Preached Thursday, March 27 - 6:30 and 8a - "Hump Day"

Mass readings - http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/032714.cfm

Good morning!

            Geico has a commercial that’s been running for awhile now, the one where there’s a hump-backed camel walking through the office, going from cubicle to cubicle, saying to each person “guess what day it is? Huh? Huh?  Mike Mike Mike Mike, what day is it Mike? ”  And if you’ve seen the commercial, you know that the answer is “hump day” – meaning of course Wednesday, the middle day of the week.

            Well today isn’t Wednesday but it is a sort of “hump day” for our Holy season of lent – the middle day, three weeks and one day from Ash Wednesday, and another three weeks and one day until Good Friday.  Just as Wednesday is a good time to pause and reflect on what work remains to be done in the work-week, so is today a good time to pause and reflect on how this season is going for us.  Are we progressing spiritually from our practice of sacrifice, of prayer, of penance, of almsgiving?  And a time to consider how will we profitably spend the next three weeks and a day of Lent?

            Our readings give us a couple of ideas to focus on for the rest of our Lenten season  – and the theme seems to be listen to God, be open to God speaking.  Both our reading from Jeremiah and Psalm 95 speak of listening, not turning away, not letting our hearts be hardened.  For God is continually speaking to us, if we only quiet ourselves, and rather than to always do the talking in our prayer lives, we let God speak to our hearts.  What is it that God wishes us to hear during these last weeks of Lent?  What is the condition of our hearts – hard and stony or soft and receptive?

            And St. Luke’s Gospel tells of the various reaction of the people to Jesus’ driving out the demon.  Some were hard-hearted and perhaps afraid, unable to see that what this Jesus was doing was brand new, closed-minded to Him and His works, attributing His deeds to Beelzebul.  And some were unimpressed, demanding even more signs so that the Lord could “prove” Himself.  And some, no doubt, accepted what He was doing and saying with open ears and open hearts, letting His words and deeds change their lives.

            My brothers and sisters, you and I are called at all times, but especially during these last weeks of this holy season, to be open to where the Lord is acting in our Lives, open to the ways in which He is calling us to repent and change our lives, open to what He is saying to you and me this very day.  By His word and by His body and blood, may we be transformed and made fully open to where He is leading us.

Happy hump day!

Preached this morning 6:30a and 8a - St. Kateri at Christ the King - Thursday of the 2nd week of Lent

Daily Mass Readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/032014.cfm

Good morning.  And happy first day of Spring!

            After I emailed Father Morgan on Monday offering to preach later this week, he said how about Thursday?, and I quickly agreed.  Then I went home Monday evening and read these readings, especially this Gospel, and made a mental note – “note to self,” I said, “next time read the readings before signing up to preach!” 

            Reason being that Our Lord’s words hit me squarely between the eyes, as perhaps they do you.  A little too close to home.  Ouch!

            I mean - here I stand in fine linens, wearing purple, and even if I don’t dine sumptuously each day, I sure ain’t starving either.  It brings to mind a saying I heard in my homilies class a few years back – homilies are necessary hypocrisy – meaning of course that someone must preach, even though whoever preaches is to some extent going to be a hypocrite

            Well with this Gospel – I stand before you guilty as charged.

            For I live in a nice house, eat well, and have for most of my years enjoyed a very comfortable life.   My family’s not rich by American standards, and like many are burdened by kids in college, a mortgage to pay, weddings to plan for, retirement to save for.  But very wealthy by most of the world’s standards, to be sure. 

            And not always attuned to the needs of those around me, especially the poor.  Not always all that generous with God’s gifts to me, to us, sometimes clutching, holding on, worried about the future, not fully trusting that the Lord will provide what we need.  Maybe not exactly like the rich man in the Gospel, but also not exactly with a heart as open as Jesus is demanding.

            So reading this Gospel I heard the Lord speaking directly to me.  Calling on me to open my eyes, open my heart.  Perhaps speaking to you, too, huh?

            For I think the real sin of this certain rich man wasn’t so much his lack of charity – it was his closed-heartedness.  It’s almost like he didn’t know Lazarus was even there, he was so self-focused on his things, his wealth, his “stuff.”  And Lazarus, if he even noticed him, was beneath him.  Even after death he held on to this attitude, telling Father Abraham  - send Lazarus to bring me a drop of water.

            Now the good news is that for us who claim to be His disciples, the Lord is at work in us – gradually changing our hearts and opening our eyes to those around us.  By grace, gradually loosening our attachments to our “stuff” and strengthening our attachment to Him.  Softening our hearts so that we may be sensitive to and respond to the needs of the Lazaruses in our lives.   Giving us grateful hearts as we become more and more aware that everything we have and are is His gracious gift.

            Indeed, Our Lord is telling us that having grateful, generous, caring, loving hearts is the very sign of Christ’s presence within us!

            So as we progress in this Holy season of Lent, may God continue to open our hearts, minds and eyes to the poor and needy among us, in our community and around the world, so that for them we may bring the comfort and solace of Our Lord, and we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Preached for the Second Sunday of Lent, March 15/16 - St. Kateri at Christ the King

Mass readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/031614.cfm

Good evening/morning.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, a couple days early.

<put on hat>

            My daughter Erin and I ran the St. Patrick’s day race downtown this morning, and I ran about half the race wearing this hat – it was so Erin would see me at the finish, since she was about five minutes ahead of me.

            As I was running this morning, I was thinking about these readings, and I recalled the marathon I ran this past fall, out near Chicago.  The race course was what’s called an out-and-back course – in fact it was two out-and-backs – run one way 9 miles or so then turn around and run back 9 miles to the starting line, then about 4 miles the other way and 4 miles back to the finish line.  So the way this course was laid out, at about mile 18 we were running right by the finish line area. 

            There were quite a few people there, cheering on the runners, the atmosphere was festive, there was loud music blaring and balloons fluttering in the breeze, people eating and drinking and having a great time, a really upbeat mood for the fast people who were finishing then.  I still had eight miles to go, and at the time thought “well this is cruel – give us a taste of the finish line when we still have eight miles to run!”  But over the course of the next eight miles, painful, grueling eight miles, the thought of getting to that finish line and getting to the party helped me to carry on, inspired me a bit, to keep going, keep running, almost there.

            Or for those of you who read books or enjoy movies – have you ever been in the middle of a suspenseful book or movie, and you get really worried sometimes about what’s going to happen to the main character, and if you’re like me, you might be tempted to flip ahead (or with a movie, fast forward) to the end, just to see how it all ends up.

            That’s kind of what today’s Gospel is like for the three apostles, Peter, James, and John -  a preview of how the story is going to end! 

            Our Lord takes the three up the mountain and there is transfigured before their eyes.  Matthew’s original Greek word which is translated as “transfigured” is “metemorphote’” which means roughly the same thing as the English word “metamorphosis” – the change that a caterpillar undergoes in becoming a butterfly – a significant, complete change.  This isn’t only an interior transformation – what the disciples witnessed on that mountain was a glimpse, a preview, of the beatific vision – the vision of Christ in all His glory in the fullness of God’s Kingdom. 

            It’s a glimpse, a fast forward, if you will, to the end of the book or movie, or to the party at the finish line of the race if you’ll excuse my clumsy metaphor.   It’s a glimpse into who this Jesus fellow with whom they’ve been traipsing around Palestine for three years really is – the Son of God, with whom the Father is “well pleased!”  What Our Lord is giving the disciples here is a glimpse of Easter morning, a taste of the Resurrection, a glimpse of heaven!

            Now put yourself in this scene – you or I might say the same thing that Peter does – let’s build some tents and stay here.  This is great.  This is heaven – we don’t want to go back down that mountain to the “real world.”  For what’s down the mountain in the real world?  Pain.  Suffering.  Grief.  Loneliness.  So let’s stay here and hang out in our mountaintop experience –at least that’s what I’d be wanting to do.

            But Jesus knows what lies ahead down that mountain, and He’s just told His disciples what to expect, just before this in Matthew’s Gospel.  To fully appreciate this mountaintop experience, we need to undertand that -  Jesus has just told the disciple of His impending passion, how He must suffer much, be put to death, and on the third day be raised up.  Peter has rejected this prediction and our Lord’s reaction?  “Get behind me, Satan,” Jesus admonishes him.  And Jesus then tells the disciples they, too, must take up their crosses and follow Him.

            So it is against this backdrop of Jesus’ looming passion and death that Jesus gives the three a glimpse of His glory, a glimpse of who He really is, a glimpse that we can imagine would carry them through the tough times, the discouragement, the pain that lie ahead for Our Lord, as well as for them.

            My sisters and brothers, this vision on the mountaintop was not only for Peter, James and John.  This vision of Christ glorified, His face shining like the sun, is meant for you and me, as we go about our lives, not on the mountaintop but in this valley of tears. In the Salve Regina at the end of praying the Rosary, we say these words – “to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.”  When I was a younger man, I thought life isn’t so bad, this isn’t a valley of tears. 

            But as I’ve grown older, lost both my parents and teenage niece to cancer, my brother-in-law suddenly from an undetected heart condition, watched my own children suffer with serious ailments, had friends suffer the loss of jobs and financial hardship, and I could go on, I’ve come to see that this life is not easy, in many ways it is, indeed, a valley of tears.  It is a long and often grueling journey, and there is often a temptation, in the midst of pain, suffering, loneliness, and grief, to give up, to lose heart, to lose faith.

            At those darkest moments in our lives, that glimpse, this vision of Our Lord glorified, is a reminder of what lies ahead for us if we carry on, if we keep the faith, if we do not lose heart.  For what lies ahead is not only the metemorphothe’ of Our Lord, but our own transformation, our own transfiguration.  After our passion of this life, our own sufferings, our own death, if we are faithful to the end of the race, we have this same glory to look forward to.  A place of eternal joy, eternal peace, eternal glory!!

            As I was driving home this morning from the race downtown, a song came on the radio, on KLove, a song by Jeremy Camp, which seemed perfect for this Gospel today, and the refrain goes something like this -

There will be a day

with no more tears,

no more pain,

and no more fears
There will be a day

when the burdens of this place,

will be no more,

we'll see Jesus face to face
But until that day, we'll hold on to You always

Homily for Ash Wednesday - 6:30a CTK and 7p SMM

Mass readings  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030514.cfm

It was the winter of 1976 – I was a junior at Bishop Kearney, and it was before my adolescent growth spurt – at barely 5 feet tall, I was one of the shortest guys in the class.  In gym class we were doing two man-piggy-back relay races – and I was paired up with the tallest guy in the class.  Long story short, he carried me to one end of the gym and we were way ahead, where we switched and I, the shortest, had to put him, the tallest, on my back.  We made it about half way back when started to lean forward and next thing you know we were both sprawled on the gym floor, me with three bones broken in my hand and a front tooth chipped in two.  I made my way to the nurse’s office who called my mother to come get me, and my good Catholic mother, God rest her soul, instructed the nurse to tell me that I should “offer it up for the poor souls in purgatory.”  Oh, and take the bus home, she said – but the bus didn’t come until four hours later!  I’m pretty sure I freed a lot of “poor souls” that day.

            The reason I bring this up now is this concept, this almost exclusively Catholic concept, of purgatory.  Purgatory - this place, or process, after we die, if we die in a state of grace, in which we are purged of our sins and made perfect, for the book of Revelation tells us that nothing imperfect may enter into the presence of God.  We think of purgatory as a place of discipline, of suffering even, of being tried as gold in a furnace, our impurities burned away.  The catechism says of purgatory that it’s a "purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven."  Holiness.  Whatever in us is not holy, whatever is not pure, is burned away so that by the grace of Christ, we are made perfectly holy.

            If that process of being made holy is what purgatory is in the hereafter, well isn’t the season of lent supposed to be a little like that here, in this lifetime? 

            A time of submitting ourselves to discipline, of being made pure, maybe by suffering or self-sacrifice, by frequent prayer, and almsgiving – giving of ourselves to those less fortunate.  A time of self-examination to realize all the ways in which we are sinners, the ways in which we are slaves to sin, and to seek out the mercy of God, to be forgiven of those sins and receive the grace to be freed from sin, to transcend that sinfulness.  So that after this forty days we are transformed into something new - someone new – someone more closely conformed to Jesus Christ. 

            In a word, Lent is a time to achieve, by God’s grace and our cooperation, holiness.

            My sisters and brothers, you are obviously serious about spending your lent profitably or you wouldn’t be here this morning/evening.  Obviously serious about fasting, repentance, prayer and almsgiving in order to grow closer to the Lord, to grow in holiness, to let Him transform you into the disciple He’s calling you to be, indeed the disciple He created you to be.

            But let me give you one more vision of purgatory and lent. 

            If the Kingdom of Heaven is a place of perfect love, a place in which rather than to be served and waited on, all God’s children will love and serve each other perfectly and selflessly, then perhaps purgatory is the process of purging us of all the ways in which we fail - to love each other, the ways in which we neglect each other, failing to even recognize Christ in our brothers and sisters among us. 

            Then so, too, might our lent be – a time of recognizing in the here and now (or more accurately, by prayer and reflection, Our Lord showing us), all the ways in which we fail to love each other, here and now.  Showing us those among us whom we fail to see, fail to love, fail to serve.  Showing us the ways in which our hearts are closed and hardened.  The ways in which we’re turned in on ourselves.  So that by His grace and mercy we may be transformed, given new hearts, and come to love each other ever more perfectly.

            And so, my brothers and sisters, that is my prayer for Lent 2014 – that by God’s grace and by the Precious Blood of His Son on the Cross, you and I may allow Him during this holy season to purge us of our sinfulness, shower us with His mercy, and open our eyes, minds and hearts to love as He loves.  Through Christ Our Lord.  Amen.