Homily for Sunday, 19 June 2022– The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

Readings of the day: Genesis 14:18-20; Psalm 110:1, 2, 3, 4; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 9:11b-17

The Body and Blood of Christ, the Eucharist, the Mass: This reality we celebrate now has many names and many dimensions. And the readings we hear proclaimed from the word of God today, and the prayers of today’s Mass, each highlight particular dimensions of this celebration more than others.

The beauty, variety, and complexity of Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi, reminds me of the many different celebrations of this day I have experienced. Maybe some of us have participated in outdoor processions through the streets with the Blessed Sacrament. I have experienced this less here than in Colombia, where Corpus Christi processions are often quite elaborate.

Of course, Corpus Christi reminds me of first communions at which I have presided as a priest—the first one being the first communion of my godparents’ grandson, during my very first Mass as a priest. But I am especially remembering lately my many conversations at table with a brother Basilian priest I lived with in Rochester, New York, when I was just ordained, whom I especially loved and who was especially beloved of the whole Basilian community and people with whom he ministered. Fr. Joseph Trovato went to be with our Lord a couple of years ago. Quite often, though, when conversations with Fr. Joe would turn toward the Mass, the Eucharist, he would say, with his characteristic gentle voice, that the dimension of the Eucharist he found most difficult to live was that of sacrifice.

I was always somewhat surprised to hear Fr. Joe say this. When I think of priesthood (and not only the ordained priesthood but our common priesthood as baptized Christians), I think of one of my favourite prayers, St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Suscipe: “Take, Lord (Suscipe, Domine), all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will; all that I have and possess. You have given all to me. To you, O Lord, I return it. All is yours; dispose of it wholly according to your will. Give me your love and your grace, for this is enough for me.”

Another thing that would surprise me about Fr. Joe, when I would bring up Ignatius’ Suscipe, is how he would look me directly in the eye and, with all the sternness he could muster (which was not much), say to me, “I do not like that prayer.” When I would ask him why, he would say, “Because I find it such a difficult prayer to live out.” I think that, if Fr. Joe found Ignatius’ Suscipe difficult to live out, the rest of us are in big trouble! Instead of the Suscipe, Fr. Joe’s favourite prayer or saying was from St. Francis de Sales: “There is nothing so strong as gentleness, and nothing so gentle as real strength.”

There have been few people, let alone few priests, who have lived the sacrifice demanded of Ignatius’ Suscipe—the total surrender to God of liberty, memory, understanding, our “entire will” to our Lord who has “given all to” us—as well as Fr. Joe Trovato. He certainly lived the radical (and, dare I say, more than humble, but self-sacrificial) gentleness to which St. Francis de Sales’ saying invites us.

The self-sacrificial gentleness of Ignatius’ Suscipe, of St. Francis de Sales, or of Fr. Joe Trovato is a Eucharistic self-sacrificial gentleness. It is a gentleness and a self-sacrifice to which the Lord in his grace invites us. There are many moments in our Mass, every time we celebrate it, when we remember Jesus’ sacrifice of his entire being, his having “given all to” us, for our salvation.

Maybe the most important moment during our Eucharistic celebration when we remember Jesus’ self-sacrifice for us is when we pray the same words Jesus did at the Last Supper, on the night before he gave himself up to death for us: “Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body, which will be given up for you… Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood.”

The earliest disciples of Jesus remembered Jesus’ sacrifice, his giving of his body and blood for us, at the Last Supper and on the cross, in Jesus’ own words. “This is my Body that is for you… This cup is the new covenant in my Blood. Do this… in remembrance of me.” St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which we hear today, is an early witness to this way in which Jesus’ first disciples remembered his sacrifice for us and its meaning for our salvation.

The Eucharistic dimension of sacrifice is closely connected to its dimension of memorial: Of memory not of artifacts in museums, but memory that projects Jesus’ giving of self to us into our history, so that it becomes always and everywhere present. And it becomes a self-sacrifice we can and are called to imitate: “Do this in memory of me… You have given all to me. To you, O Lord, I return it.”

But how, through remembrance of Jesus, our greatest act of self-sacrifice, or otherwise, could we ever return such a sublime gift as Jesus has given to us: His Body and Blood; his life, on the cross? At Mass, in our Eucharistic prayers, we use a lot of language of sacrifice and of returning to God some element of God’s sacrifice of himself in Jesus for us. During our table conversations, Fr. Joe often liked to point out this language of sacrifice in our Eucharistic prayers that, like Ignatius’ Suscipe (so he would say) he had difficulty living out, much less understanding. Sometimes our Eucharistic language of sacrifice can be bold. We pray, for instance: “May this sacrifice of our reconciliation… advance the peace and salvation of all the world.” We still await with Christian hope, sisters and brothers, the fulfillment of this “peace and salvation” for which we pray every time we celebrate our Eucharist.

Sometimes our language of sacrifice in our Eucharistic prayers can be difficult to understand: “Look, we pray, upon the oblation of your Church.” What is an oblation? It is another word for sacrifice; for offering back to God what God has given us in this very celebration: The sacramental yet very real presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, we pray, “We offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice… May [Christ] make of us an eternal offering to you, so that we may obtain an inheritance with your elect.”

But can we ever offer God back what he has offered us; what God continues to offer us through our Eucharist: His very self, for our salvation? Can we ever match the sacrifice of self that Jesus offered for us on the cross? Without God’s grace, the short answer to these questions would be no. I have no doubt that Fr. Joe Trovato was on to something when he would say he had difficulty living out the meaning of the Lord’s sacrifice for us; the meaning of St. Ignatius’ Suscipe: “You have given all to me. To you, O Lord, I return it.”

I will go a step beyond Fr. Joe here: Without God’s grace, to remember and to live in imitation of Jesus’ sacrifice for us is impossible. Yet, should we ever despair of God’s grace, we need only to remember the abundance of that grace of which Jesus’ greatest miracles were a sign. We hear from Luke’s Gospel today how Jesus multiplied the “five loaves and two fish,” so that there was enough to feed “about five thousand men,” and women and children in addition to them, with food still left over.

In this way, God will multiply even our smallest efforts at imitating God’s self-gift to us in our lives. God will multiply even our smallest efforts at kindness; at the kind of hospitality and blessing Melchizedek, the priest-king, shows Abram, and Abram returns to Melchizedek, in our reading from Genesis today.

God’s abundant grace will multiply our “I find this difficult to live out” into more than enough to nourish the world. In God’s grace, all the dimensions of this great celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ come together: Sacrifice, memorial, hospitality. God’s grace enables us to celebrate here now, and then to bring God’s real, nourishing presence to our world by all we say and do. God’s grace “is enough for us,” so that all we have received, we now return; we now give to a world hungering and thirsting for peace and salvation.

Homily for Sunday, 6 September 2015

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 35:4-7a; Psalm 146:7, 8-9, 9-10; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37

“Ephphatha”! …“Be opened”!

How many of us remember our own baptism or have been to a baptism that we remember? Most of us here were probably baptized as infants and so do not remember our own baptism. But if anybody here has attended a child’s baptism recently, do you remember this strange but beautiful prayer over the ears and mouth of the newly-baptized child? We pray, touching the ears and mouth of the child: “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the mute speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father. Amen.”

This prayer is called the “ephphatha,” or “be opened” prayer. It is one of the oldest prayers of the Rite of Baptism of Children as we know it. The “ephphatha” in our Rite of Baptism is drawn from the Gospel reading we hear today, from Mark. We hear of Jesus’ encounter with “a deaf man who had a speech impediment.” Jesus takes this man “away from the crowd.” He puts “his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, [touches] his tongue.” Jesus says to the man in Aramaic, “ephphatha”‒ “Be opened”! The man is able to hear and speak again. The crowd is astonished: “He has done all things well,” they exclaim. And the people who witness Jesus’ healing give us the words we hear to this day at children’s baptisms: “He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

For me as a priest, at least some of the beauty of the “ephphatha” prayer at baptisms is not so much in the words of this prayer. But often at the moment I touch and pray over the child’s mouth, the baby will try to suck on my thumb. It is as if the baby, newly alive; baptized into Christ, is saying, “I’m opened, alright… And your thumb tastes way better than my pacifier”!

Is it not most beautiful that, from the moment of Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man; from the very moment of our baptism, we are called to “be opened”? And in what ways are we called by our baptism to “be opened”? What are some of our obstacles to being “opened”; to hearing and proclaiming the Word of God; the faith of Jesus Christ?

I ask you these questions. But in my two years here at St. Kateri, my diaconate and first year of priesthood, you have shown me; shown one another; shown our communities and our world in countless profound ways what it means to “be opened.” You show time and again by word and action what it means to live out the baptismal calling we have in common. The number of ministries and devotions here at St. Kateri is truly astounding. We have people here who visit and bring communion to the sick and homebound. We have people who accompany those who have lost loved ones; who help to prepare and assist at funerals. We have people who prepare the many aspects of our liturgies day after day; weekend after weekend. We have people who care for our young people; who prepare “care packages” for our college students; who are involved in Faith Formation and sacramental preparation. We support a lively parish formed from five parishes. We support St. Kateri School. We have the Ladies’ Guild, the Knights of Columbus, many other groups who build friendship; build social justice; build up the Kingdom of God. So many times I have entered one of our churches and seen a prayer group meeting here; a rosary or a novena being prayed there; somebody praying in private; in silence…

It is impossible for me to list all the ways in which we live here at St. Kateri by Jesus’ words: “Be opened.” If I have not named you here I certainly hold you in grateful prayer. I am blessed to be ordained a priest for you; for our universal Church; to have served here for these past two years. Yet my and my brother priests’ ordained priesthood exists to lead; to unite us in our common priestly, prophetic, and royal baptismal vocation. And if I may say this again, I believe we live this vocation very well here at St. Kateri. By ordination I am your priest; in baptism I am forever your brother in Christ.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, you are my great teachers in being “opened” as we are called in baptism. And yet we still may experience obstacles to fully living out our baptismal calling. What are these obstacles, and perhaps some remedies to what keeps us from being fully “opened”? One of the greatest obstacles we face to being opened, to hearing and proclaiming Christ, is fear. Isaiah speaks in our first reading to a people living in fear; people who were living in exile in the prophet Isaiah’s time. Isaiah says, “Be strong, fear not”!

What or whom might we fear? Do we fear speaking the truth; speaking for our faith in Christ, even if (as hopefully is the case) we speak and act with love? Perhaps we fear somebody with power over us. Perhaps we have experienced fear of those who disagree with us; those who are different from us. Perhaps we fear our own weakness; our own sin. Isaiah speaks to our fears the same words he once spoke to the people of Israel in exile in Babylon: “Be strong, fear not”! Here is your God. He comes with vindication. With divine recompense he comes to save you.” Isaiah’s prophecy of the deaf hearing, the lame leaping with joy; the tongue[s] of the mute singing is realized in Jesus’ healing of the deaf and mute man in our Gospel reading today.

Even more importantly, this prophecy is realized in us. In baptism we are called: “Be opened”! But there is another obstacle, related to fear, to our being “opened” to hearing and proclaiming Christ. This obstacle is undue “partiality”; exclusion of people or groups. St. James speaks in our second reading today of this kind of partiality in our churches; the temptation to give the rich places of honor while poor people, if they are present in our worship spaces at all, are sidelined and excluded: “‘Stand there’ or ‘Sit at my feet.’”

I do not see this kind of exclusion here at St. Kateri. Yet I invite us, in light of St. James’ words, to continue and to strengthen our effort to welcome those who are poor. I invite us not only to go out to our streets; to the House of Mercy; to Bethany House and the Catholic Worker to meet those who are poor and homeless but to take increasingly active steps to welcome the otherwise socially excluded into this worship space. In this way we make St. Kateri Parish not “our” space into which we allow a foreign group of people (“they” or “them”), but God’s space in which “they” become part of “us.” This takes a constant conversion of our hearts to be welcoming; a constant effort to “be opened.”

But if the horrific image this week of a drowned Syrian refugee boy on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea is any indication, our world presents us with many temptations against being “opened.” We hear cries from many countries to close borders; to limit the number of refugees and immigrants accepted; to build walls and prisons to keep the unwanted out. We hear attitudes, spoken or silent, shouted forth in their increasingly harmful effects on our society: Be closed to the right to life from conception! After all, some regard the unborn as mere commodities to be bought and sold. Be closed to those in need of social assistance! Be closed to racial integration! Be closed to the elderly; to the sick! Be closed to those who struggle to practice every teaching of the Church to my satisfaction! Be closed to reconciliation in our relationships; our families! Be closed to peace! Be closed to protecting the dignity of all creation! “Be closed”: This attitude is a direct countersign to the Gospel that calls to us, “Be opened”! And only death can result from being closed.

Our Gospel calls us to life. Christ’s Gospel; our Christian baptism calls us: “Be opened”! Isaiah’s prophecy of the deaf hearing; the mute speaking; the lame leaping; social need being met with justice and kindness; God’s “vindication” and “salvation” present and alive in our world is not something of the distant past. Isaiah’s prophecy was not only realized once, two thousand years ago when Jesus healed a deaf and mute man. This prophecy is being realized in us here and now, to the extent we live our Gospel; our baptismal calling: “Ephphatha! …Be opened!”

Homily for Saturday, 11 July 2015– Memorial of St. Benedict

Saturday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Proverbs 2:1-9; Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11; Matthew 19:27-29

“Listen carefully, my child…” These are the first words of the Rule of St. Benedict, whose feast we celebrate today. Who is St. Benedict, and to whom does he ask us to “listen”? What is the goal of our listening?

St. Benedict founded the famous Benedictine monastery in Monte Cassino, in Italy, in the early 500s. He is often called the “father of Western monasticism”; the father of life in religious community as the Church has known it for most of its history. And so as a Basilian religious I have a special fondness for St. Benedict.

“Listen,” St. Benedict begins his Rule, which has influenced the rules of many religious communities including our own Basilian Way of Life. We might say, “Be obedient,” since words like “obedience” are from the same Latin root as to listen. And the Rule of St. Benedict continues: “Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving Father’s advice, so that by the labor of obedience you may return to him.”

“Listen”; be obedient. These words are for more than religious under vows. They are an invitation to all of us. To whom, then, are we to “listen”; to direct our “labor of obedience”? I believe we are all called not only to listen to the advice of wise people; children to their parents and grandparents; religious to their superiors (although I am sure Fr. Paul1 appreciates this), but first to God. And what is the goal of our listening; our obedience to God? Our goal (all of us, not only vowed religious!) is eternal life; that we “may return to” God.

This is Jesus’ promise to all of us who listen for God; who discern; who “receive willingly and carry out effectively” the will of God in our lives: “Eternal life.” But I have a slight issue with our Gospel reading today, from Matthew. Jesus reminds us that careful listening; obedience is a sacrifice. He hears Peter’s objection: “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us”? And we hear Jesus’ reply to Peter: “Everyone who has given up” material belongings; family “for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” My issue is not that following Jesus or particularly religious life does not involve sacrifice. It does. But every vocation involves some sacrifice. Might many if not most of us have had in the back of our minds the concern of Peter when discerning our vocation: “What will there be for us”?

My slight issue is that in my experience vowed religious life, poverty, chastity, and obedience, has been much more a joy than a sacrifice. But if we have discerned our vocation from God; God’s will for our lives well, I think it is well for us to enjoy living our vocation: A loving marriage; single life or priesthood given in service to God and our Church; the great community life we Basilians of St. Kateri; that many religious enjoy… These are signs to us now of our ultimate goal and joy, “eternal life,” which God promises to all who listen to and for God; who “receive willingly and carry out effectively” the “labor of obedience”; the vocation to which God has called us.
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1 Fr. Paul English, CSB, is Pastor and Rector of the Basilian Fathers of St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Irondequoit, NY.

Homily for Monday, 22 June 2015‒ Diocese of Rochester Patronal Feast of Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More

Monday of the 12th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Genesis 12:1-9; Psalm 33:12-13, 14-15, 20, 22; Matthew 7:1-5

We pray in our Psalm today, “Blessed the people the LORD has chosen to be his own.” Have we not all been “chosen to be [God’s] own” by our baptism? But how many of us have been chosen for a task or vocation, especially when this was a great change in our lives, temporary or permanent? Maybe the point at which you were “chosen” was when you began your first job. Maybe it was when you were married (if you are or have been married) when you were chosen to be another’s “own,” in loving service to your wife or husband; to your family; to God. Maybe you experienced being “chosen to be [God’s] own” if you became Christian; Catholic as an older child or adult. Maybe it was when you were asked to care for somebody in special need, possibly sick relative or friend. Maybe you have been the person to whom your family has looked for strength in a time of loss of a loved one.

I have felt the blessing of being called God’s “own” many times. I was recently recalling having been called to serve for a few weeks in our novitiate in Colombia, with young men just beginning to discern their call to religious life and priesthood. On a Friday afternoon before Christmas, I was working quietly on my Advent Sunday homily when Fr. Morgan called from his meeting with the governing body of the Basilian order, in Toronto: “Would you be able to help for a few weeks in Colombia”? And then (somewhat less of a surprise than being asked to serve in Colombia) was my call to the priesthood. Again, I felt a deep sense of being blessed to share in Christ’s priesthood here at St. Kateri.

“Blessed the people the LORD has chosen to be his own.” Today we celebrate Abram, one of the first to have been “chosen to be [the LORD’s] own.” We hear in Genesis of how God chose Abram to “go forth from the land” of his family; from everything and everybody he knew. Long before God made good on his promises to Abram (later Abraham), Abram lived on nothing more than a promise. Abram lived on a sense that he and Sarai were blessed to be “chosen to be [God’s] own.” Abram’s trust in God’s promise of blessing made him our “father in faith.”

And today we also celebrate the feast day of St. John Fisher, patron saint of this diocese; Bishop of Rochester in England; cardinal of our Church; martyred by King Henry VIII, and St. Thomas More, Henry VIII’s Chancellor and also a martyr of Henry VIII. Both John Fisher and Thomas More had a keen sense of having been “chosen to be [God’s] own”; of serving God and following their conscience over their allegiance to the king. Perhaps St. Thomas More’s most famous line is, “I remain the king’s humble servant but God’s first.”

Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More were blessed to serve the king; blessed even more for having accepted martyrdom. They, like Abram, trusted in God’s promise of blessing, and call us to the same trust. “Blessed the people the LORD has chosen to be his own.”

Homily for Tuesday, 19 May 2015– Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 20:17-27; Psalm 68:10-11, 20-21; John 17:1-11a

How do we know we are in the right vocation? I am asked questions like this regularly, especially around important anniversaries like those of ordination to the priesthood or profession of religious vows: “When did you know for sure you were being called to be a priest”?

I would like to ask all of us the same questions: When did you know you were living the vocation to which God called you, if you have discerned this yet? How do you know you are in the “right” vocation?

Many will say to me how much of a sacrifice the priesthood must be, but is there not as much or more sacrifice in living out the vocation to marriage, in raising children, in living consecrated single life, or in taking religious vows as a sister or brother? And yet there is great joy in all these vocations if this is the vocation to which God is calling or has called you. There is great joy for me; greater than any sacrifice, to being a priest in a religious community.

So again, how might we discern the vocation to which God is calling us? In our readings today, we hear that Jesus’ first Apostles made great sacrifices to follow our Lord. In Acts, St. Paul recognizes that he is at the end of his life; that he may be “going to Jerusalem for the last time, to face death for his faith. St. Paul is also saddened for the people he has served so faithfully; those who will probably never see him again.

And yet Paul is convinced that he has lived the right vocation all along. How does Paul know this? He knows that he is in the vocation to which God has called him because his ministry has never been about him, but the people he serves. Paul says in his parting words to the Christians at Ephesus: “I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God.”

Jesus also knows that he has followed after “the entire plan of God”; he is convinced of the vocation to which God the Father has called him. Jesus prays in John’s Gospel, as he is about to die for us on the cross, “Give glory to your Son… so that your Son may give eternal life to all you gave him.” Jesus’ vocation has never been about him, but so that all whom God has called him; his disciples; we might have “eternal life.”

And Jesus asks, “What is eternal life”? What is the very purpose for God having sent us his Son, Jesus Christ? “This is eternal life,” Jesus says, “That they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”

This is “eternal life.” This is why God has sent us Jesus Christ, God’s only Son. This is the very mark of our having discerned the vocation to which God has called us. This is how we know we are living the vocation to which God has called us: When our vocation is bringing us closer to God; when our vocation is leading us closer to eternal life; to knowing God; to this ultimate vocation to which we are all called.

Homily for Monday, 10 November 2014– Memorial of St. Leo the Great

Monday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Titus 1:1-9; Psalm 24:1b-2, 3-4ab, 5-6; Luke 17:1-6

What are essential qualities of a disciple of Jesus Christ; of a leader of disciples of Jesus Christ; a leader of the Church?

St. Paul lists several qualities for which Titus is to look in leaders of the Church. Our first reading is a kind of checklist of “must have” qualities of presbyters, the elders of a Christian community; people similar to our priests and experienced and faithful laypeople today. St. Paul presents a similar checklist of “must have” and “must not have” qualities of bishops.

I admit that this beginning of the Letter to Titus is a challenging message for me as a priest to hear. It is a good examination of conscience for me.

Our Gospel reading today from Luke asks only one thing, not only of leaders in the Church but for all of us disciples of Jesus Christ: Forgive one another, repeatedly if necessary. “If [somebody] wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him” or her.

Somehow I feel that this one essential quality of a Christian disciple, being forgiving, is the most difficult to live up to. I would prefer to be able to consult a checklist of qualities of a priest as in the Letter to Titus! Is it not even more difficult to forgive someone who has wronged us when the sincerity of their repentance is questionable? Is forgiveness not more difficult when the person who has wronged us is close to us: a friend; a co-worker; a parishioner; a priest; a family member?

In the confessional and beyond, I hear of many sins. But most distressing for me to hear is not sins that people have committed (sins can be absolved) but, on a few occasions, a lack of forgiveness. The “millstone… around” the necks of many faithful to which Jesus refers in our Gospel reading may be just this: A lack of forgiveness toward those who have wronged us; often toward ourselves.

Let me say this: If you have a millstone; if you are suffering because of sin for which you need to forgive yourself or another; if you have been dragging your millstone along for weeks, months, or years, I want your millstone! I want to start a collection of our millstones so that, by the grace and mercy of God and through the ministry of the Church I and my brother priests can absolve them; destroy these millstones; grant forgiveness; relieve suffering.

I ask one more thing of all of us here: Prayer. Pray for me; for my brother priests; for deacons; for Bishop Matano, Bishop Emeritus Clark, and their brother bishops together with Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Pray for all leaders of our Church. Pray for one another, so that together we can be the most effective ministers of God’s forgiveness possible. Let us unburden one another of our millstones. The forgiveness our Gospel asks of us may be the most essential of all qualities of a leader of the Church and of any disciple of Jesus Christ.

Homily for Sunday, 12 October 2014

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 25:6-10a; Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14

What is so important about clothing: What we wear and how we wear it? Can our clothing not show something about who we are or what we do for a living?

I have been asked a few times by children, including once this week at St. Kateri School, about when priests wear clericals, black pants and shirt with a white Roman collar. A few days after I was ordained a priest, I spoke to students at the high school from which I graduated near Edmonton. The students there were asked to prepare two questions each for me to answer when I spoke in their classrooms. Again, some of the most frequently-asked questions were about when, where, and why I wore blacks and a Roman collar. One student asked, “Father, do you always have to wear priest clothes”?

No, I answered. I do not always have to wear “priest clothes.” I wear clericals when I serve in public as a priest: At Mass or other worship celebration, visiting our school, presenting or speaking as a priest, meeting other priests or the bishop, hearing confessions, making hospital or home visits to the sick, and so on… But I usually do not wear clericals if I am relaxing at home, on vacation, or on a day off. Are there any students here who wear a uniform at school? Is there anybody here who wears a uniform at work? A black shirt with a Roman collar is like my uniform. It shows who I am when I am serving in public as a priest.

And yet when and when not to wear our priestly “uniform” can be unclear, as one of my brother Basilians who teaches in one of our high schools found out the hard way this week. He was on his day off, and so not in his black shirt and Roman collar. He went to run a quick errand at the school where he teaches. As he was leaving the school, he greeted one of his students, who was slow in returning his greeting. When the student finally realized who was greeting her, she exclaimed, “Oh, sorry Father, I didn’t recognize you without your clothes!”

Lightheartedness aside, this is a similar plight to that of the man in today’s Gospel reading. We hear that this man is ordered out of the king’s wedding feast for not wearing the wedding garment given him by the king. “Many are invited but few are chosen,” Jesus’ parable ends. This man is unrecognizable without his clothes, and so cannot remain at the king’s feast.

Might we feel that Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast is a bit harsh? And yet clothing, how and what we wear and when we wear particular kinds of clothing, matters. In the case of the man who is expelled from the king’s wedding feast, we are asked to understand today’s Gospel parable in the social context of Jesus’ first hearers. In Jesus’ time, if somebody were to be invited to a wedding banquet of a rich person, like a king, this person would be given a wedding garment to wear at the feast. Not to wear it would be a great insult to the host! Add to this that, in today’s parable, many had been invited but had “ignored” the invitation to the king’s wedding banquet. One had gone back “to his farm, another to his business.” Others had mistreated and even killed the king’s servants who had been sent to deliver the invitation to the feast. And so more servants are sent, “into the main roads” with more invitations to the feast. A man attends the feast, but without his wedding garment provided to him by the king. He is unrecognizable without his clothes.

This harsh-sounding parable, then, is actually a parable about God’s generosity. God, represented by the king in the parable, has sent servants out “into the main roads”; out to the highways and byways; out to the poor; out to sinners like you and me, with invitations to the feast. Do we accept God’s exceedingly generous invitation to the wedding feast?

For us, the king’s wedding feast has been prepared. This feast is eternal life; the salvation to which we are all invited by God. If we do accept God’s invitation, will we show up for the wedding feast wearing the appropriate clothing for the occasion? Will we clothe ourselves in a way that shows others who we are while also reflecting God’s generosity to our world by the way we live? Will we wear the garment given us by God, our king, out of generosity; a garment we do not deserve but nevertheless a garment of salvation? At the king’s wedding feast, will we be recognizable in our clothes?

When I speak of clothing, I am aware that I am discussing a controversial topic for some of us. Have we not heard the term “Sunday best?” Most if not all of us, I am sure, share a desire that everyone dress reverently for a celebration such as the Mass. After all, our Eucharist is an image; a sacrament of the eternal wedding feast of heaven. But, within reason, one person’s definition of reverence may differ from that of another. We balance reverence for Mass with dressing for the weather. Some of us are wealthier than others, and so can afford fancier clothing than others…

All this is a caution against judging what is in others’ hearts, even reverence or lack thereof for God and God’s house, merely by the way they dress. Appropriate attire is important, but is it not even more important for us to wear the festive clothing that is not visible to our eyes but is recognizable nonetheless: The clothing of kindness; of compassion; of generosity that reflects God’s kindness; compassion; generosity to the world? Do we wear the clothing that invites others to join the king’s wedding feast; that invites our brothers and sisters to think and say: “Here is a Christian; a person of God: kind, compassionate, generous”? Some may even say, “I want to be one of them”; one of us! Visibly but also invisibly, are we recognizable in our clothes; the clothing of God’s wedding feast?

Outside of our Eucharistic celebration and also within it, we are given signs; sacraments of the wedding garment to put on; to be seen for who we are: Christians; a people of a generous God. [Today we will celebrate a baptism after Mass.] At baptism, we wear a baptismal garment that we pray will one day be brought “unstained into the kingdom of heaven.” Our servers and I wear an alb, which reminds us of our baptismal garment. Brides at weddings usually wear a white dress, not so much a sign of purity or virginity as, again, a reminder of baptism and the wedding feast of heaven. The pall over a casket at funerals also hearkens back to baptism and forward to eternal life. Over a priest’s alb and stole at Mass is the colorful chasuble, once again a reminder of the wedding garment to be given us by the king, God, when we enter the eternal feast of heaven.

We have all been called, in the prophet Isaiah’s words, to a feast of rich food and choice wines”; the feast of “the LORD of hosts”; the eternal wedding feast of heaven; a feast, in St. Paul’s words to the Philippians, of God’s “glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” We have been called; invited. Will we be chosen? The king, God, has provided us all with the garment for the wedding feast; a garment with visible; sacramental signs, but also a garment of kindness; compassion; generosity; a garment that shows to our world who we are and who God is. When we enter this wedding feast, God only asks that we be recognizable in our clothes.

Homily for Wednesday, 8 October 2014– Ferial

Wednesday of the 27th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14; Psalm 117:1bc, 2; Luke 11:1-4

We hear at some length from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians today how St. Paul began his ministry as an Apostle of Christ. First, he preached to Gentiles, but only “to those of repute.” When he had gained the confidence of “James and Cephas” (Peter) “and John,” the three most trusted of Jesus’ first Apostles, St. Paul expanded his ministry to non-Jews. But what is at the core of St. Paul’s message for his own time and for us? Who is to be the main focus of our bringing Christ into our world; the same people as were the main focus for St. Paul in his time?

The question in Paul’s letter to the Galatians of how readily the Christian faith should be handed on to the Gentiles is secondary. St. Paul identifies the primary focus of his ministry when he says, “Only, we were to be mindful of the poor, which is the very thing I was eager to do.” Is this not also a beautiful, if challenging, invitation to us, too: “Be mindful of the poor”? Again I say that we do not need to look far to find the poor; the homeless; the unemployed. And right here among us are our sisters and brothers who have lost loved ones. Do we perhaps know people; families who are estranged from the Church; estranged within themselves? These are our poor today. These are the people to whom St. Paul invites us to reach out and with whom to identify; to empathize.

This week, I read an article in the British newspaper The Guardian on the immediate reaction of Pope Francis to his election as pope. As the two-thirds majority of votes to become pope was surpassed, Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Brazil embraced then-Cardinal Bergoglio (who took the name Francis) and said to him, “Don’t forget about the poor.”

At my ordination to the priesthood in May, I was greeted by Fr. Frank Amico, my Basilian superior from Cali, Colombia where I taught on two occasions while I was a seminarian. Fr. Amico said to me, “Remember the poor.” It is a message that I have taken to heart.

“Only, we were to be mindful of the poor,” St. Paul says to the Galatians. To all the baptized in Christ; to every one of us; to priests; to the pope, this invitation; this challenge still rings out in our time: “Be mindful of the poor… Don’t forget about the poor… Remember the poor.”

The poor are to be the focus of our service; our ministry as Christians, the people we are asked to be most eager to serve; to lift up; to welcome as sisters and brothers in Christ. How might we take up the invitation; the challenge of St. Paul; of Cardinal Hummes; of Pope Francis; of my brother Basilian, Fr. Frank Amico? They all echo this message, from the Letter to the Galatians to our own time: “Only, we were to be mindful of the poor, which is the very thing I was eager to do.”