Homily for Monday, 26 August 2019

Readings of the day: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5, 8b-10; Psalm 149:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a, 9b; Matthew 23:13-22

Monday of the 21st week in Ordinary Time

This homily was given at St. James Church, Vernon, BC, Canada.

Do we not hear quite a contrast between our readings today from 1 Thessalonians and our Psalm, on one hand, and our Gospel from Matthew on the other hand? Do we not find comfort in St. Paul’s first words of his first letter to the Thessalonians: “We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers”?

And is our Psalm not similarly comforting: “For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory”? Our Psalm is the 149th of 150 of the Psalms in our Bible. The last three Psalms in the Biblical Book of Psalms, numbers 148, 149, and 150, make up a set known as the “Hillel” Psalms. If we think of a Hebrew word that sounds similar to “Hillel,” maybe we would think of “Hallelujah,” which literally means “Praise be to God.” And so our Psalm today begins, “Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful.”

This sounds a lot like what we do well already. Certainly, those of us who gather for Mass at 8:00 am daily here at St. James do so with a sense of joy. But it takes a particular amount of commitment anyway to gather here every day (for many of us), rain, snow, or shine, for Mass, to offer our praise to God “in the assembly of the faithful.”

So I think St. Paul’s words to the Thessalonians or the words of the Psalmist could very well be addressed to us. But then what should we make of the Gospel reading we hear today. Jesus’ seeming harshness in our Gospel today is startling: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven”!

I suppose we could focus our attention on the more consoling, gracious words of 1 Thessalonians or our Psalm, or interpret Jesus in our Gospel as directing his harshest criticism at the religious leaders of his time. Jesus’ excoriation of the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew is certainly challenging for me to hear as an ordained minister of the Church: Am I serving the Church with purity of heart? For the times when I or any leader in our Church, ordained or non-ordained, allows ego to take priority over leading us, the baptized faithful, to salvation, I ask for our forgiveness. I ask for our prayers for our leaders, in the Church and in public office in our civil society, that by God’s grace we will serve the betterment of the Church and our civil society.

But I do not think that we should simply put aside Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel today as if they were directed at only religious leaders, or all leaders, in Jesus’ time or ours. Please let me say again: I have great confidence that our devotion to our faith and often-daily Eucharist is strong; it is eminently praiseworthy. So I think the words of praise to the faith communities of the Psalmist’s and St. Paul’s time apply to us here at St. James and in so many places all over the world.

Yet what is our ultimate motivation for all our devotions; our prayers; our gathering for Mass nearly every day, many of us? Do we speak and act for justice; toward bringing every one of the baptized faithful closer to God and God’s saving grace? Do we seek to reconcile divisions in our world, within our Church; within our own relationships, and do we pray for this reconciliation? If so, we rightly and with purity of heart may “sing to the LORD a new song,” a song of “praise in the assembly of the faithful” that God will hear and that will help to bring us to salvation.

Homily for Tuesday, 8 August 2017– Memorial of St. Dominic

Monday of the 21st week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Numbers 12:1-13; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 6cd-7, 12-13; Matthew 14:22-36

This homily was given at St. Clare Church, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

How often have we read or prayed with a passage from the Bible, or heard the Word of God at Mass, when a verse or part of a verse catches our attention? Perhaps a few words feel out of place within the rest of the passage or reading.

Might the description in the Book of Numbers today of Moses as “very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth,” be one of those moments that catch our attention because this description breaks from the flow of the rest of the reading? Maybe because I am teaching here in Edmonton at St. Joseph’s College this summer, and I have been grading papers, I am becoming particularly sensitive to (among a few kinds of grammatical and other foibles) the overuse of superlatives.

For example, one of the most annoying tendencies ever (now, I am saying this for humorous effect) is when it might have been convincing enough to me to describe Moses as humble, but the writer describes Moses glowingly as humbler “than anyone else on the face of the earth.” My reaction to superlatives like this is often a skeptical, “Really”? Well, in this case, we hear a superlative from the divinely inspired Word of God, so I will take the writer of Numbers’ word for it.

But is this description of Moses, where we hear it in our first reading today, still not jarring; seemingly out of place within the context of our reading? Led by Aaron and Miriam, the people complain “against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married.” (This, again, is countercultural to most if not all of us. In Moses’ time, interethnic marriages were potentially scandalous; here today they are not). God defends Moses, afflicting Miriam with a skin disease because of her sin of having opposed Moses’ leadership unjustly. Aaron then pleads with Moses, and Moses with God, for forgiveness and for healing for Miriam.

Perhaps the stark contrast between Moses’ great humility and Aaron’s and Miriam’s lack thereof eventually enables Aaron and Miriam to recognize and ask forgiveness for their sin. Perhaps, in the reading we hear today from Matthew’s Gospel, the Pharisees and the scribes might have benefitted from a similar stark reminder of the differences between Jesus’ leadership and their own. For the Pharisees and scribes, “the tradition of the elders” had become an end in itself and a point of excessive, even sinful pride. The religious tradition, Jesus taught, was to serve the good of the people, not the other way around.

But Matthew does not break from the flow of his Gospel to emphasize for us that Jesus was so much humbler or a better leader than the Pharisees or the scribes, although he was. No, Matthew does not help us with superlatives! And today, while we acknowledge some people with superlative praise, how many people do we know who go about doing good works; who are holy, and yet humble and unassuming? I think of the likes of Mother Teresa, within the lifetime of most of us here.

St. Dominic, whose feast we celebrate today, taught his followers within the Order of Preachers he founded to preach the Gospel of humility by example. Early Dominicans were simply called “The Holy Preaching” for this reason. Their example is for each of us to strive for: To be “The Holy Preaching” ourselves; to preach Christ by example, with no need for superlatives.

Homily for Friday, 19 June 2015– Ferial

Friday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial of St. Romuald, Abbot

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 11:18, 21-30;  Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Matthew 6:19-23

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,” Jesus says, “but store up treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” So what or who is our greatest treasure? Where do we find our greatest treasure; the person or thing that attracts us most deeply, from the heart?

I am going to anticipate, since we are all here for Mass, many of us daily, that Christ, really present in the Eucharist, is our greatest treasure. But something is curious when we say that Christ in the Eucharist is our greatest treasure. What is it? What is curious to say and believe this is that we take something created, ordinary bread and wine (although, yes, this bread and wine mysteriously becomes for us the body and blood; the real presence of Christ), to be our greatest treasure. Does this not go against what Jesus asks us not to do in Matthew’s Gospel, which is to “store up for” ourselves “treasures on earth” and not in heaven?

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that in our Eucharist ordinary bread and wine; ordinary things of creation become our greatest treasure. But no, we do not go against Jesus’ teaching to “store up… treasures in heaven” and not “on earth” in the sense that, in our Eucharist, we are not making something created a god. Instead, God; Jesus Christ makes his home within what is created, just as he has made his home among us in human flesh, and so transforms this creation (bread and wine; us) to be Christ’s presence in our world. This is God’s work, not ours first.

This, I think, is at the heart of Jesus’ saying: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… but store up treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” Do not make created things or people into gods, but value and, yes, treasure creation. How do we do this?

At one extreme, we see greed for earthly treasures: Some hoard the world’s resources at the expense of many poor. At another extreme, some interpret Jesus’ words against storing up “treasures on earth” as permission not to care for creation: “The end of creation; of our universe will happen sooner or later, so why protect our earth; our environment”?

Both these extremes are wrong. Jesus invites us to treasure creation not as a god but as God’s gift. At every Mass we express that we treasure creation as God’s gift: “Blessed are you God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread” and “the wine we offer you…”

I am just beginning to read Pope Francis’ newest letter to all Catholics on care for our environment, Laudato si‒ “Praise be.” Pope Francis makes the same point: Treasure creation insofar as it directs us to our greatest “treasure in heaven.” Value rightly “the spiritual treasures bestowed by God upon the Church,” Pope Francis says, “not dissociated from the body or from nature or from worldly realities, but lived in and with them, in communion with all that surrounds us.”

“Praise be to you… Lord,” for creation; for our Eucharist especially, which directs us to you, our creator; our treasure “in heaven,” where our heart is.

Homily for Thursday, 28 May 2015– Ferial

Thursday of the 8th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Sirach 42:15-25; Psalm 33:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Mark 10:46-52

Have you ever, for a few moments, delighted in God’s creation? Have you marveled at the immensity of the universe or been amazed at the diversity and intricacy of the smallest creatures we know?

Sirach understands something of God’s wisdom; God’s glory when he sees God’s creation. Our first reading, from Sirach, is a hymn of praise for the beauty of God’s creation; an appreciation of the wisdom and greatness of the Creator. “Now will I recall God’s works,” Sirach begins, “At God’s word were his works brought into being; they do his will as he has ordained for them.”

But soon Sirach is at a loss to praise God for God’s creation because it is so splendid. “Even God’s holy ones must fail in recounting the wonders of the LORD,” Sirach acknowledges! Our creator God “plumbs the depths and penetrates the heart.” God lacks “no understanding”; no wisdom. And so we, like Sirach, are reduced to awe and wonder. Sirach asks, “Can one ever see enough of [the] splendor” of God’s creation? Even from the small amount of God’s creation that we see, can we not understand something of the greatness of God by sensing God’s creation?

And yet some do not easily experience the greatness of God’s creation. This is the experience of the blind Bartimaeus in our Gospel reading today from Mark. We cannot know the kind of “blindness” that afflicted Bartimaeus, whether it was literal inability to see or some other physical illness, or whether he was blinded spiritually; blinded by sin. Whatever Bartimaeus’ kind of blindness, it does not stop him. Bartimaeus has the faith and confidence to approach Jesus and ask him: “Master, I want to see.”

The blind Bartimaeus never despairs of God’s healing; of the mercy of the same God who created the universe and everything in it and sustains this creation. Bartimaeus trusts that Jesus will restore his sight so that he can sense the wonders of God’s creation more fully and give thanks to them by a life of following Jesus.

“Master, I want to see.” What if this were all we wanted of God, so to give praise to God for God’s creation? We trust in God, I am confident. We trust and show awe and reverence to our Creator God; to our God of mercy especially when our sins and failings are keeping us from experiencing God’s goodness even more deeply. We are here because we trust in God who gives himself in our Eucharist.

But what if we were to purify this trust; this desire to “see” and experience God, even more? What if, by God’s grace, we did not complain as much about small afflictions (I can be bad for this)? What if our prayer were more like that of the blind Bartimaeus: “Master, I want to see.”

Master, I want to give thanks more and more for the splendor of your creation. Master, for the times I have sinned I am sorry; “I want to” experience your mercy; I never despair of your mercy. I know that, this side of eternal life, we will never fully understand your greatness and the greatness of creation. But let us experience more of it to give you fitting praise. “Master, I want to see.”