Homily for Tuesday, 24 July 2018– Ferial

Tuesday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time


Optional Memorial of St. Sharbel Makhluf

Readings of the day: Micah 7:14-15, 18-20; Psalm 85:2-4, 5-6, 7-8; Matthew 12:46-50

This homily was given at the Kateri House Women's Residence Chapel at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers” and sisters?

Do any of us sometimes wonder with what tone Jesus asked questions like this one, which we hear from Matthew’s Gospel today? Of course, I believe that Jesus was sinless, although he was like us in his humanity in every other way but sin. And yet we know from other passages in the Gospels that Jesus experienced anger and irritation from time to time, whether at the religious and social leaders of his time, his own disciples, or even, at one point if I remember correctly, an apparently innocent fig tree! Anger and irritation are emotions we all experience if we are truly human. They are not in themselves sinful; how we deal with our anger, irritation, or other intense emotions we would usually rather not feel, and may be right or may be sinful, especially if how we act on our anger is destructive of other people and relationships.

Still, can we not imagine Jesus, in today’s Gospel, tired after a long journey; tired of the heat of the Holy Land; tired of the crowds asking him the same question ten times and not listening to his answer? At this point, imagine somebody interrupting Jesus yet again to remind him that his relatives have arrived and want “to speak to him.”

How would Jesus have responded to this latest interruption? We know that, however he would have responded, he would not have sinned. But, short of sinning, might Jesus have allowed himself a rhetorical question with just a slight edginess, in response to the endless interruptions and fatigue?

I imagine Jesus’ rhetorical question, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers,” as having some bite to it, especially since he goes on to answer his own question… sort of: “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Would Jesus’ relatives, who had been waiting to speak with him, been annoyed that he had essentially ignored them, only to extend the notion of father, mother, brother, and sister beyond blood relationship?

What would the great crowds have thought at hearing Jesus’ mild irritation behind his words? Would they have been irritated in turn at Jesus for not quite answering their question? Can we not almost hear somebody in the crowd say, “Lord, but how exactly do we do God’s will enough to be considered an extension of your family”?

This, I think, would have been an excellent question, one I would perhaps have asked Jesus if I had been in the crowd that day. Yet I think this question of how we are to do God’s will, and so be considered mothers, brothers, and sisters of the Lord, is fleshed out in our other readings and in the lived example of St. Sharbel Makhluf, whose feast we celebrate today.

The prophet Micah speaks in our first reading of the great compassion, forgiveness, and faithfulness to the covenant relationship with Jacob-Israel. Our Psalm speaks of God’s surpassing “mercy and love.” St. Sharbel once said, “When placed on a scale, God’s mercy prevails over the weight of the mountains.”

Mercy, my sisters and brothers in Christ, moves mountains. In showing one another mercy, forgiveness, faithfulness, and loving kindness, we become the Lord’s and one another’s mothers, brothers, and sisters.

Homily for Sunday, 7 August 2016

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Wisdom 18:6-9; Psalm 33:1, 12, 18-19, 20-22; Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-12; Luke 12:32-48

This homily was given at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Sherwood Park, AB, Canada.

Imagine if you were stranded on a faraway island. You have all you need to survive for the time you will be on the island: Water, food, shelter, warm clothing, and so forth. You have your family and closest loved ones with you. But on top of these minimal necessities to survive, you are only able to keep with you one thing. What is this one thing you would keep with you? What is your greatest treasure; the thing your heart most desires?

Jesus says this in our Gospel reading this evening [morning] from Luke about our greatest treasure; the thing our hearts most desire: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” And so what is our greatest treasure; the one thing we would keep with us on this faraway island?

Children, maybe the treasure you would keep with you would be a favourite toy, or maybe a favourite children’s book, or video game, or equipment needed to play your favourite sport. For older children, teenagers, and adults, maybe our treasures would include what we need for our favourite hobbies: Craft material, a musical instrument, a good novel, unless you’re into non-fiction… Some of us might want to bring a television, or your dream sports car. Some of us who are handy might want to bring along our best power tool; after all, the shelter provided on the island is good enough for survival, but could always use some upgrades. For many of us, thinking more of spiritual survival, maybe we would bring a rosary or a Bible…

These (and others I have not mentioned) would all be great treasures we might consider bringing to a faraway island if we were only able to take one thing there with us. But in Luke’s Gospel Jesus is asking us to consider something more as our greatest treasure: The Kingdom of God. Jesus says “to his disciples…, ‘It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.’”

We have only a small problem: Would it not be a bit far-fetched to fit the entire Kingdom of God on one faraway island? It would have to be a very large island! This is where we need to use our imagination… After all, if we were stranded on a faraway island, God would have had to make the island. God, as maker of the island, makes the rules as to the one thing, our hearts’ greatest desire, which we could bring to this faraway island. And so God could make this island as large as he wants, even large enough as to fit the whole Kingdom of God on it.

Trust me on this or, better yet, as God invites us, trust him! God constantly invites us to have faith in him; to accept this gift of the Kingdom of God that Jesus says the Father wants to give us. This treasure, God’s Kingdom, is worth selling “our possessions” and giving of our time; our talent; our treasure to help people who are poor, sick, troubled, or otherwise in need. If we had God’s Kingdom we would be ready for anything, on that island or here at home. And is this not what Jesus asks of us? “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit… You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour,” Jesus says.

How many of us are still not convinced; still trying to imagine the great big Kingdom of God somehow fitting on this little faraway island? Fair enough; the Kingdom of God is enormous and the island is probably tiny. And so God does not give us his whole Kingdom all at once. We will only have and be in the fullness of the Kingdom of God at the end of time, when there will be no worry about having to cram the entire Kingdom of God onto a little (imaginary) faraway island.

For now, God gives us small yet important (not imaginary, but real) signs of the future fullness of God’s Kingdom. What are these signs? First, God gives us the sign of his being with us in history. This history is spoken of especially in our readings today from Wisdom and the letter to the Hebrews. God was with God’s people, making freedom, “deliverance from Egypt” under Moses, possible. God shows himself in our history, the events of our world, as great and powerful, destroying Israel’s “enemies” in the time of Moses, but also as good and merciful, calling Israel; calling us “to himself,” back to the glory of our creation, when God made us and called us “very good.”

God then gives us the gift of faith; the faith God first gave Abraham; the faith or “conviction of things not seen.” Faith is especially important. Let us be honest: Can it not be difficult to perceive signs of God’s Kingdom; of God’s presence in our world through acts of violence and of terror; through brokenness of human relationships that many of us experience; through the suffering of innocent people? How many of us know somebody with the faith of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, and then some, through sometimes the most awful situations in their lives? This faith God gives us is a sign of God’s “promise,” a sign that God is working in our world to bring us the fullness of God’s Kingdom; God’s reign of mercy and peace over our world, even when God’s action is not easily seen through our world’s events.

God gives us the gift of faith. God is with us in our world and its history; in our story; our lives. Even better, God has personally become a part of our world’s history. God has shown himself to us as human in every way we are human except without sin, in the person of Jesus Christ. This is God’s greatest sign yet of the Kingdom. And this greatest of signs, God made human, Jesus Christ, asks only one thing of us in today’s Gospel: “Be ready.” Be ready for the fullness of God’s Kingdom.

But how can we be ready for the fullness of God’s Kingdom, a reality of peace; of goodness; of mercy; a treasure that surpasses even our wildest desires or imagination? It is absurd enough to imagine ourselves stranded on a faraway island, able to keep only one thing with us. The fullness of the Kingdom of God is still more beyond our understanding; we have never experienced anything like it. Yet it is real. It is Jesus’; God’s promise to us.

God gives us signs that point us to the “treasure” of the Kingdom of God: God’s actions in our world (in the unexpected, in miracles, but most often in little, everyday occurrences); God’s gift to us of faith; God entering our world as human in the person of Jesus Christ. And Jesus gives us, until he comes again, another sign; a sacrament of himself really present here in our Eucharist; our action of thanksgiving to and communion in God; in Christ...

I pray for all of us that, through this celebration, the Table of the Lord; our Eucharist, sign and sacrament of the fullness of God’s Kingdom, our greatest treasure and our hearts’ greatest desire will become nearer to you, little by little; not imaginary like a faraway island or even hoped for in the distant future, but real and present.

My sisters and brothers in Christ, we celebrate, here and now, signs that are real of the promise of the fullness of the Kingdom of God that is real: God’s action in our world and its events and history, our story; God’s gift of faith to us; God having sent his Son, Jesus Christ; Christ who gives himself to us in our Eucharist. Here is where our treasure is. Here is where our heart is. We are “dressed for action”; dressed for celebration. And we are ready.

Homily for Thursday, 9 April 2015– Thursday in the Octave of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 3:11-26; Psalm 8:2ab, 5, 6-7, 8-9; Luke 24:35-48

We hear from Luke’s Gospel today of Jesus’ first appearance to his disciples after he had risen from the dead. Jesus stands “in their midst” and greets them, “Peace be with you.”

And what are among the first responses of the risen Jesus’ disciples to his presence and greeting? We hear that the disciples “were startled and terrified”; “troubled.” They “thought they were seeing a ghost” until Jesus “showed them his hands and his feet” and ate “a piece of baked fish… in front of them.” And then they were “incredulous for joy and… amazed.” Would we have responded any differently if the risen Christ had stood among us in this way?

The disciples do not encounter a spirit. No, they encounter the risen Christ in “flesh and bones”; every bit as human as they are; as we are. I think it is natural (and not necessarily bad) for us to downplay, to distance ourselves even, from the full humanity of Christ, before and especially after his resurrection, and what this means for us.

Today we hear what may be my favorite Psalm in the Bible, Psalm 8. We respond, “O LORD, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth.” We pray to God, “What [are we] that you should be mindful of [us]”? What is “the son of man that you should care for him”? We give praise to God for giving us “rule over the works of [God’s] hands”; having put “all things under [our] feet.” I find these words deeply consoling and beautiful. And yet is there perhaps some distance between us and God inherent in this Psalm?

We are grateful to God for having made us almost like gods ourselves, with dominion over God’s creation like no other creature of which we know. But when God is so “mindful of” us; cares for us so deeply as to become one like us, we are, I think naturally, somewhat “startled and terrified.”

God took on our “flesh and bones” in the person of Jesus Christ, who suffered and died to redeem us from our sins. The risen Christ shows himself to his disciples, again in “flesh and bones” but also bearing the wounds of his passion and death.

We get a sense of what this means for us in our penitential rite at the beginning of this Mass. We pray: “Lord Jesus, you came to reconcile us to one another and to the Father. Lord, have mercy. Christ Jesus, you heal the wounds of sin and division. Christ, have mercy. Lord Jesus, you intercede for us with your Father. Lord, have mercy.”

Jesus reconciles us “to one another and to the Father”; heals our “wounds of sin and division” by taking our wounds; our sin upon himself and showing them to us in his risen fully human body. Jesus is able to “intercede for us with [our] Father” because he, God, has made himself human like us. There is no sanitizing this; making this “clean” and easy; keeping God at a distance from us. But, if and when the risen Christ’s full humanity scares us, he is there to calm us, too: “Peace be with you”!

“O LORD, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth.”

Homily for Monday, 8 September 2014– Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Monday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Romans 8:28-30; Psalm 13:6ab, 6c; Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23

Whose birthday are we celebrating today, anyway? Why, on this Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, do we hear in our Gospel reading a genealogy from Joseph’s side of the Holy Family? And then we hear nothing of Mary’s Nativity. In fact Matthew turns his focus to Jesus’ Nativity.

True, Mary is mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy, and then again as having conceived of Jesus by the Holy Spirit and brought him to birth. Even so, Mary is not the focus of this beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. Joseph is, and then Jesus is. Mary’s nativity is never even mentioned in the Bible. And so why do we celebrate this birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary?

 I like to think of Mary in Scripture as somebody who points to realities and people beyond herself. St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, from which we hear today, that “those [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Mary is the first person in God’s plan to save us, a plan that reaches its fullness in the birth of Jesus Christ, to have been perfectly “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son,” but not because it was ever Mary’s plan to bring the Son of God into the world. This was God’s plan, although Mary had to consent to it.

Mary’s birth is part of God’s plan of salvation, and this plan of salvation is for us; to save us. Mary shows us how we, too, might be “conformed to the image of” Christ as she is. Mary points to us. Mary’s birthday is a celebration of our birthday as a redeemed people; a people promised God’s salvation through Christ’s becoming human, like us in all things but sin.

We are given a beautiful prayer for today’s Feast of the Nativity of Mary that we will pray in a few moments over the gifts of bread and wine when they are brought to the altar. We pray in this prayer “to be given strength by the humanity of [God’s] Son, who from [Mary] was pleased to take flesh.” Just before this Prayer over the Offerings, at every Mass the priest silently prays in similar words as the water and wine are mixed: “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity” (this for those of us who may wonder sometimes what we priests pray under our breath at the altar!).

Jesus’ humanity, not only his divinity, matters for our salvation. Mary’s “yes” to God’s plan made Jesus’ becoming human possible. But God’s plan to save us did not start with Mary’s “yes” to God. It started from the moment of creation. It took shape in a special way through the Birth of Mary, perfect image of Christ in his humanity; perfect image of who we are called to be: a people redeemed and saved; a people perfectly “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son.”