Homily for Friday, 17 September 2021– Memorial of St. Hildegard of Bingen, Abbess, and St. Robert Bellarmine, Bishop, Doctors of the Church

Readings of the day: 1 Timothy 6:2c-12; Psalm 49:6-7, 8-10, 17-18, 19-20; Luke 8:1-3

Friday of the Twenty-fourth week in Ordinary Time

Today’s Gospel reading from Luke is a noticeably brief transitional passage between lengthier and more detailed episodes in Jesus’ Galilean ministry. It is preceded by the meal scene at the home of Simon the Pharisee, the woman who washes and anoints Jesus’ feet, and Jesus’ parable of the two debtors, which we heard in yesterday’s Gospel reading. Today’s passage is followed in Luke by the parable of the sower.

For its brevity, though, today’s Gospel reading says a lot to us about the diversity yet unity of the earliest Church, the first disciples of Jesus, across longstanding social and religious distinctions. Of course, Luke says, “the twelve were with Jesus”; the twelve Apostles are reminiscent of the twelve Old Testament tribes united as one nation of Israel. But then Luke, alone among the four Gospels, includes today’s detail about various women who followed Jesus: “Mary Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many [unnamed] others.”

What is a common trait among these diverse women and earliest disciples of Jesus? Luke says that they “provided for Jesus and the twelve out of their resources.” This is to say that, out of their diversity of resources—not only monetary but the particular gifts each brought to the community of disciples of Jesus—they worked to ensure the unity of these disciples in Christ. I think we can presume that the twelve; the women; all these earliest disciples of Jesus were diverse, if we only consider their personal backgrounds and material wealth, let alone other points of diversity. With her connections to the royal court of Herod, Joanna may have had some wealth. Mary Magdalene is often portrayed as wealthy. The Gospel says little about Susanna besides her name, and less still about several unnamed disciples of Jesus at the time.

We may know that, in terms of the Church’s liturgy, for weekday Masses in Ordinary Time the central theme of the first reading does not purposely fit together with that of the Gospel. Yet (please allow me to break this mostly unwritten rule of preaching here) I cannot help but see a point in common between the women in Luke’s Gospel who provide for Jesus and the twelve “out of their resources” and the caution to Timothy in our first reading today that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”

Money and other forms of material wealth are not in themselves evil, as long as they are used most justly, to ensure that nobody lacks at least the necessities of life. It is the individualistic “love of money”; the love of and selfish focus to excess on one’s individual rights when this negates the basic rights of others and the common good, that is evil. The author of 1 Timothy essentially urges Timothy and his Christian community (and us) to live their discipleship and dispense their gifts and wealth in the way the women in our Gospel do: With ultimate care for our unity in Christ, in imitation of him.

It is also appropriate today (I am not sure this happens on any other day of the year) that we celebrate the memory of two saintly Doctors of the Church, Sts. Hildegard of Bingen and Robert Bellarmine, on the same day. To be a Doctor of the Church is to be a saint recognized, as only thirty-six people in the Church’s history have, for outstanding teaching of our faith. But Hildegard, Benedictine abbess and mystic of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the 1100s, and Robert, Jesuit entrusted with doctrinal interpretation and implementation of the Council of Trent in the 1500s and early 1600s, could not have been more different.

Perhaps our celebration of Sts. Hildegard of Bingen and Robert Bellarmine is yet another invitation to us to provide out of our diverse sets of resources and gifts for the common good and salvation of all.

Homily for Tuesday, 13 April 2021– Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 4:32-37; Psalm 93:1ab, 1cd-2, 5; John 3:7b-15

The first part of the Acts of the Apostles refers, in at least a couple of significant instances, to how united the earliest communities of Jesus’ disciples were. Today we hear that these first disciples “were of one heart and soul”; that the unity of these earliest disciples of Jesus was connected with their strict common ownership of material possessions: “Everything they owned was held in common.”

This passage is one of the most frequently-cited Biblical references to uphold the vow or counsel of poverty. I think, in this respect, of a book I studied during my novitiate on the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, Francis Moloney’s A Life of Promise. Might this also make us think of the variety in practice of the vow of poverty, even within our own Basilian Congregation, let alone among different communities of vowed religious? I think, for instance, of the many gifts from different countries in which my great aunt Jeanne, a Sister of Holy Cross, ministered, that she gave to family members, because she was not allowed to keep these gifts for herself. Her order’s vow of poverty was and is, by my observation, lived much more strictly than ours.

But how closely is the insistence in Acts on how the earliest Christians held “everything they owned… in common” a reflection of historical reality, versus an ideal for life especially in Christian community? Scholars still debate over this question. Francis Moloney, in A Life of Promise, points out that, after the reading we hear today, the very next event in Acts is that of Ananias and Sapphira, who keep part of the proceeds from the sale of property for themselves instead of turning it over to their community of disciples. And then both Ananias and Sapphira drop dead on the spot!

So which was it: Did the earliest Christian communities truly hold “everything they owned… in common,” or was this an ideal that was not necessarily (or usually) followed to the letter? My thought is that it was a bit of both historical reality—that these earliest Christian communities strove to practice common ownership of goods—and an ideal, much as it is both-and today. There was and is still variety in how material goods were owned or shared communally. And maybe how individuals or communities practiced, we may say, a precursor to our vows of poverty was not in itself essential to one’s standing as a good and faithful Christian.

Yet I think Acts’ emphasis on this common ownership characteristic of these earliest Christian communities may lead us to ask ourselves questions like: What, if not strict common ownership of material goods, is essential to our Christian way of life, from the message we hear from Acts today? And is there something that the example of these earliest Christians calls us to hold in common, if not strictly or only material goods?

Especially as somebody who has taken a public vow of poverty, I interpret Acts as inviting and reminding us that we (as vowed religious, but this is true of all baptized Christians) hold in common a responsibility for one another’s whole-person well-being—spiritual, mental, physical, and so forth—in this earthly life and, ultimately, for one another’s salvation. We are not saved as individuals so much as together, in and by one God. Common ownership of earthly goods, or any expression or vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience, can be a sign of our universal call to holiness and ultimately to salvation.

Homily for Sunday, 9 July 2017

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a; Psalm 89:2-3, 16-17, 18-19; Romans 6:3-4, 8-11; Matthew 10:37-42

This homily was given at St. Joseph's College of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

What is humility? How many of us find humility a difficult virtue not only to practice but to define? We might think of humility in terms of what it is not, or in opposition to attitudes and habits of people and of cultures that we judge as lacking in humility.

Does our own culture not tend to value the individual: Self-confidence; competition? Anybody here who has ever played a sport; applied for a job or competed for a more advanced position within our line of work; earned a large salary; owned or run a business; sought higher education; spoken, performed or shown some other talent publicly, and so forth, has conformed in some way to our cultural norm, centered on the individual. In themselves, these actions are not evidence of a lack of humility, in an individual or in a culture. Many people who have been successful, talented, and even well-paid, some who are among us here now, are among the humblest people we know.

So what is humility? I do not believe that it is necessary to act too differently from the norm of our culture, focused on the individual, in order to be humble. Humility, though, within a culture that values the individual, is the virtue that seeks to use whatever individual advantage or advancement we gain to benefit one another. In other words, the good of each individual person is praiseworthy, as long as those who have advantages; who are successful, well-paid, or talented in a variety of ways use these advantages toward what we call the communal or “common good”; the good of all people as one human race; the good and dignity of all creation.

The more we are successful or talented, the more we have the responsibility to use our success and our talents toward the good of all; the “common good.” And so who might be our model, in our own experiences, of humility? Many if not all of us know somebody we would consider humble, but what if I were to suggest that our model of humility is God himself?

To place God as our first model of humility is quite a lofty goal. We know this, I am sure. Would be not better off trying to match the humility of somebody we have known and experienced as humble than to try to live up to the humility of God? Yet our readings today present God as humble. Who here thinks often of God as humble? But there God is, pictured by the prophet Zechariah in our first reading as “humble and riding on a donkey” into a rebuilt, glorious city of Jerusalem. Zechariah’s image of the humble king (human kings were understood as ruling in the place of God) takes nothing away from the greatness of God (also the king), described by Zechariah as “triumphant and victorious” as well as “humble.”

God’s triumph and victory is not a triumph or victory of military might. In Zechariah’s time, the people of Israel were just returning to their homeland from a long period of exile in Babylon. Who could fault them, in a way, after their experience of the superior military power of the Babylonians to that of Israel, for developing an image or expectation of a God who would bring them back from exile with even greater might than the Babylonians had. But this is not the God of Israel, Zechariah says to his people. This is not our God. Our God is a God of humility, and it is precisely by God’s humility that God will be forever triumphant and victorious.

Might this reminder that God, and so we, are most triumphant in humility and not by military strength or any form of violence, in word or action, be just as timely for us today as it was for the people of Israel in Zechariah’s time? In fact, our national motto of Canada, “from sea to sea” (or, in Latin, “a mari usque ad mare”) is drawn from the prophecy we hear from Zechariah today and from several other places in our Scriptures. God’s “dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”

God’s “dominion” is a dominion; a triumph of humility. Imagine, then, all of us called to co-operate in establishing this divine dominion of humility. This is what God’s Kingdom, “on earth as in heaven,” looks like. And what other virtues; what effects are associated with humility? Zechariah associates humility, God’s and ours, with peace. The Psalmist speaks of graciousness and mercy, slowness “to anger” and abundance “in steadfast love”; faith, compassion and, yes, power and glory in humility. 

Of course, humility means recognizing our sinfulness; our need for God to save us. St. Paul reminds us of this in his Letter to the Romans from which we hear today. “We are debtors,” St. Paul says, meaning that a price; a debt has had to be paid for us, because of our sin. That price is the Cross, the supreme act of humility, indeed humiliation paid for us by our Lord Jesus Christ that is necessary for our salvation. When we pray in our Creed that Jesus “was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered death and was buried,” we acknowledge that God, in Jesus Christ, has taken our place in death; in burial in the earth (in Latin, humus, meaning earth or soil, the root of our English words like “humble” and “humility”), only to rise again and so to carry us with him into his resurrection. By his suffering, death, burial and resurrection, Jesus invites us into a share in God’s own humility in humbling himself for our sake.

And so humility is linked to our salvation. Humility is also linked to freedom and to joy. How freeing Jesus’ words are in our Gospel reading today from Matthew: “Come to me, all you [who] are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”!

Those of us who have ever cared for children: Is it not so freeing and joyous to watch little children take in the world around them, while remaining totally dependent on a parent or other caregiver? This, I suppose, is behind Jesus’ prayer of joy in today’s Gospel: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” What do “infants” see that “the wise and the intelligent,” at least in their own estimation independent even sometimes of God, do not? Infants, and anybody willing to make themselves totally dependent on God, our ultimate fatherly caregiver, see heaven. And in observing children; infants, do we not catch a glimpse of heaven in their smiles, their coos, their first words, their curiosity at the world around them?

This is joy; a glimpse of heaven that is only accessible to the humble. In humility we find joy, we find freedom, we find peace, and ultimately we find our salvation. Why is this? In humility we find all these— joy, freedom, peace, salvation— because it is as we become humble that we become more and more like God, who is humble. And as we, in a way like little children taking in the world around them, take in this mystery of our salvation, we share in God’s own triumphant dominion of humility; a dominion that, from God through us, extends from this place, indeed “from sea to sea, and… to the ends of the earth.”

Homily for Tuesday, 6 September 2016– Ferial

Tuesday of the 23rd week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 6:1-11; Psalm 147:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a, 9b; Luke 6:12-19

This homily was given at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Christ the King Church, Rochester, NY.

Where do we find Jesus in the Gospel reading we have heard this morning? For the Gospel writers, setting is important. And so Luke begins his account of Jesus’ naming of his twelve Apostles with Jesus going up a “mountain to pray.”

For Luke the mountain is a place of prayer; it is a place of nearness and intimacy with God. But then where does Jesus go after he has “spent the night in prayer to God” and chosen his twelve Apostles? We find Jesus no longer on a mountaintop but among the Twelve and the great crowds of people who had followed him from near and far: “From all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.” Jesus stands among them “on a stretch of level ground.”

Many of us may be more familiar with where Matthew places Jesus and his teaching ministry than with where Luke does. How many of us have heard of the Sermon on the Mount? This is one of the longest continuous sections of Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew tends to portray Jesus as the great teacher, a new and greater Moses, whose teaching is delivered from mountain heights. When Jesus prays most intensely in Matthew, he tends to be in a valley or on flat ground. We might think of Jesus’ night of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, which hearkens back to the first moments of creation, to Genesis’ Garden of Eden. In prayer, Matthew’s Jesus is at once at his most intimate with God and with people; with creation.

Luke’s placement of Jesus is the opposite to that of Matthew: Prayer takes place on mountains, from the mountain where Jesus chooses his Apostles in today’s Gospel reading to “the Mount of Olives” where Jesus prays before his passion and death. Jesus’ teaching takes place “on… level ground.” Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount is Luke’s Sermon on the Plain.

Luke’s setting of Jesus’ teaching ministry reminds me of a popular phrase we use to mean that we are speaking plainly (no pun intended) with somebody; telling the truth. How many of us have heard or used the saying: “I am on the level with you”?

Luke presents Jesus, having prayed at length to discern a great decision like the choice of his apostles, as now “on the level” with the people he teaches; “on the level” with us. Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain is an invitation to us to follow after Jesus in being “on the level” with one another: Clear, truthful, but also acting always with love and for one another’s good.

St. Paul’s example and invitation to us in his first letter to the Corinthians is similar to that of Jesus. Paul’s words to the Corinthians may seem harsh to us at times; parts of the two letters to the Corinthians are called Paul’s angry or “tearful letter” for a reason. Yet, even in correcting the excesses of the Corinthian community, St. Paul teaches and acts in the way Christ had taught and acted: With clarity, with truth, with love, and for the good of the people he serves. St. Paul, like Jesus, invites us and shows us the way to be “on the level.” 

Homily for Friday, 7 November 2014– Ferial

Friday of the 31st week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Philippians 3:17-4:1; Psalm 122:1-2, 3-4ab, 4cd-5; Luke 16:1-8

Does anybody here find Jesus’ parable of the dishonest steward in today’s Gospel reading confusing? “The master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently,” we hear at the end of our Gospel reading. Could Jesus actually be commending the steward for his dishonesty?

This is not quite the case, but then what is the point Jesus makes with this parable? The dishonest steward is commended for being “prudent” with his master’s wealth, but we know that it is possible to be “prudent” for all the wrong reasons. The dishonest steward is prudent in securing a future for himself; making friends for the long term with his master’s debtors by reducing their debts. He has nothing to lose with his master; he has already lost his job as steward. The dishonest steward is quite “prudent” or shrewd indeed.

But we are called to be more than prudent or shrewd with wealth of this world. By this parable, Jesus calls us to stewardship that is more than ensuring a comfortable and secure future for ourselves. What is the stewardship to which Jesus calls us?

The kind of stewardship to which Jesus calls us means that those of us with money or material wealth are called to support those who have less. Our Christian faith calls us to uphold this “common good.” This does not mean that it is wrong to be rich or to have more wealth than other people; it means that nobody should be in need. No one should be so poor as not to be able to feed themselves and their families, especially in a country as prosperous as ours. Everybody who works should be able to earn a living wage.

At the same time, the stewardship to which we are called by Jesus Christ; by our Christian faith is also a call to discern; to know the difference between wealth of this world that is passing and the wealth of God and God’s kingdom that is eternal. This kind of stewardship involves some self-giving, even self-denial for the good of all.

In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul speaks of people who have not grasped this difference between our passing world and God’s kingdom; eternal life. St. Paul writes to people he loves, the Philippians, who understand this difference. Nevertheless, St. Paul reminds them and us that “Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven.” Many, in St. Paul’s time and in ours, will pressure us into thinking and behaving otherwise. St. Paul does not mince words in describing these people: They are “enemies of the cross of Christ”; opposed to the self-giving and self-denial necessary for Christian stewardship.

The Christian stewardship to which we are called is more than ensuring future comfort and security. It is more than mere prudence or shrewdness with wealth of this world. Our calling to Christian stewardship is to put our passing worldly wealth at the service of the common good while striving for the eternal wealth of heaven, where we have our first “citizenship.”