Ash Wednesday homily

Audio only.

Here it is! https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0ckF1aHdTaDVtT2p2VUdJMWpHSW9ZZnJPUFlV/edit?usp=docslist_api

American Individualism, Isolation and Relationship with Jesus

Audio: (10:30 Mass) https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0dTZjVHVxTG92Sll4MGxxbXVHQ1dndll6OUdn/edit?usp=docslist_api

The faith of this leper is great: "if you desire it, you can make me clean". His leprosy was worst case scenario: his entire body covered. 

Escrivá Forge 665: The power of working miracles! How many dead — and even rotting — souls you will raise, if you let Christ act in you.

In those days, the Gospel tells us, the Lord was passing by; and they, the sick, called to him and sought him out. Now, too, Christ is passing by, in your Christian life. If you second him, many will come to know him, will call to him, will ask him for help: and their eyes will be opened to the marvellous light of grace.

For the Jewish community, isolation was probably the most difficult part of leprosy. It was so hard for that person to be forced out of society and all of their relationships.

I find it interesting that we in a highltechnological society fail to appreciate the pain and challenge of isolation, even as we experience it even more frequentlybut in different ways.  The United States was in many ways founded on getting away from others and promoting the individual. And that individualism creates within us a unique fear for the exact thing we were created for: community and relationship.

The leper today goes to Jesus in order to seek healing. However, he also submits himself to what the Lord's will is: "if you will let, you can make me clean." That vulnerability is exactly what so many people are afraid of in their relationships. We don't want to be hurt, so we don't allow ourselves to open up to another.

Are we afraid of getting close to Jesus because it might mean shattering are individualism, overcoming our fears of relationship, and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in the hands of another? Although this might make sense in other relationships, it does not make sense with Christ. He loves us perfectly. We know this even better than the leper. Look at the cross. You don't need to be afraid of someone who will love you like this.

If we want miracles to happen in our lives and the lives of our loved ones, we half to get close to Jesus. We half to be vulnerable enough to let him take control and change us. That is exactly what prayer is meant to do, abandoning our hearts and souls and futures to the living God.

"Man, you don't know pain!"

Audio (Sat. Eve): https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0MGdpNjFvYnMzeUV6eVNUc2t2blJMNjRhV2lF/edit?usp=docslist_api

I feel like I have had a sheltered childhood.  I was part of a blessed family. Besides losing my maternal grandparents  around age 9, I never really knew much tragedy in my family.

No injuries that weren't fully healed and in the past, etc.

So it's hard to fully understand how Job is feeling in today's reading. I mean, this guy has the ultimate trump card for other people's complaints about what life has dealt them.  Can you imagine losing everyone you've ever loved, everything you've ever owned, and then to top it off your entire body is covered with boils from the worst sunburn imaginable? Job is te only one truly able to tell anyone: "man, you don't know pain - let me tell you about pain!"

However I've seen a whole lot of pain and felt others' pain pretty deeply.  In fact, I almost lost my 4 younger siblings all at one time. (Lake tree accident)

So the Job of my family is my little sister Kasey: Kasey has been through a lot. She was the one with the broken femur at age 4. We carried her around and used a wagon to get her around the house.  At age 8 or so, She broke her jaw and had her mouth wired shut. A little later Tommy broke her head open with a hockey stick. 

Kasey shows that pain doesn't need to overwhelm us and take over.

What do you do for people in times of pain? We have to stand with them through it. Pink and make us alone. We must fight against that!

Sometimes we think pain is the one thing in this life that doesn't make sense.  Like we can challenge God as Job does and say to Him: hey, you don't know what pain is like.  but he does. He does better than we do. 

The Parish and the Synagogue

Audio:https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0TThZMTloVElWcnFWMTlXYnRLNFkzQS1QLUpR/edit?usp=docslist_api

 Every Jewish teacher, or rabbi, was trained by another distinguished rabbi. Saint Paul himself was taught by a great Pharisee rabbi of the time, a man called Gamaliel, who is named twice in Acts of the Apostles. The reason for naming your teacher was so that your words could have some backing: you didn't make this stuff up on your own. Rather, you were taught by a scholar of the law, who was taught by another rabbi, who had his own great instructor, etc. all the way back until ultimately you got to who? Moses, the man from today. All authority rested upon Moses who received instruction from God Himself on Mount Sinai.

This is what makes it so astonishing that Jesus teaches on a different authority: he had no rabbi of his own, and no one wanted to claim this man as one of his students. But it is precisely as a teacher that Jesus is first known: he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. The reason Jesus was seen as a teacher was because of where and what he was doing: Jesus would gather at the synagogue and meet people where they met God, and meet God they certainly did, a God in disguise who came so close that it was hard for their eyes to focus.

The Synagogue was the local "parish" of the time. Thanks to the work of the Pharisees, the Jews could gather for a type of worship that centered around the Word of God. Animal sacrifice was reserved for the temple alone, in Jerusalem. Thus the synagogue was a place of prayer, of letting God speak, but also of Religious Education, of Culture, and of Communal Life. Like the parish, the synagogue was the main source of people's connection to God and to each other.

When Jesus travels from town to town, He goes to the synagogues and teaches. And people meet him, people encounter "the Holy One of God" (as the unclean spirit says today) and are delivered from spiritual bondage, are healed physically, are filled with the peace the world cannot give, and are strengthened to love because they know they are infinitely loved by their God.

That is also what the parish is meant to be, and that is why we celebrate today as a parish. The past year, when we began our campaign, “Behold I Make All Things New," we began to make great strides to overcome the obstacles that are hindering the further growth and vitality of our parish. Like the synagogue, this parish is a place where people worship, where religious instruction is given across all stages of life, and where culture and communal life are meant to be shared. These are hard for us to excel in due to our facilities. For worship, we have seven Masses so the community can't pray well together, and its even worse at the holiest days of our Church. Religious instruction is great for younger ages thanks to the education center, but still more is needed to make the programs excel for the large numbers. Adult education struggles because of the lack of facilities to work with. And most of all, communal life suffers during the week because we have only a few good spaces for adults, as well as on Sundays because there's no gathering space to chat and the parking lot is chaos. It breaks our hearts as priests and staff when we have to say so often: “we just can't do that because we don't have anywhere to make it work.” But thanks be to God that through the "Behold I Make All Things New" campaign, we plan to resolve all of these things over the next years by your generous hearts. I am so grateful for the ways God is working. With the amazing amount of $11.75 million raised, we are currently only able to accomplish the largest part of our goal: the worship space, gathering space, and new meeting rooms. The rest of the goal in pledges would also allow for expansion of the Education Center, especially the needed bathrooms and a cafeteria space so we can use the gymnasiums as they were intended.

But the real reason we want to do all of this is so that people can meet Jesus at Saint Pius X. We don't want the parish to simply be a place where you get in an out on Sunday (and other days) as quickly as possible to avoid a jam. We want it to be the life-blood of our families, their second home, and the place where memories are formed year after year. This “catholic synagogue” is where we find Jesus, we are healed by Him, and we proclaim Him “the Holy One of God.” May the Lord, whose generosity and love knows no bounds, bring our work to its completion so that as many people as possible can meet the Lord Jesus in this community of faith.

The Call - it's all about you and not at all

Audio(Sat. Eve):  https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0cU5MQ3pWcklXRnNxTnFnLUhCUkxBdE00cnNv/edit?usp=docslist_api

Your vocation matters to you and to so many others.  The call of God for your life means your happiness.  But it also means the greater happiness of all the lives you are meant to touch.

Have you ever heard of yourself described as a fish before?  I've only seen it once in the Bible, when after Jesus' resurrection he calls from the shore and they catch 153 fish and they realize it is Christ.  Some scholars have said the number 153 represents all the world as they knew it at that time, every nation.
But when I was in Malta I heard a little teaching from their only saint, Fr. George Preca, who more or less called us fish when he talked about how We often forget that our life is so covered in God like a fish is in water.  We are literally swimming in God in this life, if we have eyes to see it, and can't live outside of Him, says Fr. George.

Simon and Andrew are fishermen, but they themselves are the little fishies that get are swimming around with little purpose and end up caught today - caught for good.  They are there "throwing nets into the sea," hoping for a catch, relying on it for their food and shelter.  But if we take it spiritually, I think we can find a symbol of our wandering hearts hoping for something to catch us. Sea for the Jews was the perfect image for the chaos of our unpredictable world. So these two men, like all of us, are seeing what they can get out of life, sort of waiting around mindlessly for something good to happen.  Imagine that look people get at the casino or in front of their phones or televisions, or other ways that we all "waste time."  It's kind of funny that we call it so clearly for what it is, but don't treat it that way.  Usually we use nice cushioned phrases to describe things we shouldn't be doing, so that we can feel better about it, but this is one of the opposite cases: "wasting time" is right - we are squandering opportunities to do something good, something that builds up ourselves or other people, something that prepares us for our future.
The second set of brothers are found "mending their nets" - maybe we find ourselves at times trying to heal ourselves and get ready for next round of searching, placing our bets for where our happiness will be found.

So these guys are searching for a reason to live!  They want a purpose-driven life.  They want a mission.

Speaking of fish, let's look at Jonah for a second.  You know he gets swallowed whole but doctor remember why? Because he ran away from God's call.  It was as if God said go preach to Chicago and he got on a train for Florida.  So eventually Jonah gets the point and goes to Nineveh like he was supposed to and is surprised at what God does with it: the scoundrel pagans actually repent very sincerely!  So there's the point: your vocation matters to others as much as it does to you. Without Jonah, Nineveh was toast.  They needed him.  God "needed" him in a way, a lot like Jesus needed those four fishermen - without whom the history of the world might be very very different.

So for us: God has a plan, a mission, a purpose that every single one of us alone can fulfill: our vocation.  And when he calls, we must leave everything behind to become that disciple.

Lastly, it's not only the apostles or bishops or priests or religious who are called to be fishers of men: every one of us is called to be.  When Jesus gets hold of our wandering hearts and gives us something to live for, it's not so we can keep it all to ourselves - we have to share it.  To use that old dating advice, There's a lot more fish in the sea, and we are called to wake them up and help thm find the real meaning of life: a relatively bishop with th living God, following after the Lord Jesus. Amen.

Seeking God, in so many ways...

Listen here (Sat. Eve): https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0NVBpSnpqTURzV0luaTJvTlIxMC1DV29vSjhZ/edit?usp=docslist_api

Vocation - we want meaning for our lives.  Samuel hears his calling from God.  Paul reminds us how we are called to glorify God in our bodies, saying sharply: avoid immorality! 

SEEK - theme of FOCUS conference in Nashville starting late New Year's Day came from this Gospel where Jesus asks us "What are you looking for?" Or Seek or Want.  What do you seek?

We all want to be happy, truly and eternally happy.  But we are often lost in our search. We so often fall for the first thing we see instead of thinking about it all at a deeper level. The problem is there are so many different types of happiness, or to put it better, many things that are similar to true happiness but aren't exactly that.  And we can so often get caught up in these for hours, or months, or even decades of our life before we realize we were chasing after the wind and going nowhere fast.  For example, money, says the world, can make us happy - as if can solve our problems, if we have enough of it.  But it can't.  Money doesn't solve suffering, both in the world or in our personal lives.  So if we can't be happy as long as we are suffering, money won't make us happy.  What about power?  We can always be more influential so there's no resting in that, nor are the most powerful people automatically happy.  Fame? no, just listen to news radio for an hour.  How about pleasure? That doesn't make us happy, it only distracts us for a bit.

Saint Augustine said we have "restless hearts," they don't quit searching; until, he says, they "rest in God."  But along the way there are some things that can start to take us higher.  I once talked about the 4 levels of happiness: 1. pleasure, 2. superiority/competition, 3. common good, and 4. God.

Relationships - We want to love and be loved.

Ultimately, we want the Lord who is Love.  Samuel was lucky enough to have lots of silence for the opportunity to hear the cries of his heart and the voice of the Lord.

The demands of Baptism

Audio (5:30 Sat.): https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0NXFaaW1zc2ZHMXl5aGRjaHpTM3JVYUEta21B/edit?usp=docslist_api

 Today as a Church we all reflect on the meaning of our baptism by looking at Jesus' own baptism. But first, since I missed Epiphany last Sunday with you I want to show how that event fits into today's mystery and today's challenge. At Epiphany, when the wise men come to worship the newborn king, we have a Manifestation of Christ and his divinity, and today of the entire Trinity. The star over Bethlehem is a symbol for the vocation of every Christian: God sets us up in our own place in this world to lead others to Jesus. Our lives need to shine with His light. Otherwise the modern-day wise men who are seeking out the truth, beauty, and goodness their hearts long for May never find the answer to their deepest longing.

John the Baptist was a star like that: he was a charismatic person who drew people to himself only because he wanted to point them to Jesus. "None born of woman greater than John, but even the least of the kingdom of heaven is greater than he". Whoa, talk about the power of baptism if even the least of us, no matter how unworthy we feel, is greater than John if we are born from above and live in God's kingdom!

After Jesus' Baptism, The Spirit immediately drove Him into the desert to reflect on this event, so that He could prepare for ministry by growing internally in His solid foundation of the call the Father had for Him. That is the point of prayer for us: preparation, formation, and knowledge of our mission. He needed to reflect on God's words: "You are my beloved Son, with you I am well-pleased."

In John Eldridge's Wild at Heart, a book about Christian manhood, he speaks of every young man having a "father wound." What he meant by that is every guy had a father who wasn't perfect and didn't affirm him or encourage him or support him in every way that one needed. I think that can of course go for every one of us, not just guys, because none of us had sinless fathers. Every dad falls short. And that precisely is the danger of not spending enough time reflecting on how God is our perfect Father. The "father wound" runs deep, and if we don't go to the desert to reflect on what God says to us from our baptism, we may never let that would heal.

We also reflect on our baptism to understand our mission in life, our vocation. The early church understood that Baptism had a profound effect on their lives. St. Josemaria Escriva recounts: Baptism makes us 'fideles', faithful. This is a word that was used — like 'sancti', the saints — by the first followers of Jesus to refer to one another. These words are still used today: we speak of the faithful of the Church. — Reflect on this.

Vocation - Do the little things and don't just think about them. (De Sales) heaven is a real goal and it is a journey to get there. How could you expect to get somewhere if you don't take one step at a time in that direction?

When was the last time I changed my plans because of my relationship with God demanded it? Do I carve out time daily for prayer to hear God say to me "you are my beloved," and say to Him "Your will be done" and "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening"??

Or do I hit the spiritual snooze button? For that matter, do I hit the physical snooze button? Am I unable to get out of bed to pray because I wasted my time lastnight with things that are not part of my daily duties?

Yes Baptism changes us. Yes it demands something from us. It demands 100% commitment and total perseverance. Because Jesus gives Himself to us 100% on the cross and perseveres untiringly in His pursuit of our hearts, constantly knocking for us to let Him into our lives in a deeper way. In this Eucharist today, we thank the Lord for our Baptism, we ask that 2015 may help us to understand it and live it more fully, and we take one more step toward Him in the little things of our daily lives.