2 L B: Christianity is not a pithy pop song

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

As some of you know, the series The Chosen has been released in theaters. Last week, I had the opportunity to watch the first three episodes and this past Thursday I watched the next three. If you haven’t watched any of this season and intend to do so, don’t worry. I’m not going to give away any of the plot but I will talk about a couple of feelings I’ve had that I don’t think will have any effect when you watch it. One of the challenges they face is trying to integrate all four gospels into a singular story without needing to add details that are not present in the gospels. I feel like the director, Dallas Jenkins, balances this pretty well by delving deep into the meaning of words and asking himself what may have caused something down the road. One of the feelings I find myself constantly having throughout all four seasons of the show is a constant skepticism as to if this character said something because they will say something else later on or if this act is foreshadowing something else. Yet there is another challenging feeling that I feel like they take on very hard in episodes three, four, and five that is also present in the gospel and first reading. 

In the first reading, we hear a story that probably seems kind of confusing. If you’re like me, you may have tuned out the entire reading and only started paying attention during the gospel because, let’s face it, most of the time I only preach on the gospel. As a preamble, you need to know that it was a common practice to sacrifice your first born son for some of the tribal nations surrounding the Israelites. This was done, in part, as a thanksgiving offering for the gift of a son to carry on his father’s familial responsibilities and as a show of trust that more sons would be born to the couple to carry on those duties. Sons were valuable in tribal societies because they could hunt for food, build houses, as well as waging war so there were fewer of them, in general, when it came to propagating the species. Sacrificing a child probably seems rather barbaric and, I’ll admit, I’m trying to use language that some of my little friends may not understand for a reason. The Jews were the first not to offer this sacrifice but to offer an animal instead. It was the first reading by which they decided to do this. Had it ended differently, had the one true God called Abraham to offer his son Isaac, they would have followed all their neighbors in this barbaric practice. But, instead, at the last possible moment, God halted the hand of Abraham and told him to sacrifice a sheep instead. He even gave Abraham the sheep to slaughter. That’s why, on February Second of each year, the Feast of the Presentation, the Bible says in the Gospel of Luke that Mary and Joseph brought a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons to the Temple to be sacrificed, because Jesus was Mary and Joseph’s first born son. It also tells us that they were too poor to afford a sheep, by the way, since they could only afford some inexpensive birds. 

We, Christians, believe there is deeper symbolism to this as well. We believe the animal sacrifice that replaced child sacrifice was itself temporary and symbolic. At Mass, I say “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the World…” We believe the sacrifice of Jesus was the once-for-all sacrifice that ended the need for the Temple Mount sacrifice. The reason Jesus tells Peter, James, and John not to tell the others what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration is because it would only make sense when his own sacrifice was completed. Jesus’ transfigured glory could only make sense after his brutal death on the cross. It’s like Jesus is trying to show them the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel even before they’ve entered the tunnel. He’s trying to give them resurrected, glorified hope before they’re hopeless. I think it’s also why Peter didn’t get it, because he hadn’t experienced the death of his friend yet.

As I was watching the Chosen, there were a couple of really sad scenes. Again, I’m not going into detail but I found myself questioning if they needed to be that bleak or that dark. And it reminded me of how pedestrian we can make the crucifixion. A few years ago, when the Passion of the Christ came out, I talked to a few priests who weren’t going because they felt it was too dark. They wanted the upbeat crucifixion in Godspell, or Jesus Christ Superstar, or Jesus of Nazareth. 

The challenge is that Christianity isn’t always upbeat. Sacrifice isn’t always upbeat. I get concerned because I worry that we’ve made Christianity too much like a pithy pop song. We’ve become a church of the Middle Class or a church of comfort. I get concerned because we are a church born from a sacrifice that has more martyrs today than ever before in history and prioritizing comfort is hardly preparation for belonging to that kind of church. I get concerned because Christianity without sacrifice is not worth belonging to. It’s too boring. 

But I get it. I like comfort as much as the next guy. I don’t like to feel sad. Who would? I’m not saying we should look forward to the sadness of the crucifixion like a sadist. 

Nonetheless, lent is a time for us to put aside some comfort to get a small sense of what Jesus went through. If you’re like me, you’ve probably messed up on your acts of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving at this point. You may have eaten between meals or not had a quarter to put in the jar after you said a bad word or not set aside the hour for prayer. You may even have messed up a couple of times and are starting to wonder if you should just give up. Please don’t. Take the mulligan and start again. It’s okay. Start today. Who cares that you’re not going to get the gold star sticker for forty days of fasting? The only day that matters is today. That’s all we have anyway. That’s the point of the transfiguration. There may be sadness and suffering in our lives but Jesus is the light at the end of the tunnel, he is our transfiguration. We may have to sacrifice before we get to experience the glory of the resurrection but that’s why we sacrifice today, because Christianity isn’t always happy or pretty or easy or comfortable. But it is worth it because, in the end, we get to share in his transfigured glory. 

4 OT B: That’s not something to play with.

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

I became aware of a concerning trend for bachelorette parties happening in a previous assignment. Apparently, it’s not uncommon for people who want a more tame bachelorette party to invite in a psychic and have the person do a seance or read palms or do some other game that is essentially divination. If you ask a participant, they’re likely to say that it’s just for fun and they don’t really believe the psychic has any powers. The truth is, however, that we, as Catholics, need to be really cautious about this practice and need to avoid assuming nothing bad can happen. I don’t want people to attribute every bad thing that happens in the world to evil spirits or allow a person who makes bad decisions the ability to say “the devil made me do it.” But we likewise have to be cautious of flaunting the power of evil spirits. A commentary I read said, “The western tendency to rationalize the ancient understanding of spirits is rooted in the fact that westerners have much more power over their lives and circumstances than the ancients believed they had.”

The trouble with psychics and mediums and these types of people is they practice divination. Divination is different from prophecy because it presumes we can force the spiritual world to do our bidding and answer our questions. People take out a ouija board, for instance, and ask the spirits a question and think they are getting an answer because the piece moves around seemingly by itself. I was really impressed with Dr. Peter Kreeft again this week when he said, “God is pure spirit and He created angels who are pure spirit and He gave them free will and some chose evil rather than good and these are evil spirits.” Dr. Kreeft is pointing to the fact that, in terms of power, because they are purely spiritual beings, the evil spirits are more powerful than us. So that ouija board is more like the internet than it is an innocent game of Clue, you never know who you are talking to and, therefore, you need to be cautious. This was taken for granted in earlier ages before a guy named Fredrich Nietzche decided that, if we simply denied that anything more powerful than us exists, we make ourselves the most powerful thing. But Nietsche was wrong. The fact that evil is powerful is very evident in this world. You don’t have to ride along with the police department to see it, though I’ve seen there. It happened a little over a year ago in this very church, I believe, when a woman entered the back doors during Noon Mass and started debating with me during the Eucharistic prayer because she believed she was the incarnation of Jesus Christ. I would guess she had opened herself up, incrementally, through the use of hallucinogenic drugs and other acts, to some form of evil, even if mental illness was also present in her.

What can we do instead? If divination is evil because it operates under the impression we can have power over the spiritual realm, the first thing is to recognize we can’t and we should, therefore, avoid it. We should not go to mediums or palm readers or psychics. If we have, we should go to the sacrament of reconciliation and confess it. If we feel like there is a spiritual heaviness or darkness in our life, we should say out loud “You are not welcome here! I have been purchased by the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ and he and his servants are alone welcome here”. We can pray to our guardian angel to protect us from evil spirits. We can pray that great prayer of protection to St. Michael the Archangel to defend us in battle and be our protection from the devil. You can ask me for a blessing to protect you from evil spirits. We can wear the miraculous medal and be consecrated to our Blessed Mother and ask for her special protections. While we should be paralyzed in fear of evil spirits, we shouldn’t play with fire either. 

Secondly, the opposite of divination is prophecy. Prophecy is when God chooses to speak to us. It’s what made Jesus unique in that synagogue in Capernaum. He speaks with authority because he prophetically speaks the word of God. Jesus, in turn, continues to speak to us through the Bible and our Sacred Tradition. Pray daily with the Bible to listen to God’s voice, especially the Mass readings for the day especially at adoration. Read the Catechism and the lives of the saints to see how our predecessors were called by God to live holy lives. We can’t force God to answer our questions, nor get the answers from spirits that may or may not tell the truth. We must patiently seek the voice of truth only from the one who speaks with authority, Jesus Christ. 

2 OT B: People are disciples not tools

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

I remember hearing a homily Archbishop Jackels gave a few years ago to a group of deacons he was ordaining about how their mission in the church was changing from being primarily doers to being orderers. It was a good reminder for me, who tends to be most comfortable doing things, that I have a larger mission of ordering. Part of the rationale for this has to do with the fact that there are big projects that need to get done and they can’t fall on one person’s shoulders. But there’s a larger, more important reality that also distinguishes the way the church should view ordering the holy versus the way the world tends to view collaboration when it uses phrases like, “many hands make light work”. 

Let’s begin with the second reading and work out from there. In it, St. Paul is deconstructing some of the more problematic phrases ordering life in Corinthian society. A person from Corinth was taught that all things are moral for the individual, that food is meant for the stomach and the stomach is meant for food, and that every sin a person commits is outside the body. Even though St. Paul identifies these phrases with the people of his time in this particular town, I think they are equally applicable to people in our own time in the United States of America. Corinth was a very advanced town with a diverse, wealthy population which may be why these phrases can resonate with us. For the people of Corinth, the most important thing is that they are free because freedom encourages spontaneity and rejects controlling laws and rules. The only rule was that the individual should be free to be happy and do whatever it takes to be happy. Isn’t this the point of the sexual revolution as well? It’s important to point out that the word that gets translated as “immorality” in today’s second reading is the Greek word “porneia” which is where we get the word “pornography”. It’s sexual immorality that St. Paul is addressing in particular here because it was as much of a problem in his time as it is today. He tells his listeners that we are going to live by a better rule than all things are moral for the individual. He says the body was made for the Lord and the Lord is for the body. God raised the Lord and will raise us by his passion. In other words, we shouldn’t think of the other person as simply a servant of our passions, as something meant to bring us pleasure but as the Lord himself, which should elevate that person and, in the process, elevate us. 

That’s why, in the gospel, when the followers of John the Baptist start to follow Jesus, his first question isn’t what they can do for him but what they are seeking. He isn’t interested in making sure that he can get work done but in showing them the way to the Father. Notice, too, that immediately John’s disciples go and find others and lead them to Jesus, in the case of Andrew it was his brother Simon. Again, they aren’t doing so because they need another fisherman but because Andrew knew the fisherman would only get to heaven by following Jesus and he wanted that for him. He knew that the best way to order the holy for Simon Peter was to get him to follow Jesus. 

In the back of church, we have sign-up sheets for adoration and the fish fry and I hope you’ll sign up. However, I’d also hope that you see, in both of these opportunities, not merely the church or myself looking at you as though you are a commodity to be used. If so, please don’t sign up. However, if you can see in them an opportunity to grow closer to the Lord with others in this parish and maybe even the possibility of inviting a person distant from the church to return, either by spending time with you and the Lord in adoration or by working with you at the fish fry to serve hungry people, please do sign up. 

Our daily actions must be marked by bringing our neighbor to the Lord who is, likewise, searching for us. How are we recognizing Jesus in others and helping them to see Jesus in us?

Epiphany: The magi asked the right question

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

Last summer, I accompanied a group of students to Rochester, Minnesota for the Steubenville North conference. Some of these students will be raising funds after Mass tonight to attend again next summer. It was a great weekend of listening to speakers and watching our young people grow in their faith. On the last day of the conference, I was in the room that served as the sacristy with all the other priests waiting for Mass to begin when the celebrant, Bishop Robert Barron, came walking in. This name may not mean anything to you but he’s a bit of a Catholic celebrity. He is the founder of Word on Fire ministry and does a bunch of videos on YouTube explaining the Faith. He did the Catholicism series from a few years ago. As he entered the room, I felt a little awestruck. Some of the priests walked up and either said hello or introduced themselves. I stayed back, figuring he was too busy and important to worry about some guy from Iowa who just happened to bring kids to the conference. However, to his credit, after he spent some time with the guys who approached him, he walked around the room and met each of us. At the time, Archbishop Jackels had retired and Bishop Barron asked me if I knew how he was doing. I was impressed that he knew about what was happening in our little Archdiocese and that he cared about Archbishop Jackels enough to ask. I was also impressed that he felt it was important to make sure each of us knew we were welcome in his diocese. 

The struggle with the Solemnity of the Epiphany is that there are a lot of small t traditions that we think are capital T Traditions. A small t tradition is anything that isn’t mentioned in scripture or the official teachings of the church but doesn’t contradict it and helps to fill in the gaps. They may be true but may not be as well, we just don’t know. Some small t traditions that are a part of the Epiphany include that there were three men named Balthasar, Caspar, and Melchior. The Bible doesn’t actually state how many magi there were let alone their names, just that the Magi brought three gifts. 2 or 200 magi could bring gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Sometimes we call them kings because of the first reading and Responsorial Psalm which talks about Kings from foreign lands bringing gifts to worship God. The problem is that the magi weren’t kings or even wise men. We tend to identify them with astrologers but that’s even more of an interpretation than absolute fact. The root word of magi, magus, is used in the Acts of the Apostles to designate two bad guys, one named Simon and the other Bar-Jesus, who both misunderstood and tried to manipulate the evangelizing efforts of the apostles. Most of the time, in non biblical sources, people identified as magi areswindlers and manipulators. It’s kind of surprising that Matthew would document the visit of these types of people to Jesus as a child. 

One commentary I read said that the element that really defines the magi is that they are drawn to power. Another of those small t traditions is that the star led the magi from the east to Jerusalem while they followed along. If you reread the text, however, the magi simply say that they saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage. Remember that the Jews were and still are identified by the Star of David. It’s on the Israeli Flag to this day. Rather than it being initially a star that leads them like a laser pointer leads a cat, they may have simply seen a bright star shining in the sky that made them think of the people who were identified with stars, the people living in Judea who are sometimes called “The Jews”. When they arrive in Jerusalem, the capital of Judea, and locate Herod, who considers himself the king of the Jews, our translation says the magi asked “Where is the newborn king of the Jews”. A better translation would be “Where is the king born in Judea?” You see, the magi are asking where the native born king of the Jews is. King Herod was born south of Judea, in the province called Idumea, and this is why he becomes greatly troubled and everyone with him: because he fears being replaced by a native king related to King David. That’s why, when he finds out that the one who was anointed like King David was anointed, was to be born in Bethlehem, the town King David was from, he sends the Magi on their way with the only stipulation that they send him the location when they know it. You see, it’s all about Herod being worried about these publicity hounds who aren’t interested in him because someone else is more important

I think when we over romanticize who the magi were, we may miss the point that Matthew is trying to get across to us. They probably weren’t exotic wise astrologers diligently studying the stars with maps and charts being led by a cartoon star to a house in Bethlehem. They definitely aren’t kingly leaders commanding powerful armies that are bowing down in worship to the messiah. Instead, they are fallible people searching for a celebrity, the king born in Judea. But they do have one important thing right. They may not have all the answers but they ask the right question when they come searching for the king born in Judea. I think we’d be wise people to ask the question the magi did, “Where is the king born in Judea?” and allow the Eucharist to lead us to him.

Holy Family - B: Submission: Being under the mission

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

I’m guessing some of you are, once again, surprised, maybe even a little disappointed, that I didn’t use the short version of the second reading. And, let me allay the fears of the women and, possibly the hopes of some of the men, that I’m not going to use St. Paul’s Letter to the Collosians to outline a misogynistic view of the world where women, as the philosopher Simone de Bouvier said, are considered the second sex. I’m sure most other priests did have the lector read the shorter form and/or are probably avoiding talking about the reading. But I think, if we do that, we not only contribute to any misunderstandings or abuse surrounding this passage but we miss out on what is really meant to be more of a challenge to the mindset of men, possibly even more so in today’s world than at the time of St. Paul. So, at the risk of neglecting the gospel and first reading, let’s look at that second reading for today’s Mass and let it teach us what a holy family should look like. 

First and foremost, St. Paul paints a general picture of what the life of virtue should look like for all who call themselves Christian. It’s worth taking a day to reflect on the whole paragraph but especially “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another”. We may want to ask ourselves what role each of these virtues play in our lives. He starts by being inclusive of everyone and then moves into some specific advice to families. 

It’s at this point that things get…controversial. Some people look at this second paragraph and say that it’s representative of an outmoded view of life, of a time when the man was in charge of the family and the woman was seen as little better than property. They say that it reminds them of when we used to use terms like “women’s work”. They point to the word submission and shake their heads picturing a woman barefoot and pregnant doing all the housework like cooking and cleaning and raising the children while the husband goes to work and mows the lawn and changes the light bulbs. I’d like to suggest we take another look at this reading starting with a better viewpoint, with the help of a theologian named Dr. Peter Kreeft. By the way, you can get the book that I’m basing this homily on in our bookstore and it’s called “Food for the Soul” by Dr. Peter Kreeft. 

First, even though St. Paul only says wives should be submissive to husbands in this passage, in Ephesians, he starts by saying that everyone should be submissive to everyone out of reverence for Christ. So, it’s meant to grow out of an overall sense of mutual submission to one another that marks the Christian community. Dr. Kreeft goes on to point out that a husband is meant to love his wife and avoid any bitterness toward her. Again, he points to the passage in Ephesians where it says that a husband must love his wife like Christ loved the Church. I’d like to suggest that this is actually more of a radical submission than the wife is called to do. Christ loved the Church by dying for her, by giving up his life, by submitting his will to her will. After all, as Dr. Kreeft points out, submission means being “under the mission of” so this submission isn’t a kind of fear of violence or a kind of blind obedience. Soldiers are submissive to their superiors when they charge into battle. Being submissive means having a mission in mind and following it. Dr. Kreeft had this great quote, “There are two possible motives for getting married: to get happiness or to give it. If the motive of either or both is to get it rather than to give it, the odds are that the marriage will fail. If the motive of both is to give it, it will almost certainly succeed”. 

You see, I think in both Ephesians and in today’s reading from Colossians, St. Paul wasn’t advocating husbands dominating their wives. Far from it! I think he was saying that a family has a mission and it’s important that both husbands and wives have that mission in mind. The mission can be easily stated as to get the other person and all their children to heaven. That is our ultimate happiness, after all, to be with God in heaven.

Do we live our life as though the only thing that matters is getting myself into heaven or do we see our mission to get our holy family in heaven?

Christmas 2023 - B Finding God where we don't expect him

 Friends

Peace be with you.

We have probably all had an experience of being somewhere and seeing someone we didn’t expect to be there. At Ed Gibbs funeral this past week, I walked down the steps of the rectory and saw a familiar face of a parishioner whose name I couldn’t quite place. I smiled and he smiled back and I walked toward the church to get things set up. After two steps it clicked that the reason I couldn’t quite place him was because he wasn’t a parishioner from St. Patrick’s but from Bellevue, my previous assignment. I turned around and suddenly his name popped in my head when I knew the right context. I taught his daughter at Marquette High School, for goodness sake, and it was great to catch up with John and Angie for a while. Considering the kindnesses I received in my previous assignment from several members of the Gibbs’ family, it should have clicked before then that Bellevue people would be here. 

I’m guessing many of you have never heard the gospel I/Deacon Dan read for tonight/today’s Mass. Most of the time we think about the birth of Jesus, we think of passages from the Gospel of Luke. That’s the Gospel that tells the story more from the viewpoint of Mary. It tells us that the birth took place in Bethlehem because of a census and that Jesus was born in a manger and that angels appeared to shepherds in the fields. We may also think about details from the Gospel of Matthew, which tells the story more from the viewpoint of Joseph. It’s in that Gospel that we find out about the Magi visiting Jesus and the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. I decided to focus on the Gospel of John, which has a decidedly different, more cosmic perspective. Rather than starting with Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist, as the Gospel of Mark does, or with Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, as the Gospels of Matthew and Luke do; the Gospel of John begins from the creation of the world. It echoes the story of creation in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, Genesis. “In the beginning” St. John says “was the word”. What is the word? In Genesis, God used words to create the universe . God said “Let there be light”. In the mind of the Gospel writer, Jesus was the word God the Father used to create the world. Yet, he is also careful to say he was with God and was God, meaning he is both distinct from the Father and the second person of the Holy Trinity. St. John continues by saying that nothing came to be without the Word and what came to be was life. So Jesus was not only the Word that started creation, he continued with the Father to make animals and humans and was even present at the fall when the light he bestowed got contrasted with the darkness of sin. Notice, however, the emphasis that St. John puts on the fact that, despite the presence of darkness, the darkness does not overcome Christ’s light. 

Instead, the Word, which was part creation, decided to enter into the very creation he made. St. John says not only that this wasn’t John the Baptist, which was apparently one of the beliefs of the followers of St. John the Baptist, but that St. John the Baptist himself pointed this out. In one of the most confusing sentences in Sacred Scripture, St. John the Evangelist quotes St. John the Baptist as saying, “The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’” Sounds more like a riddle than the ultimate statement of humility that it really is. What St. John the Baptist ultimately pointed out was that, with his successor, something new would happen for the entire world, something that was essential to salvation: namely the grace that makes us, who accept Jesus into our hearts and didn’t reject him or ignore him at his coming, sons and daughters of God. 

St. John’s Gospel is going to explain what it means to be sons and daughters of God but the surprising thing that we celebrate today is how it came about. For the Jewish people, salvation comes from obedience to the laws passed down to them from Moses in the first five books of the Bible and in the interpretation of those laws that have been made throughout the centuries. For Christians, because we accept Jesus into our hearts, we replace any graces that come from obedience to the law with the grace of Jesus Christ, who fulfilled that law. The shocking thing is this all happens here on earth. One would think that, to engage in spiritually beneficial things, we need get pulled out of this darkened earth into a kind of partially lit middle ground between heaven and earth because this world is so corrupt. That’s why St. John emphasized that, despite the darkness of sin in this world, Christ’s light defeats the power of darkness. Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity, the word through whom creation was made, the light of the world, etc. etc. etc. entered into this world as a baby and, in a sense, showed us how to become sons and daughters of God just as he is the Son of God. 

I think, as a church, we’re pretty good about talking about the dangers of sin and making sure we do things like examining our conscience and approaching the sacrament of reconciliation at least once a year and whenever we’re conscious of committing a mortal sin. However, I don’t think we always emphasize enough that, if we are to be sons and daughters of God, the point of Christian living shouldn’t just be to avoid sin and confess it when we do. That’s like opening a restaurant and spending all your time making sure you don’t violate the health code or opening a bank and spending all your time making sure the security system is working. While we all want restaurants that don’t violate the health code and banks that keep our money safe, if that same restaurant never makes any food because they’re so fixated on the health code or that bank never takes any deposits because all the employees do is stare at the security system, we’re probably not going to use them. As Christians, we need to pray in a way that doesn’t just ask Jesus how disappointing we are to him, but how does Jesus live and how might we live that way too. I was recently reading a book by the Jesuit theologian Father Robert Spitzer who talked about the importance of what he called consciousness examen. This is not the examination of conscience, which we should do before we celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation, but a way of giving thanks to God for what he has done and praying with the beatitudes to move our hearts to be more like Jesus’ heart. It starts by being grateful for the small and big gifts that God has given us but then moves us to focus on asking God to change our hearts slowly to be more like his by using one of the beatitudes. The point of the second part, asking Jesus to make our hearts like his, isn’t to beat ourselves up for not being like Jesus but something closer to practicing for sports or music, with the way we love God and neighbor. For example, we may have a coworker or friend or family member that we don’t know how to love. In fact, we may find them frustrating to deal with and try to avoid them. We may use our time in prayer to ask Jesus to reveal to us how he would deal with that person. We may ask Jesus how he would act toward someone who says or does what that person says or does and then find Jesus challenging us to be meek and humble of heart like him, for instance, or to challenge that person lovingly like he would to be grateful for the gifts they have. 

We may be surprised to find Jesus in more places throughout our day, in more of the faces we see, and the voices we hear. 

3 A B: The invincible Son of God we recognize in the host exposed.

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

Around this time of year, our atheist and agnostic friends and family, especially those who used to practice the Catholic faith, will find the story of Sol Invictus, the Roman deity whose name means “Unconquered Sun” and whose birthday was thought to be on the winter solstice, December 25, each year. This fact is used by them to prove that we stole Christmas from the pagan Romans and that Jesus wasn’t really born on December 25th and, therefore, there somehow is no God. Some fundamentalist Christians will point out the same fact but use it to show, not that there is no God, but that Catholicism doesn’t worship Jesus, the Son of God, but Sol Invictus, this false Sun God. A lot of time has been spent researching if we did, in fact, appropriate it from the Romans or if, as some have suggested, we dated the Annunciation on March 25th and assumed that, if Mary was informed she was pregnant in March, she gave birth nine months later, in December. It’s possible that our celebration of Christmas, in fact, reignited the pagan celebration of Sol Invictis as a form of pagan Roman protest to the new, up and coming religious celebration of the incarnation, not the other way around. If you point out this fact, they may say that Jesus’ birth must have been in springtime because, as we know from the Gospel of Matthew, shepherds were having their sheep graze in the fields on the night of Jesus’ birth and you wouldn’t do that in the middle of winter. Shepherds stayed close to the warmth of home and kept their flock close by, in caves or underground dwellings of their houses. Catholic scholars answer that the sheep still needed to eat and Beaudoin and other poor shepherds don’t have permanent dwellings to this day. They live in tents and rely on fires to keep warm even in the coldest parts of winter. And we go back and forth and back and forth about who is right. It makes me kind of tired to be honest, especially when people use facts they would otherwise mock, like angels appearing to shepherds in the night sky, to disprove the reality of other facts, like the fact that Jesus was born. 

Personally, I know that Jesus is not the invincible Sun God of the Roman empire. I don’t worship the sun and I don’t know anyone who does, regardless of what some fundamentalists will say we do. Sometimes they point to a monstrance as proof that we worship the sun, since a lot of monstrances have what appears to be rays of metallic light coming from the host. I think of the sun as something closer to a sacramental, as something that makes me appreciate the sacraments and, therefore, appreciate God. For example, on Thursday, the sun was out and it was warm for December so I decided to go out for a bike ride to Ely. As I rode along with the sun full on my face, despite all the layers of clothes and the chill in the air, I gave thanks for the warmth I felt from the sun. It was a gift from God between two busy periods of the day. It reminded me of the gift we have in the Divine Mercy Chapel and the adoration that takes place there. In my time here as your pastor, I have often felt the call to spend five minutes or ten minutes with the Lord in adoration where I feel a different type of warmth, this time from the Son of God present in the Eucharist. 

In the gospel for today, John the Evangelist says of John the Baptist that he was called to testify to the Light. He was not the light but was called to testify to the light and his testimony is that John the Baptist is not the messiah and that we do not recognize the messiah. I think we don’t recognize him because we are not him either and we don’t always know where to look for him. We look for him in the nicest Christmas gifts or in an easy life where we are constantly in control or in a life of fleshly and spiritual pleasure instead of in the quiet abandonment of adoration. But that is where we truly feel the healing rays of Christ’s love for us, not in those other substitutes. That’s where we truly recognize him in his body, blood, soul, and divinity exposed for us to see.

We are in need of adorers. Won’t you please consider signing up for an hour during the week to feel the warmth of the Son of God so you can testify to the light of Jesus this Christmas? It’s okay to just stop in for five or ten minutes but it’s too easy to use excuses not to come. Only by committing to coming regularly will we make it a priority to testify to the light and feel the vulnerability of his presence in the exposed Blessed Sacrament. 

1 A B It’s not too late to be prepared

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

Tomorrow/Today would be the Memorial of St. Francis Xavier, the person about which our Catholic high school was named, if it wasn’t a Sunday. He was born in Spain to rich and powerful parents and went off to the Sorbonne, the University of Paris, at age 23. He was, by all accounts, a very bright student who intended to follow in his deceased father’s footsteps to become a lawyer and make a lot of money. However, then Francis and his roommate, Pierre Favre, gained a much older roommate named Ignatius of Loyola who was on fire with the Gospel. Ignatius convinced Pierre to become a priest but Francis remained unconvinced. He even became distrustful of Ignatius because he thought he was a joke of a student trying to convince everyone to become a priest. However, when Ignatius and Francis were left alone one weekend, Ignatius convinced Francis that his life would be better if he were to give up his drive for wealth and, instead, give it all up for the Lord. These three roommates would eventually be among a small group of people to found the Jesuit order, which transformed the church and the world by being both intensely intellectual and passionately faithful.

In both the first reading and gospel, we hear the message of being prepared. The first reading said, “Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways!” The gospel, similarly, said “...you do not know when the lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.” One pithy summary I read of this message from the old cartoon The Far Side showed a bunch of people in an office while a man in a suit comes swooshing into the picture saying, “Jesus is coming! Look busy!” If you’ve ever worked in a business where you had to look busy when the boss was coming, you may know what this is like. However, if you have been a supervisor, you probably know this doesn’t really work. You can generally spot an employee who is just looking busy, either because they fall behind on their work or because the quality isn’t there or because an angry co-worker lets you know. When it comes to being a disciple of Jesus, we don’t want to just look busy. We want to be busy with the work of God when he comes. 

But what prevents us from being busy and not just looking busy? First, we have to know what the work of God is. We have to know what we’re supposed to be doing. This is a challenge because our part in salvation has less to do with work and more to do with being loved and loving . We are called to love God and be loved by God in prayer and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Do we take time throughout the day to sit with God in prayer letting him show how much he loves us and letting him know how much we love him? With regard to loving our neighbor as ourselves, would we want someone gossiping about us to someone else instead of talking directly to us about something? Would we want someone treating us like an object of their pleasure? I hope you would answer no to these last two questions and see why we need to trim out gossip and objectifying other people to love them like ourselves. 

Still, it can be difficult to take the steps to do that, which is why knowledge is just the start. Next comes the hard part of convincing ourselves to change. We may need to respectfully and lovingly admit that some gossipy relationships cannot be reformed and simply need to pass away for the good of both parties. We may need to convince ourselves that our life would be better off without an hour or two of television per week in order to committ to an hour of adoration. The hardest thing for me in my life is to not allow my comfort zone to get in the way of my commitments. There have been so many times in my life when I have said I can’t do something because I’m not good enough or smart enough or patient enough or strong enough or whatever enough. I gave up before I even tried. We can’t give up on ourselves and be content with the little box we put ourselves in. God has big plans for us!

In the end, St. Francis Xavier had to let go of his aspiration of being a rich and powerful lawyer to follow the more radical path God had for him in the priesthood as a Jesuit. God has a path planned out for each of us. Are willing to sit with him in prayer and set aside our comfort zones to follow wherever he leads us?

CTK A God is both shepherd and king

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

When I do wedding prep, one of the questions I ask couples when we start talking about having kids is who is going to be the disciplinarian and who is going to be the nice parent. It generally elicits a chuckle from both parents but sometimes more of an awkward silence as both man and woman decide if they want to be honest about their parental expectations. Sometimes the pushover parent knows that the other person is more stern but he or she doesn’t know if he or she wants to be honest for fear of saying that the other person is mean and sometimes the stern person wants to say the other person is a pushover who will likely get walked over by their children. 

We look upon God as a parent and Jesus as his human face. How we picture Jesus can have similar significant disciplinary differences as to how we view God. When I look at Jesus from the 1950s, for instance, Jesus tends to be pictured with a very stern look on his face, almost as though he’s looking at us like he’s looking at those goats right before he tells them how they haven’t fed him or given him water or taken care of him when he was sick. On the other hand, from the 1960s onward, images of Jesus became more like he had spent the day at the beach or at the gym, as in what is typically called TEC Jesus. If you walk into a church, you can sometimes tell what kind of theology you’re going to get from whether Jesus is imaged as friendly or judgmental, whether the emphasis is on the blood and torture of the crucifixion or if Jesus is pictured ascending into heaven directly from the cross in what younger priests call the resurrectofix.

In some ways, this tension between imaging a mean, judgmental God or a kindly shepherd is at the heart of today’s readings and today’s celebration. We call this last Sunday of Ordinary Time, this transition Sunday between Ordinary Time and Advent really, the Solemnity of Christ the King. Yet, the readings never even mention or describe Jesus as a king but, instead, focus on him as a shepherd. This is mostly because Jesus avoided talking about himself as “king of the Jews” because of the confusion that tended to create. He wasn’t coming to replace a current political leader, he was coming to save humankind from sin. He wasn’t coming to create yet another political party that people could either be a part of or choose to be in opposition to, he was coming to invite people into a relationship with him that would lead to eternal life. Notice in the gospel that, when talking to the sheep, he says to those destined for eternal life “Come, you who are blessed by my Father…” but he doesn’t say “Come, you who are accursed” to the others. Instead, he says, “Depart from me, you accursed…” Being with Jesus, knowing and being known by him leads to eternal life. Those who are in eternal punishment choose not to know Jesus and not to be known by him. 

I think it’s much more wise to reflect on the attributes of these hardscrabble shepherds on this solemnity of Christ the King rather than try and focus on the attributes of a king, not just because we don’t have a king here in the United States but because it’s too easy for a king to lose focus on power and become, in the process, politically corrupt. A shepherd has his sheep and he has to take care of them. He has to give them water, food, rest, direction, and care when they are lost or sick. God does all of that for us too. However, a shepherd also is going to take some of his animals to have them butchered, especially the strongest and the healthiest, so he can get more money or meat for them. This is where the analogy kind of flips because, in the first reading, it appears that the sleek and the strong are being punished when they are destroyed by the shepherd who is shepherding them rightly. If we combine that with the gospel, we may assume that the reason they are being punished is because the strong and the sleek had the opportunity to take care of the hungry and thirsty and sick and homeless and naked and they failed to do so, which is, I think, partly the message Jesus is getting across. However, don’t forget that we are also his little ones. I think another part of the message Jesus is getting across to us is to remember that, whatever we are given, whether it is food or drink or clothing or care, it doesn’t just come from the sweat of our own brow, but from God himself and we need to, therefore be willing to share that with others, especially the stranger. God is both the giver and the one to whom it is given, whatever we do for the least of his, we do for him. 

One of the things I encourage with those couples during marriage prep is to not allow one to be the disciplinarian and one to be the pushover, one to be the nice parent and one to be the mean one. I do that because, if they are going to be the first and best teachers of the faith to their children, the first and best images of God as a father or mother, you can’t be one or the other. We have to be both, always admitting our weaknesses but striving to be the good shepherd caring for his sheep. We must be willing to say and hear “come you who are blessed by my father” and, when we are not caring for them or recognizing how much God is caring for us “Depart from me…” Let’s strive to be like the Good Shepherd caring for his sheep and recognizing that the true Good Shepherd and King is caring for us. 

31 OT A Being a humble yet decisive leader

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

A little over a week ago, I attended some special training for first responder chaplains. I learned a lot at the class and there was a lot of good information. The training took place at Prairie City Christian Church in Prairie City, Iowa, which is located about a half hour East of Des Moines. I found out that the event was sponsored by the local ministerial association and they were also the only people who attended aside from myself. I was the only one wearing a Roman Collar that day. Before things got started, a couple of the pastors were talking about whether their congregation had a ritual they used to ordain new ministers and the response came that they used questions based on John Calvin’s small catechism. That sort of clued me in to something that I probably wouldn’t have thought about 20 years earlier: that these ministers are probably not really fond of Roman Catholicism and that I needed to emphasize that I’m not the enemy. The first way I did that was, during introductions, I introduced myself simply as “Dennis Miller, pastor of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids and one of the chaplains for the Cedar Rapids Police and Fire Departments”. I knew that, if I emphasized my title of Father, rather than being a source of comfort, it would look haughty and could start off the day with division. They also asked us to tell why we wanted to be a chaplain and I shared how I was inspired by the life of Fr. Mychal Judge, the priest who gave his life serving the dying in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. I called him Fr. Mychal even though I called myself Dennis. As I think about that moment, that small choice to try to make this group of non-catholic ministers feel comfortable with my presence, I know that 20 years earlier, I would have called myself Fr. Dennis or Fr. Miller and let them deal with it. 

There’s a side of me that sees a tension between the first reading and Gospel. In the first reading, the prophet Malachi is furious at the priests of his time because of their lack of leadership. It sounds to me like Malichi wants strong and decisive leadership on the part of the priests. In the Gospel, Jesus calls his disciples to humility, to listen to the Pharisees but not act like them. They should avoid titles and places of honor and nice clothes. They should be humble. A commentary I read said “(Humility) is not having a low opinion of yourself or beating yourself up. In fact, excessive self-hatred is really a form of pride, not humility; it is making too much of yourself, taking yourself too seriously. Humility is self forgetfulness…like weaned children.” The word humility is related to the word humor. Being able to laugh at oneself is pretty important at remembering that we are fallible servants of a perfect God. But, it seems to me that this can be at odds with the type of leadership that the Lord is calling the priests to have in the prophet Malachi. 

I know part of it is situational. The people of Malachi’s time had just returned from the Babylonian exile but were falling back into some of the practices that had caused them to be exiled in the first place. Malachi is trying to get them to start putting God at the center of their lives by starting temple worship again and living the laws they had been neglecting. He needs the priests to enforce the laws and not to be shirking their duties by showing favoritism. Jesus is less concerned with Temple worship because he knows its time is limited and that his death on the cross will be the fulfillment of the sacrifices and laws the Pharisees are supposed to be living out in his time but apparently aren’t. But, his call to humble leadership seems to be at odds with the strong leadership called by Malachi. 

It’s not just priests that feel this tension. How often do we choose a political leader because they make us laugh or because we can imagine having a beer with them not because we think they’re going to be the best at their job? How many parents become more like friends to their kids because they worry that, if they are too mean, too much of a disciplinarian, or too confrontational with their children, the kids will be afraid to tell them if they get in trouble or will rebel more to spite them than anything else? How many teachers lose control of their classrooms because they worry that, if they are too tough on their kids, too challenging for them, the kids will complain to their parents and the parents will call and complain and get them fired? This is the rub of leadership: we all want leaders who will do things the way we want them done, who will be nice and humble and humorous with us while being strict and confrontational with those with whom we don’t agree.

Still, it is possible to be humble and decisive: to take hard stances on issues while retaining a sense of humility. It’s possible to be kind and decisive to children for parents and teachers, for instance, and not get lost in trying to be their friends. I think of Archbishop Jackels with this. He was incredibly humble, making sure he helped clear plates at priest funerals and other luncheons and we’ve come to learn that he was in a great deal of physical pain in the last few years of his ministry but he never complained about it or used it as an excuse to get out of things he didn’t want to do. Nonetheless, I know some people were frustrated at his strong liturgical mandates during the covid pandemic and how he limited the use of the Extraordinary Form of Mass and forbid celebrating Mass Ad Orientem, meaning that the priest would have his back to the people. His concern was not wanting to further divide the people or parishes of the Archdiocese into liturgical camps or allow a priest to define a parish by his own spirituality. He felt he had to be strong in this to keep us united as one, holy, Catholic, apostolic church and he was criticized by people and media for it. 

In the end, I think I was right to introduce myself simply as Dennis Miller to that group of pastors, in order to make sure we didn’t get lost in divisions and tensions surrounding titles, though I continue to worry that I betrayed priests like Fr. Judge who gave his life serving the New York Fire fighters who lovingly called him “Fr. Mychal”. That’s sometimes the challenge of being a parent or a teacher or a priest. We pray and we listen to the voice of God and we make tough decisions that can be unpopular. And our children scream that it’s not fair or keep asking us to rethink things even after a decision is made. As long as we have made the decision in prayer and humility and not for selfish reasons or even to appease the powerful or most vocal, but because we genuinely think it is the best decision, we have to trust that God will do great things with it.

29 OT A - People are created in the image and likeness of God

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

Last summer, Shortly before I came here, I took a short sabbatical to study the life of Jacques Marquette. I was specifically looking to see if there were any controversies surrounding his life that could cause people anxiety in using his name for a school, for instance. At two points in his life, he was given a slave by a tribe of Native Americans in thanksgiving for services he rendered them. In both cases, we don’t hear anything more about the slave from Marquette himself, despite his rather detailed diaries. It is presumed he allowed the men to return to their own tribes in a way that, if discovered, would not seem to be insulting to the original gifter. It prompted me to read a couple of books and several articles on slavery as it existed and developed in pre and immediate post revolutionary North America. Without going into extreme detail, part of what I found troubling was that, initially, social Darwinism said that any non-white individual was only 3/5ths of a person so, like African-Americans, it was thought Native Americans should be made slaves. Native American tribes had slaves but they were largely spoils of battles between warring tribes and their status as a slave was temporary. This was a different attitude than their European counterparts who viewed slaves as property in perpetuity. One easy way to see the difference was that, in a Native American tribe, the children of a slave became full members of the tribe to whom the slave was serving whereas children of slaves owned by european settlers were still considered slaves. But there was a problem in making Native Americans slaves, namely when traders or settlers would need to trade with or be at peace with a local Native American tribe while having some of their members as slaves. The members of the tribes became hostile toward the Europeans if they saw some of their members being held as slaves and may even attack and enslave in retaliation the white settlers. So, it was decided that Europeans should not enslave Native Americans simply to avoid the hassle and threats posed by the local Native American population, not for a better reason. 

I look at situations like the slave trade and wonder how we didn’t learn the lessons from scripture that seem rather obvious, especially in the first reading and gospel for today. In the first reading, a Gentile king of Persia named Cyrus is being lauded by the one true God as his anointed. Now, in the mind of the Old Testament author, this had to sound ridiculous because only Jews were God’s anointed and only Jews were called by name or given a title. But, Cyrus will be the king who frees the Jews from being slaves in Babylon, not a Jewish king or leader. Most likely, Cyrus wouldn’t have been all that excited to hear Isaiah the prophet say these words both because he had his own god named Bel-Marduk and because he would have seen himself as a god. Nonetheless, the Prophet has to make it clear that, not only is Bel-Marduk nothing but, despite the gratitude of the Jewish people who are now free from being slaves and able to return to their homeland, Cyrus is not a god but he does have a special, and important role to play because of God. In the gospel, Caesar would have been seen, likewise, as a god. One of the oft-repeated phrases in secular literature at that time is that Caesar is Lord, which is why the Christian attitude that Jesus Christ is Lord was so subversive. Part of what the Pharisees are trying to determine is what people are worth and whether Caesar has the same exalted status as Cyrus did in the Old Testament. It’s a trap because it appears that, whatever Jesus says, will either upset the Romans or the Jews. Instead, Jesus challenges everyone by asking whose image they were created in. The coins have Caesar’s image. All human beings are stamped with God’s image and are, therefore, equal. God can give Cyrus and Caesar special skills to lead but they, ultimately, come from God and don’t make their worth any greater or lesser than anyone else. 

This is World Mission Sunday, a Sunday set aside by the church to remember those people serving in impoverished parts of the world. And, while I encourage you all to contribute to our second collection after communion for this purpose, I also think it’s good for us to reflect on our own attitudes toward people who don’t look like us. Do we value them less if they’re poor, of a different religion, race, or political party? If so, aren’t we ignoring whose image they bear? How can we honor the image and likeness of God in those who don’t look like us?

28 OT - A: Just be grateful.

 Friends

Peace be with you.

Yesterday morning, I got together with a couple hundred people in front of Newbo Market for the Hot Cider Hustle. It was a race to raise money for Families Helping Families, a charity that helps kids in foster care and their families. Just as a bit of context, you should know that, two weeks prior, I had failed on a four mile run down by Lake McBride. At least I thought I had failed because I had to walk part of the route and, even though it was a tougher route with a lot of hills and, in my practice runs after that run, I’d not had to walk, it got in my head and I was afraid I would do it again at this race. It was also a cold, dreary post-rain morning, which made it hard to want to leave on one of two days where I can sleep in. Nonetheless, I got out of the house and drove to the race. I chose to run a 10K, so 6.2 miles starting in front of Newbo Market and snaking in front of St. Wenceslaus Church and over to the bike path, across the bridge into Mt. Trashmore and back. The first half of the run was great. I was able to run my race at my pace. As I was on my way back toward Newbo Market, I started feeling fatigued and was tempted to walk, especially as I passed by the entrance to Mt. Trashmore. But, as I was approaching the Cedar River bridge that connects Newbo and the Czech Village, a song called “The River” by Jordan Feliz came on completely randomly. It starts out slow but gets increasingly intense until the chorus 

Like a tide, it is rising up deep inside a current that moves and makes you come alive 

Living water that brings the dead to life, oh-oh-oh-oh

We're going down to the river

Down to the river, down to the river to pray

Let's get washed by the water

Washed by the water and rise up in amazing grace

Let's go down, down, down to the river (You will leave changed)

Let's go down, down, down to the river (Never the same)

It was a perfect reminder as I ran across the Cedar River to ask God to give me the strength to finish. And I did. I said a quiet prayer to God to give me strength to finish. And he did…but he didn’t stop with strength. I also felt this wave of gratitude flowing through me for inspiring me to run this particular race and making it physically possible. It changed my whole attitude toward the race and powered me through the end of it. 

Today’s gospel, as we heard, is about people being invited to but not attending a wedding feast. Now, I will admit that I hate wedding receptions. I’m an introvert and I find large group gatherings where I don’t know anyone to make me exhausted. I don’t enjoy drinking alcohol. I don’t like dancing. And, I especially don’t like it when someone I don't really know gets the liquid courage to talk to a priest about some problem they’re having that they almost certainly will not remember the next day. So, I have some sympathy for the people who don’t show up. But, remember that this is a metaphor for the kingdom of heaven. So, rather than think of the modern wedding reception, we should probably think of Mass, which is called, in the Book of Revelation, the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. The point of the parable is that there are people who are called to be part of Mass who have decided not to come. But, then there are those who come and do not wear the correct wedding garment. Now, I’m sure there are priests who are using this parable to talk about appropriate attire at Mass, but I’m just as sure that that’s not what the Lord had in mind with this parable. The person not wearing a wedding garment is not wearing it in his heart. He shows up to Mass but he doesn’t want to be there.Think of the woman who looks like she’s sucking on lemons the whole time she’s at Mass or the man who has his arms and legs folded as though he’s trying to regress back into the fetal stage of life when things were simpler. 

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I get it, there are times when we don’t really feel like coming to Mass. For me, it’s diocesan liturgies like the upcoming installation of our Archbishop or our summer convocation Mass or a priest’s funeral. I get frustrated with my brother priests because we wear the ugliest stoles we can find in the back of our closet, we can’t process or recess worth a darn and we are the WORST when it comes to reverence before Mass. We’re like a bunch of feral cats. If you get more than one priest in a pew before Mass, I can almost guarantee that they will be chatting away about something that can wait until the reception ater Mass and it drives me crazy. Nonetheless, I try to find a reason to give thanks. The truth is that there are plenty of priests who used to talk before Masses who are now not healthy enough even to come or whose funeral I have attended, so I should be thankful for the guys who are there. And, in the end, as will happen this coming Wednesday, the point isn’t to have a perfect procession with the most beautiful stoles but to welcome our new Archbishop, a fact for which I am truly grateful.

There is much to be cynical about in the church that can cause us to lose hope. Gratitude can bring it back. It’s a gift that God can bestow on us in his time if we ask for it. Let’s go down to the river and ask God to change the garments of our hearts to be grateful for all the gifts he has given us. 

27 OT A - Have no anxiety at all

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

Are you generally an optimist or a pessimist? When you’re halfway through that cup of coffee in the morning, is it half full or half empty? Was last Friday a good day because we got some rain in the midst of our drought or a bad day because it was cloudy and rainy and cold? I try to be an optimist but I fear that I can often be more of a pessimist. I get anxiety about personal and ministerial failures and it makes me pessimistic about the future. For example, in past assignments, there has been something that happened around the third year that caused conflict that made the assignment difficult. One time it had to do with trying to get six parishes to work together that caused a lot of anxiety for me and the people in the parishes. A few times, it had to do with conflicts among the staff. In my last assignment, there was a world-wide pandemic that closed my parishes for three months while I was trying to figure out how to welcome two new parishes and an associate pastor to the assignment. 

Our second reading for Mass today is one that has brought me much comfort recently and one I hope to turn to if the third year conflict comes about here. In it, St. Paul says to the Philippians and, really, to all of Christianity throughout time “Have no anxiety at all…” In many ways, this is really just another way of saying the most often used phrase in the Bible, “Do not be afraid.” Have no anxiety at all because the evil one works in our anxiety. It is the evil one who wants you to think you are all alone and that you are a failure. It is the evil one who says you are unforgivable and unlovable. It is the evil one who makes God’s mercy seem too hard or living a Christian life not worth it. He works in our anxieties to cause conflict between us and the people we most love and, ultimately, drive out hope. God drives out anxiety. How? Saint Paul says, “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” When we present our needs to God we should just let God answer them as He wants. The trouble is that we often present our needs to God and then keep asking for him to answer our prayers the way we want them to be answered. We don’t just trust that God will answer them in the way that is best for us, that God has our best interest at heart. And, I get it, it’s difficult because we tend to be focused on whatever we ask God for. If we are sick and we want to be healed, we ask God for the healing but then it’s difficult to patiently let God answer it in his time. If we’re trying to figure out how we are called to best use our gifts and talents to build up the kingdom of God, it’s hard not to ask if that’s marriage or seminary or a monastery or dedicated single life, let alone what kind of employment that means for us. Anxiety builds up when we get focused too far into the future and too much on our will being done. 

I think that’s why St. Paul suggests that, instead, we should focus on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellen(t), and worthy of praise…” We should find something of God to distract ourselves from the anxiety, something true and honorable and pure and all those things and focus on that. Then we can find peace and trust in the God who can drive out that anxiety and replace it with all that is true and just and pure and gracious and excellent and worthy of praise and optimistically see the God of hope lifting us up to glory. 

5 E A: Be living stones built up into a spiritual house.

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

One of my favorite television shows is called Grand Designs. It’s a British television series that is hard to find in America. There are some streaming platforms that carry a few episodes. It’s not totally unlike other renovation shows except that, generally, when they renovate something in Great Britain, it’s several hundred years old. When something is that old here in the United States, we tear it down. Over there, on this program anyway, they generally salvage what they can, repurpose it if they can’t salvage it, and only throw it away if it’s completely beyond repair. I look at the bricks, most of the time the buildings are made from bricks, and just think about how incredible that this material is. It takes some tuckpointing, on occasion, but it survives floods and derechos and sometimes even fire, as in the case of Notre Dame in Paris, but continues to do what it was intended to do: protect the people on the inside from inclement weather and from unwanted visitors on the outside. 

Please listen again to the second reading from the First Letter of St. Peter. “Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God…” Think about all the things we have to do to be accepted by human beings. Do you remember the first time you realized there are hard and fast rules of fashion that, if you don’t follow them, people will make fun of you? I remember being in middle school gym class and learning, at the time, that you can’t wear black socks with shorts and tennis shoes. I think you can do it now with black shorts and black shoes, in fact I think you have to wear it with that combination but, back in my day, it was a major fashion faux pas. It was decided a few years ago that cargo shorts are no longer in fashion and only old people wear them. I’m lucky because, as a priest, I wake up and put on the same uniform and go about my day but, especially among our young people, fashion has to take up a certain amount of your mental energy or you will not be accepted by people. It’s not just fashion, though, it’s what you watch, what kind of technology you have, what kind of car you drive, how you cut your hair, and so forth. All of these choices determine who, in society, will accept us and who will reject us. 

The trouble comes when we think that these dysfunctional judgements are equivalent to the judgment of God. We come before God, not like a actor hoping to be cast in a role, but as a stone. The world looks at rocks like they are, at best, background decoration. God looks at stones like they are the bricks with which he will build the church. St. Peter, the rock, goes on to say, “...let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” What kind of house is God building us up to be? One that is also a holy priesthood that offers spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. In other words, we are to go before God so that he can make us into the bricks of his temple. Now, if you’ve ever been to Jerusalem, you know the temple bricks aren’t like any other bricks. Some of them have existed for almost three thousand years. We go to God who can make us into these huge, long lasting bricks in a building that is meant for the sole purpose of honoring God.

I think We have a tendency to make the spiritual life too difficult. We mandate things, even good things like the rosary or the divine mercy chaplet or a novena, instead of seeing our life as freely allowing God to build us up into his temple. When the saints mandate prayers, they always do so with an eye that people have to freely choose to do it and the mandate is simply stating what is best for us, not meant to put up unreasonable expectations or make salvation seem like a series of hoops to jump through.

That’s why God’s love is so unconditional. God loves us and cares deeply for us. How do we feel called today to let him remind us of that?