Homily for Friday, 17 April 2015– Friday of the Second Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 5:34-42; Psalm 27:1, 4, 13-14; John 6:1-15

Is Jesus’ feeding of the multitudes not a very familiar story to us? It is one of the few events of Jesus’ life that is recounted in all four Gospels. Today we hear John’s version of Jesus feeding of the multitudes from five loaves and two fish.

This event is familiar to us on many levels. Perhaps because Jesus’ actions here are at the core of our liturgy; our Eucharist, are we most familiar with Jesus’ taking, blessing, breaking, and distributing the loaves to the people? We hear every time we are at Mass how Jesus “took bread and, giving thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples.” And so the feeding of the thousands anticipates Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples; his Passion and death; his giving of himself to us under the form of bread and wine. He took; he gave thanks; he broke; and he gave: These actions are openly Eucharistic. On this level, we are familiar with this event of Jesus feeding of the multitudes in our Gospels.

But is there another level at which we are invited to become more familiar with this event; to live this event more deeply in our own lives? On one hand, how often do we consider our talents; our gifts we have been given by God for one another’s good? How often have we, on the other hand, ever complained of a lack of expertise for some tasks, or a lack of resources or time? Can we put ourselves in the place of the Apostles Philip or Andrew in today’s Gospel?

Philip sees the great, hungry crowds and says to Jesus, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” Andrew asks “But what good are these [loaves and fish] for so many”? I do not think that here Philip or Andrew show a lack of faith. Philip and Andrew likely knew at this point that Jesus was capable of a miracle if he willed it. But the two Apostles respond to the immediate need in front of them: Too many people and not enough food.

Remarkably, Jesus does not scold Philip or Andrew but calms them by asking them to “have the people recline.” Have the people take up a communal meal posture that was familiar to anyone in Israel in Jesus’ time. Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes, but in so doing he asks us what he asked of Philip or Andrew: What do you bring to help in this situation? What talents do you have; gifts from God that we are invited to use effectively? What is familiar to us in this situation?

Jesus does not ask us to work miracles. But in order to reach the point at which God can work a miracle, we are invited to give back to God what God has given us: Our gifts, our talents. We give to God what God gives us in this Eucharistic celebration. Is this a miracle before our eyes? Indeed, and yet even here we begin with our gift; the “work of human hands”; bread and wine; again, the familiar with which God works miracles.

Homily for Sunday, 4 January 2015– Epiphany of the Lord

Readings of the day: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

This homily was given at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada.

Who are these “wise men from the East” of whom we hear in our Gospel reading today from Matthew, on this feast of the Epiphany of our Lord? What is the significance of the gifts they bring: Gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Who are some other important people in this event? Today’s celebration and our readings for it present us with many strange details, words, images, and people.

First, our celebration today is called “the Epiphany of the Lord.” Strange words for five hundred (for our Daily Double): What is “Epiphany”? This word means a “showing forth.” We celebrate today the showing forth of our Lord to the world, only not as we would expect. God, our Lord, is shown forth as a tiny, weak human baby to the “wise men,” strange men from a strange land to the East, in a stinky stable, in a small town, in a troubled land under Roman occupation. This was the greatest “Epiphany of [our] Lord,” although it was not the first and certainly will not be the last.

And, again, just who were these “wise men” anyway? Tradition says that there were three because they brought three gifts. Do we not picture them dressed in fine and colourful clothing, as kings? But no one really knows who these “wise men” were, how many there were, or how they dressed, or whether they were kings or astronomers, looking to the movement of the stars for signs, or what exactly they did for a living. We do know from Matthew’s Gospel that the wise men have some idea of whom they are searching for when they enter Jerusalem. They ask, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews”?

We also know by the gifts the wise men bring that they know something of the significance of this child born in Bethlehem. The wise men bring gold, the gift for a king. They bring frankincense, the gift for somebody divine; for a god (in the same way that, when we use incense today, it reminds us of our prayers rising up to God in heaven). The wise men bring myrrh, a bitter burial spice. Myrrh hints that the story of this child, Jesus, will include bitter tragedy, indeed death on a cross... But death will not be the end of this story, for Jesus or for us.

But along with gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, the wise men bring another gift to the manger scene in Bethlehem of the Epiphany of our Lord. What is this gift? Might some of us be thinking, “Father, you aren’t going to tell us that there were actually four gifts brought by the wise men to Jesus, are you? Look: The Gospel clearly says that there were only three gifts”!

Fair enough, but then our Gospel reading says this: When the wise men “saw [where] the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.” This, too, is a strange detail from Matthew’s Gospel: The wise men arrive at Jesus’ birthplace in Bethlehem: a stinky stable in a small town in a land under Roman occupation, and are still “overwhelmed,” not with sadness or a sense of fear (although they had visited Herod and may have known his evil intentions, and they did bring myrrh as a gift); not “overwhelmed” with fatigue for having traveled a great distance, but “overwhelmed with joy.”

This joy is the hidden gift of the wise men to our Lord Jesus at his Epiphany. Would this joy not also be a great gift for us to give to God and to one another: Joy that is itself God’s gift to us, a significant way in which God is shown forth to us?

Now, I understand if this is almost too much to ask of us to bring and to give another gift to one another or to God. Many of us have traveled long distances to be with our families and loved ones at this time of year. Those of us who have traveled have had to be mindful of weight limits on luggage, especially if we have traveled by air. With gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the wise men would have been charged unreasonable excess baggage fees. And the frankincense may well have been considered dangerous goods; would they even have gotten it on an airplane? So it is good that the wise men traveled by camel!

But I assure all of us, if we do not know this deep down already: Joy; the joy the wise men brought to the Lord Jesus in Bethlehem; the joy we are all invited to bring to our Lord today and always actually takes weight off, so there is no chance of excess baggage fees. And joy is completely duty-free for those of us who wish to carry it even across international borders; to any place in the world!

Joy is the gift that the prophet Isaiah once invited the people of Israel to give to one another and back to God. “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you,” we hear in our first reading, from Isaiah. “Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice.”

How would the people of Israel of Isaiah’s time; a people who had been in exile in Babylon for about seventy years at this point, have heard this message? I imagine this as their response: “Rejoice?! Isaiah, are you joking? Here we are; we have spent two generations in exile. Jerusalem and its Temple are in ruins, so there is no point in going back there, and you want us to be joyful?”

And yet Isaiah holds fast to his invitation: “Arise, shine, for your light has come… See and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice.” It is an invitation that holds true for us today: Our “light has come. The glory of the Lord has risen upon” us. Christ has been born for us; has shown himself to the wise men, the face of God in the face of a newborn child, for us. Christ lived, served, and loved as one of us. Christ died for us; rose again for us; will return at the end of time for us. May our hearts, like those of the wise men; like those of the people of Israel in Isaiah’s time; like those of Christian disciples and saints through the ages, “thrill and rejoice.” Our “light has come”; our Lord’s Epiphany is here and now. Our Lord shows himself through God’s own gift of joy, our gift of joy to our world.

Many of us, I admit, may find it difficult, even (perhaps especially) during this Christmas season, to show forth this gift of joy to the world. Our world gives us many reasons to be anything but joyful: Wars, terrorism, and other forms of violence. Just days ago, an unprecedented nine people were killed in one day in this city in an extreme and horrific act of domestic violence. We experience broken families, broken friendships; estrangement within families; estrangement from the Church. Many of us feel every bit the strangers that the people of Israel in Isaiah’s time or the wise men in Jesus’ time must have felt when they lay their gifts before our Lord Jesus in Bethlehem.

And yet the wise men are an example to all of us: “When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.” In a stinky stable in a small town in a land under Roman occupation, the wise men lay their gifts: Gold to our newborn king; Frankincense to God; Myrrh to our Savior who would raise us to new life through his cross and resurrection; Joy to the world!

Homily for Saturday, 15 November 2014– Memorial Mass, Holy Sepulchre Cemetery

Readings of the day: Wisdom 3:1-6, 9; Psalm 23; Colossians 3:1-4; Luke 23:44-49, 24:1-6

This homily was given during the monthly memorial Mass at the Christ our Light Mausoleum Chapel of Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Rochester, NY.

“Why do you search for the Living One among the dead”?

Whenever I hear these words from Luke’s Gospel, spoken by the “two men in dazzling garments” at the tomb of Jesus to the women who had gone with burial spices for Jesus’ body, I am always deeply moved. How would the women at Jesus’ tomb have responded to the men’s presence and to these words? How would we respond, if we were in the women’s place?

In one word, our Gospel reading captures the women’s reaction to encountering the “two men in dazzling garments”: The women are “terrified.” Their terror is understandable; they had just witnessed our Lord’s horrible suffering and death on a cross. They had stood “at a distance watching everything.” This was the end for somebody they had considered Lord and friend.

I wonder if they were any less terrified after the men’s words that came next: “He is not here; he has been raised up.” What the men say is incredible; the dead do not simply rise from their tombs in the flesh! But then, while the women; these first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection are terrified and probably unconvinced that Jesus “has been raised up,” the men ask the women to do something. What do the men ask the women to do? “Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee.” Remember how Jesus said that he would suffer, die, and rise again.

“Remember.”

Is this not why we are here in this chapel of Christ our Light Mausoleum; here at Holy Sepulchre for our monthly memorial Mass? We remember. Most if not all of us remember a loved one who has gone to God before us; perhaps a loved one buried here in this place. It is a tremendous act of courage to be here amid the sadness; the confusion; even the terror of death to remember. For your courage I and the Church thank you; we pray for you, for your consolation. And at the same time we remember…

We remember that “first day of the week, at dawn,” when the women at Jesus’ tomb heard the news from the “two men in dazzling garments”: “He is not here; he has been raised up.” We do not remember Jesus’ resurrection because it was a one-time event. We remember because in Jesus’ resurrection is the same promise of resurrection to eternal life for every one of us. These are the words we will hear in a few moments at the beginning of our Eucharistic prayer, as gifts of bread and wine are brought to the altar to be transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ: “In [Christ] the hope of blessed resurrection has dawned, that those saddened by the certainty of dying might be consoled by the promise of immortality to come.” Christ’s resurrection is our hope of resurrection. That first “dawn,” “the first day of the week,” is our first dawn, our promise of eternal life with our loving God. This is why we are here. We remember.

We remember, in the words of our first reading from the Book of Wisdom, our loved ones who are loved by God; who have gone to be with our loving God. We remember that “they are at peace.” We remember that are loved ones are among “those who trust in” God. What does the Book of Wisdom say about our loved ones who have trusted in God; who await their resurrection from the dead? Wisdom says that “those who trust in him shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with him in love, because grace and mercy are with his holy ones, and his care is with his elect.” This we remember.

While we celebrate the entry of our loved ones into eternal life and hope for the same eternal life for ourselves, we remember in the words of St. Paul to the Colossians: Our beloved have been “raised up in company with Christ” and “when Christ our life appears,” we “shall appear with him in glory.” Remember…

Let us remember, as we celebrate our departed loved ones with this memorial Mass, the act of courage that has brought us here. We remember the Lord who “is our shepherd… from death into life” as we pray this response to our Psalm. Let us remember this amid our sadness; our loss; our grieving, when we “walk in the dark valley.” God is with us. Our loved ones are with God, whose “rod and staff give [us] courage” in these difficult times.

We are not a people who “search for the Living One among the dead.” We remember that our Lord Jesus “is not here; he has been raised up.” Our loved ones have also “been raised up.” We, too, will be “raised up” after our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the promise given to us by our Lord “while he was still in Galilee”; while he walked this earth among us. We do not “search for the Living One among the dead.” We are here, the living ones among the living ones, in the real presence of the Living One; those raised from the dead together with those awaiting the same promise of resurrection. This is why we are gathered here. This is the purpose of our memorial Mass.

We remember.

Homily for Thursday, 3 July 2014‒ Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle

Readings of the day: Ephesians 2:19-22; Psalm 117:1bc-2; John 20:24-29

St. Thomas the Apostle, also named Didymus or “the twin” in our Gospel reading today, is often nicknamed “Doubting Thomas,” but how often do we think of Thomas not as “Doubting Thomas” but perhaps as “Believing Thomas” or even “Trusting Thomas”?

Is not Thomas a lot like us in our faith? We, like Thomas, like certainty; not being kept wondering about what we are to believe; what beliefs or teachings are essential to our Christian faith and which are not as essential, and so forth… In icons, Thomas is often depicted holding a square measure. Thomas is the scientific thinker: Everything measured; planned; certain. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe,” Thomas says to his brother Apostles after Jesus’ resurrection.

Whenever I visit my parents’ home and walk into my father’s shop, the large square measure that hangs on Dad’s shop wall especially stands out to me. I am reminded of Thomas, one of my favorite Apostles. My father, a retired meteorologist, and I, a microbiology lab technologist before I was a Basilian, are scientific thinkers, much like St. Thomas whose icons show him holding a square measure. Dad and I have had many conversations about the need for certainty, particularly among Catholics of our more scientific mindset or among generations of us who came of age in a Church that, on the surface, was sure of itself; its teachings clear, memorable, and sometimes recitable by rote (the era of the Baltimore Catechism!).

Many of us thrive on the Church of the square measure; the Church whose certainty the Apostle Thomas sought: “Unless I see… I will not believe.” There is nothing wrong with this kind of faith; this kind of quest for certainty. In this way, many of us are as Thomas’ second name, Didymus, suggests, twins with Thomas. But if we are twins with the questioning Thomas; the Thomas who seeks certainty before he believes; the “Doubting Thomas,” we are also called to be twins with the “Believing Thomas”; the “Trusting Thomas.” We are called to be twins with the Apostle Thomas who puts his hands in the wounds of Christ. We are called to be twins with the Apostle Thomas who ultimately professes his faith in the Risen Christ in the presence of his brother Apostles: “My Lord and my God”!

The Thomas we remember on this feast day, then, is not so much the “Doubting Thomas” as the “Believing Thomas” or the “Trusting Thomas.” In our Prayer over the Offerings that we are about to hear as the bread and wine are brought to our altar, we pray that God may “keep safe [God’s] gifts in us as we honor the confession of the Apostle Saint Thomas.” We honor St. Thomas, depicted in icons with a square measure and, just as often, with a scroll, which stands for his confession of faith: “My Lord and my God”!

We are called to be twins in the spirit of Thomas. Indeed, we are called to be, like Thomas, a people of the square measure. But just as often we are called to be people of the scroll who, after St. Thomas, are unafraid even when we lack certainty; when we do not have all the answers, to confess our faith boldly and trustingly: “My Lord and my God”!