Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Preaching, Homiletics & Scripture

  • Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Pride is, perhaps, the most insidious of the sins with which we have to deal.  And I say “we” because yes, we all have to deal with it at some level at some point in our lives.  Pride keeps us from seeing that we’re headed down the wrong path.  Pride also keeps us from asking for help, or even from accepting help, when we’re in trouble.  Pride, as the saying goes, goes before the fall, and it can land us in some serious difficulty if we don’t work hard to eradicate it from our lives.

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus clearly wanted to make sure his disciples were not bogged down with pride.  Perhaps he was trying to keep them from following the behavior of the Pharisees, or maybe he even saw traces of pride at work in them as a group.  Whatever the case, he warns them clearly that pride has no place in the life of the disciple.

    Now, to be clear, he is not telling them that they can never pass judgment on anyone.  Judging is a part of law and order, without which no society can survive.  Also, he knows full well that rightly-disposed believers can and should stop others from heading down an erroneous or dangerous path.  What he is saying, though, is that the rod we use to measure the other is the same measure that will be used on us, so it would be well to make sure that our motives are pure in all cases.

    It’s a chilling prediction, I think.  I shudder to think of the measure I use on others being used to measure me.  But if I measure with love and charity and genuine concern, I know that I can accept that same measure on myself.  It’s a good thing that’s the kind of measure God wants to use on all of us.  And he will, if we lay down our pride.

  • Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate a feast that is a bit unusual for us.  First of all, it’s a saint’s feast day, and saints’ days don’t usually take precedence over a Sunday celebration.  Secondly, whenever we do celebrate a saint’s day, it is usually celebrated on the feast of their death, not their birth.  But today we do gather to celebrate the birth of a saint, Saint John the Baptist, and the fact that we’re celebrating his birth and his day at all on this Sunday points to the fact that St. John the Baptist had a very special role to play in the life of Christ.  In fact, the only other saint for whom we celebrate a birthday is the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that tells us something about how important John the Baptist is.

    Just as for Jesus, we don’t know the precise day John the Baptist was born.  So the feast of their Nativities – their births – was a tradition developed by the early Church. The dates the Church selected are significant.  Jesus’ birthday was placed around the time of the winter solstice, mostly to counteract pagan festivals of the coming of winter.  John the Baptist’s birthday was then placed around the time of the summer solstice for similar reasons.  But there’s more to it even than that.  In the Gospel of John, there is a passage where John the Baptist says of himself and Jesus, “I must decrease, he must increase.”  So John’s birthday is placed at the time when the days start to become shorter, and Jesus’ birthday is placed at the time when the days start to become longer.  John the Baptist must decrease, Jesus must increase.

    Today’s readings have a lot to do with who the prophet is.  St. John the Baptist was the last prophet of the old order, and his mission was to herald the coming of Jesus Christ who is himself the new order.  Tradition holds that prophets were created for their mission, that their purpose was laid out while they were yet to be born.  Isaiah, one of the great prophets of the old order, tells us of his commissioning in our first reading today.  He says, “The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.”  The rest of the reading tells us of his mission, a mission of hardship, but one of being compelled to speak the word of god as a sharp-edged sword.  His calling began as a call to preach to his own people, but by the end of the reading, it is clear that that commission became a call to preach to every nation on earth.

    Isaiah says that he was given his name while in his mother’s womb.  The same was true of St. John the Baptist, whose name was given to Zechariah and Elizabeth by the Angel Gabriel.  There’s a dubious story in my own family’s history that my mother had my name picked out from the time she was twelve.  But it’s pretty hard for me to believe that a young Italian woman would have picked the name Patrick Michael for her son.  But that’s how the story goes.  Names have meaning.  Maybe you know what your name means.  I looked mine up this week and found that Patrick means “nobleman,” so if you feel like bowing when you see me, it seems like that would be appropriate!  But far more significant are the names of the prophets we encounter in today’s Liturgy of the Word.  Isaiah means “Yahweh is salvation,” which pretty much encompassed the meaning of Isaiah’s mission, proclaiming salvation to the Israelites who were oppressed in exile.  The name given to the Baptist, John, means “God has shown favor.”  And that was in fact the message of his life.  He came to pave the way for Jesus Christ, who was the favor of God shown to the whole human race.

    The point is, these men were created for their prophetic calling.  That’s true for us too.  All of us who have been baptized have a prophetic calling that came before we were ever born.  God created us for something special.  He created us to be with him, he created us to follow him, he created us to draw other people to him.  This means that, according to our abilities, our vocation and station in life, we were meant to serve God in some way that God might be glorified and that others may come to know him.

    During these couple of weeks, we have been asked to observe a fortnight of religious freedom.  As our nation’s bishops point out, religious freedom is one of our first and most cherished freedoms.  It was largely in pursuit of religious freedom that our nation’s forefathers came to this great land, and in defense of that freedom that they fought and died.  But now, many issues have put that freedom in danger.  The so-called HHS mandate is kind of the banner issue on the religious freedom front.  The HHS mandate requires all employers to pay for birth control regardless of whether it is against their moral teachings, as it is for us.

    But this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Another sad assault on religious freedom has been the requirement of any adoption placement agency to place children for adoption with people in same-sex unions.  Since our religion forbids this practice, we have been unable to comply, and so we have been pushed out of the adoption process, something that has been an extension of our acts of charity since this country began.

    The essence of the issue is that freedom of religion is now being defined in a very narrow way, which amounts to freedom of worship.  One is free to worship in any way one chooses, but must obey the law in all other things.  Let’s bracket for the moment the obvious objection that such a narrow definition was never intended by our founding fathers.  More important is that, for us, worship is not something we can separate from our daily living.  When we are sent out to “go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life,” we are just beginning to worship.  What we do in our daily life is our real worship, not just the hour we’re here on Sunday.

    So our worship of God may indeed call us to speak against issues of the day, or to take in an adoptive or foster child to share God’s love, or any number of charitable acts, and our Church should have the freedom to pursue those according to our moral teachings.  That’s the essence of religious freedom, and that is what we are seeking to defend.  The prophetic call in all of us absolutely must speak up for what we believe as a Church and preach the Gospel by the way that we live our lives.

    We live in a society that is all about protecting and promoting ourselves.  Saint John the Baptist would have us promote Jesus instead.  That’s what he was about.  As it was for him, so it is for us: we must decrease, Jesus must increase.

  • Saint Barnabas, Apostle

    Saint Barnabas, Apostle

    Today’s readings

    “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

    Barnabas, a Jew of Cyprus, comes as close as anyone outside the Twelve to being a full-fledged apostle.  He was closely associated with St. Paul (he introduced Paul to Peter and the other apostles) and served as a kind of mediator between Paul, formerly a persecutor of Christians, and the still suspicious Jewish Christians.

    When a Christian community developed at Antioch, Barnabas was sent as the official representative of the Church of Jerusalem to incorporate them into the fold.  He and Paul taught in Antioch for a year, after which they took relief contributions to Jerusalem.

    We see in today’s first reading that Paul and Barnabas had become accepted in the community as charismatic leaders who led many to convert to Christianity.  The Holy Spirit set them apart for Apostolic work and blessed their efforts with great success.

    Above all, these men hungered and thirsted for righteousness, a righteousness not based on the law or any merely human precept, but instead on a right relationship with God.  This is a righteousness that could never be disputed and the relationship could never be broken.  Just as they led many people then to that kind of relationship with God, so they call us to follow that same kind of right relationship today.

    As we celebrate the Eucharist today, we might follow their call to righteousness by examining our lives in light of the Beatitudes.  How willing are we to enter into poverty of spirit, work for peace and justice and pursue righteousness?  Blessed are we who follow the example of St. Barnabas and blessed are we who benefit from his intercession.

  • Monday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it,
    dug a wine press, and built a tower.
    Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey.

    Today’s Gospel reading is one of those parables that we hear often, but I think we can be puzzled by it and so just put it aside, spiritually speaking.  One of the details that I often miss is this little introduction: the surprising part is the action and mayhem that takes place in the body of the parable, so this detail is hardly even noticed.

    But look what it gives us.  A man plants a vineyard.  The “man” of course is God, who has planted a vineyard for us to grow in and thrive and work.  We are the “tenant farmers” to whom he leases the vineyard.  With the vineyard, he puts a hedge around it, digs a wine press and builds a tower.  Everything we need for the work of the vineyard to be accomplished is given to us.  The question before us is how industrious will we be, what will we accomplish to give God glory?

    We could be those who ignore the messengers and not give God his due.  Or we could even go so far as to kill the heir, as the religious leaders of Jesus’ time certainly did.  But we disciples aren’t like that, instead, we need to tend to the hedge, press the grapes and bring the harvest to the tower for God’s glory.

  • The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    Today’s readings

    I don’t see many movies, but one that I saw recently and liked very much was “The Avengers.”  One of my favorite theological moments in this film is when the Black Widow character is describing Thor and his dark-side brother Loki to Captain America and she says, “They’re like gods.”  Captain America won’t have any of that and says, “There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that!”  Indeed, God doesn’t dress like Thor or Loki or any superhero, because of course, he dwarfs all of them.  But we disciples do know that God what God looks like because we have been privileged to see him time and time again.  I’ll come back to that in a minute.

    First, I want to stress that I don’t think any of us is going to leave this holy place understanding the Trinity in all God’s divine completeness today.  Or if we do, it’s certainly not going to be because of my inadequate words, but rather the doing of the Holy Spirit who is the One who helps us to enter into the mystery of God.  A story about Saint Augustine illustrates the mystery: The story goes that Saint Augustine was walking along the beach, trying to figure out the nature of the Holy Trinity.  As he walked along, he came across a little boy who had dug a hole in the sand right next to the shore.  With his little hands he was carrying water from the ocean and was dumping it in the little hole.  St. Augustine asked, “What are you doing, my child?”  The child replied, “I want to put all of the water of the ocean into this hole.”  So St. Augustine asked him, “But is it possible for all of the water of this great ocean to be contained in that little hole you’re digging ?” And the child asked him in return, “If the water of the ocean cannot be contained in this little hole, then how can the Infinite Trinitarian God be contained in your mind?”   With that the child disappeared.

    Now, having said that, I do still think we can know something about God.  Indeed coming to know God and to appreciate the mystery that is God is one of the great projects of our lives.  So many of the Saints have pondered the meaning of the Most Holy Trinity.  Saint Patrick attempted to describe the Trinity by using the shamrock as an icon.  The three leaves represented the three Divine Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each separate and distinct, but each part of each other on the same shamrock.

    Saint Augustine gets another mention today in his description of the Holy Trinity.  He speaks of the Father as the lover and the Son as the beloved and the love between them – a love so complete, so perfect that it can only be embodied in a Divine Person – as the Holy Spirit.  And this, I think, is where we get an icon of the Blessed Trinity.  We know very well this union of love when we look around at the relationships that we have that work.

    Strong families of a mother, a father and children mirror God’s love in their love and nurturing of one another.  A parish can be an icon of God’s love when we come together and reach out to others, healing the broken, feeding the hungry and proclaiming the Word.  Even a business can be an icon of this love when it treats its employees with respect and dignity, fosters family life, is socially responsible, and conducts its affairs with honesty and integrity.  When we look around and see real love in action, we get to have a little glimpse of God, I think.

    Some days God will look like the Father: a loving parent who corrects our faults, nurtures our growth, and tends to our woundedness.  Some days God will look like the Son: a brother who walks with us and is the path to our salvation.  Some days God will look like the Holy Spirit: reminding us that this body of ours is not as good as it gets, helping us to long for spiritual perfection, leading us to repentance and to seek reconciliation with God and others, and inspiring us to do the really good things that we’re not capable of all on our own.

    I think God comes to us as Trinity because one face of God is not sufficient to be God for us creatures who are constantly changing, and constantly struggling.  One day we need the Father, tomorrow we may need the Son and down the road the Holy Spirit.  The point is that we know what God looks like and whatever we need, God is there.  Always was, always will be.  That’s the real joy of this mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

    Because we have seen God, or as Captain America would say, we know how he dresses, we also know that the goal of all our lives is to return to him one day.  God created us for heaven, God accomplished our redemption to make it possible for us to go there, and God continually inspires us so that every day we would yearn for our heavenly inheritance more and more.  God gives us our families, our communities, and our parish because God himself is, in a way, a community.  And that being the case, God can only be truly experienced when we enter into community.  And so as Saint Benedict once wrote, may God bring us all together to life everlasting!

  • Memorial Day

    Memorial Day

    Today’s readings.

    One of the effects of a presidential election year for me, is taking a long hard look at who we hold up as our leaders or our heroes.  In some ways, a presidential election is an emergence of whoever is the least objectionable candidate, because in this day and age, it’s hard to get good people to run for office.  And who could blame them?  It’s so hard for candidates to deal with all that public scrutiny, the months of campaigning, the financial outlay.  It seems sometimes that those willing to go through all of that aren’t exactly the cream of the crop.  But apply that to any other field of interest.  What about our sports heroes, or entertainers?  How many of them turn out to be flawed in many ways?  The people we want to hold up as heroes are very often not very heroic.

    But today is a day to celebrate true heroes. Memorial Day originally began in our country as an occasion to remember and decorate the graves of the soldiers who died in the Civil War.  Later it became a holiday to commemorate all those who had died in war in the service of our country.  So today we remember those men and women who have given their lives for peace, justice, and righteousness.  These have been people who have given everything, have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.   Just as Jesus in our Gospel today encourages us all to give everything for the Gospel, these people are true heroes because of their ultimate sacrifice.

    On this day, I think it would be a mistake to glorify warfare.  I don’t think that is the best way to honor the memories of those who have fallen in war.  Our Church’s teachings counsel that war is not the way to peace and that developed societies like ours can and must use our resources to seek other ways to solve problems.  But we have to acknowledge that there are and have been times in our nation’s history that have called on people to fight for our freedoms and to fight for justice.  Today we honor their memory with immense gratitude, because without their sacrifice we probably wouldn’t be free to worship today.

    Our heroes should always include those who have given their lives for justice, righteousness, and the faith.  Today, we might call to mind the great martyrs of the Church, those who have shed their own blood that we might have the Gospel.  Perhaps they inspired those who have given their lives in service to our country.

    Today we pray for those who have been part of our lives, part of the life of our Church, and the life of our country.  These are the ones who have been people of faith and integrity and are true heroes that God has given us.  These are the ones who have laid down their lives for what is right.  If we would honor them on this Memorial Day, we should believe as they have believed, we should live as they have lived, and we should rejoice that their memory points us to our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is our hope of eternal life.

  • The Solemnity of Pentecost

    The Solemnity of Pentecost

    I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
    w    ho proceeds from the Father and the Son,
    who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
    who has spoken through the prophets.

    We say these words every Sunday, and unfortunately I think they can become a little rote.  And that’s too bad, because they are beautiful words, and they have been given to us at great cost.  We should pray them perhaps a bit more reflectively today, on this feast of the Holy Spirit.

    So these words are the part of the Creed that speaks of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, whose feast we celebrate today.  Today is the birthday of the Church, the moment when the Spirit descended upon those first Apostles and was passed on through them to every Christian ever since.  The Holy Spirit emboldened those first disciples and continues to pour gifts on all of us so that the Church can continue the creative and redemptive works of the Father and the Son until Christ comes in glory.  That is what we gather to celebrate today.

    At the Ascension of Christ into heaven, which we celebrated last Sunday, the apostles had been told to wait in the city until they were clothed with power from on high.  This is exactly what we celebrate today.  Christ returned to the Father in heaven, and they sent the Holy Spirit to be with the Church until the end of time.  That Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary so that God can continue to work in the world and be in the world while Christ was no longer physically present.

    I don’t know if we understand how radically the Holy Spirit changes things.  The Fathers of the Church wrote about it very plainly.  Saint Cyril of Alexandria writes: “It can be easily shown from examples both in the Old Testament and the New that the Spirit changes those in whom he comes to dwell; he so transforms them that they begin to live a completely new kind of life.  Saul was told by the prophet Samuel: The Spirit of the Lord will take possession of you, and you shall be changed into another man.  Saint Paul writes: As we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, that glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit, transforms us all into his own likeness, from one degree of glory to another.”

    And we do see the work of the Holy Spirit on those disciples of the early Church.  They were confused people.  They had no idea what to do now that Jesus had died and risen.  Think about it.  What if you were there?  What would you have made of all that?  Would you know what to do next any better than they would?  I don’t think I’d do very well!  But it was the Holy Spirit that changed them.  And thank God for that, or we wouldn’t have the Church to guide us today!

    The Spirit changed Peter from an impulsive, bumbling disciple to an Apostle of great strength.  He shared his own gift of the Holy Spirit with many others, baptizing them and confirming them in the faith.  He guided the Church from its rough beginnings to the birth of something great.  The other Apostles likewise went out, bringing the Gospel and the gift of the Holy Spirit to all corners of the then-known world.  Their witness eventually brought the Church to us, in our own day.  The Spirit changed Saul from a man who oversaw the imprisonment and murder of Christians into Paul, a man who was on fire for the faith.  His preaching and writing converted whole communities of Gentiles and helped them believe in the Gospel, and continues to inspire us in our own day.

    The Holy Spirit has continued to work in the hearts and minds of countless saints through the ages, making up for any personal inadequacies they may have had and giving them the strength to teach truth, write convincing testimonials, reach out to the poor and needy, bind up the broken and bring hurting souls to the Lord.

    That same Holy Spirit continues to work among us in our own day, if we are open, if we let him do what he wills.  The Holy Spirit is still making saints, guiding men and women to do things greater than they are capable of all on their own, for the honor and glory of God.  This is the Spirit who enables you to have words to speak to someone who is questioning the faith, or to a child who wants to know why the sky is blue, or to a friend who needs advice that you don’t know how to give.  The Spirit even speaks for us when we are trying to pray and don’t know quite what to say to God.

    The Spirit gives us the inspiration to do acts of mercy and love.  It is the Holy Spirit who encourages you to take on a ministry at church, or to coach a softball team, or to look in on a sick friend or neighbor, or give an elderly parishioner a ride to church.  It is the Spirit who inspires us to pray in new ways, to grow in devotion, to spend more time getting closer to the Lord.  All in all, it is the Holy Spirit who helps us to find the way to heaven, the goal of all of our lives.

    We should pray for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit every morning of our lives.  It’s amazing how much that changes me over time.  The prayer I learned at my Confirmation is as good a way to pray that as any, and maybe you know it too.  If you do, pray along with me:

    Come, Holy Spirit
    fill the hearts of your faithful
    enkindle in them the fire of your love.
    Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created,
    and you shall renew the face of the earth.

    Amen.

  • School Graduation

    School Graduation

    Readings:  Acts 4:32-35, Psalm 145, 1 John 3:18-24, John 15:1-8

    My dear graduates, you are gathered here for the last time as a class.  This has been your home away from home for the last nine or ten years, you have known each other and grown together, you have formed relationships that have seen you through good times and bad.  And so, as we come together for graduation this evening, I know that this is a bittersweet occasion for you, as it is for your teachers and all of us who have been privileged to be part of your life these past years.  You are certainly excited to graduate and move on with the rest of your life, but you are probably also sad to leave behind so many close friends as you go to different schools in the year ahead.

    But however we all feel about you moving on, move on you must.  That is what life is all about: growing and learning and becoming and going forward.  We all want that for you, and hopefully that is what you want for yourselves. And so, on this occasion, I have been trying to figure out what words I would want you to hear on this day.  As I have prayed about this homily over the last few weeks, the Spirit seems to be wanting me to talk to you about success.  Success is that pot of gold that we all want for ourselves, and many people have written about it.

    Dale Carnegie wrote, “The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.”  Woody Allen once said, “Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.”  Johann Sebastian Bach wrote, “I was made to work. If you are equally industrious, you will be equally successful.”  I could go on and on quoting all sorts of famous people who have given their opinion on how to be successful, but I thought I might stop there and instead reflect on what is the focus of this particular school, reflect on what Jesus teaches us about success.

    And what Jesus has to say about success might sound counter-intuitive.  During his life, people often heard him speak and thought he was crazy.  They may have laughed and written him off, or maybe they got angry and walked away.  Some even were so angry that they eventually had him arrested and put to death.  But we know, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, with eyes filled with grace and formed by the Church, that Jesus’ words are words to live by.  So let’s listen to some of the radical things he had to say about success.

    First, he said that one can be successful in the humblest of circumstances.  To be fair, he didn’t really say that out loud, he actually just said it by who he was.  When he came to earth, he could have done that in so many ways.  Because he is God, he could have come with great fanfare, with a mighty army and amazing signs like a solar eclipse and a great earthquake.  But he didn’t.  He came as a little baby, with no more than a quiet cry in the night, laying in a manger, born in the poorest of circumstances.  But he made those circumstances the beginning of salvation for the whole world.  So it’s not what you start with, instead it’s what you let God do in you that counts.  If you want to be successful, don’t be dragged down by the pains of yesterday, don’t be bitter about where life started for you; instead, reach out to tomorrow with all the grace God gives you.

    The second thing Jesus might tell us is that if you want to be successful, do some things you don’t have to do.  Before Jesus began his work, St. John the Baptist was baptizing people for the forgiveness of sins.  At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus came to John for baptism.  He didn’t have to, because he had no sin.  But he did it anyway, to identify with sinners – that’s you and me – and to make the waters of baptism holy by his being in them.  By doing something he didn’t have to do, he made real forgiveness possible for all of us.  By doing something you don’t have to, maybe you can make life better for others in some way too.

    Jesus might also tell us that to be successful, we need to repent.  A lot of people think they don’t need to repent, but the truth is, we all do.  All of us fall down in our devotion to and friendship with God at some point or another, and that can cause our lives to spin out of control.  Or, if we are real followers of Jesus, we can use the opportunity to turn back, ask forgiveness, and move forward.  God can use those occasions when we mess up to give us grace that moves us beyond our imaginings.  He did that for the disciples, and he wants to do it for us disciples too.  All we have to do is repent, turn back, open the door to mercy.

    Jesus would also tell us that being successful means laying down our lives.  He sure did it – up there on that cross.  We too will have to lay down our lives for what we believe in, and lay down our lives for others.  Because our belief in Jesus may come at odds with what others think, or what they are doing.  We will then have to decide to go along with others or lay down our lives for Jesus.  We will have to lay down our lives for others, too.  We may have to give up our own selfish interests so that the important people in our lives can know that we care for them.  Jesus told us quite clearly: there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  And he modeled it in the most radical way possible by giving his life for us.

    And finally, I think Jesus would tell us, as he does in the Gospel tonight, that we have to remain in him if we want to be truly successful.  Listen to what he says again: “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”  Nothing.  Nothing really good will happen apart from our life in Christ.  And so it’s important that you continue to do what you’ve learned here at Notre Dame: pray every day, go to Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation and even during the week when you can, receive the Holy Eucharist and go to Confession often.  Stay connected to Christ, remain in Christ, and you will be truly successful in life.

    Take a look at the Cross.  That’s what success looks like for us believers in Christ.  It looks like love beyond our wildest dreams.  It looks like giving everything, trusting all the while that God will give us what we need in return.  That’s how Jesus loves us, and that’s how we’re supposed to love one another too.  We are probably not going to get nailed to a cross, but we are definitely called upon to give of ourselves, to lay down our lives for each other.

    For all these years, you’ve been hearing how to be successful.  We’ve given you the tools as best we can.  If you remember these things and use them and grow in them, you will be successful, happy and blessed.  The goal of all our lives is to get to heaven one day, and for the time you’ve been in our Catholic school, we have done our best to give you what you need to get there, because getting to heaven is the ultimate badge of success.  Be reasonably happy in this life, but we want you to be eternally happy with Christ in heaven one day.  May God bless you in every moment of your lives.  And don’t ever forget where your spiritual home is: right here at Notre Dame.

  • Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter (School Mass)

    Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter (School Mass)

    Today’s readings

    Jesus’ words to Peter in this Gospel reading are a mixture of comfort, challenge, and warning.  We have to think back to what happened between Peter and Jesus just before Easter.  Peter had just messed up in the worst way possible by denying his friend not once but three times.  People asked if he knew the Lord, but he denied him every time.  Then came Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection.  Peter and Jesus hadn’t yet had a chance to talk about what happened.  So today’s Gospel is the first chance they’ve had for a heart to heart since the resurrection.

    Jesus asks him: “Peter, do you love me?”  And Peter says “of course.”  Then he asks him again, and a third time even.  He asks Peter three times not because he didn’t hear him, and not even because he didn’t know what Peter would say.  He asks him three times because Peter denied him three times.  So Jesus comforts Peter in this way, because with each asking, Jesus is healing Peter from the inside out.

    After Jesus heals Peter, he challenges him:  “Feed my sheep.” When we are forgiven or graced in any way, we, like Peter, are then challenged to do something about it.  Feed my sheep, follow me, give me your life, come to know my grace in a deeper way.  These are the ways Jesus calls us when we have been redeemed.

    Finally, Jesus has for Peter words of warning: “when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”  This foretold that Peter would give his life as a martyr for the faith.  He denied his Lord three times, but he would never do it again!  Martyrdom was certainly a scary idea, but when we give ourselves over to God, that necessarily means that we might have to go in a direction we might not otherwise choose.

    At the end of the reading, Jesus brings Peter back to comfort and healing once again by saying “Follow me.”  Yes, Peter had messed up, but Jesus knew that he was better than that.  We mess up too, don’t we?  But Jesus doesn’t write us off, either.  No matter what we disciples have done in our past, no matter how many times we have messed up or in what ways, there is always forgiveness if we give ourselves over to our Savior and our friend.

    So Jesus asks us all today: “Do you love me?”

  • Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    In these days after the Ascension, the Liturgy calls us to turn and find our hope and security in God.  Certainly this was difficult for the early disciples, who tested Jesus to see if he was who he said he was.  They were satisfied with what they found, and said they believed in him.  But Jesus here speaks an essential truth of the spiritual life: it’s easy to believe when things are going okay.  He prophecies that they will all be tested, and indeed they were, and were scattered, and had to come to belive in him all over again.

    The same will be true for us disciples in our own lives.  We can make an easy enough profession of faith when we are well and things are going smoothly.  But the minute some kind of challenge enters our lives, we have to decide if we are believers all over again.  It’s not easy to believe in the ascended Jesus – he is not immediately visible to our sight.  But, even though he is unseen, he is still very much with us.

    He may be in the heaven of our hopes, but he also walks among us.  We have to look for signs of his presence everywhere we go.  And we will find those signs in moments of joy, times of inspiration, words from others that uplift us.  Jesus didn’t disappear from our lives when he ascended into heaven; he promised to be with us until the end of time.  We are sustained by the hope that we will join him one day in the place he is preparing for us.

    The world may very well scatter us and give us trouble; Jesus said as much.  But we can take courage in the fact that Jesus has overcome the world and has not abandoned us.