Homily for Tuesday, 9 June 2015– Ferial

Tuesday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22;  Psalm 119:129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135; Matthew 5:13-16

When was the last time you said “yes” to God? I invite us to look around for a moment. Look at all of us who are here. Our first act of the morning is to be here to celebrate Christ present among us in our Eucharist. This is a resounding “yes” to God!

Some of us might ask: What about any ills of mind, body, or spirit that we bring to this celebration? What about our sins, when in St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians we have said at best “‘yes’ and ‘no’” to our God who always says “yes” to us? Once again, I say, we are here, with all our ills, our distress, our poverty of spirit if not material poverty, our distractions, our inability to focus at prayer… We are here; we have brought to this celebration all this: Our many times of saying “yes” to God through our worship, our actions of love and kindness, and our service to people in need in countless ways. And we bring our instances of saying “no” or “yes and no” to God; to one another. Nevertheless we are here.

And the more instances we bring here to this celebration of having said “yes and no”; of being in need of God’s forgiveness and healing make our “yes” by being here all the greater! We begin our Eucharistic celebration by asking for God’s mercy: “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy,” not because of the weight of our sins; our having said “yes and no” to God or (although I believe this is rare) “no” outright to God. We pray for God’s mercy because of our confidence in God’s “yes” to us. And in this prayer for mercy just as we gather before the Word of God; before the Lord’s Table, our “yes” to God receives and embraces God’s “yes” to us. And then we receive and embrace God’s ultimate “yes” to us, God’s Son Jesus Christ truly and fully present in our Eucharist; in our communion of faith with one another. The Christ we receive and embrace here then gives us the strength to be Christ to our world. “Yes,” over and over again, to God and to one another: How wonderful!

May we never despair of God’s mercy; God’s constant “yes” to us, in our Eucharist and in all the sacraments of the Church. Our “yes” back to God; our partaking in the life and sacraments of our Church takes much courage. Yet I cannot count the ways in which we, people of St. Kateri, say “yes” to God by the way we live. God is here with mercy through the Church when our “yes” is imperfect; when our “yes” needs the added strength of God. But we have already made the utmost act of courage just by being here, many of us daily. We hear the Word of God proclaimed here; the homily given. But we are, perhaps as importantly, the best homily ever given; the Word of God proclaimed among one another and in our world with conviction; with courage by the way we live: With deliberate if small acts of kindness, with joy, with patience, with gentleness, with mercy…

“Yes” to God who is always “yes” to us.

Homily for Friday, 10 April 2015– Friday in the Octave of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 4:1-12; Psalm 118:1-2, 4, 22-24, 25-27a; John 21:1-14

How often does our Lord encounter us exactly where we are in our lives? And, at the same time, how often are we unprepared or even afraid to encounter our Lord in these humble, everyday circumstances?

From Acts today we hear the continuation of the story of Peter’s and John’s healing of a crippled man outside the temple. Peter and John are brought before the religious leaders for healing in the name of Jesus Christ: “Annas the high priest,” the “elders and scribes,” and “all who were of the high-priestly class.” The two Apostles face with tremendous courage this same group of leaders who had killed Jesus. Peter and John, as well as the religious leaders themselves, know that this strength to witness to Christ and the power to heal the crippled man in the first place was not their own. This power; this strength, Acts emphasizes over and over, is from the Holy Spirit. We hear that Peter, “filled with the Holy Spirit, answered” the elders, scribes, and priests who were trying him and John.

When have we been “filled with the Holy Spirit”? If we were to face persecution for our faith, would we have the same strength and courage of Peter and John; the strength and courage that are gifts of the Holy Spirit that we receive in baptism and confirmation? For us to face persecution for our faith here in the United States is unlikely, but not so in many places in our world. And so we pray for the people who are persecuted and killed; who are witnesses to Christ by their lives today. And let us pray for the same Holy Spirit to give us the strength to end violence and poverty in our world and here in our country and city.

But are there not times when we feel anything but strong and courageous? Have there been times in our lives when we are more like Peter and the other disciples in our Gospel reading this morning than like Peter and John in Acts? Are there times when we expect a great sign or surge in strength and courage from our Lord, and here we encounter him in simple, everyday events of our lives?

Imagine this: After his resurrection, Jesus had appeared to his disciples twice. But eventually Jesus’ disciples want to return to their everyday activities. Are they maybe still fearful for their lives should they identify openly as followers of Jesus, who had been brutally killed? Peter, the same Peter who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, would later show great courage before hostile religious leaders, announces, “I am going fishing.” And the others follow him: I am going back to my everyday activities; back to the life with which I was comfortable.

And it is then when Jesus encounters us again, not with a great sign at first but humbly and quietly. Jesus joins us; joins Peter and the Apostles, for a simple breakfast. Jesus breaks bread and fish with them. In this simple act, the Apostles recognize that “it is the Lord.”

In the same way, Jesus encounters us in our everyday activities, but also calls us beyond our comfort zones to acknowledge him as our risen Lord and to be his disciples.

Homily for Monday, 6 April 2015– Monday in the Octave of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 10:34a, 37-43; Psalm 16:1-2a, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; Matthew 28:8-15

What would our first reaction be if we were among Jesus’ first disciples just after his resurrection? Would many of us picture ourselves perhaps huddled behind locked doors, fearful for our lives, or standing before an empty tomb, not yet ready to acknowledge that Christ had risen?

I admit that I am not sure I would have reacted any differently than most of Jesus’ first disciples after his resurrection. Jesus had died a horrible, torturous death. Resurrections from the dead are uncommon. Would most of us not have been deeply afraid if we had witnessed these events first-hand?

And yet our readings today do not speak of these first disciples running away or huddled in fear. No, we hear today of the tremendous courage of some of Jesus’ disciples as they realized the miracle that had taken place; as they encountered the risen Christ.

Fear is still present, Matthew says to us, as “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” leave the empty tomb. The women are “fearful but” also “overjoyed” when they realize that our Lord Jesus is risen. They meet and greet Jesus “on their way.” Jesus reinforces their bold courage, saying to them: “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” What bewildering joy “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” must have felt at hearing the voice of their Lord once again, perhaps after thinking that all was lost at his death!

The Acts of the Apostles gives us another scene of bold courage like that in Matthew’s Gospel, but this time involving Peter, speaking for the remaining Eleven Apostles. This scene is structured like a trial. Peter acts as the lead prosecutor, making his incisive opening arguments. He faces down those responsible for Jesus’ death: “This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God, you killed, using lawless men to crucify him.”

The people to whom Peter speaks are guilty beyond reasonable doubt. And yet Peter, filled with the boldness and hope of the Holy Spirit, does something amazing here: He does not condemn those who had Jesus killed. Instead, Peter witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. He witnesses to the salvation that Jesus’ resurrection has opened up for all of us.

We stand guilty here. Jesus was put to death for our sin. And yet we are not condemned. Instead, Peter says: “God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he poured forth the promise of the Holy Spirit that he received from the Father, as you both see and hear.”

“We are all witnesses” through the testimony handed on to us from the first Apostles; the first witnesses to Christ’s resurrection. We “both see and hear.” We have been given “the promise of the Holy Spirit.” And now we are sent forth to bear witness to this gift of redemption, our renewed chance at salvation. After Peter, “Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary,” now is our chance to speak and act with bold courage; kindness; mercy; justice, for Christ is risen! Alleluia!

Homily for Tuesday, 17 February 2015– Ferial

Optional Memorial of the Seven Founders of the Order of Servites

Tuesday of the 6th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Genesis 6:5-8, 7:1-5, 10; Psalm 29:1a-2, 3ac-4, 3b, 9c-10; Mark 8:14-21

What do our readings today say about God? What do they say to us about ourselves; about human nature?

At first glance, does God not seem in our readings to be harsh and destructive? In our reading from Genesis, God is about to send a catastrophic flood upon the earth. This flood will be the exact reversal of creation, by which God created order and life from chaos. Now, chaos will once again reign.

But is it God’s chaos that will reign, or ours? Human beings seem hopelessly depraved in our first reading today. God orders the flood “when he [sees] how great” is our “wickedness on earth.”

Jesus’ own disciples are not much better in our Gospel reading. Not only have they “forgotten to bring bread.” This is the least of their worries. No, the disciples have been infected by “the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” Their “hearts” have been “hardened” by legalism that lacks compassion; by leadership that lacks courage; by failure to see and act by the signs of the reign of God reaching its fulfillment before their very senses. Are these not still challenges in the lives of faith of many Christians today? We are challenged to act with compassion and not out of legalism or partisanship. Our Gospel challenges us to have courage to stand up both to relativism and its just-as-harmful opposite in our culture, absolutism that does not allow for uncertainty; that over-categorizes; that limits both God and us.

Jesus ends our Gospel reading today with a pointed challenge to his disciples: “Do you still not understand”? But is Jesus, or is God who orders the flood in Genesis, actually acting harshly? Perhaps we are being invited to understand today’s readings differently than we are used to understanding them.

Today’s scene from Mark’s Gospel is not an end but a beginning for Jesus’ disciples. They will continue to grow in knowledge of God’s reign and of their place in it as they continue to journey with Jesus.

Likewise, the flood in Genesis is a new beginning, not an end. “Noah found favor with the LORD,” not that a cruel God was to bring a destructive flood on the earth, is the central message of our first reading. Noah does not stand alone as the righteous character in the flood story; the one God chooses to save. Noah stands for everything good still in creation. Indeed, our sin; our abuse of free will has corrupted creation, initially designed by God as “very good.” But there is still something worth saving; worth redeeming in creation; in us. And so “Noah found favor with the LORD.” In this way we find favor with the Lord also.

Perhaps then God does not appear as harsh as at first glance in our readings. We human beings are not bad or depraved, but redeemable. We are living our redemption now in Christ, through which God challenges us; strips away what is sinful in us as though by a flood of compassion and mercy. We are living a new beginning, not an end, because, like “Noah,” we have “found favor with the LORD.”

Homily for Friday, 17 October 2014– Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch

Friday of the 28th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Ephesians 1:11-14; Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 12-13; Luke 12:1-7

What are some things that we fear? When I was a very young boy, I wanted to become a firefighter. There was one problem with this, though: I was afraid of the sound of sirens. So here, a few steps in vocational discernment later, I am a priest and not a firefighter!

I am sure that our fears as we grow; become adults; progress through life become somewhat more complex. Jesus, though, speaks of one basic fear that I wonder if it ever leaves us, no matter how courageous we may be: The fear of death.

Jesus says to his disciples in Luke’s Gospel, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more.” Let us put ourselves in the place of Jesus’ disciples. By this point in Jesus’ public ministry, would they have known clearly that Jesus’ life was going to end in a humiliating death; that of a common criminal on a cross? Would this not have made Jesus’ disciples afraid not only for Jesus’ life but for their own lives?

Perplexingly yet comfortingly, Jesus invites his disciples not to fear death. But he does not entirely dismiss fear, which is natural, human, and sometimes an appropriate reaction to obvious danger. Jesus says this to his disciples after inviting them not to fear either their deaths or his: “Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna.” The significance of Gehenna here is that this was the place outside the city walls of Jerusalem where garbage burned and the poor, the ritually unclean, and the especially wicked were often buried in undignified graves. If there were a hell on earth for anyone living in Israel in Jesus’ time, Gehenna was it. Just the mental image of Gehenna would have struck fear in Jesus’ hearers of today’s Gospel.

Do not fear death, Jesus asks us, but do fear hell. And yet fear hell and the one “who has the power to cast into Gehenna,” into hell, only in the context of God’s love and mercy toward us. Would a loving and merciful God who created us in God’s own image and likeness; next to God in dignity and worth, allow us to be cast into hell easily? I think not.

This does not mean that we test God by acting in ways beneath the worth with which we were created and called as daughters and sons of God. This does not mean that we may not encounter ridicule or, less likely, true persecution and even martyrdom for our faith. As we celebrate today the feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, martyred in Rome about one hundred years after Jesus’ time, we recognize that courageous disciples continue to be martyred in our time.

And yet this is not to make us fearful. Do not fear death, Jesus says. Fear hell and the one who can cast us into hell but, more importantly than any fear, trust God who saves; who in Christ will be victorious over the power of hell itself.