Holy Family!

Audio: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx8IQkJZZ39KR1ExSHdQTlNqclBGNVpyRlctQUhqemVzWV9N

How many of you feel like your families have a problem or two, a little messiness, or "some skeletons in the closet" we might say?  Well, welcome to the club.

As we celebrate the Holy family, we may find it difficult to see ourselves in the people of Mary and Joseph when they are sitting there so nicely in that manger scene.  But if we look more closely at the story, we will see that things aren't as cookie cutter perfect as we make it out to be.  First off, don't forget what that manger would have really looked like: a cave with a little roof on top full of smelly animals and hay and dirt and who knows what else.  And in today's world we have the same problems, sort of.  I was just at home for Christmas day and my mom and dad still crack me up.  They spent about 30 years straight raising kids in the home, all 8 kids for about 4 years, and now they are actually getting used to having a clean house.  So when we all come home for Christmas and fill the house will all this clutter (and more dishes in a couple days than they use in a week!) it gets them a little uneasy.  But that messiness was present in the first Holy Family.  So holiness isn't about being sanitized and unrealistic, but it is about being radically devoted to Christ Jesus and being truly human.

One Christmas about six years ago, I asked my sister for an icon of the Holy Family.  In this simple picture, we see three aspects of how to be a Holy Family.

First, Joseph is clearly a protector.  He wraps Mary and Jesus and sort of acts as a safe support between them and the world.  Fathers need to do this with the same strength and tenderness that Joseph shows here.  Every family is a precious gift, and needs to be safeguarded in order to flourish, just like my baby nephew needs to be protected before he grows to full strength.

In Mary, we see Jesus is presented to the world, not kept for herself.  While we cherish and protect the gift of our faith and of our family, we do not do it for ourselves.  The family, just like our faith, is not for ourselves, but to share with others.  We don't keep the good of our families for ourselves.

Thirdly, in Christ, we see the center and the source of the family's blessings.  In the faithfulness and love of God, we find our blessing (symbolized in the gesture of Christ).  In Jesus alone will we find our happiness and be strengthened to heal others with his love.

Another important lesson from today's Gospel is hidden in the words at the end: he went an was obedient to them.  We don't hear anything about Christ's life for the next 18 years.  The point that I see here is this: Ordinariness is underrated.  Although it is not explained in the Gospel, it is absolutely important.  Christ lives an ordinary family life for 30 years before his public ministry.  Just like he didn't shy away from the quiet faithful work of family life, with all its blessings and crosses, nor should we.  The hidden life is real life, or nothing is real.   G.K. Chesterton made me laugh out loud with this very true statement about how God chooses our families to teach us lessons of love:
The modern writers who have suggested, in a more or less open manner, that the family is a bad institution, have generally confined themselves to suggesting, with much sharpness, bitterness, or pathos, that perhaps the family is not always very congenial. Of course the family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. It is wholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies and varieties. It is, as the sentimentalists say, like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy.  It is precisely because our uncle Henry does not approve of the theatrical ambitions of our sister Sarah that the family is like humanity. The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind Our youngest brother is mischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world.
If we can love our disagreeable family members, we can love anyone.  If we can't love our families, we cannot love anyone; we can only pretend.
So how do we grow in love?  I would emphasize the little things.  Everyone can say "I love you.  I'm sorry.  I forgive you.  Please.  Thank you."  We can hug and kiss and show kindness in other ways.   We can help each other around the home. The small things that we can do to live with each other and share deeply with each other, make up everything!  There is no deep communion in the big things if we do not have it in the small things.
Secondly, we can stay focused on Jesus like in this icon reminds us.  Keep Him at the center and stay close to Him.  Come to Mass together, where Christ is literally at the center, and keep your eyes on him for a while as a family.  talk about the priest's long homily and what you learned from it, or what you thought about during it when it was boring! (hopefully it was the Holy Spirit saying something much better!)
Small things with great love, centered around Christ Jesus.  This is the path to a holy family!  Jesus, save and heal us!  Mary, bring us to Jesus!  Joseph protect us!

Christmas Homily - not short!! =)

Audio: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx8IQkJZZ39KN2lnNFJOOHA2eUdNeG1DUlhHY3I4VDZXRDA4

After four weeks of putting aside the Gloria during the preparatory season of Advent, we sang today once again the great song of the Angels in heaven, the same words that the Angels themselves sang to the shepherds: “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to people of good will.”  The words of the Gloria reflect what Christmas brings us: a deep and lasting happiness that Pope Francis calls the Joy of the Gospel.  This joy can be summarized in a simple way: that the Lord God has become man, has come to dwell in our world, among us, in our lives.  And why?  God becomes man so that man can become divine, can in a sense become God by participation in his divine life that he freely welcomes us into.  This joy is exactly what so many in our world need, as we look around and see so many hearts have grown cold in life, thinking God to be too far away from them, beyond their reach, or else not interested in their “messy lives” because they feel “unworthy” of God's love.
God knew we needed the gift of Jesus, so that we could know by faith that these cold and dark thoughts are overcome by the warmth and light of His love.  Pope Francis, in declaring the Jubilee Year of Mercy, summarized it perfectly in his opening sentences of that document: “Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy.  Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him.”  We humans are body and soul, and so God reaches to our souls through the physical world as well as to our souls.
The first to adore our Lord after Mary and Joseph are the shepherds, to whom the angels proclaimed the savior.  Is this a coincidence?  Perhaps not, since shepherds were important symbols of God's relationship to His people throughout the Old Testament.  And we can think of the parable of the Good Shepherd that Jesus himself tells, leaving the 99 to bring back the one lost sheep.  This parable was often understood as am explanation of the mystery we see beginning in Bethlehem today: God Himself, departing the 99 (representing the angels in heaven), comes down to earth to put fallen humanity upon His shoulders (by taking up our nature in the Incarnation) and brings it back to the fold of heaven.  In this beautiful image of the joy of this solemnity, three mercies are present:
1. God bridges the gap that we could not overcome.  Heaven is impossible for us without God's help.
2. In becoming man, God reminds us of our great dignity and the goal of our lives.  We were made to be holy, to be saints, and to live forever.  To ignore this is not humility, but sorrow.
3. In showing the depths of His love for us, God helps us to respond back in love.  Love desires to unite itself to the beloved as much as possible, so God becomes man, and even in the Eucharist becomes food, so that he can commune with us, the desire of his heart and mind.
Think of the love a father or mother has for a child who is ill.  The child needs a curing remedy that is beyond his or her reach - no matter how hard one tries - up on the top shelf.  The parent could do two things out of love for that child: simply grab the remedy and pass it to the child, or pick up the child and allow him to share in the joy and communion of obtaining the remedy, even though it all truly comes from the love of the father.  This is exactly what God does in Christ Jesus: He allows us to share in the healing and salvation that we need, even though it is truly all grace, all a pure gift.
In looking at Jesus anew, we are able to rediscover the gift of God's great mercy, and find our joy.  Happiness doesn't come from running around the world looking for satisfaction in these things: the rich, as we see so clearly, are more sad and depressed than anyone.  Joy comes from relationships of love with each other and with our God.  It comes from knowing that God isn't afraid of our messiness, of our “unworthiness.” No, God comes right to us and picks us up so that He can carry us to where we belong, back into the sheepfold of the Church.  I've been blessed to be pastor here at St. John the Baptist for 6 months, and I can proudly say, this is home.  Indeed, the Church is your home, no matter what, no matter how long it's been, no matter how far you've run, no matter how lost you feel.  Look at Jesus, let Him pick you up, heal you, and bring you home.  Amen.

Homily 12-20 4th Advent Sunday (Outline)

Audio from 9am: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx8IQkJZZ39KNXVjV05qQ0NYV3FaM2xXTzJRa19VMDJxdy1v

Perhaps Advent has gone by quicker than we expected. We can still prepare intensely in these last days. **Confessions Monday evening from 7-9pm**

ADVENT & CHRISTMAS IS A YEAR-ROUND EVENT, a daily event (like Easter)

1. Waiting in hope.

2. God's plans not ours, after Mary's example (His are better)

3. His work, not ours.

• “It is not you who have chosen me, but I who have chosen you.”
• “And this is love: not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us.”

How can this be that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

God doesn't wait for us to be ready, and that is a Mercy.

Homily - John the Baptist and Proof of Repentance

Audio:https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx8IQkJZZ39KNl9SNkVIR2FQbzNrUFB0eGJobXNJejRaR3V3

 We have the privilege of having John the Baptist as our patron saint. It is really special to have the words of our patron saint said at every single Mass: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” Who else can say that? Not even Mary's words are part of every single Mass! So yes, we are very blessed to have John the Baptist as our patron. And one of the great things about our patron is his humility: John the Baptist quickly responds to suspicions about himself being the Messiah. John states clearly: he is not even worthy to untie the sandal of the one who is to come (meaning not even be a slave of Jesus), because The Messiah is so much above John the Baptist. If you recall, last week I spoke about humility and joy and how the two go together. Today we see them together again: the humility of John the Baptist in the Gospel, and the joy of the prophets Zephaniah and Isaiah, and Saint Paul in the other readings. We also see joy in the “rose” colored vestments I am wearing: the burst of bright color is a visual sign of the fact that we cannot contain our joy because, as Paul says, “the Lord is near.” As I mentioned last week, this joy comes from the humble awareness of the reality of our situation: we are creatures; we have sinned; God loves us too much to let us stay that way; God becomes man to both redeem us and to bind Himself to us forever. In short: we are deeply, deeply loved by the author of all of creation. God desires us. What could be more joyful?

So why do so many people run around the world with gloomy faces? Well, hundreds of reasons that all come down to one reason: sin. If we choose to focus on the pain and hurt of sin and other lesser evils (natural disasters or disease or death itself), then we can easily fall prey to what seems to be a depressing state of humanity. Recall what I said last week: “Sadness is to look at ourselves. Joy is to look at God.” So if we switch the focus, we can find, as John the Baptist did, the source of our joy.

That is exactly what Pope Francis is talking about when he calls us to recommit ourselves to the New Evangelization and discover what he names “The Joy the Gospel” (Evangelii Gaudium). We must witness to the world that we are joyful, that we are transformed by the change of the Good News, even despite its demands, in fact almost because of its demands.

And it does indeed make demands on us. Our patron could not be any clearer in today's words. The people came to John and heard: “repent!” Well, they naturally wanted to know what John the Baptist meant, and he told them: live differently. Live life like this world doesn't matter, but the people here do. Stop using people and loving things. Start loving people and using things. “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance,” John says in verse 8 (which came right before today's section).

So we might ask ourselves: right now, as I prepare for Jesus' coming, what one way can I change my life as evidence of my repentance? Conversion must work on two levels at once: on the interior level, and on the exterior level. We have to work to change our mindset, our way of looking at life – that is where humility comes in. Then, however, we have to put that into concrete actions – which is what John the Baptist and Pope Francis want of us: joyful response. What is my joyful response to my interior change? For Fr. Terry, that means putting aside the activism of a busy-body pastor and finding my center in prayer daily, so I can go about doing pastoral ministry with an awareness of God's will and remember to keep first things first and second things second. Today your patron says, “repent and produce fruit as evidence of it!” and your Pope says “be a joyful missionary.” What change will you make for Jesus?

Clothe ourselves in Humility, Clothe ourselves in the Lord

Today I'd like to look at the connection between humility and joy, both of which are things that Pope Francis has been stressing and living for us (as well as his predecessors).  We shall start with joy:  I read recently that an unnamed Carthusian monk, a religious order devoted to strict silence and almost isolation, spoke this truth about not just his monastic life but about every single one of us: "Sadness is looking at yourself.  Joy is looking at God."  I find that very striking on the readings that we have today.  Baruch speaks to Jerusalem like it is a person, but really is referring to the enslaved Jews of Babylon who have been left desolate and devastated after their city (including God's temple) was destroyed.  God speaks to them about throwing aside their self-centered sadness to accept the joy he wishes to give them.   take off your robe of mourning and misery; put on the splendor of glory from God forever: wrapped in the cloak of justice from God.  This is a good wake up call not only for them but for us all: we find our joy not in ourselves or what we can do, but what God does through us.
Saint Paul speaks of joy today as well: I pray always with joy in my every prayer for all of you.  Where does his joy come from?  I'd say it's from seeing God in his fellow Christians.  In the four sentences we heard from today from Saint Paul, He spoke of God by name six times.  Certainly he was a man whose eyes were fixed on God even as he worked tirelessly in the world to build up the Kingdom.
Finally today we have in the Gospel our patron, Saint John the Baptist, whose life is, according to all four evangelists, the prologue to Jesus' mission.  John the Baptist calls us today to put our eyes on God for what He is going to do, not you or I.  This is our joy: that God has done great things in Jesus.

Humility, comes into play here.  We must remember that truth that it is essentially God's work even if we, like Mary and Joseph, are needed to cooperate alongside the Lord. “Prepare the way of the Lord," as Isaiah also said, means to get ourselves ready for what God wants to do in our lives and respond generously.  We all have hopes for the holidays and for what 2016 will bring; hopes for our children or grandchildren; hopes for so many things.  Yet these hopes cannot be founded on our plans and our hard work.  That is like building a house on sand.  Our true and only hope is in the Lord, our maker and redeemer, the solid rock that cannot be moved.  Humility is precisely in living from that truth.  If we humbly confess our shortcomings and inabilities while we keep our eyes on God and hope in Him, we will find our true joy! And actually we will be most effective in the world.  It is when we think too much of ourselves (pride) or too little of ourselves (false humility) that we fail to let God do great things in us.  Truly "Sadness is looking at yourself.  Joy is looking at God." During Advent, prepare the way of the Lord by practicing daily in your prayer the virtue of humility; that way, you can experience the joy of what God desires to carry out in you. 

Getting our homes (hearts) ready

Audio: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx8IQkJZZ39KVGUyLXJha2pldWl6MThadUtWTUJQUlo1TG1J

This beautiful season of Advent begins with a Gospel reading that sounds like it could have come last week, when we celebrated the kingship of Christ Jesus who will return to establish His kingdom at the end of time.  In fact, this reading was the last Gospel the church reads every year, the last Saturday of the last week of Ordinary Time, this year November 28th.  The reason this is read again during the Year C cycle of readings which we begin today, focusing on Luke's Gospel, is to highlight that in the Season of Advent we prepare ourselves for two comings at once.  In a seamless tying of the mysteries of our faith, the Church weaves together Christ's final coming into his first coming as man, the Incarnation, that we will celebrate in just under 4 weeks.
During Advent, we do lots of things to prepare for Christmas: putting up lights, getting out decorations, buying and wrapping gifts, writing cards, preparing and attending celebrations, perhaps caroling as my family would join in with other parishioners.  All of these could be very good things, but they could also become distractions if we do not spend time every day preparing for the true reason of Christmas Day, the coming of the Lord Jesus as a child-savior, as well as His coming at the end of time or the end of our time, whichever comes first.
This is no ordinary visitor.  If your family & friends are like mine, then perhaps you know this rule of thumb: the more close you are and the more comfortable people are with you, the less effort will probably go into making things special and perfect for you.  Not once have I ever gone home to find a bedroom with new paint, freshly vacuumed carpet, immaculate bedding and a mint and bottle of water on the nightstand.  Nor do I expect my family to do that for me.  I would feel weird if the red carpet came out for me or any of my siblings - maybe even angry!  But when it is someone else, someone special: we do our best to make the home nice.  If the governor, or the bishop, or a movie star, or even just a neighbor were coming over to your house, you would do what you could to make the house presentable, perhaps even going to great lengths of work to make it as nice as possible.  Well, Jesus is more important than all of those visitors.  He is God, and like Zacchaeus, he wants to come into your homes and into your lives.  So, during Advent, what are you going to do to get ready for Christmas?
I like to think of the image of manger, the creche, the nativity scene, or whatever you want to call.  Think of Mary and Joseph and what they had to do to get ready for Jesus.  What are you going to do to get your hearts ready for Him?  Mary and Joseph would have gotten all the messes out of the stable as much as possible.  Animals are not clean and that would have taken some serious effort.  We also have to clean out the mess of our sins: by placing ourselves before the Lord's Mercy in the sacrament of Confession.  I would encourage coming to Confession: whenever there is a morning Mass, you can come to confession from 7-7:30am.  Saturdays have confessions as well.  Also, as I mentioned in the bulletin, come to the Divine Mercy play titled Faustina.  I will be hearing Confessions afterwards with many other priests.  You can enjoy a beautiful drama that deeply fosters your faith, and as a bonus, go to Confession to a random priest you will never see again!  If your lucky, he may even be losing his hearing!
Mary and Joseph also would have filled the stable with what they could have: a warm fire, hay for comfort, clothes for warmth, among other things.  We ourselves prepare for Jesus' coming with the good works we offer toward others: love and kindness in the home and workplace are exactly the gifts that Jesus wants.  Acts of charity to the weak and poor are like the gifts of the wise men.  prayer is the fire of love that the Holy Spirit places within us and like Mary and Joseph, is the the most important thing we can offer Jesus is ourselves and our time and attention: we can pray regularly and look at the face of Our Lord of Love.
Don't let Advent disappear in the chaos of secular activities.  Pray and prepare for Jesus' coming at Christmas and at the end of our days.

Homily - Christ the King of the Universe

Audio: click here

Although it has been a part of our faith from the earliest times that Jesus Christ, who as we say in our creed "sits at the right hand of the father" and "will come to judge the living and the dead," today's Solemnity of Christ as King of the Universe is very new: only 90 years ago did Pius XI establish this feast.

Nor is this solemnity something on the fringe of our faith: in fact, every time we pray the Our Father, we pray that the Kingdom of God will come.  Indeed this should be our prayer every moment of our lives: Lord, Your kingdom come!

But what is the Kingdom of Christ like?  Jesus tells many parables about the Kingdom of God.  He says it is like a treasure buried in a field and a pearl of great price, worth any and every sacrifice it costs us to gain it.  He says it is like the mustard seed that grows from the smallest thing into the greatest.  It is like the yeast that when kneaded into dough makes the whole loaf rise.

In the Preface that I will pray after the gifts are brought up, right before we enter into the Eucharistic Prayer, the Kingdom of Christ is described as "a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace."  If only all kingdoms were of this kind!  In the midst of such tragedy that our world sees, is this not the greatest news we could wish for?

Today Jesus speaks to Pilate about His kingdom with the following words: "My Kingdom is not of this world".  Is this not perhaps the great tragedy and sorrow of human history?  Isn't that precisely the problem of our world, the cause of our woes, and the result of our continued resistance to conversion?  It seems this is something we know too well: His kingdom "is not of this world," this world of selfishness, of pride, of seizing power and abusing power.

And yet, in the darkness of our world, we have seen glimpses of the light: we have seen the saints, we have seen the simple and pure acts of love, within our mother the Church and even at times outside of her.  We see in the hearts of the Christians that the Kingdom of Christ, though it is not of this world, is even so still breaking into this world!  In families that live for Christ, in marriages that witness to his love to the point of dying, in the martyrs who refuse to let the evil of terrorism or bigotry conquer, in the charity and communion in spite of differences, we have seen the Kingdom of Christ break through into our world.  Thank you Lord Jesus, for your Kingdom.  Father, may your kingdom come.  May our hearts be totally yours.  On the throne that all of our hearts bears within, may you sit and reign as a king.  May we throw aside our earthly crowns and take up your crown of thorns, the sign of your merciful love and our need for a savior.  Live, Jesus in our hearts, now and forever.