Homilía para el martes, 24 de junio 2014‒ Solemnidad del nacimiento de San Juan Bautista

Di esta homilía, mi primera en español, durante una Misa en español en la capilla St. Michael’s de la parroquia St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, Rochester, NY. La traducción en inglés aparece luego del texto original en español.

This homily, my first-ever in Spanish, was given during a Spanish Mass at St. Michael’s Chapel of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish, Rochester, NY. The English translation is included after the original Spanish text.
 
Lecturas del día: Isaías 49:1-6; Salmo 139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 14c-15; Hechos de los Apóstoles 13:22-26; Lucas 1:57-66, 80

Readings of the day: Isaiah 49:1-6; Psalm 139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 14c-15; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66, 80

¿Qué significa para nosotros ser “luz de las naciones”?

Es la misión que nos da Dios a través del profeta Isaías en nuestra primera lectura de hoy: “Te hago luz de las naciones, para que mi salvación alcance hasta el confín de la tierra.” ¡Que hermosa misión que nos da Dios, pero qué desafío!

Claro que Dios tiene confianza en nosotros como cristianos; Dios nos considera listos y dignos de esta misión. Entonces ¿cómo podemos cumplir nuestra misión de ser “luz de las naciones”; de difundir la salvación de Dios “hasta el confín de la tierra”?

Cierto que individuamente es casi imposible ser “luz de las naciones.” Por eso Dios nos ha fundado en Iglesia y fortalece esta Iglesia, esta comunidad de creyentes en Jesucristo, con su gracia y su amor para que el cumplimiento de nuestra misión de difundir la salvación de Dios “hasta el confín de la tierra” sea posible.

También Dios nos da luces brillantes, los santos, para guiarnos en nuestra misión como Iglesia de ser “luz de las naciones.” Celebramos hoy la solemnidad del nacimiento de uno de los santos más brillantes, mensajero por excelencia de la salvación de Dios “hasta el confín de la tierra,” San Juan Bautista.

Escuchamos al principio de nuestro evangelio de hoy que Isabel “dio a luz un hijo,” a quien le dio el nombre sin precedentes en su familia: Juan. Dar a luz es una hermosa frase en español (no existe una frase equivalente en inglés) para describir el parto; el nacimiento de un bebé.

Isabel “dio a luz un hijo,” Juan Bautista. De manera parecida, Dios nos ha dado a luz; nos ha creado como Iglesia; un pueblo capaz de amar a Dios, amar los unos a los otros, y así difundir la salvación de Dios “hasta el confín de la tierra.” Dios nos ha dado a luz para ser “luz de las naciones.” Así Dios da a luz la Iglesia y su misión.

Estamos todos llamados, empezando ahora y aquí en nuestra celebración de la Misa en esta capilla St. Michael’s de la Parroquia St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, a ser mensajeros de la salvación y el amor de nuestro Dios, desde nuestros corazones; en nuestras casas; en nuestra ciudad de Rochester (sobre todo a los más necesitados); en donde trabajamos; juntos como Iglesia en todo el mundo. 

Siguiendo el ejemplo de San Juan Bautista, primer mensajero de Jesucristo, y de innumerables santos quienes reflejan también la luz, el poder, el amor, y la gracia de Dios en nuestro mundo, difundamos la salvación de Dios “hasta el confín de la tierra.”

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What does it mean for us to be “a light to the nations”?

This is the mission that God gives us through the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading: “I will make you a light to the nations, so that my salvation will reach to the ends of the earth.” What a beautiful mission God gives us, but what a challenge!

Clearly God has confidence in us as Christians; God considers us ready and worthy of this mission. And so how can we accomplish our mission to be “a light to the nations”; to bring God’s salvation “to the ends of the earth”?

Surely it is almost impossible as individuals to be a “light to the nations.” For this reason God has founded us as a Church and strengthens this Church, this community of believers in Jesus Christ, with his grace and his love so that the accomplishment of our mission to bring God’s salvation “to the ends of the earth” may be made possible.

God also gives us brilliant lights, the saints, to guide us in our mission to be “a light to the nations.” We celebrate today the solemnity of the birth of one of the most brilliant of saints, the most excellent of heralds of God’s salvation “to the ends of the earth,” St. John the Baptist.

We hear at the beginning of our Gospel reading today that Elizabeth “gave birth to a son” to whom she gave a name unprecedented in her family: John. In Spanish there is a beautiful phrase (of which there is no equivalent in English) to describe the birth of a child, “dar a luz,” which literally means to give unto the light.

Elizabeth “gave birth” (dio a luz) “to a son,” John the Baptist. In a similar way, God has given us birth “unto the light.” God has created us as a Church; as a people capable of loving God and of loving one another, and so of bringing the salvation of God “to the ends of the earth.” God has given us unto the light to be “a light to the nations.” In this way God gives unto the light (gives birth to) the Church and her mission.

We are all called, beginning here and now, in the celebration of our Mass in this, St. Michael’s Chapel of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish, to be heralds of the salvation and the love of our God: From our hearts; in our homes; in our city of Rochester (especially to those most in need); in our workplaces; together as Church to the whole world.

Following the example of St. John the Baptist, first herald of Jesus Christ, and of innumerable saints who also reflect the light, the power, the love, and the grace of God in our world, may we bring the salvation of God “to the ends of the earth.”

Homily for Monday, 23 June 2014– Ferial

Monday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time 

Readings of the day: 2 Kings 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18; Psalm 60:3, 4-5, 12-13; Matthew 7:1-5

“Stop judging, that you may not be judged.” Do any of us know someone who has difficulty understanding or putting into practice these words of Jesus in our Gospel reading today? Do we ourselves have this difficulty at times? Anyone who has difficulty understanding or practicing what Jesus teaches us, “Stop judging, that you may not be judged,” I think deserves not criticism but great empathy.

We live in a culture of opposite extremes surrounding “Stop judging.” These are opposite ethical “dictatorships,” if you will. Just before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoke of a “dictatorship of relativism” especially in Europe and North America that says: Do not judge another culture’s or individual’s actions or ideas as better or worse than those of another culture or individual. All actions or ideas are right insofar as a culture or individual feels they are right, and no other individual or group has the right to say otherwise.

Equally damaging and incoherent is the opposite to the “dictatorship of relativism,” that is, the dictatorship of absolutism: Individuals, societies, nations, or even churches may suggest that they know all the answers; that they hold absolute truths besides God, the only absolute Truth, for those who seek certainty. I do not say that, if a society, a nation, or a church develops teachings, norms, or guidelines with which we disagree, we should reject these teachings, norms, or guidelines out of hand, or that we should accept what we agree with uncritically, either.

Both relativism, in which there is no right and wrong, and absolutism, in which there is no nuance between absolute right and absolute wrong, are failures to think; to put our hearts and minds with which God has gifted us to the service of God and of one another in love.

“Stop judging, that you may not be judged.” Jesus, I think, teaches us with these words to distinguish between judging an action or idea as right or not, and judging the person as good or evil. Judgment of actions or ideas as right or wrong is, I say, healthy and even our responsibility to do. But is not judging another person beneath her or his dignity as created by God, even though in our fallen state we all sin, itself wrong? This, I think, is the kind of judgment Jesus speaks against in our Gospel reading today. This kind of judgment destroys peace; destroys human community; does not see the beams in our own eyes but focuses on the splinters in the eyes of others.

I am confident that I am not directing these harsh words at any of us here; that Jesus’ teaching is not directed at any of us here now. And yet can we not all benefit (I know I can) from the reminders our Gospel offers us today? Judge the ethics of the action or idea; not the dignity of the person created by God as anything less than fundamentally good. Strike an ethical balance between the dictatorships of relativism and absolutism. Let us pray, then, for the strength to judge wisely when we are called to judge; to judge as God judges, with love; to judge in a way that responsibly upholds what is ethically right yet respects the God-given dignity of all people and all creation.

Homily for Sunday, 22 June 2014‒ Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

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

Who among us is adventurous with food? Who among us enjoys trying new kinds of food; food we have not encountered before?

Our first reading today from Deuteronomy features the people of Israel being led by Moses through the desert. They face a crisis: They are hungry, and there is no food. God responds to the plea of the people of Israel for food by sending them manna.

This manna is great, except that none of the people of Israel journeying through the desert had ever seen this strange, supposedly edible, frostlike substance before. Deuteronomy describes this manna as “a food unknown to” the people of Israel “and [their] fathers.” The word manna derives from a question in Hebrew that means, “What is it?”

What is it? Is this manna more like chicken; or does it taste like tofu, or more like broccoli or Brussels sprouts? (By the way, children and anyone here with children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, I encourage you to eat your vegetables, and sometimes to try food you haven’t seen before.) Is this manna like gruel? What is it? The people of Israel had no idea what this food was, so they asked, “Manna”? All they knew was that this was the food God had sent them to satisfy their hunger.

I like to try new kinds of food; foods I have not encountered before. One of my favorite summer festivals when I lived in my home city, Edmonton, Canada, was Edmonton’s Heritage Festival, held during the first weekend in August. The Heritage Festival features well over one hundred tents, or pavilions, with food from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and most countries of the world in between. The pavilions also include cultural performances; the demonstration and sale of art and goods from many countries, but my favorite part of the Heritage Festival is the food.

One year at the Heritage Festival, I entered the Canadian pavilion out of curiosity. What foods are typically Canadian? Bannock is typically Canadian apparently, although it may have originally been Scottish. What is it? Bannock, as prepared by indigenous North Americans, is a kind of flatbread made with wheat flour, water, sugar, and lard, with spices or dried fruits often added for extra flavor. Bannock is very tasty and filling, as I found out at the Heritage Festival.

What is it? If the journey by the people of Israel of which we hear in our first reading had taken place in Canada, the people’s manna might have been bannock. God would have given them this bannock to satisfy their hunger after forty years of travel through a landscape of snow and ice!

Today, on this feast day of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Jesus invites us to try a new kind of food; a food that, even more than the manna of which Deuteronomy speaks, is a food “unknown to” us and to our ancestors.

Some of us may be wondering: What am I talking about when I speak of the Eucharist as a food “unknown to” us and to our parents; our grandparents; our great-grandparents; to those who have gone before us in faith? The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ‒ or how, because Christ instituted this sacrament with the simple words, “This is my body… This is my blood,” ordinary bread and wine become Christ’s own Body and Blood‒ is a mystery.

Like any mystery, we can understand only so much before the mystery defies our language and our imagination. We are reduced in awe to the same question the people of Israel under Moses once asked: “Manna”? What is it?

The Eucharist is a sacrament; the real presence of Jesus Christ in this sacrament; “the source and summit of the whole Christian life.” Jesus says in our Gospel reading: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Jesus’ words mystified the Jewish crowds who first heard him. How can this be? How can this man be more than the manna that God gave us under Moses in the desert? How can Jesus be for us “the living bread… from heaven”; God himself, given to us as food and drink “for the life of the world”; “I am”? Jesus invites us to try a new kind of food; a strange kind of food; the mystery of God himself, given to us as food and drink “for the life of the world.”

The food of which Jesus Christ invites us to partake is a strange, new kind of food indeed. I wonder: Is it strange because this food is the real presence of Christ our Lord and God in sacrament? Or is it strange primarily because, unlike every other food that becomes part of our bodies when we eat it, we become what we receive and eat in the case of the Eucharist, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ?

In a sermon on the Eucharist, St. Augustine once prayed over the people to whom he was speaking: “Be what you see; receive what you are.” In our second reading St. Paul asks us two questions about the Eucharist that are very similar to St. Augustine’s exhortation: “The cup of blessing that we bless: Is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break: Is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”

What is it? Perhaps an even better question to ask ourselves about the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is, “Who is it?” And then we might ask ourselves, as we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, in light of who the Eucharist is, the real presence of Christ, our Lord and God, “Who are we?”

How is it that we participate in this food we are invited to consume; this food “for the life of the world”? Do we keep it to ourselves or do we, as I have seen many examples in this parish, go out, filled with the real presence of Christ, to our world? Do we go out to those who hunger for enough ordinary food let alone for the Eucharist? Do we go out gently and joyfully to those who long for the real presence of God; of Christ; those who long for forgiveness; to those who long for peace and justice; those who ask of us, “What is it; who are you”? In what ways are we what we see and receive in this celebration, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ?

To our world, we are called to be a new kind of food; “the living bread”; perhaps strange or never before encountered by some; perhaps not accepted by all. And yet we are what we see and receive in this celebration: Christ to the world; Christ to those most in need of the real presence of our Lord and God in our world. Having partaken of Christ, we are this new kind of food “for the life of the world.”