Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXXIII per Annum C
13 November 2022

 In the month of November, the Catholic mind quite naturally considers the end of things.  The Church’s liturgical year is coming to an end.  The Scripture readings in this time of year speak to us of the end of things.  As we have decreasing daylight in this season, we give special attention to prayer for the souls of those who have gone before us, whose eyes have closed to the light of this world.  All this easily brings to mind the end of things, the end of the world at the Second Coming, the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell), and the destination of our own soul after death.

In the Gospel, after numerous chapters chronicling his journey, Jesus has now arrived at his destination of Jerusalem.  He is in the Holy City and has been welcomed as the king with palm branches and cries of “hosanna!” (cf. Mt. 21).  The setting of this Gospel passage is the lead up to that first Holy Week.  The Lord teaches in the Temple.  He then goes across the valley with his disciples.  From there they can look back at the holy city and its gleaming temple.  Jesus speaks of the destruction of the temple.  That is the clear and primary meaning of the Lord’s words in this passage.  The temple had been previously destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC.  The prophetic prediction is that it would happen again.  Jesus speaks words that back up that prediction as we heard in today’s passage.  And, in fact, that destruction did take place within some forty years after Jesus’ death.  The Lord tells his disciples that many disturbing signs will precede and accompany this destruction.  His disciples are to be alert but they are not to be afraid, even though they will not know exactly when the destruction will come.  A lesson from the words of this Gospel and the teaching of the Lord, is that we don’t follow those who claim to know the day or the hour of these events.  We certainly take note of signs of strife between nations and peoples, and the signs in the cosmos of natural disasters.  These communicate to us that we should be ready and prepared for what comes.  But we are not to get wrapped up in anxiety and frantic predictions.  Rather, we live each day alert.

The Church has always understood a rich significance of the Lord’s prediction of the destruction of the temple.  To understand this deeper significance, we must know something of the significance of the temple in the Jewish mind.  Among other things one can say, it is important to note that the Jerusalem temple was viewed as a microcosm of heaven and earth, of the whole universe.  The layout, the architecture, and the decoration of the temple symbolized heaven and earth.  The different parts of the temple called to mind the parts of the universe, the land, the sea, the skies with their constellations, and the holy of holies was the symbol of heaven itself, the dwelling place of the Most High God.  Theologian Brant Pitre notes that “for the Jews…, the universe was like a macro temple…. But the earthly Jerusalem temple was like a micro universe; it was a microcosm” (Mass Readings Explained, 33rd Sunday C).  So, another meaning of the Lord’s words in this Gospel is that when he speaks of the destruction of the temple there is the deeper significance that he is speaking of the destruction of the whole universe, and he is making a reference to the day of final judgment.

The Church wants us to take note of these important meanings so that we remain alert for the end of things and so that we live in a way that finds us prepared for our judgment.  We need to think of the end of things and we need to think of our own end.  We should do this not only when it is abundantly obvious that the end is near, as it might be when one is advanced in age or facing a terminal illness or sudden disaster.  It needs to be a regular habit we form.  A long tradition in our Catholic spirituality, one encouraged by many saints, is captured in the phrase: Memento mori, which is Latin for “Remember death.”  There will be signs of the end of the world.  We may have signs of our own impending end.  But we won’t know with precision the day or the hour.  Rather, we must live each day in an orderly way as St. Paul referenced in the second reading, we live daily with that vibrant faith and focus so that we are ready whenever the end comes.  We live each day seeking to encounter God in prayer and good moral living.  We live each day availing ourselves of the grace of sacraments that the Lord has so generously left for us.  If we aren’t building a prayer life, if we aren’t using confession regularly, if we’re cutting out of Mass early as a habit do we think we are forming good discipline in order to be ready to meet the Lord?  We have to pay attention to these common, frequent, even daily things for they reveal something about our discipline, our vigilance and preparedness.  Again, as St. Paul said, we did not act in a disorderly way.  These simple things show us something about being ordered, vigilant, and prepared.  We need to think about these and so many other things soberly and honestly.  We don’t want to be like the proud and evildoers spoken of by the Prophet Malachi for whom the day of the Lord’s judgment will come “blazing like an oven,” leaving them set on fire and utterly destroyed, “leaving them neither root nor branch.”  The same day of the Lord will come for us too.  But by lives of disciplined preparedness may we find that day to be a day filled with mercy such that we are among those who fear the Lord and who find that day like “the sun of justice with its healing rays.”

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXXII per Annum C
6 November 2022

 The books of the Maccabees tell the story of the Jewish Maccabeean revolt, in which the Jews were contending with the rule of a Greek king, Antiochus Epiphanes IV.  He was seeking to force his non-Greek subjects to adopt Greek, pagan ways.  This ran afoul of maintaining a pure and authentic Jewish faith.  Today’s passage tells the story of those faithful Jews who refused the king’s governmental order to eat pork in violation of their religious law from God.  The story of these Jewish martyrs is inspiring because they endured torture and death rather than violate aspects of their faith and its practice.  These Jewish martyrs knew themselves to be God’s People first, something of greater importance than their earthly citizenship.  This reading stands out today because the tension between a secular ruler and the demands of secular government as opposed to the authentic living of one’s faith strikes me as an important lesson as we seek to do our duty in Tuesday’s elections as both citizens of God’s kingdom and citizens of the kingdom of man but, it must be said, citizens of God’s kingdom first.

            The Maccabees show us the proper outlook or vision that a person of faith ought to have when navigating the often-meandering paths of this secular world.  Are we made for this present world only?  Do we think that is the case?  Do we act as if that is the case?  Or do we have a vision that acknowledges that we are pilgrims here and that our journey will take us to the passage through death to the next realm, a passage whose destination will be determined by the fact that we will be judged by God?  If you believe that your destiny is heaven, you will act in a way that reveals you have priorities that are different from the priorities of those who consider this world only.  God’s law, God’s kingdom, is higher and takes priority over man’s law.  To acknowledge this is, for the person of faith, critical for having our priorities rightly ordered.  Believers don’t seek conflict with man’s law.  But when man’s law would require of a believer that he transgress God’s law on some grave matter, then the believer must resist and object to the evil that man’s law seeks to require.

            I suspect that many in our political class, especially among our national figures, even those who publicly claim to be people of faith, have a vision limited to this realm.  Many have no real eternal vision.  They have no real reverential awe, or fear, of God.  I suspect that is a key matter at the heart of the secular slide we see in our world, a slide that feels of late more like a Niagara Falls of cascading over the edge from sanity to insanity.  The secular-minded think man’s ways and what man can do are supreme.  They do not think of an eternal judgment or consequences for having chosen to act contrary to God’s law.  We cannot make that same mistake and adopt that philosophy of life.  We need to know that our belonging to God requires of us Catholics that we seek to promote His primacy and His order in our world.  We are to seek to order this world in accord with godly ways by our action, by our energies, and by our promotion of the truth and of sound moral reasoning that understands the claims of justice and seeks to establish an authentic common good where the fundamental rights of others are secured.  This should not be controversial for believers.  Think of the many things we hold in faith that should make it obvious to us that faith and the social order, that faith and our politics, go together.  Obvious things like these: God has made the world in goodness and with specific order and purpose.  God has taken on our flesh and shows us from the “inside”, as it were, how to live in the flesh in a way that is in accord with God and our own innate dignity.  Can we fail to notice in our frequent praying of the Lord’s Prayer those lines with implications for the social, political order: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:9ff).  We hold in faith that Christ is our King.  Do we realize the clear meaning of professing that he is sovereign and we are subjects?  Or do we live as if we are our own sovereigns? Or as if we have no king but Caesar?  Finally, the example of so many saints who brought their faith to bear on addressing social needs and improving the social order, by caring for the poor, founding hospitals and orphanages, and by building an education system, all of this is a powerful sign of how we must preserve that proper vision by which we remain faithful to God and by which we refuse to act contrary to godly ways, even if pressured by government leaders and secular elites.

            Our choices these days are about stark differences between good and evil of the most-grave kind.  It really is not difficult to find national party platform positions and the stance of individual candidates on these issues.  We need to take note of those issues in our moral reasoning that are called intrinsically evil, because that means they can never be good and never acceptable under any condition.  The legal fiction of a constitutional right to abortion has thankfully been rectified by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.  However, the abortion fight is far from over.  We have the tough work on a state-by-state basis now to convert hearts away from despair and the lie of abortion.  No longer being able to hide behind a federal statement like Roe v. Wade, local candidates now have to be much more upfront about their stance on abortion.  When we have a clear choice between a candidate or platform that would support or expand abortion versus one that would seek to limit it and eliminate it, we can never morally support abortion or such a candidate who would expand that evil.  The euphemisms of “reproductive health care” and “reproductive justice” are just masks for one of the gravest of evils.  We have choices to make in the realm of marriage and family.  Our culture suffers under the lie that two men or two women can form a bond that is somehow no different than, or is somehow morally equivalent to, the good that traditional marriage is for society and for the raising and formation of children.  The struggles of the same-sex attracted should be met with compassion from believers and should not be met with a cold shoulder.  We need to speak biblical moral truth to them in charity.  However, we do them no good by voting for, supporting, or promoting the LGBTQ agenda.  The modern distortion of marriage and family is another grave evil, whether it is same-sex marriage or any other arrangement that departs from the bond of one man to one woman.  We cannot support or promote these distortions in our electoral choices.  Another grave evil of our time is the transgender movement and the lie that our bodies do not speak or show us reliable truth.  Despite the fact that the methodology of science is about observable phenomena and the fact that even a grade school level science book would cover the basics of biology and sex, the elite in our leadership and cultural classes insist that we bow to the construct of gender and the lie that cosmetic surgery could make one the opposite sex in any real way.  The indoctrination into this ideology is forced upon children now too.  If we hold proper catholic moral values we must reject this lie.  We cannot support it in our political choices.

            But more than simply refusing to support these and other grave evils when we vote, I think we also need to understand the exciting and yes, at times perilous, call to evangelize and change our society for the better.  Our catholic moral values are not just about saying “no” to things, saying “no” to evils; the truth of our faith is also about saying “yes” to what is true and good and beautiful.  It is about saying “yes” to the things that will truly help people flourish.  And thus, we should have faith and confidence that our act of voting is an important duty for our citizenship in the realms of both God and man.  And more than just making moral choices on the ballot, I am more and more convinced of something else that our time needs: We need solid catholics – people here in these pews, in our parish, to wake up to what is going on around us and to run for office in order to drive positive change.  I’m not even talking about huge statewide or national races that seem out of our grasp.  I’m talking about local races.  The mask is off in our culture these days and we now see that these complicated evils are not just elsewhere, but they are right in our neighborhoods and even our backyards, and in our school systems.  We need solid catholics to run for local school boards, city council, and mayor races.  Those races are decided by very few votes.  Don’t tell me that good people here in this congregation couldn’t step up to bring godly values and sanity to our community.  And if we and just a few other churches stood together as a sort of voting bloc we could determine moral outcomes for the better in our community.

            Too many modern Christians and leaders aren’t passionate about confronting moral evil.  It’s not enough just to call it out.  We need to confront it with prayer, and penance, and sacrifice, and civic engagement, and, yes, even putting ourselves into the race for office.  Don’t throw up your hands in defeat and say, “Oh well.  That’s just how things are.”  Modern life feels to me like a crazy circus in which I did not choose to participate.  As I look over our political landscape, I am rather tired of hearing the now constant claim that the participation in the political process of people with traditional religious and/or conservative values is tantamount to a “threat to our democracy.”  That is really what is being claimed.  We don’t want to let that beat us down and cause us to fail to participate.  Because when we participate in the process, and all the more when we are informed, that IS democracy.  Groups of atheists and leftist secularists are pouring dark money into Oklahoma campaigns.  It’s happening right now in the current election cycle.  Oklahoma has a target on its back because we are known to be a God-fearing State.  We need to be aware of the dangerous ideologies of our time, engaged in civic matters with a divine faith, and fueled by a courage much like that of the Maccabean brothers.  God and His laws have primacy in our lives and they must have primacy in the choices we make about those who govern us.  Thy will be done, Father, on earth as it is in heaven!

All Souls' Day

All Souls’ Day
2 November 2022

                 Those who have come to faith and who have been baptized are numbered among God’s holy ones, the saints.  Though we tend to normally think of the term “saint” in its most restrictive, specific meaning, -- that is, the canonized saints – we should be aware that the term has wider meanings too.  Yesterday the Church placed before us one such wider use of the term “saint” in that we commemorated in one celebration all the anonymous holy ones who are in heaven but whose lives are not as known as the canonized saints.  Today the Church reminds us that we should not forget the souls of the just who have passed from this life and who may still be awaiting full entrance into heaven after some period of cleansing purification, a time of purgation.  For the souls in Purgatory are among that widest meaning of “saint”, including we baptized who are still among the Church Militant on earth.  The Church annually commemorates the souls of all who have died in Christ on All Souls’ Day, November 2nd.  This commemoration of all the baptized dead necessarily makes us confront death, that reality that is, at times, foreseen and sometimes sudden, but always mysterious for at one moment a person is alive and with us, and the next moment he is not.

                When a person dies in the body he passes beyond this veil.  The body deteriorates and the soul, being spiritual and eternal, lives on awaiting the General Resurrection at the end of time.  A soul that dies in unrepented mortal sin, dies in separation from God and remains in that state for all eternity in Hell.  A soul that dies in the perfect state of grace, has immediate passage for all eternity to heaven.  Yet, we recognize, too, another class of possibility: that is, those souls who at the time of death are not guilty of unrepented mortal sin and so are just, are holy, but who are not perfectly holy.  They are just souls, souls in the state of grace, and while, ultimately destined for Heaven, they have lesser sins, imperfections, and temporal punishment to be completed to make repair for past sinfulness.  There are two things to consider when we pray for the deceased.  The first is that we are called in charity to pray for all the deceased.  It is a gift to them.  It is the right thing to do.  We should hope that all people repent and desire the eternal life God generously offers.  But, we do not know the state of a person’s soul.  We are not the judge.  The second thing to consider is, what happens to our prayers?  What happens, in other words, to the grace of the prayerful gift we make for souls?  It must be noted that while we pray for all the deceased, our prayers cannot assist a soul in separation from God because there is no help that can be given such a soul.  It also must be noted that our prayers do not assist a soul in perfect grace who goes immediately to Heaven, because such a soul has no need of any help.  Our prayers can and do assist those just souls in Purgatory who are enduring purification as they await fullness of heavenly life, which is the destiny of all souls in Purgatory.  We call these souls the poor souls because, while in the state of grace, they need our help.

                We pray and we must leave to God to apply that gift to those souls who need our help and who may receive it.  We categorize these souls as the souls in Purgatory.  In charity we should not forget them.  We should aid them by the merits of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by that laudable and long-standing custom of having Masses offered for the deceased.  We offer prayers for specific souls, those of our relatives and friends.  But we should also maintain prayer more generically for all the souls in Purgatory.  The indulgence associated with visiting a cemetery and praying for the dead, which we have been promoting, is another great gift to offer the poor souls.  In doing all this, we hope that we ourselves will not be forgotten when we pass, for we may well need all of God’s holy ones to assist us in our purgation.

                The All Souls’ Day Masses, like a funeral Mass, or any requiem Mass, is marked by a certain somber atmosphere.  You see many visual cues of this somber atmosphere before you.  The vesture of the sacred ministers is traditionally black, the color associated with mourning and death.  The altar and tabernacle, because it is the place from which the Bread of Life comes to us, is never vested in the color of death, but is vested in purple as a reminder that repentance is needed in the face of impending death and also as a reminder that our penances assist the poor souls in need.  This year I revived an older long-standing catholic custom, that of using unbleached candles.  I knew of this custom for a long time but I never bothered to do anything about it.  What finally pushed me over the edge was seeing unbleached candles used at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.  I decided I was tired of Anglicans getting to do Catholic things while Catholics do not!  The bright white of festivity, the normal color of our candles, gives way to the more somber unbleached candle.  All this points to our confrontation with the mystery that we cannot avoid on All Souls’ Day: the mystery of the soul’s passage through death to eternal life.

                It is our faith that at the General Judgment, at the end of time, the bodies of the deceased will rise to be reunited with the soul, as is our proper way to exist as human beings.  The soul will then experience its eternal judgment in the resurrected body.  The question is what kind of eternity, what kind of judgment will it be?  As we heard in the Gospel (cf. Jn. 5:24-19), will it be a resurrection of life, meaning heaven?  Or a resurrection of condemnation, meaning hell?  For we, the saints still on earth, we have the current gift of time to repent, to pray, to confess our sins, to grow in virtue, and to be nourished by the saving gift of the Holy Eucharist.  We join the saints in heaven in praying for the Poor Souls.  And we humbly entrust those who have died to the generous mercy of God, through the spotless hands of Mary, the Mother of Mercy.  Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.

All Saints' Day

Solemnity of All Saints
1 November 2022

                 Every time we profess the Catholic Faith by stating the Creed, as we will do in a few moments, we profess several essential elements of faith in God and our salvation.  And we profess several essential elements about the Church.  At the end of the Creed we say, “I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”  This line of the Creed identifies the four marks of the Church.  These are like identifying signs that point to the Church established by our Blessed Lord.  Where we might be in doubt about what is the Church or where is the Church, we look to find those marks.  The Church established by our Lord is one; it has unity of faith and organization.  The Church established by our Lord includes all people and provides the wholeness of teaching and sanctifying means for our salvation.  The meaning of ‘catholic’ is whole or universal.  The Church established by our Lord was entrusted to the Apostles and maintains an unbroken line of apostolic succession such that the same authority given by Christ comes to us today through our bishops.  And most notable for today’s solemnity, we profess that identifying mark of the Church that is holiness.

                The Church is both a divine and a human institution.  She is both a spiritual reality and a reality that exists in this material world.  Our Lord, the groom to his bride the Church, has made her indefectibly holy by dying to purify and save her and to unite her to himself.  Yet, the holiness proper to the Church must still be fostered and attained by that part of the Church that is still on its journey.  That means you and me.  We have been brought into the holiness of the Church by baptism and the life of grace.  Yet, we are still on pilgrimage here.  We still struggle with sin.  We must reform our lives and respond to the call to holiness so that the identifying mark of holiness may continue to shine visibly in the Church.

                The Church’s liturgical life has us celebrate the holy examples of so many saints.  Many saints punctuate our liturgical calendar because their lives are known and of great renown.  But by no means do we think that the identified and canonized saints are the only saints there are.  After all, the vision of St. John in the Book of Revelation [first reading] indicates both a specific number (144,000 from every tribe of Israel) and an additional “great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.”  Today’s solemnity celebrates the holiness of the Church and it wraps into one observance all those many more saints who are more anonymous, who make the holiness of the Church shine forth.  In celebrating the holiness today of both the known and anonymous saints, we have a renewed call to live more deeply our membership in the Body of Christ by growing in holiness.

                 The People of Israel honored Jerusalem and the Holy Temple as the place of God’s favor and their citizenry.  The prophecy of Ezekiel is prime in identifying the hoped-for New Jerusalem where the Temple would be rebuilt as a center of the Messianic Kingdom and the gathering place of the children of the twelve tribes of Israel.  In the Book of Revelation this city is also called the Heavenly Jerusalem.  In the New Covenant we have come to realize that we await the fulfillment of this Holy City that gathers us all together as a nourishing mother gathers her children.  St. Paul made use of this notion in an allegory about the two sons of Abraham, one from Hagar the slave woman and one from his beloved Sarah, the free woman.  He said these two women stand for the two covenants.  Hagar and her children are enslaved and stand for the present Jerusalem.  But, wrote St. Paul, “the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother” (Gal. 4:21-26).  As children of the promise fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, we await that city to come.  And so, at the altar in a few moments you will hear some poetic imagery for today’s solemnity that might strike you as curious.  I will chant: “For today by your gift we celebrate the festival of your city, the heavenly Jerusalem, our mother” (Preface of the Mass of All Saints’ Day; cf. Rev. 21:10).

                Brothers and sisters, the Church is holy.  She is already holy and she is called to holiness among her members still journeying here.  You and I have the charge to let that holiness proper to the Church shine through our lives.  We aren’t living up to our mission if we think being lukewarm or occasionally godly will suffice.  We also must reject the heresy that would view holiness as an impossible project for us.  The Lord has laid down his life to save us and has opened for us a path that we can traverse.  Recently on the Three Hearts Pilgrimage the group of 1,500 people processed silently in the final mile to enter Clear Creek Abbey Church.  By necessity some pilgrims were in the lead, as is the nature of a line, some in the middle of the pack, and some at the end, but they were all journeying closer to the abbey church.  Being among the first group of pilgrims, I was one of the first to enter the church.  We had a long wait in prayerful silence as the other pilgrims arrived after us.  That strikes me as a moving image for how we celebrate today in one observance so many saints, known and anonymous, and how we are called to take up part of that great multitude of holy ones in procession.  The saints who have already arrived in the heavenly Jerusalem are already around God’s throne praying for us and awaiting our arrival.  They are like the pilgrims I mentioned a few moments ago at the head of the procession who arrive first.  We, though much later in the procession of God’s holy ones are still journeying, but – and here’s what I find moving about the image – we are no less a part of that procession of God’s holy ones; we’re just further back in the line.  We have the example and the powerful prayers of those who are in the lead.  And that gives us greater hope and greater endurance to continue moving in this procession of God’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

Christ the King - Traditional Latin Mass

Dominica D.N. Iesu Christi Regis (Mass of the 1962 Missal)
30 October 2022

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

                In a Church with as much history as ours, we observe today a solemnity that is more recent in history.  This solemnity of the universal kingship of Christ was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925.  The Old Testament prophets proclaimed the coming Messiah and his kingship.  The signs surrounding the conception and birth of our Blessed Lord made it clear that he was the fulfillment of the promise made of a descendent of David whose kingship would be firm and whose kingdom would have no end.  We who live in societies with representative forms of governance need to make sure we do not easily dismiss or gloss over the kingship of Christ and his claim on us.  In addition, observing the Kingship of Christ calls us to seek God’s kingdom with renewed vigor.  Finally, we must admit a serious duty as Catholics to work to bring the world into greater conformity to the reign of Christ, and by prayers, and influence, and action, to return the world to its proper place under the authority of Christ.  We should not fail to notice that with major elections just days away, we have an opportunity and a duty to vote in a way that shows we understand that Christ is our King and the King of all nations, all time, and all history.

                The Gospel for this solemnity is the more private interrogation of the Lord by Pilate inside the praetorium.  The Jewish authorities have their own charges against our Lord.  But they bring him to Pilate because as the Roman authority he has the ability to condemn to death.  As a Roman authority, Pilate is not interested in the religious charges.  The Romans aren’t going to execute anyone based on a charge of blasphemy or some other violation of the Torah.  But when Pilate hears the political charge of being a king, his interest is raised and he must inquire about who would claim a kingship contrary to the sole kingship of the Emperor.  And so, to determine if there is potential treason involved, Pilate asks the Lord, “Art thou King of the Jews?”  You can see that Pilate is not interested in any religious debate or charge when he says, “Am I a Jew?.... What hast Thou done?”

                Here the Lord, who has preached often about the Kingdom of God, makes direct mention of his own Kingdom.  His is a kingdom not of this world.  Were it of this world the Lord’s subjects would act as any other members of a kingdom would act under threat, they would fight to preserve it: in this case they would strive to see that the Lord is not turned over to the Jews.  But as it is, his kingdom is not here.

                The Kingdom of Christ our King is not here.  I think this deserves some focus and reflection.  The result of this truth is by no means that we as Catholics ignore this world or fail to care for it or to have interest in it.  No, we have a duty to see that our efforts and prayers and energies are employed to bring this world into greater conformity to the reign of Christ.  But we must never make the mistake of thinking or acting that our primary or enduring focus is a kingdom in the realm of man.  I think this important lesson needs focus and reflection because I am more and more convinced that many endeavors of man reveal the mistaken notion that we seek fulfillment here in a kingdom of this world.  One might excuse the average man of thinking this way.  But one cannot excuse a person of faith or someone in the Church.  Yet, sadly, more and more do we not see so many endeavors in the Church that seem to rise from an erroneous foundation that views this world and this life as a kingdom of ultimate value or, worse, that views this world as our ultimate destination?

                Our time is marked by a serious lack of supernatural faith.  It is marked by a poverty of the fear of God.  Sadly, we see this in the Church too.  As a Church we expend massive amounts of time and energy and money on flashy programs and consultants and professionals yet one wonders what might happen if even a fraction of such capital was spent on actually proclaiming the Gospel with fidelity and courage.  What I call “a franchise mentality” has somehow taken over our Church and many a bishop acts more like a bureaucrat than an apostle.  Our leaders do just about anything to protect the body from any danger, as if death of the body is a worse evil than death of the soul.  This inverted and perverted focus revealed itself in the Church when we deemed ourselves to be non-essential during COVID panic by closing down, choking off the proclamation of the Good News while proclaiming the secular “gospel of vaccination” along with most of the cultural elites.  I would love for the Lord to return today and suddenly appear in the office of the Synod of Bishops in the Vatican and say, “My kingdom is not here.”  I amuse myself with the notion that all the garbage and heresy fomented by that office would suddenly be given a voice, like the very stones of Jerusalem crying out to our King (cf. Lk. 19:38-40), to testify against the leadership for its culpable lack of faith and its scandal of causing us little ones to sin because of their betrayal of the Faith.

                Yes, we need a potent reminder in our contemporary world – and even in the Church – that the Lord is King and even though we do not ignore this world that has been made by God to be good, we must always admit the primacy of the kingdom that is not here.  Have we begun life in the kingdom here?  Yes.  But the fulfillment is not in this world.  May our proclamation of the full meaning of Christ’s kingship be a catalyst that causes us to strive for greater holiness and to have zeal to arrive at the “kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, a Kingdom of justice, love, and peace” (From the Preface for the Mass of Christ the King).

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

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.”