6th Sunday of Easter 2024 - Love one another

Over the last eight weeks we’ve had Laetare Sunday, Palm Sunday also called Passion Sunday, Easter Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday, and Good Shepherd Sunday. Last week, we might’ve called “Vine and Branches Sunday”.  This week we could call “Love Sunday”.  For, in just the second reading and the Gospel, the word “love” is used 17 times.  In John’s first epistle he gave us that description of God that sets Christianity apart from any other religion; he said,  “God is love”, and in the nine short verses of the Gospel Jesus uses the word commandment five times and the word “love” nine times: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.” Love…it’s not just for poets, song writers, and romantics. The practice of love is a commandment from our God. 

The truth that the One God of the universe is love in his very being is not found in Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, or any of the pagan religions in all of human history. The practice of love and the worship of God who IS love in his essence and being sets Christians apart. In fact, in the Quran, there are more verses about the type of people God does not love, than those who he does. Islam separates humanity into the loved and the not loved, where Christians believe that God is love, and loves all people, dying for all, desiring the salvation of all.

Saint John, the patron of our diocese and author of our second reading today, was certainly devoted to the love of God.  He was called the beloved disciple of the Lord, and laid his head on the heart of Jesus at the last supper. 

Ancient Christian tradition tells us that after Mary’s Assumption, Saint John lived on the island of Patmos, a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea, until he died of old age, around the age of 100.  And there on Patmos, as you might imagine, being the last of the twelve apostles, people would flock to him.  I may have shared this before how Sunday after Sunday, the people would literally carry the Apostle John down from his mountain abode to come celebrate the Eucharist with them.

And the story goes that Sunday after Sunday, Saint John would offer the same simple message. He would say “my little children, God loves you.  Now you love Him and love one another.”  Sunday after Sunday, the same simple message: “my little children, God loves you.  Now you love Him and love one another.”  Sunday after Sunday after Sunday.

Finally, someone asked him: “holy apostle, why do you keep repeating the same message, over and over again?”  To which Saint John replied: “I keep repeating it over and over again because the Master repeated it over and over again”.

God loves you, now you live him and love one another.  It’s the essence of the entire Gospel, isn’t it?  God is love.  

Almost 20 years ago, already, all the way back in in 2005, Pope Benedict surprised much of the world, with his first encyclical. Prior to his election, Pope Benedict was the head of the congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope John Paul II. And in many instances, the future Pope Benedict was tasked with cracking down on some doctrinal matters. And so the world thought that the tone of his pontificate would follow in that manner. But no, his first encyclical, was called “God is love”. Deus Caritas est. God is love. If you haven’t read it, you should.  You won’t be disappointed.

As you might imagine, the Holy Father drew upon scripture passages like our second reading and gospel for this 6th Sunday of easter. And Benedict goes on to explain how since God is love, when we engage in charity, we aren’t just fulfilling an ethical duty, but we are participating in the life of God. 

“Love one another as I love you”. "In His death on the Cross,” Pope Benedict writes “Christ expressed love in its most radical form. By loving as He loved, which involves self-sacrifice, we live out His commandment of love and thus dwell in Him and He in us."

Love isn’t just about having nice feelings about people. Love is not a feeling. It is an action, of doing what is best for another person. And love reaches its highest expression, its truest form, when it costs us something. Sacrificial love shows that we really believe something to be so good that it is worth sacrificing ourselves for, even dying for. 

And, that type of love, we are to show towards all—with God-like love, Christ-like love. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Pope Benedict writes, “Love of neighbor…consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know."

Loving the Unlikable involves extending kindness and forgiveness to those who may have wronged us or whom we find difficult to like due to personality clashes, differing opinions, or past conflicts. We’ve all met unlikable people. Each of us have likely appeared to others as unlikeable. I’m a priest and people have not liked me for a whole number reasons. But we have to see beyond our emotions, and practice love to the unlikeable. 

We are to practice love to the Unknown: to strangers or people we do not know personally. This could include acts such as providing food or clothing to pantries for the impoverished, donating to charities that support refugees, or volunteering our time to feed and clothe and help people get their life in order or the medical care they need, or the education they want for their children. I think we do a great job of this here at St. Ignatius. Unknown people call us every day, and our SVDP, which many of you support so generously, is able to help so many people. 

And the charity we are able to offer and called to offer extends to groups of people that the rest of society may overlook or marginalize. We have a nice group of parishioners that brings communion to the sick and elderly in nursing homes.  

Pope Benedict also addresses the need for Christians to bring love into public life. This can mean engaging respectfully, respectfully, respectfully, with people who hold different political views, advocating for authentic justice, like the safety of the unborn in public policies, and working towards the common good in ways that uphold the dignity and rights of every person, especially the most vulnerable.

"The Church's deepest nature,” writes Benedict, “is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God celebrating the sacraments, and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable." 

We preach the Gospel because we love non-believers and desire they share in eternal life with God through Christ. We celebrate the Sacraments, faithfully, because God desires to purify us of our sins and strengthen us in charity through them. And we engage in charity because that is our identity. To be Christian is to be a love-doer. A lover of God, a lover of your fellow man—in word and deed. 

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, who we honor in a special way during this month of May, most blessed of all women in her love of God and the Church, assist us by her example and prayers, along with St. John, St. Ignatius, and all the saints, in the practice of love toward all, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

First Friday Holy Hour - August 2021 - Luminous Eucharist

 

Liturgically, we celebrate today the feast of the Transfiguration. This morning, I recalled how it’s been almost 20 years since Pope St. John Paul II gave us the luminous mysteries. So, in addition to the 15 joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries, now, we would add meditation upon Jesus Baptism in the Jordan, his self-manifestation at the wedding at Cana, his call to conversion through the preaching of the Kingdom, his Transfiguration, and the institution of the Eucharist

Of the five luminous mysteries he called the Transfiguration the mystery of light par excellence as it reveals to us the face of Christ shining with the light of divine glory. The transfiguration sheds light upon who Jesus is, what he has come to do: he has come to lead us out of darkness, he’s come to show us that in the darkest hour, even in the agony of his passion, the light of God still shines. He sheds light on the very darkness of death itself, that for faithful Christians, death is not the end. Bearing the cross with Jesus, dying in union with Him as Lord will lead to the luminous glory of the resurrection. 

Each of the luminous mysteries shed light upon who Jesus is and what he has comes to do. This includes of course, the fifth luminous mystery, the institution of the Eucharist—the Eucharist before which we kneel and pray this evening at this holy hour.

The Eucharist sheds light upon the nature of Jesus, the nature of God, that God gives us what we need in order to live—that he loves us so much that he gives his body and blood for us. Even though he had to endure ineffable suffering, even though many would turn their back on him, even though many would continue to engage in sacrilege upon sacrilege, he still wishes to give of himself that we might live.

The Eucharist sheds light upon the nature of God, that God is love, and gives and gives and gives us what we need in order to participate in that love for all eternity. “I am the Bread of Life, the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Let us drink deeply of God’s great love for us as we contemplate and worship the Lord in the Eucharist this evening. May his love fill us with his light and love for others, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Trinity Sunday 2021 - Mysterious Love

 

We have come again to the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.  I don’t know who dreads this Sunday more, the priests who have to attempt to explain this most mysterious of all Catholic Dogmas in a short homily, or the people, who have to listen to it.  

I think many priests on Trinity Sunday, like Saint Patrick depicted in our stained glass window with the three-leaf clover, try to explain the nature of the Trinity with some analogy: the trinity is like three burning candles twisted together to have one flame, or like a three-stranded piece of rope.  Or the Trinity is like an egg, and the three persons are like the egg shell, an egg white and an egg yolk.  Some have said the Trinity is like Water which can come in three modes: ice, liquid, or steam, or a tree that has branches, leaves, and roots.

The problem with each of these analogies is that they are ultimately wrong, yes, even Saint Patrick’s use of the three-leaf clover.  To say that the Trinity is like some created thing will never fully explain the Trinity.  The three divine persons of the One Supreme Godhead –Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are not three modes of God, three parts, three divisions, or three different masks that God wears. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three separate entities, like three separate Gods. In a sense, it’s easier to say what the Trinity is not, than what the Trinity is.

In the end, all analogies fail. God is greater than our human comprehension. And I think that’s one of the reasons we celebrate Trinity Sunday: to acknowledge that God is greater than my human comprehension, and I’m okay with it. 

Saint Augustine, who is one of the most profound reflectors on the Trinity said, “Si comprehendis, non est Deus” which means, “If you understand, it’s not God.”  The minute you say, yes, I got it now: that’s not God, says Augustine.  The Trinity is greater than human understanding. 

And that’s a wonderful thing. God is bigger than us. He’s greater than us. He resists being limited by our human categories and prejudices. 

We all know the famous story of the Israelites, after crossing the red sea, they come to mt. sinai. And they fashion for themselves an idol to worship. A hunk of metal. Though their action was way off the mark, and yet, it’s somewhat relatable. It’s a perennial temptation to fashion for ourselves gods which are less mysterious, less demanding, gods that we can see and touch and obtain. Why do people worship money and the accumulation of material things? Because they are right there! Why do people make idols out of athletes and politicians? Because they are right there. Listen to them talk—they’re so charming; they tell me what I want to hear. Watch them play—they’re so talented! It makes me happy.

But we are made for so much more than the happiness offered by the false idols of our own making. We're made for the eternal blessedness of communion with the One True God.

So on one hand, God is mysterious—beyond the comprehension of any created intellect. On the other hand, we were created in order to love God.  And an old proverb says, "You cannot love what you do not know."  God’s nature might be ultimately unknowable, but God has revealed something about Himself--He loves us. 

Catholics don’t believe in some generic faceless nameless divinity like the unitarians because God is not generic—He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Catholic don’t worship some uncaring divine force—but a communion of love whose goodness overflows for us. The Father has a plan for his creation, His Son is sent to enact that plan: to suffer and die for it, the Holy Spirit enflames our hearts and incorporates us into that plan.

While mysterious, the Holy Trinity desires that we seek to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this life, that we may be happy with Him in the next. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength, the Lord tells us. Okay. How?

Just as you get to know someone by spending time with them and doing work with them, so too, we come to know Father, Son, and Holy Spirit spending time with them in prayer, by reading what the Scriptures reveal about Them, what the great Church Fathers have written about them, and by spending time in their service.

Why do a growing number of people in this country claim to have no relationship with God? Because they do none of these things. Instead of prayer, they seek the superficial status of social media. Instead of reading the Scriptures, they turn their minds to the perverse entertainments of our day. Instead of engaging in the holy works of mercy, they seek to build up for themselves treasures on earth.

Many people today blame God for their troubles, instead of recognizing God’s desires to help them in their troubles. They say, there is evil in the world, there is evil in my life, therefore God does not exist. In this case, they’ve fashioned such a small, impotent God. Rather, Catholics know, that God is doing something about the evil in the world, he has done something about the evil in the world. The Father has sent the Son to conquer evil and sin and death. And he is victorious. And we can share in that victory by belief in Him, by handing our lives over to Him, by bearing our crosses in union with Him, with the sure and certain Hope, that discipleship leads to resurrection and eternal life.

The Holy Trinity is mysterious, but as we encounter Him in our liturgical worship in our daily prayer, and in our charitable service, we begin to know with our minds and fix in our hearts that the Lord is God. 

In the celebration of Mass, particularly, the Holy Trinity is acting now in history: Father, Son, and Spirit, breathing new life into the Church, nourishing us with the Eucharist, enkindling our hearts for the work of the Gospel. As we continue this sacred celebration and as you go forth from here into the world, let us open our minds, hearts, and souls to the goodness and providence of the Trinity. Let us trust Him, and seek to know Him ever more intimately, and serve Him always and everywhere for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.

7th Week of Easter 2021 - Tuesday - Self-Donation and Heavenly Glory

 At this point in the Easter season, you’ve heard me say a time or two that Chapters 14-17 of the Gospel of John comprise the Lord’s Farewell Discourse—his instruction to the apostles on the night before he was to be crucified, given at the Last Supper. 

Today we begin the final chapter of the Farewell Discourse, where Jesus turns from addressing his disciples to addressing his Father. Chapter 17 consists of a prayer.

And within this prayer you will find five specific petitions. Today’s Gospel contains the first two: First there is a petition for glory—that as the Father has been glorified through the Lord’s earthly ministry, that glory may reach a culmination as the mission of Jesus is completed upon the cross. The Second petition is a prayer for his disciples—the Lord lifts up his disciples to the Father as a way of uniting them to himself.

In this prayer, Jesus opens a window into his relationship with the Father, and we see that it is marked by complete selflessness. His only desire is to glorify his Father and do his Father’s will. Everything that the Father has given to the Son, the Son, in turn gives back to the Father. It is in this total giving of self that we come to some understanding of that mysterious statement that “God is love”.

And that the Lord prays for his disciples in the very next breath after praying to do his Father’s will is also profound. He prays that God may be glorified through Jesus’ loving self-donation, and then he prays for us, that we may come to share in that very same glory by remaining united with the Son by imitating his self-donation, his self-sacrifice.

The Christian life consists of imitating the Love Jesus has for his Father, love that is manifested in self-sacrifice.

This section of John’s Gospel is perhaps the most theologically dense, but that is because it is so theologically rich. We begin to pear into the very mysterious heart of God, and begin to see how Jesus’ own love for his Father is intertwined with his love for us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that we may believe in Him and have eternal life” for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

 

Let us pray to our Heavenly Father, confident that He is generous to those who call upon Him with faith.

For our young people preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation this weekend—that they may open their hearts to the gifts God has in store for them. Let us pray to the Lord.

For our President and all elected government representatives, may the Holy Spirit grant them wisdom and guide them to promote domestic tranquility, national unity, respect for religious freedom, and a greater reverence for the sanctity of Human Life. Let us pray to the Lord.

Like the apostles gathered with Our Lady in the Cenacle, may the Church grow in Marian devotion this month, especially in devotion to the Holy Rosary. Let us pray to the Lord.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation, addiction, or disease: that they may know the peace and consolation of the Good Shepherd. Let us pray to the Lord.

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 those who have fought and died for our freedom, and for …for whom this mass is offered. Let us pray to the Lord.

Gracious Father, hear the prayers of your pilgrim Church, grant us your grace and lead us to the glory of your kingdom, through Christ Our Lord.

7th Week of Easter 2018 - Tuesday - The High Priest's Love for God and Man

There are many titles applied to Jesus throughout the Scriptures: he is the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God, the Son of Man.  He is also called the High Priest.  Each title focuses on a particular aspect of who Jesus is and what that means for us.  Today’s Gospel is from the final section of Jesus’ farewell discourse known as his High Priestly Prayer.

Jesus turns from addressing the apostles and begins addressing the Father, praying that his Father might be glorified in what he is about to do: namely his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, and that his disciples might receive eternal life through it.

In his High Priestly prayer Jesus opens a window into his relationship with His Father. The Father glorifies the Son, and the Son glorifies the Father. The Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father through his humble self-sacrifice. Jesus reveals the nature of God, that “God is love”, a reality St. John will reflect upon in his first New Testament Letter. Jesus reveals the inner nature of God and simultaneously calls his disciples to the same highest, purist form of self-giving. God’s life is to become our life, our lives must become characterized by divine love.

Whether you are an ordained priest,  a homeless beggar, a widow, or a farmer, like St. Isidore, whom the Church honors today, we are called to a life which glorifies God, a life in which the love that exists between the Father and the Son increasingly characterizes our own life.

Love isn’t easy. Love involves embracing suffering for the good of others, it involves self-sacrifice for those who have no way of repaying you. But by practicing this form of Christ-like love, our souls expand, our life obtains the purpose for which it was created.

Today each of us are called to bring God to others and bring others to God. God is to be glorified in us by accomplishing the work that God has given us to do, to bring others to believe in the one that God sent for our salvation.

May the entirety of our lives—our thoughts, words, actions, and attitudes, all be conformed this day to Jesus Our High Priest for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For Catholics in all walks of life, that we may glorify God through our daily labors in service of the Lord.

Through the intercession of St. Isidore, we pray for farmers, day laborers, and those who work by the sweat of their brow, that they may receive a just reward for their laborers, and for the unemployed and underemployed.

That spouses may help each other to grow rich in the treasures of heaven, and all those preparing for Holy Matrimony may do so rightly and chastely in the eyes of God.

That all families may seek to model themselves after the Holy Family and always know their guidance and protection.

For the sick, the suffering, the lonely, and the dying, that they may know the consolation of the grace of God.

For the deceased members of our family, friends, and parish, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, and for all those who have fought and died for our nation’s freedom.