Learning to Please the Lord

(Fourth Sunday of Lent-Year A; This homily was given on March 22, 2020 in Rome, Italy; See John 9: 1-41)

This has definitely been a period of learning.  Here in Italy, and certainly everywhere else in the world, we have had to learn new ways of living with the crisis of COVID-19.  In fact, even the seminarians here in Rome and students at the major universities are learning new ways of, well, learning.  Instead of listening to lectures in a classroom, they are following their professors online behind a computer screen.  The same is happening in grammar schools and high schools, here and in the U.S., and across the world. 

Priests and religious are necessarily learning new ways of ministering in these challenging times.  Although many priests have already become tech-savvy by putting their Masses and homilies online for the sick and homebound, now this is perhaps the only way for priests to communicate the saving message of Christ to their flock.  Parishes everywhere in the world are becoming “homebound” as states and regions implement radical measures to stave off the spread of this devastating illness.

We are all learning to live in a new way, staying more and more at home and hopefully striving to understand what our Lord is asking of us in these strange days.  That message of learning and growth is central to the Christian life.  We also see it clearly in the readings for this weekend.  St. Paul, writing to the Church at Ephesus, instructs them, “Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:10).  

St. Paul’s audience has already experienced interior conversion and has been introduced into the life of Jesus Christ.  He writes to them, saying “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8).  Still, the fullness of the Christian life is not something that happens automatically.  They will have to learn about the life, passion and death of Christ; they will come to discover the life of virtue and the need to live daily by God’s grace and mercy.  They will gradually, and certainly joyfully, “learn what is pleasing to the Lord”.  

Liturgically in the life of the Church, catechumens are learning many things about the Christian life.  They are being instructed in the faith as they prepare to be received into the Church this Easter.  Perhaps many of them will have to learn a different way of celebrating that mystery in these coming days.  Maybe many of them will not be able to receive the Sacraments of Initiation in the presence of an entire congregation and their family as they had anticipated, but perhaps they will have to experience that moment at some time later.  This is definitely a new period of learning for us all.

In the Gospel this weekend we hear of the man born blind who is healed by Christ.  Once in utter darkness, now he is able to see the light and everyone in it.  It is a glorious moment of healing and grace for that man.  Still, he does not completely know everything that he needs to know, or would like to know, about living in the light.  He does not know everything that he needs to know about life in Jesus Christ.  He will come to discover these things gradually; he will learn them.

When the people come to discover that the blind man has been healed, they are astounded and ask him how he received his sight.  He responds, “The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’  So I went.” (John 9:11).  The man called Jesus . . . He is correct, of course.  Jesus is a man.  Still, there is so much more that he will come to know about this Jesus of Nazareth.

The next time the man born blind is questioned, the inquiry happens before the Pharisees.  They ask him the same question, how he was healed.  The man responds in the same way, but by now he has been able to learn a little more about “the man called Jesus.”  When the Pharisees ask, “What do you have to say about him,” the man replies, “He is a prophet” (John 9:17).  OK, now we are getting warmer!  Again, what the man has said is true, Jesus is a prophet.  He has come, in fact, to fulfill the law and the prophets.  But there is still much more left to learn.  It is only when the man comes back, face to face with Jesus, that the eyes of his heart are completely opened.

Jesus hears that the Pharisees have thrown the man out of the synagogue, and so our Lord seeks him out.  The Gospel relates that exchange between the Master and His pupil:

[Jesus] found him and said, 

“Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 

He answered and said, 

“Who is he sir, that I may believe in him?”

Jesus said to him, 

“You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.”

He said, 

“I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him.

—John 9:35-38

In the space of that account in the Gospel this man has not only received his sight, not only has he moved from darkness to light, but he has also come to a living faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God.  He places his belief in the Lord, and he worships Him. 

How are we growing in our faith this Lent, and how are we able to respond to St. Paul’s exhortation, “Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:10)?

Firstly, it is hardly possible to please someone if you do not know them!  It is also really difficult to know someone unless you talk with them.  A lot.  We started Lent focusing on prayer, fasting and almsgiving.  Today we can check back on those three spiritual practices and especially our daily conversation with the Lord.   We begin to please the Lord by sincere and heartfelt prayer.  Are we speaking to Him often about the coronavirus?  About the people that we love and are close to, and the concerns that they are facing?  About the people that are very far away, people we perhaps do not even know, but who are desperately in need our prayers in this crisis?  This is pleasing to God.  So is listening well to Him, trying to understand what He is saying to us and how He would like us to live our Christian faith.  We please the Lord by talking with Him a lot in prayer.

Secondly, we can learn what is pleasing to the Lord in the midst of the ordinary struggles and trials that we face each day.  There is a remarkable passage in the Letter to the Hebrews describing the passion of our Lord.  It says, “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:8-9).  It is not the case that Jesus was ever disobedient, and had to be taught a lesson.  Obviously, He was always obedient and He lovingly attended the will of the Father.  It is just that, in those moments of suffering, He was able to manifest and express that obedience and love in a particular and efficacious way.  So it is with each of us.  In the moments of difficulty that we face each day, we learn obedience, we learn to lovingly attend to the will of God.  These days it may seem very difficult to navigate the many changes in our lives, the restrictions we have received, the challenges that we are facing.  There are many opportunities for us to learn the obedience of love that grace often ushers into our lives in precisely such moments.  

Finally, we can learn what is pleasing to the Lord through what the theologian Robert Jenson indicates as "telling the story of salvation."  According to Jenson, the role of the Christian is to tell the story of salvation, firstly to God, and then to the world around us.  

At first this seems rather strange.  Why would we tell the story of salvation to God?  It would seem that He is already rather familiar with that story!  But if we look all throughout the Sacred Scriptures, the people of God are constantly telling the story about how God saved them, how He rescued them from peril, and they praise Him for that marvelous salvation.  It is called, says Jenson, worship.  We worship God when we recall all the amazing things He has done for us, and give Him thanks and praise.  In the Gospel, the man born blind finally came to understand who Jesus was.  He expressed his faith in the Lord, “and he worshiped him.”  We are called to do the same.

Once we have been strengthened in our faith and worshiped God, then we move on to tell the story of salvation to those around us.  This is evangelization.  In these difficult days in which so many people are worried and concerned about the future and about all that is happening around us, we do well as Christians to remember that God is faithful; that He has always been faithful; that He always will be faithful.  When we tell the story of God’s saving love and His care for our lives, we give the people around us hope that we are not alone and that we will always be cared for by God, especially in dark and difficult times like the one we are experiencing.  

As we strive “to learn what is pleasing to the Lord,” there are many things that God can teach us.  By far, three of the greatest of these are faith, hope and love.  May we discover, like the man in our Gospel this weekend, how to have a living faith that worships and obeys God.  We also place our hope and our trust in Him and in the promise that He is always with us, especially as we face the crisis of the coronavirus.  We ask, above all, for the grace to love Him, and to see that same love made present in our lives and in the way we live. 

Thirsting for God

(Third Sunday of Lent-Year A; This homily was given on March 15, 2020 in Rome, Italy; See John 4: 5-42)

There is a powerful Country song by the artist, Kathy Mattea, named “Knee Deep in a River.”   Like many Country songs it is tragic and beautiful at the same time, because it describes life as we often find it.  The song is about the abundance of relationships and possibilities for fulfillment, and the truth that we very often fail to make those essential connections.  Instead of being fulfilled by what is already in our lives, we seek something else and are left wanting.  The song begins:

Friends I could count on, I could count on one hand

With a leftover finger or two

I took ‘em for granted, let ‘em all slip away

Now where they are I wish I knew

They roll by just like water

And I guess we never learn

Go through life parched and empty

Standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst

In our Gospel this weekend we hear that familiar and moving story of the woman at the well.  In many ways she is a woman standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst.  She comes to the well to draw water and, unknowingly, finds herself standing before the Messiah.  He engages her in a profoundly personal conversation and declares to her even the most intimate details of her life.  When he invites her to go and call her husband, the woman replies, “I do not have a husband.”  Jesus responds, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’  For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.  What you have said is true” (John 4:17-18).  In all of those relationships she has not been able to find the fulfillment and the peace that she is seeking.  She is standing knee deep in a river, and dying of thirst.

What is more, we learn that she has come to the well at noon time.  No one comes to draw water at noon in that part of the world!  Women in Palestine in the time of Christ came to draw water in the morning, or perhaps late afternoon, when it was cooler.  They would likely come in numbers because it was safer.  But this woman would not have felt either welcome or comfortable among that number.  She comes to the well at noon because she is alone, isolated from the relationships and the community to which she belongs.

Yet in the midst of her thirst, and precisely in the place of greatest vulnerability, she finds the source of living water that is Christ Himself.  It is an amazing and hope-filled story of encounter and transformation.  I would suggest that it is especially compelling for us in at least two specific ways.  

Firstly, it is compelling because we see this woman connected not only to the source of living water that is Christ; we also see her reconnected to all of the relationships that were already present in her life.  By the end of the Gospel, we hear that she has returned to the town and become an ambassador for Jesus Christ.  She tells them all that Jesus has said to her, asking “Could he possibly be the Christ?” (John 4:29).  Not only does she return with confidence and announce the Messiah to them with boldness; importantly, they truly listen to her.  They take this woman very seriously, and are inwardly moved by what she has told them.  

Secondly, this story is compelling because we have all been there, we have all been that thirsty.  We all know what it is like to have such an abundance of possibilities for being fulfilled, so many relationships and graces that we experience on so many different levels, and still find ourselves unhappy and thirsty for the love and contentment that God alone can provide.  

There is a wonderful book called, The Little Prince, which has been translated into several hundred languages and has delighted children and adults for decades.  It is tale about an aviator whose plane breaks down in the desert.  There in that place he meets the Little Prince, who is visiting Earth from his own small planet.  They become friends and begin to go on adventures together.   At one point their source of water runs out and they become quite thirsty.  Suddenly, in the middle of the desert, they discover a well!  The aviator draws some water for the Prince and is struck by the simplicity and serenity with which his little friend consumes it.  He thinks to himself that seeing the Prince enjoying that water is like a holiday; it gave the aviator pleasure just to watch how content that Little Prince was.  Suddenly his little friend turns to him and says:

“The men where you live raise five thousand roses in the same garden—and they do not find in it what they are looking for . . . And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little water.”  

The aviator concedes, perhaps from personal experience, that this is true; we are often left unsatisfied, despite the great abundance of what we have been given.  The prince then declares that they eyes are blind, and “one has to look with the heart.”

We are called to seek Christ, the living water, who alone can satisfy us.  God invites us to open our hearts and our souls, and to drink deeply from Christ, the source of living water.  Here in the Eucharist we arrive at the well, at the place where Christ fulfills our deepest desires.  But, like the woman at the well, He also longs to reconnect us to others and to make us more aware of the many possibilities for being in communion with the people that are already a part of our lives.  Will we cooperate with that holy longing?

The final verse of that Kathy Mattea song is as tragic and poignant as the beginning:

So the sidewalk is crowded, the city goes by,

And I rush through another day

And a world full of strangers turn their eyes to me,

But I just look the other way

They roll by just like water

And I guess we never learn

Go through life parched and empty

Standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst

Drinking deeply here at this well, strengthened in the body and blood of Christ, we ask for the grace not to turn the other way, but to help others to find that same source of living water that is Christ.  In particular in these days, as the people we encounter turn to us, perhaps it is only the eyes that we will see.  In the midst of the current pandemic of the coronavirus COVID-19, peoples faces are often partially covered with a protective mask and their eyes alone are visible.  How essential that we do not look the other way, but instead engage them and help them to have hope and faith in the midst of this crisis.  May the God who met the woman at the well meet each of us this week, quenching our thirst for true peace and fulfillment and granting our deep desire for healing and new life.

St. Josephine Bakhita: Hope Springs Eternal

St. Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947)

Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Josephine Bakhita, of one of the most amazing and beautiful women to ever profess the Christian faith.  If the world we live in were suddenly covered in concrete and deprived of all light, there would necessarily break from the ground a bud, that would grow and blossom into a radiant, exotic flower, capable of transforming everything around it with its beauty.  That flower would be named Josephine Bakhita.  

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI tells her story in the Encyclical Letter, Spe Salvi:

To come to know God—the true God—means to receive hope. We who have always lived with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with this God. The example of a saint of our time can to some degree help us understand what it means to have a real encounter with this God for the first time. I am thinking of the African Josephine Bakhita, canonized by Pope John Paul II. She was born around 1869—she herself did not know the precise date—in Darfur in Sudan. At the age of nine, she was kidnapped by slave-traders, beaten till she bled, and sold five times in the slave-markets of Sudan. Eventually she found herself working as a slave for the mother and the wife of a general, and there she was flogged every day till she bled; as a result of this she bore 144 scars throughout her life. Finally, in 1882, she was bought by an Italian merchant for the Italian consul Callisto Legnani, who returned to Italy as the Mahdists advanced. Here, after the terrifying “masters” who had owned her up to that point, Bakhita came to know a totally different kind of “master”—in Venetian dialect, which she was now learning, she used the name “paron” for the living God, the God of Jesus Christ. Up to that time she had known only masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered her a useful slave. Now, however, she heard that there is a “paron” above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her—that he actually loved her. She too was loved, and by none other than the supreme “Paron”, before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her “at the Father's right hand”. Now she had “hope” —no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.” Through the knowledge of this hope she was “redeemed”, no longer a slave, but a free child of God. She understood what Paul meant when he reminded the Ephesians that previously they were without hope and without God in the world—without hope because without God. Hence, when she was about to be taken back to Sudan, Bakhita refused; she did not wish to be separated again from her “Paron”. On 9 January 1890, she was baptized and confirmed and received her first Holy Communion from the hands of the Patriarch of Venice. On 8 December 1896, in Verona, she took her vows in the Congregation of the Canossian Sisters and from that time onwards, besides her work in the sacristy and in the porter's lodge at the convent, she made several journeys round Italy in order to promote the missions: the liberation that she had received through her encounter with the God of Jesus Christ, she felt she had to extend, it had to be handed on to others, to the greatest possible number of people. The hope born in her which had “redeemed” her she could not keep to herself; this hope had to reach many, to reach everybody.

—Spe Salvi, #3

The world we live in cries out for hope.  God answers in the lives of the saints, and today most eloquently in St. Josephine Bakhita.  Asked once what she would say if she were to meet the persons who had abducted her many years before, she responded by taking that question one step further:

“If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands.  For if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today.”

St. Josephine Bakhita, 

Pray for us.

The Presentation of the Lord

(Feast of the Presentation of the Lord-Year A; This homily was given on February 2, 2020 in Rome, Italy; See Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 2: 22-40)

Even though we have been in “Ordinary Time” for several weeks now, the prayer before our procession in the liturgy this morning reminds us of the connection between today’s Feast of the Presentation of the Lord and Christmas.  We prayed:

Forty days have passed since we celebrated the joyful feast of the Nativity of the Lord.  Today is the blessed day when Jesus was presented in the Temple by Mary and Joseph.

The coming of the Messiah, as we saw during the major moments of the Christmas Season, brings particular gifts and graces for God’s people.  Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem was promised and anticipated by the Prophet Micah.  God’s promises for the Jewish people were manifested in the Child born in that Cave in Palestine two thousand years ago.  

With the Feast of the Epiphany, however, we saw that God was made manifest not only to the people of Israel, but to all the nations.  In the three Magi, God’s promise for salvation and the hope of eternal life for all people has been revealed.  The truth of God’s unconditional love has been made known to all the world.  God did not desire to reveal himself only for those who were worthy of His presence (that would have been a really short list!).  He does not come into the world and reveal Himself on certain conditions. God’s love is unconditional, universal and omnipresent.

What this morning’s feast reveals for us, however, is that a living, personal and fruitful relationship with God is conditional!  It is not the case that God’s coming automatically makes everything right in the world.  We need only look around us each day and see that this is manifestly not the case.  No, the unconditional love of God has to be accepted, welcomed, embraced, responded to.  There are “conditions” for experiencing a deep, intimate, fruitful relationship with God.  The readings for this feast reveal several such conditions that are important for us as we seek to follow Jesus Christ and bear fruit in Him (see John 15:1-17).  

The first “condition” we discover today in the Book of the Prophet Malachi is that the Lord comes in a particular way to those who wait for Him, those who long for Him and even pine for His healing presence.  Malachi prophesies of the Messiah:

And suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek, and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.

—Malachi 3:1

When the Son of God came into the world there were many who were longing and anticipating that day.  They were not at all disappointed!  One of them is found in the Gospel for the Feast of the Presentation.  Simeon, St. Luke tells us, was a man “righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25).  How long had he been waiting?  Maybe he had been watching for the coming of Christ all of his life . . . Maybe he began each morning, hoping that this would be the day that God’s promise to him would be fulfilled and he would see the face of God.  Is it any wonder that when that moment finally arrives he cannot help himself and he takes the child into his hands and blesses the living God (Luke 2:28).

Another such person, longing for and waiting for the Christ, was the Prophetess Anna.  St. Luke relates that she had lived for 7 years with her husband after their marriage and then as a widow until the age of 84.  That is a really long time to be alone, but St. Luke says “She never left the Temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer” (Luke 2:37).  She was longing and pining for God.  When He came she, too, like Simeon, immediately responded with thanks and praise and “spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).  God comes in a particular, amazing and beautiful way to those who wait for Him!

The second “condition” we find in the Scriptures this weekend is that the Lord purifies those to whom He comes.  Malachi ponders:

But who will endure the day of his coming?

And who can stand when he appears?

For he is like the refiner’s fire,

or like the fuller’s lye.

He will sit refining and purifying silver,

and he will purify the sons of Levi,

Refining them like gold or like silver.

—Malachi 3:2-3

It is very much the case that God often prunes the branches He chooses, that they may bear even more fruit (John 15:2). God is willing to allow trials and difficulties into our lives not because He does not care or does not love us, but precisely because He loves us very much and He wants us to be fruitful.  He purifies us especially in prayer, in those daily conversations with Him in which it is very difficult to communicate love to Him and often even difficult to receive it.  He purifies us before the Blessed Sacrament, in adoration and in those moments of silence and faith.  

Importantly for us who struggle so much with purification, we discover this weekend that He even purifies the Blessed Virgin Mary!  She who is perfect and totally pure is nevertheless purified so that she can give herself even more completely to God.  Simeon, while holding Mary’s child in his arms, says to her, “. . . and you yourself a sword will pierce” (Luke 2:35). Yes, even Mary would suffer and endure trials.  Even Mary would have to see her son slowly slipping away from her as the crowds increased and made demands upon Him.  Even Mary would have to come to the place where He was and be turned away because there was no room for her (Luke 8:19).  Even Mary would stand at Calvary, purified as she shared generously in the work of redemption at the foot of her son’s cross.  The Lord purifies those to whom He comes.

Finally, however, we catch a glimpse of why God comes to those who wait for Him, and the reason for their purification.  Malachi tells us that God will purify the sons of Levi (the priests),  “Refining them like gold or like silver THAT they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD.  THEN the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem will please the LORD, as in the days of old, as in years gone by” (Malachi 3:3-4).

The priest is the mediator between God and His people.  His role, his responsibility, his very life is to bring the offering of the people and present it before God, and to bring the word and blessing of God back to His chosen people.  Clearly, they were not doing that work very well!  They need to be refined and purified so that they could rediscover the great honour that belonged to the sons of Levi.  God wants us to bear fruit and live fully all that He commands, so that our lives will themselves become a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1-2) and make a difference for those around us.

Nowhere do we find this reality lived out more beautifully than in the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph.  St. Luke notes three separate times in the beginning of our Gospel this morning how they came to bring Jesus to the Temple out of obedience to the law of the Lord.  The law indicated that they had to be purified after the birth of Christ, and that the Child had to be consecrated to God.  And even though Mary is already pure, and her son is already consecrated from the moment of His conception, nevertheless, they followed the law.  The gave themselves completely, even joyfully, to the commandments of God.  When they did so, something amazing and wonderful happened.

God had made a promise to Simeon “that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord” (Luke 2:26).  But then He makes that awesome and solemn promise completely dependent upon the loving obedience of that young girl and her husband!  If Mary and Joseph had chosen not to follow the law, God’s promise to Simeon would have been in vain.  But God always keeps His promises, and the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph had no other desire than to serve and love the Lord.  Do we share that same desire?

Where are we waiting for God, longing and pining for Him?  How is He purifying and refining us as we enter more deeply into that fruitful, personal relationship with Him?  And perhaps most importantly of all, who are the people right now that are waiting on the promises and presence of God, people who will perhaps experience that hope for which they long, through our loving obedience to God?

God on the Seaward Road

(Third Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year A; This homily was given on January 26, 2020 in Primavalle-Rome, Italy; See Isaiah 8:23-9:3 and Matthew 4: 12-23)

In the terminology of the International organisations, it is called “forced migration.”  It is what happens when there is a conflict or war, and millions of people suffer.  People who are not soldiers, not directly involved in the conflict, are “in the way” and are forced to make a choice.  Either they move or they die.  Often, with only the clothes on their back and whatever they can carry in their hands (which is often their smallest child), they leave their home and seek a safer place.  

Recent figures indicate that there are over 70 million forced migrants in the world today.  Half of them come from one of three countries: Afghanistan, South Sudan or Syria.  Some 40 million are “internally displaced persons” or IDPs.  They have fled their home but remain in the same country.   Their future is far from secure.  Another 25 million persons are refugees, people that have fled their own country and are seeking refuge in a foreign land, where they have no citizenship, no resources and very little hope.  Millions of others are trafficked, collateral damage in the world of conflict and war.  

Pope Francis has taken a deep, personal interest in the care of these vulnerable people.  There is an entire section in the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development dedicated to assisting refugees and migrants.  The sisters in your community here in this city, and in places all across the world, also devote tremendous care and resources to meet the basic needs of these persons who often have nowhere else to turn.  You bring God into the lives of these vulnerable people, and where there is God there is hope.

In the Scriptures this weekend, we listen to the tragic story of forced migration in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and in the Gospel of St. Matthew.  We hear about the “land of Zebulun and of Naphtali.”  These two tribes of Israel were located in the far northwest region of the nation, which means they were on the border.  They were much more vulnerable to attack than the interior tribes.  

In the 8th century before the birth of Christ, the major superpower of that part of the world was Assyria.  Over the course of several years they had invaded, destroyed and conquered the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. Thousands of people were carried away into exile, enslaved in Assyria, never to return home again.   Furthermore, the Assyrians sent thousands of their own people into Zebulun and Naphtali, to colonise that place and erase its former identity.  The phrase “Galilee of the Gentiles” was not a positive one, but a term of scorn and derision.  

By the time of Christ, the people of Israel were well aware of the tragic fate of Zebulun and Naphtali.  It was a dark place on the face of the earth, a place that many would have considered forsaken.  But Isaiah reminds the people of God that they have NOT been forgotten!  This land is NOT forsaken.  The Messiah would walk into the middle of that place and shine the light of hope on all humanity.  Isaiah prophesied:

First the Lord degraded the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali: but in the end he has glorified the seaward road, the land west of the Jordan, the District of the Gentiles.  Anguish has taken wing, dispelled is darkness: for there is no gloom where but now there was distress.  The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.

—Isaiah 8:23-9:3

St. Matthew proclaims that Jesus “went to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet might be FULFILLED” (Matthew 4:13-14).  It is there in the “land of gloom” that Jesus will call His first Apostles, whom He will send out to the furthest reaches of the word to spread the light of the Gospel of salvation.  God has indeed “gloried the seaward road”!  

The spiritual principle we find at work in the readings this weekend teaches us that God can—and often does—work in the most painful places; He is capable of shining His light into the darkness of our world in every age.  The miracle of grace that happened in the first century with the coming of Christ continues to work in the world through His body, the Church.  

In the 5th century, as the Christian faith continued to spread throughout the world, a young man named Patrick was living in Britain.  When he was only 16 years old, the village where he resided was attacked by marauders and Patrick was carried off to Ireland and forced to work as a shepherd.  There, tending the flocks alone day after day, he began to remember the Catholic faith that he had been taught as a child but never completely followed.  He remembered the exhortations to always be prepared for the day of salvation, to follow the commandments, to pray and worship God.  

The light of faith was there enkindled in the heart of that young man, and he began to devote many hours each day to prayer.  And so it was that Patrick was attentive to the voice of God within his soul.  One evening, he recalls in his spiritual testimony or Confessio, he heard the Lord say to him, “Your ship is ready.”  It seemed quite strange to Patrick, because he was hundreds of miles from the shore!  Nonetheless, he heard the voice again, “Your ship is ready.”  Motivated by faith, he escaped from captivity and made his way to the sea.  As he arrived to that place, never having been there before, there was a ship leaving the port for Britain!  Patrick was carried back home and was eventually reunited with his family.

Several years after his return, however, Patrick heard another voice.  This time it was not the voice of God, but the “voice of the Irish,” and he relates the words he heard deep within his soul: “We beseech thee, holy young man, to come and walk among us once again.”  He writes how his heart was broken and he was moved with great love, choosing then to return to Ireland as a missionary and to proclaim the Catholic faith to them.  St. Patrick, as we know, is the patron saint of Ireland.  In him, too, did God glorify “the seaward road.”  

Where is God calling us to be more attentive to His voice in our lives at this time?  Where is He calling us, along “the seaward road,” in those places where there is darkness, sadness and gloom?  Where are the “forsaken” present among us, in need of the Good News of Jesus Christ and the redemptive power of God’s grace?  The Missionaries of Charity are founded on this very reality.  God spoke to St. Teresa of Calcutta, asking her to, “Come, be my light.”  He called her to carry His light to those who were suffering in the darkness.  May we all continue to respond to that call, to be sent by Christ to dispel the darkness and to be His light in every part of this world.

The Light of Christmas

(Second Sunday after Christmas-Year A; This homily was given on January 5, 2020 at the Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia in Rome, Italy; See Ephesians 1:3-18 and John 1: 1-18)

There is a hospital in the smallest state of the United States (Rhode Island) that is a really big deal for a lot of very small reasons.  It is called the Hasbro Children’s Hospital, located in Providence, Rhode Island, and it provides health care for thousands of young people each year.  While many of the children in that place are there for a short visit, struggling with the flu or some other temporary illness, others are fighting a much more difficult battle.  With that said, there are also many medical professionals, chaplains and volunteers who bring hope and healing to those very special young people.

One day, volunteer Steve Rosnihan noticed that he could see his bus stop from the window of an upper floor in Hasbro Children’s Hospital.   At the end of each day at the hospital, he would pedal his bike a short distance away, and then place it on the bus, riding public transit the rest of the way home.  He told some of the children at the hospital to look out to the bus stop at 8:30pm, and at that time he began to flash the lamp on the front of his bicycle.  The children delighted in this simple message of care and support.  Seeing their reaction, he began to tell others nearby about the light for the children.  Businesses, too, began to flash their lights at 8:30pm.  Quickly word began to spread, and before long nearby Brown University also flashed massive LED lights each evening.  The local East Providence Police Department started to line up any available cruisers once a week across the river, and at 8:30pm they would flash their overhead lights.  By this time, all of the children at Hasbro eagerly anticipated that 8:30pm “magic minute.”  The children soon began using flashlights, signalling back a message of their own: We see you, we appreciate your care and support for us.  Thank you. The tradition has come to be known as “Good Night Lights,” and it has had quite a powerful impact on that local community and the lives of thousands of children.

In many ways, if we look at Sacred Scripture and the teachings of our faith, humanity is like a sick child.  We were created by God for community and love, to be generous and kind to those around us; to live in harmony with the rest of creation, what Pope Francis refers to affectionately as “our common home”; we were created to be in communion with God, to adore and serve Him with all of our heart, mind and soul.  That vision for all God’s children has been shattered by sin.  We all experience its effects deep within our souls, in our relationships and also in the way we relate—or fail to relate—with God.  

It is during the season of Advent, and especially in the celebration of Christmas, that we see God breaking through to bring healing and new life to fallen humanity once again.  During Advent, we saw how God’s messenger of light, the Angel Gabriel, was sent to Zechariah with the news that he and his wife, Elizabeth, would have a child who would be the forerunner of the Christ.  The same angel is sent to the Blessed Virgin Mary to announce, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus (Luke 1:31).”    An angel appears in a dream to St. Joseph, directing him to protect and watch over the child and his mother.  In their response to these illuminating messages, the holy people of God shine that light of faith back to God: We hear You, we will do what You are asking.  Fiat.

When Christ is born in Bethlehem, we are told that there were shepherds tending their flocks at night when suddenly, “an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear” (Luke 2:9).  The night sky had never seen such a brilliant illumination.  Moments later the entire sky was filled with an entire host of angels, singing “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests” (Luke 2:14).  The heavens are lit up with the saving message of God and His presence here among us!

And so it is that we come to this celebration here this morning, rejoicing in the Incarnation, the light of Jesus Christ, God made flesh.  We prayed at the beginning of this Mass, in the Collect, the opening prayer that “collects” the people of God around the altar of sacrifice:

Almighty ever-living God, splendour of faithful souls, graciously be pleased to fill the world with your glory, and show yourself to all peoples by the radiance of your light.

God has come into the world to bring healing and hope once again, and to flood with radiance this place so often obscured by darkness.  He has come to bathe us in His own wonderful light.   As St. John the Evangelist describes it in the Gospel this morning:

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

—John 1:4-5

God does not merely shine a light into the world, He comes into the world literally in the person of Jesus Christ.  He is Himself the light and has come to dwell in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  This is the great message of hope for the world, so often beset by darkness; it is the message of light that we are called to carry to those who long to see it.  We can listen to St. Paul’s prayer for us this morning, and ask if we are fully allowing God to answer that prayer in us:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.

—Ephesians 1:17-18

a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him . . .

 Can any of us here this morning truly say that we are already in full possession of wisdom and that we have come to know God fully in our lives?  Is there not much more room in each of our lives to grow in wisdom and knowledge of God, to discover His infinite love more deeply in our personal lives and in the life of the Church? St. Paul prays that the “eyes of your heart” be “enlightened,” that the light of God would illumine our vision and broaden our hearts to love Him and those around us more completely.  What are the ways in which God is calling us to experience that enlightenment this year?

Certainly, we can come to know God more deeply and intimately in prayer.  In that silent conversation with God, when we are willing to set aside time each day to be alone with Him, we can come to know God, experience His presence and power in our lives.  This is something we can all surrender ourselves to more generously in this coming year. 

We can discover God more completely and have the eyes of our heart enlightened in the Sacraments.  Here in the Eucharist we come to know God in an intimate and life-giving way.  In Eucharistic adoration, we come to know and love Him, to believe more firmly in Him, to hope in Him more completely.  In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we come to know the merciful love of God, to experience the healing of our soul that restores our relationship with God and each other.  Could we ever know the depths of that mercy enough or receive that healing consolation and absolution too much?

God is waiting for us to discover His unfathomable mercy and a deeper knowledge of Him as He continues to fill this world with His glory and show Himself to all peoples by the radiance of His light. If we are open to that gift and ready to respond—like Zechariah and Elizabeth, like St. John the Baptist, like the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph—if we allow God to enlighten the eyes of our heart and if we are willing to respond with faith in the midst of our own specific circumstances of life, we will be available to accomplish much for the Church and for the world. If we surrender to the power of God, shining in and through us in this coming year, then we will discover, with St. John the Evangelist: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness WILL NEVER overcome it (John 1:4-5).