homily Oct 3

The Catholic church has something to say about every aspect of human living and human freedom, because it has the whole truth about the human person. And today’s topic of marriage is hugely important. Marriage is the foundation of family. Family is the foundation of society. So marriage is the core of society, and as goes marriage, so goes society.

If you misunderstand what the human person is about, you are going to come to the wrong conclusions. Karl Marx thought it was all about class struggle and one group keeping another group down and out, ultimately leading to misunderstandings about many things, even directly attacking the institutions of marriage and family because they overvalue the importance of the collective. DesCartes popularized the perennial lie about the person being the soul trapped in a body and not associated with it, leading to many mistakes about what we can or should be doing with or to our bodies.

If you get the human person wrong, you will get his destiny wrong. If you have the destiny or goal wrong, you will spend your life headed in the wrong direction. This leads to misery, chaos, and dysfunction both now and in the future. If you are on the right road with the truth of the human person guiding you, you will find joy and peace and harmony. The human person, from Adam and Eve until now, is created out of love and for love by God who is love, yet also fallen, prone to selfishness, and fragile. The story of the Gospel and the truths God reveals in Christ allow us to know ourselves and our destiny truly and completely.

So the Church teaches many things about the person, our sexuality, and marriage, that are so essential because they flow from the truth of the human person, and thus when they are put into practice they lead to human flourishing. Some of these truths may not be popular, but truth has never been a matter of majority opinion. Truth is about what conforms to reality. The eye, working properly, receives the light from outside itself and makes a true image of what is beyond it. So too does the mind conform to the truth.

This is precisely what happens in the Gospel today when the Lord Jesus, against the culture of his time, teaches about the truth of the indissolubility of marriage. This teaching, continued in the Church to this day, is once again a point of discord with society.  G.K. Chesterton said “We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong.” Our blind spots are the most dangerous things for us when we are driving, and going through life with all it’s danger and constant choices is a lot like driving, so it would be good to know where those blind spots are. The pains of divorce which our society tries both to deny and to mitigate, are evident especially in those who are younger, and this tragic reality only makes clearer the truth of Christ’s words.

What is great about Church teaching is it knows where to be firm and where to allow for personal choice or preference. It is clear and precise when it should be, such as when Jesus makes it clear what God’s plan for marriage is; and has leeway and openness at other times, not over-reaching those divine rules, such as the Church supporting the separation of couples that cannot live in healthy ways for their good (or that of their children), and also the annulment process which can establish whether a marriage presumed valid was in fact not so due to missing an essential element at the outset in the ceremony and exchange of vows.

But Jesus does not want his disciples to focus purely on this negation of divorce. He wishes to turn their hearts to the truth that is much deeper: the kingdom of God. “Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." Sometimes Jesus’ teachings do not fit with our moods, our way of thinking, or our culture. Chesterton says further: One word that tells us what we do not know outweighs a thousand words that tell us what we do know. And the thing is all the more striking if we not only did not know it but could not believe it. It may seem a paradox to say that the truth teaches us more by the words we reject than by the words we receive. So when we naturally want to reject what the Lord is teaching us, it behooves us all the more to receive it like a child. A child trusts their parents even when they don’t understand, when they don’t see the point, when it appears purely arbitrary or domineering. At those moments they must not fear the lie that their parents want to dominate them and make them suffer; they must trust that their parents love them and want what’s best for them. This is indeed what it means for us to accept the kingdom of God like a child. And as often with children, so too with us: in time, after we do it, the things begin to make sense as they lead to our flourishing.

Whether you are married or not, don’t be afraid of following God’s ways when His will is clear, even and especially when it is hard.

8-22-21 Ephesians 5

 Many go away sad in the Gospel today. And in our world today, we are still seeing this happening. Many go away sad for various reasons, some very understandable even if not objectionable.

There is a battle going on in our world about what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be a man. The first is more explicit, as we have for decades dealt with it at the forefront of a cultural rift over the silent holocaust that has swept through our communities since Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. The battle for what it means to be a man is not so explicit in our culture, but is in the ever-present undertones and whispers of how men are portrayed in film and television and novels, and in what we see as expectations or assumptions for how men are going to live in this day and age. Much of this is not very exalted or uplifting, but before we can see the response the church offers to these world-views, we must outline briefly the women’s movement.

Feminism – had something right in it, but also got muddled with lots of evil stuff. Book: Subverted by Sue Ellen Browder describes her story as summarized in the subtitle, “How I helped the Sexual Revolution Hijack the Women’s Movement” (I meaning her, not Fr. Terry - I wasn’t around to do so at the time).

They saw something right: that men and women have equal dignity and it isn’t being lived out well in the social norms of the day, especially voting, workplace, and civic life. But they also eventually lost the other side of the truth, that men and women are not the same but are rather distinct, different, and complementary. Equal in dignity, but not the same, not identical, rather complementary.

Ephesians 5 – Saint Paul lays out a beautiful exposition of the relationship between husbands and wives. Mind you, he is not talking about how men treat women in public life, but rather within the context of marriage, although it has consequences for all human interaction. And St. Paul ties this sacrament to the most common theme in the bible and the most important mystery of our existence: that God wishes to “marry” us; that he “espouses” Himself to us as His bride in Christ Jesus the bridegroom.

In his masterpiece letter to women titled Mulieris Dignitatem, (“on the dignity of women”) Pope John Paul II describes well how husbands and wives are called to live this mystery…:

as real women and men. It [St. Paul’s letter] reminds them of the "ethos" of spousal love which goes back to the divine institution of marriage from the "beginning". Corresponding to the truth of this institution is the exhortation: "Husbands, love your wives", love them because of that special and unique bond whereby in marriage a man and a woman become "one flesh" (Gen 2:24; Eph 5:31). In this love there is a fundamental affirmation of the woman as a person. This affirmation makes it possible for the female personality to develop fully and be enriched. This is precisely the way Christ acts as the bridegroom of the Church; he desires that she be "in splendour, without spot or wrinkle" (Eph 5:27). One can say that this fully captures the whole "style" of Christ in dealing with women. Husbands should make their own the elements of this style in regard to their wives; analogously, all men should do the same in regard to women in every situation. In this way both men and women bring about "the sincere gift of self".

The author of the Letter to the Ephesians sees no contradiction between an exhortation formulated in this way and the words: "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife" (5:22-23). The author knows that this way of speaking, so profoundly rooted in the customs and religious tradition of the time, is to be understood and carried out in a new way: as a "mutual subjection out of reverence for Christ" (cf. Eph 5:21). This is especially true because the husband is called the "head" of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church; he is so in order to give "himself up for her" (Eph 5:25), and giving himself up for her means giving up even his own life. However, whereas in the relationship between Christ and the Church the subjection is only on the part of the Church, in the relationship between husband and wife the "subjection" is not one-sided but mutual.

That is the dignity that women deserve, that the movement of the 70s and beyond was seeking to bring about, albeit with mistaken conclusions or methods.

Then John Paul II transitions in his letter immediately to the Eucharist, the mystery we hear Jesus speak about so firmly in the Gospel today as we once again hear from John 6.

The "sincere gift" contained in the Sacrifice of the Cross gives definitive prominence to the spousal meaning of God's love. As the Redeemer of the world, Christ is the Bridegroom of the Church. The Eucharist is the Sacrament of our Redemption. It is the Sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride. The Eucharist makes present and realizes anew in a sacramental manner the redemptive act of Christ, who "creates" the Church, his body. Christ is united with this "body" as the bridegroom with the bride. All this is contained in the Letter to the Ephesians. The perennial "unity of the two" that exists between man and woman from the very "beginning" is introduced into this "great mystery" of Christ and of the Church.

Because, as St. JPII described, the Eucharist and marriage are deeply interconnected, we are trying this fall to emphasize the importance of the Eucharist through a couple initiatives. There’s an adult bible study on the Mass. And we are also hoping to have an exhibit on Eucharistic miracles and even perhaps a speaker on the same topic. When we lessen the dignity of the Eucharist and what it means, we also lessen the dignity of the marriage. And vice-versa, if we denigrate marriage, the mystery of the Eucharist loses its power. “If human love, even in its purest and most exalted form, is so broken and imperfect, then how can God’s love for me truly last?”

Mutual submission brothers and sisters, in full respect for the dignity of women and men as created equal but different – that lived reality is the witness the world needs to see if the battle for the meaning of the human person is going to be won. Truth and goodness have a power that is greater than any crafty lies or abuses of power could ever muster. But if we don’t live it, many will go away sad. Let us ask, in this year of St. Joseph, for His intercession on all husbands to live well their marriage promises. And for Blessed Mary to remind women of their true dignity as daughters of God. So that we may be Holy Families that are shelters for Christ Jesus to dwell anew.

19th Sun. in Ord. Time - Eat to compete

The Christian life is a long and tough road. We all need food for the journey.

My brother is a good runner. He ran in high school and college, and is still very good at mid to long distances, including qualifying for the Boston marathon. But I'd like to tell you about the time when the dream of every little brother actually became a reality: the time when the little brother got the upper hand and outmatched his big brother. Once in my life I beat my brother, and it was glorious.

It was a half marathon in southern Ohio when we were in seminary. I trained enough to be ready, but my brother was in the zone and was looking to complete an impressive race at a crazy pace. I remember seeing him loop back nearly a mile ahead of me at one point. I continued to work hard at my pace and around mile 11 I was shocked to see my brother lying in the grass... "Are you okay?" He says he's fine but just couldn't keep up that pace and decided to rest for a bit since he wasn't going to make his goal time. So, since I knew he was alright, what is the next thing a compassionate brother would do? I say "Okay, great, see you at the finish line!" and I keep running. He wasn't mad; he knew I was trying for a goal as well.

But the reason his body hit the wall and made him stop was that his breakfast was a granola bar and a banana. And then he hoped to run 13.1 miles. Bad idea. That is where my one super-power comes into play, I can eat and run and not get too bothered by it. So, I won that race because I had the fuel I needed.

Because our bodies need to eat to compete. When I was in HS playing soccer or basketball every day, I needed a lot of food to keep working. I couldn't have survived the season if I was malnourished all the time.

Souls also need to eat to compete. We are all born into a spiritual battle, and you can't take a neutral side in the middle of a battlefield. You are either on one side or the other, and you will find it a real battle as soon as you begin.

Or to use the analogy from the first reading today, the Christian life is a long journey, like a half-marathon, and you aren't going to get to the end if you aren't being fed. That Christian journey is really outlined well in today's second reading: All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love.

You are what you eat, in a quite literal sense, physically. The same goes for your soul: so what are you filling your spirit with? If it isn't the Lord Jesus, day after day in prayer and week after week in the Eucharist, you may not finish the race. We all need food for our spiritual journey.

18TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (last week)

 

1.     God is not a vending machine. * really hard in our culture of instant response

2.     God never says a flat “no” to us.

a.     “Yes. Here you go!” For example – Jesus help me to love this person. Holy Spirit, give me the right words to say. Or even the classic Catholic prayer, St. Anthony, ask God to let me to find my car keys ‘cuz it seems that He’s not hearing me right now!

b.     “Not right now.” For example – God, please let me know my vocation. God, make me a saint. Lord, please fix this serious problem I’m going through. (a lot of the times that happens gradually or seems to get nowhere before something moves)

c.      “I’ve got something better for you.” For example – God, make me an NBA all-star, or a genius, or super popular. Or even asking for the wrong things, such as God let me finally get revenge on that person so they look bad or things go bad for them. (not a good prayer at all!)

3.     Jesus tells us to pray with boldness. To tell God what we want, like children. But just like children, we will very often ask for the wrong things. We don’t fully know what we want/need. Or even when we do, we have our fallen human nature that can so often get in the way and steer us down the wrong path. But still, God wants us to talk to Him with all of it.

4.     In the Gospel, God gives us the greatest thing we could ever ask for. No matter what you pray for, God is giving you the best thing you could ever ask for. The Eucharist, which Jesus stresses with the clarity and hardness of a diamond, is the Light of the Christian life. “I Am the Bread of Life” Jesus says. These are words to build a life upon. They are spiritual gold. And wait, what do you know, look at that, They are printed in gold above the tabernacle! What a coincidence that they got painted gold just in time for this reading! Or not. Honestly it was the easiest decision I’ve made in a while after I prayed with this Gospel. Now actually painting them, not so easy, but worth it. It’s been a while since I use a paintbrush, like… 5^th grade or something...! Luckily any real artists don’t have to get too close to be grossed out by what they would find.

5.     Back to the point of those words. The Eucharist is the ultimate response to our prayers, the greatest moment in history where when all of humanity is crying out for so many things, some petty, some more important, some temporary, some eternal, God says to us:  “I’ve got something better for you.”  I don’t want to give you something, I want you give you someone. And not someone else, but myself. I created you for me. Your heart and soul, your entire existence hungers for this food. Nothing else will satisfy. This is why you exist: to be one with me. This is the beginning of heaven. This is everything.

Jesus, thank you for the gift of gifts. As we continue to cry out to you with the boldness of children, help us to build our lives around this one thing that truly satisfies.

Eucharist - Are you being fed?

 

DIDACHE – Alexandria, Egypt  ~125AD - On the Lord’s day, when you have been gathered together, break bread and celebrate the Eucharist. But first confess your sins so that your offering may be pure. If anyone has a quarrel with his neighbor, that person should not join you until he has been reconciled. Your sacrifice must not be defiled. In this regard, the Lord has said: In every place and time offer me a pure sacrifice. I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is great among the nations.

Celebrate the Eucharist as follows: Say over the cup: “we give you thanks, Father, for the holy vine of David, your servant, which you made known to us through Jesus your servant. To you be glory for ever”.  Over the broken bread say: “we give you thanks, Father, for the life and the knowledge which you have revealed to us through Jesus your servant. To you be glory for ever. As this broken bread scattered on the mountains was gathered and became one, so too, may your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom. For glory and power are yours through Jesus Christ for ever.”

ARE YOU BEING FED? One of the main reasons people drift away from the church and/or their faith is that they are spiritually malnourished: they aren’t “being fed.” If you have family or friends who have wandered from the Church, an important part of their distance is that they didn’t have strong ties keeping them alive and healthy in their faith.

Certainly questions, problems, negative experiences, and other specific things can be watershed moments, but they aren’t the whole story. Look at a similar situation: relationships between people. How do relationships weaken? How do relationships get severed? These questions are related, but not the same. Like with others, our faith weakens when we aren’t investing in it and letting it “feed” us, so to speak. If that relationship is not being a benefit to us, helping us grow, filling us with joy and peace, supporting us when we are down, making our joyful times even greater, etc., then we are perhaps going to be tempted to wander away from that relationship.

Andy Dufresne, a Christ-like figure in the famous movie Shawshank Redemption, summarized it well: I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying. So, Are you being fed?

To be spiritually fed by God can come in so many ways. Mass if of course so important, and it is tragic, even if necessary, that so many aren’t attending often for the past year. Certainly every encounter with God in prayer of any form (and there are so many!), reading Scripture, participating in the Sacraments are the most important ways, but I wrote about some others in the bulletin for this week: reading, film, lectures/testimonies. Also retreats, good conversations with spiritual mentors or companions. You need to find ways that work for you. It may take time, but as T of A says: God withholds Himself from no one who perseveres. The crowd today is an example of that. They chased Jesus down, who was in a sense running away from them, but looked on them with pity for their pursuit of Him.

It is important for you to find ways for God to feed your soul – not only for yourself, but for others.

As someone in struggling in their faith, they will be asking the question in their hearts, “why should I stay?” And they may or may not actually say it to you, but they are probably looking at Catholics and asking, “why do they stay? What is keeping them going?”

Your life has to be the answer to that question. But you have to be ready to give an answer as well, to verbalize it. You need to be ready to say why going to Mass is helpful for you. What is it? Do you love the community – worshipping God together and knowing that you are part of something larger than yourself that is ultimately doing good in our world? Or is it the beauty of the liturgy – praying in a way that unites us to the Church over the centuries, collapsing time and space so that we are there with Jesus on Calvary where He offered His life to save us? Or would you say that it is the readings at Mass (or even the homily) that helps you to remember who you are and where you are headed, inspiring and challenging you to something greater? Or is it, above all, the gift of the Lord Jesus in the Eucharist, where you are united to Him in a way that cannot compare with anything else on this earth or in this life?

I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying. If you aren’t pursuing spiritual growth, you are going to be drifting slowly but surely away from God. Let God feed you. Chase him down like the crowd did. He will not let you down if you persevere.

Corpus Christi

 SAINT FRANCIS: “Love is not loved!”

Eucharist - Mass - is the most important thing that we do. All our life is meant to be engaged in what happens at Mass. Everything we do and are should flow from the Mass, and everything we do and are should lead back to the Mass and be something we can offer to God in the Mass. Ultimately we human beings are created to worship God or worship something else. Whatever our lives are centered around is what we worship. May it be LOVE that we in fact love, and nothing less than that.

As we heard in the 1st and 2nd reading today, worship was messy in the old testament: blood everywhere. smelly animal. blood. roasted flesh (grilled meat). Lots going on. Lot of work for us. Nowadays, not so messy. Today’s ordination Mass anointing is the messiest it gets. Sacred Chrism on the palms of the hands of the priests which are meant to “offer sacrifice to God and to bless His people” as the prayer says.

In the Gospel today we see that Jesus prepares the Passover for us. Unlike the OT, now God has done all the work, and we only have to cooperate with it. No longer a bloody sacrifice, but the fulfillment of what it foreshadowed, we have to come, with our full selves, and offer that sacrifice that no one else can: our heart and soul. The priest, in the person of Jesus, does the rest. He takes our gifts, brings them to the father.

St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata - In the cross you see how much Jesus loved you in the past. In the Eucharist you see how much Jesus loves you now.

HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO THAT LOVE?

In Sinu Iesu - visits to the blessed Sacrament.
I want to visit to the blessed sacrament to become once again a part of ordinary catholic life, and instinct of the believing heart, an expression of gratitude in reparation to me who am forsaken and spurned in so many places. Let my priests set the example and the faithful will follow it.
The priest who approaches me and remains with me in the sacrament of my love is not losing his time; he is at the very source of every good thing, and I will bless his priesthood with a wonderful apostolic fruitfulness. This was the secret of so many of my saints.

sign of cross passing a church. short prayer to Jesus: O Sacrament most holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving, be every moment Thine.
Notice this prayer speaks to the Eucharist as a person.

Pentecost - Holy Spirit is the Author!

 We have color-coordinated tape through the church this weekend in honor of Pentecost. This church decoration, which won’t be here next weekend, is required this weekend for the final time. In the next days we will have carpet down and we will be ready to roam free once again, and we can hopefully say farewell to all of the dust for good!

The Holy Spirit is the sanctifier. This is the one who makes us into saints. Thus we can say that the whole work of the Trinity is summarized well in this phrase: The Father sends His Son to give us the Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the goal of God’s work, and the beginning of our journey home. Our mission, which started at Baptism when the Holy Spirit was poured into our hearts, is quite an adventure when we embrace it.
Imagine if you tried to write a book about your own life all by yourself: You the author and you’re the main character. Depending on your abilities it might be bad, might be tolerable, or even quite enjoyable.
But what if the best writer in the world was also your close friend, and that person helped you to write the story? Do you think you would like it better? I imagine you might not only because it has better structure, literary style, and powerful imagery, but perhaps above all because of the fact that many of those ideas were not your own. The fact that you could sit back and admire at how things went in directions you didn’t plan or expect - that appreciation for the beauty of the story of your own life would make it more beautiful, and thus you would like it much more.
The Christian life is precisely that: letting the Holy Spirit, who knows us better than we know ourselves, be the co-author, and indeed primary author, of our stories.
To appreciate this, I ask you to consider finding online and reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s short story: Leaf by Niggle. I don’t want to spoil it, but I will simply say that it is one of the most beautiful short stories I have ever heard. I pray you enjoy it.
Don’t be afraid of letting the Holy Spirit lead and guide your life. He will make you a saint. He will lead you to heaven. He will write a beautiful story.