Homily for Sunday, 2 August 2015

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; Psalm 78:3-4, 23-24, 25, 54; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; John 6:24-35

Have any of us ever considered the questions the people ask of Moses and Aaron in Exodus, our first reading, and of Jesus in John’s Gospel from which we hear today?

When God gives the people in the desert in Exodus a strange dew-like substance to eat, they ask “What is this?” When the crowds find Jesus in Capernaum after the multiplication of the loaves and fish, they ask, as if surprised that Jesus has arrived there before them, “Rabbi, when did you get here”? Jesus invites the people who were fed by the loaves and fish to work not “for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.” The people wonder what Jesus might mean by this; what kind of work Jesus might expect of them.

What exactly is this “food that endures for eternal life”? The people ask, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God”? Jesus’ answer to them is simple: Believe in him; “believe in the one [God] has sent.” But do the people despair of ever meeting the demands of faith they feel Jesus is placing on them? How could they ever match the miracle they had just witnessed of the multiplication of the loaves and fish? And so the people ask Jesus another question, to deflect the spotlight away from the weakness of their faith and back onto Jesus. They ask no longer “what can we do” but “what sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do”?

But before we criticize the people in Exodus for not being more grateful to God for feeding them with manna, or before we fault those who follow Jesus for seeking another sign; for their weak faith, might we try to empathize with their experience? Where does their experience; where do their questions resonate with ours as people of faith?

“What is this”? “Rabbi, when did you get here”? In one sense, we know the answers to these questions. “What is this”? Here in our Eucharistic celebration we are not given to eat and drink strange food that we have never seen before, as the people were when God gave them manna in the desert. We clearly see, touch, and taste bread and wine that are brought to the altar by our community of faith to become the Body and Blood of Christ. And so there is no question for us of, “What is this”?

“Rabbi, when did you get here”? Again, we know the answer to this question: Jesus Christ is and will forever be here with us. Jesus is really and truly present in our Eucharist, and also in each and every one of us; in our relationships; in our works of love and kindness; justice and peace; in our care for all of creation. Jesus is present in making holy; consecrating not only bread and wine here before us but all of us gathered here. Jesus is present in making our entire Church more and more, in the words of our Eucharistic Prayer, “one Body, one Spirit in Christ.” And so there is no question of, “Rabbi, when did you get here”? Christ is here, with and in us, now and forever.

Yet how many of us experience times in which we ask: “Where is God in this”? These experiences may be personal illness in mind, body, or spirit, or the illness or death of a loved one. Many of us, in our wider communities and some right here in our parish, experience poverty; hunger; unemployment or underemployment. How many of us find it difficult to pray from time to time, as if God is at a distance; not readily answering our prayers? How many of us have perhaps had a bad experience with somebody in our Church; somebody in leadership in our Church? Perhaps the onslaught of tragedy; of violence; of war; of injustice in our daily news is enough to lead us to ask, “Where is God in this”?

And if we are asking where God is in our lives; in our world, then are we not asking a question very similar to the question the people of Israel asked in the Egyptian desert, or the question the crowds asked Jesus: “What is this”? “Rabbi, when did you get here”? 

These questions can then lead us to ask a question like what the crowds ask Jesus next in John’s Gospel: “What can we do to accomplish the works of God”? Like the crowds in Jesus’ time, we may not know where to start “to accomplish the works of God.” For those among us who have suffered, who have even experienced despair, can suffering; despair; even the weight of evil in our world not make us seem powerless? Jesus’ answer to what we can “do to accomplish the works of God,” “believe in the one whom [God] has sent,” may seem unhelpful to us in these situations.

“What can we do to accomplish the works of God”? To show in words and especially actions that we “believe in” Jesus, “the one whom [God] has sent,” is at the core of our faith. Jesus calls us all to believe in him and to show our belief in him by the way we live. But how do we do this if we genuinely have little materially or spiritually to offer? What if we have the resources but are unsure who is most in need; where or to whom best to direct them?

It is not in and of itself wrong for us to ask the next question the crowds ask Jesus: “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do”? But today Jesus returns our question with a question, whether we are rich or poor; whether our faith is strong or weak: Not what can I do, but what can you do with what God has given you?

What can we do? How has God gifted all of us “to accomplish the works of God? We may not have received much in order “to accomplish the works of God.”  But if we are baptized into Christ; if we have received Christ in our Eucharist, we are all called “to accomplish the works of God.”

Within the last week I have witnessed many examples from this very faith community of accomplishing “the works of God.” We Basilians and many beyond our order continue to grieve the sudden loss of our brother Fr. Joe Lanzalaco, a man who authentically accomplished “the works of God” in this life. Fr. Joe brought people; Christian community together by his presence; his cheerfulness; his depth of faith. Many of us, from Bishops  Matano and Clark to the homeless of House of Mercy, who could offer almost nothing but their presence, joined together to worship; to remember Fr. Joe at his funeral. Many more of us offered ministry during the funeral Mass; food and drink before and after… If nothing else, many more offered words of consolation; offered prayer. On behalf of my brother Basilians I thank you. And I pray for you. Like Fr. Joe, you are accomplishing “the works of God” to which Jesus calls us.

How else can we “accomplish the works of God”? Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” And the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel said, “To love another is to say, ‘you, too, shall live.’” To love another is to will that this person have eternal life. And so I ask us to look around here for a moment. Whether the first person you see is a family member; a friend; a complete stranger, are we able to offer this prayer for this person: “Lord, I will that this person shall live; may this person have eternal life”? 

If we can offer this prayer for another, we show in a small but significant way our love for one another: “You, too, shall live.” We worship here; celebrate Eucharist together as a community of faith. “What is this”? “Rabbi, when did you get here”? “What can we do to accomplish the works of God”? Our “Rabbi,” Jesus Christ, has always been here in our worship; our words and works of love; kindness; peace; justice; our support of those in particular need. This is our willing one another toward eternal life; toward inheriting “the food that endures for eternal life.” This is the visible and active sign we offer our world that we “believe in” Jesus Christ, “the one [God] has sent.”

Homily for Friday, 30 July 2015– Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Friday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37; Psalm 81:3-4, 5-6, 8-9, 10-11ab;  Matthew 13:54-58

This homily was given at Most Holy Trinity Church, Webster, NY.

How many of us know somebody so well, maybe a close friend; your wife or husband; your child, that you can know beforehand what this person will say or do.

To know somebody this well can be wonderful. Those among us who have been married for a long time: How many of you can complete each other’s sentences or have lighthearted fun at each other’s expense by anticipating one another’s mannerisms or personality traits? But to know another person so well can also be dangerous. We can think we know another person better than we do.

This is the problem the people in the synagogue in Jesus’ hometown experience. These people know Jesus and his relatives very well: “Is not his mother named Mary, and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Are not his sisters with us?” They know Jesus as “the carpenter’s son.” But how well do they really know Jesus beyond the labels they attach to him? When this “carpenter’s son” begins to teach them in their synagogue, “they [take] offense at him.”

What did the people expect of Jesus when he returned to his hometown? Maybe they had heard reports that described him as a great healer, a powerful preacher, a teacher of their faith, or maybe even a prophet. Maybe the people expected to rekindle a childhood friendship with this Jesus, the boy who lived down the street in the home of Mary and Joseph the carpenter when they had last seen him. But something Jesus says in their synagogue challenges them; makes them uncomfortable. By Jesus’ time, prophets had been known to upset people, especially people who had become comfortable in their way of life; comfortable in their labels they had placed on people they thought they knew.

But for a long time the people in Jesus’ hometown synagogue had not been enough of a factor in Jesus’ life. They knew what they did of Jesus second-hand at best. Might it be the people’s lack of having been in Jesus’ life to know him beyond the superficial; to believe in him that Jesus brings to light in their synagogue and so upsets them?

How well do we know Jesus? How intimate and engaged are we in Jesus’ story; Jesus’ and our Gospel? St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose feast we celebrate today, encouraged prayer with our Scriptures in which we place ourselves in the event we are reading or hearing. And we meditate on our experience of God; of Jesus in our Gospels; of the Biblical event itself. This kind of prayer is not easy. It takes a surrender of our will; our comfort zones; our labels to God. This surrender is at the heart of Ignatius’ prayer: “Take, Lord, receive all my liberty; my understanding; my memory; my entire will… Give me your love and your grace; this is enough for me.”

God, give us “your love and your grace” with which we will be able to enter into Jesus’ life; Jesus’ Gospel. May we be moved to know Jesus Christ ever more deeply; not to be upset by the surrendering of our labels; our will; our memory; our understanding; our comfort.  And by “your love and your grace,” O God, may we one day know eternal life.

Homily for Tuesday, 28 July 2015– Ferial

Tuesday of the 17th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Exodus 33:7-11, 34:5-b-9, 28;  Psalm 103:6-7, 8-9, 10-11, 12-13; Matthew 13:36-43

We hear today from the book of Exodus of a particularly frustrating time for Moses as he leads the people of Israel home out of slavery in Egypt. Does it not seem that, at every turn, the people of Israel complain about something on their journey: The desert heat; not enough food; not enough water… “Moses, he looked at me funny”?! 

The people of Israel are badly behaved in other ways. They fail to trust on many occasions in God, through Moses, to lead them back to their homeland. But this is also a time at which Moses especially seeks the help of the LORD to lead Israel. A tent, “called the meeting tent,” is set up in the middle of the desert to be a place where the people could “consult the LORD.” The people of Israel had access to God like never before through this “meeting tent.”

Moses enters the “meeting tent” and, “for forty days and forty nights,” he is alone with the LORD. And what does Moses ask of the LORD? We hear that Moses asks for God’s mercy and forgiveness toward the “stiff-necked people” he is leading. Moses first acknowledges God’s name, “LORD.” And then Moses acknowledges the greatness of God’s mercy: “The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”

God’s mercy does not mean that the people of Israel will escape without consequences for their unfaithfulness toward God. And yet if, in the highly symbolic language of Exodus, God will punish the people “to the third and fourth generation for their fathers’ wickedness,” God promises to continue his kindness “for a thousand generations” toward those who remain faithful. God’s mercy; God’s forgiveness, even before we ask for it, always greatly (we could say infinitely) outweighs God’s wrath; God’s punishment.

And here in the book of Exodus God’s greatest act of mercy yet is to have Moses write on another set of tablets the Ten Commandments. Do we remember perhaps how, earlier in Exodus, Moses descends the mountain after receiving the original Ten Commandments on tablets and, when he sees the people making a golden calf idol, he destroys these tablets. Here, through Moses, God offers the people a new beginning. God offers them mercy and forgiveness, even if it is difficult for us to understand God offering a set of commandments as an act of mercy. This is the people’s opportunity by God’s mercy to renew their vows; their promise to remain faithful to God and just toward one another.

In a similar way we are continually given a chance at renewal, especially through the sacraments of reconciliation and Eucharist, because God is merciful toward us. God’s infinite mercy and forgiveness toward us are shown by Moses’ re-presentation of the Ten Commandments to the people and again through Jesus’ parable of the weeds among the wheat in Matthew’s Gospel.

God invites us not to pull up the weeds too early and so to risk destroying the wheat. God gives us a renewed chance at faithfulness, captured in the image of Moses writing the Ten Commandments a second time. Our God is infinitely merciful toward us and invites us to the same mercy and forgiveness toward one another and ourselves.

Homily for Sunday, 26 July 2015

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145:10-11, 15-16, 17-18; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15

How many of us are familiar with Jesus’ miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish? I expect most of us are familiar with Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. This may be the most popular miracle story in our Scriptures. Today we hear John’s version of Jesus’ feeding of the thousands, but this story is the only one of Jesus’ miracles told in all four Gospels.

Yet how many of us put some distance between ourselves and Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand? We would be right to think: This was a great miracle that Jesus performed! It was so important in fact that it is mentioned in all four Gospels; all four books of our Bible that center on Jesus’ life on earth. Jesus satisfied the hunger of thousands of people on that hillside in Galilee two thousand years ago. These people “followed [Jesus] because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick,” and they were healed and fed in a way greater than they ever imagined. And it all started with only “five barley loaves and two fish.” What an amazing event; a miracle!

But would we not be missing something were we to think of Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand as merely a great one-time event in history; a miracle that happened over two thousand years ago? We have many ways in which we can bridge some of the (at least historical) distance between Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand and our own time. Might we imagine ourselves as one of the people who witnessed Jesus’ miracle with the loaves and fish? When I was in seminary and worked as a children’s catechist in Toronto, one of my favorite ways of bringing familiar Bible stories alive for the children was to ask the children to imagine themselves as a person in the story. To make the activity fair, nobody could be Jesus or God; they had to “be” somebody else in the story!

So if you were on the hillside in Galilee when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish to feed five thousand people, would you have been one of Jesus’ Apostles? Can we imagine ourselves as somebody like Philip: Truthful; to the point; matter-of-fact? “Two hundred days wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little,” Philip says when he sees the multitudes and Jesus asks where they are to “buy enough food” to feed them. Or are we more like Andrew? Like Philip, we wonder how we will feed so many people with so little food. But, more clearly than Philip (although I have a feeling Philip, too, may have thought, knowing Jesus, that Jesus would somehow provide for the multitude), Andrew is open to any action that may help in this situation.

Andrew sees “a boy” with “five barley loaves and two fish.” He announces to Jesus that this generous boy is willing to give his loaves and fish to the hungry people. This might have been supper for the little boy and his family, after all. Andrew, like Philip, is cautious and practical: “What good are these” five loaves and two fish “for so many”? But Andrew, like Philip, knows that anything is possible with Jesus. And so faithful Andrew gives Jesus the boy’s loaves and fish and watches in amazement as Jesus prays to God in thanksgiving and the loaves and fish are multiplied into an abundant meal!

Or are we perhaps like the little boy who gives to Andrew the five loaves and two fish that are later multiplied? “Mom and Dad just sent me to the market to buy five barley loaves and two fish… And maybe a dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, and some vegetables… If I return empty-handed, Mom and Dad will be really upset and we’ll have no supper. But then Mom and Dad have said how much they like this Jesus. They have heard him speak and seen him heal the sick. And Andrew, Philip, and the other ten guys who work for him are really nice, too! Maybe I’ll give Mr. Andrew my bread and fish and see what happens. Mom and Dad won’t know any better if what I bring home are the leftovers”! Sure enough, the boy sees Jesus feed five thousand people from his five loaves and two fish. He is amazed to be the hero (he and Jesus, of course) to the hungry crowd. The Apostles send him home with as much leftover bread and fish as he can possibly carry. Mom and Dad are relieved as their son staggers in the door under the weight of the food, a bit late but safe and sound. Supper is on!

It is good for us, I believe, to put ourselves into familiar events in our Scriptures; especially in our Gospels as somebody in the Bible story. I have done this myself, at prayer, many times: “If I were this person, how would I have experienced the multiplication of the loaves?”, and so forth… But, if we stop at imagining ourselves as other people in these great events in our Gospels, could these events of which we hear in the Bible remain merely distant events in history? Even if we imagine ourselves as one of the Apostles; somebody in the crowd; the little boy perhaps, we could still hear this Gospel story as if it happened once two thousand years ago on a hillside in Galilee.

But this miracle of the feeding of five thousand was not just a one-time event two thousand years ago on a hillside in Galilee. It continues to take place among us here and now. What do I mean by this?

How many of us are connecting in our minds Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand with our celebration of Eucharist here and now? This connection would be quite appropriate. Yet what happens when we celebrate our Eucharist? Yes, we are witnesses to a transformation: By the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus becomes really and truly present under ordinary bread and wine on the altar. We celebrate a sacrament: Christ really present here is also a sign of what awaits us in heaven, when we will be with God forever. We speak of “the holy sacrifice of the Mass”: Christ offers himself to us in our Eucharist as the perfect memorial of his death and resurrection for us. We could even say that, when we celebrate Eucharist, a miracle happens. Gifts of bread and wine and also we are “consecrated” by God; made holy in and through this celebration.

But what also happens when we celebrate Eucharist? We offer something. I know, it does not seem like we offer much: Bread; wine; water; perhaps a money offering to support our parish and broader Church when the gifts (our “offertory”) are brought to the altar at Mass. We offer, if nothing else, our presence and prayerful participation as we are able in our Eucharist. Those who are homebound; who are sick offer their presence with us in spirit, and we as a community offer them our prayers.

This all does not seem like much of an offering. But here is our connection between the events of our Gospel, Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand, and this Eucharistic celebration. And so Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish is no longer merely a one-time past event but is made present in action to us here. A few months ago, Pope Francis said this about Jesus’ miracle of the loaves and fish: It is indeed a miracle. Yet it is as much about the offering by the people: The hungry crowd; Jesus’ Apostles; the boy who brings the loaves and fish to Andrew… Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish is the people’s “sharing inspired by faith and prayer.”

Is this not what we are doing here: “A sharing”; an offering “inspired by faith and prayer”? Sure, we may not think we are offering much: Our offertory gifts at Mass; our works of peace and justice; small acts of kindness to which we are called by our faith; our sorrow when we have sinned and our trust in God’s mercy especially through the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist itself… But our Lord Jesus asks us; invites us only to offer what we have; to give our best with God’s grace; to entrust what gifts we are able to give to one another and back to God in “faith and prayer,” and then not to be too surprised when God works miracles with what we offer.  

Homily for Wednesday, 22 July 2015– Memorial of St. Mary Magdalene

Wednesday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15; Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9; John 20:1-2, 11-18

What do the people of Israel fleeing Egypt led by Moses and Aaron have in common with Mary Magdalene? The people of Israel in our first reading, like Mary Magdalene in John’s Gospel, want to hold onto something; onto what is safe; secure; certain, even if what is safe, secure, or certain is not best for them.

The people of Israel under Moses and Aaron have become seasoned complainers. They even begin to say that they would have been better off enslaved by the Egyptians than traveling through the desert hungry led by Moses and Aaron! God has mercy on these people who complain at some point on their journey back to Israel about nearly everything, it would seem. Here God promises them: “In the evening twilight you will eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread.”

But the flesh they are given to eat is gamey quail. And the bread that falls upon the camp in the morning is “like dew”; hardly what the people of Israel were expecting. And so they ask: “What is this (in Hebrew, “Manna?”, the question that gives this strange dew-like substance its name)?

God, I believe, tries to move the people of Israel away from dependence on safety; security; certainty and toward a deeper trust that God, through Moses and Aaron, is leading them home to freedom. The same is true of Mary Magdalene in our Gospel reading. Of course who among us could fault Mary Magdalene for her sorrow at Jesus’ crucifixion and death?

Still, Jesus’ first words to Mary Magdalene are, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for”? Added to the horror of Jesus’ crucifixion and death; to the lack of certainty (and likely safety and security) Mary feels, somebody appears to have taken away Jesus’ body. Could we understand if Mary Magdalene’s first thought were anything but that Jesus could have risen from the dead? This would have been highly unlikely.

And yet there Jesus is, calling her by name, “Mary”! Mary immediately recognizes Jesus’ voice. Her sorrow and confusion give way to joy as she exclaims: “Rabbouni”!

But Jesus says to Mary, “Stop holding onto me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father; to your God and my God.” Jesus is asking Mary amid this flood of emotions she must have been feeling to deepen her trust in God: “Stop holding onto me”; onto safety; security; certainty. When has God invited us in our lives to do the same?

Mary Magdalene, without doubt, heeded Jesus’ invitation to “go to [Jesus’] brothers” with the message that he had risen. If not, she would not be known as “the Apostle to the Apostles” as she is. We would not be here to worship Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us; who invites us from time to time to let go of our need for safety; security; certainty for a greater good. This greater good that God promises us is our salvation, if we follow Mary Magdalene in trusting Jesus: “I am going to my Father and your Father; to my God and your God.” 

Homily for Tuesday, 21 July 2015– Ferial

Tuesday of the 16th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Exodus 14:21-15:1;  Responsorial Canticle: Exodus 15:8-9, 10, 12, 17; Matthew 12:46-50

What is Jesus asking of us in our Gospel reading today? Does Jesus not seem a bit rude; aloof toward his own family members? Somebody says to Jesus, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside asking to speak with you.” Instead of going out to speak with his family, Jesus turns his attention to his disciples, saying: “Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother and sister and mother.”

Why would Jesus say and act like this? Is he not undervaluing family? And what exactly is “the will of [our] Father” (a broad concept) that Jesus asks us to do? How many of us find our Gospel reading today somewhat troubling?

I do not believe that Jesus was rude or aloof toward his family. But then our Gospel reading from Matthew raises still more questions. What exactly is Jesus’ point in calling anybody who does his and our heavenly Father’s “will” his “brother and sister and mother”?

Perhaps the simplest interpretation of Jesus’ message is that our relationship with God is more important and ultimately deeper than even blood relationships. By doing “the will of [our] heavenly Father” we strengthen our relationship with God, which is comparable to our relationships with family members and blood relatives.

But then how do we do God’s will as Jesus asks us and so become like family to God by the closeness of our relationship with God? I think our Gospel Acclamation verse today may help us to answer this question. We hear today as our Gospel Acclamation Jesus’ words: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him.”

Love is the litmus test of all relationships. The ultimate love; the kind of love of God and of one another; the love as family that Jesus asks of us is love that purposefully seeks the good of one another. This kind of love leaves no room for gossip or otherwise ruining another’s good reputation without sufficient reason. This kind of love especially means to anticipate one another’s needs: Does another person (especially somebody in our family, among our friends or worshipping community) need material or spiritual support? Does another person (or do we) need somebody to keep us morally accountable (although I encourage caution here so that keeping others accountable does not become criticism that tears others down; that fails to uphold their dignity)?

St. Augustine once said, “Love and do what you will.” Love; seek the good of one another: This, I believe, is how Jesus asks us to do his and our heavenly Father’s will. To take the most loving action in any and all situations; in all relationships is not easy. This takes constant discernment. But in this way Jesus is not anti-family, aloof, or rude in our Gospel reading today.

Love, and the great intimacy of relationship God wants with us, extends beyond blood relationships. We can, with God’s grace, be like family, and even more important and beloved than family, to God if we love one another; if we do our heavenly Father’s will by purposefully and first seeking one another’s good and ultimately one another’s salvation.

Homily for Sunday, 19 July 2015

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5-6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34

Are you here? This question is the only text in a nondescript black font on several billboards I saw this past week while driving from New York City back to Rochester. I suppose the effect of this billboard art project is to call into question the expression we see often, especially on maps: “You are here.”

Are you here? This question was so simple that it became for me, while driving, even a bit disturbing. Are you here? Of course I’m here! But are you really here? Yes, I am here, enjoying the scenery and the music on the radio; hoping I get home without any mechanical problems with my car; thinking about the ton of work I have waiting for me once I arrive at home… Wow, I’m hungry!... I need to get out and stretch so I do not become too tired by this long trip! Yes, I’m here, I think, but maybe I’m “here” just enough that I can drive well and attentively. Have any of us ever experienced being “here,” but just enough in the present to be able to achieve or complete a task?

From time to time have any of us felt like the “vast crowd” following Jesus in our Gospel reading today, or like Jesus’ first Apostles in the same Gospel? Jesus recognizes the multitude as “like sheep without a shepherd.” The people following him might have been able to say, “Yes,” to the question, “Are you here,” if only imperfectly. “Yes, we are here, along with our many worries of daily life. Yes, we are here, just present enough to function well, at least by appearance. Yes, but…” Jesus the Good Shepherd invites this disoriented and tired crowd to rest; to listen and to be fed by his Good News and later also physically. Mark’s Gospel says to us today that Jesus “began to teach” the crowd “many things.”

What does Jesus teach them? How does Jesus act as their shepherd? Here to teach is an act of shepherding. Would Jesus have taught them about living in peace? In his letter to the Ephesians; our second reading today  St. Paul says that Jesus “is our peace.” What better way to teach and to be taught about peace than to be in the presence of Jesus Christ? Jesus is no military leader. He is not a political or business elite (this is not to say that to have political power or wealth is wrong in itself). But Jesus is the humble shepherd. In him peace is not a feeling or something we promote when we feel like it, or when it suits our political interests; our ideology. In this way Jesus “is our peace” in person and so teaches us peace.

Did Jesus teach the crowd about justice? The prophet Jeremiah in our first reading describes the “righteous” and Good Shepherd, chosen by God from the line of King David, as first and foremost a just shepherd. The name God, through Jeremiah, gives to this shepherd; to the Messiah, is “the LORD our justice.” And so justice is the most important characteristic of the shepherd to be chosen by God to care for God’s people.

And what kind of justice does God, speaking though Jeremiah, want of his shepherds? A “shepherding” justice is justice by which we care especially for those most in need: Immigrants and refugees; those who are poor; the unemployed; the sick; those who long for forgiveness and mercy; those who experience divided households and families. The greatest injustice committed by the false “shepherds” Jeremiah reprimands is this: Not to care for those most in need of God’s flock. The greatest injustice is not to care for these most vulnerable out of compassion for them; until we are able to identify with them both in their joy and suffering; until, as our Pope Francis has said many times, we have on ourselves “the smell of the sheep.” This is justice. This is the only way to respond rightly to the question that now is much more than a clever saying on a highway billboard; that is a fundamental question of justice: “Are you here”? Are we here with the most in need; those who cry out most to God and to us for relief from their suffering; for an end to all forms of violence; for our kind presence, an image of the presence of Christ the Good Shepherd, working through us?

It would not have been a surprise, then, had Jesus taught the crowd following him about justice. Jesus “began to teach them many things.” Is it not probable that Jesus taught them about the kind of justice God wants of us? Justice, like peace, is the identifying mark of the Good Shepherd; of all of us to the extent we are shepherds; leaders. We are at the same time “sheep” of God’s flock and shepherds called to care for and to love one another. God calls us to be the authentic image of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, in our homes; in our places of work and study; in our country; in our world.

But all this talk about the importance of being examples of justice and peace; about being the authentic image of Jesus the Good Shepherd, could give us the dangerous idea that to be a leader; a shepherd is based on constant activity. Or worse, it could give us the idea that we can work effectively for peace, for justice, or for whatever other value of the Kingdom of God almost without a regular commitment to prayer (sometimes silent prayer; alone; us-with-God). But without God, to be the kind of shepherd; the kind of leader God calls us to be is impossible.

Does this not seem self-evident to us? But this is precisely the dangerous thinking that Jesus tries to correct in his own Apostles. In our Gospel reading today the Apostles return from a successful mission. With great enthusiasm they report to Jesus “all they had done and taught.” And Jesus invites them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” These words of Jesus reveal to us another identifying mark of the Good Shepherd: To know and to anticipate the needs of those for whose well-being we are responsible.

In this same Gospel today, Jesus recognizes the need of the crowd following him; a people “like sheep without a shepherd.” And even though his Apostles, amid all the success of their activity; their mission; their teaching do not recognize their own need for rest; for retreat; for prayer; to be alone with God, Jesus recognizes their needs for them: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”

Like Jesus’ Apostles, we as Christians will need at times to be more active in building the Kingdom of God in our world. We will be more active in our leadership of this Church of Jesus Christ; more active in promoting justice and peace. But at other times we will need to “rest a while”; to pray; to enter into intimate conversation (many times without words) with our God.

Jesus invites us, always with his help, to find this balance. I believe this is true not only for priests like me, or for women and men religious, or laypeople in active ministry. I believe this is true for all of us. On the one hand, activism almost without prayer will make us at best into good social workers (not that anything is wrong with social work of itself as a profession). At worst, this lifestyle will endanger our faith; our relationship with God. On the other hand, solitude without community; without activity; without an element of social justice is equally dangerous to our faith.

But if we find a balance we can be leaders and, yes, shepherds in the image of Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, in our Church and in our world. We can answer the question, “Are you here”? not with “yes, but”… but with a confident “yes”!

Yes, we act for peace; for social justice, supreme values of the Reign of God! At the same time, yes, we are so alive in our prayer, the way in which we recognize intimately the voice of Jesus, our Good Shepherd; in which we can rejoice in times of solitude in deserted places with our God! Firmly and with a meaning more profound than on any highway billboard, we can answer: “Yes, we are here”!