"I MUST BE IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE."

Homily for June 28^th, 2014: Luke 2:41-51.

          ADid you not know that I must be in my Father=s house?@ Jesus asks his worried parents, worn out from a frantic three-day search for their twelve-year-old son. The words are the first Jesus speaks in Luke=s gospel. He speaks them in the building which, for all believing Jews of that day, including Jesus himself, was the earthly dwelling place of God.

With Jesus= coming, however, God was creating a new dwelling place on earth: the living flesh of the twelve-year-old boy who stood in that building and spoke of his need to be Ain my Father=s house.” He knew already that God was his Father, not Joseph. 

          This flash of youthful insight (if that is what it was) is immediately followed, however, by what looks like an anticlimax. Jesus does not remain in his Father=s house at Jerusalem. He returns to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph, to resume the normal life of a Jewish boy of his day. The great moment passes. Jesus surprises us. He would continue to surprise people throughout his earthly life. He remains the master of surprise today.

          One of those surprised by Jesus was his own mother. Luke tells us that she and Joseph Adid not understand@ their son=s words about having to be Ain my Father=s house.@ Mary would never fully understand her Son. Even for the woman who was closer to Jesus than anyone else on earth, Jesus remained shrouded in mystery. Like every human being before and since, Mary had to walk by faith, not by sight.

Jesus= brief moment of bright vision in the Temple was followed by the years of hidden labor in the carpenter=s shop at Nazareth. And it was there, in accepting the burdens, duties, and frustrations of a very ordinary and outwardly uninteresting life, that Jesus Aadvanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man,@ as Luke tells us at immediately after today=s gospel.

Do you want to advance, as Jesus did? Which of us does not? We advance in age whether we wish it or not. Advancing in wisdom and favor before God and others, however, requires doing what Jesus did. We must be willing to let go of life=s great experiences, no matter how beautiful they may be. We must accept the challenges, the duties, and the burdens which each day brings us. Don’t look back. Look forward. The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to say: AThere are no plains in the spiritual life; either we are going up, or we are going down.@ And in that Fulton Sheen was right. 

GOD IS LOVE."

Homily for June 27^th, 2014: Deut. 7:6-11; 1 John 4:7-16. Matt. 11:25-30.

          There is single, golden theme running through all three readings for today’s feast of the Sacred Heart: love. “Not that we have loved God,” we heard in the second reading, from the apostle who in the gospel that bears his name is always called, “the one Jesus loved.” Rather “that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”

          God’s love for his people is the theme of the first reading, from Deuteronomy. “It was not because you are the largest of all nations that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you are really the smallest of all nations. It was because the Lord loved you … that he brought you out with his strong hand from the place of slavery, and ransomed you from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.”

          In the gospel we hear the One whom God sent to us, out of love, “as expiation for our sins,” speaking words of thanksgiving to his heavenly Father for revealing his love to “little ones,” while hiding the message of love from “the wise and learned.” Who are these “wise and learned” today? They dominate the media and Hollywood. They run the great foundations, with names like Ford, Rockefeller, and Gates. They teach in our elite universities. They consider the killing of babies in the womb whose birth might be inconvenient or burdensome a sacred right. When we protest that abortion is a crime no less grave than slavery in a previous age, they treat us with disdain, or worse – accusing us of waging a “war on women.” And why not? In their eyes we are only “little ones,” as ignorant and irresponsible as small children. When we say that marriage is possible only between a man and a woman, they call us bigots, homophobes, and enemies of equality.

          Refusing to be silent about such things is part of the burden Jesus speaks about in the gospel. He calls that burden light. We often experience it as heavy. It becomes light, however, once we accept the yoke placed on our shoulders to help us bear the burden. Then we find we can carry it easily, realizing that however heavy our burden may be, Jesus’ burden was heavier. He walks beside us, sharing with us the fire of love which burns brightly in his Sacred Heart. Once set on fire with that love, we can break down any barrier, leap over any wall, coming finally into the presence of the One who is love himself.    

"YOU ARE PETER ..."

Feast of Saints Peter & Paul. Matthew 16:13-19.

AIM: To encourage the hearers by showing the human weaknesses of Peter and Paul.

AYou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.@ What do these familiar words really mean? They were a play on words which cannot be duplicated in English. In Jesus= language, Aramaic, the words for Peter and Rock were the same. In calling his friend, Simon, APeter,@ Jesus was giving him a new name: ARock.@

In reality, Peter was anything but rocklike. When, on the night before he died, Jesus told Peter that within hours Peter would deny him three times, Peter protested: AEven though I have to die with you, I will never disown you.@ (Mt. 26:34f) We all know the sequel: Jesus was right, Peter wrong.

Why, then, did Jesus choose Peter, of all people, as the leader of his Church?  Was it because Peter loved Jesus most? No, there was another friend of Jesus who clearly loved the Master more; who, alone among Jesus= male disciples, returned to stand beneath the cross as Jesus died. If love and loyalty were the basis for the office of leader, it would have gone to the unnamed Adisciple whom Jesus loved,@ as he is called in the gospel according to John. 

Jesus gave the position of leadership to the friend whose love was imperfect; whose impetuosity and weakness made the name Jesus gave him C Rock C ironic: as ironic as calling a 350-pound heavyweight ASlim.@ Before he was fit to become the Church=s leader, however, Peter had experience his weakness. That is the significance of Peter=s threefold denial of the Lord the night before Jesus died.

As long as Peter thought he was strong; as long as he could boast that though all the others might desert Jesus, he would remain faithful C he was unfit for leadership. He had to become aware of his own weakness. He had to be convinced that without a power greater than his own he could do nothing. Then, and only then, could Jesus use him. Then Simon would deserve his new name, ARock;@ because he would trust not in his own strength or willpower, but only and always in God, Awhose power reaches perfection in weakness,@ as today=s other saint, Paul, would write in his Second Letter to the Corinthians (12:9).

What was rocklike, then, in Peter was not strength of character or willpower, but faith C Peter=s trust in the One whose strength overcomes our human weakness. Jesus bestowed the office of leader on Peter in response to Peter=s declaration of faith. That is the rock on which the Lord builds his church: trust in Jesus as God=s anointed servant: the Messiah, and God=s Son. As long as this trusting faith endures, Jesus says, even death itself will have no power over his church.

We Catholics believe that Peter=s office of chief pastor continues in Christ=s Church. In time, Peter=s successors came to be called APope.@ Today the Pope has a position as different from Peter=s as today=s worldwide Catholic Church differs from the little band of friends who followed Jesus along the dusty roads of first-century Palestine.

In one respect, however, Peter=s successor today is no different from the warm-hearted but impetuous and often weak man whom Jesus first chose to lead his Church, and to whom he gave the name, ARock.@  Every one of Peter=s successors, our present Holy Father included, is an ordinary sinner like each of us, who must constantly seek God=s forgiveness for his shortcomings and failures in the sacrament of penance. Like Peter, he is strong only as long as he trusts not in himself, but only in the power that comes from God alone, through his Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

With Peter the Church honors today the Apostle Paul. His call was as surprising, in its way, as the Lord=s choice of Peter to be the Church=s leader.  Which one of us could have imagined that the Church=s arch-persecutor, Saul, would become its first and greatest missionary, Paul? Ananias, the man sent to baptize Saul after his blinding vision of the risen Lord on the road to Damascus, tried to refuse. ALord, I have heard from many sources about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem.@  AYou must go!@ the Lord answered.  AThis man is the instrument I have chosen to bring my name to the Gentiles ... and to the people of Israel. I myself shall show him how much he will have to suffer for my name.@ (Acts 9:13-16)

AHow much he must suffer@: there is the key. A special call always involves suffering. Paul=s sufferings were compounded by defects of character as pronounced as Peter=s, though different. If Peter was impulsive, impetuous, and often weak, Paul was hypersensitive, touchy, subject to wide swings of mood: at times elated, at others tempted to self-pity. No one who knew Paul would ever have accused him of Ahaving it all together@ C to use modern jargon.

Is there anything like that in your life? When you look within, do you see any of Paul=s touchiness, or Peter=s impetuosity and weakness? Take heart! You have a friend in heaven C two friends, in fact: Peter and Paul. The same Lord who gave the vacillating Simon the name of ARock@; who summoned the church=s arch-enemy, Saul, to be the great missionary, Paul, is calling you. In baptism he made you, for all time, his dearly loved daughter, his beloved son. He called you to be not only his disciple, but an apostle: his messenger to others. You say you=re not fit for that? You=re right. Neither am I! God does not always call those who are fit, by ordinary human standards. But he always fits those whom he calls.  

God has a plan for your life, as surprising and wonderful as his plans for Peter and Paul. Knowing this, and aware of how God was accomplishing his plan in Paul=s own life, Paul could write: AI am sure of this much: that he who has begun the good work in you will carry it through to completion, right up to the day of Christ Jesus@ (Phil. 1:6).

Those words are part of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. And the best news of all is simply this. The only thing that can frustrate the accomplishment of God's plan C for you, for me, for any one of us C is our own deliberate and final No.

"BY THEIR FRUITS YOU WILL KNOW THEM"

Homily for June 25^th, 2014: Matthew 7:15-20.

          Catholics now in their late sixties came of age in a day when the Catholic Church was proud to be “the Church that never changes.” That boast was actually only half true – as such then young Catholics started to discover with the close of the Second Vatican Council in December 1965. The Church’s faith never changes. There has been development, of course. But we believe that this development has been guided by the Holy Spirit, so that what we believe today about the Pope, to take one example, is an entirely legitimate development of what the apostles believed. Just about everything else except our beliefs has changed and will change: styles of worship, of preaching, and methods of handing on the faith to others. No one has stated the need for such change better than the great 19^th century English convert, at the end of his life a cardinal, Blessed John Henry Newman. “To live is to change,” Newman said, “and to be perfect is to have changed often.” Catholics less than 65 today have grown up in a Church which is rapidly changing.

          Are all the changes we have seen over the last half-century good? Clearly not. How can we judge such changes? Jesus tells us in today’s gospel: “By their fruits you will know them.” The most obvious change over the last half-century is in worship. Catholics who came to Church in 1960 experienced a Mass which was almost entirely silent; the few parts spoken aloud could seldom be understood: not just because they were in Latin, but because most priests took them at breakneck speed. Fifteen and even twelve minute celebrations of a rite considerably longer than today’s Mass were common. Praying the prayers aloud, and in the language of the people, has enhanced popular participation in the Mass, at least where priests have learned to celebrate with reverence. 

          The charismatic renewal is another change. It did not exist before Vatican II. Speaking recently to some 50,000 charismatics in Rome, Pope Francis confessed that he was initially mistrustful of their movement. Now he endorses it enthusiastically  because of its good fruits. It has made prayer real for millions for whom prayer was once just reciting words out of a book.

          The renewal of religious life for women has produced both good and bad fruits. The Sisters’ orders which have modernized, while retaining such things as community life, an updated uniform or habit, and enthusiastic faithfulness to Church teaching are growing rapidly. Those which are have erased all signs that they are different have no recruits at all and, though visibly dying, still insist that they are the wave of the future. Once again we see: “By their fruits you will know them.”

"HE MUST INCREASE, I MUST DECREASE."

Homily for June 24^th, 2014. Isaiah 49:1-6; Luke 1:57-66, 80.

The saints are normally celebrated on the day of their death, called by the Church their “heavenly birthday.” The Church celebrates John the Baptist=s death on the 29^th of August. He is the only saint, other than Our Lady, whose biological birthday is also celebrated. The name given him was a surprise. Today=s gospel tells us how it came about.

Nine months before the child=s birth, God had sent the angel Gabriel to tell the baby=s father, the Jewish priest, Zechariah: AYour prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth shall bear a son whom you shall name John. Joy and gladness will be yours, and many will rejoice at his birth@ (Lk 1:13f). Zechariah found the news incredible: he and his wife were too old to have a child.

Zechariah=s diselief meant that from that day he was mute, unable to speak. Clearly he was deaf as well. For at his son=s birth, today=s gospel reading says, they have to ask the old man by signs what name he wishes to give his son. His inability to speak meant that he had never been able to tell his wife that the angel had named their son John nine months before. 

Those gathered for the baby=s naming assume that he will have his father=s name. Great is their astonishment when the child=s mother Elizabeth insists on a name not borne hitherto by anyone in their family. ANo,@ she says, Ahe will be called John.@ The astonishment becomes amazement when Zechariah confirms his wife=s choice.

Immediately, Luke tells us, Zechariah=s Amouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God.@ His words are omitted in today=s gospel reading. They are a hymn of praise, starting with the words: ABlessed be the Lord God of Israel; he has come to his people and set them free.@ The Church has made these words part of her daily public prayer every morning.

St. Augustine says that Zechariah=s power of speech was restored because at his son=s birth a voice was born. If John had proclaimed himself, Augustine says, he could not have restored his father=s speech. John=s role, determined by God from his conception in his mother=s womb, was to proclaim another: the One who would not be, like John, simply a voice, but himself God=s Word: his personal utterance and communication to us.

The words of the prophet Isaiah in our first reading apply equally to John: AThe Lord called me from birth, from my mother=s womb he gave me my name. ... You are my servant, he said to me, Israel through whom I show my glory.@ The name John means, AGod is gracious,@ or AGod has given grace.@ The name was singularly appropriate for the man commissioned even before his birth to proclaim the One who would give God a human face, and a human voice.

God called each of us in our mother=s womb. He fashioned us in his own image, as creatures made for love: to praise, worship, and praise God here on earth, and to be happy with him forever in heaven. Fulfilling that destiny, given to us not just at birth but at our conception, means heeding the words which today=s saint, John the Baptist, spoke about Jesus: AHe must increase, I must decrease@ (John 3:3).

Those are the most important words which St. John the Baptist ever spoke. In just six words they sum up the whole life of Christian discipleship. Imprint those words on your mind, your heart, your soul. Resolve today to try to make them a reality in daily life. Those who do that find that they have discovered the key to happiness, to fulfillment, and to peace. AHe must increase, I must decrease.@

"STOP JUDGING."

Homily for June 23^rd, 2014: Matthew 7:1-5.

          “Stop judging,” Jesus says. Can we really do that? Even simple statements involve judging: “This coffee is too hot;” or, “Children, you’re making too much noise.” And what about the moral judgments of others that we make, and must make, all the time? An employer makes a judgment every time he hires a new employee. The pope judges when he makes a priest a bishop. Parents make judgments about their children in deciding such questions as when to entrust them with a cell phone, or the family car. Clearly Jesus cannot be forbidding judgments like that.

          What Jesus forbids is making judgments that only God can make – because only God can see the heart. When God sent the prophet Samuel to Bethlehem to find a new king for his people, to replace Saul, Samuel was especially impressed with the young man Eliab. Surely, he must be the one, Samuel says. To which the Lord responds: “Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart.” (1 Sam. 16:7) Jesus, who was steeped in the Jewish Scriptures, would have been familiar with that passage. He would also have known the verse from the prophet Jeremiah, who represents God saying: “I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways.” (Jer. 17:10)   

          “Stop judging, that you may not be judged,” Jesus says. That is what Bible scholars call the “theological passive.” What Jesus meant was, “Stop judging, so that God will not judge you.” A devout Jew could not say that. Pronouncing the name of God was forbidden. To avoid doing so, Jesus uses the passive: “that you may not be judged.”

          We find this confirmed in the words that follow: “The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.”  What this means is: God will judge you with the severity, or generosity, which you show to others.   

          Do you hope that, when you come to stand before the Lord God in judgment, he will show you mercy? Then start showing mercy to others. It’s as simple as that!