October 2016 – Journeying Into Mystery

Conversion, a process in becoming. A homily for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Listen to these words from the Book of Wisdom which we heard in the first reading. “For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.” Listen to them again. “For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.” Do you believe them? Do you believe that God loves you so greatly? Do you believe that God loves you so tremendously much? It matters not if we are not perfect. God doesn’t require us to be perfect in order to love us. God loves us just as we are. These words essentially say that God does not make junk. God does not create evil, God only creates good. The fact that God created us says that we are good. I find that incredibly comforting and reassuring. What God is asking of us is to fully become that which he created. In other words, we could be even better.

I know we have some educators numbered among us today. As a former educator, it was my intention to pull from each student their greatest potential. I didn’t want my students to slack off and to just get by. I wanted them to excel to the fullest of what they could do. I believe that that is the intention of all educators, to challenge, cajole, and to pull the best they can from their students. This is what God wants from us as well. God wants us to live fully the person he created us to be.

This is what the Gospel story is illustrating for us. Zacchaeus, is a tax collector. Many Jewish people considered him a traitor because he was collecting taxes for the Romans, their enemies. On top of that, Zacchaeus was also over taxing the people and keeping the extra money for himself. He heard that Jesus was passing through town and wanted to catch a glimpse of him. Because he was so short, he decided to climb a tree in order to get a better look at Jesus. So here is Zacchaeus perched in a tree like a bird as Jesus walks below him. Jesus looks up and tells Zacchaeus that he is going to be spending time at his house.

As crooked as Zacchaeus might have been, Jesus did not look upon Zacchaeus as a traitor, or as cheat and a scoundrel as did the others in Zacchaeus’ community. Jesus looked up and saw a child of God who wasn’t living up to his full potential as a child of God. In the words and in the eyes of Jesus, Zacchaeus was stirred to become a better person, to live more fully his human vocation as a child of God. He climbs down from the tree and tells Jesus that he will give half of his fortune to the poor. And, to anyone whom he had cheated, he would repay them four times the amount he cheated them. What Zacchaeus was experiencing was what we call a conversion.

Conversion means to change. We use that word in many different ways. If we go to a foreign country we convert our money into the money of the country we are visiting. We convert inches and feet into centimeters and meters. Spiritually, we are called to change ourselves, to convert our way of living right now into becoming the person God created us to be.

This conversion is not a one time occurrence it is something that happens over and over again in our lives. It is something that we want to experience daily. Some days will be very good, and other days, not so good. The wonderful thing about conversion is that there is always another day in which we can change our lives for the better.

And what is the ultimate upside to conversion? It is what St. Paul expresses in his letter to the Thessalonians. He writes so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in us, and we in him.
We always must work on our own personal conversion so that when people see us and visit with us they encounter in us the glory of Jesus Christ. Living a lifetime of conversion, we will lead us to that for which we were ultimately created to become, the living and breathing incarnation of Jesus to our world.

POPULISM, ITS CHALLENGES AND ITS DANGERS

In the present presidential race, we are experiencing the populist wave of discontent toward the established political parties in the candidacy of Donald Trump, and to some extent that of Bernie Sanders. Political scientists will acknowledge that populism is inherent to democracy. When a certain percentage of the populace believe that their cries for reform are largely unheard by those elected to office, they will seek a candidate who will challenge the status quo.

The populism of the State of Minnesota led to the election of professional wrestler, “I ain’t got time to bleed” Jessie Ventura, an independent, to the office of governor. The combined ineptitude on the part of Ventura, and the State legislatures’ unwillingness to work with Ventura made this experiment in populism a disaster for the people of Minnesota. I think it is safe to say that the citizens of Minnesota have learned from that huge electoral mistake.

The revolutionary populist movements against established governments can lead to great disasters. Witness the French Revolution in which French populism led to the taking down of the French monarchy, with many of those French nobles and their families executed on the guillotine. However, the hate and bitterness experienced by the nobility of France at the hands of the populists, was then turned in upon the populists themselves as the Reign of Terror continued, and they themselves were then summarily executed. It was said that the streets of Paris ran with the blood from the bodies of the many beheaded corpses. Ironically, the French populist sought refuge from their own carnage by establishing a new monarchy, crowning Napoleon emperor of France.

As in the French Revolution, the populist movements of the 20^th century that overthrew oppressive governments led to even more oppressive and brutal governments. To name just a few, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia that took down the Russian Czars, but replaced it with the totalitarianism of Leninist and later Stalinist Communism. Then there was the populist overthrow of Germany’s Weimar Republic replacing it with the Nazis government of Adolf Hitler. Then there was the rise of Facism with Mussolini in Italy and Franco in Spain. One by one, the terror of one form of government was replaced with a more horrific terror.

The only instance in which populism led to something better was in the American Revolution. Though, we as a nation have had our good and bad times, the establishment of a two party political system, and the checks and balances of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government has been able to ride out the challenges of unchecked populism. While our democracy is not perfect, is not always just, and is always in need of improvement, it has served the people better than most other governments.

Over the past thirty years, or more, both the Republicans and the Democrats have listened more to the lobbyists than their constituents. This more than any ideology has given rise to the populism that is represented by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. If these two political parties wish to survive the threat of imminent and permanent rupture, though this is presently more pronounced for the Republican Party than for the Democratic Party, they must begin to listen in earnest to the grievances of the populist movement. The aggrieved must come away knowing that they have been heard by those in political office and that their voices hold more weight than that of the moneyed interests influencing the Senate and the House of Representatives. This must be followed through by those elected with appropriate action on the behalf of the common good within the constraints of government.

Let’s Get Small – a homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“The Pharisee and the Publican”, fresco from Ottobeuren Basilica.

The comedian, Steve Martin, was a frequent guest of Saturday Night Live in the mid-1970’s. This was during Steve Martin’s, “wild and crazy guy,” period as a comedian. He would come out with his 5 string banjo, a fake arrow through his head and do or say something outrageous. One night during his opening monologue, he told the audience that some people, when they have free time, like to go out and get high. He said, “when I have some free time, I don’t want to get high. I like to get small.” Then he described how it was not wise to get small and drive while under the influence of the drug because you can’t see over the steering wheel. One day a cop pulled him over and said, ‘Are you small?’ Martin said, “No-o-o! I’m not!” The cop said, “Well, I’m gonna have to measure you.” They have this little test they give you – they give you a balloon.. and if you can get inside of it, they know you’re small.” Steve Martin ended the routine by saying, once he got so small he crawled inside a vacuum cleaner, at which point the drug wore off and he retained the shape of a vacuum cleaner for the next couple of weeks.

The readings for this weekend tell us that if we want to follow Jesus, we need to, “get small.” Of course, this is not meant to be in the same manner as described by Steve Martin. The readings detail for us a message that runs throughout the entirety of the Bible. Greatness, in the eyes of God, is not defined by power, position, wealth, and possessions. That is the world’s definition of greatness. The Seven Deadly Sins of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride, are derived by that which the world calls great.

Throughout the Holy Scriptures, God equates greatness with those who are the lowly, the powerless, the vulnerable, and the weak. In the Song of Hannah from 1 Samuel, we hear Hannah sing that God will raise the needy from the ash heaps and place them in the places of the nobility. The hungry will feast, while the well fed will go hungry. The swords of the mighty will be broken, while the weak and stumbling God will endow with great strength. Hundreds of years later, Mary, the mother of Jesus, in her great canticle, “The Magnificat,” will echo Hannah’s words. Mary says to her cousin, Elizabeth, that God will scatter the proud in their conceit. God will cast down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly. God will fill the hungry with good things, and the rich God will send away empty.

In the first reading from Sirach, we hear that God is not deaf to the cries of the orphan or the widow, the most vulnerable and poor of people of that time in history. Sirach continues, saying, the prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds and will not rest until heard by God. The Second Vatican Council referred to God’s love and care for the lowly of the world as God’s Preferential Option for the Poor.

The meaning of greatness is exemplified best in the life of Jesus. The early Christian hymn found in St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians says it all. “Jesus, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped. But he emptied himself taking the form of a slave, becoming as human beings are: and being in every way like a human being, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross.” The greatness of Jesus became even greater by Jesus becoming small.

To become great in the eyes of God, we must become small. This is why Jesus tells everyone in the gospel that it is the lowly tax collector, a sinner and a traitor to the Jewish people, who is greater than the self-righteous Pharisee, who sneers with disdain at the tax collector. What does the tax collector pray? “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” What does the Pharisee pray? “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.” Jesus concludes that God will hear the prayer of the tax collector, but God’s ears will be shut to the prayer of the Pharisee, “for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

What does this mean for us today? How do we become small so as to be great in the eyes of God? St Paul tells us in the opening line of our second reading. “Beloved, I am being poured out as a libation.” Following the example of Jesus, Paul becomes less, becomes small, as he pours his life out in loving service to God and those to whom God entrusted to him. In the words of Jesus, to become great requires us to lose ourselves. Unlike the Pharisee in the Gospel who seeks to inflate his own false ego by separating himself from the lowly Tax Collector, we must empty ourselves of our false egos, allowing God to fill our lives instead, so that we may become one with the rest of humanity. To be one with the lowly of our world, as Jesus did, we must become small.

Our starting point begins today in this church. As we look around us, we will see the image and likeness of Jesus imprinted on the faces of everyone here. Baptized into Christ Jesus, our individual identities are actually just a small part of the one greater living organism that is known as THE Body of Christ. Individually and collectively, we ARE the living and breathing Body of Christ in the world. Our hands, our feet, our faces, our bodies, do not belong to us, they belong to the Body of Christ, in whom we are one. Though God has bestowed upon each individual here with different gifts, the gifts we have are shared mutually with the entire Body of Christ. And as the Body of Christ, we go from this place as a living Sacrament to share our gifts with the lowly of our world. In our smallness we become great.

In the communion hymn, “You Satisfy the Hungry Heart”, we sing, “The myst’ry of your presence, Lord, no mortal tongue can tell: whom all the world cannot contain comes in our hearts to dwell.” (Repeat spoken) “Whom all the world cannot contain comes in our hearts to dwell.” Jesus, the Word of God, the Ruler of the Universe, becomes small so that he can become one with us in our lowliness, in Holy Communion, so that he may continue to become one and minister to the lowly of this world, through us. So, in the words of Steve Martin, “Let’s get small,” that we, as the Body of Christ, may continue to be one as Christ and serve the small of our world.

To think and to act critically as a faith filled people.

With election day looming closer it seems certain that Donald Trump will be defeated in this election. Those who have pledged blind allegiance to the candidate are vowing to disrupt government even to the point of dismantling the government. The more radical declare an armed revolution, while others opt for a revolution of civil disobedience and noncompliance to all three branches of government.

One could look upon this group of Trump devotees as an angry group of uneducated, white people afraid of losing what is left of their white privilege to people of color. While it is a fact that among them are white racists, brigands, and vigilantes, to castigate the entirety of these devotees as such is as wrong as associating all Latinos with members of the drug cartels, all African Americans with gangbangers, and all Muslims with terrorists. Trump has played upon the fears, real or imagined of this white demographic, and while some have been duped and misled by his rhetoric, they are not all dopes.

If this demographic is guilty of anything, it is the failure to think and to act critically. Instead of educating themselves about the issues, about the candidates, and doing the critical reading and listening that is a requirement of citizens of a democracy, they have abrogated their right and obligation to be educated and placed it on other people and political pundits, largely untrustworthy. This is the easy and painless way to go. To think and to act critically at elections takes a lot of work. To not do so is to be lazy and irresponsible.

The same can be said about how we live our faith life. As people of faith, we are called to think and to act critically on our faith. To think and act critically is not defined as one “criticizing” or “acting in opposition” to our faith. It is to come to know the “why” of our faith. It is coming to know why Jesus is central to everything we believe. It is coming to know why we gather on the Lord’s Day to celebrate the Holy Eucharist. It is coming to know why and what the Church teaches in regard to doctrine and a moral way of life.

Thinking and acting critically on our faith is not blindly following rules and regulations sent down from on high by a hierarchical clergy. It is not living with our “eyes wide shut.” Thinking and acting on our faith requires us to know the why of those rules and regulations and when it might be important to our faith to be at a place in opposition to them. The Church’s teaching of the primacy of conscience is based upon the bedrock of thinking and acting critically on our faith. This is what is meant to have an “informed conscience.”

Stagnancy and complacency are not descriptive adjectives of an active life of faith. A faith that is thought about and acted upon critically can be and is often marked by uncertainty, discomfort, inconvenience, and a restlessness that continually prompts us to do something about it. In our wrestling with our faith and in our restlessness, we find ourselves like Jacob wrestling with the angel of God, and come to a deeper knowledge and trust of the God who is our beginning and our end.

Thinking and acting critically on our faith ultimately leads us to only one certainty in life, and that is God. As the Psalmist writes in Psalm 139,

“LORD, you have probed me, you know me:

you know when I sit and stand,

you understand my thoughts from afar.

You sift through my travels and my rest;

with all my ways you are familiar.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

LORD, you know it all.

Behind and before you encircle me

and rest your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

far too lofty for me to reach.

Where can I go from your spirit?

From your presence, where can I flee?

If I ascend to the heavens, you are there;

if I lie down in Sheol, there you are.

If I take the wings of dawn^–

and dwell beyond the sea,

Even there your hand guides me,

your right hand holds me fast. (Ps 139: 1b-10. NAB)

Living the Justice of God – a reflection on the Gospel for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This past week we have heard a presidential candidate in a televised debate call for the imprisonment of his political opponent. Throughout the week, the mobs gathered at his rallies have chanted, “Lock her up!” For those who have studied any American history, this brings to mind the senseless and violent mob justice of American vigilante groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, who executed and burned down all whom they despised and hated. For a presidential candidate to incite a mob to injustice is a criminal miscarriage of justice. In contrast to the nonsensical and hate filled justice of this past week at this candidate’s political rallies, in the Gospel for this Sunday, we encounter the justice of God.

While at a Permanent Diaconate Conference in Milwaukee about 16 years ago, one of the presenters, the auxiliary bishop of Milwaukee, Bishops Sklba, a biblical scholar and professor of scripture, described the justice of God as that which fulfills the intention of God. He used a pencil as an example. In the realm of God’s justice, a pencil is “just” if it fulfills its reason for being created, namely, to write on paper or some other surface. If we follow the Bishop’s definition of the justice of God, humanity is only “just” when we fulfill the reasons for which we were created, namely, to love God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus, God made human, is the only human being created who has fulfilled God the Father’s intention for humanity. Only Jesus is the full embodiment of Divine Justice.

In spite of our best intentions, collectively as human beings, we fall far short of being the embodiment of God’s justice. Granted, there are those who have dedicated their lives to living as fully God’s intention for humanity. Dorothy Day, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Mother Theresa, Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, amongst many others, have sought to embody God’s justice, but have acknowledged either in speech or writing, their inability to fully live the justice of God. In their acknowledgement of their falling short, they, nonetheless, did not give up but aspired and pushed themselves harder to embrace and live the justice of God to the best of their ability.

Toward the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that the justice of God will come quickly for those who have faith. Jesus follows that statement with the question, “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” At the second coming of Jesus, will he find people who aspire to love God with all their heart, with all their mind, and with all their strength, and love their neighbor as themselves?

There are many Christians who have lived under the delusion that the United States was founded on the Christian religion. The truth is that while the Founding Fathers, welcomed Christianity, they also welcome all religious expression. To protect all citizens from religious persecution, the caveat of the Founding Fathers was that no one religion, be it Christian or non-Christian, would dominate or direct the nation. The only “religious” document that had priority was the Constitution of the United States. In the eyes of our Founding Fathers, this document holds the high place over the Torah, The Christian Bible, the Koran and all other religious books.

To live in this environment calls us as Catholic Christians to live counter-culturally. Our starting point to living a full “just” life is the Holy Eucharist. It is within the celebration of the Sunday Eucharist in which we give thanks and praise to our God who created us. It is within the celebration of the Sunday Eucharist in which we encounter in one another the living and breathing presence of God. It is in immersing ourselves fully into this mystery that we are able to begin our aspiration to live God’s justice as fully as we are able. It is in recognizing the presence of God in humanity, as broken and as ugly as we may be, that we abhor the mob mentality of injustice that we have seen this week at Trump’s rallies, while we love the very people who are being incited to violence.

This is what it means to live a “just” life. This is what Jesus is referring to when he asks whether he will find faith when he returns again in glory. Will he find those faithful to living as fully as they are able the Great Commandment of loving God and neighbor? Among whom will we number ourselves, the senseless mentality of mob vigilante justice, or those who embody the justice of God? As in all things, it comes to a personal choice. Following the example of Joshua, the prophets, the saints, and Jesus, I choose God!

Thanks for the memories – a homily on the readings for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The Healing Of The Ten Lepers (artist James Tissot, Brooklyn Museum)

Today, we are taught a lesson in gratitude. We hear of Naaman the leper, the commander of the Aramean army, an enemy of Israel, cured of leprosy by God. Naaman, cured of his illness, rejoices and gives praise to God of the Israelites, stating that their God will be the only one he will adore. In the Gospel, we hear about the 10 men, whom Jesus cured of leprosy. Only one, a Samaritan, an outsider, returns in gratitude, thanking Jesus for having been cured. As a rule, when something positive happens to us we are genuinely grateful.

The second reading presents us with a different scenario in which St. Paul, imprisoned, is giving thanks to God. St. Paul is well aware that the only way he will exit his prison cell is when he is led out to be executed. Yet, St. Paul is grateful, he rejoices in his suffering. He writes: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David: such is my gospel, for which I am suffering, even to the point of chains, like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore, I bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, together with eternal glory.”

St. Paul’s words reflects that of the prophet Isaiah who wrote,” The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it. Yes, the people is grass! The grass withers, the flower wilts, but the word of our God stands forever” (Is 40: 7-8). St. Paul rejoices because while he may be imprisoned, the Word of God, in which all salvation is found, is not imprisoned. And, the eternal life in glory promised to St. Paul at his death will also be promised to all those who are disciples and followers of Jesus.

While there will be times when things go our way, there will come a time in each and every one of our lives, in which things will not go our way. In the midst of our own suffering, will we have the ability, as did St. Paul, to be grateful?

When I was in seminary, one of the assignments I was given to write was a paper on aging. In my research, I came across a beautiful, simple, yet very significant statement written by the esteemed spiritual writer, Fr. Henri Nouwen. Nouwen wrote that as we age we will undergo all sorts of losses in our lives; loss of health, loss of job, loss of our purpose in life, to name just a few. We have two choices to make at the time. We can either age into bitterness, or age into grace. Listen to those words again. We can either age into bitterness, or age into grace.

This past Wednesday, I had my 7^th week post-surgical appointment with my surgeon. I was told that the knee replacement surgery was successful and I was on my way to being healed. I was grateful for the good news. I asked the surgeon whether I would be ever able to get rid of my cane. He shook his head and said no. The MRSA infection I got when I had my first hip replacement in 2011, the consequent 5 ½ months of having no hip at all, while doctors were trying to find a way to kill the infection without killing me, had atrophied the muscles so badly that my left leg would never regain the strength it once had. I would need a cane for the rest of my life.

As I was driving home from my appointment with my surgeon, I remembered another drive I took on the night of March 7, 2002 in which I was involved in a car crash on Highway 21. I was going to pick my son Luke up from vocational school in Eden Prairie when a car crossed the medium strip and hit me head-on. They had to cut apart the car in order to get me out of it.

I ended up with a high femur break of my left leg, and, as painful as that was, what was more painful for me was the injury done to my right hand. I didn’t know at the time of the accident that all the ligaments in my right hand were shredded by the impact. I knew my hand and forearm hurt, and all they gave me for that was a brace to wear. By the time the severity of the injury to my hand was discovered, the hand surgeon told me that he could only restore 60% of my hand.

I was a professional pianist. It was the way I made my living. From the time I studied piano at the University of St. Thomas to that March night in 2002, I was a professional pianist. From 1977 to that night in 2002, I taught music in schools, directed choirs, and gave concerts. I was the director of liturgy and music in parishes in our Archdiocese. That all ended the night of the accident.

I was angry. I was angry at the guy that crossed the medium strip and hit me head on. I could have been very angry and bitter at God about this loss. It was a huge loss. Music is what I did, and I was very good and skilled at it. How could God treat someone who had dedicated his life to ministry in the Church in such a harsh way? Instead of being bitter and angry, I found myself grateful to God. I found myself grateful to God for the many years in which I was able to play at that high performance level. I found myself grateful to God for the musical skills which he gave me and that had served me and the Church so very well for many years. And while I grieve and continue to grieve this great loss in my life, I found myself content. In the words of Nouwen, I decided to age into grace.

As I drove home this past Wednesday, reflecting on all of this, I found myself once more grateful. While I may never again be able to walk without the aid of a cane, I am grateful that I can still walk. I am grateful for all the times I once was able to jump, and hop, ran and walked and play.

This is my story. All of us present have our own stories of loss in our lives, and, if we don’t, we will in the future. When that time comes to confront our losses will we find within ourselves the gratitude that St. Paul expressed today in his second letter to Timothy? St. Paul could have been very bitter about his imprisonment and about his subsequent execution. Yet he chose instead to be grateful. St. Paul knew that the life he was going to experience after death, would be far greater than that he was experiencing as he wrote that epistle.

We are given two choices in life. We can, as Henri Nouwen wrote, choose to age into bitterness or choose to age into grace. As a disciples of Jesus, and knowing that which awaits us after death, let us choose to age into gratefulness and grace.

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