Desire and The Magdalene

(Tuesday of the Octave of Easter; This homily was given on 26 April, 2011 at the American College of the Immaculate Conception in Leuven, Belgium; See John 20:11-18)

This morning’s Gospel, from St. John, is a continuation of the Gospel that we listened to on Easter Sunday morning. You remember how St. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb to anoint the deceased body of Jesus but instead found the tomb empty. She ran franticly back to the place where the Apostles were and shared the distressing news with them. St. Peter and St. John had gone back to the tomb with her and also discovered that the tomb was empty.

Then they did the most rational, logical thing: they left. Jesus was not there so why bother standing around anyway?

Here we stand, on Tuesday of the Octave of Easter, and St. Mary Magdalene is still there at the empty tomb! In the Gospel it is much later than the early morning hour when she had first arrived; Peter and John are both gone and yet she alone remains. It is a remarkable display of strength of will, even strength of body, as we shall see.

Remaining there at the last place where Jesus had been, she first encounters the angels. There are two of them, we are told. Usually, in both the Old and New Testaments, when a man or woman encounters an angel one of two things happens:

They are either struck with dread fear bordering on terror (see Daniel 10:5-8; Acts 10:3-4), or they are so overcome with awe that they are tempted to worship the creature (see Revelation 19:10 and 22:8-9). St. Mary Magdalene does neither! In response to the question of the angel of why she is weeping, she says, perhaps even heatedly, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him” (John 20:13). She has come here to anoint the Lord, not for questions.

Suddenly Christ Himself appears before her and, mistaking Him for the gardener, she continues her single-minded inquiry: “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him” (John 20:15). Incredible! She could not have been that big! Christ’s body would have outweighed her by 20, perhaps 30 pounds…yet she is going to carry Him away! The Magdalene offers us a remarkable display of strength this morning: strength of will, even strength of body.

St. Gregory the Great, in his reflection on this passage, says what she really teaches us, though, is strength of desire.

At first pass, he suggests, her desire is not yet strong enough. She has come to the tomb, like the others, and not found the body of Jesus. Had she left, as did Peter and John, she might never have seen the Lord that day. Instead she remained, all the while not reaching her desired goal, and yet strengthened all the more in that very desire. Finally, says St. Gregory the Great, she became strong enough to obtain the object of her desire. She now has the strength to hold on to Christ, who had already taken hold of her.

As we begin this Easter Season, do we have that same desire? Are we being strengthened in our desire for the body of Christ? Do we long for and yearn for the body of Christ in the Eucharist, and are we willing to be made even stronger in that desire this Easter?

If you had come here for Mass this morning only to find that something had gone terribly wrong, and there was no one to celebrate the Eucharist, what would you do? Would you shrug it off, eat breakfast and get on with the rest of your day? Or would you have gone straight to the internet and checked to see where the next available Mass would be? Would you have knocked on the doors of the resident priests in this seminary and said, “Father, something terrible has happened! I went to spend time with our Lord and I was not able to receive Him. Tell me, will you be celebrating Mass sometime today, and could I attend that celebration?”

Daily reception of the Eucharist has to be priority number one for every seminarian, for every man preparing for the priesthood. Longing for that intimacy with Christ has to be the driving force and passion of your life.

Daily celebration of the Eucharist has to be priority number one for the priest of Jesus Christ. If the parish priest accomplishes 50 good things in a day, but desire for intimacy with Christ in the Eucharist is not one of them, then he may have actually accomplished little, if anything at all. If the devout and faith-filled celebration of the sacrifice of the Mass is the only thing he does that day, there is a unique opportunity, by grace, to participate powerfully in the redemption of the world and the renewal of the Body of Christ, the Church. Does the world not need that redemption desperately? Does the Church not cry out for that renewal daily?

The Eucharist is essential to the life and ministry of the priest because it is here that the priest can discover, over and over again, that the entire life he is called to is about the Lord Jesus Christ and not himself. The source and summit of our lives is Jesus Christ, broken and poured out for us daily in the Sacrament of the Eucharist (see Lumen Gentium, # 11 and Ecclesia de Eucharistia, #1).

Do you want that? Do you long for and desire that encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ?

This Easter let us seek, with St. Mary Magdalene, to grow in our desire for the body of Christ. May we discover, with her, that when we finally have the strength to take hold of the One whom we desire, that He has already—long ago and more deeply than we could possibly imagine—taken hold of us.

Fourth Sunday of Lent: Baptism

(Fourth Sunday of Lent; This homily was given on 3 April, 2011 at the American College of the Immaculate Conception in Leuven, Belgium; See 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Ephesians 5:8-14, and John 9:1-41)

This weekend, as we celebrate Laetare Sunday, we move beyond the halfway point in our journey towards Easter. The Fourth Sunday of Lent affords us a great opportunity to ask ourselves not only how we are doing this Lent but, perhaps more importantly, why we are doing it.

Obviously, Lent is a time of preparation for the celebration of the Pascal Mystery: the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and our hope of rising to new life with Him. One of the most significant and essential aspects of the Lenten season which paves the way for this preparation is penance. We began Ash Wednesday by noting the importance of penance, and its focus will endure all the way through Holy Week.

Nonetheless, when the Second Vatican Council reflects upon the liturgical season of Lent, penance is not the first aspect that is mentioned, nor is it the only important one. Both of the times Sacrosanctum Concilium mentions the central aspects of Lent it names penance secondly, but begins with baptism (Sacrosanctum Concilium, #109). In fact, it could be said that penance is relevant not for its own sake but to the extent that it draws us more deeply into the mystery of baptism and animates our baptismal call to holiness.

Baptism is a tremendous gift and a remarkable sacrament that we can too easily take for granted. The most precious things in our lives come to us through baptism. It is through baptism that we are given new life in the Holy Spirit and we experience a vibrant and life-giving relationship with God. Through baptism we have access to a life of prayer and intimacy with Jesus Christ; we persevere through baptism to union with God in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist; all of our relationships in the Body of Christ come to us through baptism. What an amazing gift!

If you have ever read (or perhaps have seen the movie) The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis then you are familiar with the story The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. That book begins with three small children who are playing hide-and-seek in an old medieval manor. The youngest girl, Lucy, soon discovers the ultimate hiding place: a small closet or wardrobe. She enters that wardrobe and closes herself in, moving way to the back where she can remain obscured behind a row of expensive coats. Yet making her way towards the back of the wardrobe she suddenly realizes that it is not a closed space at all, but actually a doorway to the mystical land of Narnia. She has gone through the wardrobe and entered into a vast and expansive landscape where there are mountains and hills, meadows and streams and all kinds of intriguing and living creatures. She will journey, with her brother and sister, throughout that amazing world and come to experience remarkable and breathtaking adventures.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes baptism in similar terms (minus all that great stuff about Narnia!):

"Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the spirit...and the door which gives access to the other sacraments." -CCC, # 1214

It is when we enter through that gateway that we begin to experience the true purpose and meaning of life, and we come into contact with the mysteries of our salvation. This weekend the Scriptures for this Fourth Sunday of Lent help us to focus in a particular way on this great Sacrament of Baptism.

The first aspect we can reflect on is the anointing of baptism. When a new child of God is reborn in baptism (whether he or she is an infant or an adult) that person is cleansed with water and baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Additionally, he or she is anointed on the crown of the head with sacred chrism, holy oil which signifies our share in the priestly, prophetic and kingly ministry of Jesus Christ. Reminiscent of the kings and prophets of the Old Testament, who were chosen by God and marked in a special way for service of God’s holy people through anointing, the signing with sacred chrism sets the Christian apart for a special life of holiness and service in the world.

No matter how far a child of God falls from this holy call, and despite whatever failings and faults he or she experiences in life, that distinction, that moment of being chosen by God and set apart, will never be erased. It cannot be taken away and it can never be repeated. The indelible mark of baptism remains all throughout life and into eternity because the favor of God and the call of God are irrevocable (see Romans 11:29). We may reject that favor and that gift, a terrifying dimension of our freedom; but God will never reject those who, in this life, return to Him.

There is a beautiful image for this reality found in our first reading this morning from the First Book of Samuel. Young David is anointed by the prophet Samuel and we are told “from that day on, the spirit rushed upon David” (1 Samuel 16:13). Every day of his life the Spirit of God rushed upon him and remained steadfast in David’s life…and what a life! We know all about the remarkable and heroic things David was able to accomplish: how he defeated the giant, Goliath, how he was victorious in battle and how he led the people of Israel as their beloved king.

But we also know the rest of the story. We know how he committed the sin of adultery with Bathsheba, and then committed the sin of murder to cover over his adultery. There were many times in his life where he flagged in his fidelity to God. There is a difficult and even sad description which comes to us from David himself in the First Book of Chronicles. David had come before the Lord and offered to build Him a temple, but the Lord refused because David had shed so much blood upon the earth; he had been a man of war and not peace. Solomon was to build the temple, but not David (see 1 Chronicles 22:6-10).

David lived a very difficult and complicated life…but he always managed to find his way back to God. This reconciliation was something which depended always and everywhere upon God, not David. “The spirit rushed upon David” throughout his life. The Holy Spirit rushes upon us here even now. It is up to us to respond to that Spirit and be renewed and regenerated in Christ.

Which brings us to the second aspect of this great sacrament: the regeneration of baptism. While it is true that the sacrament of baptism cannot be revoked nor can it be redone, it is also true that God has the power to renew and regenerate this gift of spiritual life He has poured out so graciously upon us.

If we look to our gospel for this weekend, it is clear that the man born blind has done nothing to bring about his own healing and reception of the gift of sight. Jesus freely chooses him and smears mud on his eyes, commanding him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. It is pure grace. But the blind man does listen to this word of Christ, he does cooperate with all that God is graciously doing in his life, and as a result his eyes are opened and he is restored to a whole new vision of the world around him.

So it is with us when we cooperate with God, who renews our baptismal call to holiness. One of the greatest ways this can happen is through daily interaction with the living and active word of God (see Hebrews 4:12). We become immersed in the Scriptures, allowing that word to convict us of our sins. We come to recognize, as we become more and more immersed in the word of God, all the places that we have fallen short in loving God and neighbor. More than that, though, we also come to see more clearly the path on which God is leading us (see Psalm 119: 105). We become filled with hope, filled with joy, and the word of God begins to set our souls on fire as we burn to share the Good News with those around us!

This is an important thing for us to grasp, especially as Catholics. We may have a tendency to shy away from such a strong attachment to Sacred Scripture, thinking that such zeal for God’s word belongs to other Christians, but not to us. There is a powerful lesson we can learn right here in Flanders. In the years following the Protestant Reformation, many of those who had left the Catholic Church began to claim that they alone had a firm grasp on the meaning of the Sacred Scriptures. They claimed fidelity to the word of God while they caricatured Catholics as believing only in the pope and the sacraments. In response to this claim, the Catholic Churches throughout Europe, and perhaps more so here in Flanders than anywhere else, began to construct enormous, wood-carved pulpits as high as twenty feet tall, ornamented with various sculptures and vibrant biblical scenes. The message being sent was that the word of God, just as much as the sacraments and fidelity to the Vicar of Christ, mattered and made a difference in the lives of the Catholic faithful.

If you go up to Ghent, to St. Bavo’s Cathedral, you will find a magnificent wooden pulpit that is as ornate as it is enormous. There is a sculpture of an old man set into the base of that pulpit, with a blanket being pulled off from over his head; he appears almost to be holding onto it desperately as angels blow their trumpets and other heavenly beings lift high he cross of Christ. At the base of that sculpture are the words of St. Paul, in Latin, which we find in our second reading this morning:

Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.

—Ephesians 5:14

The time for that old man to take his rest is over! The living and active word of God has the power to regenerate us and reanimate our spiritual lives, setting us on fire and enabling us to change and transform this world we live in. This brings us to the final aspect of baptism which we find in our readings this weekend: the ripple effect of baptism.

If you drop a stone into a pool of water, there will be a ripple effect extending all throughout that pool. So it is with the sacrament of baptism; it affects every relationship in our lives. Baptism has an effect on every community to which we belong and touches everyone we come into contact with, for bad or for good.

We find something of this reality in our gospel for this weekend. The man born blind is healed by Christ, and almost immediately there is a ripple effect in the community. The Pharisees eventually stand against him, moving from a place of confrontation (“Give God the praise! We know that this man is a sinner”) to a place of outright rejection (“You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?”). Christ, on the other hand, is on the opposite end of the spectrum, leading that newly healed man into a relationship of salvation and life.

The parents in the gospel, however, are standing somewhere in the middle!

They are not exactly sure what to do. Afraid of being thrown out of the temple and placing their social status in jeopardy, they nonetheless still feel close to their son and must have been grateful for the restoration of his sight. They temporarily defer to their son, saying “He is of age; question him.”

How important we realize this weekend that Christ does not criticize this couple. He criticizes the Pharisees, no doubt. He even challenges the man born blind to place his faith in the Son of Man. But as the gospel comes to a close, the parents are still wavering in the moment of decision. They have not taken a stand for or against Jesus Christ.

How many people in your life are also standing, even now, on that razor’s edge? How many people do you know who—while not totally committed to the Catholic faith nor willing to follow Christ in their everyday lives—nonetheless are still ambivalent and perhaps are yet discerning a life of faith and trust in God. How important that we place no obstacles before them!

There is a ripple effect that comes from our baptism and our willingness to live out that initial and unceasing call to holiness. May God grant us all that we need—this Lent and all throughout our lives—to be renewed in spirit, to be regenerated and reanimated by the word of God and set on fire so that we can be instruments of His powerful grace in the lives of those around us.

Ash Wednesday: John Q. Catholic, M.P.A.

(Ash Wednesday-Year A;This homily was given 9 March, 2011, at at the American College of the Immaculate Conception in Leuven, Belgium; Read Matthew 6:1-18)

NB- This homily was inspired by a Flemish priest (who shall remain nameless) who himslef holds an M.D, a Ph.D, and, of course, an M.P.A.

In our chapel each morning, as we celebrate the Eucharist, there are a number of seminarians and other students from the university who join us and who are studying for their S.T.B. (bachelor’s degree in sacred theology). Many others are currently preparing for their M.A. or A.M.A. (master’s or advanced master’s in philosophy or theology). Still others are working towards or perhaps have already received their S.T.L. (license in sacred theology) or Ph. D. (doctor of philosophy, which does not necessarily pertain to philosophy but instead connotes that the person is a “lover of wisdom” in the particular area of studies in which he or she earned the degree).

But Jesus Christ, in our Gospel this morning as we begin this Lenten Season, invites all of us to prepare for and earn—with Him and by His grace—our M.P.A. or master’s in penance administration.

Does that sound like a daunting task? Penance can sometimes have a negative connotation but that does not have to be the case. Penance and the penitential life, far from being a burden or an obstacle to our happiness, can often become the very means through which we experience freedom and joy in the spiritual life.

Penance allows us to be weaned off the things of this world, to be more detached from material things, not for the sake of detachment itself but so that we may become more attached to the things that matter most…beginning with God! The penitential life can often help clear the way for a renewal of our spiritual life and relationship with God.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why Christ does not offer it to us as an option in the Gospel this morning. He does not say, “If you think of it, fasting would be a really neat thing to do,” or “If you’ve got some spare change, why not give some of it to a needy person?” No, he does not say IF, but WHEN:

When you give alms…
When you pray…
When you fast…

—Matthew 6:1-18

Preparing for and receiving one’s M.P.A. is not optional for the Christian, nor are there any prerequisites. We simply begin with Christ and seek to walk this penitential path, and we do so in an intentional and determined way throughout these next forty days.

Thankfully, Christ does offer us an essential study guide to assist us in this regard. He cautions us against practicing penance with a pretense; we should not fast, pray and give alms for the sake of being noticed or to earn respect and admiration from those around us. We should not embrace a penitential life for the purpose of boosting our pride and self importance. These are the very things which tear down and work against our spiritual growth and the virtues necessary to sustain us. Christ exhorts us instead to earn our M.P.A. in secret; to do so with a hiddenness which God alone will notice and reward.

We do well to turn to the lives of the saints, to study under the great masters of the spiritual life as we seek to follow the greatest Master of all, Jesus Christ, in the penitential life. There is a beautiful and endearing story about St. Therese of Lisieux which occurred in the final days of her life, when she was on her deathbed (see Fr. Jean C. J. d'Elbée’s classic I Believe in Love for this story and many inspirational and enlightening conferences on this beloved saint). Some of the sisters were nearby in the kitchen, talking, and they did not know that Therese could hear them. One of them said:

“Sister Therese of the Child Jesus will die soon, and I really wonder what our mother will be able to say about her after her death. She will certainly be at a loss, for this little sister, lovable as she is, has certainly done nothing worth the trouble to recount.”

They knew that Therese was a very lovable and special person, but they had no idea just how completely holy she was, how deeply rooted she was in Christ. They knew nothing of the sacrifices she was offering up daily for all of them, and for the entire world. These things would come out in time, especially after the publication of The Story of a Soul. Then the entire world would know of the profound hidden life of St. Therese of Lisieux. She truly lived what St. Paul, in the New Testament, described as a life “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

In 1997 Blessed John Paul the Great named St. Therese of Lisieux a Doctor of the Church, but certainly she had already earned her M.P.A. with Christ.

This Lenten Season will we?

The Moral Life and Eternal Life

St. Augustine (354-430)- Portrait by Philippe de Champaigne

(Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time; This homily was given on 13 February, 2011 at the American College of the Immaculate Conception in Leuven, Belgium; See Sirach 15:15-20 and Matthew 5:17-37)

Our readings for this weekend from the Book of Sirach and the Gospel of St. Matthew teach us about the moral life and eternal life. Those two realities, for the follower of Jesus Christ, are inherently connected. To live the moral life, to follow the commandments of God and the teachings of our faith as revealed by God through His Church in the Scriptures and Sacred Tradition, is to begin to experience already a foretaste of eternal life with God. The life of grace within the soul, the Holy Spirit dwelling within us from our Baptism, takes root and begins to thrive and flourish when we follow the commandments of God.

In the Gospel of St. John, Jesus Christ says “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). God desires for us to experience here already that abundant life which is a foretaste of the joy, peace and holiness that will one day be ours for all eternity.

But the opposite is also true…If we choose not to follow the commandments of God and the teachings of our faith, if we decide that we will take our own path and follow our own will when we know that God is asking from us something else, we risk losing that abundant life He wants for us. There are Capital or “root sins”—in the Gospel this morning Christ mentions two of them, anger and lust—which are indicative of the decisions we can make in the moral life which often stifle the very life of God within the soul.

Anger, lust, pride, envy, sloth, avarice, gluttony...allowing these sins to take root in the soul, we risk losing not only the abundant life that Christ offers but even eternal life itself.

Sadly, too many people live as if that is not a remote possibility, as if God could never possibly say to them, at the final judgment: “I do not know where you come from; depart from me all you workers of iniquity” (Luke 13:27). Choosing not to follow the commandments of God creates in our lives the very real possibility of the loss of eternal life; Christ, in the Gospel this morning refers to that loss as Gehenna or hell. For all these reasons Sirach this morning cautions us to choose wisely when it comes to the commandments of God. He says:

If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you.
—Sirach 15:15

Heaven is not something that happens to us by accident. We do not enter eternal life as a mere conclusion to life here on earth. No, heaven is embraced through the choices and moral decisions we make each day. We decide to follow God, through a multitude of circumstances and sometimes in the midst of great difficulty. But the fact of the matter is we make decisions. Sirach this morning says to us:

He has set before you fire and water; to whichever you choose stretch forth your hand. Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.
—Sirach 15: 16-17

The commandments of God are the path to eternal life. That is why Christ is so adamant about the importance of the commandments in our Gospel this morning. He says:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
—Matthew 5:17

With tremendous authority Christ makes it clear that He is not simply a new Moses, not some great prophet or teacher of the law who will guide them into deeper interpretations of the commandments. No, He is the God who gives the law, and the only one who has ever completely fulfilled it. With that very same authority and power, compassion and mercy, Christ goes on to issue a challenge that should make us all a bit uncomfortable. It comes to us in the simple phrase:

You have heard that it was said…but I say to you…

Speaking about anger and lust, those root sins that have the power to destroy the life of grace in the soul, Christ explains how we do not have to commit the actual sin of murder; we do not have to be a notorious public sinner or have committed the act of adultery in order to be at risk of losing eternal life. Christ levels the playing field in the moral life and attacks the shallow religiosity of the scribes and Pharisees, a morality not at all unlike the one we find today.

It is not the case that there are notorious sinners—murderers and adulterers—who will not likely make it to heaven; that there are then the majority of us striving to be more righteous and good each day, working our way to heaven; that, finally, there are the scribes and Pharisees who are well on their way and the paragon of virtue. No, Christ turns that simplistic morality upside down when He says:

Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
—Matthew 5:20

Christ makes it clear to all of us that things are worse than they appear…and also so much better. Our late Holy Father, Blessed John Paul the Great, in a conference on the Theology of the Body back in 1980, says that this Sermon on the Mount and Jesus’ words—You have heard that it was said…but I say to you—are not merely an accusation but above all an invitation: “The accusation leveled at the evil of lust is at the same time an appeal to overcome it” (General Audience of October 22, 1980).

Christ never raises the bar in the moral life beyond our ability to reach it; He would never command us to do something that is not possible. He gives us all the grace we need to be forgiven, loved, strengthened and confirmed in our journey through this life and on our way to eternal life with Him. But that can never happen until we are willing to admit that we desperately need God. We must come to the realization that, without grace, we cannot live the moral life as we should. We must declare, in a certain sense, spiritual bankruptcy and allow God to renew us and animate us from within.

In his letter to the Romans St. Paul describes his own struggle to live the moral life and to fulfill the commandments of God. He says:

For I do not do the good I want but the evil I do not want is what I do…when I want to do the right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
—Romans 7:19-25

This great mystery of the power of grace in the life of the soul takes on a whole new and compelling witness in the life of St. Augustine. Many people are familiar with the Confessions of St. Augustine, the autobiography that describes his conversion and God’s victory over sin in his life. In Book VI he reflects on the relationship he shared with the woman who was his mistress and who had given birth to his son. With total transparency and heartfelt honesty he says:

Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied, and my mistress being torn from my side as an impediment to my marriage, my heart, which clave to her, was racked, and wounded, and bleeding. And she went back to Africa, making a vow unto You never to know another man, leaving with me my natural son by her. But I, unhappy one, who could not imitate a woman, impatient of delay, since it was not until two years' time I was to obtain her I sought—being not so much a lover of marriage as a slave to lust—procured another.
—Confessions Book VI, Ch. 15

Augustine had first to declare spiritual bankruptcy, to acknowledge his utter dependency and even enslavement to lust, before he could come to the realization that he needed God. It is one of the most provocative passages in the Confessions, and provides a stark example of how the root sin of lust—or any of the root sins, for that matter—has the power to keep the life of God from developing within the soul. It spells out for us the tragic consequences of a life given over to sin.

But, of course, we know the rest of the story. We know how God never gives up on Augustine, never ceases to call him to virtue and holiness, no matter how far he has fallen. Augustine goes on to describe that victory of God in his life:

Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you. You were within, and I was in the external world and sought you there . . . You were with me, and I was not with you . . . You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness . . . You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.
—Confessions Book X, Ch. 27

That is what can happen when we are open to the call of God deep within. Even in the midst of our struggles in the spiritual life, when we are all too cognizant of our weaknesses and our utter dependency upon God, we can take courage knowing that He is with us and constantly provides for us what we need to follow Him. Over and over again we have the ability and indeed the privilege of choosing to listen to the voice of God and to follow His call to mercy, forgiveness, renewal and new life. And so, we listen once again to the words of Sirach from our first reading this weekend:

If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you.
—Sirach 15:15

God sets before us this day fire and water…life and death…good and evil.

Let us choose Christ. Let us choose life. Let us choose to embrace the abundant life that He offers to each one of us this day.

Inception, St. Joseph and the Dream of God

The Dream of St. Joseph

by Philippe de Champaigne, is dispalyed at the National Gallery in London.

(Fourth Sunday of Advent; This homily was given on 19 December, 2010 at the American College of the Immaculate Conception in Leuven, Belgium; See Matthew 1:18-24)

One of the big blockbuster films of this past summer, and a movie that is right now at the top of the charts for DVD sales, is the movie Inception. It is a very well written and compelling film filled with great special effects and intense drama. The characters in that film have the ability to go deep into the dream world of the people around them, extracting secrets from their subconscious and sometimes even inserting ideas—hence the name inception—that have the power to change lives.

Of course, as intriguing as the movie is, at its very foundation it is fiction. Certainly we cannot delve into the subconscious minds of those around us and enter into their dreams against their will. But nonetheless, in the Gospel this weekend we are shown not a fiction but the fact of the inner life of St. Joseph, husband of Mary. We are given an insight and a glimpse into his dream world, and in that place nothing less than our eternal salvation is at stake. We sit on the razor’s edge of St. Joseph’s dream, waiting breathlessly for his reaction to the angel’s voice…but we will come back to that in a moment…

For starters, St. Joseph is not the first dreamer we encounter in the Scriptures. In fact, he is named for one of the great Old Testament dreamers, Joseph the Patriarch. We encounter that Joseph towards the end of the Book of Genesis. He is only a teenager the first time we meet him, and he is dreaming about his brothers, arrayed before him and bowing before their younger brother. That dream is followed by another in which the sun and the moon and eleven stars of the sky are arranged before him; his father and mother, as well as his brothers, bowing in fealty to Joseph (see Genesis 37:5-20).

All too eagerly, and perhaps even imprudently, Joseph shares these dreams with his brothers, who immediately take offense at him. They decide at first that this “master dreamer” (Genesis 37:19) needs a dose of reality, and conclude that he should die; later they change their minds and sell him off into slavery instead. “After all,” they reason, “he is our brother” (Genesis 37:27). Thank heavens for small favors!

We are all familiar with the rest of the story. Joseph gets taken into Egypt where he suffers many hardships and is even thrown unjustly into prison. But soon Pharaoh himself has a vision that perplexes him and so he sends for Joseph, who is renown even in the land of Egypt as an interpreter of dreams. Joseph, with the help of God, unlocks the mystery of Pharaoh’s dream and saves not only Egypt, but the surrounding countries, as well, from famine and destruction. His brothers, true to his prophesy, indeed come and bow before him, even before they realize that he has graciously become their savior.

It is a compelling and beautiful story which reveals God’s power and ability to save us even in spite of our own human frailties and sins. But truth be told, when Joseph’s brothers mock him as “master dreamer,” they could not have been further from the truth. In fact, in all the Scriptures there is only one Master Dreamer, and that is God. His master dream comes to be revealed to us not at the end of the Book of Genesis, but at its inception.

In the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis we are given God’s dream for the human family. It is a dream in which the man and the woman live together in a mutual relationship of love and freedom. There is harmony and peace between them, and that same harmonic relationship exists between them and the rest of the created world. There is a just and peaceful accord between all of creation and God, who wills to walk with the man and the woman in the cool of the evening, content simply to spend time with them (see Genesis 3:8).

Of course, very quickly that dream is shattered; God’s dream for the human family is broken into a thousand pieces after what we come to understand as Original Sin enters the picture. Although we understand the truths of that mythic tale in a way different from our historical reality, nonetheless we see that broken dream played out over and over again in our everyday lives. Perhaps we ourselves, or those we know and love, are in the midst of that very brokenness:

Broken dreams…broken lives…broken promises…broken relationships…and the list goes on and on.

One of the great tragedies today is that so many people experience this brokenness and simply give up on the dream all together. They conclude that peace and harmony in this world is simply not possible and they cease to even try. That is a very sad thing. But even worse is the reality that many in this post-modern world have given up on even the hope for happiness and peace beyond this life. They have given up on even the possibility of an eternal life in which God will set things right and give us “far more than all we ask or imagine” (see Ephesians 3:20).

It is such a paradox because deep within our hearts we long for nothing else than this eternal dream of God; we desire nothing greater than the restoration of this harmony and peace deep within us, and spreading out to all of the relationships of our lives. We cannot help but to dream!

And so thanks be to God that He has revealed to us in the Scriptures this weekend and in the midst of our Catholic faith that He has no intention of ever giving up on that dream! No matter what happens, and no matter how many times we break away from His plan for our lives, God is relentless in making this dream a reality for us.

He so longs for its fulfillment that He is willing, even desirous, to come right into our brokenness, to become broken Himself on the wood of the cross, so that we can be healed and have the hope of an eternal life with Him. He desires to become one like us so that we can become more and more completely like Him. That is the hope we eagerly wait for in this Advent season and it is the plan of God revealed to us in the Scriptures. But that plan this weekend is almost derailed at its inception by none other than St. Joseph!

It is not because St. Joseph is selfish and wants to do his own thing, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. No, it is because St. Joseph was a good and righteous man of God and because he had a dream for his life. St. Joseph, like almost all righteous Jews of his time, would have had a dream for marriage and a family, to raise up faithful children of Israel. Suddenly that dream is shattered as Joseph comes to learn that this woman, who by all appearances is so holy, so pure, so perfect…is suddenly so pregnant! And he knows that he is not the father. His dream was broken and we are told in the Gospel this weekend that he had decided to divorce her quietly; he was going to separate himself from Mary and her Child. Immediately the angel of God intervenes and makes it clear, No, Joseph! That is not the right move!

His plan and dream for life was a good one, a holy one even, but it was simply not sufficient. The angel is essentially telling him, You have to dream a whole lot bigger, Joseph, because God is going to do something in your life beyond your wildest imagination. He has a dream greater than you could possibly foresee, and you are an intimate part of that dream.

St. Joseph, for his part, does not miss a beat. We are told that as soon as he awoke he did what the angel had instructed him. In a moment he was able to place his own dreams aside and to broaden his vision to the eternal dream of God. This Fourth Sunday of Advent, are you and I able to do the same?

We all have dreams and hopes for the future; we all have plans and desires that we hope will come to pass. But so many times we hold onto those dreams with both hands and fail to see that God often desires something more, something greater “than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).

Are we willing to broaden our vision to the master dream of God, to His great desire for our eternal happiness, and let everything else in our lives conform to that dream? We must be willing and even eager not only to conform ourselves to that dream, not only to surrender ourselves to it, but to love it! Only there will we have the true freedom to let go of our own plans and to find the greatest desires of our hearts fulfilled in Him.

This Advent, may we find the courage to dream bigger than ever before and seek the inspiration that comes from God Himself and His Son, Jesus Christ, because this is the season, above every other season of the year, when dreams come true.

The Vision and the Fire of Advent

St. Francis Xavier 1506-1552

(Friday of the First Week of Advent, Feast of St. Francis Xavier; This homily was given on 3 December, 2010 at the American College of the Immaculate Conception in Leuven, Belgium; See Isaiah 29:17-24, Psalm 27 and Matthew 9:27-31)

We have already come now almost one quarter of the way through the Advent Season, and our readings today encapsulate the message of what it means to be a people waiting for the revelation of God in Christ. We wait in hope for the vision of God who comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ, God incarnate.

In our first reading the Prophet Isaiah anticipates this vision when he announces boldly that “out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see” (Isaiah 29:18). When the Messiah comes He will open the eyes of all to see the beauty and the power of God.

The Psalmist speaks of that same longing and yearning when he sings of his great desire to “gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple” (Psalm 27:4). It is not enough for us to hear about God or simply to know a great deal about Him. No, we long to see Him and to look upon His loveliness even here, “in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13).

One of the most beautiful prayers in the liturgy is found in the Christmas Season, which we will enter in a few short weeks. One of the Prefaces for the Eucharist Prayer in the Christmas Season offers this wonderful prayer to God:

In the wonder of the incarnation
your eternal Word has brought to the eyes of faith
a new and radiant vision of your glory.
In him we see our God made visible
and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see.

The eternal Word who is Christ has brought to our eyes of faith that new and radiant vision of God. When Christ comes to dwell among us as a man we finally catch a glimpse of the God who we know loves us and whom we could never see had He not revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

Our Gospel today shows us this reality in a striking and vibrant way. Those two men beg Christ to heal them and restore their sight. The very first thing—or better, Person—they see when their request is granted and their eyes are opened is the God-Man, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. What longing, what yearning we have to see Him as we await the coming of Christ this Advent!

Truth be told, this is the very mission and vocation of the Christian: to see God and be swept up in this “new and radiant vision,” to have our eyes opened to His glory and His unsurpassable mercy. Then we cannot help but go out into the world and proclaim His wonders so that the eyes of all may be opened to that same vision of God. We want all the word to see what we have seen and to taste what we have tasted in the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ.

But to do that we have to be able to see what God sees when He looks at us and at the world we live in. We have to see the sin that is inevitably a part of our daily struggle, but even more we need to see ourselves and those around us not only as sinners but as men and women loved infinitely by God. We need to see the men and women whom God is willing to suffer and die for. You have heard the expression before: hate the sin but love the sinner. We separate the sin from the sinner and try to see as God sees.

One of the great temptations and dangers of the disciple of Christ is to take both of those realities together—the sin and the sinner—and to despise them both. Our worst days as disciples are often the times when we fail in this regard. When we do that, seeing only sinful people doing sinful things, then we also risk losing the vision of God Himself. We can no longer see Him clearly and all that He desires for us to behold as we follow and serve Him.

Such was the temptation which St. Francis Xavier faced, whose feast we celebrate today. Francis Xavier was sent by St. Ignatius of Loyola to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of the East Indies. By no means was he the first person to do that. In our tradition it is St. Thomas the Apostle who is sent by Christ Himself to bring the Gospel to the people of India. St. Francis Xavier would follow in the footsteps of countless men and women who tirelessly and faithfully brought the Gospel to those who longed to hear it.

But what he encountered when he arrived there was not only the fruit of the fidelity of the missionaries that had gone before him. He also encountered the infidelity of the followers of Christ who had long forgotten the Gospel they were sent to proclaim. He encountered, along with many zealous and praiseworthy disciples, also clergy who had given cause for scandal and the brutality not only of the pagans in that land but especially of the many Christians who should have known better. One account tells how “when slaves were atrociously beaten, their masters counted out the blows on the beads of their rosaries” (Butler’s Lives of the Saints, IV).

How would you and I have responded to such brutality? What would have been our attitude as missionaries in that strange and mysterious place? The response of St. Francis Xavier was one of tears almost to the point of blindness, but not the kind we would first think. He writes to his spiritual father, St. Ignatius of Loyola:

“The dangers to which I am exposed and the tasks I undertake for God are springs of spiritual joy, so much so that these islands are the places in all the world for a man to lose his sight by excess of weeping: but they are tears of joy.”

St. Francis Xavier saw the sin that was rampant in that place and he saw the atrocities and the squalor that comes with the loss of the vision of God, but he also saw the countless souls whom God loved so dearly, and that made all the difference. His heart was on fire with that same love that sent Christ to the cross, willing to die for our salvation, and Francis Xavier was overwhelmed with love to the point of tears; he was nearly blinded by the tears of joy that flowed from a heart on fire with the love of Jesus Christ.

That is precisely why St. Ignatius sent him to the East Indies to begin with. After serving faithfully by Ignatius’ side following his ordination to the priesthood, Francis Xavier was not immediately sent out into the missions. He waited and longed to preach the Gospel but year after year that assignment never came. Finally, one day, Ignatius released him with the now famous exhortation, “Go and set the world on fire!” St. Francis Xavier went and did exactly that.

It is the fire of the Holy Spirit, and only that fire, that has the power to renew the Church in the time of St. Francis Xavier and in our own time today. It is only the fire of divine love that can so inflame us to hate the sin and love the sinner as we proclaim Christ unreservedly to the world we live in.

May we come to know that love here in this place as we prepare to receive Him in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. May we see here in the Eucharist that “new and radiant vision” of the glory of God and come to know Him in whom “we see our God made visible and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see.” May our eyes be opened to that vision and may God send us out from this place to set the world on fire.

Thanksgiving and Grace

(Wednesday of the Thirty-Second Week in Ordinary Time; This homily was given on 10 November, 2010 at the Pope's College -founded by Pope Adrian IV- in Leuven, Belgium; See Luke 17:11-19)

Thanksgiving. Gratitude. Giving thanks is something we are usually taught at a very young age. We receive a gift or a kindness from a relative or friend and our parents immediately seek to instill in us an attitude of gratitude. Perhaps they purchase a box of “Thank-you” cards for us after a significant event and encourage us to begin that age-old practice.

But what, exactly, is at the root of our need to give thanks? Is it simply the obligation to “ingratiate” ourselves to others, showing them that we were indeed worthy of the gift received? Is it merely a healthy habit which we cultivate to keep up appearances and expectations? Or is it something more?

If we look to the liturgy of the Church we discover the power of thanksgiving as something which affects us deep within. One of the Prefaces for the celebration of weekday Mass (Preface for Weekdays IV) communicates the following humble prayer to God:

You have no need of our praise,
yet our desire to thank you is itself your gift.

Our prayer of thanksgiving

adds nothing to your greatness,
but makes us grow in your grace,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Our prayer of thanksgiving

adds nothing to your greatness…

There is nothing we can do or say that will ever add anything to God; He is complete and content and in need of nothing from anyone. But there is much that He can do, and indeed does, to increase His life in us.

Our prayer of thanksgiving…makes us grow in your grace, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

It is one thing to receive a gift, to be the recipient of some grace; but it is another thing altogether to grow in that gift and to allow it to reach its full potential. One can earn a Master’s Degree or a PhD—have received opportunities for education and intellectual growth—but still not allow those gifts to reach their full potential.

We can receive the greatest gifts of all—faith, our Catholic identity, the Eucharist—and still fail to grow spiritually even after having been given such tremendous graces. We often receive good things from God and from others, but we are also called to grow in those gifts so that they will bear the kind of fruit God intends from the beginning. Thanksgiving has everything to do with that fruitfulness.

Our Gospel this afternoon, from St. Luke, reveals this brilliant flowering of the gift of grace within the human heart. We are told there were ten lepers who stood at a distance from Christ and called out to Him for mercy. Telling them to go and show themselves to the priests of the temple (a requirement according to Mosaic Law) they immediately obey and suddenly, on the way, they are cured! Yet only one of them returns, thankful.

All ten were healed; ten received the gift and grace of physical healing, but for nine of them the grace stopped there. They were healed by God…but that is all that happened! Not so, for the one who returns to give thanks. He comes back and falls down at the feet of Jesus. He is filled with gratitude and praise. His entire life has been changed, not just his body. And then Jesus says something to him that He says to none of the others:

“Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”
—Luke 17:19

Salvation has come for this man! He has been changed and transformed not just physically, but spiritually, as well. Body and soul he has been touched by God in the deepest part of himself. It all began with that initial grace received from Christ, and was brought to fruition through the gift of gratitude:

Our prayer of thanksgiving

adds nothing to your greatness,
but makes us grow in your grace,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Having received such a gift and such a grace as Jesus Christ here in this Holy Mass, how will our gratitude bear fruit in our lives this day? How is God calling us to cultivate an attitude of gratitude so that all the graces we receive may reach their fulfillment in lives of joyful service and love for God and those around us?

Feast of Dedication of St. John Lateran

(Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica; This homily was given on 9 November, 2010 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Ezekiel 47:1-12)

This morning we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, a Church which adorns herself with the modest title of being “Mother and first of all the Churches in Rome and of the world.” But it is not so much that title we celebrate, nor even the basilica itself as much as it is the unity and universality that they represent.

Long before the popes began to preside over the assembly at St. Peter’s Basilica they made St. John Lateran their residence. For centuries that was the center for the visible source of our unity; today what we truly celebrate is the affection we have for the Vicar of Christ on earth, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. And we have much to celebrate, much to be thankful for.

For decades as a theologian and subsequently as Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he provided clear and engaging teachings, in articles, books and statements, on Christ and the Church. As our Holy Father he has continued to teach, govern and sanctify the Church through his writing and example. But one aspect of the pontificate of Benedict XVI that I would like to emphasize this morning is his consistent witness—in city after city, country after country, time and again—in the face of what has often revealed itself as bitterness towards the Catholic Church and the Catholic message.

To be sure, that bitterness has come at times as a result of the sins and even scandal caused by members of the Church. Pope Benedict XVI has addressed this himself many times. Yet there is also a bitterness that has come as a result of the world that we live in, a world that is growing increasingly more secular, increasingly more closed-off from the things of God. There is a sense of bitterness, then, that can result from the Catholic message itself which our Holy Father represents; a message that emphasizes the need for conversion and forgiveness, an acknowledgement above all of the merits of Jesus Christ for us, not an emphasis on our own merits and accomplishments, however grand and distinguished they may be.

Yet in the face of such bitterness, our Holy Father has consistently borne witness to Jesus Christ and the message of the Gospel, in humility and charity, immersed in the power and joy of the Holy Spirit.

The impact of this witness has been tremendous. In city after city, country after country, from Washington, D.C. and New York, to France, Great Britain and recently in Spain, time and again that witness has affected the lives of thousands of people. Many, perhaps not most but certainly many, of those who were bitter about their experience of the Church or bitter with regard to the circumstances of their lives, have been touched by the life and ministry of Pope Benedict XVI. His reception in places across the globe has been positive and powerful for the Church and the world we live in.

I would suggest this morning that this witness offered by our Holy Father is not one exclusive to him as the Vicar of Christ. It is a witness that is universal in scope, one which we are all called to embrace. We are all called, as members of the Body of Christ, to bear witness to Jesus Christ and His Gospel, with humility and charity, immersed in the power and joy of the Holy Spirit. The Prophet Ezekiel, in our first reading this morning, shows us a vision of what that witness of the Church can look like. In his vision, which prefigures the Church, Ezekiel sees a temple and describes how there is water flowing from the sanctuary of that temple. It flows out well beyond the confines of that place of worship and reaches all the way to the sea (see Ezekiel 47:1-12).

Now usually when a river flows into the sea those waters, laden with salt and brine, will flow back into the river and turn its fresh water brackish. Not so with this river, describes Ezekiel. Instead, he says, the water flowing from the temple and into the sea changes the sea itself! That great body of water, bitter to the taste and expansive in size, is changed and transformed by the river flowing into it. In fact, Ezekiel relates how even the trees which line the banks of that great river are vitalized and they bear fresh fruit each month; their leaves are useful as medicine for healing.

It is a beautiful and vibrant picture of the mission of the Church and of the witness we are called to bear. We are called, at this Eucharist and in this sanctuary, to be immersed in the Body and Blood of Christ, so that we can go out into the world and bear witness to our Lord in all we say and do. Where will the rivers and tributaries flowing from our temple spread out to this day? How might God be able to bring healing and wholeness to those who have perhaps grown bitter in their experience of life? May we, like Pope Benedict XVI, bear witness to Jesus Christ and His Gospel, in charity and humility, fully immersed in the power and joy of the Holy Spirit.

Vigilance

Vasari's Garden of Gethsemane

(Tuesday of the Twenty-Ninth Week in Ordinary Time; This homily was given on 19 October, 2010 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Ephesians 2:12-22 and Luke 12:35-38)


Christ in our Gospel this morning instructs and admonishes his disciples to be vigilant; to be watchful and ready; to be prepared to receive Him when He comes to them (Luke 12:35-38). And although we are not given a list by St. Luke of the disciples who were present at that moment, we can certainly guess the names of some. St. Peter, for instance, most likely would have been there; Saints James and John; perhaps the rest of the Twelve. These were the men who were with our Lord day and night throughout His public ministry.

Some of these same men, St. Luke relates just a few chapters later, were taken aside by Him and given the very same instruction that we hear today: be vigilant; watch; pray (Luke 22:39-46). Yet despite being warned twice to be prepared for Him and ready, they failed. They were not vigilant; they flagged in their fidelity to our Lord. They not only fell asleep when Christ was counting on them to be awake and alert but they also, all of them, abandoned Him in His time of trial.

But by the grace of God they were given another chance to watch and wait for Him. St. Peter was given the opportunity to strengthen those who, like Him, had failed (Luke 22:31-32). Those very same disciples began to grow, in earnest, in their vigilance and preparedness for the presence of the living God. By the end of their lives they were more than ready, more than vigilant and prepared to meet their divine Bridegroom when He came for them.

The words of Christ in the Gospel this morning are poignant and fitting in their application to those disciples (and to us):

And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants.
—Luke: 12:38

The second or third watch…

The Jewish people observed three watches of the night. The first watch was in the early evening, the second watch occurred around midnight, and the third was at dawn.

The disciples missed Him in the second watch in the Garden of Gethsemane. They were asleep and did not heed our Lord’s command. But in the third watch, at the dawn, when the light of Christ came for them—not at the end of the evening bit at the end of their lives—they were ready. They had grown in their vigilance, in their watchful attention to the presence of God, something that they had become more and more attuned to as they strived to serve Him faithfully. Yes, they failed, but in the mercy of God they learned how to grow and persevere in waiting and watching for God.

So it is with us. Often in the very places where we have failed to be vigilant, in the places that we have not been mindful of the presence of God, He calls us to an even greater vigilance and a more intense watchfulness so that, when He comes again, we will not miss Him. Our lives are often lived between those two watches—failure and fidelity—a dynamic process of growth in which we are being prepared to enter eternal life with Him.

St. Paul alludes to that dynamic process in our first reading this morning. He talks about our collective identity as a Temple of the living God, but he does not say that we are a building which is already fully completed. No. He says, “Through [Christ] the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:21-22).

The foundation of that building is already in place. St. Paul mentions the Apostles and prophets which make up that foundation. Paul himself would become a part of it; St. Isaac Jogues, St. John de Brebeuf and their companions whose feast we celebrate today, are a part of that foundation. It is rock solid and cannot be shaken. Christ Himself, as the capstone, is already in place and will hold this temple together.

But for the rest of us, we are being built into that dwelling place; we are growing into that temple of the living God, and that can be a mysterious, challenging and even painful process. It is often the case that God must shift and adjust each stone, and perhaps even turn some upside down so that they will fit just where He wants them to. At other times He may need to hammer and chisel out parts of the stone, making it smoother or more perfectly shaped for His own desires and purposes. It is not a pleasant process; yet we trust in the God who lovingly knows just how to form us and mold us in Christ.

Wherever we are today we ask for the same grace that Saints Peter, James and John received; the grace that enabled St. Paul to grow in his vigilance and eagerness to follow Christ and serve Him well. May we also be built up in Christ, made more and more vigilant, more and more fit for that “dwelling place of God in the Spirit,” so that when our divine Bridegroom comes to us at the end of our lives we may be ready to walk into eternal life with Him.

Are You Resolved?

(Tuesday of the Twenty-Sixth Week in Ordinary Time; This homily was given on 28 September, 2010 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Luke 9:51-56)

We hear in our Gospel this morning that, “when the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). He was completely and totally resolved to go to that place where He would suffer, and die, and rise again.

Yet as Luke continues to describe that scene we discover that it is not merely the iron will of Christ, not sheer determination alone that drives Him towards the Holy City. There is something else which undergirds that will and supports His resolution, His intense desire to accomplish all that the Father has entrusted to Him. That “something else” comes to be revealed, oddly enough, in the midst of opposition.

It is an unwritten law of the spiritual life that when we are resolutely determined and totally resolved to accomplish the work of God in this world, we will encounter opposition. It was no different for Christ. The moment that He “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem,” he was literally, even physically so, opposed by the Samaritans. They would not let Him pass through their village to get to the place where His mission would be accomplished.

The response of His disciples is as shocking as it is disappointing:

Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?
—Luke 9:54

Yet suddenly, in Jesus’ rebuke and rejection of this simplistic suggestion, we catch a glimpse of what is behind the resolute determination of Christ. He quickly sets aside any sense of retaliation. The very reason He is making the journey to Jerusalem in the first place is to offer Himself on the cross for the sake of mercy, forgiveness and love. He is resolutely determined to suffer and to die so that the very people who oppose Him can be forgiven and receive a second chance, and a new life with God. The iron will and unbreakable resolve of Christ, therefore, is undergirded, is strengthened and supported, everywhere and always by love.

We come to see this perhaps even more so in His response to the disciples themselves. These are the very men whom He has chosen to carry on the ministry of reconciliation; the ministry of mercy, compassion and love. Yet here they are resolutely determined to carry out the ministry of vengeance; the ministry of retribution, even to the point of violence. It would not have been surprising in the least if Christ had simply rebuked them and cut them loose. He could have easily chosen other men to continue the work He had in mind; He could have built His Church with other stones which would fit more easily in their place. But He did not.

Christ was resolutely determined to use these men, to mold and form and guide these very men to be the foundation on which our faith would rest. In time they would become the very paragon of virtue, living out completely the message which He worked so hard to communicate to them on earth. St. John will later become the “Apostle of Love” modeling perfectly that great virtue and writing magnificently about it. His Gospel will describe it so eloquently in the life and mission of Jesus Christ.

Saints James and John, in the end, got it. They finally understood who Christ was and what He was calling them to, and all of it was made possible through Christ, who was resolutely determined to use them to accomplish great things in this world. Christ was totally and completely resolved, and that resolution was undergirded and supported always and everywhere with love.

This gospel passage is important and instructive for each and every follower of Christ, but in a particular way it is essential for the men here in this seminary whom God is calling to the priesthood; the men who, in a few short weeks will be ordained to the diaconate. A few short months later these same men will be ordained to the priesthood. Between both of those ordinations—to the diaconate and to the priesthood—each candidate will be asked 11 separate times: “Do you resolve to…?”

• Do you resolve to discharge the office of deacon with humble charity…?

• You who are prepared to embrace the celibate state: Do you resolve to keep forever this commitment as a sign of your dedication to Christ the Lord for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, in the service of God and man?

• Do you resolve to maintain and deepen the spirit of prayer that is proper to your way of life and, in keeping with this spirit and what is required of you, to celebrate faithfully the Liturgy of the Hours with and for the People of God and indeed for the whole world?

—From the Rite for the Ordination of Deacons


• Do you resolve to exercise the ministry of the word worthily and wisely, preaching the Gospel and teaching the catholic faith?

• Do you resolve to celebrate faithfully and reverently, in accord with the Church’s tradition, the mysteries of Christ, especially the sacrifice of the Eucharist and the sacrament of Reconciliation, for the glory of God and the sanctification of the Christian people?

• Do you resolve to be united more closely every day to Christ the High Priest, who offered Himself for us to the Father as a pure sacrifice, and with Him to consecrate yourselves to God for the salvation of all?

—From the Rite for the Ordination of Priests


The responses to those questions cannot come from an iron will alone; they must come from so much more than a sheer determination to bring oneself into conformity with a series of requirements and obligations. Because if that is all they are, then in more difficult times the priest or deacon will become frustrated and discouraged and may even begin to feel that he is burdened and bound to a life which is lacking in freedom.

But if there is love to undergird that resolution, if the priest or deacon allows himself to be immersed in the love of God and responds generously to that love, then those same promises and resolutions can become a source of great joy, done with passion and fervor, and in a way that will bear tremendous fruit for the Church and for the world we live in. And that is the stuff that transforms the lives of those we are called to serve. That is the stuff that transforms the Church and the heart of one’s own vocation.

Whoever we are and whatever God is calling us to do, may we seek not only to be resolved to accomplish His work and to respond with an iron will to please Him and serve His people; may we also receive the gift of God that allows that resolution to be undergirded with love, strengthened and supported with the mercy and grace of Christ, so that we ourselves may be transformed, and become instruments of transformation in the Church and in this world that so desperately needs God.

The Good Samaritan and Works of Mercy

Michelangelo's Madonna and Child

in Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium

(15th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given on 11 July, 2010 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Luke 10:25-37)

Our parable from the Gospel of St. Luke this weekend is one of the best known parables Christ ever told: the Good Samaritan. Christians and non-Christians alike are familiar with that parable. Often it is the person who will stop to assist a stranded motorist on the side of the road or the volunteer at a hospital or nursing home who is referred to as a “Good Samaritan.” In fact, that is one of the points of the Gospel. It does not matter where one is from—either Israel or some rival nation—or what our faith background may be. We are all called to show mercy and compassion to others; everyone is a neighbor, especially the person in need.

Nonetheless, St. Augustine offers a classic interpretation of this parable in which he says that Christ Himself is literally the Good Samaritan. Augustine says that the man who has been robbed, stripped of all that he has, and left for dead on the side of the road is Adam, all humanity; you and I are the ones who, through Original Sin and our own consequent sins, have been stripped of immortality and are helpless to change the course of our lives.

Suddenly we discover that Christ, the Divine Outsider, has come upon us to provide for our deepest needs. He does not come from the next country over but from the next world over! He comes from eternity into time and from heaven to this earth and takes on our human nature to save us and set us free. Christ does not pour oil and wine over our wounds and then provide money for us to recover in some wayside inn. No, He pours out His own body and blood for us on the cross and gives everything so that we can be healed, recover and discover a new life in God. Now that’s a Good Samaritan!

Our response to so great a gift should be twofold. Firstly, if it is true that Christ has done so much to seek us out and provide the healing that only God can give, then we need to make sure we get ourselves “in the way” to encounter the source of that healing.

St. Augustine says that Christ continues to provide the healing and restoration we read about this weekend through the sacramental grace of the Church. It is in Baptism that we are washed clean and set free from Original Sin; in the Sacrament of Reconciliation we are freed from mortal sins which have the power to keep us separated from God for all eternity; in the Eucharist we are sanctified and renewed, given God’s own Divine life and the strength to continue on the journey through this life to eternal life with God.

How eager we should be to become immersed in such grace! In the words of C.S. Lewis: “If you want to get warm then you have to stand near the fire; if you want to get wet, then you have to get into the water.” Our first response is to encounter this Good Samaritan every single chance we get.

The second response we should have is to follow the words of Christ at the end of that parable. When he finally gets the Scholar to understand that it was the Good Samaritan who showed mercy and compassion, Christ turns to him and says: “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37). You, also, treat those around you with mercy and compassion and help them when they are waylaid and helpless on the side of the road.

Where is that need most urgent today, though? In Belgium in 2010, where is the Good Samaritan most needed and how can we discover our role in responding to the greatest challenges of our time?

I would suggest that the answer to that question is embedded in the architecture and the spiritual legacy provided for us by countless faithful men and women down through the centuries. When you walk down the street here in Leuven, or in Ghent, Bruges, Brussels and many other cities in Belgium, undoubtedly you discover small statues and images on buildings and in doorways of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding Christ out to the passersby on the street. Our Lady is always ready to offer them her Son, who alone can meet the deepest longing of the human heart. We do well to offer the same Christ to a world of suffering when we follow Him faithfully each day.

Just a few days ago we were in the City of Bruges with the participants of our Summer Institute and a local guide was giving us a tour of that beautiful and enchanting place. Of course, we are all familiar with the painful events of the Church in Bruges and throughout Belgium which have been publicized everywhere in these recent weeks. Our guide, thankfully, did nothing to disguise that pain and sorrow. What he did do, however, was point out these many statues and images found throughout the city, reminding us of a faith that dates back centuries and of the presence of Christ who alone can save and heal us.

At one point our guide showed us an old brick building façade—not a church or a chapel, but just a regular building—that displayed sculptures of the Severn Corporal Works of Mercy. You may remember these from your catechism classes:

1. To feed the hungry
2. To give drink to the thirsty
3. To clothe the naked
4. To shelter the homeless
5. To visit the sick
6. To visit the imprisoned
7. To bury the dead

To perform the corporal works of mercy is to provide for and assist those who find themselves physically desperate and alone, very much like the man in Jesus’ parable this weekend. The great American advocate for the poor and foundress of the Catholic Worker movement, Dorothy Day, said that the life of every baptized Christian should reveal—either directly or indirectly—the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. To reach out and assist those in need is intrinsic to the Christian life. That is what we do as Christians.

And while there is constantly a need to provide for the physical needs of those around us and that is something we all need to continually strive for, is it not also the case that in the culture we live in the spiritual needs of so very many people go uncared for? There are not many social programs seeking to care for people’s souls today. So if Christians will not care for the spiritual lives of those in need of healing and help, who will?

I would suggest that we take this week to reflect, above all, on the Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy and ask God how He can help us to perform these works for our own benefit and most especially for the sake of those around us.

The Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy are:

1. To counsel the doubtful
Are there any people in our lives who right now doubt their faith in God or their ability and desire to live out that faith in the Church? Are there people in our lives that are no longer convinced that God is close to them and really wants to lead them to joy and peace? We should never underestimate what a word of encouragement or counsel can do for them.

2. To instruct the ignorant
Are there people today who are ignorant of the greatest truths that God has revealed to us through Christ, truths that have been passed down to us through the apostles and have the power to lead us to eternal life? By all means, yes. Is there some small way that God is challenging us to share that faith and those truths with those who do not know them?


3. To admonish sinners
I think most people recoil at this one. We care more about how others perceive us than we do about our neighbor’s spiritual well-being and salvation. To admonish one who is in sin means firstly to pray hard for them, and then with great charity and humility to take a chance and share with them an aspect of their lives that-if unchecked-will not only bring them unhappiness and sorrow but may even cause them great spiritual harm. To admonish is an act of love, not of judgment.


4. To comfort the afflicted
Aren’t there countless people in our lives who are afflicted emotionally? Physically? Psychologically? How are we called, in some small way, to comfort them this week?


5. To forgive offenses
There are often times that we feel offended by the words and actions of others. Doing everything we can to forgive them is a spiritual work of mercy.


6. To bear wrongs patiently
Who among us doesn’t need to be more patient with the faults and weaknesses of those around us? When we are able to bear those everyday slights and quirks of others, and perhaps even some of the more serious grievances of our neighbor with patience, we perform a service that may go unnoticed by many but not by God.


7. To pray for the living and the dead
Finally, when we continue our daily conversation with God, are we attentive to bringing before Him the persons who are a part of our daily lives and intentions? Do we remember always those who have “gone before us marked with the sign of faith,” knowing that our prayers can do so much for the ones we love?

How is God challenging us to perform the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy this week, and to discover how His grace and the power of His love can work through us to bring healing and consolation to so many who are broken and in need.

Sacred Spaces

Tabernacle and Sanctuary of the

Amercian College Chapel in Leuven, Belgium

(Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter; This homily was given on Wednesday, 19 May, 2010 at the Chapel of The American College of the Immaculate Conception in Louvain, Belgium; See Acts 20:28-38 and John 17:11-19)

Nature abhors a vacuum. If there is a space, a gap, an empty place in the world, nature abhors it and wants to fill it in and smooth it out. Just so, there is a spiritual principle at work in our readings for today, and it goes something like this:

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, evil—and especially the Evil One who Christ names directly in our Gospel—loves a vacuum. Evil seeks out and searches for the empty places and desires to take up residence there.

Remember the parable Jesus tells in the Gospel of Luke?

When an unclean spirit goes out of someone, it roams through arid regions searching for rest but, finding none, it says, “I shall return to my home from which I came.” But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and brings back seven other spirits more wicked than itself who move in and dwell there, and the last condition of that person is worse than the first.
—Luke 11:24-27

Evil loves a vacuum and searches out the gaps and spaces. In our Gospel this morning Jesus is continuing that intimate priestly prayer to His Father and he indicates, before the disciples, that He is about to leave that place. He is returning to the Father in Heaven and notes how He has cared for and protected each of those entrusted to Him while He was here on earth:

When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you.
—John 17:12-13

Jesus is leaving but He will not take them out of the world with Him; as the Father has sent Him into the world, even so, now He sends them (John 17:18). But in that prayer His continued care for them is clear:

I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One.
—John 17:15

The Evil One desires to come into the sacred space and Jesus Christ, in the hearing of His disciples, prays to the Father to insure that will not happen. He expects those same disciples to cooperate in every possible way to make sure the sacred space is filled with the power of faith, holiness and love.

St. Paul, in our first reading this morning, does the same. Paul is bidding farewell to the presbyters of the Church of Ephesus, and as he stands by the ship in the port city of Miletus he shares with them what the Holy Spirit has revealed to him: that they will never see his face again. Their time together in the work of the Gospel has come to a close. In that bitter sweet moment Paul says to them:

Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the Church of God that he acquired with his own Blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock.
—Acts 20:28-29

St. Paul has the wisdom to understand that in his absence evil will desire to occupy the space that he has left behind. Therefore he exhorts them to be vigilant! He reminds them of the way he preached the Gospel to them; of how he worked among them night and day for three years; of the way he acted and spoke and how he lived his life (Acts 20:31-35).

Do the same, Paul is saying. Live a holy life in Christ Jesus; occupy well the space that God has given to you, and thus you will spare the flock and provide care and protection for the ones that God has placed among you. Evil wants nothing to do with the space that is filled with faith, holiness, charity and truth. Paul knew that…Do we?

This morning we can ask ourselves:

How are we occupying the sacred space that God has entrusted to each one of us? Are we seeking to live a holy life in Christ Jesus, to be His true disciples and care well for those entrusted to us?

Because it is not enough to remain quiet and still, avoiding evil as much as possible without ever seeking out the virtues and doing the good Christ calls us to in this world. We must avoid complacency, self sufficiency, and the mediocrity that is anathema to the spiritual life. But we must also seek out the virtues, perhaps even courageously so, in order to insure that evil has no place in our lives.

You have heard the expression, “The only thing that needs to happen for evil to conquer is for good men to do nothing.” How true that is. Please God, we are doing more than nothing in the spiritual life. But are we also seeking out holiness and virtue on a daily basis?

In 2010, to live chastity can be considered a heroic virtue; with so much to distract and tempt us, we must be all the more active and eager to cooperate with the overwhelming grace of God and live a holy life in Jesus Christ. In the culture we live in, that is so very critical, living a life of charity can be considered a heroic virtue. We are oftentimes too critical, even of each other; to live a life of forgiveness, mercy, charity in such circumstances requires even heroic virtue. Are we seeking that out and desiring—even when it is painful—the holiness of life and charity in truth without which we remain Christians in name only?

Because it is true that nature abhors a vacuum, and evil seeks out the gaps and spaces, but it is also true that we, by virtue of our Baptism, have the power of God that can fill those places with love, true freedom, virtue and the faith that has the power to change the world we live in. May we truly occupy the sacred spaces that God has entrusted to us, for our own sanctification and for the transformation of the world we live in.