29th Week in Ordinary Time 2023 - Friday - I do not do the good that I want

 With piercing insight into the human experience, St. Paul wrote about the Christian’s ongoing struggle with sin. It is a struggle we all face: most of the time, we know what we should do, we recognize the desire to do it, yet we frequently fail. There is a glaring discrepancy between our intentions and our actions, a moral disconnect. 

The reason for this disconnect—is that even though we are baptized—we still experience the effects of fallenness. We continue to wrestle with the agitations of sin—with the frailties and inclinations to sin experienced by all the descendants of Adam. 

Baptism brings the forgiveness of sins. The guilt of sin is remitted in baptism, but concupiscence remains. We are reborn as children of God, but the memory of the old man remains, and not just the memory, but some of his frailness, so that by struggling against it, sanctity and virtue might be produced in us.

Christians sin. And we admit that. It’s the first step of Christianity: admitting I’m a sinner in need of a savior. That admission begins every time we gather for Mass.

Yet, admitting our sins doesn’t mean justifying our sins. We are to make no provision for the flesh. We are to root out sin as best we can, with God’s help, through sacraments, and sacramentals, with examinations of conscience, penances, fasting, and mortification. But when we fall under the influences of the flesh, which is nearly inevitable for most of us, we repent. We go to confession. We beat our breast before God. We do penance. 

We must also not allow ourselves to become too discouraged over sin. We are weak. And that doesn’t cause God to love us any less. Yes, there is a failure to rely on God’s grace when we sin. But, the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can repent and try again. This time, maybe with our pride put in its place.

Humility about our own sinfulness also produces patience with others. Humility leads us to extend the same patience with others—in their sins—that we would want for ourselves, as the Lord says, “the measure with which we measure, shall be used against us.”

When we humbly and sincerely approach the mercy of God, we begin to experience the freedom, joy, and peace that comes from God for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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That all Christians may know the grace of sincere repentance and seek to grow in virtue and the fruits of the spirit.

That young people be inspired to respond generously to God’s call to sanctity, and for vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

For all the sick and suffering, and for all those in hospitals, nursing homes, and hospice care, for all those who will die today, for their consolation and that of their families.

For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, for the deceased members of our family, friends, and parish, for the deceased clergy and religious of our diocese, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom. 

God of mercy, hear our prayers, ease the sufferings and comfort the weakness of your servants, and bring us to eternal life, through Christ our Lord.

October 11 2021 - Columbus Day - To the farthest Reaches

 Today we celebrate Columbus Day, remembering when Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas on October 12, 1492. It is fitting that on this day, we celebrate a Mass for the Evangelization of Peoples, that the true faith may be spread across the earth and embraced by all. 

For Columbus, his voyage of discovery was a work of evangelization. On board his ships were missionaries; his first act upon landing in the New World was to plant the cross, claim the new lands for Christ and His Church, and ask the missionaries to offer Mass. In fact, upon first sighting land, he and his crew prayed together the Salve Regina.

On this Columbus Day, we began to read a new letter from St. Paul, who no doubt, Columbus modeled himself after. We’ll continue to read from Paul’s letter to the Romans until almost the middle of November. Samual Taylor Coleridge called Romans “the most profound book in existence.” It was not the first of Paul’s epistles to be written, though it is placed in most bibles first, only because it is the longest, but also because of its tremendous import. It was not however the first of Paul’s epistles to be written.  

We heard today how Paul was called by God to be an apostle—one who would carry the message of Christ and proclaim the Good News beyond Jerusalem into the far reaches of the Roman world.  

Like St. Paul and the Apostles who braved great dangers in fidelity to Christ’s great commission, to spread salvation to the ends of the earth, Columbus willingly endured the violent storms of the Atlantic to bring the Gospel to an unknown land.

Columbus utilized his Italian genius, his masculinity, his excitement and energy, to bravely venture into the unknown to fulfill the will of God. How dangerous, and yet, how authentic! How inspiring. In 2021, we need more Christopher Columbus’ don’t we? 

Despite what our popular culture says, or what lies are spread about this great man by modernists in journalism and college campuses, Christopher Columbus was not racist or imperialist or sexist or genocidal for wishing to spread Christianity to an unknown land and foreign people. And neither are we. We do not need to apologize for believing that Christianity should be spread to all corners of the globe and to all people. Rather, we must allow great figures like Columbus, and St. Paul and the apostles to rouse us out of complacency and lend us courage to ensure we are doing everything we can to spread the gospel, to live the gospel, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That Catholics around the world will be ever more zealous in their preaching of the Gospel.

That young people be inspired to respond generously to God’s call to sanctity, and for vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

For those whose love for Christ has grown cold, for those who have fallen away from the Church, for those with unrepentant hearts, for their conversion and the deeper conversion of all people.

For the Knights of Columbus and all who look to the inspiration of Christopher Columbus, may they continue in good works and be examples of virtue and faith.

For the sick and the suffering, and all persecuted Christians, that they may come to experience Christ’s healing and peace amidst their illnesses and needs.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, 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.

13th Sunday in OT 2020 - Dead to sin and living for Christ

Last week, we reflected  upon St. Paul’s treatment of original sin in his letter to the Romans: how Paul traces all the evil and sin and suffering in the world back to the sin of Adam. Because of sin, suffering wreaks havoc throughout human history; we can see sin’s effects all around us. Just yesterday, a young boy in our own neighborhood, on west 100th, was shot in a driveby shooting—in the brokenness in our families, our addictions, the moments where we lose control of our tempers, our arrogant refusal to ask for forgiveness when we’ve made mistakes and our arrogant refusal to grant forgiveness when we should.

After identifying the origins of sin and death, Paul, spoke last week about the remedy for sin and death. Do want healing for your mind and your soul? Do you want peace with God? Do you want eternal life? Do want any hope of justice—or a just society in this world? Turn to Jesus Christ. Believe and follow Jesus Christ. Though death entered the world through one man, life is available through another.

In this week’s reading from Romans, Paul explains how we can actually receive that remedy, that saving grace, new life: we must die to ourselves and rise through the waters of baptism. We must stop living for ourselves and put an end of sin; after all, that’s what got us in trouble in the first place.

In that first generation of Christians, baptism was such a critical point. Adults and whole families would prepare months for baptism, receiving instruction in the Christian faith. They’d learn and take to heart what it means that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, that he died for us and is risen and will come again to judge our souls. What does it mean to follow him? They’d study the scriptures and the teaching of the Apostles. They would renounce the old gods, the gods of the world, of Rome and Egypt. And they’d renounce their false idols: promising I will no longer make money or pleasure or power my ultimate aim, I will live first for God in Jesus Christ.

Yes, baptism meant membership in a community of like-minded believers, but baptism meant a real change of one’s behaviors and beliefs. Making a break with the sinful past, with those attitudes and behaviors which contradicted the teachings of Christ. And it meant a new beginning of embarking on a new mission where living the Gospel and spreading the Gospel was now to be life’s most important task. It meant striving to engage in the works of mercy as often as possible.

So, in today’s reading, Paul is not so much addressing those who were preparing for baptism, but those who have already baptized, like most of us here today. He writes, “Don’t you know that we who were baptized” were baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, so that we might live in newness of life? Paul wants the already baptized to reflect upon what baptism entails—how their new identity in Christ is meant to shape and direct everything they do. Paul wants Christians to recognize that something which was dead in them is now alive and is able to accomplish mighty wonderous things.

And yet, Paul also recognizes that baptism isn’t magic; it does not take away our free will. The powers of sin and death are always going to be trying to take back control—the devil is always going to be trying to win his territory back. And we need to remain vigilant and exert tremendous effort to live consistently with our baptism.

“You must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus” he says. There’s your thought for when you wake up in the morning, dear Christians, to wake up, and say, I am dead to sin and living for God.

Centuries later, Pope Saint Leo the Great would give special post-baptismal instruction to the new Christians of Rome, saying "Christians, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God's own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God."

Never forget, he says. Recalling that we are baptized should bring joy when we are sad, direction when we are confused about what path to take in life, and strength when we are tempted. A powerful way to fight off temptation is to recall our baptism.  To say to ourselves, “wait, I’m a Christian, I’m not supposed to do that; I’m not supposed to talk like that. I’m supposed to act like Christ.”

During Ordinary Time, one of the spiritual practices that ought to be incorporated into our ordinary day to day life, is to recall our baptism, to recall our Christian dignity, and to ask God, what does my baptism demand of me today? What does mean to be a good Christian neighbor? What does it mean to be a good Christian grandparent? What does it mean to do business as Christian, or to date as a Christian, or use the internet as a Christian, to control my temper when I am angry, to control my eyes when I am lustful, to practice Christ-like humility when I want to be the one in change or the center of attention? What are the powers of death and evil which are trying to creep back into my life?

Until we make Christian faith, hope, and love the primary motivators in our life, there will be something missing in our relationship with God. We won’t get what we need out of going to church, we won’t consider daily prayer to be all that important. Why pick up the bible and read, if tv and sports and video games and gossip and shopping are more important?

Put God before all other allegiance. “Whoever loves father or mother or son or daughter more than me” is not worthy of me. Even family, that most precious relationship, is to be secondary to fulfilling one’s duties as a Christian. But whoever loses his life for my sake, who puts all the sins and vices and coldness and selfishness of our fallen natures to death, shall receive a newness of life that changes everything it touches.

Before leaving Church today, we do well to consider deeply, what needs to be put death in me? Where is the Holy Spirit urging me to live more fully for Christ? For the glory of God and salvation of souls.

12th Sunday of OT 2020 - The sin of Adam and the Grace of Christ

After many months, Lent, Easter, and the Feasts of Pentecost, Holy Trinity, and Corpus Christi, we have returned again to the Sundays of Ordinary Time, called such, for we focus not on any Extraordinary, major event from the life of Christ or major dogma contained in our creed, but on how the grace of God is meant to animate the ordinary aspects of our life.

For the remainder of Ordinary Time, all the way until the end of November we will read extensively from the Gospel of Matthew, and until mid-September we’ll read from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. Matthew and Paul will be our spiritual directors, helping us to open our minds and heart to the grace of God in the ordinary circumstances of our lives.

And since we’ll be spending so much time with them, I’d like to say a word about Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul’s letter to the Romans is a great masterpiece of theology, a clear, thorough, and systematic presentation of the Christian faith. Profound enough for an ordinary Roman to be intrigued by the Christian faith, and clear and systematic enough that an ordinary Roman could understand it. The Letter doesn’t tell a story, like the Gospels, which follow a narrative structure. Rather it unpacks the theological implications of Our Lord’s incarnation, saving death, and glorious resurrection. What does it mean for the Church, for saints and sinners like us, that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

If you’ve never read Paul’s letter to the Romans from beginning to end, this is a perfect time. Reading the letter in its entirety will help you internalize Paul’s message and teaching. Every Christian at least once in our lives should read the Bible in its entirety, not necessarily straight through from Genesis to Revelation, but at least each book of the Bible in its entirety, some time in your life. Speaking of the ordinary life of the Christian, reading the Bible should be part of our Ordinary Lives, our every day lives.

A day shouldn’t go by, where we don’t read something of God’s Word. Even if it’s just a single paragraph that you read and ponder throughout the day, God’s Word will ground you, and enlighten your path in these chaotic times. God’s word helps us to understand our reality and understand ourselves. It helps us to put our priorities in order. It guides our actions, and helps us to have a rightly ordered mind and heart, and it increases our hunger and thirst for the righteousness described in its pages.

In today’s second reading, Paul seeks to explain one of the most important questions ever, a question that philosophers and theologians, mystics and poets and ordinary folk have grappled with, since the moment we gained the ability to ask such questions: why is there suffering in the world? Why do we suffer? Why do people die in earthquakes and plagues, and through famine. Why do families, and nations become divided and go to war? Why do innocent babies suffer. Why do children seem to turn on their parents, why do parents neglect their duties to their children. Why are peoples subjugated and enslaved to satiate the greed and lusts and pride of those in power?

The different world religions all attempt to answer that question. St. Paul, once the student of the great Jewish Rabbi Gamaliel, and now a convert to Christ, a believer that Christ Jesus is risen from the dead, seeks to answer that question in his letter to the Romans: why is there suffering? And he does so, drawing upon his Jewish roots and his new-found Christian faith. He traces the suffering of the world all the way back to Adam and Eve and he shows that the solution to the suffering, salvation from suffering, comes through the New Adam and His Church, the New Eve, the new Mother of the saved.

Where did suffering come from? According to Genesis, there was a time before suffering, when Adam and Eve lived in a state of friendship with God. In the garden of Paradise, Adam and Eve walked in harmony with God in the cool of the evening in easy fellowship. Their minds and wills were effortlessly attuned to God’s mind and will, the way friends are naturally attuned to one another. Adam and Eve’s physical, emotional, and spiritual needs were met through their friendship with God; they were without suffering.

But then, as St. Paul explains in our reading today, “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death.” Prior to sin, our inner life and outer life were ordered according to the will and mind of God. But turning our will against God through sin, nearly everything about us became disordered. We desire too much of what we don’t need: money, power, and pleasure; and too little of what we do need: prayer, good works, obedience, patience and peace. Human life, which was meant for immortality and grace, becomes disordered toward mortality and selfishness. From that disorder arises all the suffering and war  of the human race.

St. Paul having identified sufferings origins, then identifies sufferings remedy. Though death reigned throughout the generations of Adam because of the sin of the one man, through the gracious gift of another man, Jesus Christ, death is defeated, humanity is reordered to God and we are saved of suffering and death.

Yes, death and disorder continue to wreak havoc in the lives of the members of our human family. Just turn on the news, right? But what the news does not often report, the most miraculous and marvelous activity in our world today: how Jesus Christ continues to transform lives, how the grace of God overflows into the members of the Christian family, the body of Christ, the Church. The news, for the most part does not report how faith in Jesus Christ transforms the lives of ordinary people, enabling us to overcome what is fallen in us, what is perverted in us, what is selfish in us.

Turn on the news, you will find one story after another of division along political, racial, national and international lines—the effects of fragmentation in the human family, to effects of death and greed and corruption. You want proof of original sin, turn on the news. But open the bible, read St. Paul, study the lives of the saints and you’ll find a different story. Had we spent more time cultivating the grace of Jesus Christ, how different the nightly news would be.

So, if the 24-hour news cycle won’t report it, our task, is clear, Our Lord is clear in the Gospel today: shout the Good News from the rooftops. Christian grace can overcome all transgression. You want to build a society of peace, turn to Christ. You want to overcome the division in your family? Turn to Christ. You want to overcome your fallen tendencies—your lust, your pride, your selfishness? Turn to Christ. Shout it from the rooftops.  Because the news won’t report it and our politicians won’t acknowledge it.

On this Father’s Day weekend, many of us our so grateful of the faith of our Fathers, our Fathers who have been instrumental in our reception of the faith. And yet, perhaps too we think of all those fathers in the world today, maybe the fathers of our grandchildren or nephews or neighbors who want little or nothing to do with the saving faith—who have forgot their most important job, to help their children become righteous.

Ordinary Time is a wonderful time to pray and fast for those fathers, and to look for opportunities to call them to action—to take up, once again, the mantle of being a leader—a faith leader--for the sake of their families and for the future of our society. For only a house built on the solid foundation of Christ, can ever hope to withstand the intense and destructive winds of the world. If you truly care about these Fathers, call them back to the Faith, back to church.

Where will you find the words to say? Ponder the Scriptures. This week, turn to God’s word and ponder it every day. Ask God to enlighten you. Ask God how His holy word can help you in the concrete, ordinary circumstances of your life, with your ordinary sins, and your serious sins, with the ordinary drama and trials of your family, and the serious ones. If he is quiet, ask him all the more, in the words of the psalm today, “Lord, in your great love, answer me.” Revive my heart, enlighten my mind, transform me by your grace, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.