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, they 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: 11 Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers here this evening.

Some of us were blessed to have strong, loving, and faithful fathers, men who struggled to support and lead their families through what were often difficult times and circumstances.

We remember, too, that no man is perfect and most of those imperfections are mere pieces of our humanity. 

And so, we thank God for all fathers, living and dead, and prayerfully lift them up to the Lord.

Now let’s turn to our readings...

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Readings: Ez 17:22-24; Ps 92; 2 Cor 5:6-10; Mk 4:26-34

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What is this “Kingdom of God” about which Jesus always speaks?

Most of us tend to associate worldly kingdoms with places, but God’s Kingdom is not a place like the United Kingdom, or even The Villages. And contrary to the advertising, The Villages is not paradise.

Perhaps a better translation of God's Kingdom is, “The Reign of God.” Fortunately, Jesus tells us a lot, so if we listen to Him, we can learn something about God’s reign.

He tells us it’s near and to pray for its coming. And in parables He tells us what it’s like: like leaven, a pearl, a net, hidden treasure, and even a mustard seed. He compares it to a landowner and a king. But He doesn’t explicitly tell us what it is, does He? What exactly is this Kingdom, this Reign of God?

Back then, some people thought they knew. For the Pharisees it was strict adherence to Mosaic Law. The Zealots, the Jewish revolutionaries of Jesus’ time, thought of it as an earthly kingdom to come, ruled by God. The Essenes, ascetic Jews, had withdrawn into the desert to await the Kingdom, the end of the world…and then what? They weren’t really sure.

Yes, they all saw the Kingdom differently. But hundreds of years earlier, through Ezekiel, both priest and prophet, God spoke His Word to His people, also in a kind of parable. God gave them a hopeful glimpse of His Reign using the metaphor of a tender shoot planted on a mountain – where “it shall put forth branches and bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar.” In that Kingdom, God tells us, He will bring low the high, and will lift high the lowly. Who knew that the tree was a Cross on the hill of Calvary, lifting high the fruit of salvation?

Note Jesus’ very first words in Mark’s Gospel:

“The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”[Mk 1:15]

These are important words. After all, they’re the first words He preaches in His public ministry. So, what do they tell us?

Well, one word jumps out at us: the world “Repent!” John the Baptist used it often as he roamed about Judea preparing the people for Jesus’ coming. And Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, told the Jews gathered in Jerusalem from all over the world, “Repent and be baptized…”

In the original Greek New Testament, the word is metanoia, meaning repentance, a change of mind. “Repent,” then, is a pretty good translation: to repent, to re-think, to think again, to think differently. Jesus, John, and Peter are all telling us to change, to undergo inner change.

In past earthly kingdoms, the King’s subjects served him, and paid him homage and obeisance. Applying this to God’s Kingdom, we are called first, to turn away from ourselves, and turn to God. We use the word “conversion,” which has its roots in the Latin word meaning, “to turn around.” True repentance, then, is a complete change of thinking, a turning around of mind and heart.

St. Paul expresses this same idea when he writes:

“…put away the old self of your former way of life…and be renewed in the spirit of your minds” [Eph 4:22-23].

Because our God is Who He is, in that turning we find the answers to all that we seek: peace, freedom, justice, forgiveness, true happiness, eternal life. These answers don’t come from the world, a world in which everything passes away. No, they come only from God, from the Father, the source of all that is good. 

And this, brothers and sisters, is the Good News. The Kingdom is near; God’s reign is near. Because the Risen Jesus is here, so too is the Father, and the Holy Spirit who does God’s work in the world. The invitation to the Kingdom is extended to everyone. Jesus opens the gates of His Kingdom to all of us, no matter our sins.

We need only “repent, and believe in the Gospel” – conversion and faith. We need only turn around, away from our sinfulness and to our loving Father. The Father’s kindness, His forgiveness, His love for each of His children knows no limits. As Jesus told us:

“…seek His kingdom, and these other things will be given you besides [Lk 12:31].

Again, this is the Good News: the coming of God’s Reign is Jesus’ revelation that God is love. But we’re not called simply to sit back, bask in God’s love, and enjoy the view. No, we’re all called to take that love to others, to be “God-bearers”, to be heralds of the Kingdom.

Whether you’re retired or work for a living, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute. This is God’s Kingdom we’re talking about, and I’m just one person tucked away here in central Florida.” You and I might not know the fulness of God’s plan for us, but we’re not called to sit on our hands.

Just consider the mustard seed in today’s Gospel. Small, insignificant, and yet it’s a seed, filled with potential. It need only be planted in the earth. Watered and nurtured by God’s gifts of rain and sunlight, the tiny seed becomes a plant so large the birds dwell in it.

In a sense, our Gospel takes us back to Genesis, when God took a piece of earth, and breathing His Spirit into it, created Adam. One meaning of the Latin word humus is earth. Yes, we are human, from humus, created from the earth. And God plants that tiny seed in the earth, in you and me, where it’s a living sign of the Kingdom to come.

God does all the work to make it grow. We need only turn to Him and accept it. We need only repent, walk by faith as Paul instructs us, place our trust in Him, and allow the Spirit to work within us. He will turn that seed of faith into something wondrous, something beyond our comprehension.

In one of his books, Pope Benedict wrote about the Kingdom present in three different ways.

It is present in Jesus Himself. Jesus is the Kingdom; He is God’s presence among us. It is also a reflection of God’s reign within us, in our inner being, growing and reaching out to others. Finally, the Kingdom is expressed in the Church, its continued presence in history’s time and place. And often, we see it manifested in all three dimensions.

When I was lad, a blind man in our town had a shack, a newsstand, near the railroad station. He sold newspapers, magazines, cigarettes, and candy. In those days, long before political correctness, everyone just called him Blind Joe. He didn’t mind. In fact, the sign over his shack read, “Blind Joe’s.”

One winter day his space heater shorted and caused a fire that destroyed the shack. Joe lost everything. But the very next day one of our parishioners provided all the funds to rebuild the newsstand and recruited a local builder to do the job. Within three days it was rebuilt and restocked with all new inventory. It must have cost several thousand dollars, a lot of money back in the fifties. An anonymous gift, even Joe didn’t know who the donor was. Only our pastor and a few others, including my dad, knew. And Dad never told me. 

A local reporter interviewed Joe, and asked him, “What do you think of the men who did this for you?” Joe just said, “I thank God for those men, but it was really Jesus.”

With those words Blind Joe echoed the psalm we just sang, “Lord, it is good to give thanks to you,” and then proclaimed the meaning of the kingdom. Yes, it’s Jesus, His Reign in the world, manifested through you and me. As a living sign of the Kingdom of God, that parishioner, and the others who helped him, did the work of the King, the work of Jesus Christ. The reign of the living God was present within them.

You see, brothers and sisters, the Kingdom is you and I; and Christ is our King. The Kingdom is what we are, the Church, taking Jesus Christ into a world that needs Him so very badly today.

May the peace of the Kingdom be with you all.

 

Homily: 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (26 Jan 2020)

I have embedded a video of this homily below. The complete text follows the video:

Readings: Is 8:23-9:3; Ps 27; 1 Cor 1:10-13,17; Mt 4:12-23

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“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” [Mt 4:17]

With these words Jesus began His public ministry. Has anyone ever directed these words at you? In confession I’ve never had a priest say, “Repent, deacon, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And in all those retreats I’ve made no retreat master ever began a reflection by standing tall at the podium, pointing at us and saying, “Repent, sinners, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” I suppose these words, this command, seem just a bit…well, harsh – you know, not in keeping with people’s expectations these days.

Mark, in his Gospel, has Jesus saying, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” [Mk 1:15]. Another translation offers slightly different terms: “Be converted and accept the Gospel.” But notice, regardless of the translation, Jesus tells us that we must first repent and be converted. That’s right, before we learn about the kingdom, before we accept the good news of the Gospel, Jesus tells us to repent, to be converted.

You see, without conversion, without repentance, the Gospel really makes no sense. after all, the Gospel tells us to do all kinds of things that the world rejects.

“Love your neighbor as yourself…” [Mk 12:31]

Well, now, wait minute, shouldn’t I love myself a wee bit more? I mean, think of the effect on my self-esteem if I have to think so highly of others. Then there’s that other one: 

"Love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart, soul and strength.” [Mk 12:30]

Not much room in there for anything else. But does God expect us to take that literally? Am I supposed to put “Love God” at the beginning of every to-do list and back-burner everything else?

And what about all those other Sermon-on-the-Mount things…you know, being meek and poor in spirit, being merciful and pure of heart, thirsting for righteousness, no anger, no lust, forgive your enemies – all those counter-intuitive things. That’s no way to enjoy life or get ahead in the world.

Yes, the Gospel just doesn’t make much sense at all…unless…unless we are converted. Only then, only after we’ve changed, only after we’ve invited God into our lives and our hearts, only after we accept our sinfulness and repent, only then can we accept the Good News as Good News. Once we respond to God’s call to conversion, and realize God’s greatness and overwhelming love for us, then we can accept the Gospel with the unbounded joy its message deserves.

Is that how you respond to the Gospel? With unbounded joy? With a thirst to hear more? With a hunger you that can never be fully satisfied until you come face to face with God? Is that how you respond? If not…well, join the club, because repentance and conversion still await you. Do you sense that? Is something missing in your life? Is there an emptiness in your inner being that nothing has been able to fill?

Brothers and sisters, that’s God calling you, begging to heal you, to fill that emptiness. St. Augustine, the reluctant convert, put it best: 

“Our hearts are restless, O God, until they rest in Thee.”

That restlessness is a gift, almost sacramental; a sign pointing to God. Is that why we’re all here at this Mass, to satisfy the longing? Is this the choice we’ve made? Do we come together as a community of believers in thanksgiving and praise? Do we come, yearning for God’s Word and celebrating His goodness? Do we come to feast on the miraculous gift of the Eucharist from which we receive the spiritual sustenance we need to grow in the Christian life. 

Or are we here out of habit, to fulfill some sense of social or cultural obligation? “Of course I go to Mass. Isn’t that what Catholics do?” That’s a non-response, a static, unchanging, act of non-faith. We can’t respond to God’s call and grow in faith if our motivation is grounded in something worldly.
Jesus calls us to continual conversion, conversion leads to growth, and growth demands change.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

His call to conversion is unambiguous: Repent! Why? To enter His Kingdom. Yes, brothers and sisters, we’re all sinners. Sinners need forgiveness. Forgiveness needs repentance.

God invites us all. No one’s overlooked. He wants to forgive each of His children, just as He wants to rule over each of us. But unlike human rulers, God forces Himself on no one. We accept the invitation by making a choice. 

Gradually, as His ministry unfolded, Jesus revealed more and more about His Kingdom, a Kingdom extending beyond time and space, all the way to eternity – a spiritual kingdom, a kingdom of love and holiness; hence the call for repentance. A Kingdom of holiness cannot admit the profane, just as a Kingdom of love must reject hatred. 

Oh, we all want to heed the call, if only it didn’t involve change. If only it didn’t place so many demands on me. If only my life weren’t going so well right now. And so we complicate God’s simple, straightforward call by cluttering it with our own issues. Yes, we want to respond…but on our terms. 

But that’s not how it works. How can we enter the Kingdom but reject the authority of the King? We can’t have it both ways. To accept the Kingdom demands conversion. Just look how the Apostles handled it. 

Jesus called Peter and Andrew and “at once they left their nets and followed Him” [Mt 4:20]. Moments later, He called James and John and, “immediately they left their boat and their father and followed Him” [Mt 4:22].

Do you detect a sense of urgency? Called by Jesus, the Apostles don’t think it over. They don’t weigh the pros and cons. They don’t hire a consultant to advise them on their career change. They acted in faith because they heard God’s call. They hadn’t yet accepted the Gospel, but they accepted Jesus, the very Word of God Himself. 

Called to conversion, these most ordinary of men immediately left everything behind and followed; and that’s all God asked of them…for now. They hadn’t a clue about what lay ahead – mercifully it was hidden from them – but they knew their old lives were gone for good. That’s what conversion is: a continual, lifelong process of leaving things behind. 

How about you and me? What does God want us to leave behind? Have we asked Him? God calls each of us in unique and individual ways. Some, like the rich young man in the Gospel, too attached to his possessions, are called to radical action: 

“Sell everything you have, give the money to the poor, and come, follow me.” [Mt 19:21]

Only this would bring the happiness he sought. But he rejected Jesus’ call, and went away sad. 

Others, like the woman caught in adultery, are simply told, 

“Go and sin no more.” [Jn 8:11]

There’s nothing to fear from God’s call. He never calls us to that which we cannot do. But we must first hear and accept His call. Once we do, once we turn our lives over to His rule, He provides the grace we need to persevere.

“Be still and know that I am God.” [Ps 46:10]

These words sung by the psalmist still apply. Step away from the noise of the world and prayerfully listen to God’s call. Step away from your busy lives to be still in God’s presence. Spend some quiet time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Listen to His voice.

God calls each of us. It matters not how old or young we are. We all sense it don’t we? We shift in the pew and stare down at our hands as the Spirit beckons those very hands to abandon the nets that ensnare us, all those entanglements that keep us from answering God’s call. We experience the tension. The mystic calls it “the holy longing.”

As the gifts are carried forward, know that God is carrying a gift to you, a call that leads to eternal life. For God is calling you and me to a new way of life, to something far greater than the world can ever give. 

And because He’s a loving God, He never stops calling.

Thoughts on the Constitution

I suppose today's thoughts are a bit off the usual path I try to plod along, but although their subject matter relates more to the ways of the world rather than the Way to the Kingdom, it still has a substantial impact on how we live our lives. Even though Christ's Kingdom is not of this world, as Christians we must still live our lives in the world. We are not called to seclusion, for that would bar us from carrying out Christ's commission to evangelize all nations (Mt 28:19-20). And so it makes perfect sense to think about the human constructs we have put in place to govern how we live together as citizens. After all, you can't "render unto Caesar" unless you know what rightfully falls under Caesar's governance.

As Americans, of course, we don't accept the authority of kings or emperors or Caesars; for us, the people are sovereign, the people are Caesar. To support this claim and to assist us as we act on it, we have a Constitution. And it's this document that I'd like to focus on today. Actually, I won't focus too much on the document itself; rather, I intend to address how it is received and understood (or misunderstood) by those who live under its guidance.


Perhaps the most apparent truth about our Constitution is that it does not, in any way, describe our nation as a democracy. And yet I would wager that most Americans, if asked if the United States were a democracy, would answer, "Yes." And they would, of course, be very wrong. We are rather a constitutional republic, in which the people elect representatives who, in theory at least, carry out our wishes under the constraints we have placed on them and ourselves through our Constitution.

The founding fathers were a remarkable group of men, for despite their willingness to engage in revolutionary activity, they were also capable and wise political philosophers. Their application of this wisdom led them to be extremely leery of pure democracy. Indeed, they found the idea of simple majority rule abhorrent. For pure democracy, without any governing reference, leads to governance by the feeling of the moment. Whatever the majority wants at any given moment becomes law. It is restrained by neither precedence nor morality. Minority rights are ignored, leading to persecution. The majority comes to realize that it can vote itself special privileges and benefits, leading to corruption. And, ultimately, pure democracy leads to anarchy, violence, and the nation's destruction.

Driven by this awareness, the founders worked long and hard to create a system of governance to protect the nation (i.e., the sovereign people) from lawmakers and law enforcers...and from the people themselves. And so we have the Constitution. It is not a permanent document, fixed and unable to be changed; but the framers made it very difficult to change. This was intentional. By making the process difficult and time-consuming, problems related to any intended changes would more likely be identified and solved, ensuring the original intent was not subverted and that the people's rights were not undermined.

This process, indeed the Constitution itself, has upset a lot of people over the past two centuries. And these naysayers are still with us. They have pretty much ceased their efforts to change the Constitution itself, opting instead to take the easier path and infiltrate the courts with like-minded people. There is no need to change the actual words of the Constitution if five of nine Supreme Court Justices can simply agree to re-interpret those words to mean something else. The results of their reinterpretations have led to radical changes in how we live and will no doubt lead to serious consequences for our nation.

Religion, for example, has been almost totally excised from the public square, despite the fact that the courts, for the first 150 years of our nation's history, expressed near unanimous acceptance of its presence and its benefits. Even worse, abortion, the willful killing of an unborn American has become a constitutional "right" without any constitutional support whatsoever. And so it goes...

The point, I suppose, is that regardless of the knowledge and wisdom that formed the Constitution, and its built-in constraints and limits designed to protect our God-given rights, it is still a human document and is, therefore, subject to all the human frailties that afflict any human institution. We should not place our faith in any human activity, but instead look to the Kingdom. By this I don't mean that we should abandon efforts to live together in society in a way that is fitting and proper for disciples of Jesus Christ. No, indeed, for we are called by our Lord to transform the world. And that means we must continue to sow the seeds of hope in our confused and confusing world. But the hope, the real hope that we yearn for, will not be found in the things of this world. Our only hope is in the Kingdom. Come, Lord Jesus!