Happiness

Today Our Lord tells us in an unmistakably clear way that He is alone the answer to the deepest questions of our life.

All the important work of philosophy are summed up in these fundamental questions: What is life all about?  What should I do? What can I know? What can I hope for?  These are all questions oriented toward our fulfillment and our happiness.

However, you all know that happiness and success depend on how you define them and how you answer those deep fundamental questions about why we are here on this earth.

Remember that the real answer for the deepest questions of our life is Christ Jesus Himself.  The problems of our world stem from the fact that people fall for other definitions of happiness or success that do not fully reach to Christ.

I recently heard a talk from a very very bright priest who defined four levels of happiness based on the collective genius of over 150 of the greatest philosophers of our world.  In Fr. Spitzer's Article, he outlines those four types of happiness in this way.

First and lowest are physical things and experiences: a cool swim on a hot day, a deliciously prepared meal, and the excitement from driving a sports car.  This is instant gratification, but when they're gone, so too goes the delight of them.  Now, these are good as long as they aren't sinful, but they can't make you happy forever, and soon you get past their allure and seek for something higher.

Level 2 happiness is all about me: the ego-driven, self-aggrandizing, praise-hungry, power-seeking, self-made man who glories in being on top.  It's not surprise that about 2/3 of Americans are stuck in this category of comparing ourselves to others and defining our value based off of others, instead of how God loves us.  Success is not bad, but the problem is when it alone becomes the definition of our happiness and, since there's never any stopping this race for the top, it will eventually leave us jaded and bitter.  Focusing solely on personal achievement can take up a big chunk of our lives, unless we move to the next level of happiness.

Level 3 Happiness derived from doing good for others and making the world a better place.  Level 3 happiness is more enduring because it is directed toward the human desire for love, truth, goodness, beauty, and unity.  This is focused on contributing to the common good, whether in a team, an organization, a local community, a parish, or in the world.  This turns our heart more directly toward what we are called to.  As Mother Teresa says, we were created to love and to be loved.  This begins to get us there and satisfy our hearts more deeply.

Level 4 Ultimate, perfect happiness. When others fall short of our ideals, or we fall short ourselves, we’re disappointed. This disappointment points to a universal human longing for transcendence and perfection. We don’t merely desire love, truth, goodness, beauty, and unity; we want all of these things in their ultimate, perfect, never-ending form. All people have this desire for ultimacy, which psychologists call a desire for transcendence – a sense of connection to the larger universe. Some express this desire through spirituality and religious faith. Others express the same longing through philosophy, through art, or through scientific efforts to solve the mysteries of life and the universe. 

This is where today's Gospel comes in: Jesus is the way the truth and the Life.  We begin to discover that He is the one we were seeking all along.  Here we can finally say with St. Augustine, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

Homily 5-11-2014 The Shepherd's Voice Today? 4 Ways God speaks to us and leads us to life.

 Most homilies require a sort of image or illustration to bring home the point. Today, the Lord Jesus provides that image with the simple description of a shepherd and his sheep. King David (Ps. 23) was a shepherd. He saw how similar is the behavior of sheep to the spiritual lives of God's people, first and foremost in his own fickle heart. We wander away, out of safety, and expose ourselves to life-threatening dangers. Yet David realizes that God is like a good shepherd. 1. God provides for us. 2. God searches for us. 3. God leads us. (2^nd reading: Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.) 4. God redirects us, corrects us, when we are heading for danger. For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

Jesus calls Himself the gate as well, so He is the one through whom we must pass to reach the eternal pastures of heaven that the Father wants to bring us towards. The sheep, Christ says, hear the voice of the shepherd and know Him, and Him alone do they follow. This is true, but somehow we also get distracted in this life and follow other voices, or perhaps we just drown out the voice of God with all the noise of this world.

Where do we hear God today? Where is the shepherd calling to us?

1. All people have God's voice speak to them in their conscience.

CCC 1776 and Vatican II (GS 16) "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."

2. Certainly God speaks to us at times when we pray, but often it is not as clear as we would want it! If we always got straight and immediate answers in our prayer, the lottery and practically all of Las Vegas would go bankrupt! “God what are the winning numbers? Oh, thank you, thank you!” No, God doesn't speak to us in that way when we pray. However, there are other ways God clearly talks to us.

3. Christians have the voice of God in Sacred Scripture: CCC 104 and Vatican II (DV 21;24): In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, "but as what it really is, the word of God". "In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them.

4. But even more, as Catholics, we have the living voice of God reach us through the Church hierarchy. CCC 890: The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium's task to preserve God's people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals.

On account of their office, Bishops are shepherds, the successors of the apostles who were spiritual shepherds. We profess them to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Now, this doesn't make them perfect like the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are capable of all kinds of mistakes when it comes to economics, astrophysics, and Mathematics; but the voice of God reaches us when they speak definitely and universally about matters of faith and morals. This is how the One Shepherd, God, keeps his sheep from the brambles, cliffs, and wolves of this world of sin and evil. It's like a mother's voice (or father's voice, but hey, it's Mother's Day!) telling us when we are putting ourselves or others in danger. Parents call their children back to safety; that's shepherding!

We Catholics should be very thankful to have good shepherds, both now and in our recent past. Saints John XXIII and JPII, now Pope Francis. Bishop D'Arcy, now Bishop Rhoades.

We must pray for our shepherds, that they live their vocation well, that they model for us the path to holiness, that they lead us through the one and only gate of Christ Jesus so we can find our eternal pastures of peace.

In this Eucharist, let us ask the Good Sheopherd to help us hear his voice in our conscience, in our prayer, in Sacred Scripture, and in the teaching office of our One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

First communicants, the Good Shepherd is calling you today to the reception of Holy Communion. This great gift is the banquet we heard about in Psalm 23, and indeed we have nothing more we can want, because in this gift God gives us everything. I call you to follow me now to the Baptism font as you renew your faith in that Shepherd of your souls who leads you to heaven in this banquet of the Eucharist.

Homily Sunday 5-4-2014 Emmaus and Us

This story is the basis for the title of my blog where I post my homilies: Two Disciples on the Road. This story, often title “the road to Emmaus” or just “Emmaus,” is a masterpiece of literary and theological work thanks to Luke's ability to see the events of history in their wider context. While we could explore so much about “Emmaus,” I want to focus myself to three points which could really be three homilies.

The first two points are quick ones.

1- God is there whether we recognize Him or not. More often than not, we don't realize where God is in our lives, but we have to remember in faith that He never abandons us. How many of us remember our guardian angel? He's always with us to watch over us, this Church is full of them, but we often to fail to recognize it. Yet, they are still there. Have confidence that God never abandons you.

2- To have communion in the Church, we need to be going the right way. The reason the two disciples were going to Emmaus is not given, and the destination is today a kind of mystery, so we don't know if the town itself might have implied something to the Christians. But this is certain, they were heading away from the Christian community. Their faith was kind of shattered because Jesus wasn't the Messiah they had hoped for. By the end of the story, after Jesus sets them straight about the role of the Messiah, they turn around and head back. They stop, have a change of heart, and are re-incorporated in the body of the Church. This required a conversion because they were headed in the wrong direction, and it might mean the same for us in parts of our lives. What do we have to change in order to be in full communion with the Church?

3- Lastly, Emmaus is the Mass. Luke notices the connection between this story and the life of prayer of the early church, which we know well thanks to Justin Martyr's account. The Catechism, paragraph 1345 summarizes his outline of the Mass: On the day we call the day of the sun, all who dwell in the city or country gather in the same place. The memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read, as much as time permits. When the reader has finished, he who presides over those gathered admonishes and challenges them to imitate these beautiful things. Then we all rise together and offer prayers* for ourselves . . .and for all others, wherever they may be, so that we may be found righteous by our life and actions, and faithful to the commandments, so as to obtain eternal salvation. When the prayers are concluded we exchange the kiss. Then someone brings bread and a cup of water and wine mixed together to him who presides over the brethren. He takes them and offers praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and for a considerable time he gives thanks (in Greek: eucharistian) that we have been judged worthy of these gifts. When he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all present give voice to an acclamation by saying: 'Amen.' When he who presides has given thanks and the people have responded, those whom we call deacons give to those present the "eucharisted" bread, wine and water and take them to those who are absent.

The same outline that we do today is alluded in the Emmaus story, where the Christians are met by Christ, discuss the scriptures, and then gather for a meal where Christ is revealed to be present among them, and they are sent as witnesses.

Perhaps most improtantly is the final part about the Eucharist. The “breaking of the bread” is the Eucharist; and the Eucharist is the meaning of life: Cross, Love. This is the same 'key' that Jesus shows the disciples on the road to help them unlock the meaning of the Old Testament. It is the key for us, too, at every Mass, when Calvary is presented to us, and the Risen Jesus feeds us.

2nd Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy - Saints: the goal of the Church

This weekend the entire Catholic Church rejoices as Pope Francis declares two of his recent predecessors to be saints: Angelo Roncalli, who as Pope took the name of John XXIII and shocked the world by declaring the Second Vatican Council, a sign that his hope for the church and for the world was not shattered despite the dark and scary times he lived through in WWII and even of his papacy (most notably the Cold War and nuclear threats); and Karol Wojtyla, who over so many years as Pope John Paul II did many great things, perhaps the greatest being his travels around the world (enough to go to the moon three times) because they created such a strong unity in the church. These men are saints, they weren't perfect. But with God's help they were strengthened to overcome their weaknesses. This is what the Church is meant to be about: making its people to be saints, to overcome the disease of selfishness and concupiscence.

Every year during the Easter Season we hear from Acts of the Apostles, because the life of the early church is meant to be a model for us: this is what we are supposed to be! And today, Acts summarizes for us of the early church understood themselves and lived their baptism. While this whole passage is something we should reflect on, I want to focus especially on the first verse: They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. I would argue that these four things signify the fullness of the Christian life. The meaning of life is hidden within these four things: it is only within them, lived to the full, that we truly alive in divine life that God wants to give us! If someone, although nominally Catholic, is not participating in one of these areas, they are not truly living the Catholic faith. For example, if someone were to say “I am Catholic, I go to Church, but I don't listen to the pope,” then they are missing something: The teaching of the apostles.
And if they said “I am Catholic, I do everything the pope says, but I don't go to Church that often,” or “I don't really go to Confession” then they don't understand The breaking of the bread, code language for the Eucharist, and for today I roll in all the other sacraments, too!

What if you did those things but tried to just live in your own little world, never getting involved at all in the parish or the diocesan initiatives? You are missing The communal life. You can't be a Catholic and a loner, a solo-spiritualist.

And even if you did all those things but had no prayer life whatsoever outside of Sunday Mass? Then you aren't truly what Catholics are supposed to be, for the early church was devoted to The prayers. Spiritual development and personal prayer, drawn from the relationship we find in the Our Father, is essential to Catholic life. God wants this of you.

(1st Communion Mass) My dear children, today you most perfectly participate in the Holy Mass: through your reception of the Holy Eucharist. This mystery is now a part of your life, but that does not mean it is something that you fully understand. None of us ever completely understand it in this life!

Homily 4-20-2014 Easter Sunday - Peter and Paul

Pope Francis calls us to be missionary disciples, saying that every disciple has to be missionary.  In today's readings, we see two examples of such disciples in Saints Peter and Paul (who by the way are the two patrons of the Petrine ministry, since they both died for Christ in the city of Rome).  While these readings speak very powerfully of our Lord's Resurrection,  it might be helpful to reflect on them in their chronological order.  We start, then, in the Gospel, with Our Lord's empty tomb.  Just before today's section, Christ came and spoke to Mary Magdalene, someone who in the eyes of the world is little but is truly great and powerful because of her love for Jesus (seen especially in her faithfulness at the cross).  Mary brings that news to Peter, the Lord's first disciple and the representative leader of the Christian community.  Running to the tomb with the Beloved Disciple (John), Peter goes in the tomb and finds only cloths.  He is baffled, while the other disciple believes.
Then we can flash forward to Peter's Pentecost sermon, his bold proclamation as presented in the Acts of the Apostles.  Something has clearly changed in Peter.  Now he gets it.  What has happened?  The Lord has appeared to Simon, and to the other disciples, has spent 40 days with them, ascended to heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit upon them to drive them forth as witnesses to the Resurrection.
Three things outline the time Jesus spends with them accoring to Luke in Acts: he appears to them, he speaks to them, and he eats with them.  All three of these are essential to strengthening their faith that Jesus' Resurrection is absolutely real, so real that they will eventually speak with the boldness that Peter speaks today, that they will travel the world making disciples of all nations, and that they will all save John suffer death for Christ.  Appearing to them, Jesus shows himself as the same person (the wounds are there) but as now experiencing life on a different pitch (he will no longer die and can walk through walls).  Speaking to them, Jesus supports their faith, prepares them for their mission, and helps them to see the meaning of the scriptures (remember today's Gospel ends with “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”  Eating with them, the Lord binds Himself to them forever, re-affirming the covenant in His Blood that he established at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday.  This is why Peter can proclaim so boldly today.  His words will ring with importance for every time and place, and they are words we should let speak anew to our own heart.
Lastly we have Saint Paul, who today speaks of yeast and “the feast,” referring to the new Passover of Christ, the Lamb of God who has won forgiveness for our sins.  Paul asks, “Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough? Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough.”  Paul is saying that in Christ, who has risen from the dead, we ourselves are also transformed, since we have been united to Him in our Baptism.  The “old yeast” refers to sin and to the ways of the world that is passing away.  Let Jesus make you from scratch!  This is exactly what He did to St. Paul, who was transformed from the great persecutor of the Church into its most powerful witness to the Gentiles.  Jesus did this to 17 people last night at our Easter Vigil, and he did it to all of us through our Baptism.
But what does that mean for us?  This is exactly what the Easter Season is about: living the meaning of the Paschal Triduum more fully.  For the next 50 days, we celebrate our Lord's Resurrection and let Jesus encounter us in three ways, the same three ways that he did with the original disciples.  First, Jesus appears to us in the Christian community, for he said “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  Secondly, Jesus speaks to us in two ways: in our personal prayer lives, for he said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.” and in Sacred Scripture, for the Word of the Lord is none other than Jesus, so that Saint Jerome can say “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”  Finally, the Lord Jesus encounters us from this altar, where the sacrifice of Calvary is represented in the new and eternal covenant as He established at the Last Supper and lived those 40 days before returning to the Father.  In the Eucharist, we receive the Risen Body of our Lord Jesus, indeed that is the only Body of Christ there is to receive.  In this gift, as we are drawn into Him and united to each other through Him, let us beg of him to be witnesses like Saints Peter and Paul.

Good Friday Homily

It's been hard to find the right words for this homily today. Things too deep for words have been flooding my mind and my heart, not the least of which is my grandmother's passing. Today is a weird and strange day for many reasons. First, it's the only day I preach without shoes on. It's nice weather but we can't enjoy it like we could on Sunday. The tabernacle is empty. We genuflect to a piece of wood. But even stranger is this: today is not a Mass. We priests do not offer the Eucharistic prayer, we do not consecrate new hosts. In fact, Mass is not allowed at all today. Outside of danger of death, the only sacraments we can offer today are confession and Anointing of the Sick. Why is that? Why do the sacraments stop today? I think because we need to remember the source of all those sacraments, because the source of the Mass's power, the offering of the high priest Jesus Christ himself is today offered in the heavens before God the Father face-to-face. Because today the world was changed forever.

John remembers that today's account finishes in a garden. This garden, where so much life grows, is right now a place of death: the seed is planted but has yet to sprout. John recalls this truth for a reason: the events of this garden will heal the events of another garden, at the other end of salvation history. In the Garden of Eden our irreconcilable plight arises: human beings, created to have a relationship with God, have forfeited it by sin, have severed it. When Adam & Eve grasp at the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we creatures commit an offense that is beyond our remedy to heal: an offense against God, the infinite and eternal, is something for which we can never atone. And this offense is repeated in every one of our hearts, expecting our sorrowful mother Mary. We all have deprived ourselves of the glory of God (Ps. 52). So God's remedy is Jesus, God in human flesh: the one called the Lamb of God, symbolized by the Passover Lamb sacrificed this day at 3-o'-clock, and foretold by Isaiah the prophet. through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.

Pope Benedict (Jesus of Nazareth, Part 2): Again and again in the world, truth and error, truth and untruth, are almost inseparably mixed together. The Truth [God Himself] in all its grandeur and purity does not appear. The world is “true” to the extend that it reflects God: the creative logic, the eternal reason that brought it to birth. And it becomes more and more true the closer it draws to God. Man becomes true, he becomes himself, when he grows in God's likeness. And God's likeness, rather, His very essence, is manifest in the Cross. Here we see that God Himself is love that loves to the end, purely and completely, with no hint of selfishness holding anything back for Himself.

The power of the cross hits us squarely in between the eyes in this way: we realize how great is God's love, and how short and faltering is our response. Saint Francis used to summarize the Cross, and indeed the whole Gospel in these few words, “Love is not loved!” This is what strikes our hearts today. Here today we mourn our failures. We mourn what sin does. We look at it for all the filth that it is and we begin to find healing by growing to hate sin, hate its consequences. And at the same time we find hope. We find hope in the fact that a God who created us out of love finds a way to redeem us; that the garden of sin turns into the garden of salvation; that we who have sinned through stealing a tree's fruit are now offered the pure fruit of Our Lord's body on this tree of the cross; that we who forfeited the tree of life are welcomed to the tree of eternal life in the cross. And especially for me today, hope that my grandma who suffered through the longest Lent of her life, is now finally at peace after carrying her cross to the end.

Today we kiss the body of our King, enthroned on a cross. As we look at the Lamb of God, and see the horror of sin mingled with the fulness of God's love, we find the healing for which the world has always longed. Before this one and only source of salvation, let us lay our burdens. We cry out as Christ did with the pains of our families, the sufferings of the poor and abandoned, the abused and cheated, and of the entire world. It is here alone they can be answered, here alone where pain turns to hope.

Homily 4-13-2014 Palm Sunday (A): Hosanna to the King, the Son of David

 Today we processed into the Church crying “Hosanna, Hosanna to the Son of David!” This cry echoes the words of the crowd that joyously welcomed Our Lord Jesus into Jerusalem, riding on a simple donkey with a small crowd of simpletons as disciples. Certainly this is not the King we expect when we think of the Most High God, exalted above all the earth! And yet our Lord shows his humility in this entrance, performed not because he feeds off the praise of the masses, but because He wants to fulfill His Father's Will, to drink from the cup, even if it means the cup of suffering. And how quickly the suffering comes, and how quickly the crowds turn. And perhaps most painfully for Our Lord, how quickly those closest to Him abandon Him. I can only imagine that when He looks from the cross for those three hours, he certainly noticed that practically all of them were scattered and nowhere to be found.

Pope Francis, as the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth, sometimes relives very poignantly the mysteries of Our Lord's life. In these days when the masses of our world, the raucous crowd of our time is praising the Pope for his witness, indeed a good one, I can't help but think that they are very often misunderstanding him just as the mobs misunderstood Jesus. They wave their palms today in praise, but will they soon turn to yell out “crucify him”? Like Jesus, Pope Francis does not enjoy public opinion for its own sake, but only if it is the Father's will, and I expect Him, like many popes before him, to be a sign of contradiction, a man of mixed reception.

When the masses abandon our Pope, when the crowds cry out against the Church, and when the mobs demand Jesus' life, where will we be? It is easy to sing “Hosanna” when everyone else does, but will we still be there at the end? Let us try to be faithful. And also, as Pope Francis asks of us (and shows us with his very life), let us be missionary disciples, those who witness to Christ at all times, especially by our humility, our mercy, our love. These palm branches are signs that we make Jesus our King. I challenge you to carry these around with you. In your pockets, etc. Make a cross of them if you wish. Use them as missionary tools, as methods of evangelization. Help others to see Jesus the King, your king, by your life. And do not abandon Him when the road becomes difficult, for then is your greatest chance to testify to the God who loves us with such deep love.