whole week left!).

          Our Father in heaven knows us well, however.  And so he know that, if we have been struggling to trust him and to overcome our fear of the unknown—or of the certain danger—that might come from our obedience, there is nothing more fear-conquering than a little child who needs to be welcomed into a warm home.  This is why the Church ends this great season of expectation with the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child: it’s easier to make a place for him.  In this final week before Christmas, my brothers and sisters, may we each finish well this good work that we have begun to overcome our fears and to give God the obedience of faith that we owe him once again.  Thus will our hearts be prepared to receive him and to acknowledge him for who he is: Emmanuel, God with us.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 17^th & 18^th, 2016

Just leave the water jar and walk away...

          Ok, it has been a bit of a blessed/rough week for me.  A couple of funerals (with one still coming up on Monday) and covering the weekend by myself.  Thus, the homily is not nearly as polished as I might normally do.  That's life in ministry, though!  God bless your week!

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Homily: 3^rd Sunday of Lent – Cycle A

          So here we are at the end of the second full week of Lent.  In many ways, if we have been engaging the work of Lent well, we are settling into this season and perhaps even starting to see the fruits of what this season calls us to do.  Nevertheless, perhaps many of you have been struggling to “get into” what Lent is all about and are ready to disengage from the whole project (or perhaps you already have).  Thus, a word of reminder might be good here.

          Lent is a time of preparation.  Did you hear that?  I said “a time of preparation.”  I know most of you heard me say “a time of penance”, but I didn’t say that.  Lent is a time of preparation.  And preparation for what?  Well, for the celebration of Easter, of course!  And why do we need to prepare to celebrate Easter?  Why can’t we just celebrate it?  Well, because celebrating the greatest mystery of our salvation is something much deeper and more profound than, say, celebrating somebody’s birthday (though we do prepare to celebrate those, don’t we?).  Easter is not just a day of remembrance, but it is also a day of renewal: the remembrance of our definitive rebirth in Christ at our baptism and the renewal of our commitment to live that life to its fullest.

          You know that the word “renew” is synonymous with the word “renovate”, right?  And we all know that to renovate something is to take something that is old and used and to make it like new again.  We do this with houses and cars, churches and office buildings, and perhaps even our wardrobes from time to time.  What’s the first thing that any renovation project has to tackle?  Cleaning out the old junk, of course!  In other words, the first part of any renovation project is to prepare the space by cleaning out the old, useless stuff.

          Thus, if we are to be renewed—that is, renovated—by our celebration of Easter, then we need first to take some time to prepare our space by cleaning out the old junk from our hearts.  Lent is our time of preparation.  By fasting we detach ourselves from the things that keep us from living the new life that we have received in Christ through baptism.  By almsgiving we take up the practice of sharing the fruits of that new life with others.  And by prayer, we deeply reconnect with the one who called us out of our darkness and into his perfect light.

          It is in prayer, then, that we also remember.  Each of our journeys is unique.  Each of us, at some point in our lives, has had to come to terms with where it was that we were and where it is that God wanted us to be.  And each of us had to make a decision about whether we would follow Jesus towards where God wanted us to be or remain where we were.  My guess is that, since you are here, all of you have decided to follow Jesus to where God wants you to be.  If so, then part of our preparation for the renovating celebration of Easter is our remembrance of that experience of God meeting us where we were and inviting us to where he wants us to be: for part of our celebration is the renovation of our commitment to arrive at that place where God is leading us.

          If not, then perhaps this time of preparation could be a time for you to experience that encounter with God that will help you to come to terms with your life: that is, to see clearly where it is that you are and to experience God meeting you there and inviting you to journey towards the place where he wants you to be.  This is exactly what the Samaritan woman experienced in our Gospel reading.  From the place where she was—a life full of broken relationships which left her marginalized even among her own people—Jesus meets her and invites her to come to terms with her life.  He then invites her to move from where she is to where it is that he wants her to be: a place where her thirsts no longer find only temporary satisfaction, but rather become infinitely satisfied.

          At first, she tries to deflect this invitation: introducing a debate about the proper place of worship and then declaring her belief in the coming Messiah.  When Jesus, however, reveals himself to her completely (“I am he, the one speaking with you”) something in her changes.  She drops her guard, recognizes him for who he is, and… what?  She leaves her water jar to announce to all the townspeople who it is that she has encountered.  She left the water jar—representative of her life—that could be filled at one moment but would always become empty again, because she had found the spring of living water—Jesus—and so she no longer needed it.

          My brothers and sisters, 12 of our brothers and sisters in this community are on a journey towards their definitive rebirth in Christ through baptism at the Easter Vigil.  Lent, at its core, is for them as they make their final preparations for this “ultimate” renovation of their lives at Easter.  In these three weeks we will intentionally scrutinize them, asking them to come to terms with their lives, to recognize in Jesus the spring of living water, and thus to leave their water jars behind.  We, as their brothers and sisters in faith, journey with them so as to be renewed in our baptism at the Easter celebration.

          Let us, then, scrutinize our lives during this Lenten season so as to come to terms with them.  And let us seek to remember (or discover for the first time) how Jesus has shown us to be the only source that can satisfy our deepest thirsts.  Then, renewed in the grace of our baptism, we, too, will be inspired—like the Samaritan woman at the well—to take this great message out to the world and to invite all those around us to “come and see”, and to be filled by Jesus’ life-giving water.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – March 22^nd & 23^rd, 2014