"COME AFTER ME."

Homily for November 30^th, 2019: Matthew 4:18-22.

Simon and his brother Andrew were fishermen. Yet at Jesus’ call, they immediately leave their nets and boat and follow him. Their nets and boat were their livelihood, their security. They were burning their bridges behind them. Why? If we could have asked them, I think they might have said something like this: “You would have to have known this man Jesus. There was something about him that made it impossible to say No.”

God still calls today. He called each one of us when we were still in our mothers’ wombs. He calls us to walk with him, to be so full of his love that others will see the joy on our faces and want what we have. Christianity, it has been said, cannot be taught.  It must be caught.

          Perhaps you’re thinking: “I could never do that.” You’re wrong. Here is a list that came to me in an e-mail, years ago, of some of the great people in the Bible. Every one of them had a reason for thinking God could not use them. So the next time you feel like God can’t use you, remember: 

“Noah was a drunk. Abraham was too old. Isaac was a daydreamer. Jacob was a liar. Leah was ugly. Joseph was abused by his brothers. Moses had a stuttering problem.  Gideon was afraid. Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer. Rahab was a prostitute.  Jeremiah and Timothy thought they were too young. David had an extra-marital affair and was a murderer. Elijah was suicidal. Isaiah thought himself unworthy. Jonah ran away from God’s call. Naomi was a widow. Job went bankrupt. Martha was a perpetual worrier. The Samaritan woman who spoke with Jesus at the well was five times divorced. Zaccheus was too small. Peter denied Christ. The disciples fell asleep while praying. At Jesus’ arrest, they all forsook him and fled. Paul was too religious. Timothy had an ulcer. And Lazarus was dead!” 

          So what’s your excuse? Whatever it may be, God can still use you to your full potential. Besides, you aren’t the message. You’re only the messenger.

          When you were born, you were crying, and everyone around you was smiling. Start today (if you haven’t started already) living your life so that when you die, you’re the only one smiling, and everyone around you is crying.

MY WORDS SHALL NOT PASS AWAY

Homily for November 29^th, 2019: Luke 21:29-33.

          On the next to last day of the year in the Church’s calendar, she gives us Jesus’ words: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Remembering the boy Samuel’s words in the Jerusalem Temple, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam. 3:10), we listen to some of Jesus’ words.

-  To Mary and Joseph, thankful to have found their Son in the Temple after a frantic search, the 12-year-old boy speaks his first recorded words: “Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Lk. 2:49) Already, at age 12, Jesus knows that God was his Father, not Joseph.

-  What gospel reader does not recall Jesus’ words to Nicodemus: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not die, but may have eternal life”? (Jn. 3:16)

-  Which of us has not found comfort in the words: “Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Mt. 11:28ff)?

-  Unforgettable too are Jesus’ words to the terrified young girl just delivered from death by stoning for adultery: “Nor do I condemn you. You may go. But from now on avoid this sin.” (Jn. 8:11)

-  Jesus’ seven last words from the cross have provided inspiration for uncounted thousands of preachers on Good Friday. AFather, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.@ (Lk 23:34) To the penitent thief, crucified next to him: AToday you shall be with me in paradise (Lk 23:43). AWoman, there is your son …son, there is your mother.@ (Jn. 26: 19f). AMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?@ ( Mk. 15:34) AI thirst.@ (Jn. 19:28) “It is finished.” (Jn. 19:30); “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46).

-  Finally Jesus’ words to Mary Magdalene in the garden of the resurrection: “Do not cling to me … Rather, go to my brothers …( Jn. 20:17).

          Jesus is saying the same to us, right now. 

 

THANKSGIVING DAY

THANKSGIVING DAY

Luke 17:11-19

AIM: To encourage the hearers in thanksgiving

 

A man had just sat down to have lunch in a crowded restaurant when another man asked if he could join him. The restaurant was full and there was no other place vacant. AOf course,@ the first man replied. ADo join me.@ Then he bowed his head, as he was accustomed to do, to thank God for the meal he was about to enjoy.  When he raised his head again, the second man asked: ADo you have a headache?@

ANot at all,@ the first man replied. AI was simply thanking God, as I always do, before I eat.@

AOh, you=re one of those,@ his companion replied. AWell, let me tell you something. I never give thanks. I earn my money by hard work. I don=t need to give thanks to anyone before I eat. I just start right in.@

AYou=re just like my dog,@ the first man said. AThat=s what he does too.@

Many people are like that man=s dog. They believe they have earned everything they have. They see no reason to thank God for it. They forget (if they ever knew) that the good things we enjoy were God=s blessings before they became our achievements. 

What did any one of us do to merit being born instead of aborted, as over a million babies are in our country each year? If we had good and loving parents, what did we do to deserve them when so many parents are neither good nor loving?  Why weren=t any of us on one of those four planes on September 11^th, 2001? What did any of us do to enjoy sight, hearing, speech, two arms and two legs? There are plenty of people who lack one or more of these basic faculties.

How much did any of us pay God to make us the intelligent, beautiful people we are? Think of all the people who helped us as we were growing up: teachers, friends, relatives. Do we take them for granted? Ralph Waldo Emerson said that if the stars came out only once a year, we would stay up all night to gaze at them.  We=ve seen the stars so often that we hardly ever bother to look at them any more.  How easily we grow accustomed to all the blessings God showers on us, and forget to give thanks for them.

In the gospel reading we just heard how Jesus healed ten lepers. Leprosy was the dread scourge of the ancient world, something like AIDS today. Because the disease was contagious, the leper had to live apart, calling out AUnclean, Unclean!@ lest others approach and become infected. In healing the ten, Jesus was restoring them from a living death to new life. Yet only one came back to give thanks for his healing.

He is a Samaritan, a kind of illegal immigrant, despised by Jesus= people. If he goes to the Temple, the priest will probably tell him to get lost. He doesn=t belong to the right religion, or the right people. Related ethnically to the Jews, he doesn=t observe the Jewish Law. Priests in Jesus= day were also quarantine officials. The other nine go to the Temple priest to fulfill the law=s provisions. The Samaritan, who lives outside the law, follows the impulse of his heart, returns to Jesus, and gives thanks.   

What about ourselves? Are we grateful people? Do we take time each day to count our blessings, and give thanks to God for them? As a schoolboy I used to do that in a special way on my birthday. Kneeling or sitting before Jesus in the tabernacle, I would make a list each year of all the reasons I had to thank God. The list was always a long one; and it was never difficult to compile. It is many years, decades even, since I have done that.  But that youthful practice may be the reason why prayer of thanksgiving has always been easy for me.  I know of no better remedy for depression, anxiety, sadness, or envy than consciously to count one=s blessings C and to thank God for them.  Show me someone who is embittered, angry, filled with resentments and hate B and I=ll show you a person who has little or no time for thanksgiving. But show me a person who radiates peace and joy B and I=ll show you someone who daily and even hourly gives thanks to God for all his blessings.

On the Italian Thanksgiving Day one year, Pope Benedict said: "We should get into the habit of blessing the Creator for each thing: for air and water, precious elements which are the foundation of life on our planet; as well as for food that, through the fruitfulness of the earth, God gives us for our sustenance."

The Church helps us to be thankful people by placing thanksgiving at the heart of its public prayer. The word Eucharist, you know, means Athanksgiving.@  The Mass C every Mass C is a public act of thanksgiving to our heavenly Father for all the blessings he showers upon us. In a few minutes we shall hear once again the familiar story of what Jesus did for us at the Last Supper. AHe took bread and gave you thanks .... When supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise.@

Giving thanks to God over something is the Jewish form of blessing. In giving thanks to his heavenly Father for the bread and wine, Jesus was blessing them. And in so doing he was transforming them: changing their inner reality into his own body and blood. It is because of this miraculous though unseen change that we genuflect to Jesus present in the tabernacle when we come into church. We ring a bell at the consecration, reminding everyone in the church: Jesus is here, right now, in a special way, with a special intensity! The light burning near the tabernacle, day and night, says the same thing. 

Let me conclude with two quotations. The first is from the great nineteenth century convert, St. John Henry Newman, at the end of his long life a cardinal.  He writes:

AIt would be well if we were in the habit of looking at all we have as God=s gift, undeservedly given, and day by day continued to us solely by His mercy.  He gave; He may take away. He gave us all we have, life, health, strength, reason, enjoyment, the light of conscience; whatever we have good and holy within us; whatever faith we have; whatever of a renewed will; whatever love towards Him; whatever power over ourselves; whatever prospect of heaven. ... While he continues his blessings, we should follow David and Jacob, by living in constant praise and thanksgiving, and in offering up to Him of His own.@

The medieval German Dominican, Meister Eckhart (1260-1327) says it more briefly: AIf the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is 'Thank you God',..... that would suffice."

I cannot tell you how often I say every day: ALord, you=re so good to me, and I=m so grateful.@ Happy if you can do the same.

On this Thanksgiving Day we give thanks to God for his love, lavished upon us so far beyond our deserving, in ways too many for any of us to count.

 

 

 

 

GOD IS NOT MOCKED

Homily for November 27^th, 2019. Daniel 5:1-6,13-14,16-17, 23-28.

          It was quite a party. The Babylonian King Belshazzar knew how to do these things right. He brought in all the women from his harem, to be admired by his guests. There were singers and dancers. The wine flowed like water. When everyone in the hall had drunk deeply, he ordered the silver and gold vessels which his father, King Nebuchadnezzar, had plundered from the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem to be brought in, so that they could drink from them to all their pagan gods.

          Then it happened: a scene out of a Hollywood blockbuster. High up on the wall, brightly illuminated by a nearby lamp, a hand started to write three mysterious words on the wall: MENE, TEKEL, and PERES. Suddenly the great hall is silent, the king and all his guests aghast. “Call Daniel,” the king orders in a trembling voice. Daniel was the bright-eyed Jewish teenager who, we heard two days ago, refused to eat the food sent to him from the king’s table, because it was not kosher. “If you can tell me what those words mean,” the king tells Daniel, “I’ll give you the highest honors in my kingdom,” Belshazzar says. “You can keep your gifts, sir,” Daniel replies. “I’ll tell you what the words mean.”

          And he does. To this all powerful man, a ruler not limited by any laws or constitution, Daniel says: “You’re finished. Not once in your life did you ever worship the only true god. And you have persecuted those who do worship Him. You’re washed up – and your kingdom too. The God of Israel has sent this hand to tell you that you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.”

          This whole story from the book of Daniel is not history. It is fable – like the fable about the boy George Washington cutting his father’s new cherry tree with the axe which some stupid fool had given him – and then confessing the misdeed to his father, because he couldn’t tell a lie. The fables in Daniel were written to encourage the Jews, exiled and maltreated in Babylon, to remain true to their God and faith. Despite suffering and persecution, the author was telling them: ‘The Lord will protect you. God is not mocked.’

 He is saying the same to us today.  

FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT

“THE NIGHT IS ADVANCED, THE DAY IS AT HAND”

Advent 1A.  Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44.

AIM: To proclaim the Advent summons: to live in the light of history’s last hour, and of eternity.

 

Imagine yourself sitting at home watching your favorite evening program on television. Suddenly the screen goes blank. An unseen announcer says: “We interrupt this program for a special announcement. We take you to the White House in Washington.” In a moment you are watching the President. Sitting at his desk in the Oval Office he announces an international agreement between the governments of all the major states in the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinians, and Saudi Arabia. Guaranteed by the governments of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, the agreement provides for swift settlement of all conflict in that area: an end to hostilities in Iraq; disarmament in Iran, the establishment of a Palestinian state living at peace with its neighbor Israel. The guarantor governments, the President says, have formed a consortium to rebuild Iraq’s shattered infrastructure and provide education for the millions of young Arab people in the area, embittered up to now by lack of opportunity to live the good life they see daily on television from outside their region.

What a sensation such an announcement would be! How people all over the world would rejoice to know that the fear of war and terrorism was banished, and that the vast sums spent on arms could be devoted to constructive, peaceful purposes.

Is that a dream? Sadly, it is. Yet we find a description of just such a dream in our first reading today. There the prophet Isaiah speaks of all nations coming to Jerusalem. There, in the holy city, the Lord himself will settle all their quarrels and conflicts: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares ...one nation shall not raise the sword against another, no shall they train for war again.”

For Isaiah that was not a dream. It was reality. But it was a reality which he knew would be fulfilled only at the end of history. Nowhere in the Bible do we find any reason to expect that time will come within history when there will be no more wars. This should not discourage us from working to limit and, as far as possible, to banish all wars and conflicts – in our communities, in our nation, in the world. At the same time, we are not to entertain unrealistic hopes which can only be disappointed. The abolition of all conflict, and all war, will come only at the end of time. And it will come about not though human planning, but through God’s direct intervention.

When will God intervene? In today’s gospel Jesus tells us that we cannot know. We can be sure of one thing only: that God’s intervention will catch many people unprepared: “Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, the other left.” 

How can we prepare? Not by speculation about when the world will end, but by living now in the light of that crucial future event; by living in this world according to the standards of another world.  That is what Paul means when he writes in our second reading: “Let us throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” 

What are today’s works of darkness? To name them all I’d have to stand here far longer than you would like. Let me give just three small examples. It is a work of darkness when we accept the popular slogan: “Don’t get mad, get even.”  How many conflicts in our world are due to people acting on those words? Had Jesus accepted them, there would have been no Calvary – and hence no empty tomb. If we are his followers, we need to seek not vengeance, but forgiveness.

It is a work of darkness to believe what we are told by the advertising industry: that to be happy we need a never ending supply of the goods and services portrayed daily on television and in the glossy magazines. That is false. Happiness comes not through getting; it comes through giving. People who have never discovered that are poor – no matter how large their houses are, or their bank accounts.

Yes, and it is a work of darkness when we tell women in problem pregnancies that there is a quick fix. Get rid of it, and then all your troubles over.  Every year thousands of women discover, to their sorrow, that after an abortion their troubles have only begun. Shame, guilt, and bitter regrets often continue for months, not seldom for years. Putting away this work of darkness means compassion for women in problem pregnancies: costing, caring support which helps them do what every mother knows, deep in her heart, is right: protect and nourish the human life within them, even and especially when this is costly.

Throwing off those works of darkness, and countless others, means accepting the ridicule of people who call darkness light. Remember Noah, Jesus tells us in the gospel – ridiculed by the people of his day for building a boat hundreds of miles from water. ‘Building an ark, are you, Noah?’ his friends taunted him. ‘What on earth for? Expecting it to rain?’ Oh, they had a good time with old Noah, you may be sure of that. “In those days before the flood,” Jesus says in the gospel, “they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage ...until the day when the flood came and carried them all away. So will it also be at the coming of the Son of Man.”

For those who are unprepared – for people who live according to the standards of this world, calling darkness light, and light darkness – the coming of the Son of Man will be a shock. They will be like the homeowner, Jesus warns in the gospel, who sleeps soundly while the burglar taps on the mud brick wall of the man’s Palestinian house, to discover the hollowed out place inside where the family’s savings are kept. When the burglar finds the spot, he digs through and takes everything. Too late, the homeowner discovers that he has been picked clean.

For those who are prepared, however, God’s final intervention will be a day of joy and fulfilment. These are the people who live in the darkness of this world with their faces turned toward the light of Jesus Christ. “The night is advanced,” Paul tells us in our second reading, “the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

That is the Advent message. We are living in history’s final age. How long this final age will yet last, we cannot know – any more than we can know now long our own personal lives will last. What we can and do know is that this age will end when Christ comes again: not in obscurity, as he came to Mary and the shepherds; but dramatically, in an event so momentous that no one will doubt that history’s last hour has struck. 

For those who ignore the Advent message and live for themselves, Christ’s coming will be a day of shock and disaster. For those, however, who are trying to live not for themselves but for Jesus Christ, and for others, his coming will be a joyful encounter with a dearly loved friend – whether this encounter be at our own personal death, or at the end of history. They will be able to say, with great joy,  the words of our responsorial psalm: “I rejoiced because they said to me, ‘We will go up to the house of the Lord.’”

Will you be able to say that when the final hour strikes? Will you be ready when Jesus Christ comes?

MIGHTY SIGNS FROM THE SKY

Homily for November 26^th, 2019: Luke 21:5-11.

          Our gospel reading today is about what is called about the “End Time.” This Temple which you are looking at, Jesus tells his hearers, will not always be here. It will all be torn down one day. Shocked, the hearers want to know when this will happen. What sign will there be that the end is coming?

People have been asking that question ever since. Jesus never answered it. As I told you two weeks ago, there is a passage in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus says that even he has no timetable. “As for the exact day or hour, no one knows it, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father only” (Mt. 24:36).

          One piece of information Jesus does give. The end of all things, and Jesus’ return in glory, will be preceded by disturbing signs. Jesus mentions some of them in today’s gospel: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.” Jesus is using poetic, dramatic language to describe a world in ferment, and coming apart at the scenes. Who can doubt that we are living in just such a world today?

          Should these signs make us fearful and anxious? Not if we are living for the Lord God, and for others. Let me tell you about a man who did that. His name was Basil Hume, a Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey in the north of England. The 3 English monks who founded St. Louis Abbey and the Priory School on Mason Road came from Ampleforth over 50 years ago. Basil Hume was their Abbot when Pope Paul VI reached over the heads of all the English bishops to make him Archbishop of Westminster and later a cardinal. In June 1999, when he knew he was dying of cancer, Cardinal Basil wrote these words:

                   “We each have a story, or part of one at any rate, about which we have never been able to speak to anyone. Fear of being misunderstood. Inability to understand. Ignorance of the darker side of our hidden lives, or even shame, make it very difficult for many people. Our true story is not told, or, only half of it is. What a relief it will be to whisper freely and fully into the merciful and compassionate ear of God. That is what God has always wanted. He waits for us to come home. He receives us, his prodigal children, with a loving embrace. In that embrace we start to tell him our story. I now have no fear of death. I look forward to this friend leading me to a world where I shall know God and be known by Him as His beloved son.”

A WIDOW'S PITTANCE

Homily for November 25th, 2019: Luke 21:1-4.

In a society without today’s social safety net, a widow was destitute. For the widow in today’s gospel to give all that she had to live on for that day was, most people would say, irresponsible, even scandalous. God looks, however, not at the outward action, but at the heart. For God what counts, therefore, is not the size of the gift, but its motive. The wealthy contributors were motivated at least in part by the desire for human recognition and praise. The widow could expect no such recognition. Her gift was too insignificant to be noticed. For God, however, no gift is too small provided it is made in the spirit of total self-giving that comes from faith and is nourished by faith.

Jesus recognizes this generosity in the widow. Even the detail that her gift consists of two coins is significant. She could easily have kept one for herself. Prudence would say that she should have done so. She refuses to act out of prudence. She wants to give totally, trusting in God alone. That is why Jesus says that she has given Amore than all the others.@ They calculated how much they could afford to give. In the widow=s case calculation could lead to only one conclusion: she could not afford to give anything. Her poverty excused her from giving at all. She refuses to calculate. She prefers instead to trust in Him for whom, as the angel Gabriel told a young Jewish teenager named Mary, Anothing is impossible@ (Luke 1:38).

This poor widow shows us better than long descriptions what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. True discipleship will always seem foolish, even mad, to those who live by worldly wisdom. This poor widow had a wisdom higher than the wisdom of this world: the wisdom of faith. With her small gift she takes her place alongside the other great biblical heroes of faith, from Abraham to Mary, who set their minds first on God=s kingdom, confident that their needs would be provided by Him who (as Jesus reminds us) Aknows that you have need of these things@ (Luke 12:30). This widow is also one of that Ahuge crowd which no one can count@ (Rev. 7:9) whom we celebrated on All Saints= Day B those whose faith inspired them to sacrifice all for Jesus Christ, and who in so doing received from him the Ahundredfold reward@ that he promised (Mark 10:30).

Now, in this hour, Jesus is inviting each one of us to join that happy company: to sacrifice all, that we may receive all. He challenges us to begin today!