Pop quiz for the 1st Sunday of Lent

[My format looks weird today because of the way that this homily was set up and presented.  It just worked better this way.  Sorry if it is hard to read in this format!]

Homily: 1^st Sunday in Lent – Cycle A

          Okay, friends, today, on this first Sunday of Lent, we are going to shake things up a bit and start off with a little pop quiz based on the readings we’ve just heard.  Don’t worry about it, though, because you’re going to know most of the answers and there are no grades.  Ready or not, here we go!

•         Is humankind responsible for the presence of suffering and death in the world, yes or no?  [YES]

o   Even though it wasn’t included in the reading today, we all know “the rest of the story”, that Adam and Eve were punished and expelled from the garden so that they couldn’t eat from the tree of life and, thus, would have to suffer death.

•         Has humankind been able to eliminate suffering and death from the world, now that they are present in it, yes or no?  [NO]

o   Just look around.  Suffering and death are still very present here.

•         Is there any reasonable hope that humankind will ever eliminate suffering and death from the world, yes or no?  [NO]

o   Suffering and death have been part of the human condition for as long as history has been recording it.

•         Who is the only human being that ever existed who died, but then raised himself back to life?  [JESUS]
•         Is it reasonable to expect that this could be possible for any human being ever, yes or no?  [NO]

o   Again, human beings have been around for 200,000 years and we ain't figured it out yet!

o   Why then do we stubbornly act like we will?  DON'T ANSWER THAT!

•         If this Jesus has done something that no human being has ever been capable of doing nor will ever be capable of doing, then he must have super-natural powers (that is, powers beyond natural powers), true or false?  [TRUE]
•         Since this Jesus has done something that no other human being has ever been capable of doing, something that we cannot reasonably expect any present or future human being as being capable of doing, is it, therefore, reasonable to think that this Jesus could also do the other thing that humankind has been incapable of doing: that is, is it reasonable to think that Jesus could also eliminate suffering and death from the world, yes or no?  [YES]

o   It is reasonable to think that because we don’t know the limit of his powers.

•         Has this Jesus revealed the secret to unlocking resurrection (that is, the secret for overcoming suffering and death) for each and every one of us, yes or no?  [YES]
•         What is that secret (hint: it’s in the Gospel reading today)?  [OBEDIENCE TO THE WILL OF THE FATHER.]

o   Saint Paul said it in his letter to the Romans:

o   “For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.”

§  The one who was disobedient was Adam and we were reminded of that in our first reading today.

·        Eve said, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’”

·        They ate it, in clear disobedience of God, and suffering and death entered the world.

§  The one who was obedient was Jesus and we were reminded of his first great act of obedience in our Gospel reading today.

·        Satan said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down… Jesus answered him, …'You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”

·        Jesus countered Adam and Eve’s disobedience by his perfect obedience.

·        His final and culminating act of obedience was his passion and death.

•         Friends, this is what Lent is about: returning to the garden through obedience.

o   If our Lenten practices are not freeing us to give our obedience more fully to the Father, then we should stop them and choose practices that will!

o   The first practice, of course, is giving up sin!

§  None of us should be giving up chocolate unless we have first decided to do the work of giving up sin!!!

o   Once we’ve done that, however, we take on physical discomfort (that is, giving up something good that we enjoy or taking up a good task that, perhaps, we don’t enjoy), so as to do two things: a) to show God that we are truly sorry for our sins, and b) to face our spiritual discomfort that God is calling us to still greater holiness (...a call, by the way, that never ceases!)

§  I think that we get “a)” no problem, but how many of us have ever really faced “b)”?

§  Not sure what I mean?  Let me give you an example. 

            Last Friday afternoon, I was working in my office and I had an e-mail that I had to write that was important and complicated to compose.  I was tired and really didn’t want to do it.  So there I am, staring at my computer screen, not wanting to do the thing that I knew I needed to do, and so what did I do?  Well, I opened up a new tab on my browser and hovered over the Facebook link.  Before I clicked on it, however, I remembered that I decided to fast from social media on Fridays during Lent and so I stopped myself and went back to my e-mail.  Soon, though, I was in a new tab hovering over the Facebook link again.  Once again, though, my commitment to what I was giving up one over and I went back to my e-mail.  Finally, I dug in and wrote the e-mail.  The point being that, if I hadn’t chosen to give up a physical comfort (checking out what was going on with my friends on Facebook), then I wouldn’t have confronted my spiritual discomfort (completing the work that I had been given to do).  Fasting from social media, therefore, showed both that I was sorry for my sins and made it so that I could confront this spiritual battle.

o   We have to give up sin, of course, but then we should give up (or take up) something good, both to show God that we are truly sorry for our sins and to face our spiritual discomfort that God is calling us to greater holiness and so put ourselves to work to do it!

§  THIS, in a nutshell, IS OBEDIENCE!!!

§  Obedience, Jesus has shown us, leads to resurrection and eternal life.

          Okay, a couple of more questions a then we’ll call it a day.

•         Is Jesus still alive, yes or no?  [YES]
•         Will we meet him, face-to-face, one day, yes or no?  [YES]
•         What, then, should we do during Lent?

o   A question you must answer yourself.

o   Whatever your answer is, it should be something that leads you to deeper obedience to the will of the Father so that, when Easter comes, you’ll be ready to die with Christ and so rise with him again.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – March 1^st, 2020

Hope makes us live differently

Homily: 32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Friends, we are now well into the month of November, which for us Catholics also means that we are approaching the end of the Liturgical Year.  Although the readings for Mass have already been hinting at it for the last several weeks, this week our readings shift our focus away from the nuts and bolts of our daily discipleship and toward consideration of “last things”, that is, the things that will come at the end of time.  This week, in particular, the focus of our readings is on the reality of the resurrection from the dead.

In our first reading, we heard the testimony of three of the seven Israelite brothers who, with their mother, were being tortured by the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes in order to make them apostatize—that is, denounce their faith—by eating pork, which they believed God forbade them to eat.  Each of these three courageously handed over their lives to their torturers rather than denounce their faith in God by breaking the Law that he had given them; and it was their hope in the fact that God could and would raise them to life again that gave them that courage.  In other words, they believed in God’s promise of eternal life to those who remained faithful to his Laws and commandments and so they knew that, if they kept themselves pure according to God’s law, even if they should die at the hands of men, God would one day raise them to life again.  And so, we see that our belief in the resurrection means something about how we live our lives before we die: for if there’s no resurrection, then eat pork and enjoy your life, while you have it; if there is a resurrection, however, then we ought to seek to serve the one through whom the resurrection will come (that is, God), so as not to incur his wrath.

In the Gospel reading, in answering the dilemma that the Sadducees put forth, Jesus doesn’t describe for us how we should live our lives in this world, but rather describes a glimpse of how eternal life will look.  He describes life after the resurrection of the dead as one in which those who have been raised to life “can no longer die”, indicating that it will be an immortal life which will extend through all eternity.  Now eternity, I think, can be a very hard thing to imagine.  Fr. Larry Richards, who is a parish priest from Erie, Pennsylvania, and who travels to speak nationally, has one of the best illustrations about the length of time which is eternity and he describes it in this way: he says, “Imagine that, in eternity, every step requires 1,000 years to take and that you have been given the job to take every grain of sand from every beach and on every ocean floor, one at a time, to the top of Mt. Everest.  You can imagine the countless billions of years that it would take to accomplish this task.  Yet once you have finished this task,” he says, “eternity is just beginning.”  He describes it in this way in order to put into sharp contrast the reality that with our infinitesimally short time on earth (in comparison to eternity) we will determine how we will spend eternity (either in heaven or in hell).  Thus, once again, our belief in the resurrection of the dead means something about how we ought to live our lives before we die.

In his encyclical, Spe Salvi (in English, In Hope We Were Saved), Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote, “the one who has hope lives differently.”  Hope, as he speaks about it and in the Christian sense, is not merely “optimism” about the future—that is, good feelings that, in the end, things will come out positive for us.  Rather, it is the grace of a vision of a real, positive outcome that we see is concretely possible for us to attain in the future, even if it is beyond our power.  Thus, we see how it is possible for one who has hope to live differently: for he/she no longer need worry about what can happen in the present time, because one sees the vision of the positive outcome for him/herself in the future.  This is the hope that the Israelite brothers and their mother had which gave them courage to endure horrendous torture and death: hope that provided the vision of the positive outcome for them—that is, the resurrection to an everlasting life.

Last week, at the end of Mass, we heard a testimony from our parishioners describing how being involved in the ministries of Saint Mary’s has made a positive impact on their lives.  Each one of them was a testimony of hope: that what is sacrificed in this present time is of no account in light of the positive outcome that awaits those who are faithful to the Lord.  I pray that you have reflected on these things over this past week and are now ready to make or re-make your commitments of your time and talent to the ministries of Saint Mary’s.  I pray that your reflection has been full of hope (and, thus, gratitude): gratitude for the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ which has made a life beyond this life possible for us, and hope that, through baptism, we will one day enjoy that life.

Therefore, if you are ready to do so, I now invite you to make your commitment by turning over your time and talent commitment card to us.  Hopefully you brought yours with you today.  If not, there are extras in the pew.  I’ll give you a few moments to complete them, if necessary, before inviting the ushers to come forward and collect them.  They will then be brought forward to be placed at the altar and, thus united to the sacrifice that is our hope: the sacrifice of Christ’s Body and Blood for our salvation.  If you are not ready to make your commitment today, don’t worry.  Know that you can make your commitment at any time.

May God bless you all for your openness to serve and may Mary’s prayers strengthen us to bring these good commitments to fulfillment.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – November 9^th & 10^th, 2019

Our noble duty.

Homily: 6^th Sunday in Easter – Cycle C

This weekend we celebrate Memorial Day.  Although this commemoration began as a memorial to the soldiers who died in the American Civil War, it has come to be recognized as a memorial for all who have died in service to the United States of America, particularly through the armed forces.  It’s original name, Decoration Day, points to the primary activity that marks this day: the visiting of cemeteries and decorating the graves of fallen service men and women with flowers or flags as a sign of honor and remembrance.  We will all do well to pay attention to this primary point as we embrace our activities this weekend.

I have to say, though, that I really appreciate this holiday.  As human beings, we recognize that the sacrifices that men and women make to defend our nation and our freedoms is something extraordinary; and that to have suffered death because of it is more extraordinary still.  In many ways these men and women are like martyrs: those who confront challenges to that which we value most (in this case, our nation and our freedoms) and who lay down their lives in defense of them.  These men and women exemplify the truth that Jesus spoke to his disciples the night before he died: “no one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  The men and women we honor this weekend loved us, as fellow citizens of this nation and, thus, friends, when they chose to serve our nation at the cost of their own lives.  Therefore, I appreciate this holiday because it honors something truly noble and worthy of remembrance.

In our second reading today, and over the last weeks of Easter, we’ve been hearing from the visions of John the Apostle while he was in exile on the Greek island of Patmos.  Although many over the centuries have called these visions a view of what Jesus’ second coming would look like, many more have said that these visions were given as prophecies of what the Christians in those days (and, really, Christians of every age following) would need to hear to strengthen them in faith so as to deal with the challenges that they will inevitably face to live the faith and to proclaim Jesus to others.  In these visions, John is often given a vision of a large multitude of men and women who stand before the throne of God in brilliant white robes.  These men and women are described as those who have “washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb”.  In other words, these are the martyrs: the ones who have suffered persecution for the faith and who have remained faithful to Jesus, to the point of dying for him.  In all of these readings, these are the ones who have an honored place in heaven.

In today’s reading, which is from the last chapter of this book (and, thus, from the end of John’s visions), it is Christ himself who speaks to John and, thus, solemnly declares the following: “Blessed are they who wash their robes so as to have the right to the tree of life and enter the city through its gates.”  Again, “those who wash their robes” are the martyrs who have handed over their lives in the imitation of Christ.  Their reward is the very thing that was taken away from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: access to the tree of life.  Thus, we see that, through Christ, we have been restored to the paradise lost by our first parents.  The martyrs seemed to lose everything in this world when they handed over their lives to death on account of their faith in Christ, but that same Christ reveals that, in reality, by handing over their lives, they have gained eternal life.

Of course, we recognize the extraordinary nature of this giving of life, also, and so we regularly honor the martyrs for their witness to the faith.  Like the honoring of our fallen military men and women, the honoring of the martyrs is a truly noble thing to do.  The honoring of the martyrs should also be a reminder for us, however.  A reminder that every Christian is called to be a martyr in some way: that is, one who gives witness to Jesus Christ in his/her life.  This is epitomized in the title given by the Church to Christians still living in time (a title that those who are old enough will remember learning in their early catechism classes), and a title that is fitting to be reminded of on this Memorial Day weekend: for we are called the Church Militant.

Although the term “militant” translates somewhat literally to mean something like “marching”, as in “walking around in space and time”, we should, nonetheless, allow ourselves to think of the term in the sense that it invokes: that we are God’s “armed forces” here on earth, sent into battle to proclaim and defend the name of Jesus and his kingdom here on earth.  We are God’s foot soldiers and we have a noble duty.  When Christ returns, as he revealed in the reading today, we will receive “recompense” for our faithfulness to that duty.  Notice, that I didn’t say “success”.  God won’t measure our success, as if we somehow earn our reward in heaven, but rather our faithfulness to the duty, thus demonstrating our love for him and our faith in the fact that he has already won the reward for us.  In our faithfulness to the duty—faithfulness, that is, without compromises—we demonstrate our love for Christ and, thus, our willingness to lay down our lives for him so as to have our robes “washed in the blood of the Lamb”.

We would do well, my brothers and sisters, to reflect on our faithfulness this weekend as we honor those who were faithful to us: our nation and our freedoms.  Are we giving ourselves as fully as we ought to Christ and his kingdom?  Or are we making compromises and, thus, shirking our noble duty?  My guess is that the answer for most all of us is that we can still give ourselves more.  And so, let’s let the inspiring example of those who gave their lives for our nation and freedoms point us to the inspiring example of the Christian martyrs; and, thus, lead us rededicate ourselves to fulfilling our noble duty to Christ and his kingdom.  For it is Christ himself who, out of love for us, first laid down his life for us; and it is Christ himself who, out of love for us, continues to give himself for us in the Eucharist; and it is Christ himself who, out of love for us, will one day return to take us home to himself in the glorious kingdom of heaven.  “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!”

Given at St. Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – May 25^th & 26^th, 2019

Is our love super-natural?

Homily: 5^th Sunday of Easter – Cycle C

          I would dare to say that most of us know what self-sacrificial love looks like.  This is because most of us have had opportunities to exercise this type of love in our lives.  If you’re parents, you know that, to give your children the best opportunities in this world, you have to make sacrifice after sacrifice: both in little things and in big things.  If you’re married, you know that, to give your wife or husband the happiness that he/she deserves, you, too, have to make sacrifice after sacrifice: again, both in little things and in big things (and you recognize it even when you fail to do it… and sometimes especially when you fail to do it… am I right?).  Best friends, too, know that they show their love most when they make sacrifices for each other.

          Now these sacrifices of self are called love because they are made for the good of the other and not for the good of the one making the sacrifice—but rather purely because the one making the sacrifice desires the good of the other.  Although we often look at this type of love as heroic, the fact of the matter is that it is quite natural for us.  When we feel an affinity for or with someone, we become willing to suffer many things for them.

          As Christians, however, we are called to take this kind of love to the next level.  We are asked to love everyone—including those with whom we may have no connection—and we’re called to love them as if they were our wife, our son, or our best friend.  This is a new kind of love: a love that goes beyond our natural inclinations—beyond, at least, our natural inclinations weakened by sin.  This is a love, therefore, that is beyond nature: a love that is truly super-natural.

          The apostles Paul and Barnabas show us an example of this kind of super-natural love in our first reading today.  To see this, we must first take a closer look at a part of the reading that we might just ignore if we didn’t know the context.  Therefore, let’s take a closer look at the beginning of the reading.  The reading opens by saying: “After Paul and Barnabas had proclaimed the good news to that city and made a considerable number of disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.”  “That city” is Derbe, which is the place to which Paul and Barnabas went after they had been driven out of Lystra, which was the city to which they went after they had been driven out of Iconium.  The Scriptures tell us that the Jews and Gentiles in Iconium plotted to stone Paul and Barnabas, but that Paul and Barnabas discovered the plot and so fled to Lystra.  While they proclaimed the Good News there, Jews from Iconium showed up, stirred up the crowds, and actually succeeded in stoning Paul; after which they dragged him out of the city, supposing he was dead.  He wasn’t dead, but the next day Paul and Barnabas left Lystra for Derbe to proclaim the Good News there.

          Now, doesn’t that first line seem much more significant?  It said, “They returned to Lystra and to Iconium…”  They returned to the very place where the people wanted them dead!  And why?  Well, the Scriptures don’t say it plainly, but I believe it is because of the love that they had for the people of those cities.  These were not people that they knew.  Rather, they were people who needed to receive the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ; and Paul and Barnabas would not be stopped until the people of these cities received this Good News.  Their efforts were of no benefit to themselves—the Scriptures show us that it brought them nothing but death threats.  Rather, their efforts were purely for the benefit of those who received them: the sign of true self-sacrificial love on the super-natural level.

          This kind of super-natural love is the kind of love that Jesus commands for his disciples when he gives them the “new commandment” to love one another.  And just to be sure that his disciples knew that he meant something more than our natural ability to love one another, he followed this command by saying, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another”.  And what was Jesus’ super-natural act of love?  The cross, of course.  There, he handed over his life completely for everyone—everyone who ever existed, everyone who existed then or exists now, and everyone who will ever exist—regardless of whether they accept him or not.  And he did it not for any benefit that he would gain for himself—he is the Son of God, he has no need of anything—but rather for the benefit of everyone else, simply because he desired it for them… for us.  This is the same super-natural love that led Paul and Barnabas, filled with the Holy Spirit, back into Lystra and Iconium; and this is the same super-natural love that we are still called to offer in our own lives today. ///

          A few years ago, Penn Jillette (who is one half of the comedy duo “Penn & Teller” and who is an avowed atheist) recorded a little video describing how a man approached him after one of his comedy shows and gave him a little book of the New Testament and the Psalms.  He said that he appreciated receiving it.  As an atheist, he was commending this man for proselytizing because, he said, it seemed to him to be a logical consequence of belief and of being a good person.  “How much do you have to hate somebody,” he said, “to believe that everlasting life is possible and then not tell them [about it]?”  I dare say that his question is a challenging question to us all.  Do we really love with the super-natural love that Christ commands us to have if we believe what we profess to believe, but then choose not to share it?  My friends, the answer is “no”.

          Thus, I’m glad that these readings come to us today, during this Easter season, because they remind us that Easter isn’t just about “alleluias”, but that it’s also about inspiring our apostolate—that is, how we live as apostles—those sent to proclaim this Good News.  Here in the Eucharist, we encounter the super-natural love of Jesus—the re-presentation of the sacrifice of his body and blood for us—and in the dismissal at the end of Mass, we are sent to go forth from here and to give that love to everyone around us: both by proclaiming this good news to anyone who will listen and then by walking with them as they come to know the love of Christ for themselves.

          Therefore, my brothers and sisters, let us not allow our celebration here to be incomplete: that is, something which we enjoy for ourselves and then leave here.  Rather, let us ask in this Eucharist for the grace to go forth from here with hearts full of love—true, super-natural love—ready to sacrifice our own lives so that others may live; and so that John’s vision of a “new heaven and a new earth”, made new by Christ’s death and resurrection, may be known to us now, in our own time.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – May 19^th, 2019

Communion with Christ through the Mass

          This weekend our Deacons preached all of the regular Masses and I was left to preach the Mass of First Holy Communion.  This is my homily for that Mass.

Homily: 3^rd Sunday of Easter – Cycle C

Mass of First Holy Communion

Today, as we celebrate this Mass of First Holy Communion, we have an opportunity to take a unique perspective on our readings for the Easter Season.  As it is the third Sunday of Easter, we heard the readings for the Mass of this day.  These Easter readings—not specifically intended to be used for a Mass of First Holy Communion—give us a chance to think about Holy Communion in light of the Mass, in which it is received, as well as in the life of the evangelizing Christian community, in which its fruit is brought forth.  So, let’s take a closer look at these readings.

Let’s start with the second reading from the Book of Revelation.  Here John is given a vision of the great throne of God in Heaven and of how all of the creatures of heaven and earth turn to bow down in praise and worship of the one who sits on the throne.  The one whom they worship is called “the Lamb”.  Who is the Lamb?  It’s Jesus, of course.  And who is sitting on the throne?  It’s God, the Father, of course.  Thus, what we’re seeing is a vision of heaven, in which all of the creatures of heaven and all the creatures of earth are able to see God face to face (like I am looking at all of you).  And what do they do when they are given this vision?  Yes, they worship!  Now, let me ask this question: When we come to Mass, who is present here waiting for us?  It’s Jesus, right?  And so, what is it that we are doing when we celebrate Mass here, in the presence of Jesus?  Yes, we worship!  What we are offering to God in the Mass is our worship of him in thanksgiving for every good thing that we enjoy in our lives.  And so, what we hear about from the Book of Revelation today is truly a vision of what happens during the Mass: during this Mass and during every Mass celebrated everywhere, every day, throughout the world.  We would do well to remember that next time we’re having trouble paying attention: that is, to think about the angels and saints standing with us, shouting with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, riches, and strength, honor, and glory, and blessing!”  That would certainly make Mass a little more exciting, wouldn’t it?

Let’s move on to the Gospel reading, however.  Here we see a different perspective on what the Mass is.  Here we see Jesus appearing to some of his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias.  As he makes himself known and as his disciples come to recognize him, Jesus calls them to gather around him in order to share with them a meal that he has prepared for them.  In this sharing of a meal with Jesus, the disciples—all of whom abandoned him when he was arrested and put to death—are now reunited with him.  This is also the Mass.  When we gather for the Mass, we gather to worship him, yes—like the image of the eternal worship of Jesus given in the Book of Revelation—but we also gather around a table—this altar—from which Jesus feeds us with a meal that he himself has prepared for us.  This sharing of a meal with Jesus unites and constantly reunites us to him.  Literally, in fact, it makes us one with him: as his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, enters our bodies and unites his with ours.  This act of communion (that is, of uniting with him) is the greatest privilege that anyone can receive; and it demands a true understanding of what it is and, thus, a true profession of faith in it.  Saint Justin Martyr, a second century Christian, wrote about this, saying: “No one may share the eucharist with us unless he/she believes that what we teach is true, unless he/she is washed in the regenerating waters of baptism for the remission of his/her sins, and unless he/she lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.”  Our young people have prepared themselves in this way and, thus, have now been invited to gather around this table of Christ’s Body so as to share in this union with him, just as the disciples gathered with Jesus to share a meal that he prepared for them on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, nearly 2000 years ago.

Finally, in our first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, we are given a glimpse of what participating in the Mass and receiving Holy Communion demands of us.  The Apostles were brought forth to the courtroom of the religious leaders and questioned about teaching about Jesus.  These leaders didn’t understand who Jesus was and demanded that the Apostles stop teaching about him.  Peter, speaking on behalf of all of them, speaks up and says clearly: “We know who this Jesus is—that he is the Messiah, the Son of God—and, therefore, we cannot stop teaching about him: for to do so would be to deny this truth that we have come to know.”  Since we, too, profess that Jesus is the Messiah—and since we have worshiped him and have shared in this sacred meal of his Body and Blood—we, too, must teach others about him: both in the words that we speak and in the way that we live our lives.  To fail to do so would be to deny this truth that we have come to know: like Peter denying Jesus three times after he had been arrested.  When we receive Holy Communion—when we say “Amen” as the minister presents the Body and Blood of Jesus to us—we are promising God that we will teach others about him and the truths that he has revealed: even if that means being oppressed by worldly authorities who are hostile to this good news.  Our young people today are agreeing to take up this good work.  They need the rest of us to show them how to do it by being living witnesses of it in our own lives.

Today, however, we celebrate!  We celebrate because these young people will experience for the first time the fullness of Communion with Jesus as they receive his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity into their bodies; and we celebrate that, in doing so, they come more fully into communion with all of us who share in this same sacred meal.  Tomorrow, and every day after, they will go forth with us to teach about Jesus: both by the way that they live their lives more like Jesus’ and by the way that they share with others what they have come to know: that to know, love, and serve God in this world is the path to the eternal happiness for which we all long: that is, to stand in the presence of God, face to face.  May Mary, the Mother of God and the Mother of the Eucharist, lead us—and especially these young people—by her motherly care into this fullness of God’s peace.  Amen.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – May 5^th, 2019

Remembering and Detachment

Homily: 1^st Sunday of Lent – Cycle C

          Back almost sixteen years ago now, when I was in the throes of my “reversion” (or “adult awakening”) to the Catholic faith, I remember feeling very guilty.  For the first time in my life, I recognized that religion wasn’t just something that you ‘do’, but that it was about a relationship… that it was about the relationship between God and his creation: most especially, with us.  I felt guilty because I recognized that I had been ignoring that relationship.

          As a result, during those first months I threw myself into prayer, fervently asking God what it was that he wanted me to do with my life.  When those prayers eventually led to the consideration of a vocation to the priesthood, I found myself at an impasse.  I had never considered the priesthood and so I didn’t know what to think about it.  “But,” I thought, “this is so radically different from anything that I’ve considered before; so, if I did it, I’m sure that I would be doing what God wanted and not what I wanted.”  I clearly remember making this prayer: “God, I’ve been living my life my own way for twenty-five years, why shouldn’t I do this for you?”

          Soon, however, I learned that feeling like you owe God something is a poor reason to enter the seminary.  Thus, I put the discernment away for a while.  A few years later, when I was blindsided by the notion that I wasn’t yet doing what God wanted me to do with my life, I once again threw myself into prayer.  This time, however, I felt more fearful of damaging the relationship that I had built than guilty for having ignored it.  And so I turned to fasting in an attempt to disinterest myself from anything that could distract me from knowing God’s will.  Eventually, I heard again the call to the priesthood and this time I was sure that it was love, not guilt that motivated me, so I responded and entered the seminary.

          I continued many of my habits of fasting after entering the seminary.  What I found there, however, was that my fasting was becoming a barrier: first to my relationships with my fellow seminarians, and eventually to my relationship with God.  Right fasting is the kind that turns our focus away from ourselves and back towards God and others.  I had become focused on myself and my need to maintain these fasts; and so to turn my focus back towards God and others, I actually had to learn how to “fast from fasting.”  I needed to remember the relationship, and not just the relation.  In order to do so, I needed to detach myself from trying to control it through fasting.

          Remembrance and detachment are two themes that we find in our Scripture readings today.  In our first reading from the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is instructing the people about making the annual offering of the first fruits of the harvest to God.  What we hear is not the details about the offering itself (for example, how much is to be offered and when), but rather we hear what the Israelites are instructed to say after they’ve made their offering.  It is a statement meant to remind them of why they have brought their offering to the altar.

          First, it’s a remembrance of the place from which they came.  Jacob was a small tribe of only seventy-odd persons when they went down to Egypt.  Yet God made them grow and prosper during that time.  Second, it is a remembrance of how God heard their calls for help when Pharaoh oppressed them with slavery, delivering them from Egypt with mighty signs and wonders.  Third, it is a remembrance of how God led them through the desert and into the fruitful land in which they live, the first fruits from which they have come to offer him.  In other words, it’s a remembrance that it was God who was in control the whole time and that he took care of them, and so their offering is one of thanksgiving for his grace and mercy that continued to care for them up to that day.

          In the Gospel, Jesus’ forty days in the desert produces in him a deep sense of detachment.  In the greatest understatement of all time, the Gospel tells us that, after forty days of not eating, Jesus emerged from the desert and that “he was hungry.”  Duh!  Actually, what the author might have been emphasizing was that he was “weak with hunger.”  The devil seeing this probably thought to himself, “Now is my chance!” and so he tempts him.  Jesus, having detached himself not only from his desires for food and drink, but also from his instincts for survival, and having placed all his trust for survival in his Father, was not fazed by the devil’s temptations.  Jesus knew that his Father was in control, because he had just experienced it for forty days; thus, he could not be moved to betray him now, even though he was physically weak from lack of nourishment.  His fasting produced detachment and thus solidified his relationship with his Father, who cared for him. ///

          “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  This, my brothers and sisters, is our task during Lent: to remember our right relationship with God and with others.  We do this primarily through the three Lenten disciplines of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.  Fasting, I would argue, is primary: for when we fast, we remind ourselves of the punishment due to us because of our sins and thus acknowledge that God is God and we are not.  Fasting also has the effect of detaching ourselves from our disordered desires for the things of this world: desires that place a barrier between us and God, as well as those around us.  A natural result of this detachment is that we are more available for prayer and have more resources to share with others who are in need, thus facilitating our prayer and almsgiving.  Finally, fasting helps us to remember to place our trust in the fact that God is in control and that he cares for us and so will provide to us whatever it is that we truly need.

          And so, my brothers and sisters, on this first Sunday of Lent, let’s take a look at what we are doing this Lent in order to see where our disciplines are pointing us and let’s ask ourselves these questions: Are our disciplines motivated by guilt and the hope that God will pleased with them and so not ask too much of us?  Or are our disciplines about conversion: that is, about letting go of our control and turning back to God, remembering that his care alone is enough for us?

          If you find yourself (as I often do) more in the first group than in the second group, don’t worry.  We still have about 36 days left to work it all out (which is plenty of time!).  And what a good work that it is.  I promise you that if you do it well, on Easter Sunday you will have forgotten that you are hungry, because you will have remembered God’s love and mercy as you celebrate his resurrected glory.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – March 9^th & 10^th, 2019

The Eucharist is a sacrifice

Homily: 17^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          If I were to mention the word “sacrifice” in the context in which we are standing—that is here in a Church during a religious service—most of us would probably know what I was talking about.  That’s because sacrifice, in a religious context, almost immediately calls forward images of the ritual sacrifices offered by ancient peoples: animals or other objects offered on an altar in homage to a god or gods.  And this is true enough, for in a religious context this is the basic definition of a sacrifice.  However, I think that there is a much broader definition of sacrifice—one that we encounter outside of the religious context—that allows us to understand sacrifice a little more directly and to see how sacrifice is actually something that we encounter regularly in our daily lives.

          In a more general context, sacrifice is the surrender or destruction of something that is prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.  And if we think about it, I guess we could find that, in big and small ways, we do this almost every day.  Families will give up vacations so as to save money for a new home or a college education for their children.  Parents will sell the sports car in order to purchase a minivan as their families begin to grow.  Some will refuse to take a new job because it would move them too far away from loved ones.  Others, however, will even leave their native country in order to provide a better life for their families.  Every couple of years, either in the winter or in the summer, this ideal of sacrifice is on display during the Olympics, where athletes from around the world who have sacrificed years of their lives in order to strive for greatness in a particular sport compete for one prize—an Olympic medal—that makes their sacrifices worthwhile.  Without doubt, sacrifice is something familiar to us.

          And that’s good, because sacrifice is a very important aspect of the Eucharist that we celebrate each and every week.  The unique thing about the Eucharist considered as a sacrifice, however,  is that while at the same time it is a sacrifice like those made by ancient peoples, in which an offering is immolated on an altar, it is also a sacrifice that never ends and is constantly being re-presented because of its most perfect and enduring nature.  In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read that: The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” (1367)  And so, the sacrifice that we offer week after week is the one, eternal sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.  It is the only perfect sacrifice.  And so, uniting ourselves to it becomes the only way to make our lives an acceptable sacrifice to God. (cf. 2100)

          The Church also teaches us that an outward sacrifice that is not an expression of an inward sacrifice of spirit is empty (2100).  And Psalm 51 reminds us that “the sacrifice acceptable to God is a contrite spirit.”  And so we have to ask ourselves: “When we come here each week, do we do it merely out of external duty or do we do it to offer something of ourselves to God?”  If we are here only because we fear what God will do to us if we don’t show up, then I think that we are missing the point.  Don’t get me wrong, we all need a reason to be here and if fear of punishment is all you have this week, well then that’s something.  But the real fruit of our weekly sacrifice will only be found when we come here to unite our daily sacrifices of prayer and work to Christ’s eternal sacrifice.  In other words, our sacrifice of prayer in this building will mean little to us individually unless we bring forward the sacrifices of our daily lives to be offered with Christ’s on this altar.

          Sometimes, however, we can convince ourselves that our offerings don’t amount to much.  This is not new.  As we saw in our readings today, two persons were asked to place their meager offerings before a multitude of people: to sacrifice what they had for a greater purpose.  To each of them, it didn’t look like much; but to God it was enough to multiply and satisfy.  They couldn’t see this, however, until they were invited to make the offering.  They thought their offering was barely enough to cover their own needs.  What they found, however, was that, when offered to God, their small sacrifices served a much greater purpose.  In other words: their sacrifice, united through the “man of God” to God’s sacrifice, was made abundantly fruitful.

          And so this is our work: to daily acknowledge the connection between the sacrifices we make every day and the one, perfect, and abundant sacrifice that Christ offered on the cross; and then to bring those sacrifices here to be offered with Christ’s and lifted up to God in prayer and praise.  Perhaps you can even find practical ways of doing this, like writing down your sacrifices during the week on small slips of paper and then dropping them into the collection basket next week.  Then, as you watch as the basket is brought to the altar, you will be able see your sacrifices going up to be offered with the bread and wine that will become the Body and Blood of Christ, the true and perfect sacrifice.  Whatever way you choose, find some way to recollect the small and big sacrifices that you will make this coming week so that you can offer them here and you will begin to find that your participation in this celebration will be much more fruitful. ///

          You know, I think that we have a special opportunity in these coming weeks, as we hear more from these Eucharistic passages of John’s Gospel, to reflect on and renew our experience of this miraculous event and of its sacramental renewal here in the Mass.  And so I encourage you to spend time reflecting on these Gospel passages each day of this week and the weeks following (yes, I said each day).  In fact, we can begin right now in the silence that follows before we profess the Creed.  Let these words soak into your heart and ask God for the faith to see the truth of what he has promised: that our sometimes meager sacrifices can be made abundantly fruitful when united to Christ’s one, perfect sacrifice.

          My brothers and sisters, if you pay close attention to what follows, you’ll see that our prayers and actions are all pointed toward making that connection between the offerings of our lives and the life offered here on this altar.  And so let us turn, now, to him and make an offering of ourselves acceptable to God our Almighty Father.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – July 29^th, 2018

The Blood that makes us Family

Homily: The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – Cycle B

          It used to be, it seems (at least, that is, if movies and TV shows depicted the stereotypes correctly), that fathers of newly engaged daughters would make brash declarations to their soon-to-be son-in-laws about the “rules” of being part of their family.  These usually centered on the idea that the son-in-law to be must respect the father’s daughter and treat her like a lady, as well as some of the ways that he would be expected to integrate into the family culture.  And, if it is a particularly “over-protective” father, these rules usually come with some sort of threat of punishment if any of these rules are ever broken.  Has anyone ever seen this scene before?  Has anyone ever lived this scene before?

          What strikes me about these scenes, however, is the rudimentary parallels between them and the covenants formed in the Ancient Near East (that is, ancient Palestine: where Jesus walked the earth).  You see, a covenant, in ancient times, was basically a pact between two peoples who weren’t otherwise bound to each other by blood or by marriage.  A covenant is like a contract in which terms are spelled out between the two groups entering into it: there are certain rules that each group must abide by and punishments for those who break those rules.  Different, however, is that the bond that the covenant forms is a familial bond.  In other words, after entering the covenant, the groups that enter into it treat each other as if they were family.  Thus, the correlation between the father and his future son-in-law: “If you’re going to be a part of this family, there are certain rules you have to follow.”  The father, perhaps unknowingly, is laying down the terms of a covenant.

          In the first reading of today’s Mass, we heard described how the ancient Israelites entered into a covenant with God.  Moses, speaking on behalf of God, reads the “terms” of God’s proposed covenant with the people; and the people respond that they will indeed fulfill these terms.  The covenant is then sealed by a sacrifice: the blood of which is splashed on the altar (representing God) and then sprinkled on the people.  In doing this, God and the people became “family” (as evidenced by the oft-repeated phrase in the scriptures: “You will be my people, and I will be your God.”)

          Now, if you heard my homily last week for Trinity Sunday (or, perhaps, if you read it online), you’ll know that what we celebrate on Trinity Sunday is that God has made himself known to us so that we can enter into relationship with him and, thus, fulfill our purpose for being made: which is to know, love, and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in the next.  You’ll also remember that I said that we know him by remembering the gracious ways that he has worked in our lives and in the lives of others throughout history, as recorded for us in the Bible, in Church History, and in the Lives of the Saints.  I said that, as adopted sons and daughters of God (and, therefore, brothers and sisters of Christ), we are endowed with the grace of being loved by God as his beloved children and that, as brothers and sisters of Christ himself, we are caught up into the eternal outpouring of love that the Father makes to the Son and the Son returns to the Father, and which explodes forth and pours out into creation as the Holy Spirit.  Thus, we love God by loving him as Christ loves him: by receiving the love that is poured out to us and by returning that love with an outpouring of our lives.  Finally, I said that we serve God by fulfilling the “Great Commission” that Jesus gave to his disciples: to “go and make disciples of all nations” in the particular manner to which God has called each of us.

          It is to the second point of these that I want to draw our attention today: that is, that we love God like sons and daughters because we have been adopted by him.  Friends, if we are adopted sons and daughters of God, then we, like the ancient Israelites, have entered into a covenant with him.  This is not the covenant that Moses mediated between God and the people and sealed by the blood of bulls and goats, however.  It is a new covenant, mediated by Christ and sealed by the sacrifice of his own Body and Blood, as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews relates: “[Christ] entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.”  This is why we celebrate this great feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ—and why we celebrate it immediately following the feast of the Most Holy Trinity—because without it we were estranged from God, but with it we are now sons and daughters of God—brothers and sisters of Christ—and, thus, can receive the fullness of the benefits that come from being in this covenant with him: that is, to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in the next.

          Friends, it is a great grace to be in covenant with God.  And if we understand this, then our response must always be thanksgiving.  This is why our primary form of worship is the Eucharist: a sacrifice of thanksgiving in which we offer back to God the very thing that unites us to him, the Body and Blood of his Son Jesus.  Our thanksgiving doesn’t end here, however.  Rather, our lives must be a continuous act of thanksgiving; which they are when we live according to the way of life God has commanded us to live as safeguarded by the moral teachings of the Church.  Therefore, as we give God thanks today for this covenant into which he has invited us—sealed as it is by the Blood of Christ—let us recommit ourselves to living as he commanded us.  In doing so, we will give him glory and prepare ourselves to be happy with him forever in heaven.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – June 3^rd, 2018