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: Wednesday, 2nd week in Ordinary Time (Year 2)

The following are a brief reflection on the day's readings offered during Eucharistic Adoration after Mass. 

________________

Readings: 1 Sam 17:32-33, 37, 40-51; Ps 144; Mk 3:1-6

________________

A couple of years ago, during a Bible-study session, someone asked me why the Pharisees lacked faith, but the Apostles didn’t. At the time we were reading today’s Gospel passage from Mark, so I asked the group if they noticed anything different about Jesus before he healed the man with the withered hand.

Almost immediately someone said, “Jesus is angry.”

Mark is the only Gospel writer who mentions the anger of Jesus. Oh, John tells the story of Jesus driving the buyers and sellers from the Temple, but he never explicitly says that Jesus was angry. Only Mark does that.”

Jesus had just asked the Pharisees a question: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” It’s a pretty simple question. And so how do the Pharisees answer it?

They don’t. “But they remained silent,” Mark tells us. And it’s easy to see why. A “Yes,” would be a lie and would highlight their hypocrisy. But a “No,” would be a public admission of their lack of charity. They had set out to trap Jesus and, once again, he had trapped them. Usually, it was their words that exposed them. This time it was their silence. What happens next? Well, Mark tells us that Jesus looked “around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart,” and then went on to heal the man’s hand. 

Pharisees Silent

It's interesting, virtually every scene in the Gospels has at one time or another been the subject of a painting. Except this scene. I know of no painting that shows Jesus looking around at the Pharisees with anger. I suspect such a painting wouldn’t be very popular among those who have this distorted image of a warm and fuzzy Jesus who roams through Galilee and Judea dispensing hugs.

It reminds me of a woman who told me she had left the Church to “join a denomination that wasn’t so judgmental.” I just told her to read the gospels and then tell me Jesus doesn’t judge.

“Why was Jesus angry?”

One translation says, “Because they had closed their minds.” And another, “Because of their hard-heartedness.” Closed minds or hard hearts -- these only seem different. The mind is open by its very nature. Notice how young children are very open-minded, always ready and able to learn. It’s only when they grow up and get stupid like the rest of us that they do otherwise; for it is the heart that closes the mind.

But these particular Pharisees had lost any sense of compassion for others. They had ceased being childlike. They had stopped loving. And because love couldn’t penetrate their hearts, their minds were closed as well, so tightly that they couldn’t even recognize the hand of God in the miracles that occurred right before their eyes. They had created an almost impenetrable barrier to the gift of faith.

The Apostles, on the other hand, were in a sense more childlike, more open to the Spirit’s urgings, more open to receiving the gift, more willing to love.

You see, brothers and sisters, hatred closes, and love opens. Indeed, love is itself an opening, a kind of wound.

The 14^th century mystic, Julian of Norwich, when she prayed, prayed for “the wound of true compassion.”

Let’s all pray today that we may never be healed of it!

The Spirit of Truth

Often enough, people don’t want to hear the truth, especially when it’s stark and perhaps a bit frightening, the kind of truth that denies their Weltanschauung and their hopes for the future, as well as the hopes and lives of those they love. I suppose that’s a normal human response when things seem to be going reasonably well, and then someone comes along and insists on a very different view of the world. 

But as faithful Christians we cannot view our lives through a worldly lens. For us the truth is always “Good News” even when, to the worldly, it seems very bad indeed. After all, Jesus is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” [Jn 14:6]. When the world and its confusion and hatreds pour into our lives, we Christians should be joyful because it’s an opportunity to suffer for the proclamation of the Gospel.

Oops! Wait a minute! Most Christians in the West don’t expect to suffer simply because they go to church on Sunday and drop a few bucks in the collection basket. And yet, here we are, facing what could be another era of persecution. Don’t believe it? Just look around the world and realize it’s on its way to you and to me…and a lot sooner than we probably think. But the Church has been there before, many times; and yet the Church is still here and will be here until the end. Although in the US and in Europe, the Church appears to be in decline, this isn’t true globally. In Africa and in much of Asia the Church is growing, just as it grew in its earliest years.

We need only look to that early Church and its response to persecution. Tertullian (died c. 220 A.D.) was a lawyer (we’ll forgive him for that) who converted to Christianity largely due to the courage of condemned Christians he witnessed as they went to their deaths singing hymns. His ultimate response, one directed to the Roman Empire:

“We are not a new philosophy but a divine revelation. That’s why you can’t just exterminate us; the more you kill the more we are. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. You praise those who endured pain and death – so long as they aren’t Christians! Your cruelties merely prove our innocence of the crimes you charge against us…

Yes, indeed, "the seed of the Church." God calls us Christians to sacrifice and actually expects His disciples to give everything for Him: evangelization without compromise. But that's a truth few of the lukewarm want to hear, much less think about. The signs, though, are there for all to see. The persecution of Christians today is greater than at any other time in history. And where is the Church growing? Wherever it suffers persecution.

In many parts of the world, the United States included, persecution of Christians is subtle but still very real. But for Nigerian Christians there’s nothing subtle about the deadly persecution they must face daily. For example, Christians in northern Nigeria are the most religiously persecuted people on earth. According to Open Doors, in 2022 roughly 90% of the world’s Christian martyrs — which equates to over 5,000 Christians — were slaughtered for their faith in this part of Nigeria. Who's been murdering them? Islamists. This has been going on for a long time. In the past 15 years 52,250 Nigerian Christians have been brutally murdered at the hands of Islamist militants. They not only kill Christians — men, women, and children — but also destroy churches, over 18,000 Christian churches and 2,200 Christian schools were set ablaze during this same period. And if you’re a moderate Muslim who objects to such genocide, the Islamists will kill you too. Approximately 34,000 moderate Nigerian Muslims died in Islamist attacks.

Megan Meador, communications director of Aid to the Church in Need (ACD) describes the situation faced by Christians and others in today’s Nigeria:

“The persecution comes from terrorists, from machete-wielding militias, from mob violence and laws that implicitly encourage them, and from authorities who are indifferent to the mayhem and shrug off these atrocities, allowing perpetrators to go free while punishing victims…We’ve had cases where Christians have been hauled in front of Sharia courts, without jurisdiction, and accused of crimes like apostasy, which is not supposed to be a crime in Nigeria…We are right now supporting a Sufi Muslim young singer, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, who was sentenced to death on blasphemy accusations for posting lyrics to social media, and is now challenging that law at the Supreme Court. Nigeria needs to fully practice what is protected under its Constitution.”

ACD is a strong and constant supporter of religious freedom throughout the world. In Nigeria ACD's work includes defending Christians from legal attacks, false accusations, and discrimination. It also supports those who are threatened by blasphemy laws if they express religious beliefs openly. Both Open Doors and ACD deserve our support for the wonderful work they do.

To get a sense of what Nigerian Christians must cope with, their remarkable response, and its effect on evangelization and conversion, follow this link to a recent article in the Catholic Herald: Numbers of African Catholics Boom as Church in Europe Continues to Shrink.

It seems the future of Christianity, and specifically the Catholic Church, is no longer in the United States or Europe. As one Congolese priest told me not long ago, "What we're experiencing in Africa today is a reenactment of the Acts of the Apostles." Why should we expect otherwise? After all, didn't Jesus tell Nicodemus:

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born anew.' The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or wither it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit" [Jn 3:6-8].

Yes, indeed, the Spirit blows where it wills, not where you and I will.

Pray for those persecuted for their Faith.

__________________

Oh, yes, a postscript: the State Department has inexplicably left Nigeria off its Religious Freedom Watch List (for the third year) despite the widespread slaughter of Christians in that nation. Once again, the Biden administration demonstrates its indifference to the lives and religious freedom of Christians. Here's a link to a 2021 story when Secretary of State Blinken first removed Nigeria from the watch list: Catholic News Agency -- nothing has apparently changed in three years.

Homily: St. Stephen’s Day (December 26)

Merry Christmas! Our Redeemer is born! 

But today, I can also offer you another greeting: Happy St. Stephen’s Day!

For us deacons, today is one of our special days. On this day after the solemnity of Christmas, we celebrate the feast of St. Stephen, deacon and first martyr.

It might seem a bit strange to join these two feasts – the memorial of the Church’s first martyr and the celebration of the birth of our Redeemer – an odd contrast between the peace and joy of Bethlehem and the tragedy of St. Stephen…for Stephen was stoned to death in Jerusalem during the first persecution against the nascent Church.

And yet this seemingly odd contrast is very much in tune with the mystery of Christmas. The Child Jesus, born in the stable, the only-begotten Son of God, will ultimately save humanity by dying on the Cross.

Today we encounter Him as a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. But later, after His passion and death, His body will again be wrapped, but placed in a tomb.

In the Eastern Church, icons sometimes represent the newborn Jesus lying in a small sarcophagus, presenting us with a vivid reminder that the Redeemer was born to die, born to give His life as a ransom for all.

St. Stephen was the first to follow in our Lord’s steps; and like Jesus, he died forgiving and praying for his executioners. By doing so he set the stage for all the saints of the early Church who would follow him to martyrdom. This army, a countless multitude, the liturgy calls "the white army of martyrs."

The early Church did not view their deaths as a reason for fear and sadness; indeed, quite the opposite. Back in the 2^nd century Tertullian described the blood of the martyrs as the seed of the Church, a source of spiritual enthusiasm, always giving rise to new Christians.

And believe me, it will be the same today as the Church experiences increased persecution throughout the world, with many Christians following in the footsteps of St. Stephen.

We should be praying for them and for all those persecuted for the Faith. Pray that they will have the strength to persevere, to realize that the trials they suffer are really a source of victory.

Martyrdom of St. Stephen

And pray too for the Church’s deacons. We need your prayers as we strive to serve God and His people in the many ways He calls us. For the word deacon simply means “servant” – and serve we must.

The deacons of your parish serve today in jails, and hospitals, and nursing homes, and soup kitchens. They assist in the faith formation of children and adults. They’re involved in healing ministries and provide spiritual direction.

They teach, they preach, they heal, and in doing so look to St. Stephen as the model of the servant every Christian is called to be.

Yes, we need your prayers, so that we will have the strength and the courage to do God’s work in the world.

St. Stephen died a martyr, but died filled with joy; and so, we can say again, Happy St. Stephen’s Day. 

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.

Homily: Wednesday, 34th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Dn 5:1-28; Dn 3; Luke 21.12-19

______________________ 

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. And how does Jesus tell us to respond to all this? With love, with truth, with forgiveness.

Only God’s love can defeat bigotry, hatred and envy, and all that would divide and tear us apart. Only God’s truth can overcome the lies and confusion in the world; for that’s what the Gospel is, God's word of truth and salvation. Jesus, then, tells his disciples to proclaim the gospel throughout the whole world, even in the midst of opposition and persecution.

If they persevere to the end they will gain their lives – they will see God's salvation.

Such endurance isn’t a product of human effort. It’s a supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift strengthened by the hope that we’ll see God face to face and inherit His promises. Jesus, of course, is our model: He who endured the Cross for our sake and salvation; Jesus who calls us to love, to die to ourselves.

You know, the Greek root of the word martyr means witness? True martyrs live and die as witnesses to the Gospel, to Jesus. The Book of Revelations calls Jesus “the faithful witness ...who freed us from our sins by his blood." And Tertullian, a second century lawyer converted when he saw Christians singing as they went out to die at the hands of their persecutors. He compared the blood of the martyrs to “seed,” the seed of new Christians, the seed of the Church. 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. They witness the truth: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”

 “God so loved the world…” He doesn’t love just part of it. No, He loves it all. He loves each one of us. It can’t be otherwise because He created each human being in an individual act of love. We must remember that Jesus died on the Cross for Jews and Gentiles, for Christians and Muslims, for Hindus and Buddhists, for agnostics and atheists.

By our witness as Christians, others will recognize Christ’s victory on the Cross, his power to overcome sin, fear, hatred, even death itself. When the world looks at us, it has the right to find in us a reflection of the glory of the Trinity. The world has a right to discover in our faith, hope, and love a testimony to the Holy Spirit’s presence.

The problems that have arisen in Christ’s Church over the centuries, and exist even now, are not caused by the Holy Spirit; they’re caused by the mediocrity of Christians, by our lukewarmness. As the great G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

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.

Homily: 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A

Readings: Prv 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; Ps 128; 1 Thes 5:1-6; Mt 25:14-30

___________________________

When I was a boy, my dad would "recruit" me (that was the word the Colonel used) to spend Saturday mornings with him as he made things in his home workshop. Carpentry was his hobby, and he was good at it. I ended up doing little more than handing him tools or holding boards while he cut them -- useful but not very fulfilling work, at least not for me. I’d rather been out with my friends.

But his real reason for having me join him was to talk with me about life, and to listen to what I thought about the important things. Now the average 10-year-old boy – and that was me – didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about life’s great mysteries, and so I did much more listening than talking.

I recall one morning; he was making a wooden support, kind of a large plaque, on which to hang a ship’s bell someone had given him. The bell was very old and pretty cool. He wanted to hang it by the front door. While we were making it, he said, “You know, son, this bell, like every bell, can sound only a single note. No matter how loud or soft, when it rings, it rings the same note.”

Then he added, “A lot of people are like that. They play just one note, because they’re so focused on just one thing: themselves. And they miss all the wonders, and all the others, God has placed around and in their lives.” 

That thought has never really left me, and it popped into my aging brain the other day as I thought today’s readings.

We first heard, from the Book of Proverbs, a beautiful description of the worthy wife and all that she does. Indeed, like a carillon, she can ring a lot of different bells, all to bring about good and not evil.

And we celebrate her not simply for what she does, but for who she is. Her actions are driven by the love that resides within her. It is through that love, the reality of Her interior being, that we see its manifestation in her actions, in her love toward others. Her life, then, becomes an extension of herself as she reaches out to others, to her family, to the poor, all done for God’s glory. Yes, indeed, “the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

Just as the faithful woman is praised, we encounter much the same in our Responsorial Psalm, this time aimed at the faithful man. Like the woman, the man of faith rings a lot of different bells, but they blend together into a beautiful hymn of praise. His wife, a fruitful vine; his children, olive plants around his table. As our family sat down to dinner, I sometimes called our children, “my little olive plants.” For some reason they took offense to that. I guess they hadn’t yet learned about metaphors.

But anyway, as the faithful man walks in God’s ways, he is blessed because he, too, fears the Lord. This Biblical fear of the Lord is really nothing more than an acceptance of reality, of God’s greatness. It’s the overwhelming sense of awe, of reverence, the awareness that everything comes from God, and demands our thanksgiving.

Then, in our second reading, we again encounter fear; although here it’s unstated, it’s still very present. St. Paul encourages the good Christians of Thessalonica to “stay alert and sober” because the “day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Yes, God’s judgment can engender fear in some hearts, specifically those unprepared to face Him.

As St. Paul prophetically reminds us, the worldly ones, the politicians and others, try to sooth us with their bell and its single note of “peace and security” – while we, the uninformed, uninitiated one, look out into the world and see something very different. But even then, we should never allow that other kind of fear, a fear of the world, to enter our hearts and rule us. For it, too, is like that solitary bell, that sounds just one note.

We lived in Germany for a while when I was about seven or eight. One day as Mom and I walked to the local delicatessen, we heard the deep sonorous tone of a bell ringing from a local Lutheran church.

You know, “BONG!” And every ten seconds or so, it would ring again, another “BONG!”

Eventually, I asked, “What’s that sound, Mom? It’s kinda scary.” Her response, “Son, it’s a bell, for a funeral. It’s the sound of death.” Well, that certainly didn’t cheer me up.

But I think, in many hearts, it’s really the sound of fear. Perhaps, as they approach their own individual “day of the Lord” they fear that, in St. Paul’s words, “they will not escape.” How sad for them. And we see that sadness, that fear, in Jesus’ parable of the talents.

The talent Jesus speaks of is really a large sum of money – someone with five or more talents of gold would be today’s millionaire; so, in the most literal sense, the master is a very wealthy man.

But in the parable, the talents become interior, soul-bound treasures. And the master? He is God. We encounter God investing in each human person with specific and very personal gifts. He sees and knows each of us so very differently. These talents, each gift, is meant to be accepted as precious, not to be compared with what others have received. You see, brothers and sisters, God knows and loves each of us as if no one else existed.

The master, then, with complete trust, turned over all his property to his servants. One received five, one two, and the third, one. The master invested in each of them, that they increase those gifts with interest. Two didn’t hesitate. They went out, engaged the world, and traded well, fulfilling the master’s wishes.

The third, the fearful one, knowing he’d been given less, unwilling to confront reality, unwilling to grow, just buries his personhood in a hole in the ground. Consumed by his fears, striving only to ensure his own survival, instead he literally digs his own grave. As I think of him, I recall that bell in Heidelberg, sounding its single note of fear.

Jesus understood the disabling power of fear, for how often does He tell us: “Be not afraid.” Jesus is a true rejector of the status quo. He wants us to grow, and not allow worldly fears to hold us back.

The tragedy of the third servant is that, out of fear, he hid what had been entrusted to him, even though he had the ability to use it well. Because he did nothing, he never changed, never grew. We learn far more by doing, even if we encounter failure along the way. God has graced each of us in some way, to serve both Him and others. If we hide what has been given us, others are deprived.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, the English Jesuit poet, wrote a beautiful poem, "As Kingfishers Catch Fire," and in it there’s this amazing line:

“…the just man justices;

Keeps grace: that keeps all their goings graces.”

Yes, we keep and nurture God’s grace which keeps all our goings graces. What an ordaining thought: all our goings, all our doings, are graces, because of the graces within.

The parable has that one strong message. Jesus hopes to move us, to form us interiorly as the woman of Proverbs was formed interiorly. She lives, as she knows and receives herself to be, and we are called to the same interior change – not just to do things differently, but to be something completely different, to undergo conversion.

Hopkins ends his poem, showing how we are called to act in God’s eye, what in God’s eye we are.

“…for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces.”

We don’t put on Jesus as we’d put on an item of clothing. No, He invests Himself in us and we repay Him through what we have become in our hearts. Jesus Christ has buried Himself in us that we might continually give Him flesh. God is ever in-fleshing with divine love, as an eternal dressing of humanity, always striving to present Himself to the world through us.

Sisters and brothers, we are called to be Jesus Christ to all whom we encounter, fearlessly ringing a thousand different, joyful bells. Then, at the time of judgment, won’t it be wonderful to hear those words: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Homily: Solemnity of All Saints

Readings: Rv 7:2-4, 9-1; Ps 24; 1 Jn 3:1-3; Mt 5:1-12

_____________________

Good evening, all you saints in training!

"Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?" [Rv 7:13]

I’ve always loved this verse from the Book of Revelation. This might sound odd, but whenever I read it, I can’t help but think of a line from the movie, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, when Cassidy, the outlaw, speaking of the posse tracking them so successfully, asks, “Who are those guys?” It’s really what was asked of John when he encountered that crowd in his heavenly vision: Who are these people?

Who are these saints? Where did they come from? How did they manage to live in this weird world of ours and yet live such holy lives? Yes, it’s these people and their lives of heroic virtue, these saints, that we celebrate at this vigil Mass of the Solemnity of All Saints.

Some years ago, during the canonization ceremony of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II, I heard a news anchor say, “Today the Catholic Church made two saints and let them enter heaven.” What an odd thing to say. Of course, he was wrong, terribly wrong, and provided another good reason to ignore what the secular media say about the Church. In truth, the Church doesn’t make saints. God makes them. All the Church does is recognize a few of the saints God has made.

Perhaps more importantly, the canonization of a saint doesn’t get them through heaven’s gates. Indeed, canonization does absolutely nothing for the saint, who is already with God. No, the Church canonizes saints for us, for by doing so she hopes to inspire you and me to strive for the holiness that is our true destiny. This is why the Church chants the Litany of the Saints at its most solemn liturgical celebrations. That Litany is the roster of the Church’s Hall of Fame, its family album, the names of those who form that “great cloud of witnesses” so eloquently described in the Letter to the Hebrews [Heb 12:1].

One of my theology professors at Georgetown, who taught me the New Testament 60 years ago, was a priest who had spent years in a Communist Chinese prison. Once, while speaking of St. Peter, a man filled with doubts and fears and so often lacking in faith, this saintly Jesuit said, “All saints are sinners, but not all sinners are saints.”

The difference, he went on to tell us, is that the saints recognize, understand, and repent of their sinfulness because they accepted God’s grace and recognize the Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. More than anything else they desire union with Jesus Christ and so they struggle mightily in the lifelong process of conversion that God offers us all. The others, he said, not only don’t recognize the Son, but too often don’t even recognize their sinfulness for what it is. And that, he believed, was an eternal sadness.

Yes, brothers and sisters, we are all called to be saints, to be one with Jesus Christ. Even now, in this life, we’re united with the Communion of Saints, a part of All Saints, Christ’s Mystical Body, the People of God.

By our baptism we were sanctified, made holy, deep down, in grace – no longer banished, disaffected children, outside God’s family. In Baptism we become part of the in-crowd. Even though we’re sinners, as John reminds us, we’re still God’s children, adopted children of the Father. John continued, “What we shall be has not yet been revealed…But we shall be like Him” [1 Jn 3:2].

Yes, there’s so much we don’t know. Our vison is blurred by the mystic’s “cloud of unknowing,” until clarity comes when we rise with Jesus Christ. In the meantime, we move in the world – not just the world of good, of God’s creative act, but the world of a fallen race, the world that won’t recognize us because it won’t recognize Jesus Christ [1 Jn 3:1]. It’s a world that tries to extinguish the light of Christ, to drown out the Gospel with a cacophony of meaningless noise. It’s a world that ignores All Saints Day, preferring instead Halloween, All Hallows Eve, by celebrating the craziness of our world.

But God continues to raise up saints, and He wants each one of us to be among them; so, He gives us a guidebook, a map, to help us find our way to His Way. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel distills the essence of His teachings. And it opens with the Beatitudes, the essence of the essence.

When we first hear them, our tendency is to select one or two qualities as applicable to us. “Oh, yeah, that’s me, the merciful peacemaker. I guess that means I’m okay, living the life Jesus wants for me.”

But that’s not what the Beatitudes are. They’re not items in a cafeteria from which we can pick and choose what we like, while ignoring the rest. They’re really a manifesto for the complete, normal Christian life.  Christ opens to us eight avenues through which we will find the fullness of blessing. To be blessed means to find wholeness, joy, well-being – to experience the true peace of Christ. To be fully blessed is to depend solely on God.

With that we come to recognize our own spiritual poverty, the insignificance of all we thought was so important. And when we cry out to God, fearful, hopeful, thankful, He sends His Spirit to show us the way. In sorrow, not only for our own sin but the sins and injustices of the world, we encounter the deep, abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.

Mourning our dead, praying for their salvation, we cast our prayers into eternity knowing that “with God all things are possible.” God blesses us with wisdom and compassion as we carry God’s love to others. 

Called to be meek, not weak, we walk with a humility that recognizes Jesus Christ in everyone we meet, reminding us that we are called to love. We move, not filled with vengeful anger, but as living signs of God’s mercy. 

Through prayer we experience the shock of humility, a rightness in our relationship with God, with each other, and with creation. True humility is merely the acceptance of reality, that we are all completely dependent on God. Humility is to recognize God’s divine life in others, and the need to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself.

I remember a story about a young mother who was trying to help her little boy understand God’s great commandment. “God put us here to help others,” she told him. He thought for a moment and then asked, “What are the others here for?” The little lad would have made a good Pharisee.

Yes, we’re called by Jesus to extend to each other the same mercy we expect from Him. At the soup kitchen we had a saying, “We don’t serve food, we serve Jesus Christ.” But do we open ourselves wide so that all who walk in that door, see Jesus in us?

As we long and work for peace in our lives, our merciful God rests His hand gently upon our heads and speaks to us as His favored children. Having received a sevenfold blessing, seized by the Holy Spirit, taken captive, we allow ourselves to receive an eighth blessing, to be emptied and enter into the perfection of Christ.

Then, being like Christ, we’re not surprised when called to share in the likeness of his suffering and death. For we, too, will carry our cross knowing always that Jesus walks by our side. Perhaps, then, someone will look at us and ask, “Who are they who seem to love so much?”

And for this, like the Saints we honor today, we will be greatly blessed.

 

Progressive Education, a Prophecy

The other day, in a TV news discussion addressing the radicalization of so many students in our colleges and universities, a member of the US House complained that, over the past two or three decades, our nation’s educational system has been infiltrated and co-opted by the ideological left. At one level he is correct, but at another, he is historically ignorant. The left’s takeover of education, especially our public educational system, has been a long, intentional process that began well over 100 years ago. Let me introduce you to a prophet who addressed the specifics of this highly successful movement 70 years ago, certainly more than a “two or three decades.” 

The prophet, Richard M. Weaver, died far too early in 1963 at the age of 53. A professor of English at the University of Chicago, he was far better known as a political philosopher and historian of intellectual movements. Weaver ultimately became one of the pioneers of modern conservative thought. He left behind many writings, but he is best known for three remarkable books: 

Ideas Have Consequences (1948)

The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953)

 

Visions of Order (1964)

If you hope to understand the ideas that have formed the basis of today’s conservative thought in America, these three brief books, along with Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind, are a great starting point. 

Years ago, when I first read Weaver’s Visions of Order, I was captivated by his chapter on education, entitled, “Gnostics of Education.” He described how the process of educational radicalization really began in the nineteenth century when, in his words: 

“…there occurred a sinister change. This came about when state bureaucracies were created to set the terms and supervise the workings of the expanding public school system. State legislatures felt that they had to turn the actual administration of affairs over to a body of ‘experts’…these state departments of education became virtually autonomous in their power to define the goals, methods, and materials of public instruction. The final step came when they were able to require all prospective public school teachers through the high school level to take a set number of courses in a subject called ‘Education’…This is where the doctrinal revolution…really took place…The new education, for which the name ‘progressive’ has been pre-empted by its advocates, is in marked conflict with our basic traditions and culture.” [Visions of Order, p. 114-115]

Following this, Weaver lists “some of the chief assumptions and tenets of progressive education. The conflict between them and the principal teachings of the Judea-Christian classical heritage of the west will be immediately apparent.” 

I realize his list is neither brief nor couched in today’s politically-correct language, but believe it’s worth reading. As you read, keep in mind that, although the book was published in 1964, a year after Weaver’s death, most of it was written in the mid-1950s, almost 70 years ago. These eight assumptions could easily be the manifesto of one of today’s radicalized teachers' unions. I include them here just as they were published [See Visions of Order, p. 115-117].

1. There is no such thing as a body of knowledge which reflects the structure of reality and which everyone therefore needs to learn. Knowledge is viewed as an instrumentality which is true or false according to the way it is applied to concrete situations or the way it serves the needs of the individual. Since these educators have embraced the notion that the essence of the world is change, there is no final knowledge about anything. The truths of yesterday are the falsehoods of today and the truths of today will be the falsehoods of tomorrow.
2. This being so, the object of education is not to teach knowledge, but to “teach students.” As they translate this into practice, it means that everyone should be adapted to the child as child, to the youth as youth, and to the particular group according to its limitations. There are no ideals or standards of performance which these are bound to measure themselves by or to respect.
3. As a corollary of the above principal, the child should be encouraged to follow his own desires in deciding what he should study, and what aspects of what subjects, and at what times.
4. The teacher must not think of himself as being in authority, because authority is evil. The teacher is there as a “leader,” but the duty of the leader is only to synchronize and cooperate with the work of the group.
5. The student should never be made afraid of anything connected with the school. Marks and competitions are bad because they instill feelings of superiority and inferiority, which are undemocratic. 
6. The mind is not to be exalted over the senses: democracy requires that sensory and “activist” learning be valued on a par with intellectual learning. The mentally slow or retarded are not to be made to feel that they are lacking; it is better to impugn the whole tradition of intellectual education than to injure the feelings of the less bright and the lazy.
7. Consequently, there should be less education through symbols like language and figures and more through using the hands-on concrete objects. It is more important to make maps than to learn them, said John Dewey, the grand pundit of the revolutionary movement.
8. The general aim is to train the student so that he will adjust himself not simply to the existing society, as is sometimes inferred from their words, but to society conceived as social democracy.

Here’s an abbreviated view of Weaver’s conclusions regarding these aims of progressive education:

• Absolute truth does not exist. No knowledge is binding.
• The mind is a tyrant which denies the rights of the body and must be democratized, forced into equity.
• The student’s aim is not to save his soul, inherit past wisdom, or advance himself or human knowledge, but to become a member of a future, ill-defined utopia.

How sad that Weaver recognized, understood, and warned us about this back in the 1950s and yet as a nation we didn’t listen…a prophet in his own land. One can only hope that the American people will come to realize the importance of local elections, particularly school board elections.

Of course, this radicalization has affected more than just education, but every aspect of society. Can we overcome this societal radicalization? I'm not sure. Back in 1949 -- when I was just a little kid -- another modern prophet, T. S. Eliot, wrote:

"Our own period is one of decline; that the standards of culture are lower than they were fifty years ago; and that the evidences of this decline are visible in every department of human activity" [Notes Toward the Definition of Culture, p. 17].

Intellect and Will: Rarely Do the Twain Meet

Confronted by all the hatred and stupidity evident in both our world and our country, I try to view it all from an eternal or more comprehensive perspective. It’s remarkable and disturbing that so many human beings seem to have lost or, at best, misplaced their humanity. We — at least some of us — believe that God, by creating us in His image and likeness, imbued us with both intellect and will, gifts that define our humanity and separate us from other earthly creatures. Sadly, far too many of us do not apply either of these gifts very well, or focus only on one and ignore the other. 

Leadership, of course, demands the effective, coordinated application of both intellect and will. A leader with a keen intellect, who strives to understand the situation facing him, but lacks the courage to make a meaningful decision and apply his will correctly is essentially powerless. Fundamentally he knows what he should do but fears doing it. As you might expect, the results are usually catastrophic. I fear that our president and those who surround him have succumbed to this failing whenever the real interests of our nation are at stake. Instead they focus the administration’s will on a collection of “woke” sideshows that seem only to undermine our culture and its moral and spiritual roots. I trust they will soon come to recognize the nature of the challenges facing them and develop the will to act courageously and decisively in the defense of our civilization. I won’t hold my breath, though. Ideologues rarely change their core beliefs unless they undergo a radical conversion. St. Paul is among the most obvious examples. Actively involved in the murder and imprisonment of first-generation Christians, he didn’t change; God changed him. As Christians we must pray for a global metanoia, a Pauline-like conversion through which God will change the hearts and minds of those striving to destroy His Church and suppress His holy Word.

But the willful leader who lacks understanding can be equally, perhaps more, dangerous. By failing to use his intellect and grasp the reality of the situation, including its moral aspects, he is motivated only by ignorance and emotion. This most often leads to very destructive results. For example, the terrorist, blinded and consumed by the ideology that motivates him, applies his will amorally and, focused solely on the attainment of the ideological goal, leaves his intellect far behind. This is why negotiation with committed and thoroughly indoctrinated terrorists is inevitably fruitless. Driven by their ideology, they are unmoved by arguments based on truth and morality. The only truth is their truth; all else are signs of weakness. They will take advantage of the weaknesses of others and use them to achieve their ideological ends. At one point in our diplomatic history, we refused to negotiate with terrorists because it was immoral and inevitably led to a degradation of the current situation. Now we not only negotiate with the demonic, but also allow it to dictate the terms. As I have said elsewhere, the willful, especially those captivated by evil, respect only power and the willingness to apply it.

Do I side with the Israelis in the current conflict? Yes, indeed — not because they are perfect, because they’re not. Like every nation, including our own, they have done some very stupid and immoral things. But they at least struggle to do what is right. All those Americans protesting in our streets and on our campuses in support of Hamas are too ignorant or too filled with hate to understand the idiotic slogans they chant. What to do with them? Because as a nation we respect free speech, about all we can do is shame them, make them understand that actions and words have consequences that might affect their current or future lives, and inundate them with the truth. And if Israel destroys Hamas, support for this specific terrorist group will likely fade away quickly. And most importantly pray for our ally Israel.

Homily: 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A

Readings: Is 45: 1,4-6; Ps 96; 1 Thes 1:1-5; Mt 22:15-21

__________________

I have a coin at home, a Roman denarius. An archaeologist friend gave it to me years ago as a gift. He found it in Israel, and on it you can still make out the faint image of Tiberius Caesar, and an inscription declaring him the “son of the divine Augustus,” the son of God.

I can’t help but wonder if perhaps it’s the very coin the Pharisees showed Jesus as He confronted them in today’s Gospel passage. I expect that there were probably a few million of those coins floating around the Holy Land in the 1^st century, so it’s highly unlikely…but not impossible.

Of course, the emperors weren’t fools...well, most of them weren’t. Their images appeared on all Roman coins because it was good advertising, the emperor keeping his image in front of his subjects. He projected an image of power, stability, peace, and prosperity. For Emperors, image was important.

In our first reading the prophet Isaiah seemed to agree as he reminded Cyrus, the great Persian Emperor, that God had called him by name, given him a title, and empowered him in 539 BC to free God’s people from their captivity.

God calls us by name, too, because we’re created in the image of the One who anoints us, gives us a title, and calls us “beloved”. We’re created in the image of One who is always with us, and if we look in a mirror, and see only our own face staring back, then we’re blind to the truth, as were so many of the Pharisees. God stood in their midst, and they failed to recognize Him; they didn’t see themselves in Him.

So intent on projecting an image of obedience to the Law, they never considered why God gave them the Law in the first place.

So caught up with being seen as religious, they forgot the importance of actually being holy.

Weighed down by externals they never internalized the command to love God and neighbor.

So pleased with themselves, they ignored God’s call to bring His Presence and love to others, especially the poor.

And so, they do the unthinkable: they scheme and plot to entrap the eternal Word of God. To do so, the Pharisees join forces with a group they despise, the Herodians, because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Oh, they conjure up this clever question with only a lose-lose answer. They turn to Jesus, flattering Him with words they don’t believe, then ask: “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”

If Jesus says, “Yes, it’s lawful,” the Pharisees can condemn Him to the people as a friend of the despised Romans.

If He says, “No,” the Herodians, who happily served the Romans, can bring charges against Him for telling the people not to pay their taxes.

But once again, Jesus ruins their schemes by turning the tables on them: When a Pharisee holds up that Roman denarius, Jesus asks, "Whose image is this and whose inscription…" And then he tells them, "Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God."

Now a lot of folks focus on the first part of that command – the rendering to Caesar part – but how many of us few consider the second part?

Yes, we pay our taxes and today’s Caesars, use them for all kinds of wondrous things. And their images hang on the walls of our public buildings, in the post office, right beside those other pictures in the post office.

But what should we render to God? Can we render anything to God?

You see, like Tiberius and like Isaiah, in effect Jesus tells the Pharisees that image is truly important. Since we’re created in God’s image, we can render to Him all that we are: we can give him all of our being! For by giving ourselves to God, we render to Him His image.

For Jesus, the question isn’t “How much do you owe me in taxes?” But rather, “Who do you look like, and who are you called to be?” When we realize who we look like, that we are created in His image, we can then begin to recognize Him in the faces of those around us.

For years, at the Wildwood Soup Kitchen, as I served a plate of my wife, Diane’s, wonderful cooking and handed it to the woman standing before me, I was amazed to realize I was staring into the face and image of God. Even if she didn’t believe in God – and she did – I could still see in her the image of God.

This is truly amazing! It’s an absolutely marvelous thing! That God reveals Himself to us through us.

When the Samaritan found that wounded man on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, what did he see but the image of God beaten, bloodied, disfigured. And what did he use to ensure the innkeeper would care for the man while he was away? He used money, two denarii, the image of Caesar. He didn’t misuse money as Judas did when he sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, and thus betrayed the image of God made man.

For money is a means: we need to have some, but when we have too much of it, we run the risk of using it for selfish ends, believing that paradise, at least a little piece of it, can be found on earth. How fitting that our currency in this country bears the words, “In God we trust” – if only as a reminder that if we place our trust in money, we worship a false god. Much better to use the wealth we have to help our neighbor, seeing in him the image of God!

You see, sisters and brothers, at some point we will be judged. We won’t be asked how many holy hours we’ve made, or how many Rosaries we’ve said. Now, those are good things – because they keep our minds and hearts tuned and turned to God.

But we all know what we’ll be asked. It’s one of the clearest texts in the Gospels, Matthew 25. “I was hungry and thirsty. I was sick and in pain. I was in prison,” Jesus will tell us, and then He’ll ask. “But did you pay attention to me? “You should have known that I hide, not only within the poor, but within sinners as well. You know, those people we avoid like the plague.

“You missed me, day after day, every day. “Oh, you handed me your spare change, or a few bucks, and once in a while even wrote big check, but that just eased your conscience…Yes, I took your money, but you never offered your time, your attention, your interest. I never experienced your love.”

When God says all this to us, you and I will stand there sputtering, “Lord, do you mean to say You were that scary-looking guy, who asked me for a ride.”

“…or that irritating old woman, in front of Walmart, always looking for a handout? She was You too?

“…or that neighbor who loves to talk, on and on, about all his troubles? That’s you?”

Yes, you and I are here today at Mass, worshiping the One who suffered and was abandoned and uncared for, whom no one thought of comforting, and whose passion brings tears to our eyes.

Then, we will leave, through that door, and later, when we meet Him, we don’t recognize Him. We used to call it a sin of omission, but I prefer to call it a sin of indifference. Our indifference to others offends God far more than the mistakes we make on this journey of ours.

St. Paul, in our 2^nd reading, reminds us that “the Gospel didn’t come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit.”

But how often do you and I call on the power of the Holy Spirit? In the Creed, we call Him, “the Lord and Giver of life.” To refuse God’s gift of the Holy Spirit is to refuse life. And the life God gives us is His own, His Eucharistic life, a life of loving with an active love. For us to reject God’s life is to reject the gift of eternal life.

As Mass ends today, Father will extend God’s blessing to us all; then you’ll hear me say¸ “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.” And with our lives filled with God’s life, the Eucharistic gift of Jesus, we can carry the Gospel, carry His love, to all we encounter.

If we accept the challenge, if we carry God’s love into the world, the Holy Spirit will come and teach us all things.

He’ll change us, if we want Him to, if we welcome Him, if we stop resisting Him, and if we look to Him for everything.

If we render to him all that is His…our very lives.