"I KNEW YOU WERE A HARD MAN."

Homily for August 31^st, 2019: 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 VIRGINS

Homily for August 30^th, 2019: 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 soon 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.

 

"HE MUST INCREASE,I MUST DECREASE."

Homily for August 29^th, 2019: 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: "He 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.@

HYPOCRICY

Homily for August 28^th, 2019: Matthew 23:27-32.

          The gospel reading we have just heard is part of a longer indictment by Jesus of perhaps the greatest temptation of religious people, and our greatest failing: hypocrisy. I say “our failing” quite deliberately, because the “woe” that Jesus speaks is directed not to other people, but to us.

          Webster’s Dictionary defines hypocrisy as follows: “the act or practice of feigning to be what one is not, or to feel what one does not feel; esp. the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.” And it says that the opposite of hypocrisy is sincerity.

The late William F. Buckley, Jr., a great wit on many subjects, was clearly referring to hypocrisy when he said to someone he was interviewing on TV: “I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.”

          The Letter of James is speaking about hypocrisy when it says: “If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like.” [1:23f]  The nineteenth century American author Nathaniel Hawthorne says something remarkably similar when he writes: “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

There are people who have hidden behind a mask for so long that they have forgotten what their true face looks like. Our masks may fool others. They cannot fool God. God looks behind our masks. God looks at the heart. God reads even our secret thoughts and desires. Yet no matter how great the darkness within us, God never rejects us. God loves us deeply, tenderly, passionately. That is the gospel. That is the good news.

It was his deep conviction of this truth which enabled Pope Francis, shortly after his election as Bishop of Rome, to respond to a Jesuit interviewer who asked, “Who is Jorge Bergoglio?” with the simple and direct words: “I am a sinner.”  

Happy are we, if we can say the same – and appeal, when we come to stand before the Lord God, not to our good conduct record, but simply to the mercy of the One about whom Francis said in the same interview: “God never gets tired of forgiving us. It is we who get tired of asking for forgiveness.”

 

SEPT. 1ST, 2019: 22nd SUNDAY IN YEAR C

“THE ONE WHO HUMBLES HIMSELF WILL BE EXALTED.”

Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29; Luke 14:1, 7-14.

AIM: To explain humility and instill a desire for it.

 

Some American tourists were visiting the house of the German composer Ludwig von Beethoven in Bonn. A young woman who was proud of her musical abilities sat down at the composer’s piano and played Beethoven’s Moonlight ‘Sonata. When she had finished, she said to the custodian: “I expect you see a great many musicians here.”

“Yes, we do,” he replied. “The American pianist Van Kliburn was here only last week.”

“Did he play on Beethoven’s piano?’ the young woman asked.

“No,” he said he wasn’t worthy.         

Truly great people are humble. “Conduct your affairs with humility,” we heard in our first reading. And in the gospel we heard Jesus saying the same:
“Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Are we really comfortable with humility? Don’t we suspect that there is something phony about it? That humility means striking a pose, pretending to be less than we really are? Let’s look again at the gospel.

Jesus offers shrewd advice to the person who wants to get ahead in society. When you are invited to a banquet, he says, don’t head straight for the head table. You might be asked to give up your place for someone more important. That would be embarrassing. Take your place far away from the head table. There you don’t risk being pushed aside. And if you’re lucky, your host will ask you to move up to a better place, where everyone can see what good connections you have.    

In reality, Jesus gave this shrewd advice “tongue in cheek.” Can we imagine that Jesus cared where he sat at table? If there is one thing Jesus definitely was not, it was a snob. By seeming to take seriously the scramble for social success, Jesus was actually making fun of it. He was showing up snobbery for the empty and tacky affair it always is.

But Jesus’ words have a deeper meaning. This is clear from his opening words: “When you are invited to a wedding banquet.” A wedding banquet is a familiar image in the Bible. Israel’s prophets speak often of God inviting his people to a wedding banquet. That was the prophets’ way of saying that their people’s sins would not always estrange them from the all-holy God. There would come a time when God would take away sins, so that his people could enjoy fellowship with the one who had created them and still loved them.

  Jesus came to fulfill what the prophets had promised. He told people that the wedding banquet was ready. Now was the time to put on the best clothes, he said, and come to the feast. Some of the most religious people in Jesus’ day, the Pharisees, were confident that the best seats at God’s banquet were reserved for them. Hadn’t they earned those places by their zealous observance of every detail of God’s law? Jesus’ seemingly shrewd advice about how to be a success in society was a rebuke to those who assumed that the best seats at God’s banquet were reserved for them. Jesus was warning them that they were in for a surprise, and that it would be unpleasant.

In the second part of today’s gospel Jesus expands this warning. When you are giving a dinner yourselves, he says, don’t invite socially prominent people who can repay you with return invitations, and whose presence at your table feeds your self-esteem. Instead invite people who cannot repay you, and whose presence in your house will not enhance your reputation in society. Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees for associating only with the upright and respectable “pillars of society.” Jesus invited everyone to the banquet, especially “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”  His preference for such people earned him the rebuke of the upright and respectable: “This man receives sinners, and eats with them” they say with scorn. (Luke 15:2). Here, as in the first part of today’s gospel, Jesus, while seeming to give advice about how to behave in society, is really talking about our relationship with God. The measure of our acceptance by God, Jesus warns, is our willingness to accept people we find unsympathetic, uncongenial, not “our kind.”

That is humility: not bothering where we sit at the banquet; not trying to be seen only with the right people; being willing to be overlooked, to associate with people who can do nothing for us, to be looked down on because of the company we keep -- as Jesus was looked down on by respectable people in his day for the company he kept. 

Humility is not a pose. It is not phony. Humility does not mean the beautiful woman pretending she is ugly, or the clever man pretending he is stupid. Humility means recognizing our talents and achievements for what they are: things given to us by God out of sheer goodness; things for which we can take little credit or none, but which impose on us a responsibility -- as Jesus reminded us when he said: “When much has been given a person, much will be expected of him” (Luke 12:48).

When we come to the end of life’s journey, and stand before the Lord who gave us every one of our talents, and who made possible every one of our achievements, how unimportant and insignificant even our greatest accomplishments will seem. That is why we say at every Mass: “Lord, I am not worthy ...” Before Him who has given us all we are and have, sin excepted, we are always unworthy. When we have done everything God commands (and which of us has?), we are still not worthy of all the love that God lavishes on us. God’s gifts to us always exceed what we deserve, on any strict accounting.  

Humility never means pretending we are less than we are. Humility means recognizing that even our greatest achievements are an insignificant and inadequate return for all that God has given us. Come to God in that spirit of humility, Jesus says, and you will be overwhelmed by his generosity. But come to God appealing to what you deserve, claiming the best seats at banquet because you have earned them -- and you will get what you deserve. God is not unfair. When you discover, however, how little you deserve, you may be shocked.  

Suppose, on the other hand, that we decide simply to forget about what we deserve. Suppose the lowest place at the banquet is just as acceptable as the place of honor -- as it was for Jesus. Suppose that we appeal not to what we deserve, but to God’s generosity. Then -- if we do that -- we shall have achieved something infinitely more important than the things of which we are most proud. For then we shall have attained humility.

Humility means being empty before God. And it is only the person who is empty whom God can fill with his joy, his love, and his peace.

"YOU HAVE REJECTED THE WEIGHTIER THINGS."

Homily for August 27^th, 2019: Matthew 23:23-26.

          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 long dress be soiled. “Come, dear,” Father Benedict said, when he saw her predicament.  “I’ll carry you.” Then he picked the girl up in his arms and carried her across. 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 scribes and 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.

          Behind each of the Ten Commandments is the highest law of all, charity: active, generous and sacrificial service – to God, and to others.

"WOE TO YOU, HYPOCRITES"

Homily for August 26^th, 2019: Matthew 23:13-22.

          Today’s gospel gives us the first three of the seven woes pronounced by Jesus against those who refuse to accept him and his message. They correspond to the blessings or Beatitudes spoken by Jesus in the fifth chapter of Matthew’s gospel at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. 

          The scribes and Pharisees against whom Jesus pronounces these woes are the interpreters and teachers of God’s law, the Ten Commandments. Nowhere does Jesus criticize, let alone reject, God’s law. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets,” Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. “I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them” (Mt. 5:17).

          What Jesus attacks is the gaping contrast between what those against whom he pronounces his woes teach, and how they themselves behave. The first woe is directed against those who do not enter the kingdom of heaven because they have closed their minds and hearts against him. Even worse, Jesus says, are their attacks against those who are open to Jesus’ person and message.  

          The woe against those who “traverse sea and land to make one convert” is a back-handed compliment to the missionary zeal of those who take their treasured Jewish faith to non-Jews. Paul would do just this with his new Christian faith. What Jesus condemns is the narrow, legalistic version of Jewish faith which they propagate. This is also the basis of the woe against people who take oaths with formulas that allow them to wriggle out of what they have sworn to.

          Does all that belong to a bygone age? Don’t you believe it! The yawning gap between what we claim to believe and how we actually behave remains a danger for us Catholics today. As the old saying has it: “What you are speaks so loud, that I cannot hear what you say.”