Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXVII per Annum C

6 October 2019

In today’s Gospel selection, the apostles have some private time with the Lord on the extended journey to Jerusalem and in the context of the many difficult and challenging parables we have been hearing from this section of St. Luke for many weeks now.  The apostles say to Jesus something that I bet could easily be the prayer each of us makes to Jesus: “Increase our faith.”

God is so very good and so very good in the mysterious ways He operates, even when His ways are inconvenient to our way of thinking and far from ideal in our desire to control our lives and our own surroundings.  Time and again I have to say, God is so good to us and to what we truly need to grow in this life and to arrive at Heaven!  I try to give a lot of attention to my preaching by prayer, study, and preparation.  I usually need at least all week to do this.  But late this week on Thursday the long-awaited independent report of clergy abuse and the critique of the handling of abuse in our archdiocese from 1960 to the present was finally released.  I feel compelled to speak to you about it this weekend.  But I have had only a few hours and not all week to prepare for this.  The report is a devastating topic about real victims whose lives and whose faith are severely harmed.  The report is about local people.  The report includes some people I respect and trust.  The report has me shocked and furious.  Given all this and given only a few hours to switch gears to talk about this before you, what kind of crazy man am I to say “God is so good to us?”  Because as I began reflecting on our local report and noticing my own internal reactions my eyes fell again, but in a new way, on those words to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”  God is good to us because in His mysterious Providence things have happened such that we have this devastating report together with the messages of this weekend’s Scripture selections from His word to us!

Lord, increase our faith, we beg you!  Listen to how perfect these words are for us at this time.  Back up a few verses and see how this passage begins, the setting of these words.  Jesus said to them, “Temptations and sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!  It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin” (Lk. 17:1-2).  Jesus goes on to tell the apostles to rebuke sinners and to forgive them if they repent.  To all this the apostles beg, “Increase our faith!”

But what is the precise meaning of this request?  What kind of faith do the apostles reference?  “Faith” is typically understood or treated in two broad categories.  There is the objective content of what is believed.  We might call this the intellectual “stuff” of faith.  I suggest that is most likely typically the meaning you and I immediately have when we speak of having faith.  But there is also the subjective dimension of the word “faith,” meaning the personal adherence by the one who believes.  We might call this the trust of the believer, that deeper movement beyond what I believe that aids my having trust in the one in whom I believe.  The Greek word for “faith” in the Scripture carries both these dimensions and we should stop to consider that because I suspect that in English we often hear and use the word “faith” in mostly the first dimension of the intellectual content of what is believed.  Given this notion of trust that is also part of the concept of faith I want to reflect with you on the apostles request and make it our own: Lord, increase our faith.  Lord, increase our trust!  Like the original setting of this apostolic prayer, we are rocked and unsettled by scandal, by crime, and by sin.  We know the content of the faith tells us of the reality of sin and the reality of God’s power to heal it.  We know we ourselves must receive mercy and forgiveness for our sins.  And we too wrestle with that uncomfortable challenge to be people of mercy who forgive when a sinner repents.  Can we not easily also cry out, “Lord, increase our faith?!”

 As we each pray for an increase in a trusting faith in this difficult time I want to make some observations about the Independent Investigation that our Archdiocese commissioned into the instances of abuse and the method of handling abuse locally.

First, I want to say again and unequivocally, that focus, care, support, and prayers needs to always first be given to victims.  Nothing can undo the harm done to them.  But the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus bring for them too healing and new life, as it does for all of us in whatever wounds we carry.

This investigation was commissioned in August 2018 with the indication that its results would be published in a few months.  More than a year later, I think we can see and understand now why the report took so long… because it was so extensive and thorough... and because there were serious complications along the way.  The Archdiocese gave unprecedented access to files and every time the independent law firm came across an allegation they had to pursue it as far as it could go.  This took much more time than anticipated.

Last year at this time I said in a homily that I hoped we could just get everything out at once and stop the piecemeal release of things that prolongs this ordeal and makes it like a wound that never seems to heal.  I think our Archdiocese’s report goes a long way to that goal.  There will be more to come as earlier time periods are also investigated.  But as difficult as this is, we can have confidence that we are on the path of the unvarnished truth.  We cannot draw back from or fear the truth.  The commitment to transparency and accountability in this report is remarkable.  The Archdiocese is choosing truth over secrecy, even when the truth shows us in a poor light and reveals ongoing systemic failures in our leadership.  If you are like me you may desperately want to believe that our local report stands out among other dioceses for its scope and transparency.  Let me assure you that is true.  There is an international organization called SNAP, which stands for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.  You can imagine that there is usually some tension and high criticism of the Church from SNAP, and with good reason.  In Friday’s article on our report in the Oklahoman newspaper there was one such critical quote from a SNAP national board member.  So imagine my surprise when later in the day I came across an online religion journal [“Audits of Oklahoma dioceses identify 22 accused clerics,” Crux, 4 October 2019, by Sean Murphy, https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2019/10/04/audits-of-oklahoma-dioceses-identify-22-accused-clerics/] that ran a story about the report from both Oklahoma dioceses and in that story a man identified as the Executive Director of SNAP USA had some unheard of positive commentary to make about the Archdiocese’s unprecedented reporting.  I think you need to hear this.  I of course really wanted to believe that people like SNAP who follow all of this reporting around the world truly had complimentary things to say about what we did here.  But, I’m gun shy to say things I really don’t have firsthand knowledge of.  So, I got a sort of wild idea.  I did a Google search and I called up the Executive Director of SNAP USA, Mr. Zach Hiner.  He answered the phone and I identified myself as a priest of this archdiocese.  We had a very pleasant conversation in which I asked him to confirm for me what SNAP has to say about the OKC report.  Obviously, the matter of the report is criminal and sinful, devastating and damning, and disturbing in the revelation of systemic failures in record keeping and the loss and destruction of records.  But Mr. Hiner was incredibly positive and effusive in his praise of the report the Archdiocese freely commissioned here.  He has read countless reports from dioceses about abuse allegations.  He says they mostly offer a list of names of the accused, dates of ordination, date of removal from ministry, current whereabouts of the accused, and date of death if deceased.  He said rarely is there ever even a bit of information about the particulars of the accusation.  Mr. Hiner said if all we did here was offer a bit of additional information that would have already been noteworthy.  But that we permitted such depth of investigating, with details about the accusations including timelines, and information about the internal handlings of accusations and accused priests… this, he said, is something he has never seen in any report.  He went on to say that the fact our local leadership actually “got out of the way” – his words! – and let outside investigators see it all, even while knowing it would reflect poorly on our personnel and on our procedures, but that we did it anyway is noteworthy and incredible.  For as ugly as the report’s findings are Mr. Hiner says he sees in the actions of our local leadership in this matter real signs of the tenor of things in our local Church by which we get the problem and are committed to the transparency that will truly address abuse and seek to ensure that it does not happen again.  He thanked me for wanting to make sure I had accurate information to share with you about how SNAP views our report and he thanked me for taking the time to call and make sure I had good information.  I thanked him for giving me his time and being willing to talk to me.  Oddly enough, in God’s mysterious ways, my conversation with the Executive Director of SNAP was one of the more positive highlights of my last few days.

I invite you to go to the website of the Archdiocese and follow links to the report and to related information about the topic.  The Archdiocese has made some graphs that can be helpful as we each wrestle with the reality of abuse.  In the current report the files of all priests who were active in our archdiocese from 1960 until the present were investigated.  This represents about 545 priests.  Of those 545 priests, 11 were found to have substantiated allegations of abuse, which is about 2% of the priests represented in the report, with the most recent instances of substantiated abuse taking place in the 1990s, but none substantiated since that decade.  Without minimizing the real harm that 2% represents we should note that our Safe Environment protocols are working and that our environment in the Church is safer now than ever.  We can sometimes be frustrated on the parish level with all the paperwork and what seems like hassle to undertake background checks and Safe Environment training.  But given the reality of abuse and the reality of how improved things are because of our protocols we should recommit ourselves to these procedures, if for no other reason than to honor the victims from earlier decades who did not benefit from this vigilance from the Church they trusted.

 Perhaps by this point in history we are not as shocked as we once were by the notion that even a priest could be a horrifically evil sinner and a disgusting criminal who engaged in the abuse of a soul in his charge.  Maybe what is more shocking to us now is to learn of the failures of Church officials as we see their mishandling of abuse allegations revealed.  Maybe we are each different in what shocks us most depending on our personal circumstances and life experiences.  Whatever the case, and admitting my own deep disappointment and sadness at seeing on display the failures of leaders I held in esteem, we do have to be rather sober in our application of present-day understanding and standards regarding abuse to the actions of those in the past as they attempted to handle abuse.  That in no way absolves their abysmal failures because in instances of clear patterns of repeated abuse by the same cleric they should have been better in their handling of matters.  But being sober in our application of present standards to past activities can help temper our reaction since the truth of the past is more complicated than our feelings are usually ready to admit.

However our understanding of abuse and standards of handling abuse allegations may have evolved over time, especially in the last few decades, we are now without excuse in how we address this and handle it.  It is my enduring hope that the unprecedented depth of this report can permit us to go to the very core of this ugly wound in our Church and in our world.  Just as a doctor or nurse has to go right to a wound, into its ugliness and pain, to scrub it, clean it, and treat it…. the pain of treating a wound is accepted and embraced with the view of the healing that this leads to.  It is my hope that our opening of this wound in our Church is just such a beginning toward an equally unprecedented healing of this scourge.

And so, rocked and stunned, unsure, and angry we can only cry out to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”  Increase our trust!  We will be tempted to adopt the attitude found in the words of the first reading, “How long, O Lord?  I cry for help but you do not listen!  I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not intervene.  Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?”  I can assure you that in our prayer, individually and collectively, if we are honest and sincere in surfacing the truth of our feelings and raising them to the Lord in all their raw woundedness, that we will find healing, renewed peace, and strength to be Jesus’ disciples.  The key will be also noticing that tendency of the human heart to shut down.  And so the psalm today is a good reminder as we pray for victims of abuse, as we pray for purification of our beloved Church, and as we beg of the Lord for increased faith.  The psalm said, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”  Lord, we are nothing but unprofitable, unworthy servants.  We beg you, increase our faith!  Increase our trust!

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXV per Annum C

22 September 2019

In the Gospel selection we are told that “a rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his [that is, the rich man’s] property.”  The steward was not managing well the property that did not belong to him, but belonged to the rich man.  And so, the steward is called “on the carpet” and told “Prepare a full account of your stewardship.”  The steward has to face reality that what he has been exercising control and authority over is actually not his property.  The steward realizes he can’t go on living in the same way.  He has to give an account for what he has done and for what he has failed to do.  This frightening reality motivates the steward to act with urgency to quickly to establish a new future for himself.  It is this urgent action to establish security that is what the parable encourages and teaches, what Jesus calls “acting prudently.”  This parable can leave us wondering, “Is Jesus putting forward the example of a dishonest person to encourage us to be… dishonest?”  No, the example of the dishonest steward is meant to grab attention for the real point of Jesus’ lesson.  That lesson is that we must act prudently and decisively to establish our true and lasting security.

The word “stewardship” has a particularly evocative ring within these walls.  Those of you who have been long-term parishioners know that our parish was established with a particular focus on being a stewardship parish, meaning that to be an active disciple here all parishioners are invited and expected to make a sacrificial commitment of their time, their talent, and their treasure to our common life here and to our work to form, support, and build the Kingdom of God in our midst.  When the parish first began and we had nothing but a plot of empty land it was perhaps easier to see and to respond to the urgency of being a steward.  After all, if we weren’t good stewards we’d have nothing but weeds growing up in an empty plot.  But years later now, communicating the message of being stewards at St. Monica Church and communicating what that means for how we each use our time, our talent, and our treasure is, we might say, a bit more difficult… structures are already built, programs are in place, activities are already offered.  We are no longer just a plot of empty land and so it can be easy now for each of us to fail to think about making an account of our stewardship to God when most of what we expect from a parish is already here.  While I think it is important that each of us recalls our parish’s stewardship history, the truth is that there is another reason the word “stewardship” should be evocative for each of us… because far from being only a characteristic of our parish as an institution, the truth is that stewardship is a foundational habit of being a disciple.  What we have care of, what we exercise authority and control over, is actually not ours.  We are its stewards.  It belongs to the One who is rich.  And that is not just a generic rich man, but it is God Who is rich in all things, but Who bestows generous blessings upon us to use for His Kingdom.  It is to this rich “man” that each of us must give an account of our stewardship.  But still more, it is with this rich “man” that we are called into relationship because He has made us His stewards.  So, what is our relationship to the things God gives us?  To our time, our talent, and our treasure?  Do we view them as exclusively ours?  Is our focus to amass more for ourselves?  Is my security in the fact that I believe God does and will provide for me?  Or is it more in what I can provide for myself?

The start of a new formation year with summer travel over and regular activities back in swing is a good opportunity to focus on stewardship for the coming year.  In the coming weeks I will focus one weekend on our parish’s financial position, on our stewardship of money and the need we have for sacrificial giving from each parishioner.  But this weekend is a good opportunity to step back and to focus more broadly, more generally, on the call to be stewards of all of God’s gifts.  In this way, before focusing on giving and parish finances, we can first listen to God’s word and pray and reflect upon the foundation of all stewardship: namely, that a basic habit of a disciple of Jesus is the recognition that all that we have is a gift from God.  We are called to receive from God’s generosity, to care for what we receive, and to use it for His glory, knowing that ultimately we must return what we have to God, and, as we heard in the Gospel today, prepare a full account of our stewardship to the One who is rich and who is the source of all things.

In the parable our attention is grabbed because Jesus seems to be encouraging us to follow the example of a dishonest person.  The steward is clearly cheating his master by stealing from what properly belongs to him in order to write off debts owed to the master.  The steward does this to ingratiate himself to others such that when his master judges him poorly, he will have a new security among those who will want to repay him once he loses his role in the master’s house.  We should not be confused about this parable.  The parable commends the steward not for dishonesty but for acting prudently, more prudently than the children of light, that is you and I, to establish a lasting security for himself.  When what he values is threatened the dishonest steward acts quickly and decisively to establish a new security.  This is what Jesus commends: “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”  What gets you to act with urgency and decisiveness when something you value is threatened?  If you reflect on that, the answer to that, doesn’t that show you something of where you place your security?  Then as a follow up it is critical to ask: Is your security placed in God, the things of God, His gifts to you here, and the offer of eternal life in Heaven?  Or is what gets you to act with urgency a sign that your security is misplaced on something or someone else?  We might do some soul searching and ask ourselves, do we feel better about ourselves when we have more recognition?  More belongings?  More power?  More money?  Or when we have less of these things, do we feel worse about ourselves and our life?  These questions can be very revealing about where we place our security.  None of us likes to be dependent on others.  It often evokes fear.  The pressure to secure our own future and to control our lives, we would have to admit, does not find support in the Scriptures (A Spirituality of Fundraising, Nouwen, pp. 31-32).

Jesus knows our need for security.  He also knows that we can’t find that security, lasting security, when our heart is divided.  In what lies our security?  This is a good question to ask as we each reflect on the foundations of stewardship and how we either live well or not well that basic habit of being a disciple.  As disciples we are called to be prudent in establishing our security in God, rather than placing a false security in the things of this world and material goods kept for ourselves.  Jesus says: “No servant can serve two masters.  He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and mammon.”  We have to make a choice if we will find true and lasting security.  In a few weeks I will address our shared responsibility as stewards for the financial needs of our parish.  But today I think we have an invitation to consider the foundational lesson of stewardship: Namely, to recognize that what we have and what we use belongs to God and we are called to be trustworthy with what belongs to Him.  As stewards our security must be placed in our relationship with God, over Whose goods we exercise stewardship.  Any other security we seek to make for ourselves will not be lasting and in fact would be a false god.  Jesus knows our need for security.  He knows we cannot find that lasting security with divided hearts.  And so he teaches us today, “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”

Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXI per Annum C

25 August 2019

It is very common here in the Bible-belt that questions of salvation are discussed.  At some point I am sure most of us have been directly asked, “Are you saved?”  To pay attention to the Gospel passage today it is clear that the question of who is saved and how many precedes us by centuries.  Today we hear the question asked of Jesus.

In context, the questioner is asking will only a few Israelite people be saved?    It is important to note that before Jesus’ time and during his time this question surfaced and there were different schools of thought among the rabbis about the world to come, which is the Jewish idea of salvation.  Some rabbis took the position that all Israel, all the members of the Twelve Tribes would be saved.  But another current of thought said that the saved would be few and not many.  In this current of thought some rabbis highlighted different moments of Hebrew/Israelite history and noted groups that would not be saved.  Rabbis noted that the generation of the Flood would not be saved.  This was the generation of Noah and the Scriptures say that wickedness was everywhere and thus God destroyed them with the Flood.  These rabbis highlighted the Israelites whose sin contributed to the Babylonian Exile and the destruction of the Temple would not be saved.  They noted that the notorious sin among the men of Sodom would mean they would not see the world to come.  And rabbis noted that the ten tribes who went into exile in the north and intermingled with the culture and religion of the Assyrians would not be saved.  This position that not all Israelites would be saved is a belief that only a remnant of Israel will see the world to come, the promised Day of the Lord, the new creation, that place of harmony.  With this in mind we can appreciate familiar words about the world to come, like those of the Prophet Isaiah: “Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat; The baby shall play by the viper’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.  They shall not harm or destroy on all my holy mountain; … On that day the Lord shall again take it in hand to reclaim the remnant of his people” (Is. 11:6, 8-9, 11).

With this background, what about Jesus’ response?  Will only a few be saved?  It is important to note that Jesus adopts this remnant, this the-saved-will-be-few school of thought.  His is a sobering answer.  And it is difficult.  To be clear, it is not difficult to understand.  Rather, it is difficult to accept.  He says, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.”  And to those outside knocking the Master will say, “I do not know where you are from.”  The most sobering aspect of Jesus’ adopting of the more restrictive notion of salvation is what the image he uses communicates.  The image says that some who are trying to enter his kingdom will not be able to do so.  They will not be strong enough to get in.  The other sobering message of Jesus’ words is that those who are seeking entrance, to whom the Master says, “I do not know where you are from,” are at least acquaintances of the Master.  The lesson here is that mere acquaintanceship with Jesus will not save and will not be enough to gain entrance to the kingdom.  Listen to how close those seeking to enter had been: “And you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets’.”  I don’t know about you, but that is stunning to hear.  Those who will not gain entrance to the kingdom are not merely people completely far off, people who never followed Jesus.  Rather, they are people who interacted with him.  They were in his presence.  They ate with him.  They listened to his teaching.  But still they hear the message: I do not know where you are from!

So the saved will be few and gaining entrance to salvation will be as entering through a narrow gate.  And why will those who are not saved fail to have strength to enter the world to come?  This is important to note.  What does Jesus say of them?  “Depart from me, all you evildoers!”  It is their sin, their wickedness that prevents them from being strong enough to enter salvation.  And this is really key and quite a shock: What does their wickedness mean or result in for their relationship with Jesus?  It is as if he never knew them.  “I do not know where you are from.”  I think this saying highlights a truth of Catholic faith with which perhaps we are uncomfortable and would like to believe is just excessive piety.  We explain and believe that the more serious type of sin, what we call mortal sin, brings to death the soul’s spiritual life with God.  It ends friendship with God.  If not confessed, healed, and repented of, it leads to eternal separation from God.  Surely that is too harsh, we want to say, right?  I mean, come on, if I’m baptized and I basically lead a good life and I want to be with Jesus nothing really separates me from God in any real or meaningful way, right?  Oh?!  The gospel says that those who are seeking entrance to the kingdom know Jesus and had been in his presence.  Yet, they are evildoers.  They are wicked sinners.  And what is the result of doing evil as regards our relationship with the Master?  He looks upon the severed relationship and says, “I do not know where you are from.”  What makes them unable to enter the kingdom?  What makes them strangers to the Lord?  Their grave mortal sins!  They do not simply harm the relationship.  They sever it to the point of rendering the wicked sinner unrecognizable to the Lord.

Do you realize we are supposed to learn something for ourselves and our relationship with Jesus in this hard teaching?  You see, Jesus draws the questioner into the question.  It is the same for us.  In adopting the remnant-will-be-saved school of thought, Jesus makes the question about the questioner’s own salvation and says: “And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out.”  So, if Jesus’ answer for the Israelites was that some who entered the covenant would not be saved because of their wickedness, what do we who have entered the New Covenant by baptism learn for our own salvation?  We must strive for the narrow gate and we must turn from our wickedness!

Things within our world and even our Church seem like a sorry circus depending on where you train your focus.  If the world even bothers to think about salvation at all, it basically assumes that all people are going to Heaven.  I mean, maybe not Hitler, but you have to be really bad, like almost unimaginably evil to not make it to Heaven.  That’s not what the Bible and Jesus say.  Go to just about any funeral and from the words spoken it sure seems like the deceased is being canonized and that we have some direct knowledge they are already in Heaven.  That’s incredibly presumptuous.  In the Church some have an acquaintance with Jesus for Christmas and Easter, but not much else.  For others their relationship with Jesus might be more about taking rather than giving from their talent or their treasure.  Others might be present and active in so many good ways, but rarely ever go to confession.  Do those things sound like striving for the narrow gate?  And then there is the really crazy stuff that leaves you scratching your head: People who claim to be faithful followers of the Lord but who lead moral lives very much in conflict with Christ and who act as if that is not a grave problem.  There is moral dissent on issues like adultery, sodomy, abortion, and contraception.  You can find people who claim to be Catholic advocating for abortion and claiming to be Catholic.  You can find Christian groups and even churches flying gay pride flags.  I ask, does that at least promote confusion and perhaps seem to aid others in their grave sin?  Of course it does!  And then there is doctrinal dissent.  This week the top Jesuit priest in the order said another silly thing.  It is becoming a particularly Jesuit charism to say silly, uncatholic things.  He said that the devil is not a personified being but rather a symbolic reality.  Well, that’s not even authentic Catholic teaching.  That’s not even biblical.  This doesn’t help people respond to the narrow way and I wonder when Church leaders will call this nonsense out?

I don’t know the answer to that.  But I do know that I must proclaim the fullness of Catholic truth, that I must strive so that my soul gets to Heaven, and that I must work such that you might get there too.  Given what we learn from Jesus in this passage, the question might be put this way: Will you strive to be the remnant?  Will you seek to follow and to remain on the narrow path?  That’s the way to Heaven, no matter what the world is doing around you.  And while what we learn today is sobering indeed let’s not forget the Good News: God has come to save us and has paid the price for our salvation!  Our response is to strive and to make use of the rich gifts of grace in His Church such that we enter Heaven.  Yes, our efforts are needed and we must strive.  But the Good News is that throughout our efforts we are wrapped in the mercy of God who holds nothing back for our salvation!  It is He who comes “to gather nations of every language” [first reading] that many might see His glory.  We do not disdain or lose heart at the Lord’s discipline [second reading].  Rather we strive to guard and live seriously our relationship with God, knowing we have a Father who ardently desires us to recline at table at the banquet of salvation.

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XIX per Annum C

11 August 2019

Summer is a common time for family vacations.  Family vacations are a special time to enjoy recreation and to remember what binds us together.  One summer my family took a vacation out to the old family ranch in Montana where my Grandpa Hamilton had grown up and where my dad had spent so many summers as a child.  My grandpa, who had died years before I was born, and the Montana ranch were things I had only seen in pictures until that summer.  That trip gave me a deeper sense of the grandfather I know only in photos, and it gave me a better sense of the life of my ancestors, a life that had been transmitted to me as a descendant.

The first and second readings tell us that we are descendants, born of the faith of our fathers.  We descend from a great cloud of witnesses whose praises are sung throughout the Scriptures.  We receive an inheritance by being chosen by God as we sang in the psalm: “Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.”  The Scriptures today spend quite some time recalling our family history in the faith.  The first reading highlights the night of the Exodus when our ancestors were freed from Egypt and the second reading recounts several events in the life of Abraham, our father in faith.  Our Jewish ancestors in the faith trusted in the Word of God and put their faith in His promises, even though none of them lived to see His promises, as the second reading said: “All these died in faith.  They did not receive what had been promised but saw it and greeted it from afar.”  They only saw it from afar because what God promised would not be fulfilled until Christ came and established his Church to continue to make, from all nations, sons and daughters of God as numerous as the stars.  Our fathers knew the night of the Passover, but it was not until the night of the Last Supper that the full meaning of the Passover was fulfilled.  And so they only saw it from afar.

We have been made members of God’s family through Christ Jesus.  The life of faith has been transmitted to us, in part, through our ancestors.  And we gain a better sense of these witnesses of faith and what our life truly is by spending time with them in the Scriptures, in prayer, and in living the full life of Christ in his Church.  While what God has promised has been inaugurated on earth by Christ in his Church, we are still much like our ancestors in the faith in that we, too, await the complete fulfillment of what God has begun in Christ – a fulfillment that will only take place in heaven.  And the Lord Jesus teaches us in the gospel that while we await the fulfillment of God’s promises, we must be ready, we must be vigilant or else we might lose out.

The type of readiness Jesus calls us to observe is communicated in the idea of girding our loins and lighting our lamps.  These ideas harken back to the Exodus when the departure by night from Egypt needed the light of torches.  And the readiness to move with haste on that night meant typical ankle-length garments needed to be cinched up at the waist so as not to impede movement or to cause one to trip.  That is what “gird your loins” means.  The modern-day version of “gird your loins” would be something like, get your pants up over your rear!  Now I know this is an odd image in a homily and I’m truly not intending to make fun, but we all know the fashion the past many years to wear pants or shorts hanging extremely low.  My point in raising this fashion is that it is totally impractical for movement.  That’s the same idea in Jesus’ admonition to be ready with girded loins.  If you have ever watched an episode of COPS or LivePD, when the surprise of being lit up by red and blue lights catches someone off guard, the person can’t run very well with low-hanging pants.  Oddly enough this fits very well with Jesus’ point: sort of like being lit up by police lights, if we are to be ready for the surprising and unknown hour of the Son of Man’s return then we have to be ready to move, ready to respond, ready to turn to the light and to say our final “no” to the darkness of sin and the dark kingdom of the prince of this world.  Jesus says: “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return.”

We must be ready for the Lord’s return.  We must be ready to be judged.  We must be ready for the opportunity to enter the fullness of God’s kingdom.  For the Lord will come on a day and at an hour we do not expect.  On that day the Lord will invite us to heavenly life – what the Bible describes as a rich wedding feast.  This is the feast our ancestors in the faith saw from afar and which we begin to experience even here if we participate in the Holy Eucharist, coming forward worthily after having first received forgiveness for our sins.  The promise of life with Christ in heaven must be the treasure our heart seeks.  We must live that life now and be ready to move with our loins girt, our belts cinched up.  What should we do to be ready to inherit a full place in the kingdom?  We should already be living its inauguration here and now; we should already be doing the work of a servant who awaits the master’s return.  But laziness, complacency, and living to excess, these and other things will leave us unprepared at the Lord’s return, sort of like being caught with our pants falling off our rears!  So, what kind of servants are we?  Do we already live our life in the kingdom?  Or do we consider the time we have as God’s delay, a time when we can get away with sin?  Hearing this Gospel, what kind of servants will we choose to be?  What we do now and how we live now will determine whether we are assigned a place with the faithful or the unfaithful.  Jesus says, “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.”

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XVI per Annum C

21 July 2019

In the first reading we have an account of one of the most famous theophanies in the Old Testament, a revelation of God Himself that we can say foreshadows a later more developed understanding of God as Trinity since, as the reading says, the Lord appeared but Abraham saw three figures.  This theophany has inspired many ancient icons that depict God’s revealing of Himself by showing three figures who are dining with Abraham.  Abraham welcomed and quickly gave focused hospitality to the Lord God, desiring to have the Lord stay with him and providing a meal to the mysterious figures.  In the Gospel account of Jesus’ visit to the home of Martha and her sister, Mary, it would seem that welcome and hospitality are also a clear theme.

I bet that if we could ask people what types of things a parish ought to do, what kinds of things help it to thrive, I bet a significant number of responses would indicate that welcoming and hospitality are key indicators of a parish climate and key things a parish ought to do well.  So common is this expectation that the impression of not being welcoming would be an indictment of a parish.  But is a generic or uncritical welcome and hospitality really being proposed as a lesson from the Gospel selection today?

What characteristics can we witness about Martha in the Gospel?  (1) A first characteristic, she has a welcoming attitude.  She welcomed Jesus.  The Gospel tells us that quite directly and plainly.  (2) A second characteristic, Martha was quick to be busy about being an excellent hostess and she has a servant’s heart.  “Burdened with much serving,” the Gospel said.  (3) And a third characteristic, Martha knows the value of a team, she is a delegator who brings others into her work.  In speaking to Jesus about her sister, Martha says, “Tell her to help me.”  She is the type of person who, if you had her on your parish hospitality committee, you’d be inclined to think “We have a great person in that role, a real go-getter.”  But the Lord does not accept Martha’s method and gives a rebuke to her notion that Mary should do as she does.

If you have a more active, jump into action, personality this Gospel might leave you disappointed and discouraged because for as much as we easily assume that welcome and hospitality are primary virtues, the Lord says Martha isn’t quite the one to imitate.  But if you are more active by nature and quick to jump into service, don’t despair.  Jesus in no way denigrates being attentive to the aspects of welcome and hospitality.  Rather, he makes a positive comparison.  The rebuke of Martha is not because her activity is bad.  Rather, it is the way in which she does it that the Lord does not entirely support.  It is rather that something else is better, the better part… simply being attentive and focused on the presence of Jesus and being with him as his disciple.  The Gospel makes the clear point that what Martha is busy doing is a burden.  Other translations say, she was distracted with much serving.  In other words, the way she goes about this work is pulling her away from something else.  In this case, it is pulling her away from Someone, from being at peace by simply being in Jesus’ presence.  It’s as if she has to prove something to feel good about having Jesus near her and being at rest.  Furthermore, the Gospel goes on to tell us more about Martha, that her activity is corrupted with anxiety and worry.  It is this precise way of doing what she is doing that Jesus rejects.  Mary has chosen the better part of simply being focused and in peace in Jesus’ presence.  What Jesus is doing here is to emphasize the proper order of simply being with him, in relationship, in intimacy.  He is making a finer point: Activity, like welcoming and hospitality, if done in a distracted, anxious way, gets corrupted.  And to the tendency to let such work eclipse a proper focus on Jesus, well, then, Mary has chosen the better part.  It is this better part that each disciple must keep in first place.

What can we learn?  Where do our efforts as individual disciples and as a parish begin?  Does it begin with Jesus, with simply being with him?  If not, we have failed to start with the better part, with the most important focus.  How much attention do we give that?  Or like Martha, do we get things out of order, keeping ourselves busy and anxious, and upset that we are burdened and overworked?  Do we start to feel resentment because we want to pull others into our load to help us carry it?  What attitude ought we to have, and what things ought we to do, to show that we adopt the posture of Mary in today’s Gospel, that posture of sitting at the feet, which in ancient culture was a sign of being a disciple gathered near the Master?

I suggest it is Abraham who shows us that Martha’s work can be done with a better focus.  He too quickly jumps into action, but notice his desire is that the Lord stay with him.  He says, “…if I may ask you this favor, please do not go on past your servant.”  And Abraham stays with the Lord God while the mysterious figures dine.  The prime example of the “better part” for us in our time is worship at Holy Mass, and a commitment to extend our time with the Lord by participation in our adoration program.  I think even the physical layout of our chapel, with the Lord’s Real Presence elevated on top of the Tabernacle, invites us to a posture like Mary’s, our kneeling or sitting in the pews being sort of like a place at the Lord’s feet.  By keeping this proper order of the “better part” we adopt the simple focused desire to be in the Lord’s presence.  But the opportunity for a Mary-like focus on the “better part” extends out into our daily home life too, even when we are not here at church.  Our prayer, our study of the faith and its saving doctrine, discussing the faith with others, teaching it to children, which is a sacred trust parents have in the home, all of this is a way we live the “better part”.

Our take away is that before we even get to activity, to the tasks of welcome and hospitality, before we jump into action, so easy to do in our frenzied pace of life, each disciple needs to give focused welcome to being with Jesus in the intimate life of prayer that should mark a disciple.  Like Martha we each have burdens, anxieties, and worries.  Is it any surprise that so often when God or His messenger appears to someone in the Bible the first message God speaks is “Be not afraid?”  Jesus’ gift of his presence and our reciprocal gift of being present to him resolves the burdens we carry much more so than our distracted activity.  By being in the Lord’s presence and by studying him and his teachings may we find a healing of our worries and anxieties such that we experience the reward of choosing the better part which we pray will not be taken from us in this life or in the life to come!

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - First Solemn Mass of Rev. Jerome Krug

Dominica XIII per Annum C

First Solemn Mass of Rev. Fr. T. Jerome Krug

30 June 2019

A newly ordained priest was looking down the long line of faithful awaiting his first priestly blessing.  Among the many familiar faces the new priest spotted a man he did not recognize.  When the man arrived at the front of the line he told the new priest that though they had never previously met he had come to participate and to see what an ordination was like.  In that line, on that day 20 years ago this Tuesday, I imparted my first priestly blessing to that man, your father, Father.  Your dad and I had no idea then how that intersection of our lives would be only the first of many for years to come.  Fr. Krug, you were six years old on that day.  Moving forward from that day, I came to know your dear mother, you and your siblings, and even extended family.  It has been a real joy over the years to experience so many other intersections of our lives: my years as an assistant priest in Edmond when you were a child, visits and meals at your home, my time in vocations work when you met with me to tell me you had decided to go to seminary, and now to be the Pastor of your home parish during the years of your seminary studies, your ordination and First Mass.  Over these 20 years I have been accustomed to looking upon you as a spiritual son – but now also a brother priest.  Father Krug, I am very proud of you!  This parish is very proud of you!  To have the title “Father” resound within these walls, knowing that it refers to a son of our parish, is such a tremendous blessing to us!  As you now take up a unique place at the altar of sacrifice, we ask you to prayerfully remember your home parish as you hold in your hands the greatest gift of God to us: The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in his sacrifice for our salvation!  We marvel at the working of God who has blessed our parish in so many ways.  We continue to pray for you.  We ask God to bless all the different vocations that are discovered and lived here.  We look forward to more young men here, more sons of our parish, one day bearing that title “father,” which you have just accepted.

There is plenty in the Scripture selections of this Holy Mass to instruct all disciples in all vocations and, in a particular way, to instruct a new priest.  That instruction comes, as we might expect, from Jesus’ words, but also, perhaps unexpectedly, from a small detail that could be easily overlooked, a detail we might call his “focus,” or maybe better stated, Jesus’ “intention,” what the Gospel described as that resolute determination of his to go to Jerusalem.

The first lesson for us comes from Jesus’ words which reveal to us the demands of being his disciple.  In the Gospel selection we discover the urgency of being his disciple and the demand of having the Lord as the central focus of our life.  To the invitation, “Follow me,” one person responded, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”  The Lord answered back, “Let the dead bury their dead.  But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  Another person along the Lord’s journey promised to follow yet added, “but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”  The Lord answered, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”  How significant are Jesus’ words about the urgency of his call to be a disciple and to follow him?  Consider these words of the Lord as compared to a similar scene in the first reading.  Upon being called by Elijah the prophet, Elisha said, “Please, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye, and I will follow you.”  Notice that Elijah permitted Elisha the momentary hesitation.  He said to Elisha, “Go back!  Have I done anything to you?”  The contrast here shows us how much more Jesus expects and demands when he says, “Follow me.”  Jesus’ words demonstrate to us that even the most serious and natural of human tendencies and responsibilities, as good as those are (like burying the dead and maintaining family relationships), if understood in proper order, are less important and less urgent for a disciple than is the call to place Jesus and God’s kingdom first in our lives.  Am I making too much of the urgency and the radical nature of the response Jesus expects?  Consider that for as solemn of a duty as there was in the Old Testament to parents and family, who was the only One who came ahead of that?  The answer is in the order of the Ten Commandments.  Honoring God comes before honoring even parents.  Only God could demand first place before parents.  The response Jesus makes to those who want to first go home before following him is an implicit revelation of his divinity.  He is God.  He comes first.  He gets to make that claim on us.  Is Jesus the center of your life?  So much more urgent is Jesus’ call that even just setting your hand to the plow but still looking back reveals you have the wrong priorities and a different center for your life.

 To this urgent call the response of the consecrated religious, of the priest, of the married man or woman, or of the single person will not all look the same.  However, what is very clear and common to us all is that nothing and no one can come before our response to Jesus and to the urgency to proclaim God’s kingdom.  For the priest, the response to this urgent call will be evident, even before his preaching and ministry, in his daily life of prayer, in his time spent in silent meditation on the Scriptures, in his care for his spiritual life and soul, and in a particularly critical way in his celibacy lived in a chaste way as a gift for the Church.  Fr. Krug, as a priest you will be surrounded, rather like Jesus, by the crowds with their demands and expectations.  The priest can never be satisfied with letting anything come before the Lord.  You will, of course, be keeping the Lord in the center of your life by serving the legitimate needs of the people.  There need be no false dichotomy between action and contemplation, between ministry and prayer.  However, it can be very easy for the parish priest to have busy days with lots of activities and to convince himself he is doing the work of the Lord.  But if the priest does not first and always begin with sitting silently with and before the Lord of the work, you can bet something or someone other than Jesus has crept into the center of his life.  Fr. Krug, the gift of celibacy, which you formally accepted at diaconate, can serve as a reminder to you that you really have no one other than the Lord; and celibacy received and integrated into your life can give impulse to an intense life of prayer.  That gift accepted by the priest, becomes also a gift to the rest of us in the Church who benefit from a chaste love available for service and who likewise see in the priest the eschatological reminder that we are each called to a relationship with God that excludes all the idols, whether internal or external, that we so easily enshrine.

But what about the second lesson today, that small detail in the Gospel selection that might be easily overlooked?  It is a lesson that I would say applies uniquely to a priest.  Jesus was “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.”  What can that tell us and tell a new priest about responding to the urgency of the Lord’s call?  As the Gospel says “when the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled” Jesus was focused and absolutely determined to go to Jerusalem.  This “being taken up” refers to the events of Jesus’ exodus, his passage from death to glory in the resurrection and ascension.  This ninth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel begins the long travel narrative that lasts for ten chapters until you finally arrive at the end of chapter nineteen.  There you see the specific destination in Jerusalem for Jesus’ resolute determination.  Jesus was NOT simply going to Jerusalem, for upon arriving in the city, chapter nineteen says: “And he entered the temple” where he drove out those who were making it a den of robbers (cf. Lk. 19:45).

An interpretation of this focus of Jesus in the Gospel is that the Great High Priest was resolute and firm in his intention to process to the place of sacrifice.  Why did the Samaritans refuse to welcome Jesus on his journey?  Simply because he was a Jew and because of their historic ethnic antagonism?  Not at all!  Jesus’ resolute determination to go to Jerusalem and to the Temple creates a direct conflict for the Samaritans in their view that their temple is the true sanctuary.  The Samaritans, in other words, refuse Jesus because they reject the Jerusalem Temple as an alternative temple to their own.  Their refusal of Jesus is a specifically religious objection and strikes at the very heart of who is God and what is the true sacrifice.  That Jesus remains resolute when some dismiss his focus on the sanctuary offers a lesson for a priest.

Dear Fr. Krug and brother priests, as St. Benedict instructs in his Rule (43:3), “Let nothing be preferred to the work of God.”  The monastic use of “work of God” is understood as the sacrifice of praise offered to God in the entirety of the Sacred Liturgy.  Is it too much of a stretch to say St. Benedict is highlighting something not altogether dissimilar from Jesus’ firm intention to make his way to the place of sacrifice?  The determination of Jesus instructs us priests that nothing – nothing – not parents, nor family, nor possessions, nor honors, nor hobbies can come before the urgent call to unite ourselves to Jesus in his determination and in his priestly sacrifice.  That is, to unite ourselves to his own greatest work, to the obedient trust by which Jesus accomplished his exodus, his being taken up.  This is not to be understood as a call to see our sanctuaries as some type of eccentric playground where the priest remains in obscurity.  It is also not a call to ignore the many ways a priest must sacrifice for his people outside of the sanctuary.  But it is to say that nothing is greater or more important or more urgent for the priest than to himself be united to the sacrifice of Christ and to unite his people to that same sacrifice made present in the Sacred Liturgy and on the sacred altar.  For ultimately, we must admit, the journey Jesus resolutely begins in the Gospel today has for its destination not just the city of Jerusalem and not only the Temple therein.  Ultimately, his journey is about his arrival to the sanctuary and the altar of the Cross and, through his resurrection and ascension, the final destination is his being taken up to his rightful place in the heavenly city and the sanctuary of God’s throne.

If this is Jesus’ firm intention and if a priest should model this urgency by that same resolute focus on bringing himself and his people to the altar of the Cross, we can appreciate the teaching of the Second Vatican Council in its document on the Sacred Liturgy where it says, “the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the font from which all her power flows” (Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 10).  If that is to be more than just nice sounding teaching or a slogan, I will say quite openly, that it needs to be more clearly seen in pastoral leadership and planning.  Almost like an inhospitable Samaritan many dismiss any consistent and resolute focus in pastoral leadership on the dignity of the Sacred Liturgy.  We rightly talk much these days about mission and evangelization and pastoral planning, but if we want vitality and power to accomplish those lofty hopes, we must begin with a resolute focus on our own procession to the sanctuary and to the sacrifice of praise offered to God in the whole of the Sacred Liturgy.  We priests must not fail to keep that focus.  And though the lay faithful do not offer the sacrifice in the same way as the priest, they too must make sacrifice and keep this resolute focus of Jesus so to be gathered and incorporated into his determination to save us by means of his great exodus made present in the Paschal Mystery.  If we, priests and faithful, lose that focus we fail to tap into that font that gives power for our response to the Lord’s urgent call.  If the evidence of priestly ministry reveals more determination and focus on our office business hours, on money, on programs, and construction projects then we are not following the Lord’s example.  If our people are to be called into this great procession and helped to avoid along the way the distractions and temptations to call down fire upon the inhospitable and to choose other persons or other things before God, then we priests must be firm in our focus and resolute intention that the sacred liturgy is the summit of all of our directives and the source of power for mission.

Today, for the first time, Fr. Krug, you lead us to the place of Jesus’ resolute determination, to his sacrifice at this altar.  May what we receive from this font of power help us place nothing before the Lord, such that the words of the psalmist are truly our own: “You are my inheritance, O Lord.”

The Most Holy Trinity

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Proverbs 8:22-31; Ps. 8; Rom. 5:1-5; Jn. 16:12-15

16 June 2019

Observing the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity this weekend we commemorate in the Sacred Liturgy the central and fundamental mystery that we receive and accept in faith.  The very being of God is the center and foundation of all we believe.  The mystery of the Holy Trinity expresses our faith in God Himself, how He exists – not just that He exists – what His inner life is like.  This aspect of our faith is something purely of God’s revelation, that is, His showing of Himself to us.  In other words, no human mind on its own would come up with the concept of a Trinity, that the one God exists as Three Persons, were it not for God revealing this about Himself.  When we profess faith in the Holy Trinity we mean that the being or substance of God is one and that His inner life is a communion of Divine Persons in relationship.  Each of the Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is equally and fully God.  In other words, they are completely equal in substance.  We do not believe in three divine substances, three gods, joined together.  We do not believe that the three Persons are a division of the divine substance, as if each Person is one-third God.  Rather, we profess belief that the substance of God is one and undivided and that the inner life of God, as revealed to us, is a perfect communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  It is God who shows this about Himself and reveals this truth to us.  It is what we learn from the Sacred Scriptures.  On the authority of God who makes Himself known we accept and profess faith that God is a unity in Trinity and a Trinity in unity.

I suggest that there is something in us that is not at ease with mystery.  We want answers to everything and we think we are owed such answers.  If this unease with mystery existed before our time, I think it has been exacerbated in our time by the ubiquitous presence of the Internet and smart phones.  At our finger tips are the answers to most everything in the world.  That availability puffs up our self-centered pride in our expectation that we should have all the answers.  And even more problematic is the related attitude that develops in us when something remains mysterious and is not immediately and easily understandable and discernible to us.  In the face of mystery not easily understood, that even more serious root problem is the tendency to consider the mystery itself as somehow of less value to me personally because I cannot understand it.  In other words, we might tend to view the mystery itself with more suspicion before we would first admit the limitations of our own mind.  The mystery is suspect; it can’t be my mind that is suspect.  This faulty proposition says answers should come easily and if I can’t understand or grasp something then maybe it’s not true or, perhaps more likely, it is viewed as having less value.  This faulty proposition says if I can’t understand something – and grasp it easily – it somehow lessens the value of my experience and isn’t beneficial or “real” to me.

But that is not how the wisdom of ancient thinkers operated.  And that ancient wisdom is the very foundation upon which we rest today.  In the face of questions about how God revealed Himself and what it means to believe in God, ancient thinkers pondered, and questioned, and had fierce debates, even physical fights, to stretch the limited mind to understand God and the world around them.  Their philosophy and theology is a rich deposit given to us and upon which we must rest to remain in the truth.  It is also a deposit we are duty bound not to change, but rather only to develop in continuity and to further expose the truth already contained in what we receive.  This is why Sacred Tradition in our faith is so vitally important and is not to be rejected except at our own peril.  Today’s first reading from the Book of Proverbs offers us a selection of ancient wisdom that impacts our understanding of the mystery of the Holy Trinity.  In the early Church and among the Fathers of the Church, it was widely held that Proverbs chapter 8 (our first reading) described in veiled and mysterious language the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God before the incarnation.  The “wisdom of God” is the subject and the one speaking in today’s first reading.  This wisdom of God is described as acting alongside and with the Lord God in actions that sound much like the story of creation in the Book of Genesis.  This wisdom of God that, as Proverbs says, is “possessed” or “begotten” or “beheld” existed with the Lord God before all things.  As this ancient wisdom was further explored and, later enlightened by the aid of Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit of truth, the New Testament in the First Letter to the Corinthians describes the incarnate Son of God in a way that should not surprise us.  St. Paul write, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24).  No wonder in the Creed our Catholic faith is careful to say both what we do believe and what we do not believe when we say of the Son of God, “begotten, not made, consubstantial (meaning of the same substance) with the Father,” or as we hear in the Latin, “genitum, non factum, consubstantialem Patri.”  The same equal divinity of the Holy Spirit is revealed by Jesus in the selection of the Gospel we heard today.  Notice, Jesus does not speak of the Holy Spirit merely as a force, but as a Person with personal pronouns: “But when he comes…. he will guide you…. he will speak.”

Is it an authentic value in our faith that we should know and grasp everything immediately, and do so easily?  Or is it actually good for us in the face of mystery to remember that we are not the topmost being, nor the topmost intellect in the created world?  The mysterious and somewhat cryptic words of Jesus in the Gospel certainly encourage humility and patience as he clearly says that his apostles cannot bear or understand now all that he has to say.  Jesus requires of them humility and patience to await the Holy Spirit when he comes.  The event of Pentecost and our reception of the Holy Spirit in the sacraments means we have now the benefit of the Holy Spirit to help us receive the truth of God as Trinity and the truth of other mysteries we profess.  Yet, there is still mystery and we must become comfortable with it.  If we fail to accept mystery and the reality of our own limitations we will actually impede God’s work in us and we will develop the false notion that places ourselves at the center of all things.  We are not meant for a one-time interaction with God by which we comprehend everything about Him.  We are meant for a lifetime of communion and growing relationship.  The Scriptures cannot be fully understood by us, and actually aren’t meant to be, as if we will ever remove all mystery.  In fact, the Scriptures are the living Word of God, made for a lifetime of reflection by which we continue to grasp more and more, if we will allow it.  It may surprise that even the Sacred Liturgy is not supposed to be immediately and easily understood on all levels.  In fact, immediately grasping and understanding everything about our worship is not an authentic Catholic principle of liturgy at all.  It is actually good that mystery remains in our worship.  Our experience of mystery in no way lessens the value of worship, unless we have made the mistake of thinking the focus of worship is ourselves and our preferences, instead of purely the worship that God is owed.  We come here to encounter mystery that transcends us, that is above and beyond us.

The central and fundamental mystery we encounter is the inner life of God, the Blessed Trinity, poured out for our creation and for our salvation.  In humility and patience we receive this faith.  Though it remains mystery we use our minds aided by the Holy Spirit of truth to seek to understand it more and more.  Rather than dismissing the mystery of the Holy Trinity as too complicated, or trivializing it as not relevant to our lives, we recognize this faith in the Holy Trinity is the very foundation of all we are from the simplest Sign of the Cross made with reverence and care, to the divine grace that comes in the Sacraments poured out from the Holy Trinity, to the final unveiling of the mystery of God we await in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Pentecost Sunday

Dominica Pentecostes

9 June 2019

This weekend we come to the climax and the conclusion of the holy season of paschaltide and the ascensiontide.  The season of Easter concludes with the Solemnity of Pentecost, the fulfillment of Jesus’ resurrection promise to send the Holy Spirit.

Just as we Christians in the New Covenant have an annual cycle of feasts, so did the Jews of the Old Covenant before us.  There were seven major festivals for the Jews.  Two of those Jewish festivals have come over into a new expression in the New Covenant and they find their place in our annual cycle of liturgical feasts.  One of those is Passover, which we celebrate at Easter.  The word “pascha,” coming into Latin from Greek, means “Passover” and it is the same word for “Easter.”  That’s why we make reference in our Catholic faith to the paschal (or Passover) mystery, the paschal (or Easter) candle, and the season of Easter as paschaltide.  The second of those Jewish festivals that comes over into the New Covenant is Pentecost.

The Christian imagery of fire to represent the Holy Spirit is so common such that we likely don’t think much about it.  Thus, in the Acts of the Apostles, when we hear that tongues of fire descended upon the apostles and disciples when they received the Holy Spirit, it sort of just seems right to us.  But we can have a deeper appreciation for the Holy Spirit as fire when we look into the Jewish understanding of Pentecost, which we have adopted.  Jewish Pentecost occurred 50 days after Passover, just as our Pentecost arrives 50 days after Easter.  Among the Jewish feasts it was one of three that required pilgrimage, a holy journey to observe the feast.  Over time the Jewish Pentecost, while remaining a harvest feast, took on a spiritual meaning as a celebration of God’s giving of the Law in the Sinai Covenant.  It is in this context of Pentecost as a Jewish celebration of God’s giving of the Law, the Ten Commandments, that we can have a deeper appreciation of why the Holy Spirit descends as tongues of fire.  Another way to highlight this is, why, for instance, didn’t the Holy Spirit descend as a dove at Pentecost, as He had upon Jesus at his baptism?  Listen to the account from the Book of Exodus about God’s giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai (an option for the first reading at the Vigil Mass of Pentecost).  Amid cosmic signs of thunder and lightning and thick cloud and a very loud trumpet blast, Moses brings the Israelites out of their camp to the base of the mountain to meet God.  The Book of Exodus says, “And Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire” (Ex. 19:16-18).  Out of that fire God speaks and Moses, on behalf of the people, goes up and receives the Ten Commandments.  So, notice the parallel: In the Old Covenant at Mt. Sinai, God descends in fire upon the Israelites who are composed of twelve tribes.  In the New Covenant account of Pentecost in Acts of the Apostles, God the Holy Spirit descends in fire upon the twelve Apostles who represent those twelve tribes, and likewise descends upon other disciples gathered with them.  This descent and its connection to God’s presence in fire on Mt. Sinai, we can say, is a revelation of the divinity of the Holy Spirit.  It likewise helps us understand that in our Christian observance, we have at Pentecost a new giving of the Law, a giving of the Law not on stone, but descending upon us, taking on flesh within us.  God’s law does not remain outside of us, but indwells within us.  Pentecost is an interior gift.  This interiority is a significant difference in our Christian observance of Pentecost.  We celebrate now the promise of Jesus fulfilled, namely that the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us and empowers us from within to live God’s commands.

Being empowered from within by the Holy Spirit of God, gives us another critical focus for Pentecost and what it means for us today.  At Pentecost the Apostles and other disciples, by receiving the Holy Spirit, are anointed and consecrated for mission, that is, to be sent out to continue proclaiming God’s kingdom in word and action, and to continue the saving work of Jesus.  I would say that Jesus’ accompanying action of breathing on the apostles and disciples as they receive the Holy Spirit highlights this sense of “going out,” this outward impulse and mission.  After all, breath comes from within and goes out from Jesus.  And breath can also move objects in its path.  Likewise, the early Church, and we who receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit at confirmation, are empowered from within, anointed and consecrated, moved and sent out to actually work for and share in the mission of Jesus.

On this Pentecost, to have a rich understanding of our own being sent out on mission, I want to highlight two words from the Gospel selection.  I’m going to bet they are not the words you might expect.  What two words?  The word “as” and the word “so.”  It seems like a preacher would have to work pretty hard to get something worth saying out of such seemingly inconsequential words, right?  But listen to how the words “as” and “so” feature in Jesus’ action of breathing and saying “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  Jesus says, “AS the Father has sent me, SO I send you” (Jn. 20:21).  Think about what those simple words reveal about what Jesus expects by giving the Holy Spirit, this new giving of the Law internally with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Let me flesh those words out and insert them in this context.  “As the Father has sent me,” OR “Just as,” OR “Just like,” OR “In the same manner as” the Father has sent me, Jesus says, “so I send you,” OR “even so,” OR “in the same way,” I send you.

Upon being anointed and consecrated by the descent of the Holy Spirit, with God’s Law dwelling within in them, the apostles and disciples on that first Christian Pentecost had a deeper share and responsibility for the mission of Jesus.  Do we consider that for ourselves?  God’s Law, God’s very self, the very Holy Spirit of God is not given to us such that we are just some nice box or receptacle to hold the Holy Spirit.  No, Jesus gives us his promise of the Holy Spirit to push us outward into mission, to greater responsibility for his own mission, a mission that is first in the mind of God the Father.  “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  In the second reading, St. Paul wrote “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit” (1 Cor. 12:7).  Do you take time to consider what gift of the manifestation of the Spirit has been given to you, and for what benefit?  Do we ask the Lord that in prayer?  Do we ask other members of Christ’s Body to help us identify that?  We should!  The Holy Spirit is given to us who belong to Christ.  It is not given so that we simply become a receptacle to contain it.  It is given so that we are transformed and more deeply conformed to Christ.  It is given so that we go out and transform the concrete reality of the places where we live, and move, and have our being (cf. Acts 17:28).  Do we view Pentecost, our own confirmation, and the gifts of the Spirit given in times of particular need… do we consider those gifts given to us as requiring an outward thrust, an outward mission?  We should!

The collect of this Mass (of Pentecost Day) makes an allusion to the “divine grace that was at work when the Gospel was first proclaimed.”  It makes that allusion because receiving the Holy Spirit in our time carries the implication that the Gospel must still be proclaimed here and now and that the Lord gives divine grace to do it.  Receive the Holy Spirit, aware that as the Father sent Jesus, even so he sends you!

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Dominica IV Paschae C

12 May 2019

This weekend is commonly known as Good Shepherd Sunday because of Jesus’ use of the image of shepherd and sheep in the Gospel, the very same Gospel section where Jesus also proclaims: I am the Good Shepherd.  Good Shepherd Sunday is also a time to give focus to prayer and to our efforts to encourage vocations in our parish by directly speaking to the young people in our midst and in your families about the call of Jesus in their lives.

Jesus says that his sheep hear his voice.  The implication is that his sheep are familiar with him such that they recognize him because they can identify his voice.  And hearing him, they follow him.  You may not have a sheep, but if you have a pet you know this well.  When I return after several days away on vacation my vacations always end in the same curious way: I go over to my mom’s house to… whisper!  Why do I whisper?  Because she keeps my cat and if he hears my voice from within the room he is kept in, he will begin a very loud and obnoxious whining meow.  So, to visit my mom at the end of a vacation I sit in her living room and whisper about my trip because the cat knows my voice and if he gets making noise, my visit with mom is over.

We are familiar with many things.  We know our sports teams.  If you hear “Who dat?” you might well know it’s a reference to the New Orleans Saints.  If you hear that Rumble is giving away tickets in the narthex you know we’re talking Thunder tickets.  We know our songs.  If you hear the rousing beat and the lyrics “Just a man and his will to survive” you could probably quickly respond with “The Eye of the Tiger.”  We know our movies.  If the altar boys are a bit rowdy before Mass and to remind them who is in charge I were to say “I am your father,” they know I’m making a Star Wars reference.  If you press someone to give you the full story and they jokingly respond with “You can’t handle the truth!” you likely have a clear image of Colonel Jessep in A Few Good Men.  There’s nothing wrong with knowing these things and enjoying pop culture.  But in truth these things aren’t worth much in the end.  We would have to admit that so many things with which we are familiar and with which we identify don’t have a lasting value.

How familiar are we with Jesus?  How familiar are we with his voice?  Compare that with how immediately recognizable the “voice” of pop culture is to us, how easily we identity it.  For as much as we so easily identify sports, music, and movies, if we are Christians shouldn’t we be all the more familiar with Jesus, with the voice of the Master, our Good Shepherd?  While Jesus uses the image of a sheep and shepherd, he clearly is using it as an analogy.  When he says he gives his sheep eternal life, we know he is saying there is something more critically important about following him, something more at stake in hearing and listening to him.  Shepherds care for their sheep and their wellbeing in the natural order, but they don’t give them eternal life.   To be familiar with Jesus, to hear his voice, and to follow him is worth much more than the voices and messages of pop culture, frivolity, or dissent that surround us.  When we listen to him and follow him we are permitting him to shepherd us to eternal life.  If we are more familiar with other voices and things of lesser value then we might risk being led astray because then we would be formed and guided by things that do not truly matter and that do not last.

In what ways do we hear Jesus’ voice?  In what ways do we not hear it?  What in our lives needs to change so that we are more attentive to his voice?  In giving guidance and in caring to guard the life of the sheep, a shepherd has to make choices for the sheep that place limits on them, that create boundaries, that restrict them, and that require obedience.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  We are his sheep.  Does your experience of following Jesus mean you know there are boundaries and restrictions that require obedience from you?  Or is it inconceivable that you would have to change any of your ways in order to follow Jesus?  Or is your default setting that whatever I think or feel like is what should be acceptable and okay with God?  Not intending to belittle, I ask that question because it would seem that a prevailing attitude in our time is that if something about following Jesus just hits too close to home then surely it’s too much to ask of my obedience.  We shouldn’t be unaware of this trend such that we are swept up in following voices and messages that are not our Good Shepherd.  There can be no doubt that at some point you, like me, have come across someone claiming to be Catholic yet holding or professing an opinion directly contrary to clear Church teaching, usually in the arena of morality.  Think of any current hot button issue and you can probably find a dissenting voice claiming to be Catholic.  Sometimes the dissenting voice is wearing a Roman collar and ought to know better.  Sometimes the dissenting voice means well but has been so poorly formed they don’t know what they are talking about.  Other times, maybe the most insidious dissent, is the voice that chooses the authority and primacy of the self and simply will not listen to what Jesus and his Church teach.  You can guess I have a number of conversations about faith and Church teaching.  In a particular area of clear moral teaching an otherwise very fine person once told me, “Well, that’s not an area of life that I let the Church’s teaching impact me.”  It’s a stunning statement.  It’s simply a clear refusal to hear Jesus’ voice, to follow in obedience, and so to be led by his shepherding to the pastures of eternal life that Jesus wants to give.  And I think that is more and more a common tendency in our time.  We need to be aware of it.  The tendency goes like this: A person has a challenge or a struggle that requires sacrifice; the person doesn’t want to feel badly about his or her situation; and so, he or she simply chooses to ignore anything from outside him or herself that sounds like an obligation to work, to change, or to follow what is difficult.  Instead a more and more common default setting is to simply shut out the voice of Christ when it hits too close to home or requires too much.

If we are sheep of the flock being guided to eternal life by Jesus then we need to have the conviction that listening to Jesus’ voice and teaching in our own lives actually matters.  And that it matters unto salvation and eternal life!  Why would I make such a claim?  Because in God’s love for us Jesus came to save us from sin and the voice of the serpent who wants to lead us astray, just as he did Adam and Eve.  Jesus himself spoke clear teaching that confirms and upholds God’s Word from the Old Covenant.  The voice of our Good Shepherd went still further and called us to a deeper demand to love in giving up ourselves.  Finally, the Good Shepherd established his Church to proclaim his truth and to continue to guide us.  Jesus himself said to his apostles and disciples, “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me” (Lk. 10:16).  Remaining and living in the communion of the Church is where we the sheep most clearly hear the voice of our shepherd and where we come to know him and are known by him.  Here we have the Sacred Scripture, the Sacred Tradition, the authentic worship that renews us and refocuses our eyes and ears on Jesus.  Here we have the teaching of Christ guided in his Church by the Holy Spirit of truth.  Here, if we will listen and obey Jesus’ voice, we can dwell secure in his hand.  Here in the sheepfold we have the greatest means to become familiar with the Good Shepherd who calls us and who lays down his life and rises again so that we, too, might rise to eternal life in the pastures of heaven.