Homily: Saturday, 1st Week of Advent

 Readings Is 30:19-21, 23-26; Psalm 147; Mt 9:35–10:1, 5A, 6-8

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What’s really remarkable is how unbelievably busy Jesus was. Listen again to how Matthew describes this typical day in the public life of our Lord:

“Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness” [Mt 9:35].

The Pharisees had just accused Jesus of collaborating with Satan: "He drives out demons by the prince of demons" [Mt 9:34]. It was, after all, a rather stupid thing to say, so Jesus simply ignores them, and immerses Himself in His ministry. He teaches and preaches in the synagogues, helping the synagogues flourish from within, for it’s the people who hear Him, it’s the people who will be changed by the Word of God. But he teaches and preaches to the crowds as well – to Jews and Gentiles – in the streets, on the hillsides, along the lakeshore. Nobody is forgotten, no one is exempt. As He later commissioned His disciples: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations” [Mt 28:19].

And healing? Oh, yes, the healing power of the Holy Spirit flows like a torrent through the hands of the Word. He cures disease, injury, blindness, every imaginable disability, but these are always secondary, aren’t they? For what He seeks above all is the repentant soul, the sinner who, in all humility, seeks salvation through the healing power of Jesus.

He was on the go, non-stop, preaching, teaching, and healing. And then what did He do? Why He told the apostles to do exactly the same: to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom; to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons” [Mt 10:8].

I read those words and let them sink in, and then I recall what my bishop said at my ordination when he instructed us, telling a group of soon-to-be deacons how our lives would change.

“You are called to preach, to teach, and to heal,” he told us. “Easy words to say today, but not so easy to carry out.” I remember thinking to myself, Okay, I think I can handle the preaching and teaching, but what’s this about healing?

There I was, just minutes before ordination, and I’m questioning whether I can handle or even understand what God wants of me. And then my bishop added, “But don’t get all self-important; this isn’t just your calling; it’s really the calling of every disciple of Jesus Christ.” That was about 25 years ago, and despite all my supposed busyness, my days are lazy indeed when compared with the ministry of Jesus.

What about you? How often do you proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom? How many of your friends, your golf buddies, the folks you play cards with…how many of them even think about the arrival of the Kingdom? The Good News is really good, brothers and sisters. And if you’re a disciple, a follower of Jesus – and I assume you are – then you and I better get busy.

And then there’s that healing thing. It took me a while before I came to understand what it all meant, and God wanted of me. And it was all because of Diane. She decided we should be hospital chaplains.

Now, I really didn’t like spending time with sick people, but God always calls us to our weakness, doesn’t He? He does that so we’ll come to understand that it’s through His power, His grace that we can accomplish anything.

In the beginning I would walk into a hospital room and greet the patient, “Hello, I’m Dana, today’s on-call chaplain. How are you today?”

And he’d just look at me and reply, “I’m in the hospital. How do you think I am?”

Not a good beginning, so I learned to ask different questions, to stick to the basics…

“Have they been treating you well?”

“Where are you from? Do you have family here?”

“Have you been talking with God much lately?”

“How about you and I just take a moment to pray together?”

Before you know it, I’m listening to the stories of their lives, the challenges they face, their fears and worries. That’s when I came to realize that God actually does work through us and in us, that others come to know God’s love and to know God because we reflect His Presence.

How many people in your life need God’s Presence in their lives? Will you take the time, just as Jesus took the time, to share God’s healing, forgiving love with them?

Yes, indeed, discipleship is a fulltime job.

 

 

Homily: Easter Monday

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

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Isn't it interesting that throughout most of the liturgical year, our first reading at Mass comes from the Old Testament, except during the Easter Season? At this very special time of the year, our first reading is taken from the Acts of the Apostles.

The Church does this for a very good reason. Acts really begins with Pentecost, that special day when the Church, promised and formed by Jesus, is born. The story of Acts is the story of the Church, the story of the Apostles who begin the task of going out throughout the world to fulfill the great commission given them by the Risen Jesus:

"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 - all begun through the preaching of the first disciples. Before the Gospel, the Good News, was written down, 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 as Peter begins to 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].

Notice that at the very core of that preaching is the Trinity -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- the foundation of our Christian faith.

Yes, "God raised this Jesus..."

In today's 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 that body placed hurriedly in the tomb.

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

They, like all the disciples, 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. All that was left was their love. And it's this love for Jesus that carried them along the path to the tomb that first Easter morning.

But the sight of the empty tomb filled their hearts with a jumble of emotions: confusion, astonishment, fear.

And 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. And in the shock of this sudden revelation, they understood that death had not had the last word, but that the Word had overcome death. Faith and hope exploded in their hearts, for they realized that they too would be united with Him in the Resurrection.

And just as suddenly, all of His teachings, every word He uttered, took on new meaning. Now they knew what He meant by the Kingdom of God, for it was 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 exist 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 truly understood Who Jesus is. He is the Messiah. He is the Redeemer. He is the Chosen One. He is the Son of God. It's this same understanding, and all it brings with it, that made them so joyful. He is risen! And so too have all of His promises, that suddenly made such perfect sense.

Yes, they were overjoyed. Overjoyed that their trust in Jesus had not been misplaced. Overjoyed that they, like all of us, are the object of God's overwhelming love. Overjoyed because pessimism had turned to optimism, despair had turned to hope, and that tiny kernel of faith, almost lost during the dark hours after the crucifixion, had blossomed into a sure knowledge of redemption.

Perhaps Mary Magdalene understood this best. Mary -- she who had been dead in the slavery of her sin; she who had been sealed in a tomb of her own making -- had been given new life through the healing power of God's love and forgiveness. And Jesus knew that she, who had experienced this power in her own resurrection from the deadness of sin, would believe.

Who better to break the news -- the Good News -- to a sinful world; for Mary Magdalene was what every woman and every man is called to be. She was the sinner who became the saint. She was living proof of the power of God's redeeming love. She was the "witness" that Peter described as he preached in the streets of Jerusalem. She was the fruit of Christ's Resurrection.

Today, as we receive the gift of Our Lord's Body and Blood in the Eucharist, it is the Risen Jesus we encounter, the very source of our faith and hope.  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.

Homily: Wednesday, 14th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Hos 10:1-3,7-8,12 • Psalm 80 • Mt 10:1-7

I wonder how many of us really know and experience the power of the gospel, the power of God’s kingdom? In the Lord's Prayer we pray that God will reign in our lives and in our world: "Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." When Jesus preached God's kingdom His preaching was accompanied by signs and wonders. That’s the power of God’s word, the power of the kingdom he came to announce. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” – words equally relevant today.

As Christians we all strive to get to heaven, but if we truly know the love and mercy of Jesus Christ, we already possess heaven in our hearts! Do you believe that? Do I believe it? Do we believe in the power of God's kingdom? …the power manifested when Jesus commissioned his disciples to preach God's word and bring his healing power to the sinner, to the weary and oppressed.

Jesus Sends the Twelve to Preach, Heal and Cast Out Demons

Jesus’ choice of the twelve apostles shows us a characteristic feature of God's work: God loves to choose ordinary folks. The apostles were neither rich nor famous. They weren’t professional religious people like the scribes and Pharisees. They were common, ordinary men, who lived ordinary lives. They had no special education or social advantages.

Unworthiness, non-achievement, weakness, obscurity, even potential betrayal – these are the qualities the Lord works with as He shapes those whom He calls. He chose these men, not for who they were, but for what they could become through Him, through the power of the Kingdom.

As we hear their names listed in the Gospel we’re struck by the earthy reality of these men – by the absence of any traits that might remotely set them apart from the common run of humanity. No titles, no connections, no fame…they were eminent nobodies. All we hear are their names, along with a scattering of ordinary details – oh, yes, and Judas’ shameful deed of betrayal.

The list begins with Peter, the repentant traitor, and ends with Judas, the unrepentant traitor. And in between we get just enough to let us know these twelve men actually lived. Yes, they lived in the everyday history of common people, not the history of historians. And beyond that…nothing.

Oh, they were all Jews; but the only other thing the 12 had in common was their call by Jesus. And it’s this calling that communicates power and vision and makes them into new men.

Up until this point in the Gospel it’s been only Jesus who teaches and heals; but now, His apostles will carry out His mission for Him.

It’s from these men that the Catholic Church throughout the world originates. Out of this simplicity, this humble seed, the Church’s roots are formed…its fruit ripened. The arrival of the Kingdom is inseparable from Christ’s establishment of the Church, for the apostles are the nucleus of the infant Church.

Oh, yes, there’s one other thing the 12 have in common: weakness. They’re sinners called from among sinners, broken men from among broken men, made different only by the power of God’s divine call. Jesus chose 12 weak, sinful men to form and lead His Church –12 ordinary men who would do God’s work extraordinarily well. 

When God calls us to serve – and He does call us, each of us, to serve Him by serving His people -- we must never think we have nothing to offer. When God calls us, He takes our meager abilities, He shares His power with us, and He uses us for greatness in his Kingdom, for His glory.

And then we can pray: “Lord, you chose me to be your disciple. Take and use me, in my weakness, in my ordinariness; take what I am, Lord, and mold me into what You want, for the glory of Your name.”

More End-of-the-Year Thoughts

Here I am, resting comfortably in my cushy, overstuffed, down-filled chair, channel surfing among news shows and odd documentaries, eating a leftover piece of pecan pie, and all the while typing these words on my little netbook -- some serious multitasking. Of all these activities, the only one I'm truly enjoying is the consumption of the pecan pie. And it seems the pie has stimulated my few remaining brain cells to generate some personal observations.

Watching a local TV show -- one of those shows that covers local "happenings" -- I happened to catch the last few seconds of an interview of a minister who claimed that we are now "entering a new age of faith." Now this intrigued me and I wish I had caught the entire interview so I could place this comment in some context. Lacking this, I'll simply take his comment literally and agree with him.

As the minister said, we are entering a new age of faith, although it might be more accurate to label it an "age of belief." In this new age of belief we have come to the point where we will believe almost anything. And in each instance, that which is believed has been transformed into a set of foundational precepts, the basis of a faith, a kind of religion with its own pantheon of gods and served by a hierarchy of priests and priestesses. One of the more obvious is environmentalism, but there are others. Materialism, scientism, liberalism -- they all have their adherents who faithfully put into practice their faith's constantly evolving beliefs. Indeed, many among the new elite are fervent believers in all of these faiths, leading me to think that perhaps we should call this new age the "age of insanity" when everyone can believe everything and not experience any sense of contradiction. Makes me wish I could stick around for the next hundred years just so I could watch it all unfold. I hate to put down a good story when I'm smack dab in the middle of it.

I also caught the end of a homily on the Holy Family preached by a bishop who shall go unnamed. It was delivered with all the enthusiasm of a mashed potato sandwich (one of my late father's favorite expressions that he regularly applied to boring speakers). This made me wonder whether those who preach this way actually believe the Good News. If the Good News of Jesus Christ is really true, and if one really believes this, then wouldn't one be a wee bit more enthusiastic? Most people I know, when they have the opportunity to pass along a piece of very good news to those whom they love, do so with some degree of passion. Instead, we are so often subjected to preachers who seem to go to extremes to hide the truth of the Good News behind a think veneer of nonsensical and obfuscatory verbiage.

Loosen up, guys! Tell people about the Good News. Tell them about God and what He's done for us. Let them see and experience your faith so they will want it for themselves. Cause them to realize that their relationship with God is the most important aspect of their lives. Tell them what they need to hear. Do you recall the one thing the people asked John the Baptist when he preached the Good News? People from all walks of life simply asked him, "What should we do?" [Lk 3:10-14] People today are seeking the answer to the same question, and that's what should be telling them.

God's peace...