Homily for Sunday, 24 March 2024‒ Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

Readings of the day: At the procession with palm branches: Mark 11:1-10. During the Mass: Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24; Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 14:1-15:27

I have yet to become a major aficionado of the series, “The Chosen,” not by any means because I dislike it or think it is overhyped, but… I need some time to catch up on viewing it. From what I have seen, it is a very well-done series.

Yet in one episode of “The Chosen,” Jesus returns to his hometown, Nazareth, which is overrun with people wanting to see him. Jesus has sent his disciples out on mission to heal the sick and work wonders. He cuts through the noise of all the people who want to see him, the hometown crowds, his friends growing up… And he visits his mother Mary for dinner.

In the introduction credits scene of this episode, Jesus is shown as a little child. Mary and Joseph are affectionate toward Jesus and each other. Jesus receives toys and other gifts from relatives. It is a festival scene. Jesus takes his first steps. One of the gifts he receives at that feast is a bridle for a donkey’s colt. It is a gift from Joseph. A donkey’s bridle would be a strange gift for a toddler, except that this bridle had been passed down through generations to Jesus on Joseph’s side, all the way from King David.

In the homecoming dinner scene between Jesus and Mary, Mother and Son have a long conversation. Mary wants to know all about Jesus’ disciples, his “students”: Who is doing well, what they are doing, who is having a rough time. Jesus says that they are all “quite well” at that moment. And then he pauses; he takes Mary’s hand. And then Jesus asks Mary for the box with the bridle. Mary’s face suddenly shows discomfort.

And Mary asks Jesus, “Are you sure this is your last time here” at home? Jesus replies, “I believe that my time is coming.” This part of the conversation ends with Mary saying to Jesus, “I don’t know that I’m ready.” And Jesus replies finally to Mary, with Mary speaking his words back to him at the same time: “I know how you feel. But you also know that I must do the will of him who sent me.”

Sisters and brothers, on this Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, we are not ready. But Jesus has visited his earthly homes, probably his childhood home, the home of his mother Mary, one last time. He is now at the gates of Jerusalem. We greet Jesus, picking up palm branches and casting them at his feet as he rides through the city gates on the donkey, restrained by the bridle Jesus had picked up during his last visit home. We cry out joyfully, as we have to open this Mass: “Hosanna to the Son of David… Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”!

We are not ready for what is happening or about to happen. We can commemorate this Palm Sunday, Holy Week of which today is the beginning, once every year, all our lives. And we will never be ready for what this Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, for what the Lord’s Passion, death, and resurrection that we will celebrate all within this next week, will mean for us. This Holy Week we can and will hear two different accounts of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus, in the voices of three readers each: Today, Mark’s account of Jesus’ Passion and, on Good Friday, John’s account of the same events.

We can, and we will, hear Isaiah’s four prophetic hymns of a “suffering servant”: The third of four today; the four in order on Holy Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Good Friday this week. And we will not and cannot be ready. We can and will hear St. Paul’s hymn to the Philippians of a Messiah whom, paradoxically, we worship because, “although he was in the form of God… he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” And we will not and can never be ready for Jesus to accept this, “death on a cross.”

I speak for myself first and foremost, a sinner preaching to sinners: I will never be ready for Palm Sunday, for Holy Week, for Holy Thursday of the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday, Easter of the Lord’s Resurrection, no matter how many times I celebrate these days with us. If Mary was not ready—the sinless Virgin Mary—then we can never be ready.

Jesus does not wait for us to be ready, sisters and brothers. Jesus walks from Nazareth to Jerusalem’s gates carrying a bridle, the last thing he retrieves from home, for a donkey’s colt. He will go from carrying a bridle to carrying a cross, from riding on that donkey to dying on that cross, within less than a week. Jesus does not wait for us to be ready, to accept death for us, to save us from our sin. No, so single-mindedly does Jesus choose to do “the will of the one who sent” him. And the will of the one who sent him is our salvation, our life forever, in our heavenly home.

Homily for Sunday, 19 December 2020– Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C

Readings of the day: Micah 5: 1-4a; Psalm 80: 2-3, 15-16, 18-19; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

The “rags-to-riches” motif is one of the more common ones in storytelling, because it resonates, does it not, with our heartfelt human inclination to encourage the heroic underdog to overcome the odds against her or him. In reality, these kinds of scenarios may be less common than we would like them to be: So many poor, maligned, marginalized people remain poor, maligned, and marginalized in our world. But occasionally some people overcome all odds against them, or at least they become the heroes of their stories or of pivotal moments in the greater history of our world or a society, or they keep other people from suffering the same marginalization as they have.

From the word of God, we hear today from the prophet Micah. Maybe the most memorable verse from Micah, at least for me, is his admonition about what the LORD requires of his people: “To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” I especially love this verse from Micah because it does not only exhort the people of Israel (and us) to act with justice, kindness, and humility. The Hebrew words Micah uses, which are notoriously difficult to translate but that we hear in English as justice, kindness (or mercy), and walking humbly, apply attributes of God to the people: Do justice, because God is just; love kindness, because God is kind and merciful; and, maybe most strikingly, “walk humbly with your God,” who walks humbly with us.

This verse, Micah 6:8, portrays God himself, and God’s prophet Micah, as by nature just, kind, merciful, and humble. And Micah is known as just that: A just, kind, merciful and, above all, humble prophet. Micah lived and preached at the same time in Israel’s history as much more famous prophets than he: Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. These other prophets were from Jerusalem (in Isaiah’s case) or small towns. Micah, though, was from the countryside, between the downslope of the Judean mountains away from Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea coast. Other prophets preached to kings; Micah was the prophet of the common people.

And the part of the Book of Micah we hear today, Biblical experts say, may not have been his but an interpolation or insertion of a text from another, even more anonymous prophet. How is that for a humble situation, that of the prophet Micah? And his message today is one of the humble becoming great. Not from big, showy Jerusalem, with its mountains and its temple, but from little Bethlehem, the “house of bread” in Judah, the economic “have not” region of Israel in Micah’s time, would arise a great king in David’s line: “One who is to rule Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.”

We Christians have traditionally understood this prophecy of a great ruler in David’s line from little Bethlehem in light of the earthly life of Jesus Christ. And that is fine. Our Gospels often connect Jesus with the Davidic line of kings of Israel. But Micah looks back into Israel’s history in order to look forward, too. Micah’s references to David today are clear: David was a native of Bethlehem. He was a humble, obscure shepherd before slaying the giant Goliath and inheriting the throne of Israel. The ruler of Micah’s prophecy, like King David, will be a shepherd from Bethlehem. And, Micah says, while the king of whom he prophesies rules, he will return to be on a level ground with the common people; he will rule precisely by shepherding: “And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.”

The Psalmist carries on Micah’s shepherd-king contrast: “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.” Here God himself is depicted as a shepherd and, at the same time, a heavenly and mighty ruler. God is mighty in his humility, and humble in his might. If we are to be anything like God, we are called, as Micah once said, to “walk humbly with [our] God,” because our mighty God walks humbly with us.

Our mighty God was born, humbly, to us in Bethlehem yet again, in the person of Jesus. This Jesus, shepherd-ruler of the universe, was born into a stable; a manger where animals eat, in Bethlehem, as a vulnerable human baby. We are less than one week from celebrating the birth of this shepherd-king who has saved this universe, sisters and brothers, by choosing to walk humbly with us and inviting us to walk humbly, justly, kindly with him and among one another.

If God’s humility is shown to us in the Nativity of Jesus, it is shown that much more in Jesus’ giving of his life for us on the cross. When I was in my first parish as a priest, St. Kateri Tekakwitha in Rochester, New York, one of my favourite liturgical elements during this time of Advent and Christmas was the conclusion of the Prayer of the Faithful (or General Intercessions), which reminded us how “the wood of the cradle” was fundamentally connected to “the wood of the cross.” May we always remember this connection, sisters and brothers.

The letter to the Hebrews today reminds us, in a way, of this same connection of the wood of the cradle and the wood of the cross; of Bethlehem to Calvary. Hebrews draws on the Psalms and prophetic writings, especially those of Isaiah, and places them on the tongue of Jesus: “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me… See, God, I have come to do your will.”

I admit that Hebrews’ reflection on sacrifice is challenging to me personally: Not only that Jesus made the ultimate, saving sacrifice of himself on the cross, but that doing God’s will, in an ambiguous sense in our reading, somehow replaces or “abolishes” the need and the value of religious acts of sacrifice. Even our Eucharistic celebration is often called “the holy sacrifice of the Mass.” I do not think, then, that Hebrews is saying that what we celebrate here is worthless. By no means! But any religious ritual, including our Eucharist, can only have meaning if it is God’s will for us. And Jesus, at his Last Supper, commanded his disciples, “Take and eat… Take this cup and drink from it… Do this in memory of me.” This is how we know that our Eucharist is God’s will for us. In our Eucharist, we celebrate a historical action by Jesus, his sacrifice of himself through his passion and death on the cross, that is finished and past. We make it perpetually real and present through our memorial of Jesus’ passion and death, Jesus’ once-forever sacrifice, but that sacrifice can never be replicated or outdone.

This is the surpassing humility of God that we remember and celebrate here: “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired… See, God, I have come to do your will… Do this in memory of me.” It is the surpassing humility of God that impelled the preaching of Micah about a shepherd-king to arise from little, insignificant Bethlehem; a shepherd-king who would save Israel; humankind; the entire created universe. It is the surpassing humility of God that impelled the song of the Psalmist that called upon the LORD: “Stir up your might, and come to save us.”

And it was the surpassing humility of God, whom the Virgin Mary carried within her in human form, as she “went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country” to visit and care for Elizabeth, also pregnant, with John the Baptist. Luke’s Gospel gives us many sublimely beautiful words and images today. Luke gives us Elizabeth’s greeting, on which part of our “Hail, Mary” is based: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Elizabeth is described as “filled with the Holy Spirit,” as Mary was from the moment she conceived Jesus at the Annunciation. John leaps with joy in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary greets them.

But maybe the most moving moment of today’s Gospel for me is in Elizabeth’s question to Mary: “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me”? Elizabeth was not lacking in humility, by any means. But this event, the Visitation and these last days of preparation for the Nativity of the Lord, are greater than Elizabeth. These events are greater than us. They are greater than a simple lowliness-to-riches scenario. We could ask the same question as Elizabeth does: “Why has this happened to us, that our Lord has chosen to be born as one of us, to come to us through the Virgin Mary, through a humble manger in Bethlehem”?

This event is all about God’s humility: That not only would God send his Son into our world in this way to save us, but that now God regards us, little and insignificant though we are (if we think about it), as fit to do his will: To feed his flock (that is, one another); to act with justice and kind mercy; to “walk humbly with our God,” if only because God has chosen to walk humbly as one of us.

Homily for Friday, 2 April 2021– Friday of the Passion of the Lord (Good Friday)

Readings of the day: Isaiah 52:15-53:12; Psalm 31:6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25; Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42

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

Let me, if we will, propose two key terms, freedom and solidarity, through which we might remember the events we do today, of the Passion and death of our Lord Jesus.

In his recent reflection for Good Friday in America Magazine, published by the Jesuits in the U.S., Fr. Terrance Klein, a priest of Dodge City, Kansas, asks what exactly God might have willed in allowing Jesus to go to his death, on a cross no less. Did, or could God, in fact, will his Son Jesus’ death in this horrific and humiliating way? This question may be both a common puzzle for us as Christian faithful and a major obstacle, Fr. Klein says, to non-believers: Who would want to believe in a God who would will, or at least allow, his Son to undergo a death like this?

Yet John’s Gospel today invites us to behold not so much God as a Father who would will or permit his Son to be given up to death, but the Son, Jesus, as freely in command of his self-sacrifice on the cross to its final moment, when “it is finished.” Our faith proclaims this freedom of Jesus; the freedom, Jesus says of himself at one point in John’s Gospel, to lay down his life and “to take it up again.”

And, if we go all the way back to the first moments of creation, we see that, of all the creatures God created, God willed from the very beginning to give us the same freedom God has. This is quite remarkable! This was and is also quite risky on God’s part: God gave us the freedom that nobody else but God has, to accept and to love whom God has made us to be or to reject and to hate this; to accept and love God; to accept and love one another as God loves us, or to reject and refuse to love God and one another.

When we have chosen to misuse the freedom God gave us to accept and love or to reject and refuse to love—this to some extent willing rejection and refusal to love, we might call sin—God has not rejected us in turn, although God was free to do so. No, God has responded to our sin by continually calling to us and being with us in history, through the Law and the prophets and, finally, by becoming like us in all but sin in the person of Jesus Christ. And we remember today how Jesus, Son of God, completed his free act of solidarity with us sinners: By redeeming us from all our sin, our rejection, our violence and hatred; by submitting to all this at the hands of sinners, on a cross, and transforming this into our ultimate good; the only possible means of our salvation.

“It is finished” now, this free act of God of solidarity with us, the only way we can be freed from sin and saved. We are witnesses, this and every Good Friday, to God’s re-creation of us, as remarkable as God’s first act of creating us with God’s own freedom. We are witnesses to this renewed freedom God has given us to love, to accept, to enter into solidarity with one another, especially anybody in any way disadvantaged, rejected, or abandoned in our world, as God freely entered into solidarity with us; as God freely took on our human experiences of joy and sorrow; good and evil; life, death, and resurrection, we pray, to eternal life.

Homily for Tuesday, 16 February 2021– Ferial

Readings of the day: Genesis 6:5-8, 7:1-5, 10; Psalm 29:1a, 2, 3ac-4, 3b, 9c-10; Mark 8:14-21

How easy is it for us to become distracted by small external details, especially when hearing or reading Scripture, such that we have difficulty grasping “the heart of the matter,” so to speak, of a Biblical text? Or how good are we at resisting these kinds of distractions by external details?

I confess that I am vulnerable to distraction by external details (mea culpa!). Readings like those we hear today are a challenge to me, for this reason. I can empathize with Jesus’ disciples, whom Mark often presents as bumbling and distracted, including in the Gospel reading we hear today. Jesus rebukes his disciples harshly: “Are your hearts hardened… Do you not yet understand”? I admit that my first reaction to Jesus’ rebuke here in Mark’s Gospel is that I am not sure I would have understood Jesus’ point about “the yeast of the Pharisees and… of Herod,” and why he is so harsh with his disciples, simply from the scant context Mark gives us, any more than his disciples did. What did Jesus’ disciples do that was so wrong?

In the Book of Genesis, we again encounter a harsh God, who goes so far as to be “sorry that he made human beings on the earth.” All I can think when I hear that is, “Ouch! Would God ever be sorry that he made us”? But this, too, risks too much focus on surface details: Would God be “sorry” or regretful of his own actions, like creation? Would a loving God really ever will to destroy all living things on earth, no matter how wicked we had become? Would God ever change his mind, from seeing that his creation was “very good” to, in the space of ten generations from Adam to Noah, wanting to destroy it?

The flood narrative in Genesis, like Jesus’ irritable encounter with his disciples in Mark’s Gospel, invites us to reflect more deeply than on these surface details, however attractive or troubling they may be. In both Mark and Genesis, the hearts of God and of God’s people are not in the same place; God and the people, be they Jesus’ disciples or the people of Noah’s generation, with the exception of Noah and his household, clearly do not have the same will; the same priorities. Genesis describes “every inclination of” the hearts of the people as “evil.” Mark describes Jesus’ disciples’ hearts as “hardened.”

How exactly the people’s hearts are inclined toward evil or “hardened” is perhaps forever a mystery; a detail. But we know that it is still possible, in the midst of hearts that are “hardened” or inclined toward evil, to set our hearts to pleasing God; to doing the will of God. Noah did it, as Genesis says: He “found favour in the sight of the LORD.” And, if we read today’s Gospel in the context of all of Mark, we see that, no matter how bumbling and distracted Jesus’ disciples almost always seem to be in Mark, Jesus never gives up on them. In fact, he willingly gives himself up to death for them, and us.

I find this especially consoling, as an (often) distractible disciple of Jesus: That I, and we, know something of the deepest, most heartfelt and ultimate will of God. Our God wills from the heart to save us, and has sent his Son for this purpose. And, somehow, our task is only to discern and cooperate with this ultimate will for us from the heart of our God.

Homily for Tuesday, 24 July 2018– Ferial

Tuesday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time


Optional Memorial of St. Sharbel Makhluf

Readings of the day: Micah 7:14-15, 18-20; Psalm 85:2-4, 5-6, 7-8; Matthew 12:46-50

This homily was given at the Kateri House Women's Residence Chapel at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers” and sisters?

Do any of us sometimes wonder with what tone Jesus asked questions like this one, which we hear from Matthew’s Gospel today? Of course, I believe that Jesus was sinless, although he was like us in his humanity in every other way but sin. And yet we know from other passages in the Gospels that Jesus experienced anger and irritation from time to time, whether at the religious and social leaders of his time, his own disciples, or even, at one point if I remember correctly, an apparently innocent fig tree! Anger and irritation are emotions we all experience if we are truly human. They are not in themselves sinful; how we deal with our anger, irritation, or other intense emotions we would usually rather not feel, and may be right or may be sinful, especially if how we act on our anger is destructive of other people and relationships.

Still, can we not imagine Jesus, in today’s Gospel, tired after a long journey; tired of the heat of the Holy Land; tired of the crowds asking him the same question ten times and not listening to his answer? At this point, imagine somebody interrupting Jesus yet again to remind him that his relatives have arrived and want “to speak to him.”

How would Jesus have responded to this latest interruption? We know that, however he would have responded, he would not have sinned. But, short of sinning, might Jesus have allowed himself a rhetorical question with just a slight edginess, in response to the endless interruptions and fatigue?

I imagine Jesus’ rhetorical question, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers,” as having some bite to it, especially since he goes on to answer his own question… sort of: “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Would Jesus’ relatives, who had been waiting to speak with him, been annoyed that he had essentially ignored them, only to extend the notion of father, mother, brother, and sister beyond blood relationship?

What would the great crowds have thought at hearing Jesus’ mild irritation behind his words? Would they have been irritated in turn at Jesus for not quite answering their question? Can we not almost hear somebody in the crowd say, “Lord, but how exactly do we do God’s will enough to be considered an extension of your family”?

This, I think, would have been an excellent question, one I would perhaps have asked Jesus if I had been in the crowd that day. Yet I think this question of how we are to do God’s will, and so be considered mothers, brothers, and sisters of the Lord, is fleshed out in our other readings and in the lived example of St. Sharbel Makhluf, whose feast we celebrate today.

The prophet Micah speaks in our first reading of the great compassion, forgiveness, and faithfulness to the covenant relationship with Jacob-Israel. Our Psalm speaks of God’s surpassing “mercy and love.” St. Sharbel once said, “When placed on a scale, God’s mercy prevails over the weight of the mountains.”

Mercy, my sisters and brothers in Christ, moves mountains. In showing one another mercy, forgiveness, faithfulness, and loving kindness, we become the Lord’s and one another’s mothers, brothers, and sisters.

Homily for Friday, 30 July 2015– Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Friday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37; Psalm 81:3-4, 5-6, 8-9, 10-11ab;  Matthew 13:54-58

This homily was given at Most Holy Trinity Church, Webster, NY.

How many of us know somebody so well, maybe a close friend; your wife or husband; your child, that you can know beforehand what this person will say or do.

To know somebody this well can be wonderful. Those among us who have been married for a long time: How many of you can complete each other’s sentences or have lighthearted fun at each other’s expense by anticipating one another’s mannerisms or personality traits? But to know another person so well can also be dangerous. We can think we know another person better than we do.

This is the problem the people in the synagogue in Jesus’ hometown experience. These people know Jesus and his relatives very well: “Is not his mother named Mary, and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Are not his sisters with us?” They know Jesus as “the carpenter’s son.” But how well do they really know Jesus beyond the labels they attach to him? When this “carpenter’s son” begins to teach them in their synagogue, “they [take] offense at him.”

What did the people expect of Jesus when he returned to his hometown? Maybe they had heard reports that described him as a great healer, a powerful preacher, a teacher of their faith, or maybe even a prophet. Maybe the people expected to rekindle a childhood friendship with this Jesus, the boy who lived down the street in the home of Mary and Joseph the carpenter when they had last seen him. But something Jesus says in their synagogue challenges them; makes them uncomfortable. By Jesus’ time, prophets had been known to upset people, especially people who had become comfortable in their way of life; comfortable in their labels they had placed on people they thought they knew.

But for a long time the people in Jesus’ hometown synagogue had not been enough of a factor in Jesus’ life. They knew what they did of Jesus second-hand at best. Might it be the people’s lack of having been in Jesus’ life to know him beyond the superficial; to believe in him that Jesus brings to light in their synagogue and so upsets them?

How well do we know Jesus? How intimate and engaged are we in Jesus’ story; Jesus’ and our Gospel? St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose feast we celebrate today, encouraged prayer with our Scriptures in which we place ourselves in the event we are reading or hearing. And we meditate on our experience of God; of Jesus in our Gospels; of the Biblical event itself. This kind of prayer is not easy. It takes a surrender of our will; our comfort zones; our labels to God. This surrender is at the heart of Ignatius’ prayer: “Take, Lord, receive all my liberty; my understanding; my memory; my entire will… Give me your love and your grace; this is enough for me.”

God, give us “your love and your grace” with which we will be able to enter into Jesus’ life; Jesus’ Gospel. May we be moved to know Jesus Christ ever more deeply; not to be upset by the surrendering of our labels; our will; our memory; our understanding; our comfort.  And by “your love and your grace,” O God, may we one day know eternal life.

Homily for Tuesday, 21 July 2015– Ferial

Tuesday of the 16th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Exodus 14:21-15:1;  Responsorial Canticle: Exodus 15:8-9, 10, 12, 17; Matthew 12:46-50

What is Jesus asking of us in our Gospel reading today? Does Jesus not seem a bit rude; aloof toward his own family members? Somebody says to Jesus, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside asking to speak with you.” Instead of going out to speak with his family, Jesus turns his attention to his disciples, saying: “Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother and sister and mother.”

Why would Jesus say and act like this? Is he not undervaluing family? And what exactly is “the will of [our] Father” (a broad concept) that Jesus asks us to do? How many of us find our Gospel reading today somewhat troubling?

I do not believe that Jesus was rude or aloof toward his family. But then our Gospel reading from Matthew raises still more questions. What exactly is Jesus’ point in calling anybody who does his and our heavenly Father’s “will” his “brother and sister and mother”?

Perhaps the simplest interpretation of Jesus’ message is that our relationship with God is more important and ultimately deeper than even blood relationships. By doing “the will of [our] heavenly Father” we strengthen our relationship with God, which is comparable to our relationships with family members and blood relatives.

But then how do we do God’s will as Jesus asks us and so become like family to God by the closeness of our relationship with God? I think our Gospel Acclamation verse today may help us to answer this question. We hear today as our Gospel Acclamation Jesus’ words: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him.”

Love is the litmus test of all relationships. The ultimate love; the kind of love of God and of one another; the love as family that Jesus asks of us is love that purposefully seeks the good of one another. This kind of love leaves no room for gossip or otherwise ruining another’s good reputation without sufficient reason. This kind of love especially means to anticipate one another’s needs: Does another person (especially somebody in our family, among our friends or worshipping community) need material or spiritual support? Does another person (or do we) need somebody to keep us morally accountable (although I encourage caution here so that keeping others accountable does not become criticism that tears others down; that fails to uphold their dignity)?

St. Augustine once said, “Love and do what you will.” Love; seek the good of one another: This, I believe, is how Jesus asks us to do his and our heavenly Father’s will. To take the most loving action in any and all situations; in all relationships is not easy. This takes constant discernment. But in this way Jesus is not anti-family, aloof, or rude in our Gospel reading today.

Love, and the great intimacy of relationship God wants with us, extends beyond blood relationships. We can, with God’s grace, be like family, and even more important and beloved than family, to God if we love one another; if we do our heavenly Father’s will by purposefully and first seeking one another’s good and ultimately one another’s salvation.

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 Thursday, 4 December 2014– Memorial of St. Barbara

Thursday of the 1st week in Advent

Readings of the day: Isaiah 26:1-6; Psalm 118:1, 8-9, 19-21, 25-27a; Matthew 7:21, 24-27

This homily was given during a Mass for the intentions of my grandmother, Barbara Schmidt. Although the Memorial of St. Barbara, a Roman martyr of whose life little is known outside of legend, was suppressed from the Roman (Church) calendar in 1969, her unofficial feast day is December 4. This day is officially the optional memorial of St. John of Damascus.

In whom do we trust? What differentiates the people of whom Jesus speaks in our Gospel reading who call out, “Lord, Lord” from those who trust and act according to God’s will; the people who build their houses “on rock” versus “on sand,” so to speak?

Would it not be great if we were always able to answer that we trust in God; that our will is always that of God; that the house of our faith is built on rock and not on sand?

We know of so many influences that draw us away from trusting fully in God; from doing the will of God; from co-operating in building up God’s reign of justice and peace; charity, goodness, and mercy on earth. These influences are cultural and social, economic, political, and moral. To do God’s will; to build up God’s kingdom on earth; to live a Christian life of faith is not easy.

And yet I think we do quite well here. After all, we are here. For every reason of which we can think not to trust in God; not to do God’s will, we see in our parish; our city; our nation; our world many holy, self-sacrificial ways in which people show trust in God. We know people among us who act, even heroically, according to God’s will of justice, peace, charity, goodness, and mercy.

But, I also think, we need the constant reminder, for those who trust in God and act according to God’s will, to keep it up with the support of our prayers as Church. And, for those who have failed to trust in God or to do God’s will, we need the reminder that God is merciful; that God invites us to repent; once again to trust in God and to do God’s will.

The tension between influences that draw us toward and away from trust in God and acting according to God’s will is not new. It has long been so easy simply to call out, “Lord, Lord,” and not to act to build God’s reign on earth. It is easy to trust that we have “a strong city”; to “trust in princes”; to trust in military might; to trust in other worldly institutions, and not to trust as fully in God as we are called to do as Christian disciples.

Our first reading from Isaiah says, “Trust in the LORD forever.” Our Psalm says, “It is better to take refuge in the LORD… O LORD, grant salvation”! These are prayers of saints; of people who have trusted in God and done God’s will despite many ways in which we can be drawn away from God.

We can look to the martyrs as ultimate examples of people who have given their lives to trust in God and to do God’s will. We can look to St. Barbara, whose feast we celebrate today. Without doubt we can look to many among ourselves as examples of people who trust in God; who have built their houses of faith “on rock”; who build God’s reign on earth; who are examples of God’s justice, peace, charity, goodness, and mercy.