Homily for Wednesday, 22 July 2015– Memorial of St. Mary Magdalene

Wednesday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15; Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9; John 20:1-2, 11-18

What do the people of Israel fleeing Egypt led by Moses and Aaron have in common with Mary Magdalene? The people of Israel in our first reading, like Mary Magdalene in John’s Gospel, want to hold onto something; onto what is safe; secure; certain, even if what is safe, secure, or certain is not best for them.

The people of Israel under Moses and Aaron have become seasoned complainers. They even begin to say that they would have been better off enslaved by the Egyptians than traveling through the desert hungry led by Moses and Aaron! God has mercy on these people who complain at some point on their journey back to Israel about nearly everything, it would seem. Here God promises them: “In the evening twilight you will eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread.”

But the flesh they are given to eat is gamey quail. And the bread that falls upon the camp in the morning is “like dew”; hardly what the people of Israel were expecting. And so they ask: “What is this (in Hebrew, “Manna?”, the question that gives this strange dew-like substance its name)?

God, I believe, tries to move the people of Israel away from dependence on safety; security; certainty and toward a deeper trust that God, through Moses and Aaron, is leading them home to freedom. The same is true of Mary Magdalene in our Gospel reading. Of course who among us could fault Mary Magdalene for her sorrow at Jesus’ crucifixion and death?

Still, Jesus’ first words to Mary Magdalene are, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for”? Added to the horror of Jesus’ crucifixion and death; to the lack of certainty (and likely safety and security) Mary feels, somebody appears to have taken away Jesus’ body. Could we understand if Mary Magdalene’s first thought were anything but that Jesus could have risen from the dead? This would have been highly unlikely.

And yet there Jesus is, calling her by name, “Mary”! Mary immediately recognizes Jesus’ voice. Her sorrow and confusion give way to joy as she exclaims: “Rabbouni”!

But Jesus says to Mary, “Stop holding onto me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father; to your God and my God.” Jesus is asking Mary amid this flood of emotions she must have been feeling to deepen her trust in God: “Stop holding onto me”; onto safety; security; certainty. When has God invited us in our lives to do the same?

Mary Magdalene, without doubt, heeded Jesus’ invitation to “go to [Jesus’] brothers” with the message that he had risen. If not, she would not be known as “the Apostle to the Apostles” as she is. We would not be here to worship Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us; who invites us from time to time to let go of our need for safety; security; certainty for a greater good. This greater good that God promises us is our salvation, if we follow Mary Magdalene in trusting Jesus: “I am going to my Father and your Father; to my God and your God.” 

Homily for Monday, 1 June 2015‒ Memorial of St. Justin Martyr

Monday of the 9th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Tobit 1:3, 2:1a-8; Psalm 112:1b-2, 3b-4, 5-6; Mark 12:1-12

This Mass was offered in memory of my maternal grandmother, Simone Salt. May she rest in peace.

Why do good people suffer? This question does not have an easy answer, even for us as people of faith.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Justin, a martyr of Rome almost two hundred years before the Roman Empire tolerated Christianity and then made it its official religion. St. Justin’s goal in his teaching and beautiful writings was to convince people of other faiths (Jews and pagans alike) of the truth of the Christian faith; that Christ is the Son of God by pointing to the way Christians lived. His way of teaching by conversation is called the “moral apology” or defense of the moral rightness of Christian faith. St. Justin, a good and faithful man, a saint, suffered greatly for his gentle way of teaching and was eventually killed for his faith.

Our opening prayer of today’s Mass speaks of “the folly of the Cross” that “wondrously taught St. Justin the Martyr the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ.” Why do good people like St. Justin suffer? Why are there more martyrs within the last century than in all previous centuries of Christian history combined?

Might we point to questions like these and wonder at the folly of when good people suffer? These questions have no easy answers. Our readings today speak to this same question. We are introduced to Tobit, who has been exiled to Nineveh, in our first reading today. Tobit searches for one of his own people who has been murdered, so that he can give him a dignified burial.

Would we not think that Tobit’s profound act of mercy would be praised? But instead Tobit is mocked both by the Ninevites and by his own people of Israel. To contact the dead physically would bring Tobit ritual impurity. Worse yet, his own life is endangered because he dares to bury a person who has been murdered. Why do good people like Tobit suffer?

Jesus’ parable of the tenants in our Gospel reading is the ultimate example of a good person experiencing suffering. After sending several servants into a vineyard and seeing them mistreated by the vineyard’s tenants, the vineyard owner sends in his own son. Instead of respecting the vineyard owner’s son as hoped, they plot to kill him and seize the inheritance!

We know that, in Jesus’ parable, God is the vineyard owner. Jesus is the innocent Son who is killed. Why does the innocent Son, Jesus, suffer? The Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth once said that the only way to make sense of suffering by innocent people is that Christ suffered and died for us. And yet why do some experience extreme poverty? Why are so many in our world threatened and killed for their faith? Why natural disasters that claim many lives? Why do young children experience terrible illnesses, and their families who care for them suffer also? Why did my grandmother, Simone, for whom we pray in this Mass, suffer for years in near-silence with dementia?

We have no easy answers. But God’s promise is that, by uniting ourselves to the “folly of” Christ’s Cross, our suffering is made temporary. We gain “surpassing knowledge” of Christ’s suffering for us. And we who share in Christ’s suffering will also have a share in his resurrection.

Homily for Wednesday, 27 May 2015– Ferial

Wednesday of the 8th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Sirach 36:1, 4-5a, 10-17; Psalm 79:8, 9, 11, 13; Mark 10:32-45

This homily was given at Bethany House, a shelter for homeless women and children and a ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Rochester, NY.

Have any of us ever loved in a way that defies logic; understanding; explanation? Have we ever loved somebody so deeply and yet said or done something, maybe even well-meaning, at the wrong place or the wrong time?

This, I think, is the experience of Jesus’ Apostles James and John in our Gospel reading today. It is clear from Mark’s Gospel that Jesus’ disciples love him. But they become especially confused in their love for Jesus as Jesus is about to complete his journey to Jerusalem. Today’s Gospel reading describes Jesus’ disciples as both “amazed” and “afraid.”

What were the disciples thinking and feeling as Jesus neared Jerusalem? Perhaps they were “amazed” at his teaching; his works of mercy; of healing; his miracles that they had witnessed while accompanying Jesus in his public life. But might they have asked themselves, “What good will our Lord’s going to Jerusalem bring? We believe he is our hoped-for Messiah. We love him. He has many friends, but also many enemies. Will his life be in danger in Jerusalem?”

And then Jesus confirms the worst fears of his disciples: In Jerusalem he will be mocked, spit upon, scourged, and put to death. It is no wonder that Jesus’ disciples are “afraid”! In their fear the Apostles James and John make a request of Jesus that, on the one hand, sounds extremely self- serving. “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left,” James and John ask Jesus. On the other hand, we could understand James’ and John’s request for a share in Jesus’ glory as well-meaning. James and John love Jesus. They have been with him throughout his public life and ministry. They are now faced with the prospect of his death in Jerusalem. Their request for a share in Jesus’ heavenly glory, then, is borne out of fear and confusion. Might they be speaking the words that Jesus’ other disciples are all feeling? They are “amazed” and yet “afraid.”

Jesus recognizes that his disciples love him and one another. He corrects James and John, and any disciple who sees in following Jesus an opportunity for personal glory or power over others. “You know that” the “rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them… But it shall not be so among you,” Jesus says to his disciples.

But even this correction is gentle. By it Jesus refines the love his disciples have for him and one another. Their love has one well-meaning goal: A share in Jesus’ own eternal glory. But their love; our love is in need of refinement to accept a share in Jesus’ cross if we are to have a share in his resurrection.

I have confidence that we, like Jesus’ first disciples, love Jesus and one another. And yet are we willing to accept in faith Jesus’ refinement of our love so that our love continues to grow, to be ever more other-serving and God-serving than self-serving; to accept our both share in Christ’s suffering; his cross and in his resurrection; his glory that we are promised? If we are willing to accept this and to pray for this, then Jesus will purify; perfect our love for him and for one another in the way he did for and with his first disciples.

Homily for Monday, 20 April 2015– Monday of the Third Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 6:8-15; Psalm 119:23-24, 26-27, 29-30; John 6:22-29

What does it mean to be a witness?

Witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most consistent themes in Acts that we continue to hear during this Easter season. Who are the witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ? We are witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we witness in an even greater way to the resurrection of Jesus Christ by uniting ourselves to the spirit and experience of the first witnesses to Christ’s resurrection.

Today we encounter one of these first witnesses, Stephen. We hear of St. Stephen, the New Testament’s first martyr; the first to witness to Christ by his life and by his death. And how does Stephen witness to Christ? The Acts of the Apostles says that he was “filled with grace and power… working great wonders and signs among the people.” Stephen spoke with a divine wisdom, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, which those persecuting him “could not withstand.”

But how do we witness to the risen Christ today? For us, to give our lives as martyrs for our faith is improbable. But we are all still called to be witnesses. How? In our reading today from John’s Gospel, Jesus gives us some idea of how we are to be witnesses to him. Jesus says to the people he has just fed by the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish: “You are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.”

In this Eucharistic celebration we, too, eat and drink of bread and wine, which becomes in our presence the Body and Blood of Christ, and we become “filled.” Our becoming “filled” with the presence of Christ himself, more than having seen any sign, makes us witnesses; gives us the responsibility to witness to the risen Christ by the way we live.

We witness to Christ, upon whom God “has set his seal.” But we also have received the “seal” of God. We, too, have been sealed with God’s Holy Spirit in baptism and confirmation. This seal with God’s Spirit whom we have received makes us witnesses; indeed makes us “little Christs” in our world.

How do we fulfill this mission of being “little Christs”; being witnesses to Christ in our world? We do not need to (and probably will not) become martyrs like St. Stephen. We are not expected to work miracles. All Jesus asks of us is this: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.” And “believe in the one [God] sent.”

“The food that endures for eternal life” is our faith community. It is our community when we reach out to one another with works of kindness, justice, and forgiveness. It is our community gathered here for Eucharist; to pray together. “The food that endures for eternal life” is our creativity in helping those most in need; in being present to the sick; the dying; those who have lost loved ones. In these and so many other ways, we show to our world that we “believe in the one [God] sent,” Jesus Christ. We act as Christ acted, and we are true witnesses to his death and resurrection.

Homily for Sunday, 19 April 2015– Third Sunday of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9; 1 John 2:1-5a; Luke 24:35-48

This homily was given at Anglin House, the residence for elderly and infirm Basilians in Toronto, ON, Canada.

“You are witnesses of these things,” we hear today from Luke’s Gospel. Later, Peter echoes these words to the people he addresses in Acts, taking the identity of witness upon himself and the other disciples of Jesus: “To this we are witnesses.” To what are we witnesses? What is the central message that we have been invited to proclaim “to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem”; beginning from when the risen Christ stood among his first disciples in the upper room at Emmaus?

“Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,” Jesus reminds his disciples, “and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name.” Repentance and forgiveness of sins: To this we are witnesses. Repentance and forgiveness of sins: This is at the core of the message of the risen Christ; the message that our Lord invites us to continue to proclaim and, more importantly, to live out day to day.

How are we to be witnesses to repentance and forgiveness of sins? We cannot go back to stand among the first witnesses to the risen Christ in the upper room, who first heard Jesus’ greeting, “Peace be with you.” We cannot stand with those first disciples who “in their joy” at seeing the risen Christ were “disbelieving and still wondering.” We cannot witness directly to Peter’s address to “the people” of Israel. These events are finished; in the past.

I like to imagine Peter’s speech in our first reading, from Acts, as the opening arguments at a courtroom trial. Only these opening arguments are not from the prosecution or the defense, but from the defendant. In Acts, Peter lays out the charge against the people: Rejection; denial of “the Holy and Righteous One”; asking “to have a murderer given to” them in the place of Jesus, the Christ; killing Jesus, “the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.” “To this we are witnesses,” Peter says. But Peter speaks not as one who has any right to accuse the people of anything but as the guilty party. Peter stands for us. Peter and we are all guilty of this crime of having denied Christ; having handed Christ over to death for our sins.

And then something remarkable happens at this trial: We are clearly guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but we are not condemned. Instead, we are pardoned. We are forgiven. This was God’s will for us all along, “that his Messiah should suffer.” By Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, we are forgiven and, even more remarkably, given the chance to be witnesses to our own forgiveness by our own lives. We, the defendants at this trial, represented by Peter, become this trial’s star witnesses. So how do we go about being witnesses?

We cannot go back in time to re-live these events of our Scriptures: Peter’s address to the people of Israel in Acts; Jesus’ appearance in the upper room to his disciples in Emmaus. Yet in his reflection for today’s readings in America Magazine, John Martens points out that we witness in two ways to the resurrected Christ and what Christ’s resurrection means for us as Christians. First, we witness to “the authenticity and trustworthiness of the” first “witnesses”; to Jesus’ first disciples and Apostles who first encountered our risen Lord physically present among them. We trust the truth revealed to us in Scripture and by the tradition of the Church, handed on to us from the first Apostles; from these first direct witnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Second, even more importantly, we bear witness to the risen Christ by “the authenticity and trustworthiness of our lives.” How can we live our lives in a way that is most authentic and trustworthy? I ask this: How many of us have ever been forgiven of some wrongdoing? How many of us have been forgiven, especially when we did not expect to be forgiven by the person we had wronged, at least not as immediately or as generously as this person forgave us? I can think of a few instances in my own life in which I have been forgiven. I have even gone, filled with guilt on a few occasions, to people I have wronged, only to hear, “I forgive you; do not worry. No longer dwell on what you did wrong. Let it go.” How freeing! Has anyone ever approached us, having wronged us, thinking she or he would surely be scolded or condemned (maybe when we have heard confessions, those of us who are priests), and we have instead responded with great tenderness and forgiveness? This generous forgiveness is an image of God’s forgiveness for us, shown most fully by Christ’s death and resurrection for us. “To this we are witnesses.”

And being witnesses means extending the same forgiveness to others that we have received. Who is in most need of our forgiveness? I ask all of us, the next time we have a chance to pray silently for a few minutes, to think of one person who is most in need of our forgiveness. Maybe this person is a member of our family; a friend; an acquaintance; maybe even a member of our religious community; a Basilian confrère… This is the person to whom God is inviting you; inviting me today to reach out in forgiveness; to witness to the forgiveness we have all been granted because Christ died and is risen for us! This is how God invites all of us to ever greater “authenticity and trustworthiness” of our lives as Christians.

This is how God invites all of us today to witness to the “repentance and forgiveness of sins” that is central to Peter’s message to the people of Israel after Jesus had risen from the dead. This is how God invites all of us today to witness to the “repentance and forgiveness of sins” that is the central message of Jesus’ appearance to his disciples in the upper room at Emmaus.

This is the message that we as Church, beginning with the first disciples; “beginning from Jerusalem,” have been entrusted with proclaiming “in [Jesus’] name to all nations.” Proclaim by all means and, even more importantly, live by “repentance and forgiveness of sins.” Reach out with the same forgiveness we have been given by God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Reach out with the same forgiveness we have, at one time or another, received from another person. Reach out with forgiveness. “To this,” to God’s gift of forgiveness that impels us both to forgive and to repent from sin, “we are witnesses.”

Homily for Friday, 20 March 2015‒ Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Wisdom 2:1a, 12-22; Psalm 34:17-18, 19-20, 21, 23; John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30

Who really knows who Jesus is? In our Gospel reading today from John we hear of many people in the crowd in Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacles who thought they knew Jesus. “Is he not the one they are trying to kill? …Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ? But we know where he is from.”

In John’s Gospel we see a mob mentality develop. It begins innocently as idle speculation: Who is Jesus? Why is he able to move about and to speak freely if the religious authorities are trying to kill him? This speculation becomes gossip. The people divide into factions, some for Jesus and his message, others against, and many not courageous enough to commit to Jesus; to identify him as the Christ; to live as his disciples and not to hide among the crowds. We know the result of this division: Jesus is put to death.

But does this deadly mob mentality not develop subtly? It is not usually as blatant as in our first reading, from the Book of Wisdom. Here the people are openly “wicked,” calling for the “shameful death” of the just one; the death of Wisdom.

Are not most people at least well-meaning? To be truly and openly wicked is, I believe, rare. But do we not still experience divisions within nations; divisions within the Church; divisions within families? These divisions begin innocently enough: Speculation as to another’s motives; gossip; words and actions meant to hurt; factionalism just as within the crowds of Jerusalem in Jesus’ time.

When we give into this mob mentality, we participate in putting Jesus Christ to death. I do not wish to discourage us or to make us feel guilty, though, by saying this. John says at the end of today’s Gospel reading that Jesus’ “hour had not yet come.”

When is Jesus’ “hour”? John refers directly to Jesus’ Passion and death. But, indirectly, we are living Jesus’ “hour” now. Our “hour has... come.” Our time is now to seek the forgiveness of somebody we have sinned against, even under the cover of crowd influence. Now is our “hour” to repent if we have participated in gossip; if we have more openly and intentionally hurt another person by word or deed. In these ways we have a chance now to participate in Christ’s resurrection.

This Lent especially is our “hour”; our time to come to know and live more truly and authentically who Jesus is: Christ, the Son of God. We come to know Jesus better by listening and speaking to him in prayer and by purposeful acts of kindness toward one another. We come to know Jesus better as the Christ not by following the idle speculation of the crowds that begins innocently but leads to no good, but by following and purposefully acting as Jesus acts.