Homily for Friday, 26 June 2015– Ferial

Friday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Genesis 17:1, 9-10, 15-22;  Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5; Matthew 8:1-4

Who here has ever laughed at God? Would I be right in thinking that most of us here, myself included, would not laugh at God very often, out of reverence for God? We probably would not laugh at other people very often, either, because to laugh at other people is usually impolite. Would not many of us prefer to show other emotions to God, even anger, before we laugh at God?

But today we hear perhaps the most famous story in Scripture of somebody laughing at God. In spite of their old age, God once again promises Abraham and Sarah a child. Abraham responds to God’s promise by laughing at God! Now, I understand that God had promised a child to Abraham; had in fact promised Abraham descendants to number as the stars, and had yet to deliver on his promise, but is it not still rude and irreverent of Abraham to laugh at God? Abraham had been given many gifts from God: A loving wife, prosperity in land and herding livestock…

Could Abraham not have pleaded with God with the great trust of the leper in our Gospel reading today. Unlike Abraham, the leper is anything but rich and prosperous. He is an outcast in Israel of his and Jesus’ time. Yet this poor leper asks Jesus with great humility and trust: “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” The leper does not ask Jesus, “Because I wish,” but “if you wish, you can make me clean.”

Abraham, who has everything but a child with Sarah (please, let us be sensitive to and pray for those who have difficulty conceiving children), does not ask God humbly to act according to God’s will, but laughs at God for not delivering on his promise of a child! But what happens when Abraham laughs at God? What happens when the leper in our Gospel reading asks Jesus, “If you wish, you can make me clean”? Both Abraham and the leper get what they want: Abraham and Sarah conceive a son, Isaac, and the leper is made clean.

And God gets the last laugh at Abraham. We cannot laugh at God and expect to get away with it without consequence! Can we imagine God saying to Abraham, “Fine. I’ll give you your son with Sarah as promised. But because you laughed at me, your son’s name is to be Isaac.” The name Isaac (for those of us named Isaac or who know somebody by this name) is Hebrew for “he laughs.” Abraham laughs at God, and God returns the laughter at Abraham by naming his and Sarah’s son Isaac. Importantly in this story, though, Abraham and Sarah never stop trusting in God, even if he laughs at God. Abraham is forever our “father in faith.”

And so laugh at God if we please, but may we always maintain our humility and trust in God, who wills our good ultimately. The leper in Matthew’s Gospel is an example to us of humility and trust in God: “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” And Abraham also invites us to humble trust in God, if only with a small dose of humor!

Homily for Tuesday, 23 June 2015– Ferial

Tuesday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Genesis 13:2, 12-18;  Psalm 15:2-3a, 3bc-4ab, 5; Matthew 7:6, 12-19

What is the most difficult message you have ever had to hear? Today I find our readings to be about extremely difficult but necessary messages.

Can we imagine Abram and Lot, good friends; both rich and successful in herding livestock; so successful that the land on which they have settled can no longer support both of them, so Abram and Lot must separate? It is bad enough when friends need to separate under ordinary circumstances: We move; we change schools or workplaces; we retire. Worse yet, we might experience the illness or death of a good friend. But would it not have been terrible for Abram and Lot to know that each other were still alive and well, but that they could never see each other again?

Jesus’ message in our Gospel reading is also extremely difficult but, I believe, necessary. Jesus teaches that there is a right and a wrong path; a way that leads to salvation and a way that does not, and that “those who find” the right path “are few.” What do we make of this harsh, ominous message?

Would it not be natural for us to want to soften Jesus’ message. Many do, especially in our time and culture. We know the error of relativism: That we can act as we please; we ought not to judge the beliefs or actions of one individual or culture as superior or not to the beliefs or actions of another. Salvation does not depend on accepting the Gospel of Jesus Christ or of any “organized religion,” many argue.

But this is not what Jesus teaches. Indeed our beliefs; our actions; whether we accept and practice the Gospel of Christ does matter for our salvation. But there is more. I do not wish to discourage us (and neither did Jesus), yet this is, I believe, is at the heart of Jesus’ message in Matthew’s Gospel today: Without God it is impossible for us to live fully by Christ’s Gospel; to live fully in a way that builds up human community and human dignity. Without God we cannot “enter through the narrow gate.” This is possible only by God’s grace.

And here is our hope; our encouragement: With God’s grace, if we accept this grace and live by it, will find and “enter through the narrow gate.” God is not actively trying to block our way to or through the gate; to obstruct our way to salvation. We can (and I think we are called to) hear in today’s Gospel reading that God wills the salvation of as many people; all of us if possible.

We are free to help one another or to obstruct one another from the salvation that God wills for all of us. May we help one another to salvation by kindness; by forgiveness; by works of mercy. May we avoid gossip; passive-aggression; any action or words that tear down others’ dignity; divide community; divide households; families. In our hearts; our consciences we know which actions and words lead us to salvation and which do not; which are right and which are wrong. With God’s grace, our salvation together is possible, even probable. Individually and without God, there is no salvation; no way “through the narrow gate.”

Jesus gives us this extremely difficult message today, but a message that is necessary; for our good; for our salvation.

Homily for Monday, 22 June 2015‒ Diocese of Rochester Patronal Feast of Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More

Monday of the 12th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Genesis 12:1-9; Psalm 33:12-13, 14-15, 20, 22; Matthew 7:1-5

We pray in our Psalm today, “Blessed the people the LORD has chosen to be his own.” Have we not all been “chosen to be [God’s] own” by our baptism? But how many of us have been chosen for a task or vocation, especially when this was a great change in our lives, temporary or permanent? Maybe the point at which you were “chosen” was when you began your first job. Maybe it was when you were married (if you are or have been married) when you were chosen to be another’s “own,” in loving service to your wife or husband; to your family; to God. Maybe you experienced being “chosen to be [God’s] own” if you became Christian; Catholic as an older child or adult. Maybe it was when you were asked to care for somebody in special need, possibly sick relative or friend. Maybe you have been the person to whom your family has looked for strength in a time of loss of a loved one.

I have felt the blessing of being called God’s “own” many times. I was recently recalling having been called to serve for a few weeks in our novitiate in Colombia, with young men just beginning to discern their call to religious life and priesthood. On a Friday afternoon before Christmas, I was working quietly on my Advent Sunday homily when Fr. Morgan called from his meeting with the governing body of the Basilian order, in Toronto: “Would you be able to help for a few weeks in Colombia”? And then (somewhat less of a surprise than being asked to serve in Colombia) was my call to the priesthood. Again, I felt a deep sense of being blessed to share in Christ’s priesthood here at St. Kateri.

“Blessed the people the LORD has chosen to be his own.” Today we celebrate Abram, one of the first to have been “chosen to be [the LORD’s] own.” We hear in Genesis of how God chose Abram to “go forth from the land” of his family; from everything and everybody he knew. Long before God made good on his promises to Abram (later Abraham), Abram lived on nothing more than a promise. Abram lived on a sense that he and Sarai were blessed to be “chosen to be [God’s] own.” Abram’s trust in God’s promise of blessing made him our “father in faith.”

And today we also celebrate the feast day of St. John Fisher, patron saint of this diocese; Bishop of Rochester in England; cardinal of our Church; martyred by King Henry VIII, and St. Thomas More, Henry VIII’s Chancellor and also a martyr of Henry VIII. Both John Fisher and Thomas More had a keen sense of having been “chosen to be [God’s] own”; of serving God and following their conscience over their allegiance to the king. Perhaps St. Thomas More’s most famous line is, “I remain the king’s humble servant but God’s first.”

Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More were blessed to serve the king; blessed even more for having accepted martyrdom. They, like Abram, trusted in God’s promise of blessing, and call us to the same trust. “Blessed the people the LORD has chosen to be his own.”

Homily for Friday, 19 June 2015– Ferial

Friday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial of St. Romuald, Abbot

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 11:18, 21-30;  Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Matthew 6:19-23

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,” Jesus says, “but store up treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” So what or who is our greatest treasure? Where do we find our greatest treasure; the person or thing that attracts us most deeply, from the heart?

I am going to anticipate, since we are all here for Mass, many of us daily, that Christ, really present in the Eucharist, is our greatest treasure. But something is curious when we say that Christ in the Eucharist is our greatest treasure. What is it? What is curious to say and believe this is that we take something created, ordinary bread and wine (although, yes, this bread and wine mysteriously becomes for us the body and blood; the real presence of Christ), to be our greatest treasure. Does this not go against what Jesus asks us not to do in Matthew’s Gospel, which is to “store up for” ourselves “treasures on earth” and not in heaven?

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that in our Eucharist ordinary bread and wine; ordinary things of creation become our greatest treasure. But no, we do not go against Jesus’ teaching to “store up… treasures in heaven” and not “on earth” in the sense that, in our Eucharist, we are not making something created a god. Instead, God; Jesus Christ makes his home within what is created, just as he has made his home among us in human flesh, and so transforms this creation (bread and wine; us) to be Christ’s presence in our world. This is God’s work, not ours first.

This, I think, is at the heart of Jesus’ saying: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… but store up treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” Do not make created things or people into gods, but value and, yes, treasure creation. How do we do this?

At one extreme, we see greed for earthly treasures: Some hoard the world’s resources at the expense of many poor. At another extreme, some interpret Jesus’ words against storing up “treasures on earth” as permission not to care for creation: “The end of creation; of our universe will happen sooner or later, so why protect our earth; our environment”?

Both these extremes are wrong. Jesus invites us to treasure creation not as a god but as God’s gift. At every Mass we express that we treasure creation as God’s gift: “Blessed are you God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread” and “the wine we offer you…”

I am just beginning to read Pope Francis’ newest letter to all Catholics on care for our environment, Laudato si‒ “Praise be.” Pope Francis makes the same point: Treasure creation insofar as it directs us to our greatest “treasure in heaven.” Value rightly “the spiritual treasures bestowed by God upon the Church,” Pope Francis says, “not dissociated from the body or from nature or from worldly realities, but lived in and with them, in communion with all that surrounds us.”

“Praise be to you… Lord,” for creation; for our Eucharist especially, which directs us to you, our creator; our treasure “in heaven,” where our heart is.

Homily for Thursday, 18 June 2015– Ferial

Thursday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 11:1-11;  Psalm 111:1b-2, 3-4, 7-8; Matthew 6:7-15

Have you ever encountered somebody who has said or done something foolish? Could it have been the person who made an unconvincing argument or the person who inattentively cut ahead of you in line or in traffic (I am guilty as charged on this count!)?

The Corinthians addressed by our first reading had encountered somebody they thought was foolish: Paul of Tarsus. Might we be asking, “Why be so irreverent and critical toward a great saint and apostle like St. Paul?” I love St. Paul, one of my favorite saints in Scripture, but in his second Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul even admits his own foolishness. He says to the Corinthians, “Brothers and sisters, if only you would put up with a little foolishness from me”!

What could possibly have made the great St. Paul appear foolish, at least in the Corinthians’ eyes? St. Paul admits that he is not the most gifted speaker. He admits that he is not like the philosophers in Corinth and other large pagan cities of the time who drew students to themselves and could command a fee for their teaching. “I preached the Gospel to you without charge,” St. Paul says to the Corinthians. But neither being “untrained in” speaking nor teaching “without charge” at the time would have made St. Paul appear foolish, even to the many arrogant Corinthians.

No, St. Paul is considered foolish by many Corinthians because he is in love. And we know that love is irrational; foolish even at times… St. Paul loves the Corinthians; loves and lives by the Gospel he is preaching, the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen. St. Paul is in love with the true Christ behind the Gospel message of our faith, and so the Corinthians label him as foolish!

And who is the true Christ whom St. Paul preaches in Corinth? The true Christ is the Christ of our Gospel reading; the Christ who invites us not to “babble like the pagans” but to trust in our “Father who knows what [we] need before [we] ask him.”

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What kind of prayer is this, Jesus, in today’s world in which many do not revere God’s name; do not even know or want to know God; do not revere God in creation or in the dignity of all human life?

“Give us this day our daily bread.” What kind of prayer is this amid individualism that will not admit when we are in need; that we need God; Christ’s real presence in the “daily bread” of our Eucharist?

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive… and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” But can we not simply deny evil and sin;  deny our need for forgiveness; our need to forgive others if only for our own peace, as many do? 

What kind of prayer is this? This is a prayer of the foolish! Yet Jesus has made himself so foolish out of love for us that he died for us! And if Christ is a fool out of love, then he invites us to be fools for him, because we love as he loves us.

Homily for Sunday, 14 June 2015

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34

Jesus asks us in Mark’s Gospel, “To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God”? Jesus then compares the Kingdom of God to “a mustard seed.” How does the Kingdom of God compare to a tiny mustard seed? Why did Jesus not compare the magnificence of God’s Kingdom to a larger seed or plant than a mustard seed? At least Ezekiel, in our first reading today, compares God’s Kingdom to a mighty cedar tree planted on “a high and lofty mountain” for all to see.

Why a mustard seed? Jesus succeeds here as a teacher and storyteller if only because his comparison between the Kingdom of God and a mustard seed is so unusual. Yes, the little mustard seed in Jesus’ parable grows into “the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” But have you ever been in a desert; seen how mustard grows in a desert? There are more magnificent plants, especially in a desert, than mustard, which grows more as a low shrub than a tall, beautiful tree under the desert heat and in poor soil. Could Jesus’ point have been in the last line of his parable: “So that the birds of the sky can dwell in [the] shade” of the mustard plant? Could Jesus have been trying to emphasize the nurturing, sheltering qualities of the Kingdom of God; the love with which God nurtures us; cares for us in the way a mustard plant shelters birds from the desert heat?

I imagine this could have been Jesus’ intended focus of his parable of the mustard seed. After all, would our taking this focus from the parable of the mustard seed not fit with our experience; our understanding of God as all-good; as the creator who cares for and nurtures all creation; who loves and wants a relationship of love with us? In this way, Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed could easily point us toward God’s goodness. Ezekiel’s image of God’s kingdom as the cedar atop a high mountain could point us toward God’s greatness; God’s power. And can we not imagine our God and God’s Kingdom as both like the mustard seed and like the cedar; both good and great; both nurturing and powerful?

But still: Why a tiny mustard seed to describe God’s Kingdom? Is this Jesus’ unusual way of inviting us to trust in God’s wisdom; to trust in the God who can transform even the most insignificant, like the mustard seed, into something magnificent that serves our good: The mustard plant; the Kingdom of God that shelters us; nurtures us; is our eternal home; our salvation?

What would my ideal image of the Kingdom of God be, if not a mustard seed? Imagine the Kingdom of God as a tomato vine. Why a tomato vine, we may ask? Many of us know Fr. Joe as an expert gardener among the priests of St. Kateri! Just outside the back door of our rectory are Fr. Joe’s tomato vines. They are just beginning to leaf out and to climb up the tomato cages. A few days ago, Fr. Joe and I were returning home from breakfast with friends. As we were about to enter the house, Fr. Joe noticed the first tomato of the season on one of the vines: Only about the diameter of a dime; like a small marble in size and bright green. This tomato has a while to go before it can be picked and eaten. And yet I wish I could do justice in describing Fr. Joe’s joy at seeing this first tomato of the season on his plants. Fr. Joe gave emphatic thanks to God for this promise of an abundant harvest of tomatoes this summer. I could not help but share in Fr. Joe’s joy in this little green tomato!

The Kingdom of God is like a tomato vine. The gardener plants it. The day-to-day growth of the vine up the tomato cage is not noticeable to the gardener who waters it; cares for it; clears weeds from around it. One moment the gardener, if he is Fr. Joe, is praying, seated next to his beautiful garden. The next moment, looking up from his book of prayer, he shifts to a mildly threatening gaze to warn away pesky chipmunks…  One day, with great joy the gardener sees the first little green tomato on one of his vines. He gives thanks; prays to God to continue to sustain its growth.

It is only a little green tomato on a short vine. It is vulnerable to being eaten by animals or damaged by insects. It must be protected from a late frost. It is far from ripe. And yet this little green tomato is God’s promise of a fruitful harvest. By the end of the season the tomato plants will be weighed down by big, red, ripe, delicious tomatoes. They give shelter to many small creatures, including, I am sure, a few pesky chipmunks… These tomatoes will help to give yet more joy to the gardener. They will nourish him and those who live with him or are our guests at table for the work of the Kingdom of God; of service to this, our parish, and to God. These seeds that give rise to shoots, then vines, then little green tomatoes that ripen and are harvested seem insignificant. But with trust in God, love for those who will benefit and be nourished by his harvest, and hours of hard work, the gardener faithfully tends these tomato plants.

In the words of our second reading, from St. Paul’s second Letter to the Corinthians, the gardener’s work is an exercise in walking (and nurturing the plants) “by faith and not by sight.” The gardener’s work is one of patience. The gardener trusts in and becomes a source of God’s great wisdom, the gift of God’s Holy Spirit that brings about a fruitful harvest; the Kingdom of God; our salvation, all from apparently insignificant beginnings, like little green tomatoes... or mustard seeds in the desert, or mighty cedar trees on mountaintops, which themselves begin as small shoots.

“To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God”? Unlike Fr. Joe, gardening has never been my strength. Neither, maybe, is composing and speaking in parables. But whether we imagine the Kingdom of God as a mustard seed planted in the desert, a mighty cedar tree on a mountain, or a tomato vine in Irondequoit, is the point of all these parables not the same?

God invites us to trust in God’s wisdom. The wisdom of God brings about a great harvest from insignificant beginnings. God’s wisdom brings about our salvation; our experience of the fullness of the Kingdom of God. And, here and now, God loves us; wants a relationship of love with us. God gives us just enough of God’s own wisdom, here and now, that we can co-operate with God in building and nurturing God’s Kingdom.

We are called to co-operate, guided by the wisdom of God the Holy Spirit, in building and nurturing a kingdom of kindness; of patience (except perhaps with pesky chipmunks!); of joy even in the small beginnings of what we are promised will be: Fullness of the Kingdom of God; our salvation, whatever image we have of this. And all this from a tiny mustard seed, a cedar shoot or, if you will, little green tomatoes…

Homily for Friday, 12 June 2015– Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Friday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8c-9;  Responsorial Canticle: Isaiah 12:2-3, 4, 5-6; Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19; John 19:31-37

What does it mean for us to love God? Fr. Larry Gillick, a Jesuit priest at Creighton University, has what I find to be a helpful answer to this question. Fr. Gillick says that “to love God is to let God love us.”

This leads me to more questions, which we might take to our examination of conscience; our prayer and meditation, maybe daily. My questions are these: When have we let God love us? And when have we not let God love us and so have been in need of God’s love and mercy more than ever?

Our answer to when we have let God love us is easier than we might think. Look around at all of us who are here in God’s presence; in Christ’s presence in this Eucharistic celebration. Our presence, here to meet God’s presence, is the foremost way in which we as Christians show that we are allowing God to love us. And so we show by gathering for this Eucharist that we love God. We also show that we are willing to let God love us; that we love God by our celebration of any of the Church’s sacraments. We show this by our works of kindness and justice; of service toward one another, especially those most in need: The poor; the sick; those who have lost a loved one; those whose loved ones experience need or hardship. We show our willingness to let God love us, and so we show we love God, when we allow ourselves to be served by another’s kindness and generosity when we are in need.

God’s love for us is certain. We can be confident in and never despair of God’s love for us, no matter our need; no matter how well or how often we pray; no matter our sin. Our readings today on this feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the feast itself, ask the fundamental question: How much are we willing to let God love us?

The Book of the Prophet Hosea, from which our first reading is drawn, is set during an especially troublesome time in ancient Israel’s history. The kings of Israel, in the line of King David, as well as the people had become corrupt, turning to false gods and committing all forms of social injustice toward the weakest and most vulnerable. The end of the monarchy and exile into foreign nations threaten if Israel continues to be unfaithful to God and unjust to its own people. But God is willing, out of love, to forgive; not to remain angry if Israel returns to faithfulness to God. Hosea’s question to the Israelites is this: Are you willing to let God love you?

This same question is at the center of our second reading, from Ephesians. God has been present; has loved us into being from the moment of creation. God sustains creation; us out of love. God has given us himself in the person of Jesus Christ: The utmost act of love possible. And our Gospel reading speaks of the events immediately after Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus pours forth love, shown as blood and water, from his heart, pierced by the soldiers’ lance while Jesus hangs on the cross.

Our devotion; our feast today of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus draws us to answer this same question and, do we not believe, answers this question with a resounding “Yes”: Do we love God, and do we show our love for God by letting God love us?