Homily for Monday, 15 September 2014– Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

Monday of the 24th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 11:17-26, 33; Psalm 40:7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 17; John 19:25-27

What is the ideal community; the ideal household; the ideal Church? From the moment when, from the Cross, Jesus “said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son” and to “the disciple whom he loved… ‘Behold, your mother,” we have had an example of the ideal community; the ideal household; the ideal Church.

How many of our communities; our households; our families meet this ideal image of community; of household; of Church given us at the Cross of Christ? I suspect, or at least I hope, that not many of our communities; our households; our families are at the level of dysfunction of the Corinthian Church that St. Paul criticizes in our first reading today. Many of us here at St. Kateri are people after “the disciple whom [Jesus] loved”: kind and generous; unnamed and under-recognized and yet true disciples of Jesus Christ in every way.

But are there not still “divisions among” us in our world; in our families; in our Church? These divisions are maybe not to the extent of those among the Corinthians addressed by St. Paul, but we experience divisions nevertheless. We experience broken families; families divided into “factions.” We experience people estranged from the Church. We experience the anguish of parents and grandparents because of the absence of their children and grandchildren from the Church. We experience violence in our streets; war in many regions of our world; poverty, homelessness, and hunger while some hold onto vast riches. These divisions are a great source of sorrow.

In our sorrow at the divisions in our world; our families; our Church, we are united in the suffering of Christ on the Cross. We are united in this way with Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows. And yet, even amid suffering and sorrow in our world and in our own lives, we are invited on this Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, which follows yesterday’s Feast of the Exultation of the Cross, to remember that this worst suffering possible, that of Christ on the Cross, is what has redeemed us.

Christ did not die to redeem the ideal community; the ideal household; the ideal Church; the ideal world. He died for communities; households; families; the Church; a world that are divided; that are tainted by sin and yet strive for the ideal. Christ died for you and for me.

On this feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, we are called back to the focus of our faith; to the focus of this and every Eucharistic celebration. As St. Paul says to the Corinthians and we hear repeated in our Psalm response and again during our Eucharistic Prayer, we “proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again.”

In proclaiming “the death of the Lord until he comes again,” we proclaim our redemption by Christ’s cross. At the same time, we seek forgiveness for our divisions; for our sin; for the times when we fail to live up to the ideal image of community; of household; of Church given us by the beloved disciple’s taking of Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, into his home. And so may we, a repentant; forgiven; redeemed people, renew our focus to “proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again.”

Homily for Thursday, 11 September 2014– Ferial

Thursday of the 23rd week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 8:1b-7, 11-13; Psalm 139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 23-24; Luke 6:27-38

What is the most loving action in a particular situation? What is the action that will build up an individual or community? These are the questions that our readings today invite us to consider.

St. Paul faces a divided Corinthian Christian community in our first reading today. Some Christians in Corinth would not eat meat if it had been “sacrificed to idols.” For others, this was not a concern. St. Paul seems to agree that there is no moral problem in eating meat, even “sacrificed to idols,” because pagan idols are not gods. There is only one God, and so sacrifices to false gods are meaningless. But then St. Paul accommodates those whose “conscience” is too “weak” to withstand this level of moral nuance: “Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause my brother to sin.”

Why does St. Paul reach this conclusion? I think this can only be out of love for the Corinthians; for the Church. St. Paul shows us love that goes beyond the mere legal or moral minimum. He shows us love that goes beyond obligation. He shows us love that goes beyond the reciprocal relationship of “I will do this for you if you do that for me.” St. Paul’s love is not merely sentimental. It is for the good of the people he serves; for building up of community and human relationships.

Jesus invites us to this same kind of love in our Gospel reading today. Jesus’ love is a love that seems difficult for us to emulate: “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you… Do to others as you would have them do to you… Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful… Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.”

Nowhere in our Gospel does Jesus oblige us to love our enemies; to love those who hate, curse, or mistreat us (or, perhaps appropriately on this anniversary of September 11, 2001, those who commit terrorist acts against our country). Jesus does not oblige us to be merciful, or not to judge or condemn, or to forgive people who have wronged us. If this were an obligation, our love would be reduced to, “I will love those people, I suppose, if I must.” Jesus does not invite us to love merely on moral or legal grounds, or to love only those who love us, or to love in only a sentimental way.

No, Jesus, like St. Paul, reminds us that, at its fullest and most authentic, love is a gift exchange. Jesus describes God’s love; the ideal of love for us as this: “Gifts… given to [us]… a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing.” An exchange of gifts; an exchange of love is not something we must do; not something that there are laws to regulate; not something that we only do if we are promised to receive the same or a better gift in return; not something merely sentimental. If love is only this, it is not love. True love, to which St. Paul and Jesus invite us, builds relationships, builds community, brings us closer to God, and is the utmost exercise of our freedom which is itself God’s gift to us.

Homily for Tuesday, 9 September 2014– Memorial of St. Peter Claver

Tuesday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 6:1-11; Psalm 149:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a, 9b; Luke 6:12-19

How does becoming Christian change who we are?

St. Paul is at his angry best in our first reading today from 1 Corinthians. Of all the churches to whom Paul wrote and served and brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Corinthians were the most troublesome. In St. Paul’s time, Corinth was a thriving double port city, a business hub in the center of the Roman Empire. Many Corinthians thought themselves to be self-sufficient. They were entitled, even, and this culture of entitlement spilled over to the baptized Christians in Corinth. Even worse, wealthy Corinthian Christians were bringing lawsuits against one another over petty disagreements. And so St. Paul confronts them with this reminder: “Now you have had yourselves washed; you were sanctified; you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” In other words, your Christian baptism has changed who you are. Live up to your dignity as a people “washed… sanctified… justified.”

Becoming Christian, a member of the Body of Jesus Christ; of the Church changes us profoundly and forever. Being chosen as Jesus twelve closest friends changed the first Apostles, of whose calling we hear in our Gospel reading today. They were no longer just Simon Peter, “Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the Son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called a Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.” No, now they were Apostles. By having been chosen by Jesus to be Apostles, who they were was changed profoundly and forever.

St. Peter Claver, whose feast we celebrate today, is known for having baptized thousands of African slaves in Cartagena, which is now in Colombia. In Christian baptism, the identity of these slaves was changed profoundly and forever. Slavery of non-Christians in Peter Claver’s time was accepted if not promoted; slavery of Christians was unconscionable. Peter Claver exposed the deep injustice of the slave trade by bringing the Gospel and baptism to the slaves of Cartagena. But this is not why the ministry among the slaves made so many, even among St. Peter Claver’s brother Jesuits, angry with him. Yes, baptism of the slaves of Cartagena changed who they were, profoundly and forever. The slaves became Christians, and so legally had to be freed.

But, more importantly, St. Peter Claver also brought to question how being Christian had changed the slave traders and traffickers; how being Christian had changed those who promoted the slave trade, knowing it was wrong; how being Christian had changed slave owners; how being Christian had changed all of us.

Our readings today and the example of St. Peter Claver are an invitation and a reminder to us: How has being Christian, professing the faith we do, change who we are? We are changed by our becoming Christian; by our baptism; by our continued profession of our faith, profoundly and forever.

Homily for Monday, 8 September 2014– Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Monday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Romans 8:28-30; Psalm 13:6ab, 6c; Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23

Whose birthday are we celebrating today, anyway? Why, on this Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, do we hear in our Gospel reading a genealogy from Joseph’s side of the Holy Family? And then we hear nothing of Mary’s Nativity. In fact Matthew turns his focus to Jesus’ Nativity.

True, Mary is mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy, and then again as having conceived of Jesus by the Holy Spirit and brought him to birth. Even so, Mary is not the focus of this beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. Joseph is, and then Jesus is. Mary’s nativity is never even mentioned in the Bible. And so why do we celebrate this birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary?

 I like to think of Mary in Scripture as somebody who points to realities and people beyond herself. St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, from which we hear today, that “those [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Mary is the first person in God’s plan to save us, a plan that reaches its fullness in the birth of Jesus Christ, to have been perfectly “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son,” but not because it was ever Mary’s plan to bring the Son of God into the world. This was God’s plan, although Mary had to consent to it.

Mary’s birth is part of God’s plan of salvation, and this plan of salvation is for us; to save us. Mary shows us how we, too, might be “conformed to the image of” Christ as she is. Mary points to us. Mary’s birthday is a celebration of our birthday as a redeemed people; a people promised God’s salvation through Christ’s becoming human, like us in all things but sin.

We are given a beautiful prayer for today’s Feast of the Nativity of Mary that we will pray in a few moments over the gifts of bread and wine when they are brought to the altar. We pray in this prayer “to be given strength by the humanity of [God’s] Son, who from [Mary] was pleased to take flesh.” Just before this Prayer over the Offerings, at every Mass the priest silently prays in similar words as the water and wine are mixed: “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity” (this for those of us who may wonder sometimes what we priests pray under our breath at the altar!).

Jesus’ humanity, not only his divinity, matters for our salvation. Mary’s “yes” to God’s plan made Jesus’ becoming human possible. But God’s plan to save us did not start with Mary’s “yes” to God. It started from the moment of creation. It took shape in a special way through the Birth of Mary, perfect image of Christ in his humanity; perfect image of who we are called to be: a people redeemed and saved; a people perfectly “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son.”

Homily for Sunday, 7 September 2014

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Ezekiel 33:7-9; Psalm 95:1-2, 2-3, 6-7, 8-9; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20

“You… I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel,” God says to the prophet Ezekiel in our first reading today. Jesus says to his disciples, the earliest Church community, in our Gospel reading: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” So how are we to balance being a “watchman”; a people with the power to bind and loose, the prophetic calling to keep one another morally accountable, with reconciliation and forgiveness?

St. Paul gives us a standard by which we can keep watch; keep one another accountable for good and evil; by which we can bind and loose justly but also act with forgiveness. He says that “love is the fulfillment of the Law.” All “the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

St. Paul’s recap of Jesus’ commandment to love our neighbor sounds easy enough, right? Perhaps to love one another, and especially to express this love as forgiveness when another person does evil or persists in doing evil, is easier said than done.

How is “love your neighbor as yourself” practiced in community, especially when somebody commits sin that damages relationships; that damages community? Jesus gives us an idea of the practical implications in a faith community of “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” especially in response to evil and sin. First, speak with the person who has done wrong one-on-one. If this does not work, bring “one or two” other “witnesses.” If this still does not work, bring more witnesses; “tell the Church” in order to try to convince the sinner to turn from his or her evil. Only then may the unrepentant sinner be cast out of the community: “Treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.”

Here we have it: four foolproof steps toward reconciliation and forgiveness! If only this were realistic; if only reconciliation and forgiveness were that easy…

But wait: If we do not find Jesus’ invitation to reconciliation and forgiveness realistic, is this perhaps because we often do not interpret it correctly or put it into proper practice in our relationships; in our communities?

“If your brother [or sister] sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.” This does not mean “go and gossip with a friend about the wrong somebody did to you.”

“If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you… If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church.” If healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation cannot be achieved one-on-one between the person who sins and the person sinned against, then this healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation becomes a communal effort. Friends; families; communities must work together. But again the primary goal of this communal effort is not to punish the person who does evil; is not to hurt her or him in return for the evil done, but to facilitate healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Even when, as a last resort, a person must be cast out of the community, treated “as you would a Gentile or a tax collector” in our Gospel’s words, in Church terms excommunicated, even then the goal is healing; forgiveness; and reconciliation; bringing the restored sinner back into the community.

Is finding the balance between forgiveness; fostering healing and reconciliation on the one hand, and on the other hand ensuring justice; accountability; being the prophetic “watchman” after Ezekiel in our first reading; the balance between binding and loosing, unrealistic for us?

It is perhaps unrealistic if we understand forgiveness and reconciliation as weakness. Let us take the example of Officer Daryl Pierson of the Rochester Police Department, killed in the line of duty on Wednesday night. Crimes such as this very understandably lead to sadness and even anger in communities; in our city. A wife and two young children are now deprived of a loving husband and father by this heinous action. Would it not be difficult to find a balance between calls for justice and accountability and calls for forgiveness in this and similar situations? Our Gospel might just be pointing us toward forgiveness; reconciliation; healing; perhaps shown forth as prayer for Officer Pierson, for his family, and also for the man who killed him; for his repentance. Is this kind of forgiveness and reconciliation a sign of weakness, or is it a showing forth of tremendous strength, perhaps only achievable by God’s grace?

But is finding the balance between forgiveness; reconciliation and justice; accountability also unrealistic if we understand forgiveness to be about forgetting that any wrong has been done? How many of us have heard “forgive and forget”? How many of us have been unable to forget a serious wrong done to us, even after many years? I hear and have even said on occasion something like, “I would like to forgive this person, but I cannot forget what she or he did to me. I cannot trust that she or he will not do the same to me or to another person again.” How many of us have carried guilt for having been unable to forget wrong done to us?

Let me try to console you with this: Neither Jesus, nor the Bible, nor the Church have ever taught “forgive and forget.” Forgiveness does not mean forgetting the wrong done to us. If so, would the balance not be upset too far toward loosing; a false forgiveness that does not hold us accountable for our actions? No, forgiveness is first a conscious and then a heartfelt decision not to allow another person’s evil to hurt us anymore; not to let this evil destroy us; destroy relationships; destroy community. Forgiveness is a decision made with love; a decision to heal; a decision to reconcile. Forgiveness with love (or charity) leaves room for legitimate disagreement, as St. Augustine once said: “In important things unity; in less important things diversity; in all things charity.” Forgiveness with love seeks the good of one another, knowing that we are all redeemed sinners.

“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,” Jesus says in our Gospel reading. Where there is love for neighbor as for self; where love gives rise to forgiveness, not forgiving and forgetting but forgiving to strengthen relationships and community, there is our balance between binding and loosing. There is our balance between being the “watchman”; keeping prophetic watch for the sake of moral accountability, and authentic forgiveness. There is our strength to pray together for the good of one another. There Jesus is in our midst.