Friday, November 9, 2018

"YOU CANNOT SERVE TWO MASTERS."



         The sayings of Jesus which Luke has collected into today’s gospel reading are comments on the parable preceding it: about the unjust steward who realized that he was about to lose his job because of mismanaging his employer’s property. To assure himself of friends who would be indebted to him, and might offer him future employment after he was let go, he calls in the people who owe money to his master’s estate and settles their debts for fifty cents on the dollar. To our surprise Jesus commends the steward “for acting prudently.” Jesus does not praise the man’s dishonesty. He praises his prudence. Realizing that the knife is at his throat, the man acts, desperately, to ensure his future.    

         Today’s gospel continues Jesus’ teaching about money, for which he uses the ancient Hebrew word mammon. This culminates in the sayings, “No servant can serve two masters. … You cannot serve God and mammon.” Jesus is not saying that money and possessions are bad. Nothing that God has made is bad; indeed everything that comes from God is good. It participates in some measure in the absolute goodness of God the Creator. What is at stake is how we use money. Used to support people and causes we love, money is good. Given the central place in our lives by trying to amass more and more and more, money makes us unhappy and frustrated (as people who give money the central place in their lives soon discover) – because we find we can never get enough.

         Jesus’ personal religion taught the law of tithing: giving the Lord out of gratitude, the first claim on our money and possessions. For most Catholics that seems so out of reach to be almost preposterous. There is one place in our country, however, where tithing is a reality: the diocese of Wichita, Kansas. There, after decades of teaching, tithing is all but universal. One consequence is that whereas all other dioceses are struggling to maintain Catholic schools in the face of today’s rising costs, all the Catholic schools in the Wichita diocese are tuition free! Another consequence: the Wichita diocese has almost as many seminarians as does our own archdiocese of 
St Louis, which has fie time the Catholic population of Wichita!                                                                                                                                          

Think about that, friends. Above all, pray about it.  

Thursday, November 8, 2018

DEDICATION OF ST JOHN LATERAN


AYOU ARE THE TEMPLE OF GOD.@  (Dedication of St. John Lateran) 
Ezek. 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; 1 Cor. 9c-11,16-17; John 2:13-22.
AIM:  To help the hearers understand our calling as God=s temples.
 
          Is the Bible a Christian book? Just about any of us would answer this question in the affirmative. Of course it=s a Christian book, we would say. While that is not wrong, most of the Bible is not about Christians at all, but about Jews.  Even the New Testament is almost entirely about Jews. Jesus was a Jew, like his mother Mary and St. Joseph. Jesus= twelve apostles and almost all his first followers were also Jews. 
The Jewish people possessed, in Bible times, a special place of worship: the Jerusalem temple. It was built by King Solomon, son of the great King David. The  temple was the earthly dwelling place of the God who had chosen them from all the peoples on earth to be his own. As a mark of his special favor God had given them the Ten Commandments: not a fence to hem them in, but ten words of wisdom which, if followed, would lead to happiness and fulfillment for the people and each individual. 
As a devout Jew, Jesus worshiped regularly in the Jerusalem temple. The building he knew was not the one built by Solomon, however. That had been destroyed several centuries earlier by enemies who conquered Jerusalem and carried its inhabitants off to exile in Babylon. After their return to Jerusalem the people built a new temple on the site of the old one.
It was this rebuilt, second temple, which Jesus knew. There he was brought as an infant to be dedicated to God. There, at age twelve, he was found by his anxious parents after a frantic three-day search. There, as we heard in the gospel reading, he overturned the tables of the money-changers, rebuking people for turning God=s house into a marketplace.
That temple did not long survive Jesus. Not forty years after his death and resurrection Jerusalem was again plundered; this time by the Romans, who pulled down the temple that Jesus had known, and in which Peter and the other first Christians continued to worship even after Jesus= resurrection and ascension. Now, Paul writes in our second reading, we are God=s temple: ADo you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?@
Today Catholics all over the world celebrate the dedication of a Christian temple: the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome. Though less well known than St. Peter=s basilica, St. John Lateran and not St. Peter’s is the Pope=s cathedral as Bishop of Rome. It is customary in every diocese or local church throughout the world to celebrate the dedication of the cathedral, the bishop=s church. [We celebrate this feast in St. Louis on October twelfth.]  Because the Pope is the chief shepherd of the whole church, we celebrate the dedication of his cathedral each year on the ninth of November. Only when that date falls on a Sunday, however, do most Catholics become aware of the observance.                                           
The preface to the eucharistic prayer, which we shall hear in a few moments, helps us to appreciate the significance of today=s celebration: AIn your benevolence you are pleased to dwell in this house of prayer in order to perfect us as the temple of the Holy Spirit, supported by the perpetual help of your grace and resplendent with the glory of a life acceptable to you.”  Even as we celebrate the dedication of a building, therefore, the church=s public prayer reminds us that the most important temple is the one built not of stones, but of people. 
The church is people before it is a building. AThe temple of God, which you are,@ Paul writes in our second reading, Ais holy.@  AHoly@ means Aset apart@, removed from ordinary use, set apart for God. It is in this sense that a chalice is holy. It is not an ordinary cup. It is used only for the Lord=s Precious Blood. This building in which we worship is holy: it is not a dance hall, an auditorium, or a theater. It is set apart for worship.

We too are people set apart. When did that happen, you ask? In baptism!  The Catechism says: ABaptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte [the newly baptized person] >a new creature,= an adopted son of God, who has become a >partaker of the divine nature,= member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.@ [No. 1265]  The whole of the Christian life, therefore, is not a striving after high ideals which constantly elude us. It is living up to what, through baptism, we already are: temples, dwelling places of God=s Holy Spirit.

Today, therefore, we celebrate not merely the dedication of a building: the Pope=s cathedral in Rome. We celebrate no less our own dedication as people set apart for God. What that means in daily life St. Paul tells us in stirring words in his letter to the Philippians: AShow yourselves guileless and above reproach, faultless children of God in a warped and crooked generation, in which you shine like stars in a dark world and proffer the world of life@ (2:15)

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord: there is no call higher than that, no life more worth living.

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

"BE PERFECT"


Homily for June 18th, 2019: Matthew 5:43-48.

        “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” That’s a pretty high standard, isn’t it? Which of us can be perfect – especially if the standard of perfection is the Lord God himself? The only honest answer to that question is: none of us!

        Here, and throughout the Sermon on the Mount, from which our gospel readings this week and last have been taken, Jesus is plugging up the loopholes in the law. He tells us that the commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” forbids even lustful thoughts; that “You shall not kill,” prohibits even angry words and thoughts. 

        Jesus is making it impossible for us to suppose that, by our good deeds and attempts to fulfill God’s law, we can establish a claim on God. We never have a claim on God. God has a claim on us. And it is an absolute claim.

        Does this mean there is no reward for our attempts to be faithful to the Lord? Of course not. Jesus speaks of rewards often. He wants us to understand, however, that people with an entitlement mentality will never be satisfied with their reward. That’s the point of Jesus’ story about the laborers in the vineyard, all paid the same, though some had worked only an hour.

       “They all get the same,” a wonderful old German Sister said when this story was read out in a community conference. She was pretty burned up about it. We should be burned up about it. If not, either we are not listening; or the story is so familiar that we don’t feel its sharp cutting edge.

        That story, with its seemingly unjust conclusion, makes sense only if we ask: Who, at the end of the day, was happy? and who was unhappy? Clearly, the only happy workers were those who had worked but one hour. They knew they deserved little. They were bowled over to receive a full day’s pay.

       Appeal, Jesus is saying, not to what you think you deserve; appeal instead to the Lord’s generosity. Learn to stand before Him saying the words of the hymn, “Rock of ages” (hardly known to Catholics, but a favorite of our Protestant brothers): “Nothing in my hand I bring / Simply to your cross I cling.”

        Jesus’ command to “be perfect” would be discouraging, but for a vital truth we must never forget. What is impossible for us is not impossible for God.

        That was the angel Gabriel’s message to a teenaged Jewish girl, bowled over by the news that she was to be the mother of God’s Son: “Nothing is impossible for God.” (Luke 1:37).

MORE JOY OVER ONE SINNER.


Homily for November 8th, 2018: Luke 15:1-10.

          Had Jesus said, “There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents,” we’d say: “Well sure.” But that is not what Jesus said. He added a word to that sentence. “There is more joy in heaven,” he actually said, “than over ninety-nine people who have no need of repentance.” How do we respond to that? I think the first response that comes to most of is: “Now, wait a minute. Shouldn’t there be some joy at least over the ninety-nine who have need of repentance?” 

          To answer to that question we need to ask another question: Who are these ninety-nine who have no need of repentance? Do you know anyone like that? I don’t. Oh, I know many people who think they have no need of repentance. But they are wrong. How can there be any joy over people who are so mistaken about their true spiritual state? We all fall short at some time, and in some way. We all need to repent, the saints included. Catholics have always believed that the only person who has never sinned, and has therefore no need to repent, is the Lord’s mother, Mary.

          The two parables in today’s gospel tell us that God’s love for us is not measured, limited, or prudent. It is, judged by human standards, over the top, reckless. For a shepherd to leave the whole flock of sheep untended, in order to find just one who had strayed, risked turning a minor misfortune, the loss of one, into a major disaster: the dispersal of the whole flock. For the woman who has lost a single coin from the family’s meager savings to throw a party which surely cost far more than the one coin lost and then found, was crazy. Could Jesus have remembered his mother doing something like that during his boyhood? It is quite possible.

          The two parables are Jesus’ answer to his critics’ complaint at the beginning of today’s gospel: “This man receives sinners, and eats with them.” What for those critics was a scandal is, for us, good news. It tells us that however far we stray, the Lord is close to us. His love for us has no limit, and no end. That is the good news. That is the gospel.

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

COUNTING THE COST


 
Homily for Nov. 7th, 2018: Luke 14:25-33.

AIf anyone comes after me,@ Jesus says, Awithout hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.@ In speaking about Ahating@ those dearest to us, Jesus was using a Semitic word which meant simply detaching one=s self from someone or something. He was saying that He must come first.

AWhich of you wishing to construct a tower,@ Jesus begins, Adoes not first sit down and calculate the cost?@ It was the dream of every small farmer in Palestine in Jesus= day to have a proper tower on his property. During harvest time he could sleep in the tower, keeping watch for trespassers and predatory animals, to insure himself against loss.

Valuable as such a tower might be, Jesus= hearers also knew that it would be folly to start building one without first calculating whether the available resources were sufficient to complete the job. If not, the farmer would have nothing to show for his hard work but some useless foundations. And his friends would laugh at him for his imprudence.

The second parable begins differently: not Awhich of you ...@, but Awhat king ...@ That too was easy to understand, even though none of Jesus= hearers were kings with an army at their disposal. Common to both parables is the sentence about first counting the cost. If you want to be my disciple, Jesus says, count the cost. First reflect. Then act. So let=s reflect. If following Jesus Christ really means putting him first B ahead of money, possessions, success, ahead of those we love most B if Christian discipleship means that, which of us could say with confidence that we had the necessary amount of self-denial and staying power?

Does that mean that we should not try to follow Jesus Christ? Of course not. It does mean, however, that we should never try to do this in dependence on our own resources alone. If today=s gospel is good news, it is because of what it does not say: that there are resources for Christian discipleship available to us which are adequate. What we could never achieve on our own, we can achieve if we depend not on our own strength, but on the strength that comes from God alone.   

That is why Jesus tells us in several places to become Alike little children.@ Little children are naturally dependent on others. It never occurs to them that they can make it on their own. As children grow, we encourage them to become more and more independent. That is fine in the things of this world.

In spiritual things, however, and hence in our relationship with God, we must unlearn that spirit of independence which, in worldly affairs, is the difference between childhood and maturity. When it comes to following Jesus Christ, we dare not trust in our own resources. Jesus never asks us to fight against impossible odds. He does not want us to build with inadequate resources. That is why he gives us his resources. They are always adequate. If we trust in the power which God alone can give us, we are safe. We can build with confidence. We can fight confident of victory.

 

Monday, November 5, 2018

SACFIFICING ALL, TO RECEIVE ALL


Nov. 11th, 2018: 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.  Mark 12:38-44.
AIM:  Through the example of the widow=s generosity to deepen the hearers= faith.
 
The Scripture commentators tell us that people who wished to make offerings to the Jerusalem Temple in Jesus= day handed them to the priest on duty, who announced the amount, and what it was for, before depositing the offering in the appropriate urn. This explains how Jesus could know the amount given by the poor widow in the gospel reading we have just heard. The commentators believe she wanted to make an Aunrestricted gift.@ Such offerings were used to purchase animals for the Temple sacrifices. Her gift did not benefit the poor or some other Agood cause.@ It was for the sole honor of God.
Such a gift, especially from a woman who was herself poor, was sure to provoke criticism. The gospels record this criticism in the case of the woman who anointed Jesus= feet with costly perfume. AWhy this waste?@ some of the bystanders ask indignantly. The perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. (Cf. Mark 14:5)
This criticism will always be heard whenever people offer gifts for the sole honor of God: to build or decorate a church, for instance. Such gifts can never be justified in purely this-worldly, utilitarian terms. They can be justified only on the basis of faith. And for those with faith, no justification is necessary.
Faith alone can justify the widow=s gift. And faith alone can motivate such a gift. That is what Jesus emphasizes in his comment. The utilitarian, worldly view sees the woman=s action as, at best, insignificant B what good is so trifling a gift?; at worst, a scandal B that a woman so poor herself should give all she had to live on, and not even for a Agood cause,@ but simply to be wasted for God.
Jesus sees her action from the perspective of faith, which is the perspective of God. God looks not at the outward action, nor at appearances. God looks at the heart. In God=s eyes 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. They=re the people Jesus is talking about at the beginning of today=s gospel. They like Aseats of honor in the synagogues, and places of honor at banquets.@ The widow can expect no such recognition. Her gift is 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. She gives all that she has to live on for that day. Even the detail that her gift consists of two coins is significant.  She could easily have kept one for herself. Human prudence would say that she should have done so. She refuses to act out of prudence. She wants to give totally, disregarding prudence, trusting in God alone.
Jesus refers to the totality of the widow=s gift when he 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 Aall things are possible@ (Mark 9:23, 10:27, 14:36).
Mark=s choice of this little incident to conclude his account of Jesus= public ministry is an example of the artistry with which he has composed this seemingly simple gospel, the shortest of the four. Immediately following this story Mark gives us Jesus= teaching about Athe last days.@ He then moves swiftly to the Passover, Last Supper, and crucifixion. In saying that this poor widow has contributed all that she had,@ Jesus is anticipating his own total self-giving, soon to be consummated on Calvary. There he would give all that he had, even life itself. 
This poor widow, unnamed and known to us by this single act, 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.
C       How foolish, many people say, for a young man or woman to forego marriage and a family in order to become a religious Sister or Brother, or a priest.
C       How foolish for a mother whose husband=s earnings can cover all the family=s needs to forego the extra income and prestige of her own career in order to Astay at home and bake cookies,@ as a feminist politician said some years ago, pouring scorn on women to undertake the arduous task of full-time motherhood and child-rearing B something admirable which deserves recognition and honor.    
C       How foolish to remain faithful to marriage vows B taken years ago Afor better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death@ B when the one to whom those vows were made has lost the bloom of youth, married life has become routine and flat, and no longer offers the zest and excitement which someone younger is offering with open arms and open heart.
Every one of those sacrifices is foolish, even mad, to those without faith. So was the poor widow=s gift in today=s gospel: folly, utter folly. But the folly which inspired her sacrifice was divine. She 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 poor widow is one of those whom Jesus was talking about when he said: AFear not, little flock; for your Father has chosen to give you the Kingdom@ (Luke 12:32).

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!

PROCRASTINATORS


Homily for November 6th, 2018. Luke 14:15-24.

          Some Scripture commentators suggest that the host in the parable we have just heard was a tax collector. His party is an attempt to break into society by inviting the leading citizens of the town and providing lavish entertainment. His guests have all told him, in the offhand way that people do, that  they’d be happy to come to his house. “Any time,” they’ve all said. When the invitations arrive, however, it turns out that these acceptances were insincere. The excuses offered are so flimsy as to be almost pathetic.

          Jesus’ hearers would have smiled as they heard of the frustration of the host’s plans. He thought he was going to make a big splash. Now all his guests have stood him up. The man’s growing anger enhances the humor of the situation. He resolves to repay the insults of his intended guests with an insult of his own. He will give a party for people whom those originally invited hold in contempt. That will show them! 

          The parable, like many others, contains a warning — but also good news. The warning is the exclusion of those first invited. They represent Jesus’ critics: people confident that the best seats at the banquet were reserved for them. They assume that there will be other opportunities, other invitations. Too late, they discover that this was their final chance.    

The parable’s good news is contained in the description of the substitute
guests. They are a portrait of Luke’s own Christian community: “the poor, the blind, the crippled, the lame.” The parable’s good news is its assurance that God welcomes not just the fit and strong, people whose good moral character makes them role models and leaders. The Lord who was reproached in his earthly life for welcoming sinners and eating with them continues to do the same today. To claim a place at his table we need to show him not our successes but our failures; not our strength but our weakness; not health but sickness.

          Preaching on this parable back in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI told about bishops from Western countries, Europe especially, telling him on their visits to Rome about how people refuse the Lord’s invitation to his banquet. Yet at the same time, the Pope said, “I also hear this, precisely from the Third World: that people listen, that they come, that even today the message spreads along the roads to the very ends of the earth, and that people crowd into God’s hall for the banquet.”

          Are you among them?

Sunday, November 4, 2018

"IINVITE THE POOR, CRIPPLED, LAME, BLIND."


Homily for November 5th, 2018: Luke 14:12-14.

          “When you hold a banquet,” Jesus says, “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” He directs these words to his host, whom Luke describes as “one of the leading Pharisees,” clearly a person of social prominence. We get an idea of the other guests at this Sabbath dinner from Jesus’ words about those his host should not invite: “your friends, your brothers or sisters or your relatives, or your wealthy neighbors.” Those were the people Jesus saw when he looked around him at this dinner. “They may invite you back,” Jesus says, “and you have repayment.”

          Invite people, Jesus is telling his host, who cannot repay you. When you do that, Jesus says at the end of this brief gospel reading, “you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” What Jesus clearly means is that then God will repay you. And his repayment is the only one worth receiving.

          Instead of inviting people from whom you can expect gratitude and some kind of repayment, Jesus says, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. If you do that, Jesus continues, you will be “blessed indeed.” That means, you will be truly happy; for you will receive a reward which is infinitely beyond the greatest of earthly rewards, since it will come from God himself.

          Jesus reinforces this teaching with his own example. When does he do this, you ask? He does it at every Mass! We who are Jesus’ invited guests at the table of Jesus’ word, and the sacramental table of his Body and Blood are spiritually poor. Our sins cripple us and make us lame. And too often we are blind to the greatness and depth of his love for us. St. Augustine says that God loves each and every one of us as if, in the whole world, there were only one person to love.

          So this little story, about Jesus attending a dinner with a group of elite guests, turns out to be Good News for us. It tells us, once again, that Jesus loves us with a love that will never let us go.