Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXVIII per Annum C
9 October 2022

    The first reading and the Gospel selection follow a remarkably similar narrative.  A leper, who is a foreigner, is cleansed and has enough awareness to notice, to make a return, and to thank God in adoration and homage.  Two lepers.  Two non-Jews.  Two who are not part of God’s People.  Only these are aware of the gift they are given; only these make a return; only these thank God.  And because their eyes are open to the gift and because their hearts are filled with gratitude, they receive still more from God: not only physical healing but the salvation of their souls that unites them to God’s People and to the worship and sacrifice offered to the true God!

   Over time the biblical imagery of the physical malady of leprosy has become a figure of spiritual malady.  While we are not concerned about the transmission of leprosy in our community, we can apply a broader spiritual lesson to our lives.  In particular, I want to encourage an application of the lesson to our life as Christian stewards.  The spiritual lessons come from what the Gospel tells us happened as the lepers were leaving Jesus.  Listen again, “As they were going they were cleansed.  And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God…; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.”  Some fundamental but critical spiritual lessons come from this description.  These lessons from the one leper should be part of our lives.  The lessons are threefold: realizing, making a return, and glorifying or thanking God.

   The lesson of realizing is being aware of what God does for us, being aware of what is given us, and how we are blessed.  It is a self-awareness and an awareness about God.  It is not a call to self-absorption, but rather it is a lesson to be more reflective, prayerful, and recollected so that we take notice of what is happening in us and around us, especially as it regards our life with God.  Being aware in the spiritual life takes effort and practice.  We are often so busy about the things of the physical realm, the things our senses can perceive, that we leave largely untrained and undeveloped the skill of taking notice of our soul and the movements of the spiritual realm.  The simple comment of the Gospel highlights, however, just what a difference this lesson makes.  All the lepers were cleansed.  Apparently only one was aware.  Only one noticed.  Only one realized.  The other nine kept going their way.  The awareness of the one, led him back to a deeper encounter with God Himself.  See, then, how important a practice awareness is?!

   The second lesson is making a return.  When we are reflective and train ourselves in spiritual awareness we are less likely to miss what is going on in our life with God.  Being more in tune with God’s movements and His blessings in our lives, we then are in a position to respond by making a return to Him.  Without developing this lesson, we risk, like the other nine lepers, going on our merry way unaware of both how we have already been blessed by God and how we might be still more blessed if we made a return and remained in God’s presence, where He is clearly bestowing His blessings.

   The third lesson is glorifying and thanking God.  God deserves and is owed our praise.  Recall the Alleluia verse?  “In all circumstances, give thanks!”  Our individual prayer, our virtuous living as temples of the Holy Spirit, and our worship at Holy Mass and adoration in the chapel are all important ways we glorify God.  Given that the Greek word for “giving thanks,” used in this Gospel passage when the one leper thanked Jesus, given that the word is eucharisteo, we have a clear connection to the Holy Eucharist.  This takes on a deeper meaning for us as Catholics in that being present at Mass to worship and taking time to be before the Lord in our adoration chapel are clear connections to the giving thanks that is the very heart of the Holy Eucharist.

   What we see in this Gospel passage is that these spiritual practices of realizing what God is doing, making a return, and glorifying and thanking Him in Jesus, are not only appropriate ways by which we celebrate what God generously gives us, but these practices open us to even more blessings from God.  Notice all ten lepers received the blessing of healing, but only the one received still more, for he heard that not only his flesh, but his soul, was healed: “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”

   Over the past several weeks we have heard from the section of St. Luke’s Gospel that offers several parables about the proper use of wealth.  With those parables in mind together with the lessons today from the leper I’d like to encourage our practice of stewardship as regards our commitment to the needs of our parish and to the needs we can provide by means of other charitable giving.  I think the lessons of realizing our blessings, making a return, and thanking God have a direct application to how we each are called to provide for our communal life here at the parish.  The way of life of stewardship, by which Christian disciples are grateful for gifts received and seek to give back to God such that He is glorified, is a way of life for each of us.  It is a way of life that the parish itself follows.  It can be hard to keep everyone in the loop in a parish setting.  Thus, I shouldn’t assume that everyone can appreciate how the parish practices stewardship.  In fact, the parish itself tithes by making a commitment of using 10% of our income for charitable use.  I hope you will find it inspiring that from each weekend collection we pull 10% off the top and place it in a separate bank account for gifts we make to local, national, and international charities.  That tithe from our Sunday collection income is not available for use for operations or other expenses.  It is a commitment we make to the Lord to be confident that he has and that he will continue to bless us, and so we freely use our tithe to be available to bless others.  Believe me, when you consider the pinch that giving requires of you, I, too, as Pastor, feel it on behalf of the parish.  There are lean times in the parish budget and it can be tempting to think, if we could just use that tithe to get us by this month or to help us make that loan payment!  But, no, we have a firm commitment on the parish level to maintain that tithe as a practice of stewardship and as an example leading the way in asking of you that you similarly tithe to the parish and to other charities.

   Given today’s Gospel lessons about awareness, making a return, and giving thanks we might ask ourselves: Do I seek to be aware and to count the blessings I have?  Am I grateful to God for what He has done in my life?  Do I thank Him in the prayers and offerings of the Holy Mass?  Do I thank Him by making a commitment to time in adoration in our chapel?  Am I grateful for the people and things, the skills and blessings, God has put into my life?  How do I express that gratitude?  Do I give back to God?  I think awareness, gratitude, and stewardship have a direct connection: When you take time to reflect, and to notice, and to be aware of the gifts you have been given, you quite easily want to give back.  This is the habit I urge you to form.  It will reap benefits in your life.  It will reap benefits in our parish life as we seek to meet the demands of running a parish.  And it will reap benefits in the lives of others we seek to serve.

   I give a finance/stewardship talk about two to three times per year to make us aware of our financial status and to encourage stewardship.  It is important that you have some awareness of our budget and our financial position.  Because the staff and I are rather frugal and careful with our expenses our budget tends to come out positively when viewed over a 12-month period.  However, the reality of cash flow is quite a different story from month-to-month.  When we look at the money we need to pay the bills and to do the things we do week-to-week and month-to-month, we face regular challenges of not having the appropriate cash flow.  The only real place we get income is from you.  So, I ask that each parishioner be involved in helping carry the responsibility we all share together for having a parish and for covering the costs of what we do.  It is clear to me from conversations that many people know they should be making sacrificial gifts and they want to do so, but maybe it never happens, or it happens irregularly.  If that is your situation, my challenge to you is to make a specific plan today.  That plan should be as simple and direct as these three steps: (1) Decide today that I will visit the adoration chapel and make a visit of at least 10 minutes each week.  I will go there to be in the presence of the Lord to give him thanks.  I will go there to ask that he increase my faith and to ask that he guide me as I plan my regular gift to my parish.  Two, (2) I will begin making a regular gift to my parish today, whatever that gift is, whatever the amount.  It belongs to God as a gift I entrust to the Church here in my parish.  I will commit to a weekly amount that I will set aside for my support of the parish and I will make that gift at regular intervals, weekly or monthly.  Three, (3) if I am not currently giving and I don’t know where to start, then I will consider the dollar amount of a sacrifice I can make each week, something I can do without in order to get in the habit of supporting my parish.  Maybe that weekly sacrifice is the amount of one of my favorite coffee drinks that I get many days each week.  Maybe it is the cost of my favorite meal at a restaurant.  Maybe it is the value of one hour of my work week.  Can you sacrifice at least that amount and put it in an envelope or give it electronically each week in gratitude to God and in support of your parish?  I bet it is more possible than you think.  And these steps should be taken with the view of strengthening and increasing this practice of stewardship so that each of us becomes a regular sacrificial giver, a giver who intentionally plans what to give to God, a giver who gives first to God off the top and not only from what is left over, and a giver who is a percentage giver.

   We count on your regular gifts and we make ministry and administrative decisions based on whether we have enough income to do the things we would like to do in order to serve you.  If you are not signed up for Faith Direct electronic giving, there is information in the pews and I ask you to consider that method of giving.  It is a very easy and safe way to make your gifts.  It is managed from your computer or smartphone and can be as easy as giving via a text message to set up an account.  If you cannot manage electronic giving and if you don’t have, or are not getting envelopes, please get help from the office staff to participate as a regular contributor to your parish’s needs.  The staff can help you get set up for the method you prefer for making your gifts.  I can’t tell you – and I wouldn’t presume to tell you – how much you should give.  I can tell you one thing that our practice of stewardship should be and one thing that it should not be – and this holds true for each one of us here.  Our gift should be sacrificial.  And our gift should not be zero.  I can assure you that I and the staff and our Finance Council respect your gifts, we remain frugal, and we will always use our parish resources responsibly.

   Last week we heard the Apostles ask “Increase our faith.”  We can make that our prayer to the Lord too as we seek to take new steps in stewardship and the practice of regular giving to our parish.  In today’s passage faith is what saves the leper.  Awareness/realizing – making a return – thanking God – and increased faith and trust all go hand in hand.  If you will work to be reflective and aware in your spiritual life, you’ll find more blessings.  You’ll be more grateful.  It will be much easier to give back to God.  And you’ll feel more free as a disciple to be sacrificial in your giving to the parish and to the other charities you support.

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXVII per Annum C
2 October 2022

 For many weeks now we have been hearing the Lord’s teaching while on an extended journey to Jerusalem.  This section of St. Luke’s Gospel contains many challenging parables.  The Apostles, and we, have heard parables about the cost of discipleship over these weeks.  We have heard parables about repentance, being lost, and the extravagant mercy of God who searches us out.  We have heard parables about the proper use of wealth and riches, and the call to put our resources at the service of others as good stewards.  Today we are reminded that we are servants who have duties to fulfill and that we ought not fulfill those duties as if expecting some particular praise or reward for doing what we simply should do.  We have done only what we were obliged to do, to use words from the Gospel.  We each face many challenges in life and in living the faith.  We are not promised that we will navigate this life without difficulty.  We are not promised that the final resolution to suffering and challenge will be here in this life.  With this in mind, I bet the prayer of the Apostles could easily be the prayer each of us makes to Jesus: “Increase our faith.”

 Now the Apostles by this point certainly already had faith.  They had encountered Jesus and they had been changed.  They had come to believe in him.  Yet, they must walk with him and journey through life encountering all the things, all the ups and downs, that life brings to any one of us.  That the Apostles ask that their faith be increased is a reminder to us that faith is not static.  It is something that must grow.  We might even consider that hearing the series of challenging parables from the Lord, parables presented to us these past many weeks, we might suggest that the Apostles are also asking that their trust be increased.  The personal trust of the believer is, after all, another meaning of the word “faith”.  In other words, they are not seeking only the faith that believes in things but the faith that leads them to deeper trust to maintain their relationship with the Lord through all that life brings.

  In their prayer for increased faith, increased trust, Jesus uses the simple example of the mulberry tree.  He says, even if you have only a little faith, “you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”  The example highlights two unlikely, and even impossible things.  First, a mulberry tree is known to have such a broad, expansive, and deep root system that it is unlikely you are going to uproot it.  Second, a tree is not going to be planted in the sea and survive.  The idea with this image then is that faith has the ability to do things beyond our capabilities.  Faith can do the seemingly impossible.  And it does so, not because of us but, because of God’s power.  It is God who accomplishes things when we let Him act, when we have faith that calls out to Him for things we cannot achieve.

  Each of us faces moments and events of life that test us and that leave us feeling powerless.  The first reading from the Prophet Habakkuk demonstrates this and uses words that might resonate with us in our challenges.  “How long, O Lord?  I cry for help but you do not listen!... Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?”  Again, in this fallen world we are not promised an easy passage.  Suffering comes and it may last for a long time and it may come frequently.  We want answers and solutions and happy resolutions here.  But the word of the Lord through the Prophet Habakkuk calls us to have faith in the vision of the Lord’s promises to come.  That vision, the Lord says, “presses on to fulfillment…. If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come…. The rash one has no integrity; but the just one, because of his faith, shall live.”  There will be challenge and suffering, yes, but the one who has faith shall endure and shall live.

  And so, we come to the words of Psalm 95, the responsorial psalm of this Holy Mass, a psalm that the Church prays daily at the first prayer time of each day in the Liturgy of the Hours, called the Invitatory.  That psalm begins by referring to the Lord God as the Rock of our salvation.  That image is not just a generic image for strength and solid foundation.  Rather, it is a direct reference to the experience of God’s People in the exodus and desert wanderings.  The rock is the rock that Moses struck to provide the people water in the desert at Meribah and Massah.  There, as the people were being led and provided for in the desert, they were given water to drink yet at the same time they doubted.  They failed to completely trust.  In the very moment of being provided water the people were saying, “Is the Lord in our midst or not?”  And so, the section of the psalm we use today references that very event saying, “Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert, where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works.”

 The Church recognizes the challenges that each life brings and recognizes that even in the midst of blessings and God’s workings among us we are tempted to doubt and to lack faith.  The Church recognizes that we need greater trust because we lose perspective and focus in “our deserts”.  Just like the People of Israel did, we, too, have our places of contention and grumbling and testing, we have “our Meribahs” and “our Massahs”.  And so, at the beginning of each day, not knowing what may come our way, the Church places on our lips this very experience from the desert wanderings.  We use these same words today, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”  Like the Apostles we call out to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”  We beg that our vision and perspective may be purified in all things – all the moments and events that life brings us – that we may let God work to do the things we cannot see or achieve on our own.

Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXVI per Annum C
25 September 2022

   Last week’s Gospel concluded with these words: “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”  Mammon refers to wealth, specifically a wealth that one treats as an idol, whether consciously or not.  The message is that we cannot serve both God and wealth; we cannot serve two masters.  As I mentioned last week, this section of St. Luke’s Gospel we are in is the Lord’s extended teaching about the proper use of wealth. 

   This parable is unique in that one of the figures is named, as opposed to the typical trend in parables of unnamed characters.  Usually we have only a rich man, a steward, a man who loses a sheep, a woman who loses a coin.  But here the poor and diseased man is named Lazarus.  The rich man is not named.  However, you might come across this parable referred to as the Parable of Lazarus and Dives.  In our Catholic tradition, the rich man was eventually given the name Dives, not because it is a name but because “Dives” is Latin for rich man.  There has been speculation that perhaps this Lazarus is the same Lazarus from John chapter 11, who died and who was brought back from the dead as a warning and as a sign to persuade others to believe.  We do not know.  There is also speculation about this particular rich man.  Not only is he rich, like the rich man in last week’s parable, but this rich man seems to be spectacularly rich.  He is rich and he is also dressed in linen and fine purple, purple being a color associated with royalty.  Just to make a quick modern connection with that color: Did you notice on Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin and on the high altar at Windsor Castle that the crown, the orb, and the scepter were placed on pillows of purple fabric?  The rich man also “dined sumptuously each day”.  It is one thing to be rich enough to eat well, but it is an entirely unique level of wealth to eat so well on a daily basis.  The connection of purple to royalty and the spectacular wealth of this particular rich man has led some to speculate that this may be a veiled reference to King Herod Antipas.  But again, we do not know.

   Today’s parable gives us an illustration of what it can look like when we attempt to serve both God and mammon.  Now very few of us may have a wealth equivalent to that described of this rich man, but each of us is quite wealthy compared to large swaths of humanity around the world.  Whatever the bottom line of our own finances is, each of us can take a lesson from this parable about our relationship to wealth, the danger of complacency, and the call to be good stewards who use our treasure for others.

As children of God we are given gifts that we do not earn or deserve.  We are given life and the offer of salvation.  We are entrusted with gifts that are not ours to horde but to use in service of others.  We are not made for ourselves.  We are not enriched by gifts for ourselves.  We are called together as a community, the Church, the family of God.  We are our brother’s keeper.  Furthermore, to respond to Christ’s calling in such a way that deserves heavenly reward, we cannot be indifferent to the needs of others around us.  In his complacency with all the goods of this world, the rich man in the parable failed to notice and to respond to the needs of Lazarus who was right at his door, right in his view.  After death, the rich man finds himself in a place of torment with a “great chasm” separating him from the place of blessing with God imaged as the “bosom of Abraham.”  In this a stark lesson comes to light for us who still have time to change our own ways: We learn that whatever the distance between ourselves and God in the life to come just may be a reflection of the distance we put between ourselves and the poor in this life.

   The rich man goes to a place of torment after death.  But I think a powerful lesson for us and our calling to be stewards of our goods is to take note of what the rich man does not do.  The parable doesn’t tell us that the rich man is an idolator.  He doesn’t break the Sabbath.  There is no evidence that he stole from anyone.  We are not told that he is a liar, an adulterer, or a murderer.  The parable simply describes that he lived a life of luxury and gluttony and that led him to be complacent in this life and it led him to fail to love his neighbor, imaged in the poor man Lazarus who was right at his door.  In other words, this is a powerful lesson because the rich man is condemned to torment for a sin of omission.  He didn’t commit the gravest of sins against the Ten Commandments.  But he failed in charity.  He failed to love his neighbor as himself.  Luxury and ease can cause blindness and complacency.  We learn in this parable how significant and weighty a thing it is to be called to use our resources and our wealth as a means to extend God’s generosity to others, as a means to serve and to care for the needy, whom we should not fail to notice.

We see this same lesson in the first reading too.  The rich and powerful are visited with punishment and exile in today’s readings - not simply because of their wealth but for their refusal to share it; not for their power but for their indifference to the suffering at their doors.  Those who are complacent and filled with much, such that they are prevented from realizing their own poverty and the need of others, will have nothing in the life to come.  Complacency is the deadly enemy of a lively faith that must, according to St. Paul, “compete well” and strive to “lay hold of eternal life.”

   With today’s readings ringing in our ears, in our minds, and in our hearts, some probing questions ought to come to mind.  What comforts and complacencies do we need to be shaken out of?  Will we let God’s Word in Scripture unsettle us and cause us to evaluate whether we are truly striving for holiness?  Do we compete more for things of this life rather than competing to keep ourselves on the good side of the chasm between damnation and salvation?  Do we sit by idly and allow our kids to be complacent about faith and discipleship, while keeping them fat on things that will not last?  You see, unlike the rich man’s many brothers, we have not only Moses and the prophets to listen to but God Himself in the flesh – Jesus the Christ!  Will we listen?  Or will we find the distance we keep between ourselves and the needy and poor to be the distance between us and the kingdom of light, refreshment, and life in the world to come?

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXV per Annum C
18 September 2022

 Last weekend we heard the “lost and found” parables by which the Lord highlights his outreach to sinners.  If we are honest we, like we heard from St. Paul last week, need to recognize ourselves as “foremost” among that group of sinners to whom the Lord is sent on mission to save.  The remainder of this section of the Gospel is the Lord’s instruction on the proper use of wealth.  It is a good preface for us to think and pray about as in a few more weeks I will want to address our common call and need to be stewards and to share responsibility for the needs of our parish.
But in the meantime, you better get ready for the car ride home, especially if your kids were listening closely to today’s parable.  The parable our Lord uses today is a real head scratcher and is regarded rather widely as one of the most difficult to understand.  It’s the parable of the dishonest steward who squanders his master’s property, is threatened with losing his position as steward, who then clearly cheats his master by lessening the amount the debtors owe the master and then… the Lord concludes the parable with “And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.”

Is anyone else wondering what is going on here?  If we are supposed to take this parable at face value… commending the dishonesty and thievery… it sure seems like a huge link in the project of Christianity and morality and virtue has just given way.  If THAT’S the case I’m not sure what you are doing here.  And if dishonesty is being commended I’m really not sure what I am doing here as a life’s commitment and calling.  In fact, I think I’ll leave now and head to brunch at the Devon Tower… last one out turn out the lights!

Is the Lord’s parable congratulating the steward’s dishonesty?  Is the dishonesty put forward as a model for us?  What are we supposed to make of this?  The key here is to not get locked in on the steward’s dishonesty, which is clearly wrong.  What the parable is commending is not dishonesty and thievery but the steward’s response and reaction to a threat, and to his acting prudently to gain security for himself.  In other words, it is the prudence that the Lord is highlighting in this parable, albeit through the means of a confusing figure who is dishonest.  I think this is how we can know the focus is prudence.  Consider how the parable continues next: “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”

The dishonest steward saw a threat, saw a loss coming his way, and he didn’t hesitate to take decisive action to change the course of things and to try to improve his lot.  He did this when faced with losses in this world, with loss of material gain, job, and earthly security.  His prudence to take decisive action is supposed to serve as the model for us… a model which is not a call to dishonesty, but to likewise take decisive action to secure our life – not in this world but – in the world to come.  “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”  How do we know that we aren’t supposed to leave here today thinking the whole Christian project of morality and virtue is falling apart?  How do we know that we aren’t supposed to leave here today thinking we are being told to be dishonest?  Because if you have faith in the Lord as your master, and all the more if you are baptized, you are NOT a child of this world but a child of the light!

 The point of the Lord’s lesson is for us to see what threatens our eternal dwelling in the kingdom of light and to take prudent action to change course!  Where have we squandered the Lord’s grace?  Where have we been unfaithful as stewards of all that we have been given?  Where is there sin in our life?  What is an obstacle to our life with the Master?  And when we take account of our stewardship and admit those things, then the encouragement of the parable is to take decisive action to change course!  We might ask ourselves: Why can we be slow to address sin in our lives?  Why can we ignore for so long things that are not consistent with belonging to the Lord?  Why do we not respond quickly and prudently to take some step, however small, to seek our security in the face of coming judgment?  This is the lesson in this confusing parable.

Think of it this way.  If I let you borrow my car, you are probably going to be inclined to be much more careful with it and attentive to guard it than you would be with your own car.  By faith and by baptism we are children of the light!  We have been given life and the life of grace with its hope of eternal life.  What we have is not properly ours but is ours to exercise stewardship over.  And this gets us to the root of the final twist in the parable: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”  The steward who was dishonest but who acted prudently changed the balance sheets of his master’s debtors.  In this he was taking what was not his.  It was dishonest wealth; dishonest gain.  He was taking his master’s wealth to benefit others so that those others would help him when he was in need.  When you consider that the Greek word for master in this parable is “kyrios” from which we get Kyrie – meaning “Lord” you get a glimpse into the final twist of this parable.  This twist should serve as a foundation for our thoughts and prayers about how we are doing as stewards of the Lord.  We are called to recognize that all that we have is really not ours but belongs to the Lord.  What we have is really the Lord’s.  It’s like our dishonest gain.  We don’t deserve it.  The Lord freely gives it.  We take from what he has blessed us with and we use it as stewards to pay the debts, to provide for the needs of others.  In doing so, we have a proper relationship to our gifts, to our wealth; we honor the Lord who makes us his stewards; and, we act prudently as children of the light so that we have made friends with those who will assist us in our need, rally for us, and pray for us that we arrive not at dwellings of this world, but in the eternal dwelling our generous Master and Lord has prepared for us in heaven!

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXIII per Annum C
4 September 2022

 The Lord gives a clear and stark lesson in today’s gospel: Calculate the cost of the project of following him.  The lesson is stark because Jesus tells us to hate even valued family relationships and our own life.  To come to him without such hate means we cannot be his disciple.  If we had one of those street-side church message signs it might be cheeky to play off of this Gospel passage by displaying the message: “Jesus says: Hate others.”  Yeah, it’s probably a good idea that we don’t have one of those message signs, right?  I’d do nothing but get myself in trouble.

 I have been calculating costs, and looking at our parish budget needs as I prepare some remarks on stewardship in a few weeks from now.  I will admit it is hard to maintain a spiritual focus and an awareness of Christ’s presence when crunching budget numbers.  It seems like such a drudgery and far from faith and the things of the Gospel.  Should we then assume that calculating and counting costs is foreign to the faith?  Not according to this Gospel.

  Who experiences a cost to being the Lord’s disciple?  Don’t we usually sort of act as if it is only the martyrs, or the apostles, or great saints – in other words, a select few – who pay a cost, while the vast majority of us live a less costly form of being Christian?  But the gospel doesn’t let us get away with that idea.  Notice Jesus’ words today are not a private lesson for a select few of his disciples.  Rather, the gospel is clear that Jesus addresses this lesson about cost to everyone for he is speaking not to a select few but to “great crowds.”  That’s what makes Jesus’ words so stark and all the more sobering.  You know what that means?  You and I are to experience a cost to following Jesus and choosing him above other relationships, above possessions, and even above our earthly life.  If we refuse to experience that cost then we are not in fact being disciples of Jesus.  And if we are acting like disciples in name only while refusing the cost, then we are as foolish as a tower builder who starts a project but doesn’t have enough money to complete it.  We would be as irresponsible as a king marching in to battle with fewer troops than necessary to win the battle.

 Now at this point I have let that word “hate” hang in the air long enough without comment or explanation.  It is meant to be shocking.  The word in Greek that St. Luke places on Jesus’ lips does literally mean “to hate”.  But the context is important to understand shades of meaning.  Looking at the context we can say that Jesus is using hyperbole in telling us to hate other relationships in order to be his disciple.  In fact, the way to understand this hyperbole is that the Lord is saying we cannot prefer father, mother, wife and children, brothers, and sisters, and even our own life ahead of, or before, him.  To be his disciple means that he is preferred above all else and that our relationship with him is the primary one that defines our life.  You can look at other parallel passages in the other Gospels to help you understand the meaning.  So, in this case, if we look at the parallel passage in St. Matthew’s Gospel (cf. Mt. 10:37) where the Lord gives this same lesson we find this wording: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”  By comparing these two passages we can see how it is a very similar teaching but it is less hyperbolic in St. Matthew’s version.  So, don’t walk away this weekend thinking you are being instructed to literally hate others, much less those closest to you.  But you also don’t get to walk away preferring those relationships to the Lord, not if you want to call yourself a disciple.

Do we admit a cost to following Jesus?  Or do we operate as if there is no cost to discipleship?  The Gospel today can inspire a type of examination of conscience.  What does belonging to Christ totally, belonging to him completely, belonging to him first before all else, mean?  What does it cost you in your family and with friends?  Does it mean you live life in public and at home more intentionally as a Christian?  Does it mean you live differently than those who say, “Lord, Lord,” on their lips, but who don’t follow the Lord in their actions?  Among family and friends how is it visible that the Lord is your primary relationship?  Does it mean you are intentional about prayer time at home for yourself and also together as a family?  Can you calculate the hours spent on TV, entertainment, video games, and social media and draw some conclusions about how that might reveal some things are being placed ahead of the Lord?

 Continuing this examination of conscience, what does being true to Jesus first cost you in a dating relationship or in marriage?  Does it mean you will foster a sacrificial love that seeks and places the good of the other ahead of your own pleasures and self-interests?  Does it mean avoiding the popular secular mindset that leads to cohabiting, living together before marriage?  Does it mean forming a habit of praying out loud together as a couple?  Does it mean guarding and observing chastity before marriage and, once married, observing chastity by being open to the gift of life?

 In this examination of conscience we might ask, what does being a disciple cost you at school or at work?  Does it mean letting yourself be known as a follower of the Lord in the halls of your school or work?  Does it mean you shun crass jokes and the use of the Lord’s Name in vain, a shockingly common and grave sin these days?  Does it mean trying to redirect conversations away from gossip?  Does it mean finding ways to bring up faith and the Church among friends and acquaintances?  Does it mean taking notice of someone at school or work who needs you to bring the compassion and heart of Christ to their burdens?

The Scriptures indicate that following Jesus does and must cost us something if it is authentic.  A discipleship, a Christianity, that costs little or nothing is, when it comes down to it, a fantasy.  To be a disciple is to carry one’s own cross and come after Jesus.  We don’t get to claim to be disciples if we won’t carry a cross.  In the light of today’s Gospel we can ask ourselves: What crosses do I need to carry?  In what areas of life do I need to accept hardship for the Gospel?  How ought I to live differently than the rest of the world lives?  Calculate the cost!  Have we calculated ANY cost?  If following Jesus doesn’t cost me anything, who am I really following?  Does following Christ cost any time?  If so, do I give that time?  Does it cost any talent?  If so, do I use my skills and abilities willingly to serve?  Does it cost me anything financially?  If so, do I sacrifice for the good of this community, for my parish, for my neighbor?  What does get my time, my talent, and my finances?  Does it cost me relationships?  If my friends and acquaintances seem to enjoy living in sin, acting entertained and amused by sin, or living apart from Christ, do I go along because I don’t want to take a stand and carry the cross?  If we go along with false attempts at being disciples, what sort of tower would we be left with?  If we attempt to take the cross out of following Christ what sort of troop losses would be scattered across the battlefield of life?  When we try to convince ourselves of a cheap, cost-free discipleship the first reading reminds us that God’s wisdom, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is above our ways and that “the deliberations of mortals are timid.”  We must be renewed in the message of today’s psalm that we adopt a heavenly wisdom to learn how to count our days: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.”

Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXI per Annum C
21 August 2022

For the past few weeks, and for one more still, we are hearing in the second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews.  Two weekends ago Hebrews chapter 11 provided us with a litany of heroes of the faith, passing through Old Testament figures like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses.  That litany concludes however, not with an Old Testament figure but with the hero who is Jesus Christ, the “leader and perfecter of faith” (Heb. 12:2), the faithful son of the Father and the only perfect model to imitate.  And more than only a model to imitate, the Lord Jesus is God, the source of our faith, and the Savior whose self-gift on the Cross and whose resurrection gives us hope of a glorious reward.

Hebrews chapter 12, from which we hear these few weeks provides three images for our understanding of what the Christian life is like.  Last week’s image is that surrounded then by so great a cloud of witnesses – the Old Testament heroes of faith – we should have the perspective that Christian life is an endurance race.  And so, we strive and persevere in running the race, cheered on by the heroes who have gone before us, their support and encouragement being like fans in a stadium surrounding us and urging us on to the finish line.  This image and lesson of the endurance race gives us focus and hope.  Motivated by a generalized protestant influence and, in some cases, even an anti-catholic bigotry, some will challenge and question and even reject our catholic appreciation of the communion of saints and the power and appropriateness of intercessory prayer – that we ask the saints to pray for us and we ourselves pray for one another.  In the race of faith we have hope because we are not alone.  How could one reject the communion of saints and the support of intercessory prayer when the Bible gives us such an image from Hebrews of being surrounded by a great multitude?  We Christians run a race of faith in a stadium surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses – Old and New Covenant saints alike – and we’re supposed to believe that appeal to the saints and intercession diminishes the role of Jesus?  Not at all.  The finish line is Jesus himself and his kingdom.  He is the one mediator who can bring salvation, yes.  But, he accepts the involvement of others in this race.  Our life with him is that of runners surrounded in a stadium, or that of a family, not just a “me and Jesus relationship”.  The focus this image of the endurance race provides us is critical too.  Often in life’s struggles and in our weakness and exhaustion we grow frustrated.  The struggles and weaknesses are our own, they are the failures of people around us, they are the sins of our secular world, and the scandals and sins even within the flock from others in the Church.  Our reaction to such disappointments and our exasperation reveals we are approaching Christian life as merely a sprint.  Can’t the race be over, Lord?  No, there are still some laps to go.  And so strive and focus on your running.  Remove the things that cling to you and weigh you down and slow down your pace.  Most especially strive in the endurance race by being healed of sin.

The second image from Hebrews chapter 12 gives us the perspective that Christian life is a process of growth toward maturity, a growth and process of maturity that is guided through the discipline, administered lovingly, from our heavenly Father.  Our sufferings and difficulties are valuable for training in holiness and so we should accept them for the good God can accomplish in us through them.  Hebrews gives us this lesson centuries before the modern age and its tendency to award everyone a blue ribbon for participation, centuries before the chronic allergy to discipline.  Perhaps our experience of discipline growing up can complicate our acceptance of this lesson.  Hebrews is not condoning discipline poorly administered.  But it is possible and valuable to have discipline administered not out of exasperation and annoyance but out of love.  Such discipline well-administered is an act of love.  It helps the one disciplined not give in to lesser things.  It helps us become the best we can be and avoids settling for urges and lower motivations.  The common phrase used in reference to physical activity that we accept so readily is true here in the spiritual marathon of discipleship too: “No pain, no gain.”

The third image from Hebrews chapter 12 about Christian life is that it is a joyous liturgical assembly raised aloft on God’s holy mountain where we are in the midst of angels and saints in worship of God.  Given this joyful gathering after passing through life’s hardships, we are encouraged to strive and not to forfeit our heavenly reward.  While we have much to endure in a long race and much suffering to accept as a sign of God’s love for us, we are not engaging and striving for something that is impossible or too far off for us.  God Himself has brought the finish line, the reward, close to us.  We are not going after something too far.  It has been brought near.  That is one incredible consequence of the Incarnation.  God has come near to us!  He has taken on our flesh.  And thus, Jesus is near and remains so.  He beckons us to him.  The witnesses surrounding us cheer us on.  Don’t we recognize that?  We barely stretch upward to reach our goal before we discover that here is the liturgical participation in the far greater and generous movement God makes toward us.  We must strive, yes, and use our freedom to cooperate with God’s discipline and grace, but the gulf between us and God has already been bridged in His generous movement to us in Christ Jesus.  It is he – the Lord Jesus – who is our focus, our finish line, our reward.  The stadium in this endurance race is filled with the cheers and prayers of saints who have endured, who know how to endure, and who know that with God’s grace  and the support of their prayers we too can endure!

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XX per Annum C
14 August 2022

The Gospel presents an image of Jesus that can seem out of place or unlikely.  Certainly, many people in our day, including many Christians, find today’s Gospel image of Jesus incomprehensible.  It is the image of Jesus who announces that he has come not for peace but for division.  In modern culture there is great emphasis on the values of “unity” and “tolerance”, though those ideas often lack substance in the modern mind and are used simply to mean that differences and divisions should be overlooked in order to keep everyone together for the sake of keeping together.  The idea that the Lord comes to stir things up is often outright dismissed as an impossibility.  But then we have to face today’s Gospel passage.

In the Gospel the Lord refers to his mission.  He notes that he has come to set the earth on fire and he notes that there is a baptism that he is in great anguish to accomplish.  The reference to baptism calls to mind the image of water.  And so, we have the symbols in today’s Gospel of both water and fire.  In the ancient world, and especially familiar to us in the Scriptures, water and fire are symbols of destruction.  We can think of the early events of creation in the Book of Genesis, of the disorder that sin brought into the world and how God’s response in the days of Noah was to send a great flood to destroy things and begin anew.  Being plunged into, or immersed into, water is a symbol of being overwhelmed and drowned.  Judgment.  Destruction.  And fire is also a clear symbol and is especially evocative of judgment and the end of things when Scripture makes reference to the world being consumed and dissolved by fire.

So, there is one obvious purpose when the Lord uses symbols of water and fire.  He means to communicate that he has come to claim God’s sovereignty over His creation.  That sovereignty and its demands for fidelity, especially from creatures like us with freedom, means we have a choice to make.  And by it we will be judged.  We must acknowledge God’s rights and primacy over us and all creation.  We cannot prefer other things or other relationships to the one He has made with us.  The primacy of relationship with God is brought to the fore by that image of division within family.  We cannot live rightly with God or truly follow Him while also preferring other relationships ahead of him.  Rather, the claim of sovereignty by the Lord means a father will be divided against his son, a mother against her daughter and so forth.  We who call ourselves disciples have to weigh carefully the demands and the gift of being in relationship with God while also noting and taking care so that other relationships are nurtured, but do not become the excuse for disobedience to God.  With the very common tendency to want to “fit in” in modern life we need to take this Gospel to heart because it can be very easy to be swept along with the mentalities of those who adopt a false Gospel that makes no demands on us.

The desire to fit in and to not be challenged, or to not be challenging, was a reality seen in the time of the Prophet Jeremiah too.  Jeremiah received the tough mission to speak God’s word and to proclaim the infidelity of God’s people.  He preached that God’s judgment would be seen in the destruction of the Temple.  And for delivering those words, Jeremiah’s contemporaries complain that he is making them feel demoralized because they want to hear nice sounding words.  And so, they set out to kill him to silence what they do not want to hear.  There is really not much different today when the Church, or when you and I, try to stand for some truth of the faith or some truth of the moral order.  One lesson of today’s passage is that we cannot dismiss God’s sovereignty or His judgment in our lives, in the lives of others, and His judgment of the world.  That reality means we must face our own need for conversion and to shake ourselves out of the slumber of preferring other relationships to the one God generously establishes with us.

In no way dismissing the lesson of God’s primacy and judgment, I want to suggest also another lesson from the images of water and fire.  This lesson is not the strange and cryptic sounding message of judgment and of destruction.  I think another application can be made to our mission and responsibility as disciples.  The Scriptures show that the Lord’s suffering and death for us are called his baptism.  Rather than water, he is immersed and plunged into the guilt of our sin.  He does this on our behalf and out of divine love for us.  Having endured his baptism, his Cross, the Lord, like Jeremiah, is drawn out from the mud, the mire of our sins and our tendency to want to soften the demands of discipleship.  Having suffered and died for us, he is drawn out from the place of death in his resurrection.  And from his resurrected body in heaven the Lord sends forth the Holy Spirit who comes in tongues of fire at Pentecost.  What if these odd sounding words from Jesus in today’s Gospel can also be heard as a reference to that sending of the Holy Spirit?  In other words, Jesus endures his baptism and comes to set the earth on fire.  For us looking back in history on those words we can say that he has already done so by sending the Holy Spirit.  And you and I are recipients of that purifying and enveloping fire.  What if we hear those cryptic sounding words – “I have come to set the earth of fire” – as an indication of our mission?  Through his Church we each have received baptism and later confirmation.  We are called to understand the primacy of our relationship with God and the share we have in enveloping the world with the truth of the Gospel.  How will the world be set aflame if not through us and our zeal, dedication, and excitement to live the faith and to share with others what that means?  Jesus’ use of fire imagery is not all that unfamiliar to us.  While I certainly mean to avoid inappropriate and negative meanings, there are popular idioms today by which we speak of “lighting something up” or “being lit”.  When someone is worked up in a good way or excited, we say they are “on fire.”  And we have the convenient fire emoji to go along with sharing that description in text messages.

Yes, the work of being part of the Lord’s setting the earth on fire is part of our mission.  If we ourselves are on fire we can’t help but light up others.  That work will be challenging, certainly.  Our age, as every age, does not want to hear moral or religious demands.  Our age does not want to hear words that shake things up and expose the lack of substance in just “getting along”.  We may face opposition like Jeremiah.  But judgment will come to us if we do not pass on the fire.  And when we find ourselves overwhelmed, plunged in the mire of opposition, or just plunged in the mire of our weakness and sin, we cry out with the psalmist: Lord, come to my aid!  And we have confidence in the Lord’s response evoking images of Jeremiah: “The Lord heard my cry.  He drew me out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud… [and] he made firm my steps.”

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.