Homily for Tuesday, 13 April 2021– Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 4:32-37; Psalm 93:1ab, 1cd-2, 5; John 3:7b-15

The first part of the Acts of the Apostles refers, in at least a couple of significant instances, to how united the earliest communities of Jesus’ disciples were. Today we hear that these first disciples “were of one heart and soul”; that the unity of these earliest disciples of Jesus was connected with their strict common ownership of material possessions: “Everything they owned was held in common.”

This passage is one of the most frequently-cited Biblical references to uphold the vow or counsel of poverty. I think, in this respect, of a book I studied during my novitiate on the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, Francis Moloney’s A Life of Promise. Might this also make us think of the variety in practice of the vow of poverty, even within our own Basilian Congregation, let alone among different communities of vowed religious? I think, for instance, of the many gifts from different countries in which my great aunt Jeanne, a Sister of Holy Cross, ministered, that she gave to family members, because she was not allowed to keep these gifts for herself. Her order’s vow of poverty was and is, by my observation, lived much more strictly than ours.

But how closely is the insistence in Acts on how the earliest Christians held “everything they owned… in common” a reflection of historical reality, versus an ideal for life especially in Christian community? Scholars still debate over this question. Francis Moloney, in A Life of Promise, points out that, after the reading we hear today, the very next event in Acts is that of Ananias and Sapphira, who keep part of the proceeds from the sale of property for themselves instead of turning it over to their community of disciples. And then both Ananias and Sapphira drop dead on the spot!

So which was it: Did the earliest Christian communities truly hold “everything they owned… in common,” or was this an ideal that was not necessarily (or usually) followed to the letter? My thought is that it was a bit of both historical reality—that these earliest Christian communities strove to practice common ownership of goods—and an ideal, much as it is both-and today. There was and is still variety in how material goods were owned or shared communally. And maybe how individuals or communities practiced, we may say, a precursor to our vows of poverty was not in itself essential to one’s standing as a good and faithful Christian.

Yet I think Acts’ emphasis on this common ownership characteristic of these earliest Christian communities may lead us to ask ourselves questions like: What, if not strict common ownership of material goods, is essential to our Christian way of life, from the message we hear from Acts today? And is there something that the example of these earliest Christians calls us to hold in common, if not strictly or only material goods?

Especially as somebody who has taken a public vow of poverty, I interpret Acts as inviting and reminding us that we (as vowed religious, but this is true of all baptized Christians) hold in common a responsibility for one another’s whole-person well-being—spiritual, mental, physical, and so forth—in this earthly life and, ultimately, for one another’s salvation. We are not saved as individuals so much as together, in and by one God. Common ownership of earthly goods, or any expression or vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience, can be a sign of our universal call to holiness and ultimately to salvation.

Homily for Tuesday, 19 January 2021– Ferial

Readings of the day: Hebrews 6:10-20; Psalm 111:1-2, 4-5, 9, 10c; Mark 2:23-28

Tuesday of the 2nd week in Ordinary Time

One of the many points of wisdom that my novice master has handed on to me since my novitiate year was to ask myself what my most absolute convictions are, especially on more contentious issues, and on which issues or personal or faith convictions I would allow a bit (or a lot) more leeway. And when I determine what my most absolute convictions are, I still need to exercise due charity toward other people who may not share the same absolute convictions that I do, culpably or not: Be prepared to listen; to ask questions aimed at a better mutual understanding of truth and not questions “baited” with my own agenda, and so on.

Could we not say that, in the Church as in the secular world, all truths, teachings, or convictions are not created equal, so to speak? In the Church, the truths we hold to be the most directly divinely revealed, those more absolute truths and convictions, we call dogmas or definitive doctrines. Only a small proportion of our Church’s teachings and convictions belong to this category of what is essential for our faith.

So, in today’s Gospel, what did the Pharisees consider to be the essential tenets or convictions of their faith? On the surface, the heart of their complaint against Jesus and his disciples seems to be their breach of the Sabbath law. After all, Jesus’ final retort to the Pharisees today is that “the Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.” But if the Sabbath law were at the heart of the controversy in today’s Gospel, then why were the Pharisees conveniently on scene to complain about Jesus’ disciples making a path “through the grain fields [and plucking] heads of grain”? By some interpretations of Jewish Law at the time, the Pharisees would have been doing work, therefore violating the Sabbath themselves, by having walked far enough from home to notice Jesus’ disciples making a path through the grain fields.

The Gospel passage we hear today is nestled within a series of similar controversy events in Mark involving Jesus or his disciples versus the Pharisees, so something a bit more complex and probably sinister is happening in today’s Gospel than the Pharisees simply complaining that Jesus’ disciples were violating the Sabbath.

Once again, Mark shows the Pharisees going out of their way to bait Jesus into excusing his or his disciples’ violations of Jewish Law that to them were an inexcusable breach of their essential convictions. Maybe we could say that they were an inexcusable breach if somebody other than the Pharisees were doing the breaching! Anyway, their essential convictions do not correspond with Jesus’ most essential conviction that meeting basic human need—feeding the hungry, for example—is more important than laws governing the Sabbath.

Here again, we have what Vatican II would call “a hierarchy of truths”: What are our most absolute, essential convictions? To which rules, religious or civil, are we willing to make exceptions, for ourselves or other people, and why? How willing are we to exercise charity toward people (even when they are in error and our truth is worth defending) who do not share our most absolute convictions? Maybe the Pharisees; maybe everybody could benefit from a figure like my novice master to invite us to keep these questions in mind.

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.