24th Week in Ordinary Time 2023 - Friday - "the love of money is the root of all evils"

 Throughout the centuries, Christians and non-Christians alike have recognized the dangers of loving money—making an idol of wealth.  Money, in itself, is not evil; many wealthy people have given generously of their resources out of love for God and neighbor.  So what does Paul mean when he writes to Timothy that famous line, “the root of all evil is the love of money.” 

It is evil to make anything an idol. And the love of money is one of the most common idolatries in history. Money promises happiness, pleasure, and luxury, not to mention security. It can be used to attract romantic partners, and to fulfill our base desires. 

But God’s Will must be the highest priority for Christians. We are to “Seek first the kingdom of God”. But when money is made into an idol, it leads us away from what truly fulfills, the pursuit of God. 

Many Christians have lost the joy pursuing God as they pursued the riches of the world.  They have even lost their souls because riches. The rich young man left the company of Jesus because of his attachment to his riches. 

The love of money is behind so many of the evils that afflict the peoples of the globe. Turning money into an idol results in the abandonment of religious duties, and the exploitation of one’s fellow man. The lover of money begins to view all things and all people through this distorted lens.

Nearly three centuries after Paul wrote to Timothy about the love of money, the holy Archbishop of Constantinople and Doctor of the Church St. John Chrysostom warned his congregation: Evil is not caused by wealth …but by the wicked will of those who do not know how to use it… Take away the love of money, and you put an end of war, to battle, to enmity, to strife and contention…The covetous man never knows a friend…He knows not God himself, driven mad, as he is, by the passion of avarice.”

So many of “the human roots of global and ecological crisis” as Pope Francis as said, comes from this disordered love of money.

The use of money is inescapable, so St. John Chrysostom also taught his congregation about the right use of money. He writes, “our money is the Lord’s, however we may have gathered it.” God allows us wealth “not for you to waste on prostitutes, drink, fancy food, expensive clothes, and all the other kinds of indolence, but for you to distribute to those in need.” 

This does not mean that we must give away all of our wealth and possessions, leaving ourselves in abject poverty. Neither Saint John Chrysostom, nor Christ Himself, teaches us to do this. Rather it means that all that we have is meant, not our own selfish pursuits, but for the purposes of furthering the kingdom of God.

We have a duty to be honest about our motives regarding wealth. Am I accumulating wealth for a disordered purpose? Is my use of money selfish? If so, we require conversion. 

For the Lord teaches we are called to store up treasure, not on earth, but in heaven, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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In great gratitude for the benefactors of this parish, and for those who generously provide for the needs of the Church. 

For an end to indifference to God and human dignity in our government and educational institutions, businesses, and personal attitudes.

During this month of September, dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, we pray for all those who grieve, and that we may grieve sufficiently for our sins.

That the love of Christ, the divine physician, may bring healing to the sick and comfort to all the suffering.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased priests and religious, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom. We pray.

O God, who 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.

August 16 2022 - St. Stephen of Hungary - "Apostolic King"

 

Around the year 1000, the disparate and often warring tribes of Celts, Romans, Huns, and Slavs were united into a Christian Kingdom under St. Stephen, first King of Hungary. Most of his people were still pagan, as was his own father, the family only having converted to Catholicism when Stephen was 10 years old. 

As his people were given to violence and revolt, Stephen guided his people toward peace and order by admitting Christian missionaries from Bavaria into his country.  The attempt to convert his people was met with hostility. His people wanted to hang on to their old religion and old pagan ways.  But Stephen fasted and prayed, he established monasteries and built churches.  He also made blasphemy and adultery crimes.  

Through his strict, yet benevolent rule, King Stephen brought about order and peace. He was a true evangelizer of his country.  He consecrated the nation to Mary, whom he called “the Great Lady”. He, himself gave religious instruction to the poor, and in view of his many good works and spread of the faith, the pope bestowed on him the title “Apostolic King.”  

A Hungarian parish here in the diocese of Cleveland, is named after St. Stephen’s son, St. Emeric.  Cleveland, in fact, is a hub in the united states for immigration from Hungary.  Cleveland was known as “Little Budapest” for many years, having the second largest Hungarian community outside of Budapest itself. 

Listen to these powerful words, St. Stephen wrote to his son, St. Emeric: “I urge you above all things to maintain the catholic and apostolic faith with such diligence and care that you may be an example for all those placed under you by God.”

In the Gospel today, we heard that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven. It’s hard, but not impossible. Wealth can be a serious obstacle to sanctity when it is loved more than God and neighbor. 

But there have been saints who were kings: St. Edward, Good King St. Wenceslas, St. Hedwig. And there have been a number of saintly queens: St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Clotilde, St. Margaret of Scotland. Even some saintly royal couples like St. Henry and St. Cunigunde.

These saints show us that whatever wealth and whatever earthly power we possess needs to be put under the subjection of the King of Kings. 

St. Stephen used his temporal power to build up the kingdom of God. He was not spared hardship or suffering, his evangelical efforts were met with resistance, but he entrusted his work to Our Lady, sought to conform himself with Christ, and fasted and prayed for the spread of God’s kingdom.  

By St. Stephen’s example and prayers, may we do all we can today, using whatever influence, gifts and talents God has granted us, for the spread of His Kingdom, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For the flourishing of spiritual gifts in the Church and in our parish; and for the grace during this month of August to practice the virtue of humility in all of our relationships and interactions. 

For our young people preparing to return to school and for their teachers: that the Word of God might be cherished, studied, and practiced in every classroom and home. 

That politicians and government officials may protect religious freedom, promote virtue, and look to the law of Christ to guide their work for the good of nations and all peoples.

For those beset with any sort of trial, illness, or burden: that the Lord will build up his strength within them and assist them in their needs. 

That those who have died may share in the joy of life-everlasting with the Risen Lord,

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

28th Sunday in OT 2018 - Joylessness and the Rich Young Man

This weekend, Pope Francis is celebrating in Rome the Canonization of six new saints. Three of them were founders of new religious orders, one of them was a humble diocesan priest, one is the great and courageous Archbishop Oscar Romero who denounced the violence of the civil war in El Salvador in 1980 and was assassinated offering mass in a hospital chapel. The sixth is Pope Paul VI, whose Papacy from 1963-1978 was marked by his deep sense of prayerfulness, as he led the Church to become a greater instrument for evangelization and conversion to the modern world.

The temperaments and lives of these new saints could not have been any different. Yet, their commonality, is certainly their love and obedience to Jesus Christ.

Like the young man in the Gospel today, they each approached the Lord, fell to their knees and asked the question: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” For three of them it was founding a religious order for ordinary men and women like you and me to live a life of prayer and penance that points to God. For Archbishop Romero, it was standing up to a corrupt government. For Paul VI it was leading the Church in a time of social and cultural upheaval. But, “what must I do to find joy, to find eternal life?” That is probably the most important question anyone could ask.

One concern I know many priests and many of you have is that so many of our young people and so many of our family members do not consider this question important.  One of the symptoms of the secularism of our age is an indifference to eternity. Plenty of young men and women ask questions like, “what must I do to get into Harvard, what must I do to be a famous athlete, what must I do to make my first million by the age of 30, what must I do to have as much pleasure as I can?”  These are all valid questions if one is merely concerned with earthly happiness and temporal success.  But these are not concerns about ultimate reality.  So this young man in the Gospel is in a much better place than many of our contemporaries.

How did the Lord answer this young man’s questions? He first begins to list off the commandments of God’s law.

Rules are important. We have rules for good health—you can’t eat a bag of pork rinds every day if you want to be physically fit; we have rules for good finances—don’t spend more than you make. So, too, if you want to have good mental health, there are some rules—learn to let go of anger and grudges, read a book once and a while to keep your brain active, maintain supportive relationships, develop a sense of gratitude for life’s blessings.

Every relationship has rules; rules which prescribe what is good and prohibit what is bad. When a bride and groom stand up in front of the Church and their families and recite their wedding vows, they are agreeing to the rules of their covenant relationship: we are going to be faithful even when we are tempted to be unfaithful, we are going to care for each other in times of sickness, in times of economic hardship, when physical beauty fades, we are going to raise our children to be good Christians.

Families have rules which support the harmony and happiness of the family. Don’t talk back to mom and dad, don’t fight with your siblings. When I was growing up, we had a lot of rules about keeping the house tidy: make your bed, clean your room, dirty plates and dishes weren’t to be left lying around, they were to be placed not just in the kitchen sink, but the dishwasher, and they had to be rinsed off first.

The spiritual life has rules, too. If you want to spiritually fit, if you want your relationship with God to be healthy—if you want this earthly journey to lead to eternal life with God, we must follow spiritual rules. And the commandments of God are the basic rules for that end.

Now of course, we all fail to keep these commandments for a variety of reasons. And the Christian recognizes the necessity of repentance, of confessing the serious violations of our covenant relationship with God. We admit to God even our smaller, venial sins, as well as we can, so that they do not pave the way for graver violations.

The young man in the Gospel, seems like he was doing pretty well. "Teacher,” he says “all of these commandments I have observed from my youth." Okay, good. Jesus recognizes that in this young man, the fundamental are in place, the aspirations are right, but the Lord sensed a restlessness in the young man. “You are lacking in one thing”, the Lord said. What was he lacking?

Despite his fidelity to the law, the young man was unwilling to detach himself from his possessions and follow the Lord radically.

“Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." The Lord knew that the man’s possessions had become a stumbling block to his salvation, so he illuminated this fact, and showed him what he had to do. This does not mean every single one of us has to get rid of all of our earthly possessions to follow Christ, but it certainly means that we must be spiritually detatched from them and dedicate them to God's purpose rather than our own selfish ends.

At that statement we then hear one of the saddest lines in all of the Gospels. “his face fell, and he went away sad.” The encounter with the Lord is meant to bring us conversion, joy, and life, but the young man walked away from that which would have brought him joy and that is always a sad story.

Last week in our parish youth group, we talked about joy, how following the commands of God leads to joy, how prayer and service bring us a joy that nothing else in the world can possibly give. Joy, is very different from happiness. Happiness is satisfaction with temporary things. I’m happy when the browns win, I’m happy when my chicken wings are at the perfect level of crispiness, I’m happy when the traffic light turns green at just the right time.

Joy, however, comes from our relationship with the eternal things of God: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Our hearts are filled not just with happiness, but joy, when we learn the Truth that comes from God, when we engage in truly good acts, caring for the poor, caring for a sick family member, feeding the hungry, forgiving those who hurt us. And we are filled with joy at the sight of beauty, true beauty, beautiful and timeless Christian art and architecture, the beauty of God’s creation.

The young man turns his heart away from joy because he chooses to value passing, temporary, earthly things, his possessions, over the truth, and goodness, and beauty of Jesus Christ.

I guarantee, that each of the saints being canonized this weekend, knew this secret to joy. Now, that doesn’t mean their lives were easy. Each faced tremendous suffering, but that did not diminish their joy. Because authentic joy does not diminish in the face of suffering, but can intensify it, when that suffering is embraced for the good of the Church and the spread of the Gospel.

As we celebrate the Eucharist today, may the Holy Spirit help us identify those attitudes or habits that we need to turn away from in order to experience the joy and eternal life God wants for us, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Monday - 8th Week in OT 2017 - Possessed by possessions?

A few years ago, the Arts & Entertainment channel began airing a show called, “Hoarders”.  The show chronicles people whose accumulation and hoarding of material stuff has become so excessive that it is has become difficult to move through the house; whole rooms of their house have become inaccessible due to this behavior.  In many cases the houses become so unsanitary that children are forced into foster care, or the house is condemned.

There are no doubt many psychological factors involved in compulsive hoarding, but often the show challenges the viewer to examine his own life.  For we can all develop a disordered attachment to material things.

Jesus confronts such a person in the Gospel today, one who has developed a disordered attachment to this things, he has begun to be possessed by his possessions. The rich young man wasn’t an evil person, it seems he kept many of the commandments, but when Jesus invited Him to a deeper relationship with God, the rich young man rejected the invitation, he failed to see Jesus’ invitation as the pearl of great price worth selling everything you have to obtain.

Most of us are not compulsive hoarders, and most of us are following the 10 commandments pretty well. However, each of us are at risk of allowing the preoccupation with earthly concerns to lead us away from our concern for our souls.

When our lives are overly focused on the material, the earthly, we become unhappy and exhausted.  Like the rich young man in the Gospel today, we leave saddened. Likely, so much of the sadness we carry around with us, is because in fact, we have turned away from opportunities to trust in Jesus, to follow him for deeply.

With Lent beginning this week, Our Lord invites us once again to trust in him by engaging seriously in the practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We will never walk away sad, when we are sincere in our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

We are reminded once again today that our true joy is not found in the accumulation of earthly things, earthly successes, earthly honors or distinctions, but in abandonment to Jesus, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the upcoming season of Lent may be a source of renewal and spiritual growth for the entire Christian Church.

That we may guard our hearts from all kinds of greed, be free from everything which keeps us from loving and following Christ with undivided hearts.

For deliverance from any form of avarice which has crept into the hearts of Church or government leaders.

That we may be wise stewards of earthly things in sharing the goods of the earth which come from the rich mercy of God to all those in need.