Homily for Sunday, 16 July 2017

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 65:10-11, 12-13, 14; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

This homily was given at St. Joseph’s College of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Have any of us ever tried to place ourselves within the scene of Jesus’ parable of the sower, or within any other Biblical scene for that matter? This imagining of ourselves “on scene” of a Biblical story or event is one of my favourite methods of praying with the Bible, one probably most famously pioneered by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order. Ignatius calls this method of placing ourselves within a Biblical scene; taking in our surroundings with our senses— hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste— contemplation. It is a form of Lectio divina, a Latin term meaning literally “divine reading” with which some of us may be familiar.

The purpose of Lectio divina, whether Ignatian contemplation or several other forms is to lead us from an initial reading of a Biblical passage, an event or story, into a progressively deeper and more prayerful focus on the passage we are reading and hearing. Our attention may be drawn, more and more, to a single word or short phrase within the passage. In Lectio divina, I think, we are eventually drawn toward asking ourselves two questions the more we pray over a Biblical passage: What is the word or short phrase that attracts my attention, and why? What am I sensing, with my human senses of hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste, when I feel attracted or perhaps confused, or maybe downright discomforted by a part of the passage over which I am praying? Why do I feel this way?

With these two questions in mind, let us return to Jesus’ parable of the sower that we hear today in Matthew’s Gospel. Imagine being “on scene,” as one person among the great crowds hearing Jesus as he preaches this parable of the sower that has become particularly familiar to us. Are many of us not able to recite the parable of the sower almost by rote?

“A sower went out to sow,” Jesus begins. Almost automatically, we might continue the parable: There are several types of soil or surfaces onto which the seed, which we may safely assume is the word of God, may fall. “Some seeds [fall] on the path.” Others fall “on rocky ground.” Still other seed falls “among thorns.” Finally, some seed falls “on good soil” and brings forth a great yield; a crop one “hundredfold [or] sixty [or] thirty” times what was initially sown. Only the seed that falls “on good soil” thrives in this way. The seed that falls “on the path” becomes food for the birds. The seed sown “on rocky ground” is unable to take root and so it withers and dies. The seed sown “among thorns” is choked out.

Jesus explains later that “the path” onto which some of the seed falls represents the people who hear “the word of the Kingdom,” God’s word, but do “not understand it,” and so are vulnerable to Satan, “the evil one,” who “snatches away” this seed; this word of God that is sown but not understood. The “rocky ground” represents the people who at first receive God’s word “with joy,” but “fall away” as soon as adversity, “trouble or persecution,” strikes. These people have not taken God’s word to heart, where it is able to take root and thrive. Other people fall prey to “the cares of the world and the lure of wealth,” and so God’s word, competing against worldly priorities made into our gods; our idols, is choked out much like seed sown “among thorns.” The “good soil” stands for “those who [hear] the word and [understand] it” and so the seed “bears fruit” by the way these people hear, pray over, and live out God’s word.

But, in this whole long parable and just-as-long explanation of it that Jesus offers us, might anybody here have noticed that Jesus never says where any of his hearers; where we stand with respect to his parable. Jesus does not (or not yet, anyway) judge the quality of our “soil”; of our hearts for hearing, understanding, and living by God’s word. Jesus does not point out the unfortunate soul in the front row and say, “You, how rocky a heart you have”! He does not single out the wealthy person, or the person feeling guilty about something he or she said or did, and is trying to hide him or herself in the middle of the crowd so not to be seen. “You with the thorny heart: Do you really expect my word to thrive in there? Shame on you”!

“Now, there we go, you who sit anywhere but the front row at Mass, like a good, stereotypical Catholic: There is a humble person with ‘good soil.’ My word will surely take root and thrive in your heart”… But no, Jesus does not say this! He would not insult our intelligence in this way. Instead, Jesus honours our conscience. In honouring our conscience, though, Jesus leaves it up to us to discern, that is to think, sense, and pray over carefully, where we stand with respect to his parable of the sower. What kind of “soil” are we? Are we really the “good soil” we would like to be, or are our hearts at times more like the path, the rocky ground, or the patch of thorns in which God’s word cannot thrive?

Here I think Jesus, through his parable of the sower, is leading us in an examination of conscience. When we think of an examination of conscience, how many of us think of generating a “laundry list” of our failures; our sins since a particular point in time, maybe since our last confession? This is only part of an examination of conscience. Essentially, to make an examination of conscience is not only an occasional, even daily, accounting for our failures; our sins. It is to think, sense (with our senses, if we remember St. Ignatius’ way of placing ourselves within a Biblical scene, story, or event), and pray constantly, not only occasionally, over two questions: Where am I in this scene, story, event, my own successes, failures, and so forth? And where is God in all this; in my own life?

How good of quality is my “soil,” and how is God continuing to sow God’s word in me; in us, even when our soil is not sometimes of the best quality; when we are not fully disposed and attentive to understanding God’s word; even when we are conscious of having sinned? In this sense, our examination of conscience is connected to our “divine reading” of Scripture; to placing ourselves within these events, stories, and parables of the Bible and allowing the Bible to enlighten our own lives. St. Ignatius calls this form of “divine reading” (Lectio divina) contemplation, but he also calls it the examen. St. Ignatius’ examen is a key and constant part of his famously intense Spiritual Exercises that some of us may know or have undertaken.

Engage in this “divine reading” of Scripture. Place ourselves “on scene” in the Bible’s events, stories, and parables. This is the examen in Ignatius’ words, the examination of conscience to which we are called. It is a constant rather than occasional process and, I will admit, not an easy one. Of what quality is my “soil”; my disposition to receive and live the word of God; the word of God’s “kingdom”? How does God continue to sow in us, sometimes in spite of our less-than-ideal “soil” conditions? And then how are we called to be sowers in turn of God’s “word of the Kingdom”?

We are able to answer these questions; to examine our consciences well; to allow God to increase the quality of our “soil”— our hearts— for receiving his word; to sow God’s word in turn to our world, only if we are able to sense God’s word with our human senses. Jesus invites us to place ourselves “on scene”: Let anyone with eyes see; with hands and feet and a body touch; with a nose smell; with a mouth taste…

“Let anyone with ears listen”!

Homily for Sunday, 18 June 2017‒ Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

Readings of the day: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a; Psalm 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6:51-58

What is the Body and Blood of Christ? What do we mean when we speak of the Real Presence of Christ, Eucharist, the Feast of the Lord’s Table or the Lord’s Supper, of Mass, or of communion? These are just a few of the names we give to today’s celebration, officially the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, and to a reality that we Catholics celebrate every Sunday and may celebrate nearly every day of the year.

Also today Bishop Salvatore Matano has declared the beginning of a Year of the Eucharist in the Diocese of Rochester, and so we have not only today to celebrate this reality of many names, but a whole year to celebrate it, through to June 3, 2018, next year’s date of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. And so, as we begin this year-long celebration; our Year of the Eucharist, might it be worthwhile to ask ourselves this question once again: What is it?

“What is it” is the very question that has been asked since the people of Israel, returning home to their land from slavery in Egypt, first asked it. When the people of Israel were hungry in the desert, God sent them a strange, dewy substance to satisfy their hunger. As the people of Israel figured out that they could eat this substance, that it filled them, and that it tasted perhaps better than they would have thought, they looked at it cross-eyed, maybe (parents, you know better than I do) as a picky child eyes something like broccoli, and asked, “Manna”?

Yes, “manna” is actually a question, before it became the name given to this strange, dewy substance God gave the people of Israel in the desert. In the Hebrew of the Book of Deuteronomy from which we hear today, as well as in many other ancient languages of what are now Northeast Africa and the Middle East, “manna” means, “What is it”?

We still ask this question today. We still celebrate, as the people of ancient Israel did, “a food unknown to [our] fathers”; to our ancestors. We call it the Body and Blood of Christ, the Real Presence of Christ, the Eucharist, the Feast of the Lord’s Table, the Lord’s Supper, the Mass, or communion. But might we as well ask, “Manna” ‒ “What is it”?

In his pastoral letter announcing this Year of the Eucharist, which is in the Catholic Courier (I will have a brief further announcement about this letter in a few moments before we leave here today), Bishop Matano laments the “high percentage of Catholics who,” according to polls, “do not understand or who have not been taught” about, or “simply do not believe in” the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In many ways our bishop is right to be concerned about faltering practice and understanding of our faith among so many of our brothers and sisters under his pastoral care in this diocese.

At the same time, though, we are here at this celebration. I am confident that I am speaking in front of people who are here now because we at least recognize that something extraordinary, in fact a miracle, is taking place before our eyes. It is taking place in a way we are able to sense: To see here and soon to taste, touch, and smell in the form of bread and wine from the altar; to hear in the form of one another joining together in worship, from the prayers of our Mass, to the singing of hymns, to the cooing of small children, to perhaps more unexpected sounds that echo through this place. The miracle we witness here is so extraordinary, even though it remains always sensible, that we, like the people of Israel in the time of Moses and people since then, are right to ask an eternal question: “Manna” ‒ “What is it”?

Yet is the answer to this question not given to us in a beautiful way especially in the Word of God we hear this evening [morning] from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians? St. Paul asks, “Brothers and sisters, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ”?

A major difficulty of what we celebrate here is that it is possible for us to place our focus on many different aspects of the celebration. Is the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, the bread and wine on the altar in which Christ miraculously becomes really, truly, and fully present without changing what that bread and wine looks, tastes, smells, and feels like? Is the Eucharist centered on the prayer to the Holy Spirit to “make holy these gifts” of bread and wine, “that they may become the body and blood of [God’s] Son, our Lord Jesus Christ”? Is the Eucharist centered on the whole of the Eucharistic Prayer, which extends from my invitation, “The Lord be with you,” to, “Through him, with him, and in him”… and that I will pray with you in a few moments? Is the Eucharist centered on a second prayer to the Holy Spirit within this Eucharistic Prayer, in which we pray not only that the bread and wine be made holy and transformed to take in the real, true, and full presence of Christ, but that we, too, may be so transformed: “Grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son, and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ”? Is our Eucharist centered on what is on the altar; the whole of this celebration we often call the Mass; the priest who leads the celebration; all of us gathered in community, in communion, with one another?

Let me offer a too-easy answer to the long list of questions I have asked just now: “Yes.” Indeed, the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ we celebrate, is all of this and more. It is no wonder, then, that even the most faithful Catholic Christian might become easily confused by this celebration of many names and many faces. It is no wonder that the question we may be most drawn to ask is, well, then, “What is it”?

What is the Body and Blood of Christ; the Real Presence of Christ; Eucharist; the Feast of the Lord’s Table; the Lord’s Supper; Mass; communion? As I say to children I have taught when they look at me sheepishly, thinking they have asked what they are not sure is the right or on-topic question, “That’s an excellent question”! Our next step with this question about the Eucharist, “Manna ‒ What is it,” though, must be to turn this into no longer a “What” question but a “Who” question: “Who is it”?

And so “Who is it”? In some ways more fully than others, my experience is that most Christians know that Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist and that our salvation, our living “forever” with God, depends on this fact. We know that, as we hear Jesus himself proclaim in our Gospel reading, from John, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life… For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

“Jesus Christ” is our best answer to our question that has become, “Who is it”? Depending upon how fully some people actually believe Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist or how literally (or not) to interpret his words in our Gospel, some may be confused our outright scandalized in thinking about how Jesus could offer us his body and blood to eat and drink. I go no further, because my understanding here is at its limit.

And yet, I think, what could be even more challenging for us than to believe that Jesus Christ offers himself really, truly, and fully in flesh and blood; all that he is in this celebration in his memory, is to believe that Jesus Christ has chosen to offer himself to our world through us; that we are the first place from which Jesus Christ shows himself to our world really, truly, and fully through our flesh and blood; that we are part of the answer to the question, “Who is it”?

And from the moment we go forth from this celebration; our witness here to a miracle of Christ really, truly, and fully in flesh and blood, we are entrusted with working out together, in communion, in our world by how we act as Christ in our world the answer to our eternal question about our Eucharist: “Who is it”?

Homily for Sunday, 9 August 2015

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Kings 19:4-8; Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; John 6:41-51

This homily was given at the House of Mercy, a homeless shelter in Rochester, NY.

How often do we think of our senses as ways of describing our relationship with God? Could touch, smell, sight, hearing, and taste be means for us to strengthen our relationship with God?

Our readings today all speak of our experience of God in terms of our senses. Our Psalm praises God beautifully, inviting us to “taste and see the goodness of the LORD.” When Elijah, in our first reading today from 1 Kings, is in such deep despair that he asks God to take his life, an angel twice touches Elijah to wake him and then orders him to eat. And so God makes God’s presence known to Elijah through Elijah’s senses of touch and taste. In John’s Gospel Jesus speaks of himself as “the bread… from heaven.” Jesus is no ordinary food. Even the manna with which God fed the people of Israel in the desert while they were fleeing slavery in Egypt does not compare to the food Jesus offers. Manna had offered temporary relief from hunger. Jesus offers himself as the food necessary for our salvation; food that is eternal; “the living bread… from heaven” and “flesh for the life of the world.” Jesus offers us salvation we can sense: touch, smell, see, hear, and taste.

Yet Jesus invites us not just to take in God’s presence in our world by our senses. The Letter to the Ephesians from which we hear today says that “Christ handed himself over to us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” But immediately before this we hear in Ephesians, “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love.” Ephesians asks us to make God’s presence felt or, better yet, smelled as “a fragrant aroma” by the way we live “as beloved children” of God, “in love.”

And so my question is this: How does God smell in our world? How, by the way we live, are we making God smell in our world? Is God being smelled; touched; seen; heard; tasted; more fully experienced as a God of goodness and love; a “fragrant aroma”; “the living bread… from heaven… for the life of the world” because of the way we live as Christians?

Many if not all of us here at the House of Mercy could answer truthfully, “Yes,” to this question. God lives and is experienced here. We hear God; the Word of God in our Scripture readings and here at Mass. We hear God in our lively celebration of Eucharist each Sunday; the participation of all of us in our beautiful music at our Sunday Mass. We see God in one another gathered here and then going forth from here to act in justice on the gift of God we receive in our worship. We taste God: Jesus Christ really and truly present under humble bread and wine in our Eucharist. And we taste and smell God present when we are fed and provide food here for many of this city’s homeless and otherwise hungry. We touch God in our sign of peace here; our works of peace out in our streets. These are powerful signs of God’s presence especially in this part of Rochester still beset by poverty; homelessness; hunger; violence.

God lives and we sense God present and alive here at the House of Mercy! But I would be missing one of the means in which God has been present and alive here if I did not mention my late Basilian brother priest and regular presider at our Mass here, Fr. Joseph Lanzalaco. Today I stand in Fr. Joe’s place, since he was first scheduled to preside at this Mass. In his own humble, friendly, and loving way, Fr. Joe brought people; brought us together to where God could be experienced: Smelled; touched; seen; heard; tasted. Many of us met Fr. Joe and sensed God present at his funeral Mass a-week-and-a-half ago at my home parish, St. Kateri, at Christ the King Church. Those of us here who could not be bussed to Fr. Joe’s funeral were with us in spirit and in prayer. I cannot speak for Fr. Joe (and he will without doubt correct me if and when we meet in heaven), but I picture him on the day of his funeral with all of us; with God present, smiling down on all of us there. I can imagine Fr. Joe speaking words to us from heaven similar to those of St. John Paul II to the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome in the moments before he died: “I came to you, and now you have come to me. And I thank you.”

God was present among us in Fr. Joe’s life and priesthood among us, was present on the day of Fr. Joe’s funeral, and is present here now: Smelled; touched; seen; heard; tasted. But is it not a bit arrogant and irreverent for us to reduce God to something accessible to our human senses; to something material? 

I do not believe so, for two reasons. First, God has made God’s self human, one like us in all but sin in the person of Jesus Christ. Yes, God is entirely “other”; spirit and not something material we can sense. But, in the person of Jesus Christ, our God “humbled himself to share in our humanity.” Our God chose freely to share in our ability to smell, touch, see, hear, and taste in order to raise us up to a “share in the divinity of Christ.” Would we fear a God who takes on our humanity; our senses in this way? I would hope not. We could fear God becoming human, but this fear is itself a kind of arrogance and irreverence; a way to limit God. At its extreme (this error has been committed and condemned in our Christian history), this fear makes matter; the world; all of us whom God created as good out to be somehow bad. This is a lie. We know and so God invites us not to fear a God who, as Pope Benedict XVI says of Christ, “worked with human hands… thought with a human mind… acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved.” So that we might be saved and so that, through our senses, we might glory in the love and goodness in God’s creation, Jesus Christ made himself like us, able to smell, touch, see, hear, and taste.

And here lies the second reason why I believe we are right to seek God by our human senses; that this is neither arrogant nor irreverent. God did not stop at sending an angel to wake Elijah from his sleep of despair with God’s touch. God did not stop at feeding Elijah on Mount Horeb so that his prophecy might continue. God did not stop at feeding the hungry people of Israel with manna in the desert, or at Jesus’ feeding the multitudes on a hillside in Galilee. God did not even stop at sending us his own Son, Jesus Christ, our “living bread… from heaven”; “flesh for the life of the world.”

No, our Psalm urges us to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” But may we not stop at this. God still has not stopped working in and through us. God has given us our senses so that, in the love and goodness of God’s creation we may smell, touch, see, hear, and taste the presence and work of God the Creator. And yet we, with God, are co-creators. We have a mission: Make God seen and heard by our worship as one community of faith. Make God somebody we can touch by extending to one another a hand of peace; by working for peace and justice; nonviolence at all costs. Make God tasted by feeding those who suffer poverty and hunger; by inviting more people to the table of the Eucharist. Make God smelled; breathed in and out of us in everything we say and do. “Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,” Ephesians says today.

This is our mission. At the end of time, when Jesus Christ returns, we may stop. Until then, we will not stop because God will not stop in each and every one of us. In Christ fully human God took on “flesh for the life of the world”; took on our senses: touch, smell, sight, hearing, and taste. God has given us the gift of these same senses to bring us salvation and for us to make God’s goodness and love known; experienced; touched, smelled, seen, heard, and tasted.