Homily 28th Sun O.T. Year A–The Marriage Feast and The Call

I am sure we have all, at one time or another, experienced the disappointment of working and planning diligently for a major event only to have very few people show up. Especially when it is a parish event, you can feel so defeated and discouraged when you know that a presentation or a speaker could have been so helpful to so many people and you want so badly for the gifts of the Church to have an effect on everyone. But imagine the big occasions in your life where it is obligatory that a lot of people show up. Imagine if only a handful came to a milestone birthday party, or a family reunion, or worse yet, your wedding reception? I was thinking about how disappointed I would have been if my Ordination had been like that. The challenge today is for us to consider that sometimes we do that to God, leave him high and dry. Really mankind has done this to God throughout salvation history.

Beginning with the Israelites of the Old Testament, God sent them the prophets to continually call them to Himself, to salvation, to eternal life. What Isaiah called “a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines” was the salvation God had in store for them. Throughout the Scriptures the image of a great heavenly banquet is used to illustrate the great intimacy that God desires to have with us, in order to share with us His greatest gifts. Through the prophets, God proclaimed continuously, in the words of Jesus’ parable, “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast.” They don’t have to bring anything. God doesn’t split up their last names and have A through H bring a meat, I through P bring vegetables, and Q through Z bring a dessert! He just wants them to be with him.

But, the Jews at that time either ignored the call – preoccupied as they were with worldly or family concerns – or, worse, rejected the king’s feast and killed the prophets who were sent to invite them. Remember, Jesus is in Jerusalem for his passion. He is making one last attempt to stir the consciences of the scribes and Pharisees, to help them see that they have fallen in line with the wicked tenants of last week’s parable who killed the servants and the landowner’s only son, who were sent to collect the produce of the vineyard. And now, Jesus says, they are like the invited guests who ignore and kill the servants sent to invite them to the feast.

But, in order to prove once and for all God’s great patience even for those who reject him, Jesus will go the greatest length himself to show that any and everyone are called to the feast, “bad and good alike.” He will go to the point of the cross to gather all he has found. He will suffer a three-fold rejection – He is the King that gives the feast, mocked by the purple robe and the crown of thorns – He is the Son around whom the feast is prepared, mocked as an illegitimate blasphemer before the Sanhedrin – He is the servant sent to proclaim the good news, mocked and jeered at as he hung on the cross.

When we get so caught up in our worldly concerns – “one to his farm, another to his business,” as the parable puts it – then we, in effect, are making this type of three-fold rejection of Christ the King, the Son of God, the Servant of our salvation. When I say, “I’m too busy to pray morning prayer” then I am making this three-fold rejection. Other examples could be saying, “I don’t want to get up for Mass” or “I’d rather watch the football game” or “I’m too afraid of what people will think if I invite them to Church or challenge their behavior”.

When Jesus says in the parable that “The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city” he foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D. For us, if we choose over and over to reject God, our destruction, so to speak, will come about through the natural consequences of such choices: a feeling of alienation and distance from God, a sense of loneliness during times of difficulty, a less and less fulfilling way of life. Ultimately, if we receive Hell, it will be not because God sent us there, but because we chose it, consistent with the choices to reject him in our earthy life. One of God’s greatest acts of love for us was giving us the ability to choose to not love him in return. Love is free or it is not love. God will not force us to choose good and avoid evil. Only when we choose to love God rather than reject him will the love between us grow into an earthly life and an afterlife full of the richness and bounty of God’s gifts and graces.

The point of Jesus’ parable, and really this homily too, is not to beat up those who have rejected him, but to help them and us see the richness and the beauty of what is at stake and to challenge us to live our lives according to such great gifts. Our readiness for these gifts – the feast of the Eucharist, the gifts of the sacraments, the richness of the sacramentals that are constantly available to us: holy water, blessings, the rosary, the crucifix, the scapular, religious medals, and icons… our readiness for these gifts is illustrated in the wedding garment that the guests were required to wear to the feast. Those who wear the garment of a life of conversion and virtue joyfully share in the celebration. Today’s designation as Vocation Awareness Sunday also helps us to look at this parable in a positive light. Who among us is God calling to lead us to the celebration?

We all have the responsibility to answer the call of Christ to come to Him through his Church and to help others to answer his call. But, it falls particularly on those in the priesthood or consecrated religious life to be the servants of this call in a special way, to empower the laity to “Go out, therefore, [even] into the main roads” and “into the streets” to ensure Christ’s call is heard by all, and to do their own part in making it known. The King needs servants. The Church needs young men to hear the call to be priests and to extend the call of salvation to all the world. The Church needs priests who will offer, as Isaiah called it, the “rich food” of the Body of Christ and the “choice wine” of the Blood of Christ to the people gathered at the Eucharistic feast. The Church needs young women to hear the call to consecrated religious life, to be wedded to the Son, to make the Eucharist in their hearts a true wedding feast, to meditate on the call to salvation and help the wider Church understand it.

How many in our three parishes are willing to let their son, grandson, or nephew join the priesthood or their daughter, granddaughter, or niece enter consecrated religious life? To most of our children, this is never even presented as an option. It is never even considered. Sure, what was described in the parable could happen to them too, they too might be rejected or persecuted because of God’s message, especially in our increasingly hostile society. But, I can personally testify that St. Paul’s comforting words to the Philippians are true as well for those who receive a religious vocation: “My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

Throughout seminary and into my priesthood, I am constantly amazed at how he has helped me along the way, helped me when formation was difficult, helped me to do things I never thought I could do, like preach, and teach, and minister to people at the most profound moments of their lives. Plus it is incredibly fulfilling to stop and think that it is my hands and feet and voice that he uses to, as the Responsorial Psalm described it, lead God’s people “beside restful waters” and refresh their souls; to guide them in “right paths for his name’s sake”; to be at their side and give them courage; to “spread the table” before them; to anoint and to “overflow” them with graces. These things make it a tremendous blessing and a joy to “dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come.”

We are blessed here to have six members of the clergy in constant contact with you: Fr. Chuck, Fr. Stan, Deacon Joe, Deacon Bill, Deacon Karl, and me. We must encourage our children and our grandchildren to follow their good example. We are doing very well as a cluster in having three seminarians from St. James who are in the seminary, and one is a Deacon. Let’s keep up the momentum. The Holy Spirit is moving in this archdiocese and there is much cause for hope and excitement! When I entered seminary in 2005 I was one of three men studying to be a priest for the Archdiocese of Louisville. Now we have almost 20 seminarians and more on the way!

As we all strive to hear and answer Christ’s call in our own unique way, let us pray with St. Augustine, “Help us, Lord, to disown our vain excuses. We want to attend the banquet… Don’t allow our pride or sensuality or attachments or idle curiosity to get in the way of our attendance. Make sure that we show up… We have been invited by the wealthy one who became poor for our sake… We will come… and we will tell him: “Keep steady my steps according to thy promise’ (Ps 118:133).”

Homily 27th Sun O.T. Year A - Respect Life

This time four years ago was one of the most memorable events of my seminary career up at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, MD. October 1^st, 2007 was a very exciting day as people packed into the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, just around the block from St. Mary’s. I was sitting in a pew with many other seminarians and I remember thinking how neat it was to see so many different religious orders, many of the faculty from St. Mary’s, so many priests and deacons, even a good number of bishops. That wonderful event was the Mass in which Abp. Edwin O’Brien became the 15^th Archbishop of Baltimore, at the same time becoming the “first among equals” of the American bishops. He just recently moved to Rome though as the new Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

Not only do I remember vividly the setting that day, I also remember well the homily. With today being Respect Life Sunday, we would do well to recall what Abp. O’Brien proclaimed to Baltimore and to America on his first day as the Archbishop of Baltimore. His words were full of conviction and resolve, full of certainty and hope. Indeed, he was like a modern day St. Paul writing to the Philippians in our second reading: “Brothers and Sisters: have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition… make your requests known to God.” Like, Paul, Abp. O’Brien instructed us rely on God and the Church for help. He said:

I pledge that I shall make every effort possible to continue and intensify the defense of the right to life that has been waged by my predecessors. And I pledge more. No one has to have an abortion. To all those in crisis pregnancies, I pledge our support and our financial help. Come to the Catholic church -- let us walk with you through your time of trouble, let us help you affirm life, let us help you find a new life with your child, let us help you by placing that child in a loving home. But please, I beg you, let us help you affirm life. Abortion need not be an answer in this archdiocese....

What a rousing call! It certainly stirred up the flame in my fellow seminarians and me to do more spiritually and publicly for the pro-life cause. I remember how we often gathered with students from Johns Hopkins University on early Saturday mornings in front of a local abortion clinic to pray the rosary and to offer counseling to women as they entered and left the clinic. We were filled with compassion and zeal. We wanted more than anything to help, to make a difference. But when people would heckle us or mock us, I had moments in which I felt like the prophet Isaiah at the end of our first reading: “he looked for judgment, but see, bloodshed! For justice, but hark, the outcry!”

Aren’t these the cries of so many in the pro-life movement when we consider the magnitude of our mission? When we consider that abortion is allowed throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy! When we consider that over 1 million surgical abortions take place every year in the United States, over 4000 every day, and that they are mostly done for non-medical reasons! How can we move forward, how can we continue to witness to the Gospel of Life, in the face of such a formidable foe?

The psalmist seems to cry out right alongside Isaiah. He does so because he has faith that the Lord can help him. The Israelites were the Lord’s vineyard but they were unfaithful and yielded no fruit. They only yielded “wild grapes” – the Hebrew behind that phrase literally meaning “stinking things”. Therefore the Lord left them to their own devices and allowed his vineyard to be broken into and trampled, scattered about and overgrown. He even commanded the clouds not to send rain upon it. If they wanted to be ruined then so be it. But, the psalmist sings out to God: “O Lord of hosts, look down from heaven, and see; take care of this vine, and protect what your right hand has planted… Then we will no more withdraw from you; give us new life, and we will call upon your name.”

In many ways, we have reaped what we have sown in this culture of death. But, we must have faith that God does look down from heaven on us, that he can protect us and give us new life. We must never stop praying for this. Faith is the key when we feel discouraged in our work to end abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and all other offenses against the life of God in us.

On the whole, especially with so many youth involved, I see the pro-life movement filled with hope and joy. But sometimes when we become discouraged, the source of our discouragement is not the culture of death, but rather the things we have done to lessen our own faith in God. This happens, for example, whenever we let despair overcome us, whenever we have division in the pro-life movement, or whenever we resign ourselves to idleness or shrink from our responsibility to defend life. Sometimes when we feel discouraged or unmotivated it is the cumulative effect of these that we are feeling.

What we can do to ignite our faith again is to make an Act of Faith. You have heard of the Act of Contrition, right? It is the prayer we say during the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Remember? It goes, “O my God I am heartily sorry for having offended you…” and so forth. Did you know that there is an Act of Faith as well? It goes:

“O my God, I firmly believe that you are one God in three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe that your divine Son became man and died for our sins and that he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches because you have revealed them who are eternal truth and wisdom, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. In this faith I intend to live and die. Amen.”

An Act of Faith is the proper response to the culture of death, not fear. Your Act of Faith could be the formal prayer or it could be an actual act of faith. For example, you could volunteer with a local pro-life group. Today, in Elizabethtown, where I’m assigned, we are having a “Life Chain” in front of the Mall where people from the community will stand shoulder to shoulder praying the rosary for an end to offenses against human life. We are also having a Holy Hour for Life at 3:45pm with brief readings from several Church documents on various life issues. With October being Respect Life month, there are many opportunities to volunteer at a local pregnancy resource center or pray in front of a abortion clinic in Louisville. There are many prayers and acts of Faith that you can make.

By our faith, the victory that Christ won over sin and death by the power of His Cross can reign in our lives, in our families, our Churches, our neighborhoods. By our faith that victory can reign in Meade County and everywhere in Kentucky. By our faith we can show that we have become the new vineyard and we, with the Son, are the heir of the Father’s riches. But, like the wicked tenants before us, our sins too are intimately related to the death of the beloved Son. We are now expected to render a timely account. Will we yield much good fruit or will we allow sin to yield what Isaiah called “wild grapes” or literally “stinking things”?

God has prepared us well. We are grown on the fertile hillside of grace. We have the choicest vines, the blood of the grape, the Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are spaded and cleared of the stones of sin through the sacraments of Baptism and Reconciliation. The tenants are our priests and bishops and the watchtower is the Magisterium.

Never lose faith in the victory of life over death that has already been won. Our Lord desires to work through you to apply this victory to our place and time. And he has limitless mercy and forgiveness for those who have been wounded by abortion. Make an Act of Faith! Go out with courage and proclaim to all the world that our Faith and our Lord are the hedge built around this vineyard and we will no more be trampled and destroyed.

Homily 26th Sun O.T. Year A - The Parable of the Two Sons

Since I was only ordained about 4 months ago, I still remember it very well. There were several parts to the Ordination ritual and because I was the only one to be ordained I made a point to memorize the order of the different parts so I would know exactly what to do. There wasn’t a guy next to me that I could just glance over too if I was unsure. I was it!
After being called forward and presented to the congregation, I was questioned. I promised to diligently perform the duties of the Priesthood. I had rehearsed the order over and over in my mind. I thought for sure that the Litany of the Saints was next, when I would lie prostrate on the floor as the names of the saints were chanted over me, imploring their help and prayers. But, I had forgotten one very important step. The M.C. subtly motioned twice for me to go up to the Archbishop but I shook my head “No, it’s time for the Litany of the Saints!” Archbishop Kurtz finally had to whisper “You have to promise obedience first!” I was mortified; of course I do! How could I forget the Promise of Obedience! Although I was kicking myself inside for forgetting, I gladly went up the steps of the sanctuary and knelt before the Archbishop. I placed my hands in his hands, looked him directly in the eye, and he asked me “Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?” I answered with all the love and confidence I could give: “I do.”
Promising obedience is not easy, for some priests it is the hardest part of the priesthood. In obedience, a priest has to be willing to respond with trust to his bishop’s instructions, to be willing to go to any parish where he is needed, to be willing to go back to school for further studies if necessary, or to take on additional parishes or responsibilities.
Although these can be difficult, obedience can also bring great joy and fulfillment. It gives a priest direction – he knows who he is and what he is called to do. He doesn’t have to worry constantly about which parish God his calling him too or how long he should minister there. He knows that the Holy Spirit works through his bishop, guiding his ministry, and leading him to the people that God wants him to serve. This is very liberating.
It is very important that a priest promises this obedience in a public fashion, before God, his fellow clergy, and all the people of God gathered there. It is a sign to the world that obedience, although it entails sacrifice, does not have to be bitter or reluctant. It can be free and loving and can bring fulfillment, happiness, and grace to one’s life. When St. Paul tells us in the second reading that Jesus was obedient even to the point of death on a cross, he shows us that in Christ we find the true model and definition of obedience – one that springs from love and freedom and leads not to death but to life.
“Obedience” comes from the Latin “ob-audire” which means “to hear or listen to.” To our modern ears, Christ-like obedience sounds terrible. We don’t like to be told what to do, or how to act. We have highly exalted personal autonomy: “I have the right to do whatever I want as long as I’m not hurting anybody and you don’t have the right to tell me otherwise!” We think that having to obey someone constricts our freedom because then we have to do what that someone tells us rather than what we want to do. The Church is a prime example.
But, True Christian Obedience springs from love and freedom and increases love and freedom. It is not white-knuckled, bitter, disgruntled, rumbling-under-your-breath, Oh-If-You-Say-So, obedience. No, True Christian Obedience is joyful because it gives us that fulfillment in life that comes from being what God made us to be and doing what God calls us to do. God doesn’t want obedient robots or puppets. God wants obedient sons and daughters. And sons and daughters of God the Father, obey him not out of force or fear but because He loves them and they love Him in return.
When we see our obedience as part of a relationship with a loving Father then it can make more sense. There are many real-world examples that illustrate how sensible obedience is: Someone driving cross-country doesn’t mind the lane markings on the road. They don’t constrict him, rather they give him the fullest freedom possible with which to successfully complete his journey. A train conductor, chugging along the tracks, doesn’t resent the tracks because they prevent him from going along the roads like the cars can. No, he hugs the tracks because they allow him to be the fullest extent of what he was mean to be at that moment, a train conductor. A fish in a lake, if he could think, does not resent the confines of his lake which prevent him from flopping onto the banks. No, the confines of the lake give him the freedom to be what he is, a fish. If he were to rebel against the lake and jump out onto the banks he would surely die.
The point is, when one obeys out of love and willingness because the authority, like the Church, is good and trustworthy then he will find that his freedom and happiness is secured, not taken away. Obedience is good for us. A life of disobedience, free from rules or guides, may feel free at first, but it really only binds one to a spiral of confusion, uncertainty, disappointment and heartache.
Msgr. Cormac Burke, an Irish Canon Lawyer, wrote a book called Authority and Freedom in the Church. In it he said, “For the person who wants to follow Christ, the law is never a burden. It becomes a burden only insofar as one fails to discern the call of Christ. Therefore, if the law sometimes seems burdensome, it may not be the law so much as our keenness to follow Christ that needs amending. [After all, our Lord said,] ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ (Jn 14:15).” Furthermore, although we know of course that Christ always has, does, and will love the Father, he says “I love you” out loud to the Father only once in Scripture – and this one time, interestingly enough, is in a statement of obedience. In John’s Gospel, we hear Jesus say to his disciples, “I do as the Father commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.” Christ obeyed the Will of the Father, not merely because he had to, but because he chose to, he wanted to, he loved to! So too, we must follow his commandments relayed to us through the teachings and precepts of the Catholic Church promptly, cheerfully, and humbly. We too can obey like Jesus did, even if we bring to the table a history of much disobedience.
Our Gospel told the story of how one son told his father that he would not work in the vineyard but later repented and did. His second son said that he would work in the vineyard but never showed up. It was the first son that did his father’s will. It was his later repentance that the father remembered, not his initial refusal.
Their story gives us much hope for our own lives. How many of us are more like the second son than the first? Those who said “Yes,” in essence, at their Baptism, at their First Confession, at their First Communion, but have later said No by lives of disobedience – can still have hope.
Like the tax collectors and prostitutes, it is never too late to heed the Father’s call, to repent, to say Yes to him, to follow his will, and work in his vineyard, even if we have spent long lives away from Him. It is this change of mind and belief for him that he will remember. If you find yourself lacking discipline, then grow in love, because discipline is the fruit of love. St. Thomas Aquinas taught us that “A very good sign of one’s being on the right road in the spiritual life is one’s willingness to obey others.” And the prophet Ezekiel proclaimed in our First Reading, “if someone turns from the wickedness he has committed, he does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; since he has turned away from all the sins he has committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.”

Homily 25th Sun O.T. Year A–The Vineyard of the Mass

This weekend, we celebrate Catechetical Sunday, a time we take every year to thank those who have dedicated themselves so generously to the immensely important role in the Church of catechesis, of facilitating a deep relationship with Christ, and of handing on faithfully Catholic teaching and practice. In 1979, Pope Blessed John Paul II published a document on catechesis titled Catechesi Tradendae, or On Catechesis in Our Time. In the last chapter of the document the Holy Father wanted to “sow courage, hope, and enthusiasm abundantly in the hearts of all those many diverse people who are in charge of religious instruction and training for life in keeping with the Gospel.” Today I personally thank all of you who are involved in this great work and I will give a special blessing to you at this Mass, after the petitions. I also want to join my sentiments with those expressed by Blessed John Paul II in that document:

“I am anxious to give thanks,” he said, “in the Church’s name to all of you, lay teachers of catechesis in the parishes, the men and the still more numerous women… who are devoting yourselves to the religious education of many generations. Your work is often lowly and hidden but it is carried out with ardent and generous zeal, and it is an eminent form of the lay apostolate, a form that is particularly important where for various reasons children and young people do not receive suitable religious training in the home. How many of us have received from people like you our first notions of catechism and our preparation for the sacrament of penance, for our first communion and confirmation!... I encourage you to continue your collaboration for the life of the Church.”

One very important role of the catechist that we all will benefit from throughout the coming weeks is helping the parish to grow into a deeper reception, participation, and understanding of the Holy Mass. As many of you have seen in the Record and in our bulletin inserts, the Church in the English-speaking countries of the world, is preparing to receive a new translation of the Roman Missal, or the “Sacramentary”: this being the book that the priest uses at the chair and the altar to pray the prayers of the Mass. A few of our catechists and those involved in planning the worship of our three parishes will be introducing some of the prominent changes in brief 3-5 minutes talks before Mass each weekend until Nov 27, the first Sunday of Advent, when the new Missal will be implemented.

I ask that everyone please try to come a few minutes early for the next several weeks so that you can benefit from these talks. One of the mistakes of the implementation of the Novus Ordo, the new order of Mass that came out of Vatican II, was that very little preparation and catechesis was done. In some parishes people heard Mass said in Latin one weekend only to come to Mass the following weekend and hear it all of a sudden in English and see it celebrated in strikingly new and different ways. This sudden change from one form of the Mass to another was a grave injustice. Many Catholics, understandably so, were offended and embittered by the way the “New Mass” was implemented and carried out. We Do Not want to repeat that mistake. Although the changes of this upcoming revised and corrected translation will not be as startling as the introduction of English and new practices were back then, we still want to do all we can to teach and to prepare you to receive deeply what truly is a great gift and grace to our Church: a translation of the Mass that brings out more profoundly the depth and the richness of our prayer and our faith. I wholeheartedly support and embrace the new Missal that is coming. I am truly excited about it and cannot wait to use it to celebrate Mass with you! In my own role as a catechist, I will be giving a few of these short talks also as well as giving a couple of evening conferences that you all are invited too. See the bulletin for the dates of those.

While I am enthusiastic about all of this, I realize too that change can be hard. Although I haven’t heard any grumbling from you all, perhaps you have from your family or friends. Maybe you could share the following points with them.

Often, when what we are used too gets shaken up, anger is our first reaction. Our Gospel reading today addresses this very thing; it shows us that God’s generosity doesn’t have to conform to our expectations. In the parable we heard, our Lord describes how a landowner hired some workers at the beginning of the day, about 6am, to work in his vineyard. Then he continued to go out throughout the day calling others to work in his vineyard – some at 9am, some at noon, some at 3pm, and still finally, some at 5pm. What St. Matthew doesn’t tell us though is that according to the Law, a day’s wage must be given before 6pm. So we see that the workers who were hired at 5pm only worked an hour and yet still received the same amount of pay as those who had been working since 6am that morning! This story sounds very odd doesn’t it? It sounds as if our Lord is advocating injustice or unfairness.

Some of those who have criticized the new Missal have concluded the same thing. They have said that the Church is being unjust or unfair in expecting the people to change the words they have used for 40 years in beloved prayers like the Gloria and the Nicene Creed. “Why can’t the Church leave well enough alone?” they say. But, they are missing a very important point, the point made by the prophet Isaiah in our first reading: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”

Often – and this new Missal is only one of many examples – we try to make God conform to our plan, our thoughts, our ways, instead of conforming ourselves to his. Our responsorial psalm teaches us the proper attitude we should have. We should rejoice when we are able to behold the great generosity of God, even when it comes in a way that we do not expect or would not have chosen ourselves. “Great is the Lord and highly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable… The Lord is good to all and compassionate toward all his works.”

After the first-comers complained, the landowner soon asked them, “Are you envious”? The underlying Greek of this passage literally means “Is your eye evil?” We must not have an evil eye toward one another or toward the Church, because an evil eye sees evil where there is only good. God is incapable of injustice. As our responsorial psalm told us, “the Lord is just in all his ways and holy in all his works.” It’s not that God is blind to the fact that the new Missal will change some of the phrases that we hold so dear and in ways we may not have expected or preferred. The point is that his generosity is never restricted by our measures and expectations. This new Missal truly is an example of this immense generosity toward us. St. Augustine taught the famous Latin maxim: lex orandi, lex credendi, the law of prayer is the law of belief, meaning that the way we pray is affected by what we believe and it in turn informs our belief. Whenever we can grow toward a truer worship, a constant endeavor of the Church throughout the ages, then we can grow in Faith. And Faith, along with Hope, and Love, are God’s greatest gifts.

The Mass is the vineyard that we are being called to work in and for. Listen to these inspiring words of our late Holy Father… “This is the vineyard, this is the field.” There is no better opportunity, we have the graces necessary now, here, to be coworkers in the vineyard, to grow closer to Christ and bring others to him. No one should cross our path in this life and be able to say that he wasn’t encouraged to love Christ and His Church more. Not one of our coworkers, not one of our classmates, not one of our relatives, not one of our friends should reach the dawn of his life and say that no one showed him genuine sacrificial love. Do not be afraid! Do not be afraid to “Go you also into the vineyard”!

Every one of us has our own unique role in bringing each other closer to the Mass, not just our catechists. Our children can listen carefully to the instruction they receive at school and be a good example to their friends in how to behave at Mass. In our upcoming server training, we will improve upon the already excellent job that our servers are doing so that they can serve in a way that coincides with the dignity of the Mass that will come out in new and deeper ways in the prayers. Our adults too, especially the parents of the children to be baptized today, have a responsibility to lead their families; the elderly and homebound can pray for us; etc.

St. Gregory said, “The people who really work for him… are those who are anxious to win souls and bring others to the vineyard” or as our Gospel calls it, “the kingdom of heaven.” The Mass is a taste of the kingdom of heaven on earth. There is no greater thing to work for. Although it us ultimately the work of God, if we work hard to receive it and understand it well then we will be repaid for our effort with God’s own divine life: the greatest un-expectation.

Homily, 17th Sun O.T., Year A–Christ, My True Treasure

For the last few Sundays, we have heard Jesus use several parables in order to describe the Kingdom of God and how the message of His Kingdom should be received. Today we have heard the final ones that Jesus will use, at least for now. This message is arguably Jesus’ most important message, the message he was sent by the Father to proclaim. In the whole New Testament, the phrase “Kingdom of God” occurs 122 times and 90 of these are from Jesus Himself (Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth I, 47). Whenever Jesus speaks of the Kingdom then, we should listen up. “Whoever has ears ought to hear” (Mt 13:43).

In these parables, Jesus used everyday language and images familiar to his audience to reveal deep truths about the Kingdom of God. Do you remember some of these parables? First he described our souls which can be more or less receptive of the word of the Kingdom just like soil can be more or less receptive of the seeds that the farmer sows. Then Jesus explained that the Kingdom, as it is manifest on earth, is made up of both good and bad people who will only completely be divided on the last day, just like wheat and weeds that grow together until the final harvest. Next Jesus showed the power that a seemingly small and insignificant message can really have, just like the tiny mustard seed that can grow into the size of a tree, or the tiny amount of yeast that can make many, many pounds of dough rise. Finally, the kingdom of God is priceless like hidden treasure, beautiful like the most valuable pearl, all-encompassing like a fisherman’s net, and timeless like the mysteries shrouded in the Old Testament and fully revealed in the New.

For me, the two short parables of the hidden treasure and the valuable pearl, hit closest to home. These parables describe how I ultimately came to be a priest. But it all goes back to a Protestant girl – yes, a Protestant girl put me on the road to the priesthood! Up until my senior year in college, ’01-’02, I had been a lukewarm Catholic at best. I knew what the Church taught, but I didn’t know why, and it didn’t even dawn on me to care. I was completely happy with a very superficial, shallow Catholic faith. I never knew or imaged what a deeper Catholicism even was. I was blissfully ignorant. For all I knew, I was a good, normal Catholic. It’s not that I rejected a more profound living-out of my faith, I just simply never heard of it.

At the beginning of my senior year I started dating a girl who was Christian, but non-denominational. The longer we dated, the more she got to know me and my family, and soon she began to ask me questions about my faith that no one had ever asked me before and that I had never asked myself before; like “Why do you go to confession to a priest? Why do you have statues in Church? Why do Catholics pray the rosary? Why does the priest put a piece of the host in the chalice at Mass?”…. wait… He does what!? I never even noticed that! At the height of my lukewarm-ness, I could only answer, “Pfff, I dunno, that’s just what they told us!” I had no idea why I did what I did, why my fellow parishioners did what they did, or why I was who I was. She helped me to realize how utterly clueless I was about even the basic elements of being a Catholic.

In order to feel less lame, I got on the Internet to try to find the answers to her questions. But, I was a treasure-hunter without a map and stumbled on many websites that only complicated my search further – sites from people attacking Catholicism, sites from Catholics attacking themselves, and sites from Catholics who thought they knew what they were talking about but didn’t. Finally through much trial and error I came upon a few that were very clear, faithful to Church teaching, easy to read, and very helpful. Two I remember the most are the website for the Catholic channel, ewtn.com, and the website for Catholic Answers, catholic.com.

When I finally found the Truth, I felt like I was living both of today’s parables at the same time. In the parable of the hidden treasure, the man who finds it stumbles upon it by accident. In early Palestine there were constant wars and pillages. We can imagine that it would be fairly common for a man to be tilling his garden and unearth treasure that had been stolen and buried for safekeeping decades before him. But, according to the laws then, “Finder’s Keepers” did not apply. If someone found treasure on a piece of land that wasn’t his, he had to buy the land in order to keep it. For the man in our parable, even though it was an accidental find, he spared no expense in acquiring the land where he found the treasure. It cost him dearly, but it was a sacrifice that was worth making.

In the parable of the valuable pearl, rather than dealing with a treasure accidentally found, this is a true treasure-hunt. Here the pearl merchant is on the lookout for the most valuable pearl he can find. He knows it’s out there, he’s been looking everywhere for it, he would give anything for it, he must find it. When he finally does, nothing else matters, and he sells all that he has in order to buy it.

I, no doubt, was told at one point or another why we believe what we believe – I distinctly remember having a good Catholic education. But this time I was listening with ears that wanted to hear, and eyes that wanted to see. I discovered, for what felt like the very first time, why we go to Mass, what the Mass means, what… rather Who… the Eucharist is, why we go to confession to a priest, why we pray the rosary, what statues mean and so much more. I discovered why I had gone to Catholic schools all those years, why our family went to Mass every Sunday, what we did there every Sunday, what the priest did, what GOD did, every Sunday. I discovered why I made the Sign of the Cross all the time, why my dad taught my brothers and I the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Angel of God, and other prayers. It all came together for the first time. My mind was flooded with all new vistas of the Catholic faith that I had never imagined. I felt fully alive. I had indeed stumbled upon a hidden treasure, a hidden treasure that was in plain sight. At the end of the day, this treasure wasn’t a set of teachings though, or a set of well-worded answers, it was a person: Jesus Christ, who called me to see and hear and chose me to reveal himself too more deeply, through His Church.

Because this treasure was really Him, I felt at the same time like the pearl merchant, searching more and more for the Truth. I kept reading more and more, devouring everything I could find that explained or defended the many doctrines and values of Catholicism. This search for more and more of the Truth changed my life… it had to change if I was going to have any integrity at all, if I was going to try to live up to the faith I was given. Great and beautiful treasures come at a great price. My relationship with my Protestant girlfriend didn’t work out; several of my friends rejected me for my newfound life as a faithful Catholic trying to actually be Catholic; I gave up a relatively high-paying job as a software developer for an investment firm in downtown Louisville…

The cost and the sacrifice have been more than worth it! The Truth doesn’t bind you up. It not only sets you free, it makes you free. Those sacrifices gave me meaning and purpose and direction in life. I came to know Christ and His Church for what seemed like the first time. I had someone and something to fight for, to live for, to die for. I had a challenge I could face and work hard for. I had someone and something to love. The more I learned about Christ’s actions in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Confession, the more I fell in love with those and the more I began to imagine what it would be like if I was celebrating Mass or hearing confessions. Christ’s Holy Priesthood was the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price.

I don’t tell you all of this because I’m perfect or anything like that – I have ducked, dodged, and sabotaged God throughout the treasure-hunt that has been my vocation and discernment. I tell you all of this as a witness, as someone who can say that this is really true, that when you make Christ the treasure of your life, the most valuable pearl worth searching for, then he will help you make the sacrifices that are required. St. Teresa of Avila assures us in her famous work, the Way of Perfection, “God never fails to help someone who decides to leave all things for his sake” (Navarre, note Mt 13:44-52). And St. Bernard describes beautifully how Christ is like no other treasure, “He is always new, and constantly renews the soul; he never grows old because he will never fade away” (ibid.). We cannot say that about any other treasure, even our most valued relationships. Christ must be our treasure if we are to be truly happy. Perhaps you may find that when you stumble upon him and make sacrifices to bring him into your life that it was actually he who was searching and longing for you the whole time. You are his pearl, a pearl so valuable that he gave everything, even his own life, to make you his own. What will you give for him?

Homily 16th Sun O.T., Year A–Unity and Uniformity

Since I’ve been ordained, and especially now as we approach a new school year, I’ve been reflecting on my years of seminary from an outside perspective. It is clearer to me now how the gravity of our mission there, to be formed into priests of Jesus Christ, sometimes caused us to over-emphasize certain things, or to make too much of things. For example, I could have been on time for Morning Prayer for 30 days in a row, but being late on the 31^st day would be the one everyone noticed the most. Or… everyone on my side of the chapel would be reciting their part of the psalms of Morning Prayer in perfect unison, but it would be that one guy who read too fast that would most catch our attention. This type of perfectionism was not very helpful.

Perfectionism can creep into a parish also, on both of our parts. For me, in my first months of priesthood, as I am growing as a celebrant and wanting to pray the Mass exactly as it is given by the Church; sometimes it is the one missed word or messed up gesture that sticks out in my mind the most. On the other hand, it wasn’t too long ago when I was in your seat noticing the one family who came in late or the one who left early. This type of perfectionism isn’t helpful either. What is most helpful I think is for us to distinguish between two things: unity and uniformity.

There is a big difference between the two. Unity is more internal, uniformity is more external. Unity comes from above and is a gift from God; it is something that we cannot ultimately make ourselves. Uniformity is something we can make ourselves when we get everything looking the same. We should be more concerned with unity than uniformity

For example, at the seminary, on a rare day we may have all been reciting the psalms in perfect unison, in perfect uniformity, but with a far from perfect unity – one guy may have been meditating carefully upon each stanza as he read it, while another, though keeping pace, was miles away in his head thinking about the paper he still had to turn in while the words ran mindlessly from his mouth. Again, unity is a much deeper, more profound reality than uniformity. Uniformity is when we are all doing the same thing at the same time. But true unity is when God gives us the grace to be one in our hearts and minds.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a man who sowed good seeds of wheat in his field. But, the man’s enemy crept into the field and later sowed weeds among the wheat. The type of weeds the evangelist has in mind is a type that looks exactly like the wheat but if eaten is toxic to humans and animals. It can only be distinguished from the wheat once they are both fully mature – then the farmer who knows his fields like the back of his hand is able to tell the slightly smaller and more slender ear of the weeds from the taller and more healthy ear of the wheat. When the farmer’s servants learn about the weeds they become concerned with the uniformity of things and they ask if he wants them to pull up the weeds. But the farmer, who is more concerned with unity, forbids them, because the servants don’t have the close eye that he has – they may accidentally reach for and pull the wheat thinking it is the weeds. This is where we get the common phrase, “Taking the good with the bad.” The farmer is concerned with the unity of the wheat and its inner integrity – the wheat should not be pulled as if it was a weed to be discarded. The two should be allowed to grow together until the very end when the taller ears of wheat can be harvested together, cut near the head, leaving only the smaller weeds behind. It is then that the weeds can finally be pulled and cast into the fire.

In our nearest, most visible experience, the kingdom of God, the field of seeds, is the Catholic Church with God as the farmer and us as the wheat. The devil is the enemy, and those who come from him, those who do evil, are the weeds. The field, the Church overall, is good, but it endures the harsh reality of being made up of some members that are good and others that are bad. Even though the devil was defeated once and for all by Christ’s Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension, his victory will not be completely manifested until the end of time when Christ comes again in glory. Until then, God allows those who do evil to live and work alongside those who do good according to his larger plan. But, when the last day comes, the Son of Man must present a perfect kingdom to his Father. Then Christ will execute his judgment through his angels who will gather together like a harvest those who are in sin and are doing evil deeds and give them the reward they have earned and have shown they have wanted: an eternity of pain that comes from being in the darkness of separation from God. This is where we get the popular image of the Grim Reaper – the angel who reaps what we have sown. On the other hand, those who are in a state of grace and have led lives of good works of faith will shine as bright as the sun in the Kingdom of the Father.

What should we do then between now and the last day, whose timing only God the Father knows? What does this parable mean for us? I think it reveals the lesson that we should concern ourselves more with the deeper reality of unity, like the farmer, than with superficial uniformity, like the servants. One way that we can do this is by looking at our personal lives, our families, our groups of friends, our parish, and our Church in general and embracing only what is true, good, and beautiful. Like unity – truth, goodness, and beauty come from God and if we can carefully discern what these are and live our lives according to them then we will be responding to the grace and the call to unity and we will truly be unified.

The Catholic Church is one of the finest handmaidens of the gifts of goodness, truth, and beauty. But how can we make our part of the kingdom truly unified by these gifts if we reject them elsewhere? If we consume the toxic weeds of lies, distortions, slander, gossip, and deceits of the world then it will be hard for us to be unified by the often challenging Truth of Catholic teaching. And so we can all uniformly recite the creed but in our hearts not really believe everything we are professing. If we consume the toxic weeds of accepting certain behaviors or lifestyles of the world then we will begin to demand that the Church conform to the world, rather than the world conform to the Church. And so we hear people often challenging the Church to accept as Good the world’s definition of marriage, divorce, contraception, etc. If we consume the toxic weeds of things that are ugly – praising architecture, music, artwork, or prose that lacks any objective standard, depth of meaning, or historical continuity – then it will be hard for us to accept true Beauty in the Church and we become satisfied with lower forms of architecture, music, artwork, or prose that take away our Catholic identity.

The devil wants us to be concerned merely with uniformity – as long as we busy ourselves with saying the same things or looking the same way then to him we’re all right, because we’ll be distracted from the deeper values that affect true Christian unity. The devil wants us to uniformly sell the farm on trivial things. To combat this, we need to help each other discern what is really True, Good, and Beautiful in every area of our lives and only accept those things rather than their distortions. In our world, sometimes it is hard to discern the difference between the wheat and the weeds. But the more we tell the truth, choose and do good works and value what is beautiful deep-down, the easier it will be to discern them and be united by them.

We have to let ourselves be formed by them. When you commit yourself to no more white-lies at work or to only telling the truth to your spouse then you become a truthful person and the truths the Church professes become more acceptable. When you commit yourself to only acting like a gentleman or a lady when you’re out with your friends or doing good deeds for others on your day off, then goodness becomes part of your lifestyle and the morals that the Church upholds you will want to instill in your family or the world around you. When you read Scripture, spiritual works from faithful authors, or classic novels; watch movies that are well-written and with a positive message; or listen to music of true quality, meaning, and talent, then you can appreciate the beauty of manifestly Catholic architecture, sacred hymns, religious artwork, and quality appointments and vestments – even in a small country parish.

Be formed by what is True and you will be truthful. Be formed by what is Good and you will be good. Be formed by what is Beautiful and you will be beautiful. Accept only these and your family, your circle of friends, your workplace, and our parish will in turn be True, Good, and Beautiful. And we will be truly Unified by God. Yes, the false, evil, and ugly will grow up right along with us. But if we concentrate on forming ourselves for true inner unity rather than be distracted by mere superficial uniformity then we will have nothing to fear. We will come to full stature in Christ. We will become the acceptable sacrifice in his hands, for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his Church.

Homily 15th Sun O.T., Year A–The Soul of Fruitful Soil

I’m very glad to be with you all today to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving for my Ordination to the Priesthood and to thank you all for your prayers and support and for helping to form me into the man I am today. I feel like I should briefly explain why I am a priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville rather than the Diocese of Owensboro! I grew up in this parish and my mother Jan was one of my teachers at Blessed Mother school. I then went to Catholic Middle and Catholic High and after going to Lindsey Wilson College I got a job in Louisville as a software developer for an investment firm. That job, which I had for about 3 years, is what brought me to Louisville and it was during that period that I discerned that God was calling me to be a priest. I felt like he had led me to Louisville and that I was called to serve the people of the Archdiocese of Louisville. But, every time I use the word “home”, I still think of Owensboro. I love this diocese and this parish and will always look forward to the opportunities to visit. Besides, we gave you one of our priests as your new bishop so I’ll probably be made pastor of 4 or 5 parishes one day because of that so we’re even!

Shortly after I entered seminary at St. Mary’s in Baltimore in 2005, one of the first steps toward being ordained was being Instituted a Lector, or being made an “official” reader in the Church. After that we were Instituted as Acolytes or “official servers” and then as Candidates, professing publicly our intent to be ordained. In our preparation for receiving the Ministry of Lector, I remember well that our first reading today from the prophet Isaiah was the reading that we had to practice over and over: “Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who sows and bread to the one who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth…”

When each one of us were instituted as lectors we knelt before the bishop who placed a Bible in our hands and said, “Take this book of Holy Scripture and be faithful in handing on the Word of God, so that it may grow strong in the hearts of His people. Amen.” I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed at that point. It is God who plants his word in our hearts, like a sower of seeds, and I was to be an instrument of that planting.

In a sense, we all received this ministry at our Baptism. After we were Baptized, the priest made a sign of the cross on the crown of our heads with the Sacred Chrism saying, “God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has freed you from sin, given you a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and welcomed you into his holy people. He now anoints you with the chrism of salvation. As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life. Amen.” Then after we were clothed in a white garment and received our lit baptismal candle the priest prayed the Ephphetha prayer, which is Aramaic for “be opened.” With his thumb he touched our ears and lips saying, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the mute speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father. Amen.”

The Ephphatha prayer is one of the last prayers of the ritual of Baptism. In that way it is a sort of commissioning. In a very real way, our life’s mission was given to us at that young age. Each one of us was meant to live a life of opening our ears to receive God’s word and our mouths to proclaim his faith. We were anointed as Prophets. This is what we were called to be, no matter what our vocation, or job, or state in life: we were made to be lectors in our everyday lives.

At our Baptism we were brought into the kingdom of God, made co-heirs with Christ of all of the spiritual riches of that kingdom, and given the grace we need to lead holy lives. Then how do we account for such a wide diversity among Catholics today? Some Catholics only go to Mass on Christmas or Easter, others go every Sunday or every day. Some spend one or two hours a week in Adoration, adoring our Lord present in the consecrated host. On the other hand, many still do not believe that the bread and wine at Mass truly become the Body and Blood of Christ. Some Catholics go to confession once a month while for others it has been decades. If the seeds of God’s word were sown in all of our souls why then do those seeds bear fruit and yield a hundred fold in one, sixty in another, or thirty in another? The sower is the same for each of us, the seed is the same, the difference is the soil. “God pours himself into our souls in accordance with the degree of welcome He finds there” (In Conversation, Fernandez, 4/19.3).

In the parable of the sower in our Gospel, Jesus reveals how the mysteries of his kingdom should be received. Unfortunately, throughout our lives we have a tendency of disturbing the soil of our souls: matting it down to where it becomes only a hard pathway so that the seed stays at the surface and is eaten by the birds; or making it rocky and shallow so that the roots cannot take hold and the seeds are scorched by the sun; or littering it with thorns so that they are choked and overcome by them. With these images Jesus reveals the three constant sources of all of our troubles, the three traditional sources of evil in our lives: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Those who have souls matted down and trodden underfoot can only accept external, superficial things. They never even consider supernatural realities or their spiritual lives. They never think of anything beyond what their passions demand of them. When asked to think deeply they are dumbfounded. They hear God’s word, they may even hear it every Sunday. But they do not listen to it and so it stays at the surface, easily snatched away by the devil.

Those who have souls of rocky ground can receive the seeds of God’s word but do not have an inner depth in which the roots can take hold. They can become excited about a new insight they have discovered that helps them in some way or encourages them in a particular practice. But this enthusiasm is easily scorched when the weakness of this first blush of commitment is tested by a real trial or difficulty. They are tempted to turn back to their former way of life when the Gospel begins to demand too much.

Those who have souls of thorns growing all around it are also able to hear the word but the cares of the world and the delight in riches stifle it, and it proves unfruitful. An excessive ambition or an excessive concern for being well-off and comfortable is evidence of the thorns of worldliness and materialism. Becoming obsessed with acquiring one big thing after the next is a thorn that will always wound us. We all have had times of each type of soil.

I know all of this sounds a bit negative, but it is important that we see others and ourselves for who we really are: our life’s mission – to receive God’s word and proclaim it in our own way – is at stake. “But,” I could ask, “if I’m perfectly fine with the way my life is going, why should I care what type of soil my soul is for receiving the seeds of God’s word? Because those ultimate questions of life, of religion, of God will always escape us if we don’t prepare the soil of our souls to receive the mysteries of God’s kingdom in a deeper and deeper way. The questions like, “Why am I here? Why am I doing this? What is all of this for? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why was I laid off? Why did my mother or sister or brother die? Why am I suffering? Why am I doing so well when others are doing so poorly? Why me, God? These are questions we all have asked, no matter who you are. And that’s why we should care. Because the answers come easy to those who allow God’s word to bear fruit in them. But they constantly plague those who refuse him.

Those questions may not bother us now, but some day we will come face-to-face with something we can’t explain and those of us with souls producing the flowers and fruits of grace, wisdom, and the light of the Holy Spirit will find comfort where those souls left open to the devil or overcome by human weakness or worldly cares will be desperate to know where to turn.

The hope in all of this is that we all have been given the gift of free will, the freedom of self-determination, the freedom to make ourselves whatever we want to be according to our decisions. No soul is too hard for God to break through, too rocky for God to take root, or too full of thorns for God’s presence to grow strong and free, if that is what we want. No evil spirit is too greedy or too quick for God to overcome – that victory has already been won. No doubt or hesitancy or uncertainty is too much for God who is Truth Himself. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in, Adoro Te Devote, his hymn of adoration: “Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:/ How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;/ What God’s Son has told me, take for truth I do; Truth Himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true.” Finally, no worldly concern, no vacation, no cushy retirement, no pile of cords and gadgets, no high-paying job comes close to the infinite worth of one drop of Precious Blood or one tiny piece of a consecrated Host. The choice for God is ours to make. No matter where we’ve come from or what we’ve been through, all of us are able to have a soul of rich soil, to hear the word and understand it, and bear fruit in a life of holiness that yields not just thirty or sixty but hundredfold. Indeed, as the Psalm says for Saturday’s Morning Prayer: “The just will flourish like the palm tree/ and grow like a Lebanon cedar./ Planted in the house of the Lord/ they will flourish in the courts of our God,/ still bearing fruit when they are old,/ still full of sap, still green,/ to proclaim that the Lord is just;/ in him, my rock, there is no wrong” (Ps 92).

Homily 14th Sun O.T., Year A–The Law of Love

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. He had a great sense of humor in how he applied the law to particular situations. By having a sense of humor with the law, 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, 613 to be exact, 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 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. By training them to follow external observances he was preparing them to follow the internal law of love.

This was the point of the law that the scribes and Pharisees missed. 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).

And St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.” We are given grace and the Holy Spirit that make following God’s laws, and by extension the Church’s laws, peaceful rather than bitter, and motivated by love rather than external conformity. Because of our fallen nature, laws will always be a burden, but just laws are a burden of love. St. Augustine said, “Any other burden oppresses and crushes you, but Christ’s actually takes weight off you. Any other burden weighs down, but Christ’s gives you wings. If you take a bird’s wings away, you might seem to be taking weight off, but the more weight you take off, the more you tie it down to the earth. There it is on the ground, and you wanted to relieve it of a weight; give it back the weight of its wings and you will see how it flies” (St. Augustine, Sermones, 126, 12).

Christ, our King, is not one who wields the law like a tyrant. He is a “just” and “meek” savior, as the prophet Zechariah foretold. Jesus himself said that those who come to him, will find not oppression but “rest” for he is “meek and humble of heart.” When we see that such a master as this is behind the law then we have no trouble following it. And when we follow the law with simplicity and humility, like “little ones” do, he will show us the Father and we will grow more and more in intimacy with Him. But, if we follow the law like some of “the wise and the learned” who try to over-rationalize it, make it too hard, or find loopholes through it, then intimacy with the Father will be hidden from us. This is precisely why our Lord asks for obedient disciples, because he is not the kind of Master that would oppress us, and because he wants to take us to His Father. The more we show love through obedience, the more we will grow in love. The more we grow in love, the more we are compelled by it rather than the law. The more we are compelled by love the more our spiritual lives will soar, like St. Augustine’s bird, to the heights of heaven rather than be tied down to the bitter legalism of this world.

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]