Homily 4-29-2011 Good Shepherd Sunday

Without Jesus, we are scattered sheep. It is Christ alone, sent from the Father, who is the instrument of unity for the world, and particularly for the Church. CCC 845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled.”

We see this in the theme of today's Gospel, centered on the image of the Good Shepherd. Our statue outside the Parish Education Center is based off one of the earliest images of the Good Shepherd, depicted as a young man, painted on a wall in the catacombs of the Church of Rome before Christianity was legal. That shepherd carries not just one individual sheep, but also carries all of fallen humanity, carries the whole church back to reconciliation with the father.

And the Good Shepherd, Jesus, does this by His Cross. The Sacrifice that Christ freely made of Himself, “laying down His life, and taking it up again” in the Resurrection, is the source of our restoration, our unity, and our hope. Without Jesus, we are just scattered sheep at lost in our world and ensnared or even devoured by its desires. With Jesus, we are united in love and led through Him the Gate into everlasting life.

The Sacrifice of Christ unites us. Sacrifice must also be present in our lives. Your priests, all priests, must live like the Good Shepherd. We must sacrifice, freely and continually choosing to lay down our lives for you. Without that, we are building on a false foundation. So pray for your priests as they pray for you. Parents, families, must be founded on sacrifice – on daily choosing to give up everything for each other in love – or the “house” of the family will crumble.

The Sacrifice of the Cross remains present in our world. It is not some past event, but is remembered forever in the Mass and received in this greatest of sacraments. CCC 1396 the Eucharist makes the Church. Those who receive the Eucharist are united more closely to Christ. Through it Christ unites them to all the faithful in one body - the Church. Communion renews, strengthens, and deepens this incorporation into the Church, already achieved by Baptism. In Baptism we have been called to form but one body. The Eucharist fulfills this call.

The Eucharist makes the Church because it is the sacrament of love, of sacrifice, of “laying down one's life” for another. Let this great sacrament draw us together, unite us as one flock under the One Shepherd, and bring us into the pastures of everlasting life.

Homily for 4-22-2012

For Christians, we only truly know as much as we truly do.

Jesus comes to his disciples today to strengthen their faith to be his witnesses. So he asks them a very important question, the first question there in the upper room – do you remember what that important question was: “Do you have anything to eat?” They won't believe, they think he's a ghost, so Jesus gets down to business, even in a humorous way.

Witnesses are what Jesus calls his disciples to be at the end of the Gospel. Witnesses testify to something they have seen, heard, or experienced. The Twelve are now charged to take their experiences with Christ, (actually those experiences after his Resurrection, not before) and testify to the world about the truth of the matter: Jesus has been raised.

For Christians, we only truly know as much as we truly do.

We learn much more by doing than by simply listening or repeating. It is when we put something into practice that it becomes real and alive for us. So for the Apostles, they knew Christ and the Gospel best when they went out and witnessed to Him before others. This is because the Gospel is not meant to be kept hidden, but shared, by its very nature – so it isn't fully itself if it is turned inward.

In our letter from 1 John we see the emphasis of following God's commandments. We have to put into practice in our lives the truth of the Gospel we have received in order to say we truly know him.

And mysteriously, walking in God's commandments helps us to know Him better. When we forgive seventy-seven times, we experience the wisdom in that teaching. When we give without counting the cost to the poor, we see Jesus in them. When we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we find the Lord satisfying us in our prayers.

And mysteriously, walking more closely in God's commandments helps us to witness to Him better. We then testify with authority and authenticity to the God who has worked in our lives. We have, maybe without even noticing its profound implications, experienced the Risen Christ who has come to us and brought us peace.

For Christians, we truly know when we truly do. May we continue to walk by the Holy Spirit so that we can know the Lord more in our lives.

Homily for 4-15-2012

The Body of Christ is the source of our Hope.

Today's Gospel reminds us that sometimes when we have to do something new, it can be scary. We can fear the future, or we struggle against the difficulty of starting over because we know how hard it is. The disciples are feeling this way on Easter Sunday and today, a week after Easter, a week after the first time they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. They are still there, locked up in the upper room, and the Lord breaks into their lives to support them, to help them come out of their shells so they can do something new, something scary, something magnificent.

CCC 730 At last the hour arrives: he commends his spirit into the Father's hands at the very moment when by his death he conquers death, so that, “raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,” He might immediately give the Holy Spirit by “breathing” on his disciples. From this hour onward, the mission of Christ and the Spirit becomes the mission of the Church: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”

This mission is evangelization, allowing the Lord to send out His Spirit and renew the face of the earth. In a sense, it is to begin a new creation, which we see alluded to today in our reading: the “first day of the week” is the first day of creation, where God breathes his Spirit over the waters and starts his work (we also know that later God breathes life into the clay to form Adam, just as Christ breathes on the twelve). In order to achieve this new work, they needed a new hope, given within the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift above all gifts that God gives us. And that Holy Spirit, the new hope the disciples needed, came from the Lord's Paschal Mystery, his Cross and Resurrection.

If you noticed, the disciples spend a lot of time focused on the Lord's body. This is precisely because the Body of Christ gives testimony to his Paschal Mystery. Besides stressing that it really is Jesus, We see in the wounds of Christ that the Lord has been both crucified and risen. Those wounds that were once only testimony to the horror of our sin, are now glorified and transfigured into being as well a sign of God's love that never abandons and never fails. The cross of our Lord did more for us than just forgive our sins: in the Cross we are given those things that we need to carry out our mission in this world: the water and blood that flow from Jesus' side are the source of the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist which make us members of the Body of Christ. On the Cross, also, is where Jesus breathed His last and “handed over the Spirit,” preparing for Pentecost when the Spirit will come with all its power upon the Apostles. The Cross is also where the Church is born, as Eve was taken from Adam's side, so are we born from the crucified Lord.

The Body of Christ is the source of our Hope. Those wounds, transfigured by the power of the Resurrection, are now the instrument of strength and courage for the Apostles to go and preach the message of the Gospel, to allow the Holy Spirit to renew the face of the earth.

The Church is also the Body of Christ, so the Church is our hope. Here we encounter our Risen Lord. Here we see wounds transfigured into something glorious. Here we are strengthened to allow God do something new with us. The new life that the Spirit brings is lived here in the Church, as described in the first reading: everything was shared in common; no one was in need. Without Christ, the Church wouldn't be able to carry out this mission.

Finally, the Church, who is the Body of Christ, is fed by our Lord, by his own Body and Blood. So as we say that the Body of Christ is our hope, we can truly say the Eucharist is our hope. Here we encounter the Risen Lord, hidden, mysteriously, under the species of bread and wine. Here we see the wounds our sins have caused to the Body of Christ transfigured, healed, glorified, and we have the hope to dare to try to do something new with ourselves, our families, our church and our world. May the Holy Spirit that the Lord gives us strengthen us to carry out our mission, and may the Body of Christ, crucified and risen, wounded and glorified, be the source of our hope as we receive His Body in the Eucharist and become His Body in the Church.

Homily for Easter Sunday 4-8-2012

 As Saint Peter summarized today the message of the Gospel and the life of Christ, so too for our own age should every priest, and so I thought I'd better give it a try for my first Easter Homily as a priest. So here we go, in one compact sentence: in order to reunite us with Himself, God conquered sin by His Son's Paschal Mystery and our own participation in that mystery.

The essential reason for the incarnation is also summarized in the Catechism of Catholic Church CCC 460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":78 "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."81

This is the essence of the Gospel, the Good News that we hear in today's readings, the center of our faith: Christ came to lift up a fallen humanity. But why is it that humanity finds it so difficult to believe this Good News?

The reason is that humanity was (and without God, still is) in a dire strait. We were lost from God, we were lost even from ourselves and who we were created to be. We even fail to believe that God is a loving God who desires our good; so often we cry out like Job does: “why does God not care about my suffering? Why did he create me if only to watch me waste away?” Such is the cries of Job.

Sin causes this false view of God. We don't trust Him because we have run away from Him. As God told Jeremiah the prophet, “they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” We ran away from God, we chose to be self-sufficient. This all began of course, with Adam and Eve, who believed the lie of the serpent that God was holding back something from us, and so we should take it for ourselves. They did, and the false image of God as a corrupt tyrant began to be passed down from generations.

This is why humanity fails to hear the Good News that God, who is love, became man, died on a cross, and freed us from our sins.

We see the disbelief in the disciples. As they cautiously gathered information, wondering what it all could mean, we too feel like them. We don't always see God nor understand his actions. We sometimes ask, Where is He? Why have our hopes been shattered?

Often the answer is: our hopes have been shattered because they are too small. God has bigger plans, unimaginable plans for our happiness and peace, and we fail to dream that big.

Jesus conquers that ancient problem our sins have caused by His Paschal Mystery: his Passion, death and Resurrection. The sin of Adam was committed by a man's disobedient hand stretching out to take from a tree. The forgiveness of Christ was completed by the God-man's obedient hand being nailed to a tree. And because this one act of perfect love and obedience was by God made man, it could not be swallowed up in the history books, but rather transcends every time and place to have cosmic consequences for us all.

But for that victory to be our own, we have to participate in it.

Last night at our Easter Vigil, our Elect began their sharing in the Lord's death and Resurrection by their Baptism, Confirmation, and First Eucharist. It does not end there. For us baptized, our life must be continually shaped by transformation, by the new life that Christ gives us. If we continually enter more deeply into this mystery, we will find that God does keep His promises. We will find that our faith has not been in vain, and that God has done things for us that are beyond our greatest secret wishes.

Homily for Good Friday 4-6-2012

 Jesus made Himself very clear that this day would come. Numerous times he told his disciples, “the son of man is to be handed over, abused, mocked, and crucified; and on the third day He will rise.” Even more, “whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me cannot be my disciple.”

And yet, despite the warnings, we could never be fully prepared for what we experience today. It is like the death of a loved one: no matter how long we see the inevitable coming, we cannot help but be devastated. And as we mourn our loved ones at their passing, so on this Good Friday we mourn our brother, Jesus Christ, through whom we are God's adopted children. We mourn by refraining from food in our Paschal Fast, by refraining from extra work around the house, by refraining from distractions of television / radio / etc., by refraining even from excess words. We cover our day with emptiness as a sign of the loss of one so dear to us. Alongside our silence, we let the words of our Liturgy today speak for us, we let our actions speak for us by gathering in this Church to pray, by adoring the cross of our salvation, by quietly thanking the Father for His merciful love, and by living that Cross every day.

As we go to die with Our Lord, we see that the mysterious actions Jesus performed at the Last Supper are fulfilled on Calvary. “Jesus loved his own in the world unto the very end,” we heard last night,” and now we see how abysmally tragic and dark was that end, how unbelievably deep is that love.

The cross makes little sense to us apart from the context of the Old Testament which we have recalled during this Triduum. Yesterday the symbol in the foreground is that of the Paschal Lamb, whom God used to deliver Israel from bondage in Egypt through the blood on the doorposts and the water of the Red Sea. In Christ we see the new Lamb of God offered once for all, in every time and place, so that the Church can boldly declare: “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.”

And today we reflect on the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, who mysteriously bears our sins and heals us by his own wounds. As the spotless, unblemished lambs of the temple would expiate the sins of the people, so too does Jesus mysteriously take upon Himself the guilt we deserve. As an old Catechism put it, “Since our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross, those who plunge themselves into disorders and crimes crucify the Son of God anew in their hearts (for he is in them) and hold him up to contempt.” As we witness the horror of sin, we also mysteriously find the source of strength to overcome it.

As we mourn the death of our Lord Jesus, we cherish his dying words. In particular, we recall two of Christ's last phrases. When Jesus said, “Father, forgive them,” the blood of this innocent victim chose not to be a cry for judgment like that of Abel, slain by his brother Cain. Rather, the Father hears the petition for mercy, and obliges the dying wish of the innocent Savior. This is why the horror of our sin is also the source of salvation.

Also, when Christ cries, “I thirst,” he does not shout simply for a drink; rather, he cries for that “drink” that the woman at the well alone could give: our conversion, our love, and our life of service. That thirst is quenched only by our embracing the Cross and the death of our sinful ways, by making the blood shed there effective in transforming our lives.

And when our Lord passes, he is pierced from his side, where the Church is born. The Blood and water which delivered the Israelites in Egypt now pours out from the sacrificed Lamb of God, and these realities are the source of two sacraments that give us new life in Christ: Baptism and the Eucharist. Thus, the cross is our salvation, our only hope, or as Rose of Lima puts it: Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.