Saturday, February 9, 2019

UNFORGETABLE CRISES

Feb. 10th, 2019: 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.
         Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8; 1 Cor. 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11.

AIM:  By reference to the calls of Isaiah, Paul, and Peter, to show that times of crisis are times of unique opportunity.
 
There are, in every life, moments we never forget: an unexpected job offer or a promotion; a proposal of marriage; the devastating loss of a job; the phone call that tells us a loved one has died. Things like that we never forget. Today=s readings tell us of such unforgettable moments in the lives of three of the great men of Scripture: Isaiah, Paul, and Peter.
For Isaiah, the moment he never forgot, which changed his life forever was, he tells us, AIn the year King Uzziah died.@ Uzziah had been king for some four decades. His death, and the accession of a new monarch, were a breakup of  landslide proportions. Golden opportunities await, at such times, young men with good connections. Isaiah was young. He had the right connections.
So in the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah had every reason to be excited about the dazzling prospect of a new career opening up before him. And precisely at that time of unique opportunity, he found the way blocked. A more exalted king than any who ever sat upon an earthly throne summoned this brilliant, well-connected young man to higher service. Isaiah never forgot it. The indelible impression left on the young man=s mind by his vision of the invisible God is evident in Isaiah=s lapidary description of his experience: AIn the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple.@ 
For Paul, the author of our second reading, the moment he could never forget, came outside the city gate of Damascus, where Paul was going to defend his fiercely loved Jewish faith by rooting out false teaching. Like Isaiah, though in quite different circumstances, Paul suddenly found his path blocked, his expectations demolished in a blaze of blinding light. Thrown to the ground by the suddenness and intensity of the encounter, Paul heard a voice addressing him by his Hebrew name: ASaul, Saul, why do you persecute me?@
That encounter changed Paul=s life. He never forgot it. Today=s second reading makes clear that Paul was convinced that there outside Damascus he had seen the risen Lord. For after listing the other witnesses to the resurrection, Paul adds: ALast of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me.@ And then, remembering the man he had been before that encounter which changed his life, Paul declares: AI am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  But by the grace of God I am what I am.@
Peter=s unforgettable, life-changing experience came when Jesus asked him to do something that violated everything Peter knew about the activity which was his livelihood: catching fish. After a discouraging night of toil on the lake, the net coming back empty time after time, until Peter and his companions were bone weary, Jesus tells Peter to try again in broad daylight. Peter knew that would be an exercise in futility: “Master, we have worked all night, and taken nothing.” But then, perhaps just to humor the Lord, Peter adds: ABut at your command I will lower the nets.@ Peter=s willingness to do the unthinkable enables him to experience the impossible. No sooner have they started to pull in the net, than they feel it heavy with fish.
Peter=s reaction to his astonishing, indeed miraculous, catch is very like Isaiah=s reaction to his awesome vision of the Lord in the Temple: AWoe is me [Isaiah cried], I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.@
In the simpler language of the working man Peter says the same. Throwing himself at the feet of Jesus, with the fish flopping all around him in the boat, Peter can only blurt out: ADepart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.@ To which Jesus responds with words of reassurance: ADo not be afraid: from now on you will be catching men.@ In that moment, Peter=s life is changed. AThey brought their boats to shore,@ Luke tells us, Athey left everything and followed [Jesus].@ Peter never forgot it.
Dramatic experiences like those which came to Isaiah, to Paul, and to Peter, are rare. What is not rare, indeed what is very common, is the shattering of plans or expectations, the sudden blocking up of progress along our chosen path, which each of these three men experienced in their unforgettable moments of crisis.
Perhaps there is someone in this church today who is passing through such a crisis. Your life seems to be coming apart at the seams. You cannot see the way ahead. All the plans you made have been frustrated, your hopes demolished. You do not know which way to turn. If that, or any of that, is your story, then listen. The Lord has good news for you.
Times of crisis are always times of opportunity, times of growth. Sometimes the only way God can get at us is by breaking us B or allowing us to be broken. To set us on the right way, God must sometimes block up the way we are on B even it is in itself a good way.
We all want success. Yet failure can teach us far more than success. I have known great success in my life. I have also experienced humiliating failure. I have to tell you: I have learned far more from failure than I ever learned from success.  To be beaten down by failure until you are flat on the ground with weariness and a sense of life=s futility is to be brought, at last, truly close to God. It is failure that opens the door to God.
What looks to you like the end of all your hopes, the destruction of every plan and aspiration you ever entertained, may be the Lord=s summons to a closer, if more difficult, walk with him. God never closes a door in our lives without opening another. The Lord has shown me that in my life B again and again.
APut out into the deep water,@ the Lord says to Peter. He is saying the same to each one of us right now. Do not abandon the quest, though it seems fruitless.  Leave the shallow waters near shore. Forsake what is familiar and secure for the challenge of the unknown deep. Dare, like Peter, to do the unthinkable. Then, like him, you too will experience the impossible. 
As we travel life=s way, with all its twistings and turnings, its many small achievements and more numerous defeats, we who in baptism have become sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ should be sharpening our spiritual vision. For it is only with the eyes of faith that we can perceive the unseen, spiritual world all round us: beneath, behind, above this world of sense and time. Faith assures us that the Lord is watching over us always, in good times and in bad:
C       the same God who appeared to Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died, on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple;

C       the same God whose Son, gloriously risen from the dead, appeared in blazing light to Paul outside the Damascus gate;

C       who challenged Peter, devastated by failure at the one thing he thought he knew something about, to APut out into deep water.@
Glimpsing this mighty God, our loving heavenly Father, with the eyes of faith, we too join B as in a moment we shall B in the angels= song first heard by Isaiah:

 AHoly, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!  All the earth is filled with his glory!@   

Friday, February 8, 2019

SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT


Homily for January 19th, 2019: Mark 3:22-30.

          “Every sin will be forgiven mankind,” Jesus tells us in today’s gospel, “and all blasphemies men utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.” Understanding these words rightly is difficult. We find them, in different versions, in all three of the so-called synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. From the beginning the words have caused heart-searching and anguish, especially for people inclined to scrupulosity. What can we say about them?

          Here is what the Catholic Catechism says: “There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and final loss.” [1864] Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not properly consist, then, in offending against the Holy Spirit in words; it consists rather in the refusal to accept the salvation which God offers to us through the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the Cross.

          Pope St. John Paul II explained it thus: “If Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven either in this life or in the next, it is because this ‘non-forgiveness’ is linked, as to its cause, to ‘non-repentance’, in other words to the radical refusal to be converted. . . Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,” the Pope says, “is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a ‘right’ to persist in evil -- in any sin at all -- and who thus rejects redemption. One closes oneself up in sin, thus making impossible one's conversion, and consequently the remission of sins, which one considers not essential or not important for one's life. This is a state of spiritual ruin, because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not allow one to escape from one's self-imposed imprisonment and open oneself to the divine sources of the purification of consciences and of the remission of sins.” [Dominum et vivificantem, 46.]

          And Pope Francis says again and again: “God never grows tired of forgiving us. It is we who go tired of asking for forgiveness.” Committing the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit means, therefore, refusing to ask for forgiveness, and perseverance in such refusal until the end.

"COME AWAY AND REST."



Homily for February 9th, 2019: Mark 6:30-34.
The Twelve return to Jesus after a time of arduous labor, to report Aall that they had done and taught.@ Jesus knows that after this strenuous activity they need to withdraw C time, we would say today, to recharge their spiritual batteries. So Jesus invites them to Acome away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a little.@ We all need such times of refreshment. The most important hour of my day is the half-hour I spend here in church, waiting in silence on the Lord, and the Mass which follows. Without that time with the Lord who called me to his service on my ordination day, almost 61 years ago, I=d just be spinning my wheels. 
          How can we find time in our busy lives for the rest and refreshment we all need? Here are a few suggestions. In every life, no matter how crowded, there are empty times C times when we must wait. We wait in the check-out line at the supermarket. We wait in traffic, at the post office, at the bank, dentist, or doctor. We walk to and from the cars at our places of work, or at shopping centers. Such empty periods in the day can be turned into Atimes for God.@ As you wait, as you walk to or from the car, lift up your heart and mind to God. Hold up to him those whom you love. Ask him to bless them in the way he knows they need to be blessed. Hold yourself before your heavenly Father with all your weakness and need, all the loose ends in your life, your brokenness, compromises, failures. Long prayers are not necessary. Simple, short prayers are best.
AJesus, help me.@ AMy Lord and my God.@ ALord Jesus, I love you.@ 
AGood Physician, make me whole.@ AMary, mother, bless your child@
Or simply the holy names, AJesus, Mary, Joseph@ C or the holy name of Jesus alone, repeated with every step, every breath, every heartbeat: all these are perfect prayers that go straight to the loving heart of our heavenly Father.
The more often you make time for the Lord in your life, the more you will discover that the words of today=s responsorial psalm are true C true for you:


 AThe Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.


In verdant pastures he gives me repose;


beside restful waters he leads me;


he refreshes my soul.@

Thursday, February 7, 2019

DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST


Homily for February 8th, 2019: Mark 6:14-29.

          Herod had thrown John the Baptist into prison, today’s gospel tells us, “on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip.” Herod divorced his first wife, in order to marry the wife of his still living brother Philip, a woman named Herodias. No wonder that John denounced Herod. He had divorced his wife in order to marry his still married sister-in-law. This earned John the Baptist the hatred of two people, both equally unscrupulous: Herod and Herodias.

          Herodias sees her chance for revenge at a drunken party hosted by her second husband, Herod. Aroused by the dance of Herodias’ daughter – unnamed here, but celebrated in literature and in a well known opera as Salome – Herod promises the girl, under oath, that he will give her anything she asks for, up to half of his kingdom. Not knowing how to respond, the girl consults her mother, who tells her to ask for the head of John the Baptist, whom Herod has imprisoned to keep him out of the public eye.  

          Aghast at the girl’s request, but unwilling to violate his oath, made before so many witnesses, Herod orders John’s immediate execution, without judge, jury, or trial. It is hard to conceive of something more cruel and unjust than the squalid story our gospel reports.

          Is that all just long ago and far away? Don’t you believe it! The media report similar outrages all the time: Muslims threatened with death, or actually killed, for converting to Christianity; a Christian missionary sentenced to death for preaching Christ in an Islamic country, and saved only by a worldwide outcry; the teenage girl in Afghanistan who survived an assassination attempt by terrorists who oppose education for women. Fortunately she was nursed back to health in England, and lived to tell her story before a meeting of the United Nations in New York. And now there are the beheadings in Syria and the burning alive of a capture Jordanian pilot.

          How could we better respond to the atrocity reported in today’s gospel than to pray in this Mass for the countless victims of injustice and terror in the world today?

 

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

"THEY PREACHED REPENTANCE."


Homily for February 7th, 2019: Mark: 6:7-13.

AWhatever place does not welcome you or listen to you,” Jesus tells his apostles as he sends them out, “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 our lives rather than somewhere out on the fringe.

What are some of the things of which we need to repent today? Here is a short list of sins mentioned often by Pope Francis, following his two predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II.  One 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. 

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. 

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.

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

"IS THIS NOT THE CARPENTER"


Homily for February 6th, 2019: Mark 6:1-6.

There’s a 19th century hymn, little known to Catholics, which goes like this:

          I think when I read that sweet story of old,

          When Jesus was here among men,

          How he called little children as lambs to the fold:

          I should like to have been with them then.

It’s a nice sentiment. But it hardly corresponds to the historical reality. Most of the people who encountered Jesus found him quite ordinary. “Is he not the carpenter?” they ask in today’s gospel reading. And Mark, the gospel writer adds: “They took offense at him.”  

That remains true today. People encounter Jesus today not in his human body but through his mystical body, the Church – through us, who in baptism were made eyes, ears, hands, feet, and voice for Jesus Christ. He has no other.     

The Catholic Church is human, as Jesus was human. Most of the time it is ordinary, as Jesus was ordinary. It can be remote, as Jesus was sometimes remote. It can be weak, as Jesus seemed weak to his contemporaries when he refused to use the divine power he manifested in his miracles to avoid crucifixion.

Hidden behind this ordinariness and remoteness and weakness, however, is all the power of God; all the compassion of his Son Jesus; and all the strength of his Holy Spirit, who came in fiery tongues on the first Pentecost to kindle a fire that is still burning; and to sweep people off their feet with a rushing mighty wind that is still blowing.

Most of Jesus’ contemporaries took offense at him. Or as another translation of our gospel reading has it, “They found him too much for them.”

What about you?   

Monday, February 4, 2019

JESUS' RESPONSE TO FAITH


Homily for February 5th, 2019: Mark 5:21-43.

          Today’s gospel recounts two miracles: both of them healings. All the healings reported in the gospels are Jesus’ response to faith. Earlier in this chapter Mark has told 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 named Jairus whose daughter “is at the point of death.” He believes Jesus can heal her. 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 coming up behind him and grabbing hold of his cloak. She is so confident in the power of Jesus that even this contact with his garment can bring her healing.

          Jesus turns around and asks, “Who has touched my clothes?”  His disciples say the question is unanswerable. Given the crowd pressing in on Jesus, it is impossible to say who touched him. The woman, however, confesses that she has touched Jesus. “Daughter, your faith has saved you,” Jesus tells the woman. “Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”

          Messengers now arrive saying that Jairus’ daughter has died. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus tells the father. Just have faith.” 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 another 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).

Sunday, February 3, 2019

"GO HOME TO YOUR FAMILY."


Homily for February 4th, 2019: Mark 5: 1-20.

          The story we have just heard in the gospel reading is one of the strangest in the New Testament. Jesus heals a man of insanity. He has been living like an animal in a cave. According to the ideas of that day, he is possessed by evil spirits. Jesus drives out the spirits, who enter a herd of wild pigs feeding nearby. The animals rush headlong over a cliff into the lake, and are drowned.

          We must leave these bizarre details to the Scripture scholars. Important for us is what happens to the man after his healing. No wonder the man begs Jesus to take him with him. And how crushed he must have been when Jesus refuses and tells him instead: “Go home to your family and announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.” 

          “To my family?" we can imagine the man thinking. Those were the people who had driven him out of his mind in the first place. At home everyone would point him out, whisper about him, laugh at him. What would happen to his new-found sanity and peace of mind then?

          With a cold, dead weight on his heart the man watches Jesus and his friends get into the boat. They row out a little way from shore and set the sails. Gradually the boat gets smaller and smaller, until it is only a speck on the horizon. And the man thinks: “Out there is the man who has changed my life: the kindest, the most wonderful man I have ever met.” It must have been a long time before the man finds the courage to turn round and climb the cliff gain, obeying Jesus’ command: “Go home . . . ”

          In a few minutes the Lord will give us that same command. Perhaps we’d prefer to stay. How good it is to be with Jesus. It is quiet and peaceful in church at this early morning hour. How difficult it is to return to the rough and tumble of daily life, to the demands that await you as soon as you do return. But return we must. We live not on the mountain tops of great spiritual experiences. Most of life’s journey is spent in the valleys; and for each of us there are times when those valleys are dark. When you must walk in darkness, remember the beautiful words of the most loved of all the 150 psalms, Psalm 23: “Even though I walk in the dark, I fear no evil; for you are at my side, with your rod and your staff that give me courage.”