Homily for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary - August 15, 2021

 

Homily for August 15, 2021

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Living for Heaven

 

            Today we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. The Church has always believed, even from its earliest days, that at the end of her earthly life Mary was taken up, body and soul, into Heaven. Since Mary never committed sin, she did not need to experience the consequence of sin (which is death).

            Mary was taken up into Heaven at the end of her life because she lived for Heaven every day of her life. Her entire life was for God – praising Him, loving Him, glorifying Him. For example, at the Annunciation when the Archangel Gabriel told her that she would be the mother of the Savior, she had a lot of reasons to refuse. As a pregnant, unwed mother, she risked people thinking she was an adulteress. She could have lost her fiancée Joseph. She could have been stoned to death. Certainly her plans for a quiet, peaceful life would be upended. But what did she say? “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” Her life wasn’t about her – her plans, her reputation, her safety – no, her life was completely given over to God.

            Or consider the Cross. How painful it must have been to stand at the foot of the Cross and watch Her Son die! She must have wanted to run away, to hide, to somehow get away from this scene that was tearing her heart out in grief. But no, she stayed faithful – because her life wasn’t about her comfort or her happiness – it was about God.

            We live for all sorts of things. Can you say that you are living for God? For Heaven? Most of our days are filled with pursuing money, pleasure, popularity, success, a comfortable retirement. Those things are good – but they aren’t the point of life.

            When I have taught Confirmation classes in the past, I would always start out by asking the teens, “What is the point of life?” Usually I’d get a variety of responses. Most kids would say, “Uh…to have a good time?” or “To make the world a better place” or “To be successful.” All of which are…not quite correct. The point of life is very simple: We are here on this earth to know, love, and serve God, so that we can be eternally happy with Him in the next life.

            A major turning point in my own relationship with the Lord was when I was a senior in high school, when I began attending community college. Up until that point in my life I had actually been homeschooled, so I guess you could say I was a bit sheltered! But when I started at community college, I began meeting people whose values were completely different from mine. All they would talk about is the next drinking party, the next paycheck, the next girlfriend…and I began to really evaluate what life was all about. I remember asking myself two questions: “Is that all there is to life? It seems to shallow!” and “Are they happy?” They weren’t happy – there was a constant striving for the next pleasure, the next hundred bucks, the next A on a test…and there was nothing transcendent. I realized the only truly happy people were those who were living for something bigger than themselves – and the happiest people I knew were those who were living for God.

            Now, one might say, “Why can’t I live for God and money? God and pleasure?” But we can only have one person on the throne of our hearts. It will either be God, or ourselves. We talk about Mary having an “Immaculate Heart” – a heart that is pure and immaculate is a heart that is undivided – she pursued God with her whole heart. Most of us give God part of our life (and often it’s not even the biggest part!).

            I was celebrating a funeral once where the nephew of the deceased got up to give the eulogy. He began the eulogy by saying, “My uncle loved two things in life more than anything else. He loved God…and he loved bikinis.” I wanted to stand up and say, “Hey man, you gotta pick one or the other!”

            So, to live for God, does that mean we have to quit our jobs and become hermits? Not at all. But it does mean that the goal of our lives, the orientation of our lives, must change. When we earn money, the money can’t be the goal; rather, we must seek to do our best at work to glorify God, provide for our family, and be generous to the poor. When we enjoy pleasures such as food and drink, sleep, or sexual pleasure, we must enjoy them in the way God intends, in moderation, and willing to give them up for love of Him. When we pursue success or influence, it isn’t to puff up our ego (“Look at me! I’m the greatest!”) but rather for His glory and so that we can lead others to Him. Do we spend our time, energy, thoughts, money on the things of this world that are passing away, or do we spend them on Him Who endures forever?

            Mary is enjoying Heaven now, body and soul, because she lived for Heaven every day of her life. May we too live, not for the empty and passing things of this world, but for Heaven, for God, in Whom all our happiness is found.

Homily for Ordinary Time 19 - August 8, 2021

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 19

August 8, 2021

Real Presence

 

            Around the year 1300 in a small mountain village of northwest Spain called O’Cebriero, it was snowing hard on a cold winter’s day. The priest looked out into the blizzard, with waist-high drifts, and was glad – because it meant he could lock up the church without saying Mass. Sadly, this priest had lost his faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He was about to lock the front door when he saw a single peasant farmer, trudging uphill in waist-deep snow, to the church. The priest was unhappy about this inconvenience, and when the farmer entered the Church, the priest sarcastically remarked, “Why did you come all this way for a piece of bread?”

            The priest then proceeded to begin Mass, and much to his surprise, as he held up the Eucharist after the Consecration, it began to bleed. A statue of the Blessed Virgin in the church turned and bowed her head towards the altar, to recognize Who was present there. The priest’s faith was restored – and this Eucharistic miracle has been preserved in that church. I have been there, and have seen the statue of Mary, her head still bowing towards the tabernacle, where Her Son Jesus resides.

            It does indeed take faith to believe that this small round Host which we receive at Mass is truly the Body and Blood of the Lord. How can we explain such a mystery, when our senses seem to tell us that it is just ordinary bread? Let’s take a deeper look at the Scriptures to see how we can understand the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

            Jesus clearly says that He is the Bread of Life. But Jesus says that He is many other things that He only means symbolically – He calls Himself the Good Shepherd, the Vine, the Light of the World. Could He be using “Bread of Life” symbolically? Not if we look at the original Greek.

There are two Greek words for eating: “ephago” and “trogon”. Ephago simply means “to eat” and that can be used symbolically. We sometimes use “eating” symbolically in English when we say, “Let me chew on that idea for a while” or we say, “I need to digest that book.” Clearly we are meaning that symbolically. But the other word, “trogon”, is much more graphic – it means to chew, to gnaw, to rip with one’s teeth. It is a visceral, graphic verb that is never used symbolically. And it is this verb that Jesus uses in John 6 to describe what we must do! He says we must “trogon” His Flesh…we must literally put His Flesh between our teeth and consume Him!

            This should gross us out a bit…because that was certainly the reaction of the Jews! Immediately after this Gospel, they start complaining loudly to one another, “How can this man give us His Flesh to eat?” Jesus doesn’t back down – actually He doubles down and says, “Unless you eat (trogon) the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life within you. For My Flesh is true food, and My Blood is true drink.” His listeners react with even greater disgust – and Jesus does not apologize. Finally, it says later on in John 6 that “many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Jesus” – they walked away because of this teaching! Does Jesus run after them and say, “No, wait, you misunderstand Me!”? No – He turns to His Apostles and says, “Will you also leave?” And Peter responds, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.” So Jesus teaches clearly, unambiguously that the Eucharist is truly His Flesh, that we must truly consume Him, and He is willing to lose followers over this teaching!

            But then how do we explain the fact that it still looks like bread? Well, have you ever been to a restaurant or a fancy hotel and seen a flower display and thought to yourself, “I can’t tell if that’s real or not!”? You go up to it, look at it, maybe smell it, touch it…and sometimes you still can’t tell! Fake flowers are sometimes so realistic that your senses tell you they’re real flowers, while they are actually made of silk.

            In the same way, in the Eucharist, our senses tell us one thing – but what it actually is is completely different. The great scholar St. Thomas Aquinas used the terms “accident” and “substance”. Accident means what something looks like, feels like, smells like, tastes like, etc – basically, our five senses. But “substance” is what something actually is. At every Mass, we begin with bread – it looks like bread, and it is bread. But at the point in the Mass called the “Consecration” when the bells are rung, we believe that a transformation happens. Aquinas called it “transubstantiation” – the substance of bread actually becomes the substance of Jesus Christ Himself, even though the accidents remain the same.

            And I’m glad they do remain the same! I wouldn’t want to receive a jiggling, bleeding piece of flesh at Mass – it would be repulsive. So He hides Himself under the appearance of very common things – bread and wine – in order for us to approach Him without fear. But He desires to be so intimately united to us – not just spiritually, but physically as well since we are both souls and bodies – and so He desires to become our Food. Every other kind of food I eat becomes a part of my body; but in the Eucharist, I become more like Him.

            When we stop and think about it, this is the most amazing miracle in the entire world. There is literally nothing that we can compare to it – a small wafer of bread, a small chalice of wine, when a priest speaks the words of Consecration over them, becomes the very Flesh and Blood of God Himself. May we approach this Eucharistic altar with awe and wonder; with souls cleansed of sin and aflame with love – for so great a gift and mystery as Christ’s Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist.

Homily for Ordinary Time 17 - July 25, 2021

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 17

July 25, 2021

Fed by the Lord

 

            Those of you who are parents know the great disaster you must endure when your children are three or four years old…and they try to pour their milk for the first time. You can see it coming from across the kitchen – the toddler reaches for the gallon jug, and in slow-motion you cry out, “Nooooo!” but it’s too late – the milk goes crashing all over the table, on the floor, all over their clothes.

            But you can’t blame the child – because it’s only natural for kids to want to feed themselves. That’s what adults do – they are able to make their own food and provide for themselves.

            But the Lord wants us to become like little children, and He wants to be the one to feed us. In today’s Gospel He feeds the five thousand with physical food, but in the next couple weeks we are going to hear about how this miracle sets the stage for the deeper, better kind of food: the Eucharist.

            The Lord feeds us spiritually in many ways, but the most profound way is through the Mass. In fact, the Catechism calls the Mass “the Lord’s Supper” and the “Wedding Feast of the Lamb”. It is Jesus Who feeds us directly at every Mass, because He is the real celebrant of every Mass. It is not “Fr. Joseph’s Mass” but Christ’s Mass, through Fr. Joseph as His vessel.

            One of the reasons the priest wears vestments is so that the priest disappears, and only Christ appears. Also, consider: when the priest says, “The Lord be with you”, your response is NOT “and also with you,” as if you were talking to the priest. Rather, you say, “and with your Spirit” – meaning, “with the Spirit of Christ that dwells in you”. When a priest celebrates Mass, he becomes an “altar Christus” – another Christ – because it is really Christ Who feeds us in the Sacraments, not the priest.

            So how do we get fed by Christ in every Mass? Two ways. First, through the Scriptures. I have a friend from college, who is now a nun in Tennessee, and we have been pen-pals for many years – we actually send each other handwritten letters a few times each year. I have kept all of her letters from 10+ years ago, and like to re-read them, because they remind me of our friendship. How much more should we treasure the Scriptures, which are letters from our Father?

            At least one saint became a saint because of the readings at Mass. In the late 300s, a young man from Egypt named Anthony was on his way to Mass. He had just inherited hundreds of acres of fertile farmland from his parents, and was rather wealthy. He arrived at church late, just in time to hear the priest reading from Matthew’s Gospel: “And Jesus said, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven.’” Anthony immediately realized that Christ was talking to him, so he went and sold his property and gave the money to the poor. The following week, he was again late to Mass, and as he walked in, the priest was reading a different part of Matthew’s Gospel when Jesus said, “Do not have any anxiety about tomorrow.” Anthony realized he was not being completely generous with God, and he went back and gave away the remainder of his wealth and moved into a cave in the desert where he spent the rest of his life in prayer and penance. He is now known as St. Anthony the Abbot, who was transformed because of the Scriptures he heard proclaimed at Mass.

            In addition to the Scriptures, we are fed through the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the “source and summit” of our Catholic Faith – it is the source of every grace and blessing, and it is the summit because the Eucharist is literally union with God Himself, which is the goal of the Christian life. It grieves my heart to read studies that say that 60% of Catholics do not believe that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Holy Eucharist. My friends, I believe with all my heart that He is truly present – and I am willing to sacrifice my life for that belief. After all, if this were just a symbol, why would I become a priest to serve people bread on Sunday mornings? I could do that at IHOP and make a lot more money. No, this is not merely bread – it is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. He Himself said so; the Church has always taught it; and over the centuries, many Eucharistic miracles have strengthened our faith in His Real Presence, such as the recent Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where in 1996 a Eucharistic host started to miraculously bleed.

            So, if Christ feeds us with His Word and His Body at every Mass, what’s our takeaway? Two things in response. First, we must never pass up an opportunity to attend Mass. At our deathbed, our greatest comfort and consolation will be how many Masses we have attended with devotion. As Catholics we are obligated to attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, but even more than a requirement, it is a gift! If the Pope invited you to lunch, you would drop everything and go. How much more so when Christ invites you to a banquet in which He is the host and He is the Food. Even on vacation or traveling, we can always attend Mass wherever we go.

            The second response is to be prepared when we do attend Mass. We wouldn’t attend lunch with the Pope with dirty hands or shorts and flip-flops. Likewise, at the Banquet of Christ, we should make sure that our soul is clean with Confession, our attire is presentable to come into the presence of Almighty God, we arrive early, and we are attentive to His Words and hungry for Him.

            St. John Vianney once said, “Put all the good works in the history of the world next to one Mass, and it will be like a grain of sand next to a mountain.” All of our good works are just that – the works of men and women – but the Mass is the work of God. It is He Who feeds us through His Word and His Body – let us always hunger for the food that we can only receive at Mass!

Homily for Ordinary Time 15 - July 11, 2021

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 15

July 11, 2021

Sons and Daughters of the Heavenly Father

 

            Growing up, my life revolved around baseball – I played it in high school and college, and passionately followed the sport. In contrast, my dad’s hobby was woodworking – he built our deck, sheds, and renovated our house. He would often ask me for help building things, trying to spark interest in me – but all I wanted to do was play sports.

            Our divergent hobbies clashed when I was about fifteen. For my birthday, my dad gave me a box, and I was excited for what I thought was a large box of baseball cards. Imagine my surprise when I opened it to find a toolbox with a hammer and tape measure!

            Most parents want their children to follow in their footsteps. If a dad is a football addict, he will try to instill that same love in his kids. If a mom plays piano, she might encourage her kids to take up piano as well. In the same way, if we are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, then He wants us to be like Him as well – which means, He desires that we share in His holiness.

            Being adopted as sons and daughters of God – not only is that a key to understanding the second reading from Paul’s letter to Ephesians, it’s the key to understanding the whole of the Christian life. Christianity is more than just being forgiven or being a good person – it is living life with the dignity of the sons and daughters of God!

            Think about the advantages to being adopted by a great family. If you were a member of the Rockefeller family, or if your last name was Kennedy, it would probably open a lot of doors. You could get into the finest college or a swanky country club with those kinds of connections. But as Catholics, we have something better – we are related to the Creator of the entire universe. The Victor over sin and death, the Giver of all good gifts, is our Father. We become heirs to His Kingdom; we become co-rulers with Him over Heaven and earth.

            To be adopted, however, comes at a cost. It costs quite a bit to adopt a child here in the US – could be up to $40,000. But it cost God a great deal more to adopt us – it cost Him the Blood of His Son Jesus. Thus, let us not spurn so great a gift. Tragically, just as some kids want nothing to do with their parents and run away from them, some Christians want nothing to do with their Heavenly Father Who purchased their sonship at such an immense price. Let us not be like them!

            Rather, to make our Father proud, let us become like Him in holiness. I think it’s so important to interpret life through this lens – God is using every circumstance in our life to make us holy, like Him. Some people think that God’s job is to make their life easier – “God, take away this problem. God, give me an A on this test. God, let me get this new job.” Rather, our spiritual life begins when we stop asking God to make our life easier, and rather ask, “God, what are You trying to teach me through this? How are You trying to form me to become a saint? What virtues are You trying to help me develop? Lord, make me holy, like You!”

            Through baptism, we have already become the sons and daughters of our Almighty Father. Now, like any good parent, our Father is trying to make us like Himself. He Who is holy wants us to become holy, too, and is arranging every circumstance in our lives for our holiness, both the blessings and the challenges. Our job is to be docile to His leading, cooperating with His grace, so we can become fully mature in holiness, and our lives might resemble our Heavenly Father!

Homily for Ordinary Time 14 - July 4, 2021

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 14

July 4, 2021

Faith Is Not Blind

 

            Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith. Would He be amazed at our lack of faith in today’s world? Part of the reason why faith is a hard-sell in today’s world is a misunderstanding of what faith is.

            Most people would define faith as “believing in something they can’t see.” But people believe myths and legends all the time. In the ancient world, people believed in Zeus and Jupiter – I used to believe that thunder was caused by God bowling - so we need a better definition of faith than just believing something invisible.

            A better definition of faith is “believing in something we have not experienced based on the testimony of someone else.” When you think about it, we practice this kind of faith every day. I have not been to the Great Wall of China; I have never met Julius Caesar. But I believe in them because my teacher taught me about them, and I trusted my teacher’s testimony.

            If I were to tell you that I saw a bear yesterday in Monroe, what evidence would you have for believing that statement? (I didn’t really see a bear, just using it as an example!). Well, perhaps you would believe me because you know that I am trustworthy and honest, and have no ulterior motives for telling you that (I’m not trying to sell you bear spray, for example…yes, bear spray is a real thing!). Perhaps you would believe that statement because it is corroborated by others – maybe several people saw the bear. Perhaps you would believe that I saw a bear because you could see evidence like bear prints in the mud. So you wouldn’t just take my statement on face-value, you would want to know that I am trustworthy, my experience is corroborated, and there is physical evidence for it.

            Let’s apply this to Jesus! We learn about Him mainly because the Apostles wrote about Him and passed down oral tradition. Are they trustworthy? Well, they had nothing to gain by proclaiming to the world that Jesus is Lord. On the contrary, all of the twelve Apostles were martyred for that belief – Bartholomew was skinned alive, Peter was crucified upside-down, Paul was beheaded, Thomas was pierced with a lance. So why would they manufacture a story if it would lead to their death?

            Furthermore, these were hard-headed, uneducated, salt-of-the-earth laborers. Fishermen, carpenters, tax collectors. They were not hippies or dreamers; they wouldn’t have the education or time to invent some mythology.

            So, if the Apostles were trustworthy, is their testimony corroborated by others? Yes! Jesus did His miracles in public, seen by thousands. St. Paul even writes that Jesus appeared to over 500 people at once after His Resurrection. Of course, the Old Testament is also evidence pointing to Jesus – for example, Isaiah 7 speaks about “a virgin shall be with child and shall name Him Emmanuel” – a prophesy of Jesus from 700BC! Even non-Christian writers from the first century acknowledged that Jesus really existed – historians such as Tacitus and Josephus wrote that Jesus really existed and did extraordinary works.

            Finally, do we have any physical evidence of Jesus? We have plenty of evidence. For example, we have the Cross that Jesus was crucified on. It was found by Saint Helen, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. As soon as her son Constantine made Christianity legal in 313, Helen traveled to Jerusalem to find artifacts from Jesus’ life. She and her team excavated a pit in which they found dozens of crosses – the Romans crucified thousands every day – but she didn’t know which one belonged to the Lord. She found in Jerusalem a man suffering from leprosy, so she asked him to touch each of the crosses, and when he finally touched one specific cross, he was miraculously healed of his disease. Thus, she knew that it was the Cross of Christ – which can still be seen today.

We have the burial cloth of Jesus, too – it is called the Shroud of Turin, and it is kept in Turin, Italy. Back in 1898, it was photographed for the first time, and much to the photographer’s surprise, when he looked at the negative image of the Shroud, a face was staring back at him – Jesus’ face and body had been miraculously imprinted upon the burial cloth, but only clearly visible when viewed as a photographic negative. Scientists have done tests on the image and concluded that there was no paint or pigment of any kind, and that the image could only have come from a gigantic burst of radiation that occurred in the tomb – such as would happen when a man rises from the dead!

            So to believe in Jesus is not to believe in a myth or a legend. Rather, it is to believe in something that we have not seen because of the testimony of the men and women who lived with Him, walked with Him, saw Him perform miracles. Our faith is not just a blind belief – rather, it is, as the medieval scholars used to say, “Fides Quaerens Intellectum” – Faith Seeking Understanding. We believe, and we find good evidence for our belief in the Lord Jesus.

            St. Augustine summed it up best when he said, “Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.”

Homily for Ordinary Time 13 - June 27, 2021

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 13

June 27, 2021

Until Heaven

 

            A few years ago, when I left St. Benedict’s Church in Stamford, the fifth-grade CCD class chipped in to get me a book. I was very grateful to receive the present, but when I unwrapped it I found that they had gotten me a book by St. Alphonsus Liguori called “Preparation for Death”. Was there some sort of subliminal message there?

            I suppose leaving a place is somewhat like a death, and our readings today speak about death. But I don’t want to preach on death today, to end my time here at St. John’s on a morbid note – although, of course, for Christians, death should be a joyous thing as we are reunited with the One Who loves us infinitely.

            But upon further reflection, these readings really aren’t about death, but about life – finding life, being restored to life. Not just biological life, but the abundant, fulfilling life that comes when we encounter Jesus Christ.

            There is a difference, of course. Many people are walking around, breathing, eating, going to work and school – and they have no idea why. They are not really alive, just surviving. Once when I was teaching Confirmation class at a different parish, I had a kid named Matt in my class. He was the typical uninterested teen – bored, surly – but as the year progressed, he started asking good questions and really diving into his faith. The next year he got involved in our youth program and told me he had been praying the Rosary daily. I asked him what changed – how did he go from not caring about Jesus to suddenly being a disciple? He said something I’ve never forgotten: “I felt like I was living my life half-asleep, and now I’m finally awake.”

            Yes, and many of us are living our life half-asleep, because we are just taking up oxygen and not really sure if we want to follow Jesus. Perhaps we feel like we can’t follow Him because we’re too much of a mess. But look at the Gospel – Jesus takes people who are wounded, who are a mess, who are dead – and brings them back to life, to restoration. The woman with the hemorrhage didn’t say, “Oh, I’m too much of a mess for Jesus.” The family of the daughter didn’t say, “Oh, she’s already dead, there’s no more hope for her.” On the contrary! Like those broken, wounded people in the Gospel, we can say to Jesus, “Lord, I’m a mess, I fail all the time, I’m imperfect and weak and dead – heal me, raise me to life!” And we bring ourselves to the Sacrament of Confession, we pray daily for mercy, and we allow Him to make us fully alive. After all, He is the Savior – and He loves to save us weak creatures!

            So do not let your weakness prevent you from living for Jesus, because He wants us to be truly alive! The happiest moment of my life took place a few years ago when I was leading a father-son pilgrimage to Italy. We were all in Assisi, which is the coolest little town – it looks perfectly preserved from the 1300s, and you can sense the holiness there along those streets where Francis and Clare walked. After dinner, despite a spattering of rain, we decided to hike up to the highest point in town, an old 800-year-old fortress that overlooked the entire Umbrian valley. We had just reached the top when the skies parted and a dramatic rainbow covered the sky from one end to the other. It struck me that this was a foretaste of Heaven – here I was, with some of my favorite people in the world, in a place of holiness and surpassing beauty, to praise God and glorify Him. Can it get any better than that?

            And if this is what Heaven is like, let us live for Heaven here! Even the suffering we endure on this earth is “nothing compared to the glory to be revealed”, says St. Paul. We don’t need to wait until Heaven to become fully alive – as a wise priest once told me, “Heaven is wherever God is being enjoyed.” If we live for Him, in union with Him, here on earth, then we have brought Heaven into our daily lives.

            And what else can offer such happiness? Can anything in this world truly satisfy us? I know a young man who, when he was a freshman in high school, refused to go to his school dance where they would be playing raunchy music and gossiping and dancing immorally. His mother tried to convince him to go, but he resisted and said, “Why do you want me to go so badly?” She replied, “You need to experience the world!” He responded, “I have seen the world, and I don’t want it.” What the world says is happiness – make a lot of money, have a lot of fun, drink and indulge every lustful pleasure, become powerful and influential – does any of that really lead to the real, abundant life that Christ wants for us? That our hearts really desire?

When St. Faustina was a young teen, she felt a strong call to become a nun. But she kept postponing it and putting it off, figuring that it was too hard. Even though she loved God, she said to herself, “First I want to see what the world has to offer!” One day when she was about eighteen, she and her sister went to a nightclub for a dance with hundreds of other people, jammed into a tiny club. She was having a great time, but something was off…something in her conscience bothered her. As she was dancing, all of a sudden the dance floor seemed to empty and everyone faded away from her sight. Instead, across the room, appeared Jesus Christ, covered in blood and wounds and walking to her. He said to her, “Faustina, how much longer will you put Me off?” After He asked the question, He disappeared and the dance continued like usual. But Faustina was shaken. White as a ghost, she fled the dance hall, ignoring her sister’s questions, and went straight to the nearest convent of nuns where she stayed all night in the chapel, and when the sun came up she asked for admission to the convent. For all that the world could offer, Jesus was calling her to a more abundant life.

So my final words to you at St. John’s today are not about death, but about life. If you want to be truly happy, fully alive – live for Heaven here, and strive to be a saint.

Homily for Ordinary Time 12 - June 20, 2021

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 12

June 20, 2021

Fear of the Lord

 

            We may know St. Bernard as a breed of dog, but there actually is a Saint named Bernard of Menthon – and he is the patron saint of mountaineers and outdoorsmen. Born in a small Italian town in the Alps, his tutor used to take him on long hikes through the mountains, where Bernard was in awe of the grandeur and the beauty. Through the beauty of nature, he fell in love with the God Who created it, and became a priest. Later, he founded a monastery in a remote mountain pass where he and his monks could offer hospitality to travelers on the difficult journey over the mountains. They trained large dogs to help them rescue stranded travelers – dogs that later became named after the saint himself, St. Bernard.

            There is an awesome power in nature to help us encounter God. Jesus reveals Himself in the calming of the storm, and Job is in awe of God’s mighty power in the forces of nature. What is it about nature that reveals God to us? Two things.

            First, nature reveals God’s power – which fosters in us the “fear of the Lord”. What is “fear of the Lord?” It doesn’t mean to be afraid of God – rather, it is wonder and awe in His presence. It is a recognition that we are so small in the cosmos, and God is all-powerful.

            Every year I help with Camp Veritas, a Catholic summer camp that many of our younger parishioners attend. The motto of the camp is a perfect summary of Fear of the Lord: “There is a God, and I’m not Him!”

            Nature helps us to recognize this fact. We live in a world where we like to be in control. We spend lots of time and money trying to avoid risks. We control our entertainment, our health, we plan out our jobs and our family life. But can we control a thunderstorm? As much as we might try, can we stop the seasons or build a mountain? Nature is wild, untamed, powerful – and it reminds us that God is in control. Thus, it helps us develop “fear of the Lord” – that humility which recognizes God’s greatness and our nothingness. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” it says in Scripture – because fear of the Lord puts us in the proper place in the cosmos. It helps us to realize that while we are loved infinitely and unconditionally, we are NOT the center of the universe. And being around nature helps us to realize this fact!

            The second thing that nature helps us realize about God is His providence, which leads us to trust Him. Edwin Conklin, one of Einstein’s close associates, once said, “The probability of life [on this earth] arising from an accident is comparable to the probability of an unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a print shop.” Imagine that scene – a print shop explodes, with ink and letters and papers flying everywhere – and all of a sudden an unabridged dictionary randomly falls from the sky? That’s pretty far-fetched! Just as a dictionary is the product of an intelligent person who writes it, so the complexity of nature, the way in which it all fits together, the water cycle and the food chain and the rhythms of the seasons all point to a good God who arranged it and causes it to flourish.

            Even Jesus uses the example of nature to show the goodness of God. “Look at the lilies of the field,” He says to His disciples. “Look at the birds of the air. If God takes care of them, how much more will He take care of us, His children made in His image!” When we consider how God arranged this beautiful, awesome (in the truest sense of the word) world of nature, we realize that He is a good Father, and we ought to trust Him.

            So nature is a powerful place to encounter God. It shows us God’s power, which leads to fear of the Lord, and it shows us God’s providence, which leads us to trust Him as a Father. As the weather warms up and we have more free time this summer, disconnect from your smartphone and air-conditioned living room, and get outside to experience God in His temple, His cathedral – in the very world that He created and sustains.