'ANGELS ASCENDING AND DESCENDING."

Homily for September 29^th, 2018: John 1:47-51.

          “Truly, I say to you, you will see the heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Jesus speaks these words to his newly recruited disciple, Nathaniel. Elsewhere in the gospels he is identified as the apostle Bartholomew. The words tell us that Jesus is the contact person between earth and heaven, between humanity and God. 

We contact God by offering prayers to our heavenly Father through his Son Jesus, in and through the Holy Spirit, who inspires us to pray and supports us as we do so. The ascending angels carry our prayers heavenward. And the descending angels bring us the Father’s blessings in answer to our prayers. 

The Bible identifies three special angels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, whom we commemorate today. Michael, whose name means, “who can compare with God?” is mentioned in the book of Revelation, where we read: “”War broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. Although the dragon and his angels fought back, they were overpowered and lost their place in heaven.” The archangel Michael represents God’s power, defending us against the forces of evil.

Gabriel is God’s messenger. He appeared to the Old Testament prophet Daniel to help him understand a vision Daniel had about the world’s end (cf. Dan. 8:16 & 9:21). Later he appeared to a teenaged Jewish girl called Mary, to tell her she was to be the mother of God’s Son.

The archangel Raphael is traditionally the angel of healing. Chapter 12 of the Old Testament book Tobit speaks of his healing power. And chapter 5 of John’s gospel speaks of sick people waiting to be healed at a pool in Jerusalem called Bethesda. An ancient verse which is missing in modern Bibles speaks of an angel, identified in Catholic tradition as Raphael, coming to stir up the waters, to release their healing powers.

In 1886 Pope Leo XIII composed a prayer to the archangel Michael which was prayed at the end of every Mass until 1968. This custom is being revived today, in many parishes. The prayer goes like this:

“Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host - by the Divine Power of God - cast into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits, who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”

 

"THERE IS A TIME FOR EVERYTHING."

Homily for September 28^th, 2018: Ecclesiastes 3:1-11.

          I told you yesterday that the short Old Testament book Ecclesiastes, with its repeated refrain, “All is vanity,” is often called the most cynical book in the Bible. It brings us not good news, but the bad news that life is indeed empty, “vanity,” unless we center our lives on the Lord God. In the midst of this bad news, however, we come upon a passage that is like finding an oasis in a desert: the assurance which we heard in today’s first reading, that “There is an appointed time for every thing under the heavens.”

          In words of great beauty the author, called Qoheleth, a word of uncertain meaning, often translated “the Preacher,” says that there is “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh . . . A time to be silent, and a time to speak.”  

The full and rounded person makes time for each of these pairs of opposites. There are times when it is important to speak. At other times silence is more appropriate. When I entered seminary 70 years ago we newcomers were given a little book called “Principles.” One of them went like this: “The conversation of the brethren should help and cheer us, but God’s voice speaks most often in silence. Keep some part of every day free from all noise and the voices of men, for human distraction and craving for it hinder divine peace.” I’ve tried to do that in all the years since I first read those words.

About one sentence in this short reading, Bible scholars have been disputing for over 2000 years. God “has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into [people’s] hearts.” What is this “timeless”? I believe it is the sense, inborn in us but rejected by the book’s author, that there is a world beyond this one, and a life beyond death. It is for this that we are born and made: to serve God, our loving heavenly Father, faithfully here on earth; but beyond that to be happy with him forever in heaven.

 

"ALL IS VANITY."

Homily for September 27^th, 2018: Ecclesiastes 1:2-11.

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher. Vanity of vanities!’ Is that good news -- to be told that life is empty and without meaning, which is what those words are saying? Hardly. The book which begins with those words, Ecclesiastes, repeats them like a refrain. Ecclesiastes has been called the most cynical book in the Bible. It contains the bad news that we need to hear to prepare us for the good news brought to us by Jesus Christ.

The bad news is that life is indeed empty B Avanity,@ Ecclesiastes calls it B if we organize our lives apart from God. Is there anyone here who has done that? Probably not. Your presence here at a weekday Mass shows that God does have a place in your life. The question for us, therefore, is not: ADoes God have a place in my life?@ but rather: AWhat place does God have in my life? Is he at the center? Or have I pushed God out toward the fringe of my life?@   

As long as our lives are not centered on God – but on our own desires, our plans for a wonderful future, for possessions, pleasure, power over others, for recognition and fame – then we’ll never be happy. Why? Because if any of those things is central to us, our life will be organized around getting; and we’ll always be frustrated, because we’ll never get enough. 

The World War II British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill B not an especially religious man B said once: AWe make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.@ Churchill was right. Jesus says the same in different words: “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving” (Acts 20:35).

At the end of the day, there are basically two kinds of people: takers and givers. It is only the givers who find true and lasting happiness. No generous giver ever found life empty and meaningless –“vanity,” to use Ecclesiastes’ word. Giving people find life full of joy. And it was to give us joy that the Lord God sent his Him into the word who says in John’s gospel: “Live on in my love . . . that my joy may be yours and your joy may be compete” (15:9-11).

GOD'S UNIVERSAL LOVE.

Homily for Oct. 7th, 2018: 27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.
Gen.2: 18-24; Heb. 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16.

AIM:  By explaining Jesus= teaching about marriage, to show that God=s love embraces all.

 

I am one of the dwindling number of people able to remember the Model T Ford car. Henry Ford produced 15 million of them between 1909 and 1928, the year of my birth. There were still Model T=s on the roads in my early childhood. There was only one model. And you could have any color you wanted as long as it was black. The Model T made Henry Ford an enormously rich man. On his fiftieth wedding anniversary Henry Ford was asked his secret for marital success. His reply was simple: AJust the same as in the automobile industry: stick to one model.@ Jesus says the same thing in today=s gospel. 

We all know, however, how common divorce is today. Few families today are untouched by it. Divorce is always painful B even the so-called friendly divorces we sometimes hear about. The reason for this pain is rooted in what the Bible says marriage truly is. Jesus reaffirms this teaching in today=s gospel when he says that when two people marry, Athey are no longer two but one flesh.@ The rending of this one-flesh relationship is inevitably painful B as painful as the cutting off of an arm or leg. People who have experienced the pain of divorce deserve our sympathy and support.

To understand Jesus= teaching about marriage we must know something about the male dominated world of Jesus= day. Women were considered the property of men. Girls belonged to their fathers until they married; and marriage made her the property of her husband. The commandment, AThou shalt not covet,@ lists a man=s wife along with his other property. From childhood to old age, the Hebrew woman belonged to the men of her family.

This subordination of women to men was reflected in the Jewish law of divorce, which was normally available only for husbands. Asked about this in today=s gospel, Jesus replies that divorce was not part of God=s original plan in creation. It arose, he says, Abecause of the hardness of your hearts@ B in other words, as a result of sin. It was this sinful hard-heartedness which had created the whole male-dominated world in which Jesus lived. With this world, deformed by sin, Jesus contrasts the good world created by God.

Jesus is referring to the Genesis creation story that we heard in our first reading. It opens with God=s statement: AIt is not good for the man to be alone.@  The first thing that God looks at in the Bible’s story of creation and says Ait is not good@ is loneliness. Therefore, God says, AI will make a suitable partner@ for the man. The man has no part in her creation. God casts the man into Aa deep sleep@ to create his Asuitable partner@ B a phrase connoting woman=s equality with men. Through a story simple enough even for children to understand the Bible is telling us that God created the two sexes to complete each other. He did not make men and women for rivalry: domination on the one hand, manipulation on the other. That rivalry was a result of the fall B the choice of both woman and man, recounted in the next chapter of Genesis, to sin by disobeying the God who had made them. 

In the gospel Jesus affirms this partnership between the sexes intended by God in creation, and hence the fundamental equality of man and woman. His teaching about marriage and divorce is a strong condemnation of the double standard which prevailed in his world: a strict law for women, and a more indulgent one for men. Today this is reversed in many situations: a strict law for men, a more indulgent one for women. The double standard is wrong in both forms. If men and women are partners, equally loved by God, there can be only one standard for both.

The scene which follows in the gospel, in which Jesus welcomes little children and blesses them, makes the same point. We are all God=s children, all equally dear to him. The same social and legal system that assigned women a lower place than men also considered children inferior. This explains why Jesus= disciples thought they were doing him a favor by keeping children away from him. Jesus rebukes them: ALet the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.@ Jesus= point is that God=s kingdom is especially for those whom society considers of no importance: people who are overlooked, thrust aside, pushed around, imposed on. Hence the importance of women for Jesus, and of children.

 Behind both parts of the gospel B the seemingly legalistic teaching about marriage and divorce, and the scene of Jesus with little children B is the message of God=s universal love. The world of God=s making reflected that love. The world of human marring has perverted this love into lust, which means using others for selfish pleasure. 

We betray God=s universal love when, instead of welcoming children as God=s gift, we resent them as burdens that interfere with our comfort. This is the attitude which has produced, all over our world today, laws permitting the killing of unborn children for any reason whatever, often merely for convenience. Already we are witnessing the next logical development: the direct killing of the newborn, during the process of birth itself (partial birth abortion), or through starvation, when they have some physical or mental handicap. Is it any wonder that Pope Saint John Paul II, spoke of Aa culture of death@?

In the face of these and countless other horrors the Church proclaims Jesus= timeless message of God=s universal love for all he has made: not just for the able-bodied and fit, not just for those of Agood moral character@, but for all. In a special way, Jesus tells us, God loves the weak, the defenseless, the neglected. He loves every one of us just as we are, in strength and weakness. 

We all remember the last years and months of Pope John Paul II, how he soldiered on in great weakness and serious illness. What an encouragement to people all over the world who are weak, handicapped, gravely ill. The Pope showed us, by his example, that life is still valuable, and is still worth living, despite weakness and pain. No merely human organization could long survive with such weakened leadership. From the point of view of administrative efficiency the Pope=s continuance in office was little short of a disaster. The Church, however, lives by a higher law than efficiency. It lives by the law of God himself: the law of love.

God did not make us for rivalry, for exploitation, for strife and war. He did not make us to be thrown away when we get old and weak. God made us to support one another. He made us to be partners. He made us for love. In the world of God=s making that love was as natural as breathing. In the world of our marring the power to love must be given us afresh, from outside. The One who gives us this love is the One who is love himself. He is the one, our second reading tells us, who is Anot ashamed@ to call us B every one of us B his brothers and sisters.

His name is Jesus Christ. 

"IF YOUR HAND CAUSES YOU TO SIN, CUT IT OFF."

Sept. 30^th, 2018: 26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.  Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48.

AIM:  To explain the total dedication Jesus asks of us.

 

How much of the Bible is true? All of it! The Catechism says: AThe inspired books teach the truth. ... we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach the truth [which] God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.@ The Catechism then adds this important statement: AIf the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures.@ [Nos. 107-108] 

To understand the Scriptures we must know that the truth they contain comes in many different forms. The Bible contains poetry, prophecy, history, and many other literary forms as well. All are true. But they must be read in different ways. Poetry, for example, must be read quite differently from prose. Take the well known lines from the eighteenth century Scottish poet, Robert Burns: AO, my Luv=s like a red red rose / That=s newly sprung in June: / O my Luv=s like the melodie / That=s sweetly play=d in tune.@ A person reading that literally would conclude that the lady in question had petals and thorns; and that people near her could hear a musical tune. That would be absurd. The description is true, but not literally true. It is poetry, not prose.

These distinctions are important if we are to understand the gospel we have just heard. AIf your hand causes you to sin,@ Jesus says, cut it off. ... And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. ...  And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.@ Jesus is not encouraging us to maim ourselves. He is using something called hyperbole: deliberate exaggeration for the sake of effect. We use hyperbole all the time. In my early childhood a dearly loved aunt used to say to me, when she thought I was over-eating: AJay, if you eat any more, you=ll burst.@ At age five I had never heard of hyperbole and couldn’t have told you what the word meant. I knew I wouldn=t burst. But I had no difficulty understanding what my aunt was telling me. 

Many common, everyday expressions are ridiculous if taken literally, yet immediately understood. We say, for instance: AI felt as if I=d been hit like a ton of bricks.@ If you were hit by a ton of bricks you wouldn’t feel anything. You=d be dead. We speak about someone being Aall bent out of shape.@ We say: AYou could have knocked me down with a feather.@ Such expressions are deliberate exaggerations in order to make a point.

What is Jesus= point when he speaks about cutting off hands and feet and plucking out eyes? He is telling us that if we are serious about being his followers, our commitment to him must be total. We must be willing to sacrifice even things as dear to us as hands, feet, and eyes. Taking Jesus= language literally would make God into some kind of sadistic monster. The God whom Jesus reveals is a God of love.

But this raises a further difficulty. How could a loving God condemn people to the eternal punishment indicated by Jesus= words about going Ainto Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire@? Gehenna was well known to all Jesus= hearers. It was a deep ravine outside Jerusalem, previously the site of idolatrous rites in which children were made to pass through fire. It thus became a symbol for hellfire.  Hence the difficulty B

How can a loving God condemn anyone to eternal punishment B to hell? The answer may surprise you. God does not condemn anyone to hell. If there is anyone in hell B and the Church does not tell us whether there is, while firmly insisting, with the Bible, that hell is a possibility and a reality B then it is because they have freely chosen hell for themselves. The Catechism is clear on this point: ATo die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God=s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called >hell.= ... God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.@ (Nos. 1033 & 1037, emphasis supplied.) The judgment that God will pronounce on each one of us at the end of our lives is not the adding up of the pluses and minuses in some heavenly account book. It is simply God=s ratification of the judgment we ourselves have pronounced by the fundamental choice we have made throughout our lives.  

In his book, The Great Divorce, the English writer C.S. Lewis explains this in a vivid allegory. The book tells about a group of people in Hell B  fighting, complaining, all bitterly unhappy. One day they are invited to board a bus that will take them on a visit to heaven. Many refuse even to get into the bus. Those who do embark start complaining and quarreling as soon as they have taken their seats. When they get to heaven, they are still dissatisfied B and demand to be taken back where they came from. The point of the story is clear. If there are people in hell, it is only because they have chosen it for themselves. If we choose to shut out of our lives all goodness, love, and light, then God will respect our choice.    

What is hell anyway? It is eternal separation from God, who is love. Hell is when everyone else has gone to the party, and you’re not there; not because you weren=t invited, but because you were invited time and time again, and refused every invitation. What this tells us is simply this. The choices we make every day, and every hour, are determining, right now, where, how, and with whom we shall spent eternity.

AThe kingdom of God,@ by contrast B also mentioned by Jesus at the end of our gospel reading B is the place of fulfillment, of joy, of total love; where there is no more disappointment, no more sickness, no more injustice, no more suffering; where (as we read twice over the final book on the Bible) AGod will wipe away all tears from [our] eyes@ (Rev. 7:17 & 21:4). And to attain that state of blessed fulfillment, Jesus tells us, no sacrifice is too great.

Let me conclude by telling you of some followers of Jesus Christ who made such a sacrifice. They stand for countless others, many of them known only to God. In 1995 six Sisters of the Poor from Bergamo, in northern Italy, died in the Ebola epidemic in the African Congo. Despite the danger of infection, these Sisters stayed behind in order to take care of the sick. Others arrived to help them. They all died. One of them, a Sister Dinarosa, was asked: AAren=t you afraid, being always in the midst of people with this deadly, highly infectious disease?@ She responded: AMy mission is to serve the poor.  What did my Founder do? I am here to follow in his footsteps ... the Eternal Father will help me.@ Were she and her fellow Sisters martyrs? Most assuredly. AMartyr@ means Awitnesses.@ Those Sisters were witnesses, martyrs, of love. 

For the follower of Jesus Christ one=s own life is not the absolute value. Love for the poor and suffering counts more than saving self. A high standard? Undoubtedly. Is it too high? For unaided human nature, it is too high, impossible even. That is why we are here B and why we come repeatedly, week by week, some of us every day: to receive at these twin tables of God=s word and sacrament the help and strength of Him for whom Aall things are possible@ (Mark 10:27); to be embraced, held fast, strengthened, and uplifted by the love that will never let us go.

__________________________________

The story of the nuns in Africa is in F. X. Nguyen Van Thuan, Testimony of Hope (Pauline Books, Boston: 2000) p. 112f.

"TAKE NOTHING FOR THE JOURNEY."

Homily for Sept. 26^th, 2018: Luke 9:1-6.

          “Take nothing for the journey,” 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 good side as well. Whenever in its two thousand year history, the Church has been favored by the powers that be, 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!

JESUS' TRUE FAMILY

Homily for Sept. 25^th, 2018: Luke 8:19-21.

          Jesus’ mother and his brother come to visit him, our gospel tells us. His brothers? The word which Luke uses means “relatives” or “kinsmen.” From antiquity Catholics have believed that Mary had no other children but Jesus. Having given herself completely to God by responding to the angel’s message that she was to be mother of God’s son with the words, “Be it done to me according to your word,” it was inconceivable that Mary could give herself to another. This is why she is called “Mary ever virgin.” 

          Jesus’ mother and his other relatives are unable to get to him, we heard, “because of the crowd.” Those four words give us a glimpse of what life was like for the Lord on most days of his public ministry. He was constantly hemmed in by people: shoving, pushing, shouting, trying to get his attention. This explains why Jesus retreated, whenever he could, to what the gospels call “a deserted place” – somewhere where he could be alone with his heavenly Father. 

          When Jesus is told that his mother and other relatives are trying to get to him through the crowd, he responds with words that sound like a put-down: “My mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.” In reality the words are not dismissive. Can there be any doubt that Mary truly listened to God’s word and acted on it? Jesus’ words are extensive: they extend the limits of his family to anyone who truly listens to his teaching and acts on it – in other words, to us.

          God’s word comes to us in many ways: through Holy Scripture, read out here in church, or pondered over as we read the Bible for ourselves. God’s word comes to us also through the teaching of his Church, and through the still, small, but powerful voice of conscience.

          How better, then, could we respond to Jesus’ words in today’s gospel than with the simple prayer of the boy Samuel, when he heard his name being called as he was sleeping in the Temple: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam. 3:10).

"TO THE ONE WHO HAS MORE WILL BE GIVEN."

Homily for Sept. 24^th, 2018: Luke 8:16-18.

          The short sayings which Luke gives us in today’s gospel immediately follow the parable of the sower and the seed, which we heard on Saturday. Much of the seed the farmer in that story sows never comes to fruition. That parable describes the Church’s work in every generation. Despite the failure of so many of our efforts, some of the seed we sow falls on good ground, puts down roots, and produces not only an abundant harvest, but a super-abundant one. Jesus told the story as an antidote to discouragement.  

          In today’s brief reading Jesus continues to speak about the good news of the gospel. It is like light, he says, set on a stand at the entrance to a house for all who enter to see. Jesus is telling us that the light of God’s truth is given to us, like all God’s gifts, to be shared. If we don’t share the Lord’s gifts, we lose them. We can’t keep them unless we give them away.

          How do we share the light of God’s truth? We do so first of all and always by the way we live. St. Francis of Assisi used to say: “Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary use words.” People must be able to see that we live by higher standards than those of the world around us, with its emphasis on getting rather than giving; and on repaying injuries according to the slogan, ‘Don’t get mad, get even!’

          Jesus’ final saying seems to be unfair: “To anyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.” Jesus is saying that if we truly walk by the light of God’s truth, sharing that light with others – at least by the way we live, when necessary and when possible with words as well – we shall receive more light. If we keep the light of God’s truth for ourselves, we shall gradually lose that light until we find ourselves walking in darkness.

          Remembering how the Holy Spirit came to Jesus’ friends at the first Pentecost in the bright light of fiery flames, we pray in this Mass: “Lord, send us your Holy Spirit.”