homily - why rules?

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As far as rules go, Christianity needs to graduate to a higher understanding. Christianity is much more than a list of ‘no’s. 
G.K. Chesterton uses the image of a what rules are for:  Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff's edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.
Jesus raises the bar here, because he wants the people to see the true meaning of all the prescriptions of the Law.  The purpose of the Law is to work its way inwards to the heart of the person.  Sinful human nature, with its tendency towards sin, needs to be worked on, and the easiest place to start that work of untwisting the lies of the devil is in our actions. The law is all about external actions, things that can be measured.  These almost always take time to think about and take a real conscious decision to enact. When we begin to control our behavior, it should strengthen us for the next step, the mind, our thoughts, and then finally the passions, which are certainly much more difficult to overcome but can be healed by God’s grace.
So Jesus raises the bar from the Old Law today in all kinds of ways for this reason: that there is something more out there for us.  The rules Jesus gives are not ends in themselves. They have a goal that we cannot forget.  When we forget the goal of human perfection, holiness, the ability to love at such a high pitch that our lives become the salt of the earth and the light of the world, - when we forget that, Christianity looks like a bunch of silly rules.  Like my family’s rule that shoes had to go upstairs.  Why, dad? I don’t wear shoes upstairs… “Because your mother and I are the parents and you are the kids, and we said so.” In just the same way, Christianity because rather unattractive when we don’t see the point of the rules.
 It can happen in many different parts of life where we get caught up in the rules and forget that there is a reason for them that goes beyond them.
Soccer, basketball, baseball, any sport they all have lots of rules. But the rules have a higher purpose: the beauty of the game played well.
Music too has rules.  Playing piano or guitar or another musical instrument has all kinds of things that say: do it this way, not this way. But the rules have a higher purpose: the beauty of music performed well.
Was Michael Jordan breaking the rules all the time? No. But did he play for something more than the rules? Definitely.
Did Mozart or Beethoven have to learn the rules of music and how to play piano? Certainly. But did they stay focused on the rules forever? No way!
So too for us as Christians: we must learn the rules in our head, but more importantly live them so well that they become part of us – automatic so to speak.  Then we can really get more and more free into the beauty of the Christian life.

Bearing Fruit

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Witnesses to Jesus are most important. Most important. Broken Christians are the worst thing for Christianity.  Broken Catholics are the worst thing for Catholicism.

When my microwave broke, what was the good of keeping it?  I couldn't pull it off the wall and use it as a decorative piece, and had no way of incorporating it into my Christmas decorations.
Even worse if this happens more than once.
My sister Katie (in high school) with her hair straighteners.  She bought two in a row that both failed soon after purchase.  She eventually wrote a letter to the company that ended with quite a powerful line, "Could you please let me know I can stop wasting my money?" They got the message and sent her two new hair curlers, and maybe other stuff, to make up for it.  The point is, if it ain't doing its job, it's a waste.

Paul VI (Evangelii Nuntiandi 41): "Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses."[67] St. Peter expressed this well when he held up the example of a reverent and chaste life that wins over even without a word those who refuse to obey the word.[68] It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus- the witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world, in short, the witness of sanctity.

To put it one other way before we move on, I will use an example from one of the books given away at Christmas:  Jesus Shock (below)

God has required that witness to be concrete for thousands of years, even before Christianity.  Isaiah makes it clear today that we must live the command of the Lord to “be holy, as He is holy” especially through living justice as we heard today in the first reading:

So the challenge today is: how are we witnessing? What are we doing to bear fruit? How is Jesus working through us?  What is the evidence that shows we are alive?
It could happen in a thousand ways, but the Church invites us to get disturbingly concrete.
Ask God to show you ONE way that you can get concrete in one way of being salt and light in our world. To show others that there's more to Christianity than broken, zombie Christians.



Jesus Shock by Peter Kreeft, referenced Socrates meets Jesus by Peter Kreeft

Socrates: “Rather, I must ask another question. I fear it will be misunderstood and prove embarrassing, so please be patient with me and try very hard not to misunderstand my motives in asking it.
Class: Sure, Socrates. [Accommodating, open, inviting looks.]
Bertha [impatient, interested]: What's the question?
Socrates: Where are the Christians? [Whole class looks shocked and puzzled.]
Bertha: What do you mean? They're all over the place.
Socrates: This place?
Bertha: Of course this place, and many other places too.
Socrates: Then there is something I do not understand.
 Bertha: What's that?
Socrates: If you are all Christians, if some of you are Christians, if any of you are Christians-how could your life be the same? How could you look the same, talk the same, think the same? How could the born child so closely resemble the unborn child? How could your life be so ... so bland, if this incredible thing is true?
Molly: Socrates, are you putting us down?
Socrates: Alas, that is what I feared you would think. That's why the question is so embarrassing. Look here, I am certainly no expert in this Christianity thing; I have only discovered it in the last few days, so far be it from me to tell you or anyone what it all really amounts to. But this book of yours does tell us-all of us, me as well as you-what it all amounts to. And if everything thing in this book is true, then what it amounts to compared to everything else I have ever known is like a whale compared to minnows.
Fesser: It's nice of you to take the New Testament so seriously, Socrates, but ... Socrates: Nice? Did you say nice?”

------------------------------------------------------

“Fesser [annoyed yet interested]: Exactly what do you find missing, Socrates?
Socrates: Everything!
Fesser: Surely you of all people could explain a bit more clearly.
Socrates: I shall certainly try. See here, if I understand this book, it claims that the supreme Creator-God became a man so that men and women could become gods and goddesses. "Partakers in the divine nature," it says. How could anything be the same after that, if it really happens?
Fesser: Oh, well, now, that is something of a bone of contention. Should we interpret the metaphor of participating in the divine nature to refer to a literal, historical event, or is it instead a mythological expression, not to be taken literally?
Socrates: A myth? Do you think it is a myth?
Fesser: Some do, some don't.
Socrates: And you? What do you think?
Fesser [uncomfortable]: That is not the issue here. This is an academic classroom, not a revival meeting. [Some giggle.]
Bertha [trying to bail Fesser out]: Socrates, are you asking why we aren't all saints?
Socrates: No, not if you mean heroes of perfection. The people in your Bible were not that. All of them had flaws-unlike the heroes and heroines of the fiction of my culture. That is one of the reasons your book seems to be factual, by the way. No, I'm asking about something else, something that's hard to define but easy to recognize, I think, though the only place I have recognized nized it so far is in this book. Let me put it this way. When I read about this man Jesus and about his disciples and about his "called-out-ones" (that's what church means, doesn't it?)-when I read this, I find something so unmistakable, so distinctive, so strong and full of life and joy, that it's like the noonday sun. If all these things really happened, then it's no wonder that the whole world was turned upside down, as your book says, even the hard-nosed Roman world. It's no wonder the people who met Christ either worshiped him or crucified him. And it's no wonder the people who met his disciples either believed them and worshiped him, or didn't believe them and persecuted them for telling this abominable, insane he. It's got to be all or nothing, either-or.
Fesser: Are you defending fanaticism, Socrates?
Socrates: No.
Fesser: What, then?
Socrates: Something more like marriage. In-loveness. Fidelity.
Fesser: And what do you think you see around you instead?
Socrates: Scholarship. Teachers and students playing at a game, like children playing safari while there is a real lion lurking in their own front yard. You think you are studying a dead man, don't you? - a man like myself as I was until a few days ago, rather than someone alive, and present, and active, as I am now. Isn't that how you see it?
Bertha: But Socrates, Jesus isn't here as you are here.
Socrates: Your book says that he is. His disciples believed and acted as if he was. He himself promised to be. If it's not a myth, if he really rose from the dead, then he's not dead, but alive, like an animal-at least as alive as an animal.”

Homily - Presentation

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40 days since Christmas.  Old end of the Christmas season. “Circumcision”. The covenant with Abraham is brought to its fulfillment in Christ.  Also the promise of Ezekiel that the Lord’s presence will return to the temple after the Lord’s glory had abandoned the temple due to sacrileges practiced by His priests (a fitting message for our times as well).

Two words from Simeon today really point us forward to the Paschal Mystery, especially Good Friday: “A sword will pierce your heart.” “A sign that will be contradicted.”

“A sign that will be contradicted.”  It seems that whenever we stand up for Christ, we will receive some opposition.  First, we need to discern well if we are really standing with Jesus or standing with some ideology that seems to fit Christ when looked at from a specific lens.  Secondly, this doesn’t mean that we should be provoking opposition, but that we shouldn’t be shocked when it comes.  Jesus didn’t provoke. Even His coming as a child and his years of hidden life show that He was not trying to bring about separation and division, but truly tried to draw people to himself.

“A sword will pierce your heart.” Nothing hurts more than when that separation is from those you love the most.  Family and friends at times will not share our faith or our enthusiasm for being Christian.  This may cause grief and a type of “death” but should not rob our hope in Christ, nor should it destroy our love for them. We must pray, witness, and love them as they make their way through the five steps of conversion we spoke of last week: initial trust, curiosity, openness, seeking/pursuing, and discipleship.

The God of infinite power returns to His temple in this way.  What a surprise.

Babies need parents.  You only exist today because you were loved day after day by someone.  My little nephew with his floppy head and hilarious arm skills is proof that we couldn’t survive on our own.  God chose to make himself one of us, and thus chose to make himself “need” us for a little bit, just as we really do need God for every moment of our existence, for every breath.

Homily - Fishers of Men.

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Fishers of men.  Nice short-film about priesthood.  Inspiring.  Everyone should give it a look.  It’s definitely worth replacing 15 minutes of TV or video games or cat videos.

One problem with the great video is that we might think only the priesthood is meant to be like this.  That Jesus only calls priests to be “fishers of men.”  But rather, this is meant for all of us.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which Pope John Paul II called a sure norm for teaching the faith, takes two quotes from the second Vatican Council when it speaks about the role of the laity in the work of evangelization:

CCC 905 - Lay people also fulfill their prophetic mission by evangelization, "that is, the proclamation of Christ by word and the testimony of life." For lay people, "this evangelization . . . acquires a specific property and peculiar efficacy because it is accomplished in the ordinary circumstances of the world." LG 35

This witness of life, however, is not the sole element in the apostolate; the true apostle is on the lookout for occasions of announcing Christ by word, either to unbelievers . . . or to the faithful. AA 6 (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity. approved by vote of 2,340 to 2)

This shouldn’t be a surprise, but I have to say that not all non-Christians or non-Catholics are the same.  They are at different degrees of connection with God or the Church. And for all of them, they are going to travel through a process of drawing closer to Jesus.  And the truth of the matter is, many of us in the Church today might find ourselves at different stages of this journey to full discipleship with Christ.  But if we are going to be of help to others on their journey, we as fishers of men need to know what stage the other person is at.

The five stages of discipleship are from a book by Sherry Weddell called FORMING INTENTIONAL DISCIPLES, and she actually got them from a campus minister who did a study of college students on their process of conversion throughout a school year and realized that Every person must go through a series of questions one by one. Conversion isn’t magic and doesn’t happen in an instant. So here they are. One more thing before I get started: think of a few people you see every week who aren’t active disciples and try to figure out where they fall on this list. That is how you will know how to help them make it to the next step.  

1. Initial trust: Can I trust God and His Church? (They need a connection of trust)

2. Spiritual Curiosity: Is this worth looking into?  (They are intrigued by Christian way of life)

3. Spiritual Openness: Am I willing to be changed? (not committing to change; just open to it; not closed off)

4. Spiritual Seeking: Is this the life for me? (dating with a purpose; pursuing God / Church)

5. Intentional Discipleship: Am I all in? Will I give myself to this? This is it.  I’m doing it.  I’m giving my life.  I’m all in. The decision may take some time to ripple through one’s life and lifestyle but The personal relationship with Jesus has now begun in earnest.

This last step is what we tend to focus on. This is what we tell stories about, but we can’t forget the entirety of the process that led up to it. It is indeed the fruit of a series of ever-deeper choices and commitments: trust, curiosity, openness, seeking/pursuing, following/discipleship.

We have to really try hard to imagine where the non-believer or non-Catholic is coming from. These questions may seem simple to us, trusting God or the Church for example, but to the person you run into randomly at a store who was not raised in a Catholic family or go to a Catholic school, it can be a real test and cause of concern to trust.

The work of sharing Christ with others is really something that is done best through love and not through facts.  Sometimes people need facts.  Sometimes they need examples.  Every time and at all times they need to be loved.  That is one thing that we can always be confident of. One man’s testimony in the book shows this perfectly: “I am not a Christian because it ‘makes sense’ or because someone sat down and diagrammed it for me.  I am a Christian because I have been loved deeply and unconditionally by Christians.  Some of them … troubled me with hard questions.  But all of them loved me when I did not love them… Reason is a wonderful tool, but it is a weak force for deep change in human beings.  Faith, hope, and love are not tools; they are virtues, powerful and exceedingly difficult to embody, and much more efficacious than reason for changing lives.”

Jesus wants you to follow Him. To give him everything.  If you have never really dropped your nets and let him transform your life, do so.  But then, Jesus wants more.  He wants you to help others to know him, to be fishers of men.  This is what you are meant to be by baptism.  Become what you are. Take the next step.

John the Baptist and Us

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This year of readings will overall have a greater focus on the Gospel of Matthew, but today we hear from John’s Gospel about the person and role of John the Baptist.  In this Gospel, we hear John the Baptist stressing the divinity of Christ Jesus, his cousin, who he refers to as one “I did not know” – using that word “know” in a different sense from what we normally mean.  Earlier in John’s prologue which is read on the Mass during Christmas Day, it speaks of the Word made flesh using these words in verse ten: He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. This sense that God is something totally other, something the world cannot control or get a full grasp on, is what John is referring to.  Obviously they were cousins, they knew each other, even though John the Baptist might not have seen Jesus for many years if we are right in thinking he lived by the Jordan river with the Essene community and eventually lived as a sort of hermit-monk before his preaching of repentance.

John’s testimony is important.  He had a strong following of people.  They wanted him to be the Messiah.  He could have easily let all that go to his head.  However, he was faithful to his vocation, to what God had revealed to him: ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God. This is a beautiful witness. BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD.  This phrase is packed full of meaning for the Jewish people, who twice a day offered sacrifice of a lamb in the temple, and every year at Passover the same offering was required of every single family.  In fact, they might not have ever understood it at the time.  Why would God need a lamb?  What does he have to offer sacrifice for?  And why would God offer sacrifice to Himself?

John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him.  Indeed this is how it is with all of us.  Jesus comes towards us and seeks us out.  As He pursues us, John the Baptist tells us: This is the Lamb of God.

To his disciples who have followed his message of repentance, John the Baptist now points the way forward and offers the possibility of learning more about Jesus.  They must discover Him, must ponder the mystery of who this Lamb of God is.  They must follow him.  “He must increase; I must decrease.”

We find ourselves in two places in today’s Gospel.  First, we are like John’s disciples.  We must submit ourselves to following Jesus wherever He goes, and this begins with confession of our sins – the Lamb of God is here to take away the sins of the world.

But secondly, we see ourselves in John the Baptist.  The role of all the baptized is to point to Christ Jesus, to point the way forward for others toward the one who must increase in their lives, the one who can take away their sins.  They must follow him.

Let us pray for the grace to be followers of Jesus, but also to never be only followers.  Let us pray to be messengers who prepare others to draw close to Christ, who is always seeking them.  May our heart burn with the heart of the lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, who seeks to save what was lost.

Baptism - Identity

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Many stories, whether movies or books, are focused on the question of identity: Who am I?  The answer should be God’s beloved. His adopted son or daughter.

The source of your value should come from your Baptism.  Your identity is found in Christ.  Colossians 3: You are hidden in Christ. When Christ, your life, appears, then you will appear with him in glory. Not in what you do – a common mistake in American culture that values everything by $, by output and how it fits into the economic realm.

When you believe a lie, you empower the liar.  You give them power over your life.  That lie affects the way you live.

I’m a jock.  I’m a comedian. I’m a nice-guy. I’m reliable. I’m a hard worker. I’m a family man. I’m loyal.  I’m smart. I’m caring. I’m productive. I’m successful. I’m talented. I’m special. I’m irreplaceable. I’m blah blah blah.  And to flip it on its head there are other lies that can be sown in our hearts, especially when we find that we don’t measure up: I’m a mess. I’m broken. I’m damaged goods. I can’t love. I’m not worthy of God. I don’t deserve friends. I always mess things up. I’ll never get it straight.

All of these can be ways for the lies of identity to take root in something other than God.  And if those lies grow, you live differently, and your life and those you touch will be worse off, perhaps drastically worse for those lies.

Our identity does not come from what we do, but from who we are as created in God’s image and likeness, and above all recreated through Baptism.  Our identity is from who God says we are, not what the world says about us.

Christ emptied himself into the world in its entirety, in order that the world might be reconciled with the Father… Christ entered into every aspect of being human, with its temptations, its fears, its joys and aspirations, even its sin (without of course sinning himself), in order that all of humanity, every aspect of us, might be liberated from slavery to sin, to those lies that we have given power over us, and be reconciled into full communion with God.  To be brought into God’s family. (Heart of the World, Center of the Church, p. 312).

This is what the fathers of the church (early bishops and other preachers) called a “Mirabile commercium”: wondrous exchange.

In Jesus, God wants to strike a deal with us.  He basically is saying to us: You give me all of yourself, and I’ll give you all of myself.

Jesus Christ enters us, so that we might enter into Christ. (ibid)

What’s the catch?  We have to be all in.  We have to hand it all over.  We will receive it back, but in a new way.  It won’t be the same after we hand it all over to Jesus, because it will actually be better.  It will in fact be free of all the things that actually sucked life from us.  This is what it means to give your entire self to Jesus so that he gives His entire self to you.

And this great trade begins in baptism, and its fullness is made present here in the Eucharist, for this is indeed the future within the present, heaven breaking into our time.  Pope Benedict: The divine Child whom we adore in the crib is the Emmanuel, God-with-us, who is really present in the sacrament of the Altar. The wonderful exchange, the "mirabile commercium", that takes place in Bethlehem between God and humanity becomes constantly present in the sacrament of the Eucharist, which for this reason is the source of the Church's life and holiness. (Pope B. XVI. Address to Roman Curia 2004-12-21).

St. Paul tells us: “Christ became poor though he was rich, so that by his poverty we might become rich.” Let us live the beauty of this identity that we have in our Baptism by giving ourselves anew to our Eucharistic Lord, so that we may receive His fullness.

“Reading the signs” in our life is what makes it an adventure.

Audio - 11:30am Click Here



“Reading the signs” in our life is what makes it an adventure.
Life is meant to be an adventure.  A journey toward something.  I many ways, it is a “coming home.”
If we do not spend some attention on our life, then we will miss God speaking to us.
We need time to process life, to wonder at beauty, and to see the signs that God is trying to send us in our life.  Solitude is almost gone.  We never get a chance to turn on our own brains because we are too busy taking in information (videos, news, advertisements, radio, or the task at hand).  Our “free time” isn’t “free” from all this input, and this is a dangerous thing, because Silence is a key way to hear God’s voice. Unfortunately our world has been saturated by “Noise.”  C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters on “noise”.
The “Noise” that we encounter today is not always audible, but it has also taken the shape of constant advertising, and numerous images and media vying for our attention.
We need to set boundaries and be intentional about how we live, so that we can see God’s hand at work in our lives.  We need time to pray.  We also need other periods of time to think about what just happened, about what God might be trying to tell us.