Homily for Friday, 19 February 2021– Friday after Ash Wednesday

Readings of the day: Isaiah 58:1-9a; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 18-19; Matthew 9:14-15

Memorial Mass for Barbara J. Schmidt

Here we are, as of this past Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, into the season of Lent, so is it not appropriate that we speak about the discipline of fasting? But what is fasting, why do we (or should we) fast, and what kind of fast does God, let alone the Church, ask of us?

Isaiah’s message is clear enough: The people of his time in Israel, who thought that all their religious rigour and discipline should be more than enough to please God, were mistaken. And, while by outward appearances they were fasting and practicing acts of humility and penance, inwardly they were carrying on the same old acts of sin and injustice that Isaiah denounces. What kind of fasting; what kind of penance or humbling of ourselves does God want of us?

God, through Isaiah, asks the people of Israel: “Is not this the fast that I choose: To loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke”? Here I think of our Lenten practice of giving something up for Lent, something not necessarily bad or sinful, but maybe something that we enjoy yet we do not really need. Giving something up for Lent is a good and noble practice; I certainly do not intend to criticize this. Yet I (mea culpa!) have never been very good at giving up something for Lent.

I do not wish to justify my difficulty with this Lenten discipline, a kind of “fasting” from something I do not really need. Still, though, does God want us to do something more than giving up something enjoyable but not really necessary for Lent? This tends to bring to my mind, instead of, or in addition to, giving something up for Lent, adding something to my usual spiritual routine, if you will. Is there somebody or a group of people we have recently encountered or become aware of who has a particular need? Have we become increasingly aware lately of a relationship that needs mending or maintaining in love, or a broader social problem that a little more prayer; a little more Christian care and charity; a little more perhaps going out of our way to encounter somebody disadvantaged or on society’s (or the Church’s) fringes in some way, could help?

My sisters and brothers, today we offer this Mass in memory, in prayer for the repose of the soul of, and in celebration of the life of my grandmother, Barbara Janice Schmidt. Today would have been her ninety-fifth birthday.

In many ways, Grandma’s lived example spoke to what God asks of his people through the prophet Isaiah: The number of charitable causes, in defense of human life and dignity truly from conception to natural death, especially of people in need or disadvantaged, which Grandma supported is astounding. She was, I have no doubt, much better than I am at fasting and penance as Lenten disciplines, but what marked her life were the acts of justice, charity, and humility she added on, often without other people knowing, and not only during Lent but all the time. Grandma was constantly seeking bonds of injustice and “thongs of the yoke” to undo, as God invites us to do through the likes of Isaiah.

It is, I think, quite easy to become fixated on outward appearances, especially during a time like Lent. This was the problem with “the disciples of John” in Matthew’s Gospel today. By appearances, they and the Pharisees were fasting; giving something up. But, Jesus reminds them (and us), they were missing the point: “The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they”?

As we celebrate, remember, and pray for our sister in Christ, Gramma, Mom, friend, Barbara Janice Schmidt, may we take something from her example. In this celebration, even (maybe especially) in the midst of Lent, the Bridegroom; the Christ, is among us and is in us, too. The death of God’s faithful, especially one as close to us as our Barbara, naturally causes us to mourn. But we are united in the Bridegroom, the Christ, with our Barbara by the bonds of Christian love; the bonds of having added something to make our world better. This is cause for joy. This is the reason we celebrate, we remember, and we pray here and now.

Homily for Thursday, 26 February 2015‒ Thursday of the First Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Esther C:12, 14-16, 23-25; Psalm 138:1-2ab, 2cde-3, 7c-8; Matthew 7:7-12

For what do we often ask of God or of other people? Perhaps ultimately we ask to be loved; respected; accepted for who we are. God naturally loves us; accepts us for who we are, while challenging us, especially through this Lenten season, to turn from sin and grow and be renewed in our love for God and for one another. God’s love for us is self-evident, even if readings like those we hear today necessarily remind us of the love of God for us. Our readings also call us to deepen our love for one another: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets,” Jesus says. This is our faith’s “Golden Rule.”

We ask God and one another to love; to respect; to accept us. In faith we are invited and challenged to love; respect; to accept others and to love God in return: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”

And yet our readings also encourage us to ask God and one another for what we need, and to expect confidently that our needs will be met. But what are these needs we are encouraged to ask God and one another to meet? Do not many of us have some, often healthy, aversion to asking for too much, especially of God? Should our prayer not be less of petition; of asking for things, but of gratitude and sometimes penance? Perhaps, but today’s readings show that petition to God and to one another can be effective and appropriate in many circumstances.

We hear of Queen Esther in our first reading. Esther grows up in the court of the Persian Emperor, who has turned against the people of Israel, who are under Persian rule. Esther and her people of Israel find themselves in mortal danger, and so Esther prays to God to spare her life and the lives of her people.

The cause for petition to God in Matthew is not as dire as in Esther. Jesus invites us to ask anything of God as we need it: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

But then what happens when we ask something of God, or another person, and we do not receive what we have asked or prayed for? Is God answering our prayer then? Does God care? Is it possible to pray for something wrong or untimely?

I answer yes to all three questions… But I think our readings challenge us not to view God’s answer to our prayers of petition as some kind of magic: I ask and, “Poof,” I receive! More importantly, our petition and God’s answer to it changes us; renews us. “Ask and you shall receive.” And if we allow ourselves to be changed by our petition and God’s response, we may just become more able to live by Jesus’ Golden Rule: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”

Homily for Saturday, 21 February 2015‒ Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Readings of the day: Isaiah 58:9b-14; Psalm 86:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Luke 5:27-32

Who does God call to follow in God’s ways, and how are we to do as God invites us?

Jesus answers the “who” question through his calling of Levi in today’s Gospel reading from Luke. Jesus says at the end of the meal scene: “I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.” And Isaiah answers the “how” question in our first reading. How are we, all redeemed sinners who have been called by God, to respond to this call?

Isaiah gives us some practical ways in which we can respond to God’s invitation to us. “Remove from your midst oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech,” Isaiah says. “If [we] bestow [our] bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted,” then we will be living our calling from God; our divine vocation as baptized Christians.

This is not a vocation we somehow deserve. After all, let us return to Jesus’ call to Levi, a tax collector. We are Levi; we are all sinners, but we are all called to something; called to radical holiness by God. Like Levi, God calls us, “Follow me.” I recall especially Pope Francis’ words in the interview with America magazine a few months after his election as pope. The interviewer, the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, asked his first question: “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” Our pope responded, “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” And later in the same interview, Pope Francis repeated, “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.” What a great Lenten message for us! Our pope; I; all of us are Levi. We are all redeemed and invited sinners. Do we “accept” God’s invitation in a true “spirit of penance”? How do we accept God’s invitation?

“Remove from your midst oppression,” Isaiah says. Still today, many are oppressed, even right here in our own country; our own communities. God, through Isaiah’s prophetic words, invites us to stand up for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death; to stand especially in favor of our society’s most vulnerable members. God invites us to raise the poor out of poverty; to stand for the rights of workers to a living wage; to stand against ideological divisions.

“Remove… false accusation and malicious speech.” This includes gossip and passive-aggression. Pope Francis continues to denounce gossip and the damage it causes to human relationships.

“Bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted.” Charity is nothing if it “costs nothing and does not hurt”; if it does not take us beyond ourselves; beyond our comfort zones, Pope Francis again said just days ago on Ash Wednesday. St. Basil also reminds us of how radical Christian charity is: “The [excess] bread you keep belongs to the hungry; the cloak you store in your closet belongs to the naked… The [extra] shoes” you store “belong to those who are barefooted; the money you keep hidden belongs to the needy.”

We are sinners, and yet we are redeemed. We are Christians called to radical charity; holiness. We are Levi. Jesus calls to us, “Follow me.”

Homily for Thursday, 7 August 2014– Ferial

Thursday of the 18th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:12-13, 14-15, 18-19; Matthew 16:13-23

Jesus asks his disciples in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, “Who do people say the Son of Man is”? And “who do you say that I am”? These are good questions for us. Who do we say Jesus is? Who do we say God is?

The prophet Jeremiah gives us a good idea of who God is in the last verse of our first reading. Jeremiah says to the people of Israel that God “will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.” In God’s mercy, God does not stop at forgiving our sins; God remembers our “sin no more.”

This distinction is crucial, and yet how many of us understand it? How many of us, when we ask forgiveness from somebody for a wrong action we have done, or even when we confess our sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, think of God as able and willing to forgive our wrongdoing through these encounters? If we do think of God in this way, this is correct, because God is a forgiving God. No sin is too great to forgive, except perhaps the sin of not even asking for forgiveness. And yet God does not stop at forgiving our sin. God, as Jeremiah puts it, remembers our “sin no more.”

God, in the words of our Responsorial Psalm, does more than forgive our sin. We pray to God, “Create a new heart in me.” In similar words, the Colombian Blessed Laura Montoya Upegui, who worked with indigenous people deep in the jungles of Colombia, once prayed: “Lord, destroy me and, upon my ruins, build a monument to your glory.”

Lord, destroy what leads me away from you; destroy my sin; remember my sin no more. This is what absolution is about: “Create a new heart in me”; a heart after your glory; a heart after your own heart.

If we understand that God is more than forgiving; that God’s will is to destroy our sin and to re-create us fully in God’s image, does this not radically re-orient our understanding of God? Does it not radically re-orient how we identify Jesus Christ when he asks us, “Who do you say that I am”?

This might radically re-orient how we understand the effect of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or even our Penitential Rite during Mass. Reconciliation becomes more than just confessing a list of sins and being assigned a formula to pray as a penance.

Our sins are not just forgiven, but destroyed and their void filled with God’s own presence. This is not only radical; but may be (and perhaps should be) scary to us! I say scary because, when we are reconciled with one another and with God; when we not only “do” penance but live penitentially, we are invited to let something die within us; to let go of our sin; to let God destroy our sin so that God can fill its void. “Get behind me, Satan.” God, remember our sin no more. “Create a new heart in” us. Destroy what keeps us from you and build within us “a monument to your glory.”

Homily for Thursday, 6 March 2014‒ Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Readings of the day: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6; Luke 9:22-25

My sisters and brothers in Christ, we hear in the Book of Deuteronomy that the Lord has “set before [us] life and death; the blessing and the curse.” The choice is ours.

How many of us would not choose life over death; the blessing over the curse? Not many of us would choose death or the curse, I imagine and I hope. And yet often our choices are not as clear as life or death; the blessing or the curse. More frequently our choices are among something good, which will bring us instant pleasure or prosperity but that may not last long; something better‒ a good choice with longer-lasting effects‒ or the best‒ a choice that is selfless and draws us into deeper relationship with God and one another.

In our Gospel reading from Luke, Jesus asks us not only to choose the good or the better, but the best. But for Jesus, the best choice does not appear at first glance to be the best. The choice that Jesus invites us to make; the choice to follow him appears to be the choice of death over life; the choice of the curse over the blessing: the cross. Again, who among us would choose this?

When Jesus says, “if anyone wishes to come after me, he [or she] must take up his [or her] cross daily and follow me,” of course he is not saying that if we do not literally die for Christ, we have no place among his disciples. Not many, if any, of us will face this choice, although we pray for all those who do face death or persecution for their faith.

Short of courageously accepting death or persecution for our Christian faith, though, there are still ways in which we can “choose life”; choose “the blessing” over “the curse”; choose the best, even over the good and the better. There are still ways in which this choice for what strengthens our relationships with God and with one another will involve some form of self-denial.

I invite us to do this today and throughout this season of Lent: When we pray, let us ask ourselves and God: What are or have recently been opportunities for self-denial? What have been the crosses we have been invited to take up for Christ’s sake? Perhaps someone in our family or among our friends is sick; dying; otherwise in need of care. Perhaps someone makes us angry; someone who is in need of gentle admonishment or just our prayers and the unassuming example of our lives of faith; the loving kindness of our Lord.

A second question I invite us to ask, then, is: What are the crosses we bring upon ourselves needlessly? Perhaps I need to ask someone for forgiveness. Perhaps I was impatient, failed to listen, held on to anger, or was too hurried to attend to someone’s needs properly.

By denying ourselves in these ways and by being conscious of ways in which we have added crosses to our own lives that are not of God and letting these go with a spirit of penance, we will bring ourselves into closer relationship with God and one another. We will choose life; choose the blessing; choose the best and longest-lasting good. The choice is ours.

Homily for Wednesday, 5 March 2014‒ Ash Wednesday

Readings of the day: Joel 2:12-18; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14, 17; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

How can Lent be experienced as a season of joy? Does anyone among us experience Lent as joyful? How so?

For many of us, to think of Lent as a season of joy may be difficult. Lent is a season that focuses on our being and eventual return “to dust”; a season we begin today by wearing ashes on our foreheads; a season of penance; a season to remember our sin against God and neighbour and to ask God and one another for forgiveness.

And yet, as I would ask this challenging question of teenagers I prepared for confirmation when I was in seminary in Toronto, I ask all of us the same question: How can Lent be a season of joy?

To be joyful is not the same as being happy all the time. Sin and our need to repent should not make us happy, but even amid this season of penance there is cause for joy.

Our readings today invite us to be joyful. We acknowledge our sin; we promise to repent; to turn away from sin and toward God. We wear ashes, not to “look gloomy” or to be seen by others as repentant, as Jesus asks us not to do in our Gospel reading today, but because today we begin a celebration of joy. We celebrate with joy because we trust that God hears the prayers of the repentant. We trust in a forgiving; loving; kind and “merciful” God; the God whom the prophet Joel says “took pity on his people”; the God who sent his only Son that we might be saved by his death and resurrection; the God who invites us to “return to [him] with [our] whole heart”; to “repent and believe in the Gospel.” 

“Behold, now is a very acceptable time,” St. Paul says. “Behold, now is the day of salvation.” Now, as we begin this season of Lent, we are invited to celebrate our “day of salvation”; our Lent; our season of joy.