Homily: Tuesday, 3rd Week of Advent, Year 1

Readings: Zep 3:1-2,9-13; Ps 34; Mt 21:28-32

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Many years ago – I think, at the time, I was probably 11 or 12 years old – I got into a discussion with my dad about Larry, a friend of mine who had lied about selling me a bicycle.

It was an old, beat-up bike, but Larry promised to sell it to me for $5. I had the money, thanks to my paper route, and planned to fix it up the bike and use it just to tool around town. So, I told Larry I’d buy it and went home to get the money.”

When I returned to pay him and pick up the bike, he said he didn’t have it anymore. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Someone else gave me $7 so I sold it to him.”

Naturally, I was upset, and I said something like, “Hey, you promised me.”

He just said, “Yeah, big deal.” So, I just went home, really angry about the whole thing.

Later, while I was talking to my dad about what had happened, the doorbell rang. When I answered it, Larry was standing there.

He just said, “Hey, you were right. I did promise you the bike. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sold it to someone else. Are we still friends?”

“Yeah,” I said. And Larry went home.

When my dad asked if I’d forgiven Larry, and I told him “Yes,” he went on to tell me something I’ve never forgotten.

“Son, you’ll meet a lot of people who will say one thing and do exactly what they say. And that’s fine, but only if what they say and do is good.

“But the better person is the one who may say and do the wrong thing, but then ends up doing what is right…like your friend, Larry.

“Of course, you’re not going to get that bike,” he said, “but you’ll still have your friendship with Larry…and that’s much more important.”

This little childhood event popped into my aging brain yesterday when I re-read today’s passages from Matthew and the prophet Zephania.

I realized how difficult that must have been for Larry – to walk down to my house, admit he’d been wrong, and apologize.

It was a humbling thing that Larry did. In fact, he really echoed Zephaniah’s call to be a “people humble and lowly.” Hard to do, isn’t it? To be openly humble…

Yes, it’s never easy to accept our faults and to admit them openly. But that acceptance always leads us closer to God,

Because with it, we come to realize that God’s will for us is always better, more perfect, than our will, which so often is just flat-out wrong.

I also think admitting and accepting the truth about ourselves keeps us honest. It’s hard to lie to yourself when the truth is staring you right in the face.

After describing the two sons in His parable, how did Jesus put it to the chief priests and elders?

“…which of the two did his Father’s will?”

And they got it right, didn’t they? “The first,” they said. The one who did what was right. Yes, the understood the moral theological question Jesus had asked them.

But they failed to apply it to their own lives.

As Jesus reminded them, those with the courage and humility to change their minds – even the worst of sinners – who admit their faults and acknowledge their complete dependence on God...It is they who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

And so I guess the lesson for us is to stop lying to ourselves and to others, to say and do what is open and good, so we can experience the peace God wants for us.

Over the years I’ve lost track of my childhood friend, Larry, but I expect he went on to lead a good life. I hope we can renew our friendship in the Kingdom.

Homily: Tuesday, 1st Week of Advent - Year 2

Readings Is 11:1-10; Psalm 72; Lk 10:21-24

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I’m going to get a little nostalgic this morning. I’m not sure why. I suppose it’s just that time of the year. It's Advent, a glorious, hopeful season I've always enjoyed.

When I was a child, my family would begin each day of Advent by opening the particular day on the Advent calendar. My dad had bought a bunch of Advent calendars in Germany, because they made especially nice, picturesque versions.

Mom or Dad would then open the big family Bible, the one with all the neat etchings by Gustave Doré, and read a Gospel passage, along with a passage from a prophet – always relating to the coming of the birth of Jesus. We had to pay attention because we’d usually be asked what we thought of the readings. Fortunately, as the younger son I wasn’t expected to come up with anything very interesting.

Then we’d pray for those who suffered – family, friends, and others, even those we didn’t know. After breakfast, Dad would go off to work and we’d get ready for school, at least until Christmas vacation began. It was a special and comfortable morning routine, different and longer than our brief family prayer during the rest of the year. Yes, indeed, Advent was special.

This all comes to mind whenever I read the passage from Isaiah we just heard.

After my dad read to us about lions and lambs, and wolves and leopards and goats, I recall him telling us how wonderful the world will be when Jesus returns. “He will come and judge the world,” Dad told us. Then Mom joined in and told us we must always be good, so we are not punished, at least not too severely.

When I asked her what God did to the bad people, she merely said:

“God will handle that, because only He knows what’s in their hearts. And we must always remember that God loves everyone. Never forget that.”

I also recall her comment about the last part of today’s Gospel passage, when Jesus instructed the disciples privately:

"Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it."

She told us that we are just like the disciples who saw Jesus every day, and are blessed just as they were. When my brother asked her what she meant because we don’t see Jesus like they did. “Isn’t He in heaven?” he asked her,

“Yes,” she said. “But He’s also right here with us. We see Him at Communion time at Mass when we receive Him and He is within each of us. He’s present in the host, just as present as He was to the Apostles as they walked and talked and ate with Him.

“He’s also present in everyone we meet, especially those who are poor or suffering. He told us that, and we must never forget it:

‘…whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ (Mt 25:40)

“So, we must always help those in need.

“Jesus is with us always,” she said, “and we're with Him when we are with each other because He is in all who love Him, all who go to Him, all who seek Him. So, you see, we see Jesus every day.”

It’s amazing, isn’t it? Here I am in my 80s and those lessons learned are still with me. Although I’ve forgotten many of those mornings we spent together as a family, I can’t explain why some were forgotten, while others are as vivid as they were when I was physically there as a child. Perhaps God lets me recall what I need to hear in my life now.

Take some time this Advent to look back on your life to recall the truths you learned as a child. Most are among the most basic and therefore most important truths of our faith. As faithful adults, those are the things we tend to share with children. I think it’s good for us to recall them; after all, God reminds us that the Father, through the Holy Spirit, has “revealed them to the childlike.”

I know they’ve helped me, especially when I’ve had to face difficult times and even difficult people.

God love you.

Homily: Tuesday, 34th Week in Ordinary Time - Year 1

Readings: Dn 2:31-45; Dn 3:57-61; Lk 21:5-11

If you were in Manhattan, standing down near Wall Street, at Christmas in the year 2000, and someone said to you:

“Do you see those twin towers? A year from now both those buildings will be gone. There will not be a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down."

You’d probably think he was crazy, or perhaps that he’d just made a terrorist threat. So, you can imagine what the people of Jerusalem thought of Jesus’ comments about the Temple. After all, even then it was one of the wonders of the known world.

This magnificent, glorious building had been under construction for 40 years, since the days of Herod the Great. The great buildings of the ancients tended to last for centuries, so the Temple wasn’t going anywhere.

Of course they were wrong, and 40 years later, Titus, a Roman general, not only destroyed the Temple but went on to destroy much of the city, killing thousands, and enslaving many others.

As you’d expect the locals asked Jesus when it would happen, but He answered not by describing the end of the Temple, but the end of the world. Nations and kingdoms at war, utter destruction, along with earthquakes, plagues, and famines. Sounds pretty bad, and I expect it will be.

In our reading from Daniel, God had already used the prophet to interpret the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel describes a series of world empires, from the kingdoms of his time all the way to the end times. This dream confirms that God’s kingdom will endure and never be destroyed.

T. S. Eliot, who’s probably my favorite poet, once wrote, “In my end is my beginning.” It’s a statement I’ve been known to include in cemetery committal services, especially when a grieving family is so overwhelmed by the end of a loved one’s life.

I’ve always liked that statement because it so concisely reflects an important truth of our Christian faith. Yes, indeed, the end of this life is only the beginning of an eternal life. A lot of people, including many Christians, seem to forget this and get all wrapped up in fear as they worry about the approach of the end of the world. 

As for me, I learned long ago that I have absolutely no impact on the end of all things. Believe it or not, God did not delegate that power to me, or to anyone else. Not only that, I also haven’t a clue as to when it will all happen.

And yet, like the people of Jerusalem, or ancient kings like Nebuchadnezzar, so many want to know about the end that God has revealed is coming. Yes, so many, focused on the end, should rather be looking toward the beginning,

Now I’m no prophet, but given the demographics of our parish, I suspect very few of us will see the end of the world. But every one of us will see the end of his or her world and experience the beginning of the next.

If you think about it, Jesus Christ was all about beginnings for He brought the world something wonderfully new. Perhaps St. Paul said it best. Tucked away in his 2^nd Letter to the Corinthians, he wrote:

“If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Yes, brothers and sisters, because we are in Christ, we are new creations, always on a continual journey of conversion to new beginnings.  

Next Sunday, with Advent, we begin a new liturgical year. So, let’s look forward to that, and yes, as we spend these last few days aware of our mortality, we can also celebrate the truth that God is totally in charge of every aspect of His Creation. There’s no reason to fear.

Indeed, God has given us work to do: to bring others to Jesus Christ and His Church. And believe me, these days they are brought to the Church by seeing Christians loving their enemies, seeing us joyful in suffering, patient in adversity, forgiving of injuries, and showing comfort and compassion to the hopeless and the helpless. This, brothers and sisters, is our calling.

And if we’re not doing it, let’s begin.