"YOU BUILD THE MEMORIALS OF THE PROPHETS."

Homily for October 13^th, 2016: Luke 11:47-54.

          In today’s gospel reading we witness the mounting hostility to Jesus of the religious leaders of his people: the Pharisees, who prided themselves on their careful observance of God’s law; and the scribes, the experts in interpreting the law – which for Jesus’ people was, of course, the Ten Commandments. 

          “Woe to you,” Jesus says, “who build the memorials of the prophets whom your fathers killed.” We build memorials to people whom we honor. During their lifetimes, however, Israel’s prophets were not honored. Many were resented or ignored, for reminding people of  God’s demands on them. Others, like Jeremiah, were actively persecuted. Only when the prophets were dead and gone was it safe to start honoring them.

We see something similar in a modern prophet: Dr. Martin Luther King. Widely resented during his lifetime, and the target of hatred so strong that it led to his assassination, today he is honored by a stone monument in Washington, and celebrated on a national holiday. Jesus’ words about how his people treated God’s spokesmen, the prophets – rejecting them in their lifetimes, and erecting memorials to them after they were safely dead -- point to the reason for Jesus’ own death.

At the end of today’s gospel reading the opposition to Jesus becomes open and active. “The scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him,” Luke writes, “and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.”

This hostility continues today – in the form of gossip. Earlier this month Pope Francis, celebrating Mass for those who guard the Vatican, told them: “You watchmen guard the doors, the windows, so that a bomb does not enter.” However, “there are bombs inside, there are very dangerous bombs inside.” He was speaking, the Pope explained, about gossip, the weeds sown amid the wheat, which destroys and kills. “May the life of us all,” the Pope concluded, “the last page of the life of us all be: he was a good person, he sowed the good seed. And not – it would be very sad – that the last page be: he was wicked, he sowed the bomb of discord.”

"I AM SINNER." Pope Francis

Homily for Oct. 12^th, 2016: Luke 11: 42-46

“Woe to you Pharisees!” Jesus says in today’s gospel. Who are these people about whom we hear so much in the gospels, most of it negative? Their name means “the separated ones.” They looked down on their fellow Jews who paid little attention to all the details of the Jewish law.  

          There is an example of this superior attitude in John’s gospel. The Pharisees and chief priests ask the Temple guards in Jerusalem why they have not arrested Jesus. “No one ever spoke like that before,” the guards reply. “Do not tell us you have been taken in!” the Pharisees respond. “You don’t see any of the Sanhedrin believing in him, do you? Or the Pharisees?” Then comes the condescending sentence:” Only this lot, that knows nothing about the law – and they are lost anyway!” (John 7:45-49).

Jesus never condemns the Pharisees’ meticulous efforts to keep God’s’ law. What he criticizes is their legalistic spirit. “You [Pharisees] pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done,” Jesus says, affirming the payment of tithes on even the tiniest things, “without overlooking the others”: judgment and the love of God.

Pope Francis spoke similarly in the lengthy interview he gave shortly after his election, and published all over the world in late September, 2013. “The Church sometimes has locked itself up in small things,” he said. And he gave this example: “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. … The teaching of the Church is clear and I am a son of the Church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.” People immediately assumed that the Pope was changing Church teaching. Yet within days he told a group of gynecologists: “Every unborn child, condemned unjustly to being aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ, the face of the Lord.” You can’t get more specific than that.

What is the bottom line? The laws of God and the Church are important. Observing them is the key to happiness. Even more important, however, are help and mercy for those who fail in this – and that is all of us. Asked at the beginning of the interview, “Who is Jorge Bergolio” (the Pope’s original name), he responded: “I am a sinner. This is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” In saying those words, the Pope spoke for all of us, without exception.

"GIVE ALMS."

Homily for October 11^th, 2016: Luke 11:37-41.

          Jesus is the guest of a Pharisee, a man who is careful to observe all the provisions of the Jewish law. Offered an opportunity to wash his hands before dinner, Jesus offends his host by brushing aside this Jewish custom. An act of rudeness? So it would seem. As the story unfolds we discover, however, the Jesus had a reason for what looks like an act of discourtesy. He wanted to show his host that mere external cleansing is useless if it is not accompanied by internal cleansing as well.

          “Oh, you Pharisees!” He says. “Although you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil.” What might this mean for us today? A possible modern parallel would be Catholics who are always careful to dress up for Sunday Mass: a suit and necktie for men; for women a nice dress; inside, however, unconfessed and hence unforgiven sins: cruelty, resentment, and hate; dishonesty, impurity, and pride. The Lord in his mercy has given us a remedy for such sins: the sacrament of penance or confession. Correctness in dress and outward behavior is important. Coming to the Lord’s Table as we would to a picnic or baseball game shows scant respect for our host. Yet inner and spiritual cleansing is even more important.

          Now Jesus surprises us (as he does often). Rather than pointing to confession of sins, he speaks of something else: almsgiving. “But as to what is within, give alms, and behold everything will be clean for you.” Luke wrote his gospel for a partly Gentile community. Almsgiving hardly figured in the ancient pagan world of Jesus’ day. For Jews, however, it was important. The Jewish farmer and shepherd gave the firstfruits of field and flock to the Lord. He did so to express gratitude to the Lord who gives us all we are and have, sin excepted. Only when we are truly thankful to the Lord for all the blessings he showers upon us, so many more than we deserve on any strict accounting, are we truly in a right relationship with him. And we show our gratitude by sharing the Lord’s blessings with our brothers and sisters. Only then, Jesus tells us, will everything be clean for us.

"THIS GENERATION SEEKS A SIGN."

Homily for October 10th, 2016: Luke 11: 29-32

         “This generation seeks a sign,” Jesus says. He is referring to the repeated demand of his contemporaries for a miracle so dramatic that it will force them to believe. We heard this demand in he gospel reading las Friday, as we noted then, belief cannot be forced, any more than love can be forced. Jesus’ miracles confirm the faith of those who already believe. They do not force belief on those whose hearts and minds are closed to him and his message.

          Jesus then mentions two such confirming signs: Jonah, and the so-called queen of the south, Sheba. Jonah’s sign was not his survival in the belly of the great fish. We saw when we were reading Jonah last week that this was one of the parts of Jonah’s story which showed that it was fiction – though, like much great fiction, notably Jesus’ parables and Shakespeare’s plays, the vehicle for important truth about God, humanity, and life. The sign of Jonah which Jesus refers to is the immediate repentance of the people of Nineveh – Gentiles without the gift of God’s law – in response to Jonah’s preaching. Jesus contrasts the response of the Ninevites with the failure of so many of his own people to respond to his message.

          The sign of Queen Sheba is different, though in one respect the same. Like Jonah, she came from afar, motivated however not by a divine command, but by the report that King Solomon possessed wisdom greater than that of all other rulers or sages. “There is something greater than Solomon here,” Jesus says. He is referring to himself. He not merely possesses wisdom: Jesus is wisdom personified. Similarly the statement that “there is something greater than Jonah here” means that Jesus’ message is more compelling than Jonah’s -- yet the people still do not respond. Jesus sums up by saying that the Ninevites and Queen Sheba showed a readiness to respond which his own people do not.

Are we responding? “I have come,” Jesus says in John’s gospel, “that they may have life, and have it to the full” (10:10). Are we embracing Jesus’ offer of life to the full? Or do we think of our faith as observing enough of the Church’s complicated rules and regulations to be able, on Judgment Day, to squeeze our way into heaven?

          Think about it – more important, pray about it!  

"BLEST WHO HEAR GOD'S WORD"

Homily for Oct. 8^th, 2016: Luke 11:27-28.

          “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed,” a woman in the crowd cries out as Jesus is speaking. Jesus’ response to this tribute to his mother surprises us. He might have said, “Truly,” “Indeed,” or perhaps just “Thank you.” He owed his mother so much: his humanity, loving care from infancy through childhood, youth, and adolescence. Yet he says none of those things. The response Jesus actually makes seems almost to contradict what the woman in the crowd has cried out. “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

In reality this is not a contradiction. For Mary is the first hearer of God’s word. It came to her first when the angel Gabriel told her that she was to be the mother of God’s Son. How much of that word did Mary understand? Well, she understood at least this: that in a small village where gossip was rife and everybody knew everybody else’s business, she was to be an unmarried mother. Despite this bleak prospect, Mary immediately said yes: “Be it done to me according to your word.”

Mary’s attention to God’s word did not stop there. After Mary and Joseph’s frantic search for their 12-year-old son who, unbeknownst to them, had stayed behind in Jerusalem, they heard the boy’s puzzling questions: “Why did you search for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?” On the threshold of his teens, Jesus already knew that God, and not Joseph, was his Father.

Luke (alone of the four gospel writers) tells us that Mary and Joseph “did not understand” what their son had said to them (2:50). After returning to Nazareth, however, Mary continued to “ponder these things in her heart” (vs. 51).

The Lord asks us to do the same. More, he promises that when we do listen to his word, ponder in our hearts what he says to us, and put his teaching into action, we are “blessed.” And that word, in Luke’s original Greek text, makarios, means “happy.”

"OTHERS ASKED FOR A SIGN."

Homily for Oct. 7^th, 2016: Luke 11:15-26.

          At the start of today’s gospel Jesus has just given back the power of speech to a man unable to speak, probably from birth. People in those days attributed a condition like that, indeed all illness, to demons. This is reflected in the opening words of today’s gospel: “Jesus had driven out a demon.” Usually those who witness Jesus’ healings are amazed. Here they say, in effect: ‘That’s no big deal.’ Some ascribe Jesus’ ability to heal to his having entered into a pact with the demons who cause illness. Others demand that Jesus show them a sign more dramatic than a mere physical healing: a “sign from heaven,” they call it.  

          The gospels record this demand for a sign in a number of places: some proof so dramatic that it will compel belief. But belief cannot be compelled, any more than love can be compelled. Jesus’ most dramatic sign was the empty tomb of Easter morning. That did not compel belief in anyone. The only people who believed in the risen Lord were those who had known and believed in Jesus before his resurrection. And even they were initially skeptical. The one exception was the man called in the gospel that bears his name, John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Upon entering the empty tomb this disciple “saw and believed,” John’s gospel tells us (20:8). The others came to believe only after seeing the risen Lord.

          Jesus’ closing words about an unclean spirit returning to a house that has been cleansed with seven other even worse spirits tells us that it is not enough to banish bad habits. We must develop good ones. Here is an example. A parent confesses being impatient with the children. The priest gives this advice.

         "Don’t bother with making fist-clenching resolutions not to lose your temper with your children. Resolve instead that when you do lose your temper, you’ll be looking for an opportunity as soon as possible to show your children that there is a more loving side to Mummy or Daddy. Praise or thank the children, for instance, for doing something well, no matter how small it may be. In other words, don’t try to pull up all the weeds in your life – your bad habits, weaknesses, and sins. That will never work. Concentrate instead on sowing flowers – the virtues."

"ASK AND YOU WILL RECEIVE."

Homily for Oct. 6^th, 2016: Luke 11:5-13.

This story about the friend coming at midnight emphasizes two things: the need for persistence in prayer, and God=s readiness to hear us: AAsk and you will receive,” Jesus says. “Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.@ Continuing to pray when God seems to answer only with silence increases our desire and strengthens our faith, as physical exercise strengthens the heart, lungs, and muscles. St. Gregory the Great, who was bishop of Rome from 590 to 604, wrote: AAll holy desires grow by delays; and if they fade because of these delays, they were never holy desires.@

To illustrate his teaching about prayer, Jesus reminds us that God is our loving heavenly Father, and we are his children. God is more loving, however, than the even best human father or mother B and wiser. Hence he will not always answer our prayers in the way, or at the time, that we think he should. When God refuses something we pray for, it is always in order to give us something better.  

 The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen told a story about a little girl who prayed, before Christmas, for a hundred dolls. She didn=t get even one. Her unbelieving father, who had taunted both her and her mother for praying at all, couldn=t resist saying on Christmas day: AWell God didn=t answer your prayers, did he?@ To which the child gave the beautiful answer: AOh yes, He did. He said No!@ In my own eighty-eighth year, I am grateful to have lived long enough to be able to thank God for answering some of my prayers, Not yet; and others, No.

Even when we have done our best to explain and understand prayer, however, it remains a mystery: not in the sense that we can understand nothing about prayer, but that what we can understand is partial only. We can no more explain Ahow prayer works@ than we can explain how the human mind works, or the human heart.

Above all, therefore, we need to ask for the gift of God=s Holy Spirit: the fire of God’s love, to burn away everything in us that is contrary to God, and to light up our way; his wisdom to see what it right and true, and to embrace it when seen. That prayer will always be answered, Jesus promises us. AIf you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?@

THE LORD'S PRAYER

Homily for October 5^th, 2016: Luke 11:1-4.

          With his gift of the Lord’s Prayer, the only prayer Jesus ever gave us, he offers us a pattern for all our prayer, especially private prayer. “Father,” Jesus begins. When we begin like that, we are acknowledging that we can’t make it on our own. From infancy to old age we are dependent on Another: the One whom Jesus addressed with the intimate word, Abba – akin to “Daddy” in English.

Three petitions follow, having to with our heavenly Father 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. We couldn’t do that even if we wanted to, for God acts in sovereign freedom.

          “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.

          The four petitions follow have to do not just with own needs, but also with those of our brothers and sisters in God’s family: for bread, forgiveness, deliverance from temptation, and victory over evil.

          Here is a suggestion which can help you to appreciate the Lord’s Prayer more deeply. Rather than just rattling it off, as Catholics mostly do, take at least five or ten minutes to pray it slowly, phrase by phrase, even word by word. Start with the opening word: “Our.” Ponder the full meaning of that word. Pray that you may be mindful not only of your own needs, but also of the needs of others -- your brothers and sisters. That could be your whole prayer for five or ten minutes. Move on the next day 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 help you realize that the words are not just a pious formula. Rightly prayed, they 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).