Pentecost 2024 - Prayer is the Lifeblood of the Church

 

Homily for Pentecost Sunday

May 19, 2024

Prayer Is the Breath of the Church

 

            St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his commentary on this Gospel, made an interesting connection between water and the Holy Spirit. When rain falls upon the ground, it’s always the same substance – H-2-O. But water “produces many different effects: one in the palm tree, another in the vine.” In the same way, the Holy Spirit is one Person of the Blessed Trinity, but He produces all sorts of different effects upon souls. He gives power to the words of preachers; He gives courage to those persecuted for their faith; He inspires deeds of charity; He helps us overcome temptation and desire holiness. But there is one aspect of the Holy Spirit’s effects that I want to focus on today, through a rather unlikely character.

            We read in the Scriptures that the Apostles received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, but there was at least one other person in the room with them: Mary, the Blessed Mother. She received the Holy Spirit – but then what? She didn’t travel to the ends of the earth; She didn’t preach the Gospel to anyone; She didn’t die as a martyr. Rather, she spent the rest of Her earthly life in one thing: prayer.

            Prayer seems so insignificant sometimes, but it is truly the lifeblood of the Church – indeed, the lifeblood of life. Consider – if our body is healthy, we don’t pay much attention to our heart. We can barely feel it. But without our heart beating, our limbs wouldn’t move, our minds wouldn’t think, our bodies would quickly die. Likewise, prayer seems invisible, but it pumps the divine life of grace throughout the Church, as it were.

            One of the Holy Spirit’s main roles is to help us to pray. In fact, St. Paul reflects in Romans that “we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” It is the Spirit Who teaches us to pray, Who puts the desire for prayer in our hearts, Who prays in and through us.

            So what does the Holy Spirit want to teach us about prayer? Let’s dive into the three levels of prayer and see where the Spirit leads us into intimacy with God.

            The first and most basic is what we call vocal prayer. This is reciting pre-written prayers like Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s. It is a valuable type of prayer only if we actually mean what we are saying. It would be like a man reciting love poetry to his beloved. Even though he didn’t write the words himself, he is making the words his own. Likewise, a vocal prayer is only as good as the heart and soul we put into it.

            The second, deeper type of prayer is mental prayer. This is an interior conversation with God from the heart, with two parts. First, it means speaking to God in your own words, whether out-loud or in our thoughts. We can tell Him anything, as long as it is honest. We ought to ask for our needs, yes, but we should also thank Him, praise Him, tell Him how much we love Him, ask for strength to follow Him, say sorry for the times we have strayed from Him. In addition to speaking with God, mental prayer also involves listening to Him. We can do that by reading a spiritual book and thinking about how it applies to our life, sitting in silence and allowing Him to inspire thoughts in our mind, or through imaginative meditation. This is a prayer technique that uses our imagination to put ourselves in the scenes of the Scriptures. For example, we could use the story of the first Pentecost and put ourselves there: what were the Apostles feeling while cowering in the Upper Room? What did the tongues of fire look like? How were their hearts set ablaze once the Spirit descended upon them? What did it sound like to hear the gift of tongues? He speaks to us through the images He places in our imagination.

            The Rosary is a great example of a mixture of vocal and mental prayer. We recite the Hail Mary’s while putting ourselves into the scenes of Jesus’ life.

            The final and deepest type of prayer is called contemplative prayer. This means that we simply sit quietly in the presence of God, loving Him without words or images. This is purely a gift from God – it’s not a “technique” you can manufacture. We can open ourselves to the gift by trying to quiet our minds and hearts – one way to do that is through a prayer called hesychasm, which means we pray a short prayer over and over to calm our frenetic mind. The ancient prayer most used for this is the “Jesus Prayer”: “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Many people pray that prayer over and over to achieve inner calm. But to be clear – prayer is not a technique, but a relationship with the Living God. If He wants to give the gift of contemplation and wordless love, He will do so. We can only open ourselves to His Spirit.

            The most important thing is not how you pray, but that you pray. A wise priest once told me, “Pray as you can, not as you can’t.” Some love the Rosary, some do Adoration, some walk in nature, some meditate on Scripture. As St. Jane Frances de Chantal said, “The great method of prayer is to have none. If, in going to prayer, one can form in oneself a pure capacity for receiving the Spirit of God, that will suffice for all method.” Half of life is just showing up, so by showing up to our prayer time, we are giving the Holy Spirit the space to move. Let’s be real – if you do not spend 10-15 minutes each day with God, you do not have a relationship with Him. St. Paul tells us to pray without ceasing – we don’t have a prayer life, as if prayer were something separate from our real life. Rather, prayer is real life. It’s learning to breathe the air of Heaven.

            When I sit down, let us take a minute of silence and really, really pray – maybe for the first time – speaking to Christ, listening to Him – and make the commitment to do it daily. For the Holy Spirit wishes to impart many gifts to His Church, but it all flows from the heartbeat of an intimate friendship with God.

Easter 7 - That All May Be One

 

Homily for Easter 7

May 12, 2024

That All May Be One

 

            There are many wonderful saints that you can name your children after, but please do not name your kids after St. Josaphat. Despite his name, he really was a remarkable saint. He was born in Ukraine in a time of tremendous turmoil. Christianity had been fracturing for centuries – first the Eastern Orthodox broke off of the Catholic Church, then Protestants began their revolt. Josaphat lived in the crosshairs of this division: Ukraine had many different Orthodox and Protestant branches, and sadly they were constantly fighting with one another – sometimes with words, other times with violence.

            So St. Josaphat made it his life’s mission to work for Christian unity. He became a monk and began praying so constantly for the unity of Christians that it was said that he still whispered prayers while asleep! He fasted and sacrificed, sometimes doing extreme bodily penances like praying all night in the snow without warm clothes, so that the separated brethren would return to the Catholic Church. Slowly people began to recognize his holiness, and many Orthodox and Protestant parents would send their sons to the monastery school. Whenever their kids would have St. Josaphat as a teacher, the kids would inevitably convert to become Catholic (at times, against the wishes of their parents!). The parents, then, would come and debate with Josaphat, who would treat them with charity but argue convincingly for the truth of Catholicism, and many of them ended up converting to the True Faith! He was so effective that he was nicknamed the “Soul-Snatcher” – to which he responded, “Yes, I will snatch all souls and bring them to Heaven with me!”

            Christ desired Christian unity with such intensity that He made it His last prayer recorded in Scripture – “Father, that they all may be one!” It has been such a scandal in the world that Christianity has become so broken: our Eastern brothers and sisters often practice Orthodoxy in its many divisions, while there are over 33,000 Protestant denominations. This is unfortunate, because the Body of Christ should have no divisions! St. Paul himself speaks about that when addressing the Corinthians: “Do you not have divisions among you, when one says, I belong to Paul or I belong to Apollos?” So likewise it is a scandal when Christians are divided.

            But does it matter, then, which faith we belong to? Shouldn’t we just find the Church that works for us? On the contrary, it does matter what Church we belong to – because we want to belong to the Church that Jesus Himself founded. As Catholics, we can trace our spiritual lineage back to the Apostles themselves – Pope Francis is the 267^th successor of Simon Peter as the first Pope. It was Christ Himself who said to Peter, “You are a rock, and on this rock [of your faith] I will build My Church.” Not only do we trace a spiritual lineage back to the Apostles, we teach the same things He taught. You may have seen in the news a couple weeks ago that the United Methodist Church recently gathered to vote to redefine marriage as no longer only between a man and a woman. Why would we belong to a Church that isn’t faithful to what Jesus Christ Himself taught His Apostles, but decides for itself what to believe?

            As Catholics, there are three elements in our Church that are the source of unity. First, the Eucharist. It is amazing to know that everywhere in the world, the same Mass is being celebrated everywhere, with the same readings and prayers. Second, we share the same teachings – not just in the world today, but throughout history – we believe the same things that St. Ignatius believed five centuries ago, or St. Francis eight centuries ago, or St. Benedict fifteen centuries ago. Beautiful to know that through the teachings and the Eucharist we are connected to what we call the Church Triumphant – the saints in Heaven. Thirdly, we are also united through the Pope. An early Church Father, St. Ambrose, penned these famous lines: “Where Peter is, there is the Church. And where the Church is, no death is there, but life eternal.” The reason there are 33,000 Protestant denominations, all professing the same Bible, is that no one has the authority to authentically interpret the Bible, so if two Protestants disagree, they just split from one another and start their own church. What a blessing it is to know that we DO have an authentic interpreter of the Bible – that is the Catholic Church, in union with the Pope. If we separate ourselves from the Pope – which is called schism – then we know we have left the Church that Christ founded.

            We ought to pray and work, then, for Christian unity – that is, for all men and women to come into the Catholic Church. Sometimes we shy away from inviting others, out of fear of proselytizing – but it is not undue pressure to share the riches we have in Catholicism with those outside of the flock!

            Our Church officially teaches extra ecclesia nulla salus – outside the Church there is no salvation. This does not necessarily mean that non-Catholics automatically go to Hell, but it does mean that any of the streams of grace that are present in other churches come from the fountain of the Catholic Church. The Bible? Came from the Church. A personal relationship with Jesus? Sounds like something the Apostles had, and passed down. Worship music? “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” was written in the 800s, while “Be Thou My Vision” came from the 600s – both Catholic hymns. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote the “Tantum Ergo” which we sing at Adoration, and St. Francis wrote the poem that became “All Creatures of Our God and King.” Fellowship? Catholics invented the idea – the early Mass was part of a larger potluck supper called an “Agape Love Feast” – sounds like a party I’d like to attend! Any good thing in any other Christian denomination has its roots in Catholicism. The fullness of Truth, and the fullness of the means of salvation, exist within the Catholic Church.

             Let’s make a resolution, here and now, to remain within the embrace of the Catholic Church until death. The Church is a good Mother and Teacher – perhaps, at times, correcting us, but also comforting us and nourishing us and helping us grow into the saints we were born to be.

Ascension Thursday - Look Up

 

Homily on the Ascension

Look Up

May 9, 2024

 

            Not too long ago, a man in Philadelphia accidentally fell onto some train tracks…because he was distracted looking at his cell phone. Thankfully he was okay, but it just goes to show the dangers of not looking up!

            Cell phones are not the only things that keep our eyes glued to the earth. Any good thing can tie our hearts to this world and prevent our souls from flying to the heights of holiness. Consider – where does gold come from? It comes from the dirt of the earth. Where does grace come from? It comes from the very Throne of God. Which should be more valuable? Or consider - where does food end up going? Into the sewer. Where does the Heavenly Food of the Eucharist take us? To Heaven. Which one, then, should we be more concerned about?

            This feast urges us to keep our eyes on Heaven, where Jesus is. He was like us in all things but sin, but took our frail humanity with Him into Heaven to show us that our final destiny is to be there, as well. Yes, Jesus came down to our mess, but He didn’t leave us in our mess – rather, He made our human nature truly able to contain glory and real holiness!

            Anything we do, we should strive for the heights. Like most kids, I dreamed about being a major league baseball player. I wanted to hit .400, slug 50 home runs a season, and make it to the Hall of Fame. But imagine if a kid said, “Yeah, my goal is to play center field…for the local minor league team!” Why would we set our sights so low? Why would we be happy settling for mediocrity, when we were made for greatness?

            It drives me crazy when people say, “Ah, Father, I just hope to make it to purgatory by the skin of my teeth.” Why aim so low, when we were called to become saints? After all, if you aim for Heaven and you miss, you end up in Purgatory; but if you aim for Purgatory and you miss, you end up in Hell!

            One of my favorite holy people will be canonized a saint next year: Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati will be named a saint in 2025. I love him because he was a great outdoorsman and hiker, and he had a phrase he would often repeat: “Verso l’alto!” (To the top!). That was his motto in mountaineering, and his motto in life – strive, not to wallow in the valley where the path is flat and easy and comfortable and doesn’t require much of us, but be willing to strive for the heights of holiness, which is difficult and taxing, but once we are upon the heights of holiness – what a view we will have – not the view from a mountain peak but to see the very Face of God!

            So what must we do? We must “look up”. Put down the cell phone and pray. Stop working eighty hours a week, and start volunteering. Consume media that is truly beautiful, not just entertaining. Spend time with your family, and in nature. Care more about your soul than about your bank account or your physical appearance. Go on a retreat; take a pilgrimage; live simplicity and chastely and humbly before God.

            CS Lewis once said, “Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth, and you will get neither.”

            Look up, and see our destiny.

Easter 6 - A True Friend of Jesus

 

Homily for Easter 6

May 5, 2024

A True Friend of Jesus

 

            The great St. John Bosco, who spent his life working to bring the youth of Turin to Christ, had many enemies among the atheists and freethinkers of 1800s Italy. They saw Christianity as a backwards superstition, and so they wanted to destroy the Church at all costs, even if it meant taking out this Catholic priest who was so effective at saving souls. So St. John Bosco frequently had to be careful with people he didn’t know.

            One day, two men came to Fr. Bosco’s school, begging him to come and anoint a dying man. Bosco had his suspicions, but also knew that he couldn’t refuse if the request was real. So he agreed to come along – only if he could bring some of his older students with him. He went into the classroom and said, “I need to anoint a dying man, but this might be a dangerous trap for me. Will any of you be willing to come with me?”

            Without hesitation, one of his most loyal pupils, John Cagliero, volunteered to accompany him – along with a few others. They began to set off, but the men who initially made the request objected, saying, “We will accompany you alone – we don’t want to concern the sick person with too many people in the sick-room.” Bosco refused, saying, “My students accompany me wherever I go.”

            So they arrived at the house – which turned out to be a tavern. The boys stayed outside while Bosco went in and asked them, “Where is the dying man?” But the men who summoned him said, “We’ll get there in a moment, but let’s first have a drink before we go up.”

            Bosco refused, knowing what was up. But the men became hostile, insisting that they drink. They handed him a glass of wine, which he noticed had been poured from a special bottle. They offered a toast together, and everyone else drank, but Bosco put his down without tasting.

            “You insult us by not drinking with us,” they said angrily, while the other patrons of the tavern began to gather around and surround the holy priest.

            “Fine, fine,” he replied, picking up the glass as if to drink…but he then threw it on the ground and dashed for the door. Upon opening the door, his loyal students entered, glowering and threatening the evil men.

            Seeing the six strong students who had his back, the men admitted to their ruse and allowed John Bosco to go home unharmed.

            What a blessing to have a loyal friend! Think about the great loyal friendships in our stories – Frodo had Sam in Lord of the Rings…Batman had Robin…Shrek had his donkey…what is Andy Griffith without Barney Fife, or Winnie the Pooh without Piglet? “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter,” says the Word of God, “One who finds one, finds a treasure.”

            So when Jesus calls us His friends, He is calling us to a similar intimacy and loyalty to Him. Notice that all of these loyal friends play the supporting role, but are blessed to share the adventure with the lead character and share the rewards with them. They have to sacrifice for the main character, but they also experience an intimacy with him. Likewise, our lives – and indeed, all of human history – has only one main character, which is Jesus Christ. But we play a powerful supporting role, as we make Him known and loved, and we share the adventure of the salvation of souls and the advancement of His Kingdom. We sacrifice for Him, but He also shares with us the riches of His grace.

            Those examples of friendship I mentioned before are characterized by loyalty to the point of sacrificing for the main character. Likewise, our friendship with Christ ought to be constantly saying, “Lord, I will do whatever You ask of me.” Perhaps that means being generous with your family size; maybe it means saying a generous “yes” if you sense a calling to the priesthood or to become a nun; maybe it means being available to Christ to evangelize and speak about Him to your family and friends, inviting them to church with you. A true friend is loyal to the point of sacrifice!

            So how do we obtain a friendship with Jesus? Psychologists note that there are three elements of any friendship, all of which apply to our friendship with Jesus Christ. First, at its basic level, friendship is based upon mutual shared experiences. Think about the friendships we had as kids: we were friends with this other kid because we both like to play with Legos or we liked playing baseball. Applying this to our relationship with Christ, we should definitely have shared experiences with Him – inviting Him into every aspect of our lives. There is a young man who is on the path to being named a saint, a young Spanish teen named Faustino Perez, who used to write in his spiritual journal about his conversations with Christ. One time he wrote, “After receiving Communion, I spoke with Christ for ten minutes about the recent soccer game that we won, 6-0.” That is sharing our experiences with Christ!

            But a second element of any human friendship is that we share our inner thoughts and feelings with the other. I may like to be in a bowling league with buddies, but it’s not a very deep friendship until we start talking about deeper stuff – our hopes and dreams, our fears and our joys, our struggles and our blessings. A friendship with Christ is similar – we have to move beyond reciting “Our Fathers” and “Hail Marys” to an actual sharing of what’s going on in our life with Jesus. St. John Newman defined prayer as cor ad cor loquitor – heart speaks to heart. Jesus, I’m really worried about X, but I have seen Your faithfulness since You have blessed me with Y. I bring You this care or concern, I rejoice in this or that, I praise You for who You are.

            Finally, psychologists identify the deepest element of a friendship: having a similar view of the world. Closest friends share similar values and a common purpose in life. We experience that with the Lord when we spend time, daily, in His Word, letting His Word form us so that, as St. Paul tells us, we “take on the mind of Christ” and begin to see the world through His eyes. Elsewhere Paul instructs us “not to be conformed to this age, but to be transformed by the renewal of our mind, so that we might know what is the will of God, what is good, pleasing and perfect.”

            There’s a lot of fake friends out there, though – and I hope our relationship with Christ is not like that. For example, sometimes we have friends who we don’t speak with in ten years – our friendship with Christ is not like that. Sometimes we have friends who always bother us with constant requests for help or to vent – our friendship with Christ should not be like that, only turning to Christ when we need something. Sometimes we have “fair-weather friends” who are around when life is good, but disappear when we really need them. We should not be “fair-weather friends” with Christ – whether in good times or in bad, in suffering or in blessings, we ought to be loyal to Him.

            So let me ask – would you characterize your relationship with Jesus Christ as a friendship? Do you spend time speaking with Him from your heart? Are you generously willing to do whatever He asks? Do you spend time in His Word, so that you share His vision for the world? If not, I challenge you to work on these things. He wishes to call you, not a slave, but a friend. Do you accept the offer?

First Communion Homily - The Presence of the Holy God

 

Homily for First Holy Communions

May 4, 2024

The Presence of the Holy God

 

            Today you will be receiving Jesus Christ today in Holy Communion. And you are truly blessed to be receiving Him so young, because for most of our Church’s history, children didn’t receive Jesus until they were 11 or 12 years old. It was about a hundred years ago that Pope St. Pius X moved the age to seven, and he did so because of an amazing young girl named Nellie.

            Nellie Organ was born in Ireland in the early 1900s. Sadly, her mother died when she was only two, and her father was so overwhelmed trying to raise four children that he sent them off to an orphanage school run by some nuns, who are women dedicated to the Lord.

            The nuns would bring her to the church and teach her about the Lord, whom Nellie called “The Holy God!” She seemed to have amazing knowledge of the Catholic Faith from a very young age – she would keep pointing at the tabernacle and calling out, “It’s the prison of The Holy God!” She knew that the Eucharist was truly Jesus. When the nuns would come back from receiving Communion, she would ask the nuns to kiss her, so that she could share in their Holy Communions. So desperately did she want to have Jesus’ Eucharistic presence with her!

            But it was impossible. She was only four years old, far too young to receive Jesus. As much as the nuns told her she couldn’t receive Him, she kept begging and begging. Finally, a priest came to visit her, and she asked him for Communion. He asked her, “Do you understand what the Eucharist is?” She replied, “Yes, it is Jesus, the Holy God!” The priest was amazed at her understanding and her faith, so he granted her request and she received Communion. What joy that brought her! It also sustained her, because shortly after, she got very sick, and after a long illness, died at the young age of four years old.

            But her love for the Eucharist began to make her famous after her death – a book was written about her, and when the Pope read that book, he decided to make Holy Communion available to children as young as seven years old. So it is young Nellie Organ that you have to thank, for the privilege of receiving Him today!

            And to receive Him, you must believe that He is present here. To your sight and taste, it will appear as bread. But when Jesus said, “This is My Body,” and we know that Jesus cannot lie, we take Him at His word.

            Once when I was young, I was playing at my best friend’s house, who lived across the street from me. She left the room for a minute, and I spied a cookie sitting on a plate on her dresser. I figured she wouldn’t miss it, so I grabbed it and took a huge bite…only to find out that it wasn’t a cookie, but a bar of soap shaped like a cookie! I wonder what she thought when she found a bite taken out of her soap!

            But sometimes our senses don’t tell us the whole truth. It certainly looked like a cookie, but it was actually soap. Sometimes we see flowers and wonder: are they real? Or are they fake flowers made of silk? Sometimes we touch them and smell them, and we still can’t tell! In the same way, the Eucharist looks like bread – but it is truly something different, the Body and Blood of the Lord. We can’t rely on our senses, but on what Jesus Christ has told us – “This IS My Body…this IS My Blood.”

            Little Nellie Organ had a burning desire to be close to Jesus, and she knew that He was truly here in the Eucharist, the physical presence of the Holy God. I pray that you, too, have a burning desire to be close to Jesus – and that you will always find Him here, truly present in Holy Communion.