Friday, December 25, 2015

"YOU WILL ALL BE HATED BECAUSE OF MY NAME."


Homily for Dec. 26th, 2015: Acts of the Apostles 6:8-10; 7:54-59; Mt. 10:17-22.

          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. All 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. You’re looking at one of them right now. 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. Both of today’s readings are about the price of discipleship. “You will be hated by all because of my name,” Jesus says at the end of today’s gospel. 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.”

          Christmas is a feast of joy, of course. But the day after Christmas year reminds us each year that this joy has a price. In a dispute with his enemies, the deacon Stephen, the Church’s first martyr, cries out: “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” Infuriated by the supposed blasphemy in those words, his enemies take Stephen outside the city and stone him to death. Omitted from our first reading are Stephen’s dying words: “Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge.” Jesus too suffered outside the city. Among his Last Words was the prayer: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

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.”

Thursday, December 24, 2015

"I MUST BE IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE."

Feast of the Holy Family. 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24; Luke 2:41-52.
AIM: To present the story of the boy Jesus in the Temple, and his return to Nazareth, as a model for our lives.
How much do we know about Jesus= childhood and youth? Apart from the story we have just heard in the gospel, nothing. He drops completely from view from the age of twelve until his baptism by his cousin, John, when B according to Luke=s gospel B Jesus was Aabout thirty years old@ (Luke 3:23). Three things in today=s gospel deserve consideration: Jesus= words to his parents; his return to Nazareth; and his mother=s reaction.
1.       ADid you not know that I must be in my Father=s house?@ Jesus asks his worried parents, worn out from a frantic three-day search for their twelve-year-old son. The question is Jesus= first recorded utterance in Luke=s gospel. He speaks the words in the building which, for all believing Jews of that day, including Jesus himself, was the earthly dwelling place of God. The Temple at Jerusalem was the most sacred shrine of the people God had chosen to be especially his own.
With Jesus= coming, however, God was creating a new dwelling place on earth: not a building of wood and stone, but the living flesh of the twelve-year-old boy who stood in that building and spoke of his need to be Ain my Father=s house.@  Later, at the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus would stand in the Temple again to prophesy its destruction and its raising up again Ain three days.@  (John 2:18) That prophecy was a scandal to Jesus= devout countrymen. Even his friends did not understand what Jesus was talking about until after his resurrection. Then, John tells us, they recalled the Master=s words and realized that he had been talking about Athe temple of his body@ (John 2:19-22).
Because Jesus is himself God=s temple, the dwelling place of God on earth, only one thing mattered for him: doing his Father=s will. How did Jesus come to recognize his unique status as God=s Son and earthly dwelling place? We do not know. Today=s gospel indicates, however, that he came to this recognition gradually. It says that he asked questions of the teachers in the Temple. Clearly he did not come into the world knowing all the answers. Like every other human child, Jesus had to learn. His humanity was no mere disguise. It was real. Like every one of us, Jesus learned things as he grew and developed. The wording of Jesus= question to his parents in our gospel indicates, however, that even at age twelve, he had at least an inkling that his relationship to God was unique. He does not speak, as he would later teach his followers to do in his model prayer, of AOur Father.@ He says instead, AI must be in my Father=s house.@ Here is what Pope Benedict says in his new book about the infancy narratives about this exchange between mother and son:
Jesus’ reply to his mother’s question is astounding: How so? You were looking for me? Did you not know where a child must be? That he must be in his father’s house, literally ‘in the things of  the Father, Jesus tells his parents: I am in the very place where I belong – with the Father, in his house. There are two principal elements to note in this reply. Mary had said: ‘Your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.’ Jesus corrects her: I am with my father. My father is not Joseph, but another – God himself. It is to him that I belong, and her I am with him. Could Jesus’ divine sonship be presented any more clearly? (p. 123f)
2.       This flash of youthful insight (if that is what it was) is immediately followed, however, by what looks like an anticlimax. Instead of remaining in his Father=s house at Jerusalem, Jesus returns to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph, to resume the normal life of a Jewish boy of his day. The great moment passes. Jesus surprises us.  He would continue to surprise people throughout his earthly life. He remains the master of surprise today.
Even to his closest friends Jesus was always something of a mystery. The gospels speak repeatedly of their failure to understand him. Jesus= friends began really to comprehend who he was, and what his life meant, only after the greatest of all his surprises: the empty tomb of Easter morning.
3.       One of those surprised by Jesus, and unable to understand him, was his own mother. Today=s gospel tells us that she and Joseph Adid not understand@ their son=s words about having to be Ain my Father=s house.@ Starting with the message from the angel Gabriel, that she was to be the mother of God=s Son, Mary received many messages about him: from the shepherds, recounting what the angels had told them; from those mysterious Awise men from the East@; from the prophecies of Simeon and Anna about her infant Son in this same Jerusalem Temple; from her husband=s dream warning of danger to their child and the need to flee to Egypt.
Despite all these messages, however, Mary would never fully understand her Son. Even for the woman who was closer to Jesus than anyone else on earth, Jesus remained shrouded in mystery. Like every human being before and since, Mary had to walk by faith, not by sight.
We must do the same. On this Sunday after Christmas, the last in 2012, the old year is almost gone. In a few hours we shall cross the threshold of a new year.  What will it bring? We cannot know. Conceivably the year of grace 2013 could bring us some great experience B deeper insight, perhaps, into life=s meaning, or into God=s special purpose for the one life he has given us B something comparable to the insight given to the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Jerusalem Temple about the meaning and purpose of his life. If so, the experience will pass: for us, as it did for Jesus.
Jesus= brief moment of bright vision in the Temple was followed by the years of hidden labor in the carpenter=s shop at Nazareth. And it was there, in accepting the burdens, duties, and frustrations of a very ordinary and outwardly uninteresting life, that Jesus Aadvanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man,@ as Luke tells us at the end of today=s gospel.
Do you want to advance, as Jesus did? Which of us does not? We advance in age whether we wish it or not. Advancing in wisdom and favor before God and others, however, is not automatic. To do that we must do what Jesus did. We must be willing to let go of life=s great experiences, no matter how beautiful they may be.  We must accept the challenges, the duties, and the burdens which each day brings us. Never look back. Christmas is past. Look forward. The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to say: AThere are no plains in the spiritual life; either we are going up, or we are going down.@ He was right. 
Advancing in wisdom and favor before God and others means, above all, taking to heart the words of St. John in our second reading: AGod=s commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them. And the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.@

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

"THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH."


Christmas Mass during the day.  Heb. 1:1-6; John 1:1-18.
AIM: To explain the Incarnation and its significance for us.
It=s a strange gospel for Christmas, isn=t it? Where, we ask, 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: Aincarnation.@ It means Ataking on flesh,  embodiment.@ This building is the incarnation of an idea in the mind of the architect who designed it. It is the incarnation or embodiment too 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.  That was true then. It remains true today.
Jesus was of the earth, earthy. In his youth he 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 raging 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 taught also in parables: stories so simple that they capture the interest of children; yet so profound that learned scholars are still studying them today.
In preferring simple people and simple things, 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.
In his earthiness Jesus shows us God=s love for this world and everything in it. Often we think of God and religion as concerned only with some higher, spiritual realm. That is wrong! God loves the earth and the things of earth. He must love them, because he made them. And God does not make anything that is not lovable.  As John, the writer of today=s gospel, tells us in a later chapter: AGod so loved the world that he gave his only Son@ (Jn 3:16).
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.You cannot order it from an 800-number or over the Internet. You cannot wrap it. You cannot send it through the mail, by UPS or Federal Express. It is the gift God gave us at Christmas: the gift of himself. Even as a baby Jesus is God=s personal word and communication to us. In the words of our second reading, he is Athe refulgence [that means the shining forth] of [God=s] glory, the very imprint of his being.@
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. You do so when, like God himself, you give yourself to others: when, like Jesus, you too love the company of ordinary people; when, like him, you remain close to the earth and the things of earth.

In a few moments we shall be offered our greatest and most important Christmas gift: the body and blood of our Lord, of Jesus who is God=s personal word to each one of us. The consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist are Christ=s body and blood: all his power, all his goodness, all his love. He offers all this to us:

C       not as a reward for services rendered;

C       not because we are good enough (for none of us is);

C       but because he is so good that he wants to share his power, his goodness, and his love with us.

Jesus gives us this greatest of all gifts under one strict condition: that what we here receive, we generously share with others.     

"THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH."


Christmas Mass during the day.  Heb. 1:1-6; John 1:1-18.
AIM: To explain the Incarnation and its significance for us. 
It=s a strange gospel for Christmas, isn=t it? Where, we ask, 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: Aincarnation.@ It means Ataking on flesh,  embodiment.@ This building is the incarnation of an idea in the mind of the architect who designed it. It is the incarnation or embodiment too 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.  That was true then. It remains true today.
Jesus was of the earth, earthy. In his youth he 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 raging 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 taught also in parables: stories so simple that they capture the interest of children; yet so profound that learned scholars are still studying them today.
In preferring simple people and simple things, 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.
In his earthiness Jesus shows us God=s love for this world and everything in it. Often we think of God and religion as concerned only with some higher, spiritual realm. That is wrong! God loves the earth and the things of earth. He must love them, because he made them. And God does not make anything that is not lovable.  As John, the writer of today=s gospel, tells us in a later chapter: AGod so loved the world that he gave his only Son@ (Jn 3:16).
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. You cannot order it from an 800-number or over the Internet. You cannot wrap it. You cannot send it through the mail, by UPS or Federal Express. It is the gift God gave us at Christmas: the gift of himself. Even as a baby Jesus is God=s personal word and communication to us. In the words of our second reading, he is Athe refulgence [that means the shining forth] of [God=s] glory, the very imprint of his being.@
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. You do so when, like God himself, you give yourself to others: when, like Jesus, you too love the company of ordinary people; when, like him, you remain close to the earth and the things of earth.

In a few moments we shall be offered our greatest and most important Christmas gift: the body and blood of our Lord, of Jesus who is God=s personal word to each one of us. The consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist are Christ=s body and blood: all his power, all his goodness, all his love. He offers all this to us:

C       not as a reward for services rendered;
C       not because we are good enough (for none of us is);

C       but because he is so good that he wants to share his power, his goodness, and his love with us.

Jesus gives us this greatest of all gifts under one strict condition: that what we here receive, we generously share with others.     

WHAT THE SHEPHERDS FOUND


Christmas, at Dawn. Titus 3:4-7; Lk 2:15-20.
AIM: To instill a sense of wonder and joy at the incarnation. 
The world=s great religions, someone has said, are all about the same thing: our search for God. To this general statement there is an important exception.  Christianity, and its parent, Judaism, are concerned not with our search for God, but with God=s search for us. At Christmas we celebrate God=s search, and his coming to us, in a special way. The readings at this Mass give us answers to three important questions about God=s coming. They tell us how God comes, when he comes, and why.
How does God come?
He comes in very ordinary and humble circumstances, to very ordinary and humble people. There was nothing dramatic about the birth of Mary=s child at Bethlehem. Few people took any notice C only a few outsiders, and three crackpot eccentrics. 
Shepherds were outsiders in the ancient world. Without fixed abode, like gypsies today, they were mistrusted by respectable people. Since they frequently grazed their flocks on other people=s land, shepherds were considered too dishonest to be witnesses in court. Because their irregular lives made it impossible for them to observe the strict Sabbath and dietary laws, observant Jews held them in disdain.
The so-called Wise Men, whose visit we commemorate at Epiphany, were eccentrics: astrologers of some kind from God knows where, who set off on a madcap journey, following a star. We call them wise. To their contemporaries they were screwballs who were not playing with a full deck.
Nor was the scene which these visitors found at Bethlehem as attractive as we make it appear in our Christmas cards and cribs. If Jesus were born today, it would probably be in a cardboard shack with a roof of corrugated iron in Africa, or somewhere in Latin America, without electricity or water: smelly, drafty, and cold.
How does God come? He comes in ordinary and humble surroundings, to people who live on the margin of society. That is how God came on the first Christmas. It is how he comes today.
When does God come?
He comes when we least expect him C when people have given up expecting him altogether. Matthew and Luke emphasize Jesus= descent from the great King David, and Jesus= birth Ain David=s city@ (Mt 1:17; Lk 1:27, 2: 4 & 11). They wanted to show that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, whose birth Aof the house of David@ the prophets had long foretold.
Almost six centuries before Jesus= birth, however, David=s royal house had come to an end. The revival of his long extinct dynasty after so great an interval was, humanly speaking, impossible. Moreover, the imperial census, which brought Joseph and Mary to David=s city, Bethlehem, was a humiliating reminder to their people that the nation over which David had once ruled as king was now governed by a foreign emperor across the sea. Rome, not Jerusalem, was the center of the world into which Jesus was born. At the very moment in which that world was set in motion by an imperial decree from its center, God was acting in an unimportant village on the edge of the empire in an obscure event from which we continue, twenty centuries later, to number our years.
Unthinkable? Impossible? Precisely! That is how God normally acts.  He comes to us when we are least expecting him; when we have ceased expecting him at all. He comes in ways that stagger the imagination and demolish our conception of the possible. The creator of the universe comes as a tiny baby, born of a virgin. 

Why does he do it?  Why does God come at all?

To these questions our second reading gives us the answer: AWhen the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared, [he saved us] not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy.@ 

God=s coming is not a reward for services rendered. He chose to come to us at the first Christmas for the same reason he comes to us today: not because we are good enough, but because he is so good, and so loving, that he wants to share his love with us, his unworthy, erring, and sinful children.

This explains too why he chose outsiders and eccentrics as the first witnesses of his coming. Before him we are all outsiders, all eccentrics. Before God we are all marginal, as the shepherds were, and the wise men. It is His love, and His alone, which draws us in from the darkness and cold of the margin to the light and warmth of the center.

It is because God gave us his love at the first Christmas that we give gifts to one another at this season. The love God gave us then, and continues to give us today, is neither distant, nor abstract. God=s love is a person who is very close to us.  His name is Jesus Christ.