Homily for Thursday, 20 July 2017– Ferial

Thursday of the 15th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Exodus 3:13-20; Psalm 105:1, 5, 8-9, 24-25, 26-27; Matthew 11:28-30

Imagine somebody standing before us here now and saying, “God has sent me to you.” Would we not at least want to know the name of the person who would dare to stand before us and introduce him or herself to us in this way? Might we also want to know the name; the identity of this God who supposedly had sent this person to us?

In the reading we hear today from Exodus, Moses has a keen sense that this is exactly how the people of Israel will respond if he were to stand before them, as God asks him to do, and say, “The God of our ancestors has sent me to you.” Moses says to God that, if he stands before the Israelites and says this to them, they will ask what the name of this “God of [their] ancestors” is.

And God replies to Moses that, if they ask who this “God of our ancestors” is who has given Moses the authority to address them in this way; the authority to lead them eventually out of Egypt and back to their homeland, Moses is to reveal this as God’s name to the people of Israel: “I AM WHO I AM.”

What kind of name is this? I do not want to sift through the volumes and history of scholarly analysis of this and other divine names in our Scriptures. If I did this, we could be here all day and, as much as we enjoy the Mass, otherwise I do not think we would be here on this or any other ordinary weekday, many of us work or have lives to carry on outside this place. Besides, for some scholars of our Eucharistic celebration (and I think, in a way, they are right), the most important part of the Mass is its last: “Go, the Mass is ended.”

But what, in basic terms, do we make of this curious name God gives to Moses to give to the people of Israel; the name God reveals to us: “I AM WHO I AM”?

At the heart of God’s revelation of his identity to the people, to us, is “I AM.” Maybe we have heard this said: God is not “I was,” the God who set creation in motion and then left us to our own devices. God is not “I will be,” although we believe in the future fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation of the created universe at the end of time. No, God reveals himself to us as “I AM WHO I AM.” God reveals himself to us as always, eternally, present.

This is the name God asks us, as God asked Moses, to reveal to our world somehow by the way we live as Christians, with love above all, or what we call “charity” or what Scripture calls (loosely translated) “loving kindness.” This is how we make God present in our world now: “I AM WHO I AM,” from our worship here to our sending forth from here, “Go, the Mass is ended.” Go and live in such a way that reveals God eternally present among us as “I AM.”

Homily for Saturday, 24 June 2017– Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

Readings of the day: Isaiah 49:1-6; Psalm 139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 14c-15; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66, 80

Saturday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Does anybody here share my fascination with meanings of names? Those of us who are parents: How many of you searched books, or now websites, to find the perfect and maybe most creative names for your children when they were born?

Our readings today, on this Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist, are full of names. If anybody here is expecting a child or knows somebody who is, perhaps you may want to consider a name from our Scriptures, especially our readings today.

Today we hear the strange way in which John the Baptist is named. His family’s “neighbors and relatives” expect that he will be named “after his father,” Zechariah, from Hebrew, meaning “God has remembered.” We know from earlier in Luke’s Gospel the story of Zechariah. He was taking his turn that year to enter “the Lord’s sanctuary,” the Holy of Holies at the center of the temple of Jerusalem, “to burn incense.” There, an angel announces to him that his wife Elizabeth (from Greek, meaning “God is satisfaction”), thought to be unable to conceive a child, is pregnant. For failing to believe this news, Zechariah is silenced until his son is born.

Elizabeth then names him John (Hebrew for “God is gracious”; “God has shown favor”), a name none of John’s relatives had been given before. Although he still cannot speak, Zechariah wisely seconds Elizabeth’s choice of name for John (husbands, I understand that it is usually a good idea to support your wives in decisions like these) by writing on a tablet: “His name is John.”

Our Gospel reading goes on to say that John lives up to his name: He becomes the herald of God’s graciousness; of God’s favor; of our Savior Jesus Christ to the world. Luke says of John, “Surely the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew and became strong in spirit.”

Today we hear from the Acts of the Apostles a summary of important figures from Abraham (“father of a multitude”) through King David (“beloved”), son of Jesse (“gift”), to John the Baptist, herald of Jesus (“God saves”).

Our first reading, from Isaiah, includes only two names: Israel (“he struggles” or “wrestles with God”) and Jacob (“holder of the heel,” because he was born holding onto the heel of his twin, Esau, a symbol for Jacob’s having taken Esau’s rightful inheritance as the— barely— elder son). But Isaiah includes several more hidden names. They are phrases, more than single-word names, that describe the role or mission of the prophet himself or other people: “Sharp-edged sword,” “polished arrow,” “servant” of the LORD, “a light to the nations,” and so forth.

Might these name-phrases also be good descriptions of our continued mission as Christians? Might a “sharp-edged sword” or “polished arrow” be a call to us to speak and live by the truth? We have heard perhaps the phrases “straight as an arrow” or “straight shooter.” We, too, are sent out to be “a light to the nations” and servants of the Lord. We, too, regardless of whether our name is John, are heralds of God’s favor, Jesus Christ; of our God who saves.

Homily for Monday, 24 August 2015‒ Feast of St. Bartholomew

Monday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time

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

What is in a name? 

Today on this feast of St. Bartholomew, one of Jesus’ first Twelve Apostles, our readings center on the importance of names. The Book of Revelation gives us an image of the heavenly Jerusalem. This city, appearing “out of heaven,” has twelve gates, three facing each of the four directions and each inscribed with a name of one of the Twelve Apostles.

The names of Jesus’ Twelve Apostles, a reflection of “the names of the twelve tribes of Israel” in the Old Testament, are important in Revelation. But one difficulty is that neither the Book of Revelation (in which the Apostles are not actually named together) nor the four Gospels agree on the names of Jesus’ Apostles, only that there were twelve. John’s Gospel today highlights one of the most significant differences among the Gospels in names of the Apostles.

Today, on St. Bartholomew’s feast day, Bartholomew is not even mentioned in our Gospel. Instead we hear of Nathanael, who is found by Philip under a fig tree and introduced to Jesus, and then joins the other Apostles. But who is Nathanael (or Bartholomew?) but the kind of follower and friend Jesus seeks: “a true child of Israel”; honestly seeking God and what is right, without “duplicity”? Beyond this, we cannot know much about who Nathanael (or Bartholomew) was or were.

Yet this and other differences in the Apostles’ names among the Gospels is not necessarily a problem for us. It is possible, even probable, that Jesus’ Apostles had multiple names. We know that Peter, “the rock,” was also known as Simon, “God has heard,” and as Kephas, “the head.” After Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, his Apostles are traditionally understood to have spread our faith to faraway lands and cultures. St. Bartholomew is said to have gone as far as India. Could Jesus’ Apostles have acquired names and nicknames in these places? This, too, is possible. Having served in several countries as a Basilian, I have acquired nicknames and variations on my own given names. Colombian Basilians will often call me by my middle name, Roger, because Warren can be difficult for them to pronounce. Most moving is when they add “Hermano” (“Brother”) to Roger. Since my ordination, my Colombian confrères have delighted in stringing together excessively pious nicknames on top of “Hermano Roger” when calling me. This would irritate me if it were not clearly a lighthearted mark of affection from my Basilian brothers in Colombia.

And so it is possible for Jesus’ Apostles to have had many names. Bartholomew, the “son of a ploughman,” could also have been Nathanael, meaning “God has given.” But does this matter to us?

Our names matter. God called us to birth; to his service in this world by name. God will call each of us home to heaven by name. In baptism, before the priest or deacon asks what the parents and godparents seek from the Church for their child (presumably baptism), we ask, “What name will you give your child”?

We have one name that matters: That of Christian. From our baptism we Christians, like Nathanael (or Bartholomew), have been called to serve God as “true” children “of Israel”; children, friends and Apostles of Christ, with “no duplicity in” us.