Being childlike

14^th Sunday in OT Year A 2017:

You have hidden from the wise and the learned, but you have revealed to little ones.  This isn’t the first time that Jesus has made this point in the gospel.  He has told us before: humble yourselves like little children.  Children are remarkable in their honesty, their loving nature, their innocence, their reliance on others.  These qualities are certainly admirable.  All of us should aspire to being more honest, loving, innocent, and reliant on God.

But, what I find interesting about today’s gospel, Jesus says that the mysteries of God are revealed to the little ones, and not to the wise.  So, if we want to know more about God, if we want to know God better, we need to be little ones, not the wise and the learned.

I think that’s because when we are wise and learned we make things too difficult.  But, when we are child-like we can see things more clearly.

My first year here at St. Jude we had a meeting for all the kids and parents who were receiving first communion.  Part of my job at the meeting was to go over all the thing necessary for receiving Holy Communion.  So, everyone knows you have to fast for 1 hour before receiving communion.  This means no food or drink other than water or medicine for one hour before receiving communion.  Also, we should not come forward to receive Holy Communion if we are aware of grave sins.  Rather, we should go to confession before receiving communion.  So, I was asking the kids about these requirements.  So, I was asking the kids about eating before communion, and they got all that right.  Then I said something like: what about sin?  Is that good?  No, they all said.  If we do sin, where do we go.  I was trying to get them to say: confession.  But, I was making it all complicated. Where do we go if we sin?   So one kid raised her hand and said: we go to hell.  Wow.  She certainly wasn’t wrong.  I said, “youre right, we would go to hell.  Does anyone want to go there?  No, of course not.  So,” I said, “is there a place we can go to receive forgiveness?”  Yes, confession they all said. 

That little child taught me an important lesson.  First, she taught me to be more careful when I’m asking the kids questions.  But, second, she taught me: sin leads me to hell, communion and confession lead me toward heaven.  What a profound insight!  I’ve taken dozens of theology classes.  I’ve read books on mercy, books on sin, books on confession.  I’ve heard lectures, I’ve given lectures, I’ve done it all.  This sweet, innocent child revealed to me the mysteries of the kingdom.

Sometimes we make it all too complicated.  But, God reveals himself to the childlike.  So, this week make sure it’s not complicated.  Just listen to Jesus: come to me, and I will give you rest.  My yoke is easy, my burden light.  Jesus did not come to earth to make our lives worse.  He didn’t come here to give us huge burdens.  He came to give us life, to give us freedom, to give us himself.  But, we can make things so complicated that we can miss the presence of Christ in our lives. 

So, my advice this week is not complicated or difficult.  Simply spend some time with God.  Spend some time with your Father in heaven.  Be a little child.  Don’t make it complicated.  Just go to God and tell him what you need.  Here the voice of Jesus tell you: come to me and I will give you rest.  The whole spiritual life is built on prayer.  And the most necessary thing for a good life of prayer is humility.  Go to God like a little child and let him reveal to you the mysteries of the kingdom. 

Take up your cross?

13^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A:

What does it mean to be Christian?  Sometimes we focus so much on details that we can forget about some of the basics.  Normally when we try to answer: what is a Christian, we might start to mention a number of actions Christians should do: loving, kind, generous, etc.  And, all of that stuff is true.  But, these actions don’t answer the question: what is a Christian?  We might also so: a Christian is a person who believes in Jesus Christ.  This is also true, but not quite complete.

I would answer the question like this: a Christian is a person who lives in Christ, with Christ, and seeks to be like Christ.  A Christian is a person who is united to Jesus, but also a person who is trying to live just like Jesus lived.  A Christian has the mind of Christ, the heart of Christ.

Only in this context can we understand the words of Jesus.  He says some serious things today in the gospel: whoever loves father, mother, son, or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.  Take up your cross and follow me.  Jesus is not telling us to stop loving our family members.  Jesus is not telling us to take up our cross simply because he enjoys our suffering.  Rather, his words come in the context of what it means to be Christian: we are called to be in union with Christ and living like Christ.  Now, of course, a Christian loves his/her family members, but that love is guided and shaped by our living relationship with Christ.  We embrace our sufferings, not because we enjoy pain, but because our cross helps to cure us of our innate selfishness.

So, being a Christian is more than just a program for living, more than just a set of guidelines and principles.  Being a Christian means a major change in our lives.  It means Christ is the heart and center of all that we do.  But, how many of us can say that?  I know I struggle, even as a priest, to make Christ the heart and center of my life.  Sinfulness and selfishness can creep in all the time.

But, this is not a new problem.  St. Paul was addressing it with the Romans 2000 years ago: you should consider yourself dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus.  This is a pretty amazing line if you really stop to think of it.  How much different would our lives seem if we were truly dead to sin, all sin, all day, every day?  It would be an amazing change. 

After high school I started helping out with a youth group over at St. Pat’s downtown.  This youth group was called “The dead theologians society.”  Now, this is dating me a little bit, because the name was kinda borrowed from the Dead Poets Society, which is a movie that is close to 30 years old now…  But, the idea of this youth group was that each week we would gather to study the life of a saint or theologian.  This gave us a great exposure to some of the wonderful theologians and saints of the history of the church.  But, I was struck by the motto of the club: it was mortuum mundo, vivum in Christo.  This is Latin for: “dead to the world, alive in Christ.”  This motto is based on this line from St. Paul.  Christians are called to be alive in Christ, but dead to sin.  This motto has stuck with me over the years.  If we want to be alive in Christ, then we need to turn our back on sin.

So, Christians are called to be like Christ, called to be in union with Christ.  The life of a Christian is anything but boring or plain.  Rather, we are called to be truly alive.  Yet this life is certainly different than what the world would hold dear.  Jesus’ words might strike us a strange today.  But, for those truly alive in Christ, these words cause us no problems whatsoever.  Therefore, let us all take up our crosses and follow after Christ; let us live up to our calling as Christians to die to sin and to be alive in Christ Jesus our Lord.  We do this not because Christianity is about following weird rules.  We do this because we want to be united to Christ, we want to be like Christ, so that we can live with him forever.

Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi 2017:

Today we celebrate the feast of the Lord’s Body and Blood.  This special feast gives praise and honor to God for the very gift of the Eucharist.  It’s an interesting feast.  Normally we celebrate the Eucharist to venerate the great feasts of our Church year, like Easter, Christmas, Pentecost.  But this feast is meant to foster devotion to the Blessed Sacrament itself.

This feast dates back to the 12^th century, when a young Belgian Nun named Juliana had a great love and devotion to the Holy Eucharist.  She felt called and challenged to ask the Church to celebrate a feast day devoted to the Holy Eucharist itself.  The bishop of her diocese agreed and started a feast day in that diocese.  It became more popular and was eventually made a universal feast in 1264 by Pope Urban IV.  This feast is meant to foster devotion and love for the Holy Eucharist.  But, believing in the Holy Eucharist has always been difficult for human beings.  Today in the gospel we hear “how can this man give us his flesh to eat.”  And, I know this is something we still need to do even in our days, because if the polls are correct, even lots of Catholics either don’t know about or don’t believe in the Holy Eucharist, which is quite sad if you ask me.  How can he give us his flesh to eat?  What is the Eucharist?

The Holy Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ.  He gave us this precious gift the night before he died on Holy Thursday.  He continues to feed us with the Eucharist through the ministry of the apostles and their successors.  At this mass, and at every Mass, simple elements of bread and wine are changed by the very power of the Holy Spirit.  This mass and every mass is truly a miracle.  Jesus gives us his flesh to eat.  Jesus feeds us on our journey of life.

On this Corpus Christi Sunday we hear about Moses in the desert in our first reading.  The story of Moses and the people of Israel being freed from Egypt is one of the most important stories in human history.  God’s people were suffering mightily.  God chooses to intervene.  So he sends Moses to be his servant.  Moses leads the people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea.  He guides them in the wilderness.  And leads them to the Promised Land.  Indeed, God worked many wonders for his people.  But, one of the most important: God fed them with Manna from heaven.  You see, it wasn’t simply enough for God to free Israel.  He also took care of their needs in the desert.  He gave them food for the journey.  Without this food they never would have made it to the Promised Land.

Christian writers have seen this story of Moses as being a great parallel for the story of each human soul.  All of us are born with the burden of Original Sin.  All of us are born as slaves to sin.  But, God sent his son to be the new Moses.  Jesus leads us out of sin by his death, and we enter into his death through the waters of baptism.  And where is he leading us?  He’s leading us to the Promised Land of heaven.  So, he freed us in baptism and he’s guiding us to heaven.  What about now?  Our life here on earth is like the time the Israelites spent in the desert.  It’s a journey.  And you know what, sometimes is quite hard.  Sometimes it might feel like we are lost, wandering, and struggling.  I know I feel that way sometimes.  And without food for the journey, we wouldn’t be able to make it.  Jesus knew that, so he gave us that food, he gave us the Eucharist.

I’m a big fan of Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings.  Do you remember when the hobbits set out from the Elves?  The elves gave them some special presents to help them on their perilous journey.  One such gift was the gift of bread, called Lembas.  This magical bread was there for them in their most desperate moments so that they could reach their destination.

But, the Lord of the Rings is a fiction.  Our lives are real.  Our lembas is the Holy Eucharist.  The Holy Eucharist is for each one of us as we journey on our way to heaven.  It’s there for us in our most difficult moments to give us strength, courage to continue on our journey.  Turn to the Eucharist in your time of need.  Do you know Catholics who have been away from Mass for a while?  Maybe encourage them to turn back to the Eucharist.  This journey of life is way too hard to try to live without Christ in the Eucharist.

So, on this feast of Corpus Christi we give thanks to Christ, who gave us his flesh to eat.  We give him thanks for being with us on this journey of faith.

Pentecost 2017

Pentecost Homily 2017 Year A:

Today is Pentecost.  It’s been 50 days since Easter.  Today we remember the first gift of the Holy Spirit, which inspired the apostles to proclaim the good news.  I like the “Come Holy Spirit prayer,” which is fitting today: “come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth.”  The Apostles did just that if you stop and think about it.  They certainly renewed the face of the earth.  If it wasn’t for the Apostles none of us would have heard of Christ.  They received the vocation, the calling, to proclaim the message of Jesus.  And they received this vocation because of the Holy Spirit.  In fact, it is not too much to say that all Christian vocations have their birth in the gift of the Spirit.  Whether a person is called to Priesthood, religious life, married life, single life, we are all called to holiness because of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I was thinking a lot about vocations this week.  Our diocese was blessed in that Saturday we had the priestly ordination of two men for our diocese.  Father Eric Bergener and Father Dennis DiBennidetto were ordained by Bishop Rhoades at the Cathedral.  So, all last week I was remembering them in my prayers.  Then I had the chance to attend the ordination, and it was a powerful experience.  I remember Bishop D’Arcy used to say that every ordination was like a little retreat.  It’s hard to explain, but it’s a pretty powerful 2 hours.  Especially for me as a priest, it was a powerful reminder of the gift of the priesthood, and the gift of vocations.

One of the most powerful moments of the ordination ceremony is the laying on of hands.  This gesture is done in silence when the bishop places his hands on the hands of the man being ordained.  The symbol is one of passing down.  Someone laid their hands on the Bishop’s head, and someone before him, someone before him, all the way to the Apostles.  It is a beautiful gesture and it is done in silence.  However, after the Bishop lays hands on the men ordained, then the other priests of the diocese do so as a sign of their brotherhood with the newly ordained.  During this event there is always a song sung: veni creator spiritu.  Come creator spirit.  When I was listening to that song this Saturday it gave me chills because I still remember that song from my own ordination almost 8 years ago.  But, how fitting for this weekend: come Holy Spirit.

All priestly vocations come from the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit moves within a man, inspiring him to priesthood.  The Holy Spirit does the work of forming the man after the heart of Christ in the seminary.  Ordination is one of the 7 sacraments, made possible and effective by the Holy Spirit.  Then, after ordination, these 2 men will celebrate the sacraments, empowered by the Holy Spirit.  Indeed, the vocation to the priesthood is inspired by the Spirit, prepared by the Spirit, celebrated by the Spirit, and lived by the Spirit.  It was a powerful reminder to me of my own need for the power of the Spirit in my life.

But, really, all vocations share this same reliance on the Holy Spirit.  Every vocation is inspired by the Spirit, formed by the Spirit, and lived by the Spirit.  No matter what vocation you are living in your life, you need to power of the Holy Spirit in order to live it out.  In fact, all vocations have their root in a deeper, universal calling: we are all called to holiness.

I find it really comforting that we are all called to holiness, but that we are not called to be the same.  The Apostles call to holiness was lived out in their unique calling.  But, my call to holiness is my own special calling.  Each of us is called to be holy, but in our own way.  So, think about your own life and your own calling to holiness this weekend.  What is the gift of the Spirit that you need to live it out?  Today is your day.  Call on the Spirit and ask him for that gift.

New priests for the diocese is a great blessing.  Please keep praying for vocations.  Pray that young people will have the courage to listen to the Spirit.  A few chosen people in Jerusalem received the Spirit and made a huge impact on the world.  Imagine what would happen if every young person of St. Jude accepted the Spirit and lived out their vocation with the same courage as the Apostles.  Whether as priests, religious, married, or single, our young people are called by God to live lives of holiness to renew the face of the earth.  So on this Pentecost Sunday we pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to be alive in our parish: come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth.