4 E A: YOU can be an exorcist.

Friends

Peace be with you.

On occasion, I get a phone call from someone looking for an exorcist. As I understand it, our Archdiocese does not officially have an exorcist so, if someone calls, I have to tell them that we don’t really have one and I don’t know of someone who is. Anyone can bless objects. In fact, it’s probably better for you to bless and use a rosary or a holy card than to simply have it blessed and hand it off to someone who won’t use it. We do reserve blessing people to clergy so I can do simple exorcisms of people. Prior to baptizing the people at the Easter Vigil, for instance, we had a series of prayers called The Scrutinies during the ten o’clock Mass that contained prayers for exorcism. But, the type of exorcist dramatized in movies involves taking a special class in Rome, a blessing by a Roman Congregation, and official recognition by your bishop. Most of the time, these folks then fold into parish life and go unidentified until a situation that cannot be explained by medicine or psychology takes place in their diocese; where someone is pretty clearly dealing with the presence of a type of evil. Nonetheless, it always seems that when Hollywood releases one of these exorcism movies, I get at least a handful of people who become convinced of their own need for an exorcist.

In today’s gospel, we hear that Jesus is both the Good Shepherd and the gate, both the one who leads the sheep to the Father and the way to the Father. But, he also identifies people who cross the fence in other places that are thieves and robbers. It’s their goal to steal the sheep. Most of the time, these are real people and most of the time, let's be honest, we are our own worst enemies. We choose to do what we know we shouldn’t do. We choose to gluttonously sneak cookies instead of being content that we have had enough food today. We choose to gossip about other people instead of talking about ideas with our coworkers and friends or taking the time to go to adoration and pray for them. We can’t use excuses like “the devil made me do it” to see ourselves as constant victims of temptation by evil forces. We often choose to sin because it seems more fun than a life of grace. We climb over the fence and steal the holiness God gave us in baptism. Nonetheless, there are also evil forces in the world that can be a source of temptation for us. Using a ouija board, visiting a fortune teller or a palm reader or a medium, and even attending horror movies like these exorcism movies can be ways of inviting the evil one into our lives. If you or someone you know has done that or something similar and are worried they may have encountered something evil, here are three things that can be done that don’t involve an exorcist.

First, go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and confess the use of these things. Reconciliation is the most powerful tool we have against evil. It’s a moment of sheer honesty with Jesus the gatekeeper and gate. It’s where we admit to being a thief and a robber and hear him invite us back into the kingdom. The saints and angels surround us in confession to celebrate the one lost soul who has found his way. Jesus says, in another part of scripture, that there is more joy among the saints and angels for us in confession than for 99 people who have no need of it. What an awesome sacrament of forgiveness and freedom from evil he gave us and something very simple we can and should use to combat it!

Secondly, go to Mass. Now, I know I’m preaching to the choir because you guys actually showed up to Mass! But you wouldn’t believe the number of people who talk about being possessed and, when you ask if they come to Mass, they say “No”. They may be from a non-Catholic tradition and need a friend to bring them. You could be that friend! Or they may feel unworthy because they are steeped in sin. They probably don’t know that none of us are worthy to be here. It’s the last prayer we pray before we receive Holy Communion, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you…” The Mass is the normal way we encounter Jesus the gatekeeper in the breaking of bread. Have them come to Mass and the devil has no choice but to leave them at that door because he knows better than to come into this sheepfold!

Lastly, if people are concerned that their homes have an evil spirit, take some holy water home with you and pray a blessing of homes with your family. What more powerful statement of the desire for holiness is there than a mother and father joining with their kids to bless their home? Catholic News Agency has a really good blessing that you can find on the internet. You can use blessed salt if you’d like but the biggest thing is to say out loud that your home is the home of Jesus Christ and anything not of Christ is not welcome there. Then walk around and make sure you don’t have any unclean images or any pagan statuary. I think about a couple of guys who invited me into their apartment because they were hearing strange noises at night. I assumed it was a noisy boiler or bats or mice in the walls. When I walked around their apartment, I noticed a picture of a serpent on a black velvet background one of their wiccan atheist ex girlfriends had painted. I told them to ask me to get rid of it and I took it to a cemetery and buried it and suddenly, everything was quiet in the apartment. Replace those types of images with an image of the Sacred Heart or the Immaculate Heart and the evil one will instantly know you hang out with people he doesn’t want to.

Jesus is the gate and the gatekeeper. He is here to protect us from the enemy that is within and the enemy that is without. Do we stay close to the gatekeeper through the sacraments and our prayer life or are we looking at the gates trying to think of a way out?

3 E A: Are our hearts burning for Jesus in the Breaking of the Bread?

Friends

Peace be with you.

I was talking to my spiritual director the other day about how this passage of Sacred Scripture keeps coming to the forefront for me in my time of prayer during this Easter Season. I’ll start with another passage, like the story of Jesus’ appearance by the Sea of Galilee to Peter but end up reflecting on this image of the two apostles walking with Jesus but not being able to recognize him. It just keeps coming back to me like there’s something I need to keep reflecting on.

Part of the reason may be because I did some research a couple of weeks ago, shortly after Easter, into where the town of Emmaus is for my Thursday morning coffee klatsch. On Thursday mornings, after Mass, I invite anyone who wants to chat to come either into the fireplace room outside of church or over to the adult ed room in the Faith Formation area of the Parish Center, depending on availability, where I give a short presentation that I hope is interesting and prompts further discussion. Most of my presentations have to do with the cities named in the New Testament, like Corinth, Jerusalem, or Casarea Phillippi. The Thursday after Easter Sunday, I presented on Emmaus. As I said to them, the struggle is that there are several towns that all claim to be Emmaus and it’s next to impossible to determine which one is the real one. Still, as I did my research into the characteristics that both bolstered and denigrated the veracity of the claims of each of the three or four best possible towns, I couldn’t help but wonder what in the heck was wrong with these two lunkheads that prevented them from recognizing their messiah as they walked to this unknown town.

Here’s what we know (or don’t know) about these two people. In the Bible, one is named Cleopas and the other is unnamed. In St. John’s story of the crucifixion of Jesus, one of the faithful women who accompany him along the way is named Mary, wife of Clopas. It’s possible that Clopas and Cleopas are the same name that, when transcribed from Hebrew to Greek by different evangelists, was just simply transcribed differently. If so, it’s also possible that the second bishop of Jerusalem, whose name is Simon, son of Clopas, could be the other person walking on this road to Emmaus. Some people identify this Simon with Simon the Zealot, one of Jesus’ Apostles. If that’s true, it would be a father and son heading back home to one of the suburbs of Jerusalem named Emmaus. Their wife/mother, Mary, had watched Jesus be put to death and, perhaps out of loyalty to her and what she witnessed, they are not prepared to hear from Mary Magdalene or Simon Peter that Jesus didn’t really die. And they aren’t prepared to accept the reality of the resurrection. It’s just too much for them. At least, too much until he is revealed in the breaking of the bread. St. Augustine said, “Where did the Lord wish to be recognized? In the break of bread…it was for our sake that he didn’t want to be recognized…because we weren’t going to see him in the flesh, and yet we were going to eat his flesh. So, if you’re a believer, you may take comfort in the breaking of the bread. The Lord’s absence is not an absence. Have faith and the one you cannot see is with you.”

Have you ever come to Mass or gone to adoration and not felt like your heart was burning within you? Maybe it’s happening for you right now. Personally, I know that part of the reason it’s happening for me is because it’s been an extraordinarily busy time, with a lot of funerals, working to replace a couple of staff members, first reconciliation and first communion, Divine Mercy Sunday, confirmation, and the normal, weekly parish activities. I haven’t been taking the time necessary to reflect on God’s presence in my life. I didn’t notice him in the actions of the people around me. I missed Jesus when he spoke to me through the young man that is considering going to the seminary. I missed him when visiting with the woman who told me how grateful she was that I spent some time with her mother before she died because I was so worried about having a good homily. I missed him when I didn’t go to adoration because I was goofing around watching a silly youtube video.

When did we miss encountering Jesus in the breaking of the bread and what are we going to do to find the time to let him set our hearts on fire?

Easter 2023: Easter is the beginning not the end.

Friends

Peace be with you.

When I was growing up, every Sunday night my mom would pop popcorn in a black popcorn popper, put it in a white rinse tub, and put it in the middle of the living room where my four siblings and I would lay around watching TV and devouring it. My parents would generally take a popcorn bowl to their recliners and sit with us. I still do this if I’m able, although now I’m the one sitting in a recliner. However, we always chose to give up popcorn for Lent, as a kind of family experience of fasting. That was perfect because, after we would have a huge Easter meal, either at home or at one of our grandparents’ houses, we would look forward to snarfing down popcorn that evening. It felt like we were done. We’d completed Lent and our life could get back to normal.

The longer I’m a priest, the more of a problem I think this is. Lent is meant to be like spring training for baseball or rehearsals for a play or studying for a Commercial Driver's license test, which I need to do by the way. Lent is meant to prepare us for an Easter life, not to be an end in itself. It’s meant to build up our strength and renew our life of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We’re not meant to go back to the way things were but we also aren’t meant to live a perpetual life of Lent. Instead, I would like to suggest there are three things, from today’s Gospel, that indicate what living an Easter life is all about.

First, notice that the first thing that both the angel and Jesus say to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary is “Do not be afraid!”. The world and even certain movements in the church seem to be focused on motivation through fear. With all due respect to those who have a deep devotion to Fatima, while I truly believe miracles have been associated with the appearance of our Blessed Mother from there, I also believe there are people who seek to cause a lot of confusion and fear from their belief that the third secret of Fatima is still hidden. I worry that they’ve missed the point. Jesus said do not be afraid. Among St. John Paul the Great’s first words were “do not be afraid”. We must be courageous in a world that seems to be growing increasingly hostile to Christianity and, in particular, the gospel of life. If someone tells you to be afraid in order to get you to change, remember Jesus’ message: do not be afraid!

Secondly, we are called to a genuinely personal encounter with Jesus. The two Mary’s first encounter the angel and then encounter Jesus. When they encounter Jesus, they fall at his feet, embrace them, and did him homage. We have to have this same attitude in our liturgy. It must be a place of encounter. Sometimes people complain that we do some things differently at St. Patrick’s than the way other churches do them. I would suggest that there are legitimate differences that parishes can have that don’t mean one or the other is heretical. It drives me crazy to hear people who love the Latin Mass, for instance, claiming that Mass in English is wrong or vice versa, people who claim that those who love the Latin Mass are wrong. I would suggest that, when we get so critical of the form of Mass that we make fun of it or complain about it, we are missing out on the legitimate encounter with Jesus we are meant to have there. Even the worst Mass in the world, as long as it’s valid, can be a profound encounter with Jesus if we open our hearts to it.

Lastly, notice that Jesus calls his brothers to go to Galilee. They have to set out and, eventually, receive the evangelical mandate. We know that, for years, we have been losing congregants rather than gaining. I’ll admit that I feel happy at seeing more people coming to church now than when I first arrived but I sometimes worry that some of that is more people who attended other churches who are coming here because I’m getting a reputation as Fr. short homily. If I’m wrong about that, I apologize. While everyone is welcome here and I hope no one ever hears me say that you can only go to Mass at St. Patrick’s. The truth is that there are far more people who have fallen away from practicing their faith or who have never heard the message of the gospel who need to hear that Jesus is risen, that he is alive, and that he is truly present in all eleven parish tabernacles in the Cedar Rapids area. And it must be us who spread that message. Lent may be over but that was just preparation for our life of Easter evangelization. Do not be afraid, Jesus will be with you to reach out to those in need of hearing the gospel. Tell them he is alive, that he is here, and how much he loves you and them.

3 L A This man told me everything I have done

 Friends 

Peace be with you. 

Fans of the show The Chosen probably vividly remember their depiction of this Gospel passage. For those of you who haven’t seen it, imagine an arid desert with the only visible thing being a picturesque round brick well. The well has some poles stuck in the ground surrounding it on which some cloths are strung to protect the women who would draw from the well. Sitting under the cloths is Jesus and approaching him is a woman in tattered clothes with a rather dirty, tired-looking face. Jesus asks her for water and, as in the Gospel from which it is taken, she responds wondering why a Jew would ever talk to one of her people, a Samaritan. 

After a few terse exchanges, I really feel like Chosen gets to the heart of the matter when Jesus asks her what is bringing this Samaritan woman out in the hottest part of the day in search of water. At the time, people, mostly women, got their water in the early morning because it was hard work carrying it back home and you wanted to avoid the added strain of the heat of the day, a reality that, admittedly sounds rather attractive on this cold March day.. Plus, if you do it early, you may run into your friends and catch up on all the town gossip, sort of like their version of the water cooler. They could talk about the cost of fresh vegetables and why it’s so challenging to buy them right now. Or maybe why it’s been so violent, in particular in the bigger cities. Things were weird back then. 

That’s when we discover the answer to why she’s out in the middle of the day, to avoid people. After all, she’s been married five times and the man she’s living with is not HER husband. Everyone in town knows it. They probably even talk about her in the morning when they’re getting their water. I really appreciate, in the Chosen, how the woman is so reluctant to interact with Jesus and how she begins to walk away when Jesus engages her about her husbands. He tells her he’s not there to judge her and then names her first husband, Ramin, who was abusive and her second husband, Farzad, who was faithful and loving and whom she left because she never felt worthy of him. 

She breaks down. To be honest, I break down sitting on my couch. I know I’m tough as nails but this crazy show makes me emotional. She breaks down because Jesus knows her worst secrets, speaks her worst secrets to her, and still looks at her with love. And she knows then and there that this can only be the messiah because only the messiah could forgive her, and make her whole and so she celebrates. What does she say when she celebrates? “This man told me everything I have done”. She celebrates that Jesus knows her sins because it’s a mark that the messiah has come. 

That’s when the outrageous thing happens: she runs to all those people she’s been avoiding with a mission. She has to reveal the messiah to them. Her method of evangelization is simple: tell her own story of forgiveness and then ask them if they want to have the same experience with Jesus. 

We are all thirsting to be forgiven by God. We should let God reveal to us what we most want to have forgiven. We may not be entirely aware of what it is and it may go back many years and be something that has continuously plagued us or we may know it intimately because it is before we always. Regardless, we can bring it to the sacrament of reconciliation and know the joy of experiencing the mercy and forgiveness of God first hand so we may share that joy with others. He knows everything we have done already. Now it’s time for us to celebrate the forgiveness he wants to give to us. He knows everything we have done and still loves us. THAT’S worth celebrating!

1 L A: The devil mimics holy things

Friends

Peace be with you. 

There’s a famous picture entitled The Preaching of the Antichrist painted by the Italian Renaissance painter Luca Signorelli in the Chapel of San Brizio in Orvieto Cathedral in the town of Orvieto Italy. In the foreground, there is a man who looks very much like the classical image of Jesus standing on a box preaching. To his left, stands a man with horns, obviously the devil, whispering in his ear and it appears that the preaching man’s left arm may actually be the left arm of the devil who is feeding him his lines. It’s quite a striking image of the antichrist, the one in Sacred Scripture who is meant to confuse and, ultimately drive us away from the faith. What I, personally, find so compelling about the image is how closely the antichrist appears to what we have always imagined Jesus to have looked. In this image, the antichrist seems to be pointing towards his heart, very much like the classical images of the Sacred Heart. He even has what appears to be the sun emanating from there. I find this to be a great image because there have been many times when I’ve experienced people behaving in evil ways and the evil ideologies that undergird them which use Christian imagery for their own evil purposes. The satanic movement, for instance, will do what they call a black mass, which mimics our celebration of the Eucharist. I’ve noticed a real concentrated effort on the part of movies to denigrate Christian symbols in favor of more pantheistic, meaning god is in everything, or atheistic, meaning there is no God, messages. Sadly, a few examples of this are the last few Marvel Movies that I’ve seen where Christianity is imaged as the oppressor and baptism imaged not as dying in order to rise but simply as death to an indigenous culture. 

But, before we start to think this is something new, let’s look closely at the first reading and the gospel. In the first reading, the devil appears to the first woman, Eve, to tempt her into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Notice he did not lie to her, he just twisted the truth. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they did not die but were able to be like God in knowing good and evil. In the Eucharist, there are four verbs that are consistently used to describe what happens, they are take, bless, break or give, and eat. Notice the description of how Eve eats the forbidden fruit, she takes, eats, and gives. It’s like the Eucharist but it’s missing something. She doesn’t bless God or give thanks as you can translate it. She also eats before she gives. It’s like the Eucharist, but missing something.

The devil, in the gospel, uses scripture to try and tempt Jesus in the desert. In one way or another, each of these temptations are mirroring times when the Israelites were grumbling in the desert on their way to the land they were promised, either about food or testing God’s patience or when they committed idolatry. And the devil even quotes scripture as he is lifting Jesus to the parapet of the temple, encouraging him to subject the Lord’s promises of angelic protection to verification. 

The message seems to be that we need to be cautious about what appears to be of God. The evil one knows Sacred Scripture and can quote it to his own use. He can even make advocates that appear like Jesus but are, in truth, listening to the evil one. I once heard that it would make sense that the antichrist would come out of the church, for example if he would be a credible church leader. Indeed, I think of the number of priests and bishops who gain a big following but turn out to be acting in ways that are far from Christlike.

If there’s one thing that we can take from these readings, that should mark our actions and beliefs it’s that they should be marked by a healthy sense of humility. Jesus is tempted three times by the devil he made, the fallen angel he watched walk rebelliously out of heaven. Yet, instead of simply telling the temptor that he has no interest engaging with his enemy, he listens and responds. This is a beautiful model of humility for us. Jesus is not doing it because there is hope the devil will reform. He cannot. He has already condemned himself in his own actions and beliefs. Jesus’ humility, instead, is simply who he is and who we should want to be. How does Jesus’ humility mark our lives?

6 OT A Jesus changed the 10 commandments?

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

A couple of years ago, I was engaging with someone on social media about a contentious issue surrounding Pope Francis. I was told by the person that Pope Francis had changed the Ten Commandments and this was why we shouldn’t trust him. Relatively quickly, I did a Google search for “Pope Francis changed 10 commandments'' and found two stories. The first was a story about the Pope putting forth the Ten Commandments of Environmentalism. The other was a satirical story from a fake news web site that cynically alleged the Pope had changed the rules around adultery. It appeared the second followed the first because some people felt the Pope was trying to modify the original 10 Commandments as listed in Exodus and Deuteronomy by putting forth the 10 commandments for Environmentalism. In truth, the Pope was simply preaching about what it means to be a good steward of creation as it talks about in Genesis chapters one and two. But, some more liberal websites listed it as the Ten Commandments of Climate Change, despite the fact that the Pope didn’t use the phrase, and as a response, this more conservative, satirical website published what it did about the Pope. Makes what St. Paul said in the second reading for today, “we speak a wisdom to the mature that is not of this age nor of the ruler of this age” even that much more prescient. 

Still, I can’t help but wonder if this is somewhat the way the people at the Sermon on the Mount reacted to the three statements we just heard in the gospel. Jesus changed the Ten Commandments. The irony of this is that he begins by saying that he doesn’t intend to change the law and the prophets. In fact, he challenges his apostles to be holier than the scribes and Pharisees, the ones who are in charge of the law and who not only should be teaching people how to apply it to their lives but should be practicing what they preach. “Be better than the professionals” is more or less what Jesus says, and he has no intention of fixing the rules so his followers can do that. Right after making that declaration, he then sort of changes the rules. 

The thing is that, unlike the fake story about what Pope Francis said about the Ten Commandments, Jesus makes them harder. He actually shows how we, his followers, are going to be holier than the scribes and Pharisees. “You shall not kill” becomes “you shall not be angry with your brother”. “You shall not committ adultery” becomes “you shall not look at a woman with lust”. “You shall not take a false oath” becomes “you shall not swear at all, just let your ‘yes’ mean ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ mean ‘no’”. Each of these statements takes one of the Ten Commandments or, in the case of false oath and outgrowth of one of the Ten Commandments, namely you shall not lie, and ratchets it up a little. 

Part of what Jesus is saying to us is that living a life of holiness is more than just about following a series of commandments. It’s about realizing, as the first reading from Sirach said, we are the only members of God’s creation that have the capacity of freely making choices that we know God wants us to do. A cheetah doesn’t stop running and ask if God would want it to kill and eat a gazelle. It just does it. A pack of hyenas doesn’t ask if they’ve over hunted all the birds in a particular area so there won’t be any for the next generations. We humans can ask these types of questions. 

So, we shouldn’t believe we are living a holy life if  we lay in bed at night and imagine ourselves slowly driving a steam roller over our obnoxious coworker as long s don’t actually do it. And, we shouldn’t committ to doing things if we really don’t intend to do them. I love the fact that Jesus just gave all of us permission to say no. Did you hear it? I need to hear this message as much as anyone here. It’s okay to admit that something is important and good but we just can’t do it. That’s holier than swearing you’ll do something but never ever getting around to it. 

This is the balance of being truly free but having an all knowing God. God doesn’t force us to do something. He lays out what a full life is going to look like and invites us to chose it. As we creep closer to Lent, just a little over a week away now, what’s the one thing you think God is calling you to do to surpass the professional holy crowd and how, when God asks you, can you tell him yes and mean it?

4 OT A Blessings experienced in this life but only fully realized in the heavenly kingdom

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

One of the more popular shows on Netflex is called Cobra Kai. It picks up the story line originally begun in 1984 about a young man, named Daniel, who moves from New Jersey to Los Angeles to start a new life. However, he finds that he is getting picked on by a group of kids that are skilled in karate. He eventually discovers that his building manager, a man named Mr. Miyagi, is an expert sensei who can train him to become The Karate Kid. I think part of what attracts people to this movie and makes it stand the test of time, so to speak, is what happens when Daniel begins his training. It, at first, appears that he is just being slave labor for the building manager; painting his fence, sanding his floor, painting his house, and waxing his series of classic cars. At one point, when Daniel as at the peak of frustration at what appears to be the futility of these actions, he confronts Mr. Miyagi, played by the great Japanese-American actor Pat Morita who was, up until this point, largely known for his comedic roles. Mr. Miyagi responds by showing how each of these actions was actually strength and agility training to be able to block karate strikes. Mr. Miyagi punches and Daniel “waxes the floor” away the fist. Mr. Miyagi kicks and Daniel “paints the fence” his foot away from hitting his legs. 

Five chapters into the first book of the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus introduces a similar concept in these Beatitudes. Each of these eight statements introduce a concept that we can begin to experience on this earth that will only be fully realized in the heavenly kingdom. They begin with the word Blessed, which is the Greek word Makarios. It is sometimes also translated “happy”, not in the sense of the emotion of happiness but in the idea the good life, or a fortunate situation. In other words, they’re really outlining what the ideal life would look like. It’s common in the Old Testament to have similar statements. In the Book of Psalms for instance, chapter 2 says that people who take refuge in the Lord are blessed. In chapter 1, those who delight in God’s law are blessed. In Chapter 84, those who trust in the Lord and fear the Lord are blessed. What makes Jesus’ Beatitudes different from most, if not all, Old Testament “blessed” statements is that you’d be right in questioning how any of them are truly the good life. 

Who wants to live a life of spiritual poverty, for instance? Spiritual poverty is both an absence of material possessions and feeling utterly powerless to affect the situation around you. Who would want that? Or, who wakes up in the morning and sets the goal to mourn at some point? Mind you, I don’t mean watching a sad movie and having a good cry type of mourning. I mean waking up and feeling like there is a hole in your life because someone important isn’t there any more. I could go through each of these beatitudes and point out their futility but you get the point. On the one hand, it’s easy to look at each of these eight statements and say thanks but no thanks Jesus. I’ll just pray my prayers, eat my vitamins, and never go wrong, to quote the philosopher Hulk Hogan. And, certainly, there are some who look at these and say that they are really just excuses christians offer for being weak. I’ve heard someone say that, by putting the fulfillment off until heaven, we’re really just trying to console ourselves for being losers in this life. 

They couldn’t be farther from the truth. One thing that is common about these beatitudes is that they remind us of our total dependence on God. The easiest example of happens when Jesus twice calls those who are persecuted as blessed. The first are those persecuted for the sake of righteousness who, like the poor, will inherit the kingdom. The second are persecuted for fidelity to Jesus. This isn’t a kind of wish fulfillment. It points to the real point of these beatitudes, things that don’t always make sense in this world but are really preparing us for an eternal life of utter dependence on God. Can we take the time to reflect on each of these beatitudes so that we can let them be that kind of heavenly preparation?

Epiphany - A: Being drawn to Christ while others are being repelled

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

I had a couple of friends when I was a college student with whom I would go to church. They were my residents, in fact, when I was a Resident Assistant taking care of one of the floors at Loras College. I got them involved in music ministry and did what I could to make them feel welcomed and a part of the church. I graduated before them but tried to remain in contact with them. They both moved to the suburbs of Chicago after graduation and got good, high-paying jobs. One day, I was talking to one of them and asked what church they went to, assuming that, since they lived close to each other, they still supported each other’s church-going habit. The one with whom I was speaking paused and admitted to me that they had become like much of their generation, more spiritual than religious. I asked about his prayer life and he admitted it wasn’t where he wanted it to be. So, I said, you’re more spiritual than religious but you also rarely, if ever pray. How’s that working out for you? He admitted it wasn’t where he wanted to be and told me that he would try to get to church more often. We hung up on good terms but, after I hung up, I started asking myself what I was doing. At that point, I was in the seminary preparing to become a priest for a generation of Catholics who are no longer attending Mass. 

And, it’s getting worse. They think that in the 1950s, seventy percent of American Catholics would attend Mass weekly. In the 2010’s, 50% of Catholics over 50 years old attended Mass and only 25 percent of Catholics in their 20’s attended Mass. I would guess probably half of that attend after the pandemic, don’t you think? I know we tend to think of the scandals and theological controversies as one of the major reasons Catholics aren’t attending Mass but I honestly wonder how much of it is simply because a person’s peer group stopped going to Mass and there’s greater peer pressure not to go than to go. Let’s face it, not only do most people not attend a church on the weekend, they think there is something wrong with those of us who do. We hate science or we’re socially awkward or we're prudish or we’re evil hiding behind the cloak of the church. They may not come right out and say that a person shouldn’t go to church but chances are they may think twice about inviting you to hang out or they may seem to press your moral boundaries when you do. 

In our Gospel for today, you have pagan priests known as the magi who are guided by the star to search out the newborn King of the Jews. These men were Persian priests who advised their king and interpreted dreams. Apparently, they also looked into the stars for guidance because they were able to not only recognize a star guiding them but knew to bring gifts because of the star guiding them to the newborn king of the Jews. They came prepared and they got what they wanted. Let’s contrast that with Herod, the person that considers himself the King of the Jews, who not only doesn’t search for the child, but he sends the Magi to be his private investigators. Why isn’t Herod himself searching instead of just sending the Magi? That’s one of the ironies of this story, the pagan magi are searching and finding while Herod, the sort of Jew, isn’t even searching for his king. 

Back in 2009, when he was still a Cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI gave this often cited quote, 

“It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.”

I think there’s a seed of truth to these thoughts by our recently deceased pope-emeritus, but it’s too easy to say that this is inevitably what is going to happen. We may, indeed, be a generation that watches the church get smaller but I think Pope Benedict would be the first to say that doesn’t mean we are any less responsible for living out the Gospel and calling people to conversion. We saw it tragically on Monday when Damar Hamlin collapsed and almost died playing football. What did his teammates do on that field? They stopped and prayed. What happened in the wake of September 11, 2001, when our world was grappling with the idea of airplanes being used as bombs? People went into church and prayed. When the world doesn’t operate as we want, people often ask the Lord to intervene, they’re drawn back to church. They need us to be here to welcome them back. They may not know it but they need us to be here, like the Magi, adoring the Lord and loving them. Can we be faithful for the people who are pressuring us not to be?

Christmas 2022 What a start!

 Friends

    Peace be with you.

    I’m guessing many of you were surprised that we read the long version of the gospel. I’ve chosen the short version of every other reading since I got here in July. Why, on Christmas, read the long version of the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, especially, THIS long version, the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham? One commentary I read said, “Seldom has such an important book begun in such a repellent way.” It went on to describe it as “a stumbling block for modern readers”. Another commentary said, “Reading other people's genealogies is about as exciting as watching other people’s (vacation) videos”. I mean, aside from the scene in Christmas Vacation in which Clarke W. Griswald finds himself trapped in the attic so he decides to watch his old home videos while Spirit of Christmas by Ray Charles plays underneath, I can’t think of a time I’ve been excited to watch other people’s home videos. Although, a few years ago, there was a show called Who Do You Think You Are, which was all about helping famous people know who their relatives were and, generally, connecting them to famous people throughout history. Kelly Clarkson’s three times great grandfather fought in the Civil War and became a state senator who advocated for temperance. Josh Groban descended from a German theologian and scientist who believed Haley’s comet was sent from God to end the world in divine judgment. I always thought it was interesting that these famous people descended from such important historical figures. Made me wonder if I did the same. 

    The struggle with the genealogy from the Gospel of Matthew is that we don’t hear it the way the original listeners did. We tend to be afraid of the Old Testament, right? That’s the scary Testament with the mean God versus the New Testament where God becomes nice and loving. In the Old Testament, God wants to destroy the world by flood and disease and causes wars between people. In the New Testament, God is love who sent his son to die for us. The God of the Old Testament is Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life or Scrooge before the ghosts visited or the Grinch before his heart grew three sizes that day. The God of the New Testament is George Bailey after he sees Mary as an old maid or Tiny Tim or Lucy Liu Who or even Buddy the Elf in his simple, loving demeanor. 

    If we’re going to hear this passage as it’s intended, and I’d like to suggest that if we’re going to keep reading Matthew every Sunday from now until November of 2023, which we’re slated to do, we need to understand this passage. First, let’s set aside that clumsy misunderstanding of the difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New. It’s the same God in both. We are the ones who change. Look at the three groupings of fourteen generations St. Matthew outlines. St. Matthew starts with Abraham, who had a special relationship with God and goes all the way to King David, the greatest of the Old Testament kings. It appears that St. Matthew especially wants to show that Jesus was a relative of King David as the Messiah was prophesied to be one of his descendants. Throughout this first fourteen generations, the people seem to be drawing closer and closer to God, even incorporating three women who were not Jewish into the fold of believers, namely Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. Things take a turn for the bad with the second set of fourteen generations as the great King David conceives his son, Solomon outside of wedlock and through treachery. St. Matthew even goes so far as to refuse to name Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, but simply calls her the wife of Uriah to underlie King David’s failure. Each of these names highlights a failed King of Judah. And it ends with the Babylonian Exile. Judah follows its sister, Israel, in being led away from home in slavery for 40 years because of the failure of her leaders. But, God eventually led them back home and we have the third set that takes us to Jesus. 

    This is when things get interesting. We don’t know much about these men, other than the fact that they were responsible for getting God’s chosen people through the occupations by the Greeks and the Romans. We know Joseph but that’s about it. Were they good or were they bad? We don’t know. Maybe they weren’t either. What we do know is that, through these somewhat unremarkable men, God had a plan. Rather than St. Joseph being called the father of Jesus, he is called the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born. This is, in part, to highlight what will be stressed next, namely that St. Joseph isn’t Jesus' biological father but that he is still expected to take Mary into his home and raise Jesus as his son. I learned that, at the time of Jesus, a man would ask for a woman’s hand in marriage and sign a contract to marry the woman and then, for a year, would prepare a place for his wife before going through an elaborate ceremony of marriage. St. Joseph has asked Sts. Simeon and Anna, Mary’s father and mother, for marriage but is waiting the year before the ceremony takes place when he finds out she’s pregnant. He wants to divorce her quietly because he knows she would be stoned to death if he makes a big deal about it. That’s why it is so important for the angel to clarify that Joseph should follow through with the marriage and take Mary into his home: because he is going to give Jesus his name, a name meaning the Lord saves. What a convoluted way for God to enter the world. Isn’t there an easier way?

    But that seems to me to be the point of both the genealogy and the story of Jesus’ birth in the Gospel of St. Matthew: that God’s got a plan and we’d be wise to follow it. The plan may seem messy to the outside world but, in the end, it is the way God wants it to happen. Do you ever look back on your life and ask yourself if you have so messed it up that there’s no point in even trying to be holy any more? Maybe you’ve missed so many Masses that you’ll never catch up or you’ve allowed your prayer life to lapse so long that it hardly seems worth starting. What if that was all a part of God’s plan? God is saying to you that it may appear an imperfect way to be saved but he doesn’t care. We can’t keep looking back, either to our ancestors or our past life, and wishing we were more faithful or more prayerful. We only have today and today you’re in church seeking a relationship with God. Jesus is inviting us today into his family, to make him our brother and recognize his Father as Our Father. Can we let go of the failures of our history to let him work in our life today?

1 A A Stay Awake?

 Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    I probably shouldn’t admit this but one of my favorite movies that I watch every year around this time is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Now, I know of at least one scene in that movie that is outright morally inappropriate and there are some curse words in it so please don’t think of this as an endorsement. But, if you’ve ever seen the movie, you know that Clarke, the patriarch of the family, takes it upon himself to have an old fashioned Giswald family Christmas complete with a fully decorated house with 250 strands of lights, 100 individual bulbs per strand for a total of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights. As he’s standing on his snow-covered front lawn staring at the unlit house that he has spent hours in the cold decorating, Clarke has a twinkle in his eye in anticipation of seeing it all lit up. He has his wife, children, parents, and even his inlaws surrounding him making their best approximation of a drum roll as he triumphantly sings “JOY TO THE WORLD” while connecting the end of his extension cord to the extension cord plugged into the wall…only to have absolutely nothing happen. All that build-up for nothing. 

    How many Advents have we been hearing this same set of readings? Stay awake! If the master of the house had known when the thief was coming, he wouldn’t have let his house get broken into. Well of course, Jesus, if a thief sent you a text message letting you know when he was going to break into your house at noon next Tuesday, he’d be a pretty pathetic thief. You’d catch him or scare him off pretty easily. Thieves tend to strike when we don’t expect them. The trouble is that it kinda feels more like we should be asking you where you are more than we are unprepared for your coming. In other words, where were you this spring when a shooter entered Rob Elementary in Uvalde, Texas and slaughtered 19 children and 2 adults or a few days ago when a gunman entered a Walmart and started shooting the employees? Where were you when the evil one made cancer or heart attacks or RSV or covid-19 or other illnesses? Where are you in the war in Ukraine? There’s a side to me that says we’ve been awake for a while now waiting for your return…a long while. 

    Yet, I know Jesus is here. He’s in the Blessed Sacrament that we adore each and every day in our chapel. We are in need of adorers, by the way. Is this your call to wake and spend an hour with Jesus? There are so many events that seek to extinguish the life of faith that Jesus’ gift of the Eucharist can help to inflame and enlighten. Especially as we begin this new liturgical year, it’s a good time to ask if we can give an hour to the Lord to stay awake with him in prayer and take home a bulletin to sign up. Jesus is also present in the helpers, the police officers, firefighters, healthcare workers, and all the people who help in times of need. I’ve had a few situations recently where I’ve personally been thankful for these people’s presence to help me and I’m eternally grateful for them. Jesus comes when we ask forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This is a good time of year to renew that practice of seeking forgiveness and staying awake for the coming of the savior, though, in truth, any time at any point of the year we are conscious of serious sins or venial sins that are building up on our consciences is a good time to confess them and walk free. 

    Maybe the challenge is that we have this expectation that, when Jesus comes, it’ll be a huge, very obvious event with the light of 25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights. Instead, it’s a single candle on an Advent wreath signaling Christ’s presence in what appears to be bread, in the helpfulness of others, and in the forgiveness we seek. Maybe not as flashy, true, which is why we need to be reminded to stay awake. 

33 OT C Perseverant Testimony

 Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    In the past few months, I’ve talked with several people who are concerned that we are seeing events that point to the end times. Whether it’s the ongoing escalations in the war in Ukraine or the immoral and selfish political choices evidenced in the last election or some statements and actions by church leaders that are not in keeping with the Sacred Scripture or Sacred Tradition, these events can cause us a lot of concern. We may be tempted to look to the Book of Revelation and the Book of Daniel and look for the signs of the apocalypse that are present in our world today. 

However, before we do that, and before we get too far into those themes which are more prevalent as we draw closer to the end of the church’s liturgical and the beginning of the Advent season, let’s hear, with open hearts, the caution that our Lord has in the Gospel for today. Jesus says that we shouldn’t be fooled by those who think they know when the Lord will come again. We may see “wars and insurrections” and be tempted to start screaming about the end of the world but “do not believe them” he says. The implication is, also, that we shouldn’t become them. Why? Because there’s a tendency when you become fixated on the end-times, to fear. You can become so worried about looking for the signs of the end-times that you become selfish and worry so much about taking care of yourself and your own salvation that you forget to evangelize your neighbor. That’s why our Lord tells us that we are to persevere in giving testimony to the gospel. That is our job, to persevere in giving testimony that God loves us so much that he gave us his only son, Jesus Christ, so that we might have forgiveness of sins and the grace of the Holy Spirit.

    This past Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, many of us were taught one way we can persevere in giving testimony. Fr. Greg Bramlage, who preached at all the Masses last weekend, taught us about the power of intercessory prayer for healing. We, not just the ordained but all the baptized, can ask Jesus to heal a person just as he did when he walked among us so that the power of his healing of our sins may be outwardly manifested in the healing of our bodies. At the end of Mass, there will be people available if you’d like them to pray over you to ask Jesus to heal you. You may be suffering from something drastic like cancer or some other serious illness or serious physical injury or something smaller like if you’ve struggled with impurity or depression. It doesn’t matter. Two people will pray over you for two or three minutes saying repeatedly something like “Lord Jesus, heal this child of God.” While that sacramental is happening, I’ll also be standing in the front of church celebrating the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick for any of you who are ill or at a certain age where it will help strengthen you. I’d ask that those who do not want to participate in either, leave church by the side aisles and the people wanting to be anointed or prayed over walk up the center aisle.

    In doing this, we persevere in giving testimony to our hope in Jesus Christ. It’s easy to find reasons to struggle in hope in this world. But we must be the ones to give the hope of Christ to others. May our every word and action be an exercise in allowing God to use our lips and our hearts to praise him in hope.

24 OT C God searches for us even though we’re still lost

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

The other day, I was sitting in my office and I realized I needed to ask Shannon a question. I saw a receipt on my desk that needed to be turned in and a book that needed to go back on my bookshelf on my way out the door. I walked to my mailbox past the candy bars and resisted the temptation to grab the tiny Milky Way which sat at the top of the glass jar. Nonetheless, I continued on to the mailboxes and dropped the receipt into Tom’s mailbox before noticing that there were several pieces of new mail in my mailbox. I sorted through them, throwing out the junk mail and quickly opening the one bill that was in the stack. My cell phone buzzed in my pocket so I pulled it out and noticed that my friend sent me one of his daily comedy messages on facebook messenger. I turned the corner to Shannon’s desk and looked across the alley and remembered that I forgot to bring something from my house that morning that I was going to need for an upcoming meeting. I then turned my attention to Shannon, resolving that my next step would be to go across the alley to my house to get what I needed and I realized that I had no idea what the question was that had started this whole process. I stood there with this blank look on my face. Did it have something to do with Milky Way candy bars or the mail? No, neither of those. I walked back to my office in an attempt to jog my memory. I sat down at my desk because I felt like it had something to do with something on my computer but I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what it was. The good thing was that, after a couple of minutes of looking, I realized what the question was so returned directly to Shannon’s desk to ask her and then went back to my office feeling like I still was forgetting something…a feeling that would be fulfilled when I went to a meeting that night without a form which was still sitting in my apartment. 

Does this ever happen to you? It seems to happen to me a lot, to the point where I’ve worried that I may be prematurely losing my memory. Thankfully, my previous doctor told me that I’m simply trying to do too many things at one time and my memory can only hold about six or seven things at any given time. 

You know what I didn’t do when I finally remembered the question I needed to ask Shannon? Call the staff together and celebrate. That’s the irony of Jesus’ two short parables in today’s gospel. A man has a hundred sheep and he loses one. Now, it’s absolutely ridiculous that the man would leave 99 sheep alone in search of a lost one when you think about it. I’ve always imagined that the shepherd just left the 99 under the protection of another shepherd or a paid laborer but that’s not what’s implied. In this parable, the ninety nine sheep are in danger while he’s looking for the one that just wandered away such that, when he found it, he’s undoubtedly relieved but probably also quite annoyed, enough that the last thing he’s thinking about doing is celebrating. Or, think about the woman with ten cents who searches everywhere for one lost coin. It wasn’t stolen, it was simply misplaced by her carelessness. If I celebrated every time I found something I’d lost by carelessness, I wouldn’t get anything done in the day and, quite rightly, people would be annoyed with me. In both cases, the reaction the people have, “Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep” or “my lost coin” is silly. They would have, at best, felt relief but they probably wouldn’t want to draw too much attention to the fact that she can’t keep track of ten cents or he can’t keep his sheep safe. 

But, thankfully, that’s not how God thinks. God rejoices over a sinner who repents, even a foolish one, even more so than over all those who don’t need to repent. We may feel unworthy of God’s forgiveness, like we haven’t fully repented or like we aren’t as sorrowful as we need to be, but God wants to celebrate our forgiveness with him in the sacrament of reconciliation. What’s stopping us from feeling a little foolish and celebrating God’s forgiveness? 

20 OT C Jesus came to set our hearts on fire

 Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    In the past, I was asked if it would be okay for a certified Yoga instructor to come into a Catholic School to teach the kids a variation of Yoga. I did some research and found out that the stretching part of yoga can be a very good way for people to destress the body and even a way of staying fit. Given the level of stress our school kids are under, it was thought this could be a way for us to offer an outlet for them. However, when I looked into it a little deeper, I found that there are chants that go along with the particular poses that are directly tied to Eastern religion and the idea that one can become god. Even the names of the poses themselves are tied to pantheism, the idea that everything is made up of god and we can become god by becoming at peace with everything. When I asked the leader if she could leave out the chants and the names of the poses and just teach the stretching part, the leader basically told us she wouldn’t do that because it wouldn’t be loyal to the essence of Yoga. So we told her we couldn’t allow her to teach in our Catholic school. The more I reflected on it, the more comfortable I was with the decision, especially in the light of this particular passage of scripture. 

    This passage is unique to Luke’s gospel but is one I think about quite often. Jesus didn’t come to bring peace. He came to set the world on fire. Now, before we draw too many fiery conclusions, I learned a few things that may be helpful in understanding this passage. In the sandy middle east, it can often be seventy or eighty degrees in the day and thirty or forty degrees at night. They don’t have the vegetation we have that helps moderate the temperature. So, at the time of Jesus, they had these clay, or earthen, fireplaces that you would light at night to keep warm. Jesus is saying that, like those earthen fireplaces, he wishes we, his followers were like them on fire. He seems to switch to baptismal imagery quickly but this is another contrasting element of Christiantity. Jesus' baptism with fire will be his death on cross. You see, Jesus wants to light the earthen fireplace of our own persecution.

    St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Franciscan priest. He had to sneak around during World War II in order to join the Conventual Franciscan Friars. At one point, he offered to take the place of a Jewish Man who was to be killed in a concentration camp and he was killed. During his canonization process, there were some who dug up statements made by St. Maximilian that they deemed to be anti-semitic. Everything I read from Jewish commentators about this controversy was that they lauded St. Maximilian for his willingness to die for Jews. However, it was mostly what we might call “woke” Catholics who felt we should exclude St. Maximilian from the litany of saints because of these past statements. Thankfully, St. John Paul the Great knew sanctity isn’t halted by any amount of outrage and or offense of the politically correct. He followed the procedures set up and, when the appropriate miracles were verified, he recognized this great saint for the powerful intercessor he is, which is why it’s so fitting for us to have a relic of him in our chapel. I think we can say with certainty that St. Maximilian Kolbe set the world on fire with his own persecution, just like Jesus, even if it meant a mother was set against her daughter or a son against his father.

    If we are to be the earthen fireplace, filled with the Holy Spirit, it often means we will feel like we are the source of division. It may mean having to say to someone that we won’t go to yoga with them because it’s in conflict with our faith. Or it may mean we offend a family member who doesn’t feel like we should have to pause for prayer before our meal. Or it may mean we upset someone because we help an immigrant rather than toss them aside as garbage. Jesus wants us to be baptized with a fiery baptism like his own. Can we take the heat of other people’s outrage because we’re living the gospel?

17 OT C God’s will to forgive above my will to succeed.

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

Have you ever been reluctant to ask God for something in prayer? There have been times when I have felt like there is no need to ask God for prayers because the outcome was inevitable. I think this realization comes about the first time we ask for something and our request doesn’t get answered in the way we want it to. For example, a number of years ago, I made a plan with God that, if I won a large amount of money in the lottery, I would create investments in the Catholic Foundation of the Archdiocese of Dubuque so that parishes that are struggling financially, especially the smaller rural parishes I’m accustomed to pastoring, would be able to earn some interest income and possibly be able to stay open even if their weekly giving can’t keep up with expenses. I asked God to be able to make me win on a particular Saturday night when the jackpot was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I bought one ticket with numbers that I thought were significant for me because I was certain that God knew my plan and thought it was brilliant and would help me win this money. I watched the news that night as the drawing took place…and I didn’t even get one number correct. I could have rationalized it by saying that I needed to try again next week but I didn’t. I just assumed that this wasn’t the will of God and so I stopped asking, seeking, or knocking. That probably seems at least a little superficial of a petition to start off with but I would guess many of us have asked for God to intervene in sporting events that someone might win, in plays or concerts so that your kid would remember all the lines or play his trombone perfectly, or in a party or get together so that everyone comes, has a good time, and leaves in a timely manner. 

Our readings today are focused on how prayer can be an exercise in asking and seeking. I would point out that, in Luke’s version of the Our Father, which is shorter and less complex than Matthew’s, the whole point of the prayer isn’t just about asking God for stuff. We call God our Father and give honor to his name. We invite the Kingdom of God and forgive so that we may be forgiven. But, at the heart of the prayer is the petition “Give us this day our daily bread”. A commentary I read said that this is an echo of the daily bread the disciples would eat in the desert on their pilgrimage from Egypt to the Holy Land. From a Christian perspective, this bread is the Eucharist, our bread that gets us through our days, which is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. 

The context the church provides, however, isn’t focused on sports, plays, or even the lottery. We are encouraged to ask for forgiveness of sins, despite the fact that God has no need to forgive our sins. In the parable, God is the landowner with a full belly in bed and we are the persistent neighbor asking him for bread. The word they translate as persistent can also mean shameless or audacious. We shamelessly turn to God asking for forgiveness even though he is perfect and is faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to him and our neighbor. I think that’s why there is such a strong connection between Eucharist and confession in the Catholic church, between forgiveness of sins and receiving the author of forgiveness. If we are going to receive the body of him who offers us forgiveness, we must offer forgiveness to those who have wronged us.

We know that God offers to save all the world for the sake of one good person, his son Jesus. We eat his body and drink his blood and reconcile ourselves with him. Now if we can just recognize that the most important prayer isn’t about winning the lottery but about putting God’s will above our own by seeking forgiveness and freely offering it to those who have wronged us.  

16 OT C When we welcome Jesus to our house, everything else is secondary

 Before I begin my homily, I want to make you aware of a convention I use to begin every Sunday and Holy Day homily that can trip people up. I begin my homily, following the custom of many christian preachers, by saying, “friends, peace be with you” Now, when I do that, I’m not looking for a response of “and with your spirit”. It’s just something I do to get started on what I believe to be the right food. Jesus calls us friends and so I call you friends. And I pray for peace so that my homily may make us at peace with God. In that vein, I say…

Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    It’s been interesting to reflect on this gospel during a week where I moved halfway across the state of Iowa, from Bellevue to here to Cedar Rapids. Most of the time people reflect on this passage, they focus on the contrast between contemplative Mary versus laborious Martha. I’ve had many people, especially women, say that this is frustrating to them because preachers tend to imply that contemplation is superior to the active life of charity. Even though there is some merit to that argument, I’m not sure that is the lesson Jesus is hoping to teach these sisters and anyone else who was listening to the master teach. 

    Another problem is that we tend to associate this with teachings on hospitality, because that is the focus of the first reading when Abraham greets the three divine travelers. That means that the message most preachers are going to focus on is that, when people come to our house, we shouldn't spend so much time clearing and cooking, that we miss out on seeing the image of God within them. Again, that’s a good message but I’m not convinced that’s the message of this gospel. Jesus is in the home of a woman who is never identified as a relative and there is no husband or brother or father mentioned as also being present. This is significant because Jesus is breaking a bunch of middle eastern social norms that could have gotten him killed unless he knows Martha and Mary well enough that he is like a relative, such a close friend to them that he is like a brother. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I prefer this understanding of his relationship with these two sisters. 

    So, if the point isn’t the pitfalls of working too hard when hospitality is called for or the predominance of the contemplative life over the more active, charitable life, what is the message of the gospel? All this week, I’ve been staring at plastic totes filled with clothes and books and nick nacks. I sit down to pray and I look around and think that I can say a Psalm and hang up those clothes or I can pray a rosary and unpack a box of books. I think the point is that, when we invite Jesus to our homes, we need to be ready to spend all our time with him. Prayer gets so easily cluttered up with other concerns, even if we haven’t just moved. We may intend to spend fifteen minutes in prayer and end up spending all that time thinking about a harsh conversation we had with a friend or coworker. We may put on Fr. Mike Schmitz’s Bible in a Year Podcast and have it playing in the background and scroll through Facebook or Twitter or other social media platforms and realize we didn’t hear a single passage Fr. Mike was reading. It’s way too easy to get distracted in prayer, to allow concerns about work or our house or our family to crowd out any thought of God, let alone actually having a conversation with our dearest friend Jesus. I think that’s the context of this passage. It’s important to set aside time in prayer. That’s one of the many reasons I’m very excited about being your pastor: you have a dedicated adoration chapel where people can go throughout the day to pray and know it will be quiet there and they will be left alone with the Lord. It’s okay, in that context, to pray for our coworkers and even talk to Jesus in our hearts about how we can work out our problems. But, when we invite Jesus into our homes and our lives, we need to put our focus on him. There’ll be time to clean the clutter afterward. 

15 OT C The law of mercy.

 Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    This past week, our Muslim brothers and sisters started their great pilgrimage festival called the hajj. It is a pilgrimage all muslims are expected to make at least once in their lives to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the place Muslims believe Abraham encountered the one true God. A pilgrimage is a common experience among world religions. For Buddhists, there are four sites in Nepal and India that are considered sacred pilgrimage sites. Even in Christianity, it’s kind of common to make pilgrimages. A group of parishioners left to go to Germany, Austria and, of course, Luxembourg on pilgrimage this past week. Christian Pilgrimages are so common, in fact that we have built one into our architecture. In almost all Catholic Churches, you can see the stations of the cross which was created as a kind of local pilgrimage when it became too dangerous for people to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to the actual walkway that Jesus took from being condemned to being placed in the tomb. 

    For Jews, the great pilgrimage they would have made from the time of King Solomon to the year 70 A.D. was to the Temple. It was the place of encounter with God and receiving forgiveness through the offering of sacrifice. It was a place of prayer and healing and debate. No other place in the world is as important to the Jewish people as the Temple. 

    That’s what makes our first reading, from the Book of Deuteronomy, so surprising. Now, at this point in history there is no Temple. This book is written when the chosen people were on their 40 year pilgrimage through the desert from Egypt to their promised land. Moses is conveying to the chosen people the message that God has for them; which is that they need to remain faithful to the law. Yet, what is surprising is how they are meant to learn the law. Actually, it’s even a bit of a misnomer to call it “the law”, as we can kind of tell from this passage. When we think of the phrase “the law”, we probably think about law enforcement pulling us over for speeding or driving on the wrong side of the road. That’s not really the point of the law in the Bible, especially as it is conveyed in the first five books of the Bible. The law is God’s way of being in a relationship with his people. It’s his way of passing on to them the ways he expects them to live if they intend to live in his land. It’s a way of life as much as anything and, it’s not something, as it said in the first reading, that is extrinsic to us, not something that is imposed on us. It is very much intrinsic, very much something inside of us. But how do we get in touch with it? If it is, indeed, something very near to us, already in our mouths and in our hearts, we have only to carry it out”, how do we do that?

    Let’s look to the gospel. Jesus talks about a scholar of the law who approaches him and asks for a summary of the law. Jesus, being a good rabbi, gives what we tend to refer to as the Great Commandment, which comes from two passages, one from Deuteronomy and one from Leviticus, wherein we are called to love God and neighbor. However, kind of like the rich young man, this scholar asks a follow up question of who is our neighbor. It’s a good question, when you think about it. If, as I’ve heard some preachers contend, our neighbor is someone of our same religion or someone to whom we are related, it shapes the Great Commandment one way. 

However, Jesus doesn’t answer that way. He answers with a story, the story we’ve come to know as the Good Samaritan. A man gets beaten up and left for dead along what is, at the time, a very dangerous road between Jerusalem and Jericho. A priest and a Levite see the man but pass by out of fear of ritual condemnation. In both cases, had they helped, they wouldn’t have been able to carry out their sacred duties because of the rules associated with their professions. However, a dreaded Samaritan stops and saves the man, even going so far as to pay for his recovery. Now, remember that Samaritans are like the Jehovah’s Witness neighbors to the Jews. They were a group created by the Babylonians in an attempt to water down Judaism to make it more amenable to other religions. They believe in one God but have their own Bible, their own temple, their own rules, though many of them are at least similar to Judaism because they’re sort of based on it. But, Jews do not trust them. So, the idea that a Samaritan was the one to take care of an injured Jew would be impossible for them to face. I love how this story ends. Jesus asks the scholar of the law who is the neighbor. Now, you’d think he’d say all three because the Levite and the Priest were just doing their best to live according to the law. But, instead the scholar says, “the one who treated him with mercy”. And the response that Jesus gives, therefore, is “Go and do likewise.” He calls this scholar of the law and ourselves to go and do likewise, to live a life of mercy. 

    This is, in many ways, quite a challenge Jesus is offering us: to live a life of mercy. But, I think it is related to the first reading because in living the life of mercy we can see the face of God. Mother Teresa used to talk about how she could see the face of Christ in the face of the poor and lepers. St. Damien of Molokai said the same thing when he was ministering in Hawaii. The late Cardinal John O’Connor, much maligned because of his strong pro-life views, used to go into AIDS wards late at night and empty the chamber pots of the men there because he felt he was serving Christ in doing so. This is what the Lord means when he says we don’t have to go on a pilgrimage, we don’t have to look for something mysterious in the sky or sail across the sea in some Indian Jones type of search for the truth that will reveal the hidden mysteries of God. It is in our mouths and in our hearts. It is revealed in mercy, in forgiveness, in helping those who are in need, in reconciling. For too many people, being religious means perfectly following a set of rules. But, the truth is that being a Christian means being merciful, forgiving even when we don’t have to. Pope Francis, the pope of mercy, has this beautiful quote from 2013, “I think we too are the people who, on the one hand, want to listen to Jesus, but on the other hand, at times, like to find a stick to beat others with, to condemn others. And Jesus has this message for us: mercy. I think - and I say it with humility - that this is the Lord's most powerful message: mercy.” 

    Who is the beat up person in our life who we have left by the side of the road. We may even think they deserve to be beaten up. They may have wronged us in some way or may have said something that hurt us in such a way that we basically wrote them out of our life. If mercy means being the Good Samaritan, allowing the mercy that God put into our hearts and minds to affect us toward them, what does that mean? How can we be people of reconciliation, of healing, and of mercy?