A New Song

Jesus Wows them in Capernaum

2012-01-29T07:58:00.004-05:00

All of us have wondered what it would be like to meet Jesus in person. What if we could actually speak face to face with our Savior? What would he look like? What would he say to us? How would we feel as he looked into our eyes and spoke to our heart?

Today's gospel tells us about a group of people who actually had the opportunity to meet Jesus and how it changed their lives forever.

Jesus was teaching in the synagogue of Capernaum. Saint Mark tells us that the people were astonished as they listened to him. They were riveted by his words because, unlike anyone they had ever heard before, he spoke with authority. Not only was he interesting to listen to, but his words penetrated their hearts and illuminated their minds. No one had ever spoken to them with such conviction and meaning.

And their astonishment would only grow, because not only did Jesus demonstrate his authority by the words he spoke, he also showed his power by the actions he performed. In this case, a man possessed by a demon was sent into a fit of convulsion when Jesus spoke. The demon knew very well who Jesus was, the Holy One of God. Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of the man with a shriek. The scene must have left everyone in the synagogue shaken and confused. I think we can say with confidence that the people had never seen anything like that before! The authority of Jesus' words was backed up by the power of his actions.

None of us will ever have the opportunity to meet Jesus face to face in this life. That does not mean, however, that we can no longer be astonished by his words or by his works. Jesus is still among us exercising his authority in a powerful way through the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit. He continues to speak to us with authority through the Bible, and his power over sin and evil is powerfully present in the Sacraments.

Let us take a look at how each of us can meet Jesus and be transformed by reading the Bible and receiving the Sacraments.

First, Jesus continues to speak with authority to the world through the Bible. As Christians, we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Though it was written by men in the language and imagery of their time, it was inspired by the Holy Spirit to such a degree that we can truly say that God himself is its author. In the Bible, we experience the authority of God's Word teaching us the truth about his love and calling our hearts to change. By reading and studying the Bible, we come to understand God in a way that we otherwise would be unable to. Because it is God's inspired word, when we read it privately at home or hear it proclaimed at Mass, it is Jesus himself we are hearing. And so, any of us who have ever wished that we could hear Jesus speak to us should read and study the Bible everyday.

There was a man once who decided to read the Bible from cover to cover. He came across many sections that he couldn't understand, but he kept on going. He simply thanked God for the parts that he could make sense of and asked for help understanding the more difficult sections. That is the way we have to approach the Bible. It is not always easy to read and understand. Rather than be overwhelmed by it, we should start slowly by maybe focusing on the Sunday readings or the daily Mass readings. There are many Catholic magazines such as The Word Among Us which are great helps in guiding our study of Scripture. However we may decide to approach it, the Word of God is indispensable in the spiritual life of all believers.

Second, we encounter Jesus' continuing authority over sin and evil through the Sacraments. Each Sacrament is a real encounter with Jesus. While we meet Jesus in the Bible through words, we encounter him in the Sacraments through signs. These signs are not just symbolic of Jesus' presence and action, they really give us the grace that they signify. For instance, the waters of baptism really grant the forgiveness of sin and make us children of God. Through the Sacrament of Confession, we really receive the forgiveness of our sins. And in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, bread and wine really become the Body and Blood of Christ. It is not just symbols that we receive when we come up to communion, but the body, blood, soul and divinity of the Risen Jesus himself. When we take to heart the mystery of Christ's presence and action in all the Sacraments, how could we not want to receive them as frequently as possible to be transformed by the power of our Savior?

The Sacraments, however, are not magic. For us to have our lives changed by the light and power that the Sacraments offer us, we must strive to live lives that are pleasing to God. We saw in the gospel reading today how the demon shouted out when Jesus walked into the synagogue. That is because Jesus and the Devil cannot be in the same room together. They are mortal enemies. Just so, we cannot welcome Jesus into our lives and continue to hold grudges, gossip, lie or steal. There can be no compromise with sin if Jesus is to have a place in our hearts. It is certainly not easy, and we can never be totally free of sin in this life, but the Sacraments are given to us precisely for this reason - to give us both the desire and strength to change and to make us examples of Jesus' love to everyone we meet.

None of us can hope to meet Jesus face to face in this life. But each of us will one day stand before his throne of glory to give an account of our lives. If we take to heart the Word proclaimed to us today and receive him in the Sacraments with faith, we can trust that we will be ready to receive his mercy and forgiveness when he comes again in glory.

The Time of Fulfillment

2012-01-22T08:08:00.002-05:00

There was a boy named Billy who had trouble fitting in with the other children at his school. Because he was constantly called names and being picked on, he learned to spend much of his time alone. One day, Billy was riding his bike in the park when he noticed one of his classmates sitting on a bench crying. He asked the boy what was wrong, and he told Billy how some older kids had ganged up on him and roughed him up. It left him feeling shaken and hurt. Billy told the boy that he knew how much it hurt to be picked on. And so, the two boys spent the rest of the afternoon in the park playing together. Billy was happy that he finally had a friend.

The next day at school, Billy was excited to see his new friend again. However, when he ran up to him in the bus line, the boy started to make fun of him along with his other classmates. Billy became upset and ran away crying. The boy ran after him and asked Billy, "Why are you crying? You never cried when I made fun of you before." Billy, wiping his face and holding back his sobs replied, "Yeah, but you were never my friend before!"

Each of us had a moment in our lives when Jesus went from being an historical figure or a character in a book to being a living person who knows us and loves us. At that moment, Jesus became our friend. And, like the boys in the story, being friends with Jesus meant we had to change. We could not go on living the way we had before.

Today's gospel reading from Saint Mark gives us the first words that Jesus ever preached: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." These three sentences give us in a nutshell what the life and ministry of Jesus is all about. First of all, Jesus is the fulfillment of all the promises of the Old Testament. Secondly, Jesus ushers in the kingdom of God which is God's victory over sin and death. And, finally, if we are going to be a part of this marvelous work of the Father in our midst, we must repent. We must change.

The first examples of the change required to follow Jesus comes in this same gospel reading when Jesus approaches Peter, Andrew, James and John as they are working on their nets along the banks of the Sea of Galilee. He challenges them to be his disciples: "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men." The four men are faced with a decision. It is clear to them that they cannot become friends and followers of Jesus and continue to live the way they had up to that point. They could either be disciples of Jesus or continue to be fishermen; but they could not be both. Following Jesus required a change. And so, they dropped everything to follow him.

In the first reading from the Old Testament, we find a similar situation. The prophet Jonah is sent by God to the pagan city of Nineveh. Their wickedness had set them on a path to certain destruction. Yet God wanted to show mercy to them. Jonah makes it clear that if they do not repent of their evil ways, they will soon meet catastrophe. The people take Jonah's words to heart and change their behavior. God could then begin to show mercy to them.

Following Jesus and believing in him changes us. When we realize that God created each of us in his image and likeness, then we begin to treat all people with love and respect. When we realize the depth of God's love for each person, we can no longer turn our backs on people when they need us. When we realize how much we have been forgiven by a merciful God, we begin to forgive those who hurt us no matter how great the offense. Friendship with Jesus transforms us from selfish, narrow-minded individuals into people who love truly from our hearts after the example of our Savior.

There is one thing that our friendship with Jesus cannot do, however. It cannot keep us from being sinners. No matter how close we grow to Jesus we will always be tempted to turn our backs on him in one way or another. No matter how long we may have followed him, we will always fall back into sin. But Jesus our friend is forgiving. He will always take us back no matter how we have offended him if we show him that we are sorry and are committed to changing. Though we can and do abandon him, he will never abandon us. Jesus is the most faithful of friends.

Jesus is always there for us to turn to in our time of need. When the bad choices we have made in our lives start catching up to us, Jesus is there to listen and to guide us back on the right path. If any of us wishes to know what life is like with Jesus as a friend, it is as simple as asking him to come into our hearts and our lives. Going to the sacrament of confession and laying out before God all the ways we have chosen the wrong path is an important place to start. Then the regret can give way to peace, the fear can give way to joy, and the hostility can give way to love. And we can say with so many others before us - What a friend we have in Jesus!

I Am Calling You

2012-01-15T07:57:00.003-05:00

Ask any married couple, "How did you know your husband or wife was the one for you?" Every one would have a different answer. Some knew right away, from the moment they first saw each other. For other couples, the process was longer. They may have known each other for years and dated off and on before they decided to spend the rest of their lives together.

No matter how they met or how they decided to marry, every couple has one thing in common. They had to decide together that marriage was the right thing for them. One person cannot decide on his own that he wants to get married. It is a joint decision because marriage is by its nature a partnership.

As Christians, we have an even deeper understanding of what marriage is because of the teaching of Jesus. Marriage is more than a contract between a man and a woman. Marriage is a calling from God himself. God is the one who brings a man and a woman together to live as examples of the beauty of his love. That is why Jesus can say, "What God has joined, no man may tear asunder." It is God himself who joins a man and a woman in married life. It is God who calls them to live together as one.

Marriage is not the only calling. Some men are called to be priests or deacons. Some women are called to live as religious sisters. Different careers such as writing or business can also be callings. Each one of us, in one way or another, is called to be part of God's plan and to contribute to the common good. Each one of us is chosen by God to play a special and unique role in the salvation of the world.

Today's readings speak to us about what it means to be called by God.

In the first reading, young Samuel is asleep in the temple when the Lord calls him. But he mistakes it for the voice of his mentor, Eli. Sometimes we wish that God would just come down from heaven and tell us himself what he wants of us. Just such a thing happened to Samuel - in the temple where the Ark of the Covenant was, no less - and he still needed help understanding that it was the voice of the Lord he was hearing. His mentor gives him excellent advice. When you hear the Lord call, simply say: "Speak Lord, your servant is listening."

Listening is an important part of any relationship. But it is crucial to our relationship with God. If we are to know where God is calling us, we must listen. God may be speaking to us by placing a desire to serve him in our hearts. He may be speaking to us through a passage from Scripture that we keep opening our Bible to or that we hear being quoted frequently. He may be speaking to us through a friend. One thing is sure - God is trying to get our attention. We have to open our ears, and more importantly our hearts, if we are going to get the message.

Today's gospel tells the story of the calling of Jesus' first disciples. They were among those who answered the call of John the Baptist to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. John points Jesus out to them, and they decide to follow him. But something interesting happens. Before they could speak a word to him, Jesus turns around and asks them, "What are you looking for?" Jesus makes it clear to them that it is not they who are choosing him, but he who is choosing them. Throughout the gospels, no one follows Jesus on their own initiative. It is always Jesus who picks out and calls those who will be his disciples.

Just so, none of us can make our own path in life. None of us can live our lives "our way." God has a plan for each of us. We can either say "yes" to God, or "no". But our lives belong to God, and our peace is only in doing his will.

We all know how true this is by looking at our own lives. We have all tried forcing things to work out, and they just didn't. We may have wanted to be doctors or rock stars when we grew up, and it just didn't fit. Or there may have been that one woman or one man we wanted to spend our life with, and the relationship just wouldn't work. For some reason, the pieces didn't seem to fit no matter how hard we tried. We had to finally stop trying to force things to happen and let events take their course. We then started to experience peace as things began to work themselves out on their own. We could then look back and thank God that the course of our life worked out his way and not our way.

It is not always easy to know what God's will for us is. If it wasn't easy for young Samuel in the temple nor for the followers of Jesus, then we cannot expect it to be any easier for us. Like the decision to get married, it takes time for the right course of action to become clear to us. It takes much patience and a heart willing to listen for God's voice. But there is also great relief in knowing that an almighty and all-loving God is in control, and that he has a plan for us.

The Catholic spiritual writer, Thomas Merton, put together the following prayer for people like us who want to serve God but are not always sure how:

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope that I have that desire
in all that I am doing.
Amen.

Baptism of the Lord

2012-01-09T05:31:00.002-05:00

In the Old Testament, we read about God's mighty works and the words he spoke through the prophets. God spoke face to face with Adam and Eve, called Abraham to be the father of his people and gave the ten commandments through Moses. The people of Israel witnessed God's power as he led them out of slavery in Egypt. It is in the Old Testament that God, the Father, reveals his tender love for his people and his desire to save them.

In the New Testament, we witness something altogether different. God the Father remains silent throughout most of the gospels. In fact, there is only one time we hear the Father's voice. It is in today's gospel, at Jesus' baptism.

As Jesus emerges from the waters of the Jordan River a booming voice from heaven is heard: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." God the Father uses the opportunity of Jesus' baptism to let the whole world know that this is his Son, his beloved. But from here on, God the Father will remain silent. It will be Jesus who now speaks for him and performs mighty deeds in his name. With his baptism at the hands of John the Baptist, the torch is handed on to Jesus.

Before this time, Jesus lived an ordinary life among the people. No one besides Mary and Joseph knew his secret that he was the Son of God. But upon his baptism, Jesus begins to proclaim the kingdom of God with an authority that no other man had ever claimed for himself. It was clear to all who heard him that Jesus was no ordinary rabbi. John the Baptist even recognized this when he claimed that one was coming who was even mightier than he. No one had ever seen anyone like Jesus of Nazareth before.

Where did this power to teach with authority and to perform miracles come from? It came from the Holy Spirit.

The word "Messiah" means "anointed one." According to the Old Testament, the Messiah would be anointed by God with the Holy Spirit to save his people. The prophet Isaiah says of the Messiah: "Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, upon whom I have put my spirit." The gospel tells us that it was the Holy Spirit who descended on Jesus like a dove as he was baptized. The Holy Spirit empowered Jesus the Messiah to touch hearts, to free those held in bondage and to speak the truth with conviction and courage.

Now that Jesus Christ has risen and ascended to heaven, we are living in a different time. Just as God the Father remained silent throughout much of the New Testament, Jesus the Son is silent now. He does not appear from heaven to speak to us directly. He does not show up at hospitals to cure the sick or at the scene of accidents to raise the dead. As God the Father passed the torch on to Jesus, Jesus has now passed the torch on to us! It is now up to us to witness to God's love.

And so, if our family members have questions about their faith, how else will they learn the truth unless we witness to it? If our classmates are being picked on, how else will they learn about Jesus' love unless we stick up for them? If a beggar is hungry, how else will she eat unless we feed her? Jesus wants every confused person to know the truth, every suffering person to be comforted and every lonely person to have a friend. But he will not rip open the heavens and come down in a fiery chariot to do it. He will use us.

How can Jesus expect us to speak the truth with courage and perform heroic deeds in his name? Because he has anointed us with the gift of the Holy Spirit!

At our baptism, each of us received the same Holy Spirit which lived and worked through Jesus. The same Holy Spirit who empowered him to teach with authority and to perform miracles lives in our hearts through baptism and through faith. We have within us the same Holy Spirit who compelled the apostles to give testimony to the Messiah with their words and the martyrs to bear witness through their blood. We have exactly the same tool that Jesus and every saint throughout the ages has had to live the Christian life with power and confidence. Not only has the torch been passed on, but the power to hold that torch up high and carry it proudly has been given us through the Holy Spirit.

Having the Holy Spirit at work in our lives is like having a billionaire give us a credit card. With it, we can buy things we could otherwise never be able to afford. Just so, with the Holy Spirit we have the strength of God within us which enables us to performs acts of generosity and courage we could never have dreamed of doing on our own. Because of our baptism, we have been made daughters and sons of God and now have access to that great power at work in us who believe.

When someone wins a million dollars, the first thing people ask is, "What do you plan to do with your money?" As we reflect on the gift of the Holy Spirit we have received, we should ask ourselves the same question, "What do we plan to do with the power of God at work in us?"

(image by Dave Zelenka)

We Three Kings

2012-01-08T08:51:00.003-05:00

The story of the Magi is among the best known and most popular of the gospels. Whether we know them as the "Three Kings" or the "Three Wise Men", they have a prominent place in every manger scene as well as in the New Testament story of Jesus' birth.

But who were these Magi from the East? The gospel does not tell us much about them. It is assumed that there were only three of them based on the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh which they bring to Jesus. But the gospel never tells us how many Magi there actually were.

We do know, however, that they studied the stars.

In Jesus' day, knowledge of the stars and their position in the sky was vital for travelers. There were few established roadways in the Middle East, especially through the desert. Only by coordinating one's journey along the position of the stars could one be assured of staying on the path and not getting lost.

We also know from the New Testament that the Magi were not Jews. Like many pagans in ancient times, it is likely that they observed the stars not only to guide them when traveling but also to predict the future, just as our modern-day astrologers try to do. They would have believed that their fate was written in the stars. Any unusual occurrence such as a comet or a large star would have gotten their attention.

And just such a thing happened. The Magi observed a star which foretold the birth of a great king, the King of the Jews.

As it is usually told, the Magi follow the star all the way to Bethlehem to the stable where Jesus was born. But that is not how the story is told in the gospels. According to Saint Matthew, the Magi go first to Jerusalem. They needed to consult the Scriptures and the teachers of the Law to learn where they were to find this great king. The star by itself only took them so far. They needed to turn to God's word to get the whole itinerary. If they had not consulted the prophecies of the Old Testament, they would have been lost.

The meaning for us who search for Jesus and seek to lead others to him cannot be clearer. Without the Scriptures, we are lost. Relying on the light of our own intelligence and experience, we may be able to grope our way along. Unaided by faith, we may be able to become nice people. But God wants so much more for us. God wants us to know Jesus personally and intimately. He wants to reveal his love and power to us and use us to lead others to him. We cannot do it on our own. Without the Bible and the Church's teaching which helps us to understand it, we can easily get stuck in our journey or lose our way.

In today's world, we see just how true this is. People are lost. Billions of dollars are spent on palm readers, astrologers and other spiritualists. Books on new age spirituality continue to be popular. Everyone is looking for the latest thing, but they are never satisfied. Their conscience tells them that they are lost, that something is missing, but they are unable to find their way back by the light of their own intelligence. They need the light of God's word to reveal to them that it is Jesus that they seek. To fill the missing piece in their life, they need look no further than the Bible they have tucked away in some drawer and the neighborhood parish they pass on their way to work every day.

Today's readings, however, do not only contain a message for those who seek Jesus and do not know where to find him. There is another side to this coin that has to do with us who claim to already know that Jesus is the answer.

The Magi were seeking the newborn King of the Jews but did not know where to find him. The chief priests and the scribes knew where to find him, but they were not looking! You would think that many of them would have wanted to join the Magi on the trip to Bethlehem to witness the birth of their Messiah. But they were content to let their knowledge of the Scripture and their positions of authority replace their relationship with God. And so they missed out on the blessed event of Christ's birth.

Like these chief priests and scribes, it is easy for us who believe in Jesus to get complacent and even lazy. It is easy for us to make our relationship with Jesus and the Church simply a matter of following rules - going to Mass on Sundays, fasting on Good Friday, going to confession and so on. Rules are important, but they are not the whole life of faith. If we are not actively seeking God in our daily lives, then we are missing out. If our religion is not about a relationship with Jesus the Messiah then it is dry, lifeless and uninspiring.

As followers of Jesus, we have a responsibility to be light for the world. If people are lost, we have to be the light leading them back to Christ. Could it be that our society has turned to palm readers, new age gurus and other quacks because we have not shone forth in our lives the joy and peace that Jesus can give? Rules do not inspire people. Lives of faith and courageous witnesses of truth do. If we are to be a light to those we meet, we have to ask ourselves - are we seeking to follow rules or are we seeking to follow Jesus? Only by following Jesus ourselves can we hope to ever lead others to him.

The Magi were not satisfied with merely knowing that a newborn King of the Jews had been born. They wanted to meet him, to pay him homage and to bring him gifts. We cannot be satisfied with just going through the motions when it comes to the practice of our faith. We must seek Jesus daily in a sincere manner. We must study the Scriptures and conform our minds and hearts to its teaching. Then we will become the stars leading others to the desire of their souls - Jesus the Messiah.

Prayer of Saint Anselm

2012-01-07T09:39:00.003-05:00

O Lord my God,
Teach my heart this day where and
how to see you,
Where and how to find you.
You have made me and remade me,
And you have bestowed on me
All the good things I possess,
And still I do not know you.
I have not yet done that
For which I was made.
Teach me to seek you,
For I cannot seek you
Unless you teach me,
Or find you
Unless you show yourself to me.
Let me seek you in my desire,
Let me desire you in my seeking,
Let me find you by loving you,
Let me love you when I find you.

(as reprinted in Bible Alive magazine)

Mary, Mother of God

2012-01-02T09:03:00.002-05:00

The Catholic preacher, Fr. John Corapi, once began a homily on the Blessed Virgin Mary asking the question: "If you could have created your own mother, would you not have made her perfect in every way?"

God chose Mary among all the women who ever lived to be the mother of his Son, Jesus. From the moment she was conceived, God kept her free from the stain of sin. He sustained her with his grace throughout her life and formed in her a heart open to his will. When the angel Gabriel appeared to her, she said "yes" to God's plan for her because God had been preparing her all along for the great mission she would undertake. She would be the Mother of God.

The Son of God did have the opportunity to create his own mother. And he made her perfect in every way.

When we call Mary the "Mother of God" it can be confusing for some. Some people take it to mean that Mary is greater than God or that God would not have existed without Mary the way we could not have existed without our mothers. But nothing could be further from the truth. Mary was a human being created by God just as all of us were. When we call Mary "Mother of God" we are not so much saying something about her but something about her child, Jesus.

Jesus is the Son of God. Because he is God, he is the Creator of all things and has always existed throughout eternity. It is this Son of God who is conceived in Mary's womb through the power of the Holy Spirit. This child born of the Virgin Mary is both fully God and fully human. Because Jesus is God and Mary is his mother, Mary can rightly be called the "Mother of God."

In the same homily, Father Corapi went on to say: "If Mary is good enough for Jesus, then she is good enough for me!"

When we call Mary, "Mother of God", we are also making an act of faith in who we are as baptized followers of Jesus. At our baptism we each became members of the Church and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, were made daughters and sons of God. This is what Saint Paul teaches us in today's second reading from the letter to the Galatians: "...God sent his Son, born of a woman...so that we might receive adoption as sons."

If by Jesus' death and resurrection we can dare to call ourselves sons and daughters of God, then Mary must also be our mother! God's plan for Mary did not end with Jesus' birth. Rather God in his mercy and generosity willed that Mary should also be the Mother of the Church, the Mother of all believers.

While he was dying on the cross, Jesus turned to his beloved disciple, Saint John and told him, "Behold your mother." It has always been understood that Jesus was not only entrusting his mother to the care of his disciple, but entrusting all believers to the care of his mother. And from her place in heaven, she continues to pray for all the faithful that we receive every possible grace from her Son. Just as we would turn to our own mothers in our time of need, we can turn to our heavenly mother, Mary, with confidence that she will bring our prayers to her Son for us.

The act of faith we make today, then, is that Jesus is the eternal Son of the Father and that Mary is his Mother. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit we received at our baptism and confirmation teaches us that we are also sons and daughters of God. If so, then Mary is also our mother.

It is traditional at the beginning of a new year to set goals and make resolutions. It is no coincidence that, as a Church, we dedicate this first day of the year to Mary, the Mother of God. Following her example, our firmest resolution for the coming months should be to seek out God's will for us and to put it in practice. As individuals and as a parish community, I would like all of us to consecrate this coming year to Mary, the Mother of God. Whatever it is we hope to accomplish, whatever it is we want to change in our lives, we can count on the Mother of Jesus to keep our prayers in her heart and to present them to her Son for us. If our resolutions are not in keeping with God's will, we may stick to them for a few weeks or months, but we will eventually fail. However, if we seek God's will with Mary to both inspire us and pray for us, we can rest assured that we can conquer any difficulty in the strength provided by her Son, Jesus.

So I would ask all of us to bring to mind those resolutions right now. In our hearts, let us offer them to Mary so that she may pray for us this year.

The Holy Family

2011-12-30T20:31:00.001-05:00

Jesus was human in every way that we are. Like each of us, he needed food to nourish his body. He needed a good night's sleep for his work as a carpenter. He needed tunics to clothe his body and a roof to cover his head. Like all human beings, Jesus sought out other people to be his friends. He knew the joy of playing games with other boys and felt the pain of being left out or ridiculed.

And, like all of us, Jesus needed a family.

God chose Mary and Joseph to be Jesus' mother and father. He gave them the responsibility of teaching Jesus how to speak, how to read the Bible and how to pray. At Joseph's side, he learned the carpenter's trade and how to be a man.

Though the gospels don't tell us anything about them, we can imagine that Jesus had a larger family of grandparents who spoiled him and cousins who came over to play with him. On holidays, we can imagine Jesus, Mary and Joseph getting together with their family to eat, share stories and play games.

Under the care and supervision of this family, Jesus was able to grow in wisdom, strength and grace as Saint Luke tells us in the gospel.

Except that their son happened to be the Son of God, the Holy Family of Nazareth was just like any other family. Like all families, the Holy Family of Nazareth faced many trials and difficulties. Despite traditional images of them, they did not always lead a tranquil life. Jesus was born homeless and into poverty. Shortly after his birth, they had to flee their country under the threat of execution to live as refugees in Egypt. It was a family born into tremendous exterior pressures.

Families today know pressures as well. For economic reasons, both parents frequently have to work outside of the home making meals together on a regular basis difficult. The price of real estate makes longer commutes necessary further limiting time with the family. And those are just some of the pressures on traditional, two parent families. We haven't mentioned single family homes where these pressures are doubled. And then there are "blended" families where step-parents and step-children are constantly testing the boundaries of their relationship adding to the tension within the home.

The status of the family today causes a lot of hand wringing, especially in the Church. There are fewer and fewer traditional families. We are right as Christians and as good citizens to promote the welfare of the traditional, two parent family. Children born in such families are no doubt better off economically and psychologically. The family is the cornerstone of the Church and of society. Our world is only as strong as the families which make it up. At the same time, we must recognize that in today's society when bodies mature more rapidly and adolescence lasts well into the 20's, people are going to make mistakes resulting in out-of-wedlock births and divorce.

A wise spiritual director once said that God is not found in the "ideal", but in the "real". The traditional family is an important ideal. However, God is not found in ideal families or in ideal people, but in real families and in real people. As painful as our past may have been and as much as we may wish we could go back and fix our mistakes, God doesn't give us the option of turning back the clock. God is spending His grace on us in our real lives and in our real families as we find ourselves today. God's grace happens in families that are "blended" and those that need to be mended.

Once we realize that families, as long as they are made of human beings, can never be perfect, then it has important implications for our lives as individuals and as a Church.

First, as individuals each of us can look back on our lives and find fault with our parents. It could be that they were never around or that they were never supportive. It could be that they were abusive in some way. Those scars can stay with us a long time. We know how resentments and grudges can ruin families. Can each of us today bring our hearts before the Lord and ask for the grace to forgive our parents or any other family member who ever hurt us? Can we leave our resentments at the foot of the altar and ask God to relieve us of that burden? Can we recognize that our parents were probably doing the best they could and let go of the anger we have been shouldering all these years? Once we are able to do that, then we can live together in "heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience" as Saint Paul calls us to.

Secondly, for us as a parish, we have to recognize the pressures that families face and ask ourselves, how can we be a more family-friendly community? Are the times we schedule for catechism and worship burdensome to families? In our worship and our hospitality, are we sensitive to the different types of families in our parish and careful not to stigmatize anyone, especially children? What can we as a parish community do to support families with all the challenges they face?

Families are never perfect, even when they are the ideal, traditional family. They are all marked by joy and pain, mistakes and good choices. The Holy Family - Jesus, Mary and Joseph - knew the pressures of family life. The difference was that they experienced God's presence even in those difficulties. Even with all the challenges of daily life in today's society, we can experience God's presence with us and teach our children to recognize Him as well. Then we have fulfilled our mission as a family, no matter what our family may look like.

Christmas Mysteries of the Rosary

2011-12-27T05:30:00.003-05:00

1. The Birth of Jesus (Mt.1:18-25; Lk.2:1-7)

2. The Angels’ Proclamation to the Shepherds (Lk. 2: 8-20)

3. The Magi (Mt. 2: 1-10)

4. The Flight to Egypt (Mt.2: 13-15)

5. The Death of the Holy Innocents (Mt.2: 16-18)

Christmas Day

2011-12-25T17:54:00.003-05:00

God created the world out of nothing through the power of his word. He spoke and it came to be. He said, "Let there be light", and there was light. He caused the mountains to rise up from the sea. He filled the sea with fish and the land with animals. Finally, by the power of his word, he created man and woman to be the crowning achievement of his great work. He created in us hearts to hear his word and mouths to proclaim it.

When he called Israel out from among the nations to be a people peculiarly his own, he sent them prophets to proclaim his word among them. Such was the prophet Isaiah who speaks to us in today's first reading. He proclaimed to the people of Israel - and to us today - the good news of peace and salvation from God. Through the prophets, God promised Israel a mighty savior who would forgive them their sins and lead them in the ways of peace. Not only would this great Messiah lead Israel to freedom, but all the nations would witness the great power of God at work through this Savior.

When Isaiah first spoke these words, it was unclear what his meaning was. Who would this great king be? How would he lead Israel to freedom and peace? We who gather here this morning know exactly what Isaiah meant. We are celebrating this great mystery today. The boy born this day to Mary and Joseph fulfills all the promises and prophesies of the Old Testament. Jesus is the Savior of the World.

In the second reading from the letter to the Hebrews we read: "In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son..." God who so powerfully created the world by his word, and then called the nation of Israel into being by his word, now speaks one last time in the person of Jesus. Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus is the Word made Flesh dwelling among us.

What does the birth of Jesus tells us about this mighty God?

Very simply, God wants us to know him. He sent Jesus, a man like us, so that we could hear from his very mouth how much he loves us and how he longs for our friendship. Jesus is Truth and Love. Whoever hears him, hears the Father. Whoever sees him, sees the Father. We do not need to look anywhere else to find God but in the person of Jesus.

When Pope John Paul II made his first trip to the United States, he preached a beautiful homily to the rain-soaked crowds who had gathered in the Boston Common. In short, he said that all those who want to know the truth should turn to Jesus. He is the Truth. All those who seek meaning in their lives should turn to Jesus. He is the source of all meaning. All those who seek love should turn to Jesus. He is the love of God made flesh among us. These words of the pope make clear to us the meaning of Christmas: Jesus is born to bring God into our world and into our lives.

And so, this child born today is a lifeline to all those who are lost and don't know how to find their way. This child is God's hand stretched out to all those who looked for success, happiness and fulfillment in what the world offers, but couldn't find it. Jesus is God's peace extended to all those who have become bitter or enraged by life's unfairness. This child is hope born to those who have grown weary and have given up on ever finding meaning and purpose in their lives.

Whatever it is our hearts ache for - whether it be love, peace, truth or meaning - all of it can be found in the person of Jesus.

This has been a very difficult year for most of us. Many people are out of work. We feel poorer and less secure these days. If anything, we have learned that the security and happiness money promises to give us is an illusion. The future can look dark. However, in the darkness of these days, hope is born for us. If Jesus is our light, we can never lose our way, and the darkness of despair can never totally consume us. Jesus is the Light of the World.

For those of us who have already welcomed this child into our hearts and made him the center of our lives, we should rejoice! We have come to know the meaning and purpose of our lives. We know the truth and are given the power to live in the love of God. It is now up to us not only to celebrate it but to share it with everyone we meet. This light cannot remain hidden. We must bring it into our homes, into our places of work and into our classrooms.

For those of us who are still searching, God is offering us another opportunity to welcome him into our lives. God never grows tired of stretching his hand out to us when we are lost or confused. Whatever it is that we are struggling with, whatever it is that is keeping us from experiencing the fullness of joy, God has the answer for it. We need only turn to the baby born this day, take him into our arms and promise to love him. When the first step of our searching becomes love rather than doubt, then we are back on the path to truth. When love rather than knowledge is our driving force, then everything suddenly becomes a little clearer.

God wants to move in with us. He wants to be in our lives. Like any baby, he simply wants our love and attention. Who would deny a baby affection and care? Who wouldn't want to share their homes and their lives with a newborn child?

Just such a child is born for us today. He is Jesus!

Christmas Eve Homily

2011-12-24T17:13:00.003-05:00

It would have been a night very much like tonight - dark, cold and quiet.

A child was born. But he had no home. There was no place for him to stay. So his mother and father took shelter in a stable among cows, donkeys and lambs.

No doctors or nurses attended him. There were no sterile instruments to cut his umbilical cord. No anesthetics to soothe Mary's labor pains. No bottles of formula to fill his empty belly. We can only imagine Joseph's concern as he watched on, doing what he could to ease Mary's discomfort. We can only imagine their anxiety as they delivered alone their first-born son, the only Son of God, our brother.

However, God would not allow the appearance of his Son on earth to go unnoticed, without anyone to worship him. Certainly Joseph and Mary sat in awe as they held God made flesh in their arms. But just as he has gathered us here in the middle of the night, God sent angels to nearby shepherds watching their flocks at night. They were alone keeping watch when the angels announced to them tidings of great joy. At first, the appearance of the angels and their strange message gripped them with fear. Then, as the news began to sink in that they were the first to learn of the birth of their Savior, they made haste to find the place where he was staying.

Where were they to find the newborn King of the Jews? The angels gave them two clues. First, he was to be found in David's city, Bethlehem. Second, he would be lying in a manger.

David was the storied king of Israel's past. He was also born in Bethlehem. Jesus would inherit David's throne as prophesied by Isaiah to establish a rule which would never end.

The word, "Bethlehem", means "house of bread". This child would not only rule over his people, but he would be their food. He would meet the deep pang of every human heart - friendship with God. For this reason, his resting place was a manger, where straw and hay are placed for the beasts of the stable to feed on. Just so, Jesus would be food for the lowliest among us.

It is also significant that our Almighty God appears among us as a baby. When we hold a baby in our arms, something happens to us. We are moved by the child's innocence, warmth and beauty. We want nothing else but to love and protect the baby. In Jesus, God comes among us as one who is small, vulnerable and beautiful asking nothing else than that we love him. All the demands of the Christian life and all the teachings of the Church have no other purpose than to show us how to the love the God who is born to us in a manger.

We gather here at this late hour to hear the glad tidings pronounced to us once again: "A child is born to us; a son is given to us!" We receive the news with joy for it is truly good news of a God who lives among us. But where are we to find such a God this evening? He is not where we would expect. He is with the homeless woman protecting herself from the cold with only a cardboard box. He is with the child who is too poor to have presents. He is with the single mother who has to leave her children with others as she works third shift. He is with the elderly man who has no other friend tonight except the television. Jesus was born as just such an outcast and outsider.

When we leave this church tonight, we will be different because Christ is born anew in our hearts. We cannot meet Jesus, we cannot take him into our arms, and fail to be changed by him. Let us, then, not only worship him there in the stable, but pick him up and take him with us into the dark places of the world. Let us not only feed ourselves with the bread of life but take food to others. The Savior of the world was born not to leave the world as he found it but to transform it through love.

Nothing Is Impossible With God

2011-12-18T09:06:00.004-05:00

"The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee named Nazareth..."

Along with Michael and Raphael, Gabriel is one of the great archangels serving the throne of God. His name means, "God is mighty", and he is called upon to make it clear that God is about to perform a "mission impossible" in someone's life.

He first makes his appearance in the Old Testament book of the prophet Daniel. Daniel has just had a vision of a ram and a goat, and Gabriel is sent to interpret it for him. The horrifying vision foretells the rise of a great political power which will wreak devastation throughout the world. Gabriel tells Daniel that eventually this great political power will be defeated but "not by human power". That is, the hand of God will work in a mighty way to save his people from the tyrant. Though it would seem impossible that Israel, a country which at the time was in exile, could defend itself against such a mighty power, Gabriel arrives on the scene to announce that all things are possible with God.

In today's gospel reading, Gabriel now appears to Mary to declare to her that God has chosen her to be the mother of the Messiah. She is startled, and cannot comprehend at first the meaning of the angel's greeting and message. As the angel reveals God's plan to her, it becomes evident that there's a hitch. How can she become pregnant if she is a virgin? Gabriel explains to her that it will be by the power of the Holy Spirit that she is to conceive. And so, the child will not be the son of a human father but of God himself. Gabriel ends his message with these words: "...for nothing will be impossible for God." God sends Gabriel to announce to Mary that he is about to do the impossible in her life.

The Scriptures are full of stories of those whom God chooses to do the impossible. In the first reading, God tells David that his dynasty will be without end. David had been a simple shepherd boy. Alone, David could never have expected to be anything more than that. Yet, called and empowered by God, he became king of his people, and he is remembered forever because from his line Jesus, the Messiah was born. God did the impossible in the life of King David.

The twelve apostles chosen by Jesus to carry on his message were also simple fisherman, tax collectors and political idealists. By themselves they didn't amount to much. Yet God used them to spread the message of the gospel to all the nations. It wasn't because of a good business plan or effective marketing strategy that we still remember them two-thousand years later. It was because of the work of the Holy Spirit who emboldened them to witness to Jesus' love even in the face of persecution and death. The message of Jesus has reached us here in this place so many centuries later because God did the impossible in the lives of twelve simple men who said "yes" and followed Jesus.

God is great. It is the nature of God to work wonders. When we say "yes" to God, the impossible happens.

As we look in our own lives, what wonders do we want God to perform? Are there people in our lives struggling with addiction? Do we have children who have drifted away from the Church and no longer believe? Are we struggling in our marriages or other relationships? Has the ecomony placed a strain on our jobs? If we entrust all those cares to the Lord, we can expect him to do a miracle.

As a parish community, what do we want to achieve? Do we want to reach out to more young people? Do we want to bring back to Church those who have stopped coming? Do we want to make our catechism classes more compelling and our worship more joyful? What is holding us back?

We are rational and practical people. But, too often, we settle for the merely possible when God wants to do the impossible. Sometimes we approach God with a false humility, thinking that it would be arrogant or unreasonable of us to ask too much of him. But God loves us as his children and will spare nothing to bring us closer to him. There is nothing that we could ever ask him that would be impossible for him to do. All things are possible with God.

We are here today because God did the impossible in the life of Mary. We are here today because God did the impossible by becoming man in the person of Jesus Christ. And God will do the impossible before our very eyes turning simple bread and water into the very body and blood of Jesus to nourish and strengthen us. To unleash this mighty power of God, all Mary did was tell Gabriel, "Yes, let it be done to me as you say". To witness the impossible in our lives all we have to do as we receive the bread of angels is tell Jesus, "Yes, let your will be done in me as you say."

Third Sunday of Advent

2011-12-12T05:28:00.002-05:00

There is a different feel to today's liturgy. We see it in the rose-colored vestments and the rose-colored candle on the Advent wreath. We hear it in the upbeat music and joy-filled readings. Over the past two weeks, the mood has been sombre and penitential as we have reflected on the end of the world and our need for repentance in preparation for the birth of Jesus. Now, as that happy day of Christmas draws near, a sense of joy pervades our worship. Christ our Savior is near! The Church today calls us to rejoice and give thanks!

But very often that call to be joyful can fall on deaf ears. For many, these weeks leading up to Christmas are among the most tiring and stressful of the year. There is shopping to do, parties to attend, presents to wrap and dinners to cook. Sadly, many people feel relieved when the holidays end, and life can return to normal.

For others, the Christmas season can be the loneliest time of the year. The shorter days and cold weather leave many people depressed. Over this difficult year, many have lost their jobs or their homes and are not able to provide for their families. And for those who are alone or who have recently lost a loved one, the festivities of the season only deepen their sense of bereavement and grief.

Christmas is not always a joyful time for everyone.

The great Catholic preacher, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, once described his loneliest Christmas. He was a young theology student studying in Belgium. Unable to fly home for the holidays, he had to spend Christmas day alone, and it left him feeling empty inside. At first, he was tempted to spend the week of vacation alone pitying himself. Then, the thought came to him to ask a local pastor whether there was a poor family in town he could help. He was given the address of a family with several children. After making their acquaintance, he visited them on Christmas day with food for the table and presents for the children. Rather than feel sorry for himself and let his circumstances dictate how he would spend the holiday, he decided to reach out to someone even needier than himself and so experience the true joy of Christmas. What would have otherwise been his saddest Christmas was now transformed into one of his happiest through the joy of giving.

Archbishop Sheen's experience holds a very important lesson for us. Life isn't always fair. We experience the loss of loved ones. Our families are not always as supportive and attentive as we would like them to be. Our jobs don't always leave us feeling fulfilled. No matter what the circumstances of our life are, we can always find fault. But, when we focus on the negative, we become bitter. We start to close in on ourselves and lose our appreciation for what is good in the world. We end up imprisoning ourselves in depression and loneliness.

Saint Paul gives us the remedy for such bitterness in today's second reading. He tells us that we are to "rejoice always" and to give thanks "in all circumstances." Gratitude is not only appropriate for the times when we are glad or when things are going our way. Rather, gratitude is most necessary when we feel overwhelmed and joyless. By giving thanks, we are empowered to look beyond ourselves and our situation. By rejoicing even in the midst of difficulty, we take the focus off what is lacking in our lives and put it on the abundance of good things we enjoy. It might be as simple as being thankful for a warm shower or that our car starts. It might be as basic as being thankful that we are still breathing and able to roll out of bed in the morning. No matter how poor,alone or sick we may be, there is always a reason to rejoice.

Today's responsorial psalm is taken from the gospel of Saint Luke. It is the beautiful song of Mary called the Magnificat. "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior." Mary had just learned from the angel Gabriel that God had chosen her to be the mother of Jesus, the Messiah. Though not yet married, she was to become pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. It was the most important responsibility given to any person since the creation of the world. Mary found herself in a difficult situation, but rather than be overcome with fear, she overflowed with praise at the favor God had shown her. By saying "yes" to God and putting his will at the center of her life, Mary came to know the joy that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. When we say "no" to ourselves and "yes" to God, we experience that same joy and overflow with that same gratitude for a God who has loved us enough to send Jesus to save us.

Gratitude is at the heart of Christian spirituality. When we are grateful, we recognize that all we have and all we are is a gift from a loving Father. By being joyful in all circumstances we demonstrate that our world doesn't revolve around our own comfort and well-being but around Jesus and his plan for our lives.

The word "Eucharist" is taken from the Greek word meaning "to give thanks". Every Mass is a thanksgiving to the God who has created and saved us. Every Sunday we become a joy-filled community. No matter what our circumstances may be - whether we are poor, tired, sad, or bitter - we gather around this table to give thanks. God has richly provided for us. And so, today is a day to set aside the holiday plans and preparations and to focus on what is really important and what is really worth celebrating - Jesus, who comes to us as a child and who wants nothing else than that we love him back.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

2011-12-10T06:22:00.002-05:00

This homily first appeared in Connect! magazine

The Scriptures offer us two women to reflect upon today.

The first woman, Eve, is created by God free from all sin. She enjoyed all the pleasures of paradise, including an intimate friendship with God. She saw him face to face and spoke with him as directly as we speak to each other. Yet with all those blessings, she allowed the serpent to place the suspicion in her heart that God was holding something back from her. Why would God tell her not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? He must be hiding something from her. With all the abundance that nature could provide surrounding her, she became fascinated with what she could not have. She lost trust in the God who created her and disobeyed him. Then she lured her husband, Adam, to do the same.

We know what the tragic consequences were. Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Paradise. The fruits of the earth which had been in Paradise in abundance could now only be harvested by the intense labor of plowing the ground, planting the seeds and waiting for the harvest. We lost our ability to see God and speak to him face to face. It became difficult to know his will and to choose to do good. As a result, every type of evil entered our world - sickness, natural disasters, hatred and death.

To this day we suffer the consequences of Eve's fatal choice. Our first mother's sin left its mark on all of us. Most especially, we carry within ourselves the same disobedience. Despite all the blessings God showers upon us, we still find it difficult to trust him. We still are tempted to believe that our plan is better than God's plan and that our will is superior to his. Consequently, we continue to hurt one another, to poison our environment and to suffer from the despair caused by our separation from God.

Happily the disobedience of Eve is not the end of the story. For another woman comes upon the scene, a woman like Eve whom God created free from all sin. This woman did not have the pleasures of Paradise around her. She did not see God face to face nor did she talk to him directly as Eve did. Yet she awaited the salvation he promised with a lively faith and hope. When the angel Gabriel appears to her, she becomes troubled and confused. She is full of questions. Although she does not fully understand God's plan for her and although it would mean a big change in her own plans, she says "yes" to becoming the mother of the Savior. Unlike Eve who was suspicious of God's plan, Mary entrusted herself fully to him. And, as a result, Jesus our Lord and God was born to us.

Just as Eve's disobedience brought evil into the world, Mary's "yes" ushered in untold blessings. Because Mary offered her body to God, Jesus could take on our human nature, becoming a man like us. It was because of her obedience that Jesus could suffer and die to save us from our sins. It was because of her trust in the Father's plan that Jesus could entrust himself to that same plan, even when it meant a cruel death, and so rise from the dead for our salvation. While we must never forget that it is Jesus alone who saves and sanctifies us, none of it would have been possible without Mary's cooperation. And so we rightly call her not only the mother of Jesus, but the mother of all believers because she was the first to believe in him and the first to offer herself in service to the gospel.

Eve, our first mother, brought despair into our world. Mary, our mother by faith, brought new hope.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception is one of the few times during the year when the Church requires us to gather for Mass on a day other than Sunday. We interrupt our regular schedules because this truth of faith is so important to us as followers of Christ. Mary, as the first disciple of Jesus, is the first to receive the benefits of Jesus' saving work. She is the first to taste the victory over sin by being herself exempted from its stain at her conception. She is the first to celebrate the resurrection of the body through her assumption into heaven.

What she has received is also what God holds in store for us. Like Mary, he wants to restore us to the sinless, pure creatures he intended us to be. We, like Mary, will one day know victory over sin when all the scars of sinfulness will be healed. Like Mary, we will know God's victory over death when our bodies are raised on the last day. Saint Paul tells us as much in today's second reading from the letter to the Ephesians: God has chosen us in Christ from the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before him. For our part, we must strive everyday with God's grace to make our lives mirror the goodness he has restored in us through faith.

God chose Mary from the beginning of time to be the mother of Jesus. From the moment of her conception, he purified her from the stain which Eve's disobedience left on all our souls. In that way, her body would be a worthy temple for the Son of God. Though we have not been given the tremendous gifts of grace which God showered upon Mary, we can still hold on to the hope she offers us. God has chosen each of us from the beginning of time to provide a service for him that no one else can offer. From the moment of our conception, he gave us all we could ever need to fulfill his plan for our lives. Like Mary, all we need do is entrust ourselves to him with complete faith and confidence. Then the strength to do his will and the grace to follow his plan will be ours in abundance. And we can be sure that our mother, Mary, will be praying for us every step of the way as she points us to her Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Advent Mysteries of the Rosary

2011-12-08T08:17:00.006-05:00

Consider pondering these mysteries of the rosary in preparation for our celebration of the birth of Christ

1. The Annunciation to Zechariah (Lk 1: 5-24)

2. The Annunciation to Joseph (Mt 1: 18-25)

3. The Annunciation to Mary (Lk 1: 26-38)

4. The Birth of John the Baptist (Lk 2: 57 -80)

5. The Preaching of John the Baptist (Lk 3: 1-19 & Jn 1: 19-34)

(painting by William Blake)

Second Sunday of Advent

2011-12-05T08:01:00.002-05:00

John the Baptist is one of the key figures in the drama of Advent unfolding in these weeks leading up to Christmas.

The New Testament tells us that he was born around the same time as Jesus. His parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were very old and had never had children. One day, while Zechariah was ministering in the temple, the angel Gabriel appeared to him to announce that he would have a son whom he was to name John. As we can imagine, Zechariah found it hard to believe that he and his wife could have a child at such an advanced age. Because of his lack of belief, Gabriel told him that he would be unable to speak until the birth of the child. And so it was. Zechariah's inability to speak when he left the sanctuary made it evident to the people that he had seen a vision. And Elizabeth's pregnancy at such an old age made it clear that the child was to be great, that God's mighty hand would be upon him.

Many centuries earlier, the prophet Isaiah spoke about John the Baptist. We hear it in today's first reading. He would be a voice crying out in the desert to make straight a way for the Lord. He would call the people to clear out of their lives all the obstacles that kept God from being able to reach them. John preached a baptism of repentance, and the people flocked to receive it. They sensed that, in John, God was doing a mighty work. They didn't know all the details, but they did know that if they failed to listen, they would be missing out on God's offer of salvation.

Two-thousand years later, we still find the Baptist's call to repentance gripping and compelling. We have a sense that God has worked in our lives and called us to this place. We enjoy a lively sense of his presence and love around us. Yet, we must acknowledge that we so seldom live up to the great call he has given us to be light for the world and salt for the earth. The concerns of daily life crowd out the voice of God. The striving to earn more and to have more keeps our hearts from attuning themselves to their one great desire - to be united in intimacy with God.

Saint Peter warns us of this in the second reading. The earth will pass away. Nothing we have accumulated will have lasting value. Our true treasure is our soul and its relationship with God. Only that will survive our personal death and the end of the world. Knowing this, we must then strive to live "...in holiness and devotion, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord."

And so, we come here today, not unlike the throngs that lined the banks of the Jordan River, heeding the cry of the Baptist to make our crooked ways straight. We want to change. We want God to have more access to our hearts and to our minds. We want to put him at the center of our lives so that we can receive the mighty works he wants to accomplish in them.

We know how weak our resolve can be. We know how willing we can be on Sunday, but how distracted we can get on Monday. The source of our hope, then, is not our own will power and self-discipline. Rather, the source of our hope is the desire of God to have an intimate friendship with us. God's desire for us is so much deeper than our desire for him. And so he doesn't rest until he has straightened out our crooked ways. He labors to penetrate the defenses we have built around our hearts and the darkness that veils our minds.

John the Baptist made his appearance in Galilee to announce the arrival of someone greater than he, someone whose sandals he was not worthy to loosen. John came to baptize with water which can only give a superficial cleansing leaving us capable of getting dirty again. The one who was to come - Jesus - would baptize with the Holy Spirit. Matthew, in his gospel, tells us that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Unlike water, fire changes what it touches. After something has been burned, it can never go back to what it was before. It is marked forever by the flames.

And so, we who have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit and have been lit with the fire of the Holy Spirit through the anointing of our Confirmation, have been changed forever. There is no going back. We can't be unbaptized or unconfirmed. The gift we received through those sacraments can be tarnished and disfigured by sin and neglect, but they can never be lost. Our souls are permanently marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit giving us the foretaste and the promise of everlasting life. We belong to God, and he will never forget or abandon us.

The God who created us is coming to visit. He desires to sit down at a meal with us. Are we prepared? Have we confessed our sins sincerely and thoroughly? Are we determined with God's help to change the way we live, the way we treat others and the way we spend our time? God wants to do something great in our lives. If we can set our sin aside, we will witness it, and it will leave us speechless.

First Sunday of Advent

2011-11-27T08:58:00.001-05:00

The prophet Isaiah in today's first reading offers us one of Scripture's most beautiful images of God. God is the potter, and we are the clay. Like an artist, God is busy molding and shaping us. He is not some distant, impersonal force watching over the world the way a little boy might look at an ant farm. Rather, God is involved in our lives, calling us to recognize his great love and inspiring us to show it to the world.

The question we might naturally ask is, "If God is so active in the world, why is it such a mess?" Isaiah himself asks this question when he writes, "Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?" It is a question that mankind has been asking for thousands of years.

One simple answer is that God is not done with the world yet. Before the potter gets his hands on it, clay is just a lump of wet mud. The potter has to place it on the spinning wheel and then form it gently but firmly into whatever shape is pleasing to him. Then, the clay must be baked in a kiln, and once it is removed, the paint can be applied. It is a long process to go from a lump of clay to a beautiful vase. And, it is a long process to lead humanity out of its selfishness into the wisdom of God.

If there's one thing we can say about God it is that he is in no rush. God takes the time he needs to get things right. He has all the time in the world! He took millions of years to form the universe and eventually to form the earth. He took millions more years to make the earth suitable for life and to sustain humans. Then, he took many centuries to form the people of Israel. Over the course of several more centuries, he taught them to hope for a Messiah. Then, in the fullness of time, Jesus was born to save us from our sins. Now, God is preparing the world for the time in which Jesus will come again to create a new heaven and a new earth.

We don't know how long it will be until the world comes to an end. But, it will come to an end. And, when it does, Christ will be revealed as the King of Creation, and those who have believed in him will reign with him in glory. As Saint Paul tells us in the second reading, "He will keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." God's masterpiece, which he fashioned patiently with his own hands, will then be complete.

There's another reason why the world can be such a mess. Very simply, we don't give God permission to work on us. We keep trying to get in the way of God's plan. Clay does not have a mind of its own. It cannot jump out of the potters hand or out of the kiln. But, human beings are always running away from God. We'd rather stay a wet lump of cold mud than be transformed into something beautiful by him. Even believers very often find it difficult to trust God enough to let him take control of their lives. It is a basic human tendency to believe that we know better than God what's good for us and how we should live.

But, God never gives up on us. Like an artist consumed with his work, God is intent on making each of us into the woman or man he dreams we can be. He doesn't see a cold, hard lump of clay when he looks at any of us. God sees something beautiful made in his own image. No matter how we may have tarnished our beauty through sin, God never fails to see the good he has placed within us. And, God will never stop working to bring the good out of us.

The early Fathers of the Church had a beautiful way of describing how God works in the world. They described Jesus and the Holy Spirit as the two hands God the Father uses to shape us. Jesus reveals the truth of the Father's love while the Holy Spirit works within our hearts to inspire us to do good. All this takes place within the course of our lives. When things are going well, the Son and the Spirit work together to make us grateful and generous. In bad times when we are suffering or struggling, the Son and the Spirit teach us to place our trust in God and to allow him to carry us through it. Therefore, whatever situation we may be facing, God is with us, using the circumstances in our lives to help us grow in holiness. With the Son and the Spirit, the Father shapes and molds us into something beautiful.

Today, we begin the season of Advent - four weeks of preparation for the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We wear purple during this time as we do during Lent because it is a season of penance. We are to spend these weeks searching our hearts for the ways in which we fail to let God work in our lives. We are to invite God back, asking him to take us into his hands and mold us into the image of his Son, Jesus Christ. The gospel warns us to be on the look out for the God who approaches us with tenderness and mercy. May he find us ready to welcome him and ready to abandon our lives into his gentle yet firm hands.

Christ the King

2011-11-20T09:33:00.002-05:00

Saint Francis of Assisi is one of the Church's most popular saints. With good reason he is considered the one saint whose life most resembled that of Christ. Of all the good works he performed, one kind deed especially stands out. Shortly after he decided to dedicate his life to God, he came upon a leper in the street. It was customary at the time for lepers to ring a bell to warn people that they were approaching. When the young Francis saw the leper's twisted body and open sores, he felt disgusted and revolted. But, just as suddenly, another feeling came over him. His heart was filled with compassion for the man's suffering. Overcoming his feelings of disgust, he rushed over to him and embraced him as a brother. Inspired by today's gospel reading, Saint Francis understood that it was Jesus he was holding in his arms.

Jesus tells us in today's gospel that we will be judged by how we treat the poor and needy in our midst. He does not tell us this story to scare us, but to encourage us. For, when we find the courage to reach our hand out to another in need, something incredible happens. We discover Jesus. As he says, "Whenever you did it for the least of these, you did it for me." Jesus still walks the earth in the form of the neediest among us.

In the first reading, the prophet Ezekiel blasts the "shepherds of Israel." They are both the political and spiritual leaders of the people who have used their authority and power to enrich themselves rather than to protect the sheep. God will not leave the sheep of his flock scattered, terrorized by predators and hungry. If the princes and priests of Israel will not lead, then God himself will come down to tend his sheep. God himself will protect them, feed them and heal them.

This prophecy finds its fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is God himself come down from heaven to guide his sheep to everlasting life. His message was not just that a better life was waiting for us in heaven. Rather, Jesus came to show us how even now we could experience the saving love of God. As he told the disciples of John the Baptist, "The blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them." With Jesus, the destructive effects of sin and death are being undone and the foundations of a new heaven and a new earth are being laid. It becomes real in the world today by the love which Christians show to those in need.

On this feast day, we proclaim the bold truth that Christ is King! As Saint Paul describes it for us in the second reading, Jesus by his death and resurrection has already won the victory over sin and death. Evil has already been defeated. That victory has been revealed to us through faith. It is hidden to give the world time to repent and to be saved. But the day is coming when Jesus' victory will be revealed once and for all. Then there will be no doubt. All people will have to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Until he comes again in glory, Jesus has left it to us to seek out and find those who are lost. Who in our life needs an encouraging word? Who in our life needs a friendly ear? Who in our life could use a visit? Who in our own home needs to know that they are loved and cared for? Like lost sheep, they will not come to us. If we are to live up to the challenge Jesus is giving us, we must go out to them.

For Christians, salvation is not just a future event awaiting us after death or at the end of the world. Salvation and eternal life are here, today and now. What we as Christians seek to do is bring heaven and its promises down to earth. Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and so we seek in everything we do to bring the love of Christ to those we meet.

Christ now reigns in heaven above. He has come to earth to bring hope and comfort to those who suffer. That same Christ is still among us hidden in the weak, the poor, the outcast and the sick. Saint John of the Cross said, "At the end of our lives, we will be judged on love." If we serve the suffering Christ in those we meet, we can be assured of reigning with Christ the King in his heavenly glory.

Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-11-15T05:54:00.001-05:00

The Antiques Roadshow has been one of the most popular programs on public television over the past several years. The show follows experts as they go around the country appraising the antiques people have in their homes. It is a delight to watch the shock and surprise registering on people's faces when they learn that an item which they may have purchased for a few dollars at a yard sale or at the corner store is really worth thousands. Their small investment increased significantly in value. It makes one wonder what treasures we may have stored in our attics or basements.

In today's gospel, Jesus tells the story of three men who are entrusted with a treasure by their king who is going on a journey. Jesus calls the treasure they are given "talents", which was an ancient measure of silver roughly equivalent to 90 pounds. The English word "talent" meaning a special ability is taken from this ancient word. Though the king is gone only a short period of time, two of the men are able to double their money by investing it. How were these men able to be so successful? First of all, they recognized the value of the treasure which had been entrusted to them and knew that the best use of it was to invest it. Secondly, they understood that the treasure belonged to the king and not to them, and that they would have to give it back some day. They were convinced that the king would want his treasure back with interest. They were not willing to let the treasure gather dust, unlike the third man who buried his talent in the ground out of fear.

Jesus' meaning could not be clearer. Each of us has been entrusted with a treasure by God, and God expects us to make good use of it. During this week, each of us will have to examine our own conscience to determine what that treasure is and how we can multiply it for the glory of God. Today's readings, however, suggest to us two treasures which all of us share and which we can so often take for granted like valuable antiques gathering dust in our attics. They are, namely, our family and our time.

The first reading from the book of Proverbs is a poem praising a good wife whose "value is beyond pearls". Pearls were among the scarcest and most valuable items in the ancient world. In essence, the poem is saying that there is nothing more valuable than a good wife. By extension, our families are the most valuable treasure entrusted to us by God.

We see how true this is throughout Scripture. In the ten commandments, the first three spell out our obligations to God. The very next commandment, the fourth, commands that we honor our father and mother. Except for our obligations to Almighty God, our obligation to our family is first and foremost.

It is often said that charity begins at home. And, Pope John Paul II often wrote that the home is a school where children are taught to love and serve God. Whether we are parents or children, the home is the place where we learn to become holy. In fact, homes in which families eat at least one meal together daily, pray and go to Mass together have practically a zero percent divorce rate. Our homes must be places where God is honored if our marriages are to be strong and our children are to grow in virtue. And that means our homes must be more than just the place we eat and sleep in between our jobs, our classes and our other activities. Our homes must be the place where we pray, where we come to love and understand each other, and where we practice kindness and generosity.

The second treasure we have all been entrusted with is our time. In today's second reading, Saint Paul warns us that the time is short. The day of the Lord is coming at a time we cannot know. Whether the "day of the Lord" is the end of the world or our own death, it is closer today than it was yesterday. All of us would agree that time is something we all take for granted. We assume that we have plenty of it. And yet, we are shocked by how quickly it passes and that Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away.

So, if we were to turn off the television, what could we do with the extra hours we would have in our day? We could go for a walk with our spouse. We could go to the park with our children or grandchildren. We could spend time marveling at the beauty of God's creation. We could read the Bible and pray. We could go out for ice cream. We could go to daily Mass.

The Danish author, Karen Blixen, once wrote: "Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever..." The world is full of much beauty for us to discover and our families full of much love for us to share.

Our family and our time are among the treasures God has given us for our enjoyment and for his glory. The way a valuable antique can get lost in the clutter of our attics, they can get overlooked because of the hectic pace of modern life. How our lives would be blessed if our families were to continually grow in love and faith! How rich we would be if we used our time to be continually mindful of God's presence! How glorious it would be to stand before God and hear him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant", because we were able to recognize the value of all the gifts he has given us and to return them to him with interest!

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-10-16T08:28:00.002-04:00

The oldest political trick in the book is to get your opponent to talk about anything else except the issues. We have seen this many times over the past year. They bring up something a candidate's pastor once said. They question a candidate's commitment to his or her family. Rumors are started about possible shady business dealings. All this in hopes of getting the opponent to be on the defensive. Then the press will focus on the candidate's weaknesses rather than his or her strengths. Little by little, support for the candidate begins to diminish as he or she is required to talk about everything else except the issues.

This is a tactic which the enemies of Jesus tried often. In one famous episode from the gospel recorded by Matthew, Jesus is asked whether it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. By asking him whether or not Jews should pay taxes, they hoped to catch him in a trap. If Jesus said they should pay taxes, he would lose support among his followers who opposed the Roman occupation of Israel. If he said they shouldn't pay taxes, then the religious leaders would have cause to report him to the Roman authorities as an insurrectionist. Whichever way Jesus answered, his enemies hoped that he would have to keep explaining himself, digging himself into a deeper hole and losing support among the people.

As usual, though, Jesus is far more clever than his adversaries. His answer has become one of the most quoted verses from the Bible: "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; but give to God what belongs to God."

When we hear Jesus' words, we have to ask ourselves: What exactly belongs to Caesar? What do we owe to our government and to our fellow citizens? We have a responsibility to pay taxes and follow the laws. Being blessed to live in a democracy, we also have a responsibility to vote and to voice our opinion. Along with that, we must study the issues facing our society and form our consciences so that our opinions are based on sound logic and good moral principles. All these elements go into being good and responsible citizens. God expects that of us, especially as he has blessed us with a country which values freedom so highly.

Too often, however, Jesus' words, "give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's", are quoted by adversaries of the Church who try to tell us that religion has no place in political life. They are using that old political tactic of trying to keep us from talking about the issues. When they claim a wall of separation between Church and State, they hope that people of faith won't become involved in the national debate about abortion, homosexual marriage, the death penalty or stem cell research. They tell us that people of faith should keep their opinions to themselves. They dare to say that we have no right to voice our opinion because it is informed and motivated by faith. Sad to say, too often Christians have taken that criticism to heart and left their faith at the door when they entered the voting booth.

But, it is absolutely un-American to believe that someone has less of a freedom of speech because his or her ideas are informed and motivated by religious faith. As a country, we have fought to guarantee that each person have the freedom to voice their opinions no matter what their source or what their content. Should a person's beliefs and opinions be excluded because that person is a Catholic Christian? Why are the opinions of Catholics any different from the ideas proposed by environmentalists, animal rights supporters or business people? Like every other American, we have a right and a duty to witness to our faith even in the political arena.

And, the fact is that people of faith have always been a part of the political process in our country. In the last century, it was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a man of faith, who led the fight to guarantee civil rights for all people regardless of race. In the nineteenth century, people of faith were among those who stirred the conscience of our nation to recognize the evil of slavery. And, many of the drafters of the constitution and forefathers of the country were informed and motivated by their faith to make America a place of freedom and opportunity. In this century, it is up to us now to take up the cause of justice and to witness to the dignity of every human person no matter how weak or how vulnerable.

As a church, we must never endorse a political candidate or a political party. We can never fall into the trap of partisan politics. But, we do have a right and a duty to speak to the issues facing the society in which we live, work and raise our children. Because of our faith, we have much to offer. We have insights regarding the dignity of the human person, the sacredness of human life, the importance of the family and the role of government in protecting the most vulnerable of our citizens. As Pope John Paul II said so often, as a Church we do not seek to impose our views but to propose them to society, to enrich the debate through the witness of our faith.

Governments come and go. Political leaders come and go. But, God's word endures forever. The Church has survived numerous governments, both good and bad, from the Roman Empire, through the Middle Ages, through Nazism and Communism to the present day. As a community of faith we have a treasury of wisdom built up over those many centuries which we must share with the people of our day and use to strengthen our society. Let us pray that we will have the courage to speak the truth of the gospel even in the public arena and pray also for our leaders that they may be inspired by a vision of justice that will lead us to true peace.

27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-10-02T09:10:00.003-04:00

A man was dying. When he sensed that his life on earth was close to its end, he called his oldest son to his bedside. From a bag on the end table, he pulled out a simple wooden box with a carving of a rose on it. He handed it to his son explaining that it had been given to him by his father and that he wanted him now to keep it. He promised his son that, if he took good care of it, the box would change his life. The son wasn't quite sure what his father was talking about, but took the box anyway and brought it home.

In a few weeks, the father died. After the funeral, the son took the box intending to put it on the mantel above the fireplace in his living room. He cleared the pictures off the mantel and placed the box right in the middle. Standing back to look at it, he felt that something wasn't quite right. He noticed that the pictures hanging on the wall really didn't match the box on the mantel. So, he took down all the pictures and rearranged them. Things still didn't seem quite right. So, he decided to rearrange the furniture. He pushed the couch, the love seat and the recliner in different positions around the room until he found an arrangement that matched the box and the pictures on the wall. Looking back on all the work he had done, he thought about his father's words that, if he took good care of the box, it would change his life. He laughed to himself as he thought that, to make room for that little box, he had already changed his whole living room around. He wondered to himself in what other ways that little box which he had come to treasure would change his life.

We have all been given a gift by our God, a gift that will change us if we take good care of it. That gift is the gift of life. Each of us was created by God. Each of us belongs to him. And, God expects each of us to do great things with this gift of life.

Our life is the first gift that God gives us. Everything else God wants to give us depends on it. What good would all the treasures of earth be if we didn't have our life to enjoy it? What good would even faith, hope or love be if we weren't alive to receive them? Before God can give us anything else, he must first give us the gift of life.

That is why, as believers in Christ, we must always work to guarantee a right to life for all people from the time they are conceived until the time of their natural death. We never look at any human being - no matter how sick, no matter how deformed, no matter how needy - as a burden. Rather, we look at each person as a gift, a gift from God. And, if we take care of the most vulnerable among us - if we cherish their lives as a precious gift - it will surely change us for the better. Like the man in the story found out when he put the box in a prominent place in his home, we discover that caring for the lives of the needy will force us to clear away the things which don't really matter, like anxieties about our appearance or our status. It will help us to place the gift of life and the right to life at the center of our families and our society where it belongs.

In today's gospel, the people who are put in charge of the vineyard forget that it doesn't belong to them. They want to keep the vineyard and its produce for themselves. They want to do with it whatever they want without respecting the demands of its true owner. They eventually go so far as to kill the owner's son. They took the gift they were given - the vineyard - and forgot to whom it belonged. Instead of honoring and protecting the gift, they squandered it, and it resulted in their ruin.

Can we see a parallel with today's society? How have we treated the gift of life which has been entrusted to us? How have we taken care of the weak and needy in our society? Every year on this day - Respect Life Sunday - we ask these hard questions of ourselves and of our country. As we look to next year's election, these questions become even more pressing. Once we recognize life as a gift of God and every human life as made in God's own image and likeness, we can no longer fool ourselves that whether the unborn live or die is a personal choice. We can no longer kid ourselves that the lives of the innocent are ours to do with as we please. Otherwise, as a society, we risk the calamity that befell the men in today's gospel.

Each of us knows how precious our own lives are. We treasure the lives of our family members, our children and our friends. We strive to make of our lives something worthwhile and beautiful. And, we want to help enrich the lives of those we love and make our world a better place. Like the man in the story, we have embraced the gift of life, and it has changed us. On this day - Respect Life Sunday - let us renew our commitment to life, especially the lives of the most vulnerable members of our society.

26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-09-27T05:40:00.001-04:00

Imagine a man coming home to his wife and saying, "Honey, we have been married a long time, and I have been faithful to you all these years. Now, I think I've earned the right to cheat on you and have an affair."

How do you think the wife would take that? Do you think she'd agree that he had a right to cheat on her because he'd been a good husband for so long? What would she think about his commitment to their marriage?

Imagine, on the other hand, a man coming home to his wife in tears. They also have been married a long time, but he hasn't always been faithful. He tells her that he wants to change, that he wants to work at having a strong marriage. He asks her to forgive him and to take him back.

Which man do you think got a better reception from his wife? Which marriage do you think had the better chance of surviving?

In the first reading from the prophet Ezechiel, God is describing much the same situation. The man who has been good all his life and then decides to fall into sin will die because of it. And, the man who has lived an evil life and then decides to change will save his life. The good man cannot count on all his past deeds to save him when he sins. Neither will the sins of an evil man weigh him down when he approaches God for mercy and forgiveness.

To look at an example from our own lives, we can say to ourselves, "I have gone to so many Masses in my life, it's okay if I miss Mass this one time." Or we could just as easily say, "I have missed so many Masses, I could never start to go back now." None of us has been so good in our lives that we can afford to cheat on God by sinning. On the other hand, none of us has been so evil that we cannot change our ways and turn to God for mercy. God, more than anything else, wants to save us - both the good and the bad alike. We, for our part, must seek his will every day of our lives. Like a marriage, we must renew our commitment to God daily. Each day, we must be striving for holiness.

It is often said that in the life of faith there are no plateaus. We are either going forward or sliding back. We never get to a point at which we can just take it easy and coast. Rather, we must always strive to be faithful to Jesus and to his word. We can never say that we have done enough. We can never take a vacation from our vocation to live a holy life and be a light to others. Neither can we rely so much on our perfect Mass attendance and other religious observances that, like the Pharisees, we miss the reason that we have religion and spirituality in the first place - to help us to know, love and serve Jesus the Lord.

Jesus takes this idea to a deeper level in the gospel reading. In the parable, it is the son who actually does his father's will that is pleasing to him, not the one who pays him lip service saying "yes" but ignoring his father's wishes. The son who appears to be rebelling against his father has a change of heart and obeys. The son who appears to be obedient at first, later rebels. Jesus uses this parable both to criticize the Pharisees and to encourage those sinners in the crowd who were mesmerized by his words and wanted to follow him.

We hear Jesus criticize the Pharisees often in the gospel. They were not bad men. In fact, Jesus could find no fault with their observance of the law and their moral lives. They lived the law perfectly. The criticism Jesus had of them was that they simply failed to believe in him. They said "yes" to all the commandments of the law, to all the ordinances of Scripture, but they said "no" to Jesus who came to bring the law and prophets to fulfillment. Because they trusted in their own goodness and perfect religious observance, they missed the opportunity of salvation which God was offering them in the person of Jesus.

On the other hand, it was the tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners who came to Jesus in droves, drawn by his powerful words and the authority with which he cast out demons and healed the sick. Despite their past lives of debauchery, they were able to recognize God visiting his people in the person of Jesus. They were able to recognize the gift of salvation which came to them. They found the grace to change their lives and to believe in the good news of salvation.

When it comes down to it, Christianity is not only about following rules and observing commandments. Rather, it is a living relationship with the Lord Jesus. Like a marriage, we can't boil it all down to rules that we must follow. Like parenting, there is never a time when it is over, when we punch the clock and go home for the day. Faith is a commitment of love between people, a commitment of love between ourselves and Jesus. When we are in love, we never just try to do what is expected of us. Rather, we are always going out of our way for the other person. We never just want to spend a few minutes with our loved one, but a whole day and even a whole lifetime. We never want to give our loved one just a candy bar for Valentine's Day, but a whole box of chocolates! Love always goes beyond what is necessary, beyond what is expected, to serve the other person.

That is the way Jesus loves us. As Saint Paul tells us in the second reading, Jesus did not cling to his likeness to God but rather emptied himself to become one of us so that he could save us. Jesus went above and beyond the call of duty and the call of justice. Jesus responded to us out of his abundant love. And so, Jesus deserves our love in return. Jesus deserves us to say both "yes" to him with our lips and "yes" to him with the gift of our very lives.

Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-09-20T06:32:00.001-04:00

This is a difficult gospel reading to hear. We relate immediately with the workers who toiled all day in the hot sun. We relate to their disappointment and anger when they are paid no more than those who worked only an hour. It brings to mind all the times we have been short-changed, the times when we were denied our fair share. That Jesus would compare God and his kingdom to such an arbitrary landowner as the one in the gospel challenges our sense of fairness.

Let's take a few minutes, however, to look at the gospel in a different way. Instead of putting ourselves in the place of the laborers who worked all day, let's put ourselves in the place of the workers who were in the field only part of the day.

All these men were day-laborers. They would gather in the market place every morning in hopes that someone would hire them for the day. If they were called upon to work in the fields, they would be able to return to their families with some money. If, however, they were overlooked and not chosen, they would have to go home empty-handed.

When the landowner first arrives, all of them wanted to be in the first group picked to work in the vineyard. Imagine the disappointment of those men the landowner didn't choose as they saw the others jump on the back of the carriage to get carted off to their jobs. The fear that they would go another day without work would have been eating them up inside. They had no choice but to wait and hope that someone else would arrive with work for them.

Just when it looked as if the day would be a total waste, the landowner shows up again and hires the rest of the men to work the remaining hours of daylight. They go along happy to at least bring some money home to their families. And, at the end of the day, when they get in line to receive their pay, they must have expected to receive only a fraction of what they would normally make because of the few hours they worked. Imagine their surprise and delight when they are handed a full day's wage! The day is saved! They will not have to go home empty-handed. Their families will not have to go one more day without the food and clothing they need. Excited and thankful for the pay they received, they would have hurried home and probably had no idea that the laborers who worked a full day earned no more than they did. They were just happy to have something to bring home.

As much as we may tend to identify ourselves with the first group that worked all day, we are really much more similar to the group that is called last, especially when it comes to our relationship with God.

All that we have and are is a gift from God. From the moment we are born until the moment we die, we are utterly dependent on God. No matter how much or how little we have, it has all come from the generous hand of God. None of us can make a claim on God that we deserve more from him than we have. It is up to him to decide for he is our Creator and Lord. Like the landowner in the gospel, God will give to each one as he sees fit, according to his infinite generosity.

It is in our spiritual life, however, that we see just how generous God is to us. All of us, even if we were baptized as infants and raised in the faith, are late-comers to God's vineyard. There are many millions of believers who have gone before us. There are believers who have given their lives to preach the good news. There are those who spent their whole lives laboring to teach and live their faith. When we read the lives of the saints, we realize just how little we have contributed. Nonetheless, God holds out to us the same promise of salvation. God willing, we will stand in the same assembly of the saints in heaven, looking upon the same God with our holy mother, Mary, with Saint Peter, with Saint Mary Magdalene, with Saint Francis of Assisi and with Jesus himself. None of us can claim to have given as much as they gave in service of the gospel. Nonetheless, God desires that we enter into the same everlasting life. And we can expect a warm welcome from the saints when we enter into our heavenly homeland. They will not be like the laborers in the gospel who complained that they didn't receive more for their labors. Instead, they will rejoice that God in his infinite mercy was so generous to us poor sinners.

As we gather in this church today, we are all different. Some of us have great faith, and some of us are just beginning to grow in our faith. Some of us give of our time and talents regularly, and some of us are still learning how to use our talents in God's service. Some of us have been coming to church all our lives. Some of us are just coming back to church after a long absence. Some of us believe to the depth of our being. Some of us are struggling with confusion and doubts. No matter where we are on our journey, no matter how much we have been given, we will all be called to get in line to receive the same pay - the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist. Jesus gives of himself to each of us in the same way. He comes to the sinner in the same humble form of bread and wine as he comes to the saint.

God is calling each of us to labor in his vineyard. Some of us will give more than others. Some will respond more generously than others. Nonetheless, all of us are called in the same way and by the same God. Let us pray that we will be generous when God calls upon us, no matter how early or how late in the day it is. And, let us pray that all of us will receive God's abundant gifts with gratitude and awe.

Jesus Among Us

2011-09-05T21:42:00.001-04:00

The legendary quarterback of the San Francisco '49'ers, Joe Montana, ended his football career in Kansas City playing for the Kansas City Chiefs. One Sunday, he attended Mass at a local parish. After the Mass, a parishioner breathlessly ran up to the pastor and asked him, "Father, Father, did you know that Joe Montana was here?!" The pastor wryly replied, "Well, did you know that Jesus was here?"

We are gathered here today for one reason - to meet Jesus. Jesus is here. We encounter Jesus here in a way that is more real and more profound than if we had stayed home to pray alone. Jesus promised us that whenever two or three are gathered in his name that he is present among them. And so, Jesus is present in this assembly of believers gathered here today.

Jesus is also present in the Scriptures we proclaim. The Bible is inspired by God to such a degree that we can rightly call God its author. Whenever the Scripture readings are proclaimed at Mass, it is God who is speaking to us. Likewise, whenever the gospel readings are proclaimed, it is Jesus who is speaking to us. We have heard God speak to us today in a real way through the Scriptures.

And, finally, the most real way - indeed the most miraculous way - that Jesus makes himself present to us today is through the Eucharist, the gift of his body and blood. The bread and wine we receive at communion is not just a symbol of Jesus' body and blood. Rather, it is actually his body and blood. When we receive the bread in our hands or on our tongue and when we bring the chalice to our lips, it is the very body and blood of Jesus our Savior who comes to meet us and to dwell in us.

If someone famous were to show up here today - like Joe Montana or some other sports personality - we would get very excited. We would be staring at him, taking note of what he was wearing, how he was praying and trying to see with whom he was sitting. We might even try to meet him and get his autograph. Can we be just as excited about Jesus' presence here today? Do we get a lump in our throat knowing that he is speaking to each of us personally? Does our heart start to race knowing that we will touch him in the Eucharist? Do we get short of breath when we realize that Jesus is sitting right next to us in the person of our neighbor?

As we grow in the awareness of the presence of Christ among us, it becomes obvious to us that we are called to mirror the love and mercy we have encountered in Jesus. Since Jesus is present when we gather together, we have to be more like him in our everyday lives. And, because of Jesus' presence in each of us, we must love each other. As Saint Paul tells us in the second reading: "Owe no debt to anyone except the debt that binds us to love one another."

Brothers and sisters, we owe it to each other to love one another. Since we are the presence of Christ in the world, we must prove it through our willingness to love. When we love, Christ shines forth in us. When we love, Christ is real in us and in our world. And so, when we fail to love as we should - when we sin - it is never a personal failure. It is never just something between ourselves and God. When we fail to live up to the gospel message of love, we let each other down. When any one of us sins, all of us are affected because it makes it harder for us to show to the world the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. Because of this we begin every Mass by calling to mind our sins and praying: "I confess to Almighty God AND TO YOU MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS that I have sinned through my own fault." We can pray those words because we recognize that we are responsible to each other to live as Jesus taught us.

It is also for this reason that, in today's gospel, Jesus doesn't tell us to mind our own business when we see our brothers and sisters sinning. Rather, he tells us that we are to speak with them and to try to correct them. Jesus teaches us that we have a real responsibility to each other and for each other to ensure that we are all living the gospel message. It is not because anyone of us is better than another nor because any one of us is worthy to judge another. Rather, we correct each other precisely because of our love for our brothers and sisters and because we want each other to experience the presence of Christ. But, we must not only be willing to correct others, we must also be willing to be corrected. And, out of love, we must also be willing to forgive each other. No matter what the situation may be, we must always correct each other lovingly and respectfully because our goal is one and the same - to make the Church a place where Jesus is made present and where the love and mercy of Christ shine with a light which is as brilliant as the sun.

My brothers and sisters, the Risen Jesus is truly here today. We have heard him speak and met him in each other. We will touch him through the miracle of the Eucharist. And, we are each called to carry the light of Christ out into the world - to our families, to our workplaces and to our schools. It is by our love that we show the face of Christ to the world. It is through love that we will draw more people to this place so they too can meet and experience Jesus for themselves.

Thomas a Kempis on the Cross

2011-08-31T07:08:00.000-04:00

"Renounce yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus." There are many to whom that seems a hard saying; but how much harder will it be to hear that word of final judgment: Go far from me, you that are accursed, into eternal fire. Those who now gladly hear the word of the cross and keep what it commands will not be afraid then when they hear the doom of everlasting loss. It is this sign of the cross that will appear in the sky when the Lord comes to judge us. Then all the servants of the cross, who during their lifetime made the Crucified the pattern of their deeds, will come with great confidence before Christ who is to judge them.

Why then are you afraid to take up your cross? It is your road to the kingdom of Christ. In the cross lies our salvation, our life; in the cross we have defense against our foes. In the cross we have a pouring-in of heavenly sweetness, a strengthening of our minds and spiritual joy. In the cross is the peak of virtue, the perfection of holiness. There is no salvation for our souls, no hope of life everlasting, but in the cross. Take up your cross then, and follow Jesus; and you will go into life that has no end. He has gone ahead of you, bearing his own cross; on that cross he has died for you, that you may bear your own cross and on that cross yearn to die. If you have died together with him, together with him you will have life; if you have shared his suffering you will also share his glory.

From The Imitation of Christ

Jesus and His Cross

2011-08-28T10:51:00.003-04:00

There is a saying: "Don't seek Christ without his cross. You might find a cross without Christ."

Jesus cannot be separated from his cross. The whole purpose of his life was to bring us back to God through his death on the cross. The cross is the fulfillment of Jesus' mission on earth and the realization of God's promises. Without the cross, Jesus is just another good man who said some nice things but who has no power to forgive sins. With the cross, Jesus is the Savior of the World holding out to us the promise of everlasting life.

Jesus makes this very clear to his disciples. To save the world, he will have to be rejected, will have to suffer and will have to die. In so doing, Jesus will take upon himself the punishment we deserve for our sins.

Peter, however, would have none of it. He didn't want to hear that Jesus, whom he loved dearly, will have to suffer. I have no doubt that Peter would gladly have suffered and died for Jesus. But it is often more painful for us to see the suffering of those we love than to go through the suffering ourselves. Peter loved Jesus so much that he couldn't bear the thought of him suffering and dying. And so he cried out: "God forbid that any such thing happen to you!" However, Jesus rebuked Peter in the strongest possible terms, going so far as to call him "Satan". For Jesus, there was no other way for him to save the world and gain for us the forgiveness of our sins except by embracing the suffering of the cross.

Peter did what we are so often tempted to do. He tried to separate Jesus from his cross.

If Jesus and his cross come as a package, then we cannot welcome Jesus into our lives without also welcoming his cross. We cannot follow Jesus without picking up our own cross. We cannot love Jesus without also loving the cross.

Each of us has a different cross to bear. For some, it is illness. For others, it is financial hardship. Most of us struggle under the weight of a cross made up of many smaller crosses. Whatever form it may take, we can often stumble under its weight. We can feel alone and isolated because of the pain we feel. We can become bitter and let suffering harden us and close us off from others.

But, when we welcome Jesus into our lives and choose to live as his disciples, our cross is transformed from a burden into a source of life and even joy. We begin to experience that we are not alone in our pain, but that Jesus is carrying our cross with us. Our suffering no longer closes us off from others, but helps us to become more sensitive to the pain that others experience in their lives. And, instead of making us bitter, our pain begins to open our heart to the love and mercy of Jesus. We even begin to inspire others by persevering through difficulty. Suffering, then, takes on a whole new meaning in our lives. We begin to love the cross because it is the means by which we come to know Jesus in a profound and personal way.

We can begin to experience the transforming power of the cross in our lives by following the advice many of us received from our parents whenever we complained about something - by "offering it up". It is as simple as saying, "Jesus, I offer this suffering up to you for my sins and for the sins of the world." Or, "Jesus, I offer this pain to you for my friend who is also in pain." We can offer up our suffering for our own sins, for the souls in purgatory or for others who are also suffering. When we offer up to Jesus whatever difficulties, inconveniences and hardships we experience, they are transformed from sources of anger and frustration into opportunities to give Jesus more of our heart and more of our lives. Eventually, we even become grateful for the struggles we encounter in our daily life because they bring us closer to Jesus. We come to love the cross because we understand that it is the way to Jesus.

There is a still deeper meaning of the cross in our lives. If we decide to live according to the gospel message, we are going to experience difficulties. We are going to be ridiculed for our beliefs which seem out of touch to many people. We are going to be rejected by our friends, co-workers and classmates because we live differently than they do. We are going to be accused of being close-minded and judgmental. We are going to feel left out of the crowd. It is the same rejection and ridicule that Jesus experienced in his life. When we have the courage to stand up for what we believe, to go out of our way to help the poor and the needy and to defend the rights of the weak against the powerful, we will know the real power of the cross not only to transform us but to transform the world.

Jesus cannot be separated from his cross. But, just as importantly, the cross cannot be separated from the Resurrection! The power of the cross comes from the fact that it leads us to the Resurrection. The Resurrection is Jesus' victory over sin and death. It is the Resurrection that we celebrate when we gather every Sunday. We come to this place with our cross on our shoulders to proclaim boldly that there is no suffering, no persecution, no difficulty which God cannot transform. And, we reaffirm our commitment to embrace the cross by overcoming evil with good through the power that Jesus gives us in his Body and Blood.

No Matter What You Say..."I AM"

2011-08-21T09:28:00.003-04:00

With politicians positioning themselves to run for president in the coming year, the media will treat us to a steady diet of daily polls. The latest Rasmussen poll, Gallup poll, ABC News poll, or Zogby poll will be leading the evening news informing us about the opinions of the American public, especially about who should be president. And, it will all be broken down by race, by economic status and by age. We will learn which candidate middle class voters prefer, which candidate young voters prefer and who has the best chance of winning the so-called "swing states". When election day is finally over, the polling will still go on. We'll learn from the pollsters why people voted the way they did and how happy they were with their choice. Chances are most of us will never get a call from a pollster, but somehow they manage to figure out what we think and how we'll vote.

In today's gospel reading, Jesus takes a poll of his disciples. He wants to know what the people are saying about him, who they say he is. He wants to know if the authority of his teaching and the power of his miracles had convinced the people that he was the Messiah. But, from what the disciples could tell him, the people believed that he was no more than a prophet, no greater than Elijah, Jeremiah or John the Baptist.

Then, Jesus shocks them by turning the question on them: "Who do YOU say that I am?" We can imagine that some of the disciples were taken off guard and may have hung their heads, avoiding eye contact with Jesus because they weren't quite sure how to answer. It may have hurt Jesus to see many of his disciples not able to understand yet who he was. But, Simon, son of John, does not miss a beat. He boldly stands up and answers Jesus in front of everyone: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!" Simon Peter's profession of faith is bold because not only does he recognize Jesus to be the Messiah, the one who would save Israel, but because he also recognizes Jesus to be God himself - God made man.

Jesus, for his part, recognizes that Simon Peter's profession of faith was not something he had thought up on his own. It wasn't a result of Peter's thinking through the evidence and coming to a rational conclusion about who Jesus was. Rather, Jesus recognizes that Peter's profession of faith was a gift from God. God himself revealed to Peter who Jesus was: the Messiah and the Son of the Living God.

We wouldn't need to take a poll to tell us who the world thinks Jesus is. To the world, Jesus is just another good man. He is just another voice in the history of humanity, no different than Confucius, Mohammad or maybe even Nostradamus. In the world's eyes, it doesn't really matter if you believe in Jesus or believe in something or someone else. As they say, "It's all good." If you decide that Jesus isn't the one for you, you can find salvation somewhere else. To the world, it's all relative.

We know well what the world says about Jesus. But, the gospel turns the question on us. Who do WE say Jesus is? Who do I say Jesus is? Who do YOU say Jesus is? Is Jesus just another voice among many others throughout history; or, is Jesus THE voice of God the Father? Is Jesus just one way to salvation and everlasting life; or is Jesus THE way, the only way? Do we pick and choose the teachings of Jesus which we understand and agree with and ignore the rest; or do we believe that every word Jesus speaks is THE word of God which we must struggle to understand, to accept and to obey? And, do we believe that the Church Jesus built on Peter's profession of faith is necessary for our salvation; or do we think we can do it on our own.

What separated the disciples from the crowds of people who were merely interested in Jesus was ultimately the belief in Jesus as the Savior and the Son of God. What separates us from the world is the belief that Jesus is the only way to the Father, the only way to salvation and the only way to everlasting life. Like Simon Peter, our belief is a gift from the Father, a gift of faith. It was first given to us in our baptism and strengthened by our confirmation. It continues to be nourished through the Eucharist. Our faith is a precious gift because it makes our Lord and Savior Jesus alive in our hearts and active in our lives.

In his book, Mere Christianity, the great Christian author, C.S. Lewis writes that when it comes to Jesus there can be no middle ground. If Jesus is God as he claimed to be, then we must believe everything he said and obey everything he commanded us to do since it all comes from God himself. If Jesus is not God, then he is a blasphemer and a lunatic whom we must reject altogether. The gospel calls us to a decision today. If we believe that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God, will we love him with all our heart, all our mind and all our strength? Will we commit our lives to him and live as he commanded?

As we approach the body and blood of Christ in this Mass today, let us join with Saint Peter in professing our faith and reaffirming our commitment to Jesus by saying: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!"

Sunset in Provincetown -an artist's portrait

2011-08-20T07:15:00.000-04:00

A Mother's Prayer

2011-08-15T05:35:00.002-04:00

When it comes to what's best for their children, mothers never take "no" for an answer.

A case in point is today's gospel. The Canaanite woman is literally begging Jesus to cure her daughter who is tormented by a demon. Though the gospel doesn't tell us anything else about the girl's affliction, we can imagine that she was in a great deal of pain.

Though Jesus appears to be ignoring her, she persists in begging for him to help her. It gets to the point where the disciples are starting to get annoyed and want Jesus to tell her to leave them alone.

After talking to the woman, Jesus surprisingly refuses to help her because she is not Jewish. But, she will still not give up until Jesus, recognizing her faith, grants her request to relieve her daughter of her affliction. The woman's great persistence was a reflection of the depth of her faith - a depth of faith which Jesus could not ignore.

Now, it may shock us to think that Jesus would be capable of ignoring a woman in such obvious distress. It goes against the compassionate image of Jesus that we so often encounter in the gospels. Could it be that Jesus was really not going to help her? Could it be that Jesus was really willing to allow her daughter to continue suffering just because she belonged to another race and another religion than he?

On the contrary, I believe that Jesus pretended to ignore the woman to teach a lesson to his disciples who were with him that day and to us who hear this gospel proclaimed today. Jesus must have sensed the woman's distress and seen the faith in her heart. Jesus somehow knew she wouldn't take "no" for an answer and that she wouldn't give up. By forcing the woman to pursue him, he wanted to teach us about the need to persevere in prayer, to not give up even though it seems that our prayers will never be answered and our needs will never be met.

The history of the Church is full of stories of mothers who, like the woman in the gospel, persevered in praying for their children over many years. One of the most moving stories is that of Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine. Saint Augustine, though a bright young man, lived many years of his life without direction. He was seeking happiness and peace, but didn't know where to find it. His mother, Monica, prayed for him consistently as he looked into different philosophies and different ways of life all looking for the joy and peace his mother knew he would only find through faith in Jesus. Eventually, after many years of intercession, Monica finally saw her prayers answered when Augustine embraced the gift of faith and turned his life over to Jesus. He was ordained a bishop and became known for his powerful sermons and writings, becoming one of the Church's greatest saints.

The prayer of mothers is very powerful indeed, because it is motivated by deep love and faith. Many of us can point to the prayers and examples of our own mothers and grandmothers as reasons why we came to take our faith seriously. And, I can attest that mothers are in this church daily on their knees in prayer for their children who may be having difficulties in school, fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, having difficulties in their marriage or struggling with illness. Thankfully, mothers never give up in their prayers for us and for the world.

This past week, we celebrated the feast of the great Mother of the Church, Mary, the mother of Jesus. Like a good mother, she never ceases to bring our prayers to her son for us. No matter what we may need and no matter how long it may take, a devotion to the Mother of God assures us that Jesus will hear and answer our prayers.

Our families, our Church and our world have many needs. There is much pain and suffering everywhere we look. With the love and faith we find in our mothers, we must never give up in bringing our prayers to Jesus. If Jesus delays in answering us, then we must pray even harder. Jesus hears us, and Jesus sees the faith in our hearts. Jesus will answer eventually if we do not let up. We can be especially assured that he will answer if we enlist his mother, Mary, as our ally.

Be With Us, Lord

2011-08-09T18:30:00.004-04:00

My wife wrote this beautiful prayer for a meeting she was attended. I wanted to share it with you.

Dear Lord,
Be with us here tonight.
Be with us in our desire to serve you in others.
Be with us in our efforts to spread your word.
Be with us in our struggle to build community.
Be with us in our confusion as we seek to know your will.
Be with us in our impatience to see our efforts bear fruit.
Be with us as we bear with each others faults and weaknesses.
Be with us as we strive to use wisely all you have given us.
Be with us as we look to the future with faith and hope.
Be with us and teach us that our greatest joy is to be with you
Who live and reign forever and ever. Amen.

Cape Cod National Sea Shore

2011-08-08T19:59:00.007-04:00

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the declaration of the Cape Cod National Seashore. To celebrate it, my family and I took a tour of the dunes around Provincetown. The following are pictures we took during that tour.

God is Greater!

2011-08-07T11:36:00.003-04:00

A woman was widowed at a young age and left with three young children to raise. As you can imagine, she struggled through many long days and lonely nights worrying about how she would pay her bills and build character in her children. Sympathizing with her, a friend gave her a magnet for her refrigerator which simply said, "God is greater than..." After the "than", there was a blank line to fill in. So, for instance, God is greater than my bills. God is greater than my worries. God is greater than my boss. She kept the magnet on her refrigerator as a reminder that, no matter what she might be experiencing, God was in control. The God who loved her was greater than whatever challenge she might be facing.

In today's gospel, Jesus shows that he is greater than the powers of nature. The disciples were being tossed about the Sea of Galilee by strong waves and head winds. Despite the chaos and obvious danger, Jesus comes to them walking on the water. He shows himself to have power over nature even at the height of its fury by calming the sea and its waves. The display of majesty and power leaves no doubt in the minds of the disciples that Jesus is the Son of God.

Throughout the Scriptures, the sea symbolizes chaos and nature's power to destroy. We see it dramatically in the story of Noah as the flood waters rise to destroy all life on the earth. The prophet Jonah likewise encounters rough seas when he tries to flee the Lord's command that he preach repentance to the city of Nineveh. It is only when he stops running away from the Lord and is tossed into the raging sea that the waters calm down.

But, the seas can also be the place where God's saving power is manifest. For instance, as the Hebrews are fleeing the Egyptian army, the Red Sea parts for them allowing them to cross to safety. And, at the end of the forty year pilgrimage in the desert, it is the waters of the Jordan River which welcome them into the promised land flowing with milk and honey.

So, the sea represents both the fury and chaos of nature as well as the place where God shows himself to be Master and Savior.

In our everyday lives, the same is true. It is precisely where there is chaos in our lives, where there is confusion, where we are struggling that God shows his power in our lives. God shows himself to be greater than any pain we may be suffering. God shows himself to be master over our lives and over our world.

How do we come to know this power of God at work in our lives? Very simply, we have to begin by thanking God for our difficulties and for our struggles. That's right! We have to thank God for the chaos and confusion in our day-to-day lives. When we stop complaining and start thanking God we begin to realize that God has a plan for our life and that God can use our problems to make us grow in holiness. By praising God, we proclaim our faith that God is the master of our lives and that God is greater than our trials and tribulations. And, we grow in the assurance that God will never allow us to be submerged by the waters, but even when we fail as Peter did, he will be there to reach out a hand to us. By thanking God, we don't trivialize our pain and suffering, rather we maximize our experience of God's power at work in us.

Peter was doing a fine job of walking on the water. He only got into trouble because he took his eyes off Jesus and starting worrying about the wind and the waves. In that moment, Peter forgot that Jesus was greater than the sea and greater than the power of nature. As long as we keep our eyes on Jesus, no matter how daunting or how difficult our lives may become, we will be fine. We can be assured of this because the God who holds the whole world in his hands cares for us even more than we care for ourselves. He will pull us to safety soon.

18th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2011-07-29T15:59:00.001-04:00

Today's gospel reading opens with Jesus in distress. He has just learned of the death of John the Baptist, a man Jesus admired deeply. He was the prophet who came to prepare Israel for their Savior. In fact, Jesus admired him so much that he chose John to baptize him in the Jordan river. And so, Jesus is saddened by his death. Not only that, but Jesus must have been saddened that John's message of repentance was rejected. He had to know that the same fate - rejection and a violent death - awaited him as well.

And so, Jesus leaves to spend some time alone grieving his friend. But, when Jesus gets off the boat, he finds a vast crowd awaiting him. The needy crowd presses Jesus to stay with them, to speak God's word to them and to heal their sick. Though they've interrupted his plans to have some time to himself, Jesus does not resent the crowd. Rather, he takes pity on them. He realizes how deeply they hunger for God's word. And, he understands that only he can meet the deep burning need within them for friendship with God and salvation. So, Jesus doesn't rebuke the crowds for bothering him. Instead, he puts his own needs aside to meet the need of the crowd pressing in on him.

After spending a full day with them, it would be reasonable for Jesus to leave the crowd to get something to eat for himself and to allow them to find food for themselves in the surrounding villages. But, once again, Jesus does not put his own needs first. Neither does he consider his own lack of resources to be a good excuse for not tending to the crowd's hunger. Instead, he instructs the disciples to take the little food they had - five loaves and two fish -and to share it with the sizable crowd which would have numbered well over five thousand. The fact that it was barely enough food for Jesus and the apostles did not deter him. Jesus' love for the crowd would not allow him to abandon them in their hunger. Jesus would not dismiss them until all their needs had been met. Jesus would not tend to his own needs until he had satisfied the crowd's hunger.

Jesus' whole life was consumed with bringing God's love and God's life to the world. For that reason, Jesus had no place to lay his head, no home and no possessions. He wanted nothing else but to preach about God's love and relieve people of their suffering. Jesus gave of himself fully, even to the point of offering his life on the cross. Out of love for sinful humanity, Jesus held nothing back for himself.

It can be tempting for us to put our own needs before the needs of others. It is natural to fear that our needs won't be met unless we take care of ourselves first. Sometimes, however, we can be so focused on our needs that we get locked into a cycle of despair. Because we see our needs for love and friendship so often frustrated or delayed, we can become embittered and think that no one cares for us. Focusing on our needs exclusively can create loneliness within us. The very need we long to have met - the need for companionship and intimacy - can ultimately be what distances us from the ones we love.

If we are to live like Jesus, then we must put the needs of others first. Following the example of Jesus means forgetting ourselves and our needs to serve others.

We live in a world that is hungry. Not only are there vast numbers of people suffering from physical hunger, but from spiritual hunger. In America alone, people spend billions of dollars on lottery tickets, alcohol, drugs, self-help books and palm readers all in hopes of finding something that will fill the emptiness within them. The prophet Isaiah sums it up well in the first reading when he asks, "Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy?" We have the bread that will satisfy them. We have the antidote to the deep, aching emptiness within them. We have Jesus.

If we look out at that vast crowd and react with anything less than love and concern for them, they we do not have the heart of Jesus within us. Not only does Jesus demand that we not turn our backs on those in need, he demands that we feed them ourselves. Jesus will not accept the excuse that we have too little to give. We must start by giving what we have - no matter how meager it may appear - and trust that Jesus will multiply it.

And, when we take the risk in faith of setting our own needs aside to give of ourselves, not only will we witness the miracle of Jesus multiplying our efforts, but we will find that we are also being fed. In the course of trying to meet the needs of others, our needs are being met.

Anyone who has ever volunteered at a soup kitchen, homeless shelter or hospital can attest to this. The volunteers often begin to feel as if they are the ones being helped rather than the other way around. Despite the sad plight of the homeless and the needy, soup kitchens and homeless shelters are often places filled with joy. They are filled with joy because Christ is there. Christ's presence among the poor is unmistakable to anyone with faith enough to put their own needs aside and to give what little they have to serve them.

Saint Paul assures us in the second reading that nothing can separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus. Nothing we do and nothing that can be done to us can ever pry us away from the God who loved us enough to die for us. When Jesus walked among us, not even his own needs nor his lack of resources would keep him from serving others out of love. Neither may we fail to serve others in love no matter how small we feel our contribution may be. Now that we know Jesus' power to multiply our contributions, we can never underestimate how much good the dollar we give to a homeless person or the minutes we spend with a lonely person may do. And, we will be sure to find that, once we have set our needs aside, we have found an indescribable joy and a deep satisfaction because we have discovered in another human being the presence and the joy of Jesus himself.

Neither death, nor life, nor bad spelling....

2011-07-27T20:19:00.002-04:00

Lost Works of Art

2011-07-26T10:17:00.003-04:00

The students of Campion Hall in Oxford, England walked by it every day with no idea what it really was.

What appeared to them to be an ordinary painting of the crucifixion has turned out to be a priceless lost work by the great Renaissance artist, Michelangelo.

The painting had been acquired in an auction back in 1930 and no one since had any idea of its real value. It was hung in the hallway of the student dormitory for decades until this past year when an art historian discovered it.

Imagine the shock and surprise of both the students and the faculty to learn that a painting they barely noticed was really a priceless work of art.

How often did it cross someone’s mind over the years that the painting was an eyesore and should be replaced with a picture of a peaceful country scene or a calendar?

Looking at our own lives, there are many priceless treasures we pass by everyday with no thought to their true dignity and worth. They are our family members and loved ones. They are the homeless we step over on the sidewalk and our co-workers whom we try to avoid.

Imagine if we recognized each others worth and treated each other as priceless works of art. What would our world be like?

Very often we do not have to search far and wide for the priceless pearl or dig to deep to uncover the buried treasure. Like the students of Campion Hall, we are walking past it every day. We just need to be smart enough to recognize it.

Buried Treasure

2011-07-24T08:54:00.002-04:00

Jesus was a master story-teller. He crafted the parables he told carefully so that his audience could both relate to them and be surprised by them. Whoever heard Jesus speak could not help but think long and hard about the point he was trying to make.

The parables in today's gospel reading are no different. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is like a valuable treasure buried in a field and like a priceless pearl which a merchant seeks. In both cases, the men are willing to sell everything they have to acquire them. The treasure and the pearl fill the men with such joy, in fact, that they rush out to rid themselves of everything else that once held value to them. Those belongings now seem worthless because of the prospect of acquiring something so much greater. Jesus' message is simply this: there is no treasure as valuable as God. And, following Jesus is worth giving up everything we have.

The crowds listening to Jesus knew he wasn't exaggerating. They looked at the example of Jesus himself. He left a simple life in Galilee to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God. Because of his preaching, he had no home of his own and no wealth of his own. Jesus had left everything and everyone behind to proclaim the good news. Eventually, Jesus would give his very life on the cross. Serving his Heavenly Father was a priceless treasure for Jesus, a treasure which made everything else seem worthless.

As Jesus was speaking, the crowds could also look to the apostles to know that he wasn't exaggerating. To follow Jesus, the apostles had left their jobs, their homes and their families. When Jesus called them, they joyfully dropped everything to join him in spreading the good news. The apostles had discovered in Jesus a treasure which was worth pursuing at all costs.

Two-thousand years later, there are people who still sell all they have to follow Jesus. They are the people with good paying jobs who, upon discovering the love God has for them and the message of Jesus, decide to leave those jobs to serve God in religious life. They are the doctors and nurses who leave lucrative practices to heal the sick in third world countries. They are life-long politicians who risk their careers to speak out against abuses of human rights and to defend the unborn child's right to life. They are young people who risk being ridiculed and rejected by their friends to live a pure and chaste life, saving themselves for the one who will be their life-long love.

What has compelled people throughout the centuries to abandon all they have known and all they have loved to serve Jesus with all their heart and all their strength? Quite simply, it is because they have fallen in love with the person of Jesus. They have discovered in Jesus a God who knows them, who forgives them and who loves them. This love makes everything else seem worthless. Because of this love, they want everyone to know the God they have discovered. Jesus himself is the priceless pearl. Jesus himself is the valuable treasure.

Most of us gathered here today will not be called upon to sell everything to follow Jesus. For most of us, following Jesus will be a simple act of being faithful to him by being good parents, good citizens and good children. However, following Jesus always costs something.

First of all, following Jesus costs us time. Even though Mass rarely lasts more than an hour, there are other things we could be doing with this time. And, how many times are we distracted during Mass thinking about things we need to get done? All of us give this hour to God because we believe that something special happens here. We believe that Jesus is truly present in his word and in his Body and Blood. And so, we gladly sacrifice this hour to meet Jesus, our friend and brother.

Secondly, following Jesus very often costs us friendships. When we take our faith seriously, it is a very common thing that there are some friends who just don't understand why we have changed. They may even think we are hypocrites and phonies because they knew the way we used to be. They haven't yet discovered the priceless pearl we have discovered. No matter how dear those friends may have been to us before, those relationships often fall by the wayside when we decide to follow Jesus.

Time and friendships are just two examples of things we leave behind to acquire the priceless pearl and the valuable treasure. Each of us could probably name several others. But, no matter what it is we are called to leave behind, like the men in the parable, we ultimately do it with joy because we are receiving something infinitely greater than anything this world can offer.

It could also be that, for many of us here today, our faith is still a buried treasure, a treasure we have not yet discovered. In fact, no matter how advanced we are in our journey with Jesus, there is always so much more to be discovered. We can never exhaust all the riches of our faith. This likewise gives us great joy to know that there is still so much to learn up to the day that we meet Jesus face to face in heaven.

Jesus is offering each of us a priceless treasure. It is not the type of treasure, however, that we can keep to ourselves. Rather, it is the type of treasure whose value we discover as we share it with others. We are to go from this place filled with joy at the priceless pearl we have discovered and tell others about it so that they can share our joy. There is no joy greater than discovering the depth of the love God has for us and the mercy he has shown us by forgiving us our sins through the blood of Jesus.

Sandpaper People

2011-07-22T06:29:00.004-04:00

One of the joys of camping is sitting around the fire reading a good book.

My sister’s book had an interesting title: Sandpaper People: Dealing with The Ones Who Rub you the Wrong Way.

We all have sandpaper people in our lives. They are the ones who are always complaining and who suck all the energy and life right out of your bones. They are the hyper-critical people who make you feel defensive and on edge. Or they are the successful, beautiful people who make you feel like a loser. We avoid such people at all costs. We hope they don’t notice us when we see them at the mall and complain about them to our friends in hopes that they have the same impression of them.

The name “sandpaper people” is apt because such people are abrasive. But it is also apt for another reason. Sandpaper is rough so that it can smooth out sharp edges, flatten bumpy surfaces and rub the splinters out of wood. Those sandpaper people in our lives serve the same purpose. They smooth out the rough patches of our spirit by teaching us patience and humility. They give us the opportunity to love and forgive when it is not easy. It is such people, even more than our family and friends, who will help get us into heaven.

There is no getting away from them. They are everywhere. But they need not wear us down to nothing. By embracing them with patience and love, we can become less abrasive ourselves and grow more and more into the loving people God has called us to be.

An Eternal Priesthood

2011-07-21T06:32:00.003-04:00

Listening to this Sunday’s gospel - the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat - I could not help but think about and pray for all the good priests who were uprooted from ministry along with the abusive ones. They were men who may have made mistakes in the past, but who had made amends, were living holy lives and were touching souls with the good news of God’s love. Or they were innocent priests who were wrongly accused and suffered greatly because of it. There are also many good priests who continue in ministry with a smoldering fear of how their lives would be ruined if they were falsely accused.

We have been let down during this abuse crisis not only because abusive priests were allowed to have contact with us but because so many good priests were taken from us.

I cannot say that I know what a better alternative might be. I do not know how the bishops can remove abusive priests from ministry while giving good priests assurance that they will have a fair hearing if they are falsely accused. I do not know if there is any way of being able to tell apart those likely to re-offend from those who made mistakes in the past but are unlikely to break their promise of celibacy in the future.

But I do know that we should not stop praying for those priests - both the good and the bad - who have been stripped of their public ministry. I also know that in some hidden way their priestly ministry continues through prayer, sacrifice and penance. The priesthood of Christ is eternal and those who have been ordained continue to live it whether they are assigned to a parish or barred from public ministry. Through their humiliations, they are being conformed to Christ who Himself was accused and condemned. In some mysterious way, Christ is working out His plan of redemption through them. That deepening participation in the Paschal Mystery can only bring more graces to the Church and the world.

Weeds and Wheat

2011-07-18T06:37:00.002-04:00

This homily appeared in Connect! magazine

Anyone who has ever taken care of a lawn or tended a garden knows how dangerous weeds can be. Whether it is crabgrass or dandelions, not only are weeds ugly, but they leech nutrients and minerals from the good plantings. The only solution is to pull them up from the roots or poison them with chemicals. There is a risk to these treatments, however. Very often, in trying to uproot the weeds, some of the good grass is pulled up leaving an ugly bald spot on the lawn. And, with chemical treatments, the good plants can also be poisoned along with the weeds leaving an unsightly burn mark behind. Once weeds take root, they are very difficult to extricate from a lawn or garden.

In today's gospel reading, Jesus tells the parable of a landowner whose wheat field becomes infested with weeds. The weeds which Jesus describes, which Bible scholars sometimes translates as "darnel", are not the type of weed which farmers can recognize right away. Unlike a dandelion or crabgrass, darnel mixes in with the wheat. It is not until the crop matures and starts to yield grain that you can tell the wheat from the weeds. Because the crop is already so far along, the landowner fears that ripping up the weeds will do damage to the wheat. He is content to wait until harvest time rather than risk ruining any of his crop.

Jesus tells us this story to teach us something about God and about how He manages the world. As Jesus explains, the field is the world and all the people in it. The wheat represents good people and the weeds represent bad people. Like the landowner in the parable, God does not act right away to pull up the weeds. But God's failure to act does not mean that he is not offended by our sinfulness, and it certainly is not a sign of weakness. Rather God waits patiently for sinners to repent and to change their ways. As we hear in the first reading from the book of Wisdom, God shows his power not in his willingness to punish but in his willingness to forgive. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son and the shepherd in the parable of the lost sheep, God does not want to lose any person he has created. And so, he deals patiently with sinners in hopes that they will recognize his love and turn to him for pardon. God gives each of us the time we need to turn to him for forgiveness.

There is a good reason for God's patience. Unlike the landowner in Jesus' parable, God has the power to change weeds into wheat. God can work in our heart, helping us to recognize the error of our sinful ways and calling us to embrace the love he offers us. Saint Paul alludes to this in the second reading. None of us is able to pray as we ought. We get distracted or fail to make the time necessary for God. Nonetheless, God's Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness by interceding for us. The Holy Spirit is within us as we pray so that our prayer can become acceptable to God. Just so, the Holy Spirit is working in our hearts and minds calling us to be holy and transforming us from weeds which are useless and harmful into wheat which provides food for the world. As long as we are alive, God never gives up on any of us but is always trying to find ways to get our attention so that we can become a shining harvest for him.

There is another way we can understand Jesus' parable. The field can represent not only the world, but each of us. Each of us is a mixture of good and bad. There is some wheat in us and some weeds. We love, but we also have resentments. We forgive some people, but judge others. We may wonder why God allows us to be so weak in some areas of our life. Could it be that, like the landowner in the gospel, God is allowing some weeds to grow within us? Could it be that God is trying to teach us something through our weakness and our temptations? Very often, God allows some failures in our life to keep us from getting proud. There is no weed which is as dangerous to our spiritual life as pride is. It is the sin which made the devil himself fall from heaven. If it were not for our sinfulness, we could begin to think that we were better than others. We could even begin to think that we had no need for our heavenly Father. If it were not for our weakness, we would not know how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, as Saint Paul tells us. If it were not for our human frailty, we might not turn to God at all. And so, God can allow some weeds in the garden of our heart to remind us that it is he who is the landowner and that he is the one who makes our garden grow.

Because God wants us to be saved, he is patient with us. He gives us the time we need to recognize our sinfulness and to turn to him in repentance. As we receive the gift of finest wheat, Jesus' Body in the form of bread, we must pray that we never become discouraged by the evil we see in the world or the evil we see in ourselves. In our weakness, we must pray to understand that God's purpose is somehow being served despite the sinfulness we see around us and in us. If we can entrust ourselves to God in our weakness, then he will transform us into wheat to feed the world. And, when God finally comes to reap his harvest, we will have confidence that he will gather us up to the reward he has prepared for us.

Clearing the Garden

2011-07-12T05:50:00.004-04:00

During the summer of 1988, I spent a week at a convent in Elvas, a city in the Alentejo section of Portugal. During the summer, this region turns into a virtual desert. No rain falls, the grass turns as brown as hay and dust gets whipped up at the slightest breeze.

During that week, the sisters called on me to help them turn a section of their yard into a garden. Like much of the Alentejo, this patch of land was overgrown with brambles and the soil was rocky and dry. First we had to pull up the bushes which were not too eager to give up their territory. As we ripped them up by the roots, the branches wrapped around our forearms and legs like tentacles sinking their thorns into our flesh.

Once the thickets were cleared away, we took hoes to the dirt to dig out all the rocks which were as big as potatoes. Then, we had to quickly water down the soil or else it would dry up in the hot sun and blow away.

It was only after we had cleared the brush, pulled out all the rocks and wet the soil down that the sisters could even begin to plant their garden. It was hard, gruelling work under the hot sun. And I knew I wouldn’t be sticking around long enough to enjoy the tomatoes, onions and kale that the garden would produce.

I thought about that week I spent at the convent in Elvas while the Parable of the Sower was proclaimed at Mass this weekend. How hard at work God has been in the garden of my soul pulling up thorns, clearing away stones and keeping the soil moist. It has been slow, thankless work, but He has kept at it in His love and mercy.

If there is one type of soil in the parable that best characterizes me, it would be the shallow soil that accepts the word with joy, but when difficulty comes, the sprout shrinks up under the hot sun. I am always full of plans and resolutions about how I will put the word of God into effect in my life. But, I rarely persevere in seeing those plans through. No doubt, I make no progress in them because they are my plans inspired by nostalgia, pride or God knows what other vain sentiments. It is not always God’s plan that I am trying to enact. But, most of all, I do not persevere because I am not willing to accept the suffering necessary to see them through.

So then, how can I deepen the soil of my soul so that God’s word can sink deep roots in me? I have to accept the difficulties of my day, no matter how great or how small, without grumbling and even with joy offering them up out of love for Jesus, in reparation for my sins and in atonement for the unrepentant. All those physical pains and mental anxieties are serving to help me die to myself so that I can embrace Christ and His word more deeply into my being.

It is slow going. Preparing the soil requires much toil. And the seed grows slowly in secret. But the harvest is rich!

Fertile Soil

2011-07-10T08:19:00.003-04:00

Words can be cheap. Anyone can say or do anything. We can't always tell whether people mean what they say until we see them do something about it. There are some people whose word we can trust, but they are very often the exception. For most people, we need to get everything spelled out in writing or in a contract so that we can hold them to it. For most of us, actions are what count, not words.

With God, however, it is different. Because God is truth, God's word is trustworthy. Unlike people, God cannot use words to lie or to deceive. God's words are never empty or meaningless. If God says it, we can depend on it to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth. God means what he says. And, what God says has the power to change us and to save us.

We see the awesome power of God's word in the story of creation from the book of Genesis. God created the heavens and the earth simply by the power of his word. God said it, and it came into being out of nothing. God said, "Let there be light", and light was created. God said, "Let the earth be filled with every sort of creature", and it happened. God's word has the power to make things happen and to create the world anew.

Today's first reading from the prophet Isaiah describes the power of God's word. According to the prophet, it is like rain which drenches the ground and feeds the soil causing vegetation and fruit to grow. Just as the rain gives life to the earth, so God's word feeds our roots and fills us with life.

Furthermore, the prophet Isaiah proclaims that God's word will not come back to him empty. God's word will fulfill its purpose. God's word will not be frustrated. If we hear God's word and take it to heart, it will mean salvation and life for us. If we decide to ignore God's word and to live our life as if God didn't exist, we will be judged by that word. Either way, God's word matters. And, how we have heeded God's word will be the measure of our eternal reward.

In the gospel reading, Jesus uses another image to describe God's kingdom and his word. Jesus compares it to seeds which a man scatters on the ground. Seeds are tiny. But, when one of them finds the right soil, it can grow into a fruitful tree. Like God's word, seeds are what make life possible on earth. Like a seed, God's word doesn't always seem like much. But, when we take it to heart and it finds good soil in us, it has the power to really change us, to give us life and to make us fruitful.

The image of the seed helps us to understand God's Kingdom in another way. God's kingdom grows in our midst silently and slowly. The growth is so slow that we don't often notice it from day to day or even from year to year. But, with sure progress, God is laying more of a claim on our society and on our hearts. Just as a seed, once it is planted, has a power within it that drives it to become the tree it is meant to be, so God's kingdom, once planted in our world and in our hearts by Jesus himself, takes root and spreads its branches slowly but surely throughout all of human history.

As we look at our world, at our Church and at ourselves, we know that we are not all that we could be. We know that as a community and as individuals, we fall short of the high standard that God's word has set for us. But, we are still in seed form. We are still growing. Just as it takes time for the tiny acorn to become the mighty oak which is sleeping within it, so we are still far off from the glory and the freedom which will be revealed in us as sons and daughters of God. As Saint Paul writes in the second reading, "All creation groans and is in agony awaiting the revelation of the sons and daughters of God." Brothers and sisters, there is a glory and a freedom sleeping within all of us, growing slowly, leading us to become more fully the women and men God intended us to be. God tells us so in his word. It is true, even though we cannot yet see it.

Two things are needed, then, if we are to grow strong in the word which God entrusts to us. First, we are to make sure that the soil of our hearts is a welcome place for the seed God wants to plant within us. We must work everyday with God's grace to root out the selfishness, the bad habits and the bad attitudes which make our hearts unwelcoming to God and his word. Second, we need to trust patiently that the word, once planted, will grow and bear fruit within us. We will not always feel as though we are growing. We will not always feel as though we are making progress. Nonetheless, we must always trust that, no matter what we see or feel, God is actively working within us through the power of his word.

God is in the middle of creating a new heavens and a new earth. At present, it is still in seed form. We don't often recognize it. In fact, many people ignore it all together. But those with faith get glimpses of it as it grows. Christ will one day come again in glory to reap the rich harvest of the kingdom he has planted and to reveal the glorious freedom of the sons and daughters of God. God promises us this in his word, and his word accomplishes what he intends it to. And so, in eager expectation, we prepare our hearts to receive him because we want to be among those who have attended eagerly to God's word and have borne fruit abundantly in faith, hope and love.

Myth Buster

2011-07-07T08:01:00.010-04:00

As the sex abuse scandal among Roman Catholic priests unfolded, it was often said that it never would have happened if the Church did not require celibacy. Of course, that myth was busted by the staggering incidence of abuse committed by married men against their own children.

Another myth which we often hear is that, if women had more positions of authority in the Catholic Church, abuse cases would have been dealt with more swiftly and never covered up.

Just as with the celibacy myth, it turns out that women are just as likely as men to avoid confronting the abuse of clergy members and to cover it up.

Case in point, the controversy swirling around the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada and its former bisthop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, regarding revelations of abuse by Bede Parry.

Parry was a Roman Catholic monk living in the Benedictine monastery, Conception Abbey in Missouri. He was accused of abusing members of the abbey’s boys choir in 1987 and was dismissed from the monastery.

However, in 2000 after receiving treatment, he sought to enter another monastery. Before accepting him, the monastery required that he undergo psychological testing which revealed the likelihood that he would be a danger to minors. Needless to say, he was not accepted.

What was Parry’s next move? He joined the Episcopal Church working in the diocese of Nevada which at that time was led by Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Though the psychological report was allegedly shared with the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada and he had admitted committing the abuse, Parry continued to work at All Saints Church in Las Vegas and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 2004.

Lauren Markoe filed the following report for The Christian Century:

(Bishop Dan) Edwards (current Episcopal bishop of Nevada) said the process that accepted Parry as an Episcopal priest was careful and long, stretching from 2002 until 2004. Parry told church leaders, including Jefferts Schori, that in 1987 he had inappropriately touched an adolescent in Missouri, and that the police had been called but charges had not been filed. He also disclosed that he had gone to counseling.

Episcopal leaders found that there had been no other incidents involving Parry, and subjected Parry to their own, routine psychological testing, Edwards said. They concluded that he did not fit the profile of a pedophile.

"Nonetheless, Bishop Katharine directed that Bede Parry would not be allowed to have contact with minors in the ministry," Edwards told Religion News Service. "She gave that directive to people who oversaw him in the ministry."

Of course, if he had been seeking admittance to a Catholic seminary, he would never have been considered. And if he had already been ordained, he would have had his faculties suspended and been dismissed from ministry.

Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, a woman in a position of authority in the Episcopal Church, admitted to the priesthood a man who admitted committing abuse in the past and was identified as likely to reoffend by recent psychological testing.

Another myth busted.

For more on this case see: http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-07/episcopal-church-defends-top-bishops-record-abuse-case

Please, I do not bring this case up to gloat or throw stones at my Episcopalian sisters and brothers. I am simply pointing out that the causes of abuse are complex and that there is no quick fix whether it be ending celibacy or allowing women to become priests.

At the same time, I have to wonder whether there is another agenda behind those who continue to propagate these myths.

Come to Jesus

2011-07-03T08:10:00.002-04:00

In no other time in human history have we been so busy. Our society values keeping active, and so we fill our calendar with work and social events. The number one complaint most people voice is that they don't have enough time or that they are always rushing. We had hoped that technology would help us by making our work easier, but it has actually gotten worse! Because we have cars, computers and cellphones, we are expected to do more and to be ready for action at a moment's notice. All this rushing around has made health problems such as chronic fatigue, stress and anxiety a fact of modern day life.

We all need to take time out from our harried schedules to rest. Just as rest is important for our physical health, it is supremely important for our spiritual health and well-being. We can recognize immediately when our bodies are tired because we lose energy, our muscles ache and we get sleepy. But do we know when our soul is tired? And where do we turn when our soul feels empty and our spirits need a lift?

Among the symptoms of a tired soul are boredom, loneliness, irritability and anxiety. They are just a few signs that we have not been giving our soul the nourishment it needs.

Too often when we feel lonely or anxious, we turn to the TV, to alcohol or to other empty ways of wasting time in hopes that we'll eventually feel better. Though there's nothing wrong with watching TV or drinking alcohol with friends in moderation, these activities can often deplete us and make us feel even emptier than we felt before. This is especially true when we turn to sinful ways of comforting ourselves.

The only way to refuel our spirits and fill our hearts with joy is to turn to Jesus in prayer. Whether it is through meditation, reading the Bible or going to Mass, when we reach out to Jesus we find the rest our souls are longing for. The anxiety or loneliness that cause us so much heartache is very often a cry from within that something is missing in our lives. That missing piece is Jesus and his love.

The good news is that Jesus is never far from us. We don't have to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to find him. Nor do we have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get his attention. Jesus wants us to know him and wants us to love him. Because of this, he is always near to us when we call on him no matter how sinful we think we are or how undeserving we may feel.

Jesus takes delight in revealing the Father to us. The whole purpose of his life was to teach us how deep and how wide God's love for us is. Because Jesus and the Father are one, whoever sees Jesus sees the Father. Whoever hears Jesus hears the Father. And whoever is touched by Jesus is touched by the Father.

Who is this God whom Jesus reveals to us? He is not a God who is eager to condemn us or to scold us. No, the God of Jesus Christ is a God who is meek and humble, as we hear in the first reading from the prophet Zechariah. He is a God who is close to those who suffer. He is a God who is eager to forgive.

In today's gospel reading, Jesus rejoices that it is the little ones, the dejected and the outcast who gather to hear his words. Because his heart goes out in love to those who suffer and to those who are forgotten, Jesus stretches out his hand in welcome and comfort to all who seek rest in his words and in his presence. He calls out to all those who have lost hope and to all those who are weary from the cares of this world: "Come to me and find your rest."

When Jesus walked the earth, he revealed God's love through the words he spoke and the miracles he performed. In our day, Jesus continues to reveal the love of the Father through the Scriptures and through the Sacraments. When we hear the gospel, we hear Jesus speak. When we are touched by a sacrament - whether it be confession or the Eucharist - we are touched by Jesus himself. Jesus is alive among us giving much needed rest to our souls by revealing God's love and mercy.

God commands us to keep the Sabbath day holy. We observe the Lord's day as a day of prayer and rest. On Sunday, we are called to take a step back from all the hurrying and all the activity of the week to remember why it is that we are doing all this work in the first place. Is all this activity really bringing us closer to our family and loved ones? Is all this work really making us more secure financially? Or is all this running around really a way of avoiding our problems and neglecting our other responsibilities? And where have we been turning when our souls need rest?

As we gather in this place today, we prepare ourselves to receive the supreme gift of God's love and mercy - the Body and Blood of Christ. It is the most important way that Jesus feeds our weary soul. When we approach Jesus in the Eucharist today, let us place all our burdens and worries on his shoulders and receive him with love and devotion. He wants nothing more than that we turn to him and find our rest in him alone.

The Humanity of Jesus

2011-07-01T18:51:00.007-04:00

The Feast of the Sacred Heart is a time to celebrate the humanity of Jesus. His human heart fueled by divine love aches for all of humanity. I am posting below part of a talk I gave on retreat about Jesus' humanity.

Growing up in the disciplined environment of a Catholic school, my image of Jesus was much like that of the superheroes I read about in my comic books. He was all-powerful. No one could hurt Him. He did not show any emotion or feel any pain. I knew that He had died on the cross, but to my mind that was all just to show us how tough He was. And that is how I wanted to be. Above it all. Unmoved by anyone or anything. Hard as a rock.

As a kid, there was plenty of reason for me to think that Jesus was superhuman. As the Son of God, He knew all things. He could read the minds of those who approached Him. He had the power to cure people of their illnesses. In one scene from the gospels, He casts out demons from a man, sends them into a herd of pigs and then sends the pigs over a cliff. After His resurrection, He appears to the apostles even though the doors are locked. There was nothing that Jesus could not do. He was the most powerful man to ever walk the earth.

However, as I grew older, I came to see Jesus in a new light. Through prayer and by meditating on the gospels, I learned that He was not the superhero I first thought Him to be. Though He was God, He was also human in every way that we are. Not a super-human. Just human. Except for sin, there was nothing that we experience that He did not experience during His lifetime.

Like each of us, he needed a father and mother to protect and nurture Him. He needed to be fed and washed. He needed to have his diaper changed and to be taught how to speak, read and write. He went to school and had friends. He must have also known what it was like to be different from other kids, to see things differently than they did. There would have been many times when He would have felt left out and ignored.

As He grew through adolescence into manhood, He would have learned the carpenter’s trade from His step-father, Joseph. He would know the frustration of someone not being satisfied with His work or not paying Him. There were no doubt many times that He would have hit his thumb with a hammer or stepped on a nail. There were probably many nights that his mother, Mary, would help him pick splinters out of his hands. And sometimes He would be so tired that He just wanted to go straight to bed when He got home.

Jesus was not self-sufficient. He needed the love and friendship of others.Throughout the gospels, He takes time aside from preaching and curing the sick to eat at the home of his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany. At the last supper, the apostle John who is often referred to as “the disciple Jesus loved” laid his head on his chest. Jesus is constantly taking the initiative to reach out to others whether it be the Samaritan woman at the well, little Zaccheaus, the tax collector from Jericho who climbed up a tree to get a look at Him or Peter. He cherished the friends He made during His lifetime and drew real comfort and strength from them.

Because He needed others, He also experienced disappointment. When he cured the ten lepers and only one came back to thank Him, He felt the pain of being unappreciated. At the Last Supper we can feel the hurt in His voice when He tells His disciples that one of them will betray Him. He feels especially hurt that Peter would deny knowing Him. And when He looked down from the cross to see that so many of His disciples had abandoned Him, He must have felt crushed. Despite the pain and disappointment He so often felt, Jesus never failed to forgive those who let Him down. He even prayed that God would forgive those who crucified Him. So great was His need to share the abundance of His love with all those He met.

We can very often think that, because Jesus never sinned, He did not have a real human experience of life. But the opposite is true. Jesus is not less human because He never sinned. Rather not sinning made Him more human. To be human means to be made in the image and likeness of God.Sin tarnishes that image of God in our soul. Sin makes us less human. Because He never sinned, Jesus not only reveals to us what God is like. He also teaches us what it means to be truly human.

We can also be tempted to think that, because Jesus never sinned, He could not possibly relate to our weakness and to the struggles we face. But that is absolutely not true. Because Jesus shared our human nature, He faced every type of temptation that we faced. No one here today has committed a sin that Jesus was not tempted to commit in one way or another. Whatever you or I are struggling with, He understands all about it. The Bible tells us so. In the Letter to the Hebrews we read: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet never sinned” (Heb.4:15).

It is clear from His life as presented to us in the gospels that Jesus was not offended or put off by the weakness and sinfulness of the people He ran into. He was not looking for people who already had their act together. Rather He was reaching out to lepers, to tax collectors, to prostitutes and to all those who were outcast. He was not drawn to people because they were holy or righteous. He was drawn to people precisely because they were lost and because they were weak. The fact that He Himself never sinned did not make Him less compassionate with sinners. Rather it filled His heart with the desire to extend God’s love to them knowing that they were most in need of it. It drove Him to make the ultimate sacrifice - to die on the cross.

To have a relationship with Jesus, we do not have to wait until we have our act together. We do not have to straighten our lives out or be perfect. We only have to go to Jesus as we are with all our imperfections and weakness. We do not even have to promise that we will be good from now on. All we need to do is tell Him that we want to know Him and love Him. He will take care of the rest because He is longing to be loved by us.

Think about that for a minute. God is longing to be your friend. God pines for you. He wants you to run into His arms. Saint Alphonsus of Liguori describes it this way: “God loves us and seeks us out as if we were His God.” There is no way that He will reject you no matter how unworthy you may feel or how long you may have been running away from Him.

I am convinced that that is why the Son of God became man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. As long as God stayed in heaven, we might fear and respect Him, but we could never really come to love Him. It was not until He became one of us with all our weakness and vulnerability that we could really come to love Him. God is willing to do anything to get us to love Him. He is even willing to allow His Son to be put to death for us.

Jesus in His humanity has something to teach us. He says to each of us, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” Jesus can teach us what it means to be human. He can give us the strength and courage to let our guard down and risk being hurt to truly love others from the heart.

Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

2011-06-29T20:53:00.002-04:00

A man gave his life over to Christ. Almost immediately, he was filled with a dread that God would call him to be a missionary in Africa. The fear consumed him to the point that it threatened to make him abandon his new found faith. But, in prayer, he felt assured that God would not put him in Africa without first putting Africa in his heart. With time, the man not only stopped fearing that God would send him to Africa, he began desiring to spread God's word there. He did eventually decide to go to Africa as a Christian missionary and was later martyred there. God kept his promise. He first planted the desire in the man's heart and then equipped him to serve in the missions event to the point of giving his life.

Today, we celebrate two of the great missionaries of our faith, Saints Peter and Paul.

Saint Peter was one of the original twelve apostles called by Jesus. Because of his profession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Savior of the World, Peter was called by Jesus to be the rock on which he would build his Church. Since that day, a pope has served as the successor to Peter and as the visible sign of the unity of the Church.

Saint Paul, on the other hand, was not one of the original apostles. In fact, in the days following Pentecost, he sought to crush the fledgling Church through an intense persecution which culminated with the stoning of Saint Stephen, the first to give his life for Christ. On the way to the city of Damascus, Saint Paul would be overwhelmed by a vision of the Risen Lord and converted from a persecutor of the Church to one of its most fervent missionaries. Though he wasn't one of the original twelve apostles, we call Saint Paul an apostle, nonetheless, because of his experience of the Risen Lord. He would be the Church's first theologian helping to formulate the basics of the new Christian faith and spreading that faith throughout much of the Greek speaking world.

God gave great success to the missionary work of Saints Peter and Paul. But, like the man in our story, neither of them was ready to spread the word from day one. Rather, each needed to spend time with the Lord before setting out to preach to others. Saint Peter spent three years following Jesus and learning from him up to the time of Jesus' death. Then, Peter sat at Jesus' feet after the resurrection, as we read in today's gospel when Jesus called Peter to tend his lambs. Saint Paul, likewise, spent three years praying and reflecting in the deserts of Arabia before finally meeting with Peter in Jerusalem, as we read in the second reading, and setting out on his missionary journeys around Asia Minor and eventually to Rome.

Like the man in our story, Jesus placed a burning love into the hearts of Saints Peter and Paul which expressed itself in a desire to spread the word of Jesus' death and resurrection. Because Saints Peter and Paul desired nothing else than to be faithful to their master, they would eventually give the ultimate witness to their faith by both being martyred in Rome. Saint Peter would be crucified upside down, and Saint Paul would be beheaded.

Today, in this place, Jesus is asking each of us if we love him. And, if we do love him, will we feed and tend his sheep? And, if we will tend his sheep, are we willing to go where we'd rather not go? Are we willing to follow Jesus to where the poor are? Are we willing to follow Jesus to where the hungry beg for bread? Are we willing to follow Jesus to where the sick are seeking treatment? Are we willing to stretch out our hands to tend Jesus' lambs wherever they may wander?

Jesus understands if we find his questions unsettling or even disturbing. Jesus understands if we hesitate or if we aren't ready to answer. Jesus even understands if our answer to him is "not yet". It very often takes time for us to understand what God wants of us. And, it takes even longer for us to be equipped by God with what we need for the mission. Jesus is a gentle master. He will place within our heart a desire for whatever mission he is calling us to. He will work on us until our fear gives way to love and our love shows itself in service to Jesus' sheep.

In every age, God has provided us, his sheep, with women and men of faith who witness powerfully to his love. It began with Saints Peter and Paul. The task now falls to each of us. In this place Jesus invites us to a meal and asks each of us if we do indeed love him and will serve him. If we are not ready to answer yet, we must pray that God will place in our heart a desire to serve him and the opportunity to know his will for us. That is a prayer that God will certainly answer. We will be both surprised and delighted by where our "yes" to him will take us.

The Lord's Supper

2011-06-26T09:56:00.002-04:00

We are told that one of the signs of the breakdown of the family is that fewer families share meals together. With such erratic work and schools schedules, we too often find ourselves grabbing a bite here or there or wolfing down a microwaved burrito while scrolling through Facebook. However, mealtimes are essential to the life and functioning of a family. It is over meals that we slow down, look each other in the face and tell each other how we are doing. We get to know one another over pasta, burgers and broccoli. We forge bonds that nourish us more deeply than carbohydrates or proteins can.

My wife and I are blessed with a close, intimate relationship. Looking over our lives, I have to credit it to our shared passion for food. We never miss a meal, and we take any and every opportunity to go out to eat. Time shared conversing over a meal strengthened our relationship even when our faith was not as central a part of our marriage and when we rarely prayed together.

Since meals play such a foundational role in human bonding, it makes sense that our God would long to share a meal with us. He wants to share an intimate union with us that goes deeper than words or concepts. Even more wonderfully, the food that he wants to share with us is his very self. The bread becomes his body. The wine becomes his blood. We are united to our God in a wonderful way. As the hymn, “Gift of Finest Wheat” so beautifully expresses it: “Whom all the world cannot contain comes in our hearts to dwell.”

So why would we ever want to miss an opportunity to share this meal with our Lord and God? When we consider that it is God himself whom we receive, how silly does it sound when people say, “I get more out of praying at home or being in nature.”? There is no union with God more real or more intimate than the communion we share when we gather to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

We must strive to make our hearts, then, a worthy place for him. If Jesus were to come to our homes, we would make sure it was spotless for him. We would cook our best meal and spread out our finest china. So our soul must be as spotless as possible to welcome him into the sanctuary of our heart. And, at the moment we receive him, we must block our all distractions and focus on the Savior who meets us. He brings unfathomable graces and inestimable riches. As he promises, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will never die but have eternal life.” He comes to share this meal with us, to give us his life, until the day we enter the fullness of life eternal in Heaven.

The Body of Christ

2011-06-25T18:13:00.001-04:00

The human body is one of the marvels of creation. Our body is the way we relate to the world and to one another. We recognize and know each other through our bodies. Our bodies are the way we see each other, touch each other and speak to each other. Our bodies are also the way we pass life on to the next generation. Through the intimacy of our bodies with the bodies of our loved ones we co-operate with God in creating new life. Ultimately, our bodies are who we are. Our bodies are ourselves. Though we commonly say that we have a body, it is more correct for us to say that we are a body.

So, it makes sense that the God who wanted to be known by us and wanted to pass on His life to us would take on a human body in the person of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus - through His body - we see and know the Father. We can now relate to God because He has taken on a body like our own. Through the person of Jesus, God now speaks our language. But, most importantly, by taking on a human body, God now passes His life on to us. Through the body of Jesus, we can have the eternal life that only God can give.

We don't see Jesus the way the apostles did. We are not able to speak with Him and touch Him the way Martha and Mary did. How, then, does Jesus pass on this eternal life to us? Through the wondrous mystery of the Eucharist.

At every Mass, through every generation, Jesus has made himself present to us through the gift of His Body and Blood. Through the Eucharist, Jesus gives us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink. Saint Paul affirms it for us in the second reading. The cup of blessing is a sharing in the Blood of Christ and the bread we break is a sharing in Christ's Body. Through the gift of the Eucharist, the God who wants to be know by us and who wants to pass His life on to us, comes to live within us, entering our bodes and penetrating our souls in the form of bread and wine.

God is so generous to us! It wasn't' enough for God to reveal Himself to us in Scripture. He sent His only Son to die for us giving us the forgiveness of sins and the hope of everlasting life through His resurrection. But, even that wasn't enough for God. In his infinite generosity, He gave us the very flesh and blood of His Son to feed us and sustain us during our lifetime. It is the nature of God that He gives, and gives and gives of Himself. When God had spoken His last word of revelation, when every drop of blood had been drained from Jesus' body, when His very Spirit had been poured out for us, He had to go even further and give His Body to nourish us.

Why does God go so far as to give us the flesh and blood of His Son? It is because God longs to share His life with us. God pines for our love like a teenager dogged by a crush. God cannot rest until He has given us every opportunity to experience His love and His life.

The only way that we can receive the eternal life of God in all its fullness is through the Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus makes it very clear to us in the gospel of John. Jesus gives His flesh as bread for the life of the world. Unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we do not have life within us. Why is that? Because the only way for us to receive God's life is through God. No one else can give us God's life except God Himself. I received my human life from my mother and father who were humans. A monkey or a dog couldn't give me human life. My human life had to be given to me through the bodies of my mother and father. Just so, we cannot receive God's life unless God gives it to us. And that gift of eternal life comes to us through the Body and Blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.

We gather here today to witness and experience the miracle of bread and wine which will be transformed into Jesus' body and blood for the life of the world. There will be some of us who are unable to receive communion today. There are young children here who have not yet made their First Communion. As a community we pray for you that in your innocence God will touch your hearts. Some won't receive communion because you feel unworthy. You may have not gone to confession in many years or may be struggling with personal problems. As a worshiping community, we pray for you that you can experience the transforming life and love that God offers to all sinners. And some cannot come to communion today because a particular situation in your life does not allow it. We pray for you that you can work your way through whatever situation you are in and be able to approach the God of mercy and compassion who seeks to envelop all people in His loving embrace. Though not all of us may receive, none of us is left out of the transforming power of God's presence in the Eucharist. Even if we cannot receive His Body and Blood on our tongue, we may gaze upon it in wonder and awe and invite His power into our lives and into our hearts. Many of us will be able to receive this precious gift of God in the Eucharist. We must examine our hearts and prepare ourselves so that we accept this gift worthily and with deep gratitude. Our eternal life with God depends on it.

Mysteries of the Kingdom

2011-06-23T06:07:00.002-04:00

During the month of July, the gospel readings will be taken from Jesus’ parables on the Kingdom of God. It just so happens that they are grouped perfectly to be used as mysteries of the Rosary. Reflecting on them would be a great preparation for the Sunday liturgies.

The Parable of the Sower - Matthew 13: 1-27
The Parable of the Weeds - Matthew 13: 24-30
The Mustard Seed and Yeast - Matthew 13: 31-35
The Hidden Treasure and the Pearl - Matthew 13: 44-45
The Parable of the Net - Matthew 13: 47-52

Praise the Holy Trinity

2011-06-20T08:30:00.002-04:00

If you're ever tempted to think you know it all or that you've figured everything out, try spending five minutes talking to a child. A conversation with a child can teach us how little we really know. Children have such active and inquisitive minds. Nothing gets past them. And, when it comes to questions of faith and religion, children come up with questions that would stymie even the most brilliant theological mind.

Try answering these questions to a child's satisfaction:

- If God made everything, then who made God?

- How can God know everybody?

- How can God be everywhere at the same time?

- If God is everywhere, why can't we see Him?

If you find those questions difficult to answer, how much more difficult would it be to explain the Trinity? God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are three persons in one God. The Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God. Yet, they are one God. If you think you understand this, try explaining it to a child. Better yet, if you think you understand it, try explaining it to me! The Trinity is a mystery beyond any one's ability to understand.

Though we can never really understand this mystery, it is necessary for us to know about the Trinity because it tells us something important about God. Because God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, He lives in a community of love. God is not an entity but a family. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, throughout all eternity, have lived together in a communion of love and fellowship.

And so, God didn't create us because He was bored or because He was lonely. God created us because the love that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit share is so abundant that it overflows. Just as the intimacy a husband and wife share overflows to bring children into the world, just so, out of love, God created a world that He could share Himself with. Jesus explains it to Nicodemus in today's gospel reading: "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him may not die but have eternal life." God created us so that we could be a part of the deep love that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have shared throughout all eternity.

God is a mystery. And, we as human beings are so removed from the God who created us that we could never hope to share in His life in heaven. We could never hope to know God with the feeble minds we were created with. We could never hope to love Him with the selfish hearts we have. But, God loved us so much that He sent His Son so that we could know Him and could love Him. God, through Jesus' death and resurrection, has brought us into His family of love so that we can share that love with Him and be members of the family of love that He is.

It is our baptism in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit which makes us children of God. Gathered here as members of God's family we come to the altar to share in God's very life through the gift of the Eucharist. At this table, the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit will come to us in the simple form of bread. It is here that we experience the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. All of us are invited to share in the abundant life and the abundant love of God.

Mysteries are impossible to understand. No matter how long we live or how much we study them, we will never fully understand the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. But, we can understand love. More importantly, we can experience love. The mystery of the Blessed Trinity is simply this - that God is love and that God loves us. Even a child can understand that.

Prayer to Saint Joseph for Fathers

2011-06-19T16:42:00.001-04:00

Saint Joseph, guardian of Jesus and chaste husband of Mary,
you passed your life in loving fulfillment of duty.
You supported the Holy Family of Nazareth with the work of your hands.
Kindly protect those who trustingly come to you.
You know their aspirations, their hardships, their hopes.
They look to you because they know you will understand and protect them.
You too knew trial, labor and weariness.
But amid the worries of material life, your soul was full of deep peace
and sang out in true joy through intimacy with God’s Son entrusted to you
and with Mary, His tender Mother.
Assure those you protect that they do not labor alone.
Teach them to find Jesus near them
and to watch over Him faithfully as you have done.
Amen

Pope John XXIII

Prayer to the Eternal Father

2011-06-18T14:43:00.005-04:00

From the Angelic Reliquary

Eternal Father, Father of mercies, we thank you for the love you show us. How different are you gifts from those of men. You offered up your Only Begotten Son to death as a remedy for sin. We treat each other with hate and selfishness. How great is your providence! How excessive your love! You take the occasion of our faults to multiply your blessings upon us, forgetting our sins.

God of Mercy, may these excesses of your love lead me to serve you as the Author of my good an to flee from the world for I have experienced its deceit. Give me the grace to entrust my whole life to you just as you handed over your Only Begotten Son as a remedy for my sin.

May it all be for the glory and honor of God, and of Our Most Holy Lady, Mary.

A Season of Pentecost

2011-06-16T18:38:00.003-04:00

After every great Church celebration, a season of prayer and celebration follows. The birth of Jesus is followed by the Christmas Season. We extend the feast of Jesus’ resurrection over the following fifty days with the Easter Season. However, after Pentecost, there is nothing - no Pentecost Season, not even a Pentecost octave. We are dumped unceremoniously into Ordinary Time with a few feasts - The Blessed Trinity, The Body and Blood of Christ and the Sacred Heart of Jess - to console us. To my mind, there should be at least a week of festivities during which we can wear the red and celebrate the marvels the Holy Spirit has worked in the Church.

Maybe there is another way to look at it. Perhaps Ordinary Time, despite its uninspiring title, could be considered the Pentecost Season. It is during this Ordinary Time that we live as a Church, moving in the Spirit that was poured out on us, preaching the good news and practicing works of mercy. We mark this time liturgically with the color green. The rapid growth has given way to a time of stability and maturity. The green leaf can now bear fruit.

So let’s not fret that the feast of Pentecost lasts but a day and is gone. Let us live this Ordinary Time as a Pentecost Season bearing the fruits of the Spirit to the glory of God!

Reflections on Babel

2011-06-14T19:08:00.004-04:00

Does God punish progress? Would He prefer that we live like the Amish without technology and modern conveniences? Does He long for the days when we dwelt in caves and foraged for our food in the woods?

If God does not punish progress, then how do you explain the story of the Tower of Babel? They wanted to marshal their abilities to build the greatest city ever featuring a tower that would pierce the clouds. But God is offended by their efforts, confusing their speech to frustrate their ambitions. Shouldn’t God as a loving Father take delight in the initiative of His children rather than place obstacles in their way?

We were made in God’s image and likeness and we must strive to be like God in every way. However, while the good man seeks to be like God in His mercy, the evil man schemes to be like God in His power. The good man strives to be like God so that he can live in peace with his Maker and his fellow men. The evil man strives to be like God so he can replace Him, have no more need for Him, and then exercise dominion over his fellow men. The story of Babel ends in confused speech because, when we seek to replace God, human community is destroyed in the process.

The story of today’s world is the story of Babel. We have made great strides in technology, medicine and the sciences. We live longer and healthier lives. But our society is breaking down. Our minds have traveled faster than our spirits, and we have lost ourselves in the journey. We have debunked every myth, reduced every mystery, split every atom, but we can find no meaning in it anymore.

G.K. Chesterton wrote that in a universe without God, there is no room for man. By trying to write God out of the equation, we find ourselves in a situation in which we cannot explain why humans are superior to animals, why we should not experiment on and destroy human lives at their initial stages and we why should not kill off the sick. What seemed self-evident just a generation ago - the dignity of every human life - is indefensible and even offensive to many.

What kind of progress is that?

God does not punish progress. He gave us our intellects so that we could unlock the mysteries of nature and benefit from them. But when the pursuit of progress becomes an end in itself, when, for the sake of progress, the poor are exploited, innocent lives are sacrificed, and the voices of conscience are silenced, then we have made no progress at all. We have simply slid back into tyranny.

The gift of the Spirit poured out on Pentecost shows the way to another type of progress, a progress that leads to community rather than disunity, to remembering rather than dismembering. The Spirit points us to a law written in our hearts which is greater than the law of survival of the fittest or the law of supply and demand. It is a law that recognizes the innate dignity of each person, a dignity that cannot be reduced to dollars and cents or to convenience and expediency. When I recognize the face of God in my fellow human beings, I cannot turn my back on them in their need or exploit them to satisfy my own needs. I cannot treat them as objects for my pleasure or material gain. They are persons like me, and more importantly, in the likeness of God.

To see one another in terms of empathy rather than competition - that is real progress. And real progress is what God rewards - progress directed toward enriching us rather than diminishing us.

Pentecost 2011

2011-06-13T05:28:00.002-04:00

Today, we celebrate the feast of Pentecost. In Jesus' day, Pentecost was a harvest festival. It was a time to celebrate all the bounty the earth brought forth through the creative power of God. It was also a time to celebrate how God calls us to work with Him in making the land fruitful through the sweat of our brow.

Now, we know Pentecost to be the birthday of the Church. It was the day when the Holy Spirit rushed upon the apostles and Mary as they prayed in the upper room fifty days after Jesus' resurrection from the dead.

The New Testament tells us that the room shook and tongues of fire rested on their heads as the Holy Spirit filled them with grace and power.

Their experience of the Holy Spirit was so tremendous that they couldn't contain themselves. They poured out into the streets proclaiming to all those who had come to Jerusalem for the festival about the wonders of Jesus Christ and His love for all people. In fact, their joy was so great and their hilarity so intense that people thought they were drunk!

We call Pentecost the birthday of the Church because, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, the apostles were given the power to go out into the world and proclaim the message of Jesus' death and resurrection. They were transformed from timid men hiding out in fear to bold preachers of the gospel. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, they went from being a group of Galilean fishermen and tax collectors to being witnesses to Jesus' resurrection in Jerusalem, in Samaria and eventually to the end of the earth.

We are gathered here today because of those apostles and the gift of the Holy Spirit they received. Let's think about this for a minute. Most of us here today were baptized by a deacon or priest. That deacon or priest was baptized by another deacon or priest. And, they in turn were baptized by another deacon or priest. And so on and so on. If we were to go back far enough following the chain of baptisms, eventually it would lead us back directly to the apostles and Jesus. We are connected over many centuries to the Christians of the past through our common baptism.

Not only are we linked to the Christians of the past, but we are linked to the Christians of the present scattered throughout North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Australia and Asia. In the case of Catholics, we are all hearing and preaching on the same readings from the Bible. We are all receiving the same Eucharist. Though our masses are in English or in Spanish or in Swahili, we all worship the same Lord and God. We are linked through a common confession of faith and a common baptism to every other Christian scattered throughout the world who professes that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Saint Paul describes this for us beautifully in the second reading. He describes the Church as a body. Jesus is the head, and we are the members. Just as all the parts of the body are connected together and rely on each other for life and nutrition, so we are all connected to one another and to Jesus. And, just as every part of the body has a certain function - the eyes see, the heart circulates blood, the feet walk - so each of us has a certain role in the Church. No person is indispensable. Just as we would have a hard time getting around if we were missing a foot, so we as a Church are less effective in preaching the gospel when people keep their talents to themselves instead of sharing them to enrich the life of our community.

As human beings, it is natural for us to want to belong. Our ties to our family and friends are the things we value most in life. Each of us belongs here, too. The Church is a home for those who have faith and have been baptized. The Church is a home for us. And, we must work to make this home an even more welcoming place. To the stranger, we must extend a hand of friendship. To the needy, we must offer some of our bread. To the sorrowful, we must lend a shoulder to cry on. Our faith demands that we recognize that we are all interconnected no matter what language we speak or what country we belong to. When we do that, we become "Church". We make Church real in our lives and in our communities. We experience a new Pentecost, a new outpouring of Jesus' Spirit. Sins are forgiven, and people are united in love.

All of us know someone who, for whatever reason, has stopped coming to church. Maybe someone has said something unkind to them. Maybe they were offended by something someone said to them. Maybe they just felt as if they didn't belong. Now is the time for us to tell those persons that we miss them. Now is the time for us to tell them that we are not the same without them. We are not all that we could be without them. It is time for us to make the effort to invite people back, to fill this Church with worshipers, so that we can all grow together in our faith by using the gifts God has given us.

Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. The Holy Spirit gives us boldness to proclaim the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection. It gives us strength to serve the needy among us. The Holy Spirit works to help us realize that we are not free agents living our faith on our own, but that we are interconnected to other Christians who lived before us and to Christians living now scattered throughout the globe.

When we receive the Eucharist today, we receive Jesus' body, and we become Jesus' body. It is up to us now to make His word known throughout all the earth.

Living Water of the Spirit

2011-06-12T08:02:00.004-04:00

When we are children, we need our parents to watch over us. We haven't learned yet that we'll get burned if we touch the stove or that it's dangerous to run into the street. As we grow older, though, we start learning how to protect ourselves and how to stay out of trouble. The discipline that our parents imposed on us, often against our will, eventually comes to be an almost automatic way of thinking and living for us. We absorb from our parents values and attitudes that will be with us for the rest of our lives. We know how true this is because so often we catch ourselves saying something to our children or grandchildren that our parents used to say to us. We internalize the messages we received from our parents and act on them as we mature.

When Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as a river of living water which flows from within the person, He is describing much the same reality. When Jesus' Holy Spirit dwells in us, then we have Jesus' values and Jesus' attitudes operating within us. We see things as Jesus sees them. We begin to recognize Jesus in the people we meet. We begin to understand that it is Jesus speaking to us when we read the Bible. Just as we absorb our parents' attitudes and values by the discipline they imposed on us, so Jesus' Word begins to penetrate our hearts and minds through the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we begin to change from within.

How does this all take place? When we come to believe in Jesus, when we grow in knowledge of the Scripture and receive the sacraments, the Holy Spirit begins to work on our minds and hearts so that we grow in the knowledge and love of God. And, as we grow in that knowledge and love, we come to be more like Jesus. Before we know it, we will be surprising ourselves by saying inspirational words and doing kind deeds. Just as we often catch ourselves saying something our parents used to say, we'll catch ourselves being moved by the Spirit to speak words of comfort and encouragement to those we meet.

The next thing that happens as the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us is that the rivers of living water begin to overflow in us. We can no longer keep Jesus and His Word all to ourselves. Like the apostles on Pentecost day, we can no longer contain the joy that loving God gives us, and we have to tell others about it. The Holy Spirit makes us witnesses to His power and love at work in us.

We live in a culture that tells us that religion is something private, something we should keep to ourselves. We typically don't care what our neighbors believe or what religion they belong to, as long as they don't tell us about it. But, a Christian who has really experienced the power and love of the Holy Spirit, can't keep the message to himself or to herself. We can't keep the lid on the rivers of living water bubbling up from within us. And thank goodness for that! Where would we be if the apostles had decided that Jesus' resurrection would be their little secret? Where would we be if those who witnessed Jesus' miracles and heard His words didn't pass the stories along to the next generation of believers? And, what will become of our children and grandchildren if we fail to share with them the power of God's love made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ?

Today's feast, Pentecost, is the celebration of the birthday of the Church. We are the Church because of the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit through faith now lives in the hearts of almost two billion women and men who call themselves Christians. There are women in Africa, men in Asia, children in Europe, old ladies in South America and teenagers in Australia who believe and worship just as we do. This didn't all take place over the past 2000 years because the apostles had a good business plan and marketing strategy. It happened because the Holy Spirit worked in a powerfully way giving authority to the words of those who preach and making those who hear ready to give their hearts over in faith. That same Holy Spirit is among us now strengthening me as I preach and touching your hearts as you listen.

The task now falls to us who have been given to drink of this life giving water in the Spirit of Jesus. Will we keep it to ourselves? Or, will we speak about to everyone we meet so that all creation which is groaning and in agony can be transformed by the values and the attitudes of Jesus, our Savior.

A Visit to the Blessed Sacrament

2011-06-09T20:54:00.004-04:00

Another prayer from the Relicario Angelico

Lord, my Jesus Christ, God made flesh, and Son of the Living God, I adore, bless, praise, glorify and magnify you with all my heart.

I confess and believe with a sincere and lively faith that you are in this most Divine Sacrament, true God and true man, present in the greatest and most marvelous way.

I adore You, All-Powerful God, with that adoration that is due your infinite majesty.

I adore You, Living Bread, that came down from Heaven to give life to the world.

I adore You, venerable Sacrament, who are the treasury of all virtues and graces.

I adore You, most holy of all sacrifices, which you offer to the Father to sanctify souls.

I adore You, with my whole soul, true Body and Blood of my Lord Jesus Christ born of the immaculate womb of the Virgin Mary.

I adore You, Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world.

I adore You, marvelous Sacrament of love, who are the life of souls and the new food of angels.

I adore You, the highest mystery of the Catholic faith.

I adore You, hidden God and Savior of the world.

I adore You, Sacred Host and Chalice of blessing.

I adore You, precious price of our redemption.

I adore You, most astonishing of all miracles.

I adore You, Most Divine Sacrament, who are the memorial and the compendium of all God’s works of love and power.

I adore You, Divine Viaticum of the sick, who are the immortal healing remedy.

I adore You, Jesus the reflection of the Father’s glory.

I adore You, Divine Word and Eternal Wisdom.

I adore You, precious legacy of the covenant of Christ.

I adore You, most sumptuous banquet of God, at which the angels minister.

I adore You, Divine sustenance, by which the sons of men become the sons of God.

I adore You, Living and nourishing Bread, by which the Creator is united to the creature and mortal man is transformed into God.

I adore You, my God, concealed here in faith but in Heaven revealed clearly to the saints and angels.

I adore You, perennial wellspring of heavenly delights.

I adore You, spiritual nourishment of chaste and devout souls.

I adore You, Sacrament of piety and spiritual bond between God and men.

I adore You, Sacred Manna who strengthens hearts and gives joy to the spirits which consume You.

I adore You, Most Divine Sacrament, who are the life of our souls, the balm for our wounds, the consolation of our travails, whom the angels and saints of heaven praise, adore and magnify for all eternity. Amen.

A PRAYER TO JESUS TRIUMPHANT IN HIS GLORIOUS ASCENSION

2011-06-08T05:56:00.004-04:00

From the Relicario Angelico

O Jesus, my love, light, life, comfort of pure souls and our greatest good. My soul and my whole being rejoice remembering the wonderful mystery of your glorious Ascension.

You ascended, my Jesus and my all, to the heavens in glory and triumph and you are seated at the right hand of the Eternal Father as All-Powerful King. Take my heart up with you, my good Jesus. Lift it up, steal it and carry it so that it may chase after you and follow you and that it may not tire until it has reached those wellsprings where it may drink and live forever. You, my sweet Redeemer, as victor over death and sin, restorer of life, and glory of the human race, ascended above the heavens to honor your Eternal Father with your presence, and to send to your Church the Holy Spirit, the Consoler. You ascended to take your seat on a royal throne, because of your humanity and greatness, to take possession of Heaven for all your sons, and to give joy to all the Heavenly Court with the sight of your glory. You ascended to fill the places left empty by the fallen angels with the holy souls that you bring up with you. You rose up to Heaven so that your Most Holy Mother, seeing you ascend so triumphantly and so gloriously, would forget all the sorrows she suffered during your torments and humiliations; and so that your disciples, spurred on by your promise, would give their lives freely for the preaching of your gospel.

Therefore, my only Good, grant me grace so that, while living with my body on earth, my heart may be in Heaven and so that all my love, my joy, my hope, my thoughts and desires might be where you are, because wherever my heart is , there my treasure will be. And what other treasure could there be for me than You who are a rich inheritance, a precious gem and the blessing of all your chosen ones, center and resting place of my afflicted heart? Oh Lord Jesus, wellspring of life, abundance of Heaven, quench my thirst with that river of consolation and joy that runs through the fields of the Paradise of delights, the Holy City. Wound my heart with your holy love, so that it will forget every vain and deceitful thing, and only remember that which is true and eternal. May my soul rise up to you always on the wings of holy desire, and after being liberated from the weight of this mortal body, may it reach the port of tranquility and rejoice in you and in your Most Holy Mother in the company of all the blessed ones for ever. Amen.

Seventh Sunday of Easter

2011-06-05T18:35:00.005-04:00

In the morning, a mother is rushing to get her kids off to school and herself off to work. She's made the lunches. Now, it's time to get her three-year-old daughter dressed. It shouldn't take her more than a minute to push the shirt over her head and pull her pants on. But, her daughter decides that she doesn't want to stop watching T.V.. So the mother has to talk her into getting off the couch and going to her bedroom. Once she accomplishes that, the daughter decides that she doesn't like the shirt her mother has picked out. So, the mother has to patiently convince her daughter why the shirt she picked out is the right choice. Once she gets her shirt on, the daughter decides that she wants to tell her mother a story. Then, the daughter decides that, even though it's the middle of winter, she wants to wear her flip-flops. Finally, after much negotiating, the daughter is finally dressed and ready for the day. What should have taken only two minutes at the most took about ten minutes. Getting a child dressed is no exercise in efficiency.

Our spiritual life and our life as a Church community are much the same as getting a three-year-old dressed. It doesn't always follow a straight line. We make progress one day, and then face a setback the next. One day, God feels close to us and prayer comes naturally. The next day, we're distracted and in a fog. The life of God in us as individuals and among us as a Church is also no exercise in efficiency.

Today's readings teach us about the necessity and the power of waiting on the Lord. In the first reading, Jesus has ascended into heaven and instructed the apostles to go to Jerusalem and wait for the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. The Scripture tells us that in that upper room they dedicated themselves to constant prayer waiting for the time when Jesus' words would be fulfilled. Jesus didn't send them back to Jerusalem to do something or to accomplish something. He sent them there merely to wait. Of course, Jesus could have just given them the Spirit right away without their having to wait. He could have brought God's Spirit down upon them as He was ascending to heaven. But, the time wasn't right. And, Jesus always waits until the time is right to ensure that His gifts have the maximum effect in our lives. Jesus is not concerned with efficiency, but with sanctity.

There are many definitions for prayer. For some, prayer is reciting the Our Father or the Hail Mary. For others, prayer means asking God for "our daily bread". Some people in their prayer praise God in a loud voice for the wonders of His power. But prayer, first and foremost, is about waiting on the Lord. Prayer means waiting for the Lord to speak to us. Prayer means waiting for the Lord to direct us. Prayer is not about something we do whether it is a prayer we recite or thoughts we conjure up. Prayer is about what God does. Prayer is about quieting our minds down so that when God speaks, we can hear Him. Prayer is about waiting so that when God is ready to work in our lives, we will be ready to say "yes". Like getting a three-year-old dressed in the morning, prayer is no exercise in efficiency. But, it is an exercise in experiencing the beauty and power of God and His love.

In our preaching, we don't tend to pay too much attention to the Psalms. But, the Psalms are the prayer book of the Bible. The Psalms are the prayer book of the Jewish people and of Christians. The Psalms are Jesus' prayer book. Today's psalm gives us a beautiful description of what prayer is and can be. Simply put, prayer is gazing on the loveliness of the Lord. No words need be spoken. The way a lover looks into the eyes of his beloved or the way a mother holds her child, so we savor the wonder of an Almighty Creator who is present among us, who knows us and who loves us. God is beautiful. Prayer, then, means waiting to be seduced by God's love and beauty.

We are gathered here in this church not to accomplish anything or to get something done. There is no agenda to our meeting here today. We are simply here to wait and to listen. We are here to receive and to give. A wonderful thing is about to take place. The Creator of the Universe will come to us in the form of bread and wine. We will gaze on His beauty. We will taste of His goodness. The time is now. The hour has come for us to open our hearts and receive our beautiful savior. How lovely is this place! How lovely is the dwelling place of the Lord!

The Ascension of the Lord

2011-06-02T01:54:00.003-04:00

What are we like when we are feeling confused? What goes on in our minds and hearts when circumstances in our life don't make any sense? We usually stop whatever we are doing and try to make sense of the situation. We stare into space trying to figure out just what is going on. We take a step back to get perspective on our surroundings. Confusion can paralyze us with the fear that we have lost control.

In today's reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples are the picture of confusion. Who can blame them? In a few short days they experienced the devastating brutality of Jesus' death and then the exhilaration of learning that He was raised from the dead. And, they had just finished up many glorious days with Him in their homeland of Galilee. Now, Jesus is ascending into heaven. All they can do is look up into the sky like people who won't leave a theatre after the movie is over. They don't know what to do next. They don't know what their next step should be. It takes the angels to snap them out of their trance and to reassure them that Jesus would return.

Where had Jesus gone? Jesus ascended to heaven to take the throne the Father had prepared for Him. In heaven, Jesus is exalted for winning the victory over sin and death through His cross and resurrection. When generals return victorious from battle, we honor them with parades. Jesus' ascension into heaven is His victory parade for having won back for the Father all the peoples of the earth. Paul says, in the second reading, that God has put all things under Christ's feet. This victory still has not been completed, and won't be until Jesus comes again in glory at the end of the world. But, we know who the winner will be, even as the battle rages on.

It was unclear to the disciples just what was going on. But Jesus' plan was to make them His witnesses throughout all the earth. From His throne in heaven, Jesus would send upon them the Holy Spirit which would give them the power to overcome their fear and the conviction to preach about Jesus' death and resurrection even when their lives were threatened. The confusion was to last only a short while. The Holy Spirit would make everything clear to them in short order.

The message of the apostles and their mission has been passed on to us who gather here 2000 years later. We are to make disciples of the nations, if we are to be true disciples ourselves. We are to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, just as we have been baptized. We are to teach the commands of Jesus, just as they have been taught to us. And, we are to know and remember always that Jesus is with us until He comes again in glory at the end of the world.

We live with much confusion. In our individual lives, we can be confused about what God wants for us, about what direction our life is leading us in or about why some difficulties always seem to be placed before us. As a Church, we are so often confused about how to preach and live God's Word faithfully and how best to be true disciples of Jesus. That confusion too often paralyzes us. It too often causes us to do nothing or to give up altogether. It sometimes tempts us to turn back to old, comfortable patterns of living rather than stay on the path of ongoing conversion that the gospel calls us to. It too often causes us to look to the world and its values for guidance, rather than striving to know and live God's will.

But, Jesus' ascended to heaven to take over authority for our individual lives and our lives as a Church. Jesus is now fully in control, even when things seem chaotic around us. And so, when we are confused, we are to go forward in faith expecting that Jesus will eventually make clear to us why we are experiencing difficulties or why such-and-such a thing is happening in our individual lives or in our history as a Church community.

To serve Jesus, we do not have to have everything figured out. We do not have to know everything to be faithful to Jesus our Savior. We only have to trust that if we say yes to Him and to His will, then He will use our words and our actions to touch the lives of those we meet. When we are confused or agitated by events around us, we simply have to know and believe that Jesus is with us and that He will make all things work our for our good and for His glory.

Jesus has ascended to heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father where He reigns as King over heaven and earth. When Jesus does come again, we don't want to be caught looking up into the skies waiting for something to happen. We want to be living in the Spirit of insight and wisdom which Paul describes in the second reading. That Spirit reveals to us the great hope to which we are called. It emboldens us through the immeasurable scope of His power at work in us who believe. It works wonders in us who give our lives over to our Savior Jesus and who trust that, at the right hand of the Father in heaven, He has everything under control.

Memorial Day 2011

2011-05-30T15:01:00.003-04:00

Some of the holiest men who ever lived and some of the Church's greatest saints were soldiers.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola who founded the Jesuit order served many years as a soldier in Spain. Even Saint Francis who is best known for his love of nature and animals served for a short time in the army of his native land.

At every Mass, before communion, we repeat the words which a Roman soldier once spoke to Jesus: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed." Jesus said of this soldier that he had never met anyone with such great faith.

Those of us who have been blessed to know soldiers or been soldiers ourselves can understand how they can be such holy men. They are dedicated to serving others. They are willing to set aside their own plans for the future to protect the freedoms of their country. They have a strong sense of duty toward the weak and vulnerable. They come face-to-face with all types of horrors and yet continue to believe that the world is good. But most importantly, like Jesus, they are willing to lay down their lives for their sisters and brothers.

Many of those who have given their lives for our country are just such men and women.

Many families in our country gather under the most tragic of circumstances today. They commemorate young lives that have ended. A conflict on the other side of the globe has touched many of us and robbed us of women and men who had so much to give. They gave their all to serve and protect us. We set aside one day to celebrate their life, to honor their service and to grieve their death.

Many will gather in churches to add an even deeper meaning to this day. They will invoke the name of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. They will recall the day when the soldiers they have lost were baptized and put on the armor of Christ. They will remember that there is a greater purpose to our lives than that which this world can offer. During this life, we are merely passing through. Our real homeland is in heaven. It is there that the meaning of our lives is revealed. It is there that we receive the reward for doing battle with evil. It is there that all suffering will finally cease and every tear will be wiped away. By that hope in the ultimate, all-encompassing and definitive victory of Jesus, we find the courage to face every sort of evil, but especially the great evil called "Death".

Those who have known and loved soldiers have endured a lot. While they were away, they endured the pain of separation. They feared for their loved ones every day and begged God to keep them safe. Now they bear a grief that is beyond words. The family and friends of soldiers have also had to sacrifice for their country. The stories of the families of fallen soldiers are not frequently told. We do not raise monuments to the wives, children, fathers or mothers of our heroes. But it is their courage that made those sacrifices and in turn our freedom possible.

We take a day to remember those whose service to their country has now ended. They are at rest receiving the reward of their labors. We must continue to live and carry their memory with a mixture of grief and pride. It is our faith above all else which gives us the strength and the courage to bear grief. Jesus knew what it was to die young for a cause he believed in - our salvation. He knew what it meant to lay down his life for others. No one has ever done it with as much love and courage as Jesus did. More than anyone else, he knows the suffering which so may in our country are unable to put into words. And he is at their side helping them to shoulder it.

Also by our side is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She witnessed her own son's cruel death at the hands of evil men. She is praying for those who has lost loved ones to war. They can draw comfort from her motherly care.

We will never know during this life why the world is full of so much evil, why there is so much hate, and why there is so much conflict and war. But the death of so many young people, as sad and tragic as it is, reminds us of how much good still is left in this world. It is a world worth fighting and dying for. That men, women and families throughout our country are willing to give of themselves to make the lives of others better is a source of great hope for all of us. We take this day to proclaim that it does not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

So many families in our country have had to deal with tremendous loss. Today we show them that they are not alone. We need to lean on one another at times of conflict and war. And we need to pray even if it means shaking our fists at God and asking "Why?!" And we need to hope. There will come a day when all this bloodshed will be put to an end. Everything will be made right again, and we will be reunited with all those we have lost. It is the promise God made to each of us at our baptism. It is the victory Jesus guaranteed for us by giving his own life on Mount Calvary. And it is to that undying hope which we commend the souls of our fighting men and women until we see them again.

Another Advocate

2011-05-29T09:47:00.005-04:00

A successful defense attorney was once asked whether he ever felt guilty for taking on murderers, drug traffickers and thieves as clients. He replied that in our system, everyone has a right to a good legal defense no matter what they are accused of or what they may have done. Furthermore, he hoped that, when it was his time to stand before God, someone would be there to defend him as well.

All of us, especially in difficult times, need someone to stand up for us and to be at our side. We all know how disappointed we feel when we are abandoned by our friends because of something someone may have said about us or something we may have done. We also know how encouraged we feel when someone has the courage to stand by us.

Jesus promises the apostles in today's gospel that He will never abandon them. He promises that, even though they will not see Him, He will still be active among them. How does He plan to do that? Jesus tells the disciples that He will send them "another Advocate". An advocate is someone who stands up for you, who pleads your case, who defends you against a prosecutor who has brought up charges against you. Jesus is the first advocate. He is our first defender. By offering His body on the cross, He took away the charge against us,
serving the sentence in our place. Jesus is continuing to advocate for us in heaven. He is continuing to pray for us before the Father until the day we are finally with Him in glory.

The "other Advocate" which Jesus promises to send is the Holy Spirit. Whereas Jesus pleads our case before the Father, the Holy Spirit pleads our case against the world. As Jesus explains it, the world is the people, the structures and the institutions which are organized to frustrate the work of God and the spread of the gospel. This world cannot accept the Father. We only have to pick up the paper or watch the TV for five minutes to know how true this is. Christians are accused of being hypocrites, as lacking compassion or as being backwards. Movies and books portray believers as judgmental and joyless. The art world strives to offend Christians by blaspheming Jesus in sculptures and paintings. This world is trying to discourage us in our life of faith. It is trying to convince us that it is better to live for our own pleasure than to live for the gospel. It is constantly trying to deceive us and lure us away from what life is really about - knowing, loving and serving God. The Holy Spirit is our advocate before this hostile world. The world has judged us according to its values, but the Holy Spirit which is alive in our hearts stands with us and helps us to live joyfully and faithfully in a world which is pitted against us. We can face this challenge with confidence because Scripture assures us that "greater is He Who is in us, than he who is in the world."

Some translations of today's gospel passage use the word "paraclete" instead of "advocate". "Paraclete" is really a word made up by translators who were trying to capture the fullness of what Jesus was meaning to say. The word "paraclete" does not appear anywhere else in English, except when referring to the Holy Spirit. The Greek word which we translate here as "advocate" also means "defender", "encourager", "guide" or even "teacher".

Another word which might capture for us a little bit of what Jesus meant when He called the Holy Spirit "Paraclete" is the word "coach". A good coach has a game plan drawn up for her players. She puts her players through drills to build up their stamina and strengthen their skills. A good coach instills resiliency in her players when they fail and inspires them to do whatever it takes to win. Just so, the Holy Spirit living in our hearts coaches us on how to live the gospel message with joy.

We are not alone. If we love God and obey His commandments, then we can be assured that the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts. This Holy Spirit strengthens us to live a life faithful to God's Word. This Holy Spirit encourages us when we face difficulties or fail. This Holy Spirit guides our choices so that we make progress in the life of faith. This Holy Spirit makes Jesus alive and active among us. This Holy Spirit stands by our side when the world looks down on us, despises us or ridicules us. At the same time, this Holy Spirit fills our hearts with love for the world so that we can bring the truth of God's love to it by our words and actions.

We will all certainly stand before the judgment seat of God. But, if we have loved God in this life and have obeyed His commandments, then we can be assured that we will have two powerful advocates at our side - Jesus and His Holy Spirit.

More Mysteries of the Rosary

2011-05-26T05:54:00.004-04:00

For a deeper look into the personality and mission of Jesus, consider contemplating these mysteries the next time you pray the Rosary:

1) Jesus curses the fig tree (Matt. 21; Mark 11)
2) Jesus sends the demons into the pigs (Mark 5: 1-20)
3) Jesus calls the Canaanite woman a dog (Matt. 15: 21-28)
4) Jesus pronounces “woe” on the scribes and Pharisees (Matt.23)
5) Jesus casts the money changers out of the Temple (John 2: 12-24; Matt 21: 12-17)

A Place for You

2011-05-23T04:19:00.005-04:00

One evening, while a woman was preparing supper, her 19 year old daughter complained of a headache and went to her room to lie down. When her mother went to the bedroom to tell her daughter that supper was ready, the girl was having a seizure. The mother immediately called 911, and the ambulance came to rush the daughter to the hospital. The young woman was pronounced dead upon her arrival at the emergency room.

The mother was devastated. For years, she kept her daughter's room exactly the way it was when she died. She left all her clothes hanging in the closet and the posters hanging on the wall. She even refused to change the sheets on the bed. Many nights, her husband would come home from work to find the mother with her face down on the bed crying. That bedroom was all she had left of her beloved daughter.

Through her grieving process, today's gospel reading came to be a great source of comfort for this woman. Just as she kept a room for her daughter in her home, Jesus had a place prepared for her daughter in heaven. To know that Jesus was now taking care of her daughter - that Jesus had made a home for her - gave her a sense of peace and calm that helped her come to terms with the tragedy of her daughter's death.

Today's gospel reading is part of the narrative of the Last Supper in the gospel of John. The apostles are jittery. They know something is up. They are getting the sense that Jesus is in danger and that they are in danger. They really have no idea how violently Jesus will be treated later that night and into the next day. Jesus senses their anxiety and seeks to calm their fears. He assures them that, though they will be separated for a while, he will prepare a place for them in His Father's house. They will have their faith tested. They will suffer. Most of them will eventually be killed for being followers of Jesus. But, Jesus Himself will come to bring them to His Father's house. Jesus will always have a place for them.

Many of us know what it is like to have an empty room in our homes or an empty place in our hearts for a loved one who is no longer in our lives. It may be a parent, a spouse or a child we have lost to death. It may be an ex-husband or ex-wife who has abandoned us. It may be an adult child who, for whatever reason, wants nothing to do with us. It may be a brother or sister or friend we haven't spoken to in years. We keep a light burning in our hearts or a room ready in our homes, in hopes that they will return.

Imagine, now, that Jesus has the same place prepared for each one of us. Imagine that Jesus has a light burning in hopes that we will return to Him. Jesus is counting on our spending eternity with Him in His Father's house. Can we even begin to imagine how great God's love is for us that He waits for us with the same passion of a mother who grieves for her daughter, or a lover who prays that his beloved will come back to him?

Jesus has a place prepared for each of us in heaven. But, Jesus has also prepared a place for us in this church, in this parish. This is the place where we encounter God. This is the place where we hear God speak. This is the place where Jesus surrenders His Body and Blood for our nourishment. This is the place - as Saint Peter explains in the second reading -where we are built up like living stones into an edifice of spirit offering spiritual sacrifices. It is here that we face Jesus - the Way, the Truth and the Life.

All of us are gathered here for different reasons. Some of us are here because we really believe that being here makes a difference in our lives, whether we can explain it or not. Some of us are here out of a sense of duty. Some of us are here because we just got the feeling that we should go to church today. Some of us don't know why we are here. But, whether we feel it or not, whether we can explain it or not, each one of us belongs here. Each one of us is meant to be here. Jesus means us to be here. Jesus has prepared this place for us. Jesus has prepared these readings for us. Jesus has prepared this message for us. Jesus has arranged all this so that we would meet Him here today. None of us is here by accident or by coincidence. Jesus has prepared this worship event so that He could bump into us and so that He could find some way of getting Himself into our lives.

Now, we have a decision to make. Do we have room in our hearts for Jesus? Do we have a place prepared in our lives to welcome Him? Do we have a light burning in our hearts waiting for the day that Jesus will visit us? Will today be the day that we stop resisting Jesus' call? Will today be the day that we accept into our hearts Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life?

Come, Lord Jesus!

2011-05-22T09:39:00.002-04:00

Well, the world didn’t end yesterday.

You know what I say - “Too bad.” You heard me right - “Too bad.”

As a Christian, I want Jesus to come in glory. Our prayer of expectation is “Come, Lord Jesus.” The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelations, ends with these words: “I am coming soon. Come, Lord Jesus!”

For a believer, the end of the world is the coming of the Kingdom of God in its fullness. It is the end of sin and death, the end of bloodshed and oppression, the end of poverty and want.

The scary part is that it is also the coming of Judgement. If we are not ready, then I suppose there is cause for fear. All of us will be caught off guard by Christ’s coming. It will take place at a date and time and in a way that we cannot know or even begin to imagine. But if we have been vigilant as he warned us to be and faithful to his commandments, we should be found worthy to take part in the supper of the Lamb.

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus offers some comforting words: “Do not let your hearts be troubled....I am going to prepare a place for you. And then I will come and take you with me.”

In my job, I have the opportunity to inspect some impressive, multi-million dollar homes. Many of them offer panoramic ocean views, are arrayed with granite counter tops, brushed nickle fixtures and stainless steel appliances. They offer luxurious amenities such as whirlpool tubs, expansive mahogany decking, inground pools and marble fireplaces. But none of those homes is as impressive or as glorious as the place Jesus is preparing for me in heaven. So, of course, I am anxious to get there!

So too bad the world didn’t end yesterday. But it will end soon. As crazy as all this talk of the end of the world has been, it has reminded me to keep vigilant and to look forward in joyful expectation for Christ’s return in glory.

Come, Lord Jesus!

What's the Frequency?

2011-05-21T12:12:00.002-04:00

I spent the summer of 1990 working in a parish in London. That year, they had just installed a new high tech, wireless sound system that worked on radio waves.

The system debuted on a Saturday night, during the evening Mass. During the first reading, it started to crackle. Then, during the second reading, static was breaking through. During the gospel, we could hear a bit of talking and some music as one hears when scanning between radio stations. Then, just before offertory, a Judas Priest song began blaring over the sound system. (Of course, it couldn’t have been the Carpenters or Bread, it had to be Judas Priest).

The system had to be turned off for the rest of the weekend. When the technician returned on Monday, he said there was a problem with the frequency it was tuned to. A little fine tuning and the system was back on line.

Radio, television and satellite waves are always coursing through the air. We are unaware of them unless we have a radio or TV to pick up the signal. Even then it has to be tuned to just the right frequency for the sound to come through.

God is also trying to communicate to us. Most of the time we are oblivious to it. We are too tuned in to what we are doing or what we wish we could be doing to listen to Him. But He is trying to reach us in whatever way we can. It takes a little tuning in to be able to hear Him.

Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice.” The sheep are those who recognize His voice when He calls and are ready to say “Yes” to whatever He commands. Because they are not so absorbed in their own concerns, they are tuned in to the One who leads them in the paths of everlasting life.

How do we get tuned in? By prayer, reading Scripture, receiving the Sacraments and serving the needs of others. With practice and grace, God’s message will come in loud and clear.

First Communion Homily

2011-05-18T06:10:00.001-04:00

I am so happy for you.

Everyone here today is happy to be a part of such a special day.

You are going to receive Jesus for the first time.

It is natural for you to feel excited and maybe even a little nervous. You are about to welcome into your heart the greatest man who ever lived, Jesus.

How does Jesus come to meet you today? In the form of bread.

All of us have bread in sandwiches and sometimes with butter and jelly. But the bread you will be receiving today is much different. It is not soft and fluffy like the bread we eat everyday. This bread is special. When the priest prays over this bread, it changes into the body of Jesus.

So when you look at this special bread, you are looking at Jesus. When you hold this bread, you are holding Jesus. And when you receive this bread, you are receiving Jesus. The bread does not look any different or taste any different but it becomes different through the power of God.

Today is an important day because Jesus will be coming to make his home within you. For the first time, he will be moving into your heart.

Nobody wants to live in a dirty house, right? Don’t we all want the houses the people we love live in to be clean and neat? Because Jesus is moving into our hearts, we must keep them clean and pure for him. How do we do that? By not sinning. By obeying our parents. By not hurting other children. And by praying every day.

All of you are wearing beautiful white gowns and suits. I’m sure your parents put a lot of work into finding special clothes for you to wear today. Now, when you got dressed this morning, what was the first thing your parents said to you? “Don’t get dirty!” Wouldn’t you feel sad if you came to Mass today with dirt on your beautiful suit or dress? Well, just as you want your clothes to be clean for this special day, so every time you come to Mass to receive Jesus you should want your heart to be clean.

Today is a special day, but it is not the first time you are receiving a sacrament. What two other sacraments have you already received? Baptism and Penance. Both of those sacraments make us clean so that we can receive Jesus. Just as we give our clothes to our mothers and fathers to clean them for us when we get them dirty, so we can go to the sacrament of Penance every time we hurt God by sinning. Then we can make sure that our heart will be a clean and beautiful place for him.

Now, after you receive your first communion, how long will Jesus stay inside you? Do you think he will leave you when Mass is over? Do you think he will leave you when you walk out of the church? No. Jesus will stay inside you. And Jesus will remain inside the other children who are receiving communion with you and all of us who are also receiving him today.

It is important for you to think about that during the day. Jesus is inside you. Jesus is with you all the time wherever you go. You can trust Jesus to help you when you are afraid or when you are hurt. He will never leave you.

Also, Jesus is inside everyone around you. When you are nice to your brothers and sisters, you are being nice to Jesus. When you pick up someone who has fallen down or make someone who is crying feel better, you are helping Jesus.

At the same time, if you hurt someone, you are hurting Jesus. If you call someone names, you are calling Jesus a name. None of us wants to do that, right? So we must ask Jesus to help us be good to others so that we never hurt him.

Why does Jesus want to be inside of you? Because he loves you. It is that simple. We want to be with the people we love, with our family and friends. Just so, Jesus wants to be with us because we love him. And we should show him how much we love him by coming to Mass as often as we can to receive him and be with him. During your life you will have different friends, different teachers and different neighbors. Many things will change in your life as you get older. But you can never lose Jesus. He will always be your friend and he will always be with you now matter how old you get, no matter where you go, no matter what you do.

Never forget this beautiful day. Never forget how special it feels to welcome Jesus into your heart. Keep your heart a place that Jesus can be happy to live in. And come as often as you can to receive this precious gift of the Body of Christ.

Oh Jesus, Gentle Shepherd!

2011-05-15T08:03:00.003-04:00

When we think of sheep, we tend to think of cute, fluffy four-legged creatures. But sheep are very difficult to take care of. First of all, they are very dumb. They walk around with no idea where they are. It is not uncommon for a sheep to walk right off a cliff because it is not paying attention to where it is going. Also, sheep are slow. The shepherd has to be very patient because the sheep are in no rush to move for him. And, because they are so slow, the shepherd has to keep a sharp eye out. If a wolf were to show up, the sheep would be unable to run away. And, sheep have no fangs or claws to protect themselves. Without the shepherd, the sheep are completely helpless.

Sheep may be dumb, but they are not so dumb that they don't recognize the voice of their shepherd. They know right away when an impostor has taken his place. They get anxious and jittery. They start to scatter when someone other than their trusted shepherd has hopped over the fence to take advantage of them.

Jesus loved the image of the relationship between a shepherd and his sheep to describe His relationship with the people He came to redeem. That's because there are three things a shepherd does that Jesus also does for His people. Those three things are leading the sheep, protecting the sheep and feeding the sheep.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, leads His sheep. As Jesus says in the gospel, the Good Shepherd goes ahead of His sheep. The Good Shepherd charts the way forward for them. Just so, Jesus has shown us the path we must walk. We often talk about how Jesus reveals God to us. But Jesus, being fully human, also teaches us what it means to be truly human. No one, no matter what he or she may have accomplished, has ever lived a life more fully human than Jesus has. So, in Jesus we come to understand that living a meaningful life and living a fully human life means following our Good Shepherd.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, also protects His sheep. He knows how helpless we are without Him. He knows how easily we fall to temptation and how easily we can lose hope. He also knows how many people out there are looking to take advantage of His weak, helpless sheep. Jesus looks with love on us in our helplessness and, if we decide to follow Him, pledges to protect us from everything and everyone who can imperil our souls.

Finally, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, feeds His sheep. He brings them to lush pasture land where they can feast and fill their bellies in peace. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows many rich pastures. He feeds us with the banquet of His Word which emboldens our hearts and calms our fears. And He feeds us with His Body and Blood in the Eucharist, giving His very life to us and a taste of the deep intimacy He wishes to share with us. Once we have enjoyed the rich pastures of our shepherd, why would we ever want to return to the barren wastelands of selfishness?

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, leads us, protects us and feeds us. We are familiar with another gospel in which Jesus separates sheep from goats. He says to the sheep, "Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you." When they ask, "When did we see you hungry and feed you? When did we see you thirsty, and give you drink?, Jesus replies, "Whenever you did it for the least among you, you did it for me." Today, as we reflect on Jesus' word, we might ask: "When did we see you leading us? When did we see you protecting us? When did we see you feeding us?" Jesus, two thousand years after His resurrection, leads us, protects us and feeds us through His Church. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus continues to shepherd His people, the Church. The gift of the Holy Spirit leads us to the Truth we need for our salvation. The Holy Spirit guarantees that the Church will lead us faithfully in the knowledge of God. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus also protects His people. Through the Church, we receive all the graces we need to keep us safe from sin and its corrosive effect in our souls and in our community. Finally, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus continues to feed the Church with His Word and with the sacraments, especially the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Whenever we talk about the Church, we are not just talking about bishops, priests, deacons and nuns. The Church is much bigger than that. When we say "Church", we mean all the people who have been baptized and believe in Jesus. We are talking about students, parents, single persons, young people, old people and babies. Jesus works through each one of us to lead, protect and feed each other. None of us can follow Jesus by ourselves, anymore than a sheep can protect itself or find food on its own. Whether we are aware of it or not, Jesus works through us whenever we reach out to help another person. And it is Jesus we are serving whenever we reach out to those in need. The gift of the Holy Spirit is working in each of us to make Jesus real and active in the world.

In a world so confused about what life is about and how to live, we hear the voice of our shepherd, Jesus, leading us, protecting us and feeding us. We do not scatter or stray because we have found peace and meaning in the fold of the Church. Soon we will leave this place where we have been fed to help Jesus seek out and save those who are lost and to lead them back to the Shepherd of their souls - Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who lays down His life for His sheep so that we can have life and have it in fullness.

Mysteries of the Resurrection

2011-05-11T09:22:00.008-04:00

Traditionally, there are three groupings of mysteries for praying the Rosary: the Joyous Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries and the Glorious Mysteries. In his Apostolic Letter, The Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pope John Paul II added the Luminous Mysteries. And, recently, I discovered mysteries surrounding the life of Saint Joseph. The Rosary can help us to ponder any mysteries of Christian revelation, not just those which are widely known and practiced. Therefore, to add some life and variety to my own prayer, I have developed a set of mysteries based on Jesus’ appearances after the Resurrection. Hopefully you will find them as helpful in deepening your own sense of awe and wonder at Christ’s victory over death as I have.

1) The appearance to Mary Magdalen (Jn. 20: 11-18)
2) The appearance to the disciples (Jn 20: 19-23 & Lk.24: 36-49)
3) The appearance to Thomas (Jn.20: 24-29)
4) The appearance on the road to Emmaus (Lk.24: 13-35)
5) The appearance at the Sea of Galilee (Jn. 21: 1-23)

(image by Yuri Kuznetsov)

A Steep Price

2011-05-09T20:57:00.003-04:00

A gourmet chef in England has created the world’s most expensive sandwich.

It is a double-decker made of cheddar cheese blended with white truffles. Joining the planks of cheese between three slices of premium sour dough bread are quail eggs, fresh figs and 100 year old balsamic vinaigrette topped off with a sprinkling of edible gold dust.

The price tag - a whopping $220!

Now imagine that one day you just happened to be paying a visit to that restaurant with a couple hundred dollars to spend. Curious to find out just what a $220 cheese sandwich tastes like, you decide to order it. As the plate comes out, the whole restaurant quiets to a hush. A crowd gathers to witness your reaction to the expensive dish.

You take the sandwich into your hands, sink your teeth into it and draw the first bite into your mouth expecting an explosion of flavor and savory delights.

Instead, you find the sandwich bland and flat.

Disappointed, you call the waiter over.

“What is wrong?” he asks. “Is the bread stale? Was the cheese moldy? Was there a fly in the vinaigrette?”

You reply that there is nothing wrong with the sandwich at all. It just does not taste as good as a $220 sandwich should. You explain that if you are going to spend all that money on a sandwich, it should be phenomenal, not just okay. And no doubt everyone in the restaurant will agree with you.

In last Sunday’s second reading, Saint Peter told us: “Realize that you were delivered from the futile way of life your fathers handed on to you, not by any diminishable sum of silver and gold but by Christ’s blood beyond all price: the blood of a spotless, unblemished lamb....” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

Jesus paid a steep price to buy us back from the bondage of sin. He gave His very life. Since He purchased us at such a high price, He expects us to be good. It is not enough for us to be nice. It is not enough for us to not hurt anyone. We must be genuinely good, holy as He is holy and perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.

We would have strong words for the chef who dared to serve us a $220 sandwich which was anything less than spectacular. Jesus likewise has strong words for any of His followers redeemed by His blood who fail to catch on fire with His love: “I know your deeds, that you are neither hot nor cold....So, because you are lukewarm....I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelations 3: 15-16).

Therefore, since we have been purchased at such a high price - the blood of Jesus Himself - let s live up to our dignity as adopted sons and daughters of God. Let us show forth genuine oodness and saintly holiness in all our words and actions. Let us be worthy of the God who calls us and who redeemed us through the blood of His Son.

The Road to Hope

2011-05-08T17:20:00.004-04:00

This article originally appeared in Connect magazine

Over the past few years, we have had a sense that things are not well. Since 2001, we have witnessed wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention numerous other small conflicts throughout the world. Our economy has suffered as jobs have been lost and homes have been foreclosed on at a record pace. We are deadlocked over important moral and political issues such as abortion and stem cell research with no common ground to help us discuss these issues civilly. We are living with a sense that things are going in the wrong direction, and we are deeply divided over how to set things right. We do not know where to find hope.

Today's readings announce boldly that hope has its center and meaning in God. In the first reading, Peter on the day of Pentecost proclaims to the people of Jerusalem who witnessed Jesus' death on the cross, that his death was not a humiliating defeat. Rather it was the culmination of God's plan of salvation for all people. Jesus laid down His life willingly out of love for us. But even death could not silence Jesus, for He rose from the dead and continues to live among us giving us the hope of everlasting life. Because Jesus lives, we have hope that we also will live with Him forever through faith. That is our first source of real hope. Death, the greatest enemy we face, has already been vanquished.

Peter continues to speak about hope to us in the second reading. Jesus died to deliver us from a futile way of life. That futile way of life was our sinfulness which trapped us in an existence centered only on this material world. The only thing that was real to us was what we could see and feel. It was a life of false hopes and false promises. When our political leaders and economic policy failed us, we did not know where else to turn. Our baptismal faith has taught us that it is God alone, the just judge, who can forgive our sins and render justice for the poor. Our hope, then, finds its center in this just and merciful God who has acted powerfully in history in the person of Jesus Christ. Our second source of hope, then, is that human sinfulness which has created so much misery in history has been overcome.

Finally, the gospel reading presents us with two people who had lost hope. Faced with Jesus' death on the cross and the dismay over Jesus' empty tomb, they decide to leave the community of faith in Jerusalem and head in another direction. As they walk along, they are so caught up in their confusion and despair that they cannot recognize Jesus. Nonetheless their heart burns as He restores their hope by showing how Scripture taught that his death was necessary for the forgiveness of sins and to complete God's plan of salvation. Once they recognize Him, they return to the community of faith in Jerusalem and find their hopes confirmed. Jesus is truly risen! Our third source of hope, then, is that Jesus is still walking among us calming our fears, confirming our faith and anchoring our hope.

We are a people who desperately need to have our hope restored. If we are looking for economic policy to make everything well or political leaders to give us a perfect social order, then we will be sorely disappointed. Only God can both promise and deliver the hope our hearts are burning to receive - the forgiveness of sins, justice, peace and eternal life. On earth, we can only have it in a partial way. There will always be threats to our peace and security. There will always be those seeking to pervert justice for their own ends. Only God can establish true justice and lasting peace in a permanent way.

Does this mean that we throw up our hands and give up? By no means! That is the way people with no hope act. Those without faith generally do not see the point in trying to make the world a good place and decide just to live for themselves and their own pleasures. Or they may try to help but get disillusioned because they cannot see their efforts making any difference. But those who believe in God and have their hope centered in Him live differently. We know that we will be judged by God based on our actions. We see God's face in those who suffer. We know that the poor are our brothers and sisters and refuse to abandon them in their need. However we are not deluded into thinking that any person, any government or any policy can turn our world into a perfect paradise. And so, knowing that we will not achieve a perfect world, we do not give up even when we experience setbacks and disappointments. We press on knowing that God's perfect justice and perfect peace are awaiting us. Though there is only so much we can do - only so much difference we can make - we know that our sincere efforts are rewarded by God and so have eternal value. We strive to make real in our world the mercy and justice revealed in the Savior who walks along the way with us.

We gather each Sunday as people who know very well the fears, misgivings and disappointments of today's world. But, more importantly, we know the hope which our faith in God holds out to us. We feel God's word burning in our hearts. Moreover we see Jesus in the breaking of the bread as we celebrate and share the gift of His Body and Blood. When the songs of praise have ended and we leave our place of worship, we must go into that world and witness to the hope we have found in God. That hope gathers into one community those who are scattered by fear. It gives new strength to those who have been disillusioned by life's injustices. It gives new meaning to those who have been disappointed by the limited effectiveness of governments and politicians. It calls all of us to recognize Jesus, the world's only hope for perfect justice and lasting peace.

Where our Treausre is

2011-05-07T12:12:00.001-04:00

Last weekend, we celebrated a glorious event, the beatification of Pope John Paul II. An estimated two million pilgrims jammed the square at Saint Peter’s Basilica spilling down the Via della Conciliazione and into the side streets alongside the Vatican. Many millions of others followed the Mass on television. It was a proud moment for all those whose lives were touched by the late Pontiff’s ministry.

Unfortunately, much of the attention was drawn away from the event by the wedding of Prince William the Friday before and the killing of Osama bin Laden on Sunday night.

It reminded me of how Mother Theresa and Princess Diana both died within days of each other. Rather than give the media an opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the life of such a great woman, attention was focused on the tragic and mysterious circumstances surrounding Princess Diana’s death. I also remember being shocked that coverage tended to highlight the late Princess’ charitable endeavors while coverage of Mother Theresa’s death often focused on criticism that she gave India a bad name by drawing attention to its poverty or that she accepted money from the Haitian dictator, Baby Doc Duvalier.

I have to wonder whether these events so often coincide to reveal to us where our hearts lie. If we are caught up with the allurements of this world and its values, our attention will be drawn to the royal wedding and bin Laden’s assassination. If our hearts, rather, are set on the Kingdom to come, we will celebrate the Divine Mercy of God which radiated so beautifully through the life and ministry of Blessed Pope John Paul II.

It is not that the Church is being shown up by these other coinciding events, but that are hearts are being shown up for what they are and where they lie.

Mercy Conquers Fear and Doubt

2011-05-02T15:38:00.004-04:00

As we make our way through life, we come to expect let-downs and disappointments. Because of so many unfulfilled promises and unmet expectations, we grow cynical of anything that can seem too good to be true. Our hearts cake themselves in callouses to protect us from future disillusionment. And so, we come to demand proof and assurances before committing ourselves to anything.

Such is the case with Thomas and the other apostles in today's gospel. They had set all their hope in Jesus. They had left their jobs and families to follow Him. And it all came to a horrifying and humiliating end with the crucifixion. Now they were reduced to hiding behind a locked door for fear that the authorities would do to them what they had done to Jesus.

While they were cowering in fear, Jesus appears to them. John tells us that He shows Himself to them "despite the locked doors". John is not just referring here to the heavy wooden doors of their hiding place. He is talking about the closed doors of their hearts. Jesus breaks through the door of their fear. Jesus doesn't wait until they calm down or get perspective on the situation before appearing to them with the good news that He is alive.

Just as Jesus is not shut out by the closed doors of the apostles' fear, neither is He shut out by the closed door of Thomas' doubt. Instead, taking up His challenge, Jesus appears to Thomas so that he can put his doubt aside. The nail marks on his hands, feet and side dispel any doubt that this is truly the Risen Jesus standing before him.

All of us, no matter how deep our faith, come before God with a more or less closed heart. Our heart might be closed to Jesus' message out of fear that God will take from us more than we're willing to give. Or, we might fear that we'll be made fun of if we live His message in a total and radical way. Our hearts may also be hardened by doubt. With so many different religions and so many different opinions, we might wonder, who's to say which is the right way?

No matter where we are in our faith - no matter how closed our hearts may seem - Jesus can break through and reveal Himself. If you can only go so far, Jesus can meet you there. If you can only believe so much, Jesus can take your hand and lead you a little further along. There is no doubt, no fear, no weakness that Jesus through the power of His resurrection and the power of His Holy Spirit cannot surmount.

Thomas is an example for us here. He is famous for his doubt - but his story doesn't end there. After his experience of the Risen Jesus, tradition tells us that he went on to preach the gospel in India. He is often pictured with a spear, because while in India preaching the good news, he was run through with a spear and killed. Doubting Thomas was martyred for his witness to the good news of Jesus' resurrection. Jesus broke through the closed door of Thomas' doubt and filled him with the faith which enabled him to eventually give his life for Jesus.

We have heard the story of Jesus' resurrection and will now celebrate the meal of His Body and Blood. If we really take seriously what we are receiving, each of us will approach this tremendous mystery with some fear and some doubt. Nonetheless, whatever our level of faith or doubt, trust or fear, the same Jesus gives Himself to each of us. Let us open the doors of our hearts to Jesus and embrace the gift of His peace and the gift of His Holy Spirit. When our lives change because of it - when our fear and doubt are dispelled - then we will know what it means that Jesus is still alive.

Santo Subito!

2011-04-30T08:17:00.006-04:00

Reading about Pope John Paul II’s upcoming beatification reminded me of an entry I had written in my journal back in 1980 describing his visit to Boston the year before. Though my memory of the day is foggy, I suspect I took some liberties in describing the event. In fact, I distinctly remember that my grandmother would not let me take a bath when I got home because she claimed it would make me sick. The part about some black guy pushing me into the mud also sounds suspect. Anyway, the uncorrected, unexpurgated entry dated October 1, 1980 follows. The picture below is from a much later encounter I had with His Holiness after my deaconate ordination in 1991.

I remember being in Boston Common a year ago today literally soaked to the skin trying to listen to the pope’s homily. There was no way we could keep dry because if you put your umbrella up to protect yourself people would complain because “they can’t see his holiness.” I tried to listen to the pope’s homily but there was this lady next to me who was praying out loud and saying amen to everything the pope said. It was finally drawing near the end, the experience was great but the conditions worsened my attitude, and I had gotten in line when this black guy cuts me in line, makes me lose my balance, and fall right in the mud. I got up fast and told my mother that we should skip communion before we get killed. When we got home the best feeling I ever had was that hot bath I took. If the pope ever returns to Boston and it rains then I’m staying on the bus.

Stunning but True

2011-04-28T21:05:00.005-04:00

I wasn’t sure what to say or how to react.

We hadn’t seen in each in well over ten years when I bumped into her at the hospital. So the talk naturally gravitated to our children. Hers are older and are already having children of their own. However, her youngest had just lost her baby five months or so into the pregnancy.

“How awful,” I replied. “You must have been devastated.”

“Well,” she said, “if the baby had been born, the doctors said she would not have lived long and would have needed to be on a feeding tube. So they decided to have a medical abortion.”

“Oh,” I replied.

“We called a priest to baptize the baby,” she continued, “but he refused to do it. That’s the kind of thing that turns people off to the Church.”

She must have sensed from my blank look and silence that I was stunned by what she had told me.

“I guess you can see both sides of it,” she said and decided it would probably be better to change the subject

I was indeed stunned because she and her family are well meaning people whom I thought should know better that we do not put children, babies or the unborn “ out of their misery” because of their disabilities. Instead I was brought face to face with a reality of life in our society - some ninety percent of unborn children diagnosed in utero with down syndrome, spina bifida, hemophilia or cleft palate are aborted in the United States and Europe. We might not want to frame it this way, but we are deciding that only perfect little babies should be allowed to live.

In India and China, much the same dynamic is taking place. For several decades now it has been a common practice for couples to abort unborn female babies. These sex selective abortions reflect the strong cultural preference for sons. It is creating a widening disparity between the number of men and women in those countries meaning that very many men will never be able to marry and raise a family.

The reality of sex selective abortions puts the lie to the claim that abortion is a woman’s rights issue. If women who behave rarely make history, we can be sure that women who are aborted never make history.

Arizona recently passed a law prohibiting abortion based on a fetus’s race or sex, reflecting the growing number of immigrants from countries where these practices are common. It would have been interesting if they had also criminalized abortions against unborn children diagnosed with disabilities. The law might not have passed as easily, but it would have sparked an interesting debate and made it much harder for the pro-abortion lobby to deny that they are interested in purifying American society from “undesirables.”

I don’t want to sound insensitive to couples who receive the news that their unborn child has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome or spina bifida. It must be heart wrenching. However, they deserve better advise from their doctors than to terminate the pregnancy. They deserve more options than abortion and the physical, emotional and spiritual toll it takes on couples. And they deserve to have their unborn child treated with the same dignity and care as the healthy unborn child of the fair skinned couple in the next room.

Today is the feast day of Saint Gianna Molla. When pregnant with her fourth child, she learned that she had a fibroma. Rather than undergoing a hysterectomy which would have resulted in the death of her unborn child, she chose to have the fibroma removed. After the surgery she continued to experience intense pain which she suffered bravely until her daughter was born on April 21, 1962. Gianna Molla died seven days later. She was recognized by all who knew her to be a woman of tremedous courage and faith, and was canonized as a saint by the Church in 2004. May she and so many other women who have foregone treatment to spare the lives of their unborn children be an example to us of the dignity of all human life.

Easter Prayer

2011-04-26T17:55:00.009-04:00

My grandmother has some beautiful old Portuguese prayer books. One in particular, O Relicario Angelico, or The Angelic Reliquary, offers this moving prayer in honor of the Resurrection. I have taken some liberties with the translation to modernize it.

O my sweet Jesus, may your Holy Name be forever praised.For, after the storm clouds of your most holy Passion followed the serene calm of your Glory, and the night of your sorrows, tears and death gave way to the joyful day of your wondrous Resurrection.

For this great mystery I offer you my gratitude and praise because You died for our sins and rose for our justification. And you desired that those who took pity on you and shed tears over your cruel passion and death should also rejoice in your glorious Resurrection with you and with your most holy mother, who, according to the measure of her past anguish and sorrows, received the consolations and joys of so glorious a day.

What words would be sufficient to worthily declare the ineffable joy that her heart received when she saw you gloriously risen? The darkness of your passion was transformed into beauty,the humiliation into glory, the wounds into glorious splendor. Victor over death and redeemer of life, you triumphed over hell and brought peace to all of heaven and glory to the universe.

Therefore, I ask you, King of Heaven and Earth,the one who glorifies and redeems me,
that I take such joy in your wondrous Resurrection so as to also rise with you and share your risen life.

My God and only good, detach my heart from all the things of earth, fix it on the things of heaven so that I may live with You Who are my true Paradise. Make me forget and hate all the pleasures, vain comforts and earthly consolations that separate me from your service and love, and grant that I may not die in sin so that through your mercy I may rise gloriously in body and soul and reign with you forever in your glory. Amen.

Easter Joy!

2011-04-24T20:19:00.002-04:00

Today is the day of Easter joy!

Over the past 40 days, we have prepared ourselves through sacrifice and prayer so that we could renew our baptismal vows with deeper commitment and embrace the wonder of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. In particular, over this past week, beginning with Palm Sunday, we have delved into the mystery of Jesus' suffering and death. We learned that we have a God who does not abandon us to sin, suffering and death, but a God who suffers along with us and offers us the hope of redemption.

This God continues to be alive and active in our world. Whenever a person changes, leaving selfishness behind, God's hand has moved. Whenever good comes out of evil, God is at work. That is the power of the resurrection continuing to act in the world over two thousand years later.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead has the power to transform lives. We see it in today's readings in the person of Simon Peter. When Mary Magdalene tells the apostles that the body of Jesus is not in the tomb, both Peter and John race to the scene. John reaches the tomb first. When Peter finally gets there, he is cautious, not knowing what to make of the empty tomb. John, however, knows right away what's going on. Because John looks at the situation through the lens of love, he sees and believes.

Now, let us go back to the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. We find a much different Peter. He is no longer cautious, but proclaims in bold and uncompromising language that Jesus is the Son of God and that He is risen from the dead. What has caused the change? Nothing less than Peter's encounter with the Risen Jesus. Over the next few weeks up until Pentecost we will read in the gospels how the Risen Jesus appears to Peter, forgiving him for denying Him, and challenging him along with the other apostles to leave fear behind and proclaim His resurrection to all people. Meeting the Risen Jesus transforms Peter from a timid and cautious man to a bold witness of Jesus who would eventually be given the courage to lay down his life for the gospel.

If we were to look around this church today, we would find people here who have been transformed by their encounter with the Risen Jesus. There are people here today who were sick, but found strength and hope through the prayers of others. There are couples here today who struggled in their marriage or with their children and through the gift of faith were able to work toward a resolution of their problems and, so, strengthen their relationship. There are people worshipping here today who doubted and weren't sure what to believe. They searched different faiths and researched exotic philosophies in their quest for the Truth. Finally, by the light of the Holy Spirit, they came to believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

So, how do we encounter the transforming power of the Risen Jesus? One way is through reading the Bible. The Bible is the word of God. Whenever we read the Bible, we can be assured that the Risen Christ is speaking to us. We also encounter the risen Christ through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. The bread and wine will become the very body and blood of the Risen Jesus. Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ is a transforming encounter with the Risen Lord. Every time we receive it in faith, it has the power to change us in a deep and permanent way.

Our liturgy will continue this morning with the renewal of our baptismal promises. We will reject sin and profess our belief in the God who saves. And, with that new commitment, we will receive the Body and Blood of Jesus, a life-changing encounter with the Risen Lord! We need not be cautious like Peter, waiting to see what happens. Instead, like John, we can look on the marvel of this day through the lens of love and believe in the power of the Risen Jesus to change us and to change our world.

Jesus Enters Into His Rest

2011-04-23T08:09:00.002-04:00

Today Jesus is resting from His labor of love and redemption.

Just as the Father rested on the seventh day after creating the heavens and the earth, so Jesus sleeps in the tomb after recreating us.

We must spend this day in quiet, then. If we had a guest in our home who was still asleep when we woke up or a child who had just drifted off into a nap, we would move quietly to avoid disturbing them. So we must observe this day in silence so as not to disturb our Lord in His rest.

We also need to rest, to catch our breath from our observance of this Holy Week and from the rigors of our Lenten journey. We need to rest from the long proclamations of the passion on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, from the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday, from the hour that we spent keeping watch with the Lord and from walking the stations of the cross.

And we must rest in anticipation of the feast to come when our Risen Lord will be welcomed into His Church with candles, singing and the pealing of bells, when catechumens will be baptized, confirmed and given their first Holy Communion, when we will renew our baptismal vows and when the Spirit will rush into us anew empowering us to live for the things above, not the things below.

It is good for us to keep silence today. But it is not the silence of humiliation and defeat. Rather it is the silence of burgeoning life. It is the silence the roots make when they pierce the shell of the seed underground. It is the silence of the giant before he is aroused. It is the silence of musicians queuing themselves to sing a new song. It is the silence of our new life stretching its limbs and yawning. It is the silence of a Church and her Saviour about to fling open the doors and go out into the world to preach the good news that Jesus has conquered death.

For You and Me

2011-04-22T17:28:00.003-04:00

Jesus, I don't know what your death means.

I'm afraid to die. I'm afraid to let go of this life and its pleasures. I fear the ridicule, rejection and pain which you endured for me.

I know that to be your disciple I must live by the cross that saved me. But, I also understand the fear of the apostles who betrayed, denied and abandoned you. I understand Pilate's confusion and desire to wash his hands of the whole mess. I understand the blood-thirst of the crowd calling for Barabbas' freedom and your death. I understand the Pharisees' suspicion of you. I understand the soldier's making fun of you. They were used to kings who ruled by the sword, not by the Spirit.

It's you that I'm not able to understand.

Your death turns everything upside down. How can we believe in such a weak God? How can we trust that a God who didn't save himself would ever be able to save us?

Yet you showed that, through the whole ordeal, you were in control. You assured your disciples, "I have the power to lay down my life and to pick it up again." Why didn't you come down from the cross, then? Why didn't you show them up for the hypocrites and fools they were? That's what I would have done. I would have protected myself. I would have shown my power. I would have let them know whom they were dealing with. Everyone would have believed. No one would have doubted me. Fear and awe of me would have bent their hearts to my will.

Ah...that's it. You want to rule our hearts not out of fear but out of love. You want us to give our hearts freely to you, not snatch them away from us.

Oh Jesus, how could you ever love us after what we did and continue to do to you? How could you ever believe that a crowd that humiliated you, spit on you and tore you to pieces could ever have it within them to love? Yet, you bet your life that at least some of us would understand and believe.

Jesus, I don't know if I can love the way you love. I don't understand why this all had to happen. I can only look up at you with gratitude. I can only marvel at the love God has for such people as we are.

(image by Georges Rouault)

Reflections on "Spy Wednesday"

2011-04-20T18:03:00.001-04:00

It is a question I hear often during this time of year.

Did Satan know that Jesus’ death would redeem the world?

Though Scripture does not address this question specifically, we can assume that he did.

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus told Cleopas and his fellow traveler that the Hebrew Scriptures foretold that the Messiah would have to suffer and die. Also, on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus predicted His death and resurrection three times to the disciples. If Jesus expected His disciples to know and understand the redemptive meaning of His death, we can assume that Satan knew as well.

Inevitably, the next question I’m asked is, “Then why did Satan not try to stop it?”

First of all, one thing we have to understand about Satan is that his malice is greater than his intelligence. That is, his desire to do evil overwhelms his rational powers, as considerable as they may be. In the case of Jesus’ death, the devil took so much delight in seeing the Son of God rejected, tortured and killed that it made him forget the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice.

It is the same experience we have, for instance, if we decide to drink too much even though we know we’ll be sick the next day. Satan fed off the bloodthirsty crowd and became inebriated by the orgy of hate he incited. It made him powerless to give any thought to how all this would ultimately result in his undoing.

Secondly, Satan saw in Jesus’ suffering and death an opportunity to destroy the apostles. What would Jesus’ death mean if there were no one left to announce it? Always on the prowl to poach souls, he had already corrupted Judas and came close to leading Peter along the same path of despair. He hoped to sow enough discouragement in the apostles that they would abandon Jesus altogether. And, along the way, he could cement hate into the hearts of the religious leaders, Roman authorities and all those who got in line to insult, spit at and strike the Son of God.

Finally, Satan was ultimately powerless to prevent the crucifixion even if he had wanted to. Jesus clearly tells His disciples that He is laying down His live freely. He is no victim in this barbarous spectacle. It was all preordained before the creation of the world for our salvation. No power in heaven or on earth, besides God Himself, could have put an end to it.

We should never forget that Satan is furiously plotting our ruin. He is extremely dangerous because, like a cornered animal, he knows he is beaten and has nothing to lose. However, his efforts are futile. Christ will reign forever, and we with Him, if we take up our cross and follow Him. That is the true meaning of these days of torture and triumph.

Triumphant!

2011-04-16T15:16:00.004-04:00

If we had been alive two thousand years ago, what would we have seen?

We would have seen Jesus entering the gates of Jerusalem, the holy city, in the midst of great jubilation. Though Scripture tells us he rode on a simple donkey, the crowds came out to hail him as though he were a conquering general. They shouted, sang and waved palm branches with indescribable joy at Jesus' entry into the city of David.

Why were they so enthused? Because they heard of all the wonders Jesus had worked. The stories of his healings had made their way all through the city. The incredible tale of the raising of Lazarus from the dead in Bethany, just a few miles from Jerusalem, had no doubt been told in every barbershop and at every marketplace. As Jesus entered the city, there was a feeling that something remarkable would happen. The people parading behind him must have had a feeling that history was being made, that something of tremendous importance for the city and for the world was about to happen, and that they would be there to see it all.

What went wrong? Why would it be that in less than a week, their jubilation would sour to bitter scorn? Why would it be that this same crowd would call for His death? Why would they reject Him as Messiah saying that they wanted no other king than Caesar?

It is most likely the same thing that caused Judas to betray his friend and teacher. Jesus was not strong enough, not flashy enough. They preferred a Messiah mounted on a mighty steed, not a lowly donkey. They wanted a Messiah clad in shiny armour, not in a simple linen tunic. They wanted a Messiah who could shower them with riches, not one who was even poorer than they were. How could this humble carpenter from Nazareth ever stand up to the mighty Roman Empire and fight for them?

And so, they ask the Roman Empire, in the person of Pontius Pilate, to save them from their Messiah by crucifying Him among thieves.

Can we say two thousand years later that we are so different from them? Can we say that we would have acted differently? Don't we act the same way when we praise God on Sunday, but turn our backs on those in need on Monday? Do we act any differently if we reflect on the mysteries of the rosary, but are blind to the mystery of God unfolding in our lives? Are we any better when we can remember everything that happens on American Idol, but can't recall what the gospel reading from the Sunday before was?

For two thousand years, the world has both longed for its Savior and turned its back on Him. It has longed to see Him and closed its eyes to Him. It has wondered why God is so silent, yet failed to listen to Him. Today, with all the advancements of modern society, we cannot claim to be all that different than the crowd that welcomed Jesus two thousand years ago.

Yes, the week that saw Jesus enter triumphantly into Jerusalem will end with the tragedy of His death. But, wait! The story is not over. For, this week, the God who chose to suffer and die rather than exact vengeance will accomplish something marvelous. It is something that no one could ever have imagined when Jesus' beaten, lifeless body was taken down from the cross. Yet it was for this moment that the world was created. It is the mystery of how God plans to save us even in the midst of our rejection of Him.

We'll have to come back next Sunday to find out what will happen. But we can be assured that it will not disappoint us. For this God of surprises, this God who loves us beyond all telling, will not let death have the final word over His beloved Son. Nor will he allow death to claim those of us who believe in Him and welcome Him into the city of our hearts.

The Common Good

2011-04-13T09:01:00.002-04:00

Most Americans do not begrudge the Catholic Church her teachings on abortion, contraception and the sanctity of marriage. They understand that one is free to belong to the Church or not, to accept her teachings or not.

What many Americans do begrudge - some Catholics included - is the Church’s public advocacy for these issues and her attempts to influence legislation. For instance, Americans may recognize that the Church has a right to teach that marriage should be only between a man and a woman, but they do not recognize the Church’s right to speak out publicly about it, work to influence legislation on marriage or help to challenge such laws in court. According to most Americans, and some Catholics, people of faith should have no voice when these issues are debated and legislation on them is enacted.

If the issues at stake were eating meat on Fridays in Lent or attending Mass on Sunday, I would be in total agreement with most Americans. These are teachings which are binding only on Catholics and should not be imposed on the rest of society through legislation.

However, when the issues are freedom of religion, providing for the poor, protecting innocent human life and defending the sanctity of marriage, we are talking about goods that are common to all people. All people - Catholic or not - have a stake in whether the right to freedom of worship is respected. Each person, no matter his or her sexual orientation, has a stake in whether the law supports marriages and families or weakens them. These are common goods we all share. As good citizens, Catholics must be engaged in promoting the common good by working for solutions to society’s ills.

Furthermore, when injustices are being committed, it is the duty of all people, including people of faith, to speak out. When the taking of innocent human life is codified in law or societal structures are in place which undermine the dignity of human persons, the Church has a duty to oppose such laws and structures. We as a Church understand that we must use our moral authority, built up over centuries of service to the poor and needy, to advocate for those who do not have a voice.

Over the years, through centuries of reflection, the Church has built up a moral teaching covering every facet of human life and experience that is remarkably consistent. As a Church, we have a responsibility to share that treasure not just with other Catholics but with all of society. The Church, therefore, has a duty not only to spread the gospel but to work for the common good. That means speaking the truth even about matters that do not involve dogma.

Furthermore,one does not lose one’s citizenship by being Catholic. Catholics, including clergy, pay taxes on their income like everyone else. We have a right and a duty to contribute to the common good no matter what issue is being discussed and what values are at stake.

Our faith as well as our civic duty demands it of us

This Sickness is Not to End in Death

2011-04-12T05:38:00.003-04:00

The film, “Soul Surfer” debuted in box offices throughout the country this weekend. It tells the story of Bethany Hamilton, a professional surfer who lost an arm in a vicious shark attack in 2003. The movie shows how her faith in God played a major role in recovering from her injury and returning to championship form in the sport she loves. Her faith also helped her see her loss not as a handicap but as a means of inspiring others.

In the gospel readings over the past two Sundays we have read about two men facing handicaps and how faith transformed them. Last week it was the blind beggar and this week it was Lazarus, who has a terminal illness that eventually robs him of his life.

In the case of the man born blind, the disciples ask Jesus if it was because of his sin or that of his parents that he was so afflicted. Jesus responds that his blindness was not a punishment but an opportunity to have the glory of God show forth in his life. Once he has recovered his sight, the blind man then gives us a lesson on what it means to see and believe. His healing becomes a sign pointing to Jesus as the Light of the World.

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus receives the news that his friend, Lazarus, is sick. He responds: “This sickness is not to end in death; rather it is for God’s glory.” Though Lazarus does succumb to his illness, Jesus raises him from the dead to show us that He is the Resurrection and the Life. Lazarus’ death is not a punishment but a sign pointing to Jesus who brings the dead to life again.

Each of us has a situation in life that we think keeps us from serving God better. If only I lived in the ‘50’s. If only my husband went to church with me. If only I were not sick. If only I didn’t have children. If only I had a better education. If only I didn’t work with such jerks. We think that if God would just change those circumstances, we would be better able to do His will.

In fact, the opposite is the case. There is no circumstance we can find ourselves in wherein it is impossible to do God’s will. In fact, it is His will that we are where we are. He wants us to endeavor to live good and holy lives in the midst of people who are indifferent or even hostile to our faith so that we might be an example to them. He desires that we struggle with our personal weaknesses and failures so that we can learn to rely on Him. And if there are relationships or circumstances in our lives which need to change, He will give us the grace and the opportunity to change them. But we can never use them as an excuse not to live good and holy lives.

Whatever we are struggling with today can be a vehicle by which God’s glory can shine forth through us.

If Jesus can give sight to the blind and raise the dead, what else can His Spirit at work in us accomplish?

Breath of Life

2011-04-10T15:22:00.002-04:00

We are familiar with the story of how God created the first man, Adam. After forming him from clay, he blew into his nostrils the gift of life. This is different from the way God created any of the animals or any of the plants. By giving Adam His own breath, God was sharing His life with him. Breath is life. We are aware that someone is alive if he or she is breathing. To stop breathing - or to be unable to breathe - is to die.

The word "spirit" is closely related to the word for breath. We call breathing "respiration". To stop breathing or to breathe out is to "expire". Both of those words are related to the word for "spirit". In this way we can understand the Holy Spirit to be the breath of God, the life of God. We have that life not only because we have been created by God, but also through the gift of faith. Through baptism and confirmation, in particular, God breathes the Holy Spirit into us. God shares with us His very life.

Paul speaks of this in the second reading. The Spirit who worked so powerfully in the life of Jesus, is the same Spirit we have received through faith and baptism. This is the same Spirit who empowered Jesus to speak with authority. This is the same Spirit who empowered Jesus to perform miracles. This is the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. That Spirit is with us here as we gather to worship.

What does this mean for us? If God's Spirit is the very life of God within us, then the eternal life of heaven is not something we receive after we die. That eternal life of God is already in us. We are already living it. Heaven is already within us and around us. To be sure, it is still in seed form. It hasn't yet reached its fullness. We are not always aware of it. But, it is at work in us just as surely as our breath is filling our lungs with oxygen.

We see that eternal life at work in the words of Martha and Mary. They are distressed at their brother's death and distressed at Jesus' apparent neglect of them in their need. Nonetheless, in the midst of their grief, they confess their belief with the words: "I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God". And, Jesus does not let them down. When Jesus says that they will see their brother again, Martha misunderstands and thinks He is talking about the resurrection on the last day. But, Jesus has something else in mind. He has in mind the life of the Spirit which is already at work in Him and is beginning its work in the world. Jesus' life was not something that Martha and Mary would experience in some far off day in the future. They were to experience it that very day with the raising of their brother Lazarus from death. Because they believed, they saw the glory of God.

Jesus came to earth for one reason - to redeem us from our sins and to restore us to life with God. Sin cuts us off from God's life. Sin strangles God's breath of life within us. Sin inevitably leads to death. When Jesus weeps in today's gospel reading, he is not just mourning for Lazarus. He is not just sympathizing with Martha and Mary. He is weeping for all of humanity which suffers death because of sin. But, Jesus will conquer death by Himself suffering it and by rising from the dead to give us the hope of everlasting life with Him now through faith, and in fullness with Him forever in heaven.

All life needs food to sustain it, and the life of God in us is no different. Not only does God provide us with the breath of His Spirit, He also nourishes us with the body and blood of His Son. The same Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead will transform simple bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ to give us the power to live as He lived.

Now that we have tasted the life of God - now that we have breathed it into our lungs - why would we ever go back to living just for ourselves? Why would we ever want to let sin cut us off from that life again? No matter what choices we have made in the past - even if it seems that our souls are buried deep in a tomb - God can roll away the stone and breathe new life into us. Today is a new day. If we believe, we can see God's glory at work in us and at work in our lives. We need only believe to breathe deeply of God's eternal life which He offers through the Holy Spirit.

The Light of the World

2011-04-04T05:25:00.004-04:00

On a talk show one morning, A blind man was promoting a book he had written about his life. During the interview, he talked about how he considered his blindness to be a "blessing in disguise". He told the woman interviewing him that, since he wasn't able to see her, he couldn't judge her by how she looked or by the clothes she wore. The only idea he had of her was from the words she spoke and the sound of her voice. And so, with his heart, he could "see" her - the real her - better than those who could see her with just their eyes.

Being able to see something with our eyes and being able to understand it with our mind and heart are two different things. There are many things we see and yet do not understand. There are many times as well that our eyes get in the way of our understanding because of prejudices we may have against those of a different race or those of a different economic or social status.

In today's first reading, God sends the prophet Samuel to Jesse's house to choose a king for Israel. If Samuel had just relied on his eyes, he would have picked one of Jesse's older sons. But, Samuel was listening to God. Samuel didn't choose based on what his eyes told him, but what God told him. As God says to Samuel: "Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart." And so, having trusted God and not his eyes, Samuel anoints David as the next king of Israel. It would turn out that David would be Israel's greatest king. Later on in Scripture, God will say of David that he is a "man after my own heart." It is from David that the Messiah would be born.

Jesus also understood very well how seeing is not always believing. He knew that, though people saw him with their eyes, they didn't always understand who he was. In today's Gospel reading, we find that it is the blind man who comes to really see Jesus for who he is and to testify to him as the Messiah. The people who should know better - the religious leaders - cannot get past their own squabbling to really see with their heart who Jesus is. They are too concerned with maintaining control and with maintaining their authority to see that Jesus is the Messiah they have been longing for.

As we look now at our life, do we really see what's going on? Do we grasp the grace which God is showering us with everyday? Do we notice the beauty of the day? Do we notice when someone needs our help? Do we know what are children are up to? And, if we see it, do we understand it? Do we hear God taking us beyond the appearances into the reality, into the truth?

There are a lot of reasons we might want to stay in the dark and not see. There's a lot of ugliness in the world such as war and famine. There's a lot of sadness in the world. If we were really to see it, we might feel overwhelmed. We might not know what to do. Or, we might for maybe the first time feel as though we needed to do something about it and be shaken out of the comfortable little world we've made for ourselves. It is fear that keeps us in the dark. It is fear that so often keeps us from wanting to see.

But, when we choose to stay in the dark, we also miss out on what is beautiful about the world. We don't see the people who give of themselves to make the lives of others better. We don't see the children whose purity of heart reminds us of the goodness which surrounds us. And, we don't see God working in powerful ways to bring food to the hungry and comfort to the afflicted.

Even the healthiest eye needs light to see. Jesus is our light. He is light for the world. We do not need to hide in the cold night of fear. We do not need to cower before the seemingly endless problems of our lives and of our world. We have in Jesus a Savior who helps us to see ourselves and see our world as God sees it. God sent Jesus to the world to be its light because God thought that we were worth saving. Each one of us is precious in God's eyes. God has paid a high price to secure our salvation - the price of His only Son. How wonderful each of us must be that God was so moved to rescue us from sin and death. And, if we are that precious in God's eyes, what a tragedy it is when any one of us suffers.

When we start to see ourselves and our world in this way, how can we not, then, be moved with the same love to reach out to those who are hungry, to those who are homeless, to those who mourn?

There are many in this world who live in darkness because of fear. Many of them are desperate for light, but don't know where to turn. We know where the light is. We know that Christ is our light. We received that light at our baptism. It is by that light that we live. It is by that light that we see as God sees. How could we ever close our eyes and return to the darkness of fear, now that Christ has given us his light? And, how can we not bring that light today into a world shivering in darkness?

All Too Human

2011-04-02T13:17:00.007-04:00

I learned at a young age that priests were fallible.

One Sunday at Mass, our old Portuguese pastor got up to proclaim the gospel. Father Resendes read the whole Mass right out of the missalette including the gospel. That Sunday, the reading was from the last chapter of John when Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. In the missalette, the gospel reading was divided into two columns. Instead of reading down one column and then down the other, Father Resendes read straight across both columns. The effect was something like: “At the Sea of Tiberias Jesus when they landed saw a showed himself once again a charcoal fire, there with a....” You get the idea. Poor Father Resendes was always bumbling over some turn of phrase or failing to make sense in his sermons. But we still loved the little guy.

We were blessed at out parish to always have newly ordained priests assigned to us. Being the late sixties, we had curates with long hair and side burns wearing ponchos and listening to Santana. I imagine that many parishioners may have found this odd or disturbing. But I had no idea that priests should be any other way.

Over the years, my family became friendly with the priests who served us and even had them over the house. I saw them smoke, drink beer, complain about other priests and even swear. It seemed natural to me that they would act much as we do. However, I never lost the sense that there was something special about them. To this day, I still consider them to be among the most gifted and generous men I have ever met.

A lot has changed since the late sixties and early seventies. Any illusions that our priests were super-human or beyond being tempted have been shattered. Sadly for many Catholics who never saw the human side of the priests who served them, with that disillusionment has come a loss of faith. I really cannot think of anything worse that could have happened to the Church.

It is now a part of our collective history that we all have to learn to live with. It is not going to go away. If people keep drudging up the Inquisition and the excommunication of Galileo (not to mention the Borgias whose skeletons are being dug up by Showtime) we can expect to be hearing about the sex abuse crisis for at least the next five hundred years.

It is most especially painful when those who stand accused or have been dismissed from ministry are friends who have inspired you and taught you so much about God’s love. Many effective priests - many of whom I admired and loved - have been snared in the net. I have no idea where they are, what they did or if their punishment is just. They are simply gone.

But I am consoled in knowing that much of what they taught stays with me. It is part of the bricks and mortar of my faith life now, and it always will be. The messengers come and go - taken from us by scandal or by death - but the message rings out. No matter how many priests fall, it can never be silenced because its source is the One who cannot sin and cannot fail.

The latest priest to be accused, Father John Corapi, is stunning to many. Perhaps because we only saw him on television and were not exposed to his human imperfections like losing his temper with an altar boy in the sacristy or having too much to drink at the parish fair, he took on an air of infallibility. It will be devastating to many if the allegations against him are proved true. But isn’t it also true that the faith he stirred in us, the conviction he inspired in us and the truths he taught us will remain no matter how these accusations play themselves out? That faith will surely see us through any disappointment or discouragement we might otherwise experience if these allegations are proved true.

So I am hopeful. Those who have stayed around are true believers and those who have chosen to leave are opportunities for evangelization. We are chastened, but our faith is stronger because it no longer rests on priests who are fallible but on the eternal God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.