Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Baptism

  • The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

    The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

    Tonight’s readings

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

    The Paschal Triduum, as you may know, is a long, three-day liturgy that begins with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, continues with the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday, and concludes tonight, here, as we celebrate the Great Easter Vigil in the Holy Night. So right now, we are more or less three-quarters into the celebration, and we’ve covered a lot of ground. Back on Thursday night, Father John urged us not to be mere spectators of these events, not to observe the celebration from 500 feet, but to put ourselves in the story and experience that evening with the disciples. He spoke of the various movements in that celebration: the eating of the Passover meal at the Last Supper, the washing of the feet, the institution of the priesthood and the Eucharist. And finally, the agony in the garden that culminated in the arrest of Jesus. He reminded us that real love didn’t consist of just doing what we wanted to do for people, but instead to discern and do what they most needed, just as Jesus knew the apostles needed their feet washed, and needed to grow in their capacity to love as future leaders.

    This entering into the events is a part of Catholic theology, liturgy, and spirituality called anamnesis. One could translate anamnesis as memory, remembrance, or commemoration, but none of those is especially adequate. Anamnesis is a remembering in the sense of entering into the event as if it were in the present, of being part of the event itself.

    If you’re a cook or baker, maybe you’ve had the experience of making a family recipe, and it brings to mind the loved one who taught it to you, and then you remember a story you shared when that person made it, and then that loved one is almost present to you, and you shed a tear mixed with a smile and a tug at your heart. That’s a little bit of what anamnesis is like. Placing oneself at the Last Supper, in the Upper Room, at the Garden of Gethsemane, and even at Golgotha and the Empty Tomb and letting those events change you as Father John suggested, that’s anamnesis. It’s realized most perfectly in the celebration of the Eucharist, where we don’t just recall the Last Supper and the Crucifixion, but are spiritually present there with all the people of every time and place in every church in the world, on earth and in heaven; where we don’t just receive a symbol of the Lord, but actually receive his body, blood, soul and divinity in the consecrated host. Anamnesis is powerful because it catches us up in the divine life of our Lord, who came to gather up and redeem our broken humanity.

    Father James continued the anamnesis yesterday afternoon as we gathered to continue the Triduum Liturgy with the Commemoration of our Lord’s Passion. He reminded us that Jesus wasn’t some kind of helpless victim put to death on the cross, but instead our Lord who willingly laid down his life for us, went to battle to combat sin and death, and, in a somewhat gross analogy, exploded death from the inside out. He invited us to see in the Cross our own sin, failures, and frailty, but also the means of our salvation brandished by our Lord in the battle against all that frailty. We then venerated a cross, which symbolized that Cross that was the Altar of Our Lord’s Sacrifice, and finally we were fed with the Eucharist, presanctified on Thursday night, which nourished us with the Lord’s strength to find true contrition and Divine Mercy.

    The anamnesis continued during this evening’s extensive Liturgy of the Word. In it, we have heard stories of our salvation, God’s saving action in the world throughout all time. Each of our readings has been a stop in the history of God’s love for us. God’s plan for salvation began back at the beginning of it all. Each of the days was hallowed with precious creation, and all of it was created and pronounced good. Then Abraham’s faithfulness and righteousness earned us a future as bright as a zillion twinkling stars. Later, as Moses and the Israelites stood trapped by the waters of the Red Sea, God’s providence made a way for them and cut off their pursuers, making the future safe for those God calls his own. The prophet Isaiah calls us to seek the Lord while he may be found, not spending our lives on things that fail to satisfy, but investing in our relationship with God that gives us everything. The prophet Ezekiel foretells the re-creation all humanity will experience as they come to know Christ and are filled with the Spirit. Saint Paul rejoices in the baptism that has washed away the stains of sin as we have died and risen with Christ, and has brought us into a new life that leads ultimately to God’s kingdom. And finally, our Gospel tonight tells us not to be afraid, to go forth into the Galilee of our future and expect to see the Risen Lord. And in all of it, we are present, if we accept our Lord’s invitation to enter in.

    “You shall be my people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:28). I love that last line from the last of the Old Testament readings we heard tonight. There is a covenant, there has always been a covenant, there always will be a covenant. God created us in love, and he loves us first and best. No matter where we may wander; no matter how far from the covenant we may stray, God still keeps it, forever and always. We will always be his people and he will always be our God. If I had to pick a line that sums up what we’re here for tonight, what we’ve been here for these last 40 days of Lent, that would be it.

    And that covenant is pivotal truth in this time of apathy, falsity, and general disinterest. Against all of that, the Church serves as a beacon of truth and grace and mercy as she reflects the glory of our Risen Lord. Our world may indeed be jaded by corruption, hatred, violence, crime, war, racism, lack of concern for the lives of the unborn and the vulnerable, neglect of the poor, and so many other maladies. But when we accept the covenant in our lives, we can be transformed, and become that beacon, and lead those disaffected by the world to the glorious light of God’s redeeming presence.

    We have journeyed with our Lord for three days now. We ate with him, we prayed through the night with him, we saw him walk the way of the Cross and tearfully recalled his crucifixion. We reverenced the Cross, joining our own crosses to his. Now we’ve stayed up all night and shared the stories of our salvation, with eager excitement at the ways God has kept that covenant through the ages. A roaring fire shattered the darkness, and a candle was lit to mingle with the lights of heaven. Then grace had its defining moment as Christ shattered the prison-bars of death and rose triumphant from the underworld.

    It’s so important that we enter into Lent and the Triduum every year. Not just because we need to be called back from our sinfulness to the path of life – yes, there is that, but it’s not primary here. What is so important is that we see that the Cross is our path too. In this life we will have trouble: our Savior promises us that. But the Cross is what sees him overcome the world and all the suffering it brings us. We will indeed suffer in this life, but thanks be to God, if we join ourselves to him, if we take up our own crosses with faithfulness, then we can merit a share in our Lord’s resurrection, that reality that fulfills all of the salvation history that we’ve heard in tonight’s readings.

    Our birth would have meant nothing had we not been redeemed. If we were born only to live and die for this short span of time, how horrible that would have been. But thanks be to God, the sin of Adam was destroyed completely by the death of Christ! The Cross has triumphed and we are made new! Dazzling is this night for us, and full of gladness! Because our Lord is risen, our hope of eternity has dawned, and there is no darkness which can blot it out. We will always be God’s people, and he will always be our God!

    And so, with great joy on this most holy night, in this, the Mother of all Vigils, we rightfully celebrate the sacrament of holy Baptism. Our Elect will shortly become members of the Body of Christ through this sacrament which washes away their sins. Then they will be confirmed in the Holy Spirit and fed, for the first time, on the Body and Blood of our Saving Lord. It’s a wonderful night for them, but also for us, as we renew ourselves in our baptismal promises, and receive our Lord yet again, to be strengthened in our vocation as disciples.

    We are and always will be God’s people. God has made new his glorious covenant through the resurrection of our Christ. And so, having come through this hour to be sanctified in this vigil, we will shortly be sent forth to help sanctify our own time and place. Brightened by this beautiful vigil, we now become a flame to light up our darkened world. That is our ministry in the world. That is our call as believers. That is our vocation as disciples. “May this flame be found still burning – IN US! – by the Morning Star. The one Morning Star who never sets, Christ your Son, who coming back from death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.”

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Cycle A/Scrutiny III

    The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Cycle A/Scrutiny III

    Today’s readings

    Think about it: if you died and were brought back to life, would your life be different? I tend to think we’d all say yes, very different. But how? I often wonder about Lazarus and how his life looked after he was raised from the dead by Jesus. We don’t get that part of the story, but I imagine he took care to proclaim the Good News that he heard from Jesus, and saw as he sprang from the grave.

    You know, living is subjective. What we might think of as “really living” and what the world may tell us is living the life we should all have is probably going to be quite different than the real life we hear proclaimed in these readings today. So if we want to know the meaning of life, I think we should spend some time reflecting on today’s Liturgy of the Word. And then pray to know whether that corresponds to what we think life is all about, or not. We might find ourselves, like Lazarus, rethinking life and finding new purpose.

    Our first reading today tells us that life without spirit is really death. Ezekiel prophesies that God sees his people dead, but will open their graves and have them rise. But the new life he intends to give involves receiving the spirit:

    I will put my spirit in you that you may live,
    and I will settle you upon your land;
    thus you shall know that I am the LORD.
    I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.

    In the second reading, Saint Paul echoes Ezekiel’s words and tells the Roman Church, and us too, that we who are in Christ have the Spirit who raises us from the dead:

    If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
    the one who raised Christ from the dead
    will give life to your mortal bodies also,
    through his Spirit dwelling in you.

    Then we have Martha, Mary and Lazarus in our Gospel reading. In his Gospel, John is very clear about death. When Jesus hears about Lazarus’s illness he says to his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep,” and they are encouraged by that, thinking that sleep is a good cure for illness and trusting that Lazarus will be well. So Jesus has to say it clearly:

    “Lazarus has died.
    And I am glad for you that I was not there,
    that you may believe.
    Let us go to him.”

    And, to underscore that Lazarus was really, really dead, when Jesus orders the bystanders to roll the stone away from the tomb, Martha points out the practical matter:

    “Lord, by now there will be a stench;
    he has been dead for four days.”

    That was significant, because the Jews believed that, if a person stayed dead for three days, he or she was definitely dead. So on day four, Lazarus was really, really dead, and there would be no waking him up.

    Except for the Spirit of Jesus. That Spirit, the One who would raise Jesus from the dead, gives life to the mortal body of Lazarus, for the honor and glory of God. So good for Lazarus, but what does it mean for the rest of us, standing there in awe of the miracle we have just witnessed?

    During Lent, we have been journeying with our catechumens, who are now called the Elect, as they prepare to be baptized, confirmed, and receive first Holy Communion at the Easter Vigil. Much like them, there are three groups of catechumens in today’s Gospel. The first group is Mary and Martha, those friends of Jesus that are part of John’s Gospel a few times. Here, the rubber meets the road in their faith. Here, like so many of us, they have something tragic happen in their lives, and now they have to grapple with whether their faith helps them with that or not. Mary is so troubled that she doesn’t even go out to meet the Lord until her sister tells her a white lie that Jesus was asking for her. Both she and Martha, when they first see Jesus, complain that he should have come sooner so that he could have saved Lazarus. But Martha has a little faith. She says very importantly that “Even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” That’s the beginning profession of faith. She knows that Jesus has power over life and death. So then they have a little catechetical dialogue about life and death and eternity, and at the end of it, Martha professes that Jesus is the Son of God who was coming into the world. The sisters move from their grief, to faith in Jesus, even before he accomplishes the miracle.

    The second group of catechumens is the Apostles. God bless them, they’re still trying to make sense of Jesus. We can’t be too hard on them, because they’re a lot like many of us who are trying to be men and women of faith, but don’t really have all the facts right now. “Let us also go to die with him,” Thomas says. And they will, of course: they have to go through the cross before they see and understand Jesus fully. We too will have to take up our own crosses before we can fully understand the salvation that Christ has won for us.

    The third group of catechumens is the Jews. A bunch of them are weeping with Mary, and they go with her to see Jesus. Along the way, they complain that if he could heal the man born blind like he did in last week’s Gospel, why couldn’t he have healed Lazarus? But seeing the miracle, they come to believe, in the very last verse of this long reading. They are a lot like those of us who are skeptical for a long time, but see something wonderful materialize in the life of another and finally decide there’s something to this Jesus that’s worth believing in.

    Key to all of these catechumens is that, in order to move to belief, they had to have some kind of stench in their lives washed away. For Martha and Mary, they had to see past their grief. For the Apostles, they had to get over themselves and realize that Jesus was in charge. For the Jews, they had to get past their skepticism and let him perform miracles among them. For all of us, on the journey of faith, some kind of stench has to be washed away, in order to come to full faith in Jesus. And that stench, of course, is sin. The way it gets washed away is in baptism.

    So if you take away anything from today’s Liturgy, let it be this: this reading is really all about baptism. Is it a foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and resurrection? Sure. But it is more about baptism. Because baptism is a kind of death. As Saint Paul says in our second reading today, baptism is the kind of death that gives life to our mortal bodies. It’s hard for us to imagine that kind of thing when the baptisms we’ve seen are just a mere pouring of water over a baby’s head. But baptism in the early church was full submerging in water while the formula was pronounced, after which they came up out of the water gasping for air. Believe me, they got the connection of baptism with death and resurrection!

    Baptism is what washes away the stench in our lives. It does that with original sin, and if we live our baptism by participating in the sacraments, it does that with the sins of our daily life. The sacrament of Penance is an extension in a way of the sacrament of Baptism, in which the sins of our lives are completely washed away, leaving us made new and alive in ways we couldn’t imagine.

    So today, Jesus sees us dead in the flesh, stinking of our sins. But he calls us forth in baptism, rolling away the stone of sin that keeps us from relationship with him, releasing us from the burial-bands that bind us, and calling us to new life.

    So maybe in these closing days of Lent, we still have to respond to our Lord’s call to live. Maybe you haven’t yet been to confession before Easter. We have confessions tomorrow at 1:30pm, with thirteen priests to hear your confession. We invite you to come and have the stone rolled away and to be untied from your burial cloths. Wherever you find yourself at this point of Lent, I urge you, don’t let Easter pass with you all bound up and sealed in the grave. Don’t spend these last days of Lent in the grave. Come out, be untied, and be let go.

  • Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Lent

    Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Lent

    Today’s readings

    Water is so important to us, and we see a lot of water in these readings. Water refreshes us, sustains us, cleans us. I find I always need to remind myself to drink more water. These readings talk so much about water, and when that happens, we are being led to a reflection on baptism. We ourselves are the sick and lame man who needed Jesus’ help to get into the waters of Bethesda. The name “Bethesda” means “house of mercy” in Hebrew, and that, of course, is a symbol of the Church. We see the Church also in the temple in the first reading, from which waters flow which refresh and nourish the surrounding countryside. These, of course, again are the waters of baptism.

    Lent, really, is all about baptism. This is the time when the Elect in our OCIA program are preparing intensely to receive that sacrament of initiation. But it’s not just about them; lent call us to renew ourselves in our own baptisms. We are called to renew ourselves in those waters that heal our bodies and our souls. We are called to drink deep of the grace of God so that we can go forth and refresh the world.

    But what really stands out in this Gospel is the mercy of Jesus. I think it’s summed up in one statement that maybe we might not catch as merciful at first: “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” Now, I’m sure being ill for thirty-eight years is really bad. It’s hard to imagine anything being worse. But I’m also pretty sure missing out on the kingdom of God would be that one, much worse, thing. There is mercy in being called to repentance, which renews us in our baptismal commitments and makes us fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.

    Back in the 80s and 90s, parishes would often remove the holy water from church during Lent in a kind of fasting. But here is why you shouldn’t: Lent is all about baptism, all about God’s mercy, all about being renewed and refreshed and healed in God’s grace. So I encourage you all to not take holy water for granted. Think about that the next time you put your hand into the font and stir up those waters of mercy. Be healed and made new; go, and from now on, do not sin any more.

  • The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

    The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    I’m sad today is the last day of the Christmas Season. I love that even though the rest of society may have tossed out the Christmas trees, and taken down the festive decorations, we still celebrate. What a wonderful gift we have as Catholics to celebrate the birth of our Lord for an extended period of time! Last Sunday was the Epiphany of the Lord, a time to celebrate Christ manifested in the flesh, the greatest gift of God to his creation. On the occasion of the Epiphany, we have three traditional readings. The first is the reading about the magi visiting the Christ Child; that’s the one we think of first. The second is the wedding feast at Cana, where Christ turned water into wine, the first of his miracles. And the third is the Gospel we have today, of Christ being baptized by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. So today is still part of the Epiphany of the Lord.

    As we heard last week, Epiphany means “manifestation.” In each of these Gospel readings, Christ is manifest in our world in a different way. The magi celebrated that this baby was truly the manifestation of God in our world, because no other birth would have been occasioned by such great astrological signs. The wedding feast at Cana celebrates that Jesus is no ordinary man, that he had come to change the world by the shedding of his blood, symbolized by changing ordinary water into the best wine ever. And today his baptism celebrates that Christ is manifest in the weakness of human flesh to identify himself with sinners through baptism.

    Obviously, Jesus did not need Saint John the Baptist’s baptism, because it was a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and Jesus had no sins. So he chose to be baptized so that he could identify himself with us sinners through baptism. That being the case, then we who have been baptized must also identify ourselves with him. We must manifest him in the world through living the Gospel and following in his ways.

    So today we need to reflect on the goal of all that we have celebrated in these Christmas days. What was God’s purpose in sending his Son to take on our sinful flesh and live among us? Well, we know the whole story, of course. God sent his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into our world as a human being, born to a poor family as a tiny child. He did that because he created us good, and even though we acquired sinfulness along the way, our humanity was good enough to be redeemed. He would not have us die in our sins, so he sent his Son to take flesh and lead us to heaven, our true home. That’s worth celebrating for many days, and that’s why our Christmas season extends beyond the point where the stores haul out the Valentine’s day candy!

    Christ is baptized today so that our own baptism can be the source of eternal life for all of us. His baptism sanctifies the waters of baptism forever, and to make the waters of baptism, with which we too were baptized, consecrated in holiness. Then we who have been sanctified in baptism must now go out and do what Jesus himself did: doing good and healing the broken and all who are possessed by evil spirits. It is easy to see how we can go about doing good. There are thousands of opportunities to do that in our lives. Every day there is an opportunity to do good in ordinary and extraordinary ways. All we have to do is decide to live our baptismal call and do it. Healing those oppressed by evil spirits might seem harder to do. But there are lots of ways to cast out demons. Teaching something to another person is a way to cast out the demons of ignorance. Reaching out to an elderly neighbor is a way to cast out the demons of loneliness. Bringing food to the food pantry is a way to cast out the demons of hunger and poverty. Educating ourselves on the evils of racism is a way to cast out the demons of hatred. We have opportunities to heal those oppressed by the devil all the time. All we have to do is decide to do it.

    On this Epiphany Day, on this Christmas day, Christ, born among us, enters the waters of baptism to sanctify them through his body. Our own baptism is a share in this great baptism and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We who have been baptized then are literally inspired – the Holy Spirit is breathed into us – in order to continue to make Christ manifest in our world. All we have to do is decide to live our baptism in ordinary ways every day.

  • Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    I don’t believe in coincidences, spiritually speaking. Being in the right place at the right time isn’t usually a coincidence. Far more often than we realize, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit. That is certainly the case in today’s first reading. How else would we explain an angel directing Philip to be on a road at the very same time as the Ethiopian eunuch passed by, reading a passage from the prophet Isaiah that referred to Jesus? Seizing the moment, Philip proclaims Jesus to him in a way that was powerful enough and moving enough that, on seeing some water as they continued on the journey, the eunuch begged to be baptized.

    The same is true for those who were fortunate enough to hear Jesus proclaim the Bread of Life discourse that we’ve been reading in our Gospel readings these past days. Having been fed by a few loaves and fishes when they were physically hungry, they now come to find Jesus who longs to fill them up not just physically but also, and more importantly, spiritually. Their hunger put them in the right place at the right time.

    What I think is important for us to get today is that we are always in the right place at the right time, spiritually speaking. Wherever we find ourselves is the place that we are directed by the Holy Spirit to find God. Wherever we are right now is the place where the Holy Spirit wants us to find God and to proclaim God. That might be in the midst of peace, or chaos, or any situation. We never know how God may feed us in those situations. Because we never know when there will be someone like an Ethiopian eunuch there, aching to be filled with Christ’s presence and called to a new life.

    It is no coincidence that we are where we are, when we are. The Spirit always calls on us to find our God and proclaim him as Lord in every moment and every situation.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • The Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I love it when the Gospel has a curious story in it because it’s fun then to peel back the layers of the story, kind of like an onion, and get at what’s inside.  Today’s Gospel story is just like that.

    When our modern ears hear this parable, there are surely things that seem odd about it, aren’t there?  First of all, as the wedding banquet is finished, the guests have to be summoned to the feast.  But in those days, they probably had received a formal invitation previously, and then had to be let know when the feast was ready.  But then we come to this very curious issue of the invited guests not wishing to attend.  What could possibly be keeping them away?  Even if they weren’t thrilled by the invitation and honored to attend, you’d think they would show up anyway because of who it is that is inviting them.  You would think they would want to keep the king happy.

    But they don’t respond that way, and so now the banquet is ready and the guests are well, unavailable shall we say…  So the king sends the messengers out to all the public places in order to invite whomever they find.  And who are they going to find?  Well, probably pretty much what you’d expect: peddlers, butchers, beggars, prostitutes, tax collectors, shop owners and shop lifters, the physically impaired and sick … in short, not the sort of people you’d expect to find at a king’s wedding banquet.

    So, to me, it’s not all that shocking that one of them is not appropriately dressed for the banquet.  What is shocking is that the rest of them are, right?  Some biblical scholars have suggested that perhaps the king, knowing who was going to show up, may have provided appropriate attire, and that one person refused to put it on.  We don’t know if that’s the case but if it were true, we could all understand the king throwing that person out.

    So what is this story really about?  Putting the parable in context, the banquet is the kingdom of God.  The distinguished invited guests are the people to whom Jesus addressed the parable: the chief priests and the elders of the people.  These have all rejected the invitation numerous times, and would now make that rejection complete by murdering the messenger, the king’s son, Jesus Christ.  Because of this, God would take the kingdom from them, letting them go on to their destruction, and offer the kingdom to everyone that would come, possibly indicating the Gentiles, but certainly including everyone whose way of life would have been looked down upon by the chief priests and elders: prostitutes, criminals, beggars, the blind and lame.  All of these would be ushered into the banquet, being given the new beautiful wedding garment which is baptism, and treated to a wonderful banquet, which is the Eucharist.  Those who further reject the king by refusing to don that pristine garment may indeed be cast out, but to everyone who accepts the grace given them, a sumptuous banquet awaits.

    So guess who are the beggars, prostitutes, criminals, blind and lame?  If you’re thinking they are you and me, you would be right.  Our sinfulness leaves us impoverished, and hardly worthy to attend the Banquet of the Lord.  It would only be just for our God to leave us off the invitation list.  But our God will do no such thing.  He washes us in the waters of baptism, brings us to the Banquet, and feeds us beyond our wildest imaginings with the food of his own precious Body and Blood.

    There are two wonderful little prayers in the Mass that you mostly don’t ever get to hear: they are private prayers of the priest.  I wanted to share them with you because I think they get at what today’s Gospel is all about.  First, after the priest receives the bread and wine from those bringing forward the gifts, he offers them at the altar.  Having finished the offering, the priest bows profoundly, that is, from the waist, and prays:

    With humble spirit and contrite heart
    may we be accepted by you, O Lord,
    and may our sacrifice in your sight this day
    be pleasing to you, Lord God.

    Which is a quote from the book of the prophet Daniel.  The priest then turns to the servers and they wash his hands as he prays the second private prayer:

    Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity
    and cleanse me from my sin.

    As I said, I thought about these two brief prayers in connection with today’s Gospel reading.  We approach the Lord with “humble spirit and contrite heart” which is exactly what the chief priests and elders did not do in the Gospel.  They thought that they had heaven in their grasp and that no one else did.  They felt like they had no need of repentance, no sins for which to be sorry.

    We can’t be like them, or we’ll never be able to come to the banquet.  The prayers of the Church should always serve to remind us of who we are and why we are here.  We were meant for the banquet, but we weren’t dressed for it.  We have been given that beautiful garment at baptism, which gives us the right to sit at the table.  We just have to be open to receiving it.  We receive it knowing full well that we are in need of forgiveness and mercy.  The most important sacrifice we offer at Mass is always the sacrifice of our lives, of our hearts, giving ourselves completely to our God who gives us everything.  And in return, he gives us everything we need, and salvation besides!

    We are blessed to be able to come to the Supper of the Lamb.  And in the moments during the offering of the gifts, maybe we can take time to be aware of offering ourselves and our hearts, coming before the Lord with humble spirits and contrite hearts.

  • The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

    The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

    Today’s readings

    Sometimes when I’m preaching to children about a reading with light and darkness themes, I’ll ask them who is, or ever has been, afraid of the dark.  As you can well imagine, most of the hands go up, and probably all of them should go up.  And I don’t think that experience is limited to children.  How many of us, when we are driving along an unfamiliar road late at night, or during a storm, are more than a little nervous when looking for our next turn?  Or how many of us are more than a little wary about being in certain areas after dark?  And even closer to home, how many of us have our hearts pound a little faster when we hear a strange noise in the middle of the night?

    A couple of years ago now, I woke up what sounded like an explosion in the middle of the night.  I looked out all the windows, and couldn’t see anything unusual.  Nobody lives above me so it wasn’t like someone fell out of bed.  It took me a while to calm down and I finally went back to sleep.  I found out the next day a car had exploded in a parking lot over at the high school.  It certainly got my blood pumping in the early hours.

    We’ve all heard the warning: nothing good ever happens after dark.  Watching the news bears that out.  You hear about people being shot, carjacked, robbed at all hours of the night, and you wonder why anyone is out and about at that hour.  Sure, sometimes they work at that time of night, but not nearly all of them.  Why would anyone else be out messing around at that hour?  Being out in the wee hours often leads to trouble.  Nothing good ever happens after dark.

    Except on this night.

    On this night, the best thing ever happened.  On this night, the debt of our ancient sinfulness was canceled.  On this night, our Lord triumphed over sin and death.  On this night, everything changed, for the better, on this night the best thing ever happened after dark!  “This is the night, when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld!”  The Exsultet, sung at the beginning of our time together this night, tells us just how glorious this night actually is:

    The sanctifying power of this night
    dispels wickedness, washes faults away,
    restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners,
    drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty. 

    That’s how much power this night actually has.  Whereas so many nights have brought, and continue to bring, sadness to so many, this night brings joy to mourners.  Whereas so many nights have brought fear and anguish and hatred, this night restores innocence, drives out hatred, and fosters concord.  This night obliterates evil, gives new luster to souls that have been tarnished by sin, and destroys the power of the mighty to bring misery to the humble.  This one night turns everything upside-down and introduces a new reign of glory.

    Tonight we have heard in reading after reading, that God will absolutely not ever abandon his loved and chosen ones to sin and death.  We have heard that God initiated the covenant and pursues it forever, never forcing us to accept his will, but willing that we should follow him and accept his mercy.  God has provided the lamb of salvation, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world.  God has gone to the cross and been in the tomb and descended to hell – there is nowhere that is beyond the reach of God’s mercy, there is no place, no depth to which God will not go to redeem his beloved creation.  God’s mercy endures forever!

    God delights in the freedom of will that we possess as a natural part of who we are, because it gives us the opportunity to freely choose to love him, as he freely chooses to love us.  But he knows that same free will can and will also lead us astray, into sin, into evil.  The free choice to love God is a greater good than the absence of evil, so not imbuing us with free will was never an option.  Instead, evil and sin and our fallenness are redeemed on this most holy of all nights.

    We have been praying and waiting and remembering and entering in to the events of our Lord’s passion and death for three days now.  On Thursday evening, Father Ramon invited us to imagine being part of the first community of believers after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  We imagined coming to Jerusalem and looking for someone to tell us about Jesus.  Then we were invited to fall on our knees in worship and adoration as we celebrated the Eucharist in memory of him.  On Friday afternoon, Father John encouraged us to not just see what we did to Jesus, but also what Jesus did for us.  He invited us to find Jesus on the cross, uniting our own passions with his, and glorying in the grace of what Our Lord did for us.  And tonight we get to see that glory, as we sing our Alleluias and know that death no longer has power over us.

    Now we get to focus on salvation that is our in the sacraments.  Especially tonight, we remember our own baptisms, and we look forward to the baptism of our eight Elect who have been preparing for this night for two years.  Everything is in place: the waters of the Red Sea are parted, the pillar of fire glows to the honor of God, we are led to grace and joined to God’s holy ones of every time and place, Christ emerges triumphant from the underworld and the sin of Adam is redeemed forever.  And so these eight Elect, in a few moments will enter the waters of Baptism, renouncing the prince of darkness, professing faith in God, dying with Christ in the waters, emerging to new life, triumphant with Christ, and encountering the bright morning star whose light blazes for all eternity.  We will hold our breath as the waters flow over them, and sing Alleluia when they are reborn, crying out the praise of God with all the joy the Church can muster!

    Our joy will continue to overflow as they are Confirmed in the Holy Spirit and fed for the very first time with the Eucharistic Bread of Life.  God’s mercy has once again triumphed and brought these wonderful young people into the family of the Church and the community of our parish.  God’s goodness shows forth all its splendor in so many wonderful ways on this most holy of all nights!

    This is the night that redeems all of our days and nights.  This is the night when sin and death are rendered impotent by the plunging of the Paschal candle, the Light of Christ, into the waters of Baptism.  On this night, everything is turned upside-down; sin and death no longer define who we are as human beings; the forces of evil search in vain for darkness in which to cower, because the bright morning star has washed the darkness away.  On this night, the waters of Baptism put death to death, wash away faults and wickedness, give refreshment to those who are parched for holiness, and bring life to all who have withered in the desert of brokenness.

    And so, may the flame of our joy, blazing against the darkness of the world’s night, be found still burning by the Morning Star:  the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ our Lord, God’s only Son, who coming back from even from the depths of death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever!  Amen!

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • The Fifth Sunday of Lent

    The Fifth Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    “Lord, by now there will be a stench.”

    That’s one of my favorite lines in scripture.  It begs the question I want you to pray about this week, which is, “What in your life really stinks?”  Because we have to have that stench washed away in order to really live.

    If you know my preaching, you’re not going to be at all surprised about this, but I have to tell you honestly, our Gospel reading isn’t about Lazarus.  Yes, he got raised from the dead, so good for him, but he isn’t the center of action in the story.  In fact, he’s dead for most of the reading, so he doesn’t play a major part.   Our Gospel today is about Jesus, who through baptism and grace is the remedy for all that stinks in our life.

    So Jesus hears that his friend Lazarus is ill.  He knows that Lazarus will die, and he knows that he will raise Lazarus up, so very much like the rest of John’s Gospel, Jesus is in full control.  He delays going to see Lazarus because it will give him the opportunity that will increase faith in the other players in the story.  So when he arrives, Lazarus has been dead four days.  That’s an important detail because it tells us that Lazarus is really, really dead.  The Jews believed that the soul of a person hung around for about three days, but after that, well, he or she was gone forever.  So if Jesus had raised Lazarus on the second day, no big deal.  If on the third day, that would have been a foreshadowing of himself.  But on the fourth day, he raises up someone who is really, really dead: you know, someone just like us.

    So just like the man who was born blind last week, we are born dead, in a way.  I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but stay with me.  We are born dead in our sins, and there is nothing we can do to raise ourselves up out of it except for the grace of God.  So the movement in our Gospel today is from life that is so mired in sin that it stinks, to life that is so free of death that burial bands and tombs cannot contain it.

    During Lent, we have been journeying with our catechumens, who are now called the Elect, as they prepare to be baptized, confirmed, and receive first Holy Communion at the Easter Vigil.  Much like them, there are three groups of catechumens in today’s Gospel.  The first group is Mary and Martha, those friends of Jesus that are part of John’s Gospel a few times.  Here, the rubber meets the road in their faith.  Here, like so many of us, they have something tragic happen in their lives, and now they have to grapple with whether their faith helps them with that or not.  Mary is so troubled that she doesn’t even go out to meet the Lord until her sister tells her a white lie that Jesus was asking for her.  Both she and Martha, when they first see Jesus, complain that he should have come sooner so that he could have saved Lazarus.  But Martha has a little faith.  She says very importantly that “Even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”  That’s the beginning profession of faith.  She knows that Jesus has power over life and death.  So then they have a little catechetical dialogue about life and death and eternity, and at the end of it, Martha professes that Jesus is the Son of God who was coming into the world.  The sisters move from their grief, to faith in Jesus, even before he accomplishes the miracle.

    The second group of catechumens is the Apostles.  God bless them, they’re still trying to make sense of Jesus.  We can’t be too hard on them, because they’re a lot like many of us who are trying to be men and women of faith, but don’t really have all the facts right now.  “Let us also go to die with him,” Thomas says.  And they will, of course: they have to go through the cross before they see and understand Jesus fully.  We too will have to take up our own crosses before we can fully understand the salvation that Christ has won for us.

    The third group of catechumens is the Jews.  A bunch of them are weeping with Mary, and they go with her to see Jesus.  Along the way, they complain that if he could heal the man born blind like he did in last week’s Gospel, why couldn’t he have healed Lazarus?  But seeing the miracle, they come to believe, in the very last verse of this long reading.  They are a lot like those of us who are skeptical for a long time, but see something wonderful materialize in the life of another and finally decide there’s something to this Jesus that’s worth believing in.

    Key to all of these catechumens is that, in order to move to belief, they had to have some kind of stench in their lives washed away.  For Martha and Mary, they had to see past their grief.  For the Apostles, they had to get over themselves and realize that Jesus was in charge.  For the Jews, they had to get past their skepticism and let him perform miracles among them.  For all of us, on the journey of faith, some kind of stench has to be washed away, in order to come to full faith in Jesus.  And that stench, of course, is sin.  The way it gets washed away is in baptism.

    So if you take away anything from today’s Liturgy, let it be this: this reading is really all about baptism, brothers and sisters in Christ.  Is it a foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and resurrection?  Sure.  But it is more about baptism.  Because baptism is a kind of death.  As Saint Paul says in our second reading today, baptism is the kind of death that gives life to our mortal bodies.  It’s hard for us to imagine that kind of thing when the baptisms we’ve seen are just a mere pouring of water over a baby’s head.  But baptism in the early church was full submerging in water while the formula was pronounced, after which they came up out of the water gasping for air.  Believe me, they got the connection of baptism with death and resurrection!

    Baptism is what washes away the stench in our lives.  It does that with original sin, and if we live our baptism by participating in the sacraments, it does that with the sins of our daily life.  The sacrament of Penance is an extension in a way of the sacrament of Baptism, in which the sins of our lives are completely washed away, leaving us made new and alive in ways we couldn’t imagine.

    So today, Jesus sees us dead in the flesh, stinking of our sins.  But he calls us forth in baptism, rolling away the stone of sin that keeps us from relationship with him, releasing us from the burial-bands that bind us, and calling us to new life.

    So maybe in these closing days of Lent, we still have to respond to our Lord’s call to live.  Maybe you haven’t yet been to confession before Easter.  We have confessions (tomorrow/today) at 1:30pm, with thirteen priests to hear your confession.  We invite you to come and have the stone rolled away and to be untied from your burial cloths.  Wherever you find yourself at this point of Lent, I urge you, don’t let Easter pass with you all bound up and sealed in the grave.  Lent ends just before Evening Prayer on Holy Thursday.  That gives us around ten and a half days to take up our Lenten resolutions anew, or even make new ones, so that we can receive new life in Christ.  Don’t spend these days in the grave.  Come out, be untied, and be let go.

  • Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

    Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    The waters that flowed from the temple in the first reading are the same waters that were stirred up in the pool at Bethesda, and those are the same waters that if you’re real quiet, you can hear flowing over in the baptistry. These are the waters of baptism that freshen all of the world and refresh those who live in it. Those waters of baptism provide healing for our sins and hurts and addictions, and all the things that we find so difficult to let go of.

    But we have to have courage to wade into them as our Lord invites us in, and perhaps we may need some help to get in there.  But it’s not impossible. We, at least have been in them before and have been washed clean. Our joy is now to look back at our baptism, renew our baptismal promises, and recommit ourselves to the healing waters that wash away our sins and bring us, pure and joyful, to our God.

  • The Fourth Sunday of Lent

    The Fourth Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    I don’t know about you, but I feel like today’s Liturgy of the Word starts off by giving us all a slap in the face.  And it’s needed.  How many of us judge others without even getting to know them?  How often do we decide who people are and what they’re like just by a first glance, or where they live, or even who they know?  It’s a habit we learned in junior high school, or maybe even earlier, and we never seem to outgrow it.  Shame on us for that, because God is clear with Samuel: “Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart.”  So we have to stop judging others before we get to know them; we have to learn to see them as God sees them.  We need to see with the eyes of God.

    Whenever I hear this reading, I think of my dad.  He was the typical Irish guy who never met a stranger, and it was frankly a little irritating to go grocery shopping with him.  He’d bump in to a couple of people he knew while we were shopping, one or two more in the checkout line, and probably at least one more while the rest of us were loading the groceries in the car! But that was because dad was a man who always seemed to see the best in people.  At his wake, we were all overwhelmed by the incredible number of people who came and shared with us how they were inspired by him and encouraged by him, all because Dad saw something special in them.  I think dad had some inkling of the vision God wants us to have in this first reading.

    So the theme for this week’s liturgy is vision and light.  The gospel gets at that pretty quickly, healing the man born blind in the first couple of minutes of what is admittedly a pretty long reading.  But what’s the point?  How does that affect us?  I’ll tell you how it affects us: the man born blind is us.  We all have affected vision: that’s why the first reading is such a slap in our faces.  So we have to decide today if we are the man born blind who is easily and quickly healed, or if we want to be the Pharisees who, at the end of the day, never regain their sight because they just don’t want to.

    So maybe you’re asking the same question those Pharisees asked, “surely we are not also blind, are we?”  Of course we are.  That’s why we have Lent: to realize our brokenness and to accept the healing power of Christ.  Lent calls us to remember that we are dust, that we are broken people fallen into sin, but that none of that is any match for the power of Christ risen from the dead, if we just let him put a little clay on our eyes.

    Today’s Gospel then is a kind of journey to clearer vision. We are all born blind, in a sense, and it takes the presence of Jesus to clear our vision. Just as the man born blind was sent to the pool of Siloam, we too are sent to the waters of baptism, which clears our eyes and helps us to really see. In baptism, the darkness of life is transformed by the presence of Christ, the Light of the World. During the course of all the questionings that follow, the man’s vision becomes clearer and clearer. At first he doesn’t know who Jesus is or where to find him. Later on he testifies that Jesus is a prophet and finally, with the help of Jesus’ instruction, that Jesus is the Son of Man and worthy of worship. We make this same journey ourselves. From the waters of baptism, we need to continue the conversation and return to Christ again and again to grow in our faith.  We grow in the way that we see Jesus through our lives.  Our faith when we were young is not the same faith that works for us later in life.  At one point Jesus is a friend walking with us on life’s path; later on he might be a rock that helps us in a particularly stormy time of life.  Still later, he might be the one calling us to become something new, something better than we think we can attain.  Jesus is always the same, but we are different, and Jesus is with us at every point of life’s journey, if we open our eyes to see him.

    Traditionally, today is Laetare Sunday – laetare being Latin for “rejoice.”  That’s why we’re wearing these rose-colored vestments today.  We are now pretty much half way through Lent, and with eyes recreated by our own trips to the pool of Siloam – the waters of baptism – we can begin to catch a glimpse of Easter joy.  Laetare Sunday reminds us that even in the penance of Lent, that it’s not penance for penance’s own sake: there is reason for rejoicing.  It might be good, then, to ask ourselves, what in the world gives us cause to rejoice today, here and now, in our own lives?

    That’s the “homework” I’m giving you for this fourth week of Lent.  In your quiet times of reflection – even if it’s only two minutes – I invite you to take time to ask God to open your eyes and help you see your blessings.  Whether it’s your health, or your family or friends, your community, your work or your recreation – whatever it is, take the time to name it, and then offer a brief prayer of thanks in your own words to God who gives you everything.  If this isn’t something you’ve ever or often done, maybe do that as much as you can this week.  You might find yourself discovering blessings that you didn’t realize how much you loved.

    Today’s Liturgy is a call for all of us to attend to our vision.  Do we see others as God sees them?  Do we even see ourselves as God sees us?  How do we see Christ at work in our lives and in our world?  Where we encounter obstacles to the clear vision that we must have in this darkened world, we should set them aside and allow Christ to anoint our eyes so that we can see as God sees, this God who sees into the heart.  Then as the darkness that exists in our own lives is transformed to light, maybe our little corner of the world can know compassion amidst sorrow, comfort amidst mourning, mercy against intolerance, love against hatred, and the peace that passes all of our understanding in every place we walk.  May we carry the flame of God’s love into our world to brighten every darkness and bring joy to every sorrow.  May the Morning Star which never sets find this flame still burning: Christ that Morning Star, who came back from the dead, and shed his peaceful light on all humankind, [the Son of God] who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.