THE GOLDEN CALF

Homily for July 29th, 2013: Exod. 32:15-24, 30-34.

It’s difficult for most of us to relate to the story of the golden calf in today’s first reading. Idolatry is not high on the sin list of most Catholics. We’re aware of the charge by fundamentalist Protestants that we’re guilty of idolatry because we have statues of saints in our churches. We know, however, that we don’t worship the statues. And when we pray to the saints we’re merely asking them to pray for us. So what’s the big deal?

The issue is not statues, and it’s not prayer to the saints. Idolatry is putting anything in the place that belongs to God alone. What are today’s false gods? There are four: pleasure, power, possessions, and honor. None of them are bad in themselves. Where we go wrong is making the pursuit of any of those four central in our lives. When we do that, we are guilty of idolatry: worshiping a god who cannot answer our prayers, because he is deaf, dumb, and blind.

The person who lives for thrills is worshiping the false god of pleasure. Control freaks are worshiping the idol of power. People intent on getting more, and more, and more are idolizing possessions. And anyone who can’t stand not being in the spotlight is worshiping the false god of honor. Making the pursuit of any of those four idols central in our lives leads inevitably to frustration – because we’ll never get enough.

We are hard-wired for God. He is the only one who can satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts. Put Him, the Lord God, at the center of your life, and he will give you pleasure, power, possessions, and honor: not as much, perhaps, as you think you should have; but as much as the Lord God knows is good for you. No one has said it better than St. Augustine when he wrote, from his own experience: “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

WHAT PRIESTHOOD HAS TAUGHT ME

Requested by a seminarian approaching ordination, this letter was published, in a slightly different version, in The Priest magazine for August 2013.

WHAT PRIESTHOOD HAS TAUGHT ME

Dear Pietro:

            You have asked me to share with you things I have learned, in 59 years as a priest, which might help you as you prepare to offer yourself to the Lord for service to him and to his holy people as a sharer in the high priesthood of Jesus Christ.

            Let me begin by recounting a story told by our current archbishop in St. Louis, Robert Carlson. Decades ago, when he was Vocation Director in his home diocese of St. Paul, a young man considering going to seminary told Carlson that he needed to go home first and pray about whether he was good enough to be a priest. “I’ll save you some time,” Carlson said. “You’re not good enough.” He was right, of course. God doesn’t call us because we’re good enough. No one is good enough to be a priest of Jesus Christ: not the Curé of Ars, not Padre Pio, not even the Pope. The Lord doesn’t call us because we’re good enough; he calls us because he loves us.

            Never forget that, Pietro. The desire for priesthood which is in your heart has been put there by the One who is love (cf. 1 John 4:8). He wants you to be a messenger of that love to others: through words when appropriate, but always through the example of your life.

            You can never do that unless you are constantly receiving the love that the Lord wants you to pass on to others. This brings me to the first thing that almost six decades of priesthood have taught me. You can’t make it in the priesthood, and you certainly can’t be happy as a priest, unless you are spending time alone with the Lord, every single day. We can all pray when we feel like it. The test comes when we don’t feel like it, yet still set aside time for the Lord. For this we need –

            A Rule of life, centered on prayer. One of the Lord’s great gifts to me is to have had such a rule since I was twelve years old. At that age I joined what Catholics would call a sodality: the Servants of Christ the King. Members promised to follow a simple rule of life, centered on prayer. You can read the details on p. 64 of my autobiography, No Ordinary Fool. Members made an annual report to the sodality’s Director, grading themselves on a scale of 1 to 10, and received from him a friendly note of admonition and encouragement in response. You should have such a rule, for which you must be accountable to a spiritual director.

            Why is this so important? Because it will keep you faithful to the daily prayer time with Lord which every priest needs. There will be many times when you don’t feel like praying, when the time you have set apart for the Lord is dry and nothing but a mass of distractions and prayer seems a complete waste of time. All that is of no importance, provided that you remain faithful to your commitment to prayer, because you have “a date with the Lord.” When you seem to “get nothing out of it,” because of your dryness and distractions, this means that you are making a costly offering to the Lord. And the Lord loves a costly offering.

            Here is what St. Teresa of Avila writes about this, in chapter eight of her autobiography:

Very often, over a period of several years, I was more occupied in wishing my hour of prayer were over, and in listening for the clock to strike, than in thinking of things that were good. ... Whenever I entered the chapel, I used to feel so depressed that I had to summon up all my courage to make myself pray at all. ... In the end the Lord came to my help. Afterwards, when I had forced myself to pray, I would find that I had more tranquility and happiness than at certain other times when I had prayed because I had wanted to. e wants yuoH

, and when the time we have set apart for the Lord is notin      

            Should a daily Holy Hour be part of your rule of life? You must decide that for yourself. I have never done that. I think that those who do, fill up the hour with praying the breviary, the rosary, and other devotions. That’s not my scene. The one universally applicable rule for prayer is this: pray as you can and not as you can’t. For decades I have sat in silence for a half-hour before Mass, waiting on the Lord. I pray the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer after Mass. That is a 75-80 minutes spent with the Lord, a half-hour of it in what the books call contemplative prayer. Later in the day I pray the rest of the Divine Office; and I also spend time invoking the prayers of more than twenty Saints and Blesseds for various intentions and people, yourself included.

            Another spiritual practice which I strongly recommend to you is “the practice of the presence of God.” I write on page 87 of No Ordinary Fool about resolving as a new seminarian to remember the presence of God every time I went up or downstairs. Today I say one of the holy names at each step: Jesus, Mary, Joseph. Because of this practice, constantly renewed over the span of 65 years, I find myself praying the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and one or two other familiar prayers as I walk down a hallway, from one room to another, back and forth to my car – and at many other “empty” times during the day. I don’t consciously start; I just find that I am already praying one of these prayers, quite spontaneously.

            You have mentioned difficulties with celibacy. Well, join the club, Brother! I have had those difficulties almost all my life. In his Life of St. Benedict, St. Gregory the Great says that during the three years Benedict lived in his youth as a hermit, he became so inflamed with desire (a polite word for lust) for an attractive young woman he had known, that he threw off his clothes and rolled in a thicket of thorns and nettles. “He vanquished sin by changing one fire into another,” Gregory says. “As Benedict told his disciples, from then on sexual temptation was controlled to such an extent that he never felt it any more.” The modern reader, living in our sex obsessed society, could be excused for commenting: “Lucky man!”  

            That has not been my experience. Nor is it likely to be yours. After decades of inner turmoil and much chaos in my life, the Lord evidently said: “Jay, you’ve had enough. I’m telling the Devil to lay off.” I say “evidently,” since I knew nothing about this. But gradually, I think it was in my late seventies, I realized: “I’m free! Free at last!” The temptations had simply disappeared, and with them the images and videos that used to run in my head. I couldn’t get them back even if I wanted to. How lucky can you be? So don’t be discouraged. Never, ever give up. And keep in mind, when you fail (as we all do at times), what our wonderful new Pope Francis has told us: God never gets tired of forgiving us. It is we who grow tired of asking for forgiveness.

            Will you be lonely in the priesthood? Sometimes, sure. Loneliness is part of the human condition. Through pastoral ministry I learned early on that married people are lonely too. Loneliness comes about because no human relationship – not the perfect marriage nor the ideal friendship (and how many people have found either?) – can fully satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts. Only the Lord God can do that. No one has said it better than St. Augustine: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless, till we find rest in you.” Or, to put it in terms best understood by your generation, we are hard-wired for God.

            As a 20-year-old seminarian, I read something about loneliness which has helped me all my life long:

Turn your loneliness into solitude,

which is the loveliness of being alone with God.

            In my head I realized that was true the moment I read it. Internalizing it in my heart has taken me a lifetime. Read what I write about this on page 298 of No Ordinary Fool.

            Here is something else I read as a young seminarian. It helped me then, and it helps me still:   

           The conversation of the brethren should help and cheer us, but God’s

            voice speaks most often in silence. Keep some part of every day free

           from all noise and the voices of men, for human distraction and the

           craving for it hinder divine peace.

            It is common to see members of your generation going through the day, and half the night, with those ghastly electronic buds in their ears, so they don’t have to endure even a nano-second of silence. How pathetic. Adults are afflicted as well, priests included. I know a priest, more than forty years ordained, who keeps the television on all day and until he retires for the night, listening to some sports event or other. He says that without that background noise he feels restless. He is a good priest. He would be even better if he were able to experience, in silence, the peace of God which passes human understanding.

            So turn off the TV, Pietro. Learn to be content with the presence of God. Turn off the radio in your car too when you are driving, and pray the rosary (the only time, incidentally, when I am able to pray in that way: I wasn’t brought up on the rosary and am not really comfortable with it even today.)

            The priest with whom I live is away this week, and, once the parish secretary has left in mid-afternoon, I have the house to myself. I just love the silence. I have whole shelves full of long-playing records and CDs with recordings of classical music, which I love. I seldom listen to them any more. I prefer the silence. “God speaks most often in silence.”  

            You’re keen to be a good preacher. For that you must read, widely: anything that has substance and value, provided it is not trash. Reading stimulates the imagination. Watching TV kills it: it’s not called the Boob Tube for nothing!

            You will need especially a rich knowledge of biblical images and themes. Read all you can on Jesus’ parables. Allow yourself to be inspired by Paul’s personal witness to the gospel, starting with his conversion story, told three times over in the Acts of the Apostles.

            Don’t neglect the Old Testament. The stories of the patriarchs in the Pentateuch show God doing his characteristic work in every generation: bringing life out of death. He creates new life in the dead womb of the aged Sarah. He repeatedly rescues Joseph from death (from his brothers, from false accusation and from famine in Egypt). HeeHeHHH rescues His entire people at the Red Sea (which the exegetes tell us was the Sea of Reeds). Those stories are part of what Jesus was referring to when he told the two disciples the first Easter afternoon on the road to Emmaus: “O slow of heart to believe all that was written . . .” (Luke 24:25)

            There are rich treasures in the prophets as well: the message of social justice in Amos and others; Isaiah’s call in chapter 6 of his book; the assurance of God’s forgiveness (“Though your sins be like scarlet they shall be white as snow;” Is. 1:18; “Their sins and offenses I will remember no more” Jer. 31:34). I could go on and on.

            Finally, time spent alone with the Lord in prayer is the preacher’s sine qua non. There was a day when the text from John 12:21 was posted inside pulpits for the preacher to see: “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” That is what people want from us above all. And the people of God, whom we are ordained to serve, have a keen spiritual sense. They can tell whether we simply know about God; or whether we know him as one knows a dearly loved friend – because we spend time with Him. 

            Only if we are spending time alone with the Lord will our preaching manifest joy. Few things are more pathetic that the joyless proclaimer of the good news. How can we maintain joy, not just when our mouths are filled with laughter, and our tongues with joy (to quote the psalmist), but when we journey, as all of us must, at one time or another, through the psalmist’s dark valley? Let me tell you about what works for me: cultivating the prayer of thanksgiving.

            I started to do this as a schoolboy. On my birthday each year I used to spend time in the school chapel. Kneeling, or sitting, before the Lord in the tabernacle, I would write a list of all the reasons I had for thanksgiving. It was always a long list, and it was never difficult to compile.

It is decades since I have done that. But that adolescent practice has made the prayer of thanksgiving easy for me. My greatest reason for thanksgiving today, apart from my baptism, is my joy in priesthood. At age twelve the Lord planted in me the desire for priesthood. From that day to this I have never wanted anything else. Priesthood has brought me joys beyond telling, Pietro. It has also brought me bitter grief and pain. If you were to ask me, however, whether, if I were able to live my life over again, knowing in advance the worst that priesthood would throw at me, I would still choose to be a priest of Jesus Christ, I would answer without hesitation: In a heartbeat! I would change just one thing: I would try to be more faithful, and above all more generous.

            I was ordained a priest over fifty-nine years ago. And I’m still head over heels in love with priesthood. I couldn’t tell you how many times I say every day: “Lord, you’re so good to me, and I’m so grateful.”  Find your own way of saying that, Pietro, and there will be joy in your heart – a joy so intense that you will be able one day to say with me: “If I were to die tonight, I would die a happy man.”

            You probably know the story of the man whom St. John Vianney saw every day in his church, without rosary or book, his lips not moving, his gaze fixed on the crucifix. 

            “What do you do?” John Vianney asked the man one day.

            “I look at Him,” the man replied, “and He looks at me.”

            St. Teresa of Avila calls this silent waiting on God “friendly intercourse, and frequent solitary converse, with Him who we know loves us.”

            Your parishioners won’t always love you, Pietro — though some of them will, probably more than you deserve. Your pastor and your brother priests will find you, much of the time, less than lovable. Your bishop will tell you he loves you. You may find it hard to believe. (Pray for him, and cut him some slack: he receives more critical letters in a week than you will in a year.) But there is One who always loves you. He doesn’t love the ideal person you’d like to be. No. He loves you as you are, right now: with all your faults, and compromises, and sins. It is his love, and his alone, that can enable you to persevere in the priesthood to which he has called you, and to be happy in it.  

            In the priesthood, as in every life, you will experience times when your will is crossed, your self-love wounded, what you think are your rights are disregarded; when you feel put upon, passed over, disliked, unjustly attacked. You will feel the downward pull of ambition, envy, covetousness, lust. There will periods that seem colorless and monotonous, when prayer is difficult, and other people are hard to live with, perhaps impossible. The only way you can survive — and not merely survive but be deeply happy despite all these things — is to spend time alone with the One who loves you more than you can ever imagine, who will always be close to you no matter how far you stray from him or how often you let him down; whose love will never let you go.

His name is Jesus Christ.

In His love I remain always, dear Pietro, your devoted friend and brother,

John Jay Hughes

Fr. Hughes is a priest of the St. Louis archdiocese and author of the memoir,

No Ordinary Fool: A Testimony to Grace.(Scroll down for a review of the book.)

 

"DO YOU WANT US TO PULL UP THE WEEDS?"

Homily for July 27th, 2013.

The suggestion of the farmer’s slaves that they should pull up the weeds in his field was entirely reasonable. The farmer rejects the suggestion nonetheless. There will be a time for separating the weeds from the wheat, he says. But that is later. Until then, he orders, “let them grow together.” 

          The parable is important for people who are scandalized because the Church contains so many hypocrites: people who come to church on Sunday, but whose lives the rest of the week are inconsistent with the words they hear and speak in church. Jesus knows that his Church will always contain people who, because their hearts are far from God, are not part of his kingdom. Separating true believers from hypocrites, however, is for God not for us. Only God can purify his Church; for only God can see people’s hearts 

          Which one of us would not like to have a Church in which everyone from First Communion children to the Pope always practiced what they preached? Wouldn’t that would be beautiful? But creating such a pure Church is God’s work, not ours. And the time for God’s final purification is not yet.

          Note that I said “final purification.” Purification of the Church through suffering, repentance, and forgiveness goes on all the time. The Second Vatican Council said that the Church is “always in need of being purified” (LG 8, end). The time for final purification, however, is not yet. That “not yet” contains a warning, but also encouragement. The warning is contained in the farmer’s order at harvest time: “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning.” God delays his judgment because he is patient. One day, however, patience will give way to judgment. That is the warning. The story’s encouragement is its message that the Lord’s Church has room for everyone. 

          I’d like to leave you with a question, for your own reflection: If the Church were really as pure as we would all like it to be, can we be confident that there would be room in it for ordinary, weak sinners like ourselves?

 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Homily for Friday, July 26^th, 2013.

          Many Catholics understand the Ten Commandments as a moral test in which we must first get a passing grade, before God will bless us in this world, and admit us to heaven in the next. This overlooks the words God speaks before giving us the Commandments: “I, the Lord, am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.” Between that sentence and the First Commandment, “You shall not have other gods before me,” there is an unwritten “Therefore.” Because of all I have done for you, and given you, the Lord is saying, you shall keep these Commandments.

          The Commandments, in other words, are a description of how we respond to all God gives us. Can you think of something that is all your own, and not a gift from God? Many people might cite their achievements, the money they have earned, the awards they may have received. Would any of that be possible without the talents and abilities God has given us?

          Oh, there is one thing we have which is all our own: our sins. Everything else comes ultimately from God – not as a reward for services rendered, but as a free gift, given to us simply because God loves us. The Commandments, then, are not a moral test. They are a description of how we respond in gratitude for all God’s gifts.

          Another common mistake is thinking of God’s Commandments as fences, to hem us in. That’s wrong! The Commandments are actually ten signposts pointing the way to a happy and fulfilled life. Imagine what life would be like in our families, in the communities in which we live – yes, in our country – if everyone really kept the Commandments. There would be no gun violence, no lying, no robberies, no envying of others, no disrespect of the old and vulnerable.

          When we fail to keep God’s Commandments, as we all do at times, there is a simple remedy. Pope Francis told us about it when he said: “God never grows tired for forgiving us. We grow tired of asking for forgiveness.”    

Homily for July 28th

"ASK AND YOU WILL RECEIVE."
AIM: To explain prayer of petition and intercession. 
Why do we ask God for things in prayer? Are we trying to get God to change his mind? And why ask at all if God already knows our needs before we pray?  Which of us has never wondered about questions like these?

To read the homily copy this link and paste it in your browser: 
http://homilies.nowyouknowmedia.com/ask-and-you-will-receive/

SERVICE, NOT HONOR

Homily for Thursday, July 25th, 2013.

          “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,” Jesus says in today’s gospel. It is his response to the request made by the mother of the brothers James and John that he give them places of special honor in his kingdom. The petition may have come from the mother. It is clear, however, that she had the full backing of her two sons. For when Jesus asks if they can share the chalice of pain and suffering from which he will drink, the two brothers respond eagerly, “We can.” They have no idea, of course, what lies ahead for the Master they love and revere.

          It quickly becomes clear that the other disciples are equally clueless. They become indignant at James and John for staking out a claim before the other disciples can assert theirs. Patiently Jesus explains that this whole contest for honor is totally unacceptable among his followers. “Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.” And immediately Jesus ratifies this teaching with his own example: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

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

"SOME SEED FELL ON GOOD SOIL"

Homily for Wednesday, July 24th 2013.

Most of the seed which the farmer sows is wasted. Only at the end of the story does Jesus tell us: “Some seed, finally, landed on good soil and yielded grain that spring up to produce at a rate of thirty- and sixty- and a hundredfold.”

          A Bible commentator writes: “A 20-to-1 ratio would have been considered an extraordinary harvest. Jesus’ strikingly large figures are intended to underscore the prodigious quality of God’s glorious kingdom still to come.”

          The parable is Jesus’ antidote to discouragement and despair. So much of our effort seems to be wasted. So much of the Church’s work seems barren of result. The Christian community for which Mark wrote his gospel was discouraged, as we are often discouraged.  They had been banished from the synagogue which they loved. They faced the same hostility as their Master. Despite the rising hostility he could see all round him, Jesus refuses to yield to discouragement. He remains confident — and tells this story to give confidence to others. “Jesus is not only the sower who scatters the seed of God’s word,” Pope Benedict XVI writes. “He is also the seed that falls into the earth in order to die and so to bear fruit.” 

          Are you discouraged? You have made so many good resolutions. How many have you kept? You seem to make no progress in prayer. When you come to confession, it is the same tired old list of sins. You wanted so much. You’ve settled for so little. If that — or any of that — applies to you, then Jesus is speaking, through this parable, very personally to you. Listen.

          ‘Have patience and courage,’ he is saying. ‘Do your work, be faithful to prayer, to your daily duties. God has sown the seed of his word in your life. The harvest is certain. When it comes it will be greater than you can possibly imagine.  The harvest depends, in the final analysis, not on you, but on God. And God’s seed is always fruitful, his promise always reliable.’

 

A NEW PRIEST IN GOOD COMPANY!

When Father Patrick Allen lay prostrate before the bishop for his diaconate ordination on June 29, Allen’s son, Henry, ran up to join his dad. 

Fr. Allen, a former priest in the Episcopal Church , was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood on July 7th, 2013, by the Bishop of Charleston/SC. He will serve in the Anglican Ordinariate, created by (now Emeritus) Pope Benedict XVI. 

"WHO IS MY MOTHER? WHO ARE MY BROTHERS?"

Homily for Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013.

          Told that his mother and other close relatives are “outside, wishing to speak” to him, Jesus seems to be dismissive. “Who is my mother?” he asks. “'Who are my brothers'? And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers.’” What seems to us to be dismissive is in reality inclusive. Jesus makes this clear by adding at once: “Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother and sister and mother.”

          Jesus lived, died, and rose again fully two millennia ago. Yet we are never distant from him, save by our own choice. As long as we are trying to be faithful to him, by doing his Father’s will, we are as close to Jesus as his blood relatives. Note that I said trying. That is what is crucial: our effort, not our success. Mother Teresa, now Bl. Teresa of Calcutta, used to tell her Sisters: “The Lord does not ask us to be successful. He asks us to be faithful.” When we fail in faithfulness, we need to remember what our wonderful new Pope Francis told us within days of his election: “The Lord never tires of forgiving us. It is we who grow tired of asking for forgiveness.”

          Who were the “brothers” who wished to speak with Jesus in today’s gospel reading? The Church has always believed that Jesus was Mary’s only child. Why? Having given herself completely to the Lord when she told the angel Gabriel, “Be it done to me according to your word,” Mary was so totally united to God that she could never give herself to another, not even to Joseph. The “brothers” of Jesus mentioned here and elsewhere in the gospels were either cousins, or possibly half-siblings: children of Joseph with a wife who had died before he married Mary.

          Crucial for us is Jesus’ assurance that we who live remote from him in time, are still as close to him as his blood relatives, as long as we are trying to do each day what God asks of us.

 

"DO NOT CLING TO ME"

Homily for Monday, July 22nd, 2013.

          Mary Magdalene “saw Jesus … but did not know it was Jesus.” That was the experience of almost all those to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection. Why? Jesus had not returned to his former life. He had been raised to a new life, beyond death. His appearance was somehow changed. Mary Magdalene recognized the Lord only when he spoke her name. The gospel reading does not tell us how she reacted. We can easily infer this, however, from Jesus’ words: “Stop holding on to me” – or as another and better translation has it: “Do not cling to me!” Immediately Jesus commands: “Go to my brothers” with the news of my resurrection.

          A young man considering priesthood told the priest who was helping him with his vocational decision that he had finally found courage to send in his application for admission to one of the Church’s religious orders for men. A few days after he received word of his acceptance into the novitiate, he was driving down the highway when he thought of a girl he had known. “She’d be the perfect wife for me,” he thought. “Am I crazy, throwing away that chance for happiness?” He told the priest that he got so upset that he prayed: “'Lord, you’re going to have to help me.' Immediately the Lord came to me so strongly that the tears ran down my cheeks, and I had to pull off the road.”

          “Johnny,” the priest told him, “the Lord came to you to strengthen your faith and your decision to serve him as a priest. You must be thankful for that. But don’t try to hold on to that spiritual experience by running the video over again in your head. That is spiritual gluttony.”

          The priest went on to tell him about the risen Lord's words to Mary Magdalene: “Do not cling to me,” but go to my brothers with the news of my resurrection. Every encounter with the Lord is given to us not just for ourselves, the priest explained, to give us a nice warm spiritual experience inside. Whenever the Lord comes to us, he sends us to others – his brothers and sisters; yes, and ours too.