Homily for Tuesday, 14 October 2014– Ferial

Tuesday of the 28th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Galatians 5:1-6; Psalm 119:41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48; Luke 11:37-41

Is anybody here confused as to the seemingly inconsistent attitudes to the law (specifically Jewish Law or the Law of Moses) in our readings today?

Our Responsorial Psalm is drawn from Psalm 119, a magnificent song of praise for God’s Law given to the Jewish people and also handed on to us Christians. “I will keep your law continually,” we hear, “I will lift up my hands to your commands and meditate on your statutes.”

St. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, and Jesus, in Luke’s Gospel, are less admiring of the Law. “If you have yourselves circumcised,” St. Paul says, “Christ will be of no benefit to you.” Jesus criticizes the Pharisee at dinner with him for “observing the prescribed washing before the meal” and other legal rituals but not living by the spirit of the Law. “Inside you are filled with plunder and evil,” Jesus says to the Pharisee. I can imagine that Jesus’ evening at the Pharisee’s house did not last much longer after Jesus’ harsh words.

Why, though, do we hear this apparent inconsistency between our Psalm on one hand and our first reading and Gospel reading on the other?

I invite us to be cautious not to read into Galatians or Luke’s Gospel that St. Paul or Jesus considered the Jewish law, the Law of Moses, to be no longer important in light of Jesus Christ; that the teaching of Jesus and Apostles like St. Paul had taken over the significance of the now-abolished Jewish law. Neither Jesus nor St. Paul say that the Jewish Law is insignificant or has been superseded by Jesus’ own teaching. After all, both Jesus and St. Paul were Jews, obedient to the spirit of the Law of Moses.

The Law, whether the Law of Moses or the laws and rituals of our own Catholic Church, are to be respected and obeyed insofar as they lead us closer to God; insofar as they free us for love of one another and for God. This is the kind of obedience for the Law reflected today in the words of St. Paul, of our Psalm, and of Jesus alike.

For St. Paul, circumcision versus non-circumcision is a non-issue; this is a controversy manufactured by the Galatians whom he corrects. For Jesus, the ritual washing of vessels or not in and of itself is unimportant. Both St. Paul and Jesus ask the question: How do our legal and ritual observances lead us to God; lead us to act in a God-like manner, or not? If not, both circumcision and non-circumcision become empty gestures. On the one hand, is it not possible to wash the vessels ritually but “inside” one’s heart be “filled with plunder and evil”? Is it not possible to follow laws to the letter and yet be ungodly; lacking in love?

If we observe laws, religious or otherwise, in a Godly, loving spirit, then by all means let us join in the praise of the Psalmist for God and God’s Law: “I will keep your law continually… lift up my hands to your commands and meditate on your statutes.”

Homily for Sunday, 12 October 2014

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 25:6-10a; Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14

What is so important about clothing: What we wear and how we wear it? Can our clothing not show something about who we are or what we do for a living?

I have been asked a few times by children, including once this week at St. Kateri School, about when priests wear clericals, black pants and shirt with a white Roman collar. A few days after I was ordained a priest, I spoke to students at the high school from which I graduated near Edmonton. The students there were asked to prepare two questions each for me to answer when I spoke in their classrooms. Again, some of the most frequently-asked questions were about when, where, and why I wore blacks and a Roman collar. One student asked, “Father, do you always have to wear priest clothes”?

No, I answered. I do not always have to wear “priest clothes.” I wear clericals when I serve in public as a priest: At Mass or other worship celebration, visiting our school, presenting or speaking as a priest, meeting other priests or the bishop, hearing confessions, making hospital or home visits to the sick, and so on… But I usually do not wear clericals if I am relaxing at home, on vacation, or on a day off. Are there any students here who wear a uniform at school? Is there anybody here who wears a uniform at work? A black shirt with a Roman collar is like my uniform. It shows who I am when I am serving in public as a priest.

And yet when and when not to wear our priestly “uniform” can be unclear, as one of my brother Basilians who teaches in one of our high schools found out the hard way this week. He was on his day off, and so not in his black shirt and Roman collar. He went to run a quick errand at the school where he teaches. As he was leaving the school, he greeted one of his students, who was slow in returning his greeting. When the student finally realized who was greeting her, she exclaimed, “Oh, sorry Father, I didn’t recognize you without your clothes!”

Lightheartedness aside, this is a similar plight to that of the man in today’s Gospel reading. We hear that this man is ordered out of the king’s wedding feast for not wearing the wedding garment given him by the king. “Many are invited but few are chosen,” Jesus’ parable ends. This man is unrecognizable without his clothes, and so cannot remain at the king’s feast.

Might we feel that Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast is a bit harsh? And yet clothing, how and what we wear and when we wear particular kinds of clothing, matters. In the case of the man who is expelled from the king’s wedding feast, we are asked to understand today’s Gospel parable in the social context of Jesus’ first hearers. In Jesus’ time, if somebody were to be invited to a wedding banquet of a rich person, like a king, this person would be given a wedding garment to wear at the feast. Not to wear it would be a great insult to the host! Add to this that, in today’s parable, many had been invited but had “ignored” the invitation to the king’s wedding banquet. One had gone back “to his farm, another to his business.” Others had mistreated and even killed the king’s servants who had been sent to deliver the invitation to the feast. And so more servants are sent, “into the main roads” with more invitations to the feast. A man attends the feast, but without his wedding garment provided to him by the king. He is unrecognizable without his clothes.

This harsh-sounding parable, then, is actually a parable about God’s generosity. God, represented by the king in the parable, has sent servants out “into the main roads”; out to the highways and byways; out to the poor; out to sinners like you and me, with invitations to the feast. Do we accept God’s exceedingly generous invitation to the wedding feast?

For us, the king’s wedding feast has been prepared. This feast is eternal life; the salvation to which we are all invited by God. If we do accept God’s invitation, will we show up for the wedding feast wearing the appropriate clothing for the occasion? Will we clothe ourselves in a way that shows others who we are while also reflecting God’s generosity to our world by the way we live? Will we wear the garment given us by God, our king, out of generosity; a garment we do not deserve but nevertheless a garment of salvation? At the king’s wedding feast, will we be recognizable in our clothes?

When I speak of clothing, I am aware that I am discussing a controversial topic for some of us. Have we not heard the term “Sunday best?” Most if not all of us, I am sure, share a desire that everyone dress reverently for a celebration such as the Mass. After all, our Eucharist is an image; a sacrament of the eternal wedding feast of heaven. But, within reason, one person’s definition of reverence may differ from that of another. We balance reverence for Mass with dressing for the weather. Some of us are wealthier than others, and so can afford fancier clothing than others…

All this is a caution against judging what is in others’ hearts, even reverence or lack thereof for God and God’s house, merely by the way they dress. Appropriate attire is important, but is it not even more important for us to wear the festive clothing that is not visible to our eyes but is recognizable nonetheless: The clothing of kindness; of compassion; of generosity that reflects God’s kindness; compassion; generosity to the world? Do we wear the clothing that invites others to join the king’s wedding feast; that invites our brothers and sisters to think and say: “Here is a Christian; a person of God: kind, compassionate, generous”? Some may even say, “I want to be one of them”; one of us! Visibly but also invisibly, are we recognizable in our clothes; the clothing of God’s wedding feast?

Outside of our Eucharistic celebration and also within it, we are given signs; sacraments of the wedding garment to put on; to be seen for who we are: Christians; a people of a generous God. [Today we will celebrate a baptism after Mass.] At baptism, we wear a baptismal garment that we pray will one day be brought “unstained into the kingdom of heaven.” Our servers and I wear an alb, which reminds us of our baptismal garment. Brides at weddings usually wear a white dress, not so much a sign of purity or virginity as, again, a reminder of baptism and the wedding feast of heaven. The pall over a casket at funerals also hearkens back to baptism and forward to eternal life. Over a priest’s alb and stole at Mass is the colorful chasuble, once again a reminder of the wedding garment to be given us by the king, God, when we enter the eternal feast of heaven.

We have all been called, in the prophet Isaiah’s words, to a feast of rich food and choice wines”; the feast of “the LORD of hosts”; the eternal wedding feast of heaven; a feast, in St. Paul’s words to the Philippians, of God’s “glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” We have been called; invited. Will we be chosen? The king, God, has provided us all with the garment for the wedding feast; a garment with visible; sacramental signs, but also a garment of kindness; compassion; generosity; a garment that shows to our world who we are and who God is. When we enter this wedding feast, God only asks that we be recognizable in our clothes.

Homily for Thursday, 9 October 2014– Ferial

Thursday of the 27th week in Ordinary Time 

Optional Memorials of St. Denis and Companions and St. John Leonardi

Readings of the day: Galatians 3:1-5; Responsorial Canticle: Luke 1:69-70, 71-72, 73-75; Luke 11:5-13

Both Jesus, in Luke’s Gospel, and St. Paul, in his Letter to the Galatians, ask us questions centered on the Holy Spirit. Jesus points to the goodness and generosity of God by asking, “If you… know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him”? In his harsh-sounding correction of the Galatians, who had been deceived into thinking that adherence to religious law would earn them salvation, St. Paul asks, “Does… the one who supplies the Spirit to you and works mighty deeds among you do so from works of the law or from faith in what you heard?”

Perhaps it is easiest to find a connection between these questions; between our difficult-to-understand first reading and Gospel reading today, by interpreting them through the lens of our canticle response. We pray in this response, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people.”

We do not pray as if we are still waiting for God to come to his people. God has already come to us through the rich history of the people of Israel in the Old Testament; through kings, prophets, and sages; in God’s own Son, Jesus Christ, who lived as one like us in all but sin and died and rose again that we might be saved. Now, God continues to be present to us in the Holy Spirit, who lives and works in and through us. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people.” Blessed be God who continues to come to his people; to us.

This, I believe, is at the heart of Paul’s message to the Galatians and Jesus’ message in Luke’s Gospel: Look to God; trust in God for all that we need, and ultimately for our salvation. Is not God generous, even more so than a parent who gives everything to her or his child to thrive? Is it not God who saves us; who “supplies the Spirit to us”?

The law, even religious law (today we may liken this to the teaching of the Church or Canon Law, the law of our Church), is important insofar as it points us to God, but no law alone saves. God saves. God is good and generous, more than any human being except Jesus has ever been or could ever be. God gives us his own Holy Spirit to enable us to act as God would act. God’s gift of the Holy Spirit makes possible our works of goodness and generosity toward one another.

Indeed, our having received the Holy Spirit makes good works; Godly works an expectation of us as people of God; as Christians. St. Paul and Jesus himself invite us not to settle for anything less; not even observance of law for the law’s own sake. Trust in God who is with us; who saves us. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people.”

Homily for Wednesday, 8 October 2014– Ferial

Wednesday of the 27th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14; Psalm 117:1bc, 2; Luke 11:1-4

We hear at some length from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians today how St. Paul began his ministry as an Apostle of Christ. First, he preached to Gentiles, but only “to those of repute.” When he had gained the confidence of “James and Cephas” (Peter) “and John,” the three most trusted of Jesus’ first Apostles, St. Paul expanded his ministry to non-Jews. But what is at the core of St. Paul’s message for his own time and for us? Who is to be the main focus of our bringing Christ into our world; the same people as were the main focus for St. Paul in his time?

The question in Paul’s letter to the Galatians of how readily the Christian faith should be handed on to the Gentiles is secondary. St. Paul identifies the primary focus of his ministry when he says, “Only, we were to be mindful of the poor, which is the very thing I was eager to do.” Is this not also a beautiful, if challenging, invitation to us, too: “Be mindful of the poor”? Again I say that we do not need to look far to find the poor; the homeless; the unemployed. And right here among us are our sisters and brothers who have lost loved ones. Do we perhaps know people; families who are estranged from the Church; estranged within themselves? These are our poor today. These are the people to whom St. Paul invites us to reach out and with whom to identify; to empathize.

This week, I read an article in the British newspaper The Guardian on the immediate reaction of Pope Francis to his election as pope. As the two-thirds majority of votes to become pope was surpassed, Cardinal Claudio Hummes of Brazil embraced then-Cardinal Bergoglio (who took the name Francis) and said to him, “Don’t forget about the poor.”

At my ordination to the priesthood in May, I was greeted by Fr. Frank Amico, my Basilian superior from Cali, Colombia where I taught on two occasions while I was a seminarian. Fr. Amico said to me, “Remember the poor.” It is a message that I have taken to heart.

“Only, we were to be mindful of the poor,” St. Paul says to the Galatians. To all the baptized in Christ; to every one of us; to priests; to the pope, this invitation; this challenge still rings out in our time: “Be mindful of the poor… Don’t forget about the poor… Remember the poor.”

The poor are to be the focus of our service; our ministry as Christians, the people we are asked to be most eager to serve; to lift up; to welcome as sisters and brothers in Christ. How might we take up the invitation; the challenge of St. Paul; of Cardinal Hummes; of Pope Francis; of my brother Basilian, Fr. Frank Amico? They all echo this message, from the Letter to the Galatians to our own time: “Only, we were to be mindful of the poor, which is the very thing I was eager to do.”

Homily for Tuesday, 7 October 2014– Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary

Tuesday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Galatians 1:13-24; Psalm 139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 14c-15; Luke 10:38-42

Why, in the Gospel reading we hear today from Luke, does Jesus say that Mary, not Martha, “has chosen the better part”? Does Jesus not appreciate the active service modeled by Martha? How many of us would be tempted to jump to Martha’s defense in this situation? I do not believe that Jesus means here that inactivity is valued over service and hospitality. And yet his saying that “Mary has chosen the better part” is a question of attentiveness.

Is it not possible to serve and to be hospitable attentively? Is it not also possible to be merely idle; to hear another speak without listening attentively?

The problem in our Gospel reading today is not that Martha is serving and Mary is sitting idle. No, we hear from Luke that Martha is “burdened with much serving… anxious and worried about many things.” Martha’s hospitality is inattentive to the person, prioritizing the work instead of the person whom she is serving, Jesus Christ. And so her service becomes a burden to her instead of a joy. Mary, meanwhile, is not just a passive spectator but an active and attentive listener to the Word of God.

Whose example describes our lives, Mary’s or Martha’s? Are we attentive to the presence of Christ; of God in our lives like Mary, or does our well-meaning service sometimes leave us “burdened… anxious and worried”?

I wish I were more like Mary than like Martha more often than the other way around. I think there is a possibly dangerous myth inherent in the lifestyles of affluent, technologically-advanced countries: Multi-tasking. Not primarily the Church but scientific research says that multi-tasking is a myth. I know I especially cannot multi-task at 6:30 in the morning! The myth of multi-tasking, I observe, leaves many people (perhaps some of us) like Martha: Well-meaning, willing to serve, even productive, but too often “burdened… anxious and worried.”

In liturgies of the Eastern Catholic Churches (I have encountered this in the Ukrainian Divine Liturgy), we hear a beautiful announcement before the Gospel is proclaimed: “Wisdom, be attentive.” Through Luke’s story of Martha and Mary Jesus is inviting us similarly to attentiveness. But in the case of Martha and Mary the Word of God is not text on a page but present in human flesh.

Where is Jesus Christ present in our lives, inviting us: “Wisdom, be attentive”? Jesus’ invitation to attentiveness may be through work; through our acts of service. It may be through our prayer: We honor especially today Our Lady of the Rosary and the beautiful form of prayer this feast celebrates. It may be through our Eucharist; worship as a community. In many ways Jesus invites us, as he invited Martha like Mary to “be attentive”; to choose “the better part.”