Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (Traditional Latin Mass)

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (Mass of the 1962 Missal)
Rom. 13:8-10; Mt. 8:23-27
29 January 2023

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.              

The setting of this Gospel selection is the Sea, also called the Lake, of Galilee.  It had – and still has – a reputation for being dangerous due to sudden storms that can arise.  Fishermen knew these dangers well and they became seasoned to the temperamental nature of the Sea of Galilee.  The Gospel text clearly describes the storm in strong and dramatic terms.  Perhaps to put an exclamation point on the danger so that we don’t diminish the severe nature of this storm, we should note that, the disciples, experienced fishermen who knew the sea well, were clearly terrified thinking this storm might be their last and they would not make it to shore.  In fact, this tempest was more than just a violent storm.  The Greek words limjohnson@saintannechurchnh.orgterally refer to a great shaking of the sea, something like an earthquake.  This conjures up the image of something like a tsunami.  Thus, St. Matthew describes the situation as the ship being “covered with waves.”  The ship is being swamped, taking on water badly, and the men on board, experienced as they were with the Sea of Galilee, think they are likely going to die.  Thus, they cry out: Lord, save us, we perish!  The disciples are being put to the test so that they learn not to surrender to their fears.

                But the threat here may well have been more than severe weather.  That possibility comes as a hint in the response from our Blessed Lord who, the text says, “commanded the winds and the sea.”  The Greek for “commanded” is the word for “rebuked” which is used in other places where our Lord commands by rebuking evil spirits in exorcisms.  This could be a clue that demons are behind the manifestation in nature of the earthquake and sudden storm causing a great commotion on the sea.  In fact, the Church has exorcistic prayers used when there is threat of severe storms, to pray that forces lurking behind terrible threats of nature may be calmed.  Decades ago, after a particularly bad hurricane season, a past archbishop of the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama, ordered that after all Masses the Divine Praises be recited asking for God’s protection from storms.  It’s a practice they still do today.  The Church, the Barque of St. Peter, still today prays against threatening storms as she makes her way through the troubled waters of the kingdom of man.  In traveling through so many storms in history and in the present day, the Church manifests or shows – in fact, she carries – the divinity of Christ to the world.

                We know that the Church has faced and still faces violent storms as she makes her way through history.  We don’t always see through the veil and we can’t always clearly identify spiritual realities in this valley of tears.  But we can assume that in some cases the forces lurking behind troubles that come from outside and within the Church may well be the evil manipulation of demons.  In today’s Gospel selection we may have the hint that demons were behind the storm.  But we can also suggest that demons may also have been behind the manipulation of the disciples’ fears as they despaired while the Lord slept in the boat.

                The ship of the Church continues her voyage giving witness to the Lord who is God among us.  We are not disciples literally in a boat but we might as well be, because we are rocked about and overcome with the waves of godless secularism and leftist ideology that seeks to corrupt and refashion everything God has revealed in nature and in the revelation given to the Church.  We are tossed about by the tsunami of being lied to daily by cultural elites and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media as they seek to advance a globalist agenda.  And the demonic forces that seek to pry our faith from us can be seen in the waves that swamp us even from within the Church.  So many have surrendered the authentic faith in favor of having their ears tickled by false doctrine.  Perversion, sin, and crime among our shepherds have left trust destroyed.  We have whole generations who know almost nothing about the faith but who can spout every relativistic antiphon that undercuts moral absolutes and the fact that the Lord established one true Church for our salvation.  We have Synods that are little more than manipulative committees with pre-determined outcomes, and bishops and popes who say confusing and foolish things.  Come to think of it, maybe this is the Sea of Galilee!

                And the Lord seems to be asleep through it all.  And we cry out: Don’t you care?  Save us for we perish!  My brothers and sisters, our faith is being tested mightily.  Will we be like those who do not trust in God, surrendering to our fears, and so hear the indictment of our Lord: Why are you fearful, oh you of little faith?  Even in this storm-tossed existence, the Church carries the Lord and manifests his divinity in this world.  Demons want to attack.  And sadly, both outside and inside the Church there are those who cooperate with and fall prey to demonic manipulations.  The Deposit of Faith is our sure rudder and anchor in our times.  We should call upon the Lord in daily prayer by which we pour out our troubled hearts to him.  Reading the Word of God and coming before him in Adoration should be standards for this rocky journey.  The daily Rosary should be a natural reflex for us.  How poor we would be if we left Our Lady and her rosary to dangle only from our rearview mirrors!  Frequent confession is a must so that we are washed of the sins that will only lead us to despair.  And worthy reception of the Lord’s gift of self in Holy Communion increases our faith in our storm-tossed times.  In time we will marvel at the great calm that the Lord commands because he has authority over all things.  Lord, we beg of you: see the wind and the seas in our time and rebuke them so that we may marvel as did your disciples: What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey Him?

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

Third Sunday of Advent

Dominica III Adventus A
11 December 2022 

                Within the season of Advent this Mass of the Third Sunday stands out with a unique character.  The character of this Sunday stands out by the shift in color from purple to the liturgical color rose and the permission to decorate the sanctuary with flowers.  It should be obvious to anyone following from day to day in Advent that something is different at this moment in the season.  Coming from the Latin first word of the entrance antiphon of the Mass, this Mass is known as Gaudete – or Rejoice! – Sunday.  The entrance antiphon of the Mass had us pray, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.”  And why do we rejoice?  What is the cause of our rejoicing?  The antiphon goes on to tell us, for “the Lord is near.”

                The “Lord” refers to God.  That God has come near to His people – to us! – is a cause of joy, even if it is also mysterious and causes some reverential fear.  In what ways has God come near to us?  We hold in faith the coming near of God-in-the-flesh at the first coming of His birth.  God has taken on our flesh to come very near indeed!  He walked and lived among people in a real place and at a real time in history.  And He is not now far, though He has given everything for the saving mission He came to accomplish on the Cross; for we also hold in faith that by His ascension He still remains in our flesh and is still one-with-us from His rightful place in Heaven.  The Lord God is near!  He continues to come near to us when with faith, even faith the size of a mustard seed, a person opens his heart and mind to call upon Him in prayer.  He comes near in a real and spiritual way to such souls who pray.  He continues to come near when we comport our lives to His commands, working hard to reject sin and to remain near to Him by our moral conduct.  He is near when we have such a union with Him that we take on His very heart to have compassion to serve others and to seek out the lost.  He comes near to us as we embrace the orthodox faith that the Church guards and passes on for our salvation and for the salvation of the world.  And for those who are united to the Church established by our Lord, we experience the nearness of God when we prepare and receive worthily the grace of the sacraments He so generously gives.  When we are united to the sacramental life of the Church we have a means of rejoicing because the very life and power of God come to us in humble elements of nature, in the same way as God once came in the humility of human flesh.

                Rejoice in the Lord always!  The Lord is near!  Why do we believe that God is near?  Certainly, the authority of God’s Word in the passages heard today are a prime cause of rejoicing in the revelation they give to us.  Let’s take a look at what God’s Word reveals to us.  So many centuries of Christian faith having gone before us may mean that we don’t keep clear an important distinction about Jesus.  We accept that Jesus is the Messiah and we accept that He is God.  These are actually two distinct things that may not be so distinct in our minds so many centuries after the revelation of today’s Gospel passage.  Jesus is the Messiah, in Greek the Christ, the promised one who comes to bring redemption to God’s people by lifting them from their suffering and by being the anointed priest and king who would have an enduring kingdom in the line of David.  Yet, quite another thing is the revelation that Jesus is also God Himself.  It is God Himself who comes to be this Messiah, this Christ.  We take the joining of these two realities rather for granted, I suggest.  But that was a lesson that still needed to be learned in Jesus’ time and it explains the revelation that comes about by John the Baptist’s question in today’s Gospel when he hears of the “works of the Christ”, the works of the Messiah, the works that reveal the Messiah.  Through his own disciples, John asks Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”  What is the Lord’s response?  He basically quotes from today’s first reading, Isaiah 35.  He says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see.”  Did you notice who is coming in Isaiah 35?  It is not the Messiah.  It is, rather, God Himself.  Listen again to the first reading, “Here is your God, he comes with vindication;… he comes to save you.”  Who is coming?  It is God.  And what are the signs that God is coming?  Isaiah 35 says, the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be cleared, the lame will leap, the mute will speak.  And when John the Baptist asks are you the one who is to come, how does Jesus answer?  He says, you tell me what you are seeing and hearing.  He lists off the following: the blind regain sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear.  In other words, Jesus is doing the works of God who comes.  So, this passage reveals that Jesus is the one who is to come and that He is God Himself.  You probably also note that Jesus added a few things to his list of evidence.  He also noted that in him lepers are cleansed and the dead are raised.   This alludes to other Old Testament passages (2 Kgs. 5 and Isaiah 26) that indicate actions that only God can do.  It’s like putting an exclamation point on this revelation that the “one” we are talking about here is God Himself.  Finally, Jesus also notes another piece of evidence, that in him the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.  This alludes to signs that the Messiah – distinct from being God – has come (Isaiah 61).  So, the Lord’s answer to the question, “are you the one,” really gives us a double revelation.  The answer is, yes, Jesus is God who was promised to come and he is the Messiah, fulfilling both roles in one: He is God and He is the Messiah.  He is the Divine Messiah, the origin of the beautiful Advent hymn, “O Come Divine Messiah”.  And so, the Church says, “rejoice!”  Why?  Because the Lord God Himself is near!  He is not far from you!

                To live in rejoicing, to remain in rejoicing, we need to remain near to God.  A grace for us today is to find hope in the nearness of God and to recognize that if we are far from God it is not because He has failed to come near.  It is rather, because we stray.  We choose to dwell apart in the darkness of sin.  We go astray in our own ideas and popular concepts about religion that depart from orthodox faith.  We stray into secular pursuits that can replace a living faith.  Some even quite literally stray away from the Church.  If the cause of our rejoicing is that God Himself has come near to us, then a simple lesson for us is that we are called to use our freedom and zeal to remain near to Him.  And the good news is He has already bridged the gap, He has already come close.  We have to be convinced that we are not near to the Lord when we adopt secular ways and when we are complacent about sin.  Are there ways in which you do not find yourself rejoicing?  Then a lesson of this Mass is that one key to resolving that is to get closer to Jesus.  The fulfillment offered to us in God and the claim of fulfillment offered by consumerism come crashing into one another at this time of year.  So many sacred mysteries do we recall with tenderness in this time of year, and at the same time so much busyness, shopping, gift buying, and wrapping, and all the things that we have to do.  A grace for us is to admit that there is abundant evidence that having all this world can give does not lead to satisfaction and rejoicing.  If you can identify some ways in which you do not rejoice then work to get nearer to God as a remedy.  God is near; we have to work to remain near to Him.  Make a specific time and plan to improve your prayer life… and do it.  Give special attention to working toward the daily Rosary, praying as a family.  Make yourself pull away from all the illusions of media and entertainment by physically moving yourself to our chapel for adoration.  You wonder why you can’t pray at home in front of the television and all the noise and the phone?!  Get away from them.  Plop yourself in this chapel behind me.  Get to a place that’s conducive to prayer.  Get nearer to God and nearer to rejoicing by confessing your sins and doing so with frequency.  Get nearer to God and nearer to rejoicing by finding regular ways to serve others in charity.  You’ll know God and His promises are near when you do so.  Finally, get nearer to God and nearer to rejoicing by being worthily prepared to receive the grace of the sacraments, especially Holy Communion.  Any poverty in our rejoicing is not because God has somehow moved away.  But because we have.  “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.  Indeed, the Lord God is near.”

First Sunday of Advent - Traditional Latin Mass

First Sunday of Advent (Mass of the 1962 Missal)
27 November 2022

 IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

The liturgical observance of the Church’s faith follows a cyclical pattern.  This means that we visit and cycle through the same observances year after year.  This repetition serves to teach us by reinforcing important lessons of the spiritual life for our salvation.  And, this repetition allows us the opportunity, through a life of grace lived over the course of many years, the possibility of diving more deeply into the mysteries we observe annually.  Today begins the liturgical cycle in a new year of grace.  For good reason the Incarnation stands out among the mysteries of faith as the unique and signal beacon of salvation history.  This Advent period of preparation calls to mind the ages of history and prophecy leading up to the Incarnation.  Upon arriving at Christmas the Church continues the liturgical cycle the rest of the year by observing the great events in the life of Christ by which he inaugurates the Kingdom of God in our midst, accomplishes mankind’s salvation, and offers man his grace in his Church in preparation for the final judgment.

The word “advent” means “an arrival” or a “coming.”  In Latin we hear this all the time in the Our Father where we pray, “adveniat regnum tuum” where it clearly means “may thy kingdom come.”  In other words, may God’s kingdom arrive here, on earth as it is in heaven.  We use “advent” in other ways to refer to some notable event, or arrival in the sense of a development.  We might say that the advent of the printing press changed how information is shared.  We can refer to the advent of “the pill” as the beginning of the demise of sexual morality.  In this season of penitential preparation we are thinking of the arrival of God in the flesh, already accomplished, which we will celebrate at Christmas; and, we are thinking of His arrival still to come at the end of time at his Second Coming.

In this season we prepare ourselves to appreciate more deeply what the Incarnation means for us.  We also prepare ourselves for what it will mean for us on that unknown day and hour when our Incarnate Lord will come “in a cloud with great power and majesty.”  We might say that in Advent we prepare for the double coming of mercy and justice.  We can equate that first arrival of the Lord as the coming of mercy.  Seeing man’s sad state, it is the arrival of mercy that God came in our flesh.  He has drawn near to make it possible for us to draw near to Him.  He has bridged the divide.  And we can equate the second coming with the arrival of justice.  God expects man to respond to his coming near, to respond to His gifts of grace and generous love.  We will be judged by whether we remain near to Him in the state of grace when He returns in justice among the clouds in glory and majesty.

Though the arrival of God in the flesh on that first Christmas, amid angels singing “Glory to God” was a cause of fright for the shepherds keeping watch in the fields, there is not much for us to be frightened by at the prospect of the first coming of the Lord at Christmas.  For us, it is a tender truth of the faith, a great sign of hope, and a blessed and relaxing time to be with ones we love.  The Second Coming, however, is another story.  Given the signs of distress, confusion, and turmoil that are prophesied to accompany the Second Coming, we need a sober admission that some fear is in order.  Now as a preacher of the full Gospel, I am not wanting the message today to be one of anxiety and terror.  But given that we live in a day and age that is far too lax about the rigors of eternal judgment it is probably best to err on the side of encouraging some healthy discomfort and fear.  The road to hell, after all, is paved with good intentions.  And the heresy of universalism by which it is assumed that everyone is simply going to heaven is alive and well.  There is a delicious irony that so soon after our national day of thanksgiving, which we rightly celebrate, but which might be described as rather gluttonous, a day from which we might still be sobering up… there is a delicious irony that we so quickly come face-to-face with the charge to wake up, to think about how we are living so as to observe well the first coming of the Lord at Christmas and to prepare with seriousness for the second coming of the Lord as Judge.

We walk a fine line as Catholics.  We don’t profess faith in the first coming in a delirious fashion such that we ignore the second coming.  And we don’t cower in terror as we profess faith in the Second Coming, precisely because we always remember the first coming and the hope the Incarnation brings us, a hope in whose honor we genuflect at each Creed and each final Gospel.  Beginning this new year of grace and this season of preparation, aware as we are that there will be terrifying signs in the cosmos that accompany the Lord’s return, we hear and heed the call to not dwell in terror, even as we hold on to reverential fear that motivates us.  I say this because the Gospel itself, upon mentioning the tumult of the end times, gives us a surprising charge.  In the face of terrifying signs we would naturally tend to hunker down and hide and brace ourselves.  But the Gospel tells us, “when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads…”  Why?  “Because,” it says, “your redemption is at hand.”

And so, our response always is to live the generous grace that has flooded human history in that first coming of mercy so that we are ready in the ways the Lord knows will be sufficient for that second coming of justice.  The epistle gives us clear direction: our salvation is nearer now.  Each day when we awake is a little preparation.  The same images apply to the second coming.  Light is approaching.  It is time to wake up.  It is time to get out of the darkness of sin.  It is time to shake the sleep from our eyes.  And most evocative, the epistle tells us it is time to “put on the armor of light.”

When I wake up each day, when I leave the darkness of night, when I shake the sleep from my eyes, I generally follow the same simple routine, and I bet you do too.  I am not looking for much novelty when the alarm goes off each morning.  The routine of getting up and getting ready is familiar.  That might be a good image for us in the spiritual life and in preparations for the Second Coming.  We don’t need novelties and we don’t need much that is new.  We need the routine and the familiar.  So, what is our proven armor of light?  Do you give time for meaningful personal prayer on a daily basis?  You should.  And seek to grow and increase in the time you give to God.  Do you turn off the noise and the absurd ways we keep ourselves distracted such that you can pray a daily Rosary?  You should.  It is a privileged weapon in the battle and no armored saint would be without that sword.  Do you confess your sins regularly?  You should.  The Judge is coming.  So, judge yourself honestly now in confession and you will be more ready and aided to live in grace.  Do you unite yourself at the Holy Mass, lifting yourself, your needs, and your prayers on the paten and in the chalice, making yourself part of the offering on the altar?  You should.  Here we have the sacramental participation of the one sacrifice of the Lord who has already come in mercy.  Here we are renewed in the armor of light.  Here we practice lifting up our heads to see him coming in justice.  We do so with reverence and confidence for our redemption is at hand.

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXXIII per Annum C
13 November 2022

 In the month of November, the Catholic mind quite naturally considers the end of things.  The Church’s liturgical year is coming to an end.  The Scripture readings in this time of year speak to us of the end of things.  As we have decreasing daylight in this season, we give special attention to prayer for the souls of those who have gone before us, whose eyes have closed to the light of this world.  All this easily brings to mind the end of things, the end of the world at the Second Coming, the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell), and the destination of our own soul after death.

In the Gospel, after numerous chapters chronicling his journey, Jesus has now arrived at his destination of Jerusalem.  He is in the Holy City and has been welcomed as the king with palm branches and cries of “hosanna!” (cf. Mt. 21).  The setting of this Gospel passage is the lead up to that first Holy Week.  The Lord teaches in the Temple.  He then goes across the valley with his disciples.  From there they can look back at the holy city and its gleaming temple.  Jesus speaks of the destruction of the temple.  That is the clear and primary meaning of the Lord’s words in this passage.  The temple had been previously destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC.  The prophetic prediction is that it would happen again.  Jesus speaks words that back up that prediction as we heard in today’s passage.  And, in fact, that destruction did take place within some forty years after Jesus’ death.  The Lord tells his disciples that many disturbing signs will precede and accompany this destruction.  His disciples are to be alert but they are not to be afraid, even though they will not know exactly when the destruction will come.  A lesson from the words of this Gospel and the teaching of the Lord, is that we don’t follow those who claim to know the day or the hour of these events.  We certainly take note of signs of strife between nations and peoples, and the signs in the cosmos of natural disasters.  These communicate to us that we should be ready and prepared for what comes.  But we are not to get wrapped up in anxiety and frantic predictions.  Rather, we live each day alert.

The Church has always understood a rich significance of the Lord’s prediction of the destruction of the temple.  To understand this deeper significance, we must know something of the significance of the temple in the Jewish mind.  Among other things one can say, it is important to note that the Jerusalem temple was viewed as a microcosm of heaven and earth, of the whole universe.  The layout, the architecture, and the decoration of the temple symbolized heaven and earth.  The different parts of the temple called to mind the parts of the universe, the land, the sea, the skies with their constellations, and the holy of holies was the symbol of heaven itself, the dwelling place of the Most High God.  Theologian Brant Pitre notes that “for the Jews…, the universe was like a macro temple…. But the earthly Jerusalem temple was like a micro universe; it was a microcosm” (Mass Readings Explained, 33rd Sunday C).  So, another meaning of the Lord’s words in this Gospel is that when he speaks of the destruction of the temple there is the deeper significance that he is speaking of the destruction of the whole universe, and he is making a reference to the day of final judgment.

The Church wants us to take note of these important meanings so that we remain alert for the end of things and so that we live in a way that finds us prepared for our judgment.  We need to think of the end of things and we need to think of our own end.  We should do this not only when it is abundantly obvious that the end is near, as it might be when one is advanced in age or facing a terminal illness or sudden disaster.  It needs to be a regular habit we form.  A long tradition in our Catholic spirituality, one encouraged by many saints, is captured in the phrase: Memento mori, which is Latin for “Remember death.”  There will be signs of the end of the world.  We may have signs of our own impending end.  But we won’t know with precision the day or the hour.  Rather, we must live each day in an orderly way as St. Paul referenced in the second reading, we live daily with that vibrant faith and focus so that we are ready whenever the end comes.  We live each day seeking to encounter God in prayer and good moral living.  We live each day availing ourselves of the grace of sacraments that the Lord has so generously left for us.  If we aren’t building a prayer life, if we aren’t using confession regularly, if we’re cutting out of Mass early as a habit do we think we are forming good discipline in order to be ready to meet the Lord?  We have to pay attention to these common, frequent, even daily things for they reveal something about our discipline, our vigilance and preparedness.  Again, as St. Paul said, we did not act in a disorderly way.  These simple things show us something about being ordered, vigilant, and prepared.  We need to think about these and so many other things soberly and honestly.  We don’t want to be like the proud and evildoers spoken of by the Prophet Malachi for whom the day of the Lord’s judgment will come “blazing like an oven,” leaving them set on fire and utterly destroyed, “leaving them neither root nor branch.”  The same day of the Lord will come for us too.  But by lives of disciplined preparedness may we find that day to be a day filled with mercy such that we are among those who fear the Lord and who find that day like “the sun of justice with its healing rays.”

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXXII per Annum C
6 November 2022

 The books of the Maccabees tell the story of the Jewish Maccabeean revolt, in which the Jews were contending with the rule of a Greek king, Antiochus Epiphanes IV.  He was seeking to force his non-Greek subjects to adopt Greek, pagan ways.  This ran afoul of maintaining a pure and authentic Jewish faith.  Today’s passage tells the story of those faithful Jews who refused the king’s governmental order to eat pork in violation of their religious law from God.  The story of these Jewish martyrs is inspiring because they endured torture and death rather than violate aspects of their faith and its practice.  These Jewish martyrs knew themselves to be God’s People first, something of greater importance than their earthly citizenship.  This reading stands out today because the tension between a secular ruler and the demands of secular government as opposed to the authentic living of one’s faith strikes me as an important lesson as we seek to do our duty in Tuesday’s elections as both citizens of God’s kingdom and citizens of the kingdom of man but, it must be said, citizens of God’s kingdom first.

            The Maccabees show us the proper outlook or vision that a person of faith ought to have when navigating the often-meandering paths of this secular world.  Are we made for this present world only?  Do we think that is the case?  Do we act as if that is the case?  Or do we have a vision that acknowledges that we are pilgrims here and that our journey will take us to the passage through death to the next realm, a passage whose destination will be determined by the fact that we will be judged by God?  If you believe that your destiny is heaven, you will act in a way that reveals you have priorities that are different from the priorities of those who consider this world only.  God’s law, God’s kingdom, is higher and takes priority over man’s law.  To acknowledge this is, for the person of faith, critical for having our priorities rightly ordered.  Believers don’t seek conflict with man’s law.  But when man’s law would require of a believer that he transgress God’s law on some grave matter, then the believer must resist and object to the evil that man’s law seeks to require.

            I suspect that many in our political class, especially among our national figures, even those who publicly claim to be people of faith, have a vision limited to this realm.  Many have no real eternal vision.  They have no real reverential awe, or fear, of God.  I suspect that is a key matter at the heart of the secular slide we see in our world, a slide that feels of late more like a Niagara Falls of cascading over the edge from sanity to insanity.  The secular-minded think man’s ways and what man can do are supreme.  They do not think of an eternal judgment or consequences for having chosen to act contrary to God’s law.  We cannot make that same mistake and adopt that philosophy of life.  We need to know that our belonging to God requires of us Catholics that we seek to promote His primacy and His order in our world.  We are to seek to order this world in accord with godly ways by our action, by our energies, and by our promotion of the truth and of sound moral reasoning that understands the claims of justice and seeks to establish an authentic common good where the fundamental rights of others are secured.  This should not be controversial for believers.  Think of the many things we hold in faith that should make it obvious to us that faith and the social order, that faith and our politics, go together.  Obvious things like these: God has made the world in goodness and with specific order and purpose.  God has taken on our flesh and shows us from the “inside”, as it were, how to live in the flesh in a way that is in accord with God and our own innate dignity.  Can we fail to notice in our frequent praying of the Lord’s Prayer those lines with implications for the social, political order: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:9ff).  We hold in faith that Christ is our King.  Do we realize the clear meaning of professing that he is sovereign and we are subjects?  Or do we live as if we are our own sovereigns? Or as if we have no king but Caesar?  Finally, the example of so many saints who brought their faith to bear on addressing social needs and improving the social order, by caring for the poor, founding hospitals and orphanages, and by building an education system, all of this is a powerful sign of how we must preserve that proper vision by which we remain faithful to God and by which we refuse to act contrary to godly ways, even if pressured by government leaders and secular elites.

            Our choices these days are about stark differences between good and evil of the most-grave kind.  It really is not difficult to find national party platform positions and the stance of individual candidates on these issues.  We need to take note of those issues in our moral reasoning that are called intrinsically evil, because that means they can never be good and never acceptable under any condition.  The legal fiction of a constitutional right to abortion has thankfully been rectified by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.  However, the abortion fight is far from over.  We have the tough work on a state-by-state basis now to convert hearts away from despair and the lie of abortion.  No longer being able to hide behind a federal statement like Roe v. Wade, local candidates now have to be much more upfront about their stance on abortion.  When we have a clear choice between a candidate or platform that would support or expand abortion versus one that would seek to limit it and eliminate it, we can never morally support abortion or such a candidate who would expand that evil.  The euphemisms of “reproductive health care” and “reproductive justice” are just masks for one of the gravest of evils.  We have choices to make in the realm of marriage and family.  Our culture suffers under the lie that two men or two women can form a bond that is somehow no different than, or is somehow morally equivalent to, the good that traditional marriage is for society and for the raising and formation of children.  The struggles of the same-sex attracted should be met with compassion from believers and should not be met with a cold shoulder.  We need to speak biblical moral truth to them in charity.  However, we do them no good by voting for, supporting, or promoting the LGBTQ agenda.  The modern distortion of marriage and family is another grave evil, whether it is same-sex marriage or any other arrangement that departs from the bond of one man to one woman.  We cannot support or promote these distortions in our electoral choices.  Another grave evil of our time is the transgender movement and the lie that our bodies do not speak or show us reliable truth.  Despite the fact that the methodology of science is about observable phenomena and the fact that even a grade school level science book would cover the basics of biology and sex, the elite in our leadership and cultural classes insist that we bow to the construct of gender and the lie that cosmetic surgery could make one the opposite sex in any real way.  The indoctrination into this ideology is forced upon children now too.  If we hold proper catholic moral values we must reject this lie.  We cannot support it in our political choices.

            But more than simply refusing to support these and other grave evils when we vote, I think we also need to understand the exciting and yes, at times perilous, call to evangelize and change our society for the better.  Our catholic moral values are not just about saying “no” to things, saying “no” to evils; the truth of our faith is also about saying “yes” to what is true and good and beautiful.  It is about saying “yes” to the things that will truly help people flourish.  And thus, we should have faith and confidence that our act of voting is an important duty for our citizenship in the realms of both God and man.  And more than just making moral choices on the ballot, I am more and more convinced of something else that our time needs: We need solid catholics – people here in these pews, in our parish, to wake up to what is going on around us and to run for office in order to drive positive change.  I’m not even talking about huge statewide or national races that seem out of our grasp.  I’m talking about local races.  The mask is off in our culture these days and we now see that these complicated evils are not just elsewhere, but they are right in our neighborhoods and even our backyards, and in our school systems.  We need solid catholics to run for local school boards, city council, and mayor races.  Those races are decided by very few votes.  Don’t tell me that good people here in this congregation couldn’t step up to bring godly values and sanity to our community.  And if we and just a few other churches stood together as a sort of voting bloc we could determine moral outcomes for the better in our community.

            Too many modern Christians and leaders aren’t passionate about confronting moral evil.  It’s not enough just to call it out.  We need to confront it with prayer, and penance, and sacrifice, and civic engagement, and, yes, even putting ourselves into the race for office.  Don’t throw up your hands in defeat and say, “Oh well.  That’s just how things are.”  Modern life feels to me like a crazy circus in which I did not choose to participate.  As I look over our political landscape, I am rather tired of hearing the now constant claim that the participation in the political process of people with traditional religious and/or conservative values is tantamount to a “threat to our democracy.”  That is really what is being claimed.  We don’t want to let that beat us down and cause us to fail to participate.  Because when we participate in the process, and all the more when we are informed, that IS democracy.  Groups of atheists and leftist secularists are pouring dark money into Oklahoma campaigns.  It’s happening right now in the current election cycle.  Oklahoma has a target on its back because we are known to be a God-fearing State.  We need to be aware of the dangerous ideologies of our time, engaged in civic matters with a divine faith, and fueled by a courage much like that of the Maccabean brothers.  God and His laws have primacy in our lives and they must have primacy in the choices we make about those who govern us.  Thy will be done, Father, on earth as it is in heaven!

All Souls' Day

All Souls’ Day
2 November 2022

                 Those who have come to faith and who have been baptized are numbered among God’s holy ones, the saints.  Though we tend to normally think of the term “saint” in its most restrictive, specific meaning, -- that is, the canonized saints – we should be aware that the term has wider meanings too.  Yesterday the Church placed before us one such wider use of the term “saint” in that we commemorated in one celebration all the anonymous holy ones who are in heaven but whose lives are not as known as the canonized saints.  Today the Church reminds us that we should not forget the souls of the just who have passed from this life and who may still be awaiting full entrance into heaven after some period of cleansing purification, a time of purgation.  For the souls in Purgatory are among that widest meaning of “saint”, including we baptized who are still among the Church Militant on earth.  The Church annually commemorates the souls of all who have died in Christ on All Souls’ Day, November 2nd.  This commemoration of all the baptized dead necessarily makes us confront death, that reality that is, at times, foreseen and sometimes sudden, but always mysterious for at one moment a person is alive and with us, and the next moment he is not.

                When a person dies in the body he passes beyond this veil.  The body deteriorates and the soul, being spiritual and eternal, lives on awaiting the General Resurrection at the end of time.  A soul that dies in unrepented mortal sin, dies in separation from God and remains in that state for all eternity in Hell.  A soul that dies in the perfect state of grace, has immediate passage for all eternity to heaven.  Yet, we recognize, too, another class of possibility: that is, those souls who at the time of death are not guilty of unrepented mortal sin and so are just, are holy, but who are not perfectly holy.  They are just souls, souls in the state of grace, and while, ultimately destined for Heaven, they have lesser sins, imperfections, and temporal punishment to be completed to make repair for past sinfulness.  There are two things to consider when we pray for the deceased.  The first is that we are called in charity to pray for all the deceased.  It is a gift to them.  It is the right thing to do.  We should hope that all people repent and desire the eternal life God generously offers.  But, we do not know the state of a person’s soul.  We are not the judge.  The second thing to consider is, what happens to our prayers?  What happens, in other words, to the grace of the prayerful gift we make for souls?  It must be noted that while we pray for all the deceased, our prayers cannot assist a soul in separation from God because there is no help that can be given such a soul.  It also must be noted that our prayers do not assist a soul in perfect grace who goes immediately to Heaven, because such a soul has no need of any help.  Our prayers can and do assist those just souls in Purgatory who are enduring purification as they await fullness of heavenly life, which is the destiny of all souls in Purgatory.  We call these souls the poor souls because, while in the state of grace, they need our help.

                We pray and we must leave to God to apply that gift to those souls who need our help and who may receive it.  We categorize these souls as the souls in Purgatory.  In charity we should not forget them.  We should aid them by the merits of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by that laudable and long-standing custom of having Masses offered for the deceased.  We offer prayers for specific souls, those of our relatives and friends.  But we should also maintain prayer more generically for all the souls in Purgatory.  The indulgence associated with visiting a cemetery and praying for the dead, which we have been promoting, is another great gift to offer the poor souls.  In doing all this, we hope that we ourselves will not be forgotten when we pass, for we may well need all of God’s holy ones to assist us in our purgation.

                The All Souls’ Day Masses, like a funeral Mass, or any requiem Mass, is marked by a certain somber atmosphere.  You see many visual cues of this somber atmosphere before you.  The vesture of the sacred ministers is traditionally black, the color associated with mourning and death.  The altar and tabernacle, because it is the place from which the Bread of Life comes to us, is never vested in the color of death, but is vested in purple as a reminder that repentance is needed in the face of impending death and also as a reminder that our penances assist the poor souls in need.  This year I revived an older long-standing catholic custom, that of using unbleached candles.  I knew of this custom for a long time but I never bothered to do anything about it.  What finally pushed me over the edge was seeing unbleached candles used at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.  I decided I was tired of Anglicans getting to do Catholic things while Catholics do not!  The bright white of festivity, the normal color of our candles, gives way to the more somber unbleached candle.  All this points to our confrontation with the mystery that we cannot avoid on All Souls’ Day: the mystery of the soul’s passage through death to eternal life.

                It is our faith that at the General Judgment, at the end of time, the bodies of the deceased will rise to be reunited with the soul, as is our proper way to exist as human beings.  The soul will then experience its eternal judgment in the resurrected body.  The question is what kind of eternity, what kind of judgment will it be?  As we heard in the Gospel (cf. Jn. 5:24-19), will it be a resurrection of life, meaning heaven?  Or a resurrection of condemnation, meaning hell?  For we, the saints still on earth, we have the current gift of time to repent, to pray, to confess our sins, to grow in virtue, and to be nourished by the saving gift of the Holy Eucharist.  We join the saints in heaven in praying for the Poor Souls.  And we humbly entrust those who have died to the generous mercy of God, through the spotless hands of Mary, the Mother of Mercy.  Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.

All Saints' Day

Solemnity of All Saints
1 November 2022

                 Every time we profess the Catholic Faith by stating the Creed, as we will do in a few moments, we profess several essential elements of faith in God and our salvation.  And we profess several essential elements about the Church.  At the end of the Creed we say, “I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”  This line of the Creed identifies the four marks of the Church.  These are like identifying signs that point to the Church established by our Blessed Lord.  Where we might be in doubt about what is the Church or where is the Church, we look to find those marks.  The Church established by our Lord is one; it has unity of faith and organization.  The Church established by our Lord includes all people and provides the wholeness of teaching and sanctifying means for our salvation.  The meaning of ‘catholic’ is whole or universal.  The Church established by our Lord was entrusted to the Apostles and maintains an unbroken line of apostolic succession such that the same authority given by Christ comes to us today through our bishops.  And most notable for today’s solemnity, we profess that identifying mark of the Church that is holiness.

                The Church is both a divine and a human institution.  She is both a spiritual reality and a reality that exists in this material world.  Our Lord, the groom to his bride the Church, has made her indefectibly holy by dying to purify and save her and to unite her to himself.  Yet, the holiness proper to the Church must still be fostered and attained by that part of the Church that is still on its journey.  That means you and me.  We have been brought into the holiness of the Church by baptism and the life of grace.  Yet, we are still on pilgrimage here.  We still struggle with sin.  We must reform our lives and respond to the call to holiness so that the identifying mark of holiness may continue to shine visibly in the Church.

                The Church’s liturgical life has us celebrate the holy examples of so many saints.  Many saints punctuate our liturgical calendar because their lives are known and of great renown.  But by no means do we think that the identified and canonized saints are the only saints there are.  After all, the vision of St. John in the Book of Revelation [first reading] indicates both a specific number (144,000 from every tribe of Israel) and an additional “great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.”  Today’s solemnity celebrates the holiness of the Church and it wraps into one observance all those many more saints who are more anonymous, who make the holiness of the Church shine forth.  In celebrating the holiness today of both the known and anonymous saints, we have a renewed call to live more deeply our membership in the Body of Christ by growing in holiness.

                 The People of Israel honored Jerusalem and the Holy Temple as the place of God’s favor and their citizenry.  The prophecy of Ezekiel is prime in identifying the hoped-for New Jerusalem where the Temple would be rebuilt as a center of the Messianic Kingdom and the gathering place of the children of the twelve tribes of Israel.  In the Book of Revelation this city is also called the Heavenly Jerusalem.  In the New Covenant we have come to realize that we await the fulfillment of this Holy City that gathers us all together as a nourishing mother gathers her children.  St. Paul made use of this notion in an allegory about the two sons of Abraham, one from Hagar the slave woman and one from his beloved Sarah, the free woman.  He said these two women stand for the two covenants.  Hagar and her children are enslaved and stand for the present Jerusalem.  But, wrote St. Paul, “the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother” (Gal. 4:21-26).  As children of the promise fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, we await that city to come.  And so, at the altar in a few moments you will hear some poetic imagery for today’s solemnity that might strike you as curious.  I will chant: “For today by your gift we celebrate the festival of your city, the heavenly Jerusalem, our mother” (Preface of the Mass of All Saints’ Day; cf. Rev. 21:10).

                Brothers and sisters, the Church is holy.  She is already holy and she is called to holiness among her members still journeying here.  You and I have the charge to let that holiness proper to the Church shine through our lives.  We aren’t living up to our mission if we think being lukewarm or occasionally godly will suffice.  We also must reject the heresy that would view holiness as an impossible project for us.  The Lord has laid down his life to save us and has opened for us a path that we can traverse.  Recently on the Three Hearts Pilgrimage the group of 1,500 people processed silently in the final mile to enter Clear Creek Abbey Church.  By necessity some pilgrims were in the lead, as is the nature of a line, some in the middle of the pack, and some at the end, but they were all journeying closer to the abbey church.  Being among the first group of pilgrims, I was one of the first to enter the church.  We had a long wait in prayerful silence as the other pilgrims arrived after us.  That strikes me as a moving image for how we celebrate today in one observance so many saints, known and anonymous, and how we are called to take up part of that great multitude of holy ones in procession.  The saints who have already arrived in the heavenly Jerusalem are already around God’s throne praying for us and awaiting our arrival.  They are like the pilgrims I mentioned a few moments ago at the head of the procession who arrive first.  We, though much later in the procession of God’s holy ones are still journeying, but – and here’s what I find moving about the image – we are no less a part of that procession of God’s holy ones; we’re just further back in the line.  We have the example and the powerful prayers of those who are in the lead.  And that gives us greater hope and greater endurance to continue moving in this procession of God’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

Christ the King - Traditional Latin Mass

Dominica D.N. Iesu Christi Regis (Mass of the 1962 Missal)
30 October 2022

 IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

                In a Church with as much history as ours, we observe today a solemnity that is more recent in history.  This solemnity of the universal kingship of Christ was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925.  The Old Testament prophets proclaimed the coming Messiah and his kingship.  The signs surrounding the conception and birth of our Blessed Lord made it clear that he was the fulfillment of the promise made of a descendent of David whose kingship would be firm and whose kingdom would have no end.  We who live in societies with representative forms of governance need to make sure we do not easily dismiss or gloss over the kingship of Christ and his claim on us.  In addition, observing the Kingship of Christ calls us to seek God’s kingdom with renewed vigor.  Finally, we must admit a serious duty as Catholics to work to bring the world into greater conformity to the reign of Christ, and by prayers, and influence, and action, to return the world to its proper place under the authority of Christ.  We should not fail to notice that with major elections just days away, we have an opportunity and a duty to vote in a way that shows we understand that Christ is our King and the King of all nations, all time, and all history.

                The Gospel for this solemnity is the more private interrogation of the Lord by Pilate inside the praetorium.  The Jewish authorities have their own charges against our Lord.  But they bring him to Pilate because as the Roman authority he has the ability to condemn to death.  As a Roman authority, Pilate is not interested in the religious charges.  The Romans aren’t going to execute anyone based on a charge of blasphemy or some other violation of the Torah.  But when Pilate hears the political charge of being a king, his interest is raised and he must inquire about who would claim a kingship contrary to the sole kingship of the Emperor.  And so, to determine if there is potential treason involved, Pilate asks the Lord, “Art thou King of the Jews?”  You can see that Pilate is not interested in any religious debate or charge when he says, “Am I a Jew?.... What hast Thou done?”

                Here the Lord, who has preached often about the Kingdom of God, makes direct mention of his own Kingdom.  His is a kingdom not of this world.  Were it of this world the Lord’s subjects would act as any other members of a kingdom would act under threat, they would fight to preserve it: in this case they would strive to see that the Lord is not turned over to the Jews.  But as it is, his kingdom is not here.

                The Kingdom of Christ our King is not here.  I think this deserves some focus and reflection.  The result of this truth is by no means that we as Catholics ignore this world or fail to care for it or to have interest in it.  No, we have a duty to see that our efforts and prayers and energies are employed to bring this world into greater conformity to the reign of Christ.  But we must never make the mistake of thinking or acting that our primary or enduring focus is a kingdom in the realm of man.  I think this important lesson needs focus and reflection because I am more and more convinced that many endeavors of man reveal the mistaken notion that we seek fulfillment here in a kingdom of this world.  One might excuse the average man of thinking this way.  But one cannot excuse a person of faith or someone in the Church.  Yet, sadly, more and more do we not see so many endeavors in the Church that seem to rise from an erroneous foundation that views this world and this life as a kingdom of ultimate value or, worse, that views this world as our ultimate destination?

                Our time is marked by a serious lack of supernatural faith.  It is marked by a poverty of the fear of God.  Sadly, we see this in the Church too.  As a Church we expend massive amounts of time and energy and money on flashy programs and consultants and professionals yet one wonders what might happen if even a fraction of such capital was spent on actually proclaiming the Gospel with fidelity and courage.  What I call “a franchise mentality” has somehow taken over our Church and many a bishop acts more like a bureaucrat than an apostle.  Our leaders do just about anything to protect the body from any danger, as if death of the body is a worse evil than death of the soul.  This inverted and perverted focus revealed itself in the Church when we deemed ourselves to be non-essential during COVID panic by closing down, choking off the proclamation of the Good News while proclaiming the secular “gospel of vaccination” along with most of the cultural elites.  I would love for the Lord to return today and suddenly appear in the office of the Synod of Bishops in the Vatican and say, “My kingdom is not here.”  I amuse myself with the notion that all the garbage and heresy fomented by that office would suddenly be given a voice, like the very stones of Jerusalem crying out to our King (cf. Lk. 19:38-40), to testify against the leadership for its culpable lack of faith and its scandal of causing us little ones to sin because of their betrayal of the Faith.

                Yes, we need a potent reminder in our contemporary world – and even in the Church – that the Lord is King and even though we do not ignore this world that has been made by God to be good, we must always admit the primacy of the kingdom that is not here.  Have we begun life in the kingdom here?  Yes.  But the fulfillment is not in this world.  May our proclamation of the full meaning of Christ’s kingship be a catalyst that causes us to strive for greater holiness and to have zeal to arrive at the “kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, a Kingdom of justice, love, and peace” (From the Preface for the Mass of Christ the King).

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXVIII per Annum C
9 October 2022

    The first reading and the Gospel selection follow a remarkably similar narrative.  A leper, who is a foreigner, is cleansed and has enough awareness to notice, to make a return, and to thank God in adoration and homage.  Two lepers.  Two non-Jews.  Two who are not part of God’s People.  Only these are aware of the gift they are given; only these make a return; only these thank God.  And because their eyes are open to the gift and because their hearts are filled with gratitude, they receive still more from God: not only physical healing but the salvation of their souls that unites them to God’s People and to the worship and sacrifice offered to the true God!

   Over time the biblical imagery of the physical malady of leprosy has become a figure of spiritual malady.  While we are not concerned about the transmission of leprosy in our community, we can apply a broader spiritual lesson to our lives.  In particular, I want to encourage an application of the lesson to our life as Christian stewards.  The spiritual lessons come from what the Gospel tells us happened as the lepers were leaving Jesus.  Listen again, “As they were going they were cleansed.  And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God…; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.”  Some fundamental but critical spiritual lessons come from this description.  These lessons from the one leper should be part of our lives.  The lessons are threefold: realizing, making a return, and glorifying or thanking God.

   The lesson of realizing is being aware of what God does for us, being aware of what is given us, and how we are blessed.  It is a self-awareness and an awareness about God.  It is not a call to self-absorption, but rather it is a lesson to be more reflective, prayerful, and recollected so that we take notice of what is happening in us and around us, especially as it regards our life with God.  Being aware in the spiritual life takes effort and practice.  We are often so busy about the things of the physical realm, the things our senses can perceive, that we leave largely untrained and undeveloped the skill of taking notice of our soul and the movements of the spiritual realm.  The simple comment of the Gospel highlights, however, just what a difference this lesson makes.  All the lepers were cleansed.  Apparently only one was aware.  Only one noticed.  Only one realized.  The other nine kept going their way.  The awareness of the one, led him back to a deeper encounter with God Himself.  See, then, how important a practice awareness is?!

   The second lesson is making a return.  When we are reflective and train ourselves in spiritual awareness we are less likely to miss what is going on in our life with God.  Being more in tune with God’s movements and His blessings in our lives, we then are in a position to respond by making a return to Him.  Without developing this lesson, we risk, like the other nine lepers, going on our merry way unaware of both how we have already been blessed by God and how we might be still more blessed if we made a return and remained in God’s presence, where He is clearly bestowing His blessings.

   The third lesson is glorifying and thanking God.  God deserves and is owed our praise.  Recall the Alleluia verse?  “In all circumstances, give thanks!”  Our individual prayer, our virtuous living as temples of the Holy Spirit, and our worship at Holy Mass and adoration in the chapel are all important ways we glorify God.  Given that the Greek word for “giving thanks,” used in this Gospel passage when the one leper thanked Jesus, given that the word is eucharisteo, we have a clear connection to the Holy Eucharist.  This takes on a deeper meaning for us as Catholics in that being present at Mass to worship and taking time to be before the Lord in our adoration chapel are clear connections to the giving thanks that is the very heart of the Holy Eucharist.

   What we see in this Gospel passage is that these spiritual practices of realizing what God is doing, making a return, and glorifying and thanking Him in Jesus, are not only appropriate ways by which we celebrate what God generously gives us, but these practices open us to even more blessings from God.  Notice all ten lepers received the blessing of healing, but only the one received still more, for he heard that not only his flesh, but his soul, was healed: “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”

   Over the past several weeks we have heard from the section of St. Luke’s Gospel that offers several parables about the proper use of wealth.  With those parables in mind together with the lessons today from the leper I’d like to encourage our practice of stewardship as regards our commitment to the needs of our parish and to the needs we can provide by means of other charitable giving.  I think the lessons of realizing our blessings, making a return, and thanking God have a direct application to how we each are called to provide for our communal life here at the parish.  The way of life of stewardship, by which Christian disciples are grateful for gifts received and seek to give back to God such that He is glorified, is a way of life for each of us.  It is a way of life that the parish itself follows.  It can be hard to keep everyone in the loop in a parish setting.  Thus, I shouldn’t assume that everyone can appreciate how the parish practices stewardship.  In fact, the parish itself tithes by making a commitment of using 10% of our income for charitable use.  I hope you will find it inspiring that from each weekend collection we pull 10% off the top and place it in a separate bank account for gifts we make to local, national, and international charities.  That tithe from our Sunday collection income is not available for use for operations or other expenses.  It is a commitment we make to the Lord to be confident that he has and that he will continue to bless us, and so we freely use our tithe to be available to bless others.  Believe me, when you consider the pinch that giving requires of you, I, too, as Pastor, feel it on behalf of the parish.  There are lean times in the parish budget and it can be tempting to think, if we could just use that tithe to get us by this month or to help us make that loan payment!  But, no, we have a firm commitment on the parish level to maintain that tithe as a practice of stewardship and as an example leading the way in asking of you that you similarly tithe to the parish and to other charities.

   Given today’s Gospel lessons about awareness, making a return, and giving thanks we might ask ourselves: Do I seek to be aware and to count the blessings I have?  Am I grateful to God for what He has done in my life?  Do I thank Him in the prayers and offerings of the Holy Mass?  Do I thank Him by making a commitment to time in adoration in our chapel?  Am I grateful for the people and things, the skills and blessings, God has put into my life?  How do I express that gratitude?  Do I give back to God?  I think awareness, gratitude, and stewardship have a direct connection: When you take time to reflect, and to notice, and to be aware of the gifts you have been given, you quite easily want to give back.  This is the habit I urge you to form.  It will reap benefits in your life.  It will reap benefits in our parish life as we seek to meet the demands of running a parish.  And it will reap benefits in the lives of others we seek to serve.

   I give a finance/stewardship talk about two to three times per year to make us aware of our financial status and to encourage stewardship.  It is important that you have some awareness of our budget and our financial position.  Because the staff and I are rather frugal and careful with our expenses our budget tends to come out positively when viewed over a 12-month period.  However, the reality of cash flow is quite a different story from month-to-month.  When we look at the money we need to pay the bills and to do the things we do week-to-week and month-to-month, we face regular challenges of not having the appropriate cash flow.  The only real place we get income is from you.  So, I ask that each parishioner be involved in helping carry the responsibility we all share together for having a parish and for covering the costs of what we do.  It is clear to me from conversations that many people know they should be making sacrificial gifts and they want to do so, but maybe it never happens, or it happens irregularly.  If that is your situation, my challenge to you is to make a specific plan today.  That plan should be as simple and direct as these three steps: (1) Decide today that I will visit the adoration chapel and make a visit of at least 10 minutes each week.  I will go there to be in the presence of the Lord to give him thanks.  I will go there to ask that he increase my faith and to ask that he guide me as I plan my regular gift to my parish.  Two, (2) I will begin making a regular gift to my parish today, whatever that gift is, whatever the amount.  It belongs to God as a gift I entrust to the Church here in my parish.  I will commit to a weekly amount that I will set aside for my support of the parish and I will make that gift at regular intervals, weekly or monthly.  Three, (3) if I am not currently giving and I don’t know where to start, then I will consider the dollar amount of a sacrifice I can make each week, something I can do without in order to get in the habit of supporting my parish.  Maybe that weekly sacrifice is the amount of one of my favorite coffee drinks that I get many days each week.  Maybe it is the cost of my favorite meal at a restaurant.  Maybe it is the value of one hour of my work week.  Can you sacrifice at least that amount and put it in an envelope or give it electronically each week in gratitude to God and in support of your parish?  I bet it is more possible than you think.  And these steps should be taken with the view of strengthening and increasing this practice of stewardship so that each of us becomes a regular sacrificial giver, a giver who intentionally plans what to give to God, a giver who gives first to God off the top and not only from what is left over, and a giver who is a percentage giver.

   We count on your regular gifts and we make ministry and administrative decisions based on whether we have enough income to do the things we would like to do in order to serve you.  If you are not signed up for Faith Direct electronic giving, there is information in the pews and I ask you to consider that method of giving.  It is a very easy and safe way to make your gifts.  It is managed from your computer or smartphone and can be as easy as giving via a text message to set up an account.  If you cannot manage electronic giving and if you don’t have, or are not getting envelopes, please get help from the office staff to participate as a regular contributor to your parish’s needs.  The staff can help you get set up for the method you prefer for making your gifts.  I can’t tell you – and I wouldn’t presume to tell you – how much you should give.  I can tell you one thing that our practice of stewardship should be and one thing that it should not be – and this holds true for each one of us here.  Our gift should be sacrificial.  And our gift should not be zero.  I can assure you that I and the staff and our Finance Council respect your gifts, we remain frugal, and we will always use our parish resources responsibly.

   Last week we heard the Apostles ask “Increase our faith.”  We can make that our prayer to the Lord too as we seek to take new steps in stewardship and the practice of regular giving to our parish.  In today’s passage faith is what saves the leper.  Awareness/realizing – making a return – thanking God – and increased faith and trust all go hand in hand.  If you will work to be reflective and aware in your spiritual life, you’ll find more blessings.  You’ll be more grateful.  It will be much easier to give back to God.  And you’ll feel more free as a disciple to be sacrificial in your giving to the parish and to the other charities you support.

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXVII per Annum C
2 October 2022

 For many weeks now we have been hearing the Lord’s teaching while on an extended journey to Jerusalem.  This section of St. Luke’s Gospel contains many challenging parables.  The Apostles, and we, have heard parables about the cost of discipleship over these weeks.  We have heard parables about repentance, being lost, and the extravagant mercy of God who searches us out.  We have heard parables about the proper use of wealth and riches, and the call to put our resources at the service of others as good stewards.  Today we are reminded that we are servants who have duties to fulfill and that we ought not fulfill those duties as if expecting some particular praise or reward for doing what we simply should do.  We have done only what we were obliged to do, to use words from the Gospel.  We each face many challenges in life and in living the faith.  We are not promised that we will navigate this life without difficulty.  We are not promised that the final resolution to suffering and challenge will be here in this life.  With this in mind, I bet the prayer of the Apostles could easily be the prayer each of us makes to Jesus: “Increase our faith.”

 Now the Apostles by this point certainly already had faith.  They had encountered Jesus and they had been changed.  They had come to believe in him.  Yet, they must walk with him and journey through life encountering all the things, all the ups and downs, that life brings to any one of us.  That the Apostles ask that their faith be increased is a reminder to us that faith is not static.  It is something that must grow.  We might even consider that hearing the series of challenging parables from the Lord, parables presented to us these past many weeks, we might suggest that the Apostles are also asking that their trust be increased.  The personal trust of the believer is, after all, another meaning of the word “faith”.  In other words, they are not seeking only the faith that believes in things but the faith that leads them to deeper trust to maintain their relationship with the Lord through all that life brings.

  In their prayer for increased faith, increased trust, Jesus uses the simple example of the mulberry tree.  He says, even if you have only a little faith, “you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”  The example highlights two unlikely, and even impossible things.  First, a mulberry tree is known to have such a broad, expansive, and deep root system that it is unlikely you are going to uproot it.  Second, a tree is not going to be planted in the sea and survive.  The idea with this image then is that faith has the ability to do things beyond our capabilities.  Faith can do the seemingly impossible.  And it does so, not because of us but, because of God’s power.  It is God who accomplishes things when we let Him act, when we have faith that calls out to Him for things we cannot achieve.

  Each of us faces moments and events of life that test us and that leave us feeling powerless.  The first reading from the Prophet Habakkuk demonstrates this and uses words that might resonate with us in our challenges.  “How long, O Lord?  I cry for help but you do not listen!... Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?”  Again, in this fallen world we are not promised an easy passage.  Suffering comes and it may last for a long time and it may come frequently.  We want answers and solutions and happy resolutions here.  But the word of the Lord through the Prophet Habakkuk calls us to have faith in the vision of the Lord’s promises to come.  That vision, the Lord says, “presses on to fulfillment…. If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come…. The rash one has no integrity; but the just one, because of his faith, shall live.”  There will be challenge and suffering, yes, but the one who has faith shall endure and shall live.

  And so, we come to the words of Psalm 95, the responsorial psalm of this Holy Mass, a psalm that the Church prays daily at the first prayer time of each day in the Liturgy of the Hours, called the Invitatory.  That psalm begins by referring to the Lord God as the Rock of our salvation.  That image is not just a generic image for strength and solid foundation.  Rather, it is a direct reference to the experience of God’s People in the exodus and desert wanderings.  The rock is the rock that Moses struck to provide the people water in the desert at Meribah and Massah.  There, as the people were being led and provided for in the desert, they were given water to drink yet at the same time they doubted.  They failed to completely trust.  In the very moment of being provided water the people were saying, “Is the Lord in our midst or not?”  And so, the section of the psalm we use today references that very event saying, “Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert, where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works.”

 The Church recognizes the challenges that each life brings and recognizes that even in the midst of blessings and God’s workings among us we are tempted to doubt and to lack faith.  The Church recognizes that we need greater trust because we lose perspective and focus in “our deserts”.  Just like the People of Israel did, we, too, have our places of contention and grumbling and testing, we have “our Meribahs” and “our Massahs”.  And so, at the beginning of each day, not knowing what may come our way, the Church places on our lips this very experience from the desert wanderings.  We use these same words today, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”  Like the Apostles we call out to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”  We beg that our vision and perspective may be purified in all things – all the moments and events that life brings us – that we may let God work to do the things we cannot see or achieve on our own.

Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXVI per Annum C
25 September 2022

   Last week’s Gospel concluded with these words: “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”  Mammon refers to wealth, specifically a wealth that one treats as an idol, whether consciously or not.  The message is that we cannot serve both God and wealth; we cannot serve two masters.  As I mentioned last week, this section of St. Luke’s Gospel we are in is the Lord’s extended teaching about the proper use of wealth. 

   This parable is unique in that one of the figures is named, as opposed to the typical trend in parables of unnamed characters.  Usually we have only a rich man, a steward, a man who loses a sheep, a woman who loses a coin.  But here the poor and diseased man is named Lazarus.  The rich man is not named.  However, you might come across this parable referred to as the Parable of Lazarus and Dives.  In our Catholic tradition, the rich man was eventually given the name Dives, not because it is a name but because “Dives” is Latin for rich man.  There has been speculation that perhaps this Lazarus is the same Lazarus from John chapter 11, who died and who was brought back from the dead as a warning and as a sign to persuade others to believe.  We do not know.  There is also speculation about this particular rich man.  Not only is he rich, like the rich man in last week’s parable, but this rich man seems to be spectacularly rich.  He is rich and he is also dressed in linen and fine purple, purple being a color associated with royalty.  Just to make a quick modern connection with that color: Did you notice on Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin and on the high altar at Windsor Castle that the crown, the orb, and the scepter were placed on pillows of purple fabric?  The rich man also “dined sumptuously each day”.  It is one thing to be rich enough to eat well, but it is an entirely unique level of wealth to eat so well on a daily basis.  The connection of purple to royalty and the spectacular wealth of this particular rich man has led some to speculate that this may be a veiled reference to King Herod Antipas.  But again, we do not know.

   Today’s parable gives us an illustration of what it can look like when we attempt to serve both God and mammon.  Now very few of us may have a wealth equivalent to that described of this rich man, but each of us is quite wealthy compared to large swaths of humanity around the world.  Whatever the bottom line of our own finances is, each of us can take a lesson from this parable about our relationship to wealth, the danger of complacency, and the call to be good stewards who use our treasure for others.

As children of God we are given gifts that we do not earn or deserve.  We are given life and the offer of salvation.  We are entrusted with gifts that are not ours to horde but to use in service of others.  We are not made for ourselves.  We are not enriched by gifts for ourselves.  We are called together as a community, the Church, the family of God.  We are our brother’s keeper.  Furthermore, to respond to Christ’s calling in such a way that deserves heavenly reward, we cannot be indifferent to the needs of others around us.  In his complacency with all the goods of this world, the rich man in the parable failed to notice and to respond to the needs of Lazarus who was right at his door, right in his view.  After death, the rich man finds himself in a place of torment with a “great chasm” separating him from the place of blessing with God imaged as the “bosom of Abraham.”  In this a stark lesson comes to light for us who still have time to change our own ways: We learn that whatever the distance between ourselves and God in the life to come just may be a reflection of the distance we put between ourselves and the poor in this life.

   The rich man goes to a place of torment after death.  But I think a powerful lesson for us and our calling to be stewards of our goods is to take note of what the rich man does not do.  The parable doesn’t tell us that the rich man is an idolator.  He doesn’t break the Sabbath.  There is no evidence that he stole from anyone.  We are not told that he is a liar, an adulterer, or a murderer.  The parable simply describes that he lived a life of luxury and gluttony and that led him to be complacent in this life and it led him to fail to love his neighbor, imaged in the poor man Lazarus who was right at his door.  In other words, this is a powerful lesson because the rich man is condemned to torment for a sin of omission.  He didn’t commit the gravest of sins against the Ten Commandments.  But he failed in charity.  He failed to love his neighbor as himself.  Luxury and ease can cause blindness and complacency.  We learn in this parable how significant and weighty a thing it is to be called to use our resources and our wealth as a means to extend God’s generosity to others, as a means to serve and to care for the needy, whom we should not fail to notice.

We see this same lesson in the first reading too.  The rich and powerful are visited with punishment and exile in today’s readings - not simply because of their wealth but for their refusal to share it; not for their power but for their indifference to the suffering at their doors.  Those who are complacent and filled with much, such that they are prevented from realizing their own poverty and the need of others, will have nothing in the life to come.  Complacency is the deadly enemy of a lively faith that must, according to St. Paul, “compete well” and strive to “lay hold of eternal life.”

   With today’s readings ringing in our ears, in our minds, and in our hearts, some probing questions ought to come to mind.  What comforts and complacencies do we need to be shaken out of?  Will we let God’s Word in Scripture unsettle us and cause us to evaluate whether we are truly striving for holiness?  Do we compete more for things of this life rather than competing to keep ourselves on the good side of the chasm between damnation and salvation?  Do we sit by idly and allow our kids to be complacent about faith and discipleship, while keeping them fat on things that will not last?  You see, unlike the rich man’s many brothers, we have not only Moses and the prophets to listen to but God Himself in the flesh – Jesus the Christ!  Will we listen?  Or will we find the distance we keep between ourselves and the needy and poor to be the distance between us and the kingdom of light, refreshment, and life in the world to come?