Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent - March 31, 2019

Homily for March 31, 2019

Fourth Sunday of Lent

New Creation

            St. Camillus de Lellis was a rather unlikely saint. His mother got pregnant with him rather late in life – she was almost 50, which would be a high-risk pregnancy – so as she was expecting, she prayed to the Lord for guidance about her child. One night she had a dream where she saw her child as a fully-grown man dressed in a long black robe with a bright red cross on it, leading other men who were dressed similarly. When she awoke, she was terrified – the only people who dressed like that were condemned criminals on the way to their execution! Would her son be condemned for a life of sin?

            And as a youngster, Camillus certainly lived up to that prophetic dream. He was expelled from school at age 14, and left home to go join his father as a mercenary in the army. He fought in a number of battles – and picked up all the bad habits of the soldiers, especially gambling, drinking, and womanizing. He and his father were “partners in crime” – sometimes gambling so much that they literally gambled away the shirts off their back.

            At a certain point, they had run out of money so desperately that they had to hire themselves out to work on a construction project, putting an addition onto a Franciscan monastery. For the first time, Camillus met devoted men of God – these monks radiated joy, peace, and love, which Camillus had never encountered before. He strongly considered joining the Franciscan monastery – but in the end, his old habits won out and when the job was over, he returned to his gambling ways.

            But, having lost everything in gambling once again, he finally came to his senses. Leaving everything behind, he went back to the monastery and applied for admission. They turned him down, however, because he had developed a serious leg wound which stubbornly refused to heal. So he went to Rome to visit a hospital to try to get the wound healed.

            While in the hospital, he was absolutely appalled at the horrific conditions. Rooms were overcrowded and hot; there was no hygiene as medical equipment would be used on multiple patients without even washing it off; people would be moaning in hunger and thirst and would not receive any food or water. After staying in the hospital for some time and finding the wound to be truly incurable, he decided God was calling him to start a religious order which would serve the sick with better care, motivated by zealous charity. He did just that, and took as his habit a long black cloak with a large red cross on it. His mother’s dream was fulfilled – but in a totally unexpected way! He spent the remainder of his life serving the sick, treating them as he would treat Christ, and is now a patron saint of the sick.

            But in order to become a saint, he had to leave his old life behind. The gambling, drinking, and womanizing had to remain in the past before he could become a holy man.

            The Greek word for “repentance” is “metanoia”, which literally means “turning around”. Doing a 180. Changing direction. And all repentance involves leaving behind that which is old and unhealthy and sinful, to embrace something new.

            A Protestant pastor once told Fr. Larry Richards, a famous Catholic priest, “You know what the problem is with you Catholics? You’re always confessing, and never repenting.” Much truth to that – how many times have we gone to Confession for a stubborn sin, something we’re struggling with, but we are unwilling to actually make a change? If we wish to be a new creation, we must get rid of the old habits, the friends who lead us into sin, the places that we know aren’t holy, the websites that we know we shouldn’t visit but we do anyway…are we really willing to make practical changes to become holier? Because that is one prerequisite to receiving God’s mercy! The only sins God can forgive are those we repent of!

            Imagine if the Prodigal Son from today’s Gospel had returned home, drunk and with a woman on each arm, calling out to his father, “Hey dad, I need more money!” I guarantee that the parable would have ended quite differently! In order to receive the Father’s mercy, the son had to walk away from his sin. The Father did not – and could not – give him mercy until he first turned away from his evil ways.

            Even our first reading speaks of this. The Chosen People have left the slavery of Egypt are about to enter the Promised Land – but they had struggled mightily in the desert with their old sins and old habits. They had worshipped a golden calf, they had doubted God, they complained to Moses. And now, as they are on the cusp of coming into the Holy Land, God lays down the boom – He says to them, “I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you.” In other words, all those bad habits you developed in Egypt like idolatry and sin and doubting God – you leave them here at the border, because when you enter this Promised Land, you will be a new people – the Chosen People!

            So what does that mean for us? , St. Paul says that “whoever is in Christ is a new creation.” The old has passed away – we’ve gotten rid of it, we’ve turned from our sin. We cannot be in Christ if we are still living in our old ways! So the man who comes to confession who is living with his girlfriend outside of marriage – you must give that up if you are to receive forgiveness! The woman who wants to repent of being worldly but still keeps all 85 pairs of shoes – you must give that up if you want to be a new creation in Christ! The woman who says she is sorry for sleeping in and missing Mass, but purposely does not set her alarm on Sunday mornings – you must give that up! The teen who says he wants to be pure, but doesn’t take steps to avoid bad websites – you must give that up! We cannot walk the path of sin and the path of Christ at the same time!

            This takes practical steps. Sometimes we deceive ourselves and think, “If I just pray more, I won’t fall into this sin.” No, my friends – grace builds on nature, as St. Albert the Great says. We have to take practical steps. A friend of mine struggled with looking at bad things on his smartphone – so now he has a flip phone, because he was willing to get rid of it. I know other people who have given up friendships because they knew they would always be led into sin through these people. Some people find that they are always cursing others behind the wheel – they can change their habits by leaving five minutes earlier so they’re not rushed. We can’t just “try harder” – we need to change! Repentance means leaving our sinful past behind – making changes in our habits so that we are able to be truly free.

            So, I leave you with this question – what is the stubborn sin that is preventing you from living your life fully for the Lord Jesus Christ? And what habit do you need to change to truly repent of this sin so that you can become a “new creation in Christ”?

Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent - March 24, 2019

Homily for Lent 3

March 24, 2019

Relationship With the Lord

            Pretty much everyone I have ever met says that they’re bad at remembering names. Perhaps you feel like you’re in the same category. I’ve never met anyone that says, “Oh, yeah, I can remember peoples’ names really well.” I’m sure those people are out there, but I’m not one of them, and probably not too many of us are, either. So we try to fudge it in conversations: “Hey, buddy!” “How’s it going, man?” “Hey dude, did you do that thing last week? You know, that thing at that place with that other person?” You get my drift!

            But knowing someone’s name establishes a relationship with a person. I still remember the first time a priest ever learned my name – it wasn’t until I was sixteen – and I was supremely honored! When we call someone by name, we establish a relationship with them – they are no longer just a faceless person in a crowd; no, they are “John” or “Mary”.

            So when God reveals His Name to Moses, He is establishing a relationship! His Name is significant – “I Am” means that He is the Unchanging One, the Source of All Existence. And He reaches out to Moses, using His Name, so that a relationship can be established between God and His Chosen People.

            And this is so critical to understand – the relationship comes before obedience. He didn’t give Moses the 10 Commandments first – no, that came later after God demonstrated His power and love for His people by rescuing them. He started by introducing Himself and giving the Jewish people many signs of His love and protection.

            In the same way, our Catholic Faith is primarily about a relationship with the Lord Jesus. As Pope Benedict puts it in his encyclical “Deus Caritas Est”: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with a Person.” And that Person is the Lord!

            Why is this important for us? Many people think that to be a Catholic, all you have to do is follow the rules of the Church. Don’t break the Ten Commandments, don’t eat meat on Fridays, donate money to the Church, come to Mass. All of that is good, but it does not mean much if we do not have a personal relationship with the Lord. We should do these things like fasting and observing the Ten Commandments precisely because we know the Lord personally as a friend, we know of His personal, passionate love for us, and we wish to love Him in return.

            How do we have a living relationship with the Lord? It starts with an orientation of the heart and soul. We first must believe that He really, truly loves us, that He knows our name, that He has sought to win our hearts! Consider what He has given us – food, clothing, shelter, family, friends, good health, gifts and talents, a job, an education…the list goes on. He created you simply because He delights in you; He died on a Cross to spend eternity with you. With such goodness in God, how can we not love Him back?

            Our love for God, then, is expressed in daily prayer and seeking to live a life of virtue. This daily prayer isn’t just reciting words – it is simply spending time with the One Who loves you. We should speak to God from our hearts, using our own words. Allow me to be completely blunt – if someone’s entire prayer life is a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys before going to bed, that is not much of a prayer life at all! Using pre-written prayers is fine IF we use them as a launching-point for our own conversation with the Lord.

            It’s much like using a Hallmark card. Hallmark cards are nice – we give them and receive them for special occasions. They always have nice pre-written messages inside, which can be helpful when we don’t know what to say. But if our only communication with someone was through a Hallmark card, that wouldn’t be a very good relationship, would it? Same with reciting prayers written by others. They can help to prompt us to pray, but they are not a substitute for real conversation with God, from our hearts. As St. Therese of Lisieux says about prayer: “Prayer is, for me, an outburst from the heart; it is a simple glance darted upwards to Heaven; it is a cry of gratitude and of love in the midst of trial as in the midst of joy!” Not reciting words – an outburst from the heart! Wow!

            Our prayer life, like any conversation, requires both speaking AND listening – just ask any married couple! For many people, the listening part is more difficult! But God wants to communicate Himself to us, as we see with Moses! He speaks in silence, through music, through the Bible or other spiritual reading, in nature, in the thoughts and feelings that He causes to arise in our own hearts. But we need to take that daily time of reconnecting with God – I recommend at least ten-to-fifteen minutes per day – if we wish to have a relationship with God.

            Our prayer, then, will prompt us on to virtue. Because we love God, we want to live like Him. Often when I was chaplain at Trinity, kids would ask me, “Father, is listening to such-and-such dirty rapper a sin? Is it a sin to watch movies with dirty jokes? Is this a sin, is that a sin?” I would always respond, “Do you think these things will make you holier?” They would usually respond, “No, not really?” Then I would say, “Then why would you do them? If the point of your life is to love the Lord Jesus with your whole heart, why bother doing anything that won’t lead you closer to Him?”

            Their underlying question was: “What is the least I could do and still get to Heaven?” Wrong question! We should be asking, “What is the best way I can love Christ more fully so I can live my life united to Him?” What a huge difference! One is about minimum – just following the rules. The other is about love – I love the Lord Jesus, so I want to love Him with my whole heart.

This is akin to a marriage – what spouse would enter a marriage and think, “Okay, what’s the least I can get away with doing so that my spouse doesn’t divorce me?” That would be a horrible way to enter a marriage! If your boyfriend or girlfriend ever says that to you, ditch them immediately! Rather, a relationship based on love says, “I want to do everything possible to make my spouse happy!” (Right, my married friends?)

In sum, God revealed Himself and His Name to Moses – and to us – in order to establish a relationship with us. Our Catholic Faith is about more than a set of rules – it is a life of love of God, lived out through passionate prayer and seeking virtue. This Lent, don’t just go through the motions of your Catholic Faith – deepen your friendship with the Lord!

Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent

Homily for Second Sunday of Lent

March 17, 2019

Believing is Seeing

            Growing up close to Washington DC, my family would sometimes take trips to the Smithsonian. My favorite was the Natural History Museum, with its dinosaur fossils and gemstones. One of the exhibits there are rocks from the moon – purportedly.

            I mean, how can you and I prove that they are from the moon? I personally haven’t been there. I look at it and it sure looks like rocks I’ve found outside in the dirt – how do I know that it’s really from the moon?

            Truthfully, I believe it because I believe that the people who said they have landed on the moon really did land on the moon! Just like I believe that Julius Caesar existed because I trust the people who wrote about it.

            Faith is not believing a myth or a legend. Rather, faith means that we believe that God has revealed certain things to people in history, we believe that God is faithful to His word, and these people who encountered Him were trustworthy in what they wrote and said about God’s revelation.

            We see a major revelation in today’s first reading. God takes Abraham outside and tells him to count the stars. We usually think that this is because the Milky Way has so many stars that the night sky is just awash with millions, too many to be counted. But no – Abraham is taken outside by God during the day. This is clear because the reading ends with “the sun was setting”. So God brings Abraham outside on the sunniest of days and tells him to count the stars.

            Well, how many stars can he count? Only one – the sun. And likewise, Abraham lived to see only one descendent – Isaac. But how many descendants does he have? Today over two billion people on this earth call Abraham their spiritual father – Christians, Muslims, and Jews. He only lived to see one son – but he trusted that God was faithful when He promised that He would have billions, as many as the stars.

            Faith, then, is “the evidence of things unseen.” During the day, even though we don’t see them, there are actually billions of stars in the sky. God’s promises may be hidden from our sight right now, but they are trustworthy and true because God made them – and He can never lie!

            What are some of His promises? He promised that He would never leave us. Is that sometimes hard to believe? When we are suffering and we cry out to God, do we feel abandoned by Him? Even St. Mother Teresa wrote to her spiritual director, “In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss—of God not wanting me—of God not being God—of God not really existing.” But in the end, she trusted that God was real and was with her daily, even though she couldn’t feel it.

            God also promised that “all things work for good for those who love God.” That promise is about all things – whether easy or difficult, pleasant or suffering. So that promotion, that good grade, making the right baseball team, getting a raise – all of that God can use for good. But it’s harder to believe it when we get diagnosed with cancer, or our husband leaves us, or we get bullied at school, or we crash our car. Then, we are tempted to ask, “Really? Can God use this for good?” But this is when we have to say, “God, I don’t sense Your presence right now. But I trust that Your promises are true – and You promised that You would use even this for my salvation and for Your glory.”

            God promised that Heaven awaits for those who have loved God in this life. None of us have seen Heaven, but hopefully all of us eagerly look forward to it! It can be hard to keep this in mind when it seems like the pleasures of this world are so easily accessible, everywhere around us, but we must keep it in mind! St. John Vianney, when he was a boy, would often stop his work in the field and say to himself, “Time passes, eternity approaches.” A simple quote – “Time passes, eternity approaches” – but this thought kept Heaven at the forefront of his mind, and made him a saint!

            My friends, our faith means that we believe that God exists, and that He is faithful to His promises. We can believe in these promises because we have testimony of many people, such as Abraham, who encountered the Lord and who have seen Him fulfill these promises. If we keep our faith in God, His promises will be made fulfilled for us, as well.

            As St. Augustine put it, “Faith is believing what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.”

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent - March 10, 2019

Homily for March 10, 2019

First Sunday of Lent

Overcoming Temptation

            All of the saints experienced temptation. St. Anthony the Abbot, an early fourth-century hermit from the desert, was frequently tempted by the devil. One time he was walking along a deserted path when he saw a pile of gold in the middle of the path – a temptation to give up his vow of poverty! Another time the devil appeared to him as a beautiful and seductive woman. A third time, he was tempted by fear when the devil appeared to him as a pack of wild beasts, ready to attack him. In all of these temptations, he prayed and fasted and was able to overcome them, but one day he was so frustrated with being constantly tempted that he cried out to the Lord, “Lord, why do You allow me to be so tempted?” The Lord spoke to him clearly and said, “Anthony, I was present at your side, but I waited, observing your fight. And now that you are victorious, I will be your helper forever.”

All of us are tempted on a daily basis. Some of the temptations are small – to tell a little white lie, to steal office supplies, to cheat on a test. Some of the temptations are more serious – to cheat on one’s wife, to refuse to forgive an enemy, to skip Mass out of laziness. How do we overcome temptation? Let’s look at how Jesus did it!

            So Satan shows up in the desert and begins to tempt Jesus. This should teach us two things right off the bat – first, that every human being who ever lived was tempted, including the Son of God Himself! I doubt that Satan really thought Jesus could sin – being God, there’s no way He could be anything less than perfect – but Jesus allowed it to show that temptation is a part of life. Second, temptation is not a sin. Often we feel guilty for having been tempted – but that’s not a sin at all! Rather, God allows us to be tempted so that we can grow in holiness by choosing righteousness.

            It’s much like going to the gym. If we stick only to 10-pound weights, we will never get stronger. We need to stretch ourselves, to face bigger obstacles so that we can grow. In the same way, we would never need to choose Christ if we weren’t tempted. Faith that is tested grows stronger. Loving God in times of temptation is worth much more than loving Him in easy times, because it costs us much more!

            The first thing Satan does, even before the temptation, is question Jesus’ identity: if You are the Son of God… Of course He is the Son of God! Literally one chapter before this passage, at Jesus’ baptism, the sky opened and God the Father declared, “This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” But Satan, the Father of Lies, tries to sow doubt in Jesus’ mind…are You really who You think you are?

            And this is the first step to our temptations as well! Who are you? You are a disciple, a Christian, a Beloved Son or Daughter of God. But Satan will try to tell you that you are nothing but an alcoholic, a liar, a thief, unloved, unwanted, all alone in this world. We must resist Him by standing firm on our identity as a Christian!

            The devil then goes on to the temptations. We Catholics like our things in “three’s”, so here we have three temptations.

            First, the temptation is to turn stones into bread. This is a temptation to seek physical pleasure. Now, pleasure isn’t bad. It’s not wrong to eat bread if you’re hungry. But there is a right way and a wrong way to pursue pleasure. If you’re supposed to be fasting, eating a feast would be wrong. If you’re supposed to be doing homework, then playing Fortnite would be wrong. If you’re not married, then pursuing sexual pleasure would be wrong. The temptation was for Jesus to give up the fast, to enjoy food at the wrong time and in the wrong way.

            The second temptation is to have the riches of the nations. This is a temptation to seek wealth. Again, wealth isn’t bad either. You should seek to be successful in your job. None of you in this church has taken a vow of poverty! But there is a right way and a wrong way to pursue wealth. The Evil One tried to convince Jesus to obtain the wealth of the nations by worshipping him – obviously not the right way! If we seek money by working hard and are generous with what we have been given, not attached to it, then we are seeking it rightly. But if we worship our jobs or our possessions, are greedy and envious and live self-indulgently, then we are doing it the wrong way. This temptation was for Jesus to pursue riches when He was called to live a life of poverty and sacrifice.

            The third temptation is the temptation to pride. If Jesus were to throw Himself down off the temple, expecting God to save Him, then He would basically be telling His Father what to do – “Father, You have to save Me! Do what I tell You!” But Jesus came in humility and obedience – He only does the Father’s will, not vice-versa. And this is the most insidious of all temptations – the temptation to pride. We are often tempted with pride when we think we’re better than others, when we boast about our own accomplishments or think we’re all that because we drive a nice car and live in a nice house.

            So these three temptations – pleasure, riches, and pride – correspond to the three sources of temptation – the flesh, the world, and the devil. We also have three antidotes to these three sources of temptation. If we are tempted by pleasure, we should fast – give up dessert or make some small physical sacrifice to help us grow in self-mastery. If we are tempted by riches, we should practice almsgiving – generosity to the poor to show that our money is not our god. And if we are tempted by pride, we should pray, because prayer recognizes that we are desperately dependent upon the Lord.

            These are the three practices that we often take on during Lent – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. They help us to overcome the three-fold temptations of pleasure (the flesh), riches (the world) and pride (the devil). Don’t be afraid of temptation – it’s going to come! But use these weapons of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to overcome these temptations so that when Easter comes you are not just ten pounds lighter for not eating chocolate – you are also holier and spiritually stronger.

Homily for Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time - March 3, 2019

Homily for Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

March 3, 2019

I Am What’s Wrong With the World

            The London Times newspaper once invited readers to answer the question, “What is wrong with the world today?” The great Catholic thinker GK Chesterton responded to the newspaper with a very simple answer: “Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely, GK Chesterton.”

            What is wrong with the world today? I’m sure in GK Chesterton’s time, he could have pointed to any number of problems – even more so in our own age. But the answer is still the same. What is wrong with the world? I am.

            In other words, the battleground between good and evil isn’t just “out there” but “in here”, in every human soul. After all, St. Maximilian Kolbe said, “The battleground between God and Satan is the human soul.” It is because of evil in the soul that we have evil in the world.

            A lot of good Catholics can easily fall into the trap of complaining about the state of our culture. And not without reason – our culture is a mess! Lust, greed, violence, bad media, corrupt politicians, the breakdown of the family…every sin seems to be growing in our culture. But what can we do about it?

            We can vote, yes. We can protest, we can pray, we can witness, we can write letters. But the main thing we can do is to become holier ourselves. We cannot change any other soul – we can influence others, pray for others, pressure others…but we cannot change others. We can only change ourselves, and yield more and more of our hearts to God.

            So although our culture is indeed in bad shape, and while all of us are called to bring the light of Christ to our own unique spheres of influence, it is first necessary for us to be changed by God’s grace before we can change the world. As Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia once wrote, “The only people to truly change the world are saints!”

            And this, I think, is the heart of Jesus’ famous injunction in the Gospel to focus on the log in your own eye rather than the speck in the other’s. He is trying to make the point that we should be more concerned about our own spiritual life and our own salvation than on fixing the world’s problems, because if we become as holy as we should be, then the world’s problems will begin to fix themselves, because there will be saints walking around Stamford and influencing the world!

            It’s much like the tide. As I go down to the Long Island Sound, I see that the tides go in and out. When a tide is coming in, it affects everything in the harbor – all the boats rise. They can’t resist it, because they are completely surrounded by water. Likewise, if we become holier, then the culture will begin to rise up by itself.

            This is especially true in the Church. We have experienced some devastating scandals recently, and many Catholics have asked me, “What can I do about these awful scandals?” The answer is to become a saint. Mother Teresa was once asked by a reporter, “What do you think needs to change in the Church?” She replied, “You and I.”

            Of course this is not to say that we shouldn’t try to correct what we can in the culture or in the Church – we certainly must. And if we see our family member falling into sin, we certainly have the duty, out of genuine charity, to correct them in love. But as we correct them – and as we bemoan the problems in society – we must first and foremost work on our own conversion. As St. Catherine of Siena said, “If you are who you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze!”