Homily Corpus Christi, Year A

 

I am so happy to be with all of you today as I celebrate the first Sunday Mass of my first priestly assignment as the Associate Pastor of St. James, St. Ambrose, and St. Ignatius. They say I was sent here to loosen up Fr. Chuck! But, I think it will be the other way around! Seriously, though, ever since I was ordained on May 28 and learned of my assignment here, everyone I have talked too has said what a good cluster of parishes this is, and how faithful a people you all are. This has eased my nervousness and made me excited to come here and I am truly looking forward to serving all of you, celebrating the sacraments with you, and getting to know as many of you as I can. Like I told those at the daily Mass on Thursday, as a recently ordained priest, unfortunately, you all become the beneficiaries of my foibles, so I implore your patience as I grow more and more into the identity of a priest.

It is remarkable to me that in the first weekend of my first priestly assignment, we are celebrating that great feast of the Church, Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ… really what the Priesthood is all about. I want you to know that the Eucharist is one of the highest priorities of my life and of my ministry to you. The Mass is a great joy of mine and I have worked hard to understand and learn it well in light of our continuous tradition from ancient times to today and onward. I regard it as the highest form of service that I could offer. What greater gift, what greater form of help could I give you than the real and true Body of Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself? As we hear often, it is the Source and Summit of the life of the Church. Who we are and what we do as Catholics comes from the Eucharist and finds its highest point in the Eucharist.

It sounds nice to say that for our parish, the Eucharist it its source and its summit. But, that’s also a little too easy to say if we don’t also consider that the only way the Eucharist can fully be the source and the summit of our parish is if It is the source and the summit of each one us. We make up the parish… the Eucharist makes up the parish… Does the Eucharist make up me and each one of us? Every year that we celebrate this Solemnity we are invited to think for ourselves what we truly believe about this Sacrament. We are invited to ask ourselves: “Do I know what the Church teaches about the Eucharist? Have I tried to understand it? If a non-Catholic friend asked me tomorrow what the difference between my Communion and his is, would I be able to say? Do I really believe that after the words of Consecration – “This is my body” and “This is the cup of my blood” – what looks, tastes, feels, and smells like bread is not really bread at all but the Body of Christ… and what looks, tastes, feels, and smells like wine is not really wine at all but the Blood of Christ? If this is the Source and the Highpoint of what we are really about as Catholics, it is important that we ask ourselves these questions in such a concrete way… simply to know what we are all about and say that we’re all about.

I think God is calling us today to consider the Body and Blood of Christ in a precise way. After all, Jesus Christ Himself presents It in a precise way to the Jews he was addressing in the Synagogue. He carefully and deliberately chose his language, with full knowledge of the meaning his words would invoke in the minds of his listeners. When Jesus said, “the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world,” the Jews quarreled among themselves saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They were outspoken in their disagreement for they knew he wasn’t speaking metaphorically. In response, Jesus did not change his language, rather he spoke even more explicitly by adding that they should also drink His Blood. Their angst came from their misunderstanding him to be advocating cannibalism. Cannibalism is the eating of dead flesh, which truly is repulsive. But, Jesus gives us his glorified humanity as it is after he rose from the dead. This is why he calls himself the “living bread” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, Jn 6:52-53, footnote). After all, the characteristics of his Body and Blood are hidden behind the characteristics of bread and wine even though they are no longer bread and wine. This is meant to facilitate our frequent reception of his entire self, his real and true Body and Blood as well as his Soul and His Divine Life, so that he may be our strength, our healing, and our life. It is truly a miracle.

It is also true that under the Old Covenant the Jews were forbidden to drink the blood of animals because it contained the life of the animal and doing so would lower them to the level of animals. But here too, the Eucharist is different. Here Jesus gives us supernatural life and does not lower us but rather raises us to the heights of heaven. Any other food, once eaten, breaks down into smaller and smaller parts until it is assimilated into our body and becomes part of us. But the Eucharist is the only food that we eat that causes us to become It, that assimilates us into It. St. Cyril of Alexandria used the image of two pieces of wax melted together to illustrate this point. And St. Therese of Lisieux went so far as to call her first Communion not a meeting with Jesus, but a fusion (A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, Jn 6:57).

As partakers of the Body of Christ, we become the Body of Christ. We become the many members of his One Body. The Eucharist unifies us, draws us together, and forms us, despite all of our different origins and circumstances, as a Catholic parish, as a Catholic Church. By receiving Him together, he make us unified. Therefore, it is painful to me that some members of my family and friends who aren’t Catholic or who are non-practicing cannot receive Communion with me. I want us all to experience the intimate union the Eucharist brings. But I have to remember that the Eucharist is the highest form of communion, not just one among many ways we can show our togetherness. By receiving Communion we are showing in the highest way that we are in communion. It isn’t the first step to communion, but the ultimate one.

All of the points I have made I think are important for you and I to be reminded of because they influence how we live our lives as Catholics and the way we approach the Eucharist. The more we are aware of not what we are receiving but Who, the more we grow in reverence and devotion toward the Eucharist and the more we grow in the depth and confidence of our Catholic identity. Refreshing our memory of what we believe can help you and I to grow in love with the Eucharist and not to take it for granted. For example, this causes us to genuflect reverently to the tabernacle when we enter and exit the pew; to receive Him carefully and mindfully in the hands or on the tongue; or to spend some time adoring Him, our God, hidden under the appearance of the consecrated Host. Here at St. James, times for Adoration are offered from 7-10pm on Mondays, 8:30am-5:30pm on Fridays, 8-9am on Saturdays. Believing He is truly present inspires us to want to spend time with Him, to come to know Him as a friend, to share all of our sorrows and joys with Him, and to receive his help and consolation in return.

Finally, our belief in the Eucharist inspires us to desire and even hunger for heavenly things rather than earthly or material things. As human beings we have natural, in-born desires and longings for happiness, for love, for companionship, for joy, and peace. But so often we try to satisfy these longings with things that couldn’t possibly match up with the capacities our Lord created in us. He made us for himself and only he can bear the weight of our happiness. If we try to put that weight on food, or shopping, or another person, we soon realize that our desire is never quenched and the object on which we misplaced it is consumed, crushed, or abandoned leaving us still wanting more. We must look to Christ who wants to be consumed by us, but not abandoned, so that we can be completely satisfied. Our desires are not too much for Him. In the Eucharist, we receive all the heavenly things our Lord wishes to give us – grace, unity, forgiveness, and peace, even His entire self – if we are only open and disposed to receiving them.

Homily Pentecost Sunday, Year A

Following is my homily for Pentecost Sunday which has a different set of readings than the Pentecost Vigil. I used some material from the homily for the Vigil Mass.  This particular Mass was a Mass of Thanksgiving for my Priesthood Ordination that I celebrated at St. Athanasius parish in Louisville, KY – I had been assigned there for my Pastoral Year as a seminarian and celebrated my Diaconate Ordination there last year.

I am so happy to be here this morning! Around this time last year I celebrated my Diaconate Ordination with all of you. And now I stand here as a priest, thanks to God's grace and your prayers! And I am bringing to this Mass all of the wonderful memories I have of the academic year I spent with you a couple years ago. How powerful the Holy Spirit is, to have brought us together in this way, under such joyful circumstances! I am also glad to have been at the presbyteral assembly this past week with Fr. Gary and all of the priests of the Archdiocese. I am happy to be Fr. Gary's brother priest.

Add to that the fact that today is Pentecost Sunday! Aside from Easter, if you were to ask someone what the second most important Feast Day of the year is, he would probably say "Christmas" or "Halloween"… maybe even "St. Patrick's Day"! But, I would argue that Pentecost is the second most important Feast Day of the year. It brings to an end what we call "The Great Sunday," the 50 days of the Easter Season. It marks the birthday of the Church as it is sent forth, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to proclaim the praises of God and to forgive sins. All of this gives a special meaning to this day for me.

    Today the Church has placed us in the middle of two of the most powerful events in salvation history. The Risen Lord appeared to the apostles on the evening of Easter Sunday, breathed into them the Holy Spirit, and gave them the power to forgive sins – a sort of foretaste of the Spirit the Apostles received in full, 50 days later at Pentecost. Then, the Holy Spirit almost seems to be breathed into them from the lips of God the Father Himself – "suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were."

This isn't just one among many miracles. The power breathed into them on Easter Sunday and the filling of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost are intimately connected. The only other times in Scripture when God breathed on mankind, was in the beginning – in the book of Genesis, when "the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (Gen 2:7) – and in Ezekiel, where God raises an army of corpses to new life by the breath of the Spirit (37:9). Just think of how the apostles felt! They probably remembered when Jesus breathed on them on Easter Sunday and they knew the Scriptures of Genesis and Ezekiel. All of this comes together in one magnificent moment in which the apostles receive a newfound courage and zeal and the ability to praise God in languages they didn't even know. Their hearts, and souls, and minds are filled with God, the Holy Spirit. The Church is on fire and alive! Today this moment is ours too! We are that same Church today. We are the Church of the Apostles, still alive, still on fire, forever young with the exuberance of the Holy Spirit!

    God the Holy Spirit wants to fill us too. He wants us to receive the same fullness of Himself that the Apostles received on this very day, over 2000 years ago. In fact he has done this already. He infused in our souls Faith, Hope, and Love through the waters of our Baptism and he enhanced and completed these gifts when we were Confirmed. But He hasn't stopped there! The Holy Spirit wants to fill our souls every single day so that the Church 2000 years from now will still be on fire and alive.

    We have our own part to play in this. Most importantly, I think, would be to simply pray to God, the Holy Spirit. Often times we have no problem praying to God, the Father, because we can imagine a fatherly figure, with gray hair, and a beard! And we can pray to God, the Son, because Jesus Christ is so vividly depicted in the Gospels and in artwork. But the reigning image of the Holy Spirit is a dove! We don't pray to doves! Most of the time we think of God, the Holy Spirit, simply as a force, or a power, that comes and goes, as if He is the magic pixi dust that God sprinkles on us every now and then! He is much more than this! He is God.

    Throughout my childhood and still today, my Dad always encouraged my brothers and me to pray to the Holy Spirit. Any time we were nervous about a minor league baseball game, or a test at school, or an argument with a friend, my Dad would always tell us to pray to the Holy Spirit for wisdom and guidance. I recommend that for us today. If you have not been in the habit of praying to God, the Holy Spirit, today is the perfect day to start, the day when we celebrate how generously He filled the apostles, and us, with courage and zeal.

    The Holy Spirit comes to each of us in His own way. "There are different kinds of spiritual gifts," St. Paul said, and different forms of service and different workings. But, "To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit." And, he continues, "For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body." Therefore, today we, myself certainly included, must ask ourselves: As one member of the entire Body of Christ… As one Catholic in the whole universal Catholic Church… How am I serving the larger body? How am I portraying the Catholic Church to the world around me? Do I make the life of a Catholic one that others would want to follow so that they too can be helped by the graces given to me through the Church? Does my life cause others to want to be one with Christ too?

    Being a faithful Catholic would be a heavy yoke, burdensome, and impossible really if we were only to rely on our own power. But, neither God nor the Church gives us responsibilities and then leaves us to our own devices. Rather, we have been given the power of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son and with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified. It is this same Holy Spirit, who spoke from all time through the prophets and through the Church today, who is our help, our advocate, our guide. He is the one who makes the yoke and the burden of the life of holiness, the life of a Catholic Christian, easy and light. He makes life as a child of God one of joyfulness, happiness, peacefulness, and calmness.

    We have only to acknowledge and remember the great things He has already done for us, plead for Him to come again and again, be willing to receive Him, and then be willing to live according to Him. The Holy Spirit will even help us ask. For as St. Paul says, "the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought." With His help we can be a people who courageously speaks to all ethnic and social classes of the "mighty acts of God," exclaiming that "Jesus is Lord", sharing with them the true peace that comes only from the Lord, and drawing each other together as one Body united to our head, Jesus Christ.

Homily Pentecost Vigil, Year A

Following is my homily for the Pentecost Vigil Mass, which has a different set of readings than the Mass on the day of Pentecost. This particular Mass was a Mass of Thanksgiving for my Priesthood Ordination that I celebrated at Bl. Teresa of Calcutta parish in Fairdale, KY – I had been assigned there for two summers as a seminarian and celebrated my Diaconate Ordination there last year.

    I am so happy to be here this evening! This very time last year I celebrated Pentecost Sunday and my Diaconate Ordination with all of you. And now I stand here, thanks to God's grace and your prayers, again celebrating Pentecost Sunday, but now as a priest! How powerful the Holy Spirit is, to have brought us together in this way, under such joyful circumstances! I am also glad to have been at the presbyteral assembly this past week with Fr. Bob and all of the priests of the Archdiocese. I am happy to be Fr. Bob's brother priest.

    As part of my seminary formation, one of the things that the Church requires of us is that we take what is called a "canonical retreat." Canon Law, the law of the Church, requires that we take a five-day retreat in order to prayerfully prepare, in a more intense way, both for our Diaconate Ordination and our Priesthood Ordination. For each one I chose to go to the Passionist monastery of cloistered nuns in the Diocese of Owensboro, where I am originally from. I highly recommend this monastery to all of you. Their chapel has a unique feature that is especially relevant for the feast of Pentecost that we celebrate today.

    It was most often the case before the Second Vatican Council that if a religious order was cloistered – meaning that they devoted their entire lives to praying in one place, as the heart of the surrounding diocese – then their privacy was strongly guarded so that they could be single-minded in their prayer and not be distracted by the things of the world. This would often mean that when the nuns were in chapel with other laypeople, they would be set apart by a screen or a wall with a type of window. After the council this type of separation was kept in place but relaxed so that the People of God, consecrated religious and laity, could pray better together as one Body of Christ.

A view of the channel from the font to the altar

    In the Passionist monastery, the nuns are set apart by a water channel with about a two-foot stone boundary that runs from the steps of the sanctuary all the way down the center aisle of the chapel to the entryway that has a waist-high holy water font. In this way, the laity pray on one side of the channel and the nuns on the other and both are still in view of each other. What makes this water channel so beautiful is that it maintains the cloister that the nuns require but it also gives deep meaning to the chapel and the liturgies that are celebrated there. Ultimately, it is a symbol of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit who are often symbolized by water in Holy Scripture.

    Jesus, as St. John's Gospel tells us, stood up and exclaimed to all the people, "Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. As Scripture says: 'Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me.'" And John explains, "He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive." For Jesus, timing is everything. This happened on the last day of the Jews' great seven-day celebration called, The Festival of Booths. During this annual liturgical celebration, pilgrims who came to Jerusalem would live in huts made of braches that they called "booths." One of the major rituals of the week would consist of the high priest drawing water from the Pool of Siloam, carrying it in procession into the Temple and then pouring it on the stone altar of sacrifice to commemorate the time in which the Lord God provided for his people during their Exodus journey through the desert by making water flow from a rock. It is against the backdrop of this celebration that Jesus stands up and exclaims that he is the source of spiritual water and that it is he who satisfies all that we thirst for.

    Plus, Jesus and the people both knew that the name for the pool that the priest drew water from, "Siloam," means "Sent." By connecting himself to that pool, Jesus helps them to know that as the Source of Life, he will send them Life Itself in the form of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost

    Everything that water means for the body, now has meaning for our soul. Just as water cleanses the body, gives us strength, and refreshes us, so the Living Water of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, cleanses our souls of sin in Baptism and Reconciliation, gives us strength in Confirmation, and refreshes us in the Eucharist and the Anointing of the Sick. The Holy Spirit is active in all seven of the sacraments constantly forming and transforming us as the New People of God as we wander in our Exodus journey through the desert of this life to the Promised Land of Heaven.

    How are we doing on this journey? At times are we a "stiff-necked" people, doubting that the Lord can provide for us or rebelling against his commands? If we see ourselves as God's chosen people, bound to Him by a covenant, with the goal of following Him faithfully in this life so that we can be happy with Him forever in the next, then we can give our lives a proper context. We can ask ourselves, "Am I faithfully keeping my covenant with God? Do I avail myself generously of all that the Holy Spirit provides me through the Church in order to stay faithful to God? Or am I not content with these and turn to other things to satisfy my deepest thirsts?" It can be helpful, in trying to live as faithful Catholics day-by-day, to see ourselves as that Old Testament people and seeing the Holy Spirit as the giver of all that they needed and all that we need today.

    Our first reading began to describe how God forged the covenant with his people; it was done amid the majesty of Mt. Sinai, amid thunder and lightning, heavy clouds, loud trumpet blasts, columns of smoke and fire, and earthquakes. This was done in order to show His people that his might and power exceeds that of all the other pagan gods. God is the One, True, God of Power and Might. This was also done to show them the great significance of what they were being brought into, what it means to be the chosen people of such a powerful God.

    The Lord said to His People, then and now: "If you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation." Our covenant with God wasn't forged amid fire and lightening, rather, it was forged at our Baptism amid the fire and light of our Baptismal candle and the fire and light infused in our souls by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Holy Water. Just like the water channel in the Passionist monastery, we are sent through the Church to be transformed and to transform the world around us. Just like the water from the Pool of Siloam, we are Sent as God's People with the aid of all that the Holy Spirit gives us. With His grace, we become more and more God's special possession. In fact, we become, as Moses foretold, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. As a people set apart, for all the world to see, as an example to the world of how they should live and what they are capable of with God as their Father, we must ask ourselves today: As one member of the entire Body of Christ… As one Catholic in the whole universal Catholic Church… How am I serving the larger body? How am I portraying the Catholic Church to the world around me? Do I make the life of a Catholic one that others would want to follow so that they too can be helped by the graces given to me through the Church? Does my life cause others to want to be one with Christ too? Do I act in a priestly way – and this question is for all of us. Do I make sacrifices for other people? Do I offer up my sufferings to God? Do I pray for my family and friends? In these ways we all, ordained or not, can become the holy nation that God wants us to be.

    All of his would be a heavy yoke, burdensome, and impossible if we were formed as God's people and then sent forth to rely on our own power. But, neither God nor the Church gives us responsibilities and then leaves us to our own devices. Rather, we have been given the power of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son and with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified. It is this same Holy Spirit, who spoke from all time through the prophets and through the Church today, who is our help, our advocate, our guide. He is the one who makes the yoke and the burden of the life of holiness, the life of a Catholic Christian, easy and light. He makes life as a child of God one of joyfulness, happiness, peacefulness, and calmness. Does this describe our lives today?

    The Holy Spirit comes to each of us in His own way. But we can find hope in knowing that the Holy Spirit has indeed come to all of us. At this Vigil Mass we anticipate and long for Him to come again in our lives. This is His desire too. We have only to acknowledge and remember the great things He has already done for us, plead for Him to come again and again, be willing to receive Him, and then be willing to live according to Him. The Holy Spirit will even help us ask. For as St. Paul says, "the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought." How happy the Lord will be to look down upon his people and see in each one of us rivers of living water flowing forth in a life of holiness and a world transformed by His Power in us.

[picture credit: the nuns' blog]

Homily Ascension Year A

    I am so happy to be with here with all of you today. I was ordained a priest just last weekend and I still can't believe it; it hasn't fully sunk in yet. Last summer I was assigned here to St. Gabriel as a deacon and I cannot say enough how grateful I am to Fr. John, Fr. Jim, and all of you for that experience. Even as a deacon Fr. John and Fr. Jim treated me as a brother in ministry which helped me to begin to experience the life of a priest. My first times preaching during Mass were here at St. Gabriel, and I appreciate your patience as I continue to develop the art and science of preaching. My first Baptisms were here too, a set of five boys that Deacon Bowling helped me to keep organized. During my last year of seminary, I studied the theology of the Eucharist, Ecumenism, and pastoral leadership; and I learned how to celebrate the Mass and the sacraments of Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick. But the ministry of Holy Orders began here and I am so thankful to all of you for your continued support and for allowing me to celebrate this Mass of Thanksgiving with you.

     Reflecting on the Solemnity we celebrate today, the Ascension of our Lord into heaven, I remembered one of the most significant developments in my spiritual life since I entered seminary in 2005: that is, when I finally transitioned from appreciating what is said in the Bible as if it was a museum piece to appreciating it for what it is saying to me and to the Church. For too long, I was accepting the Scriptures as something good but outside of myself. Seminary, thank God, helped me to interiorize what the Scriptures mean for me personally. I am convinced now that I would be a lousy priest if I had not made that transition. In fact I would be a lousy Christian! Until we accept from God his Holy Word into our hearts and minds, we can never really be transformed by It. If I had not been receptive to God in this way, I would have been no different than a secular historian who appreciates an ancient text of human history.

     The texts that describe Jesus' Ascension into heaven are some of the most challenging – and consoling – texts for us personally. After Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to many of his disciples as proof of his resurrection, his apostles still had troubling believing Him. They did not believe Mary Magdalene when she described how Jesus appeared to her in the garden outside of the tomb. They did not believe the two disciples with whom Jesus walked on the road to Emmaus. All told, the New Testament records 11 separate appearances of Jesus after his Resurrection. Despite all of this, today's Gospel says, when the apostles saw him, "they worshipped, but they doubted." Even so, Jesus did not give up on them. He knew their hearts and knew what they would be capable of once they received the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. So he gave them the Great Commission: "Go… and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."

     If we receive this scenario for ourselves, we can see that we too have been sent and are being sent on this great commission, in our own lives and in our own ways. But we have had our own doubts too, haven't we? I, for one, when times were hard at the seminary, sometimes doubted if I had what it takes, if I could cut it as a priest. Perhaps you have had doubts about God too: when a loved one died, or when there was a divorce in your family, or when a child stopped going to Church, or when there were lay-offs at work, or when you failed in some way at school. Due to this fallen world and our fallen nature, hardships inevitably have come and will come to all of us.

     But the point is, at this Mass, we are his apostles, standing shoulder to shoulder with all of the hardships and doubts we have endured, together looking up to heaven trying to understand what God is telling us. Before the Eucharistic Prayer, I will say "Lift up your hearts" and the response will be "We lift them up to the Lord." Our hearts will be wide open for God to see. Yet I still, at the very end of the Mass will say, "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord." We will then each have to ask ourselves: "How will I love and serve the Lord? How will I make disciples and teach others to observe all that Christ has commanded me?" By that point though, we will have what the apostles didn't have when they asked themselves these same questions: the power of the Holy Spirit renewed in us by the Eucharist. True, they too received the Eucharist at the Last Supper, but they had not yet received, like we have, the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the gift we will celebrate next Sunday.

     Today's celebration, the Ascension, is one of the reasons I am a firm believer in spending some brief time in quiet prayer before or after Mass or after Communion, giving thanks to God for the gifts he has given us and asking Him and ourselves "How will I love and serve the Lord? How will I make disciples and teach others to observe all that He has commanded me?" The instructions for the Mass, when describing the necessity of silence, say that the people should spend some time after Communion praising and praying to God in their hearts. "Even before the celebration itself," the instruction continues, "it is commendable that silence be observed… so that all may dispose themselves to carry out the sacred action in a devout and fitting manner" (GIRM 45). And Canon Law, the law of the Church, says that the priest too "is not to neglect to prepare himself properly through prayer for the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice and to offer thanks to God at its completion" (can 909). If these readings are meant for us, how can we receive them if we don't spend the time to ask God "How" and "Why" and listen to His answer?

     Our youth who prepare for Confirmation and our parishioners who celebrated the Easter Vigil are especially primed and ready for this. They have been discerning in an intentional way how they have been chosen by God and what his great mission is for their lives. But just because most of us were baptized as babies doesn't mean that we can't have this same enthusiasm and zeal too. Each one of us, at our Baptism, died with Christ when we were lowered into the water and when we were lifted up out of the water, rose again with Him. The whole rest of our lives then is our experience of the Ascension that follows. For us, evangelizing all nations means more than just encouraging someone new to convert to Catholicism, it means helping to bring about the conversion of the entire culture, making every area of our lives more Christian. Being Baptized is only the first step in the process of growing in holiness and making our world holy.

     One of the treasures of the teaching of St. Josemaria Escriva, and the spirituality of Opus Dei that he founded, is that oneness with God is not only limited to our time spent at Mass or in the parish. It can be experienced and even cultivated in the midst of our day-to-day lives. At Mass we receive, in a special way in the Eucharist, the grace to go and live out God's Great Commission. And in our silent prayer we can discover how we are to convert our culture, how we are to love and serve the Lord, make disciples, and teach others to observe all that He has commanded us.

     When he ascended to the right hand of the Father, he never really left us. In the Eucharist, in the Gospel, in the person of the priest, and in all of us praying together and doing good works, he still lives and ministers to our fallen world. How will each one of us bring Him to our families, our friendships, our work, our school, our recreation, our parish?

     This will be different for each one of us, but it could take the form of saying grace before meals, even in a restaurant, if you aren't in the habit of doing this… or saying a decade of the rosary privately or together with family before going to bed. In our friendships this could mean not participating in gossip or working hard to be a good influence on each other. At work you could attend daily Mass during your lunch break or before the work day begins. The Cathedral downtown is within walking distance of many of the major business centers. And our late Archbishop Floerish made sure that there was a parish in almost every neighborhood. At our school we can be sure to continue to give religious education the highest priority. In our athletics and recreation we can avoid participating in things that only bring about anger or bitterness. And in our parish we can try to become more active Catholics, caring deeply about each other, even those we don't know, and praying together more often. We can do all of these things. We have already been given all that we need. We can continue to make St. Gabriel not a parish of the status quo, but of the Ascension – a parish of people who take their faith seriously and are not afraid to be counter-cultural, to convert our world, and to let God convert our hearts.

Sermon for Solemn High Mass for Fr. Paul Beach’s 10 Year Anniversary of Priesthood

    It is a great honor of mine to have been asked to give the sermon for this Solemn High Mass, a Mass of Thanksgiving marking the tenth anniversary of the Ordination to the Sacred Order of the Priesthood of my good and dear friend Fr. Paul Beach, our celebrant. Assisting him as Subdeacon is Bro. Edward Olsen of the Oratorians and myself, Deacon Matthew Hardesty. I acknowledge also his brother-priests from the Archdiocese of Louisville and elsewhere who are attending in choir and have come to join in this celebration. And I thank our servers who should be commended for their reverence and fidelity. Today most of all, though, we celebrate the Holy Priesthood, that precious gift which our blessed Lord, Jesus Christ Himself, through the hands of the bishop and the power of the Holy Spirit, has chosen to give to these men, and God-willing to me in 9 short days, as the way to bring about our perfection and salvation. After all, God's will for each and every one of us is the way in which he desires to make us saints, if we have the will to accept it. And for a few chosen men, that way is the Priesthood.

    The epistle and the Gospel for this Holy Mass together both exalt this noble vocation and humble it at the same time. They are both challenging and inspiring. What truly Catholic heart is not enflamed with pride and zeal for his religion upon hearing the words of St. Matthew's Gospel? This indeed is my favorite passage of Scripture. It was a great joy for me to chant today's Gospel, the Good News: "Et ego dico tibi: Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam; et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam" (And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it). What hope and security this passage gives us when it seems like, at times, that the powers of hell are pressing upon the Church, our Holy Father, the Priesthood in general, and even upon our own hearts, with ever increasing force. Of these powers, we need not fear: The gates of hell SHALL NOT prevail. They may wound us, the may exploit our weaknesses, but in the final estimation they shall not prevail.

    While this passage speaks primarily of St. Peter and his successors the popes down through the ages to Pope Benedict himself, it, by extension, speaks also of the priesthood and exalts it greatly… for great power is given to the priest to share in the prevalence of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, to share in the victory over evil. In my early years of discernment, before I entered seminary, it was the awesomeness and power, especially of the Mass and of the Sacrament of Penance, that inspired me most to pursue the Priesthood. How awesome it is to affect another man's soul!... To be concerned for another's eternal salvation and to be able, with, by, and for Christ to actually bring it about! Howe awesome it is – with these two shaking hands, and with this feeble tongue – to make a child a Son of God in Baptism and a soldier for Christ in Confirmation, to absolve one's sins in Reconciliation, bless a couple's marriage in Holy Matrimony, give the strength of the Holy Spirit in Extreme Unction, give myself in Ordination, and most of all to transform mere bread and wine into the Real Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of Jesus Christ Himself. I thought to myself, "is there a greater vocation than this!?" This is the power of Jesus Christ teaching, sanctifying, and governing his Holy People, age upon age, until the end of time. He has never stopped doing these things. In the men he has called to share in His one Priesthood, he has always and everywhere been bringing about our salvation and the salvation of all the world.

    But, lest a priest think that this power is his own possession, that it springs from his natural abilities… lest he forget that his ministry is only good because Jesus Christ is Good, our Lord humbles Peter in our Gospel today and every priest as well. It is a subtle gesture that could easily be overlooked, but it is there nonetheless, and should be taken seriously. As one to soon be ordained a priest, I say this to myself as well, perhaps most of all. After Peter gave his profound profession of faith in Jesus – "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God" – Jesus replied, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven." Before all that Peter was soon to be given Jesus reminded him – and every priest – that he is still a son, a child of his Father in heaven. And as sons we should always remember humility before Him.

    Our epistle gave a similar message: "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking care of it, not by constraint, but willingly, according to God: not for filthy lucre's sake, but voluntarily: Neither as lording it over the clergy, but being made a pattern of the flock from the heart" (1 Pet 5:2-3). Peter himself this time is warning the shepherds of the local Churches not to misuse their authority grudgingly, greedily, or oppressively. A priest's authority is exalted only insofar as it is ordered to the service of others. It is this great service that is its purpose and its goal. A priest's authority is not for his own gain but rather for the salvation of souls. It is for all those within his reach, Catholic and non-Catholic, so that they may be taught, sanctified, and governed toward eternal life. This means that a priest should be charged with an ever-present and increasing zeal for souls, with charity, generosity, and hospitality, always ready and always willing to serve either by his own person or by God's grace at any moment it is called for. And he doesn't do these things to make himself look exalted in the eyes of the faithful, or his brother priests, or his bishop. He does these because he loves his people with a love that could drive him to give his entire self for them. True love enflames his heart, it does not burn him out. But he does not impose or oppress them. "A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench" (Isaiah 42:3). The pastor is to shepherd his sheep with a humble firmness, a serenity, and a calmness which evokes trust, peace, confidence, and security among them.

A priest's humility also includes his example. St. Gregory the Great teaches that the pastor of souls "should always give the lead, to show by his example the way to life, so that his flock (who follow the voice and actions of the pastor) are guided more by example than by words; his position obliges him to speak of elevated things, and also to manifest them personally; the word more easily gains access to the hearts of hearers when it carries with it the endorsement of the life of him who when giving instructions assists in their fulfillment by his own example" (Regulae pastoralis Liber, 2, 3). Priestly example and humility are not opposed. His example should never betray his humility. And his humility should never forbid his example. Both should work together in a priest. They are two sides of the same coin.

    Fr. Paul Beach, as much as he has insisted that I train my eye on more fitting priests for the example of the way to life, has been that example to me and to so many others throughout his ten years of priestly ministry. His advice and fraternal correction over the years have helped me a great deal. But, as a testament to his humility, the moments of his witness unbeknownst to him have led me as well. For example: witnessing the joy, and welcome, and happiness he engenders in anyone who spends some leisure time with him… Or watching him, in my timid years of discernment, celebrate Holy Mass with such care and reverence, motivating me to enter seminary… Or the constant signs of generosity he has shown, often at great personal expense, and always spontaneous that brought me a more fulfilling experience of being a seminarian. Today, the day we celebrate his ten years of priestly ministry, the most profound thanks we can give him is not with our applause or our gifts, but with our hearts and our prayers. Today we are reminded to give gratitude to God for the Holy Priesthood, to express to God our thanks for the priests who have led us to Him by the power of His grace and the virtues of humility and good example, and to beg him to allow other young men to join the ranks of so noble a vocation.

Mother's Day Homily, Year A: Word and Sacrament

            Following Easter Sunday, Jesus’ disciples did not have the same joy that we have felt.  After a full season of Lent, intensifying our prayer, offering up things as sacrifices to God, giving more generously of ourselves for others, purifying certain aspects of our lives, we naturally are relieved when Easter finally comes.  All of the grace we need to do those things throughout the year is given to us anew.  The whole Church is filled with great joy.  After subduing our worship and not saying the Gloria at the beginning of Mass or chanting Alleluia throughout Lent, it gives me goosebumps every year when the organ finally bellows the Gloria again at the Easter Vigil.  Grace is always a surprise but at least we have the benefit of 2000 years of Tradition to give us an idea of what to expect.  It was a different story for Jesus’ disciples.

            After Jesus’ Passion and Death his disciples were still unsure of what exactly would happen.  They feared for their lives.  They were sad and had lost hope.  Their Lord had disappeared and they didn’t know why.  Instead of joy, they have confusion and despair.  But Jesus, having risen from the dead, appeared to two of his disciples as they walked to Emmaus.  They were talking about what had happened and debating with each other what it all could mean.  But they did not have the light of faith that would have allowed them to see with their spiritual eyes the deeper meaning of the events outside of Jerusalem and on Mount Calvary.  And this darkness also kept them from being able to recognize the risen Jesus.  So they explained to him what happened as if he was a common passer-by.

            Little did they know that they would receive a very, very special and privileged gift.  This stranger who they did not recognize, our Risen Lord Himself, then took the opportunity as they walked to explain all of salvation history, starting with Moses and the prophets, and how every aspect of his life, from his birth, to his ministry, to his death, and Resurrection was foreshadowed in Scripture.  Can you imagine?!  Having Jesus Christ Himself, the Eternal Word of God, walk with you and explain the Scriptures to you!  What I wouldn’t give to have been an eavesdropper in their conversation!  I’m sure we can all call to mind times when we, like these two disciples, were sad, or without hope, or afraid, or confused and wanted to turn to the Bible but weren’t sure were to go.  Or when we have read a certain passage and could not figure out what it meant.  Who do we have that can explain the Scriptures to us?

            When the two disciples and Jesus arrived in Emmaus they did not want him to keep going, they wanted him to stay with them because finally they were beginning to understand with true Faith, Faith which brought them to a higher level of understanding than their unaided reason was able to take them.  Their hearts which were filled with the darkness of doubt were now filling with light and love.  Their hearts burned within them as Jesus spoke to them on the way and opened the Scriptures for them.  It was the meal that was the climax of their experience with him though.  It was in sharing a meal together that they finally recognized the risen Jesus and knew him for who he really was.  It was in the meal that Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them.  Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  He took… blessed… broke…and gave… the same words used in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, and more importantly, the same words used at the Last Supper, the first Eucharist.  Starting with the Scriptures and ending with a meal, our Lord gradually brought them to greater and greater Faith and greater and greater knowledge of Him.  Who do we have that can help us to believe in Jesus in the Eucharist?

            One of the things that I like to do when I celebrate Baptisms with young families is to explain how it important it is that they take their duty as Christian parents seriously and work diligently through prayer and teaching to raise their children in our Catholic faith and to guard and protect the priceless graces they receive through the waters of Baptism.  Who do we have that can explain the Scriptures to us?  Who do we have that can help us to believe in Jesus in the Eucharist?  I think today gives us the answer… our mothers.

            As a young deacon, about to be ordained a priest, I have celebrated about a dozen Baptisms and each one has truly been very joyful for me.  And the faith that each set of parents has shown has been commendable.  But sometimes I am a little disappointed when I learn that parents have delayed the Baptism of their child, not because of medical or family troubles, but because they want their child to decide for himself if he wants to be Baptized or they feel like they don’t want to impose a particular faith on their child.  With mothers this is the hardest for me to understand.  From the moment a mother learns she has conceived her child, she naturally begin to plan the future – what type of house will be needed, if her and/or her husband’s job is making enough to give them the security they need, how she will feed, clothe, and nurture the child, what neighborhood the child will be raised in, what family and friends will be available to him, what schools he will go to, etc.  All of these decisions for the child’s natural, physical well-being are decided long before the child has a say.  Why then do some mothers today leave their child’s supernatural life and their eternal well-being up to chance?  Having a neutral attitude with regard to a child’s religious life is in fact not a neutral choice but a negative choice that deprives the child of an essential good.[1]  This good is the aid of a mother who will, from the beginning, nurture not only his natural health, but his spiritual health as well.  A child’s mother is naturally, then, the one he has who can explain the Scriptures to him and to help him to believe in Jesus in the Eucharist.  Who else but a mother can say to her child when he is old enough to receive Communion, “My son, I fed you with milk from my own body so that, at least for a while, you would not be hungry, but here Jesus feeds you with his body so you will never be hungry again.”

            The benefit of becoming a child of God, one of the many gifts of Baptism, is something that I think mothers should give their children as soon as they can and afterwards nurture with all of the feminine genius at their disposal.  The time honored practices of the family rosary or gathering together to read the readings before Mass are simple ways a mother, along with her husband, can gradually raise their children in the faith.  When my three brothers and I were children, for whatever reason, our family didn’t pray the rosary or read the Scriptures together.  But I clearly remember my mom encouraging my dad to come to our rooms and teach us how to pray when he came home tired from a long day’s work.  My mom was and still is a Catholic elementary school teacher.  She may not have sat down and explained the Scriptures to us but she taught us our faith and helped us to understand it when we came home from school.  I remember riding in the car on the way to school, she would rehearse with us the prayers we were learning in religion class.  We said the Act of Contrition over and over until we learned it.

            Today I want to thank and encourage all of the mothers, grandmothers, and godmothers who have been faithful from the very beginning in nurturing the bodies and the souls of their children.  I don’t know if I would be a deacon today, on my way to the priesthood, if it wasn’t for my mother helping me along the way, keeping me on track, and coming to my assistance when I was sad, without hope, afraid, or confused.  But I also want to challenge today the mothers who may not have realized that this was their duty or who haven’t been as faithful to it as they could be.  Today, Mother’s Day, is not a religious holiday, but it can still be one in which the Holy Spirit calls us to be grateful and to thank the Mothers of our parish for all they have done to raise us in the faith.  And it can be an opportunity for us to support our mothers, to reach out to the mothers in our extended families or groups of friends, and help them to be the supportive mothers that they are called to be.

And should you be among those today who are reminded of the loss of your mother, be not afraid.  Your Mother the Church, has always been here for you, always willing to give you the help that you need, especially through the Mass, that most precious gift that she has preserved for 2000 years.  For all of us, through the Mass each and every day our Holy Mother the Church opens up the Scriptures for us and makes Jesus known to us in the breaking of the bread.

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[1] Instruction on Infant Baptism, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, October 20, 1980

Homily 5th Sun Lent, Year A: Lazarus, Risen and Freed

    In the summer of 2008, I had one of the most difficult experiences of my entire formation to be a priest. In order to gain more pastoral experience, I participated in a program at the University of Louisville hospital in my home state of KY called C.P.E. – Clinical Pastoral Education. This is an ecumenical program in which I worked as a hospital chaplain while learning how to be a more effective minister. Each of us in the group, of different faiths, and genders, and ages, were assigned to visit the patients in a particular department of the hospital. We would then gather as a group to discuss and study our experiences.

My department was particularly difficult: Palliative Care – which is the care that one receives in order to manage pain or to aid in making end of life decisions. Most of the patients I visited were dying or near death, but I felt like it was a great honor to be with these patients in their greatest need. I was glad to be able to sit down with the families and help them to make the right decisions. But, perhaps what I appreciate the most are the times I spent with patients who, while they were dying of a terrible cancer or intense pain, were comforting and praying for us, consoling us, and reassuring us. Shouldn't we be taking care of them? What was it about these particular patients that enabled them to be so other-centered, so charitable, so loving, so peaceful? How did they have more emotional and spiritual strength than we did? What made them different than the patients who gave up, or were bitter, or angry, or flippant about their death? I saw a wide range of reactions to death that summer. I myself had a wide range of reactions! The Gospel from today's Mass, of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, has helped me to understand better what I experienced during that summer almost three years ago.

    In today's Gospel reading and in many other places in Scripture, we can see that wherever Christ is present at significant events, he sanctifies the situation. One of the reasons we celebrate Matrimony as one of the Church's seven sacraments is because Christ was present at the Wedding Feast of Cana, thus making it holy, making it a vehicle of grace, and a way in which his love is shown to the Church and to the world. One of the reasons we celebrate Baptism as a sacrament is because Jesus entered the waters of the Jordan River to be baptized by John even though he was without sin, thus making the waters of Baptism holy and able to wash away sins and give divine life. And so today, on this 5^th Sunday of Lent, Jesus enters into our experiences of suffering and death, making them holy too, making suffering and death a mystery, taking away the crude and narrow finality that we too often give them and replacing it with his presence. Even death, even times of great suffering, when Christ enters into them, can become times of his healing and divine life. What was a time of grief and confusion for Mary, Martha, and their friends and family, became an occasion of faith, hope, and love.

    Because Jesus Christ was fully human, we can feel comfortable inviting him into any place, any circumstance, any struggle, any memory whatsoever. He was once like us, completely human, in every way except our sinfulness. That humanity he still has but in a glorified state, no longer affected by the limitations he once felt alongside us. He did feel them. He felt the full range of human emotion. The Gospel mentions that he wept in sympathy for Mary and Martha and what Lazarus had to endure. He understands our lives and what we are going through. At the same though He is fully God and so wherever he goes, wherever we welcome him, he brings the fullness of divinity and all that God has to offer.

To places of pain and suffering he brings new purpose, meaning, and value; he brings the Resurrection. He is the Resurrection. To places of happiness and success he brings a glimpse and a foretaste of eternal happiness with him in everlasting life. He is everlasting life. We can very well believe that he loves us as much as he loved Lazarus. He wants to be for us, right here and now, Resurrection and Life. He wants to show us too that death is not the end, it is simply the step to eternal life. And he wants to give us a share in eternal life which grace brings to the soul even while we still live on earth. Mary and Martha have shown us how to enter into this type of relationship with Jesus Christ. "They said to him, 'Lord, come and see.'" As Catholic Christians, I think we would do well to have these words always on the tip of our tongue in prayer: "Lord, come and see."

    To the students here: Whenever you get a good grade on a test, pray to him, "Lord, come and see" and he will share that joy with you and help you to know he is proud of you whenever you use the gifts he has given you well. After the 12:30pm Mass one of the new deacons on our team, Deacon Chris Hess, will celebrate his first Baptisms. There too we will pray with him and the family: "Lord, come and see" and we believe that he will be present there, strengthening Chris's new ministry and giving the parents the graces they need to cultivate the new spiritual life of their child. What else can we invite the Lord to come and see today? I know that I will be praying today for the Lord to come and see me through the last few weeks of seminary so that I can transition well into the priesthood. What is it for you? Perhaps it is a childhood trauma that has affected you for years. Perhaps it is a relative or a friend who has driven you to your wit's end. Perhaps it is a physical or psychological illness or the struggles of someone in your family.

Lent is a good time for self-reflection and re-focus. We still have a week and a half of Lent remaining. If your Lenten practices of renewed self-discipline, prayer, and generosity have been going well, then maybe this little prayer of invitation could be a way of going even deeper so that you can experience the glory of Easter all the more. If your Lenten practices haven't gone so well, then this could be a way of offering all that we have left to God. It was the widow outside of the Temple who offered one gold coin that gave the most, because it was all that she had.

    Mary and Martha have taught us what power can come from the simple prayer of invitation, "Lord, come and see." But they have also taught us that when we run to the Lord without delay, with patience and humility, and without presumption, even though he may seem to delay he actually desires to exceed our expectations. For example, when St. Paul was blinded on the road to Damascus for persecuting Christians, he heard the voice of the Lord call him to conversion. He was also told to proceed to Damascus where he would be told what to do next. There Paul waited for three days, blinded, without food or water. But he had a prophecy that a disciple of the Lord, Ananias, would come, lay his hands on him, and restore his sight. This is all that Paul expected. Ananias, with some reluctance, did this but then he did even more! He also filled him with the Holy Spirit, baptized him, and fed and strengthened him!

    This is the type of God that we have. He is not content to simply restore us to level zero. He wants to do that and so much more! He wants to restore us and then increase us! This may be hard to believe when the Lord doesn't respond to our invitation when we want him to. If Jesus had come to Lazarus in two days rather than four then Lazarus could have been cured and would not have died. But, Jesus knew that raising Lazarus from death to life would have a more profound effect on his disciples' faith than simply raising him from sickness to health.

"So then Jesus said to them clearly, 'Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe.'" Despite this though, when Martha came to Jesus she said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" not in order to complain to him or to ridicule him but because she actually believed that to be true. Her faith was so deep that she didn't even ask him to raise her brother Lazarus from the dead. She abandoned herself to him, trusting that if he willed it he could do it. Jesus, moved by her faith and the sympathy he felt, raised Lazarus from the dead. He could have left it at that! But he also asked his disciples to unbind Lazarus after he had risen. Then he had a meal with Lazarus and his family.

    St. Augustine sees this episode as an image of the sacrament of Reconciliation. Whenever we sin, our spiritual lives can begin to die and we find ourselves in our own tomb of despair, isolation, or radical self-reliance. The call to reconciliation that this Lenten season brings is like Jesus crying out to each one of us, "Lazarus, come out." Through the words of absolution our sins are forgiven, we are given new life and emerge from the tomb. Jesus tells his priests, for us, "Unbind him, and let him go." We are released from the sins that bind us and are restored to full fellowship and communion with God and with the Church, our spiritual family.

    All of this is offered to each one of us, individually, personally, during the remainder of this Lent and beyond. The prayer to the Lord to "come and see" and his call that we be unbound and "let go" – these are how a dying cancer patient can have more peace and strength then those sent to minister to her. When the Lord is present and we are set free, our happiness can be transformed from happiness that fades away to happiness the brings a taste of eternal life. And suffering and death are transformed from a meaningless pain or a senseless end, to experiences that give faith to others by the sheer power of what God can do in the heart of one who believes. He gives us the hope that with death life is changed, not ended.

Homily 6th Sun O.T. Year A: World Marriage Day

    My Canon Law professor at the seminary, Msgr. Fulton, had a way of teaching Church law that made us actually enjoy learning it; he made it a joy to know the law and to help others to know it too. We even nicknamed our textbook "The Big Green Monster" because it is a huge, unwieldy book containing the Code of Canon Law and the commentary on each canon. It's almost 2000 pages long and is paperbound so it never keeps its shape and is impossible to carry around. In his great sense of humor he would joke that our Canon Law text, The Big Green Monster, "is everything Jesus meant to say!" The point he made to us, without explicitly saying it, is that the law of the Church, which is a reflection of the law of the Lord, should be taught and learned and followed with joy and from the heart. The law is not intended to be something that embitters us. The law is not meant to be followed with white-knuckled anxiety or with demands that are impossible to meet. Laws, when they are just, do not bind up… they set free.

    Now, it is certainly true that we all bristle under the law every now and then – whether it's that speeding ticket for going 5 miles over the speed limit or that sudden realization that it's a Friday in Lent right before you bite into a steak. This is nothing though compared to what the Israelites felt in Biblical times under the weight of law put onto them by the scribes and Pharisees. The 10 commandments, as awesome as they are, were ultimately national laws for public observance. "Thou shall not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain" meant that henceforth it was illegal for them to do so. "That shall not kill" made murder illegal. Breaking one of the 10 commandments brought grave punishments. And on top of these were the hundreds of other laws that governed almost every aspect of their way of life. But, these laws were good because they helped to separate the Israelites from the pagan worship and influences of the peoples that surrounded them. They helped to set the standard for exhibiting a right relationship with God. These laws helped set their nation apart, to define and protect them, as God's chosen people. The point of the old law was that God was preparing them for a New Covenant in Jesus Christ that would inscribe the law of God on their hearts. God was preparing them for a kingdom not of rigid boundaries but of the whole world, a kingdom to which all people will be invited.

    But, the scribes and Pharisees missed the point of the law. Rather than accept Jesus who fulfilled, completed, perfected, and transformed the law into the means of their salvation, they based their salvation in strictly observing "the smallest letter" and "the smallest part of a letter" of the law, every "jot and tittle" as they used to say (Mt 5:18). Thank God we don't have the same burdens placed on us. Thank God Jesus really did fulfill and transform the law from something heavy and external to something light and heartfelt. "My yoke is easy," Jesus said, "my burden light" (Mt 11:30). No more do we have laws that are impossible to follow. Under the Kingship of our Lord, we are given a new moral law that brings right along with it the aid to carrying it out.

    So for example, none of us needs the law "You shall not kill" because we have been given the grace and blessing of a good upbringing, well-ordered hearts and minds, patience, mercy, and forgiveness. We can say we are free of the demands of that law. But Jesus wants us to go deeper. What about the anger in our hearts that kills our relationship with our parents, or our siblings, or our coworkers? What about the lack of patience with ourselves that we cannot let go of? What about the revenge that we secretly desire every time we are offended? These thoughts and desires that spring from the heart cause us to suffer a hundred tiny deaths throughout our lives if we do not let the law of the Lord, the law of love, set us free from them.

It is this kind of deeper meaning that Jesus wants us to see in each of the 10 commandments as we strive to follow them. They are still true for us, as true as they were for the Israelites. But now God is asking us to love him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, not just with our external observances. Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever" (Jn 14:15). We are given grace and the Holy Spirit that help us to go so far as to even love the law. Through what else but the spirit of God was the psalmist able to pray, "Open my eyes, that I may consider the wonders of your law. Instruct me, O Lord, in the way of your statutes, that I may exactly observe them. Give me discernment, that I may observe your law and keep it with all my heart" (Ps 119). We have to believe that this is possible for us too

But, "You shall not kill" is an easy one. What about "You shall not commit adultery"? "Whoever looks at a woman with lust," Jesus says in our Gospel today, "has already committed adultery with her in his heart." And "whoever divorces his wife," he continues, "causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery" (Mt 5:27, 32). Still, most of you here today who are married do not need that law either – when most of you exchanged your consent on your wedding day you intended fully to be exclusively faithful to each other, even until death, and to be open to children. You should be very proud of the covenant you have kept in your marriage. In fact, because today is World Marriage Day, the Archbishop is celebrating a special Mass at 3pm specifically to honor and affirm your commitment. Everyone is invited to celebrate marriage today with him and to pray that a bill in the Maryland senate that is challenging the definition of marriage will be defeated.

For most the bonds of marriage have never been at risk. But, perhaps for some, this hasn't been so easy. Perhaps through a build-up of a bunch of big or small bad choices along the way, what was a good and valid marriage has become broken and torn asunder. Perhaps there are some that have chosen divorce or some that have followed that with remarriage outside of the Church and have endangered their ability to receive the sacraments or hold certain positions. Perhaps there are some that have had divorce inflicted on them, through no fault of their own. It is in these situations that the law is truly hard, that the yoke is not easy, and the burden is not light. But, even in situations like these, as unbelievable as it may seem, God is offering the help needed to do the right thing or to receive healing. That could take the form of advice from a wise priest or deacon who can help you sort through the many layers of the problem. Or it could take the form of advice from the Archdiocese's tribunal in helping you understand exactly where you stand with regard to the law. These are the helps that should be pursued first.

Statistically speaking, most of us here today know someone in our family or friends who is divorced or divorced and remarried. The rate of divorce in the general population, about 50%, is now the same rate among Catholics – we have caught up with the rest of society. But it is important that we remember, either for ourselves or for those in particular who we know, that these do not mean that we are excommunicated from the Church. Even if you cannot receive Communion, for example, because the manifest grave sin persists, this does not mean that you are unwanted from the community or that the Church no longer wants you to be part of its life. The obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days doesn't necessarily always include the reception of Holy Communion. There are others who may not receive for any number of reasons - it could be from breaking the hour fast, gulping down a Starbucks coffee as you walk through the door, or it could be because of a serious sin like committing adultery.

The point is we can still benefit greatly from the real presence of Christ in the person of the priest, in the Word of God proclaimed, and in the gathered congregation. And fellowship with fellow Catholics in the myriad of spiritual, pastoral, and intellectual programs of the parish can be the help we need toward advancing to a more perfect obedience of the Lord's commands, to a more perfect love of Him. This is something, frankly, that we should all work toward together, reaching out and helping each other along the way. Even the most difficult laws of the Church can be followed with ease if we take the risk of giving our hearts to each other and ultimately to God and allowing Him to place in us His Sacred Heart, a heart that beats with love, mercy, forgiveness, purity, and strength. Today, let us all take courage. "If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live; he has set before you fire and water; to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand" (Sir 15:15-16).

Homily 2nd Sun O.T. Year A: The Lamb of God

Last Sunday, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord was the official beginning of the Season that we are now in: Ordinary Time. It had a special focus on Jesus' Baptism and its meaning for our lives. This Sunday continues that theme but there is no special Feast Day; it is just a quote/unquote "normal Sunday." But, what is special about this Sunday and the other Sundays of Ordinary Time, is that rather than focusing on a particular aspect of the life of Jesus or the saints, the focus is now on those day-to-day duties and responsibilities of a faithful Catholic. These include remembering that every Sunday is a Holy Day of Obligation (not just the Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Easter Sunday, etc.). Ordinary Time also reminds us to return to normal routines of prayer that can be disturbed by the busy-ness of the holidays, to renew those small acts of penance that make up the penitential lifestyle of the Catholic, and to examine our conscience regularly to see how prepared we are to receive Holy Communion. These are not extraordinary acts, these are and should be the common, ordinary, practices of every mainstream Catholic. What is beautiful about Ordinary Time, is that it reminds us that through Ordinary things, Extraordinary things can happen.

For us, "Ordinary" does not have to mean "mundane," but we often get the two confused. How many times, for example, have you heard Father say as he holds the consecrated Host over the chalice, "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper"? Every Sunday you've heard it, maybe even every day. Many of you have heard this thousands of times throughout your life. Sometimes we can forget what it really means. But this phrase should never become mundane to us. It is an ordinary expression that has an extraordinary meaning.

This phrase, said at every Mass, actually comes from the Gospel reading that you heard today: "John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, 'Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.'" In the same way, we who are united in the Body of Christ in the Sacrament of Baptism and strengthened in the Eucharist are called to point others to Jesus, just like John the Baptist did, through our words and actions. [1]

The second part of this prayer reflects the words of the Book of Revelation, where God revealed to St. John what the Mass in heaven will look like: "Then the angel said to me, 'Write this: Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb'" (Rev 19:9). In this prayer, we are not rejoicing that we may receive the Eucharist. Instead, we rejoice for those who have been found worthy to share in the heavenly Liturgy, the supper of the Lamb, and we pray that one day, we may join them in the everlasting life of the Kingdom of God. [2]

So, a better translation of this prayer of the Mass, one more clearly linked to Scripture is: "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb." From this we see that the Scriptures in the Mass do not end after the Gospel and the Homily. The entire Mass is filled with Scripture. We Catholics know Scripture better than we might think! When we hear this prayer, we should think of ourselves as John the Baptist. And we should call to mind those who are enjoying the Mass in heaven with the saints. God is calling all of us to be saints, every single one of us, and he has given us the Mass, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, to help us on that journey.

Now, I know all of that sounded a bit academic. But I like to do a little bit of teaching about the Mass whenever the opportunity comes because I think whenever we can understand more deeply what the Mass means and what it means for our lives, then we can receive more fully this wonderful gift. If we are calling Jesus the "Lamb of God" during our Mass, if John the Baptist called Him the "Lamb of God" as he walked on earth, and if the Book of Revelation calls him, as he reigns in heaven, the "Lamb of God" 28 times in the span of 22 chapters, then what does that tell us about the Mass!? It tells us that we are participating in something that is literally heaven on earth. It shows us that everlasting life in heaven is possible and that this earth is not all that we live for. For something that happens so ordinarily, this is quite extraordinary! [3]

This phrase, "Behold the Lamb of God," is also a challenge to us today. It is a challenge because the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, takes away the sins of the world. How does he take away your sins or mine? He certainly doesn't force Himself on us. We have to accept this for ourselves. The way that we do this is by receiving Communion but also by going to the sacrament of Reconciliation. In the Mass, the victory of the Lamb of God over sin is realized for our own time and place. In Confession, the Lamb of God takes away and forgives the sins of my own world, my life, through the absolution of the priest.

A great way to think about all of this is with the image of a family. The Catholic Church is "nothing other than the family of God." Through Baptism we enter God's family. Through Confirmation we are "firmed up" to reach Christian maturity within the family. At the altar of the Eucharist, which is like the family meal, we are nourished by the food of Jesus' Body and Blood. And just like at home when a sick child is tended to, through the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick God heals our body and soul. Through Ordination God raises up fathers for His earthly family, the Church. In Holy Matrimony, new Christian homes are made, which tradition calls "domestic churches." But, whenever we have wounded or cut off our family life, the sacrament of Reconciliation, by our confession and receiving forgiveness, restores us to normal family life. [4]

Going to confession is an ordinary practice for good Catholic families who desire to strengthen their family and to grow in holiness. This should be as common as all of the other "ordinary" practices, so to speak, of Ordinary Time. Saints and popes have consistently encouraged us to go to Confession eat least on a monthly basis. When we hear at Mass, "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" we should let that phrase be our reminder. When I hear that phrase I think about how he has taken away the sins of my own world and when the last time was that I let him into my world. After all, he was a friend to tax collectors and sinners and he ate with them. He forgave the woman caught in adultery with the simple words "Go and do not sin again". In the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee he taught us to pray "God be merciful to me a sinner!" And in the parable of the prodigal son he shows us that we too are sons of a Father and have gone astray and so our Father humbles himself, comes to us, and gives us what we need to come home to stay. Can we ever lose hope of being forgiven when it is Christ who forgives? Can we ever lose hope of receiving the graces we need to be saints when it is Christ who can give them to us? The assurance fills us with great peace and joy. [5]

In this current season, let's call to mind again that there is nothing ordinary about Ordinary Time. Let us use this time to focus on the extraordinary graces offered to us. Thank God that through the Mass and Reconciliation, by the power of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, graces as extraordinary as forgiveness and the very divine life of God are made ordinary parts of our lives.

[1] USCCB, Parish Guide to Implementing the Roman Missal Third Edition, Appendix D Bulletin Inserts, “Scripture and the Mass,” back
[2] Ibid.
[3] Scott Hahn, The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth, p. 9
[4] Scott Hahn, Swear to God: The Promise and Power of the Sacraments, p. 42, 43, 45, 47, 48, 51, 52, 54 for the short family connections of each sacrament.
[5] Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God, Vol. 3, p. 42-43 for the forgiveness episodes.

Homily 3rd Sun. of Advent, Year A: Rejoice! The Lord is near!

    About three weeks ago, while I was in my hometown of Owensboro, KY spending time with my family during Thanksgiving break, I had the great pleasure of being able to baptize my twin brother's first born child. His name is Dominic Joseph Hardesty. That moment was very meaningful to me because I have always been very close to my twin brother, Nicholas, and I was able to baptize his son, at the parish we grew up in, Blessed Mother Church. His wife Amy's family, who are from Maine, were able to be there too and it was one of the first times that my extended family was able to see me "in action," so to speak, celebrating a sacrament with them 

    In the beginning of the ritual, I reminded Nick and Amy of the joy with which they welcomed their son as a gift from God, the source of life, who wishes to bestow his own life on their little one – then at his Baptism, and throughout his life through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. I asked them to think back to the moment when they discovered that Amy was pregnant, to recall the excitement and joy that they felt. And I asked them to call to mind how their longing and anticipation grew as their son grew more and more. And finally I asked them to remember the overwhelming joy and relief when Dominic was finally born and placed in their arms. As Nick and Amy were coworkers with God in giving him natural life, it was a great joy of mine to be a coworker with God in giving him supernatural life.

    This experience of a young married couple, of Christian joy and happiness, of longing and anticipation, is the same experience we should have today on this Third Sunday of Advent, a day that the Church calls Gaudete Sunday. This comes from the first word of today's Entrance Antiphon, "Gaudete," which means Rejoice! The Entrance Antiphon is a short verse found in the Missal which can be chanted as the Entrance hymn. The full verse says, Gaudéte in Dómino semper: íterum dico, gaudéte. Dóminus enim prope est.
 
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! The Lord is near." Against the backdrop of short, cloudy days and long, cold, rainy nights… against the backdrop of Advent violet symbolizing penance and good works which, though less intense than in Lent, are still a serious component of the Advent season… against the backdrop of a renewed awareness of our need for the Lord and the longing we have for his return… against all of these we have today a beacon of hope, symbolized by the rose-colored vestments we wear today. We can begin to see the rays of light beaming from the Star of Bethlehem, from the manger of the Son of God; it is Jesus Christ, the Light of Lights! He is near at hand! He is not far off now! Only two more weeks and he will be ours again! And what beautiful gifts he has in store for us!

    The prophet Isaiah foretold that even "the desert and the parched land" will exult. Even the dry land eagerly awaits the coming of the Spring of Living Water which is Jesus Christ. And when he finally comes, the land will exult and bloom! "Let the earth bless the Lord. Praise and exult him above all forever. Mountains and hills, bless the Lord. Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord!" But, as the Psalmist could ask, "Do you sons of men, bless the Lord?" How eagerly do we await his coming? If the earth and all of the Lord's creation can be filled, in a mystical way, with joy at our Lord's coming, we certainly can as well.

    But, I realize that precisely this time of year, when the Church asks us to be joyful in our time of waiting, can be a season of sorrow, of loneliness, of disappointment. For some of you this may be a time in which you mostly deeply feel the separation from a loved one who has died, or the desire for friendship or intimacy that has escaped you. Perhaps you may be feeling the stress of wanting to buy that perfect gift that you couldn't possibly afford. Perhaps this is one more Christmas in which your son or daughter in the military is fighting in a country worlds away. Or a relative could be right next door but still distant and estranged. I feel it myself sometimes, when I let papers pile up on me at the end of the semester and all I want to do is go home to Kentucky to see my family. I think these feelings happen in all of us in some way or another. But how is it that some blessed souls are able to maintain their joy leading to, during, and throughout the Advert and Christmas seasons while others experience such sadness? The difference is in where we choose to locate our happiness.

    Happiness is a lot like love – even though both can be very deeply felt they are essentially not feelings but acts of the will. In other words, when we let the grace of God empower our decisions we can choose to be happy, to receive happiness, to give happiness… just like we can with love. So, for example, with love: We may not feel very warm and fuzzy inside about the idea of having to sit at the bedside of an ailing grandparent or bringing food to the poor in the streets of Baltimore – but we do these anyway, even if they don't feel very good at all, because we have chosen to love, because we have chosen to make a sacrifice of ourselves for another person. It is the same with happiness – with God's grace, we can choose to be happy.

Turn back to my brother and his wife Amy for a second, if you don't mind. They had only been married for about a year, still newlyweds with much uncertainty. My brother is a Director of Religious Education at our home parish and his wife is a housewife. They had many questions and worries like all newlyweds do, but they did not let these interfere with the happiness they had for their first child. Think of Mary and Joseph, having to travel by camel while Mary was deeply pregnant, being rejected when they sought shelter, having to deliver the long-awaited Messiah in a feeding trough, in a cave. But, despite all of these difficulties, "it is not difficult for us to imagine Our Lady, in these days of Advent, radiant with joy at carrying the Son of God beneath her heart." She chose the happiness that comes from single-minded reflection on the nearness of the Lord. He is near to us today, He is close at hand, He truly is!

    If sadness dominates our own lives during this Advent or Christmas season, it is because we have taken our eyes away from Jesus Christ who is the unfailing, ever-present, ever-nearby source of happiness and joy even in the midst of trials and difficulties. A Christian who has his eyes always on the happiness that Jesus Christ offers – a happiness that does not come and go with our circumstances or our feelings, a happiness that is the bedrock of his life – will be able to endure difficulties in a different and better way than others. Those who take their eyes off of Jesus or choose other less dependable ways of achieving happiness are badly shaken and disturbed when difficulties come their way. But the one who keeps her eyes on Jesus Christ, will be able to endure difficulties with patience and calmness, with peace and serenity, because she knows the source of her happiness is still at her side, still close by, still hers to choose to accept and to give to others. We can choose despair or we can choose peace. The Lord is near, he is close at hand, offering us the choice. "There is no sorrow which he cannot alleviate." Today is the day in which we must choose happiness, not only for ourselves but for those who could receive happiness from us, if we could only offer it to them. "People need to be convinced that Christ has really been born in Bethlehem, and few things are more convincing than the habitual happiness of the Christian, even in the midst of pain and contradictions." If God has blessed you with an enduring happiness, never forget how great a gift that is and always be willing to share it.

    One of my favorite poems during Advent and Christmas is a poem by Robert Herrick. It is most often referred to by its first few words, "What sweeter music," and was made famous when it was composed as a hymn by John Rutter. The poem invites us to consider how miraculous it truly is that the Son of God, the Eternal Word, was made flesh and dwelt among us; how all creation was transformed and this transformation can take place in our own lives as well. Allow me to share this poem with you:

What sweeter music can we bring,
Than a Carol, for to sing
The Birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the Voice! Awake the String!
Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honor to this Day,
That sees December turn'd to May.

Why does the chilling Winter's morn
Smile, like a field beset with corn?
Or smell, like a meadow newly shorn,
Thus, on the sudden? Come and see

The cause, why things thus fragrant be:
'Tis He is born, whose quick'ning Birth
Gives life and luster, public mirth,
To Heaven and the under-Earth.

We see Him come, and know Him ours,
Who, with His Sun-shine, and His Showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.

The Darling of the World is come,
And fit it is, we find a room
To welcome Him.

The nobler part
Of all the house here, is the Heart,
Which we will give Him; and bequeath
This Holly and this Ivy Wreath,
To do Him honor; who's our King,
And Lord of all this Revelling.

The miracle of Bethlehem, if you, if I, choose to accept it, can be the miracle of our very own hearts. If at the coming of the Lord, "the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them," then our own lives too can be transformed to see more clearly, to walk more steadily, to be healed of the infirmities of sin, to hear more loudly God's call, to have a heart raised up to him, and to know his peace and happiness. Today, let us put away all sadness, let us rejoice! For the Lord who has and will do these things and much more is near… is very near…

Surprised by Christmas, 3rd edition

It seems that every year, a Christmas song that I have heard a hundred times or have not noticed, all the sudden surprises me with how beautiful it really is once I pay attention to the words.  First, it was Little Dummer Boy, then Good King Winceslas, and this year it is What Sweeter Music.  The latter has been on a compliation CD of sared hymns that I've listened too over and over tons of times.  But, I looked up the words a few days ago and they are absolutely beautiful.  Listen to this hymn and read the words at the same time.



A Christmas Carol, Sung to the King in the Presence at White-Hall


WHAT sweeter music can we bring,
Than a Carol, for to sing
The Birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the Voice! Awake the String!
Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honor to this Day,
That sees December turn'd to May. 2x

Why does the chilling Winter's morn
Smile, like a field beset with corn?
Or smell, like a meadow newly shorn,
Thus, on the sudden? Come and see

The cause, why things thus fragrant be:
'Tis He is born, whose quick'ning Birth
Gives life and luster, public mirth,
To Heaven and the under-Earth.

We see Him come, and know Him ours,
Who, with His Sun-shine, and His Showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers. 2x

The Darling of the World is come,
And fit it is, we find a room
To welcome Him. 2x

The nobler part
Of all the house here, is the Heart,
Which we will give Him; and bequeath
This Holly and this Ivy Wreath,
To do Him honor; who's our King,
And Lord of all this Revelling. back

[The Musical Part was composed by Master Henry Lawes].
Robert Herrick