Homily preached Sunday June 7 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (8a and 11a - St. Margaret Mary)

Today's readings:    http://usccb.org/bible/readings/060715.cfm

          What’s the best gift you’ve ever given someone?  The gift you’re most proud of, or look back on most fondly?

            Now not counting the engagement ring I gave Pam on the beach in South Carolina, and not counting the gift of my life I gave her on my wedding day, my all time favorite gift I gave her was her car.  Three years ago, on Christmas morning.

            Now to be fair, we had been talking about getting a small car for her – she’d been driving our gas-guzzling old minivan – and I suppose were about to go get a car anyway.  But buying the car and surprising her with it on Christmas morning as the very last gift to be opened – well that’s my favorite gift memory.

            You see, I’ve always more or less failed giving her jewelry, other than her engagement ring.  Just the year before I’d given her what I thought was a beautiful necklace of carved stone animals (she and our daughters still mock me about that one).  So I snuck out in the middle of the night Christmas eve and parked the car in front of our house, placed the car key in a jewelry box and wrapped it, and once all the gifts were opened, I said “wait, I have one more!”

            Pam and the girls saw this little box and all groaned – “oh no, not jewelry.”  So it was with a sly look on my face that I watched her open it and say “what is it?” A key, I said.  “Did you get me a car?  Where is it?” And I pointed out the window.  Squeals of delight followed – from Pam and our daughters.  Score!  Brings me joy just telling you.

            Now imagine for a moment how I’d have felt if she looked out the window and said “No thanks.  I don’t want it.”  I’d have been crushed, don’t you think.  Maybe not as much as if she’d have said no to my engagement ring, but crushed nonetheless!

            That’s exactly how I imagine Our Lord feels when people walk away from His greatest gift to us, His very Body and Blood in the Eucharist!  A car, after all, is just metal, glass and rubber, but Our Lord gave us His very self, His very life, in the Eucharist which we celebrate in this feast today!

            We probably all know folks who’ve left the Church.  One family comes to mind, friends of ours, used to go to Church here, kids used to go to school across the street.  But they were drawn away from the parish, left the Church, and now are active members up at a nearby protestant Church.  Now I imagine they probably have awesome music there, maybe more inspiring preaching and I’m sure wonderful fellowship.  And they no doubt worship and love the same Jesus Christ there.

            But this family walked away from Christ’s most magnificent gift – Himself!  His very body and blood.  Which that denomination doesn’t have.  And I imagine Our Blessed Lord is sad about that.

            I mean, it baffles me how folks could walk down this aisle for all those years, hold out their hands and say a firm “amen” to the priest or deacon or minister of communion’s words “The Body of Christ,”  and then - leave.   All those years they heard the words of the Lord through the voice of the priest, words we just heard in the Gospel – “This is my body.  This is the chalice of my blood.” He didn’t say “this is a sign of my body, of my blood.”  If we believe that scripture is the inspired word of God, and we do, then I think that leaves us only two choices – either believe that Jesus Christ is truly present, body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist, or believe Our Lord was a liar!

            In the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, He taught the disciples of this magnificent gift He was about to give them.  He said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven, whoever eats this bread will live forever.  Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life in you.  For my flesh is true food, my blood is true drink.” 

            Like this family I spoke of, many of His disciples couldn’t accept that teaching or didn’t believe Him, and left Him, but note -  He didn’t stop them from leaving – He didn’t say, “hold on a minute, wait, I was just speaking figuratively.”  No – heartbroken perhaps, He let them go, and turned to the twelve and asked “do you also want to leave?”

            Thankfully, they did not, and they became the first bishops of the Church, and by the laying on of hands have passed down His wondrous gift to us through the ministry of bishops and priests to this very day.   And for this magnificent gift, we must always give great thanks, we must never take this gift for granted.  For we are indeed blessed to be called to partake of His Body and Blood.  Catholic converts often appreciate this gift moreso than us cradle Catholics.  A facebook friend, a recent convert, wrote me these words this week:

“there are still days when I cannot get through the consecration & receiving the Eucharist w/o sobbing tears of joy over this beautiful Sacrament & marvelous mystery. (Actually, I hope that I never lose that sense of wonder.) What a gift we have!”
 

            In a moment, Father Warren will speak these words – “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.  Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lord.”  Sisters and brothers, we who believe are indeed blessed to be called to this supper.

            And blessed are we who have been given the gift of faith to believe His words “This is my body.”  For He is truly present in the Eucharist.  Hidden under the appearance of bread and wine, right here at this altar, the Lord of the Universe through Whom the heavens and earth were created, will become present once again. 

            He will become true food and true drink.  Will fulfill in a real, tangible way His promise to us from the conclusion of last week’s Gospel – “behold I am with you always, until the end of the age.” 

            He will draw us together in unity, in communion, as a people of faith, as the Church – the living Body of Christ on earth. 

            He will provide for us sustenance and strength for our journey – and the grace and strength to go forth from here to be His presence in our world, to be His loving heart, mind, voice, hands and feet in a world that is longing for Him, HUNGRY for Him, even if it doesn’t know it’s longing for Him, hungry for Him.

            Brothers and sisters, as you approach the altar to receive His sacred Body, either in the hand or on the tongue, and partake in the chalice of His precious blood, smile and give a firm “Amen” signifying that “yes!, I do believe He is really and truly present in the gift of His most Holy Body and Blood.” 

            And when you return to your seat, kneel and give Him, in that moment when we are closest to Him, when we are most in intimate communion with Him, our profound thank you – both for the gift of His Body and Blood, and the gift of faith to believe what He said.

Preached for Day 2 of the Sacred Heart Novena - topic Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Love of God (June 5 SMM)

Reading - 1 John 4:7-16

     

            Imagine for a moment that, coming home tonight, you’re stopped in your driveway by a neighbor from down the street.  The neighbor approaches you and says something like this:

            “Good evening.  Got a question for you.  I see you going to Church on the weekend, and sometimes during the week, and by the way you’re dressed, maybe even tonight.  And you know, I’m not a big believer in religion and those things, but I was wondering – how can I know that God loves me?”

            How would you answer that?

            That’s the question that came to mind as I was thinking on and meditating on tonight’s topic – the Sacred Heart and the love of God.  Now that could mean God’s love for us, or it could mean our love of God.  Sisters and brothers, I would propose that it means both.  For before we can even begin to think about loving God, I think we have to come to know, and experience, and trust God’s love for us.   I have to know and trust – first - that God loves me.

            And I do trust that.  You might say “I have come to know and believe in the love God has for me.”

            How, you ask?  Well it starts I think with the experience of being loved  - by anyone – first of all by our parents. 

            It also comes from the experience of being loved by good people of faith, by the Christian community.  Most of all, it is God’s revelation, God’s communication to us.  God wants us to know that He loves us, and God reveals His love to us in many ways.

            His revelation comes through scripture – there are scores of passages from both the Old and New Testament that speak of God’s love for us, His children. 

            And God lets us know He loves us by giving us great consolation – great joy and peace in our hearts.  Oh, not all the time, mind you.  As we progress on the spiritual journey, it’s not at all unusual for the Lord to withhold this consolation for a time, perhaps as a test of our faith and our faithfulness – “will she remain faithful even when she doesn’t feel my love?” one can imagine Him asking.  Mother Teresa felt no consolation, nothing, felt no presence of the Lord, for more than thirty years – But through that she persevered and we know the wonderful fruit borne of her faithfulness and perseverance through those many years of darkness.

            And of course, the ultimate revelation of God’s love came through the gift of His Son, Our Blessed Lord, whose Sacred Heart we celebrate and revere especially during these nine days.  Whose Sacred Heart is the living, beating, suffering symbol of His amazing love for us.  Whom the Father sent in the fullness of time, Who was crucified, died and rose again for the forgiveness of our sins.  Who said to His disciples “What greater love is there than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends?”

            But ultimately, I would tell the neighbor, that to know that God loves me is a gift – it is the gift of faith.  In fact, I would say that it’s a pretty darn good definition of faith – to know and believe that God loves me.

            And there is only one adequate response to the wide-eyed realization that God really does love me – and that is for me to love Him back.  To give my life over to Him, each and every day.  To surrender to Him and His will in my life.  To spend time with Him each day in prayer, to receive Him into me, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in Holy Eucharist, to frequent the Sacrament of Reconciliation when I’ve failed Him, and to worship and adore Him as we are doing here tonight.

            Now once we fathom His love for us, and our love for Him grows, it wells up and overflows in us – we can’t help, then, but to love others with this same love.  His love becomes a wellspring of love bubbling up and overflowing. 

            And the opposite is true, too, and instructive – if we are finding ourselves not loving, not forgiving, not compassionate, not loving as He loves, and if we’re honest we sometimes do, it pays, I think, to spend time examining ourselves – have I forgotten just how much He loves me?  Why do I not love Him with that same passion?  And what do I need to do differently to re-ignite the flames of what must be the foremost love relationship in my life – God and me?

            Brothers and sisters, I suspect that someone here tonight needs desperately to know and feel God’s love.  I’d ask that we pray while adoring Our Blessed Lord in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar that He will reveal to him or her or them His immeasurable, unconditional, exquisite love and let it flow into their soul with great joy and consolation. 

Homily preached for the funeral Mass of Patrick Nacy - June 2, 2015 - St. Margaret Mary

Published with Ginny Nacy's OK:

Good morning.

            First of all, to Ginny, Mo, Richard, all your family, friends, loved ones - on behalf of our pastor, Father Paul English, Father Warren and all of the priests, the staff and parishioners here at St. Kateri parish – please accept mine and all of our sincere condolences on the loss of your son, brother, nephew, cousin, friend.  You are in our prayers.

            And on behalf of Patrick’s family, a sincere thank you for being here this morning.  While there really are no words adequate to take away the pain of Patrick’s death, your presence here, your love, means so much.

            Patrick had a drug addiction.

            There, I said it.  In her eulogy, Ginny is going to speak about it.  Not proud of it, but not held back by shame of it either – it is what it is. 

            Now I deliberately chose not to say “Patrick was an addict” because I don’t think it’s right, or fair, to define him, to sum up his life, in that way – only by his addiction. And so we say that Patrick had a drug addiction; we refuse to let his life be defined only in that way.

            Instead, I asked Ginny to tell me about Patrick, and she spoke glowingly of a warm, compassionate, sensitive boy and young man.  With an awesome laugh and great sense of humor.  “A kind heart,” Mo added, “sweet, generous and loyal to a fault.”  Who when most kids rushed home when let out early on September 11, 2001, instead with a friend rushed downtown to the Red Cross to give blood.

            And the family chose readings for our liturgy today to describe the Patrick they knew and dearly loved.  The prophet Micah’s words resonated with them in thinking of their Patrick, words that I think are among the most beautiful in all of scripture – “You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

            And they saw Patrick in St. Paul’s words of the Letter to the Colossians: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”  Compassion, kindness, gentleness were all words both Ginny and Mo used to describe their Patrick.

             And so, I think, it’s wrong and a bit dangerous to define Patrick, to sum up his life, by saying he was an addict.  He was ever so much more.  And to define a life in that way carries with it a certain measure of judgment, and I don’t think it’s helpful, or productive, or even fair, to judge this young man by the addiction that claimed his life.

            Our Blessed Lord teaches pretty clearly, I’d say, in this Gospel passage I just proclaimed – “Don’t judge and you will not be judged – don’t condemn and you will not be condemned.”   After all, for most of us, heck truth be told for all of us, there but for the grace of God go I.

            And we are taught to hate the sin and love the sinner.  Or in this case, hate the affliction and love the afflicted.  For make no mistake, that is what Patrick was – afflicted. 

            I don’t think anyone chooses such an affliction.  No one wakes up and says “I think I’ll become addicted today.”  No, like another insidious illness, cancer, addictions start small and metastasize.  If anyone could see where those little decisions will lead to – those little decisions that step by step lead to a life-controlling problem – they would surely run away.

            But at some point, the addiction takes control.  The only word I can think of to describe it is slavery.  The person becomes enslaved.  The addiction becomes the master. 

            But as people of faith, we gather here today as people of the Gospel, as people of good news – and specifically two pieces of good news I’d offer to you today:

            First, to anyone here who is suffering from, enslaved to, an addiction, we believe here in a Lord and Master who is stronger than any addiction, who is stronger even than death.  A Master who loves us enough to have given His life for us, and who could not be bound even by death itself.  A Master who wants nothing more than for you to be free, free from any chains that bind you.

            And second – there is one person who knew Patrick the best, there is one person who loved Patrick the most, and that person is none other than that same Jesus Christ, through Whom He was created.  Who knew Patrick the person, and saw in him a cherished son and brother.  Who through a loving mother and father and sister, placed within Patrick a loving, compassionate, tender heart.  Gave to him generosity, loyalty and humor.

            We gather today as a people of faith, trusting in the love and mercy of that same Lord and Savior.  Trusting that now freed of the yoke of addiction, Patrick has been embraced and welcomed home by that same Lord and Savior.  Confident that Patrick has found the peace and freedom he sodesperately desired.

            To Patrick’s family and friends, all his loved ones, may this confidence of faith give you solace in your grief.  And as St. Paul writes, may the peace of Christ control your hearts, that peace which surpasses all understanding, that peace that only He can give.

Homily for May 30/31, 2015 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (preached St. Kateri at Christ the King)

Sunday's readings:  http://usccb.org/bible/readings/053115.cfm

            Happy Feast of the Holy Trinity.  I was only ordained three years ago, but this is the third, if not the fourth, time I’ve preached for this feast day in that time!  Father Morgan does the schedule, and I wonder if he’s not taking advantage of me, since I suspect this is not a preacher’s favorite day to preach – I mean, what do you say to make real this abstract theological belief?  To make the mystery of the Trinity applicable to our lives?  Well here goes nothing!

            I used to work here in town before taking a job in Newark a year ago, and when I worked here I would participate in what are called “homicide prayer vigils” whenever I could break away from the office.  You see, whenever there is a homicide in and around Rochester, there is a group of people, mostly Catholics but also other people of faith, who arrange to gather on an agreed-upon date at noon,  at the site of the homicide, the murder.  The group gathers in a circle – sometimes only a few, sometimes twenty or thirty – hand in hand or arms locked across each others’ shoulders.  And then spontaneously pray – for the victim, for the perpetrator.  And to bless the neighborhood, bless that very site, and especially pray for an end to such violence.  The vigil ends with the Lord’s prayer, and everyone goes their separate ways.

            This image, this circle of prayer, this circle of love, is the image that came to mind as I was reflecting on today’s feast, the Most Holy Trinity.  And a circle, or even three intertwined circles, are two of the images people have used over the centuries in an inevitably unsatisfactory attempt to express our understanding of the mystery of the Trinity.  This image of a circle of three – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – came to mind – gathered together in a never-ending relationship of unity, such that when we think of God we are to think not only of any of these three persons, but to think of their relationship.

            Indeed this circle is a circle of relationship, a circle of love, of reckless self-abandonment, of constant self-pouring-out, self-giving.   Some even envision that this is a circle of never-ending dance.

            But while we often tend on this Feast to focus on the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, What I want to focus on is their relationship, their “circle of love,” and I especially want to focus on is their unity.  You see, because our God is a God of love, indeed because, as St. John tells us, our God IS love, our God is a relationship in perfect unity.  Our God is indeed three persons, but our God is ONE.  All hail adored Trinity, undivided unity, so the hymn goes.

            It’s a unity that can only happen with complete selflessness, complete abandonment to the others, complete love.  Properly understood, it’s impossible to imagine God without this unity, for without this unity?  Wouldn’t be God!  You see, undivided unity is absolutely essential to Who God is.

            Now you say, that’s very nice Deacon Ed, but what’s that got to do with me and my life?  What’s the practical take-away for me?

            The practical take-away is two-fold, I think.  First of all, you and I are made in the image and likeness of God, so says the Book of Genesis.  So we can’t hope to understand ourselves, indeed to understand the meaning of our lives, unless we understand God in Whose image we are created. 

            And that means that you and I are called to this same undivided unity, this same reckless self-abandonment, this same outpouring of love.  In all aspects of our lives, in all our relationships.

            We married people especially are called to unity.  Called to be an icon of Trinitarian love.  Such that in marriage we are called to aspire not to lose our individual identity – we remain separate persons – but to have such love, such unity, such total self-giving and selflessness, that to anyone around us they would see not only a husband and wife, two separate persons, but one – one couple united in love.

            We all know married couples who have progressed far toward being a perfect icon of this unity,  but we also know that we are each fallen, sinful people, who inevitably come up short of the goal, the ideal.  But that shouldn’t stop us from continuing to work toward the goal, continuing to make decisions to surrender ourselves to the other, continue to lovingly and recklessly pour ourselves out for the other.

            And much like the Holy Spirit proceeds from the love of the Father and the Son, so new life, praise God, flows from the love of husband and wife, and this circle of love, of unity, widens to include children.  Children who must be educated to come to understand what love means, what self-giving love looks like, and they will learn this most of all from the example of their parents.

            Now imagine what all our other relationships would look like if we were each to strive to self-giving love, striving above all for unity of purpose.  Our parish.  Our Church.  Our community.   Nation.  Entire human family!  We will never fully attain perfect relationships – no, far from it – but we Christians are especially called to strive in our lives, in what we can control, in what we can decide with God’s grace to do, toward that unity of love.

            Now for the second practical aspect of this image of unity:  I would usually rush out of the office to try to get to these homicide vigils, and more often than not I’d be a couple minutes late, and I’d get there and the punctual folks who’ve gathered have inevitably already started.  But they would see me coming and the circle would open to let me in. 

            That, my sisters and brothers, is an image I like of heaven.  When the eternal circle of Father, Son and Holy Spirit opens to let us enter into their divine life.  The catechism, paragraph 260 teaches us “The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God's creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity.” 

            Meaning our eternal destiny, the entire goal of the salvation won by Our Blessed Lord, and the whole purpose of the Church, is for us and for many to enter into God’s divine unity, God’s divine life.  Enter into this eternal reckless, self-giving love. 

            This life, my friends, is a practice run – how we live our lives now is preparing us for the hereafter.  Are we living self-less lives focused on others?  Or are we self-focused, self-obsessed, all about me?  If eternal glory is being welcomed into that circle of love, and it is, then we’d best live our lives now so as to prepare for that eternal destiny, that eternal circle of love, eternal circle of unity, eternal circle of joy.  Living forever in joyful communion with God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.