Our Purity, Christ's Power

(Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on January 31, 2021 at the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 and Mark 1:21-28)

 

In our second reading for this morning, St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, we listen to the Apostle’s foundational teachings on celibacy and virginity for the sake of the Kingdom of God.  He talks about the unmarried man or unmarried woman being "anxious about the things of the Lord" and how to be pleasing to Him, while the married man or woman is also concerned with the anxieties of the world and how to please his or her spouse.  

It can happen, however, that this basic distinction in St. Paul’s teaching can be misunderstood.  Sometimes an interpretation can suggest that there are two different “levels” of chastity here, one for the celibate and another for the married man or woman.  People may consider that a priest or a religious sister or brother, or consecrated virgins, are called to a higher level of purity.  Of course, that is simply not true.  

In His “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus teaches us in the Beatitudes that ALL are called to purity, and that it is in fact a condition for eternal life and the beatific vision: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).  Purity of heart is something much broader than we imagine, for it has to do with the way we see and love God and those around us.  It is an integral part of how we live and relate to God and others. 

This is the comprehensive sense that St. John Chrysostom uses to interpret the Gospel we listened to this morning.  Jesus enters the synagogue in Capernaum and begins to teach.  Suddenly He is confronted by a man with an “unclean spirit.”  Chrysostom asks the question of why the devil is impure or unclean.  Certainly it is not some defect of his sexuality because he does not have one; he does not have a body.  Chrysostom reasons that the evil one is unclean because of his impiety and because he withdraws from God; he recognizes the holiness of Jesus Christ, but he is not moved to charity.

For the person who is pure of heart, the holiness of Christ inspires love and devotion; they are moved to charity.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in describing purity of heart, indicates that it “refers to those who have attuned their intellects and wills to the demands of God’s holiness, chiefly in three areas: charity; chastity or sexual rectitude; love of truth and orthodoxy of faith” (CCC, #2518).  The pure of heart definitely strive to integrate their sexuality and to live the virtue of chastity, but they recognize that it involves much more than that.  By attuning their will and intellect to the holiness of Christ they are also moved to become more charitable and to love the truth revealed by God.

How does purity of heart become rooted deeply within our souls and how do we grow in this essential virtue that leads us ultimately to the eternal vision of God?  There is a powerful example for us in the Gospel we heard this morning.  Jesus enters the synagogue in Capernaum and teaches the people.  St. Mark relates, “The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22).  When they listened to the truth revealed by God they were moved to astonishment; they loved the truth that Christ was offering to them.  

The second thing that Jesus does that purifies the heart is to address the unclean spirit directly and perform an exorcism:

Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet!  Come out of him!”  The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.

—Mark 1:25-26

Jesus Christ has the power to drive away the unclean spirit and bring the soul deeper into purity of heart.  He created us for this purity, and greatly desires to give it to us when we seek Him out for it and attune our intellects and wills to Him.

The late Fr. Gabriel Amorth was the chief exorcist of Rome for many years.  He would say that there are two things that frustrate the work of the evil one more than exorcism.  They are sacramental absolution and preaching of the word of God (he takes the Eucharist as a given).  

With sacramental absolution, a person who is perhaps in the grip of sin and has lost the state of grace is suddenly healed and receives the forgiveness of God.  By a humble acknowledgement of that need for forgiveness and a heartfelt confession of sin, sacramental absolution is given in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the soul is restored to the state of grace.  It is an amazing and wonderful work of the power of Christ to drive away evil and draw the person towards purity of heart.

The second thing Amorth mentions is a bit curious: the preaching of the word of God.  For the most part, the reviews of people in the pews show that our preaching is rather unsatisfactory and boring.  Why should the devil be any more impressed?  But Amorth is referring to the faithful preaching of the truth of the Gospel, something every priest is called to do.  When that powerful message of salvation through faith in Christ and the Christian life is preached with all the passion it deserves, souls are changed.  Amorth says it sets up a force-field of faith, an environment in which the virtues of the Christian life can grow and bear fruit.  Evil has no place in that environment, and so the soul grows ever closer to God and in purity of heart.

Where is Jesus Christ calling us to experience His power more completely in our lives this week, as He drives away evil and restores us to the fullness of the Christian life?  We seek the grace today to be attuned to the holiness of God in our intellect and will, and to be set on fire to embrace charity, chastity and love for the truth that God reveals.

Change and the Kingdom

 St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

(Third Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on January 24, 2021 at the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Jonah 3:1-10 and Mark 1:14-20) 

How well do you handle change?  Change can be exciting and a very positive experience.  Sometimes, though, change can come unexpectedly and we might receive it as a real trial.  If you could change one thing about your life right now, what would it be?

St. John Henry Newman, in An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, writes:

“In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”

The context here is important.  Newman is writing about the development of an idea.  We have a concept about what we understand to be the truth, but that idea has to be worked out and discerned.  There may be many misconceptions that need to be cleared away as we deepen our understanding.  Perhaps through a difficult struggle and many trials we begin to understand what God has revealed to us from the start. This is the sense of change that Newman is writing about.  

But that same quote could also be used to describe Newman’s own life: “Here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”  We can come back to that in a moment.

I mention Newman and change this morning because in the Gospel Jesus Christ is challenging the people in Galilee—and you and me—to change.  It is the very beginning of His public ministry, and He addresses the crowds:

This is the time of fulfillment.  The kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

—Mark 1:15

The Greek word in the Gospel for “repentance” is metanoia, and it literally means to change one’s mind or conception about the way things are.  It is commonly understood as a call to renounce sin and embrace the moral life.  It certainly involves that, but metanoia means much more.  If there is sin in our lives, we need to repent and surrender ourselves to God, but Christ is ultimately calling us to see the world around us differently.  He is challenging us to see God, to see the people in our lives and even to see ourselves in a whole new light.

At the Sea of Galilee he comes upon Simon and Andrew, James and John, who are fishing.  He calls them to leave that way of life behind and follow Him.  There is nothing wrong or sinful about fishing!  Our Lord is calling them to see everything differently and to act in a different way than they anticipated.  He is inviting them to embark on a journey that will change their lives—and the world we live in—forever.

Which brings us back to St. John Henry Newman.  When he was an Anglican priest in his early thirties, Newman came here to Italy with several friends.  They were touring the Mediterranean and seeking to deepen their intellectual understanding of the Christian faith.  At that time, though, Newman was struck by a devastating illness that almost took his life.  His recovery was a slow one, and he suffered greatly.  As he made the difficult arrangements of getting back home, he became convinced that God had spared him and was calling him to some significant undertaking.  

On the journey back to England Newman wrote what would become one of his best known and beloved poems, The Pillar of Cloud:

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, 

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home, 

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene,—one step enough for me

Homesick and vulnerable, he was nonetheless wide open to whatever changes God was introducing into his life.  Within one week of landing on the shores of England, Newman and several colleagues formed what came to be known as the Oxford Movement.  It began for him as a theological pursuit to reacquire the doctrines and traditions within Anglicanism that had been seemingly lost down through the centuries.  Over time, however, Newman began to understand something different.  He sensed that God was calling him not to reform the Anglican Church but to leave it; Newman became convinced that God was calling him to convert to the Roman Catholic Church.  

This significant change in his life came at a cost.  Many of his friends within Anglicanism felt betrayed.  Some who had previously revered him and held him in great esteem no longer associated with him.  At the same time, there was a deeply embedded tension between the Church of England and the Catholic Church.  Many bishops and cardinals of the Catholic Church held Newman in suspicion and questioned the authenticity of his conversion.  Others were intimidated by his sharp intellect and did not always welcome him as a Catholic.  It was a painful transition for him, but Newman endured through many different challenges and changes.  In 1879 he was created a cardinal of the Church by Pope Leo XIII.  He died in Birmingham, England on August 11, 1890.  His essays, books and sermons continue to provide insight and inspiration to the Christian faithful.  Newman was beatified in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI and canonized on October 13, 2019 by Pope Francis.

How well do we respond to the call of God through life’s many changes?  Are we also able to align our hearts with the vision that God has for our lives, especially when we experience those inevitable challenges and trials?

In conclusion, we can reflect for a moment on our first reading from the Book of the Prophet Jonah.  In that reading we hear one of the most remarkable accounts of change and repentance in all of Sacred Scripture.  After listening to the preaching of Jonah, the people of Nineveh completely changed the way they were living.  They humbled themselves before God and openly acknowledged their offense.  Next we hear of God’s response:

When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do them; he did not carry it out.

—Jonah 3:10

God repented?!  What a strange and surprising revelation!  Of course, Jonah is using anthropomorphic language to describe the mysterious workings of God.  There is no need for God to repent, nor does God ever change.  The essence of that passage is that God, who never initially desired evil for the people of Nineveh, nonetheless was determined to see justice done.  What He wanted was to bless them, to love them and grant them His favor, but their own evil actions had placed an obstacle before that.  When they repent, He is able to accomplish what He really desired all along, to give them His blessing and favor.  

Where do we place obstacles in the path of God’s plan for our lives?  God calls us this weekend to repent, to see ourselves, our lives and the world around us with new eyes, a new vision.  He calls us to recognize how very much we are loved by Him and how much He desires to bless us.  We ask for the grace to be transformed, to be changed by the grace of God and, like St. John Henry Newman, to see God’s plan accomplished in a beautiful way.  Today we open our hearts to whatever vision God has for us, because “In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”

The Holy Family

(Solemnity of the Holy Family—Year B; This homily was given on December 27, 2020 at St. Paul’s Church in Cranston, R.I.; See Colossians 3:12-21 and Luke 2:22-40)

The Solemnity of the Holy Family offers us a great opportunity to reflect upon the Church’s beautiful teachings regarding marriage and family. In his “Theology of the Body,” St. John Paul II refers to marriage as the “primordial sacrament.”  What does that mean?  

Basically, all the Sacraments are instituted by Christ to bring us back into relationship with God and each other.  In the Sacrament of Baptism, we are cleansed of original sin and receive the gift of sanctifying grace; in the Sacrmant of Reconciliation that gift is restored if we have lost it though mortal sin; in the Eucharist we are given a sharing in the very body and blood of Christ and possess the promise of life eternal.  

Marriage is different in this one respect: it is the only reality that already existed, in a sense, before the fall, before orginal sin.  Adam and Eve already shared in an intimate relationship with God and with each other before the fall.  While the gifts of the Eucharist and Reconcliation seek to bring us back into that intimacy, it was already present in the couple before they ever experienced sin.  In that sense it is the “primordial sacrament” (obviously there is a significant difference when Christ elevates that relationship in the Sacrament of Matrimony).

With the coming of Christ at Christmas, in the gift of the Incarnation, the human family is likewise changed and elevated.  We are invited in Jesus to share in the life of the Trinity and become sons and daughters of God; we are called to be united as brothers and sisters in Christ, extending the intimacy of family life to the entire Body of Christ, the Church.

The readings for this weekend show us the Holy Family: Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph.  They reveal to us the grace-filled ideal of the family and what the opening prayer for our Mass declares as the “virtues of family life.”  

The first thing we learn from the Holy Family is the odedience of love.  Five separate times in that brief Gospel passage from St. Luke we hear the same phrase that motivated the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph: “the Law of the Lord.”  It was clearly outlined in the teaching of their faith that they must “redeem” their newborn child and make an offering for Mary’s purification.  What is important for us to reflect on this weekend is that they would not have merely gone through that practice in order to “check the box” and get it over with.  No, they went to the Temple with great love and fidelity; they followed the Law of the Lord joyfully and willingly, because they loved the God who gave it to them.  

The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph teach us the fruitfulness of the obedience of love.  How could they have known that God made a promise to Simeon?  The Lord had promised him that he would not die before he saw the Messiah, the anointed one.  God made his promise dependent upon the free and loving choice of Mary and Joseph to follow the Law of the Lord.  Because they were faithful and followed the Law, Simeon received the promised child in his arms and gave thanks.  Where will our obedience of love bear fruit in the promises God has made to the people that we relate to each day?

The second truth we discover from that encounter with the Holy Family this morning is the tenacity of hope. We are living in a time of the global pandemic where there is a tremendous crisis of hope in the world.  People are fearful of the future and all of the many unresolved questions regarding health, the economy and family life in general.  Simeon’s encounter with the Holy Family teaches us that hope is real and the promises of God ring true.  

Hope is a theological virtue deeply rooted in the memory.  When we hope in the presence and assistance of God in our daily struggles, we are not merely crossing our fingers and practicing wishful thinking.  Our hope that things will work out is based upon all that we remember about God’s faithfulness in the past.  He has always been faithful, always true.  God has always loved us, consistently forgiven us, constantly welcomed and cared for us.  That same God is with us here and now, and He waits for us in the days ahead.  We are never alone, never abandoned, never without hope.  Simeon knew that; he was a man who studied the promises of God, and knew the history of Israel.  Even though he was a man very advanced in years, he did not doubt that God’s promise to him would be fulfilled.  Neither should we.

Finally, that Gospel passage teaches us about the power of silence.  Specifically, we look to St. Joseph’s strong and loving custodity of the child Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary.  In all of Sacred Scripture St. Joseph never speaks, yet his actions speak louder than words and his faithful care of Jesus and Mary reverberates from the pages of the Gospel.  How desperately we need to emulate this silence and its power to attune the soul to the harmonic plan of God. St. Joseph listened to God’s message for him, and he acted on what he heard.  If we want to know God’s plan for our lives and what He is saying to the world around us, then we have to be silent and listen.  We have to be men and women of prayer.  That is what will allow us to bear fruit in our vocation and find fulfillment in life.

If we look to our readings this weeekend, we can reflect on the passage of St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians:

Wives, be subordinate to your husbands as is proper in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives.

—Colossians 3:18-19

That reading always raises some eyebrows when it is read in the Liturgy, and there is much misunderstanding regarding its meaning.  The Church has always taught the equality of the spouses in Christian marriage.  It is not the case that the woman is submissive to the husband and he is free to do as he pleases.  No, there is a mutual submission; the husband must also submit himself to his wife and love her as Christ loves the Church (which is unto death!).  The word “submission” can be literally understood as “under the mission of.”  Clearly St. Joseph places himself under the mission of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  What is that mission?   It is to bring the Messiah into the world and to present Him to us all as the Savior.  St. Joseph, in his powerful silence and care, places everything under that mission as he protects the child when Herod seeks to destroy Him.  He will devout his life to the care of Jesus and Mary, ensuring that the mission of God is accomplished.

Pope Francis has designated 2021 as the Year of St Joseph.  He has written an Apostolic Letter on St. Joseph in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of St. Joseph being named Patron of the Universal Church.  This year we seek to imitate this silent love that is always attentive to God and places itself under the mission that God desires to see fulfilled in the world around us.

Jesus Christ has come to transform the human family, beginning with each and every one of us.  Where can we discover the obedience of love, the tenacity of hope and the power of silence in our daily lives?  May our encounter with the Holy Family continue to lead us more deeply in the “virtues of family life” in these days of celebrating the Lord’s birth.

Rejoice Always!

Venerable Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan

(Gaudete Sunday-Third Sunday of Advent-Year B; This homily was given on December 13, 2020 at the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Isaiah 61:1-11, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 and John 1:6-28) 

They say that timing is everything.  Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was a young bishop in Vietnam when, in 1975, he was appointed Archbishop of Saigon.  It would give him the opportunity to reach thousands of souls for Christ, to shepherd the Lord’s flock in a way he could have never imagined.  But timing is everything.  Six days after his appointment, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese army.  Because of his ardent faith and his family connections to the former regime, the bishop was arrested and imprisoned for 13 years.  Nine of those years were spent in solitary confinement.

In the first days of his captivity he could hear the ringing of the bells of the cathedral in the city of Nha Trang, where he had previously been bishop.  The prison was that close.  Far from becoming bitter about that ironic reality, he would later say, “The Father never abandoned me.”  His deep faith endured through those initial days of trial and he kept his focus on God.

From the outset there were five guards assigned to Van Thuan; they would take shifts, two at a time, watching over him.  At first the leaders determined to change the groups completely every two weeks, fearing the guards would become “contaminated” by this dangerous bishop.   Van Thuan said to himself, “You have the love of Christ in your heart; love them as Jesus loved you.”  The affect on the guards was so powerful that many of them began to consider him a friend and not a prisoner.  The leaders then told the guards, “We’ve decided not to switch you anymore; otherwise this bishop will contaminate all of the police.”  

In 1998, Van Thuan was finally released from prison. Three years later, realizing how contagious the bishop’s faith was, the government “invited” him to leave the country and never come back!  He came to Rome and in 1994 St. John Paul II appointed him Prefect for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.  He was later created a Cardinal.  In 2017 Pope Francis named him venerable, the first step on the way to becoming a canonized saint.  Whether prisoner or prelate, Venerable Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was always a man totally filled with joy; it literally overflowed into the lives of those around him.

Today we celebrate Gaudete Sunday.  That word, Gaudete, is Latin for joy.  The entrance antiphon for this Third Sunday of Advent is taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.  Indeed the Lord is near” (Philippians 4:4-5).  We rejoice because the celebration of the birth of Christ is nearly upon us, and He is the source of our joy.

In the Second Reading this morning, St. Paul repeats his sentiments from the entrance antiphon when he says, “Rejoice always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16).  We do well to remember that this is the same man that was imprisoned many times for his faith in Christ.  St. Paul was beaten, scourged, stoned, rejected and scorned by many of his contemporaries.  What he reminds us of, along with Cardinal Van Thuan, is that our joy is not founded on feelings or circumstances but on a person: God, the Holy Spirit.

The 16th Century “Apostle of Rome,” St. Philip Neri would often say that joy is the infallible sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  If you find true joy in a person then you will also be able to recognize the presence of God.  Joy, however, is not the same thing as happiness.  The world we live in uses those terms interchangeably, but they are different.  One can be really unhappy about the circumstances of life (like Cardinal Van Thuan or St. Paul would have been when they were deprived of their freedom and treated so shamefully) but at the same time possess the abiding joy of the Holy Spirit.

The Prophet Isaiah announces the Messiah this morning in our First Reading, and how the Spirit of God will bring joy to those in distress.  He writes:

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God.  I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul.

—Isaiah 61:1-2, 10

This Gaudete Sunday, as we draw ever closer to the birth of Christ, we can ask ourselves: “Where will we find joy this Christmas.”  Because it might be found in the circumstances of our lives; it is possible that we will discover that joy in the sentiments of this season, which open us up through beautiful memories and kindness in the present moment.  But there is no guarantee of that reality for all of us.  

There is, however, a promise from God that He will come to us, when we love Him and keep His commandments; that He will make His home in us when we open our hearts to Christ (see John 14:23).  This is the promise of the Holy Spirit, who lived in St. Paul and in Cardinal Van Thuan, and who lives in us through the power of Baptism and the overwhelming grace of God.  Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  We pray this weekend for the Holy Spirit to find a home in our hearts, so that we also might spread that joy to all we encounter this Christmas.

Waiting for God

(Second Sunday of Advent-Year B; This homily was given on December 6, 2020 at the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See 2 Pet. 3:8-14 and Mk 1:1-8) 

It was Palm Sunday in 1987.  A religious priest living here in Rome was alone in his congregation’s chapel, faithfully observing the practice of Morning Prayer.   One of his responsibilities here in the city was to hear confessions for the novices of the Missionaries of Charity.  Suddenly, as he continued to pray his breviary, he heard a voice deep within his soul saying, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst.’”  It seemed very strange to him, and he did not quite understand the experience, so he kept praying.  A second time he heard, not with his ears but deep within his soul, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst.’”  He looked up, somewhat taken aback, at the crucifix on the wall and asked Jesus, “Are you talking to me?”  A third time, he heard what he now understood as a command, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst.’”  

The priest then wrote a letter to Mother Teresa, asking her pardon for what certainly seemed to be quite odd, and dropped the letter off when he went to hear the confessions of the novices.  The next time he went to the convent, Mother Teresa was there and she confronted him: Are you the priest who heard Jesus say, “Tell Mother Teresa, ‘I thirst’”?  He said that he was the one who had written the letter.  She asked him what else Jesus said, and the priest answered, “Nothing.”  She asked him what he thought it meant; he answered that he did not know.  What he also did not know was that Mother Teresa had been experiencing a deep thirst for Jesus for a very long time.  She was suffering through a profound sense of aridity and even abandonment in prayer, and had begun to interpret this as a sharing in Jesus’ thirst on the cross.  She understood her work in caring for the poorest of the poor as that of quenching the thirst of Jesus, even as she was continually thirsting and longing for him.

The last quarter of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is dedicated to Christian prayer.  It contains some of the richest teachings of our faith on that intimate life we share with God.  At one point the Catechism reflects on the scene in St. John’s Gospel, and the woman at the well who meets Jesus.  Our Lord turns to her and asks her for a drink of water.  It goes on to make the connection that rests at the center of Christian prayer: “God thirsts that we may thirst for Him” (CCC #2560).  

We are now in the heart of Advent and this time of year always involves a longing and waiting for God.  Hopefully it has reached the depths of our prayer.  We should be longing for and thirsting for God, and that intimacy with Him in the depths of our souls.  It should also extend outward, to see God’s work taking place in the lives of those we love and in the sick and suffering souls we each know and encounter.  Maybe we have even grown tired, waiting for God, wondering what is taking Him so long to act and to answer our prayers.  St. Peter, in the Second Reading this weekend, indicates that we are not the only ones waiting.  In fact, he tells us, God is waiting for us!  He writes, regarding the Second Coming:

The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

—2 Peter 3:9

God is waiting for us to be fully alive in Christ and to orient everything in our lives towards Him.  That word, “repentance” is “metanoia” in Greek, and it literally means to change our minds, our hearts, and to see the world around us with new eyes.  It means to look at God, at our neighbor and even at ourselves in a new way, an attitude that is wide open to the coming of Jesus Christ fully into our lives.  

St. John the Baptist, in the Gospel this weekend, is also teaching us about this preparation for Christ.  He announces:

A voice cries out: "In the desert prepare the way of the LORD!" 

-Isaiah 40:1-3

God wants us to be ready this Advent, to be prepared for the coming of Jesus Christ.  He is longing, yearning and pining for us to be thirsty and ready for Him.  There is a beautiful prayer written in the 16th Century by the great mystic and Doctor of the Church, St. Teresa of Avila.  She is reflecting on her tremendous desire for God, her thirst for a life totally immersed in Him.  She knows, theologically, that He is also thirsting for her, and she ponders why these longings together have not been brought to fruition.  She writes:

If the love you have for me, 

is like the love I have for you,

My God, what detains me?

Oh, what is delaying you?

God is thirsting for her thirst, and she longs to be fully united to Him.  She ends by seeking His mercy to prepare her heart for the coming of Jesus Christ:

Lord, make my soul Thine own abode

And I will build a nest so sweet

It may not be too poor for God.

She asks that her soul may be like a nest, so that God can rest in her heart like a dove.  There is a beautiful image for this nest in many of our homes this Advent.  It can be found in many of the churches throughout the city, and there is even an image of it in St. Peter’s Square.  The image is the empty manger, the empty crib, a nest waiting for the infant Christ this Christmas.  

We ask for the grace of God to prepare that nest—through our daily prayer, by our worthy reception of the sacraments and by our works of charity—that it might not be too poor for God.  This Advent, we seek a deeper thirst for the presence of the living God, who we know, beyond all doubt, is longing, pining and thirsting for each of us. 

Advent and the Blessed Virgin Mary

(First Sunday of Advent-Year B; This homily was given on November 29, 2020 at the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Mark 13:33-37) 

We enter once again into the Advent Season, a time of great anticipation and joy.   The word, Advent, comes to us from the Latin word for coming, or adventus.  What we are focused on during Advent, of course, is the coming of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God.  In relation to the coming of Christ, the Church teaches us the importance of glancing backward, as well as looking ahead.

We glance backward in awe and wonder at the God who became man to save us from our sins.  Our readings are often messianic and fill us with that excitement that God intended when He sent Christ into this world as a child born in Bethlehem.  Isaiah's cry this morning leaves us breathless:

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for, such as they have not heard of from of old.

—Isaiah 64:1-4

At the same time, Advent is not only about glancing back in some nostalgic way at the coming of Jesus.  It is a time of preparation for the Second Coming, when Christ will come at the end of time (or at the end of our lives).  That is why, in the Gospel for this morning, we find not the child Jesus in Bethlehem but Christ in front of the temple, exhorting us four times to watch, to be vigilant, and to be ready for Him when he comes again:

Be watchful!  Be alert!  You do not know when the time will come … What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’

—Mark 13:33, 37

Every year we are given St. John the Baptist as a guide in the Advent Season.  He comes up in two out of the four Sunday Gospel readings (next week and the week after).  But I would suggest that, even more than St. John the Baptist, the person who teaches us most about what it means to glance back in wonder and look ahead in faith for the coming of Christ is the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Mary has much that she can teach us this Advent.

Firstly, Mary teaches us about waiting and watching for Christ under her title, Our Lady of Hope.   We are living in a time that is desperate for hope, especially in the midst of the global pandemic and all its consequences for our daily lives and our future.  Interestingly, when the great scholars of the Church write about hope as a theological virtue, they understand it as something rooted and grounded in the past.  

They mention the three faculties of the soul: intellect, memory and will.  The intellect is associated with faith (think of St. Anselm’s fides quearens intellectum and how faith helps to illumine the intellect and allows us to know God more deeply), while the will is commonly associated with the theological virtue of love (the more I will the good of the other, the more I exercise my love for that person).  But hope is associated with the memory.    We remember how faithful God has been in the history of Israel; we recall his fidelity through many centuries of the Church’s life; we can see, in our own personal histories, the tremendous faithfulness of God.  God has always provided, has always loved us; He has always forgiven and cared for us.  That memory inspires us to hope and to look forward with the same certainty that He will be there for us in the days to come.

The Blessed Virgin Mary beautifully expresses this theological virtue when she sings her Maginficat in St. Luke’s Gospel.  In that magnificent song of praise, Mary is glancing back at the Old Testament (specifically, the First Book of Samuel, and also the fidelity of God through the centuries).  She incorporates that song of praise in a new way to express her great hope in what God is doing and will continue to do in the days ahead.  Mary teaches us, this Advent, how to glance back with wonder, and look forward in hope for the coming of Christ.

Secondly, the Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us humility.  Without humility we will never see God, nor be ready to receive Him as we should.  The saints reveal to us that humility is the foundation for prayer and the spiritual life.  St. Teresa of Avila, writing to her sisters, uses the analogy of chess to make this point.  She says:

Now realize that anyone who doesn’t know how to set up the pieces for a game of chess won’t know how to play well.  And without knowing how to check the king, one won’t know how to checkmate it either . . . The queen is the piece that can carry on the best battle in this game, and all the other pieces help.  There’s no queen like humility for making the king surrender.  Humility drew the King from heaven to the womb of the virgin, and with it…we will draw him to our souls. 

—St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, Ch. 16, #1-2

Our Lady drew the king from heaven into her womb and can teach us all about how to live in humility of life.  Humility is simply the acknowledgement of the truth about ourselves, nothing more and nothing less.  In her Magnificat, Mary sings, “For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48).  For anyone else to say that would be arrogance, but with Mary it is perfect humility because it is true.  When we look at our lives, we see only what the Lord has given us and entrusted to us, and we do not seek to go beyond that.  We do not look to the work or life that someone else has, or consider ourselves to be something that we are not.  With the humility of Mary, we can draw God more completely into our souls this Advent. 

Finally, Mary teaches us about waiting and watching for Christ when we meditate on the word, “hic.”  Hic is the latin word for “here,” and if you have every been to the Holy Land then you know where I am going with this already!  That word is inscribed in many of the holy places that mark the significant moments in Jesus’ life.  Mary is also an intimate part of those moments.  

In the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, in the place where the Blessed Virgin Mary said, "Yes," to God, there is an inscription that says, "Hic Verbum caro factum est," Here the Word was made flesh!  At Bethlehem, it is announced that hic the Christ was born of the Virgin.  It is hic, in Cana of Galilee, that Christ performed His first miracle, and the Blessed Virgin Mary was deeply involved in that amazing event.  Mary knows how to find Christ in the present moment, and she longs to intercede for us so that we will not miss Him in the hic et nunc (here and now).  

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in his own meditation on Advent, indicates that hic is the third Advent, which runs between the other two.  He speaks of Christ’s first coming, as a child in Bethlehem, and the Second Coming, at the end of time.  But he says that Christ is constantly coming into our lives in a hidden way, and this way is like the road that runs between the other two.  The Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us how to find Jesus on that road, and helps us to encounter Him hic.  Jesus is coming to us here, now, in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, and will come to us in many different ways when we make room for Him and anticipate that awesome gift of His presence.

In these next four weeks, we ask for the grace to learn from Mary to be people of hope, growing in humility, and aware of the presence of Christ in each of the moments of our lives.  May we truly be watchful and waiting for the coming of Christ this Advent.  

Christ the King and the Wheel of Fortune

(Solemnity of Christ, King of the Universe-Year A; This homily was given on November 22, 2020 at Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Ezekiel 34:11-17 and Matthew 25:31-46)  

There is a concept in ancient and medieval philosophy that gets transferred into some of the art of the culture and eventually gets pulled into Christian art, as well.  The concept or image is called the “Wheel of Fortune.”  Now, it is not that TV show where they spin the multi-colored wheel and then guess the puzzle while the woman turns over the letters as they are illuminated.  As I mentioned, this is a concept from ancient and medieval philosophy.

The “Wheel of Fortune,” as we find it depicted in art, often shows Fortune as a woman blindfolded.  She spins a large wheel, and there are often four figures on various points around it; all of them are the same person at different parts of his life.  On the far left, and rising towards the top of the wheel as it spins, is a finely dressed man, energetic and pleased that he is moving up.  Next to him is a Latin phrase indicating the words, “I will reign.”  At the top of the wheel, seated on a throne and crowned, is the same figure, now with the indication, “I reign.”  Next, and almost falling off the wheel, is the man whose face is twisted in confusion and next to him is written the words, “I reigned.”  Finally, at the bottom, is the figure of that sorry man, his cloak sometimes stripped off, and the crown on the ground beside him, with the words, “I no longer reign.”  

The point of the “Wheel of Fortune” is that everything happens by chance.  Life, says this concept, is simply a random game in which some are fortunate and rule, while others do not.  Perhaps you may get the chance to play several different parts throughout your life, if Lady Fortune smiles upon you, but there are no guarantees.  

In the Sixth Century, with the Christian Philosopher Boethius, we find a renewed vision of that wheel.  In his great work, The Consolation of Philosophy, Lady Philosophy will come to Boethius and, very much like Virgil guiding Dante in the Divine Comedy, she guides him in the finer principles of the philosophical life.  When we reach Book Two, Lady Philosophy begins with a stern warning for Boethius to stay far clear of the malicious Lady Fortune!  

Boethius is not thoroughly convinced at first.  Cannot fortune be useful for many excellent things?  Good fortune, never, she warns him; it is fleeting and will deceive you.  Ill fortune may be instructive and helpful to see some clarity about the passing nature of life and the necessity to hold to the things that matter most (this is the sense that it gets picked up in Christian art, and we find the “Wheel of Fortune in stained glass in many cathedrals).  In the end, Lady Philosophy tells Boethius to hold fast to reason, and ultimately to love.  These are the things that remain stable, and they are a sure guide, whatever the fortunes of life may be.

I would borrow the wisdom Boethius gains, and apply it to our Solemnity of Christ the King this morning.  The readings for this great feast, and Christ Himself, teach us that life is not ruled and governed by chance!  Our lives are ruled by God, and His sovereign will.  It is through the gift of reason, complimented by faith, that we are inspired to use our free will to love, and we come to share in the life of God Himself.  There is nothing random about that.

There can be no greater example of this vision for us than Christ Himself.  Jesus Christ reigns, period.  He simply is Christ the King of the Universe.  Yet, as St. Paul tells us, “He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7).  It is not by ill fortune or by chance that Jesus is stripped of glory and rejected by men.  It is by the will of God that He will lay down His life freely, generously, on the cross.  Christ the King dies for our salvation, and He is risen on the third day by the will of the Father.  He ascends into heaven where He will reign forever, not because Lady Fortune smiles at Him but because He is God and His will is to care for us and govern our lives.  We discover in the Gospel that He wants nothing more than for us than to share in His reign and in His life forever.

We must choose to act in accord with that awesome will and plan of God.  In fact, we discover in the readings for this weekend that we will be judged as to how we have used our reason, our free will, and responded to faith, inspired by love.  Or not.  

The Prophet Ezekiel clearly tells us, “As for you, my sheep, says the Lord God, I will judge between one sheep and another, between rams and goats” (Ezekiel 34:17).  In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Christ the King judges all humanity as to how we have responded to the invitation to love the weak, the poor, the wounded, the lonely, the hungry, the thirsty, the little ones.  For those that respond well, using their free will in accord with their faith and the virtue of love, they are told: “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).  It is a remarkable and amazing reality.

In 1942, at Oxford University, C.S. Lewis delivered an essay entitled, “The Weight of Glory.”  In that essay, he writes about this amazing call that we have been given, to share the very life of God and to enter into His glory.  He says that there may be a danger for me to think too much of my own glory (isn’t there always a danger of this), but what is not possible is for me to think too much of my neighbor’s glory.  To want them to enter more deeply into the life of God and to share in God’s kingdom is always a project we can throw ourselves completely into.  

But, C.S. Lewis writes, because of this call to share in God’s glorious kingdom, we must also realize that there are no “ordinary” people.  No, he says, you have never met an “ordinary” person.  Those that we meet each day, those we marry, or ignore, or work with, ride the train with or pass by in the street, they are not “ordinary.”  They are men and women destined to share in the glory of God, or what he calls potentially hideous creatures because they may have rejected that awesome call.  He says everyone we meet could be someone so glorious and marvelous that, if we were to see them now as they one day will be, we would be tempted to fall down and worship them; or someone so hideous, because they have become what God never intended, that they would be something we would find only in a nightmare.

Every day, writes C.S. Lewis, we are helping each other to one or the other of these two possible ends.  In the choices that we make, and in the things we do, how we use our reason and freedom, act on faith, are inspired to love, we help our neighbor towards one of these two directions.  

As we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe, we pray for the grace to make the right decisions, to live our lives well by the way we relate to God and those around us.  Because we are not ruled and governed by the “Wheel of Fortune,” but by the will of God.  We are called to share in His eternal reign and His eternal glory, and to help our neighbor to share in that same awesome reality. 

Entrustment of the Heart

(Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on November 15, 2020 at Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Proverbs 31:10-31, 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6 and Matthew 25:14-30) 

We have come down to the end of the Liturgical Year, in these last two weeks of Ordinary Time, and then we begin a whole new season in Advent.  Every year, during this end of the liturgical cycle, we are given readings which invite us to reflect on the “four last things”: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.  

Certainly it is not common, nor is it easy, to reflect on these last things.  Thankfully, the way the readings are organized can always be helpful.  You may or may not know, but the First Reading is always chosen to “harmonize” with the Gospel for all the weeks or Ordinary Time; it often provides an interpretive key for understanding the Gospel or at least helps to shed some light upon it.  The second reading could fit those other two readings, but it does not always happen that way.  This week, St. Paul is writing about the “Day of the Lord,” or the last judgment, which is exactly what the Gospel is drawing our attention to.

But what about our first reading, from the Book of Proverbs?  It seems to be just a simple and inspirational treatise on marriage.   It talks about the faithful wife and what a treasure she is.  That does not sound very apocalyptic at all.  The key to its “harmony” with the Gospel, however, is found in the second sentence of that reading:

When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls.  Her husband, entrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize.

—Proverbs 31:10-11

It is immediately after that verse—this entrustment of the heart—that we hear of this beautiful, holy wife, who places great care in pouring out her loving concern for her husband and home.  More than that, she also “reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy” (Proverbs 31:19-20).   There is something very feminine, receptive and giving about the way she responds to this husband who entrusts his heart to her.  

In 1988, St. John Paul II wrote an Apostolic Letter to women called Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women).  In that letter he writes about what he calls the “feminine genius,” that remarkable ability that women have to receive and to be attentive to love, and how they offer that love to the world.  The Blessed Mother is an exemplar, in the way she receives the Savior of the world and then offers Him freely as a true mother.  “The moral and spiritual strength of a woman,” writes St. John Paul II, “is joined to her awareness that God entrusts the human being to her in a special way.”  

The context he talks about is the progress of science and technology, and how that has led to material well-bering for some but has also placed a divide on the many, the needy.  He says that as a result there exists a great insensitivity to humanity, people left out on the margins that no one is caring for.  Women, he says, have a particular ability to respond to that reality because they are first in the order of love (see Mulieris Dignitatem, #30).  Is this not the same thing Pope Francis has been saying for his entire papacy, this need to care for the needy and those on the peripheries?

In Proverbs, from the entrustment of the heart the faithful wife is receptive, active, and free to offer that love to the world around her.  But here is the connection with our Gospel.  In that parable Jesus says, “A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them” (Matthew 25:14).  

Of course, we know that the “man” is God, and He did not simply entrust His possessions with them.  Like the husband in Proverbs, He entrusted them with His heart!  He gave each of them His heart, and in a different measure for each one (five talents, two talents and one talent).  He knew them.  He loved them.  What He wanted was the response of the bride in the Book of Proverbs; He wanted them to respond, love for love.  God is not a businessman in charge of possessions.  He is love straight through, and He simply wants us to become more like Him.  

Clearly, the servant with one talent does not see this.  He says, “Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter” (Matthew 25:24).  Is that true?  Is that what God is like?  No!  But this man thought so, and he acted not out of faith but out of fear.  He went off and buried what was entrusted to him in the ground.  His judgment is a harsh and surprising one.

St. Paul writes about the surprising day of the Lord, that it will come like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2):

When people are saying, ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

—1 Thessalonians 5:3

What a terrifying reality!   But then St. Paul goes on to clarify, “But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for that day to overtake you like a thief.  For all of you are children of the light and children of the day” (1 Thessalonians 5:4-5).  We are the Bride of Christ!  We have received love and we live now in the light, giving love for love.  That is what happens in the Gospel for those two other servants.  We are told that they responded, they received well what was given to them and multiplied it.  Their reward?  “Come, share your master’s joy.”  That is what God wants for each and every one of us, to share in joy with Him forever.  We accomplish that by receiving the love He gives us, by receiving His heart, and responding.

Today we celebrate the World Day of the Poor.  Pope Francis reminds us of how attentive we must be to the poor, and how Christ identifies Himself directly with them (Matthew 25:40).  There are so many that are poor among us, those who find themselves in need.  There are also many who may be materially self-sufficient but suffer from other forms of poverty, as well.  There is so much suffering in the world we live in today.  We pray for the grace to be attentive to the many women God has placed in our lives, who teach us about the order of love and help us to understand what it means to respond to the entrustment of the heart.  God has entrusted each of us with His heart in the life and love we have in Christ.  May we return that gift, love for love, in all we say and do.