"LORD, I AM NOT WORTHY."

Homily for June 25^th, 2016. Matt. 8:5-17.

          The centurion who asks Jesus to heal his serving boy is a Roman military officer, something like a colonel today. This is clear from his response when Jesus says he will come at once to heal the boy. The officer shows both courtesy to Jesus and respect for the Jewish law by saying: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you under my roof.” Luke’s version of this story tells us that this Roman officer has taken a genuine interest in Jewish religion, and has even built a synagogue. He knows, therefore, that in entering a Gentile house Jesus could become ritually unclean. Hence, Luke tells us, the officer suggests an alternative: “Just give an order and my boy will be healed.” I do that all the time, he says. I give orders to those under my authority, and they do what I command.

          Upon hearing these words, Matthew tells us, Jesus “showed amazement.” Normally it is the witnesses of Jesus’ healings who are amazed. Here it is the Lord himself who shows amazement. I have not found faith like this from my own people, Jesus says. This outsider, who has neither our divine law, nor our prophets, he tells the people, shows greater faith than you do.

The words which follow about people coming from east and west to take seats at God’s heavenly banquet alongside Israel’s heroes are a prophecy of the Church. Originally a sect within Judaism, the Church would break out of its Jewish womb to become the worldwide community that we know today.

          The centurion’s words continue to resound two millennia later. “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,” we say before we approach the Lord’s table to receive his Body and Blood, “but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.” Even after a good confession, we are still unworthy of the Lord’s gift. He gives himself to us for one reason: not because we are good enough; but because he is so good that he longs to share his love with us.  

          How do we respond? By gratitude! By walking before the Lord in holiness and righteousness all our days, trusting that when the Lord calls us home to himself, we shall hear him saying to us, very personally and with tender love: “Well done. … Come and share your master’s joy.” (Matt. 25:21).

 

"HE MUST INCREASE . . . "

Homily for June 24^th, 2016. 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 far old to have a child.

Zechariah=s disbelief 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 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.@

 

GENUINE DISCIPLESHIP

13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.  1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9:51-62.

AIM: To help the hearers make an unconditioned commitment to Jesus Christ.

 

Sixty-eight years ago, at Easter 1948, I entered seminary to pursue the goal to which I had aspired from age twelve: to be a priest. It would be six more years before I reached that goal. I had many difficulties, and not all those years were happy. But I never doubted the goal: not for a single day then, not for a single day since.

Upon entering the seminary, we new seminarians were given a little book called Principles: pithy, short sayings to guide our lives. One of them, entitled AOn getting work done,@ said this: AWhen work is committed to you, remember your responsibility is for getting it done, not for providing the reasons why it was not done.@ That impressed me sixty-eight years ago. It impresses me still.

The gospel reading we have just heard tells about a number of people who had reasons for not doing, or for postponing, something they knew they should be doing. Their reasons were all good ones. None of them, however, was good enough.

The Samaritans who refuse to give Jesus hospitality were closely related to Jews ethnically, as close as Sunni and Shiite Moslems in Middle East today. Like those two closely related groups, however, Samaritans and Jews were bitter enemies. In refusing hospitality to a Jewish rabbi and his followers, the Samaritans thought they were being patriotic. Love of one=s own people and one=s country is a virtue. But patriotism does not absolve us from kindness to strangers. In the world of that day hospitality, which is a form kindness to travelers, was considered all important. The Samaritans thought they had a good reason for refusing Jesus hospitality. The reason wasn=t good enough.

The man who says to Jesus, AI will follow you wherever you go,@ seems just the kind of disciple Jesus was looking for: eager to follow the Master and to do what is right. Why, then, Jesus= warning? AFoxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.@ Perhaps Jesus saw that this eager applicant for discipleship was a person who valued personal and financial security. Should the road which this man is so eager to embark on today prove tomorrow to be more costly than he had reckoned, he would find reasons to turn back. Jesus warns him in advance that those reasons would be irrelevant. Seeking security for one=s self and those one loves and for whom one has responsibility is good. When this stands in the way of wholehearted following of Jesus Christ, however, something is wrong.   

The last two people Jesus encounters want to postpone the call to follow Jesus. In both cases they give family reasons. ALord, let me go first and bury my father,@ the first man says. The second wants to defer joining Jesus until he has said goodbye to his family at home, as Elisha does in our first reading before leaving home to follow the prophet Elijah. Care for parents is enjoined by the Fourth Commandment: AHonor your father and mother.@ When it comes to following Jesus Christ, however, all other duties take a back seat. ANo one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind,@ Jesus says, Ais fit for the kingdom of God.@

None of the would-be disciples in today=s gospel is without fault. Jesus does not reject any of them, however. Jesus meets each of us where we are and challenges us to a decision. Many Catholics have never really made a decision for Jesus Christ. Their faith is something they have inherited and take more or less for granted, like their American citizenship. For most such Catholics their faith is not liberating but confining. They experience the inner conflict which Paul writes about in our second reading: AThe flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other.@ 

How can we resolve that inner conflict? How can we make our faith what Paul says it should be, when he writes in that reading: AYou were called for freedom, brothers and sisters@? To experience that freedom, to make our faith a source of joy and not a burden, we must make a conscious, mature commitment to Jesus Christ with no ifs, ands, or buts. For most people that seems threatening. In reality it is liberating. Once we make a deep and unconditioned commitment to follow Jesus Christ, we discover that though discipleship is costly, it is also the fulfillment of our deepest longings and desires. 

How can we know whether we have made such a commitment? Consider this question: Can you complete the sentence: AI will follow Jesus Christ on the condition that ...@? If you can fill in the blank in that sentence, then you are like the people we meet in today=s gospel: good people who thought they had reasons to postpone or abandon following Jesus= call, or not to respond at all.

I began with a story from my youth. Let me close with another story. A priest was waiting in line at the filling station he always patronized to have his car filled with gas just before the long Fourth of July weekend. The attendant worked quickly, but there were many cars ahead of him waiting for their turn at the pumps.  Finally, the attendant motioned the priest toward a vacant pump. "Sorry about the delay, Father," said the young man. AIt seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to get ready for a long trip.@ The priest chuckled: "I know what you mean,” he said. “It's the same in my business."

Are you ready?

 

GENUINE DISCIPLESHIP

13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.  1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9:51-62.

AIM: To help the hearers make an unconditioned commitment to Jesus Christ.

 

Sixty-eight years ago, at Easter 1948, I entered seminary to pursue the goal to which I had aspired from age twelve: to be a priest. It would be six more years before I reached that goal. I had many difficulties, and not all those years were happy. But I never doubted the goal: not for a single day then, not for a single day since.

Upon entering the seminary, we new seminarians were given a little book called Principles: pithy, short sayings to guide our lives. One of them, entitled AOn getting work done,@ said this: AWhen work is committed to you, remember your responsibility is for getting it done, not for providing the reasons why it was not done.@ That impressed me sixty-eight years ago. It impresses me still.

The gospel reading we have just heard tells about a number of people who had reasons for not doing, or for postponing, something they knew they should be doing. Their reasons were all good ones. None of them, however, was good enough.

The Samaritans who refuse to give Jesus hospitality were closely related to Jews ethnically, as close as Sunni and Shiite Moslems in Middle East today. Like those two closely related groups, however, Samaritans and Jews were bitter enemies. In refusing hospitality to a Jewish rabbi and his followers, the Samaritans thought they were being patriotic. Love of one=s own people and one=s country is a virtue. But patriotism does not absolve us from kindness to strangers. In the world of that day hospitality, which is a form kindness to travelers, was considered all important. The Samaritans thought they had a good reason for refusing Jesus hospitality. The reason wasn=t good enough.

The man who says to Jesus, AI will follow you wherever you go,@ seems just the kind of disciple Jesus was looking for: eager to follow the Master and to do what is right. Why, then, Jesus= warning? AFoxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.@ Perhaps Jesus saw that this eager applicant for discipleship was a person who valued personal and financial security. Should the road which this man is so eager to embark on today prove tomorrow to be more costly than he had reckoned, he would find reasons to turn back. Jesus warns him in advance that those reasons would be irrelevant. Seeking security for one=s self and those one loves and for whom one has responsibility is good. When this stands in the way of wholehearted following of Jesus Christ, however, something is wrong.   

The last two people Jesus encounters want to postpone the call to follow Jesus. In both cases they give family reasons. ALord, let me go first and bury my father,@ the first man says. The second wants to defer joining Jesus until he has said goodbye to his family at home, as Elisha does in our first reading before leaving home to follow the prophet Elijah. Care for parents is enjoined by the Fourth Commandment: AHonor your father and mother.@ When it comes to following Jesus Christ, however, all other duties take a back seat. ANo one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind,@ Jesus says, Ais fit for the kingdom of God.@

None of the would-be disciples in today=s gospel is without fault. Jesus does not reject any of them, however. Jesus meets each of us where we are and challenges us to a decision. Many Catholics have never really made a decision for Jesus Christ. Their faith is something they have inherited and take more or less for granted, like their American citizenship. For most such Catholics their faith is not liberating but confining. They experience the inner conflict which Paul writes about in our second reading: AThe flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other.@ 

How can we resolve that inner conflict? How can we make our faith what Paul says it should be, when he writes in that reading: AYou were called for freedom, brothers and sisters@? To experience that freedom, to make our faith a source of joy and not a burden, we must make a conscious, mature commitment to Jesus Christ with no ifs, ands, or buts. For most people that seems threatening. In reality it is liberating. Once we make a deep and unconditioned commitment to follow Jesus Christ, we discover that though discipleship is costly, it is also the fulfillment of our deepest longings and desires. 

How can we know whether we have made such a commitment? Consider this question: Can you complete the sentence: AI will follow Jesus Christ on the condition that ...@? If you can fill in the blank in that sentence, then you are like the people we meet in today=s gospel: good people who thought they had reasons to postpone or abandon following Jesus= call, or not to respond at all.

I began with a story from my youth. Let me close with another story. A priest was waiting in line at the filling station he always patronized to have his car filled with gas just before the long Fourth of July weekend. The attendant worked quickly, but there were many cars ahead of him waiting for their turn at the pumps.  Finally, the attendant motioned the priest toward a vacant pump. "Sorry about the delay, Father," said the young man. AIt seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to get ready for a long trip.@ The priest chuckled: "I know what you mean,” he said. “It's the same in my business."

Are you ready?

 

BUILDING ON ROCK

Homily for June 23^rd, 2016: Matthew 7:21-29.

"Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.” Only a fool would build a house on sand. After each heavy rain, a torrent would come and wash away anything in its path. Jesus had probably seen structures carried away by heavy rains and storms in Palestine.

To build one's house on sand means to build our lives on things that are unstable and fleeting, things that cannot not withstand the tests of time and the hazards of chance. What are such things? Money, success, fame, and even health and prosperity. None of those things is reliable or solid.

To build one's house on rock means to base our lives on things that are solid, enduring, things that cannot be carried away with Life’s storms. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” Jesus says later in this gospel according to Matthew, “but my words will not pass away.” (24:35) To build our house on rock means building our life on God. Rock is one of the preferred biblical symbols for the God. “Trust in the Lord forever,” we read in the prophet Isaiah, “for the Lord is an eternal rock.” (26:4). The book Deuteronomy says the same: "He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is." (32:4)

To build one's house on the rock means, therefore, living in the Church and not remaining on the fringe, at a distance, using the excuse that the Church is filled with corruption, dishonesty. and sin. Of course it is! The Church is made up of sinners like ourselves.

Today's gospel starts with what seems a harsh message. For the first time Matthew speaks about people who refer to Jesus as their Lord. But what good is it to cry out, "Lord, Lord," Jesus asks, when your works are not done for him but for your own glory? When we cry out "Lord," it should mean that we belong to him at all times, and not just as temporary acquaintances. When the Lord responds, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers,” (a harsh message indeed) Jesus is really expressing his longing for people who are truly close to him in daily life. Those who do things in his name to be seen and honored, yet refuse to live in daily fellowship with him are fraudulent. Those who are deaf to the Word of God, who do not act upon it, and whose lives are not built upon God will be swept away when the storms of life descend.

"BY THEIR FRUITS YOU WILL KNOW THEM"

Homily for June 22^nd, 2016: 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, as we now do, 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.”

"ENTER THROUGH THE NARROW GATE."

Homily for June 21^st, 2016: Matthew 7:6, 12-14.

AStrive to enter through the narrow gate,@ Jesus says. That Anarrow gate@ stands for every situation in which God=s demands weigh heavily on us and seem too hard to bear. We all experience such situations. It is important to know that trials and troubles are not signs not of God=s absence, but of his presence. Everything that threatens our peace of mind, or even life itself, is a challenge, and an opportunity to grow. Our trials and sufferings are the homework we are assigned in the school of life.

The idea that God is a supernatural protector who guards his own from all suffering is not a Christian idea, but a pagan one. Why is there suffering in a good world, created and upheld by a good and just God? Which of us has never asked that question? Our faith does not answer it. Faith gives us instead the strength to endure amid of suffering.

Our teacher in this school is Jesus Christ. Whatever trials and sufferings we encounter, his were heavier. The letter to the Hebrews says of Jesus: ASon though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him ...@ (5:8f).

This is the Anarrow gate@ of which Jesus speaks in the gospel: the patient endurance of all the hard and difficult things that life sets before us. Jesus never promised that God would protect us from trials and sufferings. He promises that God will be with us in every trial and in every suffering. 

We pray, then, in this Mass in a special way: “Be with us, Lord, in times of darkness, when clouds shut out the sunshine of your love. Be with us in the power of your Holy Spirit. Lead us ever onward. Give us the protection of your holy angels, to lead us to you.”

"STOP JUDGING."

Homily for June 20^th, 2016: 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!