Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica II per Annum C
19 January 2025

 In the Christmas season we celebrate in faith that our salvation is near because God has wedded Himself to us, His People.  He has done so by wedding Himself to us in our flesh.  We celebrate that reality in the conception of Jesus (where God first took flesh) and which we observe on the Annunciation each March.  And we celebrate that reality finally being made visible at the birth of Jesus at Christmas.  Though the Christmas season has ended, we continue celebrating God wedding Himself to us and being made manifest (or visible) by listening today to the story of the wedding feast at Cana.

St. John is doing something different with this story.  He is using an earthly event (the wedding at Cana) that has its own meaning as a tool to reveal divine mystery.  The Gospel story is clearly not really about the couple who got married in Cana because they barely get a mention.  The bride isn’t mentioned at all.  And the groom gets only a brief mention toward the end.  Another way we conclude that St. John is doing something different with the story is by considering just how much water Jesus turned into wine.  Six jars each holding about 20-30 gallons would result in between 120-180 gallons of wine.  We are more familiar with bottles of wine, so let’s run the conversion.  On average, that many gallons of wine would amount to between 720-1,080 bottles of wine for a wedding feast.  I searched around to see how one plans for the amount of wine to have for a wedding party.  Some advice is that for a party of 100 people you plan on about 40 bottles of wine, but to be safe you might just round up to four cases of wine, equaling 48 bottles.  Using the amount of wine Jesus made and running the conversion numbers, this would imply a wedding party in the small village of Cana involving party attendance of anywhere from 1,500- 2,250 people!  Look, I’ve been pastor of some small towns in Oklahoma that can throw some big parties, but that is an unbelievably large number of people in an ancient village, and it is a totally insane amount of wine.  And don’t forget, Jesus made that much wine AFTER they had already consumed all the wine the party had planned for!  Again, St. John is clearly doing something different by using the story of the wedding at Cana.

In the Bible, the image of a superabundance of wine accompanies descriptions of God’s action in end times to bring about salvation.  The Bible uses the image of much wine to describe the celebration of God’s People when He brings about their final salvation.  The Prophet Amos writes, “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, when… “the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.  I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, … they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine” (Amos 9:13-14).  The Prophet Joel writes, “And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine” (Joel 3:18).

St. John writes of the signs by which Jesus acts to reveal his glory and to bring about belief, discipleship, and salvation.  With all this in mind, we can view St. John’s use of the wedding at Cana as a sign that Jesus is the actual groom being revealed in mystery, for he is God who has wedded Himself to us in our flesh.  And following the logic of the imagery, someone else – namely, the Church – is being revealed as the actual bride.  You and I as members of the Church form the bride of Christ.  Now, don’t get hung up on the standard sex of that imagery.  The point is that Jesus is the groom in this relationship who lays down his life, who gives forth his life, to plant in us the seed of eternal life.  We, in this relationship, the Church, as bride, can only receive that gift within us and let it grow to full maturity so that we are born into heavenly life.

And still more, it is the Holy Mass that is the foretaste of the wedding feast of God’s nearness to us in His flesh, and the foretaste of that ultimate act of our salvation by which God brings us to the heavenly feast.  You should let this imagery form your perception of the Holy Mass and how you relate to it.  If we hold on to this imagery we should be impacted by how we prepare for Holy Mass and how we participate in it.  It is a common and widespread expectation that one dresses up for, and dresses properly for, a wedding.  Ordinary clothes just won’t do for something so important.  That should be our attitude for Mass.  What if I wore shorts and my favorite sports jersey to say Mass?  Outrageous!  By the way, the priest dresses in vestments not to communicate an idea that he’s better, but because he is supposed to serve as the icon of the groom and High Priest, Jesus Christ.  And, that would be hard to see or imagine of any man if he wore street clothes.  No groom would get away with dressing poorly for the wedding feast.  But you are the bride in this imagery!  The same holds for you.  Let that influence how you dress up for Mass.  If we are aware of the Mass as a foretaste of the heavenly wedding feast, then some habits come into different focus.  We see the need to prepare for Mass.  We prepare spiritually by our daily prayer life and frequent confession that prepares us to actually be in a communion of life with Lord before we receive Holy Communion.  We prepare by taking time to reflect on the readings before we hear them proclaimed live.  Is there a habit of arriving late for Mass and a habit of leaving early, walking out right after receiving Holy Communion?  I’m not talking about occasional snafus or emergencies.  But is that your habit?  Then the need to reform that habit comes into clearer focus when we understand the Holy Mass as the foretaste of the heavenly wedding feast where we should be “all in”.  Finally, for all of us here, let the grace of this foretaste help us understand the necessity as Catholics of marrying in a valid marriage in the Catholic Church so that the living of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony becomes a service by which spouses reflect to the world that God has wedded Himself to us, and reveals His glory through married love so that others may believe!

The Nativity of Jesus Christ (Christmas)

Nativitas D.N.I.C.
25 December 2024
Midnight Mass Readings

 Throughout the holy season of Advent the Church has called us to give particular attention to a practice that, truthfully, should engage us all year long, no matter the season.  That practice, given special attention in Advent but warranted throughout the year, is the practice or preparing for the coming, for the arrival of the Lord.  The coming of the Lord has two specific reference points in history.  The first coming has already taken place in time and it is the reason we gather today, to observe the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The second coming of the Lord in history is the one we still await when Jesus will return in glory as our Judge and Judge of all the living and the dead.  We might call these two comings of the Lord his “physical” arrivals, or his arrivals in human bodily form.  In Advent, and truthfully always, we prepare to live anew the meaning of Jesus’ first arrival while, at the same time, we seek to live the truth of the Lord’s birth and salvation for us by preparing for the unknown day when he will arrive in majesty and power.  The second reading for this Mass makes reference to these two “physical” arrivals when St. Paul writes to Titus: “The grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ”.  St. Paul writes about a grace of God that has already appeared even while noting that we still await the appearance of the glory of God.  One coming, one appearance has happened; the second coming, the second appearance we still await.

While our Christian vocation and our efforts at responding to the call to holiness take place between these two arrivals of the Lord, spiritual authors have noted a helpful interpretation that God arrives in a third way.  There is, we can say, another arrival of the Lord who comes to us in a different form between these two physical arrivals.  That third way, though perhaps not physical or in human bodily form, is no less real.  Between the two historical arrivals of the Lord, he comes to us spiritually by his grace.  Yes, the Lord arrives and comes to us by his gift of grace in so many and varied ways.  He comes by grace most pre-eminently in the sacraments of our faith, most especially in the Holy Eucharist.  The Lord’s grace arrives to us each time we stop life to admit our sins and to be healed in confession.  The Lord comes to us in holy Baptism and Confirmation.  He arrives with his grace in the sacraments of vocation, whether marriage or holy orders.  The Lord arrives to us when we pray, committing both to personal prayer time daily and our communal gathering at Holy Mass, observing each holy day and each Sunday as the Lord’s Day, by which we prepare weekly for the Lord’s return.  He comes to us in that blessing to the spiritual life that is meditation and study of Sacred Scripture, God’s Word to us.  The Lord arrives by his grace when we seek to live appropriate moral lives and when we give up our selfish ways to serve others.  His grace comes to us when we let the sacred teaching of the Church form us as we benefit from the centuries-long reflection of the Church on the mysteries of our faith.  So many ways does the Lord’s grace come to us.

Perhaps is makes sense to say that how we live in awareness of that third arrival, that third way of coming, the arrival of God to us by His grace in our spiritual life… perhaps that is the key to how we can prepare to observe Jesus’ birth in a less secular way, and also the key to being prepared for that most important test still to come: preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus.  Said another way, if we aren’t living in such a way to experience the arrival of God’s grace to us in our spiritual life, making use of the various examples of grace I stated earlier, then we are more likely to succumb to a secular and commercial preparation for Christmas and, as a consequence of that, we are more likely to succumb to being ill-prepared, “unprayed”, and unconfessed when the Lord comes again as Judge.

So, what lesson can we take for how to actively live that third way that the Lord arrives, his coming to us by grace in the soul, grace in the spiritual life?  I want to highlight two practices for our spiritual life.  These two practices are reflected in what we see in the Scriptures and in the experiences of so many believers over centuries.  The bad news is that these two practices, while simple, are tough and they will stretch you beyond your comfort zone.  The good news is that these practices are entirely possible and they will save you.

I think it can be said that the Scriptures show us an interesting pattern before some important action of God.  The pattern is that some important action of God is preceded by silence, often long silence.  I was doing some reading recently and I came across commentary about the long silence that enveloped God’s People Israel between the last prophet Malachi and the birth of Jesus.  In fact, some call this the “400 silent years” after the completion of the Prophet Malachi’s ministry.  I am not saying there were no godly events or no scriptural writings during those hundreds of years.  The point is that there was no prophet, no one whose commission from God was to say, “Thus says the Lord…”  Imagine being a faithful Jew, seeking to live the call to be God’s people in the midst of the world surrounded by people of many different beliefs and hearing nothing.  Some Jews, whole generations, would have never known what it was like to live in a time of a prophet.  Silence.  No new prophet’s word.  Four hundred years of silence.  Until, that is, the silence was broken, not by a new prophet, but by the very Word of God Himself.  An infant’s cry and coo in the still of a Bethlehem night broke the long silence.  So, the first practice that promotes God’s arrival to us by grace in the spiritual life is silence.  Depending on our vocation and our duties, we will have to be creative with this, especially in family life, depending on how much silence the kids will let you have.  Maybe instead of “silence” I could say, “quieting yourself”.  When was the last time your TV was turned off for a meaningful length of time?  I mean, during the day, not at night when you are asleep.  How about removing the ear buds?  We’re always ready to listen to someone else; we’re always somewhere other than where we actually are.  What freedom could you find by turning the ringer to off on the smartphone?  How often do you unplug from constant consumption of information, news, and – let’s be honest – silliness and total wastes of time online?  Silence, quieting yourself, is so necessary for prayer because we have to get all the words and messages and thoughts that are not from God out of our heads in order to make room to hear God.  It takes time to filter out all the competing ideas and thoughts and words that fill our heads and hearts.  If we rarely stop the noise, chances are we rarely quiet down enough to finally hear God – and to know it is God and not our own echo chamber.  Four hundred years of silence preceded and prepared the way for God’s own voice to break the silence on this night.  Silence is a critical precursor to God’s action.  While quieting ourselves takes discipline and is difficult, the good news is countless faithful over centuries know that it works.

And once we have quieted ourselves such that God can arrive by grace in our souls, once we have heard God’s voice, well, we then have something to say, something worth saying.  Here comes the second difficult practice.  We ourselves experience a new arrival of God’s grace, this third way of coming to us, when we share with others what we have received.  What do the Scriptures show us after the 400 years silence was broken by the Infant Word of God echoing throughout earth?  Immediately there is proclamation.  The angel of the Lord appears to shepherds in the stillness and relative silence of night and says, “I proclaim to you good news of great joy.”  A good news that is destined “for all the people”.  And following that proclamation, a multitude of the heavenly host joins the angel to break out in praise saying, “Glory to God in the highest.”  Thus, a disciple who is in the posture to receive the arrival of God’s grace is a disciple who knows his spiritual life is meant to be shared.  That doesn’t seem like it would be hard to do.  But it is.  It takes vulnerability to share your faith with others.  We do not hide our spiritual life or the ways God blesses us.  We do not boast, to be sure.  But, we are not called to hide what we have received under a basket.  We are called to break the silence of a world far from God with the proclamation of good news, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and what He has done for us.  We are called to share our faith and our blessings with those around us.  In so sharing our faith, others are blessed by the arrival of God for them and God’s grace in us is magnified for having been shared.

We more joyfully observe Christ’s birth, we are better prepared for his second coming, and we make ready the path for God to do something in us, to come to us by grace, when we follow that pattern seen in the Scriptures: fostering silence so that we make room for God to come to new birth in our souls by His grace, and then breaking the silence and the darkness by our own proclamation that “Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord.”

Third Sunday of Advent

Dominica III Adventus C
15 December 2024

 The change of vestment color for this weekend (from the darker purple to rose) and the permission to decorate the sanctuary with flowers serve as a visual reminder that half of Advent is in the past.  The color rose – rose being traditionally associated with joy – and the repeated message of the Scriptures call us to rejoice.  And so, this day has been called in Latin “Gaudete Sunday” or “Rejoice Sunday.”  That thematic title for this Sunday comes from the words of the entrance antiphon, which we chanted at the beginning of this Holy Mass: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.”  This weekend the Church calls us to step up our joy because we have completed half of this holy season and are drawing near to the celebration of the source of our joy, the birth of Christ Jesus.

The Gospel passage today is a continuation from last Sunday where we heard of the work of St. John the Baptist.  Last week’s Gospel told us that the word of God came to him in the wilderness and in response he went about “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Lk. 3:3).  There are a few verses between last Sunday’s and this Sunday’s Gospel that are not read in Mass, but I want to share them now.  John “said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits that befit repentance…. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’.” (Lk. 3:7-8, 9).  You brood of vipers!  I’d like to take a moment to welcome any visitors and newcomers.  We hope you’ll join the parish and get involved here.  What an Advent message!  No, but I think hearing those few verses between the two gospel passages helps establish a better sense of the full context of today’s passage.

 Today we hear a question and answer session between John and the different groups in the multitude who heard him preach repentance and who came to be baptized.  And the burning question from each group is “What should we do?”  Could the lesson between repentance and faith leading to action and a changed life be any more clear?  Again, those unread verses: “Bear fruits that befit repentance…. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’.” (Lk. 3:7-8, 9).  We have today a lesson for us about faith and action, we might even use the oft misunderstood phrase of faith and works.  God alone saves us by faith in His mercy and generous love.  And necessarily related to that, is that one who receives that free and unmerited gift from God should live in such a way that demonstrates a life claimed for God.  That’s why John could confront those whose repentance was suspect by calling them a brood of vipers.  John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus Christ.  The message for us is even stronger since Jesus fulfills all of the promises and prophecies about God.  Conversion and repentance is naturally and necessarily followed by a change of behavior, by action, by living the new life we have been freely given.  Faith and action go together!  They must go together or else we are not bearing good fruit.  Faith and action go together in whatever vocation and in whatever profession is yours.  Faith and action go together everywhere we live our life or else… we are not bearing fruit.  Or else, we are like trees ready to be cut down.

 Those unread verses that I shared help us see how the message from last Sunday’s passage is continued today.  At the end of the passage today John references wheat harvesting, but it is an image that speaks of judgment as well.  John points to the One who is coming and he says “His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Lk. 3:17).  It’s a harvest image to be sure, but its meaning is the same as the previous call to bear fruits that befit repentance.  The One who is coming, who is greater than John, is expecting good wheat; he’s coming ready to gather the harvest.  Be the wheat, in other words.  Don’t be the chaff.  Think about the harvest imagery.  The winnowing fan, also called a winnowing fork, was used to thresh out the wheat grain from the lighter hull, like the wrapper around the wheat grain.  In ancient times the winnowing fork was used to toss grain up into the air.  The heavier wheat grain would fall downward, while the wind and the action of throwing the grain with the fork would cause the chaff to blow away and land elsewhere.

  To repent and to receive baptism in Christ Jesus is a call to also bear fruit, to be good wheat ready for harvest.  Since the fruit of a changed and redeemed life, since the wheat of such a life is heavier, I want to encourage you to… gain weight!  Okay, now you’re talking, some are saying!  This is my kind of religion!  I mean, what could be easier at this time of year, right?!  No, not cookies and holiday treats.  Better said, let’s be heavier or more weighty as Christians.  Let’s bear good fruit as a sign that our lives have been changed.  Let’s be the wheat.  It’s not just an idea.  It is necessary in order to endure the judgment of the Lord when he returns again.  Bearing good fruit and being more weighty is marked by a life lived in such a way that it reflects the meaning of the repentance I declare, and that reflects the baptism I have received.  How do we bear good fruit?  Well, I can’t say everything today about what is means to be a Christian who is living authentically the faith received, but we can stick with some ideas from the Gospel.  How did John respond in the Gospel when asked by the people of his time, “What should we do?”  He basically responded with the idea of almsgiving.  Do you have extra clothing?  Give it to someone who has none.  Do you have enough food?  Then do the same.  John also encouraged justice in our interactions with others when he responded to the tax collectors and soldiers.  Don’t cheat people or take more than you should.  Don’t make false accusations.  And be satisfied with what you have.  Stop seeking more, always more things.  It’s basically from John a call to do what we call the corporal works of mercy.

  Interestingly enough, doing these things, bearing good fruit, connects us back to idea of rejoicing today on Gaudete Sunday.  You know one way to be more weighty as a Christian, one way to demonstrate the authenticity of your Christian life, one way to find joy… is to get out of ourselves and all the things we are wrapped up in and to give to others, to serve others.  This time of year is so hectic and so stressful for so many.  Maybe in part that is due to focusing excessively on our plans, our wants, our desires.  So, in the midst of all that this season is let’s remember to be more weighty as disciples of Jesus.  Let’s remember to be more weighty throughout the whole year.  To be clear, we don’t bear good fruit to make ourselves feel good, or for the purposes of some secular utopia in this world.  No, we seek God and we seek to bear good fruit because it is necessarily connected with the faith we proclaim.  We seek to bear good fruit because it is the right thing to do.  We seek to bear good fruit to draw others into the same call to repent and to believe in the Gospel.  We seek to bear good fruit because it will find us better prepared to stand before our Judge when he returns with his winnowing fan.  We seek to be good wheat ready for harvest, the wheat that, being heavier and having fallen to the ground in death, is ready to rise again to the kingdom of light and rejoicing!

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe
12 December 2024

 Today we observe with great joy the miraculous appearances, by which the Blessed Virgin Mary made herself known as the “ever virgin Mary, Mother of the true God through whom all things live” (cf. Office of Readings, Report by Don Antonio Valeriano).   The appearance of Mary sparked massive numbers of conversions to the true faith in the one Catholic Church established by Jesus.  Her appearance resulted in hundreds of thousands of souls leaving behind the falsehood of pagan worship and false religion.  Her appearance resulted in souls believing in the love of God shown in Jesus Christ, who is the Savior of the world.  To celebrate the Virgin today, and to do so in a way that pleases her and gives to Jesus what he is owed as God, means we must put behind ourselves false idols that get more attention that our soul and more attention than living our Catholic faith.  To celebrate this feast day today in a way that is good means we must stop making excuses for living a weak life as disciples of Jesus.

 Our Lady of Guadalupe has become so closely associated with the history of Mexico that, as one song says, to be Mexican is to be Guadalupan as something essential.  But even beyond Mexico, this appearance of Our Lady has transformed our continent and our world, such that she belongs not only to Mexico and to Mexicans, but is the Empress of All the Americas.  The number of conversions to Catholicism that resulted from her miraculous appearance in Mexico has led her to also be called the Star of the New Evangelization.  This means she is invoked for the new proclamation of the Good News that must be made in our time since so many souls who once were Catholic have fallen into darkness and sin as they leave the Catholic Church, or as so many other souls still have never heard of the true Church where salvation is found.

 To be clear, any time we honor Mary, like we do today on this great feast, it is never enough to stop with Mary.  Mary’s role is to point us to her Son, Jesus the Savior.  If we stop with Mary, or if we focus only on her or exclusively on her, then in fact we are not listening to the whole message of the gift that comes from God when some miraculous appearance takes place.  To say this another way, if we think that the popular song means that it is enough to be Guadalupan, then we are not listening to what Mary wants us to hear.  To be devoted to Mary means we must see that she leads us to Jesus.  To be devoted to Mary must lead us to the One she points to: to Jesus the Son of God.  We might add some words to that popular song and say: To be Mexican is to be Guadalupan, which is to be Catholic as something essential!  If one thinks that it is enough to be Guadalupan, to simply honor Mary without reinforcing and building our life with Jesus, then we are making a catastrophic error that will not lead to our salvation in heaven.  If one thinks that it is enough to be Guadalupan and simply to appear devoted and catholic on December 12, then we are missing the entire message of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  We would be causing the Virgin sadness if we honoring her did not result in living more fully the catholic faith.

 Two simple ideas come to my mind from the story of the appearance of the Virgin to St. Juan Diego.  When Juan Diego first saw Our Lady of Guadalupe she called him “the humblest of my children” and she said that it was her ardent desire that a temple ber built on the hill.”  And so, the two ideas are the virtue of humility and the construction of a temple.

 First, we recognize that everything we have is a gift from God.  And we owe Him everything in return.  Humility, being humble like St. Juan Diego, means that we listen to the ways God speaks to us and comes to find us.  He comes in our humble dedication to prayer.  He comes in our commitment to attend and participate in all Sundays and holy day Masses.  He comes in our moral living and in the way we work to remove sin from our lives.  He comes with His grace in living a proper sacramental life, including following the important practice of marrying according to Christ in his Church.  This humility to live marriage and family life as a sacrament places our entire life and our future on the solid foundation of Christ.  In the humility of service to others, especially the poor, God comes to us with His blessing.

 And God comes to us, His humble children, with a call to engage is some work.  We are called to build a temple.  But perhaps not exactly the same temple we think of on Tepeyac Hill.  By humble living of our faith and the commitment of holy baptism, we are building ourselves into a temple!  In baptism, the Holy Spirit is given to us to take up residence within us.  And so, we should recognize that we are temples of the Holy Spirit.  We are called to be beautiful temples dedicated to Christ.  We honor God and the Virgin Mother when we guard and care for our soul and live as the temples we have been made to be.  How senseless it would be to celebrate the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe, how senseless it would be to make visits to shrines (like the shrine in Mexico City or Oklahoma City), how senseless it would be to take the time to come here to church if we do not recognize ourselves as temples of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, in humility, we seek to guard this temple of the soul and body and we seek to make sure our children do the same.

 May the intercession of the Virgin of Guadalupe encourage each of us to be more fully alive in her Son and to focus our efforts and attention where the Lady points us: to Jesus Christ and to fuller living of the gift of our Catholic faith.

First Sunday of Advent

Dominica I Adventus C
1 December 2024

 Our word “advent” comes from the Latin “adventus,” which is, in turn, a translation from the Greek word “Parousia.”  Parousia and adventus mean “arrival” or “coming.”  Our use of the word “advent” refers not only to the coming of Christ at his Incarnation and birth at Christmas, but it also refers to his second coming as Judge at the end of time.  The Catholic faith believes in these two comings of Christ: the Incarnation and the Second Coming, as we clearly profess each time we state the Creed.  Advent is a time of year that is hectic and exciting in holiday anticipation.  And so, the gospel selection today may sound almost strange to us, as if it is out of place for Advent.  Where is John the Baptist?  Where is the tender story of the virgin with child?  And if we think this gospel passage is out of place for Advent, perhaps that teaches us a critical lesson about how we view life and faith.  What is truly strange?  Is it the Church’s focus and the scriptural selection that is strange and doesn’t fit?  Or is it rather how we tend to live that risks being out of step with Christian preparedness and vigilance for the moment when the Lord comes again?  As we look ahead to celebrate the birth of Christ, which has already happened in time, we must remember that we can never pause our ongoing preparation and looking ahead to that coming of the Lord that we still await: the advent, the Parousia of the Lord, at his Second Coming!

The gospel is from Jesus’ discourse on the Mount of Olives where he speaks of his second coming.  He speaks of dramatic cosmic signs that will accompany his return in glory and he alludes to a prophecy from the Book of Daniel that the Son of Man will come in the clouds.  These signs are disturbing.  People will be in dismay and perplexed.  In fact, “people will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world.”  Considering this, Jesus’ instruction seems counterintuitive.  He says when you see these things “Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”  He says that we are to be vigilant in our belief that the coming tribulations are imminent.  We can add to this the lesson from the second reading that we do even more to be ready for the Lord’s return.  St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “Finally, brothers and sisters, we earnestly ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that, as you received from us how you should conduct yourselves to please God – and as you are conducting yourselves – you do so even more”.

How are we possibly supposed to face the final advent, the final coming of the Lord?  Jesus tells us that our responsibility is to be prepared.  I want to offer two general categories of how we prepare: (1) Some things not to do; and then, (2) Some things to do.  The things not to do.  Jesus says, “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life.”  Jesus warns us to take care that our hearts not be weighed down by things that will prevent us from being ready to stand erect and to raise our heads.   In particular, we must be on guard not to become drowsy from “carousing”.  Other translations of this passage use the word “dissipation.”  That’s a word commonly used of the younger son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  The word in Greek translated as “dissipation” or “carousing” refers to “unbridled indulgence.”  We become drowsy and unprepared when we give in to unbridled indulgence in all the pleasures of the flesh: money, sex, power, food, recreation, sleep, and material goods.  These are the things that we cave to so easily in our fallen nature, making them our focus and, in so doing, becoming weighed down with an earthly, lower focus that obscures our true dignity as God’s children and impedes our ability to be ready to stand up and to raise our heads to meet the Lord when he comes.  To respond to Jesus’ call to be vigilant for his second coming, we have to guard our hearts so that we do not let them fall in love with a disordered and unbridled attachment to lower things that weigh us down and keep us from being prepared.

And then, the things to do.  Jesus tells us that our responsibility is to be prepared.  Jesus says, “Be vigilant at all times and pray.”  This refers to the spiritual advice of staying awake and praying, especially in the night time hours.  This spiritual discipline of vigilance is perhaps less considered than a more familiar spiritual discipline like fasting, but it is just as much part of the Jewish and Christian traditions.  Monks get up while it is still dark, late at night or very early in the morning, to pray.  That time of prayer – not surprisingly – is called “vigils.”  This call to be vigilant, to stay awake and to pray, helps us understand and appreciate key Catholic practices.  Ever wonder why we have a Midnight Mass at Christmas?  To keep vigil, to stay awake and to pray ourselves into the dawning of light on Christmas Day.  We keep vigil on Holy Thursday night after the Mass, praying before the gift of the Lord’s presence in the Blessed Sacrament.  We have an Easter Vigil that is always held in the darkness of Holy Saturday night so that we keep vigil as preparation for the arrival of Easter Sunday.  If you don’t already do so, you might consider whether you can attend those special Masses.  The spiritual practice of vigilance can also be grown in the devotion of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  When we come to an adoration chapel we are coming to be vigilant, to stay awake and to pray before and with the Lord.  Perhaps the message of Jesus on this First Sunday of Advent might drive you to take up this practice, to commit to adoration, and to let the Lord prepare you for his return.  We always need more parishioners to commit to participate by taking time in our chapel, especially in the night time hours.  Let this be a call to you to participate in quiet time with the Lord.  I hope you will learn more about adoration and commit to time in our chapel.  You won’t regret it!  The Lord tells us to be vigilant, to stay awake, and to pray that we may have strength to escape what comes and to stand before him.  Physical strength will do us no good at the Second Coming.  We need spiritual strength.  Train yourself in that spiritual discipline of vigilance that we perhaps unwisely leave only to the most dedicated monks.  Stay awake and pray with the Lord in adoration so that you remind yourself of his Kingdom already present here and now, whose fullness we await in the life to come.  Train yourself in prayer and adoration to desire that Kingdom more than daily anxieties.  And as you pray before the Lord let him help you identify the sins that need confession.  Let him raise your head and cause you to stand secure in his love such that when that day with disturbing signs comes, you may see it not as a day of fear but as the arrival, the advent, of the gift of God’s love and desire for you: “Your redemption is at hand!”

Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (Christ the King)

Dominica D.N. Iesu Christi Regis
24 November 2024 

This weekend the Church observes the 34th or last Sunday in Ordinary Time.  This marks the final Sunday of the Church’s current liturgical year.  It is marked by observing the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe.  Now it may be a challenge for us to think deeply about what it means that the Lord identifies himself as a king whose kingdom is not of earthly origin.  “My kingdom does not belong to this world,” Jesus said.  The challenge for us Americans is that “king” and “kingdom” terminology sounds like old time language and foreign concepts at best.  At worst, it sounds like the stuff of fairy tales and legends.  The history of the founding of our country after all involves throwing off the ties of monarchical rule, and the idea of a king is not natural to us in our democratic republic marked by authority coming from the people and exercised by representative government.  Yet, we need to be clear that the Lord identifies himself as a king, as our king.  This speaks to us about his sovereignty over us.  It tells us that we need to think deeply about the Lord’s mastery over us, over every aspect of our lives.  His kingship tells us about the type of obedience he is owed from us.

The first reading from the Prophet Daniel and the second reading from the Book of Revelation share in common that they report to us a vision of the author.  In the Old Testament the phrase “son of man” is typically used to refer to a human being.  Yet, in the vision of Daniel (the first reading) there is an obviously different meaning, because Daniel sees a heavenly vision, he sees a celestial being who appears like a son of man, he writes.  In other words, this particular son of man is divine.  And we know he is not of merely human origin because he does not come in a human procession of fanfare.  Rather, this one comes on the clouds of heaven, and when he comes before the throne of God, the Ancient One, this Son of man is given dominion, glory, and kingship over everything.  The vision of St. John in the Book of Revelation (the second reading) likewise identifies Jesus as the ruler over all earthly rulers and it notes his divine origin and kingship in that he comes, again that phrase, amid the clouds.  As we must think deeply about how the Lord identifies himself as a king, and even as we know that requires obedience from us, we should rejoice because Jesus is the perfect king.  He loves us and knows what is best for us.  He calls us to an obedience that is not about oppression, but rather he knows we will be truly free of external and internal enslavement if we live in accord with his commands.  He is a king who lowers himself to serve us and to save us by his mercy.

Imagine whatever fanfare comes to mind when you think of a king and a kingdom.  Perhaps the coronation of King Charles not that long ago in English gives us some images.  Trumpet blast.  Banners flying.  Armies in formation.  Servants attending.  Colorful attire and various ranks in the king’s court.  All of that pales in comparison to the way the entire universe is arrayed to celebrate the kingship of Jesus whose majesty and glory has him coming on the clouds.  But as captivating as all that pageantry may be, the kingship of Christ hangs on the response that is required from each of us.  And a response is needed from us.  A personal response.  Our response cannot be a corporate response only, just going along with the crowds.  It is corporate and involves the community of the Church certainly, but it cannot be only corporate.  In the end, our response cannot be made for us by someone else.  In a certain sense, apart from external regal fanfare, standing alone before the king shows us whether our response is adequate.  And thinking deeply about this response to the kingship of Jesus is important because one day it will have eternal consequences as we stand alone before the king who will judge our obedience.  That’s what I mean by saying that all the external fanfare of kingship, whatever we imagine about the kingship of Christ, it all hangs on the personal response demanded of each disciple.

 For that reason, almost apart from any words spoken, it is just the setting itself of the Gospel text that most catches my attention today.  The Gospel selection from St. John is the trial and judgment of Jesus leading to his crucifixion.  That trial and judgment scene takes place at the praetorium where Pilate exercises Roman authority.  But more specifically, this section of St. John’s Gospel has scenes standing on the outside of the praetorium with the raucous crowds and more quiet and personal scenes inside the praetorium, away from public notice.  Our selection today is a scene inside the praetorium where apart from the crowds and the spectacle and the public eye, Pilate is alone with Jesus.  Pilate stands alone with Jesus.  And so must we all – right now, today – as a test of our discipleship.  And so we all will – one day – as the test of our judgment.  Jesus is the universal king with a kingship of higher authority than this world.  When we think of the commitment we should have to daily prayer, time spent with the king who loves us, can we imagine ourselves in that personal, private scene inside the praetorium?  There, Pilate seems to be in control but it is really he who is being interrogated, he who is on trial.  Can you see your life and your response to the kingship of Jesus in that scene?  Pilate’s “Are you the King of the Jews?”  becomes our own interrogation about our response to Jesus by asking ourselves, “Are you the king of me?”.  Or, said in more natural English, “Are you my king, Lord?”  The Lord responds with his own question that highlights our own personal responsibility: “Do you say this on your own?”  When we think of the commitment we should have to Sunday and holy day Masses where we give the Lord the worship he is owed, will we let ourselves hear that examination of conscience, “Are you my king, Lord?”  When we think of the call to holiness in our King’s kingdom, when we think of the battle we must undertake to root out sin, when we think of the need to confess sins frequently, what does our personal practice and response say to that question, “Are you my king, Lord?”  When we think of how our lives as disciples should be oriented to generous service, the giving of our time, and talent and treasure, a generous service to the least of our brothers and sisters, “Are you my king, Lord?”  The Lord’s “Do you say this on your own” serves as an examination for that personal response we must all give to the kingship of Christ.  Imagining the private scene inside the praetorium, may we find encouragement that our proclamation of the kingship of Christ is far more than words on the lips, but more about the way we live as disciples who listen and belong to the voice of truth.

Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXXI per Annum B
3 November 2024

 In the verses before today’s Gospel passage our Lord is in a series of debates with various groups of his time, and the debates are rather contentious.  Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees were debating with the Lord and they were seeking to entrap him.  The passage today picks up with a scribe, another group of people in Jesus’ time.  Scribes were biblical scholars of their day.  This scribe notices that Jesus is handling these disputes and answering the questions well.  And so, with a sincerity that the other groups could not muster, this scribe asks the Lord “Which is the first of all the commandments?”  In other words, which is the most important command in the law?

The reason this was a question and was an item of debate in Jesus’ time is due to the vastness of the Torah and its laws for how faithful Jews should live their status as God’s chosen people.  To help us understand the dilemma, consider that later scholars would enumerate some 613 laws.  That’s rather daunting, so finding out what is most important has some merit.  This is what the scribe asks.  It is a very important question.

The Lord’s answer is not surprising.  He quotes the prayer known in Hebrew as the Shema.  That title is taken from the first word of the prayer.  Shema in the Hebrew means “to hear”.  The shema is a prayer that calls Jews to listen and hear that they are to love God with all that they are and all that they have.  For a Jew, knowing the shema would be something equivalent to our knowing the words of the Lord’s Prayer from Scripture, or our knowing the Creed.  It was very familiar, a prayer used daily, and it was no surprise that the Lord highlighted it as his response for the first of all the commandments.  In fact, the words of the shema are found in the Book of Deuteronomy and we heard them in the first reading, “Hear, O Israel!  The Lord is our God, the Lord alone!  Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”  By naming aspects of human being, like heart, soul, and strength, we should not take that to mean a division of human life carrying with it some erroneous idea that we should love God with only part of ourselves.  Rather, the divisions of human being are actually meant to communicate a totality for they represent the deepest unique aspects of what it means to be a human being, a rational creature with powers of mind, emotion, and physical strength.

But, as the Gospel relates, the Lord did not stop by quoting the shema.  He continued his response and, this part can be said to be more surprising.  Jesus went on to say that after love of God with all that one has, there is a second command that is related to the primacy of that first of all the commands.  And the second is, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  In establishing what you and I today call the Great Command (love of God and love of neighbor), the Lord was offering a synthesis of the many laws taught by the Jews.  The Lord is saying that all of them are oriented toward, and ultimately serve, the twofold command to love God first above all things, and to reflect God’s love for others by the love we have for our neighbor as ourself.

This is a lesson and a command that endures and that guides us today.  In fact, the scribe’s response to Jesus shows us still more.  The scribe notes that to observe this twofold command of love of God and love of neighbor is, he says, “worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  This claim caught my attention, because the Jewish ritual system of worship is based upon animal sacrifice.  Surely, a faithful, knowledgeable, and serious Jew – as a scribe would be – was not suggesting that temple sacrifice has no value, or that temple sacrifice should be abolished.  Certainly, not.  Rather, Jesus tells the scribe that his answer is good and that he is not far from the kingdom of God, because the scribe highlights what a Jew should understand about temple sacrifice.  The type of offering described here, is not the type of sacrifice by which the person takes or eats a part of the sacrifice, as in the case of the Passover lamb.  The whole burnt offering was the type of sacrifice by which the entire animal was sacrificed and burnt on the altar.  Jesus is pleased with the scribe’s knowledge because the scribe is bringing to the forefront an important lesson for a Jew, a lesson that remains for us too.  Namely, a whole burnt offering is supposed to symbolize to the Jew that his entire life and all that he has, all his heart, all his soul, and all his strength are the actual sacrifice that should be given to God.  The whole sacrificial animal is a substitute in the sacrificial system; but, the individual person of faith must strive to give all of himself in obedience and submission to God and His commands.  In this, such a faithful person is not making empty sacrifice and is not far from the kingdom of God.  In this, the sacrifice has meaning and is pleasing to God.

This critical lesson remains for us.  It remains for us because the challenge and pitfall in the life of faith is as common among Christians as it would have been among Jews.  That challenge and pitfall is as common now as it was in the Lord’s time.  And that challenge and pitfall is the tendency to follow God superficially, to do religious things on the surface, to be religious only here in the church walls, but to keep God and our relationship with Him rather distant and focused on the external matters that can be seen.  Meanwhile, inside we are not directing all that we are and all that we have to God.  The challenge and pitfall is the tendency to permit God only a limited place in our affairs, while keeping Him conveniently out of the affairs of our life that would require more sacrifice, more effort, more conversion.  We learn that our entire being must be oriented toward God and His ways.  It is not enough to give part of oneself or to give less than all to God.  Our offerings are acceptable and valuable when they reflect what is true about ourselves: that we are submitting ourselves to God and His commands.  All of ourselves.  Every aspect of our lives.  If we do not have that interior disposition, then our religious actions and sacrifices, our participation in our worship, like the Holy Mass, would be lacking and may risk being empty.  In the Holy Mass we follow a typical pattern: we listen to God’s Word in the Scriptures because, like a scalpel, it cuts through some of the deception and the delusions that we may have if our faith is kept superficial.  We move from God’s Word to the Word Made Flesh present on our altars and offered in sacrifice for us, because in that total gift of himself, the Lord models how our sacrifice must be.  What sense would it make, in other words, to participate in this sacrifice if I reject that call to give all of myself to God and to love others as I love myself?  What sense would it make to come to receive, to take Holy Communion, the Lord’s total gift of himself, and to say “amen,” to say, I believe but then not give all of myself to the Lord in return.  We are weak and sinful in this regard, in our resolve to avoid being superficial.  And so, thanks be to God, we can repent and be healed in confession.  Charity and service to others stretches us in our tendency to be superficial.  Ultimately, like that Jewish prayer the shema, we are to hear and to listen to the truth that God loves us completely and we are most fully alive and complete when we likewise love Him in return.  May we strive then to do away with being superficial in our religious life and practice so that we may be consoled by those hopeful words of Jesus: “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

All Edmond Parishes Eucharistic Procession

All Edmond Eucharistic Procession
Stephenson Park Temporary Altar
Sermon: Mark 15:16-20
27 October 2024

 This day – the Lord’s Day – is about Jesus Christ!  This incredible blessing uniting all Catholics from the three parishes in Edmond is about Jesus Christ!  He is the one God who made the universe, all it contains, and who made us, giving us life in His image and likeness.  He is the one God who had a plan to restore the original blessing that He generously bestowed, after man’s original sin brought about the fall.  He is the God who loves you, who loves each of us, such that He comes to save us from our inclination to sin, to save us from the personal sins for which we each bear guilt.  In His divine love, He comes in our very flesh to pay the price for the sin that risks our eternal separation from Him in the condemnation of Hell.  As He approached the horror of the Cross for our salvation, He promised, as the Scriptures record, that he would not leave us orphans (cf. Jn. 14:18).  As the apostles and the first Christians came to accept his promise that he is the bread of life, the bread come down from heaven (cf. Jn. 6), they came to accept that precisely in the Breaking of the Bread, precisely in the smallness of the Sacred Host, our Blessed Lord fulfills his promise to not abandon us and to remain with us to the end of the age (cf. Mt. 28:20).

 As Jesus said, so the Scriptures record, and so we believe these words of our Blessed Lord, “For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.  He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (Jn. 6:55-56).  In this we are filled with hope and we are not alone!  For most of us here we have come to participate today already making an act of faith that with us and before us in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is Jesus Christ our Savior, just as he said.  But no doubt, that are many doing their own things today, surprised to find themselves caught up with this procession of Catholics, and maybe having no idea what they are witnessing here.  To any other bystanders who are willing to listen: If you believe that Jesus is God and if you believe that the Bible is God’s Word to us then you are already on this procession with us, on this journey that is a call to deeper communion with the Lord in his Church, a journey that leads to salvation in Heaven.  Other bystanders may not yet be Christian or not even a believer, this gathering is a reminder that you are invited to join with us, men and women of good will, to consider the journey you are on, to consider where you are going, and to consider whether you are, and where you are, with God on that journey.  Today, we give witness that we believe that God is actually present with us, in the midst of this world He made to be good.  He is really here!

 Why would we believe such a thing?  Why believe that God is with us and has anything to do, or any care, for this world in which we find ourselves?  First of all, God is involved with this world because He has created it and it is destined to return to Him.  The great event of the Incarnation shows us the nearness of God to this world.  The Son of God so unites Himself to His creation, that He takes on human flesh and takes up residence in this realm, Jesus the Christ.  And, the Gospel gives us a further reason for God’s nearness to the world because it shows us an encounter between the divine and the profane in a civic setting.  In the Gospel, the Lord and the world meet.  In the passage we heard, Jesus is not in a religious setting or location.  He is in the praetorium, which is the headquarters of the Roman authorities, the location of Pilate and the cohort of soldiers who mock Jesus and lead him to death.  By this point in the passage, Pilate has already sentenced the Lord to death and he has been scourged.  He is beaten and bloodied.  For however the vicious Roman scourging may have made his humanity and identity as Jesus unrecognizable, all the more would such a horrendous sight make his identity as God unrecognizable, even unbelievable.  Yet, in that civic setting, in the midst of the profane, despite all protestations to the contrary, despite man’s inability to recognize or accept it… God Himself was present!  Though submitting Himself to the twisted ways of man, our Lord was fully in command of what he was doing as God to suffer and die for our salvation, the salvation of the world and the souls He had made.  And He was doing all this right in the midst of the world and in the midst of the seat of civic authority.

 We experience some of that here today.  Today, also in a civic setting God Himself is present despite any protestations to the contrary, despite man’s inability to recognize it.  God Himself is here asking us to carry Him, just as He has done in various moments of salvation history: whether in the ark of the covenant, whether as a newborn Infant in Mary’s arms, whether being lifted up on the Cross, whether in the smallness of the Sacred Host in the hands of a priest… God Himself is here and He is asking us to carry Him into all the places He intends to go… into our holy places and sanctuaries, into our souls by grace, and, yes, even into our profane spaces, into our civic spaces where so-called “ordinary life” should not be separated from the realities of the kingdom to come.  For the “real world” as we so often call it would be very unreal indeed if separated from its foundation and destiny in God who created it, who cares for it, and calls it back to Himself.  This procession can serve as a reminder that we are called to carry the Lord into all things.  We are called to carry him in faith and how we live that faith, such that we, members of the Body of Christ, give witness to others by our words and actions that Jesus is with us and that he is Lord!  We are called to carry Him about in our moral choices.  We are called to carry him in the words we speak by which we might evangelize others.  We are called to carry Him about in our service to the poor and those about whom the Lord said, “When you did these things to one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me” (Mt. 25:40).  We are called to carry Him about in how we organize this secular city of man, so that it more greatly reflects the order of the City of God.  We are in a moment now and through election day that gives us a privileged opportunity to exercise our moral duty to vote with our Catholic values in the hopes that we do our part to bring our city, state, and nation into greater conformity to the Kingdom of God.  The timing of this procession is a great witness and reminder that we should carry the Lord into our precints when we vote.  The Gospel passage today tells us in no uncertain terms that the Lord’s kingship belongs also in our civic spaces as he continues to accomplish his work of salvation in the souls of our time and place: the souls of the Pontius Pilates of our time, the souls of the soldiers of our time, the souls of religious authorities of our time, the souls of all the ordinary men and women, boys and girls, of every time and place.  As Catholics we believe that patriotism is a virtue.  Patriotism is a call to devotion and service to the land of our forefathers.  There is no patriotism greater than devotion first of all to the Father of all, the Father and Creator of this land.  As happened in the Gospel, when some meet the Lord in civic spaces the result may be an occasion for sarcasm, mockery, and rejection.  But we who are believers serve as signposts today, pointing our contemporaries to the real presence of God with us.  By prayer and fasting, which I beg of you to take up in these next days, we serve to pray for our nation in this electoral cycle, praying that good and godly candidates be chosen to lead us.  We serve both by the reverence of our bodies and the sincerity of words to truly mean that acclamation: Hail, King of the Jews!  Hail, Christ our King!  We commit ourselves today to carry our Lord into all the activities and places of our lives.  We give the Lord thanks for remaining with us.  And we ask that we may be more docile to his grace so that, unlike the mockery of the soldiers, we may truly reverence him as the king of every aspect of our lives, the king of our parishes, the king of our city, state and nation.

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXVII per Annum B
Gen. 2:18-24; Ps. 128; Heb. 2:9-11; Mk. 10:2-12 (shorter form)
6 October 2024

 The Pharisees test Jesus in the Gospel passage by asking about marriage and divorce.  The force of Jesus’ response remains powerful still today in an age marked by many challenges in relationships.  The Pharisees indicate that Moses permitted a “bill” of divorce.  Jesus responds to the Pharisees by himself quoting the Book of Genesis and taking them back to “the beginning.”  It’s like saying, see how far you have strayed… get back to God’s original idea and mind.

As difficult as this divine teaching from Jesus is for our ears in this age, it was likewise difficult for Jesus’ contemporaries in the Gospel scene.  They, like we, live in a culture where divorce is widely known and accepted.  There were different opinions about legitimate grounds for divorce in the Lord’s time, some more permissive, and some more restrictive, but the reason the Pharisees can even ask this question at all is because the legitimacy of divorce is assumed in Jewish society, since Moses had developed a policy for it.  It is probably very difficult for us to comprehend just how shocking Jesus’ answer was.  Moses is a revered authority in Judaism, but the Lord’s response reveals a flawed concession in Moses’ policy.  He tells the Pharisees that, yes, Moses allowed divorce, but he did so because of sin, the hardness of heart that kept God’s People from receiving the very Word of God.  And then, the next shocking move, by reinterpreting Scripture and, specifically the teaching from the Book of Genesis, Jesus says that divorce is not possible and that no human authority can separate what God has joined.  At the very same time, then, and this would shock them, Jesus is indicating that he and his teaching are of a higher authority than that of the revered Moses.  We get another glimpse of just how surprising this must all have been when the next verse tells us that the disciples wait until a bit later, in the privacy of a house, to circle back and ask Jesus again, as if to say, “Earlier, when you said divorce is not part of God’s design for marriage, did we hear you correctly?”  The Lord doubles down and says: The man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and, the woman who divorces her husband and marries another commits adultery.

The same serious challenge confronts us as we hear this Gospel.  The larger question for us is whether we will listen to God’s Word and accept it as saving teaching to guide us, or whether we will listen more to the hardness of our hearts and our own struggles with sin, looking for concessions around divine teaching.  The context here in the Gospel is about marriage and divorce, but truthfully the implications are much broader.  Will we admit that divine teaching cannot be changed by us and that it makes demands upon us?  Even though our minds and our wills, darkened by the fall of original sin, struggle to grasp and to do what is good and right, will we admit that divine teaching is actually better for us and makes us more fulfilled, despite our challenges with obedience?

As the Lord referred to Genesis in his response about divorce, I also want to turn to that passage, which served as our first reading today.  I think refocusing on Genesis leaves us with the positive teaching that is the foundation of these difficult words in the Gospel.  What we learn in Genesis is that God Himself has designed the relationship of marriage.  By making us male and female, and establishing a unity among man and woman in marriage in the very act of creation, God has made marriage to serve as a sign of Himself and His own unity with and love for us, His creation.  Furthermore, in the New Covenant, endowed by the saving grace issuing forth from the Lord’s Cross and Resurrection, marriage stands as the covenantal sign of Christ and his Church.  Christian marriage is to be marked by the positive goods of unity, indissolubility, and openness to the blessing of children, by which marriage reflects the way God unites Himself to us (unity), the way God draws us to eternal life, never separating Himself from us (indissolubility), and the way God’s love issues forth for us in the new life of grace, especially eternal life in Heaven (fecundity).

This is the positive truth about marriage in our Catholic teaching.  This truth is actually better for us than what the world proposes.  This truth remains unchanged even when our sinfulness and doubts would have us believe things about marriage that are not consistent with God’s mind for marriage.  One final lesson from the Book of Genesis is instructive, I think, for understanding the type of sacrifice required of us to embrace even hard teachings, and this particular teaching on marriage.  When I consider how it is that the suitable partner, Eve, is made for Adam, it involves that well-known image and story of God casting Adam into sleep in order to take a rib from him and fashion the woman.  If we accept that divine teaching is better for us, even as it places demands upon us, then we can learn something from this act of creation that can inspire how we view marriage and, honestly, how we embrace any teaching of faith that strikes us as difficult.  What can we say that Adam learns when God finally makes Eve and he, Adam, first lays eyes upon her?  We can say Adam learns that he is no longer alone and his life has meaning and, in fact, is better when he makes sacrifice and gives of himself.  When he gives up his own flesh and blood, imaged in the rib, he awakes to that nuptial cry of the “finally!”, the cry of “This one, at last!” is the suitable partner.  It is precisely in laying down his life, precisely in giving of himself, even his very flesh and blood, that Adam finds meaning and purpose in his very being and in his living.  Yes, it requires sacrifice, but the nuptial cry of Adam, his “this one at last!”, anticipates the cry of Jesus from the Cross: “It is finished”; and, Adam’s gift of himself anticipates that difficult lesson that each disciple must accept: the way to follow the Lord, the way to be satisfied in this life, the way to lasting peace, the way to eternal life is by embracing God’s teaching, especially when difficult, and rejecting the worldly message that speaks to, and seems to make sense to, a darkened mind and a fallen world.  The lesson of Adam’s sacrifice and self-giving, whereby true meaning and life are found, remains for us, too, no matter how difficult it may be to accept God’s teachings, no matter how challenging it may be for us, no matter how our cultural forces may reject such teaching and make concessions due to hardness of heart.  Yes, we can admit this is difficult, it can bring suffering, it requires us to embrace the cross; but, in so doing we learn what Adam learned in his self-giving that resulted in Eve, and we learn to be like the Lord, the leader of our salvation who was made perfect through suffering (second reading).

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXV per Annum B
22 September 2024

 For the second Sunday in a row we hear the Lord teaching and telling the disciples about the prediction of his passion.  This is the second of three passion predictions in St. Mark.  We see hear once again, as we did last Sunday, that the disciples don’t get it.  In fact, it is embarrassing that as the Lord predicts his passion they are busy predicting who might fill the leadership vacuum by arguing who is greatest among them.  In last Sunday’s passage, the Lord had to confront the tendency to think only as human beings do.  Trying to understand the plan of salvation with only human thinking simply will not work and will not result in appreciating the serious call that we must confront the tendency to think as human beings do and we must convert.  We must change.  Following the path of salvation means our sinful ways must be put to death in order that we can rise to a new life, a redeemed life.  Thinking as human beings do by rejecting suffering will meet the sharp rebuke we heard St. Peter receive last Sunday.  In this Sunday’s passage, the Lord confronts the tendency to reject humility, the tendency to think of oneself as greater, to exalt oneself.  This is precisely what was occupying the attention of the disciples as they walked along with Jesus.  These two Sunday passion predictions teach us that the Lord’s way – and therefore, our way to being saved – is through suffering and humility.

 The first reading reinforces the lesson of suffering.  This matches up with last Sunday’s first reading from the Prophet Isaiah.  Last Sunday’s first reading was taken from the section of Isaiah that references the chosen servant of the Lord who will undergo suffering and persecution.  In fact, that section of Isaiah is called the suffering servant section.  That theme continues in today’s first reading, the Book of Wisdom, where the wicked seek to test the just one by revilement, torture, and condemnation to a shameful death.  The second reading from St. James brings into particular focus the need to embrace humility as a virtue for godly life.  When we embrace suffering we do penance for our sins and we are transformed by an opportunity in faith to be like the Lord, the suffering servant.  In such conformity to the Lord we can grow in grace.  Humility is also a way in which we become like the Lord.  We are encouraged to humility when St James writes, “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice”.  This is the dangerous path the disciples were on even as they seemed so near to the path of the Lord.  They are silenced for shame when, inside the house in today’s gospel passage, Jesus asks them, “What were you arguing about on the way”?  The phrase “the way” became an early reference to Christians and the first roots of the Church.  When the gospel reveals “they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest” we can look back today and see an irony about the use of that term “the way”.  We learn that we are not members of “the way” if the way we are on is one that rejects humility and suffering.  For as the Lord must suffer in humility, we must also embrace the same path if we are truly united to Christ.

 The virtue of humility is a call to be grounded in the truth.  Authentic humility does not exalt oneself above what is true.  And, on the flip side, authentic humility does not pretend that one is lower than one is.  We all have gifts and talents that we are given to use for others, to build up others and to build up the Church.  We should not exalt ourselves above what is true; but we also should not deny our gifts or refuse to use them out of some false humility.  Rather, we are grounded in what is true.  We are grounded in the truth that we are not god, but His creatures.  We are grounded in reverencing God by using well the gifts we have been given.  If the gospel passage were written today, the disciples would have been arguing about who was the G.O.A.T. (the Greatest Of All Time).  So, the virtue of humility is something needed in our time too.  The image of a child, small, dependent, and without legal rights in the ancient world becomes a symbol of humility.  By humility we are drawn into the very inner life of God, the inner life of the Blessed Trinity.  Though absolute and almighty in power and authority, God pours Himself out in Trinitarian life, He pours Himself out in humility to create and to save us.  In suffering, God freely gives His entire being to pay the price for ours sins and to open before us the way to everlasting life.  We remain on that path when we maintain our unity with Christ our Head as members of His Body.  Where Christ, the humble and suffering servant has gone, we, too, are called to follow.

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXIV per Annum B
15 September 2024

 The Gospel passage is St. Mark’s accounting of the first of three predictions of the Lord’s passion.  The Lord wants to know who people say he is.  We can learn a lesson from this passage that it is not sufficient to simply identify Jesus, or to know his Name, or to claim that he is the Christ.  In order to benefit from relationship with the Lord, a disciple must be able to not only identify Jesus and use his title “Christ”; the disciple must also accept the content of how Jesus will be the Christ.  The disciple must also be conformed to the same way of life.

 We learn that there is more than just being able to name Jesus, or call him one’s Lord and the Christ, from how Jesus teaches that he must suffer greatly, be rejected, be killed, and rise again.  That lesson is brought into sharper focus still when the Lord rebukes Peter for rejecting how he will be the Christ.  Peter’s refusal to accept how the Lord will be the Lord is met with those stinging words: “Get behind me, Satan.  You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Peter wants to tell the Lord how things should be and how to accomplish his mission.  We have to rebuke that same tendency in ourselves to think as human beings do when we seek to avoid struggle and suffering, meanwhile being very quick to satisfy our every desire with all the things of this life that feel good.  The Lord’s description that he must suffer, die, and rise tells us that the way of suffering is not just a circumstance of his life, it is not just something passive that happens to him.  Rather, he must suffer, die, and rise.  That tells us that this path of suffering is a necessity and the precise manner in which he will fulfill his mission.  And to be clear, the mission is not simply the suffering, but it is always connected to the resurrection.

 We learn still more in this passage.  Namely, we are taught that the disciple must imitate the Lord and must be conformed to his way of life.  That means that the way of suffering is not just a secondary, or a passive circumstance for us either.  We cannot call upon the Lord using his Name and acknowledging his title as “Christ” in any meaningful way if we do not also accept in our own lives that path of suffering leading to resurrection.  It must be a way of life for us too.  That way of suffering is not to be viewed as some fatalistic nihilism where we think of ourselves as worthless.  No, we are beloved children of God.  We must rather grow in trust in God and recognize that, in a fallen nature, we can easily feed every whim and desire we have, we can keep the body feeling satisfied, while being far less dedicated to putting our own sin to death.  In falling to that easy tendency to have everything this life can offer, we end up on the mistaken path of saving our life here, only to lose it in the life to come.  But in conforming ourselves to the suffering Lord as a path we, too, must follow, we are able to lose the temporary values of this life and be saved for the life to come.  In this insistence of Jesus we learn that there are two meanings of “life”.  We see this in other passages of the gospels too.  There is natural life in this earthly realm.  But there is also supernatural life in the world to come.  We are mistaken and lost if we seek only to feed our natural life here and now.  The necessary path to the supernatural life of salvation is to imitate Jesus in his suffering, death, and resurrection.

 Our lives here, then, should be marked by penance and mortifications that help us train ourselves in trust of God and in disciplining the ways we seek to be full of passing goods in this life.  A disciple is not on the path of the Lord if he fills up every natural desire and meanwhile makes his life seem “spiritual” by using Jesus’ Name or calling him the Christ.  What we say with our lips needs to be backed up with its full meaning.  The Lord teaches us today how he will be the Christ and therefore how we must be Christians.  The attempt to have it another way is asking for the same type of rebuke Peter received.  We must avoid the trap of thinking only as human beings do.

 The way of a disciple is not a passive thing by which we simply use the title Christian.  Jesus says, “Whoever wishes to come after me”.  That term “wishes” indicates an active desire to live a saved life.  Being passive as a Christian or wearing the title Christian like a label does not work.  We likewise must train ourselves through the difficulties of life (and we can admit how difficult this work is) to grow in trust of the Lord whatever may come, whatever the struggles and sufferings, whatever the crosses are.  When we practice penance and mortifications – and not only in the season of Lent to be clear! – we are being conformed to the Lord.  When we repent of our sins and the ways we give so much attention to our natural life, to the detriment of supernatural life, we are embracing the cross.  What our lips speak about Jesus being the Lord and master of our life must be backed up by action.  That’s perhaps why the Church chooses the second reading for today from St. James, who writes: “faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead”.  What our lips speak about Jesus must be backed up by how we commit to Sunday worship.  That we say that Jesus is the Christ is backed up by how we use our treasures and give sacrificially to others.  It is backed up by how we vote our values so that the world is ordered in greater conformity to God’s kingdom.  We profess that Jesus is the Christ, and we truly mean it, when we deal a lethal blow to our sins, and live our vocations in a way pleasing to God.  What we say on our lips is backed up when we stop wasting so much time with frivolity in entertainment and social media, while claiming we don’t have enough time for prayer or the life of the soul.  We are taught that “to think as God does” means that the Son of Man must suffer and then rise again.  Whoever wishes to come after him… must do the same.