Saved by Love

(Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on October 25, 2020 at Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Exodus 22:20-26 and Matthew 22:34-40)

Similar to our Gospel from last week, Jesus this morning is confronted by a scholar of the law who asks Him, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Matthew 22:36).  There are a couple of caveats that we should know in order to understand this interesting dialogue.  

Firstly, the scholar of the law is not a man seeking to better understand the teachings of Moses or to learn some sage advice from the Master.  When he asks Jesus that question, St. Matthew tells us, he was testing Him; he presumes he already knows the answer.  

The second important detail is that the scholar is not asking Jesus which of the Ten Commandments He thinks is the greatest.  The Mosaic law consists of some 613 commands, not jus the Ten Commandments.  This is an expert in the law, seeking to test Jesus as to how He understands this great covenant God has made with His people.  

Jesus, who is the Master and Teacher, responds in a way that is remarkable and surprising.  He begins with the Shema, the great confession from Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mathew 22:37).  That answer would have been anticipated; this is indeed the first and greatest commandment, as our Lord clearly explains.  But then He adds something that would have been illuminating: “The second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39).  He is placing love of neighbor on a par with love of God.

Then the Lord concludes with something that would have probably surprised the scholar of the law greatly.  He says: “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40).  The entire law, all 613 commands, plus all the teachings of all the prophets; all of it depends upon these two commandments.  This morning I would like to reflect on the question, “Why?”

To answer that question we need to look at why there is a law to begin with.  God makes a covenant relationship with His people, promising to be their God and that they will be His people.  The entire law helped to define the terms or parameters of that relationship.  They were to be faithful to the law as a sign of fidelity to God.  When they failed to be true, God remained faithful.  It was then that He sent them the prophets.  In many different ways they communicated the basic message that God still loved them, God was willing to forgive them and call them back to Himself.  What he wanted most of all was a full response to that covenantal relationship that He had made with them.  

In a word, the whole law and the prophets depend on love of God and neighbor because they speak of that intimate relationship upon which everything else is founded.  Basically, it does not matter if you strive to follow all 613 commands of the Mosaic law if you do not have a personal relationship with God and strive to love Him.  It does not matter that you know the teachings of the prophets inside and out, if you do not have a real and growing relationship with God and show that by loving those around you.   

Our first reading this morning from the Book of Exodus describes well the essence of that relationship.  God speaks through Moses:

Thus says the Lord: “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt”.

—Exodus 22:21

God is saying to them, I loved you, and cared for you.  You were enslaved and I set you free.  I have given everything to you, and brought you into the promised land.  You must now do everything in your power to treat others the way that I treated you.   Are there foreigners among you, or those enslaved by various circumstances?  Love them, as I have loved you.  

For us as Christians, the freedom we have received is not freedom from slavery in Egypt but freedom from slavery to sin and death.  Christ died on the cross for our salvation and to make us free.  We are to cherish that relationship He makes with us, and strive to love those around us in the way that we are loved by Him.

There was a film that came out in 1998 called, Saving Private Ryan.  I am sure that many of you have seen it.  It is a story about four brothers, very close in age, who are fighting as American soldiers for the Allies in World War II.  As the film begins we soon find out that three of those brothers have died in combat in a very short time, and only one is left: Private Ryan.  This news reaches the War Office in Washington, D.C., and a general there immediately sends out an order for the sole surviving brother to be found and brought safely back home.  An Army Ranger Captain and a small detachment of soldiers are tasked with carrying out this mission.

The opening scene of the film shows an old man slowly making his way towards a field in Normandy, France filled with crosses (and a Star of David) marking the graves of the soldiers who died there during World War II.  It is the present day, and he clearly has an attachment to this sacred place as he walks towards one of the crosses in particular.  His wife and their adult children follow a few paces behind.  The man falls to his knees before the grave and begins to weep.  The scene then changes back to June 6, 1944 and the Invasion of Normandy, where the Americans take heavy casualties to secure Omaha Beach and gain a foothold in German occupied France.  Immediately after that horrific encounter, the Ranger Captain receives his orders to find and bring back Private Ryan.

They finally locate the soldier and tell him the tragic news of the death of his three brothers and how they have been sent to bring him back.  Towards the end of the film a dramatic battle ensues and most of the men lose their lives in the fight.  The Army Ranger Captain is mortally wounded, but he manages to offer some final words to Private Ryan.  The Captain tells him that the rest of his life should be worthy of all that has been given to safeguard it.  

A moment later and the scene changes.   We are once again seeing that hallowed graveyard and the rows of crosses in present day France.  The cross marks the grave of the fallen Army Ranger Captain and the old man standing before it is an elderly Private Ryan.  He turns to his wife, with their children close behind, and with tears in his eyes says to her, “Tell me I’ve led a good life.  Tell me I’m a good man.”  She is taken aback by the question, at first.  Of course he has been a good man!  Then she smiles  tenderly and says, “You are.”

Friends in Christ, Jesus is not saving Private Ryan.  He is saving all of us.  We are called to be moved and motivated not by a heroic and selfless deceased soldier but by the living God who suffered and died for us on the cross.  We have a living and intimate relationship with Him because He was risen from the dead and now lives in us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus loves us, protects us, forgives us when we fail, encourages us when we struggle and leads us everyday along the path of salvation.  That is the reason we exist and the purpose behind which our love is purified and made more perfect in this world and guides us on into the life of the world to come.

This week, we ask for the grace to find Christ at the center of our lives and allow Him to ignite the fire of that love by which we have have been saved.  We seek to love the lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Caesar, God and Freedom

 (Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on October 18, 2020 at Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Matthew 22:15-21)

We encounter two very interesting groups of people in our Gospel this weekend: The Pharisees and the Herodians.  It would be difficult to find two more diverse classes of people.  The Herodians, taking their name from King Herod, were sympathetic to Roman rule and the system of taxation in place.  The Pharisees, on the other hand, were faithful to the letter of the law and favored a free Israel and the liberation from all ties to Caesar.  What brought them together, St. Matthew tells us, is that they “plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech” (Matthew 22:15).  They are united in a plan to destroy Jesus, and come to Him with the question: “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”

In fact, their trap was quite clever.  If Jesus says that it is lawful to pay the census tax, then the Pharisees will say that He is in favor of Roman occupation and not faithful to the Jewish law.  If he says, “No, the tax is not lawful,” then He will come across as opposing King Herod and the Roman government.  They really have Him closed into a small space.  His response, however, is both brilliant and challenging.  He says, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

It is brilliant because he captures the essence of the question at a level beyond what they were ever capable of thinking.  In saying, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,” he is encouraging faithful citizenship from a faith perspective.  It is what St. Paul and the Apostles will echo in the New Testament, as well: Pay your taxes; vote; give proper respect to the authorities that receive their power from God.  Live well as a good citizen, Jesus is saying, according to your conscience.  

What becomes really challenging, for them and for us, is the next part of that response: “Repay . . . to God what belongs to God.”  In other words, while it is lawful to give back to Caesar his coins and the obedience to civil authorities that allows for good citizenship, everything else that we have and all that we are belongs to God!  Our entire will, our money, our families and relationships, our job, everything belongs to Him.  

It is challenging because we can sometimes have the mistaken idea that this sets up some kind of competition between us and God, as if He were the one opposed to full human freedom and perhaps ready to ask something of us that we are unable or unwilling to give.  Pope 

Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his inaugural homily in April 2005, expressed well this very concern:

If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that he might take something away from us?  Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful?  Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom?

Those are great questions.  If we look at our culture and our society today, where vocations are so lacking and fidelity to the Church’s beautiful teachings can be so lax in the world around us, is  not this mistaken sense of freedom a significant part of the problem?  Men are not confident to say, “Yes” to God in a vocation to the priesthood, and men and women are not confident to give themselves completely over to a religious vocation because they fear that God may take away something beautiful.  Couples very much in love with each other nonetheless hold back from a full commitment in marriage because they fear losing out on something, or that giving themselves to each other in that Sacrament and inviting God deeply into their relationship will somehow diminish what they have.  Pope Emeritus Benedict continues:

If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great.

Saying, “yes,” to God completely, giving to God what belongs to God (which is everything), is the very path to freedom, happiness and joy.  Discovering that is one of the great challenges and mysteries of life, and to walk the path of true freedom in Christ can be the most exciting journey.  To live in freedom, though, means to let go of the things that hold us back and that can be difficult and even painful.  

There is an excellent book by an author named Ursula Le Guin called The Tombs of Atuan.  It is part of her fantasy fiction series, “Earthsea Cycle.”  The main character in The Tombs of Atuan is Tenar, a young woman whose life is dedicated to safeguarding and protecting a remote,  underground part of the earth.  As a young girl of only 5 she was given over to this work, destined to live beneath the mountains and serve the mysterious powers of darkness that lurk therein.  

There is little light in that underground world, but she favors the caverns and caves beneath the main chambers, which are in total darkness.  She has walked many years within that unlit labyrinth, and she has no fear of the dark.  One day, however, she is completely surprised to find a man in that place where no man has ever been.

The man named Ged, wandering through the tombs of Atuan, is a wizard, like Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings.  He is a good character, seeking a treasure within those caverns that will allow him to wield tremendous good in the world outside.  But he is no match for Tenar, who strategically cordons him off within that place and then locks him in.  

Her very reason for being in these tombs is precisely to guard them from people like Ged, so her next move would certainly be to hand him over, which would mean his demise.  But she is fascinated by him.  He represents the outside world, a world that she has never seen.  He represents the light, whereas she has spent her entire life in darkness.  

Reluctantly at first, but then increasingly so, she engages him in conversation.  Eventually, he is able to help her see that this life she is living is not true freedom and power, but that leaving it would give her a new and different life.  She hesitates.  “I don’t know what to do,” she confides, “I am afraid.”   Ged breaks it down for her in the most simple of terms.  He tells her that she must make a choice, use her freedom: “Either you must leave me, lock the door, go up to your altars and give me to your Masters . . . and that is the end of the story—or, you must unlock the door, and go out of it, with me . . . and that is the beginning of the story.”  She makes the decision to leave and go with Ged.

As they break free of that place and enter into the mountains, Tenar is filled with joy and utter exhilaration.  This is the outside world, this is all that she has been missing!  When they travel down the mountain pass and reach Ged’s boat at the seashore, they begin to sail away.  Only then does Ged begin to feel relief and he shouts in exhilaration to Tenar, “We’re away, now we’re clear, we’re clean gone, Tenar.  Do you feel it?”  The author continues and says:

She did feel it.  A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart.  But she did not feel joy as she had in the mountains.  She put her head down and cried . . . She cried for the wasted years in bondage to a useless evil.  She wept in pain because she was free.

This week Jesus Christ calls us to complete freedom.  He calls us to “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”  We are called to give God everything.  In many ways that journey is exhilarating and joyful, but it could also be painful and challenging as we let go of all that holds us back from being true sons and daughters of God.  This week we pray for the grace to be good citizens, but especially good Christians who are willing to “Repay . . . to God what belongs to God.”

Perspectives

 (Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on October 11, 2020 at Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Isaiah 25:6-10, Psalm 23 and Matthew 22:1-14)

There are many experiences in life that come down to a matter of perspective.  Two different people can see the same thing, and have completely different perspectives on what happened.  Our Gospel for this weekend offers a few very interesting perspectives.  In the Parable of the wedding feast, we might be tempted to look at the king from a limited perspective and see him as harsh and demanding.

He offers this magnificent wedding feast for his son and those invited refuse the invitation.  Not immediately deterred, the king sends out servants to persuade them, and that is when things get a little difficult.  Some ignore the invitation, choosing instead to tend to other commitments on their farm or concerning business.  That can happen.  Others mistreat the servants and even kill them.  The king's response is immediate and decisive: “The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city” (Matthew 22:7).  Wow, there is no room for subtlety there!  Finally, there is the man who comes to this feast where both the good and bad are gathered.  But when the king sees that the man is not wearing the proper wedding garment, he is not merely asked to leave.  No, the man is bound, hand and foot, and cast into the darkness outside!  

It can be troubling to see this parable from the perspective of a harsh king.  Of course, that is not what the parable is about at all.  It is not a parable about an ill-tempered ruler, or time management, or about proper dress codes and just desserts.  

It is a parable about eternal life.   It is the story of our salvation and the totally gratuitous gift of heaven that God is extending to each and every one of us.  The point of the parable, the main perspective, really, is that we have been invited to the greatest experience of our existence, eternal life with God.  Refusal of the invitation is simply not a logical or reasonable option.   

From that perspective we can now see that those who ignore the invitation, those who find farm and business more important, those that are threatened by God’s totally gratuitous offer and strike out violently, these are the ones who act harshly and  hence are ill-tempered and ill-fated.  We see that the man not properly dressed did not come to the feast with the appropriate dispositions, and presumed that he could enter on his own terms and not the king’s.  By their decisions, or by simply not making a choice at all, they have forfeited the greatest and most valuable gift they could have ever received.

In his fictional work, The Great Divorce, Christian author C.S. Lewis offers a pithy summary of this critical choice through the perspective of one of the main characters.   Basically, he says that there will be “two kinds of people” in the end.  There will be those who have said to God, “Thy will be done.”  Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and perhaps in many moments as challenging as that, they have said to God, “Thy will be done.  I want what you want, even if it is difficult.”  But then there will be those to whom God must say, and with great sorrow, “THY will be done.”  Some may have refused or ignored the invitation; others may have acted in violence and rebellion, but in the end they will sadly be given their own way.  “THY will be done.”   It is a challenging perspective.

One final perspective that I would like to mention, however, is the one found in the Resposorial Psalm this morning, Psalm 23.  It is totally compatible with the main perspective of our parable, and shows us the heart of the king in the love of a shepherd:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  

In verdant pastures he gives me repose; 

beside restful waters he leads me; 

he refreshes my soul.

There are many times in our lives when we do not listen well to God’s invitation or are tempted to be rebellious and stubborn.  With great love, God follows after us, seeks us out, and leads us to the very place where we will find rest and refreshment.  He goes to the extreme of entering into this world to find us, and gives His very life to save us.  We could not be treated more tenderly or lovingly than that!  

There is a wonderful poem written in the 16th Century by the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross.  He tells the story of salvation in poetic verse, from the perspective of the shepherd:

A lone young shepherd lived in pain

withdrawn from pleasure and contentment,

his thoughts fixed on a shepherd-girl

his heart an open wound with love.

He weeps, but not from the wound of love,

there is no pain in such affliction,

even though the heart is pierced;

he weeps in knowing he’s been forgotten.

There were many, we are told in the Gospel, that refused the invitation that God offered.  Many more ignored it and found other things to do.  The Sacred Heart of Jesus is wounded when we forget about Him and are ungrateful.  God’s response to that ingratitude and forgetfulness is striking and amazing.  St. John of the Cross continues:

That one thought: his shining one has forgotten him,

is such great pain

that he bows to brutal handling in a foreign land,

his heart an open wound with love.

Jesus comes, knowing that He will be ignored and refused.  He comes, knowing that He will “bow to brutal handling in a foreign land,” even though that land was created by Him, and fashioned for the receptivity of love.  In fact, it is this very brutality that God will use, in the most surprising way, to save us.  St. John of the Cross concludes:

After a long time he climbed a tree,

and spread his shining arms,

and hung by them, and died,

his heart an open wound with love.

-St. John of the Cross

“Stanzas Applied Spiritually to God and the Soul”

This is God’s invitation to the banquet of eternal life.  Christ climbs upon the cross and stretches out His shining arms to welcome us.  Isaiah the Prophet, in our first reading this weekend, describes that same invitation and sacrifice:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.  On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever . . . For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.

—Isaiah 25:6-10 

The mountain that Isaiah is referring to is the mountain of Calvary.  It is there that God will mount the wood of the cross and destroy death forever.  It is on that mountain that He will offer His body and blood as the sacrifice that will open the gates of heaven for us to enter.  It is His body and blood, offered as a rich feast in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, that gives us access to the very life of God and the resurrection.  We are invited this morning to nothing less than this.

Today God leads us to the place where we most need to be.  He is calling us and reminding us that He knows more than we do what is necessary, essential and good for us.  Today we look to the perspective of God, and remember:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  

In verdant pastures he gives me repose; 

beside restful waters he leads me; 

he refreshes my soul.

Music Will Save the World

(Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on October 4, 2020 at Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80 and Matthew 21:33-43)

“Beauty will save the world.” That is perhaps one of the most often quoted lines of Dostoevsky, from one of his greatest novels.  Countless essays, articles and even books have been written trying to interpret what he meant.  I will not add to that this morning (truth be told, I already tried to do so in a previous homily on this blog!).  What I would suggest this morning is a paraphrase of Dostoevsky’s quote.  I would suggest, from our readings this weekend, that music will save the world!

Our readings this weekend begin, actually, with a song.  Isaiah the Prophet sings for us:

Let me now sing a song of my friend, my friend’s song concerning his vineyard.  My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside: he spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted the choicest vines: within it he built a watchtower, and hewed out a winepress.  Then he looked for the crop of grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes.

—Isaiah 5:1-2

But that song is suddenly interrupted!  It turns into a lament, and becomes even a polemic as the owner of the vineyard contends:  

Inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard: What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done?—Isaiah 5:3-4  

It is a rhetorical question that could only have left an awkward silence.  What began as a pleasant song has now turned into a strong rebuke: 

The vineyard is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his cherished plant; he looked for judgment but see, bloodshed!  For justice, but hark, the outcry!

—Isaiah 5:7

This song, it would seem, is OVER.  

And yet, looking at Sacred Scripture, it becomes clear that the song is not over.  It is far from ended! But it has changed.  

The Song of Songs, which is a love song between a bride and groom (Israel and the Lord), is literally filled with imagery and symbolism.  Many times the bride is referred to, among other things, as a vineyard (Song of Songs 1:14; 2:13-15; 7:8-12; 8:12) .  The bride in that song is longing for her bridegroom and lamenting that she has hurt him through her infidelity (see Song of Songs 1:5-17).  She is pining for him and seeking her beloved, he whom her soul loves (Song of Songs 3:1-5).

That longing is continued in our Responsorial Psalm this morning (Psalm 80).  We did not recite that Psalm.  No, we sang it!  We musically intoned:

Once again, O Lord of hosts, look down from heaven, and see.  Take care of this vine . . . O Lord, God of hosts, restore us; if your face shine upon us then we shall be saved.

—Psalm 80: 14, 19

We sang with the Psalmist that the Lord would shine His face upon us, that this would be our hope.  Psalm 80 sets to music the great desire that God would shine His face upon us and reinvigorate this devastated vineyard.  Our hope and desire is that the face of God would shine on us.  

That longing is answered in the Gospel of Saint Matthew this morning.  The face of God shines out upon the people gathered before Christ 2,000 years ago, and here before us this morning in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Jesus Christ gives us the parable of the vineyard.  It is a familiar story for His listeners.  They have heard about that vineyard and even sung about it many times.  But there is much at stake as He relates that familiar story.  In great detail He tells about the rejection of the tenants and the killing even of the owner of the vineyard’s son.  The conclusion is even more dramatic than that of Isaiah.  Christ declares to those who are unfaithful:

The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

—Matthew 21:43

Our eternal life in the Vineyard of the Lord is not automatic.  We are called to be faithful and to bear great fruit for our Beloved.  Have we considered that essential aspect of our life in the Church?  On a positive note, if we look at the end of the Sacred Scriptures, and the final Book of the Bible, we can hear the song of the blessed in heaven being sung with great joy (Revelation 5:9-14).  They sing together the Song of the Lamb who was slain and rose again, the Bridegroom who has taken them to live with Him forever (Revelation 19:5-8).  We are being called even now to join in that awesome song.

There is a beautiful story I heard many years ago by the Evangelical preacher, Steve Brown, of KeyLife Ministries.  The story is about two brothers, close in age.  The older brother was tall and good looking, a real leader who was loved by everyone.  His little brother was small in stature and hunched over, and often fell victim to the scorn and mockery of those around him.  One thing about that little brother, though, was that he could sing.  He had the voice of an angel!  People loved to hear him sing in the choir or whenever he was spontaneously moved to chant some magical melody.  

The two brothers went away together to a boarding school and, not surprisingly, the older brother quickly made many friends.  He was, in fact,  very popular .  The young brother was not well received at all and was bullied frequently.  One day, while the older brother was walking through the halls of the school, he heard shouting and laughter coming from one of the classrooms.  He quickly entered that place, and was sickened to see that some of the students had pulled his brother’s shirt up over his back, and they were pushing him around the classroom.  He wanted to run into the midst of them and stop it, but he was afraid.  After a moment’s hesitation, he decided to turn away and leave rather than risk losing some of the friends that he had gained at that school.  But before he turned away his little brother saw him.  The older brother never forgot the look upon his face.

Eventually the older brother finished boarding school and went on to be a very successful young man.  The younger brother, however, in the weeks following that terrible incident of his brother’s betrayal, left the school of his own decision.  Never again was he to sing in the choir and inside he became a different person all together.

Many years later, while the older brother was halfway around the world on business, he was out sitting beneath the stars on a beautiful summer night.  Suddenly he felt very close to God, but also felt the Holy Spirit convicting him of what he had done so many years before.   He was deeply moved by shame and sorrow, and made the decision to find his brother and do whatever he could to reconcile that awful situation.  

When he finally located the house where the brother lived, he was anxious that he might not be received as he knocked on the door.  Nonetheless, when his brother opened the door, he immediately welcomed him with open arms.  They embraced and wept, and then sat together all evening.  Eventually they were exhausted from talking, laughing and crying, and the older brother crashed out on the bed in the guest room and fell fast asleep.  In the morning, he was awoken to the most beautiful sound that he had ever heard.  It was the voice of his brother, and he was singing.

There are a lot of things wrong in the Church today.  We can read about them in the newspaper, and we hear about them all the time.  But one of the problems in the Church is that we are not singing as we should!   We have been forgiven for so very much, we have been given so very much; we have the Sacraments of the Church, the grace of God, the teachings of our faith, and so much love, we should be singing!  We have been touched so deeply by God that we should be able to forgive others, and be set free to sing.  

Christ in the Gospel this weekend is inviting us to sing in the vineyard once again.  He is calling us to learn anew the Song of the Lamb, and to rejoice in our Christian faith in a way that allows us to be transformed and to heed the exhortation of St. Paul to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).  

The world around us is literally dying to hear that song.  Because in the end, the world will be saved by music.  But in order for that to happen, we have to allow every aspect of our lives to enter God’s song of love.

Socially Distant, Spiritually Close

 

(Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on August 9, 2020 at Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See 1 Kings 19:9-13 and Matthew 14:22-33)

Our readings for this weekend begin in a very dark and lonely place.  In 1 Kings we find Elijah the prophet on the top of Mount Horeb, in a cave, by himself.  He could not be any more isolated than that!  Elijah, of course, is there for a very good reason.  The previous chapters of 1 Kings describe the epic struggle he had been engaged in with King Ahab and his wife Jezebel.  The king, led astray by his wife, had forsaken the covenant with God and gone over to the worship of Baal.  Ahab had commissioned 450 prophets to spread that idolatry throughout Israel.  Elijah the prophet had stood before these false prophets and humiliated them.  He extinguished them from the land of Israel.  Jezebel did not take the defeat of her prophets lightly.  She threatened to take the life of Elijah, and so for good reason he fled.     

This morning he is in that cave, alone.  What must he have been thinking?  He had been faithful, seeking only to bring the people back into a right relationship with the living God.  Yet suddenly, in his loneliness and isolation, God comes to him.  That epiphany happens in a most peculiar way.  At first there is a strong driving wind, but we are told that God was not in the wind.  Next there was an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake.  Finally, there is fire, but God is not in the fire.  

It is interesting to reflect on the fact that God is present, in a certain sense, in all three of these manifestations in the New Testament.  When Christ dies on the cross, accomplishing our salvation, St. Matthew writes that “the earth shook, and the rocks were split” (Matthew 27:51).  On the day of Pentecost, the disciples heard the sound of a strong driving wind, and saw tongues as of fire as the Holy Spirit descended upon them.  But not here.  

In the cave on Mount Horeb, Elijah hears only a tiny whispering sound.  A whisper is intimate, close.  We know well from Sacred Scripture that God is transcendent.  He is totally other, and we could never reach Him or approach Him as He is.  But in 1 Kings we are also reminded that God is imminent.  He is as close as a still, small voice.  St. Augustine, in his Confessions, reflects upon the God who is “intimior intimo meo,” more intimate to me than I am to myself.  God comes to Elijah this morning in the intimacy of a whisper, and in essence tells him, “Do not be afraid.  I am with you.  I love you.  You are not alone.

In the Gospel, we find Christ in perhaps one of the loneliest moments of His public ministry up to this point.  He has just learned of the death of His cousin, St. John the Baptist.  Having fed the people with the miracle of the loaves and the fish, we are told, “He went up on the mountain by himself to pray.  When it was evening he was there alone” (Matthew 14:23).  Very much like Elijah, He is there on that mountaintop by Himself.  But also like Elijah, we know well that He is very much not alone.  He is there with the Father.  He is in prayer and He is intimately near the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Because He is so close to God, He is also even closer to the disciples than if He were only physically in their presence.  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his second volume of Jesus of Nazareth, writes about how Jesus is able to see these disciples through the eyes of the Father while He is up on that mountain.  He sees them struggling against the wind and the waves and so He comes to them.  He was already spiritually close, but now He will draw physically close, because He loves them.

One of the great challenges of the current global pandemic is that we are often socially distant.  In fact, we are governed by laws that ensure that social distance, and for our own health and wellness we abide by those laws.  But even though we are socially distant, as a Church we can be, and should be, spiritually close.  As Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington has said, “we are socially distant but our goal is to be spiritually close in the Eucharist.”

There is a beautiful story about St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), a Jewish convert to Catholicism who died a martyr in Auschwitz in 1942.  When she was still a young convert, and before she entered the Carmelite monastery, Edith Stein was living with Dominican sisters in a convent near where she was a professor.  She was fond of a small niche not far from the tabernacle, where she could remain in prayer and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in relative isolation and privacy.  One Christmas Eve, when the Mass had concluded, she was in that little space and praying her thanksgiving to God for the gift of the Eucharist.  Unseen by those who were responsible for closing the Church down for the evening, they unintentionally locked her in!  Early the next morning, when one of the sisters came in to open the doors and turn on the lights, she saw Edith kneeling in adoration before the Christmas creche.  Thinking that perhaps her mistake of the night before had been a difficult experience and ruined a night of peaceful sleep for the young professor, the sister apologized.  Edith replied, “Who can sleep during the night that God became man!”  

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross had been socially distant from that religious community all night, but because she was with our Eucharistic Lord, she was spiritually close.  She reminds us this morning that we are never closer to God and to each other than when we are united in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.  

In these days of adjustment and even sacrifice of many things while we continue to face the COVID-19 crisis, we remember that the Eucharist is the place where we experience the intimacy of God.  As Churches begin to open, and that Gift becomes more and more available, we do well to make the Eucharist the center, font and culmination of our entire lives, as the Church has always taught us.

Hope, De Profundis

Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes 

(Unknown artist, Church of St. Appolinare in Ravenna, Italy)

 

(Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on August 2, 2020 at Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Isaiah 55:1-3 and Matthew 14:13-21)

It can happen sometimes, in the darkest moment, when all hoped seems lost, that a ray of light can shine into our lives and change everything.  It can happen, that the voice of God can speak to us and suddenly bring new life . . . And it does happen, in our first reading this weekend.

We listen to that beautiful reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah.  It is a very positive and encouraging message, and yet the context Isaiah is addressing could not be any further from that reality.  He is speaking to the People of Israel, God’s chosen.  God had entered into a covenant relationship with Israel which the prophets describe as spousal.  He had espoused Himself to them, to be their faithful husband and that they would be His bride.  

At one of the highest points in that relationship we find the Davidic Covenant, God’s promises for the nation under David the King.  God had said to David, “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Samuel 7:12-13).  We understand this covenant as containing the promise of the Messiah, and the establishment of a kingdom that would never be destroyed (Daniel 2:44).  It was one of the highest points in the history of that nation.

And yet, as Isaiah speaks to them this morning, they are at the lowest point.  So far from being a strong and established nation, they are a nation enslaved.  So far from being that fruitful spouse of God, they have been carried off into exile in Babylon because of their infidelity.  Precisely at that moment, however, God speaks to Israel and gives them a message of hope.  He calls out to them, and invites them to share in a new beginning and the fullness of life:

All you who are thirsty, come to the water!  You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; come without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!

—Isaiah 55:1

He has so much to offer, and they will never want for anything if they will only heed, only receive Him!  He assures them that, in Him, they will have life.  And then God makes the most astounding promise:

I will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David

—Isaiah 55:3

With that God has made it clear that He is not finished with them, and the covenant He made with David is far from over.  He will bring them back into the Promised Land and give them a King who will reign over the nations, and His kingdom will last forever.  In the darkest moment, when all hope seemed lost, God reignited hope and prepared the way for the Messiah.

It can happen.  It can happen precisely in the most vulnerable moments, when sorrow seems overwhelming, that God can provide for us and give us new life.  It happens in the Gospel of St. Matthew this morning.  The opening lines of that passage are significant:

“When Jesus heard about the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”

—Matthew 14:13

It had to be one of the lowest points in Jesus’ public ministry to that point, the death of his own cousin.  John the Baptist was the precursor of the Messiah, the faithful friend of the Bridegroom that had prepared the way for the coming of the kingdom.  But the way he had died!  Beheaded at the behest of a selfish king in the stale darkness of the palace prison.  Rightly does Christ withdraw, in that time of sorrow, intending to be alone.  What must He have been thinking, as His own death now seemed so much closer than it had a few moments before.

The crowds, however, hearing all this, followed Him and sought Him out. St. Matthew’s description of what happened next is remarkable.

When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them.

—Matthew 14:14

He was filled with pity and compassion, not for Himself but for them.  Even in the midst of His own sorrow, he had compassion on these people and He healed them; He fed them with the loaves and fish, performing a miracle of love.

The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, of course, foreshadows how Christ will feed us with His body and blood.  The very words He uses—He took the loaves, He blessed them, He broke them, He gave them to the disciples—are the very same words used to describe the institution of the Eucharist (see Matthew 26:26).  

We can reflect for a moment about how the total generosity of Christ in the Eucharist comes to us from the point of greatest vulnerability.  It is on the cross, where Christ is wounded and pierced, that He offers up His body for the salvation of the world, and pours out His blood for the forgiveness of sins.  It is at the Last Supper, immediately after He has announced that He will be betrayed, and with His own violent death looming before Him, that He says, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15).  As His own passion is beginning, He lovingly and generously gives us His own body and blood in the Eucharist.  

One of the earliest images for our Lord in Christian iconography is the pelican.  Back in the 2nd Century, the pelican was often depicted as a symbol for Jesus in the Eucharist.  Christians would observe that large-billed bird, and the peculiar way it fed its young.  It appeared to be piercing its own breast with its enormous beak, staining its feathers with blood, and then giving its own flesh to the hungry nestlings (ornithologists would later understand that, in fact, pelicans press small fish against their bodies in order to provide manageable portions for the young).  This image of the pelican is found all throughout the churches of Europe as a rich symbol for Christ, who allows Himself to be pierced and wounded so that He may feed us and give us new life.

We come here this morning, to this celebration of the Eucharist, all of us with our crosses and vulnerability.  Here, God meets us at the point of our greatest need and gives us new life.  But there are people in each of our lives right now, people that we encounter perhaps on a regular basis, who are almost without hope.  There are people in the midst of this global pandemic who cannot see what tomorrow will look like and have considered the very real possibility of giving up.  There are people in our world today that are very much in the dark . . . 

But it can happen, in the darkest moment, when all hope seems lost, that a ray of light can shine into their lives and change everything.  It can happen, that the voice of the Holy Spirit can speak to them a word that gives new life.  It can happen that you and I—coming here to feed on Christ in the Eucharist, to be strengthened by Christ in the word of God, and deepening our lives with Christ in daily prayer— can become instruments of God and communicate the message of hope in a world that desperately longs to see the face of Jesus Christ.

The Kingdom: Surprises and Searches

Saint Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)

(Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on July 26, 2020 at San Gregorio Magno al Cielo and the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See 1 Kings 3:5-12 and Matthew 13:44-52)

For the past several weeks we have been listening to St. Matthew’s Gospel and the parables of Jesus on the kingdom of heaven.  In the parable of the sower, it is the word of God that can find rich soil and bear tremendous fruit for the kingdom (Matthew 13:3-9).  Then Jesus teaches that the kingdom of heaven is like a field filled with wheat, but suddenly there appear weeds along with the wheat; through patience and discernment the wheat grows and is later sifted and gathered for the kingdom, while the weeds are collected and burned (Matthew 13:24-30).    This morning Jesus gives us the final three parables in that series.  We hear that:

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.  When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.

—Matthew 13:44-46  

Both of these parables are very similar.  As soon as the treasure is discovered, or the pearl is found, the person sells everything in order to fully possess that awesome gift.  There is a sense of joy and transformation that accompanies the kingdom of God, changing one’s entire outlook and experience.  

At the same time, however, those two parables are quite different.  We can begin with the treasure found in the field.  Firstly, how likely is that to happen?  Actually, in the time of Christ, it would not have been uncommon.  This parable is being told in Roman-occupied Palestine.  In many places in the world at that time, and even in places in our own world today, there was instability and the possible threat of invasion and forced migration.  If you were a wealthy land owner, and had many possessions and personal items of great value, you might put them all together and bury them somewhere on your property.  The hope would be to flee from the imminent danger, and return afterward and take up your treasure once again.  For many, perhaps that day would never come.  It would not have been so uncommon, in Jesus time, for a person to find treasure in a field.

The point of the parable is that the discovery of the treasure comes as a total surprise.  Indeed, when the man finds it, he quickly hides it again, and with great joy he goes and sells everything he has so he can buy that entire field (why take a chance?!) and have that treasure forever.

How different is the parable about the pearl of great price.  There was not so much surprise as a profound sense of wonder and satisfaction when the merchant finally discovers what he has longed for all along.  He had been searching for precisely a pearl such as this one!  Perhaps he had traveled far, and at the great expense of time and money.  No matter!  He sees that pearl and is completely captivated by its beauty.

In our own lives, the kingdom of heaven captures both of these dimensions.  When it comes to our faith, or our experience of God at the core of our vocation, there is something there of a total surprise.  To suddenly recognize who we are in Christ, and how much value God places on us, is astounding.  Who among us could have ever imagined that God would offer His only Son so that He could have us with Him in heaven for all eternity?  It is an incredible and amazing surprise, a treasure stumbled upon in the field.  

Even so, deep within our hearts we have always longed for a love like this.  We yearn and pine for the kind of relationship that accepts us unconditionally, that cares for us and challenges us to become all that we were always meant to be.  Even once we have discovered our vocation, and heard the voice of God calling us into a deeper relationship with Himself, we continue to search all the more deeply.  We want to know, to discern as many details as possible to find out what will please God and how we can become more completely those fruitful and faithful disciples of Christ that we hear about in the Gospel.

An excellent example for us this weekend is found in the first reading, from the First Book of Kings.  We hear about King Solomon, who at a very young age finds himself as ruler of one of the greatest nations in the world.  Indeed, he prays to the Lord, “I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted” (1 Kings 3:8).  Solomon had done nothing to receive this remarkable privilege and responsibility.  His father, King David, had amassed tremendous wealth and resources so that Solomon could build the temple.  On one level, he possessed everything a man could want to be happy.  Nonetheless, he had the humility to realize that there was still more that he needed to discover.  When God comes to him and invites him to ask for anything (imagine!), he responds:

O Lord, my God, you have made me, your servant, king to succeed my father, David: but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act . . . Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.  For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?

—1 Kings 3:7-9

It is a beautiful prayer that begins Solomon’s journey into a world of sagacity and insight.  God responds to him, “I give you a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one to equal you” (1 Kings 3:12).  But it could not have been automatic.  Solomon did not download a lifetime of wisdom.  He would have had to apply himself to long hours of study, and it would take years for him to learn all that was necessary to govern God’s people.  Of course, we also know that one of the greatest “teachers” is failure.  How many humiliations and failings did young Solomon experience before he gained the interior knowledge of the heart that alone is worthy of guiding God’s own people?  This young man, who had found the treasure in the field, also sought passionately for the pearl of great price.

Closer to our own time, we can reflect on the life of St. Teresa of Calcutta.  As a young religious she had answered the call of God and was faithful, content and fruitful.  At the age of thirty six, on her way by train to make her annual retreat about 100 miles north of Calcutta, suddenly she received a profound “call within a call.”  Jesus was crying out to her, inviting her to discover Him in the poorest of the poor.  He revealed to her that He was hiding in the darkest holes of the earth, naked, hungry, rejected and alone.  “Come, be my light,” He beckoned her.  She would spend the rest of her life discovering what that meant and how God was inviting her to answer this mysterious invitation.  

For all of us, we have stumbled upon the treasure in the field, an identity and meaning in life that goes beyond anything we could have ever imagined.  Still, we are invited to explore that reality more and more deeply each day, to truly seek out the pearl of great price in the heart of our vocation. 

In conclusion, Jesus offers one final parable, the net cast into the sea, capturing fish of every kind, and a lot of other sordid things.  Once the net us full, what is good is placed in buckets and what is bad is thrown away.  It is a parable about the final judgment, and Jesus offers the clearest of interpretations for us all: 

Thus it will be at the end of the age.  The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

—Matthew 13:49-50

We are all called by God, all given the amazing invitation to discover and embrace the riches of the kingdom.  Yet Jesus teaches us also that we will stand before Him and give an account at the end of our lives for how we have received—or not—that kingdom.  St. John of the Cross writes that, “at the twilight of life, we will be judged by love.”  There is something very comforting and consoling about that reality.  At the end of our lives, we will be judged by the God who is Love, who gave His only Son to save us and give us new life.  Still, we are called to receive and then offer that same love to both God and neighbor.  That is what it means to be part of the kingdom of heaven.

This morning we can ask ourselves, how have we appreciated and offered thanksgiving for this treasure we have discovered as a total surprise and an overwhelming gift?  How are we continuing to seek and search for the fulfillment God’s kingdom each day, bearing the fruit of love in what we say and in all that we do?  This is the gift of God, and it is worth everything if we may only recognize it, embrace it and spend all eternity entering into it more deeply.