SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT

Homily for October 21^st, 2017: Luke 12:8-12.

          “Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man [a title for Jesus] will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.” These words of Jesus are difficult. We find them, in different versions, in all three of the so-called synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. From the beginning the words have caused heart-searching and anguish, especially for people inclined to scrupulosity. What can we say about them?

          Here is what the Catholic Catechism says: “There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and final loss.” [1864] Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not properly consist, then, in offending against the Holy Spirit in words; it consists rather in the refusal to accept the salvation which God offers to us through the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the Cross.

          Pope John Paul II explained it thus: “If Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven either in this life or in the next, it is because this ‘non-forgiveness’ is linked, as to its cause, to ‘non-repentance’, in other words to the radical refusal to be converted. . . Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a ‘right’ to persist in evil -- in any sin at all -- and who thus rejects redemption. One closes oneself up in sin, thus making impossible one's conversion, and consequently the remission of sins, which one considers not essential or not important for one's life. This is a state of spiritual ruin, because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not allow one to escape from one's self-imposed imprisonment and open oneself to the divine sources of the purification of consciences and of the remission of sins.” [Dominum et vivificantem, 46.]

          And Pope Francis says again and again: “God never grows tired of forgiving us. It is we who go tired of asking for forgiveness.” Committing the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit means, therefore, refusing to ask for forgiveness, and perseverance in such refusal until the end.

"DO NOT BE AFRAID."

Homily for October 20^th, 2017: Luke 12:1-7.
          “Do not be afraid,” Jesus tells us in the gospel reading we have just heard. He says it, in fact, twice over. We find the same reassuring command, to fear nothing, throughout the gospels. In today’s gospel reading the command not to fear follows the statement, “Everything you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight.” That is fearful indeed. Which one of us would like to have everything we have ever said, even in secret, publicly revealed to all? Don’t we all have things we’ve said that would make us ashamed if they were publicized?

          Jesus repeats the command not to fear after speaking about what we must all undergo at the end of earthly life: death. “Do not fear those who can kill the body and can do no more.” Fear instead, Jesus says, “him who has power to cast into hell after he has killed.” This time Jesus gives us the reason why we need not fear: because God loves us with a love that will never let us go: in God’s eyes, he says, “even the hairs of your head are numbered.”

There is not one of us who has no fears at all. To overcome them we need to deepen and strengthen our spiritual vision. Buried in the Old Testament and hence mostly overlooked, there is a story about this. We find it in just a few verses in the 2^nd Book of Kings, chapter 6.  It tells about the prophet Elisha finding himself surrounded one morning by enemy troops. They want to kidnap him, because Elisha has been giving intelligence information to the king of Israel. Seeing their desperate plight, Elisha=s servant panics. ADo not be afraid,@ Elisha tells him, Afor those who are with us are more than those who are with them.@    

How could the servant believe that? He and Elisha were alone and encircled. Their situation was hopeless. So Elisha does what prophets do best. He prays: AO Lord, open his eyes, that he may see.@ The story continues: AAnd the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, so that he saw the mountainside filled with horses and fiery chariots around Elisha.@ With the protection of these heavenly warriors, God=s angels, Elisha has an easy victory over his enemies that day.

When we find ourselves beset with fear, we need to pray, as Elisha prayed: “Lord, open my eyes that I may see” – see your love for me, your understanding of my weakness, the desire deep in my heart to be truly yours, despite my many humiliating falls. Let me see, Lord, your boundless mercy and willingness to forgive. Help me to see that those who are with me are always more than those who fight against me.

 

         

 

"REPAY TO GOD WHAT IS GOD'S."

Homily for Oct. 22nd, 2017: 29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A. 

Matthew 22:15-21.

AIM: To help the hearers live as stewards of God’s gifts.

 

          Imagine, for a moment, that our country had been defeated in war. Foreigners would rule us, their troops stationed in every American state, city, and town. Chinese, perhaps? Who knows? Imagine how we would feel.  That was the situation in Palestine in Jesus’ day. His people deeply resented the Romans who ruled their country. Especially hated was the annual head tax imposed by the military government. It wasn’t the amount of money involved, only a small sum, but the principle of having to pay it at all, to foreigners. 

           A small group of collaborators, called “Herodians” in today’s gospel, took the position that you can’t fight City Hall. Best to pay the tax, they said, and keep on the right side of the law, and of the authorities who imposed it. They were opposed by people called Zealots, who enjoyed wide popular support. The Zealots said that the tax was an infringement on God’s authority over his people and hence should not be paid at all. In the middle of this controversy were the Pharisees.  They agreed with the Zealots in principle, but rejected direct political action, whether through a tax revolt or other means.

          Matthew makes it clear that the Pharisees and Herodians who ask Jesus his view about the tax were really interested in one thing only: “how they might entrap Jesus in speech.” Matthew’s Greek text says they were plotting to entrap him “in word.” Either of two possible words would spring the trap: Yes or No. If Jesus said Yes, it was lawful to pay the Roman tax, he would forfeit his popularity with the masses, who resented the payment. If he said No, the tax was unlawful and should not be paid, he could be denounced to the authorities for inciting people to break the law. 

          Jesus does not give either of the answers his questioners were looking for.  He seldom did. Instead he demands that they show him the coin used to pay the tax. It is a Roman coin. By producing it from their own pockets Jesus’ questioners show that, whatever their theoretical position, in fact they recognize the existing situation. The country is ruled by foreigners. It is their money which is legal tender, and no other.

          Jesus’ words, “Repay to Caesar what is Caesar’s” reject the radical position of the Zealots, who claimed that the Roman government was unlawful and should not be obeyed at all. All the emphasis, however, is on the second part of Jesus answer: “Repay to God what is God’s.”  Do that, Jesus is saying, and everything else will fall into place.

          Jesus’ questioners had asked him whether it was lawful to pay the hated head tax. When Jesus answers the question, he speaks not or paying but of repaying: “repay to God what is God’s.” What does that mean? What is God’s anyway? The answer is inescapable: everything! From God we receive all that we are and have, sin excepted. God has given us the gift of life, using our parents as his instruments. It is God who has preserved our lives until now in the midst of heaven knows how many dangers to life. God has given us our talents: everything from the five senses which we share with the animals, through the uniquely human gifts (thought, speech, love, and laughter), to the individual talents that make each person unique: how dull life would be if we were all the same.

          God even gives us our possessions and our money. Perhaps you’re thinking: Wait a minute, I’ve worked for what I have. Undoubtedly you have. But how long would you retain your possessions and earning power if you lost your health or

even one significant human faculty? At bottom even the things we own are gifts from the creator and giver of all: God.                     

          If repaying to God what is God’s means anything, it must mean putting God first in our lives. Here are some questions for self-examination. Am I putting God first in my life? Or does he get the leftovers? My spare time (if any)? The gifts and talents which are left over when I have finished doing the things I want to do? The loose change that remains after I have satisfied all my needs and as many luxuries as I think I can afford?

          Jesus would have been shocked at the idea of giving God leftovers. The  religion he learned from Mary and Joseph, and at the synagogue school in Nazareth, taught Jesus that we must give God the firstfruits. In the pastoral society of that day the farmer and shepherd offered God the first fruits of field and flock.  They did this not just to fulfill a legal obligation. They gave God first claim on all they had out of gratitude. This grateful giving of firstfruits was based on the truth that, at bottom, everything comes from God, and hence everything belongs to God. 

          If we truly want to “repay to God what is God’s,” as Jesus tells us to do in today’s gospel, then we must put God first in our lives – in all areas of our lives. There must be no fenced off areas where He is second, or third; where God is not allowed to enter at all. Does that sound threatening? In reality, it is the key to happiness. 

          Even nature teaches us this lesson. There are two well known bodies of water in the world which jealously hoard every drop of moisture they receive from rain, snow, and their tributary streams. Their names tell us what they have become: the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the Dead Sea in Israel. Show me a lake whose waters are sweet and fresh, teeming with fish, pleasant to drink and swim in, and I will show you a body of water that gives up all the moisture it receives. You can’t keep it, unless you give it away! The trees teach us the same lesson: already they’re starting to shed their leaves, so that they may put forth new ones next spring. The evergreens are no exception. Walk through a forest of pine, hemlock, or spruce, and you will find the ground covered with a carpet of old needles.

          In a small mountain village in Switzerland I saw, years ago, a fountain, fed by a bubbling spring which flowed day and night. Carved on it was a little rhyme in German: “Wie schön ist das Leben / Bloß geben, nur geben” – in English: “How great to be living, just giving, only giving.” Winston Churchill, the 20^th century’s greatest English-language orator and not a particularly religious man, said the same: “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”

          People who are always giving, who put God first in their lives, make a beautiful discovery. They find that God will never permit himself to be outdone in generosity. They find that what is left over for themselves is always enough, and more than enough. They discover that Jesus’ words are really true: “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving” (Act 20:35).

          There are people here, right now, who have made that discovery. They are the truly happy, the truly rich. Are you one of them? If you’re not, Jesus is inviting you to join their happy company – today.

 

 

 

 

 

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"YOU BUILD THE MEMORIALS OF THE PROPHETS."

Homily for October 19^th, 2017: Luke 11:47-54.

          In today’s gospel reading we witness the mounting hostility to Jesus of the religious leaders of his people: the Pharisees, who prided themselves on their careful observance of God’s law; and the scribes, the experts in interpreting the law – which for Jesus’ people was, of course, the Ten Commandments. 

          “Woe to you,” Jesus says, “who build the memorials of the prophets whom your fathers killed.” We build memorials to people whom we honor. During their lifetimes, however, Israel’s prophets were not honored. Many were resented or ignored, for reminding people of  God’s demands on them. Others, like Jeremiah, were actively persecuted. Only when the prophets were dead and gone was it safe to start honoring them.

We see something similar in a modern prophet: Dr. Martin Luther King. Widely resented during his lifetime, and the target of hatred so strong that it led to his assassination, today he is honored by a stone monument in Washington, and celebrated on a national holiday. Jesus’ words about how his people treated God’s spokesmen, the prophets – rejecting them in their lifetimes, and erecting memorials to them after they were safely dead --  help us understand why Jesus was killed by his own people.

At the end of today’s gospel reading the opposition to Jesus becomes open and active. “The scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him,” Luke writes, “and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.”

This hostility continues today – in the form of gossip. A year or more ago, Pope Francis, celebrating Mass for those who guard the Vatican, told them: “You watchmen guard the doors, the windows, so that a bomb does not enter.” However, “there are bombs inside, there are very dangerous bombs inside.” He was speaking, the Pope explained, about gossip, the weeds sown amid the wheat, which destroys and kills. “May the life of us all,” the Pope concluded, “the last page of the life of us all be: he was a good person, he sowed the good seed. And not – it would be very sad – that the last page be: he was wicked, he sowed the bomb of discord.”

"GO, PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL."

Homily for Oct. 18^th, 2017: Luke 10:1-9

“The Lord Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit.” Was that just long ago and far away? Don’t you believe it! The Lord is still sending disciples to recruit new disciples by showing people the joy of a life centered on Jesus Christ.

One of them, a man now in his second year in seminary whose call to priesthood I have been nourishing, wrote recently about joining an Evangelization Club at his seminary. It started when some of the seminarians returned from visiting a state university on fire from the incredible response they had received from college students who came to know Jesus Christ through conversations with the visiting seminarians.

“We are excited about the work done through the group,” my seminarian friend wrote, “and I've personally felt a certain aliveness in the Holy Spirit for proclaiming Christ.”

 “But of course,” I responded to him in an e-mail. “When we share our faith with others, we deepen our own faith. Teachers experience this all the time. They learn more than their students, because in order to communicate clearly the material they are teaching, teachers must first get a firm and clear grasp on it themselves.”

          “Go, and proclaim the gospel of the Lord,” we often hear at the end of Mass. But how? St. Francis of Assisi answers this question as follows: “Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” Personal example is always more effective than words. If we center our lives on Jesus Christ; if we give thanks daily and even hourly for all the blessings the Lord showers upon us – so many more than we deserve – people will notice that we’re people of joy. They’ll want to know where this joy comes from. That gives us our opening: to tell them it comes from the One who loves us more than we can ever imagine; who is always close to us, even when he stray far from him.

His name, we’ll tell our questioners, is Jesus Christ.

 

"GIVE ALMS."

Homily for October 17^th, 2017: Luke 11:37-41.

          Jesus is the guest of a Pharisee, a man who is careful to observe all the provisions of the Jewish law. Offered an opportunity to wash his hands before dinner, Jesus offends his host by brushing aside this Jewish custom. An act of rudeness? So it would seem. As the story unfolds we discover, however, the Jesus had a reason for what looks like an act of discourtesy. He wanted to show his host that mere external cleansing is useless if it is not accompanied by internal cleansing as well.

          “O, you Pharisees!” He says. “Although you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil.” What might this mean for us today? A possible modern parallel would be Catholics who are always careful to dress up for Sunday Mass: a suit and necktie for men; for women a nice dress; inside, however, unconfessed and hence unforgiven sins: cruelty, resentment, and hate; dishonesty, impurity, and pride. The Lord in his mercy has given us a remedy for such sins: the sacrament of penance or confession. Correctness in dress and outward behavior are important. Coming to the Lord’s Table as we would to a picnic or baseball game shows scant respect for our host. Yet inner and spiritual cleansing is even more important.

          Now Jesus surprises us (how often he does that!). Rather than pointing to confession of sins, he speaks of something else: almsgiving. “But as to what is within, give alms, and behold everything will be clean for you.” Luke wrote his gospel for a partly Gentile community. Almsgiving hardly figured in the ancient pagan world of Jesus’ day. For Jews, however, it was important. The Jewish farmer and shepherd gave the firstfruits of field and flock to the Lord. He did so to express gratitude to the Lord who gives us all we are and have, sin excepted. Only when we are truly thankful to the Lord for all the blessings he showers upon us, so many more than we deserve on any strict accounting, are we truly in a right relationship with him. And we show our gratitude by sharing the Lord’s blessings with our brothers and sisters. Only then, Jesus tells us, will everything be clean for us.

"THIS GENERATION SEEKS A SIGN."

Homily for October 16th, 2017: Luke 29-32.

          “This generation seeks a sign,” Jesus says. He is referring to the repeated demand of his contemporaries for a miracle so dramatic that it will force them to believe. We heard this demand in the gospel reading last Friday, as we noted then, belief cannot be forced, any more than love can be forced. Jesus’ miracles confirm the faith of those who already believe. They do not force belief on those whose hearts and minds are closed to him and his message.

          Jesus then mentions two such confirming signs: Jonah, and the so-called queen of the south, Sheba. Jonah’s sign was not his survival in the belly of the great fish. We saw when we were reading Jonah last week that this was one of the parts of Jonah’s story which showed that it was fiction – though, like much great fiction, notably Jesus’ parables and Shakespeare’s plays, it was the vehicle for important truth about God, humanity, and life. The sign of Jonah which Jesus refers to is the immediate repentance of the people of Nineveh – Gentiles without the gift of God’s law – in response to Jonah’s preaching. Jesus contrasts the response of the Ninevites with the failure of so many of his own people to respond to his message.

          The sign of Queen Sheba is different, though in one respect the same. Like Jonah, she came from afar, motivated however not by a divine command, but by the report that King Solomon possessed wisdom greater than that of all other rulers or sages. “There is something greater than Solomon here,” Jesus says. He is referring to himself. He not merely possesses wisdom: Jesus is wisdom personified. Similarly the statement that “there is something greater than Jonah here” means that Jesus’ message is more compelling than Jonah’s -- yet the people still do not respond. Jesus sums up by saying that stories of the Ninevites and of Queen Sheba showed a readiness to respond which his own people lack.

Are we responding? “I have come,” Jesus says in John’s gospel, “that they may have life, and have it to the full” (10:10). Are we embracing Jesus’ offer of life to the full? Or do we think of our faith as observing enough of the Church’s complicated rules and regulations to be able, on Judgment Day, to squeeze our way into heaven?

          Think about it – more important, pray about it!