Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Preaching, Homiletics & Scripture

  • Thursday of the First Week of Advent

    Thursday of the First Week of Advent

    Today’s readings

    There’s an old saying that if you want to hear God laugh, just tell him your plans for the day.  And we know how true that is, don’t we?  How many times have we had a plan for the day, only to have it derailed by whatever circumstances come our way during the day.  But I think the real problem with our plans sometimes is that we don’t always factor God’s will into our plans.  We want God to come to our rescue when things go awry, as they always do when we depend only on ourselves.  But if things are going well, we sometimes feel like we can do without God’s direction, thanks anyway.

    This is the meaning of the song they’re singing about Judah in today’s first reading from Isaiah.  The people who are in lofty high places don’t think they need God, or don’t even give God a second, or even a first, thought.  And won’t they be surprised when God allows them to be caught up in their own folly and go tumbling to the ground?

    This Advent time is a time for us to examine our lives and see if we might have thought ourselves to be lofty recently.  How much do we depend on God?  Do we rely on his help day after day?  Do we consider his will in our daily plans?  Are we open to the movement of his Spirit?  If not, we might find ourselves tumbling and falling.  But if we choose to be aware of God and our need for him, nothing will ever make us stumble.  As the Psalmist sings today:

    It is better to take refuge in the LORD
    than to trust in man.
    It is better to take refuge in the LORD
    than to trust in princes.

    And so we forge onward in Advent, aware of the coming of Christ, building our houses on his rock-solid foundation.

  • Saint Andrew, Apostle

    Saint Andrew, Apostle

    Today’s readings

    As is the case for most of the apostles, we don’t know a whole lot about Saint Andrew.  And I think that’s appropriate, because what we need to know about the apostles is that they were followers of Jesus, and were devoted to him.  We too are called to that same great devotion.

    There are two presentations of Andrew’s discipleship in Scripture.  In the Gospel story we have today, Andrew is called at the same time as his brother Peter.  They are both fishermen, and are casting their nets into the sea.  Jesus, of course, has plans for them to cast nets for bigger fish, for souls for the kingdom, and so he calls them.  They immediately drop their nets and leave their father and turn to follow Jesus.

    I always wonder what would make them do something like that.  After just one call, they drop everything they have ever known, turn away from their family, and go off to pursue the admittedly greater call to follow Christ.  But why?  Yes, we know who Jesus is, but did they?  Maybe they had heard him preach, or had heard about him in some way, but I often think of my own call, which took years, and am amazed by their seemingly instantaneous decision to drop everything and follow Jesus.

    The second presentation of Andrew’s story comes in the Gospel of John.  In John’s Gospel, Andrew is a disciple of Saint John the Baptist.  One day, Jesus is passing by and John says, “Behold the Lamb of God.”  Andrew and another one of the disciples follow Jesus and he asks them what they want.  Andrew says, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  To which Jesus replies, “Come and see.”  So they do, and then it is Andrew who goes to get Peter and present him to Jesus.

    Either way, the call is a great one, and the response of Andrew is one of wonder and openness.  We are called often in our lives to follow Jesus in some new way.  May Saint Andrew be our patron in those calls, and may his example lead us to drop what we are doing and follow our Lord.

  • The First Sunday of Advent

    The First Sunday of Advent

    Today’s readings

    Happy New Year!

    I know, as I say that, that we are still more than a month away from the end of the year.  But I also know that you know that I’m speaking of the new year of the Church.  Our Church Year begins anew on the First Sunday of Advent, that season that prepares us for Christmas, the coming of our Lord as one of us.  This time of year, we remember on the new year that God renewed the covenant with us, his people, his creation, and that in this new covenant, he is creating the world anew.

    And that might just be alright with us, I think.  For many people, a year gone past can have brought more than enough of the “anxieties of daily life” that our Lord speaks of in today’s Gospel.  Maybe, for many of us, we’re more than happy to usher the current year of grace out the door, and look for more grace in the year to come.

    I think it’s pretty easy to see why this is so needed.  I like to watch the news in the morning, but lately it doesn’t take too long before I have to turn it off.  The bad news can be oppressive sometimes.  And we could even look to our own lives.  As we come to the end of the year, maybe this was a year filled with blessing or maybe it’s one we won’t miss. Most likely, it was a little bit of both. Perhaps this last year might have seen the death of a loved one, the ending of a relationship, or some other significant event.  As we end another year, some of us might be doing that with some regret, looking back on patterns of sin or the plague of addiction.  And so, for many of us, maybe even most of us, it doesn’t take too much imagination to know that there is a lot of room for renewed hope in our lives.

    But it’s hard to wait for the fulfillment of that hope, isn’t it? If we can’t wait for Thanksgiving to be over before we go Christmas shopping, it’s going to be hard to wait to see what God is doing in our lives. There’s a scene in the movie “Christmas Vacation” that I thought of when I was getting this homily ready. Clark Griswold is in his boss’s office, bringing him a Christmas gift. There’s an awkward silence and then the boss tells Clark that he’s very busy. He picks up the phone and says, presumably to his secretary, “Get me somebody. Anybody.  And get me somebody while I’m waiting!” None of us likes to wait.

    So we have to find the grace in the waiting. Maybe that’s why I love Advent so much.  I’m so generally impatient, that Advent has me slow down and re-create that space so that it can be filled with our Lord’s most merciful presence. So what do we do while we are waiting?  How do we live among the chaos?  How do we keep going when every fiber of our being wants to pack it in and hope for it all to be over real soon?  Today’s Gospel warns us that people will die in fright when they see what is going to happen, but it cannot be so for people of faith.  Even in the midst of life’s darkest moments, even when it seems like we can’t withstand one more bout of hopeless worry, we are still called to be a hopeful people.  “Stand erect,” Jesus tells us, “and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”  God is unfolding his promise among us and even though we still must suffer the sadness that life can sometimes bring us, we have hope for something greater from the one whose promises never go unfulfilled.

    Then what does a hopeful people do while we are waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promises?  How is it that we anticipate and look for the coming of our Savior in glory?  Our consumerist society would have us cast aside our Thanksgiving dinners to get an early jump on Black Friday, and battle it out with a few thousand of our closest friends for the latest gadget or bauble or toy.  And to that kind of thinking, Jesus says, “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life.”  Getting caught up in the things of this world does us no good.  It does not bring us closer to salvation or to our God, and all it does is increase our anxiety.  Who needs that?

    Instead, we people of faith are called to wait by being “vigilant at all times.”  We are called to forgive those who have wronged us, to reach out to the poor and the vulnerable, to advocate for just laws, laws that protect religious freedom and the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, to challenge world powers to pursue true justice and real peace, to give of ourselves so that those in need might have Christmas too, and even to love those who drive us nuts sometimes.  When we do that, we might just be surprised how often we see Jesus among us in our lives, in our families and schools and workplaces and communities.  It might just seem like Jesus isn’t that far from returning after all, that God’s promises are absolutely unfolding before our eyes.

    We are a people who like instant gratification and hate to wait for something good to come along.  Maybe that’s why the Christmas shopping season starts about two weeks before Halloween.  But if we would wait with faith and vigilance, if we would truly pursue the reign of God instead of just assuming it will be served up to us on a silver platter, if we spend our time encouraging others with the hope we have in Jesus, we might not be so weary of waiting after all.  That’s the call God gives us people of faith on this New Year’s day.

  • Saturday of the Thirty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Thirty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Our readings have been reminding us that the night is far spent and the day is drawing near.  We are called upon today to remain vigilant so that we do not miss the second coming of the Lord.  And it is well that we receive that warning today, on the cusp as we are of the new Church year.  This is the last day of the Church year and tomorrow, well even tonight, we will begin the year of grace 2022 with the season of Advent.  The day draws ever nearer for us.

    That day, our first reading tells us, will be a complete reversal of the power structure the world has known.  On that day, the power of the evil one, who has destroyed the kingdoms of the world, will be taken away by “final and absolute destruction.”  What is left, what will emerge, is an everlasting Kingdom of the people of the Most High.  Christ our King, who we celebrated last Sunday, will then present to his Father, “an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.”  (From the Preface of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe)

    That day might seem far off, but we cannot ignore the proclamation of Jesus from the beginning of his ministry that the Kingdom is here, among us.  So we need to be building that Kingdom through our acts of worship, repentance, and charity.  We cannot, as he warns in the Gospel today, have that day catch us by surprise like a trap.  No, we must be the vigilant ones, praying for strength to survive the tribulation we face every day in an anti-religious society and living the Gospel with integrity every moment of every day.

    Tomorrow is the New Year of the Church, so today might be a good time to make some New Church-Year’s resolutions.  How will we live differently in the coming year that the Kingdom might grow in our midst?

  • Saint Cecilia, Virgin Martyr

    Saint Cecilia, Virgin Martyr

    Today’s readings

    For those of you who are musicians, whether you play an instrument or sing, this is your feast day.  Today we celebrate Saint Cecilia, a virgin and martyr  of the early church who is the patron saint of musicians. 

    Saint Cecilia was a force for good among those who knew her.  She worked hard to convert as many as she could to the faith, and before her death, is said to have converted at least four hundred people.  She was born to a rich family, and promised in marriage to a youth named Valerian.  She prayed, fasted, and wore sackcloth, beseeching the saints and angels to guard her virginity.

    During her wedding ceremony, she was said to have sung in her heart to God, which is why she is the patroness of musicians.  Before the consummation of the marriage, she informed Valerian of her vow of virginity and that she had an angel protecting her.  He wanted to see the angel as proof.  She said he would see the angel after he was baptized, which he was by Pope Urbanus.  Returning, he found the angel at her side.  Valerian’s brother Tibertius heard of the angel and his brother’s baptism, and he asked to be baptized too. 

    After their baptisms, Cecila went about preaching and calling people to baptism, and Valerian and Tibertius would each day bury the saints who were murdered by the prefect of the city.  Eventually Valerian and Tibertius were arrested and executed by the prefect after they refused to make sacrifice to pagan gods.  Eventually Cecilia was arrested and condemned, although it took three attempts to put her to death.

    In today’s Gospel, the widow gives everything she has in worship of God.  Saint Cecilia, her husband, and brother-in-law also gave everything in worship of God.  Today we literally sing their praises, and ask for the intercession of Saint Cecilia that we might be willing to give everything we have to God who has given everything to us.

    Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

  • Friday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    We have been hearing this week in our first reading from the books of the Maccabees.  All week long, the message we were getting was that this life is not all there is. Maybe eating a little pork, or tossing a few grains of incense on a coal in worship of an alien god would save one’s life for now, but upright Jews like Eleazar, and the Maccabee brothers insisted that that kind of life was not a life worth living. The something more to life is our relationship with God, and living without God is not really living at all. Living without God divorces us from who we are and forces us to live like the walking dead.

    Today’s reflection leads us to the conclusion that our identity as children of God is something worth fighting for, or even dying for. We give thanks with Judas and his brothers that God has called us to be his children, that he will not abandon us, and that he gives us the grace not to abandon him and abandon who we are. God is faithful and sovereign and if we persevere, we can rededicate the Temple of our lives to the God who made us and gave us life.

  • Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Well, the story we started to hear in yesterday’s first reading about Israel has festered a bit.  You may remember yesterday that king Antiochus Epiphanes began to lead the people to follow the ways of the Gentiles: covering over their circumcision, attending schools in the Gentile way of life, abandoning the holy laws.  In today’s reading, it’s getting real.  Eleazar the scribe, in his nineties, is being forced to eat pork in violation of the law.  When he refuses to do so, some of those who know and respect him urge him to pretend to eat it so as to escape punishment.

    But Eleazar is a man of wisdom, and he knows that if he pretends to violate the law to save his life, he will be leading others astray.  Those of lesser years than he would be led to scandal and sin because of him.  He may save his life, but theirs would be forever ruined on his account.  Not to mention, he would lose his life with God.

    What we are hearing in the book of Maccabees these days is that there is something more important than our own lives.  Life is sacred and a wonderful gift, but it is completely meaningless if we live it at the cost of our spiritual lives.  And when it comes right down to it, is that really living at all?

    Martyrs throughout the ages have given witness to the fact that there is something more, that this life is not all we have.  For Eleazar it was the law.  For Christian martyrs it is Jesus Christ.  But it is always, always about God who made us for himself, who created us to be reasonably happy in this life, but supremely happy with him forever in the next.

  • The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Why are we still here?????

    Have you ever thought about that?  Why is it that Jesus has been so long in returning?  Why hasn’t he come back to put all things to their proper conclusion?  Why do we still have wars being fought all over the earth?  Why is there still crime in our cities?  Why is there still terror, and death, and sadness, and pain?  Why do our loved ones still suffer illness?  Why do relationships still break down and why do people still hurt one another?  Why can’t God just wrap things up and put an end to all this nonsense?  Why can’t we all go home to be with our Lord and our loved ones?

    If you relate to those questions, then you probably can relate to the readings that we have from the prophet Daniel and from Mark’s Gospel today.  These are what we call “apocalyptic writings” which are usually written to give people hope in the midst of very hard times.  So you can see why they would be so important to us today.  Because we have hard times of our own, don’t we?  I would venture to guess that everyone sitting here is either affected in some way by the pandemic and the resulting economic downturn, or else they know someone who is.  Judging from the number of funerals we have had here lately, I would say that a lot of you have lost loved ones recently, or know about someone who has.  And that’s to say nothing of the day-to-day stuff like relationships ending, family difficulties, and the darkness of our own sin.

    When these things confront us, who among us wouldn’t call to mind the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel?  “The sun will be darkened,” he says, “and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”  It often seems like our whole world is falling apart, and we are desperately looking for some sign of hope.

    They are hard readings today, really kind of dark in nature.  They remind me of the darkness of the days that we have at the end of the year.  The sun sets a lot earlier than it did, and the skies are often cloudy.  It’s a darkness we can almost feel, especially when you add in the colder weather, and these readings that we have at the end of our liturgical year really echo that sentiment for me.

    But I think that’s the point.  Some fundamentalist folks have spent the greater part of their lives trying to figure out when all these things would take place.  They want a precise day and time when the end will come, they want to match up the events and prophecy of Scripture to events that are happening now, or have happened in the recent past.  And they sometimes tell us they have figured it out, only to have the time come and go, and they have to return to their lives, if they can.  But that’s not how any of this works; these readings aren’t supposed to be a roadmap.  They are supposed to accompany us when our lives are as dark as the coming winter nights.  The message they give us is one of hope.  No, we will not be spared the disappointments, frustrations, and sadness that can sometimes come in our lives, but we never ever have to go through them alone.

    God will be with us.  He will, as the Gospel tells us, “gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.”  As the prophet Daniel tells us, “At that time [God’s] people shall escape, everyone who is found written in the book.”

    And so, friends, I think that is why we are here today.  That’s why we are still here.  We are here to allow God to gather his elect, and we are here to help him do that.  That is why the Church actively pursues evangelization and welcomes people into the Catholic faith.  To that end, we have several adults and young people in our Order of Catechumens.  Catechumens are those being instructed in the ways of the faith.  This pertains specifically to those not baptized.  At the Easter Vigil Mass, they will receive all three of the Sacraments of Initiation: baptism, confirmation and first Eucharist.  

    If we take the readings today seriously, and I think we should, then these efforts are simply a nice start.  We know that one day, we won’t still be here, that Jesus will return to complete all things and initiate the reign of God’s kingdom.  And we want everyone to be there.  In many ways, we cannot any of us go if we all don’t go.  It’s not just “me and Jesus.”  Salvation is not an individual thing, it’s something we all receive together.  And that’s why we have the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults.  That’s why we actively reach out to those not among us and call them to communion with us.  We need to gather up all God’s people so that, one day, we can all be seated around the banquet of God’s people in heaven.

    So back to my first question, then.  Why are we still here?  Well, we’re still here because there is work still to be done.  There are many more people to gather from the four winds so that their names can be written in the book of life.  God is still working salvation among us; we need to cooperate with that saving work.  It’s not going to be easy, and some days may seem oppressively dark, but we are never alone.  Heaven and earth might pass away, but God’s word is forever.  

  • Saint Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr

    Saint Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr

    Mass for the school children.

    So today, you notice, I’m sure, that I am wearing red vestments.  I’m wearing red vestments because today’s saint, Saint Josaphat, was a martyr.  Do you know what a martyr is?  That’s right, it’s a saint that gave his or her life for Jesus, for the faith.  So the red remembers the blood of the martyrs that was shed for the faith, very much like on Good Friday we wear red to remember the blood of Jesus that wiped away our sins.

    It might sound sad or even terrible that we celebrate when someone died.  And in a sense, it is sad that people are martyred.  We would love to live in a world where everyone just accepted the faith and loved Jesus, and as he taught us, loved one another.  But we know that’s not true.  Martyrs remind us that there is something worth fighting for, something worth giving your life for.  And there can be no more noble cause than giving your life for Jesus or for the faith.

    Now, there has long been a divide between the Roman Catholic Church, our Church, and the Orthodox Church.  The disagreements were many, and centered on the way the liturgy was celebrated and specific beliefs about the Pope and other issues.  Saint Josaphat was born in Poland and his parents were Orthodox.  He became a monk in the Eastern Church, which is in full communion with us (so he was not Orthodox, as his parents were).  Soon he was made the bishop of the diocese of Vitebsk in Russia.  As bishop, his task was to bridge the divide between the Roman and Orthodox Church, but this was not easy, because the Orthodox monks did not want union with Rome; they feared interference in liturgy and customs.  But over time, he was able to win many of the Orthodox in that area to the union.

    But as these things sometimes go, the fight was far from over.  Some people refired the disagreements and split off from the union, and began to oppose Josaphat and all that he was teaching and doing.  Eventually a mob murdered him and threw his body into a river.  His body was recovered and is now buried in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  Josaphat is the first saint of the Eastern Church to be canonized by Rome.

    Unity is an important thing.  It’s important in families, in places of business, in our school, and in the Church.  In Saint John’s gospel, on the night before Jesus died, Jesus prays for the unity of the Church: “that they may all be one.”  Jesus knew that if we didn’t have unity, we would be a fractured mess in the world, and, sadly, that is what happened.  But we know that Jesus’ prayer will definitely be answered when the time is right, and in the way God wants it.  So we have to be people who promote peace and unity in every way that we can.  We can do that on the playground, in our classrooms, and we can pray for the unity of the Church.  Unity will bring peace.  So, through the intercession of Saint Josaphat, let us bring the Prince of Peace to the world.

  • Saint Martin of Tours/Veterans Day

    Saint Martin of Tours/Veterans Day

    Today we have the opportunity to celebrate some heroes.  One hero is today’s saint, Saint Martin of Tours, who was actually a veteran and a fierce defender of our faith.  The other heroes are our nation’s veterans, who have fought in wars to protect us and to protect our freedoms.

    St. Martin of Tours is a fitting saint to pray for veterans today. His father was a veteran and he himself became a soldier and served his country faithfully, even though that was not what he most wanted to do.  But, at fifteen he entered the army and served under the Emperors Constantius and Julian. While in the service he met a poor, naked beggar at the gates of the city who asked for alms in Christ’s Name. Martin had nothing with him except his weapons and soldier’s mantle; but he took his sword, cut the mantle in two, and gave half to the poor man. During the following night Christ appeared to him clothed with half a mantle and said, “Martin, the catechumen, has clothed me with this mantle!”

    During this time, Martin indeed became a catechumen, someone preparing to become a Catholic, and he wanted to focus on doing that. He asked his superiors in the army, “I have served you as a soldier; now let me serve Christ. Give the bounty to those who are going to fight. But I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight.” After a time, he asked for and received release from military service. Having received his release, he became a monk and served God faithfully. As a soldier of Christianity now, he fought valiantly against paganism and appealed for mercy to those accused of heresy. He was made a bishop, also not his first choice of things to become, and served faithfully in that post.

    On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in the eleventh month of the year 1918, an armistice was signed, ending the “war to end all wars” – World War I.  November 11 was set aside as Armistice Day in the United States to remember the sacrifices that men and women made during the war in order to ensure a lasting peace. In 1938 Congress voted Armistice Day as a legal holiday, but World War II began the following year. Armistice Day was still observed after the end of the Second World War. In 1953 townspeople in Emporia, Kansas called the holiday Veterans Day in gratitude to the veterans in their town. Soon after, Congress passed a bill renaming the national holiday to Veterans Day. Today, we remember those who have served for our country in the armed forces in our prayers.

    On this Veterans Day, we honor and pray for veterans of our armed forces who have given of themselves in order to protect our country and its freedoms. We pray especially for those who have died in battle, as well as for those who have been injured physically or mentally during their military service. We pray in thanksgiving for all of our freedoms, gained at a price, and pray that those freedoms will always be part of our way of life.  St. Martin of Tours, pray for our veterans!