Laetare Sunday: An Image to Rejoice In

(4th Sunday of Lent-Year C; This homily was given on 14 March, 2010 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Luke 15:1-32)

Why do soldiers going off to war, to a place far away, carry a photo of their wife or girlfriend with them at all times?

Why do college students keep pictures of their loved ones, family and friends, maybe even the family pet, in their dorm room or in the place where they study?

Why do the seminarians here at the American College keep, in their rooms, a picture of me…Okay, maybe they do not do that! But why do they also keep pictures of family and friends in their rooms?

I would suggest this morning that there are two important reasons why these images are so important for us. Firstly, they are an inspiration. When times get difficult and we are struggling to find hope and courage in a place far from home, we look to these faces of the people we love and we are inspired to go on; to move ahead; to push forward even when times are tough.

Secondly, we keep these images nearby because they give us a foretaste of what we have to look forward to in the days ahead. We look at a picture of the person we love, someone who also loves us—and maybe they are also looking at our picture in the same way—and we remember that it will not be long before we are with them once again.

Even if we have a picture of a loved one who has passed away and gone home to the Lord, we remember the promise of the resurrection and are reminded that one day we will be together with them forever, please God. The seemingly infinite distance will no longer separate us.

Images of our loved ones inspire us, and they grant us a foretaste of all that lies ahead. And that is what is at the heart of the feast we celebrate this morning, Laetare Sunday. Our entrance antiphon for the Mass this Sunday, in Latin, announces:

Laetare, Ierusalem, et conventum facite, omnes qui diligitis eam.

Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad because of her, all you who love her.

We rejoice with Jerusalem, for her redemption is at hand! We do not wait until Easter Sunday to celebrate the mystery of our redemption in Christ. The Church teaches us that every Sunday is a celebration of Easter, whether it is in Advent, Lent or Ordinary Time. Every Sunday celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This Laetare Sunday we are reminded that even in the midst of our desert experience, even in the middle of Lent, we have great reason to celebrate and rejoice: Jesus Christ has come, He has suffered and died for us, and is risen from the dead. Even now we anticipate that joy of Easter.

That news inspires us to push ahead and keep moving forward, no matter how difficult or discouraging things have been. But more than that, this glimpse of the resurrection, this image of Jesus Christ, risen from the dead and calling us to eternal life with Him, is but a foretaste of all that He has in store for us in the days ahead.

God wants to make sure we do not miss that picture this Laetare Sunday. Look lovingly upon our Lord today; be inspired and encouraged for all that He is planning for you!

But in our Gospel this weekend we discover one of the greatest truths about our faith and the amazing, unfathomable love of God: that long before we kneel down in prayer, before we ever raise our eyes to heaven, He is already looking upon each one of us with great love.

This weekend’s Gospel, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, is such a familiar and beautiful story. That young man demands his father’s inheritance and soon goes and squanders it all on a life of dissolute living, finding himself in a foreign land; he is hungry, alone and in dire need. It is a tragic picture of sin and one we have all experienced in one way or another. And the son does what, hopefully, all of us have done before. He comes to his senses and decides to go back home. Realizing how very well he had it in his father’s house, he makes his way back…but before he ever reaches that destination, before he ever sets his eyes upon his father, his father sees him!

Jesus, in St. Luke’s Gospel, tells us:

While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion.
—Luke 15:20

While he was still a long way off…

There are really only two possibilities for what Jesus describes in this Gospel. Either the father got lucky; he just happened to be looking out the window at the exact moment the son came around the bend or up over the hill (not very likely).

Or, the father stood by that window every day…waiting…Every day he stood by that window and looked out over the pathway that led to the horizon…everyday, he watched and waited, saying to himself, “Today. Maybe today my son whom I love, who has become lost, will be found and come back home…Maybe today.”

And so, suddenly, when that son finally appears, the father simply cannot help himself! He rushes out to meet that young man and embraces him, welcoming him back home.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Father gazes upon you and I in the same way. He sees us long before we ever see Him. He is gazing on you here. Even now.

I believe the challenge our Lord offers to us this Laetare Sunday is simple. If it is true that He is gazing at us, if He is truly looking at us even now, even here, with great love…don’t move! Do not move away at all from that gaze! Remain under the loving gaze of God the Father and ask for the grace to stay there throughout the rest of this Lenten season.

When we pray, we remain under the gaze of our loving Father. St. Teresa of Avila—whom I love because she is amazing—writes to her sisters that God is constantly looking at them with great love and when they pray, they should simply look back at Him, love for love. Prayer keeps us under the gaze of God.

So do the Sacraments. Remain close to God this Lent through frequent reception of the Eucharist, and through frequent confession. St. Paul encourages us this morning, in our second reading:

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
—2 Corinthians 5:20

When is the last time you made a good sacramental confession and allowed the love of God to renew and cleanse you, to forgive you and set you free to forgive those around you? God challenges us, through prayer and the Sacraments, to remain close to Him, to look upon Him who continually looks at us with great love.

Secondly, if it is true that God desires to look upon you with love, than certainly He also desires to look upon your neighbor in the same way; your spouse; the people you encounter each day. Let us not be like the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, getting in the way of the Father’s love for our brother. God desires to gaze with love upon those around you, and the challenge is clear: stay out of the way of that gaze!

Do everything you can to facilitate the relationship God desires with those around you and ask for the grace not to get in the way of that love through words and actions that might keep others from looking at the God who is always looking upon them.

Let us continue to rejoice together in this gaze of infinite love that the Father has turned upon us, always being inspired by His presence and encouraged in all that He has in store for us in the days ahead.

Laetare, Ierusalem, et conventum facite, omnes qui diligitis eam.

Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad because of her, all you who love her.

Rejoice, for her redemption is indeed at hand.

Two Paths, and One of Them Leads to Life

(6th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given on 14 February, 2010 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Jeremiah 17:5-8, Psalm 1 and Luke 6:17-26)

We are so blessed in the Catholic spiritual tradition to have a multitude of saints—doctors of the Church and teachers of the faith—who show us what it means to walk daily in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. They teach us how we can live in this life with our hearts and minds set on eternal life with God.

So often it is the mystics—St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Catherine of Siena, and even local spiritual masters from the Low Countries like St. Beatrice of Nazareth or St. Jan van Ruusbroec—that teach us about the way God works in the soul desiring to walk with Him. Very often they will mention the three ways or paths of the spiritual life: the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive.

In the purgative way God purifies and purges our souls from the attachments we have to sin. Those sins—many perhaps even mortal which could cause us to lose our eternal salvation—which we cling to or otherwise find ourselves falling into from time to time are cleansed from our souls and we become more and more free to choose God and say no to the enticements of evil. For most of us this is a lifelong process that will be complete only in our final purification in purgatory, but God invites us to begin already that spiritual cleansing which will draw us more completely to Him.

Then, made more free and purified, we are prepared for the illuminative way; God sheds His light into our souls and illumines the path before us. We desire not only to avoid sin and the occasions which lead us away from God but, more than that, we desire and long for virtue. We seek the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity; we fall deeper in love with Christ and want to live like He lived; to love like He loved. The Holy Spirit is living and moving in us and we are being led, willingly and with great earnestness, into eternal life and ever deeper into a real and growing relationship with the Holy Trinity.

Finally, at the end of our journey, we enter the unitive way. This is not a unique status offered to a few select individuals; union with God is the call and the goal of every single one of us baptized in Jesus Christ and living in Him. In heaven, please God, each of us will be united to God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—in an intimate and eternal relationship of love.

But the mystics teach us that we can share in that life already, even here. In their writings and poetry, their experiences of prayer (and even their sufferings) shared with us, they show us how God purifies and illumines, and can unite Himself to a soul even here, even now. Their words and examples are inspiring and they increase our own desire for the things of heaven right and a happiness that far transcends the limits of this earth.

If we look at the writings of St. Teresa of Avila we can see even more detailed descriptions of the spiritual life. In her book The Interior Castle she describes the soul as a crystal globe containing a magnificent castle. Deep within the heart of that castle resides the King of Kings, Jesus Christ.

Outside that castle, beyond the spiritual life of the soul, one finds vermin, snakes and creeping things squirming around inside the moat and in the darkness surrounding the castle keep. But once we have engaged our spiritual lives and entered within the confines of the castle we have turned from sin and begin to experience the life of grace. That is the first dwelling place. From there we journey, progressively deeper and deeper within, towards the very center or the seventh dwelling place where Christ resides. St. Teresa only reached this intimate of all unions towards the end of her life, but her account and her descriptions—like those of the purgative, illuminative and unitive ways—are remarkably inspirational.

Nonetheless, these descriptions of the mystical life can also become a difficulty and even a distraction on our spiritual journey. We can be all too tempted to gauge ourselves and try to guess exactly where we fit in at any given moment. Am I in the third dwelling place, or perhaps moving into the fourth? Am I beginning to experience illumination or am I still experiencing the purgative way at this time?

Another tendency—and never a good one—is to look at those around us and try to guess where they are in the spiritual life. We see someone who does not appear—to our own sensibilities and determinations—to have their spiritual act together. We might think, Ah, that person is definitely out there in the moat! Or maybe we will look at another person’s external tranquility and peace of soul and decide, Yes, she is certainly walking in the unitive way with God.

In my fourth year of theology I was able to take a course on the spiritual life with a very wise and holy Dominican priest. He shared with us an experience he had while still in the novitiate, preparing for priesthood. The novice master said to them:

There are only two ways and two levels in the spiritual life.
You are either in a state of GRACE…or you are NOT!

How vital is that very distinction! Everything else is gravy. Either we are in a state of sanctifying grace and God is drawing us into a deeper relationship with Him; the Holy Spirit is living and acting in and through us and preparing us for eternal life…or we are not in a state of grace but have fallen into sin and are in danger of being separated from God for all eternity.

We used to refer to that eternal separation as hell. Nowadays we do not refer to it at all. We do not talk about hell in the classroom or in the homily (God forbid). It does not come up in our social discourse or spiritual conversations. But that does not mean that it is no longer a real possibility and a danger for each one of us.

Jesus Christ talked about hell. Often. He did not talk about eternal separation from God because He was itching to shout out condemnation. He talked about it as a warning, to signal that there is indeed a path that leads away from God. If you are walking on that path, He tried to convey, then get off it! Get on the path and follow the way, instead, that leads to eternal life (see John 14:6).

If you look at the readings that we are given for this weekend—from Jeremiah the Prophet, the responsorial psalm, Psalm 1, and the Gospel of St. Luke—all of them distinguish clearly between these two paths.

Jeremiah begins with the unhappy statement, “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord” (Jeremiah 17:5). Cursed. That is a very stark way to begin our readings this weekend, no? He says that such a one, who leaves the Lord behind and places all his trust and efforts in the human family alone, will be like a “barren bush” in the dessert which will simply wither away and die. That is not the right path, Jeremiah is communicating in the strongest of terms!

But, he goes on, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord” (Jeremiah 17:7). Then using the same words and imagery that we find in Psalm 1 this weekend he beautifully describes that person as a fertile tree planted beside the running water (Jeremiah 17:8; Psalm 1:3). It bears fruit in season and out of season. In the heat of the day or the dead of winter, that tree gives life in abundance, expressing the life of God and the life of grace to any and all that come in its path.

This is the tradition, says our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI (in his book Jesus of Nazareth) that Jesus Christ is drawing off this morning in St. Luke’s account of the Beatitudes. You may notice that St. Luke’s account is different from St. Matthew’s. In St. Matthew’s Gospel Jesus goes up on the high mountain and gives the people eight Beatitudes, eight blessed ways of following Him. In St. Luke Jesus does not go up the mountain but He remains on the plain. He is on level ground—leveling with His disciples, and with us, about the spiritual life—and he gives us not eight Beatitudes but only four. And then He gives us four “woes.”

Beginning with the blessings, He says, “Blessed are you who are poor…Blessed are you who are now hungry…Blessed are you who are now weeping…Blessed are you when people hate you…” (Luke 6:20-22). His words are somewhat disturbing. We do not usually think of these things as blessings. But they are not nearly as disturbing as the following statements:

Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.
—Luke 6:24-26

“These words,” says our Holy Father, “terrify us” (Jesus of Nazareth, pg. 96). If you are disturbed by Jesus words this morning, then, you are in great company! And the reason why they disturb and terrify us is because most all of us want those things. What on earth is so wrong with wanting to be filled and content in this life? What could possibly be wrong with laughter? Why would we not want a bigger bank account to take care of our families and loved ones? What is wrong with these things?

To understand the “woes” and the beatitudes in St. Luke’s Gospel we have to look at the second “woe.” He says, “Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.” The word for “filled,” in the Greek language, denotes an action that is completed and can never be increased further. To be filled in the sense that Christ is speaking of means to have a bank account that, however substantial it may be for now, can never be added to again. It is like having a brand new computer that is fast and effective, but can never again be upgraded or replaced. In ten years it will be slow and useless.

So Christ is not saying “woe” to these people simply because they have money or laugh or are filled with many good things. He is saying “woe” to them because that is all they have! They are so filled with the things of this life that they have left no room at all for the things of eternal life. They have left no room for the spiritual life or the Kingdom of God. Woe to them!

But blessed are the ones who are poor and needy, and who know it. They have lots of room for God. Blessed are the ones who are weeping and struggling and know that this world alone can never satisfy them. They are wide open to the life of grace that God offers and the promise of an eternal life of infinite bliss. Blessed are they! Blessed are they who are hungry and who thirst for a better life than this one. They have plenty of room to be filled completely with the Bread of Life and the Living Water of salvation. Blessed are they who are hated by others for the sake of Jesus Christ. They will be in the best of company with the saints and the angels when they are counted among the faithful in the presence of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, where are we walking in the spiritual life at this time? Jesus Christ calls out to each of us this weekend and beckons us on the path that leads to beatitude, to blessings and eternal life with Him. May we have the courage to leave all behind that does not lead us to this path, and may our interior castles be filled with light as Christ illumines us and draws us ever more deeply into a life united with Him for all eternity.

Light Through A Window

(5th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given on 7 February, 2010 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Luke 5:1-11)

In our Gospel for this weekend we have what may very well be the most insincere prayer recorded in Sacred Scripture. I do not mean that the person praying it is insincere. On the contrary, St. Peter is one of the most sincere followers Christ encountered on this earth. Yet the plea he offers to Christ in St. Luke’s Gospel this morning is one that he, in his heart of hearts, would never, ever, have wanted Christ to answer.

The scene is compelling. Peter and his confreres have been fishing all night; they have caught nothing and they are tired. Christ urges them on nonetheless: “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4). Peter heeds that call…perhaps reluctantly…and then suddenly upon seeing such a miraculous return, and finding both boats filled with fish, he begins to understand: this is no ordinary teacher, no mere prophet. This is the Christ, the Lord!

His reaction is understandable and not at all surprising as he recognizes Who this man is and how very unworthy he himself is. And then he prays:

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

Now how realistic is that prayer? Remember, this is before St. Peter has seen Jesus walking on the water. They are in a boat! Where does he expect Christ to depart to? All he knows, in the immediacy of the moment, is that he is in the middle of the sea, in a boat, with God! He is overwhelmed by the recognition of his own sinfulness and the splendor and majesty of Christ. His voice pleads with Christ to leave him alone but we know, deep inside, what Peter is really thinking: Lord, please do not ever leave me! Please, Lord, do not ever go away!

It is, in many ways, one of the great paradoxes of the spiritual life: the closer we get to Christ the more we come to realize our own sin and unworthiness before Him…and the more we long, deep in our hearts, to never, ever be separated from Him, even for an instant.

Thank God that not all our prayers are answered! Christ has no intention of answering St. Peter’s request for even the slightest bit of distance or a single moment of time. He does not move one millimeter away from the fisherman from Galilee, but instead draws him into a life that will be intimately connected to Himself from that day forward.

But how do we react when our desire to be close to Christ, and the fruits of our growth in the spiritual life, reveal our sinfulness and how very far we are from the perfection God is calling us to? Do we perhaps, like St. Peter, respond by a withdrawal on the surface level? How very important that we “put out into deep water,” and go deeper with Christ so that He can reveal in us what is deep within the human heart: that innate longing we have for intimacy with Him.

St. John of the Cross, in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, talks about the soul’s union with God and beautifully describes it as light coming in through a window (Ascent, Book II, Chapter 5, #6-8). The cleaner and clearer the window, he says, the more complete the transformation of that soul will be in God.

Think about what it is like to look out into your back yard early in the morning or late in the day, with the sun shining on the grass or on the trees outside. The window looks clean enough. But let that same sunlight shine directly into that window at just the right angle and you can see all too clearly the smudges and streaks that have been there all along.

That is what it is like when Jesus Christ shines His light into our souls. The closer we get to the Light the more we can see all the smudges. But that is not the final goal of the spiritual life! We are not supposed to see all the faults and failings in our lives and then pull down the window shade in shame and disappointment (“Depart from me, O Lord!”). No, we are called to clean the window:

A soul makes room for God by wiping away all the smudges and smears of creatures, by uniting it’s will perfectly to God’s; for to love is to labor to divest and deprive oneself for God of all that is not God.

When this is done the soul will be illumined by and transformed in God. And God will so communicate His supernatural being to the soul that it will appear to be God Himself and will possess what God Himself possesses…Yet truly, it’s being (even though transformed) is naturally as distinct from God’s as it was before, just as the window, although illumined by the ray, has being distinct from the ray’s.

—The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, Ch. 5, #7

Is not this what we have always longed for deep within our heart of hearts? To be fully illumined and enlightened by the merciful love of God? To be totally transformed in Him? This is the Light that St. Peter longed for, even on that boat in Galilee, despite the words that came from his lips on that miraculous and meaningful encounter with Christ.

The same Christ is calling out to each of us today. He calls us to “put out into deep water” to go deeper with Him than ever in the spiritual life. Will we cling to Him in this coming week? Will we allow Him to clean our windows through prayer, the Eucharist, perhaps through a thorough and heartfelt sacramental confession? The light is shining on us this day. May it transform us into His very likeness and lead us on to the radiance of Christ.

Hope: The Killer of Giants

David Dispatches Goliath
by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens

(Wednesday of the of the Second Week in Ordinary Time-Year 2; This homily was given on 20 January, 2010 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See 1 Samuel 17:31-51)

What would have possibly possessed young David, in our first reading today, to believe that he could come up against such a lethal, malicious enemy as Goliath…and win? How could he have entered into combat with that mighty Philistine so completely sure of the victory?

Was it perhaps the recklessness of youth? His radical inexperience? Maybe he simply had not seen enough of the battlefield to know how very dire his situation was?

Was it perhaps supreme confidence in his own skill and ability? Remember, this is the same David who will quickly become a leader of men on the battlefield; he will soon become a brilliant tactician and general; a great warrior king. Perhaps he sensed that already within himself, beckoning him on to excellence and honor in battle.

Or was it raw courage? Was he simply the most courageous man in Israel? Was that what compelled him to act so boldly against the insolence of the Philistine?

I am sure that all of those things would have played some part in his battle with Goliath. Yet I would argue, above all else, that David acted the way he did because he was one who practiced the theological virtue of hope.

Now allow me to qualify what I mean by that. I do not mean that he really, really “hoped” he would not get squashed like a watermelon! It was more than mere wishful thinking that ushered David into battle. I mean that he practiced hope in the deepest and most theological sense of the word.

St. John of the Cross, in many of his works, writes about the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. He says that these are what enable us to be united to God. Hope, he goes on to describe, is the virtue that is most closely connected to the faculty of the soul we come to know as the memory.

That sounds a little strange, at first. Hope—the longing and desire deep within us which reaches out to grasp that which has not yet happened, that which lays in the future—this hope is connected to the memory we have of the things of our past.

Think about the people in your life that have been most faithful and loving, those gifts of God who have always been a source of comfort and strength. We look back and see that, time and again, they have been there for us and have never let us down. Suddenly we find ourselves in a difficult situation and we hold on unwaveringly to the belief that they will continue to remain with us and be there for us even now. That is the theological virtue of hope.

Of course, St. John of the Cross would insist that all our faculties—the memory, as well as the intellect and the will—are in constant need of purification. We must purge our memories, and allow God to purify them, of all that is not from Him, letting go of all that gratifies the self without God. Then we will have a pure hope which longs for and desires not many good things without God, but God first, and then all things in union with Him. We hope for the things that matter most because we recall that all the best things we have ever encountered come to us from God and the greatest of all these things is God Himself. That is a more complete picture of what St. John of the Cross would describe as hope.

David, in our first reading from 1 Samuel, practices that virtue beautifully. He stands before the king and tells him “Let your majesty not lose courage. I am at your service to go and fight this Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:32).

King Saul, for his part, is incredulous:

“You cannot go up against this Philistine and fight with him,” he tells David, “for you are only a youth, and he has been a warrior from his youth” (1 Samuel 17:33).

But David explains what he is convinced will happen by looking back to all that has happened in the past. He recalls how he would lead the flock of God and tend the sheep, and how the lambs were sometimes attacked by lions or bears. He defended them and always came out victorious.

But David is careful to see those moments of the past with his memory purified. He does not say, “I had the strength and skill to defeat those beasts, and so watch me wipe out this Philistine!” No, he does not insist on his expertise with a sling and a stone, even though that is ultimately what he will use to defeat the enemy. Instead David looks back and recalls things as they really were and insists that the victory is one that belongs to God: “The Lord,” he says. That is who will make all the difference:

The Lord, who delivered me from the claws of the lion and the bear, will also keep me safe from the clutches of this Philistine.
—1 Samuel 17:37

It is not David’s strength or his ability which will make the decisive difference here, but the Lord. Goliath may have the experience and power to crush young David but he is no match for almighty God! He discovers that quickly. David’s undying hope is the killer of giants, and the one weapon that no enemy can withstand.

Where do we most need to grow in the theological virtue of hope in our own lives right now? We, who have so many enemies in the Christian life, so many distractions and setbacks that keep us from growing in Christ and living for His Kingdom, are called to have a mighty hope which has the power to anchor our souls in God (see Hebrews 6:19).

How is God challenging us to purify our memories and to recall more deeply all the moments of His faithfulness and love toward us? We who have been forgiven so often by God, who have always been granted the grace and help we needed, who are constantly given light and peace when we need it most, whenever times are dark or difficult; we can trust most assuredly that the same God will be there for us now and always in the days to come.

May we learn well from David that—whatever insurmountable obstacles are before us, whatever Goliaths we encounter—hope is the killer of giants and the surest path to the promises that God offers to us today and always.

Advent...Yum!

(Wednesday of the of the First Week of Advent-Year C; This homily was given on 2 December, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Isaiah 25:6-10, Psalm 23 and Matthew 15:29-37)

Our readings for this Wednesday of the First Week of Advent are absolutely delicious! The Church provides for us this morning scrumptious Scriptures, delectable tidbits to munch on as we begin this Advent Season.

In Isaiah the Prophet, our responsorial psalm and in St. Matthew’s Gospel the focus today is on food. If you are hungry and thirsty for God then you have come to the right place!

Isaiah, who is our great prophet of hope every Advent, talks about the banquet of our salvation. He says that God will provide for us a delicious banquet “on this mountain” (Isaiah 25:6, 7, 10). What mountain is that? The one great mountain for the people of Israel to which Isaiah is referring is Mount Zion, Jerusalem:

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised
in the city of our God.
His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation,
is the joy of all the earth.
Mount Zion, in the far north,
the city of the great King.
—Psalm 48:1

Isaiah speaks of the "veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations" (Isaiah 25:7). He calls it by name: death. Death, in all its sorrow and despair, all its darkness and discouragement, God will destroy all of that “on this mountain.” And in its place He will provide for us a banquet:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy rich food and pure, choice wines.
—Isaiah 25:6

Yum! Isaiah reminds us that our salvation from death and the banquet of eternal life is not just a theological principle nor is it only a spiritual promise; it is something palpable, even physical. The God of heaven takes on human flesh and dwells among us. Isn’t that what we are celebrating here this Advent? Our salvation comes walking—quite literally—into our lives and takes His place “on this mountain.”

St. Matthew tells us this morning how Christ, the great King Himself, stands on the top of the mountain and breaks the bread that will be miraculously multiplied to feed the hungry crowd. It is a foreshadowing and a preparation for the gift of His body and blood to us in the Eucharist. Yet it is also a symbol for the sacrifice that He will make for our salvation on another mountain, Mount Calvary.

On that mountain Christ will allow His body to be broken on the altar of the cross and His blood to be poured out in love for the life of the world. That is the mountain where death is destroyed forever, the place where the veil which had veiled all peoples is lifted once and for all. Each time we gather for the celebration of the Eucharist we remember and truly make present that sacrifice. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross is re-presented to the Father and we come to recognize what the Psalmist meant this morning when he said:

You spread the table before me
in the sight of my foes…my cup overflows.
—Psalm 23:5

While the powers of darkness, the powers of Satan and of evil are constantly surrounding us and working so very hard to separate us from each other and separate us even from God, even then Christ the great King is spreading a table before us to nourish us and give us strength.

Have you thought of that lately? Has it occurred to you that in the midst of so many discouragements, so many disappointments and amidst all the tensions and difficulties that surround us all each day, God breaks into our lives to give us His strength? It is in the presence of those foes—whatever burdens we face each day—that God has set up His table on this mountain to give us His body and His blood; to provide a banquet of salvation even here, even now.

An important question we must ask ourselves this morning, though, is:

Am I prepared for that banquet?

Am I acquiring a taste for the things of God in my life?

Because the banquet of salvation and the things of God do not come automatically. They are indeed an acquired taste. We cannot drink deeply of the things of this world and eat richly from the table of this world and then also expect to be fully nourished at the banquet table of Christ.

Where are we being called to let go of the world and its pleasures a bit more this Advent? It might be a good thing, or even many good things that we are eating and drinking, but too much of a good thing can sometimes take us further away from the good God!

How is God challenging us to acquire a taste for the things of heaven and the drink deeply from this well and eat eagerly from this table where we are fed, nourished and strengthened with the bread of life and the cup of our eternal salvation?

How are we being called to acquire a taste for that heavenly banquet by being more attentive to the things we say to, or about, one another? Does our language and our speech build up the people around us or does it tear them down and devour?

Today let us be fed by Christ and strengthened in the Eucharist so that we may be all the more prepared to receive Him in the many ways He will come to us this Advent.

St. Catherine of Alexandria and Sedes Sapientia

St. Catherine of Alexandria by Caravaggio,
from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid, Spain

(Wednesdayof the of the Last Week in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 25 November, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Daniel 5:1-28 and Luke 21:12-19)

This morning the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria. A fourth century virgin and martyr, St. Catherine not only had a great love for Christ and great love for the Church; she was also a brilliant philosopher, a true lover of wisdom. She is the patron saint of philosophers.

There is a remarkable story about St. Catherine who denounced the emperor (Maxentius, or perhaps his father Maximian; hagiographers are not quite sure) for persecuting Christians. Although the emperor could have killed her on the spot, instead he tried to refute her arguments but found himself unable to match her sharp intellect. Therefore he gathered fifty philosophers, intelligent minds from throughout the kingdom, thinking they would be able succeed where he had failed. He was wrong.

When the arguments were all over and the conversation complete, they all converted to the Christian faith! In retaliation the emperor had them burned alive before executing St. Catherine, as well. The words of Christ spoken in this morning’s Gospel can be applied quite directly to St. Catherine of Alexandria:

They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to you giving testimony.
—Luke 21:12-13

In a real and vital way, we also see Jesus’ words on wisdom taking flesh in the person of St. Catherine:

Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.
—Luke 21:14-15

St. Catherine was not able to testify and bear witness to Christ or convert her adversaries because she was the brightest girl in the kingdom (although she probably was). She was a powerful and effective witness for Christ because she was open to the wisdom of God which comes from above. She was docile to a divine knowledge which enabled her to speak courageously and clearly in the midst of trial and tribulation.

Is that not what we find in the first reading this morning in the prophet Daniel? He is the man who can read the writing on the wall. He knows how to unlock the secrets hidden in dreams and visions and to understand the difficulties and complexities of his time. But he did not accomplish all those things because he was the most intelligent captive in Babylon (although he probably was). In fact, it is King Belshazzar himself, who does not even believe in the God of Daniel, who tells us why Daniel has such wisdom:

I have heard that the Spirit of God is in you, that you possess brilliant knowledge and extraordinary wisdom.
—Daniel 5:14

Daniel had the Spirit of the living God in him. He was a man docile to the power of the Spirit and, like St. Catherine of Alexandria, he was able to surrender himself to a wisdom which was beyond him. Only when we can do that will we fully realize the potential of what God wants to reveal to, and in, us.

In his encyclical Fides et Ratio, our late Holy Father, John Paul the Great, spoke of the beauty and the dignity of philosophy and of holy wisdom. Philosophy is able to unlock so many of the secrets about humanity; it contributes greatly to the building up of the culture and serves to guide and order magnificently our way of life on earth.

But one of the challenges that philosophy faces is the temptation to separate itself from the ultimate truths revealed to us by God:

The Church considers philosophy an indispensible help for a deeper understanding of faith and for communicating the truth of the Gospel to those who do not yet know it…I wish to reflect upon this special activity of human reason. I judge it necessary to do so because, at the present time in particular, the search for ultimate truth seems often to be neglected.
—Fides et Ratio, #5

When philosophy and human wisdom set aside the ultimate truths revealed to us by faith and by God, then they themselves become impoverished. There is no competition between philosophy and theology, faith and reason. In the beginning of that encyclical, John Paul the Great says that faith and reason are like two wings upon which the human spirit soars to the heights to contemplate the truth. If we set aside the ultimate truths about who God is, who we are in the image of God, what the dignity of every human person is, then we are left with only one wing and as a result we remain earthbound.

At the end of the encyclical we are given a beautiful image that is near and dear to each of us in this chapel this morning: Sedes Sapientia. Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom. John Paul the Great says that is an image which helps us to understand what he is trying to communicate in Fides et Ratio.

The Blessed Virgin Mary was a woman completely docile to the Word that came to her. She did not fully understand it nor could she plumb the depths of all that God was beginning to reveal to her. Nonetheless she surrendered herself to God and, far from being less free and shackled, she became the very icon of freedom, fidelity and fruitfulness. Her “Fiat voluntas tua, Be it done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38), is the word surrendered in freedom which brings Christ into the world we live in.

Even so, says our late Holy Father, “when philosophy heeds the summons of the Gospel’s truth its autonomy is in no way impaired. Indeed it is then that philosophy sees all its enquiries rise to their highest expression” (Fides et Ratio, #108).

This is the goal of all philosophical thought and all theology, too: to be lifted up to the heights of all that God’s truth has in store for us here and in the world to come. Yet at times even theologians consider themselves or their own thought to be above the truths that have been revealed to us by God through the Magisterium, the teaching office of the Church. Here, too, does theology become impoverished.

Any theologian who considers himself or herself to be brighter than the teachings of the Church, above the wisdom which comes to us in a particular way through the Church’s Magisterium, is not doing theology; it would be closer akin to folly.

This morning we reflect upon our readings and ask ourselves:

Am I seeking the wisdom which comes from above?

Am I docile to the way that the Holy Spirit is leading me to enter more deeply, through philosophy and theology, into the mysteries of the Christian faith revealed to me by God?

Let us also long for and cry out for that same wisdom which came to the prophet Daniel and St. Catherine of Alexandria. May their merits and prayers, and those of Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, Sedes Sapientia, help us to soar upon the heights of God’s truth and allow us to testify to it and share it with a world that is constantly seeking and searching for God.

Conquered by Christ

The Ressurection of Christ, by Peter Paul Rubens.
This magnificent Flemish masterpiece is found in

the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, Belgium.

(Monday of the of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 16 November, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See 1 Maccabees 1:10-63 and Luke 18:35-43)

This morning’s first reading, from the First Book of Maccabees, relates to us a rather tragic series of events. We hear about King Antiochus Epiphanes and his ruthless opposition to the people of Israel. In the days to come we will hear in great detail about the torture and malevolence of his regime. His plan was for nothing less than the utter obliteration of the chosen people of God.

But that is not the tragedy I am referring to this morning. There is another, related tragedy mentioned in our first reading: that before Antiochus ever set out against the people of Israel there was already opposition from within, and a plan for their own demise:

In those days there appeared in Israel men who were breakers of the law, and they seduced many people, saying: “Let us go and make an alliance with the Gentiles all around us; since we separated from them, many evils have come upon us.”
—1 Maccabees 1:11

They saw, in the political climate of their day, an opportunity for advancing their own ends, even though it would come at the expense of the way of life God had called them to. 1 Maccabees relates how “they covered over the mark of their circumcision and abandoned the holy covenant” (1 Maccabees 1:15), taking on the way of life of the Gentiles among whom they lived.

This clever and advantageous way of life was then introduced to King Antiochus, who was more than willing and able to carry it out. The tragedy, of course, is that the people of Israel should have known better. They knew full well they were called by God to be holy. Instead they chose themselves over the way of life God had shown them, and soon the entire nation would suffer.

In our Gospel this morning we find that same internal dynamic, albeit to a much lesser extreme, in the story of the blind man who calls out to Christ for healing.

“Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” (Luke 18:38), that man cries out as he hears that Jesus is passing by. “Son of David,” of course, is a Messianic title; this man knew his theology! He knew that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the One who would come to save Israel; to open the eyes of the blind and set the prisoners free.

Nonetheless, the blind man cannot see the Messiah. He cannot reach out and touch Him or find his own way to the Christ, so he does the only thing he can: he cries out, over and over again, for help.

Tragically, the very people walking with Christ, the ones right out in front, do not do a single thing to help him. Instead, we are told, they try to stop him. They rebuke him and tell him to be silent. St. Augustine says that these represent our fellow believers in Christ who can sometimes become obstacles in the spiritual life (St. Augustine, Sermon 351). Through their discouragement or perhaps their actions and decisions they block the way for us to reach the source of healing and strength in Christ.

Yet at this point in the Gospel Christ does something that could easily go unnoticed. In response to that blind man calling out for help, Christ initially does…nothing. He does not reach out to him, nor does He move an inch in that blind man’s direction. No, instead, perhaps sensing a deeper crisis of blindness in the people walking with Him, He suddenly turns to them and orders them to bring the blind man to Him. He wants them to reverse the direction they are moving in and to go, spiritually speaking, in the opposite direction.

The great Protestant theologian, Dietrich Bonheoffer, says that on the battle field of life there are no rusty swords. We are either fighting for Jesus Christ—in all of the little and big decisions of our lives—or we are fighting against Him. The way we live and how we choose to treat those around us makes a difference in our spiritual lives and in our relationship with God.

This morning we can ask ourselves, “Which side am I fighting for? Which direction am I moving in?” Because when we look at these readings today and reflect carefully upon them, we should be able to recognize that the greatest enemy and adversary of our spiritual lives is not necessarily the one we find hardest to love or the person we seem to always be “bumping into” every day. Very often the enemy keeping us, and perhaps others, from spiritual growth is us.

That is the enemy who needs to be conquered, over and over again, each and every day, by Jesus Christ. We must allow ourselves to be conquered by Him and even long for it, because He is the only one who can truly conquer us with pure love, however painful that healing may be.

This morning Christ comes to us in the Eucharist to conquer us with His radical self-gift, His own body and blood which he sacrificed on the cross and now gives to us so that we, too, may become true gifts to the Father and to those around us.

Are we willing to be conquered by Christ?

Are we willing to allow Him to transform us in the furnace of His divine love?

If so then we, too, can be the people to whom Christ speaks in the Gospel this morning, the ones called to bring to the Messiah all who are blind, broken and hurting. May we bring them, and ourselves, before the Son of David so that our eyes may be opened and we may truly be made new in Him.

Saint Charles Borromeo and Counting the Cost

Painting of St. Charles Borromeo by Orazio Borgianni;
an altarpiece for San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome.

(Wednesday of the of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 4 November, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Luke 14:25-33)

Jesus Christ, in our Gospel this morning, talks about the cost of discipleship. By the end of that passage there is one thing that is perfectly clear: the price is a steep one. We must be willing to sacrifice everything:

If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
—Luke 14:26-27

Nothing should keep us from following Jesus Christ; neither good things nor bad, neither obstacles nor difficulties, neither distractions nor discouragement. We reach out and cling to Christ, allowing Him to move us forward by His infinite grace and mercy.

The Church, in Her providence, has seen fit to give us today the Feast of St. Charles Borromeo as a tremendous example of what it means to count the cost and follow Christ.

St. Charles, at the age of 23, was created a cardinal of the Catholic Church by the newly elected Pope Pius IV, who was his uncle. You might be thinking, “Wow! Good for him,” but it wasn’t. It was a burden and a weight of responsibility which included the administration of the Church in Milan, care and protection of the Low Countries (today Belgium and the Netherlands), as well as Portugal, the religious orders of the Franciscans and the Carmelites, just to name a few.

But perhaps the heaviest burden was his inability to fulfill his deepest desire to serve the people of God in Milan. Instead he was kept in Rome, where his uncle had placed him in charge of the management of the papal court, the household, palaces and a great deal of other tasks. Having dispatched these responsibilities with due diligence and fervor, he was also more than aware of the dangers and temptations that could accompany life in those circumstances.

He confided in friends and leaned on them for support and prayers yet he was ever faithful and undistracted by the trappings of the world and society around him. He was undeterred in his ministry of service regardless of the time or place. St. Charles became one of the chief architects of the final sessions of the Council of Trent and a force for reform in everything he did. He put Jesus Christ first.

And so it was that he was finally able to attend to the Church at Milan and his reception was overwhelmingly positive. The people recognized the love he had for them and they responded in kind, love for love. He was thought well of and esteemed, and that too never became a distraction for St. Charles. He never became lost in the desire to be liked by everyone around him; he remained focused on Jesus Christ putting Christ at the center of his life, and for that reason he was able to effect change and bring about a much needed restoration of the Church in that place. He loved his people, as they say, "just as they were, but too much to leave them that way."

But his efforts and passion for reformation were met with much opposition. Many people loved St. Charles and revered him; many people also hated him. Some of them even tried to kill him. He was shot at twice. One time it was a near miss that struck the cross he was holding instead. The other time he was shot while praying in his own family chapel. The bullet hit him square in the back but miraculously did not enter his body and he was spared.

Not even that kind of opposition was able to distract nor discourage St. Charles from the ministry that God had called him to. He was indefatigable because he was keenly aware of the cost of discipleship and in every situation he placed Jesus Christ first, before those he loved most, before his own gifts and abilities, before all of the offices and responsibilities he possessed, before all the frustrations and difficulties he encountered on a regular basis, and before his very own self.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: what are the obstacles and difficulties, distractions and discouragement that you are experiencing right now? What are those crosses and sufferings which you have carried and labored under up until now? And what do you do with them?

Hopefully you are able to talk to brothers and sisters in Christ about those struggles, and hopefully that conversation takes place in a spirit of charity and not one of grumbling. God wants us to help each other carry the burdens and the crosses of life.

And hopefully you have also talked to God about those very same things. There is nothing wrong with asking God for a different cross, or a lighter one.

But ultimately we are called, when all is said and done, to do what Jesus Christ is asking each of us in the Gospel this morning when it comes to our crosses:

To pick them up,
and follow Him.

The Eucharist and the Rebuilding of Culture

(Wednesday of the of the 29th Week in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 21 October, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Luke 12:39-48)

In his Apostolic Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis (The Sacrament of Charity), our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, writes about the “intrinsic relationship” of three things regarding our experience of God’s tremendous love for us in the Eucharist and our response to so great a Gift.

He begins by explaining the “intrinsic relationship between the eucharistic celebration and eucharistic adoration” (Sacramentum Caritatis, #66). Against what he refers to as a “false dichotomy” which would set those two expressions of our Eucharistic encounter with God at odds with each other, Pope Benedict XVI describes how adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in fact deepens and intensifies our reception of Christ in the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

Receiving Christ at Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass are never in competition with each other; their “intrinsic relationship” enables us to grow and mature in our appreciation for and reception of the Sacrament of Charity. We must adore so great a Gift, our Holy Father insists, and quoting St. Augustine he reminds us that “No one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it.”

But the mystery of the Eucharist is not only an event to be celebrated and a Person to be adored; it is also an experience which takes hold of the Christian soul and moves us to embody Christ in a real and living way. We come together and share in that recognition of the One who gave everything—His body and His blood—for us, and we cannot help but to be transformed by that sacrifice. We, too, desire to give freely of ourselves in service and in sacrifice for others.

“Here,” says Pope Benedict XVI “the intrinsically eucharistic nature of Christian life begins to take shape” (Sacramentum Caritatis, #71). It is a way of life neither separate from nor merely supplemental to the adoration and reception of the Blessed Sacrament of the altar; it is “intrinsic” to it and an essential expression of the great self-offering of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world.

The intrinsic relationship between the Mass and adoration, as well as the lived Eucharistic spirituality which flows from it, is able to build up our Christina lives, our community and, more than that, to re-build an entire culture which finds its source, inspiration and center in the God who offers everything in a total self-gift of mercy, forgiveness and love: Sacramentum Caritatis.

Our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul the Great, spoke eloquently about the Eucharistic liturgy and Eucharistic spirituality which became the very foundation and inspiration for so many of the aspects of culture we see today in architecture, sculpture, sacred music and sacred art (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, #49). It is not possible to fully understand a people or a culture without reference to these particular expressions of the Eucharistic experience which inspired them. In fact, it is impossible for a culture founded on the Christian mystery to understand itself and all that God is calling it to, in this world and in the next, without God and the self-offering of Jesus Christ at the center.

Is not this the very problem we have come to recognize right here in Europe and in other parts of the world? We are living in the midst of a culture that no longer fully understands itself and—in many fundamental ways—has lost its moral compass. The creation of laws against human life—laws for abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research—are clear indications that the moral compass on which this culture was founded no longer points true north, no longer points, on these essential aspects of human life, to the one, true God.

What is the solution? How do we rebuild a world that seems to be breaking apart at so many fundamental levels? I would suggest that we are called to rebuild the culture and to rebuild relationships—with God and with each other—from the same Eucharistic foundation with which it began. We start here, at this altar, and with this God “who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 2:20).

John Paul the Great spoke of “the great responsibility which belongs to priests in particular for the celebration of the Eucharist. It is their responsibility to preside at the Eucharist in persona Christi and to provide a witness to and a service of communion not only for the community directly taking part in the celebration, but also for the universal Church, which is a part of every Eucharist.”
—Ecclesia de Eucharistia, #52

That responsibility confronts us directly in our Gospel this morning. Here in this seminary, which is founded for the sake of forming men for the priesthood of Jesus Christ, we do well to listen with our hearts and minds wide open as Christ turns to St. Peter and asks that hauntingly beautiful and powerful question:

Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time?

—Luke 12: 42

Who are those servants, called by God to distribute “the food allowance,” to offer to the people the Bread of Angels and the food of eternal life?

Who are the ones called by God to a particular responsibility of rebuilding the culture we live in not by our own efforts alone but by the gracious sacrifice and self-offering of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar?

The priest is called to answer so remarkable a call, and to take on so great—and so humbling— a responsibility.

Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so.
—Luke 12: 42

Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

1827 painting by François Gerard

St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church, on prayer:

"Indeed a great mercy does He bestow on anyone to whom He gives the grace and courage to resolve to strive for this good with every ounce of energy. For God does not deny Himself to anyone who perseveres. Little by little He will measure out the courage sufficient to attain this victory. I say “courage” because there are so many things the devil puts in the minds of beginners to prevent them in fact from starting out on this path. For he knows the damage that will be done to him in losing not only that one soul but many others. If beginners with the assistance of God struggle to reach the summit of perfection, I believe they will never go to heaven alone; they will always lead many people along after them."

—The Book of Her Life, Ch. 11, #4

St. Teresa of Avila,

pray for us.

Not merely us, but Christ in us

Michelangelo's Pieta, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome

(26th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 27 September, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Numbers 11:25-29 and Mark 9:38-48)

One of the most beautiful and certainly well known works of Christian art is Michelangelo’s Pieta located in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. What makes that masterpiece of sculpture remarkable is that Michelangelo completed it while he was still a young man in his twenties.

He was present on the day they unveiled that exquisite statue and certainly the people there would have heard of Michelangelo, but it is unlikely that they would have recognized his face. Unbeknownst to so many of them he was mingling among the crowd when he heard two men speaking about the Pieta. One of them was asking who made it. Upon hearing the reply, that Michelangelo was believed to be the artist, the person expressed his doubt that the young Florentine could have accomplished something that grand. Perhaps, he suggested instead, it was done by Solari (Cristofero Solari was a contemporary of Michelangelo and an extremely gifted artist in his own right).

Upon hearing this conversation Michelangelo was so offended, his pride so wounded, that he later took a chisel and hammer and stenciled into the sash which Our Lady was wearing the following words: Michelangelo Bunarroti the Florentine Made This.

Obviously you cannot take back something like that. It is said that he was so ashamed at having acted that way, out of pride and self importance, that he vowed never to sign another work of art again.

Can you imagine how different that is from the culture we live in today? People do not accomplish anything at all without making sure their name is all over it (take this blog, for instance!). If you go to the bookstore, look at the bestsellers and the most gifted writers of our time. What you will discover are hundreds of books with the title on the front cover, maybe in small letters at the top or bottom of that book; then you will find the author’s name, usually in the middle, in enormous block letters and bold print!

Please do not misunderstand me; we should be recognized for the work we do. There is nothing wrong with putting our name on the works we accomplish or being recognized as the ones who do something beautiful. It is just that for the Christian artist that cannot be the final goal. The main purpose of the Christian artist is to put the other in touch with the sacred.

One of the things I find striking about the writing of icons—which Fr. Paul Czerwonka teaches so well here at the American College—is how the icon is never signed by the artist upon its completion. The reason, again, is because the role of the iconographer is not to put another person in touch with the artist himself or herself, but with the living God. Icons are a window to heaven and the person who prays before one of these sacred images should be able to communicate with God; they should be placed in a deeper communion with the saints; they should be able to draw closer to Our Lady and to her Son, Jesus Christ.

But that is not only the goal of Christian art and iconography. It is, in fact, the goal of the Christian life. We are all called to surrender our lives in such a way that we can be an avenue through which other people can “travel” in order to draw closer to God; an avenue through which God can move and operate in such a way that He can draw closer to the people around us. His dream for each of us is that we fully cooperate in that endeavor. We have to be willing to see more than just our own individual lives but to truly be open to the way God is working and active everywhere in the world around us. The focus has to move away from us and back to God. St. Paul says it best:

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.
—Galatians 2:20
In other words, it is no longer about Paul and his gifts and abilities, his selfish individual projects, however noble they may be. It is about Jesus Christ and the way He is living in St. Paul. We surrender ourselves in such a way that God is living and moving in us and through us. Paradoxically, this does not inhibit our freedom in the least. We become more free and more ourselves as we live in the very way God created us…but it doesn’t come easy!

That is the struggle we find in the First Reading and in the Gospel this weekend. In that compelling story from the Book of Numbers we hear of God’s plan to take “some of the spirit that was on Moses,” and give it to the seventy elders of Israel. Obviously the burden of leadership was far too much for any one man to accomplish. God is bestowing a blessing upon Moses by granting him other persons will help him carry the load.

Yet two of the elders were not present with Moses when this spirit was given; apparently they were out to lunch that day. Nonetheless they received it anyway. Suddenly it is Joshua, who has attended Moses all his life, who becomes offended:

“Moses, my Lord, stop them.”
—Numbers 11:28

Moses, no doubt with great love, assures Joshua that there is no offense here. “Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets,” he says. “Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!” Moses knows that the blessings of God and the graces God pours out on His people cannot possibly take away from the good things He is already doing in us. For another person to be blessed by God in no way diminishes me. Moses understood that clearly. Do we?

We find that same struggle in the Gospel this weekend. Christ has chosen twelve Apostles to follow Him and to do a particular work in the Church. They will be the foundation on which He will build His Church. He has already sent them out to do miraculous things and they have shared in the very power and authority which He has exercised in their midst.

Suddenly they discover that another person, not from their own group, is also accomplishing great things in the name of Jesus. St. John, again with the same misplaced love which we saw in Joshua, turns to Christ and says:

“Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.”
—Mark 9:38
Christ has to correct him: “Do not prevent him.” This was a work accomplished in the name of Jesus; albeit not in the manner St. John had expected and not within the parameters that he was accustomed to. Jesus draws him away from his own individual focus and tries to show him the broader scope of what God is doing: “Whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40).

This is such an important lesson for the Church, not just in St. John’s time but perhaps even more so in our own. Competition, rivalry, jealousy; these are the very things that diminish, frustrate and suppress the work of God in the Church. It is something that happens in seminaries, in Catholic universities, in parishes and in dioceses. Even the domestic Church, the family, is affected by the jealousies, rivalries and competitive spirit that are not from Christ.

We become so wrapped up in our own little world, our own projects, that we fail to recognize or even begin to inhibit the way God is working in the people around us. How very much we need to learn the lesson which Joshua and St. John were taught in our readings this weekend!

St. Paul, again, tells us distinctly that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain when another member of the Body of Christ is blessed by God. He says that if any one of the members of the body are honored, then all of the members of the body rejoice with it (see 1 Corinthians 12:26).

I would suggest this week that we choose three people in our lives, any three people who are fellow members of the body of Christ, and ask God for the wisdom to recognize the beautiful work He is accomplishing in them; ask God to show you the masterpiece, the icon He is writing in their daily lives. Seek to be a part of that great work by your encouragement, your charity, and especially by your prayers for those three people. This week let us ask to see less of our own individual lives and more of what God is accomplishing on a much larger scale, and may we all be able to say, with St. Paul:

It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
—Galatians 2:20

Proofs for God in the Year for Priests

Christ the Great High Priest

Icon writen by Iconographer Marek Czarnecki of Seraphic Restorations in Meriden, Connecticut.

(23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 6 September, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Mark 7:31-37)

I am sure you are at least somewhat familiar with the common arguments or proofs for the existence of God. For instance, there is the argument from the order or structure of the universe. We come to see that the sun rises each day and sets every evening; the planets do not crash into each other; there is unity and order, and so there must be one who created that order and maintains it: God.

Then there is the argument from beauty. We look at a breathtaking sunset in the spring or gaze at the ocean on a cool summer afternoon; the leaves change into dazzling colors in the fall. There must be someone who created all that, someone who is even more beautiful than creation itself, and that someone is God.

Yet there is a situation found in the Gospel this weekend that could be considered as an argument against the existence of God! How is that for disturbing? It is the deaf man with a speech impediment.

“Well,” you might be thinking, “that does not sound like a very convincing argument to me!” But do not be too hasty. That deaf man with a speech impediment has experienced what the philosophers and theologians of antiquity define as evil. The philosophical and theological definition of evil is "privation"; it is a lack of a proper good where a good ought to be.

We ought to be able to hear sounds in the world around us. We ought to be able to listen to a majestic symphony or hear the sound of our own mother’s voice calling our name. We ought to be able to communicate and speak with the people in our lives we love most. All of those things have been denied that deaf man with the speech impediment.

I assure you there is no more common or convincing argument used down through the ages to deny the existence of God than the experience of evil. The atheist is seldom the one who has sat down and read the Scriptures and the Summa Theologica; It is not often the one who has studied theology extensively and then come to the sad conclusion that the idea of God is simply untenable.

It is the man or woman who has looked at the Holocaust in the face and experienced a living hell here on earth that will sometimes say, “I cannot believe that God exists.” It is often the person who has encountered a tragic or sudden loss or the one whose life seems to be falling apart without any rhyme or reason; that is the one who will say, “I refuse to believe in a God who has allowed this to happen.”

Even as people of faith we are often at a loss for words when confronted with an argument like that. But St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa contra Gentiles, uses that same line of reasoning to argue for the existence of God. He says, rather shockingly: Quia malum est, Deus est. Because evil exists, God exists.

If evil is a privation or lack of the good, then it can only exist in relation to the order of good; there would be no order of good if not for the supreme good who is God (see Summa contra Gentiles, III, 71).

But more importantly, we could not live in this world another day if there were no possibility of God’s existence. We could never go on as a people of hope if, when all is said and done, this world is all that there is; if there is not a final recompense for something as atrocious as the holocaust. There must be a God who will respond to the violence, racism and discrimination that occurs in the world we live in. There must be one who will set things straight and bring about justice after all the injustice that has taken place from the beginning of time. Quia malum est, Deus est.

As people of faith we believe that even now God is beginning to do just that. He is—even now—beginning to restore the order, unity and beauty to the world that we live in. We see that clearly in the Gospel this weekend. Jesus Christ meets evil—that privation of the good—head on…and heals it. Yet, He does so in a rather peculiar way.

Christ not only speaks the words of healing to this person but He also touches him. We are body and soul, spiritual and physical, and thus Christ heals this man physically and spiritually at the point of his greatest need. He not only speaks to the depths of that man’s soul: “Ephphatha!” that is, “Be opened!” (Mark 7:34). He also sticks His finger in the man’s ear and spits on his tongue. Have you ever considered how strange that is?! Jesus Christ is literally reconnecting this man—physically and spiritually—to the source of healing, power, and life that is Himself! He reconnects that man and restores all that he had lost, opening up the possibility for an entire spectrum of experiences and relationships, both human and divine.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that Christ, who did that, and consistently reaches out and touches those who are broken and the hurting in the Gospels, continues to touch us in the sacraments in order to heal us (see CCC, #1504). Thanks be to God for the Church that Christ founded! Thanks be to God for the Sacraments by which Christ continues to reach out and touch this world so effected by evil and so much in need of healing and wholeness! Quia malum est, Deus est!

But I would borrow from that argument of St. Thomas Aquinas just a bit this weekend, and say not only “Because evil exists, God exists.” Following from that I would also say, “Quia malum est, sacerdos est!” Because evil exists, the priest exists!

If God is to continue to reach out to this broken world through the Sacraments of the Church, then there must be some who are called by God to surrender their bodies and their souls in love so that God may say through them:

This is my body given up for you…this is the cup of my blood. Take it and receive it. Be reconnected to the source of life and the source of healing that is Myself.

There must be some, called by God, who will surrender their bodies and their souls in love so that God may say through them, to the broken and those filled with sorrow for their sins:

I absolve you from your sins.

There must be some, called by God, who will receive a small child and pour water over that child’s head—or receive an adult, converted inwardly by faith and the Holy Spirit—and say “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Because there is such a lack of the good in so many places of society and life and because there is such a need and so many hunger and thirst for the living God, there must be at least some who will make Him sacramentaly present in this world. That is why Pope Benedict XVI has asked us all to focus on this year as the Year for Priests. Because evil exists, God must exist, and so, too must the priest.

There are 16 men here at the American College in Leuven preparing for priesthood. In this Year for Priests I plead with you to pray for them, intercede to God for them. Pray that they will be as connected to Christ as the man who was healed in the Gospel, that they will be physically and spiritually touched by Christ in the Sacraments of the Church and opened up for all that He wills to do in their lives this year. Pray for those of us entrusted with their formation, for their professors and all who will be a part of their preparation for Holy Orders. There is indeed a lack of the good in the world we live in, and these men have said, “Yes,” to God because they have understood that He wants to use them to do something about it.

Bread of Life Discourse V: Love, Marriage and the Eucharist

Icon of Christ, the Bridegroom

Icon written by Rev. Paul G. Czerwonka. © 2007. All rights reserved. Fr. Paul is the Director of Aesthetical and Spiritual Formation at the American College of Louvain, Belgium. He is a priest of the Diocese of La Crosse and currently teaches iconography and assists in the formation of men for the priesthood. Please continue to pray for priests and for vocations to the priesthood.

(21st Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B; This homily was given on 23 August, 2009 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Joshua 24:1-18, Ephesians 5:21-32 and John 6:60-69)

If you are reading this right now and you are a married person then you have certainly been on one before. If you are a priest or religious, you may have been on one previous to entering the seminary or religious life. If you are a single person, then you may be going on one of these even now. What I am talking about, of course, are first dates.

First dates can be quite unpredictable; spending an evening out with a person you may not even know all that well. It can be disastrous…or beautiful…or it could even be something which begins to forge a relationship between two persons that will last a lifetime.

I would like to share a story with you (a true story) about a couple who experienced all three of those on the night of their first date! It was disastrous, beautiful and formed the beginning of a bond that has lasted even now and, please God, will endure throughout their entire lives.

Without getting into all the details, it was a night that began at a dinner where she felt slightly sick but the evening soon went from bad to worse. In the end he had to bring her to the emergency room and then finally dropped her off back home so that she could be taken care of by her family.

Basically there were two thoughts running through his mind at the end of that night. The first was: What a disaster! That was not at all what I expected this date to be like.

The second thought was actually not a thought at all; it was a prayer. He thought: In spite of how terrible things went tonight, I think I want to spend the rest of my life with this person, and he prayed, God, if this woman is my wife someday, I will take care of her for the rest of my life.

I know, it sounds like something out of a Nicholas Sparks novel, but it is true! And I share it with you because that crisis situation and moment of decision is something like what we find in the first reading and in the Gospel this weekend.

In our Old Testament reading Joshua is addressing the people of Israel who are just about to begin a new life in the Promised Land. They have been set free from slavery in Egypt and brought through the desert after all kinds of trials and difficulties. Nothing turned out quite the way they had expected. Yet even in the midst of their own failures God has remained so very faithful.

Joshua, understanding quite well that this is the moment of great consequence for the people, knowing them all too well and realizing they are living in a land of many gods, compels them to make a choice. The time has come to make a decision. He says:

If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are now dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
—Joshua 24:15

Following his example the people also give their assent and choose to follow the God who has cared so very well for them.

In the Gospel there is a similar decision being made. Christ has revealed Himself as the Bread of Life, the Messiah that has come to offer His own body and blood for the salvation of the world. He has made it clear that there is nothing less than eternal life at stake here. All who eat His flesh and drink His blood will have life within them, and He will raise them up on the last day.

Sadly, remarkably, the majority of them are not willing to receive Him or even to consider the meaning of these words that He is speaking! They continue to murmur against Him and complain, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” (John 6:60). Many of His own disciples, we are told—many—walked away from Him right then and there.

Jesus Christ, recognizing that this is a crisis moment and the moment of decision, turns directly to the Twelve Apostles and asks them a question upon which depends the future of the nascent Church: “Do you also want to leave?” (John 6:67).

It is Peter who answers for them all: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:69).

These powerful and poignant moments of decision which we find in our readings for this weekend, as compelling as they are in their own right, have much more in common with that story I mentioned earlier than the fact that they are crisis situations. In both the Old Testament account from the Book of Joshua and in St. John’s Gospel what is being described is a relationship which is spousal; it is nuptial.

All throughout the Old Testament, and especially in the Prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea—God is described as the faithful spouse who has chosen Israel for His Bride. He loves Her deeply and adorns her in royalty (Isaiah 62:3), He seeks Her out and draws Her to Himself, loving Her with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3), and when She is unfaithful He lures Her into the desert and speaks tenderly to Her (Hosea 2:14) because He desperately wants Her back! That is the depth of the relationship which Joshua is leading them to in the first reading this weekend.

In the New Testament this spousal love becomes even more vivid, visual and even physical, in the person Jesus Christ. He is the Bridegroom of His Bride, the Church. He will give everything—His own body and blood, broken and shed for us on the cross—to bring us home to eternal life in God.

That is what Christ is trying to communicate to His disciples in St. John’s Gospel all throughout the Bread of Life Discourse. That offering of His body and blood on the cross is the very culmination of the Gospel we have been listening to for the last five weeks. It is at the heart of the mystery of the Eucharist…and it is also at the very heart of the mystery of marriage.

In our second reading this weekend, from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle goes through great lengths to describe for us what marriage consists of. He talks about the mutual submission of the spouses: "Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5:21). Married couples make an offering of themselves to one another out of love and out of devotion to God, and that self-offering includes no less than everything. St. Paul goes on to describe the marriage covenant even in physical terms. Quoting Genesis, he describes how a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and the two become one flesh. But then he concludes by saying something that is simply astounding: “This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32).

The self-giving love of husband and wife and their one-flesh union here on this earth is actually, in addition to being the expression of their love for each other, an image for something else. Marriage is an image for Jesus Christ’s own self-offering, His own gift of His body and blood for us on the cross.

But to make sure that we would never miss that spousal connection and the intimate bond we share with Him as His Bride and the people for whom He has made that self-offering, He has chosen to make it a sacrament: the Eucharist.

When we celebrate the Eucharist each week, we listen to His words: “This is my body, which will be given up for you…take it and eat it; this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant…take it and drink from it.” What we are celebrating is the God who offered Himself as our faithful Spouse in order to unite Himself to us forever.

We receive His body and blood and become one flesh with Him. Our spousal covenant with Him, that “new and eternal covenant,” is renewed each time we share in this Most Blessed Sacrament. Strengthened in that Gift and nourished by Christ, we have all the courage and power we need to face any of the difficult decisions and circumstances of life.

This week, when we face those moments of decision or times of crisis, may we echo the words of Joshua: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15) and say with confidence, along with St. Peter, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:69).