Homily for Saturday, 24 June 2017– Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

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

Saturday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Does anybody here share my fascination with meanings of names? Those of us who are parents: How many of you searched books, or now websites, to find the perfect and maybe most creative names for your children when they were born?

Our readings today, on this Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist, are full of names. If anybody here is expecting a child or knows somebody who is, perhaps you may want to consider a name from our Scriptures, especially our readings today.

Today we hear the strange way in which John the Baptist is named. His family’s “neighbors and relatives” expect that he will be named “after his father,” Zechariah, from Hebrew, meaning “God has remembered.” We know from earlier in Luke’s Gospel the story of Zechariah. He was taking his turn that year to enter “the Lord’s sanctuary,” the Holy of Holies at the center of the temple of Jerusalem, “to burn incense.” There, an angel announces to him that his wife Elizabeth (from Greek, meaning “God is satisfaction”), thought to be unable to conceive a child, is pregnant. For failing to believe this news, Zechariah is silenced until his son is born.

Elizabeth then names him John (Hebrew for “God is gracious”; “God has shown favor”), a name none of John’s relatives had been given before. Although he still cannot speak, Zechariah wisely seconds Elizabeth’s choice of name for John (husbands, I understand that it is usually a good idea to support your wives in decisions like these) by writing on a tablet: “His name is John.”

Our Gospel reading goes on to say that John lives up to his name: He becomes the herald of God’s graciousness; of God’s favor; of our Savior Jesus Christ to the world. Luke says of John, “Surely the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew and became strong in spirit.”

Today we hear from the Acts of the Apostles a summary of important figures from Abraham (“father of a multitude”) through King David (“beloved”), son of Jesse (“gift”), to John the Baptist, herald of Jesus (“God saves”).

Our first reading, from Isaiah, includes only two names: Israel (“he struggles” or “wrestles with God”) and Jacob (“holder of the heel,” because he was born holding onto the heel of his twin, Esau, a symbol for Jacob’s having taken Esau’s rightful inheritance as the— barely— elder son). But Isaiah includes several more hidden names. They are phrases, more than single-word names, that describe the role or mission of the prophet himself or other people: “Sharp-edged sword,” “polished arrow,” “servant” of the LORD, “a light to the nations,” and so forth.

Might these name-phrases also be good descriptions of our continued mission as Christians? Might a “sharp-edged sword” or “polished arrow” be a call to us to speak and live by the truth? We have heard perhaps the phrases “straight as an arrow” or “straight shooter.” We, too, are sent out to be “a light to the nations” and servants of the Lord. We, too, regardless of whether our name is John, are heralds of God’s favor, Jesus Christ; of our God who saves.

Homily for Thursday, 22 June 2017‒ Feast of Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More

Patronal Feast of the Diocese of Rochester (USA)

Thursday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Peter 4:12-19; Psalm 126:1bc-2ab, 2cd-3, 4-5, 6; Matthew 10:34-39

“I have not come to bring peace but the sword,” Jesus says to us today in Matthew’s Gospel. Does this not challenge our view of a peaceful Jesus, who called us to peace and to love one another and to love God with all our being?

One of the foremost ways of interpreting Jesus’ message here is that he is not calling for us to create divisions unnecessarily or to act with violence, or saying that his mission on earth was to be divisive or violent. Instead, Jesus says that his message will reveal divisions and violence that already exist: In our households, within and between nations, within our Church, in our workplaces, in our political assemblies, in our communities, and within our own hearts.

This interpretation is well and good, but then Jesus goes on to say today: “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” And so do we not hear Jesus calling us here not only to avoid violence and unnecessary divisions, but to some form of zeal? Our question we may want to ask ourselves is: “For what (or whom) am I prepared to die”?

We are called, I suggest, to hold two virtues in a difficult balance: On the one hand, the virtue of peace with everybody and, on the other hand, the virtue of zeal; of being prepared even to die for a good enough cause; for God; for our faith in Christ.

Our first reading today, from the first Letter of Peter, calls us to the same balance between peace and zeal. And, like Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter acknowledges that to live this balance, a Christian balance, will lead us to suffer at least misunderstanding, perhaps ridicule, if not a martyr’s death. Yet Peter says, “Those who suffer in accord with God’s will hand their souls over to a faithful creator as they do good.”

Today we celebrate two saints; two martyrs, St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, patron saint of this Diocese of Rochester, who gave their lives to maintain this balance between peace and zeal.

This balance to which we are called may rest on a finer line than ever. On the one hand, is it not right to be concerned about too easy a peace, when we fail to confront important evils of our world? This false peace we may call moral relativism. On the other hand, when we too proudly presume that we are right and another is wrong, we fall into a false zeal that is a form of absolutism, relativism’s evil twin, and we forget all the same the greatest virtue of all: Love, or charity.

Charity is the hinge between peace and zeal. It leads us to seek dialogue and to guide with patience those who struggle to understand or live a moral ideal. It leads us to ask questions when we are uncertain of another’s position, instead of shouting down, gossiping, excluding, or posting that biting comment on the internet for all to see. Charity, the hinge between peace and zeal, is the central virtue of a Christian. It is our central virtue, and the central virtue for which Sts. John Fisher, Thomas More, and every saint and martyr through the ages, has died and has lived.

Homily for Tuesday, 20 June 2017– Ferial

Tuesday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 8:1-9; Psalm 146:2, 5-6ab, 6c-7, 8-9a; Matthew 5:43-48

Is there anybody here who is comfortable speaking about money, especially asking other people to give generously of their hard-earned money, even to worthy causes? I cannot speak for our other priests and staff of St. Kateri; I am only able to speak for myself. But I sense that, whenever we need to ask for added money contributions from St. Kateri parishioners, this is not one of the things we feel most comfortable doing, mostly because we recognize how generous so many of us already are.

In this part of 2 Corinthians from which we hear today, St. Paul is speaking of a collection that was taken up from the other Christian communities of the world to send to the church in Jerusalem, which was extremely poor at the time. St. Paul, like many if not all of us today, felt some unease at having to ask the other Christian communities for money to support Jerusalem.

Yet St. Paul speaks to the Christians of Corinth, a very wealthy church at the time, of the spontaneous generosity of another church, that of Macedonia, toward Jerusalem. Macedonia was neither extremely rich nor extremely poor, although it had its significant challenges and even “a severe test of affliction” from time to time. Despite not having much excess wealth, the Macedonian church begs Paul and his companions “insistently for the favor of taking part” in the collection to help Jerusalem.

My sisters and brothers of St. Kateri, I wonder if we here are more like the Macedonians and less like the Corinthians of St. Paul’s time. There are quite wealthy people, and some quite poor people, in our parish. But most of us are neither extremely wealthy nor extremely poor. We here at mainly “middle class” St. Kateri, as in “middle class” Macedonia of St. Paul’s time, have an opportunity here; a calling here to generosity with the resources we have.

And by resources, I do not mean only money or material wealth. Amid St. Paul’s appeal to Corinth to be like Macedonia, except much wealthier, in supporting Jerusalem, he also sends them Titus, whose mission it was to direct the Jerusalem relief effort; the collection in Corinth. I imagine Titus’ mission in Corinth was a difficult one, unless (and I imagine not) he was the type of person who was comfortable asking people for money.

In a few weeks, we at St. Kateri will welcome a new Parochial Vicar, Fr. Michael, in place of Fr. Morgan who is beloved of many people here, and rightly so. Might Fr. Michael be like St. Kateri’s latest Titus? Not only are we invited to be generous with our material resources, but also with our welcome of a new voice; a new (to us here) priest; a new way of preaching and living the Word of God, and so forth. As the Macedonians were generous toward Jerusalem in a way that was an example to other Christian communities, and as St. Paul called the Corinthians to receive Titus with generosity and love as he was entrusted with a difficult message and mission to them, may we ever be an example to everybody around us, to other parishes, of generosity and love, by “the grace of God.”

Homily for Sunday, 18 June 2017‒ 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

What is the Body and Blood of Christ? What do we mean when we speak of the Real Presence of Christ, Eucharist, the Feast of the Lord’s Table or the Lord’s Supper, of Mass, or of communion? These are just a few of the names we give to today’s celebration, officially the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, and to a reality that we Catholics celebrate every Sunday and may celebrate nearly every day of the year.

Also today Bishop Salvatore Matano has declared the beginning of a Year of the Eucharist in the Diocese of Rochester, and so we have not only today to celebrate this reality of many names, but a whole year to celebrate it, through to June 3, 2018, next year’s date of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. And so, as we begin this year-long celebration; our Year of the Eucharist, might it be worthwhile to ask ourselves this question once again: What is it?

“What is it” is the very question that has been asked since the people of Israel, returning home to their land from slavery in Egypt, first asked it. When the people of Israel were hungry in the desert, God sent them a strange, dewy substance to satisfy their hunger. As the people of Israel figured out that they could eat this substance, that it filled them, and that it tasted perhaps better than they would have thought, they looked at it cross-eyed, maybe (parents, you know better than I do) as a picky child eyes something like broccoli, and asked, “Manna”?

Yes, “manna” is actually a question, before it became the name given to this strange, dewy substance God gave the people of Israel in the desert. In the Hebrew of the Book of Deuteronomy from which we hear today, as well as in many other ancient languages of what are now Northeast Africa and the Middle East, “manna” means, “What is it”?

We still ask this question today. We still celebrate, as the people of ancient Israel did, “a food unknown to [our] fathers”; to our ancestors. We call it the Body and Blood of Christ, the Real Presence of Christ, the Eucharist, the Feast of the Lord’s Table, the Lord’s Supper, the Mass, or communion. But might we as well ask, “Manna” ‒ “What is it”?

In his pastoral letter announcing this Year of the Eucharist, which is in the Catholic Courier (I will have a brief further announcement about this letter in a few moments before we leave here today), Bishop Matano laments the “high percentage of Catholics who,” according to polls, “do not understand or who have not been taught” about, or “simply do not believe in” the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In many ways our bishop is right to be concerned about faltering practice and understanding of our faith among so many of our brothers and sisters under his pastoral care in this diocese.

At the same time, though, we are here at this celebration. I am confident that I am speaking in front of people who are here now because we at least recognize that something extraordinary, in fact a miracle, is taking place before our eyes. It is taking place in a way we are able to sense: To see here and soon to taste, touch, and smell in the form of bread and wine from the altar; to hear in the form of one another joining together in worship, from the prayers of our Mass, to the singing of hymns, to the cooing of small children, to perhaps more unexpected sounds that echo through this place. The miracle we witness here is so extraordinary, even though it remains always sensible, that we, like the people of Israel in the time of Moses and people since then, are right to ask an eternal question: “Manna” ‒ “What is it”?

Yet is the answer to this question not given to us in a beautiful way especially in the Word of God we hear this evening [morning] from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians? St. Paul asks, “Brothers and sisters, 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”?

A major difficulty of what we celebrate here is that it is possible for us to place our focus on many different aspects of the celebration. Is the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, the bread and wine on the altar in which Christ miraculously becomes really, truly, and fully present without changing what that bread and wine looks, tastes, smells, and feels like? Is the Eucharist centered on the prayer to the Holy Spirit to “make holy these gifts” of bread and wine, “that they may become the body and blood of [God’s] Son, our Lord Jesus Christ”? Is the Eucharist centered on the whole of the Eucharistic Prayer, which extends from my invitation, “The Lord be with you,” to, “Through him, with him, and in him”… and that I will pray with you in a few moments? Is the Eucharist centered on a second prayer to the Holy Spirit within this Eucharistic Prayer, in which we pray not only that the bread and wine be made holy and transformed to take in the real, true, and full presence of Christ, but that we, too, may be so transformed: “Grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son, and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ”? Is our Eucharist centered on what is on the altar; the whole of this celebration we often call the Mass; the priest who leads the celebration; all of us gathered in community, in communion, with one another?

Let me offer a too-easy answer to the long list of questions I have asked just now: “Yes.” Indeed, the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ we celebrate, is all of this and more. It is no wonder, then, that even the most faithful Catholic Christian might become easily confused by this celebration of many names and many faces. It is no wonder that the question we may be most drawn to ask is, well, then, “What is it”?

What is the Body and Blood of Christ; the Real Presence of Christ; Eucharist; the Feast of the Lord’s Table; the Lord’s Supper; Mass; communion? As I say to children I have taught when they look at me sheepishly, thinking they have asked what they are not sure is the right or on-topic question, “That’s an excellent question”! Our next step with this question about the Eucharist, “Manna ‒ What is it,” though, must be to turn this into no longer a “What” question but a “Who” question: “Who is it”?

And so “Who is it”? In some ways more fully than others, my experience is that most Christians know that Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist and that our salvation, our living “forever” with God, depends on this fact. We know that, as we hear Jesus himself proclaim in our Gospel reading, from John, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life… For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

“Jesus Christ” is our best answer to our question that has become, “Who is it”? Depending upon how fully some people actually believe Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist or how literally (or not) to interpret his words in our Gospel, some may be confused our outright scandalized in thinking about how Jesus could offer us his body and blood to eat and drink. I go no further, because my understanding here is at its limit.

And yet, I think, what could be even more challenging for us than to believe that Jesus Christ offers himself really, truly, and fully in flesh and blood; all that he is in this celebration in his memory, is to believe that Jesus Christ has chosen to offer himself to our world through us; that we are the first place from which Jesus Christ shows himself to our world really, truly, and fully through our flesh and blood; that we are part of the answer to the question, “Who is it”?

And from the moment we go forth from this celebration; our witness here to a miracle of Christ really, truly, and fully in flesh and blood, we are entrusted with working out together, in communion, in our world by how we act as Christ in our world the answer to our eternal question about our Eucharist: “Who is it”?

Homily for Friday, 16 June 2017– Ferial

Friday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Psalm 116:10-11, 15-16, 17-18; Matthew 5:27-32

Who among us is intense about our faith or knows somebody who is? I would describe most if not all of us here as intense in living our faith, simply because we are here now on a Friday morning at St. Kateri Parish at St. Cecilia Church to celebrate the Eucharist. How many people, even among the most devout Catholics, devote part of a Friday morning; part of almost every day for many of us, to our celebration of the Eucharist? We are in the minority, my sisters and brothers in Christ!

Please let me be clear: Many of our sister and brother Catholics, for reasons too many to count, are unable to be at Mass every day. They work, they raise families, they are aging, sick, or homebound… And many of these people live our faith just as intensely and devoutly as we who are here do. Add to this those among us who engage in ministries in the Church, or who work passionately for social justice causes including, fundamentally, the defense of the dignity of all human life and all creation.

I would say we are quite an intense group of people. And today our Word of God speaks to us and celebrates two of the most intense people who have ever walked this earth, St. Paul and Jesus. St. Paul encounters the intense pride of the wealthy Christian community of Corinth of the earliest Church. Yet Corinth’s intensity meets its match in St. Paul, who compares his ministry to death, uniting it in particular to the death of Christ.

A saint is one who knows how to die. A saint has received from God and applied in her or his life the grace of how to die to her or his own pride insofar as it inhibits this person’s ability to serve God in serving the needs of God’s people. A saint knows to die to any form of injustice, of lack of love or charity in action or speech. A saint knows when to die to one form of ministry or service to move to a new one. A saint knows the grace of death to partisan ideological narrowness; to gossip; to needless divisiveness. A saint knows how to die, in order to rise again; to ascend and transcend with Christ. A saint dies as she or he lives: Intensely.

This grace of dying in order to rise is true of St. Paul, so much so that many in his Corinthian audience likely found his message challenging, if not outright frightening, even morbid. And the same is true of Jesus himself. Jesus, and St. Paul after him, lived, died, and rose intensely. Today we hear Jesus’ second of six of what have been called “intensification” sayings in Matthew’s Gospel: “You have heard” this commandment, “but I say” live it more intensely; more demandingly.

It is not enough to obey this sixth of the Ten Commandments, not to “commit adultery.” If we so much as look at another person as no more than property to be used; to be taken from another (which is how Jesus views adultery, specifically the taking of another’s spouse for one’s pleasure), we will bear God’s judgment due to this sin. But the more we live self-control out of love, which is more demanding and intense than the commandment requires, as a kind of death to self, the closer we will be to rising to intense and eternal life.