Friday, November 28, 2014

"THEY WILL LOOK UPON HIS FACE."



Homily for November 29th, 2014: Revelation 22:1-7.
          On this last weekday of the Christian year the Church gives us a reading from the last book of the Bible, called Revelation or Apocalypse. It is a notoriously difficult book, filled with symbols. The number seven, for instance, symbolizing fullness and perfection, occurs 54 times in the book. The number twelve, recalling the twelve tribes of Israel, having reached their final perfection in heaven, occurs 23 times. Revelation has given rise to innumerable fantastic interpretations by people who do not realize that it is poetry, not prose. When the Scottish poet Robert Burns writes, “My Love’s like a red, red rose” he is not saying that she has petals and thorns (which would be literalist reading). He is using poetic language to praise her beauty.
          Much of Revelation describes, again in poetic language, the worship of God in heaven. Today’s first reading for instance, speaks of a life-giving river, flowing from the throne of God “and the Lamb,” a reference to the risen and glorified Lord Jesus, now seated at the Father’s right hand. This river nourishes life-giving trees which bear fruit “twelve times a year, once each month.” And the leaves of these trees “serve as medicine for the nations.” God, the author is telling us, is the source of all life, and of all healing.
          “His servants will worship him,” the author says. “They will look upon his face.” That is remarkable. In the prologue to John’s gospel we read, “No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, ever at the Father’s side, who has revealed him.” (1:18). Not even Moses was allowed to see God’s face, though he asked for this privilege. “My face you cannot see,” God told him. “for no one sees me and still lives. … When my glory passes I will set you in the hollow of the rock and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand, so that you may see my back; but my face you cannot see.” (Exod. 33:20-23)

In heaven, however, we shall see God’s face. That is why in the great Eucharistic Prayer, after praying for our departed loved ones, the celebrating priest prays in the name of us all: “Welcome them into the light of your face.” That, friends, is the privilege God promises for each one of us. And the only thing that can prevent us from receiving this privilege is our own deliberate and final No.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

'MY WORDS WILL NOT PASS AWAY."



Homily for November 28th, 2014: Luke 21:29-33.
          On this next to last day of the year in the Church’s calendar, she gives us Jesus’ words: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Remembering the boy Samuel’s words in the Jerusalem Temple, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam. 3:10), we listen to some of Jesus’ words.
-  To Mary and Joseph, thankful to have found their Son in the Temple after a frantic search, the 12-year-old boy speaks his first recorded words: “Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Lk. 2:49) Already, at age 12, Jesus knows that his Father is God, and not Joseph.
-  What gospel reader does not recall Jesus’ words to Nicodemus: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not die, but may have eternal life”? (Jn. 3:16)
-  Which of us has not found comfort in the words: “Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Mt. 11:28ff)?
-  Unforgettable too are Jesus’ words of the terrified young girl just delivered from death by stoning for adultery: “Nor do I condemn you. You may go. But from now on avoid this sin.” (Jn. 8:11)
-  Jesus’ seven last words from the cross have provided inspiration for uncounted thousands of preachers on Good Friday. AFather, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.@ (Lk 23:34) To the penitent thief, crucified next to him: AToday you shall be with me in paradise (Lk 23:43). AWoman, there is your son …son, there is your mother.@ (Jn. 26: 19f). AMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?@ ( Mk. 15:34) AI thirst.@ (Jn. 19:28) “It is finished.” (Jn. 19:30)
-  Finally Jesus’ words to Mary Magdalene in he garden of the resurrection: “Do not cling to me … Rather, go to my brothers …) Jn. 20:17.
          Jesus is saying the same to us, right now. 

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

THANKSGIVING DAY



Homily for November 27th, 2014: Thanksgiving Day.
          On this Thanksgiving Day I’d like to tell you about something the Lord moved me to do on my 13th birthday, in May 1941. It has been a source of great blessing to me ever since. I visited the chapel of the small and very spartan Connecticut boarding school where I was being educated. Kneeling, or perhaps sitting, in the presence of the Lord in the Tabernacle, I wrote down a list of all the things I was thankful for. I continued this practice on my birthday for a number of years thereafter. The list was always a long one. And it was never difficult to compile. It always brought me joy.
It is decades since I have used my birthday to compile that list of blessings. But that boyhood practice has made thanksgiving central in my life, and in my prayer. If you are looking right now at a happy man, and a happy priest -- and I can assure you that you are – it is because I have trained myself to say every day, more times than I could ever tell you: “Lord, you’re so good to me. And I’m so grateful.”
And now I have a suggestion for you. Before you start to eat your Thanksgiving dinner today, go round the table and ask each person, young or old, to say at least one thing that he or she is thankful for. You may hear some surprises. Whether you do or not, I promise you one thing that a richly blessed life of more than 86 years has taught me. Thankful people are happy people – no exceptions!

“BE WATCHFUL! BE ALERT!”



First Sunday in Advent, Year B, 2011. Mark 13:33-37
AIM: To help the hearers understand the riches of the Mass.

          “Be watchful!” Jesus tells us in the gospel. “Be alert!” That is the message of Advent, a word which means “coming.” In Advent we are alert and watchful for three comings of the Lord: his first coming at Bethlehem, in weakness (as every baby is weak) and in obscurity: the only people who showed up to celebrate were some shepherds, and three crackpot astrologers from God knows where. Advent also reminds us to be watchful and alert for Christ’s final coming at the end of time, in an event so powerful that everyone will know that history’s last hour has struck. And between these there is a third, intermediate coming, here and now.
Like his first coming at Bethlehem, it is hidden and obscure. Yet like Christ’s final coming, this intermediate coming is a thing of power. It is what Jesus had in mind when he told us: “Anyone who loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him; we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn. 14:23).
          Let me start with the question –
Why do we worship?
          We do not celebrate the liturgy for personal inspiration or uplift; to give us or others a nice warm feeling inside or “a meaningful worship experience,” to use modern jargon. Those things may happen, or they may not. None of them, however, is the purpose of our worship. St. Thomas Aquinas places worship under the heading of justice. It is something we owe to God, who has given us everything we have and are – our sins excepted: they are all our own. The Preface to each of the Eucharistic Prayers expresses this truth when it says: “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.”
          Sometimes people complain that they don’t “get anything” out of Mass. The proper answer that is: “So what?” We’re not here to get. We’re here to give – to give thanks, to praise and adore. The liturgy turns us away from self, toward God. And only when God is at the center of our lives can we have any chance at true happiness and fulfillment. St. Augustine tells us why when he says – and he was speaking from his own experience of life: “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Or, to put it in terms which young people today understand best: We are hard-wired for God.
          Note how we begin Mass: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” I can never say those words without being inwardly moved. They remind us that we gather in the name of a God whose inner law is self-giving love: the Father pours out his love for the Son; the Son returns this love to the Father; and the love who binds them together is the Holy Spirit. As we begin Mass we are drawn into this love, into God.
          But which of us is worthy to stand before the all-holy God? That is why we immediately confess our sins. “Lord, have mercy,” we pray. We appeal to God because we can never rid ourselves of sin on our own. Only God can do that. After that comes, except in Advent and Lent, the Gloria, the great hymn of praise to God. This is followed by the opening prayer of the Mass, called the Collect, because it collects the petitions of each of us, and offers them to God.
          Then we sit down to listen to the word of God, messages from a world very different from this one, from our true homeland. When we come to the gospel we stand, acknowledging that now Jesus himself is speaking to us: calling us back to him when we have strayed, filling our mouths with laughter and our tongues with joy (to quote the psalmist), when the sunshine of God’s love shines upon us. In the Creed which follows we profess our Christian and Catholic faith. The Petitions which follow remind us that ours is not a private, me-and-God religion. We are members of a family, taught by Jesus in the one prayer he gave us to say not “My Father, but “Our Father.”
          We move on then to the Offertory. But what can we offer God? He needs nothing. He is, as the theologians say, “sufficient unto himself.” The fourth weekday Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer says: “You have no need of our praise, yet our thanksgiving is itself your gift, since our praises add nothing to your greatness, but profit us for salvation.” Thanksgiving profits us for salvation, because the act of giving thanks involves an acknowledgement that we are God’s creatures, dependent on him at every moment for our continued existence. And whatever we give to God, without any thought of return is not lost. It comes back to us, transformed.
          The transformation of our gifts takes place in the Eucharistic prayer or Consecration. It begins with the Sanctus or Holy, Holy, in which we pray that “our voices may join with theirs” – with the angels whom Isaiah at his call heard singing “Holy” three times over, because God, though one, is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The priest then prays for the descent of the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine we have offered. He recites the narrative of the Last Supper, using Jesus’ own words. And the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of our crucified and risen Lord. Jesus himself is truly present. Present also is the sacrifice he offered at the Last Supper and consummated on Calvary. This means that we are truly there: in the Upper Room with Jesus and his apostles, and with Mary and the beloved disciple at the cross, with but one exception: we cannot see him with our bodily eyes, but we do see him with the eyes of faith – and seeing, we adore.
          Following the Communion, the Mass closes with the blessing; and then perhaps the most important word of all, apart from Jesus’ words over the bread and wine: the little word, Go.
Go forth, the Mass is ended.
Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.
Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.
Go in peace.
So much beauty, so much drama, so much holiness, so much joy! Do we ever stop to realize it, and truly worship?
          Let me close with a personal testimony. I have wanted to be a priest since I was twelve years old. I’ve never wanted anything else. What drew me to priesthood above all was the Mass. Every time I served Mass, from age twelve onward, I thought: One day I’ll stand there. I’ll wear those vestments. I’ll say those words. On the 4th of April this year it was be 60 years since that boyhood dream was fulfilled. It was wonderful then. It is, if possible, even more wonderful today.
          When I climb the steps to the altar, I think often of God’s words to Moses at the burning bush: “Take off your shoes from your feet; for the place where you stand is holy ground.” In India, which I have visited twice, the priest does that literally. Before every Mass I celebrated in India, I removed my shoes.
I’m not ashamed to tell you,  friends, that many times, as I bow to kiss the altar at the start of Mass, there are tears in my eyes, and a catch in my throat as I think: This is what I have wanted to do since I was twelve years old. If you ever notice me breaking off in the middle of a sentence, unable to go on, that’s the reason.
When I look around, I see men in their thirties and beyond who still don’t know what to do with the one life that God has given each of us. And I have the privilege of doing what I’ve always wanted to do – something of which no man is worthy – not the holiest priest you know, not the bishop, not even the Pope; a privilege extended to us not because we’re good enough, but because God loves us; and because he wants to use us to serve and to feed you, his holy people, from these twin tables of word and sacrament.
          Do you understand now why I tell you again, as I have told you so many times before, that I say every day, more times than I could ever tell you: “Lord, you’re so good to me. And I’m so grateful.”
Friends, if I were to die tonight, I would die a happy man.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

"THEY WILL SEIZE AND PERSECUTE YOU."



Homily For November 26th, 2014: Luke 21:12-19.
         Was that just in ancient times? No. The persecution of which Jesus speaks in today’s gospel continues today. Here is just one example.
        On the 4th of this month a Muslim mob in eastern Pakistan severely beat a Christian couple accused of burning pages of the Koran and then incinerated them in a brick kiln. Shama Bibi, who was four months pregnant, and her husband Shahbaz Masih were bonded laborers at a brick factory. They had 4 children at home.
        Their brutal murder followed in the wake of a court decision last month that condemned a Christian woman to death, Asia Bibi, who was convicted of blasphemy in 2010. Since the 1990s, a number of Christians have been charged with desecrating the Koran or of committing blasphemy. While some sentences have been overturned due to lack of evidence, even a mere accusation of blasphemy can incite mob violence.
        Dominican Father James Channan, O.P., Director of the Peace Center in Pakistan commented: “The barbaric act by fanatic Pakistani Muslims of burning alive a poor Christian couple was triggered by the false accusation of the burning of some pages of the Koran. Muslims and Christians alike are victimized by controversial blasphemy laws that stipulate life imprisonment for desecrating the Koran and the death sentence for defaming or insulting the Prophet of Islam. These laws are often used to settle personal scores. In any case, who in their sound mind would burn pages of the Koran or insult the dignity of the Prophet Mohammed?
        “Most problematic is that these laws are very vague; plus most Pakistanis are illiterate—hence, the application of the law is very easily abused, with people taking matters into their own hands. Extremist Muslims, incited by mere accusations, have murdered other Muslims as well as Christians. But the Christian community is most vulnerable, since an accusation leveled against a single individual can provoke violence aimed at his or her family as well as the entire local community. Homes are seized, churches are burned down, and people are killed. Once a person is accused, his or her life in Pakistan has become impossible. Even if the courts eventually declare an individual innocent, radical Muslims may still murder the person, which is considered an act worthy of praise."
        Seldom do we hear of these atrocities in this land of the free. Our media, already hostile to Christian faith, are not interested. All the more reason, therefore, to pray for our fellow Christians in a world which has become, once again, an age of martyrs. 

Monday, November 24, 2014

"MIGHTY SIGNS FROM THE SKY."



Homily for November 25th, 2014: Luke 21:5-11.
          Our gospel reading today is about what is called the “End Time.” This Temple which you are looking at, Jesus tells his hearers, will not always be here. It will all be torn down one day. Shocked, the hearers want to know when this will happen. What sign will there be that the end is coming?
People have been asking that question ever since. Jesus never answered it. As I told you two weeks ago, there is a passage in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus says that even he has no timetable. “As for the exact day or hour, no one knows it, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father only” (Mt. 24:36).  
          One piece of information Jesus does give. The end of all things, and Jesus’ return in glory, will be preceded by disturbing signs. Jesus mentions some of them in today’s gospel: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.” Jesus is using poetic, dramatic language to describe a world in ferment, and coming apart at the scenes. Who can doubt that we are living in just such a world today?
          Should these signs make us fearful and anxious? Not if we are living for the Lord God, and for others. Let me tell you about a man who did that. His name was Basil Hume, a Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey in the north of England. The 3 English monks who founded St. Louis Abbey and the Priory School on Mason Road came from there over 50 years ago. Basil Hume was their Abbot when Pope Paul VI reached over the heads of all the English bishops to make him Archbishop of Westminster and later a cardinal. In June 1999, when he knew he was dying of cancer, Cardinal Basil wrote these words:
                   “We each have a story, or part of one at any rate, about which we have never been able to speak to anyone. Fear of being misunderstood. Inability to understand. Ignorance of the darker side of our hidden lives, or even shame, make it very difficult for many people. Our true story is not told, or, only half of it is. What a relief it will be to whisper freely and fully into the merciful and compassionate ear of God. That is what God has always wanted. He waits for us to come home. He receives us, his prodigal children, with a loving embrace. In that embrace we start to tell him our story. I now have no fear of death. I look forward to this friend leading me to a world where I shall know God and be known by Him as His beloved son.”

Sunday, November 23, 2014

A WIDOW'S PITTANCE



Homily for November 24th, 2014: Luke 21:1-4.
In a society without today’s social safety net, a widow was destitute. For the widow in today’s gospel to give all that she had to live on for that day was, most people would say, irresponsible, even scandalous. God looks, however, not at the outward action, but at the heart. For God what counts, therefore, is not the size of the gift, but its motive. The wealthy contributors were motivated at least in part by the desire for human recognition and praise. The widow could expect no recognition. Her gift was too insignificant to be noticed. For God, however, no gift is too small provided it is made in the spirit of total self-giving that comes from faith and is nourished by faith.
Jesus recognizes this generosity in the widow. Even the detail that her gift consists of two coins is significant. She could easily have kept one for herself. Prudence would say that she should have done so. She refuses to act out of prudence. She wants to give totally, trusting in God alone. That is why Jesus says that she has given Amore than all the others.@ They calculated how much they could afford to give. In the widow=s case calculation could lead to only one conclusion: she could not afford to give anything. Her poverty excused her from giving at all. She refuses to calculate. She prefers instead to trust in Him for whom, as the angel Gabriel told a young Jewish teenager named Mary, Anothing is impossible@ (Luke 1:38)
This poor widow shows us better than long descriptions what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. True discipleship will always seem foolish, even mad, to those who live by worldly wisdom. This poor widow had a wisdom higher than the wisdom of this world: the wisdom of faith. With her small gift she takes her place alongside the other great biblical heroes of faith, from Abraham to Mary, who set their minds first on God=s kingdom, confident that their needs would be provided by Him who (as Jesus reminds us) Aknows that you have need of these things@ (Luke 12:30). This widow is also one of that Ahuge crowd which no one can count@ (Rev. 7:9) whom we celebrated on All Saints= Day B those whose faith inspired them to sacrifice all for Jesus Christ, and who in so doing received from him the Ahundredfold reward@ that he promised (Mark 10:30).
Now, in this hour, Jesus is inviting each one of us to join that happy company: to sacrifice all, that we may receive all. He challenges us to begin today!