Sometimes we can be such arrogant little creatures. We presume that the blessings we have now are due to our own wonderful merit, and forget all about the grace of God. So how often have we been like the rich man, sumptuously dining on the good things God has given us as if they were the fruits of our own creation, and ignoring all the while the Lazaruses at our door? Jeremiah makes it clear how welcome that kind of behavior is in the kingdom of heaven: “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD.” Blessed instead, the Psalmist tells us, are those who hope in the Lord. We should celebrate our blessings for what they are: gifts of God, gifts to be shared with those in need. “For the LORD watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.”
Category: Homilies
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Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent
Our actions – even the righteous ones – have consequences. Jeremiah famously complains in our first reading today that his reward for speaking the truth was that every influential person in the land plotted to take his life just to shut him up. And the sons of Zebedee – James and John – find out that being a disciple does mean that they will have to drink the chalice that Christ will drink, but what they don’t know yet is that the chalice he’s talking about is a cup of suffering, which they will certainly share. As we take the Body and Blood of Christ today, we too might wonder what the chalice will bring for us, and how we will respond to it.
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Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent
Many people who have been away from the Sacrament of Penance for a long time have said that they were afraid to come back to the Church because they felt like their sins defined them. That they walked around with a scarlet letter on their persons. I think this is the experience that Isaiah is getting at when he says, “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.” Our sins do not define us, but our repentance does. And that repentance has to a commitment to justice for those marginalized: “redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.” Our penance and our righteousness has to be approached in humility, remembering that those who humble themselves will be exalted. Our repentance has its reward, as the Psalmist tells us: “To the upright I will show the saving power of God.”
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Second Sunday of Lent
You know, that last line of today’s Gospel reading always gets me thinking “well what did they think ‘rising from the dead’ meant?” Of course that’s easy for us to say, with the eyes of people who know how the story ends, but Peter, James and John didn’t have that vision quite yet. When you think about it, up to this point, they’ve been basking in the glory of Jesus’ fame. They too have been excited to see what Jesus will do next: what miracles he will work, what healings he will affect, what wonderful words he will speak. They have kind of been caught up in the excitement of the crowds who have been following Jesus, at times not understanding things any better than anybody else. Until now.
The Transfiguration is kind of a defining moment for Jesus and his closest disciples. They see Jesus and with him Elijah and Moses … symbols of the Law and the prophets. This gives them a little light, a glimpse of the real Jesus, an insight into who he was that they didn’t have before. And, honestly, it’s an unsettling glimpse. Things had just gotten started and were going well. They weren’t ready to talk about how it was going to end. Jesus had just started speaking to them about his passion and death, and they weren’t ready to hear it.
And now here they are, on the mountain, and they get to see how things were going to be after Jesus’ death and resurrection, only they weren’t ready to see that just yet. But just because they’re not ready doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen, sooner rather than later. The Gospel story is at a turning point now. God is revealing to Jesus’ closest followers the exact nature of Jesus’ mission in the world. He hasn’t come just to work miracles, say wonderful things, and make people feel good about themselves. He has come to turn the world upside down and make of it a place … well a place that it was always supposed to be in the first place.
And the way that would happen is by his passion and death … there is no getting around that. And as difficult as that may be for his closest friends to hear, they have to hear it and come to terms with it. This experience of the Transfiguration was supposed to give them hope that Jesus’ passion and death wasn’t the end, that God still had wonderful things in store for Jesus, for them, and for the world.
This is where that first reading comes in. Abraham and Sarah, as you might remember, were childless until God intervened in their lives at a very old age. Finally, they receive Isaac, a real gift from God, a sign that the promise that God made to Abraham – that he would be the father of many nations – would be fulfilled. And now, God asks him, – no, tells him – “Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you.” So now Abraham has to weigh his trust in God’s promises against the loss of his only beloved son. And we heard how the story ended, God did not allow Abraham to harm Isaac, but instead provided a lamb for the sacrifice himself.
What we miss in this reading is the conversation between Abraham and Isaac on the way. At one point, Isaac asks, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?” I can’t imagine how heartbroken Abraham was in that moment. His answer might have been misdirection, or maybe it was faith: “Son, God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.”
There’s a wonderful song by Michael Card which makes the symbolism very clear here today:
God will provide a Lamb
To be offered up in your place
A sacrifice so spotless and clean
To take all your sin awayAnd Abraham was absolutely right – God himself will provide the lamb for the sacrifice – the perfect lamb, Jesus Christ. He came to suffer and die for our sins, and that’s significance of today’s Gospel event. The world never looked so bright as it did on that Transfiguration day on top of the mountain. But that’s not the last glimpse of that kind of light. That light was just a tiny sample of the glory of the Resurrection. And the Resurrection was just a sample of the Glory of God’s heavenly kingdom, for which we all yearn with eager anticipation as we muddle through here on the other side.
This is a chance for us all to see in Christ what Peter, James and John did. It’s a chance to see what Abraham did up on that mountain. God did what he asked Abraham to do – he offered his only son. To take all your sin away.
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Friday of the First Week of Lent
It would be so much easier if we could define our own righteousness. If we could choose who to reach out to and who to ignore, life would be good, wouldn’t it? If we could hold grudges against some people and only have to forgive some people, we would easily consider ourselves justified. But the Christian life of discipleship doesn’t work that way. Instead, our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees or we have no part in the Kingdom of heaven. It’s that simple.
So when we bear grudges, we murder. When we label people and then write them off, we are liable to judgment. Because justice and righteousness in the Kingdom of God isn’t about looking squeaky clean, it’s about being clean inside and out, changing our attitudes, changing our hearts, renewing our lives.
If Lent purifies us in this way, we can truly pray with the Psalmist, “with the LORD is kindness and with him is plenteous redemption.”
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Forty Hours Devotion: Thursday Evening Vespers
Reading: Hebrews 12:18-24
The letter to the Hebrews draws our attention to two living pictures. First, there is the worship gathering of the old Law, at Mount Sinai, with Moses as the presider. There the people gathered in fear, because anyone who might see the Lord would certainly die. The worship was of a God of fire and judgment, and a covenant marked by strict observance of the Law. Sinners really had no place in this worship space, because their own rejection of the covenant marked them for destruction.
Second, there is the worship gathering of the New Covenant, at Mount Zion, the centerpiece of the New Jerusalem, with no one less than Jesus Christ as the presider. Here the people gather in joy, because the Lord embraces us to live. The worship here is of a God of mercy and compassion, and a covenant marked by “the sprinkled blood which speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.” Sinners are central to worship on this mountain, where Christ offers himself as salvation for the sins of the whole world.
This second mountain is where we gather today, entering with joy this holy ground, aware that with us are gathered “countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.” And it is Jesus that we have come to worship on this altar, in these holy forty hours, aware that we are the holy people of God, the people he came to save, the ones he longs for.
I borrowed a tradition from Anne Hillebrand of our pastoral staff when my father died. At family gatherings, we have a special candle that we light to remind ourselves that he is with us, certainly not in a physical way, but as we Catholics believe, among the Communion of Saints. Jacqueline Skelly and I had a conversation this morning that reminded me of this little tradition. We see here so many beautiful candles burning with love for God. They are symbols of the light of Christ, certainly, but also symbols of all those people that the author of the letter to the Hebrews speaks of: the countless angels, the assembly of the firstborn, the spirits of the just made perfect. All of the angels and saints and our faithful departed gather with us on this holy night to adore the Lord.
This is an opportunity to see the Church, as it were, in a whole new light. The offical Evening Prayer, or Vespers, of the Church always speaks of the Church in a special way, in the image of Mary. We have more Marian prayers in Vespers, and we sing Mary’s song, the Magnificat. But she stands in the place of the Church, being the image of the faith the Church has in Christ. And so, tonight, we have the worship of the Church gathered in the Assembly of the Lord. We’ve come to celebrate the New Covenant that Jesus ratified in his own blood. We celebrate the nourishment we have in Christ’s own body, we celebrate his complete presence, soul and divinity, incarnate among us in our praying.
But it’s also important for us to remember that the presence of Christ, and the Communion of Saints, do not leave us when we leave this holy place. As we recognize Christ our Lord in the Eucharist this evening, so we should always recognize him in our brothers and sisters, the poor and the outcast, the sinners among us, the ones who frustrate us, those who are fallen, prisoners, the elderly and the terminally ill, the unborn, and all the people God has created and called his own. Christ is present with us in a special way during these forty hours, but he is also present to us in important ways every hour of our living. As we have come to adore the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament tonight, let us resolve to adore the Lord in all the people God puts in our path from this moment forward.
As we gather here before our Eucharistic Lord, the love that God has for us is palpable, but so is the love that God has for everyone. It is important for us to be welcoming witnesses of every person, so that they can see Christ in us, but also so that we can see Christ in them.
And so we pray with joy this night, gathered in the presence of all God’s holy ones, asking that the Church Triumphant would be made manifest in all its glory, here and now, and in every age to come.
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Thursday of the First Week of Lent
Have you noticed that the readings for these early days of Lent have been teaching us how to accomplish the various disciplines of Lent, which really are the various disciplines of the spiritual life? Today’s discipline then, I think, would be persistence in prayer. In the first reading, we have Queen Esther, who is really between a rock and a hard place. The king does not know she is Hebrew, and worse than that, if she goes to the king without being summoned, she could well lose her life. But, Mordecai, the man who was her guardian and raised her as his own daughter, revealed to her that the king’s advisor had planned genocide against the Jews, and she was the only person in a position to beg the king to change his mind. So today, she prays that her life, as well as those of her people would be spared. Esther prayed for three days and nights that her prayer would be answered, and her persistence was rewarded. She received the reward that Jesus promised when he said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Then again, how many of us have prayed persistently to God that he would answer our prayer and have yet to be answered? I think most of us at some point or another have experience the exasperation of prayer unanswered, or at least seemingly so. We can be so frustrated when a loved one is ill or unemployed, or whatever, and God seemingly does not hear.
But the discipline of prayerful persistence is not like wishing on a star or anything like that. There’s no magic to our words. We may or may not be rewarded with the exact gift we pray for. But we will always be rewarded with the loving presence of our God in our lives. In fact, maybe God’s answer to our prayer is “no” – for whatever reason – but even in that “no” we have the grace of a relationship that has been strengthened by our prayerful persistence.
The Psalmist prays, “Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.” This Lent, may the discipline of persistence in prayer lead us to a renewed and enlivened sense of the Lord’s will in our lives.
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Forty Hours Devotion: Opening Mass of the Holy Eucharist
Readings: Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6:1-15
My Aunt Mia was an outstanding cook. And like all the outstanding cooks on my mom’s side of the family, she took pride in making people feel welcome and providing an incredible meal, a meal bigger than twice the number of people invited could ever manage to digest in one sitting. There was a time we were at her house for a meal, and I was pretty young at the time so I barely remember this, although the story is told often in our family, that the leftovers on the table amounted to just one piece of meatloaf. My uncle offered to split it with my father, not wanting to waste any food. Dad agreed. Aunt Mia, however, was mortified that she had “run out” of food for her guests and was instantly on her feet and in the fridge looking for what else she could fix. Nobody needed more food, they just enjoyed the meal and didn’t want to waste the small amount of leftovers that were there. Well, let me tell you, that was the last time anyone in the family got that close to running out of food!
This kind of reminds me of the meal we have in this evening’s Gospel reading. This was obviously an important event in the life of the early Church, because we have this story in all four Gospel accounts in one form or another. The version we have tonight serves as the “Institution narrative” for John’s Gospel. The Institution narratives in the Gospels tell about the institution of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. For Matthew, Mark and Luke, the Institution narrative is the Last Supper. For John, it’s the feeding of the multitudes. A deliberate, and interesting choice on John’s part.
Jesus is headed to Jerusalem – the site of his upcoming passion and death – and he notices that a large crowd is following him. He takes the opportunity here to do a “teacher thing” with his disciples. He asks where they can buy food enough to feed all these people. Philip states the obvious: “not even two hundred days wages would buy enough for each of them to have a little.” Andrew does what he can, finding a boy with five barley loaves and two fish, saying, “but what good are these for so many?” It might as well have been just one piece of meatloaf!
Well, we know the rest of the story: not only is there enough for the five thousand men and presumably their families, but also enough to fill twelve baskets with leftovers. That’s more than even my dad and my uncle could manage to polish off! Now many will tell you that this story is one of holy sharing, that people who had come with sandwiches for the journey saw what was going on and shared what they had, and by spreading it around they all had enough and then some. I flatly reject that theory, because if we accept that explanation that means that it was about us – or at least about the people in the story – and not about Jesus’ power to fill us with what we need. Whenever you see someone explaining Gospel miracles in a way that gives human beings the credit, you may assume that it’s wrong, because, brothers and sisters in Christ, the Gospels are not about us!
All the action that is important in the story is the action the evangelist describes: “Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining…” This was, in John’s Gospel, the first Holy Communion. Jesus took what was offered, just as we offer gifts at every Mass. He says the blessing, much as the priest says the Eucharistic Prayer, and then the food was distributed, just as we all approach the Table of the Lord for Communion. And, as in most things in life, the results are important. It was enough, and not only that: it was more than enough!
John’s Gospel is filled with all these images of superabundance. Jesus is the light that darkness cannot overcome. The crocks of water at the wedding banquet were filled to the brim and became the best wine ever. And now five loaves and a couple of fish feed more than five thousand people and provide twelve baskets full of leftovers. The message is clear: Jesus is enough, and more than enough, to fill us with what we need. The issue for us, is as it was for the disciples – trust. Do we trust that Jesus can provide for our needs? Do we trust that he even wants to do so? Do we trust that just five loaves and a couple of fish can provide such superabundant grace and mercy?
We know in our heads that it’s enough. But to really trust, it has to spread to our hearts too. That, I think, is the journey of Lent for us in some ways. We have to take the time with Jesus so that we can come to know of his superabundant mercy for us. And so, we’re gathered here to do just that. At the beginning of Lent, this is an opportunity for some quiet time with our Lord. This doesn’t need to be a time when we “do” a lot or say a lot of words in prayer, but a time for quiet and reflection, knowing that our God longs to reach out to us and touch our hearts. This is the time in prayer when we can let God do the talking, speaking to us in the stillness of our hearts. It’s a time when, as one of my seminary professors put it, we can look at God and let him look at us.
This is a time, above all, when we can come to know our Lord in ways we may not have before. A time when we can accept the superabundant graces that he wants to give us. A time when we can come to know that he is enough, and more than enough, to make us whole, to heal our brokenness, to forgive our sins, to strengthen our works of faith, hope and love, to answer our prayers in ways we don’t expect or could never imagine, to feed us beyond our deepest hungers. “Give us this day our daily bread,” we pray. In these wonderful forty hours, we can come to know that the daily bread God provides is better than we could ever imagine, a bread that will never let us be hungry again.
What are the superabundant graces that God has in store for you in these forty hours? What is in store for our parish in these forty hours? I don’t know, but won’t it be exciting to find out?
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Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
Ancient sources say that we are to pray the Lord’s prayer at least seven times daily. Why? Because the Lord’s prayer in all its wonderful simplicity reminds us that we can turn to our heavenly Father who knows our needs and cares for our welfare. It reminds us that the best opportunities we have to live the Gospel come when we turn to God who is bigger than our sins, more than generous enough to cover our deepest needs and longings, more than holy enough to sanctify our poorer efforts at discipleship and charity. It reminds us that God is God and we are not.
To those of us who are concerned with our own prestige and dwell on our own ego, the Lord’s prayer says “hallowed be God’s name.” When we would like all of our problems solved on our own terms and everyone to do things our own way, the Lord’s prayer says, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…” For those times when we over-consume the goods of the earth, or want more than we can afford, or covet things we don’t need, the Lord’s prayer says, “give us this day our daily bread” – because that’s all we need. For us sinners who prefer to hold grudges against others, the Lord’s prayer says, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” And when we stray into all sorts of temptations and give in to all the wrong things, the Lord’s prayer says “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
The Lord’s prayer is powerful in all its simplicity. Whether we say it seven times a day or even just once, we need to say it with full thought of what we are asking of our God. And God will hear and answer that holy prayer. For his is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Monday of the First Week of Lent
Today’s readings are a celebration of God’s law. The Psalmist says that the Words of the Lord are spirit and life – these are the words that sustain us, make our society possible, and in the process bring joy to the heart. There are three characteristics of God’s law that really shine in these readings.
First, God’s law is the epitome of fairness. The first reading decries stealing from a neighbor, bearing false witness, making life more difficult for the disabled, bearing hatred, or rendering justice that is either unfairly biased toward the weak or against the strong. What’s right is right, and the chosen ones of the Lord are called upon to be an example of fairness which glorifies the Lord.
Second, God’s law brings peace. The frustrations we have, the disagreements that erupt, the wars that break out, all of these have their roots in going it on our own, inventing our own justice, and turning away from the Law of God. The precepts of the Lord are just, the Psalmist tells us, but not only that, they also gladden the heart. God’s laws are reasonable and following them can be the joy of our hearts.
And finally, we’re not supposed to get caught up in the minutiae of the Law without actually living it. It’s one thing to sing the praises of God’s law, but quite another to live them in our daily lives. We will be judged on how we have treated others, not on how many facts we know about God’s law.
“Your words, Lord, are spirit and life,” says the Psalmist. Living according to God’s teachings can bring us peace and eternal life.
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