Friday, November 30, 2018

"BE WATCHFUL AT ALL TIMES, AND PRAY."


Homily for December 1st, 2018: Luke 21:34-36.

          On this first day of the new year in the Church’s calendar she gives us this short gospel reading from Luke’s gospel, just two verses. It contains Jesus’ command: “Be vigilant at all times … [and] pray constantly.”  What wonderful advice to take with us, as we cross the threshold of a new year. 

          But is it realistic? Can we pray constantly? I asked that question myself more than six decades ago, as a 21-year-old seminarian. The question forced itself on me through the reading a spiritual classic: The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. He was a Carmelite lay brother who worked in the kitchen of his monastery in Paris, where he died in 1691. The book tells on how Brother Lawrence was constantly thinking of God, and praying to him, as he worked all day in the kitchen.

Could I do that? I asked myself. What if I decided to think of God during some daily recurring activity? After several false starts I resolved to think of God every time I went up or downstairs. I resolved to turn to the Lord God whenever I went up or downstairs. I would repeat the holy name of Jesus at each step. I’ve been working on this now for 68 years. I could never tell you how much it has helped me and how much joy it has put into my heart.

Why not try doing something like that yourself? If prayer on the stairs doesn’t appeal to you, what about resolving to turn to God whenever, during the day, you must wait? Every day offers us many such times. We wait in line at the post office or bank, at the supermarket, at the doctor, in traffic – when we walk to or from our cars. Why not turn these empty times into times for prayer? Short prayers are best: “Jesus, help me;” “Thank you, Lord;” “Lord, have mercy.” Or simply the Holy Names, “Jesus, Mary, Joseph” – or the name of Jesus alone – repeated with every step, every breath, or every heartbeat. These are perfect prayers which take us straight into presence of Him who loves us more than we can ever imagine, and who is close to us always, even when we stray far from Him.

I leave you with two quotations from Brother Lawrence: “In order to know God we must often think of him; and when we come to love him, we shall then think of him often, for our heart will be where our treasure is.”

To which Brother Lawrence adds: “You need not cry very loud. God is closer to us than we think.”

 

Thursday, November 29, 2018

"COME AFTER ME."


Homily for November 30th, 2018: Matthew 4:18-22.

Simon and his brother Andrew were fishermen. Yet at Jesus’ call, they immediately leave their nets and boat and follow him. Their nets and boat were their livelihood, their security. They were burning their bridges behind them. Why? If we could have asked them, I think they might have said something like this: “You would have to have known this man Jesus. There was something about him that made it impossible to say No.”

God still calls today. He called each one of us when we were still in our mothers’ wombs. He calls us to walk with him, to be so full of his love that others will see the joy on our faces and want what we have. Christianity, it has been said, cannot be taught.  It must be caught.

          Perhaps you’re thinking: “I could never do that.” You’re wrong. Here is a list that came to me in an e-mail, years ago, of some of the great people in the Bible. Every one of them had a reason for thinking God could not use them. So the next time you feel like God can’t use you, remember: 

“Noah was a drunk. Abraham was too old. Isaac was a daydreamer. Jacob was a liar. Leah was ugly. Joseph was abused by his brothers. Moses had a stuttering problem.  Gideon was afraid. Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer. Rahab was a prostitute.  Jeremiah and Timothy thought they were too young. David had an affair and was a murderer. Elijah was suicidal. Isaiah thought himself unworthy. Jonah ran away from God’s call. Naomi was a widow. Job went bankrupt. Martha was a perpetual worrier. The Samaritan woman who spoke with Jesus at the well was five times divorced. Zaccheus was too small. Peter denied Christ. The disciples fell asleep while praying. At Jesus’ arrest, they all forsook him and fled. Paul was too religious. Timothy had an ulcer. And Lazarus was dead!” 

          So what’s your excuse? Whatever it may be, God can still use you to your full potential. Besides, you aren’t the message. You’re only the messenger.

          When you were born, you were crying, and everyone around you was smiling. Start today (if you haven’t started already) living your life so that when you die, you’re the only one smiling, and everyone around you is crying.

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

'YOUR REDEMPTION IS AT HAND."


Homily for November 29th, 2018: Rev. 18 & 19; Luke 21:20-28.
          Both of our readings today are difficult. Both speak about a “time of troubles.” In our first reading it is Israel’s great enemy, Babylon, which experiences these troubles. More than five hundred years before Jesus’ birth, Babylon had carried off Israel into exile for four decades. The first reading tells of an angel who lists all the disasters which will befall Babylon. 
          The gospel reading tells of even greater troubles when Jerusalem is conquered and devastated by enemies – which happened in the year 70 A.D., 27 years after Jesus’ crucifixion and Resurrection, according to the traditional dating. Christians at the time, and ever since, have viewed the disasters which followed as a warning about the time of troubles which will precede Jesus’ return in glory and the world’s end. 
          Both readings say also that the sufferings which they predict will usher in a time of joy for those who are faithful to the Lord God. The angel who proclaims Babylon’s fall says at the end: “Write this down: Happy are they who have been invited to the wedding feast of the lamb.” A wedding banquet is a familiar image in the Bible. Israel=s prophets speak often of God inviting his people to a wedding banquet. That was the prophets= way of saying that their people=s sins would not always estrange them from the all-holy God. There would come a time when God would take away sins, so that his people could enjoy fellowship with the one who had created them and still loved them. And in the New Testament Jesus performs his first miracle at the wedding banquet in Cana, changing water into wine.
          Today’s gospel reading proclaims something far greater. “Men will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming on the earth.” But then comes the proclamation of good news, the gospel: “Men will see the Son of Man [Jesus] coming on a cloud with great power and glory. When these things begin to happen, stand up straight and raise your heads, for your redemption is near at hand.” That is the Lord’s message to us, right now!  

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

"THEY WILL SEIZE AND PERSECUTE YOU."


Homily for November 28th, 2018: Luke 21:12-19.

Was that just in ancient times? No. The persecution of which Jesus speaks in today’s gospel continues today. Here is just one example.

In November 2014 a Muslim mob in eastern Pakistan severely beat a Christian couple accused of burning pages of the Koran and then incinerated them in a brick kiln. Shama Bibi, who was four months pregnant, and her husband Shahbaz Masih were bonded laborers at a brick factory. They had 4 children at home. Their brutal murder followed in the wake of a court decision that condemned a Christian woman to death, Asia Bibi, who was convicted of blasphemy in 2010. Since the 1990s, a number of Christians in Pakistan have been charged with desecrating the Koran or of committing blasphemy. While some sentences have been overturned due to lack of evidence, even a mere accusation of blasphemy can incite mob violence.

Dominican Father James Channan, O.P., Director of the Peace Center in Pakistan commented: “The barbaric act by fanatic Pakistani Muslims of burning alive a poor Christian couple was triggered by the false accusation of the burning of some pages of the Koran. Muslims and Christians alike are victimized by controversial blasphemy laws that stipulate life imprisonment for desecrating the Koran and the death sentence for defaming or insulting the Prophet of Islam. These laws are often used to settle personal scores. In any case, who in their sound mind would burn pages of the Koran or insult the dignity of the Prophet Mohammed?

“Most problematic is that these laws are very vague; also most Pakistanis are illiterate—hence, the application of the law is very easily abused, with people taking matters into their own hands. Extremist Muslims, incited by mere accusations, have murdered other Muslims as well as Christians. But the Christian community is most vulnerable, since an accusation leveled against a single individual can provoke violence aimed at his or her family as well as the entire local community. Homes are seized, churches are burned down, and people are killed. Once a person is accused, his or her life in Pakistan has become impossible. Even if the courts eventually declare an individual innocent, radical Muslims may still murder the person, which is considered an act worthy of praise.”

Seldom do we, in this land of the free, hear of these atrocities. Our media, already hostile to Christian faith, are not interested. All the more reason, therefore, to pray for our fellow Christians in a world which has become, once again, and age of martyrs. 

Monday, November 26, 2018

"STAND ERECT AND RAISE YOUR HEADS."


December 2nd, 2O18: First Sunday in Advent, Year C.  Luke 21:25-28, 24-26.

AIM:  To proclaim the Advent message: that troubles are signs not of God’s absence, but of his presence. 

          “What are we coming to?  Where will it all end?”

          Which of us has not heard anxious questions like those, or asked them ourselves? They reflect a widespread mood on this First Sunday of Advent. As we cross the threshold of a new year in the Church’s calendar, we have many reasons for uneasiness, anxiety, and fear. 

          What is going to happen, we ask, in Afghanistan, Iran, Gaza? Will the sorely tried people of those tormented countries ever enjoy peace? When will our brave troops be able to come home? Will there ever be peace between the Israelis and Palestinians? Must we look forward to endlessly continuing terrorist threats throughout the world, and in our country as well?

          To these public worries we add our private fears. Somewhere here right now there may be a parent who fears the direction a teenage or older son or daughter is taking. Or perhaps it’s a young person, frustrated and bitter at what seems to you rigidity and lack of understanding from your parents. Somewhere in this church there may be someone struggling with marital difficulties: due perhaps to drink, to financial irresponsibility, or simply to love grown cold and turning to sullen resentment. Here too is someone weighed down by illness – your own, or that of a loved one. Someone else is grieving over the death of a dear one.

          Put all these reasons for anxiety and worry together, and we have ample reason for asking the questions with which we began: “What are we coming to?  Where will it all end?”    

          There are plenty of people offering us reassuring answers to these questions. I remember finding one years ago in the Reader’s Digest. Covering a whole page were quotations saying that the world was going to ruin. A note at the bottom told the reader to turn to the later page to learn the authors of all those dire predictions.  They were from famous people who had lived a hundred to more than two thousand years ago. The message was clear: “Cheer up! The world has always been in a mess. Things are no worse today that they have been many times before.” That may be true. But does that really help? to know that other people, in other times, had their problems too?

          Then there are the folks who try to cheer us up by reminding us that things are not all bad. If you can remember the days when St. Louis had two daily news-papers, you may recall the smiley face on the front page of the long defunct Globe-Democrat above an upbeat story entitled “Good morning news.” There are still magazine articles telling us that things are getting better and better as the benefits of education, medical research, and scientific progress become more widely available. These stories are true. There are advances. There is good news. But simply to claim that the world is getting better and better is nonsense. Many things are getting better. Other things, however, are getting worse. Just one example: the number of children born out of wedlock today, and growing up without fathers, has soared in recent decades to previously undreamed of heights. The social and economic consequences of such broken family life are disastrous. On the whole, losses like those pretty well cancel out the gains. 

          To be told that things have been bad before; or that many things are getting better, may alleviate some of our anxieties. But such answers cannot banish our fears altogether. Our nagging questions remain: “What are we coming to?  Where will it all end?”

           In today’s gospel Jesus offers a radically different answer to those questions. “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay ...  People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

          Perhaps you’re shaking your head, asking: ‘What’s that -- some kind of antique science fiction? What has that to do with us today?’ Those questions are understandable. In reality, however, Jesus’ words speak directly to our present day anxieties and fears. Jesus was using imagery familiar to his hearers to describe a world gone awry, times out of joint. Can there be any doubt that we are living in just such a time today?

          Note what follows this bizarre sounding description of a world coming apart at the seams: “But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads, because your redemption is at hand.” That is the core of Jesus’ message, as relevant for us today as when his words were first uttered. The very things that cause our fear are signs not of God’s absence, but of his presence. Jesus never promised that God would preserve us from anxiety, suffering, or even from catastrophes. He does promise, however, that God will be with us in the midst of even our greatest fears and our deepest disasters. 

          “When these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads, because your redemption is at hand.” That is the Advent message as we cross the threshold into a new Church year. “Where will it all end?” we ask. Jesus gives us the answer in today’s gospel. It will all end when we “see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory,” to quote Jesus’ words from our gospel again.

          How can Jesus tell us to “stand erect and raise your heads”? Because this world, with all its horrors, is still God’s world. Come what may, God reigns. 

          When we hear of wars and terrorism – God reigns.

          When we are afraid to open the morning newspaper, or watch the evening news on television – God reigns.

          When we worry about the future of our world, our country, the Church, our loved ones – God reigns.

          Whether we serve God generously, sacrificially, with love and joy in our hearts; or whether we desert and fail him, engaging in the mad pursuit of happiness through “doing our own thing” at whatever cost, a pursuit which has never succeeded and never will – so or so, God reigns.

          When we feel we are dying of fright in anticipation of what may be coming – God reigns.

          The Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end; who was, who is who will come again at the end of all things with power and great glory – the Almighty.

"MIGHTY SIGNS FROM THE SKY."


Homily for November 27th, 2018: Luke 21:5-11.

          Our gospel reading today is about what is called about the “End Time.” This Temple which you are looking at, Jesus tells his hearers, will not always be here. It will all be torn down one day. Shocked, the hearers want to know when this will happen. What sign will there be that the end is coming?

People have been asking that question ever since. Jesus never answered it. There is a passage in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus says that even he has no timetable. “As for the exact day or hour, no one knows it, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father only” (Mt. 24:36).  

          One piece of information Jesus does give. The end of all things, and Jesus’ return in glory, will be preceded by disturbing signs. Jesus mentions some of them in today’s gospel: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.” Jesus is using poetic, dramatic language to describe a world in ferment, and coming apart at the scenes. Who can doubt that we are living in just such a world today?

          Should these signs make us fearful and anxious? Not if we are living for the Lord God, and for others. Let me tell you about a man who did that. His name was Basil Hume, a Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey in the north of England. The 3 English monks who founded St. Louis Abbey and the Priory School on Mason Road came from Ampleforth over 50 years ago. Basil Hume was their Abbot when Pope Paul VI reached over the heads of all the English bishops to make him Archbishop of Westminster and later a cardinal. In June 1999, when he knew he was dying of cancer, Cardinal Basil wrote these words:

                   “We each have a story, or part of one at any rate, about which we have never been able to speak to anyone. Fear of being misunderstood. Inability to understand. Ignorance of the darker side of our hidden lives, or even shame, make it very difficult for many people. Our true story is not told, or, only half of it is. What a relief it will be to whisper freely and fully into the merciful and compassionate ear of God. That is what God has always wanted. He waits for us to come home. He receives us, his prodigal children, with a loving embrace. In that embrace we start to tell him our story. I now have no fear of death. I look forward to this friend leading me to a world where I shall know God and be known by Him as His beloved son.”

Sunday, November 25, 2018

MARY'S ASSSUMPTION


Homily for August 15th, 2019: Luke 1:39-56.
Mary, the Second Vatican Council says, Ashines forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come, a sign of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim People of God@ (LG 68). Our pilgrim way is beset with difficulties. We are reminded of them each time we read the morning headlines, or watch the news on television.
On this feast of Mary=s Assumption we are reminded that Mary also confronted difficulties on her own pilgrim way. What did Mary understand about the angel=s message that even before her marriage to Joseph she was to become the mother of God=s Son? She understood at least this: that in a tiny village where everyone knew everyone else and gossip was rife, she would be looked down on as  an unmarried mother. Yet Mary responded without hesitation in trusting faith: AI am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say@ (Lk 1:38) 
That act of trusting faith was not blind. Young as Mary was B and the Scripture scholars think she may have been only fifteen B she asked what any girl in her position would have asked: AHow can this be, since I do not know man?@ (Lk 1:34) Even this question, however, reflects faith. Mary was questioning not so much God and his ways as her own ability to understand God=s ways.
Nor was Mary=s faith a once-for-all thing. It needed to be constantly renewed.  Before her Son=s birth, Joseph wanted to break their engagement. When the couple presented their newborn child to the Lord in the Jerusalem temple, Mary heard the aged Simeon prophesy the child=s rejection and his mother=s suffering (Lk 2:34f). Three decades later, after Jesus left home, he seemed on more than one occasion to be fulfilling his command to his disciples about turning one=s back on parents and other relatives (cf. Lk 14:26). At the marriage at Cana Jesus seemed to speak coldly to his mother. She seems not to have been present at the Last Supper. Only at Calvary was Mary permitted to stand beside her now dying Son, along with Athe disciple whom Jesus loved@ (John 19:26); deliberately unnamed, many Scripture scholars believe, to represent the ideal follower of Jesus Christ in every time and place.
The last glimpse we have of Mary in Scripture is immediately before Pentecost. With the apostles and Jesus= other relatives, she is praying for the descent of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14). Thereafter Mary disappears. Her work of bringing Christ to the world was taken over by the Church. 
How did Mary=s life end? We do not know. In defining Mary=s Assumption on All Saints Day 1950, Pope Pius XII said simply: AWhen the course of [Mary=s] earthly life had ended, she was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven.@ The body the Pope referred to is Mary=s new resurrection body: the body with which Jesus rose from the dead B the heavenly and spiritual body which, as St. Paul says, each one of us will receive in heaven (cf.1 Cor. 15:35-53). There Mary continues to pray for us on our pilgrim way. As the Catechism says: AThe Church loves to pray in communion with the Virgin Mary ... and to entrust supplications and praises to her.@ (No. 2682).
For many Christians, however, and for almost all Protestants, Catholic teaching about Mary, and our devotion to her, are troubling. Especially troubling is the Catholic practice of praying to Mary. Surely, Protestants say, we can pray only to God. Strictly speaking, they are right. When we Catholics pray to Mary, or to any of the other saints, what we are really doing is asking them to pray for us and with us. The conclusion of the classic Marian prayer, the Hail Mary, makes this explicit: AHoly Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.@
If it makes sense to ask our friends on earth to pray for us, doesn=t it also make sense to ask the prayers of our friends in heaven, the saints? The Catechism says it does: ABeing more closely united to Christ, those who dwell in heaven ... do not cease to intercede with the Father for us. ... We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world.@ (No. 956 & 2683) Without Mary=s prayers, I would not be a Catholic priest today. Let me tell you how I know this.
Before I was a Catholic priest I was an Anglican priest, like my father and grandfather before me. Leaving the church which had taken me from the baptismal font to the altar, and taught me almost all the Catholic truth I know, even today, was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Starting in 1959, and for almost a year, the question of the Church, and of my conscientious duty before God, was not out of my waking thoughts for two hours together. 
One of the many obstacles to my decision was the need to abandon, possibly forever, the priesthood to which I had aspired from age twelve, and which had brought me great happiness, with no guarantee that it would ever be given back to me. In Holy Week 1960 a Trappist monk at St. Joseph=s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, himself a convert from Judaism, who was helping me along the last stretch of my spiritual journey, said to me: AWhy don=t you give your priesthood to Our Lady, asking her to keep it for you, and to give it back to you when the time is right?@ With his help I did this. 
Had I known then that it would be eight years before I could once again stand at the altar as a priest, I would never have had the courage to go through with it. During those years I had many difficulties B so many that well meaning priest-advisers told me I should forget any idea of priesthood and embrace a lay vocation.  That I was never willing to do. I knew that Our Lady was keeping my priesthood for me, and I was confident that she would give it back to me one day. 
After eight years, on January 27th 1968, I knelt before the bishop of Münster in northern Germany, where I was then living, to receive the Church=s commission to stand at the altar once again, as a Catholic priest. I had never told the bishop about entrusting my priesthood to Our Lady. You can imagine my joy, therefore, when, at the end of the private ninety-five minute ceremony in his private chapel, the bishop turned to the altar and intoned the Church=s ancient Marian hymn: Salve regina, AHail, Holy Queen.@     
 

A WIDOW'S PITTANCE


Homily for November 26th, 2018: Luke 21:1-4.

In a society without today’s social safety net, a widow was destitute. For the widow in today’s gospel to give all that she had to live on for that day was, most people would say, irresponsible, even scandalous. God looks, however, not at the outward action, but at the heart. For God what counts, therefore, is not the size of the gift, but its motive. The wealthy contributors were motivated at least in part by the desire for human recognition and praise. The widow could expect no recognition. Her gift was too insignificant to be noticed. For God, however, no gift is too small provided it is made in the spirit of total self-giving that comes from faith and is nourished by faith.

Jesus recognizes this generosity in the widow. Even the detail that her gift consists of two coins is significant. She could easily have kept one for herself. Prudence would say that she should have done so. She refuses to act out of prudence. She wants to give totally, trusting in God alone. That is why Jesus says that she has given Amore than all the others.@ They calculated how much they could afford to give. In the widow=s case calculation could lead to only one conclusion: she could not afford to give anything. Her poverty excused her from giving at all. She refuses to calculate. She prefers instead to trust in Him for whom, as the angel Gabriel told a young Jewish teenager named Mary, Anothing is impossible@ (Luke 1:38)

This poor widow shows us better than long descriptions what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. True discipleship will always seem foolish, even mad, to those who live by worldly wisdom. This poor widow had a wisdom higher than the wisdom of this world: the wisdom of faith. With her small gift she takes her place alongside the other great biblical heroes of faith, from Abraham to Mary, who set their minds first on God=s kingdom, confident that their needs would be provided by Him who (as Jesus reminds us) Aknows that you have need of these things@ (Luke 12:30). This widow is also one of that Ahuge crowd which no one can count@ (Rev. 7:9) whom we celebrated on All Saints= Day B those whose faith inspired them to sacrifice all for Jesus Christ, and who in so doing received from him the Ahundredfold reward@ that he promised (Mark 10:30).

Now, in this hour, Jesus is inviting each one of us to join that happy company: to sacrifice all, that we may receive all. He challenges us to begin today!