Homily: 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Exodus 17:8-13; Psalm 121:1-8; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2; Luke 18:1-8

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The other day Walmart was packed. I tend to avoid those self-checkout lines, so I picked a check-out aisle with a relatively short line and waited patiently. I soon realized my mistake. I was behind a pregnant mom with two little ones, maybe 4 and 6 years old. Standing next to mom, holding onto the cart, the two children weren’t as patient as the deacon. The older one, a boy, began to poke his sister. She started screaming, looking to her mother for justice. The line behind us grew, people were getting antsy.

It was then that brother and sister simultaneously realized two things: First, the nearby shelves in the check-out aisle held candy and small toys; and second, they had their mom in a highly vulnerable position. They went on the attack. The boy grabbed a toy and began to beg just as his sister, cleverly grabbed a bag of M&Ms off the opposite shelf.

I was impressed. It was as if they had worked it all out in advance. This battle of wills went on for maybe a half-minute, and like any parent I pulled for Mom. She was tough. She got the toy back on the shelf but then noticed her daughter had opened the M&Ms and was eating them. Instantly, all was lost. Mom had to buy the candy, and to keep the peace, retrieved the toy and tossed it on the counter as she pulled out her credit card. The kids looked pleased. Mom simply looked relieved.

Now you might find this hard to believe, but as I watched the three of them head for the exit, I found myself thinking about today’s Gospel reading. Do you see what Bible Study does? It leads us to find echoes of Scripture in our everyday lives.

Like the widow in the parable, the children knew their persistence would eventually pay off. And like the judge, the young mom just wanted some peace and to avoid what could turn into a public embarrassment. 

In Jesus’ parable, the corrupt judge had absolute authority to settle cases before him however he chose. The young mom at Walmart had both parental authority and the credit card. And the widow and the children? They seemed to be virtually powerless, and yet actually possessed real power. But any power we possess exists only to the extent that it is recognized, accepted, and exercised.

Years ago, I used to teach a course on negotiation for corporate clients. One small element addressed something I called “the power of no power.” Centuries of martyrs have shown this to the world’s powerful. They willingly suffered death, driven by an unseen power, a power their enemies couldn’t comprehend.

Today’s Gospel passage is really a lesson on God’s power and how, through His love, He has given us the ability to tap into it. Jesus revealed to His disciples that the Father gives us access to His power through prayer. We are called to be persistent, just like the widow, and not lose heart.

Right before He related this parable, Jesus had described the time of tribulation, trials, persecutions, martyrdom, even a final failure of faith. Hearing this, the disciples were afraid. How could they endure such trials? How could they remain faithful to the end? Don’t be anxious, Jesus told them, don’t lose heart, for the power of the Holy Spirit will be with you. Then God will come and establish His kingdom in justice. He will right all wrongs. He will deliver men and women from sin and death.

20 centuries of Christian martyrs all the way back to St. Stephen, give testimony to the power God grants to those who believe in His love. In the face of a worldly power that ultimately took their lives, a power they rejected, these saints persisted in their faith. They didn’t lose heart.

One common trait shared by all the saints and martyrs is prayer. Through prayer we gain access to God, and to the divine power He desires to share with us. 

Prayer gives us strength; it helps us do things we could otherwise never do. Through prayer God invites us into His world, one very different from ours. How did Jesus put it as He prayed in the presence of His apostles the night before He died?

“I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.” (Jn 17:14)

We are called to live in the world, but not be of the world. Hard stuff when the world surrounds us and calls to us constantly. Prayer, then, takes us from the world and lets us go beyond human hopes, human reasons, human fears, human desires.

Recall Jesus in the garden the night before He died. Wracked by human fears and the vision of the world’s sinfulness, He fell prostrate in prayer to the Father. Jesus turned His eyes to the Power of His shared divinity and found the strength He needed from the Father: “Thy will be done!”

The very next day, Jesus was nailed to the Cross with arms outstretched. Did anyone witnessing the crucifixion see the image of Moses, with his arms also outstretched and “the staff of God in his hand” until the battle was won?

Moses’ prayer formed a channel for God’s power. But even then, Moses couldn’t do it himself, could he? Without Aaron and Hur holding up his arms, those pesky Amalekites would have defeated Joshua and his army, changing the course of human history.

But who helped Jesus on the Cross? What did the witnesses scream at Him?

“If you are the Son of God, come down from that cross.”  (Mt 27:40)

But Jesus would not, not until the battle was won, until He had conquered sin and death, until He had made death merely a thing of this world, a thing of time, but one that led to eternal life.

And we shouldn’t overlook that Moses needed Aaron and Hur, just as we need each other. God calls us to communion, Communion with Him in His Eucharistic Presence, and communion with each other on our journey to eternal life. Yes, we need each other. As I like to tell married couples, your primary task is to help the other get to heaven. 

Although, as Christians, we continue to wage spiritual warfare against the powers of this world, Jesus has already won the decisive battle for us…and the outcome is assured. But prayer gives us more than the strength to fight these daily battles. It gives us the insight necessary to accept God’s will in our lives.

Prayer also connects us to the power of God’s love. Prayer, driven by the Holy Spirit, focuses our attention on the needs of others instead of our own. 

And without prayer, our faith will wither and die. Mother Teresa put it beautifully, “Prayer is the oil that keeps the lamp of faith burning brightly.”

How brightly does our faith burn? Did not Jesus ask:

“But when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”

Will we have lost heart because we’ve trapped ourselves in our world, and lost sight of God’s?

Sometimes we excuse ourselves by saying we haven’t the time to pray. And yet we manage to find the time to eat, to study, to work, to play. We nourish our bodies and our minds. We fill our lives with activity, but we starve our souls and deprive our lives of their fruitfulness.

St. Paul instructs us to “pray without ceasing,” because he knew our lives must be a continual prayer. Like breathing, prayer is a necessity. For only through prayer can we receive the help and strength we need to get safely through this life to our true home in heaven.

One pressing problem is that we just love to tell God what to do. We pray only for what we want, never considering what we need…and then we expect instant results. 

Sisters and brothers, we can tell God nothing He doesn’t already know. He won’t refuse what’s good for us, and grants what we ask in His time, not ours. 

But always remember, it's His will, not ours, that will bring peace and goodness. When we get our prayer right, it’s always a prayer that God’s Will be done, in our lives and in the world. Then all will fall into place. 

It doesn’t matter if we’re joyful, depressed, or angry. It doesn’t matter if we’re confused or aimless, if we’re giving thanks or need forgiveness. It doesn’t matter if we’re ashamed of how we’ve lived and sinned. When we pray, we’re in the presence of a dear friend who understands and forgives, a dear divine friend who shares in our humanity.

God, in His Love, always listens. For love calls for love in return, and prayer is an act of love. So maybe we can keep all of this before us and rouse ourselves to love our merciful God – Father, Son, and Spirit – through prayer. Don’t lose heart, brothers and sisters. Believe in His love. Believe in the power of your prayer.

Oh…and please pray for that mom in Walmart. I think she needs lots of prayers.

 

Homily, Monday 19th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Dt 10:12-22; • Ps 147 • Mt 17:22-27

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Because we have the gift of hindsight, thanks to the Gospel, you and I are often amazed at how clueless the apostles seem, as if somehow we would handle it all better.

Jesus spends so much time shaping their hearts, opening their eyes to the meaning of the Incarnation and the Cross, to the Paschal mystery, to the Passion, Death, and Resurrection that must occur. We see an example of that shaping in today’s Gospel passage from Matthew.

In the two chapters preceding today’s passage, Jesus on several occasions refers indirectly and directly to His death and resurrection. But this time, indeed, this time Jesus is blunt.

“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.”

Remember all the drama unleashed in Peter when Jesus first announced His passion. Compare that with the apostles’ reaction now. There’s no argument…no, Matthew simply tells us they’re “overwhelmed with grief.”

Jesus’ words were plain, their meaning clear. They now know better than to argue with Him. But still, they don’t understand. How can Jesus let this horror, this evil, happen? I suppose they’ve kind of turned the corner. Perhaps in their confusion and grief, they recognize the Pascal mystery is still beyond them. They certainly don’t understand the “why” of it all. That the Son of Man, the flower of humanity, will be betrayed by men underscores the tragic self-deceit that so often hides the truth from us.

Years ago, I’d been ordained less than a year, in another diocese, I was making hospital visits. Looking at the list of new arrivals, I noticed one man’s last name was Murphy, and thought, Well, this one has to be Catholic. As I entered his room I could see he was quite ill, so I asked if he’d like me to pray with him.

He responded with, “No. I’m a Muslim. Unlike you, I don’t pray to a dead God, one who was nailed to a cross. What kind of God would allow that?”

Talk about a surprise! I wasn’t sure what to say, so I guess I went on the attack:

“What kind of God? Only a God, whose love for you and for me is so great, He humbled Himself, became one of us, sacrificed His life to redeem us from our sinfulness. That’s why I worship a God who died, then rose from the dead to give us hope.”

I thought I had done so well, but in response he just told me to leave. “Go on, get out! I really don’t want to talk with you.”

I learned a lesson that day. The sick want and need to meet a God Who heals; they don’t need an intellectual or theological argument.

Yes, indeed, our God doesn’t come to us as some omniscient, omnipotent being…no, He comes to us as one of us, as a friend, as a loving brother, as a healer, a forgiver. But everyone’s not happy with this. Some actually hate how God approaches us in Jesus. Jesus, by showing us how we can be, lets us see how we really are. This presents us with two choices:

We can listen to Him, do the Father’s will, change, repent, and be conformed to Jesus’ goodness…or we can try to destroy that goodness, in a feeble attempt to suppress its judgment of our sinfulness.

But God simply overcomes all our foolishness. He allows Himself to fall into the abuse and violence of men’s hands so that, when they wound Him, they will be covered by the tide of His Precious Healing Blood flowing from Calvary, from this very altar, and from thousands like it. And His blood can absorb into its love the very worst of what we are capable.

Today we recall the memory of St. Maxmillian Mary Kolbe, priest and martyr, who gave his life in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. He followed Our Lord's example by sacrificing himself so another could live.

Victor Frankl, the Austrian Jewish psychotherapist who spent much of World War II as a prisoner in that same Auschwitz, wrote a remarkable book of his experiences called, Man's Search for Meaning. There Frankl describes how, amid unbelievable brutality and the most degrading conditions, he encountered so much remarkable faith and unselfish love. Again and again, he met people who achieved victory over the sinfulness surrounding them.

Out of this experience of suffering Frankl had a revelation. He wrote, “Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, ‘The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.’”

Most of us, haven’t known such suffering or come face to face with the kind of evil that surrounded St. Maximilian and Victor Frankl, the kind that Jesus encountered on that first Good Friday…most of us in our sufferings only argue and fight with God.

Perhaps, like the Israelites, we should listen to Moses, who in our reading from Deuteronomy said:

“He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you those great and awesome things…”

Yes, like the Apostles, we too can grasp the great and awesome things our God has done, that He has died for us. 

Yes, as a 20^th-century Jew reminds us:

“The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

Homily: Tuesday, 15th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Ex 2:1-15a • Psalm 69 • Mt 11:20-24

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One of the remarkable things about the Old Testament is the willingness of its authors and the Holy Spirit to hide nothing and reveal almost everything about the key characters. This is so very different from all other ancient religious texts, as well as the official records of other ancient societies. In these, the kings and pharaohs and conquerors were all depicted as near perfect, as godlike men who always won, and never failed.

But not so in the Bible. Beginning with Adam and Eve, and progressing through the Patriarchs to Moses, then on through the long list of prophets and Kings, we encounter so many men, and actually quite a few women; and for all of them, nothing is hidden – strengths and weaknesses, sins and virtues, it’s all revealed.  The focus, you see, is not really on these men and women; rather it’s on God, who chooses whomever He desires to fulfill His plan, to carry out His work in the world. 

And often enough He chooses amazingly unlikely people. Today, for example, in our reading from Exodus, we encounter two versions of Moses.

First, a basket-case floating among the bullrushes, a Hebrew infant, “a goodly child”, his mother called him, surrendered by that mother in hope and trust, and retrieved and adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter.

We next encounter a grown Moses, fortyish and entitled, but a man who presumably knew his roots. Driven by a slightly skewed sense of justice, he willfully kills an Egyptian who was persecuting a Hebrew slave laborer. When the word gets out, Moses realizes he too must get out, and heads east to the land of Midian. Moses is introduced to us in all his imperfections. And yet on Mt Horeb God will choose him to free His people and lead them to the Promised Land. How blessed we are that our loving, merciful God chooses us as well, despite all our imperfections. 

Then we encounter Jesus in our Gospel passage from Matthew. You know, a lot of folks seem to see Jesus solely as the warm and fuzzy, group hug, kumbaya Jesus. And yet, in the Gospel He often comes across quite differently.

Today, for example, He’s taking on the role of Prophet. Indeed, He sounds a lot like Isaiah when that prophet proclaimed God’s judgment on the King of Babylon.

“Down to Sheol you will be brought to the depths of the pit!” [Is 14:15]

Jesus says much the same, doesn’t He? Hard words to those neighboring towns, Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, whose people had witnessed all those miracles, but failed to listen. Because Jesus had been with them, and they had seen and heard it all, their judgment will be harsher.

When I was growing up we had a brief family Bible Study every week. Now, to my knowledge, my mom, who was an RN, had no formal training in Sacred Scripture, but always seemed to share wonderful insights. We’d read a few verses then Mom or Dad would ask what we thought of it.

After reading these comments of Jesus, my brother and I tried to say something like: “The people in those towns are really going to catch it.” But Mom simply said, “You know, Jesus isn’t talking to us about those little towns. He’s talking to us about us.” That took all the wind out of our sails. She went on, explaining it all to us in words similar to these...

“Jesus healed all those people because He loved them, and He wanted others to see and understand that they must listen to Him…But so many didn’t. If we instead turn away from Him, we’re no better than the people of those towns. You see,” Mom told us, “Our Lord has been living with us in our home, speaking to us through our church…and when we receive Holy Communion He actually lives within us. Because of that, we must listen to Him, do as He asks us, and let God’s will rule our lives.”

With that, she ended the lesson. Brothers and sisters, Jesus said the same thing, didn’t He? His Gethsemane prayer, words recorded in all three of the Synoptic Gospels:

“Not what I will, but what you will.”

…words that actually encapsulate His entire teaching. Moses struggled to accept God’s will in his life, and so too did the Apostles.

I guess that’s the question for you and me: What’s the focus of our lives, our will our His will? After all, every day we pray, “Thy will be done,” but do we really seek it?

Homily: Christmas Weekday - January 5

Readings: 1 John 3:11-21; Ps 100; John 1:43-51

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Today’s readings are so remarkably appropriate given the condition of our world, given the state of the hearts and minds of so many.

We seem to be immersed, almost smothered, in a world lacking any kind of spiritual unity, a world too often typified by division and hatred. We watch the news, we scan the internet, read all the social media posts, and we must dig deep to encounter true faith, or to see the signs of hope that should mark our lives.

And how easy it is to add to the divisions and hatreds that increasingly separate us from each other. Families are torn apart because of political differences, or moral confusion, or a simple lack of trust. And the bonds of friendships dissolve for many of the same reasons. So many are simply unwilling to set it all aside and just love each other.

As John, the Apostle of Love, reminds us in his first letter, “Whoever does not love, remains in death.” He’s speaking here of spiritual death, a rejection of everything good, a rejection of God’s call to “love one another as I have loved you” [Jn 13:34].

John goes on to remind us that words mean little unless they are manifested in “deed and truth”, or to use a more common expression: to walk the talk. Who in your life needs the touch of your love, of God’s love? A family member? A friend, perhaps someone who hurt you, someone from whom you have withheld forgiveness? A maybe just a neighbor who irritates you no end? Reach out to them, not to receive anything, simply to extend God’s love.

Often enough we form little personal biases, pre-judgments that are hard to shatter. Just look at Nathaniel in our Gospel passage. Philip told him wondrous things about Jesus, that He is the one promised by God through Moses, a promise every Jew kept in his heart.

“I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kindred, and will put my words into the mouth of the prophet; the prophet shall tell them all that I command” [Dt 18:18].

But none of this impressed Nathaniel, who like Philip was probably from Bethsaida, and thought little of folks from Nazareth. The villages of Galilee, places like Bethsaida, Cana, and Nazareth, were just small country towns, subject to the same petty jealousies and rivalries that affect us today. 

I lived on Cape Cod for 25 or so years. It's a lovely little slice of God's earth, but the old-timers can be a bit...well, provincial. Here's a local story that displays how rivalries between the small towns manifest themselves: 

Two elderly men, both from the town of Chatham and both from old Cape families, were standing at the fence separating their front yards lamenting the number of tourists filling their Chatham streets. One said to the other, "Pretty soon, with all these tourists, there'll be no room for us natives." The other gave a snort and replied, "Natives? I heard that your great-great grandfather was born in Harwich." (Harwich was a neighboring town.)  

Yes, those Galilean villages were no doubt similar to our own versions, even here in The Villages. Not long ago, speaking with a woman who lives in a village that abuts ours, she said: “Our village is wonderful. We all love to get together in block parties and holiday celebrations. But I've noticed your village doesn’t do a lot of that.” This, of course, was just a slightly nicer way of saying, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” [Jn 1:46] 

I wish I could say that, meeting me, she immediately changed her attitude. But no, she just continued with more of the same. But not Nathaniel. Philip, accepting his new role as evangelist, said to his friend: "Come and see." 

Yes, indeed, come and see Jesus and you will be changed. After only a few minutes with Our Lord, Nathaniel exceeded even Philip:

“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel” [Jn 1:49].

Declaring what the Spirit has revealed to him, he joined Philip and followed Jesus in "deed and truth.” And this is what every encounter with Jesus is like, or should be like.

Maybe we should spend more time away from all the modern, technological wonders that clutter our lives and our minds, and, like Nathaniel, just sit down for a while under our own figurative fig trees, and let God come to us. How good it is to just experience God’s creation and enjoy the peace that He extends to us.

I think it especially interesting that in 1^st Kings, we encounter the fig tree as a symbol of peace:

“During Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel lived in safety…all of them under the vines and the fig trees.” [1 Kgs 5:5]

And in Zechariah, an angel of the Lord assured the high priest with the words:

“On that day you will invite one another under your vines and fig trees” [Zech 3:10].

Our homes and our communities should also be places of safety, places of peace, places on invitation, where love overcomes all conflict. Then we, too, can join the psalmist and “serve the Lord with gladness…give thanks to Him; bless His name” [Ps 100:2,4]

The more things change...

Thinking of the election and its meaning for our nation’s future, I turned back to the Old Testament and realized Moses said it best in words that echo God’s truth through the ages:

“See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandment of the Lord, your God which I command you this day, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in His ways, and by keeping His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to take possession of it...I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse, therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, and clinging to Him, for that means life to you and length of days, that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them” [Dt 30:15-17,19-20].

Moses was preparing God’s people for their life in the Promised Land. By doing so, he foreshadowed the call of Jesus who prepares the People of God (that’s us) for their journey to eternal life. Our world today is very different from that of Moses’ day, but the will of God for His people remains the same.

Choose Life!

Homily: Monday, 2nd week in Ordinary Time

I have embedded a video of this homily below. Preached on Monday, January 20, 2020, at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Wildwood, Florida, the homily's complete text (more or less) follows the video.

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Readings: 1 Sam 15:16-23; Ps 50; Mk 2:18-22

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In today’s Gospel passage Jesus used fasting as a way to remind us to order our relationships. He instructed the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist that the time for fasting is in both the past and the future. Those questioning Jesus seemed to see fasting as an end in itself, rather than a means to develop a hunger for God’s Word and His Presence.

Moses understood this. In Deuteronomy he instructed the people:

“He humbled you and made you hungry; then He fed you on manna that neither you nor your fathers had known before, to teach you that man cannot live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” [Dt 8:3].

The words of Jesus and Moses and echoed as well by Samuel in our first reading when he instructs Saul that obedience to God’s will is more important than any ritual:

“Truly, obedience is better than sacrifice… presumption a crime of idolatry.” [1 Sam 15:22,23]

For so many today obedience is far from easy, for it demands humility, doesn’t it? It asks us to accept that God, and not you and I, knows what’s best for us. How often, like Saul, do we presume to know God’s will, when in truth we are merely substituting our own desires, our own will? Perhaps this is the worst form of idolatry: instead of striving to be like God – How did Jesus put it? “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” [Mt 5:48] – we instead try to create a god in our own image.

Remember God’s words from our responsorial psalm?

“When you do these things should I be silent? Do you think that I am like you?” [Ps 50:21]

It’s as if we are determined to misunderstand God. Just as Jesus’ disciples often misunderstood Him, it seems John’s disciples also failed to understand all that John taught them through word and deed. It would seem they really hadn’t comprehended that John fasted to persevere before the Messiah’s coming, to watch for His Presence. This, indeed, is the Presence Jesus speaks of.

Because He is present, it’s a time to celebrate His Coming, a time of joy. For the disciples, fasting will come with the Passion; for us it’s the fasting of Lent and Good Friday. But do you and I fast simply because the Church tells us to fast? Or, like Jesus in the desert, do we fast to ready ourselves, to ask for the strength we will need to answer Jesus’ call to discipleship?

Of course, our Lenten fast is followed again by the joy of Easter. Indeed, to emphasize this, the Eastern Church encourages the faithful not to fast and kneel throughout the Easter season. The time of repentance has passed.

Jesus goes on to remind the disciples that His Presence is something supremely new. He uses brief parables to make His point. He describes the joy of wedding guests in the presence of the bridegroom; then continues with examples from the people’s domestic lives: 

A patch of new, strong cloth will tear an old piece of clothing if it undergoes any stress.

And new wine, still fermenting, will expand and break an old wineskin. 

Jesus uses these common examples, asking those who hear Him to apply them as well to their spiritual lives.

To accept Jesus’ Presence, then, demands a new receptivity, a new way of thinking, the kind we hear proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount. God’s love for us is like new wine that always demands new wineskins. In other words, we must continue to renew our relationship with Him, always ready to receive God’s call to enter more deeply into the new life that God wills for us.

Our prayer life, too, must be a continual process of renewal – renewing our relationship with Jesus, recognizing all that our loving God wants for us. 

We live in a time of expectation, brothers and sisters, a time of renewal, a time to strive for holiness, a time to turn from all that prevents us from deepening our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Video Homily: Saturday, 16th Week in Ordinary Time

Yesterday the IT genius (Krysten) at our parish gave me a video of my homily for Saturday of the 16th week of Ordinary Time (27 July 2019). The text has already been posted here. 

In my homily I address the foreshadowing of the Eucharist -- the Blood of the Old and New Covenants -- found in the Book of Exodus.

Readings: Ex 24:3-8; Ps 50; Mt 13:24-30

The video follows:

Homily: Saturday, 16th Week in Ordinary Time

To view a video of this homily, click here.
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Readings: Ex 24:3-8 • Ps 50 • Mt 13:24-30
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Our first reading from Exodus describes a remarkable event in salvation history, for here we read how the Israelites, the children of Abraham, confirmed their covenant with God. It was really quite a formal occasion. But for us today, it also offers insights into what actually happens right here at Mass, helping us better understand the words of consecration during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Let's look at our Exodus passage a bit more closely.

Moses assembled all the people and then led them through a rather interesting ritual. Perhaps it was a little primitive for our 21st century sensibilities, but let's try to set them aside for a few moments. The rite included sacrificial slaughter of young bulls. Moses then took half of the blood of these bulls and splashed it, poured it out, on the altar. Note that the altar represented God's presence and its 12 pillars the 12 tribes of Israel, God's People.

Moses then read the Book of the Covenant to the assembled people, so they would know exactly what obligations they had and what God had promised. When Moses asked the people if they agreed, if they ratified the covenant, they responded:

"All that the Lord has said, we will hear and do" [Ex 24:7].

Of course, If you know your Biblical history, you'll know that for the next 1,000 or so years they seldom listened to the Lord and only rarely did what He told them. 

But at the time they seemingly had good intentions. And so Moses, after accepting their agreement, took the other half of the bulls' blood and sprinkled it on the people. But listen again to Moses' words as he splashed that blood on them.

"This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words of His" [Ex 24:8].

Yes, the people, by their agreement and this shedding of blood, were now bound to the Lord God in a most solemn way. It's all of one piece: the altar, representing God; the people assembled before it; and the blood, which for Jews was the sacred life force, is sprinkled on both. Can any agreement be more solemnly ratified?

Moses Sprinkling the Blood of the Covenant

Well, yes, it can, and it happens every day right here on this altar, and in the presence of this assembly of the People of God. What were those words of Moses?

"This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you" [Ex 24:8}.

And what does the priest say, what words does he use, over the chalice of wine, during the solemn consecration?

"Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of My Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of Me."

These, of course, are words of Sacred Scripture, straight from the Bible, from four passages in the New Testament. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says:

"Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins" [Mt 24:27-28].

In Mark's Gospel we find similar words:

"This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many" [Mk 14:24].

And again in Luke:

"This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you" [Lk 22:19].

And finally, St; Paul in his first Letter to the Corinthians also describes the Lord's words of consecration:

"This cup is the new covenant in My Blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me" [I Cor 11:25].

Blood of the New Covenant

The difference between the two covenants? This New Covenant, this final covenant, does not involve the blood of animals as a symbolic representation of the covenant between God and His people. No, this New Covenantal bond is solidified by the Blood of God Himself. And to be real, to be a true bond between God and us, it must be real Blood, God's Blood. 

Jesus, man and God, through His sacrificial death on the Cross, binds us to our God so uniquely, so deeply that, with the Incarnation itself, it tears down the all the walls that would separate us from God. We, then, are His people, and this bond happens right here, through the Blood of the Lamb of God. 

Just as Jesus perfected and completed the sacrifice of Moses, so too did He perfect and complete the Law of Moses. This is why the consecration is real, why the Blood is real. If it remained only wine it would be meaningless, just another symbol, signifying nothing. 

Brothers and sisters, leave here today, bound to the Lord, ready to do His work in our broken world.

Homily: 15 Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 14, 2019

Readings: Dt 30:10-14; Ps 69; Col 1:15-20; Lk 10:25-37

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Don't you just love Moses? In effect he told the Israelites: OK, folks, God's Law is really pretty simple...And you don't have to look for it, because it's already in your hearts.

And that Law, in all its simplicity, is clearly spelled out in today's Gospel passage from Luke: You must love God with everything you have...and love your neighbor as yourself. 

But how many of us do that?  How many of us instead use our minds, hearts, souls and strength to love the perishable things of the world? How many of us seem even to love ourselves more than we love God? And our neighbors? I suppose we tolerate most of them, but do we really love them? 

Consider all the thoughts that cross our minds in the course of a single day. How many are of God and how many are of the things of the world? Yes, indeed, loving God is hard when the world tries to extinguish the light of God's truth. There's a lot of darkness out there, brothers and sisters.

As Pope St. John Paul II often reminded us, the world's darkness is nothing other than a culture of death, one that surrounds us with its evils of war, terrorism, abortion, hatred, infanticide, euthanasia, and so much more. But God is the God of life, who calls us to love Him and each other, even in the midst of all this hatred.

"I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly" [Jn 10:10].

Indeed, how can we love God, while accepting these evils? How can we love our neighbor, but turn our backs on those in need?  Do we even understand whom we're called to love? Like the scribe in today's Gospel, will we too be surprised by the Lord's answer when we ask Him: "And who is my neighbor?" [Lk 10:29]

Well, he's not just the guy next door, the one who joins you for golf on Tuesday, or just the woman who plays Mahjong with you on Thursday...you know, all those folks we like, the ones who are amazingly just like us. 

No, Jesus gets a little radical as He redefines neighbor. 

\Our neighbor, He tells us, is the stranger, the one we've been taught to distrust. The one who's not at all like you and me. He's also the public sinner, the 20-year-old addict, the pusher, scared to death as he awaits trial in the county jail in Bushnell. She's the down and out, the homeless single mom with three kids, wondering how she'll keep her family together, where the next meal will come from. 

That's right, Jesus tells us, our neighbor includes all those wounded by life. And then Jesus challenges us: Stop what you're doing and care for my people.

To the priest and the Levite in the parable, God's house was the Temple in Jerusalem. But Jesus teaches his disciples that God dwells in the ditch alongside the road, that they can see His face in the faces of the beaten, the downtrodden, the oppressed, and, yes, in the faces of sinners.

About 45 years ago, out in Monterey, California, I was one of our parish's youth ministers. At one weekly meeting, while discussing the Good Samaritan, I asked the kids to tell the rest of us who in the parable they most closely identified with - the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan. 

I got the expected answers until this one young man said, "I can't identify with any of those guys. I'm more like the guy who got beat up. And no Samaritan has ever come along to help me."

It was a remarkable moment in the life of that small group of teens. At first everyone laughed, but then, as we talked about it, their opinions began to change. It gradually dawned on them that no one is immune from life's problems and difficulties, that sometimes every single one of us needs help, needs God's healing touch.

Years later when we were living in Massachusetts, our eldest daughter, Erin, chose to attend a college in California. So Diane and I decided to load up the old station wagon (and, believe me, it was old) and drive her there ourselves. 

Somewhere in Arizona, along an empty stretch of Interstate in the middle of the desert, the car's engine simply stopped and refused to start. I immediately did what every red-blooded American male does in such a situation. I opened the hood, stared blankly at the engine, and swore at it. My wife and daughter just prayed. 

Within minutes, though, three teenage Navajos in an old pickup stopped on the dirt service road that paralleled the highway and volunteered to drive to a service station a few miles down the road to get some help. But before they could leave, another car pulled over in front of us. The driver, also a Native American, but from Oklahoma, took one look under the hood and had the car running again in about three minutes. In a hurry, he just drove off before I even had a chance to thank him. And then, no longer needed, the three young Navajos gave us a smile and a wave and sped off down the dirt road trailing a cloud of dust.

Since that day I've often thought of those good Samaritans and how they took the time to stop and help this obviously befuddled white guy from Massachusetts.

If our roles had been reversed, would I have stopped for them? As much as I hate to admit it, probably not. How easy it would have been to rationalize a decision to pass them by. After all, we were in a hurry, anxious to get to our hotel before nightfall. Anyway, a state trooper would probably be along soon. And you can't be too careful, can you? You never know the kind of people you'll run into.

How easy it is to magnify our own needs to ensure they outweigh the more obvious needs of others. And by doing so we ignore the command of Jesus and His Church, the command to act always with justice and charity, to act as the Samaritan acted.

The Samaritan wasn't at all responsible for the victim's plight, but in justice he knew he still had to respond to the man's basic human needs.  Yet he didn't stop there, did he? No, he went on to tell the innkeeper that he would pay for all the man's expenses, something that in charity goes beyond anything human justice might require. 

You see, Jesus is telling us that because we are baptized into the Kingship of Christ, we each must reflect the justice of the Kingdom. We're called to go beyond, to give our lives for others, to give them in love without measure. We can do this only do through the grace of Jesus Christ, who makes us part of His Body, the Church, and lifts us up to heights far beyond our own capabilities  What did St Paul say in today's second reading?

'God wanted all things to be reconciled through Him and for Him, everything in heaven and on earth, when he made peace by his death on the Cross.' 

Brothers and sisters, the love of Jesus Christ, the love of His Cross, carries us beyond man's justice, bringing peace and healing where hope has been lost, and lifting us to the joys of God's Kingdom.

He calls each of us to continue His work, to be Good Samaritans to all God's people, and He's given us a roadmap with the path clearly marked. We're asked to obey His commandments and to love -- to love Him with all our being and to love each other. If we do this, He takes care of the rest.

Allow Jesus to make His home within you. This will happen today through the Eucharist, when we are called to Communion with God Himself. God doesn't force Himself on us, but if you allow Him, He will give you the strength you need to cope with any and all of life's challenges.  He will give you the courage you need to accept your calling. He wants us to do His work in the lives of those we touch, even the lives of strangers we encounter on Arizona highways.

Oh, by the way, after graduating from college and going on to earn her Master's degree in education, our daughter's first teaching job was at a mission school on a Navajo reservation.

St. Bonaventure School - Thoreau, NM

God does have a sense of humor, doesn't He?

Course Presentation: Biblical Typology Session 3

We had our third session of the course yesterday evening and, as usual, I went 15-20 minutes longer then advertised...but once again everyone stayed until the end.

Between 60 and 70 people attended, and I assume they found it interesting and enjoyable since, again, I escaped without wounds that say otherwise. 

A rewarding moment (at least for me) came just before the start of the evening's session when one of the participants excitedly said that she had recognized the typology in the previous Sunday's readings and homily. It was something she had never before recognized and she believed it had truly enhanced her understanding of the passages chosen by the Church for the Sunday liturgy. How wonderful for her, and how good that our little course has not been without value. 

This week we discussed the typology of Moses and Isaac, and also glanced at some of the prophets. The final piece was a brief study of typology in the Book of Job, all thanks to St. Gregory the Great who wrote extensively on the subject.

You can go directly to my Bible Study page and view the course presentations and other handout material: Bible Study Website. 

Or, if you prefer, here's a direct link to the PowerPoint presentation on authorstream.com:

Biblical Typology: Session 3

Homily: Wednesday, 15th Week of Ordinary Time

Readings: Ex 3:1-6, 9-12 • Psalm 103 • Mt 11:25-27

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Pere Marie-Joseph Lagrange, one of the founders of modern Catholic Biblical scholarship, called this brief Gospel passage: “Matthew’s most precious pearl.” And so it is.

It begins with the words, “At that time”, Scripture’s way of alerting us that something special is being described here, that a mystery of salvation is being proclaimed by the Son of God Himself. It’s actually a miraculous little passage, one that offers a glimpse into the intimate life of the Holy Trinity.

In a sense we’re privileged witnesses to a divine dialog of love, one continually carried on between Father and Son, one that constitutes the very substance of the interior life of God. Here Jesus, quite extraordinarily, reveals that He is conscious of himself as divine Person, as the only Son of the eternal God.

But these words, this divine conversation does more than reveal a relationship that transcends time and space. It’s also a proclamation by Jesus, one that effectively places the listener, and that’s you and me, together with Jesus and the Father. His prayer offers us an entryway into eternity and the life of the Trinity. Jesus invites us to become what He has always been and is: a sharer in the divine life.

He begins with thanksgiving and blessing: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” Father and Lord – Jesus uses these two titles, doing so out of the unity of His person, in His divinity and His humanity. Yes, you are my Father and you are my Lord. God has become a man among men, without ceasing to be God. Jesus speaks as the Incarnate Word even when He addresses the Father in the intimacy of His Heart. He lets us witness this turning to the Father, showing us that dependence and obedience are at the very heart of His mission as Redeemer, as Lord and Savior or humanity.

"...you have not made me like the rest of men."

His prayer, this divine conversation, continues as He speaks of God “hiding” certain things from certain people: “the wise and the learned.” Here Jesus speaks not only of the usual suspects, the scribes and Pharisees; no, His words encompass far more than these. Wise and learned – the intellectually self-sufficient, the arrogant, the self-assured – those for whom humility can be only a vice.
Even in the Church we’re not immune to such arrogance. Perhaps a theologian, so learned, so certain he knows the mind of God and disdains those who dare to think otherwise. Or the scriptural scholar so wrapped up in the words that he’s become deaf to the one Word, the Word of God.

And what about us? How many of us look at others, at God’s children, at the least of His brothers and sisters, and instead of offering God’s love, offer the prayer of the Pharisee: “I thank you, Lord, that you have not made me like the rest of men”? – certainly no prayer to God; rather a prayer to oneself.

And so to whom are these hidden mysteries accessible? To the childlike, Jesus tells us. Who but the childlike possess the simplicity, the trust demanded of the true disciple? Who but the childlike willingly accept their utter dependence on their Heavenly Father? Just as a child learns to speak by imitating the words of its mother and father, you and I are called to imitate the divine Son as He turns to the Father in humility, praising the Father and accepting His will. Indeed, St. Bonaventure, whose feast we celebrate today, once wrote, “In all that you do and say, turn to Jesus as your model.”
Consider Moses in our first reading from Exodus. Moses, the soon-to-be great prophet and lawgiver, is overwhelmed at Horeb, overwhelmed by the presence of God, overwhelmed by his calling. But in his humility he accepts his dependence on the Father; and so he allows God to lead him and speak for him as he fulfills God’s will.

So, too, are we called to set aside the self, to suppress the words of self, and to submit to God's Word with simple trust and humility And then, capable of receiving the gift of God’s revelation, those hidden things, we can allow the Father to write the mysteries of the Kingdom upon our hearts.