A MODERN MARTYR

Homily for August 9^th, 2014: A Modern Martyr.

On an August evening in 1921 a brilliant 30-year-old Jewish woman in Germany who had long since abandoned religious belief was staying overnight with some Catholic friends. They apologized for leaving her alone: they had a previous evening engagement. Among their books their guest found the autobiography of the Spanish Carmelite, St. Teresa of Avilla. She read it through overnight and declared the next morning: “That is the truth.” She was baptized on New Year’s Day 1922. The woman’s name was Edith Stein, the saint whom we commemorate today.

          In October 1933, Edith Stein, by then well known in German university circles as a brilliant philosopher, but now excluded from academic employment by the Nazi racial laws, entered the Carmelite convent in Cologne. She took the name Teresa Benedicta a Cruce: “Teresa blessed by the cross.”  On the night of November 9/10, 1938, the Nazis instigated the notorious “Kristallnacht”, smashing Jewish shop-windows all over Germany, and torching synagogues. At the news Edith Stein, who, like St. Paul, never abandoned her identification with her own people, felt herself “paralyzed with pain.” Shortly thereafter, to avoid imperiling her fellow Sisters, she moved to a Carmelite convent in Holland. 

          At the end of July 1942 the Nazis, having invaded Holland, retaliated for the public protest of the Dutch bishops against the persecution of Jews by rounding up all Dutch Jews who had received Catholic baptism, Sister Teresa Benedicta among them, and shipped them like cattle to Auschwitz. Upon arrival they went straight to the gas chamber. The date: August 9, 1942.

          After the war Edith Stein’s Sisters put up a memorial tablet in the Cologne Carmel with the inscription: “She died as a martyr for her people and her faith.” Pope John Paul II confirmed these words on October 11, 1998, when he enrolled Edith Stein in the church’s official list of saints, with the title “martyr.” With thanksgiving therefore, we pray in this Mass:

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross – Pray for us.

"WHOEVER LOSES HIS LIFE FOR MY SAKE WILL FIND IT."

Homily for August 8^th, 2014: Matthew 16:24-28.

“Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,” Jesus says. “But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” What is Jesus trying to tell us? He is speaking about two kinds of people: the takers and the givers. Takers are the people engaged in what is called “the pursuit of happiness.” Some seek happiness through pleasure; others through amassing financial or material possessions. Others seek happiness by trying to gain positions of power; others still by seeking honor and fame.

All of those things – pleasure, possessions, power, and honor -- are good. They become harmful for us only when we make them central in our lives. That is what the takers do. They think that if only they can get enough of one or more of these four things, they will be happy. Always and inevitably they end up frustrated. Why? Because they can never get enough. As a man of great wealth said: “Anyone who thinks he will be happy if he has a lot of money, has never had a lot of money.” The takers, then, are those who lose their lives – through frustration at never having enough. The happiness they seek always and inevitably eludes them.

Who are those who, in losing their lives for Jesus Christ, find happiness and thus save their lives? They are the givers. They put the Lord God at the center of their lives. Remembering Jesus’ words in the parable of the sheep and the goats in the 25^th chapter of Matthew’s gospel, “Anything you do for one of these little ones, you do for me,” their goal in life is to serve. In doing so they discover that Jesus words are true: “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving” (Acts 20:35). That is the only saying of Jesus preserved for us outside the four gospels. Paul quotes it as something already well known in the Christian community.  

So which are you? A taker, or a giver? If you’re a taker, I can promise you one thing: you will always be unhappy and frustrated, because you’ll never get enough. You will always be wanting more and more and more. It is the givers who find true happiness: the happiness Jesus is talking about when he says: “Give, and it shall be given to you. Good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over will they pour into the fold of your garment. For the measure you measure with will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).

"TAKE COURAGE, IT IS I."

Homily for 19^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A.  Mt. 14:22-33.

AIM: To show that Jesus is always close in times of peril.

          It was not a long voyage across the lake — five miles at most. The water was calm when Jesus sent his disciples off. In such conditions, they could row across in two hours at most. Should a favorable wind come up, they would hoist the sail and reach the other shore in half that time.

          Jesus’ friends were disappointed when he refused to join them. He insisted, however, that they set off alone. He would get passage in another boat the next day. Otherwise he would hike round the lake and join them. Meanwhile Jesus needed to be alone. Following the miracle of the feeding of the multitude, which we heard about in last Sunday’s gospel, Jesus needed to spend time in prayer, restoring his spiritual energy as he waited upon God in stillness through the night.

          What began as a routine evening crossing of the lake soon turns into a nightmare for Jesus’ friends in their small boat. Still today Galilean fishermen fear the treacherous storms caused by cold winds blowing off the surrounding hills, creating a sudden tempest in the warm air covering the low-lying water. The storm which breaks on the disciples so unexpectedly this evening comes from just the direction in which they are heading. Against wind so strong, and waves so high, they can make no headway. But the disciples know they must not allow the boat to be driven back to the shore they have left. The waves could dash them against the rocks, smashing their frail craft and everyone in it. Their only hope is to ply the oars as long as the storm continues, trying to remain a good distance from the land, in deep water.

          This explains why they are still far from their destination in “the fourth watch of the night.” The night, in those days, was divided into four equal periods or watches. If there were eight hours of darkness, each watch would be two hours long. Assuming that they had embarked before nightfall, they would have been in the boat seven hours at least. They are exhausted, soaked to the skin, cold, and frightened. Small wonder, then, that they cry out in fear as they see a human figure approaching across the wind-whipped waves. It is Jesus. “Take courage,” he calls out. “It is I; do not be afraid.”

          One man in the boat is more impulsive than his companions. He no sooner recognizes Jesus than he wants to be with him. He will react in the same way upon recognizing the risen Lord on the shore after a fruitless night of fishing in the lake.  (Cf. Jn. 21:7)  It is Peter. “Lord,” Peter calls out, “if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 

          “Come,” Jesus replies.

          Peter’s willingness to do the unthinkable enables him to experience the impossible. He climbs out of the boat and starts to walk to Jesus across the storm tossed waves. “But when he saw how strong the wind was,” Matthew tells us, “he became frightened. And, beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’”

          Jesus had a special role for Peter. He was to be the leader of Jesus’ friends and thus of the Lord’s Church. This terrifying experience was part of Peter’s preparation. Years later he would remember: as long as he had kept his eyes on the Lord, he was safe. When he looked down, and saw the danger, he began to sink.

          Every detail in this story has rich symbolic significance for Matthew, the gospel writer. Like most people in antiquity, Jesus’ people, the Jews, regarded the sea as the domain of supernatural, demonic forces. To the Hebrew mind wind and waves were perilous: only God could master them. When Jesus’ people were fleeing from bondage in Egypt, they were terrified to find themselves trapped between the advancing army of their former masters, and the impassable waters of the Sea of Reeds ahead of them. In this desperate crisis, God had led them through the waters to safety. Their pursuers had perished. They never forgot it. Repeatedly the psalms speak of God’s power to “rule the surging sea and calm the turmoil of its waves” (Ps. 89:10; cf. 93:3f; 107:23-30). By walking on the raging waves, and calming the stormy sea, Jesus shows himself to be acting as only God can act.

          The boat too is significant. From biblical times Christians have viewed the Church as a boat, carrying those who are in it safely through the storms of an often hostile world, like the ark which kept Noah and his family safe amid the great flood. Nine years ago, in the midst of the media firestorm about the abuse of minors by some priests, Bishop Wilton Gregory, then bishop of Belleville and President of the Bishops’ Conference of our country, and now archbishop of Atlanta, spoke to St. Louis priests about this painful crisis. In his talk he referred to the story in today’s gospel. We’re in that boat, he told us. And like the disciples, we’re frightened. But Jesus is with us. He still has power to still wind and wave.  “Ought we not realize,” he said, “that we have within this Bark of Peter, which is being so terribly tossed about in the public arena, the source of calm and peace.  We priests and bishops must be more devoted to our life of prayer as the only reliable source of courage and hope that will bring peace to our troubled hearts and souls.” Bishop Gregory’s words were the message we needed to hear. 

          This beautiful story speaks also to each one of us individually. Somewhere in this church right now there is someone facing a personal crisis: an illness, perhaps, your own or that of a loved one; a family problem; a humiliating failure; the sudden collapse of long held hopes, plans, and efforts. You are filled with fear.  When you look down, you see only peril and ruin. But look up! Keep your eyes on Jesus. He still has power to save. 

          The story assures us that when the storm rages and the night is blackest; when we cannot see the way ahead; when we are bone weary with life’s struggle and our hearts fail us for fear, Jesus is close. He only seems to be absent. In reality he is never far from us. He knows at every moment the difficulties against which we contend. Across the storm waters of this world he comes to us and chides us, as he chided Peter: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

          Happy if we today, in this hour, can respond to the Lord’s saving presence and power as his friends did in that boat. Happy if we too can bow before him in awe-struck worship and say, with those first friends of Jesus:

          “Truly, you are the Son of God!”

"YOU ARE PETER."

Homily for August 7^th, 2014: Matt 16:13-23.

          “You are Peter,” the Lord says. Peter’s original name was Simon. In Jesus’ language, Aramaic, the name Peter was identical with the word for rock. In reality Peter was anything but rocklike. He was quick to proclaim undying loyalty to the Lord whom he loved; yet, as we know, quick to deny him three times on that evening when Jesus was on trial for his life in a nearby room. So the new name the Lord gave Simon -- Peter, the Rock --was ironic. It was something like calling a 350-pound heavy-weight “Slim.”

          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 — 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. 

          We tend to think of Peter as weak before Jesus’ resurrection, but strong afterwards, when on Pentecost the Holy Spirit came down on Peter and his fellow apostles in tongues of fire, and in a rushing mighty wind. Pope Benedict XVI liked to remind us that something of Peter’s old weakness remained with him to the end.

          An ancient legend tells us that toward the end of his life Peter escaped from the jail where the Roman Emperor had imprisoned him and fled from Rome under cover of night. Outside the city, he saw in the darkness the figure of a man walking toward him. When the figure got close, he recognized that it was Jesus.

Where are you going, Lord?” Peter asked” “I’m going to Rome to be crucified again,” Jesus replied. Filled with shame, Peter turned around and re-entered the city. When they led him out the next day to nail him to a cross, Peter demanded that they crucify him upside down.   

The story helps us understand why we pray for Peter’s successor, the Pope, in every Mass. He is an ordinary weak sinner like every one of us. We pray that the Lord will strengthen in him the rock on which Jesus built his Church: Peter’s faith. 

THE TRANSFIGURATION

Homily for Aug. 6^th, 2014 Transfiguration: 2 Pet. 1:16-19; Luke 9.28b-36.

          The mysterious event which we celebrate today, called the Transfiguration, gives a glimpse, however brief, into eternity. For a moment, before the descent of the cloud, the three friends of Jesus see their friend and Master transformed beyond anything they could have imagined. It was as if his humanity had no limits.

“We were eyewitnesses of his majesty,” Peter writes in our second reading.” The Transfiguration is a manifestation of Christ’s divinity, for a moment breaking through the veil of his humanity. But it is more. It also shows us our potential to become divine.  

          If the goal of the spiritual life is to grow in likeness to God, then the more we progress, the more we participate in God’s own life. When our journey reaches its end, and we have been stripped of all the obstacles to holiness, God’s life will become our life, and we shall be one with God. Then our earthly pilgrimage beneath an often overcast sky will yield to the uninterrupted vision of God’s glory. We too shall shine with an unearthly light — the light that shines from the face of Jesus Christ: our Master, our Savior, our Redeemer — but also our passionate lover, and our best friend. We shall have reached our true homeland, the heavenly city which (as we read in Revelation) needs neither sun nor moon, “for the glory of God gives it light, and the lamp is the Lamb” (Rev. 21.23).

          As we journey onward to our true homeland, the words of an Evangelical hymn, unknown to Catholics, can help us: 

         Cast your eyes upon Jesus, / Look full in his wonderful face;

         And the things of earth will grow strangely dim /

               in the the light of his glory and grace.

         Now, however, is the time above all for hearing. We listen for the Father’s voice and heed his command, as he speaks to us the words first uttered to those three friends of Jesus on the mountain two thousand years ago:

          “This is my beloved Son, on whom my favor rests. Listen to him.”

MOTHER OF GOD?

Homily for August 5^th, 2014: Dedication of St. Mary Major.

          The Church celebrates today the dedication of one of Rome’s major basilicas, St. Mary Major. A legend says that a wealthy Roman and his wife, who were childless, made a vow that they would leave their possessions to the Blessed Virgin Mary. They prayed that she would show them how to do this. On the night of August 5^th, at the height of the Roman summer, snow fell on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, where the Basilica of St. Mary Major now stands. And in the same night the couple had a vision telling them to build a church there. Though long recognized as without historical foundation, the legend explains why the church is also known as “Our Lady of the Snows.” It is also called “St. Mary of the Manger,” because of the supposed relic of the manger in which Mary placed her baby after his birth.

          More important than these historical trivia is the reason why we honor Mary as “Mother of God.” Many Christians reject the title on the ground that God, being eternal, cannot have a mother. The title comes from the Council of Ephesus, held in 431. The big question at that council was whether Jesus was truly divine; or whether he was simply the most godlike man who had ever lived, as claimed by a powerful group in the Church at that time, called Arians. The Council defined solemnly that Jesus, while truly and completely human like us (apart from sin), was also truly and completely divine. To express this truth the council gave Mary a Greek title: theotokos, which means “God bearer.” Translated into English, this is “mother of God.” Her child was and is truly God. In reality the statement says more about Mary’s Son than about her. 

          When we speak about praying to Mary or any other saint, what we really mean is that we are asking them to pray for us. Moreover, the blessings we receive in answer to the prayers of our heavenly friends do not come from them. They come from God, in answer to the saints’ prayers. And so we pray, once again, the prayer Catholics have loved to pray for close to two thousand years: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

         

"IT IS I. DO NOT BE AFRAID."

Homily for August 4^th, 2014: Matthew 14:22-36.

          What began as a routine evening crossing of the lake soon turns into a nightmare for Jesus’ friends in their small boat. The storm which breaks on the disciples so unexpectedly this evening comes from just the direction in which they are heading. This explains why they are still far from their destination in “the fourth watch of the night.” Small wonder that they cry out in fear as they see a human figure approaching across the wind-whipped waves. It is Jesus. “Take courage,” he calls out. “It is I; do not be afraid.”

          One man in the boat is more impulsive than his companions. He no sooner recognizes Jesus than he wants to be with him. He will react in the same way upon recognizing the risen Lord on the shore after a fruitless night of fishing in the lake.  (Cf. Jn. 21:7)  It is Peter. “Lord,” Peter calls out, “if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” Jesus replies.

          Peter’s willingness to do the unthinkable enables him to experience the impossible. He climbs out of the boat and starts to walk to Jesus across the storm tossed waves. “But when he saw how strong the wind was,” Matthew tells us, “he became frightened. And, beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’”

          Jesus had a special role for Peter. He was to be the leader of Jesus’ friends and thus of the Lord’s Church. This terrifying experience was part of Peter’s preparation. Years later he would remember: as long as he had kept his eyes on the Lord, he was safe. When he looked down, and saw the danger, he began to sink.

          The story assures us that when the storm rages and the night is blackest; when we cannot see the way ahead; when we are bone weary with life’s struggle and our hearts fail us for fear, Jesus is close. He only seems to be absent. In reality he is never far from us. He knows at every moment the difficulties against which we contend. Across the storm waters of this world he comes to us and chides us, as he chided Peter: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

          Happy if we today, in this hour, can respond to the Lord’s saving presence and power as his friends did in that boat. Happy if we too can bow before him in awe-struck worship and say, with those first friends of Jesus:

          “Truly, you are the Son of God!”