Is He living in you?

(6th Sunday of Easter-Year A; This homily was given on 26 & 27 April, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See Acts 8:5-17 and John 14:15-21)

I am sure you have noticed that ad campaigns for various products have become very simplified over the years. Slogans like “Got Milk” and “Just Do It” catch our attention and are easy to remember. The ad for Gatorade is one like that. It simply asks the question: “Gatorade. Is it in You?”

The inference is clear: if it’s not in you, then it should be! But whether we drink Gatorade or not, I think we would all agree that we have to be very careful what kind of food or drink we put inside our bodies. Some things are good, and some things are not. What we choose to put inside us can mean all the difference between living a healthy life, or an unhealthy one; it can even make the difference between life and death.

The same is true when it comes to our spiritual lives.

What we allow into our spiritual lives and into our souls can mean all the difference between a healthy, living and growing relationship with God or a very unhealthy one. Our first reading this weekend gives us a glimpse of this very reality.

We hear in the Acts of the Apostles how Philip has taken the City of Samaria by storm. He preached the gospel to them, and the most remarkable things were beginning to happen. We are told that:

With one accord, the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip when they heard it and saw the signs that he was doing. For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice, came out of many possessed people, and many paralyzed or crippled people were cured. There was great joy in that city.
—Acts 8:6-8

Philip preached the gospel with great power. He healed the sick. He cast out unclean spirits. Yet after all these amazing things, we discover that it was not enough! There was still one more thing that was missing.

The apostles in Jerusalem heard what had happened in Samaria, and they sent Peter and John, who prayed for the people, “that they might receive the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:14-17). It wasn’t enough to clear out the unclean spirits. These people were in need of the Holy Spirit. And that’s exactly what they received.

God wants to do so much more than drive away evil and take away the things that harm us; he wants to give us Himself. We can ask the question this weekend: The Holy Spirit: Is He in you?

In the gospel for this weekend, Jesus speaks about this very mystery of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He gathers together with His disciples on the night before His suffering and death, and it is clear that they are distressed about His imminent departure. He consoles them and insists that He will not abandon them, He will not leave them orphans.

“I will ask the Father,” He says, “and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you.”
—John 14:16-17

Yes, they already know what it means to have an advocate in God, since Christ has been with them from the beginning. Now, He tells them, the Advocate will not only be with them, He will be “in” them. He is talking to them about the person of the Holy Spirit. God wants to live in us, to share with us His own divine life.

This weekend we are given a great example of that reality in our young people here in this parish. This Saturday morning, twenty six children received Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist for the first time. Jesus lives in them now in a whole new way.

Sunday afternoon thirty six young people will receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, strengthening that bond with the Holy Spirit that they received on the day of their baptism. The bishop will stretch out his hands over these young people, calling down the Holy Spirit upon them, just as Saints Peter and John called down the Holy Spirit on the converts in Samaria in the Acts of the Apostles.

The Holy Spirit will be living and moving in their lives like never before, giving them the courage to witness to their faith in Christ in this world and to live fully the gospel and their baptismal call to holiness.

They remind us all this weekend of God’s plan for each and every baptized and confirmed member of the Church. God wants to use each one of us to make His message of mercy and grace known in the world we live in, but that will never happen if there are things in our lives which are opposed to the Holy Sprit. We will never be able to fully surrender our lives to God and be totally open to the work of the Holy Spirit if there are things “in us” that are opposed to the will of God.

What are some of those things?

Anger or hatred. If we are harboring resentment, anger or hatred towards any person or group of persons, and not allowing God to help us with that struggle, then the Holy Spirit will not be able to move us and guide us in the way He wants to. Anger, hatred, and bitterness, are all opposed to the Holy Spirit.

Pride. If we have placed ourselves above the people around us or looked down on others; if we have been so self centered that we have place everyone else beneath us or perhaps even placed God beneath us, then He will never be able to live in us the way He wants to. If we have decided to live our lives the way that we want to, without any regard for God and His commandments, without listening to God or the Church or anyone else, for that matter, that is pride. It is completely opposed to the docility God calls us to in the Holy Spirit.

What are the things in our culture that are clearly opposed to the life of the Holy Spirit in us?

Pornography. Researchers say that millions of Americans are now addicted to internet pornography (http://www.safefamilies.org/sfStats.php). Pornography damages the way we look at each other. It destroys our relationships with each other and can destroy our relationship with God. Have we allowed pornography into our spiritual lives?

Contraception. This is so prevalent in our society, although we hear so little about it with regard to the spiritual life. It is simply taken for granted that couples contracept, Catholic or not. But contraception stifles life in the family and banishes God from one of the most important parts of our lives: the relationship of love between a husband and a wife.

There is even a commercial on TV now that targets young people. It totes that this particular contraceptive will not only prevent pregnancy, but will also eliminate acne. This should concern every one of us. Contraception is opposed to the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

These are just a few of the things that so often squelch the life of the Holy Spirit in us. If these, or any grave or serious sins, are in us, then God wants them out. Why does He want them out? So that He can give us more of Himself! He wants us to be emptied of these unclean spirits so that He can then fill us with His own divine life and help us to live the way He always intended us to.

St. Paul, in his Letter to the Galatians, describes the kind of life we will have when that happens, when we are surrendered to the person of the Holy Spirit. He says that when we live by the Spirit we will bear fruit, and that:

The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
—Galatians 5:22-23

Are not these the very things we long for in our lives? Joy. Is it in you? Patience. Is it in you? Generosity, faithfulness, self control. Are these things in us? We are called to live in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit. May our lives this week become more and more completely surrendered to the Holy Spirit, who has been promised and sent into the hearts of all the faithful.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful,

and enkindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created

and you shall renew the face of the earth.

Human Nature and the Divine Condition

(5th Sunday of Easter-Year A; This homily was given on 19 & 20 April, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See 1 Peter 2:4-9 and John 14:1-12)

Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?
—John 14:9

How must Christ have felt when He spoke those words to St. Philip? Was He disappointed? Frustrated? Perhaps He was even exasperated.

St. Philip—and the rest of the apostles—had been with Him from the beginning of His public ministry. They had watched Him heal the sick and raise the dead. They personally witnessed amazing and remarkable events, things that only God could do…and still they did not know completely who He was.

Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?

St. Augustine says, regarding that awkward exchange, that Jesus reproves Philip “for not recognizing his divine condition through his human nature” (De Trinitate, Book 7). The humanity of Christ got “in the way” for St. Philip. He was not able to see the “divine condition” because he was focused on Jesus’ humanity only. He could not imagine that someone who was human, like himself, could also be the eternal Son of God.

Could that sort of thing ever happen in our own time? Is it possible for us to be so focused on humanity that we lose sight of, or fail to recognize, the “divine condition” in the world? Absolutely, and it happens all the time.

It does not happen that people mistake the divinity of Christ on account of His human nature, like in the gospel this weekend. But it is something that happens all the time with His Bride, the Church.

The Church is also both human and divine. We truly believe and profess weekly that the Church is divinely established; it is founded by Christ. We are the only “organization” in the world that is founded by God. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit dwells in the Church. The Church is a divine institution.

Yet the Church is also human. It is made up of human individuals who are like Christ in so many ways, yet unlike Him in our fallen human nature. He was without sin. We struggle with sin all the time, and that is why our faith teaches us that the Church is “at once holy and always in need of purification” (Lumen Gentium, #8).

That is the reality we experience in the Church, and it can also be one of the greatest obstacles for the world around us. To paraphrase St. Augustine, the world around us often fails to recognize the “divine condition” of the Church because it focuses solely on the human dimension.

One obvious example is the Apostolic Visit of Pope Benedict XVI. He has come to our country to strengthen the faith and bring us a message of hope. He has come in the person of Christ to show us the works of God, and so many—in the media especially—have missed that completely.

Days before the arrival of our Holy Father, the Providence Journal announced his coming with this disappointing headline: “Pope’s U.S. Visit will find a faith in disarray”. Not exactly a “Welcome, Holy Father!” is it? If you read the article, you know it became much more negative than even that headline.

Then came Monday. The front page article for that day was one of the most discouraging reports I have read in the Journal (and that is saying a lot). Mind you, this was the very day before the Pope arrived. There was nothing positive in it. It talked only about empty pews, closing churches, and the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

Now let’s be clear: these are real and painful issues that need to be addressed and should be talked about. The clergy sexual abuse crisis especially is something that demands a response.

And the Church has responded.

Pope Benedict XVI has responded nearly every day he has been in this country. He has tried to reach out in some way to those who are hurting and has continually prayed for reconciliation and healing.

Bishop Tobin, in Thursday’s article in the Providence Journal, said “the Catholic Church has done and continues to do as much as any institution in society to try to respond to the terrible events of sexual abuse.”

Yes, there is so much healing that still needs to take place and the Church continues to seek that reconciliation and purification that God has demanded from the beginning. But to make the clergy sexual abuse crisis the focus of the Pope’s visit or to publish article after article, day after day, of the same shameful facts and figures without even trying to communicate the rest of the purpose of Benedict XVI’s visit is to render a tremendous disservice to the mission of reconciliation and hope he has come here to establish.

Besides the media’s misrepresentation of our Church and our Pope, why should this concern us? I would say that all of us are susceptible to the same difficulty that St. Philip encountered in our gospel. With so much negativity, day after day, and a focus solely on the human faults and weaknesses of individual members of the Church and the vast array of challenges we face, are we not in danger of losing sight of the “divine condition,” and the work of the Holy Spirit among us?

This is no small concern, because the Church by her very nature is both human and divine. To see the Church as only a human institution is to live without hope. If the Church is only human, then there is no hope of healing, for anyone. If the Church is only human, then there is no hope of overcoming even the smallest of difficulties, no hope of changing our lives or the world around us. But the Church is not only human, and there is always hope.

That is the message Pope Benedict XVI has brought to our country this week. The theme of his apostolic visit is “Christ, Our Hope!” Speaking to the bishops in Washington, D.C., at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on Wednesday, he spoke of the purpose of his visit: “To strengthen further the bonds of communion that unite us.”

How could one man ever expect to accomplish all that? To bring hope and strengthen the Church in the United States? The answer is at the heart of our faith as Catholics: he’s not just any man. He is the Vicar of Christ on earth and he has come to bring us the message and the hope of Christ Himself. He has done that by doing exactly the opposite of what many in the media have done. Instead of pointing only to the human dimension he has shown us, instead, the “divine condition.”

In his homily at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Saturday morning, the Holy Father spoke about the mystery of the Church, at the same time both human and divine. Following the example of many writers and theologians (he mentioned our own Nathaniel Hawthorne) he used the image of the stained glass windows to illustrate the mystery of the Church.

[The article in the Providence Journal on Sunday morning, the day after I first preached this homily, did cover this very point made by Pope Benedict, using the very same illustration of stained glass windows…Not a moment too soon, thanks be to God.]

Pope Benedict described how beautiful the stained glass windows are inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral. But, he noted, if you look at those windows from the outside, they are “dark, heavy, even dreary.” That is very often the way people view the Church: from the outside, seeing nothing comely or attractive.

“It is only from the inside,” said Pope Benedict, “from the experience of faith and ecclesial life, that we see the Church as she truly is: flooded with grace, resplendent in beauty, adorned by the manifold gifts of the Spirit.”

He was clear that even from the inside, the light from those windows can sometimes become darkened and dimmed through routine and the sins and weaknesses of the members of the Church. They can also be dimmed, he said, by the society we live in, so often forgetful of God and resentful of the demands of Christian morality.

But the main point the Pope made to the priests and religious gathered together there—and to every one of us, by extension—was that we are called to experience the majesty and beauty of that light, to be blessed and graced by the powerful work of the Holy Spirit, and then to go out from that experience and reach out to the world around us.

We are not called to look at a world that has rejected the gospel, rejected the Church and rejected Jesus Christ, and simply shake our fist in anger. No, we are called, instead, to love. “We, who live the life of grace within the Church’s communion,” said Pope Benedict, “are called to draw all people into this mystery of light.”

Pope Benedict closed his homily that day very beautifully, by directing us all beyond merely the human dimension of the Church and all the challenges we face, and to look more intently to the divine condition.

“So let us lift our gaze upward! And with great humility and confidence, let us ask the Spirit to enable us each day to grow in the holiness that will make us living stones in the temple which he is even now raising up in the midst of our world.”

God is doing something in the life of the Church and in the world we live in. He is continuing to build up His Church, even now, and is strengthening the mission of evangelization and hope that He has intended all along. We are called to be “living stones” says Pope Benedict, to be a part of that glorious work.

St. Peter, our first Pope, says the same thing in our second reading for this weekend:

Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
—1 Peter 2:4-5

That is why we gather together each week as people of faith: to offer spiritual sacrifices—to offer our very lives and the sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist—not only for ourselves, but for the world around us. We are called to live fully the mystery of our faith here, and then to leave this Church and help those around us to see that, yes, the Church is human, but also that it has been touched and blessed at its very foundations with the powerful and everlasting divine condition.

Good Shepherd Sunday-Found!

(4th Sunday of Easter-Year A; This homily was given on 12 & 13 April, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See 1 Peter 2:20-25 and John 10:1-10)

There is a movie that came out late last year, and it’s now available on DVD, called August Rush. It tells the story of a young boy who is bounced from one orphanage to another, never able to find his place in this world. All his life he has had this deep and abiding sense that his parents are out there, perhaps even looking for him, and that if he just reaches out enough, then they will find him.

One of the major themes of the movie is music. This boy has the most remarkable ability to master any instrument he touches: the guitar, the piano, an elaborate church organ. He is even able to lead an orchestra at the age of eleven.

Now, he has no idea that both of his parents are also very accomplished musicians. Still, he believes that if he can play his music for enough people, eventually his parents will hear him and come to take him home.

It doesn’t take long for the people around this young boy to recognize his musical genius. He is a true child prodigy, like a Mozart or a Beethoven. One of the characters in the movie understands that gift all too well, and tells the boy that he can pretty much write his own ticket; the sky is the limit. Whatever he can dream is well within his grasp. He asks him:

“What do you want to be in the whole wide world?”

The boy answers him immediately, with one word:

“Found.”

That is all he wants, all that he desires in the whole world: to be found, to be loved, to be taken home where he belongs.

That desire is something that every one of us holds in common. It is an innate desire, something planted deep within by God Himself: the desire to be found, to be loved, and to be brought home to an eternal life with God. No matter how far we run from Him, that desire will never go away.

What we celebrate on Good Shepherd Sunday is that God has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. He has come from heaven to this earth in order to seek us out, to reveal the great mercy and love of God, and to lead us home to eternal life.

St. Peter explains it well in our second reading this weekend:

For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
—1 Peter 2:25

We have been found. Even in the midst of our own sins and our brokenness, Christ the Good Shepherd has come for us. Into a world that is so often forgetful of Him, that has “gone astray” in so many different ways, the Good Shepherd has found us and is leading us even now to eternal life in God.

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, in his recent encyclical letter, Spe Salvi, writes about this mysterious and hopeful intervention of Christ, the Good Shepherd, and of what it means for our lives here on earth (see Spe Salvi, #6).

Pope Benedict talks about the experience of the early Church. In the first few centuries, when a person died their body would be placed in what is called a sarcophagus. Very much like a coffin, these sarcophagi were often made of stone or marble. They would then chisel various Christian images on the outside of the sarcophagus, to remind themselves that death did not have the final word. Our Christian faith gives us hope for a life beyond this world.

One of the more common images to be found on the sarcophagi from this time period was the image of Christ, the Good Shepherd. The message was clear: that He is able to shepherd us throughout our lives, and even from death into eternal life with God.

Pope Benedict quotes our responsorial psalm this weekend, Psalm 23, to emphasize how Christ truly is the Good Shepherd who can lead us through “the valley of darkness” and “the shadow of death” and into eternal life because He’s been there!

Jesus Christ has Himself experienced the depths of suffering and the deepest darkness, so He can certainly shepherd and guide us through anything in this life, and lead us into the abundant life that God has always intended for us. As He tells us in the gospel this weekend:

I came so that they may have life and have it more abundantly.
—John 10:10

Christ shepherds us and guides us in that abundant life with God in so many different ways, but for us as Catholics, perhaps never more so than in the person of our Holy Father, the Pope. One of the most beloved titles of the Pope is Chief Shepherd of the Flock.

It is no accident that I have quoted two people at the beginning of this homily: St. Peter and Pope Benedict XVI. From the first century, in the person of St. Peter, until our present day, in the person of Pope Benedict XVI, Christ the Good Shepherd has continued to lead and guide the Church into abundant life.

In just a few short days, Pope Benedict XVI will set foot on the soil of our own nation in order to strengthen the faith of the Church in America and to guide us all ever closer to Christ. He comes not to bring his own message and opinion, or his own words, but the message and the words of Christ Himself.

I would offer three practical suggestions on how we can prepare ourselves most completely to receive that message and allow Christ the Good Shepherd to guide us in this Apostolic Visitation this week.


Firstly, pray! Pray for our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. Pray for his health and his safety. Pray that our nation, our families, and we ourselves as individuals, would be open to what God is saying to us this week through the Chief Shepherd who comes to walk among us here.

Secondly (and I never thought I would ever say this in a homily!): watch TV! Finally, we have something worth watching on television. Perhaps to spend 30 minutes or an hour each day watching the coverage of the Pope’s Apostolic Visitation this week (and focus not so much on the various commentators and what they have to say about Pope Benedict XVI, but try to listen well to the words of Pope Benedict himself, and what He is saying to our nation, our families, and us personally this week).

Finally, I would suggest that we spend at least five or ten minutes a day meditating on the theme of the Apostolic Visitation: “Christ, Our Hope.” What do those words mean to you?

Is Christ our hope because He comes to us in the Sacraments of the Church and strengthens us on our journey of faith?

Is Christ our hope because he walks beside us in the valley of darkness, and never leaves us alone? Is He our hope because He has been through all the darkness that we will ever experience here, and we can count on Him to lead us to eternal life in God?

Is Christ our hope because of the promise of the resurrection, because he will raise us up to eternal life? Because we will see our loved ones once again, those who have “gone before us marked with the sign of faith”?

To spend five or ten minutes a day meditating on why Christ is our hope, and what that means for our lives here on this earth.

Christ, our hope, has come to us. We have been found, we have been loved, and even now He is leading us ever more deeply into an abundant and eternal life with God. May we be open this week to the way that He will do that in amazing and remarkable ways in the Apostolic Visitation of Pope Benedict XVI.

Divine Mercy and the Body of Christ

(Divine Mercy Sunday-Year A; This homily was given on 29 & 30 March, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See 1 Peter 1:3-9 and John 20:19-31)

Today throughout the universal Church we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. Our feast provides a great opportunity to reflect upon just what we believe about the mercy of God, because we do not believe that God is merciful in some general or abstract way. The mercy of God is quite specific and completely intentional.

We believe that the mercy of God comes to us through the body of Christ.

It is through the crucified and risen body of Jesus Christ that God’s mercy is poured out into this world for the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life. As St. Peter proclaims in the second reading this week:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great MERCY gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
—1 Peter 1:3

It is through the body of Christ that God reveals His unfathomable mercy. Jesus Christ walks into the room where the disciples are in our gospel this weekend, and addresses them all, saying: "Peace be with you."

Then he does something very intentional and peculiar: He shows them His hands and His side. He shows them His body and the wounds of the crucifixion, and He repeats that same greeting: "Peace be with you." Our peace, our forgiveness, and the very mercy of God come to us through the crucified and risen body of Christ.

But then Christ goes on to do something that is significant for every one of us today: He breathes on them, and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit. He says to them: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:19-21).

Jesus intends to continue this ministry and mission of Divine Mercy through the apostles and disciples gathered together in that place. He determines to maintain that ministry of reconciliation and mercy through His body, the Church.

Certainly it is through the apostles and their successors, the bishops, that this manifestation of God’s mercy will remain. In a particular way, through the Sacraments, especially Baptism, the Eucharist and Reconciliation, God will continue to pour out His mercy in the world we live in.

Yet it is not only through the apostles and their successors that God continues this ministry of mercy in the world. We are all members of His body; we are the Church. God fully intends that all of us be ministers of His mercy. That is the message of Divine Mercy that we celebrate this weekend. It is the message entrusted to St. Faustina Kowalska, a simple and humble nun living in Poland at the turn of the 20th century.

Christ appeared to St. Faustina and called her to be an apostle and “secretary” of His mercy; she was chosen by God to be an ambassador and messenger of the Divine Mercy. That message is not a complicated one. In fact it is quite simple.

The message of Divine Mercy consists of two things:

Trust in God (the words, “Jesus, I trust in you,” are found at the base of the image of Divine Mercy that Christ asked St. Faustina to promote).

Secondly, the message of Divine Mercy is fulfilled through an active and fruitful love for one’s neighbor (deeds of mercy).

Perhaps the greatest example and model for this message of Divine Mercy is found in St. Faustina herself. God entrusted her with much! She experienced countless struggles and, at times, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, yet through it all she trusted in Jesus Christ and in all that He was asking of her.

One Christmas, while still in the seminary, I had the opportunity to visit Krakow, Poland and to see the convent where St. Faustina lived and the Shrine of Divine Mercy dedicated to that beautiful devotion. There was a devout nun there, one of the Our Lady of Mercy Sisters; she was giving a tour of all the significant areas in that convent and church where St. Faustina was so deeply touched by Christ. At one point the sister turned to us and told us specifically of the things that Jesus had asked of St. Faustina:

How he wanted the Divine Mercy Chaplet to be prayed throughout the world.

How He wanted the image of the Divine Mercy venerated everywhere, especially on the Feast of Divine Mercy.

How He wanted the Second Sunday of Easter to be celebrated throughout the entire Church as Divine Mercy Sunday.

Then the sister gently folded her hands, sighed, and said with great sympathy:

“It was too much for her.”

Indeed! That would be too much for anyone! Yet St. Faustina trusted in what Christ was doing in her life. She trusted in the will of God and the promises of God. Now, some seventy five years later, the Divine Mercy chaplet is prayed throughout the world, especially in this week leading up to the Feast of Divine Mercy; the Divine Mercy image is venerated in churches everywhere, and this Second Sunday of Easter is observed in the universal Church as Divine Mercy Sunday.

Jesus, I trust I you! How is Christ challenging us, in our own lives, to trust in His mercy? How are we called to place our trust in His mercy, His grace and His providence, perhaps especially in those areas where it seems like it is “too much” for us? And how are we, then, to move outside of ourselves and reach out to others with that same mercy and compassion we receive from God?

There is a beautiful story about a vision that St. Faustina received in which Jesus appeared to her holding a ciborium filled with hosts. They were spilling over as He stood before her. She could not grasp the significance of the encounter.

Jesus said to her, “This ciborium and these hosts represent your works of mercy done for the sake of others. Each host represents one soul that you helped along the way to heaven by your prayers, deeds and sacrifices.”

In a moment, we will come forward and receive the Eucharist from a ciborium very much like the one that St. Faustina saw in her vision, held by the Risen Christ. We can ask ourselves today:

If Jesus were to offer me a ciborium at the end of my life, how many hosts would it have in it? How many souls would I have helped on their way to heaven by my prayers, my sacrifices, and my works of mercy?

Baptism: A Matter of Life and Death

(Easter Sunday-Year A; This homily was given on 23 March, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See Acts 10:34-43, Colossians 3:1-4 and John 20:1-9)


Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., in his book Living the Catholic Faith, begins with a story about Niagara Falls (pgs. 11-13). If you have ever been to the Falls, you know how majestic, powerful and awesome the Niagara River is…and how dangerous.

The archbishop goes on to tell the story of what happened about 40 years ago. There was a man who took his young niece and nephew out on a power boat several miles above the Falls. Suddenly, tragically, the engine failed and that boat began to drift down the river. Hundreds of people witnessed it from the shoreline, but they were helpless to stop it.

A few hundred yards before the Falls, the boat overturned after hitting a rock and the children spilled out into the rapids, headed straight for the brink. The young boy caught just the right current and plummeted nearly 165 feet down into the one pool of water where there are no rocks, and he survived! To this day he is the only person to ever to go over Niagara Falls unprotected and live.

But the main focus of the archbishop’s story was not the boy, as remarkable as his survival is. The story, instead, focuses on his sister. She was not so fortunate as her brother, and found herself in a different current. She was closer to the edge, though not close enough to make it to shore, and in the part of the river that spills out, eventually, onto the rocks below. She was rapidly going in exactly that direction, some twenty yards from the brink, when suddenly a man jumped into the water!

Holding onto his friends with one hand, he jumped into the water and caught that little girl with his other hand and held onto her until the people standing by could pull both of them to shore. That is a true story, documented at the museum beneath the Falls where it happened.

Archbishop Chaput goes on to say:

Each of us is that girl. We’re all swept along, beaten up, and paralyzed by a river of sin—our own sins and the world’s sinfulness, flowing down all the way from Adam and Eve. It’s the river we call Original Sin…No matter how hard we may struggle, we can’t do anything about it on our own. We can’t save ourselves. Then a Savior jumps into the current, for no reason other than wanting to rescue us. And He pulls us to safety.
—Living the Catholic Faith, pg. 13

Obviously it is a reference to our baptism. Baptism for us as Christians is not an option. It is not an extra or just some sign or symbol for “spiritual cleanliness.” Baptism, as the archbishop points out, is literally a matter of life and death. Jesus Christ, by our baptism, saves us from spiritual death and separation from God, and He brings us into a new and eternal life.

I mention that this morning, here on Easter Sunday, because right here in this Church last night, five young men and women were saved from death and brought into a new life with God. Five people were baptized here and experienced that powerful sacrament of death and life in Christ.

In a moment, each of us will renew our own baptismal promises, the same as we do every Easter Sunday. Are we aware that this is also a matter of life and death? The prayer introducing those promises says:

Dear friends, through the paschal mystery
we have been buried with Christ in baptism,
so that we may rise with him to a new life.

That is the mystery of Easter and the power of our own baptism: life and death. As St. Paul tells us in our second reading this morning:

You have died. Your life is hidden with Christ in God.
—Colossians 3:3


We have died to our old ways of sin, to our old self, and we now have a new life in God. We are no longer heading for the brink of disaster and death, because we have been saved by someone who loved us, who came to us, and risked everything to bring us back to God.

That truth, the Good News of the Gospel which we celebrate here today, has the power to change and transform the world we live in. And let’s be honest, we live in a world that is in desperate need of a Savior and of being rescued. Many—certainly not all, but very many—aspects of our culture and our world are heading for the brink of disaster. We are morally, spiritually and, in many areas of the world, even economically, bankrupt.

Our world desperately needs to hear the message that God has not deserted us, that He has come to us and jumped into the water to save us from death and disaster. We are all called to be witnesses of that message, since we are the ones who have experienced it personally.

A tremendous model for us in doing just that is found in our gospel this morning, in the person of St. Peter. Peter comes to the tomb where Christ, who was dead, has been raised to life again. He stands before that empty tomb, and then he does the strangest thing: he goes down into the tomb! Usually it is only the deceased that go down into the tomb, but here Peter enters and, in a certain sense, unites himself to the Risen Christ. To paraphrase St. Paul, Peter dies, and is raised up again, to a life hidden with Christ in God.

That is why we hear him, in our first reading, announcing the Good News and proclaiming to all that he has been called to be a witness to all that Christ has done (Acts 10:39). He announces to all that there is new life in Christ, and that, in His name, we have received the forgiveness of our sins (Acts 10:43).

This Easter, will we have the courage to go into the tomb, and then to stand up with St. Peter and make that same announcement? We who have been brought from death to life, will we be the ones to witness to the power of Christ, and the mercy of Christ, in our baptism, in the forgiveness of sins, and in the salvation of the world?

Cobblestones and Redemptive Suffering

(Good Friday-Year A; This homily was given on 21 March, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and John 18:1-19:42)

The City of Rome is a place literally lined with cobblestones. On any given street or piazza you will find thousands of them. Yet there is one cobblestone in that city that is different from all the others. It is a small red one placed neatly on the right side of St. Peter’s Square. That red cobblestone commemorates the event that took place there on May 13, 1981. It was on that date, in that very spot, that Pope John Paul II was shot and almost killed.

Perhaps you remember that tragic event and the precarious days that followed; how the pope received a tainted blood transfusion that nearly ended his life instead of saving it. It was a long, hard recovery that demanded every ounce of stamina and determination that the Holy Father could muster (and we know he had no short supply of that).

A few years after his recovery, Pope John Paul II met his attacker face to face and forgave him. It was within six weeks of that encounter that he released an apostolic letter entitled, Salvifici Doloris, On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering.

It is by far one of his most personal and spiritual reflections (almost every footnote is a biblical reference on suffering). But it is also one of the most important for all of us, because we all experience suffering. Every one of us has a red cobblestone—or perhaps several of them—in our lives. It may be the death of a loved one; a broken relationship; disappointment or discouragement; an illness; an addiction; sorrow about the past; fear about the future.

And just as universal is the question that we have all asked at one time or another, either out loud or directly to God Himself in prayer:

Why?

Why is God allowing this to happen?

Why do I have to shoulder this cross, and not some other?

Why is this happening at this time in my life?

Why suffering?

Today, more than any other day in the year, we reflect on God’s response to that question. To be sure, it is no ordinary response. God does not answer the question in a way that we might want Him to, or in the way that we would expect. But His response is one that changes everything. Good Friday allows us to recognize God’s ultimate response to our suffering in the person of Jesus Christ who suffers for us on the cross.

In the person of Jesus Christ, God takes on our humanity and enters directly into our suffering. He takes on our own afflictions and suffers for our sins. As we hear in our first reading, from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah:

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins; upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.
—Isaiah 53:4-5

God’s response to our suffering is the suffering of His own Son, Jesus Christ. That response, says Pope John Paul II in Salvifici Doloris, does two things: it redeems the world and transforms the entire experience and meaning of suffering itself.

In the cross of Christ not only is the redemption accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed.
—Salvifici Doloris, #19

Our red cobblestones, difficult and painful though they may be, are not meaningless. They are not without some value. In fact, they have infinite value. We can unite our sufferings to the sufferings of Christ and participate in His work of redeeming the world we live in.

Today we come before the cross and venerate the instrument that opened for us the way to eternal life. Let us also bring before Him our red cobblestones, laying them at the foot of the cross, knowing that God has given us the strength to carry them, and the grace to unite them to Himself for the salvation of the world.

Journey into Holy Week

(Palm Sunday-Year A; This homily was given on 15 & 16 March, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See Philippians 2:6-11)

One of the most common and powerful ways of telling a story is to situate it in the context of a journey. Think about the best books you have ever read, or perhaps your favorite movies. Often they begin with the main character in one place, but moving on to some final destination. The story relates all the adventures and experiences that happen along the way.

In our second reading this weekend, St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, we hear the greatest story that has ever been told, and the greatest journey that anyone ever took. St. Paul relates the journey of Christ from the heights of heaven, down here to this earth, and His final return again to the Father in eternal glory:

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
—Philippians 2:6

No, Christ did not hold on to heaven alone, but willingly poured Himself out—He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (Philippians 2:7)—and came to dwell here among us. That is how Christ was revealed: as a slave and a servant, giving everything He had to meet the greatest temporal and spiritual needs of us all.

St. Paul says that “he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 6:8). That was the price He paid for our forgiveness and our eternal salvation.

“Because of this,” St. Paul continues, “God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every other name” (Philippians 6:9). He who became so lowly and was willing to serve the needs of all is now exalted in eternal splendor at the right hand of His Father in heaven.

This is the journey of our faith, the great mystery of our Savior and our own redemption. It is referred to, in theological terms, as the Paschal Mystery: the mystery of the life, death and resurrection of Christ and His ascension into heaven. That is the mystery we celebrate and experience every time we gather together for the Eucharist.

But never do we focus more intensely and with such fervor on that Paschal Mystery than in this week we enter now on Palm Sunday: Holy Week. It is during Holy Week, and especially the Sacred Triduum—Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday’s Easter Vigil—that we come to see this great journey of Christ revealed in a remarkable and life-changing way.

On Holy Thursday we gather together for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, to commemorate that night when Christ gave us His Body and Blood in the Eucharist for the very first time. We recall that night when He instituted the priesthood, His gift to the Church to continue His self-offering of the Eucharist even until the present time.

And we remember that moment at the Last Supper when He who came from heaven to this earth, in the words of St. Paul, “took the form of a slave,” and got down on His hands and knees, washing the feet of His own disciples. In that act of humility and love He teaches us all what it means to be a disciple and reveals our call to live our lives for others.

On Good Friday we celebrate the Passion of Christ, remembering once again His sacrifice on the cross. It is called “good” because it is the best thing that could have ever happened to us, where God Himself willingly dies for our sins and opens the gates of eternal life.

Finally, we gather together on Holy Saturday night in darkness and silence. The Easter Candle is lit, and then we light our own candles from that Easter light. The Church is soon flooded with light as we celebrate with joy the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.

This is our faith. These are the sacred mysteries of our salvation. How is Christ calling each of us to enter more deeply into them this Holy Week? If you have never experienced the Triduum, might this be the year that Christ is asking you to celebrate one, or perhaps all three nights, of these holy Three Days?

As we enter this most holy of all weeks in the year for us as Catholics, may we journey with Christ here on this earth, so that we can continue with Him forever in eternal glory in heaven.

JP II...Part II

Just in case you missed the Mission at St. Mary's:

Our Lady of Grace Parish Mission

The Spiritual Legacy of Pope John Paul II

Johnston, Rhode Island

Monday through Wednesday, March 3-5

Mass begins at 7:00pm each evening

On Monday night, we will look at John Paul II’s teachings on the “Theology of the Body,” how God becomes man and shows us, in His body, the full gift of love when He unites Himself to and marries our humanity. We will see how He has left an undeniable stamp of this desire for unity in the hearts, souls, minds and bodies of every single one of us.

On Tuesday we will look at our late Holy Father’s teachings on the Eucharist. The last Encyclical Letter John Paul II wrote was on the Eucharist. In October, 2004, he introduced the Year of the Eucharist, and he died in the middle of it. One of his last gifts to the Church is found in his teachings on the Eucharist. We’ll look at that on Tuesday.

Finally, on Wednesday night we will look at Pope John Paul II’s “plan” for the third millennium, how we are all called to go out and live the Christian message and bring the Good News of Christ to those around us.

Please consider joining us this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night, at 7:00pm each evening, for the Parish Mission. Each night of the mission will be in the context of the Mass, as we draw ever closer to Christ, our Bridegroom, and listen to The Spiritual Legacy of Pope John Paul II.

Miracle Worker

(4th Sunday of Lent-Year A; I did not preach this weekend, so this reflection is taken from an earlier Lenten homily based upon this weekend's readings; See 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 23 and John 9:1-41)

What does the grace of God look like? Would we be able to recognize someone who had received the grace and favor of God?

This weekend’s first reading tells the story of Samuel who is sent to anoint the one chosen by God to lead the people of Israel. It’s no easy task, as we soon find out, because Samuel is unable to recognize exactly which one of Jesse’s sons God has chosen. Finally he encounters David: a simple shepherd boy, an unlikely candidate. “This is the one,” God tells him. “Anoint him”.

Samuel then anoints David with oil so that everyone can see that God has chosen David in a particular way to receive His grace and favor. It was an event that David himself never forgot. Years later, when writing the Psalm which sums up his entire life—our Responsorial Psalm this weekend—David sings to the Lord:

“The Lord is my shepherd...[he] anoints my head with oil, my cup overflows.”

That is what the grace of God looks like. Through the simple things of this world, like oil, God makes Himself known to us. He makes His grace and favor visible.

I am sure that all of us are familiar with the story of Helen Keller. When she was still a young girl, not yet 2 years old, Helen was suddenly struck by an unknown disease that left her without hearing or sight. Before she knew what had happened, Helen found herself locked into a world of darkness and silence. The few words she had learned in her brief life quickly began to fade away. The last one she remembered holding onto was “water”, and soon that was gone, as well.

Many painful years later, someone suggested to Helen’s parents that there might be someone who could help. There was a young woman named Anne Sullivan who, it was said, had a gift of working with the blind and deaf. They called her “The Miracle Worker”, and you may remember the movie that was made under that very title.

She came to Helen and tried to teach her what she called “word associations”. She would give Helen an object and then try to spell out the word by tapping it into her hand, but nothing worked. Everything she tried failed…until one day she poured cold water over Helen’s hands and tapped the word, “water”. Suddenly Helen remembered!

The last word that she had forgotten as a child was the first one she remembered, and with that small miracle Helen had broken through—once again—to the outside world. The connection had been remade, and she learned quickly how to communicate once again. By the end of her life she had talked with kings and queens, and several U.S. Presidents. She lived a life intimately connected to the people around her. And it all began with a handful of water.

As remarkable as this may seem, none of us should be surprised as Catholics, because this is the kind of thing that God does on a daily basis. God constantly uses the common, ordinary things of this world to reconnect His people to the world around them, and ultimately, to Himself.

Jesus, in the gospel this weekend, encounters a man blind from birth. St. John tells us that “he spat on the ground, made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes.” How strange is that? Why would He possibly do such a thing? Jesus is the Son of God. He doesn’t have to make clay to heal someone’s blindness. Yet he chooses to do so in order that this man, and those around him, could see, and feel and experience the healing grace of God.

This saving action of Jesus is at the heart of our faith as Catholics, at the very core of our understanding of the sacraments. God—who could come into our lives any way He wanted to—chooses to come to us in the ordinary things of life.

Like Helen Keller, we were once locked away in a dark world and separated from God, but the connection has been remade through water at our Baptism. Those of us who have received Confirmation had this connection strengthened through the anointing with oil. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, God Himself speaks to us in a human voice, saying, “I absolve you of your sins”. Bread and wine become, for us, the very Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. The sacraments are real. They change us, they transform us, they make us whole again. Through them God uses the natural world to touch us in a supernatural way.

But the sacraments do demand something from us. They demand a response. The sacraments are not magic. They are doorways through which God pours out His grace into our lives, but we have to be willing to open the door. We have to say, “Yes” to God’s invitation to holiness and life in Christ.

When David was anointed we are told, “from that day on, the spirit of the Lord rushed upon [him].” From the day of our own Baptism, the Holy Spirit has rushed upon us, and calls us even now to a deeper response, a deeper commitment to the life that Christ comes to bring us.

How is God challenging us this Lent to respond well to the grace and favor we have received in Christ? When the people in our lives look at us this week, will they be able to see—in a real and tangible way—that we have been touched by the grace of God?

Samaria, A Different Kind of Love Story

(3rd Sunday of Lent-Year A; This homily was given on 23 & 24 February, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See John 4:5-42)

The Bible is a book literally filled with stories: stories of tragedy, stories of triumph; sad stories, and stories that are often filled with hope. This weekend’s Gospel, however, contains a love story…but it is a different kind of love story.

Our story begins with the person of Jesus Christ (always a good place to begin a story) who comes to a well in the land of Samaria. St. John goes on to tell us that a Samaritan woman came to that same well to draw water, and that it was about noon. Noon. The middle of the day. In Samaria, at noontime, it was extremely hot. Why would someone come at noon to draw water?

Scholars tell us that women of this region would come in the morning to draw water. It was cooler, and they would gather there and converse about social and political life. It was a place of community; but the Samaritan woman is someone who would not have been welcomed in that community.

As Jesus pointed out, she had had five husbands, and the man she was now living with was not her husband. She would not have been very welcomed anywhere. For all of the relationships she has been a part of, she is a woman who is very much alone.

And so she comes to the well at noontime—alone—because she has much to hide, and many things she wishes to keep to herself. Noontime, for her, is a safe time. But noontime, when the sun is directly overhead, is also the only time of day when there are no shadows! Everything is laid bare before the sun (Son). There is no place to hide. And it is there, in that place and at that time, that she meets a man who will change her life forever. Again, it’s a love story, but a different kind of love story.

Right there by that well Christ begins a dialogue and a conversation of love with that Samaritan woman. We know that he spoke to her with love because in the course of that conversation he lays bare her deepest secret, the one thing that she would want to hide, especially from this Stranger…and even after that, she stayed!

What kind of acceptance must she have felt in the presence of this Divine Stranger? What compassion she must she have heard in His voice, to not leave immediately when He told her everything that she had done in her life. Never had she been accepted like that. Never had she been treated with such compassion and kindness. And before long, Christ begins to draw her even more deeply into that conversation. He offers her living water and a whole new experience of life.

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,” Jesus tells her. “But whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

By the time their conversation is over her entire perspective has been changed; she has been renewed there, by the side of the well, and cannot wait to go back to the town where she lives—accepted or not—to announce with overwhelming joy: “Come, see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?”

It is a powerful and beautiful story. Again, a different kind of love story…but it is also our story! St. Augustine says that the woman of Samaria represents all of us. She is a type or image of the Church. Christ is the one engaging us in dialogue and seeking to draw us into that conversation of love.

In the Christian tradition we have a specific name for that conversation between us and God; we have a special designation for that dialogue of love: Prayer. Christ thirsts for that conversation with each one of us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, talking about this very gospel passage, says:

The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.
—CCC, #2560

Are we giving God that time that He wants from us, time to be alone and quiet before Him? We began our Lenten journey just three short weeks ago, on Ash Wednesday, and in the gospel on that day Christ talked about three things: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. On this, the third Sunday of Lent, we need to take a closer look at that first one.

Are we placing ourselves before Christ in that conversation of love where He can renew and revive our spiritual lives? Are we surrendering ourselves each day to Him in that place where He can expose and lay bare those things in our lives that we need to change?

Christ does not want to shame us, or reject us when those things are revealed more clearly before Him. Quite the contrary, He wants to receive us, forgive us and draw us ever more deeply into that conversation of love with Himself. He wants to give us living water welling up for eternal life!

This weekend we come to discover, more and more completely, that Jesus Christ is thirsty! With that said, there is only one question that each of us needs to answer here in the middle of our Lenten journey: If God is that thirsty, are we?

The Spiritual Legacy of Pope John Paul II

(1st Sunday of Lent-Year A; This homily was given on 9 & 10 February, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See Genesis 2:7-3:7)

St. Mary's Parish Mission:

Monday through Wednesday, February 11-13

Mass begins at 7:00pm each evening

If you had to pick one person in your life that has had the greatest influence on you, who would it be? Is there someone you emulate, whose example you try to follow in your own life? Maybe a teacher, a parent, or some famous person you admire and respect?

For me that question is an easy one: Our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II. I have said many times that one of the greatest opportunities of my life was being able to study for the priesthood in the City of Rome. In that time I was able to meet Pope John Paul II twice, to attend some two dozen Masses that he celebrated, sometimes even serving as one of his deacons.

I began reading his works well before I ever entered the seminary, and he has truly had a profound impact and influence on me personally, and on my priesthood. And so, when the pastor asked me about a month ago to give our parish mission this year, the theme that naturally came to mind was: The Spiritual Legacy of Pope John Paul II. This coming Monday through Wednesday we will gather here at St. Mary’s to look more closely at this great legacy of truth and beauty that our late Holy Father has given us.

One of the major themes of the life and writings of Pope John Paul II is something that has come to be called the Law of the Gift. Evident in the core gospel message and taken directly from the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, John Paul II quotes it often as follows: Man only truly discovers himself through a sincere gift of himself.

In other words, I only truly know who I am, and why God created me, when I am able to give myself, in love, to God and those around me. Do you want to know why God made you? Why He put you here? Do you want to know how to be happy and joyful in this world? Those questions can only be answered fully, John Paul II would say, through a life lived "outside" of oneself. Man only truly discovers himself through a sincere gift of himself.

If we look closely on our first reading this weekend, from the Book of Genesis, we find the exact opposite in the Original Sin of Adam and Eve. They are not giving anything, to anyone. In fact, what they are doing is taking, in complete disobedience to the commandment of God. God had told them they could eat from any of the trees they wanted…except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yet that is exactly what they do anyway.

In that Original Sin, we find a pattern for every sin, a picture of our own sins against God and those around us. It consists, ultimately, in taking, selfishly doing what we want and not what God wants for us. St. Augustine says that when we sin we are living curvatus in se, curved in on ourselves. When that happens we are often the ones that suffer the most. Sin makes us miserable; when we act selfishly and fail to love God and those around us, we are the ones that become diminished, less and less the men and women we were always created to be.

In St. Paul’s New Testament Letter to the Romans, the Apostle shares his own inner struggle with sin (see Romans 7:15-25). He describes how he recognizes a law at work within himself: The very thing he would want to do, he says, he does not do. But then he recognizes that there are things he should avoid and not do…but he goes right ahead and does them anyway! With great exasperation, he cries out in that letter:

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
—Romans 7:24

Who will save him from this awful struggle? And then he triumphantly answers his own question:

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
—Romans 7:25

The solution to the problem of Original Sin is not found in me, or you, or St. Paul. The cure for selfishness and a life lived curvatus in se is not found in that latest self-help book or on the Oprah Winfrey Show! The solution to the great struggle with sin and our incapacity to give ourselves truly to God and those around us is found in the person of Jesus Christ! I would recommend that He does that in three ways.

Firstly, God takes on a body. God becomes man and takes on our human nature. He weds His own divine life to our humanity, forming an unbreakable bond with the human race. It is in that body, then, that He teaches us how to love, how to live, and how to give. Jesus Christ loves and forgives even His enemies, and shows us what it means to give ourselves to God and neighbor. He gives His body over to be crucified in total obedience and love to His Father’s will, and for the forgiveness of our sins.

Secondly, just so that we would not miss or forget that great self-offering—as if we could ever forget something like that—He makes it a sacrament. He takes bread and wine, and says, “This is my body, which will be given up for you.” And he tells them, “This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven.”

Yes, this total offering and gift of Himself on the cross, this gift of His body for the forgiveness of sins, is now given to His bride, the Church, in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. We become united to Him, to His body and blood, His soul and divinity; that marriage between divinity and humanity is fulfilled in us!

And finally, after God takes on a body, after He gives us His body, and is living in us, and we in Him, He sends us out to proclaim the gospel and give ourselves like we never could before. Now that God lives in us, we have the ability to fulfill the Law of the Gift and truly live like Christ in this world.

I mention those three things specifically because those are the themes that I will be speaking on for the three days of our mission.

On Monday night, we will look at John Paul II’s teachings on the “Theology of the Body,” how God becomes man and shows us, in His body, the full gift of love when He unites Himself to and marries our humanity. We will see how He has left an undeniable stamp of this desire for unity in the hearts, souls, minds and bodies of every single one of us.

On Tuesday we will look at our late Holy Father’s teachings on the Eucharist. The last Encyclical Letter John Paul II wrote was on the Eucharist. In October, 2004, he introduced the Year of the Eucharist, and he died in the middle of it. One of his last gifts to the Church is found in his teachings on the Eucharist. We’ll look at that on Tuesday.

Finally, on Wednesday night we will look at Pope John Paul II’s “plan” for the third millennium, how we are all called to go out and live the Christian message and bring the Good News of Christ to those around us.

Please consider joining us this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night, at 7:00pm each evening, for the Parish Mission. Each night of the mission will be in the context of the Mass, as we draw ever closer to Christ, our Bridegroom, and listen to The Spiritual Legacy of Pope John Paul II.

How is God challenging you and me to draw closer to Christ this Lent, and to live the Law of the Gift, giving ourselves more freely and completely to God and those around us?

Repentance, Renewal, New Life...Now!

(Ash Wednesday-Year A;This homily was given 6 February, 2008, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Matthew 6:1-18, 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2)

How many times have you received ashes on your forehead and listened to the message of repentance and renewal that is proclaimed every Ash Wednesday?

How many times have you begun this Lenten journey with prayer, fasting and almsgiving, the practices which Christ talks about in the gospel this day?

So then, what is different about this Ash Wednesday, 2008, and what is different about this Lent, than every other one that has come before it? The answer, I believe, is found in our second reading, from St. Paul.

St. Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, to the church that he founded; to the church that he preached the gospel to, and taught the message of forgiveness and the mercy of God; about how Jesus Christ suffered and died for us on the cross to offer us everlasting life and an intimate relationship with Himself; to that church, and the men and women he loved, St. Paul offers a most serious and sober warning:

We appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
—2 Corinthians 6:1

In other words, St. Paul is warning them—in love—not to listen to this great message of mercy and forgiveness, not to hear God’s offer of intimacy and love, and then fail to respond to it.

It would be better to have never heard of Christ and the gospel message, than to have heard and understood it and then live as if we do not belong to Him. Do not do that, St. Paul is warning them…and us.

Continuing, he goes on to quote the words of God to His people in the Old Testament, taken from the Prophet Isaiah:

In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.

And then, finally, he gives the answer to the question I asked at the beginning of this homily, about why this Ash Wednesday and this Lent is different from any other one before it, and why this moment is different for the church at Corinth than any other moment:

“Now,” says St. Paul, “is the very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.”
(2 Corinthians 6:2)

Now is the time that Christ is working in our lives.

Last year, last Lent, however well or poorly we responded to God, all that is over. We cannot change a single thing that has happened to this point.

But right now is the day of salvation, when Jesus Christ is calling us to Himself, to turn from sin and be faithful to the gospel.

Now we are called to respond to this great message of grace and mercy.

Now we are called to an intimate and growing relationship with God.

How are we called to pray, fast and give alms at this moment, at this time in our lives? How is God challenging us to make this Lent different by giving ourselves totally and completely to Him…

Now.

Beatitude Adjustment

(4th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given 2 & 3 February, 2008, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; Read Matthew 5:1-12)

Do you need a “beatitude adjustment?” That is the question we are forced to ask ourselves this weekend in light of Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. Christ begins that great oration with what we have come to know as the Beatitudes.

The word “beatitude,” is a Latin word that means “blessed” or “happy,” and we discover right away that Jesus is not talking about the blessedness or happiness that we usually hear about in our culture.

When people talk about happiness, what they often mean is someone who has the wealth, power or influence to live the way they want to; many see happiness as a life without troubles or difficulties, basically carefree. It is a life—at the very least—without pain, suffering or sorrow.

Jesus takes that vision of happiness and turns it upside down in our gospel! He stands on the mountaintop and boldly proclaims:

Blessed are the poor in spirit…Blessed are they who mourn…Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness…
—Matthew 5:3-12

We can imagine the reaction of the people listening to that message for the very first time. They must have been scratching their heads, and asking:

How on earth are these people happy?

For heaven’s sake, what kind of blessedness is that?

What Christ was challenging them—and also every one of us—to do is to make a “beatitude adjustment;” to look at happiness, blessedness, and even eternal life from a fresh perspective. Christ challenges us to see this earth and heaven itself, in an entirely different way.

One of the greatest works of Christian literature ever produced is the Italian classic, The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri. It is a powerful story about the journey to eternal life and beatitude, but that story begins on a very sad and sorry note. Dante begins in medias res, revealing the consequences of a life poorly lived:

Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost.

He was lost, alone and in the dark, seemingly without God. But then, suddenly, he looks up and his entire perspective changes. He sees the mountain of God, way off in the distance, shining in the sun. He recognizes that this is what he has been missing, this is the vision God has called him to, and his heart quickens. He immediately makes his way towards that mountain, resolute on its ascent.

No sooner does he begin his climb, however, when he encounters three terrifying and ferocious beasts: the leopard, the lion and the she-wolf. They each represent—in Dante’s world—the things within us which are base and most opposed to the vision of God.

The leopard, beautiful to look at but very dangerous, represents all the sensual pleasures of this life. The lion, “his head held high” represents pride, arrogance and self-importance. Finally, the she-wolf embodies the cravings we have for the things of this world only: it is our greed, lust, and all those earthly vices that are never satiated, never satisfied.

Cleary Dante is no match for these creatures, and so he is forced to turn his vision, instead, downward…all the way down. He journeys into the depths of the Inferno, in the realm of Hell, and there he sees the men and women who have made the worse choices of all. He looks at sin and all its ugly consequences, and it makes him physically sick.

Eventually he makes his way up into the Purgatorio, where he begins to become purified, purged of all self love. He now understands clearly how very much he is in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness, and how willing God is to pour out that mercy!

Only now is he ready and capable of taking in the vision that captured his heart from the very beginning! He has received a “beatitude adjustment,” and he is ready to enter into the Paradiso, and to stand with all the blessed in heaven, beholding God Himself for all eternity.

Are we ready to make that same adjustment in our own life? Are we ready to adjust our vision of ourselves so that we can take in the beauty and majesty of the living God?

One of the most beloved saints down through the centuries has been “the poverello” from the small Italian city of Assisi, St. Francis. His humility and holiness are renowned. Catholic author G. K. Chesterton describes how Francis’ conversion and transformation came about through a series of ongoing humiliations. Willingly and voluntarily, as well as through the mysterious action of God, St. Francis was stripped of everything that would have given him comfort and consolation in this world.

It was, Chesterton describes, as if Francis’ life was slowly turned upside down. He was forced to see life from an entirely different perspective: one of total and absolute dependence upon God. That, describes Chesterton, is the way we should all view the world around us.

In his biography on the life of St. Francis, Chesterton says:

If a man saw the world upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasize the idea of dependence… He would be thankful to God for not dropping the whole cosmos like a vast crystal to be shattered into falling stars.

Perhaps St. Peter saw the world so, when he was crucified head downwards… men have said “Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.”

It was in a wholly happy and enthusiastic sense that St. Francis said, “Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything.” It was by this deliberate idea of starting from zero…that he did come to enjoy even earthly things as few people have enjoyed them.

That, in the words of G.K. Chesterton, is St. Francis’ “beatitude adjustment.” It is what enabled him to see that his own happiness, blessedness, and everything else in this world, was completely dependent upon God.

Now let us read Jesus’ teaching of the beatitudes in that key. Christ says:

Blessed are the poor in spirit…

Why are they blessed? Because they are totally dependent upon God to provide for them in everything…and He will!

Blessed are they who mourn…

Why are they blessed? Because they are not dependent upon the good things and good feelings of this life for happiness; their happiness, their consolation and their joy completely depends upon God…and He is so ready and willing to give them that consolation and joy!

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…

Why are they blessed? Because they are not dependent upon the justice and satisfaction of this world only; they have a satisfaction and a justice—and mercy—that comes from God Himself. How could they not be blessed by that?


How is God challenging us to embrace these beautiful and rewarding teachings in our own lives? How are we called to make a “beatitude adjustment?”

How are we being called this week to recognize, along with Dante, that we are sinners in desperate need of the mercy of God, and that He has a desperate desire to give us that mercy?

How are we called to stand on our heads, and like St. Francis, to see the world around us as totally dependent upon God?

May we truly come to see how blessed we are by God in this life, and receive in its fullness the beatitude He is calling us to in eternal life.

Light in the Darkness

(3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given 26 & 27 January, 2008, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; Read Isaiah 8:23-9:3 and Matthew 4:12-23)

Our gospel this weekend tells the story of new beginnings: the start of Jesus’ public ministry, the calling of the first Apostles, Peter and Andrew, James and John. In many ways it is also a very personal story for me, but we’ll come back to that.

St. Matthew tells us that it all began “in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali” (Matthew 4:13). Where on earth are Zubulun and Naphtali? Those are two names we almost never hear in our Sunday readings, yet this weekend we hear them mentioned several times, in the first reading from Isaiah the prophet and in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

Zebulun and Naphtali, to go back to the Old Testament, were two of the twelve tribes of Israel. Remember that the twelve tribes were named after the twelve sons of Jacob; when they established themselves in the Promised Land, Zebulun and Naphtali settled into the region of the north, near the Sea of Galilee.

The north of Palestine was a region rich in natural resources and abundant in opportunities; they enjoyed a tremendous fishing industry on the Sea of Galilee, as we hear in all the gospels. But because that region was so close to the bordering nations, it was also the most vulnerable and exposed. Time and again in the nation’s history the land of Zebulun and Naphtali had been invaded and devastated by the enemies of Israel.

In the 8th century B.C., the nation of Assyria had come in and wiped them out, carrying many of the people into exile, and worse, repopulating the land with their own. The unity of culture and faith of the tribes to the north had been broken and dissipated. It was for that reason that Isaiah the prophet and St. Matthew both referred to it as “Galilee of the Gentiles,” and “a land overshadowed by death” (Matthew 4:15-16). It was a place of brokenness; a place of sorrow; a place of darkness.

And it is precisely in that place where Jesus Christ, the Messiah, begins to restore the twelve tribes of Israel, to heal the nation and to renew the face of the earth! I would suggest this weekend that this gospel passage teaches us three vital and important things about God.

Firstly, God comes to us in the darkness. When we are broken, afraid, confused and filled with sorrow, when the world around us turns dark and we feel most powerless, God comes to us. He brings us the light that we could never manufacture on our own, the light who comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.

Secondly, when He comes into our lives He immediately calls us out of darkness and into relationship with Himself, the Light. The first words He speaks in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali this weekend, the opening address in His public ministry, echoes the familiar command:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
—Matthew 4:17

Christ calls us to leave behind everything that keeps us from drawing closer to God; to turn away from sin and from every form of selfishness and to embrace the gospel message of grace, forgiveness and new life in the kingdom of heaven. We are called to live lives of repentance and to be united to the Light that is Christ.

Finally, once the Light comes into our darkness, once He has called us out of darkness and into His own wonderful light (see Colossians 1:13), it is then that He sends us out as apostles of light to bring the good news of the gospel to those who remain in darkness.

As we hear in the Gospel of Matthew, He calls Peter and Andrew, James and John to follow Him and become “Fishers of Men.” They will bring His gospel from the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali to the far reaches of the world, giving their very lives for the message of hope, forgiveness, and new life in Christ. By all means it is a powerful story for us to reflect on this weekend.

But as I mentioned at the beginning of this homily, it is also a very personal story. For several years of my life I lived in darkness; not geographically in the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, but spiritually in the dark because I was not practicing my faith in Jesus Christ. I was not putting God in the center of my life. Instead, I put myself in the center and did whatever I wanted to do. Because of that I was spiritually in darkness.

There were questions in my life that I did not have any answers for:

Why am I here?

Why did God make me and what am I supposed to do with my life?

At that time I was working in the dark…literally! I was working third shift at Stop & Shop, and one night a commercial came on the radio at about three o’clock in the morning (Truth be told, it was the hard rock station, because that is what we listened to at three o’clock in the morning on the graveyard shift. If you go to the supermarket near you at three o’clock in the morning, that’s what you’ll listen to, like it or not!).

The commercial went something like this:

Do you feel called to serve other people?

Do you have gifts for spreading the gospel message?

Maybe you are being called to the Catholic priesthood.

I remember standing there, listening to that commercial in the middle of the night, and thinking: “You’ve got to be kidding me. Do they have any idea who listens to this station at three o’clock in the morning? People like me! They would have a better chance getting me to become a Catholic priest!”

I had no idea that God was trying—right then—to do that very thing. It was only over the course of the next few years that I began to realize that Jesus Christ had come to me in the darkness and began to call me into the light with Him. He began to call me into a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him than I could have ever imagined.

Everything in my life began to change: my relationship with my parents, with friends, with people I worked with. Everything was different. I found myself not only at Sunday Mass, but even at daily Mass now, with my parents, strengthened in the word of God and in the sacraments of the Church.

And then He began to send me out to share that same message of hope and the same joy that I had found in Christ. He sent me into the seminary to prepare for a life of ministry, a life of service. He sent me to Rome to finish my studies and formation for the priesthood. He sent me to Our Lady of Mercy in East Greenwich to proclaim the gospel message of forgiveness, mercy and eternal life. And praised be Jesus Christ, in July of 2007 He sent me here to St. Mary’s in Cranston to announce that same message of hope. I am a Roman Catholic priest, and I love what God has called me to do and the life that I have been given by Him!

That is my story.

What I ask this weekend is: What is your story?

Where do you feel the darkness in your own life? Where are the places that you are broken, anxious or fearful and feel alone or in the dark?

God comes to us in the darkness, and calls us into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Himself. How is He calling you out of darkness and into His light?

And most importantly of all, how is He calling all of us, this week, to be sent out and to share that message of hope and the Light that is Jesus Christ with those who remain even now in the dark? How are we called to bring the Light of Christ to a world that desperately needs it?

"Behold, the Lamb of God!"

(2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given 19 & 20 January, 2008, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; Read John 1:29-34)

When people talk about you, what do they say? That’s a dangerous question, isn’t it? When the people who know you best say something about you, what do they say?

I ask that question because this weekend we are given one of those rare gospel passages in which Jesus doesn’t utter a single word about Himself or anyone else. We are completely dependent upon St. John the Baptist to speak to us about Jesus. And what he has to say is significant.

The Baptist spots Christ at the River Jordan, and immediately upon recognizing Him declares:

Behold, the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world.
—John 1:29

It sounds familiar enough to us, but what it meant for the people of Jesus’ time was nothing short of remarkable. The lamb was central to the religious life of the people of Israel. When they were rescued from the land of Egypt, only those who had sprinkled their doorposts with the blood of the lamb, and had eaten the lamb as their Passover meal were saved. The sacrifice of the lamb would become a sign of their salvation, a perpetual remembrance of their freedom, and a sign of their new life from God.

Once they became established in the Promised Land and built the Temple in Jerusalem, every day—right up to the time of Christ—the priests would offer the sacrifice of a lamb in atonement for the sins of the people. Remember, John the Baptist’s father was a priest of the temple. John would have understood all this.

When he cries out: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” he is announcing that the Messiah has arrived and the time has come for the salvation of all, for forgiveness, once and for all. It’s a powerful statement: The time has come for them to be forgiven, and for all sin to be taken away!

But what kind of impact does such a statement have for us? What does it mean for us that Jesus has come to “take away the sins of the world”? In our culture, and in the world we live in, many say that there is a loss of the sense of sin. To even suggest that there is such a thing as “living in sin” or to consider that we ourselves might be in a “state of sin” at any given time is almost unheard of.

Pope John Paul the Great, in one of his earlier documents called Reconciliation and Penance, writes about this loss of the sense of sin. He talks about the weakening of the moral conscience—our ability to recognize within our hearts right from wrong—and says:

It happens not infrequently in history that the moral conscience of many people becomes seriously clouded . . . Too many signs indicate that such an eclipse exists in our time . . . It is inevitable therefore that in this situation there is an obscuring also of the sense of sin.
—Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, # 18

The Holy Father connects this loss of the sense of sin to several different factors in our contemporary culture, and you don’t need to be an expert in theology or culture to recognize them.

The first one he mentions is what is commonly called secularism. John Paul II defines it as “a movement of ideas and behavior which advocates a humanism totally without God.” We place all of our focus on this world only; all our eggs are in this one basket. We look to our own accomplishments, our own careers, and even good endeavors like work and family, yet totally without reference to God. That is secularism.

Quoting what he had said earlier in his first Encyclical Letter, Redemptor Hominis, John Paul II talks about how man can build a world without God; it is certainly possible. But that world, he says, will end by turning against him.

Isn’t that what we see on a global scale, with nations destroying each other in the absence of any real search for the will of God? Don’t we see this even on a more personal level, when we try to create our own little space or world without God in it? That world, in the end, will turn against us. Secularism, then, is the first factor which leads to a loss of the sense of sin.

The second factor that has caused a loss of the sense of sin in our culture is what could be termed “pop psychology.” It is not really psychology at all, but a mistaken understanding of the human person which “leads to a refusal to admit any shortcoming.” In other words, we simply explain our sin away and excuse ourselves as a product of our environment.

The problems in my life are because of my upbringing.

It is my parents’ fault.

My boss is no good.

It’s all because of my kids.

Everyone else is to blame for my situation; everyone but me.

To fall back on that kind of mentality is to loose all sense of responsibility for my own actions and to loose the sense and meaning of personal sin.

The third factor that John Paul II mentions is moral relativism. Relativism is to say that something certainly could not be a sin all the time. Times change, and people change. So what used to be a sin a long time ago, now that everyone is doing it, must no longer be a sin.

Perhaps an example would be helpful. It used to be a serious sin, years ago, to miss Mass on Sunday. But now we all know lots of people who miss Mass all the time. Therefore, it must not be a sin anymore…right? Wrong! Not going to Mass on Sunday is a grave sin. It was years ago, and it still is today. In fact, 20 years from now, to miss Mass will still be a grave sin, because we are called to come here to worship God.

God calls us together each week to be strengthened in our faith and in the Sacraments of the Church, and to live differently than the rest of the world around us. We are created to worship God, and to give Him the praise that is due. Failure or refusal to do that, as we are guided by the teachings of the Church handed down to us by Christ, without any legitimate excuse, is sin. Defining it as anything else, and pointing to our culture and a changing social climate as the answer, is relativism.

Finally, John Paul II points to a practical atheism as a source of the loss of the meaning or sense of sin so prevalent in our times. Few of us would ever say, “God does not exist.” But we live our lives sometimes as if He did not exist. That is practical atheism.

We live as if we will never stand before God in judgment.

We live as if we will never answer to God for the sins that we have committed.

We live as if it were not at all possible that God could deny us access to the Kingdom of Heaven because of the actions, choices, or decisions we have made here on this earth.

To live in that way is practical atheism, and it causes a loss of the sense of sin.

But why are these things so serious? Why bother spending the time trying to understand them? Because when we lose the sense of sin in our lives, we also lose the mercy and forgiveness of God right along with it.

God says to us, whenever we have sinned: “I want to forgive you; I want you to know my mercy and to know my love. I sent my Son to suffer and die on the cross so that you could be forgiven. I want you back.”

To deny the sense of sin in our lives is essentially to say, “God, no thank you. I don’t want your forgiveness. I don’t need your mercy. I’m fine just the way I am!”

The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen would often say that sin is not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world is the denial of sin. He once received a phone call from a woman whose brother was dying in the hospital. She described her brother not simply as a bad man, but as an evil man. He was a very rough character. Over 20 priests had been in to see him on his deathbed, and he had thrown them all out! As a last resort, his sister asked Fulton Sheen for help.

Realizing that he would fare no better than the other priests, Sheen stayed only 15 seconds on his first visit, and said nothing. The next day he came back and stayed for 20 seconds. Again he said nothing. After 40 days he was finally staying for up to 15 minutes a visit, and it was then that he finally broke the silence:

“William,” he said, “you are going to die tonight.”

“I know,” was the man’s reply.

“I am sure you want to make your peace with God,” Sheen said to him.

“No, I do not. Get out.”

Realizing that he wasn’t going to get through, Fulton Sheen agreed to leave, but before he did he went over to the man and said to him,

“Just one thing. Promise me that before you die tonight, you will say, ‘Jesus, have mercy’.”

He said, “I will not. Now get out.”

Later that night, one of the nurses called Fulton Sheen to tell him that the man had died, and she said that he had died well.

“Why would you say that,” he asked.

She said, “Because from the moment you left the room, he began to say, ‘Jesus, have mercy,’ and didn’t stop until the moment he died.”

We can deny the sin in our lives only so much, but eventually, we must bring it before God. Now, or later, we must acknowledge that we are in need of the forgiveness of God, and when we can do that, then we will be able to recognize fully that God is so filled with mercy, so ready to embrace us, so overwhelmingly in love with us.

And the ones who are able to recognize that are the ones most qualified and capable of proclaiming it to the world we live in, a world that desperately needs to hear the message about God’s mercy.

Who will be the one to tell them? Will you be the one in your world this week to tell others that God is merciful? Will you be the one to stand up with St. John the Baptist and point to Jesus Christ, saying, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”?