Advent 4 - Mary and the Incarnation

 

Homily for Advent 4

Mary and the Incarnation

December 22, 2024

 

            It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman, and such is the case with Jesus Christ and His Mother, Mary. We can’t speak about the Incarnation without bringing up her essential role in bringing the Word-Made-Flesh into space-and-time. In particular, God prepared Mary for this role in four major ways.

            First, she is called the theotokos – the Mother of God. But this title of Mary wasn’t without controversy. In the early 400s, a priest named Nestorius began to declare that Mary couldn’t be called Mother of God, because wouldn’t that seem to imply that she was greater than God? After all, God is outside of time and doesn’t need to be born – how can we call her the Mother of God?

            The Church met at the Council of Ephesus to discuss this question – can we call Mary the Mother of God, if God is not born? They had to make an important distinction about Jesus. Jesus has two natures, but is only one Person. Do mothers give birth to a nature or to a person? Clearly, it’s to a person. When a mom gives birth, the doctor doesn’t hold up the child and declare, “It’s a human being!” Of course it is! But who is it? Is it a boy or a girl, is it Johnny or Sally? So they declared that Mary gave birth to the person of Jesus, not just to His human nature. And the Person of Jesus is both God and Man. Therefore it is right to call her “Mother of God”. Interestingly, when news of this decision reached the ears of the people of Ephesus, they began to party in the streets, declaring again and again, “Mary Theotokos! Mary Theotokos!” The good Christians already knew – Mary is the mother of God.

            Second, God prepared Mary for this task through her Perpetual Virginity. She never shared her body with anyone – her womb was His alone. Even though it wasn’t officially declared until the seventh century, it was always believed, even from the earliest days of the Church.

            But wait! There are Bible passages that speak about Jesus’ brothers and sisters. How can that be? There are two possible explanations. First, there is no Greek word for cousins or other blood relatives that aren’t siblings. So, the Gospel writers may have meant that Jesus’ relatives, but not actual siblings, are referenced here. There is also an ancient tradition that St. Joseph was much older than Mary, and that he was a widower but had children from his first marriage. These children would have been half-brothers of Jesus. So regardless of how they are referenced, we know that Jesus was the only child of Mary, because the temple of her body was reserved for Him alone.

            Third, God prepared Mary by allowing her to be conceived without Original Sin, which we call the Immaculate Conception. Consider – if you could create your own parents, wouldn’t you create them perfect? Of course! How could Jesus dwell in a heart that was opposed to Him through sin? Thus, for Christ to dwell a few inches below the Immaculate Heart of Mary, He would need that heart and soul to be perfectly clean, without even the slightest stain of sin.

            In February of 1858, a young shepherd girl named Bernadette was gathering some sticks for her family’s fireplace, when a wind rustling the trees made her look up. To her surprise, hovering in a small cave a short distance away was a beautiful woman dressed in white. The girl asked this strange apparition, “Who are you?” The woman replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

            News of this strange phenomenon began to spread, until the parish priest called her in for questioning. He demanded, “Who is it that you saw?” She replied, “I do not know who it was; she called herself ‘the Immaculate Conception’.” The priest asked, “Do you know what that means?” But Bernadette, being uneducated, had no idea what that meant. The priest was shocked that this uneducated girl had just called Mary by a title that she didn’t even understand! Clearly, she was truly seeing Our Lady, and to this day Lourdes, France is a popular pilgrimage destination where people honor Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

            Finally, Our Lord could not leave His mother’s body to suffer the anguish of the tomb, so we profess as Catholics that at the end of her earthly life, He took her body and soul to Heaven without death. This is called the Assumption. After Christ ascended into Heaven, Mary went to live with St. John who soon moved from Jerusalem to Ephesus. There she lived for about fifteen more years, and when the time came for her to end her earthly life, the Holy Spirit miraculously inspired all of the Apostles to gather in Ephesus to say goodbye to their spiritual mother. According to tradition, she fell asleep peacefully, and they bore her body to a tomb that they had prepared. But there was one Apostle who hadn’t made it there in time – St. Thomas, who was preaching the Gospel in India, which is quite a distance. So when he returned, she was already in the tomb. In great grief, he went by himself to the tomb and was surprised to see that the stone was off of it, and the body of the Blessed Virgin was being taken directly into Heaven. According to the tradition, Our Lady’s belt dropped down into his hands, so we still have it, and it is still venerated in India. How fitting that she who was not touched by Original Sin would not have to suffer death, which is a consequence of Original Sin!

            During Advent and Christmas, we often focus on Mary – as Elizabeth does in the Gospel today. But Mary’s entire being is to point the way to Jesus. Immediately after Elizabeth praises her in the Gospel, Mary launches into her Magnificat – a beautiful song of praise of God: “My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Everything good about Mary is for Jesus. This is why we can go to her as a mother, trusting that she will not distract us from her Son but lead us to Him. And this is why we can imitate how she completely yielded her life to Him – she only existed to bring Him into this world. And we, too, only exist to love and praise Him here and in eternity.

Advent 3 - Committed to Making Us Holy

 

Homily for Advent 3 – Incarnation Part 3

December 15, 2024

The Clean One

 

            If you are a baseball fan, you may have seen that Juan Soto just signed the largest contract in sports history – 15 years with the Mets for $765 million dollars. Not only is a lot of money, it’s a very long time – so this superstar is going to be with his new team through thick and thin, win or lose.

            He’s (hopefully) going to do everything in his power to make his team better, because he’s with them for the long-haul. That might mean that he has to challenge his team if they’re in a slump, and sacrifice everything for the win. Once you get committed to something for a long period of time, you will do everything in your power to make it the best it could be. That’s not just true for sports teams – it’s true in marriages and families, it’s true in parishes and communities, it’s true in businesses and schools – if you are committed to the group, you’ll do everything possible to make it shine.

            The Incarnation – God becoming man – means that God has “thrown His lot in” with us. He’s committed to the human race now, because He’s one of us. He can never get tired of humanity and say, “Eh, they’re all just too messed up and sinful, so I’m going to start over on some other planet.” No – now that He IS a human being, He’s committed to us, He’s not giving up on us, and from now until eternity He is going to strive to make us the best we can be.

            John the Baptist says some shocking things about Jesus in the Gospel. He will come to baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire? That He will gather wheat into the barn but burn the chaff? And then it says John preached good news to the people? On face value, it seems that repentance, purification, and judgment are NOT good news…but in reality, they are the best news we could ever receive.

            Cleaning things, whether it’s ourselves or our house or our car, can often be a difficult and arduous task – but don’t we feel so much better when we’re clean? After a week on the trail, a hot shower makes you feel like a new person. Washing your car makes you drive with a bit more pep. But it’s not always easy to wash and clean. It takes hard work. It’s an unpleasant task. It takes suffering.

            Hence, John baptizes with a baptism of “repentance”. Jesus’ first words, too, in the Gospels were “repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand.” In fact, the Name “Jesus” means “God Saves” – saves from what? From sin and eternal death! His whole mission is to make us holy as He is holy. Since He’s thrown in His lot with us for eternity, He will do anything to make us saints – including taking flesh and dying on a Cross.

            But it is HE who does it in us. This is why we rejoice this Third Sunday of Advent – because God’s sanctifying grace is available, just for the asking.

            Bishop James Walsh was an American missionary priest to China in the early twentieth century. He ministered in some small villages, saying Mass in tiny chapels in the wilderness. When the local pagans would visit these chapels out of curiosity, Bishop Walsh would show them around and give them a tour, explaining the church. There was one group of visitors who were fascinated by the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and when Bishop Walsh explained that she was the sinless Mother of Jesus, the pagan crowd was in awe. “She must be very special, to be without sin,” they exclaimed, in a hushed reverence. They then moved on to the Confessional, and Bishop Walsh explained that here, Christians could be forgiven of their sins through Confession, and they were even more amazed. “You mean we can become like this holy woman, Mary? We can be sinless like her?” Yes, that’s the radical nature of Christianity – that it is entirely possible to be forgiven. All it takes is repentance, Confession, and turning your life over to Christ.

            So let me ask – do you have anything you wish you could undo? Anything in your life you regret? The bad choices that hurt us and others, the bad habits that enslave us – this is what Jesus Christ has come to free you from.

            Today, right now, repent of all that stuff. Confess your sins, and experience His forgiveness and love. Commit, right here and right now, to following Jesus Christ.

            That’s good news indeed.

Advent 2 - A God With Skin On

 

Homily for Advent 2 – Incarnation Series, Part 2

December 8, 2024

Truly Human, Truly Divine

 

            A father went to help his four-year-old with his bedtime prayers, and after praying, he went to turn out the light. But the boy cried out, “No, don’t leave, I’m scared of the dark and I don’t want to be here alone!”

            The father reassured him, “Yes, but God is always with you, you have nothing to fear.”

            The boy quickly replied, “But I want someone with skin on!”

            The very cornerstone of our Catholic Faith is the Incarnation – that God took on skin, as it were. But did it really happen? Wasn’t that just one of many myths from the ancient world?

            Many ancient cultures had stories of a God-man. For example, Hercules was supposed to be a half-god, half-man. The ancient Arabs had a god named Theandrios, whose name literally means god-man (Theos is God in Greek, and Andros is man). Greek and Roman culture had their Dionysius or Bacchus, which were gods who descended to mankind to give them gifts (usually wine or fertility). There were even legends of several gods who died and then resurrected.

            But the Incarnation of Christ differed from these in several ways. First, most of the myths featured men and women who became gods, not God who became man. In fact, it was an ancient Roman custom to deify a famous or influential person, but they still made the distinction between a “deus” (a god) and a “divus” (a man who has been divinized). Interestingly, the female version of “divus” is “diva”, from which we get the English term for a self-centered female celebrity, who thinks themselves a god!

            Secondly, God-taking-flesh did not benefit Him in the least – it was entirely for our benefit. In all of the other myths, the gods take on flesh for their own benefit. They never do so out of gratuitous love. Maybe they wanted some worship or Adoration, but that was always to boost their own ego. God wants us to worship Him, not because He is an egomaniac, but because He knows it is our happiness to worship Him. He’s willing to take on flesh to allow us to access Him – He is a God with “skin on”.

            But what of all the old myths? Is Christianity just another one of those old mystery religions? CS Lewis had a great line; he said that “Christianity isn’t just God made man, it is also myth made fact.” His point is that all of the myths actually point to a real, historical event. Humans have always had an intuition that God would become man; hence the myths by which pagan cultures told the story. In Jesus, though, the myth has become reality. No longer do we need to wander in the mists of myth; we now have the hard evidence of a place, a time, a Person.

            Luke drives that home in his typical crystal-clear fashion. Most myths begin, “Once upon a time.” But Luke makes it clear that the Incarnation happened in a real historical context. Listen to his words again:

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,

when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,

and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee,

and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region

of Ituraea and Trachonitis,

and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene,

during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,

the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert.

            Even the early Church struggled to understand the radical nature of the Incarnation. In the early 200s, there was a heresy floating around called Docetism. This heresy declared that Jesus didn’t really take flesh, but that He was an apparition. If the angels could appear to people with bodies, even though they don’t actually have them, then maybe Jesus could do the same – just appear to have lived in the flesh, when He was really just a mirage.

            But this doesn’t make any sense. It was necessary for Christ to be fully human, for two reasons. First, as St. Gregory of Nazianzen said, “What was not assumed was not redeemed.” In other words, if Jesus didn’t have real human flesh, He could not have redeemed real human flesh. If He didn’t have a human mind, human emotions, and a human will, then He would never have been able to redeem those things. He had to become fully human to redeem all humans.

            But, secondly, He had to become fully human so that we could have the depths of a real relationship with Him. It’s very hard to have a friendship with someone who is much higher than you. I love our Bishop, but when I am with him, I’m always conscious that he is the boss and I’m not. I definitely have to put my best foot forward, lest he assign me to Timbuktu! You may feel the same way with your boss – if he makes decisions on your life, can you really be totally relaxed with him?

            But God wanted to call us no longer servants but friends. Thus He had to lower Himself to our level so that we can truly share the depths of our hearts with Him. Now I can share with Him my joys and sorrows, my weaknesses and my hopes, because He knows what it is to experience human joy and sorrow. I know that He, too, was weak, and that He experienced human love and suffering.

            So, do you see Jesus as a close friend? He is indeed Lord, but He took on flesh so He could also be a friend. And with every good friend, He desperately wants to spend time with you. This Advent, amidst the hectic insanity, why not take some time to be with Him? Come to Adoration, pray the Rosary, spend time in daily prayer. He is not a distant God, but one Who has taken flesh in history, and continues to stay with us in the present through the Holy Eucharist.

            We all want to have a God “with skin on”. In the manger, on the Cross, in the Eucharist, we have found such a God.

Advent 1 - Far More Than We Bargained For

 

Homily for Advent 1 – Series On The Incarnation

December 1, 2024

Infinite Power In A Tiny Package

 

            How many stories have artifacts that are small in themselves but contain infinite power? Lord of the Rings has the “ring of power”; Avengers has the infinity stones; the Holy Grail and the Excalibur sword have enchanted people for centuries. These ordinary-looking items contain an unseen power that promises immortality, invincibility, power, and wealth.

            So it is with Jesus Christ. When He was born, He appeared to be no different than any other child – and yet the fulness of divinity dwelt within Him!

            We see an interesting contrast between the expectation of the first reading and its fulfillment in the Gospel. Jeremiah prophesies that God will raise up a savior for Israel, but he is speaking of a political savior who will restore Israel to its former glory. Remember, Jeremiah was writing during the difficult time of the Babylonian Exile, when Israel had all been deported to a foreign land. The Temple had been destroyed, and it seems as if their enemies had stolen God’s promises from them. So Jeremiah prophesies that a great leader will return the exiles and restore the greatness of the nation, much like God had raised up former leaders like Moses, Samuel, and David.

            But we got so much more than we ever imagined! The Gospel shows that Jesus is not just a fine politician or warrior, but the Judge of the Living and the Dead, the Savior of the Entire World, the Son of Man. This last title is often misunderstood – by calling Himself the Son of Man, Jesus isn’t just saying He’s human. It’s actually a powerful reference to Daniel 7, which we read last week. It’s worth re-reading:

            As the visions during the night continued, I saw

    one like a Son of man coming,

        on the clouds of heaven;

    when he reached the Ancient One

        and was presented before him,

    the one like a Son of man received dominion, glory, and kingship;

        all peoples, nations, and languages serve him.

    His dominion is an everlasting dominion

        that shall not be taken away,

        his kingship shall not be destroyed.

            So we expected a passing political leader to help one obscure nation, and instead we got the Alpha and Omega, the Lord of all Creation, the Incarnate God, Who would offer salvation to the entire human race for eternity. This blessing is beyond our wildest dreams – that God would actually become man!

            In fact, it’s so beyond our comprehension that some in the early Church struggled to understand it. In the early 320s, a priest named Arius began preaching that Jesus wasn’t actually divine, but that He was only a great man, adopted as a spiritual son of the Father. This heresy began to spread like wildfire – as St. Jerome put it, “The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian.” More than half of the Bishops began to believe and teach that Jesus was not truly God. Clearly, this was a crisis of epic proportions. The Pope called a council in Nicaea in 325 where they debated this point with great fervor.

            As a humorous aside, St. Nicholas, the true saint who is the basis for Santa Claus, as the bishop of Myra in Turkey was invited to the council. The story has it that when he saw Arius walk into the council hall, he was so incensed by his heresy that he walked right up and punched Arius in the face. Not exactly a saintly reaction, but I do admire his desire to defend Christ’s divinity! St. Nicholas was expelled from the council for this action!

            The entire debate at the Council hinged on literally one letter. They tried to define if Jesus was homoousious (of the same substance as the Father) or if He is homoiousious (of a similar substance). Literally one letter separated the truth from a heresy! Thankfully, led by the Holy Spirit, the Council decided that Jesus is truly one-in-being with the Father. They developed the creed we will recite in a few minutes, declaring that Jesus is consubstantial with the Father.

            Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man. He’s not half and half, as if He were a centaur (which is a half-horse, half-human mythical creature). No, He is fully divine and fully human, without any mixture of the two but with perfect unity. That means He has both a divine mind and a human mind, and they are always united. He has both a divine will and a human will, and the two are never in opposition. We call this perfect unity the “hypostatic union” – the union of two natures (“hypostases” in Greek) in Jesus.

            There is literally nothing like in human history. When we combine two things, we either get a half-and-half or we get something completely new. So when a horse and donkey breed, they become something new: a mule. Or if we were to mix lemonade and iced tea, we get something new: an Arnold Palmer. But when we see Jesus, we see two completely separate but completely united realities: His divinity, hidden within His humanity.

            Well, I suppose there is one thing like it in history: the Eucharist. We see two completely separate but united realities: the appearances of bread, with the substance of God. Like in Jesus Christ, our eyes only see one reality, but the other one is only perceived in faith. If we ever struggle to believe in His Real Presence, remember that the people who saw the Infant Jesus in the manger probably had the same difficulty believing that the baby was God incarnate.

            But what’s our takeaway to this deep theology? Really, it’s faith. Believe in Jesus with your whole heart. Not merely an intellectual kind of “Yeah, I guess it’s true” but rather a whole-self “It IS true, and it changes everything.” If God could give us far more than we ever expected, how could we give Him any less?

Christ the King Sunday - The "Isms" Against the Kingdom

 

Homily for Christ the King Sunday

November 24, 2024

“Isms” Against The Kingdom

 

            I went to college at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, which, at the time, was one of the top-10 most polluted towns in America. Due to the steel mills, there was always a yellowish haze in the air, and a stench pervaded every breath. We used to joke that students smoked cigarettes so that they could at least breathe filtered air!

            But the funny thing is that after a few months, we couldn’t even tell. Our noses acclimated (or perhaps we lost our sense of smell!). It’s amazing how we sometimes don’t even notice the atmosphere around us, because we just live in it and it doesn’t strike us as “a little off”.

            So it is in our world. We live in a post-Christian world, but we often don’t notice the poison in the prevailing culture. Sometimes we breathe it in, not realizing that it is antithetical to our Faith. What are some of the poisons that draw us away from the Kingdom of Christ? I would like to mention four.

            One is materialism – the idea that the only thing that matters is the material world. It was about twelve hours after Halloween that all the Christmas decorations made their appearance in stores – all of which were directly aimed to increase consumption of goods. A strong economy is wonderful, but we are more than just consumers – we are souls – and we are made for more than just a good job and material success – we are made to become saints.

            A few years back we had a young man at the school where I teach who was growing tremendously in his spiritual life – going to Confession regularly, beginning to pray, really seeking the Lord. His parents, however, wanted to send him to one of the most prestigious Fairfield County private school, so that he could get into a big-name college. Unfortunately that school was very secular and taught many things opposed to a Christian worldview, and the reputation of the students was one of wild partying. I begged and begged for him to not attend, but his parents insisted it would be good for his future. Recently I spoke with one of his friends and asked, “How is Sean doing?” He just sadly shook his head, and shared that he lost his faith, due to his environment. It broke my heart – he had all the success that the world could offer – but what does it profit a man to win the world if he loses his soul in the process?

            Christ’s kingdom is the primacy of the spiritual over the physical. For example, the spiritual writer Henri Nouwen once defined prayer as “wasting time with God”. Wasting time? Getting nothing productive done? Exactly – that’s the point. We are not just measured in terms of GDP and productivity; we are measured by the Father’s love and our eternal destiny in Him.

            A second one is hedonism. This is a big term for a simple idea: that pleasure is the greatest good. If it isn’t fun or delightful, if it’s ever difficult or boring, it’s not worth doing. I had a young man in one of my youth groups who would constantly be coming up to me and saying, “I’m bored!” I would say, “Go and talk to the others…go and listen to the presentation…go into Adoration and pray.” But to all of those suggestions he would say, “It’s boring!” I wonder what will happen if this young man gets a desk job someday! We live in a world of constant entertainment and satisfaction – how many food products sell themselves to us by saying, “Indulge your cravings” – as if every pleasurable desire needed to be satisfied!

            Christ’s Kingdom, however, is one of self-denial. One time a young monk came to the old Desert Father Saint Poemen and asked him, “How can I find God?” To which, the old saint replied, “How can we find God if our bellies are filled with cheese?” In other words, if we have every pleasure in life at our fingertips, how will we ever make room in our life for God or for the joy of sacrifice? Christ says we must deny ourselves to follow Him.

            A third insidious line of thought is secular humanism: the belief that human beings can master the entire world without the help of God. When the Covid cases were just starting to drop and people were finally opening up after the lockdown, a local governor got up on national television and declared, “God did not do this. We did this; science did this. God did not do this.” Even if we wouldn’t put it so bluntly, our world tells us that we are on our own to solve our own problems, but with enough science and technology and hard work, we will be able to end suffering and improve our world, by our own human efforts.          

            Christ’s Kingdom, though, is one of utter dependence upon the Father. Christ Himself did nothing without the Father – and He urges His followers to have that same desperate dependence. There was once a saint named Bl. Anne-Marie Javouhey who started an orphanage over her father’s obstinate objections. It got so bad that her father refused to speak with her – and to add to her problems, the orphanage ran into tremendous debt and could not even buy bread for the poor children in their care. Anne-Marie ran to the chapel to pray, but felt assured by the Lord, who told her, “Why have you doubted that I would care for you? Go back to your children.” She went back to the orphanage, to find with surprise that her father had showed up with a wagonload of food, saying, “Well, I couldn’t let my daughter starve.” She said that the miracle wasn’t the food – it was how God moved her father’s hard heart. We must live in utter dependence on God!

            A final one is Minimalism. Remember the old Staples ad campaign with the big, red “Easy” button? One press of the button and all of our problems would disappear. We like things that are easy, convenient, simple. The least amount of work is the best. I mean, they even have self-cleaning litter boxes…

            In contrast, Christ’s Kingdom is one of self-gift. Rather than doing the least, He gave all, and to follow Him is to do the same. St. Francis of Assisi desired to give himself so much to Christ that he traveled to Egypt in the hopes of being martyred by the Muslims. He was able to gain an audience with the Sultan, who listened patiently to his message. Much to his disappointment at the time, the Sultan simply sent him back to Italy. What could possess a saint to desire martyrdom? Only a desire to give more and more to Christ, holding back nothing, not even his own life.

            So, as we live in a poisonous atmosphere, full of philosophies antithetic to the Kingdom of Christ, how do we place ourselves under His Kingship?

            We begin in our own hearts and minds. As they say on the airplane, make sure you put your own mask on first, so you can breathe the pure oxygen, before you can help others. St. Paul tells us, “Do not conform yourself to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” So let us renew our minds by studying the Scriptures and the Teachings of our Church – what does God think about success, money, relationships, suffering, the meaning of life?

            Then we turn to our families and homes – does your family reflect Christ’s values: sacrifice, humility, holiness, prayer? Is your home a monastery where people can breathe the clean air of Christ, or is it infected with the burning desire for success, pleasure, comfort, money? We then look outside our home to our community – do we have regular fellowship with other believing Catholics?

            A couple friends of mine told me that they sent all eight of their kids to public high school, with the caveat that they would evaluate after one year, and they would ask the question, “Who is changing whom?” If they were improving their peers and the atmosphere of the school, leading them closer to Christ, then they could stay. But if the school was changing them, and they began to adopt the values antithetical to the Kingdom of Christ, then they would find another school. Are you bringing the Kingdom of Christ to the world, or is the world infecting you with its toxic philosophies?

            We do not live in a world that is under Christ’s Kingship, but we can build a counter-culture where we can breathe the pure air of His grace. This Kingship is one that looks very different than what the world considers success: it is a Kingship of self-denial, humility, purity, utter dependence on God. And in a culture poisoned by toxic fumes and philosophies, the Kingdom of Christ is a breath of fresh air.

Ordinary Time 33 - The End of Our Worlds

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 33

November 17, 2024

The End of Your World

 

            Christians should always be ready to do three things: to pray, to share our faith, and to die.

            Our Gospel seems to speak about the end of the world. But then why does Jesus say that “some standing here will not taste death until they see these things”? No one living in Jesus’ day are still living now. But Jesus is speaking on two intertwining levels. He is speaking about the end of the world…but He is also speaking about another event which shook His listeners to their core.

            Exactly one generation (40 years) after Jesus’ death, Jewish leaders rebelled against Roman occupation. This sparked a war known as the First Jewish Revolt, which culminated in a disastrous event in 70AD – the complete destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. It was the end of the world for the Jews – the very meeting-place of God, the location of the daily sacrifices, the pride and joy of an entire nation was leveled to the ground. To this day only one small part of the Temple remains, a small retaining wall called the Western Wall (or Wailing Wall), where Jews go to pray. It’s hard for us to understand just how devastating this event was for Israel – it’s as if the entire Vatican were destroyed and the Eucharist could no longer be celebrated ever, for two thousand years.

            But theologically, the destruction of the Temple made sense, as our second reading points out. The Temple was the place of sacrifice, but once Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross was consummated, there is no need for further sacrifices. The Temple ended one world, because a new one was dawning – a world of faith in Jesus, the Son of God, the Perfect Sacrifice.

            So, although the world did not end in 70AD, in a sense their world did. Similarly, it is unlikely that you or I will get to see the end of the world (of course, I could be quite wrong about that!). But we are guaranteed to see the end of our world – at some point we will breathe our last, and death will end our world. Our life of faith in God will give way to the vision of God.

            I have always been haunted by those words in Daniel’s vision – “Those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace.” When that last breath is taken, will we live forever in the presence of God, or spend forever away from Him. At the end, there are only two eternal dwelling places for the soul – Heaven or Hell, glory or tragedy.

            We think so highly of our life when we are alive. King Louis XIV of France named himself “the Sun King”, saying, “I am the center of the universe, without equal.” But on his deathbed, he final words to his heir were, “Do not follow the bad example I have set.” How quickly does our life pass before we return to God Who made us! We ought to follow the advice of St. John Chrysostom who said, “Go to the grave, contemplate dust, and sigh.”

             So how ought a Christian prepare for the day when our world will end? Four suggestions to live a life worthy of a noble death and a happy eternity.

            First, contemplate frequently the shortness of life and the length of eternity. This is not a morbid fascination with death, but a proper appreciation of who we are and where we’re going. St. Bonaventure uses the example of a sailor. For a boat to get to its proper destination, a sailor always needs to keep his eyes looking in the right direction. Likewise, for a soul to make it to the safe harbor of Heaven, we must always keep that destination in mind, realizing that our life’s journey is actually heading in a direction. We’re not wandering aimlessly upon storm-tossed ocean – we are either heading to our eternal home, or heading away from it. Consider daily that life is short and this is not our home, and it will help point our life in the right direction.

            A second, connected, suggestion is to evaluate everything in the light of eternity. Will this decision advance me closer to eternity with God, or will it draw me further away? Will this music I listen to, this TV show I watch, draw me closer to God, or push me further away? When I am on my deathbed, will I regret what I posted on social media; will I regret the amount of time I spent on this hobby, to the detriment of my spiritual life; will I regret how this friendship led me astray; will I regret how much time I worried about my appearance or my bank account? Looking at our lives in the light of eternity makes us realize what’s truly important – love of God and love of neighbor – and what’s not important at all, like most of the things we worry about. As CS Lewis said, “Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in'; aim at earth and you will get neither.”

            One time the brother of the great spiritual writer Thomas a Kempis built himself a luxurious house and filled it with all the finest luxuries money could buy. His holy brother visited him and said, “Ah, this is a beautiful house but it has only one flaw.” “What’s that?” asked the worldly brother. Thomas responded, “It has a door.” “A door? Why is that a flaw?” asked the brother, offended. The holy man replied, “Through this door your lifeless body will one day be carried, and you will leave this house forever. Where then will your treasure be?” Evaluate all things in light of eternity.

            A third way to prepare for a happy eternity is to go to confession regularly. St. John Chrysostom once said, “Nothing brings more happiness than a good conscience.” Imagine if a person were headed to court because they hadn’t paid their debts. But on the way there, they won the lottery. Should they pay off the debt, and avoid jail time? Of course! That would be the logical decision. We are all headed to judgement, too – the judgement of our lives before God. But what if we could quickly and easily pay off the debt of all our sins? We can – in the Sacrament of Confession. This is where the great wealth of Jesus’ Blood is applied to our debts, so that we can stand before the Father cleansed. Do not wait, for we are not guaranteed tomorrow – confess frequently, and pay off the debts with the Blood of Jesus, so that when we approach judgment, we can stand before the judge with our debts paid!

            Finally, we needn’t fear death if we are constantly drawing close to the Heart of God, trusting eternally in His mercy. What is Heaven but spending time with the God Who loves us? We make ourselves ready for Heaven by spending time with Him here. Because I know Him, I know what a good and merciful Father He is, which takes away all fear of death. God is not a cruel teacher who is waiting to fail us on the test – He is, rather, a good Father Who so desperately wants His children to be with Him that He sent His own Son to die in our place. With such a good Father, how can we not trust Him completely when He comes to call us home?

            My friends, Christians should always be ready to do three things: to pray, to share our faith, and to die. Are you ready to do all three?

Ordinary Time 32 - Consecration to Jesus through Mary

 

Ordinary Time 32

November 10, 2024

Empty Hands

 

            There is a famous legend of how the poinsettia plant became associated with Christmas. Poinsettias are native to Mexico, but according to the legend they used to be all green – no red or white flowers. One day a very poor girl was walking to church at Christmastime. She wanted to see the manger scene with Baby Jesus. She also wanted to bring some flowers to decorate His crib, but she was too poor to afford any, and in late December there aren’t too many wildflowers out. So this poor girl picked a handful of leaves from a large green weed and continued to church, hoping and praying that God would accept her meager offering. She laid them before the Christ Child and prayed that God would see her heart and not the weeds she was offering. She got up to go and at the door of the church, she gave one more glance at the manger scene, and was shocked to find that her green leaves had turned a brilliant and beautiful shade of red. Hence, the poinsettia has become the standard Christmas decoration worldwide.

            “Love is self-gift,” said Pope St. John Paul II. When we love someone we want to give to them – our time, a gift, an encouraging word, a smile, an act of service. So when we love God, we also want to give to Him – but what can we offer to so great a God? How could we ever come close to expressing our gratitude and love? Our lives are just a pittance, a tiny drop in the ocean of human history, just two small coins in the midst of an overflowing treasury.

            But genuine love wants to give more! St. Bernard once said, “It is true that the creature loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given.” So this should give us hope, that as we offer our lives to God, even if our lives and our prayers and our efforts are small, if we are giving Him our all, then this delights Him.

            But those who truly love God want to give more than our own meager efforts! We can do that in an easy way – by consecrating our lives to Jesus through Mary.

            After all, what pleases the Father the most? It is not us; it is Jesus Christ. Our Second Reading from Hebrews speaks about the offering that delights the Father – not the blood of calves and goats, which were offered under the Old Covenant, but the Blood of Jesus, offered once for all on our behalf. It’s as if someone wanted to make a million-dollar gift to a noble person, and they asked us to contribute. All we could contribute is a dollar, but the gift is given as if it was equally from both of us. Likewise, Jesus paid a gift that literally infinite – in His Precious Blood – but He invites us to offer a tiny amount, united to His, to make a beautiful gift to the Father. The Father will see our tiny self-gift as pleasing as Jesus’ infinite gift.

            We do this by consecrating our life and our actions to Jesus through Mary. It is good to begin every day, and every task throughout the day, by consecrating it to Jesus through Mary. Many people have done a 33-day or a 40-day consecration to Jesus through Mary by using one of the popular “consecration prayers” from St. Louis de Montfort, St. Maximilian Kolbe, or Fr. Michael Gaitley. And those are great, but it doesn’t have to be so elaborate. It could be simply a prayer like, “Lord Jesus, I give You this day. I give you every thought, word, and action. I give you all my joys and sorrows, my labors and my recreation. Let is all be pleasing to the Father, and let it be for Your glory. I offer all this through Mary our mother.” Or even easier: “For You, Jesus – through Mary.”

            Why through Mary? Mary is sometimes called the “Mediatrix (multiplier) of All Graces.” All graces from God pass through Her hands, because God loves to use small, humble servants to accomplish His plan. But conversely, all of our good works and prayers, when given to Mary, become amplified and purified before they are presented to the Father. It’s much like if we wanted to bring a flower to the Great King, but all we could find is a dandelion. Mary takes that dandelion and places it in a bouquet of lilies and roses and other fragrant and striking flowers, and then brings it to the King, in our name.

            True love wants to give. If we truly love God, we want to give Him more. We hunger for more time with Him in prayer, more sacrifices, more good works of charity. But in the end, all of our gifts to God are miniscule compared to the one Gift of Jesus Christ’s Blood, which has made all of us righteous. We can unite our small lives to His by consecrating ourselves and our ordinary lives to Jesus through Mary, which makes our small gift something so pleasing to the Father!

Ordinary Time 31 - Commanded to Love

 

Homily for November 3, 2024

Ordinary Time 31

A Command To Love God

 

            If you grew up in the ‘90s like me, you probably remember the movie “Richie Rich”, starring Macaulay Culkin. The movie was about an incredibly rich boy who had everything he could ever want – his own roller coasters, a McDonalds inside his house, everything – but he didn’t have friends. So his butler decides to use some money to “hire” friends for him. As it turns out, the kids enjoy hanging out with Richie so much that they end up refusing the money, and they become friends and have all sorts of adventures together.

            I think we can all admit that a friendship based on money isn’t a real friendship. For love to be real, it must be free. Do you remember when you were younger and you were at a family gathering, and your mom said, “Okay, now give Aunt Sally a hug” – and you did it reluctantly, perhaps rolling your eyes. Clearly this means far less than a hug freely chosen. So why, then, does God command us to love Him? How is that real love? Can someone command us to love them?

            God commands us to love Him because He knows that loving Him is what makes us happy. He gets nothing from our love – it’s not like He’s lonely or an egomaniac. Rather, He recognizes that loving Him is precisely what we were made for, and that our deepest happiness is to love Him.

            But how can someone command love? Doesn’t love rise spontaneously in our hearts? Not always – because love is fundamentally a choice, and not a feeling. We can take a natural, human love as an example. A married couple have committed themselves to love each other – but this does not mean that they always feel loving toward one another. Rather, it is a daily choice to lay down their lives for the other, even when they don’t feel like it. One could say that their vow commands them to love each other, because they freely entered into this love, so that when the feelings wear off, they choose to love.

            God’s love for us features this same dynamic. I doubt that He had any affections or delights in loving those men who were driving nails into His hands. No, He endured the Cross because His love was complete self-gift – His only thought is for us.

            So, it is our duty to choose love, even when we don’t feel it. What does that look like? Make choices for Him. Decide to pray, even if it feels dry. Follow His commands, even if we don’t understand them. As the saying goes, “Fake it ‘till you make it.” A wise philosopher, scientist, and devout Catholic named Blasé Pascal, offered what he called “Pascal’s Wager”. Part of this wager is the idea that if you don’t believe in God or love Him, all we had to do was act as if we believed and loved God – and He would grant us the grace to believe and love Him. This should give us hope – if we choose to do loving actions, love will soon become so ingrained in us that we will authentically love.

            I was recently reading about a reluctant musician from the Portland (Oregon) Orchestra. Turns out she was forced to take violin lessons from her mom, and she hated every minute of it. It seemed so dull to her – all that practicing and scales and screeching. When she was 10, her mom wanted to help her love the music, so Mom forced all her kids to start volunteering at the local orchestra. The young girl hated it even more! She’d rather be out playing with her friends. Finally, one day, the local orchestra was putting on a performance of a piece by a musician named Corelli, which the girl had tried to play in her private lessons and hated. But much to her surprise, when the first notes started to play, she realized, Oh! So this is what this piece is supposed to sound like! It’s beautiful! And she fell in love with music, having tasted the rich beauty of a beautiful piece of music. She is now a professional violinist in the Portland Orchestra.

            Our relationship with God can be much like that. We steep ourselves in the Word of God, we attend Mass, we make pilgrimages to holy sites, we read the Lives of the Saints, we hear beautiful Christian music, we go to Adoration and pray the Rosary, go on a retreat. At first we may do these things out of obligation, but it is likely that one or the other will stir our souls to a greater love for God!

            Which is why it’s not enough merely to attend Mass. Of course, the Mass is the highest form of prayer and worship, where we encounter Jesus in the Flesh…but the other parts of our Faith minister to our hearts, our minds, our desire for happiness, our craving to make our life meaningful. Diversify your prayer life and enrich your life of faith, and you will experience His love.

            Another important corollary is that parents might have to command their kids to love God and bring their kids to church, even if they object! Some parents say, “Oh, I’ll just let my kids choose what religion to practice, if they practice one at all.” But do we allow our kids to choose whether to go to the dentist or do their homework? Of course not. We force them to do things that they may not enjoy, because we know it is good for them – and because we are hoping to form the good habits that will continue into adulthood. Likewise, raising our children to know how to pray, to come to Mass weekly, and to live according to Christ’s teachings may not be appreciated by your surly teenager or your hyperactive toddler, but it is good for them and it inculcates faith deeply in them. It gives God a context to work in their lives.

            I think of the great example of St. Raphael Kalinowski, a Polish man in the mid-1800s. He was raised Catholic, reluctantly dragged to Mass by his parents. When he went off to university, he fell away from the Faith and didn’t give God a second thought. He became an Army engineer after college, during the time that Poland had begun a war against Russia. He happened to be captured by the Russians and sent to a salt mine in Siberia.

            This was a wake-up call for Raphael. Everything was stripped away – his career, his family, his health – what would he turn to for strength and purpose? He began to return to the faith of his youth. It had been so deeply ingrained within him, even though at the time he was reluctant, but now it came back full-force. He was able to survive ten years in Siberia due to his faith, and when he was released, he was a holy man of God who became a Carmelite priest and a saint.

            My friends, this command to love God with all that we are is so important that our Jewish brothers and sisters recite it every day. We too should inscribe it on our hearts, that we may think about it daily. Whether we feel loving or we don’t, we can still love God by choosing to love Him. In doing so, we will eventually begin to sense His presence, and someday come to possess the Object of our love, which is God Himself.

All Saints Day 2024 - Remember Who You Are

 

Homily for All Saints Day

November 1, 2024

Remember Who You Are

 

            Young Ben Hooper grew up in Tennessee, in the depths of the Bible Belt. His mother wasn’t married when Ben was born, and the deep South in the late 1800s was a tough place to grow up if you were a child out of wedlock. He recounts that his classmates shunned him, called him names, and he had to eat lunch by himself every day. Even the townspeople of Newport would whisper among themselves when Ben walked through town. He said he could feel their judgmental stares and gossipy comments, as he put it, “bore a hole through him” – everyone wondering who his real father was. In those days there was so much shame and social stigma to being fatherless.

            One day when he was 12, a new preacher came into his church. Ben made it a point to avoid him, ashamed of his background. He would come late and leave early from services so he wouldn’t have to greet the preacher. But one day the preacher happened to run into the boy in town.

            “Hey, boy!” the preacher called out. “I see you in church every Sunday – what’s your name? Who’s your father?”

            Oh here it comes, Ben thought. He felt the old black cloud come down upon him.

            But much to his surprise, the Preacher looked down at the boy for a moment, and a smile of recognition came upon his face. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I know who you are. I can see the family resemblance. You’re a son of God.” With that, the preacher put his arm on the boy’s shoulder and said, “And boy, you’ve got a great inheritance. Go and claim it.”

            Ben Hooper said that was the moment his life changed. He knew who he was, and he no longer had to live in shame. He went on to become a two-term governor of Tennessee.

            Our second reading gives us a consolation and a challenge. The consolation – we are God’s children now, and we shall grow evermore in this sonship. How could He be pleased to adopt me – after all I’ve done – as His son? How could He adopt you – with all your insecurities and wounds – as His child? And yet, out of the gratuity of His love, He has done just that. I don’t care who your earthly parents are, whether they’re saints or deadbeats, Rosary-praying church ladies or drug addicts. If you have been baptized and walk in the faith of Jesus Christ, you are a son of God.

            The challenge – “Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure,

as he is pure.” A son or daughter of God does not wallow in sin. We’re made for more than that! I think of the great story of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. When he first came to his town of Ars, he found that it had 250 people…and seven bars. That’s not a good ratio! He knew that, to obtain the conversion of his people, he needed to stop the drunkenness and the dirty dancing that went along with it. One day, as a very indecent dance was taking place in one of the taverns, and to stop it, he used a simple tactic. He simply walked over to the tavern, and stood in the middle of the dance floor, wearing his priestly garments. He said nothing, but merely stood there, gazing peacefully at the revelers. When they caught sight of the silent priest in their midst, all of a sudden they were struck by his noble bearing. He looked so dignified, peaceful – and they had been dancing impurely like crazed animals. They began to realize that their drunkenness, lust, and bawdy jokes were humiliating, beneath their dignity. One by one, they began to depart, until the tavern was empty – and within a couple of years every one of those bars was closed down and the people frequented the church instead!

            Jason Evert is a chastity speaker who hosts a podcast called “Lust is boring.” But we could say the same thing about any of the vices. Greed is boring. Envy is disgusting. Wrath and hatred are so beneath you. Sloth and laziness are so immature. Frankly, all sin is stupid and pointless – really, we would trade an eternal crown of glory for a few short moments of degrading pleasure? Let it not be so among you!

            A saint is one who realizes his dignity and lives out of it. As Pope St. Leo said, so powerfully, Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Remember who you are, and Whose you are – and do nothing that is beneath your dignity.

            Someday we will see God face-to-face – keep your eyes pure. Weekly Our Lord rests upon our tongues – make sure that your words glorify Him. He has revealed His truth to our minds – let us take every thought captive and make it obedient to Him. We have been purchased at a tremendous price, the Blood of the Son of God – let us delight our good Father with our deeds.

            Saints knew who they were, and acted accordingly.

            My dear Christians, remember who you are: a people redeemed. Now let your life reflect that awesome dignity!

Feast of St. Jude - A New Name

 

Homily for St. Jude Novena

Monday, October 28, 2024

You Are Not Your Name

 

            It would be rough to have a famous last name – you’re always following in someone else’s footsteps. For example, did you know that the hockey great Wayne Gretzky’s son Trevor decided to play baseball instead of hockey? After he washed out of minor league baseball, he got into acting…and did pretty well, I guess, considering he starred in a movie with Bruce Willis. But I wonder if his dad was disappointed that he didn’t follow the hockey path…and I wonder if Trevor had different interests so that he wouldn’t have to live in his father’s shadow.

            Sometimes, though, the name has darker connotations. There are actually three nephews of Adolf Hitler who live in Long Island, but understandably they have changed their last name and refused all media interviews. Who would want to live with a name like that?

            Such is the case with our saint today. The reason why St. Jude is considered the patron of impossible cases is because his name is essentially the same name as the most infamous person in human history: Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus Christ. It was said that you must be pretty desperate in your prayers, asking every single Apostle for their intercession, before you got to St. Jude, lest you come too close to praying to Judas!

            But St. Jude, with his faith, was not held down because of his name. No, he remained faithful to Christ, penned one of the letters of the New Testament, spent his life ministering in Persia, and ended up winning the martyr’s crown. He was not defined by his name or his association with an evil person – he knew that Jesus Christ had given him a better identity, a truer name.

            When reflecting on our own lives, are you proud of every name you’ve ever borne? Maybe you didn’t have a great family, and you live under the shadow of their dysfunctions and sins. Maybe you were called names as a kid, and these names became your identity. I was recently reading about a young man whose father called him “Seagull”, because, as his dad said, “All you’re good for is sitting around and squawking.” What a terrible identity – and a terrible wound. Do these things define us?

            One of the passages of Scripture that has always mystified me is from the Book of Revelation, where Jesus is speaking to those Christians who were struggling to remain faithful during persecution. He says, “To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.” How fascinating – that one of the gifts God will give to us is a new name, a new identity. If you are in Christ, He doesn’t see your messed-up family, your past, or your reputation. He calls you a new name – Beloved Child, Redeemed One, Conqueror.

            Claim that new name! Live out of that new identity! In Christ, St. Jude went from being one step away from Judas to a powerful Apostle, missionary, martyr, and intercessor. In Christ, you too can shake off the past and be transformed into a saint!

Ordinary Time 29 - The Gift of Human Life, Part 3 - The Life of the Soul

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 29

October 20, 2024

The Gift of Life, Part 3

 

            Many of us have visited Yale’s campus in New Haven. If you have, you’ve probably seen the statue of Nathan Hale, the first American spy. He’s often held up as a hero, but he was kind of a fool because his first spy mission didn’t go so well – due to his own fault. At the young age of 21, he volunteered himself to George Washington to spy on the British. He did so for a couple weeks, but one night he was out relaxing at a tavern in New York, a British soldier approached him and pretended to be a Patriot. Lubricated by more than a few beers, Hale told him everything and boasted about his spy mission. It didn’t take long for Hale to be arrested and found guilty of espionage. But he is perhaps best remembered for his immortal line right before his execution: “My only regret is that I have only one life to give for my country.”

            An inspiring thought! The entire point of this life is to give it away – Pope St. John Paul II said so powerfully, “Man can only find himself in a sincere gift of himself.” In other words, we only truly live when we find something to die for.

            This month of October is known as Respect Life month, when we consider the dignity and sacredness of all human life. I’d like to reflect upon the dignity of human life in light of our ultimate destiny – Heaven.

            In Greek, there are three words for “life”. There is bios, as in “biology”, meaning physical life – living, breathing, walking around. There is psuche, as in “psychology”, meaning the life of the mind – we are conscious, sentient beings. But then there is zoe, meaning fulfillment, joy, living out our purpose. There are an awful lot of people who are walking around, living, breathing, going to work or school – who have absolutely no idea why they were put on this earth. Earlier this year I started my Confirmation classes with the question, “What is the meaning of life?” I got some strange answers – “To live it…to have fun…” or just blank stares. As that famous line from the movie “The Sixth Sense” put it, “I see dead people walking around…and they don’t even know they’re dead.” I see a lot of people who are physically quite healthy – but are spiritually dead, and don’t even know it.

            The best medical practitioners recognize that we are a unity of body and soul, and that our physical life and health is good only insofar as it gives us strength to serve God. I think of the great St. Rene Goupil, a French doctor who traveled to America in the 1600s to serve as a missionary along with several other Jesuit priests. Rene was able to help the priests tremendously by offering his medical services to the native Mohawk peoples in upstate New York – once the natives experienced physical healing, they were more open to receiving the Gospel. However, not everyone was in favor of the missionaries’ presence, and the chief eventually forbade the Jesuits from teaching about Jesus Christ. One day, however, Rene was walking through the woods when a young Mohawk boy asked him to teach him about Jesus. So Rene taught the boy how to make the Sign of the Cross – and an older Mohawk brave saw it, reported it to the chief, who ordered Rene to be martyred. St. Rene Goupil realized that, as good as it was to take care of the physical health of the Mohawk people, they more urgently needed the spiritual health of Christ.

            We see this same dynamic in the Gospel. Bartimaeus receives a physical healing, but that is the least important miracle in the Gospel. More importantly, he receives the grace of faith and becomes one of Christ’s followers. One day his body went into the ground, but his soul still lives to this day – hopefully in Heaven, although the Church has never declared Bartimaeus a saint.

            So what are our takeaways? I’d like to mention three. First, we must always prioritize spiritual over physical health. Both are good, but more important is the soul which is eternal. So if it’s the end of the day and we have only twenty minutes left and we can either pray or work out, we ought to choose the prayer. If we have to choose between worshipping God at Mass and taking our kids to their sports, we need to prioritize Mass. It is good to pray for physical health for our family and friends – but it is better to pray for their conversion and sanctification. Our body is good, for it is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we should care for it. But our soul is better, for it will last into eternity, while the body…as the saying goes, “No one makes it out alive.” So prioritize the soul over the body!

            Second, any health care or medical research must respect God’s law and the dignity of the human person. Unfortunately much of the medical research community is focused on “can we do it?” instead of “should we do it?” Science isn’t a free-for-all where we should do everything that is theoretically possible – the limits of the free inquiry of science should be the eternal Law of God and respect for His plans. Research that is done upon embryos or health care that violates our Catholic teachings must be avoided, and when we are involved in beginning-of-life or end-of-life issues, we should form our consciences well by studying what the Church has taught on those matters, so we know the Mind of Christ.

            Finally, the last takeaway is that life is not absolute, and there are reasons to sacrifice life and health – for Christ, and for others. I know of a priest who, during Covid, decided to continue providing Last Rites to patients dying of Covid – and because of this, the priest was on perpetual quarantine, never left his rectory except to anoint the dying, and caught the disease several times (thankfully, he survived and is fine now). I think of St. Damien of Molokai, the Belgian priest who spent his life ministering in a leper colony in Hawaii, eventually catching and dying of the disease. I think of Bl. Stanley Rother, a priest from Oklahoma who was ministering to the people of Guatemala during their civil war back in the late 1970s. He was threatened by the rebel insurgents so often that his bishop called him back to Oklahoma to save his skin, but he convinced the Bishop to let him return, saying, “How can a shepherd run away when the wolf is at the door?” He was eventually martyred for his faithfulness to his people. There have been many saints who preferred to suffer and die rather than commit sin. The entire point of life is not to preserve it indefinitely – it’s to give it away to Someone worth the sacrifice. I was very inspired when Msgr. Sabia was here in July for his 90^th birthday Mass and, at great personal cost, genuflected during the Consecration. Surely it was difficult and painful to genuflect, as his knees are not good (at 90, whose would be!). But he knows that Jesus Christ is worth the pain.

            My friends, in the midst of Respect Life Month, we remember that life is a sacred gift from God that should be cherished and protected, for ourselves, our families and neighbors, and the most vulnerable in society. But we also acknowledge that the divine life of grace in our soul is infinitely more valuable, and that our human life is given to us so that we can serve God faithfully here, and someday possess Him for eternity.

Ordinary Time 28 - The Gift of Human Life, Part 2 - Who Are the Vulnerable?

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 28

October 13, 2024

The Dignity of the Vulnerable

 

            A random fact about my life is that I was on Food Network for five seconds. Yes, it’s true. When I was a deacon, I was visiting a brother priest who asked me, “Can you assist me at Mass? By the way, a film crew will be here.” So we had Mass and a film crew from Food Network was there, because right after Mass, this priest – Fr. Leo Patalinghug – was going to be on “Throwdown with Bobby Flay”. Fr. Leo won the throwdown, by the way.

            But now Fr. Leo has a much more important ministry than just making good food – he’s making good lives. He runs a ministry called “Grace and Grub” which is a food truck…run by ex-convicts. While much of the world sees these men as wasted lives, Fr. Leo trains them in cooking and job skills, and gives them a chance to contribute to society. It’s a population that so often is seen as lacking human dignity – but Fr. Leo sees their dignity and loves them back into the men they were created to be.

            We continue our series on “human dignity” during this Respect Life month by looking at different facets of human dignity. For all of our technological progress and first-world comforts, the true mark of a civilized society is how it treats the most vulnerable – and we do not do a particularly good job on many fronts, in large part because we’ve lost the Christian understanding of the human person as made in the Image and Likeness of God, from conception until natural death.

            With this understanding of our inherent dignity, our Church teaches that we must have a Preferential Option for the Poor – in other words, in our laws and policies and even in our daily lives, our first thought and concern should be for the poor. But who are the poor? The poor are the unborn, the elderly and sick, immigrants, victims of war or abuse or racism, those who struggle with addictions, the disabled, and those who are materially poor. These particularly vulnerable populations deserve our concern, protection, and aid.

            In doing so, we recognize that dignity does not depend upon which side of the womb you’re on. Dignity doesn’t depend on the amount of money in one’s bank account. Dignity doesn’t depend upon one’s health or having only a short time remaining on earth. Dignity does not depend upon what language you speak or what country you come from. Dignity is not taken away based upon a person’s limitations, what they’ve done, or what they’ve been through.

            St. Vincent de Paul, who worked with the poor his entire life, admitted that to our eyes, human dignity could be hard to see. He once said, “The poor are our masters, but masters who are terribly insensitive and demanding, dirty and ugly, unjust and foul-mouthed. But the harder they are to serve, the more we have to love them.”

            After all, Christ was Himself “the poor”. He was an unborn baby in a crisis pregnancy. He was an immigrant when forced to move to Egypt. He lived in poverty and labored with His hands. He was so disfigured in His Passion that the Scriptures said that He hardly had the appearance of a man. He was injured and helpless upon the Cross. And so He said that those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, or shelter the homeless are doing those acts of kindness to Him.

            Some of the saints took this quite seriously. St. Camillus, who was dedicated to taking care of the sick, once came up to a sick person and asked him to forgive his sins – he truly believed that this sick person was Christ! The Hungarian Queen, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, once found a poor man suffering from illness, and not having the ability to take him to a hospital, brought him to her own bed in home. When her husband objected to having a sick stranger in his own bed, he angrily tore off the covers and was shocked to find, instead of a sick man, a vision of Christ stretched out on the Cross upon the bedsheets. Clearly, to respect human dignity and to love our neighbor is to love Christ Himself!

            I hope it is safe to say that we all agree thus far that human dignity is non-negotiable. However, with an election looming and so many issues of human dignity at the forefront, how is this truth to impact our choices? It is important to make a distinction among certain issues.

            Human beings have many rights: life, food and shelter, love, home, a right to an education and employment, a right to freedom of religion and freedom from fear. But of all the rights that a person has, the right to life is the most fundamental and under no circumstances can we allow a person to take the life of an innocent person. Therefore, all persons of good will must be committed to protecting the lives of the unborn and the elderly as a primary value as we look to build a Culture of Life.

            By contrast, there are many issues of human dignity where people of good will can disagree about how best to pursue the good. For example, we all must welcome immigrants, but people of good will can disagree about the best way to do that while protecting our own country. We all must be concerned about poverty, but there can be a wide range of solutions for ending poverty. These are not unimportant issues, but there can be legitimate disagreements about how we can respect human dignity.

            So what are our “action steps” in response to the great dignity of every human being? First – we have a duty to work toward a just society which respects all human dignity. We work toward it through the political process, through making our voices heard in the halls of power, through peaceful and prayerful protests and activism which seek to build a “Culture of Life” and by praying for the conversion of our leaders. Second – we have a duty to respect human dignity in our own spheres of influence – by being there for the friend in a crisis pregnancy, taking care of and not abandoning our elderly relatives, welcoming immigrants in our midst, finding ways to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, and supporting charities which do such things. We aim to build a Culture of Life in our homes, our neighborhoods, our town, state, and country.

            In a truly Christian society, no one is unwanted. No one is disposable. As Pope St. John Paul II said, “The only right response to another human being is love.”

            Let’s build that truly Christian society.

Ordinary Time 27 - The Gift of Human Life

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 27

October 6, 2024

The Gift of Human Life

 

            In 1995, Pope St. John Paul II released a document which became one of the cornerstones of his pontificate: Evangelium Vitae, which means “The Gospel of Life.” This encyclical letter (which is a letter from the Pope to the entire world, carrying magisterial weight) coined that phrase which would be so repeated by the saintly pontiff for the remainder of his tenure: We are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the “culture of death” and the “culture of life.”. He held up these two contrasting ideas - culture of life and culture of death – as the great battle of our time. And here we are, almost thirty years later, with the battle still raging around us. As our Church enters into October, which is designated as Respect Life month, and as our nation is roiled by continual disagreements about the gift and meaning of human life, today I begin a month-long homily series discussing the Culture of Life and how it is lived out joyfully, with love.

            But first, let us examine what makes human life unique – in a world that is sometimes lost to it! Haven’t we all seen the old Fancy Feast commercial where the cat is being given the choicest, most delectable tidbits to eat out of the crystal goblet – while at the same time there are starving people in Bridgeport? Human life is infinitely more valuable than a pet’s. Why? Let us look at five aspects of human life that makes it unique, valuable, and worthy of respect.

            First, human life is sacred. We are made in the Image and Likeness of God, with an intellect and freedom. The Church has always been on the forefront of human dignity – whether it was the Dominican priest Fr. Bartolome de las Casas objecting to the harsh mistreatment of Native Americans among the Conquistadores, the religious orders like the Camillians who founded the modern hospital system, the great works of charity of St. Vincent de Paul and Mother Teresa, or the bold stand against the Nazi juggernaut by Bl. Franz Jagerstatter. The Church, since it is made of individuals, is not perfect in its history of respecting human rights – but it was truly due to the influence of Christianity that the world shifted from being “nasty, brutish, and short” to being one that sees the sacredness of every human life.

            This was one of the main reasons why Christianity spread so rapidly in the Roman Empire – it was the first religion to actually respect human dignity for everyone, from the poorest to the rich. An anonymous early Church document called “The Letter to Diognetus”, from approximately 130AD, talks about this stark, countercultural juxtaposition of the Roman culture of power, domination and violence with the unique compassion and respect that Christians showed: Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. (Exposing children was the ancient tradition of taking a handicapped child and leaving them in a field or forest to die). (Christians) share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, kindness their response to insult. It was this radical commitment to the sacredness of all human life that caused the Church to be looked at in wonder – and for Christ’s message to spread

            Second, human life is a right. Our Declaration of Independence was correct when it stated that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” This right to life comes from God and cannot be taken away by any government or individual.

            Third, human lives are equal. If you were in a psychology class in college, you may have had to do the classic “Lifeboat” thought experiment. We were taught something along the lines of, “There are ten people on a sinking ship, and the lifeboat only has five spots. Who do you let on? You have a college professor, a person with cancer, an elderly person, a child, a famous athlete, your mother, someone with Downs’ Syndrome…” and the list goes on. The whole idea of the exercise is to somehow judge which lives are worth saving and which lives are not worth anything. With the eyes of a Christian, though, every life has the same equal value since all are loved infinitely by God and are invited to the same eternal destiny. There is no human life that has greater or lesser value than any other, based on talent or looks or money or size. From the first moment of conception until natural death, every human life has equal value.

            Fourth, human life is a gift. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. He does not owe us another day of life or another breath – but all is gift. It is a gift that we must treat well, lest we offend the Giver – hence, our obligation to take care of our health and the health of others.

            Because it’s a gift, it is not something we are owed. This is especially true for couples who are struggling to have a child, which is a tremendous cross for many families. Recently IVF has made the news, and I know it is very prevalent in this community. But IVF is always gravely immoral, since it makes a child, not a gift, but a commodity to be manufactured. A child has a right to be brought into existence through an act of love, not a scientific technique. In this way, we preserve the nature of the gift – the giver is God, and we receive the gift of human life with gratitude and openness.

            Finally, life, as good as it is, is not absolute and there are many reasons to give it up. Greater love has no man, says that Lord, than to lay down his life for his friend. The fifty million martyrs who shed their blood for Christ demonstrated this profoundly – there are reasons to give up our health, our energy, our very lives.

            As Pope John Paul II said, “The basis for every good thing in society is the dignity of the human person.” Life is always a good, as it participates in the very life of God. This earthly life is a hint and a foreshadowing of that life that never ends, which we all yearn for. As St. Irenaeus put it, “The glory of God is man fully alive” – and this is His destiny for us, not just an earthly existence, but a Heavenly one where this earthly life will reach its fulfillment.