Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - August 9, 2020

Homily for August 9, 2020

Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Power of Silence

 

            Once a farmer lost his pocketwatch while working in his barn. It had been given to him by his grandfather, and so had great sentimental value. He searched high and low in the barn, looking everywhere, turning things upside down, making a great racket. But after a couple hours, he could not find the watch anywhere.

            He found a few neighborhood kids and offered them a fine reward if any of them could find the watch. They likewise tore the place apart, looking up and down the barn, in every nook and cranny, sifting through the entire haystack, but to no avail. All left, disappointed, except for one young boy.

            The boy begged the farmer for one last chance to find the watch. The farmer shrugged and said, “Sure,” but was exhausted by the ordeal and headed home for some rest. But only a short time later the boy showed up on his front porch with the watch. The farmer was amazed and asked, “How did you manage to find the watch in a few minutes when we spent hours searching?”

            The boy responded, “I just stood there in silence, listening to the watch tick. In silence, it was so much easier to hear and I could tell the direction of the sound.”

            Indeed – how much you can hear in silence! When the cacophony of noise subsides, we hear the powerful voice of God. As CS Lewis wrote, “In Heaven there is music and there is silence; in Hell there is only noise.”

            Elijah was fleeing from a queen who wanted him killed – so he fled to this cave, seeking direction and intimacy with God, in silence. Jesus had experienced a similarly stressful and life-threatening situation. Earlier in the chapter, John the Baptist had just been killed by Herod, who was now seeking to see Jesus. Jesus for His part had just multiplied bread and fish for five thousand people, causing such a riot that they tried to come and make Him king. This was not why He came – He was not intending to be a political king, and this crowd-enthusiasm was dangerous since the authorities would see Jesus as a threat that must be destroyed – so He needed some time of peace, to seek intimacy with His Father.

            So Jesus sends the crowds away – and He sends His disciples away. The word in Greek literally means that Jesus “ordered” or “compelled” the disciples to leave – He ached for this time to be alone, in silence, with the Father. Twice the Gospel writer emphasizes that Jesus was “alone” – the Lord Himself needed time of silence to hear His Father’s voice.

            If Elijah and Jesus need silence, so do we!

            Silence can be immensely powerful. We take a moment of silence before sporting events to remember tragedies; people sometimes take a vow of silence in order to protest an injustice. Many religious communities speak very little – the Carthusians, for example, only speak freely once per week, and keep absolute silence for twelve hours every day.

            Why is silence so powerful? In silence we encounter ourselves, and we encounter God. We have nowhere to hide from either when we enter into silence.

Once, I challenged a group of teens to spend ten minutes in silence per day. One girl looked as if I had asked her to cut off her right arm. She gasped, “I could never do that!” I said, “Why not?” And she responded, “Because I am afraid of what I might hear.”

In silence we can’t be fake; we can’t hide; we can’t pretend to be who we’re not. Silence doesn’t care about your bank account or PhD or Instagram followers. Silence strips it all away so we are alone with God. And God communicates Himself in silence, not in noise – if you want to know Him, be silent. You cannot have a real relationship with God if you do not have daily silence in your life.

It can be hard to find silence these days! On average, the American adult spends 11 hours per day staring at a screen – this “digital noise” takes away the silence we crave. But if you wish to have a relationship with God, to hear Him and be with Him, we must make time for real silence, every day.

Cardinal Robert Sarah recently published an absolutely phenomenal book called “The Power of Silence” in which he writes: “The greatest things are accomplished in silence…Through silence, we return to our heavenly origin, where there is nothing but calm, peace, repose, silent contemplation, and adoration of the radiant face of God.”

In silence, God shows us His love. In silence, He reveals His will. In silence, the Holy Spirit convicts our hearts of sin. In silence, we discover that peace that we long for.

So I wish to challenge you to carve out 10-15 minutes of silence each day to be alone with God. Turn off the TV and put away the iPhone; take a walk or hole yourself up in your room; order the kids to depart just as Jesus ordered His disciples; and just listen in silence, love God in silence. Silence will change your life.

If Jesus, the Son of God, needed silence – so do we. As St. John of the Cross said, “What we need most in order to make progress [in the spiritual life] is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue, for the language he best hears is silent love.”

Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - August 2, 2020

Homily for August 2, 2020

Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

What Can Separate Us from the Love of Christ?

 

            “What can separate us from the love of Christ?” St. Paul asks this rhetorical question in the second reading. Nothing will separate us – not trial or distress, not anguish or suffering, not coronavirus or political upheaval. Those united to Christ “conquer overwhelmingly” all the trials and tribulations of this passing world.

            But we live in a world that grows crazier by the day. Why do we not experience that peace of Christ’s love? Why do we doubt that He has conquered? Two thoughts.

            First, do we focus more on the love of Christ or the trials of this world? Somewhere in the middle of April I went on a media fast for a week – no social media, no 24-hour news, no political opinion pieces. My mood improved drastically! We feel like we have to stay connected to Facebook or Instagram or CNN or Fox News…and most of the news is bad news. Do you want the peace of knowing that Christ wins in the end? Don’t dwell on the negativity that we see on social media. Yes, stay informed – but after ten minutes, get off the internet and spend a half-hour in the Word of God!

            Did you know that St. Thomas Aquinas classified curiosity as a vice? We usually think about curiosity as a good thing, but it was curiosity that led to the fall of our First Parents. By “curiosity”, Aquinas means having a burning desire to know about every scandal, every outrage, every controversy, every clickbait headline, every article of bad news – most of which doesn’t help us at all. Aquinas says that knowledge should always be seeking our Ultimate End – God – and if it doesn’t tend towards God, then it drags us away from Him.

            So, if you want to know deep within your soul that Christ has conquered and that nothing can separate you from His love, separate yourselves from the constant steady stream of social media and news networks which will make us think that evil is winning!

            Second, there is one thing that St. Paul does not include in his list of things that are unable to separate us from God’s love – and that thing is sin. Sin CAN separate us from the love of God – not that God loves us less when we sin, but that we cannot receive that love because we have put up a wall between us and God. So the solution, then, is to make sure our consciences are clear through Confession. If we feel a lack of peace in our own life, it’s usually a sign that we have strayed from God – return to Him through repentance and Confession – and then we will experience the peace of His love.

            My friends, many of us are very concerned about the direction the world is headed in. We can be troubled by the political unrest, anti-Christian ideologies, riots, economic uncertainty, this virus crisis, and so much more. But nothing can separate us from the love of Christ and the peace that He brings – our confidence is in Him. So disconnect from unnecessary bad news and social media, and make sure your conscience is clean in Confession, and you will have within your soul the peace of God.

Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - July 26, 2020

Homily for Ordinary Time 17

July 26, 2020

Wisdom

 

            I’ll never forget the first time I told anyone that I was thinking about becoming a priest. I was 14 years old, and my best friend Billy and I were lying in our tent at Boy Scout summer camp, and we were talking about what we wanted to be in the future. He shared his dream of becoming an anesthesiologist (he’s now a civil engineer) and then he asked what I wanted to do. I thought, “Oh no, should I tell him?” I was very nervous, but got up the courage to say, “Well…I was thinking about becoming a priest.”

            There was a very, very long pause before Billy replied, “Joe, you’re not THAT ugly, I know you can get a girlfriend!”

            For him, the priesthood was just something that ugly bachelors did who couldn’t get married. What a far cry from what the priesthood actually is – a life consecrated to the Lord to lead souls to Heaven!

            Contrast that with another friend from my childhood, Steven, who had a very deep faith. He was a couple years younger than me, so I got my driver’s license first. When I was telling him about getting my driver’s license, he said, “Oh, Joe, that’s great! Now you can get to daily Mass!” My response was something like, “Uh…yeah…I’m not sure that’s what I’ll be doing with my driver’s license!”

            For Steven, the freedom of driving was meant to help me grow in holiness. For me, it was about getting out of the house. He was the wise one – I was the fool!

            Wisdom, according to St. Augustine, “is the contemplation of divine things.” It means understanding this world properly in light of eternity. It is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, a gift given to Solomon in today’s first reading. He wants to be able to rule Israel rightly – not for his own benefit, but benefitting the people. In other words, he wants to see his kingly rule in the light of Heaven. And God grants this request for wisdom lavishly!

            This theme of wisdom is also present in the Gospel. Consider this pearl of great price – this pearl was probably sold in a marketplace, and many people probably walked past it without knowing its true value. Finally, someone with a trained eye – a merchant, it says in Scripture – recognizes that this pearl was tremendously valuable, and purchases it. He sees it from a different perspective and realizes what’s valuable and what is cheap.

            In the same way, a truly wise person will be able to evaluate the things of this world to know what is truly valuable, and what is worthless. Let’s take a look at some things of everyday life to see the wise way to view them:

            Money – the world says grab as much as you can, for money guarantees happiness. Wisdom says that money is a gift given to us by God so that we can live and be generous to others, and we have to steward it rightly.

            Prayer – the world says that prayer is a boring waste of time. Wisdom says that prayer is our essential connection with the Lord, Who we desperately need more than the air we breathe.

            Suffering – the world says that we should avoid suffering at all costs, since it is worthless. Wisdom sees in suffering an opportunity to grow in virtue, to have our souls purified, as we unite our suffering to Christ’s cross for the salvation of the world.

            Our Body – I once saw the world’s view of the body summed up on a humorous bumper sticker that read, “My body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park!” But wisdom says that our bodies are not our own, they have been purchased at a price, and thus we should glorify God in our bodies as living temples of the Holy Spirit.

            Work – the world takes one of two extremes: either we become workaholics and make our lives revolve around work, or we see it as a drudgery just to get a paycheck. Wisdom, on the other hand, sees work as an opportunity to develop our gifts and talents for the service and benefit of human beings, united to Christ Who Himself was a laborer.

            Leadership – the world encourages leaders to seek after power, to get their way and force others to do their will. But the example of Christ is one of a leader who serves in humility.

            Faith – the world sees faith in God as a crutch for the weak, or perhaps as belief in a comforting myth. By contrast, wisdom recognizes that our faith is based on the testimony of men and women who actually saw the Risen Christ, and who died for that belief – and thus our faith is not blind but makes sense.

            Sex – the world sees sex as a fun way to spend an evening. Looking at it with Christian wisdom, we see that it is the most powerful way in which we can show our love for our spouse – an action that makes incarnate one’s wedding vows, and which allows us to become like God in potentially co-creating a new life.

            Meaning of Life – a priest where I was growing up once said that the first question God is going to ask you when you die is, “Did you have a good time?” But this is the world’s foolishness, not the Lord’s wisdom. Life is not about having a good time. Wisdom says that our life is given to us so that we can know, love, and serve God here so we can be eternally with Him in Heaven forever.

            Death – the world sees death as the end, as a tragic closure to this life…and ironically the world also believes that pretty much everyone goes to Heaven. We as Christians have the wisdom to know that death is a passageway into a new and more abundant life, but that we must pray for the dead to be cleansed of their sins in Purgatory.

            My friends, St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 2 that “We speak a message of wisdom among the [spiritually] mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.” The follies of this world are empty, passing. Real wisdom, a life lived well, consists in knowing how to evaluate all things in light of God – seeing the world through His eyes. Then we will know what is truly valuable, like the pearl of great price or the treasure in the field.

Homily for Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - July 19, 2020

Homily for July 19, 2020

Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Christ Loved the Church – We Should Too

 

            Last month, I saw on a Catholic website that a prominent Catholic couple, who used to speak at various Catholic events, decided to leave the Church. They said that they were fed up with the abuse scandals, and had encountered so many hypocrites in the Church that they were leaving to seek a better, healthier spiritual tradition.

            I didn’t know this couple personally, but it is always discouraging to hear that the Church has lost another family. Why bother staying Catholic, since they’re right – the Church IS full of scandalous leaders, hypocritical sinners, and unfriendly parishioners?

Later that evening, I opened my breviary for Evening Prayer on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, and the reading was from Ephesians 5, where Paul said simply, “Christ loved the Church.” This settled my troubled heart – if Christ could love the Church, so can I. If I love Christ, I will love what He loves – and He loves the Church enough to die to make her holy.

Today’s parable of the wheat and the weeds is a poignant reminder that in this world, the Church will be filled with both saints and sinners and everyone in between. If we are looking for a “perfect” Church with stellar leadership and parishioners who are unfailingly friendly, we won’t find it on this side of eternity. And that is good – because our Church, as Pope Francis likes to say, is a field hospital, which treats the wounded and the sick. Those who are broken, sinful, weak, hurting are welcome to come to the Church to encounter the healing, merciful love of Christ.

But this also leaves us with a Church that is messy, imperfect, flawed, sinful. To many people, this is a scandal – how can we encounter the all-holy God in a Church that seems so unholy at times? Here are a few perspectives:

First, the fact that the sins of the Church are so shocking means that people hold the Church to a high standard. We expect Hollywood to be full of scandals, but the world expects the Church to radiate Christ’s love. And…they’re right! We ought to be holy. The world recognizes our dignity - I pray that we do as well.

Second, we can’t forget that the field of the Church is not all weeds – there is plenty of wheat in there as well! There are so many people whose love for Christ is beautiful and holy…we cannot forget this, even if they don’t make the headlines. For example, two weeks ago we buried one of our oldest parishioners who died at the rich old age of 101. Every time I would visit her and bring her Communion, she would weep and say, “Thank you for bringing me Jesus. I love Him so much.” A living saint like this should inspire us – and there are millions like her in the Church, if we have eyes to see.

Third, we must consider that Satan hates the Church because this is the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ with the fullness of Truth and every possible avenue of grace. Thus, the Evil One hates the Catholic Church more than any other! Satan doesn’t waste his time on mediocre churches, but the Catholic Church has the spiritual power to transform the world – so it is logical that Satan works particularly hard to bring it down.

Fourth, the wheat and the weeds are not people because in each human heart there is some wheat and some weed! We all like to think, “Oh, I’m the wheat, because I go to church and basically live a good life.” Yes, but we have all contributed to the lack of holiness in the Church – maybe we’ve given a bad example of a Christian. As Protestant pastor Brennan Manning said, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and then walk out the door and get on with their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” But the good news is that Christ can root out the weeds in our own souls. The Church is “semper reformanda” – always reforming – and every Christian needs to be as well.

Finally, the solution to this problem is holiness – we must remove the weeds in the garden of our own soul, and pray and fast for the weeds to be rooted out in the Church. You may be familiar with the story of St. Francis’ call. After Francis began to seriously follow Christ, he didn’t know what to do. He was praying one day in a small stone chapel when the crucifix in the chapel opened its eyes and said to Francis, “Rebuild My Church, which as you can see is falling into ruins.” Francis took that literally and began to physically rebuild the chapel of San Damiano, begging stone from local villagers so he could restore it to its former beauty. After a while, though, Francis realized that Jesus wasn’t talking about the physical chapel, but rather of THE CHURCH – which had been falling into ruin through the corruption of its members.

But there are two parts of that story that most people don’t know. First: there were others who were unhappy about the corruption of the Church – a group of men, led by a charismatic preacher named Peter Waldo, fought corruption in the church…by separating from it. They wanted a pure, holy Church, and decided to form it themselves, apart from the Catholic Church. But that wasn’t the way to go – the Waldensian movement quickly died out (although there are actually a few still left today). Strangely, their founder, Peter Waldo, actually disappeared and no one knows where he’s buried, which leads people to ask…where’s Waldo?

So, Pope Innocent III wondered, when he met St. Francis, if this was going to be another Peter Waldo who wanted to reform the Church by leaving it. He was reluctant to approve of St. Francis’ mission until one night the Pope had a dream in which he saw St. Francis holding up a crumbling Basilica of St. John Lateran, which was the Pope’s official cathedral. When he awoke, the Pope quickly called in St. Francis and gave him his blessing – because he recognized that the holiness of this man would be a saving grace to the Church, which was indeed falling into ruin.

As we see our Church so in need of revival, so filled with weeds, we are faced with a choice. We can walk away – or we can do the weeding in our own souls and become the saints that strengthen and purify the Church.

Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - July 5, 2020

Homily for Ordinary Time 14

July 5, 2020

Ready to be Taught

 

            Back in the 1840s, a Jesuit priest named Fr. Peter deSmet began missionary work to the Native Americans out on the plains. He founded a mission in South Dakota (the St. Francis Mission) and was able to earn the trust of the Lakota Indians. Unlike the other “white men” that these natives encountered, Fr. DeSmet was not interested in their land or their food, but only their souls – and they recognized it.

            When Fr. deSmet had to move on to found other missions, two Lakota chiefs – Chief Spotted Tail and Chief Red Cloud – petitioned the US President to send more “black robes” (priests) to teach the Faith to their people. These chiefs had been baptized, and wanted their tribes to follow the Lord Jesus as well – and they knew that to do so, they needed teachers. Several more Jesuit priests were sent, and their work flourished among the people – so much so that one of their converts, Nicholas Black Elk, is in the process of possibly being canonized a saint soon.

            One of the great titles of the Church is “mater et magistra” – Mother and Teacher (in fact, Pope St. John XXIII wrote an encyclical by this name). The Church exists to teach us the way to Heaven.

            But we must be open to being taught. That is why Christ says in the Gospel today that the mysteries of the Kingdom are only granted to the simple little ones. “Learn from Me,” He tells us. Those who are not puffed-up in their own pride are open to being taught by Christ and His Church.

            What does this mean, practically? Three steps.

            First, we recognize that we are not perfect and that we need the Lord Jesus to teach us how to be holy! The Christian life is full of joy, but it’s also a struggle. The Gospel these last couple weekends have been really challenging – take up your cross, choose Christ over your family.  Being faithful to your spouse is tough; being open to life is tough. Standing up for your faith is tough; living virtuously is tough. So we must first recognize that we can’t do it on our own – we need to learn how to live it well. We’re not saints yet – we are sinners on a journey, being redeemed by the Blood of Christ.

            Second, we recognize that Christ teaches us through the Bible and through His Church, and that these teachings are good. The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 119, which has 176 verses. This long Psalm is entirely a hymn of praise for God’s law. As the Psalmist writes, “Your law is a delight to me.” Christ’s teachings are for our life, even the ones that are tough like “take up your Cross and follow Me.” We learn God’s law through Scripture and the enduring Tradition of the Church.

            Finally, we seek to know what the Bible and the Church teach, and apply it to our lives. As Pope John Paul II said, “The Church is an expert in humanity.” The Church gives us guidance on almost every aspect of human life: prayer, love, sexuality, family, money, work, politics, the meaning of human history. Are we open to hearing what the Church says, and then conforming our lives accordingly?

            It would be an error, though, to think that we have to understand in order to believe. It’s actually the exact opposite – we believe so that we might understand the Faith. The Medieval scholastics had a saying: Fides quaerens intellectum – Faith seeking understanding. There are things I don’t yet understand about our Catholic Faith – but I believe them nonetheless.

            There is a huge difference between “I don’t believe” and “I don’t understand”. The first comes from pride, the second comes from humility. The first says, “Unless I fully agree with the teachings of the Church, I won’t follow them.” The second says “I will follow the teachings of the Church, and will seek to understand them more and more.” We must have the humility to say “I don’t understand” and not the pride which says “I don’t believe!”

            Our Church is not anti-intellectual! Our Catholic Faith welcomes questions and inquiry – there are good reasons for what we believe – but we must seek from an attitude of faith. And where to we learn about what the Church teaches? From the Church itself – the Catechism, church documents, and learned priests and teachers. Once I was teaching an eighth grade class and we had a question and answer session. Almost all of the questions were ran along the same theme: “Why does the Church discriminate against gays?” I said to the kids, “The Church does not discriminate against anyone – all are welcome to encounter Christ, to repent, and to seek holiness and purity. Where did you get the impression that the Church discriminates against gays?” Sheepishly they all answered, “Uh…Instagram… Twitter…Facebook.” If you want to know what the Church teaches, read the Catechism, not the New York Times or your uncle’s Facebook posts!

            The Bible and the Church exist as a teacher because we need to be taught the way to Heaven. One of the early Mohawk converts, Maria Tsiaouentes, said it best when someone asked her why she spends time with the “black robes”: “The Fathers who instruct us have left their own home and friends to teach us the way to Heaven.”

            May we always be ready to learn.