Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - August 2, 2015

Homily for Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

August 2, 2015

Eucharist, Part I

 

            Last week as we read in the Gospel, Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. The people are thrilled with the miracle and they declare “this is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world!” That sentence has a very specific meaning in Judaism. You see, right before Moses died, he promised the Israelites that God would raise up a prophet that is like Moses – the greatest of all prophets – and that this prophet would do the same things that Moses did.

            So the people think that Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophecy! And it certainly looks like it – just as Moses goes up the mountain to receive the Jewish Law, so Jesus goes up to the mountain to deliver the Sermon on the Mountain, which is the New Law of love. Moses gives the people manna – mysterious bread – from Heaven, as we hear in the first reading. And so the Jewish people, seeing the miracle that Jesus did, realized that He, too, was giving them bread from Heaven, fulfilling the prophecy from Moses!

            And yes, Jesus is the New Moses. He is the prophet that God sent into the world. But He is so much more, and that’s where the Jewish people misunderstand Him. John’s Gospel is based around seven of Jesus’ miracles – they are called “signs” in this Gospel – but the miracles are always meant to reveal something deeper about Jesus. Jesus heals a blind man – and then teaches us that He is the light of the world. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead – and then teaches us that He is the Resurrection and the Life.

            And now Jesus does this miracle – the multiplication of bread and fish – to teach us that He Himself is the Bread of Life! The miracle isn’t the point – the point is faith in Jesus. The point of all of his miracles is to cause people to surrender their lives to Christ in faith.

            One of the best ways to surrender your life to Christ is through the Eucharist. In the next couple weeks, Jesus will explain this Holy Sacrament, which is truly His Body and Blood. Our Church teaches that the “Eucharist is the Source and Summit of Christian life”. All of our work and actions are directed towards that loving union with God that we find in the Eucharist, and from the Eucharist flow all graces to allow our work and actions to be fruitful. We cannot change the world unless we are first changed by that intimate connection with Him, which is found most profoundly in the Eucharist.

            You see, the Eucharist is unique among the Sacraments. In Baptism, there is a real effect – the child is truly freed from original sin, their soul is truly marked with the seal of God. In marriage, there is truly a real spiritual bond created between two persons. But only the Eucharist makes present the Body and Blood of God Himself. The water that we use at baptism is not God; the oil we use at confirmation is not God. But the Eucharist is truly God – present on our altar in the Holy Eucharist. There is nothing on this earth that is more valuable, more beautiful than the Eucharist, where God humbles Himself to reside in our tabernacles.

            Saints have lived and died for this truth. St. Tarcisius was a young Roman boy who served as an altar server in the early church. He lived in the third century under the harsh persecutions on Valerian, when the church had to meet in secret. One day, the priest wanted to bring Holy Communion to the Christians in prison, but it was too dangerous for the priest to go out in public. So twelve-year-old Tarcisius volunteered to go. Carrying the Eucharist, he set out to visit those in prison, but as he walked past a field, he saw some of his non-Christian companions playing sports. They invited him to join them, but Tarcisius refused. They were curious about his refusal, as Tarcisius never turned down a game, so they began to crowd around him and ask what he held in his hand. Knowing that he could get killed if he showed them the Eucharist, he refused. But they persisted, wanting to know what he carried. Again, he refused to allow them to possibly desecrate and mock the Blessed Sacrament. The group became angry and started to push him around, but still Tarcisius wouldn’t budge. Finally the kids started picking up rocks to throw at him, which they did with such force that he died. Twelve-year-old St. Tarcisius gave up his life protecting the Eucharist, and is now a saint because of it.

            Jesus’ Body and Blood is the most valuable thing in the universe. And in a few short moments, we are privileged to receive Him.

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 26, 2015

Homily for 17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 26, 2015

American Poverty

 

            Over spring break in college, I had the privilege of doing a mission trip to the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota. It was a great week – we spent time doing everything from visiting prisons, door-to-door evangelization as we invited people to church, teaching in their Catholic school, and doing so much more. But one thing that struck me was that the poverty of the reservation was unlike what I had imagined poverty to be. All of the kids had Nike and Abercrombie & Fitch clothes on; every house had a satellite dish. No one was truly starving. But at the same time, there was a tremendous amount of alcohol abuse (over 5 times as much as the general population) and broken families on the reservation. There was a certain despair that I could sense among the people – maybe because there was still three feet of snow on the ground in late March – but also because of the broken homes, abuse, and alcoholism that was so prevalent on that reservation. All in all, that trip gave me a new and different understanding of poverty.

            Today’s Gospel shows Jesus reaching out to the poor in very practical ways – He multiplies bread to feed a hungry crowd. They had a physical need, and Jesus met it. But He didn’t stop there, because He knows that our needs go far beyond the physical. In the next couple weeks, we’ll be reading the rest of this Gospel passage, where Jesus begins to explain the teaching on the Eucharist. He met their physical needs only so that He could fulfill their deeper spiritual hungers. In fact, when the people in today’s Gospel try to make Jesus king, He runs away – because the people misunderstood the miracle. They looked at it as free food – Jesus wanted to satisfy their deeper hunger with His presence.

            Mother Teresa tells the story of when she came to visit an American nursing home. The directors of the nursing home showed her the televisions in every room, the good food, the activities that the residents did. But Mother Teresa was noticing the looks on everyone’s faces. Why did they not smile?, she asked the director. Why do they look towards the door? She realized that, although they had every physical comfort and amenity, they suffered from profound loneliness. No one came to visit them. And so they were miserable. And Mother Teresa concluded that there was a greater poverty in America than in Calcutta, India, because in India, people were hungry for food, but here in America, people were hungry for love.

            I truly believe that poverty looks different in America than it does in the rest of the world. Here, we do not have people literally starving on the streets. There are enough food pantries, free meals, soup kitchens, and charities, so that no one will ever starve. We don’t have that kind of third-world poverty that you sometimes see on television. Our poverty is different – and in some ways deeper.

            It seems to me that there are two main types of poverty in America. The first one is loneliness. Mother Teresa once said, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.” We could be surrounded by everything that money could buy – but if we feel rejected, unloved, then all of the money is useless. Everyone can be susceptible to this loneliness – from the elderly in nursing homes who have been forgotten by their families, to the fifth-grade kid who feels like he doesn’t fit in, from the wife in a loveless marriage, to the single person who is struggling to find their place in life. Loneliness is an epidemic in America – and it isn’t helping that more and more people are addicted to technology, which further separates us from one another.

            Luckily, there is a simple antidote to loneliness – go out and meet someone. Put down the iPhone, walk away from the computer, and introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you in your morning train ride. Go knock on your neighbor’s door with a plate of cookies. After Mass today, don’t rush out the door – say hello to the person you’ve been sitting behind for fifteen years but you don’t know their name. This will feed the deep spiritual hunger that we all have – the hunger for society, for love.

            The other type of poverty in America is a lack of meaning in life. Many people go through the same routine every day – get up, drink your coffee, go to work or school, come home, eat dinner, veg out in front of the TV, go to bed, and do it all over again – and some people don’t ever bother to consider why they are alive or what the entire purpose of their life is. There’s a real spiritual poverty in not knowing the meaning of our lives, and so many people try to frantically feed their existential boredom with sex and new cars and fanatically rooting for sports teams.

            The antidote to this kind of boredom, this lack of meaning, is to introduce people to a relationship with Christ. Jesus is the meaning of our existence, and if we’re not seeking Him first, then we’re wasting our time. This world needs to know that – your friends and family members need to know that – perhaps YOU need to know that! The whole reason we are alive is to become saints, and with God’s grace it is possible! There is nothing more difficult, more challenging, more exhilarating, more joyful, more important, than becoming a saint!

            This past week, six young people from our parishes participated in a week-long Catholic summer camp called Camp Veritas – “Veritas” means truth, in Latin. Five hundred teens were there, giving their lives to Jesus and having a great time. The camp director was telling me that one kid came up to him and said, “My mom forced me to go to camp this year. I didn’t want to come. But now my whole life has changed because now I know what I’m living for – I’m living for Jesus and striving for holiness.” We all have that desire to know that our life isn’t meaningless, a random chance occurrence – no, our life has meaning because we were lovingly created by God and destined for eternity with Him.

            So this is what poverty looks like in America. Although there are certainly people who struggle to make ends meet, who have a hard time keeping a roof over their head or food on the table, I think the vast majority of people have a deeper poverty – the poverty of loneliness and the poverty of not knowing what their life means. But the good news is that Jesus is the answer to those deeper hungers of the human heart. Over the next couple of weeks in the Gospel, we will hear how Jesus feeds us through the gift of His Body and Blood.

Homily for 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 19, 2015

Homily for July 19, 2015

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Against the Sheep

 

            The Word of God calls us “sheep without a shepherd.” Sheep are animals who tend to flock together. They do this for safety – a lone sheep is likely to be lost, and therefore devoured by a hungry wolf or bear. The flock is strongest when they all stick together – if one member sticks out for some reason, they are all in danger.

            So a good shepherd tries to keep them all in line, together, to protect them. But what if the shepherd isn’t good? What if the shepherd is only caring for the sheep so that he can get rich off the wool and the milk?

            It’s okay to “fit in with the crowd” – as long as it’s a good crowd. It’s okay to be a part of the flock – so long as it’s God’s flock. Because there are many shepherds out there who are not willing to lead us to holiness.

            We need to ask ourselves – who is our Shepherd? Whose lead do we follow? What forms our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs? For many Americans, their shepherd is the Media – they follow unquestioningly anything that their newspaper or the internet says is true. For others, their shepherd is popular opinion – they will only believe what the crowd believes, without thinking critically about modern-day issues.  For some, their shepherd is science or politics – if a scientist or politician says it is true, then they follow them completely.

            And for others, their Shepherd is Jesus and His Church. To follow Him is to follow the path to life. But we must allow Him to be our shepherd in everything – if we say, “Oh, I will follow Jesus only when it’s easy or when I agree with Church teaching,” then we are not letting Him do what he did in the Gospel – teach us the way to holiness. As Catholics who claim to have Jesus as our shepherd, we must follow Him and His Church completely, not only when it’s convenient or when we agree with the teachings.

St. Paul tells us in Romans 12 to “be transformed by the renewal of our minds so that we might know what is the will of God, what is good, pleasing, and perfect.” We should look at our lives and our world through the lens of the Gospel, not looking at the Gospel through the lens of the world. As CS Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity like I believe that the sun has risen; not only do I see it, but I see everything else by it.”

There are a lot of errors that we can be easily led into believing. What do the worldly shepherds tell us? That this life is all there is; that money and pleasure are the highest goods; that God does not exist and that religion is for fools; that there is no such thing as truth; that we human beings can redefine anything we want, because we are the masters of our own destiny. These errors ultimately lead us into misery, because we were made for more: we were made for love, for self-giving and sacrifice, for a life that never ends.

            Jesus wants to lead us to that life. We must believe this! His teachings are not burdens but the pathway to becoming saints. He wants abundant life for us! What does the media want from us? To buy their product. What does popular opinion want from us? Conformity.

            You see, these other worldly shepherds don’t lead us to find true life in God, which comes from a life of holiness as we seek to live out our personal relationship with Christ and follow His commands. So, we ought not to just be sheep and follow the rest of the modern culture as they proceed down the path towards destruction. No, we need to break free from that conformity and make sure we are in the flock of God, with Jesus as our Shepherd.

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 12, 2015

Homily for July 12, 2015

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus Is Enough

 

            I went to seminary with a man named Chase Hilgenbrinck. Although he’s not a household name, he certainly had a taste of fame and fortune. He was an incredible soccer star growing up in Indiana, so much so that he was a starter at Clemson University, a Division-1 School. Out of college, he signed almost immediately with a professional soccer team in Chile, in hopes of making it big.

            And make it big, he did! He played three years in Chile, becoming a superstar and even getting his own cover of the Chilean version of Sports Illustrated. But during his time in Chile, he found himself quite lonely – he struggled to learn the language, and didn’t fit in with the culture. So he ended up spending a lot of time praying, reflecting, and visiting churches, where he began to hear God’s small voice calling him to leave it all.

            But his journey wasn’t done yet. He managed to sign with an American Major Leage Soccer team, the New England Revolution. But something didn’t feel right. He had everything a man could want – professional athlete, tons of money, a girlfriend…but he knew that what was missing was Christ. So, at the height of his career, he retired from major league soccer and entered the seminary, and now he is Fr. Chase Hilgenbrinck, a priest of the diocese of Rockford, IL.

            Chase discovered that Jesus is enough. Our deepest happiness, our only true fulfillment, our ultimate destiny is Him. That is why Jesus tells His Apostles to take nothing with them on the journey – He needs to teach them that He alone is their happiness. That’s why He tells the Apostles to preach about repentance – He needs to teach us that He alone is our happiness.

            Not our possessions, not our sins, not our talents, not our families – these things can tide us over for a time, but can never satisfy. Jesus is enough. Just this past week I was speaking with an elderly man who, while not rich, has a comfortable amount of money – but he was lamenting to me about the poor financial choices he made. He was saying, “Oh, if only I had bought stock! If only I had invested more! I could have been much richer!” I thought to myself, how sad! How sad that this man, who has more than enough and should be filled with gratitude, is instead filled with regret for not having more money!

            Imagine, for a moment, that you were given a credit card with – instead of money -  time and personal energy on it. You were told to use it to find deep joy. What would you spend that time and energy on? Watching TV? Petty family drama? Shopping for new shoes? At the end of the day, would any of that bring you deep joy? Probably not, and it would be a waste of your time and energy.

            The reality is, all of us have a limited number of hours in the day, and a limited amount of energy before we get tired. Every choice we make is an attempt to be happy. I’m going to make the claim that until we have a deep relationship with Jesus Christ, we will never find true happiness. The stuff we do on a daily basis might take away our boredom for a while, but it won’t grant us deep inner peace unless we have Jesus, because Jesus is enough.

            So then how do we have a deep relationship with Jesus? Remember that credit card with the time and energy on it – that is how we have a deep relationship with Jesus. We spend time with Him in reading His word, we spend our energy on growing every day in holiness. We often say, “Oh, I don’t have time to have a personal friendship with Jesus.” But what else are you spending your time and energy on – work? School? Relaxing? Those are good things, but does that bring you the deep happiness of having a friendship with Jesus?

            Jesus sent the Apostles out without anything because He is everything. I pray that we may refocus our lives on the reality that Jesus is enough.

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 5, 2015

            We’re all familiar with the story – the Israelites spent hundreds of years as slaves in Egypt until Moses led them out, across the Red Sea, and into the Promised Land. But things were not as promised – because the Israelites were given strict instructions to follow the Law that Moses received on Mount Siaini – basically the Ten Commandments. They would only live in peace if they obeyed God’s laws.

            But the temptation was too strong to act just like the surrounding pagan nations. So Israel started to worship false gods, and forsake the Law. They intermarried with the pagan kingdoms and basically lost their Jewish heritage.

            So God allowed these pagan peoples to oppress the Jews, so that they would repent and return to the Lord. But instead of repenting, they asked God for a king to save them from their oppressors. God was reluctant to do so, because He was supposed to be their only King. If they had followed His law, they would not need another ruler. But He granted their request, and raised up King Saul, then David, then Solomon.

            Solomon’s two sons both claimed the Kingship, so the kingdom was divided, and subsequent kings were, for the most part, wicked men who continued to wage wars and worship false gods. These men were leading Israel into ruin, as the Jews were acting just like the surrounding culture.

            So God raised up prophets to draw people’s attention back to God. Elijah the prophet was one such man, raised up by the Lord. Of course Elijah was rejected frequently for his message of turning back to the Lord, just as Jesus was in today’s Gospel. Yet he was steadfast in his mission – in today’s first reading, we see Elijah passing on the torch to a younger man, Elisha, who would be the prophet to take over for him once he died.

            The role of prophet was critical in the Old Testament. Prophets were NOT future-tellers; rather, they simply told the Israelites what the consequences would be if they did not turn back to the Lord. So, since no one likes to hear bad news, prophets were often silenced, sometimes violently.

            Jesus also shared this prophetic role. He shook people up by His message, and for this reason was unwelcome in places where people were pretty comfortable with the status quo, like in today’s Gospel. But Jesus nevertheless urged and pleaded for the peoples’ repentance, because He knew that they would only find joy and peace if they turned back to the Lord.

            Ya know, twenty-first century Christians aren’t much different than the ancient Israelites. Just as the Israelites started to act like the surrounding pagan nations, so often we try to blend in to the general culture, trying not to make waves, and we worship the same gods as the surrounding culture does – the gods of consumerism, the god of sports, the Almighty Dollar, the god of public opinion. We’re nicer to our prophets, for sure – people like Pope Francis or maybe people in our life who are trying to lead us into a deeper friendship with Jesus Christ – but on the whole we kind of dismiss their message.

            But we as Christians are supposed to be prophets to the world. When we are baptized, we are baptized priest, PROPHET, and king. This means that Christians can’t blend in to the modern culture – we must, at times, stand out! And to stand out means to take a stand, dare to be different. For example, if all of our friends are watching a certain TV show that’s pretty filthy – something like “Big Brother” or something like that – are we willing to simply not watch it? Perhaps people will think we’re weird, or out-of-touch. So what? If we just simply “blend in,” then we’re not very good Christians. Or what if enough Christians just plain told their child’s sports coach that, no, we will NOT go to practices and games on Sunday mornings because that’s the time for Mass? If enough Christians had the guts to say that, then they would be forced to respect Sunday mornings as a time for worship.

            Our biggest flaw as Christians is simply blending in. Christians are supposed to be prophets to the culture, not so saturated with the culture that we are indistinguishable from it. Prophets think with the mind of Christ, not with the mind of the culture. Prophets follow and point out to others the way to life, while the culture just leads to emptiness, ultimately. Prophets dare to be different, because they aren’t living for this world but for the next. Are you a prophet, or just another copycat of the culture?