Homily for Thursday, 21 May 2015– Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 22:30, 23:6-11; Psalm 60:1-2a, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; John 17:20-26

For what or for whom do we pray most frequently? We have heard of frequently-asked questions. What are our most frequently-prayed prayers?

Do we most often pray in times of sorrow; times of need, or do we find ourselves praying in praise and thanksgiving to God; praying in moments of joy; peace; prosperity? Perhaps we know somebody who is struggling with her or his faith; or has turned away from faith altogether, and we pray for this person. Perhaps some of us are experiencing health difficulties, or we know somebody who is ill in mind, body, or spirit, and so we pray for these people.

These are only a few of the more frequent circumstances, all of them good, in which we may be inspired to pray. Do we pray, maybe often, that we might enter eternal life? I pray this often for myself, but also for the people I love; the people I serve as a baptized Christian and as a priest.

And have we ever asked ourselves: What were Jesus’ most frequent prayers? For what or for whom did Jesus pray most often? Might this be a model for our most frequent prayers?

Our Gospel reading today is drawn from John 17, which is often called Jesus’ “high priestly prayer.” We hear Jesus’ last long prayer, during the Last Supper, before his passion and death on the cross. And yet I hear John 17 as a collection of shorter prayers that Jesus prays for his disciples. For what does Jesus pray for his disciples? Jesus prays to our Father in heaven that we, Jesus’ disciples, “may be one, as” God the Father and Son “are one.” Jesus prays for his disciples “that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that” the Father has sent him. Jesus prays at length and repeatedly in this Chapter 17 of John for our unity.

For what else does Jesus pray for his disciples? He prays that they may gain eternal life: “I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me.”

And I find one of the most beautiful intentions of Jesus’ high-priestly prayer to be when he prays for the people who will believe in him because of the witness of his first disciples. Jesus prays in our Gospel reading today: “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.”

How, then, can we make Jesus’ high priestly prayer our own? Jesus gives us his own example of excellent prayers to make into our most frequent prayers: Pray for one another’s unity. Important divisions still exist among Christian churches and traditions, although great strides toward unity have been made, especially in recent years. Pray that all may inherit eternal life. God has created every human being, all of us, out of love. God has created us for himself; for everlasting life. And pray in particular for the quality of our witness to Christ by the way we live, so that still more may be attracted to Christ and to our faith by our words and our works.

Homily for Sunday, 22 March 2015

5th Sunday in Lent

Readings of the day (Year A readings, Third Scrutiny): Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6. 7-8; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

What are some of Catholics’ most frequently-asked questions about our faith? When I was newly-ordained last May, I visited the high school from which I graduated, Archbishop Jordan Catholic High School in Sherwood Park, Alberta, just outside of Edmonton, Canada. Each student I spoke with was to write down two questions to ask the new priest. At first, I was somewhat surprised at the most frequently asked question to me of Archbishop Jordan students.

What was the most frequently-asked question, both overall and in each grade and classroom? “Father, have you ever done an exorcism”? Fortunately, I had the presence of mind whenever I was asked this question to respond, “Yes, every time I do a baptism.”

Our Catholic Rite of Baptism for Children includes a beautiful prayer of exorcism over the children to be baptized, after which the children may be anointed with blessed oil called “Oil of Salvation” or “Oil of Catechumens.” The prayer of exorcism, just before the baptism itself, is this: “Almighty and ever-living God,  you sent your only Son into the world to cast out the power of Satan, spirit of evil,  to rescue us from the kingdom of darkness, and bring us into the splendor of your kingdom of light. We pray for this child:  Set him (her) free from original sin, make him (her) a temple of your glory, and send your Holy Spirit to dwell with him (her). We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

When I was asked by the high school students, “Father, have you ever done an exorcism,” were the students thinking that I might have called down thunder and lightning from heaven once or twice? Or maybe like the priest in the movie, “The Exorcist,” I might have called out a demon by crying out, “The power of Christ compels you”! I have not done or witnessed any of this, mainly because the fire department would not be impressed if I did this in any of our parish’s churches! And God does not usually work this way, either, I do not think. Even when working amazing signs like exorcisms or raising the dead, God usually works gently, humbly, even silently.

And even though God can work these great signs on his own, does God not often work through us; ask us to co-operate with God in the greatest of signs? Is it not amazing that God would entrust himself to us in this way? And yet our readings today speak to us of this very desire of God to work with us; to be in relationship with us; a relationship that brings us life and that enables us to co-operate with God in God’s mighty works.

Our God, Ezekiel says in our first reading, has placed his “spirit in” us that we “may live.” “Christ is in you,” St. Paul says to the Romans and to us. “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,” God “will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.”

“I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus says to Martha in our Gospel reading today before raising his friend and Martha’s and Mary’s brother Lazarus from the dead. Yes, Jesus is “the resurrection and the life” but, even in this mightiest sign of Jesus in John’s Gospel, Jesus asks us to co-operate with him. Jesus asks his disciples to work with him in faith: It is so that they believe that he asks them to go with him to Lazarus’ tomb. Jesus asks Martha and Mary to believe in God; to believe in him: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this… Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God”? And just after calling Lazarus forth from the tomb Jesus again asks us to take on a central role in his greatest work yet, raising a person from the dead: “Untie him and let him go.”

With this let me return to frequently-asked questions. Within the last week or so, what is the most frequent question I have been asked here at St. Kateri? At least three times this week I have been asked this (not by anybody in our RCIA and RCIC who are preparing to be welcomed fully into our Church, interestingly): “Father, what is a scrutiny”? Apparently, our St. Kateri parishioners are less interested in exorcisms than are Canadian high school students…

So what is a scrutiny? For the last three weekends, at one of our parish’s Sunday Masses each week, we have prayed in a special way for our candidates and elect for Christian initiation as adults and older children. We have prayed for God to strengthen their faith and ours. As one faith community we have welcomed them and one another “to examine our spiritual lives and renew our faithfulness to the Lord.”

This careful examination of “our spiritual lives” is what our scrutinies are about. We have journeyed with our candidates and elect through three of these examinations of faith. First our candidates and elect received the Creed and we prayed it with them: the First Scrutiny. That week, two Sundays ago, we heard of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John’s Gospel. At the end of this encounter, the Samaritan woman proclaims to her entire village the truth that Jesus is “the Savior of the world.” And we proclaim this truth with her; with our candidates and elect now, in the Creed: “I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God.”

A week later, our faith and that of those to join us in the Easter sacraments was examined; challenged again through hearing of Jesus’ healing of the man born blind from John’s Gospel: The Second Scrutiny. Do we believe that this man, Jesus, is God the Creator himself in human flesh, using the matter of creation to re-create us; to transform us; to heal us when we are in need of healing, physically and spiritually?

And today with our candidates and elect we experience the Third Scrutiny. Once more we examine “our spiritual lives” as we draw ever nearer to Holy Week. Is our faith strong enough to accept and to rejoice in being co-operators with God in God’s greatest of signs: Our salvation?

Jesus’ raising of Lazarus in John points directly to Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead. But it also points to our own resurrection with and in Christ; our own salvation through this mystery. Are we willing to accept our mission to work with God in this work of our own salvation? “Untie him and let him go.” How willing are we to untie and let go of anything that keeps us from fullness of relationship with one another and with God? How willing are we to let go of any sin; any guilt; any lack of forgiveness that keeps us from recognizing and acting fully by the mercy of God? This may be the greatest challenge yet to our faith; the greatest of the three scrutinies.

How deeply has this journey of Lent led us to acknowledge the mercy of our God who wills to save us; to acknowledge our co-operation in God’s saving mission in Christ for us? We may want to add this to our list of frequently-asked questions…