"BE PERFECT"

Homily for March 7^th, 2020: Matthew 5: 43-48. “Be perfect”

          “Be perfect,” Jesus tells us in today’s gospel reading. How is that possible? One of the greatest 20^th century apologists for biblical Christianity, the British Anglican, C.S. Lewis, writes this about this seemingly impossible command:

          “On the one hand, God’s demand for perfection need not discourage you in the least in your present attempts to be good, or even in your failures. Each time you fall, he will pick you up again. And He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection. On the other hand, you must realize from the outset that the goal toward which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him for taking you to that goal. That is what you are in for. And it is very important to realize that. If we do not, then we are very likely to start pulling back and resisting him after a certain point . . .

          “But this is a fatal mistake. Of course, we never wanted, and never asked, to be made into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. But the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when he made us.”

C.S. Lewis

Mere Christianity

"BUT I SAY TO YOU."

Homily for March 6th, 2020 : Matthew 5:20-26.

          Four times in this first week of Lent the gospel reading is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. On Tuesday Jesus told us how to pray by giving us the Our Father. Yesterday’s gospel continued this teaching with Jesus encouraging faithfulness to prayer by telling us to ask, to seek, and to knock. Today and tomorrow Jesus speaks about the central concern of Jewish religion: God’s law. There is an important phrase that we heard twice today and that shall hear again tomorrow: “But I say to you …” With those words Jesus distances himself from normal Jewish practice.  

          Other teachers of God’s law cite a Commandment and then discuss its interpretation, citing the interpretations of other famous rabbis. The Commandment to “Keep holy the Sabbath day,” for instance, raises the whole question of what kinds of work are forbidden on the Sabbath. Jesus speaks not, like other rabbis, as an interpreter of the law. He speaks as himself the Lawgiver.

“You have heard, ‘You shall kill.’ But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Or – “You have heard, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I say to you whoever looks lustfully on a woman, has already committed adultery with her in his thoughts.” Or again – “You have heard, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Or finally – “You have heard, ‘Do not take a false oath.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all.”

Do you see what Jesus is doing? Two things. First, by speaking not as an interpreter of God’s law, but as the Lawgiver, Jesus is manifesting his divinity. He does the same when he forgives sins. Second, he is plugging the loopholes in the law developed by legalistic interpreters – “the scribes and Pharisees” mentioned at the beginning of today’s gospel. If the Commandments really mean what Jesus says they mean, then they are beyond our power to fulfill completely. We always fall short. Important is not what we achieve but how much we attempt.  

Many people think of the Commandments as questions in a moral examination in which we must first get a passing grade before God will love and bless us in this life, and admit us to heaven in the next. That’s wrong! God loves us already, just as good parents love their children from birth, or even from conception, without waiting to see how they’ll turn out. The Commandments tell us how to respond gratefully to the free gift of God’s love. And if a long life has taught me anything, it is this: grateful people are happy people – no exceptions!

"TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE."

To my great joy, my former parish of St. Alban Roe has invited me, and other former Pastors, to return in Lent to preach on Jesus' Seven Last Words from the Cross. Here is my homily, which I shall peach at the evening Mass of March 5th.

“TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN PARADISE.”

          What a joy to be invited back, some 30 years later, to the parish where I spent two happy years! I left for lighter duties, when my cancerous prostate was removed. Through the wonderful goodness of God, I am still here, as you see. I praise and thank Him for all his goodness to me. And I thank your fine Pastor for his wonderful and totally unexpected invitation.   

          Over a half-century ago it was common on Good Friday to celebrate a three hours long preaching liturgy, called by cynics the “Three Hours Agony,” with sermons on Jesus’ Seven Last Words from the Cross. Attendance for all three hours, noon to three, was not expected, save for the especially devout. After each sermon or homily there was a hymn and a prayer, giving people an opportunity to come and go as they wished. I preached those sermons myself over sixty years ago, spending the whole of Lent preparing the homilies. I found it time well spent, I assure you. At the conclusion of the seventh homily, punctually at three in the afternoon, the church bell rang, slowly and reverently, 33 times, for the years of Jesus’ earthly life. I always found that deeply moving.

          I have been invited to speak to you this evening about Jesus’ second word. Let me read it to you. “One of the criminals hanging in crucifixion blasphemed him, saying: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Then save yourself and us.’ But the other rebuked him. ‘Have you no fear of God, seeing you are under the same sentence? We are only paying the price for what we’ve done, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ He then said: ‘Remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus replied, ‘I assure you: this day you will be with me in paradise.’”

          What clearer example could we have of a central truth about our Lord and Savior: that he is the man of total love. Friends, that is the heart of the gospel: that Jesus does not wait to love us for some proof that we deserve his love. Do parents wait to see how their children turn out before loving them? Of course not! Dear friends of mine, a couple from China and not even baptized, but very good people, told me, when they were expecting their first child: “We talk to the baby.”

“What do you tell the little one?” I asked. “Oh,” they said, “We tell her everything we did that day. We also play beautiful music for her,” they said: “Mozart and piano music by Chopin.” I was with them an hour after that child’s birth. The atmosphere of overflowing love moved me deeply. That girl is in high school now. Sometime in the next 10 to 15 years a young man is going to ask her to marry him. He’ll discover that he’s found a truly wonderful wife and mother, because of the love and beauty with which she has been surrounded, starting even before her birth.

The good news of the gospel is this: our lives are not an uphill struggle to earn God’s love, or prove that we deserve his love. No. God loves us already, even before we are born, because we are His. All our efforts to measure up, to show that we are worthy of the Lord’s love for us, are attempts to thank God for the gift of his love.

Jesus’ words to the criminal hanging beside him, assuring him that his salvation is assured, are yet another proof that Jesus is before all else a Giver. What about yourself? Are you a Giver; or are you a Taker? If you’re a Taker, I promise you one thing. You will always be frustrated, disappointed and bitter. Because you’ll never get enough. It is only the Givers in life who are happy. “Give, and it shall be given to you,” Jesus says in Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount. “Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will they pour into the fold of your garment. For the measure you measure with will be measured back to you.” (Lk 6:38) And we find the same thing in the only saying of Jesus reported outside the four gospels: “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving.”  (Acts 20:35).

I started with a story: Jesus’ encounter with the man hanging next to him on the cross. Let me close with another story.

          A cardinal was visiting a community of Carmelite nuns in Italy.  After celebrating Mass for them, he asked the Mother Superior if he could see how they lived. Carmelite nuns are enclosed. They don’t leave the cloister. And visitors talk to them through a grille. The cardinal’s request violated their rule. But when a cardinal asks, you don’t say No. So, the Prioress asked one of the nuns to show him round.

          They visited the refectory, where the nuns sit on wooden benches without backs to eat their simple meals off bare wooden tables. The cardinal saw one of the cells where they sleep: a small room furnished with a narrow bed, a table to serve as a desk, and a hard-wooden chair; a single light bulb overhead and a gooseneck lamp on the table. Instead of a basin with running water there was a large washbowl on a stand, and on the floor next to it a large crockery jug. The nun explained that water was brought from the bathroom down the hall.

          At the end of the short tour the nun, led the cardinal up a narrow stairway to the flat terraced roof above, furnished with benches and a railing all round.  “On feast days like Easter and Pentecost,” she explained, “we can come up here, if the weather is fine, for our recreation period.” The view was beautiful. Across a valley they could see a magnificent villa surrounded by formal gardens and several fountains. It was summer. A gardener was cutting one of the hedges. Children were frolicking in the swimming pool. A couple were playing tennis on one of the two courts. 

          The cardinal turned to the nun who was showing him round. “How long have you been here in Carmel, Sister?” he asked her.

          “I entered twenty years ago next Easter,” she responded.

          “Sister,” he said, “if the young man of that house had asked you twenty-one years ago to come and live there with him there as his wife, do you think you would be here today?”
          “Your Eminence,” she replied. “That was my house. That’s where I grew up.”

          Why? Why would a young woman give up all that luxury and all that beauty? I think if we could have asked her, or hundreds like her clear round the world, she would have said something like this: “I wanted to be with Jesus.”

          Somewhere in this church right now there is a young woman whom God is calling to be a religious Sister. Somewhere there is a young man whom God wants to be a priest. Let me speak very personally to you.

          Jesus is offering you something he offers to only a few, something precious beyond words. He is offering you a life that will sometimes be hard, but which will be filled with meaning and filled above all with joy. How do I know that? Because eighty years ago Jesus made that offer to me. He called me when I was just twelve years old by placing in my heart and mind the desire to be a priest. Since then I have never wanted anything else.

         Thirteen years later I fulfilled that desire. That was almost sixty-six years ago. And I’ve never regretted it, not one single day. 

          And, I say to you, whoever you may be, whatever your age, whatever your circumstances: When Jesus calls you, go for it! And one day you too will be able to say what I say to you right now: What a wonderful life! There have been difficult times, of course, as in every life, marriage included. But I have never regretted my decision for priesthood: not one single day.

              Is God’s call just for religious professionals, priests and nuns? Don’t you believe b    it! While you were still in your mother’s womb, God already had a plan for your life. H    He calls each one of us, as he called the man hanging next to Jesus on a cross. 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.

                “I could never do that,” you’re thinking? You’re wrong! Here is a list 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 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. Zacchaeus 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.

ASK, SEEK, KNOCK

Homily for March 5^th: Matthew 7:7-12.

          I received an e-mail recently about a man who complained that God had not answered his months-long prayer that he would win the lottery. God answered the complaint by telling him: ‘Give me some help, will you? Buy a ticket.’ Jesus tells us something similar when he says: “Ask and you will receive.” The very act of asking is an expression of faith. But why ask when God knows our needs already? Doing so reminds us of our dependence on God. When things are going well for us and the sun is shining, it is easy to forget that we still need the Lord. Asking also strengthens our desire, much as regular exercise strengthens the heart, muscles, and lungs. St. Gregory the Great, who was pope from 590 to 604, wrote: “All holy desires grow by delay. And if they do not grow, they were never holy desires.”

Jesus also says, “Seek and you will find.” The Trappist monk who helped me over the threshold of the Catholic Church sixty years ago wrote: “To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; to seek him the greatest human adventure; to find him the highest human achievement.”

Jesus tells: “Knock and the door will be opened to you.” If we know that a house, or a room, is empty, we don’t bother to knock. So knocking too is an expression of faith – that there is someone there to open the door.

To strengthen our faith, Jesus asks two rhetorical questions: “Would you give your son a stone if he asked for bread, or a snake if he asked for fish?” Our Pope Francis asks simple, challenging questions like that. If his hearers don’t answer the question, he will repeat it until they do. You are certainly not saints, Jesus says; yet you know how to give gifts to your children. Do you suppose, then, that your heavenly Father will be less generous than you are? That is a “how much more” question, and Jesus uses it often. “How much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”

Today’s gospel reading closes with the Golden Rule: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.” That is not unique to Christianity. We find it, in some form, in all the great religions of the world. Treat others, the rule says, as you would like them to treat you.  

THE SIGN OF JONAH

Homily for March 4^th, 2020: Jonah 3:1-10; Luke 11:29-32.

          “The word of God came to Jonah a second time,” our first reading began. The first time God had spoken to Jonah, he told him to go the Gentile city Nineveh to preach repentance to its citizens, Jonah not only refused. He took a ship going in the opposite direction from Nineveh. When the ship got into a terrible storm, the crew thought God had sent the storm to punish Jonah for his disobedience. So they threw poor Jonah overboard. He was saved in the belly of what the Bible calls “a great fish” – who after three days vomited Jonah up on land. It was at this point that the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time – and with the same command. Jonah had refused God’s command the first time, because he didn’t want Gentile outsiders to experience the love and mercy of Israel’s God. That was for Jews only, Jonah thought.

Now Jonah, though still resentful, goes to Nineveh, preaches repentance, and the people immediately obey! Whereupon Jonah is angry. ‘That’s just what I told you would happen,’ he complains to God. ‘That’s why I didn’t want to come here. Now I’d rather die.’ Jonah is the quintessential sorehead.

In the gospel Jesus reminds his fellow Jews of this old story, and tells those who have been demanding a “sign” before they will believe in him – some miracle so dramatic they it will compel belief – that the only sign they will get is the sign of Jonah. At his preaching the Gentile Ninevites, who didn’t have the Ten Commandments and all the other blessings that God had showered on Jonah’s people down through the ages, believed at once, without demanding a sign, repented, and received God’s merciful love.

Lent challenges us, as Jesus challenged his own people. Is our belief in him strong enough to make us willing to change in areas where he wants us to change? I’ll be on retreat in a couple of weeks. In preparation I have been praying that during the retreat the Lord will show me the areas in my life which need to change, so that I may be more pleasing to Him, and more useful to the people whom the Church ordained me to serve.

Perhaps you’d like to offer a similar prayer for yourself.

THE LORD'S PRAYER

Homily for March 3^rd, Lord’s Prayer: Matt. 6:7-15.

          I’ve told you last Friday that Lent is a kind of spiritual spring training. It focuses on three essential practices: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Today’s gospel gives us Jesus’ teaching about prayer. “Do not babble like the pagans,” Jesus says. The pagan gods of Jesus’ day were manipulative. They were in competition with one another. To get on their good side, the worshipper had to say the right words, and repeat them as often as possible. You can forget all that, Jesus says. The God to whom you pray is your loving heavenly Father. He “knows what you need before you ask him.”  

          Jesus then lays out the pattern for our prayer. We don’t have a private me-and-God religion. By praying our Father, and not my Father, we acknowledge that we approach God as members of his people. Three petitions follow, having to with God himself. “Hallowed be thy name” is the first. It means “may your name be kept holy.” God’s name is kept holy when we speak it with faith, not as a magical word to get his attention, or to con him into giving us what we want.

          “Thy kingdom come” is a petition for the coming of God’s rule over us and the whole world. We are unhappy, and frustrated, because the world, and too often our own personal lives as well, do not reflect God’s rule. “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” extends this petition. In heaven God’s will is done immediately, and gladly.

          Four petitions follow which have to do with our brothers and sisters in the family of God: for bread, forgiveness, deliverance from temptation, and victory over evil.

          Here is a Lenten suggestion. Take at least five or ten minutes to pray the Our Father slowly, phrase by phrase, even word by word. Start with the opening word: “Our.” Reflect on the implications of that word. Pray that you may be mindful not only of your own needs, but also of the needs of your brothers and sisters. That could be your whole prayer for five or ten minutes. Move on in your next prayer time to the word “Father,” and on the day following pray over the words “Hallowed be thy name.” Practiced faithfully, and with patience, this way of praying the one prayer Jesus has given us will bring you close to Him who tells us in John’s gospel: “All this I tell you that my joy may be yours, and your joy may be complete” (15:11).

WARNING AND ENCOURAGEMENT

Homily for March 2^nd, 2020: Matthew 25: 31-46.

          Often overlooked in this familiar parable is the surprise of both groups at the judgment pronounced upon them. Those whom the king commends are not aware of having done anything special. Those he condemns are indignant. As far as they know, they have observed all the rules. And now they find themselves rejected for things they never knew were in the rule book.

          What a lesson there is there for us Catholics! The parable is a warning. It tells us that everything we do in life, as well as the things we leave undone, have eternal consequences. The choices we make each day and hour are determining, even now, our final destiny. Judgment is not a matter of adding up the pluses and minuses in some heavenly account book. Judgment is simply God’s confirmation of the choices, or judgment, we have already made by the way we chose to live our lives. That is the warning.

          The parable’s encouragement is the assurance that we need not fear judgment, as long as  we are trying to help people in need whom we encounter along life’s way. It is not that our good deeds gain us a row of gold stars in some heavenly account book which help balance out the black marks. Jesus is saying something quite different. He is telling us that the person who is genuinely trying to serve others’ needs will not fail to attain moral goodness in other areas as well. And such failures as remain (and we all have them) will be forgiven by God.  

          Do you come here discouraged? Your life is a tangle of loose ends, failed resolutions, and broken promises? You pray poorly, you lose your temper, you’re impatient, you are unable to overcome some bad habit or, as they say, to “get it all together.” Take heart! If that, or any of that, is your story, then the parable of the sheep and the goats is Jesus’ encouragement for you. It is his way of telling you that your failures are not ultimately important, if you are looking for opportunities of helping others, and using those opportunities when you find them. Anything good you try to do for others, no matter how insignificant, is of infinite worth. It is done for Jesus Christ. One day you will discover, to your astonishment, that you have been serving Him all along, without ever realizing it. You will hear the voice of your shepherd-king saying to you tenderly, and very personally: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

          That, friends, is the gospel. That is the good news.