Make straight the way of God within...

Homily: 2^nd Sunday of Advent – Cycle C

          Having grown up in a suburban area southwest of Chicago, I’ve come to appreciate much of the wide open spaces that I’ve often encountered since living here in Indiana.  I mean, we had parks and other open spaces where I grew up, but nothing like the expansive farms of corn, wheat, and soybeans like we enjoy here in north-central Indiana.  And, as I drive through different areas of the state, I enjoy taking in these great open spaces that go on for as far as I can see and which often make me wonder about just how much more there is that I don’t see.

          Having grown up here in the Midwest, however, where the land is mostly flat, I am unable to appreciate what it means to live in the midst of mountains and valleys.  Only by way of vacations or other short trips have I experienced what it means to have to drive over or around a mountain to get to the next town or city or to have to climb down into the valley in order to find the road that will take you to the market.  As a result, I am unable to truly appreciate the difficulties associated with living in areas like these.  A Haitian proverb, speaking about the reality of the terrain in Haiti, but also about the difficulties they experience in their lives, says this: “Beyond the mountains, there are more mountains.”  Perhaps many of you are in the same boat as me and unable to appreciate the difficulties of living in such areas.  Thus, our ability to appreciate what the prophets speak about in today’s readings is, perhaps, somewhat limited as well.

          In the first reading, from the prophet Baruch, we find the people of Jerusalem in mourning for their children who have been exiled by foreign invaders.  As such, they have clothed themselves in the traditional garb of mourners.  The prophet has come to announce that, by God’s mercy, the children of Jerusalem are about to return and so he joyfully announces that the inhabitants of Jerusalem are to throw off their garments of mourning and are to put on festival clothing.  Then, they are to go to the highest place and look off in the distance.  What they will find is that every mountain has been flattened and every valley has been filled in in order to make a straight and wide way for the triumphant return of their children, thus signaling a bright future for their nation.

          For those of you who may have lived among mountains, I suspect that this image of mountains that have been flattened and valleys that have been filled in would seem to be very vivid as you imagine what life could have been like had the same happened in the area in which you lived.  Those of us who have spent most of our lives in Indiana, however, are probably more apt to focus on that image of a wide, flat space, and what that would look like from a high place (though it wouldn’t have to be too high around here).  Imagine how incredible it would be to see a whole nation of people traversing some of these expansive farmlands as if they were returning to their homeland.  Well, perhaps you’re not impressed, but nevertheless it is exactly these Scriptural images that the Church gives us this week in order to help us understand what God is calling us to do during this Advent.

          What we see in that first reading is that the prophet is calling for two movements: one, that the people must first prepare themselves, removing their garments of mourning and putting on festival garments, and two, that the way must be prepared for the one who is coming, making it level and smooth.

          Then, in the Gospel reading, John the Baptist turns this call inward as he calls the people to a “baptism of repentance.”  As the herald of Jesus, the Messiah who was about to reveal himself, John was calling the people to prepare not only by outward appearances, but also by inward dispositions as well: thus making their hearts ready to receive the Messiah for whom they had long waited.

          A line from one of my favorite Advent hymns states: “make straight the way of God within.”  John was calling the people to prepare the way for the Messiah to enter into their hearts.  Thus, it was not enough to cleanse their hearts from sin by a baptism in the Jordan River, but rather they also needed to prepare a way for the Messiah to enter into their hearts by true repentance: that is, by truly changing their lives and leaving behind their sinful ways.

          My brothers and sisters, we recall John the Baptist’s words today in order to remind us that God calls each of us to prepare our hearts to receive him.  God wants to come to us and to dwell in us and to lead us to our heavenly homeland, and, although we have already been baptized by water and the Spirit in the Sacrament of Baptism, we are still constantly in need of a “baptism of repentance” like the one John called for in the Gospel reading: for when we examine our hearts we discover that the way into them is neither straight nor smooth; rather it is obstructed by ‘mountains of sin’ and ‘valleys of despair’ and self-pity.  Far from being straight and wide, the way into our hearts is narrow as it twists and turns around these mountains and valleys: a result of rationalizing our behavior instead of correcting it.

          Our Advent task, therefore, is to knock down the mountains of sin and fill in the valleys of despair and self-pity, thus straightening the way for God into our hearts.  The best way that we can do this is to return to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, for it is there that we can face the mountains that our sins have erected between ourselves and God as well as the ever-widening valleys of despair caused by our broken relationships with those around us.  And then we can watch as the power of God’s grace flattens the mountains and fills in the valleys, thus making the way between us smooth and easy to pass.  (Hmm, what a Christmas gift that would be: reconciliation with God and one another…)

          You know, it’s a shame for us that we are unable to celebrate the feast day of St. Juan Diego this year, since today, his feast day, falls on a Sunday.  It’s a shame for us because he can be for us a great example of one who, with the help of God’s grace, was able to flatten the mountains of doubt and fill in the valleys of fear in order to bring Our Lady’s message to the Bishop in Tenochtitlan, thus making the way smooth for Christ to enter the hearts of millions of people in Mexico and beyond.  Perhaps, in that same spirit, we, too, could “make straight the way of God within” and do the same right here in Indiana.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette IN – December 8^th & 9^th, 2018

Saying "yes" to God's voice

Homily: 2^nd Sunday in Lent – Cycle B

          Michigan mega-church pastor Rob Bell has produced a series of videos that take a simple, straight-forward approach to demonstrating how the Gospel applies to everyday life.  In one of the videos that I’ve seen, Mr. Bell speaks about the importance of saying “yes” to something.  In doing so, he emphasizes, we can then come to know what it is that we need to say “no” to in our lives.  He uses Jesus as an example to illustrate his point, stating that because Jesus said “yes” to do the Father’s will, announcing the Good News and redeeming God’s people, he could say “no” to many other things (like when Jesus turned away when he knew the crowd was going to make him their king).

          This is a video (a short film, really) and so of course there is a visual component to his speaking.  In the film, the whole time that he is talking he’s walking, seemingly from one side of a city to another.  At first his surroundings just seem like normal busy streets, but if you’re paying attention you begin to notice that the surroundings are part of the point.  The visual noises are distractions that surround him as he walks.  At a couple of points, a person actually walks in between Mr. Bell and the camera as he’s walking, but he never loses his stride until he arrives at his destination (which happens to be a school where he meets a young boy that we are to assume is his son).  The well-made point of both his words and the visual presentation is to emphasize how knowing to what it is that we have said “yes” keeps us focused (i.e. able to say “no”) in the midst of the world’s distractions.

          Our scriptures today lead us to think about how God’s voice gets into the middle of people’s lives.  In our first reading, Abraham hears God’s voice, who commands him to do something horrific: to take his son Isaac (that is, the son that God had promised to him as the first of the innumerable descendants that Abraham would have) and how Abraham followed what God had asked him to do.  This, of course, was not the first time that Abraham had said “yes” to God.  In fact, it was many years before, when Abraham was still “Abram”, that God first called Abraham and directed him to leave the land of his fathers to travel to a land which he would show him.  That was when Abraham first said his “yes” to God.  In the many years that followed, Abraham maintained that “yes” to God; and so, when God asked Abraham to give his son Isaac back to him, Abraham could say “yes” once again. /// Because he was clear about to what he had said “yes”, Abraham could say “no” to everything else.

          In the Gospel, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John on a hike up to a high place.  Knowing that Jesus often did this to have a quiet place where he could teach or pray, I’m guessing that the three were anticipating a quiet afternoon.  But then, the Transfiguration…  Moses and Elijah…  And, to top it all off, the voice of God booms out from the thick cloud that had descended upon them.  They had already said “yes” to Jesus when they responded to his call to leave their nets and follow him.  Now their “yes” had to go deeper (like Abraham’s had to go deeper).  In commanding these three to “listen to him”, the Father was, in essence, saying, “Obey him completely”.  And how soon would this be tested?  As soon as they started down from the high place: The Gospel says that “…[Jesus] charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” /// Because they had seen the full glory of that to which they had said “yes”, Peter, James, and John could then say “no” to everything else.

          And so, the question comes to us: “To whom (or to what) have I said ‘yes’?”  To answer this question, we need to take a look at to whose voice we listen and to whose we don’t.  This is an examination of conscience.  Is it God’s voice to which you listen?  Or is it to one (or more) of the many other voices that fill your day?  The ones, perhaps, who are closest to you and whose opinions and good graces you value highly?  If the voice to which you listen—that is, the voice to which you have said “yes”—isn’t God’s, then Lent is the time to “re-orient your hearing”, so to speak.

          In our second reading, Saint Paul reminds us powerfully that we should be listening—that is, giving our “yes”—to God.  In it, Paul is asking: "Who has done more for us besides God?"  God, who has given up his only son for us (and, in this context, we can add even when he didn't make Abraham do so).  If he has given us that much, Paul continues, how will he not give us everything else we need in this world, which is clearly much less valuable?  Then he asks, "If God has done this for us, then who should we fear in this world?"  For no one has more power than God and He has proven that he is "for" us (that is, “on our side”).  Thus, who (or what) have we to fear?  If it is God who ultimately decides our fate, then we must fear (that is, listen to) him alone.

          Okay, so how do I hear God’s voice and, thus, demonstrate my "yes" to God?  Well, first and foremost, follow his commandments.  Maybe you’re not hearing the voice of God speaking into your ear like Abraham did, but Abraham didn’t have the commandments: we do.  The commandments (and the moral teachings of Holy Mother Church which stem from them) are the voice of God for each of us.  If we are not following those, then we are certainly not giving our full “yes” to God.  Examine your conscience, then, and see if you are following his commandments.  If not, repent.  Seek forgiveness through the sacrament of Reconciliation and resolve to follow them from this point forward.

          Second, fulfill your vocation.  Whatever calling God has given to you (marriage, parenthood, the single life…), learn what it looks like to live this virtuously and then live it.  The Church Fathers tell us that every creature gives great glory to God by simply being fully what it is that God made it to be.  The same goes for us.  If you are a husband or wife, be the best husband or wife you can be.  If you are a parent, be the best parent you can be.  If you are single, be the best servant of others that you can be.  (Each of which are measured by the Christian law of charity, of course.)  If we’re falling short, then, again, we need to repent and resolve to become the best, according to our abilities.  And why these?  Because then you'll be on the same wavelength as God and you will be able to hear other, specific ways in which he wants you to act.

          My friends, Lent is about restoring our "yes" to God and to his voice.  Our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving ought to have as their goal helping us to restore it.  And this, so that, through obedience, we would receive the blessings promised to Abraham, because of his obedience.  And, still further, so that God's kingdom—which is nothing short than seeing the Glorious Face of Jesus—would be made known among us.  May our Blessed Mother Mary, whose “yes” brought Christ our Savior to us, be for us a model; and may her prayers lead us to this glory that each of our hearts seeks.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – February 24^th & 25^th, 2018

A Prayer of Repentance

Friends,

I, like all of you, have been appalled at the violent and senseless attack that occurred in Las Vegas on Sunday.  I can't imagine the fear and the horror that was experienced by those attending that concert and, for those who will survive, the traumatic memories that will scar their minds and hearts for many years to come.

I suppose that I was surprised, however, that one of my first thoughts after first hearing about this attack was "So what?  People are being shot and killed in the streets of Chicago every day!"  I quickly looked up to see where this tragedy in Las Vegas ranked aside the violence that happened in Chicago that same weekend.  4 persons killed (killed!) and 29 injured by gun violence in Chicago alone last weekend.  Over 470 people have been murdered in Chicago since January 1, 2017.  No national headlines, though, because (sadly) this has become normal in Chicago.

Because our hearts can't handle daily grieving of the sort demanded by the daily losses being suffered in Chicago (and many other cities), it takes violence of grand proportion to get our attention.  This is an emotional defense mechanism that allows us to get on with our lives, which is normal; and so I'm not blaming anyone (myself included) for not reacting to these daily tragedies.  The contrast in our reactions, however, should give us pause to ask ourselves whether we are insulating our hearts from being overwhelmed or intentionally ignoring an uncomfortable truth, one that demands something of us.  If I had to guess, I'd say that we all began in the former, but have found ourselves in the latter.

Friends, what happened in Las Vegas was not an isolated incident.  I have no data to prove a direct connection to any other influences that the shooter may have had, of course, but I know that this violent act was not isolated from the thousands of other violent acts (of lesser proportion) that are perpetrated day-in and day-out in cities and towns throughout our country and our world.  This, because all violence is a result of unrepented sin in our lives.  When we tolerate even small sin in our own lives, we give sin a place to extend its roots and be nourished, which then allows it to spring forth in thousands of violent ways each and every day; and sometimes in incomprehensibly grand ways, like it did in Las Vegas this past Sunday.

So what do we do?  Well, I hope that you can already see the (decidedly uncomfortable) answer: we must each cry out to our Lord Jesus for mercy and then work to purge sin from our own lives and help those closest to us to do the same.  Perhaps we can begin by praying this prayer of repentance today (see below) and making a commitment to seriously examining our lives so as to purge sin completely from them.  Then, I'd suggest getting to know your neighbors (the persons who, literally, live on either side of you), if you don't know them already.  No one goes on a violent rampage because their neighbors were "too kind" to him/her.  We are our brothers' keepers.  Let's make sure that we are fulfilling this important responsibility.

May the Precious Blood of Jesus wash over us and cleanse us, so that we might enter the life that his shed Blood won for us: the life of light, happiness, and peace with him eternally in heaven.

Prayer of Repentance

LORD, WHO ARE WE AS A PEOPLE, having been given blessings in portions as no other nation before us?  What has become of us, Father?  We have spoiled your spacious skies with buildings and cities breathing with sin.  The amber waves of grain are no longer viewed as our blessing but as our due.  The awe and reverence due You when we gaze upon the purple mountains and their majesty is no longer held; rather, how much pleasure they can give us.  Father, we have spurned You.  We’ve blamed our problems on those who promote darkness, but You have revealed yourself to us through Your Son.  Now our eyes have been opened by Him.  Our lack of holiness, our not being light has allowed darkness to prevail.  Indeed, our sins which we wrongly view as small have allowed those in darkness to commit great sins without shame.  We now realize that it is because of our failings as Christians.  Father, Samuel told your people, “It is true you have committed all this evil, still you must not turn from the Lord, but worship Him with your whole heart. For the sake of His own great name, the Lord will not abandon his own people.”  Father, we come before You with our whole hearts and ask You to grant us the pardon won for us by your Son.

Jesus, we do not deserve to even be heard, yet we know Your passion merits that we are.  Lord Jesus, we call You as You have called us.  Please, intercede before God to forgive us, to heal us, to heal our families, and to heal our nation.

Father, grant Your Son’s intentions and hear His pleas for us. We know you are justly irritated with us but we beg and plead for forgiveness through our repentance from our hearts.  We realize our nation is headed toward disaster by so many signs You have given us.  Holy, Holy, Holy God, grant Your Son His requests that we may again be your people, not a nation above God but one nation humbled and under God.  Amen.

Adapted from the “Prayer to Heal America” by A Friend of Medjugorje

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

Rejoicing in the Good News about redemption

Homily: 4^th Sunday of Lent – Cycle C

          In the 2008 film “Seven Pounds”, actor Will Smith plays the role of “Tim Thomas”, an aeronautical engineer who made a life-shattering mistake.  While driving one night with his fiancé, Tim tries to send a text message using his phone.  While distracted he accidentally crosses the center line of the road and causes a multi-car accident in which seven people die: six strangers and his fiancé.  Completely overcome by grief, Tim sets out to make atonement for his mistake by searching for seven individuals for which he can offer part of himself in order to drastically improve or even save their lives.

          Tim’s generosity is conditional, however.  The seven individuals that he will help have to be “good” people: people who are deserving of receiving this unsolicited act of kindness.  Over the course of the next year and a half Tim donates part of a lung, a part of his liver, a kidney and bone marrow to help individuals whom he has encountered and whom he deems “good enough” to receive them.  Next he donates his house to a single mother of two children who feels trapped in an abusive relationship.  Finally, he will give his life to donate his heart to a woman who has congenital heart failure and his eyes to a man who is blind.  In each of the cases, he did these things anonymously (using a false identity) so that the people who received his gifts would not be able to contact him to thank him or try to pay him back.  In the end, you get the sense that he has “made up for” the seven lives that were lost by his mistake by saving the lives of seven other individuals at the cost of his own life.

          This is a good film on many levels as it deals with a very human issue: how do we deal with guilt and our natural need to make atonement for our mistakes?  We are sympathetic with Tim Thomas’ plight: who wouldn’t want to try to atone for the pain and suffering that one has caused?  And we are sympathetic with the conditions that he uses to decide who he will help: because who doesn’t think that people who have strived to do the right thing in their lives deserve to be rewarded by receiving help to overcome their hardships?  Nevertheless, the film portrays an atheistic, or at least deistic, understanding of mercy and redemption.

          You see, if there isn’t a God—or at least if God is just a “divine watchmaker” who created the world and set it in motion and now sits back to watch it tick—then there is no one to turn to who is greater than the powers of this world; and so the only hope of redemption from our mistakes that we will ever have is to become the savior ourselves: going so far as to give our lives to atone for our mistakes, if we have to.  In this view there is no atoning for others’ mistakes; and thus there can be no mercy on those unable to atone for themselves.  There’s only “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth” justice.  Given this worldview, Tim Thomas is a hero because he made his one life atone for the seven lives that were lost by his mistake.  But this is not the worldview of Christians, which is displayed perfectly for us in our Gospel reading today.

          In proposing this parable, Jesus is responding to the Pharisees and the scribes who are confronting him about keeping company with those who were regarded as sinners: that is, those who had turned their backs on God to go their own way.  These folks, like Tim Thomas, had a similar idea of “mercy”: that is, that the blessings of God should only be given to “good” people—that is, those who deserved it by living a righteous life according to the Law.  The parable, therefore, was meant to show them (and, so, to show us) that we don’t earn God’s mercy by first atoning for all of our sins.  Rather, God’s mercy is pure grace, that is, gift.

          Those of us who understand what a gift it is to live in God's favor will conform our lives to his will because we acknowledge that he is a loving Father who only wants what is good for us and because we trust that the inheritance promised to us will be ours.  Those of us who have taken the gift for granted and have squandered it are nonetheless still loved by God and God is ready to receive us back, because as his beloved children he still desires to provide us with everything that will make us happy, even if we have turned our backs on him.  Simply stated, God's mercy is available to everyone who humbly ask for it, not just those who "deserve" it.

          In the worldview presented in the film “Seven Pounds”, one has to be heroic, like Tim Thomas, in order to atone for his or her sins, because there is no mercy, only strict justice.  In the Christian worldview, however, atonement has been made and thus mercy is available to those who could not atone for their sins themselves.  And because mercy is available, so is hope: hope that one can be redeemed even without having made personal atonement.  This is the parable of the Prodigal Son: the story of one redeemed not by personal atonement, but rather by mercy.

          Lent, my brothers and sisters, is a time to remind ourselves that this is the world that we live in: a world in which, because of mercy, we can be redeemed without the need of personal atonement.  And we remind ourselves of this by doing three things: reflection, repentance, and reconciliation.

          Reflection: Have I turned my back on God (like the prodigal son)?  Have I done terrible things in my life?  Or, have I been striving to live according to God's will, but have been proud and judgmental about it (like the older son)?  Have I shunned anyone because they have turned away from God?  Do I desire that all men and women be reconciled to God?

          Repentance: If I have turned my back on God (again, like the prodigal son), I turn back to him now to beg his forgiveness and mercy.  If I have done terrible things, I don't try to atone for them by myself, but rather I confess my sins and amend my life: because a long life turned away from sin has much more value than "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" justice.  If I have shunned sinners as undeserving of God's forgiveness (again, like the older son)—if I have judged others as "un-savable" and so have given up on them—I turn to recognize them as my brother or sister: as someone for whom our Father literally aches, and I commit myself to reaching out to them.  Recognizing the reconciliation of God in my own life, I turn to work for the reconciliation of others to God.

          Reconciliation: When I turn from any of these things, I immediately turn back to the Father and I approach the sacrament of reconciliation.  Like both the prodigal son and the older son who finds their Father waiting for them, so our heavenly Father waits for us in the confessional, door open and ready to receive his lost son or daughter who has repented so that he might celebrate his or her return.

          You know, many of us have been reconciled to God, and for this we rejoice!  Still many more, however, have yet to be reconciled.  Thus our need to evangelize is great.  Just imagine, however, if, when we called people to repentance, we told them that they would also have to atone for all of their sins.  What miserable news that would be!  And, if this were the case, I could understand our reluctance to share it!  How wonderful is it, then, that we have truly good news to share: that Jesus has already atoned for our sins by dying on the cross; and so redemption is free!  How could we not share this good news with everyone?  Although many may not be ready to receive this message, it shouldn't keep us from sharing it.

          Therefore, my brothers and sisters, let us let the joy that we feel today resonate in our lives; so that when others ask us "Why are you so joyful?", we will always have a ready response: "Because I have been saved by the Blood of Jesus and so have nothing to fear!"  May our joy pour out in thanksgiving now as we offer back to God this incredible gift of mercy that has redeemed us.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – March 5^th & 6^th, 2016

Remember the mission

          Sorry for the delay!  Adjusting to all of the additional responsibilities of being Administrator means that my routine has been thrown off and I almost forgot to post this.  Blessings to you all!

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Homily: 15^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          I don’t know how many of you out there are Facebook users, but if you are I hope you won’t be offended if I criticize it a little here.  Facebook had been around for a few years before I first encountered it.  I had joined the e-mail revolution and thought that it was a pretty efficient way to communicate with friends and to keep up with what was going on in their lives.  I came to know of Facebook in the seminary and I quickly decided that I didn’t need it because it just sounded like another form of communication and, since I was happy using e-mail, I didn’t feel like I needed another thing to “check” on a regular basis.

          As an ordained minister in the modern world, however, I quickly discovered that it would be necessary to have a Facebook account so as to communicate with a much larger number of people.  Thus, I reluctantly opened one.  Since then I’ve come to appreciate its positive aspects (a way to connect with friends that I had long since lost touch with and to share good information with people who share my interests without a lot of work), but have also lamented how it has simply become part of the system that has led us to lose the art of dialogue in the public square.

          Like much of the more traditional media (like TV and radio), Facebook has become a place where debate has devolved into “who can argue the loudest, longest”, and thus where the majority opinion quickly drowns out the voices of those who dissent from it.  And so we see that, in Facebook as in other forms of media, messages that run contrary to popular opinions are increasingly marginalized: that is, pushed out of the public square by the “bullies” in the majority.  This, however, is nothing new.

          In the first reading for today’s Mass, we heard of how the high priest Amaziah was trying to bully the prophet Amos to take his message out of the public square and back to his home town.  In other words, the man in high political power was trying to bully the man without any power who brought forth an unpopular message into retreating back to the margins, thus silencing his message.  “Go back home and preach to your choir”, he seems to say, “and leave us alone.”

          It should be a surprise to no one when I say that the fullness of our Christian message is being increasingly pushed to the margins.  Without directly saying it like the ancient high priest Amaziah did, the political powers of our day are enacting laws and policies that essentially are telling us to take our message out of the public square, because it isn’t welcome there, and so to keep it at home, inside the walls of our churches, thus marginalizing our message along with those of us who proclaim it.  So what do we do about it?

          Some would say that we should retreat, shaking the dust off of our feet in testimony against them, as Jesus instructed his apostles to do when he sent them out to preach.  I’m not so sure, however, that this is the correct approach.  Jesus was thinking about individual towns and villages, not the overall landscape of political power.  He was thinking of dialogue with individuals and groups of individuals, not wholesale rejection by the majority.  Therefore, I think that in order to know what we must do, we must first remember our mission.

          In the Gospel reading today we heard that Jesus sent out his apostles to preach the kingdom of God and gave them authority over unclean spirits.  Later we hear that the apostles went out and preached repentance and both drove out demons and healed many people who were sick.  In other words, they preached repentance in preparation for the coming kingdom of God and demonstrated its nearness by doing acts of great power and mercy.

          My brothers and sisters, our mission is the same.  Thus, if we are engaging in the public square, we cannot be in it for the sole purpose of winning debates and asserting ourselves over others because our message is the most powerful.  Rather, we must be in it for God’s purposes: to preach repentance in preparation for the coming of God’s kingdom and to bring mercy to those who are desperately in need of it.

          To emphasize that he didn’t want his disciples trying to gain political power or influence, Jesus sent them first to small towns and villages, instead of to Jerusalem to engage the ones with great political influence; and he sent them without provisions so that they would remember that they were God’s missionaries, relying solely on His providence, instead of trying to build clout by growing their wealth and political influence.

          And so, Jesus sends us today, instructing us to bring no worldly help along with us—that is, nothing that can help us gain political power.  Rather, we are only to bring his message (repent for the kingdom of God is at hand) and the authority that he has given us as his apostles to do works of mercy.

          Part of the challenge we face today is that the message has lost its credibility because it has increasingly become separated from works of mercy.  This is why Pope Francis is having such a great effect on people.  Pope Francis is pushing to put works of mercy in the forefront so that we might rebuild our credibility and thus gain a hearing for our message.  He is showing us that to retreat from the public square because our message has been rejected would be to fail in our mission.  Rather, he wants us to see that we must first manifest the kingdom of God by doing works of mercy and that, in doing so, we will gain a hearing for our message.  This is because he knows that, in a culture soaked in cynicism and distrust, we must first build a bridge of trust with those whom we hope to reach with our message: which we do when we enact the works of mercy.

          My brothers and sisters, this is uncomfortable work, to be sure.  It requires us not only to go outside of our comfort zones—engaging, perhaps, with someone outside of our normal circles—but it also demands sacrifices of us—forgoing, perhaps, that vacation or purchasing that new car or new couch or new pair of jeans—so that God’s mercy can be worked through us; and this with no guarantee that our message will be heard and accepted!

          We must not let the fear of rejection keep us from going, however, because we have the power and authority of Jesus and have been given a commission by him; woe to us, therefore, if we do not go.  And so, my brothers and sisters, let us go boldly to bring mercy to God’s people so that they, too, might hear and accept God’s call to repentance and thus be joined with us at this table of God’s mercy: the Eucharistic banquet which is a foretaste of eternal happiness that we all long for.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – July 11^th & 12^th, 2015

The National Day of Prayer: Prayer of Repentance

       I gave this prayer as part of the National Day of Prayer in Logansport this morning.  It was a nice experience to pray with so many other men and women from our area and for our nation, that it may truly be as "great" as it so often claims to be.

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National Day of Prayer: Prayer of Repentance

LORD, WHO ARE WE AS A PEOPLE, having been given blessings in portions as no other nation before us?  What has become of us, Father?  We have spoiled your spacious skies with buildings and cities breathing with sin.  The amber waves of grain are no longer viewed as our blessing but as our due.  The awe and reverence due You when we gaze upon the purple mountains and their majesty is no longer held; rather, how much pleasure they can give us.  Father, we have spurned You.  We’ve blamed our problems on those who promote darkness, but You have revealed yourself to us through Your Son.  Now our eyes have been opened by Him.  Our lack of holiness, our not being light has allowed darkness to prevail.  Indeed, our sins which we wrongly view as small have allowed those in darkness to commit great sins without shame.  We now realize that it is because of our failings as Christians.  Father, Samuel told your people, “It is true you have committed all this evil, still you must not turn from the Lord, but worship Him with your whole heart. For the sake of His own great name, the Lord will not abandon his own people.”  Father, we come before You with our whole hearts and ask You to grant us the pardon won for us by your Son.

Jesus, we do not deserve to even be heard, yet we know Your passion merits that we are.  Lord Jesus, we call You as You have called us.  Please, intercede before God to forgive us, to heal us, to heal our families, and to heal our nation.

Father, grant Your Son’s intentions and hear His pleas for us. We know you are justly irritated with us but we beg and plead for forgiveness through our repentance from our hearts.  We realize our nation is headed toward disaster by so many signs You have given us.  Holy, Holy, Holy God, grant Your Son His requests that we may again be your people, not a nation above God but one nation humbled and under God.  Amen.

Adapted from the “Prayer to Heal America” by A Friend of Medjugorje

http://www.medjugorje.com/medjugorje-america/seven-novenas-2012.html#junenovena

Given at the Cass County Government Building: Logansport, IN

May 2, 2013 – The Memorial of Saint Athanasius

Jesus the Divine Gardener

I gave this homily at Saint Bernard's parish in Crawfordsville this weekend.  I was there giving a "mini-mission" to the parish.  My mission talk was recorded (well, 90% of it was recorded), so if I get the audio/video from that, I'll make sure to post it as well.

I'm off this week back to Saint Meinrad to begin the Good Leaders, Good Shepherds program with a bunch of priests from my diocese.  Looking forward to being back on the Holy Hill!

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Homily: 3rd Sunday of Lent – Cycle C

A couple of weeks ago, I visited a woman named Mary in a nursing home.  This home was not her residence; rather, she still lived at home by herself for the most part, but about three months ago she had contracted pneumonia and so was sent to the hospital.  Mary’s no spring chicken and so it took her a couple of weeks of treatments in the hospital for her to overcome the pneumonia.  Her doctors, however, didn’t feel like she was strong enough to return home, so they transferred her to this nursing home for rehabilitation.

My visit to her wasn’t a random one.  Rather, Mary had requested to see a priest.  When I arrived I asked her how she was doing and began to inquire about why she felt that she needed to see me.  What I found was that Mary was depressed.  She hadn’t been home for a couple of months.  She missed her cat and, basically, she was homesick.  Add to that the rigors of daily therapy sessions, which for her didn’t seem to be helping her to get any closer to returning home and she, understandably, was beginning to feel frustrated and a little hopeless.  The thing that made her call for her priest, however, was that the administration had told her that she had one week left to show some effort and progress before they were going to cut off care completely.

Thus, when we talked, she would say things like, “I’m tired” and “I’m ready to give up.”  She also said, “I don’t see why God is keeping me here.  I don’t feel like there is any purpose left to my life.”  Then she turned to speculating about God, saying, “Why would God take my two daughters from me and leave me here?” and “I guess God must not be ready for me yet.”  All this time, I tried to listen and offer some supportive words.  Eventually, however, came the deep, fundamental question that she was grappling with: “Do you think that God is punishing me?”

Ever since ancient times, people have struggled with the idea of suffering.  For the most part, suffering seems to be illogical: meaning, the when and how of suffering is usually not connected to any discernible cause in our lives.  In ancient times, including the time of Christ, peoples made sense of suffering by connecting it to God and punishment for sin.  Thus, when the people in our Gospel reading today come to tell Jesus about the Galileans who were killed by Pilate’s henchmen on the very altars where they were offering sacrifices, the question on their minds was “for what sin were these men punished?”  Because Jesus could read the hearts of men, he also knew that some of them would be pondering the same thing about another tragedy, the eighteen people who were killed when a tower near the pool of Siloam in Jerusalem collapsed on top of them.  In their minds, such a random event could only have been the work of God; and since, for the Israelite people, God was good and just, such a work of God could not be the result of malice and, therefore, must be an act of justice, punishing those people for some sin of theirs that was unknown to others.
As I saw with Mary on that day in the nursing home, this notion that suffering is somehow a punishment inflicted on us by God is an idea that remains with us even today.  Even with all of our technological advances, we still have not been able to answer the question about suffering.  Thus, we inevitably turn to where we’ve always turned to answer the unanswerable: to God.  For some, that produces an image of God who is vengeful, cold and distant.  For others, it produces an image of God who is impotent and unable to save us.  Yet for others, it produces and image of a God who just doesn’t care about us.  For Christians, however, it should produce in us hope.  Divine Revelation has shown us that the God we worship is none of those things, but rather he is the God who is all good and just, slow to anger and rich in mercy.  Nevertheless, when the rubber hits the road and we find ourselves in a moment of suffering, it is often easier for us to begin to think of God in one of these other forms.

Jesus, however, turns this thinking around.  When these people come to him to tell him of the men that Pilate had killed, Jesus knew that they were expecting him to say, “Those men must have been great sinners!  Thank God that you are not sinful like them and so have been spared this suffering.”  Instead of saying this, however, he turned the focus back onto them: “Do you think that they were greater sinners than all of you?  By no means!  Repent now from your sins so that you do not suffer the same fate as them!”  Then to emphasize his point, he refers to the people killed by the tower of Siloam in order to show them that his admonition includes all of the Jews: “Whether you are a Galilean or are from Jerusalem, your sins are just as worthy of punishment as all of theirs.  Repent from them now before you die in your sin!”

On the surface, it can look like Jesus is reinforcing the idea that God directly punishes people for their sins.  And so, Jesus offers a parable to help dispel that myth.  He speaks of an orchard owner who plants a fig tree in his orchard.  Now no orchard owner would plant a tree in his or her orchard unless he or she expected that it would produce fruit.  Thus, after three years, when the owner finds that it has produced no fruit, he orders it to be cut down so that the nutrients of the soil could be preserved for a tree that will produce fruit.  It is not to punish the tree that he cuts it down, but rather to preserve the soil so that the other trees may continue to bear fruit.
Jesus’ point, therefore, is not to say that God is punishing people for their sins, but rather that these tragedies should be a wake-up call to remind you to look at your own lives and to root out sin without delay, for none of us know when our final day will come.  And this is Saint Paul’s message, too, in his letter to the Corinthians: For he says that, although the Israelites were close to God in the desert—they stood in the cloud of his presence, they ate the miraculous food from heaven and drank water from the rock—they grumbled against him and were struck down in the desert before they reached the promised land.  He says that these are signs for us to be vigilant against sin and to repent without delay.

The great Christian author, C. S. Lewis, said that “suffering is God’s megaphone.”  In other words, it’s God’s way of getting our attention.  Thus, when we see tragedy—or experience it ourselves—our task is not to question if God is punishing us, but rather to ask, “Am I ready to meet him?”

If your answer is “No” or at least “I’m not sure”, then don’t be afraid.  Remember that in Jesus’ parable there was a gardener who interceded on behalf of the tree that produced no fruit.  This gardener won for the tree another year and promised to cultivate the ground around it and to fertilize it for nourishment.  As we profess at the beginning of our liturgy in the Penitential Rite, we believe that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us.  Therefore, if we have survived tragedy in our lives, it is likely due to Christ’s intercession for us before the Father.

Christ is our Gardener before God, the Father, in whose orchard we have been planted.  This Year of Faith is the year that he has won for us to produce fruit and this Lent is specifically a time for the ground to be cultivated around us—to root-out all that prevents us from producing fruit.  And the fertilizer?  Well, that’s the Eucharist.  The Body and Blood of Christ is all the nourishment we will ever need to produce fruit for our Heavenly Father.

After my meeting with Mary a couple of weeks ago I had a thought.  She had been wondered whether or not God was ready for her.  Perhaps, however, what she should have been thinking—which is something that we all should be thinking—is that maybe we aren’t quite ready yet for God.  May Jesus, Our Divine Gardener, cultivate his love in our hearts so that we may fill the world with its fruit and be ready on the day when he calls us home.

Given at Saint Bernard’s Parish: Crawfordsville, IN – March 2nd & 3rd, 2013