Homily for Tuesday, 6 July 2021– Ferial

Readings of the day: Genesis 32:23-33; Psalm 17:1b, 2-3, 6-7ab, 8b, 15; Matthew 9:32-38

Tuesday of the 14th week in Ordinary Time

Whenever I hear today’s Gospel reading, I am saddened somewhat by Matthew’s description of the crowds following Jesus about from village to village while he healed their “every disease and every sickness” as “like sheep without a shepherd.”

The question I ask myself when I hear this—the crowds were “like sheep without a shepherd”—is how Jesus responds to this situation of the crowds. One word stands out for me in this respect: Jesus responds to the situation of the crowds—lost, scattered, “harassed and helpless,” with their diseases and sicknesses in need of healing, their being like “like sheep without a shepherd”—with compassion. Jesus, Matthew says, “had compassion for them.”

True compassion is difficult. At least as Jesus, or Matthew, understand it, compassion is a full-person, body-and-soul experience. The word Matthew uses to describe Jesus compassion toward the crowds is rather graphic: Here, Jesus is (figuratively, we might hope) moved to his inmost depths for the people following him.

The other day, I was reading one of my favourite Catholic blogs, called “Where Peter Is.” This blog reported on a letter Pope Francis handwrote to Jesuit Fr. James Martin both to congratulate Fr. Martin’s nephew on his confirmation and to thank Fr. Martin for his ministry (which is controversial among many people) with LGBTQ+ Catholics. Pope Francis writes in his letter to Fr. Martin, “The Father’s ‘style’ has three features: Closeness, compassion, and tenderness.”

The “Where Peter Is” article points out that emphasis on compassion, connected to pastoral closeness and tenderness, is nothing new for Pope Francis. Compassion is a major focus of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, which the “Where Peter Is” article calls “the programmatic text of [Francis’] pontificate.”

Evangelii Gaudium often connects compassion to attentive listening to the faithful in their concrete life situations. Listening with compassion, Pope Francis says in Evangelii Gaudium, helps us to hear “the outcry of the poor” and suffering. When sin is present, compassionate listening can help us “to correct others and to help them to grow on the basis of a recognition of the objective evil of their actions… but without making judgments about their responsibility and culpability.” Pope Francis goes so far as to say that “only thorough such respectful and compassionate listening can we enter on the paths of true growth and awaken a yearning for the Christian ideal: The desire to respond fully to God’s love and to bring to fruition what he has sown in our lives.”

I wonder if this may make compassion, together with attentive listening, closeness and tenderness, to seem easier than these are. I have experienced, as I am sure is true of anybody who is engaged in any pastoral ministry, that compassion, listening, closeness, and tenderness take constant practice. Compassion, the ability to be moved to our depths, so to speak, by another’s need, is a self-emptying experience. But I think its faithful and constant practice will help us to respond to all kinds of situations in which the faithful find themselves “like sheep without a shepherd,” whether it is in ministry to the poor, to the LGBTQ+ community (as in Fr. Martin’s ministry) or, for instance, the long process of compassion, penance, and reconciliation in light of our Church’s participation in the Indian Residential Schools in Canada.

May our ministry, our encounter with the People of God in their joys and also their needs and perhaps suffering, be a ministry of growth in compassion, in listening, closeness and tenderness in a way in which we empty ourselves; in ways in which we emulate Jesus who had compassion for the crowds who followed him.

Homélie du jeudi, 28 avril 2016– Mémoire de St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

Lectures du jour: Actes des Apôtres 15:7-21, Psaume 96:1-2a, 2b-3, 10; Jean 15:9-11

Jeudi de la 5ième semaine du temps pascal

«Demeurez dans mon amour… que votre joie soit parfaite». Quel est donc le lien entre l’amour et la joie; entre l’amour et la joie «parfaite» que Jésus désire pour nous?

Nous sommes, je crois, dans un moment opportun dans l’Église pour nous poser cette question. Il y a quelques semaines, l’Exhortation apostolique post-synodale (c’est-à dire l’exhortation du pape aux fidèles après les deux réunions des évêques et d’autres observateurs au Vatican appelées «Synode sur la famille» en 2014 et 2015) Amoris laetitia a été publié. Amoris laetitia veut dire, bien sûr, «la joie de l’amour». Et le Pape François nous dit, dans la première phrase de ce long document: «La joie de l’amour qui est vécue dans les familles est aussi la joie de l’Église».

Je pense aussi que, sans trop dévier du point central de cette phrase du Pape François, nous pouvons dire que «la joie de l’amour… vécue» à travers la vocation propre à chacun et à chacune de nous, que ce soit en famille, en la vie célibataire consacrée, en la vie religieuse, ou en la vie ordonnée, est «la joie de l’amour ». Cette « joie de l’amour» est la «joie… parfaite» de notre Évangile que Jésus veut que nous vivons. Nous sommes tous appelés à l’amour et, avec l’amour, la joie.

En revanche, nous pouvons assez facilement dire que, si, il est bien possible pour nous d’aimer; de ressentir la joie en aimant, même en cette vie limitée, terrestre, mais pas parfaitement. Nous nous sommes dit peut-être que la perfection de l’amour; de la joie nous sera possible seulement au ciel et non ici sur terre, maintenant.

Mais ceci n’est pas le message de Jésus dans notre Évangile. Comment alors pouvons-nous vivre la volonté de Jésus pour nous, «que [notre] joie soit parfaite»? La perfection de notre joie dépend de la qualité avec laquelle nous demeurons, comme Jésus dit, dans son amour; dans l’amour de Dieu, l’amour et la joie parfaites. Vivre le «commandement» de Jésus de demeurer «dans [son] amour» ne veut pas dire que nous serons toujours contents. Prenant les paroles de Saint Thomas d’Aquin dans Amoris laetitia, le Pape François nous rappelle encore la différence entre la joie et le plaisir; entre le permanent et l’éphémère. Nous retrouvons la joie et donc l’amour, même en cette vie, à mesure que nous accompagnons à notre prochain à travers toutes les étapes de la vie: Dans les temps de plaisir, bien sûr, mais aussi quand nous ressentons de l’ennui; des doutes; la solitude; des souffrances.

Selon l’une de mes prières préférées de la communauté basilienne (ma congrégation religieuse) en Colombie en Amérique du Sud, laissons-nous davantage «réjouir avec ceux qui réjouissent, et pleurer avec ceux qui pleurent». En vivant ce service; cette compassion par amour gratuit envers notre prochain, nous demeurerons de plus en plus dans la joie que nous promet Jésus; une joie «parfaite» née d’un amour parfait.   

Homily for Sunday, 26 April 2015– Fourth Sunday of Easter

World Day of Vocations

Readings of the day: Acts 4:8-12; Psalm 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28, 29; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18

During this homily, the children of St. Kateri Parish were invited forward. I gave part of this homily seated in front of the sanctuary of our parish's St. Cecilia Church, with our parish's children gathered around. The children of St. Kateri School, our parish's school for students from Pre-K 3 to Grade 6, served in various ministries at the Mass during which this homily was given.

Who here has ever seen a shepherd? This is one of the difficulties we have because we live in a city. I imagine that not many of us have seen a shepherd. All the children here: Does anybody here want to be a shepherd when you grow up? Well, it doesn’t pay very well, but you get to spend lots of time outside every day. This is fine, as long as it isn’t cold or rainy. Being a shepherd isn’t a nine-to-five job. Do we remember other stories in the Bible about shepherds, like when the shepherds who found out about Jesus’ birth went to the stable in Bethlehem at night? And shepherds end up smelling like the sheep after a while. Sheep, if any of us have ever been near them, are a bit stinky to say the least! But being a shepherd is good and worthwhile because, if you heard in our Gospel reading just now, who calls himself “the Good Shepherd”?

Jesus, our God and Lord, is the Good Shepherd! And what makes Jesus not just any shepherd but the Good Shepherd? Jesus isn’t a shepherd for the money, like the “hired man” in our Gospel reading. Jesus isn’t a shepherd because he likes to spend a lot of time outside, although he was outside all the time, traveling from place to place on foot. But Jesus is the Good Shepherd because his shepherding; his service; his speaking; his teaching; his healing the sick; his looking for the lost; the sinners is always about others. It is never about him. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus is so selfless that he is prepared to “lay down [his] life” for others; for his friends; for his enemies; for us. He does “lay down [his] life” for us. Jesus died on the cross for us, to save us; to give us a chance at heaven!

Now, I don’t know about this shepherding business. I suppose I have my moments when I think of others and serve others before myself. But I am not sure I would be prepared to die for anybody; to lay down my life for anybody. What about us? Would we be able to lay down our lives for the people who are unkind to us, even repeatedly? What about people who annoy us? What about the bully at school or at work (hopefully none of us bully each other)? I might be able to lay down my life for my best friend, or for somebody I really like (like all of us here)… But, even then, I am not sure. And besides, there aren’t many chances to gain work experience as a shepherd around here. We are in a city after all. When was the last time any of us saw a real-life shepherd?

And yet in Jesus’ time, when he said “I am the Good Shepherd” and “I lay down my life” for my sheep, the people who heard Jesus would have known exactly what he meant. How is this?

In Jesus’ time, sheep pens, to keep the sheep from going too far, were quite simple. The sheep would be surrounded by a barrier of stones, maybe a foot high, in the shape of a rectangle. On one side of the rectangle, there would be an opening in the pile of stones. At night, to protect the sheep from being attacked by wild animals like wolves, the shepherd would lie down across the opening in the pile of stones. So it would have made perfect sense to the people hearing Jesus when he would say, “I am the Good Shepherd… I lay down my life.” If a wolf were to attack the sheep, it would need to attack the shepherd first. The shepherd, if he cared for his sheep, would literally lie or sit down across the opening to the sheep pen to protect the sheep with his own life. “I lay down my life” for my sheep, Jesus says. And so the people who heard Jesus would have known exactly what he meant.

[Sit on the step of the sanctuary.] To give us a better idea of what Jesus meant by saying, “I am the Good Shepherd… I lay down my life” (although there are no sheep here in the church, no piles of rocks, and hopefully no wolves), I am here, sitting on your level. But look around for a moment… What do you notice? Am I above you? No, I am on your level, but you are also on my level. To be like the “Good Shepherd”; to be like Jesus Christ in the way we love and care for each other, is not just the responsibility of us priests. We are all called to be like Christ the Good Shepherd to one another; to think of the well-being of others even before our own; to be kind to one another; not to do things that hurt one another on purpose.

We are the Good Shepherd in our world, to one another. Put another way, we are Christ to one another, each and every one of us. About five hundred years ago, a Carmelite nun in Spain, St. Teresa of Ávila, spoke about each of us as the hands and feet of Christ; the presence of Christ in our world:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

with compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

We are, here and now, the body; the eyes and ears; the hands and feet of Christ in our world; the hands and feet of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for us because he loves us and cares for us. Here and now, we are sitting on one another’s level. Here and now, we are, in the words of our second reading from the First Letter of John, “the children of God.” We are God’s presence; Jesus to each other.

How can we be Jesus, the Good Shepherd, “children of God” to each other? How can we be the body; the eyes and ears; the hands and feet of Christ to one another? We do not need to work a great miracle as Peter does in our first reading, from Acts, healing the crippled person. But we can speak kind words to others. We can try to get along with one another, especially people who think differently than we do; with whom we disagree or people who annoy us. We can give to the poor or spend time with somebody who is sick or sad, to console this person. We can spend time together as families; eat a meal together and pray together every day.

There are many ways that I haven’t mentioned in which we can be Christ to each other. We can keep the wolves out of the sheep pen by lying across its entrance (figuratively) like the Good Shepherd, Jesus. What are the wolves who attack the sheep? Meanness and bullying; gossip; saying things that are not true to hurt another person… How do we stop these “wolves” from attacking? We look out for one another. We show at least one person every day that we care for this person by doing something on purpose that is kind and loving toward her or him. We work to build a parish; a school; communities; a city; a country; a world where nobody is in need of basic necessities to survive and thrive.

This is how we all become like the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who lays down his life for us; who lies across the entrance to the sheep pen to protect his sheep. This is how we place ourselves on the same level as one another; lead each other by care and kindness. This is how we are “children of God”; the body; the eyes and ears; the hands and feet of Christ to one another.

Homily for Monday, 30 March 2015‒ Monday of Holy Week

Readings of the day: Isaiah 42:1-7; Psalm 27:1, 2, 3, 13-14; John 12:1-11

“I… have called you for the victory of justice,” God says through the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading. Of whose “victory of justice” does Isaiah speak?

Holy Week is our final preparation for the ultimate “victory of justice”: Jesus’ death on a cross for us. This is not a “victory of justice” brought on by anything we have done right or in retribution for what we have done wrong. This is God’s “victory of justice,” willed freely by God for our salvation.

And so is this not also our “victory of justice”? We are not mere spectators to God’s justice, so how do we make God’s “victory of justice” our own? Our answer to this question may seem obvious. We know what is right and just, and so we are called to act in ways that are right and just. Our Christian faith calls us to protect basic human rights, first and foremost that of life from conception to natural death. Our Christian faith calls us to use the prosperity we have to benefit the most vulnerable: People who are poor; the working poor; people who lack adequate shelter, water, and food; people who are ill; refugees and migrants. To protect the dignity of those most in need is our foremost “victory of justice”; how we become united in God’s “victory of justice.”

But what if we have little to give to help those who are in need? What if we cannot, as individuals, change social structures of sin that keep many mired in poverty; in violence; in injustice even in our own country? What if, even when we reject or at least do not participate in gossip or political partisanship, we see these continue and even increase in our culture? How do we promote God’s “victory of justice” then?

A saying by Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta comes to my mind when I think of how we might promote God’s “victory of justice” in our world today. Mother Teresa said: “We can do no great things; only small things with great love.” For whom have we or will we do a small act of kindness today? How will we show to somebody the “victory of [God’s] justice,” which is the same to me as the victory of kindness and mercy? Who has recently shown us God’s justice; God’s mercy; God’s kindness, even in a small way?

And, above all, when we know we have failed to show forth God’s “victory of justice,” may we never despair of God’s mercy. May we never despair, even when we fall into the same sins; the same lack of justice, and even confess these repeatedly. May we heed the words of our Gospel Acclamation to God this morning: “You alone are compassionate with our faults.”

Might Judas Iscariot’s greatest sin not have been stealing from “the contributions” to the poor; not have been his betrayal of Jesus, but despair? God keeps calling us to small acts of “great love,” so may we never despair! God knows our works, individually and socially, for and against justice. Still, God is “compassionate with our faults.” By Christ’s Passion and death God has redeemed us and made us co-workers in his “victory of justice.”

Homily for Sunday, 11 January 2015– The Baptism of the Lord

Readings of the day: Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Psalm 29:1-2, 3-4, 9-10; Acts 10:34-38; Mark 1:7-11

How many of us enjoy stories or real-life events with a hint of mystery; of suspense? Is not the mystery novel genre successful for this reason? We are given enough information by mystery writers to keep us in suspense, guessing at the final outcome: Which character or characters will ultimately solve the mystery? How will the mystery be solved?

Upon hearing the readings we hear today for this celebration of the Baptism of the Lord, I think the prophet Isaiah would have made an excellent mystery novel or suspense writer; Mark the Gospel writer not so much.

Isaiah presents us with a “servant” whom “the LORD” upholds; upon whom the LORD has put his own spirit. Who is this servant who is given God’s own spirit? Nobody is really sure. Later, Christians would identify Jesus as this servant, but Isaiah likely had in mind somebody who would deliver the people of Israel of his own time from exile in Babylon that they were experiencing. What is this servant’s mission? Isaiah says of this servant, speaking for God: “I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice.” What kind of justice is this servant called to promote? It is a gentle and patient justice, but one that will nevertheless change the hearts of the people; show the people by the servant’s deeds of justice who their source of life and love is. And who is our source of life; of love; of gentle and patient justice? There is little mystery in this question. We know that the source of life; of love; of justice is the LORD himself. The LORD will guide the actions of the mystery servant of God’s justice identified by Isaiah.

Mark, like Isaiah, gets his story of mystery and suspense off to a good start. Mark introduces an important (although, we find out later, secondary) character, John the Baptist. Now, if our goal were to write a thrilling suspense story, would it not be effective to begin with a weird man baptizing a great number of people in a muddy river, the Jordan, in the middle of a desert? And so we have our weird but somehow compelling and holy man in Mark’s mystery, John the Baptist. The mystery deepens with Mark’s introduction, through John, of another character in this story. Indeed, this character will be more significant to the events that follow than John is. “One mightier than I is coming after me,” John proclaims. “I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

If this were the television miniseries version of a suspense novel, this would have been an excellent “cliffhanger” ending to an episode: Weird but holy man baptizes in a river in the middle of a desert. He proclaims one to appear after him who is greater than he is; who will baptize not “with water” but “with the Holy Spirit.” Fade to end credits… Are we not in suspense? Who is this “one mightier than” John who is to appear?

But then poor Mark ruins the mystery for us much too soon. Spoiler alert: Mark says, “It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.” Way to go, Mark! Here perhaps is the reason why Mark became a Gospel writer, not a mystery writer.

The identity of the one “mightier than John” who baptizes “with the Holy Spirit” is no mystery; no surprise to us. The person John baptizes is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the source of our life and our love; God made human. St. Gregory Nazianzen, the brother of St. Basil, says this about the Baptism of our Lord: “The Spirit comes to [Jesus] as to an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead. A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin. The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove… and so gives honor to the body that is one with God.”

But there is still mystery left to reveal in this event of Jesus’ baptism. Not only is Jesus’ “body” revealed as “one with God”; Jesus is revealed by his baptism as one with us, too. St. Gregory Nazianzen says this of what Jesus’ baptism means for us: “Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him… Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him.”

Jesus’ baptism reveals him to the world as both God and human, fully divine and yet fully one like us. Jesus’ baptism unites us to his own death and resurrection, at the core of the mystery of our salvation into which we are baptized. In Jesus’ baptism our source of life and love is made known to the world. But this is not an end; it is a beginning.

By Jesus’ baptism; by our baptism we begin our participation in making Jesus Christ, our life; our love; our salvation known to our world. The great mystery that we celebrate by this feast of the Baptism of the Lord, then, is not the identity of the person baptized by John in the Jordan. We know who this person is. Our Gospel identifies the person whom John baptizes: “Jesus… from Nazareth in Galilee.”

No, the great mystery of Jesus’ baptism, and ours, is this: What, in practice, does Jesus’ baptism mean for us? How do we make known our life and our love, the presence of Jesus Christ, to our world? How do we “baptize” our world in this life and love of God made human and baptized by John in the Jordan?

Our first reading from Isaiah and our second reading from the Acts of the Apostles give us some idea of how we might do this. In Acts, Peter invites his hearers to be mindful that “in every nation whoever fears [God] and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.” If, by our actions, we are like God, this will show by our kindness to all people; our love for all people, rich or poor, of whatever race or religion; regardless even of whether these other people love us and are kind to us in return. We will make Jesus’ presence known in our world if we are as impartial in our love as God is; if we, like Jesus, do “good” and “heal all those oppressed by the devil”; oppressed by other people; oppressed by extreme poverty; oppressed by violence. We do not need to be doctors or nurses to heal. To heal the suffering and oppressed; to make known and present our life and our love, Jesus Christ, in our world, we need only compassion. We are invited to suffer with those who suffer; to be joyful with those who are joyful; to forgive those who seek our forgiveness.

Isaiah never says who God’s mystery servant is, but he does say that the “servant whom” God upholds “shall bring forth justice to the nations.” Christians later identified this servant with Jesus, but what if this servant is us? What if we, as God’s servants, were to bring God’s justice to the world; God’s kindness, life, love, and healing to where it is most needed?

What a mystery, and not just a mystery we read in books or see on television, but a mystery we are living! Nobody, I think, will complain if the outcome of this mystery is revealed too soon. Spoiler alert: We have been baptized into Christ. We are God’s mystery servant, the servant of “the victory of [God’s] justice,” kindness, and healing; God’s “light to the nations.” Jesus Christ has been baptized in the Jordan. We are now invited to reveal the saving outcome of this mystery; to participate in Christ’s baptism and, from it, mission; to make God’s presence known in our world; to baptize our world in Christ, our life and our love.