True and Lasting Happiness Restored

Homily: The Nativity of the Lord (Mass During the Day) – Cycle A

I’ve been a priest for over seven years now and if there’s one thing that I’ve learned it’s that only the most sophisticated folks show up for Christmas Mass.  Looking out over the congregation, it appears that my observations hold true.  Therefore, I feel like it would be pretty safe to bring up the Greek philosopher Aristotle without getting too far above anybody’s head, and so here we go.

          One of the core things that Aristotle taught was that all living things have an end for which they are striving—a telos in Greek.  For example, by his observation, a plant is striving for the sun.  He could see this by the way that a plant will stretch out its leaves way beyond its roots in an effort to reach the rays of the sun.  We, of course, know that the plant needs the rays of the sun to hit its leaves for photosynthesis to happen, in which it converts the energy from the sun’s rays into nutrients to help it grow, but it doesn’t change the fact that the living spirit in the plant—the anima, if you will—is striving always towards the sun as if reaching it was its ultimate purpose.

          Now, I think that we can all agree that we human beings are little more complex than a plant.  Nonetheless, Aristotle still thought that we have a telos: an end to which we are striving.  When Aristotle observed human beings in order to determine for what it is that we are striving, he concluded that the end we are all trying to reach is happiness.  In other words, when he looked at the reasons why human beings do anything, he could see that all of them boiled down to one thing: happiness.  Simply stated: everything that we choose to do, we choose because we think that it will make us happy.  We, of course, could be wrong about whether or not it will make us happy, but the fact remains that we choose it because we think that it will make us happy.

          Saint Thomas Aquinas lived a little more than 1500 years after Aristotle, but he was one of the first to truly synthesize Aristotle’s philosophy into Christian theology.  Saint Thomas agreed that human beings have a telos, and that this telos is happiness.  Because Thomas was a Christian, however, he could tell us that the truest and fullest happiness for which we can strive—the happiness for which we were made—is what Christian theologians call the Beatific Vision: that is, standing face to face with God, in perfect communion with him.  Therefore, because of Saint Thomas, we now have a criterion from which to decide whether or not what we choose is what will truly make us happy: because if what we choose moves us closer to the Beatific Vision, then it truly will make us happy; and if it doesn’t, well then it won’t.

And so, why do I bring this up here today?  It’s because of this.  For the last month, we’ve covered our lives with the sheen of “Christmas Spirit”.  Lights, trees, shopping, parties, lots of food, lots of drinks... in other words, we’ve covered our lives with a spirit of celebration.  Yet, in spite of what all of the songs on the radio, your spotify playlist, or in stores and restaurants say (…It’s the most wonderful time of the year...) … in spite of what all of these songs say, underneath it all we realize that we really aren’t happy.  Sure, for a few days (maybe even a few weeks) we’ll feel good: connecting with family, reminiscing about old times, enjoying the exchange of presents (especially watching the joy and excitement of children opening gifts), and a day or two (or more) off work can truly give us a sense of comfort amidst the toils and labors of our lives.  By the time January 1^st rolls around, however, all of those good feelings have mostly vanished, and we’re left with the toils and labors, perhaps with few “fleeting flashes of perfect” mixed in.  When this reality settles back in, once again we’ll have to confront the fact that we really aren’t happy.

My friends, this is really important to say on this Christmas Day, because the truth of the matter is that, since the fall of man (the first sin of Adam and Eve), NOBODY HAS BEEN TRULY HAPPY!  Ever since the fall, mankind has sought his happiness in the world and has always come up short.  While we can be temporarily successful, none of us is capable of achieving true and lasting happiness by our own efforts.  Why?  Well, because (as Saint Thomas taught us) our only lasting happiness is the Beatific Vision—seeing God face to face.  This means a return to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve walked in communion with God.  Sin caused them to be expelled from the garden, and a great chasm between us and our happiness appeared: a chasm that mankind can never bridge himself.

Therefore, if, underneath all of this “holiday sheen”, there’s a gnawing in you that says, “Is this all there is?” or “It’s too bad that this is all going to end soon”, well then I’ve got good news for you: You’re normal!  You’re a human being, searching for your telos, your true and lasting happiness, and no amount of tinsel and lights and cookies and egg nog and corny songs and tacky sweater parties can satisfy the longing for happiness in you!  Only perfect communion with God can provide that.  To this, I have still more good news: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  This is what we celebrate tonight: not that we made it back to God, but that God came to us to bring us back to himself—to save us from our unhappiness so that we could return to life with him.

This, my brothers and sisters, is why we are bold to speak the words of Isaiah in the Mass: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings glad tidings, announcing peace, bearing good news, announcing salvation, and saying to Zion, ‘Your God is King!’ … Break out together in song, O ruins of Jerusalem! For the LORD comforts his people, he redeems Jerusalem … all the ends of the earth will behold the salvation of our God.”  My friends, God our Lord has come to comfort us, his people, by redeeming us from our sin which separated us from him!  Why, then, do we keep looking for happiness in the ethereal... in the aesthetic... in the “sheen” of Christmas?

My friends, the prologue to John’s Gospel, which we heard today, reminds us of this wonderful truth that God, who existed before all time, made all created things through his Son, the Divine Word; and, when his creation went astray and in the fullness of time (meaning, when the time was right), his Son came into the world to be our redemption and, thus, to restore us to our true and lasting happiness.  In the generations since his birth, however, we have often allowed ourselves to forget that it is through him, Jesus Christ, that we find our true and lasting happiness and thus begin to seek our happiness by our own frustrated efforts again.  The season of Advent reminds us to turn back to the Lord and say, “Come, Lord Jesus!  Save us from this unhappiness!”  And today we gather to say to him, “Praise to you, Lord Jesus, for you have come and you have saved us!”

Friends, I am going to say something to you here and I want you all to look at me and listen.  (Are you looking?)  Nothing—absolutely nothing—that you do this Christmas matters more than what we are doing right now in this church: giving praise to God that he has sent his Son to save us from our unhappiness so that we can find our telos, our true happiness in him.  Let us, therefore, let the wonder and awe of this great mystery—the Son of God appearing in our humanity—envelop us today, so that the happiness of this time might remain with us, even after we return to the labors and toils of our lives, and thus preserve us in faith until Christ, our Mighty King, returns to take us home.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – December 25^th, 2019

La felicidad que buscas

Homilía: 2º Domingo en el Tiempo Ordinario – Ciclo B

          "¿Qué busca?" Esta es una pregunta común que nos hacemos cuando alguien tiene esa mirada de "búsqueda" en su rostro. Sin embargo, cuando Jesús hace esta pregunta, inmediatamente sentimos que quiere decir algo más que simplemente "¿Ha perdido algo?" Cuando Jesús pregunta, nos damos cuenta de que está hablando en términos "últimos": es decir, "¿Qué busca realmente?" y es una pregunta con la cual los seres humanos han estado luchando constantemente.

          Aristóteles era un pagano que vivió cuatrocientos años antes de Cristo. Pagano, lo que significaba que él no sabía, y mucho menos creía, en Dios como se le había revelado en la tradición judeocristiana. No obstante, era un filósofo increíble que podía observar el mundo que lo rodeaba y sacar conclusiones astutas sobre "cómo son las cosas". Era el mejor científico del mundo cuando la filosofía era la ciencia del mundo.

          Una de las cosas centrales que enseñó Aristóteles fue que todos los seres vivos tienen un fin—un telos en griego—por el cual se esfuerzan. Por ejemplo, según su observación, una planta lucha por el sol. Pudo ver esto por la forma en que una planta extenderá sus hojas más allá de sus raíces en un esfuerzo por alcanzar los rayos del sol. Nosotros, por supuesto, sabemos que la planta necesita los rayos del sol para tocar sus hojas para que ocurra la fotosíntesis, en la que convierte la energía de los rayos del sol en nutrientes para ayudarla a crecer, pero eso no cambia el hecho de que el espíritu viviente en la planta se esfuerza siempre hacia el sol como si alcanzarlo fuera su objetivo principal.

          Bueno, creo que todos podemos estar de acuerdo en que los seres humanos somos un poco más complejos que una planta. No obstante, Aristóteles todavía pensaba que tenemos un telos: un fin al que nos estamos esforzando. Cuando Aristóteles observó a los seres humanos para determinar por qué es lo que estamos esforzando, concluyó que el fin que todos estamos tratando de alcanzar es la felicidad. En otras palabras, cuando miraba las razones por las que los seres humanos hacen algo, podía ver que todas ellas se reducían a una cosa: la felicidad. En pocas palabras: todo lo que elegimos hacer, lo elegimos porque creemos que nos hará felices. Por supuesto, podríamos estar equivocados acerca de si nos hará felices o no, pero el hecho es que lo elegimos porque creemos que nos hará felices.

          Santo Tomás de Aquino vivió un poco más de 1500 años después de Aristóteles, pero fue uno de los primeros para sintetizar verdaderamente la filosofía de Aristóteles en la teología cristiana. Santo Tomás estuvo de acuerdo en que los seres humanos tienen un telos, y que este telos es la felicidad. Sin embargo, como Tomás era cristiano, pudo decirnos que la felicidad más verdadera y plena por la que podemos esforzar—la felicidad para la que fuimos creados—es lo que los teólogos cristianos llaman la Visión Beatífica: es decir, estar cara a cara con Dios, en comunión perfecta con él.

          Por lo tanto, para Aristóteles, la respuesta a la pregunta "¿Qué busca?" Es la felicidad. Para Santo Tomás de Aquino, la respuesta es la misma: la felicidad. Con él, sin embargo, la respuesta tiene una segunda parte: "¿Y qué es la felicidad? La Visión Beatífica." Y entonces, para Santo Tomás, la respuesta a la pregunta "¿Qué busca?" es simplemente Dios.

          Hermanos, tal vez toda esta charla sobre "cosas últimas" los tiene un poco exasperados. Si es así, lo entiendo. Para nosotros, que somos criaturas muy prácticas, es difícil pensar de manera tan abstracta. Para la mayoría de nosotros, puede ser difícil superar las preocupaciones del momento presente y del futuro cercano. "¿Qué busca?" "Bueno, busco mis llaves... o un nuevo trabajo... o que termine esta homilía..." Sospecho que fue difícil para los primeros discípulos de Jesús, también. Solo mira cómo respondieron a la pregunta de Jesús. "¿Qué buscan?", los pregunta. Los discípulos responden, "¿Dónde vives?" Supongo que ellos sintieron el peso de la pregunta, pero no estaban preparado para responderla y por eso se equivocan. Ellos no respondieron "Nada" pero tampoco dieron una respuesta directa. Su respuesta revela que reconocieron algo en Jesús, algo que aún no podían nombrar, pero algo en él que podría responder esa pregunta por él, y por eso quería saber más. Por lo tanto, ellos preguntaron: "¿Dónde vives?" para conocer mejor a Jesús y descubrirlo con seguridad.

          Hermanos, esto es lo mismo para nosotros. Quizás no tenemos una idea clara de qué buscamos. Creo que la mayoría de ustedes aquí, en este punto, están reconociendo que, en su esencia, lo que buscas es la felicidad. Tal vez un buen número de ustedes también reconozcan que es Jesús quien los puede llevar a la felicidad (es decir, a la felicidad real y duradera). Para otros, sin embargo, no estás tan seguro. De todos modos, para todos los que estamos aquí hoy, Jesús se vuelve hacia nosotros cuando lo estamos mirando y nos está preguntando "¿Qué buscas?" Quizás podamos responder con valentía: "¡Felicidad! ¡Y creo que usted puede llevarme a eso!" Quizás, sin embargo, lo mejor que podemos hacer es decir: "Jesús, ¿dónde vives?" Si es así, es bastante. Para el primero, Jesús dirá: "Ven y te mostraré tu felicidad". A la segunda, Jesús dirá: "Vengas a ver". Como vemos en ambos, Él nos invita a ir a él: porque él nos dará lo que buscamos si acercarnos a él.

          Este es nuestro trabajo: encontrar a Jesús, preguntarle dónde vives y ponernos a seguirlo allí. Luego, después de que lo escuchamos y estamos convencidos de que él es el Mesías, debemos ir y traerle otros a él también. Esta es nuestra vocación. Cuando lo aceptemos, Dios nos dará la gracia para cumplirlo. Así como Elí identificó la voz del Señor para el joven Samuel para que él pudiera seguirla, y al igual que Juan el Bautista señaló a sus discípulos a Jesús, y al igual que Andrés trajo a su hermano Simón Pedro a Jesús, nosotros también debemos continuar con esta larga cadena de discípulos-que-engendran-discípulos por conocer a Jesús primero (ayudado, como seguramente lo hemos sido, por otros) y luego señalándolo a otros y llevándoselos a él. Si hacemos esto, mis hermanos y hermanas, encontraremos lo que hemos estado buscando; y el reino de los cielos, el reino en el cual florece nuestra felicidad, el reino que está presente aquí en esta Eucaristía, se expandirá y crecerá en medio de nosotros.  Esto es lo que buscas.

          Que este nuevo año sea el año en que el reino de Dios crezca de una manera rica y poderosa, tanto en nuestros corazones como en esta comunidad. Así sea.

Dado en la parroquia de Todos los Santos: Logansport, IN

14 de enero, 2018

The happiness that you are looking for

Homily: 2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          “What are you looking for?”  This is a common question that we ask one another whenever someone has that “searching” look on his / her face.  When Jesus asks this question, however, we immediately sense that he means something more than just “Have you lost something?”  When Jesus asks, we realize that he’s speaking in “ultimate” terms: that is, “What are you really looking for?”  And it is a question with which human beings have been constantly wrestling.

          The Greek philosopher Aristotle was a pagan who lived in the 4th century BC.  Pagan, which meant that he didn't know of, let alone believe in, God as he has been revealed in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Nonetheless, he was an incredible philosopher who could observe the world around him and draw astute conclusions about "the way things are".  He was the world's top scientist when philosophy was the world's science.

          One of the core things that Aristotle taught was that all living things have an end—a telos in Greek—for which they are striving.  For example, by his observation, a plant is striving for the sun.  He could see this by the way that a plant will stretch out its leaves way beyond its roots in an effort to reach the rays of the sun.  We, of course, know that the plant needs the rays of the sun to hit its leaves for photosynthesis to happen, in which it converts the energy from the sun’s rays into nutrients to help it grow, but it doesn’t change the fact that the living spirit in the plant is striving always towards the sun as if reaching it was its ultimate purpose.

          Now, I think that we can all agree that we human beings are a little more complex than a plant.  Nonetheless, Aristotle still thought that we have a telos: an end to which we are striving.  When Aristotle observed human beings in order to determine for what it is that we are striving, he concluded that the end we are all trying to reach is “happiness”.  In other words, when he looked at the reasons why human beings do anything, he could see that all of them boiled down to one thing: happiness.  Simply stated: everything that we choose to do, we choose because we think that it will make us happy (or, at least, will lead us to happiness).  We, of course, could be wrong about whether or not it will make us happy, but the fact remains that we choose it because we think that it will make us happy.

          Saint Thomas Aquinas lived a little more than 1500 years after Aristotle, but he was one of the first to synthesize truly Aristotle’s philosophy into Christian theology.  Saint Thomas agreed that human beings have a telos, and that this telos is happiness.  Because Thomas was a Christian, however, he could tell us that the truest and fullest happiness for which we can strive—the happiness for which we were made—is what Christian Theologians call the Beatific Vision: that is, standing face to face with God, in perfect communion with him.

          For Aristotle, therefore, the answer to the question “What are you looking for?” is happiness.  For Saint Thomas Aquinas, the answer is the same: happiness.  With him, however, the answer has a second part: “And what is happiness?  The Beatific Vision.”  And so, for Saint Thomas, the answer to the question “What are you looking for?” is God.

          Friends, perhaps all of this talk about “ultimate things” has you a little exasperated.  If so, I understand.  It’s difficult for us, who are very practical creatures, to think so abstractly.  For most of us, it can be tough to get past the concerns of the present moment and the near future.  “What are you looking for?”  “Well, I’m looking for my keys… or for a new job… or for this homily to be over…”  I suspect that it was difficult for Jesus’ first disciples, too.  Just look at how they responded to Jesus’ question.  “What are you looking for?”, he asks.  Andrew responds, “Where are you staying?”  My guess is that Andrew felt the weight of the question, but was unprepared to answer it and so he equivocates.  He didn’t respond “Nothing” but he didn’t give a straight-forward answer, either.  His answer reveals that he recognized something in Jesus—something that he couldn’t yet name, but something in him that might answer that question for him—and so he wanted to know more.  Thus, he asked “Where are you staying?” so that he could get to know Jesus better and find out for sure.

          Friends, this is the same for us.  Perhaps we don’t have a clear idea of what it is that we are looking for.  My guess is that most of you here, at this point, are acknowledging that, at your core, what you are looking for is happiness.  Perhaps a good number of you also recognize that it is Jesus who can lead you to happiness (that is, to real, lasting happiness).  For others, however, you’re not so sure.  Regardless, for all of us here today, Jesus is turning to us as we are looking to him and he is asking us “What are you looking for?”  Perhaps we can answer boldly: “Happiness!  And I believe that you can lead me to it!”  Perhaps, however, the best we can muster is to say, “Jesus, where are you staying?”  If so, this is enough.  To the first, Jesus will say: “Come and I will show you your happiness.”  To the second, Jesus will say, “Come and you will see.”  As we see in both, He invites us to come to him: for he will give us what we are looking for if we come to him.

          This is our work: to find Jesus, to ask him where he is staying, and to put ourselves towards following him there.  Then, after we’ve heard him and are convinced that he is the Messiah, we must go and bring others to him, as well.  This is our vocation.  When we accept it, God will give us grace to fulfill it.  Just as Eli identified the Lord’s voice for young Samuel so that he could follow it, and just like John the Baptist pointed his disciples to Jesus, and just like Andrew then brought his brother Simon Peter to Jesus, so we, too, must continue this long chain of disciples-begetting-disciples by first coming to know Jesus (helped, as we most assuredly have been, by others) and then by pointing him out to others and bringing them to him.  If we do this, my brothers and sisters, we will find what we have been looking for; and the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom in which our happiness flourishes, the kingdom which is present to us here in this Eucharist, will expand and grow in our midst.  This, my friends, is what you are looking for.

          May this new year be the year that God’s kingdom grows in a rich and powerful way, both in our hearts and this community.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – January 13^th & 14^th, 2018