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.

Ordinary Time 26 - The Beauty of Innocence

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 26

September 29, 2024

Innocence Regained

 

            One of the great scientists and geneticists of the last century, Dr. Har Khorana, was a renowned atheist. Having earned multiple doctorates and receiving the National Medal of Science, he came up with a number of arguments for why God does not exist, and was able to convince many of his colleagues that God was impossible. He was so certain of his atheism that he made up a sign to hang over his office door that read, “God is Nowhere.”

            One day, he picked up his young son from school and brought him to work. As they were walking towards his office, he asked his son what he learned in school, and the boy said, “I learned how to read sentences.” Delighted, the father stopped them at the door and pointed to his “God is Nowhere” sign and said, “All right, son, can you read that sign above my door?”

            The boy slowly read, “God…is…now…here.”

            Dr. Khorana began to feel his atheism crumble at his young son’s innocence – and he eventually came back to God.

            Innocence is often scorned in our culture, but it is a prerequisite for Heaven, as Our Lord tells us that only the “pure of heart shall see God.” Innocence is not naivete – being naïve is not knowing what the world offers, while innocence means that we know what the world offers but have chosen to reject the evil and choose the good. Innocence is a beautiful virtue that Christ extols in today’s Gospel, as He speaks about the necessity to protect the innocence of children and even to protect our own innocence by choosing to die rather than to sin.

            Let’s go back to the Garden of Eden, to that tragic beginning of the human race. God created the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and instructed us not to eat from it. Why is knowledge of good and evil such a bad thing? Because the Hebrew word we translate “knowledge” really means “experience” – it was the first time that Adam and Eve had tasted evil, experienced it from the inside out.

            There are many things that we don’t know unless we experience. It’s hard to describe something like eating wasabi or riding a roller coaster to someone who has never experienced it. But evil is something that we should know about – but not experience. For example, I can know that drugs are bad even without having tried them myself. And this was originally the case of Adam and Eve – they knew what evil was, and they knew to avoid it, but they had never experienced it – and their curiosity led to the downfall of the human race.

            Our Lord, then, is urging us to guard our innocence, and guard the innocence of those around us, particularly the young. I just want to mention a couple ways we can do that.

            First, to guard our own innocence, I recommend a couple things. First, curb our curiosity. Do we find ourselves constantly clicking on scandal-mongering clickbait, hungry for the latest dirt? Do we try to listen in on the office gossip, Google unhealthy things, or take delight in finding out about evil? Curiosity is good but must be tempered by the question, “Should I know this? Is this knowledge going to make me a better disciple of Christ?” Remember that curiosity killed the cat, and it can kill our soul too if we’re not careful with it!

            Second, the world is full of innocent good things – pursue them! I remember when Tim Tebow, the famous football quarterback, was at the height of his fame, a reporter was invited over his parents’ house for a family gathering to do an article on the quarterback. After the reporter did the interview and had lunch with the family (Tim was the youngest of five boys, and all of them were there), Tim turns to the reporter and says, “So, do you want to play hide-and-seek?” And the whole family – all young men in their ‘20s, plus a secular news reporter, start playing this kids’ game at their house. How awesome! There are so many great things to do that are innocent and pure – pursue these!

            Jesus also makes clear to His disciples that we are our brothers’ keeper, and must seek to guard their innocence as well, particularly if we have kids. How do we do that?

            First, help your kids get to know Jesus. Jesus and His Word is the filter through which we can understand and evaluate the world around us to understand what is good and healthy, and what will corrupt our souls.

            Second, we must be vigilant about who or what influences our young people. St. John Bosco said: Fly from bad companions as from the bite of a poisonous snake. If you keep good companions, I can assure you that you will one day rejoice with the blessed in Heaven; whereas if you keep with those who are bad, you will become bad yourself, and you will be in danger of losing your soul. We become our friends – good friends will make us holier!

            We also become the media we consume. Dear parents, I beg you – please do not allow your child unfiltered access to the internet! Not only does it risk their soul, it harms their ability to reason and is correlative to a whole host of mental illnesses. Give them a phone without internet access, put a filter on their computer, and monitor what music they listen to. This goes not just for kids – we need to do this for ourselves, too.

            In the news these days we see battles going on in certain states regarding banning books and other media from libraries and from children’s access. But it is not censorship to recognize that not every piece of knowledge needs to be known to all people at all times. Just like we don’t teach second-graders algebra, because their minds aren’t ready to receive it without confusion, so we don’t allow young people to encounter evil in books or movies when their souls aren’t formed to identify the evil in it. St. John Bosco put it best: Never read books that aren’t moral, even if these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?

            Finally, teach your kids critical thinking and communicate with them. Conversations at home ought to help form a worldview for your kids – a Christian worldview, with Christ at the center and everything else evaluated in light of Him. A Christian worldview, where we recognize that we have souls with an eternal, supernatural destiny, where we know that we are born into an epic mission of expanding the Kingdom of God to rule over our lives and the lives of our family and friends…this worldview helps us to judge everything we see in the light of eternity to see their true value or lack thereof, which help us live in innocence by choosing the good despite the myriad of evil options around us.

            As we begin to live from a greater purity, sin will lose its attraction to us. I am reminded of the story of St. Joseph of Cupertino, a simple Franciscan priest in Italy in the 1700s. He was so pure and humble that he didn’t know he was living a saintly life. One day, all of the Franciscans are in church, when Fr. Joseph seemed restless and agitated. He couldn’t sit still and looked sick. The abbot came over to him and asked, “Are you all right?” He replied, “Don’t you smell it? There is a horrendous smell in this church.” The abbot didn’t notice anything at all, but, concerned that perhaps it was mold or something decaying, he said, “Can you show me where it’s coming from?”

            Fr. Joseph got up and began to walk out of the church, and the abbot followed. They went down the street and came to a certain house, where Fr. Joseph began to gag and choke, the odor was so bad. He told the abbot that they needed to go into the house. They entered without knocking, and went up to the second floor, where they found a group of people seated around a table, reading spells and practicing witchcraft. Joseph took his walking stick and began thrashing it around, destroying their spellbooks and other accoutrements they were using for evil purposes. He could literally smell their sin because of the purity of his soul!

            There is nothing so beautiful as a soul unsullied by sin; innocent, pure, undefiled. We admire Mary’s pure and immaculate Heart, set apart for loving Jesus entirely. We shouldn’t just admire Mary’s innocence, but imitate that innocence – by helping ourselves, our kids, and our families to reject evil and choose the good!

Ordinary Time 25 - The Art of Knowing Love

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 25

September 22, 2024

Gratitude and the Art of Knowing Love

 

            One time a college professor was teaching a lesson on the seven deadly sins. He instructed his pupils, “Before we begin discussing envy, I’d like you to write down every person you are envious of, but don’t write them on paper – I want you to write each name on a potato and bring it to class.” The students thought this was creative and was excited to see what he would do with them. Some students had two or three potatoes, while others brought in a whole sack. They were hoping to air their grievances with all of those people: this one boasts all the time about their athletic awards; this one posts arrogant photos on Instagram showing off their bodies; this one didn’t earn their wealth and doesn’t deserve it.

            But to their surprise, the teacher didn’t address the issue, but only told them to bring the potatoes back the next day. They did so, and he told them to bring them back the next day. Day after day they were to bring back the potatoes. After two weeks, the potatoes had begun to get heavy, burdensome, smelly, and rotten. Finally, two weeks after assigning it, the teacher said, “This is what happens when you carry envy in your heart. It makes your heart heavy, weighed down, and it begins to rot. Now get rid of all your potatoes – and get rid of all your envy.”

            All three of our readings deal with envy and its consequences. The first reading describes the envious machinations of the Pharisees, who see Jesus as a threat because of His holiness. The Gospels portray the Apostles as envious of one another, angling to become the greatest among them. And St. James speaks about the consequences of envy: war, dissension, division. Let’s look at that particular sin and how to combat it.

            First, we need to define it. Aquinas defines envy as “sorrow at another’s good fortune.” This distinguishes envy from jealousy, which is not wanting to share something that you already have. So in this way, jealousy can be good – a husband should be jealous of his wife in the sense that he does not want another man to have her! But can envy – sorrow at another’s good fortune – ever be good?

            Yes! St. Thomas Aquinas mentions two ways that envy is good, and two ways it is sinful. Envy can be helpful when we see an evil person receive a good thing that they will use wrongly. So if a corrupt politician becomes elected, it is right to be sorrowful – knowing that their political position might be used to harm others. Or if a pleasure-loving, faithless person wins the lottery, and we know they will only spend the money on sinful things – it is right to be sorrowful over this. Envy can also be helpful when it spurs us on to become better. I see someone who has been exercising and looks great – and I want to do the same. We see someone who is living a virtuous life and radiates joy – and we want to pursue the same.

            But envy is sinful, according to Aquinas, when we don’t think the person is worthy of their blessings – that is always wrong, for God gives His blessings to both the righteous and sinners. And how many times have we received blessings from God when we were unworthy of them! The other cause of sinful envy, according to Aquinas, is when we are angry that another person has simply received more blessings than we have.

            This can even be a temptation in the spiritual life. St. Therese of Lisieux struggled with this. She had a burning desire to become a martyr, but living in nineteenth-century France, there was no chance. She had the desire to become a missionary, but poor health meant that she never left her hometown. Initially she wrestled with God – why can’t I do something great for you? Why can’t I become like those magnificent saints who lived tremendously heroic lives? But she came to peace about it when she considered the variety of flowers in the garden: some are flashy and eye-catching, while others are decked in more subtle hues. As she writes in her autobiography:

            Our Lord has deigned to explain this mystery to me. He showed me the book of nature, and I understood that every flower created by Him is beautiful, that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would lose its springtime beauty. And so it is in the world of souls, Our Lord’s living garden. He has been pleased to create great Saints who may be compared to the lily and the rose, but He has also created lesser ones, who must be content to be daisies or simple violets flowering at His Feet, and whose mission it is to gladden His Divine Eyes when He deigns to look down on them. And the more gladly they do His Will the greater their perfection.

            So what is the antidote to envy, that sorrow at other’s blessings? There are three, one clearly evident and the other two hidden. The evident one, of course, is gratitude. So often we forget all of our own blessings – we have been given more than we deserve – family and friends, life, good health, our Catholic Faith. As Catholic speaker Chris Stefanick puts it, “None of us has to exist, but we get to. It’s just awesome to be alive – everything else is a bonus!” Counting our gratefuls helps stave off envy.

            But there are two deeper ways to fight off envy. I believe that one reason we are envious of others is that we think that someone else’s blessings means that they are loved more. We falsely believe that a person’s bigger paycheck and more expensive vacations, better health and more friends, means that we are somehow loved less by God or by others.

            This may be why Jesus chooses to hold a young child up as an example – most children are secure in their parents’ love. They know that they are unconditionally loved, safe in their parents’ embrace. And all Christians ought to know so deeply that they are equally unconditionally loved by their Heavenly Father. If we have the treasure of Christ and know the depths of His love, what else do we really need?

            Of course, that’s easier said than done. To be secure in your Father’s love isn’t a feeling, but an unshakeable confidence that we are loved, not because of what we can do or produce, how we look or how successful we are, but because we are His. Take a risk, believe in His love, and rest secure that no matter what others have, we are still infinitely, personally, passionately loved by God.

            Finally, we can overcome envy with the realization that God has a unique, unrepeatable plan in our lives – and this plan is good and perfect, directed to our holiness. So if we don’t have wealth, if we aren’t successful, if we don’t have good health – we can surrender this all to our Heavenly Father in trust that He is leading us along a path of holiness. Rather than look to other people’s lives and wish we were like them, we look to our own unique path and see the virtues and gifts God wants to form in us.

            How many of the saints became holy through unique, difficult paths! One of my favorites is St. Benedict Joseph Labre. Born in France in the 1700s, he thought about becoming a priest, but was rejected from three separate monasteries. He was too poor; he wasn’t able to get letters of recommendation from influential people; he had bad health. It would have been easy for him to grow angry and say, “Why me?” or to look to others’ blessings. But instead, he said, “Lord, I don’t know where you’re leading me…but I trust in you.”

            One day in prayer he received an inspiration – to go, on foot, to all of the holy pilgrimage sites throughout the world – forever. He would live his life as a perpetual pilgrim, subsisting by begging for bread, and praying for the world. So he began a most unique mission! He traveled thousands of miles, sharing what little bread he begged with the homeless, sleeping out under the stars, and living a life of hardship and poverty. Every town he would enter, he would spend long hours in front of the Eucharist, before seeking out the company of the homeless to teach them about the Lord.

            God used this humble pilgrim in profound ways – he was known to multiply bread for the homeless and heal the sick, and God even gave him the grace of levitation (which means actually floating while praying – a few saints have had this remarkable gift!).

            At the end of his life he made Rome his permanent home, continuing to beg and minister to the homeless as a homeless man himself. St. Benedict Joseph Labre had a very unique call to holiness – and rather than blame God or grow envious of others for his lack of natural gifts, allowed God to use his poverty to make him a saint!

            My friends, envy is one of the deadly sins – it kills charity in the heart, and rots away our peace and joy. But with the antidotes of gratitude, accepting the love of God, and rejoicing in the path that God has planned for us, we can overcome envy to live a life of joy!

Ordinary Time 24 - Things That Go Together

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 24

September 15, 2024

Faith and Works

 

            There are some things in life that always seem to go together. Peanut butter and jelly. Salt and pepper. Romeo and Juliet. The New York Giants and losing. Some things were just meant to be together.

            But since the mid-1500s, there has been considerable debate about two more things that should be together: faith and works. How are we saved? By our faith in Jesus Christ, or by our good deeds and following the Commandments? The answer is: yes. But the history is a lot more complicated.

            On one side, there is a teaching that many of the early Protestants believed: sola fide, which means being saved by faith alone. Martin Luther, who founded Protestantism, once wrote to a spiritual friend: “God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, sin boldly, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day.” Now, I don’t think Luther was actually telling people to go and sin and not worry about it, but his belief was that all we needed for Heaven was to believe in what Jesus did – regardless of what we do or don’t do.

            But there is an equally dangerous extreme on the other side. The early Church wrestled with a heresy called Pelagianism. Pelagius denied original sin and said that we could freely choose to be perfect, even without God’s grace. If we just tried hard enough, we could live good lives, and we didn’t need Jesus to save us. Jesus was an example of a sinless life, said Pelagius, but we can become holy just by imitating Him, even without His grace. I see this error a lot at funerals where people say, “Oh, I know Uncle Billy didn’t really believe or go to Mass or pray, but he was very nice so we know he’s in Heaven.” That’s Pelagianism, and it ain’t good!

            Both of these are opposite errors. The truth, as Aquinas says, is in the middle of extremes. And James puts it best when he defines what saves us: living faith. We are actually saved by our faith in Jesus Christ, in His death and resurrection, not in anything we’ve done. But that faith remains dead until it is vivified by good works.

            Consider the example of the first person to enter Heaven, after Jesus. Do you know who it was? It wasn’t Mary, or the Apostles, or some super-holy person. It was the Good Thief who was crucified alongside Jesus. He turned to Christ and said, “Remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” To which Jesus responded, “This day you will be with Me in paradise.” He had no good works or deeds to bring to Jesus – he was a thief, a public sinner. But by his faith, he was saved.

            But – what if he was brought down alive and allowed to continue his life…do you think he could say, “Well, now that I’ve acknowledged Jesus as Lord, I can go out and still be a thief.” Would that be saving faith? Of course not! Saving faith means that we acknowledge Jesus as Lord, and then we live like Jesus is Lord.

            We see this same dynamic in the Gospel. St. Peter has rock-solid faith – he is the first person to recognize Jesus as the Son of God, the Savior of the world. What faith! But then when Jesus reveals to him the reality that the Christian life involves the Cross, and the living-out of that faith becomes a stumbling block.

            A lot of Christians have that same challenge – it’s easy enough to believe in Jesus in our heads, but when it comes to actually living it out, it’s another matter. I am reminded of a Peanuts cartoon where Linus says, “I love mankind! It’s people I can’t stand.” It’s a nice notion to think that Jesus should be the center of our life – it’s a little tougher when we’ve got to tell our kids’ sports coach that we have to miss the game to get to Mass. It’s good theology to believe that everyone is made in the image and likeness of God…but it gets a little tough to put that theology into practice when we have to sit next to our brother-in-law at the family gathering…you know, the weird one who is boring and has no social graces and who always argues about politics. Faith plus works equals the cross – but do not be afraid, for it is through the Cross that we draw close to Jesus and become like Him.

            I close with another beautiful saint who combined great faith and piety with an active love for the needy – St. Louise de Marillac. She was born and raised among the French aristocracy in the 1600s, but cultivated a deep relationship with the Lord. As a young adult, she felt called to be a cloistered nun (that is, a nun who spends her entire life in prayer, never leaving her monastery but interceding for the world). But she was rejected by all the religious communities she applied to.

            Confused and lost, her family suggested that she try marriage. She married a good and devout aristocrat, and they had one son. It was a happy few years, but she was still restless – she wanted to put her faith into action but couldn’t find out how to do it. Tragically, her husband died of an illness, and as a widow with a son to raise she was cast into poverty.

            Around that same time, a priest named St. Vincent de Paul had been launching an initiative called the Ladies of Charity, which recruited aristocratic ladies to work with the poor. Unfortunately, the initiative was a failure – the rich women would wear their fancy dresses into the slums and be afraid of getting their hands dirty, while the poor they were serving were insulted by the condescending attitude of the rich. Fr. Vincent knew he needed a new tactic, where ordinary women, not the 1%, would actually serve the poor. He quickly found a friend in Louise, who had the same vision of spending her life to relieve the distress of the destitute.

            Together, they organized a group of young women who wanted to dedicate their lives to the service of the poor and orphans. Starting with only four women, they soon grew and attracted more young ladies who wanted to give themselves over to service, for love of Jesus and souls. By the end of her life, she had opened over 40 homes where the poor, orphans, widows, and the sick could find food, shelter, and love. The women she gathered to care for them became the Daughters of Charity, a religious community that still exists to this day. She combined her deep piety with a fervor to serve – the best of both worlds!

             Like Jack and Jill, popcorn and a movie, thunder and lightning – so faith and works go together. We are saved by our living faith in Jesus Christ – a vibrant relationship with Him that is lived out in our thoughts, words, and deeds.

Ordinary Time 23 - A Better Family

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 23

September 8, 2024

Welcome Home

 

            We have a young lady who comes to our youth group here who has a rather inspiring backstory. She was born in Waterbury to a broken home, and bounced around through foster homes for many years until she was finally adopted by a good Catholic family at ten years old. Four years later, she’s now a fervent, faithful follower of Jesus. Over the summer, I asked her how she came to really love the faith, when she grew up in such rough homes and was more-or-less forced to be baptized at ten. She told me, “I don’t know how I came to love Jesus, but when I was baptized, I felt like I was finally coming home.”

            What a beautiful description of a life with Christ – finally coming home. Did you catch the immense power of today’s Collect (Opening Prayer)? Here it is again: O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters, that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance. Let’s unpack that for a minute.

            We are creatures – no better than servants, really. We don’t have the power to draw another breath if it’s not given to us from above. And worse than that – we were disobedient slaves, we had spat in His face, disobeyed His commands. But even though He knows our nothingness and our arrogant rebellion, He still decided to offer us something phenomenal: we have the chance to become, not servants and dust, but sons and daughters.

            To do that, He had to first pay back the consequences of our rebellion – which He paid on the Cross. Once cleansed, through baptism He raises us to a dignity we never deserved – to be His sons and daughters, to share in His very life, to open His home to us and to allow us to call Him Father.

            This is the radical uniqueness of Christianity! Our Muslim brothers and sisters call God “Allah” – Master – but we call God “Abba”, Father, which would be blasphemous to Muslims. Our Jewish brethren would never consider themselves children of God – they are His people, perhaps, but not His family – and the blessings of God were only for them, not for the world.

            It would be outrageous in the first century, then, to invite the entire world into this sonship. There was an important detail in the Gospel – where did Jesus do this miracle? In the land of Tyre and Sidon, which is about 22 miles north of the border of the Holy Land – pagan territory. Of course they were overjoyed – not only did Jesus do a remarkable miracle, but He did it for Gentiles – the blessings of sonship are now being extended to the ends of the earth!

            So what’s our takeaway? Three elements. First – do you ever feel like you don’t fit in? This message of adoptive sonship in Christ means that we now have a family, no matter what. The Catholic Church is sometimes called “Holy Mother Church” and if you ever look at the colonnade surrounding St. Peter’s Basilica, they were designed to resemble arms reaching out to embrace the world. So maybe we were always “on the outside” as a kid…maybe as a young adult we felt like we couldn’t find our friend-group…maybe as an adult we feel alone. In Christ, though, we are surrounded by a “great crowd of witnesses,” as St. Paul puts it in the Book of Hebrews. Our best friends can be Jesus and the saints – and what a friendship that can be!

            I went to seminary with a remarkable man named Fr. Chase Hilgenbrinck. Before seminary, he was a professional soccer player, playing on the New England Revolution. He was so good that he was invited to try out for the Chilean national team, and he made the team and moved to Chile to play. The only problem was that he didn’t speak Spanish, and his teammates didn’t speak English. So after practice, his teammates would all go out and party…and Chase would be completely left out. In his loneliness, he began to go to the local Catholic Church and just sit in the presence of Jesus – it was the only place he could feel at home in a foreign country. Through those long afternoons of silence, he began to discern God calling him to the priesthood – and now he serves as a priest in Illinois. But it was through the experience of loneliness that God revealed to him that he belonged to Christ in the Catholic Church.

            Second, there’s an awful lot of people who struggle with their family. No one has perfect parents; we’ve all got family issues. But it’s good to know that we have a better family, a better Father. Even if you have great parents, they can only take us so far. At a certain point, we all have to turn to God as our Father. I remember being faced with some difficulty in my life and thinking, “Man, I wish my dad had prepared me for this!” To which, God responded, “He couldn’t prepare you for everything – now turn to Me, and I will lead you.” Whether we have great parents or are dealing with wounds because of them, God wants to father us – and He does so through the joys and challenges of everyday life. We receive His Fathering by reading His Word (the Bible), spending time with Him in prayer, and having that spirit of docility which asks Him, “Father, how are You leading me through this joy or sorrow? What are You teaching me? How are You forming me through this?”

            Finally, being a child of God means living out of such a dignity. Imagine being the son of Michael Jordan or Martin Luther King Jr. – there is a certain expectation that you “live up to the family name,” that you succeed in life because of who you’re related to. In the same way, as Pope St. Leo put it, “Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition.” If we are adopted into God’s family, we must make the family proud and glorify our Heavenly Father! No more living as if we’re the star of our own melodrama; we’re sons of a Father who we want to make proud.

            I close with a beautiful saint who found her family in Christ. In South Sudan in the late 1800s, a young girl was the daughter of the tribal chief. She grew up happy, but when she was only eight years old, Muslim slave traders raided her village, forced her to march 600 miles, and sold her into slavery. She was so traumatized by the experience of losing her entire family that she actually forgot her name, so the Muslims called her “Bakhita”, which means “fortunate or lucky” in Arabic. She was traded from one master to another, until she was finally sold to a wealthy businessman from Italy, who took her back home. For many years she served this wealthy Italian man until one time he had to go on a lengthy business trip to the Middle East. Rather than take Bakhita with him, he decided to entrust her to a local convent of nuns, to make sure she didn’t run away.

            Living with the nuns was such a blessing for Bakhita. For the first time since her capture, she felt like she was surrounded by love. The nuns treated her with dignity and respect, not like a slave, and taught her about the Lord Jesus. She received baptism, taking the name Josephine, and rejoiced at her newfound family in Christ.

            The businessman returned, and demanded that Bakhita be returned to him. But there was a law in Italy that forbade anyone from keeping a baptized person as a slave. The man appealed to a judge, but the judge ruled that due to Bakhita’s baptism, she was now free. When asked what she wished to do with her newfound freedom, she replied that she wanted to become a nun and join the convent, as it was the best family she had ever found. She became a nun and was well-known for her joy, her kindness, and her merciful nature. Later on in life she was asked, “What would you do if you met those men who sold you into slavery?” She replied, “I would kiss their hands, for if that had not happened, I would not have known Jesus Christ.” What beautiful forgiveness and mercy – all because she found a family in the Church and in the Lord, a family of grace even richer than her family of blood.

            We’ve probably all heard the term that “blood is thicker than water” – the idea that loyalty to our family is the highest value. But in Christ, we are adopted into a family more secure and more loving than even our biological brothers and sisters. Now we are sons and daughters of a Heavenly Father, with an eternal inheritance awaiting us. And as St. Aloysius Gonzaga once said, “It is better to be a child of God than king of the whole world.”

Ordinary Time 22 - What's The Point of Traditions?

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 22

September 1, 2024

Traditions

 

            If you’ve ever seen Fiddler on the Roof, you remember that the first musical number is a rousing song called “Traditions”. In it, the main character Tevye sings about the many traditions that govern their good Jewish life: what to wear, what to eat, societal roles. He declares, “You may ask, how did this tradition get started? I’ll tell you…I don’t know. But it’s a tradition.” And of course the rest of the play is all about the five daughters trying to break from tradition and marry the man they love, and not get married according to the customary matchmaker.

            That’s been a theme in many movies and stories – how tradition stifles us, prevents us from a fulfilling life. It’s almost a Disney trope: a kid finds themselves chafing at their cultural or familial expectations, and either because of love or adventure or destiny, tries to break from those traditions and set their own paths. At the end of the movies, the parents realize that their tradition was wrong and that their child’s newfound freedom and happiness means throwing out the past.

            But is this what Jesus is criticizing in today’s Gospel? Does He believe that all traditions and rules are bad, and that we should just be completely free to chart our own course? Let’s look at the historical context to understand.

            In addition to the Bible, the Jews have other written documents called the Talmud, which were collections of oral traditions, laws, stories, proverbs, and other writings from the ancient interpreters of the Law, dating back to the sixth century BC. Although there are 613 Laws that God gave to Moses in the Bible, there are thousands upon thousands of laws and commands in the Talmud.

            These laws were desirable to the Pharisees. Who were the Pharisees? Remember that for most of Israel’s history, their biggest temptation was to “act like the other nations” – they worshipped the gods of the surrounding peoples, and their morals were no different than the wicked and profligate pagans they lived beside. This is why God gave them 613 laws in the first place – because they needed their own culture, lest the temptation of “blending in” (aka, idolatry and immorality) was too strong.

            But because they fell again and again into these sins, God allowed them to have their way – they wanted to act like the other nations, so God abandoned them into exile in a foreign nation, when they were taken into captivity by the Babylonians. This was “shock therapy” that woke up the Israelites – after 70 years they returned to their homes, resolved never again to act like those immoral and idolatrous pagans.

            But the Pharisees took it a step too far. Their name comes from the Hebrew Perushim, meaning “The Separated Ones.” They wanted to be SO unlike the other nations that they developed an entire culture of specific laws and rituals and traditions that God had never commanded – so that they could live distinctly and differently from the rest of the nations.

            So what is Jesus criticizing? The problem is that a) They had put their oral traditions on par with the laws that God had given them in the Scriptures, and b) They had forgotten the reasons behind their laws. This is what Jesus is criticizing – following rules that had no reason, and forgetting the bigger picture, which is the love of God and neighbor.

            We are blessed in our Catholic Faith to have lots of beautiful traditions. It’s a rich faith, with two thousand years of history, and many different devotions and sacramentals. Jesus does not intend for us to throw all that out! Rather, our traditions are meant to lead us to Jesus, to the heart of our Faith, and to holiness. We simply need to understand why we have them, and use them in such a way as to lead us to Jesus. Although I could mention hundreds of rich traditions, I want to use four as an example to see how they should be practiced well.

            First, there is the tradition of Catholics not eating meat on Fridays. This tradition is so well-associated with Catholicism that McDonalds even developed the Filet-o-Fish sandwich to specifically market to Catholics! But why do we do that?

            In times past, meat used to be the “rich man’s food” – very expensive and rare – so giving up meat helped the rich to eat like a poor man for a day. It is truly an ancient tradition, dating back to the first century. Many of you remember when it was obligatory for a Catholic to abstain from all meat every Friday during the year, but now it is only Fridays in Lent (and Ash Wednesday). In 1966, the Vatican allowed Catholics to substitute other penances on Fridays outside of Lent instead of abstaining from meat. We must sacrifice on Fridays in honor of Our Lord’s suffering and death, uniting some small suffering of ours to His love on the Cross.  

            In our Friday penance, we shouldn’t be thinking “bare minimum” but rather, “What can I do to unite my life to His Cross, in gratitude for so great a love?” For example, for me, fish is far more delicious than meat, so outside of Lent I do not do meatless Fridays but do other penances instead. A lobster dinner, while technically abstaining from meat, doesn’t seem like much of a penance – so it is far more important to live out the meaning behind the penance (actually making a real, costly sacrifice) rather than trying to quibble about what constitutes meat (according to the Vatican, beavers and alligators are allowed to be eaten on Fridays in Lent). The point is – when we fast or sacrifice – which we must do weekly on Fridays and ought to do daily - we do so with an understanding of why – for love of God and charity toward neighbor.

            A second tradition, often misunderstood, is that of godparents. Originally, godparents were meant to take the place of the parents in case the parents became ill or passed away, ensuring that the child would be cared for and raised as a Catholic. Nowadays, it has a more spiritual meaning: godparents are meant to give the child a good model of how to live as an adult Catholic follower of Jesus Christ.

            This is why godparents need to be practicing Catholics. All the time we get requests for Jewish godparents, atheist godparents, five godparents, godparents who are living scandalous lives…and we have to respectfully insist that godparents be active, practicing Catholics who can stand as a good example for the children on how to follow Jesus. It’s more than just honoring a friend during a child’s baptism – it’s about providing for your child a good, holy example to imitate. What a great gift – and obligation! Godparents have the duty to help their godchildren get to Heaven and become saints, through word and example and praying for them frequently. It’s not an honor to be taken lightly! So, it’s not just an empty tradition – it is one that has great spiritual meaning and is directed to the holiness of those who are newly-baptized.

            A third oft-misunderstood tradition is the requirement that Catholics must be married in a church, in front of a priest or deacon for the marriage to be valid and sacramental. Why can’t we get married on the beach or at the Waterview? Some call the Church teaching outdated or a mere “rule”. But there are two reasons why Catholics must be married before a priest or deacon in a church. First, because marriage is not merely a human reality – it is a supernatural, divine reality established by God with a supernatural end: the procreation and education of children, and the mutual sanctification of spouses. Second, because marriage desperately needs the grace of God to flourish – and a sacramental marriage invites God at the center. For this reason, Catholics who go to the courthouse or some romantic destination for their ceremony actually aren’t married at all, in the eyes of God. Marriage in the church is not just a mere rule – it’s a sacramental reality, imbued with grace.

            Finally, I’d like to mention one more tradition that is often misunderstood: the use of Sacramentals. Things like crosses, Rosaries, Holy Water, and blessings are awesome – but they are pointless if used apart from the life of faith and the Sacraments. At one parish, a woman came to the church one weekday with a five-gallon bucket, looking for holy water. I asked her what could she possibly be doing with so much? She told me she was going to give her babies baths in the holy water. But when I asked if she went to Mass, she looked at me with confusion and shook her head! Blessing a house does no good if the occupants won’t attend Mass; having a Rosary from a rearview mirror is meaningless unless the person prays it. These items are meant to augment a living, daily, personal relationship with Jesus Christ – not be our good luck charm. Sacramentals without faith is just superstition – and a tradition that Jesus would critique!

            In our Catholic Faith, we are blessed with many rich traditions. And this is good! As Tevye goes on to say in the Fiddler on the Roof, “Because of our traditions, every one of us knows who we are, and what God expects us to do.” We live out our Catholic Faith through many good traditions – we must always remember, though, that they are not just mere rules and external observances but pathways to a life full of love of God and neighbor.