The Gift of Touch - Homily for September 9

St. Peter Claver

Readings for Sunday, September 9 / 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time:  Isaiah 35:4-7  |  Psalm 146  |  James 2:1-5  |  Mark 7:31-37

Even though words have power, Christ still uses the gift of touch to heal us.

To Touch Him With Faith - Homily for July 1

Readings for Sunday, July 1 / 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24  |  Psalm 30  |    2 Corinthians 8:7,9,13-15  |  Mark 5:21-43

Faith in God can accomplish marvelous things. The Sacraments and sacramentals of the Church are invitations to us to express faith today and to experience those same miracles in our own life. Jesus, increase our faith!

Holy Mass: The Offertory - Homily for September 3

Readings for Sunday, September 3rd / 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time: Jeremiah 20:7-9  |  Psalm 63  |  Romans 12:1-2  |  Matthew 16:21-27

During the Offertory we are called to offer much more than money, bread, and wine. We are called to offer entire selves to become a living sacrifice that can be used in the hands of Our Blessed Lord. May God grant us the grace deny ourselves and follow Him. 

Why Confess My Sins to a Priest?

Readings for Sunday, June 12 / 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13
Psalm 32
Galatians 2:16, 19-21
Luke 7:36-8:3

This week I was listening to a podcast on health and the podcaster was discussing scientific studies that showed that subjecting oneself to extreme heat and cold had notable health benefits. He noted how much of western culture likes to keep our temperature at a consistent level at home, in the car, at work, in stores and restaurants and more. It would seem that would be healthy but research indicated that having stresses on the body - heat and cold, specifically - made the body more versatile and adaptable, and thus healthier. He then posited such things as cold baths and going to the sauna (in Louisiana we call that simply going outside in the summer). But it intrigued me that the discomfort actually brought about health. 

In the letter to the Galatians, St. Paul addressed something that was causing some discomfort in the early Church. Some of the Jewish converts to Christianity continued to hold that one must follow the Jewish works of the law in addition to the mandates of Christ, causing much confusion to the Gentile (non-Jewish) converts who thought it unnecessary to practice the Jewish laws since Christ came to give a 'new law' in the Spirit. St. Paul acknowledges the conflict and affirms that it was not necessary to follow the Jewish works of the law, such as the ritual washings and such, because such things do not bring about justification or salvation. Those who remained attached to the works of the law were placing their trust in the actions they were doing and St. Paul unambiguously points out that if those actions were enough, then Christ died in vain. If it were possible to get to heaven simply by the works of the Jewish law, it is foolishness to have Christ come among us to die because there was an easier way. But that was not the case. Justification is not through works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, and the conflict helped to clarify that fundamental teaching of the Church.

A question that I've often heard posed is another that arises from an experience of discomfort: Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest? It's a question that is raised frequently and with much firmness in the conviction that 'I can go straight to Jesus without needing a priest.' The scriptures help us to make a bit of sense on the question. First, it's to recall that Jesus' first act after the Resurrection was to appear to the Twelve and to breath the Holy Spirit upon them, telling them "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven, who sins you retain are retained." The fact that it was the first thing He did is significant. Acts of the Apostles shows us that the disciples took the Lord at His word and went forth to preach the Gospel, forgive sins, and to health. One point not often given much reflection is that our sins affect not only 'me and Jesus' but also 'me and everyone else'. The impact of personal sin cannot be underestimated in our dealing with others, especially given the fact that the majority of our sins are in direct connection with another person or group of people. At Holy Mass, the priest acts on behalf of God for the people, nourishing them with the Eucharist, and also on behalf of the people to God, to whom we offer the sacrifice of Jesus and our sacrifice of praise. He acts in both ways, as well, during confession, imparting forgiveness on behalf of both God and the community. We can call to mind also the epistle of St. James (5:16) which calls for the confession of sins to one another. These can be helpful in giving strength to the argument, but only one argument was really enough to personally convince me when I was younger: Jesus set it up that way.

When it comes to confessing our sins to a priest, many conveniently forget just how physical was the ministry of Jesus and the worship of our Jewish ancestors before Him. It was eminently physical because we aren't angels. We're not purely spiritual beings. We are human, which means we are composed of both spirit and body. Both are important and the Lord's connection to us honors that point. In the first reading from 2nd Samuel we hear how it was a prophet of God who proclaimed the mercy of God. Prophets weren't just good preachers, they were men chosen by God and anointed with holy oil as a sign of consecration to be the voice of God. When they spoke they began "Thus says the Lord..." because they spoke on behalf of God to the people because the Lord knew the needed to hear it. The priests of the Jewish faith were anointed with holy oil as well and integral to the spiritual life of the people. The ritual washings and purifications were done by the priests to make people 'clean' who had become 'ritual unclean' in some way. Jesus affirms this practice when the 10 lepers come to Him to be healed and He commands them to go show themselves to the priest. He acknowledges the physical need we have to connect to God in the many accounts of His ministry. Today we hear Him speak to the woman at His feet to tell her that her sins were forgiven and to go in peace. He didn't have to say it for it to become reality; as God He could have simply willed it to be and it would be. But for her sake and for the sake of those others at table, it was spoken aloud. Other times in His ministry He was even more clear, saying to the Father in John 11:42 'I know that you always hear me, but I say this for the benefit of those standing here with me, that they might believe.' The One who knit us together in our mother's womb and knows us better than we know ourselves over and again drives home the point that our faith is not simply spiritual or invisible, but is necessarily physical and tangible. That's part of the beauty of the sacrament - we can hear and receive the touch of mercy that we need. 

As I was reflecting on the letter to the Galatians in light of this question, though, it helped me to clarify why I feel a bit of sting when the need for a priest to receive forgiveness is rejected. And it comes down to this: if justification and salvation were possible by the works of the law, then Jesus died in vain. And if the forgiveness of sins can happen anytime with no need for a priest, what am I doing here? Why have I given up 12 years of life already and consecrated the rest of my life for the service of God, giving up wife, children, my own home, certain freedoms, and ability to shape my own future if you can just as easily receive mercy without my presence? The whole mission of the consecrated priest has one single goal: to remove the one thing that separates us from heaven, that thing being sin. The mission of Jesus was to reconcile the world to the Father by the destruction of sin. The priest follows the same path. Is it uncomfortable to confess one's sins to a priest? Absolutely! There have been many times where I intentionally went out of my way to go to a different priest simply so that I wouldn't have to confess to the priest the same things I confessed to him the week before - and I was a priest then! Being a priest doesn't make it easier to humble myself and admit my sins, unfortunately.  I, too, need that verbal assurance that brings about the tangible lifting of the weight on my heart that sin brings, to be told "I absolve you from your sins" and to be able to say it to others in the same manner as Jesus - I absolve you, I forgive you, your faith has saved you, go in pace. So, while it might be comfortable to think that we can simply go 'straight to Jesus', it is when we become a bit uncomfortable we become healthier - and that doesn't apply only to the body.

Where's Your Coffin?

Readings for Sunday, June 5/ 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
1 Kings 17:17-24
Psalm 30
Galatians 1:11-19
Luke 7:11-17

It’s nice to be back in green! I don’t know about you, but one of the things I enjoy about the liturgical year is that each season goes on just long enough to make me look forward to the next one. And so it is with joy that I vest today in the vibrant green of ordinary time. We pick up, and will continue until November, reading the Gospel of St. Luke. He is the only Gentile (non-Jewish) writer of the four Gospels and so he focuses often on the outreach of Jesus to those who were on the periphery of society, the outcasts, and the most vulnerable. This would have included the Gentile peoples, but also included women in general, widows, orphans, and those with disease or major affliction. So it is appropriate that we pick up here this weekend with the story of Jesus raising up the son of a widow. And it is appropriate, too, that it is prefaced with the story of Elijah.

As you may recall, the Jewish people was a faith but also an ethnic group – their faith was the nationality – and their oral culture was steeped in the telling of their stories. The people were so well-versed in their history that, despite the lack of books, they knew the major people of their culture and the stories that accompanied them. The Church gives us the reading for Elijah to help us prepare ourselves for the encounter with Jesus. Elijah, we hear, goes to stay at the home of a widow in Zarephath. The prophets were not desirable folks to be around because their presence often was accompanied by great works but also terrible trials. The prophets very frequently bore bad news to the Israelites since the people often fell away from the Law of God, and this was not well received. It is with this stigma that Elijah, the greatest of the prophets, comes into the scene. He stays at the widow’s home and right on cue, the terrible things begin to surround him in the form of the sickness and death of the son of the widow. She immediately arrives at the conclusion that it is because Elijah has come that her son has died and tells him such rather bluntly. In response Elijah takes her son, goes up to the room where he stayed, prayed three times as he extended himself over the boy in prayer, invoking the Lord to bring the boy back to life. In response to his prayer, the boy is revived and he is brought back to his mother and she exclaims joyfully that Elijah is truly a man of God, that rather than a curse, he has brought great blessing.

With this as our backdrop, we return to the story of the Lord. We see Him into the city of Nain with a large group following, when He comes across a funeral procession. A funeral procession was something of great importance in that time, with many people joining in the journey and even professional ‘wailers’ who would come to lament and cry out in sorrow on behalf of the deceased and their family. Unlike the majority of such scenarios, when a person from the crowd approaches Him with some plea for help or a disciple makes someone’s need known to Him, here the Lord sees the woman in great sorrow and His heart is pierced with pity for her. He knows that she is a widow and that this is her only son. She would now be completely vulnerable and unable to care for herself, requiring others to provide for her for the rest of her days. It would have been kind of the Lord to go up to her and to assure her of the salvation of her son, or to call to mind the life of the world to come, or to give some charitable donation to her from his pocket. And yet He doesn’t. He tells her “Do not weep” and proceeds to the coffin, where He touches it and says to the young man, “I tell you, arise!” The boy rises and begins to speak and the Lord gives him back to his mother. Instead of a kind word or some assurance of faith, He raises the son from the dead! The people respond with two different acclamations. The first recalls the story of Elijah, as the crowd says “A great prophet has arisen in our midst.” They acknowledge the similarity between the two occasions and connect the dots that Jesus is a great prophet, one who speaks the word of God. But the difference between the two is in the second response: “God has visited his people.” Elijah had to call out to the Lord to ask for the boy to be raised but Jesus simply commands it. Elijah is a man of God, but Jesus is God himself – the God who has visited his people. The people see it and are in awe.

The occasion is one in which the Lord shows mercy to a widow as well as reveals Himself as God and man. He showed the people that God was with them, walking among them. Furthermore, He walked up and touched the coffin, which was something that was not to be done. To touch the dead was to be rendered ritually unclean and thus unable to enter the Temple and worship, as well as unable to touch others, lest they too become unclean. And yet He reaches out to that thing which ought not to be touched and with his presence He brings the boy back to life. And He wants to do the same to us.

So the question is: where is your coffin? Where is that place in your life that Jesus ‘shouldn’t touch’, that place where Jesus ought not to go because He’s not supposed to. A place of pain, shame or fear, that thing which we wish would be revived in us but that we don’t even normally think to bring before the Lord Jesus. That’s the place the Lord wants to come to touch when we come to Mass. He does just as He did in the Gospel and comes to us on the altar and then descends to us without being called upon in order to touch us, to raise us to life. So ask for the grace to know where it is that you need the Lord’s touch today, where we need new life, new hope. And bring it before Him today, that we too might be able to rejoice and say that truly “God has visited his people.”

Healing Encounters

Readings for Sunday, September 6/ 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time:

Isaiah 35:4-7

Psalm 146

James 2:1-5

Mark 7:31-37

Some things never change. The Gospel passage we just heard recounted one of the many instances in which the Lord Jesus worked a miraculous healing. This particular one is one that while public is such that it is meant to take the man off to the side to foster a personal encounter with the Lord and bring about the healing of his hearing and speech. This miracle performed, the Lord goes back and tries to have it not spread around everywhere, but the people immediately misunderstand the intention of the Lord and like a wildfire, news spreads all over the countryside about the miracle worker who has come to town.

I say ‘some things never change’ because a similar story happened this week. Pope Francis wrote a letter regarding the upcoming Year of Faith and sought in that letter to address certain issues that sometimes make it burdensome or impossible for certain persons to receive the grace that is held out. He addressed the SSPX, a religious community that broke away from the Church some 25+ years back and has not come into full communion yet, but who minister to a number of Catholics who tend to find greater nourishment in their community; he permitted their priests to validly absolve from sins during the Jubilee Year, a wonderful gift to them and to the faithful who might not otherwise celebrate the sacrament in union with the Church. He addressed those who cannot make it to the Holy Doors of the Vatican or even of the local Cathedral on account of infirmity or imprisonment. He spoke of their ability to unite themselves to the Lord in prayer and seek the grace, and specifically for inmates to contemplate the mercy of God as they cross the threshold of their cell, recalling the Holy Doors they long to enter. To this he added one more instance that caught the media’s attention: the granting of faculties to all Catholic priests to absolve from the sin of abortion and lift the penalty of excommunication. In response I saw headlines to the effect of “Catholic Church radically changes teaching on abortion” and “Catholic Church offers forgiveness for abortion” and the like. Much like the Gospel, Pope Francis sought to make possible a personal encounter with Jesus Christ that would bring about healing and peace, and a wildfire of misunderstanding and confusion spread through the countryside.

So what was actually said and what does it mean?

Pope Francis gave all Catholic priests the faculty to forgive the sin of abortion and lift the penalty of excommunication. The problem is that it can seem as if both of those are new ideas, when in fact they are not. Every priest who has faculties, that is the ability granted by his bishop, to hear confessions is able to absolve an individual of the sin of abortion. That was never even a question. There has not been a time recently when a person was unable to receive absolution and forgiveness. The Church’s teaching hasn’t changed on that; God’s mercy is infinite and open. The thing that was a bit new was that during the Jubilee Year of Mercy all priests will also be able to lift the penalty of excommunication.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says in paragraph 2272: “The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life [abortion]…. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.”

The statement from the Catechism shows us that excommunication is something that still exists in the life of the Church and that it may be applied to a person participating in the sin of abortion. As it says, this is not a limiting of mercy in any way but rather a ‘penalty’ that highlights the serious nature of the act. In normal scenarios the lifting of the penalty of excommunication is reserved to the bishop. In layman’s terms that means it would require an individual to go to the bishop of the diocese to be release from the penalty. That can sounds like being sent to the principal’s office to get ‘a good talking to’ but is it really? Let’s take a closer look.

There are other events in the life of the Church that are reserved to the Bishop of a diocese. The consecration of churches, receiving the vows of religious brothers and sisters, and the blessing of certain religious objects for use in churches comes to mind. But another might be more applicable in this instance: the Sacrament of Confirmation. Technically every priest has the ability to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation – I’ve done it myself on three occasions in connection to RCIA and Easter Vigils – but the norm is that it would be reserved to the Bishop. This is so that the bishop has the joy of meeting face to face with those on whom the Holy Spirit is given in His fullness and to ensure that every member of the flock will have the opportunity at least once in their life to meet the Bishop, the successor of the Apostles. It is essentially to make possible the individual encounter that is spoken of in the Gospel with the Bishop at least once for every Catholic. Rather than a slap on the wrist, the mandate for a person to visit the bishop to be released from the penalty of excommunication is simply to hear from the representative of Christ Himself that they are not only forgiven but that they are in full communion with the Church, not someone on the outside but someone who is important and vital in the Church’s life.

Excommunication literally means ‘out of communion’ and highlights that something so serious has taken place that union between the individual and the larger community has been ruptured. Point this out is not meant to be a sign of public shaming so much as a call for healing. It’s not a punishment to browbeat people but a medicine to bring forth repentance and reunion. What Pope Francis did is that he recognized in many places throughout the world, individuals have a very hard time getting to their bishop. They may get Mass only once every month or so, let alone have the privilege of the being in the Bishop’s presence. Recognizing this reality, Pope Francis said that for the Year of Mercy, every parish priest will be able to lift the penalty of excommunication, since getting to the bishop may be impossible. In effect, he made it possible for countless people to more easily obtain not just the forgiveness they desire but the assurance that they are in the life of the Church and able to participate in the sacraments fully and without fear of being shamed. He enabled that personal encounter with Christ that brings about healing in the life of the Church. Admittedly, this doesn’t really change much in practice in the U.S., since most dioceses, including our own, have already had the policy that all priests could forgive and lift the penalty. But for the larger Church, this is quite a gift to bestow.

What’s the takeaway from all of this? If we haven’t had any connection to abortion, there is still something profoundly important for us to realize in this moment and it is the fact that Jesus Christ wants to have a personal encounter with each and every one of us. In every one of our hearts He can look as see a sin we struggle with, a relationship that’s wounded, a hurt that won’t go away, a regret or fear that needs to be addressed. Not one person in this Church today is perfect, so the invitation is extended not just to a certain group of people but to all people: come aside with the Lord for a moment and let Him lay hands upon us and bring about some healing. He wants to heal us, but we have to be willing to go off to the side and let Him do the work. I encourage you. I urge you. I beg you. If it works, I command you! Go to Confession! There’s no such thing as receiving ‘too much grace’ from God. There’s no such thing as being ‘too healed’ from past wounds. Don’t think that it has to be major things. Just like little kids that often get a little bump or ‘boo-boo’ on their hands and arms and cry up a storm; parents know you don’t have to administer drugs or get stitches or take x-rays. More often than not a parents’ gentle kiss makes it all better. Jesus wants our big stuff, but he also wants our ‘boo-boos’ to make everything better. Go to Confession. Ephphatha! Be opened. Be healed.

Our Father

"Don't touch the plates. They're hot."

Readings for Sunday, August 30 / 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8
Psalm 15
James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Anyone who has recently seen me without my Mass vestments on can usually tell that my vestments have been in need of a little attention. Buttons have been missing the cloth covering, a few seams were torn here and there, a tear on one has been held together by safety pins for months, they’re a little too short, and admittedly no longer black but more of a dark gray. I’ve known this for a while. It actually began about a year ago when I went home and my mom told me it was time to start looking at getting new cassocks. I said ‘ok’ and continued on with life as normal. Next time I went home, the same exchange. Over the course of several months it happened more often than not when I would go home and it began to bother me a bit. Each time it was said I received it less as a critique of my clothing and more a critique of me; that there was something wrong with me. After months of the ‘you need new cassocks’ and ‘ok’ exchange mom finally just told me we were going to the store to look at the selection and so we went. I was already a bit worked up that day from other things and the cassock-critiques had worn pretty hard on me. Mom was looking at the rack of cassocks, all of which I didn’t like for some particular reason, and I was about 15 feet away looking at candlesticks. Her good friend joined us at the store and the two of them were talking and mom mentioned my cassock and she didn’t like how rough they were looking, this with me in earshot. In a moment of frustration I lost it and said something to the effect of ‘Well I guess I should consider it an act of charity that I don’t get to go home much these days, that way you don’t have to see me in it.’ As soon as the words came out my mouth I could feel things change. It hurt her and I knew it.

Very few words were exchanged after that. We rode silently to lunch and sat quietly at the table, each of us paying attention to other things around us rather than talking to each other. After lunch she dropped me off and I came back to the rectory. I was still upset and she was too. After a couple of days stewing things over I called her and apologized for what I had said and done and we experienced reconciliation and healing. I mention healing specifically because there was a wound that was inflicted, not to skin and bone, but to a relationship.

In the readings for today we hear a good bit about commandments, the law of God and the traditions of men. The commandments are good and holy things, but the problem is that most of us are never really sorry for breaking rules. I remember only one time in my life when I apologized to a rule for breaking it and that was in driver’s ed. Our teacher, Mrs. Paige, had a policy that any time we broke one of the rules of the road that we had to get out an apologize to the sign indicating the broken rule. I broke the speed limit (go figure!) and had to apologize to the sign for my infraction. After giving it a hug for good measure – I was and still am a bit weird – I hopped back in the car and off we went. I wasn’t really sorry for the rule being broken though. In fact most of the time I’ve felt sorrow for breaking rules it was more honestly sorrow that I had been caught.

That’s understandable when it comes to things like traffic laws and such. The problem is that we often and easily apply this laissez faire approach to commandments to the relationship that we’re invited to have with God our Father.

When we treat sins like mere rules and laws, we turn God our Father into the God our Master – a divine rule maker who we don’t have to care about personally but for whom we must ‘stay in line.’ To do this is to miss one of the greatest gifts that we have been given by God, namely, adoption in His Son. We are the Father’s adopted sons and daughters and He loves us as His own children. But that doesn’t mean He lets us simply do whatever we please. God never commands us to do or not do things ‘just because.’ There is always a purpose and reason. When my mom and I were sitting quietly in the restaurant, the waiter brought out our plates and told to us ‘Don’t touch the plates. They’re hot.’ I wasn’t upset that I couldn’t touch my plate. I appreciated that our waiter saved me the trouble of getting burned trying to reposition things. In the same way a father tells their child ‘don’t touch that’ to numerous things – open flames, open ovens, ant beds, etc. – all in the name of love. He does it not to restrict freedom but to preserve the child from pain. And the commandments of God? The exact same. I could go around committing all sorts of sins and reaping the rewards of physical, spiritual, and emotional pain and suffering and learn not to do those things eventually. Or I can simply listen to the Word of the Lord saying ‘my son, don’t do that, it’s not good for you’ and trust the Father who is showing His concern.

Last weekend we were faced with the call of Joshua to ‘decide today whom you will serve.’ Let us choose today once more not to serve a master of laws, but instead to embrace our Father. As we pray that prayer given so many years ago, may our hearts well up today with the joy of indeed being children of God and help us always to seek deeper union with our Father.

Praying for Scars

Readings for Sunday, June 7/ Corpus Christi:
Exodus 24:3-8
Psalm 116
Hebrews 9:11-15
Mark14:12-16, 22-26

Each weekend we come and profess our faith in the Creed and specifically mention our belief in a resurrection of the body. As we profess such a claim, we refer not to Jesus’ resurrection, but to the belief that one the last day those in the glory of Heaven will receive glorified bodies much like that of Christ. One question I sometimes ponder is whether that body will have scars.

When I look at my body I can see the many scars that have resulted from past wounds. The black line on the tip of the middle finger of my left hand calls to mind the time when a friend had a flat tire in the parking lot at school and after jacking up the car it began to fall off the jack and I, presuming myself to be Superman, tried to hold up the car so it wouldn’t fall. As it fell, because I’m clearly NOT Superman, it cut my hand open. I can look at the scar on my index finger and call to mind the time when I was cutting wood the saw decided to move from wood to flesh in a swift motion. Those and many other scars tell me stories of past events that have since been healed.

This weekend we celebrate Corpus Christi, a feast honoring the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, dating back to the 12^th Century when a miracle happened in which the Host turned into flesh and began to bleed on the altar. The Gospel we just heard recounts that ancient night when the Lord Jesus gave us that great gift saying those blessed words we hear each and every Mass. What strikes me this week is the phrase Jesus uses to describe the cup: ‘my blood of the covenant.’ The disciples present at the meal would have heard in this a phrase that had deep implications. In the first reading we heard about God making a covenant with the Israelites and how Moses takes the blood of an animal and pours some on an altar and then sprinkles the rest upon the people present and this ‘blood of the covenant’ is a seal upon each of them that they are members of the covenant relationship and have now rights, as well as obligations. Parenthetically, the sprinkling rite we do at various points throughout the year has its roots in this ancient symbol and, rather than being the priest’s opportunity to sling water and make people laugh, it reminds us that we too are part of a covenant with God, much like the Israelites of old.

One point that always makes me smile is the response of the Israelites to the reading of the commands of the Law of God: “We will do everything the Lord has told us!” To which I respond in my head: “What a bunch of liars.” You have only to look at the next page to find them going astray, committing sin and following false gods. In fact, that seems to be the pattern of God’s people all throughout history. Over and again, each generation follows the Lord and flees from Him at different times. Even the Apostles follow the same path, as Simon Peter proclaims that he will never deny His Lord and yet does so thrice before sun-up. And are we any different? A thousand times it seems I’ve gone into the confessional and made my act of contrition saying ‘I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to sin no more, to avoid the near occasion of sin and to do penance’ and yet within days or hours, there I go back to my same ways. What all of this shows us is that the people who have been united to God by a covenantal bond are not a perfect people, but a wounded people, and the one thing that can fix us is the One who created us: God.

Pope Francis beautifully said once that the Eucharist is not the prize for the good, but the remedy for those in need. Holy Communion isn’t our reward for being good all week. It’s the medicine to heal our souls from the wounds of sin. This is why we have to come every week. Have you seen the commercial where they say “Wouldn’t it be great if one piece of broccoli could prevent cancer? Or one push-up could prevent heart disease?” Well, wouldn’t it be great if we only needed to come to Holy Communion one time and we were made perfect and completely sinless? I don’t know about you, but I’m still waiting for that one to happen. And that’s the point. It’s not a one-and-done type of situation but rather and invitation to receive the Lord Jesus and have Him heal our wounds over time, the same as our body needs, and to continue the work as we continue to fall into our sin.

To prove that I’m not just pulling this out of nowhere, lets take a look at the prayers of the Mass. Each weekend I pray Eucharistic Prayer I, the Roman Canon, and do so for many reasons, one of which is the point I’ve just noted. Near the beginning the priest prays, “Remember, Lord, your servants…” and if you look at the text it includes the phrase “N. and N.” Those two N’s are spots for names because the priest is calling to mind the living for whom he is offering the Mass or praying for particularly. He continues, saying, “and all gathered here, whose faith and devotion are known to you. For them, we offer you this sacrifice of praise, or they offer it for themselves and all who are dear to them.” So we specifically come to offer the sacrifice of the Mass for ourselves and others, and it lists three reasons: “for redemption of their souls, in hope of health and well-being, and paying their homage to you, the eternal God, living and true.” In hope of health and well-being. Healing, both of body and soul, is one of the reasons we come to Mass. It is the way that Christ casts out sin and makes us more and more like Himself, bringing us on the path to holiness and preparing us for the glory of the Kingdom.

Do not be afraid. Don’t hold back asking for graces of healings, thinking they might be too much to ask. Let us turn to Jesus. Let us open our hearts to Him and show Him the wounds from our sin. And let us pray to see the day when our wounds will instead be scars.

The Most Important Sacrament

Readings for Sunday, February 15/ 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46
Psalm 32:1-1, 5, 11
1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1
Mark 1:40-45

One day in seminary our sacramental theology professor simply asked us the question, “Which sacrament is most important?” and off we went each debating the importance of the sacraments and essentially playing a highly theological game of paper-rock-scissors, as each point was able to be trumped by another. In the end the point of the exercise was to recognize that each sacrament of the Church really is ‘the most important sacrament’ in regards to some specific situation or theological truth.

A couple of weeks ago I preached about the priesthood and the weight that it can sometimes carry for those who exercise such a ministry. In practical terms, this often comes out as the community looking to the priest as having the more difficult vocation and ‘taking one for the team’ by not getting married and serving the Church. While this latter view is clearly a poor understanding of the priesthood, it seems to me in many respects that the former assertion is also false. Why so? Because while I may be obliged to a higher level of holiness because of my ordination, at the end of the day I return to a rectory wherein I can leave my stuff where I feel like it, I can wash the dishes or just leave them in the sink, I can squeeze the toothpaste tube wherever I want, etc. In short, priestly life is intense when in the community but in the rectory I am left to myself and able to maintain a life according to my preferences and not be concerned about others’ conflicting with mine. A married person does not have that luxury but necessary interacts with another person – and in a family, multiple people – who challenge some of those preferences and provides the raw material of growing in holiness, namely the opportunity to serve others rather than self.

When I asked several ladies at my previous parish assignment the secret to a good marriage they quickly responded ‘separate sinks, separate closets, and a lot of love’. This gets to that reality that marriage necessarily involves some challenges to the personal space and preferences, but even more, it confirmed what every single one of us knows about relationships: that love must necessarily be present for it to work.

In the scriptures we just heard proclaimed we hear about the life of lepers. To be a leper was bad enough just from the illness itself, but this was intensified by the isolation that accompanied the illness. In the Jewish context, to be a leper made one unclean. To be unclean wasn’t that one was a sinner, so much as they were unable to enter into worship at the Temple. To be unclean was also a restriction in interacting with others because if an ‘unclean person’ touched a ‘clean person’ then they were both unclean. For this reason, and for health reasons with the leprosy, the lepers were made to keep their bodies visible for others to see the illness and stay free from them. Additionally, they had to shout ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ as they walked around so that others might stay clear of them.  And if that weren’t bad enough, they were made to dwell outside the camp away from the community. Imagine the intense isolation that one felt in such  a situation; separated from family, friends, the larger community, and even your God! The human person simply cannot take such isolation. It’s written in our hearts to love and give love to others. Remember the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks. What happens when he finds himself stranded alone on an island? He finds a volleyball, makes a face on it and give it a name all in an attempt to have an ‘other’ with which to interact. That’s why the leper in the gospel responds the way that he does. Some might be shocked that he disobeyed the command of Jesus not to tell anyone but, honestly, I would be shocked if he hadn’t gone to tell everyone. Imagine the joy of being able to go tell everyone what God had done when before he hadn’t even been able to interact with others.

Again, the need to be in relationship with others is written in our hearts and the God Who put it there knows that need and created the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony as a way to fulfill it for those called to the vocation. I say vocation because it is indeed a calling from God. Often when we hear ‘vocations’ we think only of priesthood and religious life, but the Church has always held marriage as a sacred vocation and the basic cell of the Church and the world. It is only by holy marriages that the faith is passed from generation to generation, as the family is the place in which faith is first learned, later deepened, and later personalized in the vocations of the youth. This all happens to the extent that the family resembles the Blessed Trinity. You thought the burden was heavy for me simply to try to live up to being Christ Jesus in the midst of a community, but the family is called to image in a similar way the Trinity itself – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – in your complete gift of self and outpouring of love for the other. The family, founded on a holy marriage, is a place in which the world should look and find the face of the Triune God. Married people: do you feel the weight of that?

All of that is the reason the Church calls people to marriage not on the beach, the mountains or the nice plantation home, but at the altar of God. It is recognizing that God joins the couple together and it is God alone who can sustain them. Just as the man in the Gospel was able to enter once more into relationship with the community by the healing of Jesus, so too Jesus works in a miraculous way to unite two souls together in Holy Matrimony and sustains them in His love and grace so as to be that image of love for the world despite the trials, temptations, and sufferings that come with the natural course of life. This weekend we honor those who are celebrating special anniversaries this year in recognition of their fidelity to each other and the Lord, to set them as models for younger couples to look to for encouragement and wisdom, and to honor the God who has held them in His embrace since their wedding day. May the Lord continue to watch over them and all married couples, strengthening their love for each other, blessing them in their families, and training them in holiness so as to spend eternity together beholding the face of our God.

HWP: Our Lady of Lourdes

Today is the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of Lourdes. Her appearances to St. Bernadette led to what has become one of the largest pilgrimage sites in the world, where miracles happen by the hundreds daily. Though I haven't been there I've heard of and experienced personally miracles from the little stream that continues to pour forth healing waters. With that in mind, we invoke Our Lady today to pray for healing for ourselves and those we hold in our hearts. And so we pray...

A Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes for Healing

O ever immaculate Virgin, Mother of mercy, health of the sick, refuge of sinners, comfort of the afflicted, you know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings; deign to cast upon me a look of mercy. By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes, you were pleased to make it a privileged sanctuary, whence you dispense your favors, and already many sufferers have obtained the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and corporal. I come, therefore, with the most unbounded confidence, to implore your maternal intercession. Obtain, O loving Mother, the grant of my requests. I will endeavor to imitate your virtues, that I may one day share your glory, and bless you in eternity. Amen.

Don't Be Nice

Gemma's 5 Months old today!

Readings for Sunday, September 7/ 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Ezekiel 33:7-9
Psalm 95:1-2, 6-9
Romans 13:8-10
Matthew 18:15-20

Well, as you all know, we got a couple of cats for the rectory a few weeks back and the good news is they’re getting along great, they’ve adjusted well, and they’re absolutely adorable still. The unfortunate news, though, is that they’ve both gotten a little illness. Earlier this week I was sitting with Gemma and noticed a spot on her leg that I knew needed a vet’s eyes to check over. So we went for our first official non-check up at the vet’s office and learned that Gemma seems to have ringworm. So that means I had the joy of trying to hold down a cat with 20 razor-sharp claws and administer a nice little cream to her leg and foot twice a day. Apparently Dominic was a bit jealous and developed something on his ear, so now I get to hold down TWO cats with 20 razor-sharp claws and administer medicine twice a day. If I didn’t have my long-sleeves on you’d think I’d been rolling in barbed wire as a new hobby because the simple reality is that while I’m trying to do something that expresses care for them, they are struggling to receive it well, and I’m suffering because I know that it is what is best for them. And that is what we hear in the Scriptures this weekend: that sometimes when we show love to someone, it hurts them and it can hurt us as well.

This message of love sometimes being a bit painful isn’t usually well received by the world around us because love is synonymous with ‘be nice.’ Love is not hurting feelings, not saying things that are hard to handle, and certainly not telling someone they’re wrong or they need to change something. Love is simply be nice and let them be. But the reailty is that not one time in the Gospel did Jesus say ‘Be nice’ - He said love others.

Today the Scriptures speak specifically to the aspect of love that is traditionally known as fraternal correction. It is the practice of pointing out to a brother or sister in the Lord that something they’re doing or not doing isn’t what God desires for them. Our culture says to avoid this at all cost and some of us struggle with conflict just because of our personality’s tendency to be peacemakers. But our faith demands it of us. Ezekiel shows us that it is the desire of the Lord that we speak to others when we see them in sin and that if we fail to do so we share the guilt of their fault. There’s a tendency to just let people be to themselves and think ‘they’re not hurting anyone but the truth is that all the members of the Church are part of the same body and we are all interconnected. If one part suffers, the whole body suffers. Just getting a sinus infection can knock my whole body to the couch for a day and the Church isn’t so different.

So it is clear that we should do some fraternal correction from time to time, but the important question is: How do I do that? First, we have to be people of prayer. That is always the basic starting point. We have to have a living relationship with God where we can speak and listen to Him, because He is the one who puts on our hearts the call to speak up. Once we are sure we are in a relationship of prayer, then we have to make sure we have the right person, place, and time.

It’s easy to critique others and bring it to the wrong people. How often are we tempted and sometimes fall into the trap of seeing a fault in someone and rather than addressing it with them we take it to a few other people who know that person and start to complain or gossip about them. It’s easy because it means we can address the fault but we don’t have to risk getting hurt by their response, but it is spiritually catastrophic for several reasons. 1- it leaves the person in the same path with nobody to help direct them out 2- it makes us puffed up in pride 3- it leads other people into sin with us, which only increases the pride of the individuals and malice of the group.

It’s also easy for critique someone at the wrong place and time. We were pros at this in seminary. Anytime a brother seminarian dropped a bowl in the refectory (cafeteria), there was almost always a round of applause to highlight the fault. Or even better those unfortunate days when you’d accidentally sleep through morning prayer and show up late for morning class looking and smelling like death and a brother greets you ‘Well, look who decided to come to class today!’ in front of everyone to emphasize what everyone already knew. This is certainly not Christian charity.

True Christian charity is what we see in the Gospel: pulling the person aside and speaking one on one, with humility, charity, and a spirit of perseverance.

Fraternal Correction: He's doing it wrong...

We have to begin with humility. Anytime we approach someone to speak to them of a fault of their own, what is the likely response? Lashing back. ‘Who are you to tell me my faults, with all of the faults that you have!?’ or some similar response. This is why when we enter into a conversation of fraternal correction we have to go into it not trying to make ourselves look better or to make the other look worse, but simply to speak out of love and concern for them. It’s saying, “Hey, I know I’m not perfect and I have my faults as well, but I noticed this about you and because I care for you, I wanted to bring it up to you and let you know that if you want to work on that I’m willing to help you.” Humility in recognizing we aren’t perfect, charity in emphasizing that it is out of concern for them, and perseverance in the willingness to help them. Sometimes this changes hearts right away. But, as the Lord shows us, sometimes it doesn't. If they refuse to hear it from you, take a couple of others who are close to them and have witness - something like a modern day intervention for an addict. And if they don't respond, bring it to the Church, which would still have been a smaller community, so that the community could support them and lift them up in prayer as the Lord encourages. And if they don't respond, then treat them as a Gentile or tax-collector. That seems harsh, like we just gave up the fight and cut the line and leave them to their own devices, but what does Jesus' example show us? He ate with them and spoke with them in hopes that they would one day be ready to receive the Gospel message. We never give up hope on people who may be straying from the Lord's path, but we keep showing love and keep welcoming them in hopes that one day the Spirit will finally be able to speak to them. In the end, it's about humility, charity, perseverance because while it seems the hard part is having the courage to speak fraternal correction, the truth is that it is even harder when it is spoken to us by someone else. And that day will come.

About 9 nine years ago, my first summer assignment as a seminarian was to a boys wilderness camp in North Carolina. I went there not knowing a single person and was petrified because I was MUCH more quiet and shy than I am now and it was a large group. I made it through orientation and then went to go for my caving instructor certification, since I was in charge of caving for the summer. I went with a co-counselor who would be helping from time to time and met a group of others from various local camps to go tours the caves on a three-day trip. At the end of the first day my co-counselor had to head back to the camp for another meeting, but right before he left he said, “Hey, Brent, can we talk for a minute?’ I said yes and we went off from the group. He paused then looked at me and said, “So, I know that I’ve only known you for like four days and you’re a seminarian, which means you’ll be a priest one day, and that’s awesome. But I feel like I have to tell you this. Brent, you are the most negative [person] I have ever met in my life.” I was stunned and this anger came up in my heart – who is he to say that? He’s known me for less than a week! All of this stuff came up but it didn’t come out of my mouth. I simply said, “Okay” and walked away. For a couple of days it stewed in my heart, those words that he spoke that pierced me like nothing ever had before. When I got back to camp a few days later I took him aside and thanked him. Those words hurt something fierce when he spoke them, but 9 years later he still stands for me as one of the greatest witnesses of Christian charity I’ve ever experienced and his words still rings in my heart and make me think even today about how I speak, how I respond, how I view the world around me. He helped me to see the course I was on and change course and I can’t be thankful enough for it.

Love isn’t being nice to people. Love is about willing what is best for them, and what is best for every person on this earth is getting to Heaven. It is our job to help other see the way when they are blinded to it, and sometimes to be directed ourselves. Humility, charity, perseverance. May God grant us these gifts today and ever-increase them, that we might enter into eternal glory accompanied by many brothers and sisters who have journeyed with us on the way.

What Would Jesus Do?

Readings for Sunday, August 31/22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Jeremiah 20:7-9
Psalm 63:2-6, 8-9
Romans 12:1-3
Matthew 16:21-27

What Would Jesus Do?

I’m sure you’ve all heard the question and maybe have or had the catchy little WWJD wristband, t-shirt, or bookmark. What Would Jesus Do? It seems like a perfectly good question and it caught on quickly as a way of focusing in the moment on the idea that if Jesus were here, what would He do in the situation and then to do that for ourselves. But I’ll be honest with you, I have a couple of bones to pick with ‘What Would Jesus Do?’

First, it presupposed that Jesus ISN’T present. A priest at the seminary one time pointed out that it might be more appropriate to say ‘What Is Jesus Doing?’ because in every situation we find ourselves, God is there at work and wants of us some particular response. It’s just phrasing, but I think it’s important.

My second bone is much more significant and that bone is the fact that sometimes what we THINK Jesus would do is exactly the opposite of what Jesus actually WOULD do. Our imperfect humanity makes it easy to imperceptibly move from knowing what God wants to thinking to saying what we want as if God wants it. Case in point: Simon Peter.

Last week we heard Jesus asking the Twelve who the people thought He was and their responses of ‘Jeremiah, John the Baptist, or one of the prophets’ and Peter’s answer, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” When Peter gives his response the Lord praised him, “Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my heavenly Father.” I’m sure Peter was rather pleased with himself, allowing that pride-monster to well up in his heart and bring him to think he was better and brighter than the others because the Gospel passage we hear today is the very next line. It’s not a new chapter, not a new conversation. The reality of Jesus as the Son of God is directly connected with the mission of the Cross, which we just heard. And so Peter, who just a moment ago was highly praised by the Lord, asserts himself in his supposed authority and rebukes the Son of God Himself and says “God forbid! It shall never happen to you.” And just like that the rollercoaster of Peter’s journey went from an incredible high to a disastrous low – “Get behind me, Satan! You are thinking not as God does but as men do!” Imagine the heart of Peter at that point. Imagine the shock at the rebuke of Jesus. He thought he knew ‘What would Jesus do?’ and if it happened to Peter in his journey, it surely happens to us in ours.

This reality is why the words of St. Paul to the Romans are so important for us to hear and heed today: “Do not be conformed to this present age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may know what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

The reality is that all of us are born sinners and part of the consequence of original sin is that our minds struggle to see things as God sees them. We get focused on the things around us, this earthly life, and fail to see the bigger picture at work. This is what God wants to renew and transform within us; He wants to stretch our minds to be more inclusive, to be more receptive to the eternal instead of just the small world around us. Ultimately, He wants us to be transformed so that over time our mind comes to resemble more and more that of Christ.

How do transform our minds? Or rather, how do we let God transform them for us? The same two ways when we wants our physical bodies to get in better shape: diet & exercise. Fortunately, I talked about the exercise portion last week; that in order to keep our souls in good shape we need to have time for prayer daily, Holy Communion weekly, and confession monthly and that if we want to grow stronger, quicker, then we need only increase the frequency of those three things. Today I want to hit on the other aspect: diet.

We know that everything we put into our bodies affects us in some way: it either makes us healthier or unhealthier. In much the same way, everything we put into our minds – every movie, song, tv show, book or online article – affects our souls. They either make our minds more like that of Christ or less. We must choose wisely, so I want to suggest to you three concrete things to help in the diet for your soul that are basically the same: read good books.

Catholic author Matthew Kelly once said, “Read great books. Books change our lives. Why? Because we become the books we read.... I'd like to come to your house sometime. I'd like to see your books. You show me your books and I'll tell you what sort of person you are. You tell me the ten books you're going to read in the next twelve months and I'll tell you how your life is going to change in the next twelve months.” And it’s absolutely true. Books have power not because they are magical, but because they plant seeds in our souls. This past Thursday we celebrate the feast of St. Augustine. You know how he was converted? He read a book. Recently we also celebrated St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. You know how he was converted? He read a book. I could go down a whole list, but the simple fact is that books can change our lives for the better.

So my first suggestion is to find good Catholic books and read them. There is something for everyone: lives of the saints, theology, history, spirituality, prayer, personal conversions, living daily life, and the list goes on. Read good Catholic books. I’m not talking about these people whose gospel message is the power of positive thinking. I’m talking solid Catholic literature that feeds your soul and challenges you in the process. If you want suggestions, just ask me.

Second, but more importantly, read the Bible! If we want to have our minds become more like that of Christ, we need to read the Word of God where the Lord reveals His thoughts and shows us how His plans unfold. We need to familiarize ourselves with the Divine Word and the story of salvation, which helps us to make sense of this life and find encouragement in the figures of faith from years past. Not only that, the Word of God is living and just as it was written to speak to people’s hearts 2000 years ago, God intended it to be able to do the same for us today.

 

Lastly, read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If you want to know anything about what the Church teaches on a specific topic, it’s there. It is admittedly thick and I want to speak to that real quick. A lot of time we Catholics get a bad rap for being a ‘religion of rules’ that people have to follow (usually from Catholics who have been enlightened and left the Church). The simple truth is this: there are lots of rules because the road to heaven is narrow and the road to hell is wide. It is easy to get lost on the way and think we’re on the right track, when we’ve strayed far away, just like Peter. And rules aren’t bad things. If I want to take a road trip to Washington state, I would plug it into my GPS and get a list of directions I have to follow in order to get there. Never have I met a person who got upset at the GPS for all of it’s rules that they had to follow in order to get to their destination. But when it comes to rules to get us to Heaven, the tables turn quickly – all these rules! The rules aren’t there to make life difficult. The rules are there to show us how to love God, neighbor, and self. The rules are there to mold our minds to resemble that of Christ and the process of molding is sometimes painful. This is where we have to listen to Christ and deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and keep following Jesus.

If you want to know how to get to Heaven, read the Bible and read that handy instruction manual given to us by the Church. Because the simple reality is this: we will all be judged. We don’t like to think about it and we don’t often hear about it, but the reality is that Jesus will come to judge us on our life’s deeds. The good news, if you read the rest of the books, is that He wants to show us mercy and He can if we but open our hearts and minds to be transformed. Peter struggled to grasp the mystery of the Cross, but with God's grace he came to understand it in a profound way. He himself died by crucifixion just like Our Lord, but Peter then knew how important the Cross was and asked to be crucified upside-down on his because He wasn't worthy to die in the same way as the Lord Jesus did. May God grant us the grace today to experience the conversion of mind that Peter did as we come to receive the Lord Jesus once again in the gift that is the Eucharist. 

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If you don't have one already, you can purchase the Catechism from Amazon.com (Kindle available) or BN.com (NOOK available) or view it free online HERE!