Homily for Sunday, 9 September 2018

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 35:4-7a; Psalm 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37

This homily was given at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada. 

When is the last time any of us have attended a baptism? Have any of us ever noticed a strange part of the baptismal ritual, after the baptism itself, when the deacon or priest prays over the newly-baptized person while touching her or his ears and mouth? The deacon’s or priest’s prayer over the newly-baptized at this point in the ritual is this: “The Lord Jesus made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”

This part of the Rite of Baptism is known by a strange word: “Ephphatha.” We hear this originally-Aramaic word, ephphatha, translated for us as “be opened,” with the accompanying gestures from Jesus toward the deaf and mute man—Jesus puts “his fingers into [the man’s] ears” and touches his tongue—today in Mark’s Gospel.

Is it not remarkable that this Gospel event of which we hear today, Jesus’ restoration of hearing and speech to the deaf and mute man, “Ephphatha,” “Be opened,” was integrated in a set ritual of Baptism very early in the Church’s history, as early as the 600s? This was just as the Church was expanding beyond the geographical limits of the former Roman Empire north and west into then-pagan territories of Europe. The ephphatha has always had a double focus: First, to “open” the newly-baptized to God’s grace against sin. This is why, until it was moved in the baptismal ritual to after the baptism itself after Vatican II fifty years ago, the ephphatha introduced the renunciation of sin and profession of faith at the very beginning of the Rite. Second, the ephphatha held (and more dominantly today holds, especially since Vatican II) the significance of a call to the newly-baptized to spread our Christian faith in word and action, what we might call evangelization.

How, then, might we accomplish this, if at the heart of Jesus’ command to the deaf and mute man, “Be opened,” and at the heart of our calling as baptized Christians is evangelization, spreading the good news of Jesus Christ? Our Gospel and baptismal call to “be opened,” ephphatha, presents us with challenges both in the Gospel account of Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man itself and in the world in which we live. In Mark’s Gospel, as soon as Jesus heals the deaf and mute man, commanding him to “be opened,” he orders the crowds “to tell no one” about the healing. Do these two commands not contradict each other? And in our world today, how do we evangelize; spread the good news of the truth and beauty of our faith in Jesus Christ, while honouring the human beauty and dignity of those people to whom we communicate our faith; the dignity of people of other faiths; people who differ or disagree with us; people who may be resistant to our Christian message, even when proclaimed lovingly and reasonably? Is evangelization not out of place in a world as pluralistic as ours is in terms of faiths, cultures, politics, and worldviews?

Let me suggest that our response to these questions and challenges presented by our Gospel and our world might begin best with our attentiveness to the order of Jesus’ actions in healing the man in our Gospel reading today. This order of actions, by which Jesus touches the man’s ears and then his tongue, is reflected in the order of the ephphatha in our Rite of Baptism: “May [God] soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith”…

As in Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man in Mark’s Gospel, and from the moment of our baptism, Jesus opens our ears to hear before he opens our mouths to speak. If our evangelization, our proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, “to the praise and glory of God the Father,” is to be effective, it must be heard attentively before we are able to speak it with any authority. And if we are hearing God’s word attentively, it will become something heartfelt before we ever speak a word.

This is the message of the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading, of which Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man may have reminded the crowds following him in our Gospel reading today. For Isaiah and for Jesus, the word of God is a message to be taken to heart. Isaiah’s first address today is to “those who are of a fearful heart.” Only then does Isaiah proclaim that “the eyes of the blind shall be opened… the ears of the deaf unstopped,” that “the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.”

If we remain “of a fearful heart,” we risk becoming paralyzed; closed in on ourselves by our fears. We risk closing our hearts to the Word of God and its invitation to us to “be opened.” When I speak of fear in this way, I speak not of fear as a legitimate response to the unfamiliar and even terrifying, but when we allow fear to take over our other senses so that we are attentive to nothing but our fear, which ends up destroying us from within. It will not matter, then, what we sense with our eyes and ears; the actions and words we communicate will be joyless, faithless, and meaningless, self-centered instead of God-centered.

Do most or all of us not know people who are so overtaken by fear in this way; people who are afraid to move beyond limited situations in which they are comfortable? Pope Francis has often lamented the number of Christians who are like this: “Like Lent without Easter,” Francis describes them in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium; with “faces like pickled peppers,” he said in an audience within his first months as pope. But the symptoms of fear that has taken over the heart and closed it off to God’s presence, closed us off to effective and joyful evangelization, can be more subtle.

From the moment Jesus enters into the pagan territories between Tyre and Sidon and the ten cities “of the Decapolis,” Jesus leads by example as to what he will mean in commanding the deaf and mute man to “be opened.” Before he heals the man the crowds bring before him or even speaks a word in today’s Gospel, Jesus actively shows us the true meaning of evangelization; of proclaiming the presence and good news of the Word of God in person, but in a strange land, not among his own people. There, we witness the healing of the deaf and mute man: “Ephphatha,” “Be opened,” ears first, to hear the Word of God attentively, and only then the tongue, to proclaim this Word of God with joy.

But all this presupposes an encounter of hearts between Jesus and the man, before any opening of his other senses is able to take place. “Jesus took him aside in private,” Mark’s Gospel says. Jesus takes the deaf and mute man aside, away from the noise of the crowds, away from his fears, but also possibly away from his comfort in the support of friends among the crowds who had brought him to Jesus. “Ephphatha”—“Be opened”: This invitation is effective only if a heart-to-heart with God takes place first. Only then will our efforts at evangelization be effective. These heart-to-heart encounters take several forms: Private prayer, examination of conscience, public worship, the celebration of Eucharist other sacraments, particularly the so-called sacraments of healing, reconciliation and the anointing of the sick, spiritual direction, even more informal private conversation about matters of faith, and so forth.

We encounter God heart-to-heart in the love of one another. We encounter God heart-to-heart in any moment that moves us beyond ourselves. We may even encounter God heart-to-heart, in ways in which our hearts are opened to deeper truths about our own faith, through encounters with people of other faiths or Christians who struggle with teachings of our own faith. To open our hearts is often discomforting. But this is necessary for any evangelization we do to be any more than mere noise; the mere noise of the crowds that Jesus orders to silence (albeit unsuccessfully) in today’s Gospel.

Evangelization, proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, requires us first to open our hearts to this good news. With our hearts open, we are then able to have our ears opened to hear God’s Word attentively, and only then to have our mouths opened to proclaim it, not for our own comfort or glory but, according to our baptismal calling, “to the praise and glory of God the Father.”

Homily for Friday, 24 August 2018‒ Feast of St. Bartholomew

Friday of the 20th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Revelation 21:9b-14; Psalm 145:10-11, 12-13, 17-18; John 1:45-51

This homily was given at St. James Church, Vernon, BC, Canada.

What is the difference between a disciple and an apostle, and how are these related to each other? Please forgive me for a somewhat academic beginning to my reflection here but, for most of the year, I live in Paris as a doctoral student and, when I am not in Paris, I teach theology courses at St. Joseph’s College at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

A disciple, from the Greek origin of this word, is a student. We might think of related words like “discipline,” which can mean either the necessary focus on a specific area of study, or the area of study itself. The simplest, most literal meaning of an apostle, again a word of Greek origin, is one who is sent out.

I like to think of my experience as a priest; in ministry; as a Christian as one of combining roles as a disciple and an apostle, a student drawn in to learn from experts and then one who is sent out to serve, to teach, and to draw other people to Jesus Christ. We hear today from John’s Gospel about the encounters between Philip and Nathanael and then Nathanael and Jesus, how Philip and Nathanael combine roles as disciples and apostles.

John introduces Philip to us as a newly-called disciple. He is Jesus’ newest student, and he is a straight-A student! Philip is quick to understand that his role will not only be a passive one as Jesus’ student, but an active one, an apostolic one, of seeking and attracting other disciples to the Lord. And so Philip immediately finds Nathanael, one whose standout characteristic is transparency: “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit,” Jesus says later about Nathanael.

This new student in Jesus’ class, Nathaniel, is the type of person who is honest enough to ask questions that the other students and even the teacher may not want to hear but need to hear, like, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth”? Nathaniel’s question does not faze Philip, who understands Nathanael’s quality of character and fitness to be a disciple and then an apostle. “Come and see,” Philip says to Nathanael. Come and be a disciple of this Jesus of Nazareth, “about whom Moses wrote in the law and also the prophets wrote.”

Nathanael, to his credit, takes up Philip’s invitation to be Jesus’ disciple. He starts, as Philip did, as Jesus’ disciple, at a “come and see” invitation, and Jesus transforms him, as he did Philip, into an apostle: “You will see greater things than these.” It is almost as though Jesus says to Nathaniel, “Not only will you see greater things than what you are experiencing now, but I will send you out to attract still more people to these greater things; to God; to eternal life.”

Jesus and Philip the Apostle extend to us the same invitation as they once did Nathanael: First, “come and see,” and then go, be sent out to attract still more disciples to Christ. Seek out and attract those who will, without deceit, ask a difficult but necessary question in today’s world: “What good can come out of the Church; out of being a Christian today”? And then may we be the good that attracts to Christ good people, disciples who will be formed by Christ through us into apostles; people who will “come and see” and then be sent out ourselves to serve the Lord.

Homily for Tuesday, 2 January 2018– Memorial of Sts. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen

Readings of the day: 1 John 2:22-28; Psalm 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4; John 1:19-28

This homily was given at St. James Church, Vernon, BC, Canada.

How is it possible for us to discern that somebody, especially one whose task it is to communicate true and accurate information, to teach, or to preach, or simply to live our Christian faith truthfully and authentically, is actually doing so?

The first letter of John, from which we hear today, gives us a hint as to how to live truthfully, authentically, and faithfully ourselves, and how we might discern others who live this way. John says, “abide in him”; abide in God. What does it mean for us to “abide in” God?

To me, our readings today point toward humility as a key virtue toward abiding in God; toward allowing God to work in, with, and around us and not obstructing God’s work through our own pride or impatience. One of my brother Basilian priests has humility almost down to a mantra: “It’s not about me.”

John warns the disciples of his time of “the one who would deceive” them. Who are the most deceptive influences, the most distracting from and destructive of Christian faith, but anybody who would think and act as if our faith, and living it, is about them and not primarily about God?

In John the Baptist, our reading today from John’s Gospel gives us a standout example of humility. For John the Baptist, his ministry of baptizing in the Jordan, his faith and his living it out, is never about him but about God and about Jesus Christ, God’s Son. Could we imagine the temptation John the Baptist might have felt to attribute any success he had in his ministry to himself rather than to God? Instead, John the Baptist retreats to the wilderness, away from attention on himself that would detract from his contemplation of God, his heart-to-heart with God through his baptizing ministry. Still, the people seek out John the Baptist in that wilderness to be baptized. Ultimately, Jesus himself seeks out and finds John the Baptist, just as John announces himself as “not worthy to untie the thong on [Jesus’] sandals.” John never deceives those who tempt him to make himself out to be greater than he is: “‘I am not the Messiah’… ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ ‘I am not.’”

Sts. Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nazianzen, bishops of the fourth century whom we celebrate today, are two more examples of allowing God to abide in them because of their humility. Together, as great friends to each other despite the power of their office as bishops, they worked to formulate the truth of the divinity of the Son and then of the Holy Spirit. They reminded especially the wealthiest of the faithful of their responsibility to uphold the dignity of the poorest. Basil and Gregory did all this while living humble and even austere lives themselves.

Basil, who is portrayed in icons with the dove representing the Holy Spirit, and Gregory knew and lived as though their ministry; their teaching was not about themselves but about God. John the Baptist lived and ministered in the same way. Their examples call us to the same lives of truth, faithfulness, and humility, so that God might abide in us and we in God.

Homily for Tuesday, 13 June 2017– Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua

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

Tuesday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Have any of us ever wondered how saints become associated with particular causes, such as finding lost items in the case of St. Anthony of Padua?

There are so many stories and legends, sayings and sermons connected with St. Anthony, so that I think it would be quite reasonable for us to wonder how he became the go-to saint when we have lost something. Of course, St. Anthony is rightly the patron of many other causes, too. He is called the “Evangelical Doctor”; of the thirty-six recognized “doctors” or master teachers by their writings and example in our Church’s history, St. Anthony is renowned as an evangelist, somebody who spread our faith by his preaching and gentle, humble presence that echoed the presence of Christ to the people. For his legendary efforts at preaching to fish (I hope to try this next time I go fishing!), St. Anthony is the patron of many things marine and water-related. He is the patron of his native Portugal and of Brazil. But St. Anthony is connected, far more often it seems than with other causes, to lost people or objects, and is the patron of objects that become easily lost, like mail (and mail carriers).

But why is St. Anthony most often recognized as the patron of lost objects? It all started with a Franciscan novice stealing his prayer book, with all the notes St. Anthony was using to teach the novices in his care. Those novices… I was once a novice, although I never stole my novice director’s prayer book! St. Anthony prayed, and so the novice was moved to return his prayer book.

I am not complaining about St. Anthony being too exclusively associated with lost objects. Yesterday, St. Anthony came to the aid of this absent-minded professor who thought, when leaving the house, that I would leave all my keys I did not need on the corner of my desk at the rectory so I would not lose them. Indeed, I did leave my keys on the corner of my desk… in the office I am using at our St. Cecilia Church site, not at the rectory. I think “it is right and just,” as we say, then, that I (and we together) celebrate St. Anthony. If St. Peter were given the power of the keys, St. Anthony has the gift of finding those keys when we lose them!

But may we also pray through St. Anthony as the one who not only helps to find lost objects, but to find us when we become lost, in error or sin;  when we fail to be, in the words of our Gospel today, “salt of the earth, [like] a city set on a mountain,” or a lamp “set on a lampstand”;  when instead our lamps become hidden, dim, or, worse yet, lost. St. Anthony of Padua, you are a beloved example of gentle evangelization; of calling the lost to the fullest practice of our faith. Find us when we are lost, place our lamps on lampstands; make us again “salt of the earth and light of the world.” Guide us toward “our heavenly Father,” whose glory you and we serve, and help us to light the way for one another, as you did, humbly and faithfully, through Christ our Lord.