"YOUR GRIEF WILL BECOME JOY."

Homily for May 21^st, 2020: John 16:16-20.

          “What does this mean that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me’”, Jesus’ disciples ask one another. “We do not know what he means.” How often preachers, and readers of the gospels as well, repeat that statement; if not aloud, at least in thought: “We do not know what he means.” Not everything in Scripture is clear, simple, or obvious, by any means.

          If we believe that Jesus spoke these words in connection with the Last Supper, then Jesus’ “little while” would refer to the time between Jesus’ burial on Good Friday and his resurrection on the third day. That is the view of most of the Eastern Church Fathers. There is a difficulty with this interpretation, however. Jesus tells his disciples, “You will grieve, but your grief will become joy,” adding two verses later: “Then your hearts will rejoice, with a joy that no one can take from you;” and that thereafter, “You will have no more questions to ask me.” (vs. 22f) However we understand the words, the appearances of the risen Lord to his friends were transitory and brief. Were they not only sufficient to give Jesus’ friends “a joy that no one can take from you,” but also the basis for Jesus’ further statement: “you will have no more questions to ask me”?

St. Augustine avoids this difficulty by saying that Jesus’ “little while” is the period between Jesus’ ascension to heaven and his return at the end of time in glory. This overlooks the joy which his friends experienced as soon as they saw him alive again, in flesh and blood – though also so changed that at first most did not recognize him.

We need not choose between these two interpretations. There is truth in both. Jesus’ resurrection appearances did indeed fill his friends with joy. But only at the end of time will we have no more questions to ask him. Meanwhile we thank God the Father for raising his Son from the dead, but also for the Son’s promise, which we shall hear in tomorrow’s gospel: “Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”

         

         

BECOMING "ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE."

Homily for May 20th, 2020: Acts 17:15, 22-18:1.

          St. Paul normally began his preaching with appeals to Holy Scripture – for him the Jewish Scriptures, which we call the Old Testament. The New Testament books were not written until after Paul’s death. Paul’s letters and accounts of his preaching in the Acts of the Apostles contain numerous examples of his Scripture based preaching. Paul’s address reported in our first reading today is an exception to this rule. He is in Athens, the center, in Paul’s world, of learning and sophisticated culture. What the Athenians knew about the Jewish Scriptures was comparable to what most of us know about the Koran: next to nothing.

          So, Paul tries a different approach this time. He starts not with Scripture but with the actual situation in Athens, with its many temples to numerous gods and goddesses. This is an example of his becoming “all things to all people,” about which Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians (9:22). Paul begins: “I see you are very religious.” That is called, in rhetoric, a captatio benevolentiae: capturing the hearers’ attention and goodwill with benevolence or kindness – in this case with flattery. Referring to all the temples which he sees on the hill Areopagus in the center of Athens, Paul says that one in particular has caught his eye, because of the inscription it bears: “To an Unknown God.” The Athenians who erected it obviously wanted to cover all the bases.

          “What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you,” Paul says. This Unknown God is the one who created all that is, he continues. He has come down to us in the person of a man named Jesus, whom he raised from the dead. The mention of resurrection causes some to scoff. Everyone knows that is absurd: when you’re dead, you’re dead. Others react more politely, but still with condescension: “We’d like to hear more about this – just not now. Another day, perhaps.”

          Some, however, accept Paul’s message, and become believers. One is obviously a man of importance: a member of the Court of the Areopagus. Another is a woman of whom we know only her name, Damaris. Paul’s attempt to “become all things to all people” seems have had only modest success. It is a picture of the Church’s evangelism in every age. As in Jesus’ parable of the sower and his seed: despite the waste of so much of the farmer’s efforts, “some seed falls on good ground and produces a rich harvest, at a rate of thirty- and sixty- and a hundredfold.” (Mark 4:8).

"I WILL SEND YOU THE ADVOCATE."

Homily for May 19^th, 2020: John 16:5-11.

          “I tell you,” Jesus says, “it is better that I go. For if I do not go the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” What is Jesus really saying? All depends on the meaning of the word “Advocate.” In the original Greek of the New Testament the word is “Paraclete.” In some versions of the Bible it is also translated “Comforter.”

          However we translate it – Paraclete, Advocate, or Comforter – it designates the One who makes Jesus present: the Holy Spirit, who takes the place on earth of the glorified Jesus, after he has risen and ascended to heaven to be, once more, with his heavenly Father. “It is better for you that I go,” Jesus says, because it was only when the Spirit had come down on his disciples that they were able fully to understand who Jesus was. The Spirit came upon them quietly, but nonetheless powerfully, when the risen Jesus entered the room where his disciples had gathered, with doors locked “for fear of the Jews,” and spoke the Hebrew greeting, “Shalom – Peace be with you.” Jesus breathed on them, and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20: 19-23) The Spirit came dramatically a short time later, at the Jewish feast of Pentecost, in a “mighty driving wind [and] tongues as of fire.” (Acts 2) 

Jesus goes on to say that the Spirit “will convict the world in regard to sin.” The sin in question was people’s refusal to believe in Jesus. This has been a theme of John’s gospel from the beginning, where we read:  “He came to his own, yet his own did not accept him” (John 1:11); and two chapters later we read: “The light has come into the world, but men preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). The Spirit will also convict the world in regard to “righteousness” or justice, by reversing the unjust sentence at Jesus’ trial, which declared him a criminal and not God’s Son. Finally the Spirit “will convict the word in regard to sin,” because in Jesus’ resurrection it is Satan who is condemned, and his power over the world crippled. 

As he was being stoned to death, the Church’s first martyr, the deacon Stephen, “filled with the Sprit … exclaimed, ‘Look! I see an opening in the sky, and the Son of Man standing at God’s right hand.’” (Acts 7:55f). Down through the centuries since, and continuing today, the Spirit, who is the Lord’s gift, continues to make Jesus, now with his Father in heaven, present to us on earth. 

A GLOBAL WAR ON CHRISTIANS

Homily for May 18^th, 2020: John 15:25-16:4a.

          Just two days ago we heard Jesus’ words: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.” In today’s gospel, Jesus returns to the same theme. “They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.” Is that just long ago and far away? Don’t you believe it.  

A recent book, entitled The Global War on Christians, by the American journalist John Allen, shows that Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world today. From Iraq and Egypt to Sudan and Nigeria, from Indonesia to the Indian subcontinent, Christians in the early 21st century are the most persecuted of all religious groups. The secular International Society for Human Rights says that 80 percent of violations of religious freedom in the world today are directed against Christians. Our era is witnessing the rise of a new generation of martyrs. Underlying the global war on Christians is the fact that more than two-thirds of the world's 2.3 billion Christians now live outside the West, often as a beleaguered minority up against a hostile majority -- Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia, Hindu radicalism in India, or state-imposed atheism in China and North Korea.
           Most people in Western countries have little idea that this global war on Christians is even happening. “We’re not talking about a metaphorical ‘war on religion’ in Europe and the United States fought over issues like whether it’s okay to erect a nativity set on the courthouse steps,” Allen writes. “We’re talking about a rising tide of legal oppression, social harassment and direct physical violence, with Christians as its leading victims. Christians today form the most persecuted religious body on the planet, and too often its new martyrs suffer in silence.”

          In the supposedly Christian country of Colombia, since 1984, 70 Catholic priests, two bishops, eight nuns, and three seminarians have been slaughtered, most of them falling victim to the nation’s notorious narco-cartels. Scores of Pentecostal and Evangelical pastors and faithful also have lost their lives. This shows two things. First, that Christians are a majority in a given country doesn’t mean they’re safe; and second, radical Islam is hardly the only threat out there.

          What can we do about this persecution? “Don’t dismiss the power of prayer,” John Allen says. Also, we can support organizations that help victims, so that they don’t feel abandoned and alone. And we must also refuse to be cowed into silence about Church teachings on marriage and the sanctity of life by today’s bullying guardians of political correctness. 

          “The age of the martyrs is not dead.” The word “martyr” is taken from the Greek word martyros , which means “witness.” That is the fundamental call of every Christian: to be a faithful witness of the greatest witness of all time, and of his teaching: Jesus Christ.

"IF THE WORLD HATES YOU."

Homily for May 16^th, 2020: John 15:18-21.

          “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first,” Jesus says in today’s gospel. Does the world really hate us? I’m sorry to tell you: It does. When we say, publicly and openly, that abortion at any stage of pregnancy, is the deliberate killing of a baby, a crime as grave as the killing of a human being at any age between birth and natural death, the world calls us misogynists, haters of women, enemies of their “reproductive freedom,” who are waging a war on women.

          When we say, publicly and openly, that marriage is exclusively the lifelong union of one man and on woman, rooted in our God given human nature, for the sake not only of uniting hearts and minds, but also for parenthood, we are called homophobes, bigots, enemies of equality as reprehensible as those who defended segregated schools, waiting rooms, and lunch counter in yesteryear’s Jim Crow South.

          The world hates us for saying these things and tells us: “You should be ashamed.” These teachings are not merely personal opinions, as a parishioner told me not long ago when I stated from the pulpit the Church’s teaching about marriage. They are the teaching of the Catholic Church.

          There is a way to avoid this hatred, and it is this: simply be silent about such matters. Then we can continue to go to Mass, and identify ourselves publicly as Catholics without arousing hatred; because the world knows, with a wink and a nod, that there are also “good Catholics”: sensible, modern people who don’t upset anyone by mentioning such matters; because such Catholics agree with those who hate us that the Church’s teachings are outdated, obsolete, and hence, for Catholics, optional and dispensable. Friends, nothing in our Catholic faith is optional or dispensable, any more than any one of the teachings of Jesus Christ is optional. It was Jesus’ refusal to compromise, or be silent, about anything he said that brought him to the cross.

One day each one of us will stand before God in judgment. One of the questions we shall be asked is this: Were you ever ashamed of the gospel? Did you keep silent about any part of it, or did you deny it, out of fear that you would make people uncomfortable or even angry? The answers to those questions will determine, one day, where, how, and with whom, we shall spend eternity. Think about that. More important, pray about it.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

May 15^th, 2019: John 15:12-17.

          “Love one another,” Jesus says, “as I have loved you.” Is that realistic? Can we love on command? Certainly not, if the kind of love Jesus is talking about is a matter of our feelings only. Jesus is talking about an attitude. Let me give you an example: a story sent to me by a man who is today a successful architect.

          “Thirty years ago, I was driving a cab for a living. When I arrived at 2:30 a.m., the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window. “So, I walked to the door and knocked. ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 80's stood before me. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. 

          "‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to

the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. “‘It's nothing’, I told her. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated’.

          "‘Oh, you're such a good boy’, she said.

          “When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, then asked, ‘Could you drive through downtown?’ 

          "‘It's not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly.

          "‘Oh, I don't mind,’ she said. ‘I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice’.

"‘I don't have any family left,’ she continued. ‘The doctor says I don't have very

long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. ‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked. 

          “For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived as newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

         We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

          "‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked, reaching into her purse.

          "‘Nothing,’ I said.

          "‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.

          "‘There are other passengers,’ I responded. Almost without thinking, I bent

and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. 

          "‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

          “I squeezed her hand, then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.

          “On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life. We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware — beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.”

          The man who sent me that story offers this final comment. “People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said.  But they will always remember how you made them feel.”

          The One who pours his love into our hearts gives us this greatest of all gifts under one strict condition: that what we have freely received, we freely share with others. Or, to put it another way: You can’t keep Jesus’ love unless you give it away.

"IT WAS NOT YOU WHO CHOSE ME."

Homily for May 14^th, 2020: Acts 1:15-17, 20-26; John 15:9-17.

          Our first reading shows us the Church performing what might be called her first juridical act: finding among Jesus’ disciples one to take the place of Judas Iscariot, who had betrayed the Lord. Unlike Peter, who repented, Judas had despaired and taken his own life. Peter, by the Lord’s appointment the Church’s chief shepherd, takes the lead in choosing a new apostle. The man chosen, he says, must be one who has been with us from the day of Jesus’ baptism, until his death, resurrection, and ascension, so that he could be, with us remaining eleven apostles, a witness to [Jesus’] resurrection. 

          Note how carefully they proceed. Not trusting to human judgment, they choose two of their number who fulfill Peter’s requirement. Then they pray that the Lord will show them which of the two he has chosen. This is the first corporate prayer recorded in the New Testament.  Following this, they cast lots. A common Jewish practice, this was done by taking two stones, writing the name of one candidate on each, and then placing both in an open jar. The jar was then shaken until one of the stones fell out.  

Who was this Matthias, we want to know? The honest answer is: we don’t know. There are stories about him, but they are legends only. Careful as Peter had been to leave the choice to God, it seems that the Lord had another in mind, a man about whom we know a great deal: a devout Jew named Saul, zealous defender of his Jewish faith, who in baptism became Paul, the great apostle to the wider Gentile world. He is the man to whom Jesus’ words in today’s gospel reading apply, if they ever applied to anyone: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain.”

In all this we see, once again, what the Bible shows us repeatedly: that God is the master of surprises, the God of the unexpected. Hence the old saying: If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

I AM THE TRUE VINE

Homily for May 13^th, 2020: John 15:1-8.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.” Some Bible scholars think that Jesus spoke these words as he crossed the Temple courtyard with his eleven still faithful friends after the Last Supper. It was Passover time, so there would have been a full moon. The golden vine around the Temple wall, which symbolized God’s people, glowed in the moonlight. Pointing first to himself, then to the vine, Jesus says: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower ...”

In calling himself the true vine, Jesus implies a contrast. God’s people, the vine he had brought out of Egypt and planted in a new land, had not been true. Jesus had been true. His death the next day would be Jesus’ final act of faithful obedience to his Father’s will. He was calling the little band of friends accompanying him to imitate his faithfulness “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

  To do this, they must remain united with him. “Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.” The person who remains united with him, Jesus says, “will bear much fruit.”

“My Father is the vine grower,” Jesus says. He cares for the branches of his vine in two ways: by pruning those that bear fruit, and by cutting off and burning the unfruitful branches. Jesus’ words about these unfruitful branches being thrown into a fire and burned are an implied reference to Judas, who was even then betraying the Lord.

The vine grower’s treatment of the fruitful branches seems at first sight severe: “Every one that [bears fruit] he prunes so that it bears more fruit.” The image, easily understood by Jesus’ hearers, who were familiar with vineyards and grapes, is that of a gardener pinching off the new green shoots on a vine, so that all the growth can be concentrated in the few early blooming branches which the gardener has selected to bear fruit. 

Faced in life with setbacks, injustice, or suffering -- as all of us are, at some time or other -- which one of us has not asked: “Why me? What have I done to deserve this?” Jesus’ words in today’s gospel do not answer these questions. Instead his words challenge us to view setbacks, injustice, and suffering as opportunities to grow. He is inviting us to submit to the vine grower's pruning, and so to glorify him by producing abundant fruit.