Bread of Life Discourse V: Love, Marriage and the Eucharist

Icon of Christ, the Bridegroom

Icon written by Rev. Paul G. Czerwonka. © 2007. All rights reserved. Fr. Paul is the Director of Aesthetical and Spiritual Formation at the American College of Louvain, Belgium. He is a priest of the Diocese of La Crosse and currently teaches iconography and assists in the formation of men for the priesthood. Please continue to pray for priests and for vocations to the priesthood.

(21st Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 23 August, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Joshua 24:1-18, Ephesians 5:21-32 and John 6:60-69)

If you are reading this right now and you are a married person then you have certainly been on one before. If you are a priest or religious, you may have been on one previous to entering the seminary or religious life. If you are a single person, then you may be going on one of these even now. What I am talking about, of course, are first dates.

First dates can be quite unpredictable; spending an evening out with a person you may not even know all that well. It can be disastrous…or beautiful…or it could even be something which begins to forge a relationship between two persons that will last a lifetime.

I would like to share a story with you (a true story) about a couple who experienced all three of those on the night of their first date! It was disastrous, beautiful and formed the beginning of a bond that has lasted even now and, please God, will endure throughout their entire lives.

Without getting into all the details, it was a night that began at a dinner where she felt slightly sick but the evening soon went from bad to worse. In the end he had to bring her to the emergency room and then finally dropped her off back home so that she could be taken care of by her family.

Basically there were two thoughts running through his mind at the end of that night. The first was: What a disaster! That was not at all what I expected this date to be like.

The second thought was actually not a thought at all; it was a prayer. He thought: In spite of how terrible things went tonight, I think I want to spend the rest of my life with this person, and he prayed, God, if this woman is my wife someday, I will take care of her for the rest of my life.

I know, it sounds like something out of a Nicholas Sparks novel, but it is true! And I share it with you because that crisis situation and moment of decision is something like what we find in the first reading and in the Gospel this weekend.

In our Old Testament reading Joshua is addressing the people of Israel who are just about to begin a new life in the Promised Land. They have been set free from slavery in Egypt and brought through the desert after all kinds of trials and difficulties. Nothing turned out quite the way they had expected. Yet even in the midst of their own failures God has remained so very faithful.

Joshua, understanding quite well that this is the moment of great consequence for the people, knowing them all too well and realizing they are living in a land of many gods, compels them to make a choice. The time has come to make a decision. He says:

If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are now dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
—Joshua 24:15

Following his example the people also give their assent and choose to follow the God who has cared so very well for them.

In the Gospel there is a similar decision being made. Christ has revealed Himself as the Bread of Life, the Messiah that has come to offer His own body and blood for the salvation of the world. He has made it clear that there is nothing less than eternal life at stake here. All who eat His flesh and drink His blood will have life within them, and He will raise them up on the last day.

Sadly, remarkably, the majority of them are not willing to receive Him or even to consider the meaning of these words that He is speaking! They continue to murmur against Him and complain, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” (John 6:60). Many of His own disciples, we are told—many—walked away from Him right then and there.

Jesus Christ, recognizing that this is a crisis moment and the moment of decision, turns directly to the Twelve Apostles and asks them a question upon which depends the future of the nascent Church: “Do you also want to leave?” (John 6:67).

It is Peter who answers for them all: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:69).

These powerful and poignant moments of decision which we find in our readings for this weekend, as compelling as they are in their own right, have much more in common with that story I mentioned earlier than the fact that they are crisis situations. In both the Old Testament account from the Book of Joshua and in St. John’s Gospel what is being described is a relationship which is spousal; it is nuptial.

All throughout the Old Testament, and especially in the Prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea—God is described as the faithful spouse who has chosen Israel for His Bride. He loves Her deeply and adorns her in royalty (Isaiah 62:3), He seeks Her out and draws Her to Himself, loving Her with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3), and when She is unfaithful He lures Her into the desert and speaks tenderly to Her (Hosea 2:14) because He desperately wants Her back! That is the depth of the relationship which Joshua is leading them to in the first reading this weekend.

In the New Testament this spousal love becomes even more vivid, visual and even physical, in the person Jesus Christ. He is the Bridegroom of His Bride, the Church. He will give everything—His own body and blood, broken and shed for us on the cross—to bring us home to eternal life in God.

That is what Christ is trying to communicate to His disciples in St. John’s Gospel all throughout the Bread of Life Discourse. That offering of His body and blood on the cross is the very culmination of the Gospel we have been listening to for the last five weeks. It is at the heart of the mystery of the Eucharist…and it is also at the very heart of the mystery of marriage.

In our second reading this weekend, from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle goes through great lengths to describe for us what marriage consists of. He talks about the mutual submission of the spouses: "Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5:21). Married couples make an offering of themselves to one another out of love and out of devotion to God, and that self-offering includes no less than everything. St. Paul goes on to describe the marriage covenant even in physical terms. Quoting Genesis, he describes how a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two become one flesh. But then he concludes by saying something that is simply astounding: “This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32).

The self-giving love of husband and wife and their one-flesh union here on this earth is actually, in addition to being the expression of their love for each other, an image for something else. Marriage is an image for Jesus Christ’s own self-offering, His own gift of His body and blood for us on the cross.

But to make sure that we would never miss that spousal connection and the intimate bond we share with Him as His Bride and the people for whom He has made that self-offering, He has chosen to make it a sacrament: the Eucharist.

When we celebrate the Eucharist each week, we listen to His words: “This is my body, which will be given up for you…take it and eat it; this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant…take it and drink from it.” What we are celebrating is the God who offered Himself as our faithful Spouse in order to unite Himself to us forever.

We receive His body and blood and become one flesh with Him. Our spousal covenant with Him, that “new and eternal covenant,” is renewed each time we share in this Most Blessed Sacrament. Strengthened in that Gift and nourished by Christ, we have all the courage and power we need to face any of the difficult decisions and circumstances of life.

This week, when we face those moments of decision or times of crisis, may we echo the words of Joshua: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15) and say with confidence, along with St. Peter, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:69).

Bread of Life Discourse IV: It's Personal

Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio
from the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

(20th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; See John 6:51-58)

Our first reading for this weekend is a beautiful and poetic excerpt from the Book of Proverbs which speaks rather eloquently to us about wisdom. The intriguing figure of Lady Wisdom is the very personification of the way of life God calls us to. Quite literally, Lady Wisdom beckons us:

Let whoever is simple turn in here…Come, eat of my food and drink of the wine I have mixed!
—Proverbs 9:5

This invitation to share a meal with Lady Wisdom reveals to us that the ways of God and the path He wishes us to follow are not merely informational. The wisdom of God is, instead, relational. It is personal. God does not give us an instruction manual or a series of checkpoints to guide us through life. He invites us into a personal relationship in which we grow in virtue, knowledge and holiness because the God who calls us is Himself filled with all of these things, and more.

You may have seen the movie The Matrix. The characters in that science fiction film are connected to a massive computer program—the matrix—that allows them to exist not only in this world but also in a parallel, virtual world in which almost anything is possible. When they want to learn a new skill in the matrix, a computer file is uploaded to their memory and they suddenly possess that skill. One of the main characters, Trinity, finds herself in danger and the only means of escape is a helicopter which she has no idea how to fly! In an instant she is able to upload the software and takes off into the air like a woman who has been flying helicopters all of her life.

That is not the way God instructs us in wisdom! We do not grow in understanding or in knowledge of the ways of God like Trinity, in a single moment; wisdom is not like computer software. We grow in wisdom through a personal relationship with The Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We spend time with Him, grow in intimacy with Him, learn from Him and share in the very life He offers. That is what Christ is calling us to do in the Gospel this weekend.

Much like that invitation we heard earlier, where Lady Wisdom instructs us to eat of the food and wine prepared for us, Christ invites us to eat His flesh and drink His blood (John 6:51-58), a clear and unmistakable reference to that gift of Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist.

But like wisdom, the Eucharist is not simply a moment which we experience at Mass each week. It is a personal encounter with the Savior who offers His body and blood on the cross to redeem us; the Eucharist is the second person of the Blessed Trinity who calls us into a personal relationship with God.

When we come to Mass do we recognize and acknowledge that?

In her book The Way of Perfection, St. Teresa of Avila is instructing her sisters in prayer and she teaches them how to avoid obstacles which keep them from recognizing the personal relationship which is at the center of the Christian life. She says that, in prayer, they should not merely try to picture Jesus and imagine what He would look like in a given situation or scene. No, instead she says they should also look at Him (see The Way of Perfection, Chapter 26, #3). She reminds them how Christ never takes His eyes off them! When they pray, they should look right back! They should look at the One who is already looking at them and allow that intimate and personal connection to grow even deeper.

In the Eucharist we do well to do the same. When we look at the tabernacle we are looking at Him. When the priest raises the Host at Mass and proclaims, “This is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” we are looking at Him. When the body of Christ is offered to us at communion each week we are looking at Him.

What is the best way to prepare for such a personal encounter? What is the best way to savor such an experience even long after the Mass is over? I would suggest we take the counsel of St. Teresa of Avila and spend as much time as possible—before, during and after the Eucharistic sacrifice—watching in prayer and looking at Christ who never takes His eyes off us.

Bread of Life Discourse III: Drawn into the Eucharist

Jesus, Our Eucharistic Lord:

Rose Window from the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart,

Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

(19th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 8 & 9 August, 2009 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I. and St. Mary's Church, Pawtucket, R.I.; See John Chapter 6)

We continue this weekend to listen to the beautiful words of St. John’s Gospel in what has come to be known as the “Bread of Life Discourse.” As I mentioned previously, the Church gives us five consecutive Sunday’s to follow this development in the teaching of Christ who reveals Himself as “the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41).

Our series began two weeks ago with the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. Using only five loaves of bread and two small fish Christ provided for the multitude, with baskets left to spare.

Then just last week we saw how Christ had crossed over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee as the crowd began searching for Him once again. They were seeking Him out for more bread, but Christ engaged them in dialogue and encouraged them instead to work “for the food that endures for eternal life” (John 6:27).

This week, as Christ makes it explicit that He is the “bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:38, 44), our story takes a turn for the worse. The people are not willing to accept that He is the one sent from heaven by God. After all, they reason, we know his father and mother. Instead of believing in Him, says St. John, the people began to murmur; they started talking negatively about Him. Maybe it starts with just a comment or a small quip; we do not know. But before long the whole crowd is in on it.

How many times have we experienced something similar in our own lives? When we are in a group of people, sometimes a disparaging word is spoken about someone that we know…and maybe someone we do not really like all that much. Suddenly another person chimes in and we are all too eager to hear more of the same. Before we even realize it, we ourselves become drawn into the conversation; perhaps we begin to say things that we would not have even considered moments ago.

And we always leave those conversations the same way: more negative and discouraged than before. We ourselves become lessened and diminished. That is how sin often works in our lives. We resist for a while but once we allow ourselves to be drawn into it we are always adversely affected.

Sin separates us from God and from each other, and so it comes as no surprise that Christ so adamantly attacks it in the Gospel this weekend. “Stop murmuring among yourselves” (John 6:43), He says to them.

Christ is the enemy of sin and has come to engage it with the very power of heaven and to destroy it. But He is also the Savior of sinners, and so He offers more than just a rebuke. Instead He offers another alternative, another direction in which we should be moving.

Immediately after rebuking them He explains the reason why they have not believed: because they have not allowed the Father to move them in that direction.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.
—John 6:44

So it becomes clear that we can either be drawn into sin and into that negative spiral that always leaves us diminished, or we can be drawn ever more deeply into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

That is what the Father is trying to do in the Gospel all throughout this “Bread of Life Discourse”: to draw the people to Christ.

That is why Christ was sent from heaven: to draw us into a deeper relationship with His heavenly Father.

That is why the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church: to draw us into an intimate and abiding relationship with the living God.

The word that St. John uses—to draw—in the original Greek implies an action which involves some kind of resistance. He uses it again towards the end of his Gospel to describe the way a fisherman pulls in a net from the sea: he draws it in, but not without effort, because it is laden with fish and meets the resistance of the water (see John 21). God the Father is constantly trying to draw us into a deeper relationship with Christ, but so very often in our lives there is resistance.

There is a powerful story about the conversion of the English writer and philosopher C.S. Lewis. You may be familiar with The Chronicles of Narnia or so many of the other books he has written which express so eloquently and with tremendous passion the Christian message and faith. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest Christian writers of this past century.

Yet for years C.S. Lewis was a vowed atheist! While in the middle of his career as a brilliant Oxford professor he had come to the conclusion that there simply was no God. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he describes how that façade which he had created slowly began to crumble as the God in whom he did not believe began to draw him in! Towards the end of the book he writes:

"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I desired so earnestly not to meet. That which I had greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."

Despite all that C.S. Lewis had done to keep God out, He had broken through and the transformation had begun. God is that powerful and that effective, even in the midst of our resistance and in spite of the many obstacles that we encounter along the way.

That same God is here with us now, and He is seeking to draw us ever closer to Jesus Christ His Son. God the Father is drawing us ever more deeply into the mystery of the Eucharist, the Bread of Life. As we draw close to this altar today, let us offer no resistance, but instead allow Christ to nourish and strengthen us on our journey home to Him. May our communion bring us all closer together and, together, closer to Christ.

Bread of Life Discourse II: Searching for Christ

(18th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 1 & 2 August, 2009 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See John Chapter 6)

Our Gospel this weekend is a continuation of the Sixth Chapter of St. John’s Gospel, what has come to be known as the “Bread of Life Discourse.” As I mentioned last week, every three years the Church gives us this five week series in which we focus more intentionally on the mystery of the Holy Eucharist in the words of Christ Himself.

Last week we began with the miracle of the loaves and fish, when Christ fed the 5,000 with just a small amount of food. You may remember the reaction of the people, how they were so enthusiastic and filled with spiritual fervor that Christ had to withdraw because He feared that they would take Him by force and make Him king!

This week the fervor and enthusiasm of the crowd has somewhat…dissipated. They are not quite as fired up as they were last week…Let’s not get carried away here, they might be thinking. Nonetheless, they are still seeking and searching for Christ.

St. John tells us that they did not find Jesus there where the miracle took place, and noticing that His disciples had gone over to the other side of Lake Galilee, they started to move in the same direction. You can picture that scene: hundreds, if not thousands of people, cramming into boats and travelling in search of Christ. And sure enough they find Him!

Yet Christ, always the realist, always seeing things exactly as they are, is quick to size up the situation:

You are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
—John 6:26

They were not so much seeking the God of miracles as they were searching for the miracles of God. Their stomachs being well fed they desired to continue this good thing that they had stumbled upon in Christ. Instead, He tells them:

Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of man will give you.
—John 6:27

Clearly now Christ has outlined the tension between being satisfied and fed here in this life and being satiated and content for eternal life. But importantly, we have to realize that He is not being critical of the first scenario. Jesus Christ is not saying we shouldn’t turn to Him for our physical and earthly needs.

§ On the contrary, God wants us to seek Him out for the food that sustains our bodies; by all means we should ask God for food on the table.

§ In this current economy we should be asking for economic stability and financial security. There is nothing wrong with asking for heavenly assistance in building up our bank account so that we can live with peace of mind and be able to retire without having to worry about the future.

§ When it comes to our health we should be seeking God for healing if we are sick and for strength to endure difficulties and setbacks. God wants us to seek Him out for those things.

§ Perhaps most importantly—regarding our spiritual lives—God wants us to search for the things that will give our souls peace and joy even right here and now on this earth.

The danger that we find in the Gospel this weekend is that we will seek out only those things. We seek to be fed and cared for in this life only, and risk losing out on the greatest Gift that God has in store for us: Himself now and for all eternity.

Do we really seek and search for God in the ways that He wants to make Himself known to us, or do we also tend to seek Him out on our own terms, to want more so the comforts of God than the "God of all comfort" (see 2 Corinthians 1:3)?

Here in Rhode Island we live in the most Catholic state in the entire country. I believe we are over 60% Roman Catholic; 6 or 7 out of every 10 people around you are Catholic. Yet if you go to any of the major commercial bookstores—and I do, because I enjoy those places immensely—and you look in the Religion/Spirituality section, what will you find? Comparatively speaking there are very few distinctively Roman Catholic books there.

Some of the books in those sections are nonsense and fluff, or perhaps even dangerous diversions which could draw one away from faith in Christ. Many, however, are inspiring and interesting and help to build up our faith and can teach us about God and His word.

Nonetheless, there are so few books which focus on the primary way that God is revealing Himself to us here each and every week; there are so very few books on the Eucharist. Yet here the Church spends five consecutive weeks, five Sunday Gospels, delving more deeply into that very mystery. It is that important. We need to open our ears and our hearts when we encounter so central a mystery as the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

There is a beautiful children's book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery called The Little Prince (I am sure you can find it at one of the bookstores I mentioned above; it’s a well known and beloved book). It tells the story of young prince from another planet who comes here to this earth and befriends a small boy. They become fast friends and go on all kinds of adventures together. At one point they find themselves in the desert, days away from civilization, and they are thirsty. They search diligently for water, just as the people in the Gospel this weekend searched for Christ. Suddenly they come across a well right there in the middle of the desert! There is a rope and a pulley connected to a small bucket. They hoist up that bucket and taste the deliciously cold water and are completely satisfied. The little prince then turns to the boy and with great wisdom says:

“The men where you live raise five thousand roses in the same garden—and they do not find in it what they are looking for.”

The boy agrees with his observation and then the little prince continues: “And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little water.”

So many of us spend our lives searching for and seeking a happiness that can be so elusive and we often end up less satisfied and less fulfilled than when we started. We have televisions with over a hundred channels, new movies that come out every week, and thousands of ways that we can entertain ourselves for hours on end. We search for peace and happiness in our relatives and friends, in our work and leisure, but we are never satisfied because what we are seeking and searching for cannot be found in the things of this world.

On the contrary, what we yearn and long for, seek and search for more than anything else in the whole world has come into this world and found us. That is what the Gospel is about this weekend. Thousands of people rushed into boats and sailed across the sea to find Christ but they failed to see that He had already come down from heaven to seek and search for them. He crossed eternity to come to them and give them His body and His blood. They are on the verge of missing that; let us not make the same mistake!

Today Christ comes here looking for us, and He says to each of us what He said to those who were searching for Him after the miracle of the loaves and fish:

I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
—John 6:35

Bread of Life Discourse-Part I

(17th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 25 & 26 July, 2009 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See John Chapter 6)

This weekend we listen to St. John’s Gospel and although we are in Ordinary Time to hear from St. John is a little extra-ordinary. During the Sundays of Ordinary Time we usually hear from Matthew, Mark and Luke; John is proclaimed during the Christmas and Easter seasons and on special feast days.

Nonetheless, every three years the Church, in Her wisdom, gives us the entire sixth chapter of St. John-what is called the Bread of Life Discourse-to meditate on and delve more deeply into. Today, and for the next four weeks which follow, we will read through and listen to this remarkable chapter in which Christ announces that He is the Bread of Life; how His body and blood are God’s gift to nourish and strengthen us on our way home to Heaven. It is a beautiful reflection on the mystery of the Eucharist, something so central to our lives as Catholics.

Our discourse begins with the miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000. This miracle is found in all four Gospels but there are details provided by St. John that move us purposefully in two directions. Firstly, St. John wants his audience to recognize the connection with the past: the history of Israel and the significance of this miracle with all that God has already done in the lives of His chosen people. At the same time John draws their attention—and ours—to the significance of the miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000 and to what Christ will do as He founds His Church gives us the Eucharistic celebration which we experience even now, some 2,000 years later.

We begin with the past. St. John tells us there were 5,000 people there and that Christ had them all sit down on the grass; there was plenty of it in that place. As they reclined on that grassy meadow, Jesus fed them physically and nourished them. It is not difficult to see the connection with Psalm 23, so familiar to us and even more so to them:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul…

Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of my enemies…my cup overflows…

And so there they are, seated like lambs in a green pasture, being fed by the Good Shepherd who cares for their every need. St. John wants his audience to realize that the God who cared so well for Israel in the Old Testament is still with them to nourish their bodies and restore their souls.

But more importantly, John also tells us that this miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000 took place around the time of the Passover (only John mentions this; Matthew, Mark and Luke do not). Why is this important?

The celebration of the Passover was the most important meal—indeed a Feast of utmost significance—for the Jewish people. It was a feast which recollected all that God had done and which celebrated their very identity as the people God had chosen and saved from slavery in the land of Egypt. Remember that first Passover where God commanded Moses to have each family slaughter a lamb and sprinkle its blood on the doorpost. The Angel of Death would then go through the land but would pass over each of the houses where the blood of the lamb was sprinkled.

Thus God spared Israel and saved that nation from slavery and oppression. He commanded them to celebrate that Passover Meal each year as an everlasting remembrance of how they were saved by God. That celebration was still taking place in the time of Christ, and St. John is making sure that the people understand that this is the context for the miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000.

At the very time Israel is remembering that moment of their salvation and the meal that commemorated their freedom and new life with God, Christ is providing for them another meal. He whom St. John has already told us is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), is present among them to nourish them in a miraculous way.

But at the same time John also wants to move us in the other direction, not only to recognize the connection with the past but also to see how this miracle leads us ever more deeply into the mystery of Christ which we will come to know as the Eucharist. He does that by describing for us the actions of Christ in detail.

As the people reclined, Christ took the bread, gave thanks and then distributed it among them. Does that sound familiar? It is the very same thing He will do at the Last Supper, something we recall at every Mass: that He took the bread, blessed and thanked God, broke it and then gave it to the disciples.

It is the miracle of the Eucharist that has feed not 5,000 people but countless millions since the foundation of the Church. Christ is preparing the people for that Eucharistic miracle even as they recline on the green grass and watch in wonder this Good Shepherd who gives His very life for the sheep. Imagine, this is only the beginning of this five-week discourse on the Holy Eucharist!

But what I would call your attention to this weekend is the amazing fact that Christ does not perform this miracle by Himself. He could have. He has no need to rely on help from anyone in performing mighty deeds among the people. Nonetheless chooses to rely upon the apostles in accomplishing the Feeding of the 5,000.

Remember, Christ begins by asking Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” (John 6:5), a question to which He already knows the answer. It is the apostles who bring to Him that offering of 5 loaves and a few fish from that small boy. The apostles are the ones who assist Christ in distributing the food to the people, and they are the ones who collect the fragments left over: 12 baskets full, one for each of them.

Why is that important? Because these are the same twelve men who will be present at the Last Supper when Christ will once again take the bread, bless it and thank God, then give it to them, saying: “Take this all of you and eat it. This is my body.” At that Last Supper He will command them, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

They will be the ones who will take the bread and wine, consecrate it and offer that sacrificial gift of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. They will provide the Eucharist for the nascent Church in fulfillment of the promises of Christ. These are the first priests of Jesus Christ, and in this Year for Priests which Pope Benedict XVI has initiated we thank God for the gift of the priesthood, because without the priesthood there is no Eucharist. Without the priesthood there is no sacrifice of the Mass.

In closing I would like to ask you to pray for two things that are essential as we celebrate this Year for Priests. In his homily on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, when he began this Year for Priests, our Holy Father Pope Benedict spoke about the importance of the holiness of the priest. If the priest is not holy, how can he help the people he serves to grow closer to our Lord? If the priest is not holy, how can he lead others in the path of holiness?

Yet there are some challenges when it comes to recognizing this need for the prayers of the church that Her priests will be holy. The first one is that many people simply assume that the priest is holy already. Surely there is nothing our prayers can add; anyone who says yes to God in that vocation must already be holy. Unfortunately that is not the case! Priests struggle with the same difficulties as everyone else, and in this secular world priests have the same temptations that all the faithful have; they strive just as much as anyone else to be faithful to God in thought, word and deed. So please, pray for your priests! Pray that God will make your priests holy and that they will stay holy!

On the other side of the spectrum is a much smaller group, thankfully, and we all know people who make up this group. They are the ones who will say that we should not bother to pray for priests because none of them are any good to begin with! They are quick to point out how "Fr. So ’n So" did this ten years ago, or that other priest said that fifteen years ago. Therefore none of the priests are holy. This is a very negative and cynical position to say the least (not to mention illogical, for that matter) and one that God would have all of us avoid. So please pray for priests, that they will indeed be holy.

Secondly please pray that God will continue to call more priests and that the men He is presently calling will have the courage to say, “Yes.” We are very blessed to have three priests living at St. Mary’s. There are many parishes in our diocese that do not even have one full-time priest. In some places, when the pastor takes a vacation it is a major task to locate priests who will be able to celebrate the Eucharist there that week. We need to ask the Lord to continue the work that is already taking place in abundance in many parts of our diocese, and ask Him to bless those who are being called to this fruitful and life-giving vocation.

May our prayers to God be answered for more priests and holy priests as we continue to draw closer to Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life.

Two Women and a "muy determinada determinación"

(13th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 28 June, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Mark 5:21-43)

Our Gospel this weekend is a compelling and intriguing passage from St. Mark. He provides us with two very different situations, two separate story lines that collide in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

The first one—the story of Jairus and his daughter—is a powerful tale in its own right and could quite easily stand alone as the central plot (the short version of this weekend’s Gospel allows for exactly that option). Jairus, we are told, is a synagogue official; he was a man of considerable importance among the people of Israel. Nonetheless he is in dire straits as we discover his daughter is at the point of death.

Jairus is a man of faith, and he truly believes that if Jesus lays His hands on this little girl that she will be healed. Christ agrees to come to the man’s house, and we are perhaps almost as eager as Jairus is to see her cured. But then, seemingly from out of nowhere, the forward motion of that scene is interrupted!

A woman sneaks up behind Jesus and intentionally touches his cloak. St. Mark says that she was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages; to be clear, she suffered from a difficult menstrual problem. Obviously she would have been through a great deal of physical pain from that condition. But to grasp the gravity of her situation we have to understand that for a Jewish woman at the time of Christ, this condition would have set her apart from the rest of the community.

A woman, according to the Mosaic Law, could not participate in the communal worship during the time of her period (Leviticus 15:25-30). It was not a moral judgment, but certainly it would have been an inconvenience. Nonetheless, for this woman it would have been much more than that. With her specific condition she would have been indefinitely separated from gathering together with the community. She no doubt suffered physically, spiritually, and emotionally. She, too, is desperate to be healed.

Both these stories are filled with pathos and emotion, and although they are distinct and separate scenarios, they also have a lot in common. Firstly, both stories have at their very core the dignity of woman. If ever we wanted to know what Christ thinks about women, and how very loving, compassionate and involved He is in the lives of women, we do well to pay attention to these details. Secondly, in both situations the women encounter Jesus Christ physically; He speaks directly to them but in each case He also touches them (or they touch Him, as in the case of the woman afflicted with hemorrhages). Thirdly, and this follows directly from the second, they are healed and made whole from that encounter.

But there is one more important point these two stories have in common; St. Mark is telling us much more here than the fact that two women were healed. If he wanted he could have told us that in two sentences. Instead he goes on and on—for nearly two pages—about all the details that led up to those healings. The point he is making is that these events did not just happen. These people did not simply sit back and wait for something to occur that would change their lot. They persisted, they persevered, they had a holy determination despite tremendous obstacles, and in the end they experienced the healing power of Jesus Christ.

It has been said before that the road to healing is always blocked; there are always obstacles. These two situations this weekend show us that a holy determination can open the way for the power of God to work deeply in our lives and touch us in places we could not have imagined possible.

The woman afflicted with hemorrhages had suffered for twelve years. She had been to doctor after doctor and instead of healing she had only gotten worse! Why not just give up? But still she seeks healing and wholeness; she reaches out for Jesus Christ not with blind faith but with her eyes and heart wide open. That is holy determination! We get the impression that if she had not been able to take hold of Him there, perhaps she would have followed Him to the next town. Maybe she would have sought Him for weeks, months or even years. This woman had an indomitable spirit!

And so did Jairus. He was a man of faith who believed that Jesus Christ could heal his little girl. He sought out Christ; he was ready for almost anything. But then the worse thing imaginable had happened. He discovers that his daughter is not merely sick, but that she is dead. He could only have been devastated, ready to simply give up. But Christ must have sensed that, for He immediately says to Jairus: “Do not be afraid; just have faith” (Mark 5:36).

It is as if Christ is saying to him: You believed that I could heal her, now believe that I can raise her from the dead. You have come this far, do not give up! See this thing through! Believe in me! Jairus presses on and experiences something beyond what he could have possibly imagined when he left his house earlier that day.

Holy determination. Where is God calling us to have that same holy determination in our own lives at this time? I would answer that question and say—first and foremost—God is challenging us to have a holy determination in the foundational relationship we share with Him in prayer. Prayer is the foundation of our lives, the essential core of our existence in God. Through the intimate relationship we share with God in prayer we draw close in fellowship and communion with the one who St. Augustine says is “more intimate to me than I am to myself.” But that kind of intimacy is by no means automatic!

St. Teresa of Avila, who is amazing, wrote to her sisters that God has so much in store for us in prayer, but we will never arrive there unless we have a muy determinada determinación, “a very determined determination” (The Way of Perfection, Chapter 21, #2). We come to the chapel to pray and what we feel is...nothing. We sense that we are spiritually in the dark or that we are not praying properly, and we are tempted to give up. Don’t! The saints, and especially the mystics, tell us that is exactly where God is: in the silence, near; He is very, very near to us.

How is God calling us to a “very determined determination” in our prayer lives right now? We ask our seminarians here to pray for one hour minimum each day. For you, maybe that time is different. Maybe God is asking you to pray a little less than that…or maybe more. Whatever He is asking of us, we need to have a muy determinada determinación, a very determined determination in our daily prayer lives, knowing that here, perhaps more than in any other place, God can reach us, transform us and set our hearts on fire.

Secondly I would suggest that God is calling us to a very determined determination in our relationship with Him in the sacraments. In the sacraments of the Church we encounter Christ in a spiritual and physical way, and it is the touch of Christ that we truly long for. Both Jairus’ daughter and the woman afflicted with hemorrhages encountered Christ physically in our Gospel today, and they were healed. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that He has not relinquished that role! We are told that “in the sacraments Christ continues to ‘touch’ us in order to heal us” (CCC, #1504).

When we receive the Eucharist we touch and encounter the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. When we celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation we hear the voice of Jesus Christ speaking through the priest, saying, “I absolve you from your sins…” But we have to be determined to place ourselves in an openness and receptivity to fully embrace Christ when He comes to us in these encounters. Do we seek out reconciliation with a very determined determination? Do we prepare well for that encounter with Christ in the Eucharist, by praying before, obviously during, and also after we receive Him here?

Finally, do we have a muy determinada determinación when it comes to the relationships God has brought into our lives? Whether we are here today as seminarians, priests and religious, married couples or single persons, God has brought various relationships into our lives, but those relationships do not just happen. They require effort, sacrifice, and forgiveness. We need to have a very determined determination to see them through, to be faithful when we can be and to be sorry when we’re not.

May God give us all a muy determinada determinación in our lives of prayer, in our encounter with Him in the sacraments, and in the relationships we have been given, so that we might also experience His healing power and the fruits of determination in the life of grace.

Horton and the Dignity of Human Life

(Saturday of the of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 13 June, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Matthew 5:33-37)

I do not know if you are a Dr. Seuss fan or not, if you have perhaps read the “classics,” like The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, or How the Grinch Stole Christmas. But there is a movie that came out about a year and a half ago called Horton Hears a Who, and it is based upon the Dr. Seuss book with that same title.

It is the story of Horton, the Elephant. Like all elephants, Horton has great big ears and so he is able to hear things that most people cannot; he can tune into all kinds of sounds. Towards the beginning of the story he stumbles upon a small clover and suddenly hears something…In fact, that something is more like someone as Horton soon discovers a whole world which exists upon that little flower! There are thousands of tiny, little people, called Whos, that live on that clover.

From the very start Horton commits himself to protecting those people and to guiding them to a safe place where they can thrive and flourish (and not get stepped on!). Unfortunately he quickly runs into opposition as the other characters in the story begin to become suspicious of his strange new endeavor. They think he is either lying or delusional. They cannot hear any Whos, and they certainly cannot see any little people living on that clover. It must be a farce!

Undeterred, Horton devotes himself to safeguarding and protecting that clover and the tiny people that exist on it. He states, emphatically, that “a person’s a person, no matter how small,” and repeats many times throughout that movie and in the book:

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant,
an elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.”

No matter what happens, and regardless of the opposition, he has vowed to watch over those little people and he means to follow through on that promise. Horton is crystal clear about what he intends to do and to carrying out this new found responsibility.

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant,
an elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.”

It is a delightful children’s story, but that same attitude is what Christ is highlighting in the Gospel this morning. He says:

Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
Anything more is from the Evil One.
—Matthew 5:37

In essence, Jesus is saying, “Be clear! Say what you mean and mean what you say. Be clear about your intentions, your will, your desires. Don’t waffle!”

That kind of clarity is desperately needed in the world today, and especially in the area of expertise that our friend Horton was a specialist in: the protection of life in its most minute form. Each one of us began as a tiny embryo. Before even your own mother knew it, you were an embryo inside her body, and God brought that new life into being with the cooperation of your parents. Life is sacred to Him, and to everyone of us, as well.

Today that sacred gift of life at its beginning is more vulnerable than at any other time in the history of civilization. Through embryonic stem-cell research, the human embryo is regarded as a means of experimentation and a mere instrument for scientific and medical progress. But every scientist will tell you that every time embryonic stem-cell research is undertaken—every time and without exception—the human embryo is destroyed. Human life comes to an end.

Abortion is being practiced legally in almost every country today, where the human embryo is intentionally destroyed in the name of human freedom and under the banner of “Choice.” Even artificial contraception, which is considered by some to be a perfectly acceptable and normal practice, often acts as an abortafacient. That means that, perhaps completely unknown to the person using it, the newly conceived human life is suddenly snuffed out and destroyed before he or she had the chance to be born. Is it any wonder that the Church has been fundamentally opposed to these practices and will consistently remain opposed to them?

But the culture we live in needs clarity on these issues, a clarity that is not always present even among the members of the Church. Catholic politicians will sometimes say, “No, I am personally opposed to abortion, but my constituents want to have a right to it, so I will say, 'Yes,' on this issue.” They say one thing, and then choose something else. Christ is clear in the Gospel:

Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
Anything more is from the Evil One.
—Matthew 5:37

And so, my brothers, as we continue the work of formation for the priesthood we are reminded of how very important it is to be clear and decisive when it comes to these essential areas of human life. We are the ones who study these important questions, and spend years learning the theology regarding the dignity of the human person. We are called to articulate—in the parish and in all the places God sends us to after ordination—the great value and dignity of human life from conception until natural death.

Let us ask God for the grace to do that; to study well, learn well, and teach well the beauty and dignity of life in the face of so much opposition. No matter what, let us protect, safeguard and celebrate human life by our preaching, teaching and way of life, so that we can say, along with Horton: “A person’s a person, no matter how small,” and

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant,
a Christian is faithful one hundred percent.”

Sancta Maria, Omnibus et Singulis

(Wednesday of the 5th Week of Easter, Our Lady of Fatima-Year B; This homily was given on 13 May, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Acts 15:1-6)

What do you need to do to go to heaven? What has to happen for a person to be saved?

Those are the questions being asked in our first reading this morning from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 15:1-ff). Apparently some believers from Judea had come to the Church where Paul and Barnabas were teaching the Gospel, and had insisted on circumcision as a necessary part of being saved and going to heaven.

Now, before we judge these people too hastily, let us look first at the context of that situation. These were Jewish believers. They had already been circumcised and so they had already met the “requirement” that they were proposing. They were seeking to resolve that question about salvation not for themselves but for the others in that Church who had just come to believe in the Gospel.

Of course, they were wrong! Paul and Barnabas are adamant about that from the beginning. The decision which will come from Jerusalem (this coming Friday’s reading) will clarify the matter for good. But we have every indication that at least some of these Jewish believers were genuinely concerned, and perhaps even deeply so, for the salvation of those around them. Are we?

Jesus says to us in the Gospel this morning: “Remain in me,” and “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.”

It is the same beautiful Gospel we heard this past weekend. When we listen to those words, “Remain in me,” it is as if Jesus is speaking them directly to each one of us. Remarkably, God’s word to us is that personal, that intimate.

But the word Christ uses when he offers that invitation is addressed in the second person, plural! He is saying “You, all of you, remain in me!” He is concerned for the salvation of each individual soul, but He offers the promise of salvation and the invitation to eternal life to all of us. There is a wonderful saying that if you were the only one in the world, then Jesus still would have come to suffer and die on the cross to save you. I believe that. But, of course, you are not the only one in the world! Jesus did not come to suffer and die for you alone, nor for just me. He came for us all.

The sacrifice of Calvary-and the sacrifice of the Mass, for that matter-is offered for each individual, and also for all of us collectively. As we say in the sacristy at the end of each Mass, referring to that great sacrifice of Christ:

Priest: Pro sit (May it—this sacrifice—be to your benefit)
Acolyte: Omnibus et singulis (For all and for each one)

We should be concerned for our own salvation, by all means. We should prayerfully consider if we are in the right place before God and being made fit for heaven by a living faith in Christ. But we should also be concerned for the salvation of those around us. For omnibus as well as for singulis.

This morning we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, remembering the appearances of Our Lady—the Patroness of this College—to three children in a small village in Portugal. Our Lady visited them and they—so much like little children—were fascinated by her! They asked her two important questions, one after the other: “Are you really from heaven?”, and then, with childlike wonder and innocence, “Will we be in heaven some day, too?”

Our Lady responded in the affirmative, but then became more serious and made it clear that little Francisco would make it there only after a great many rosaries (apparently Francisco was a tough little customer)! Nonetheless, they were encouraged by that good news. Then she went on to ask them to pray, offer sacrifices and consecrate themselves to her Immaculate Heart. They were to love the hearts of Jesus and Mary with deep devotion and make reparation for the love that was so often neglected and even out rightly refused to God.

You might ask yourself: why would they ever bother to do that? Were they not just told about their place in heaven? What would be the point of prayer, sacrifice and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?

But of course they did not ask those questions. Like children, they trusted and gladly offered their lives and prayers for the salvation of those around them. And that is the point of Fatima. It is the point of our readings this morning, and it is the reason why Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross: not just for my salvation, but for our salvation. Omnibus et singulis.

Today, on this Feast of Our lady of Fatima, may we heed well Our Lady’s request to those three small children, and to all of us:

1. To pray for souls and pray for peace; especially to pray the rosary.
2. To offer sacrifices, fasting in particular.
3. To consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and seek to love deeply the hearts of Jesus and Mary.


May we offer ourselves lovingly to God today, not just for our own salvation, but for the salvation of those around us: omnibus et singulis.

Blessed Damien and the Call to Holiness

(5th Sunday of Easter-Year B; This homily was given on 10 May, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See John 15:1-8)

Five months from now, on October 11, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI will canonize Blessed Damien of Molokai, acknowledging him as a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church. This morning, May 10, the Feast day of Blessed Damien, as we celebrate Mass only a few blocks away from Damien’s tomb, I would like to reflect on one simple question: Why?

Why is Blessed Damien being recognized as a Saint? The answer to that question is not as obvious as it may seem. If you asked ten people why Father Damien is being recognized as a Saint I would be willing to bet that many would say something like this: “He was a courageous and generous person who gave his life to serve the lepers on the Island of Molokai.” While those things are certainly true they are not the entire reason why he is being canonized on October 11. A lot of courageous and generous people served the lepers on Molokai. They are not being canonized this fall. Maybe some of them should be. Maybe someday they will be, but on October 11 it will be Father Damien. Why?

There is really only one reason why Blessed Damien will become Saint Damien, and it is the same reason why all the Saints receive that singular distinction: because he was holy.

The word saint, literally, means holy. Sanctus in Latin. Hagios (αγιος) in the Greek. Those words are used—in the Liturgy and in the Scriptures—to describe God Himself. In the Eastern Church they proclaim: Hagios O Theos, Holy is God! Here at this Mass this morning we cry out, “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus! Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord!”

God is holy, and we as believers and followers of Christ are also called to that same holiness. It is the goal of each and every baptized Christian: to be holy. That is what it means to be a saint. That is why the church recognizes men and women as saints; because they were holy.

This past week, the General Superiors of Blessed Damien’s order, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, sent a letter to their community in preparation for Father Damien’s canonization. In it they acknowledged:

“Holiness is the work of the Lord. His love is what justifies us. From this perspective, the canonization becomes a confession of hope-filled faith. The love of God is at work among us, as it was active in the life of Damien. The love of God can continue to transform us in spite of our weakness and our shadow side.”

There is tremendous hope in that reality for every one of us. Blessed Damien was a courageous and generous man who did great things for God and other people, but he also had a “shadow side,” like the rest of us. Father Damien did not get along well with everyone all the time, and perhaps at times that was not only their fault, but his as well. He had the same struggles that you and I have, but at the very foundation of his life he was holy, and “holiness is the work of the Lord.” He allowed God to work in and through him, in spite of his “shadow side,” and throughout his life the holiness of God shone through. Father Damien was holy.

In our Gospel this morning Jesus teaches us how that happens. He says it happens when we remain in Him:

Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.
—John 15:4-5

Nothing? What a remarkable statement! Do we truly believe that? Without God we can do nothing. How’s that for a reality check! Without Christ we can never be saints. Without Him we cannot accomplish anything of lasting value for the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the vine, not us! We are the branches, called to remain in Him. We become holy when we remain with Christ, when we dwell with Christ, when Christ dwells in us and lives in us. We become holy because He is holy, and when we remain in Him, we become like Him and then we bear fruit. That is when we bear much fruit.

Pope John Paul II, in a homily he gave here in Belgium in 1995 on the day Father Damien was beatified (the stage just before one is canonized a saint) said that Damien “lived a particular form of holiness in the course of his ministry; he was at the same time a priest, a religious and a missionary. Through these three qualities he revealed the face of Christ, indicating the way of salvation, teaching the Gospel and being a tireless instrument of development. He organized the religious, social and communal life of Molokai, an island banned from society at that time; yet with him everyone had a place, everyone came to be recognized and loved as his brothers and sisters.”

This is the fruit that Damien de Veuster bore on the Island of Molokai. He surrendered his own will to God over and over again, and became an instrument through which the holiness of God shone through; he was able to do so because he remained in Jesus Christ. He bore great fruit because he was holy.

Pope John Paul II went on to say that we are all called to that same holiness. We are all called to place ourselves before God and at the service of the Church, at the service of our brothers and sisters, like Blessed Damien did. He said:

“Holiness is not perfection according to human criteria. It is not reserved for a select number of exceptional individuals. It is for everyone. It is the Lord who gives us the ability to enter a life of holiness, when we accept that collaboration for the Glory of God and the salvation of the world, in spite of our sin and—at times—our rebellious temperament.”

We all have a “shadow side,” and at times we all have “a rebellious temperament.” But we also have the ability to cooperate with God and to remain in Him. We all have the desire and the capacity to be holy, and to bear much fruit for God and to make a difference in this world we live in. The people of this world are crying out for the kind of holiness that Blessed Damien lived and the way he allowed the love and mercy of God to shine through him. God is calling each one of us to this, and inviting us this morning: Remain in me. Remain in me. And if you do, “you will bear much fruit.”

Dynamic Duo: Barnabas and Paul

(Wednesday of the 4th Week of Easter-Year B; This homily was given on 6 May, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Acts 12:44-50)

Batman and Robin. Bert and Ernie. Laverne and Shirley. Siskel and Ebert. Sonny and Cher.

Why do we remember these dynamic duos so well, and why were they able to entertain thousands of people for so many years? It was because they were able to work together and had what it takes to stand the test of time (OK, maybe not Sonny and Cher, but the rest of them did!).

In our first reading this morning, from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear of another dynamic duo that far exceeds them all. They were a pair that God Himself had brought together right at the outset of the early Church.

We read in the Acts of the Apostles that the Church in Antioch had gathered together to praise and worship God. Suddenly, right in the middle of their assembly, the Holy Spirit spoke to them and said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2).

We find that combination repeated time and time again in Acts: Paul and Barnabas, Barnabas and Paul. They proclaimed the Gospel to thousands and brought the Christian message to the ends of the earth.

But why were they able to work together so well? We are never really told, exactly, but I think we are given a clue in the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, when Barnabas is first introduced to us. We are told of this generous man who owned a field which he sold, and that he brought the proceeds to the apostles and donated it to the Church. Acts tells us that his name was Joseph, “to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means ‘son of encouragement’).”—Acts 4:36

That was the kind of person Barnabas was: a man who encouraged those around him. He was able to build up the community; he knew what to say and when to say it. All throughout the Acts of the Apostles we find him doing just that.

Yesterday we heard about the foundations of the Church at Antioch, a new community that was on fire with love for Jesus Christ. But, like any new community, there were bound to be challenges and difficulties. We are told that Barnabas was sent to Antioch by the Church of Jerusalem, and when he arrived there he did two things: He rejoiced in all that God was doing among them, and he encouraged them!

Therefore it is no wonder the Holy Spirit places Barnabas and Paul together in our first reading today. Who would have needed more encouragement than St. Paul, who proclaimed the Gospel message tirelessly, without reservation and with heartfelt conviction; Paul, who was rejected by many of the Jews, and more than a few Christians. Paul, who was rejected time and time again by the Greeks and the Pagans; Paul, who was dragged out of cities, stoned and left for dead; Paul, who was dragged before governors and kings, beaten with rods, and scourged. This man would have encountered overwhelming discouragement on a regular basis! So God sends him Barnabas, son of encouragement. Barnabas knew how to support Paul and help him in the difficult task of founding Churches and spreading the Gospel.

Nowhere in the Acts of the Apostles do we find that Barnabas resented that aspect of his ministry. He was a remarkably gifted man, but undoubtedly he would have stood in the shadow of St. Paul (like everyone else that ever worked with that great Apostle). Nowhere do we find that Barnabas felt the need to compete with St. Paul. He would have understood that the gifts given to Paul were not in competition with his own gifts; they were given to build him up, and Barnabas’ gifts were given to build up those around him.

Competition—while great on the sports field and intrinsic to the business world—is the death of relationships and fruitful ministry in the Church. Competition among followers Christ, whether it be in the seminary, in the parish, or in the domestic Church of the family, sets up walls and barriers that even inhibit the work of God among His people. It can be that damaging.

So what is the antidote to such poison? Encouragement!

The Church desperately needs men and women who are able to grow in this skill of encouragement so masterfully taken up by St. Barnabas. Our seminary, our communities and parishes, are in great need of Barnabites, sons and daughters of encouragement, who are able and willing to build up and encourage the people around them.

Barnabas and Paul, Paul and Barnabas. The dynamic duo of the early Church. Who’s to say that God cannot still work in that way even now, when we are open to this gift of encouragement and willing to use it for the greater glory of God?

The Witness of the Empty Tomb

(Easter Sunday-Year B; This homily was given on 12 April, 2009, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See Colossians 3:1-4 and John 20:1-9)

Each Sunday, week after week, we gather together in this Church to listen to the Gospel. That word, Gospel, literally means “Good News,” and it is the expression of all that we have received from God in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

We hear that good news announced from St. Paul in the epistles, and in various way through the Apostles of the early Church. We listen to the Gospel especially from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—the Four Evangelists—who relate everything we long to hear about Jesus Christ, for He Himself is the Gospel, He is the good news of our life and our salvation.

So, isn’t it a little odd that in the Gospel passage we just listened to, on one of the greatest feasts of the entire liturgical year, He is not even there at all? We do not listen to His life-giving words or see His saving actions, because the greatest witness to the good news that God provides for us this Easter morning is the empty tomb itself. That empty tomb proclaims a powerful message indeed, if we are open and able to hear what God is trying to communicate to us through it.

You may have seen the movie Good Will Hunting. It came out several years ago, and won all kinds of awards. This young man named Will is a born genius, a brilliant child prodigy, but he has grown up in the streets of South Boston, so he is constantly getting into trouble with the law, constantly in and out of the courts. Some influential people discover his incredible gifts and talents and they try to give him an opportunity to get out of “Southy” and offer him a whole new lease on life.

At one point in the movie, Will is working construction with his best friend, who suddenly realizes that Will, despite the opportunities he has been given, has no intentions of leaving South Boston. The friend, recognizing that Will has the ability to accomplish things that they could never even dream of, becomes quite serious and says to him:

“Every day I come by to pick you up, and we go out together, we have a few laughs. But you know what the best part of my day is? The ten seconds before I knock on the door, ‘cause I let myself think I might get there, and you’d be gone. I’d knock on the door and you wouldn’t be there. You just left.”

***Spoiler Alert***

And if you have seen the movie then you know that is exactly what happens at the end. His friend goes to pick him up, but he finds an empty house instead. Good Will Hunting is gone. He had made it out of South Boston and, in a certain sense, had taken all of his friends with him.

Mary Magdalene and the other disciples come to an empty tomb this morning and, without realizing it yet, they stand before the greatest event that has ever taken place. The empty tomb is the doorway, the entrance through which all of us now have access to eternity. Jesus’ resurrection affects us all.

Christ came and destroyed sin and death by rising from the dead, just as he said he would. That fact changes everything . . . or at least it should. It should move us to look at death, and even at life, in a whole new way.

That is the good news of the Gospel: that all the economic problems of this world, all the financial and familial difficulties, all the injustices and sufferings of this present life WILL NOT LAST. We can live in this world and have hope even in the midst of trials and difficulties, for we belong to Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord. That changes everything!

St. Paul, in our second reading this morning, reminds us of the focus we must have as followers of Jesus Christ and those who have understood the witness of the empty tomb. He says:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.
—Colossians 3:1-4

The empty tomb challenges us to see everything in that eternal perspective. It challenges us to seek reconciliation with those we are in conflict with; challenges us to evaluate our lives and be willing to change anything that is incompatible with this heavenly calling, because this world is not all there is and heaven simply cannot wait.

Just a few days ago I was able to visit my grandparents in St. Anne’s Cemetery just a few feet from where we celebrate this Mass this morning. I knelt down in the grass before that stone which marks so many of the people who have passed on the faith that I live and profess today. I am a priest of Jesus Christ today because of them, and because of all those faithful souls in my family who have passed the faith down to my parents, who taught that faith to me. It was a privilege and a joy to be able to pray there and to spend some time remembering them. I know that so many of you have loved ones in the very same place, and in cemeteries throughout this state and beyond.

But the witness of the empty tomb reminds us today that those graves will not always be places of remembrance; they are not the final resting place for the ones who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. At the heart of our Christian faith is the belief that those graves will one day all be empty! Have you ever thought about that?

When Jesus Christ returns—and He will, because He said He would—this cemetery here will be the busiest and liveliest place in the State of Rhode Island! The place of greatest activity and abundant life will not be Fenway Park or Gillette Stadium; it will not be the Providence Place Mall or Showcase Cinema. It will be right here, in St. Anne’s Cemetery, where thousands of souls and bodies will suddenly be raised from the dead to be joined to Christ forever. That is what the witness of the empty tomb challenges us to acknowledge this morning.

There’s a very moving passage in the Confessions of St. Augustine in which Augustine’s mother, St. Monica, is about to die. They are in a foreign country, far from home. Augustine and his brother are standing by the bedside, and the brother says to Monica that he would like her to be brought back home so that she might not die in a strange country. Monica—who was a tough woman, even on her deathbed—reproaches him, and says to both him and St. Augustine:

“Bury my body wherever you will. One thing only do I ask: that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.”

Monica understood the meaning of the resurrection; she listened well to the witness of the empty tomb. This is not our home; it is not our final destination. This is just a stop along the way and the greatest thing that we can do while we are on our way home to God is to remember each other “at the altar of the Lord.”

That is what we are doing here this morning. We gather around this altar because we have the answer to Mary Magdalene’s dilemma: she thought that someone had taken the Lord and she did not know where they had put Him. We know where He is: He is in that tabernacle, and in a moment He will be here on this altar.

We are never closer to our deceased loved ones, and to each other, and to our Lord, than when we gather together here at the altar of the Lord. We come here today as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and we are strengthened in the Holy Eucharist so that we can say, with St. Paul and all those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith, that we “seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”

We are called to “think of what is above, not of what is on earth.” For we have died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ our life appears, then we too will appear with him in glory (see Colossians 3:1-4).

Good Friday, Gethsemane and the Garden of Paradise

(Good Friday-Year A; This homily was given on 10 April, 2009, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See John 18:1-19:42)

If you go all the way back to the beginning of the Scriptures, to the opening pages of the Book of Genesis, you will find there God’s dream for the entire human family. It is God’s one great desire for the whole created world, presented to us in the image of a garden.

In that garden we discover a man and a woman, and they are in love; they are in love with each other, and in love with God. There is perfect harmony between the man and the woman; between them and our Lord, and there is a deep harmony between them and all creation.

But we need only look a few pages further, and in the pages of the Scriptures after that, to see God’s dream shattered and broken by selfishness and sin (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #400).

Suddenly Adam and Eve are cast out of that lush and fertile garden and introduced to a very different landscape. It is one marked by resistance and toil; there is pain and sorrow and the ground is stained with blood as Cain kills his brother Abel. Soon nations rise up against nations; there is destruction, devastation, division. It is a very dark place indeed compared to that Garden of Eden where it all began.

That is where our story picks up this evening as we read St. John’s account of the Passion of Christ. John begins by saying “Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to where there was a garden” (John 18:1).

Matthew, Mark and Luke have already told us how Christ knelt down in that garden, called Gethsemane. He knelt down in the dark and in great anguish and surrendered Himself to the will of His Father in order to regain all that had been lost by sin.

Recall back in Genesis how Adam and Eve had been told that they could eat from any of the trees in the garden, except one. God forbade them to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but they had defied Him and done so anyway. In essence they had said, “No, this is what we want, and we will do what we have chosen, not what you want.”

Now Jesus Christ kneels down in the Garden of Gethsemane and expresses from the depths of His being that He does not want to suffer and die…but, He says to His heavenly Father, “nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).

We gather together on this Good Friday night to kneel down with Christ in that garden and recommit ourselves to Him. There is a beautiful poem written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox that describes the unavoidable encounter with the will of God that we must all face in that garden. The poem is called Gethsemane, and Wilcox begins:

Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams
Bridged over by our broken dreams;
Behind the misty caps of years,
Beyond the great salt font of tears,
The garden lies. Strive as you may,
You cannot miss it on your way.
All paths that have been or shall be,
Pass somewhere through Gethsemane.

All those who journey, soon or late,
Must pass within the garden’s gate;
Must kneel alone in darkness there,
And battle with some fierce despair.
God pity those who cannot say,
“Not mine but thine,” who only pray,
“Let this cup pass,” and cannot see
The purpose of Gethsemane.

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We are here tonight to recognize and acknowledge the purpose of Gethsemane and to recommit ourselves to that beautiful plan and dream of God that began so long ago. We are here to do what we could never have done before, but now have the power to do as baptized Christians: to say most completely, “Yes,” to the plan of God for our lives. We come here to be strengthened by Christ in the Eucharist and to echo His words to the Father: “Thy will be done.”

We must be careful, however, not to think that this is a one-time effort. God challenges us to constantly recommit ourselves to Him and to be open to His will every moment of each day in our lives.

About a year and a half ago I had one of the greatest opportunities of my priesthood, to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a group of very dear friends, the Franciscan Sisters and Brothers of the Eucharist. At one point in the pilgrimage we were able to go inside the very Garden of Gethsemane, and it was there that I chose to kneel down and pray, wide open to whatever the Lord wanted to say to me in that moment.

What a privilege, I thought, to kneel right here in this place and say those same words of Christ. And do you know what I felt at that exact moment? Nothing! I did not have a supernatural experience or an overwhelming emotional sensation.

Surrendering ourselves to the will of God is not about feelings and emotions, nor is it a one-time event that we can go through, and then be done with it. No, we must repeat to God, thousands of times throughout our lives, “Thy will be done.” It is within a lifetime of surrender, in particular situations and across many years, that we submit ourselves to the grace of God and allow Him to regain in us all that has been lost by selfishness and sin.

Nor should be surprised when things do not immediately get better when we do so! We may not experience the fruits of our surrender to God in a quick and obvious way. Surrendering to God’s will is sometimes difficult and challenging. Sometimes it may seem that things have become worse.

Look at Christ in the Gospels. No sooner has he spoken the words, “Thy will be done,” then Judas enters to betray Him. He is dragged out of the garden, beaten, mocked and scourged. Finally, they crucify Him between two thieves. And just when things could not possibly seem worse, we are told by St. Matthew that the thieves themselves began to revile Christ, even as they were dying next to Him!

But suddenly, in that darkest moment, hope springs eternal. One of the thieves has a change of heart. He turns to Christ in a moment of faith and says, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). And Jesus’ response, of course, is both breathtaking and life-giving: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

That word, paradise, comes from the ancient Persian culture (modern day Iran) and means, literally, a walled-in garden or enclosed park.

It was customary for the Persian King to allow only a select few subjects of the kingdom to walk with him in that enclosed garden; such intimacy was reserved for only those closest to him. It was a great honor to walk with the king in paradise.

Jesus Christ is inviting that thief into the garden of eternal life, to an eternal relationship of love with Him. It is the same invitation that He is extending to us this evening, and one that He desired for all of those at the foot of the cross that Good Friday afternoon.

But, sadly, they missed it. They did not understand what He was doing or all the things He had told them about His suffering and death. So they did the very best thing they could do; in great sorrow they took His dead body down from the cross, and because it was late, they laid Him in a tomb nearby.

St. John tells us, at the very end of that passion narrative, that the tomb where they laid Him was located in, of all places, a garden. There they placed Him, in the ground, in the midst of a garden…

But of course, that is not the end of the story. There is so much more to the story than that, and if we want to hear the rest of it, we have only to wait three days.

Palm Sunday and Baptismal Grace

(Palm Sunday-Year B; This homily was given on 4 & 5 April, 2009 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See Mark 14:1-17:47)

Each year we gather together on Palm Sunday—known traditionally as Passion Sunday—to read and listen to the Passion of Jesus Christ, how He suffered and died for our salvation. Of course, it is not the same one Gospel account that we listen to. We follow a three-year cycle that allows us to hear The Passion according to Saints Matthew, Mark and Luke, a separate one each year.

This year we hear St. Mark’s account, and Mark provides a detail for us that none of the other Evangelists include. It happens right after Christ is taken in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Matthew, Mark and Luke describe the arrest of Christ on that dark night. They all tell us how the disciples abandoned Jesus. But Mark alone tells us of a young man who still followed Christ, perhaps at a distance. He says that this young man, oddly, was “wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body” (Mark 14:51).

Apparently those arresting Jesus also recognized this young man as a disciple because they tried to take hold of him. St. Mark tells us how the young man escaped, “but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked” (Mark 14:52). It is a rather embarrassing event in the Gospel.

But we could ask ourselves this Palm Sunday, “Why does St. Mark include that detail and find it so important to describe for us that scene?” Some scholars say that he is trying to communicate something to his audience about the great dignity of Baptism.

In the early Church, when a person was baptized, he or she would often be fully immersed in water. Obviously they would go down into the water without clothing, and when they came up again they were newly baptized and had become “a new creation in Christ.” Immediately they would be clothed in a white, linen cloth to symbolize that they had put on Christ and now shared this new life of holiness with Him (we still do this today, when a child is “Christened” and dons a sparkling new baptismal gown).

What St. Mark is trying to communicate with the story of that young man is that he has tragically lost that connection, that holiness he once had as a follower of Christ. His newness of life and purpose for living—symbolized by that linen cloth—has been left behind as he flees naked in the opposite direction.

But the power of the Passion is that even while this is taking place, even as the disciples are fleeing and this young man is running, naked, away from Christ, even at that instant, Jesus Christ is pouring Himself out in love to suffer and die…so that they can come BACK!

Now that is why we never grow tired of coming here, every Palm Sunday, year after year, to listen to the account of the Passion of Jesus Christ! It is the central message of the Gospel and the incomprehensible, unfathomable mercy of God: that even knowing all along that we would sin and fall away from Him, even though we would sometimes move in the opposite direction of Christ, He pours Himself out in love for us anyway…so that, time and time again, we will come BACK!

I would suggest this Palm Sunday that God is calling all of us, more and more deeply within and perhaps even physically so, to come back. To come back to Christ, as He seeks to become the center of our life; to come back here to Jesus Christ in the Eucharist as He nourishes us and strengthens us in love.

This week, among all the other weeks of the year, is the time par excellence when God calls us to come back, and to come here to this Church. It is this week, the holiest week of the year, when we gather together to celebrate the Sacred Triduum:

God calls us this week to come back here, on Holy Thursday night to celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, remembering anew that night before Christ died, when He gave to His disciples—and to us—His sacred body and blood in the Eucharist.

God calls us to come back here, on Good Friday, to recall our Lord’s cross and the price He paid for our salvation.

God calls us back here, for the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday, when two members of our parish will be baptized and receive that baptismal garment for the first time; others will receive their first Eucharist and become fully initiated in the Catholic faith through Confirmation. God calls us back to celebrate these great mysteries, and to renew our own baptismal promises once again, just as we do every Easter.

God is calling each of us back, to be united more closely to Jesus Christ than ever before, because He is the One who poured Himself out in love for us all, so that we could draw close to Him and remain with Him forever.