Homily for Tuesday, 28 April 2015– Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 11:19-26; Psalm 87:1b-3, 4-5, 6-7; John 10:22-30

What is the importance of Antioch? Our first reading this morning, from Acts, says that “in Antioch… the disciples were first called Christians.” At this time Antioch was not in Jewish territory but, for the most part, inhabited by pagan Greeks. Acts says that the first disciples of Christ had been scattered “by the persecution” during which Stephen, the first martyr recorded in Scripture, had been killed. Almost in spite of this persecution, for the first time the Gospel message of Jesus Christ was reaching not only Jewish ears, the first to hear the Word of God, but a large center of pagan Greeks. And many people of Antioch were accepting and living this faith in Jesus as God when their lives might have been endangered by their faith.

But still, do not these events of early Christian Antioch seem remote to many of us today? Before I became a Basilian but was studying at St. Joseph’s College, a Basilian college of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, every year our student retreat was called the “Antioch Retreat.” This was a way, by name of our retreat, to unite ourselves to the witness of these first Christians of Antioch not long after Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven.

Antioch today is in Syria. Christians are a small minority there and are threatened by political unrest, by Syria’s dictatorship, and more recently by the evil of ISIS. And yet still Antioch, this ancient cradle of our faith, can seem remote to us. We face our own challenges as a nation; as a city. We awaken this morning to the destruction in Baltimore; the ravages of gang violence and racial inequity here in these United States. Many not far from us awaken to broken relationships; families; marriages.

And so how are we to remember the first or even the current Christians of faraway Antioch when we are faced with so many events; challenges closer to home? How do we remember the first people who put a name to our belief in Jesus’ promise that we hear today in John’s Gospel: “I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish”?

Families and households: I encourage you to pray together at least once a day. Pray in thanksgiving for blessings. Ask God for what you need in time of trial. Pray even in silence for a few moments. Pray together!

All of us: I encourage us to commit to non-violence by word and action; to upholding the dignity of human life, of people of every race and tongue. I encourage us to speak and act for the rights of the working poor; for migrants and refugees. I encourage us to be mindful of our duty to protect creation; the earth God has given us. Pray for those persecuted for their faith. Visit the sick and the dying if you are able.

These are a few ways in which we can make ancient Antioch somewhat less remote. We bear the name “Christian” as they did in Antioch just after Jesus’ time. Like them, then and now, we witness to Christ’s promise to all of us: “I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”

Homily for Sunday, 26 April 2015– Fourth Sunday of Easter

World Day of Vocations

Readings of the day: Acts 4:8-12; Psalm 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28, 29; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18

During this homily, the children of St. Kateri Parish were invited forward. I gave part of this homily seated in front of the sanctuary of our parish's St. Cecilia Church, with our parish's children gathered around. The children of St. Kateri School, our parish's school for students from Pre-K 3 to Grade 6, served in various ministries at the Mass during which this homily was given.

Who here has ever seen a shepherd? This is one of the difficulties we have because we live in a city. I imagine that not many of us have seen a shepherd. All the children here: Does anybody here want to be a shepherd when you grow up? Well, it doesn’t pay very well, but you get to spend lots of time outside every day. This is fine, as long as it isn’t cold or rainy. Being a shepherd isn’t a nine-to-five job. Do we remember other stories in the Bible about shepherds, like when the shepherds who found out about Jesus’ birth went to the stable in Bethlehem at night? And shepherds end up smelling like the sheep after a while. Sheep, if any of us have ever been near them, are a bit stinky to say the least! But being a shepherd is good and worthwhile because, if you heard in our Gospel reading just now, who calls himself “the Good Shepherd”?

Jesus, our God and Lord, is the Good Shepherd! And what makes Jesus not just any shepherd but the Good Shepherd? Jesus isn’t a shepherd for the money, like the “hired man” in our Gospel reading. Jesus isn’t a shepherd because he likes to spend a lot of time outside, although he was outside all the time, traveling from place to place on foot. But Jesus is the Good Shepherd because his shepherding; his service; his speaking; his teaching; his healing the sick; his looking for the lost; the sinners is always about others. It is never about him. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus is so selfless that he is prepared to “lay down [his] life” for others; for his friends; for his enemies; for us. He does “lay down [his] life” for us. Jesus died on the cross for us, to save us; to give us a chance at heaven!

Now, I don’t know about this shepherding business. I suppose I have my moments when I think of others and serve others before myself. But I am not sure I would be prepared to die for anybody; to lay down my life for anybody. What about us? Would we be able to lay down our lives for the people who are unkind to us, even repeatedly? What about people who annoy us? What about the bully at school or at work (hopefully none of us bully each other)? I might be able to lay down my life for my best friend, or for somebody I really like (like all of us here)… But, even then, I am not sure. And besides, there aren’t many chances to gain work experience as a shepherd around here. We are in a city after all. When was the last time any of us saw a real-life shepherd?

And yet in Jesus’ time, when he said “I am the Good Shepherd” and “I lay down my life” for my sheep, the people who heard Jesus would have known exactly what he meant. How is this?

In Jesus’ time, sheep pens, to keep the sheep from going too far, were quite simple. The sheep would be surrounded by a barrier of stones, maybe a foot high, in the shape of a rectangle. On one side of the rectangle, there would be an opening in the pile of stones. At night, to protect the sheep from being attacked by wild animals like wolves, the shepherd would lie down across the opening in the pile of stones. So it would have made perfect sense to the people hearing Jesus when he would say, “I am the Good Shepherd… I lay down my life.” If a wolf were to attack the sheep, it would need to attack the shepherd first. The shepherd, if he cared for his sheep, would literally lie or sit down across the opening to the sheep pen to protect the sheep with his own life. “I lay down my life” for my sheep, Jesus says. And so the people who heard Jesus would have known exactly what he meant.

[Sit on the step of the sanctuary.] To give us a better idea of what Jesus meant by saying, “I am the Good Shepherd… I lay down my life” (although there are no sheep here in the church, no piles of rocks, and hopefully no wolves), I am here, sitting on your level. But look around for a moment… What do you notice? Am I above you? No, I am on your level, but you are also on my level. To be like the “Good Shepherd”; to be like Jesus Christ in the way we love and care for each other, is not just the responsibility of us priests. We are all called to be like Christ the Good Shepherd to one another; to think of the well-being of others even before our own; to be kind to one another; not to do things that hurt one another on purpose.

We are the Good Shepherd in our world, to one another. Put another way, we are Christ to one another, each and every one of us. About five hundred years ago, a Carmelite nun in Spain, St. Teresa of Ávila, spoke about each of us as the hands and feet of Christ; the presence of Christ in our world:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

with compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

We are, here and now, the body; the eyes and ears; the hands and feet of Christ in our world; the hands and feet of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for us because he loves us and cares for us. Here and now, we are sitting on one another’s level. Here and now, we are, in the words of our second reading from the First Letter of John, “the children of God.” We are God’s presence; Jesus to each other.

How can we be Jesus, the Good Shepherd, “children of God” to each other? How can we be the body; the eyes and ears; the hands and feet of Christ to one another? We do not need to work a great miracle as Peter does in our first reading, from Acts, healing the crippled person. But we can speak kind words to others. We can try to get along with one another, especially people who think differently than we do; with whom we disagree or people who annoy us. We can give to the poor or spend time with somebody who is sick or sad, to console this person. We can spend time together as families; eat a meal together and pray together every day.

There are many ways that I haven’t mentioned in which we can be Christ to each other. We can keep the wolves out of the sheep pen by lying across its entrance (figuratively) like the Good Shepherd, Jesus. What are the wolves who attack the sheep? Meanness and bullying; gossip; saying things that are not true to hurt another person… How do we stop these “wolves” from attacking? We look out for one another. We show at least one person every day that we care for this person by doing something on purpose that is kind and loving toward her or him. We work to build a parish; a school; communities; a city; a country; a world where nobody is in need of basic necessities to survive and thrive.

This is how we all become like the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who lays down his life for us; who lies across the entrance to the sheep pen to protect his sheep. This is how we place ourselves on the same level as one another; lead each other by care and kindness. This is how we are “children of God”; the body; the eyes and ears; the hands and feet of Christ to one another.

Homily for Friday, 24 April 2015– Friday of the Third Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 9:1-20; Psalm 117:1bc-2; John 6:52-59

Does the conversion of St. Paul, of which we hear today in the Acts of the Apostles, bring an awesome image to our minds? It does to mine. Saul, on his way to Damascus to bind any Christians there and to “bring them back to Jerusalem in chains,” sees a flash of light and is knocked to the ground. Ananias, at first reluctantly but convinced by the same Jesus who had flashed before Saul, takes Saul into Damascus to regain his sight.

I think of the painting above the sanctuary of St. Paul’s Basilica in Toronto, across the street from where I lived while I was in seminary there. It is a fantastic image of Saul being knocked from his horse on the road to Damascus. Underneath is the Latin inscription of Jesus’ words: “Saule, Saule, quid me persequeris”‒ “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me”? It is a fantastic image... except there is no horse from which Saul falls in the Biblical account. This is where I need to be converted from over-attention to literal detail and perhaps use my imagination a bit more freely!

This is a fantastic image above the sanctuary of St. Paul’s Basilica, except that at a particular point it becomes unrealistic to me. How? And does the story of Saul’s conversion have limited realism for us? How many of us have thought: This is great that Saul was converted on the spot into the great Apostle Paul; a defender of the early Church and writer with the same vigor with which he once persecuted it? This is not my experience. Conversion, in my experience, takes much longer; perhaps a lifetime.

We will hear from Acts as we continue our Easter season that conversion was not a one-time event for Paul, either. It was a lifelong process of becoming aware of Christ’s presence, as it is a lifelong process for us. But St. Paul’s conversion began with Christ’s appearance on the road to Damascus.

When did our process of conversion begin? Perhaps it was our birth; our baptism. Conversion, for us, is usually more subtle than being knocked down on a roadside by Christ himself! This subtle, everyday process of conversion; of becoming ever-more aware of Christ’s presence in our lives: When did this begin for us?

In an awesome way, we are aware of the presence of Christ in our lives here and now. I say this because we are here; we are partakers in this Eucharist. Christ, who became one of us, died, is risen, and ascended into heaven as fully human, is present under bread and wine in this celebration! Conversion: Is this not real to us, here and now? If it were not, I do not think that any of us would be here.

Conversion: Is it not as real to us as when Jesus first said (and we hear in John’s Gospel), “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day”? These words were startling to those who first heard them. Now our conversion; our ever-increasing awareness of Christ’s presence among us, is much more subtle. But our ongoing conversion is every bit as real and awesome as when it began.

Homily for Wednesday, 22 April 2015– Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 8:1b-8; Psalm 66:1-3a, 4-5, 6-7a; John 6:35-40

Has anybody ever experienced somebody who is joyful, even when this person is experiencing great suffering or distress?

Ever since my first time serving as a Basilian in Cali, Colombia, seven years ago, the Easter season has brought to my mind many experiences there of people who showed great joy amid the suffering and distress of deep poverty. My first Palm Sunday in Colombia was especially moving. We Basilians were carrying bundles of palm branches we had cut through the poorest neighborhood of the parish we serve in Cali. Along the way, children left their shelters (often made of scrap metal or even cardboard) three; four; five; six at a time to embrace us and greet us with bright smiles. These children showed so much joy and gratitude for the service of the Basilians in their neighbourhood; their parish. This remains one of my most moving moments of my life as a Basilian: Great joy amid such great distress; suffering; poverty!

I see similar joy amid suffering and distress when I minister with the poor in our own inner city of Rochester: House of Mercy, Bethany House with the Sisters of St. Joseph… On Easter Sunday at Sanctuary Village, a tent city relocated to a loading dock, over one hundred fifty people, most homeless, joined us in worship with lively song to greet our risen Lord. How beautiful, this joy amid homelessness; poverty; hunger! I also see this joy amid suffering when I visit the sick in hospitals and homes; when I anoint the sick with blessed oil.

This joy amid suffering; distress; persecution is the experience of the people in our first reading today, from the Acts of the Apostles. The persecution led by Saul (who would later be converted and become the great St. Paul) had “scattered” all but the Apostles “throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.” Facing persecution, the Apostles do not give up their ministry. We hear in Acts especially of the ministry of the Apostle Philip: Preaching, healing the sick and those with “unclean spirits.” And we hear of how the people responded to Philip’s ministry in Samaria: “There was great joy in that city.”

The people of Samaria recognized the presence of Christ risen in the Apostles, even amid great suffering; distress; persecution. They recognized and hoped in the presence of the Lord who says in John’s Gospel to us today: “I am the bread of life… This is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” They recognized and hoped in the signs of eternal life that were already with them in the Apostles’ loving service. Our Psalm response today was the song of these people, even amid their suffering: “Let all the earth cry out to God with joy”!

And the risen Christ invites us to make this song our own, by serving especially amid those who suffer; who are sick; dying; homeless; displaced; persecuted. Many of us know already, I am confident, how, when we serve with joy, we receive joy, even from people who suffer; people in distress; people whose only gift (but what a gift!) to us is joy.