Eighth Sunday after Pentecost - Traditional Latin Mass

Dominica VIII Post Pentecosten (Extraordinary Form)
31 July 2022

   This is one of those parables that likely has us scratching our heads and thinking, what am I missing here?  Is the Lord really presenting sin and wrongdoing as a commendable trait?  Did I just hear that correctly?

   In today’s parable we hear that the unjust steward is commended.  He’s called “wise.”  We are encouraged to make friends with dishonest wealth.  If sin is being celebrated and we are told to imitate it then… the last one out today please turn off the lights because we are wasting our time here.

   Parables are famous for surprises and reversals.  We can easily hear the things that make the steward sinful, his self-interest, his cheating of his master, his injustice in possessions that are not his own, his dishonesty.  We can make an easy mistake thinking that our Blessed Lord is celebrating or commending this same wrong behavior.  But we miss the point.  There is subtlety we can miss if we are not careful to pay attention to what the Lord is teaching.

   What is commended, encouraged, and set forth as an example to follow is the prudence of the steward in his effort to establish security for himself and a safe dwelling and livelihood when he knows his master is about to take it all away.  This parable is clearly making a reference to the most important dwelling for any man to secure: the eternal dwelling of heaven!

   In this strange-sounding parable, the idea is that if the children of this age are so motivated, so wise, so prudent to take decisive action when they are in a bind and face losing everything, how much more should God’s children be wise, prudent, motivated, and decisive when what is at stake is heaven, and not merely money, food, or a house?

   Once you get past the surprise of thinking you are hearing the Lord commend sinfulness, the clear lesson here is that the things of this life will fail – the parable even explicitly says so – and yet still we take decisive action to guard such things and we try to store them up.  But it passes away and does not follow us to the next life and does not benefit is there.  Meanwhile what lasts is ignored.  So be wise, prudent, motivated, and decisive to secure heaven and real treasure.

   Don’t be confused.  It is not being unjust or dishonest that is being set forth in the parable as an example to follow.  Rather, what we are being called to model and copy is the prudence of the steward to take decisive action to attain godly life and salvation.

   What spurs us on in this call to be prudent and prepare ourselves for lasting treasure is that our master is not a taskmaster.  As the epistle to the Romans declared we are not in bondage and fear, but rather we call out to a master who is Abba, that is Father!  And so we are called to be prudent and wise in preparing for our eternal dwelling.  And we are called to have confidence that the master who calls us to stewardship is the God who has first bestowed upon us His love and all the goods we have.  And so claimed for and marked by Christ in the waters of baptism, in sacred anointing in confirmation, and in our constant renewal in confession and Holy Communion we are “sons of God; and if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint hears with Christ.”

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XV per Annum C
10 July 2022

 The Book of Deuteronomy, from which comes today’s first reading, chronicles the desert wanderings of God’s people.  God had drawn near to them and given them His law but they had disobeyed.  And so, in punishment they are made to wander in the desert.  That wandering was a punishment for a rebellious generation who would not be permitted to enter the Promised Land.  The wandering was also a preparation for the next generation to be ready to be obedient and to be identified by adherence to God’s Law.  Thus, as the punishment comes to an end and a new generation of God’s people is ready to cross into the Promised Land, Moses re-states God’s Law to them a second time.  Moses restates God’s Law because the next generation must understand that to belong to God and to be His people is to be marked by the way of life of His commands.  Moses tells the people that God’s ways are not too mysterious or remote for them.  In other words, God has come near.  His ways and commands are in accord with our wellbeing.  His ways are made for us and for our good.  Fast forward centuries when Jesus says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Mt. 11:28-30)…  That’s what the Lord means.  His ways are not harmful to us.  Just like a yoke must be crafted well to guide an ox without causing friction and physical harm, so God’s ways are made for us.  In today’s passage from Deuteronomy, Moses is telling the people that moral living according to God’s ways is not too complicated.  It can be understood and grasped by us.

 Yet, it can feel difficult to obey God’s commands.  Every one of us has some area of moral life that is a struggle, something that continues to be a difficulty.  This common human experience is due to our fallen nature.  That giving up our disobedient and rebellious ways and conforming ourselves to God’s ways is challenging is not a sign that God’s ways are too remote for us.  Rather, it is a sign that our fallen nature deceives us and makes us inclined to choose what is the easiest path for us, the one that seems lucrative or satisfying or fulfilling, or simply the path that requires less effort and work.  In our time, the awareness and acceptance is disintegrating of a common natural moral law that unites all of us who share one human nature, because we come from the same Creator and origin of moral law.  And thus, it can seem somehow as if God’s commands really are remote and mysterious and too far out of our reach. Just as a physical muscle weakens and atrophies from lack of use, so our moral muscle weakens and atrophies when we refuse discipline and choose to be complacent about sin in our lives.  If we are not actively seeking to convert and change patterns of sin, then not only do we give in to sin more, but in time even our very ability to grasp moral truth becomes more and more clouded.  And as this process transpires we replace the moral authority of God expressed in nature and in revelation with something else.  Something that seems more within our reach.  And what is that?  Well, often it is ourselves.  We often choose ourselves as the authority and the reference point for morality.  Our ways, the ways of our fallen nature, seem nearer and easier to grasp.  And many a person does grasp at that.  And when you consider the number of human beings on the planet, you can see how quickly a common morality disintegrates and divides, atomizing into multiple and competing moral authorities.  And the result is that the only authority is me and my truth.

 There is sickness in fallen humanity, a sickness that can grasp each of us and lead us to place ourselves at the center of moral authority.  Now, that is not the happiest of messages.  But it is important to grasp as a foundational truth of our human struggle in this valley of tears, as we call it in the Salve Regina.  Another way to say this, is that we cannot adequately appreciate the good news of the doctrine of grace and redemption, and the call to conversion, if we do not first acknowledge the foundation of Original Sin.  You and I are sinners.  But we are loved by God and called to life with Him.  We need medicine and a physician.  And we need to cooperate with the ways the Lord offers to heal us.  There is an obvious ethical lesson in the Gospel parable of the Good Samaritan.  It is a call to love one’s neighbor.  And love is not only words, but also deeds.  Yet, for my purposes today I want to draw your attention to an interesting interpretation among several Church Fathers going back to the second century by which the parable was seen to have an allegorical value in that the Good Samaritan was seen to represent Jesus and the man who fell victim to robbers represents humanity suffering under sin.  For example, St. Irenaeus says that human nature “had fallen in with robbers, but he [the Lord] had pity on it and bound its wounds.”  Origen writes, “The man who was going down is Adam…. The Samaritan is Christ…. He carries the half-dead man, and brings him to … the Church.”  St. Augustine, son of our parish patroness writes, “The whole human race, you see, is that man who was lying in the road, left there by bandits half dead, who was ignored by the passing priest and Levite, while the passing Samaritan stopped by him to take care of him and help him…. In this Samaritan the Lord Jesus Christ wanted us to understand himself.”  St. Augustine adds, “Robbers have left you half-dead on the road; but you’ve been found lying there by the passing and kindly Samaritan.  Wine and oil have been poured into you, you have received the sacrament of the Only-begotten Son; you have been lifted on his mule, you have believed that Christ became flesh; you have been brought to the inn, you are being cured in the Church” (cf. The Gospel of Luke, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, sidebar “Jesus the Good Samaritan,” Pablo T. Gadenz , p.213).

 There is a sickness in our fallen human nature.  God’s commands are part of the medicine.  And His ways are not too far or mysterious.  But if we are not careful and disciplined in conversion, not only do we fail by sin but soon even our ability to see the truth of morality is clouded.  Jesus, the Good Samaritan, is himself the measure of what our charity should be.  I say this as a preface and warning for some of the abundant sickness we see in our world today.  We have to be on guard lest we become our own worst enemy, sinking to the lowest common moral denominator.  I hope this doesn’t seem unfair to use as an example, but a recent trip to California gave me some vivid images of what is possible in our sick humanity when man replaces the common moral law from God with man’s own desires.

On the day the Supreme Court decision overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion decision was released, I was on a plane bound for a conference in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Talk about flying into the mouth of the lion!  In the Bay Area it was not uncommon to see handmade posters in the windows of houses with the message “Shame on SCOTUS.”  One piece of spray-painted graffiti read, “Abortion is good; Abolish guns.”  Driving along one highway some protestors had assembled on an overpass holding poster board reading, “My body, my choice.”  To give you a sense of some of the hostility in the area, one morning at breakfast with a couple priests, we noticed two men in the outdoor seating area.  They had a large dog and as we stood to leave, one of the priests approached the two patrons and began to say, “I love your dog.”  One of the men began waving the priest away and said, “Move along.”  The priest thought the man was trying to prevent the dog from being startled, which caused the man to say, “No, not the dog.  We don’t like you.  Move along.”  The most noteworthy experience was the group of 30 protestors who showed up outside the church where the Archbishop of San Francisco was celebrating Mass for the conference.  I guess wherever the Archbishop goes protestors find their way to disrupt things.  Among some ugly things and cheap accusations, the protestors were chanting, “We rebuke you, Catholic Church,” and “Abortion on the Demand, without apology.”  Over and over: “Abortion on Demand, without apology.”   Think about that.  That is really sick.  As if abortion is as inconsequential as going to CVS for aspirin or to 7-Eleven for an icee.

 The dynamic nature of our gift of freedom and the call to live moral life in God contains within it the power to become saints reigning together with God or to become degenerate practitioners of the worst evils.  God’s ways are not too mysterious.  He has come near, taking on our flesh, to show us our dignity and to open the path for healing and eternal life.  We have to cooperate and discipline our unruly nature.  God loves each of those people I saw in California and the thousands more they represent, just as He loves each of us and all creation.  Those and so many other souls who are locked in secular ideology and who stand in opposition to Judeo-Christian moral truth, are loved by God too.  His ways are not too far for them to grasp, but they need living examples of such obedience.  God has given His law on stone tablets once in history.  But our world needs living tablets, like us (disciples), to show the way to live God’s commands.  May we find a renewed drive to combat our sins and to live in the healing that our Good Samaritan offers us.  And may our way of life help to serve as light so that a very wounded world and troubled souls can find the medicine of eternal life.

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

Sollemnitas Corpus Christi
19 June 2022

This weekend we have the gift of the observance of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, placing our focus on giving thanks to God for that distinct aspect of our Catholic faith received from Christ and the Apostles, by which we profess belief that the Lord desires to remain with us in such a way that he is truly with us in his Real Presence, and that he nourishes us by giving himself to us in the Holy Eucharist.  It is our catholic faith that the bread and wine at a Catholic Mass are transformed in their substance by the power of God so that they become the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Lord.

A very important yet simple lesson about Eucharistic practice can be learned by observing the pattern of how a person is prepared to receive Holy Communion the first time.  When we prepare to receive Holy Communion for the first time we must be healed of the sins that separate us from communion with the Lord.  In other words, it is just plain logic that if we are not living a communion with the Lord then we are not able or eligible to receive Holy Communion.  We live in communion with the Lord in three primary, critical ways that the Church has identified since ancient times: (1) by first entering life with him by baptism, (2) by sharing a communion of faith in our acceptance of Catholic doctrine, and (3) by maintaining a communion with the Lord in our moral life by the observance of his commands and the rejection of sin.  This pattern of preparation for Holy Communion is easily seen in about the second grade.  In that momentous year for a young catholic soul, children are prepared for their First Holy Communion.  But before that, they make their first confession so that, being healed of sin, their reception of Holy Communion may carry the full sign value of first living a communion with the Lord by their moral life.  This pattern teaches all of us something that needs to be recalled: the healing of sin and the reception of Holy Communion go together and are intricately tied to one another.  This pattern does not change for us as we age and get further and further away from the day of our First Holy Communion.  We are always called to examine ourselves and so to live in such a way that grave sin does not impede our communion with the Lord and our eligibility to receive Holy Communion.  Thus, the regular practice of confession and our repentance of sin is critical to our reverence for the Lord’s Real Presence and our participation in Holy Communion.

So many examples in history teach us the truth of our faith in the Holy Eucharist and our necessary practice regarding it.  St. Paul, in First Corinthians, remarks that a communicant should examine himself carefully and that to take Holy Communion in an unworthy manner is to profane, not mere bread, but the Body of the Lord.  He goes on to say that to take Holy Communion unworthily is to bring judgment upon oneself (cf. 1 Cor. 11:27-30).  St. Justin, martyred by the Roman Empire in about the year 165, wrote to explain the practice of the early Catholics and reveals the harmony of faith received from St. Paul and still held today.  Namely, St. Justin indicates that reception of Holy Communion is not simply open to all, but requires that one first enter and maintain a communion of sacramental practice, a communion of accepting doctrine, and a communion of one’s moral life.  No one outside of that, he says, may gather with Christians or receive the Eucharist.  Notice how this “closed communion,” as it is often called, applies to non-catholics and also Catholics alike.  It applies equally to anyone whose communion with the Lord is not first established by those important measures: sacramental communion by baptism, communion of doctrine with the teaching of Christ and his Church, and communion of moral life.  St. Cyprian, who died in about the year 258, writes similarly.  In his treatise on the Lord’s Prayer he writes the following, “Now, we who live in Christ and receive his eucharist, the food of salvation, ask for this bread to be given us every day.  Otherwise we may be forced to abstain from this communion because of some serious sin.  In this way we shall be separated from the body of Christ…” (Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings, Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time, vol.3, p.371-372).

Keeping in mind our authentic faith about the Holy Eucharist and what is required to receive it, listen to what St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in a prayer of thanksgiving to be said after Holy Mass.  He wrote, “I pray that this Holy Communion may not be for me an offense to be punished, but a saving plea for forgiveness.”  If the Holy Eucharist were only bread and if it did not require that one first maintain a proper moral life, those would be strange words, right?  How would Holy Communion be an offense to be punished?  Well, if it were taken unworthily, that’s how.  Therefore, the debate about public figures at odds with Church teaching and practice being told they cannot receive Holy Communion is not a mean injustice or some new idea by a bishop.  It is completely consistent with our faith in what the Holy Eucharist actually is.  And the same applies to us.  The ways in which we are not prepared to receive Holy Communion may not be as publicly known as someone like a politician, but notice that we must self-police and take ourselves to confession as part of our preparation to commune with the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar.  The pattern of being healed of serious sin always precedes our reception of Holy Communion.

Finally, I want to say some words about how we adopt more traditional practices of worship at this parish.  Surveys over the past decades will show that an alarming number of self-described Catholics do not hold authentic Catholic doctrine on the Holy Eucharist.  They will often erroneously describe the Holy Eucharist as mere bread and wine, or as a symbol of Jesus, or a representation of his body and blood.  I can’t explain to you all the reasons why so many Catholics have lost faith in the Holy Eucharist.  But I do believe that one key reason, often overlooked, is the manner in which the Mass itself is often conducted.  Over the past decades, along with some positive options and possibilities for how the Mass is celebrated, there have also been many abuses that have crept in, along with practices in some places that are novelties not called for by the Church.  The way the Mass is celebrated – how we pray – impacts our faith.  It can impact our faith positively and negatively.  Since authentic faith in the Holy Eucharist has lessened over these more recent decades, it seems to me that recapturing those legitimate options of past decades when faith was stronger is one answer to lacking faith.  Let’s examine this principle with something other than the Mass.  Think of the most important event of your life, maybe your wedding day.  Don’t we expect the bride and groom to be the center of focus?  Would it change things if they were pushed off to the side and rarely acknowledged?  Of course, it would.  Would it be your dream to celebrate your wedding with paper plates for your reception?  Probably not.  Would the reception “feel” differently with paper plates versus real plates?  Would guests dress and behave differently if they knew the event was disposable versus something like a sit-down banquet?  You bet.  Those are simple examples to illustrate that how we observe or celebrate something impacts what we think about it.  The same is true here (in the sanctuary at Holy Mass).  That’s why I think recapturing traditional practices like quiet prayer, solemn worship, folded hands, the posture of the priest and the people facing the Lord together instead of standing on opposite sides of the altar looking at each other, appropriate sacred music, communion patens, and emphasizing reception of Holy Communion on the tongue are all important things for communicating the truth of the faith we gather to proclaim.  These are not trivial or incidental matters.  Casual practice results in casual attitudes which results in casual faith.  All this impacts us.  It is my hope that in our own little corner of the Church we are doing everything we can to communicate in every gesture here that we believe the Lord is truly present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist.  Formed in proper catholic faith by worship here, may we go out to share with others that the Lord is in our midst and that here we can truly behold the Lamb of God!

Pentecost

Dominica Pentecostes
4 & 5 June 2022

    This weekend we come to the climax and the conclusion of the holy season of Easter with the Solemnity of Pentecost, the fulfillment of Jesus’ resurrection promise to send the Holy Spirit.

   The Holy Spirit is called and known as the “spirit of truth” (cf. Jn. 14:16-17; Jn. 15:26-27; Jn. 16:12-13).  At his arrest and interrogation, the Lord said to Pilate “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.  Every one who is of the truth hears my voice” (cf. Jn. 18:37).  Pilate famously asked, “What is truth?” (Jn. 18:38).  The Lord promised to send the Holy Spirit of truth, to be another Advocate to his disciples, for his Church, that the Church might be led into all truth and that the Church might be a sure guide of the teachings of the Lord.

   In this fallen world, the Father of lies has a certain dominion.  And thus, there is ample evidence throughout human history that man can reject truth, and has rejected truth, when it conflicts with the desires of his own fallen nature.  Our own time in history just might be among the most noteworthy examples of how man perverts the truth.  The observance of our Catholic life finds a counter-example to the trends of falsehood that surround us.  How the month of June begins is an excellent example.  On June 1, the Church recalls the holy example and martyr’s death of St. Justin.  He was beheaded in the year 165 under the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.  His martyrdom came after he refused to renounce his commitment to Jesus and after he explained to the pagan Roman authorities that true worship is owed and given to God alone, who is Jesus Christ, and that he would not submit to false worship by offering sacrifice to pagan gods.  St. Justin stood firm against the falsehood and the demands from his governing authorities.  He is one of the earliest examples we have of what the life and worship of the Church was like.  On June 3, the Church recalls St. Charles Lwanga and his companions, all martyrs of Uganda.  This group of young men, all in their teens and twenties were martyred much more recently in history, in the year 1886.  They were pages in the royal court where the king had absolute authority.  What was it about their Catholic faith that put them at odds with their king?  Principal among the problems was that their catholic faith and its moral requirements put them at odds with the king’s demands that the page boys participate in his unnatural vice, that the boys minister to him for his pleasure.  I assume you get the reference.  False worship, the worship of civil authority and its demands, and the practice of false and immoral sexuality mark the stories of the martyrs we recall at the head of June.  How providential, then, is the witness of our catholic faith because not a one of us can miss what June has become in our time due to man’s fallen pride.

   I realize that there is a chance that not everyone will like or agree with what I am saying today.  But what I am saying is what the Church teaches.  And it needs to be said in our confused world.  Furthermore, I believe I will be judged at the end of my life by whether I was silent in the face of cultural confusion and lies or whether I was faithful in being a witness to the truth, the truth guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.  Too many a person is silent in the face of lies.  And that tendency isn’t getting us anywhere that is good.  So often we remain silent when we are uncomfortable in polite company.  Too many a Christian is silent in the voting booth by choosing those who convey lies.  We are silent when we go along with the cultural elites and simply let them form our minds, and the minds of our children, in the media and in entertainment.  The Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, has been given by the Risen Lord to confirm us as bold witnesses to the truth.  That is still needed in our time too.  And being such a witness is a gift to the world so that it may come to know the Lord and, turning from falsehood and sin, might have the hope of salvation.  This is a service that the Church is supposed to give to the world.  Let’s not forget, this is a service that you and I are supposed to give to the world.  The Lord did not send us the Holy Spirit in vain!

   The recent news of the Archbishop of San Francisco and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi puts a spotlight on the cultural battle between truth and falsehood and the role of the Church.  Speaker Pelosi makes frequent public comment about her catholic faith.  She also is consistent in a manifest and obstinate support and promotion of abortion.  Those two things do not in any way go together.  After behind-the-scenes conversations between the Archbishop and the Speaker, spanning some very patient ten years, and seeing only that the Speaker has become more vocal in promoting abortion and even seeking to codify abortion in federal law, the Archbishop, as the chief shepherd of her soul in her home diocese and as the highest authority over the sacramental life there, made a twofold public declaration: That the Speaker (1) is not to present herself to receive Holy Communion, and, (2) if she were to present herself, the minister should not admit her to Holy Communion but should refuse that sacrament.  And, he said, this is to remain in place until such time as she publicly repudiates the scandal of her advocacy for abortion and until such time as she repairs the grave matter for her own soul by confessing this sin and receiving absolution.

   Now there are many things that would be worth highlighting in this episode, things that touch upon truth and how our culture adopts lies, and that touch upon our knowledge of the Catholic faith.  However, I will focus only on three lessons.

   First: Is this episode with the Archbishop and the Speaker something to celebrate?  We need to be careful here and to make some distinctions.  It is all too common that a self-professed catholic adopts personal behaviors and public positions in direct odds with the clear doctrine of the Church on a grave matter.  We do not take delight when anyone must incur a punishment for such sin and incongruity.  We can celebrate that, upon completing the demands of charity and justice with his attempts to help guide a soul, an archbishop has taken a courageous and difficult stand.  We can celebrate that the truth of catholic teaching on the dignity of unborn human life has been put in the spotlight.  Since receiving Holy Communion requires in advance that we live a moral life free from grave sin and observe a union with Christ and his Church, we can celebrate that sacrilege has been reduced in that a person in grave public sin has been instructed not to receive Holy Communion in that position.  But, let’s be clear, this is a sad episode and we do not want to appear to take delight in it.  It would have been nice, much nicer indeed, had a catholic politician been on the forefront of defending innocent life in the womb.  Perhaps, by God’s grace, in some way in the future this very action by the Archbishop might lead to that.

Second: This episode is an opportunity to teach on a very serious misunderstanding that exists about catholic moral teaching.  If you have followed this story, you have heard the response that goes something like this: “Well, the Church leaders are inconsistent in this because the Church is against the death penalty too and yet they don’t go after politicians who support that.”  Comments like that reveal a very serious lack of formation about the moral teaching on what is called intrinsic evil.  The notion of intrinsic evil means that certain matters are so disordered within themselves that there is never an application of that matter that will result in an acceptable moral good.  It’s like saying that some matters are so rotten at the very root that they will never produce a good.  Abortion, which is the direct, intentional killing of an innocent unborn human life is an intrinsic evil in our moral teaching.  It is never acceptable.  It is always wrong.  It is a grave evil.  It is, within itself, at the very root, by its very nature, a moral evil.  That is what it means to call something an intrinsic evil.  The death penalty on the other hand, while a serious matter, as all matters involving the dignity of life are serious, has never been classified as an intrinsic evil in our moral tradition.  Thus, it is important to take note here that immediately we have an important difference in the ranking of the life issues of abortion and the death penalty.  They are not issues of equal moral weight.  Yet, that is how they are often treated in common conversation.  This is often the sleight of hand that many a pro-abortion politician will use by questioning why the Church does not come down equally as hard on those who seem to be in favor of the death penalty.  Now why has the death penalty not been described as an intrinsic evil in our moral tradition?  Why, dare I say, it will never be declared that in our moral tradition?  It is because what the Scriptures, the Word of God, reveal to us that the death penalty can have a legitimate and just application and that the State does indeed have the authority to meet out such punishment.  That is why our moral teaching does not classify the death penalty as intrinsically evil and why it is not equal in gravity to abortion.  The death penalty is clearly quite different than abortion in that, at least in theory, the death penalty is punishment of the guilty.  Now, I want to be clear, I am not stating that a catholic should favor the death penalty.  I am in agreement with the Church’s more recent development here that where the State can both protect society by securely imprisoning a dangerous person, and, at the same time, reverencing that person’s human dignity (even that of the criminal), then the State ought to limit itself by not going to the length of the death penalty.  There are legitimate concerns about the application of the death penalty in that there can be wrongful convictions.  But notice, it is a far different thing to note the intrinsic evil of abortion and to note that the State does have the authority to punish with death but ought to put a restriction on itself.  This important distinction is lost in a good amount of public discussion on these topics.

   Third: This episode highlights often-misunderstood practice regarding reception of Holy Communion.  One TV personality in entertainment said that the Archbishop acted in a way that is not his job to tell Pelosi this because, the personality said, communion is the “bread of sinners”.  It is the bread of sinners, by which we mean the food of those many (most of us, right?) who are struggling with smaller or venial sins as we come forward at Mass, but who have confessed our more serious sins.  But supporting and promoting abortion is grave, not venial.  When we are in mortal sin we are actually spiritually dead.  And dead people do not eat.  So, the bread of sinners, yes.  The bread of dead people?  No!

   I have spent a good amount of time in this more topical sermon raising the falsehood and error that surrounds us in our society, often at the urging of government authority and the coercive power of media and entertainment.  We have our own experience, though inverted, of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel.  We use common language and words but they have been emptied of their proper meanings by the progressive agenda.  The falsehood and perversion is evident in words and phrases like “choice,” “reproductive health care,” “love is love,” “pride,” “gender affirming care.”  It is total babble and our culture is being turned into a desert wasteland.  But, we of catholic faith celebrate the Holy Spirit, a river of living water (cf. Jn. 7:37-39), who brings life to dry bones as the Prophet Ezekiel said (cf. Ezek. 37:1-14).  We have been given the Holy Spirit to lead us to all truth and to face situations and topics that the apostles at that first Pentecost never would have imagined.  More than that, we have been given the Holy Spirit to dwell within us and to animate our bold and charitable witness to Christ and to the truth.  At the end of each Holy Mass, having been filled with God’s Word that we listen to here, receiving grace through communal prayer, and having been nourished by the Holy Eucharist (assuming one is in a state of grace), then you are sent out into the world: Go forth, the Mass is ended.  You are sent out not to be silent, but to proclaim the Kingdom of God.  You have not been given a cowardly spirit, but one of courage.  And so filled with these gifts and the very Spirit of God, give the world what it needs: the Holy Spirit of truth!

Ascension

Dominica Post Ascensionem (Extraordinary Form)
29 May 2022

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

                In the mystery of the Ascension of the Lord, properly observed this past Thursday, we reflect that it was an integral part of our Blessed Lord’s mission to take up his resurrected Body, our very flesh, into the life of Heaven and to return with our flesh to his rightful place within the life of the Blessed Trinity.  We observe in the Ascension a type of farewell.  But not a farewell that amounts to being abandoned or the Lord being distant.  No, he tells his Church, “I will not leave you orphans” (cf. John 14:18), and “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away” (cf. John 16:7a).  Perhaps it is not immediately obvious how the Ascension is not an abandonment and how it would be better for the Lord’s disciples that he go away.  Those disciples who walked the earth with the Lord certainly seemed downcast and ill at ease, perhaps a revelation of the same limitations of mind that caused them to feel as if an abandonment was taking place.  But the Lord continued with further words adjoined to that last quote that tell us why this farewell and departure was an integral part of the Lord’s saving mission: “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (cf. John 16:7).  The Counselor, a name for the Holy Spirit of truth, will not come to the Church in the way the Lord intends unless he goes away.   With this critical lesson in mind, then, we might say that the departure, the farewell, of the Ascension, in part, permits the Lord’s presence to pass into the sacraments, which means his presence, power, and life will be with all disciples in all places in all times, no longer limited to one time in history in ancient Palestine.  And furthermore, this departure and farewell means that the Lord’s presence can come to actually dwell within disciples who prepare themselves to receive His seven-fold gifts.  And thus, the farewell of the Ascension is not an abandonment but the opportunity for a deeper indwelling of God.

                The promised Holy Spirit of truth is often imaged as the mutual self-giving Trinitarian Love exchanged between the Father and the Son.  “God is love” (cf. 1 Jn. 4:8), says St. John.  As we pray in these days for a renewed outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which we will observe at Pentecost, we recall that the awaited Holy Spirit is the fullness of charity.  And so, the epistle of this Holy Mass charges us in this time of watchful prayer to “have a constant mutual charity among yourselves: for charity covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pt. 4:7-8).  Charity, love, covers a multitude of sins.  We are familiar with that idea.  And it is most often understood as an admonition that benefits each of us in our interactions with one another.  In other words, the idea most immediately understood is that the sins “covered” by charity are those of the person who loves.  Expressed differently, if I have charity, if I love, my many sins are covered and I have the hope of God’s mercy because of my charity.  That is well and good and true.  It is a new testament proverb.  Yet, it is interesting that this new testament admonition, has an Old Testament root in the Book of Proverbs where that Hebrew proverb says, “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses” (Proverbs 10:12).  What is interesting to note, is that the Hebrew interpretation of this proverb was different.  I suggest we can borrow that Hebrew interpretation and, thus, have a fuller more amplified understanding of the admonition to have charity.  The Hebrew interpretation of that proverb was directed toward the people being loved.  In other words, whereas we often consider charity covering the sins of the one doing the loving, the Hebrews understood it as the sins of those being loved who were being covered.  Charity goes outward toward those persons being loved and helps to cover their offenses.

                That is the focus I want to suggest today.  That is the direction of charity I want to highlight today for a more amplified understanding of charity.  In our day and age, how different would things be if Christians believed that their charity was going outward to the recipients of their love and covering the faults of those to whom charity is shown?  This is a facet of charity and its power to cover sin that I want to highlight because we all know well how many a person has adopted an inadequate and impotent notion of charity in our time.  In our society we “go along to get along”.  We don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable with truth that demands something of them.  Those ubiquitous “COEXIST” bumper stickers speak the contemporary gospel and many a person is lulled into a slumber of damnation thinking that “being nice” and “keeping the peace” will result in the virtues that please God and will be the mark of charity that cover one’s own sins.  But what if we viewed charity from that more amplified perspective?  If we received the gifts of the Holy Spirit and understood our charity as covering the offenses of others, might we be more willing to speak the truth?  Might we have the perspective to act in a bold and truthful charity believing that it was an act of love and hope that gives others, that is, the recipients of our love, the greater possibility of salvation?  I suggest this understanding, adopting this fuller appreciation of how charity covers a multitude of sins, is an antidote to our time.  Furthemore, it can serve to give us the impetus to do the very thing that Jesus said in the Gospel passage today.  He promised the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, who will give testimony to him.  And the Lord adds, that his disciples should give testimony as well.  If we believe we have been given the Spirit of truth, the very presence of the God Who is Love, then shouldn’t we understand and embrace the call to give testimony to the Lord?  And to do so, in charity, so that others may have the hope of God’s mercy and the offer of salvation?  Yes, the impotent approach to charity by which we keep our mouths shut so that no one feels uncomfortable has had its day and it was never true to begin with.  Lord knows, generations have been misinformed and deformed by that false charity.  We celebrate that recently a bishop of our country has finally spoken up and issued a sanction of a politician who obstinately promotes abortion.  But even that has taken, frankly, far too long.  While it was a just and the right decision, we would be foolish to think that the very episode itself doesn’t tell us how far off we are from receiving the Spirt of truth and living in authentic charity.  Building a society, a culture, a generation of authentic and amplified charity begins here and now with you and with me.  As we pray in preparation for Pentecost, we know the Lord has not abandoned us but sends the Holy Spirit to dwell within us.  May we so desire that others have the hope of salvation that we share the Spirit of truth with them in a charity that is authentic and mutual.

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Dominica V Paschae C
15 May 2022

As a priest I have had many opportunities to be with people who are near death due to terminal illness or very advanced age.  The knowledge that your life is near its end is at once sobering and clarifying.  Knowledge that death is approaching helps put things in perspective.  It helps clarify what is most important; what a person most wants to be known for; the legacy a person wants to leave behind.

Jesus faced this very situation in the gospel selection of this Mass.  Today’s gospel from St. John comes from the chapters describing the Lord’s Last Supper with his apostles.  Jesus knew his earthly life was near its end.  In fact, he told his apostles he earnestly desired to celebrate this final Passover with them and that he would not celebrate it again until he had entered his Kingdom.  In the course of that meal where Jesus gave us the gift of his Body and Blood the Lord was in his final hours of life on earth, preparing for his departure through death, and for his glorification in resurrection.

In his final words to his apostles Jesus gives them a new commandment: love one another.  Jesus determines that the command to love one another is the most critical topic he must address in his final hours of earthly life.  Given the dramatic scene of being near the point of his departure, we can say that it is critically important that we accept those words from the Lord.  And his call is not to some generic, undefined love.  Rather he says, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”  His apostles would understand what that command requires when in hours of having spoken those words they would see Jesus love them to the end and lay down his life for them even though their betrayal and denial did not deserve that type of love.  This is the pattern of Jesus’ own love.  This is the pattern Jesus calls them to model.  They are to love one another in the laying-down-your-life kind of love that Jesus models.

Through the gospel Jesus is imparting to us the same legacy, the same critical lesson.  What’s more, in following his style of love, Jesus says people will know that we are his disciples.  Do we think people will know we are disciples because they see us walking into or out of church on the weekends?  Do we think that people will know we are disciples because we identify ourselves as Christians?  Do we think people will know we are disciples because we have a crucifix or some religious symbol somewhere?  Jesus says people will know we are disciples if we have love for one another – the type of love he modeled.

The word “disciple” refers to a student or a learner.  For followers of the Lord, being a student or a learner is no mere academic pursuit, or something that exists only in the mind.  To believe and to be a believer certainly involves an intellectual assent of the mind to the truths God reveals.  But it would be a mistake to think being a disciple is shown only by an assent of the mind.  One can believe something in the mind while not letting that belief impact choices, the way one lives.  We hear these dichotomies a lot, don’t we?  It is popular for many a person to indicate they believe things about God and faith but to never do anything about it.  I have met people who believe and who share Christian faith sincerely, but who have never been baptized.  Yet, the Scriptures are very clear that faith and baptism are how one enters life in Christ and becomes a Christian.  We all know people who make the distinction saying they are spiritual but not religious, they believe but resist being part of the Church.  But Jesus says, people will know you are my disciples if you love one another.  I can tolerate a whole lot of people I never have to interact with… you can say the same, right?  But for Jesus to command “love one another” immediately takes discipleship out of a “me and my personal Lord and Savior” category and places it in a communal arena.  If you love one another people will know you are my disciples.

There is no doubt that being a disciple of the Lord means that we make an intellectual assent to his teachings.  But the Lord won’t let us get away with that alone.  Speaking these words at the Last Supper, the Lord will put that love into action the very next day on the Cross.  We often point to the heart as being the center of what drives us and our actions, our will.  We learn in this Gospel passage that keeping the Lord in the realm of the mind and head belief is not enough.  To be sure, our mind must conform to the Lord’s teachings.  But our actions, our will, is also critical for showing that we are disciples, students, learners of our Master.  This is how the Lord says people will know we are his disciples: if we love one another.  A belief put into action is what the Scriptures call us to.  May our correct belief of the mind be visible also in our actions.  In this way our belief changes us and becomes a light to others so that they might join us in becoming students in the Church, this school of the Lord’s service.

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Dominica IV Paschae C
8 May 2022

 This weekend is commonly known as Good Shepherd Sunday because we hear from John 10, where Jesus uses the image of sheep and shepherd, and some verses before the passage today he calls himself “the Good Shepherd”.  Good Shepherd Sunday is also a time to give focus to prayer and to our efforts to encourage vocations in our parish by directly speaking to the young people in our midst and in your families about the call of Jesus in their lives.  In your charity, I ask for your prayers for me as your Pastor and for Fr. Bali in the great way he assists me in the work of shepherding.  In our prayers for young people, we need to create an atmosphere in our families where being open to God’s call to a religious vocation is fostered and even expected.  On Good Shepherd Sunday I ask you to pray that the young men in our midst whom God is calling to the priesthood, that they would hear His voice and that obstacles to hearing that call would be removed so that they can respond as future priests.  I ask you to pray, too, that the young women in our midst whom God is calling to be religious, that they would have the courage to follow the divine Lamb of God, and to be a future bride of the Lamb.

 Speaking of himself as Shepherd in relationship to the sheep, Jesus says, “I know them.” A shepherd in Palestine would spend all day and night with the sheep.  He would know their sound, their normal sounds and bleats, and their sounds in distress.  We would know their behavior.  We may not know this experience of a shepherd, but we can certainly understand how true this is if we consider how we might know a pet.  One time my mom sent me a pic of a family pet.  The photo was totally staged, but mom did not tell me it was staged.  She hoped I would think it was a natural moment caught on camera.  I knew immediately.  And when I texted back, “Oh please, that is totally fake,” she was amazed and asked how I knew.  I told her that because I knew his behavior I could tell by how the pet was holding his ears that he was not relaxed and that he was suspicious something was up.  That told me it was staged.  We can understand how a shepherd would come to know the sheep.  Of course, it is important for us to move out of the realm of literal animals, literal sheep, and to hear the Lord’s words as referring to us.  He knows us.  We are his sheep.  He is our Shepherd.

 Notice what we might call a progression, an order, or hierarchy of shepherding in this passage.  Our Lord, the Good Shepherd, sort of stands in the middle in a sense of this order of shepherds.  Earlier in John 10 he references himself as the Good Shepherd.  But here he references the way in which the Father is the shepherd.  That’s the implication of the words here.  The Father is greater and He has given the sheep to the Son, to the Good Shepherd.  And, likewise, descending in order, we know that the Lord has established his Church with visible shepherds who govern in his place as vicars, most especially the apostles and their successors, the bishops.  In fact, just last Sunday we heard of this final order of shepherds because the Lord was clearly choosing St. Peter as a shepherd when he told him three times: “Feed my lambs”; “Tend my sheep”; and, “Feed my sheep.”

 I want to suggest for us that the Lord has so designed his Church in fulfillment of the Father’s mission that there is a unity among the progression or the order of shepherds.  This is a clear meaning of the words the Lord says, “The Father and I are one.”  The Son does not shepherd in a different way than the Father.  Likewise, our Good Shepherd has given us an assurance, that the legitimately constituted apostolic shepherds guide us rightly when they are faithful to the deposit of faith, which is the Sacred Scripture and the Sacred Tradition.  When they speak to us these truths they amplify the one voice of our Good Shepherd and we can recognize the voice we hear.  Should the bishops not speak in accord with the deposit of faith, a dissonance is introduced into that voice and we can recognize it as departing from the fullness of truth.

It cannot be emphasized enough that there is no guarantee from the Lord that a person cannot or will not be separated from the Good Shepherd.  The idea of “once saved; always saved” is not a scriptural doctrine.  In fact, the exact opposite is claimed as St. John later records in chapter 15 when Jesus describes that branches on the vine that do not bear fruit are cut off and thrown out.  Likewise, the example of Judas is a clear indication that a person can freely choose to separate ourselves and to be lost.  But if we are sheep of the Good Shepherd we hear his voice and we follow him.  That is a reference to obedience and the moral way of life, we follow the path of morality.  I think it is critical that we embrace this in our confused age.  In our time and to great extremes, we have a self-referential culture that exalts the individual, the “I”, above any duty or obligation to another person, and even exalts the individual above reality itself.  This is in part why people can follow, promote, and defend outlandish immorality as a good because they claim it fulfills the self and no one can limit another person’s self-actualization in this way of thinking.  This is in part why people can claim to be something their own physical body clearly manifests they are not.  In this self-referential culture nothing – not even physicality, biology, or anatomy – is more concretely true than what the person decides he or she is, how he or she identifies.  Sadly, and frankly, we find many a catholic holding such opinions that do not come from the voice of the Good Shepherd.  Politicians of the highest order, celebrities, groups that call themselves Catholic while supporting positions at odds with the faith… all this goes on in a narcissistic age.  Whatever that is, it is clear it is not at all hearing, listening to, and following the voice of the Good Shepherd.

 My brothers and sisters, we live in an age that can choose to listen to any number of voices.  Because of that our social life will be a cacophony of dissonant noise at times.  Like Paul and Barnabas in the first reading, we too will face a society that is “filled with jealousy and with violent abuse,” who will contradict and malign and even come after us.  But following the message of the Scriptures today, Let nothing take away our joy in the Holy Spirit!  In the spiritual battle we are called to engage in, we are protected by our Good Shepherd who said, “No one can take them out of my hand.”  That’s the implication of those words, that the Good Shepherd provides a type of spiritual protection to those who follow him.  We listen to the voice of our Good Shepherd.  We follow him so that we may follow the narrow way to eternal life.  And along the way, we share the truth of what our Good Shepherd speaks so that others may be freed of the lies and ideologies and sins that enslave them.  We give them a chance to join us as sheep of the flock!  That will require us to pray so that we form a deep communion with the Lord.  And it will require us to accept sacrifice and maybe even abuse from those who oppose us.  This is the path our own Good Shepherd traveled.  It must be ours too, for as we sang in the psalm, “We are his people, the sheep of his flock.”

Easter Vigil

Easter Vigil
16 April 2022
Gospel: Luke 24:1-12

In the ritual system of our Catholic worship, whose absolute pinnacle you are climbing by your participation in this Easter Vigil with its evocative gestures and symbols, we regularly hear from the narrative of mankind’s salvation by listening to God’s Word recorded in that Catholic book called the Bible.  In entirely unique fashion, this Vigil has us listen to God’s love and saving action through a hefty number of readings, nine in all.  And that doesn’t even count the psalms that we sing and the numerous antiphons and other ritual words that come directly from the Sacred Scriptures.  In listening to the Scriptures we encounter God’s living word.  And we are intended to take that Word into our being and our way of living.  We are intended – the image might be – to breathe it in.  To let God’s inspiration be our respiration!  It is a living, not a dead Word.

We have to be careful that we do not succumb to the unhealthy and unholy busyness of modern life, falling prey to its materialist and secular mind, such that we begin to think of God’s Word as only words on a page, a static recounting of someone’s past history, a monument to the unsophisticated mind of some past cultures before the scientific age, dare I say… a dead word.  Salvation history recounted in Scripture is composed of past historical events and saving actions, yes, but God is acting to save us in our time too and to speak His Word to us, a Word that is always alive.  And so, we need to practice the art of seeing ourselves in salvation history.  We need to practice the art of seeing and receiving what God is doing now for us in the gestures and symbols of worship that communicate and make present His saving power.

An ancient homily on Holy Saturday is used in the Church’s prayer on Holy Saturday.  That ancient homily is a reflection on what faith tells us this day is about.  Quote: “The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep.  The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began.  God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear,” end quote.  God has chosen to subject Himself to falling asleep because by Original Sin and by our personal sins we are deserving of falling asleep.  God comes in our flesh.  He comes to live our very life.  He comes, collapsing the distance between us and Him, to place Himself into our experience that He might plant the seed of divinity there.  That means we must see our lives as the soil to receive God’s planting.  The living God with His living Word comes even into our sleeping to plant the divine power of new life.   That ancient Holy Saturday homily goes on to describe how God has entered His creation to bear and to reform the marks that cause us to fall asleep.  “I order you, O sleeper, to awake.  I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell.  Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.  Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image…. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed … in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.  See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you.  See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image.  On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back.  See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.”

All this is to say that, as we hear salvation history in God’s Word and renew our faith that it is a living Word, and as we meditate upon God’s action and the response of His people, and as we marvel at how God has chosen to enter into our life and to plant in our way of being the seed of divinity, what we marvel at is not only God’s action in entering our life, but that in the gestures of worship we recognize a call to seek, and to enter, and to live a godly life – we marvel that we are called to enter His life.  What God has done in coming to us and working within us is a relationship and not a one-way street.  As that ancient Holy Saturday homily reflected on what the Lord Jesus did in taking on our life and entering our sleep to overcome it, so relationship with God is an invitation to us to place ourselves into godly life.  God’s living Word experienced in the Scriptures but also in the gestures and symbols of our liturgical life is a principal way we enter into and we live the life of God.  It is a practice of sorts that we get here.  But entering into and living a godly life must happen outside these walls too, so that the light of divine life we have received might grow and dispel the darkness that still envelopes so many in our world.  As we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus the empty tomb is the witness to the truth of this saving event.  It is a witness on which we must firmly plant our faith.  Yet, in an almost curious-sounding way, it is NOT a witness on which we are called to plant our feet.  For just as the women in the Gospel went to perform the liturgical action of anointing Jesus, but then left, returning “from the tomb and announced all these things,” so our liturgical action here is meant to strengthen and restore our faith in God’s saving action and to drive us out to announce all this to others that they, too, might be amazed at what has happened.

 (slightly adapted for delivery Easter Sunday)

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday
14 April 2022

 As we have begun this evening Mass, the season of Lent has now officially ended and we have entered the most sacred days of the Church’s briefest liturgical “season”.  The Sacred Triduum, or the Sacred Three Days, carries us from Holy Thursday evening to Easter Sunday evening.  This short “season” has us observe our most high holy days, celebrating tonight that our Lord established two sacraments at the Last Supper, the institution of the Holy Eucharist and of the priesthood; observing tomorrow the saving sacrifice of the Cross; and, observing on Holy Saturday night and Easter Sunday our Lord’s resurrection to new life.

 The oddity of the last couple of years has impacted it seems almost every aspect of life, including adaptations to our typical practices at Church.  This has resulted in some good opportunities, I think, to give a renewed focus to some of the most essential aspects of our Catholic faith.  Though we are more back to normal than not, I found in a conversation with several brother priests a few months back that we rather appreciated that the omission of the optional foot washing last year provided an opportunity to focus more strictly on the institution of the Holy Eucharist.  Several of us wanted to maintain that focus and so I am again opting to omit the foot washing, which is always optional anyway.  I rather appreciate the foot washing, so I will certainly opt to do it in the future, but for this year at least I wanted to let the Holy Eucharist be the exclusive focus.

I decided I wanted to provide this focus so that we do not obscure that the Cross is really the focus of these days and that even the action of our Lord taking off his outer garments and washing feet is actually supposed to speak to us more than just foot washing, but the continuation of what the Son of God began at the Incarnation.  In other words, at the Incarnation the Son of God lowered Himself to strip off His proper glory as God in order to be veiled by His union with human flesh.  The action of removing his outer garments and washing feet, once again, renews this self-emptying, this lowering of God to us.  In other words, the foot washing is more than just a servant’s action, but is a prophetic act, drawing attention to the completion of the Lord’s self-emptying on the Cross.  Everything about the Last Supper and what we observe this evening speaks of the action and the gift of the Cross where our Lord submitted to sacrificing himself for our salvation.  That’s what I hope our focus can be this year.

 As your Pastor, I want to place our focus on the sacrifice of the Cross and the Holy Eucharist because I think one of the most disfiguring tendencies or ideas afloat with regard to the Holy Mass is the idea that it is a re-enactment of the Last Supper.  That idea in summary is that at the Last Supper Jesus had a meal with his followers, gave us two sacraments, and told us to do this again in memory of him.  And so, at Mass we gather as the present-day community of the Lord’s disciples and we share a meal.  But this degenerates rather quickly into notions of theatrics whereby the priest plays the part of Jesus and the people play the part of the apostles, and thereby obscures the actual theology of our faith about the Holy Mass, and the Holy Eucharist, and both the ordained priesthood and the baptismal priesthood.  Over the past many decades with the rise in the popularity of this idea, we have suffered a weakening, an impoverishing, of our theology of the Holy Eucharist and what it means to participate in it.  While one can hold an appropriate appreciation of the meal aspect of the Holy Eucharist, it must be said clearly that that is not the primary focus of the Holy Eucharist.  Rather, a Catholic understanding of the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Mass is first and foremost the making present in each time and place where the Mass happens of the very same sacrifice of the Cross, though in an unbloody manner, by which we are placed into relationship with the sacrifice of the Lord for our salvation.  And for this reason, and because of this authentically catholic understanding, St. Paul could write (as we heard in the second reading), “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”  At Holy Mass, just as was present at the Last Supper, the mystery of the Lord’s Cross is in the air.  St. Paul and we today acknowledge that our gathering in fulfilment of the Lord’s command proclaims not a meal or a re-enactment of the Last Supper, but rather, we proclaim his death.  And since the Lord’s Cross is intimately connected to his Resurrection, our gathering here moves from proclaiming his death to receiving not dead flesh, but the living resurrected flesh of the Lord, presented to us in a manner we can receive in Holy Communion.  Therefore, a Catholic’s ability to receive Holy Communion is not simply the idea that might be expressed in this way, “I come to a meal and so I eat”; but rather, should be expressed as, “I come to the sacrifice of the Lord and if I am seeking to drive out sin from my life, I am then worthy to receive Holy Communion, to receive the Lord’s sacrifice for sin.”  I, too, must move from death to life by repenting of sin in confession, and by changing my sinful ways to live a deeper communion with the Lord.

Just as the foot washing is not just about a servant’s act, so the Last Supper and the Holy Mass are not primarily about a meal.  It is a meal, yes, but one whose focus is not just or simply about a meal, but rather moves us to consider the Cross, the sacrifice accomplished there, and the same sacrifice made present to us by our faithful gathering here.  And more than just “considering” these things as if they existed only in reflection of the mind or in memory, the Holy Mass puts us in contact with the very same reality of the Lord’s sacrifice for our salvation.  It makes the one and same sacrifice of the Cross present to us here and now through the agency of the ordained priesthood by which the Lord receives a man’s being and his life and so conforms the man to himself that the Lord chooses to act through him.  Through the gift of self in the ordained priesthood it is Christ the Great High Priest who acts.  In this way we might understand a deeper reality of the many vestments a priest wears for this most solemn act.  The ordained priest vests not to dress himself up, but rather, quite the opposite, he vests to cover himself in order that a priest beyond himself might be seen, namely the High Priest, Jesus Christ, whose one eternal Priesthood operates in our midst such that when we gather for Holy Mass we do not gather for a mere re-enactment.  No, we gather such that the sacrifice of the Lord on the Cross is actually made present to us and offered to us in Holy Communion.

 The Church knows in her deepest faith and her highest theology that everything about this evening is about the Cross, it is about sacrifice.  No surprise then that the first reading from Exodus is chosen, speaking to us about the memorial feast of the Passover that is not simply a meal but a perpetual institution that calls for the sacrificial slaughter of a lamb.  This is the foundation for the New Testament understanding of the Holy Mass.  As the Gospel passage this evening showed Peter with several misunderstandings about the Lord’s action of washing feet, may we purify our focus on the Cross in these days and carry that focus into a more proper understanding of the Holy Eucharist and the ordained priesthood.  May that opportunity this night result in a deeper faith in the Lord’s presence in the Holy Eucharist.  May it result in renewed participation at Holy Mass and regular confession of sin.  May it result in our commitment to spend time with the Lord in the prayer of adoration in our chapel.  May it result in greater awe in our families to generously promote a priestly vocation from within the family.  May it result in a new harvest of future priests from among the boys and young men here in our midst.

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Dominica V in Quadragesima C
3 April 2022

 The Gospel passage of the woman caught in the very act of adultery is a curious passage.  Perhaps one of the most curious aspects that stands out to us is that odd response of Jesus to write with his finger in the dirt of the ground, something the passage tells us he does twice.  We don’t know with certainty what he was writing or doing.  We do know that something about that gesture eventually led the accusers to walk away one by one.

The scribes and Pharisees contrived a twofold trap for Jesus.  The Mosaic Law is clear: any serious offense against one of the Ten Commandments is punishable by death.  Adultery certainly fits that.  If Jesus says the adulterer should not be stoned then he can be charged with a crime against God’s Law.  And there is another trap.  If Jesus says the woman should be put to death, and all the more in such a public place like the Temple, he can be charged with violating Roman law.  The Roman empire had taken to itself the authority to judge crimes punishable by death.  In other words, the Jewish elders did not have a forum to adjudicate and to bring about death in the Roman empire.  Such cases had to go before the Roman authority.  We will see this reality later when the elders eventually do bring Jesus before Pilate (cf. John 18:31).  They need Pilate to condemn Jesus to death in order to bring about what they desire to do to Jesus on the false claims that he had violated the Mosaic Law and that he had tried to make himself king over Caesar.

 I wonder if we as believers accept with clarity and consistency that God hates sin.  I think that is a lesson we can take from this Gospel passage.  I say that because Jesus does not dismiss the seriousness of the woman’s sin nor condone it, just as he does not give a free pass to the sins of the scribes and Pharisees who surround the woman.  Now, I know our modern ears sort of recoil at the word “hate.”  But it is true: God hates sin.  It is abhorrent to Him and offensive.  We admit this all the time in the act of contrition at confession: “O God, I am sorry for my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend thee, my God…”  Sin does not have a place in God’s presence (cf. Rev. 21:27).  And serious sin – even just one serious sin – deserves condemnation and punishment.  There is no denying that is a clear truth throughout the Bible and therefore throughout Sacred Tradition in the Church’s teaching.  Do we as disciples of the Lord serve as a Christian leaven for our culture by giving voice to what is true and by confronting sin where it is celebrated in our society?  I fear we are far too quiet on that front.  The daily drumbeat of progressive agendas and perversions on display in our culture is what prompts me to consider that a valuable lesson for us in our time is that simple foundational truth that God hates sin.  And related to that, we also have to accept that punishment of sin pleases God.  Sin deserves punishment.  Thus, in the Gospel our Lord does not say that someone guilty of adultery should not be put to death.  No, quite the contrary, he indicates that stones could be thrown at the woman.  But our Lord’s response goes further to show that the punishment of sin should arise from a purity that matches his own.  A pure and just hatred for sin should be the force or the muscle that hurls the stones.  So, he says, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  And while God hates sin and is pleased by its punishment, He also does not desire the condemnation of a soul, the condemnation of a sinner.  And that is Good News.  It is a common human trap to focus exclusively on the teaching of mercy that God does not desire the sinner to die, while obscuring that sin deserves God’s justice, a fierce justice.  Our Lord is both justice and mercy in this passage.  He clearly supports the punishment of sin and, also very important, he tells the sinner to go and sin no more.  There is no free pass for sin here.  But he also does not desire the woman to die or to be condemned and so he will not support those who are impure by their own sins lining up to throw stones at her in a spectacle of false righteousness.

 Think of how modern ears hear and use this passage and many others that refer to God’s mercy.  A person is caught in a very grave sin and it should be severely punished.  But Jesus doesn’t seem to support that.  So modern secular ears go marching off dismissing the seriousness of sin.  Then comes the next step, to support sin as its own expression and identity that should be “tolerated.”  And then comes the next step that not even tacit tolerance is enough, but the rest of us must actively promote the sin or else we are guilty of hate and should be canceled.  This process plays out before us daily it seems, and in the most perverse and outrageous ways.  Everything these days it seems is “trans” this and “trans” that.  Just days ago, the misguided moral leadership of our President celebrated “Transgender Visibility Day” by having the nerve to equate that ideology with being made in God’s image and likeness.  We should be clear, a person is made in God’s image and likeness; an ideology with convenient political clout and elitist money is not.  I am also thinking ahead to what comes each June with so-called “Pride” month.  One glance at what goes on as standard practice for celebrating Pride month demonstrates that it is overt sexualization of a most perverse kind on public display.  These ideologies and so many others are being injected into every sector of life at increasing speed, into laws, into entertainment, even children’s entertainment, into our schools – and why these children’s places?  Because these ideologies are a belief system that needs to indoctrinate the next generation.  We could even call them their own type of religion with their own catechesis.  And, we aren’t immune here, for even our local leaders go along with the pressure and promote these ideologies, as Edmond’s Mayor did last year with his June Pride declaration.  Why are our Christian voices so silent in the face of these errors?  These destructive forces are right under our noses, in our school systems, in our public libraries, in our city councils.  Now I am highlighting only a couple of examples of sinful movements that are prominent, but there are many more that we could list.  We believers make a mistake by being silent in the face of such false morality.

 But if we follow the Lord as we say we do, then we must first confront and name sin in our own life, because we must hate sin as God does, confessing it immediately in the case of serious sin, and working hard to change and root out sin from our lives.  Because God hates sin.  If we follow the Lord as we say we do, then we, too, love souls and we seek to listen to, to befriend, and to instruct those in our sphere of influence who struggle and who are going astray.  And speaking the truth to them is an act of love.  Don’t let anyone tell you any differently.  But we do not condone sin.  If we follow the Lord as we say we do, then we are clear about calling sin “sin”.  We are clear that God hates sin.  And if we follow the Lord as we say we do, then like him, we do not dismiss sin or downplay it, or support it.  No, like the Lord, we clearly love the sinner while also having his or her long term, eternal good in mind by saying, “Go and from now on do not sin any more.”

 We are on a special journey this Lent to be renewed.  For those who are preparing for baptism, they are preparing to be healed and saved in the waters of rebirth so that they might rise from the waters and go to live new life in the Lord.  For the already baptized we, like the scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel, are confronting our own sinfulness and walking away, even running, to the confessional to be healed by the mercy of God who does not want us to die.  And we step forth from that sacrament healed in our baptismal dignity to enact with greater zeal a holiness of life.  No matter what our own burdens and sins may be and no matter how serious they may be, we take comfort in the compassion and mercy on display in the Gospel passage today.  We accept that sin offends God and that its punishment pleases Him.  But we also accept that He does not desire our death or condemnation.  Rather, He heals us and at the same time, with our eternal good in view, He commands us to go and to sin no more.  In the face of the burdens and sins that mark our past we should be moved by the image in today’s first reading that the Lord opens passages and ways in the sea and in the desert wasteland, in the most unlikely of places.  In our places too!  “I am doing something new!” says the Lord.  Do something new in my life, Lord!  Convinced that God hates sin and expect us to speak the truth, may we say with St. Paul, from the second reading, “I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Dominica IV in Quadragesima C
Safe Haven Sunday
27 March 2022

Listen again to God’s word to Joshua in the first reading: “Today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you.”  The setting of the first reading is that the Israelites are at the end of their 40-year desert wanderings.  They are about to observe the Passover.  And they are just about to take Jericho, the first city they conquer as they finally enter the Promised Land.  But God orders circumcision first because somehow over the course of the 40-year wandering and a likely focus on the most basic aspects of survival, God’s people had lost the practice of being marked by the covenant.  What do we make of this word “reproach”?  I checked other language editions of the Bible and it is clear that the meaning of reproach is that God removed “shame, disgrace, or blame.”  And so, reminding the Israelites that they belong to Him and insisting on their bearing the physical mark of their belonging, God says, “Today I have removed the shame of Egypt from you.”

What I want to emphasize here, and what I think this line illustrates, is the difference between objective sin and the punishment we deserve for it versus the subjective impact, the harm, and the effects of sin on us.  Digging deeper into the moral theology of the Church, there is more to sin than the objective matter of its gravity and the removal of guilt and punishment by God’s mercy.  There is a subjective dimension to sin.  Quite distinct from having been forgiven of sin in baptism or confession, there can be psychological, emotional, and spiritual factors which require the need for deeper and ongoing healing of the effects of sin.  When God speaks of “reproach” I think this can be said to highlight the subjective matter of sin, which we might call its ripple effects, how it impacts us, or the baggage of sin that we carry.  The idea of reproach, the shame of our sin highlights more than just the objective fact of sin.  Rather, it highlights the ideas about ourselves, the messages about ourselves, that we take from the fact of our sins.  Often times these ideas or messages about ourselves that sin sort of “speaks to us” need to be rejected because they are not the voice of God, these negative messages are not what God speaks to us in His love for us.  And this shame, these ideas or messages about ourselves, they often need a deeper healing beyond just absolution in the confessional.

Archbishop Coakley has designated this weekend to be Safe Haven Sunday across the Archdiocese to bring into the light the very difficult topic of pornography.  For clarity, I am using that word this one time in these remarks so that you know what I am talking about.  Going forward I will use other references to the topic in order to protect younger ears.  I hope you will appreciate my attempt to both treat a relevant topic that does touch upon salvation and our need to battle sin, while also seeking to limit exposing younger souls to this topic here at church.  Recognizing the extremely widespread availability and use of explicit material, the Archbishop is leading us in the Archdiocese to face this topic for how it enslaves us, how it impacts even our children, and how the shame of that struggle can keep someone locked in darkness and falling backward in the journey of holiness.  While the focus this weekend is the danger of explicit material and equipping parents to guard children, the truth is that this notion of reproach and shame can well be applied to any sin of our lives.  I am delighted that “Safe Haven Sunday” gives us a coordinated effort to turn attention to the topic of explicit material.  The particular focus for us this Sunday is to equip parents to protect your children in a sexualized culture.  As you leave Mass today we have a booklet resource.  This resource is specific to treating this topic for parents of children and youth, and so if you have children in the home I want you to make sure you pick up a booklet.  There is no shame in taking up that resource as an aid to your parenting.  You will note on the booklet’s front cover and in its first pages an invitation for parents to sign up for a 7-day challenge that will provide a crash course via email of lessons and practices parents should observe to address this topic in the home.

The statistics on the industry that promotes explicit material and the statistics on first exposure ages, on the percent of men and women, and youth who use this material, the frequency of viewing this material, and the amount of money involved in the industry... is frankly staggering, overwhelming and astounding.  While I realize not all will agree on treating this subject in church, I am of the mind that it would be the height of irresponsibility for me as the Pastor, or for you as a parent, to keep our heads in the sand on this topic.  And so, I want to appeal to you parents to be courageous on this topic.  And I want to make a direct appeal to the men of the parish to wise up and confront this topic with a masculine strength that is proper to our vocation as men and fathers.  If we – husbands, fathers, big brothers, uncles, spiritual fathers, Godfathers, grandfathers – have not yet spoken directly to this topic with a young person in our care and if we have not taken steps to protect our homes and environments, why not?  Do something.  And do it right away.

So, what do we do?  It is vitally important that we all accept and embrace our God-given dignity.  Do our actions reflect that dignity?  Are we living a life worthy of our calling?  It is equally imperative that parents recognize the importance of the family.  The home you create and the intentional actions you make are the best support that you can give to your children to live holy and healthy lives.  We cannot underestimate the influence parents have on their children.  It is your responsibility—first and foremost—to be aware, to be alert, and to be informed.  Gone are the days when we might laugh off that a child knows more about the internet than the parents do.  At the very least, you need to know about “parental controls.”  You need to set boundaries, and you need to monitor usage, which includes when and where your children have and use their devices.  One of the simplest and smartest things I have heard a parent do is to have a house rule where at a certain time of evening, and certainly by bedtime, all internet enabled devices, smartphones, et cetera, have to be relinquished and are kept overnight in the parents’ bedroom.  Since the majority of exposure and use happens while kids are bored and in their bedroom, this practice can greatly reduce access to this material.

But this is not just a warning to parents—all of us must be wise and teach our youth the blessings and the beauty of human sexuality.  Otherwise, we leave our secular culture to do the formation and that should scare us to death!  Yet, so many parents, grandparents, godparents, family members and trusted friends never talk about the sacredness of sexuality and may not even know what the Church teaches about chastity.  Creating a safe haven is more than just being watchful and aware for the good of our children it also includes what you teach them and your own behavior including what you do when nobody is looking.

Let me share with you the three basic recommendations for parents to create a safe haven in your home:

   Take control of your children’s devices.  Use parental controls and if a device doesn’t allow parental controls to be downloaded then don’t buy it for them.  Giving kids such devices without controls is like handing them a loaded gun and simply walking away.  Kids can’t handle the access to unlimited information provided by internet devices.  Frankly, adults can’t either.  We aren’t made for such overwhelming input.

   Do not allow devices in the bedroom.  This places kids at a greater risk of exposure to explicit content, it encourages isolation and lack of connection with others, and it creates a difficult environment for accountability.  It is conventional wisdom that if your child wants to have a sleepover at a friend’s house you, parents, want to know a whole lot of information before you agree.  You want to know the address and phone number of the friend.  You want to know the values in that home.  You want to know who the parents are and you may want to meet them first, perhaps at a school event, or over coffee to get to know them first.  Letting your child have an internet device in the bedroom is like sending them to a sleepover at a total stranger’s house.  You can’t do that.

   Talk to you children—Openly and often.  Parents have the most significant influence on their kid’s behaviors—more than their friends, their school or their parish church.  Make every effort at authentic human connection and relationship in the family.

Impure material is one of the great obstacles sabotaging our mission of evangelization and making disciples. God calls us to more. He offers us freedom.  Let us confidently take the next steps in creating safe havens in our homes and in our families.

Remember the Parable of the Prodigal Son—after living a life of dissipation the son was alone, hungry and riddled with guilt.  He decided to go home expecting to be treated like one of his father’s servants but when he got there his father saw him first and he ran to him, embraced him and kissed him because his son was lost but now was found, he was dead and has come to life again!