A Light to the Nations

God had a dream for Israel when he called them out of slavery in Egypt to form a new nation. He dreamed that they would be a sign to the whole world of his love. As we hear in the first reading, The people of Israel were meant to live by God's commandments in such a way that people in surrounding nations would be attracted to God because of their holiness. For this reason the Jewish people did not look upon the commandments as burdens - as a bunch of hoops God placed before them - but as a gift by which they could radiate to the whole world God's love and goodness.

For the most part, Israel lived up to this great expectation God placed upon them. They taught the nations the truth that there is only one God who is the Father of all. They witnessed to the value of human life by speaking out against child sacrifice which was rampant in the cultures around them. By prohibiting divorce and not allowing men to have more than one wife, Israel did much to begin promoting the equal dignity of women. And by insisting that orphans, widows and immigrants be treated justly, they testified to the responsibilities of society to its weakest members. There were also times when they failed as a people to live up to these lofty values. But they never stopped turning to God to seek his mercy and renew their commitment to his commandments. The Jewish people to this day strive to be a light to the nations.

God's dream, however, does not end with Israel, but continues with us who profess belief in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Christians are to live in such a way that the people around us say, "Hey, they have something that I want." The joy we manifest in our lives, the concern we show for strangers and our willingness to tell others about our faith in Jesus are all meant to make an impression on others and leave them with the question: "Why have I never known that believing in Jesus was so important to leading a happy life."

Like the people of Israel, Christians for the most part have done a good job through the grace of God in witnessing to the truths of our faith. It was Christians who led the way in abolishing slavery and establishing civil rights in our country. It is Christians who are the strongest voice for the dignity of all persons both born and unborn. And the Catholic Church is the largest provider of education and health care in the world today. The witness of Christians has been indispensable to guaranteeing that justice is done for all people created in God's image and likeness. By the grace of God, we have much to be proud of about our Christian faith and heritage.

Unfortunately, many people in today's world don't see things this way. There is a lot of cynicism about religious people. Those who choose to live the way Jesus lived are often labeled as fanatics or hypocrites. So many widely publicized scandals involving religious leaders make people suspicious that we Christians do not practice what we preach. And what we do preach is often looked upon as backward, not up to date with the findings of science and with the way people live today. Because of this, many people find it hard to believe in Jesus, to read the Bible and to participate in Mass.

Though much of what I have mentioned is caused by prejudice against Catholics and ignorance, we have to be honest with ourselves and admit that we Christians have not always been the examples of holiness and goodness that God dreamed we would be. People have not turned to Jesus often because we have not shown by our lives or by the way we act that belief in Jesus does make a difference. I think the reason Jesus got so frustrated and angry with the religious leaders of his day, as he does in today's gospel, was that so many people in Israel needed to hear about God and his love for them, but they were too busy worrying about matters of little importance.

There are people all around us who need to hear that God loves them - people in whose lives God could make a big difference. What can convince them more movingly than any words we say or any arguments we come up with is for them to see us loving others as we love ourselves, forgiving others as God has forgiven us and giving to the poor and needy just as God has provided for our needs. As Saint James tells us in the second reading, such is the religion which is pure and undefiled in the eyes of our heavenly Father. And the world, despite its prejudices, cannot help but take notice of the good we do when it is done in the strength provided by God.

Saint Francis of Assisi said: "Preach always. When necessary, use words." As followers of Christ, it is our mission to bring him into the world by living holy lives. Through our baptism, we are the hands of Christ stretched out to the world. We all know someone who needs God. Maybe we need to make it a point this week to reach out to them, give them a phone call and invite them to have coffee with us. By showing love and concern, we can witness to them about the love of God and perhaps change their lives. It may be the only opportunity that person will ever have to hear the good news. That is God's dream for each one of us - to live lives marked by such holiness that others will say, " I want to know your God."

(artist: Alan Falk)

God's Will Be Done

In the recent biography about the life of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, one of her sisters recounts how she noticed the future saint staring at a painting of Jesus in the hallway of the convent. Not realizing that anyone was within earshot, Mother Theresa blurted out, "Oh Jesus, I have always said 'Yes' to you!" Mother Theresa's whole life may be summed up as one big 'Yes!' to the Lord. Her holiness stemmed from her desire to do God's will - to say "Yes!". Every poor person she gave shelter to, every hungry person she fed, every sick person she comforted, every good thing she did sprang from her commitment to God's will. And so, she stands as a shining example of how beautiful a life lived for God can be. Hers was a life built on the rock of God's will.

Jesus makes it clear at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Only those who seek to do God's will, as Mother Theresa and so many other saints before her did, can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We are saved because we have listened to Jesus' words and said "Yes" to them.

Saint Paul expands on this in the letter to the Romans. Because we have all sinned, we have fallen short of God's glory. We are not fully the men and women God created us to be in His image and likeness. But, because God has loved us so much, we have been justified through faith in Jesus. What does it mean to be justified by faith? As Saint Paul uses the term, justification means having our relationship with God repaired. Whereas sin has distanced us from God, we are made friends again with Him through our faith in Jesus.

Now, the faith that makes us friends with God is not simply believing that God exists or that Jesus died for us. Rather, the faith that brings us to salvation is the faith that seeks to do God's will. It is the faith that recognizes that God's will for us is better than whatever we may desire for ourselves. It goes back to what Jesus says in the gospel: the one who does God's will is the one who is pleasing to Him.

It takes a great deal of faith to entrust our lives into God's hands and say, "Do with me what you will." It takes a deep trust to believe that God knows better than we do what is good for us and what path we should walk. And, it takes a strong commitment to God for us to stop living for ourselves and our short-sighted plans and to devote ourselves totally to God's plan. Yet, we have that faith already as a gift through baptism. And, the Holy Spirit is at work in us to increase our desire and ability to do God's will and so to grow in holiness.

If we are to take Jesus' words to heart, then we must ask ourselves some difficult questions. Do we make our choices in life based on God's will? Does God's will determine how we live our lives? Does God's will affect the choices we make at work? Does God's will make a difference in how much of our time and money we volunteer to charity? Do we spend time in prayer trying to learn what God's will for us is? Do we ask God to reveal His will to us? And, do we say "Yes" to God every day of our lives? When our faith makes a difference in the way we live our lives and in the choices we make, then we know that it is real.

Once God and His will become the center of our lives, we live with a new sense of purpose and security. It is Jesus' promise to us that if we put His words into practice then our lives will have a firm, unmovable foundation. Our lives become like a strongly constructed home set on a bedrock foundation. No matter what storms may be brewing on the horizon, we rest easy. We come to trust that God will make everything work out for our good.

We can experience the blessing of a friendship with God which is ours simply for believing in the name of Jesus and dedicating every day of our lives to Him. If we are afraid to put our lives into God's hands, then we must pray for the confidence and faith to be able to trust God more fully. If we are confused about what God's will for our lives is, then we must ask Him to reveal it to us. No matter what our situation in life may be, it will never be easy for us to leave our own dreams in the sand and climb up onto the rock of God's plan for our life. But, what blessings we'll receive! What joy we'll experience! What a friend we will have in God! And, what a reward will be waiting for us when we finally enter heaven and gaze on the one we have said "Yes" to!

To Whom Shall We Go?

After a life-changing spiritual experience, a woman decided to try reading the Bible from cover to cover. She had a hard time making it through the Old Testament because there was so little of it that she understood. And yet she tried not to let herself get discouraged because she believed that even in all the bizarre stories about kings who lived thousands of years ago God had a message for her. Even though she understod only about ten percent of what she read, she thanked God for the ninety percent he would one day reveal to her. Her trust that God would help her to understand kept her from getting discouraged and abandoning her commitment to reading Scripture.

The disciples in today's gospel find Jesus as hard to understand as the woman in our story found the Old Testament. Jesus had just finished saying that he would give them his flesh to eat, and they cannot understand what in the world he could mean by that. So, in frustration, many of them choose to stop following him rather than listen to what they considered to be nonsense. However Peter, speaking for himself and some of the other disciples, tells Jesus that he will stick by him. It is not that Peter understood what Jesus was saying any more than the disciples who decided to leave. The difference was that Peter knew he had nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to. He had left his family and his job as a fisherman to follow Jesus because he was convinced that there was something special about him. Even though there was much about Jesus that he didn't understand, he knew that no one could speak about the Father the way he could. No one else could make his heart burn with love and faith. No one else could inspire him the way Jesus did. Though he did not always understand what Jesus was saying, he could not imagine ever leaving him.

Looking at our own lives, we can relate to the disciples' confusion. There is much about life, about God and about religion that we find difficult to comprehend. Many of our questions never seem to get a satisfactory answer. Some mysteries of the faith are so perplexing that we cannot even begin to understand them. How does the bread and wine become the very body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus? How can God be three persons in one nature? They are important and difficult questions, but to be honest, we are not going to have a nervous breakdown over them. The toughest mysteries are those that hit us where we live, the senseless experiences that really challenge our belief in God. If God is good, how can he look on as innocent people are tortured and murdered? Why do I have to suffer? Why did my father, wife or daughter have to die? Why can't I find the love I need? Why does God tell us to forgive and turn the other cheek when there are so many wicked people in the world?

Many good and intelligent people have abandoned their faith in God because of these questions. But we have decided to stick around. We have decided to continue believing in God, believing that he is good and believing that he loves us even though that sounds like nonsense in a world that's falling apart.

What keeps us coming back to God? It must be because, like Peter, we know that there is no one else to turn to. No one else can give us the hope God gives us that the world can change and that things can get better. No one else but God can give us the hope that the sufferings of the present are as nothing compared to the glory to be revealed in us. If God does not exist, if he is not all good, if he does not know each of us and love us completely, then we are ruined. There is nothing left to hope for. There is no meaning in our lives.

It is during the difficult times in our lives, when these hard questions arise, when we are suffering or depressed or bored that our faith in God is put to the test. We know that our faith is strong if we can pull out of these hard times still believing in God, still loving him and still trusting that he cares for us. That is the type of faith that saves us: the faith of a woman who continues to read the Bible even though she finds it hard to understand; the faith of Peter who can stick by Jesus even when many of the other disciples have left him; our faith that no matter what life throws at us, our God still loves us.

Weeds among the Wheat

Anyone who has ever taken care of a lawn or tended a garden knows how dangerous weeds can be. Whether it's crabgrass or dandelions, not only are weeds ugly, but they steal nutrients and minerals from the good plantings. The only solution is to pull them up from the roots or poison them with chemicals. There's 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 leaving a burn mark behind.

Jesus tells the parable of a landowner whose wheat field becomes infested with weeds. The weeds which Jesus describes, which the Bible sometimes translates as "darnel", are not the type of weed that farmers in Jesus' day could recognize right away. Unlike a dandelion or crabgrass, darnel mixes in with the wheat. It's not until the crop matures and starts to yield grain that you can tell the wheat and the weeds apart. Because the crop is already so far along, the landowner is afraid 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 God handles 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 don't 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. And, we may wonder why God allows us to be so weak in some area 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 weakness 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 weaknesses, we could begin to think that we were better than others. We could even begin to think that we didn't need God. If it weren't for our weakness, we wouldn't know how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, as Saint Paul tells us. If it weren't for our weakness, 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.

Blessed Are You

This is an old homily I found on the Beatitudes.


The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. These are the founding documents of our country. They spell out how our country will be governed and what rights we will uphold. They define what kind of nation we are to be.

Today's gospel is the Beatitudes which forms the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is, for Jesus, the constitution of a new people. It's a founding document spelling out for us what kind of church Jesus intends us to be. It's a declaration of independence from a narrow view of religion as just a bunch of "thou shalt nots" to a living relationship with God the Father. Just as Moses climbed the mountain to receive the Law from God and deliver it to His people Israel, so Jesus, from the mount, delivers a new law for a new people.

What kind of people is God gathering? What kind of Church does Jesus intend to found? We hear about it in the Beatitudes. God's people are the poor and the lowly. They are those who have no power in the eyes of the world.

Human governments are formed and run by people with power, wealth and influence. They conquer through force, by gathering strong armies with fearsome weapons.

But God means to conquer the world in a different way. God means to conquer the world one heart at a time.

God whispers to the poor, "Let me be your wealth". The world's riches depreciate in value and are easily depleted, but God's wealth never loses value. God whispers to the sorrowful heart: "Let me be your consolation." The world offers empty words of consolation which cannot reach the depths of the person. Only God can reach the unfathomable depths of the human heart which He created. God whispers to the hungry heart: "Let me feed you." The world's bread only fills the belly for a few hours. Soon, the stomach growls for more. But God's bread is free and satisfying beyond any food the world can offer.

Jesus is gathering a new people, a new Kingdom. Jesus is instigating a revolution of peace and justice, not by means of armies and fire-power, but through simple people who seek to do God's will. Jesus is forming this new people out of you and me with our gifts, with our failures, with our limitations.

If we read the Beatitudes and hear in them a message of resignation before evil, then we really haven't heard Jesus' words. Jesus isn't saying to us that life is hard, but if we tough it out we'll be rewarded in heaven. The Kingdom of God which Jesus preaches about is not an event in some never-never land far off in the future. The Kingdom of God is today. It is here. It is now. Today is the day for the sorrowful to be comforted. Today is the day for the hungry to be fed. Now is the time for mercy and peace to be practised.

Neither are the Beatitudes something for other people to practise and live out. It is not something left up to the bishops, or nuns or other more "spiritual" people. It is for us to do. We are to practice mercy in our day-to-day lives. We are to make peace a reality. And, if necessary, we are to bear insults, ridicule and persecution for the sake of Jesus and the Kingdom which is breaking into our world. If we don't say "yes", if we don't let God conquer our hearts, then this Kingdom cannot be real and effective in the world.

We are gathered here today to witness something spectacular. It will go largely unnoticed. Katie Couric and Bill O'Reilly won't be here to cover it. Nonetheless, something revolutionary is taking place here today. Simple bread and wine will be transformed into the body and blood of Jesus. And, we will be fed by it. God will whisper to our hearts that He wants us for His own people.

Will we take this gift home with us? Will we allow it to transform us, transform our families, transform our work places, transform our world? Only then will this revolution of peace be underway.

Bread of Life

There is an ache and a restlessness that haunts us throughout our lives. We can reach a certain degree of happiness and fulfillment, but there will always be something missing from it. We always want to be more and to do more. The widespread abuse of alcohol and drugs, the breakdown of marriages and the aimlessness of so many young people testify to the fact that people everywhere are groping for more in life but do not know where to find it.

As Christians, we interpret this restlessness as our desire for God. We believe that when God created us he ripped a hole in our soul that only he could sew back up. He left an emptiness within us that only he could fill. We also know that during our lifetime this emptiness will never be filled until we are with God in our heavenly homeland. In fact, one of the reasons why religious women, brothers and priests do not get married is so that they can stand as signs of the truth that we cannot find total fulfillment in our earthly lives.

The Bible describes this emptiness as a hunger and uses many images of food and of meals to show how God alone can satisfy that hunger. In the first reading, Wisdom is pictured as a woman preparing a banquet for all those tired of seeking happiness in foolish pursuits. The psalm response, "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord", speaks of God's beauty and goodness in terms of delicious foods. Though the second reading from Paul's letter to the Ephesians does not talk specifically about food, he hints at the same idea. When he warns us not to get drunk on wine but to be filled with the Holy Spirit, he is saying in effect, "Do not turn to alcohol to cure your loneliness but turn to the Spirit who alone is capable of filling that emptiness." Finally, in the gospel reading, Jesus calls himself "the living bread come down from heaven." He is the one sent by God to fill up this hunger we all suffer from. He tells us that his flesh is "real food" and his blood "real drink" meaning that it alone can really satisfy that emptiness that God left within us.

The Scriptures also use the image of food to describe our relationship with God because it is so vital to our lives. Just as we cannot live without food, so we cannot live with God. Just as our body requires bread to sustain it, so our souls require God to nourish the gift of eternal life.

This theme is also weaved throughout today's gospel. Jesus promises that whoever eats the bread of life - a bread which is his very body - will never suffer death. That is quite a claim to make! No wonder the crowd listening to Jesus found it hard to understand and accept. Could anyone seriously offer a cure for death, a promise of immortality? Could anyone offer an escape from what we fear most? But that is exactly the bold claim that Jesus is making: "Whoever eats this bread will live forever."

What is the eternal life Jesus promises us who eat his body and blood? What is this life that even survives death? It cannot be a human life because human life does not last forever. If it is an eternal and comes from Jesus, it must be God's life, a divine life already living in us, already at work within us who have believed in his only Son and received his Body and Blood. For that reason, we can make the claim that we are God's dear children. Sons and daughters receive life from their parents. They have their parents' blood running in their veins. Just so, we are God's sons and daughters because we have the life of our heavenly Father living in us.

Besides the gift of life, children also receive many of their characteristics from their parents. They look like them, have many of their same talents and often act similarly. Just so, we who are the children of God, who have received eternal life through him, are to be imitators of God. We are to be people who follow the way of love that Jesus followed. The eternal life we receive from the Father manifests itself when we choose love rather than hate. When we have been hurt we do not seek revenge but to forgive. Following Jesus' way of love means that a man and a woman wait until they are in the committed relationship of marriage before making love rather than risk using the other as an object. To love as Jesus loved means we give to those around us the attention and care we would like others to show to us. We know that Jesus is truly living within us and that God's life is really at work in us when everything we say and do is marked by love.

We come to Jesus at this Mass today simply because we need him. Nothing else can satisfy the deepest craving of our heart for the love and life of God the Father which only Jesus can bring us. Our heavenly Father has prepared a banquet for us, the Body and Blood of his Son, given to us out of love. And yet it is not enough for us to receive that love. We must also give it away to all those we meet. As God has fed us, so we are to feed others. Then the love and the life of God can take root in our hearts, and we can know the great joy that our hearts were created to contain.

Feast of the Assumption

What is the meaning of this feast of the Assumption? What is it exactly that we are celebrating?

We celebrate what God has done for us in Jesus which shows itself in a marvelous way through Mary.

Before Jesus was born, the world was under a sentence of death. Because Adam and Eve disobeyed God, sin entered into the world and death along with it. God's gift of life was cut short. When Mary said, "Let it be done to me according to your word", Jesus was conceived. His birth, life and death won for us a second chance at a life which could not die.

Death would no longer be the last word over God's creation. Sin introduced suffering and death into our bodies, but by his resurrection Jesus promised to raise up our bodies and give us new ones incapable of suffering or dying. This means that all the consequences of sin have been cancelled out. At the end of time, sin will be left holding nothing. Sin will be left totally defeated because of Christ's victory over death.

By being taken up body and soul into heaven, Mary is the first to benefit from Jesus' victory over death. Because she was the first to believe in Jesus, because she was the first to ponder this mystery of salvation in her heart, she also became the first to share in Jesus' resurrection. God would not allow the body of the woman from whom Jesus took his human flesh to rot in a grave but raised her body and soul into heaven.

Because God called her to be the mother of the Savior, Mary is blessed among all women. God equipped her with the grace she needed to be a fitting mother for the Son of God. She was privileged to know Jesus more completely and more intimately than anyone else who ever lived. And yet, her greatness came from her faith, from her willingness to say yes to God's will. And she teaches us to do the same. Her last recorded words in the gospel are from the wedding feast of Cana when she directed the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Even now from heaven she points us in the direction of her son.

Though Mary played a singular, unrepeatable role in Jesus' life, what God has done for Mary - the many graces he favored her with - are not for Mary alone. She shines forth as the first person to enjoy what God has in store for us who have believed as Mary believed. Just as Mary was conceived without original sin, so God promises by the death and resurrection of Jesus to wipe us clean of our sins, to make us immaculate. Mary was taken body and soul into heaven to give us hope that one day we will be in heaven reunited to a body that will remain forever young.

God did great things for Mary by calling her to be the mother of our Savior, Jesus. God also promises to do great things for us. What we celebrate is not just a privilege God has granted to Mary alone but a promise which God holds out also to us who follow her example of faith and trust.

Mary stands as a reason of hope for us because what God had done for her he promises to do for us as well.