Friday, November 8, 2013

"STOP MAKING MY FATHER'S HOUSE A MARKETPLACE"



Homily for November 9th, 2013: John 2:13-22.
          Was Jesus always meek and mild? The gospel we have just heard shows him angry. Why? To understand Jesus’ anger, we must turn back to the criticism which the prophets made repeatedly of the way their people worshiped God. In cleansing the Temple Jesus was acting out this criticism in a particularly dramatic way.
Repeatedly the prophets emphasized that God was not interested in the offering of material things. He desired the worshipers’ hearts and minds. To come before God with prayers and material offerings, while living in disobedience to God’s law — lying, cheating, stealing, and oppressing the poor — was worse than useless, the prophets said. It cried to heaven for vengeance. That was the consistent message of all Israel’s prophets.
          The demand of the Jewish prophets for pure worship is the background for Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple. Reinforcing his words with actions, Jesus was reminding people that worship can never be a form of barter with God: ‘I’ll give you this, Lord, if you give me that.’ Worship is something we owe to God apart from any thought of reward.
          How important that lesson is for us Catholics. We owe God our worship on Sunday, as well as the worship of obedience to him in daily life, simply because God made us. God has given us all that we are and have, sin excepted. Even the things we have gained through our own initiative and hard work, we have only because of the gifts and abilities which God has given us. One day we shall have to give an account of how we have used all God’s gifts. We owe God our worship also in thanksgiving for the greatest of all his gifts to us: the gift of his Son, who shed his life’s blood to pay the price of our sins.
          Prompted by the celebrating priest in every Mass to lift up our hearts to the Lord, and to give him thanks, we say, “It is right and just.” To which the priest responds: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.”
          If you want to know the key to happiness, there it is. Thankful people are happy people: always, and everywhere.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

"THE MASTER COMMENDED THAT DISHONEST STEWARD . . ."



Homily for November 8th, 2013: Luke 16:1-8.
“The master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.” From antiquity Bible commentators have disputed about who is meant by “the master.” Is he the man’s employer – or Jesus himself? It is difficult to believe that the praise can have come from an employer who has just told his steward – we would call him a manager -- that he is about to be fired. So the praise must come from Jesus himself. How is that possible? Clever the manager may have been. But honest? Hardly. How can Jesus praise what all can see is a swindle?
          Jesus does not praise the manger’s dishonesty. He praises the man’s ability to recognize his desperate situation. For him, it is now or never. Jesus addresses the parable to those who remain indifferent to his message. The story is Jesus’ attempt to shake them out of their complacency. His message confronted them with the need to decide: for him, or against him. To postpone this decision, to continue living as if nothing had changed, with the attitude of “business-as-usual”, was in fact to decide against Jesus. That meant disaster. Trapped in what looks like a hopeless situation, the manager cleverly found a way out and acted while there was still time. It is this cleverness and enterprise which Jesus commends, not the man’s dishonesty.
Jesus Christ asks us for the same decision today: for him, or against him. It is not a once-for-all decision – something like learning to ride a bicycle: once you’ve learned, you know it for life. Our decision for Jesus Christ needs to be renewed every day.
For those who are trying to renew their decision for Jesus Christ every day, joy awaits, beyond our imagining: eternal life with Him who alone can fulfill the deepest longings of our hearts.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

WHAT AWAITS US AT DEATH?



Homily for November 10th, 2013
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.  2 Thessalonians 2:16B3:5; Luke 20:27-38.
AIM: To explain Jesus teaching about life beyond death.

What will happen to us when we die? Is death simply the end, like the snuffing out of a candle? And if there is life beyond death, what will it be like? Which of us has never asked questions like those? What better time to consider them than on this Sunday, when the gospel reading contains Jesus= teaching about life beyond death?
Jesus= critics present him with a hypothetical and deliberately absurd case about a woman who has been married to seven husbands. Jesus might have told his questioners that the case was too frivolous to merit comment. Instead Jesus shows himself, here as elsewhere, to be a model teacher by using his opponents= attempt to show him up as the occasion for serious teaching about the future life.
Which of the woman=s seven husbands will have her as his wife after death, Jesus= critics want to know. Jesus= answer falls into two parts. First, he says that life beyond death is not a prolongation of life on earth. It is something completely new: not merely life after death, but rather life beyond death. That is the meaning of Jesus= statement that Athose who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.@ A fundamental purpose of marriage is the continuation of the human race through the procreation of children. Beyond death there is no need for more children to be born.          
The second part of Jesus= answer addresses his critics= contention that the idea of a future life is absurd. On the contrary, Jesus tells them, our own Scriptures clearly imply the resurrection when they represent Moses addressing the Lord as Athe God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.@ Those final words are crucial: all are alive to God, even those who have died. Before him, Jesus is saying, those long dead patriarchs remain alive. 
Jesus= way of interpreting Scripture may not be ours. But his teaching is not hard to grasp. His fundamental point is that our hope of life beyond death is not based on wishful thinking, but on the nature of God himself. He is not just a philosophical Afirst cause,@ an Aunmoved mover,@ or the Agreat architect of the universe.@ God is all those things, yet he is infinitely more.    
The God whom Jesus reveals is our loving heavenly Father, who enters into a personal relationship with us B a relationship of love. This love relationship cannot be terminated by death, any more than God=s relationship of love with his Son was ended by Jesus= death. I learned this very early, through my mother=s death when I was only six years old. A few days after my mother=s funeral, my father told me: AOur love for Mummy continues, and her love for us. We must continue to pray for her. She is with God. He is looking after her. Our prayers can help her.@ That made sense to me when I was only six. It still makes sense to me almost eight decades later. I pray for my dear mother by name in every Mass I celebrate.
Paul is referring to this love relationship when he prays in our second reading: AMay our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.@ And in his letter to the Romans Paul says that this love extends beyond this world: AI am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor powers, neither height nor depth nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord@ (8:38).
This much is certain, then, about life beyond death. It is not a prolongation of present existence, but something totally new. And it is based not on wishful thinking, but on the nature of God himself as a God of love. Everything beyond that remains uncertain. The resurrection life lies so far outside our experience that it can be described only in symbols and images. Jesus mentions one in today=s gospel: Aangels.@ The Book of Revelation, which is an extended vision of the life of heaven, used other images: white robes (6:11, 7:9), stars (12:1), and harps (14:2). Those images are poetry, not prose. Like all poetic images, they are not meant to be taken literally.
Jesus Christ does not offer us a faith that answers every question curiosity can propose. He gives us a faith by which to live and die. Central to that faith is Jesus= assurance in today=s gospel: ATo [God] all are alive.@ When Jesus says Aall@, he really means it. He is speaking not only about us who await death. He is speaking also about those who have already gone home to God, to live with him forever. In John=s gospel Jesus says he is going to his AFather=s house ... to prepare a place@ for us (14:2). When we come to die, we shall find that Jesus has gone ahead, and is waiting to welcome us to the place he has already prepared for us. 
Meanwhile our task is to prepare for that great encounter and homecoming not by worrying about the details, but by living to the full here and now. To help us do this Jesus offers here at the Eucharist the treasure of his truth at the table of the word, and the treasure of his love at the table of his body and blood.
         When we encounter Jesus at the end of life=s journey, will we be meeting a familiar and well loved friend? Or will he be a stranger at whose approach we shrink in fear?  The answer to that question lies in our hands, right now. Out of his great love for us God permits us to choose what that great final encounter will be like.
 It is the most important choice we shall ever have.

MORE JOY OVER ONE SINNER WHO REPENTS?



Homily for November 7th, 2013: Luke 15:1-10.
          Had Jesus said, “There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents,” we'd say: “Well sure.” But that is not what Jesus said. He added a word to that sentence. “There is more joy in heaven,” he actually said, “than over ninety-nine people who have no need of repentance.” How do we respond to that? I think the first response that comes to most of is: “Now, wait a minute. Shouldn’t there be some joy at least over the ninety-nine who have need of repentance?” 
          The answer to that question is another question: Who are these ninety-nine who have no need of repentance? Do you know anyone like that? I don’t. Oh, I know many people who think they have no need of repentance. But they are wrong. How can there be any joy over people who are so mistaken about their true spiritual state? We all fall short at some time, and in some way. We all need to repent, the saints included. Catholics have always believed that the only person who has never sinned, and has therefore no need to repent, is the Lord’s mother, Mary.
          The two parables in today’s gospel tell us that God’s love for us is not measured, limited, or prudent. It is, judged human standards, over the top, reckless. For a shepherd to leave the whole flock of sheep untended, in order to find just one who had strayed, risked turning a minor misfortune, the loss of one, into a major disaster: the dispersal of the whole flock. For the woman who has lost a single coin from the family’s meager savings to throw a party which surely cost far more than the one coin lost and then found, was crazy. Could Jesus have remembered his mother doing something like that during his boyhood? It is quite possible.
          The two parables are Jesus’ answer to his critics’ complaint at the beginning of today’s gospel: “This man receives sinners, and eats with them.” What for those critics was a scandal is or us good news. It tells us that however far we stray, the Lord is close to us. His love for us has no limit, and no end. That is the good news. That is the gospel.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

COUNTING THE COST




Homily for Nov. 6th, 2013: Luke 14:25-33.
AIf anyone comes after me,@ Jesus says, Awithout hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.@ In speaking about Ahating@ those dearest to us, Jesus was using a Semitic word which meant simply detaching one=s self from someone or something. He was saying that He must come first.
AWhich of you wishing to construct a tower,@ Jesus begins, Adoes not first sit down and calculate the cost ...?@ It was the dream of every small farmer in Palestine in Jesus= day to have a proper tower on his property. During harvest time he could sleep in the tower, keeping watch for trespassers and predatory animals, to insure himself against loss.
Valuable as such a tower might be, Jesus= hearers also knew that it would be folly to start building one without first calculating whether the available resources were sufficient to complete the job. If they were not, the farmer would have nothing to show for his hard work but some useless foundations. And his friends would laugh at him for his imprudence.
The second parable begins differently: not Awhich of you ...@, but Awhat king ...@ That too was easy to understand, even though none of Jesus= hearers were kings with an army at their disposal. Common to both parables is the sentence about sitting down first and counting the cost. If you want to be my disciple, Jesus says, count the cost. First reflect. Then act. So let=s reflect. If following Jesus Christ really means putting him first B ahead of money, possessions, success, ahead of those we love most B if Christian discipleship means that, which of us could say with confidence that we had the necessary amount of self-denial and staying power?
Does that mean that we should not follow Jesus Christ? Of course not. It does mean, however, that we should never try to follow Jesus Christ in dependence on our own resources alone. If today=s gospel is good news, it is because of what it does not say: that there are resources for Christian discipleship available to us which are adequate. What we could never achieve on our own, we can achieve if we depend not on our own strength, but on the strength that comes from God alone.   
That is why Jesus tells us in several places to become Alike little children.@ Little children are naturally dependent on others. It never occurs to them that they can make it on their own. As children grow, we encourage them to become more and more independent, and to take risks. That is fine in the things of this world.
In spiritual things, however, and hence in our relationship with God, we must unlearn that spirit of independence which, in worldly affairs, is the difference between maturity and childhood. When it comes to following Jesus Christ, we dare not trust in our own resources. Jesus never asks us to fight against impossible odds. He does not want us to build with inadequate resources. That is why he gives us his resources. They are always adequate. If we trust in the power which God alone can give us, we are safe. We can build with confidence. We can fight confident of victory.

Monday, November 4, 2013

"I WANT MY HOUSE TO BE FULL."



Homily for November 5th, 2013. Luke 14:15-24.
          Some Scripture commentators suggest that the host in the parable we have just heard was a tax collector. His party is an attempt to break into society by inviting the leading citizens of the town and providing lavish entertainment. His guests have all told him, in the offhand way that people do, that they’d be happy to come to his house. “Any time,” they’ve all said. When the invitations arrive, however, it turns out that these acceptances were insincere. The excuses offered are so flimsy as to be almost pathetic.
          Jesus’ hearers would have smiled as they heard of the frustration of the host’s plans. He thought he was going to make a big splash. Now all his guests have stood him up. The man’s growing anger enhances the humor of the situation. He resolves to repay the insults of his intended guests with an insult of his own. He will give a party for people whom those originally invited hold in contempt. That will show them! 
          The parable, like many others, contains a warning — but also good news. The warning is the exclusion of those first invited. They represent Jesus’ critics: people confident that the best seats at the banquet were reserved for them. They assume that there will be other opportunities, other invitations. Too late, they discover that this was their final chance.    

The parable's good news is in the description of the substitute guests. 
They are a portrait of Luke’s own Christian community: “the poor, the blind, the crippled, the lame.” That assures us that God welcomes not just the fit and strong, people whose good moral character makes them role models and leaders. The Lord who was reproached in his earthly life for welcoming sinners and eating with them continues to do the same today. To claim a place at his table we need to show him not our successes but our failures; not our strength but our weakness; not health but sickness.
          Preaching on this parable back in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI told about bishops from Western countries, Europe especially, telling him on their visits to Rome about how people refuse the Lord’s invitation to his banquet. Yet at the same time, the Pope said, “I also hear this, precisely from the Third World: that people listen, that they come, that even today the message spreads along the roads to the very ends of the earth, and that people crowd into God’s hall for the banquet.”
          Are you among them?