Homily for Thursday, 6 March 2014‒ Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Readings of the day: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6; Luke 9:22-25

My sisters and brothers in Christ, we hear in the Book of Deuteronomy that the Lord has “set before [us] life and death; the blessing and the curse.” The choice is ours.

How many of us would not choose life over death; the blessing over the curse? Not many of us would choose death or the curse, I imagine and I hope. And yet often our choices are not as clear as life or death; the blessing or the curse. More frequently our choices are among something good, which will bring us instant pleasure or prosperity but that may not last long; something better‒ a good choice with longer-lasting effects‒ or the best‒ a choice that is selfless and draws us into deeper relationship with God and one another.

In our Gospel reading from Luke, Jesus asks us not only to choose the good or the better, but the best. But for Jesus, the best choice does not appear at first glance to be the best. The choice that Jesus invites us to make; the choice to follow him appears to be the choice of death over life; the choice of the curse over the blessing: the cross. Again, who among us would choose this?

When Jesus says, “if anyone wishes to come after me, he [or she] must take up his [or her] cross daily and follow me,” of course he is not saying that if we do not literally die for Christ, we have no place among his disciples. Not many, if any, of us will face this choice, although we pray for all those who do face death or persecution for their faith.

Short of courageously accepting death or persecution for our Christian faith, though, there are still ways in which we can “choose life”; choose “the blessing” over “the curse”; choose the best, even over the good and the better. There are still ways in which this choice for what strengthens our relationships with God and with one another will involve some form of self-denial.

I invite us to do this today and throughout this season of Lent: When we pray, let us ask ourselves and God: What are or have recently been opportunities for self-denial? What have been the crosses we have been invited to take up for Christ’s sake? Perhaps someone in our family or among our friends is sick; dying; otherwise in need of care. Perhaps someone makes us angry; someone who is in need of gentle admonishment or just our prayers and the unassuming example of our lives of faith; the loving kindness of our Lord.

A second question I invite us to ask, then, is: What are the crosses we bring upon ourselves needlessly? Perhaps I need to ask someone for forgiveness. Perhaps I was impatient, failed to listen, held on to anger, or was too hurried to attend to someone’s needs properly.

By denying ourselves in these ways and by being conscious of ways in which we have added crosses to our own lives that are not of God and letting these go with a spirit of penance, we will bring ourselves into closer relationship with God and one another. We will choose life; choose the blessing; choose the best and longest-lasting good. The choice is ours.

Homily for Wednesday, 5 March 2014‒ Ash Wednesday

Readings of the day: Joel 2:12-18; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14, 17; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

How can Lent be experienced as a season of joy? Does anyone among us experience Lent as joyful? How so?

For many of us, to think of Lent as a season of joy may be difficult. Lent is a season that focuses on our being and eventual return “to dust”; a season we begin today by wearing ashes on our foreheads; a season of penance; a season to remember our sin against God and neighbour and to ask God and one another for forgiveness.

And yet, as I would ask this challenging question of teenagers I prepared for confirmation when I was in seminary in Toronto, I ask all of us the same question: How can Lent be a season of joy?

To be joyful is not the same as being happy all the time. Sin and our need to repent should not make us happy, but even amid this season of penance there is cause for joy.

Our readings today invite us to be joyful. We acknowledge our sin; we promise to repent; to turn away from sin and toward God. We wear ashes, not to “look gloomy” or to be seen by others as repentant, as Jesus asks us not to do in our Gospel reading today, but because today we begin a celebration of joy. We celebrate with joy because we trust that God hears the prayers of the repentant. We trust in a forgiving; loving; kind and “merciful” God; the God whom the prophet Joel says “took pity on his people”; the God who sent his only Son that we might be saved by his death and resurrection; the God who invites us to “return to [him] with [our] whole heart”; to “repent and believe in the Gospel.” 

“Behold, now is a very acceptable time,” St. Paul says. “Behold, now is the day of salvation.” Now, as we begin this season of Lent, we are invited to celebrate our “day of salvation”; our Lent; our season of joy.

Homily for Sunday, 2 March 2014

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 49:14-15; Psalm 63:2-3, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34

God says thorough the prophet Isaiah, “I will never forget you.” Jesus says to his disciples: “Do not worry… Will not [God]… provide for you?”

Have any of us or has anyone we know heard promises like those in our readings today and thought: These are fantastic dreams, but they are not realistic?

If we were to put ourselves in the situation of people in exile, as the people were who first heard Isaiah’s message of a tender; empathetic; even maternal God, would we not be tempted to dismiss God and Isaiah: “This is nice, God, but where were you when we were exiled in the first place?” How many of us would have similarly dismissed Jesus if he urged us not to worry about providing for ourselves, especially if we heard this message amid an oppressive occupation of our homeland as Jesus’ first disciples did in Roman-controlled Palestine? Now if you were a refugee; poor; unemployed or underemployed, without adequate food, clothing, or shelter, as many are here in Greater Rochester, how would we receive a message like that of Isaiah or of Jesus today? Would we dismiss God or God’s prophets as unrealistic; as dreamers?

We live in a world that depends on planning and logic; realism; concrete action; results. Hopes and dreams alone will not get us far. My intention is not to criticize this state of our world, and yet our world needs dreamers, too. Let me clarify that our world does not need mere dreams so much as people who work to put their dreams into practice; dreamers who are also people of action; people unafraid to take risks for the Kingdom of God; people of individual and social justice. What do I mean by this?

From the moment of our baptism, we take the name of “Christian” after Jesus Christ our Lord. We take the name of Christ, the prime example to us of a dreamer, but also the prime example to us of a person of individual and social justice; the prime example to us of a risk-taker for the Kingdom of God; a dreamer, yes, but one who lived, died, and rose again to make the dream, the Kingdom of God, real and present on earth.

When Jesus says in our Gospel reading, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat and drink, or about your body, what you will wear,” or “about tomorrow,” he is not saying that we should neglect to plan ahead; to ensure that we have what we need to survive. No, Jesus the dreamer is calling us to a radical rearrangement of our priorities; of whom and what we serve: God over wealth; God and God’s people, especially the disadvantaged, over material goods and even our own lives, as important as these are.

This is quite the dream that Jesus invites us to cooperate with him in making reality in our world! We know what taking a risk and dreaming of making God’s kingdom on earth real and present brought Jesus: death on a cross. But the same risk; the same dream also has brought us resurrection and the promise of everlasting life.

Many in our time continue to dream after Jesus Christ, the first among dreamers. Many continue to risk ridicule, their reputation, their prosperity, even their lives to make Christ’s dream of the Kingdom of God real and present on earth. The many who “seek first the Kingdom of God and [God’s] righteousness” are confident in Jesus’ promise: “Do not worry… Will not [God]… provide for you?”

I am reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King, who fifty years ago dreamed of an end to racism and segregation; of an end to “the jangling discords of our nation” and, in their place, “a beautiful symphony of brotherhood” and sisterhood. “I have a dream!” Dr. King gave his life for this dream; a dream still not fully realized in places in this nation; a dream we are invited to take up; a dream of the Kingdom of God made real and present in our world.

I am reminded of the likes of Dom Hélder Câmara, the Archbishop of Recife, Brazil who dreamed of economic justice; who once said, “When I feed the poor they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor are hungry they call me a communist.”

I am reminded of Pope Francis who, in his Apostolic Exhortation on The Joy of the Gospel last November denounced the “idolatry of money” and the divide between rich and poor in our world. For this, a message very similar to Jesus’ saying, “You cannot serve God and mammon,” some called Pope Francis an idealist; a Marxist; a dreamer.

I am reminded of the likes of Archbishop Óscar Romero, defender of nonviolence and of the poor in El Salvador. How often are we reminded of such people; of the multitudes of Christian martyrs of the last century, more than in all previous centuries of Christian history combined; of all who have given their lives for a dream; for Christ; for God’s Kingdom?

Just a week ago, I visited a refugee centre in Toronto, Canada where I ministered as a translator for four years while in seminary. There I was reminded of those people, in Toronto and here, who continue to work for justice; who continue to dream; who continue to take risks as Christ did to bring to reality the Kingdom of God on earth.

Looking from where I stand, I am reminded that the power to risk for the Kingdom of God; the power to dream is right here among us, sisters and brothers in Christ; the power given to us by our taking of the name “Christian” in baptism.

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” Jesus asks us not to worry but to dream, to be sure of God’s promise. God says through the prophet Isaiah: “Can a mother forget her infant? …Even should she forget, I will never forget you.” God does not forget us; may we not forget God. May we be reminded of our power to dream, and use this power to dream to make “the Kingdom of God and [God’s] righteousness” real and present in our world.

Homily for Tuesday, 25 February 2014– Ferial

Tuesday of the 7th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: James 4:1-10; Psalm 55:7-8, 9-10a, 10b-11a, 23; Mark 9:30-37

“Where do the conflicts among [us] come from?” Our reading today from the Letter of James points to a tendency beginning very early in Christian communities to focus on petty disputes that divide instead of on the “big picture” of our faith; on what unites us.

I do not wish to be gloomy‒ there is much good in our Church and in our world; for this we thank God‒ but could not the same question James asks be applied to many Christians and to our world today?

If we look to Syria, to Ukraine, to Venezuela, or to other points of conflict and violence in our world, we see this conflict caused by corruption; ideological polarization; extremism; greed; revenge; assertion of power against the good of the people of these regions, and so forth.

More locally, in our Church community of Rochester, in our parish, and in our households, the causes of conflict are not as flagrant, I hope, as in nations at war. Especially with a new bishop or in as young a parish as St. Kateri, hopeful anticipation of differences in leadership style or changes in our experience as worshipping faithful is encouraged. However, gossip that stifles good and necessary change that we pray is guided by the Holy Spirit; conflict motivated by pride and inability to forgive; fighting over who among us are “the greatest”; inability to see the “big picture” of our faith that unites us as one Church, that we are all redeemed by Christ’s death and resurrection, is divisive and sinful.

I am confident that I do not direct these harsh words toward anyone among us here. I am confident that we generally work to unite our community, our Church, and our households and not to divide them. And yet these ills have divided even the strongest of disciples, as we hear in today’s Gospel reading. If there have been times when we have created divisions among ourselves through petty disputes that distract from the “big picture” of our faith, our redemption by Christ’s death and resurrection; if we have ever thought of ourselves as “the greatest” among disciples instead of acting with the humility of a true disciple of Jesus Christ; if we have ever unquestioningly assumed that our way was right, or been angered when another has questioned our ways for good reason, let us ask for God’s forgiveness through this gift of our Eucharist.

With this spirit of repentance and our constant recommitment to depend on God as humble disciples of Christ, we will no longer ask “What divides us” or “Where do conflicts among [us] come from” but “What unites us”? And we will know the answer to our question: We are redeemed by Christ’s death and resurrection. We live our redemption with faith and hope, as one community; one Church; one world. This is what unites us. This is the “big picture” of our Christian faith.