Friday, January 2, 2015

THE HOLY NAME OF JESUS


Homily for January 3rd, 2015: The Holy Name of Jesus.
          We celebrate today the Holy Name of Jesus, a word which means “God saves. “The Catechism says: “To pray ‘Jesus’ is to invoke him and to call him within us.” The Catechism adds that the repetition of this name, as a prayer, is possible at all times, “because it is not one occupation among others, but the only occupation: that of loving God, which animates and transfigures every action in Christ Jesus.” (Nos. 2666 & 2668).
Soon after I entered seminary, 67 years ago, I resolved to pray the holy name of Jesus every time I went up or downstairs. I say “Jesus” at every step. This is my way of fulfilling St. Paul’s command to “pray always” (1 Thess. 5:17). It reminds me that I am always in the presence of God. The blessings which this brings are beautifully described in some hymn verses, written over 200 years ago in England.
 
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds / in a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds / and drives away his fear.



It makes the wounded spirit whole / And calms the troubled breast;
’Tis manna to the hungry soul / And to the weary rest. 


Dear name, the rock on which I build / My shield and hiding-place,
My never-failing treasure filled / with boundless stores of grace.


Jesus, my Shepherd, Guardian, Friend, My Prophet, Priest, and King,
my Lord, My Life, my Way, My End / Accept the praise I bring.


Weak is the effort of my heart / And cold my warmest thought;
But when I see thee as thou art, / I’ll praise thee as I ought.


Till then I would thy love proclaim / with every fleeting breath;
And may the music of thy name / Refresh my soul in death.
J.Newton, 1725-1807
 
 

Thursday, January 1, 2015

"I AM THE VOICE . . . "


Homily for January 2nd, 2015: John 1:19-28.

          The preaching of John the Baptist, accompanied by mass baptisms, created a sensation. Great numbers went out into the desert, where John lived, to hear him and to be baptized by him. (Cf. Matt. 3:5) The Jewish Scriptures, which we call the Old Testament, speak in several places of the Lord taking away sins by the pouring of water. It is understandable, therefore, that the religious authorities in Jerusalem send messengers to John to ask what is going on, and what is his authority.       

          John’s response to their questions is simple: “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” These words hark back to a passage in the prophet Isaiah: “A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be laid low.” (Is. 40:3f)  Isaiah’s words were directed to his people in exile in Babylonian. The angels, Isaiah told his people, were preparing a way for them to return from captivity to their homeland in Palestine.

“Like a modern bulldozer, the angels were to level hills and fill in valleys, and thus prepare a superhighway. John the Baptist is to prepare a road, not for God’s people to return to the promised land [as in Isaiah’s day], but for God to come to his people. John’s baptizing and preaching in the desert was opening up people’s hearts, leveling their pride, filling their emptiness, and thus preparing them for God’s intervention.” (Cited from Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John, p.50)

John, as we saw before Christmas, was a voice for the one who is the Word: God’s personal communication to us, to show us, who cannot see God, what God is like. John’ message is still preparing people’s hearts and minds to encounter God’s Son and Word. He does so in what were perhaps the greatest of the Baptist’s words: “He must increase. I must decrease.” (John 3:30) Take those words with you into the year that is just one day old today. Let them be your guide during the remaining 364 days of this year. They will keep you close to the One who alone can make this a happy year for you. “He must increase. I must decrease.”    

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, MYRRH




Epiphany, Year B. Mt.2:1-12

AIM: To show how Jesus’ roles as king, priest, and sacrifice, prefigured in the Magi’s gifts, are the model for our lives.

         

          Who were these Magi? Where did they come from? We do not know. On the level of history, the story we have just heard is shrouded in mystery. When we move to the spiritual level, however, the mystery falls away. The gifts which the Magi offered tell us a great deal about Mary’s child. The Magi offered him:

          gold for a king —  incense for a priest — and myrrh for his burial.

Jesus was a king. 

          Yet Jesus was different from all other kings known to history. Asked by Pilate whether he was “King of the Jews,” Jesus was reluctant to claim the title (Jn. 18:33-8). Unlike all other kings, Jesus was never interested in amassing possessions and wealth. He had no palace, not even a fixed abode (cf. Lk 9:58).  He never lorded it over people. Jesus was a shepherd-king who came, he said, “not to be served, but to serve” (Mk 10:45), even to the extent of laying down his life for his sheep (cf. Jn. 10:11).  Yet —

Jesus was also a priest. 

          A priest is a man for others; someone set apart to offer God prayer, praise, and sacrifice on behalf of others. From antiquity the smoke of incense, curling heavenward, has symbolized this priestly activity. From a purely utilitarian point of view, judged by results, burning incense is a sheer waste. So is prayer, if we judge it by measurable, visible results. A skeptic, seeing a priest praying the Breviary, the Church’s daily offering of prayer and praise to God, asked: “How do you know anyone is listening?” Without faith, that question is unanswerable. You cannot prove that anyone is listening. With faith, however, no proof is necessary. 


          Jesus exercised his priesthood in those nights of solitary prayer which we read about in the gospels. He was no less a priest, however, when he healed the sick, consoled the sorrowing, and comforted people weighed down by suffering and sin. The supreme example of Jesus’ priesthood came, however —

On the cross 

          where Jesus offered his heavenly Father not merely the prayer of his lips and his heart, but his very life. To anyone without faith the cross is a scandalous waste and utter defeat. For those with faith, however, the cross is the place of ultimate victory. The most eloquent symbol of this victory is the empty tomb of Easter morning, which shows that the power of death and evil has been broken.  Because of the sacrifice offered on Calvary by Jesus, our shepherd-king and priest, evil cannot control or master us, unless we consent.  

          The Magi’s gifts foretold all this: gold for a king, incense for a priest, myrrh for his burial. Jesus shares these three functions with us. Paul says that Jesus is “the first-born of many brothers” (Rom 8:29). In baptism we became members of his family, his sisters, his brothers. We share with Jesus, our elder brother, the functions of king, priest, and sacrifice.  

          Like Christ, our shepherd-king, we too are called to serve others. That was Jesus’ explicit command to his disciples when, at the Last Supper, they argued about “who should be regarded as the greatest” (Lk 22:24-26). The noblest of the Pope’s many titles is “Servant of the servants of God.” Whenever popes have lived that title, and inspired others to similar lives of service, the Church has enjoyed spiritual health. Whenever popes and the Church have neglected the servant role, the Church has become weak, flabby, and sick — no matter how much wealth, privilege and power it may have amassed.

          We younger sisters and brothers of Jesus share also in his priestly role.  Like him, we are called to be people of prayer. Prayer is the soul’s breath and food. I was only a schoolboy when I discovered that when I neglected prayer, my grades suffered and my life began to fall apart. I’ve never forgotten that. As sharers of Christ’s priesthood, we are called to bring the love, healing, and power of God to others. We do so not by so much by words — for words are cheap, and our world is inundated by words — as by the force of our example. “Your light must shine before others,” Jesus says, “so that they may see goodness in your acts and give praise to your heavenly Father” (Mt. 5:16).

          Finally, we are called to share in Jesus’ death. God asks us to die daily to the selfishness and self-centeredness that lurk within each of us. And one day God will ask us to give back to him the precious gift of life itself, so that he can raise us to enjoy with Jesus, our elder brother, new, eternal life with God: a life without suffering, without sorrow, without frustration and disappointment, without loneliness, and without sin.  

          The Magi offered Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh: the best and most costly gifts they had. Somewhere in this church right now there is someone who is longing to do the same. And yet, when you look at your life, you seem to have so little to offer. When you look within, you see so many broken resolutions; good that you might have done and yet failed to do; evil that you could have avoided and did not. You wanted to give Jesus so much. What you have given him up to now is so little. You ask yourself: What can I give him?

          Over a century ago an English poet with an Italian name, Christina Georgina Rosetti, asked that question.  Her answer is beautiful.  Listen.

          What can I give him, poor as I am?

          If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

          If I were a wise man, I would do my part;

          Yet what I can I give him — give my heart.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

"THE WORD BECAME FLESH."


Homily for December 31st, 2014: John 1:1-18.
          If you came to Mass on Christmas morning, you probably heard this gospel. You may have thought it strange. Where are the shepherds, the manger, Mary and Joseph? Where is their child? Instead of these familiar Christmas figures we have heard about abstractions: light and darkness, the Word becoming flesh.
Let's start with another word: "incarnation."  It means "taking on flesh, embodiment." This building is the incarnation of an idea in the mind of the architect who designed it, and of the sacrifices that made its construction possible. Children are the incarnation of their parents' love. And Jesus is the incarnation of God. 
We cannot see God. Jesus shows us what God is like. That is why this Christmas gospel calls Jesus God's Word. A word is used to communicate. Jesus is God's word because he is God's communication to us: not a lifeless, abstract statement, but God's living and breathing utterance and self-disclosure.    
When we listen to Jesus, we hear God speaking to us. When we look at Jesus, we see what God is like. What do we see when we look at Jesus? We see that he preferred simple, ordinary people. He came to the world in a provincial village where nothing interesting or important ever happened. Jesus moved not among wealthy or sophisticated people, or among scholars and intellectuals, but among ordinary people. They were the ones who welcomed him most warmly.  The rich and powerful and learned had difficulties with Jesus. Many were hostile to him – then, and still today.
In his youth Jesus worked with his hands in the carpenter=s shop. His teaching was full of references to simple things: the birds of the air, the wind and the waves, the lilies of the field, the vine, the lost sheep, the woman searching for her one lost coin, leavening dough with yeast, the thief breaking in at night. Those were images that everyone could understand. Jesus also told stories: so simple that they capture the interest of children; yet so profound that learned scholars are still studying them today.
         In all these ways Jesus was showing us what God is like. He who is God=s utterance and word, God=s personal communication to us, is saying through all the circumstances of his life that God loves humble people. God is especially close to those who feel that they are not in control of their lives; that they are the victims of circumstances; that their lives are a tangle of loose ends and broken resolutions.
        It is because God gave us his Son at Christmas that we give gifts to one another. The greatest gift we can give cannot be bought in any store. It is the gift God gave us at Christmas: the gift of himself. Look at Mary's child: helpless, vulnerable, and weak, as all babies are. He is God's way of saying: 'This is how much the Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, loves you; enough to be become tiny, insignificant, vulnerable.' Jesus, the personal utterance and word of God, is God's gift to you. He wants you to share this gift with others.

Monday, December 29, 2014

MARY, WOMAN OF FAITH.

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.  Num. 6: 22-27; Gal. 4:4-7, Luke 2:16-21

AIM: To present Mary as the model of trusting faith in the new year.

 

          A new year! What will it bring? Some great success? Humiliating failure?  Unexpected happiness, or sudden loss? Dramatic change, or just more of the same? Illness, suffering, or death? We cannot know what the new year will bring. The one certain thing about the future is its uncertainty. 

          As we venture into the unknown, the Church gives us, on this New Year’s Day, a feast in honor of Mary, the Mother of God. Does this mean that Mary is as important as her Son, equal even with God? Of course not. A glance at today’s readings dispels any such idea at once.

          The first reading contains the beautiful formula of blessing that Jesus would have learned as a boy in the synagogue school at Nazareth. It remains today the common property of both Jews and Christians. The second reading mentions Mary, but does not name her. “When the fullness of time had come,” Paul writes, “God sent his Son, born of a woman ...” That was Paul’s way of saying that Jesus was truly and completely human, as he was also truly and completely God. The gospel mentions Mary twice, but tells us simply that she “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” 

          Why does the Church dedicate this first day of the new year in a special way to Mary? Because Mary is, in a unique way, the woman of faith. While only on the threshold of her teens, Mary was asked by God to venture into an unknown future, filled with suffering, the purpose and end of which she could not possibly understand in advance. We think of the angel’s message to Mary, that she was to be the mother of God’s Son, as something wonderful. To Mary, however, it meant being an unmarried mother in a little village, where everyone knew everyone else’s business, and where gossip was rife.

          Did Mary understand the reason for the angel’s message, and where her assent would lead? How could she? Luke tells us that even years later, when Mary and Joseph found their twelve-year-old son in the Temple at Jerusalem after a frantic three-day search, they still “did not understand” Jesus’ words to them about having to be in his Father’s house (Lk 2:50).

          The faith which enabled Mary to accept her role in this mystery was no once-for-all thing. Her faith, like ours, needed to be constantly renewed amid suffering and misunderstanding. Joseph wanted to break their engagement. In the Jerusalem temple Mary heard the aged Simeon prophesy her Son’s rejection and his mother’s suffering. When her twelve-year-old Son told Mary and Joseph, who for three days had thought him lost in Jerusalem and sought him frantically, that he had to be in his Father’s house, Luke tells us that “they did not understand” what he was telling them. (Lk 2:50)

          There would be much more that Mary did not understand and could not understand. In time her Son left home. Often thereafter he seemed to be fulfilling his own command about “hating” parents and other close relatives, and one’s “own life too” (Lk 14:26). At Cana, the site of his first miracle, Jesus appeared to treat his mother with perplexing disrespect. Even at the Last Supper Jesus made no place, it seems, for his mother. Only at Calvary was she permitted to stand beside her now dying Son, along with “the disciple whom Jesus loved” — deliberately left anonymous, so that he can represent the ideal follower of Jesus Christ in every age and place. 

          There on Calvary Mary experienced the full truth of Simeon’s prophecy three decades before: that a sword would pierce her own soul. There she shared the anguish of her dying Son, as he cried: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Calvary was the final and greatest test of Mary’s faith, the place where she had to renew once again, as she had done so often before, the declaration of trusting faith with which she had begun: “Let it be done to me according to your word.”  

          The next three decades would bring Mary much more that she did not understand, and could not understand. She continued to trust God nonetheless. In trusting faith she endured her greatest suffering, and for her the most incomprehensible, as she watched her Son die a criminal’s death on Calvary. The final glimpse we have of Mary in the New Testament shows her to be still the woman of faith: joining with the friends of Jesus in prayer in the upper room at Jerusalem, before the outpouring of God’s Spirit at Pentecost, as Jesus had promised.  (Cf. Acts 1:24)

          The Church sets Mary before us today because she, like us, needed faith to journey into the unknown; because her faith can inspire in us the we faith we need for our journey into the unknown; and because Mary’s prayers support us on our pilgrim way. 

          Let me conclude with some words which evoke this trusting faith.  They were written in England about a century ago. As you listen, you may wish to imagine them being spoken to you by Mary, the woman of faith, as you cross the threshold of a new year.

          “And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light, and safer than a known way.’”

[M. Louise Haskins; quoted by King George VI in his Christmas broadcast, 1939]

JESUS' "HIDDEN YEARS."

Homily for December 30th, 2014: Luke 2:36-40.
          The prophetess Anna, whom we have just heard about in the gospel, was very old. “She never left the Temple, “Luke tells us, “but worshipped day and night with fasting and prayer.” There are such people in the Church today: contemplative nuns, who do not leave the convent for charitable or other good works, like most Catholic Sisters. They lead mostly hidden lives, praying for others.
          Anna has evidently been praying, as devout Jews had done for centuries, for the coming of God’s promised anointed servant, the Messiah. When Mary and Joseph brought their baby into the Temple to present him to the Lord, as the Jewish law required, both the priest Simeon and Anna recognized at once that this infant was the long awaited Messiah. How they most have rejoiced! Anna’s joy is evident in the fact that she cannot keep the news to herself. “She gave thanks to God,” Luke tells us, “and spoke about the child to all those who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.”
          Then comes what at first seems like an anti-climax. Mary and Joseph return to Nazareth with their child. Save for a glimpse of Jesus back in the Jerusalem Temple at age twelve, we know nothing about his boyhood, adolescence, or young manhood until, at age 30, he begins his public ministry with 40 days of fasting in the desert. These are his so-called “hidden years.”
          Are they really so hidden, however? “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” people in Nazareth will ask later (Mt. 13:55). So we can assume that as a boy, Jesus must have worked in the carpenter’s shop. Is it conceivable that any shoddy work came out of that shop? that customers were kept waiting beyond the promised date? Luke tells us that in that shop, Jesus “grew in size and strength, filled with wisdom.” He did that by accepting the burdens, duties, and frustrations of a very ordinary and outwardly uninteresting life.
He calls us to do the same.



Sunday, December 28, 2014

"WHOEVER HATES HIS BROTHER IS IN DARKNESS."


Homily for December 29th, 2014: 1 John 2:3-11.

          “I am the light of the world,” Jesus says in John’s gospel (8:12). How dark the world would be without him. In baptism we were commissioned to be lenses and prisms of that light, which shines from the face of Jesus Christ. In today’s first reading the apostle John tells us how we fulfill that commission. “Whoever loves his bother remains in the light . . . Whoever hates his brother is in darkness; he walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”

          To understand these words we need to know that the words “love” and “hate” here do not refer to feelings. They refer to our conduct. This becomes clear if we look at the words of Jesus himself in the parable of the sheep and the goats in chapter 25 of Matthew’s gospel. There Jesus says that when we come to stand before God in judgment, he won’t ask us how many prayers we’ve said, or how many Masses we have attended. He will ask instead how we have treated other people.

          To those on his right hand, designated as sheep in the story, the king (a stand-in for the Lord God) will say: “Come, you have my Father’s blessing! … For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, in prison and you come to me.” Astonished at these words, those on the king’s right hand ask when they had done all those things. To which the king responds: “As often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me.” 

Then, to those on his left hand, designated as goats in the story, the king says: “Out of my sight, you condemned, into that everlasting fire prepared for the devil and has angels!” To explain this harsh judgment the king tells those on his left that they have done none of those things. Conduct and not feelings is the standard by which both are judged.

          We pray then in this Mass that when the Lord sends his angel to call us home to Him, he will find us walking in the light by doing good to those we encounter along life’s way.