Workers and Friends in the Vineyard of the Lord

(25th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on 21 September, 2008 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Matthew 20:1-16)

Death…Judgment…Heaven…Hell. We do not really talk much about these things at the breakfast table! They do not often come up in conversation when we are out having a cup of coffee with friends. You will not find these words in many email headings! And yet these are the Four Last Things that the Church, for centuries, has always encouraged Her faithful to consider and meditate on. Death, judgment, heaven and hell. In light of God’s mercy and compassion, those realities help us to put things in perspective and guide us on the way to eternal life with God.

Although not common, there would be nothing wrong with talking about them (in the proper context). And by all means there is nothing wrong with preaching about them. Jesus Christ, many times, preached about the Four Last Things.

I remember hearing once, in fact, that Christ preached more about hell than He did about heaven. I was not all that convinced then; I am still not. But I did “Google” it the other day, just to get the “definitive” word! I discovered that there are basically two camps: those who count up the number of times Christ uses the words “heaven” and “hell”, with the former taking precedence. Then there are those who say you have to look at the context; hell featured more prominently in Jesus’ preaching, they say.

Whichever camp we side with, however, the one obvious fact is that Christ preached about both heaven and hell, often. And He almost always spoke about them together. Why is that?

Throughout this past week at the seminary here we have been blessed with the guidance and teaching presence of Fr. James Wallace, C.Ss.R., a nationally known and respected Professor of Homiletics at Washington Theological Union. He has been here to give our seminarians a workshop on preaching, and the gospel text we have been focusing on is the one we listen to this weekend: the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.

One of the shining themes of that parable—evidenced in all the homilies our seminarians have delivered throughout these past few days—is the absolute and overwhelming generosity of God. It is a parable about heaven, the goal and destiny that God has in mind for each of us from the beginning.

Christ describes God as a landowner who is constantly on the move. It is as if every moment of every hour he is out inviting and welcoming workers into His vineyard. It is the offer of grace and the mercy of God, withheld from no one. Yet along with that tremendous offer of generosity and love comes a terrible risk: the possibility that such an offer could be rejected.

One of the workers in the parable turns on the landowner and begins to grumble about the workings of the vineyard:

These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.
—Matthew 20:12

The reply from the landowner is a sobering one, even somewhat haunting:

“My friend,” he says to him, “I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go…”
—Matthew 20:13-14

In other words, if you do not like the conditions of the vineyard, then you are under no obligation to remain. It is haunting because the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard is not about workers, and it is not about a vineyard. It is about the invitation to eternal life with God, and this person is in danger of walking away from that! That is about as close to a definition of hell as you can find.

C.S. Lewis, in his fictional novel The Great Divorce, says that, in the end, there are only two kinds of people. There are those who say to God, “Thy will be done.”

It may be a sin that we would really like to hold onto, but we realize it has the power to keep us from God, and so we let it go. Thy will be done. Or perhaps there is someone who has hurt us so badly that we do not wish to ever forgive them…but God is relentlessly moving us in that direction. Reluctantly, perhaps, we force those words from our lips: Thy will be done. Or maybe we are carrying a cross that is so heavy, a trial that is nearly unbearable, but we trust in the mercy of God to see us through. Thy will be done. That is the first kind of person described by C.S. Lewis.

The second, however, is the one to whom God must say, in the end, and with great sorrow: Thy will be done. If you do not wish to be a part of this Kingdom, thy will be done. If you are not willing to accept my offer of generosity and merciful love on my terms, but instead insist on your own terms, thy will be done. “Take what is yours and go.” What an awful and tragic prospect.

Yet there are two words in the parable that militate against that possibility, two words spoken to each one of us, as well. Words that flood the world with hope: My friend!

“My friend,” the landowner says to that perplexed and grumbling worker. My friend. There is absolutely no evidence to support the notion that this acknowledgment of friendship is anything but authentic. There is no bitterness or sarcasm here; only the absolute and overwhelming generosity of God. And that may be the closest thing to heaven that we will ever experience here on earth.

St. Thomas Aquinas refers to heaven and the eternal relationship God offers to us as Amicitia Dei, friendship with God. How remarkable! We are not merely workers in the vineyard. We are friends, called to a life of intimacy with the living God! I would like to suggest there are at least three ways we are called to nurture that friendship and to remain closely united to Christ.

The first and foundational way is prayer: daily conversation with God. We take the time each day to be alone and still before God. We talk to Him, and try very hard to listen. A great example of this kind of conversation that keeps friendship alive and thriving is found in Christian marriage. A husband and wife are called to develop and nurture their friendship through daily conversation and continual communication. Yet never is that conversation more intimate and powerful than when they speak to each other in the silence and communicate with the language of their bodies in the union that is the God-given sign of their love. That conversation has the power to generate new life in the world we live in.

It is also the level of intimacy that God calls each of us to in our conversation with Him in prayer. Does that sound outrageous to you? We would never even imagine a relationship with God that intimate, if God Himself had not revealed it to us in the Scriptures. Through the prophets of the Old Testament, God reveals his love to the People of Israel as the love of a husband. He espouses Himself to Israel; she is His chosen bride.

In the New Testament Jesus Christ is the Bridegroom of His Bride, the Church. It is for Her that He is willing to suffer and die, giving His very life that She may be forever united to Him. At the Last Supper He speaks perhaps the most profound and life-giving words in all of Sacred Scripture: This is my body, which will be given up for you. Take and eat it. This is the cup of my blood…shed for you. Take, and drink from it.

That conversation of Christ with His Bride the Church, then and at every celebration of the Eucharist, has the power to bring about the one-flesh union between Bridegroom and Bride. That intimacy is continued through our prayer leading to and from the Eucharist each day. Amicitia Dei, friendship with God, is nurtured and sustained by prayer.

Secondly, we are able to remain close to God when we read about and from the people who were closest to Him: the Saints. Spiritual reading draws us up into the same love that they had for God, and it has the power to enkindle the flame of devotion in us.

The story of Edith Stein—who would later become St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross—provides a compelling testimony. Edith was a brilliant, young Jewish philosopher and ardent searcher of truth. Yet in all her learning she still sensed that there was something else, something more which she could not fully grasp.

By the grace of God she was led to the teachings of the Catholic faith through the example and witness of several faithful souls near where she lived. They gave her a book on The Life of St. Teresa of Avila and she read the whole thing in a single night (it is by no means light reading!). In the wee hours of the morning she read the final page, closed that book and said to herself, “This is the truth.” She converted to the Catholic faith, was baptized and eventually entered a Carmelite community in Cologne, Germany, a few hours away from where we gather for this Mass. She would later die in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, witnessing to her faith and love for Christ to the end.

Spiritual reading has the power to change our lives and draw us into the very heart of God. If we want to get wet, we have to stand where the water is. If we want to get warm, then we have to stand in the fire! Spiritual reading and the lives of the saints can set our lives on fire and help us to grow in our friendship with God.

Finally, not only prayer leading to and from the Eucharist, and spiritual reading, but also imitation of Christ is what we need to nurture that intimate friendship with Him. We look at the generosity of God in this parable and we desire to love like that. We see how willing God is, at every moment of every day, to reach out in love and we are moved to want to do the same. We look to Christ, who on the cross pours out His body and blood, His very life for our salvation, and we also seek to make that total gift of self.

May this coming week find us growing ever more deeply in our relationship of intimacy and friendship with God. Amicitia Dei, it is the closest thing to heaven that we will find here on this earth, and it is the sine qua non for every worker in the vineyard of the Lord.

Blessed Damien and Amazing Grace

American College of the Immaculate Conception, Orientation Week-2008

(This homily was given on 4 September, 2008 during Orientation Week for the new seminarians of the American College of the Immaculate Conception in Belgium. The seminary is located a mere half mile from the resting place of Blessed Damien of Molokai, soon to be canonized a saint. We had the privelege of celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at Blessed Damien's crypt, directly beside the saint's remains, located in the Church of St. Anthony of the Sacred Heart Fathers in Leuven, Belgium. For reflection on the gospel reading for that day, see Luke 1:39-56)

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I’m found
Was blind but now I see

Our gospel this morning is about conversion. We see, in the person of St. Peter, a man who was blind to the God standing right in front of him, but whose eyes were suddenly opened and whose life was changed forever.

“Duc in altum,” Christ commands St. Peter. Put out into the deep! “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4). It is an invitation to so much more than fishing, something far deeper than any ocean. But St. Peter cannot see that…not yet.

“Master we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing.” He was exhausted; all of his own efforts had failed. Nonetheless he obeys: “At your command I will lower the nets” (Luke 5:5). With that St. Peter’s nets are filled and his mind is flooded with the recognition of who this Man is: Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.

“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man”
—Luke 5:8

It is a request that Christ has no intention of granting, a prayer that will never be answered. From that moment on, St. Peter’s life would never be the same again. His eyes were opened to Christ, and would gradually be opened to all that God had called him to embrace.

We cannot encounter Christ the way St. Peter did and remain blind to God and to the needs of this world. Seeing Christ and hearing His call in our lives changes everything for us. Everything. But it also changes the lives of those around us.

How blessed we are to be here this morning, at the Crypt of Blessed Damien of Molokai. Ordained a Catholic priest in 1864, he came as a missionary to Hawaii to proclaim the gospel in word and deed. Less than 10 years later, in 1873, he was sent to assist at the Leper Colony on the Island of Molokai. It was a job that almost no one else wanted, and even those who had the courage to embrace this ministry took turns for several months at a time in order to diminish the chances of becoming infected.

But soon Blessed Damien volunteered to live there permanently. His eyes were opened to the needs of the people there and, as Pope John Paul II said in a homily here in Belgium for Fr. Damien’s Beatification, his love for the people on the Island of Molokai “expressed the tenderness and mercy of Christ towards all people,” and revealed to the world that no one—no leper nor anyone with any disease or illness—is entirely sick, deformed, weak or completely disfigured. We all possess tremendous interior beauty (Homily of Pope John Paul II, in Brussels for the Beatification of Servant of God, Damien de Veuster, 4 June, 1995).

Blessed Damien of Molokai changed the people of that small island, but in the process he also changed the world around him. He changed the way people looked at and treated the sick, and those who witnessed the effects of his ministry were often never the same again.

I am sure you have heard of the author, Robert Louis Stevenson. He wrote Treasure Island, and many other books and stories. Towards the end of his life he suffered from tuberculosis and, like many of those suffering from that devastating illness, sought refuge and the hope of recovery in tropical climates. One of the places he turned to was Hawaii and, completely against the wishes of his doctor, he travelled to the Island of Molokai just after Blessed Damien had passed away.

It was not that Stevenson was interested in Blessed Damien or seeking some religious experience by going there. Stevenson had grown up in Scotland and had always been somewhat cold and distant when it came to the Christian faith. After hearing firsthand the stories about the Apostle to the Lepers and witnessing its fruits in such a remarkable way, however, he began to see things in a whole new light. He would later say that eight days “on Fr. Damien’s Molokai” changed his life.

At about the same time there was a protestant minister in Hawaii named Rev. Dr. Hyde. Hyde had once publicly praised the work of Damien, yet suddenly he turned against the memory of that celebrated man and slandered his name in the press. People began to doubt the integrity of this great missionary priest and many readily received the lie instead of the truth.

But one of the people who read the article was Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson’s wife later recalled how, after reading Rev. Dr. Hyde’s comments on Damien, he locked himself in his room and began muttering to himself; he was furious. In response he simply turned to the one thing he did best: writing.

Stevenson wrote what he entitled: Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde and offered it first to the Sydney Morning Herald. The letter was eventually circulated rapidly to several different countries and quickly overshadowed the minster’s own letter that had instigated it.

The Rev. Dr. Hyde was especially bitter, it was said, about the final lines of that letter. Stevenson had written:

“The man who did what Damien did is my father ... and the father of all who love goodness: and he was your father too, if God had given you the grace to see it.”


Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I’m found
Was blind but now I see

Where are the places in our lives that we need to open our eyes most as we begin this new experience of seminary formation?

Who are the people in our lives—the suffering, the weak, the fearful, the lonely—that we need to see more clearly and love more completely, like Blessed Damien of Molokai?

Christ is calling us to “put out into the deep”—Duc in altum! We pray this morning that God will open our eyes and help us to be transformed—like St. Peter and like Blessed Damien of Molokai—and to be instruments of transformation, like they were, in the world we live in.

Olympian Virtue and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

(Solemnity of the Assumption-Year A; This homily was given on 15 August, 2008 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Luke 1:39-56)

The Summer Olympics are well underway in Beijing, and for the next week and a half we will see and hear about men and women who are in the best physical shape of their lives. They have trained their bodies for speed, strength and endurance beyond what most of us will ever experience.

And yet every time the Olympics come around we also catch a glimpse of something more. We learn about the personal lives of many of the athletes, and often see heroic virtue and selflessness both on and off the playing field, both in and outside of the arena. We find that they are not just bodies, but persons like us—body and soul—and that many of them are remarkable in their own right, not simply as athletes.

In today's feast we honor a woman who brought glory to God in her body and magnified Him with her soul. We celebrate the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary—body and soul—into heaven. In St. Luke’s Gospel today, Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, who:

Filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
—Luke 1: 42

She announces that Mary is blessed because her body carries the Son of God, and she will physically bring Him forth into this world. And Mary’s response is a fitting one for that bodily blessing. She says:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
—Luke 1: 46-47

In both body and soul, Mary is beautiful and she is blessed. She brings great glory to God because of what she did in giving birth to Christ, but also because of who she is, the Mother of Christ, the Mother of God. Preacher to the Papal Household, Fr. Rainero Cantalamessa, OFMCap, expressed it this way:

You, Mary, will cease to be “blessed among women”
when Jesus ceases to be “the fruit of your womb.”

—Fr. Cantalamessa in “Mary, Mirror of the Church”

For this reason—the great dignity given to Mary all throughout her life—we believe that she was not consigned to the earth when her time here was complete. On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII defined as dogma what the Church had already held and professed for centuries, that:

The Immaculate Virgin was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory upon completion of her earthly life.

—Pope Pius XII, Dogma of the Assumption

But why is this so important for us as Christians? Why do we celebrate this feast today with such solemnity and joy? There are two reasons why the Church celebrates this glorious event of Mary’s Assumption.

Firstly, because Mary is a member of the Church, indeed its most noble member, and she has finished the journey that the whole Church is striving toward. In short, Mary made it. The very thing that we struggle and strive for, our final end for which Christ gave everything on the cross, Mary has reached. She is forever in heaven with God. She becomes, for us—along with Christ her son—a pattern and example of the way of perfection.

Secondly, this feast is important because Mary is, for all of us, a sign of hope and comfort as we make our own way to that final end. Do you struggle with adversity in your daily life? So did Mary. Do you suffer, and at times ask God for help and consolation? So did Mary. Of all who have suffered, she is the one who can identify the most with St. Paul’s exhortation in the letter to the Romans:

Provided we suffer with [Christ], we will also be glorified with Him.
—Romans 8:17

Certainly no one else can help us more in our personal struggles, and in our desire to grow in union with Christ, than Mary. Therefore we turn to Mary—this day and everyday—as our model on the way to heaven, and as a sign of comfort and hope as we continue to follow Christ in this world.

And so, in these remaining days as we watch the athletes competing for glory and honor in Beijing, let us think of the woman who gained glory and honor in heaven. And as the Olympics reveal the achievements of both body and soul, let us remember this Woman who—body and soul—intercedes for us on our way to God.

Mary, Assumed into Heaven, pray for us.

Self-Sacrificing Love

(18th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on 3 August, 2008 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Matthew 14:13-21)

One of the daily challenges all priests face is the balancing of personal life with a life of service and pastoral care for others. All of us have personal goals and commitments. We all strive to answer the call to holiness and rightly devout time and attention to our own spiritual renewal and even well needed recreation. Yet we also must be willing to put our own pursuits and endeavors aside when it comes to caring for the flock entrusted to us.

The family gathered around the bedside of their loved one in a hospital does not need to hear what a bad day we are having; it matters little to them if we spilled our cup of coffee that morning or had an abominable time searching for a parking place. It would not impress them at all to know where we spent our last vacation. They want to see their loved one anointed and to receive the assurance that their faith, even in this dreadful experience, really matters. They want to know that God is near.

Daily we are called to forget ourselves and make those around us a priority. This denial of self is central in the call to discipleship enunciated by Christ Himself in the Gospel:

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
—Mark 8:34

In our readings for this weekend, Christ provides the greatest example of what it means to place our own personal interests aside and open our hearts to those around us.

The scene begins by the lakeside, and Christ has just been told of the death of St. John the Baptist. He could not be anything but devastated. Remember, John was His cousin. More than just a familial bond, however, they also shared intimately in the same mission and message of salvation. The bond they shared—one ultimately forged in blood—goes back to the womb. At the Visitation, when the pregnant Blessed Virgin Mary enters the courtyard of her cousin Elizabeth, the unborn Baptist rejoices because Christ is near.

Now, as Jesus hears the news of John’s violent death, Matthew tells us “he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself” (Matthew 14:13). He needed to be alone. But the crowd has something else in mind. They anticipate his next move and arrive there just as He disembarks. Jesus’ reaction is telling. He doesn’t become exasperated or frustrated. Instead, St. Matthew tells us, “his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick” (Matthew 14:14).

Christ is able to set aside His own personal grief and sorrow and to see the needs of those around Him. Perhaps it is even because of His own loss that His insight into their need is all the more keen.

They had come to Him hungry—physically and spiritually—and He fed them. In that deserted place Christ multiplies the loaves and the fish in a miraculous expression of love that is but a foretaste of what He will do in the Eucharist.

How fitting, that in a moment of sorrow and loss Christ forgets Himself and provides for the deepest needs of those around Him. This is exactly what He does in the total gift of self on the cross, a gift that we celebrate each time we gather together around the Eucharistic table.

It is on the cross that Christ completely denies Himself, choosing to make that total offering for our redemption. Whenever we celebrate that living sacrifice at the altar of God, we experience anew the great outpouring of grace and forgiveness from Christ. His body, broken on the cross, and His blood, poured out for us on Calvary, is re-presented to the Father and we ourselves receive the body and blood of Christ anew. At the heart of the Eucharist is the self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ.

Several days ago I was able to visit the beautiful Cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint Gudula in Brussels. In the side chapel, which is dedicated to Our Lady of Deliverance, there is an impressive altar which is held up by two large, sculpted pelicans. One of them is piercing its side with its beak, while the other stretches its head up toward the altar.

There is an ancient legend that the pelican, in order to feed its young, would pierce its breast and then feed them with its own flesh. This became a profound symbol in the Church for the Eucharist, and is used by many of the saints, including St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. It is Christ who is willing to be pierced and wounded so that we can be forgiven and fed. It is from His own wounded and broken body that we receive the bread of life and the cup of eternal salvation. It is a mystery we celebrate at every Mass, and one we are called to imitate in our daily lives.

Where is Christ calling us to enter more deeply into His self-sacrificing love?

How are we called to forget ourselves or deny ourselves as we become more attuned to the needs of those around us?

Might we find, in Christ’s sacrifice, in our own daily sacrifices, and perhaps even in our own suffering, a wellspring of care and concern for the needs of others.

Departure

Jan Brueghel the Elder (Flemish, 1568-1625)

Harbor Scene with St. Paul's Departure from Caesarea, 1596

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul was my last weekend at St. Mary’s as I now depart for Belgium. For those of you who are simply tuning in from the blogosphere, I have received a new assignment and, as of this July, will serve as the Vice Rector of the American College of the Immaculate Conception in Belgium while completing my Licentiate in Moral Theology at the Catholic University of Louvain. It is certainly a change from the parish ministry that I have been engaged in since my ordination, but I am grateful for the opportunity to serve the Lord now in the work of seminary formation and in my theological studies.

I found this picture (above), a gray and somewhat gloomy depiction of St. Paul’s departure from Caesarea Philippi. It is a stark painting, to be sure, but not one without light and hope. The artist’s name is Jan Brueghel the Elder, and he is a Belgian artist from the late 16th and early 17th century. I think it goes well with St. Paul’s description in the second reading of last week’s feast:

I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand.
—2 Timothy 4:6

In that brief Scripture verse St. Paul is connecting departure with suffering. Those two usually go together, don’t they? Saying good-bye is never easy, as I have certainly learned over the course of this last month. But like Brueghel’s painting itself, there is always light, always hope. For St. Paul it was the light and hope of the resurrection. For me it will be waffles, chocolate and beer in the short term (with the resurrection always on the horizon)!

I have been posting my weekly homilies here on Living Sacrifice for over three years now, and it has only increased my devotion for Sacred Scripture and the gospel message, as well as my passion for proclaiming that message as a Roman Catholic priest. How I will miss that nearly everyday aspect of parish priesthood in these next few years!

Nonetheless, many people have asked if I plan on continuing the blog when I arrive in Belgium. To be honest, I had not planned on doing so. Living Sacrifice has been almost exclusively a homily blog and I will no longer be preaching as often as when I was in parish ministry. Still, the origin of the name for the blog—as you can see by the heading above—is taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans and it has truly been a “life verse” for me since the day of my ordination. Personally, I have tried to live my priestly ministry according to St. Paul’s challenging words, and have constantly tried to help others to also become “a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God,” indeed our “spiritual worship.”

With that end in mind, I would like to continue to reflect here on what it means for us to offer ourselves to God as “a living sacrifice,” and perhaps provide a small window into life in Belgium and the great work of our Lord in the American College of the Immaculate Conception. I hope you will join me here.

On a final note, I do implore you to pray daily for our seminarians and staff persons, knowing in faith that one can never be outdone in generosity to Christ and His Church. May God bless you abundantly in the days ahead, and grant you His peace.

Witness

(12th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on 21 & 22 June, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See Matthew 10:26-33)

His name was John Fisher and he was a witness. He was many things to many people and loved by almost all, but above all else he was a witness. What he witnessed to was his faith in Jesus Christ.

John Fisher bore witness to the God who made him, to the Catholic faith he was ordained—as a priest and eventually a bishop—to proclaim and profess. He witnessed to the teachings of the Catholic faith handed down to us from Christ. And for that witness, under King Henry VIII in sixteenth century England, he died.

That is the ultimate expression of what it means to be a witness. The word in Greek for witness is martus (µαρτυς) and it is where we get the word martyr. To be a martyr is to bear witness with one’s body, one’s earthly existence itself, for faith in Jesus Christ. St. John Fisher did that and for that reason we celebrate his feast day today…but not only his. He shares this feast day with perhaps a better known saint, St. Thomas More.

St. Thomas More was also a witness but unlike St. John Fisher he was a Catholic layman, not a priest; not a bishop. He was a brilliant lawyer and held the highest appointed office in all England: Chancellor.

St. Thomas More loved his family, loved his work and the country of England. He even loved King Henry VIII (no small feat, that). But above all these he loved God. If you have seen the movie A Man for All Seasons, then you will remember the final scene, which is taken directly from the life of St. Thomas More. Immediately before his execution he announces to the crowd gathered there:

I die here the King’s good servant, but God’s first.

That is at the heart of what it means to be a witness: to place God above everyone and everything. Christ this weekend challenges us to be witnesses to Him and the gospel message.

“Fear no one,” He says (Matthew 10:26).

When it comes to being a witness for Jesus Christ we are called to do so without any fear of anyone or anything on earth.

What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
—Matthew 10:27

We are called, every one of us, to be witnesses.

“Everyone who acknowledges me before others,” Jesus assures us, “I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father" (Matthew 10:32). Can you imagine what that would be like? To stand before God in heaven, surrounded by all the saints and angels, and to have Christ point to you and say:

This one, Father. This one was my witness on earth.

But if we deny Him…

Whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.
—Matthew 10:33

Our message for the gospel this weekend is a sobering one indeed. We are called to be witnesses, to bear witness to Jesus Christ in this world so that we can live forever with Him in the next. How are we called to do that?

I would suggest there are at least three ways we are called to be witnesses. The first is given to us by way of example in the lives of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More. They were witnesses for Christ by defending the teachings of the faith handed down to us by God through the apostles. They died defending that faith. We are called to bear witness to that same faith and defend it when necessary.

What are the teachings of our faith that are in need of being defended in our own time and culture? The number one teaching under fire today and one that every Christian man and woman is bound to defend is the dignity of every human life, from the moment of conception until natural death.

The world we live in does not accept that teaching, as you know. Abortion on demand is the law of the land here in our own country and in many other places around the world. The state says we can decide—each one of us—which unborn child lives or dies. Or we can decide to experiment on life in its tiniest and most vulnerable form: the human embryo.

It is never acceptable to take another human life, or to do embryonic stem-cell research on a living human being, no matter what the possible results or outcome may be. We are called to defend the dignity of all human life and to speak out boldly and clearly for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Life at the end of our earthly journey, our faith teaches, is equally sacred. There are several countries in Europe and one state here in our own country (Oregon) where that teaching is thoroughly rejected. Euthanasia or “mercy killing” is an accepted way of facing death for the elderly and those who make their own decision that life is no longer worth living.

Will we have the courage to stand up and defend the sacredness of human life, from the moment of conception until the moment of natural death, when necessary in our own country or our own state? We will have the chance to do that this election year, when we can speak up and be heard and let our beliefs be made known to those we will choose to represent us. May we be faithful witnesses in that!

Marriage: another key tenet of our faith and a foundational institution given to us by God, which is under attack daily in our nation. That was the issue in sixteenth century England, as well. King Henry VIII had no problem with the Trinity. He believed that Christ was the Son of God, and Mary was the Mother of God. No problems there. It was marriage that he had a problem with.

King Henry VIII said that he was going to decide when marriage begins and when it ends; not the Pope, and not the Church. He would be the head of the Church in his England, and he would tell them what marriage was.

St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher said: No you won’t! They opposed King Henry VIII because we already have a Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, and He has to told us clearly what marriage is. For that opposition they were executed.

God, right now, is asking for a lot less from you and me. But He is asking us to defend this teaching of our faith and the institution He has given us in the Garden of Eden, a covenant relationship of love between one man and one woman. That is marriage; not two men or two women.

And if you give that witness, if you defend marriage as God has revealed it, you will be criticized! They will say that you are a bigot, or that you do not love people with another lifestyle, or worse: that you hate them.

That is a lie.

But we are called to defend marriage even if we are misrepresented and maligned. We bear witness to the faith by defending it when necessary.

Yet being a witness is more than being defensive. We are also called to live out our faith with great love and great passion, so that others may see what we have and be brought closer to God. I will give you an example: saying grace before meals. Sounds simple enough, right?

Do you pray before meals, thanking God for the food and the people around your table? But do you do that in public, in a restaurant? If you do, I promise you people around you will look. They will notice, and maybe even stare. But one thing they probably will not do is tell you what they are thinking inside. They will not say that they are thinking:

If only I had that kind of faith, maybe I would be able to get through this struggle or trial in my life right now.

If only I had faith like that, maybe I would be more joyful or more at peace in my life.

And that leads us to the third reason why we are called to be witnesses: not for ourselves, or for God, but for them. We are called to be witnesses for the men and women who do not yet believe in Jesus Christ, or the ones who do believe but are not living that faith the way God wants them to. We are called to be witnesses to them, sharing with them the message of the gospel and the overwhelming mercy and forgiveness already shown to us.

Pope Paul VI, in his encyclical Evangelii Nuntiandi, said the reason why the Church exists in the first place is to evangelize. We exist not for ourselves but for the world around us, to proclaim the gospel and to lead other souls to God and eternal life.

Do we have the courage to do that in our lives, and are we willing to ask God to help us to live our faith in that way? If so then, please God, may Christ point to us when our lives here are complete, and say about us:

That one, Father. That one was my witness on earth. Come.

The Heart of a Father

(11th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on 14 & 15 June, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See Matthew 9:36-10:4)

I am sure that all of us are familiar with the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: a heart on fire and burning with love for souls. In the gospel this weekend St. Matthew reveals the Sacred Heart of Christ in a particular and powerful way as the heart of a father.

In a certain sense, the heart of God the Father beats inside the incarnate Son of God. The burning love and desire of the Father finds its beautiful expression in the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, His Son.

St. Matthew describes how Christ looked out at the multitude of people before Him and was stirred with emotion at what He saw:

At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them.
—Matthew 9:36

The word St. Matthew uses is the strongest word for pity in the Greek language. It means, literally, to be effected deep within one's body. When He looked out at the people, their condition moved Him physically as well as spiritually. Why?

Because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.
—Matthew 9:36

The men God had appointed to lead and guide them in the spiritual life, those commissioned to be spiritual fathers in Israel, had failed. Instead of caring for the flock, they had “fed themselves on their sheep” (Ezekiel 34:1-16). Suddenly Christ responds to that desperate situation but His response is not what we would first expect: He does not react in anger or in bitter frustration. He responds with the heart of a father. His first response, made in love, is prayer.

Jesus prays and He commands the disciples gathered before Him to pray, as well:

Ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.
—Matthew 9:38

Then, with that prayer still on their lips, He sends out the Twelve Apostles. The mystery of prayer often works like that. God inspires and even commands us to pray for something so that He can then give us the very thing we ask for. He says to us:

“Ask me. Ask me for forgiveness. Ask me for mercy. Ask me for grace and strength in your spiritual life. Ask me for the infinite joy of the Holy Spirit.”

And then He proceeds to pour out upon us those very things we have asked for!

“Ask the master of the harvest,” Jesus commands, “to send out laborers for his harvest” (Matthew 9:38). Then He sends out the twelve; ordinary men sent to do the extraordinary work of the gospel.

There is a spiritual principle at work here, however, that is important for us to recognize: Grace builds on nature. God does not work against our nature when it comes to the spiritual life and the building up of the Church. Grace builds on nature. Christ builds on what is already present in each person He chooses and calls. He takes our natural gifts and abilities, as well as our unique characteristics, likes and dislikes, and then He builds upon that with His supernatural gifts.

Peter, Andrew, James and John were all fishermen. That is what they did. They were good at it, and they enjoyed it. Christ does not short circuit them and reprogram their natural desires. They were fishermen, but Christ now says to them: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). You used to catch fish, but now you will be catching men and women for the kingdom of God. Grace builds on nature.

The same is true of St. Matthew, the tax collector. He used to use his pen to mark down who paid and who owed him money. He would tally up his riches and look at them in ink and paper. When Christ calls him to be an Apostle and Evangelist, he never lays down that pen. Instead he now uses it to write down the gospel and share the message of salvation and mercy.

Grace builds on nature. It was true in the first century and it remains true today. For nine years I worked for Stop & Shop Supermarket Companies. I worked with hundreds of people and met thousands in the different stores throughout the state. God has built upon that foundation in the work that He has called me to as a parish priest, working with and serving thousands of people in the supernatural ministry of proclaiming the gospel.

The bishops of our country recently published an article on the men from across the United States who will be ordained to the priesthood this year (five of them will be from our own Diocese of Providence! We have much to celebrate here in the local Church). The article listed some of the professions of those men before they entered the seminary: a dean of a major university, a United States Marine officer, a clinical psychologist, and many more. God will use all these gifts and experiences to build on and enhance the supernatural work of His gospel.

But one gift, one necessary requirement for all men called to the priesthood—the sine qua non for each, be he fisherman, psychologist or supermarket employee—is that he have the heart of a father. He must look out and see the people and be moved with compassion and desire to serve as Christ Himself. How desperately priests need your prayers to do that! Pray for your parish priests, and all priests, that they may have the heart of a father. It is obviously much more difficult for us than it was for Christ to have the Father’s heart burning within us. But the heart of a father is essential nonetheless if we would truly be His priests.

Which brings us back to that spiritual principle: Grace builds on nature. On this Father’s Day I can reflect on the fact that what I have known and experienced of spiritual fatherhood has come to me firstly through my own Dad. His example and life in my family is the foundation on which God has built in making me a spiritual father to His people. I thank God for my Dad and pray in thanksgiving for the many things he taught me and for his support on my way to the priesthood.

Our fathers teach us how to love, how to be strong in our families and how to sacrifice for the sake of others. There are no perfect fathers on this side of heaven, and though perhaps sometimes through mistakes and imperfections, all of our fathers give us the solid foundation on which God continues to build as we strive for the kingdom of God.

Together we thank God for them all. May God continue to bless our fathers, as well as the world we live in, through them. And may we respond well to the call of Christ in the Gospel of St. Matthew this weekend, to “ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest” (Matthew 9:38). May God continue to send us men who have the heart of a father, willing to love as Christ loves, for the glory of God and the building up of His Church.

Making It Look Easy

(10th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on 7 & 8 June, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See Matthew 9:9-13)

We have all watched sports on TV at one time or another. Maybe you have been watching the NBA Finals between the Celtics and the Lakers. You probably watched the Red Sox win the World Series this past fall, or the New England Patriots in their remarkable season last year (if you are lucky, you didn’t watch the Super Bowl; I still have nightmares about that game).

Certainly many of us have played sports in high school or maybe we squeeze in a little golf on the weekends. But there is nothing quite like watching the pros on TV: To see Tiger Woods drive a golf ball 375 yards, straight as an arrow, and land it right in the middle of the fairway; or to watch Tom Brady throw 15 straight completions, never once missing his intended receivers.

We watch those players and we think to ourselves:

They really make it look easy! They are so good, it must be like second nature to them. It seems like no effort at all.

But we know that is far from the truth.

The reason they are so good is because they spend hours and hours, day in and day out, faithfully practicing and striving for perfection. They have been given a gift from God, a remarkable talent and ability to be sure, but they have chosen to respond well to that gift. It may look easy to us, but there is a lot going on beneath the surface.

The gospel we listen to this weekend—the Calling of St. Matthew—is something quite like that.

St. Matthew is one of the original Twelve Apostles. He is also a martyr, one who was killed for his faith in Jesus Christ. Matthew is one of the “four evangelists,” one of the four great gospel writers (along with Mark, Luke and John).

And even though Matthew was a tax collector—tax collectors were despised by their fellow Jews, for they worked in league with the Roman government and often swindled their own people for a living—Christ walks right into that customs post this morning and calls Matthew to follow Him.

Matthew’s response is automatic:

He got up and followed him.
—Matthew 9:9

All that temptation, so much power and money, and he just got up, walked away and became a saint. Matthew makes it look easy! But of course there is a lot more to the story than that.

We know at least three things for a fact that Matthew did, things that we should be striving for on a daily basis; three things that could help each of us to become saints.

[That is the goal of the Christian life, by the way: to be holy men and women of God, to be saints. No matter what our sins, shortcomings or weaknesses may be, and no matter what the world we live in says about how difficult it is to follow the commandments and live according to the teachings of our faith, we are called to be holy. Ask St. Matthew]

Firstly, as we hear in the gospel this weekend, when Christ called Matthew, “He got up” (Matthew 9:9). It is such a short phrase, but it tells us so much. He did not remain in the midst of the temptations and the situation that had separated him from his brothers and sisters and probably God as well. He got up. He got up and got out of the way of sin. Do we?

In our own lives, do we get up and get out of the way of the things that entangle us in sin and separate us from God and each other?

When we are watching TV, and suddenly something comes on the screen that we know we should not be watching, do we get up and get out of the way of sin by switching the channel?

When we are engaged in a conversation with a friend or with a group of people and suddenly the conversation gets dark; when someone’s reputation is being damaged or when the topic turns vulgar; when these things happen do we have the courage and the strength to get up and get out of the way of sin? Do we change the subject or leave the conversation?

It could be any of these things. It could be a bad habit, or a relationship that is taking us further away from God and the teachings of our faith. Like St. Matthew, we have to get up and get out of the way of sin when Jesus Christ calls us.

Secondly, we know that after Matthew “got up,” he immediately “followed [Christ]” (Matthew 9:9). Again, it is a short phrase, but speaks volumes. Matthew walked with Christ. He followed the example and teachings of Jesus Christ.

As Christians we need to do so much more than just avoid evil. Many people avoid evil and stay out of trouble, but they are not good Christians because they simply do what they want to do, or what feels good, or what everyone else is doing. They do not truly follow Christ. Do we?

One of my favorite passages from the Second Vatican Council, and one I have quoted many different times, beautifully describes the life of Christ and outlines well what we should be doing as His followers. It says:

“Man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.”
—Gaudium et Spes, #24

By nature, we are creatures who are fulfilled only by giving to others: our families, those around us, and most especially, God Himself. That is what Christ did. He poured Himself out for us all on the cross so that we could be forgiven and have the hope of eternal life. He gave everything to God and to others in complete generosity, thinking lastly of Himself. That is what we are called to do as His followers. That is what St. Matthew began to do the day he left the customs post and never looked back.

Finally, we know not only that Matthew “got up,” and got out of the way of sin, that he “followed [Christ],” but also that he proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ.

St. Matthew paid attention! He paid attention to the way Christ treated him with such compassion and mercy; he paid attention to the way that Christ worked in the lives of others and to the truths that He taught and lived so well. Matthew saw all of this, he observed it and reflected on it, and then he wrote it down! He shared with the people of his culture and the world around him this good news about who God is and all the things He has done. We, some 2000 years later, are still listening to what he has to say.

We may not all be called to proclaim the gospel in the same way as St. Matthew. The great Italian poverello, St. Francis of Assisi, was known to have said that we should “proclaim the gospel always and everywhere, and—when necessary—use words.”

We proclaim the gospel whenever we live our lives vibrantly for Christ. We proclaim the gospel by our Christian witness in the everyday circumstances of life at work, in our homes and friendships. And at times, it is necessary that we use words. We should always be ready to put into words what God is doing in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

Avoiding evil, following Christ by giving generously of ourselves to God and others, and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. Are we able to devote ourselves to these practices each day, week after week? If so, perhaps some day the people who know us best will look at our lives and say:

That man or that woman really knew what it meant to follow Christ. They really lived the gospel well. And do you know what?

They made it look easy!

God Works in Mysterious Ways

(Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ-Year A; This homily was given 24 & 25 May, 2008, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read John 6:51-58)

I am sure you have heard the expression: “God works in mysterious ways.” So often when God reveals Himself in our lives, when He guides us through this life and into eternal life, He works in powerful, beautiful, and mysterious ways. The Feast of Corpus Christi that we celebrate this weekend is no exception.

The story of our feast goes back 800 years and begins with one woman (one little girl to be precise). Her name was Juliana and she grew up in the city of Liège in Belgium. At the age of five she became an orphan and was sent to a nearby Monastery to live with the Augustinian nuns at Mount Cornillon. She eventually joined the order.

When she was sixteen she began to receive extraordinary visions. She saw a full moon, darkened in one place, where there appeared to be a piece missing. She had no idea what that vision meant. Eventually God revealed to her that the moon represented the Church’s Liturgical Year and the piece missing was a feast that He wanted in honor of the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. Of course, she was helpless to accomplish such a task.

After nearly twenty years she confided in a nearby priest, the Archdeacon of Liège, Jacques Pantaleon. He believed what she shared with him but was equally powerless, in his position, to do anything about it.

After Juliana’s death, Jacques Pantaleon became the Archbishop of Jerusalem, sent there by the Pope to bring unity and peace to a place that was in a great deal of distress. Several years later he returned to Rome and soon after his arrival the Pope there died. The Cardinals in Rome then elected him the new Vicar of Christ.

Jacques Pantaleon became Pope Urban IV, an elderly but well accomplished Pontiff who lived only three years after his election. In that brief time he did two things that touch our lives in a particular way today:

Firstly, he instituted the Feast of Corpus Christi, remembering young Juliana and her extraordinary visions.

Next, he commissioned a young Dominican priest named Thomas to compose the office (the music and prayers) for the celebration of the feast. We know him today as St. Thomas Aquinas, and the hymns he composed—Pange Lingua (the final two stanzas of which are the Tantum Ergo), Verbum Supernum (the final two stanzas of which are the O Salutaris Hostia) and the Adoro Te Devote—are still popular and cherished today.

This great feast, and some of the greatest music our Church has ever heard, all began with a five year old orphan in Liège! God does indeed work in powerful, beautiful and mysterious ways.

But the God who works so magnificently and mysteriously in the lives of Juliana, Pope Urban IV, and St. Thomas Aquinas, works in the same way in our own lives.

In fact, that mysterious vision of Juliana—the one of a full moon with a piece missing—is a beautiful image for each one of us. We are all created with an empty space, a piece missing, which only God can fill. No matter what we try to stuff into that place, nothing else will ever work but God. He alone can satisfy the deepest longing and yearning of our hearts.

St. Augustine said it well when he prayed: “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

That deepest yearning and longing we have is something that God alone can fulfill, and today we celebrate the truth that He has done so. In the Holy Eucharist God meets us at the point of our greatest need: our desire and hunger for Him. In all the places that God makes Himself known to us and gives us Himself, the Eucharist is preeminent. It is the Sacrament and the encounter with the living God Himself, and the foretaste of eternal life.

Christ tells us in the Gospel of St. John this weekend:

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
—John 6:53

Do we really believe that? Do our lives as Catholics reflect this great truth and the life-giving power of the Eucharist? He continues:

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.
—John 6:54

In heaven we will live in union with Christ, physically and spiritually, for all eternity. Today we taste here on earth that eternal life of heaven in the Holy Eucharist. The Eucharist has the power to transform our lives, to re-invigorate our families, to renew our communities and bring new life to the world we live in.

Then why doesn’t it?

In November of 2006, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a reflection on the importance of worthily receiving Christ in the Eucharist called, “Happy Are Those Who Are Called To His Supper”. That reflection spoke about the power of Christ in the Eucharist and the personal effects we experience when we receive such a tremendous gift.

But it also mentioned the preparation that God expects of us, and the way we should be living on a daily basis in order for those effects to occur as God intends. It is possible to make the reception of Holy Communion fruitless, not because of God but because of us!

Specifically, “Happy Are Those Who Are Called To His Supper,” mentioned three things that should be a part of our daily lives.

The first is Christian prayer and the daily reading of Scripture. Do we take time each day to be alone with God in prayer? Do we listen to the words of God in the Bible, and allow God to shape and mold our understanding or reality? Do we listen to what He is saying to us in the Scriptures and then respond to that word in prayer. It is in daily prayer that we grow in intimacy with God as we prepare to meet Him here in the Eucharist.

Secondly, we are called to faithfully live out our vocation wherever God has called us to be. Whether we are married, single, a religious brother or sister, or ordained, God calls us to be faithful day in and day out, to love Him and our neighbor. That is not easy to do…and when we fail…and we will—no one is perfect in loving God the way He calls us to, and in loving those around us; we all fall short—but when we fail, then we have to be mindful of the third requirement in the life of the Christian: Daily repentance and Reconciliation.

We are called to live lives of repentance. When we get to the end of the day, we humbly acknowledge those places where we have failed to love God and neighbor, and we say we are sorry. We seek His mercy and forgiveness in our lives on a daily basis.

If we have committed any grave sins then we need to seek God’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which He gave us for that very purpose. “Happy Are Those Who Are Called To His Supper,” names several “thoughts, actions, and omissions” which would constitute “grave matter” and would require one who has knowingly sinned in that way to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation before receiving Holy Communion:

Failing to worship God by missing Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation without a serious reason, such as sickness or the absence of a priest.

Engaging in sexual activity outside the bonds of a valid marriage.

Speaking maliciously or slandering people in a way that seriously undermines their good name.

Producing, marketing, or indulging in pornography.

Engaging in envy that leads one to wish grave harm to someone else.

These are all serious sins that would need to be forgiven in Confession before receiving the Eucharist. Regular confession, in fact, is one of the most effective ways of living a repentant life.

Daily prayer and Scripture, living faithfully our vocation, and living lives of repentance: When these practices are a part of our daily lives, then Christ can work powerfully in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and accomplish so much more than we could imagine.

God wants to unite Himself to us in this Sacrament and make us the holy men and women we have always been called to be. That is the goal of the Christian life; not to be decent people, or as good as the person next to us, or as nice as the person across the street. No, we are called to be saints…which brings me back to Juliana of Liège.

Later on, after her death, she became Blessed Juliana of Cornillon, and in 1869 she was canonized St. Juliana by Pope Pius IX. In the same way, that young Dominican priest became St. Thomas Aquinas. These were ordinary men and women who were touched by Christ in an extraordinary way in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. God works in extraordinary, powerful and mysterious ways.

How will He work in us on this Feast of Corpus Christi, in this coming week, and all throughout our Christian lives?

God's Innermost Secret

(Trinity Sunday-Year A; This homily was given 17 & 18 May, 2008, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read John 23:16-18 and CCC #221, 2201-2213)

Do you have any secrets? Is there something in your life that is so personal, so beautifully intimate, that only one or perhaps two people in the entire world know it? Maybe it is your own special recipe for gravy and meatballs, or the way you first met, and fell in love with, your spouse.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us God has a secret! God’s innermost secret, says the Catechism, is this:

That God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that he has destined us to share in that exchange.
—CCC, #221

From all eternity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are pouring themselves out to one another in love, and receiving the love being given. Now, by an absolute and total gift of goodness, mercy and grace, we are called to share in that exchange.

But how do we know that? Who let the cat out of the bag on that secret? The Catechism says that God did when He sent us His Son.

St. John, in the gospel this weekend, words it this way:

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
—John 3:16

God loved the world. This powerful and overwhelming love that God has within Himself from all eternity is suddenly turned loose on the world. The Father sends the Son, not to condemn us but to save us and bring us into eternal life. Now, if we believe in Him—place our hope, our faith, our trust in Him—we can share forever in that eternal exchange of love that is God Himself.

This life-giving love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is what we come here to celebrate this Trinity Sunday. There is nothing in all the earth as remarkable and beautiful as the Holy Trinity…well, almost nothing!

There is one thing, here among us today, that is the very image of the Holy Trinity, pointing us towards that love which exists within God Himself: the Christian family. Just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a communion of persons in love, even so is the Christian family. In particular, there are two dimensions in which the Christian family reveals and imitates the love of the Trinity: in its creative love and in sacrificial love (CCC, #2205).

One of the most obvious ways the Trinity is expressed is found in the created world. God, in love, creates the world we live in. He brings it to life in love.

In the same way, when a husband and wife express their love for one another physically, they open themselves up to the possibility of new life. Whenever I prepare couples for marriage, I always tell them that the love they share in marriage is so powerful, so real, that in nine months they could be holding it! In nine months they could be giving him or her a name. That is what it means to share in God’s creative love.

But families do much more than that; they also make sacrifices. How many sacrifices have you made in this last week alone for the ones you love? We make sacrifices for our spouses, our children, our parents. When we do that in faith, we participate in the sacrificial love of Christ Himself.

Lived out to the fullest, this plan of God for the human family will not only reveal God’s love in our midst, it will also build up society and the world around us. That is why the family is the basic building block of society itself. God intends it that way.

Pope John Paul the Great used to say, “As the family goes, so goes society and the rest of the world.”

Isn’t that a beautiful quote? Society stands or falls with the family. If our families are responding to God and His plan, the world around us is built up and strengthened, and everyone benefits: Christians, and even those who do not believe in or follow Christ. As the family goes, so goes society and the rest of the world.

But in newspapers across the country this week, there was a similar quote using the very same phraseology of John Paul II. The Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom said “As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation.” California?

He was talking about the new law that was passed there this week recognizing “same-sex marriage.” Pumping his fist in the air, he triumphantly declared:

"As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation. It’s inevitable. This door’s wide open. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not."

The problem with his statement, of course, is that California is not the image of the Holy Trinity. Now, please do not misunderstand me. I love California. Think of all the wonderful things we have been given from California. They have given us Disney Land and navel oranges; they even gave us Ronald Reagan! But Disney Land, oranges and Ronald Reagan are not the image of the Trinity.

And either is "same-sex marriage."

"Same-sex marriage" does not image or reveal the Holy Trinity, and neither does it mirror the creative love of God nor the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ.

It is biologically impossible for the physical act of love between two men or two women to bring forth another human life. No matter what the law says, in Massachusetts or California, that will never happen because the way God designed our bodies simply does not allow such a thing. He has never intended it. Furthermore, it is the clear and consistent teaching of our faith, revealed directly and unequivocally in Sacred Scripture, that for a couple of the same sex to express their love, physically, in that way, is a grave sin. “Same-sex marriage” does not reflect the creative love of God.

But neither does it participate in the sacrificial love of Christ. How could it? How could any two people, or a state, or a supreme court, or anyone reject God’s plan for the human family, God’s design for the building up of culture and society, and replace it with their own plan, and call that sacrificial? How could that ever be a participation in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? That is not sacrificial. It is selfish.

The teachings of our faith, speaking specifically about the state and not the Church, clearly affirm the opposite when it comes to defining and promulgating marriage:

Civil authority should consider it a grave duty to acknowledge the true nature of marriage and the family, to protect and foster them, to safeguard public morality, and promote domestic prosperity.
—CCC #2210

The state and the courts have a grave duty not to redefine marriage and tell us what they think it is, but to get down on bended knee and accept the “true nature of marriage and the family” that has already been given to us by God. Whenever that word, “grave,” is used, by the way, it means serious business. It means that if we do not follow the direction God is trying to lead us in, there will be fewer souls in heaven. It is that serious.

So what are we called to do in such challenging times? When the laws and the society around us are being taken in a different direction than the one God intends, what can we do if we are not sitting on the Supreme Court or actively working within the legislature?

There are two simple, yet profound, things that we should all be doing, and they are the very things that have brought us here today.

Firstly, we live out the plan for the family as given to us by God.

We remain open to that creative love that brings life into this world, and continue by teaching our young people right from wrong and about what it means to follow God, and how to be led into eternal life with Him.

And we continue to make sacrifices for the people we love, united to and in imitation of the selfless love of Christ who gave everything on the cross to bring us home to God. That is at the heart of the sacrificial love we are called to in the Christian family.

And secondly: Pray. Pray for our society and our culture. Pray that the Mayor of San Francisco will be proven wrong, because it is not how California goes, but as the family goes, so goes society and the rest of the world. California is not the image of the Holy Trinity. You are.

Pray, for God’s sake and for our own, that the families here in this parish, the families in this state, and the families of our nation will live out fully God’s plan for us, reflecting His own creative and sacrificial love, so that, seeing us, all the world may come to know God’s innermost secret:

That God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that he has destined us to share in that exchange.
—CCC, #221

The Lord and Giver of Life

(Pentecost Sunday-Year A; This homily was given 10 & 11 May, 2008, at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; read Acts 2:1-11 & John 20:19-23)

Mickey Mouse. Cinderella. Pinocchio.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

These characters can seem so real to us, they have made us laugh and entertained us so often on TV and in the movies, that we can sometime forget they are only images on a piece of paper. They are merely sketches drawn by an artist’s pen.

But Walt Disney had the power and the ability to bring them to life; to make them walk and talk, and do so many of the things we do every day. The word used for that power or ability is animation. It is taken from the Latin verb animo, and means to give life to or to bring to life.

We are reminded this Pentecost Sunday that Walt Disney is not the only one who has the power and ability to do that. God Himself is the Great Animator. As we profess each week, speaking specifically about the person of the Holy Spirit, He is "the Lord and giver of life."

The work of animation is something God has been doing from the beginning. In the Book of Genesis, in the story of creation, He fashions a world of beauty and splendor. He creates the land and the sea, and all living creatures. But as the pinnacle and masterpiece He creates man and woman in His own image and likeness. We are told how He made Adam from the clay of the earth, and then breathed into him the breath of life. He animated Adam with His very own life’s breath.

But unlike Mickey Mouse and Pinocchio, we are given something that allows us to be like God Himself: Freedom. We are not puppets on a string, moved along on some set course that God has totally determined. We are completely free to live and love like God. We have the ability to be creative, to make decisions and choices of our own.

Yet along with this freedom comes the ability to do something that God never wanted. We have the ability to reject Him, and to refuse the love that He offers. We are able to be disobedient. In short, we are able to use our freedom to turn against the God who gave us life. We have the ability to sin.

That is the story we find immediately after creation. It is the story of the fall, when Satan tempted our first parents, and attempted to separate them from each other and to separate them from God. With their original sin, and all of our personal sins which we commit on a daily basis, we are driven further from each other and further from God Himself. His perfect story and magnificent plan for us was ruined. In fact, it was now doomed and destined to end with God being forever separated from the creatures that He made in such great love.

And so God did something truly amazing and remarkable, beyond the wildest imagination of even Walt Disney. He entered into His own creation in order to re-animate it from the inside. Imagine if Walt Disney could actually enter into one of his own cartoons, literally. That is what God has done. The Creator enters into His own creation; God becomes man, in order to redeem us.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary and becomes man. He comes to teach us how to live and how to love, and He suffers and dies on the cross to grant us the forgiveness of sins and the very mercy of God.

In the face of our disobedience and rejection of God, Christ comes straight for us. He comes at us not with a vengeance, but with a Passion. He comes to suffer and die on the cross to redeem us and is raised from the dead to offer us new and everlasting life.

Then, once He ascends to heaven and is seated at the right hand of His Father, the Father and the Son send forth the Holy Spirit upon the Church, to re-animate the world we live in. That is the feast we celebrate this weekend. The Church, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is sent forth to continue the work of re-animating and giving life to a world yearning and crying out for God.

As we hear in the Responsorial Psalm this weekend:

When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.
—Psalm 104:30

This eternal plan of God to re-animate the world He created has, at its center, the dignity and vocation of women. In a document he wrote twenty years ago, Mulieris Dignitatem, Pope John Paul the Great spoke of this eternal plan of God to redeem us and establish us in that eternal relationship of love with Himself. That plan, says John Paul II, has a specific order of love, and women are first in that order. It is the woman, he says, “who receives love, in order to love in return” (Mulieris Dignitatem, #29). Women teach us all what it means to receive love, and to return that love again.

Think about the natural world for a moment. A woman receives the gift of love from her husband and she nurtures that gift for nine months. Then she returns that gift, lovingly introducing the child of her body to her husband, her family and to the world. So too, explains Pope John Paul the Great, in the supernatural world. The two great women he highlights are the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Bride of Christ, the Church.

Mary is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit; she conceives in her womb and bears a Son. She offers that child to God in love and to the world for our redemption. On the day of Pentecost, still with Our Lady present, the Holy Spirit comes upon the Church and “the love of God is poured out into our hearts” (Romans 5:5). The Church then returns that love by freely and joyfully giving Herself in faithful service and love for God and neighbor, manifesting in concrete ways the love She has received from Christ, Her Bridegroom.

This recognition of woman as first in the order of love is something inherent to every woman, says John Paul the Great. Yet this weekend, as we celebrate Mother’s Day throughout our nation, we remember our own mothers who taught us all so well what it means to receive love and to return that gift to God and the world. Today we pray in thanksgiving for them and seek to imitate them in our personal lives and in our Church.

How is God challenging us to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit more completely in our daily lives and in our Church? How are we called to surrender to the work and the will of God as He re-animates our faith lives, our Christian discipleship and the work of the Gospel that we have been entrusted with?

Today, as we celebrate Mother’s Day and Pentecost, we pray with the Psalmist:

Lord, send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.
—Psalm 104:30

"This is Eternal Life..."

(7th Sunday of Easter-Year A; This homily was given on 3 & 4 May, 2008 at St. Mary's Church, Cranston, R.I.; See John 17:1-11)

If you had the opportunity to go to heaven, today…if God offered you that invitation, now…would you say, “Yes”? Of course you would! That is the reason why we are here. It is the goal of life: to enter into eternal life with God.

But what if you were told that in order to go, you would have to change your opinion about something; or see things differently; or change the way you look at God, or heaven, or the Church, or people in your life? Would you make that change in order to go to heaven?

Again, it sounds like a silly question. Of course you would! There is a fiction novel written by the great Christian author C.S. Lewis, called The Great Divorce, which hovers around those very questions.

Despite the unfortunate title, The Great Divorce is not about marriage and divorce; instead, it is about the divorce or separation between heaven and hell. As the book begins the characters are in hell and they do not even realize it. The land they are dwelling in is dreary, rainy and it is perpetually twilight. The people are all miserable and isolated.

As the book continues, several of them get onto a bus and soon find themselves in a strange new country. They step off the bus, into a land that is bright, beautiful, and frightening (it is completely different than the place they have been).

What they do not know is that the place itself is an ante-chamber of sorts for heaven, the very entrance way. Suddenly people from heaven come towards them, people that they have known: friends, relatives, acquaintances; people that perhaps they liked while on earth, and in some cases people they did not like!

These are the ones who have made it to heaven, and now they come to speak to these visitors and to try to convince them to let go of whatever they are holding onto, whatever it is that has kept them from heaven to begin with. They essentially come with the intention of convincing them to go to heaven.

Shockingly, almost all of them refuse! They are determined to hold onto whatever opinions, ideas or ways of life that have kept them from eternal life. To the question I asked at the beginning of this homily—Would you be willing to change?—they answer, definitely, “No!”

There is one character, a big and rather gruff man, who has worked very hard all his life. In fact, he is convinced that he is entitled to a sort of universal recognition of this very fact. Over and over he insists: “I only want my rights. I’m not asking for anybody’s bleeding charity.”

The person sent to him is an old acquaintance, a man who lived a much worse life. But apparently he had been forgiven and by the grace of God had entered heaven. Now he is trying to convince his friend that heaven is not something you have a “right” to, but a gift that needs to be received, even asked for.

The Big Man is hearing none of it. He is offended even by the very act of kindness and assistance. I should be the one in heaven, he tells him, not you! Then comes the tragic conclusion. He turns to the heavenly visitor and defiantly says:

“I’d rather be damned then go along with you.”

Almost all the characters have something similar that they are holding onto. There is another character, called the Grumbler. She grumbles and complains continuously. The person sent to help her cannot even get a word in edgewise. It is as if the Grumbler realizes if she gets to heaven, there will be nothing to grumble about! She goes on grumbling until she actually ceases to be a person in the strict sense, and to the amazement of the narrator, she becomes a grumble!

At times it is a very humorous book but also very sad, because we are able to notice a little bit of ourselves in many of those characters. That is the reason why C.S. Lewis wrote the book. His intention, as he explains in the preface, is to help us realize that not all roads lead to heaven! Not every choice here, not every opinion, not all of our words and actions, will lead us to eternal life with God. In fact, some will actually prohibit us from reaching that end! Some things are able to keep us out of heaven, forever.

That is why it is so important for us to understand what God means by heaven and eternal life. It is why I asked:

“What if you were told that in order to go to heaven, you would have to change your opinion about something; or see things differently…Would you make that change in order to go to heaven?”

In our gospel this weekend, Christ is praying to His Father, asking for eternal life for all of us! And in that prayer, He defines eternal life. He tells us what He thinks it is (and since He is the one who made heaven, we do well to listen). He prays:

Now this is eternal life, that they should know you [Father], the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
—John 17:3

Heaven and eternal life, then, is not some vague happiness or a place of tranquility or merely the absence of pain. It is more than an eternity doing the things I enjoy doing. Eternal life is a living and growing relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Eternal life means living in a relationship with the God who loves us, who came here to suffer and die on the cross to offer us His forgiveness and to be with us forever. It means trying to understand what pleases Him, and to do those things; or to know the things that displease Him, and to avoid them. This is eternal life: a deep and intimate, personal relationship with the living God.

It should seem rather obvious by now that this is not the definition generally accepted in our culture. Just a few weeks ago, when Pope Benedict XVI came to our country, the bishops of the United States asked him about the secular culture we live in. In that gathering in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception they asked him what he thought of the difficulties the Church faces in confronting a secular world with the message of Jesus Christ. He replied

“At this point in her history, [the Church in America] is faced with the challenge of recapturing the Catholic vision of reality and presenting it, in an engaging and imaginative way, to a society which markets any number of recipes for human fulfillment.”

To recapture the Catholic vision of reality. In other words, in many ways we have lost that vision. So many people today do not have a vision of reality that places God at the center. They do not understand themselves and the world we live in as ultimately created and redeemed by God. Or if they do, they often do not build their lives on that premise. It is up to us, says our Holy Father, to recapture that vision and present it “to a society which markets any number of recipes for human fulfillment.”

Our society has many ideas of what it means to be happy and fulfilled: Success, power, wealth, etc.

We have a wide range of options for what it means to be fulfilled forever in heaven:

Heaven for me is eternity on the golf course.

Heaven is me and my dog, sitting by the pool, forever.

Heaven is eternal happiness with my spouse, my family, my friends, my car, my iPod shuffle…

But none of those things, in and of themselves, is heaven. In fact, if that is all we understand about heaven, then we’ll probably never get there, because heaven is a personal relationship with God. It is an invitation and an extension of mercy and forgiveness and a life united to the God who created us, loves us and redeems us.

Which brings us back to the original question:

If God was inviting you to heaven today, would you say, “Yes”? Would you be willing to change your perspective, your way of looking at the world around you, or God, to get there?

Because God is inviting us, now, to experience a foretaste of eternal life and heaven in the Eucharist. Here at the altar of God we are given a taste of heaven in the person of Jesus Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity. But before we do that, do we first need to look at Him, or heaven, or the people around us differently?

How is God challenging us all to see things more clearly the way He sees them?

How are we called to recognize now, more than ever, that:

This is eternal life, that they should know you [Father], the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
—John 17:3