Homily - Sunday December 14 2014 - Third Sunday of Advent

Mass readings:  http://usccb.org/bible/readings/121414.cfm



                It is a dark, dark world.  Pick up a newspaper and or go online to read the news for a few minutes and it’s pretty easy to get downright depressed. 

            An Iraqi clergyman reports that four Christian youths, threatened with their lives unless they forsake Christ and swear allegiance to Mohammed, refuse.  And are beheaded.  Protests, even riots, in Ferguson, MO and all across the country.  3000 people killed on 9-11 and our nation resorts to torture in response.  Thousands dying of Ebola in Africa, out of sight.  And I could go on.  Darkness all about.

            And we have darkness in our own lives, huh?  Who among us hasn’t experienced the emptiness and gnawing loneliness from the death of a loved one?  Or the heartbreak or anger perhaps of a broken relationship? The fear of an announced layoff, the panic of a doctor’s diagnosis.  The despair and powerlessness of being imprisoned in a sinful habit or addiction.  Or the sadness of a grown child turned away from the Faith?  Darkness in each of our lives.

            Against the darkness of the world and our lives, Holy Mother Church today gives us a one-word response:  Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Kind of silly, huh?  I mean how is it that we are called to rejoice when engulfed in the darkness of our world, of our lives? 

            The answer, of course, is also one word: Jesus!  Jesus Christ, Our Lord, the light of our dark world.  The light of Whom the Evangelist John speaks in the Gospel I’ve just proclaimed.  Jesus Christ, who came to us 2000 years ago and is coming again – on Christmas morn and at the end of time.

            Who by His life, death and resurrection, gave to us the only answer to the darkness of this world, the only hope for the darkness of our lives.  He came once, and comes again, as Isaiah prophesied, to heal the brokenhearted, to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and free those imprisoned.  To proclaim to the world a Gospel of love, a Gospel of joy!  Rejoice then, for Christ is near!

            Now the devil’s advocate in the congregation might say, “oh, but Deacon Ed, Jesus came into the world 2000 years ago and the world is still mighty dark.  What say you about that?

            To which I’d give two answers:

            First, imagine what the world would look like today if Jesus never came.  Kind of like that favorite of Christmas-time movies, It’s a Wonderful Life.  You’ve probably seen the film many times, but in case you haven’t, it’s the story of George Bailey, set someplace in upstate New York just before Christmas.  George, in a moment of despair one dark night, decides it would be better never to have been born and jumps off a bridge into the icy-cold swirling waters below.  Clarence, his guardian angel working to get his wings, comes to save George, and then shows George exactly what the city of Bedford Falls would have looked like had George never been born.  How much worse life would be there had there been no George Bailey.  The result is a deep conversion in George, he concludes his life has been important, that he has had a profound effect on all those around him, and he repents of his decision.

            So, dark as our world is, try to imagine how much darker it would be without Christ having been born.  And the only way to do that is to imagine what it would look like without committed disciples of Christ, the Church.  An example - Time Magazine just named the Ebola fighters as 2014 person of the year – these people from around the world who have risked their health, indeed their lives, in an effort to stop this epidemic.  Why?  Many give their faith in Jesus Christ as the answer. 

            One woman, Mother Teresa, by her faith in Jesus Christ, spent her life establishing missions to the poor and dying in 610 locations on all seven continents. 

            And imagine how dark the world would be without Catholic hospitals, schools, universities, missions and charities. 

            And imagine our own community without committed disciples of Christ giving of their time in food pantries, hospices, and soup kitchens, and giving of their resources to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.  Yes, there is darkness in the world, but there is the light of Christ all around us.    

            Second, Christ isn’t done yet.  The Kingdom isn’t finished.  He came into the world to start it all, and He accomplished all that is necessary for the Kingdom by His life, death and resurrection, but He left it and ascended to His Father.  Now, guided by the Holy Spirit and fed by His very Body and Blood, we, His disciples are tasked with working toward the Kingdom’s completion.  Tasked to carry His light into the world.  Like John, to testify to the light. 

            And you and I do that, I think most of all, by living joyfully.  If I invite Jesus Christ to be the light of my life, the center of my life, I will have nothing to fear, for I will have hope.  And His light, His love will overflow from me.  To be sure, His joy will overflow from me.  Such that the world will be a very different, better place by my having been here, by His having been here, working through me.  If Jesus Christ is not already the light of your life, not already your peace and yes, your joy, pray for Him to come to you anew this Christmas time.

            It is said that on a perfectly dark night, the flickering of a single candle can be seen lighting the night as much as thirty miles away.  My sisters and brothers, let us joyfully anticipate the coming of Jesus Christ into our lives anew, so that through us, Christ may bring ever increasing light into our dark world.  And let us live in joyful hope for the coming of Our Savior, Jesus Christ, at the end of the age.

December 8 2014 - Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (Patronal Feast Day of the United States of America)

Mass Readings:     http://usccb.org/bible/readings/120814.cfm

            I saw Father Morgan at a function on Thursday evening, and he asked me if I’d be open to preaching on Monday for the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and I said “sure.”  Then Thursday night and all day Friday and into Saturday I started to freak out a bit – what am I going to say about Mary, the Immaculate Conception, conceived in the womb of her mother St. Anne, without stain of original sin? And I wondered - what can I say that will make a difference in your lives and mine?

            And the more I thought about it, the more and more I felt unworthy.  Unworthy.  I mean, who am I, sinful as I am, to stand up here and speak of the Holy Mother of Our Blessed Lord?  And I mean holy not only as in free from original sin, free from any sin or defilement, but holy as it really means, set apart, completely “other.”  The more I contemplated her holiness, her spotlessness, well, the more “other” I felt, the more I felt my own sinfulness and defilement, and the more I realized how far below I am to the ideal.

            And as I contemplated her up here and us down here, it occurred to me how necessary it was that she be conceived without sin.  Here was the Blessed Mother of Our Lord, chosen before the world began to uniquely cooperate in our redemption by bringing the only Son of God into the world, chosen by God to be the first tabernacle of Our Blessed Lord.  I ask you to look up there to the high altar.  See the beautiful, bright, golden tabernacle in which Our Lord is reserved.  Beautiful and sacred as it is, Mary was ever so much more sacred, as she was the first tabernacle, carrying within her God Himself!  So it makes perfect sense that God would have created this woman without stain of sin, holy and immaculate, as it was her mission from the moment of her conception to carry within her Jesus, and bring to us her Son’s salvation!

            That’s all well and good, it’s a non-negotiable dogma of the Church, believed by the faithful for centuries, going back to the earliest days of the Church, even if it was only defined as a dogma 160 years ago, but what does that have to do with you and me?

            And what comes to mind is that you, and I, are also tabernacles of Our Blessed Lord. Now none of us were conceived immaculate, but nonetheless whenever we eat and drink of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord, we, too, hold within us Jesus Himself.  So, sinners that we are, we are obliged to be as free from sin, as free from stain or defilement, as we can possibly be when we receive Him into us! 

            It didn’t take too much contemplation on the mystery of this feast, on the ideal of this immaculate mother of Christ, and I concluded I needed to get myself to the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  For even though you and I are not without sin, when we step out of the confessional, that is as close as we’re going to get on this side of the grass.  Now surely the Sacrament doesn’t inoculate us from sinning again.  But frequently confessing our sins and seeking God’s mercy in the Sacrament, and frequently receiving the Lord in Holy Communion, Christ works within us, sanctifying us, making us more and more holy.

            For while we were not conceived without sin, to be without sin is our goal, and indeed, our eternal destiny if we’re to be counted among the saints. For nothing stained or defiled or sinful will be found in heaven.  Our Lord Jesus will, by His death and resurrection, free us once and for all from sin and lead us, a holy and immaculate people, as His gift to His heavenly Father. 

            So let us call upon Mary, Mother of God and Holy Immaculate Conception, to pray for us:

Hail Mary, Full of Grace…

Homily - November 30, 2014 - First Sunday of Advent

Mass readings:   http://usccb.org/bible/readings/113014.cfm

Good evening/morning and Happy new year!

            It’s suppose it’s more a movie for Lent than Advent, for Holy Week actually, but there’s a short but very powerful and beautiful scene in the film The Passion of the Christ that’s very memorable.  To set the scene - Our Lord, tortured and blood, is struggling on the way to Calvary, and his Blessed Mother sees Him at a distance down a narrow alley, sees Him collapsing on the dusty stone street, crushed under the weight of His cross.  Mary has a flashback of Our Lord as a toddler, sees Him tripping and falling and crying, and in her minds eye she recalls frantically running to Him, gathering Him in her arms, comforting Him.  Back to the present, she now runs down this alley and embraces her fallen Son, telling Him “I’m here. I’m here”  Then, despite His agony and exhaustion, He turns to her almost with a smile and exclaims “See, Mother, I make all things new!”

            “I make all things new.”  The quote is found in scripture, but it’s nowhere to be found in the gospels, as director Mel Gibson took some artistic liberties with this film.  Christ proclaims this verse from His eternal throne in the book of Revelation chapter 21 verse 5, the second last chapter of the bible.  A chapter that speaks of a new heaven and a new earth.  And while it wasn’t recorded that Our Lord ever said this verse to His Blessed Mother on His journey to Calvary, it would have been very appropriate, as that is what His mission was, and Calvary is where He accomplished it.

            On this first day of our new liturgical year, on this first day of Advent, this phrase, this passage, “Behold I make all things new” would, I think, be very profitable to reflect on and think about this week.  For this is a time of new beginnings.  Of re-new-al.  A time of starting over.  For Jesus, the Lord of new beginnings, of “do-overs” so-to-speak, came to earth 2000 years ago to make all things new, and during this season of Advent, we anticipate His coming again, on Christmas morn and at the end of our time. 

            So I ask – what is it in your life and mine that is in need of renewal, of starting over, in need of a do-over?  Perhaps it’s some sin that by ourselves we simply don’t have the power to break. 

            Perhaps it’s spiritual sleep – apathy or laziness. 

            Perhaps it’s spiritual blindness – a failure to recognize Jesus coming to us in the face of the poor, the immigrant, the prisoner. 

            Perhaps it’s a relationship that seems hopelessly broken, that by our own power we are helpless to mend. 

            Perhaps it’s a hard heart that is unwilling to forgive, or unwilling to beg forgiveness.

            Or perhaps it’s recognizing the need to finally, truly, follow Christ as a true disciple, a new creation as St. Paul writes to the Corinthians.  Our Lord wants nothing other than our complete surrender to His will and His power, our complete abandonment of our failed, self-centered, sinful ways.  Thomas Merton wrote that real faith is the “willingness to sacrifice every other value other than the basic value of truth and life in Christ.” He wrote “[Real faith] is not just the acceptance of ‘truths about’ Christ. It is not just acquiescence in the story of Christ with its moral and spiritual implications. It is not merely the decision to put into practice, to some extent at least, the teachings of Christ. All these forms of acceptance are compatible with an acquiescence in what is ‘not Christ.’”  Merton continued, “It is quite possible to ‘believe in Christ,’ in the sense of mentally accepting the truth that he lived on earth, died, and rose from the dead, and yet still live ‘in the flesh,’ according to the standards of a greedy, violent, unjust and corrupt society, without noticing any real contradiction in one’s life.”

            My sisters and brothers, now is the time to invite Our Lord to come into our lives anew, to transform us, to make of each of us and our communities a new creation, to bring His healing, His growth, His grace.  “Behold, I make all things new!”

            So in addition to this promise of Our Lord, “I make all things new,” there are three things I’d ask you to take home and think about:

1.      Be awake!  Wake up!  In this Gospel, Our Lord cautions the disciples to stay awake and on guard.  We don’t know the time or place He will come again, either at the end of time or at the end of our own time, but the message is clear – we must wake from all the ways in which we live our lives asleep and with vigilance, watch!  Be awake!

2.      Be open.  Be open minded and open hearted and let the Lord speak to us of the ways in which we need renewal, repentence, and healing.  And watch with open eyes for the Lord’s coming into your life and mine.  He can come in a million different ways, but if we are open to His presence, we will find Him.  One of my professors in diaconate formation would start every class with the question “where did you see God today?” and each of us in class would have to answer.  As the next class drew near, knowing that question was coming, I made sure to walk around with eyes wide open, looking for God, especially in those around me.  So be open to God’s presence in our lives.

3.      Be clay.  The very last line in our first reading from the prophet Isaiah says that we are the clay and He is the potter.  Little children are like clay – impressionable, moldable, teachable.  As we grow older we harden a bit, more set in our ways, more brittle even.  If the Lord is to make of us something new, we must be clay in His hands, soft and malleable.  We must cooperate and let Him do His work in us.  Be awake, be open, be clay.

“See, I make all things new,” proclaims the Savior King upon His throne.  My brothers and sisters, the Lord is coming.  Let us make room for Him to come into our lives, our relationships, our families, our community, our world.  To come and transform us and truly make of us something new.

Happy new year!

Homily - November 23, 2014 - Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (preached St. Kateria at St. Cecilia)

Mass Readings:     http://usccb.org/bible/readings/112314.cfm

          

            It was a couple years ago, I think.  It was late on a dark night.  My wife and I were driving home from the southern tier, travelling north on Route 96 down in Waterloo.  Now just as you’re leaving the village, there’s a stop sign, you turn left and head toward the thruway, and look for the 55 sign so you can speed up.  Just as I was starting to speed up, I saw bright flashing lights in my rear view mirror – the village police.  I thought he wanted to get by me, so I pulled over, but he pulled over too.  So Pam and nervously waited for the officer to come to my window.  We were shocked – what had I done? I know I wasn’t speeding.  Well I rolled down the window and he flashed his light on the two of us and asked if I knew why he’d pulled me over.  I said I had no idea.  He told me I hadn’t fully stopped at the stop sign and was going to have to give me a ticket.

            Long story short, I decided there and then to fight that ticket, so I plead not guilty and about six weeks later made my appearance in Village Court.  I took time off from work and got there early and spoke with the ADA, who asked me if I was interested in pleading guilty to a lesser charge, fewer points.  I said no, I wanted to state my case in court.  I sat down and watched as people filed in including a whole string of men in orange jumpsuits and chained at the feet who were marched in and put in a holding room.  Finally, “all rise” and the Justice of the Peace came in.  He called my name first and I nervously approached the bench.

            Now the reason I tell this story is this – I remember to this day how nervous I felt before that judge.  At this point in my life, I don’t get nervous very much.  I go to work and very seldom get nervous, even in meetings with the CEO of the company.  And I don’t even get nervous standing up here and preaching any more.  But that day?  I was nervous.  I was sweating.  I brought pictures and diagrams and I was prepared to make my case, but all I remember now was how nervous I was!

            This all came to mind as I was imagining the day when I’ll be brought it in to a much higher court, with a much more important judge, that day Our Lord describes in today’s Gospel.  Imagine for a moment that day!  After the stress and strain of dying, whether it be after a lengthy illness, or suddenly in an accident, or peacefully in sleep, like being born it’s going to be stressful.  And then, to be escorted to the judgment seat of the King, the Lord of the universe, through whom all this was created, through whom you and I were created!  To face Him and His eternal judgment!

            I don’t know about you, but that makes me very nervous!  It will be just Him and you. Him and me.  Face to face.  No pictures, no diagrams, no case to be made for our eternal judgment other than what Our Lord describes in this Gospel. My sisters and brothers, Our Lord and King will judge you and me on one thing – our faith.  Were we His disciples?  Did we truly believe in Him and follow Him?

            And the only evidence we can present at that moment in our defense - is the record of our lives…how did we live?  How did we live? You see, Christian faith is not only to believe with the mind and heart, to “accept Jesus as our personal Lord and savior.”  No, it is that, but it is more than that.  To accept Jesus is to believe with the actions of our lives.  In short, to accept Jesus is to love.  Faith and love are really one and the same thing.

            And more specifically, as our Blessed Lord spells it out for us – we will be judged based on whether we loved Him enough to serve the needs of others, the needs of the least of His brothers and sisters – whether we fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, cared for the sick, visited the prisoner.

            Now understand this - there’s no way that you and I can “do enough” to merit eternal life.  Christ has already done all that is necessary to merit for us eternal life, right then and there.  But while you and I can’t “do enough,” we are called, as I heard a priest on the radio say this week, we are called to “die trying.”

            So there are three things you and I can take home from this Gospel –

1.      If we’re not already living this kind of faith, let’s get to work.  We have a limited number of hours on the earth, and He’s telling us today exactly how He wants us to spend them.  Our Lord makes clear in this Gospel that the most serious sin of the wicked is omission – in what we fail to do.  So let’s get to work.  It’s never too late to start.

2.      Look for Jesus in every single person we encounter.  Look for Jesus in those around us, especially those we find most difficult to accept, to get along with.  And look for Jesus in the poor, the hungry, the immigrant, the prisoner, the dying.  We have no excuse, we can’t say that we never encountered them, for they’re right there now in our living rooms, on our TVs.  We can change the channel and put them out of our mind, but we do so at our own peril

3.      BE Jesus to every single person we encounter.  There’s a world of hurt out there and the only real answer, the only real salvation for that world is right here in Jesus Christ.  Brothers and sisters, it’s up to you and me to bring Him whom we encounter here, out there.  Into our homes, our workplaces, our communities.  Our soup kitchens, hospitals, hospices, and jails.

Get to work. Seek Jesus. Be Jesus.

            With that kind of living, active faith, my sisters and brothers, you and I will have nothing to fear on the day we are escorted into the eternal courtroom.  We will present ourselves before the Lord, with our imperfections and sins and no doubt having fallen short of fully living out our calling as Christians.  But on that day, despite our flaws, if we’ve loved the Lord so much so as to have given our all, if we’ve truly “died trying,” well we have nothing to fear standing before the throne of our Savior King, our loving and merciful Lord, and we shall hear the most beautiful words ever spoken:

             “Well done, my good and faithful servant, you who are blessed by my Father.  Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

P.S. not to leave you hanging - the police officer was a no show, not guilty!

Homily for Tuesday, April 29 - St. Kateri at Christ the King - Communion Service 6:30a

Daily mass readings:    http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/042914.cfm

            “The wind blows where it wills and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

            This image the Lord uses, the wind and the Spirit, is a powerful one.  There is an inherent contrast in this between the wind, blowing where it wills, and the opposite - being tied down, secured, grounded you might say.  Something in me likes being tied down, secured, grounded.  Likes not having to face change.  Likes the things the way they are, or better yet, the way they used to be.  Something in me rebels against the seeming randomness of the wind – the randomness that He describes “everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

            Yet in my own life, I can see (and only with hindsight can I see clearly, I might add) I can see how the Spirit has been at work, blowing here and there, but leading me to new things and ever greater discipleship.  It was the Spirit who inspired Pam and me, at the time in a very dark and scary place in our marriage, to make a Marriage Encounter weekend.  That weekend literally saved our marriage.

            It was our involvement with Marriage Encounter that led our family to go away to Catholic Family Camp for our summer vacation five out of six years.  And the powerful experience of Family Camp was one of the main places where I heard the Lord whispering to me, calling me to the permanent diaconate – to eventually quit what the world sees as a great job, to go back to school in middle age, and to devote much of my and Pam will tell you – our – free time to this ministry.

            And only the Spirit can tell you where it will lead from here!  I am sure that each of us can look back and see how the Spirit has blown this way and that throughout our lives, leading us from all over to join in community here at 6:30 this morning, listening to His Word and receiving His Body in Communion. 

            I think what the Lord is saying to us is this – while we naturally like to be tied down, secured, in-control, unchanging - to live in the Spirit, to live the fully Christian life, we are called to cut the ropes that tether us and let the Spirit move us where He will.  That is what the Lord is saying it means to be born again – to be born from above.  To live in the Spirit, and to be open to all of the changes God has in store for us.  To follow Him wherever He goes.