Homily for Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion - 3/28 and 3/29 2015 - Christ the King Church

Today's readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/032915.cfm

Long Gospel, so I just want to share a couple quick thoughts.

A couple quick words, actually, as we reflect on the Gospel we’ve just heard:  Love.  And surrender.  Love and surrender.

Love – what amazing, extravagant, passionate love Our Lord has for the Father, to submit to the torture, the suffering, the shame, the absolute humiliation, and unspeakably painful death, death on this cross!  And what amazing, extravagant, passionate love Our Lord has for you, for me.  These solemn words you’ve just heard proclaimed – He did that for you, for me!  He loves us THAT MUCH!

My sisters and brothers, as we journey through Holy Week, it would be good, I think, for us to contemplate, to meditate, on His love for you, for all of us.  To spend quiet time simply gazing upon His Holy Cross, upon His broken, dead body, and try to wrap our minds and hearts around the fact that He. Loves. You. That. Much.  That He would be willing to be humbled, scourged, nailed to a cross, and killed, all to save you, to save me.  He loves us THAT MUCH!

And the other word is surrender.  Out of pure love, Our Lord surrendered to the will of the Father.  He became “obedient to the point of death,” as St. Paul writes.  In the garden, He prayed “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you.  Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.”  Complete surrender, out of love for the Father, out of love for you and for me.

And as we’re contemplating His love all this week, let us also contemplate His surrender to the Father, His complete self-giving love of the Father. 

And brothers and sisters, I think it is natural when we’re pondering His extravagant love, His humble submission, His surrender, it is natural to say to myself – “What can I possibly do, what can I give back?”

And the answer is complete surrender.  Complete surrender to Him, at whose name we bow and kneel, and whom we confess as Christ and Lord.  Our completely surrendering our lives to Him is the only adequate response to Him who died for you and me.   Surrender is what it means to be a Christian, a disciple of Christ.  It means we must also, in a sense, be put to death.  Not physical death, although yes that will come for each of us, but as St. Paul writes to the Romans, to make of our bodies, meaning our bodies and souls – all of us - a “living sacrifice” – to be by our entire lives a living offering, a living sacrifice back to Him who died for you and for me.

And what does that mean, exactly?  It means this:  to quote a Protestant minister Timothy Keller - “the essence of the Christian life is to put to death the right to live as you want.”  Put to death the right to live as you want.  To abandon the right to decide that you can live the way you want.  What Our Lord wants for us as He hangs on the cross is to take complete possession of our lives, that we turn over to Him and His will every corner of our lives, every room of our house, our every word, our every action, our every heartbeat, our every breath.

In so surrendering ourselves to Him, in making ourselves a living sacrifice, a living offering to Him, these two words – love and surrender - become one  and the same.  For true love requires surrender.  And surrender requires an act of love, a loving act of the will.

So, sisters and brothers, as we begin this holiest of weeks, as we re-enact and make present once again the Lord’s supreme sacrifice of love, the Lord’s supreme act of surrender, and as we begin the rest of our lives, let us listen to Him as He gently invites each of us to surrender our entire lives over to Him.  That is the only adequate response to Him who gave His all for you and me.

Allow me to close with this Prayer of Abandonment by Charles de Foucauld:

Father, I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in all Your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,

For you are my Father.

Amen.

Homily for the Second Scrutiny, Fourth Sunday of Lent, 3/15/15 - St. Cecilia Church

Today's readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/031515.cfm

            In your mind’s eye, put yourself for a moment inside this morning’s Gospel.  Imagine just for a moment that you were born blind from birth.  Totally in darkness, except you don’t even know what darkness is because you’ve never seen light.  You’ve never seen the beauty of a sunrise or the sparkling of stars against a pitch-black sky.  Never seen a towering mountain peak, or the deep red color of a rose bloom.  Never seen the face of your mother, your spouse, your newborn baby.  Never even seen your own self in a mirror.  Not a single visual memory  - your only memories are of what you’ve heard, or touched, or smelled, or tasted.  And, since you’ve been blind from birth, actually, unless someone with sight told you you were blind, you wouldn’t even know what blind is – for you’ve never known anything different.  For without ever having had sight, without having ever known light, there’s simply no such thing as “blind.”

            Now here you are, sitting and begging for food, minding your own business, and into your life walks this man, just passing by, this Jesus fellow, and He changes everything.  He doesn’t ask you if you’d like to see, if you’d like to be healed – for such a question would be meaningless to you – but yu hear Him spit and you feel Him anoint your eyes, and He sends you to go and wash, and suddenly, miraculously, for the first time, your eyes are opened - you can see!  You see light, darkness, up, down, colors, faces, and perhaps the very first face you see is this man, this prophet, who has just healed you.  And as you gaze into His eyes you see there eyes filled completely with love and compassion and mercy.

            You have encountered not just a man, not just a prophet, but the Son of Man, the Christ, and He has healed you, and you didn’t even know you needed healing.  And from this encounter with this man, you have come to believe in Him, come to worship Him, as the only begotten Son of God.  This face?  This very first face you’ve ever seen?  Is none other than the face of God.

            Brothers and sisters, this Gospel, it seems to me, is a microcosm of the Christian life, the Christian journey.  Without our even knowing it, we were born blind, you and I were spiritually blind.  On our own, under our own power, we are lost in darkness, lost in sin. Blind and powerless.  And like the man born blind, perhaps not even knowing of our own darkness, of our sin.  And into our lives walks this Jesus, who calls Himself the light of the world, seeking us out.  He anoints us and washes us and opens our eyes, our spiritual eyes.  And we come to believe that this man we’ve encountered is none other than God’s own Son, sent by the Father to save us, and we choose to follow Him.

            Yes, our Christian journey begins with a healing encounter with the person of Jesus Christ.  Yes, that personal encounter with the person of Christ is what it’s all about! You see, our faith isn’t so much about rules and laws and doing this or not doing that as it is about encountering a person – Jesus, the Lord, the Christ.  If you’ve never really personally encountered Jesus Christ, and I dare say many people who’ve gone to Church their entire lives haven’t, if you’ve never professed faith in Him as Lord, if you’ve never said to His face, “Yes, Lord, I do believe,” well this season of Lent is an excellent time to start.

            And this Gospel also describes exactly the encounter with Christ our elect anxiously await in 20 days as they anticipate the Sacrament of Baptism at the Easter Vigil, as they’re anointed and washed in the life-giving waters of Christ, as they go down into those waters, figuratively dying with Christ, and then washed clean of sin are raised up with Him.  Gifted with new life in the Spirit.  Then nourished at His table, fully initiated into the Body of Christ, they will be sent forth to go and do the same, do as He has done.

            But joyful as that moment will be, when we welcome our new brothers and sisters in Christ, we know that this will be just the beginning of their journey with Christ.  And while we all profess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, we know that this process doesn’t happen only once – this process of encountering Jesus and Him opening our eyes is something that must happen time and time again as we grow deeper and deeper in discipleship, in relationship with Him.  For as much as we’d like to think our eyes are open and we see clearly, even if we’re no longer shrouded in darkness, we all have our blind spots.

            This season of lent is a great time of grace, or it can be, as we attentively wait for the Lord to come to us and encounter us again, and further open our eyes to our own sinfulness, our own darkness.  To open our eyes to see differently, more clearly, see more with His eyes.  This is a season of growing in holiness, and Origen defined holiness as “seeing with the eyes of Christ.”  As we shed our own selfish ways of looking at the world and at others, and put on the eyes of Christ, seeing the world and our brothers and sisters as He sees.  To break our hearts to what breaks your heart, O Lord, as one Christian rock song puts it.

            And it’s to be a season of healing, first as Christ opens our eyes and convicts us of our sinfulness and then tenderly offers us His mercy and forgiveness.  For those of us already baptized, the place for that encounter with Christ, where we can tangibly and intimately experience His tender love and amazing mercy is in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  So I invite you, sisters and brothers, to prayerfully consider making a good confession some time during these last weeks of Lent.  Experience the great joy, the great peace, of being fully reconciled to Our Blessed Lord, who awaits you with open arms and loving sacred heart. 

            Sisters and brothers, during these last weeks of Lent, in our prayer, our fasting, in our almsgiving, let us be ready when He comes by, when He turns to us to encounter us, when He touches us and opens our eyes and heals us.  Open my eyes, Lord, help me to see your face.