Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Sacrament of Penance

  • The Second Sunday of Advent: Be Reconciled

    The Second Sunday of Advent: Be Reconciled

    Today’s readings

    I don’t know about you, but this week, when I heard that New York was going to announce whether another police officer was indicted or not for the death of a suspect, I pretty much held my breath. After seeing all that has been going on in Ferguson, Missouri, I just feared the worst. And none of it is good. Crime is a problem, and so is racism; all of this comes about as a byproduct of the reign of sin in the world.

    And so as we enter into Advent this year, I think we need it more than ever. We need Jesus to come and put an end to all our foolishness, to fix all our brokenness, and heal all our sin and shame. I am guessing the followers of Saint John the Baptist felt the same way. They dealt with all the same stuff that we do: corruption in government, poverty, racism, and crime – none of this is new to our day and age. And so they did what I think has to be a model for all of us today: they came to John, acknowledged their sins, and accepted the baptism of repentance.

    They came to John, because at that point, Jesus wasn’t in full swing with his ministry, and they were seeking something new and something good. We then, might come to Jesus in the same way, come to the Church, seeking something good and something new. And then, like them, we have to acknowledge our sins – personal sins and those that we participate in as a society. And then we have to accept the process of repentance. We can’t keep sinning; we have to repent, literally be sorry for our sins and turn away from them, as we turn back to God. That’s an important Advent message for every time and place.

    It genuinely strikes me that, if we’re ever going to get past the events at Ferguson or New York, or if we’re ever going to finally put an end to whatever sadness this world brings us, we have to begin that by putting an end to the wrong that we have done. That’s why reconciliation is so important. What each of us does – right or wrong – affects the rest of us. The grace we put forward when we follow God’s will blesses others. But the sin we set in motion when we turn away from God saddens the whole Body of Christ. We are one in the Body of Christ, and if we are going to keep the body healthy, then each of us has to attend to ourselves.

    So today, I am going to ask you to go to confession before Christmas. I don’t do that because I think you’re all horrible people or anything like that. I do that because I know that we all – including me – have failed to be a blessing of faith, hope and love to ourselves and others at some point, I know that so many people struggle with persistent sins, little thorns in the flesh, day in and day out. And God never meant it to be that way. He wants you to experience his love and mercy and forgiveness and healing, and you get that most perfectly in the Sacrament of Penance.

    There was a time in my life that I didn’t go to confession for a long time. I had been raised at a time in the Church when that sacrament was downplayed. It came about from a really flawed idea of the sacrament and the human person. But the Church has always taught that in the struggle to live for God and be a good person, we will encounter pitfalls along the way. We’ll fail in many ways, and we will need forgiveness and the grace to get back up and move forward. That’s what the Sacrament of Penance is for!

    One day, I finally realized that I needed that grace and I returned to the sacrament. The priest welcomed me back, did not pass judgment, and helped me to make a good confession. It was an extremely healing experience for me, and now I make it my business to go to the sacrament as frequently as I can, because I need that healing and mercy and grace. And you do too. So please don’t leave those wonderful gifts unwrapped under the tree. Go to Confession and find out just how much God loves you.

    When you do find that out, you’ll be better able to help the rest of the Body of Christ to be the best it can be. When your relationship is right with God, you will help the people around you know God’s love for them too. That kind of grace bursts forth to others all the time.

    This year, we have plenty of opportunities to receive the Sacrament of Penance. Those of you who have a second grader receiving the sacrament for the first time can also receive the sacrament when they do, next Saturday. Then our parish reconciliation service is Tuesday, December 16th at 7pm. Finally, on the weekend just before Christmas, on Saturday the 20th, we will have four priests here from 4:00 to 5:00 or until all are heard. We will also hear confessions after all of the Masses on Sunday the 21st. And if none of those fit in your schedule, or if you would prefer to go to another parish, we will be publishing the schedules for other parishes in the bulletin.

    If you have been away from the sacrament for a very long time, I want you to come this Advent. Tell the priest you have been away for a while, and expect that he will help you to make a good confession. All you have to do is to acknowledge your sins and then leave them behind, so that Christmas can be that much more beautiful for you and everyone around you. Don’t miss that gift this year: be reconciled.

  • Advent Penance Service

    Advent Penance Service

    Today’s readings: Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44

    In these late days of Advent, we pray the “O Antiphons.”  These antiphons are the various titles of Jesus as found in Scripture.  Today’s antiphon is “O Root of Jesse” and it is found as the antiphon for the Canticle of Mary in Evening Prayer: “O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you.  Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.”

    And we gather here tonight because we do need our Lord to come to our aid.  We are a people who have turned away from our God, numerous times, both individually and also as a society.  We are a people who, try as we might, have a hard time getting a handle on our sinfulness, that cycle of foolish turning away from God that we know in our heads is the wrong way to go.  We find that we are in the same place, over and over, and it is hard to turn back and be on the right path once and for all.  We just can’t do it ourselves.

    So it’s good that we don’t have to do it all ourselves, isn’t it?  No one can come to our aid in quite the same way as Jesus our Savior.  Born as a child in a poor family, the expectations of him seemed great: redeeming the nation Israel and restoring its political greatness.  But we know how limited even that lofty vision was: instead, he broke the bonds of sin and death, paying the price we owed for our sinfulness and obliterating the ancient curse that too long kept us from friendship with our God.  Coming to our aid is exactly what God had in mind for us all along.  No wonder that kings stand silent and nations bow down in worship!

    The Gospel reading today is from the First Sunday of Advent, in which the Church called us to wake up and realize that the time is running short.  Maybe you’ve felt that way in your Christmas preparations.  Wasn’t it just Thanksgiving a few hours ago?  But as quickly as Christmas has come, so quickly do our lives go, so quickly pass the opportunities to open our hearts and spirits to God.

    What if we have found Advent a less than prayerful time?  Have we missed the opportunity to clean up our act, to spend more time in prayer, and generally prepare a home for the Savior to be born in us in new ways?  Have we meant Advent to be a more reflective time, and instead given way to secular concerns and holiday parties and all the trappings of a busy season?  Well there’s two pieces of good news if that’s how you find yourself this evening.

    First, God will enter into our lives anyway.  It might not be in the way we expect, and perhaps it won’t be as pleasant as we would like.  But God is not limited by our lack of time.  God does what he wills and never lets anything keep him from coming to our aid.

    Second, we have tonight to turn things around.  This is the time to come before our God in the Sacrament of Penance and leave what we’ve come with behind.  This is the time when we can throw off all those dark deeds as Saint Paul urged the Romans, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is the time that we can do our small part to beat our swords into plowshares and cure the societal evils that perpetuate war and terror and all sorts of worldwide death.  This is the time when we can step out of the darkness and shine the light of Christ on those parts of us that have been shrouded for too long.  This is the time for us to walk in the light of the Lord, as Isaiah commands.

    And so we begin tonight by reflecting on our lives, and opening ourselves up to God’s mercy as we pray our examination of conscience.

  • The Fifth Sunday of Lent

    The Fifth Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Back in the sixth century before the birth of Christ, the Israelites were in a bad way.  They had been separated from their God by sin: against God’s commands, they had betrayed their covenant with the Lord and made foreign alliances, which he had forbidden them to do.  He forbade this because he knew that as they made these alliances, they would give in to the temptation to worship the so-called gods of the people they with whom they allied themselves.  As punishment, God separated them from their homeland: the cream of the crop of their society was taken into exile in Babylon, and those left behind had no one to lead them and protect them.  Because they moved away from God, God seemed to move away from them.  But he hadn’t: I think it was really they who had exiled themselves from God.  In today’s first reading, God shows them that he still loves them and cares for them, and promises to make them a new people . I love the line: “See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?”  God would indeed bring them back and create their community anew.

    The Israelites were in exile, but exile can take so many forms.  And Saint Paul had a good sense of that.  For him, the exile was anything that was not Christ; a sentiment we should embrace.  Saint Paul knows that he has not yet taken possession of the glory that is promised him by Christ, and so he wants to leave behind the exile of the world and strains forward to all that lies ahead, the goal and prize of God’s calling in Christ.

    Which brings us back to the woman caught in adultery.  We certainly feel sorry for her, caught in the act, dragged in front of Jesus and publicly humiliated.  But the truth is, just like the Israelites in the sixth century before Christ, she had actually sinned.  And that sin threatened to put her into exile from the community; well, it even threatened her life.  The in-your-face reversal in the story, though, is that Jesus doesn’t consider her the only sinner – or even the greatest sinner – in the whole incident.  We should probably wonder about the man with whom she was committing adultery; that sin does, after all, take two.  And as serious a sin as adultery certainly is, Jesus makes it clear that there are plenty of serious sins out there, and they all exile us from God.  As he sits there, writing in the sand, they walk away one by one.  What was he writing?  Was it a kind of examination of conscience?  A kind of list of the sins of the Pharisees?  We don’t know.  But in Jesus’ words and actions, those Pharisees too were convicted of their sins, and went away – into exile – because of them.

    Sin does that to us.  It makes exiles out of all of us.  The more we sin, the further away from God we become.  And it doesn’t have to be that way.

    Jimmy and Suzy went to visit their grandparents for a week during the summer.  They had a great time, but one day Jimmy was bouncing a ball in the house, which he knew he shouldn’t be doing.  It didn’t take long for the ball to hit grandma’s favorite vase, knocking it off the table and breaking it.  He picked up the pieces and went out back and hid them in the woodshed.  Looking around, the only person who was around was his sister Suzy.  She didn’t say anything, but later that day, when grandma asked her to help with the dishes, Suzy said “I think Jimmy wanted to help you,” giving him a rather knowing look.  So he did.  The next day, grandpa asked Jimmy if he wanted to go out fishing.  Suzy jumped right in: “He’d like to, but he promised grandma he would weed the garden.”  So Jimmy weeded the garden.  As he was doing that, he felt pretty guilty and decided to confess the whole thing to grandma.  When he told her what had happened, grandma said, “I know.  I was looking out the back window when you were hiding the pieces in the woodshed.  I was wondering how long you were going to let Suzy make a slave of you.”

    That’s how it is with sin: it makes a slave of us, and keeps us from doing what we really want to do.  It puts us deep in exile, just as surely as the ancient Israelites.  And it doesn’t have to be that way.  You see, it’s easier than we think to end up in exile.  All we have to do is a good examination of conscience and then think about the way those sins have affected us.  Have they made us feel distant from God, family and friends?  Have they caused us to drift in our life and not feel God’s presence in times of hardship?

    Exile is heartbreaking.  And to the exile of sin, God has three things to say today:

    First, “Go, and from now on, do not sin anymore.”  That sounds like something that’s easy to say but hard to do.  But the fact is, once we have accepted God’s grace and forgiveness, that grace will actually help us to be free from sin.  Of course, that’s impossible to do all on our own.  But God never commands us to do something that is impossible for us, or maybe better, he never commands us to do something that is impossible for him to do in us.  God’s grace is there if we but turn to him.

    Second, God says: “Forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead.”  Once sin is confessed and grace is accepted, the sin is forgotten.  God is not a resentful tyrant who keeps a list of our offenses and holds them against us forever.  If we confess our sins and accept the grace that is present through the saving sacrifice of Jesus, the sins are forgotten.  But it is up to us to accept that grace.  We truly have to confess so that we can forget what lies behind and be ready for the graces ahead.

    Third, God says: “See, I am doing something new.  Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”  We are the ones who get stuck in the past, always fearing to move forward because of past sins, hurts, and resentments.  We are called today to be open to the new thing God is doing in our lives.  The way to open up is to confess our sins and get rid of the past.

    For a long time in my young life, I didn’t go to confession.  I didn’t think I needed to.  I grew up in that whole time of the church when it was all about how you felt about yourself.  Garbage.  I knew something was wrong when I was in my young adulthood and felt lost.  I took a chance and went to confession at a penance service, and the priest welcomed me back.  In that moment, I knew exactly the new thing God was doing in me, and it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of me.  In fact, I was released from the exile of all my past sins and hurts.

    I never forgot that, and whenever anyone comes to me in confession and says it’s been a long time since they went, I am quick to welcome them back.  Because that’s what God wants, and it’s a great privilege for me to be part of that.  He wants to lift that weight off of you, to end your exile.  All it takes is for you to see that new thing he is doing in you, and to strain forward to what lies ahead.

    So we have just a few times left to receive that grace before Holy Week and Easter.  On Monday evening at 6:30, we will hear confessions until all are heard.  Saturday, as usual, we will hear confessions from 4:00 to 4:45pm before Mass.  And next Sunday, Palm Sunday, we will hear confessions after the 7:30, 9:30 and 11:30 Masses until all are heard.  Would that we would all take this opportunity to forget what lies behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead.  God is doing a new thing in all of us these Lenten days.  Let us all be open to it.

  • Advent Penance Service

    Advent Penance Service

    Today’s readings: Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26; Matthew 5:13-16

    As joyful as this season is supposed to be, it can be so hard for so many people.  I know a lot of people who get depressed this time of year.  Probably you do too.  Many people are missing loved ones who are far away from home, or who have passed away.  Some of my friends have a touch of seasonal affective disorder, and so they are depressed when we don’t see the sun as much on cloudy days like today, or when it gets dark so early as it does during this time.  Some people also look back on another year almost finished, and they lament what could have been, or what actually has been.  And all we have to do is turn on the news this year, and hear of tragedy in Connecticut or the fiscal cliff, and even the most joyful among us can be turned to sadness.  And to make matters worse, if there is any reason for being a little depressed at this time of year, it often seems like the joy that other people are experiencing during the Christmas season makes the pain even worse.

    But the struggle between light and darkness is what Advent is all about.  The season of Advent recognizes the darkness of the world – the physical darkness, sure, but more than that the darkness of a world steeped in sin, a world marred by war and terrorism, an economy decimated by greed, peacefulness wounded by hatred, crime and dangers of all sorts.  This season of Advent also recognizes the darkness of our own lives – sin that has not been confessed, relationships broken by self-interest, personal growth tabled by laziness and fear.

    In Advent, God meets all that darkness head-on.  We don’t cower in the darkness; neither do we try to cover over the light.  Instead we put the lamp on a lampstand and shine the light into every dark corner of our lives and our world.  Isaiah prophesies about this Advent of light: “The light of the moon will be like that of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times greater [like the light of seven days].”  This is a light that changes everything.  It doesn’t just expose what’s imperfect and cause shame, instead it burns the light of God’s salvation into everything and everyone it illumines, making all things new.

    Our Church makes the light present in many ways – indeed, it is the whole purpose of the Church to shine a bright beacon of hope into a dark and lonely world.  We do that symbolically with the progressive lighting of the Advent wreath which represents the world becoming lighter and lighter as we approach the birthday of our Savior.  But the Church doesn’t leave it simply in the realm of symbol or theory.  We are here tonight to take on that darkness and shine the light of Christ into every murky corner of our lives.  The Sacrament of Penance reconciles us with those we have wronged, reconciles us with the Church, and reconciles us most importantly with our God.  The darkness of broken relationships is completely banished with the Church’s words of absolution.  Just like the Advent calendars we’ve all had reveal more and more with every door we open, so the Sacrament of Penance brings Christ to fuller view within us whenever we let the light of that sacrament illumine our darkness.

    And so that’s why we’re here tonight.  We receive the light by being open to it and accepting it, tonight in a sacramental way.  Tonight, as we did at our baptism, we reject the darkness of sin and we “look east” as the hymn says, to accept the light of Christ which would dawn in our hearts.  Tonight we lay before our God everything that is broken in us, we hold up all of our darkness to be illumined by the light of God’s healing mercy.

    Tonight, our sacrament disperses the gloomy clouds of our sin and disperses the dark shadows of death that lurk within us.  The darkness in and around us is no match for the light of Christ.  As we approach Christmas, that light is ever nearer.  Jesus is, as the Gospel of John tells us, “the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

  • The Third Sunday of Advent [C]

    The Third Sunday of Advent [C]

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings and liturgy call us to rejoice.  That’s the reason for the rose-colored vestments and the more joyful tone of today’s readings.  This is called Gaudete Sunday: gaudete being Latin for “rejoice,” the first word of today’s introit or proper entrance antiphon which says: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.  Indeed the Lord is near.”

    And there is reason to rejoice.  The prophet Zephaniah tells the people Israel that, even though their sins had displeased the LORD to the point that he gave them over to the hands of their enemies, he has relented in his judgment against them and will deliver them from their misfortune.  Their deliverance is so complete that the LORD will even rejoice over them with gladness!  If that’s not a reason to sing joyfully and rejoice with all their hearts, there never will be one!

    In his letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul calls us to rejoice too.  The reason he calls for rejoicing is that “The Lord is near.”  He was referring to Jesus’ return in glory, of course, which they thought would be relatively soon in those days.  While he never saw that in his lifetime, we may.  Or perhaps our children will, or their children.  One thing we definitely know is that the Lord is near.  He does not abandon us in our anxieties but instead listens as we pray to him and make our petitions with thanksgiving.  Our Lord is as near to us as our next quiet moment, our next embrace of someone we love, our next act of kindness.  Rejoice indeed!

    Maybe this call to rejoice rings a little hollow today, based on the events of Friday morning in Newtown, Connecticut.  But our faith tells us that’s not true.  The Psalmist sings today about the kind of hope our world needs right now:

    God indeed is my savior;
    I am confident and unafraid.
    My strength and my courage is the LORD,
    and he has been my savior.

    And it is up to us to bring this kind of hope to a world that has almost become accustomed to horror and shock and terror and sadness.  The world may almost prefer to sit in this kind of darkness, but not people of faith.  People of faith instead light a candle of hope and dance in the light of Christ!  People of faith can rejoice because even in times of sadness and despair, the presence of our God is palpable, realized in stories of heroism and seen in acts of charity and grace in moments just like this.

    And so today we rejoice because the Lord is near.  We light that third, rose-colored candle on our Advent wreath and we see there’s not many candles left until the feast of the reason for our rejoicing.  We look forward to celebrating the Incarnation, perhaps the greatest and best of the mysteries of faith.  That God himself, who is higher than the heavens and greater than all the stars of the universe, would humble himself to be born among us, robing himself with our frail flesh, in order to save us from our sins and make his home among us for all eternity – that is a mystery so great it cannot fail to cause us to rejoice!  Indeed that very presence of God gives hope even in the worst tragedy – THE LORD IS NEAR!

    The people who came to Saint John the Baptist in today’s Gospel knew of the nearness of their salvation, because John preached it with intensity.  So today they come to him and ask them what they should do – what’s the next step?  And he tells them.  They need to repent, to reform their lives, and keep watch for the One who is mightier still than he is.  The coming Savior will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and the only way to be prepared for that is to turn away from their practices of darkness and live with integrity.

    It’s a message that is intended for us too.  Because we also could clean up our act a bit.  We too have need to repent.  And I say that advisedly, because back on Ash Wednesday when I used one of the exhortations that we can use when distributing ashes: “Repent and believe in the Gospel,” a couple of people were very angry at me for telling them they had to repent.  So let’s be clear about this.  We know in our hearts that there are just two people in this room who don’t need to repent.  One would be the man nailed to the cross up there, and the other is the beautiful lady standing next to Saint Joseph over there by the candles.  If you’re not Jesus or Mary, you have sin in your life – maybe not serious sin, but maybe there is.  Whatever kind of sin is there, Advent calls us to repent.

    Because sin is what keeps us from rejoicing, brothers and sisters in Christ.  Sin keeps us mired in the darkness.  Sin breaks the relationship with God and others that keeps us from seeing that the Lord is near.  But we rejoice because our God came to us to give us the antidote to that.  He refused to keep us mired in sin, but instead came to us and calls us to repent so that he can forgive and we can rejoice.  That’s good news, and that’s why we celebrate – yes, celebrate! – the sacrament of Penance.

    In order to help you to prepare so that you can rejoice, we have a penance service scheduled for this Thursday at 7pm.  Several priests will be there to hear your confession.  I hope that you will be able to be there.  But if not, there are still two more opportunities for confession before Christmas.  Three of us will hear confessions on Saturday evening from 4:00 to 4:45, and then again on Christmas Eve right after morning prayer, from about 8:30 until 9:30.  If none of those work for your schedule, our bulletin has a list of confessions at parishes in our area.

    I want you to go to confession before Christmas because I want you to be able to rejoice.  If you have not been to Confession in years and maybe are a little ashamed or scared or don’t know how to do it, then rejoice and go anyway.  The priest will welcome you back warmly and help you to make a good confession.  That’s what we do; that’s why we are priests, and it’s our privilege to help you experience the Lord’s mercy and kindness so that you can once again rejoice.  So if you haven’t been to confession yet this Advent, I want you to go this week.  You’ll rejoice and be glad when you do.

    These final days of Advent call us to prepare more intensely for the Lord’s birth.  They call us to clamor for his Incarnation, waiting with hope and expectation in a dark and scary world.  These days call us to be people of hope, courageously rejoicing that the Lord is near!  Come, Lord Jesus!  Come quickly and do not delay!

  • Pastoral Care of the Sick: Anointing of the Sick During Mass

    Pastoral Care of the Sick: Anointing of the Sick During Mass

    Today’s readings: 1 Kings 19:1-8 | Psalm 34 | James 5:13-16 | Mark 2:1-12

    I first met Tom probably a few weeks after I started my first assignment as a priest at St. Raphael’s back in the summer of 2006.  He was a young man, probably around my age, and was suffering the effects of cancer.  His family had called because he wanted to see a priest and I had gone to anoint him at the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital.  They didn’t think he was going to make it through the day, but just at the moment I got there, he had woken up and was talking to the family, the first time he had done that in a couple of days.  I waited a while, then went in to talk to him, and after a while I did what we’re going to do today: I anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord, praying over him, just as St. James tells us we should do in today’s second reading.

    During the conversation with Tom and his family, I learned that one of Tom’s favorite verses of Scripture was Isaiah 53:5: “But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.”  Throughout his illness, Tom, a man of great faith, had prayed the closing words of that verse – “By his stripes we were healed” – every day at 3:00, the Mercy Hour, the traditional time when we believe Jesus gave his life for us, enduring stripes and torture and the agony of the cross to heal our brokenness and give us access to the kingdom of God.  He asked everyone he knew to pray for him in that way, and I promised I would do so.

    I visited with Tom a couple of other times during his illness.  About a month after I first met him, Tom passed from this life to the next, right around 3:00 in the afternoon, just after praying those words that had sustained him during his illness.  In the homily at his funeral, I noted that there are all kinds of healing, and that I truly believed Tom had been healed in the greatest way that God can offer us, by bringing us to the Kingdom.  By His stripes, Tom had indeed been healed.  Tom was the first person I ever anointed and his was the first funeral I ever celebrated.  I’ll never forget what a faithful man he was, even during his most difficult days.

    We gather together today to celebrate the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  The Church has this sacrament because of those directions from St. James: the sick are to call on the priests of the Church, and they are to anoint the sick person with oil in the name of the Lord.  The prayer of faith, we are told, will heal the sick person, and the Lord will raise that one up.  And if the sick have committed any sins, they will be forgiven.

    The Church has this sacrament also because of who Jesus was and because of what he came to do among us.  And that was to heal people.  Deeply.  Because what we ask for, what we are looking for, is something that can be kind of superficial.  We look for mere physical healing.  But God, in his mercy, knows what we really need; he knows what we would ask for, if we really knew how to ask for what would help us.  What Jesus wants to do is to heal us from the inside out.

    And so we see that in our Gospel reading this morning.  Everyone thought that they knew what the paralytic needed.  The crowd knew the man needed to be un-paralyzed.  They couldn’t have missed the tell-tale signs of the man, immobile on a stretcher, being lowered to down to Jesus from the roof.  The man’s friends probably thought they knew too: they had heard stories, most likely, about this miracle worker, and were anxious to bring their friend, long paralyzed, to the one person that could do something about it.  The scribes thought they knew:  they were watching very closely to see what Jesus would do in this pretty desperate situation: the man can’t even move, how could anyone save him, they thought.  And even the paralytic himself probably thought he knew what he needed: long-standing illness can bring about a kind of short-sightedness that blinds us to what is best for us.

    But the only one who knew – really knew – what this man needed was Jesus.  “Child, your sins are forgiven.”  We can just imagine all those brows furrowing up, can’t we?  What did he say?  His sins are forgiven?  So what about his paralysis?

    What they don’t know is that Jesus did address the man’s paralysis.  There are all sorts of things that paralyze us:  fear, certainly, but the most insidious cause of paralysis is sin.  Sin binds us in ways of which we are not usually fully aware:  sin cancels our freedom and makes us slaves to itself.  Sin is always a step in the wrong direction, but more than that, it often produces shame, which inhibits us from getting back on the right path.  Shame convinces us that we’re not worthy of grace or love so then we sin again, and the cycle continues.  Nothing keeps us from moving forward like sin does.  Nothing paralyzes us so insidiously as does sin.

    Now, please carefully understand that I am not saying that illness is a punishment for sin.  Jesus didn’t say that either.  In fact, so as to dispel the then-common idea that illness was some kind of punishment for something someone did wrong, and to prove that he had power over every kind of healing, Jesus says to the man, “Rise, pick up your mat and go home.”  And he does.  The paralytic had been healed in just the way Jesus knew he needed to be healed – from the inside out.  Clearing away what was binding him by sin, the man was open to receiving the grace of bodily healing as well.

    So today’s readings demonstrate all the tools for healing the Church offers us.  There is the forgiveness of sins, which we have celebrated earlier today in the Sacrament of Penance.  There is the Anointing of the Sick, according to the instructions of Saint James, which we will celebrate in a moment.  And the first reading points us to the most wonderful healing remedy there is: the Body and Blood of Christ.

    Elijah, who has every right at this point in the story to lay down and summon death, hears from God that that is not God’s will.  “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you!”  Indeed, the path to healing and wholeness is very often a long and arduous journey.  We dare not make that journey without food to sustain us.  And nothing sustains us on that journey like the Body and Blood of Christ.  No matter where our journey takes us: be it to spiritual healing, physical healing, or even one day to eternal life, we need that food for the journey, which is the Eucharist, that splendid meal that reminds us that we are never alone no matter where life or its pains may take us.  Our ministers of care could certainly tell us many stories of just how important this food is to those who are sick.

    And so today, we bring all these tools to bear in the work of healing.  Wherever you are right now, it is our prayer – the Church’s prayer – that God would grant you the healing that you truly need.  That healing may be spiritual: reuniting you with God and others at the Altar of praise.  That healing may be physical if that is what God knows is best for you.

    We don’t know if you all will walk out of this holy place healed of all your diseases.  But we can promise that, if you are properly disposed to receive grace, you will be freed from your sins, healed from the inside out, and that your Lord will always walk with you in your suffering.  Just like for Tom, the healing will come at some time in some way, of the Lord’s choosing, for your good, and for the glory of God.  That’s why we are here today.  That’s why we celebrate these beautiful sacraments with you today.  We know that our Lord deeply desires to heal us.  And we know that Tom was absolutely right in his profession of faith in our Lord’s goodness: by his stripes we were healed.

  • The Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    The Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Today’s readings

    In ancient days, a diagnosis of leprosy was a death sentence.  And that’s not just because they didn’t know how to treat the disease.  They didn’t, but what was really horrible is the way the lepers were treated.  First of all, they were called lepers – not people – so being labeled as such stripped them of the personhood, and put them on the same level as a virus that needed to be eradicated.  They were cut off from the community, so they would have no community or even family support.  They were forbidden to worship with the community, so they must also have felt cut off from God.  And so it went for those who contracted leprosy: sick and alone, they were left to survive as best they could, or just to die.

    The worst part of it is that most of the time people didn’t actually have leprosy: the ancients’ lack of scientific knowledge led them to label as leprosy any kind of skin ailment.  The rules for dealing with people with these diseases were based on fear: they didn’t want to contract the disease themselves, so the “clean” ones ostracized those with disease, treating them as if they didn’t exist.

    Jesus, obviously, didn’t agree with that kind of way of “treating” the illness of leprosy.  He didn’t really have any more scientific resources at that time to treat the disease, but it wasn’t the disease he was concerned about.  No, he was concerned about the person, not the illness.  And so he does not take offense when the leper breaks the Levitical law that we heard in our first reading and actually approaches Jesus.  Jesus, too breaks the law by reaching out to touch him and saying, with an authority that comes from God himself, “I do will it.  Be made clean.”

    The thing is, we don’t treat lepers very well today, either.  I don’t mean people who have the actual disease of leprosy – that is actually very treatable, even curable, in this day and age.  What I mean is that there are a lot of leprosies out there.  Some people tend to ostracize a loved one when they contract a difficult disease, like cancer.  They can’t bear the thought of death, or they don’t like hospitals, or they feel powerless to help in these situations, so they stay away.  Hospitals and nursing homes are full of people who never receive a visit from family or friends.  Our pastoral care ministers could probably tell you many heart-breaking stories with that theme.

    And leprosy doesn’t apply just to sick people.  People who are different in any way are subject to ostracization: people who have different color skin than us, people who are not Catholic or not Christian, people who are homosexual, people who are poor or homeless.  All of these we treat from a distance, keeping them outside the community, outside of means of support, outside of the love of God in just the same way the ancients dealt with lepers.  We have a tendency to label people and then write them off.

    I don’t know about you, but I’m glad God doesn’t treat broken people that way.  Because then I might be cut off because of my many sins.  We all have something in us that is unclean, and it would be woe for us if God just wrote us off.  He doesn’t.  He reaches out to touch us to, exactly where we are at, without fear of contracting the illness of our sin himself, and heals us from the inside out.  “I do will it.  Be made clean.”

    Our religion, thankfully, has rituals for the things that infest us.  When we are sick, there is the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.  When we are sinful, there is the sacrament of Penance.  We call these the sacraments of healing, because they do just that: give us God’s grace when we are sick or dying, and his forgiveness and mercy when we have sinned.

    Many people misunderstand the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.  No longer do we think of that as something to be done at the last possible moment.  It should be done as soon as it is known that a person is gravely ill.  We rely on doctors to tell us that.  It should be done before someone has serious surgery.  It should be done when a person is suffering from mental illness of any kind.  It might be done more than once: when a person is first diagnosed, for example, and then again when they are near death, or when the illness is worse in any way.  It should be done at a hospital or nursing home, or in a person’s home, or even here at church.  Wherever the person is or is most comfortable.  We are also having a Mass with Anointing of the Sick during Lent here in church.  The sacrament provides grace to live through an illness, or mercy on the journey to eternity, sometimes even healing if that is what God knows to be good for the person.  Please don’t wait until a person has just moments left to send for a priest, don’t be afraid to ask us to anoint you before surgery, and don’t assume that if you’re in the hospital, we will know – they can’t really tell us that any more.

    As for the Sacrament of Penance, there are many opportunities to celebrate that sacrament: Saturdays at 4pm, during Lent we will have a Penance Service, and we’ll also have Confessions before the Mass of the Anointing of the Sick I just mentioned.  You can also always call a priest for an appointment if you need to.  The problem can sometimes be that a person feels embarrassed to go to Confession if they’ve been away from the sacrament for a long time.  Don’t be.  It’s our job to help you make a good Confession, and we are absolutely committed to doing that.  Your sins don’t make us think less of you; in fact I always have deep respect for the person who lowers his or her defenses and lets God have mercy on them.

    These are wonderful sacraments of healing.  God gives them to us because he will not be like those living in Levitical times.  Just as he reached out to the leper in today’s Gospel, so Christ longs to reach out and touch all of us in our brokenness, in our uncleanness, and make us whole again.  As the Psalmist sings today, so we can pray: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.”   Praise God for Jesus’ words today: “I do will it.  Be made clean!”

  • Advent Penance Service

    Advent Penance Service

    Today’s readings: Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7 and Matthew 1:18-24

    Isaiah’s lament in our first reading this evening sounds like a lament for every time and place, quite honestly.  Wouldn’t we all prefer to hope that God would come and meet us doing right, being mindful of him in all our ways, mindful of the mighty deeds God has done for us?  But unfortunately, we are sinful people; our neglect of God would justly make him angry, our sins enough to pollute even our good deeds.  It’s a sad state of affairs: it seems like no one calls upon God’s name, no one rouses him or herself out of the sad state of our world to even cling to God.  God forbid that Jesus return in glory only to see us so completely delivered up to our guilt.

    And that’s where we find ourselves tonight, I think.  We see sinfulness in our world: wars being fought and terrorism keeping us bound up in fear; the poor neglected and poverty’s sad effect on society; crime is proliferating and apathy increasing.  Would that God would rend the heavens and come down, and put an end to all this sad nonsense!  Even more to the point this evening, though, is the sadness in our own lives: unconfessed sin, broken relationships, cyclic patterns of bad choices and bad actions.  Why have we wandered so far from God’s ways?  Why have our hearts been so hardened that we don’t even fear God anymore?

    But in all of this, Isaiah recalls God’s promises:  “Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands.”  God’s mercy is beyond anything we can imagine.  In justice, he could leave us to experience the consequences of our sinfulness.  But in mercy, he sent his Son to pay the ultimate price.  There is nothing we can do to make up for our sins, but thanks be to God, he thinks enough of his creation to allow us to be redeemed by the coming of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.

    The coming of our Savior in the mystery of the Incarnation is the great hope of Advent.  We know that the sad state of our sinful lives and our sinful world is not the end of the story.  We know that God has sent his only begotten Son to be our Savior, to walk among us knowing our grief and pain, our joy and sorrow.  He died on the cross to pay the ultimate price for our sins, and rose from the dead, erasing death’s power to keep us from spending eternity with our God who made us for himself.

    Advent, then, gives us the opportunity to prepare to experience the wonder of the Incarnation in our own lives.  We need a Savior to bring us from the grip of death and sin to the embrace of God’s mercy and love.  We need a Savior who will lead us to justice and peace. We need a Savior who will lead us to reach out to the poor and oppressed. We need a Savior who will bind up our wounded lives and world and present us pure and spotless before God on the Last Day. We need a Savior who can bring light to this darkened world and hope to our broken lives. We need a Savior who can bring us God’s promise of forgiveness.

    There is an ancient prayer of the early Church that the first Christians would pray in the years just after Jesus died and rose and ascended into heaven.  In their language, the simple work was, Maranatha which in English is “Come, Lord Jesus.” This is a great prayer for every day during Advent, perhaps for every day of our lives. When we get up in the morning, and just before bed at night, pray “Come, Lord Jesus.” When you need help during the day or just need to remind yourself of God’s promises, pray “Come, Lord Jesus.” The early Christians prayed this way because they expected Jesus to return soon. We do too. Even if he does not return in glory during our lifetimes, we still expect him to return soon and often in our lives and in our world to brighten this place of darkness and sin and to straighten out the rough ways in our lives. Let us keep the expectation of the Lord and the hope of his promise of forgiveness alive in our hearts:
    Come, Lord Jesus and change our hearts to be more loving and open to others.
    Come, Lord Jesus and teach us to pray; help us to grow in our spiritual lives.
    Come, Lord Jesus and dispel our doubts; help us always to hope in your forgiveness and mercy.
    Come, Lord Jesus and heal those who are sick and comfort all the dying.
    Come, Lord Jesus and bring those who wander back to your Church.
    Come, Lord Jesus and turn us away from our addictions.
    Come, Lord Jesus and teach us to be patient with ourselves and others.
    Come, Lord Jesus and help us to eliminate injustice and apathy.
    Come, Lord Jesus and teach us to welcome the stranger.
    Come, Lord Jesus and give us an unfailing and zealous respect for your gift of life.
    Come, Lord Jesus and help us to be generous; teach us all to practice stewardship of all of our resources.
    Come, Lord Jesus and help us to work at everything we do as though we were working for you alone.
    Come, Lord Jesus and bind up our brokenness, heal our woundedness, comfort us in affliction, afflict us in our comfort, help us to repent and to follow you without distraction or hesitation, give us the grace to pick up our crosses and be your disciples.

    Joseph had the assistance of an angel to help him to be open to Christ’s coming into his life.  Through his intercession, may we be open to all of the grace that the Incarnation of our Lord brings us.  May we be completely transformed by the birth of Christ into our world and into our lives.  May Christ come quickly to lead us to eternity and help us to navigate the world and all its dangerous obstacles.  Maranatha!  Come, Lord Jesus!

  • Lenten Penance Service

    Lenten Penance Service

    Today’s readings: Romans 5:12, 17-19; Matthew 26:20-25

    In Jesus Christ, we have absolutely everything that we need for the forgiveness of sins, except one thing.  In Jesus Christ, we have our God who became man.  We have in Christ the Saving Sacrifice, his life poured out on us to take away the penalty of our sins and nullify the sting of our death.  Not only that, but Jesus Christ strengthens us with the gift of his Holy Spirit, who enlivens in us the desire to be close to our God and to put our sins behind us.  That Holy Spirit gives us the grace not just to know and confess our sins, but also the grace to avoid the sin ahead of us.  In Christ, the way to forgiveness is open.  We have all we need – except one thing.

     

    And that one thing is the thing that must come from within us, namely, repentance.   Because once we repent of our sins, turn away from them, and confess them, we can then accept God’s grace and mercy, and become a new people, marked by faith, hope and love.  But repentance is a choice that’s up to us; it’s a habit we have to develop, because it’s not a habit that we see demonstrated much in our world.  Our world would rather take mistakes and put a positive “spin” on them so everyone saves face.  But that’s not repentance.  Our world would rather find someone else to blame for the problems we encounter, so that we can be righteously indignant and accept our own status as victims.  But that’s not repentance.  Our world would rather encounter an issue by throwing at it money, human resources, military intervention, lawsuits or legislation.  But that’s not repentance.

     

    Our Gospel tonight shows us what happens when we forget repentance and penance and the grace of reconciliation.  Despair over our own sins blinds us to the mercy of God that has been staring us right in the face, walking with us all along the way.  In our own desperate and fumbling attempts to make all that is wrong in us right, we make ourselves miserable, we give up on what is good, and we betray our Lord, again.  But we can’t be like Judas, trying to save face – “Surely it is not I, Lord?”  We have to learn the rich virtue of repentance, we have to become people of repentance.

     

    But where and to whom do we look to become that people?  World leaders are no help at all, and even if the media were to see an example of repentance, I’m not sure they’d give it much play.  So that’s no help.  Perhaps in these Lenten days, the Liturgy of the Word can be our teacher.  We might look at the wayward son’s interaction with the Prodigal Father, or perhaps the woman at the well who left her jug behind to live the new life.  We might look at the woman caught in adultery or even at the “good thief” crucified with Jesus.  All of these got the idea and turned from their sin toward their God and received life in return.  This is the habit of repentance that we have been called to develop in ourselves.

     

    The only thing our God wants to do is to forgive sinners.  Not just once, not twice, not even seventy-seven times, but rather as many times as we fall – so long as we repent and turn back to him, the source of grace and the font of salvation.

     

    And that’s why we’re here tonight.  God is aching to pour out on us the grace of his forgiveness and to bring us to his peace beyond all of our understanding, and we have chosen to come and receive it.  We have chosen to be a people marked by faith, hope and love.  We long to develop that habit of repentance which allows us to receive the new life God has always wanted for us.  The only thing God wants to do is to forgive sinners.  So let us now as a community of faith examine our conscience and repent of our sins.

     

  • Lent Penance Service

    Lent Penance Service

    Today’s Gospel: John 3:14-21

    The only thing God wants to do is to forgive sinners.  Period.  That’s what our Gospel reading tells us very plainly today: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”  And so, in Jesus Christ, we have absolutely everything that we need for the forgiveness of sins, except one thing. In Jesus Christ, we have our God who became man. We have in Christ the Saving Sacrifice, his life poured out on us to take away the penalty of our sins and nullify the sting of our death. Not only that, but Jesus Christ strengthens us with the gift of his Holy Spirit, who enlivens in us the desire to be close to our God and to put our sins behind us. That Holy Spirit gives us the grace not just to know and confess our sins, but also the grace to avoid the sin ahead of us. In Christ, the way to forgiveness is open. We have all we need – except one thing.

    And that one thing is the thing that must come from within us, namely, repentance.  Because once we repent of our sins, turn away from them, and confess them, we can then accept God’s grace and mercy, and become a new people, marked by faith hope and love. But repentance is a choice that’s up to us; it’s a habit we have to develop, because it’s not a habit that we see demonstrated much in our world. Our world would rather take mistakes and put a positive “spin” on them so everyone saves face. But that’s not repentance. Our world would rather find someone else to blame for the problems we encounter, so that we can be righteously indignant and accept our own status as victims. But that’s not repentance. Our world would rather encounter an issue by throwing at it money, human resources, military intervention, lawsuits or legislation. But that’s not repentance.

    The problem, as our Gospel tells us this evening, is that the world prefers the darkness of sin and ignorance and death over the glorious light of God’s grace and forgiveness, and mercy.  It’s insanity, but that’s the sad truth of our world.

    So, quite frankly, if we are ever going to learn the habit of repentance, we are going to have to look elsewhere than the evening news. World leaders are no help at all, and even if the media were to see an example of repentance, I’m not sure they’d give it much play. So where are we going to get the inspiration to live as a repentant people? These Lenten days, we might look at the wayward son’s interaction with the Prodigal Father, or perhaps the woman at the well who left her jug behind to live the new life. We might look at the woman caught in adultery or even at the “good thief” crucified with Jesus. All of these got the idea and turned from their sin toward their God and received life in return. This is the habit of repentance that we have been called to develop in ourselves.

    Brothers and sisters, sin enslaves us and makes exiles out of us. Sin takes us out of the community and puts us off on our own, in a very empty place. That exile might look something like this:

    • We ignore the needs of the poor and exile ourselves from the full community;
    • We judge others and thus draw a dividing line between ourselves and those we judge;
    • We lie and are no longer trusted by others;
    • We refuse to forgive, and are trapped in the past, not willing to respond to the present;
    • We cheat, steal and abuse the rights of others and thus offend the right order of the community;
    • We act violently in words and actions and thus perpetuate forces that splinter and violate the human community;
    • We withdraw from their church and diminish the community’s ability to witness to God and serve others.

    The exile of sin is heartbreaking, but it doesn’t have to be that way for us. The Liturgy of the Word throughout the Lenten season has been showing us the way back. We have the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit to inspire us with desire for communion with our God. We have the grace and mercy poured out on us through the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we have the grace to do that one thing that’s missing; to develop that habit that makes us one with our God – that habit of repentance that brings us back no matter how far we have wandered or how many times we have turned away. Our God can still reach us in exile and he can still bring us back to the community, if we will but let him. The only thing our God wants to do is to forgive sinners.  Not just once, not twice, but as many times as we fall and as often  as we turn away – so long as we repent and turn back to him.

    And that’s why we’re here tonight. God is aching to pour out on us the grace of his forgiveness and to bring us to his peace beyond all of our understanding, and we have chosen to come and receive it. We have chosen to be a people marked by faith, hope and love. We long to develop that habit of repentance which allows us to receive the new life God has always wanted for us. The only thing God wants to do is to forgive sinners.  So let us now as a community of faith examine our conscience and repent of our sins.