"IF THE WORLD HATES YOU, REALIZE THAT IT HATED ME FIRST."

Homily for May 24th, 2014: John 15:18-21.

          “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first,” Jesus says in today’s gospel. Does the world really hate us? I’m sorry to tell you: It does. When we say, publicly and openly, that abortion at any stage of pregnancy, is the deliberate killing of a baby, a crime as grave as the killing of a human being at any age between birth and natural death, the world calls us misogynists, haters of women, enemies of their “reproductive freedom,” who are waging a war on women.

          When we say, publicly and openly, that marriage is exclusively the lifelong union of one man and on woman, rooted in our God given human nature, for the sake not only of uniting hearts and minds, but also for parenthood, we are called homophobes, bigots, enemies of equality as reprehensible as those who defended segregated schools, waiting rooms, and lunch counter in yesteryear’s Jim Crow South.

          The world hates us for saying these things and tells us: “You should be ashamed.” These are not merely personal opinions, as a parishioner told me not long ago when I stated from the pulpit the Church’s teaching about marriage. They are the teaching of the Catholic Church.

          There is a way to avoid this hatred, and it is this: simply be silent about such matters. Then we can continue to go to Mass, and identify ourselves publicly as Catholics without arousing hatred; because the world knows, with a wink and a nod, that there are also “good Catholics”: sensible, modern people who don’t upset anyone by mentioning such matters, because such Catholics agree with those who hate us that the Church’s teachings are outdated, obsolete, and hence, for Catholics, optional and dispensable. Friends, nothing in our Catholic faith is optional or dispensable, any more than any one of the teachings of Jesus Christ is optional. It was Jesus’ refusal to compromise, or be silent, about anything he said that brought him to the cross.

One day each one of us will stand before God in judgment. One of the questions we shall be asked is this: Were you ever ashamed of the gospel? Did you keep silent about any part of it, or did you deny it, out of fear that you would make people uncomfortable or even angry? The answers to those questions will determine, one day, where, how, and with whom, we shall spend eternity. Think about that. More important, pray about it.

DIFFICULT DECISIONS -- THEN AND NOW

Homily for May 23^rd, 2014: Acts 15:22-31; John 15:12-17.

          We heard in yesterday’s first reading about the Church in the first generation after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension deciding a question crucial for the Church’s future: how much of the Jewish law must be required of non-Jews seeking Christian baptism? What we now recognize was the first Church Council decided to erect as few barriers a possible. The Church must not continue to be, as at first, a small group within Judaism. It must be open to all without exception. That we are Catholic Christians today in a land and continent unknown to anyone present at that first Council in Jerusalem is a fruit of what that Council decided.

          Today’s first reading tells of the Council’s decision being communicated to the Church at Antioch. When the letter from Jerusalem was read out in Antioch, we heard, “they were delighted” with what it contained.

          Today the Church wrestles with a problem of similar gravity: how can we continue to remain faithful to the Church’s consistent teaching, based on the Bible, that marriage is the permanent union of one man and one woman, while also trying to minister pastorally to couples whose marriages fail and are now in second unions, often with children? Up to now such people have been forbidden to come to Communion, since they are living in relationships which the Church cannot bless. Pope Francis has already summoned cardinals to Rome to discuss this painful question. There will be a synod of bishops from all over the world in Rome next October to continue the discussion. We must pray that the Holy Spirit will guide those who are seeking a solution to this difficult problem.

          Jesus’ twice repeated command in today’s gospel, “love one another,” is especially important in this connection. Too often Catholics today separate themselves into parties: us and them, liberals and conservatives. Divisions like that, appropriate in the political realm, have no place in the great family of God which we call the Catholic Church. We are all brothers and sisters; all equally daughters and sons of our heavenly Father, who reconciles us with him and with each other through the poured out blood of his divine Son, Jesus Christ.  

"I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU ORPHANS."

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A. John 14:15-21.

AI will not leave you orphans,@ Jesus says in the gospel reading we have just heard. Mother Teresa used to say: AThe greatest sickness in the modern world is loneliness C just having no one.@ To have no one is especially painful for a young child. One of the major traumas of little children is getting separated from Mummy or Daddy in a crowd. Across the distance of eghty-two years I can still remember my panic at losing sight of my mother in the pre-Christmas shopping crush at the big New York department store, Macy=s. She found me again a few moments later. But at age four, it seemed an eternity. I can feel the fright and pain still. 

Infinitely greater was the pain I experienced only two years later when my mother really did leave me. She died of pneumonia the day after Christmas 1934, after only a week=s illness. Not two years after this tragedy the Lord who tells us, AI will not leave you orphans,@ came to me in an experience which (as I realize now looking back) would shape the rest of my life. At age seven or eight it came home to me one day, with a certainty which has never left me, that the separation from my mother was temporary only. I would see her again, when God called me home to himself. 

I did not know it till decades later, but that childhood insight was the seed from which my call to priesthood grew. It planted in me the desire to be close to the spiritual world: the world of God, the world of the angels, of the saints, and of our beloved dead. I never go to the altar to offer the sacrifice in which we stand on the threshold of that spiritual world without praying for my mother C and now of course for so many other loved ones as well who, in the eight decades since her death, have followed her home to God.

AI will not leave you orphans,@ Jesus promises us. AI will come to you.@  Jesus spoke those words of farewell the night before his death. He spoke them knowing that his death was imminent. That is why he says: AIn a little while the world will no longer see me.@ And then he adds: ABut you will see me, because I live and you will live.@ 

That is the great, central truth of our faith: Jesus lives! Jesus, who really died, just as each of us must die one day, is alive. This celebration is not the sorrowful commemoration of a dead hero. It is a joyful encounter with our living, ever present Lord. At Easter Jesus did not come back to life. Jesus= earthly life ended on Calvary. At Easter Jesus was raised to new life C a life beyond death, a life which would never end. 

That is why Jesus left his burial wrappings behind in the tomb. He would never need them again. When Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, by contrast, Lazarus came forth from his tomb, as we read in John=s gospel, Abound head and foot with linen strips, his face wrapped in a cloth@ (11:44). Lazarus did come back to earthly life. He would need his burial wrappings again.

Because Jesus did not come back to earthly life, but was raised at Easter to new, heavenly life, most of those to whom he appeared after the resurrection did not recognize him at first. Because he was alive on a new, spiritual level, he had no earthly abode. He was no longer subject to earthly limitations. He could appear and disappear at will, even behind locked doors, as he did to his frightened apostles in the upper room on Easter evening.

It is part of the good news of the gospel that this new, heavenly life which Jesus enjoys will one day be ours. One day C but not now. Here and now we encounter the Lord who promises not to leave us orphans through his Holy Spirit: the AAdvocate@ as Jesus calls him in today=s gospel, who will Abe with you always, the Spirit of truth.@

This Advocate, the Holy Spirit of the living God and third person of the Trinity, is the love poured out from the Father on his Son, and returned by the Son to his Father. For most of us our first experience of love came through the care which our mothers lavished on us when we were too small and too young to know or remember it. Each of us learned to love, if we have learned at all, by being loved. As we grew to maturity we were called to share this love with others by obeying the commandments of Him who is the source of all love.

AIf you love me,@ Jesus tells us in today=s gospel, Ayou will keep my commandments. ... Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.@

What about the times we have not kept God=s commandments? All of us have failed at times, most of us often. For such failures there is a special sacrament: the sacrament of penance or reconciliation, most often called simply confession. When we bring our failures to God, with sincere sorrow and a firm purpose to do better, God forgives us. He doesn=t want us to drag behind us an ever lengthening trail of guilt. Each time we come to confession we are saying: >Lord, I do really love you, despite my sins. I want to be close to you always.= And the Lord, in response, repeats the words from today=s gospel: AWhoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.@

That is the personal promise of Jesus Christ to you, and to me.  And when Jesus Christ promises something, he always keeps his promise. 

JEWISH SECT, OR CHURCH FOR ALL?

Homily for March 22^nd, 2014: Acts 15:7-21.

          The Church’s original members were almost all observant Jews. After the Lord’s return to heaven at the Ascension, they continued to worship in the Jerusalem Temple, and to observe the Jewish dietary laws. Things began to change when a Roman military officer named Cornelius, described as “religious and God-fearing [as was] his whole household,” had a vision telling him to “send for a certain Simon, known as Peter.” About the same time Peter too had a vision in which God commanded him to eat food that the Jewish dietary laws labeled as “unclean,” and not to be eaten. This prepared Peter for the visit of messengers from Cornelius inviting him to come with them to their master.

          When Peter arrived, he found that Cornelius had invited a large crowd of relatives and friends, all presumably Gentiles. Jesus told them about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Whereupon the Holy Spirit descended on the whole company, as he had descended on Peter and his friends at Pentecost. “What can stop these people who have received the Holy Spirit, even as we have, from being baptized?” Peter asked. Following their baptism, Peter stayed with them several days, despite the Jewish law forbidding house and table fellowship with Gentiles. (See Acts chapter 10.)

          When news of all this reached Jerusalem, it caused consternation in the Christian community there. A meeting of Church leaders assembled to settle the question of what Jewish laws should be required of Gentiles who wished to receive baptism. Our first reading told what happened.

This first Church Council settled the matter by deciding that Gentile Christians need not observe the whole Jewish law, only certain essential provisions. This decision was momentous – and for the future crucial. It enabled the Church to emerge from its Jewish womb and become what it is today: the Body of Christ for all peoples, races, and nations, without difference or distinction. Pope Francis recently preached about this in one of his daily homilies. “If tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here... Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them... And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ What would happen?” he asked. “When the Lord shows us the way, who are we to say, ‘No, Lord, it is not prudent! His point was: the Church is for all, without distinction.

"I AM THE TRUE VINE . . . "

Homily for May 21^st, 2014: John 15:1-8.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.” Some Bible scholars think that Jesus spoke these words as he crossed the Temple courtyard with his eleven still faithful friends after the Last Supper. It was Passover time, so there would have been a full moon. The golden vine around the Temple wall, which symbolized God’s people, glowed in the moonlight. Pointing first to himself, then to the vine, Jesus says: AI am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower ...@

In calling himself the true vine, Jesus implies a contrast. God=s people, the vine he had brought out of Egypt and planted in a new land, had not been true. Jesus had been true. His death the next day would be Jesus= final act of faithful obedience to his Father=s will. He was calling the little band of friends accompanying him to imitate his faithfulness ABy this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

  To do this, they must remain united with him. ARemain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.@ The person who remains united with him, Jesus says, Awill bear much fruit.@

AMy Father is the vine grower,@ Jesus says. He cares for the branches on his vine in two ways: by pruning those that bear fruit, and by cutting off and burning the unfruitful branches. Jesus= words about the unfruitful branches being thrown into a fire and burned are an implied reference to Judas, who was even then betraying the Lord.

The vine grower=s treatment of the fruitful branches seems at first sight severe: AEvery one that [bears fruit] he prunes so that it bears more fruit.@ The image, easily understood by Jesus= hearers, who were familiar with vineyards and grapes, is that of a gardener pinching off the new green shoots on a vine, so that all the growth can be concentrated in the few early blooming branches which the gardener has selected to bear fruit. 

Faced in life with setbacks, injustice, or suffering B as all of us are, at some time or other B which one of us has not asked: AWhy me? What have I done to deserve this?@ Jesus= words in today=s gospel do not answer these questions. Instead his words challenge us to view setbacks, injustice, and suffering as opportunities to grow. He is inviting us to submit to the vine grower=s pruning, and so to glorify him by producing abundant fruit.

"HOW SWEET THE NAME OF JESUS SOUNDS . . . "

Homily for May 20^th, 2014: St. Bernadine of Siena.

          The collect, or opening prayer, at this Mass spoke about God giving St Bernardine of Siena, whom the Church commemorates today “a great love for the holy name of Jesus.” Born near Siena in 1380, Bernard lost both parents before he was 7 years old. Following studies at the University of Siena, he entered the Franciscan Order at the age of 22, becoming in time a noted preacher. His favorite theme was devotion to the name of Jesus. “Was it not by the light and sweetness of this name,” Bernardine asked in one of his sermons, “that God called us into his wonderful light? … Hence this name must be proclaimed so that it may shine, it must not be hidden.” A 17^th century English hymn proclaims the holy name of Jesus in verse. It goes like this.

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear!

It soothes our sorrows, heals our wounds, and drives away our fear

It makes the wounded spirit whole, and calms the troubled breast;

’Tis manna to the hungry soul, and to the weary, rest.

Dear Name, the rock on which I build, my shield and hiding place,

My never failing treasury filled with boundless stores of grace!

Jesus! My Shepherd, Guardian, Friend, my Prophet, Priest, and King,

My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring.

Weak is the effort of my heart, and cold my warmest thought;

But when I see thee as thou art, I’ll praise thee as I ought.

Till then I would thy love proclaim with every fleeting breath;

And may the music of thy Name refresh my soul in death.

The holy name of Jesus, repeated reverently, with every breath, every heartbeat, or with every step as we walk down a hallway, up or downstairs, or to and from our car, is a perfect prayer that goes straight to the heart of our heavenly Father.

"YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BUT ME."

Homily for May 19^th, 2014: Acts 14:5-18; John 14:21-26.

          “When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they cried out … ‘The gods have come down to us in human form.’” What called forth is outburst of enthusiasm, and the attempt to offer sacrifice, was Paul’s healing of a crippled man, lame from birth. For the Bible, and especially for the Old Testament, idolatry is the great sin: violation of the first of the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods but me.”

          Idolatry is not very high on the sin list of most Catholics today. The false gods we worship are not statues – like the golden calf which God’s people made and worshiped while Moses was away atop Mt. Sinai. Today’s idols are things like pleasure, possessions, power, and honor: good in themselves, until we make them central in our lives. Then we inevitably experience frustration and disappointment, for we can never get enough. There is only One who can satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts, the Lord God.

          False gods are always our own constructs; and the demands they make on us are enslaving, not liberating. How different the God Jesus shows us in today’s gospel. “Whoever has my commandments and observes them, is the one who loves me. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him end reveal myself to him.” What could be more liberating, what could cause us greater joy, than to know that we are loved unconditionally by the One who made us, using our parents as his instruments – and who made not only us but the world and all that is? He is Creator all – but he is more. He sent his Son to be our Redeemer – the one who “cancelled the bond [of indebtedness because of our sins] that stood against us,” as Paul writes, “snatching it up and nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:14).

          This true God who loves us more than we can ever imagine is also the One who sends us his Holy Spirit “to teach you everything,” Jesus says in the final sentence of our gospel reading, “and remind you of all that I told you.” To Him, therefore, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, as we renew our pledge of loyalty, knowing that he alone can satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts.