Homily for Tuesday, 24 March 2015‒ Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 102:2-3, 16-18, 19-21; John 21:8-30

Is there not something powerful about one of the shortest possible of complete sentences in English: I am? Has somebody ever asked you questions about where you are going or how you are feeling: “Are you going to see that great movie or play? Are you going for a walk? Are you going to Mass this morning? Are you feeling alright?” And has anybody here noticed how often we answer these kinds of questions with “I am”?

“I am” often stands for the rest of the sentence: I am going to the movie or play or for a walk; I am feeling well, thank you. “I am” can also be shorthand to identify us: I am a Christian; I am a priest; a sister; a tradesperson; a scientist; an engineer; a student; retired…

“I am” in Scripture stands as shorthand to identify God. In our reading from John’s Gospel today, Jesus repeatedly says to the Pharisees, “I am.” Many Pharisees, and many of the people, believed him: Jesus was claiming to be God. Enough people, especially of the religious authorities of Jesus’ time, thought Jesus’ claim, “I am,” to be blasphemy; a serious enough charge to have him put to death.

“I am who I am”: This is how God first identifies himself to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus. Whenever the people of Israel with Moses through the desert sinned, God gave them signs of his continued presence among them, as if to say to them continually, “I am.” Today, although God does not say, “I am,” in our first reading from the Book of Numbers, he sends “seraph serpents” against the wayward people of Israel and then, at Moses’ pleading, takes them away. Both the serpents and then the image God has Moses make of the serpent on a pole, a symbol of forgiveness and healing, stand for the presence of God among the people: “I am.”

Jesus picks up on the same sign to identify himself as God in John’s Gospel: “When you lift up the Son of Man, you will realize that I AM.” This would have been a scandal to many of Jesus’ hearers; Jesus is taking a sign of God’s presence to refer to his own death on a cross! He, not a serpent, will be “lifted up” to the world.

And our world will have, and we have today, a choice: Do we look at the scandal of the cross and turn away? We are here to worship the Christ; the one who was “lifted up” for us; “I am.” And so we are not, at least intentionally I do not believe, among those who count Jesus as just another blasphemer; another impostor. But many in our culture, by word and action, at best ignore the cross: It is just another symbol of a dated religion.

Do we not only look at a cross and walk past it, but maybe spend some time in prayer before it to meditate on it; give thanks for Christ’s victory over death; over our sin? How often do we give thanks for God’s presence on the cross, Jesus Christ; “the Son of Man… lifted up” for us? “I Am.”  

Homily for Sunday, 22 March 2015

5th Sunday in Lent

Readings of the day (Year A readings, Third Scrutiny): Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6. 7-8; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

What are some of Catholics’ most frequently-asked questions about our faith? When I was newly-ordained last May, I visited the high school from which I graduated, Archbishop Jordan Catholic High School in Sherwood Park, Alberta, just outside of Edmonton, Canada. Each student I spoke with was to write down two questions to ask the new priest. At first, I was somewhat surprised at the most frequently asked question to me of Archbishop Jordan students.

What was the most frequently-asked question, both overall and in each grade and classroom? “Father, have you ever done an exorcism”? Fortunately, I had the presence of mind whenever I was asked this question to respond, “Yes, every time I do a baptism.”

Our Catholic Rite of Baptism for Children includes a beautiful prayer of exorcism over the children to be baptized, after which the children may be anointed with blessed oil called “Oil of Salvation” or “Oil of Catechumens.” The prayer of exorcism, just before the baptism itself, is this: “Almighty and ever-living God,  you sent your only Son into the world to cast out the power of Satan, spirit of evil,  to rescue us from the kingdom of darkness, and bring us into the splendor of your kingdom of light. We pray for this child:  Set him (her) free from original sin, make him (her) a temple of your glory, and send your Holy Spirit to dwell with him (her). We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

When I was asked by the high school students, “Father, have you ever done an exorcism,” were the students thinking that I might have called down thunder and lightning from heaven once or twice? Or maybe like the priest in the movie, “The Exorcist,” I might have called out a demon by crying out, “The power of Christ compels you”! I have not done or witnessed any of this, mainly because the fire department would not be impressed if I did this in any of our parish’s churches! And God does not usually work this way, either, I do not think. Even when working amazing signs like exorcisms or raising the dead, God usually works gently, humbly, even silently.

And even though God can work these great signs on his own, does God not often work through us; ask us to co-operate with God in the greatest of signs? Is it not amazing that God would entrust himself to us in this way? And yet our readings today speak to us of this very desire of God to work with us; to be in relationship with us; a relationship that brings us life and that enables us to co-operate with God in God’s mighty works.

Our God, Ezekiel says in our first reading, has placed his “spirit in” us that we “may live.” “Christ is in you,” St. Paul says to the Romans and to us. “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,” God “will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.”

“I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus says to Martha in our Gospel reading today before raising his friend and Martha’s and Mary’s brother Lazarus from the dead. Yes, Jesus is “the resurrection and the life” but, even in this mightiest sign of Jesus in John’s Gospel, Jesus asks us to co-operate with him. Jesus asks his disciples to work with him in faith: It is so that they believe that he asks them to go with him to Lazarus’ tomb. Jesus asks Martha and Mary to believe in God; to believe in him: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this… Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God”? And just after calling Lazarus forth from the tomb Jesus again asks us to take on a central role in his greatest work yet, raising a person from the dead: “Untie him and let him go.”

With this let me return to frequently-asked questions. Within the last week or so, what is the most frequent question I have been asked here at St. Kateri? At least three times this week I have been asked this (not by anybody in our RCIA and RCIC who are preparing to be welcomed fully into our Church, interestingly): “Father, what is a scrutiny”? Apparently, our St. Kateri parishioners are less interested in exorcisms than are Canadian high school students…

So what is a scrutiny? For the last three weekends, at one of our parish’s Sunday Masses each week, we have prayed in a special way for our candidates and elect for Christian initiation as adults and older children. We have prayed for God to strengthen their faith and ours. As one faith community we have welcomed them and one another “to examine our spiritual lives and renew our faithfulness to the Lord.”

This careful examination of “our spiritual lives” is what our scrutinies are about. We have journeyed with our candidates and elect through three of these examinations of faith. First our candidates and elect received the Creed and we prayed it with them: the First Scrutiny. That week, two Sundays ago, we heard of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John’s Gospel. At the end of this encounter, the Samaritan woman proclaims to her entire village the truth that Jesus is “the Savior of the world.” And we proclaim this truth with her; with our candidates and elect now, in the Creed: “I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God.”

A week later, our faith and that of those to join us in the Easter sacraments was examined; challenged again through hearing of Jesus’ healing of the man born blind from John’s Gospel: The Second Scrutiny. Do we believe that this man, Jesus, is God the Creator himself in human flesh, using the matter of creation to re-create us; to transform us; to heal us when we are in need of healing, physically and spiritually?

And today with our candidates and elect we experience the Third Scrutiny. Once more we examine “our spiritual lives” as we draw ever nearer to Holy Week. Is our faith strong enough to accept and to rejoice in being co-operators with God in God’s greatest of signs: Our salvation?

Jesus’ raising of Lazarus in John points directly to Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead. But it also points to our own resurrection with and in Christ; our own salvation through this mystery. Are we willing to accept our mission to work with God in this work of our own salvation? “Untie him and let him go.” How willing are we to untie and let go of anything that keeps us from fullness of relationship with one another and with God? How willing are we to let go of any sin; any guilt; any lack of forgiveness that keeps us from recognizing and acting fully by the mercy of God? This may be the greatest challenge yet to our faith; the greatest of the three scrutinies.

How deeply has this journey of Lent led us to acknowledge the mercy of our God who wills to save us; to acknowledge our co-operation in God’s saving mission in Christ for us? We may want to add this to our list of frequently-asked questions…

  

Homily for Friday, 20 March 2015‒ Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Wisdom 2:1a, 12-22; Psalm 34:17-18, 19-20, 21, 23; John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30

Who really knows who Jesus is? In our Gospel reading today from John we hear of many people in the crowd in Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacles who thought they knew Jesus. “Is he not the one they are trying to kill? …Could the authorities have realized that he is the Christ? But we know where he is from.”

In John’s Gospel we see a mob mentality develop. It begins innocently as idle speculation: Who is Jesus? Why is he able to move about and to speak freely if the religious authorities are trying to kill him? This speculation becomes gossip. The people divide into factions, some for Jesus and his message, others against, and many not courageous enough to commit to Jesus; to identify him as the Christ; to live as his disciples and not to hide among the crowds. We know the result of this division: Jesus is put to death.

But does this deadly mob mentality not develop subtly? It is not usually as blatant as in our first reading, from the Book of Wisdom. Here the people are openly “wicked,” calling for the “shameful death” of the just one; the death of Wisdom.

Are not most people at least well-meaning? To be truly and openly wicked is, I believe, rare. But do we not still experience divisions within nations; divisions within the Church; divisions within families? These divisions begin innocently enough: Speculation as to another’s motives; gossip; words and actions meant to hurt; factionalism just as within the crowds of Jerusalem in Jesus’ time.

When we give into this mob mentality, we participate in putting Jesus Christ to death. I do not wish to discourage us or to make us feel guilty, though, by saying this. John says at the end of today’s Gospel reading that Jesus’ “hour had not yet come.”

When is Jesus’ “hour”? John refers directly to Jesus’ Passion and death. But, indirectly, we are living Jesus’ “hour” now. Our “hour has... come.” Our time is now to seek the forgiveness of somebody we have sinned against, even under the cover of crowd influence. Now is our “hour” to repent if we have participated in gossip; if we have more openly and intentionally hurt another person by word or deed. In these ways we have a chance now to participate in Christ’s resurrection.

This Lent especially is our “hour”; our time to come to know and live more truly and authentically who Jesus is: Christ, the Son of God. We come to know Jesus better by listening and speaking to him in prayer and by purposeful acts of kindness toward one another. We come to know Jesus better as the Christ not by following the idle speculation of the crowds that begins innocently but leads to no good, but by following and purposefully acting as Jesus acts.  

Homily for Thursday, 19 March 2015– Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings of the day: 2 Samuel 7:4-5a, 12-14a, 16; Psalm 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29; Romans 4:13, 16-18, 22; Luke 2:41-51a

Who was St. Joseph? He never speaks a word in Scripture. He is traditionally said to be a carpenter. He worked hard at his trade and was a good and holy husband to Mary. He was of the family line of King David, begun with the prophecy of Nathan we hear in our first reading today from 2 Samuel. We know from Scripture that St. Joseph was a man of deep faith. Our second reading today from Romans, on this feast day of St. Joseph, remembers Abraham, whose faith “was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham’s faith was a gift from God.

And the same could be said of Joseph: He held a deep yet humble, even silent faith that was God’s gift to him. Joseph’s faith was the faith of Abraham; God’s gift of “righteousness.” Because of how Joseph lived his faith, God gave him the remarkable, and sometimes terrifying, responsibility along with his wife Mary of raising Jesus, the Son of God made human.

But other than this, do we know much about St. Joseph? The last we hear of St. Joseph in the Bible is in today’s Gospel reading. When Jesus “was twelve years old,” Luke says, he went with Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus becomes separated from Joseph and Mary, who frantically search for him. Imagine the crowds in Jerusalem; having to search for a child in a city of this size during the Passover! Having been to Jerusalem, I can imagine the crowds for the Passover and Joseph’s and Mary’s distress at losing Jesus. Can any of us who have children; who have ever experienced losing a child in a crowd, imagine how terrifying this would have been for Joseph and Mary, even more clearly than I can?

And yet Joseph never says a word. He leaves the speaking to Mary: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” Was Joseph so terrified at losing Jesus in Jerusalem? Was he so relieved at finding him in the Temple, or so “astounded” to find Jesus teaching the best teachers of the Jewish faith in the Temple about the Law and the prophets; “listening to them and asking them questions,” that Joseph was speechless? All this is possible, even probable, but we will never fully know.

We cannot know from Scripture fully who St. Joseph was: Was he really a carpenter, or what did he do to earn a living? Did St. Joseph ever take questions about his faith to prayer? Why does St. Joseph never speak in Scripture, and why is he not mentioned after Jesus is found in the Temple?

We know little about who St. Joseph was. Still, we celebrate St. Joseph with today’s feast: Faithful Joseph, husband of Mary; descendant of David; earthly father to Jesus; patron and protector of the family; of fathers; of those who are poor (whom we remember especially with our parish’s St. Joseph Tables!). We celebrate what we know of St. Joseph; what we do not know; what we hold humbly; silently as mysteries of faith.