Preached Tuesday October 29 - 6:30a and 8a - St. Kateri at Christ the King

Today's Readings:   http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102913.cfm

 

            I don’t do a lot of the cooking at home, but Sunday night is usually my night to cook, and my wife’s and my kids’ favorite seems to be my homemade pizza.  I make my own scratch dough, using a breadmaker which mixes the ingredients and warms the dough as it rises.  Often I’ll mix the ingredients, start the timer and we’ll go out for a walk.

            One day I came back from the walk and checked on the dough and there at the bottom of the breadmaker was a well-mixed but lifeless ball of dough.  Just sitting there, not rising at all.  I knew immediately that I had missed a rather important ingredient – the yeast, the leavening!

            Another time I came in and checked and realized I’d put in a bit too much yeast, or a bit too much water, or something, because the dough was pushing the top of the breadmaker open.  Bursting right out of the breadmaker!

            And so it is with the Kingdom of God.  Where the Kingdom is at work, where the Gospel is preached and reaches people’s hearts, the Word of God is like leaven, expanding and even perhaps bursting out!  But the converse is true also – where the Gospel is not preached and heard, where the values of today’s culture are too strong, there is no growth, no expansion, no transformation.

            We live in what some call a post-Christian culture.  Never before has our world been so in need of the leaven of the Kingdom of God.  You and I, my sisters and brothers, are called by our baptism to BE that leaven in our world.  That nourished at the table of the Lord, nourished by His Body and Blood, we go forth to be the presence of Christ in the world around us, in our homes, our community, our nation.  So that by our word and example, yours and mine, Christ may transform our world and continue to bring about His Kingdom.

Preached Friday, October 25 - 6:30 and 8am at St. Kateri / Christ the King

Today's Readings:   http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102513.cfm

            Nine weeks ago, Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of the Italian journal LaCivilta Cattolica, sat down with our Holy Father, Pope Francis, to interview the new pope.  Father Spadaro’s first question was this - “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” Father Spadaro wrote: “The pope stares at me in silence. I ask him if this is a question that I am allowed to ask.... He nods that it is, and he tells me: “I do not know what might be the most fitting description.... I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.”

            I was struck by this direct and humble and honest answer.  Francis is a sinner, and so, apparently, was Paul.  For in this morning’s first readings from the seventh chapter of his letter to the Romans, Paul is describing his struggle with temptation, as well as his apparent failures in that struggle.  There is an internal battle, Paul says, a war between the flesh and the will, between the inner self and what he calls his other members.  The flesh is prone to give in when tempted, even so far as to overcome the rational will, and when that happens, we call it sin.

            Now Paul is very distressed by this internal battle, this struggle against temptation.  We know how well Paul was thought of, how he lived a virtuous and exemplary life.  Yet he writes of his pain and distress over this struggle – “miserable one that I am,” he says.

            Here’s the thing – we know that we Christians are neither immune from temptation or from sin.  In fact, I think we’re prone to experience temptation even more acutely, with more pain, than someone without faith, as did Paul.  Many without faith go about life oblivious of their sinfulness, unaware of whether their lives are pleasing to God, glorifying God.  But as you and I progress in our faith journey, as we grow in holiness, the Lord shines an ever brighter light inside us, in our conscience.  One commentator I read used this little metaphor – he asked what happens when you replace one or two light bulbs in the bathroom – you see the dirt much more easily!  We become more aware of our imperfections, of the temptations we face, and of our sins, and as Paul was, more miserable, more frustrated, with our human weakness.  For we desire more and more to truly be holy.

            This is an important part of our sanctification, of our purification – and it is the working of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us because of the death and resurrection of Our Lord, for when are more aware of temptation and sin, and more grieved by our failures, we have no choice but to rely on the strength that comes only from Christ.  We, realize, like Paul, that we cannot win this battle on our own.  Only by the power of Christ, by His indwelling Spirit, will we achieve victory over temptation, sin and death. 

            Victory only if we remain close to Him, close in prayer, in Sacrament and the service of our lives, and only if we call upon Him in our time of need, in our time of distress.

Preached Thursday, December 12 - Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe - St. Kateri at Christ the King (6:30/8)

Mass readings - http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121213.cfm

What a beautiful Gospel selection for this very special feast day.  Here we have the pregnant Virgin Mother Mary, carrying within her Our Blessed Lord Jesus, visiting her kinswoman, Elizabeth, herself pregnant with the herald of Christ, John the Baptist.  In a time and culture where expecting a child, where child-bearing, was looked on not as a burden or a punishment, but as a singular blessing from God.

            Fast forward 1500 years to the new world, where the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico was in its twentieth or so year.  Where Spanish missionaries had set out to convert the natives, but had met with very little success.  Where the native Aztec culture, and its worship of many gods called for routine human sacrifice, of adults but mostly of children and babies.  Thousands upon thousands sacrificed, offered up to these Aztec gods year after year. 

            But then this same Virgin Mother Mary we hear proclaimed in today’s Gospel appeared to the humble peasant Juan Diego, and by her intercession Juan’s uncle was cured of a life-threatening disease, and by the miracle of Juan Diego’s shawl, his tilma, on which the Virgin’s image was miraculously found, millions upon millions of the natives were baptized as Christians in the next few years.  The human sacrifices largely stopped.  By the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe there came to be a new reverence for, respect for, human life.  And Mexico became one of the most Catholic nations on earth. 

            So it is no surprise that Blessed Pope John Paul II, during his 1999 visit to Mexico, entrusted the cause of human life to her loving protection, and placed under her motherly care the innocent lives of children, especially those who are in danger of not being born, naming Our Lady of Guadalupe as the patroness of the unborn as well as all of the Americas.

            My sisters and brothers, the culture throughout our hemisphere is again hostile to human life in all stages and all forms, from the unborn, to the poor, the immigrant, the infirm, the elderly.  Child bearing is seen as a burden or even as a disease to be treated by our healthcare system.  And just like the Spanish missionaries were unsuccessful in their efforts until Mary appeared to Juan Diego, we will not see the protection of the unborn without a work of God.  We can and should implore the Virgin of Guadalupe to intercede for us, for the conversion of our culture, and to strengthen us to advocate for protection and care of all human life. 

            Our Holy Father, Pope Francis spoke to each of us in the Americas in his noontime address just yesterday, when he said the following:

“Mary’s embrace showed what America – North and South – is called to be: a land where different peoples come together; a land prepared to accept human life at every stage, from the mother’s womb to old age; a land which welcomes immigrants, and the poor and the marginalized, in every age. A land of generosity.  That is the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and it is also my message, the message of the Church. I ask all the people of the Americas to open wide their arms, like the Virgin, with love and tenderness. I pray for all of you, dear brothers and sisters, and I ask you to pray for me! May the joy of the Gospel always abide in your hearts.  May the Lord bless you, and may Our Lady be ever at your side.”  Amen.

Preached Friday, Dec 6 - St. Kateri at Christ the King 6:30a and 8 - Friday of the First Week of Advent

Mass readings - http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/120613.cfm

I’ve never been blind, so I don’t know what it’s like to suddenly be able to see, but sometimes what we see is so new to us, so beautiful, so amazing, that it gives us a glimpse of what it must be like to suddenly be able to see.

            I recall the first time I drove into Yosemite Valley in California – you start out about 3000 feet above the valley, up near the tops of the mountains that surround the valley, and as you drive down down down into the valley the sheer walls of granite appear to rise about you, towering over you on every side, rising in some place more than a mile into the sky.  It’s an awe-inspiring thing to see and leaves you with your eyes wide open, mouth wide open in awe at God’s grandeur.

            Or the birth of a baby – I remember the first time I saw our daughter Lauren, emerge from my wife’s body, this little tiny brand new person, helpless and crying but also magnificent and beautiful – it was like seeing with brand new eyes the glory of God.

            And then there are the very real times when our spiritual eyes are opened as well, when we see spiritually in a new and different way.  I recall a time when I was really struggling with the Church’s teaching on the death penalty, and then one day over at St. Margaret Mary, meditating and gazing on the majestic crucifix, and it dawned on me that there is Our Blessed Lord, dying a horrible death from capital punishment, unjustly and cruelly killed, and my eyes and heart were opened.  I realized that the Lord I love and worship died that way, so how could I, as His disciple, support such a thing?

            Now I don’t think any of us here are physically blind, but as fallen human beings, as sinful people, you and I all spiritually blind in one way or another, or at least we have blind spots.  At least I do.  Where my paradigm, my way of looking at the world, is maybe faulty, in error, where I’m not seeing the truth.  Or where I’m just not keeping my eyes open to what is going on all around me.  Or perhaps where I’m deliberately closing my eyes to what’s going on around me.

            Perhaps it’s closing my eyes and putting out of my mind what’s going on at the Planned Parenthood on University Avenue.  Or ignoring, putting out of my mind, the plight of the poor and outcast, whether here in our own town, or starving in places like Haiti.  Ignoring the poor, the elderly, the homeless, the immigrant – this is a spiritual blindness that truth-be-told often afflicts me.

            This Advent season is a time of preparation for the Lord’s coming anew – it’s the time now for us to ask the Lord to open our eyes.  To open our hearts.  To see what He sees.  And we have His assurance that He can and will do it.  “Do you believe that I can do this?” He asks us. 

            The only question is this – do we really want our eyes opened?  For when He opens our eyes and our hearts, mine and yours, we will never be the same.

 

Preached Nov30/Dec1 - St. Kateri at Christ the King - First Sunday of Advent

Mass readings:  http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/120113.cfm

She was only about 4 or 5 years old.  My wife and I had just put her and her sisters to bed and were sitting downstairs in the living room, reading or watching TV before going to bed ourselves, and our middle daughter, like I said 4 or 5 years old, appeared in the room.  She wandered across the room and my wife said “Colleen what are you doing up?”  No response.  She just kept walking.  “I don’t think she hears you,” I said.  “I think she’s asleep.”  This despite her eyes being wide open, but the blank look on her face clued me in.

            “Colleen, wake up,” I called to her.  Still nothing.  So I went over and picked her up.  Carried her upstairs, kissed her and put her back in bed and she closed her eyes and rolled over.  

            Colleen was, of course, sleepwalking, and had no recollection of this the next morning.  She actually did this a number of times and thankfully, eventually outgrew it.  Well sleepwalking is what came to mind as I was meditating on these readings for this First Sunday of Advent.

            As an aside, I was looking for a sleepwalking joke to begin this homily in honor of Father Jack Rosse, who usually began his homilies with a joke or funny story, and the only one I could find went something like this – what do you call a sleepwalking nun?  A Roamin’ Catholic.  Get it? Roaming!  Sorry about that.

            But while googling to find this little joke, I read quite a bit about sleepwalking and learned that it’s no laughing matter.  All kinds of stories about people wandering off, sound asleep, getting lost, or hurt, or worse.  Dangerous thing, sleepwalking.

            And in our spiritual lives, sleepwalking is dangerous, too. 

            Many of us are sort of sleepwalking in our spiritual lives some of the time, some of us most of the time, and we may wind up lost, or hurt or worse.  It may look like we’re awake but we’re going through the motions.  We may claim to be Christians, to be Catholic, to be disciples of Jesus Christ, but there’s really nothing in our lives that looks any different than anyone else.  Than anyone who’s not a disciple of Jesus Christ.

            Or perhaps we’re not exactly asleep but we’re listless and without energy in our faith.  You see, you and I run the very real risk of becoming complacent in our spiritual lives, of not being intentional in our faith, not being intentional disciples of Jesus Christ.  And what happens is we let ourselves take on the worldly culture around us.  We may take on the attitudes of rampant consumerism and greed, or perhaps the sexual mores, or the maybe negativity of the secular world around us.  Perhaps very subtly, very slowly over time, until we don’t even realize how we’ve changed.  Kind of like a frog in a pot of water.  If a frog is plunged into boiling hot water it will have the good sense to hop out.  But if the frog is placed in cold water and it’s steadily heated to boiling, the frog will boil too, not even realizing that the water’s gotten hot.

            So it is with you and with me, my sisters and brothers.  As an example, our Holy Father, Pope Francis wrote this week that you and I may not even realize that we’ve become pervaded by consumerism, afflicted with, quote, “the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverous pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience.” Unquote In this Apostolic Exhortation, Pope Francis joins with the loud and clear call of both St. Paul and Our Blessed Lord in today’s readings:  “Wake Up!”  Wake up.  And if we’re awake – stay awake.  Don’t become complacent, don’t go back to sleep.  

            “It is the hour now for you to awake from sleep,” St. Paul writes to the Romans.  “for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand.  Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”        Indeed, on this first day of the new liturgical year, this first Sunday of Advent, you and I are being called to wake from whatever spiritual sleep envelopes us.  To prepare our hearts to receive Him anew and come into our hearts once again. 

            A time, a season to become more intentional disciples of Jesus Christ.  And what does that look like?  It means that every decision in your life and in mine is ordered toward Him and Him alone, who is Lord and Savior.  Ordered toward my relationship with Jesus Christ and informed by the teaching of His Church.  Every decision – what I do with my time, what I watch on TV or the internet, what I do with the talents and treasure God has given me.  It means taking fuller advantage of the sacraments – getting to confession regularly or maybe getting to Mass during the week.  If definitely means carving time out of each day to pray.

            If you and I are intentional disciples of Jesus Christ, your life and mine will look very different to everyone around us than if we did not believe in Him.  We will live more in peace, and much more joyfully, and our faith, our lives, will attract others to the Lord.

            This New Years Day in the Church is a wonderful day to make some spiritual resolutions.  A time to wake from our spiritual sleep.  To recognize all the ways in which that pot of water has become boiling around us and make a decision to hop out of that pot, out of the boiling water.

            For the Lord is coming.  He’s coming on Christmas morn.  He’s coming at the end of time.  And He’s coming at the end of your and my days here on earth. 

            My brothers and sisters, let us be truly prepared to meet Him when He comes.

           

                       

 

Preached Sunday, October 20 - St. Kateri at Christ the King

Today's Readings:   http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102013.cfm

            Are you a list maker?  Do you begin every day with a to-do list? 

            While I’m not the most organized person on the planet, I do have a white board at my office on which I list my unfinished tasks.  It helps me each day to focus on the things I need to get done, and in what order I need to do them.  Every time we go away for vacation, my wife will write out a list of all the things she doesn’t want to forget.  And often when I think we have a free weekend and think maybe I’ll be able to play some golf, she’ll let me know on Friday night all the chores she would like us to get accomplished with this free time.  Some call that their “honey-do list.”

            It occurred to me as I was reflecting on these readings, that my prayer to God every morning includes what looks like a to-do list as well.  Sort of a “honey-do” list for the Lord. 

            Watch and protect my children today, Lord, keep them safe.  Lord bless my wife, and me and our marriage.  Give healing to all those we know who are sick and suffering (and I’ll list them by name).  Give comfort and peace to those who are grieving.  I pray for our nation and its leaders, for our Church and its leaders, and I could go on. 

            It’s a lengthy to-do list for the Lord.  Sort of a “here’s what I want you to do for me today” list.  And there’s nothing wrong with that – today’s Gospel encourages us to persist in prayer without growing weary.  And elsewhere in the Gospel Our Lord tells us to constantly make our needs known to the Father. 

            So such prayers are good, I think.  And we believe that God always listens and answers.   I mean, if the widow’s persistent prayer finally makes the unjust judge give in, how much more will our Father in heaven, who is all good, listen to our pleading?  Each of has had the experience of God answering our prayers – just this morning our youngest daughter, who’s had a bunch of health problems the last few weeks, asked us to pray hard for her at 11 as she was running a cross country race – afterwards she texted us praising God at how good she felt and how well she ran.

            The problem with this sort of prayer is that, to some extent, it treats God like a kind of giant gumball machine – I put my prayers in and expect Him to give me a gumball out – the exact answer I’m looking for.  I feel powerless over situations and problems in my own and my loved ones’ lives and so I might look on God as an all-powerful “fix-it” man who can solve every problem and fix everything that’s broken. 

            While we believe that God does solve problems and fix broken lives, and that God wants us to persist in prayer and trust in Him, we also know from experience that we there are problems and brokenness that God doesn’t fix.  Or at least not the way we want, or hoped.  The loved one who didn’t get a cure.  The addiction that won’t be overcome.  The job that seemingly can’t be found.  We are tempted at times to wonder - Is He listening?  Wonder if maybe He isn’t some kind of unjust judge.

            The message of this Gospel is that real faith means faithfulness, that we persist and remain faithful in our prayer, trusting that the Lord is listening, and is with us, in the midst of our problems and our brokenness.  Giving us the strength to endure.  The Lord’s prayer in the garden comes to mind as our model for this kind of prayer.   “Father let this cup pass from me but your will, not mine, be done. “

            But I wonder - is this “to-do list” kind of prayer really the only way I should be praying?  For isn’t it pretty much self-focused, on myself, my needs, my loved ones?  Oh I pray for our nation and its leaders, and our Church and all the Faithful, but do I pray for those among us thirsting for justice?  Do I pray for the powerless, the disenfranchised in our society, the way the widow was powerless and disenfranchised in Jesus’ day? 

            When I feel an injustice has been done to me, I will pray fervently, but when I’m comfortable and happy, do I pray for justice for others?  For let us not overlook that it is justice that the widow pleads for , persists after, thirsts for, from this unjust judge. 

            Now I suppose that I do pray for justice to some extent.  Every day I pray for the unborn, for an end to abortion in our country.  I join my prayer with the hundreds of thousands who persist every January 22 and travel to Washington for the March for Life, speaking out and praying for justice on behalf of our most powerless and defenseless little brothers and sisters.

            But do I pray for the immigrant?  For the migrant worker and her family who are here to pick the tomatoes, grapes and apples?  Do I pray for children starving in Haiti?  Do I concern myself with the victims of human trafficking and keep them in my prayers?

            That sort of prayer has the effect, not so much of changing God, but of changing me!  For it occurs to me that I can be like a little like the unjust judge, hard of heart and at least to some extent, not fearing God or respecting others.  Ignoring, perhaps, the needs and pleadings of others.  So if I persist in this kind of prayer, God becomes like the widow, knocking persistently at my door, seeking to change my heart.  And stirring me to action, stirring me to work for justice, on behalf of those whom I’ve prayed for.  Stirring me to be the answer to someone’s else’s fervent prayer.  This can happen only if I persist in my prayer, my staying in relationship with the Lord, without growing weary.  Rather than to seek to change God, maybe my prayer needs to be to ask God to change me!

            In a few moments, as we do at every Mass, we will pray the Lord’s prayer.  We will pray the words “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.”  We pray not only that the Kingdom come at the end of time, but that God’s Kingdom may come about in our world, in our lives, now.  By this prayer may God stir in our hearts, yours and mine, the desire to work to bring about that Kingdom, stir in our hearts the strength and courage for each of us to be Christ’s eyes and ears, hands and feet, mind and heart, and to go forth from here to be the presence and justice of Jesus Christ in our world.

Preached Friday, October 4 - 6:30a and 8a - St. Kateri at Christ the King - Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi

Daily Mass Readings for Today:   http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100413.cfm

 

            Thinking back to grammar school days, when we were to learn something, I mean really learn and remember it, the teacher would make us repeat it, over and over, whether conjugating verbs or our multiplication tables or the catechism.

            Well I think the Lord or at least Holy Mother Church must have the same thing in mind because we have the same theme in today’s Gospel for the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, for the fourth time this week (and if you’re here tomorrow you’ll hear it yet again!).  Three times this week we have heard that we must be humble like little children and in today’s reading from Matthew, Our Lord tells us that those things the Father has hidden from the wise and learned, He has revealed to the…childlike.  And tomorrow? -  we’ll hear the almost identical version from Luke’s Gospel!

            Obviously, the Lord is trying to tell us something!  That message is that we are to humble ourselves, that we are to empty ourselves of ourselves.  “May I never boast of anything,” St. Paul writes to the Galatians, “except in the cross of the Lord.”

            These readings from Galatians and Matthew are the mass readings for today’s feast in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, the saint who comes first to my mind when I hear the word humility.  Francis grew up privileged and wealthy but, like so many great saints, had a profound conversion in his early adulthood, leading him to radically reject the power, and privilege and wealth he was accustomed to.  Rather, he sought to model himself completely after the humility and stark poverty of the Lord.  Who radically embraced poverty, as he did the poor.  Francis made it his mission to be meek and humble of heart, as was the Lord.

            St. Bonaventure, in his biography of St. Francis, recalls this quote of St. Francis:  “Know, brothers, that poverty is the special way to salvation, as the stimulus of humility and the root of perfection, whose fruit is manifold but hidden.”  To Francis, poverty and humility went hand in hand.  And in today’s Office of Readings, we read this from a letter Francis wrote to the faithful:  “We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh.  Rather we must be simple, humble and pure.”

            This year we should take special note of today’s Feast, I think, in light of the fact that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio chose the name Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi, upon his election as pope this past March.  For in Pope Francis, we are truly blessed to have a shepherd who is endeavoring to be nothing more than simple, humble and pure.  Who is placing special emphasis on embracing and lifting up the poor.  And who wishes all of us to focus, as St. Francis did, on the great love and bountiful mercy of the Lord.

            Let us take time this day to meditate on the life of St. Francis, and ask Our Lord to make each of us simple, humble and pure.  To give you and me the grace to embrace and lift up the poor.  And to be, as St. Francis himself wrote, channels of Christ’s peace to the world around us.