THE RELUCTANT PROPHET JONAH

Homily for Oct. 9^th, 2013: Jonah 4:1-11.

          For the last three days we have been hearing readings from one of the most remarkable books in the Bible: Jonah. Like Jesus’ parables and Shakespeare’s plays, Jonah is a work of fiction. But also like them, it contains profound truths about life. Indeed Jonah is an extended parable about God's mercy and his unlimited willingness to forgive.

The book begins with God’s call to Jonah to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. Unlike the other prophets, who obey God’s call, though in some cases reluctantly, Jonah’s response is, “No way.” He takes a ship going in the other direction from Nineveh. When a violent storm arises, the ship’s crew pray for deliverance. The only one not praying is Jonah, who remains asleep below. When the captain questions him he discovers that Jonah is fleeing God’s call. To appease God, they throw Jonah overboard. Swallowed by “a great fish,” who vomits him onto dry land after three days (the clearest indication of the book’s fictional character), Jonah now travels to Nineveh to preach repentance, though reluctantly. Nineveh symbolizes all the foreign nations who have oppressed God’s people. Jonah can’t stand the possibility that God will show mercy to one of Israel's enemies.

When Jonah tells the Ninevites they must repent, they do so at once. Whereupon God is merciful to them – and Jonah is burned up about it! In today’s first reading, we hearing him telling God of his anger. He is a sorehead! “Take my life,” he asks God. God remains merciful, however, even to his reluctant prophet. God provides a large-leafed plant to shelter Jonah from the sun’s heat. When the plant dies the next day, Jonah is angrier than ever. God has the final word: ‘You’re concerned about this plant, Jonah? And shouldn’t I be at least as concerned about all the people in this great city Nineveh?’

What is the takeaway for us? Simply this. God mercy and willingness to forgive are unlimited. When we resent God being good to people of whom we deeply disapprove, we’re like Jonah. And we’re also like another character in Holy Scripture: the elder brother in Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. His anger at his father’s welcome for his shiftless younger brother is like Jonah’s anger at God’s goodness to the Ninevites. It shows that though the elder brother has never left home, he too is in a far country, far removed from his father’s boundless love and willingness to forgive. God's mercy is not only for us. It is for all.

"MARY HAS CHOSEN THE BETTER PART."

Homily for Oct. 8^th, 2013: Luke 10:38-42.

          It seems unfair, doesn’t it? Even a child can see that it’s not right to leave your sister all alone in the kitchen while you make pleasant conversation with a guest. How can we make sense of the story?

          Before dealing with this question, it is worth noting that this is one of a number of instances in the gospels where Jesus rejects the second class status of women in his society. In Jesus’ day, only men were supposed to sit at the feet of a religious teacher and listen to his teaching. Women were supposed to stay out of sight and appear only to wait on the men. Jesus clearly rejects this double standard.

The story is not about the duty of hospitality. In Luke’s gospel it immediately follows the parable of the Good Samaritan, which we heard last Sunday. That told us we must always be ready to help others in need. Today’s story is shows the futility of active service which, because it is not based on attentive listening to God=s word, becomes mere busyness. When Jesus says to Martha, AYou are anxious and worried about many things,@ he is not criticizing her for performing the duties of hospitality, but for doing so without first attending to his word. Martha, we might say, is the kind of person who likes to go about doing good, especially the kind of good that requires a lot of going about. 

Jesus doesn’t ask us to choose between being a Mary or a Martha. The true disciple of Jesus must be both. Mark=s gospel tells us that when Jesus called his twelve apostles, he called them for two reasons: Ato be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message@ (Mk 3:14). Which is more important: to be with Jesus, or to proclaim his message others? Both are important. If we ask, however, which must have priority C the relationship or the work C then the answer is clear. Our relationship with the Lord must come first. If we are not willing to spend time with him, sitting at his feet like Mary of Bethany and listening to his words, then all our efforts to help others are just spinning our wheels. Luke gives us this story to challenge our priorities; to help us see that being with the Lord and listening to his word must be the basis of all we do for him – and for others.

That’s why we are here: to listen to the Lord speaking to us in his holy word; and to be strengthened for service to others by receiving his Body and Blood.

WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

Homily for Oct. 7^th, 2013: Luke 10:25-37.

          This well known story of the Good Samaritan was Jesus’ response to a question: “Who is my neighbor?” In other words: what are the limits to my obligation? Jesus never answers that question. Instead he tells a story about what it means to be a neighbor. And he concludes the story with a question of his own: “Which of these three was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” The answer is obvious: the Samaritan. But Jesus’ questioner can’t bring himself to say that hated word. Samaritans were despised by Jews. So he resorts to a circumlocution: “The one who treated him with mercy.” To which Jesus responds: AGo and do likewise.@ The man had asked about the limits of his obligation. The parable says in effect: >there are no limits.=

          How, we ask, can Jesus make such a radical demand? For one reason alone: because this is the way he, Jesus Christ, treats us. Jesus is the despised outsider. Jesus is the one who finds us lying mortally wounded along life=s way. For no merits of our own, but simply because of his infinite compassion, Jesus comes to our aid. He binds up our wounds, pouring upon us the healing oil of his forgiveness in the sacraments of baptism and penance, the exhilarating wine of his love in his holy word and in the Eucharist.

He entrusts us to the care of his Church, promising to come again and again as often as may be necessary, to tend to our every need. Because of this total generosity toward us in our need, a readiness to help which caused Jesus to lay down his life for us, he is able to say to us: ‘See how much I have done for you C look what I am doing for you even now! Then go and do the same for others.’       

The man who asks Jesus, AWhat must I do to inherit eternal life?@ is like many sincerely religious people today. Wanting to do what is right, he develops a spirit directly contrary to God=s law, even when he thinks he is obeying the law. His question, AAnd who is my neighbor?@ shows that he was unable to get beyond the law=s details. To be cured, he needed to encounter the Lawgiver. 

His name is Jesus Christ. 

WHAT GOD HIDES FROM THE LEARNED HE REVEALS TO THE CHILDLIKE

Homily for Oct. 5^th, 2013: Luke 10:17-24.

          We heard yesterday about Jesus sending out the seventy-two – in pairs so that they could support one another. In today’s gospel they return, glowing with excitement over the missionary success they have experienced. Jesus tells them that they have, however, an even deeper reason for joy: that their names are inscribed as citizens of heaven. In heaven there will be no demons to overcome, only loving union with God, who alone can satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts – desires which can never be satisfied in this world – not in the perfect marriage nor in the ideal friendship: and how many people have found either?

          Jesus then breaks out in a hymn of spontaneous praise to his heavenly Father. “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the childlike.” The wise and learned are those who fail to respond to Jesus, because they feel no need for God. Jesus’ disciples are the childlike, whose hearts and minds are open to the Lord.

          This division continues today. Who are today's wise and learned? They teach in our elite universities; they run the great foundations, with names like Ford and Rockefeller; they dominate Hollywood and the media. With few exceptions they consider the killing of unborn children whose birth might be an inconvenience to be a wonderful advance in humanity’s ascent from ignorance and superstition to enlightenment and freedom. They look down with scorn and disbelief on those who insist that life is precious at every stage: in the womb, but also in old age, when Grandma’s mind has gone ahead of her, and her meaningful life is over.

          So who are today’s childlike? We are! We pray in this Mass that our merciful and loving Lord may keep us always so: aware that we can never make it on our own; that we are dependent every day, every hour, and every minute on the One who came to show us what the invisible God is like; who always walks with us on the journey of life; and who is waiting for each one of us at the end of the road – to welcome us home!

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Homily for Oct. 4^th, 2013: St. Francis of Assisi.

          Why does a gifted young man, son of a wealthy merchant father, decide, on the verge of manhood, to exchange his privileged life for literal obedience to Jesus’ words to the rich young in the gospel: “If you would be perfect, go sell all that you have and give to the poor . . .  After that come and follow me”? (Mk 10:21, Mt. 19:21). That, in brief, is the story of the man we celebrate today: St. Francis of Assisi.

          Born in that central Italian town in about 1181, he was given the name John in baptism. When his father returned from a buying trip to France, he started calling his infant son Francesco, in English “Frenchy” or Francis. The boy’s youth was much like that of rich young men the world over, with one exception: he was always generous to the poor. One day in his early 20s, he encountered a leper. Though Francis had always had a horror of people with this disease, he was moved to stop, get off his horse, and kiss the leper.

          Praying one day in the tumbledown church of San Damiano, Francis heard the painted figure of Christ on the cross say to him: “Francis, do you not see how my house is falling into ruin? Go and rebuild it for me.” Some time thereafter Francis gathered costly fabrics from the family business, loaded them on his horse and sold both the cloth and the horse in the market. Returning to San Damiano on foot, Francis offered the proceeds of the sale to the priest, for the renovation of his church. When Francis’ father sued to regain his property, the case came before the bishop of Assisi, a man named Guido. He told Francis that he must make restitution. Whereupon Francis withdrew and returned to court carrying his expensive clothes and clad only in his underwear. From henceforth, Francis said, only God would be his father. 

          This was the beginning of a life as a wandering hermit and preacher, living in literal obedience to Jesus' words in the gospel. At his death in 1326 Francis had inspired over a thousand men to follow him. Francis never intended to found a religious order, and possessed no ability to organize it when it came. What he did have was the example of a gospel oriented life that continues to inspire people today – most recently the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires who, on his election as bishop of Rome on May 13^th of this year took the name of Francis as a sign of his determination to serve the poor.      

RESPECT LIFE!

Homily for Oct. 6th, 2013. 
27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.  Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4; Luke 17:5-10.

AIM: To show why abortion is wrong and to encourage efforts to defend life.

AHow long, O Lord? I cry out to you, >Violence!= but you do not intervene. ... Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and clamorous discord.@

How appropriate are these words of our first reading in the midst of political strife at home and continuing violence in the Middle East.

On this Respect Life Sunday our bishops ask us to reflect on another kind of violence: the violence inflicted on women in problem pregnancies by those who promise them a quick fix and leave them instead with a lifetime of guilt and regrets; the violence which in our country alone takes annually the lives of a million and a half babies before birth. This violence has become so common that it no longer shocks. Its proponents call it a sacred right, championing it as a great advance for women. Women who have undergone abortion testify that it is something else entirely: the exploitation of women by selfish, irresponsible men. 

Surveys show that many Catholics are confused by the propaganda of those who support this violence in our society. It is worth taking time on this Respect Life Sunday, therefore, to lay out, calmly but also clearly, the reasons why abortion is wrong. These reasons come not from religion, but from what medical science tells us about life=s beginning B something we all share in common. 
Defenders of abortion claim that the unborn are only Apotential life@, a part of the mother=s body which can be cut out, like tonsils or the appendix. Medical science tells a different story. It tells us that human life is present from the first moment of conception. This is how we all began. Although a pregnant mother does not normally feel the new life within her until the sixteenth week of pregnancy or later, already at the twelfth week of pregnancy what pro-abortionists claim is Amerely a group of cells@ to be disposed of at will can kick its legs, turn its feet, curl and fan its toes, move its thumbs, make a fist, bend its wrist, turn its head, squint, frown, suck its thumb, swallow fluid, and make inhaling and exhaling motions. Is that Apotential life@? or is that a baby?

A young couple who are dear friends of mine told me that months before the birth of their first child, a baby girl, they started talking to their child as they lay in bed, before going to sleep. They gave the baby a name. AWhat do you tell the baby?@ I asked. AWe tell the baby intimate things,@ they said, Aeverything we did that day.@ Those parents are not Catholics. They are not even Christians. They are happy pagans from Communist China. They knew, months before the birth, that it was a baby. That child was in our parish pre-school six years ago. She turned nine this August, a joy to all who know her.

Since the Supreme Court decision of 1973 it is now legal to kill pre-born babies for any reason at all, however trivial, right up to birth. The courts even refused subsequently to outlaw the killing of a baby during birth (called partial birth abortion). Congress finally outlawed this barbarous procedure. Several unelected judges decreed that it must continue.
How has society come to accept this widespread violence? In part through the clever use of language which disguises what is going on. Defenders of abortion never speak of its victims as babies. Instead they call them fetuses. That is a perfectly good medical term. Even doctors, however, listening to the heartbeat in the womb of a pregnant woman, tell her: AYour baby=s coming along fine.@ Only when she has decided she does not want the baby does it become something different: a Afetus@, an impersonal Ait@ to be disposed of at will. Until legalized abortion, the physician=s care embraced two patients: mother and her unborn child.  Now, at the mother=s request, he is expected to care for her alone, and kill her child. Thank God for the growing number of doctors who remain faithful to their medical oath: AFirst, do no harm.@

The most successful use of language to disguise what is at stake in abortion is the term Apro-choice.@ >We=re not forcing you to have an abortion,= say those who call themselves pro-choice, >but don=t try to impose your special morality on us.= Bumper stickers say it more succinctly: AAgainst abortion? Don=t have one.@  A century and a half ago the defenders of slavery in our country used the same argument. They too claimed to be pro-choice. We=re not forcing anyone to own slaves, they said. We=d just like to be left alone to own slaves ourselves. Slave-holders from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to Jefferson Davis were upright, respected pillars of the community. Pro-choice people today are also respected and powerful: they dominate our media, our universities, and the great foundations which fund good works. 

Slave-holders said: ADoesn=t a man have a right to do what he wants with his property?@ Pro-choice people today say: AA woman has a right to do what she wants with her body.@ This too has been put on bumper stickers. They say: AKeep your laws off my body.@ In both cases C slavery in the nineteenth century, abortion today C neutral language is used to conceal the fact that human lives are at stake. Then there are the bumper stickers I’ve already mentioned which say: AAgainst abortion?  Don=t have one.@ Would those who display that sign put on their cars another which said: AAgainst slavery?  Don=t own one.@ They=d be ashamed.

Is abortion really the great step forward for women claimed by those who call themselves pro-choice? Those who have undergone it testify that it is not.  Here is the testimony of one woman. She speaks for thousands like her.

AI was 17 years old and very promiscuous. I got pregnant and my friends helped me get an abortion. They took me to Medical Office where I lied about my age. They got me an appointment right away. I was at the end of my first trimester.  I went into the hospital by myself. I was put to sleep and I woke up in a room with another woman. She was crying and I tried to comfort her and I began to cry. I was told by the nurse to "shut up". I stopped mourning and didn't cry about my abortion for years to come.

AIt affected me because not only was I a tramp, but now I was a murderer also. I hated myself even more. Also, I had to keep it all a secret from my family. To this day, my family does not know about my abortion. It has affected my relation with my husband ‑ learning to trust him ‑ and my children. I feared abusing them and at the same time I was over‑protective.

AI have learned to trust God for my healing. I've attended Post-Abortion Seminars and I am a group leader for a Post-Abortion Seminar Bible study at our local Pregnancy Center. I have also shared my testimony at different times. It has made me distrustful, especially of men. I've learned to be more compassionate of sinners and the "hopeless". I'm always wondering what difference there would have been if I'd kept my baby. I'm sure it was a boy. He'd be 20 years old this year.@

No woman should have to undergo what she experienced. Women in difficulties deserve our support. Too often what they get instead is the message: AHere=s $300, honey. Get rid of it.@ That is from men who feel some responsibility. Many do not. Is it really surprising that surveys show the support for abortion to be stronger among men than among women? Or that much of the leadership of the pro-life movement comes from women?

We must also support women who have undergone abortion.  Listen to what Pope John Paul II said in his encyclical Evangelium vitae:  

AI would like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life.@

The struggle to defend life amid what Pope John Paul called C quite rightly C a culture of death has gone on for four decades in our country. Despite growing support for the pro-life cause, the end is nowhere in sight. We cannot sustain the struggle without prayer and faith. Jesus is speaking of the kind of faith we need when he says in today=s gospel: AIf you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, >Be uprooted and planted in the sea,= and it would obey you.@ That is hyperbole: deliberate exaggeration to drive home a point. No one is interested in planting a tree in the ocean. The salt water would kill it. Jesus= point is: with faith we can accomplish the impossible. 

The one who give us this faith is Jesus himself. Through his holy word and the Eucharist he nourishes and strengthens our faith when we grow discouraged and weak. 

 

"PRAY THE LORD TO SEND LABORERS FOR HIS HARVEST."

Homily for October 3^rd, 2013: Luke 10:1-12.

          Jesus has already sent out his twelve apostles, telling them to “take nothing for the journey.” They were to travel light, trusting not in material resources, but in God alone. (Lk. 9:1-5) He chose twelve, because the old people of God had twelve tribes. The Greek version of Genesis, chapter 10, lists 72 nations in the world. Just as the sending of 12 apostles symbolizes the founding of a new people of God, so the sending of the 72 in today’s gospel symbolizes the mission to the entire world. Jesus sends them in pairs so that they can support one another. His messengers are not Lone Rangers. We depend on one another. Here too, Jesus tells his messengers to travel light: “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals,” Jesus tells them.

          But why does Jesus tell them to “greet no one on the way”? He does so because the message he entrusts to them is urgent. There is story in the Old Testament about the prophet Elisha sending a messenger to bring back to life the only son of a barren woman to whom God has given a son in answer to Elisha’s prayer. Elisha tells the servant: “If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer” (2 Kgs 4:29). The servant’s mission was urgent: exchanging greetings on the way would delay him. So also here, with the 72.   

          As an encouragement to his messengers, Jesus tells them: “The harvest is abundant.” But they must “ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” There was a time when Catholic parents, mothers especially, were the primary recruiters of future priests. No longer. Ask any Vocation Director, and he will tell you: the major obstacle to priestly vocations today is parental opposition. How sad! In a day of small families, almost always the result of a conscious choice, parents want grandchildren. A son who goes to seminary and becomes a priest will not give them grandchildren. But he will have hundreds of spiritual children. That is why Catholics call their priests “Father.” Speaking for myself, I can tell you that I not only pray for priestly vocations. I tell anyone who will listen that priests who are happy are among the happiest men the world. I know, because I’m one.

          We pray in this Mass therefore, that the Lord will help many of our young people to hear and heed the call of the Good Shepherd, to serve him and his holy people as priests, religious Sisters, and Brothers.

THE HOLY GUARDIAN ANGELS

Homily for Oct. 2^nd, 2013: Holy Guardian Angels.

          Today’s memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels reminds us of an important truth of our Christian and Catholic faith. The world in which we live, which we entered at birth and which we shall leave at death, is surrounded by another world which, though we cannot see it, is every bit as real as the world which we see, touch, hear, and feel. This other world is spiritual. It is the world God, the angels, the saints, and our beloved dead. Though invisible, this spiritual world is not only as real as the visible world all around us. It is in truth more real than that world. For the world we see is passing away. The unseen, spiritual world is not passing away. It is eternal. Moreover, this spiritual world is our true homeland. St. Paul tells us this when he writes in his letter to the Philippians that, because of baptism, “we have our citizenship in heaven” (3:20).

          The Catechism says: “The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal [that is, not bodily] beings that Sacred Scripture calls ‘angels’ is a truth of faith” (No. 328). And the Catechism goes on to quote St. Augustine, who says that “angel” is the name of their office: it tells us what they do. Their nature is spirit; in other words, they are not bodily but spiritual beings. “With their whole beings,” Augustine writes, “the angels are servants and messengers of God.” (No 329) They appear often in Scripture. The angel Gabriel told Mary, for instance, that she was to be the mother of God’s son. The Catechism quotes the 4^th century Greek Father, St. Basil, who writes: “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life” (No. 336).

          Whenever, then, we are in danger; whenever we are strongly tempted, it is a joy to know that we can pray with confidence: “Holy guardian angel, protect me and keep me safe! Amen.”