Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Homilies

  • Thursday of the First Week in Lent

    Thursday of the First Week in Lent

    Today’s readings

    During this first week of Lent, our Liturgies of the Word are teaching us about the Lenten disciplines: fasting, almsgiving and prayer. On Tuesday, we heard the Lord’s prayer, and today we hear the prayer of Esther and Jesus’ injunction to persistence in prayer.

    I love the story of Esther, and as I often tell people, you should read the entire book of Esther from the Bible (it’s not very long). It reminds us that we need a Savior. Esther’s adoptive father Mordecai was a deeply religious man. His devotion incurred the wrath of Haman the Agagite, who was a court official of King Ahasuerus of Persia. Mordecai refused to pay homage to Haman in the way prescribed by law, because it was idolatry. Because of this, Haman developed a deep hatred for Mordecai, and by extension, all of the Israelite people. He convinced King Ahasuerus to decree that all Israelites be put to death, and they cast lots to determine the date for this despicable event.

    Meanwhile, Esther, Mordecai’s adopted daughter, is chosen to fill a spot in the King’s harem, replacing Queen Vashti. Esther, however, never had revealed her own Israelite heritage to the King. She would, of course, be part of the extermination order. Mordecai came to Esther to inform her of the decree that Haman had proposed, and asked her to intercede on behalf of her own people to the King. She was terrified to do this because court rules forbade her to come to the king without an invitation. She asked Mordecai to have all of her people fast and pray, and she did the same. The prayer that she offered is beautifully rendered in today’s first reading.

    Esther knew that there was no one that could help her, and that it was totally on her shoulders to intercede for her people. Doing this was a risk to her own life, and the only one that she could rely on was God himself. Her prayer was heard, her people were spared, and Haman himself was hung from the same noose that had been prepared for Mordecai and all his fellow Israelites. This evening, in fact, is the beginning of the Jewish feast of Purim, which is a festive observance of this biblical story.

    God hears our own persistent prayers. We must constantly pray, and trust all of our needs to the one who knows them before we do. We must ask, seek and knock of the one who made us and cares for us deeply. Prayer changes things, and most of all, it changes us. It helps us to rely on God who gives us salvation through Jesus Christ, the One who shows us how to ask, seek, and knock.

  • The First Sunday in Lent

    The First Sunday in Lent

    Today’s readings

    The devil wants us to forget who we are. That we are created good by a God who loves us more than anything; that we can never fall far from grace if we stay close to Jesus; that we are sons and daughters of God who have the freedom to love and grow and think and work with God to create the world anew. None of that serves the devil’s purposes, and so in our time, really in all time, he has worked very hard to make us forget who we are. If you think about any scandal or problem in the world today, I think you’ll find that at the core of most of it is when people forget who they are.

    Forgetting who we are changes everything for the worse. It makes solving problems or ending scandal seem insurmountable: we constantly have to cook up new solutions to new problems, because we’ve gone in a new direction on a road that never should have been traveled. That was the scandal of Eden, and the scandal of the Tower of Babel, among others. Once we’ve forgotten who we are and acted impetuously, it’s hard to un-ring the bell.

    One of the consequences of forgetting who we are is that we forget who God is too. We no longer look to God to be our Savior, because we instead would like to solve things on our own. Perhaps we are embarrassed to come to God because we are deep in a problem of our own making. We see this all the time in our lives: who of us wants to go to a parent or teacher or boss or authority figure – or anyone, really – and tell them that we thought we had all the answers but now we’ve messed up and we can’t fix it and we desperately need their help? If that’s true then we’re all the more reluctant to go to God, aren’t we?

    This forgetting who we are, and forgetting who God is, is the spiritual problem that our readings are trying to address today. Moses meets the people on the occasion of the harvest sacrifice, and challenges them not to make the sacrifice an empty, rote repetition of a familiar ritual. They are to remember that their ancestors were wandering people who ended up in slavery in Egypt, only to be delivered by God and brought to a land flowing with milk and honey. And it is for that reason that they are to joyfully offer the sacrifice.

    St. Paul exhorts the Romans to remember who Jesus was and to remember his saving sacrifice and glorious resurrection. They are to remember that this faith in Christ gives them hope of eternity and that, calling on the Lord, they can find salvation.

    But it is the familiar story of Christ being tempted in the desert that speaks to us most clearly of the temptation to forget who we are and who God is. The devil would like nothing more than for Jesus to forget who he was and why he was here. He would have Jesus forget that real hunger is not satisfied by mere bread, but must be satisfied by God’s word. He would have Jesus forget that there is only one God and that real glory comes from obedience to God’s command and from living according to God’s call. He would have Jesus forget that life itself is God’s gift and that we must cherish it as much as God does.

    But Jesus won’t forget. Satan in his arrogance thinks he can make him forget, but he is not more powerful than Jesus. And so, Jesus refuses to turn stones into bread, remembering that God will take care of all his real hunger. He refuses to worship Satan and gain every kingdom of the world, remembering that he belongs to God’s kingdom. He refuses to throw away his life in a pathetic attempt to test God, remembering that God is trustworthy and that he doesn’t need to prove it.

    The way that we remember who we are as a Church is through the Sacred Liturgy. In the Liturgy of the Word, we hear the stories of faith handed down from generation to generation. These are the stories of our ancestors, from the Old Testament and the New. In the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we engage in anamnesis, a remembering, or re-presentation of Christ’s Passion and death, and as we do that, it becomes new for us once again; it brings us to Calvary and the empty tomb and the Upper Room. There is no better way for us to remember who we are as a people than to faithfully participate in the Sacred Liturgy.

    And so we come to this holy place on this holy day to remember that we are a holy people, made holy by our God. We remember who we are and who God is. We rely on the Spirit’s help to reject the temptations of Satan that would call us to forget who we are and instead become a people of our own making. We have come again to another Lent. Lent is a time of conversion and springtime and re-creation. For the people in our Order of Christian Initiation for Adults – OCIA – it is a time of conversion from one way of life to another as they approach the Easter Sacraments. For the rest of us, Lent is a time of continued re-conversion and re-commitment to our sacramental life. Our Church teaches us that conversion is a life-long process. In conversion, we see who our God is more clearly and we see ourselves in a new, and truer light – indeed we see who we really are before God.

    That is life in God as it was always meant to be. Remembering our God, remembering who we are, we have promise of being set on high, as the Psalmist proclaims today. This Lent can lead us to new heights in our relationship with God. Praise God for the joy of remembering, praise God for the joy of Lent.

  • Saturday after Ash Wednesday

    Saturday after Ash Wednesday

    Today’s readings

    “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.”

    A few months ago, I had a reaction to my cholesterol meds: hives, itching, severe joint pain. At first it was just the hives and I dismissed it, thinking it was a bug bite. But they quickly spread. I was thinking if it didn’t get better I’d call the doctor the next day. But then I realized I had had this reaction before, and I knew it wasn’t going to go away on its own. I was sick, and I needed a physician. How often, though, do we just dismiss the illnesses we have and hope for the best?

    It’s important that we learn to do that in the spiritual life. If you don’t think you need a physician for your spiritual life, then you aren’t going to get much out of Lent, I’m afraid, and that’s sad. If you don’t admit you’re sick, you deprive yourself of the doctor. If you don’t admit your spiritual life is ailing, you deprive yourself of the Savior. Jesus is very clear today: he came to call sinners to conversion, and that includes all of us. It’s been said that the Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners. And thank God that’s true, because all of us, me and you, all of us, need the medicine of grace in our spiritual lives time and time again. And the good news is that Jesus gives us Lent to do just that. Let’s be converted, be healed, be made whole so that the glory of Easter can brighten our lives.

    So our reflection this morning is two-fold. First, where and how do I need the Divine Physician in my life right now? And second, invite him in and ask him to heal us.

  • Ash Wednesday

    Ash Wednesday

    Where do you see yourself in forty days?

    I’m sure many of us have had to answer some version of that annoying question when applying for a job. You know: “Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten years?” But I ask that question today because I think we have to decide what getting ashes on our foreheads today means for us. If it’s just to check a box, or avoid the question “I thought you were Catholic?” at work, or to prove to Mom that we made it to Church, then we’ve missed an opportunity. Ash Wednesday is the busiest day at any Catholic Church hands down: busier than Christmas, and busier than Easter. And it’s really good that we are here today to mark the beginning of Lent, but seriously, where do you see yourself in forty days?

    The hope is that today we get reminded that we are dust, and to dust we shall return; and warned that we need to repent and believe in the Gospel. Then we take those admonitions and unpack them for forty days by engaging in fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, so as to rise on Easter Morning, greeted by the Morning Star that never sets, a new creation that has died and risen with our Risen Lord. That’s where we need to see ourselves in forty days.

    They (whoever “they” are!) say that it takes 21 days to start a new habit. So in forty days, we should be able to really accomplish something important. So if we find ourselves right now looking for a better relationship with God, a better relationship with the people in our lives, or wanting to be happier, more positive people, then the traditional Lenten disciplines of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, if we really engage them, can make a huge difference in our spiritual lives, and in our lives in general.

    Maybe this year we will fast from spending so much time on social media, or on our phones or tablets in general, and really take an interest in the people in our lives. Maybe we will fast from the negative influences in our lives, whether that be news or media in general, or relationships with people that drag us down. Maybe we will fast from negativity, and choose to look at people differently, asking God to give us the grace to see them as he does.

    In almsgiving, maybe we will take the time to really give of ourselves. Yes, we can write the check to help any number of charities, but maybe we can also make a meal or even just a dessert for a lonely neighbor or relative. Maybe we will give alms by making time with our family a priority. Or maybe we will even volunteer to mentor someone in need, or to assist in faith formation here at church.

    For prayer, maybe this isn’t the only time we do daily Mass during these forty days of Lent. Perhaps even just a day or two a week before work or whatever the day’s agenda may be. Or, we could visit the adoration chapel for fifteen minutes once or twice a week. Or, maybe we try a new devotion like a daily Rosary or reading a few paragraphs of the Gospel of Luke every day.

    Forty days of some combination of that can really affect our relationship with God and our relationships with the people in our lives in an amazingly positive way. And doing this, we don’t blow the trumpet and say, “Hey, look at what good things I’m doing!” No, we do it unassumingly and note with joy the changes it makes in our demeanor.

    I hope this Lent is incredibly powerful for every one of us; that it makes our Easter Morning all the more joyous; and that it changes us in ways that will make our lives better for years to come.

    Where do you see yourself in forty days?

  • Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In this section of the Gospel, Jesus is taking the time to set things right about what it means to be rich and famous. Yesterday, we had the Gospel reading about the rich young man. As you might remember, Jesus looked at the young man and loved him, and then challenged him to give up his possessions and follow him. But the young man went away sad, for he had many possessions. To this, Peter replies in today’s Gospel, “We have given up everything and followed you.” I don’t know if this is boasting, or frustration, or some mix of the two. But Jesus responds to his assertion by telling him that now, in the present age, those who give up everything will receive so much more.

    Now, obviously Jesus was trying to put forth a prosperity gospel here – that was never his teaching. He wasn’t saying they’d be rich and famous in the present age. What he was saying is that they would be rich in what matters to God, rich in the Holy Spirit, rich in love and mercy. And it’s that last line that brings it all into focus: “many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.” By being the least, giving up everything, they will be first in the Kingdom of God, which was and is here among God’s people.

    So for all of us, rich young men or women, or overzealous disciples, or just plain folks who want to inherit eternal life, Jesus looks at us and loves us, and calls us to give up everything that’s in the way, so that we can be the last who will be first. What is it that we have to let go of today so that we can be first in the Kingdom of God?

  • Friday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees in the Gospel reading, and it’s important to understand that he was not giving them marriage counseling, because that’s not what they asked for. They seemed to be asking a question about divorce and whether or not it should be allowed, but what they were really trying to do was to get him to say something against Moses and thus prove himself to be a charlatan. But he doesn’t play their game, and instead reminded them of Moses’ own words regarding the permanence of the marriage bond. They wanted to use a loophole in Moses’ teaching to get him tripped up, but instead he trips them up by reminding them of what Moses really taught. The Christian disciple doesn’t need loopholes: she or he lives the Gospel with integrity.

    The wisdom writer of the Book of Sirach says something similar today about the faithful friend. The faithful friend is indeed a rich treasure who can be trusted in good times and bad. I remember my experience as a chaplain in the emergency room of a big hospital when I was in seminary. The staff were justifiably aloof from me at first. But when I helped them console a family in a very difficult situation, they realized I could be counted on and then we became friends. Sometimes friends prove themselves in adversity, and by living the Gospel with integrity.

    All of this leads us into Lent next week quite nicely, I think. We are called to turn up the fire on our discipleship, to live with integrity, and to be there for others in good times and in bad.

  • Tuesday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Arguing does nothing for our faith. Whether we are arguing about domestic or even trivial things with the people we should be loving, or arguing about something with a person on the internet we’ve never met, arguing is useless. Arguing closes us off to the truth and to the call to charity, so we should do everything we can to end it.

    There’s been a lot of arguing in the Gospels these last couple of days. Yesterday, the disciples were arguing with the scribes when both groups found they were incapable of casting a demon out of a person who was ill. Today, we have the disciples arguing among themselves because they find they don’t understand Jesus’ message.

    All of this arguing betrays a real lack of growth in faith among those disciples. They probably felt like, since they were in Jesus’ inner-circle, they should have the answers. And perhaps they should, but to their defense, they hadn’t received the Holy Spirit yet. In a real sense, they were still in formation, and they shouldn’t have been so afraid to ask Jesus for clarification.

    Jesus’ lesson to them then comes from him putting a little child in their midst. Receive a child like this in my name, he tells them, and you receive me. What’s the point of that? Well, receiving a child in Jesus’ name is an act of service, because a child can do nothing but receive at that point in their life. So serving others in Jesus’ name is what brings us to the Father.

    I think the take-away for us is that trying to be the smartest person in the room isn’t what shows that we are faithful people. Instead of arguing our point, we need to ask God to help us get the point. And we have to be ready to act on our faith, instead of arguing about it, laying down our lives in service to others.

  • The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The hard part about reading from our Lectionary is that, while it is very good, sometimes the little bits we get of the story aren’t really enough for us to understand, or at least to fully appreciate, what is going on. That’s the case, I think, with today’s first reading. So bear with me a bit to summarize the story so far.

    Saul has been king of Israel for some time, but, like a lot of the kings of Israel, God wasn’t pleased with him. In fact, God rejected Saul and sent Samuel out in search of Saul’s successor. Samuel comes to Jesse in Bethlehem, because God has told Samuel that the Lord’s anointed will be found among Jesse’s sons. Now you may know this part of the story. Jesse presents to Samuel his oldest son, who is handsome and rugged in appearance, a guy who really looks like he could lead a people. Saul is all set to anoint him king when God tells him to forget it; that isn’t the one he has chosen. God says that even though this son – Eliab – looks like a king to Samuel, it’s not Samuel’s judgment that really matters here. So Jesse presents his other sons, one by one, and Samuel finds that God hasn’t chosen any of them. Then Jesse remembers his youngest son, David, out tending the flocks. When he is brought in, the Lord instantly confirms the choice and Samuel anoints him as king.

    So that’s how David was chosen. But the problem is, Saul is still alive. And apparently he wasn’t copied in on the memo about David being the Lord’s anointed one – clearly he wasn’t too happy about it. So Saul, who is by now not just disfavored by God, but also a little insane, makes it his life’s work to hunt David down and kill him. In the chapters that follow there are a couple of nice interludes of hope, including some efforts to work together (mostly on David’s part), and a strong friendship between David and Saul’s son Jonathan. But that’s about it. For the most part, the remainder of that first book of Samuel is taken up by Saul trying to kill David.

    Which brings us to the story we have in today’s first reading. Saul gathers up three thousand men and goes on a David hunt. David is accompanied only by his friend and faithful companion Abishai. When they get to the desert of Ziph, Saul decides to make camp there, and thrusts his sword into the ground. Thrusting his sword into the ground is the king’s way of signifying where his tent would be pitched. After this is done, they all take a little siesta. This, then, is how David and Abishai find Saul and his men, and they walk right into the camp.

    We are told here that God has put Saul and his men into a “deep sleep.” The Hebrew here refers to the same kind of deep sleep that Adam was put in when God took out one of his ribs to create the woman. Saul and his men are positively anesthetized such that David and Abishai can walk among them and have a conversation. So here we are: David and Abishai are standing right over Saul, with Saul’s spear stuck in the ground next to him. Clearly the best military decision would be to allow Abishai to thrust the spear into Saul and put an end to all this foolishness. But – and this is the whole point of this story that I have prolonged for you – instead, David in his wisdom prevents Abishai from doing that, and they take away the king’s spear and water jug. Now, understand that taking the spear was an act that would greatly humiliate Saul, but at least he got to live. And not only that, David gave the spear back.

    David, who had been stalked and tormented and relentlessly pursued by Saul for a long time, could have put an end to it right then and there. But instead he chose to become an icon of God’s mercy. This is such a remarkable story that it fully turns the universe upside-down. The word “anointed” has the same root as “Christ.” Saul was the Lord’s anointed, but he blew it. Now David is the Lord’s anointed, and his actions are so beautiful that the point the way to the Anointed One, Jesus Christ.

    And today, Jesus speaks to all of us, we who also are anointed with the Holy Spirit in the image of Jesus Christ. We too are expected, just like David and Jesus, to be icons of the Lord’s mercy. We are expected to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us. If someone strikes us on one cheek, we are told to turn and offer the other. If someone takes our coat, we are to offer the underwear also. If someone borrows from us, we are not to expect a return. This is not “woke Jesus,” friends, this is the Gospel.

    Indeed, all of today’s Liturgy of the Word has to make us bristle a bit. After all, we have a right to be well-treated. We have a right to respect. We have a right to do business the way we want to do it. We have the right to punish those who treat us poorly. We have the right to strike back when violence is done to us. We are entitled people, for heaven’s sake, so what right does Jesus have to tell us to be merciful?

    Perhaps we entitled ones can take a little solace in today’s Gospel. After all, there it is – the Golden Rule: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And hey, that only seems fair. We can certainly all get on board with that. That seems to level the playing field and let us all still be entitled people. And yeah, Jesus says, that’s a good start. But disciples are expected to do more. For disciples, the playing field isn’t supposed to be level, it’s supposed to be turned completely upside-down.

    But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,
    and lend expecting nothing back;
    then your reward will be great
    and you will be children of the Most High…

    Why on earth should we do something this counter-intuitive? This completely unentitled? Well, Jesus tells us, because God himself is “kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” Who on earth is he talking about? Well, I would have to say that I am blessed, and often I take those blessings for granted or don’t even appreciate them. I guess that makes me ungrateful. And sometimes I turn away from the path that God has marked out for me. And that would make me wicked. But I certainly can’t deny that God has been kind to me. After all, he has called me to be a priest – the best thing I have ever done in my life. And then he sent me to this wonderful place, with people who have been welcoming and loving and challenging. And that’s just one area of my life where I’m blessed – there are lots more. So I got to thinking, maybe I’m not so entitled after all. Maybe – even in my ungratefulness and wickedness – just maybe I’m graced by the God who is mercy itself.

    Here’s a good way to pray with this during the coming week. In your reflection time, ask, “How have I been blessed?” Have I ignored my blessings and been ungrateful and wicked? Has God been kind to me anyway? Am I ready to let the universe be turned upside down and give up my entitlement in favor of being an icon of God’s mercy?

    What would it look like for all of us to love our enemies and do good to them, to lend and expect nothing back? … Well, I guess it would look something like that (indicate the Cross).

  • Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In today’s first reading, the people decide that they want to be able to get to heaven, so they decide to build a great big tower, I guess so they could go up the stairs in the tower and get to heaven. But see, that’s not how heaven works. We can’t get there on our own.

    Earlier this week in the first reading, Adam and Eve wanted to have the knowledge of God so that they could be like God. So they took the fruit of the forbidden tree that was given them by the serpent and they ate it. But see, that’s not how being like God works. We can’t do it on our own.

    So maybe you’re seeing a theme here. We have been reading in the first readings this week from the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. In that first book, there are stories that show how our early ancestors are trying to figure out how God works, how faith works, how the world works. And they are making mistakes – plenty of them! But the biggest mistake is always when they tried to do something important all by themselves. That’s always a mistake, because God never intended us to do everything all by ourselves; he always intended that we would work together and work with him to build better lives, and a better world.

    You know, that problem, like most problems we see in the Bible, didn’t go away all those many millennia ago. That’s why those problems are in the Bible – so that we can learn from them. Because we still try to do things all by ourselves today, and we still try to do things without working with God today. We want to think that we are smart enough to do things on our own; that we don’t need anybody’s help. But just like in the garden with Adam and Eve, and just like the people building the tower in today’s first reading, that never works. Sooner or later, whatever we are trying to do fails, and then we wonder what’s wrong with us. The answer is probably nothing, it’s just that we haven’t worked the way we are supposed to work. It’s just that we have decided we can do things without God. And we can’t.

    Jesus talks about the same kind of thing in today’s Gospel reading. He says to the crowd and his disciples: “What could one give in exchange for his life?” What he is saying is, yes, we have sinned, but no, we can’t change that all by ourselves. We need a Savior. And he is that Savior. And so if we really want to change things, change our lives, change our world, we have to let Jesus in and let him be our Savior. And, as our Savior, he gives us the instruction that we need to follow to change things. He says:

    Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
    take up his cross, and follow me.
    For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
    but whoever loses his life for my sake
    and that of the Gospel will save it.

    So we can’t eat the fruit of the forbidden tree and expect to become like God. We can’t build a tower and expect to get to heaven. We have to take up our Cross, just like Jesus did. We have to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters by giving them our time, our love, our kindness, even when it’s inconvenient for us, because that’s what will change our lives and help other people learn how much Jesus loves them. We have to stop trying to do things our way, all by ourselves, and do them God’s way, with him as our guide.

  • Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In the aftermath of the great flood, what’s left is what God wants us to know is important: life. Life is the way we participate in the essence of our Creator God. And that life is so important that absolutely nothing could completely blot it out – not even the waters of the flood. What humankind had done to bring on the flood was not enough for God to allow that deed to completely blot out all life from the face of the earth. Indeed, God preserved life in the Ark so that, even in its impure and imperfect state, it could be brought to perfection in these last days.

    These last days came about through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. What the flood could not wash away was cleansed completely by the blood of the Lamb. Unfortunately, Peter and the Apostles did not yet understand that. Jesus rebuked Peter not just because he was slow to get the message, but more because his kind of thinking was an obstacle to the mission. The mission is about life – eternal life – and nothing, absolutely nothing, must interfere with it.

    We are the recipients of the command to be fertile and multiply. This command is not just about procreation of life, but also about life in the Kingdom of God. It was always God’s plan that we would not only populate the earth, but populate heaven as well. That’s what we were created for, and that’s why God would sooner allow his Son to die on the cross than live without us. That’s what that rainbow sign of the covenant was about – whenever we see a rainbow, we should remember the love and mercy of God.