Abandon fear and celebrate Christ!

Homily: 4^th Sunday of Advent – Cycle B

          Because of the way that marriages were arranged in the Ancient Near East, it is generally believed that Mary was around fourteen or fifteen years old when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her that she was going to be pregnant.  Think back for a moment, whether you are male or female, to when you were fourteen or fifteen years old.  I’m guessing that almost all of you here, while perhaps thinking that you might someday get married, were not yet promised in marriage; and certainly were not facing the prospect of having a baby.

          No, you were probably living like ordinary teenagers: going to school, playing sports or being involved in clubs and activities, and maybe working a part-time job.  “Going steady” or dating someone might have been the closest you had gotten to the idea of marriage and having a baby.  Imagine, then what it would have felt like to have been promised in marriage and then to receive a message that you would have a baby.  I’m guessing that, for most of you this would have been quite a scary prospect.  Yet, that’s what Mary had to deal with when she was, at most, fifteen years old.

          But that wasn’t all, however, because the angel continued to say that the child that would be born from her would be conceived by the Holy Spirit and that he would be a great king that would rule over the Jewish people forever.  You have to remember that at that time the Romans occupied what we know today as the Holy Land.  And at the time the Romans did not look kindly on anyone who had aspirations of being a king.  The king, for them, was Caesar and anyone else claiming to be a king was a revolutionary.  About thirty-three years later, we would see what the Romans would do to a man who was accused of being a revolutionary when they crucified Jesus.  Mary knew this and so the prospect that this son—the one for whom she wasn’t ready, remember—would be hailed as a king in the line of David, the great Jewish king, would have frightened her even more.

          Still further, Mary was a virgin and, although young, she knew what happened to women who were caught being unfaithful to their husbands (even if they hadn’t begun to live together formally with their husbands): those women were killed!  Thus, the prospect of becoming pregnant by someone other than Joseph (her husband to whom she had been promised)—something that she wouldn’t be able to hide from him and which would make it appear that she had been unfaithful to him—not only ran the risk of ruining her relationship with him, but also put her life in jeopardy!

          And so, added to the prospect of being, at most, fifteen and pregnant, Mary had to face all of this… and what did she say?  She said, “I’m confused, but I have faith in God.  And so, if this message is truly from God, then let it be done to me according to your word.”  Mary did not let all of the bad things that could happen stop her from agreeing to follow God’s will for her life.  Rather, she chose to say “yes” because she believed that God was trustworthy.

          Today, of course, God is not calling any of you to conceive a child by the Holy Spirit who will be a controversial leader of nations; but he has called you.  He has called you to take responsibility to be a Christian in today’s world.  This calling, of course, has its own dangers.  The world is very hostile to the values that are essential to being a Christian: piety, temperance, chastity, modesty, purity, obedience, and faithfulness (just to name a few), and so it is a fearful thing to accept this calling.  Nevertheless, God has called each of you to take this responsibility (and it is a responsibility—that is, something that demands a response from you); and not just for yourself, but rather to be a witness to others, too.

          King David recognized that God had been very good to him, giving him victory over his enemies (before he was king) and over the enemies of his people.  As he settled to reign over the people of Judah, he wanted to do something good for God: something that would show God his appreciation for all that God had done for him.  Therefore, he proposed to build God a temple: a fitting house to honor God’s presence among them.  Through the prophet Nathan, however, God revealed that he would have nothing of it.  God was not to be “repaid”, if you will, by David, but rather determined to finish his work with him.

          God, therefore, revealed to David that not only would David not build a house for him, but that God would make David into a house: a kingdom that would last forever.  In doing so, God revealed something important: that he, who had been with David throughout all of his trials, would remain with him to continue to guide and strengthen him, until his final days and even beyond them, as he would guide and protect David’s descendants for generations to come.  In this we see God’s promise to those whom he has called: that if he calls us to a responsibility, then we can trust that he will be with us as we seek to follow his will.

          Of course, some of that support comes in the form of the people who surround us here today.  By being here, we are all promising to support each other as we make the choice to take responsibility for being a Christian in today’s world.  Our task is to help each other make the right choices in our lives and in our relationships and to pray for each other and with each other, so that each of us will have the best chance to fulfill this calling that God has given to us.  This, in a sense, is the work we are all trying to renew in our lives during this Advent season: that, as we prepare to celebrate the coming of our Lord, we do so by making sure that we are fulfilling this calling to Christian discipleship that we have all received.

          Sometimes, however, the hardest part is saying “yes” to God.  At fifteen years old, Mary was able to do so because she believed that God was trustworthy and because he proved that he was.  My brothers and sisters, no matter how old each of us is today, God is asking us to say “yes”, also.  Let us not be afraid to say “yes” to God, for he is a Father who loves us and who is very proud of us; and he will never leave us alone.  Let us not be afraid, because with the help of Mary and the saints, and with the help of our brothers and sisters here, each of us will fulfill God’s will for our lives: our happiness.  The happiness that, in some sense, we experience when we celebrate the great feast of Christ’s birth, and which is available to us when we receive him, even now, from this altar.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 23^rd & 24^th, 2017

Is your "yes" to God open-ended?

          The Holy Family, along with countless other believers throughout history, had to face that their "yes" to God was a "yes" to everything that following God would demand of them, even though they couldn't foresee what that would be.  We, too, are called to give an open-ended "yes" to God: a "yes that trusts in his promises of protection and prosperity (as he promised to Abraham), a "yes" that is ready to respond to whatever his holy will calls us to.

          Often times our "yes" becomes closed (and if you've ever felt the need to go to confession, then your "yes" has become closed).  If so, go and make a good confession and open your "yes" to God once again.  God sent his Son to bring us life!  And this life is found when we keep our "yes" open to God.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, pray for us!

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Homily: The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph – Cycle B

          A few years ago, at the end of one of my summer breaks as a seminarian, I was invited to a vocations awareness dinner in the Diocese of Joliet (which is where I grew up).  The vocations director from that diocese was aware that I was a “son of the diocese” and so, even though I was affiliated with this diocese here in Indiana, he invited my parents and I to this dinner.  We were happy to accept.

          At this dinner, the (at that time) newly installed bishop of the diocese, Bishop Peter Sartain, was scheduled to speak.  In his talk during that dinner, he spoke of his experience of leaving his home diocese of Memphis to become bishop of the diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas; and then of leaving the diocese of Little Rock for the diocese of Joliet.  He said that, in both cases, he had to hearken back to the day of his ordination as a priest.  He said that he realized that on that day (the day of his ordination) he had said “yes” to God and that this “yes” was open ended.  In other words, he knew that his “yes” was a “yes” for whatever God, through his Church, would call him to do in the future, even if that would move him away from family and his beloved flock.  Thus, although he felt deep sadness to leave his home diocese and then his first diocese as a bishop, he trustingly accepted the call of the Church; for in his heart, he knew that he had already said “yes” to it all on the day of his ordination to the priesthood.

          In our Scriptures today, we encounter another man whose “yes” to God was open-ended, and which took him to places and experiences he never dreamed of.  Abraham (who, initially, was called simply “Abram”) was a man blessed by God and to whom God revealed himself in visions.  God had a plan for Abraham: a plan that would take him far from his native land, with only the vague assurance of prosperity when he arrived.  Abraham placed his faith in God who had revealed himself to him and set out from the land of Ur of the Chaldeans for an unknown land that he was to receive as an inheritance.

          This, of course, not only affected him, but his whole household.  His wife, Sarah, and their entire household (including his livestock) would move with him; and the hardship that they endured throughout the journey was great.  Abraham’s faith was tested—as was his relationship with his wife—but he persevered and settled in the land that God had promised him.

          Having settled in the land that God had promised to him, God promised Abraham prosperity and protection.  Abraham, however, questioned God’s promise: asking “What good will your gifts be if I keep on being childless?”  You see, these ancient peoples had not yet developed the notion of the immortal soul and so they believed that “eternal life” came from having children, in which your name—and, thus, your heritage—lived on.  Abraham didn’t want material prosperity; rather, he wanted eternal life.  Thus, God would make another promise: the promise of descendents more numerous than the stars in the sky. /// It would be many years, however, before God would fulfill this promise and grant to Abraham and his wife Sarah a son.  This was another test of Abraham’s faith: a test that, once again, affected his whole family.

          As difficult as this test might have been, there would still be one final test for Abraham.  After fulfilling his promise to give Abraham an heir, God then calls Abraham to offer his son Isaac back to him as a sacrifice.  At this point, I imagine that Abraham felt like he had had enough; and I imagine that he had to pray long and hard about whether or not he should obey.  In the end, I imagine that he thought back to that first revelation that God had given to him back in his homeland of Ur of the Chaldeans.  I imagine that he looked to that first “yes” that he had given to God and then realized that, to say “no” now, would be to negate all of the blessings that he had received by saying “yes” to everything that had come before.  In other words, he knew that his first “yes” was an open-ended one: a yes not only to God’s first command to leave his land for a land unknown to him, but also to everything that would come after; and so he said “yes” to God once again and brought his son to be offered as a sacrifice to him. /// We, of course, know the rest of this story: that God stopped Abraham from completing the sacrifice and, as the Letter to the Hebrews relates, Abraham “received Isaac back” and with it the promise of innumerable descendents.

          The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is also a family whose life was affected by an open-ended “yes” by its members.  Mary was confronted by the archangel Gabriel, who appeared to her and announced God’s incredible plan for her life.  She, however, had made a secret consecration of virginity to God and so could not comprehend how it would be possible for her to conceive the child that the angel was promising to her.  Nevertheless, she trusted in God and said “yes”: a “yes” that she would have to return to over and over again as more revelations would be made to her about who her son would be and the difficulties that he would face (and she through him)—revelations such as the one she received from the Temple prophet, Simeon.

          Joseph, too, would have to say “yes” to an angel—the one that appeared to him in a dream.  When he found that his supposedly virgin wife had become pregnant before they had consummated their marriage, he had decided to divorce her, because, as the Scriptures tell us, he was a righteous man and that was what the Mosaic Law demanded.  He, too, however, trusted in God and said “yes”: a “yes” that he, too, would have to return to in the future—such as when he was forced to flee with his family into Egypt to avoid Herod’s persecution.  His and Mary’s “yeses” to God were open-ended.  Although they could not foresee all that these would demand of them, yet they trusted in God and gave them anyway; and for this, they have already received their reward.

          To this day, faithful families in the land of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac—of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—find themselves in similarly difficult situations.  Christians throughout the Middle East, and especially today in Syria and Iraq, are being severely persecuted by highly-organized religious extremists and they are being forced to face their “yes” that they had given to God: the “yes” to put their faith in God’s complete revelation of himself in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to save us from our sin and to win for us eternal life.  They are being forced to acknowledge that their “yeses” were open-ended ones: for they could not foresee that the endurance of such persecution would be demanded of them.

          Believe it or not, we are not far from this experience, either.  Although we in this country are not subject to the violent persecutions that Christians are facing in the Middle East, we are, nonetheless, suffering from a persecution no less hostile.  Instead of confronting us with the threat of death—thus forcing us to renew our “yes” to God or to abandon it all together—we are being bombarded by a cacophony of confusion, in which our modern culture seeks to twist truths so that there are no longer absolutes and then push forward secular values which must be accepted.  Refusal results in persecution: not for being Christian, per se, but rather for being “intolerant” and “bigoted”.  It has so many of us confused that we’re not sure what we’ve said “yes” to, anymore.  This confusion has disrupted our families and has even caused division within them.

          Therefore, my brothers and sisters, this feast today is calling us back to our first “yes”: the “yes” that we proclaimed at our baptism (or at our confirmation, if we were only infants at our baptism).  The “yes” to trust in God through his Son, Jesus.  The “yes” to have faith his Church, the Body of Christ, who we are, and who, guided by the Holy Spirit, cannot err to provide for us clarity in the midst of confusion.  Like Abraham and his family, Sarah and Isaac, and like the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and like Archbishop Sartain and the persecuted Christians in Syria and Iraq, we must remember that our “yes” was never to an idea, but to a person—Jesus, our Savior—and to his promise that, in spite of whatever difficulties we might face, we will not die, but rather will have eternal life—that is, happiness—forever with him in heaven.  God is calling us today to put our faith in his promises: the promises that are fulfilled even here in this Eucharist as we offer Emmanuel, God with us, back to him on this altar.  Come, then, let us receive the fulfillment of these promises, so that, strengthened by them, we may go forth to bring the light of this truth to a dark world, so desperately in need of it.

          Let us pray, then, that the Holy Family may guide our families through this night and into the light of the fulfillment of God’s promises; and thus go forward in faith: for our God, who alone has the power to save us, is trustworthy.  He has promised and he will do it.  Amen.  Alleluia!

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 28^th, 2014