Homily for Thursday, 11 June 2015‒ Memorial of St. Barnabas

Thursday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Acts 11:21b-26, 13:1-3; Psalm 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6; Matthew 5:20-26

Who was St. Barnabas, whose feast we celebrate today? What made St. Barnabas the apostle, the effective teacher of our faith, and the trusted partner to St. Paul that he was?

Our Scriptures give us little information about St. Barnabas, but is the short description we hear in Acts, in our first reading today, of Barnabas not key to understanding something about who Barnabas was? St. Barnabas is described as “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.”

Because St. Barnabas was “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith,” the people he served, first in Antioch, gained confidence in him and his teaching. For the same reason, St. Barnabas was able to find Saul (later St. Paul) in Tarsus and bring him to Antioch to serve with him there. Because Barnabas was “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith,” he was able to surround himself with an important cast of “prophets and teachers” to help him to evangelize and encourage the people in Antioch. For St. Barnabas, his work was not about him, but about Christ and his Gospel.

Can we not imagine St. Barnabas as a person who took to heart and practiced Jesus’ message of reconciliation of which we hear in today’s Gospel reading, from Matthew? If Barnabas ever became angry (we can imagine that he did), can we not imagine him seeking reconciliation with the people with whom he was angry? Jesus does not say in Matthew’s Gospel that anger itself is sinful. But if we put up barriers to reconciliation; if our anger leads to gossip; to labeling and demeaning those with whom we are angry, this Jesus says is sinful. Figuratively (and with some exaggeration for effect), this deliberate failure to seek reconciliation is what Jesus considers to be like murder.

But I imagine saints like Barnabas as examples of reconciliation; of patience; of kindness to their early Christian communities. Barnabas was “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.” This is what made St. Barnabas an authentic Apostle of Christ in whom the people he served trusted.

To what extent is the same true of us? To what extent are we “good [people], filled with the Holy Spirit and faith”? We do not celebrate St. Barnabas and the many saints like him because they are unattainable ideals of what the lives of Christians could or should be. No, we celebrate St. Barnabas because, with God’s grace, we are all invited to be like him: “Good” and “filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.” We are all called to holiness; to show this holiness to the world by the way we live, in small ways, minute-by-minute; day-by-day. And we are called to seek mercy; reconciliation with God and one another for when we fail to meet this divine calling.

We can be (and many of us are) just like St. Barnabas in this way. Not all of us are apostles like St. Barnabas or great teachers, or prophets. Yet to the extent we live by kindness; forgiveness; reconciliation; patience; joy, the world will take notice. And our God will certainly recognize us as authentic people of Christ; people who are “good” and “filled with the Holy Spirit and with faith.”

Homily for Tuesday, 9 June 2015– Ferial

Tuesday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22;  Psalm 119:129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135; Matthew 5:13-16

When was the last time you said “yes” to God? I invite us to look around for a moment. Look at all of us who are here. Our first act of the morning is to be here to celebrate Christ present among us in our Eucharist. This is a resounding “yes” to God!

Some of us might ask: What about any ills of mind, body, or spirit that we bring to this celebration? What about our sins, when in St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians we have said at best “‘yes’ and ‘no’” to our God who always says “yes” to us? Once again, I say, we are here, with all our ills, our distress, our poverty of spirit if not material poverty, our distractions, our inability to focus at prayer… We are here; we have brought to this celebration all this: Our many times of saying “yes” to God through our worship, our actions of love and kindness, and our service to people in need in countless ways. And we bring our instances of saying “no” or “yes and no” to God; to one another. Nevertheless we are here.

And the more instances we bring here to this celebration of having said “yes and no”; of being in need of God’s forgiveness and healing make our “yes” by being here all the greater! We begin our Eucharistic celebration by asking for God’s mercy: “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy,” not because of the weight of our sins; our having said “yes and no” to God or (although I believe this is rare) “no” outright to God. We pray for God’s mercy because of our confidence in God’s “yes” to us. And in this prayer for mercy just as we gather before the Word of God; before the Lord’s Table, our “yes” to God receives and embraces God’s “yes” to us. And then we receive and embrace God’s ultimate “yes” to us, God’s Son Jesus Christ truly and fully present in our Eucharist; in our communion of faith with one another. The Christ we receive and embrace here then gives us the strength to be Christ to our world. “Yes,” over and over again, to God and to one another: How wonderful!

May we never despair of God’s mercy; God’s constant “yes” to us, in our Eucharist and in all the sacraments of the Church. Our “yes” back to God; our partaking in the life and sacraments of our Church takes much courage. Yet I cannot count the ways in which we, people of St. Kateri, say “yes” to God by the way we live. God is here with mercy through the Church when our “yes” is imperfect; when our “yes” needs the added strength of God. But we have already made the utmost act of courage just by being here, many of us daily. We hear the Word of God proclaimed here; the homily given. But we are, perhaps as importantly, the best homily ever given; the Word of God proclaimed among one another and in our world with conviction; with courage by the way we live: With deliberate if small acts of kindness, with joy, with patience, with gentleness, with mercy…

“Yes” to God who is always “yes” to us.

Homily for Monday, 8 June 2015– Ferial

Monday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 1:1-7;  Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Matthew 5:1-12

Have you ever had the need to correct another person, or to speak out or write against a cultural tendency that is wrong or even sinful? If you have ever had to correct; criticize; confront another or a society’s ills, how often do we try to praise the person or society for right actions and tendencies before we offer our criticism?

I imagine St. Paul doing this at the beginning of his Second Letter to the Corinthians, which we hear today as our first reading. 2 Corinthians is often called St. Paul’s “angry letter” or is thought to be the “tearful letter” of which St. Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians. No early Christian community gave St. Paul as much trouble; tried his patience as much as the church of Corinth, in what is now Greece.

What made Corinth so troublesome to St. Paul? Corinth was ideally situated on the Mediterranean; a city with two ports. Because of this Corinth became very wealthy in a short time, at about the same time St. Paul brought the Christian faith there. Many Corinthians thought their city; their culture to be superior, even invincible. Who was this Jesus whom St. Paul preached to challenge their ways of living? Many in Corinth in Paul’s time were smug and involved in all kinds of immorality because their wealth could buy it or buy their way out of trouble.

But today we do not hear St. Paul criticize these Corinthians. Instead, he begins his Second Letter to the Corinthians with a lengthy encouragement of those trying to keep the faith in Jesus Christ that Paul has taught them. St. Paul especially encourages “those who are in any affliction.” He identifies; empathizes with their affliction and also having been encouraged in his moments of affliction; suffering.

What were the sources of “affliction” of the Corinthians whom St. Paul encourages in these first words of his letter to them? Were they external pressures: The threat of persecution under the Roman Empire or anybody opposed to the Christian faith, perhaps? The causes of suffering for faithful Corinthian Christians could also have been internal pressures to conform to the prevailing culture. They could have been pressures toward hoarding of wealth; toward excessive pleasures; toward disregard for the dignity of the human body more than toward faithfulness to Christ and his Gospel.

What are sources of “affliction” in our world; our country; our families today? Who is most in need of our “encouragement”? Could these people often be the same people in need of our firm challenge, even occasional criticism?

Drawing upon St. Paul, could our words of correction; criticism; our “angry” or “tearful letters” and words not more often be preceded by encouragement? To our children and grandchildren who no longer attend Mass: What is drawing them away from regular worship? Do they need criticism, or do they first need somebody from among us to hear them; to encourage them in ways they are living rightly? What are underlying afflictions of those who abuse their bodies with alcohol; drugs; sex? What about the poor among us?

St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians today invite us to be mindful of people who need our encouragement amid their afflictions that we may not even see.

Homily for Saturday, 6 June 2015– Ferial

Saturday of the 9th week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial: Our Lady's Saturday

Readings of the day: Tobit 12:1, 12-15, 20;  Responsorial Canticle: Tobit 13:2, 6efgh, 7, 8; Mark 12:38-44

Have you ever been helped or served by somebody and only after the fact found out who acted toward you with kindness? Have you ever done a hidden act of kindness for another person?

To act with kindness toward somebody without revealing to this person (at least not immediately) that you have done something kind toward her or him is difficult. I am not speaking primarily of those who boast to another that they have acted with kindness, as if to say, “Look at me! I was a great help to another person!”

Jesus cautions us in our Gospel reading against this kind of boasting. He condemns “the scribes who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets”; who “devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers.” Short of boasting of our kindness and seeking “greetings” and “places of honor,” are not the best acts of kindness those that are hidden? This is not to say that to keep our acts of kindness hidden is easy!

But our readings today give us examples of works of kindness in which the identity of the person acting with kindness is hidden, or at least not recognized at first. Today we near the end of the Old Testament story of Tobit and his family. Tobit’s son, Tobias, is happily married to Sarah. The angel Raphael, in disguise as a man, Azariah, sets up this wedding of Tobias and Sarah by accompanying Tobias to the home of Sarah’s parents Raguel and Edna to ask them to marry Sarah.

But Raphael does not take credit for his gift of company; friendship; even some instances of healing from illness on the journey. Until late in today’s reading; late in the Book of Tobit, Raphael does not even reveal who he is. Instead, when Tobias pays Raphael a handsome “bonus” for traveling with him, Raphael asks Tobias to thank not him but God. “Give [God] the praise and the glory. Before all the living, acknowledge the many good things [God] has done for you.”

And are not most if not all of us familiar with Jesus’ observation of the people contributing to “the temple treasury”? The “many rich people” who “put in large sums” to the temple treasury are not doing anything wrong. Yet, Jesus says, the “poor widow” who puts “in two small coins” makes the greatest contribution of all, because her contribution is hidden.

It is hidden beneath the large sums contributed by the rich who are able to give more. The widow’s contribution is hidden beneath even her poverty. “Poor” is not her true identity; “blessed by God” is. Her true identity is hidden beneath many layers: Her poverty; the wealth of the “many rich people”; cultural and religious expectations of both social classes.

Likewise, for us to be seen doing acts of kindness is not wrong. Sometimes to keep our kindness entirely hidden is difficult if impossible. So what does God ask of us? At least (after the example today of Raphael), give thanks to God for the opportunities we have to act kindly. And, if we have the opportunity to act kindly toward somebody in a hidden way, take this opportunity.

Homily for Friday, 5 June 2015‒ Memorial of St. Boniface

Friday of the 9th Week in Ordinary Time

St. Kateri School Mass

Readings of the day (alternate readings for Mass with children): 1 John 3:1, 23; Psalm 34; John 15:12-15

Is anybody here a bit sad that this is the last St. Kateri School Mass of the year? I am, just a bit, because I love being with you, our St. Kateri children; parents; teachers; staff… I’ll miss you when you’re not at school every day; when I’m not at the front door of our school to greet you almost every day!

But then how many of you love summer? What are some of the things you love most about summer?

Our readings today speak to us about love. What is love? First, who loves us so much that he calls us his own children? God loves us so much “that he lets us be called his children, as we truly are.” This is what we hear in our first reading today, from the first letter of John. Isn’t it pretty amazing that God loves us as our parents love you, their children, only more?

God could just sit up in heaven, all-powerful, and say, “I made the earth; the universe; all things and living beings in it. There you go; you’re on your own”! But God doesn’t do this. Why? God wants to be part of our lives; to be the very center of our lives because God loves us. And what did God do for us; whom did God send us to show God’s love for us? God has sent us his own Son, Jesus Christ, who lived among us and gave his life for us on a Cross and then rose again so that we could always be with the God who loves us, now and in heaven.

But there is one thing that God, who loves us more than we can even imagine, asks of us. What does God ask of us? God asks that we love one another, not only when we want to, or when the people we are asked to love are nice to us, but all the time. “God wants us to have faith in his Son Jesus Christ”; to believe that Jesus is God (and also human, like us) and loves us, “and to love one another. This is also what Jesus taught us to do,” we hear today from the first letter of John.

Is it easy to love each other? Is it easy to love, especially when others are unkind to us or irritate us? Love is often not easy. And Jesus doesn’t pretend that it is when he asks us to love one another as he loves us, as “friends,” in today’s Gospel reading.

Does anybody here remember what Jesus says in our Gospel reading is “the greatest way to show love for friends”? Jesus says, “the greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them.” This is not only difficult, but isn’t the thought of dying for somebody, even somebody good, a bit scary? This is scary to me! We know that Jesus died for us but, well, he’s God. Are we supposed to show our love exactly as Jesus says, by dying for one another? Well, yes and no.

I don’t think that Jesus means that, if we don’t literally give up our life for another person, we don’t love enough. But we can give up ourselves, our selfishness, in many little ways and so show that we love one another. We can be kind and patient with each other even when we don’t feel like it, when we’re tired, or have had a bad day. We can smile. One of the beautiful ways we show we love and care for one another we do every day here at St. Kateri. What is this way in which we show love for one another as friends? I think it’s when we hold the door open for the next person who is entering our school after us. Even if we want to run ahead, Sr. Kay sometimes reminds us, out of love and care for each other we look back to see if anybody is entering the school after us. And we hold the door for her or him. Imagine this as our practice for heaven. Only, when we get to heaven, we don’t know who will be following after us. Still, look back and hold the door open. As small an action as this is, it shows love. It is “giving up” of ourselves for another person, as Jesus asks us. And more people will get into heaven the more we love; the more we hold doors open.

I have one more story. It’s about St. Boniface, whose special day the Church celebrates today. St. Boniface lived hundreds of years ago in what is now Germany. Boniface showed love for the people among whom he lived, usually in small ways. Boniface was made a bishop of an area on the edge of what was then the Roman Empire; an area with very few people who believed in Jesus. So Boniface tried to convince the people there to believe that Jesus is God. There was a tree in his town that the people believed was protected by their god, Thor (the big strong god with the hammer!). If Boniface cut down the tree and built a church out of its wood and Thor didn’t kill him, the people said, they would believe Boniface that Jesus is God. So Boniface cut down the tree and built a church from its wood. Boniface survived, so the people believed him: Jesus is really God! And the people believed Boniface even more because he showed them the love of Jesus; of God by his patience; his service to them until he died to protect their town.

“Now I tell you to love one another,” Jesus says. This is Jesus’ example. This was the example of St. Boniface. This, children of God (“as we truly are,” says the first letter of John), is our example: If only in little ways; if only in holding doors open, love one another as God; as Jesus loves us.

Homily for Thursday, 4 June 2015– Ferial

Thursday of the 9th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Tobit 6:10-11, 7:1bcde,  9-17, 8:4-9a; Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5; Mark 12:28-34

If you were able to pray for anything you could imagine, for what would you pray?

Our Gospel reading today, from Mark, centers on the most important of Jewish prayers. It is called “Shema” in Hebrew for its first words, “Shema Yisrael”: Hear, O Israel, the LORD is God and the LORD is one. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” To this commandment to love God with our entire being Jesus joins the commandment, also from the Jewish Law, to love our neighbor, one another, with our entire being, too.

We can understand these commandments, as Jesus recites them to the scribe, just as they are, as commandments. But they are also a prayer. Jesus invites the scribe, who is already “not far from the Kingdom of God,” to deepen his ownership of this prayer, the Shema, for himself. Love God and neighbor with your entire being. To pray this will help us better to practice it. Hear, O Israel, the LORD is God and the LORD is one. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength… Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Our first reading, from Tobit, is actually a collection of several prayers. The angel Raphael leads Tobiah to the home of Raguel. There, Tobiah asks to marry Raguel’s daughter Sarah. Our reading gives us some prior background to Tobiah’s request to marry Sarah. Raguel’s daughter Sarah has been married seven previous times and, each time, her husband has died on the night of the wedding. And so we can understand if Raguel, not to mention Raguel’s wife, Edna, Sarah and, perhaps most of all, Tobias, were afraid of the same happening to Tobias!

And so how do Raguel, Edna, Sarah, and Tobias overcome their fear? They pray. After giving Tobiah the macabre history of Sarah’s seven previous husbands, he prays for Tobiah and Sarah: “She is yours today and ever after. And tonight, son, may the Lord of heaven prosper you both. May he grant you mercy and peace.” Edna prays over Sarah, “May the Lord grant you joy in place of your grief.”

And then we hear the most  magnificent prayer of all in our first reading: The prayer of Tobiah and Sarah for each other. They acknowledge God’s will in creation for woman and man; for marriage, that they be each other’s “love and support.” “Call down your mercy on me and on her, and allow us to live together to a happy old age.”

Tobiah and Sarah, Raguel, and Edna could have prayed for anybody; for anything, and they choose to pray for a happy marriage for Tobiah and Sarah, one that pleases God and is based on love of one another. This strange reading is also meaningful to me because part of it, the prayer of Tobiah and Sarah we hear, was the first reading chosen by my sister Deanna and brother-in-law Tyler for their wedding.

The scribe in Mark’s Gospel, too, could have prayed for anything; anybody, yet Jesus invites him to pray that he might deepen his love of God and neighbor. For what or for whom are we invited to pray?

Homily for Monday, 1 June 2015‒ Memorial of St. Justin Martyr

Monday of the 9th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Tobit 1:3, 2:1a-8; Psalm 112:1b-2, 3b-4, 5-6; Mark 12:1-12

This Mass was offered in memory of my maternal grandmother, Simone Salt. May she rest in peace.

Why do good people suffer? This question does not have an easy answer, even for us as people of faith.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Justin, a martyr of Rome almost two hundred years before the Roman Empire tolerated Christianity and then made it its official religion. St. Justin’s goal in his teaching and beautiful writings was to convince people of other faiths (Jews and pagans alike) of the truth of the Christian faith; that Christ is the Son of God by pointing to the way Christians lived. His way of teaching by conversation is called the “moral apology” or defense of the moral rightness of Christian faith. St. Justin, a good and faithful man, a saint, suffered greatly for his gentle way of teaching and was eventually killed for his faith.

Our opening prayer of today’s Mass speaks of “the folly of the Cross” that “wondrously taught St. Justin the Martyr the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ.” Why do good people like St. Justin suffer? Why are there more martyrs within the last century than in all previous centuries of Christian history combined?

Might we point to questions like these and wonder at the folly of when good people suffer? These questions have no easy answers. Our readings today speak to this same question. We are introduced to Tobit, who has been exiled to Nineveh, in our first reading today. Tobit searches for one of his own people who has been murdered, so that he can give him a dignified burial.

Would we not think that Tobit’s profound act of mercy would be praised? But instead Tobit is mocked both by the Ninevites and by his own people of Israel. To contact the dead physically would bring Tobit ritual impurity. Worse yet, his own life is endangered because he dares to bury a person who has been murdered. Why do good people like Tobit suffer?

Jesus’ parable of the tenants in our Gospel reading is the ultimate example of a good person experiencing suffering. After sending several servants into a vineyard and seeing them mistreated by the vineyard’s tenants, the vineyard owner sends in his own son. Instead of respecting the vineyard owner’s son as hoped, they plot to kill him and seize the inheritance!

We know that, in Jesus’ parable, God is the vineyard owner. Jesus is the innocent Son who is killed. Why does the innocent Son, Jesus, suffer? The Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth once said that the only way to make sense of suffering by innocent people is that Christ suffered and died for us. And yet why do some experience extreme poverty? Why are so many in our world threatened and killed for their faith? Why natural disasters that claim many lives? Why do young children experience terrible illnesses, and their families who care for them suffer also? Why did my grandmother, Simone, for whom we pray in this Mass, suffer for years in near-silence with dementia?

We have no easy answers. But God’s promise is that, by uniting ourselves to the “folly of” Christ’s Cross, our suffering is made temporary. We gain “surpassing knowledge” of Christ’s suffering for us. And we who share in Christ’s suffering will also have a share in his resurrection.