Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Jesus Christ

  • Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

    Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

    Today’s readings

    The Bread of Life Discourse: an outline

    Bishop Kaffer used to say that every celebration of the Eucharist was a greater creative act than the creation of the universe.  Now I think greater theological minds than mine would likely debate that, but what Bishop Kaffer gets at is worth considering.  The Eucharist is an incredible miracle, and we are privileged to be part of it every time we gather to celebrate Mass.  Beginning this Sunday, for five weeks, we will take a bit of an excursus from reading Mark’s Gospel as we do during this Church year.  We will instead read from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, which is commonly known as the “Bread of Life Discourse.”

    The Bread of Life Discourse is one of the most important themes of John’s Gospel.  For John, this is the account of the institution of the Eucharist.  For Matthew, Mark and Luke, the institution takes place at the Last Supper with the famous words, “take and eat” and “take a drink.”  But John’s Last Supper doesn’t have that story.  There John focuses on the washing of the feet, teaching his disciples to care for one another as he has cared for them.

    The feeding of the multitudes is a story that has the unique distinction of being in all four of the Gospels.  But, because this is John’s account of the institution of the Eucharist, he covers it a bit differently.  Still, that the story is found in all of the Gospel accounts that we have indicates how important the incident was for the early Church.  For John, though, it is clearly Jesus who is in charge here.  First of all, it is Jesus who notices that the crowds are hungry; they have expressed no such need.  Jesus doesn’t need anyone to tell him what the people need or how to minister to them; he has the ability to figure that out for himself.

    Second, like a good salesman, he doesn’t ask any questions to which he doesn’t already know the answer.  When he asks Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” he already knows the answer.  But certainly it stumps Philip, who, not recognizing it as a rhetorical question, notes that not even 200 days wages would provide food for each of these people to have a little.  The key here, though, is that Jesus asked the question knowing full well what he was going to do.

    And third, when the loaves and fishes had been gathered and blessed, it is Jesus, not the Twelve, who distribute the food to the people.  In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus gives the food to the Apostles to give to the people.  But in John’s account, Jesus takes the food, gives thanks, and gives it to the people himself.  The word “thanks” here, in Greek, is eucharisteo, which makes obvious the fact that this is Jesus, fully in charge, giving the Eucharist to the people and to us.

    At the heart of John’s story of the feeding of the multitudes is the important teaching that Jesus is enough.  Here the boy brought two fish and five loaves of bread, and they were barley loaves, the bread of the poor.  It was probably his lunch for the day, and certainly not meant to feed so many people.  And there were a lot of people.  The gender-biased story says there were five thousand men there.  We can assume there were also women and children, after all it was the boy who sacrificed his lunch for the crowd.  So the actual number of people fed was huge.  But look again at how many pieces of food there were: five loaves, two fish, together that equals seven, which is a very Biblical number, usually symbolizing completeness.  Jesus takes the little lunch, and in his hands it is enough, and more than enough, to feed the crowd.

    And everyone who needed to be fed was not at the picnic.  The disciples gathered up twelve baskets of leftovers, reminiscent of the Twelve apostles, and the twelve tribes of Israel.  All these leftovers are meant to feed others, including you and me.  And that can happen because Jesus is enough, and more than enough, to fill our hungry stomachs, and hearts, and souls.  This little picnic is the Eucharistic banquet par excellence, the first giving of the sacrament that is the source and summit of our lives as Christians.

    Now I want to make a note about an explanation of this miracle that you may sometimes hear.  The explanation goes that when Jesus started passing around the loaves and fish, other people noticed what he did and they too decided to share their lunches with the crowd.  So someone took out a sandwich and shared it, another shared some of their fish, or some bread, or whatever it was they had.  And so on and so on until lo and behold, everyone has had enough and there are leftovers.  This is often known as the “miracle of sharing” and it’s very heartwarming to be sure.  It’s the kind of thing Oprah and Dr. Phil would be all over.  How great it is that we can help each other out and do great things.

    But that explanation is wrong, dead wrong.  Absolutely wrong, without a doubt.  Don’t let anyone insist to you that it’s right.  And here’s the rule of thumb: whenever an explanation makes the Gospel story more about us than it is about Christ, it’s always wrong.  Always.  Without exception.  The Gospel is the Good News that Jesus came to bring, and the story is always about him.  The miracle here is not that so many people were touched to their heart and decided to share.  The miracle is that a boy sacrificed his five loaves and two fish, and in Jesus’ hands they become enough, and more than enough, to fill the stomachs of every person on that grassy hillside, and twelve baskets besides.  Period.

    What is important here is that we need to know that this kind of thing goes on all the time, even in our own day. Jesus always notices the needs and hungers of his people. Perhaps you have seen a need in the community, maybe a family who is in need, or an issue that needs to be addressed. You noticed that because the Spirit of Jesus is working in you. It’s very easy to go through life noticing nothing and no one, but that doesn’t happen in disciples. Disciples are the ears and eyes of Jesus, and he notices the needs of his people through us every day. Now, having noticed a need, we may very well feel inadequate to fill it. What good is our few hours of time or few dollars going to do for such a huge need? How can our imperfect talents make up for such a need? Here we have to trust that Jesus will do with our imperfect offerings as he did with the five loaves and two fish. Jesus makes up for our lack, and we can take comfort in that. If we are faithful to respond to the need with what we have, we can be sure that Jesus will use what we have, and it will be enough, and more than enough, to feed our hungry world.

    We can do that because Jesus feeds us all the time. Every time we come to the Table of the Lord, we are given a little bit of bread and a sip of wine that has become the Body and Blood of Christ our Savior. At every Eucharist, we are fed more wonderfully and superabundantly than even the crowd in today’s Gospel. We are fed with food that will never pass away or perish, we are fed with the Bread of Eternal life. Since we disciples have that gift at our disposal, we would do well to bring ourselves to it as often as we can, and as well-disposed for it as we can. We must make it our constant care to attend Mass all the time, and to use the Sacrament of Penance to prepare ourselves to receive the grace of the Eucharist. Disciples who regularly and faithfully feed themselves with the Bread of Life will find it natural to offer their meager gifts to feed great hungers in our world, hungers that our God longs to fill.

    And so we gratefully come to the Eucharist today, to take part in a meal even more wonderful than the feeding of the multitudes, and partake of a bread far more nourishing than barley loaves. We come to the Eucharist today to have all of our hungers fed, and to take baskets of leftovers to feed those who hunger in and around us this week. We pray for the grace to notice the needs of others and the grace to offer what we have to serve the poor, trusting in God to make up for what we lack. We pray the words of the psalmist with trust and gratitude: “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”

  • The Sacred Heart of Jesus

    The Sacred Heart of Jesus

    Today’s readings

    sacred-heart-of-jesusI remember when I was growing up, often visiting my dear grandmother.  She and I were best friends in so many ways.  I remember when we visited that she had a beautiful framed picture in the living room, given a spot of honor where everyone could see it, and that picture was of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Whenever I think of the Sacred Heart, I remember grandma, whose name was Margaret Mary, named after the saint who promoted veneration of the Sacred Heart in the first place.

    And so, today we celebrate, with incredible gratitude, the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Through his most Sacred Heart, the love of God is made manifest among us.  This love is a pervasive love that burns in our hearts and changes our lives and leads us back to the God who made us for himself.  This love is irresistible if we give ourselves over to it.  It is a love that pursues us and a love that can go far beyond whatever distance we have fallen from grace.  It is a love that, as Hosea tells us in the first reading, is rich in mercy, and, as St. Paul tells us in the second reading, dwells in our hearts through faith.  The love of God pours forth from the heart of Christ just as the water and blood poured forth from his side as he hung dead on the cross.  Death could not stop the outpouring of grace that he came to bring.

    God, of course is love, and because we were made to love him, we have some of that love that is God within our own imperfect, sometimes stony hearts, that love that helps us to reach beyond ourselves and reach out in our need.

    Three years ago, when I first came to St. Raphael, the first daily Mass that I celebrated with you was the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  And so it only seems appropriate, and yes, a little sad, that my last daily Mass with you is this same feast day.  It’s appropriate because all of you have helped me to come to know Christ’s love in so many beautiful ways.  In our worshipping together, and also in our serving together, we have loved one another and loved others in Christ’s name.  Celebrating Mass with you on these weekdays has been a labor of love for me, because you all come every day ready to celebrate and listen and pray and take the grace with you into your service in the day ahead.  What a great gift you have been to me; I will never forget that.

    St. Paul prays that we would be filled with the fullness of God.  May we all be filled to overflowing with the love of Christ, so that we can pour that love forth onto a world which longs to be soaked in that love.  May the Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on all of us.

  • Thursday of the Second Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It’s interesting that in the Gospel reading it’s the unclean spirits who recognize the holiness of Jesus.  The religious leaders of the time didn’t get it, and sometimes I think we don’t either.  The author of our letter to the Hebrews today puts it rather clearly: “It was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens.”  I think we tend to get rather easily the immanence of Jesus: that he is our friend, that he is close to us.  And that’s good because it’s absolutely true.  But sometimes we miss the transcendence of Jesus: his holiness and the fact that he is above and beyond anything we can possibly imagine with regard to grace and divinity.

    If we knew and appreciated the holiness of Jesus, we would never enter the church without a trip to the Tabernacle, even a brief one.  We would call on him to bless all our endeavors and plans because his ability to act on behalf of his beloved comes from his place in the Blessed Trinity.  We would conscientiously genuflect and bow in adoration of him at all the appropriate times.  We would be careful of how we used the name of the Lord in our speech.

    It’s a great gift to us that Jesus is both immanent and transcendent: he is both near to us and far beyond our wildest imaginings.  We can never know him fully, because there is infinitely more of him to know.  That’s what keeps our spiritual lives fresh: we can come to know Jesus and be one with him, but there is always more of him to grasp, more that we can learn, more that we can experience, more that we can love.  That’s why spiritual growth is a life-long process, really a life-long gift.

    And so, today we should take time to step back and see how it is that we have come to know Jesus.  We are grateful for what has been revealed to us, and eager to find what is still to come.  We are grateful that he is close to us, and we rejoice that he is beyond us in ways we cannot even come close to knowing.  If even the unclean spirits are impressed at the holiness of Jesus, then we have to be too.  We have the word of God and the ministry of the Church to remind us of who Jesus is.  Everything we say and do should reflect what the unclean spirits said: “You are the Son of God.”

  • CREEDS Retreat Conference I: Advent and the Incarnation of Christ

    CREEDS Retreat Conference I: Advent and the Incarnation of Christ

    Readings:  Matthew 1:18-25; Matthew 3:1-7

    Godspell:  “Prepare Ye” and “Save the People”

    One of the single greatest mysteries of our faith is the Incarnation of Christ.  When you stop to think about it, who are we that the Author of all Life should take on our own corrupt and broken form and become one of us?  It has been called the “marvelous exchange:” God became human so that humans could become more like God.  When I was in seminary, it was explained to us by a simple, yet divinely complex rule: Whatever was not assumed was not redeemed.  So God assumed our human nature, taking on all of our frailty and weakness, all of our sorrows and frustrations, all of the things that make being human difficult at times.  As the fourth Eucharistic Prayer puts it, he became “one like us in all things but sin.”

    This belief in the doctrine of the Incarnation is essential for our Catholic faith, even our Christian religion.  One cannot not believe in the Incarnation and call oneself Christian.  It’s part of our Creed: “By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man.”  This doctrine is so important, so holy to us, that at the mention of it in the creed, we are instructed to bow during those words, and on Christmas, we are called to genuflect at that time.  There is always a reason for any movement in the Liturgy, and the reason for our bowing or genuflecting is that the taking on of our flesh by our God is an occasion of extreme grace, unparalleled in any religion in the world.  If the Incarnation had not taken place, there never would have been a Cross and Resurrection.  First things are always first!

    And so it seems that it’s appropriate as we being our reflections on Matthew’s Gospel to begin with the Incarnation.  It’s even more appropriate that we do that during this season of Advent, whose very name means “coming.”  During Advent, we begin this wonderful period of waiting with the cry of St. John the Baptist,

    “A voice of one crying out in the desert,
    ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make straight his paths.’”

    And the movie and play Godspell famously does this with the wonderful refrain “Prepare ye the way of the Lord…”  You notice in the movie that this song accompanied the liturgical action of the players being baptized by the Baptist.  Their dancing after pledging repentance of the sins of their past life signifies the joy that we all share being on the precipice of something new this Advent.  They received the forerunner of our sacramental Baptism by the one who was the forerunner of Christ.  This baptism was a baptism for the forgiveness of sins like ours, but unlike ours, did not convey the Holy Spirit.  That would come later, after the death and Resurrection of Christ.  He had to return to the Father in order to send the Holy Spirit.

    But, as the song suggests, that baptism was essential to prepare the way for Christ.  The Benedictus, the Gospel canticle from the Church’s Morning Prayer, which is based on a passage from the Gospel of Luke, speaks of that baptism and the significance of the Baptist’s ministry:  “You my child will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before him to prepare his way.  To give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”  Indeed, if our sins had never been forgiven, we would know nothing of salvation, indeed there really would be no salvation.  But that baptism of St. John literally prepared the way of the Lord by helping the people to know that God was doing something significant among them.  That was the reason for them dancing and splashing around in all that water: they too were on the precipice of something new, something incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully new.

    Now in Matthew’s Gospel, we have an infancy narrative – a story of the birth of Christ.  “Now this is how the birth of Jesus came about,” the Gospel begins.  Mary is found with child through the Holy Spirit, and Joseph doesn’t know what to believe.  But in Matthew, Joseph is the one who gets a visit from an angel, not Mary.  And he is the first one to hear a key phrase in Matthew’s Gospel: “do not be afraid” – “do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.”  Fear, for Matthew, is the cardinal sin, because it is fear that keeps us from responding in love to the movement of the Holy Spirit.  Apparently Mary had no such fear, because the beginning of the Gospel “finds” her already with child through the Holy Spirit.  The child is born to the couple and at the instruction of the angel, he is named Jesus, he is Emmanuel, God-with-us.

    In the movie, there is no infancy.  Christ comes at the end of John’s baptism sequence, and instructs John to baptize him because, as Jesus tells him, “it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  As he is baptized, Jesus sings, “God save the people,” a prayer that is of course already being accomplished as he speaks.  The play seems to be a bit more pessimistic than the actual Gospel, because Jesus practically pleads for God’s mercy on his people, implying a relationship that was not nearly as close as the Gospels proclaim and our faith believes.  This is one of the little grains of salt we need to take from the movie; in fact it does seem to be an expression of the author’s take on the Jesus event.  So I’d just say don’t take Godspell as Gospel, if you know what I mean!

    And so the advent and Incarnation narratives give us some pause in these Advent days.  We have the opportunity to think about our own birth, or rebirth, in faith.  We get to make the paths straight and the way smooth for the coming of our Lord yet again.  Maybe these days find us struggling to come to a new place in our faith, a higher stage, a bold move.  We might tremble a bit at where God seems to be leading us through our study of Scripture.  But Matthew begs us to hear those all-important words – “be not afraid” – be not afraid to go where God and Scripture lead you.  Be not afraid to take the next step.  Be not afraid to ascend to that higher place God longs for you to be in right now.

  • Our Lord Jesus Christ the King

    Our Lord Jesus Christ the King

    Today’s readings

    You know, it’s always hard to proclaim this Gospel because I have to try to avoid looking to my left and right in order not to give the impression that this is the last judgment! But seriously, although I’ve heard this Gospel so many times, one thing has kind of leapt out at me this week as I’ve been thinking and praying about it. One detail I always have missed was that this was a judgment of the nations – it says, “all the nations will be assembled before him.”

    This idea that we’ll all be judged together is a pretty consistent one in Catholic theology. The Church always teaches that we come to salvation together, or not at all. That’s why it’s important that we spread the Gospel. That’s why it’s important that we live the teachings of Christ. That’s why it’s important that we drag our children in to Mass every week, or that we invite the neighbor or friend from work to join us at the Eucharist. Our Salvation depends rather heavily on the salvation of everyone else, and that’s not just the Church’s job, that’s everyone’s job. The world has to see why salvation is important, and if that’s going to happen it’s going to happen by all of us living lives of integrity and joy and faith not just here in Church, but also in our jobs, schools and communities. Everyone has to see the gift that salvation is.

    So the real significance of giving food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, care to the stranger and all the rest is that their salvation, and ours too, depends on it. So on this last Sunday of the Church year, we have to look back and see how well we’ve done this. Have we been good witnesses of the Gospel? Have we lived it? We want to dwell in the house of the Lord forever, and we have to take as many people with us as we can.

  • Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The rather obvious and certainly oft-repeated application of today’s Gospel reading lies in the very literal interpretation of the word “talent.”  So we have been given many talents, and it’s up to us to use them wisely for the benefit of the kingdom of God.  Woe to the one who ignores his gifts and buries them out of fear.  And that’s a wonderful message.  I could go there.  But it’s wrong – that’s not what Jesus meant, and I think we have to dig just a little bit deeper.

    The word we have translated “talent” here does not mean what we think it means.  When our English ears hear that word, we think gifts, we think of abilities, of things we can do.  But that’s not what it means in the original Greek.  “Talent” here does not mean gifts, a talent was a unit of money.  It was actually rather a large sum of money, equal to something like one thousand days’ wages.  So think about it, even the man who only received one talent actually received quite a bit – he received what the average person would earn in a little over three years!  That’s a lot of money for anyone.

    The next thing we have to look at is who it was that was receiving such a large sum of cash.  On first glance, seeing what it is they have been given, we might think these are senior advisers to the master, people who would have been in charge of his estate and his business transactions.  But that’s not what it says.  It says he called in his “servants” – so we are talking here about slaves, slaves – not business advisers.  And so these slaves are getting ten talents, five talents, and one talent – all of them are getting a considerable amount of money!

    If we think of the master as God, and accept the talents simply as money, I think God comes off sounding rather harsh.  The poor servants differed in their ability; that’s pointed out in the story and certainly the master would have known that.  So why would God be so horribly harsh when a simple slave with limited giftedness does nothing with his gifts?  It makes us bristle, I think, to imagine God treating someone like that so poorly.  And maybe that’s as it should be.  Because I think our bristling tells us that we still have to dig deeper into this very interesting parable.

    So I think this raises a few questions for us.  Who is the master?  What do the talents represent?  Why would the master entrust such a large sum of money to common slaves?  Who are the slaves?  And what on earth was that third slave thinking when he buried such a wonderful gift in the sand?

    Well, first off, I do think the master is God here – God the Father.  Now the talents, they’re not abilities or gifts, and they aren’t simply money.  And I think it’s our first reading that gives us a clue as to what’s really at stake here.  That first reading speaks of the worthy wife whose value is far beyond that of fine pearls.  So this first reading is teaching us to value not someTHING, but someONE.  What, or rather who, could be that valuable?  And I think the answer here is that it’s Christ himself.  Those talents represent Christ, the Gospel he proclaimed, and the Kingdom he came to make manifest.  The Gospel says the Master called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them.  What we have translated “entrusted” here means, in the original Greek, something more like “handed over.”  In just the same way, God the Father “handed over” his only Son to us, for the salvation of the whole world.  What could possibly be worth more than that?

    Now the slaves of course are the disciples, they’re you and me, people of every time and place who Christ has come to save.  We are slaves to sin, and we need a redeemer.  Some are more open to redemption and to the work of Christ and the call of the Gospel.  They might get five talents or ten, or maybe even a million – the riches of Christ can never be exhausted!  These go forth into the world, pouring out those riches of Christ into a world that desperately needs salvation, healing and hope.  As that message goes forth, proclaimed and lived by disciples ready to embrace it, they are able to earn five more, or ten more, or even a million for the kingdom.

    But some are not as open to Christ’s life and work and Gospel.  There’s too much at stake.  They worry about what might happen if our world totally embraced Jesus’ teaching.  They can’t get past what discipleship might personally cost them.  They are represented, of course, by Judas, the apostle who was so overwhelmed by Jesus that he gave in to despair.  And in Matthew’s Gospel, this is the cardinal sin, because in at least a dozen places, Jesus says “do not be afraid” in one form or another.  That was Jesus’ message in Matthew’s Gospel, and so this third servant, who was afraid of what the Master might be like, buried his treasure out of fear.  And the parable points out that that fear wasn’t even reasonable, since he dealt so wonderfully with the other two servants, rewarding their work by calling them to share in his joy.

    So today’s Gospel is a summary of the whole Gospel of Matthew that we’ve been reading with the Church this year.  We are told that the greatest gift is Christ, that we are called to live the Gospel, that we must take up the task before us without being afraid, that we are called to go out and invest Christ’s presence into a world that always needs to be renewed.  As we come here on this second-to-last Sunday of the Church year, we are brought to a summary of all that in order that we might look back and see how we’ve done that this year.  Have we treasured Christ as the greatest of all that we have been given?  Have we taken on the mission without being afraid, knowing that the gift we have been given in Christ can make up for anything that we ourselves may lack?  Have we accepted that wonderful gift and invested it in the world, proclaiming the Gospel by the way that we live, challenging the corner of the world we live in to take it up also, so that we might bring back another five or ten or a million talents?

    Or have we been afraid, thinking that the Master is demanding beyond reason, afraid to make a mistake, afraid of what living the Gospel would mean for us, afraid of what it might cost us?  Because if we have lived this way, we have failed the mission.  Everything we have will be taken from us.  There will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

    Here at the end of this Church year, we can renew our commitment, make a new year’s resolution, if you will, to live the Gospel and proclaim the kingdom in the year ahead.  It doesn’t have to be huge.  It doesn’t cost us anything, because everything that we need has been given to us.  Maybe proclaiming the Gospel means doing some kind of service for us.  Reaching out at a homeless shelter like Hesed House or at a soup kitchen or Loaves and Fishes.  Maybe it means leading a small Christian Community so others will hear the Gospel.  Maybe we’ll help teach a religious education class, or sing in the choir, or become a lector.  Maybe we’ll make an effort every day to put prayer in the course of our work day, and try to be people of integrity in our business lives.  On this Donor Sabbath Sunday, maybe we’ll register for organ donation so that lives will be saved even after we’ve gone home to our reward.  Maybe we’ll read the Scriptures each day before we go to bed, even just a few verses, so that the Lord can change our lives and hearts.  Throughout this Church year, we have received the greatest gift we’ll ever get – Jesus Christ the Lord himself.  Now it is up to us to bring back the gift with interest, taking a world of watching people with us. The Psalmist sings of our reward today: “For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; blessed shall you be, and favored.”  Come, share your Master’s joy!

  • May Crowning

    May Crowning

    Today's Readings: Acts 1:12-14, John 19:25-27
    [Mass for the school children.]

    There is a prayer, the “Hail Mary” that we say all the time.  How many of you know it, boys and girls?  Since we are crowning Mary today, I thought it might be a good thing to talk about that wonderful prayer and what it means, because just like every familiar prayer, we can sometimes forget what it means when we say it so often.

    “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”

    Mary never thought she was great all by herself.  She always knew that it was because the Lord had chosen her and that the Lord had given her his grace, his help, that she could live a holy life and be the mother of Jesus.

    “blessed art thou among women…”

    Because Mary was holy, she is able to help all women to lead a holy life.  When they follow her as mothers or even as women of faith, they have a wonderful role model.  She was the first of all the apostles, the queen of the apostles, and that was because of her faith.  She is an example for all women, and really all people of faith.

    “and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

    Mary was the first earthly temple that Jesus was to be in.  Because of God’s grace and her faith, she was the perfect home for Jesus to be born in.  And she said yes to that, even though she wasn’t sure how it would happen or what it would mean.  She was faithful to God by saying “yes.”

    “Holy Mary, Mother of God…”

    It almost seems weird for us to say that Mary could ever be the mother of God.  But Jesus was just as much a human as he was God.  Every human has a mother, and so Mary is the human mother of Jesus who is God and man.

    “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

    This is what makes us celebrate Mary today.  She is not just the mother of Jesus.  She is also the mother of John, the “favorite disciple” in our Gospel reading today.  And she is also the mother of you and me, Jesus’ “favorite disciples” today.  Just like every other good mother, Mary prays for all of her children, including you and me, all the time – now and at the hour of our death.

    Sometimes we forget how important familiar prayers are.  They say a lot, though, about what we believe.  The “Hail Mary” says everything about why we crown Mary as Queen of the Apostles, Queen of the Church, and Queen of Heaven and Earth today.  She was faithful, she said yes to God’s will, she prays for us all the time.  Mary is the mother of all of us, and as we come close to Mother’s Day, it is so appropriate that we give Mary the gift of our love and devotion today. 

  • The Annunciation of the Lord

    The Annunciation of the Lord

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    davinciannunciation

    Fear keeps us from doing all sorts of things the Lord wants for us. If we would truly let go of our fear and cling to our God, just imagine what he could do in us and through us. Ahaz was King of Israel, a mighty commander, but yet was so afraid of God and what God might do that he refused to ask for a sign. He would prefer to cut himself off from God rather than give himself over to the amazing power of God's presence in his life. Because of that perhaps, he never lived to see the greatness of God's glory.

    But that did not disrupt the promise. In the fullness of time, God's messenger came to a young woman named Mary and proposed to accomplish in her life the sign that Ahaz was too afraid to ask for. She too was initially afraid, pondering what sort of greeting this was. She was also confused, not knowing how what the angel proclaimed could possibly take place in her life.

    The difference, though, was that she heeded the initial words of the angel that have resounded through Salvation history ever since: "Be not afraid." And, thanks be to God, Mary abandoned her fear and instead sang her fiat, her great "yes" to God's plan for her, and for all of us. "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word." These words are reminiscent of what the Psalmist sings today: "Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will."

    And we know what happened from there. Mary certainly wasn't confident that any of that could be accomplished through her own efforts, but she absolutely knew that God could do whatever he undertook. Nothing would be impossible for God, and she trusted in that, and because of that, we have the great hope of our salvation. We owe so much to Mary's cooperation with God's plan for our salvation.

    And so the promise comes to us. We have the great sign that Ahaz was afraid of but Mary rejoiced in. We too are told that God can accomplish much in our own lives, if we would abandon our fears and cling to the hope of God's presence in our lives. Can we too be the handmaids of the Lord? Are we bold enough to say, "Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will?" All we have to remember is the first thing the angel said to Mary: "Be not afraid."

  • The Presentation of the Lord II

    The Presentation of the Lord II

    Today’s Readings

    Back in the time that Jesus lived, it was a law that every first-born male in a family was presented to God, given to God to do God’s will. They would come on the fortieth day of the child’s life and present the child, along with a sacrificial offering and they would receive a blessing from one of the priests. It hardly seems possible, but it’s already been forty days since Christmas, since the day Jesus was born! How time flies for us!
    Of course, you have to love the irony in the story here because, in the case of Jesus, his parents were presenting a child to God who came in a special way from God himself. They were giving back to God the child that God only gave them to take care of for a while. Just as every first-born son was presented to God in order to do something special with his life, this first, and only born Son of God and son of Mary and Joseph had the most special thing ever to do with his life, and that was to lay his life down for all of us.
    On this feast day every year, we bless candles to light the Church and light people’s homes. We do that because we remember that on this day, Jesus, who is the Light of the World, was presented to the wise old Simeon, who recognized that Jesus was the Light that was to come into the world. God’s Spirit had promised that he would never die until he saw that Light, and now he knew that he could die in peace.
    Simeon was at peace because he knew that God was lighting the world and taking care of his people who used to dwell in darkness. The same is true for all of us. Sometimes the world can be a dark place because of war or violence or hatred, or many other evils. It can be hard to see where our world is going in times like that, and oftentimes we ourselves fall into temptation or into sin. We need light to show us the way out of all that darkness.
    And, of course, we have that light. Jesus is the one who came into the world and lit up the world and lights up our lives. He lit up the lives of Mary, and Joseph, and Simeon and now he lights up our lives and shows us the way out of the darkness. Even if we do fall here and there, Jesus’ light helps us to get back up and get going on the path once again.
    The Lord is our light and our salvation. Whom should we fear?

  • The Presentation of the Lord I

    The Presentation of the Lord I

    Today’s readings (Used a “vigil” of this feast for the school children to close Catholic Schools Week.)

    Back in the time that Jesus lived, it was a law that every first-born male in a family was presented to God, given to God to do God’s will. They would come on the fortieth day of the child’s life and present the child, along with a sacrificial offering and they would receive a blessing from one of the priests. It hardly seems possible, but it’s already been forty days since Christmas, since the day Jesus was born! How time flies for us!

    What’s really interesting is that, in the case of Jesus, his parents were presenting a child to God who came in a special way from God himself. They were giving back to God the child that God only gave them to take care of. Just as every first-born son was presented to God in order to do something special with his life, this first, and only born Son of God and son of Mary and Joseph had the most special thing to do with his life, and that was to lay his life down for all of us.

    On this feast day every year, we bless candles to light the Church and light people’s homes. We do that because we remember that on this day, Jesus, who is the Light of the World, was presented to the wise old Simeon, who recognized that Jesus was the Light that was to come into the world. God’s Spirit had promised he would never die until he saw that Light, and now he knew that he could die in peace.

    Simeon was at peace because he knew that God was lighting the world and taking care of his people who used to dwell in darkness. The same is true for all of us. The darkness can be pretty scary, can’t it? Certainly when we wake up in the middle of the night and can’t see anything, it’s scary because we could fall over something. That’s a lot like how life in this world can be sometimes. Sometimes the world is dark because of war or violence or people hating one another. It can be hard to see where our world is going in times like that, and oftentimes we fall into temptation or into sin. We need light to show us the way out of all that darkness.

    Who is that light? Well, of course we know that light is Jesus. Jesus is the one who came into the world and lit up the world and lights up our lives. He lit up the lives of Mary, and Joseph, and Simeon and lots of people when he was living on earth. Now that he has died for us and is risen from the dead, Jesus lights up our life and shows us the way out of the darkness. Even if we do fall here and there, Jesus’ light helps us to get back up and get going on the path once again.

    So as we come to the end of Catholic Schools Week this year, it’s a perfect feast for us to celebrate. The theme for our week has been “Catholic Schools Light the Way.” It’s only fitting to have that theme when we end up on this feast of Jesus, the Light of the World. If this week has taught us anything, it certainly must be that we receive the light from Jesus, that Light comes in a special way through Jesus’ presence in our school, and now we are called to be light for others.

    Our school is a place of the Light when we reach out to each other and help those who are in need, whether they need help with their studies, or just need a friend. Our school is a place of the Light when we reach out as one to help those who are poor and needy. Our school is a place of the light when teachers give of themselves, guiding our young people with wisdom; and when students are open to what they are being taught; and when parents make the Light known at home. When we all share the light that we have been given, when we are light for others, that light can light some of the really dark places of our world. Maybe we won’t get rid of all that darkness today or all at once. But little by little, the light we bring by doing God’s will in our lives will brighten our world one heart and mind at a time.

    The Lord is our light and our salvation. Whom should we fear?

    (UPDATE: I never gave this homily, because the kids had a snow day. So I just preached on the readings of the day, homily below.)