"WHY DO YOU EAT WITH SINNERS?"

Homily for March 8^th, 2019: Isaiah 58:1-9a; Matt. 9:14-15.

          Lent is an opportunity for what is called in sports ‘spring training.’ It encourages us to take up three practices which are as essential for spiritual health as regular physical exercise and a healthy diet are for an athlete: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Both of today’s readings focus on the second practice: fasting.

Voluntarily giving up things we may legitimately enjoy, as an expression of our love for God, strengthens our wills and spiritual muscles. This helps us to resist the lures and lies of Satan, when he tempts us to make choices that we know to be sinful. Fasting may be of many kinds: refraining from food or drink, reducing the time we spend in front of the TV, computer, or movie screen, or engaging in hobbies and other legitimate leisure activities.  

Our first reading is a searing indictment of a wrong kind of fasting. The prophet Isaiah represents people who fast asking God: “Why do you not see it [and] take no note of it?” Speaking for God, which is what prophets do, Isaiah gives the answer. “You fast, but while you do so, you continue to act unjustly: fighting, quarrelling, abusing those who work for you.” If you want God to heed your prayers, work for justice, and for changing structures of society that cause injustice. Practice acts of charity for the poor, free those oppressed by unjust laws.

There is a tragic division in the American Catholic family today: between the so-called social justice Catholics and those who concentrate, sometimes exclusively, on the so-called life issues: abortion, gay-marriage, and the family. These life issues are crucial. But so is social justice. There should be no opposition between them. Isaiah’s words show that both are essential. The Lord calls us, Isaiah says, to release those bound unjustly; to set free the oppressed; to share our bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and homeless, to clothe the naked when we see them. There are people in our parish who are doing all those things. When we join them, Isaiah promises, our light will break forth like the dawn, our wounds will be quickly healed. “Then you shall call,” Isaiah says, “and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!” That, friends, is the gospel. That is the Good News!

FASTING

Homily for March 8^th, 2019: Isaiah 58:1-9a; Matthew 9:14-15.

          Lent is an opportunity for what is called in sports ‘spring training.’ It encourages us to take up three practices which are as essential for spiritual health as regular physical exercise and a healthy diet are for an athlete: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Both of today’s readings focus on the second practice: fasting.

Voluntarily giving up things we may legitimately enjoy, as an expression of our love for God, strengthens our wills and spiritual muscles. This helps us to resist the lures and lies of Satan, when he tempts us to make choices that we know to be sinful. Fasting may be of many kinds: refraining from food or drink, reducing the time we spend in front of the TV, computer, or movie screen, or engaging in hobbies and other legitimate leisure activities.  

Our first reading is a searing indictment of a wrong kind of fasting. The prophet Isaiah represents people who fast asking God: “Why do you not see it [and] take no note of it?” Speaking for God, which is what prophets do, Isaiah gives the answer. “You fast, but while you do so, you continue to act unjustly: fighting, quarrelling, abusing those who work for you.” If you want God to heed your prayers, work for justice, and for changing structures of society that cause injustice. Practice acts of charity for the poor, free those oppressed by unjust laws.

There is a tragic division in the American Catholic family today: between the so-called social justice Catholics and those who concentrate, sometimes exclusively, on the so-called life issues: abortion, gay-marriage, and the family. These life issues are crucial. But so is social justice. There should be no opposition between them. Isaiah’s words show that both are essential. The Lord calls us, Isaiah says, to release those bound unjustly; to set free the oppressed; to share our bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and homeless, to clothe the naked when we see them. There are people in our parish who are doing all those things. When we join them, Isaiah promises, our light will break forth like the dawn, our wounds will be quickly healed. “Then you shall call,” Isaiah says, “and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!” That, friends, is the gospel. That is the Good News!

"CHOOSE LIFE!"

Homily for March 7^th, 2019: Deuternomy 30:15-29; Luke 9:22-25.

          God’s chosen people, the Jews, were slaves in Egypt for more than four centuries, over double the life of slavery in our country. Oppressed people seldom develop high standards of social life. The high statistics of black on black crime in our country illustrate this. They also show that we are still paying the price of slavery. The price of oppression continues to be demanded even after the oppression has ended. The stories coming out of North Korea are even  worse. Oppressed people follow the law of the jungle, preying on one another in ways that horrify us.

          So the ragtag group of people who crossed the Red Sea with Moses had grown accustomed for centuries to inflicting on one another the cruelty they experienced from the people who had enslaved them.

          This is the background for God’s gift to Moses of the Ten Commandments. They were not then, nor are the Commandments now, fences to hem people in. The Commandments were and are ten signposts pointing the way to human flourishing and freedom. 

          That is exactly what Moses tells the people in our first reading. “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. … If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God … [He] will bless you … If, however you turn away your hearts … and serve other gods … you will certainly perish. …Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live.”

          Is that just long ago and far away? Don’t you believe it! The worship of false gods is as widespread today as it was in Bible times. Today’s idols are pleasure, power, possessions, and honor. None of those things is bad. They become idols, only when we make pursuit of any one of them central in our lives. Once we do that, we inevitably experience frustration – because we can never get enough.

What is the remedy? Jesus gives it to us in the gospel. “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Doing that means putting the Lord at the center of our lives: before our own desires and ambitions, even before those whom we love most. A long life has taught me that people who do that, and only such people, experience the peace and joy that only the Lord can give.  

 

ASH WEDNESDAY: MARCH 6th, 2019.

Homily for Ash Wednesday: March 6^th, 2019.

The English author, G. K. Chesterton says: AThe soul does not die by sin, but by impenitence.@ More deadly than sin itself is the refusal to acknowledge sin, and to repent of it. Repentance is at the beginning of every Mass. It is also how we begin Lent.

ALord, have mercy,@ we pray. When we appeal to God, we are acknowledging that we can never get rid of sin on our own. Sin is like addiction. Part of the reason for the success of Alcoholics Anonymous in dealing with the addiction to alcohol is the spiritual soundness of the first two of its twelve points:

1.       We admitted we were powerless over alcohol C that our lives had become unmanageable.

2.       We came to believe that a Power greater than our own could restore us to sanity.  

As we begin Lent, therefore, we confess our powerlessness and appeal to the only power that can make us whole. Do we realize how counter-cultural that is? The self-help books all tell us that we=re not powerless. We can do it on our own. We can get our act together. The only thing we lack is self-confidence. In confessing our sins we are not asking for an increase of self-confidence. Instead we appeal to God for mercy. Prayer for God=s mercy is one petition which is always certain of a favorable response.

AA clean heart create for me, O God,@ we prayed in the responsorial psalm.  Cleanliness is not something grim. Nor is the repentance which leads to cleanliness. It is liberating B and joyful. One of the most beautiful things in married life is the ability to say, AI=m sorry,@ and to hear the words, AI forgive you.@ 

Beautiful as human forgiveness is, however, it is only a pale shadow of God=s forgiveness. When we forgive, there is always a memory of the wrong or injury done B a skeleton in the closet, we call it. God doesn=t have any closets, and if he did there would certainly not be any skeletons in them. God=s forgiveness is total. In the Old Testament book of the prophet Isaiah we hear God saying: AThough your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow@ (1:18). And later in the book God says: AI wipe out your offenses; your sins I remember no more.@ (43:25). That, friends, is the gospel, the good news. We don’t need to drag after us an ever lengthening tale of guilt. When we truly repent, God forgives: totally and completely.  

JESUS' TEMPTATIONS, AND OURS

First Sunday in Lent, Year C; March 10th, 2019. Rom. 10:8-13; Lk 4:1-13

AIM: To show how Jesus= response to temptation is a model for us.

 

What do temptations as bizarre as these have to do with us? We have no power to turn stones into bread. No one is offering us world dominion. And though we may get dizzy atop high buildings and feel an urge to jump off, no one of us is so mad as to think we would survive the experience. The common thread which links all three temptations is this: Jesus was being tempted each time to use what he had C his power as divine Son of God C to get what he wanted.

Jesus has just completed a forty days= fast. He is hungry. The devil suggests a quick fix: AIf you are the Son of God, command this stone to be made bread.@  Notice that the first thing the devil does is to sow a seed of doubt in Jesus= mind: AIf you are the Son of God.@ Are you really sure? Maybe you=re deluded. The very first time the devil appears in the Bible he uses the same deceitful approach. ADid God really say you should not eat of any fruit of the garden?@ the devil asks the woman in the third chapter of Genesis. God, of course, had said nothing of the kind.  He had placed only one tree off limits: the tree of the knowledge of good an evil C clearly an allegorical tree, for you cannot find it in any botany book.      

Note, second, how the devil uses something Jesus wants to tempt him: his craving for food. Satisfying his hunger was no sin. What was crucial was how he did so. Should he follow the normal way of getting food? Or should he take the shortcut suggested by the devil? Use what you have, the devil was saying C your divine power C to get what you want: bread. Feeding on God=s word, however, is  more important than feeding on bread. So Jesus responds to the temptation with a quote from his own Jewish scriptures: AOne does not live by bread alone.@

In the second temptation the devil works through Jesus= imagination. He shows him all the kingdoms of the world, promising to give him authority over all of them if only he will worship the devil. Again, the tempter appeals to something Jesus wants. He is about to embark on his public ministry. Jesus wants the whole world to know him and accept his message. Once more, the tempter tempts Jesus to use what he has C his heart, his soul C to get what he wants: the loyalty of the whole world. Once again Jesus refuses to take the shortcut. The end never justifies the means. Jesus states this with another scriptural quotation: AIt is written, >You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.=@

The devil makes one last try: AThrow yourself down from the Temple.@  Soon people would be challenging Jesus: AShow us a sign, some dramatic proof C then we=ll believe in you.@ What sign could be more dramatic than jumping from a great height C and walking away unhurt? Jesus wanted people to believe in him.  AUse what you have, then,@ the devil was telling him, Ato get what you want.@ Jesus knew, however, that his heavenly Father is not a God of the sensational, but a God who works through the ordinary things of everyday life. So Jesus answers the tempter with a final scriptural quotation: AYou shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.@

Are Jesus= temptations really so different from ours? Use what you have, the devil tells us in so many ways, to get what you want. What is the most precious thing we Catholics have? Is it not our faith, or religion? So why not use our religion to get the things we want? Praying for the things we want is entirely appropriate.  Unfortunately, however, some Catholics think that our religion gives us access to a kind of supernatural power to get what we want C if only we say the right prayers, and make enough sacrifices. Behind that belief is the idea that God is at our disposal. He is not. We are at his disposal. Does God answer prayer? Of course he does. But he will not always do so in the way we expect, or at the time we think right.  At the end of my ninety-first year I can tell you that I have lived long enough to thank God that he has answered some of my prayers ANot yet@, and others ANever.@          

ABow down and worship me,@ the tempter tells us. AUse my methods C all that stuff they tell you in church about God and his commandments is unrealistic: it doesn=t work C and it=s certainly too slow.@ And so we take shortcuts. A candidate for political office enters into a shady deal to win an election. A college student cheats on an exam to get into medical or law school. To gain a promotion at work, which will mean a better life for his family, a man spreads false rumors about a colleague. We all know how easy it is to rationalize things like that. AIt=s war out there,@ we tell ourselves. AEverybody cheats a little. Once I=m farther ahead I=ll be able to do so much good for people.@ 

Those arguments are so plausible. But they don=t work. God=s command-ments forbid us to cut moral corners, even in the highest and noblest cause. Loyalty to God means that there are times when we must say No, when all around us are saying Yes; and times when we must say Yes when everyone else is saying No.

What about Jesus= third temptation? AThrow yourself down B God will look after you. Aren=t you his Son?@ Doing that would be the sin of presumption. We yield to this temptation whenever we presume that because we are faithful, churchgoing Catholics, God will look after us, no matter what.

 In the Catholic high school where I once taught the faculty used to joke about the fact that at exam time all the votive candles in the school chapel were burning brightly. AThe candles work better,@ a colleague commented, Awhen the students have done their homework.@ Cynical?  No B right on. To suppose that you can loaf all semester, and then that God will bail you at exam time and guarantee you a passing grade because you suddenly get religion, frantically saying prayers and lighting candles B that is the sin of presumption. 

To think that we can abuse the wonderful bodies God has given us by years of unhealthy living B overindulgence in rich foods, alcohol, or tobacco B and then that just because we=re regular at Sunday Mass God will work a miracle when the doctor says we have a life-threatening illness: that too is the sin of presumption.

It is presumption to think we can consistently exceed the speed limit on the highway, drive after drinking, and be determined that no car will ever overtake us C and that nothing can happen to us because we pray the rosary and haven=t cheated on our spouse (or on a promise of celibacy, for people like me). 

God does not suspend the laws of probability, or the normal working of cause and effect, for people who buy him off with prayers and churchgoing. Jesus rejected this final temptation, as he had rejected the first two, with another quotation from his well stored memory: AYou shall not put the Lord your God to the test.@ (Deut. 6:16)

AUse what you have to get what you want?@ No. Use what God gives you to get what He wants. That is the key to a happy life, and a fulfilled one. There is no other. On this first Sunday in Lent the Lord is placing this key in our hands. He is asking use to use it C to use what he has given us to get what He wants. When we start to do so, we make a beautiful discovery. We discover that Paul=s words in our second reading are true. God has no favorites.A The same Lord is Lord of all, enriching all who call upon him.@                

 

THE HUNDREDFOLD REWARD, WITH PERSECUTION

Homily for March 5^th, 2019: Mark 10:28-31.

          “We have given up everything and followed you,” Peter tells Jesus at the beginning of our brief gospel reading. Peter’s words immediately follow Jesus’ command to the rich young man in yesterday’s gospel reading: “Go sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.” 

          In reminding Jesus about what he and the other disciples had sacrificed in order to follow Jesus, Peter was implying the question: ‘What reward will we have?’ Jesus responds by saying, in effect: ‘You will receive, already in this world, a hundred times as much as whatever you have given up for me; and in the world to come eternal life.’ Jesus qualifies this promise with the words, “with persecution.” The persecution which those two words foretold would start not long after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to heaven. It would continue, with varying intensity, for three centuries more.

          Today it has returned: in the Middle East and parts of Africa, where the age of martyrdom has returned with an intensity, cruelty, and brutality not seen since antiquity. The persecution we are witnessing in this and other western countries has not reached that intensity – yet. But it is there nonetheless. The late Cardinal George of Chicago was referring to this persecution in his oft-quoted statement to a priests’ gathering a few years ago: “I expect to die in my bed. My successor will die in prison. His successor will die a martyr in the public square.” Too often omitted, when those words are quoted, is the cardinal’s concluding prophecy: “His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization as the Church has done so often in human history."

          We pray therefore in this Mass, as Jesus has taught us to do: “Deliver us from evil.”

"ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE FOR GOD."

Homily for March 4^th, 2019: Mark 10:17-27.

          “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God,” Jesus says. Note the effect of these words on Jesus’ disciples. Mark tells us that “they were amazed at [Jesus’] words.” Why? Because their Jewish faith told them that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing. Jesus had just contradicted a fundamental teaching of their faith. No wonder they were amazed – and no doubt totally confused as well.

          Their confusion is clear from the disciples’ question: “Then who can be saved?” By responding, “For men it is impossible,” Jesus is saying that while we cannot be saved without effort on our part, human effort alone is insufficient. Salvation is always God’s gift. That is the meaning of the second part of Jesus’ answer: “All things are possible for God.”

          The whole second part of our gospel reading is Jesus’ commentary on the man who has asked him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ response to the man’s question, “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor,” is personal to this particular man. Because of the man’s earnestness, he recommends renunciation. To most of us Jesus recommends not total renunciation but detachment – not clinging to what one has but living with open hands and open hearts: being Givers rather than Takers.

          Which are you? If you are a Taker, I’ll promise you one thing. You will always be frustrated: because you’ll never get enough. It is only the givers who have joy in their hearts – the joy which, like salvation, is the gift of God, the giver of every good thing.

          This still leaves us with the question: If salvation if God’s gift, what is the point of all our sacrifices and good deeds? The answer is simple: they are our grateful response to everything God gives us. And if a long life has taught me anything, it is this. Grateful people are happy people.