Prayer and Daily Life

(30th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 27 & 28 October, 2007, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; Read Luke 18:9-14, CCC #2725)

How is your prayer life? How is your relationship with God in that daily conversation we call prayer? In the story of this weekend’s gospel, the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, we are given the third in a series of three great parables on prayer that are found in the Gospel of Luke. It says a lot, that Jesus would spend so much time teaching His disciples about prayer.

Prayer has the power to strengthen us and set our lives on fire so that we can boldly proclaim the Gospel. It can mean the difference between a life of faith and vitality or one lived in bland mediocrity.

Our prayer makes a difference in the way we live our lives, and the two of them—prayer and life—are intrinsically bound together. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, one quarter of which is dedicated to Christian prayer, says that “We pray as we live, because we live as we pray” (CCC #2725).

And in this weekend’s gospel we can see that the Pharisee isn’t doing either of those two things very well! On the outside he seems to have it all together. He begins with a prayer of thanksgiving: a good start.

But what he is thankful for is that he is “not like the rest of humanity,” or “like this tax collector.” And although it is true that he may not be “greedy, dishonest, or adulterous,” he is arrogant and self-righteous; and that’s a problem.

And the tragedy here is that the Pharisee misses the very point of why he came to the temple to begin with: to pray to God. He is so preoccupied with himself and how he measures up before the rest of humanity, and this Tax Collector, that he fails to see how he measures up before God.

How different is the prayer of the Tax Collector. He’s not looking around at anyone. In fact, he doesn’t even raise his eyes to heaven, but simply prays, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

And because of his humility, and his recognition of the need for God’s mercy, Jesus tells us he “went home justified,” while the Pharisee did not. That must be our starting point for prayer: a humble recognition of our own sinfulness and the need for God’s mercy.

The Times of London, in the early part of the twentieth century, sponsored an essay contest in which they invited several accomplished authors to respond to the question: “What is wrong with the world?” The enigmatic Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton, who himself had written an entire book on the subject, was asked to participate in the project. With perhaps the shortest essay ever written, in the response to the question “What is wrong with the world?” he won hands down with the following entry:

Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely,
G. K. Chesterton

Chesterton was not being cynical or negative. He was simply being honest. He understood that the problem plaguing our world since the fall our first parents is the problem of sin. We are all caught up in that problem. Our starting point in prayer, and in life, must be a humble recognition of that fact.

When we are able to admit our sinfulness, and take accountability for our own sins before God, then we begin to see that the real power in prayer and the power in life come from God and not from us. He is the one who comes to us in the midst of our woundedness, in spite of our sins, giving us reconciliation and peace. He brings us healing and then sends us out as instruments of healing in the world we live in.

I spent six years in seminary formation, preparing for ordination to the priesthood. They were some of the most memorable and cherished years of my life. But they were also very challenging. The seminarian lives a life of intense introspection. Once a year he is required to write a self evaluation, describing his strengths and his weaknesses. The seminary faculty also evaluates him each year, pointing out the same gifts, as well as his failings and shortcomings.

I remember one time, during my first few years of formation, praying in Aquinas Chapel at Providence College. It was a cold winter afternoon. I was alone before the Blessed Sacrament and suddenly felt painfully aware of the many ways I had failed to love God and love neighbor the way Christ calls us to. As I continued to struggle through prayer, I began to see more clearly that I was not alone in that place. There was someone else there with me, who was also wounded, in His hands, and feet, and side. It dawned on me that He was not wounded so that He could thrust his hands in my face and say, “Look what you did!” No, as Isaiah the prophet had written:

He was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,
and with his stripes we are healed.
—Isaiah 53:5

In that chapel on that cold December day I wrote, on the inside cover of my Bible, the following words:

O Lord, I would give anything
Not to be wounded.

But You gave up everything
So that You could be.

And so that we
could be healed.

If it is true that “We pray as we live, because we live as we pray” (CCC #2725), we can ask ourselves once again: How is your prayer? How is your Christian life right now? Are we, like the Tax Collector, able to humbly recognize in prayer our own need for the overwhelming mercy and forgiveness of God?

How is Jesus Christ calling us—this week—to look at our wounds, in the light of His wounds, and to be healed? How are we called to then bring the Gospel message of that healing into a world that desperately needs it?

Pray Always Without Becoming Weary

(29th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 21 October, 2007, at St. Mark's Church, Cranston, R.I.; Read Luke 18:1-8)

Fr. Michael Najim, our diocesan Vocations Director, was preaching at my parish of St. Mary's this weekend, giving me the opportunity to preach at St. Mark's. Please pray, and when you pray, ask for more vocations to the priesthood and religious life in the Diocese of Providence and throughout the Church.

What are you praying for in your life right now? What are the intentions or petitions that you are bringing before God on a regular basis?

Recently there was an experiment conducted by a major university on the effectiveness of prayer. A number of patients who were seriously ill in hospitals volunteered to be part of the experiment, and they were divided into two groups. Information on the first group was given to various religious organizations to pray for, while the second group was not prayed for at all.

Now none of the patients knew which group they were in. The results of the experiment showed that the patients being prayed for did not survive or recover any better than the ones who were not prayed for. Other studies have yielded different results, but based upon this university study we may be tempted to ask ourselves: “Why bother to pray at all?” All of us have offered prayers that seem to go unanswered. Why keep praying?

Firstly, as people of faith we are called to “pray always without becoming weary” (Luke 18:1), as we hear in this morning’s Gospel. Jesus Christ challenges us to pray. He teaches us by His own example and by the constant attention He gave to prayer that this is the way of life for the Christian. But even with all of that said, and from a purely practical point of view, we can recognize that there are several factors which that university study did not take into account.

For instance, what about the spiritual effects on the patients? Were they drawn any closer to God? Were they being prepared for eternal life? Were they becoming more and more open to the eternal relationship that God is calling all of us to in heaven? No scientific experiment can give us the answers to those questions. And aren’t they the most important questions of all?

Secondly, what about the effects on the people who were doing the praying? Jesus calls us “to pray always without becoming weary,” because when we pray, God changes our own heart, and makes us more and more like Christ. It might seem like a lot to ask—this making us more like Christ—and it can even be painful at times, but He is able to accomplish it, if we’ll let Him, and if we remain steadfast in prayer.

Several years ago, while I was still working for Stop & Shop, I bought a nice new pick-up truck, one of those 4-wheel drive sport models, fully loaded. Each day I could hardly wait to get out of work, to go and drive it.

One day I went out to do just that and I discovered—to my great astonishment and discontent—that there was an empty parking space where my truck used to be! After three days they found it, or at least what was left of it. It had been stripped of everything, and the Club/anti theft device that was on the steering wheel had been placed back into the truck, where the seats would have been.

And being a person of faith, I began to pray. What I prayed for was justice. It was justice bordering on vengeance! And for a few days, to be quite honest, that prayer felt really, really good! But before long that feeling faded, and I could sense that God was asking me for a bit more. I began, little by little, to pray for the grace to forgive, to let go, and eventually even for the gift of faith for whomever it was that had stolen my truck. But it took a while. It didn’t happen overnight.

And that is why Christ challenges us this weekend “to pray always without becoming weary.” When we pray, our prayer does not change God. It is not as if He is in heaven, waiting to be coerced or manipulated into following our own good counsel. And we may not always see the changes that take place in the people around us. But when we “pray always without becoming weary,” we come to realize that our prayer is changing us and making us more and more like Jesus Christ.

And so I ask once again: What are you praying for in your life right now? I am here today in this parish of St. Mark’s because our Vocations Director, Fr. Mike Najim, is speaking in my parish about the need for more vocations to the priesthood. We constantly ask God for more vocations, because we know that He is calling men and women to the priesthood and religious life. Yet it can be so discouraging to pray so often and not see, right away, the results that we hope for.

This month is Respect Life month in our Church. How often have we prayed for an end to abortion and the protection of the unborn? Yet year after year nothing seems to change.

And how many times have you prayed for your own families, your own personal intentions, and felt discouraged or disappointed that things were not working out the way you had hoped? Christ challenges us again this weekend “to pray always without becoming weary,” because prayer works, even when we do not see the results or understand how God is accomplishing His eternal plan for us. Prayer works, and when it works it changes the world we live in. It changes us.

So let us begin our own experiment of prayer here at St. Mark’s, and not be so concerned about the immediate results. Let us be concerned, instead, with the way God is working in our lives as we pray, and trust that He knows what is best for us and for those we pray for. And one day we will see the results of all our prayers, and understand completely why Christ calls us “to pray always, without becoming weary.”

Eucharistian- A Thanksgiving Offering to God

(28th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 13 & 14 October, 2007, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Luke 17:11-19)

Our gospel for this weekend relates the story of the ten lepers who were healed by Christ, and the one who returned to give thanks and praise to God. It is a beautiful story of healing and transformation. It is also a familiar story.

It is familiar because it is the gospel which is read for every Thanksgiving Day Mass. If you come here to St. Mary’s next month (and I hope you will!) for Thanksgiving Mass, or anywhere in the United States for that matter, this is the gospel you will hear.

But thanksgiving for us as Catholics is more than just a holiday. It is more than just a word or one gospel passage. Thanksgiving is truly at the heart of our faith and the heart of our Church. The Greek word for thanksgiving is eucharistian, and it is where we get the word Eucharist.

Each week as we celebrate the Eucharist we offer thanks and praise to God. We offer to Him, in thanksgiving, the body and blood of His Son, Jesus Christ; we offer to Him ourselves along with that Great Sacrifice. And when we make that thanksgiving offering we ourselves benefit and are filled with the God who becomes the Bread of Life for us. We draw ever closer to our Eucharistic Lord in this mystery that is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (Lumen Gentium #11, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, #1).

I would suggest that the Thankful Leper in today’s gospel teaches us, in three particular ways, how to do that: How to approach Jesus Christ and receive Him in this great mystery of our faith.

Firstly, he teaches us that when we approach Christ we need to do so in humility. Lepers at the time of Christ were ostracized from the community; they were to announce their presence as “unclean” and required to stand apart from the rest of the people. But that did not stop these ten from crying out to Christ in their need.

St. Luke tells us how they “stood at a distance from [Jesus] and raised their voices” (Luke 17:12-13). It is hard enough for any of us to admit when we need help or when we are struggling in our lives. How much more so for these men, and to do so out loud and in public? It would have required an abundance of humility.

Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter on the Eucharist, says that we need to have the same humility when we approach Christ in the Blessed Sacrament:

The bread which is broken on our altars . . . is panis angelorum, the bread of angels, which cannot be approached except with the humility of the centurion in the Gospel: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof” (Mt 8:8; Lk 7:6).
—Ecclesia de Eucharistia, #48

Isn’t that what we say at every Mass? “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” We need humility to approach so great a gift as Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

Secondly, the Thankful Leper teaches us that healing, transformation, and growth in the Christian life is not always automatic. It doesn’t usually happen in an instant. It comes, often times, through an ongoing relationship with Christ.

The lepers, following Christ’s command to show themselves to the priests, discovered with astounding joy that “As they were going, they were cleansed” (Luke 17:14). They were on the way, following in the direction Christ led them to, and in that they received healing. So it is with us.

It is through an ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ that we receive healing, transformation and growth in the Christian life. We come here to Mass to receive not a wafer, or a piece of bread, but a Person, our Lord Jesus Christ. We need to continue to grow in relationship with that Person, and allow Him to heal and transform us “on the way.”

Finally, that Thankful Leper teaches us that, once we have approached Christ in humility and been touched and healed by Him, then we cannot help but fall down before Him, on our knees, in praise, thanksgiving, and adoration.

Realizing he had been healed, [the leper] returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
—Luke 17: 15-16

Isn’t that why we gather we gather together for Mass in the first place? We are “built” to make a sacrifice to God. We were created in the image and likeness of God, to thank and praise Him for all the good He has done for us. It is the natural thing to do, and when we worship Him we are never more truly ourselves.

How will our imitation of the Thankful Leper in our gospel this weekend change us and the world we live in as we enter this new week? How are we being draw to the virtue of humility, to ongoing conversion and relationship with Christ in the Eucharist, and to grow in praise and thanksgiving in our own spiritual lives?

May God continue to draw us ever closer together in this holy gift of the Eucharist, and together, may He draw us ever closer to Himself.

Bridging the Gap

(26th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 29 & 30 September, 2007, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Luke 16:19-31)

On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican is one of the most famous paintings in all of Christian art: Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam.” It has been reproduced thousands of times on posters, calendars, t-shirts and even coffee mugs!

The scene is that of Adam being brought into life. God is stretching down to him from heaven and Adam’s hand is reaching up; their fingers seem to meet as God infuses him with the gift of life. But if you look closely at that image you will notice that the two are really not touching at all. There remains a slight gap—just a few inches—between them.

And even though it is only a few inches, it might as well be an infinite distance, because there is nothing Adam can do to reach God. There is nothing any of us can do—of ourselves—to reach the heights of heaven. As St. Paul says so clearly in today’s second reading, God is He:

Who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, and whom no human being has seen or can see.
—1 Timothy 6:16

There is nothing we could ever do to take hold of heaven and bridge that gap between us and God; but there is something He can do—and has done—to reach us. In Jesus Christ, God has become man and has brought us all closer together, and together, closer to God. Every one of us shares an intimate bond with each other, because we have all been created by God, and an intimate bond with God himself, who sent Christ to redeem us.

In the parable Jesus relates to us in the gospel this weekend, both those bonds are broken.

The rich man, who lived comfortably and had everything he could ever want in life, now finds himself in a place of torment, separated from his fellow man and separated from God. He cries out to Abraham, hoping that maybe Lazarus can come and bring him relief. Sadly, Abraham replies that he cannot:

Between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.
—Luke 16:26

It’s a great chasm, an infinite distance, and there is nothing now that can close the gap. It’s too late. All his life the rich man could have reached out and touched Lazarus, he could have spoken to him and helped him. Instead he chose to ignore this poor man, lying at his door. He chose complacency over compassion, selfishness instead of selfless love for others, and refused to recognize the bond he shared with another human person.

This complacency is something that can affect all the areas of our lives: our relationships, our friendships, and even our faith life. We can become all too comfortable with ourselves and forget the needs of those around us.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all is that the rich man in the parable knew Lazarus! Remember, he calls out to Abraham and asks for Lazarus by name. He knew his name!

If we look close enough, each of us can find that there are people in our lives, people we know by name, that are needy in some way or another. It might be a physical need, or an emotional or spiritual one. There are so many needs in this world we live in. How is God calling us to respond to the ones that are right in front of us on a daily basis?

For four years I studied in the City of Rome as I was preparing for the priesthood. Each day, on the walk to school, I would encounter many homeless persons. Some of them were beautiful people, and very easy to connect with. Others were much more challenging and quite difficult, indeed, to love.

One of them used to sit on the pavement about 100 yards from the university, and he was completely unpredictable. Sometimes he would curse as we walked by, or even spit at us. Other times he was soft-spoken and asked us kindly for a helping hand. It was hard to know whether we should reach out and help, or walk quickly by and avoid him.

One day, as I was speaking with another seminarian in his dorm room, I noticed a small painting on his wall that looked familiar. I said, “That’s the university. In fact, I even recognize the angle that picture was painted from. That’s about the place where that homeless guy sits. You know, the mean one.”

The other seminarian said to me, “You mean Joseph?”

I was surprised. “How did you know his name?”

Then he said to me, “Joseph is the one who painted that picture.”

So many times I had walked by that man and seen only someone who was ugly. Yet there was great beauty there, deep within. So often we look at ourselves, or at others, and we see people who are ugly. God challenges us to look deeper, and to recognize the beauty that He put there. He challenges us to look for the image of God at the center of every human person, and to love that image. He calls us, in very concrete ways this week, to love those around us and to close the gap that so often exists between us.

St. Augustine, who wrote extensively about love and the Christian life, was once challenged: “But what does love look like?” It’s as if they were saying, “Enough philosophy and theology. Just tell us what this love should look like.” He answered directly:

Love has feet, to go to the poor and needy.
It has eyes, to see misery and want.
It has ears, to hear the sighs and sorrows of others.

In a moment, God will reach down from heaven and touch us with the gift of the Eucharist. The same God who reached down and touched Adam, giving Him the gift of life, will reach down here and touch our hearts with His Body and His Blood.

May he also touch our feet, that they may go to the poor and needy, our eyes so we can see the suffering all around us, and our ears, that they may be opened to hear the sighs and sorrows of others.

And when the world we live in begins to search for the image of love, and wants to know what it looks like; when they look for that image of God and long for even a glimpse of it, may they find that image in each and every one of us.

The Economy of Salvation

(25th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 22 &23 September, 2007, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Luke 16:1-13 and CCC #258, 1066 & Glossary)

Some of the most powerful and beautiful teachings in the Scriptures are found in the New Testament, in the parables of Jesus Christ; He simply is the greatest Teacher of all time. One of the reasons for His effectiveness and ability to communicate His message so well—to the people of His own day, and to the people of ours—has to do with the examples and illustrations He often used from everyday life.

The parable we hear this weekend, the Parable of the Unjust Steward, is no exception. Christ talks to them about landowners, stewards, debtors and creditors; they were very well acquainted with that system.

We ourselves are also familiar—perhaps too familiar—with some of the very same things: debt, credit cards, bills and payments. All of these things, obviously, have to do with the economy. They make up the economic system. All civilizations and cultures have some kind of economy, however primitive it may be. In order for a society to function it must have some sort of an economy.

That word itself, Economy, is taken from the Greek word oikonomia, and it means literally the “management of a household.” It describes how someone conducts their affairs; how they manage their life.

The Fathers of the Church, however, tell us that there is an economy in God Himself! They call it the “economy of salvation.” It does not mean that God has a credit card, or that He is investing at the New York Stock Exchange. The “economy of God” or the “economy of salvation,” refers to the way God “manages” His household, the world.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way:

The economy of salvation…refers to God’s activity in creating and governing the world, particularly to his plan for the salvation of the world in the person of Jesus Christ, a plan which is being accomplished through His Body the Church, in its life and sacraments.

—Catechism of the Catholic Church,
Glossary, “Economy of Salvation”


The “economy of salvation,” then, is basically “what God is up to” on an everyday basis; how He is guiding the course of human history. If you want to know how God is managing Europe or the United States, how He is dealing with Cranston, Rhode Island, or your own household and your own life, then you need look no further than the person of Jesus Christ. That is what God is up to.

Christ is God who became man and walked right into our very lives; He entered into our economic system, into our homes and families. He reached out and touched those who were sick, and healed them. He gave sight to the blind and raised the dead. He suffered and died on the cross so that we could be forgiven for our sins and find new hope and new life in Him.

Jesus Christ rose again from the dead and invited us into His very life, a life that will never end. By our Baptism we can live in Him and through the gift of His Body and Blood to us in the Holy Eucharist, Christ lives in us. Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation we can be forgiven for all our sins and make a brand new start with God.

That is the “economy of Salvation” in all its splendor! That is how God is managing His household.

The challenge Christ issues to us this weekend is simple and clear: To be active in that economy! We are not called to sit back and wait for God to do something in our lives. We cannot be unresponsive to so great a gift! Jesus contrasts those who are inactive and unmotivated in their Christian life to the people of this world who are over-active in the economy and worldly affairs here on earth:

The children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.
—Luke 16:8

The illustration He uses is the Parable of the Dishonest Steward. Make no mistake about it: this man is a scoundrel! He is a thief. He’s embezzling money from his boss; taking what does not belong to him. And he’s been caught! He is about to get fired, and rightfully so.

Jesus in no way condones what that man has done. But what the parable draws our attention to is the reaction of that scoundrel as soon as he figures out that the game is up: he gets active. This man got busy! He used all his energy, his efforts, gifts and abilities, everything he had, to make sure that he would be well taken care of in this world. He made sure he was well covered when it came to worldly wealth.

Jesus is essentially saying: If only my people were that active in their pursuit of eternal wealth!

He is challenging us to use all our energies, our efforts, gifts, abilities and resources, to seek the Kingdom of God and to make sure we have a place in the eternal kingdom where He lives and reigns forever. Because, in the end, the “economy of Salvation” is not about money. It is not about possessions, or property of anything so mundane.

The “economy of salvation” is ultimately about heaven. It’s about eternal life. We can ask ourselves this weekend: How much are we investing in that economy? Certainly in our generosity with time, talent and treasure, but more than that; also in the way we live and the way we love? How well are we investing in that “economy” which will earn us dividends in an eternal life with God?

Captain Jack Sparrow's Compass

(24th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 15 & 16 September, 2007, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Luke 15:1-32)

If you have seen the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, then you know who Captain Jack Sparrow is. He is the central character, the main pirate, and he always knows exactly where to look for treasure. The reason he has such a good sense of the direction is because of the compass that he carries with him at all times.

It is certainly no ordinary compass. It does not point north, south, east and west; the compass of Captain Jack Sparrow points in only one direction: the direction of the thing he desires the most! When his heart is set on treasure, the compass automatically points in that direction.

But as the sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean begins, in the movie Dead Man’s Chest, we discover that Captain Jack Sparrow is in a crisis: he doesn’t know exactly what he wants. There is some interior confusion, and for that reason, his compass will not work the way it should. It is unable to bring him to the place he wants to go.

That is the picture we are given this weekend in the beautiful and familiar Parable of the Prodigal Son. The son doesn’t know what he wants; he thinks he does. He says to his father: “Give me the share of your estate that should come to me” (Luke 15:12). He then takes that share and goes off to “a distant country” where he squanders the entire inheritance “on a life of dissipation.”

The Fathers of the Church and early Christian writers have always understood that journey into “a distant country” as the alienation from God that comes from the life of sin. The more we become entangled in sin, the further we become entrenched in that “distant country,” and the more estranged we become from God.

The tragedy of the prodigal son lies not so much in the details of the sins he has committed, or even in the sad consequences of those sins which have made him a pig farmer in a foreign land (an unthinkable profession for the Jews). The most painful reality of all is that the son has let his moral compass take him in the opposite direction of where he most needs to be; he has become completely separated from the father.

We listen to that parable knowing all along that the father is such a father! He is so willing to give the son anything he asks for. Later we see how ready the father is to take the son back; how eager he is to reconcile that older brother; how filled with love and compassion! We ask ourselves: “Why would anyone ever leave a father like that?”

And that is the triumph of the Parable of the Prodigal Son: the son suddenly begins to ask himself that very question! There, alienated, broken and alone in “a distant country,” he remembers the kindness and benevolence of his own father; he longs for the home that he now understands he never should have left to begin with. His compass begins to work once again, and sets him back in the right direction, to the one thing he desires more than anything else in the world, the greatest treasure of all.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his new book Jesus of Nazareth, writes about this very conversion of the prodigal son. Our Holy Father (who has probably never seen the movie Pirates of the Caribbean, or probably never heard of Captain Jack Sparrow!) writes:

What [the prodigal son] finds in himself, though, is the compass pointing toward the father, toward the true freedom of a “son.”
—Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, pg. 205

He gets his bearings once again, and soon makes a decision: “I shall get up and go to my father” (Luke 15:18). He follows through on that decision, and is received back again with open arms.

It is a beautiful and heartwarming story; one that we are all familiar with. But the story prompts us to ask ourselves today: What about us? Where is our compass pointing? Is the compass pointing us in the right direction and bringing us ever closer to God? Or is our compass bringing us farther away, into that “distant country,” and away from the heart of the father?

I would suggest this weekend three aspects of the prodigal son that we should seek to imitate in our own lives.

Firstly, we should remember that this Father is such a father! God is so good, so merciful, so generous to us. He wants nothing but what is good for us, and to give us Himself and draw us to eternal life with Him. That should motivate everything we do, and guide us in the way we live. It should set our compass to the thing we should want more than anything else: God and His plan for our lives.

Secondly, like the prodigal son, we should be ready to make a decision. Whatever God is prompting us to do, we should be ready to answer His call. Has it been a while since we have come to Holy Mass? Are we able to make it some of the time, perhaps even most of the time, but not every weekend? God is asking us to make a decision to be with Him here every weekend.

Going out to dinner on Saturday night, or having a big family breakfast on Sunday morning is a great thing. To sit around the house and read the newspaper, or rest and watch TV is fine. But these things, of themselves, will not bring us to eternal life with God. They will not lead us to the heart of the Father. Mass will.

Mass is the place where Jesus Christ comes to us—Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity—where He comes into our lives and into our souls, and leads us ever closer to His Father. This is the place where we hear the Word of God proclaimed, and the Father says to us, over and over again, “Welcome home. Welcome back, come ever closer to the life I have called you to share.” Is God asking you to make that decision to attend Mass every week?

Or when is the last time you made a good sacramental confession? Is there anything in our lives that still needs to be forgiven by God? Our faith teaches us that when we have committed any serious or grave sins, ordinarily they can only be forgiven in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Might God be moving us to make that decision this week: to come to Him in that sacrament, and hear the words of absolution, to receive the embrace of our heavenly Father in that special place reserved for reconciliation and peace.

Or are there things in our lives that are keeping us from growing closer to God? Are there things we need to let go of, or say “No” to, or perhaps habits of prayer and fidelity that we need to follow through on in order to become, more and more, the sons and daughters God is calling us to be? Could that be the decision God is calling us to make?

Which brings us to the final aspect of the prodigal son that we should seek to imitate: like the prodigal son, we need to not only make a decision to return and draw closer to the Father. We need to actually do so, to follow through and make good on that decision.

We need to set our course, and, with the prodigal son “get up and go to [our] father.” In our lives this week, may we find our true compass once again, the compass that leads us to the one thing that we should desire above all other things: to seek the heart of the Father, and find in Him our greatest treasure, our deepest desire, and our one hope for eternal life.

Onesimus: Brother, Disciple...Bishop?

(23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 8 & 9 September, 2007, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Philemon and Luke 14:25-33)

Note:

This homily touches on the abhorrent practice of human slavery, unfortunately an accepted reality at the time of the nascent Church. For a thorough treatment on the issue of slavery, and the Catholic Church’s position regarding it, please refer to Rev. Raymond Suriani and his homily this week. The link to his blog is on the right.

This morning Christ speaks to us about the cost of discipleship—what it takes to follow Him in this world—and what He asks of us is no less than everything. We must love Him more than our own possessions, more than our own families, more than we love our very lives. And we must be willing to follow Him even in the midst of our own suffering. He says:

Whoever does not carry his own cross
and come after me cannot be my disciple.
—Luke 14:27

But have you ever wondered if it would be easier to follow Christ if you had a different cross than the one you carry? Perhaps you’ve thought to yourself, “I would be a much better Christian if I didn’t have these particular struggles in my life.” Maybe you have even said to yourself, “If I could just start over again, someplace far away, everything would be different.”

I would like to tell you a story about a young man who tried to do exactly that; I’m going to save his name until the end, but I promise that you have heard of him before.

He was a servant in a very large household, and he was unhappy. One night he decided to leave everything behind, and he ran away to make a new life for himself. But the further he went, and the harder he tried, the worse things became. Before long he hit rock bottom and he eventually found himself in the local jail.

It was at that time, in that jail, that he met an old man who would change his life forever. The old man taught him to trust in God, and shared with him the truth about forgiveness in Christ, and God’s unconditional love. He taught him that his life had meaning and purpose, and then he encouraged the young man to go back to the household he had run away from.

“Go back?” the young man said to him. “I can’t do that!” He was a servant and the penalty for running away at that time was severe. But the old man told him not to worry, and he assured him that he actually knew the master of that house, and would personally write a letter guaranteeing his acceptance back. He assured the young man that, now that he had Christ in his life, everything had changed.

The name of that young man was Onesimus, and I said earlier that you had heard of him because he is the subject of this morning’s 2nd Reading. The old man was none other than the Apostle Paul himself, and the letter he promised to write—which is our 2nd Reading—has been read in the Church for nearly 2000 years. St. Paul had written to the master, Philemon, in the strongest language:

I, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus, urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment…

Perhaps this is why he was away from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother . . . Welcome him as you would welcome me.

—Philemon 9, 15-17

Onesimus had tried, on his own, to change his life, but he had failed. Yet in the midst of his own failure and the recognition of his own trials and difficulties, he discovered the freedom he was searching for all along. He found Jesus Christ, and became a brother to the Apostle Paul, and Philemon. He had entered into that new life and new beginning he was so ardently seeking, and today he teaches us the lesson that Christ offers in the gospel: that we cannot separate our crosses from the call to discipleship:

Whoever does not carry his own cross
and come after me cannot be my disciple.
—Luke 14:27

We cannot separate our daily struggles and the crosses we carry from the call to follow Christ. The two go together, and it is very often in the midst of our crosses that we find Christ and that He draws near to us and helps us shoulder that burden.

And it’s all right to ask God for another cross, or a lighter one. Christ Himself asked the Father three times that his cross might be lifted. What matters is that we are willing to follow Christ, even if the cross remains. We are willing to take up our cross and follow Him.

There is a very moving scene in the film, The Lord of the Rings, in which Frodo, who has been carrying the ring which causes him so much suffering, turns to the wise and prudent Gandalf and says, “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” And Gandalf replies:

So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

Maybe we could follow Christ better if we had a different cross, or a different life. But this is the life that we have been given, and in this life, and in no other, God offers us hope. He offers us strength and the help we need to follow Him. And so we must decide what we will do with the time that is given to us, we must decide to take up our cross and follow Christ.

Which brings us back to our friend Onesimus. We never do find out in Paul’s letter what happened to him. But we do know that a man named Onesimus, around this time, became the Bishop of the Church at Ephesus, one of the most important cities in the early Church. Many scholars believe that this is the same Onesimus who met St. Paul in that jail only years before.

We don’t know for sure, but what we do know is that this young man—in the end—was “no longer a slave but a brother,” and above all, a disciple of Jesus Christ. May we, too, become faithful disciples of Christ and follow Him in our daily lives.

Award-Winning Humility

(22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 1 & 2 September, 2007, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Sirach 3: 17-20 and Luke 14:7-14)

You may have heard the story of the parish priest who was so humble that his parishioners decided something had to be done to recognize him. They had a medal cast with his name on the front, and on the back was inscribed: “The Most Humble Priest Ever.” They gave it to him at a special ceremony after Mass one Sunday. But just one week later, they decided to take that medal away from him…because he had the audacity to wear it!

Humility, a theme we find in our readings this weekend, can be an elusive virtue. As soon as we think we have it, we’ve lost it! But if there ever was such a thing as an award for humility, it could certainly be given to the author of our first reading, the author of the Book of Sirach. His full name, as we are told in the introduction to that book, is Yeshua Ben Sira (Sirach in Greek) and he is one of the great sages of the Old Testament. He is also considered one of the most modest and humble.

Sirach lived and taught about 200 years before Christ and his book is literally full of counsel and advice about how to love and serve God, how to follow the commandments and live at peace with those around us. In our first reading, Sirach offers us his teaching on humility (Sirach 3:17-20):

"My child," he says, "conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts."

Do you want people, to love you? If so, Sirach is saying, then be humble. If you want people to like you, then live in humility. He continues:

"Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God."

Not only are the humble attractive to those around them; humility attracts God Himself! God favors those who live in humility. Finally, Sirach offers the key to achieving this humility:

"What is too sublime for you, seek not, into things beyond your strength search not."

Knowing who we truly are, according to Sirach, is the key to humility: to not go beyond our limits; to know where God has placed us and to be content there. That is the path we are called to walk.

There is a great book, written by Ursula Le Guin, called, The Farthest Shore. It is very much like C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia or J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings; the fantasy-fiction genre. The book begins by describing the land of Earthsea, a world overtaken by a dark force which has drained the land and its people of their power. The wizards and all the inhabitants of Earthsea have been drawn into this darkness and are helpless to overcome it.

The main character and hero, a wizard named Ged, sets off with his young apprentice, Arren, to confront this dark force. Before long, Arren notices that Ged—unlike all the other wizards—has somehow retained all of his powers. Intrigued, Arren questions this strange phenomenon:

“How is it that all the wizards…have lost their art, but you keep yours?”

Ged answers without hesitation:

“Because I desire nothing beyond my art.”

He alone had lived his life according to the wisdom of Sirach:

What is too sublime for you, seek not,
into things beyond your strength search not.
—Sirach 3:17-18, 20

That was they key to his strength, and to his ability to practice well the art which all the others had lost. “I desire nothing beyond my art.” That is true humility: being content to be the person God created us to be, and not striving to go one bit beyond it.

What would the world look like if everyone followed that advice?

What would “Corporate America” look like if men and women in the business world followed the counsel of Sirach?

Or closer to home, what would our families, marriages, vocations and personal lives look like if we followed that advice?

What is too sublime for you, seek not,
into things beyond your strength search not.
—Sirach 3:17-18, 20

Jesus Christ, in the Gospel this weekend, gives us a picture of exactly what that would look like. He reveals to us what happens when we do not seek to go beyond our own limits. When we do not spend all of our efforts looking after “Number One,” then God begins to look after us Himself. When we seek merely to take the lowest place, God Himself moves us up higher to where we never dreamed of going. Jesus says:

When you are invited [to a banquet], go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, “My friend, move up to a higher position.”
—Luke 14:10

Back in the summer of 2001, when I was about to begin my second year of Major Seminary in Rome, I was part of what was called the Orientation Committee. Each summer, the Second Year seminarians work together as part of that committee to welcome the new students to Rome for the first time. One of the most moving events of that orientation is the trip to the Pope’s summer residence in Castelgondolfo, joining about 1,000 other pilgrims for the general audience there.

Since we had been to Castelgondolfo already, just one year before, many of the members of the Orientation Committee began to move the new students closer to the window where the Holy Father was about to appear. As we moved them forward, we ourselves took up the places towards the back of the group.

While we were in the very process of doing that, the archbishop in charge of the Papal Household came out and addressed our rector, who had just begun his position as the leader of our seminary. The archbishop said to him, “Are you the new Rector of the North American College? Take two people from your group, and follow me.”

The rector pointed to me and one of my classmates, and suddenly the three of us were led through a door and up a flight of stairs, and eventually into a small room where Pope John Paul II greeted us, and spoke to us for a few minutes, before finally giving us his blessing. It was one of the most memorable moments of my seminary formation.

The first thing that came to my mind that day was the gospel passage for this weekend, and the call for those who take the lowest place to “move up to a higher position.”

This morning we gather here at God’s great banquet, the Banquet of the Eucharist, to meet not the Pope but Jesus Christ Himself. God calls us to take the lowest place, to approach this great mystery of the Eucharist with the same faith and humility that we express at every Mass, praying in the words of the humble centurion in the gospel:

Lord, I am not worthy to receive You,
but only say the word and I shall be healed.

May we truly come to recognize, here before Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, who we truly are in the sight of God; may our joy, our contentment find its foundation in that knowledge. And may we hear the voice of Christ Himself inviting us “to move up to a higher position,” more and more intimately into a life of union with Him.

Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

(21st Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 25 & 26 August, 2007, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Isaiah 66:18-21 and Luke 13:22-30)

Like it or not, the summer is almost over. School will begin in just a few short days and life will take on a much quicker pace. Hopefully you had the chance this summer to take a nice vacation.

A few weeks ago I announced that Fr. Verdelotti was returning from his summer vacation, and I thanked God for that! I was very much looking forward to taking a few days off myself. That very day I received an email from a close friend who is a Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist. She is part of an order of religious sisters and brothers who have convents and religious houses across the country, and in places like Rome and Jerusalem.

She emailed me about the pilgrimage that some of the sisters in formation were about to take later that week, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy land. They had been planning it all year. In the email she said, “Father, I know it is last minute, but we are wondering if there is even a remote chance that you could join us as our priest on this pilgrimage.”

I was shocked. The first thought that crossed my mind was to send this brief reply: “Are you crazy?” How could I possibly go on a trip like that with just a few days’ notice? Instead, I looked at my calendar and saw that I had planned to take a week’s vacation anyway at that same time. I would need to add a few more days to it; when I looked at those days, they were all wide open. That never happens! It was the providence of God, and suddenly I found myself on Pilgrimage with the Franciscan Sisters and Brothers of the Eucharist.

It was the most remarkable and beautiful trip I have ever taken. We went to Bethlehem, where Christ was born. We had Mass in Nazareth, where Christ grew up, and in Galilee where he preached, healed the sick and performed miracles. We celebrated the Eucharist in the place where He instituted that Blessed Sacrament, and on Calvary, where He died. We knelt down and prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, and in the empty tomb where He rose again from the dead. I will never forget what God did in our lives on that pilgrimage.

I mention that today because our readings for this weekend talk about the pilgrimage to Jerusalem that God is planning, a pilgrimage that all of us are invited to. In fact, God intends to bring all the nations of the earth on that pilgrimage to the Holy City of Jerusalem. As He says in our first reading, through the prophet Isaiah:

I come to gather the nations of every language; they shall come and see my glory…They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries, to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the Lord.
—Isaiah 66:18, 20

Isaiah is not saying that God will literally put us on mules and camels and bring us into Jerusalem. He is talking about God’s eternal plan of salvation. At the beginning, after the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God began immediately to put a plan together to redeem us and save us from sin and death. That plan involved calling together a people, a single nation among all the others, to be holy and set apart for God.

That nation was Israel, whom God brought into the Promised Land and gave the City of Jerusalem, where they built a temple to worship Him alone and follow His commandments. From this nation a Savior was born, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. He came to suffer and die to redeem not only Israel, but so that all the nations of the world might be saved. Jesus Himself, in the Gospel of Luke this morning, puts it this way:

People will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
—Luke 13:29

That is God’s eternal plan for our salvation; it is the pilgrimage of a lifetime, one that begins right here and will continue for eternal life. Today we can ask ourselves, in light of that journey which God has called us all to participate in:

Are we ready to make that pilgrimage?

Are we willing to make whatever change is necessary, to conform our lives to God’s will and enter that kingdom?

It is not simply automatic.

When the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist invited me to join them on their pilgrimage, I did not simply show up at the airport! I had to check and make sure my passport was in order; I had to go out and purchase some last minute items for the trip; I had to pack my bags; I needed to make a good confession to prepare spiritually for that pilgrimage. The same is true for us as we prepare for the pilgrimage that God is calling us to. We have to get ready!

There is a beautiful story about St. Francis of Assisi, who was asked what he planned to do one day. He replied that he was going to work in his garden. The person said, “What if this was the last day of your life? Then what would you do?” He paused for a minute, thoughtfully, and then replied, “Well, I suppose I would go and work in my garden.” His life was in order. He was already conformed to Christ, and so he was totally free to follow God in the ordinary rhythms of life and ready for whatever each day might bring.

Blessed Pope John XXIII, closer to our own time, was asked the very same question: “What if this was the last day of your life?” Do you know what his reply was? He said, “My bags are packed.” Can you imagine yourself responding that way? What a beautiful way to live.

Now most of us, if we are honest, will admit that we are not St. Francis of Assisi; we are not Blessed John XXIII. We are still striving and trying to conform our lives to God’s will and to follow Christ as closely as we can. That is why Christ, in the gospel this weekend, challenges us to keep at it. He says that we need to strive to find our way into the kingdom God is calling us to:

Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.
—Luke 13:24

Unfortunately, the word He uses, strive, does not translate well into the English language. When we hear that word—strive—we think “Give it your best shot; give it the old college try.” But Jesus is saying something much stronger than that.

The Greek word we find in St. Luke is agonizomai. It is where we get the word agony. Jesus is saying to us: Agonize to enter through the narrow gate. Do everything you can, even if it hurts. For God’s sake, and for your own, get into this kingdom; get on this pilgrimage; go to heaven!

With that said, what are we willing to do to conform our lives to Jesus Christ? In the words of Blessed Pope John XXIII, are our bags packed? Are there things in our bags that we do not need, or would not want God to see?

Are there personal sins that we need to repent from, and things we need to change in our lives? Are there any bad habits, or addictions, or other obstacles that we need God’s grace and strength to overcome?

How about our relationships? Are we living at peace with God and with each other? Is there any un-forgiveness in our lives? Today we ask God for all the grace we will need to make that pilgrimage to Jerusalem. May we truly strive to meet God on that journey that begins here in this life, and continues on forever in eternal life with Him.

Franciscan Brothers and Sisters of the Eucharist-Holy Land Pilgrimage 2007

(This homily was given for the Mass of First Vows of Sister Monica Navalta of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist. I am currently on pilgrimage with them in the Holy Land. Mass this morning was celebrated at the Church of the Primacy of Peter, located on the Sea of Galilee. It is the very place where Christ asked St. Peter that defining question: “Do you love me?” Read 1 Peter 5:1-4 and John 21:1-19)

Yesterday afternoon, as we were coming by this Church on the boat tour of the Sea of Galilee, Sister Monica spoke to me about why she chose this Church among all the other places she has experienced here in her ministry in the Holy Land; why the Primacy of Peter as the place of First Vows as a Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist? Her answer was simple, and profound: Discipleship.

St. Peter is, in many ways, the quintessential disciple. He is the one to whom Christ says, at the end of the gospel we just listened to: “Follow me” (John 21:19). Yet I think all of us would admit that Peter is a complicated disciple. There is nothing simple about St. Peter. We find him, all throughout the gospels, and in the Acts of the Apostles, on both sides of the spectrum.

St. Peter is the one who often bumbles into situations, flags in faith as he sinks into the water, and even denies our Lord hours after the Last Supper. But Peter alone is the one who has the courage to walk out on the sea. To him alone was it revealed by the Father that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ of God. And Peter alone is given that special place of primacy among the other apostles. As Christ says to the fisherman from Galilee: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church” (Matthew 16:18).

It is fitting that St. Peter, who we find at both of those extremes, offers to us a contrast of discipleship in our first reading. He talks about two different kinds of discipleship: the one of constraint, and discipleship taken up willingly. He says to the presbyters or priests of the Church:

Tend the flock of God in your midst, overseeing not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it…
—1 Peter 5:2-3

Constrained means moved by outside forces, or inward motives that are not from God. St. Peter says we should have nothing to do with that. Discipleship taken up willingly is that which is done in freedom, with an undivided heart. And therein lies the paradox of Christian freedom! For the Christian, freedom IS constraint. To be totally free as a Christian is to be totally constrained to love, to follow Christ, to serve. It is what drives us, the only option.

It pains me to have to do it at a Franciscan gathering, in a Church which is in the custody of the Franciscans, but the great Dominican Theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, offers a beautiful example of this kind of freedom. He says that the people who are most free are the saints in heaven. Unlike us, they are unable to sin, unable to turn away from God in any way. They are “locked in” to the beatific vision, and can only love, only serve, only see what God sees. Bound to truth, bound to love, bound to Christ…that is the true definition of freedom for the Christian.

We find that freedom, in a striking and particular way, in the person of Jesus Christ. What is Jesus’ triumphant moment of freedom? We were there several days ago; we knelt in the very spot. Gethsemane. The Garden of Gethsemane is the place where Christ takes our human will, which he took from us in the Incarnation—a will that, from the Garden of Eden, had gone awry and chosen to disobey God—and He unites that will to the Father’s will. He does not want to die, but He is constrained by love and the desire to obey the Father and set us free from sin, and so He prays, “Not my will, but Thine, be done (Luke 22:42).

Immediately after He makes that prayer, what happens? He is arrested and bound. They tie His hands and drag him off the house of the high priest. He is thrown into the cistern, imprisoned in that place, but undoubtedly the most free man on the face of the earth. The Son of God is not bound by chains, or prison walls, or even by being fastened to the wood of the cross. Jesus Christ is bound by love, and He shows each one of us that this is true freedom; freedom bound by love.

That is the freedom Christ revealed to St. Peter on this very spot, by this very lake. Jesus said to Simon Peter:

When you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.
—John 21:18

Literally, Jesus says that Peter used to “gird” himself, put a belt upon himself. Now, He says, Peter will stretch out his hands and another will gird not his waist but his hands. He will be taken away, against his will, to serve the Church by giving his very life. St. Peter would be bound to the cross, as Christ was, and offer everything in true discipleship. Yet in that St. Peter was more completely free than he ever was when he could “go where he wanted.” Freedom for the Christian is constraint; it is to be bound by love, bound by service, bound to follow Christ and offer everything to Him.

Sister Monica, that is what you are saying “Yes,” to this morning. You are making vows not by constraint, but willingly, as one bound by love. And this morning, in this Church, you will make promises that will become visible in the world around you. Someone else will bind you with the cincture around your waist. Someone else will place a cross around your neck, the ultimate symbol of discipleship and love.

In the weeks, months, and years to come, in the cities where He lived, and taught, and died, Jesus Christ will come to you many times—in the poor, in the lonely, in those who are suffering and sorrowful, in the knock at the door when it is inconvenient, in a thousand different ways, He will come to you—and He will say to you what He said to St. Peter. He will ask you:

Sister Monica, do you love me?... Do you love me?... Do you love me? Then if you do, feed my sheep.

Vigilance and the Divine Thief

(19th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 11 & 12 August, 2007, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Wisdom 18:6-9 and Luke 12:35-40)

Our readings for this weekend are about vigilance: what it means to be ready, watchful, prepared for the coming of God into our lives.

The first reading, from the Book of Wisdom, tells the story of the People of Israel on the eve of the Passover. They had been enslaved in the land of Egypt, suffering hardship and oppression while all hope seemed lost.

In a single night God changed all that; he came suddenly and delivered them. He brought them salvation and set them on the road to the Promised Land.

But that same night was devastating for the people of Egypt. The Angel of Death came through that country and claimed the firstborn of the Egyptians. They never saw it coming.

Not so for the nation of Israel. Today’s reading tells us how they were ready:

For in secret the holy children of the good were offering sacrifice and putting into effect with one accord the divine institution.
—Wisdom 18:9

They had listened the instructions God had given to His servant Moses. They had offered the sacrifice of the lamb, sharing that meal that united them as one people. They had sprinkled the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and gathered together with loins girt, staff in hand, sandals on their feet. They were ready. When God began to move in the land of Egypt, they were ready.

In our Gospel today, Jesus tells us, in the same way, to be ready:

Be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.
—Luke 12:36

And what is Christ calling us to be ready for? His second coming. We believe—in fact, we profess and announce each week in our Creed—that Jesus Christ is coming back again. That may happen in our lifetime; we don’t know.

But we are also ready for that moment when our lives will end, and we will meet Christ face to face. That is also a moment that will come for every one of us. And all of the moments between now and that day, all the many ways that Christ comes into our lives each day. We are called to be vigilant, watchful, ready.

To accent our need to be vigilant, Christ uses a surprising image: that of the thief. He says:

If the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of man will come.
—Luke 12:39

Almost always in the Scriptures, and in our own everyday experience, the thief has negative connotations. Oddly, and effectively, Christ uses it here in reference to Himself. His point is that we must be ready at every moment, for we do not know when He will come.

Several years ago, while I was still working for Stop & Shop Supermarket Company, I bought a nice new pick-up truck. It was one of those 4-wheel drive sport models, fully loaded. Each day I could hardly wait to get out of work, to go and drive it. One day I went out to do just that and there was an empty parking spot where my truck used to be!

After three days they found it, or at least what was left of it. It had been stripped of everything, and “The Club” anti theft device that was on the steering wheel had been placed back into the truck, where the seats would have been. This happened in broad daylight, with the police station right across the street! It caught me completely of guard; I never saw it coming. That is what Jesus is trying to say to us this weekend. Be ready!

But the analogy Christ uses, like all analogies, only goes so far. Usually, with a thief, our guard is up. We want to lock the doors and put the alarm on (or get something a little more effective than “The Club”). But not with this Thief! Jesus is the Divine Thief that we want to have in our lives. We want Him in our homes, in our cars, in our families and workplaces.

When it comes to Jesus, the Divine Thief, we need to unlock the doors, turn off alarms, open all the windows, and even break down walls if necessary. We need to let Him in! How do we do that?

First and foremost, we do it through prayer. We keep vigilant by watching for Christ each and every day in prayer. Do we spend time alone each day with God in silence and in prayer? The more vigilant we are to daily prayer, the more prepared we will be to meet Christ when He comes to us each day in our lives…and at the end of them. We let in the Divine Thief through prayer.

Secondly, we allow Christ to "break in" through lives of repentance. We all have places in our lives where we strive to, as we say each Lent, “turn from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” But if there are any sins that we have left un-confessed or areas of impenitence in our lives, not even the Divine Thief can find His way in.

We need to take down those walls through repentance. If there are serious sins, we need to receive the grace God so willingly gives us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Repentance lets in the Divine Thief and allows Him to carry us ever closer to eternal life.

Finally, we let in the Divine Thief through what we are doing here this morning: opening the door to His presence in our lives in the Eucharist. Our first reading spoke about the people of Israel, who were “offering sacrifice and putting into effect … the divine institution (Wisdom 18:9)”. It was a reference to the Passover Meal.

This Eucharist is the fulfillment of that Passover Meal. It is here that we celebrate the Lamb of God, whose sacrifice on the altar of the cross and whose sprinkled blood won for us the forgiveness of sins and opened up for us the way to Heaven. Here at this Supper, we are most vigilant, most open, most ready to receive our Lord.

As Christ tells us in St. Luke’s Gospel this weekend, regarding those who are ready for His coming:

He will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.
—Luke 12:37

Christ, the Divine Thief, comes to us here to wait upon us, and to serve us with the Bread of Life, His own Body and His own Blood. Are we ready for that meal? Are we ready for that “divine institution?”

Pleonexia

(18th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 4 & 5 August, 2007, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Colossians 3:1-11 and Luke 12:13-21)

Have you ever been diagnosed with the disease or illness called Pleonexia? This may be the first time you even heard of Pleonexia, but by no means is it a rare disease. In fact, it is something that affects almost every single one of us, directly or indirectly. The illness of Pleonexia is something that can destroy individual lives, families, and even countries; it is a plague that has, in the course of human history, wiped out entire cultures!

St. Paul uses the word Pleonexia in our second reading from the Letter to the Colossians. Jesus strongly cautions us against it in the Gospel. He says:

Take care to guard against all pleonexia.
—Luke 12:15

You may have guessed by now, but Pleonexia is the Greek word translated in our Scriptures this weekend as greed or avarice, and it is taken from the word pleon, which means “more.” Basically Pleonexia, or greed, is the desire for more, more, more. It drives us on to desire more money, more possessions, more sex, more power. More. It’s the “more” disease.

Pleonexia has the uncanny ability to root us right here to this earth, and blind us to the things of heaven. It creates a false sense of happiness in a life here without God, and takes our attention from the Kingdom of God that each of us are called to embrace. That is why Christ is so adamant in that Gospel to warn us against it.

Often the topic of money and material possessions can be a bit unnerving, because—more than likely in our country—we all have them! A gospel like the one this weekend can cause us to ask, “Is it a sin to have nice things, or to want nice things? Is it wrong to have a nice car, a nice house, a good bank account or financial portfolio? Is it wrong to want that kind of security for my family?”

Of course not! There is nothing wrong with having possessions. There is nothing wrong with a desire for material things. The problem comes when our possessions begin to possess us. It is when our material goods become material gods that we run into trouble. That is the very thing Jesus is warning us about when He says “Take care to guard against all pleonexia.”

In the Parable of the Rich Fool, Christ teaches us the difference between wealth and greed, between possessing good things in this life on the one hand, and being consumed by Pleonexia on the other.

The man in that parable has received an abundance of material wealth. St. Luke tells us that his land “produced a bountiful harvest” (Luke 12:16). He had, in fact, too much. He could not fit it all in his barns. There is no indication anywhere from Christ that this is a bad thing. On the contrary, it is a blessing, not a problem.

What he chooses to do what that blessing is the problem. Instead of being grateful for that abundant harvest, instead of being generous with what he has received, the rich fool says to himself—exclusive from God, and separate from those around him:

I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones…and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for so many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”
—Luke 12:18-19

Why does he need bigger barns? Because with bigger barns he can fit more things. More, more, more. That is Pleonexia. There will never be enough barns to satisfy his craving for more.

I am sure you have heard of the expanse of military victories Alexander the Great was able to amass in his time as king in Ancient Greece. He won over nation after nation, until all the world was under his rule. One oft quoted line summarizes well the attitude he had to such success:

“When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.”

That is Pleonexia. When the world we live in is not enough, and still we long for more, that is a clear indication of greed, avarice, pleonexia. It is said that by the end of his life Alexander finally understood the futility of such a thirst for power and possessions. He arranged to be buried with his hand sticking out of the coffin, palm outstretched and empty. He wanted the world to know that no one—not even Alexander—can take it with them!

No one is exempt from Pleonexia. It can affect all of us, even priests! When I first began my priesthood after being ordained, I moved into my first assignment with only one car load of things. Everything I owned fit into that one car.

When I moved last month into the rectory here at St. Mary’s, I still had that same car filled with my possessions…plus a pick-up truck with the rest of them! It was what I had accumulated in three years. By the time I leave St. Mary’s, if I’m not careful, I’ll need an eighteen wheeler! Pleonexia! It can affect us all.

In Dante’s Divine Comedy, the poet Virgil takes Dante on a little tour of the Inferno and shows him the place reserved in hell for the greedy, those guilty of the sin of avarice. Dante is awed by the sheer number of miserable persons in that place.

Suddenly he notices that a very large number of them are tonsured. (In Dante’s time, those who entered the clerical state were tonsured: they shaved the hair on the top of their heads to show that they were clerics.) He questions Virgil, almost surprised to believe that there could be such here in the Inferno. Virgil’s response is sobering:

“Those bare of head were clerics, cardinals, popes, in whom the passion of avarice has wrought excess.”

No one is exempt from the temptation of greed and avarice; none of us are safe from the plague of Pleonexia. Yet the Good News is that there is an antidote for Pleonexia. There is a cure for that illness, and we find it in our second reading from St. Paul. But you’re probably not going to like it! The cure for Pleonexia, according to St. Paul, is death! He says:

Brothers and sisters…You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
—Colossians 3:3

In other words, St. Paul is saying, the old life that you used to live is dead. Your old desires for possessions and the things of this earth are dead. Now you live your life for Jesus Christ. He continues:

Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed (pleonexia) that is idolatry.
—Colossians 3:5

There is a story about an old man on the Alaskan coastline that used to raise wolves. Every week he would bring two of them into a small village nearby, and have them fight against each other. The people in that village would come out and bet on which of the wolves would win.

A little boy in the village noticed that, although there were always different wolves each week, whichever one the old man bet on always won. One day he asked the old man how he knew which one would win. The old man said to him:

“That’s easy. I am the one who takes care of them. Each week I pick out two of them, and one I starve all week long. I give him table scraps, just enough to get by. But the other wolf I feed with three meals a day, until he is healthy and strong. The wolf I feed is the wolf that wins.”

We can ask ourselves this weekend: which wolf are we feeding? Are we feeding the wolf of Pleonexia? The greed and desire for more of the things of this world that will consume us in the end? Are we feeding the things that St. Paul mentions: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed?

Or are we, instead, feeding our spiritual lives and allowing Christ to live in us? Are we being fed by the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, who feeds us right here from this table in the gift of the Holy Eucharist?

Let us be fed here in this place, and strengthened by Christ, so that we can leave here and witness to Christ in the world that we live in. May those we encounter this week recognize that the strength we have in this world is not from us, but that it is the strength of Christ Jesus, who lives in us.

La Festa di Maria Santissima della Civita

(Patronal Feast of Madonna della Civita; This homily was given 21 & 22 July, 2007, at St. Mary Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Luke 1:39-56)

Today we celebrate our patronal feast, La Festa di Maria Santissima della Civita. What is at the heart of our feast is an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. It is an image we have come to know so well: Mary’s hands raised in prayer and adoration, her infant Son seated upon her lap.

The history of that image dates back to nearly apostolic times, finding its roots in the region of Antioch, later known as Constantinople. This beautiful image, lost and found down through the centuries, was finally re-discovered in the 8th Century, more than 1200 years ago, on July 21, 796.

It was then that the deaf and mute herdsman from Itri, that small Italian village, followed a wandering ox to a field atop Mount Civita and came upon the tree that held in its branches that image of Maria Santissima and the child Jesus. Suddenly he was cured and ran back into the town to declare the great things God had done for him.

And so it is this image that, down through the centuries, has gathered together the people of Itri, and subsequently their descendants—so many of you—who have come to settle here in the Knightsville section of Cranston.

As we sing each year with great solemnity during this week of celebration in the beloved hymn Evviva Maria:

Immagine santé che gente raduna.
The holy image that gathers the people.

Of course, that sacred image comes to us from none other than St. Luke himself. Again, as we sing each year:

San Luca dipense l’amabil’ ritratto.
St. Luke painted this loveable portrait.

It is fitting that this painting should come to us from St. Luke, for it is that “dear and glorious physician” who always paints for us the most beautiful portraits of Mary in the New Testament.

The portrait of the Annunciation—that great visit of the angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary announcing the child to be born—is found only in Luke.

And the Visitation, which we heard today on our patronal feast, Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth and Mary’s song of praise, the Magnificat, are found only in St. Luke’s Gospel.

In his encyclical on the Blessed Virgin Mary, Redemptoris Mater, John Paul the Great links these two beautiful portraits together. He says that both the Annunciation and the Visitation, together, reveal to us the greatness of Mary as one who both receives the gift of God, and responds to that gift in faith:

“Both of these texts reveal an essential Mariological content, namely the truth about Mary, who has become really present in the mystery of Christ precisely because she “has believed.” The fullness of grace announced by the angel means the gift of God himself. Mary’s faith, proclaimed by Elizabeth at the visitation, indicates how the Virgin of Nazareth responded to this gift.”
—Redemptoris Mater, # 12 (emphasis his)

As we heard in the gospel today, Elizabeth proclaims:

Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.
—Luke 1:45

Mary’s Motherhood, therefore, is not just a physical act; it is first and foremost an act of faith. The great Fathers of the Church, St. Augustine and St. Leo the Great, tell us that Mary conceived Christ in her heart before she conceived Him in her womb.

This is something that we find all throughout the life of Mary. She is constantly conceiving Christ, and then continually giving birth to Him in this world we live in. Even at the hour of His death, Mary stands at the foot of the cross and gives her “Yes” to God. She continues to receive that gift of God which is Christ her son, and by faith she offers Him to the world and participates in His radical gift of Himself for the salvation of us all.

We, as followers of Christ, and as men and women who look to Mary as our Blessed Mother, are called to do the same. We are called to constantly receive the gift of God, in silence and in prayer, and through our faith and our assent to Him, to give birth to Christ; to give flesh to Him in the world we live in.

I think that all of us are quite familiar with the extraordinary life of service and compassion that Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta exemplified in our own lifetime. Yet few people know of her total dedication to the spiritual life and prayer as the top priority for herself and her sisters, the Missionaries of Charity.

Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta would insist that they begin each day with Mass, and then spend one hour minimum before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament before they ever went out to serve the poor. She would say to them:

Until we can learn to recognize Jesus here in the Eucharist, then we will never be able to recognize Him in the lives of the poor.

Today, on this feast of Maria Santissima della Civita, how is God challenging us to imitate Mary, and Blessed Theresa of Calcutta, in receiving the gift of God in silence and in prayer, and then to respond to that great gift through lives of service and love?

In the year 796, that deaf and mute herdsman from Itri saw an image of Mary and her son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, which healed him. He went in haste to announce that image and the message of Jesus and Mary to all who would listen. May we bring that same message to a world that desperately longs to hear it.

Evviva Maria!

Adam, Embryos and the Good Samaritan

(15th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given 14 & 15 July, 2007, at St. Mary Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Luke 10:25-37)

The parable we hear this weekend—The Good Samaritan—is one of the most familiar parables in the gospel. Even non Christians are quite familiar with the image of the Good Samaritan. We see it in organizations of good will and even in the CVS Samaritan Van that often lends a helping hand to motorists in need.

Precisely because the Good Samaritan is so familiar, there is a risk of losing the meaning Christ intends when He gives us that moving tale; there is a risk of reducing this parable to particular incidents or roadside accidents.

Yet to the particular question asked by the scholar in our gospel: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29), Jesus Christ offers an answer that is universal: Everyone is my neighbor. Every man, woman and child is neighbor to the follower of Christ.

St. Augustine, commenting on this very parable, says that the victim of the robbers is Adam: He is every single one of us, wounded by original sin. Augustine says that it is Adam who has been attacked by Satan and his legions; as a result of original sin he is stripped of his immortality and lies helpless on the side of the road.

It is Christ who comes along as the Good Samaritan, that Outsider and Divine Visitor, who comes to rescue Adam. He looks upon that fallen and broken man and is moved to compassion.

Think of all the many times we see this replayed in the gospels. Christ looks lovingly upon the sinful woman, caught in the act of adultery, and has compassion. He looks with compassion on the sinners and tax collectors, and constantly seeks to draw them to Himself and heal them as the Divine Physician.

Here in the parable of the Good Samaritan, says Augustine, it is Christ Himself who lovingly picks Adam up and places him on his own animal. He brings him to the inn—which represents the Church—and provides him with refreshment and healing through the Sacraments, symbolized in the oil and wine poured over his wounds.

Our response to this beautiful story of our redemption should be two-fold. First and foremost we should allow Christ to truly become the Good Samaritan in our own lives. Where have our sins, and the sins of others, wounded us and left us broken and in need? Have we allowed Christ to enter deeply into those hurts, those wounds, and to heal us through the sacramental life of the Church?

But more than that, we are called to follow the command that Christ issues at the end of that inspiring parable: “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37). Where do we find Adam, helpless on the side of the road, in our own lives? How is God calling us to care for those who are weak or helpless and in need, those we encounter everyday?

One of the great crises of our culture, one that we cannot help but notice, is the great lack of care that we have for the weak and the vulnerable. What Pope John Paul II referred to as the “Culture of Death” is evident on many levels in the world we live in.

Abortion on demand remains one of the tragic legal choices open to the very mothers and fathers who are most in need of care and support. How many lives have been lost and broken—not just the unborn, but also the mothers and fathers of those children—and all in the name of freedom, in the name of choice.

When we look to the other end of the spectrum, to those who are preparing to enter into eternal life, we find this same lack of respect for the dignity of the human person. Many people facing the twilight of life and the prospect of death are tempted, and even at times encouraged, to consider Euthanasia or “mercy killing.”

It is a false solution and a misplaced compassion which robs the person of the dignity owed them as a child of God. This was once an isolated issue, involving some other country or another state, and one that did not really seem to concern us. The national attention given to the case of Terri Schiavo a few years ago changed all that. That young woman literally died of de-hydration as a result of the choices of supposed caregivers, doctors and lawyers, who never even really seemed to know her. That tragic outcome is one that should concern each one of us.

But much closer to home for us today is the issue of aggressive embryonic stem-cell research. This is something that is in the news constantly, and there is a great lack of understanding for many Catholics and non-Catholics alike when it comes to stem cells and stem-cell research.

Firstly, stem-cell research is a very good thing; it provides a tremendous amount of hope for those with any number of diseases and illnesses and the Church certainly supports it. Stem cells taken from the human body have the potential to regenerate and form new cells which may be able to cure someone who has been afflicted with diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease, to name just a few.

And there are legitimate, ethical ways of obtaining these cells. They can be found in bone marrow, various tissues and organs, and in the umbilical chord after the birth of a child. These are what are commonly referred to as adult stem cells—taken from the bodies of those who willingly offer them—and there have been hundreds of successful cures from these stem cells to date. We should, by all means, thank God for that.

Just yesterday, in the Providence Journal, there was an editorial written by Lieutenant Governor, Elizabeth Roberts, mentioning this hope for breakthroughs in the research and medical application of stem cells. But the Lieutenant Governor greatly confused the issue by failing to distinguish the nature and methods of adult stem cells over and against embryonic stem cells and embryonic stem-cell research. She wrote about both together, and strongly advocated for the research and use of each.

As the name indicates, embryonic stem cells are taken from human embryos, human beings in their tiniest and most vulnerable form. What was also missing from the lieutenant governor’s editorial is what happens to those human embryos after they have been harvested for their stem cells: they are destroyed, discarded as mere medical waste.

This is not, and never will be, ethical or humane. One of the foundational moral principles that applies to all people of all times and cultures is that one cannot do evil so that good may come about. The destruction of a human embryo—human life having both a body and a soul—can never be justified, no matter how hopeful the outcome or possibility of good that it may entail.

The lieutenant governor is undeterred by this sound and clear ethical principle. In fact, she is determined to use our tax dollars to fund research that will deliberately involve the destruction of innocent human life. As she stated unabashedly in that editorial:

“I want to expand Rhode Island’s share of research dollars and scientific contributions immediately.”

It should be the hope and prayer of every Catholic and person of good will in the State of Rhode Island that her wish for aggressive embryonic stem-cell research using our tax dollars never becomes a reality.

But a bit closer to our gospel this weekend, we can ask: How are we called to be Good Samaritans in the face of these challenging issues? Above all else, we should be available to help heal those who place so much of themselves in these poor and unethical choices.

When these terrible abuses of freedom fail…and they will… we need to be there to help people find true meaning and well founded hope for their future with God.

When the choice of abortion fails...and it will, and there are broken persons and broken lives, when people turn to Euthanasia as an option and discover that they have made a terrible and irrevocable choice, or when the empty promise of embryonic stem-cell research fails…and it will …there has not been one single cure from embryonic stem cells. There have been hundreds of cures, tremendous results from adult stem cells, the obtaining of which are perfectly ethical and morally sound, but none whatsoever from embryonic stem cells. So when these choices end in failure and brokenness, then we have to be there to look upon our brothers and sisters with compassion and help them to come here.

We are called not to condemn them, but to love them, to look upon them with compassion and to bring them here, to the one place where Jesus Christ, the Good Samaritan, can pour oil and wine over their wounds and bring them healing, restoration and peace.