Homily 4-28-2013 Making things New: Living in His Love

Homily 4-28-2013 Making things New: Living in His Love

Life isn't meant to be boring. Boredom is a sign that something is wrong: our actions, our priorities, our perspective. In our society, which is driven by a constant search for entertainment, it is easy to be bored – except of course at Mass during Father Terry's homilies, which have only gotten better every single week these almost two years, right? Not exactly. So, we often experience the feeling of boredom, whenever we aren't entertained because we have trained ourselves to expect those feelings to come from outside us. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Do you think the apostles Paul and Barnabas were bored? These guys were travelling by land and sea all over the Mediterranean Middle East and bringing the Good News to their brothers and sisters of Jewish faith as well as the pagans, or Gentiles. They were not bored, they were driven, and driven by something very powerful, by an idea and a relationship that helped them to see the world with a new set of eyes. Life was not boring for them, it was an adventure that continually offered something different around every corner.

Paul and Barnabas, like John's vision in Revelation today, were able to see the world transformed by God. As John saw “a new heavens and a new earth,” so Paul and Barnabas realized that in Jesus, everything is transformed so to speak into what it never was before but was always meant to be.

Take, for example, the new law to “love one another as I love you” that Our Lord gives us today in the Gospel. Jesus' new commandment here is based on the OT passage of Leviticus 19:18 - “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If Jesus is pretty much repeating this old command, then what makes it new? Is it because He said it, and thus affirms it as more important than it was once understood? Perhaps it is because he extends the definition of “neighbor” as in the parable of the Good Samaritan? Or maybe it is because of the glory he is about to receive when he gives the commandment, now that Judas has departed to hand him over? Yes, this is the reason. What makes this commandment new, then, is not the call to love, but the as I have loved you. The cross, the place where Jesus' glory is made visible to the world, the source of our new life in His death – this shows us what love is: here we see what “as I have loved you” really means.

Love means sacrifice. Sacrifice means giving without counting the cost, giving when it hurts, giving because we are not thinking of ourselves but of another. Parents know this well. We don't have to teach you how to love your children, it just happens, it's natural.

However, even if it's natural at some times, at others it is absolutely unnatural. Case in point: love your enemies: this kind of love isn't easy. In fact, We can't fulfill this commandment on our own powers, from the outside looking at Jesus and trying to imitate the love we see on the Cross. It can only be possible because we are already united with Him by the Gift of the Holy Spirit. We have to be in Jesus already, so to speak, in order to love this way. This is why in the sacraments, we are united to Christ.

So loving as the Lord commanded us may sometimes be natural, is always a challenge, but above all it is never optional. Love is mandatory: commanded. Jesus doesn't say: “I give you a new suggestion.” We have to love. At the end of our life, God's examination will not be a pop quiz. We know what the questions are.

The Sacred Liturgy, especially its highest form in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is heaven on earth. Sacrament of Eucharist is the most perfect encounter with God that we can experience on this earth. This is where we get the strength to love as Christ loved us, unto the end with humble obedience and complete self-sacrifice. Beg our Lord today in the Eucharist to help you to love by first pledging to love Him and be loved by Him. Then the new commandment to love as He loves you – no matter how unnatural and difficult it may seem – will find root in your life. And that love will make all things new for you, and you will never be bored again.

Homily 4-21-2013 Conscience: The Voice of Truth's

 Since we are the flock of the Lord, the people that He shepherds, we must, like those good sheep, follow Him where He calls us.

In order to follow, we ourselves must be listening to the Good Shepherd, so that we can start to recognize His voice. One way a Christian must practice listening is in our daily prayer. Another is in Mass, especially in Sacred Scripture. Occasionally even the homily might say something useful and we hear Jesus speaking to us. Always, though, we have our conscience:

(Catechism of the Catholic Church) 1776 "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths." (GS 16)

1777 Moral conscience, present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also judges particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil. It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments. When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.

This is the voice of Jesus speaking to you, call it the voice of Truth. God is Truth, so when we see Truth in our minds or our hearts, we must take it as God's voice.

HOOK On Wednesday I sat down for a little television before Fr. Bill and I said our prayers and found a movie my family had watched many times while growing up: Hook. Since the last time I watched Hook was a decade or more ago, I had a much keener sense of the values it was promoting (especially about fatherhood and committment) and I can really approve it even more! This movie retells Peter Pan as a middle-aged man whose children, Jack and Maggie, are kidnapped by the villainous Captain James Hook. As a way to get revenge on Peter Pan, Mr. Hook manipulates his son Jack to forget about his father and see the Captain as his new father. Jack is eventually worn out by the lies and allurements of Captain Hook's methods, and becomes convinced that he is better off in his new situation. It fits beautifully with today's Gospel about the sheep hearing the voice of the shepherd: If we are listening well, we will be able to know the words of the Lord Jesus, the One and Only Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. However, there are other voices out in the world, and we must not let ourselves be deceived. Radio, television, literature, all can be things that give us messages that are very destructive even though we may not notice (just like I didn't notice the value of Hook until re-watching some of it). If we aren't giving ourselves opportunities to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, Jesus, how long can we listen to those lies and allurements (as Jack listened to Hook) before we start to give in to them?

What happened in Boston will probably be seen, when facts are sorted out, as a combination of multiple evil forces and bad choices among many individuals. But certainly a part of it is the corruption of conscience: the Voice of Truth that beckons all of us to do good, avoid evil, and seek truth, was twisted, marred, and abused after listening to lie after lie, again and again. The best way to work against this evil and for good is to try our best to listen for and respond to the voice of Truth in our conscience.

And lastly, let us speak the Truth boldly as well. If our world only hears other voices of lies and distractions, then they will not get very far. We need to help the Good Shepherd's voice of Truth get out there. So speak the Truth and discover the power it has, not from you, but from Him.

Homily 4-14-2013 Vocation and Fidelity

Training is important, but it can only get you so far. Peter and the disciples with him, at least some of them, were trained fishermen. However, they were not able to catch any fish because our skills and techniques can only get us so far. There comes a point where we must rely on God's help, especially His Grace working in our hearts, to make our work fruitful. With Christ's words, “Children, cast out on the right side,” they are able to bear much fruit from their training. The same thing happens for the apostolic work of the 12, the mission that Christ has for them. They were trained for three years at his side, but that training and discipleship, although irreplaceable, is not everything.

Peter, called to be the head of the Church, the leader of Christ's flock, has already shown by his denial of Christ before his Passion that we need more than training to live our vocations: we need on-going support. Why else do you think AAA is such a successful business? It provides constant support – no matter what.

The vocation we are called to live is our way of sharing in Christ's mission. When Jesus tells Peter to “feed my sheep” and “tend my lambs” he is requiring all of us, in our own ways, to do the work set out for us: as spouses, as parents, as teachers in the faith, as role models, as Christian friends, as missionaries across the world and across the neighborhood. All of this is our work, and we all have received some training for it whether we noticed it or not – though not necessarily 3 years worth like the disciples.

And besides this training, we have God's daily support. If we aren't close to God, if we don't rely on His Providence to work through our lives, if our work is not dedicated to the mission He has given us, then everything we do in life is less effective. I don't mean less effective in the eyes of the world: a non-believer can cut a piece of wood just as good as Saint Joseph. A prayerful life, close to God, for His glory, will be more effective in what truly matters: salvation, sanctification and praise. Salvation for it will save ourselves and others. Sanctification because it will make us to be saints and help others along the same path. Praise because it will give glory to God with the words of the countless hosts of heaven in Revelation today: “blessing, honor, glory and might to the One (the Father) who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever. Amen.” This is the fruitfulness of a prayerful life. If only we pray and listen to Christ's words to us, remaining docile to the activity of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we will be able to produce an effective ministry that serves the Church's mission and lifts up the world to His Grace.

Let us pray for each other to live well the vocations, the various missions and apostolates that God has prepared for us: in our families, our parishes, our local communities.

Jesus refers to the apostles as “children.” This is such a loving way of reminding us that we always need God to support, guide, and lead us to what is for our good and the good of others.

Today, in this Eucharist, we beg our Lord to help us work well in our mission, to “tend His flock” that He has entrusted to us, and to rely on His strength and guidance in that work.

Homily 4-6-2013 Wounded and Healed by Love – Hearing from Pope Francis

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, let us recall how the Mercy of God is shown most perfectly The Risen Lord Jesus maintains his wounds after the Resurrection. Although they may not still be hurting or pouring forth, they are there – and they are there for many reasons: first, they certify that it truly is the one and the same Lord Jesus who was crucified. They are perhaps the strongest testaments to the Lord's Resurrection, and perhaps this is why Thomas demands to touch them. But I think there is more to it than just that. The wounds of Jesus are wounds of love, and as St. Paul teaches us, “Faith, Hope, and Love endure, and the greatest of these is love.” Why should death wipe out love? Why should Resurrection make love irrelevant? They don't. Love endures, so the wounds of love endure.

Another reason this enduring love in the wounds of our Lord remains with his glorified body is because we need them to be made whole. As we hear from Isaiah on Good Friday, “By His wounds we were healed.” The wounds of Jesus' love unto the end are the healing of our wounded souls.

Now I want to share some words from our new Pope Francis about these topics. First, I want to say that I love this Pope just like the rest of us, but not for necessarily the same reasons that the media has been praising him: first pope out of Europe, speaking of the environment, talking off the cuff, and abandoning standard protocol. Rather, I admire his humility, his simple living, his natural preaching of the Gospel which so approachable, clear, and powerful. And that is what I share with you now three insights from four homilies he has recently given.

First, speaking to the city of Rome and the whole word in the Urbi et Orbi speech of March 31^st, Pope Francis clearly stated that “the Mercy of God always triumphs!” In the Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Lord, we see the Mercy of God in its highest form. This is why Jesus can bring new life to the darkness and death we experience in our lives and in our souls. As we recalled earlier, the wounds of love in Our Lord endure to be a constant source of healing for us.

Secondly, Pope Francis said very clearly that we need to trust in God's Mercy always in these words reflecting on the woman caught in adultery: God never tires of forgiving us, but sometimes we get tired of asking for forgiveness. Let us not allow our pride (in the form of shame) to keep us from God, let us seek His Mercy which is all the way to the end as we see on the Cross: He would rather die. He would rather die.

Thirdly, Pope Francis, speaking of Mary Magdalene at the tomb, noted that sometimes we need tears to be able to recognize Jesus – tears are like lenses, or glasses, through which we can see Christ. Perhaps this is another reason the wounds of our Lord remain: sorrow for our sins helps us to recognize Christ. Do we mourn the pain we cause Our Lord by our sins? Do we quickly, sincerely, and fully repent like Saint Peter after we have betrayed or denied our Lord? These tears are good, they are healthy, because they look at the truth of our situation: we need a Savior, we are broken and need healing. And from this, we can see Jesus, we can see His wounds.

The last reflection from our Pope: Despite the attempts of our world to present us with other solutions to our problems, there is really only one Savior: the Risen Jesus. “No other name under heaven by which we are saved” has been given to us, St. Peter tells us. Jesus alone is able to heal us because He is the God who Created us and the man who is with us, who shows us his wounds to call us to repentance and to give us the healing they offer.

And The Catechism tells us that this salvation is the greatest act of God. CCC 1994: Justification is the most excellent work of God's love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit. It is the opinion of St. Augustine that "the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth," because "heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect . . . will not pass away."43 He holds also that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy. All of Easter we will reflect on what the salvation and Justification mean for us who have been crucified, buried, and risen with Christ. Who have looked at His wounds, wept for our sins, and been healed.

So here's the challenge for this week: meditation on the meaning of Easter. Every day, we should reflect on one of the points of Saint Francis, or from the section of the Catechism on Grace and Justification, pars. 1987-1995. Easy way to remember that is to think of those years in your life: they were good years for me: no diapers, snap bracelets, Ninja Turtles. So look it up in your Catechism, and take one little paragraph a day to reflect on: write it down and keep it with you. Then pray. Let the Lord reveal Himself to you, and cry out with Thomas: “My Lord and My God!”

Click for Catechism on Grace and Justification

Easter

Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ Jesus

One morning lying in bed I had trouble sleeping. As I knew the morning was approaching, I heard a bird singing a beautiful song that seemed to continually beckon me to get up, and I wanted rather to enjoy my last bit of rest. Despite the darkness of the sky, the bird did not stop. I wanted to tell it he must have messed up daylight savings time or something! But soon my alarm went off and I was up. That bird knew something that I couldn't see: despite evidence to the contrary, the sun was just around the corner, and the night was about to begin to lose its ground to the power of light.

Today we rejoice in the new life that Our Lord Jesus won for us in the great Paschal Mystery. This mystery is recounted for us in the three most solemn liturgies of the year which we celebrate on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil. After establishing His memorial in the Eucharist to remain with us always, dying on the Cross to forgive our sins, and going into the realm of the dead, today our Lord Jesus has arisen to bring the light of a new day for humanity. We must let this astonish us.

This is what Saint Paul speaks of to us today in Colossians: we are called to be dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus. Last night, 21 people made that same journey that we renewed at the beginning of Mass: through our Baptism we die with Jesus to our sinfulness and rise to a new day in His Grace.

Old Man: Adam. New Man: Christ Jesus. “Your Life is hidden with God in Christ Jesus.”

This cannot be done alone. Like the Apostles, we must remain united with each other.

Homily 3-28-2013 Holy Thursday

 We began our Lenten journey with the first public words of Jesus. When we were marked on our foreheads with ashes, many of us heard the Lord call us to conversion, saying “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Over Lent, despite our efforts, most of us have not fully done so. Perhaps we still cling to sinful tendencies, or we are still attached to the things of this world, or we still harbor within us some fear of giving up everything and following Our Lord to Calvary, to die with Him as St. Thomas invited us to a couple weeks ago. We cannot do it on our own, we need help. Humanity has failed to respond to Christ's call to holiness, and today the Lord Jesus leaves his disciples with His last words and last actions before the Good Shepherd freely lays down His life for the sheep.

The entire Bible has led us to this point in the story. The centuries of human history converge on the mysteries we recount these few days. The story of the Bible is the story of mankind's need for redemption – this is why we call it “salvation history.” We need a Savior. We are in a mess and can't get ourselves out. This sin must be dealt with.

Thanks be to God for His infinite creativity: As Pope Benedict describes in Jesus of Nazareth Part II, (p 121) Time and again, God asks for our love and waits for mankind's response. When he receives a “no,” he generously find a way to open up a new path of love for us. “He responds to Adam's no with a new overture toward man. He responds to Babel's no with a fresh initiative in history – the choice of Abraham. When the Israelites ask for a king, it is initially out of spite toward God, who prefers to reign directly over his people. Yet in the promise to David he transforms this spite into a path leading directly to Christ, David's Son.

So also with Christ, we can see a sort of transition suggested in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke: After generations have continually failed to adequately respond to the call to “repent and believe in the Gospel,” the Lord opens for us another way for healing and restoration in taking our sins upon Himself and mounting the Cross as expiation for our sins.

This is the great humility of Christ that we see played out before us today in one symbolic action. What the Letter to the Philippians says in its great Christological hymn – namely that unlike Adam, who had tried to grasp divinity for himself, Christ moves in the opposite direction, coming down from his divinity into humanity, taking the form of a slave and becoming obedient even to death on a cross – all of this is rendered visible in a single gesture. Jesus represents the whole of his saving ministry here: He divests himself of his divine splendor (symbolized in the outer garments he removes); he as it were, kneels down before us; he washes and dries our soiled feet, in order to make us fit to sit at table for God's wedding feast. (Jesus 56) He takes our dirt unto himself by this act of washing.

What we hear in the Gospel today breaks our normal sense of the way things are meant to be: the master is the servant. This echoes back to what we just recalled on Sunday, where the King and Messiah was welcomed with songs of “Hosanna to the Son of David!,” yet while he himself was riding on a donkey, the humblest of animals. These are the paradoxes that prepare us for the greater mysteries to come: a God who dies for us, who loves His own to the end; a king who rules from a tree, who reigns by giving Himself for others; a Lord who returns to us alive, still bearing the wounds of his execution. And finally, as we recall from Saint Paul's account today, a God whose humility does not stop at becoming man, nor at embracing death, nor at the shame of the cross, but even to come to us under the form of bread and wine as the perpetual memorial of his sacrifice.

The Eucharist is the great gift of Christ that recalls forever His suffering and death, and thus it relies on the actual gift that Christ makes for us tomorrow. Without the Cross, the Eucharist wouldn't make any sense. Let us imagine the scene again: Jesus knew that he was about to die. He knew that he would not be able to eat the Passover again. Fully aware of this, he invited his disciples to a Last Supper of a very special kind, that constituted his farewell; during the meal he gives them something absolutely new: he gives Himself as the true lamb and thereby institutes his Passover as the replacement of the Jewish symbol that foretold Him. (Jesus 113) Thus Christ becomes Himself the New Temple that offers the New Worship in Spirit and Truth that alone makes the Father well-pleased. This new memorial at the Last Supper is the only way that Jesus is able to help us make sense of His Passion and death: without the Eucharist, the cross is a mere execution without any discernible point to it. Yet together, Jesus is able to transform the senselessness of death into the height of beauty: self-giving love. Now death, which was once the destruction of love, becomes now the means of verifying and establishing it, of its enduring constancy given forever in the Blessed Sacrament. (God is Near us, 29-30).

This is truly love to the end. And it is here, in this Blessed Sacrament, that we, the Church, are made capable of such love ourselves. Because the Cross, which the Eucharist brings to our very souls, does not work only on a vertical level: winning our salvation by expiation from our sins, and reuniting us with God. The horizontal dimension is also present: the Cross is the source of all Charity because it is the perfect act of Charity – Jesus giving Himself to us to be with us always, until the end of the ages.

And when He gives the Eucharist to us at the Last Supper, when He washes our feet, He gives us a New Commandment along with it - we are to love as He has loved us: “as I have done for you, you should also do.” This is ultimately impossible for us on a human level: because of Original Sin, we are corrupt beyond our own powers. However, with God's grace, we are able to have pure hearts. Through the saving bath of baptism into the Paschal Mystery of Christ, we are made dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus, we are washed clean and our hearts are capable of being pure.

In this sanctification that makes the Church by uniting it to Christ through Holy Communion, we are given this great mission to love each other and bring that move to the world: “By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one another.” This is why the Eucharist is called the Sacrament of Charity. Because while it calls us to perfect love in this new commandment, it also gives us the grace to do it by uniting us with Christ. It depends on our “I” being absorbed into his - “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Gal. 2:20. (Jesus 64) Only because of this are we able of making this love as real as getting down and washing feet as a slave.

Neither are we allowed to keep this to ourselves in some sort of eternal sleepover hug-fest of sentimentality. No, we must bring the Gospel to others: “an authentically eucharistic Church is a missionary Church.” … We cannot approach the eucharistic table without being drawn into the mission which, beginning in the very heart of God, is meant to reach all people. Missionary outreach is thus an essential part of the eucharistic form of the Christian life. (Sacramentum Caritatis #84)

This command to love and to invite others into this gift of Divine Love is meant for us all, but especially in the priest. Please pray for your priests daily (even as our Pope Francis has constantly urged us to pray for him) so that we may faithfully administer God's love to you and to all in our parish, Catholic or otherwise.

Lastly, do not forget that you are all priests through your Baptism, called to offer spiritual sacrifices to the Father. Called to expiate sins in the vertical dimension of the Cross, as well as exemplify the Charity of Christ on the horizontal level in your homes, workplaces, and local communities. May Our Eucharistic Lord, who left us this perfect example tonight, enable us in this great Sacrament of Charity to do so all of our days.

Homily 3-24-2013 Passion (Palm) Sunday

Why do we come here every Sunday? Why do we feel especially devoted to the Lord in this week that we call Holy?

We come to hear the greatest story ever. The center of history. The cross transcends time, transforms the face of the world and the shape of our own stories.

The story is our story. We are present in so many ways in that story, just like God is present in so many ways in our daily life.

St. Gregory Nazianzus

Let us sacrifice ourselves to God; or rather let us go on sacrificing throughout every day and at every moment. Let us accept anything for the Word's sake. By sufferings let us imitate His Passion: by our blood let us reverence His Blood: let us gladly mount upon the Cross. Sweet are the nails, though they be very painful. For to suffer with Christ and for Christ is better than a life of ease with others. If you are a Simon of Cyrene, Mark 15:21 take up the Cross and follow. If you are crucified with Him as a robber, Luke 23:42 acknowledge God as a penitent robber. If even He was numbered among the transgressors Isaiah 53:12 for you and your sin, do you become law-abiding for His sake. Worship Him Who was hanged for you, even if you yourself are hanging; make some gain even from your wickedness; purchase salvation by your death; enter with Jesus into Paradise, Luke 23:43 so that you may learn from what you have fallen. Revelation 2:5 Contemplate the glories that are there; let the murderer die outside with his blasphemies; and if you be a Joseph of Arimathæa, Luke 23:52 beg the Body from him that crucified Him, make your own that which cleanses the world.1 John 1:7 If you be a Nicodemus, the worshipper of God by night, bury Him with spices. John 19:39

We are called to fuse the two together, the past and our present, by our prayerful life: our faith, hope, and love.

Thomas said last week: Let us go to die with Him.

This is what we say on this Palm Sunday, looking into the Easter Triduum. Let us take up our crosses, whatever form they are for us this year, and carry them right beside our Lord to Calvary. And there, faithful to the end, let us repeat to our Lord the words of faith spoken by the Good Thief: “Lord, Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”