Friday, September 12, 2014

BUILDING ON ROCK



Homily for September 13th, 2014: Luke 6:43-49.
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command?" Jesus asks in today’s gospel. He is addressing people whose religious practice has no real foundations. He contrasts such people with those who, after hearing the Lord’s words, put them into practice in daily life. They are “like the man building a house” Jesus says, “who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built.” He goes on to contrast such a person with the superficially religious person “who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it collapsed a once and was completely destroyed.”
To build one's house without foundations means building our lives on things that are unstable and fleeting, things that cannot withstand the tests of time and the hazards of chance. What are such things? Money, success, fame, and even health and prosperity. None of those things are reliable or solid.
To build one's house on rock means basing our lives on things that are solid, enduring, things that cannot be carried away with Life’s storms. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” Jesus says later in Matthew’s gospel, “but my words will not pass away.” (24:35) To build our house on rock means building our life on God. Rock is one of the preferred biblical symbols for the God. “Trust in the Lord forever,” we read in the prophet Isaiah, “for the Lord is an eternal rock.” (26:4). The book Deuteronomy says the same: "He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is." (32:4)
To build one's house on the rock means, therefore, living in the Church and not remaining on the fringe, at a distance, using the excuse that the Church is filled with hypocrisy, dishonesty. and sin. Of course it is! The Church is made up of sinners like ourselves.
Today's gospel starts with what seems a harsh message. For the first time Luke speaks about people who refer to Jesus as their Lord. But what good is it to cry out, "Lord, Lord," Jesus asks, when your works are not done for him but for your own glory? When we cry out "Lord," it should mean that we belong to him at all times, and not just as temporary acquaintances. When the Lord responds, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers,” (a harsh message indeed) Jesus is really expressing his longing for people who are truly close to him in daily life. Those who do things in his name to be seen and honored, yet refuse to be in daily fellowship with him are fraudulent. When the storm of life descend, those who are deaf to the Word of God, who do not act upon it, and whose lives are not built upon God, will be swept away.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

THE SPLINTER IN A BROTHER'S EYE




Homily for Sept. 12th, 2013: Luke 6:39-42.
          Have you ever thought about how much easier it would be to prepare a list of sins for someone else to confess – especially if that other person was someone of whom you’re highly critical – than to list all your own sins? That would be much easier, wouldn’t it?
That’s what Jesus is talking about when he says in today’s gospel: “You notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own.” He is warning us about something we’re all guilty of at times: being alert for even small faults and sins in others, while overlooking much more serious sins of our own.
          The Lord has given us the remedy for those sins: the sacrament of penance, or confession. One advantage of sacramental confession is that it forces us to confront our own particular sins, not to be content with simply confessing that we are sinners in general. And in confession the priest has an opportunity to help us with our own particular sins and difficulties. So many people today feel that they’re “just a number.” In confession we’re not just a number. The priest is there for you personally, as a unique individual. But first you must come.
          Speaking for myself, I can tell you that without the sacrament of penance, or confession, I would not be a priest today. What a relief it was in the difficult years of adolescence – and more than a relief, a deep joy – to be able to go to a priest, tell him my sins, hear the words which assured me of God’s forgiveness; and then the beautiful closing words: “Go in peace and joy, the Lord has put away all your sins.” Those words touched me so deeply that I still say them today, at the close of every confession I hear.
Many Catholics think of Confession as something like going to the dentist: something we don’t particularly like, which will probably hurt, but which we know is good for us; and afterwards we’ll feel better. In reality, the sacrament of penance or reconciliation is so much more. It is a personal encounter with One who loves us beyond our imagining – as intimate as receiving the Lord’s body and blood in Communion. In Confession we receive, along with forgiveness, the love of the One who is love himself: Jesus Christ.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

"GIVE, AND GIFTS WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU."



Homily for Sept. 11th, 2014: Luke 6:27-38.
            “Give and gifts will be given to you,” Jesus tells us in today’s gospel, “a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing will be poured into you lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”    
Is that how we normally think of giving? Don’t we assume that when we have given something away, then it’s gone – and we are poorer? In reality, our gifts do not us make poorer. They enrich us.
Let me tell you about someone afraid to give. She is the mother of two grown children, a son and a daughter. The son is seeking priesthood, as a member of a religious order. His mother wants grandchildren with her husband’s family name. If her son perseveres to ordination, she won’t have them. She thinks that will make her poorer. Every time he goes home, she cries in front of him, and begs him to leave. Friends, there is only one word for such behavior: spiritual blackmail.
I don’t know that mother. And I don’t want to do her any injustice. But I’ve wondered. When Judgment Day comes and the books are opened, will the Lord say to her: ‘Mary, I wanted to give you another son, and even two. They would have given you plenty of grandchildren. And you would have been just as proud of them as you are of that son of yours who even now is offering Mass for the repose of your soul. But you said No.’
Contrast that nameless mother with other mothers, and fathers as well, who affirm and support a son’s decision for priesthood. On his ordination day they shed tears of joy and pride at what their son is doing. He’ll never give them grandchildren, true. But he will have countless spiritual children – far more than he could ever have through marriage.
Who do you suppose is happier? the mother who cries in front of her son and begs him turn aside form God’s call? or the parents who joyfully support that call, knowing that the measure with which they measure will be measured back to them?
Think about it.  

"GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD . . . "



Exaltation of the Cross. John 3:13-17.
AIM: To proclaim God=s unconditional love, and appeal for a response.

At the center of every Catholic Church in the world is a cross. The cross hangs around the necks of hundreds of thousands of people in our world who give no other outward sign of being religious. Teachers of young children report that when they offer the youngsters a selection of holy cards and ask them to choose one, time and again children choose the picture of Jesus on the cross.
Why is the cross so important, and so central? Why, after two thousand years, has the cross lost none of its fascination and power? The best answer is also the simplest: because the cross is a picture of how much God loves us. AThere is no greater love than this,@ Jesus tells us, Ato lay down one=s life for one=s friends@ (John 15:13).
AGod so loved the world that he gave his only Son,@ we heard in the gospel.  It was the most God had to give. That is why the cross is at the center of every Catholic Church in the world. That is why the cross is also at the center of the Church=s preaching. Many people associate the words Apreaching@ and Asermon@  with a list of Do=s and Don=ts: all the things we must first do or avoid before God will love us and bless us. Yet the gospel is supposed to be good news. Is it good news to be told that God won=t love us until we have kept enough of God=s rules to show that we are worthy of his love? That doesn=t sound like very good news to me. It sounds like horribly bad news.
The gospel is the good news that God loves us just as we are, right now. How much does God love us? Let me tell you. Some of you will remember the little Chinese girl, Doris, who entered our pre-school last year just few weeks past her third birthday. She recently celebrated her tenth birthday. She calls me Grandpa Jay. On most days I would go to meet Doris when she was dismissed from school.  Together we would stand at the front door, waiting for Doris=s mother. How excited Doris when she spotted her mother. She would run across the school yard as fast as her little legs could take her, to her mother=s waiting arms. It was heart-stopping. Beautiful as that was, however, it doesn=t begin to compare with God=s love for us.
So how much does God love us? An e-mail I received some years ago put it like this. AIf God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring.  He sends you a sunrise every morning.@ He never lets you out of his sight.  Do you know why? Maybe you=re thinking it=s because he wants to catch you breaking one of his rules. Many people think that. They=re wrong B dead wrong. God never lets you out of his sight because he loves you so much that he can=t take his eyes off you. Face it, friend C he=s crazy about you!  God doesn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain; but he does promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.
Here is another story. Marie is eighty-seven years old and a widow. She has lived for several years in a nursing home. It is hard to grow old, to have to give up your own place and to be dependent on others. Marie has never been able to adjust. She is crabby and disagreeable much of the time. She complains over trifles. She criticizes those who look after her, often for little or no reason. Her loved ones have reproached her for her bitterness, and tried to talk her out of it. They=ve failed.
One day Marie received a letter from her grandson at college. He told her how much the whole family loved her, how she was an inspiration to them. He said how much he admired her. Shortly after she received the letter a priest visited her. He found her clutching the letter, in tears.
AI want you to read that, Father,@ Marie said. When he had, she told him she wanted to go to confession. She did so and received the Lord=s forgiveness: that love that will never let us go, which heals us and makes us well again.
Afterwards Marie was transformed. For the first time anyone could remember she was kind to the nurses. Instead of criticizing them, she thanked them for all they did for her. What had changed her was simply a letter which said: AGrandma, we love you.@ It is love that breaks through. And the cross is a picture of God=s love for us. 
AJust as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,@ we heard in the gospel, Aso must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.@ 
The One who hangs on the cross, to show us God=s love, says elsewhere in this gospel according to John: AI am the light of the world@ (8:12). And in words that immediately follow today=s gospel he tells us that our eternal destiny is being determined, even now, by how we react to his light: AEveryone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.@ 
Are you walking in the light of Jesus= love? Or do you fear his light because of what it might reveal in the dark corners of your life which, like all of us, you try to keep hidden? We all have those dark corners. Now, in this hour, Jesus Christ is inviting you to put away fear. Come into the bright sunshine of his love. Once you do, the fire of Christ=s love will burn out in you everything that is opposed to his light. Then the reason for your fear will be gone. Then you will have no need to hide. You will be home. You will be safe: safe for this life, but also for eternity.
AWhoever believes in [Jesus Christ] will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their words were evil.@ (John 3:18f.)
The eternal destiny of each one of us is being determined by our response to the light, and love, of Jesus Christ. He is waiting for your response, right now.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

"BLEST ARE YOU POOR."



Homily for September 10, 2014: Luke 6: 20-26
How many people here would like to be poor? To be hungry? To be weeping and hated by everybody? If I asked for a show of hands to those questions, how may would go up? Suppose, however, that I asked some different questions: How many of you would like to be rich, well fed, laughing, and well spoken of by all?  Aren=t those things we all want? 
How, then, can Jesus pronounce a blessing on those who are poor, hungry, weeping and hated? Are those things good? Of course not! Yet Jesus calls those who suffer these things Ablessed@ C  which means Ahappy.@ To understand why, we must look again at what Jesus says at the end of these beatitudes: Aon account of the Son of man.@ Things evil in themselves C poverty, hunger, weeping, hatred, exclusion C become good when they are the price we must pay for choosing to stand with Jesus Christ.
When Luke wrote his gospel, almost all Jesus= followers were Jews. Deciding to follow Jesus meant being disowned by family members and exclusion from the synagogue. For many that meant poverty, hunger, and bitter grief. The passage we just heard immediately follows the call of the twelve apostles. How do you suppose they felt? They could hardly have been overjoyed. They faced alienation from their friends, loss of their livelihoods, hatred, and much grief. To these frightened, tearful men, uncertain about what they are getting into, Jesus speaks the words we heard in the gospel: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.”
          Where do we stand? With the frightened Twelve whom Jesus calls blessed? Or with the young man who went away sorrowful because he was rich? Let=s not be too sure that Jesus= woes aren=t for us just because we=re not rich. Jesus is not talking about the size of our bank accounts. He is talking about the cost of discipleship. That cost can be high, no doubt about it.  How could they be otherwise when the One who asks these costs of us paid the highest cost of all: life itself. 
          Jesus= words in today=s gospel are his encouragement to people who wonder what they have let themselves in for, who wonder if the cost of following Jesus Christ may not be too high. He is speaking them again now, to each one of us. “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.”

Monday, September 8, 2014

THE MAN IN THE MOUNTAIN



Homily for Sept. 9th, 2014: Luke 6:12-19.
          “Jesus departed to the mountain to pray,” we heard in the gospel, “and he spent the night in prayer to God.” What Jesus was about to do was that important. It required a whole night of waiting on God in prayer.
In biblical times, mountaintops were considered especially close to God. Moses received the Ten Commandments atop Mt. Sinai. The dramatic contest between the prophet Elijah and the prophets of the false god Baal took place on Mt. Carmel. Our modern expression, “a mountaintop experience,” denotes an experience of God’s nearness. Martin Luther King used the image of a mountain when he declared, shortly before his tragic assassination, to a rising crescendo of assenting shouts from his hearers: “I’m not afraid any more – Yeah.” “I don’t fear any man. – Amen!” “Because I’ve been up to the mountain. – Hallelujah!”
From his disciples Jesus chose twelve. Why twelve? Because God’s people was composed of twelve tribes. Jesus was establishing a new people of God. The twelve men Jesus chose to lead his new people were undistinguished. If they had one common quality it was their ordinariness. About most of them we have only legends. And the lists of names in the different gospels don’t even agree in all cases.
The Lord God called each one of us, when we were still in our mothers’ wombs. “You did not choose me,” he says in John’s gospel. “I chose you” (15:16). The realization that our call, whether as Catholic Christians, priests, or members of a religious order for women or men, originates not in our own choice but in God’s is reassuring. The man on the mountain knew what he was about when he assembled that first undistinguished group around himself over two millennia ago. Throughout history his choices betray a remarkable sameness. Success depends not on the capabilities of those chosen, but on the wisdom, power, and faithfulness of him who chooses us. God knows what he is about. It is only in our own minds that the issue is in doubt. 

Sunday, September 7, 2014

THE BIRTH OF MARY



Homily for Sept. 8th, 2014: The birth of Mary: Rom. 8:28-30; Matt. 1:18-23.
What do today’s readings tell us about the birth of Mary, which we celebrate today? Nothing. Nor do the Scriptures tell us anything about how her earthly life ended. In defining Mary=s Assumption on All Saints Day 1950, Pope Pius XII said simply: AWhen the course of [Mary=s] earthly life had ended, she was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven.@ Whether this happened before or after physical death, the Pope did not say. The body the Pope referred to is Mary=s new resurrection body: the body with which Jesus rose from the dead B the heavenly and spiritual body which, as St. Paul says, each one of us will receive in heaven (cf.1 Cor. 15:35-53). There Mary continues to pray for us. As the Catechism says: AThe Church loves to pray in communion with the Virgin Mary ... and to entrust supplications and praises to her.@ (No. 2682).
The Scriptures do tell us one thing about Mary, however, which we often overlook. When, after a frantic search, Mary and Joseph found their 12-year old son in the Jerusalem Temple, he answered their reproaches by asking: “Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Already at age twelve, Jesus knew that God was his Father, not Joseph. And Luke tells us that “they did not grasp what he said to them” (2:50)
There would be much more that Mary did not grasp. How much did she grasp about the angel’s message that she was to be the mother of God’s Son? Well, she grasped at least this: that in a little village where gossip was rife, and everybody knew everybody else’s business, she was going to be an unmarried mother. Yet despite this daunting prospect, and her still young age (Scripture scholars think she may have been no more than thirteen), Mary responded: “I am the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say” (Luke 1:38).
Three decades later, after Jesus left home, he seemed on more than one occasion to be fulfilling his command to his disciples about turning one=s back on parents and other relatives (cf. Lk 14:26). At the marriage at Cana Jesus seemed to speak coldly to his mother. She seems not to have been present at the Last Supper. Only at Calvary was Mary permitted to stand beside her now dying Son, along with Athe disciple whom Jesus loved@ (John 19:26); deliberately unnamed, many Scripture scholars believe, to represent the ideal follower of Jesus Christ in every time and place.
The last glimpse we have of Mary in Scripture shows her with the apostles and Jesus= other friends, praying for the descent of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14). Thereafter Mary disappears. Her work of bringing Christ to the world was taken over by the Church. From her place in heaven this woman whose life began and ended in obscurity continues to answer the prayer which Catholics have prayed for two millennia: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.”