Preached this morning, Easter Sunday, at SKT, St. Margaret Mary, 9am

Readings:    http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/033113.cfm

Audio: https://sites.google.com/site/sktdeaconed/home/mp3/150331_001.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

            Think back, for a moment, to when you were a small child.  A little kid.  For the children among us, you don’t have to think back very far at all!  Now assuming you had a happy, safe childhood, you were full of optimism.  Life was full of promise, of unlimited possibilities.  Children usually have a hopeful, positive outlook on life.  And an unmistakable innocence.  We love – we are drawn to - the innocence of little kids, huh?  That’s why those AT&T Wireless commercials are so popular – you know, with the man interviewing the four little kids – I especially like the little guy who can do two things at once – can wave his hands while he shakes his head. 

            In their innocence, little kids read fanciful stories and fairy tales, all with happily ever after endings.  And in their innocence, little children believe in things that older and wiser and more worldly people might find impossible, they believe the unbelievable.  Little children have great expectations of life – big dreams, and important plans, and unbounded hope and optimism.

            But then what?  We all grow up, and inevitably, “life” gets in the way.  Dreams may be shattered.  People and institutions let us down.  I don’t care how much of a “charmed life” you’ve lived, inevitably it doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would.  We live in a fallen world, one that has great goodness and beauty, to be sure, but also that has hatred, violence and depravity.  Suffering and illness.  Hopelessness.  Sin.  And death.  We grow up and think we’ve grown wiser, but all our knowledge, all our wisdom, is often simply cynicism or even sarcasm.   And many stop really believing in anything, much less believing the unbelievable.

            Into that fallen world God sent His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Who by His life taught us, His disciples, how we are to live and love.  And who invites us to join our suffering to His, to take up our crosses and follow Him to Calvary, in our own suffering and death. 

            And in the most important event in the history of the world, in the history of the Universe, was raised this day, from the dead!  He overcame death, completely defeated it.   Jesus, without whose gruesome death and glorious Resurrection, “our birth would have been no gain,” as was sung last night in the Easter Vigol proclamation, comes to save this fallen world.  Jesus Christ died but lives once more!  Alleluia!

            And Jesus invites us, His disciples, to be like little children again.  He calls us to believe the unbelievable, as we would as children, as the disciple whom Jesus loved believed at the empty tomb in today’s Gospel.   Our rational brains tell us that dead people don’t come back from the dead.  And a great many people, and a growing number of people, I’m sad to say, find the stories in this book to be nothing more than fairy tales. 

            But you and I, my sisters and brothers, have been given the gift of grace, the gift to believe the unbelievable.  For we gather here this morning, as Christ’s disciples have gathered for 2,000 years, to celebrate, to rejoice, to proclaim our belief that Jesus Christ Is Risen!  That the Father rolled away the stone, opened the tomb and raised His only Son to new life!  Our cynical world laughs at us, but here we are 2000 years later, out of the thousands crucified by the Romans, we and a billion or so others around the globe are remembering and celebrating just one – Jesus Christ Our Lord!  He lives!

            But this was not simply something that happened 2000 years ago.  No.  He lives still.  He lives and brings light and newness of life into the darkness, pain and suffering of our world, now.   In his Easter homily last evening, Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, asks: 

Are we often weary, disheartened and sad? Do we feel weighed down by our sins? Do we think that we won’t be able to cope? Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive if only we open ourselves to him.

            The Holy Father goes on to invite us to “Let the risen Jesus enter your life, welcome him as a friend, with trust: he is life!”  Yes, He is life, and He is alive!  He lives!

            He lives! - in the hearts of all who in faith accept His friendship. 

            He lives! - in the radically changed lives, and always changing lives, of those of us blessed to be called His disciples, all of us He invites into His friendship.

            He lives! - in the new life He pours into our hearts.

            He lives! - in this assembly of the Faithful, here in this Most Holy Church, in all of us, you and me, who have gathered together this morning to worship the Father and rejoice in His Risen Son, Our Lord. 

            He lives! - right here at this altar in the community gathered around it and in His Most Sacred Body and Blood, the Eucharist, which we will soon share!

            He lives! -  as our Church carries out the mission which the Risen Christ entrusted to us – to love Him in our neighbor, especially in the poor and most vulnerable, and to go forth to make disciples of all nations.  To go forth from here, nourished and strengthened by His word and Sacrament, and by our deeds, our words and the example of our lives, to bring the Risen Christ to a world so desperately in need of Him.  A fallen world in need of its Savior.  A world thirsting for the living water that only Jesus Christ can give.

            And our greatest expectation, our greatest hope is this:

            He lives! – in His promise of life eternal for all who confess belief in Christ Jesus crucified and raised from the dead!

            He lives!  Alleluia! Alleluia!

 

Preached Palm Sunday, March 24 - 10:30am, SKT at St. Cecilia

Today's readings:http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/032413.cfm

Audio:  https://sites.google.com/site/sktdeaconed/home/mp3/homily%203.24.13.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

            My wife and I have been meeting with engaged couples for most of the last ten years, helping to prepare them for their their married lives together.  A few years ago we met with the absolute neatest couple.  They were on top of the world, and they were absolutely crazy about each other.   The communication between the two of them was fantastic, and they seemed to have a perfect relationship.  Well within two years that awesome couple had separated, on the way to divorce.

          Sometimes the most promising things, people, relationships – turn sour.  Don’t turn out the way we hoped, or the way we’ve planned.  And sometimes people turn on us, betray us. 

            And so it was for Our Blessed Lord as we see the stark contrast in today’s two Gospel readings.  In honor of “Palm” Sunday, our first Gospel shows an exuberant crowd, leading their long-waited-for Messiah into Jerusalem.   Yet we see how quickly things turn south for Jesus.  For in our “Passion” Sunday Gospel, we see Our Lord a week later,  arrested, condemned to death, betrayed by His closest disciple, led out and subjected to the most painful, and shameful, death imaginable.  Stipped naked and nailed to a cross, left hanging to die.  How quickly every one of those who triumphantly hailed his arrival in Jerusalem turned on him.  How tragically sad!

            But, when you and I sin, aren’t you and I turning on Him, too?  Is it any different with you and me?  I mean, you and I come here to Church week after week, some of us day after day, and hail our Savior King, proclaim our faith in Him, partake in the sacred feast of His Body and Blood.  And then what?  Don’t we go forth from here, and each one of us, betray Him?  To some extent at least, and in small ways and perhaps large?  At times, we act, we behave, as if we don’t even know him, don’t we?

            I think we’d be lying if you and I said we aren’t sinners, wouldn’t we? 

            It happens in all the things we do that we know we shouldn’t.  A couple for-instances.  Maybe we don’t keep the Lord’s day the way we should.  Or perhaps we take His Sacred Name, the name that should cause us to fall to our knees, in vain?  Perhaps we tell lies, or half-truths, or we gossip, or slander.  And even if we’re not adulterous, perhaps we have unclean thoughts and unclean hearts.  Perhaps it’s movies, TV shows or internet sites that we know we shouldn’t be watching.

            And we sin in the things we haven’t done, but should have.  You and I aren’t killers, but do we speak up, or do we remain silent, do we do anything, in the face of injustice, starvation, poverty, or the scourge of abortion?  The stones will cry out, Our Lord tells us, but do we?  And in situations that should cause us to give forgiveness and make peace, rejecting our own pride, do we instead cling to our grudges and hurt feelings? 

            These are just a few of the ways in which you and I, as sinners, betray our friendship with Jesus Christ, Our Lord and King.  But, my sisters and brothers, I am certainly not standing here to condemn anyone.   Lord knows, I am a sinner!  No, I am standing here to proclaim to you that Jesus Christ gave His very life on that cross for your sins.  And mine.  For our forgiveness.  Out of his infinite, extravagant love for you, and for me.  God so loved the world that he gave his only son, and God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him!  Through his suffering, and death.  God loves you and He loves me, that much.

            So, myy brothers and sisters, you and I have the opportunity to go to the Lord and beg His forgiveness for whatever ways we have betrayed him through our sin.  In whatever it is that’s weighing us down, burdening us, keeping us from being in full friendship with Him. 

            This Tuesday, all afternoon and into the evening, in every parish in our diocese, we will celebrate a day of reconciliation.  A time when we will approach the Lord, confident of his extravagant love and mercy, and confess our failures, our sins.  A time to tell the Lord of our sincere sorrow for our sins.  Not only because of their just punishment, but because our sins offend the Lord, who is all good and deserving of all our love.  It’s a time to make a sincere promise to go forth and sin no more.  And a time to hear, through the voice of the priest, the Lord’s forgiveness of our sins.  In those incredible words of absolution, words that set us free!  A time to walk out filled with joy, and lightness, and peace in our souls.

            Even if you haven’t been to the Sacrament of Reconciliation in years, I invite you to prayerfully consider taking advantage of this opportunity this year.  Let go of what’s holding you back.  So that you may draw close to Jesus, and fully prepared to participate in the Sacred Triduum, our most holy days - following the Lord to His last supper, accompanying the Lord to the place called the Skull on Good Friday, and celebrating the great joy of the Easter Feast, the Glorious Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Preached yesterday, 5th Sunday of Lent, Third Scrutiny (Cycle A readings) at SKT-St. Margaret Mary, 11am:

Mass readings:    http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/031713-year-a-scrutinies.cfm

Sorry - no audio recording. 

(a reprise of the homily I preached a year ago at Immaculate Conception/St. Bridget's which I had prepared for homiletics class)

She was not asleep, of that I was certain. 

No, she was not asleep. 

For as I stood before her, my mind raced back to my childhood – to all those nights Mom had fallen asleep on the couch, exhausted from a day of raising seven kids, her mouth wide open – “I’m catching flies” she used to joke. 

No, she was not asleep.  Her mouth was tightly shut, lipstick neatly applied, her hair perfectly arranged – no curlers like she used to wear at night. 

No.  My mom was dead.  Lying here before me in this casket my siblings and I had picked out only the day before, now beautifully dressed, a peaceful look on her powdered face, nothing like the pained, anguished look she had when I last saw her at the nursing home, as she struggled for every breath before finally giving up.

“Calling hours begin at two, so would the family please be here at 1:30,” the funeral director had told us.  This was that awkward half hour – time to first view the body, console one another, and steel our demeanor before the well-wishers arrive.  A moment seared in my memory forever.

And I recall saying a quick prayer, a much nicer prayer than I had been thinking at the nursing home three days earlier – that prayer went something like this: “Lord if you had been here, my mother would not have died.”  No, this time I prayed “Jesus, you can raise her.  You raised Lazarus, and he had been dead four days and wrapped and buried in the tomb.  This is only the third day for my mom.”  I watched her closely, hoping to see her chest rise and fall with new breath.  Nothing.  Unlike Lazarus, Mom is not coming back.

Ah, in a way, in the most important way, SHE IS!  

You see, this Jesus Christ, who is both living water and the light of the world today proclaims to us that He, Jesus Himself, is the Resurrection and the Life!    He is the Resurrection and the life.

Now I have to believe that nearly every one of us here has experienced the death of a loved one.  Yes, each of us has been there at some time, some of us many times over, weeping along with Mary and Martha, weeping along with Our Blessed Lord, suffering the grief and pain, agony even, of death and separation.

 And each of us will one day experience our own physical death, so for us these words of Jesus should give us great hope and comfort! 

“I am the Resurrection and the Life,” He says.  “Whoever believes in me, even if they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  I firmly believe that my mother, who died in Faith, will one day walk out of her tomb!  Yes, I believe this.  And I believe if I die in His friendship, and you, we will walk out of our tombs as well!

But, my brothers and sisters, this hope is not just for those who have fallen asleep.  For Jesus isn’t only the Resurrection, but He is also the LIFE!  And His promise is not only for life after death, but he promises us eternal life beginning NOW.  Jesus has the power to bring new life to the darkest times and situations we face in our lives, NOW.

  He stands before whatever tombs are in our lives, our broken relationships, our sinful addictions, grudges that we cling to, forgiveness that we refuse to give, job losses or troubled marriages, whatever it is that bind us and entomb us, and He asks us:

“Do you believe that I can heal this?  That I can bring new life from this death?  <pause>    Do      you      believe      in     ME?”

It’s the same question He asks Martha “Do you believe this?” It’s the same question He asks of our catechumens, who will answer by submitting to the waters of baptism in two weeks at the Easter Vigil, when they are also anointed, confirmed,  and then share in Christ’s very Body and Blood in the Sacrament of Eucharist.  And He asks each of us today, “Do you believe this?”

It’s a question that demands an answer, that demands that we choose.  That we choose with our entire lives.  A choice to leave behind our tombs of sinfulness, to leave behind all that binds us, no longer alive, but dead for a long time.   A choice to stop stumbling in darkness, afraid to come out into the light.  A choice to open ourselves to Him, to seek His forgiveness, and to allow Him to place within us His Spirit, that we may live!  A choice to say YES, LORD, I believe in you with all my heart, and I will follow you in faith, giving You my very life!

To each one of us here today, Jesus shouts those liberating words of life:

 "Lazarus, come forth!"

He calls you and He calls me - to wake from our sleep.  To rise from our tombs.  To walk in new life, in Faith in Christ Jesus, who is Lord forever and ever.  Amen.

 

Preached this weekend at St. Kateri - Christ the King site

Readings:     http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/031013-fourth-sunday-of-lent.cfm

Audio (not great quality):   https://sites.google.com/site/sktdeaconed/home/mp3/homily%203.10.13.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

 

                If you’re looking for an excellent spiritual book to read and meditate on for the remaining few weeks of Lent, I highly recommend this one – it’s called The Return of the Prodigal Son written about twenty years ago by Henri Nouwen. 

            This book is a reflection on the three main characters from this morning’s/evening’s Gospel, but moreover, Nouwen wrote the book based on his reflections on each of the three main characters in Rembrandt von Rijn’s painting of the same title, The Return of the Prodigal Son, which hangs in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.  A print of which we have here on the easel – you might want to come up and take a look at it after Mass.

            The theme of Nouwen’s book seems to be – which of the three characters can we most identify with?  And perhaps there is something in each that we can identify with – indeed, Rembrandt painted each of the three main characters as a self-portrait.

            Is it the prodigal, the younger son, we can identify with?  The son whose sin is to break off all of his relationships – his relationships with his father, brother, family, community, and even his nation.  Who, by asking for his share of the inheritance, is in effect wishing his father to be dead!  Give me now what I have coming to me – I can’t wait until you’re gone, until you’re dead.  Put in that context, hopefully none of us can relate to such serious sins, but I think all of us probably can relate to the fractured relationships and selfishness the younger son exhibits – I know I can.  And certainly whenever we sin, we are, in effect, blocking God the Father out, wishing to go our own way.  We’re far away from God in sin, off in a distant country, so to speak.  Even perhaps figuratively wishing God dead.

            Or is it the older brother I can identify with?  Whose relationship with the father, we learn, is really no better than his younger brother’s.  Who, while living under the same roof as his father, has a relationship that he may as well be in a distant country.  Who, rather than to rejoice with his father when his brother returns, is angry and bitter.  Whose relationship with the father is all about working and doing, slaving for him one translation says.  Who cannot see beyond his brother’s sins and therefore can’t rejoice about his brother’s return to relationship with the father.  Too often I find myself that older brother - sitting in judgment of others.  And the temptation is to say to myself, look at what a good Christian I am, look at all I do, rather than to simply love and accept the love of the Father, and to cling to Him.

            If I’m honest with myself, it’s a real challenge to identify with the loving father.  The father whose extravagant love surpasses the love of any human mother or father – who, when asked to divide his estate, rather than to be angry or vindictive, lovingly complies – giving his son complete freedom to stay in relationship or leave.  But he’s a father who always stands at the window looking down the road, waiting for his son’s return.  And who runs out to greet his son, embraces and kisses his son, and orders a celebration to rejoice in his son’s return! 

            A father who treats the prodigal and his older brother, no matter their sins, no matter what they do or say, as his beloved sons.   A Father who is always ready with outstretched arms to welcome us back into his embrace.

            <pause>

            But what about the Son not mentioned in the Gospel parable?  The Son Jesus doesn’t speak of?  For meditating on this Gospel passage, it occurs to me that there is a son that Jesus didn’t include, and that is the Son whom the Father sends out to the distant country to find his lost son and invite him to come home.  To help him “come to his senses.”  To search for him, and find him, and lead him back home, back to his father’s embrace. 

            And that Son is Christ Himself.  For the Father     so     loved    the     world    that He sent His Only Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.  You see, the Father isn’t content to stand at the window and wait for the prodigal’s return.  No.  He sent Jesus to seek us out, that we might come to our senses, repent of our sins, and return to the Father who welcomes us back with an exquisite, extravagant love.

            That, my brothers and sisters, is the very heart of the Gospel message, not just today’s Gospel, but the entire Gospel.

            And ultimately, it’s that Son, Jesus Christ, whom we are called to identify with, to emulate, to follow.  Sure, without question we are the prodigal, called to repent of our sins and return to the Father.  Sure we may often be the older brother, who with human pride sits in judgment and perhaps resentment, of those other sinners, often blind to our own sins.  And just as much as the prodigal, we are called to repent of those attitudes and sins too. 

            But as Disciples of Jesus Christ, ultimately each of us as individuals and we as His Holy Church, are called to be God’s invitation, Christ’s ministry of reconciliation to the world – to the community and world around us.  Repenting and healed of our sins, gathered in communion around the Lord’s table, and inspired by His Holy Spirit, you and I are called to go forth as ambassadors of Christ.  To be Christ’s hands and feet, eyes and ears and heart, in our marriages, in our families, in our communities and in our world - a world often far away from God, a world far off in a distant country if you will.  A world seeking but not finding what it’s looking for.

            And not only by our words but by our entire lives, we are called to witness to the extravagant love and mercy the Father has for each of us and for the entire world, for all of His daughters and Sons.  This is faith – trust in the indescribable love and mercy the Father has for us and witnessing to that love and mercy in our lives.

            My sisters and brothers, you and I are called, we are being sent, it is our mission as Christ’s disciples, as His Church, to lead the world to Jesus Christ who will then gather us and lead us all to His Holy Father’s loving embrace.  Where we will live together forever in the communion of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Preached this morning, March 6, at St. Kateri, Christ the King site, 6:30a and 8a:

Today's readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030613.cfm

                Sometimes it helps to read the Gospel verses before and after our Mass readings – it helps to get a sense for the time and place and context of the words of the Lord.  Today’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus upholds what we call the Old Testament - the Law and the Prophets, is actually a part of the Sermon on the Mount.  An event where we see Jesus as the new Moses, as a new sort of lawgiver with a new law – the law of love, of mercy, and forgiveness.  Of meekness, peacefulness and purity of heart.  With commands that we are to be salt of the earth and the light of the world.

            Hearing these new commandments, the disciples may have been a bit confused, so Our Lord aims to set the record straight.  I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets, He tells them.  No.  He’s not throwing away the law and the prophets.  Rather, He says, I have come to fulfill the law and the prophets.  To fulfill.

            So the urgent question of this Gospel is – what does it mean to fulfill the law and the prophets? 

            I think the answer is this – Jesus changed the purpose of the “law and prophets” – to the Jewish people the law and prophets were the means by which they could approach the Father.  Jesus came to be the means by which we approach the Father.  We now have a person, rather than the law and prophets, to search for us, find us, and lead us to His Father.  Jesus fulfills the reason God gave the law and sent the prophets in the first place!

            And Jesus comes to turn the law from something negative and onerous and burdensome – something to be obeyed for obedience’ sake, or out of fear – into something beautiful and loving, and something that we want to do, something that flows out of our hearts.  From a “have to” to a “want to.” 

            And how does He do that?  Out of our relationship with Him.   Our love relationship.  If we have a personal love relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, He will place the law and the prophets right here in our hearts.  The prophet Ezekiel beautifully foretells Christ’s fulfillment of the law with these words from chapter 36:

I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put my spirit within you so that you may walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them.

            He gives us a new heart!  By His grace and flowing out of this relationship, flowing out of our desire to give ourselves to Him fully in love, His law becomes part of us, it becomes who we are, who we are striving to be.  The more we grow to love the Lord and desire to be like Him, then the more we grow in virtue and we gain strength to do the right and resist temptation.  There is a name for this process – it’s called sanctification.  It means that we are growing in holiness, growing in perfection.  It’s the entire purpose for Lent.  It only happens by His grace and in His friendship.

            So let us pray during these days of Lent that the Lord will give us the grace to invite Him into our lives in ever deeper friendship.  And let us ask the Lord to plant His law deep in our hearts so that His peace, justice, mercy, meekness and holiness will flourish in our lives.