Homily for Ordinary Time 12 - June 25, 2017

Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

June 25, 2017

Witness to Christ

 

            There was a great meme floating around the Internet. For those who don’t know what a meme is, it’s a funny picture with a caption or quote on it. This particular meme featured a picture of Abraham Lincoln, and the caption read, “Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.’” Obviously that is not a direct quote from our fourteenth president!

            It also drives me crazy when people make up fake quotes from the saints. One of the worst ones is often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi – “Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words.” A nice thought – problem is, not only did he not say that, but it is often used as a copout, when people say, “Oh, we don’t need to talk about Christ, because we live like Him already.” St. Francis would have said the opposite – he was often preaching in five villages per day. He would stand on a bale of hay or on the steps of a public building, and preach very passionately to anyone who would hear. And many people stopped to listen to this fiery, passionate preacher! We must not just live the Gospel – we must witness to Christ publicly.

            Two weeks ago, we were having a marketing meeting at Trinity High School. One of our board members said, “Maybe we should become more like Fairfield Prep or Laurelton Hall, because they don’t wear their Catholicism on their sleeve.” Luckily the rest of the room quickly disagreed with him – including myself. We should be proud to be visibly, undeniably Catholic – not just a subtle quiet Catholicism, but one that declares for all to see that we belong to Jesus Christ. That’s nothing to be embarrassed about!

            Jesus is very clear in today’s Gospel that if we are embarrassed to speak about Jesus Christ and to be known as a public Christian, then He will be embarrassed about us and deny us before His Heavenly Father. But as our first reading reveals, speaking the Name of Christ is not always popular. Jeremiah was considerably persecuted – beaten, put into stocks, and thrown into a dry cistern. It was controversial in his time, and it is controversial in ours.

            Do you all remember the former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow? He led his Denver Broncos from a 1-4 start to beat the Steelers in the playoffs. Despite his success on the football field, he was roundly criticized for being a very public Christian. One of his fellow quarterbacks one time said, “I would like Tebow a lot more if he would just shut up about his faith in Jesus Christ.” The persecution that follows a public Christian is what prompts Jesus to urge us to put our trust in God – He will take care of us if we are not afraid to speak His Name.

            So how do we witness to Christ publicly? I would give three suggestions.

            First, surround ourselves with holy things. I know a kid who wore a shirt that read, “John 3:16” on his first day at a public high school. That took courage – but as it turned out, nobody bullied him for it. Rather, they respected that he had enough faith to be public about his relationship with Christ. My dad had a small crucifix in his office at work – when people would stop by his office, they would see that he was a believer – and often they would ask him for prayers or ask questions about the Catholic faith. I still wear a scapular beneath my shirt, which is a brown cloth that symbolizes my consecration to Our Lady. When I was wearing it as a teen, it was quite the discussion starter! But what a great way to witness publicly!

            Second, find ways to bring up faith in everyday conversations. If someone is sharing with you a problem they’re going through, offer to pray for them – and then pray with them, right there. It’s powerful! When someone asks about your weekend plans, tell them about how you are looking forward to coming to Mass. Don’t be afraid to share why you are passionately in love with Jesus Christ. Bring up His Name and His Faith in everyday conversations!

            Finally, invite people to come to Mass with you. If you really love your parish, you want her to grow – and if you really love your family and friends, you would introduce them to the most important person in your life – Jesus. We so easily invite friends to try new restaurants or to see the latest movie, so why not invite them to something greater than Guardians of the Galaxy? The Mass is the greatest hour of our week, because it is an encounter with God – why not invite others here, too? The worst they could say is no, and I bet that most people would actually be quite honored by the invitation!

            So, here is my challenge for you. Choose one of these three ways of witnessing to Christ – surrounding ourselves with holy things like wearing a crucifix or having a bible on our desk at school; bringing up our faith in everyday conversation; or inviting someone to Mass – and actually go out and do it this week! Let me know how it goes! If we are not ashamed to speak the name of Jesus in public, to our family and friends, then He will not be ashamed to speak our name before His Heavenly Father!

Corpus Christi Sunday - June 18, 2017

Homily for Corpus Christi

June 18, 2017

The High Cost of the Eucharist

 

            Back in the Roman Empire a priest wanted to bring Holy Communion to the sick, but the Christian persecution was raging and he knew he might get killed if he were caught in public with the Eucharist. One of his altar boys, a young man named Tarcissius, volunteered to take the Eucharist to the sick himself. No one would ever suspect someone so young for being a clandestine Christian!

            He was going along the road, clutching the Eucharist in a cloth bag around his neck. As he passed by a field, he saw some of his classmates who were playing a game. They invited Tarcissius to join them, but the boy declined, hurrying along. They began to insist, “Tarcissius, come play with us!” But he continued to refuse. They started to gather around him, pushing and shoving, curious as to what was in the cloth bag. But Tarcissius knew he could never allow them to see the Eucharist, because they were pagans. They began to grow angry with him, and soon their pushing and shoving became punching and kicking. They imagined that Tarcissius was keeping some huge secret from them in the bag – perhaps gold or food – and they were going to get it, one way or another. They threw him to the ground and started to throw heavy rocks at him. Bleeding, aching, but knowing he needed to protect the Eucharist, Tarcissius continued to guard the Holy Sacrament. He was eventually knocked unconscious and died from his injuries. He is now called St. Tarcissius, a young martyr for the Eucharist.

            It should give us pause to consider what great lengths people will go for the Eucharist. Under the reign of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England, there was a law that taxed anyone who attended Mass. One proper gentleman was first in line every week to pay the tax, and when asked why he didn’t just convert to become an Anglican, he said, “This is but a small price to pay to receive the greatest gift of all in my Lord’s Body and Blood.”

            How much would you pay for the privilege of receiving His Body and Blood? How far would you drive – or walk – to attend Mass? How blessed we are in Stamford, where 13 Catholic Churches offer about 65 different Masses each weekend – all within the confines of our city!

            It amazes me what lengths people will go to for things of this world. So many people will drive hundreds of miles to a soccer tournament, getting up early and paying exorbitant fees, but when the God of the universe is waiting in our local parish church, not just to be worshipped but to be received…perhaps we do not fully understand or believe what we are receiving!

            I can confidently declare that there is nothing on this earth worth more than the Holy Eucharist, because the Eucharist is a foretaste of Heaven. Everything else on this earth came from dust and will return to dust, but the Eucharist is God Himself – the Creator, the Savior, the Awesome One. So, in light of this, there is nothing better we can do with our time than come to Mass – daily, if possible. Consider this – on your deathbed, which will matter more: all the times we got to sleep in, all the extra TV shows we watched, or the times we were able to be in the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist? When we are dying, we will be consoled best by knowing that we have loved and received the greatest gift of all – the Holy Eucharist.

            In a sense, one can say that the depth of our faith is directly proportional to the amount we are willing to sacrifice for it. If we are willing to sacrifice a lot for Christ, then it is clear that we have great faith in Him. If we suffer only a little for Christ, then we believe very little. Since the Eucharist is truly Him, then the Eucharist is worth sacrificing everything for!

            Just two weeks ago you may have read that 29 Coptic Christians were brutally martyred in Egypt by Muslim terrorists. Coptic Christians are Orthodox Christians – they have all valid Sacraments, including the Eucharist, though they are under the Patriarch and not the Pope. But these 29 people – several of whom were children – paid the ultimate price for their faith in Jesus Christ. They were on their way to a Divine Liturgy (an Orthodox Mass) when they were killed. Their souls now rejoice in Heaven, because they chose the Eucharist over their very life.

            I pray that we have the same faith in Jesus Christ’s true presence.

Trinity Sunday - June 11, 2017

Homily for Trinity Sunday

June 11, 2017

Attributes of God

 

            I was walking out of a particularly beautiful Mass at my college one day when a dear friend came up to me and exclaimed, “Don’t you just love God!” Of course I do – and of course we all do. But to love God, we must understand who He is. Luckily, He revealed Himself to us!

Today’s readings talk about God. You might be saying, “Of course they talk about God! It is church, after all!” But they talk about who God is – in His very nature! We need to know who God is before we can worship God.

            Yes, God is a mystery. But a mystery, in our Catholic terminology, is not like a Hardy Boys mystery. Mystery does not mean that something is unknowable – it means that something can never be fully known. It is infinitely knowable! We can say many things about God, but we can never know Him fully – even after all eternity, there will be more depths to the mystery! It’s kind of like a spring of water – we can draw water from it to drink, but it continues to flow and we can go back again and again without ever exhausting the source.

            So let’s talk about two of the aspects of God that we see in today’s readings, and how they apply to our lives.

            Our first reading reveals something important: the Name and essence of God. When the Lord passes by Moses, God calls out His name. Now we use the sanitized translation which has Him saying, “The Lord, the Lord!” But the Hebrew word is “Yahweh”. Yahweh is the name of God that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush. Yahweh means, “I Am Who Am.”

            So when God reveals His Name, He reveals who He is: I Am. Sounds confusing to modern ears – but God is basically saying that He is existence itself. There is no past in God – He is not “I Was” – and there is no future in God – He is not “I Will Be”. He is always in the present; or rather, all time is in Him. This is a mind-blowing mystery – that God is outside of time and space. He is the creator of time and space, and He is present in all time and all space. That means there is never a place or a time where God is not there. He is there at the top of Mount Everest and in the depths of the sea and in your house and this church and in the brothel down the street. He is literally everywhere. Yes, His presence can be sensed by us much more in a church than elsewhere – and we as human beings need sacred spaces to set apart for worship. But there is not a place where God is not.

            In the same way, God is outside of time. Kids always ask me, “Who created God?” But creation implies that there was a time when something didn’t exist – there was a time when I didn’t exist, and when this church didn’t exist, and when this planet didn’t exist – but there was no time when God didn’t exist. This is hard for us to grasp because we have never experienced being outside of time. But God is outside of time!

            So how does all this apply to our lives? Because sometimes we think that we are too far for God to reach. That our sins and our past are too dark for God to be there. That our problems are too big for God to handle. My friends, if God is everywhere and the creator of space and time, I can promise you that He is not only “Yahweh” (I Am), He is also “Emmanuel” (God with us). He is big enough to love you for who you are, and big enough to make you into a saint! The entire universe depends upon God for its existence – we can depend upon God for our needs and troubles! At the same time, since He is the source of our existence, then we have the duty and obligation to worship Him and seek Him.

            There is a second thing that our readings teach us about God. In the Gospel we hear that famous John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world…” That should give us pause. God loves the world? Most of the time I’m pretty annoyed at the world! But it reveals that God’s nature is love. John tells us, “God is love”. We tend to think of love as a feeling, but love at its deepest core is wanting what is best for the other person. He is always “willing the good” – working for the benefit – of all creation.

            This should apply to us immediately! Sometimes when things don’t go our way in life we say, “God, what are You up to? You should have done something different!” But God is pure love – He can never do anything not loving, not for our benefit. We need to realize that in every circumstance, especially the difficult ones, we must give thanks because He is always acting for our good, even when we might not see it.

            My friends, who God is determines how we worship and love Him. Knowing that He is the Almighty, the Creator, the Source of Being, and Pure Love allows us to order our lives in the proper way. God truly is great!