STE. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

Homily for Oct. 1^st, 2018: A Spiritual Prodigy.

          The young woman whom we commemorate today – she died at only 24 – was a spiritual child prodigy. Born Thérèse Martin on the 2^nd of January 1873 to deeply devout Catholic parents in northwestern France, she was the youngest of five sisters and her father’s little “queen.” Her mother’s death when Thérèse was only 4 plunged her into terrible grief which would last into adolesence. At age 9 Thérèse received a second blow, when her older sister Pauline, who had been a second mother to her, entered the Carmelite convent at Lisieux, where the family was living. Thérèse decided that Carmel was the place she too wanted to be – “but not for Pauline, for Jesus.” So certain was Thérèse of her vocation, that she started to ask permission to enter Carmel when she was only 14. It finally came, in a letter from her bishop, on January 1^st, 1888, a day before her fifteenth birthday. Three months later she was received into the community where she had longed to be from age 9. 

Thérèse soon discovered the shadow side of Carmelite life. “Of course one does not have enemies in Carmel,” she wrote, “but still there are natural attractions, one feels drawn towards a certain sister, whereas you go a long way round to avoid meeting another.” Thérèse resolved to counter these difficulties by going out of her way to be kind to the Sisters who most irritated her. Over time this would become what she called her “little way.” Since she could not do great things, she would do little things as an offering to God. One of those little things was her request to remain a novice. To her life’s end she had to ask permission to do things her fellow Sisters could do on their own.

For the last 18 months of her short life, Thérèse was suffering from tuberculosis, for which there was then no real treatment. She also suffered spiritual darkness, like a later sister with her name, St. Teresa of Calcutta. Death came on the evening of Sept. 30^th, 1897.

A year later the account of her short life which she had been commanded to write was published in a limited edition of 2000 copies, under the title, The Story of a Soul. Translated over time into 40 languages, it would produce what Pope Pius XI said at Thérèse’s canonization in 1925, before half a million people “a storm of glory.” People read Thérèse’s story, invoked her intercession, and found their prayers answered. Words she had spoke toward the end of her life came true: “I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.” Today we pray, therefore: “Ste. Thérèse, pray for us. Amen.”

"I KNEW YOU WERE A HARD MAN."

Homily for September 1^st, 2018: Matt. 25:14-30.

          The sums entrusted to each servant were huge. Our version speaks of “talents.” In Jesus’ world a talent was a sum of money, the largest there was, something like a million dollars today. This tells us something crucial about the man going on a journey. He is not a bean counter. On his return from a long absence, he praises the first two servants for doubling the sums entrusted to them.   

The people hearing the story now expect that the third servant will also receive generous treatment. How shocking, therefore, to find the man not praised but rebuked as a “wicked, lazy servant.” “Out of fear,” the third servant explains, “I kept your money safe. Here it is back.” It is this fear which the parable condemns.  

          How often Jesus tells his followers, “Do not be afraid.” The master in Jesus’ parable rewards the first two servants not for the money they gained, but for their trust. He rebukes and banishes the third servant for lack of trust. The parable is about the one thing necessary: trust in the Lord who gives us his gifts not according to our deserving but according to his boundless generosity.

          Do you want to be certain that your heart will never be wounded as you journey through life? Then be sure to guard your heart carefully. Never give it away, and certainly never wear your heart on your sleeve. If you do that, however, your heart will shrink. The capacity to love is not diminished through use. It grows.       

“Out of fear ... I buried your talent in the ground,” the third servant says. Jesus came to cast out fear. To escape condemnation we don’t need to establish a good conduct record in some heavenly book – a row of gold stars representing our sacrifices and good works. Thinking we must do that is “not believing in the name of God’s only Son.” His name is synonymous with mercy, generosity, and love. Escaping condemnation, being saved, means one thing only: trusting Him. It is as simple as that.

We don’t need to negotiate with God. We don’t need to con him into being lenient. We couldn’t do that even if we tried, for God is lenient already. He invites us to trust him. That is all.   

+WISE AND FOOLISH BRIDESMAIDS

Homily for August 31st, 2018: Matthew 25:1-13.

          The midnight cry, “Behold the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!” will come for each of us, when, at life’s end, the Lord sends out his angel to call us home, to him. The story tells us that we are to prepare for this great and final event by living not for ourselves, but for God and for others. That means pursuing justice instead of exploitation; trying to build people up rather than tearing them down; being more interested in giving than in getting.       

          Jesus uses the story to warn us that if we live for ourselves, heedless of God’s claims on us, we are headed for disaster. We are like the foolish bridesmaids who made no preparations. They assumed that they could always get more oil for their torches whenever they needed it, and that the door of the house would be opened for them even if they arrived late. The foolish bridesmaids are shocked to discover that, at the decisive hour, they are unprepared, and excluded. Until then, there seemed to be no difference between the wise and foolish bridesmaids. “They all became drowsy and fell asleep,” Jesus tells us. The midnight call to action finds the wise prepared, however, and the foolish unprepared.

          Here is a modern commentary on this gospel story. It’s a young woman’s letter to the man she loves. Someone I can no longer identify sent it to me by e-mail long ago. Here’s what the young woman wrote:

          “Remember the day I borrowed your brand new car and dented it? I thought you'd kill me, but you didn't. And remember the time I flirted with all the guys to make you jealous, and you were? I thought you'd leave me, but you didn't. Remember the time I forgot to tell you the dance was formal and you showed up in jeans? I thought you'd drop me, but you didn't.

          “Yes, there were a lot of things you didn't do. But you put up with me, and you loved me, and you protected me. There were a lot of things I wanted to make up to you when you came back from Afghanistan.

          “But you didn't come back.”

          We think there is always tomorrow; but one day our tomorrow will be on the other side. Today's parable of the wise and foolish Virgins is asking us: on which side of a locked door do you wish to spend eternity? We need to make our decision now, not later; because soon that will be too late.

 

"MY MASTER IS LONG DELAYED."

Homily for August 30^th, 2018: Matthew 24:42-51.

AMy master is long delayed,@ the unfaithful servant in Jesus= story says. Behind those words lies the thought: >Maybe he=s not coming at all.=  Then this unfaithful servant begins to act as if he were the master himself, abusing his fellow servants and breaking into his absent employer=s wine cellar to stage wild parties for his free-loading friends.

The unfaithful servant=s words, AMy master is long delayed,@ had special meaning for the community for which Matthew wrote his gospel. They believed that Jesus was going to return soon, within the lifetime of some of them at least. As time went on and the Lord did not return, many in Luke=s community were tempted to say: >Maybe he=s not coming at all.=

Jesus= story warns them not to yield to such thoughts; not to forget that they are servants who, one day, will have to give an account of their service. When they do so, Jesus says, “the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely.”

That failure of faith is always a temptation for the Church, and for each of us who are the Church. We yield to this temptation when we use the blessings that God gives us through his Church solely for ourselves. That is why the Church is, and always must be, a missionary Church. We can=t keep God=s gifts unless we give them away. And when we do give them away, handing on to others the faith God has given us, we don=t become poorer. We grow richer. In passing on our faith to others, our own faith is deepened and strengthened.

Whenever in its 2000-year history the Church has forgotten its servant role; whenever the Church has settled in too comfortably and accumulated too much worldly power, prestige, and wealth, it has become inwardly flabby and spiritually sick. To find an example of this we need look no farther than the history of the Catholic Church in our own country from roughly 1950 to the present day.

 What is true of the Church is true also of each of us, the Church=s members. We are servants: servants of the Lord, and servants too of our sisters and brothers. And we are people on a journey: pilgrims underway to our true homeland with the Lord B pitching our tents each evening, as we lie down to rest for the next day=s journey, a day=s march nearer home.       

 

"YOU DISREGARD GOD'S COMMANDMENT."

Sept. 2nd, 2018: 22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. 

Deut. 4:1-2, 6-8; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23.

AIM:  To show the place of God’s law in our lives.

 

          An elderly monk, Father Benedict, was returning to his monastery from a journey. With him was a young novice, Brother Ardens. It had been raining and the road was muddy. When they came to a dip in the road still covered with water, they found a beautiful young girl standing there afraid to proceed, lest her beautiful long dress be soiled. “Come, dear,” Father Benedict said when he saw her predicament. “I’ll carry you.” He picked the girl up in his arms and carried her across to higher ground. She thanked him, and the two monks walked on in silence.

          When they reached the monastery, Brother Ardens felt he had to say something about the incident he had witnessed. “Monks are supposed to keep away from women, especially from beautiful young girls. How could you pick up in your arms that girl we met on the road?”

          “Dear Brother Ardens,” the older monk replied, “I put that girl down as soon as we reached dry ground. You have carried her in your thoughts right into the monastery.”  

          The young novice was like the Pharisees in the gospel reading we have just heard: zealous, as many young people are, and determined to see all the rules and regulations carefully observed. The ardent young monk never realized that this could mean failing in something even more important: helping someone in need.

          Two of our readings today are about rules and regulations. In the first reading Moses tells the people “not to add to God’s law or subtract from it.” He also tells them that the Ten Commandments, which embody God’s law, are a privilege and a gift. “What great nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?” The commandments are not fences to hem people in. They are ten signposts pointing the way to fulfillment and happiness. 

          This view of God’s law as a special privilege is central to Jewish religion. It was the view Jesus learned from Mary and Joseph, and in the synagogue school at Nazareth. In our gospel reading Jesus accuses the Pharisees of perverting God’s law. “You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” The Pharisees were not bad people. They were good people, and deeply religious. Their failure in regard to God’s law is common to religious people – ourselves included. Jesus’ rebuke to these Pharisees is not just long ago and far away. It remains a warning for to us today.

          Religious people (and that means us) can pervert God’s law in the two ways indicated by Moses in our first reading: by adding to it, or by subtracting from it. Those who subtract from the law are concerned only with fulfilling their “minimum obligation.” They are always asking: “Do I have to?” That is a child’s question, not an adult’s. Even the tone of voice in which it is asked shows its immaturity. 

          Catholics who go through life asking, “Do I have to?” know all their minimum obligations by heart. They even know (or think they know) how late they can come to Sunday Mass, and how early they can leave, and still have it “count.”  There is one thing, however, which these minimum-obligation Catholics do not know: joy. If your primary concern is finding out how little you need to do for God and his Church, then you will experience these minimum obligations not as light, but as heavy burdens. Why is that?

          People who concentrate on minimum obligations are living with God on the fringe of their lives. As long as you keep God on the fringe of your life, he will always be a threat to you. God will always be trying to move into the center. Show me a person whose religion is a source of joy, and I will show you someone whose life is centered on God.  

          That is how Jesus lived. Like all Jews, Jesus treasured God’s law: it was at the heart of his personal religion. Can you imagine Jesus asking, “Do I have to?”  or being concerned about fulfilling his minimum obligation? He did that automatically. Jesus never asked, “How much do I have to do for God?” He asked instead, “How much can I do?” Jesus was like a person in love. No one in love ever asks, when it is a question of doing something for the beloved, “Do I have to?” People in love are continually looking for new ways to express their love through generosity and self-sacrifice.   

          What about Moses’ other warning: not to add to God’s law? Who would ever do that, you ask? More people than you might think. We add to God’s law when we think that by going beyond our minimum obligation we can gain extra credit – a rising credit balance in some heavenly bank which God is bound to honor. Extra-credit Catholics forget that, though God is unbelievably generous, he never owes us anything. It’s the other way round. We owe him everything. “When you have done everything you have been commanded to do,” Jesus says (and which of us has?), “say, ‘We are useless servants. We have done no more than our duty’” (Lk 17:10). If concentrating on minimum obligations is the failing of the lax and lazy, thinking we can earn extra credit with God is a failing of those who are especially devout. It is sobering to realize that the people to whom Jesus most often speaks severely in the gospels are the especially devout.

          “You hypocrites,” Jesus says in the gospel. He spoke those words not to open and notorious sinners, but to people who prided themselves on the exact fulfillment of God’s law; who actually went far beyond what the law required.  Their error lay in supposing that this gave them a claim on God which he was bound to honor. We never have a claim on God. God has a claim on us, and it is an absolute claim. 

          God’s love and our salvation are not things we can earn. They are God’s free gift. God bestows his gifts on us not because we are good enough, but because He is so good that he wants to share his love with us. God’s law is not the list of rules and regulations that we must first obey before God will love us and bless us. God’s law is, rather, the description of our grateful response to the love and blessing which God has already bestowed on us out of sheer generosity.  

          Does this mean that there is no “just reward” for those who do try to obey God’s law? Of course not. God’s reward for faithful service is certain. Jesus tells us this in many gospel passages. He warns us, however, that those who try to calculate their reward in advance will be disappointed. The people who are most richly rewarded – who are literally bowled over by God’s generosity – are those who never stop to reckon up their reward because they are so keenly aware of how far short they still fall of God’s standard. 

          If we want to experience God’s generosity (and is there anyone here who does not?), we must learn to stand before God with empty hands. Then we shall experience the joy of Mary, who in her greatest hour, when she learned – astonished, fearful, and confused – that she was to be the mother of God’s Son, responded with words which the Church repeats in its public prayer every evening:

          “The hungry he has given every good thing,

                    while the rich he has sent empty away” (Lk 1:53).

"HE MUST INCREASE, I MUST DECREASE."

Homily for August 29^th, 2018: St. John the Baptist

Not quite 60 years ago, on the afternoon of October 28^th, 1958, an elderly Italian cardinal named Angelo Roncalli was elected Bishop of Rome. When he was asked what name he would take as Pope, he replied: AI will be called John.@ It was the first of many surprises. There had not been a pope of that name for over six hundred years. Almost all of them had short pontificates, John told his electors. He was then just short of 77. He would die only four and a half years later, on the day after Pentecost 1963.

He loved the name John, the new Pope said, because it had been borne by the two men in the gospels who were closest to Jesus: John the Baptist, who prepared the way for the Lord and shed his blood in witness to the One he proclaimed; and John the Evangelist, called throughout the gospel which bears his name Athe disciple whom Jesus loved.@

The name John means, AGod is gracious,@ or AGod has given grace.@ The name was singularly appropriate for the man we know as John the Baptist. He was commissioned even before his birth to proclaim the One who would give God a human face, and a human voice: Jesus Christ.

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 serve God here on earth, and to be happy with him forever in heaven. Fulfilling that destiny, given to us not just at birth but 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.@

ST. AUGUSTINE

Homily for August 28^th, 2018: Memorial of St. Augustine

          We celebrate today with joy one of the great men of the ancient Church: St. Augustine. Born in North Africa in 354 to a pagan father and the devout Christian mother, Monica, whom we celebrated yesterday, Augustine was 33 before he was baptized by the great bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose. Augustine tells the story of his dramatic conversion in his Confessions.

          Augustine was 33 and on the point of accepting Christian faith, and asking for baptism. Only his inability to master his strong sexual desires held him back. Sitting on a summer day in the garden of his house, Augustine uttered an agonized prayer for purity. “How long, O Lord, how long will I hear tomorrow, and again tomorrow? Why not now? Why can there not be an end to my impurity right now?”

          All at once Augustine heard a child’s voice from a neighboring house saying over and over the Latin words, Tolle, lege. They may have been merely a child’s game, like “Eeny, Meeney, Miney, Moe.” But Augustine took them literally: “Take up and read.”  Seizing the scroll he had been reading, which contained Paul’s letter to the Romans, Augustine’s eyes fell on the words: “Let us cast off deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us live honorably as in daylight; not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual excess and lust ... Rather put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.”

          “The very instant I finished that sentence,” Augustine writes, “light flooded my heart, and every shadow of doubt disappeared.” He was baptized by Ambrose the following Easter.

          He died at on this day 430, at age 75 and having been bishop of Hippo in North Africa for 35 years. He had dictated to scribes millions of words about the faith which have been a rich source for Catholic theologians ever since. The best known of these words is a single sentence, written out of Augustine’s own life experience. It still speaks to us over 1500 years later:  “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

 

ST. MONICA

Homily for August 27^th, 2018: St. Monica

          The opening prayer for today’s celebration of St. Monica speaks about her “motherly tears for the conversion of her son Augustine.” He was a brilliant boy. But into his 30s he was unable to accept the Christian faith, despite his mother’s fervent prayers and tears. Monica is said to have asked an old bishop whether her son would ever accept baptism. “It is impossible,” the old man reassured her, “that the son of so many prayers and tears should perish.” Augustine’s dramatic conversion at age 33 caused his mother to “leap for joy,” Augustine tells us in his Confessions. 

In another passage in that book, Augustine recounts a memorable conversation with his mother toward her life’s end. “We talked together in deep joy,” Augustine writes, “and forgetting the things that were behind and looking forward to those that were before, we were discussing in the presence of Truth, who you are [O Lord], what the eternal life of the saints could be like, which eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man. But with the mouth of our heart we panted for the high waters of your fountain, the fountain of the life which is with you. ... And my mother said, ‘Son, for my own part I no longer find joy in anything in this world. ... One thing there was, for which I desired to remain still a little longer in this life, that I should see you a Catholic Christian before I died. This God has granted me in superabundance. What then am I doing here?’” 

          A few days later Monica fell ill. “Here you will bury your mother,” she said. “Lay this body wherever it may be. This only I ask of you, that you should remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” Augustine was able to restrain his grief at his mother’s funeral and burial shortly thereafter; but his tears flowed copiously later on. 

          What a mother! And what a beautiful and holy death! May the Lord grant each of us such a death, when the Lord sends his angel to call us home!