Submitting to God's mercy

Homily: 30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          A few years before I entered the seminary, I had hit what I would call a “personal low-point”.  Things in my life seemed to me to be unraveling.  I had been working as an engineer for a few years and was very disappointed in the way my career was already shaping up.  I had also just been through the disastrous breakup of a relationship that had lasted nearly three years (with the disastrous part being completely my fault).  On top of that, I found myself questioning the faith in which I was raised.  Basically, the foundation rocks of my future—career, marriage, religious faith and practice—seemed to be crumbling in front of me and I was in crisis.

          By God’s grace, in the midst of all of this, I was moved to participate in the mission my parish was having.  At that mission I came to recognize that the things that I thought were the rock foundation of my future were really just sand, because I had ignored God’s commandments and was building them of my own accord.  I felt ashamed and for the first time in my life truly knew what it meant to ask for God’s mercy.

          From that point on, however, I began to build.  I tried to learn more about my faith and began to study the Bible and the Catechism.  I began to attend Mass daily and started to get very involved in my parish.  I made many positive friendships with people who helped support my desire to live virtuously and, two years later, I was feeling pretty good about myself.

          At that time, I also met a wonderful young woman and we began to date.  I was so excited about this relationship because I felt that it was the first time that I was truly dating according to God’s plan and not my own.  The only problem was that I had started to become complacent and self-assured in the daily practice of my faith.  So much so, that I started to exhibit some self-righteousness.  This woman who I was dating began to see through that and when she called me out on it I was shocked, then angry that she had done so, but then, once again, I found myself ashamed and in desperate need of God’s mercy.

          And so, for me, I find a lot to relate to in the Pharisee from today’s Gospel reading.  He had mastered all of the regulations in the Law of Moses, which was no small feat!  The Law contains over 600 regulations and, just to be sure that they never encroached even on those, the Pharisees added their own “safeguard” regulations on top of them.  Thus, to master all of these laws, one had to be very disciplined and conscientious.  His problem, however, was that he let all of that get to his head and his self-assuredness became self-righteousness.  And so, we see in the Gospel reading how he came before God not to lay his work before God’s judgment, but rather to crown himself with a crown of righteousness.

          I relate to him because I feel like I had been acting similar to him.  I was following all of God’s commandments and often found myself judging myself righteous in comparison to others.  I boasted of always “striving to do God’s will” even though I was not actually prayerfully discerning what God was calling me to do.  I knew that I wasn’t perfect, but I had become complacent in being “better than most”.

          Nonetheless, I also find a lot to relate to in the tax collector.  On top of being a job that other Jews would despise him for doing, the job itself didn’t pay a salary; and so, the only way that he could earn money would be to tack on fees to each transaction.  Well, he quickly realized that he could make a lot of money doing that and so he began to tack on exorbitant fees that were inconsistent with the taxes being paid, which he knew to be unjust.  Thus, he knew that he wasn’t perfect and so it was clear to him that only the mercy of God could earn him any semblance of righteousness.  Therefore, he came before God in the Temple not to proclaim his own righteousness, but rather to accuse himself before God and to beg for his mercy.

          I relate to him because both at the beginning and at the end of this time that I have been describing, I found myself in a similar state: recognizing my own failure to be righteous and thus turning to God to beg for his mercy.  In the first instance, I could accuse myself.  In the second, however, I needed another to accuse me.  In both I either saw or came to see that I needed God’s mercy in order to earn any semblance of righteousness.

          “Ok, so I’m a little confused, Father.  Are you saying we should or shouldn’t strive for righteousness? because it sounds like you just said that the better thing is to remember our need for God’s mercy, but that when we are achieving righteousness we’re apt to forget it.”  Yes, we still need to strive for righteousness; and no needing to constantly remember our need for God’s mercy is no excuse for continuing to commit your favorite sins (useful, perhaps, but not a good idea).  What we need to do is follow Saint Paul’s example, who was righteous in every way according to the Law, following all of the Lord’s commandments, yet who never counted it to be more than rubbish compared to what God’s mercy could do (and did do) in him.  Or how about Pope Francis, who when asked by a reporter to describe himself replied firstly, “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”  Yes, my brothers and sisters, we must strive for righteousness, for it is what God has made us for.  But we must also acknowledge our inability to crown ourselves: that is, that we, too, are indeed “sinners whom the Lord has looked upon.”

          Recently I visited one of our homebound parishioners.  When I arrived, he asked almost immediately if I would hear his confession.  He said that he couldn’t really think of any specific sins that he had committed, but that he realized that it had been a long time since he last went to confession; and, acknowledging that God could call him home soon, he didn’t want to have to explain to God why his short memory or weak conscience kept him from receiving His mercy.  “I try to be good,” he was basically saying, “but I know that I’m not perfect.”  “You know what,” I thought, “he gets it.”  This is the humility that Jesus is talking about: the humility that, although he couldn’t accuse himself of any particular sin, nonetheless still acknowledged his need for God’s mercy.

          My brothers and sisters, we are all constantly in need of God’s mercy.  Let us, then, humble ourselves here today before the one who alone can exult us.

Given at Saint Mary Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – October 27^th, 2019

The wood of the cross, the throne of grace...

Here is my homily for the Good Friday commemoration of the Lord's Passion that we celebrated today.  Now, I need to get to work on my Easter homily!

A blessed Triduum to all!

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Homily: Good Friday – Cycle C

For those of you who have seen it, you know that Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is a powerful film.  It’s a work of art, really, in that it truly draws out the reality of Christ’s Passion and presents it in a way that provides an authentic experience of the events it depicts for its viewers.  If any of you are like me, you remember a lot about your first experience of viewing this film.

What drove me to see the film was, I must admit, a sense of Catholic duty.  Here was a big-budget movie produced by a Catholic artist attempting to evangelize through this medium.  Thus, I felt like it was my duty to support it by purchasing a ticket.  I was unprepared, however, for what the experience of the film would be like and, simply stated, I was blown away by it.

While I could pick out something from just about every scene that had an impact on me, I would say that the scene of the scourging at the pillar sticks out as one of the most memorable.  Probably because, quite frankly, it is the most brutal.  Probably also because the Scriptures don’t give us much description of what a scourging entailed.  In the Gospel of John it says simply that “Pilate had him scourged.”  People of the first century probably didn’t need much more description of that: they probably had first-hand knowledge of what a scourging entailed.  We are left to imagine it, however.  That is, until this film.

The scene begins with Jesus receiving the standard Jewish punishment: 40 lashes minus one (“minus one” because to receive 41 lashes would go beyond the Law of Moses and so to prevent that they always stopped at 39).  We know that this is what he received first because you could hear the Roman soldier counting them off, one by one, as the soldiers inflicted them upon Jesus.  Then the Romans have their way with him.  Jesus’ punishers begin by looking over a table of whips and clubs and one of them selects a whip with multiple “tails”, each having a sharp metal hook on the end.  The soldier previews the device’s pain-inflicting capacity by whipping it down on the table in front of the supervising officer: the metal hooks digging into the wood and ripping off chunks when the soldier pulls it off.

I won’t describe what this device did to Jesus’ body.  But I will say that there was no pre-ordained limit to the Romans’ cruelty.  The scene is gruesome, and then it gets worse.  After the soldiers have had their way with the back side of Jesus’ body, the supervising officer stops them, puts his hand out palm facing down, and then turns it up: indicating that he wanted them to do the same to the front side of his body.  I will never forget that scene: its images are emblazoned permanently in my memory.

And yet, the film continues.  The final condemnation from Pilate, the Way of the Cross winding through the streets of Jerusalem, the Crucifixion, all the way to the penultimate scene—which depicts the Pieta with Mary holding the lifeless body of Jesus in her arms and staring directly out of the screen towards the viewers.  This film so vividly portrays the drama of Christ’s Passion that it is nearly impossible not to be affected in some deep way after watching it.

When the film ended and the lights in the theater went up no one in the theater said a word.  After a few moments there were a few people who began making comments, but overall people walked out of the theater speechless.  I saw it with my friend Ann and neither of us spoke as we exited the theater.  We made it all of the way back to the car without exchanging a word.  Finally, after I started the car, I looked at her and all I could say was: “We should go and pray.”

We made our way over to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel adoration chapel—still mostly speechless—and, after we entered, I knelt down and buried my face in my hands.  I was so ashamed of myself.  In part because I knew that it was my sins that added to the suffering Christ endured.   More so, however, I was ashamed because of my “lukewarmness” to all that Christ suffered on account of my sins: that instead of feeling a deep compunction for my sins, I confessed them more out of duty: not acknowledging that each sin, no matter how small, added another blow to his body from that horrific device.  I’m not sure how much time we spent there, but before we left I begged Christ for forgiveness and for the grace to live more consciously aware of all that he had endured for me.

My brothers and sisters, every year we come together on Good Friday to commemorate the Lord’s Passion and yes, in a very real way, it is meant to stir up within us some shame for our sins.  More than that, however, it is meant to stir up a flame within us that shakes us from our lukewarmness and reminds us of our need to run to the Throne of Grace—this altar… the wood of the cross that we will venerate…—and to beg to be forgiven that we have for so long been apathetic to what Christ suffered for us, so as to receive anew the cleansing power of the blood and water that flowed out from his side.

The Good News, my brothers and sisters, is that today isn’t the end: just as the Pieta scene wasn’t the end of the film.  The film, rather, ended depicting Christ’s Resurrection—that is, his ultimate victory over death.  For us the same exists.  In fact, the reason why we commemorate Christ’s Passion on Good Friday is precisely because we look towards the same ending: our joyful celebration of his Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

What a truly merciful God we have who would look on our sin and count it as the merit for sending us his Only Begotten Son to suffer and die for us so that we could be redeemed.  We truly do adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross we have been redeemed.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – March 29th, 2013

Good Friday of the Holy Triduum