Homily for 31 Mar 2019

31 Mar 2019

4^th Sunday of Lent, Year C

“The old things have passed away; behold, new things have come,” says Saint Paul.  We just have to be careful to hear what he’s actually saying. 

Saint Paul isn’t saying “bad things” have passed away.  He’s not saying “the past” has passed away, or that “useless things” have passed away.  He’s saying “the old” has passed away.  And, in just the same way, Saint Paul isn’t saying that “better things, worthier, more valuable and important things” have come.  He’s simply saying “new things” have come.

After Moses died and Joshua led the Hebrews into the Promised Land, the manna stopped coming.  The manna “passed away,” and God gave them new food to eat.  That’s all.  God didn’t stop giving his people the manna because it was bad, or because it was useless.  Manna was good, and it served God’s purposes.  But, then, being in the Promised Land, God had another idea in mind for them. 

When we talk about an “old person” passing away, we don’t mean that a “useless” person has passed away, or that a “bad” or “irrelevant” person has passed away.  We mean simply that an “old” person has passed away.  He or she lived a long life, and something new was in store for him or her, and it was time for that “something new” to start.

And I mention this because in today’s understanding of things the word “old” is so often taken to mean “useless,” or “bad,” or “irrelevant.”  And the word “new” so often means the opposite; it means: “good,” “important,” and “valuable.”  And that understanding of “old and new” affects almost every aspect of life, because everything—including us—is either new, or old, or getting older.  And so, there’s an unwritten judgment given to everything—not that things are old or new, but that they are good or bad, to be embraced or to be shunned... because things or people happen to be new or old.

And one aspect of life which we cannot avoid, and which is “old,” is the past.  And, you know, when you hear references to “the past,” they’re usually in the negative—not always, but most of the time.  The past is an anchor; it’s something to be freed from.  The past is where bad experiences and bad memories dwell.  The past haunts a person.  “Stop living in the past,” we might hear (especially in the Church).  And so on.  But that kind of approach to “the past” isn’t very helpful from a human perspective.  And it doesn’t really fit with the Christian mindset.  Our readings point this out.

After Moses had died and Joshua had led the Hebrews into the Promised Land, we know they celebrated the Passover.  But, you know, the Passover itself had happened forty years before (when they’d sprinkled the lambs’ blood on their doors; when death passed over them, and God saved them all).  That event had happened two generations earlier; the adults who’d been there at the Passover itself had mostly died in the exodus in the desert.  And the youngest generation of Hebrews hadn’t even been born yet when the Passover had happened.

So, there they were in the Promised Land, looking forward to a new life...but they were celebrating an event from the past.  They were celebrating it; they were memorializing it; they were cherishing their past.  Now, certainly, bad things had happened to the Hebrews while they were in Egypt.  But a tremendously good thing had also happened there: God had loved them and had set them free.  And so, they remembered God’s goodness in the past, and they celebrated his goodness in the present. 

Their past was the foundation, the reason why they knew themselves to be the beloved, chosen People of God.  Their past gave them their common identity.  For our ancestors in the faith, the idea of running away from the past, or discounting the past as irrelevant would be unthinkable; it wouldn’t make any sense at all.  And, as Christians, we carry that same mindset today.  Just think of what all we experience from the past, things that are “old”.

For example, the rituals we practice as Catholics are old, very old.  The Mass and the sacraments are incredibly old.  The teachings of the Apostles are even older.  So are the Scriptures.  And we come here every Sunday to participate in those very old things from the past.  But we do it because they’re an essential part of our identity as Catholic Christians. 

Just like Joshua and the Hebrews, we celebrate the Passover every Sunday.  Only, in our case, we celebrate, we remember, we memorialize the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God which was broken, and given and poured, to set us free.  Just think: As a country we celebrate Memorial Day once a year.  Well, as Catholics, we have our own memorial day every week.  We remember the self-sacrifice of Christ as that which gave us victory over sin and death.  The Cross of Jesus is our “flag” that we march behind. 

So the past is very important to us.  It’s old, but it’s hardly irrelevant; it’s essential to who we are.  And what we discover in celebrating certain events from the past, memorializing them, and—in some sense—reliving those events from the past, is that the past really isn’t the past at all.  In a very real sense, the past and the present are one. 

Think of some good things that have happened in your past as an individual.  Graduation from high school, the birth of a child, being in love, being in the top three at a competition.  Maybe it’s something simpler, like finishing a good book, or doing some woodworking, or remembering a beloved pet. 

Well, those good things from the past, the “old things”, have an effect on us—in the present.  We remember an experience, and we smile.  We remember departed loved ones, and our hearts are touched.  We remember our personal triumphs, and we feel pride and gratitude.  The past (both the good and the bad of it) affects us in the present.  The past is present.  And we remember, we celebrate, we memorialize and cherish past goodness—not because it’s “old,” but because it’s “good.”

Whoever said, “Don’t live in the past” maybe never had any goodness in his or her past.  Either that, or maybe they fell into the trap of believing that “old” means “useless”, and “new” means “good and worthwhile.”  Either way, it’s a sad saying: “Don’t live in the past.”  It’s a good thing we as Catholics don’t adhere to that, because if we did, we wouldn’t have any reason to be happy, we wouldn’t have any reason to be hopeful. 

And that’s because the promises we hope to see fulfilled (heaven, happiness, lasting love and life, and so on)...those promises were given to us in the past.  The Eucharist was given to us...in the past.  All the sacraments were given to us...in the past.  Life was breathed into each of us...in the past (it’s why we celebrate birthdays).  Our potential as individuals, as a people of faith, was given to us...in the past. 

We don’t “live in the past,” but we certainly “live the past.”  It’s an essential and good part of our present.  And it pushes us into the future, into tomorrow, and into eternity.  So, as Saint Paul says, “The old things have passed away, behold new things have come.”  And what he means is, “Good things have passed away, behold more good things have come.”  Things pass away, people pass away, events fall into memory.  But the goodness of them does not pass away.

Goodness is always an experience of the present.  And so, thanks be to God for the past, for the good things and people and events of the past, and the goodness from them that we enjoy in the present.  Most especially, thanks be to God for the goodness of the sacrifice of Jesus all those centuries ago.  It’s still a goodness we share in today: broken and poured out for the ages—the Bread of Eternal Life, and the Chalice of Everlasting Salvation.

Homily for 24 Mar 2019

24 Mar 2019

3^rd Sunday of Lent, Year C

It’s been a long winter: record low wind chills, snow, snow, and more snow, ice, blustery winds.  Our coats and our boots have been used quite a bit these past three months.  But with Spring very much upon us, I imagine some of us have already put our boots away, and are looking forward to going outside barefoot again.  And that’s an experience to enjoy, especially following months of having to keep our feet covered.

There’s something innocent and free, something real and honest about our bare feet touching the grass, or the dirt, or the sand.  And maybe that’s why God told Moses to remove his sandals, there by the burning bush.  God didn’t call the mountain there a “holy place;” he called it “holy ground.”  Moses was standing on holy ground.  And so it makes sense that God would say to him, “Take off your sandals and be in touch with the holy.” 

Our shoes are good, of course.  They protect our feet.  But if we don’t them off every now and then and go barefoot, we might forget what it’s like to be “innocent and free, real and honest” between our bodies and the earth.  But our shoes can also be a metaphor, they can be a symbol for our life with God, too.

Just think of the “shoes” we wear on our minds and on our souls.  If we’ve ever been hurt by someone, especially repeatedly, we might wear the shoe of mistrust toward that person.  And that can be a good thing, because it protects us.  Or maybe we have a shaky sense of ourselves, and so we might wear the shoe of self-defeating humor.  And, of course, these are just things we know as “defense mechanisms.”  Shoes are a defense mechanism, and we wear them on anything that might be vulnerable: our feet, our souls, our minds.

But if we wear those “shoes” over our soul and mind when it comes to God, well, it’s going to be a rather sterile relationship with him.  It’s why, whenever we come to God—in prayer, here at Mass, or whenever we encounter him in life—we have to take off our spiritual shoes, so we can be planted in him; so we can be in the most direct relationship possible with the life of our God.

You know, the first thing we do when come into church is we genuflect (or bow) before we sit down.  And that shouldn’t just be an automatic thing.  We do it because we’re coming into the presence of God, into the house of God—where he is God, not us.  And so, we take off any spiritual shoe we’re wearing that prevents us from acknowledging God as God.  That shoe might be pride, or arrogance, or a spirit of superiority over others.  It might even be an excessive piety where “what I do makes me holy.”  There are all sorts of spiritual shoes we can take off even before Mass starts, even before we step into the pew.

But we don’t that because God wants to “lord it over us” that he’s God and we’re not.  God wants us to take off our spiritual shoes because he wants us to play bare foot in the grass, to feel the joy of knowing him in our souls, to be free and unafraid to live in real faith, hope, and love. 

But, unlike the shoes we wear on our feet, it isn’t always easy to tell when we’ve taken off the shoes we wear on our mind and on our soul.  We don’t kick them off and see them lying on the floor.  But Jesus does mention a way we can tell if we’re at least beginning to walk barefoot on God’s holy ground.  And that’s through a spirit of repentance.

When you plant something in the ground, hopefully, something grows from it.  Well, when we take off our spiritual shoes and get more direct and honest with God, some good fruits begin to grow from within us.  And one of those fruits is a spirit of repentance.

Now, when we hear about “repentance” what enters the heart?  Maybe feelings of sorrow, guilt, heaviness.  Maybe an image of God’s finger pointing at you comes to mind.  Feelings of accusation, maybe unworthiness; maybe fear.  It certainly sounds bad when Jesus says, “If you do not repent, you will all perish.”  And fear is certainly a motivation for people to change their ways (in the Catholic world we call that “imperfect contrition”).

But, really, “repentance” refers to a change of mind or a change of heart.  It’s a much happier and more freeing experience than we might think.  For example, let’s say someone treated you badly twenty years ago.  And for twenty years you’ve been hanging on to that; it’s a dark mark in your personal history, and you hold a lot of resentment over what happened.  But then you realize it’s been twenty years—twenty years—and you want to let go of that anchor; you need to let go of it.  And so, you find it in your heart to forgive—not to excuse, but to forgive—and to move on.  Well, that’s repentance.  It’s a change of heart.  You step out from under the weight of it, and you feel a hundred times lighter.  The ability (or, at least, the desire) to do that is a fruit of being planted in God; of walking barefoot with God.

Another example might be just the opposite.  You find yourself walked all over by somebody.  He or she just tries to tear you down, to invalidate you as a person.  And you accept it...for a while.  But then God pokes at your conscience and he says, “You are worth more than that!”  And you agree with God.  And God compels you to stand up for yourself.  And so you put the bullies in their place—not in vengeance, but for the cause of your own God-given dignity and worth.  That’s another example of repentance.  It’s a change of heart.  It’s turning away from the sin of not respecting yourself.  You step out from under the oppression of others, and you feel alive again.

What God desires from us is repentance—not excessive guilt, not unending sorrowing and shame, and certainly not self-annihilation.  He desires repentance.  He wants us to take off our shoes—to take off anything that gets in between our souls and his grace and goodness, and he wants us to have a good and healthy “change of heart” with regard to everything.  A change of heart toward him.  A change of heart toward our friends, our neighbors, our “enemies.”  A change of heart toward our faith, toward the world.  A change of heart toward ourselves and who each of us in God’s eyes.

And that spirit of repentance is a good measure of how much we’ve followed the example of Moses, there at the burning bush, on that holy ground.  It’s a good measure of how much we’ve grown as sons and daughters of God.  From the Song of Songs [2:11], God says to each of us: “Arise, my friend, my beautiful one, and come!  For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.  The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come.”  And so has the time come to take off our shoes, to feel the dirt and grass of God’s holy ground between our spiritual toes, and to see what grows.

Homily for 17 Mar 2019

17 Mar 2019

2^nd Sunday of Lent, Year C

If you missed it, the word “exodus” appears here in the gospel.  I read it at least three times before that word stuck out to me.  And it’s curious because when we hear about “the exodus” we automatically think of Moses and all the Hebrews, wandering through the desert, out of Egypt and toward the Promised Land.  And, really, that’s what our reading from Genesis brings to mind: the Promised Land.

Only, here in the gospel, we’re not hearing about “the” exodus; we’re hearing about an entirely different one.  And that would be the “exodus of Jesus.”  And what’s fascinating is that it’s an exodus from the Promised Land (from Jerusalem and the whole surrounding region), and it’s a journey into yet another Promised Land.

When the Jewish people look back to their moment of freedom, they look to Moses and the desert.  But when Christians look back to their moment of freedom, we look to Jesus and to his own desert experience; namely, his Passion and Cross.

What Saint Luke is trying to get us to appreciate in his gospel is that, for us Christians, the Promised Land lies on the other side of the cross, on the other side of a life lived in service to God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Just as the Hebrews wandered through the desert all those centuries ago, we today we wander with, and struggle with, and also rejoice in...the Cross of Christ.

And, yes, sometimes (like the Hebrews) we complain about the cross, we sometimes feel the pain and the dryness of trying to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.  Sometimes we even grumble about the leaders God gives us to guide us through the desert experience of Christian discipleship.  And so, the “exodus of Jesus” is a real thing.  And we know it is because whenever we try to get on board with wherever Jesus is going, we feel both the thrill and the agony of it.

It’s like when we try to do something new and different—it’s exciting, but it can also be something of a trial.  Just think of some of the habits you might be trying to break this Lent.  Maybe you’re trying to cut back on gossip.  And that’s a thrilling idea!: ‘Alright, I’m going to actually be a disciple of Jesus....This let is going to be different.’  Then, half an hour later, there you are gossiping again.  It’s the thrill and agony of trying to follow Jesus in his exodus.

Or maybe you’re trying to be less gluttonous, or less judgmental of others, or whatever it is you’re working on.  You start out great—just the Hebrews leaving Egypt when they celebrated and all was good.  But then, before long, the exodus through the desert starts to get to you.  And then, well...I guess gluttony really isn’t that bad, and that person I called an idiot really was an idiot—what’s wrong with judging somebody when it’s true.

The exodus of Moses and the Hebrews was a physical move from a place of slavery to a place of freedom.  But the exodus of Jesus and us, his followers, is more a spiritual move—away from the “ways of the world,” and toward the “ways of God.”  But no matter which exodus we’re talking about, there are both successes and failures along the way.

And so, our journey with Christ isn’t just the experience of thrill and agony.  It’s more like: thrill, agony, thrill, agony, agony, thrill, thrill, agony, and so on.  We Christians are very much on a journey—it’s why the Church is called the “pilgrim Church.”  And we have lots of ups and downs in our exodus from sin to freedom, from darkness to light. 

Just think of Jesus carrying the cross, and how many times he fell under its weight.  For us, the cross is our attempt to make that shift in our lives from slavery to sin, to freedom in God.  It isn’t easy to do.  The exodus we’re on is not an easy journey.  And we’re going to trip and fall sometimes.  The challenge in that is to just get up and keep going.

And, really, we have lots of help with that challenge; help in the form of mentors, leaders, and friends in faith—some of whom are sitting around us, and some of whom are near to us in spirit: the angels, the saints, the faithful departed.  We have lots of help in this journey toward God, toward freedom, toward life, love, and fulfillment.

Saint Paul reminds us of this in his Letter to the Philippians.  “Our citizenship is in heaven,” he says.  So, “be imitators of me...and observe those who conduct themselves according to the model you have in us.”  And he says this in a spirit of camaraderie and friendship, and with hope that we’ll make it through our own exodus. 

Our help comes from so many “models” of Christian discipleship and Catholic living that God has given us.  Paul is one.  If we look at him, we’ll see that he tripped up several times—but he just renewed his trust in God and his desire to the right thing.  And, as we know, he’s the one who would go on to write: “I have competed well, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  So, Saint Paul is a help to us.

Or we could look at Saint Mary Magdalene.  A former prostitute (so legend goes), tempted by demons, certainly not a person you’d want to be associated with.  But she loved Jesus, and that’s what he focused on—her fundamental wish to be with him, to journey with him.  Mary Magdalene says to us, “Be not afraid of your past sins, but hand them over to Christ, who loved me and healed me, in spite of it all.  And he will love you, too.”

In the Church there are also countless spiritual writers; authors who share their own journeys of faith as an aid for us, people like: Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor, Dorothy Day, G.K. Chesterton, Henri Nouwen, among many others.  They’re all people who’ve attempted to “imitate” Christ, after the model of Saint Paul and all the Apostles and first disciples.  And they all have some wisdom to share with us, to help us as we try to imitate Christ in his exodus journey from darkness to light, from sin to freedom, from death to life.

The thing about this “exodus of Jesus” (or any journey) is that there’s both the journey and the destination.  The destination is the Promised Land we call Heaven.  And the journey is this way of life we call Christian discipleship, and conversion of heart.  But the journey and the destination are not separate from one another.  Heaven isn’t just a future promise; it’s also a present reality—a reality which is “already here, but not yet fully here.”  Every time we take a step toward what is right and just, toward what is good, true, and beautiful, we take a step into heaven—right here on earth.  And every time we fall, but trust in God’s mercy, we take yet another step into heaven—right here on earth.

The further we step away from everything that weighs us down and holds us back, the more we experience little rays of heaven—not only for the future, but even today.  It’s why Easter is such a glorious day!  We haven’t arrived yet (because next year we’ll have Lent again...), but we’ll have taken many positive steps toward our common goal, the goal of: real life, true and lasting happiness, unbreakable companionship with our Creator and all his creation, and love and joy and peace and fulfillment beyond anything we can dream up. 

But before we get there, we have to keep on our journey.  We have to keep moving forward with Jesus in his exodus, through the desert of Christian discipleship; not alone, but with many others to help us, and to inspire us, to keep going.  Even when we fall, to keep going.  Even when we’re triumphant, to keep going.  Always, with faith and hope, we keep going. 

Homily for 10 March 2019

10 March 2019

1^st Sunday of Lent, Year C

The world is not a bad place.  We hear it again and again in the Book of Genesis: God created the day and the night, and he called them good.  God make the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea, and he called them good.  God created everything, and he called it all good.  And, finally, God created the human person—male and female—in his image, and he called them very good. 

The world is not a bad place.  The Prophet Isaiah says that, too, in sharing the word of God, “The designer and maker of the earth who established it, not as an empty waste did he create it, but designing it to be lived in” (Isaiah 45:18). 

Even human love is good, and an image of heaven on earth.  The Song of Songs reminds us of that.  And even Jesus points to the goodness of that love when he refers to himself as the “Bridegroom,” and his Church as his “Bride.”  In fact, we hear that at every Mass: “Blessed are those called to the [wedding] supper of the Lamb”—those words are taken from the Book of Revelation (19:9).

Even such things as knowledge, science, and medicine are ways God helps us to share in his wisdom and goodness.  And so, the world is not only not a bad place, it’s a good place, where God’s blessings are all around us.

But what our scripture readings ask of us this weekend (and always) is to keep that goodness and those blessings in their proper place.  The world is good...but the world is not God.  We humans are good—very good...but we are not God.  And that’s the proper order of things we’re reminded of today: a world where there is faith—not in ourselves or in worldly things—but faith in God, above all things.

Of course, as we know, the devil prefers to mix up that order.  When the devil was tempting Jesus there in the desert, he (or she or it) was trying to persuade Jesus to ditch this idea of “faith in God.”  The devil said: “If you’re hungry, then just turn these stones into bread.  You can do it...you don’t need God.”  And then the devil said: “Everything can be yours—everything: power and glory here on earth.  But God’s not going to give it to you...you’re going to have to take that for yourself.”  And then, finally, the devil said: “Put God to the test.  You be his judge and see if he’s as true as he says he is.”

The devil would prefer that we just bracket God and put him away in the closet.  Or—better yet—if we would just throw him out with the trash, so we can get on with living “my” life, in “my” way, where “I” decide what’s going to happen to “me,” and no one is going to tell “me” what to do and how to live.  The devil would love that.

The world is not a bad place.  In fact, it’s a good place.  And we’re good, too.  Even our desires for companionship and love, our experiences of goodness and beauty, and our enjoyment of earthly “delights” are all good.  It’s all good.  But none of it can take the place of God.

And, you know, what this is is the ages-old struggle between “sacred” and “secular.”  When there’s a sense of the sacred, there’s also a sense of order and structure.  There’s God, and then all the things and people who belong to God.  Then there are those who reject God outright, and finally those things which are not of God—such as murder and idolatry, and the like.  But above it all—and circulating around and within it all—is God.

But when there’s no sense of the sacred, then there’s absolute secularism.  And that just means absolute worldliness, where “the world” and all its goodness (including us) push God right out of the picture.  It’s a world where it’s just us, floating in space on a planet.  And it’s not a happy place because there aren’t any universal laws or rules, no standards, no sense of harmony and cooperation—just competition.  But, hey, at least we’re the masters of our own little kingdoms—or queendoms, or whatever “I” want to call it. 

The challenge this Lent isn’t to throw out the world—because the world is good.  And the challenge isn’t to unite ourselves so closely with the divine in prayer that we forget about the world—because, again, God created the world and called it “good.”  Our challenge in Lent (and throughout life)  is to keep those two levels of our existence—the divine and the worldly—in harmony with one another, in balance, and in their proper order.

And that’s a reason why, during Lent, we really cut back on things here in church like music and flowers.  It’s partly in a spirit of penitence that we do that, and it’s also partly because we to make sure that we’re worshipping God alone above everything else we might encounter here at Mass.  We do it to keep things in their proper order: God first, then the people and things of God, and then everything else. 

Of course, this all sounds a lot like our talks in Advent about the Domestic Church: the idea of not only welcoming God into our homes, not only into the living room, but also into the kitchen and the bedroom (even the bathroom). 

In a sacred place—in a sacred world—there is still the world.  But...God is present in that world, through that world, and above that world.  As we continue on here in the first steps of this year’s Lenten journey, the Scriptures ask us to consider: How can I make my life more sacred?  Where is God in the order of my life?  And how can I rely more on him than on myself?