3 OT C: We need a Jubilee

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

On May 9, 2024, Pope Francis declared this year, 2025, a jubilee year. In his address, entitled “Spes Non Confundit” or “Hope does not disappoint” the Pope highlighted a few acts that we should do as a church, which are all connected to the theological virtue of hope. Lest we believe, however, that Pope Francis invented the idea of a Jubilee year, we should heed the origin he defines in the document itself. The Pope says it goes back to 1300 with the proclamation of the Jubilee done by Pope Boniface VIII. With all due respect to Pope Francis, even though this is the first expression of a Christian Jubilee year, the tradition actually goes back much farther. 

The first reading for today’s Mass describes an earlier jubilee year from the Book of Nehemiah, though at one point it was united with another Old Testament Book called Ezra. Both books describe a time when the Jewish people had just returned from being exiled, some people for as long as seventy years. They were allowed to return to Israel by a pagan Persian king named Cyrus. King Cyrus not only allowed them to return but he gave them money to rebuild the temple and allowed them to appoint a Jewish leader named Nehemiah. So Ezra is a priest and Nehemiah is sort of a politician. Ezra calls all the people who have not been allowed to practice their religion for seventy years to gather at the Temple and he reads the first five Books of the Old Testament to them and their reaction is to start crying. They cry so much that Nehemiah and Ezra have to remind them that this is meant to be a good time, that they are supposed to be rejoicing. There’s a feast going on. Why are they crying, you might ask. Partly because the people are being reminded of some of the things in the Torah that they were supposed to be doing to be in right relationship with God that they haven’t been doing. One of these would have been living out a jubilee year every 50 years. A Jubilee year demanded the release of debts, allowing your farmland to sit farrow, and observing a year-long sabbath rest. The people are mourning, therefore, because they can see that one of the reasons they went into exile in the first place was because they had neglected being in right relationship with God whenever it became inconvenient for them, especially when it was time to live out a jubilee year. They neglected their relationship with God until they didn’t know him anymore. And, even though Nehemiah is encouraging them to celebrate because now that they know this they can do something about it, this will be the last book written in the Old Testament that describes God working with and in his people. Other books will be written after Ezra and Nehemiah, like Maccabees and Tobit, but these books are almost entirely about the faithful actions of holy people and not about God working in the lives of those people. One idea as to why that is true is because the people, after being reminded to keep the jubilee year, promptly forget and allowed excuses to get in the way of living it out. 

That is until a certain carpenter decided to walk into a synagogue in Nazareth around the year 33AD and opened a scroll containing the Book of Isaiah that declared that it was going to be a jubilee year. The problem is that carpenters can’t declare jubilee years, only priests like Ezra can do that. But they have someone better than Ezra here. Jesus knew that that year, in which his death and resurrection would take place, is truly a year of forgiveness for the debt of sin and a year worthy of ridding ourselves of anything that distracts from being in right relationship with God. 

I think we need a jubilee year now more than ever because, in this time of immediate gratification, we need to work on our patience. In Paragraph Four from Pope Francis' document, he says…

“…In our fast-paced world, we are used to wanting everything now. We no longer have time simply to be with others; even families find it hard to get together and enjoy one another’s company. Patience has been put to flight by frenetic haste, and this has proved detrimental, since it leads to impatience, anxiety and even gratuitous violence, resulting in more unhappiness and self-centeredness. Nor is there much place for patience in this age of the Internet, as space and time yield to an ever-present “now”. Were we still able to contemplate creation with a sense of awe, we might better understand the importance of patience. We could appreciate the changes of the seasons and their harvests, observe the life of animals and their cycles of growth, and enjoy the clarity of vision of Saint Francis.”

Do you find yourself constantly worrying about what comes next? Do you find that you spend all day Sunday getting prepared for Monday, that every moment that isn’t occupied is spent staring at your phone or tablet? How can we use the jubilee year to refocus our lives to be more focused on God and God’s people and less focused on things and tasks?

2 OT C: Charity begins in serving others

 Friends

Peace be with you

The British playwright John Marston wrote in 1610

True charity beginneth first at home,

Heere in your bosomes dwell your deere-lov’d hearts,

Feed them with joy; first crowne their appetites,

And then cast water on the care-scroch’d face,

Let your own longings first be satisfied,

All other pitty is but foolish pryde.

This appears to be the origin of the phrase “Charity begins at home. This phrase is meant to say that we need to be sure that we are looking after the people around us as much as we’re caring for those far away. We can’t ignore the poor, homeless and jobless people in Cedar Rapids and, instead, only care for the people of Ukraine. We shouldn’t ignore the annoying neighbor who is struggling to rebuild a house after a house fire while sending money to the poor people in California to help them rebuild their homes. In some ways, helping the neighbor is the bigger priority both because it’s easier to ignore them and because it would be rather selfish to not help an annoying neighbor because maybe someone not so annoying would move in if they moved out. 

While hearing the story of the wedding feast of Cana, I’m struck by the strength of Mary. When she, Jesus, and some of his disciples were invited to a wedding, she went out of her way, when the wine ran out, to convince Jesus to perform his first miracle. How did Mary know that her son could do this? I suppose the easy answer is that a mother always knows. Parents know the hidden talents and potential of their children before anyone else. There are many men and women who have accomplished great things because their mothers and fathers believed in them even when the children didn’t believe in themselves.

Yet, this puts forth a second, related question for me: Do you think Mary always knew that Jesus was a miracle worker and yet never asked him to, say, multiply her loaves or turn her water into wine at the dinner table, or double her money to make ends meet? There’s no scriptural evidence to support that idea and the reluctance that Jesus shows at the wedding at Cana would seem to indicate that he didn’t. Yet, after the death of St. Joseph, how could a powerless widow have never asked her son to use his miraculous power to help her out when she was so quick to ask him to help others? Instead of believing that charity begins at home, for Jesus and Mary, charity begins at someone else’s wedding.

Think about Mary’s reaction to hearing that her cousin, Elizabeth, was pregnant. Despite being pregnant herself, Mary’s first thought is to travel in haste to the hill country to see her cousin. And we can see this in the example of Jesus in the desert too. After forty days of fasting, anyone would be hungry. Yet, when the devil suggested he turn some stones into bread for himself, Jesus declines. We know that later in the gospel Jesus will multiply five loaves and two fish for five thousand people, why not a half loaf for himself after such a long fast? What are Mary and Jesus telling us through these selfless charitable choices? That God’s gifts to individuals are not primarily for their or their families’ benefit but for the service of others.

For many people, the phrase charity begins at home means we take care of ourselves before we take care of others, that the money we give to the poor is what is above and beyond what we use to purchase what we want and need. First make sure you have the latest iphone and that really nice sweater and a visit to that really nice restaurant before making sure your neighbor has food and clothes and lodging. I think that’s why charity begins and ends in serving others in the mind and heart of Jesus and Mary. 

How is the Holy Family encouraging you to forsake something you want or need in order to help someone in need?

Epiphany 2025: are we attentive to the little daily epiphanies?

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

This past Wednesday night, I was looking for a video to describe the history of Medjugorje. In case you don’t know, it’s the sight of an alleged ongoing appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary since 1981. There’s some controversy surrounding the truth of the appearances, though. In general, the Vatican says that it is a good place for pilgrimage but it takes no official opinion on the truth or falsity of the visions. It cannot deny that there appear to have been miraculous healings for visitors going to the shrine but it is more cautious of the visions from the people who started having visions when they were children but who are now in their fifties. 

I would guess most of the people going there, including a local group who recently went, have no interest in entering into the controversy surrounding the visions. In that way, they are like the Magi from today’s Gospel. These astrologers, probably from modern day Iraq, could have had no idea that they were fulfilling Old Testament prophecy when they walked into Jerusalem in search of the newborn King of the Jews. They were just interpreting the movements of a star and it led them there. They couldn’t have known that the star was simply light being drawn to the child who would one day identify himself as the light of the world. They didn’t have the Old Testament, after all, so they couldn’t include it among what they considered their holy writings. Instead, they had to rely completely on the instinct built into human beings to search for things larger than themselves and the Holy Spirit guiding and directing them along the way. Thankfully, their instincts told them something wasn’t right with Herod, though, and they trusted the Holy Spirit when he told them not to go back and tell the false king where the true king had been born. They went home, like the shepherds on the day of Jesus’ birth, a little wiser and a little more faithful. 

I want to admit something that I’m not proud of at this point. It’s only been recently that I’ve prioritized spending a Holy Hour each day. You’d think, as a priest, I would have done it every day from the time of my ordination. Unfortunately, when I was ordained, it wasn’t stressed how important that was. I did spend time in prayer each day reading and reflecting on what’s called the Liturgy of the Hours. But, spending time reading Sacred Scripture and then being quiet and listening is really something I’ve only been doing since last June, when I decided to start classes to officially be a spiritual director. I struggled for a good six months not to fill the time reading something or looking up prayers on my phone. In fact, I’ve only recently got to a point where I put a moratorium on my phone in the chapel because it is only a distraction for me. That hour is singularly my time with my friend, just being with Jesus and expecting nothing. One question that I keep bringing to Jesus is what He wants from St. Patrick’s. As I shared in this week’s bulletin, Jesus shares with me that something great is going to happen here. However, when I ask for greater clarity what that means, I hear “wait and see”. I ask if it will be a celebration or an opportunity for growth and he tells me that I should wait and see. Now, I’ll admit, I’m not claiming to be the recipient of special revelations, anything more than what anyone else would hear. And, even though I use the example of the flood in the gospel, I’m not saying that it’s going to have the same emotional impact that the flood did. I’m just saying that, regardless of what happens, some will think it is a positive and some will think it’s a negative. God could make us the premiere ice cream dealer in the world and some would think that’s great while others would be depressed because they’re lactose intolerant or because the ice cream is just too cold. 

In the meantime, I’ve appreciated waiting and seeing because it has opened my eyes to all the small revelations Jesus puts into my daily life. I noticed the white purity of the snow on Thursday. I gave thanks for the questions of a person struggling with their faith. God’s making epiphanies dailys in our lives. Do we notice them?

Mary, Mother of God: Making sure we ponder the authentic words Mary pondered.

Friends

Peace be with you.

I hate the phrase toxic masculinity. It’s become very popular among academics to demonize anything that’s stereotypically masculine. However, having said that, I was listening to a podcast yesterday morning called The Counsel of Trent by a Catholic Answers presenter named Trent Horn. He was talking about how there is this toxic group of apologists who are male and claim they can be crass or crude. They even claim a permission in scripture to be able to do this. They’ll take a passage from St. Paul where harsh words seem to be said to justify this, even though Trent Horn was quick to point out that what they’re interpreting as a harsh word is better translated as refuse or manure or fertilizer rather than a harsher equivalent, if you catch my drift. He says these men will say that this passage gives them the right to speak bluntly as men ought to do. For instance, when talking to a former “adult” movie star who has reformed her life and is trying to work within that community to get others out of the slavery they’re stuck in, one of these men, in a debate, referred to her using a toxic word to describe her current, post confession, post conversion life as though it were stuck in her past life. Trent took exception to these men asking, saying that they’ve doubled the scandal they caused by not only refusing to accept the veracity of her repentance but by using harshly offensive language in doing so.

That type of toxic masculinity is rooted in an inability to fully grasp the Gospel. I set that in stark contrast to what happened in the Gospel today. If you haven’t heard the full explanation of the Birth of the Lord from the Gospel of Luke this year, I’d suggest watching A Charlie Brown Christmas in which the character Linus finally drops his blanket to relate the story of how the shepherds have this tremendous encounter with angelic forces in a field. Contrary to some depictions you may get from some Christian art, shepherds are not a group of philosophical guys sitting around a field hoping angels would come to enlighten them about the workings of the world. They were the toughest, dirtiest, most hardscrabble guys alive at the time. They had to defend their sheep from wolves and thieves. They had to know where the best fields were to get their sheep food and water and how to deal with other shepherds who knew where those fields were to get there ahead of them. The last thing they were going to do was take a break to go see someone else’s baby. These guys aren’t like me. When I see a baby coming into church, I say “Oh a baby, I want to hold her”. These guys see sheep born all the time, what do they care about a baby? The fact that these guys go running to Bethlehem goes to show how untoxic their masculinity is. They have had an encounter that just has to be explored. This fact alone should tell those who believe Jesus was just a great man and not fully God and fully human that they got it wrong. The fact that shepherds were the ones who ran off to see this baby points to the fact that something special has happened here and that’s the fact that God himself has come among us as a baby. As they arrive in Bethlehem to where the Holy Family is staying, they tell the story of what happened in the field and, as they go back to their flocks, the Bible says that these hardscrabble guys continue glorifying and praising God. It goes to show the quality of the encounter these men had. They had to have an encounter with the one true God. 

       There’s a movie out there, which I’m not going to say where you can find it because I don’t want to give it any undue publicity, but it purports to be about the life of Mary. I think that, because of the success of a series like The Chosen, mainstream Hollywood thought there may be money in trying to get into telling the story of Mary. However, as they tend to do, this movie really misses the mark. One of the most glaring examples happens when Mary is asked by the Angel Gabriel to be the mother of God and her response is “Let it be me”. NO! Mary’s response was “May it be done to me according to your word” It’s the difference between someone saying “I trust you God so I will do it the way your way” versus “I’ll do it my way”. Over and over again in this movie, they get Mary wrong because it is not rooted in Sacred Scripture interpreted through the lens of Sacred Tradition but rooted in false notions of ecumenism and female empowerment. 

We are called to be like Mary, meditating in our hearts on the experiences she had with Jesus and having the joy of the shepherds, praising and glorifying God. One of our challenges is to make sure we are following the right message when we do so. We have to make sure we are, like Mary, meditating on what the Bible actually says and what our faith professes and not simply what someone with a toxic agenda wants us to believe. If, in the end, in our prayer we must echo Mary’s fiat, “May it be done to be according to your word.”