Homily for Thursday, 20 June 2019

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 11:1-11; Psalm 111:1b-2, 3-4, 7-8; Matthew 6:7-15

Thursday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

“Please put up with me”: Am I underestimating the probability of success in beginning an important message or trying to convince somebody with such a plea? Well, we know from the fairly spread of the Christian faith in the time of St. Paul, especially in large cities of the then-Roman Empire like Corinth that developed thriving Christian communities even under intermittent persecution from Rome and some Jewish leaders, that St. Paul was quite successful and convincing in spreading our faith.

I think it is important for us to remember that these Corinthians of St. Paul’s time were especially difficult people to bring to the Christian faith. Corinth was a rich city and proud of it, thanks to its possession of not one but two ports on the Mediterranean Sea, which allowed for increased trade by sea and therefore wealth to enter the city. Change, especially conversion from one faith, Greco-Roman paganism, to another, Christianity, is a tough sell when all is going so well for a city the way it was for first-century Corinth.

Scripture scholars often refer to St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians as his “tearful letter.” St. Paul pleaded with the Corinthians in bringing them to the Christian faith to the point of tears, out of a deep love for them, like no other people or city to which he wrote and ministered. To the Corinthians especially, St. Paul’s message, his preaching of a poor, humble Christ who freely accepted death on a cross to save us was, we could say, a religious culture shock.

In wealthy cities like Corinth, one paid handsomely to study under an elite teacher. This clashed, as we hear from 2 Corinthians today, with St. Paul’s preaching of “the Gospel” to the Corinthians “free of charge.” No self-respecting teacher or preacher in an ancient Greek city like Corinth would have taught or preached “free of charge” as St. Paul did, not only to a few wealthy students but to the whole city and to the world. Yet St. Paul’s strategy, along with pleading with the Corinthians to “put up with” him, worked splendidly anyway, no doubt by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

If we reflect on St. Paul’s loving pleading with the Corinthians to the point of tears, “Please put up with me,” what are the messages we find most difficult to accept today in our lives? Have we ever had difficulty accepting change even when change is necessary or right?

Maybe we have difficulty hearing somebody and accepting her or his message when this person differs from us politically or in understanding of the Church and its mission, for example, or when another person does not share our Christian faith or moral understanding at all. Maybe as difficult for many of us (if I have heard accurately from some of us here at St. Kateri Parish) is the impending change in leadership in this parish after anywhere from nine to forty-three years of Basilian leadership here.

I pray that we at St. Kateri will not only “put up with” but come to love St. Kateri’s new pastor when he begins here next week. I pray that everybody who leads, who prays, and who loves in this parish will continue to lead, pray, and grow in love with a new pastor and vicars, as the Corinthians went from putting up with St. Paul in his time to leading, praying, and genuinely loving him and one another for the growth and unity of the Church.

Homily for Sunday, 8 July 2018

Sunday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time


Readings of the day: Ezekiel 2:2-5; Psalm 123:1-2ab, 2cd, 3-4; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Mark 6: 1-6

This homily was given at St. Margaret Mary Church,  St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Rochester, NY, USA. 

How many of us have experienced being rejected at one time or another? I do not want to dismiss my experiences of being bullied at school as a child and teenager as insignificant, because this experience continues to play a role in forming the person I have become, and even played a role in my having become a Basilian priest. And yet, the more I think about my experiences of having been accepted or rejected, I realize how fortunate I have been, with some important exceptions, to have been, for the most part, accepted wherever I have been, from my home city of Edmonton, Canada to Paris, France, where I live now for most of the year, and beyond.

Coincidentally, this is the second year in a row I have visited Rochester, and St. Kateri Parish, during the Fourth of July holiday. Some of us who attended or walked with us during the Irondequoit Fourth of July parade may have noticed Fr. Joe Trovato riding in a Chevy Corvair convertible. From where Fr. Joe was in the parade, he was ideally placed to notice and be deeply moved by (as he said to me later that afternoon) how often I was called to either side of the parade route to greet St. Kateri parishioners and families, and often children I have known from St. Kateri School. To be called and welcomed along the Fourth of July parade route is delightful to me, too, although it has become somewhat second nature to me because I know how genuinely welcoming we are here at St. Kateri. And yet to hear from Fr. Joe how much joy seeing this gave him in turn reinforces my joy in and thanksgiving for you; for this parish community of St. Kateri.

I have lost track of the number of times people of St. Kateri have greeted me during my last ten days here with, “Welcome home, Father.” Almost as often, people who have greeted me in this way have then paused and then added something like, “Welcome to one of your many homes, Father”!

Truth be told, I always and will always feel at home here at St. Kateri. I will always feel at home because you, my sisters and brothers of St. Kateri, have made this such a welcoming place, for me and many other people. And, with this, I would like to extend a word of welcome to everybody who may be visiting St. Kateri Parish this weekend and for this Mass.

As I thank you and welcome us together as officially as I can through this act of preaching, though, I cannot help but wonder why Jesus was made to feel so unwelcome, not only in places he visited but in his hometown. In our Gospel reading today from Mark, Jesus laments that “a prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” We hear that Jesus is unable “to perform any mighty deed” in his hometown, “apart from curing a few sick people,” which is still significant enough that Mark would mention Jesus’ few healings in his hometown.

In Mark’s Gospel especially, this is not the first time and would not be the last when Jesus would be rejected. From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, his family believes “he is out of his mind.” Today, we hear how Jesus is rejected in his hometown. And then, as Jesus is betrayed, arrested, beaten, mocked, and crucified, his most trusted friends and disciples flee from him. When Jesus is on the cross, “even God seems to have abandoned” him, and so Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”?

When I contrast Jesus’ repeated and constant rejection and abandonment to death on a cross alone with the welcome I and so many people receive in a place like St. Kateri Parish, I cannot help but feel horribly for Jesus. Our Lord’s rejection throughout the Gospel of Mark by his family, the people of his hometown, his best friends, and seemingly even God, also reminds me of a 1989 French Canadian film by Denys Arcand called Jésus de Montréal (Jesus of Montreal). In this film, actors stage a Passion play in a church in Montreal. Parishioners of the church become increasingly unhappy about the direction of the play, and so they turn against the actor who plays Jesus, who is the same person who has written the play. The plot parallels the Gospels’ telling of the increasing rejection of Jesus himself.

At the Vincentian Motherhouse’s St. Vincent de Paul Chapel, where I usually go to Mass when I am in Paris, one of the Vincentian brothers, who knows I am Canadian but is either confused about the distance (a five-hour flight) between Montreal and my hometown of Edmonton, or pretends to be confused about Canada’s expanse, for humorous effect, enjoys greeting me after Mass with, “How is Jesus of Montreal today”?

Suffice it to say that I feel precisely the opposite of rejected; precisely the opposite experience of Jesus of Montreal— or Jesus of Nazareth— when I am greeted as generously and joyfully as I am around the world, from Paris to Irondequoit to Edmonton. These greetings are also deeply humbling, especially if we think of other times in our Gospels in which Jesus warns against the pride and vanity that can result from our adulation by the people we serve as Christian disciples. If we are received well, sisters and brothers, may we pray for the grace to serve God’s glory and one another’s well-being before our own. And if we have ever been rejected for our faith and not for our own fault, may we take solace in that Jesus, in becoming fully human like us, has entered into solidarity with our rejection. He has put our rejection to death on the cross with him in order to accept; to receive; to greet us one day into eternal life with him.

And so all this leads me into an important question for us: If Jesus were to appear among us here and now— if Jesus of Nazareth, or at least Jesus of Montreal, were to show himself among us as Jesus of Irondequoit— as Jesus of St. Kateri Parish, how would we receive him? If your greeting, every time I visit St. Kateri, of this humble(d) priest-servant-brother in Christ of yours, is any indication, I have no doubt that you would greet and receive Jesus with your characteristic generous, warm St. Kateri welcome. You would make our beloved Fr. Joe, whether riding in a Corvair in the Fourth of July parade or pausing the Mass as he does so beautifully and often to greet our cooing youngest members of St. Kateri Parish, proud. But, most of all, you would be giving Jesus Christ the welcome befitting our God who became human like and for us; who put himself at the mercy of our welcome in this world to save us.

How well, then, would we receive our Lord, Jesus of Nazareth, if he were Jesus of St. Kateri;

if he were Jesus of the House of Mercy or of St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality, Jesus of Rochester’s poor and those who serve the poor here and everywhere,

If he were Jesus of the U.S.-Mexico border

If he were Jesus of Rochester General, Unity, Strong, or Monroe Community Hospital,

If he were Jesus of the vulnerable elderly and homebound,

If he were Jesus of those not yet born,

If he were Jesus of the crisis pregnancy,

If he were Jesus of the abused,

If he were Jesus of the imprisoned,

If he were Jesus of those affected by war and violence?

For Jesus is all these. Jesus, who lived, who experienced rejection, suffered, died, and rose again, will return again at the end of time and, once again, he will put himself at the mercy of our welcome.

Homily for Sunday, 25 June 2017

Sunday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 69:8-10, 14, 17, 33-35; Romans 5:12-15; Matthew 10:26-33

Could we imagine ourselves as among Jesus’ first Twelve Apostles? Jesus goes up a mountain one night to pray and, when he returns, he chooses you and eleven other people to be his closest and most trusted friends. How would you feel? I, for one, would have been thrilled to have been chosen as one of Jesus’ first Twelve Apostles! That is, until the very first time we meet together. Suddenly, Jesus starts warning us that, as his closest friends, we will be persecuted, ridiculed, and eventually killed.

Who here would want to continue to be Jesus’ close friend then? How many of us would be afraid to continue openly to be Jesus’ close friend; one of his Apostles? I would be afraid. Yet, just when Jesus, I imagine, has his newly-chosen Apostles quaking with fear, unsure of whether they want to continue to be close to him, he speaks to them the first words we hear of today’s Gospel reading, from Matthew: “Fear no one.”

If we were among Jesus’ first Apostles, how many of us would still not be convinced by Jesus’ asking us to “fear no one”? For how many of us is Jesus’ assurance that we are “worth more than many sparrows”; indeed that we are worth more and of greater dignity than any other creature, created in the image and likeness of God, still not quite enough to overcome our fear?

I ask these questions, sisters and brothers, because we live in a world today that gives us many reasons to fear. In this respect, little has changed since the time of Jesus, or since human beings have walked this earth. The names of the persecutors; of those who make us afraid; of those who even endanger human lives have changed, but the fact of our world giving us many causes to fear has not changed. And fear is a natural human response; a feeling; an emotion. Fear is neither good nor bad; it simply is, in each one of us. If we are honest with ourselves, does not each of us fear something or somebody at some point in our lives?

Since I have been back here at St. Kateri for this short time, I have been deeply moved by how many of us, members of this parish, continue to voice concern for me and pray for me while I am studying in Paris. Many of us have asked me, “Isn’t it becoming unpredictable and even dangerous in Paris? Have you been near to the terrorist attacks that have taken place there”? My response to you has been something like, “Yes, there has been chaos and violence in our world recently, even close to me in Paris. But so far I am safe, and we cannot live in fear.” If we live in fear in response to violence and terrorism in our world, we give those who commit these hideous, murderous acts, who do Satan’s work in our world, exactly what they want. Those who commit violence and terrorist acts want us to be afraid; after all, we call their actions terror-ism.

In reality, though, I cannot help but feel fear when these acts of violence and terrorism occur, especially when they happen near me or people I know and love. On November 13, 2015, barely two months after I first arrived in Paris, 130 people were killed across the city. The nearest site of the Paris attacks, the Bataclan concert theatre, is only four miles from my apartment. For a few days, an eerie silence hung over Paris. I felt and lived this fear, even as I did my best to let as many people; as many of us know as possible that I was safe. Since then, there have been attacks in Brussels, Berlin, Nice, London, Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt, and other places including the little village of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen, France, where Fr. Jacques Hamel was killed while celebrating Mass last July. Bloodshed continues in places like Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and around the world.

Our world gives us many reasons to fear. Let me say, then, a heartfelt thank you for your concern and your prayers. And let me continue to offer my prayers for us and for our well-being. When I say we cannot live in fear, I do not mean to be curt or to ignore your concern and even your fear for me or at the state of our world. Whenever I am here at St. Kateri, I sense an almost familial love that often expresses itself as concern: Is Father safe? How are his studies going? Is he getting enough to eat (all questions that have been asked of me here in these last two weeks, by the way)? These are questions similar to those my mother asks me, as mothers (and fathers, too) naturally do, even many years after I have left home, have taken vows with the Basilians and been ordained a priest, and have travelled around much of the world. To us, I will always be a brother in Christ; a son of St. Kateri. St. Kateri is always “home away from home.” Together, might we here at St. Kateri be like Jesus’ first Apostles, whom Jesus called from home to our heavenly home, and who in the process eventually succeeded in making our world a little less chaotic, violent, and fearsome.

Might we be like Jesus’ first Apostles, to whom our Lord said, “Fear no one… And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” May we be like the prophet Jeremiah, who from God accepted a similar mission to Jesus’ Apostles’ and our mission: Go out into the world. Speak and live not the message that the people necessarily want to hear, but that they need to hear (and pray to discern the often fine line between these). Risk everything; risk being denounced, misunderstood, and ridiculed; risk even our own lives for the message that God gives us to proclaim and to live: A message of love beyond all telling; a message of love that saves us; a message of love that is greater than any fear.

In response to the violence and the fearsomeness of the world, might we be like the Psalmist, who today cries out through our song, “Lord, in your great love, answer me.” Those who wrote the Psalms in our Bible experienced fear. They knew the fear of suffering, illness, and death; the fear of enemy nations and their more powerful armies; the fear of the effects of their own sin. It is no wonder, then, that about two thirds of the Psalms in the Bible are laments. The Psalmists were some of the best and most effective complainers our world has ever known! Fear not; may we cast our fears and anxieties on God, for God has a thick skin.

“Lord, in your great love, answer me.” Knowing God’s great love for us, then, might we be like St. Paul or the Romans he first addressed with the letter from which we hear today in our second reading. May we fear no longer even our own sin. There is no sin too great for God to forgive. And may our Church, through Reconciliation, Eucharist, and her other Sacraments, and by the way we live, welcoming each other as redeemed sinners, be ever more our world’s instrument of forgiveness; of absolution; of freedom from sin. St. Paul says to the Romans that sin and so “death reigned from Adam to Moses.” Sin and death reigned until Jesus Christ conquered these by his death on the Cross. Sin and death and, with these, fear, reign no more over our world.

Love reigns in our world now, and enables us to go out into a still sometimes-fearsome, violent, sinful world. We go out into this world with an Apostle’s mission; a mother’s, father’s, sister’s, or brother’s mission; a prophet’s mission; a Psalmist’s mission; Christ’s own mission entrusted to us to love as he loves us; to love one another from this world into heaven, and to “fear no one.”

Homily for Tuesday, 20 June 2017– Ferial

Tuesday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 8:1-9; Psalm 146:2, 5-6ab, 6c-7, 8-9a; Matthew 5:43-48

Is there anybody here who is comfortable speaking about money, especially asking other people to give generously of their hard-earned money, even to worthy causes? I cannot speak for our other priests and staff of St. Kateri; I am only able to speak for myself. But I sense that, whenever we need to ask for added money contributions from St. Kateri parishioners, this is not one of the things we feel most comfortable doing, mostly because we recognize how generous so many of us already are.

In this part of 2 Corinthians from which we hear today, St. Paul is speaking of a collection that was taken up from the other Christian communities of the world to send to the church in Jerusalem, which was extremely poor at the time. St. Paul, like many if not all of us today, felt some unease at having to ask the other Christian communities for money to support Jerusalem.

Yet St. Paul speaks to the Christians of Corinth, a very wealthy church at the time, of the spontaneous generosity of another church, that of Macedonia, toward Jerusalem. Macedonia was neither extremely rich nor extremely poor, although it had its significant challenges and even “a severe test of affliction” from time to time. Despite not having much excess wealth, the Macedonian church begs Paul and his companions “insistently for the favor of taking part” in the collection to help Jerusalem.

My sisters and brothers of St. Kateri, I wonder if we here are more like the Macedonians and less like the Corinthians of St. Paul’s time. There are quite wealthy people, and some quite poor people, in our parish. But most of us are neither extremely wealthy nor extremely poor. We here at mainly “middle class” St. Kateri, as in “middle class” Macedonia of St. Paul’s time, have an opportunity here; a calling here to generosity with the resources we have.

And by resources, I do not mean only money or material wealth. Amid St. Paul’s appeal to Corinth to be like Macedonia, except much wealthier, in supporting Jerusalem, he also sends them Titus, whose mission it was to direct the Jerusalem relief effort; the collection in Corinth. I imagine Titus’ mission in Corinth was a difficult one, unless (and I imagine not) he was the type of person who was comfortable asking people for money.

In a few weeks, we at St. Kateri will welcome a new Parochial Vicar, Fr. Michael, in place of Fr. Morgan who is beloved of many people here, and rightly so. Might Fr. Michael be like St. Kateri’s latest Titus? Not only are we invited to be generous with our material resources, but also with our welcome of a new voice; a new (to us here) priest; a new way of preaching and living the Word of God, and so forth. As the Macedonians were generous toward Jerusalem in a way that was an example to other Christian communities, and as St. Paul called the Corinthians to receive Titus with generosity and love as he was entrusted with a difficult message and mission to them, may we ever be an example to everybody around us, to other parishes, of generosity and love, by “the grace of God.”

Homily for Friday, 9 June 2017– Memorial of St. Ephrem

Readings of the day: Tobit 11:5-17; Psalm 146:1b-2, 6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10; Mark 12: 35-37

Friday of the 9th week in Ordinary Time

Has anybody here ever heard something or somebody and been delighted? Perhaps we have been to a great concert, or heard a rousing speech. For me, whenever I am in our St. Kateri Parish rectory at Christ the King, or when I visit St. Kateri School and greet the students in the morning, I hear the squeals of children in the school playground, I exchange high-fives with them at the doors and try to remember as many of their and their parents’ names after two years away now, and I hear and try to answer their often brilliant questions, and maybe try to teach them some French… All this (and children in general; I am also an uncle to a delightful niece, Molly, and nephew, Liam) fills me with special delight! I have enjoyed my two years in Paris, although among a few things I miss about St. Kateri, being with our children and young people are among the most significant.

“The great crowd” who heard Jesus teach “in the temple area,” as we hear in Mark’s Gospel today, had the experience of being delighted: “The great crowd heard this with delight.” What did Jesus say that day “in the temple area” that so delighted the crowd? Let me suggest that what so delighted the crowd who heard Jesus had less to do with what he said than what he, the “Son of David”; the Son of God, did.

The crowd saw and heard something royal from Jesus; something that reminded them of Israel’s great King David, and yet something more. Jesus, drawing upon a title “the scribes” had given him, “Son of David,” recalls David when speaking of himself. The crowd sees and hears that, like David, Jesus has been “inspired by the Holy Spirit.” Jesus’ words and his works have God’s own authority behind them. The God who inspired and gave authority to David’s rule and words gives the same authority to Jesus when he speaks the same words: “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies under your feet.’”

What does Jesus mean when he speaks these words of King David? As in Jesus’ time, perhaps too many people today imagine Jesus, and want him to be, a great military ruler. For too many people, then as now, including too many people in positions of power, to “place [our] enemies under [our] feet” means to crush them by military force or by economic oppression as immediately as possible.

But this is not the way of Jesus or of his kingship. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not the “prosperity gospel,” the might-makes-right gospel, or the gospel of terror and oppression. At best, responding to the violence of an enemy with violence will give us temporary delight, while the enemy actually persists and often more enemies are created through violence.

Jesus’ words and works, even more than those of King David, are experienced with more permanent delight by “the great crowd.” We are still delighted in Jesus today, so much so that we gather here in this space, more than two thousand years after Jesus spoke near the temple, to worship and celebrate him. And yet our mission as Christians is to move from this worship celebration to remind the world authentically of Jesus by our words and works, so that, because of Jesus, our world may delight in us.

Homily for Tuesday, 6 September 2016– Ferial

Tuesday of the 23rd week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 6:1-11; Psalm 147:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a, 9b; Luke 6:12-19

This homily was given at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Christ the King Church, Rochester, NY.

Where do we find Jesus in the Gospel reading we have heard this morning? For the Gospel writers, setting is important. And so Luke begins his account of Jesus’ naming of his twelve Apostles with Jesus going up a “mountain to pray.”

For Luke the mountain is a place of prayer; it is a place of nearness and intimacy with God. But then where does Jesus go after he has “spent the night in prayer to God” and chosen his twelve Apostles? We find Jesus no longer on a mountaintop but among the Twelve and the great crowds of people who had followed him from near and far: “From all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.” Jesus stands among them “on a stretch of level ground.”

Many of us may be more familiar with where Matthew places Jesus and his teaching ministry than with where Luke does. How many of us have heard of the Sermon on the Mount? This is one of the longest continuous sections of Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew tends to portray Jesus as the great teacher, a new and greater Moses, whose teaching is delivered from mountain heights. When Jesus prays most intensely in Matthew, he tends to be in a valley or on flat ground. We might think of Jesus’ night of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, which hearkens back to the first moments of creation, to Genesis’ Garden of Eden. In prayer, Matthew’s Jesus is at once at his most intimate with God and with people; with creation.

Luke’s placement of Jesus is the opposite to that of Matthew: Prayer takes place on mountains, from the mountain where Jesus chooses his Apostles in today’s Gospel reading to “the Mount of Olives” where Jesus prays before his passion and death. Jesus’ teaching takes place “on… level ground.” Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount is Luke’s Sermon on the Plain.

Luke’s setting of Jesus’ teaching ministry reminds me of a popular phrase we use to mean that we are speaking plainly (no pun intended) with somebody; telling the truth. How many of us have heard or used the saying: “I am on the level with you”?

Luke presents Jesus, having prayed at length to discern a great decision like the choice of his apostles, as now “on the level” with the people he teaches; “on the level” with us. Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain is an invitation to us to follow after Jesus in being “on the level” with one another: Clear, truthful, but also acting always with love and for one another’s good.

St. Paul’s example and invitation to us in his first letter to the Corinthians is similar to that of Jesus. Paul’s words to the Corinthians may seem harsh to us at times; parts of the two letters to the Corinthians are called Paul’s angry or “tearful letter” for a reason. Yet, even in correcting the excesses of the Corinthian community, St. Paul teaches and acts in the way Christ had taught and acted: With clarity, with truth, with love, and for the good of the people he serves. St. Paul, like Jesus, invites us and shows us the way to be “on the level.” 

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 Sunday, 24 May 2015‒ Pentecost

Mass during the Day

Readings of the day: Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13; Pentecost Sequence; John 20:19-23

Imagine for a moment that you are in your favorite place in the world. What is this place? Is it your favorite vacation destination, perhaps one of the world’s great cities; a remote place to enjoy nature; a beach in the tropics? Is your favorite place somewhere you enjoy spending a day off work? Is it a place to be still; to encounter God in prayer; perhaps in silence; perhaps at Mass? Are you with somebody or alone?

I feel blessed to have many favorite places all over the world. I have encountered God in prayer; in the Eucharist everywhere from here at St. Kateri to the parishes in which I grew up, St. Theresa’s and Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Edmonton; to Notre Dame and Saint-Sulpice in Paris, to the chaotic Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the calm of the shore of the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus once walked; to St. Patrick’s in busy New York City; to my highlights in Colombia in South America: At twelve thousand feet above sea level, Monserrate in Bogotá, for instance. This is one of the only churches of which I can think where the congregation remains standing during Mass, barely even able to turn, because of the number of people present!

Last week I enjoyed my parents’ visit here to Rochester; to St. Kateri. We visited places like the Corning Museum of Glass; wineries and breweries in the Finger Lakes, Sodus Point and El Rincón Mexicano, a favorite Mexican restaurant in Sodus to which Fr. Paul introduced me; Chimney Bluffs…  These are only a few of my favorite places near here to spend a day off; to eat; to learn; to enjoy nature. But it was particularly wonderful to be with people I love;  to be with Mom and Dad to enjoy some of my favorite places in New York State (and some places where I had never been before) during the week they were here.

Is there not something special about being together in one place with people you love; with family; with friends? This is the experience of Jesus’ disciples on Pentecost. We hear in our first reading from Acts that “they were all in one place together” when the Holy Spirit descended upon them. For Jesus’ first disciples, this is the necessary condition to receive God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. Their unity “in one place together,” in an upper room in Jerusalem, is the required setting for the birth of a community of faith, our Church. But why is this so? If God had so chosen, why could the Holy Spirit not have descended upon each of the disciples individually, alone, instead of descending upon them as a community?

The trouble here is that, unlike when we are enjoying quality time off; a vacation; perhaps peaceful time at prayer, Jesus’ disciples were not gathered in their favorite place in the world. Our Gospel reading today, from John, says that “the doors were locked” to the room “where the disciples were, for fear of” the leaders of “the Jews”; those who had put Jesus, their hoped-for Messiah, to a shameful death on a cross. But it is into this fear that the risen Christ enters and breathes the Holy Spirit upon the disciples as a community: “Peace be with you.” This Pentecost event would not have happened in the same way had the disciples have been scattered, facing their fears alone.

Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s disciples; the birth of the Church, is not a one-time event. We are reminded of this by today’s readings: The Acts of the Apostles and John’s Gospel speak of two distinct encounters with the Holy Spirit. In Acts the Holy Spirit appears to the disciples in “tongues as of fire”; as “a noise like a strong driving wind.” In John, the risen Christ breathes God’s Holy Spirit upon his disciples: “Peace be with you.”

And Pentecost continues to happen, here and now. The Holy Spirit continues to work; to be present among and within us. How is the Holy Spirit present, working among and within us? Might many of us here now be feeling anything but like you are in your favorite place in the world? For many of us there is no better place to be than here, on a beautiful Sunday morning, celebrating our Eucharist. And yet many more of us bring to this celebration our griefs and sorrows: Personal or loved ones’ illnesses; loss of loved ones; loss of employment or underemployment; struggles with our faith; marriage or family disunity. We bring to this celebration our distractions: Some of us barely awake; others with small children in tow with their own needs; still others finding it difficult to remain focused in prayer… And yet how blessed we are as a community of faith by one another’s presence: Joys, hopes, griefs, distractions and all! Still more of us may be bringing to this Eucharist very real fears: Our fear of death; what will happen after our death and how the people we love will cope; our fear of economic instability; our fears for those we love who have turned away from their faith; our fear for the state of our world, full of hope but with many instances of despair; violence; evil…

Our joys and hopes but also our griefs; our distractions; our fears are similar and every bit as real as those Jesus’ first disciples faced on the first Pentecost when they encountered the Holy Spirit. Some first encountered the Holy Spirit in the stillness of Jesus’ breath, “Peace be with you.” Others encountered the Holy Spirit amid their fear of death at the hands of those who had put Jesus to death. These first disciples encountered the Holy Spirit as they touched the risen Jesus’ wounds, an image of our own woundedness; our own sin; our own need for forgiveness and healing. And they encountered the Holy Spirit as fearsome, rushing wind and “tongues as of fire.”

Our encounters with the Holy Spirit are as varied perhaps as the encounters with the Holy Spirit of Jesus’ first disciples. The gifts we receive from God’s Holy Spirit are as varied as the encounters with the Spirit themselves: “Different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit,” St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians. But do we not have something else in common with these earliest disciples in how they encountered the Holy Spirit? We, like them, are “all in one place together.”

In this “one place together” our joys and hopes meet their source, our God whom we are united here to worship and to celebrate. Here our diverse “spiritual gifts” are refined; made ready through this celebration to be put to service of the one Body of Christ; one community of faith; one world; one human race. A “body with many parts,” we become, more and more, “one body, one spirit in Christ” in the words of our Eucharistic Prayer that we will hear and pray in a few moments.

In this “one place together” our griefs; our distractions; our fears are transformed by the Holy Spirit. Together we are invited to let our fears that could paralyze us without community; without God’s Holy Spirit be transformed into “fear” in the sense of awe and reverence in God’s presence. This “fear of the Lord”; awe and reverence in God’s presence is the first and greatest of the gifts of the Holy Spirit we all receive in baptism and confirmation.

In this “one place together” is our Pentecost. In this “one place together” we encounter God’s Holy Spirit who strengthens, gifts, unifies, and transforms us. In this “one place together,” my sisters and brothers, Church is born. In the whole world the best place for us to be; the place where God is; the place where we are prepared to serve God as Christian disciples in our world that hungers for God’s Spirit, is right here, in this “one place together.”