Homily: Dec 9 2016 - St. Juan Diego - God chooses the meek

St. Juan Diego is another wonderful Advent saint; he shows us that charity, love, and faithfulness often take us outside of our comfort zones, but when we trust God, wondrous things are possible.  

When the Blessed Mother appeared to him and told him that he had been chosen to be her messenger to the bishop, Juan Diego insisted that he couldn’t do it: he was not one of the great or important persons, he was too insignificant to take such a message from the Mother of God to the bishop.

But the Virgin Mother of Guadalupe insisted that he could do it. The Virgin answered Juan Diego’s protests of unworthiness, saying, “Yes, you are the least of my children”, and that is precisely why you are being chosen.

In choosing the lowly Juan Diego, Our Lady followed a long line of stories in Scripture where God chooses the lowly, the barren, the tongue-tied, the meek, to do his work. God sends the powerless to confront the powerful. As St. Paul wrote, “God uses the meek to confound the proud.”

In the work of God to which all of us are called, we are often tempted to put ourselves down; to think we are not good enough or holy enough to take up a particular way of service. “I’m too poor, too busy, too uncomfortable, too uneducated, too old”. But in choosing Juan Diego, the least of her children, Mary shows that it is our excuses that are not good enough; if the poor uneducated Juan Diego can bear a message for God, so can we.

At the time of Juan Diego, the Aztec culture was in full swing; 10s of thousands of human sacrifices would be offered on the steps of the Aztec pyramids in honor of their pagan gods. Juan Diego, in a sense, started a revolution; an end to an era of death and the beginning of a new era of peace, through the spreading of the Gospel.

God chooses the little ones to do great things in history. Our vocation, our calling, also is to build up the church in this culture, to work for peace in our time.

An important Advent Lesson: to prepare our souls for the coming of Christ, we must never allow fear or excuses to keep us from the charity to which we are called, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Dec 8 2016 - Immaculate Conception - Mary's Way of Grace

On Monday evenings between Labor Day and Easter I meet with groups of adults wanting to become Catholic. Some of them were baptized in a Protestant denomination; others were never baptized; but each of them possess this growing desire to become Catholic. Some are attracted to the beauty of our rituals, the clarity of our teachings, our faithfulness to the Word of God—each person, no doubt, gains a deepening sense that God is calling them.

Last Monday, I presented to them a lecture on the Blessed Virgin Mary, and I showed them pictures, paintings from throughout the centuries. I showed them Renaissance Painters like Michelangelo, and Fra Angelico, and Leonardo Da Vinci.  The earliest Christians had a deep love for Mary, Jesus had a deep love of his Mother, and so, it is no surprise that much Christian art depicts the Mother of Our Lord.

Particularly, I showed them several different paintings of the biblical passage we heard today, the story of the Annunciation. And one of my favorite depictions of the Annunciation, one that I have showed even in several of the classrooms in the school is by the Italian Renaissance painter named Sandro Botticelli. Botticelli is probably most famous for his painting of the Greek goddess Venus, emerging from the sea shell; and he brings that same mastery of his art to painting Our Blessed Mother.

In his painting of the Annunciation, Botticelli paints Mary ever so gracefully, so fluid, like a ballet dancer; it is amazing how Botticelli is able to depict Mary turning from her reading of the open Bible toward the Archangel Gabriel who greets her, “Hail Mary, Full of Grace”. Where Adam and Eve sinfully and pridefully turn away from God’s plan; Botticelli depicts Mary trustingly and lovingly turning toward God’s plan.

And what’s amazing is how Gabriel appears to be approaching Mary very slowly, very cautiously, like he doesn’t want to scare her. But also, this angel of God approaches Mary, this human woman, so reverently, as if he is more scared of her. The angel is almost trembling as he delivers his message from God.

Typically, in scripture, when an angel approaches a human, the angel has to reassure the human not to be afraid. But Botticelli shows Gabriel nearly fearful, like a scared cat coming out of hiding. Why does he do this? Because Mary was unlike any human he had ever met. Mary was unlike any human God ever made. From the moment of her conception, God made Mary clean of every sin that has ever tainted the human soul.So even in a painting of the Annunciation, Botticelli is able to show the grace that filled Mary's life at every moment.

Through this special grace—the grace of her Immaculate Conception—God prepared Mary for the monumental mission of being the mother of Jesus and the mother of the Church. God gave Mary everything she needed to fulfill her mission in life, but it was still up to her to respond freely and generously to the angel's invitation. And thanks be to God she did. Amazing things, wondrous things happen, when we, like Mary trust God, and make use of the grace he gives to each of us.

Whenever I read the story of the Annunciation or gaze upon Botticelli’s beautiful painting, I hear questions being asked to me, questions God asks each of us: Are you as full of grace as you should be? Are you using the grace God gave you?

Each one of us, when we were baptized received God’s grace. Each one of us, when we receive Holy Communion receive God’s grace. We have been blessed, as St. Paul said in the second reading: “with every spiritual blessing in the heavens.” What have I done with that grace?

So often, instead of protecting and guarding that grace, nurturing it, growing it, using it for the intentions of God’s will, we turn right back to the old sinful ways of Adam and Eve. How often have you used the tongue God gave you to hurt others with your words or to lie? How often have you spent your time on selfish pursuits, instead of using that time to better your mind and heart and help others?

Instead of turning to the example of Adam and Eve, we Christians need to turn  to the example of Mary, who trusted God, who kept herself pure and without blemish, who made serving God the highest goal of her life.

On this great Feast, let us recommit to Mary’s way of grace: turning toward God every day in the sort of prayer we need, practicing the self-control we need, developing habits of generosity as we should, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Dec 6 2016 - St. Nicholas - The 3 loves of Sinterklaas

I mentioned yesterday that the second week of Advent is traditionally associated with love, with charity. Today’s saint is certainly known for his charity. As Bishop of Myra, in Turkey, he is known for his love for the poor, his love for the truth, and his love for Christ.

Perhaps one of the best-known stories about Nicholas concerns his generosity towards a poor man whose daughters were about to be forced into lives of prostitution, threw bags of gold through the poor man’s windows so he could pay for his daughter’s dowries enabling them to be married.

That story, likely, is the source for the legend of Saint Nick carrying bags of toys for all the good little girls and boys.

Bishop Nicholas was also a great lover and defender of truth. Nicholas stood up for the truth at the council of Nicaea. When the heretic priest Arius claimed that Jesus was not of the same substance with the Father, Nicholas corrected Arius….physically. There are pictures of Nicholas slapping Arius in the mouth for the foul errors spewing from it.

Thirdly, Nicholas is known for his love for Christ; he was arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and martyred in the 4^th century persecutions.

Historically, it was on this day that gifts were exchanged. It was only when Martin Luther began preaching against devotion to the saints, that gift giving became associated with Christmas; so perhaps we can blame the over-commercialization of Christmas on the founder of Protestantism.

In order to reclaim devotion to Nicholas, we, like him, should follow his example of love-the three loves of Sinterklaas. Give help to the poor today, bring someone in error to the truth today, and make an offering of your life for Christ today, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Monday - 2nd Week of Advent 2016 - Friend of the paralyzed

Of the four weeks of Advent, the first week is characterized by hope, the second by love, the third by joy, and the fourth by peace.

So this second week of Advent , we reflect on God’s love for us, our love for God, and the love we are to practice towards others.

We hear that word, ‘love’ used so often today, in so many different contexts: I love chocolate ice cream, I love classical music, I love my dog or cat or pet canary. Sometimes the word love means really enjoying an activity, “I love canoeing” or having strong positive feelings about a thing or person, “I love my grandma”.

Love of money, love of pleasure, love of fame, love of power, can become something very dangerous for my eternal soul.  Love of ice cream can change, if I eat a gallon of it and get sick.

But when Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbor, he spoke of love in the truest sense.  True love is not just a feeling or emotion that changes.  When Jesus uses the word love he’s talking about something very unselfish.  He’s talking about something that led him to lay down his life—self-sacrifice for the good of another is the stuff that true love is made of.  Self-sacrificial love is certainly something all Christian spouses are called to practice towards each other, and for the person serious about growing in holiness, self-sacrificial love is something to be practiced towards all.

The Gospel teaches us an important lesson about love today.  God’s love seeks to free us from paralysis, most importantly the paralysis of sin—the fear, the envy, the selfishness, the hurt that keeps us from loving as we are called to love.

And, once freed from paralysis, we are meant to exercise the sort of activity characterized by the friends of the paralyzed man, who bring him to Jesus. We are freed from paralysis in order to bring the paralyzed to Jesus. We are freed from sin in order to bring the sinner to Jesus.

Each of us knows someone who is in desperate need of the merciful healing of Jesus.  Like the men in the Gospel, God invites us to be friend to the paralyzed and to make that extra effort in bringing family and friends who have fallen away or lost their faith back to the Sacramental life of the church.  Think of and pray for three or four people today who you are being called to “love” in this unique way—in going extra mile to invite them to be freed from their paralysis through the encounter with the mercy of Jesus Christ, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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: Friday - 1st Week of Advent 2016 - Words of Comfort & Challenge

I got a call from a local newspaper once. A brother priest, who is also a dear friend, had been named pastor of one of our parishes. The local neighborhood newspaper was doing a story on the new pastor, and they so they called up some of the priests who knew him well to give comment for the story. I was asked some basic questions, establishing my credibility, I guess, and then was asked why I thought Father would be a good pastor. And I said Father is a lot like the prophet Isaiah, and even Jesus himself, he believes in comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable.

The book of the Prophet Isaiah is divided into two parts, the first 39 chapters are called the Book of Woes, in which Isaiah warns Israel, challenges Israel, about their falling away from God’s covenant. In the book of Woes he describes the devestation that will befall Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple, if they do not repent.

The last half of the book of Isaiah is called the Book of Consolation, in which, Isaiah speaks to those Israelites who had been taken off into Babylonian Captivity. There was a failure to repent, and destruction had come, but Isaiah offers a word of consolation and promise to them, a word of hope.

In today’s passage, Isaiah has just delivered a word of warning to those who were spiritually blind, deaf to the word of God. The unfaithful of Jerusalem he says have become spiritually drunk, 

stupefied, blind and deaf to God, and had closed their minds and hearts to the truth of the prophets.

Then Isaiah turns the image around, speaking of the day of the coming of the Messiah, he says On that day the deaf shall hear; And out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see. The lowly will ever find joy in the LORD, and the poor rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

It’s a wonderful reversal reminding us quite a bit of Mary’s Magnificat, in which she prophesies how the once mighty will be cast down, and the lowly will be lifted up.

Nearly every page of scripture contains some challenge for the comfortable and comfort for the afflicted. In our own affliction, it is good to  know that God draws close to us, that our sufferings mean something, and there will be a reward for remaining faithful to God throughout our earthly pilgrimage.

Yet, we must also allow the word of God to challenge us, to stir us out of our complacency, to stretch us, to impel us to new vistas of charitable service.

In our Advent pilgrimage, may we be comforted in our afflictions and challenged in our complacency, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Thursday - 1st Week of Advent 2016 - Firm purpose brings peace

Isaiah speaks today of a well-defended city. It has strong walls and ramparts to protect the people from both severe weather and enemy attack. It is to be a city where the just, the righteous, the people of God can take refuge.

In a sense Isaiah spoke of what the earthly Jerusalem was supposed to be for the Jews; a place where the people of God, made holy by following all God’s commands, were to dwell and be a light for all nations.

Isaiah, too, foreshadows here, the Church. We Christians, made righteous—redeemed by the blood of Christ—make our earthly refuge within the secure walls of the Church, on the rock of faith, protected by the moral and doctrinal guidance of the Apostles, nourished by the Sacraments.

The city is even a foreshadowing of the heavenly Jerusalem that will last forever. You could find lovely descriptions, echoing the language of Isaiah, to describe the heavenly city where the redeemed shall dwell forever, in the book of Revelation.

Closely related to this idea of a city, are the houses of the wise man and the fool in the Gospel. The wise man builds his house, his life, on firm foundations—on the firm foundations of God: truth, goodness, beauty, faith, hope, love. We are foolish when we build our lives on the passing fancies of the culture, on the deficient moral principles of the world.

The city of Isaiah, the house of the Gospels, can also stand for our personal spiritual lives. Isaiah says that the inhabitants of the city have such a firm purpose that they are able to experience great peace. Great peace comes when we firmly devote ourselves to doing the will of God.

When we put off doing God’s will, when we put off spending time in meditative prayer, when we put off sitting down the scriptures, when we put off engaging in the works of charity, there is a restlessness, an anxiety. But have you ever regretted making that holy hour, have you ever regretted practicing the self-discipline and fasting?

Advent allows us an opportunity to strengthen our purpose; Advent is to be a quieter, more solemn season, in which we can discern the will of God in our lives, where we can examine the parts of our lives which our not built on the solid foundation of Christ.  We prepare well for the coming of Christ at Christmas and the coming of Christ at the end of time, by renewing our purpose. Think. Ask God. Reflect. Why am I here. What is the work I’m to be about? What are the practices that will best nourish my spiritual life? How can I best open wide the gates of my heart to those in need? For the glory of God and salvation of souls.