Homily for 31 Jan 2016

31 January 2016

4^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The two friends sat down opposite one another.  They were still relatively new at getting to know each other, but a line had been crossed, and so they needed to sit down and talk about it.  And the one friend said to other, “I can’t put up with this anymore.  I think you’re a good person; but you have to stop doing this.”  And the friend said, “Ok, I’ll try.”  To which the other replied, “Thank you; because the way things are now, we couldn’t be friends for very long.”  And, as it happened, the warning went unheeded.  The friendship ended.

Now, right in the middle of this story is the idea of “prophecy.”  A prophet isn’t necessarily a mystical person who sees into the future, and has all sorts of hidden knowledge of things.  Most often, a prophet is just somebody who’s able to look at a situation and interject the truth of things into that situation.  A prophet is somebody who “speaks the truth in love.”

We see that happen in this story of the two friends.  The one friend said: “The way things are now, we couldn’t be friends for very long.”  There’s a situation they’re in, and that one friend is able to see the obvious truth of things . . . that if the relationship didn’t change, it would necessarily come to an end.  Just then, that friend was a prophet to the other; speaking the truth in love.

And that’s a characteristic of all the prophets we encounter in Scripture.  There’s Jeremiah, whom we heard from today; and Isaiah and Ezekiel, Moses, Elijah and Elisha, Zechariah, and a whole bunch of them.  Jesus was a prophet; he spoke the truth in love; he could look at the situation of humanity and see where it was going.  No magic involved.  And it’s a characteristic of all prophecies that they can be accepted or rejected.      

When God sent the prophets out, he told them straightaway: Expect resistance.  The Lord said it very clearly to Jeremiah: “They will fight against you.”  And, of course, Jesus knew that his words of truth and love would be resisted.  I don’t imagine it surprised him in the least to be rejected there in the synagogue at Nazareth.  There’s always the risk of rejection and ridicule when we try “to speak the truth with love;” when we try to be a prophet.  But it’s a risk the prophet takes because he or she speaks with love.

Christ calls us to love God, and to love another.  And so, the idea of “prophecy” is just part of life for us, because love is a part of life for us—it’s the greatest thing, according to St Paul.  Sometimes, the best way to love somebody is to take the risk and speak the truth to them (and for them).  You know, if we see a friend or a loved one who’s making some poor choices in life (let’s say, with drugs), it’s prophetic of us to say, “Hey, if you keep doing drugs, you’re going to fry your brain or end up dead—I’m just telling you (because I care about you).” 

Or, say somebody is being a grouch at work, and it’s affecting others, it’s prophetic of us to say, “You know, I see you’re grouchy all the time—what’s up?”  They may not even know it.  But a little bit of prophetic truth and love might snap them out of it.  Of course, the flip side of being a prophet for others, is to let others be a prophet to us.  And that’s maybe just as a hard as speaking the truth with love, because hearing the truth with humility isn’t something that’s easy.

You know, in the Church, there are dwindling numbers of priests.  And there dwindling numbers of parishioners.  Things are kind of on a downward trend.  And that’s just the truth of the situation.  And that prophetic word is hard to hear.  It’s hard to hear.  But it’s spoken with love so that the Christian people will wake up and realize that a new course must be taken.  Prophecy nudges us (and even pushes us) onto another path.

But there’s always the question: “Who do you listen to?”  There are prophets all around us, on the internet, in the news, in politics, in the Church who are trying to “read the signs of the times” and offer direction.  “Who do you listen to?”  That’s always a good question.

Now, I’ve always found libraries to be neat places.  And one day when I was going into the library, it hit me that: I don’t have to agree with everything that’s in these books.  And that sounds so obvious, but it was like a revelation at the time.  Not everything in a book (not everything on the internet) was necessarily true.  And that just opened the world up; of course, it made things more confusing, too, because I had to answer that question: “Who do you listen to?  Who has the truth?  Who is really speaking prophetic words?”

And to help with that, it’s important to have teachers in our life; people we really trust—because they’re good, loving, honest, humble.  Even as adults, we need teachers.  Hopefully, you can trust the Church to be a teacher about who’s a good person to listen to, and who’s maybe not the best person to listen to.

Besides that, check other people out.  If you hear a politician say something that sounds prophetic, see what his or her background is.  Are they qualified to make such a statement about “the signs of the times?”  Do they genuinely have the best interests of the common good at heart?  Are they humble?  Are they themselves open to correction?  If somebody’s trying to be a prophet to you, check ‘em out.

But, of course, that also requires us to do our homework.  Now, this is the start of Catholic Schools Week, and one of the tools we’re hopefully teaching ourselves and our youth is the skill of critical thinking.  For example, study history; look at the big over-arching themes and movements of ages past, and see if history is repeating itself today.  If it is, then we can interject some truth where maybe there needs to be some.

Study logic.  Learn about the ways arguments are formed, and what (objectively) makes for a solid argument, and what makes for shaky arguments.  Some truths people might try to sell us look good.  But if we see their argument is full of holes, the whole thing falls apart—that’s a clue: “Don’t listen to that person.”

Study human nature.  You know, it’s one thing to see the truth about something.  And it’s another to prophesy that truth to someone with love.  Study human nature to see how people react when something they don’t want to hear is brought to their attention.  It helps when you’re trying to be a prophet to someone else with love.

There’s no quick answer (that I know of) to that question: “Who do you listen to?  Or which prophets in the world should I pay attention to?”  There’s no one-size-fits-all answer.  But, as I said, it’s important to have a teacher we can trust.  And we have that in the person of Jesus Christ.

Even though the Jews there in the synagogue couldn’t appreciate the prophetic word of Jesus, hopefully we can.  After all, he speaks the truth to us with love.  We know that in faith.  He and we are, perhaps, like those two friends sitting across from one another.  A prophetic word is spoken in love.  But will we listen?  Will we listen . . . and respond?  

Homily for 30 Jan 2016

30 January 2016

Catholics have a long history of learning.  We’re usually pretty good students of Jesus: learning about morality and social justice, what’s right and what’s wrong, keeping track of the Ten Commandments and just generally trying to figure out how to live a good Christian life.  And, in that respect, we’re very much like the disciples in the boat with Jesus.

The boat starts to rock on the sea, while Jesus is sleeping there.  And they say, “Teacher!”  Teacher!  And our lives start to rock a little bit, and Jesus seems far away.  And we say the same thing: “Teacher!”  After all, we want to know how to overcome the storms in our life.  We try to wrestle life with knowledge.  And, certainly, that’s an important tool.

But Jesus is trying to teach his disciples (and that includes us) that most basic tool of the Christian life—and that is . . . faith.  Not faith in the head, not even faith in the heart.  But living faith in the here and now; no matter what’s happening.  And that’s a hard lesson to learn, because we’re always trying to be “awake” in the boat; we’re always trying to be alert to the ups and downs of life.

Instead, Jesus asks us to see him not only as our Teacher, but as our Divine Cushion.  And he says: Don’t worry . . . just come and rest with me.  Have faith in me . . . come, and rest. 

Homily for 29 Jan 2016

29 January 2016

Psalm 51 is an honest psalm: “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness . . . I have done such evil in your sight.”  And what else would we feel in our heart but that one line: “Turn away your face from my sins” . . . turn away, don’t look!  I’m too ashamed; I’m too embarrassed of my mistakes.

But, of course, that was part of David’s problem after he committed adultery; he didn’t want his sin to be known.  He kept it from the Lord.  And so, it only compounded and got worse . . . kind of like a sliver that gets in your finger—a sliver that hurts too much to pull out, and so just leave it there.

But, to that situation, Jesus says: “Pull the splinter out, even if it hurts.  Get it out so you can heal.”  And that’s what he tells us when it comes to our sins.  He says, “Let me see what you’ve done.  Tell me what you’ve done.”  Of course, what we want to say is: “Turn away your face from my sins, Lord . . . turn away, don’t look!”  But Jesus, like the loving person he is, will keep on saying: “Let me see.”

And then there, when we open ourselves to the Lord and just tell him whatever’s weighing on our hearts and mind—there, in that intimate sharing and trust between two friends, life is renewed.  Integrity of spirit is renewed.  Peace of mind and joy in the soul are refreshed.

All because we said: “Lord, look what I’ve done.  Lookit!  Have mercy on me Lord, have mercy.”  And he does.  Thanks be to God, he does.          

Homily for 28 Jan 2016

28 January 2016

God’s voice is like a whisper.  You’d think it would be loud and brilliant—all that glorious truth and wisdom and love God has to share.  But, no.  God’s voice is like . . . a whisper.

And Jesus says (again): “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.”  And those “ears for hearing” don’t happen by accident.  It takes practice to catch the whisper of God and then hold it in our minds and hearts.  Kind of like blowing bubbles and trying to catch one of them on your finger . . . it takes practice, patience, and a gentle touch.

Now, St Thomas Aquinas wrote volumes and volumes of books and other theological writings in the 13^th Century.  His output was enormous.  And his work had a very great impact on the mind of the Church.  But all that writing, all that thinking about what is true and good and beautiful began always in the quiet of prayer.

Today, of course, it’s not a terribly popular thing to be still, to be quiet—even in the Church.  And daily life can make it near impossible.  But if we want to really hear God and follow him, we have to make some time in our life to be quiet with him.  And that’s because God’s voice is like a whisper.  And quietness of mind and heart give us those “ears to hear” that all-important whisper of God.

Homily for 27 Jan 2016

27 January 2016

This doesn’t sound like the Jesus we know and love . . . He sounds kind of exclusive here, talking about people “in the know” and other people being on the “outside.”  And not only that, he says he speaks in parables “so that [the outsiders] may not be converted and be forgiven.”  Whatever happened to: “Jesus loves you”?

Of course, Jesus the Lord of Love and Prince of Peace is still there.  Jesus does love us and everybody.  And yet, he throws a curve-ball in here: why would Jesus make it difficult—if not impossible—for some people to know and enter the Kingdom of God?  That just doesn’t sound like Jesus.  But, in another sense, it’s exactly what Jesus would say.

After all, he speaks in parables.  And this is a parable within a parable: the “Parable of the Outsiders” (let’s call it) hidden within the “Parable of the Sower and the Seed.”  And the Parable of the Sower and the Seed gives us the answer to our questions why Jesus talks about “outsiders” and why he speaks in riddles “so that they may not be converted and be forgiven.”

The “outsiders” are those whose hearts and souls are like “ground choked by thorns.”  “Worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things” makes Jesus and the Kingdom foreign to them.  And so, whatever Jesus says to them is going to sound like a riddle to their ears.  Jesus says: “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.”  Well, the “outsiders” don’t have the ears . . . they refuse to listen to Jesus, and so they put themselves “on the outside.”

And we might object (or others might) and say that Jesus would still welcome them, and not work to keep them out.  And, no doubt, that’s true.  Jesus calls everybody to himself.  But he and the Kingdom have to be freely accepted and sought after—with all humility, trust, and faith in Christ.  There’s no other way to enter the Kingdom, and God will not compromise the very nature of the Kingdom . . . even if it means that those whose hearts and minds are filled with thorns and rocks are left . . . unconverted and unforgiven.

God will not compromise on his expectations of humanity—the expectation to love God and love our neighbor; the expectation to meet him with the same humility, love and faith he shows us.  Our God expects good things from us—for his glory and for our good.  Jesus will never compromise on whatever is for the good for his people.  And that sounds like the Jesus we know and love; the Jesus who speaks words of wisdom, and leaves the choice to follow him . . . up to us.

Homily for 26 Jan 2016

26 January 2016

God makes himself known through the community; there isn’t any one person who can say, “I have it all figured out!  I know the Will of God!”  God doesn’t work that way.  And that’s a unique and beautiful aspect of the Judeo-Christian faith. 

We have all the prophets of the Old Testament, all the Patriarchs, a succession of Judges and Kings.  Even Moses had Aaron and Joshua by his side; he didn’t go it alone.  Of course, we have the Twelve Apostles, Mary and Joseph, and those first leaders of the infant Church who were appointed by the Apostles—among them, Timothy and Titus, whom we celebrate today.

God works through the community of believers, and through the generations of believers and converts to the faith.  St Paul praises the faith of Timothy’s mother and grandmother.  And he calls Timothy and Titus his “children” in the faith; the revelation of Jesus Christ was passed on through Paul, through Timothy and Titus, and onto all the future generations of Christ’s disciples, up to the present day.

And just think of all the spiritual writers and examples through the centuries: St Theresa of Avila, St Thomas Aquinas, St Augustine, St Francis, St Benedict . . . and even more contemporary examples: Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, the Second Vatican Council, bishops, priests, deacons, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.

God reveals himself through the community (and we could extend that community to include the whole of Creation).  Our spiritual life isn’t just: “God and me.”  It’s always: “God and me, God and us.”  We always try to live as brothers and sisters in Christ, for our own sake and for the generations to come.

Thanks be to God for the Church, for the community of believers.  Because through it, our God comes to us, and we come to know God.

Homily for 24 Jan 2016

24 January 2016

3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

For a little over a century now, there’s been a push in the Church toward “active participation.”  We first hear that phrase in 1903 with Saint Pius X.  And it’s been repeated by every pope ever since, especially Pius XII in 1947, and also the Second Vatican Council in 1963.  And this call for “active participation” has something to do with this very familiar image St Paul gives us: the Church—the community of the faithful—as “many parts of the one body.”

What Pius X saw was a bunch of people gathered for worship, but they didn’t worship or live or act as a “body.”  Everybody was doing their own thing.  The clergy were doing their thing; the laity were doing their thing; and there wasn’t a lot of conscious attention given by either of them to what they were doing.  Pius XII characterized the people in the pew as “unthinking, silent spectators.”  That’s not who they were supposed to be; it’s who they were in reality.  The functioning of all the “many parts of the one body” of the faithful just wasn’t there.

And so, with the Second Vatican Council, we hear (again) the idea that all the faithful are called to “fully conscious and active participation.”  And we could talk for days about exactly what that means, but in the context of St Paul’s letter today, we might say that “fully conscious and active participation” means: “each doing his or her own part as members of the one Body of the Faithful;” each doing his or her own part as citizens of an intentional society of Christians.

There are a lot of parallels we can make, of course, between the idea of a “body” and the idea of a “society,” or “civilization.”  At some point in our schooling, we learn about all the parts of a body: the head, the heart, the bones, the muscles—and how they all work together as one.  They have a common goal in mind, and they each affect the other.  The human body is a “system,” or rather, it’s a “system of systems.”  It’s very complex in how it all works together.

But we can say the same about a society or a civilization.  If we look at any city, what do we have?  The Mayor, the City Council, laws and regulations, public works departments, business districts, residential districts, infrastructure, people, tradition and customs, history . . . a lot of parts in that one city.  Of course, a city is also a “system of systems;” it’s a “society of many societies.” 

We, as the “many parts of the one body” of the faithful, are like a city; we’re like a society.  We have our leaders: Jesus, Mary, the whole body of the angels and saints.  We have laws and regulations and teachings: Canon Law, the Catechism, our Liturgical Rites, the words of Scripture.  And there’s the local districts (the diocese) and neighborhoods (parishes) within that diocese.  We have our traditions, customs, values, beliefs, and practices.  And, most importantly, we have the one Holy Spirit who binds everybody together under a common vision of salvation, and the bonds of peace and charity.

And that’s a beautiful thing—this “body” we’re each a part of; this “society of Christians” that we each have a role to play in.  Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way.  Some of us are more-or-less “actively participating” in the life of this sacred body.  And the reasons are many: here’s some reasons why there might be less participation:

Perhaps, there’s the impression that God has failed them in some way.  Or maybe there are problems with the Church herself: the community itself can be a reason to pull away.  You know, there can be issues with others’ personalities, issues with Church teachings, poor preaching, poor pastoral care . . . all sorts of reasons why the body of the faithful itself can be a deterrent to “fully conscious and active participation.”

One reason for less participation in the body of the faithful that I find especially interesting is the tension between “mystery” and “familiarity.”  If the image of the Church and God and humanity is so esoteric and mysterious, so as to be totally foreign, well, that’s a reason to not be an active member of the body.  On the flip side, if the image of the Church and God and humanity is so ordinary and everyday, so as to be too familiar, well, that’s also a reason not to be an active member of the body—there’s no challenge; it’s just another gathering of people of Sunday . . . which we could easily do at the mall or somewhere else where it’s more fun and interesting.

There are a lot of reasons why we might be less than “consciously and actively participating” as members of the “one body.”  And those are things we can each wonder about for ourselves.  But two other reasons are especially important, and they’re reasons which we have a lot of control over.

The first is that, you know, we don’t live in monasteries.  We don’t live in physical communities where everybody’s basically on the same page, and we’re all moving together toward a common vision of humanity.  That’s not how we live . . . here in the parish.   We live out in the world; we’re scattered around, and we’re exposed to a lot of other bodies, other cultures, other value systems and other ways of thinking and believing.

Ever since about the 16^th Century, people have begun to question the very idea of religion.  One philosophy (which is still very much alive today) is Rationalism.  And it says that religion is just a human concept; that there is no foundation in truth.  In other words, “There is no God.  Don’t waste your time.”  I encountered that in college.  There was a room of a couple hundred students and the professor said: “When it comes to Christianity, don’t get suckered by it.”  Of course, I’m sure we all know skeptics who try to undercut our Catholic values and principles and customs—and that affects us; we don’t live in a bubble, after all.

But we have some control with that.  What we let into our minds and our hearts is up to us.  We have a choice to say: “Yea, this other person is right and the Church, the body of the faithful is wrong.”  We could say that.   But then we probably shouldn’t be professing faith in the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”  Our faith in the Church—our faith in the community of believers—means that we live in the world, but always as a “conscious and active” member of that community.    

And a second reason for us to be less-than active is that all that we do as a part of the community of the faithful is done in response to an encounter with God.  Our Christian life, our worship is a response.  Of course, if we haven’t encountered God (at least, knowingly), what is there to respond to?  That’s a reason why some might pull away from the body: they’re not connected to the heart of the body, Jesus Christ.

And here’s where the wisdom of the Prophet Nehemiah comes in.  He says: “Rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!”  That’s our source of eternal health and vitality as the Body of the Faithful.  And not just in the fact that there is a Lord, but in our personal response to him.  You know, our relationship with Jesus—our trust in him, our faith and hope in him, our love for him—it isn’t just a nice thing to have.  It’s the thing we all have in common . . . it’s the glue, it’s the mortar in between the bricks, it’s what makes us the many parts of the one living body of the faithful.

And, ultimately, that’s what Pius X and Pius XII and the Second Vatican Council were talking about when they renewed that call from Christ to be “fully conscious and actively participating.”  To be aware of God; to actively love the Lord in heart, mind, and body; and to participate as a living member of God’s body at work on earth.  The popes were right: it isn’t enough to be an “unthinking, silent spectator.”  We’re called to something more; we’re called—each of us—to be one of those many parts of the one, living Body—the Body of believers . . . here and in the world.