Homily 10-28-2012 Bartimaeus and Us!

Homily 10-28-2012 Bartimaeus and Us!

The very basic foundations of the life are presented before us in today's readings. Jeremiah reminds us of the Lord's restoration to Israel after they were captives in Babylon on account of their sins. Hebrews reminds us how important it is to have humility, especially as priests, since even Christ did not exalt Himself. However, I want to focus on the Gospel. Last week I spoke about how we should pray with Sacred Scripture, particularly through the ancient form of Lectio Divina. One of the best ways for making scripture prayerful is to follow the teaching of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits, and simply put ourselves in the story either as a bystander or as one of the characters. We see in the story of Bartimaeus a summary of our journey on earth, and this is perhaps why his story is remembered so vividly by the evangelist, Mark. And in this story, all of us are Bartimaeus. Here we see a fallen humanity left broken on the side of the road, unable to see and therefore incapable of moving forward, always stumbling along.

And into this sorrowful scene comes God Himself, God become man for us, a living image of the wholeness that our human nature was made for, the new Adam who will father a new people restored in Him. And the new Adam passes by the fallen, blind one, so close he is within reach, all that is required is a shout of faith! “Jesus, Son of David, Eleeyson me!” This same word which we cry three times at the beginning of Mass, modeling Bartimaeus' constant shouting even as other forces try to stifle him. What stifles our shouts to the Lord? The constant noise of a busy-body lifestyle; a sense of self-sufficiency and pride; our past sins which we feel are too grave to be forgiven; the allurements of wealth, success, worldly fame, or pleasure. Whatever they are, we all have them, and we all must name them for what they are: walls between us and Jesus whom we will miss if we don't shout through them. That is the first step of conversion – shouting out to God to be healed – and it can only be accomplished if we are humble enough to admit the fact that we are not whole, that we need help from God.

Then the Lord stops and summons the man, who is brought to Jesus with the help of the Church. As the man rises, he throws away his cloak and jumps to his feet, which symbolizes abandoning his former way of life. This is the second step of conversion – changing our ways and losing worldly things for higher gifts. Then through the help of the Church, Bartimaeus meets Jesus, expresses is deepest desires to Him, and receives from Him the healing he needs. Fallen humanity is restored into the image of the Redeemer; the son of the flesh made from clay is now changed into an adopted child of God born-again from water and the spirit.

And since he has encountered the fullness of truth in Christ, he can now see the truth of the both this life and the next. And even as the New Adam tells him, “Go on your way,” this new child of God can do nothing but follow Christ, saying through his deeds, “Lord, having been restored into Your image, my way is now your way.” This is the third step of conversion, and it takes our entire life to affirm it. Following Jesus all of our days, moving right into our crosses and embracing them in the faith of the Lord's Resurrection.

Homily 10-21-2012 Lectio Divina - To Know Christ and Pray in Him

 From today's readings we are reminded that like James and John, we can be so easily drawn into thinking that the way to get ahead in this life is through power, through domination. We see from Isaiah and from Christ Himself, that His absolute power and dominion is used to serve, is given freely and manifest in a form of apparent weakness. This apparent weakness unto a shameful death is turned into power and glory by the mysterious plan of the Father, who justifies many by the Cross.

From the Cross our loving God draws us to Himself, and we are transformed through our baptism into that mystery of salvation, which makes us confident as Hebrews says, to approach the throne of Grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help. Christ has taken our humanity to heaven, so we have courage to pray. However, courage is not. We must also know how to pray: with the mind of Christ. This is where James and John failed: They don't seem to know what the Messiah's mission is to be. When Jesus says He came “to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many,” those last words should echo in their hearts and remind them of what we heard today in Isaiah, the last of the four poetic sections that speak of the “Suffering Servant,” which the Church reads every year on Good Friday. The disciples will hear Christ allude to these again in the Last Supper, in the words that the priest prays at every Mass when holding the chalice: “poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of Christ, says St. Jerome. We must be readers of the Word of God, who is Jesus, in order to pray with His heart and mind.

So today I encourage us all to pray with Sacred Scripture, particularly through the ancient practice of Lectio Divina, Latin for “Sacred Reading” or “Divine Reading.” Pope Benedict XVI spoke of this in his Exhortation Verbum Domini, written two years ago, after the closing of the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God. I wish to conclude with his summary of this practice, quoting at length from that text.

The reading of the word of God sustains us on our journey of penance and conversion, enables us to deepen our sense of belonging to the Church, and helps us to grow in familiarity with God. As Saint Ambrose puts it, “When we take up the sacred Scriptures in faith and read them with the Church, we walk once more with God in the Garden” ... the greatest [during the Synod] attention was paid to lectio divina, which is truly “capable of opening up to the faithful the treasures of God’s word, but also of bringing about an encounter with Christ, the living word of God”. I would like here to review the [four] basic steps of this procedure. It opens with the reading (lectio) of a text, which leads to a desire to understand its true content: what does the biblical text say in itself? Without this, there is always a risk that the text will become a pretext for never moving beyond our own ideas. Next comes meditation (meditatio), which asks: what does the biblical text say to us? Here, each person, individually but also as a member of the community, must let himself or herself be moved and challenged. Following this comes prayer (oratio), which asks the question: what do we say to the Lord in response to his word? Prayer, as petition, intercession, thanksgiving and praise, is the primary way by which the word transforms us. Finally, lectio divina concludes with contemplation (contemplatio), during which we take up, as a gift from God, his own way of seeing and judging reality, and ask ourselves what conversion of mind, heart and life is the Lord asking of us? In the Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul tells us: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (12:2). Contemplation aims at creating within us a truly wise and discerning vision of reality, as God sees it, and at forming within us “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). The word of God appears here as a criterion for discernment: it is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12). We do well also to remember that the process of lectio divina is not concluded until it arrives at action (actio), which moves the believer to make his or her life a gift for others in charity. (Verbum Domini, #87)

Thus Lectio Divina not only draws us into prayer with God who speaks to us in Scripture, but it also unites us to Christ the Word of God, who is our great high priest pleading before God on our behalf. And as we are absorbed into His mind and heart and will, our prayers are ever more effective and pleasing to God. Let us pray that as people of the New Evangelization in the midst of the Year of Faith, we may draw close to God through is Sacred Word and so be prepared for the transformation and renewal we encounter in the Mass and in the Eucharist.

Homily 10-14-2012 The Rich Young Man: New Evangelization and Circumcision of the Heart

 Today our first reading reminds us that Wisdom is the highest of things we can possess in this life. And since our fallen nature so often leads us astray, we only get wisdom if we know where to look: God is its source, and the cross shows that, as we hear in Corinthians, His folly is greater than our wisdom. To accept that kind of wisdom, we need to make a radical change. Not an external change, but an even harder one: a change in our heart.

Take, for example, our young man today. He has many, many external signs as he is introduced to us: he shows real enthusiasm by running to Christ as asking about eternal life, he has manifest righteousness in keeping the law, which is only emphasized by the abundant blessings God has given him in this life (for Jews, wealth was generally viewed as God blessing the righteous). But in his heart do we find any Wisdom? no. The Virtues? Not really, since his pious practices are only a soul-less exercise of habit.

“All of these [commandments] I have done since my youth,” he says. First, this is like me saying “I've been doing that since I was 25!” to which you “wiser” members of the parish might say, Fr. Terry, that was three years ago; are you kidding?!” Talk about a lack of perspective! Second, Pride? he is blithely saying he has perfected all 600+ commands in the Jewish tradition. Nonsense.

The Lord Jesus, the Word of God that Hebrews mentions is “living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword,” cuts between the soul and the spirit of this young man. His soul is laid bare to Christ, who knows exactly what the man needs to hear. Like a good doctor, he goes right to the core problem, not playing around with addressing only manifest symptoms, and finds the deep issue: his heart is in the wrong place: he only wants perfection, superiority, etc. Jesus offers him the wisdom of God, where power is made perfect in weakness and the self is fulfilled in self-gift (the Cross). He invites the man to the “Circumcision of the heart” that Hebrews alludes to.

When Hebrews mentions a two-edged sword, it is referring to the sword of circumcision which is the core of Jewish identity, an intensely radical physical sign that the people and their descendants belong to God and God alone! However, it is meant to be paralleled by a posture of the heart. This old testament theme is taken up by St. Paul in Romans 2:18-29, concluding that: “True circumcision is not outward, in the flesh. Rather one is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not the letter.” This image, then, is seen the core of the Christian life. It is conversion, which summarizes the Gospel that Christ came to preach: “Repent and believe the Gospel!” Unfortunately, the young man is not ready to accept that. He lowers his head, he takes his eyes off Christ, closing off the ability to see that Jesus is looking upon him with absolute, genuine love. It is no wonder, then, that he ends up going away sad.

Right now over 200 bishops are gathered with the Holy Father in Rome for a two-week Synod on the New Evangelization. Just like the Second Vatican Council which we celebrate 50 years ago by opening this Year of Faith, The are working together to discover how to best read the signs of our time and bring the Gospel message to us in a new way through a renewal of the Church. They are searching for how to, like Christ, speak to man's heart and call him to be perfect. And since the New Evangelization is particularly oriented toward baptized Christians who have already “heard all about Jesus,” the bishops are working on how best to reach the “lost sheep” of the house of Israel, of the Church. How can they foster the encounter of Christ with His people?

From what I have followed in their discussions so far, I have gathered two important points, both oriented towards conversion, towards this sort of “circumcision of the heart” that we all need so desparately: first, Timothy Cardinal Dolan has said that the sacrament of confession is the sacrament of the New Evangelization. The fact is, Catholics receive Communion way more frequently than they prepare for it by regularly making a sincere confession, which endangers turning the holiest of external acts into a soul-less exercise of habit. Secondly, the witness of a humble church of repentant sinners will certainly open hearts to the Gospel, because Christ came to find and redeem the lost and fallen, not congratulate those who were self-made and only in need of affirmation. The New Evangelization needs witnesses who have put aside everything in this life so as to have Christ.

As true Christians, we must put aside all our human wisdom, allow Christ to speak the Gospel to us even when it hurts, and “circumcise our hearts” for the renewal of the Church, which is only accomplished in a renewal of individuals within that Church.

Homily 10-7-2012 Marital Fidelity: A Witness to Something Greater

 Today I want to speak about the focus of our first and second reading, that is, the institution of Marriage and fidelity in it. However, I would like to start from our second reading, the letter to the Hebrews, which says that Christ was made lower than the angels according to the Father's Will so that he could be “made perfect through suffering.” In His faithfulness to the Cross, we see that Suffering is the path to perfection for Our Lord, and thus also the same path for all of us.

On Friday I was bringing Holy Communion to the homebound, and visited a couple celebrating sixty years of marital fidelity. “Thanks be to God! Congratulations!” I said to them. “I hope I can say the same about my own priesthood in 59 years!” Then they said, “Well, it wasn't always easy!” Then we discussed how as priests and married couples we have crosses of different types, but they are all exactly that: suffering which makes us perfect. If the cross is the Lord's instrument for our salvation, then how can we reject it in our own lives? Rejecting the Cross would be to reject our path to salvation.

This is what makes the permanence of the institution of marriage (and also priesthood) so beautiful. They are beautiful because they reflect God who is love, who shows us the fulness of love from the Cross, who loves us while we are still sinners so that we can love Him in return, and others for His sake. The cross, the Eucharist, marriage, and the priesthood are meant to witness by their permanence that God will never abandon us, no matter what. No matter what, God is there.

“Made perfect through suffering,” Hebrews says. For the Christian, whether married or dedicated to the Lord and service of the Bride of Christ, the Church, we can translate this simply as: “made holy through self-giving love!” This is the path to holiness, and anything that helps us to do that is going to lead to our salvation. Whatever fails to do so weakens that in our lives.

In our world, the institution of marriage is suffering some serious challenges under the shifting sands of our culture. Many are attempting to re-define it so that it no longer has the the crosses that come with it, those crosses that stretch our self, that turn our focus from our needs toward that of another. If we fail to learn to love here, where will it be taught? If children are raised without the witness of the loving fidelity between husband and wife, how can they prepare themselves for the same vocation as adults? Where will the faithfulness of God be modeled for them?

Yes, marriage isn't always easy. Priesthood isn't always easy. Being Christian and standing up for your faith isn't always easy, because loving God and following His Will is not always easy. Look at the Cross where our Lord was made perfect through suffering, where we are made holy through self-giving love. He has loved you so that you can do the same. Let us pray that in the Eucharist, where the love of the Cross comes into our world, we may be strengthened by God's faithfulness, so that we may never abandon Him in carrying the cross shaped for us and receiving the gift of eternal life.