Category: The Church Year

  • Third Sunday of Lent: Zeal for Your House will consume me…

    Third Sunday of Lent: Zeal for Your House will consume me…

    I think today’s Gospel story is very strange to many of us. It presents Jesus in a light that we don’t often see – kind of a violent light, in fact. I’ve often heard this story explained as a kind of justification for anger: that Jesus in his humanity was exhibiting the very human emotion of anger. And that would be comforting, I think, for all of us who struggle with anger, if that was what the story was about – but it’s not.

    In fact, nowhere in today’s Gospel does it say that Jesus was angry. We guess that from his behavior, but that’s not what was going on. The disciples figured it out – most likely after his resurrection – by remembering the words of Scripture, zeal for your house will consume me. He was demonstrating zeal, not anger, and that’s a whole different package of emotions.

    So what was really going on here?  First, we should note that these merchants were not conducting their business inside the temple, as we tend to think of it. No, they were making their transactions in the outer parts of the temple, where commerce related to the Temple was permitted. Second, we have to understand that they were providing a needed service. People would come to make their pilgrimage to the Temple, and that pilgrimage required them to do two things: to offer an animal sacrifice, and to pay the Temple Tax. Some of them would travel quite a distance to get to Jerusalem, and for them it would be impractical to bring along the animals for the sacrifice, if they even owned those animals to begin with. So it made sense for them to purchase the animals outside the Temple, then go in to offer the sacrifice. Also, the coins that were in general use bore the image and inscription of Caesar, which was considered idolatrous – those coins would have been inappropriate currency with which to pay the Temple Tax. So they needed to exchange the coins outside the Temple. Given all this, the sellers of oxen, sheep and doves, and the moneychangers, were all providing a needed and legitimate service. So what was the problem?

    Zeal for your house will consume me. That’s what the disciples remembered afterwards. Jesus came to proclaim that the Kingdom of God was at hand. That Kingdom required a worship that went beyond mere legalism, beyond being able to make a pilgrimage, buy an animal for sacrifice, pay the Temple Tax, and be done for the year. Worship and sacrifice in the Kingdom of God needed to take the form of a specific way of life, a way of life that Christ modeled for us on the Cross, the kind of sacrifice that comes from laying down our lives for others. So the days of needing people to sell sacrificial animals and exchange currency outside the temple were over: instead, people needed to reform their lives.Which brings us to the matter of the Ten Commandments in today’s first reading. For us, it can be easy to just tick them off and feel like we’ve done our duty. We went to Church this week, we didn’t kill anyone, we didn’t rob any banks and didn’t lie in any court proceedings. So we must be okay. But to that kind of thinking, Jesus fashions a whip out of cords, cracks it to get our attention, and says, ‘not so fast’’

    Because worship in the Kingdom of God requires much more than that. Those Ten Commandments aren’t cancelled, but they are raised to a higher standard. They look completely different. That standard means that not having any other gods looks like putting God first in every situation, that success and security and comfort aren’t the be-all and end-all of our existence. It means that not taking the Lord’s name in vain looks not just like avoiding blasphemy, but also that we honor God in all our speech, that we not curse one another in the parking lot after Mass. It means that keeping holy the Lord’s day is not just coming to Mass and leaving God behind when we walk out of here, but of truly taking the day for rest and worship, to renew our relationship with God and prepare for the week ahead. It means that the kids’ soccer game or baseball game does not take the place of Sunday worship.

    The standard that Christ sets means that honoring one’s father and mother is not just a commandment for the children: it means respecting authority in all its forms whether it be one’s aging parents, or the Church, or one’s boss or any other lawful authority. Thou shall not kill means that we don’t murder or procure an abortion, but also that we respect every single person’s life. It means we avoid racism and don’t bear grudges, because doing those things is like already murdering a person in our hearts. Thou shall not commit adultery is now a commandment not just for married folks, but for all of us, and calls us to live chastity no matter what our state in life, no matter what our sexuality. Not stealing is easy if it means just not robbing a bank, which most of us don’t do. But Jesus’ standard means that we don’t take anything that isn’t ours; that we put in an honest day’s work for a day’s pay, or if we are employers, that we give our employees a salary and benefits that allow them to care for their families, because to do anything less is to steal the food off their tables.

    Jesus’ way of living the Ten Commandments means that not bearing false witness requires us to take a stand for the truth in every situation. It means that not coveting our neighbor’s spouse means that we live lives immersed in purity and avoid pornography, lewd talk and anything that leads us to impure thought and action. It means not coveting our neighbor’s goods will see us rejecting ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ and instead to use the gifts with which we’ve been blessed to take care of our own real needs, and also the real needs of others, particularly the poor. You see, zeal for God’s house must consume us also.

    It’s a high standard that Jesus calls us to live, and if you’re like me, it can be real frustrating when we fall short time and time again. But today’s Liturgy tells us that we can call on our God whose perfect law refreshes our soul and gives joy to our hearts. God longs to show us the way to live and worship in the Kingdom of God, and makes it possible for us to leave our brokenness and failure at the foot of the Cross, and to be nourished with the bread of life. God longs to transform our worship and our sacrifice and our lives so that we can have eternal life in the Kingdom of God that is at hand, here and now.

  • First Sunday of Lent: Getting Lent Right

    First Sunday of Lent: Getting Lent Right

    Let’s start today with a survey. How many of you have given something up for Lent? And how many of you are happy about that? How many of you would say that giving something up for Lent brings you closer to God?

    I think a lot of people – myself included – have given something up for Lent because they felt they had to. It may even be that we’ve wanted to give something up for Lent because we figured that in these forty days we had the opportunity to make ourselves better. But I think we have that all wrong. I’m not saying you shouldn’t give something up for Lent – in fact I think you should, but for maybe a different reason, and we’ll come back to that. But what I think we have wrong is the whole idea that we can, or even that we should, make ourselves better during Lent. Today’s readings tell us that it’s the other way around: God wants to use this time of Lent to do something amazing in our own lives.

    The part of today’s Liturgy of the Word that really stands out for me is the Gospel. Matthew, Mark and Luke all have this same story of Jesus being tempted in the desert. Matthew takes eleven verses to tell the story, and Luke takes thirteen. But Mark, who we have just read, gives us the story in just two verses. We might suspect that Mark is giving us the “Reader’s Digest Version,” that we’re missing something here. But that’s not quite the case. In those two verses, Mark makes some pretty important points and it would be good for us to slow down, hear them again, and not miss anything.

    The first point Mark makes is that Jesus is driven into the desert and its temptations by the Spirit. I don’t know about you, but when the Bishop said, “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit” to me on my Confirmation day, I never pictured that Spirit gifting me with a visit to the desert to confront my temptations. No, I pictured that Spirit as one of comfort and peace, and maybe you did too. But honestly, the Spirit gives us difficult experiences all the time. If that weren’t true, we wouldn’t have any prophets, all of whom had to say some very difficult things to people who didn’t want to hear it. If that weren’t true, nobody would ever take up the leadership of a community during difficult times. So it’s no big stretch that it’s the Spirit who drives Jesus out into the wilderness to confront temptation.

    Now that Jesus was tempted at all should be very comforting for all of us. Let’s take another survey: who here has ever experienced any form of temptation in their life? It doesn’t matter if it was a second piece of chocolate cake or something much uglier, and I don’t want you to say what it was out loud, but who here has ever experienced that? So that Jesus experienced temptation should be a source of comfort for all of us who have had to go through that ourselves. Now this survey, I just want you to think about in your head, so you don’t need to raise your hand. I want you to think of one temptation that has been particularly difficult for you in your life. When you have that in mind, think about all your attempts to deal with it. Would you say that it is true that if you worked hard enough, that temptation would go away? Or would you say that sometimes it would go away, and other times it would take over even worse? If you’re like me, sometimes you have your good days and sometimes you have your bad days, and temptation is always with you no matter what.

    But here’s what I think is very interesting in today’s Gospel: Mark never says that the temptations stopped after Jesus left the desert. From that, we can assume that Jesus had to deal with temptation every day, just like you and I do. That’s what we mean when we say that Jesus was fully human: he dealt with all of the same temptations that we do. It might seem like it was no big deal because he was always victorious over that temptation, but make no mistake: that was never a done deal. He had to struggle with temptation in the same way that we do. Even in the last moments of his life, he was tempted to abandon his mission – we know about the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed that the cup would pass him by. We know he ultimately accepted the Father’s will, but we also know he agonized to the point of sweating blood over the temptation to give it all up. Jesus was tempted in the same way that we have been. To say anything else is simply not true.

    So to those of us who have struggled with temptation and have often been defeated by it, Jesus comes to stand with us. To those of us who are feeling defeated by temptation right now, Jesus comes to redeem us. If our temptations seem like permanent fixtures in our lives, so is God’s love and forgiveness. That’s what we see in the rainbow of God’s covenant with Noah. That rainbow was a sign of the covenant, but not a sign that Noah and his descendents would see it and live up to their part. No – it was a sign that when it appeared in the heavens, God would see it and remember his mercy and his promise never to wipe out humanity again. The rainbow isn’t a symbol of what we are going to do, but of what God does for us, time and time again.

    And so we can take courage, I think, that Jesus stands with us. We can go out into the wilderness of our own temptations knowing that, even though we have to go through it, we don’t have to go through it alone. All we have to do is call to mind the rainbow and God’s covenant with Noah and we’ll know that God is intensely devoted to the love of his people. All we have to do is look up at that cross and we’ll know that Christ came to redeem our suffering and put an end to death. All we have to do is approach the Eucharist today to know that God longs to feed us with nothing less than the body and blood of his only Son. Today’s Liturgy quite rightly reminds us that there is no part of our own life that is too ugly for God, and there is no way that we can fall too far for God to reach out to us. Today’s Liturgy reminds us that Lent is not about what we can do to make ourselves better people, but that Lent is about the great lengths to which God will go in order to have us at his side for all eternity. That’s why Lent is a joyful season. Yes, joyful.

    So our efforts during these forty days should not be so much about making ourselves better people. That may be an admirable goal, but it’s not what Lent is ultimately about. We should take this time to find ways to open ourselves more to God’s love. And that’s why I think we should all give something up for Lent. Maybe giving something up will create a hunger in us – that hunger may be the result of fasting from food or some particular food, or from giving up television or the internet, or whatever it is that has us believing that we can take care of our own hungers and fulfill our own needs. If giving something up makes us hungry in some way, we can live with that hunger knowing there is nothing that we hunger for that God can’t provide. And giving up some of the stuff that clutters our lives may open us up to the wonderful gifts that God is longing to give us.

    So I think that’s the motivation we have to have in giving something up for Lent. If we give something up and then prayerfully reflect on the blessings God gives us each day, we might find ourselves receiving much more than we’ve ever imagined. And in the end, if we approach Lent this way, we won’t have to worry about making ourselves better people, because Lent will make us better people through the power of God. We will become people who are open to the love and the healing, redemptive presence of God in our lives; people who can face their own temptations and inadequacies and not be defeated by them; people who are so richly blessed that we cannot help but let those blessings flow into the lives of other people as well.

  • Ash Wednesday

    Ash Wednesday

    Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.

    Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

    One of the ministry things I have been involved in during my time in seminary is as a fire chaplain. I work for one of the local fire departments, and sometimes go to the scenes of ambulance calls or fires. Last year on Ash Wednesday, we were called to the scene of a fire. I went with one of my friends who also is a fire chaplain for the department. The fire was at a four-unit condominium, and it was looking pretty bad. When we arrived, we checked in with the Chief, and he told us that the families were in an apartment across the street. We headed that way and spoke to some of the family members who were home at the time and started to be sure that their needs were being taken care of. After we had talked with them for a time, I started a conversation with the woman in whose apartment we were all gathered. I asked her if she knew any of these people before the fire. She told me that she didn?t and I thanked her for opening her home to the victims of the fire. She said she wouldn?t think not to do something like that. And I believed her: she had on a sweatshirt that said, ?What would Jesus do?? Now we have all heard the WWJD thing a million times and I wonder if it even means anything to anyone anymore. Theologians also tell us that in some ways that?s the wrong question to even ask. But as I was there with this nice woman who opened her house up to us all, and with fire fighters and police officers coming in and out with snowy and wet boots, I wasn?t so sure that WWJD was completely pass鮠 It struck me that in asking what Jesus would do, maybe we can grow in our relationship with Jesus so much so that we do the work he wants to do right here and right now, without even stopping to think about it. After all, at this time, we are all his hands and feet, and he works through us to give people a place to gather while their house is burning, or he works through us to show his presence in our world in thousands of ways every single minute of every single day. Today?s first reading and Gospel talk about fasting and almsgiving, which are appropriate topics for this first day of Lent. Above all, these readings tell us that we can?t get all caught up in the show of it all. Our fasting, our almsgiving, our service ? all of these can?t be done just so people can see it and think well of us. No, we must do these things as naturally as someone who has made it their prayer to live every day doing what Jesus would do, and living as people who have come to know their Lord in a way that they can do that without a moment?s hesitation. Indeed, these kinds of ?hidden? works of fasting, almsgiving and prayer should be natural for us who know the Lord and live as people who have been redeemed by him in this very acceptable day of salvation. So maybe our question to one another ought not to be ?what are you giving up for Lent this year?? Maybe it would be better to ask ?how are you using Lent to come to know the Lord better?? And maybe in doing that we will fast, because fasting helps us to realize that there is nothing that we hunger for that God can?t provide. Maybe in doing that we will give something up, because in denying ourselves we can be open to the many ways God wants to bless us. Maybe our way of coming to know the Lord better will be through prayer, or reading a book of Scripture during Lent, because prayer and Scripture are ways that Jesus reveals himself to us all the time. Or maybe our way of coming to know the Lord better will be through some kind of service to others ? maybe even something we?ve never done but have been asked to try ? because in service we can come to see that God does things in us we could never do on our own. But whatever it is we are called to do in these forty days of Lent, let us not waste this time in any way and let us not make a big show of it. The time to grow in our spiritual life ? to come to know our Lord Jesus Christ better ? is now, today, right this very minute. Let us not put it off because indeed now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

  • Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time: Bringing Friends to Jesus

    Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time: Bringing Friends to Jesus

    This was my homily for yesterday. It had a lot to do with the topic of friendship and how God is incarnate in our friends — that’s just been on my mind and heart a lot lately, and this Gospel just really spoke to that.

    I can hardly believe it but we’re just now into the second chapter of Mark’s Gospel. All this time since Christmas, we’ve been reading from Chapter one. And if you’re like me, Christmas seems like a long time ago now. If we look back at what we’ve heard in these weeks since Christmas, we probably remember a lot of healings that Jesus did. And today is no exception from that. Today, Jesus heals a man who was suffering from paralysis. What is interesting about Jesus’ healing of the paralytic is that his first effort is not to heal the paralysis, but to heal something that is perhaps even more paralyzing in his life and in ours: sin.

    The whole exchange here between Jesus and the scribes is interesting for two reasons. First, it shows that they still don’t get it. For all of the healings he did, and as I said, we’ve heard a lot of them in the last few weeks; they still don’t quite understand what Jesus came to do. So Jesus says to the man, “your sins are forgiven.” In those days, if someone was ill or afflicted, it was thought to be the result of sin. So Jesus goes beyond just healing the physical paralysis—which is nothing more than a symptom of the problem—and goes right to the heart of the matter: he heals the brokenness in the man’s life that is the result of sin. Jesus was doing something much greater than anyone expected him to do. They just wanted the man to be healed physically; but Jesus goes them one better: he heals the man from the inside out. As Isaiah says in the first reading, God is doing something really new here, and they need to open their eyes and see it.

    Second, it’s easy enough to say, “your sins are forgiven.” But it’s hard to know if that really happened, right? I mean, when your sins are forgiven, your hair doesn’t change colors. Sin doesn’t cause spots on your body that magically disappear when you’ve been forgiven. It’s hard to know what forgiveness of sins looks like, and this is part of the problem the scribes have with Jesus. He says, “Your sins are forgiven” easily enough, but how can they be sure he’s done anything? And they believed that forgiveness of sins was reserved to God alone. They were right about that, but they missed the fact that they were looking into the face of God. They just didn’t get it.

    What strikes me most, though, about today’s Gospel, is the way the paralytic came to Jesus. He is carried by four of his friends. They bring him to Jesus for healing and are met with what must have been a pretty irritating obstacle. They couldn’t even get into the house where Jesus was preaching because of all the people crowded in there. There were so many people, they couldn’t even move a little to make an aisle to bring the man in. But they didn’t say to the man, “well, we tried; maybe we’ll come back another time.” No, they climbed up onto the roof, ripped a hole in it, and lowered their friend down in front of Jesus as he was preaching. Can you imagine the audacity of that? They destroyed a person’s roof and interrupted Jesus’ preaching. I just want to let you know that if that happens during today’s homily, we’ll be taking up a second collection to repair the roof… But the point is that these four very good friends did not allow a simple obstacle to get in the way of their desire to bring their friend to Jesus. They had come this far and weren’t about to give up so easily.

    That got me to thinking about how friends can bring us to Jesus. I just finished final exams, thank God. One of my classes this past quarter was called “Friendship and the Moral Life.” In that class, we discussed the virtue of friendship. Friendship is a special kind of charity, or love, in which the two people in the relationship desire the Good of the other person most of all. This is not a friendship of utility where people are related because they can give each other a ride to work or something pragmatic like that. And it’s decidedly not some kind of misguided relationship where two people are “partners in crime.” This is the kind of relationship where two people encourage each other in the spiritual life and literally bring each other to Jesus. There are examples of this here and there in the saintly literature, most especially between St. Thérèse of Liseaux and Maurice, a seminarian. Through their relationship, Maurice was encouraged by Thérèse to stick with his formation for priesthood, and he was eventually ordained. And Thérèse herself admitted that their correspondence helped her to see her life in a different light and made her desire to be with Christ all the stronger. This kind of friendship is a gift from God, which we can all receive, but we must also nurture those friendships in our life.

    This past week, between writing like a million pages of papers that were due in the last days of the quarter, I took some time to pack away some of the books on my shelves that I won’t be using in the next eight weeks. This coming quarter is my last one at Mundelein, and I wanted to get a head start on packing up so that I won’t have to move everything in May. When I was packing up those books, I came across a book of memories that was made for me by my friends at the place I worked before I went to seminary. I hadn’t seen that book in maybe five years, so I stopped to page through it. There were pictures and stories and notes from all of them. I laughed and I cried. But most of all I remembered all of the support and encouragement they gave me when I was getting ready to go to seminary. In some ways, I don’t think I’d be here now if it weren’t for them, and for the support of so many other friends and family who literally brought me to Jesus throughout my life, and in a special way while I was discerning my vocation. They literally brought me to Jesus, who was able to heal me of the paralysis I was having with regard to my vocation. As I think about all those folks, I realize with a great deal of humility how blessed I have been with that special kind of friendship that has always led me to Jesus.

    Think of that for a moment. We are all called to bring each other to Jesus. That’s why God gives us our friendships. We have to be the people who challenge and support each other and help each other to grow. To what extent are our friendships like that? Supporting each other is generally easy to do, but how often do we challenge each other when the other needs it? I’m not talking about picking fights with each other, but rather of helping each other to become what God has called us to be.

    And think too about the friends in your life. Who are those who have brought you to Jesus? Who are those who have challenged you to grow and supported you when you were hurting? Who are those who have pointed out and celebrated the gifts you have? Who are those who have pushed you to become something more than you could have on your own; something more than you ever thought you had potential to become? Maybe they were teachers or parents or family or classmates or coworkers or mentors. But whoever they were, they were that gift God gave you, and they were the people who ripped open the roof and lowered you down to Jesus so that he could heal whatever was paralyzing you in your life and keeping you from growing. Take a minute to think of them today, thank God for them, and as we offer our gifts at the altar today, place them before the altar that they too might be brought to Jesus in whatever way they need that today.

  • Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Be Made Clean

    Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Be Made Clean

    Well, I didn’t preach this week, but some things came to me as I prayed through the scriptures this weekend.

    First, the leper in the Gospel was clearly a man of faith. “If you will it, you can make me clean.” There is no hesitation there; he knows that Jesus can heal him. Whether this comes from an actual life of faith or whether it is just from what he’s seen and observed about Jesus’ healings so far, he clearly knows without a doubt that Jesus can make him clean.

    Second, Jesus responds to the man’s faith: “I do will it. Be made clean.” It’s as simple as that — faith makes the work Jesus came to do possible. And it’s as difficult as that — even our lack of faith can stymie the work of Christ in our lives.

    Third, it doesn’t matter how often Jesus tells those who have been healed to keep it under their hats, they can’t help but make it known. The leper in today’s Gospel seems most enthusiastic to do so: he publicized the whole matter, spread it abroad, and through his proclamation of the saving event in his life, people came to Jesus “from everywhere.”

    Fourth, and this almost should go without saying, but the real saving news here is not the healing, although that’s certainly up there. The real Good News here is that Jesus reaches out and touches the man. His reaching out to touch an untouchable makes it possible for all of us to go outside ourselves, and reach out to those it is difficult to touch, and bring them the healing and loving touch of Christ. If Jesus didn’t do it, we’d have no reason to; now that he has, the ball’s in our court.

    Finally, all of these acts of faith make possible not just mere healing, not just a mere cessation of leprosy, or whatever it is we’re afflicted with, but more than that: true joy. God yearns to not just make the pain go away but to completely change our lives. And this complete change is what the psalmist sings about today: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.” The Lord didn’t just make the psalmist’s troubles go away, but the Lord actually filled the psalmist with the joy of salvation. Our acts of faith are truly blessed.

  • Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Quiet! Come Out of Him!

    Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Quiet! Come Out of Him!

    This is my homily for this Sunday. In paragraph three, the regular reader might notice a similar thought from a homily two weeks ago. But I was preaching to a different congregation that week, so I’m not doing reruns just yet. This week what really gets me is the whole idea of demons coming into Church with us. Has that ever happened to you?

    If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

    One of the earliest Scripture texts that I can recall knowing is the antiphon to today’s psalm: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” I kept thinking this week as I was praying over the readings that maybe if I had listened to that a little better, I might have been ordained a lot earlier in my life. But then again, if I hadn’t listened to that verse, maybe I wouldn’t be standing here now.

    I think that’s the point, though, of today’s readings: we need to listen to the voice of the Lord, and when we hear it, do what he asks, hardening not our hearts. But will we hear the voice of the Lord today? The question is not whether the Lord will speak to us, but more whether we will hear his voice. I’ve heard God’s word compared to radio waves: they’re always there, but you have to turn on the radio to hear them. And God’s presence is that way too: God is always with us, but we have to tune in to realize it.

    And that can be hard to do in today’s noisy world, right? There are so many distractions that keep us from tuning in to the voice of the Lord. We have radio, television, cell phones, iPods, email, text messages, and so much more. Sometimes we can barely concentrate on driving our cars, let alone listening to God. And even if we find time to sit down and concentrate on even just one of them, they will ultimately fail to meet our needs. Dr. Phil, Oprah and Martha Stewart may all be interesting, but they can’t give us the unconditional love that only comes from God, nor can they bring us to salvation and the union with God for which we were created.

    We are a people who need to hear the truth. Whether or not we’re conscious of it, I think we yearn for that truth. If that weren’t the case, we wouldn’t spend so much time tuning in to the people I just mentioned. If it weren’t the case, most of the books at Barnes and Noble wouldn’t be selling right now. If that weren’t the case, there wouldn’t be the hunger for spirituality that we see in the New Age movement and even various fundamentalist religions. We are a people who have always wanted to know what it’s all about, why we are here, and, by the way, what’s the meaning of life?

    The people of Israel had that same hunger in today’s first reading. As they prepared to enter the Promised Land, it was clear that Moses wouldn’t be going with them. Moses had been the voice of God for them, especially since they were literally scared to death to hear that voice or look on the face of God all by themselves. If they were going to enter the land of milk and honey, they would need someone to walk with them so that they would know the will of God. The good news for them is that God promises to provide such a voice: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin, and will put my words into his mouth; he hall tell them all that I command him.” The people are commanded to listen to the prophet’s words, and are promised that those words would always be spoken to them.

    The people were still looking for that word when Jesus walked into the synagogue at Capernaum. The tradition of the time was that the male members of the synagogue would take their turn teaching at the service, and it was Jesus’ turn this particular day. The people recognized a difference in Jesus’ preaching and that of the scribes. The scribes dutifully quoted predecessors and based their teaching on what was spoken before them. But Jesus spoke on his own authority, and that for them was astonishing.

    It was so astonishing, in fact, that it even caught the attention of demons possessing one of the men in the synagogue. While the people were still wondering who this Jesus was and what his source of authority could be, the demons possessing the man addressed him by name: Jesus of Nazareth, the Holy one of God! They knew who Jesus was and why he came, and based on Jesus’ authority, and on the one command Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel reading, “Quiet! Come out of him!” the demons leave the man, and everyone in the synagogue continue to wonder at Jesus’ authority.

    This is an incredible Gospel passage for us, I think. We don’t very often get to hear demons interrupting the celebration of Mass, and still less often see the presider rebuke the demon and cast it out. But I think that demons come into Church with us all the time. If we’re honest, each of us has a demon or two that from time to time distract us from the worship of God and our own prayer. That demon can be some kind of addiction of substance abuse or unhealthy behavior. The demon can be a pattern of sin that has us in a grip that we just can’t escape. The demon can be indifference or hard-heartedness that has its origin in real hurts or abuse. There are probably demons among us now, and probably some of us feel guilty about that – maybe we have all felt guilty about that from time to time.

    And that’s where I think today’s Gospel is very good news for all of us. We see that Jesus wasn’t put off by the demon or angry at the man who was possessed. So we can be sure that he has certainly seen our own demons before, and still loves us despite their grip on us. Even more than that, we can see that he longs to silence those demons and cast them out of us, so that we can worship God in spirit and truth. Today’s Gospel reading shows us what may be the most important message in all of Jesus’ ministry: that God loves his people and deeply desires that they be freed from the evil, sin and death that have so long kept us from unity with Him.

    Listening to these demons all the time can certainly harden our hearts. That’s why they are so hard to get rid of. Demons don’t respond to our limited authority. But we don’t have to drive them out on our own. Because we know that the demons certainly respond to the authority of Jesus, the ultimate prophet. And Jesus will cast them out for us, if only we would tune in, if only we would listen and hear his voice.

    “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

  • Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: Repent and Belive in the Gospel

    Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: Repent and Belive in the Gospel

    Here’s my homily for this evening and tomorrow. This is my first weekend at the parish I’ve been assigned to as a deacon: St. John the Baptist in Winfield. I’m excited about beginning there, and I hope I have a word or two here that will speak to their hearts.

    The call to repentance runs all through today’s readings. When we think about what repentance means, we usually think about turning away from sin. Well that’s about half right. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Jesus’ call to repentance means a turning away from sin, or at least from a way of life that is not ultimately satisfying, and toward the way of life that God wants us to live.

    Jonah’s repentance was all about turning away from his idea of who could receive salvation and toward God’s call that he be the messenger of repentance to the Ninevites. You might know that we don’t have all of Jonah’s story in today’s first reading. Based on today’s first reading, we might think Jonah heard God’s call and went forth and did it, and all worked out well. But that’s not quite true; Jonah’s first response to God’s call that he go preach to the Ninevites was that he didn’t want to do it and there was no way God could make him. You see, the Ninevites were an extremely evil people who were incredibly cruel to the Israelites, so Jonah quite rightly feared for his life. And Jonah felt justified in letting God destroy the city and rid that evil people from the face of the earth. To get away from God’s call, Jonah boarded a ship headed to Tarshish, but that wasn’t far enough to get away from God – when we try to flee from God we’re never going to be successful. The story goes that God whipped up a storm that threatened the ship and everyone on it. Jonah knew the reason for the storm, so he convinced the crew to throw him overboard. And maybe you know the story here: when he hit the water, he was swallowed up by a big fish and lived in the belly of the fish for three days before he was coughed up on land. Today’s first reading, then, is Jonah’s second response to God’s call, and it was all about him turning away from his fears, away from his prejudices, and toward the mission that God called him to do.

    The Ninevites, then, had some repentance of their own to do. Jonah’s mission to them was incredibly successful. He was only about a third of the way through this massive city, when they heard his announcement and determined to reform their lives. They put on sackcloth and proclaimed a fast, and we get the idea that they truly reformed their lives because God did not, in fact, destroy their city.

    St. Paul’s message in today’s second reading is another call to repentance. Paul thought that the return of Christ would happen in his lifetime, so he did not want people to get too attached to life in this world. Even though he was wrong about Christ’s return, he was still quite right, I think, about not being too attached to this world. Because we have been created for life with God, and ultimately that means life in heaven. But if we’re too attached to the limited life that this world allows us, we’ll never get there. We need to turn away from getting too attached to life in this world, and instead to turn our attention toward life with God in heaven.

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James and John to turn away from fishing and to turn instead toward a life following him. Fishing was the only way of life these men had ever known. Their families had probably been fishermen for generations, and James and John even left their father on the boat, along with the nets and the hired hands. They gave it all up at once to become fishers of men, something they had no idea how to do.

    This is Respect Life weekend, and respecting life involves repentance for all of us. It’s easy enough, I think, for us to be proud of our efforts to respect life when we haven’t murdered anyone and don’t support abortion. But the Church teaches that respecting life involves far more than that. Respecting life also means that we must have a preference against capital punishment, against war and terrorism, against euthanasia and assisted suicide, against racism and prejudice in all of its forms, against gossip and scandal – in short, against anything that de-values human life. The principle of respecting life is grounded in the fact that we are all made in the image and likeness of God, and that each person needs to be for us a reflection of God in our world. Therefore, we are called to treat each person accordingly. Today, I think, it would be good for all of us to reflect on the ways in which we need to repent of our life-destroying attitudes and behaviors, and turn instead toward God, the giver of all life.

    We are still more or less at the beginning of Ordinary Time today, and I think the Church begins Ordinary Time with a call to repentance because Christ began his ministry that way. For us who would be followers of Christ, repentance needs to be a way of life. It’s not something that happens once and for all, and then we’re done with it. Every day, we are confronted by attitudes that are not life-giving, and tempted toward behaviors that turn us away from the God who made us. If we would believe that we are called in the same way Peter, Andrew, James and John were called, then we must remember that we are also called in the same way the Ninevites and the Corinthians were. We have to give up our sinful attitudes and behaviors, and our attachments to the world which is passing away, and turn instead toward God’s will and our true calling in Christ.

    Again, this is a decision that we must make every day. And maybe a good way to do that is to begin every day with the prayer of today’s responsorial psalm: “Teach me your ways, O God.”

  • Second Sunday of Ordinary Time: Speak Lord, Your Servant is Listening

    Second Sunday of Ordinary Time: Speak Lord, Your Servant is Listening

    1/21/06: Once again, it’s been tooooo long since I’ve posted, so I’m posting this one a bit late, and it’s the homily I preached on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 14-15. It reflects on the readings for the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, but also reflects on vocations since it was the end of National Vocations Week. Warning: Reading this blog entry does expose you to my vocation story. Remember… you’ve been warned.

    I haven’t made any New Years resolutions yet, at least not formally. But after living with these readings for the last week, I think I know what mine will be. I’d like to start every day with Samuel’s prayer in today’s first reading: “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” Then of course, I’ll have to listen; and I don’t know how it is for you, but I know that, for me, more listening in my prayer might be a good thing.

    Because it’s easy, isn’t it, to say all kinds of things to God in prayer. We have no problem telling him our needs, praising him, even giving thanks. And all those things are good, of course, but we’re supposed to listen too. And that can be the hard part in today’s noisy world. Our world has lots of ways to speak to us: television, radio, cell phones, text messaging, email and the list goes on. We’re a culture that likes to say a lot of stuff and make a lot of noise. But for prayer to really work, there has to be silence, we have to listen. So we might do well to pray the way Samuel did: “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

    To say that in our prayer shows a strong openness to God’s will. The implication of saying “Speak Lord, your servant is listening” is that, as God’s servants, we will do what he asks of us. Samuel did that, we know, because the end of the reading tells us that he grew up and the LORD was with him. Andrew, Peter, and the other disciple had that kind of openness in the Gospel reading, since they were willing to drop everything and respond to Jesus’ invitation: “Come, and you will see.”

    Jesus says that same thing to us today, and every day: “Come, and you will see.” Do we want to see what Jesus is doing in the world today? Do we want a world of justice and peace? Do we long for a prayer life that guides us through life and sees us through good times and bad? If so, “come, and you will see.” Having that openness to God’s will is a way of life that Jesus offers to all of us.

    This is Vocations Awareness Week, and today’s readings really speak to us about our vocation to follow Christ. As baptized People of God, we all have a vocation to follow Christ in whatever way God has led us. Some of us live our vocation in marriage and as parents, others live it as single people serving Christ in the world, and others live it as priests, deacons, and religious men and women. God has something specific for each of us to do, and we will see what it is if we open the door and say “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

    Five years ago on the occasion of Vocation Awareness Week, I was co-directing the contemporary choir at St. Petronille. At the homily time, I sat in a pew next to my mother, who happened to come to that Mass. During the homily, one of our parishioners who was a seminarian gave his talk about Vocations. And my mother, in her not-so-subtle fashion, elbowed me in the side and said “you should listen to this.” Well, I said something like “not gonna happen” … I had long since put the idea of a religious vocation aside, having looked at the possibility not once, but twice, and both times feeling that I was not in fact being called to a priestly or religious vocation.

    In fact, in college, I had received a degree in religious studies with a minor in philosophy, and the diocese was ready to send me to seminary as soon as I graduated. But at the time, I felt that I needed to do some work, and so I did that, working as a youth minister at St. Petronille. After that, I worked in the business world for about ten years. At one point, I spent some time with the Benedictines at St. Procopius Abbey, and eventually found I wasn’t being called to that either.

    So when I heard the seminarian’s talk that year, I was very happy with my life. I had a good job, and worked mostly with people that I liked. I had good friends and a wonderful family. I had some ministries in the Church, including the choir, that came out of my spiritual life. My prayer life was good. I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing and I was happy about that.

    But sometime later, my prayer life became stale, as prayer lives will do on occasion. So I prayed about that, and realized that God was trying to move me in a new direction. Of course, I had no idea what that direction was, so just before Lent, I prayed that God would give me a big challenge. And I remember saying to God, “I don’t care what it is, just help me to know what it is and I’ll do it.” In some ways, this was my way of saying “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

    And here’s a little spiritual hint. If you pray a prayer like that, God will answer it, so make sure you’re prepared. I wasn’t, but don’t let that happen to you!

    I continued to pray about it during Lent, and eventually started to consider going back to school. That’s an idea I had toyed with a lot over the previous few years, but could never decide if I should go and get a computer-related degree, which interested me, or a church-related degree. As I looked into it, I became aware that God was calling me to go to seminary. I remember protesting in prayer that going to seminary wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I also remember God saying “you said you’d do anything.” And so, several months later, I was at Mundelein Seminary for the first of five years of priestly formation there.

    During my time at Mundelein, I have grown in my vocation, and God has continued to encourage me to “Come and you will see.” In addition to receiving a wonderful education, I have also had the opportunity to minister in a nursing home, at a parish for a six month internship, as a hospital chaplain and as a fire chaplain. I’ve discovered that God calls me to do all sorts of things that I never thought I could do or would want to do, and those experiences have been great.

    That’s my story, and every one of us has a story about how God is calling us to live our vocation. You may not know what it is yet. Some people know what they are called to do right away. Others, like me, take some time to figure that out. There is no one, right, way to follow Christ. But it always starts out with “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

    If you feel like you have been called to a priestly or religious vocation, I’d be glad to talk with you about that. Our diocese has a good number of seminarians, but not enough to serve our Church well in the future. This year, in fact, I will be the only one ordained to the priesthood, and there’s a need for many more than one new priest in a diocese that is growing every day.

    I would like to ask all of you to do three things. First, if you know someone who you think would make a good priest or religious man or woman, tell them. I know that’s a risk and it’s hard to do, but they aren’t going to be offended by it. And I pray that all parents would encourage their children to consider priestly or religious vocations and support them if that’s what they choose to do. When we encourage people to consider that kind of vocation, they may or may not respond right away, but even if they don’t, you’ve planted a seed that God can water and care for.

    Second, open yourself up to live your own vocation – whatever it is – well. When we all live our vocations well, following Christ with open hearts, we create a community where jobs are not just jobs, and relationships are not just give and take, but where all of life is an opportunity to live fully and freely as followers of Christ. That kind of community will generate the people we need to serve the Church as priests and religious.

    And finally, pray for vocations. Pray for all vocations. Pray that married people would be models of Christian love for everyone. Pray that parents may have the strength they need to raise their children in a challenging world. Pray that men would be open to priestly vocations. Pray that men and women would follow Christ in the religious life. Pray that priests would be strong disciples that lead people to Christ. Pray that we would all be a community open to God’s will and to following Christ in the way we have been called. Pray because prayer is effective and transforming and prayer works.

    This new year, let us all resolve to begin every day and all of our prayer with the words of Samuel, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

  • Third Sunday of Advent

    Third Sunday of Advent

    Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. End of the quarter, and a whole bunch of things got in the way. But here we are, in a new liturgical year, on the Third Sunday of Advent. Instead of just some reflections, I’m posting the text of the homily I preached today.

    There’s a little more light today.

    It might not seem like there’s more light, because the days are rapidly getting shorter, and will continue to do so until the winter solstice. The darkness and cold of the night seem so much more prevalent than the joyful light of day.

    But still, there’s a little more light today.

    It might not seem like there’s more light, when we look at the darkness of our world. It is a world still wrapped in sin and scandal and death. It is a world affected by sickness and disease. It is a world where tragedies and wars still hang heavy on our horizons. It is a world where the sadness of poverty and injustice and inequality and racism still mar the brightness of our days.

    But still, there’s a little more light today.

    It might not seem like there’s more light, when we look inward at the darkness of our own souls, grown cold in the scandal of sin in the world and grown bitter at the triumph of injustice and death. In our own lives, there is sin, sin that maybe has been defended by our own self-righteousness, or ignored in our jadedness. In our own lives, maybe we have prayed less than we should, or treated others with something quite less than love, or have been greedy, or have damaged our relationships by giving in to lust, or have taken possession of what does not belong to us. In our own lives, maybe our sin has gone unconfessed because of fear or indifference.

    But still, there’s a little more light today.

    John the Baptist came into the world to point to that light. He readily admitted that he himself was not the light, but drew the attention of the Pharisees and others who were questioning him to the one who was already in their midst – one they did not recognize. And that one was Jesus Christ, the true light of the world.

    Because of John the Baptist, we can see that there’s a little more light today.

    The Church tells us there is more light as we continue to light the candles on our Advent wreath. With each additional candle, there is more light shining on our celebration and drawing us into the great light of Christmas. We light the rose candle today, the color of which reminds us that this is “Gaudete Sunday.” Gaudete is Latin for “joy,” and reminds us that even in the darkness of winter, even in the darkness of our world and even in the darkness of our own lives and sin, that there is one among us – one that maybe we don’t recognize as often as we should. And that one light is Jesus Christ, the true light of the world.

    Because of the Church, we can see that there’s a little more light today.

    In today’s second reading, St. Paul tells the community at Thessolonica to do three things: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in every circumstance. These three actions are the heart of the Christian life, and keep us united to Christ. To do anything less would be to quench the Holy Spirit, and St. Paul insisted that living a life filled with rejoicing, prayer and thanksgiving was the way to become perfectly holy, which is the goal of all of our lives.

    Because of St. Paul, there’s a little more light today.

    All of this comes as a result of God’s gracious gift in our world and in our lives. By Christ coming into the world as a tiny child, and growing up to take our sins to the cross and rise triumphant over them, the darkness of sin and death are no longer the powers that rule the day. Instead, the great light of God’s love, against which nothing can prevail, becomes the great power of the day.

    Because of Jesus Christ, there’s a lot more light today.

    So it comes to us. Now we are called to be the light that brightens our darkened world. The spirit of the Lord God is upon us, and we have been anointed to bring good news to the poor and to heal the brokenhearted. We must be the light that releases those imprisoned in darkness and proclaims the vindication of God.

    And I would like to suggest that we can use St. Paul’s model to do that in three very specific ways. First, we can rejoice always. In this season, maybe we can all send a Christmas card to someone who wouldn’t otherwise receive one; to someone who probably won’t send one back to us. Maybe that’s to a relative who has grown distant, or a homebound neighbor. Even if you don’t send any other cards this Christmas, send that one card. Second, we can pray without ceasing. And in Advent, maybe that means going to Confession. The Sacrament of Penance can make the world very bright for you and for the community by letting go of the darkness of sin. There’s a penance service on December 21st, and many other opportunities for the sacrament before Christmas. Be not afraid, there is a lot of joy and much light that comes from celebrating the sacrament of our forgiveness. And third, give thanks in all circumstances. This Advent, maybe we can all take the time to thank one person for what he or she has done in our lives this year. God gives us the blessing of so many relationships, but how often do we thank God for them, or even thank them for being God’s presence in our lives? Or maybe we can make a list of people and blessings for which we are thankful, and pray through them as we sit by the light of our Christmas trees this season. Let us give thanks in all circumstances.

    Because, if we do even these small things, we will see that in us, there’s a little more light today.

  • Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    I should begin with at least an acknowledgement that this reflection is late. That had something to do with getting ordained to the diaconate on Friday, preaching on Saturday, and baptizing my niece on Sunday. More on all of that later. But when I preached on Saturday, I preached on this very text. So without further ado…

    The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins
    who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
    Five of them were foolish and five were wise.
    The foolish ones, when taking their lamps,
    brought no oil with them,
    but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.

    First, we have to understand the parable. Wedding customs in first century Palestine were a little different than those we know today. The wedding was a drawn out affair, beginning with the betrothal. After that, the couple was married but would not live together until the complex negotiations regarding the dowry were complete. When that was done, the bridegroom would go to the bride’s house and bring her to his own house. Then there would be a splendid feast that would go on for several days.

    So the parable happens just as the negotiations are complete and they are expecting the bridegroom to go to the bride’s house. He is delayed a bit, and they all fall asleep. But that is not the problem. The problem is that half of them were unprepared.

    I think we bristle a bit at the wise virgins’ refusal to share their oil with the foolish. Jesus was always for sharing and charity, so what’s the deal here? Well, since we know Jesus regularly encourages such sharing, I think we can safely conclude that is not the point of the parable and move on. The point of the parable then, may well be the oil itself. Of what is this oil symbolic?

    The Church Fathers help us a bit there. They talk about the oil as the oil of salvation. This would be an oil that can only be had in relationship with Jesus. It’s an oil that can’t be begged, borrowed, stolen or bought at an all-night Walgreens. We fill the flasks of our lives with that oil through daily prayer, devotion, the sacraments, and a life-long relationship with Jesus Christ, our Savior. So the foolish virgins were looking for oil too late — too late not just because it is midnight, but too late because they should have been filling their flasks with this oil all along. It’s not the wise virgins’ fault they did not share: indeed this is an oil that cannot be shared, any more than one could live another’s life for that person.

    What gets me is that five of these virgins showed up unprepared. We may not be familiar with first-century Palestinian wedding customs, but they certainly were. So they would have known the wedding would go on for some days. How is it, then, that they forgot extra oil? Even if the bridegroom had not been delayed, they certainly would have needed it! What was so important to them that they forgot to attend to the most basic part of their job in preparation for the wedding banquet?

    Just so, we certainly have nothing more important to do than to show up at the wedding feast of heaven with our flasks filled with the oil of salvation. No other concern should distract us for our most basic job on earth, which is preparing for our life in heaven. We must not be deterred from prayer, devotion, good works of charity, fasting, and zealous reception of the sacraments lest we hear those awful words the bridegroom spoke to the foolish virgins: “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.”

    When we get to the feast, if our flasks are not full, it is already too late. As we approach the immanent end of this Church year (there’s just less than three weeks left), let us look back and see how well we have filled our flasks in the last year. And let us steadfastly resolve to fill those flasks to overflowing in the year ahead. The only way we can do that is by zealously seeking our God, praying the prayer of the Psalmist:

    O God, you are my God whom I seek;
    for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts
    like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water.