"THEY ATE AND HAD THEIR FILL."

Homily for February 10^th, 2018: Mark 8:1-10

          This story of Jesus feeding the vast crowd in the wilderness is told six times over, with variations in detail, in the four gospels. What accounts for its popularity? I can think of four reasons. First, it shows Jesus’ ability to solve what, to us, is insoluble. Second, it is an example of what is sometimes called “The Law of the gift.” Third, it helps us understand the central Christian mystery: the Eucharist. And finally, it reminds us of what happens in every Mass.

Feeding four thousand people with seven loaves of bread and a few fish was clearly impossible. Not, however, for Jesus. The story tells us that when we place our resources, however inadequate they may be, into the hands of Jesus Christ, we discover that they are inadequate no longer. Jesus is the Son and representative of the God of the impossible.

Second, the story helps us understand what is sometimes called “The Law of the Gift.” This tells us that when we give something to the Lord, it is not lost. It comes back to us. But it comes back transformed, and enlarged. That is because God does not need our gifts. He is, as the theologians say, sufficient unto himself.

Third, what we offer to God in the Eucharist -- a little bread and a small quantity of wine, gifts every bit as insignificant as the seven loaves of bread and a few fish offered to Jesus in this story -- comes back to us transformed into the Body and Blood of God’s Son: all his love, all his goodness, all his strength, all his purity and compassion, all his willingness to forgive.

Finally the story reminds us of what Jesus does in every Mass. “Taking the seven loaves,” the story says, “he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute.” That is exactly what happens in every Mass, with but one exception. Though the host and celebrant are the same, Jesus, we cannot see him with our eyes, only with the eyes of faith. We see instead his human representative, the priest.

“They ate until they had their fill,” Mark tells us. When Jesus gives, he gives not only abundantly, but super-abundantly. We come repeatedly not because the gift is limited, for it is not; but rather because our capacity to receive is limited.

"BE OPENED!"

Homily for February 9^th, 2018: Mark 7:31-37.

 ABe opened!@ Jesus says to the deaf man who is brought to him for healing. Deafness has closed him off from others. Jesus wants to set him free. Jesus is the man of total openness: openness to God; and openness to those whom society in Jesus= day accepted only in subordinate roles or not at all B women, children, and social outcasts like prostitutes and the hated tax collectors. Our fourth Eucharistic prayer tells us that Jesus proclaimed “the good news of salvation to the poor, to prisoners freedom, and to the sorrowful of heart, joy.”

Jesus is saying to us right now, in this church, what he said to the deaf man: ABe opened!@ How closed in we are much of the time: closed to God, closed to others. We shut ourselves up in prisons of our own making, whose walls are self-fulfillment, and whose guiding principle is the hackneyed and deceitful slogan: ADo your own thing.@ Most of the conflicts, divisions, and wars in our world B between individuals, families, classes, groups, and nations B are the result of people not being open. In the cacophony of conflicting arguments and claims we hear only what we want to hear, and no more; just enough to confirm our prejudices; and then we stop listening altogether. 

Even between Christians there are barriers erected by our failure to be open to each other. To remedy this tragic situation, which contradicts Jesus= prayer the night before he died, that all might be one (Jn. 17, passim), the Second Vatican Council recommended the method of dialogue. Dialogue requires that we be open to what those who are separated from us are saying; that we listen before we speak.

Can dialogue overcome all barriers? Sadly it cannot. Some conflicts are so grave that no human power seems great enough to break down the walls that separate us from one another. Nor can we penetrate by our own efforts alone the wall which our sins erect between us and the all-holy God. The gospel proclaims the good news that there is One who can break down those walls. His name is Jesus Christ.

Jesus, the man of total openness, has the right, if ever a man had it, to command: ABe opened!@ He won that right for all time on Calvary when, as we shall hear in a moment in the preface to our Eucharistic prayer, Ahe stretched out his hands as he endured his Passion, so as to break the bonds of death and manifest the resurrection.” (Weekday Preface VI) 

ST. JOSEPHINE BAKHITA

Homily for February 8^th, 2018: St. Josephine Bakhita.

          St Josephine Bakhita, the saint whom the Church commemorates today, was born in about 1869 – she herself did not know the precise date -- to a wealthy family in Darfur, the capitol of Sudan in southern Africa. At age nine she was kidnapped and sold and re-sold in the slave market in Darfur. Beaten and flogged by her masters so often that she had 144 scars on her body, she came finally into the possession of the Italian consul in the Sudan. A kind man, he took Josephine with him when he returned to Italy in 1885. Here is some of what Pope Benedict XVI wrote about her in his 2009 encyclical “Saved by Hope.”

“Up to that time she had known only masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered her a useful slave. Now, however, she heard that there is another Master, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created herCthat he actually loved her. She was loved by none other than the supreme Master, before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. What is more, this master had himself been flogged and now he was waiting for her ‘at the Father's right hand’. Now she had ‘hope’ Cno longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: ‘I am definitively loved and whatever happens to meCI am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.’@

          In January 1890 Josephine was baptized, and on the same day given confirmation and First Communion by the Patriarch of Venice, later the Pope, St. Pius X. In 1893 she entered an order of religious Sisters, with whom she lived until her death in 1947. When she was old and bent, a bishop visiting her convent asked her what she did. “I do the same as you,” she replied. Astonished, the bishop asked her, “What’s that?” “Your Excellency,” she replied, “we both want and do the same thing: God’s will.”

Revered by all who knew her because of her gentleness, calming voice, and ever present smile, she was declared a saint by Pope St. John Paul in 2000. Asked once, "What would you do, if you were to meet your captors?" Josephine responded: "If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today.” Because the Church has declared her a saint, we can pray: “St. Josephine Bakhita, Pray for us.”   

"EVIL COMES FROM WITHIN."

Homily for February 7^th, 2018: Mark 7:14-23.

          “Everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,” Jesus says, since it enters not into the heart but the stomach.” The heart in Jewish thought was considered the seat of feelings and learning. The gospel writer Mark adds his own summary of what Jesus has just said: “Thus he declared all foods clean.”

Jesus’ disciples were all Jews. For them there was a whole list of foods which not be eaten because they were unclean, starting with pork. By declaring all foods clean Jesus was making a radical break with Jewish tradition. But this raises a problem. If Jesus so clearly abolished the distinction between clean and unclean foods, why was there the great debate, reported in the Acts of the Apostles and three of Paul’s letters, about whether Gentile Christians were bound by the Jewish food laws? The answer to that question is simply: we do not know. There are many things in the Bible that we cannot understand. 

What we can understand is the list of vices that Jesus gives us: evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. Evil thoughts may be of many kinds: hatred, anger, lust, resentment. The list goes on and on. All of us have such thoughts from time to time. As long as we are trying to turn away from such dark thoughts to better ones, evil thoughts remain only temptations. And a thousand temptations do not make a single sin. Indeed Jesus himself was tempted after his 40 days of fasting in the wilderness. Yet we know that Jesus never sinned.

Theft is forbidden by the Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a world where there was no theft? We wouldn’t need to lock our homes or cars. If we left something behind, we’d know it would be there when we came back. Could there be a better example of the Commandments being signposts to human happiness, not fences to hem us in? Envy is the one vice that brings its own punishment with it. When we give way to envy, we’re unhappy. Blasphemy is not respecting the holy name of God. Arrogance puts people off: no one like an arrogant person. And folly means misusing or wasting the gifts God showers upon us.

Jesus, who gives us this list of vices, has also given us the best defense against them: the closing words of the one prayer he has given us, “Deliver us from evil.”

 

 

HEALED, RESTORED, FORGIVEN

Homily for Feb. 11th, 2018: 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. 

Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46; Mark 1:40-45.

AIM:  To bring home to the hearers the healing power of God’s unconditioned love.

 

          Have you ever been shunned by someone you love? It happens between friends, between lovers, between husbands and wives. They quarrel, and afterwards avoid each other’s company, or refuse to speak when they must be together. Many of us have been through experiences like that. It hurts terribly.

          The leper who comes to Jesus in today’s gospel was shunned by everyone except his fellow lepers. Leprosy was the dread scourge of the ancient world, something like AIDS today. Because leprosy was thought to be highly contagious, the leper had to live apart, in a kind of permanent quarantine. And since there was no cure for his illness, his situation was hopeless.

          The leper in today’s gospel, however, has heard about a man named Jesus who can cure people, even those with incurable diseases like leprosy. With a hope born of despair this man dares to violate the law for lepers which we heard about in our first reading: “He shall dwell apart, making his home outside the camp.”  The leper throws himself at Jesus’ feet and begs for healing: “If you wish, you can make me clean.”

          Notice how Jesus reacts. He does not show revulsion. He is not afraid he will be infected. Jesus, Mark tells us, is “moved with pity.” Though everyone else shuns the man, Jesus does not. Though the man’s situation is hopeless, for Jesus it is not. Though everyone else flees from the man in horror, Jesus does not. Instead Jesus does the unthinkable. He reaches out to touch the man. At Jesus’ command the man is cured. In a single moment his life is changed. He is restored to his friends and to society. He can lead a normal life again.

          This simple story, set in a world so different from ours, has good news for us. It tells us that Jesus is the friend of the outcast, that he rejects no one who comes to him. Now, as then, Jesus’ touch gives hope where previously there was no hope; restores people to fellowship with one another, and with God. 

          When we were little, our parents (if they were reasonably good parents) punished us when we were bad and rewarded us when we were good. We grew up expecting God to do the same. So if we want God to reward and bless us, we assume, we must first do something to deserve his blessing. Yet if we are honest, we must admit that much of the time we are not deserving. Repeatedly we have forfeited any claim we might have on God for his blessing and reward. The logical conclusion is that our situation is hopeless – as hopeless as the leper’s situation before he encountered Jesus Christ.

          The good news of the gospel is that our situation is not hopeless. God loves us as we are, right now. He does not love us because we are good enough, for much of the time we are not. God loves us because He is so good that he wants to share his love and his goodness with us.

          For this good news to bear fruit in our lives, however, we must do what the man in today’s gospel did. We must recognize the hopelessness of our situation and come to Jesus for healing. The leper needed no reminder of his hopelessness.  The society which segregated and shunned him reminded him of it at every moment.

          Many people, however, have difficulty recognizing the things in their lives that cry out for Jesus’ healing touch, for forgiveness. They have worn masks for so long that they can no longer see the real self behind the mask. If you are completely satisfied with your life as it is – with your character, your attitude, your achievements – then the good news of the gospel is not for you. Jesus cannot reach you with his healing power.

          If, on the other hand, you are willing to come to Jesus Christ, as the leper did; if you will tell him how desperately you need him – then you too can experience his healing, and his forgiveness. You have only to come. Jesus is waiting for you.

          As a sign that the leper, having been healed, was restored to the fellowship of God’s holy people and could join in their worship, Jesus sends him to the priest.  Jewish priests in the Jerusalem Temple were also quarantine officers in Jesus’ world, as we heard in our first reading. Those whom Jesus heals and forgives today he sends to their sisters and brothers to share with them the divine gifts of healing and forgiveness. How terrible to experience Jesus’ healing and forgiveness and then to be, with others, hard-hearted, unforgiving: a tale bearer, a gossip, tearing people down instead of building them up; a person who opens wounds instead of closing them, who destroys hope instead of sharing it.

          The message of today’s gospel is simple. It is this. Jesus Christ gives hope where there is no hope. Jesus Christ cures the incurable and forgives the unforgivable. Jesus Christ welcomes outcasts and restores them to fellowship with God, and with God’s holy people. Jesus Christ changes lives.

          Jesus Christ can change your life. You have only to admit your need – and come.

"LISTEN TO THE PETITIONS, AND GRANT PARDON."

Homily for February 6^th, 2018: 1 Kings 8:22-23, 27-30.

          “Listen to the petitions of your servant and of your people Israel which they offer in this place,” Solomon prays at the dedication of the Temple. To pray that God will hear the petitions offered in the Temple is what we would expect. But then comes something we do not expect: “Listen from your heavenly dwelling -- and grant pardon.”

          Solomon’s prayer reminds us that whenever we approach God, the first thing we need to ask for is pardon for our sins. None of us is worthy to enter into the presence of the all-holy God. That is why the first thing we do in every Mass is to ask forgiveness for our sins, and implore God’s mercy.

          Our wonderful Pope Francis has made prayer for God’s mercy central in his preaching. Repeatedly, and in different ways, the Pope tells us: God never grows tired of forgiving us; it is we who grow tired of asking for forgiveness.

          It appears that this theme is rooted in the Pope’s personal history. At age thirty-six Jorge Bergoglio was put in charge of all the Jesuits in Argentina. The country was under a cruel military government. They arrested hundreds of people they did not like, perhaps thousands, and without trial flew them in planes over the South Atlantic and dropped them into the sea. Many Jesuits embraced something called liberation theology, putting political action and protest before traditional priestly duties: administering the sacraments and preaching the gospel.  

Guiding his Jesuit brothers along the right path in this chaotic and perilous situation would have been difficult even for a much older man with greater experience than Fr. Bergoglio. Some Jesuits were clearly over the line. To protect them he forbade his brothers to provoke the authorities by living in the slums and engaging in political protest. Inevitably this provoked charges that he was “soft on injustice.” Over time Bergoglio came to feel that he may have been too rigid, and that his treatment of his Jesuit brothers who confronted the military regime in Argentina, and embraced the cause of the poor, had perhaps been too harsh. This continues to weigh on him today, as Pope Francis. It helps us to understand his constant emphasis on our need for forgiveness.

Regardless of our personal history, we all need to pray for God’s mercy and forgiveness. And Pope Francis is right to remind us that this prayer is one that God will always answer.

"ALL WHO TOUCHED HIM GOT WELL."

Homily for February 5^th, 2018: Mark 6:53-56.

          For a couple of hours, perhaps, during the voyage across the lake, Jesus has privacy. No one will bother him. Then, as soon as they reach the farther shore, the old routine resumes. “As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him,” Mark tells us. “They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was” – another normal day for Jesus.

I still remember seeing on television back in 1964, pictures of Pope Paul VI in Jerusalem. As he tried to walk through the narrow streets of old Jerusalem, lined by shops and crowds of people on both sides, the Pope was constantly jostled by the crowds. And I remember thinking: ‘That’s what Jesus’ life was like; constantly hemmed in by people wanting to speak to him, to touch him.’ That is why we read often in the gospels about Jesus withdrawing to what the gospel writers call “deserted places.” He needed to escape the constant pressure, to be alone with his heavenly Father, from whom all Jesus’ power came, and all his love.  

In today’s gospel Mark tells us that wherever Jesus came “they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel of his cloak. All who  touched him were healed.”

Jesus is still healing people. He cures us of physical ailments, but of spiritual ones as well: bad habits, pride, lack of love, jealousy, envy, hard-heartedness, impurity, resentment and hate. One of his titles is the Good Physician.

There is a little prayer, only five words, which I learned decades ago and which I repeat often as I go through the day. “Good Physician, make me whole.” Take that prayer and use it as you go through this day. Repeat the words over and over. They will take you straight to the heart of the One who loves you beyond your imagining; whose love will never let you go.

“Good Physician, Make me whole.”