Homily: Third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Readings: Jon 3:1-5,10; Ps 25; 1Cor 7:29-31; Mk 1:14-20

------------------

One theme present in today’s readings is time, or perhaps more specifically, the passage of time. Of course, at my age – and I suspect this is true for a few of you – the passage of time is very evident.

When we were children, time crept by, carrying us slowly and deliberately through our young lives. What a blessing this was! The movement of time let us anticipate and savor so much of life – to observe, learn, absorb all that we encountered…and if we were fortunate, to distance us from the not so good.

For several years, Diane and I took foster children into our home. We had four children of our own, but we took on emergency cases, children who often came from difficult family situations.

Amazingly, regardless of the tumult and confusion these little ones had endured, they were often able to set it aside. Moved by love for their parents, their fervent hope was to return, to return to a renewed family where all would be set right. One need only look at a child to see the true manifestation of hope as a virtue.

But as we age, time moves along more quickly, doesn’t it? It hurries us through our days, pushing us relentlessly to the very culmination of our lives. It’s as if time, like today’s readings, pleads with us, reminding us we cannot bargain with it; that for each life, time has a limit, one that can come on quickly.

In our second reading St. Paul doesn’t pull any punches, but comes right out and tells the Corinthians and us that, “time is running out…the world in its present form is passing away.”

Paul wants us to be ready, to prepare for all that is to come, to prepare for God’s transformation of the world, and to prepare for judgment. He calls us to prepare – not by our own power, but through God’s gift of grace.

For God comes to us. He comes to us here in His Word, proclaimed in our hearing, entering into our minds and hearts.

He comes to us in the Eucharist, joining our very being with His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, joining us to one another in this shared Communion. Do we ever think of that? As we depart here today, we are surrounded by the Real Presence of Jesus in each other. Yes, through the Eucharist each of us becomes a God-bearer, called to take Jesus Christ to others.

He comes to us, too, when we encounter Him daily, especially in His least brothers and sisters. Do we see Christ in them? At the Wildwood Soup Kitchen, we told our volunteers, “We don’t serve meals; we serve Jesus Christ.” But do those we serve, experience Jesus in us? Do they turn to us in expectation, in hope? That marvelous writer, the late Flannery O’Connor, once wrote to a friend: “You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s suffering and not your own.”

How foolish we are when we ignore these daily encounters. And yet so many of us do just that when we make the mistake of thinking the little slice of time we’ve been given belongs to us.

"Follow me and I will make you fishers of men."

The apostles didn’t make that mistake. They had encountered Jesus in the flesh – hearing, seeing, touching Him – and realized that they had been called, called in God’s time, not theirs. They had no time to do anything but drop their nets, turn away from their former lives, and follow Jesus. They didn’t fully understand it, not then, but moved by the Spirit, they knew it was a special time.

Indeed, in that same brief Gospel passage from Mark, Jesus begins His public ministry with the words, “This is the time of fulfillment.” Here is Jesus, the Lord of History, standing at the very center of all time, bringing everything that went before to fulfillment – truly, a most special time. The very thought of the Incarnation, God’s thought, was made in eternity, outside of time itself. And with His coming, everything changed.

The time of the Old Covenant pointed forward, away from itself, to Jesus Christ, its fulfillment. Yes, Jesus tells us, all of time that came before, every moment from the creation of time itself out of eternity, is brought to completion. His coming thrust us into God’s time; and Jesus, our God become man, is now ever-present.

Yes, indeed, it’s His time; it’s God’s time, for Jesus goes on to tell us: “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” To be sure, then, this fulfillment of time also means the time of the Kingdom of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But other than this, Jesus really tells us very little about this time, or what we can expect as it unfolds. He tells us only that God has acted and fulfilled all. Then, continuing His teaching at that first moment of His ministry, Jesus commands us to act as well – for we must do our part.

“Repent,” Jesus commands, “and believe in the Gospel.”

Instead of telling us what we can expect, Jesus tells us what God expects of us. First, we are to repent. Translated from the Greek, metanoia, it means a change of mind and heart.

Time and change — repentance calls us to look back, if only to acknowledge the sinfulness of our lives; but then, filled with hope, to look forward to conversion, to forgiveness, and to the joy of the Good News. Jesus calls us to faith, to accept the Gospel, and to love our God and to love each other. Then, with minds and hearts turned toward God, we can experience the surprising joy of the Good News.

Sisters and brothers, Jesus spoke those words to the people of Galilee gathered around Him that day. He spoke to each one of them, personally, individually, calling them to accept His gift of faith, calling them to repentance, conversion, and joy. And He speaks this message to each us as well; for we, too, are called…and as Paul reminds us, “time is running out.”

Are we like the people of Nineveh? Like all of us they needed to repent. They had turned from God…until He placed that ultimatum before them. God set a 40-day time limit to their lives, and when they heard Jonah’s message, the message of the most reluctant of all the prophets, they realized their time was running out.

But they didn’t wait, not for a moment. No, they acknowledged their sins, turned to God in repentance, and He lifted the dire sentence He had placed on them.

Nineveh Repents

Repentance, conversion, salvation, and joy.

What about our time? People move here to our little corner of the world to have the time of their lives, don’t they? But all too often they forget that the time of their lives is coming all too quickly to an end.

Christ’s message, then, is one of urgency. It’s a message that demands an answer. To put it off is to run the risk of missing the coming of the Kingdom into our lives.

This Gospel message is for every single one of us, for all of humanity stretched out over the entire span of time. It’s a message aimed directly at the heart, in which God marks each of us for repentance, and for the salvation He desires for us.

Brothers and sisters, that we're here today means you and I believe in the Good News of Jesus Christ, in the salvation He offers us. Our Lord calls us to live that belief in lives that glorify God by loving and serving Him and each other.

Have you and I done much God-glorifying lately? Maybe it’s time to give it a try. Then, through the grace of God, we really can have the time of our lives.

Homily: Tuesday, 1st Week of Advent

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

___________________________ 

Whenever I read today’s Gospel passage from Luke, I realize how blessed we are as Christians because we know Jesus Christ, just as Jesus revealed to the disciples:

“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.”

He said this to the 72 who had just returned from their mission to take the Good News into the world, to do the work Jesus had been doing. Not long before, Jesus had sent the 12 out on their first mission to do the same: to preach, to teach, and to heal, all in the name of Jesus Christ. And all of these first missionaries had proclaimed the Kingdom of God to the People of God, for the Jews would be the first to hear the Good News. Jesus had also told them:

“To you it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of God, but to others I speak in parables, so that looking they may not perceive and hearing they may not understand.”

These words don’t mean that insight and understanding are given only to Jesus’ immediate disciples. Rather, He is telling them that they, because they are faithful disciples, have opened themselves to hear and, therefore, to understand His message, and to see and imitate His works.

I can take no credit for converting a single soul, but I suppose in some way, God works through us to lead those He calls to discipleship. For over ten years, Diane and I served as hospital chaplains here in The Villages. On our assigned days we would be asked to visit 20 or 30 newly admitted patients, people of all faiths. Our role was largely prayerful, to provide comfort to those who were suffering, to assist them if they had unaddressed needs, but mostly just to listen.

One morning we visited a man on the cardiac care floor. As we entered his room, he noticed our “Chaplain” name tags, and with a frown said:

“I had a heart attack that almost killed me. Now the doctors tell me I need a transplant, But the chances aren’t good that I’ll survive long enough to get one.”

He then asked – and these were his words:

“What the hell do you want?”

So, I said the only thing I could think of saying:

“To help you avoid going there.”

I guess that broke the ice. He laughed and asked us what church we came from. When I told him we were Catholic, he said he used to be, but left the Church when he was in his 20s. I just said, “Well, if you were baptized, you’re still a Catholic, even if you don’t know it.”

With that the three of us talked a while – about his life, about his fear of death, about Jesus and God’s unconditional love, but mostly about forgiveness. Eventually he admitted, as he described it, having “a mountain of sins, mostly unforgiveable.”

So, we suggested, “Well, then, let’s test your theory. I’m going to call a priest friend, a really good guy, and he’ll come here, and hear your confession. With that you’ll taste the goodness of God’s forgiveness. And you’ll also see how wonderful it is to be in friendship with Jesus Christ.”

It all happened just as God planned it. When my priest friend entered the room, this long-lapsed soul sat up and cried.

He died the following week.

So, do you see how blessed we are to have known Jesus Christ, most of us for our entire lives? And yet, He is there for all, even those who have long ignored Him.

But we are called, just like the Apostles and the 72, to evangelize, to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to all those we encounter, to all those places in our lives.

The great thing is, He does all the work; we just say and do whatever He tells us.

Reflection: Exposition and Adoration (3/22/2023)

Readings for Today's Mass: Is 49:8-15; Jn 5:17-30

_____________________________

I like to listen to radio preachers. Many are quite good, and I learn a lot from them. But some...well, they're burdened by different theologies. I suppose I learn a lot from them too.

The other day, driving to the National Cemetery in Bushnell, I happened to hear a radio preacher telling his listeners their sins would lead inevitably to God’s punishment. “Your sins will open wide the gates of hell,” he told us. Then he added, “and there’s not much you can do about it.”

My first reaction was, “Well if we can’t do anything about it, why are you even telling us?”

He later softened his message a bit and mentioned the need for repentance. But even then he didn’t sound very hopeful. By the time I arrived at the cemetery, I realized I’d been listening to him for close to 15 minutes and not once did he mention the Good News of Jesus Christ.

I wonder how many Christians think of God only in terms of judgment and punishment. I was surprised this preacher never mentioned the gift of God's grace. Maybe that came later, after I'd turned off the radio.

Anyway, he was right about judgment. Indeed, in today’s Gospel passage Jesus explicitly tells us the Father gave Him the power to exercise judgment. Yes, we will all be judged. But we’ll be judged by a God of mercy, a God of forgiveness, a God who gave His life for us, a God who gives us a lifetime in which to return to Him in repentance. What could be better than that? Do you see how good the Good News is?

This Good News, this Gospel, isn’t new to the New Testament, because it’s proclaimed throughout the Old Testament as well. The prophets, after all, were in the business of pointing exclusively to the Good News. Perhaps more accurately, often enough without knowing it, thanks to the Holy Spirit they pointed to one person: to Jesus Christ.

In today’s reading from Isaiah, can’t you hear the prophet preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ?

…as he tells the prisoners to “Come out!”

…and pleads with those in darkness to “Show yourselves!”

No longer shall you hunger and thirst, “For the LORD comforts his people and shows mercy to his afflicted.”

And our passage ends with some of the most comforting words in all of Scripture:

“Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.”

Prophetic, consoling words…and so fitting today when so many are without tenderness for infants in the womb.

Yes, Isaiah preached the Good News 700 years before the Incarnation, and gave the world a taste of God’s love, of God’s forgiveness. Like John the Baptist, whom he foretold, Isaiah also walked in the wilderness to “prepare the way of the LORD!” – to prepare the way for Jesus Christ.

For it is Jesus, Who forgives the sins of the repentant.

Jesus, Who heals bodies and minds and souls.

Jesus, Who offers eternal life to those who believe.

Jesus, Who preaches this Good News to all.

Jesus, Who gives us His Church, the sacramental font of God’s grace.

Jesus, Who sends us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to guide us and teach us.

And He does it all out of love for the Father, and love for us.

Do we really hear and accept the Good News Jesus offers us? Or do we only pretend to hear, remaining closed to the Word of God because sharing it demands a changed heart? Maybe you and I, every day, need to ask Jesus to touch our hearts so we’ll be open to His Word.

And never doubt God’s love, but recall those words from Isaiah: "I will never forget you." – words intended to strike the heart, words we all long to hear from those who love us.

Today, as we move into these final days of Lent, let’s just keep this simple truth in mind: God will never forget me.

Carrying all the sorrows, worries, and fears that plague me, I will go to Calvary, realizing Jesus wants to share those burdens with me, and I will pray: "God will never forget me."

Knowing that my own death awaits, I will go to the Empty Tomb, and I will pray:  "God will never forget me."

I will take all my brokenness, my sinfulness, and yes, my hopes and joys, to God and pray "God will never forget me."

Then, filled with God’s love, maybe I can ask myself:

“Who is God asking me to ‘never forget?’"

 

Homily: Thursday 25th Week in Ordinary Time

Yesterday afternoon, I was asked by St. Lawrence Parish in Bushnell, Florida if I would help them by conducting a Liturgy of the Word with Communion this morning. Their pastor apparently had a commitment, so they sought out a deacon to assist. St. Lawrence is only a 30-minute drive from my home, so I was happy to help out. My homily follows:

____________________

Readings: Ecclesiastes 1:2-11; Psalm 90; Luke 9:7-9

First, believe me, it’s a joy to be here with you at St. Lawrence Parish. You might not know this, but 19 years ago, when I arrived here in the Orlando Diocese I was assigned to this parish. In those days St. Vincent de Paul was a mission church of St. Lawrence Parish, and I can remember coming here frequently to attend parish council and other meetings. But things have certainly changed, haven’t they?

I usually preach on or at least touch on the Gospel reading, but today I decided to offer a little change of pace. I decided instead to focus on our reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes, mainly because it’s a reading that’s too often avoided, and I thought you deserved better.

Let me set the stage with a little personal history.

I’ve always been interested in astronomy, and even studied it in college. I always saw it as a science where one comes closer to grasping the splendor of God’s creation as well as His awesome power.

I also spent many years as a Navy pilot, and when at sea would enjoy looking at the stars. In mid-ocean, away from the lights of civilization, the effect is remarkable. The stars are a hundred times brighter, the planets are clearly defined, and our galaxy, the Milky Way, lives up to its name. In near-total darkness you can see the entire sky from horizon to horizon, almost as if you’ve left the earth and are there in space in the midst of creation.

I recall one night particularly well. I tried to read a little Scripture each day, and I had just read the first two chapters of Ecclesiastes, which include today’s first reading. Those verses had disturbed me, as I suppose they have disturbed many people.

If we take it literally, Ecclesiastes is a depressing, almost fatalistic, book. Some call it the most depressing book in the bible, and even question why it was included in the first place. It seems to say that everything that will be has already been, that nothing is new, everything just repeats itself, again and again. Rain falls, making streams which flow into rivers and then to the ocean, only to be vaporized and return again as rain. On and on it goes. Life is just a vicious and frustrating circle. What goes around comes around.

And the author doesn’t just address nature. He also implies that human activity is equally futile, implying that working hard is a waste of time. Why bother? You’ll never really enjoy the fruits of your labor. Someone else will, someone who won’t appreciate you or your work.

The author, Qoheleth, shouts to the world: All that we do is vanity.

As I said, when we take this at face value, it can sound very depressing. And I’ll admit, it depressed me that night at sea 30 years ago.

Then I went up on deck and looked up at the stars. How long had they been there? Billions of years. The distances are so vast we can’t begin to comprehend them, except abstractly through mathematics. How powerful and eternal is the God who made it all! And how small and insignificant are we.

As all these thoughts went through my mind, I recalled the words I had just read moments before:

“What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun. Even the thing of which we say, “See, this is new!” has already existed in the ages that preceded us. There is no remembrance of the men of old; nor of those to come will there be any remembrance among those who come after them” [Eccl 1:9-11].

Suddenly I understood what Qoheleth meant by “All things are vanity” [Eccl 1:2] – or a more accurate translation of the Hebrew, “all things are mist (or breath).” In a sense, he meant the same thing that St. Thomas Aquinas meant when, near the end of his life, he looked back on his remarkable work and said, “It is all straw.”

Ecclesiastes is now among my favorite books of the Old Testament. It’s a very unique book, really the Bible’s only book of philosophy, for it is based solely on human reason. God is silent in the book, until the very end.

The author was obviously a man of position, highly regarded for his wisdom. Indeed, his name means “teacher.” And he’s telling us that time conditions life, so no human achievements – all those “under the sun” things -- have lasting value. In the overall scheme of things, he tells us, our seemingly important human work is really futile.

Qoheleth really asks the question that the rest of sacred Scripture was written to answer: What is the purpose of life? Is there a purpose? For what we need most of all – meaning and purpose and hope in our lives – is precisely what Qoheleth questions.

This is a dangerous question because if we can’t answer it, we are left with the world’s worst news, that life is meaningless. By including Ecclesiastes in Sacred Scripture first the Jewish rabbis and then the Church showed tremendous confidence in their ability to provide a real answer.

For the Jews, the answer was trust and hope, trust in God’s faithfulness to His Covenant and hope in the promise of a Messiah. For the Church, the answer isn’t the hope of a Messiah, but His reality in the person of Jesus Christ.

And so, instead of the worst news, we have the Good News; we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and what a positive answer this is!

Jesus, the eternal, creative Word of God, He who created this immeasurable, incomprehensible universe, actually became one of us to show His infinite love for us.  From Jesus we learn there actually is human work that’s not “under the sun” – human work that’s truly “out of this world” – the work of building the Kingdom of Heaven.

We’re not here just to live from day to day, filling our stomachs and our bank accounts, until we die and disappear from human memory. No, we’re here to build up the mystical Body of Christ, the kingdom of loving souls, and death is not the end, but just the beginning.

Secondly, vanity and despair are not the meaning of life. Love is the meaning of life. God created us out of love because love is His very nature. And He asks us to return that love to Him and share it with each other.

We discover later that Qoheleth recognizes this, because at the very end of his book, he tells us:

“The last word, when all is heard: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this concerns all humankind; because God will bring to judgment every work, with all its hidden qualities, whether good or bad" [Eccl 12:13-14].

Qoheleth exposes the God-shaped hole in the human heart. It’s a hole that can’t be filled by anything in the world, for nothing material is great enough to fill that emptiness. Only one thing can fill it, and it isn’t a thing; it’s a Person: Jesus Christ, who came to conquer death and evil. The Book of Ecclesiastes asks the question, and Jesus Christ is the answer.

In St. Augustine’s famous words, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and therefore our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

Homily: Saturday, 34th Week in Ordinary Time (Year 1)

Readings: Dn 7:15-27; Dn 3; Luke 21:34-36

Here I am, only a couple of years from 80, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a time when anxiety and fear have filled the hearts of so many.

COVID has had its effect on a lot of folks, and yes, many in my age group have succumbed to the virus, but in truth most have survived. And yet, so many are overcome by fear. And now the world is panicking over a new variant out of Africa.

To add to our anxieties, we have obvious inflation and a rising cost of living. Then, as we look at our nation and the world, we see far too much division and hatred and threats. Yes, it seems to be a time of very fragile peace, a time of real uncertainty. And yet Jesus tells us, again and again, not to be afraid, but so many seem to ignore Him.

About 35 years ago, back when I was a business consultant, I used to travel a lot. One Sunday afternoon, driving my rental car through the hills of Arkansas, I heard a radio preacher tell his audience that we were only a few years, perhaps just months, from the tribulations and the Second Coming. As I recall, he was the minister of a Free Will Baptist Church. Let me paraphrase what he said that day:

“Jesus is coming, brothers and sisters. But first He’s gonna let the earth be scoured by Satan and his minions. Don’t you be afraid of them. Put away all those fears and get ready for Jesus. He’s coming soon, real soon, and you’d better stop all that sinning. If you don’t call on the Lord and repent, you just won’t be strong enough.”

I have to admit, I loved it. Of course, Jesus hasn’t returned yet, so his timing was off, by how much nobody but God Himself knows. But the preacher’s message was actually pretty good and mirrors the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel passage from Luke. How did Jesus put it?

"Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life...Be vigilant... Pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations" [Lk 21:34,36].

I’ll admit, many years ago, the first time I thought about those words, I had a hard time picturing those first-century Jews out carousing. In truth, though, I suppose they weren’t much different from us. Even The Villages has its share of carousing and drunkenness, and certainly its share of anxiety.

But we’re all disciples of our Lord, Jesus Christ, so we must allow Him to take away our fears. After all, the Gospel is the Good News, the promise of an eternal life beyond anything we can imagine.

If the gospel message is good news, then why do so many oppose it with hostility and even violence? Jesus warns us that we’ll be confronted with persecution, evil, false teaching, and temptation. But how does He tell us to respond to all this? With love, with truth, with forgiveness.

Only His Way, His Way of peace, His way of love, can defeat bigotry, hatred, and envy, and all that would divide and tear us apart.

Only God’s truth, His revealed Word, can overcome the lies and confusion in the world.

And only God’s gift of life, eternal life, can carry us to the salvation He promises.

Only Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life can dissolve all those fears that plague so many today.

I don’t know if you and I will see those tribulations… probably not. But we are still called to proclaim the Gospel wherever God has placed us – called to be to be witnesses.

Did you know the Greek root of the word martyr means witness? The Book of Revelations calls Jesus “the faithful witness ...who freed us from our sins by his blood" [Rev 1:5]. 

St. Augustine spoke of this too: "The martyrs were bound, jailed, scourged, racked, burned, rent, butchered – and they multiplied!" Christians multiplied because the martyrs witnessed to the truth, to the joy and freedom of the Gospel; and they did so through the testimony of their lives.

So maybe, instead of fearing the world and its evils, we should just be joyful that we have heard the Good News, received the gift of faith, and are called to share it all with others. What brings others to Jesus Christ and His Church is 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.

COVID-19 Bible Study Reflection #14: Joyful Prophet

Many Christians, when they think of the Old Testament prophets, picture in their mind’s eye odd-looking men roaming the Holy Land and telling the Jews to straighten up and fly right or lots of very nasty things will happen to them. Yes, it’s all doom and gloom, fire and brimstone, sack cloth and ashes. To be honest, sometimes that’s exactly what the prophets did, because among their many roles was their call to be the moral conscience of the people. To fulfill that role, they acted as guides along the path to salvation calling God’s people to repentance and to moral and religious change.

But the prophets weren’t just the bearers of bad tidings. They had another role. More often than not, they were God’s messengers, His visionaries. They were the proclaimers of the Good News. I suppose we could call them the first proclaimers, the ones sent by God to tell His people that something wonderful, someone wonderful, was coming.

These prophets, then, so often depicted as fierce, angry men, were actually among the most joyful men of the Old Testament. God, you see, had given them a glimpse, a vision of what was to come, a vision that filled them with expectant joy. Any sadness they experienced was most often the result of the people’s refusal to listen.

The other evening, as I prayed for the soul of a friend who had just died, I turned to the Office for the Dead, part of the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours. One of the optional hymns included in this Office is the thirteenth-century hymn, “Dies Irae.” As an altar boy back in the pre-Vatican II days, I often heard the Latin version of this hymn chanted as a sequence during Requiem Masses. Quite beautiful, especially in Gregorian Chant, it's far too long to include here in its entirety, so I’ll just provide a link to it – Dies Irae. You can read it at your leisure, in ether Latin or an English translation. If you’d like to hear the hymn in Gregorian Chant, click here.

Dies Irae is best translated as “The Day of Wrath.” As you might imagine, it’s all about the Final Judgment, the “day of the Lord.” The hymn was inspired by the opening verses of the Book of Zephaniah. The prophet begins with this proclamation of God’s Word:

“I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” says the Lord [Zeph 1:2].

…and concludes with:

“A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, and day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness…” [Zeph 1:15].

These two verses, and the 12 verses that fall between them, are not what we would normally consider a cheerful message, but cheer was not Zephaniah’s intention. Indeed, in the first two chapters of his brief book of prophecy, Zephaniah chastises the people for turning away from the one, true God and embracing false and foreign gods. He goes on to depict a future dark and grim, a time of punishment, a day of judgment. Most scholars believe Zephaniah wrote these words early in the reign of King Josiah (640-609 B.C.) when Assyrian influence was greatest, and years before Josiah instituted his religious reforms. From the text, however, it’s obvious that Zephaniah’s prophecy of judgment applies not only to Israel and Judah, but to all nations.

Note: Interestingly, to my knowledge – and I may well be wrong – Zephaniah is one of the few Old Testament books to which there are no direct New Testament references.

The prophets, however, are not all darkness, and Zephaniah is no exception. In chapter three he completes his prophetic proclamation with a joyful description of the future God has planned for His people. We actually hear part of it in the first reading of Advent’s Gaudete [Rejoice!] Sunday (Year C):

“Shout for joy, daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart, daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has removed the judgment against you, he has turned away your enemies; the King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst, you have no further misfortune to fear. On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, Zion, do not be discouraged! The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty Savior, Who will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, Who will sing joyfully because of you, as on festival days” [Zeph 3:14-18a].

It’s a future that appears to be centered on one event, on an arrival: “The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a mighty Savior.” The prophet, though, was also called to prepare God’s people for this arrival; therefore, he prefaced his revelation by telling God’s people how they are to receive their Savior:

“…I will leave as a remnant in your midst a people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord” [Zeph 3:12].

A remnant, humble and lowly? Is Zephaniah speaking to the Jewish people of his own day? Or are his words instead aimed at those who later will be carried off into exile after the fall of Jerusalem, only to return as a “remnant”? Perhaps the Spirit is using Zephaniah’s words to address the Jews of Jesus’ time, the time of salvation. Or is he addressing us, we who have received a mighty Savior in our midst and who continue to receive Him in His Eucharistic Presence? Indeed, there is an evident liturgical presence in Zephaniah as the prophet proclaims the renewal of communion between God and His people.

I think we can answer each of these questions with one word: Yes! After all, the words of Zephaniah are the Word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and given to the chosen people and to the Church for the salvation of all God’s people. In that sense, they are as timeless as all of Sacred Scripture.

Zephaniah revealed that God would leave a “remnant” in the midst of the world. But what about that remnant? It that another way of describing those to whom God will grant His salvation? Is “remnant” simply another word for us, the Church? Or does it include only some within the Church? What about all those others -- other Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and so many others? Who’s included and who’s excluded? Or do such questions completely miss what God is telling us?

Perhaps we spend far too much time asking questions. Perhaps this remnant is exactly what the prophet says it is: “a people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord.” God so often takes the weak and powerless, and through them does wondrous things.

In the last days, then, is this remnant of humble, lowly ones called to prepare the way for the Lord’s return? Are they called to be the evangelists of the last days? The Church’s response is an emphatic “Yes!” Indeed, for 2,000 years the Church has taught that we are in “the last days,” which began with the Incarnation. St. Peter actually preached this on that first Pentecost Sunday by quoting the Prophet Joel:

“It will come to pass in the last days,” God says, “that I will pour out a portion of my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams” [Acts 2:17],

If we accept this, if we believe God is calling us to join His holy remnant in preparation for His ultimate return, it makes sense, then, to try to understand what God desires of us.

God’s Word, though, particularly His expectations, can be a bit scary, especially when we place them alongside the reality of our lives. Do you remember the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit [Is 11:2-3]? Remember the last of these seven gifts? That’s right: Fear of the Lord. I’ve often thought this remarkable gift describes my partial comprehension of the vast difference between God and me, an awe-inspiring difference that cannot but inspire deep humility as well. Once again, how did Zephaniah put it? “…a people humble and lowly…”

The world, of course, rejects this. To be lowly today is to be a loser, a loser in a society where anyone who’s anyone strives to be a winner. Fame and fortune beckon and the lowly will be left behind. Have you ever noticed that those worldly winners always define themselves by their work, by how they make their living, not by how they live?

This becomes evident when you attend a get together of people you’ve never met, say a cocktail party. Among the first questions people ask is, “What do you do?” Of course, here in The Villages it’s usually, “What did you do?” Anyway, just to create a little confusion, I sometimes answer with: “I struggle to be humble in the presence of God and man, usually with little success, and I try to work out my salvation with ‘fear and trembling.’ How about you?” [See Phil 2:12]

As you might imagine, the responses vary.

Yes, humility’s not something we see a lot of these days. As my father used to say, only partially in jest: “Humility’s a strange commodity. Once you know you have it, you just lost it.”

But what about Zephaniah? What else does he tell us? How are we to receive the Lord? Foreshadowing Jesus, who told His disciples time and again not to be afraid, Zephaniah tells us the same thing. Here again are his words:

"Do not fear...The Lord...will rejoice over you with gladness and renew you in His love...will sing joyfully because of you" [Zeph 3:16-17].

What a marvelous image: God rejoicing over us with gladness and singing joyfully. What a wonderful encapsulation of the Good News of Jesus Christ, all uttered by this Old Testament prophet centuries before that first Christmas in Bethlehem. Dear Zephaniah, who was not only a prophet but also a prince of the royal house of Judah, tells us clearly that we are to welcome the Lord and receive him with humility and without fear.

But that’s not all. He tells us one more thing: to “Shout for joy!” That’s right…we are to “Sing joyfully…be glad and exult with all your heart.” This, the prophet reveals, is what waiting for the Lord, is all about. We are to greet the Lord with joy, with so much joy that our hearts are ready to burst.

Several years ago, on our way up north to spend Christmas with our family, Diane and I stopped by Jacksonville to see dear old friends, a retired admiral and his wife, Scott and Marnie. I had flown with Scott back in our Navy days, but now he was dying of cancer and we wanted to see him once more.

That day as we ate lunch together, Scott’s drawn face suddenly filled with peace. He smiled and said, “You know, Dana, I’m so looking forward to seeing our Lord, I can hardly stand it. Isn’t that weird?” Scott died exactly one week later. And do you know something? That comment, made over a salad at a Longhorn restaurant, was a gift. Speaking with us several weeks later, Marnie said, “Scott saved me from a lot of grief because he was so joyful about the life to come.”

Yes, we are to welcome the Lord with joy, however and whenever He might come to us. And hundreds of years after Zephaniah proclaimed God’s Word to the world, St. Paul told us much the same thing. In his Letter to the Philippians, the Apostle tells them and us:

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say again: rejoice!" [Phil 4:4]

…and then goes on to counsel against fear:

“The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all” [Phil 4:5-6].

That’s right, fear not. And by putting aside this fear, Paul tells us:

“…the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” [Phil 4:7].

I am reminded again of the words of my friend, Scott: “I’m so looking forward to seeing our Lord I can hardly stand it.” Here, indeed, is the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. This is the Good News, brothers and sisters. When God’s peace fills your heart, when you can look to the Lord with joy regardless of the circumstances, you know you’ve accepted the Good News in its fullness.

The Good News, the Gospel, never leaves anxiety or despair in its wake. Only the bad news does that, only the work of Satan brings fear and discord and conflict.

What, then, can we learn from all this?

First, there’s humility. True humility, though, comes from prayer, the struggle to comprehend God’s holiness, His complete “otherness,” and the vastness of His creation. Fortunately, we have Jesus as our perfect example. As St. Paul reminds us:

“…he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” [Phil 2:7-8].

Here we encounter a humility “that surpasses all understanding,” a humility founded on God’s great love for us. This is why Zephaniah and Paul and Jesus Himself tell us not to fear, because we are loved so greatly.

This then, and the gift of our redemption, will lead us to receive Him with joy. For joy, too, should be our natural response to the Good News, to every encounter we have with Jesus.

After all, aren’t you joyful when you hear that a loved one has been healed of a life-threatening illness, that he or she can once again experience life to the fullest? Well, that’s what the Gospel is. It’s the Good News that humanity has been healed, that God has given all of us the gift of life. But this spiritual healing is so much greater than any physical healing. And the life we receive from it? Well, it’s eternal life.

If that’s not a cause for joy, then nothing is.

Homily: Monday in the Octave of Easter

Readings: Acts 2:14, 22-33; Ps 16; Mt 28:8-15

______________________________

During this special time of the year, our first reading is taken, not from the Old Testament, but from the Acts of the Apostles. The Church does this for a very good reason: Acts begins with Pentecost, that special day when the Church, promised and formed by Jesus, is born. It’s the story of the Church, of the Apostles who began to fulfill Jesus’ great commission:

“Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” [Mt 28:10-20].

Make disciples, baptize, teach – it all began through the preaching of the first disciples. Before the Gospel was written, it was preached. And it’s in the Acts of the Apostles, during this season of Easter, that we encounter that early Gospel preached by Peter and Paul. Listen again to Peter as he spread the Good News among the Jewish pilgrims on that first Pentecost: 

“God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he poured forth the promise of the Holy Spirit that he received from the Father, as you both see and hear” [Acts 2:32-33].

Peter’s focus is the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the very foundation of our Christian faith. Yes, God raised Jesus…But in our Gospel passage the two Marys went to the tomb, not to see a Risen Jesus, but to anoint His body. 


They knew He had died. 

They had heard Him take His last breath. 

They had seen the soldier's lance pierce His side. 

They had grieved with His Mother as she cradled her Son's lifeless body in her arms; and they had seen Him placed hurriedly in the tomb.

Oh, yes, they knew He had died. In their grief, a grief of emptiness tinged with fear, they made their way to the tomb of a dead man.

They hadn’t understood Jesus when He spoke of His Resurrection. Faced with the finality of death, their faith and their hope had all but disappeared. Only love remained, and it’s this love for Jesus that carried them along the path to the tomb. But the tomb is empty, and a jumble of emotions filled their hearts: astonishment, confusion, fear.

It’s then they encountered their Risen Lord. The One they sought, the One Who was crucified, the One Who had died before their very eyes, is risen.

In the shock of sudden revelation, they realize that death has not had the last word, but that the Word has overcome death.

Faith and hope explode in their hearts. And just as suddenly, all of His teachings, every word He uttered, take on new meaning. Now they know what He meant by the Kingdom of God, for it is in their very midst, catapulted into the here and now by the Resurrection.

Matthew tells us the women left the tomb "fearful yet overjoyed" [Mt 28:8].  Fear and joy – a rare combination of emotions that I suspect exists only in the presence of God.

Oh, yes, they were fearful, for they had just witnessed God's awesome power, and for the first time fully understood Who Jesus is.

He is the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Chosen One, the Son of God. He is risen! And so too have all of His promises, that now make such perfect sense. 

Today our world, too, is filled with fear, but fear of a different sort. It’s not the fear of God, the clear recognition of Who He is. It’s not that fear that grips today’s world. No, today so many are afraid of sickness and of death. And yet Jesus told us: 

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul…” [Mt 10:28]

You see, brothers and sisters, the women at the tomb had no fear of the world, for they were joyful…joyful that their trust in Jesus was not misplaced, that God loved them with an overwhelming love.

Despair had turned to hope, and that tiny kernel of faith had blossomed into a sure knowledge of redemption. This, too, should fill us with joy, even as we struggle to overcome this threat to human life.

How fitting that Jesus chose Mary Magdalene to break the news – the Good News – to a sinful world. Mary, who had been dead in the slavery of her sin, who had been sealed in a tomb of her own making had been given new life. Jesus knew that she, who had experienced God’s healing power in her own resurrection from the deadness of sin…Jesus knew she would believe. 

Mary Magdalene is what every woman and every man is called to be: the sinner who became the saint, living proof of the power of God's love. She’s the “witness” that Peter described as he preached in the streets of Jerusalem, the fruit of Christ's Resurrection.

Today, as you make an act of spiritual communion, it is the Risen Jesus you encounter, the very source of our faith and hope.

Together let us lift our hearts and minds in thanksgiving and celebrate Christ's victory over death and sin, a victory that resounded throughout the universe, and continues to do so today.

Ellen Louise Thomas, R.I.P.

Ellen Thomas 1949-2020

Last week Diane and I lost a dear friend. Ellen Thomas, the wife of Deacon Walter Thomas, died suddenly and unexpectedly on January 15. We will miss her dearly.

Walter and I, along with about 20 other men, were in the same deacon formation class of the Diocese of Fall River. We were ordained together on May 24, 1997 by then-Bishop Sean O'Malley, who went on to become Cardinal O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston.

Ellen and Walter, Diane and I, and another diaconate formation classmate, Deacon Joe Mador, and his wife, Ann, all made the move to The Villages in Florida. As it turned out we ended up together, at least for a while, at St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Wildwood, Florida.

Today we celebrated a memorial Mass for Ellen at St. Vincent's, and Walter honored me by asking me to preach the homily. The family plans to celebrate Ellen's funeral Mass in Massachusetts within a week or two.

I have included my homily below:

____________________________

Readings: Wisdom 3:1-6,9; Psalm 25; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28; John 14:1-6
____________________________

Walter, on behalf of Father Peter, our pastor, and Father John, along with our brother deacons, and the entire St. Vincent de Paul Parish community, I extend our deepest condolences to you, and to Kim and Larry, to Eric and Jessica, and to those beautiful grandchildren that Ellen loved so dearly and was so proud of. 

To Ellen’s friends who have joined us to support this family, thank you; it is good that you are here today. Thank you for your love and your prayers.

Yes, indeed, Walter, it is good, good and fitting that all of us who love Ellen should come together at this difficult time. I know it’s a difficult time…it’s a sad time because one we love is no longer with us as she once was. 

But even though we know she remains with us in spirit, it’s still a time that can generate questions to which we seek answers, answers about life and death.

St. Paul, of course, provides an answer, reminding us that Jesus, through His death and Resurrection, destroyed that final enemy. He destroyed death. But perhaps the best answer is the one we just heard from Jesus:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me” [Jn 14:1].

Remarkable words, really, since Jesus said them the night before He died, knowing what would happen the next day. But is He concerned about Himself? No, He’s concerned about His friends: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

These are good words for us today as well. And knowing Ellen, as we all do, I think we can hear her saying these same words, for she would not want troubled hearts here today.

“You have faith in God,” Jesus added, “have faith also in me.” Even at difficult times such as this, Jesus tells us, it is our faith that allows our hearts to be untroubled. Yes, it’s all about faith, isn’t it? And because Ellen was a woman of deep faith, she would want our hearts to be joyful. It is our faith that calls us to be joyful. As St. Paul reminds us: because of our faith we do “not grieve like the rest, who have no hope” [1 Thes 4:13].

Do you recall the words of our first reading? 

“…they are at peace… their hope full of immortality” [Wis 3:3,4].

Ellen, who for years suffered so very much, is indeed at peace, tasting the immortality we all hope to share. And she would want us, those whom she loved so deeply, to be at peace too. I can say this with confidence because, well, I speak from experience.

Diane and I came to know Ellen and Walter well over 25 years ago, when Walter and I, along with Deacon Joe Mador, whom many of you know – began diaconate formation in the Fall River diocese. That formation certainly didn’t exclude the wives of those deacon candidates.

And these good women, doing the work of the Holy Spirit, rejoiced with us through all the joyful times, and pushed and pulled us through the many challenging times. 

Believe me, during five years of intensive formation you learn a lot about each other. Secrets are shared, hearts are opened, and despite it all we came to love each other.

Ellen, of course, was easy to love. Smart, strongly independent, she was ever full of laughter and fun.
But more importantly, she was a devoted and loving wife and mother. She and Walter were not two, but one: “Joined at the hip,” she would say.

Her familial love was of the best kind: it was a sacrificial love – a love that gave, expecting nothing in return.

She was also a remarkable friend, and it was a friendship that Diane and I cherished deeply – a friendship that began in Massachusetts and continued here in The Villages. You see, 20 years ago, after Diane and I had made an exploratory visit to The Villages, we happened to mention it to Ellen and Walter. The next thing we knew, they had gone south and bought a home here. They beat us to the punch. It would be another three years before Diane and I became Villagers.

How can we forget her Cinco de Mayo birthday celebrations at local Mexican restaurants, always including a margherita or two?

And to be Ellen’s friend, it really helped if you were a Red Sox and Patriots fan. Believe me, she gave new meaning to the word fan, which in her case truly is short for fanatic. You can imagine how difficult this past year was for her.

But Ellen’s fervor for those teams was just symptomatic of the enthusiasm she brought to so many aspects of her life. And along with that enthusiasm came remarkable organizational skills. Whether organizing a cruise for her friends or planning parties or dinners for playoff games or holidays, it was Ellen who pulled it all together. Our lives would have been boring and lackluster without Ellen to draw us out of our shells.

I could go on and on, but I know she’s listening, and it would embarrass her. So, let me just say that we love her dearly. She will remain always in a very special place in our hearts.

To Ellen’s family, I can only encourage you to keep her spirit alive, to tell the stories, the stories that bring laughter and those that bring tears, to pass them on from one generation to the next. Those future generations won’t have known Ellen, but because of you, they will come to appreciate all that she did for this family and will love her as well.

But it’s also important for us to remember that this Mass, although a memorial for Ellen, remains primarily an act of worship, but worship in the form of thanksgiving. You see, today we thank our loving, merciful God for Ellen Louise Thomas. We thank Him for the gift of this woman’s unique, unrepeatable life, a life you and I were privileged not only to witness, but also to share.

But more importantly, as Christians, whenever we gather in prayer, we thank our God for the gift of His Son, Who gave His life for us. For without that gift, we would have no hope…no hope of forgiveness, no hope of mercy, no hope of salvation, no hope of eternal life.

It’s because of this gift that we can gather here today and not be consumed by grief.

It’s because of this gift that we can go on with our own lives secure in the knowledge that Ellen, and you, and I, that we have all been redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Resting in the embrace of our loving God, Ellen now holds this truth in the very depths of her being.
St. Paul said it best: 

“We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and place us with you in his presence” [2 Cor 4:14].

And who is this Jesus? Well, He told us, didn’t He?

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life” [Jn 14:6].

The Way – nothing less than our Christian faith – the Truth, why that’s the Good News of Jesus Christ, and the life is everlasting life. It’s the understanding that we’re here for a purpose: to do God’s will so that we may spend an eternal life of happiness with Him – that eternal life Ellen is just now beginning to experience. For God has put Ellen’s suffering behind her, and we thank Him for that.

This is what we celebrate here today: the Good News of Jesus Christ.

…the Good News that lies at the very core of our faith

…the Good News that tells us the Father loves us so intensely He sent His only Son to become one of us

…so intensely He allowed His Son to die for our sins, for the sins of those who put Him to death
…so intensely that through His redeeming death and Resurrection He gave us the gift of eternal life.

This is what we celebrate today. We celebrate the reality of the Good News for Ellen and for us.

We’re here to give Ellen to the Father, to thank God for her life, and to ask the Father to grant her a new life, a life far greater than the one she shared with us, an eternal life of happiness.

Praised be Jesus Christ!