Homily for Sunday, 18 May 2014– Fifth Sunday of Easter

Here is my first homily since my ordination to the priesthood, given during the Vigil Mass for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Saturday, 17 May 2014, at St. Joseph's College at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. It was good to be back where my Basilian journey began over 7 years ago!

Readings of the day: Acts 6:1-17; Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12

First question, since we are here in a college chapel: How many of us are students? I am sure that even those among us who are not currently students have been students at some point. Second question: How many of us have ever crammed for an exam? I am not proud of this, but even I have crammed for an exam or two. Ideally, we would all be prepared for every exam and every assignment (professors would love this!), but most of us have had times as students when we have been less than prepared; times when we have crammed for exams.

The comedian George Carlin once observed that people who are facing their own mortality or that of a loved one often develop a greater awareness of the spiritual. Carlin quips in one skit: “I get it… They’re cramming for their final exam!”

Today’s Gospel reading speaks of Jesus’ own disciples’ experience of cramming for a very important final exam. Jesus announces to his disciples in our Gospel reading: “Do not let your hearts be troubled… You know the way to the place where I am going.” We know that Jesus is about to undergo his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension to the Father; the event that we as Church refer to as “the Paschal mystery.” This is an impressive term for something we don’t fully understand that you can use on a theology exam if you find yourself cramming the night before the exam.

Since Jesus’ disciples are in the midst of a cram session the night before the Lord’s Passion, their reaction to Jesus’ announcement that he will die, rise, and then return to the Father is predictable. We begin with Thomas, who says with alarm: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Then Philip is the clueless student after an all-nighter in dire need of a cup of coffee. Philip says to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

If I were Jesus, the impatient teacher in me would be reaching for a big red pen at this point to mark a large “F” on each of the disciples’ exam booklets. Imagine this: The Twelve all failing Discipleship 101… The “disciple whom Jesus loved” in John’s Gospel might have narrowly managed a D! Nonetheless I would be ensured an immediate appointment with the Dean: “You know, Fr. Warren, you really cannot fail them all…”

Fortunately, on the night before his Passion, Jesus gives his disciples a chance to recover from their inability to understand what his death, resurrection, and ascension all entail. Jesus does not give them a failing grade right away, but he is still stern with them: “I am the way, the truth, and the life… Have I been with you for all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? …How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’”?

“Class announcement: A mandatory remedial course for everyone will begin after I rise again and ascend into heaven.”

Fortunately for us as his disciples, Jesus gives us a chance as he once gave to Thomas and Philip to come to understand more fully the meaning of his Paschal mystery: His death, resurrection, and ascension, and our call to Christian discipleship in light of this mystery. Jesus does not assign us a failing grade outright as disciples, but instead gives us a space in our Easter season to work through our lack of understanding. Jesus gives us a space through this celebration to question: “How can we know the way”? Jesus gives us a space for our confusion: “Show us the Father.” Jesus gives us a space in which to hear, repeatedly if necessary, his words of consolation: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. [You] believe in God; believe also in me.” Jesus gives us the space, here and now, to cram for our final exam and still come out with a passing grade in Discipleship 101!

Not only are we assured a passing grade, but Jesus goes on to say to his disciples in our Gospel reading today: “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.”

St. Peter, who knew his share of failure and yet of recovery as a disciple of Jesus and leader of God’s Church, reflects on our calling as Christian disciples in our second reading today. Peter describes us as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” whose mission is to “‘proclaim the mighty acts of [God] who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

We, as disciples prone to failure; prone to confusion; prone to temptation to cram for the big exam, have been promised that we “will do [even] greater works” in Jesus’ name than Jesus himself did when he walked this earth among us! We are called by God as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” despite our frailty; our failures; our confusion; our sin. This is why these words we hear from our Scriptures today are so remarkable!

I find these words especially moving in that we hear them so late in our Easter season; five Sundays after the night when we celebrated Christ’s resurrection from the dead. In the parish in which I currently serve, St. Kateri Tekakwitha in Rochester, New York, the Gospel reading we hear today from Chapter Fourteen of John is the most frequently-read Gospel reading at funerals. Our parish averages over two hundred funerals per year and, at more than two-thirds of these funerals, we hear Jesus’ words: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. [You] believe in God; believe also in me… The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater ones than these.”

Those of us who have ever attended a funeral know that, at the loss of a loved one, we become confused. We lack understanding. We ask questions like Thomas and Philip once asked Jesus: “How can we know the way?” “Show us the Father.” Show us the way to our loved one; to God. People at a funeral often act similarly in their confusion and shock to those who have crammed for an exam and so stare blankly at the booklet of questions they are to answer.

I am convinced that Christian discipleship is the only vocation in which, as George Carlin once said, we cram for our final exam at the impending loss of a loved one, in this case Jesus Christ, and can still emerge with a passing grade. I can say, as a priest ordained only a week ago today, that I did not get away with cramming for too many exams while I was in the seminary!

In this course of Christian discipleship; our course of life that begins with our baptism, we are assured of a passing grade despite the occasional cram session. Let me recommend, then, that everyone go out after Mass, if you have yet to do so, and register for this course, which is sure to boost everyone’s GPA (or at least get us all to heaven)!

And it gets even better: If we contribute even a basic amount of faith, Jesus assures us not of only a passing grade in Discipleship 101, but that we will do the works of our Lord and even “greater works” in his name.

We have been called “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” despite our frailty; our confusion; our sin; our cramming for the final exam, because Jesus Christ has died, is risen, and has ascended before us to heaven to show us the way to the Father.

Homily for Sunday, 4 May 2014– Third Sunday of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 2:14, 22-33; Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; 1 Peter 1:17-21; Luke 24:13-35

When Jesus’ disciples realize who had been walking with them on the road to Emmaus, they ask themselves: “Were not our hearts burning within us”? If we were to encounter the risen Christ in the same way that the pair of disciples did on the way to Emmaus, would we ask ourselves the same question: “Were not our hearts burning within us?”

Many of us can empathize in at least one way with Jesus’ disciples on the road to Emmaus: Heartburn is painful!

I speak not primarily of physical heartburn but of spiritual heartburn; the kind not alleviated by antacid tablets but by acknowledging the presence of the risen Christ among us; by recommitting ourselves to announcing the Good News that the disciples eventually found the courage to proclaim at Emmaus: “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” The Lord has truly been raised and is revealed to us in the breaking open of the Scriptures and the breaking open of the bread!

The trouble is that the cure for spiritual heartburn can be as painful as the heartburn itself. To be cured, to experience and proclaim the risen Christ, in reality involves a kind of death. In order to be cured of spiritual heartburn, we are called by the risen Christ to die to any fear we may have to “announce the Gospel of the Lord” boldly by the way we live our Christian faith; to die to the temptation to close in on ourselves, particularly in times of crisis, instead of being a joyful, fearless Church; to die to “we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel” in order to live as partakers in Christ’s mission to redeem our world.

Standing here among you, my sisters and brothers in Christ, I am confident that I am addressing many who have experienced or continue to experience a kind of death in order to proclaim the risen Christ. Some of us have experienced much pain, but I have also witnessed that we are a people of great joy, inspiration, dedication, and faith. Some of us have experienced the death of loved ones, a similar experience to that of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Some of us experience or share loved ones’ experience of illness of body, mind, or spirit. Many of us are living through a time of heartburn, an expected experience for all of us who long for Christ, and yet we are living a call to open ourselves to the cure for our heartburn. We are living our call to open ourselves to pain; to death that Christ may live in and through us.

Only because we accept this tension‒ the heartburn is painful but so is the cure; and we continue to experience both‒ do we continue as pilgrims on our own road to Emmaus of sorts. Only by continuing on the road to Emmaus do we maintain hope of encountering the risen Christ.

Yet do we not so often encounter the risen Christ in the unknown; in times of unsettling change; in our moments of pain? Christ draws near and walks with us just as “he drew near and walked with” the disciples toward Emmaus. Precisely because our hearts burn, though, we may not immediately recognize the Christ who walks along with us; who is with us in our worship and in our community; who because he is human like us has experienced and redeemed our pain.

Brother Roger Schutz, the founder of the ecumenical community of Taizé in France, captures in his meditation on the journey to Emmaus the heart-burn of the disciples alongside Jesus on this road; a pain and a lack of immediate recognition of Christ’s presence that perhaps many of us share with those two disciples, but also when we meet the cure for our heartburn; when we recognize the risen Christ among us, in the opening of the Scriptures and in the breaking of the bread. And so I invite us to pause and meditate on these words from Brother Roger:

We are once again pilgrims on the road to Emmaus…

Our heads are bowed as we meet the Stranger

who draws near and comes with us.

As evening comes, we strain to make out His face

while he talks to us, to our hearts.

In interpreting the Book of Life,

He takes our broken hopes and kindles them into fire:

the way becomes lighter as,

drawing the embers together, we learn to fan the flame.

If we invite Him… He will sit down

and together we shall share the meal.

And then all those who no longer believed

will see and the hour of Recognition will come.

He will break the bread of tears at the table of the poor

and each will receive manna to their fill.

We shall return to Jerusalem to proclaim aloud

what He has whispered in our ear.

And no doubt we shall find brothers and sisters there

who will greet us with the words:

“We, too, have met Him!”

For we know: the mercy of God

has come to visit the land of the living!

“We are once again pilgrims on the road to Emmaus.” Are “not our hearts burning within us?” How does the risen Christ, whom we experience at times as a stranger, become our friend; the one who cures us of our heartburn by joining our conversation; our journey to Emmaus? How do our hearts continue to burn, and yet our burning serve to “kindle” the hope of one another “into fire”?

Do we perhaps make a special effort to welcome a stranger when we come to Mass: One who is new to our parish; one who has not been to Mass for some time, for whatever reason; one who is in need, sick, or poor; one who may become a friend to us; Christ to us? When the time comes during our Mass, as it will shortly, will we share with joy Christ’s own greeting to his Apostles, “Peace be with you,” before bread is broken and shared among us? Will we die, as many of us die already, to seeking Christ, the cure to our heartburn, among the dead, in order to recognize him among us; among the living? Will we turn to one another “to proclaim aloud what [Christ] has whispered in our ear”?

We find here among us our brothers and sisters in Christ, each of us in some way with hearts burning; each seeking the cure to our spiritual heartburn. Do we greet one another with the disciples’ words on the road to Emmaus: “We, too, have met him”?

“For we know” somehow, even in the midst of pain; of our hearts burning, that “the mercy of God,” the risen Christ, “has come to visit the land of the living!”

Homily for Thursday, 1 May 2014– Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker

Thursday of the Second Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 5:27-33; Psalm 34:2, 9, 17-18, 19-20; John 3:31-36

Have any of us ever felt the presence of God, whether in an ordinary or extraordinary way? Maybe some of us have experienced alleviation of sadness or suffering; more long-term perseverance in difficult times in which we felt God to be present even then; moments of joy; moments in our prayer when God was especially close; moments when we found just the right words to console or give joy to another person; moments when God gave us the grace to listen with special attentiveness to another person, and so on…

I imagine that most if not all of us have had a sense of God’s presence in the ordinary if not extraordinary events of our lives. After all, here in the Eucharist we gather because in some way we have known God’s presence in our lives and we seek more of this presence.

Our readings today speak to us of a God who is abundant in his gifts and his presence to us. Christ has given us God’s own Spirit and, in the words we hear today from John’s Gospel, God “does not ration his gift of the Spirit.” From the Acts of the Apostles, we hear that God showered the first Apostles with this gift of the Holy Spirit, “whom God has given to those who obey him”; whom God gave to inspire the teaching of Christ’s Apostles; whom God gives us generously here and now.

God “does not ration his gift of the Spirit.” We know this truth by the fact that we are here to celebrate the Eucharist as one community of faith. We know this truth through the celebration of all seven sacraments; the sacramental life of our Church.

Beginning with baptism and confirmation, our initial encounter with the Holy Spirit, God “does not ration his gift of the Spirit.” We know of the Spirit’s presence in the Eucharist, making holy our gifts of bread and wine and our gift of one another, the Church. We know of the Spirit’s presence, sent “among us for the forgiveness of sins” in reconciliation. We know of “the grace of the Holy Spirit” to save and to “raise [us] up” in the anointing of the sick; the gift of the same Spirit “of service” and “of renewal” in holy orders (we can appreciate how this is increasingly on my mind these days).

Last but certainly not least, we know the Spirit’s abundant presence in marriage, the sacrament of the gift of a woman and man to each other. Today is my parents’ thirty-eighth wedding anniversary. This week, I asked them to recall an incident in which the Spirit was present in their marriage. Their response to this broad and difficult question was simple yet very profound: “If you [take] seriously what our faith says” as “guidance from the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit has been with us every day of our lives together.” And yet “the same message, the same strength” of the Holy Spirit “is available to everyone.”

We have further evidence in these words that God “does not ration his gift of the Spirit.” Let me then extend my blessing to all married couples and families among us, and to all who have been touched, in ordinary or extraordinary ways, by the abundant gift of the Holy Spirit.

Homily for Wednesday, 23 April 2014– Wednesday in the Octave of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 3:1-10; Psalm 105:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8-9; Luke 24:13-35

What are some of the ways in which the risen Christ is “made known to” us? How do we experience the risen Christ in simple everyday events; when we are at peace; when we are busy, worried, or distracted; in our prayer; in other people, especially those in need or those who help us in our need; when we are gathered at Mass, many of us every day?

The events described in our readings today invite us to encounter the risen Christ, who makes himself known to us in these everyday situations of our lives, even if we do not realize immediately that Christ is present among us.

This is true in John’s and Peter’s healing of the “man crippled from birth” at “the Beautiful Gate of the temple” in today’s first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles. The risen Christ does not make himself present through earthly wealth. Peter admits to the crippled man: “I have neither silver nor gold.” No, Peter and John bring something more valuable than silver or gold: “the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean,” through whom we experience healing; through whom we experience the promise of resurrection.

I suspect, though, that man healed at the gate of the temple did not immediately realize that Christ was being made present to him through Peter and John. He was probably caught up in his own need for healing. Would the realization that the risen Christ was present in Peter’s and John’s healing only have come to this man in hindsight? How often does the realization that Christ is present in simple events in our lives only come to us in (sometimes distant) hindsight?

This belated realization is also true of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in our Gospel reading today from Luke. They have just experienced the worst they could ever have experienced: Jesus, to whom they had looked as “a prophet… the one to redeem Israel,” had been put to a shameful death on a cross! Now they are conversing with the risen Christ on their way to Emmaus, but understandably “their eyes [are] prevented from recognizing him.”

Just before it becomes too late, when Jesus is about to pass through “the village to which [the disciples] were going,” they recognize the presence of the risen Christ in two simple ways: In the opening of the Scriptures and “in the breaking of the bread.”

In these same simple ways, the breaking open of the Scriptures and the breaking of the bread, the risen Christ is made known to us here and now in our celebration of the Eucharist. How else is the risen Christ made known to us in the simple events of our lives? How quickly do we recognize the presence of the risen Christ in our simple everyday experiences? May we now open our hearts in prayer, and in our prayer; in our Eucharist; in one another may the risen Christ be made known to us who long to encounter him.