Friday, July 10, 2015

ST. BENEDICT


Homily for July 11th, 2015: 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. One of them, 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.”       

Thursday, July 9, 2015

SEEKING SERVICE, NOT HONOR.


Homily for July 25th, 2015: Matthew 20:20-28.
         “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,” Jesus says in today’s gospel. It is his response to the request made by the mother of the brothers James and John that he give them places of special honor in his kingdom. The petition may have come from the mother. It is clear, however, that she had the full backing of her two sons. For when Jesus asks if they can share the chalice of pain and suffering from which he will drink, the two brothers respond eagerly, “We can.” They have no idea, of course, what lies ahead for the Master they love and revere.
        It quickly becomes clear that the other disciples are equally clueless. They become indignant at James and John for staking out a claim before the other disciples can assert theirs. Patiently Jesus explains that this whole contest for honor is totally unacceptable among his followers. “Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.” And immediately Jesus ratifies this teaching with his own example: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

          We all need a measure of recognition and affirmation. But if finding that is central in your life, I’ll promise you one thing. You’ll never get enough -- and you'll always be frustrated. Look, rather, for opportunities to serve others and you will find happiness: here and now in this world -- and in the next the joy of eternal life with the Lord who tells us, later in this gospel according to Matthew: “Whatever you do for one of these least brothers or sisters of mine, you do for me.”  

"YOU WILL BE HATED BY ALL."


Homily for July 10th, 2015: Matthew 10:16-23.

          A priest fifteen or perhaps more years ordained, told me recently that he was concerned about the overly rosy image of priesthood being offered to today’s seminarians. The recruitment material sent out by Vocation Directors is full of success stories. The photos on the websites of today’s seminaries show young men laughing, smiling, and joking. None of this is false. Thousands of priests testify to the joy of serving God and his holy people as a priest. I’m happy to be one of them. The late Chicago priest-sociologist and novelist Fr. Andrew Greely said: “Priests who like being priests are among the happiest men in the world.” And he cited sociological surveys to back up this statement.

          The result of all this happy talk, my priest-friend told me, was that young priests who have a bad day, a bad week, or who encounter rejection or failure, start thinking that perhaps they have chosen the wrong vocation and should abandon priesthood. Jesus never promised his disciples that they would have only joy, success, and happiness. Our gospel reading today is about the price of discipleship. “You will be hated by all because of my name,” Jesus says. Only after these words warning about the cost of discipleship does he proclaim the good news: “But whoever endures to the end will be saved.”

Friends, the days of socially respected Catholicism are over. Powerful forces and currents in our society press us to be ashamed of the Gospel — ashamed of our faith’s teachings on the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions, ashamed of our faith’s teachings on marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Our courts, the entertainment industry, and the powerful shapers of opinion in today’s media, insist that the Church’s teachings are out of date, retrograde, insensitive, uncompassionate, illiberal, bigoted. They insist day in and day out that we who defend Church teaching are hateful people. They threaten us with consequences if we refuse to call what is good evil, and what is evil good. They command us to conform our thinking to their orthodoxy, or else say nothing at all.

Speaking a few years ago to a group of priests about the increasing secularization of our society, the late Cardinal George of Chicago said, in what he later admitted was an “overly dramatic fashion”: “I expect to die in bed; my successor will die in prison; and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.” Mostly omitted by those who quote these words, is the good news which the cardinal spoke in conclusion: “His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.”

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

SOCIAL JUSTICE


15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year B. Amos 7:12-15; Mark 6:7-13

AIM: To show the nature and need of prophecy, and of repentance. 

Should the Church get involved in politics? Many people say, ANo way. Religion and politics don=t mix.@ Others disagree. A religion, they say, that is unwilling to leave the four walls of the church and go out into the public square is irrelevant to real life. Whenever fundamental moral issues are at stake, these people maintain, the Church must get involved. Otherwise the Church risks being untrue to its Lord and his message.

But which political issues actually do involve moral issues important enough to justify the Church=s involvement? Is capital punishment such an issue? What about the decision of our government to invade Iraq? The Pope opposed both. So did the American bishops. Ironically, many of those who welcomed Church protests against capital punishment and the Iraq war insist that Church leaders keep silence about the imposition of capital punishment on society=s weakest and most defenseless members: babies in their mothers= wombs. They defend war against the unborn as a sacred right enshrined, they say, in our country=s Constitution C even though no one discovered it there until 1973.  

Our first reading today introduces a religious figure who was severely condemned for involvement in politics. Like his countryman, Jesus, centuries later, Amos was a layman with no professional training for religious office. AI was no prophet nor have I belonged to the company of prophets,@ Amos told the priest in charge of the sanctuary at Bethel. God called Amos while he was still a shepherd and farmer, and commanded him: AGo, prophesy to my people Israel.@

God gave Amos no crystal ball to predict the future. That is not the prophet=s task. Instead Amos, like all true prophets, was summoned to speak Aa word of the Lord@ to the people of his day: to warn, to admonish, to rebuke, and to encourage. As a simple countryman, living close to nature, Amos was scandalized by his glimpses of city life during his visits to market. He records what he saw there: wealthy, callous plutocrats, overfed and over-housed, spending their time thinking up new ways to amuse and enrich themselves. Meanwhile poor peasants like Amos, burdened with debt, could be sold into slavery for the price of a pair of sandals. 

Amos saw this glaring social injustice compounded at the religious sanctuaries. There he found prosperous worshipers rejoicing in their good fortune, which they interpreted as proof of God=s favor. To this rotten and decaying society the official prophets and priests had nothing to say but what a later prophet, Isaiah, would call Asmooth words and seductive visions@ (Is. 30:10) C rather like certain religious speakers at prayer breakfasts of political and business leaders today.

Without mincing his words, Amos pronounced his society ripe for God=s judgment. Here is a sample of his message: AHear this, you who trample upon the needy ... >When will the new moon be over,= you ask, >that we may sell our grain? ...We will fix our scales for cheating! We will buy the poor man for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!= The Lord has sworn ... Never will I forget a thing they have done! ... I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation.@ (Amos 8:4-10) Those are strong words. No wonder that the priest, Amaziah, roundly condemned Amos for this unwelcome message, and for daring to speak at all in a place of religious pilgrimage without permission. With the contempt of the religious functionary for the upstart outsider Amaziah tells Amos: AOff with you, visionary ... Never again prophesy in Bethel; for it is the king=s sanctuary and a royal temple.@

In the gospel we heard Jesus telling his disciples they would face similar rejection, and how to behave when they did: AWhatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.@ Rejection was sure to come because of the message Jesus gave them. AThey went off,@ the gospel says, Aand preached repentance.@ Repentance is never a popular message. In the Bible the word means more than regret for past actions which we see, by hindsight, were wrong. Repentance means a fundamental change of direction. It means turning around from self to God. Repentance means putting God at the center of life rather than somewhere out on the fringe.

If Amos were to come back today, what are some of the things he would denounce in our society and tell us we needed to repent of? Here is a short list.

One which was often mentioned by our recent Holy Fathers, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict, and by Pope Francis today, is consumerism. This is the false idea that we can buy happiness by amassing more and more possessions. A whole industry exists to promote this idea: advertising. Advertising which tells us where we can get things we need, at prices we can afford, is useful. But advertising designed to kindle desire for things we never knew we needed until we saw the ad is questionable at least. 

Something else which cries out for repentance is hedonism: the mindless philosophy that says, AIf it feels good, do it.@ Hedonism wrecks lives, relationships, and marriages, every day. And it is hedonism which lies at the heart of the recent Supreme Court decision, that marriage can mean whatever we choose it to mean.

We need to repent also of the hard-hearted selfishness which ignores the needs of the poor and oppressed in our midst; or which thinks that our obligation to them can be discharged by gifts to charity from our surplus goods, with no examination of unjust conditions in society that cause poverty and oppression. 

We need to repent too of an over-spiritualized religion which is concerned only with saying prayers and getting into heaven; and which ignores the challenge which Jesus gave us in his model prayer: AYour will be done on earth as it is in heaven.@ Those words challenge us to build colonies of heaven here on earth C by living not just for ourselves, but for God and for others. 

That is a short though incomplete list of the demons mentioned at the end of our gospel reading against which Jesus sends us today. Demons so powerful, and so pervasive, can be driven out by one thing alone: repentance. And the repentance to which Jesus summons us is not somewhere else, tomorrow. It is here, and it is now. And repentance begins not with someone else. If it is begin at all, repentance must begin with ourselves.

FREELY YOU HAVE RECEIVED, FREELY GIVE.


Homily for July 9th, 2015: 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 awards 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 is God’s gift. There is one exception: our sins. They are all our own. Everything else comes ultimately from God – 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 all need to 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 reading 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 7, 2015

JESUS SUMMONS TWELVE


Homily for July 8th, 2015: 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 more particularly 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 learned or sophisticated. 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. Indeed he often calls people who are, humanly speaking, unfit. 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 sends 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 6, 2015

PRAY THE LORD TO SEND LABORERS


Homily for July 7th, 2015: 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 on the one hand, and his call to others to share in this compassionate care of God’s people. 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 Jesus' 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 recruiting 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 5, 2015

JESUS' RESPONSE TO FAITH


Homily for July 6th, 2015: 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  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).