Friday, December 13, 2013

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS



Homily for December 14th, 2013: St. John of the Cross.
          The Church celebrates today one of the great saints of the 1500s, a century which brought both the disaster of the Reformation, but also great saints. The previous century witnessed repeated demands for Church reform in head and members. No one imagined, however, that reform, when it came, would result in the departure from Catholic unity of whole nations, and the setting up of altar against altar. The fruits of these divisions remain with us today in the form of literally thousands of Christian denominations which greatly weakens Christian witness to the world.
          At the very time however, when this disaster was unfolding, God raised up men and women of heroic faith: Ignatius of Loyola, the founder the Society of Jesus; his fellow Jesuit and missioner to the Far East, Francis Xavier; Philip Neri, the apostle of Rome; Charles Borromeo, born to wealth and privilege and made a cardinal at age 22 by his uncle by Pope Pius IV, but a champion of Church reform nonetheless.
In Spain the century witnessed the birth of St. Teresa of Avila, whom we celebrated on October 15th, and her fellow Carmelite whom we commemorate today, St John of the Cross. Both dedicated their lives to deep prayer, and to reform of the Carmelite order, encountering bitter enmity from their fellow Sisters and Friars. For St. John this included imprisonment and torture.
          Though 17 years younger than Teresa, John of the Cross was her confessor and spiritual director. The writings of both on prayer are spiritual classics. A frequent theme in the writings of John of the Cross was the importance of silence. Here are three quotations from his writings which give an indication of his spirituality:
-- “A soul enkindled with love is a gentle, meek, humble, and patient soul.”        
-- “What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this    
     great God with our appetite and with our tongue; for the language he hears best
     is silent love.” And finally, my personal favorite:
--  “In the evening of life, we will be judged by love alone.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

"THEY ARE LIKE CHILDREN."



Homily for December 13th, 2013: Mathew 11th, 2013.
          Jesus speaks often of children in the gospels, usually in a positive sense In today’s gospel Jesus speaks about a negative aspect of childhood. Grieved that too few of his own people have responded either to his cousin, John the Baptist, or to himself, Jesus compares them to children who reject every approach of those who reach out to them in loving concern. ‘You complained that John was too strict and ascetic,' Jesus says in effect. ‘Me you find too laid back and merciful. What do you want?’ Jesus asks them.
          Children can be like that. I experienced it myself, in my own childhood. I might have been ten years old, or even younger, with a sister eight, and a brother six. I remember my father saying to another grownup, in a tone of resigned frustration: “My children are contra-suggestive.” I no longer know what occasioned this remark, but I can easily imagine it. Whatever my father suggested, by way of a leisure activity – whether it was a walk, a drive in the country, or a visit to a museum – we said: “Oh, no -- we don’t want to do that.”
          Most of us carry over this childhood stubbornness into adult life. We’d like to determine our own agenda, thank you. But of course we can’t. God set the agenda for us before we were even born. “My yoke is easy”, Jesus says, “and my burden light” (Mt. 11:30). Jesus’ yoke is easy, however, only if we accept it. Otherwise it chafes. How better could we respond to Jesus’ words in today’s gospel than to pray: “Not what I want, Lord, but what you want.”

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

WAITING IN FAITH



Third Sunday in Advent, Year A. Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10; James 5:7-10; Mt. 11:2-11.
AIM: To nurture the faith which enables us to wait in patience.

Earlier this year  I had a phone call from a young man on the east coast. Now 26, he graduated in 2009 first in his class in one of the best Catholic high schools in St. Louis. Four years later he graduated with honors from one of the top colleges in the country. Endowed by God not only with high intelligence but with a golden singing voice, he is now at a leading music conservatory preparing for a career in music. Like all artistic fields, the one he is trying to enter is over crowded, but can also bring rich rewards. He called me in great distress, on the verge of tears at the threatened breakup of his relationship with the girl he has long wanted to marry. I=ll call them Peter and Mary.
They met during their freshman year at college. Both devout Catholics, and both highly intelligent, they hit it off at once. Close companions during their four college years, they remained close after graduation. Gradually, however, their paths diverged. After college Mary landed a lucrative position with a major Wall Street financial firm. She is now completing her M.B.A. at a leading business school. Immersion in the world of big money has undermined her faith. Right now she=s one of our CEO Catholics: Christmas-and-Easter only. Peter is at Mass every Sunday, and on weekdays when he can get there.
When Peter raised the subject of marriage recently, Mary told him that it wouldn=t work. AYou want a girl who=ll go to Mass with you every Sunday, Peter.  I=m not that person.@ You can imagine how that hurt. My friend Peter had such hopes, such dreams. Now they seem to have collapsed, leaving him devastated.
          The gospel reading we have just heard describes a similar collapse of hopes.  AAre you the one who is to come,@ John asks from his prison cell. AOr should we look for another?@ Like my young friend Peter, John the Baptist also had great expectations. He had staked his life on the message that the hopes of his people for centuries, about the coming of an anointed servant of the Lord, the Messiah, were about to be fulfilled. The promised Messiah, he thought, would come in power and glory. He would overthrow the hated Roman military government of occupation and set his oppressed people free. The person who came to him to be baptized in the Jordan River turned out, however, to be very different from what John had expected. 
John=s message was stern. We heard him in last Sunday=s gospel calling his hearers a Abrood of vipers,@ and asking sarcastically: AWho warned you to flee from the coming wrath?@ (Mt. 3:7) Jesus= message was different. He too could be stern. Mostly, however, Jesus was much gentler. The difference between John and Jesus can be seen in people=s reactions to them. John they found too ascetic, Jesus too easy-going (cf. Mt. 11:18f). 
John=s question, AAre you the one who is to come?@ reveals a crisis of faith. Was Jesus really the one John had believed and proclaimed him to be? Like everyone who tries to live by faith, John had to discover that faith is not a once-for-all affair. It=s not like learning to ride a bicycle, or memorizing the multiplication table. Faith must be constantly renewed. 
Is that surprising? Don=t we see the same in every relationship based on faith? Marriage is such a relationship. So is priesthood and the life of the vowed religious Sister or Brother. In all these cases promises are made solemnly and for life. But they need to be daily renewed and reaffirmed. For me that means getting out of bed when my clock radio goes off at 5.15 in the morning. Only if I get up then can I be in church before six, so that I can spend a half-hour waiting in silence on the Lord before I celebrate Mass at 6.30. Without that time with Him I=d just be spinning my wheels.
We are gathered here around the Lord=s twin tables of word and sacrament to receive from the One who alone can give it to us the strength each of us needs to renew our commitment to Jesus Christ, and to the life of trusting faith to which he has called us. 
From his own crisis of faith, the result of the seeming collapse of his hopes and expectations, John learned that faith must be constantly renewed. From Jesus= answer to John=s question the Baptist learned something more: that faith is always free. It cannot be compelled, any more than love can be compelled. To his question, AAre you the one who is to come?@ John expected a Yes or No answer. Jesus did not give it to him. Instead he gave John the evidence he needed to work out his own answer: Jesus= miracles of healing. Tell John, he said, about the blind regaining their sight, the lame walking, lepers being cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dead being raised.
John’s gospel calls Jesus= miracles Asigns.@ They point to faith. But they cannot compel it. In telling John to consider the miracles, Jesus was asking his cousin what he asks of us: a free decision based on the evidence of Jesus= words and deeds, but going beyond what this evidence proves in the strict sense. Isn=t that what we want of those we love? their free decision to give us their love and trust, without our having to prove in advance that we deserve to be loved and trusted?
The decision for faith is always free. And the decision must be constantly renewed. That requires something we Americans have never been very good at: patience. Our second reading is about patience. It is from the letter of James. That letter was written for people who had been told to expect the imminent return of the Lord in glory. He hadn=t come. James reassures them: AThe coming of the Lord is at hand.@ But they must await his coming with patience. Like the farmer waiting for his crop to ripen, like parents waiting for their children to walk and talk, there are things in life which cannot be hurried. We must simply await them in patience.
That is what I told my young friend Peter. AIf you decide that the difference between you and Mary about faith means the end of your relationship, breaking it off will be terribly painful. But dragging things out, continuing to entertain impossible hopes, will only prolong the pain. Be assured, however, that God never closes a door in our lives without opening another. He has shown me that again and again in my life. He will do the same for you, Peter. The Lord has someone out there with whom he wants you to share your life, to be your wife and the mother of your children. When the time is right B God=s time, not yours B you will recognize her. Meanwhile you must exercise patience.@
As people of faith we are called to live in this world aware that we are also citizens of another world: the unseen, spiritual but utterly real world of God, the angels, the saints, and of our beloved dead. Being obedient to that call is difficult. It requires patience. We gather here at these twin tables of word and sacrament so that the Lord can renew our patience when it has worn thin and threatens to give out.
It was God who first enabled us to make our decision for faith. Here in the Eucharist he enables us to renew that decision. Here he gives us the patience to endure life=s disappointments and trials Aas seeing him who is invisible@ (Heb. 11:27). Once we grasp the greatness of God=s gifts to us, we realize that we are the people who are experiencing already the great promises of our first reading. We Asee the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.@ Here God himself Astrengthens the hands that are feeble, makes firm the knees that are weak.@ When our hearts are frightened, he says to us, as we heard Isaiah saying to the people of his day in that first reading: ABe strong, fear not! Here is your God ... he comes to save you.@ We are Athose whom the Lord has ransomed@ by the poured out blood of his Son. We are Acrowned with everlasting joy ... [we] meet with joy and gladness, [as] sorrow and mourning flee away.@       

"NOTHING WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD."



Homily for December 12th, 2013. Luke 1:26-38
          Thirteen days before Christmas you come to Mass, and what do you hear? The story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary, telling her that she is to be the mother of God’s Son. What’s going on?
What’s going on is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. On December 9th, 1531 a Mexican peasant, Juan Diego, encountered a girl at the hill of Tepeyac who asked him to go to the archbishop of nearby Mexico City and ask him to build a shrine there in her honor. Recognizing that he the girl was Mary, Juan Diego went to the archbishop and placed Mary’s request before him. Go back to Tepeyac, the archbishop told Juan Diego, and if the girl appears again, tell her I must have a miraculous sign to verify her request.
Three days later the girl reappeared and told Juan Diego to gather some roses, put them in his cloak, and take them to the archbishop. Although it was cold and long past the time of roses, Juan Diego found plenty of roses atop the normally barren hill. He filled his cloak with them and returned to the archbishop. When he opened his cloak, the flowers fell to the floor, revealing on the inside of the cloak an image of Mary. The image survives today, enshrined in the great church of Guadalupe, at the edge of Mexico City. It is the most visited Marian shrine in the whole world. Despite extensive examinations of the image, there is no scientific explanation of how it was produced or how it has survived intact for almost five centuries..
Nor has there ever been any explanation of how Mary, while still a virgin, conceived the baby boy whose birth we shall celebrate in just 13 days. When Mary herself asked the angel Gabriel who brought her this astounding news how such a thing was possible, she received simply the words: “Nothing will be impossible with God.” Some thirty-three years later (according to the traditional dating), her Son experienced something no less impossible than his virginal conception. On the third day after his public death by crucifixion, his tomb was found empty, and he started to appear to those who had known and loved him before. 
Jesus is not a dead hero from the past. He is our risen and glorified Lord, alive forevermore, holding in his hand the keys of death. He waits for each one of us at the end of life’s road, to lead us to the place he has gone ahead to prepare for us.      

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

"TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU"



Homily for December 11th, 2013: Matthew 11:28-30.
          I spoke to you twelve days ago about Jesus’ words, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Jesus’ words in today’s gospel reading were among the examples I quoted. 
          “Take my yoke upon you,” Jesus says. In Jesus’ day yokes were in daily use. Carved out of wood to fit over the shoulders, they had arms extending out about a foot or more with a ring on each end supporting a rope from which the person using the yoke could hang a bucket or other container. This made it possible to transport with relative ease loads which could not be carried by hand.
          It was crucial that the yoke fit the shoulders of the person using it. Otherwise it would chafe and the person wearing the yoke would soon throw it off. “My yoke is easy,” Jesus says, “and my burden light.” There is an unspoken IF there. The yoke and burden Jesus offers us are easy and light only if we accept them. If we chafe against the yoke and try to throw it off, then it is not easy; and the burden which it supports is heavy and definitely not light.
          To help us accept our yoke Jesus says: “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” Meekness and humility do not come to us easily or without prolonged effort and many failures. We must be lifelong learners. Our teacher is the best there is. He understands our difficulties. He is not interested in how often we stumble and fall. He is interested in one thing only: how often, with his help, we get up again, and continue the journey.
          Our teacher’s name is Jesus Christ. 

Monday, December 9, 2013

"WILL HE NOT LEAVE THE NINETY-NINE IN THE HILLS?"



Homily for December 10th, 2013: Matthew 18:12-14.
          Jesus introduces this little story about the stray sheep with a question: “What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and on of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and to in search of the stray?” The way the question is framed, with the word “not”, suggests an affirmative answer – ‘Why sure, of course that’s what the man would do.’
Suppose, however, that Jesus had framed his question differently, leaving out the “not”. Then he would have asked: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of he stray? The obvious answer to that question is: “No way would he do that. That would risk turning a small misfortune – the lost of a single sheep – into a major disaster: dispersal of the whole flock.
          Jesus tells the story to illustrate how God treats us. Unlike the shepherd, God’s love for us is not measured, calculating, or (by our human standards) prudent. God is willing to go to any lengths to prevent the loss of a single one of his children.
          In the second part of the story Jesus tells us that when the shepherd has recovered the one stray sheep, “he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.” That certainly seems unreasonable – until we ask: Who are these ninety-nine who have never strayed? We all stray at times – even the saints. None of the saints was perfect – except for the Lord’s Mother, Mary. The saints are people whose efforts at perfection were heroic.
          Jesus told this story to assure us that God’s love or us is without limits, and without end. That is the gospel. That is the good news.