Preached Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter, yesterday 6:30a and 8a, CTK

Gospel:  John 14: 1-6

                Perhaps the most memorable line from Billy Joel’s song of about thirty years ago, “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” went something like this:

            “Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes. I’m afraid it’s time for goodbye again.”

            This is especially true for parents who have children and grandchildren who live far away, or parents with kids away at college, like my wife and I have – life is full of hellos and goodbyes.  And I said as much in a facebook post not too long ago – I wrote that “I like hello days a lot better than goodbye days.”  Indeed, we go from the joy and jubilation, the “up” of hello days to the sadness and pain – the “let back down” of saying goodbye.

            Well in this morning’s Gospel we definitely have a goodbye day.  It’s the night of the last supper, the night of the Lord’s arrest, the night before His passion and death.  And Jesus is preparing his disciples for the inevitable, giving them final instructions, so to speak,  And I have to think the disciples must have clued in to this inevitable parting as well.  Their hearts were troubled.  Probably scared.  Confused.  Probably without a clue how they would carry on without this man they’d followed and loved and learned from these past three years.

            And Jesus speaks to them words that to me, at least, are some of the most comforting words in all of scripture –

            “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” 

            “I will go and prepare a place for you.”

            “I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.”

            For any of us who are facing separation from loved ones, or any of us who are experiencing the pain, the heartache of separation, these words can be very comforting.  These give us great hope.  Hope in the midst of heartbreak, of confusion, and fear.  For in this passage, Jesus promises His disciples that He is going away, but He is coming back!  Going to prepare a place for them, in His Father’s House!  For eternal life!  And He is coming back so that they will be together again.  Together with Him, together with each other.

            These words are a promise to us, too.  A promise all of us who follow Jesus, the way. To all who believe in Jesus, the truth.  And to all who strive to conform our lives to His, for He is the life.   A promise that He will come back to take us to Himself to live eternally in His Father’s house, never again to have to say goodbye.

Preached today, Friday of the Third Week of Easter, 6:30a and 8a, St. Kateri at Christ the King site

Readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041913.cfm

“Go easy on me.  God’s not done with me yet”

I’ve been known to throw that line in my wife’s face at times, times when she might have criticized something I’ve done or said or pointed out where I’ve fallen short of how I should be behaving.  While the line is true, more often than not it’s just a rationalization that covers over my own feelings of guilt.

Despite that, it is true that God is not done with any of us.  Which was certainly the case for Saul in today’s reading from Acts of the Apostles.  Now, if you had asked him, I’m willing to bet that Saul would have said that God was done with him – after all, he was a righteous, God-fearing Jew, doing all he could to uphold and defend his faith as a pious Pharisee.  Which included persecuting the followers of Jesus.  Jesus Himself, as the Lord phrased it – “Saul, why are you persecuting me?”  Yes, God had different plans for him.   Knocked him off his high horse.  Blinded him only to open his eyes to the truth after three days.  And sent him out on a lifelong journey of evangelization – taking the faith to the ends of the earth.

We love this story, and we relish in other stories of instant or nearly instantaneous life changes.  St. Augustine’s conversion after year of earnest prayer by his mother, St. Monica.  Thomas Merton’s journey from atheism to the Trappist Monastery.  Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s life change – formerly director of the largest abortion clinic in the nation and co-founder of NARAL, he became an outspoken pro-life advocate and Catholic convert.  More recently, Abby Johnson – a Planned Parenthood clinic director in Texas who, shortly after becoming a mother herself, and after watching an abortion on the ultrasound, walked out of her clinic, never to return.  Abby is now a prolife speaker and was received into the Church two years ago.

But as much as we love these stories of sudden and dramatic life change, with most of us, our life stories of change are slow and steady.  But make no mistake, you and I are called to change as well.  If we ever think “I’ve arrived” or “I’ve made it” like Saul probably thought, God has news for us.  For God isn’t done with any of us.  You and I are called to always be on a journey of change, a journey of ever-increasing holiness, of configuring our lives ever more to the life of Christ!

For like the Lord said to Ananias about Saul, Jesus is saying the same thing to you and to me:  “You are a chosen instrument of mine.”  Like Saul and like Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in yesterday’s reading, you and I are called to witness by our words and by our lives to the Risen Christ, the only Son of God.

Preached yesterday and today - Third Sunday of Easter, St. Kateri at St. Margaret Mary

Readings:   http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041413.cfm

Audio: https://sites.google.com/site/sktdeaconed/home/mp3/150414_001.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1

            Easter time is supposed to be a time of great joy.  Of celebration.  Exultation.

            But let me be so bold as to say this – it was not a time of great joy for Peter.  I can say this with some confidence because more than any other disciple of Jesus, the Gospels provide a window into what was going on in Peter’s mind, and in his heart.

            No, it was not a time of great joy for Peter.

            More likely, I imagine it was a time in which he felt humiliation, and shame and despair, oh probably mixed with feelings of some joy and utter confusion over the resurrection of the Lord.  Mixed feelings.  Strong feelings.  Feelings of wonder and awe at these mysterious appearances of the Lord.  But feelings of shame at having betrayed Jesus three times.  Wanting desperately to be with the Lord again, but afraid about what the Lord might say to him.  Afraid to hear “how could you betray me at my hour of greatest need, Simon?  Get behind me, you Judas.” 

            Perhaps wanting to beat Jesus to the punch and simply tell Him “Master, depart from me, for I am a sinful man.”

            This is the condition of Peter’s mind and heart I imagine as I read and reflect on this Gospel.  Despairing of his sin.  Confused about all the Lord taught and did, about what he is to do with the rest of his life.  So Peter along with some of the disciples have returned to Galilee.  He announces I am going fishing.  I’m going back to what I know how to do.  Perhaps having a flashback to the words of the Lord – “I will make you fishers of men.”

            Fishing all night and catching nothing, this mysterious stranger calles them “children” and tells them to try the other side of the boat, and suddenly the net is full almost to breaking!  The beloved disciple whispers to him “It is the Lord!” Peter tucks in his garment and impulsively jumps in the water to swim to shore, perhaps with a flashback to the other time he was the only one to leave the boat to go to the Lord.

            But now on the shore, he approaches the Lord sheepishly and he looks down, seeing the charcoal fire the Lord has built.  His mind flashes back to the courtyard of the high priests’ house, the night of Jesus’ arrest, huddled in the dark and cold around a charcoal fire, and his heart drops as the words ring out in his memory:  “are you not also one of this man’s disciples?  I am not.”  He winces as he remembers his own words, how he cursed and swore and shouted “I do not even know the man.”

            And now here He is. The Man standing before him. 

            But not with eyes of disdain or hatred, but with eyes of love.  Welcoming eyes.  Forgiving eyes.  Without a word, Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness and peace wash over Peter, and in the blink of an eye, the joy of Jesus’ resurrection wells up inside Peter.

            Just as Peter has denied the Lord three times, Jesus asks him three times:  “Do you love me?”  To which Peter responds three times “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.  Yes Lord, you know that I love you.  Lord, you know everything.  You know that I love you.”  Peter is healed, redeemed, restored to friendship with the Lord.  He is given a second chance.

            And in redeeming Peter, Our Lord clears up any confusion about the mission of the rest of his life.  He is to demonstrate his love for the Lord.  “Show me,” the Lord tells him.  “Feed my lambs.  Tend my sheep.  Feed my sheep.  You, Peter, are the new shepherd of the sheepfold.  Follow me.”  In this brief moment, Peter is forgiven, restored to wholeness, and given a new lease on life.  A new mission for His life.  Which he takes up and follows unreservedly, all the way to his own suffering and death on another Roman cross. 

            My brothers and sisters, Our Lord is speaking to me, and to you, today, in this Gospel.  He is inviting you and me to move beyond whatever it is in our lives that we are ashamed of, that we are humiliated by, that is holding us back from following Him unreservedly.  He is inviting us to face the charcoal fires in our own lives, and like He did with Peter, Jesus is searching for us to find us and restore us to friendship with Him.  So that we may approach the Lord with trust in His love and mercy.  And be restored to wholeness, feel His peace and be filled with Easter joy.

            Jesus is asking you and He’s asking me “Do you love me?  Do you love me more than these?  Do you love me more than everything else in your life?  Will you let me, the Lord, be the center of your life?”

            And He’s asking us to answer in truth “Yes Lord, you know that I love you?”  For once we have experienced His love, and mercy, and tenderness, how can we answer any other way?

            But Jesus is also saying to you and to me, “now show me.  Show me with the rest of your life.  A life of repentance of sin, a life of change.  A life lived only for me, the Lord, in service of my lambs, my sheep.  A life lived so that all those who see you will know that you are different, that you are my disciple, and they will glorify my Father in Heaven.”

Preached for Communion Services 6:30 and 8am, April 10 - CTK

Readings:   http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041013.cfm
  

       

            Suppose a stranger approached you in Wegmans or in the Mall, noticing you’re wearing a crucifix or some other Catholic symbol, and asked you to sum up your Faith in 150 words or less.  Could you do it?  What would you say?  Suppose this is your one and only chance to explain the Faith and bring that person to Christ.

            I don’t think you could do any better than to recite to them today’s Gospel passage from John’s third chapter.  For it’s all right there.  Six verses.  148 words.

            For anyone whose idea of God is a vengeful, wrathful god, John starts with what, to me anyways, are the most beautiful words in all of scripture:  “For God so loved the world.”  It all starts with God’s love for us.  How many of us grew up with a notion of God as angry and vengeful, looking for any chance at all to condemn us.  That’s not the God Jesus calls His Father.  He is not filled with wrath.  Nor anger.  Only Love.

            And because of that love, He refused to leave us in our sin.  Despite our transgressions, for us the Father gave His only Son, pointing right to the cross which Christ alluded to yesterday in verse 15 – when He said just as the serpent was lifted up in the desert, “So must the Son of Man be lifted up.” By that cross He came not to condemn us but to save all of us who believe in Him.

            And that’s the choice we all must make – believe in Him and be saved or reject Him and be condemned.   How we choose will be the basis of our eternal judgment!  And it’s not a judgment that is made far in the future – it’s a verdict that is rendered right now, in each of our lives, in every choice we make, and that choice is whether we choose to live in the light or in the darkness.  The verdict on our faith, on whether you and I truly believe in His name, is made based on our works – are our works those of evil and darkness?  Or are our works of goodness and light?  True faith is shown in works of goodness, and truth, and light.

            Let us pray that in all that we say and do, all our works may be clearly seen as done in God.

Preached today for the Divine Mercy Service - Chaplet and Benediction

Reading:    Romans 5:1-11

I experienced mercy yesterday

            I took a day trip to the ADKs to go skiing.  My wife stayed home and cleaned the house, and as soon as I came in the door, she asked me if I had paid a ticket I had received back in September for a cell phone violation.  You see, I had plead guilty and thought I had paid the ticket, but then a notice arrived in January that said – pay by March 31 or your license is suspended.  I tucked that away thinking I’d pay it soon, but forgot all about it until yesterday.

            Back in the ADKs, I had just turned onto route 8 and started to accelerate too fast up a hill and didn’t realize that I was over the speed limit until I glimpsed the state trooper coming at me.  As he passed me he was already turning around and soon pulled me over.  He took my license and registration but was back in two minutes, asking “sir, why is your license suspended?”  Oh, No, I thought to myself.  The officer informed me that I was driving with a suspended license and that by all rights he should tow my car and handcuff me and take me to the JP for arraignment.   After a couple minutes on the phone, he came back and told me that this was my lucky day.  That he was going to let me go.  To pay the ticket on Monday, and don’t get stopped along the rest of my drive home.

            As I drove away, I felt an incredible sense of guilt – like I should have incurred the wrath of justice, and I didn’t dare rejoice in the officer’s mercy until I pulled into the driveway without having been stopped again.  I felt so ashamed that I didn’t even tell my wife, until right now that is, and my guilt was compounded when she asked me, right after I walked in, if I had taken care of that ticket yet.

            That’s the closest thing I know of to describe mercy – it is a free gift to us.  When we are in our sin, guilty and ashamed, and we receive forgiveness which we don’t deserve, when it’s the wrath of justice we deserve.

            And that is reason to celebrate today!  For it is not a $500 fine and points on our license that we truly deserve.  It is eternal punishment that by our sins we deserve.  Yet God so loves us that He sent His Son to suffer and die for us, to bear the punishment that we deserve, so that we may have mercy.

            And as great as the mercy shown by the State Trooper yesterday seemed to me, that is but a drop in the ocean of God’s mercy.  If that isn’t good news, if that isn’t THE Good News of the Gospel, I don’t know what is.

            The only way I know to react to the great abyss of God’s mercy is to be thankful.  From the heart thankful.  So thankful that I resolve not to sin any more.  And then to look for all the ways in my day to day living in which I, too, may show mercy.  Forgiveness.  God’s love.  That, my brothers and sisters, is God’s call to each of us today – as our trespasses have been forgiven, let us forgive any and all who may trespass against us.

Preached yesterday morning - SKT at Christ the King, 6:30a and 8a - Thursday in the Octave of Easter

Mass readings:   http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/040413.cfm

Audio:

Good morning.  Happy Easter!

            My wife Pam and I went out for a nice dinner and a pint of ale last evening with our oldest daughter.  It was a celebratory dinner, as our daughter found out the day before that she had been accepted into the grad school she most wanted to attend.  It was also a celebration of resurrection of sorts.  For our family, more specifically Pam, our daughter and I, have been through some pretty difficult times over the past three years.  Dark times.  That seemed very bleak, and that we prayed hard for God to bring us through.  Good Friday type times.  Times when we could do nothing else but to give it over to God and trust.

            And God listened, and in His own timing and His own way God has brought us through those times and is bringing new life into a situation that had seemed very bleak.  This was, in a sense, an Easter dinner celebration!

            Now I am going to guess that every one of us here has our own stories of suffering, death and resurrection in our own lives, our own situations in which we have been eyewitnesses, in a sense, of Christ’s resurrection.  I’ll even go so far as to say that’s why you’re here worshipping the Lord day in and day out – because you’ve had a personal encounter with the Risen Lord, in your life.  In a very real way, you and I are eyewitnesses of the Resurrection, as were the Apostles to whom Jesus appeared and showed his hands and feet, with whom He ate a piece of fish.

            And like Peter’s bold testimony in our reading from Acts, once we’ve had that experience, we cannot help but proclaim it.  Tell everyone we know about it.  Tell the world what Our Lord has done for us.  Tell the world of Our Lord’s saving power and great mercy.  And that’s especially true this week, as we bask in the joy of Easter for all eight days of this Easter Octave. 

            In just a few moments we will meet the Lord in the most wonderful way – in the breaking of the bread.  As we encounter the Risen Lord as the two disciples did at dinner in Emmaus, may He open our eyes that we may recognize Him, in His most Blessed Sacrament and in the world around us,  and may He give us the grace and power and courage to go forth and proclaim, with our words, deeds, the joy in our heart and the smiles on our face, that Christ has risen from the dead and HE LIVES STILL!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!