Friday, July 11, 2014

"IN THE YEAR THAT KING UZZIAH DIED, I SAW THE LORD."



AIn the year that King Uzziah died. I saw the Lord,@ the prophet Isaiah tells us in our first reading. Uzziah had been king for some four decades. His death, and the accession of a new monarch, were a breakup of landslide proportions. Golden opportunities await, at such times, young men with good connections. Isaiah was young. He had the right connections. So in the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah had every reason to be excited about the dazzling prospect of a new career opening up before him. And precisely at that time of unique opportunity, he found the way blocked. A more exalted king than any who ever sat upon an earthly throne summoned this brilliant, well-connected young man to higher service. Isaiah never forgot it.
Dramatic experiences like that which came to Isaiah, are rare. What is not rare, indeed what is common, is the shattering of plans or expectations, the sudden blocking up of progress along our chosen path, which Isaiah experienced. Perhaps there is someone in this church today who is facing such a collapse of hopes, plans, or dreams. Your life seems to be coming apart at the seams. You don’t know which way to turn. If that, or any of that, is your story, then listen. The Lord has good news for you.
Times of crisis are always times of opportunity, times of growth. Sometimes the only way God can get at us is by breaking us B or allowing us to be broken. To set us on the right way, God must sometimes block up the way we are on B even it is in itself a good way. What looks to you like the end of all your hopes, the destruction of every plan and aspiration you ever entertained, may be the Lord=s summons to a closer, if more difficult, walk with him. God never closes a door in our lives without opening another. The Lord has shown me that in my life B again and again.
As we travel life=s way, we who in baptism have become sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ should be sharpening our spiritual vision. For it is only with the eyes of faith that we can perceive the unseen, spiritual world all round us: beneath, behind, above this world of sense and time. Faith assures us that the Lord is watching over us always, in good times and in bad: the same God who appeared to Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died. Glimpsing this mighty God, our loving heavenly Father, with the eyes of faith, we too join B as in a moment we shall B in the angels= song first heard by Isaiah:  AHoly, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!  All the earth is filled with his glory!@  

Thursday, July 10, 2014

ST. BENEDICT




Homily for July 11th, 2014: St. Benedict.
St. Benedict, whom the Church celebrates today, was born in Norcia, some 70 miles north of Rome, probably around 480. His Catholic parents gave him a religious upbringing, sending him to Rome for studies as a teenager. Benedict reacted negatively to the worldliness of Rome. Convinced that for his soul’s health he should become a monk, he left Rome and journeyed east into the mountains of central Italy, where he took up residence in a cave, as a hermit. In time some of the pious nobility in Rome began to visit Benedict and to offer him their sons to rear them for almighty God. This enabled Benedict to form 12 monastic communities all under Benedict’s general oversight.
          By age 50 Benedict, confident that his monks could remain faithful to their calling without him, journeyed south to Monte Cassino, between Rome and Naples, where he founded the monastic community which still exists today, and wrote what he himself calls his “little Rule for beginners.”  He died there in 547 or shortly thereafter, probably in his late sixties.
          “We are going to establish a school for the service of the Lord,” Benedict writes in the Rule’s prologue. “In founding it we hope to introduce nothing harsh or burdensome.” Benedict makes it clear that his Rule is addressed to all – to the average person without any special gifts – and not just to spiritual athletes.  “As we advance in the religious life and in faith,” Benedict writes in his Rule, “our hearts expand and we run the way of God’s commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love” – words which clearly reflect Benedict’s own experience. 
          All over the world today men, and women as well, are still living according to Benedict’s Rule, more than thirty of them here in St. Louis. A Trappist monk at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, helped me across the threshold of the Catholic Church at Easter 1960. He died there in 2006 at the age of 97.  It was a lifetime of faithful observance of Benedict’s “little rule for beginners” which enabled him to write the beautiful words with which I close:
            “To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances. To seek him, the greatest human adventure. To find him, the highest human achievement.”       

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

THE SUPER-ABUNDANT HARVEST



Homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A. Is. 55:10-11; Mt. 13:1-9.
AIM: To instill hope by showing that God’s power overcomes weakness, failure, and defeat.
          Was Jesus’ life a success story? Hardly. True, he attracted large crowds. But few in the throngs which hung on his words really understood him. Even his closest friends didn’t really get it. At the Last Supper with their Master they were still arguing about “who should be greatest” (Lk 22:24). During his public ministry Jesus encountered mounting criticism and hostility, and at the end rejection and a cruel and unjust death.
          Jesus responds to the rising tide of opposition which he saw all around him with the story he tells in today’s gospel. It is a story of contrasts: on the one hand the waste and failure of most of the farmer’s hard work; and on the other hand the abundant harvest despite this failure.
          Farmers in Jesus’ day first scattered seed on unplowed ground, and then turned the seed into the soil by plowing over it. Some of the seed sown by this farmer lands on the hard footpath made by people who walk across his field. Before the farmer can turn the seed under with his plow, the birds have picked the path clean. The seed is wasted. Some of the seed falls on soil so shallow and rocky that even after plowing there is not enough depth of soil for proper root development. That seed too is wasted. Part of the seed falls among thorns which, even after being turned under by the plow, grow up again and crowd out the seed. Waste once again.
          Up to this point in the story all the seed, and all the farmer’s hard work, have been wasted. This corresponds to Jesus’ own experience: initial popular excitement at his teaching and miracles; but already clear signs of the hostility and rejection which will lead to his condemnation and death. Jesus’ efforts, like the farmer’s, seem to lead only to waste and failure.
          Now comes something we weren’t expecting. Some of the seed lands on rich soil and produces an abundant harvest: “a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.” A modern commentator explains: “A 20-to-1 ratio would have been considered an extraordinary harvest. Jesus’ strikingly large figures are intended to underscore the prodigious quality of God’s glorious kingdom still to come” [New Jerome Biblical Commentary No. 42:25]. Despite all the waste and failure, Jesus is saying, an abundant harvest is certain — indeed a super-abundant harvest. 
          Faced with mounting evidence of rejection and failure, Jesus could have become a grim preacher of impending doom. Instead he is relaxed, confident of ultimate success. Jesus’ optimism is not superficial, however. He does not proclaim a bright, cheery message of positive thinking, or possibility thinking; with the smiling assurance that everything will turn out all right if only we hang in there and keep the right attitude. By telling a story in which most of the farmer’s hard work is wasted, Jesus shows us that much will not turn out all right. We must expect setbacks, even defeats.
          Jesus’ message of confident faith in the midst of discouragement, reverses, setbacks, and defeats, is exactly what we need today. How much of the Church’s work is wasted. Think of all the time and treasure we invest in our Catholic schools. We’re proud of our schools — and we should be. If we ask however, how many of their graduates are still practicing their faith ten years after graduation, we begin to doubt: is our investment in our schools really worthwhile? Or is the bottom line, once again, waste, failure, and defeat? 
          And what about our personal failures? We have made so many good resolutions. Some we have kept. Many we have not. When we come to confession, it’s the same tired old list of sins. We ask ourselves: “Will I ever make any real progress?” Too often we suspect that the answer to that question is No. Must we simply acknowledge defeat, and hang our heads in discouragement and shame?  
          Jesus does not deny the power of evil. How could he when it brought him to the cross? Jesus does not deny the reality of failure — whether it is his own seeming failure, his Church’s failures, or our own personal failures. Despite failure and defeat, however, Jesus tells us to be confident, to have hope, to hold our heads high. 
          ‘Have patience and courage,’ he is telling us. ‘Do your work. Keep on. Sow the seed. Leave the rest to God. The harvest is certain. When it comes, it will be so much greater than you can possibly imagine that you will be amazed.’ The super-abundant harvest which Jesus promises depends in the last analysis not on us, but on God. Jesus himself is the one who sows the seed in the often hard, stony, and thorn-choked soil of human hearts, our own hearts included.
          Jesus is also the word of God of which Isaiah speaks in our first reading. Jesus is God’s personal communication to us, as my words are a communication to you. In that first reading God says: “My word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.” The final triumph of Jesus, who is God’s word, his personal communication to us, is absolutely certain. No less certain too is the super-abundant harvest which Jesus promises in his story of the farmer sowing seed. 
          How do we know all this? We know it from the two central symbols of our faith. At the center of our religion is a cross, the symbol of a wasted life, and ultimate defeat.  Behind the cross, however, is the empty tomb, God’s guarantee that his Son spoke the truth when he said: “Some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

"WITHOUT COST YOU HAVE RECEIVED , , "



Homily for July 10th, 2014: Matthew 10:7-15.
          “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give,” Jesus tells the  twelve men he has called to be his apostles. Another translation says: “Freely you have received, freely give.” Can you think of something that is all your own, and not a gift from God? What about your achievements: the money you have earned, the recognition you may have received? Would any of that be possible without the talents and abilities God has given you? When you stop to think about it, everything we have comes ultimately  from God. There is one exception: our sins. They are all our own. Everything else is God's gift: not because we are good enough to deserve God’s gifts – for none of us is. God bestows his gifts on us not as rewards for being good, but simply because He is so good that he wants to share his goodness and love with us. 
          What is the appropriate response? We can describe it in a single word: thanksgiving. Here’s a question we should all ask ourselves from time to time: Am I a thankful person? If you are a person of prayer – and you would hardly be here if you weren’t – then you’re probably pretty good at asking God for things. Are you equally good at saying “Thank you,” when your requests are granted? If a long life has taught me anything it is this: grateful people are happy people – no exceptions!
I was born before universal air travel. Americans visiting Europe crossed the Atlantic by ship. In my childhood I remember hearing about the Pastor of a wealthy parish who regretted that so many of his parishioners were lost at sea every summer. When they asked him to explain, he said: “In June each year lots of my parishioners request Masses for a safe passage to Europe. Come Labor Day I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of  Masses of thanksgiving requested for a safe return."
What is the best way to thank God for all his gifts? Jesus’ words in today’s gospel tell us: “Freely you have received, freely give.” In other words: we can’t keep God’s gifts, unless we give them away.” And it gets even better. When we do give them away, they come back to us. If you doubt that, just try it!


Tuesday, July 8, 2014

"JESUS SUMMONED TWELVE."



Homily for July 9th, 2014: Matthew 10:1-7.
 From his disciples Jesus chooses twelve to be apostles. Why twelve? Because God’s people was composed of twelve tribes. Jesus was establishing a new people of God. The twelve men Jesus chose were already disciples: men who followed Jesus and learned from him. An apostle is more: someone who receives a commission or sending to speak and act for another. Indeed the word apostle means ‘one who is sent’ – like an ambassador, sent to abroad to represent his country, and especially the head of state who sends him.
If the disciples of Jesus whom he chose to become apostles had one thing in common, other than their love for the Lord, it was their very ordinariness. They were not people of learning or sophistication. About most of them we know little, apart from legends. Nor is there complete agreement even about their names. The gospel lists differ in several cases. 
This tells us something important. God does not call people who are fit, according to human reckoning. Instead he often calls people who are not fit. Through his call, however, and through what they experience when they respond to God’s call, he makes them fit. 
Was Peter fit to be the leader of God’s Church – the man who was quick to profess loyalty even though when all others might fall away, and yet, when the time of testing came, three times denied that he even knew the Lord? That humiliating failure, and no doubt others besides (including Peter’s inability, according to the gospel record, to catch even a single fish without Jesus’ help) taught Peter that to do anything of consequence he needed Jesus’ help.
In baptism and confirmation Jesus has sent each one of us to be his apostles, his messengers. How do we do that? You probably know St. Francis of Assisi’s answer to this question. “Preach always,” Francis said. “When necessary, use words.” How wise that is. Personal example is always more powerful than words. “What you are,” someone said, “speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.”
          How better could we respond to Jesus’ call of the Twelve than with the classic prayer of St. Ignatius Loyola: “Take, O Lord, and receive, my entire life: my liberty, my understanding, my memory, my will. All that I am and have you have given me. I give back to you all, to be disposed of according to your good pleasure. Give me only the comfort of your presence, and the joy of your love. With these I shall be more than rich, and shall desire nothing more.”

Monday, July 7, 2014

"PRAY THE LORD TO SEND LABORERS."



Homily for July 8th, 2014: Matthew 9:32-38.
          The brief gospel reading we have just heard is a kind of bridge between the reports Matthew has been giving us about Jesus’ deeds of compassion the one hand, and his call to others to share in this compassionate care of God’s people on the other. The summary is contained in a single sentence: “Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness.” The sentence following describes Jesus’ reaction to the needs of those who flocked around him, to hear his words and receive healing. “His heart was moved with pity,” our translation says. In the original Greek the word for heart refers to the inner organs in general. Matthew is saying that Jesus was all ‘churned up in his gut’ at the needs he saw all round him. They were “troubled and abandoned,” Matthew tells us, “like sheep without a shepherd.”
          “The harvest is abundant,” Jesus says then, “but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Those are the last words in chapter nine of Matthew’s gospel. Chapter ten, which we shall hear tomorrow, starts with Jesus’ call of twelve men from his disciples, to be apostles.
          We need to take Jesus’ call for laborers seriously. We should be praying often, even daily, that many of our young people will hear and heed the call to serve him as priests, deacons, and religious Sisters. But we  need to do more. If you know someone who you believe would serve well in one of those roles, speak to him or her about it. If that is too difficult, then tell a priest about that person, so he can do the recruitment himself. In today’s world pursuing a religious vocation is so counter-cultural that candidates need all the encouragement and support we can give them. Moreover, many young people are just waiting to be asked. And if we don’t ask them, who will?

Sunday, July 6, 2014

JESUS' RESPONSE TO FAITH



Homily for July 7th, 2014: Matthew 9:18-26.
          Today’s gospel recounts two miracles: one a miraculous healing, the other a resurrection from the dead. All the healings reported in the gospels are Jesus’ response to faith. Mark’s gospel tells us that when Jesus visited Nazareth, where he had grown up, “he could work no miracle,” because the people who had known him for years lacked faith. (Mk 5:6).   
          In today’s gospel the first person to manifest faith is a synagogue elder whose daughter has just died. He believes Jesus can bring her back to life. Greater faith than that one cannot imagine. The second person who approaches Jesus with faith is a woman who has suffered hemorrhages for twelve years. Jews had a special aversion to blood. Still today the Jewish dietary laws say that to be kosher, and hence fit for human consumption, meat must have all the blood drained from it before it before it comes to the table. This helps us understand that the situation of the woman with hemorrhages is desperate. She makes her request for healing not in words, but by grabbing hold of the tassel on one of the four corners of the prayer shawl worn by Jewish men. She is so confident in the power of Jesus that even this contact with his garment can bring her his healing.
          Both petitioners receive what they seek in faith. Sensing that power has gone out from him, Jesus turns around and confronts the woman. “Courage, daughter!” he tells her. “Your faith has saved you.”  “And from that hour,” Matthew tells us, “the woman was cured.”
          When Jesus arrives at the house of the synagogue elder, he finds a crowd already mourning the death of the man’s daughter. Hired flute players are playing a funeral dirge. “Go away,” Jesus tells them. “The girl is not dead but sleeping.” Not for the first time in the gospels, the people ridicule him, confident that he has lost touch with reality. When the crowd has dispersed, Jesus enters the house, takes the girl by the hand, and raises her to life.
          What better response could we make to the story of these two miracles than to repeat the anguished words of the father in Mark’s gospel seeking healing for his deaf mute son who seems to have what we would call epilepsy. Asked by Jesus whether he believes healing is possible, the man replies – and we repeat: “Lord, I do believe! Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).