Homily for Tuesday, 22 December 2020– Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent

Readings of the day: 1 Samuel 1:24-28; Responsorial Canticle: 1 Samuel 2:1, 4-5, 6-7, 8abcd; Luke 1:46-56

Here is bit of Catholic trivia for us: How many Catholics have been named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”? The answer is fifteen.

The fifteenth and latest, of course, is U.S. President Elect Joe Biden, alongside Vice President Elect Kamala Harris (not a Catholic) for 2020. But the sixth of these fifteen Catholics to be named Time’s “Person of the Year” was Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, alongside fellow Apollo 8 crew members Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, in 1968. Anders took a famous photograph of the “earthrise” from just above the surface of the moon.

In the Time interview for 1968’s “Person of the Year” issue, Anders asked rhetorically about his “earthrise” photo that made him consider how insignificant the Earth is in the universe: “Are we really that special”?

In Luke’s Gospel today, in a similar but somewhat more eloquent way than Bill Anders, Mary acknowledges that, well, we are really not all that special. In fact, we are nothing on our own, but we are everything to and with God. Mary prays in her “Magnificat” that we hear today: “My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.”

I credit a former director of campus ministry at St. Joseph’s College [of the University of Alberta in Edmonton] for first pointing out to me that Mary’s “Magnificat” is almost verbatim the prayer of Hannah in the Old Testament in thanksgiving after conceiving her son Samuel. Hannah prays, and we hear in our Responsory Canticle today, “[God] brings low; he also exalts.”

To us, really not all “that special” as Bill Anders once pointed out, God has appeared to us as a fellow “lowly servant”; as human. And so we enter into these final preparations for our Christmas celebration of God having “looked with favour on” us, his “lowly servant(s),” a tiny speck in this immense universe and, by his Son, Jesus Christ, having exalted us; having become human like us; having made us special beyond all telling; having saved us.

Homily for Sunday, 27 December 2015– The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

Readings of the day: 1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28; Psalm 84:2-3, 5-6, 9-10; Colossians 3:12-21; Luke 2:41-52

This homily was given at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Sherwood Park, AB, Canada.

Are we not right to celebrate the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, as a timeless model of family life? And yet for how many of us does the Holy Family seem like an unrealistic model for our families; our households here to take after?

I think of my own family members; of their gifts and acheivements. I think of all the ways in which being with my family, especially in this Christmas season, brings me great joy and even a sense of awe in their presence. My parents will celebrate forty years of marriage in May. Dad’s logical mind is in constant dialogue with his commitment to deepening his faith; his clear awe of God’s creation in dialogue with his love for science as a retired meterologist. Dad will often say how often he turns to me for the advice of a priest; as or more often, as independent as I can be, I turn to Dad for the advice of a father. Mom has the uncanny ability to discern the character of other people accurately and to bring calm, reason, and listening skills to any conversation. My sister and brother-in-law, both engineers, are two of the most talented mathematicians I know. They have given our family and our world the gift of two beautiful children, my niece and nephew. My brother is the easy-going one; reserved yet humorous, and he is your go-to person if you need your car windows replaced. I was born with neither the mechanically-inclined gene nor the math gene; my talents are elsewhere.

And yet, as far as I know, unlike in the Holy Family, nobody in my family or any of our families here is God. Just think of the disadvantage this would be if one of our family members were God made human! A cartoon of three couples of proud parents on donkeys on their way to Bethlehem circulates on the Internet at this time of year. Each of the donkeys displays a bumper sticker. The first says, “Our son is an honour student.” The second donkey’s bumper sticker reads, “Our son is in medical school.” And on the back of the third donkey, bearing a pregnant Mary with Joseph looking on, says, “Our Son is God”! Those on the other two donkeys scoff, “Well, if it isn’t Joseph and Mary”…

So it is probably fortunate for us that none of us have been tasked with raising the Son of God, as Mary and Joseph were. But for us to take after Jesus, Mary and Joseph in our lives of faith; in our households, our families, may be more realistic than we think. The Holy Family may have more in common with our families here now than we realize at first.

Our Gospel reading today ends with twelve-year-old Jesus returning home with Mary and Joseph to Nazareth, where Luke says he “increased in wisdom and in years, and in favour with God and human beings.” To their joy and relief, Mary and Joseph have just found Jesus safe and sound among the teachers in the Temple of Jerusalem after three days of searching for him in the crowded city during the Passover festival. Is it not a temptation for us, when we speak reverently of Mary and Joseph (as is right of us), to gloss over incidents like this in which Mary and Joseph are anxious, even frantic?  “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety,” Mary says to Jesus.

Parents here, especially of teenagers or pre-teens: Might you be more likely to relate to Mary’s experience of anxiety than, for instance, those of us without children? At this age, children begin to assert their independence. They need the space to question and to listen as Jesus did in the Temple of Jerusalem; to discern their faith on their own terms; to build a peer group. This in itself does not mean they love you any less as parents. Teenagers and pre-teens: Please do not take this as permission from me to become lost for days at a time. Your parents will never stop worrying about you when you are not with them, even well into your adult years. And Luke’s Gospel does say that, when Jesus returned to Nazareth, he “was obedient to” Joseph and Mary. Here the Son of God models for us obedience. But if you ever become lost, few places are better in which to become lost than a temple or, in this case, a church. May our Church always be a place of welcome for you, young people; young families!

Might we be able to relate in still other ways to the experience of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph? After Mary and Joseph find Jesus in the Temple, Joseph is not mentioned again in the Gospels. Joseph models for us the prayerful, silent love of a father. And Luke says of Mary that she “treasured all these things in her heart.” Even amid times of anxiety, of being unable to understand why Jesus “must be in [his] Father’s house”; of accompanying Jesus from manger to cross to resurrection to his sending forth of his Holy Spirit who gave birth to our Church, Mary models for us the contemplation; the pondering, treasuring heart of a mother. And so Mary is Mother of God. Mary is our mother.

Mary, Joseph, and Jesus together model for us the gift of attentively hearing; discerning the presence of God in our day-to-day experiences, in particular our experiences of family relationships. I imagine that few if any of us have the “perfect” family. Our families experience anxiety. Our families experience illnesses, even deaths. Our families experience physical distance among members. Our families experience conflict, sometimes to the point of division, stemming from our sin. And still God invites us; our families, through the example of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, to be holy people; holy families ourselves.

And so how might we hear God’s invitation to us, as individuals; as households; as families, to holiness? How might we hear and discern God in our day-to-day experiences and relationships? Besides taking after Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the most perfect model we have of family life, we might take up the example of Hannah and Samuel, mother-and-son of our reading today from 1 Samuel. The name “Samuel” is Hebrew for “God has heard.” Hannah recognizes that God has heard her prayer for a son. Her grateful response to God is to dedicate Samuel for life to God. “God has heard,” and so Hannah and eventually Samuel, through his mentor Eli, hear God. Hannah and Samuel model for us; for our families the gift of hearing God with gratitude. Their example in the Old Testament sets up for us that of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the New Testament.

And how else might we build holy families for our time? Prayerful gratitude is an essential, timeless value of holy families, says the Letter to the Colossians from which we hear this morning: “With gratitude in your hearts sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.” Jesus, Mary and Joseph; Hannah and Samuel prayed with gratitude to God. And God calls us, too, as families and as a Church, to pray with gratitude.

The Letter to the Colossians gives us a long list of other essential values of holy families: “Compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” And when, in our weakness and sin, we fail to live up to our God-given holiness, Colossians invites us to forgive. Forgiveness (and our honest discernment of our need to be forgiven) is a must for holy families: “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Forgiveness is the foundation of love. Forgiveness is the foundation of the “perfect harmony… peace” and “wisdom” to which God calls us through the Letter to the Colossians. Forgiveness is the foundation of unity in our families; our Church; our world. Forgiveness is so often the way to gratitude; to hearing the “Word of God” that dwells “in [us] richly.”

Forgiveness, harmony, peace, wisdom, and gratitude; compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience: These are challenging but not unrealistic values that God asks us to treasure in our hearts and to live out among ourselves and within our families. We have the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph; Hannah and Samuel, and countless saints and holy families through the ages as models of these values on whom to draw. They, and we, the Church, make these gifts of holy families; of the Holy Family, real and active in our world here now, today, forever.

Homilía para el domingo, 18 de enero 2015

Segundo Domingo en el Tiempo Ordinario

Lecturas del día: 1 Samuel 3:3b-10, 19; Salmo 39:2, 4, 7-10; 1 Corintios 6:13c-15a, 17-20; Juan 1:35-42

Readings of the day: 1 Samuel 3:3b-10, 19; Psalm 39:2, 4, 7-10; 1 Corinthians 6:13c-15a, 17-20; John 1:35-42

Di esta homilía en la Parroquia San Juan de Dios, Santa Marta, Magdalena, Colombia. This homily was given at San Juan de Dios (St. John of God) Parish, Santa Marta, Magdalena, Colombia.

¿Qué significa en nuestras vidas escuchar, los unos a los otros y, sobre todo, escuchar a Dios? Estamos con frecuencia más dispuestos a hablar; tenemos la tendencia en nuestra oración misma de suplicar a Dios para nuestras necesidades más que de escuchar atentamente a Dios, ¿sí o no?

No es malo de suplicar a Dios para lo que necesitamos. Es lo que hacemos hoy en la oración colecta al principio de nuestra Misa. Rezamos en nuestra oración colecta: “Dios todopoderoso y eterno que gobiernas los cielos y la tierra, escucha con amor las súplicas de tu pueblo y has que los días de nuestra vida transcurran en tu paz.”

Otra vez digo: No hay nada de malo con esta oración. Reconocemos Dios como creador de todo, “los cielos y la tierra.” Ojalá que cuando rezamos por la paz de Dios estamos trabajando a llevar esta paz divino a nuestro mundo por nuestras palabras y acciones. Reconocemos (pienso correctamente) a Dios como Dios de amor; Dios fuente de todo lo bueno. Este reconocimiento nos hace capaces de rezar así: Dios, “escucha con amor las súplicas de tu pueblo”…

Pero todavía en nuestra oración al principio de esta Misa empezamos pedirle a Dios de escucharnos: “Escucha con amor.” ¿Qué pasa cuando Dios nos habla con amor; con murmullo inaudible dentro de nuestros corazones, y hacemos dispuestos a escuchar; a ser sintonizados a la presencia de Dios?

Entramos en la situación de Samuel en nuestra primera lectura de hoy. El joven Samuel, “durmiendo en el Templo” es dispuesto a escuchar a Dios antes que Dios se revela a él. “Es que Samuel todavía no conocía al Señor, y no había recibido ninguna revelación de Él.” Pero Samuel escuchaba y discernía todavía la voz; la presencia del Señor.

Su maestro, Elí el sacerdote del templo, no entiende hasta la tercera vez que Dios llama a Samuel que es el Señor que le está llamando. “Vuelve a acostarte,” dice Elí a Samuel.

Padres de familia: ¿Han experimentado, por lo menos una vez, cuando tus hijos no podían o no querían acostarse? “No puedo dormir,” ha dicho tal vez algunos de los niños aquí entre nosotros a sus papás. “Tengo hambre… He tenido un sueño malo”…  “Vuelve a acostarte,” ¿ha respondido tal vez algunos padres de familia a sus hijos en estas situaciones?

Entonces podemos tal vez empatizar con el sacerdote Elí en nuestra primera lectura. “Vuelve a acostarte,” dice Elí a Samuel. Bueno, si tu hija o hijo te decía, “Mamá, papá, escucho la voz de Dios y por eso no puedo acostarme,” ¿pensarías que tu hija o hijo estaba actuando de una manera un poco extraña?

Pero Samuel no deja de discernir la voz; la presencia de Dios llamándolo a su servicio profético. La tercera vez que llama el Señor a Samuel, Elí reconoce por fin que Samuel no está gastando su tiempo no queriendo acostarse a noche; que Dios está realmente llamando al joven. Y cambia su respuesta a Samuel. Luego Elí invita a Samuel, “Si alguien de llama, respóndele: ‘Habla, Señor, que tu siervo escucha.’”

También es nuestra invitación cuando entendemos la llamada del Señor de decir como Samuel, “Habla, Señor, que tu siervo escucha.” Haz tu voluntad a través de mí. Pero hay un problema: Normalmente la voz de Dios en nuestras vidas, lo que llamamos la revelación de Dios, no es así. No es normal que Dios nos llama por truenos del cielo, o que su voz sea audible: “Hagan esto. No hagan esto. Esto es mi voluntad para ti.” La revelación de Dios; de la voluntad de Dios para nosotros, no es así.

El día de la Navidad del año pasado, estaba predicando en mi parroquia en Rochester, Nueva York, en los Estados Unidos. Estaba nuestra Misa navideña para los niños, y entonces necesitaba que alguien, escondido en la congregación, sea la voz de Dios. Pedí al diácono de nuestra parroquia a esconderse en el coro y a ser la voz de Dios durante mi homilía, y aceptó serlo. Bueno, la primera vez que hablo nuestro diácono con la voz de Dios, los niños se pusieron un poco confundidos de quien estaba hablando. Pero sabían después de unos segundos que no era realmente Dios hablando; que nuestro diácono no es Dios. La revelación; la llamada de Dios no es normalmente así.

Normalmente Dios no nos llama como llamo a Samuel; la llamada de Dios es aún más sutil. La llamada de Dios es respetuosa de nuestra propia voluntad. Es normalmente respetuosa de nuestra necesidad de dormir a noche (aunque la llamada de Dios a Samuel es otra historia). La revelación; la llamada; la voz; la voluntad de Dios nos conduzca a la paz.

Sin embargo la llamada; la revelación de Dios de su voluntad para nosotros; de nuestra vocación mejor dicho, nos invita a escuchar atentamente. Escuchar bien a Dios no es solo escuchar con nuestras orejas. Es abrir nuestros corazones a la presencia de Dios en nuestras vidas. Es orar, pero no siempre hablando y suplicando a Dios. Podemos orar así: Pregunta a Dios, “¿En que momentos he sentido más la calma y la paz; la felicidad y la alegría en mi vida? ¿En qué momentos he sentido la tristeza o la distancia entre yo y Dios? ¿En qué momentos he pecado contra Dios; contra otras personas; contra mí mismo? ¿En qué momentos necesito más el perdón y la reconciliación de Dios? ¿En qué momentos Dios me está llamando a actuar como profeta en este mundo; profeta de paz; profeta de armonía en las familias, en nuestro país, y en nuestro mundo?” Y después de haber preguntado a Dios así, permanecen unos minutos en silencio. Acostumbraremos al silencio durante nuestra oración. No tendremos miedo entonces del silencio.

Escuchar a Dios se hace no solo con el oído, pero con todos nuestros sentidos y con nuestros corazones. Es el punto clave de nuestras lecturas de hoy. “Glorifiquen, pues, a Dios con su cuerpo,” dice San Pablo en nuestra segunda lectura, de su primera carta a los Corintios. “Glorifiquen, pues, a Dios”; escuchan a Dios con todos sus sentidos; con todo su ser.

“Maestro… ¿dónde vives?” preguntan a Jesús los dos discípulos en nuestro Evangelio de San Juan. Jesús les contesta, “Vengan y verán.” Ven y escuchan. Ven y abren tus corazones a la voluntad del Señor; a la llamada del Señor, porque será nuestra respuesta a Dios lo de nuestro Salmo de hoy; porque la voluntad de Dios será también nuestra voluntad: “Aquí estoy, Señor, para hacer tu voluntad.”

Aquí estamos, Señor Dios, dispuestos como Samuel; como el salmista; como discípulos de Jesucristo, con sentidos y corazones abiertos. Estamos listos para hacer tu voluntad, para glorificarte en todo lo que digamos y lo que hacemos: “Habla, Señor, que tu siervo escucha.”

Homily for Monday, 22 December 2014– Ferial

Monday of the 4th Week in Advent

Readings of the day: 1 Samuel 1:24-28; Responsorial Canticle: 1 Samuel 2:1, 4-5, 6-7, 8abcd; Luke 1:46-56

What does it mean to be “dedicated to the LORD”? Today we hear in our readings of two people, Samuel the son of Hannah and then the Blessed Virgin Mary in Luke’s Gospel, who are “dedicated to the LORD.”

Hannah leaves her son Samuel in the care of Eli. Samuel is now at Eli’s service, but more importantly, is at God’s service. Unlike Samuel who is “dedicated to” God by another person, Hannah, in our Gospel reading Mary once again dedicates herself to God. This time, Mary dedicates herself to God by a beautiful hymn, the Magnificat, which we members of religious orders, priests, and many laypeople recite every day at Evening Prayer: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior…”

We, too, are dedicated to God. Through our baptism, most of us were dedicated to God’s service by our parents and godparents, unless we were baptized as older children or adults, in which case we professed our faith for ourselves. At our confirmation, we dedicated ourselves; chose to commit ourselves to God’s service as Christian disciples.

Have we ever, then, thought to make Hannah’s prayer in dedicating Samuel to God, or Mary’s prayer of dedication of herself to God our own prayer? Hannah says, as she leaves Samuel with Eli: “I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD… Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD.” And Mary prays, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

These are prayers of dedication to God, but also prayers of gratitude. How often do we pray in joyful gratitude for our having been placed at God’s service in whatever way; by whatever vocation we are called to serve God: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior”?

How often do we pray in gratitude especially for God’s mercy in our lives, which is also an invitation to be merciful ourselves: God “has mercy on those who fear him in every generation… For he remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.” This may be a good prayer to pray when we make our examination of conscience (for many of us, this is daily), or when we have been absolved of sin through the sacrament of reconciliation.

Our Advent is a time of anticipation of Christ’s return in glory; a time of joy in these last few days before our Christmas celebration. May it also be a time of gratitude; of renewing our commitment to God’s service in whatever vocation to which we are called. May we offer the prayer of dedication that Hannah once did, standing in this house of God, “praying to the LORD.” This day and every day, may we offer Mary’s prayer of gratitude; make her prayer of dedication our own Magnificat: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”