Friday, December 25, 2020

"YOU WILL BE HATED BECAUSE OF MY NAME."


Homily for Dec. 26th, 2020: Acts of the Apostles 6:8-10; 7:54-59; Mt. 10:17-22.

          A priest fifteen or perhaps more years ordained, told me recently that he was concerned about the overly rosy image of priesthood being offered to today’s seminarians. The recruitment material sent out by Vocation Directors is full of success stories. All the photos on the websites of today’s seminaries show young men laughing, smiling, and joking. None of this is false. Thousands of priests testify to the joy of serving God and his holy people as a priest. You’re looking at one of them right now. The late Chicago priest-sociologist and novelist Fr. Andrew Greely said: “Priests who like being priests are among the happiest men in the world.” And he cited sociological surveys to back up that statement.
          The result of all this happy talk, my priest-friend told me, was that young priests who have a bad day, a bad week, or who encounter rejection or failure, start thinking that perhaps they have chosen the wrong vocation and should abandon priesthood. Jesus never promised his disciples that they would have only joy, success, and happiness. Both of today’s readings are about the price of discipleship. “You will be hated by all because of my name,” Jesus says at the end of today’s gospel. Only after these words warning about the cost of discipleship does he proclaim the good news: “But whoever endures to the end will be saved.”
          Christmas is a feast of joy, of course. But the day after Christmas year reminds us each year that this joy has a price. In a dispute with his enemies, the deacon Stephen, the Church’s first martyr, cries out: “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” Infuriated by the supposed blasphemy in those words, his enemies take Stephen outside the city and stone him to death. Omitted from our first reading are Stephen’s dying words: “Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge.” Jesus too suffered outside the city. Among his Last Words was the prayer: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Speaking a few years ago to a group of priests about the increasing secularization of our society, the late Cardinal George of Chicago said, in what he later admitted was an “overly dramatic fashion”: “I expect to die in bed; my successor will die in prison; and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.” Mostly omitted by those who quote these words, is the good news which the cardinal spoke in conclusion: “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.”

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

"BLESSED BE THE LORD."


Homily for December 24th, 2020: Luke 1:67-79.

          The Old Testament has a number of stories about women unable to conceive who become pregnant through God’s intervention. The one which most resembles the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah, the parents of John the Baptist, is the story of Sarah and Abraham. In both instances the parents are long past the age of childbearing. Three visitors come to Abraham and tell him that when they return next year, Sarah will have a son. From the tent nearby, where she is preparing a meal for the visitors (as required by the oriental law of hospitality for strangers), Sarah overhears the conversation and laughs at the absurdity of an old woman of her age giving birth. Whereupon God asks, “Why did Sarah laugh?” To which Sarah replies, “I didn’t laugh.” And the Lord responds, “Yes, you did.” (Genesis 18:1-15)
          In the case of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, an angel brings the message to the father, while he is performing his priestly duty of offering incense in the Temple. His aged wife, Elizabeth, will have a son. The angel also says that the boy will be called John. Zechariah is unable to believe the news. Because of this unbelief, he loses the power of speech – and, as we learn later, his hearing as well. Thus, he is unable to tell his wife about the angel’s announcement or the child’s name.
          This explains why, when they come to name Elizabeth’s baby, people are astonished to hear his mother say he will be called John; and her husband  -- still unable to speak, or even to hear what his wife has just said – writes on a tablet the words Elizabeth has just spoken.
          Immediately Zechariah’s speech and hearing are restored. We might expect a conversation between him and Elizabeth about how they had agreed on the same name. Instead Zechariah immediately breaks out in the hymn of praise that we have just heard, called ever since the Benedictus, because that is the first word of the hymn in Latin.
          What does all this tell us? It says that in our relationship with God praise and thanksgiving come first. We come to Mass first of all to worship. We come, that is, not to get but to give. And all experience shows that those who give most generously also receive most abundantly.

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

"HE WILL BE CALLED JOHN."


Homily for December 23rd, 2020: Luke 1:57-66.

          At the circumcision of John the Baptist, eight days after his birth, “they were going to call him Zechariah after his father,” Luke writes. Scholars tells us that in New Testament times a child’s naming was the right of the father. The naming of Mary’s Son was an exception: he had no human father. That was why the angel Gabriel told Mary in advance, “You will give him the name Jesus.”
          John’s father Zechariah had lost his power of speech when he failed to believe the angel’s message to him that his wife, though long past childbearing age, would have a son, “whom you shall name John” (Lk 1:13). He had thus been unable to tell Elizabeth that the angel had already disclosed the name of the son she would bear. We now learn that Zechariah is not only mute but deaf. So, he cannot hear his wife saying: “He will be called John.”
          To get confirmation of the name, the bystanders must question the deaf father by writing him a note. Imagine the astonishment when he confirms the name already chosen by his wife by writing: “John is his name.”
          “Immediately his mouth was opened,” Luke tells us, “his tongue freed, and he spoke, blessing God.” Those final words are significant. With his speech restored, Zechariah speaks first of all to the Lord God, blessing and thanking him for the humanly impossible gift he and his wife have received. “Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel because he has visited and ransomed his people.” The Latin word for “blessed” is benedictus. So, the canticle or hymn which Zechariah speaks is known by Catholics as the Benedictus. The Church incorporates Zechariah’s words into her daily public prayer, in the Office of Lauds or Morning Prayer.
Happy are we, if we do the same: by praising and thanking God for the blessings he has already bestowed on us, even before we start asking for fresh blessings.

Monday, December 21, 2020

EARTHLY VALUES REVERSED


Homily for December 22nd, 2020: 1 Samuel 1:24-28; Luke 1:46-56.

          Hannah, who appears in our first reading, is one of many women in the Old Testament who suffer for years because of their inability conceive a child. Accompanying her husband Elkanah on one of his annual visits to the sanctuary at Shiloh, Hannah prays for a child with such intensity and fervor that Eli, the priest on duty there, thinking she must be drunk, rebukes her and tells her to sober up.
          I’m not drunk, Hannah replies; “I was only pouring out my troubles to the Lord.” Reassured, Eli sends her on her way with the prayer: “May the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.” God answers this prayer, giving Hannah a son, Samuel, who would be the first of Israel’s prophets. On her next visit to Shiloh, Hannah thanks God, praising him in the words we prayed together as the responsorial psalm. She praises God who lifts up the poor, while humbling the rich and powerful.
          Mary’s words in the gospel, praising God for making her the mother of his Son, echo these words of Hannah: “My spirit rejoices in God my savior… He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”
          Some three decades later Mary’s Son would speak words remarkably similar to those spoken by both his mother, and Hannah. We call them the Beatitudes, because each is introduced by the Greek word makarios, which means “blessed” or “happy.” The Beatitudes proclaim the reversal of all earthly values. Where worldly society says: “Blessed are the rich,” Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”  Society says, “Blessed are those who know how to live it up and have fun.” Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Where society says it is the powerful who are blessed, Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek.” And when Jesus says, “Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,” society says: “Be sure you get a good lawyer.” 
Jesus wants us to use the Beatitudes as a mirror; to ask ourselves, ‘Am I poor in spirit? Am I humble and merciful? Am I pure of heart? Do I hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness? Am I a peacemaker, or do I contribute to conflict through gossip, cynicism, and hate?’
Think about those questions, friends, and pray about them. Doing so is the best possible preparation for Christmas.

Sunday, December 20, 2020

"ARISE, MY LOVER, AND COME."


 Homily for December 21st, 2019: Song of Songs 2:8-14.     

       “Hark, my lover – here he comes springing across mountains, leaping across hills … My lover speaks, he says to me, ‘Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one, and come!’”
       These words from our first reading come from a short book called The Song of Songs. It is a collection of love poems portraying, in the form of an allegory, the love between the soul and God. In the passage we have just heard the human lover calls out to God, the Beloved. Christians have always understood the Beloved to be a figure for Jesus – which is why the Church gives us the passage, just four days before Christmas. The one calling out, “Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one, and come,” is Jesus. His love for us is passionate. He longs for us to be close to him always.
       One of the great interpreters of this book is the twelfth century French monk, St. Bernard. He begins his commentary on the Song of Songs with the book’s opening words, addressed by the soul to God: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” The kiss, Bernard explains, is the Holy Spirit, who binds Father and Son together in love. The kiss may also be understood, however, as Jesus Christ, who with his kiss unites divinity and humanity. Since we are sinners, we cannot raise ourselves all at once to the Lord’s mouth. We must first fall at his feet, kissing them in repentance. Then, as the Lord’s stretches out to grasp and steady us as we rise, we kiss his hands. “And finally,” Bernard says, “when we shall have obtained these favors through many prayers and tears, we humbly dare to raise our mouth to his mouth .... not merely to gaze upon it but – I say this with fear and trembling – to receive his kiss. ... And whoever is joined to him in a holy kiss becomes, at his good pleasure, one spirit with him.”  
               We don’t read the Bible like that today. Some people still do, however. Let me tell you about one of them, a Jewish psychiatrist before he was baptized at age 27 and became a Trappist monk at St. Joseph’s Abbey in western Massachusetts, where he died in November 2006 at the age of 97. A true son of St. Bernard, Fr. Raphael Simon (his monastic name), left us these beautiful lines:
 “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.”