homily

 Jesus doesn’t look appealing unless we realize that we need Him. The joy of Easter doesn’t mean as much unless we realize the situation we are in.

About a year ago I was worried about my heart. I was experiencing some tightness after exercise but only every once in a while. I had known in the past that I needed to be exercising regularly, but I had wondered if I was doing it right or if I was setting myself up for some kind of tragedy. Ultimately, after a couple stress tests, the doctors said things looked fine, which gave me great joy as I can go back to the wild ride of coffee once again.

But if I never experienced these symptoms and got them checked out, both eight years ago and this past year, then I would never have thought to look into it. It could have meant something very different, and I don’t think I would like the end of that story as much.

Our world sometimes looks over the fact of our weakness and brokenness. While it isn’t good to dwell only on our problems, it also doesn’t help to ignore them or to pass all the blame onto things outside of us.

Saint Peter’s message of the Good News must include the reality of what the people did to Jesus. But we should not think that being born in a different time and place means that we have nothing to regret in our lives and are just peachy-keen with Jesus. Our consciences are always tuned to tell us to do good and avoid evil, even if they are malformed and get some things wrong, and even if we try to rationalize away our culpability.

But getting back to the start of this homily: if we don’t realize we need a savior, then why look to Jesus? If he is just a self-help guru, then we can run to many others for self-fulfillment and self-actualization. There’s all kinds of life¬-coaches out there.

No, the only point of talking about Jesus is because we need a savior, and that means we need to be saved from something. Let’s not fall into the trap of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable with the tax collector, who thinks the only thing he needs to be saved from is this fallen world of messed up people. When you can face something, you can deal with something. We need to face our sinfulness and let Jesus deal with it as he desires so much, like we heard last week on Divine Mercy Sunday.

A popular mentality in our world today is to affirm our entire selves along the lines of “I’m okay, your okay… It’s all good… Nothing wrong here, nothing to see…” whereas the reality is “I’m not okay, and you’re not okay, but that’s okay.” The reason it’s okay is because Jesus chases into our lives as He did in the upper room and brings His mercy and peace. He will help us to heal. We just need to admit our brokenness. He will forgive us. We just need to face our sins and repent.

Jesus doesn’t look appealing unless we realize that we need Him. The joy of Easter doesn’t mean as much unless we realize the situation we are in.

Living in real freedom is available to us. It’s not easy; it’s scary a lot of the time; but it is worth it.

If you haven’t been to Confession in a long time or have been holding back something from the Lord, ask the Holy Spirit for the courage to show your wounds to Jesus, so He can show you His and set you free.

Divine Mercy

 As we conclude the Easter octave today with Divine Mercy Sunday, the message of mercy that was revealed trough St. Faustina about 100 yrs ago in a very particular way, the image she had painted to her approval (of how Jesus appeared to her) is a reminder to us of this day.

We continue our Easter joy, unfolding the mystery of the Lord Jesus’ resurrection and what it means for all of us.

One thing it shows us is how different God is from all of us. If one of us were in Jesus shoes, we may come back very different than Jesus did; unjustly condemned, horrifically murdered and shamed, betrayed by your disciples. You may come back a little angry. We all can sense the temptation in our hearts to return with vengeance and wrath. But what does Jesus do? He returns with mercy, to put an end to evil, pain, suffering, scapegoating, and sin. To put an end to death.

This is the g greatest message of mercy that we can receive. We are also called to live this as well. We are called to put this into practice.

Jesus speaking to the apostles to day says “receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven. Whose sins are retained are retained.” This is certainly first and foremost a sign of the sacrament of Confession where through the priest we can receive the forgiveness and mercy of the Lord Jesus through the priest. I the words of absolution, we know it is the Lord Jesus saying “your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more.” But also, as Jesus gives that spirit not only to the apostles but to every single one of us through baptism and Confirmation, we are called as well in some way to participate in that ministry of mercy, of reconciliation, of restoring the unity of the human family under Christ the king.

In the 1st reading we see the early christians doing this and living this in a very concrete way. They were “of one heart and mind” the reading tells us, and they had “everything in common” to take care of each other, to support and lift up each other. In order to be of one heart and mind among sinful people, that means being people of mercy and forgiveness.

So we must do the same in our world today. How do we live this out? Jesus never says forgiveness is easy, but he does say we must do it. When we pray the Our Father, that is one of the most important things that we pray for: that we may be forgiven in the same way that we forgive others. It is a challenge and a great demand that is renewed every single time we come to Mass and pray the Our Father, and receive the Lord Jesus i the Eucharist and profess to be like Him, and promise to be worthy vessels of His body blood soul and divinity.

If we think that forgiveness is something that we must do solely on our own, we will certainly fall short. But if we rely on the Lord, on His Holy Spirit to help us, then we will be able to be people that, along with Jesus, put an end to the cycle of pain, of hurting others with sin and evil.

For us to be able to do so, we must follow the example of the apostles today. They were terrified but transformed by Jesus. The only reason they are able to witness to the world is because they have met Jesus, alive and full of mercy.

Today, Thomas, the week after Easter, meets Christ. Jesus invites him to put his fingers in the nail marks and hand into His side. We will find, brothers and sister, the healing that we need to strengthen us to forgive and reconcile, through the blood of Jesus and encountering His wounds. Imagine yourself in Thomas’ shoes, imagine yourself encountering Christ, meeting him alive and still bearing his wounds. Imagine placing your fingers into His nail marks and putting your hand into His side. Remembering not only what happened, but why it happened, and what it means, what came from that for all of us.

Jesus died for us when we were sinners, not when we were perfected by our own powers.

After we encounter the living Jesus, and let His blood wash over us, then we will be ready to forgive, ready to be vessels of Jesus’ mercy in our world, which everyone needs.

We all of us, have someone in our life that we need to forgive. We all have a relationship that needs deeper reconciliation. Think right now what relationship(s) right now in your life needs that, and bring it to the Lord Jesus in this Mass, asking for His merciful healing and strengthening of your own heart, so that you can go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit that He breathes upon, to be an instrument of that mercy in our world today. That transformation of your own heart and in your own actions, is how the world will know that Jesus is very much alive today.

Easter

 At the Easter Vigil last night, the Church celebrates the most joyous and solemn of all celebrations.  At the Easter Vigil we spend over an hour reading from Sacred Scripture, beginning with creation, and the faith of Abraham, and the deliverance from Egypt through the Red Sea, and the words of the prophets that foretell of Jesus the bridegroom, the abundant life he offers in living springs of water, the new covenant He will write on our hearts when He sprinkles clean water upon us. We reflect on all God has done since the beginning, because this is a cosmic event. Today something has happened that transforms everything.
Last November I went on a retreat and watched the sun rise I think every day. It was a thrilling experience. The world seems to completely transform. At first all I could see were the beautiful stars over the desert of Arizona. Then as the anticipation grew, the light became stronger and stronger. But never does it get anywhere close to the power and splendor of the light that shines from that sun when it finally comes over the horizon. It’s power is unmatched, and our eyes cannot even bear to take it in - we must look at it through a veil or shadow, or special sunglasses - lest we go blind. And while the desert was freezing at 6am, it is scorching by noon and beyond. Every day the desert is transformed by the sunrise.

The Easter Vigil liturgy is meant to keep us up late into the night, for sometime before dawn the Lord Jesus rose from the dead. The Incarnate Son of God triumphed over death and sin in the silence and darkness of the early morning. For the Jewish people, a new day begins (theologically) when the sun sets, as we hear repeated over and again in the story of creation: “evening came and morning followed, the first day / second day, / third, etc.” The new day of creation for us Christians is this day, which is a reprise of creation at a higher pitch. Today God’s words “Let there be light,” ring out anew, not simply in the natural light of sunrise or the flames of our candles that burn in this church: but rather in the deeper spiritual light that these lights symbolize.

At the Easter Vigil we continue the tradition we have practice from the earliest centuries of baptizing new adults into the faith. It is only in this cosmic dimension of the liturgy that our baptism takes on its full meaning. It is worth attending to remind us each year of what our Baptism means as we see it lived out so radically in the newly baptized.

In the newly baptized, we witness the truth: our Lord’s Resurrection has transformed our life’s destiny as radically as when the sun rises over a world covered in darkness. Everything changes. Everything takes on a new brilliance in the radiance of that light. The warmth of that sun transforms us.

I’m reading a book that speaks about Things worth dying for. The author, a bishop in his seventies, is contemplating the deepest questions that we humans must face, especially as our mortality becomes a daily companion - something we are all familiar with.
One of the most important messages of the book is what stems from the central events of our faith which we have just celebrated: God thinks you are worth dying for. He is happy to give Himself for you.

Discovering what is truly worth dying for actually determines how we should live: we find in them the things worth living for. Thus our daily lives then take on a direction and a measure, a gauge or a test by which we can decide how to live and what to say “no” to, and what to say “yes” to.

We cannot domesticate Jesus and his gospel. He bursts out of the tomb. The stone and the soldiers cannot hold Him in. “Comfortable Jesus” is not the real Jesus. Along with this fake version of Jesus as something easy to live with and control, we also witness among us the corollary perversion of the Gospel into self-help and private pursuit. Neither of these things are worth dying for.

Holy Thursday

 6-8 March 1941 (Concerning marriage and discovering one’s spouse) Out of the darkness of my life so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. … There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the tease (or foretaste of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.

romance - for it is the bridegroom who pursues the bride and pledges Himself to her forever. glory - for it is the God who is so great that He can accomplish the ultimate victory by apparent defeat. honor - for no honor is greater than to be the precious spouse of the greatest king. fidelity - for in this sacrament Jesus’ promise is fulfilled that He “will be with us, even until the end of the ages.” true way of our loves upon earth - for any real human love is measured not by feeling nor by results, but by whether it matches the gift of Christ and His Cross. death - because love on earth, even God’s love revealed in Jesus, means dying.

The essence of fallen world is that the best cannot be attained by free enjoyment, or by way is called ‘self-realization’ (usually a nice name for self-indulgence, wholly inimical to the realization of other selves); but by denial, by suffering.

The Eucharist makes demands on us. The Latin word MANDATUM (“Maundy” Thursday) means commandment, for by a “new commandment” the Lord Jesus demands something big from us: specifically, to foretaste death, which is what love means in this life. The new commandment is simple to say but hard to live: love one another as Jesus loved us, and in fact as He still loves us, for His cross is not simply a thing of the past for us, but breaks into our lives through the Eucharist. God who is beyond all time brought all of our lives, our past present and future, all into the present of the person of Jesus Christ. His entire life is present to all of us, always.

Thus the mandate from the Eucharist comes directly from the lips of Jesus at every Mass: love one another.

When he gives this commandment, Jesus is speaking specifically to the twelve, and thus especially to the priests whose ordination finds its source in the words “Do this in memory of me," and to His disciples. They must love each other with that profound love. But beyond that even, we do not close the circle of Christ’s love within ourselves. We follow the example of Him who loved sinners, who welcomed anyone who would “repent and believe in the Gospel” and “take up their cross and follow after Him.” Furthermore, we cannot ignore His charge to “love our enemies” and “pray for those who persecute us.” Thus we wash the feet of all, but even more so for the family of faith, just as the early Christians were known to others by the way they loved one another.

Perhaps the two most important ways of living the Christian life are found in these two questions: Do I give my entire self to Jesus in the Eucharist, laying down my life for Him? and Do I give my entire self to Jesus in the poor and broken, the “least of these” that He identifies Himself with? If I lose one of these, then I lose the power of the Gospel, which only transforms the world by the deep relationship of love that we have with Jesus in the Sacraments, represented by these holy oils and above all in the Eucharist.

This is why the washing of feet so important to us: Because it is the best symbol of “the greatest thing to love upon earth: the Blessed Sacrament.” The Eucharist, being the true presence of Our Lord, makes present to us His entire Paschal Mystery that we begin to embark upon with this evening when He is betrayed and arrested. In the Eucharist we have Jesus dying for us as the sacrificial lamb, and at the same time we meet Jesus arisen, revealing the wounds in his hands, his feet, and his side that have conquered death and open eternal life to us. This is why we give our entire lives to the gift of gifts, God Himself truly present.

The washing of feet helps us to remember what Jesus did for us: that one so great would stoop to do something so lowly, to enter into our mess and purify it, to make clean the filth that covers us from our sins. May every Christian cherish the memory of this ritual that helps us to see the full beauty of our greatest love. May all of us, priests and faithful, who have all been configured to Christ by baptism, live from our true identity seen in this Mass, and fulfill the new commandment that Jesus reveals in His Paschal Mystery.

Homily - Palm Sunday

I want to keep it slightly shorter today. Two songs of my growing up days listening to Christian music for your reflection today. Just a little more meditation that fit well alongside the Passion narrative we just heard. If you can do it without falling asleep, it may benefit to close your eyes.

 1. Memoirs of St. Peter - we all ran away - denied him - “surely not I Lord”

  - Everyman (Rich Mullins)

2. A man at the end of his days may look back at all the pains, sorrows, the joys and the blessings, and say "I wouldn't change anything. I would have it just as God gave it." In the same way, God, who is outside of time and sees all of it at a glance, chose this death before He said Let there be Light. He chose this for you before you were born, knowing you would need it, knowing I would need it, knowing everything, and still loving you perfectly. You have never been, and never will be, unloved.

  - never been unloved (MWS)
 

Rich Mullins - Everyman
"Well he was out on a limb he was sitting in the shade
He'd led a hundred men and lived alone among the graves
He had a thousand questions and a million heartaches
He was everyman he was everyman
She was caught in a sin she knew the well was so deep
She threw her last pennies in and poured oil upon His feet
She touched the garment's hem she had only been asleep
She was everyman she was everyman
And the Lord looks down and He understands
The world draws up it's lines
But at the foot of the cross there's room for everyone
And love that is not blind
It can look at who we are and still see beyond
The differences we find
But with thorns in His brow and a spear in His side
Nails in His hand He died for you and I
For you and I and everyman
He had nets to mend he gave his fish and his loaves
He had to wash his hands and ran away without his robe
He couldn't understand until on Damascus road
He was everyman he was everyman
She brought the world a lamb and took warning from a dream
From an empty tomb she ran for her children she would weep
In her womb a baby danced she'd been waiting for a King
She was everyman she was everyman
And the Lord looks down and He understands
The world draws up it's lines
But at the foot of the cross there's room for everyone
And love that is not blind
It can look at who we are and still see beyond
The differences we find
But with thorns in His brow and a spear in His side
Nails in His hand He died for you and I
For you and I and everyman

Michael W Smith - Never Been Unloved
I have been unfaithful
I have been unworthy
I have been unrighteous
And I have been unmerciful
I have been unreachable
I have been unteachable
I have been unwilling
And I have been undesirable
Sometimes, I have been unwise
I've been undone by what I'm unsure of
But because of you, and all that you went through
I know that I have never been unloved
I have been unbroken
I have been unmended
I have been uneasy
And I've been unapproachable
I've been unemotional
I've been unexceptional
I've been undecided
And I have been unqualified
Unaware, I have been unfair
I've been unfit for blessings from above
But even I can see the sacrifice you made for me
To show that I have never been unloved

homily 3-21-2021

 

Jeremiah: “I will place my law within them and write it on their hearts.”

Ps. 51 – “A clean heart create for me, O God.”

Hebrews: “He learned obedience through what he suffered.”

Jesus (Jn. 12): “Father, glorify thy name!” (Lord, may You be glorified by my life. May every part of my life – my words, my actions, my thoughts, my plans, my choices, my dreams and goals, my relationships, my free time, my work, my play – may all of it give glory to you.)

2563 The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.

2562 Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

1431 Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and resolution to change one's life, with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of his grace. This conversion of heart is accompanied by a salutary pain and sadness which the Fathers called animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (repentance of heart).24

1432 The human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart. Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God who makes our hearts return to him: "Restore us to thyself, O LORD, that we may be restored!" God gives us the strength to begin anew. It is in discovering the greatness of God's love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him. The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced:

Let us fix our eyes on Christ's blood and understand how precious it is to his Father, for, poured out for our salvation it has brought to the whole world the grace of repentance.

Jesus says everything from the Cross and from the tabernacle. He still speaks to you, personally. Do you hear Him? You must sit in the classroom of silence.

Father glorify your name!

Ask God what He wants to do for your heart this Holy Week. Ask Him every day this week.

He wants to create a clean heart, to write His law there, so you can say “glorify your name.”

homily - 3/7

 
In the first reading we heard the Ten Commandments, which are so important for us. It's a reminder of the fact that our Christian faith grew out of the Jewish faith and they are not in contradiction, at least not in the deepest sense.  There are certainly some things that are new and there are some changes (we do get to eat pork), but at the core they are still the same.  We do well to look at these 10 Commandments during the season of Lent.
GK Chesterton used a very helpful image describing the commandments and the laws of the church as a fence around a beautiful amazing playground full of life and happiness - that is the life of the church,  the life of faith. But on the other side of that fence is a dangerous precipice, a cliff that leads to perdition to destruction. The point is that the Commandments are not meant to restrict us but to protect us from destruction. God is giving us the law in the OT for a reason that remains until heaven, and so its fulfillment in Christ doesn't abrogate the past laws and throw them out. The Church gives us all of these and we have them so that we can play on the playground of this beautiful life that we have in this world.
They're always trying to give us joy by pointing out for us the potholes of human living.  If you're driving thesis time of year without watching the road, your car will be messed up pretty bad. If you live life without paying attention to those potential spiritual potholes, your soul will be really beat up.
The ten commandments are often rejections (but not all of them). These rejections of various things are mysteriously already written in our hearts and speak to us in our consciences (we know to do good avoid evil). These rejections are a way that God is trying to invite us to a deeper yes. As Jesus cleanses the temple today, the most scandalous action and probably the thing that most caused so many of the Jewish religious leaders to seek his crucifixion, b/c no because He is saying no no no but rather because there's a yes - yes first and foremost, as He says this is my fathers house. This is the deeper yes. The relationship. That is why he does what he does today.

There is always a deeper yes behind the no's.
This can be done with all the teachings of the Church.
So when we examine all the laws about life saying no to euthanasia and abortion, the laws about chastity saying no to contraception and other issues, even why we say no to meat on Fridays of Lent (except in a couple weeks for St. Joseph’s solemnity!) and see the deeper yes then we will
mission statement (Jn 10:10) abundant life.
Not “90% of life where we miss a lot of good stuff.”
The only things He denies of us are the things that destroy us. He wants you keep you on this side of the cliff. And he will fight for you as he did today.
If we can remember that, then Commandments are not burdensome, but lessons, gifts - because GOd is setting us free, or keeping us free. Abundant Life.

Jesus describes His body as a temple today. His is the new place of worship. In Him we meet the Father.
1. We are also a temple.
2. We are the body of Christ, united with each other in Jesus.
When we sin, we affect both our personal temple, and the corporate temple of Jesus.

Every sin has ripple effects we heard about in the first reading, where God says sins will affect generations. Our sins do not only mess up ourselves, but all of us.

Confession is given for us o heal both of these. In Him we are healed in our hearts and souls to we can restore what we have list.
But also the whole body of Christ is cleansed in the sacrament of Jesus.
Reminds me of seminary, cleaning bathrooms with T$.
We keep our parts clean and the whole space is clean. Everyone had a responsibility. 1 - their own room. 2 - the whole building.
Confession is one way we do that work of cleansing here and now, and not
Let us ask the Lord for the grace to see the commandments not as burdens, but as a yes to the abundant life that is offered us.
May Jesus come into our hearts and purify them more and more so that we can truly be a house of prayer that gives worship to God alone.