Friday, January 17, 2014

ISRAEL'S FIRST KING


Homily for January 18th, 2014: 1 Samuel 9:1-4, 17-19; 10:1

          Yesterday we heard Israel’s leaders demand a king, “so that we may be like the other nations.”  Today’s first reading, severely edited for the sake of brevity, tells how he was found. Here is the whole story.

          It starts with a man named Kish sending his son Saul, “a handsome young man [standing] head and shoulders above the people,” to find his father’s lost donkeys. A servant accompanies him. After wandering far and wide for three days without finding the animals, Saul tells the servant that his father will be worried about their long absence. They must turn back. The servant counters with another suggestion. There is a Seer around here, the servant says. He will know where the donkeys are. Let’s go look for him.

          As they enter the town, they meet some girls on their way to draw water from the municipal well. When Saul asks if the Seer is in town, the girls tell him that he is. He’s here to attend a sacrificial banquet, they say. If you hurry you may catch him.  

             Shortly thereafter, they encounter Samuel. The Lord has told him just the day before that the very next day he will send him the man whom Samuel is to anoint as Israel’s king. Saul asks Samuel, whom he has never seen before, “Do you know where we can find the Seer?” “You’re talking to him,” Samuel replies, adding: “I’m on my way to a sacrificial banquet. You must come with me. And don’t worry about your father’s lost donkeys. They have been found.” By addressing the reason for their mission, before Saul or the servant have even mentioned it, Samuel shows that he is indeed the Seer whom the servant has told Saul about.

             Samuel gives Saul the place of honor at the banquet which follows, and lodging for the night. Early the next morning Samuel wakes his guest, telling him he must start home. Samuel accompanies Saul and the servant to the edge of town, where he tells Saul to send the servant ahead, “so that I may give you a message from God.” When the two are alone, Samuel anoints Saul as Israel’s first king. In that moment Saul’s life is changed forever.

             What does this story tell us? Like countless events in the Bible, it shows that God is the God of surprises. This has given rise to the familiar saying: “If you want to want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” That’s something we need to remember – and ponder.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PRAY FOR!


Homily for January 17th, 2013: 1 Sam. 8:1-7, 10-22a.

          “There must be a king over us,” the people tell the now aged Samuel. “We must be like other nations, with a king to rule us and to lead us in warfare and fight our battles.” This demand marks a turning point in the history of God’s people. Hitherto they had been different from other peoples. Their king was the Lord. Samuel was his representative, but himself no king.

          Samuel interprets the people’s demand for a king as a rejection of himself – understandable in an old man. God reassures him. It’s not you they are rejecting, Samuel, the Lord says, but me. Then God tells Samuel to grant the people what they are asking. First, however, he must warn them of the consequences.

          There is an important lesson here. It is this. Most of the good advice in the world is wasted. We learn best from experience. That explains why, in Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, the father does not hesitate to give his immature and irresponsible son the money the young man is asking for. The boy must find out for himself where the enjoyment of so much money, far more than he has ever had, will lead. The father could have warned him of trouble ahead. But he knew that his son would never listen. He must find out for himself.

          So Samuel warns the people what lies ahead, once they have the king they are demanding. He will draft your sons and daughters into his service. He will impose heavy taxes on you, taking not only your money, but your servants and domestic animals as well. And when you start complaining to the Lord about these crushing burdens, he won’t listen to you.

          To which the people respond: ‘We don’t care. We must have a king. We must be like all the other nations.’ Can anyone doubt that if the father of the Prodigal Son had explained to his boy where he would end up if he left home with the fortune he was demanding, his response would have been the same?

          So what is the lesson for us? Simply this: Be careful what you pray for! Lay before the Lord God your dreams, your hopes, your needs – yes. In doing so, however, say always: “Not what I want, Lord; but what you want.”

JESUS' SACRIFICE, THEN AND NOW

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A. John 1:29-34.
AIM: To explain the doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice.
 
ABehold, the Lamb of God!@ John=s words from the opening of the gospel reading we have just heard are so familiar to us that we don=t stop to ask what they  mean. We hear the words immediately before Communion at every Mass, when the priest, holds up the Lord=s body and says: AThis is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.@ What do those words really mean?     
To understand them we must plunge into the distant history of Jesus= people and read about their greatest feast: the Passover. Here is the account from the book of Exodus, chapter 12:
Moses told the people, AGo and get a lamb for your families and slaughter it for the Passover. Then take some of the hyssop, dip it in the blood [of the lamb] and smear some of the blood ... on the door-posts and lintel. ... The Lord will go through Egypt and strike it, but when he sees the blood on the lintel and doorposts, he will pass over that door and will not let the destroyer enter your houses to strike you. You shall keep this as a rule of all time. When your children ask you, >What is the meaning of this rite?= you shall say: >It is the Lord=s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses.  (Ex. 12: 21-27)
The blood of the Passover lamb smeared on the doorposts kept the people safe. Later the lamb was thought of as sacrificed to God: a gift through which God and his human worshipers were reconciled. Such gifts, offered in sacrifice to God, were supposed to restore the fellowship which had been broken by human sin.
The prophets of Jesus= people criticized these sacrificial offerings. They were based, the prophets pointed out, on the fiction that the things offered to God represented those who offered them. What God really wants, the prophets said, is not things (since everything belongs to him already). God wants men and women themselves. But how could people really offer themselves to God in sacrifice? And to the extent that people did offer themselves in a spiritual sense, they were offering God gifts stained by sin. Hence the whole sacrificial system failed to achieve what it was meant to achieve. This a central theme of the Letter to the Hebrews:
Every priest [and the writer is talking about Jewish priests] stands performing his daily service and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. (Heb. 10:11)  
Hebrews also affirms, however, that a perfect, unblemished sacrifice has been offered. The fellowship between sinful humanity and God has been restored. (Cf. Heb. 10:12). Jesus is the priest who offers, and Jesus is himself the sacrifice offered. His life of perfect obedience to his heavenly Father, consummated on Calvary, Atakes away the sin of the world,@ as John says at the beginning of today=s gospel. As the blood of the Passover lamb protected Jesus= ancestors, so his blood protects us, his spiritual descendants. Because of our sins we are unworthy to stand before God, to pray to him, to claim his blessing. But as sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ we can do all these things. 
Jesus= sacrifice, which mends the fellowship between us and God, broken by our sins, is not just long ago and far away. Though the Last Supper and Calvary are unrepeatable, they become, here and now, a living reality each time we obey Jesus command at the Last Supper, to Ado this in memory of me@ with the bread and wine.   To this day part of the Jewish Passover ritual is the child=s question: AWhat is the meaning of this rite?@ To which the person presiding replies: AIt is the Lord=s Passover.@ The unique past event is not repeated. But through its ritual celebration it becomes a living reality for the worshipers today.
 This is what we Catholics believe about the Mass. At the Last Supper, celebrated in the context of a Jewish Passover meal, Jesus took bread and said: AThis is my body.@ He meant: >This is me. When you do this I am truly with you. I give myself to you.= Saying over the cup, AThis is my blood,@ Jesus was telling us: >I am the one whose poured out blood keeps you safe, and brings you into a new relationship with God.= The bread and cup of this meal, previously a celebration of the Passover, are now a pledge of Jesus= personal presence with us, his friends.  That is the meaning of the offertory prayer we shall hear in a few moments: AWhen we proclaim the death of the Lord, you continue the work of his redemption.@
The Catechism says: AThe Eucharist is the memorial of Christ=s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice ... [1362] The memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men. In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. ... [1363] The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit.@ [1366]
The Mass is not the repetition the Last Supper and Calvary. It is, in a unique and specially intense way, their sacramental commemoration. It makes present, spiritually but truly, what it commemorates. When we Ado this@ with the bread and wine, as Jesus commanded, we are there! We are with the friends of Jesus in the upper room; with Mary and the Beloved Disciple at the cross. Here in the sacrifice of the Mass we encounter him who is the true Lamb of God: the one who destroys sin; who protects us through his poured-out blood from sin=s just penalty; the one through whom we can approach God, not in fear and trembling because of our sins, but in confidence and love; calling him, as Jesus taught us to do: AFather.@
So much meaning, so much wonder, so much drama!  How often do we recognize it, and truly worship?

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

BAD RELIGION


Homily for January 16th, 2014: 1 Sam. 4:40-45.

          “Why has the Lord permitted us to be defeated today?” the elders of Israel ask after a defeat at the hands of a neighboring tribe, the Philistines. Without waiting for an answer to this question, the elders resolve on a counter-attack. This time, however, they resolve to take with them the ark of the covenant. This was a kind of portable tabernacle containing the tablets given by God to Moses and inscribed with the Ten Commandments. The ark had been carried before the people on their flight from Egypt. It was Israel’s most sacred and precious possession.  

          The ark was then resting in the temple at Shiloh where, as we heard yesterday, the Lord first called the boy Samuel, while he was sleeping. Because the temple priest Eli was old and almost blind, his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas (also priests, since Jewish priesthood was inherited) were the de facto guardians of this treasure. A previous chapter, not included in the readings for Mass, discloses that these two brothers regularly assaulted the worshipers at Shiloh, robbing them, and attacking them sexually as well.

          The people who decided to take the ark with them into battle reasoned that the God, whose protection the ark symbolized and guaranteed, would assure their victory over their enemies. This hope remained unfulfilled. Struck with fear by the shouts of joy that rang out at the arrival of the ark, the Philistines fight harder than ever and inflict what the text calls “a disastrous defeat” on God’s people. The wicked priests Hophni and Phinehas are killed; their aged father Eli drops dead when the news reaches him. And the Philistines carry off the ark in triumph.

          What had gone wrong? The people who thought victory was certain if the ark was with them were practicing bad religion. God, they assumed, was at their disposal. God is never at our disposal. We are at his disposal. God always hears and answers our prayers. But he does not always answer them at the time, or in the way, that we wish. 

          Whenever we ask the Lord for something, we need to pray, as Jesus himself did when he asked his Father, in the garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, for deliverance from the cup of suffering: “Not my will but yours be done” (Luke 2:42).

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

"SPEAK, LORD, YOUR SERVANT IS LISTENING."


Homily for January 15th, 2013: 1 Samuel 9-20.

          The child Samuel, for whom his mother, Hannah, long unable to conceive, prayed with tears, is now some twelve years old. Since his mother, as we heard yesterday, has promised him to the Lord, he is already serving the Lord in the temple at Shiloh, supervised by the old and almost blind priest Eli.

          Asleep in the temple one evening, Samuel hears someone calling his name. Because the temple doors have been locked for the night, he assumes that Eli has called him. He goes to the old priest and says: “Here I am. You called me.” “No I didn’t call you,” Eli responds. “Go back to sleep.” When this happens twice more, Eli realizes that the Lord was calling the boy. Again Eli sends Samuel back to bed, telling him: “If you are called, reply, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

          For centuries Samuel’s response to the first three calls, “Here I am,” would be spoken  in the rite for the ordination of priests. When the name of each candidate was called out, he would reply with the single Latin word, adsum, which means, literally, “Here I am.” Today the candidate says the English word, “Present,” which means the same thing. The word, whether spoke in Latin or English, means the same thing: ‘Here I am, Lord, ready for service.’

          A priest ordained at the end of his thirties was asked how he came to priesthood. His reply: “I got tired of saying no to the Lord.” Now in his mid-forties, he is happy and fulfilled in the service of God and of his holy people.

          Are you unhappy, resentful, frustrated, unfulfilled? Then, perhaps, you are saying no to the Lord. Turn that no into a yes. Say, with the boy Samuel and ten thousands of priests down the ages: ‘Here I am, Lord. Speak, for your servant is listening. Take me, shape me, mold me. Give me the flame of your love in my heart.’ The moment you say that, and truly mean it, you will be more than rich; and you will desire nothing more.

Monday, January 13, 2014

"SHE CALLED HIM SAMUEL"



Homily for January 14th, 2014: 1 Samuel 1:9-20.
          Our first reading tells the story of an unhappy woman to whom the Lord gives happiness and joy. The woman is Hannah, married to a man named Elkanah, who, according to the custom of those days, has another wife as well, Peninnah. At the beginning of the chapter from which today’s reading is taken we read that “Penninah had children, but Hannah was childless” (1:2). Penninah used to taunt Hannah for her inability to conceive.
Elkanah regularly took his family to the sanctuary at Shiloh, to offer sacrifice to the Lord, followed by a celebratory meal. Whenever he did this, the text tells us, “he used to give a portion each to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters, but a double portion to Hannah because he loved her, though the Lord had made her barren.” This went on “year after year,” the text says. Each time Penninah would taunt Hannah, who would weep bitterly and refuse to eat. Her husband Elkanah used to ask her, “Hannah, who do you weep, and why do you refuse to eat? Why do you grieve? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (vs. 8)
On one of these visits, our first reading tells us, Hannah left the table to pour out her grief to the Lord in the sanctuary. “O Lord of hosts,” she prays, “if you look with pity on the misery of your handmaid, if you remember me and do not forget me, if you give your handmaid a male child, I will give him to the Lord for as long as he lives.” Hannah must have received there in the sanctuary some assurance that the Lord had heard her prayer. For the reading tells us that afterward “she ate and drank with her husband, and no longer appeared downcast.”
In time the Lord gave Hannah the son she had asked for. “She called him Samuel,” the reading tells us, “since she had asked the Lord for him.” The name Samuel means “his name is God.” He was the last of Israel’s so-called “judges,” and the first of its prophets. Later he would anoint Israel’s first two kings: Saul, and his successor David.
This touching story invites us to pray, in this Mass especially, for all women today who long for a child, and cannot conceive.


Sunday, January 12, 2014

"COME AFTER ME."


Homily for January 13th, 2014: Mark 1:14-20.
“Come after me,” Jesus says to the 2 brothers, Simon and Andrew, busy with cleaning their nets after a night of fishing on the lake, “and I will make you fishers of men.” He says the same shortly thereafter to a second pair of brothers, also fishermen: James and John. “They left their nets and followed him,” Mark tells us. They were burning their bridges behind them. Why? If we could have asked them, I think they might have said something like this: AYou would have to have known this man Jesus. There was something about him that made it impossible to say No.@
Jesus is still calling. He calls each one of us, as he called those four rough fishermen in today=s gospel. He calls us to walk with him, to be so full of his love that others will see the joy on our faces and want what we have. Christianity, it has been said, cannot be taught. It must be caught.
AI could never do that,@ you=re thinking? You=re wrong. Here is a list of some of the great people in the Bible. Someone, I no longer know who, sent it to me by e-mail. Every one of them had a reason for thinking God could not use them. So the next time you feel like God can=t use you, remember:
Noah was a drunk. Abraham was too old. Isaac was a daydreamer. Jacob was a liar. Joseph was abused by his brothers. Moses had a stuttering problem. Gideon was afraid. Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer. Rahab was a prostitute. Jeremiah and Timothy both thought they were too young. David had an affair and was a murderer. Elijah was suicidal. Isaiah thought himself unworthy. Jonah ran away from God=s call. Job went bankrupt. Martha was a perpetual worrier. The Samaritan woman at the well was five times divorced. Zaccheus was too small. Peter denied Christ. The disciples fell asleep while praying. At Jesus= arrest, they all forsook him and fled. Paul was too religious. Timothy had an ulcer. And Lazarus was dead! 
So what=s your excuse? Whatever it may be, God can still use you to be "fishers of men," to call others to be friends of Jesus. Besides, you aren=t the message. You=re only the messenger. As St. Francis of Assisi said: “Preach always. When necessary, use words.”