"DO NOT SWEAR AT ALL."

June 13^th, 2015: Matthew 5:33-37.

          The Ten Commandments do not deal directly with oaths and swearing except to say, “you shall not ear false witness,” and “you shall not take the name of the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.” Jesus goes farther in today’s gospel, when he says, still speaking not as an interpreter of God’s law, but as himself the law-giver: “I say to you, do not swear at all.”

He goes on, then, to give examples of what he has just forbidden. Do not swear, he says, by heaven, by the earth, by the holy city Jerusalem, or by your head. The thought behind this list is that all these things are made by God, so swearing by them is really a way of swearing by God without actually pronouncing his name. Such subterfuges are unworthy of those whose lives are centered on God.

“Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,” Jesus says, “and your ‘No’ mean No.’” The person of integrity has no need to reinforce his Yes or No with an oath. When a man and woman come into God’s house to marry, there are no oaths. The priest or deacon who is presiding at the marriage asks the man simply: “John, do you take this woman to be your wedded wife?” He asks the woman, “Mary do you take this man to be your wedded husband?” Each of them answers, “I do.” With those simple questions and answers, the marriage is sealed. It is mutual consent, given without reservation or compulsion, which makes the marriage.

Similarly with a man being ordained as priest or bishop. Again, there are no oaths. The Church requires only that the candidate answer affirmatively to a number of questions about the duties of the office he is assuming. Once the candidate has given these assurances, the prayer for the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the laying on of hands by the ordaining bishop follow.

In a beautiful passage in his second Letter to the Corinthians Paul tells us that Jesus is himself Yes personified. Here’s what Paul writes: “The language in which we address you is not an ambiguous blend of Yes and No. The Son of God, Christ Jesus, proclaimed among you by us ... was never a blend of Yes and No. With him it was, and is, Yes. He is the Yes pronounced upon God’s promises, every one of them.” (2 Cor.1, 18ff: New English Bible) To which we joyfully say: “Thanks be to God!”

 

FROM HIS SIDE FLOWED BLOOD AND WATER

Homily for June 12^th, 2015. Feast of the Sacred Heart: John 19:31-37.

          “When they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust a lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. The soldier who thrust the sword into the Lord’s side is called, in legend, St. Longinus. The legend says that he was almost blind; but that his sight was restored when some drops of Jesus’ blood fell upon his eyes; whereupon he cried out, “Truly, this was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39).

          Moving from legend to history, it is noteworthy that from antiquity Christians, starting with the ancient Church Fathers, have interpreted the blood and water that flowed from Jesus’ side as symbols of baptism and the Eucharist. In baptism we are made God’s sons and daughters, hence brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. The body and blood of Jesus which we receive in Holy Communion nourish us. Unlike ordinary food, which through the process of digestion becomes part of us, so to speak, the heavenly food of the Eucharist makes us into what we receive, members of Christ’s body, the Church. An  ancient prayer, known by its first two words in Latin as the Anima Christi, says: “Soul of Christ, sanctify me; body of Christ, save me; blood of Christ inebriate me.”

          We experience something akin to intoxication when we receive the Lord’s blood devoutly: with sorrow for our sins and thanksgiving for God’s blessings. Christ’s blood comes from his heart. And that explains why the Church gives us this passage from John’s gospel on today’s feast of the Sacred Heart. The feast celebrates the Lord’s love for us. Unlike human love, the love of Jesus Christ which we celebrate today is unconditional. Like God himself, this love is always there. God never stops loving us, even when we fail to respond to him. It is because of this unconditional, no-strings-attached love that God never grows tired of forgiving us, though we too often grow tired of asking for his forgiveness. Our wonderful Pope Francis said that within days of his election as Bishop of Rome. He has repeated the statement many times since.

          We pray, then, in this Mass: “Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us. Sacred Heart of Jesus, make our hearts like yours.”     

THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY

11^TH Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Ezek. 17:22-24; 1 Cor. 5:6-10;

        Mark 4:26-34.

AIM: To counter discouragement by reminding the hearers of God’s power.

 

          “This is how it is with the kingdom of God.” Jesus says in the gospel reading we have just heard. What does he mean? What is this “kingdom of God” that we hear so much about in the gospels?

          God’s kingdom denotes a world in which those sayings of Jesus that we call the Beatitudes are fulfilled; where the sorrowful are consoled, the meek inherit the earth, those who hunger and thirst for justice are satisfied; where the merciful experience the mercy they have shown to others, the pure hearted see God, the peacemakers are known as God’s daughters and sons, and those who previously were persecuted for the cause of right are finally vindicated. (See Mat. 5:3-10)

          People have dreamed of such a world from the dawn of history. The Bible calls it God’s kingdom and describes it in parables. We heard one in our first reading. When God’s kingdom comes, Ezekiel said there, God would take the weakest and most delicate shoot from one of the mighty cedar trees of Lebanon and make of it a tree more noble than all the rest. “It shall put forth branches and bear fruit . . . Birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it.”

          Because such a thing was, by all normal standards, impossible, when it happened everyone would recognize it as God’s work, Ezekiel declared. “All the trees of the field shall know that I, the Lord, bring low the high tree, lift high the lowly tree …and make the withered tree bloom.”

          Ezekiel’s parable was a message of hope to his dispirited countrymen in exile in Babylon. Like one of the lofty Lebanon cedars felled by the woodsman’s axe, their once mighty nation had been cut down. Humanly speaking, there was no hope that it could ever be restored. Yet God would bring his people back again to their own land, in his own time and in his own way. He would take the most delicate shoot from the fallen tree and make of it a great nation.

          Jesus’ parable in our gospel reading about the tiny mustard seed that “springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade” builds on the foundation laid by Ezekiel. Like him, Jesus was speaking to people who were dispirited and without hope.

          Jesus began his public ministry in this gospel according to Mark by announcing that God’s long awaited kingdom had arrived (cf. 1:15). What actually came, however, fell far short of the divine kingdom foretold by Ezekiel and the other prophets. Jesus’ followers were unimpressive: a small band of lowly fishermen with little education and less influence. The upright pillars of the establishment held both Jesus and his followers in open contempt: “This man receives sinners and eats with them,” they complained (Mk 2:16). How could anyone take seriously the claim of this self-appointed rabbi from Nazareth that he, of all people, had come to announce the arrival of God’s kingdom of justice and peace?

          The parable of the great bush growing from a tiny mustard seed was Jesus’ response to his critics. It also contained a message of hope for those followers of Jesus who were starting to suspect that his critics might be right. The kingdom he had come to proclaim, Jesus said, could no more be judged by its admittedly humble beginnings than one could draw from inspection of a tiny mustard seed a picture of the great shrub which it would produce. 

          Jesus’ other parable, of the seed growing secretly, is similar. Once the farmer casts his seed into the ground, he can do nothing to promote or hasten its growth. The process of germination and development takes place without his help, without his knowledge even. Having sown his seed, the farmer sleeps and rises night and day “and through it all the seed sprouts and grows, he knows not how.” Jesus addressed this parable to those among his followers who were disillusioned because he was not the powerful and glamorous hero they expected God’s Messiah to be. Why didn’t he act, they asked? Why didn’t he lead a revolution to overthrow the hated Roman military government of occupation?

To all such doubters Jesus was saying: “Look at the farmer. He waits patiently for the time of harvest. God’s harvest is coming too, God’s hour. He has made the decisive beginning. I have sown the seed. Because it is God’s seed, the harvest is certain.’

Was it only in Jesus’ day that his followers had doubts? How much of the Church’s work today seems to be an exercise in futility. No wonder many grow discouraged, disillusioned, and cynical. Doesn’t the state of the Church today give every reason for discouragement and cynicism?

Those of us old enough to remember Pope John XXIII, who is now Saint John XXIII, know that the answer to those questions is No. It is reported that “good Pope John,” as we was called even in his lifetime, liked to conclude his night prayers by saying: “It’s your Church, Lord. I’m going to bed.” How wise that is. If the Church is God’s and not ours (and it is), then the success of failure of the Church’s work is not determined by us. Today, no less than in Jesus’ lifetime, it is he, the Lord, who sows the seed. It is he who will bring it to fruition. Our task is to be patient, as Jesus was patient; to remain serenely confident, as Jesus remained confident even till his final hour on Calvary. There it was Jesus and not his enemies who spoke the last word – a word not of defeat but of victory: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Here in the Eucharist we have with us the One who spoke that word. Here his finished work is celebrated and made available to us: the work of proclaiming and bringing in God’s kingdom. Here we who in baptism became citizens of that kingdom enjoy its fruits: forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with the One those sins have offended, and with each other; love, joy, and the Lord’s peace. Here we can repeat Paul’s words in our second reading: “We walk by faith, not by sight.”

THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY

Homily for June 14th, 2015; the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Ezek. 17:22-24; 1 Cor. 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34.

AIM: To counter discouragement by reminding the hearers of God’s power. 

          “This is how it is with the kingdom of God.” Jesus says in the gospel reading we have just heard. What does he mean? What is this “kingdom of God” that we hear so much about in the gospels?

          God’s kingdom denotes a world in which those sayings of Jesus that we call the Beatitudes are fulfilled; where the sorrowful are consoled, the meek inherit the earth, those who hunger and thirst for justice are satisfied; where the merciful experience the mercy they have shown to others, the pure hearted see God, the peacemakers are known as God’s daughters and sons, and those who previously were persecuted for the cause of right are finally vindicated. (See Mat. 5:3-10)

          People have dreamed of such a world from the dawn of history. The Bible calls it God’s kingdom and describes it in parables. We heard one in our first reading. When God’s kingdom comes, Ezekiel said there, God would take the weakest and most delicate shoot from one of the mighty cedar trees of Lebanon and make of it a tree more noble than all the rest. “It shall put forth branches and bear fruit . . . Birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it.”

          Because such a thing was, by all normal standards, impossible, when it happened everyone would recognize it as God’s work, Ezekiel declared. “All the trees of the field shall know that I, the Lord, bring low the high tree, lift high the lowly tree …and make the withered tree bloom.”

          Ezekiel’s parable was a message of hope to his dispirited countrymen in exile in Babylon. Like one of the lofty Lebanon cedars felled by the woodsman’s axe, their once mighty nation had been cut down. Humanly speaking, there was no hope that it could ever be restored. Yet God would bring his people back again to their own land, in his own time and in his own way. He would take the most delicate shoot from the fallen tree and make of it a great nation.

          Jesus’ parable in our gospel reading about the tiny mustard seed that “springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade” builds on the foundation laid by Ezekiel. Like him, Jesus was speaking to people who were dispirited and without hope.

          Jesus began his public ministry in this gospel according to Mark by announcing that God’s long awaited kingdom had arrived (cf. 1:15). What actually came, however, fell far short of the divine kingdom foretold by Ezekiel and the other prophets. Jesus’ followers were unimpressive: a small band of lowly fishermen with little education and less influence. The upright pillars of the establishment held both Jesus and his followers in open contempt: “This man receives sinners and eats with them,” they complained (Mk 2:16). How could anyone take seriously the claim of this self-appointed rabbi from Nazareth that he, of all people, had come to announce the arrival of God’s kingdom of justice and peace?

          The parable of the great bush growing from a tiny mustard seed was Jesus’ response to his critics. It also contained a message of hope for those followers of Jesus who were starting to suspect that his critics might be right. The kingdom he had come to proclaim, Jesus said, could no more be judged by its admittedly humble beginnings than one could draw from inspection of a tiny mustard seed a picture of the great shrub which it would produce. 

          Jesus’ other parable, of the seed growing secretly, is similar. Once the farmer casts his seed into the ground, he can do nothing to promote or hasten its growth. The process of germination and development takes place without his help, without his knowledge even. Having sown his seed, the farmer sleeps and rises night and day “and through it all the seed sprouts and grows, he knows not how.” Jesus addressed this parable to those among his followers who were disillusioned because he was not the powerful and glamorous hero they expected God’s Messiah to be. Why didn’t he act, they asked? Why didn’t he lead a revolution to overthrow the hated Roman military government of occupation?

To all such doubters Jesus was saying: “Look at the farmer. He waits patiently for the time of harvest. God’s harvest is coming too, God’s hour. He has made the decisive beginning. I have sown the seed. Because it is God’s seed, the harvest is certain.’

Was it only in Jesus’ day that his followers had doubts? How much of the Church’s work today seems to be an exercise in futility. No wonder many grow discouraged, disillusioned, and cynical. Doesn’t the state of the Church today give every reason for discouragement and cynicism?

Those of us old enough to remember Pope John XXIII, who is now Saint John XXIII, know that the answer to those questions is No. It is reported that “good Pope John,” as we was called even in his lifetime, liked to conclude his night prayers by saying: “It’s your Church, Lord. I’m going to bed.” How wise that is. If the Church is God’s and not ours (and it is), then the success of failure of the Church’s work is not determined by us. Today, no less than in Jesus’ lifetime, it is he, the Lord, who sows the seed. It is he who will bring it to fruition. Our task is to be patient, as Jesus was patient; to remain serenely confident, as Jesus remained confident even till his final hour on Calvary. There it was Jesus and not his enemies who spoke the last word – a word not of defeat but of victory: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Here in the Eucharist we have with us the One who spoke that word. Here his finished work is celebrated and made available to us: the work of proclaiming and bringing in God’s kingdom. Here we who in baptism became citizens of that kingdom enjoy its fruits: forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with the One those sins have offended, and with each other; love, joy, and the Lord’s peace. Here we can repeat Paul’s words in our second reading: “We walk by faith, not by sight.”

TRAVEL LIGHT

Homily for June 11. 2015, St. Barnabas: Matthew 10:7-13.

"Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; no sack for the journey, or a second tunic,  or sandals, or walking stick,” Jesus tells the Twelve as he sends them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He wants those whom he commissions as his messengers to travel light. They are to depend not on material resources, but on the Lord alone.

          Jesus’ words are especially relevant today. All over the world, the forces hostile to the Church are rising. In our own country the government is trying to impose on Catholic organizations, such as Catholic hospitals and universities, requirements which we cannot, in conscience, accept. We are being asked, for instance, to pay for sterilization and abortion. In Ireland, unlike the United States a historically Catholic country, there is even an attempt to pass a law which would compel priests, in certain instances, to violate the seal of the confessional. TV entertainers air gross jokes about Catholic priests which they would not dare make about Muslim imams or Jewish rabbis. And the media show little interest in reporting studies which show that Christians are the Number One target of religious persecution in the world today.

          We rightly lament this tide of anti-Christian and anti-Catholic sentiment. But it has a positive side as well. Whenever in its two thousand year history, the Church has been favored by worldly powers, whether financially or in other ways, it has grown spiritually flabby and weak. The Church is always at her best in times of persecution. When persecution is raging it is difficult, mostly impossible, to see this. Things become clear only when we look back. So let’s look back.

In recent centuries the most violent attack on the Church came in the French Revolution, which started in 1789 and lasted more than a decade. Thousand of priests were murdered under the guillotine. Most of the French bishops fled the country. Those who remained had to accept restrictions on their ministry which they justified on the plea that there was to other way to continue offering the sacraments to God’s people. 

As the Church moved into the nineteenth century, however, there was an explosion of religious vocations in France, and the foundation of an unprecedented number of new religious orders, for both men and women.

          When we grow discouraged at the hostile forces confronting us, we need to remember: God can bring good out of evil – and he does, time after time!

FULFULLING THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS

Homily for June 10^th, 2015: Matthew 5:17-19.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets,” Jesus says. “I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” We sometimes hear that the Old Testament presents a God of law, the New Testament a God of love. That’s not true. While law is indeed central in the Old Testament, it presents God=s law as an expression of his love B a gift granted to his chosen people, and not to others. We read in Deuteronomy, for instance, about God telling his people to be careful to observe his commandments, “for thus you will give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations, who will hear of all these statutes and say, ‘This nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’ … Or what great nation has statues and decrees that are as just as this whole law which I am settling before you this day.” (Deut. 4:6-8)

While the New Testament does emphasize God=s love, almost the whole of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, from which the gospel readings this week and next are taken, consists of examples and stories of how God’s law is lived out in daily life. And at the Last Supper he gives his apostles Aa new commandment: Love one another@ (John 13:34). Both parts of the Bible proclaim the same God. If God=s self-disclosure is fuller in the New Testament, this is because in it God comes to us in person, through his Son. As we read in the opening verse of the letter to the Hebrews: AIn times past, God spoke in fragmentary and varied ways to our fathers through the prophets; in this, the final age, he has spoken to us through his Son ...@

Human laws command us to respect the rights of others. But I can respect your rights without having any human contact with you. Hence the enormous amount of loneliness in our society.Mother Teresa called loneliness Athe worst disease of modern times.@ There is only one cure for loneliness: love. We come here to receive love: a free gift, not a reward for services rendered. The One who gives us this gift does so under one strict condition: that we share his love with others.

"YOU ARE SALT AND LIGHT."

Homily for June 9^th, 2015: Mathew 5:13-16.

Jesus spoke in simple, everyday language that even children could understand. What could be simpler than the two images Jesus uses in our gospel reading: salt and light? In Jesus’ day soldiers received an allotment of salt as part of their pay. Because the Latin word for salt is sal it was called their salarium, from which we get our word salary. Even today, when someone doesn=t measure up or do his duty we say he=s Anot worth his salt.@ So when Jesus says, AYou are the salt of the earth,@ he is telling us that we are that ingredient in the world which, like salt, may be small in quantity, but which makes all the difference in quality..

Jesus also tells us: AYou are light C the light of the world.@ The first creation tale in Genesis says that creation began when God said: ALet there be light.@ When, in the fullness of time, God=s Son came into the world, he said: AI am the light of the world.@ (Jn 8:12) Pondering those words, and the story of creation in Genesis, Christians came to discern Christ=s role in creation. Hence we say in the Creed: AWe believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, ... through whom all things were made.@

How dark the world would be if he had never lived! When Jesus says, AYou are the light of the world,@ he is not telling us to become the world=s light, any more than he tells us to become salt. As followers and friends of Jesus Christ, given a share of his life in baptism, we already are salt and light for the world. ABe what you are!@ Jesus is saying. 

Does that mean isolating ourselves from modern society? Some Christians favor that. They are good people. But they are mistaken. To isolate ourselves from others is like putting the lamp which lighted the small one-room house of Jesus= day under a basket. The people who heard Jesus knew that wasn=t what you did with a lamp. You put it on a lampstand where, as Jesus says in today=s gospel, Ait gives light to all in the house. Just so,@ Jesus continues, Ayour light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify God.@ Why? Because God is the one who inspires us to do good deeds. And it is God alone who gives us the power to do good C to be what we are: salt to flavor and preserve; and light to shine in the darkness of our world.

Here at these two tables of word and sacrament the Lord first takes us up into his light and then sends us forth to pass on that light to others in a dark world, through a life of joyful service and generous love.

THE BEATITUDES

Homily for June 8^th, 2015: Matthew :1-12.

We call these sayings of Jesus the Beatitudes. They contradict just about everything our culture tells us. There is no way we can accept these teachings of Jesus, and at the same time accept all the values of the society in which we live. Does that mean we must opt out of society? Not at all. It does mean, however, that if we are serious about being Jesus’ disciples, we must live by standards that are different from those of many around us — even when they are good people. Nor can we choose among the Beatitudes, selecting the one that best suits us. The Beatitudes are not descriptions of nine different people. They are nine snapshots of one happy person: happy because he or she lives a life centered on God. 

          The Beatitudes challenge us. They summon us to put God first in our lives. To the extent that we try to do that, and keep on trying despite our many failures and discouragement, we discover that a life centered on God is a happy life. It is a fulfilled life, and one that brings true peace. Why? Because God is the only source there is of true happiness, of fulfillment, and genuine peace. To all those who respond to this challenge, Jesus says: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.” 

          Only in heaven? No, the reward Jesus promises begins here on earth. The Beatitudes describe a life that is shot through with generosity: generosity to God, but to others as well. Generosity doesn’t make us poor. It makes us rich. Winston Churchill, not a notably religious man, said once: “We make a living by what we get; but we make a life by what we give.” Jesus Christ says it best: “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.” (Lk 6:38) 

          Is living by the Beatitudes beyond human powers? It is. To live as Jesus tells us to live in these nine sayings we need a power greater than our own. That is why we come to the Eucharist: to be strengthened uplifted, shaken up, and set ablaze with joy unbounded by the love that will never let us go.