homily 2-28-2021

This story is more than just God's way of making it abundantly clear that He will never demand the taking of human life to please Him. If so, we wouldn't really focus on it much, since that is pretty apparent to us and is not something we are tempted to reinstate, at least not right here right now.

This story is about faith. Abraham is asked to trust in God's plan. This is the hardest example in all of the Old Testament of trusting in that plan, which was tied to the life of his son Isaac, whom he is now being asked to sacrifice.

 

We don't see God's designs. We only see random facts, small pieces.

An ant, if he had a mind to understand, could not appreciate Michelangelo's David when he is walking on it. His perspective is too narrow.

Lent is a time to get up the mountain of the Lord to achieve a higher perspective. To see things from a more heavenly vantage-point. And thus to see them more truly.

A RETREAT is a great way to practice this, but even this is not a guarantee of a sublime vision.

Sometimes in prayer, or on retreat, or sometimes even in the midst of ordinary life as we reflect on what has been happening, God gives glimpses into the glory of His designs.

 We must treasure those glimpses for the hard times. (The transfiguration was meant to prepare the disciples for the scandal of the cross).

Our PERCEPTION of God will define our RECEPTION of God's commands.

PERCEPTION defines RECEPTION.

Abraham trusted in God's love. We are called to do the same.

Those transfigured moments help us perceive God as He truly is.

homily - Lent 1

 You may have heard something similar to this: “The Gospel is comfort for the afflicted, and affliction for the comforted”

God doesn’t want you to be comfortable all the time.

LENT IS A TIME OF “DISCOMFORT” – FOR THE SAKE OF SOMETHING BETTER.

Spe Salvi - Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched…

Christianity is not focused on comfort. In fact, sometimes comfort really gets in the way of Christianity.

It is uncomfortable for me to treat that other person as equal or even more important than myself.

Culture of comfort.

Athletes understand this. If I was only comfortable, I could never succeed or improve.

THE COMFORT IS ULTIMATELY NOT BEING ALONE.

The people who followed Him, the disciples who followed Him, were poor wretches like you and me. All the newness of hope. The absolutely new certainty and the new reality that they were, was that Presence. The contemporaneousness of that Presence with me, with my children, with those who will come after us in a hundred million years: this is the  victory that conquers the world. This is the absolute newness. This is the divine in history. I remain the same poor beggar, but with Christ, I am certain, I am rich. The attractiveness of my person, that is, what makes it possible to love my person, is the existence of this Presence. Indeed it is only in a companionship with Him that a person loves himself. Only a person who carries this message can claim an affection for himself, can love himself and therefore love others.

Don’t hide from your faith but fleeing to the comfortable all the time. Stay in the desert and know the presence of the one who frees you to love.

homily - 6th Sun of Ord. Time

 I’m captivated by this novel I’m reading right now, titled Theophilus. The story is about the person to whom the Luke addressed his Gospel (see verse one of the Gospel) and Theophilus’ journey through the land of Israel meeting people who were eye-witnesses of Jesus and his Resurrection. In Nazareth he meets one old former-leper who represents the man we hear so little about in today’s Gospel. It’s beautiful to consider how much of a story is contained in these few verses that we almost pass over. This was a real person, who had a full life, a story of layers of pain and suffering, and we barely know anything about him nowadays. But back then people could walk up to him and ask him, and he would tell them what Jesus did that day (and maybe other days since they perhaps knew each other more closely either before his leprosy or after the healing). Books like this are worth reading because they make us remember how relatable the Gospels are, and what it really means that God became flesh and restored us right in the midst of our mess, healed us right where we were hurting.

Leprosy stinks -  literally and figuratively. Besides smelling rotting flesh, it’s like having COVID for the rest of your life. – painful, yes, but above all the isolation! Separation from everyone, before internet, telephones, and even before books. This is a heavy cross. We were made to be with each other. It is hard to love when you can never get within a stone’s throw of people.

So this leper breaks the rules.

Why? He knew Jesus’ heart.

LENT - I THIRST

 

One last thing: In fact, his leprosy could have been the reason he was drawn to Jesus. We don’t know if they knew each other.

Perhaps God allows you to have wounds and suffer so that you can draw near to Jesus too, and find more than just healing, but love, and a fountain of life that quenches your deepest thirst.

 

Homily - 5th week in Ord. Time (last Sunday)

Doctors need honesty. If I don’t tell my doctor what’s going on, he can’t help me out.

If I lie, it could be even worse.

 

Jesus, the spiritual doctor, needs honesty. Don’t hide your pains, wounds, and needs from God. Even though He already knows them, He does not force you to tell Him, and He will only heal you when you invite Him.

 

JOB is brutally honest. (Does anyone else think it’s a weird spot to end the 1^st reading? – not because it doesn’t make sense, but because right after he says “…” we say “thanks be to God!”)

But in some way what Job shows us today is a type of “good news.” It reminds us that Christians don’t have to pretend that life isn’t hard, painful, and downright bleak at times… at least when we look at it from the perspective of wordly happiness. Just this past week we celebrated various martyrs from different times and places, and for none of them did following Jesus mean “easy street” and luxurious living, especially at their ending.

 

And so we as Christians do not need to sugar-coat the suffering we endure on this earth. But we also know that there is something deeper, much deeper and fuller, than earthly delights. God wants to give us those true things, those spiritual rewards, more than we can ever desire them ourselves.