December 31 2018 - Christ and Anti-Christs

December 31 is a retrospective day for many people.  A day to look back on the experiences of the year: to recall God’s blessings and interventions in our lives and to give thanks and to look forward that next year be better than the last. 

Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “It is our duty, as well as a need of our hearts, to praise and thank the Eternal One who accompanies us through time, never abandoning us, and who always watches over humanity with the fidelity of his merciful love.”

How has the Lord accompanied us through 2018, a difficult year for many people? Three hundred sixty-five days this year Jesus has offered himself to us—in his teaching, in his Sacraments, most especially in the Eucharist.  365 days he has offered to forgive our sins, and invited us to make a new beginning in the life of grace—turning to him for strength in times of temptation, turning to him for guidance in times of confusion. In the darkest moments of 2018, he was there. Did we turn to him? Did we turn to the Christ, or did we turn to the voices and empty promises, of those St. John calls in our first reading, the anti-christs.

“Many anti-christs have appeared” John writes. Each of us faced anti-christs in 2018, whether we know it or not. These were the voices that sought to deceive us, to follow them and depart from the way of Jesus. They tried to convince us to give up faith, give up hope, and give up charity and to despair of God's mercy for sinners. By their example, perhaps, they sought to sway us to hate our neighbor, ignore the commandments, deepen division in our family, and snub the poor. They’ve sewed seeds of error, caused scandal and weakened the communion of the church. They’ve led Christians to leave the Church and non-believers to look elsewhere for salvation. There were anti-christs in John’s day, there were anti-christs in 2018 and there will be anti-christs in 2019. God forgive us if we were anti-christs to anyone, and God preserve from being anti-Christs to anyone.

As we prepare to end one year and enter another, we look back, to reflect upon and give thanks for the blessings of the year, we gird ourselves to continue the spiritual battle ahead, and we look forward with hope and trust that the Lord Christ is stronger than all the anti-Christs, His “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Today is not a day for disappointment over how little we have achieved, but a day for thanks over what God has achieved, and joyful anticipation of what He desires to achieve through us, with us, and in us for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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We bring forth now our prayers of petitions.

For the conversion of all those who have turned their hearts from Christ, for those who have fallen into serious sin, for a strengthening of all of the faithful in virtue. And That God may bring the faithless to believe in His Son and increase the faith of those struggling to believe.

For Christians who are persecuted throughout the world, especially those who face martyrdom, that they may have a faith that is constant and pure.

For the safety of all those celebrating the New Year this evening, safety from physical harm and preservation from sin.

For those oppressed by hunger, sickness or loneliness, that through the mystery of the Nativity of Christ, they may find relief in both mind and body.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Incline your merciful ear to our prayers, we ask, O Lord, and listen in kindness to the supplications of those who call on you. Through Christ our Lord

31st Week in OT 2018 - Tuesday - The self-emptying of Christ

Today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians is one of the most beloved passages in the entire New Testament—Paul’s Christological hymn also known as the Philippians Hymn.  Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians in the late 50s, yet scholars believe that the Philippians hymn predated the letter, a hymn that Paul may have encountered during an earlier missionary journey. So it is perhaps one of the oldest expressions of Christian faith dating back to the 40s or even possibly the 30s just years after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Our Lord.

This hymn encapsulates the humility of Jesus, which Paul is exhorting the Philippians to practice, especially in their conduct toward one another. Harmony and unity amongst Christians is predicated on each member of the community seeking to imitate, having the same attitude of, the humble Christ.
The hymn points out the Lord’s humility in his self-emptying, leaving his exalted status in heaven at the behest of his Father, to become a slave for our redemption. Obedience to the Holy Will of the Father is one mark of humility. Willingness to embrace suffering for the good of others is another.

Pope Benedict XVI, commenting on this passage wrote: “Christ, incarnated and humiliated in the most infamous death, that of crucifixion, is proposed as a vital model for the Christian…not content with gazing on us with a benign look from his throne of glory, [God] enters personally in human history, becoming "flesh," namely, fragile reality, conditioned by time and space…To penetrate into Jesus' sentiments means not to consider power, wealth and prestige as the highest values in life, as in the end, they do not respond to the deepest thirst of our spirit, but to open our heart to the Other, to bear with the Other the burden of life and to open ourselves to the Heavenly Father with a sense of obedience and trust, knowing, precisely, that if we are obedient to the Father, we will be free”

In Holy Communion today, we approach the one who empties himself that we may be full of life. May we pour ourselves out in humble Christian service for the unity of our Church and the good of those most in need, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That bishops, priests, and all ministers of the Gospel may seek to imitate Jesus in his charity, compassion, self-sacrifice, and witness to the Truth.

On this Election Day, we pray that all those seeking political office will use their political influence selflessly to serve Christ’s kingdom of justice and peace.

That all Christians may seek to imitate the Lord Jesus ever-more deeply in his humble obedience to the Father’s Will.

For the impoverished and sick and those experiencing any sort of trial: that they may know the goodness of God and the charity of the Church.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for whom we pray especially during this month of November, for deceased clergy and religious, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom.

O God, you know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.

Christmas 2017: "They wrapped him in swaddling clothes."

What child is this, who, laid to rest,
On Mary's lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:
Haste, haste to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

“What Child is this,” What child is this whose birth we gather to celebrate this day? We learn a lot about his identity and his mission, by the company he keeps, by those who gathered for his birth: Angels, shepherds, wise men, a carpenter, and a sinless virgin: seekers, workers, the humble. There are certainly some seekers, some workers, and maybe even some angels here tonight. As my favorite Christmas card says, “the wise seek him still.”

We also learn a lot about the Christ child by where he was born: not in a royal palace, not in a hospital, not in his family home, not even in the village inn, but in stable, a cave used for housing and feeding animals in the backwater town of Bethlehem. We have a God who chooses to be born into “straw poverty”, who teaches us to seek him and to serve him in his poor ones.

But I’d like to focus not on those who witnessed his birth, nor on his place of birth, I’d like to focus on his clothes. When the angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds, by what sign were they to know him? His swaddling clothes. “And this will be a sign for you,” the angel said, “you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

There is a story about a number of priests who were on a retreat with the famous biblical scholar, Donald Senior, and they were going around the room talking about their favorite biblical passage.  One priest said his favorite passage was, “Lord, to whom shall we go, you have the words of everlasting life.”  Another priest said his was, “Let it be done to me according to thy word.”  The priests expected the noted biblical scholar to have some complex passage from St. Paul’s letters, but he said his favorite passage was, “and they wrapped him in swaddling clothes”.  They wrapped him in swaddling clothes.  He says, “we have a God who was a baby in a manger, we have a God who wore a diaper, we have a God who was wrapped in swaddling clothes.  That’s how accessible, that’s how loveable our God is.  He’s a baby.  And he wants us to pick him up, and embrace him, and kiss him, and he wants us to tell him that we love him, and need him, that he has changed our lives, and that we will spend our lives loving him.”

On Christmas Eve a few years ago, Pope Benedict wrote, “God is so great that he can become small. God is so powerful that he can make himself vulnerable and come to us as a defenseless child, so that we can love him. God is so good that he can give up his divine splendor and come down to a stable, so that we might find him, so that his goodness might touch us, give itself to us and continue to work through us.”

His swaddling clothes certainly speak of Our Lord’s humility.

Yet, the swaddling clothes have another significance.

Bethlehem wasn’t known for much, but it did have one industry, you might call it. The shepherds of Bethlehem raised lambs for the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. They were Levitical shepherds and raised the lambs that would be used in the Passover sacrifice in the Jerusalem temple. And when it was time for these lambs to be born the shepherds, would bring them into the shepherd’s cave and then they would be swaddled because the sacrifice had to be without spot or blemish.

A baby born in the same place as the sacrificial Passover Lambs, swaddled like a Passover lamb, pointed to the fact that this child was the Lamb of God born to be the sacrifice which takes away the sins of the world. Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen would often say, some men were born to live.

He was born to die for us.
Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians, fear, for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spears shall pierce him through,
the cross he bore for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
the Babe, the Son of Mary.

The cross he bore for me, for you. This is why he was born. Or as we recite in the Creed: "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man." The Creed itself links these two ideas: his birth and our need for a Savior.

Had our greatest need been knowledge, God would have sent us an educator.  Had our greatest need been technology, God would have sent us a scientist.  So too had our greatest need been for money, God would have sent us an economist.  Had our greatest need been for pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But, because our greatest need was for redemption from sin, God sent us a Savior.
His very name, Jesus, means “God saves”. As the angel said to Joseph, “you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

To us is born a Savior, into the poverty of Bethlehem, to bring us the riches of heaven.
To us is born a Savior, who is wrapped in swaddling clothes, that we may know we are wrapped in God’s love.
To us is born a Savior, who brings healing to the most broken of the human family.
To us is born a Savior, who commands the storms of our life to “Be still!”
To us is born a Savior, who casts out demons from the darkest souls.
To you is born a Savior, the Passover Lamb, who allows his hands and feet to be nailed to a cross to rescue us from our sin.
To us is born a Savior, who pronounces our sins forgiven and who feeds us with his flesh and blood, that we might have eternal life.
To us is born a Savior, who sends us out to bring his scattered sheep into one flock, the Church.
To us is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Thursday - 1st Week of Lent 2017 - Harmony of Prayer and Service

The short Gospel passage taken near the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount contains an interesting combination of teachings.

On one hand, it seems Jesus is teaching us about prayer. We are to turn to God confidently in our prayer life, to develop a habit of coming before the Lord with our needs, the needs of our family, the needs of the Church, and the needs of the world. Our daily prayer should certainly include petitions for the needs of ourselves and others.

On the other hand, the Gospel passage also includes a summation of Jesus’ moral teaching: do to others whatever you would have them do to you; the obligation to treat others with charity.
On one hand, Jesus is teaching about praying; on the other, he is teaching about doing. On one hand, He is teaches us to seek the charity of God; on the other, to show the charity of God.

Here we see the harmony and interconnectedness of prayer and service. We will never grow in service without prayer, and we will never grow in prayer without service.

Pope Benedict XVI took up this principle in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est. “A living relationship with Christ [through prayer] is decisive if we are to keep on the right path”. “Prayer, as a means of drawing ever new strength from Christ, is concretely and urgently needed.” He pointed to the example of Mother Theresa as “a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service.”

“It is time to reaffirm the importance of prayer,” he said, “in the face of the activism and the growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work…A personal relationship with God and an abandonment to his will can prevent man from being demeaned and save him from falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism.”

Without prayer, we begin to build a world without God, and without service, we fall into a sort of spiritual inertia.

Lenten prayer and almsgiving help us to feed the fire of the Christian life, to encounter God who is the source of mercy and to become instruments of that mercy for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
 
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For greater devotion in our Lenten prayer, greater self-restraint in our Lenten fasting, and greater selflessness in our Lenten almsgiving.

That civil leaders will use their authority to protect the dignity of human life and the well-being of the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, those who suffer from discrimination, and the unborn.  We pray to the Lord.

For those preparing to enter the Church at Easter, that these weeks of Lent may bring them purification and enlightenment in the ways of Christ.  We pray to the Lord.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation or illness: that the tenderness of the Father’s love will comfort them.  We pray to the Lord.

Homily: 2nd Sunday of Advent 2016 - Advent Waiting

Waiting. We’re not very good at that anymore. Maybe we never were. In this age of instant-gratification, we get frustrated if we have to wait for any length of time. Waiting in traffic, waiting in the doctor’s office, waiting in line at the grocery check-out. Waiting feels like time wasted. And who can afford to waste time these days? We have too much to do. Every second counts.

Advent is a time of waiting, not of celebrating Christmas early. To truly enter into the spirit of the Advent season, we meditate upon all those centuries when God’s people awaited the coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of His promises. And the Jews didn’t just wait a few months or years…they waited generations, centuries. They waited 2000 years for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham God’s promise to Abraham to send a Lamb of Sacrifice—they waited 2000 years for the one John the Baptist called the “Lamb of God”

Pope Benedict spoke one Advent about the importance of waiting, he said:

“Our whole personal, familial and social existence passes through this dimension of waiting. Waiting is something that is present in a 1,000 situations, from the smallest and most banal to the most 

important, which draw us in completely and in the deepest way. Among these, we think of a husband and wife waiting for a child; of waiting for a relative or friend who is coming from far away to visit us; we think of a young person waiting to know his grade on a major exam or the outcome of a job interview; in romantic relationships, of waiting to meet the beloved person, of waiting for a letter, or of receiving forgiveness... One could say that man is alive so long as he waits, so long as hope is alive in his heart…”

One wonders if we lose something essential of our humanity the more impatient we become. Before the over-commercialization of the season, you didn’t see Christmas decorations in the stores in late October like you do now. We don’t sing Christmas hymns in Church like Joy to the World and silent night during Advent. We don’t put out the nativity scene yet. Because it’s not time, we are still waiting. We light the Advent candles as a sign of keeping vigil—remaining mindful of the one we are waiting for.

Continuing his reflection, Pope Benedict said,” Every one of us especially in this season in which we prepare for Christmas, can ask himself: What am I waiting for? For what, in this moment of my life, does my heart long for? And this same question can be posed at the level of the family, of the community, of the nation. What are we waiting for, together?”

An interesting set of questions the Holy Father asks us. What am I waiting for? For those of you who just thought, “I’m waiting for this homily to be over”…you are getting coal for Christmas. There is something quite profound in that question there: if we are in a hurry to fulfill our religious obligations…have we begun them with the right spirit? I’m not saying we should rejoice when Mass goes an extra five minutes…but I hope you would be upset if we simply rushed through Mass just to “get it over with”.

Waiting, can teach us something important: I’d like to propose five lessons from waiting:

One. Waiting reminds us that we are not the center of the universe. It’s so easy to get caught up in our own plans, convinced that everything we do is absolutely, crucially important. Being forced to wait gives us the opportunity to remember that other people have plans and priorities as well. Waiting is good for ego.

Two. Waiting reminds us that God is in control. When we are tempted to give up hope, or turn to God and say, God, who are you to make me wait, who are you to make demands on me, we remember the words God spoke to Job: Where were you when I made the cosmos? Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? So waiting helps us to remember who is in charge of the universe. Waiting is humbling.

Sometimes, in our prayer lives, when we pray and pray and pray for a particular intention, and we don’t see our petition granted, the temptation is to give up on our prayer, to give up on God. St. Monica, remember prayed 40 years for the conversion of her son…she patiently waited for her heart’s desire.  Sometimes God waits for us to become as humble as we should…before he grants a petition.

Thirdly, Waiting reminds us that life is a gift. God didn’t have to make us. Every day, every hour we have to enjoy the good things of the earth, to enjoy the gift of family and friends, every day we have to work overcome our sinful tendencies is a gift. Forced to sit at a stop light for several precious minutes, I have a choice. I can choose to grumble and gripe about the loss of my precious time, or I can remember that those very minutes were a gift God gave me so that I might have the opportunity to live for his glory. Sure, this wasn’t how I’d planned to use them. But that doesn’t change the gift.

Forthly, waiting reminds us that the present matters. Sometimes waiting frustrates us because we’re too future-oriented, focused on what comes next. We hurry through Mass, we hurry through a meal, we hurry through our prayers, in order to get to the next thing. But when we hurry through our tasks, we fail to savor the present.

Sometimes, I like to go through the Old Testament psalms and pray them very slowly, meditating on the meaning of each word, savoring what God is saying through the sacred text. Reading through the 31,000 verses of the bible is not as important as understanding the meaning of them. In order to understand the scriptures sometimes we need to wait, to chew on them slowly.

Finally, waiting reminds us to live recollectedly. Waiting can be uncomfortable because it forces us to think about what really matters in our lives. It causes us to confront our doubts and questions. And some of us live so un-reflectively that waiting, questioning, doubting, is terrifying. Waiting causes us to confront the fact that we only have a finite amount of time on this earth. And maybe, just maybe, I haven’t been using the time I’ve been given so wisely, pursuing things that really matter.  Waiting reminds us that we are part of something much larger. A story not of our own creation, but God’s.

So next time you are waiting in traffic, or waiting in line at the supermarket, instead of distracting yourself with your smart phone, consider these truths: I’m not the center of the universe. God is in control. This time is a gift. I need to slow down, anyway. For what or for whom do I long for most deeply?

Pope Benedict concluded his reflection on waiting, by pointing to the example of the Blessed Mother. Mary was a women who waited patiently and with grace. And when she did God accomplished something in her life even she didn’t expect. She gives us the final lesson on waiting. When we wait on God with open minds and hearts, he fills us with grace and self-knowledge and peace and joy that we never expected.

Let us learn from her, the woman of Advent, to live with a new spirit of a profound expectation that only the coming of God can fulfill, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: August 15 2016 - Assumption of Mary - "Concerning Mary, never enough!"

Looking around my office this morning, I saw a painting of the immaculate heart, a small statue of the Blessed Virgin I found in Madagascar, a cross stitch of the Blessed Mother holding the Christ child my mother gave me on the occasion of my ordination, an icon of Mary, Seat of Wisdom, I had commissioned, a stained glass window of the crucifixion with Mary standing at the foot of Jesus, and an image of Our Lady of Czestochowa I rescued from a garage sale. Some might think this excessive.

St. Bernard, the eloquent doctor of the Church, who is remembered for his great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary once wrote: “De Maria,  numquam satis”, “Concerning Mary, never enough.”

When we love Mary, it helps us to love God. So we can never love Mary enough. When we seek Mary’s intercession, we are seeking help from the woman God chose to bear his only Son. So we can never seek her intercession enough. When we honor her, we show honor to her Creator, who made her Immaculate. So we can never honor her enough. Mary reflects the light of God like a perfect Mirror, she is called Mirror of Justice. Peering into her face, we see God’s love for us reflected, and magnified. So, we can never say enough about her, because we can never say enough about God.

St. Louie Marie de Montfort wrote, “We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought. She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service.”

On this Solemnity of Mary’s Assumption into Heaven, what can we say about Mary? Well, our Scripture readings seem to have something to say.

Our first reading, from Revelation, speaks of struggle, a struggle that goes back to the beginning of human history. The struggle between the woman and the dragon, the enmity between the powers of good and evil. All of the disciples of Jesus Christ are engaged in this struggle. We face temptation and attack from the perennial enemy of God. But in this struggle, scripture shows us, we are not alone. The Mother of Christ is always with us. Assumed into heaven, she is able to be with all of us always; accompanying us, sustaining us in our fight against the forces of evil. And we do well to turn to her constantly, in our devotional prayers, for help; she is the auxilium christianorum, the help of all Christians.

Our second reading spoke of victory. Mary’s assumption, and the defeat of God’s enemy, was only possible through the victory of Christ. We are able to experience the fruits of that victory in our life, the life of grace. The powers of death, sin, temptation, though they bombard us in this life, do not get the final say. Assumed into heaven, Mary shows us the power of Christ’s victory at work. Body and soul, we too, will experience this victory ultimately in the resurrection.

Finally, our Gospel speaks of our vocation. Mary magnified the Lord in a life of faith, hope, and love. Pope Benedict wrote in his first encyclical, “Mary’s greatness consists in the fact that she wants to magnify God, not herself. She is lowly: Her only desire is to be the handmaid of the Lord (Lk 1:38, 48). She knows that she will only contribute to the salvation of the world if, rather than carrying out her own projects, she places herself completely at the disposal of God’s initiatives.” Assumed into heaven, Mary reminds us of the life each one of us are called to live, by following her Son in all things, we are to magnify the Lord in in all of our activities, choices, attitudes, pursuits. By following her humility, her faith, her trust in God, we can come to love God and neighbor as we should.

May we know her help in our struggles, may she teach us to love more deeply, and may she increase our hope for a future with God in eternity, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.