Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Preaching, Homiletics & Scripture

  • Easter Saturday

    Easter Saturday

    Today’s readings

    We are confronted in today’s Gospel with something we all have to struggle with, and that is a reluctance to believe. In the disciples’ case, it was a slowness to believe based on the fact that they didn’t really have the resources that we do – like the scriptures and hundreds of years of Church teaching. But still, they did have Jesus’ words, which they apparently didn’t understand, which they in some ways really didn’t believe.

    We come to Mass today having been there, done that. Like I said, we have more resources: the scriptures and the Church, and so it often seems like we should know better. And I think in some ways we do believe, at least in our heads. But when it comes to believing with our heats, it’s another thing entirely. How easy is it to believe that God loves us and has a plan for us when we are confronted with a difficult situation? When a loved one is dying? When we’ve lost a job? When the economy has eaten up our retirement? When we’ve just learned that we are seriously ill?

    But like the disciples, Jesus comes to us today and tells us that our faith must be the bedrock of our lives: helping us to be joyful in the good times and providing a source of strength in our bad times. And just when we are all thinking about ourselves – about what we need, about what we’re going through – just when the disciples are trying to figure out what to do next – Jesus makes it clear: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” Get back on the horse, get back into life, live the faith and be a witness. That’s the life of the disciple, that’s the life of faith.

    And we can do all that today and every day because of what we celebrate on this Easter Day: Christ is risen, and sin and death have been destroyed. God does have a plan for us, he does love us, and he has done all he needs to do to prove it.

  • Easter Thursday

    Easter Thursday

    Today’s readings

    The time between Easter and Pentecost is often referred to as the period of Mystagogy. Mystagogy is a Greek word meaning “looking back on the mysteries.” It is a time of unpacking what we have just been through, and coming to see, with eyes enlightened by faith, the meaning of things we may never have noticed before.

    The disciples in today’s Gospel reading are beginning that period of Mystagogy. They have seen the risen Lord, and now things they wondered about are all starting to make sense to them. Remember, they didn’t have the Gospels to guide them like we do; they had to live through all of this and it’s so clear from the readings of Lent and especially Holy Week that they were confounded by what Jesus was doing and what was happening to him. They were horrified and disillusioned and grieved by his death. But now, seeing him risen from the grave, they are beginning to make sense of it all. As the Gospel says today, “he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” and they came to see how the Scriptures applied to Jesus.

    This is a special period for those we just received into the Church at the Easter Vigil. They will use this time of Mystagogy to grow in their new-found faith. It will be a time for them, too, to look back on the mysteries. They will reflect on their faith journey that began in childhood and eventually brought them here. They will reflect on the wonderful rites they have experienced, from the Rite of Acceptance into the Order of Catechumens, to their Election by the Bishop early in Lent, to the Scrutinies we witnessed with them, all the way to their Baptism, Confirmation and First Eucharist on Holy Saturday night. They will see God at work in their lives and make sense of things they may have been confused about before.

    But this Mystagogy isn’t just limited to the disciples and our Neophytes. We are all mystagogues. Mystagogy, I think, is a life-long process, and all of us, converts and cradle Catholics alike, spend the rest of our lives unpacking the mysteries, reflecting on our lives of faith, coming to see who Jesus is for us in whole new ways, appreciating more deeply the love and grace poured out on us every day. Every day is a new opportunity for Mystagogy, and an opportunity to exclaim with our Psalmist today, seeing the wonderful mysteries that have unfolded for us, “O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!”

  • Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord

    Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    “Do not be amazed!” – I just love that line in the Gospel. We have to get behind the sentiment of that statement today if we are to really understand what this day is all about. We believe in a God who is very surprising. All through the Bible, we can read stories of people trying to come to terms with God, and just when they thought they had him all figured out, he bursts in to their complacency and says, “No, that’s not it, you just don’t get me at all, do you?”

    That happens to us too, doesn’t it? God surprises us all the time. Most often, people note the bad surprises: the death of a loved one, an illness, loss of a job. But those things are not of God. God didn’t make those surprises; he allows them in this imperfect world, but they are not his will for us. What is his will for us is what surprises us: the grace to deal with a difficult situation with a strength we never knew we had, the help of a friend or loved one at just the right time, words spoken by a stranger or an acquaintance that help us to find the ability to journey on from where we are. And in our surprise, God says, “Do not be amazed!”

    To really get how surprising this day must have been for Jesus’ disciples, we have to have been involved in the story to this point. Jesus had been doing wonderful, amazing things: healing the sick, raising the dead, speaking words of challenge and hope. The Jewish leaders of the time became more and more uncomfortable with his message, seeing it as blasphemy and a rejection of everything good and holy. More and more, their anger raged up, and many times they attempted to arrest him. Finally, the movement against him rises to a fever pitch. Judas, who thought he would get rich off this wonder-worker Jesus grows disillusioned to the point that he is willing to hand Jesus over to them.

    Jesus’ hour had come: he was put through a farce of a trial, brutally beaten and contemptuously treated. Finally he is nailed to a cross and suffers hours of agony and abandonment by most of his disciples before he gives us his spirit at last. All seemed darker than dark. Jesus is placed in a tomb that was not his own by people who had just been acquaintances. His friends have fled in fear. His mother and some women wept at the end of it all. Things couldn’t have been worse or more hopeless.

    But then came the morning. Some of the women go to anoint his body for its burial, and just when they are wondering who is going to help them roll the stone away so they can get in to the tomb, they come upon the tomb, open and empty. They had to be utterly amazed – they probably didn’t even know what had actually happened. But as they stood there, mouths hanging open, thoughts reeling in their minds, the messenger appears: “Do not be amazed!” Jesus said he would rise, and rise he did, hammering home the point that hopelessness is no obstacle to God’s power, that fear is no match for grace, that death and darkness are nothing compared to God’s great love. Do not be amazed!

    Even that is not where the wonder of it all stopped. In their joy, the disciples eventually recollected themselves and were able to go out and tell people what had happened. Christ, crucified, overcame death to rise to new life. In the light of the resurrection, they came to understand what Jesus had always preached and also received the grace of the Spirit so that they could preach it to others. Their preaching shaped the Church, guiding it through the centuries to our own day. Today we gather not just to remember an amazing event that happened two thousand years ago, but rather to experience the joy of that resurrection with those women at the tomb, with the disciples who heard about it from them, with all the people from every time and place, on earth and in heaven, all of us who have had the Gospel preached to us. We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus as one. Do not be amazed!

    And the marvel continues: the death and resurrection of Christ has had an effect on this cold and dark and sinful world. Through that wonderful saving action, the finality of our death has been obliterated, the vicious cycle of our sins has been erased. We have been freed from it all through the power of grace, freely given if we will freely accept it, lavished out on all of us prodigal ones who return to God with sorrow for our sins and hope for forgiveness. We have truly been saved and made free. Do not be amazed!

    We have also been given the great gift of eternal life. In his death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has broken the chains of death and risen triumphant from the grave. Because of that, our own graves will never be our final resting place, pain and sorrow and death will be temporary, and we who believe and follow our risen Lord have hope of life that lasts forever. Just as Christ’s own time on the cross and in the grave was brief, so our own pain, death, and burial will be as nothing compared to the ages of new life we have yet to receive. We have hope in these days because Christ who is our hope has overcome the obstacles to our living. Do not be amazed!

    Back on the evening of Holy Thursday, when the Church gathered to commemorate the giving of the Eucharist, the entrance antiphon told us what was to come:

    We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    for he is our salvation, our life and our resurrection;
    through him we are saved and made free.

    And this morning, we gather to celebrate that that is truly what has happened. Through the cross and resurrection we are saved and made free to live the salvation, life and resurrection that God always intended for us to have. We should glory in the cross! Do not be amazed!

  • Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

    Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

    Today’s readings

    The scene at the cross is heart-wrenching. His chosen Twelve have deserted him, all but one. But some women who were among his devoted followers have braved the implications for them and have arrived with him at the foot of the cross. The Beloved Disciple – probably John – has come too. And, of course, his mother.

    His mother’s grief has to be palpable. Joseph is out of the picture now; we assume he has died. Jesus is all she has left in the world, her promised one. She continues to trust in God but the pain of these moments is almost too much to bear. And so Jesus speaks to her from the cross: “Woman, behold your son.” And to John, “Behold your mother.” Jesus knows that for those who were closest to him in life, they will have need of support after his death. Grief cannot be borne alone. That relationship, forged at the foot of the cross, became the basis for discipleship for both Mary and John that would be instrumental in leading the fledgling Church into the ages ahead.

    But even more than that, we see in Mary an icon of the Church. We grieve too, but we for our sins. As we look up at the cross, we see – with horrifying clarity – the effect of our sins. As Isaiah says, “he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins.” No one sentenced Jesus to die on that cross as much as we did, and do, in our daily sins of commission and omission, in our harsh words, in our unkind and impure thoughts, in our lack of loving and in the neglect of our mission. And yet, as John clearly points out in his Gospel, he went to the cross willingly, taking all that brokenness with him.

    Like Mary, we the Church wait at the foot of the cross, not abandoning our Jesus who did not abandon us to our sins. We, like Mary, receive at the cross our relationships, purified for our salvation, beholding our mothers and sons and daughters and fathers, because we never get to the resurrection alone.

  • Monday of Holy Week

    Monday of Holy Week

    Today’s readings

    Well, it’s time to get it right. The end is almost in sight, and to be confused now about who Jesus was and why he came is just not acceptable. No, he didn’t come for accolades or to lead huge revivals or stadium events. He came to suffer and die, and Mary has figured that out. Judas is disillusioned because he thought following the Messiah would mean fame and, most importantly, fortune for him. But he didn’t come for that. He came to be the covenant of light and salvation for all of us. His death would be required, but would not be the end of the story.

  • Tuesday of Holy Week

    Tuesday of Holy Week

    Today’s readings

    “And it was night.” In John’s Gospel, sentences like that are not given merely to tell the time of day. John’s Gospel is filled with images of light and darkness, light of course representing Christ and darkness representing evil. To say “And it was night” for John means that this was the hour that darkness would take its best shot at the light. And it will be very dark, leading to Jesus’ suffering and death. But in the end, no darkness can overcome the light of Christ. These are the days when we move somberly to the Cross, but in our moving toward it, we know that it is not the end of the story. It will not be night forever. The light will break into the darkness, leading us all to glorious day.

  • Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

    Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

    Today’s readings

    Today’s celebration reminds us that Lent has been taking us somewhere, and now we see where that somewhere is: Calvary. These days have led us to the cross, which is a place to which, quite frankly, few of us ever want to go. The Psalmist today captures the feeling of our hearts as we arrive here at the cross: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

    And haven’t we all asked that question at least once in our lives? As we sing those words, they can quite frankly bring back painful memories, whether they be memories of past hurts, or reflections of current ones. Maybe it’s the time when you were sexually abused and felt abandoned because you were convinced no one would believe you. Maybe it’s the time you received a frightening diagnosis and you felt abandoned because you couldn’t enter into daily life with the same carefree attitude you previously had. Maybe it’s the occasion of the death of a loved one and you felt abandoned because everyone on the planet seemed joyful, except you. Maybe it’s the time you were laid off from your job and you felt abandoned because it seemed that no one valued your skills and talents.

    And so we pray with the Psalmist, with Jesus, and with every person who has ever felt lost and alone: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” It’s natural that we would prefer to avoid the cross. It’s painful, it’s embarrassing, and it ultimately alienates us from the world. But, the cross is what joins us to Christ. Christ did not shun the cross on the way to accomplish his mission. He took up that cross, died on it, taking with it all of our pain, all of our shame, all of our loneliness, all of our abandonment, all of our sin, and most of all, our death.

    Without the cross, there is no resurrection. Not for Jesus, and so also, not for us. Jesus certainly had his moment in the Garden of Gethsemane when the knowledge of his impending death filled him with dread; so it will be for us, countless times when we are called on to take up the cross. But as we enter this Holy Week, we are reminded gently that the cross, while significant, is not the end of the story. There will be a resurrection for Jesus, and so also a resurrection for all those who believe in him, have faith in him, and follow him. And that is what gives us all the confidence to take up our cross and journey on.

    I invite you all to enter into these Holy Days with passion, with prayerfulness and in faith. Gather with us on Holy Thursday evening to celebrate the giving of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, and the call to service that comes from our baptism. On Good Friday afternoon and evening, we will have the opportunity once again to reflect on the Passion, to venerate the cross that won our salvation, and to receive the Eucharist, which is our strength. Finally, on the evening of Holy Saturday, we will gather to keep vigil for the resurrection we have been promised. We will hear stories of our salvation, we will celebrate our baptism as we welcome new members to our family, seeing them fully initiated into the life of the Church, rejoicing with them in the victory of Christ over sin and death. No Catholic should miss the celebrations of these Holy Days, for these days truly sustain our daily living and give us the grace to take up our little crosses day by day.

  • Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    The story is quickly coming to its climax. Jesus’ claims of divinity are really starting to rile the Jews. They have placed their hope in Abraham and the prophets – great men to be sure – but seem to have forgotten about the promise of a Messiah, and so they totally miss the Christ who is standing right in front of them. It’s a sad situation, sure. But it is also quickly becoming dangerous for Jesus. These are the ones who will stir up the trouble at his trial and get them to release Barabbas, putting Jesus on the cross instead.

    And I feel like it’s necessary to make a quick aside here. We have heard and will hear many references to “the Jews” in John’s Gospel. This wording was used for centuries to make legitimate anti-Semitic comments and policies, blaming them for killing the Lord. But this is John’s Gospel, and Jesus is in full control. He knows what is in their hearts. The Jews may indeed want to take his life, but Jesus instead willingly lays it down. Because that was his mission; that is his mission – to give himself completely for our salvation, and the salvation of the whole world.

    What we see in today’s Liturgy of the Word, ultimately, is that God made a promise to Abraham, and, in the person of Jesus Christ, kept that promise. Abraham was made a mighty nation, God’s promises have always been kept, and we have salvation in Christ. That’s our Good News today, and every day really. As we enter the somber days ahead, we have the joy of keeping the end of the story clearly in mind, that Resurrection that Abraham himself so longed to see.

  • Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    The third chapter of the book of Daniel is a wonderful piece of Scripture. In it, we see the faithfulness of the three young men: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The threat to them was very real: if they didn’t worship Nebuchadnezzar’s gods, they would be cast into the fiery furnace and would probably die. But, for them, another threat was much greater: they were more concerned about what would happen if they did worship Nebuchadnezzar’s gods. Namely, their entire religious heritage would probably die. And of course, we know the outcome. The God who was their salvation saved them from the white-hot furnace, and they escaped without even the smell of scorching on their clothing.

    But the Israelites soon enough forgot their salvation. Jesus today tussles with an unlikely group – Jews who believed in him. But it seems that their belief was a bit of a hedged bet. Jesus points out that they are still slaves to sin, and that this slavery is an obstacle to real salvation. They claim their salvation from Abraham; and they totally miss the point that Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham.

    We too must get our belief in Jesus out of our heads and into our hearts. We need to make sure that our bets are not hedged, that we have not put any obstacles in the way of our true salvation. This means asking ourselves, what is the leap of faith God is wanting us to take today? Where do we need to trust God more? Where do we need to believe not just with our words but also with our actions? God who is capable of saving three young men from a fiery furnace, who is capable of raising his son to new life; this God is capable of our own salvation too, and he is worthy of our trust.

  • Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Scriptures speak to us words of healing. But more than that, they speak of healing us from disease that we have inflicted on ourselves. The children of Israel needed this kind of healing. They had been bitterly complaining about their treatment in the desert, after God had gone to great lengths to rescue them from their captivity as slaves in Egypt. Think about that, would they really rather have remained in bitter slavery than have to put up with some inconveniences as they approached the freedom they had long been promised? But still, they complained, and so they are bitten by seraph serpents and many of them died. But they are healed when they look upon the brass serpent lifted up on the pole, made by Moses.

    This prefigures the way God intended to heal the human race through the lifting up of his Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. We too had been subjected to bitter slavery, and in some sense we continue to be subject to it. The slavery here is slavery to sin, to whatever it is that drags us down, keeps us from God, and makes us miserable, ungrateful, wretched souls. That’s what sin does to us. But we need not die in that miserable state. There is a remedy. We don’t have to look to a mere bronze serpent, because that’s a poor substitute for the remedy God has in mind. Instead, we can look up to Christ, lifted up on the cross for our salvation, and better still, lifted up from his death by the glory of the resurrection.

    There’s a lot of lifting up going on. God intends to raise us all up, as he did for Christ. That’s why he created us. He knows that we are still subject to slavery – not in Egypt, of course, but to sin, which is even worse. But thanks be to God, he has provided the remedy by giving his only Son for our salvation.