Homily for Ordinary Time 3 - January 23, 2022

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 3

January 23, 2022

Historicity of the Gospels

 

            I love how Luke begins his Gospel because he tells us straight-up that he is writing history, not a legend. Legends begin with, “Once upon a time…”. But history begins with “In this specific place, at this specific time…” And Luke makes it clear that he is not just repeating mythical stories – no, he looked into all of these events himself, and is writing a historical account of a real man named Jesus.

In 1979, an atheist, Yale-educated journalist named Lee Strobel was shocked when his wife, an atheist like himself, converted to Christianity. He wanted to disprove her new faith, so he set about to investigate the claims of Christianity in the hopes of finding Jesus to be a myth.

            Applying his journalistic skills to the person of Jesus, he uncovered some startling facts. He found that every reputable historian agrees that Jesus really existed. In fact, in the first few centuries after Jesus, there were many pagans – non-Christians - who wrote about Jesus. Early historians such as Tacitus, Flavius Josephus, and Pliny the Younger – all of whom wrote in the first two centuries after Jesus – spoke about him as a really existing person. Even from a secular standpoint, Jesus actually has more historical evidence than any other ancient person.

            Plus, the Gospels are historical documents themselves. Two of them – Matthew and John – were both eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus, and wrote their Gospels only 30 years after He lived. We actually have copies of John’s Gospel from about 120AD, so we know that the original manuscripts of the Gospels came from the first century. The other two Gospels – Mark and Luke – interviewed eyewitnesses for their material. Mark interviewed St. Peter, and Luke used St. Paul and the Blessed Mother as his sources.

            These writings agree in the fundamentals. Yes, there are some small discrepancies, but how many times have you disagreed with your spouse about events that happened years in the past? The husband says, “Oh, remember that time last year the Joneses came over and Mary spilled the red wine on her white dress?” And the wife responds, “It was two years ago, it was the Smiths, and it was actually a martini.” The small disagreements in the Gospels don’t change the truth of Jesus – He really lived, preached, did miracles, died on a Cross, and rose from the dead. After studying all this, the journalist Lee Strobel realized there was no escaping the truth that Jesus really existed, really claimed to be God, and really rose from the dead. He converted to Christianity and ended up becoming a Protestant pastor.

            If Jesus is not just a myth – if He really lived and really died and really rose again – this has two consequences for us. First, it means we can have a real relationship with Him. We can’t have a real relationship with Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker, since they don’t really exist. But I can speak to the Lord – and He really hears me, because He is real. And…He speaks to us, too!

            Nowadays, people are seeking spirituality in all sorts of places. A month or so ago I met with a woman who was going through a crisis, and I suggested that she pray about it. She said, “Yes, I shall consult the energies.” Energies? Since when do energies hear or answer prayer? She wanted to be “in touch with the universe” – but the Universe isn’t a person! But Jesus Christ is really alive, a real person, with whom we can have a real relationship. All of our spirituality, then, must be based on pursuing a living relationship with Jesus through daily prayer, Scripture reading, and encountering Him through the Sacraments.

            Second, if Jesus is real and alive, then He truly is the King of the universe – which means that He has a claim on our lives, and we have to follow Him, live for Him. One of our church’s greatest saints, St. Augustine, struggled to come to that understanding. As a kid, Augustine was a wild child. In his autobiography, “Confessions” (which, interestingly, was the first autobiography in history!), he tells a story of his teen years, when he and his friends were passing by a pear orchard. The pears were still small, hard, and unripe, but he decided to steal some and eat them. Even though they tasted awful, he said that he savored the flavor of his sin! He loved indulging in sin – he had a child outside of marriage, he ran away from his super-devout mother St. Monica, and made money and fame the goal of his life. After many years, though, his sin wore him down and he was sick and tired of the emptiness of his selfish life. He began to seek truth and meaning – first looking into a cult of quasi-Christians, before encountering a holy bishop named St. Ambrose. Ambrose taught Augustine about true Christianity, and intellectually he became a believer. But it was a struggle to forsake his sin! One time, he famously prayed, “Lord, grant me holy purity…but not yet!” He was still a slave to sin, even though he knew that Jesus was truly alive.

            One day as he was walking through a garden, he was torn up about living this double life – believing in Jesus but still living for the flesh. He heard a voice off in a distance singing, “Take up and read!” Looking down, he saw a bible on a bench. Picking it up, he read St. Paul’s words, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provisions for the desires of the flesh.” He was cut to the heart and finally able to give up his sin and live for Christ alone. He became a priest, a bishop, and is one of the greatest saints in our church.

            I am so grateful that St. Luke did what he did – giving us an accurate, historical account of Jesus Christ. Because if Jesus is real, then I can have a living relationship with Him, and I must live my life for Him alone. If He really lived and died and rose again – then this changes everything!

Homily for Ordinary Time 2 - January 16, 2022

 

Homily for January 16, 2022

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

Bride of Christ

 

            A couple years ago, I came across an article on the Internet about a famous Catholic speaker who publicly decided to leave the Church. He said he was fed up with the scandals, the lack of community, the boring homilies, everything. So he publicly disavowed his Catholicism.

            That kind of stuff hits me like a punch in the stomach. It always depresses me when I hear of anyone leaving the Catholic Church, whether a famous speaker or a regular churchgoer. That whole day I was kind of depressed – why should I stay Catholic? I mean, he’s got a point – there are lots of scandals and bad behavior – we can all point to inappropriate behavior by those who call themselves Catholic. For example, I’ll never forget when I was about ten years old being cursed out by the deacon of my church for doing a bad job altar serving.

            But that night I was praying Evening Prayer, and the reading was from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where Paul wrote: “Christ loved the Church.” I thought, if Jesus Christ could love the Church, with all of its flaws, then so can I.

            Christ loves the Church so much that St. Paul calls the Catholic Church the “Bride of Christ”. In the Old Testament, God’s relationship to Israel is always spoken of as a Bridegroom and Bride. Makes sense – much like a husband and wife promise lifelong faithfulness to each other, God is constantly faithful to His Bride, Israel – even when She was unfaithful to Him. God would do anything for His Bride, even to the point of laying down His life for Her, as a husband should do for His wife.

            So it is fitting that Jesus should do His first miracle at a wedding feast! He is forming a new Israel: you and I, the Catholic Church. Look how He does it – He takes these jars which are used for Jewish ceremonial washings – a symbol of Judaism’s Law – and turns that water into the most delightful wine – a symbol of the grace that we will experience through our faith in Him. The Church then begins at the end of the Gospel today, when it says that “His disciples believed in Him.” Now we have the beginnings of the new Bride of Christ, the Church, which is the gathering of all those who believe in Jesus Christ.

            But, so often we don’t see the Church as the Bride of Christ. A lot of times it just looks like a mess. People leaving the Church, fellow believers who are not truly living their Faith, leaders who are uninspiring or worse. This is when I have the hope that God promises in the first reading: “Nations shall behold your vindication, and all the kings your glory; you shall be called by a new name pronounced by the mouth of the LORD. You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the LORD, a royal diadem held by your God. No more shall people call you “Forsaken,”

or your land “Desolate,” but you shall be called “My Delight,” and your land “Espoused.” For the LORD delights in you and makes your land his spouse.” At the end of time, we will see the Church as a radiant Bride, perfectly holy, faithful to Jesus – as She was always meant to be.

            Until that day, though, “The Church is not a hotel for saints, but a hospital for sinners,” as Pope Francis says. Thank God, because I’m a sinner! All of us find a home here in the Church, no matter where we are on our spiritual journey.

            Nevertheless, there is real holiness in the Church, in four ways. First, the Founder of our Church is Jesus Christ – so our Founder is holy! (No other church can claim that they were founded by the Lord Himself!). Second, the goal of the Church is to get us to Heaven – out goal is holy! Third, the way we accomplish the goal is holy – the Sacraments and the Teachings of the Church. Only the Catholic Church has preserved the teachings of Christ, unchanged, for the past two thousand years. Finally, we really do have holy people in the Church – the saints! If this is the Church that could produce St. Francis, or Mother Theresa, or St. Patrick – then what can God do with you and I if we stay in the Church!

            Ultimately, where else can we go? Jesus promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church. There was a great writer in the early 1900s named Walker Percy. His early life was filled with tragedy – his father committed suicide when he was thirteen, and only two years later his mother also took her own life. He was left in the care of an uncle who provided for his education, and he started studying to be a doctor. Years later, he caught tuberculosis and had to recuperate in upstate New York. During his time in recuperation, he began to ask the deeper questions of life: why is there so much suffering in the world? Is there any meaning behind it all? He read voraciously and encountered some Catholic authors who made him wonder if there were answers in the Catholic Church. Much to everyone’s surprise, he and his wife converted to Catholicism very suddenly.

            He was later asked, “What did it? Why did you convert?” He responded, “My life has been such a disaster – this modern world is such a disaster – that I demanded from God a gift equal to the disaster.” The gift was faith in the Catholic Church, the only thing that could make sense out of his tragic life.

            Later on, when a fellow writer was contemplating becoming Catholic, Walker Percy wrote her a letter and said, “The Church is a very untidy group that you’re hooking up with, but it’s the one thing that will be around until the end.”

            If Jesus Christ can love His Bride, the Church, then so can we!

Homily for the Baptism of Our Lord - January 9, 2022

 

Homily for Baptism of Our Lord

January 9, 2022

Sacraments: Source of Living Water

 

            An old grandmother, right before her death, spoke to her granddaughter and promised to give her a great treasure. “My dear granddaughter, I had the great fortune in my life to visit the Holy Land and collect some water from the Jordan River, which I have preserved in a fancy bottle to give to my grandchildren. As you are the oldest granddaughter, I want you to have it. You can find it up there, on the shelf.” The granddaughter was overjoyed at such a sacred, powerful gift as this – to have water from the very river where Jesus Himself stepped foot! She got a stepstool and grabbed the bottle and brought it to her grandmother, but noticed something odd.

            “Grandma, the bottle is empty!” she exclaimed.

            “Well, yes, I spilled the water out some years ago…but you can keep the bottle!”

            Quite a dubious gift – and not exactly what was promised to be handed down! And yet this is exactly what we have been given, thanks to Original Sin. Our First Parents were created by God as beautiful, exquisite containers to hold a magnificent gift. They were created with a body and a soul, an intellect and a free will – but the body and soul were just meant to hold a far more magnificent reality: the grace of God. What is grace? It is God’s Divine Life within us. He wanted us to literally be living, breathing, walking outposts of God’s divine presence, radiance, holiness, and power.

            But something happened. The gift of grace was lost. And now we inherit from our parents just the vessel – the body and soul – without the connection with God. It would be like if you inherited a vintage record player…without the power cord, or a ’59 Mustang without an engine. Nice thought, but it’s missing something vital to make it function. Without the plug or the engine, it just kinda sits there and doesn’t do what it was made to do!

            But God did not want this to be our fate, so He provided a way to have our empty bottles filled at the source of Living Water. The Source, of course, is the Sacraments.

            But the Sacraments look so ordinary! Icebergs also look pretty ordinary, and of course we all know that 90% of an iceberg is underwater. In the same way, what we see in the Sacraments is only 10% of what’s really going on, in the invisible, spiritual world. For example, in Baptism, we see water poured over a baby’s head. No big deal – happens every time you give that kid a bath. But in the spiritual realm, this child is filled with God’s divine life for the first time. Their soul becomes marked with an indelible, unchangeable character that marks their soul as property of Jesus Christ. They become sons or daughters of Almighty God, heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven, members of the Church. They receive the Holy Spirit and every grace and blessing to save their own soul.

            Sometimes in modern America we think that if we can’t measure it, it’s not real, so we think grace is just a nice myth, a warm fuzzy feeling that comforts us at funerals when we sing Amazing Grace. My friends, grace is not like that at all. Rather, grace is an objective reality. Either you have grace within your soul, or you don’t. Much like a light bulb either has electricity running through it (and it’s lit up) or it doesn’t (and it’s dark), you either have God’s grace or you don’t. It’s not something you can feel or measure, but here’s how it works:

            You receive God’s grace at Baptism. You increase God’s grace first of all through the Sacraments, through other good works, prayer, and through the prayers of others. God’s grace is diminished if we neglect our faith or commit venial sin. We lose God’s grace entirely through mortal sin. Mortal sin, such as intentionally missing Mass on Sunday or other Holy Days of Obligation, intentionally getting drunk or doing drugs, sexual sin including pornography and any sexual activity outside of marriage, doing occult things like psychics or tarot cards are all mortal sins. If we find ourself having any of these on our soul, our soul is damaged – we must come to our soul’s Maker in the Sacrament of Confession for repairs. In fact, we cannot receive any other grace if we are in the state of mortal sin – it is like trying to fill your bottle with living water while the bottle has a hole in it – futile until the hole is patched up. From the vantage point of God, He sees all of our souls and recognizes those souls that are darkened and empty because they have no grace, those who are only dimly lit because of little grace, and those who shine with His radiance. And what a beautiful thing it is to shine with grace – St. Theresa of Avila said that if we could see a soul in the state of grace, we would be tempted to worship it!

            Grace is not something we earn, though. It’s a free gift, leading into a deeper relationship. We come to the Sacraments, not to buy our way into Heaven, but as launching-points to a deeper daily friendship with Jesus Christ, Who gave them to us. In fact, Jesus thinks the Sacraments are so important that the Church teaches in the Catechism that “God has bound grace to the Sacraments.” If someone said, “I will give you the key to your very own mansion at such-and-such a day at this time and place,” would we respond, “Eh, can’t you just mail it to me? Can’t I just Zoom call in?” Not if someone is being so generous! When God wants to give us His greatest gift of grace, we should be grateful to receive it in the way He has designed! – the motor to our Mustang, the power cord to our antique record player, the Divine Life that fills and radiates our soul.

            Why did God bind grace to the Sacraments, though? Three reasons. First, because we are both body and soul, we need to encounter His invisible love in a very tangible way – through the water of baptism, the Host in Communion, those healing words in Confession. Grace gets to our soul through our body! Second, because the Sacraments gather us together as a Church. A single match is quickly blown out, but when a match lights a stick which lights a log, it becomes a bonfire. When a soul is apart from the Church, their faith is quickly snuffed. But surrounded by other Christians, our faith becomes ablaze! Finally, the Sacraments continue what Jesus did on earth. Jesus forgave sins – He now does that through His priests. He gave us His Body and Blood at the Last Supper, and He continues to do so at every Mass. He told His disciples to baptize, and for twenty centuries the Church has fulfilled His commands.

            So this is why the Sacraments are so vital – they are our strongest connection to grace. Never stay away from the Sacraments! I hear so many people who think they can have a relationship with God apart from the Sacraments – they are missing out! He instituted these Sacraments as the seven faucets where we can be filled with His Divine Life! We are empty vessels who can only do good works – who can only get to Heaven – by God’s free gift of grace, which we find in Baptism and all the other Seven Sacraments.