Category: Homily

HOMILY FOR THE 11TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

In the Gospels, Jesus preaches that the Kingdom of God is in the here and now. In the fourth verse of Marty Haugen’s hymn, “Gather Us In”, is this marvelous verse. “Not in the dark of buildings confining, not in some heaven light years away; but, here in this space a new light is dawning. Now is the Kingdom, now is the day! Gather us in and hold us forever. Gather us in, and make us your own. Gather us in, all people’s together, fire of love in our flesh and our bone.” This verse expresses very well that the Kingdom of God is all around us. In fact, as Marty so poetically states it, the Kingdom of God is so present, it permeates even our flesh and our bone.

The author of the book of Ecclesiastes expresses the same thing. “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.” The author then lists those times. There is a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot the plant, a time mourn and a time to dance, and so on. The author then concludes, that God has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless in our hearts, without us ever discovering, from beginning to end the work God has done. Mysteriously, we live unaware of the timelessness God has planted in our hearts. Nevertheless, all of our lives are an integral part of the Kingdom of God.

This mystery is expressed in the parables Jesus uses to describe the Kingdom of God. When seeds are planted, the mystery of the seed sprouting and growing happens outside of our control. Jesus also describes the mystery of the Kingdom of God as something that starts as simple as a mustard seed which then grows into a huge, marvelous plant in which the birds and other animals find shelter and home. The Kingdom of God is far greater than our insignificant selves.
I remember the birth of my first child. In the delivery room, I dutifully took my position up by Ruthie’s head to give her words of encouragement. The doctor looked at me and asked, “Do you faint at the sight of blood?” I replied, no. He then said, “There is nothing you can say that will help her. Get behind me and watch your child be born!” The doctor was sitting on a stool and I stood behind him, much like an umpire stands behind a catcher to call balls and strikes, and I watched my first child be born. The presence of God filled the delivery room and I remember the feeling that if I had stretched out my arm in the space, I would touch the face of God. I fully realized at that moment how far greater God was than my insignificant self.

On this weekend we celebrate the vocation of fathering. All of us who have done parenting are well aware of the great mystery that takes place in raising children. We assist in the creation of a new life, and nurture that life along the way of becoming an adult. As we watch our children grow physically, mentally, and emotionally into adulthood, we see the mystery of God’s Kingdom unfold in their lives. We witness their individual joys and their sufferings in their times of planting and reaping, mourning and dancing, their times of love and hate. We do our best to assist them and accompany them through all of these times never fully knowing the mystery of the Kingdom of God being played out in their lives, and, being played out in our lives, too, for in assisting our children, we continue to grow into the mystery of God’s Kingdom.

Jesus assures us that like that mustard seed that grows into a huge plant, in which all life finds shelter, we, too, will find shelter and care in God’s Kingdom. We were born from the mystery of God’s Kingdom, we live and we grow in the mystery of God’s Kingdom, and when we die we are embraced fully into the mystery of God’s Kingdom. We will never fully understand the mystery of God’s Kingdom, but we are called to trust in that mystery and assist the growth of that mystery in our lives, in the lives of all people we love, and in our world. As the author of Ecclesiastes so aptly states, “God has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into our hearts, without us ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done.”

The earliest written account of the words of consecration are those we hear in the second reading tonight. Paul, in his first letter to the Christian community in Corinth, gives us a glance as to how Mass was celebrated in the early Church. He wrote his 1st letter to the Corinthians around the year 50, approximately 20 years after the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and 15 to 20 years before the first gospel, the gospel of Mark, was written. We hear Paul say two times in this reading, “Do this in remembrance of me.” What do these words mean to us?

Back in the 1950’s, when Mass was in Latin, my parents would have said, “Do this in remembrance of me meant going to hear Mass.” We didn’t participate at all in the Mass. We were not allowed to say any Mass prayers, not even the Our Father. The altar boys did that for us. We weren’t allowed to sing. The choir did that for us. Do this in memory of me meant going to church on Sunday to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion.

As a 2 and 3 year old kid , “Do this in remembrance of me” meant standing on the kneeler, opening up the purse of the woman in the pew ahead of us, and rifling through its contents, and, playing with the feet of those kneeling in front of me. Boy, people really hate it when you grab the heals of their shoes and move them back and forth. When you are barely 2 feet tall and can barely see over the pew, can’t bring anything to play with at Mass, and everything is in a language you don’t understand, you have to do something to occupy your time.

As I got older, and became an altar boy, I would say, “Do this in remembrance of me” meant memorizing Latin prayers I didn’t understand. It meant learning to ring the bells at the correct time. It meant knowing when to transfer the Roman Missal from the epistle side of the altar to the gospel side of the altar. It meant learning how to stifle my laughter as I held a paten under the chin of people who stuck their tongues out at me. It also meant that I could not “accidentally” hit a kid I didn’t like in the Adam’s Apple with the edge of the paten. Man that would really get him to stick out his tongue.

Things have changed a lot since that time long ago. “Do this in memory of me,” no longer means passively sitting silent like spectators watching the priest and the altar servers do things for us. We are now actively engaged in Mass by praying the prayers of the Mass, singing the hymns and acclamations of the Mass, listening to the scripture proclaimed, and receiving Holy Communion. But, is this what Jesus meant by saying, “Do this in remembrance of me?” No. As we hear in the Gospel tonight “Do this in remembrance of me” is more than smells and bells.

The great Catholic scripture scholar, Fr Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, wrote that Jesus did not just merely say the words, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus gave substance to those words by washing the feet of the apostles and then going forth and sacrificing his life on the cross for all people, including those who plotted against him and executed him. Jesus tells us, “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” To do this in remembrance of me means that we are to go forth from this church with the grace we have received from this Mass and use that grace to serve the needs, to wash the feet, figuratively speaking and literally speaking, of all who are in need.

If we continue to read the passages after Jesus washes the feet of his apostles, we will hear Jesus give his last teaching to the apostles before he goes to the Garden and fulfills his mission. He will command them to “love one another as I have loved you.”

That command has been passed down the ages to us here tonight. As Jesus fed the 5000, we are to go forth and feed the hungry, whether it is at the Dorothy Day Center, Loaves and Fishes, bringing food to the food shelf, or bringing a hot meal to someone who is in need. As Jesus healed those who were sick, we are to go forth and visit and pray for those who are ill, drive people to the doctors and keep them company as they wait in the waiting room, or sit with their families during surgeries, or even bringing some chicken noodle soup who has a bad cold. As Jesus comforted many who were overwhelmed by life’s problems, so we, too, must sit and listen to people as they try and sort out what has happened to them in life. Perhaps they have lost a job, or are going through separation and divorce. Perhaps they are grieving the death of someone they loved. Perhaps they are lonely, or feeling depressed and need someone to listen to them. As Jesus welcomed and ministered to many shunned by his society, Samaritans, tax collectors, prostitutes, so are we to welcome the stranger and those looked down upon by our society.

When we, as the living, breathing body of Christ on this earth truly “Do this in remembrance of me,” we give substance to the words of consecration we hear at Mass. The words of consecration are not just holy words uttered by a priest to transform bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. When these words are placed into action, they transform our lives, so that we can go forth and transform the world around us.

On Saturday afternoon, it became readily apparent that the Archdiocese was unable to find a priest to celebrate Mass at the churches of St Scholastica and St John the Evangelist on Sunday morning. This meant that I was busy Saturday afternoon writing a homily for the Word/Communion services (technically, Sundays in the Absence of a Priest) for the two churches. While not as polished as I usually like, the gist of the homily is below.

When my kids were young, the one movie they loved to watch over and over again was the movie, “The Goonies.” It was about a group of kids living in a poor part of Astoria, Oregon called the Goon Docks. They were being evicted out of their homes because a wealthy group of investors wanted to expand the local Country Club where their homes were located. Facing eviction in a couple of days, the kids find in the attic of a home an old Spanish treasure map and a key that once belonged to a pirate known as One Eyed Willie. They decide to go and find One Eyed Willie’s buried treasure and so buy their homes back from the investors. They had a yearning to find the treasure, an urgency to find the treasure. The rest of the film is about their quest to find the treasure, not get killed by all the booby traps that One Eyed Willie had set to guard his treasure and not get killed by the Fratelli family, a family of thieves and murders, who were also interested in finding the treasure.

In the words of scripture today is expressed the great longing and yearning for the Messiah. We hear Matthew relate in the Gospel how strangers from the East, traveled long distances and expended great money in order to find this newborn baby who would be the anointed one of God. Though they were not Jewish, they knew instinctively that the baby they would find would alter world history. Upon finding him, they were overwhelmed by the wonder of what they beheld, knelt down and adored the child, offering him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The wonder they experienced was foreseen by the prophet Isaiah when he wrote, “Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you.” St Paul writing to the Christian community in Ephesus reminds them that the mystery and wonder of Jesus Christ is not isolated to the Jewish Christian community but is for all people throughout the world Jewish and non-Jewish.

There are many in the world who are searching for wonder and splendor but not that which Isaiah foretold. Abandoning their religious roots, they seek to find that wonder and splendor in careers, wealth, property, positions of power and consumerism. Pope Francis writes in his apostolic letter, “The Joy of the Gospel,” We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.” The reality is all the things that we buy, the careers we may pursue, the positions of power we seek will not give to us the wonder and splendor that Isaiah foretold, and that the Magi found in this baby born in poverty. In the end, the things of this world will only bring us heartache and disappointment.

We are drawn to this church on this cold morning just as the Magi were drawn to that stable in Bethlehem. Our quest is the same, to find Jesus and to present to Jesus the gift of ourselves. To seek the Messiah, we do not need to travel to far off places. When I worked at St Hubert back in the 80’s, there was a wonderful Franciscan friar, Fr Elstan Coghill, who was there temporarily as an associate pastor. A group of parishioners were heading off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and I asked Fr Elstan whether we had every traveled to the Holy Places. He looked at me and smiled and then quietly replied, “I have never had the desire to go to Jerusalem. If I want to travel to find Jesus I just walk into the Eucharistic chapel and I behold him in the tabernacle.

The Church teaches that we encounter the presence of Jesus in 4 different ways at Mass. We experience the presence of Jesus first in this gathering of the all who are baptized. At our baptism we clothes ourselves in Christ Jesus, becoming his voice, his hands, his feet, his compassion to the world. Fr Joseph Gelinaneau once wrote that the greatest sign of Jesus in the world was the packed parking lot of a church on Sunday morning, for it shows to the world that the Body of Christ has gathered there. The second experience of Jesus’ real presence is when the words of sacred scripture are proclaimed. The lector, the deacon, or priest give voice to the living words of God to all present. The third experience of Jesus present is in the Eucharist, the consecrated Body and Blood of Jesus we receive in holy communion. The fourth experience of Christ is in the priest who acts in persona Christi, he acts in the person of Christ as he presides at Mass. He is Christ as sacrament. Today, with no priest present, that fourth experience of Christ is obviously absent. As a deacon I do not act in persona Christi in the same way as a priest. That is not my role as a deacon. I act in persona Chrisiti, in the person of Jesus as servant, when I am ministering to people who are in need, the poor,  those who are sick, those who are grieving. We gather here and give thanks for the presence of God in us, with us, and through us. Like the Magi, we find him for whom we seek and adore him offering ourselves as gift to him.

At the end of the movie “The Goonies”, the kids do find the treasure of One Eyed Willie and the vast amount of wealth initially fills them with awe and wonder. The jewels they have save their homes from foreclosure. However, after being reunited with their very worried parents, the kids discovered that the greatest treasure was not the one that One Eyed Willie had hidden. The greatest treasure was found in the relationship they had with their families. Today, as a community of faith we find the greatest treasure of our world here in this place. The anointed one of God, the Messiah, Jesus Christ the Lord is found here, in this place, among us who are baptized, in the proclamation of the God’s Word in Holy Scripture, and in the real presence of Jesus’ Body and Blood in Holy Communion. Let us give thanks, and bow in adoration before him, offering to him ourselves as gift.

I gave this homily this weekend on the occasion of a parishioner, Mickey Redfearn, receiving the sacrament of Holy Orders. Mickey was ordained a permanent deacon on Saturday by Archbishop Hebda at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

HOMILY FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT, YEAR B, 2017
On this 2nd weekend in Advent, Mickey Redfearn, our brother parishioner, received the sacrament of Holy Orders at the Cathedral of St. Paul. Today he is now an ordained deacon. Fr Kevin thought it important for me to preach today and speak about the ministry of the deacon.

Remembering my own ordination to the diaconate 23 years ago, there were three ritual actions that stand out for me. The first was kneeling before the Archbishop Roach and as placing my joined hands in his, I promised my obedience to him and to his successor bishops. The second, was the actual ordination itself, as the Archbishop placing his hands on my head and prayed the prayer of consecration. And the third, was the Archbishop coming to me and placing the Book of the Gospels in my hands and saying to me, “Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you now are. Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach.” It is appropriate that that today’s scripture readings are about being heralds of the Good News for that is what the deacon is called to do.

What does it mean to be a herald of Christ? As a deacon, it is more than proclaiming the Gospel and occasionally preaching when assisting liturgically at Mass. The deacon is a living sign of Jesus Christ, the Servant of God. I have found in my 23 years as a deacon that it means ministering to people in places I never would thought I would find myself. There are times as a deacon you are a herald in a place where you are welcomed by the people. There are times you find yourself being a herald in places where you are not welcome. As deacons, we find ourselves ministering to people living and suffering in darkness. You will find deacons ministering in prisons, as chaplains in police and fire departments, in nursing homes, hospitals, hospices. Deacons minister to those in our immigrant communities, to those caught up in addictions, to those who are homeless and mentally ill. You will find deacons teaching in faith formation, the RCIA, and, some function as administrators of parishes.

Within my first year as a deacon I found myself the Catholic chaplain for the Carver County jail. I have ministered to the homeless and the mentally ill on the streets of South Minneapolis. I have ministered to men and women in the gay and lesbian community. I have ministered to the Mexican and Ecuadorian immigrant communities in South Minneapolis, learning Spanish so that I could baptize their babies, officiate at their weddings, and preside at their funerals, and preach at Masses in their own language. For the past 23 years I have ministered to women and children suffering from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, trying to remove them from dangerous living conditions, and, at times advocating for them in court. I minister to people going through separation and divorce, to families grieving the suicide of a loved one. I am present to pray with and accompany people in their illnesses, both physical and mental, and to pray the prayers of the dying at the death beds of people. I help prepare and officiate at the baptisms, the weddings and the funerals of our parish community. Steve and Mary Frost often call on me to do the funerals of people who have been unchurched most of their lives. This is some of what the deacon does as a herald of the Gospel. This is the life into which Mickey Redfearn is ordained today.

What must be made clear is that being a herald of God is not confined to those of us ordained to Holy Orders. Each and every one of you are called to be heralds of God. At your baptism, when you were anointed with the oil of Chrism, you were anointed priest, prophet, and King. From that moment on, you, the baptized, were given the mission of being heralds of God. As the prophet Isaiah states in the first reading, you are to go to the highest mountain and crying out at the top of your voices proclaim the Good News to the world, “Here is your God! Here comes with power the Lord GOD, who rules by his strong arm; here is his reward with him, his recompense before him.”

You don’t have to be clothed in camel’s hair and eat bugs and honey, like John the Baptist, nor do you have to be dressed in an alb and stole like a deacon or a priest to be a herald of God. You are to go forth into those places of the world in which you live and by word and example proclaim the Good News of God’s salvation to all people.

Your ministry as heralds of the Gospel is vitally important to the mission of the Catholic Church. In the past, we use to say that this was the job of priests and nuns. That was a false idea then, and it is very false today. The number of priests, deacons, and nuns are dwindling. There are not enough priests, deacons, and nuns to do this job today. I was at the funeral of two more of my deacon classmates this year. There are only 3 of us left from my ordination class of 9. All of us have serious health issues. I stand here falling apart in front of your eyes. I tell my kids that if an arm falls off, pick it up before the dog plays with it. The job of being heralds is all our job. My brothers and sisters, you can go into places and reach people in ways in which priests, deacons, and nuns cannot. The Catholic Church needs you to be heralds of the Gospel in the places in which you work. The Catholic Church needs you to be heralds of the Gospel in your community and neighborhoods. The Catholic Church needs you be heralds of the Gospel in the grocery store, the gas station, the bowling alley, the coffee shops, and the saloons. Most importantly, the Catholic Church needs you to be heralds of the Gospel in your own homes.

Brother and sister heralds, we, like John the Baptist, are to go forth and prepare the way for our Lord Jesus Christ. Today and every day, let us go forth as the prophet Isaiah says, and “make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!” Let us go forth as heralds so that every valley be filled in, every mountain and hill be made low. Let us go forth as heralds so that the glory of the LORD may be revealed and that all people see it.

This past Thanksgiving Day I was called on to do a Word and Communion at St. Scholastica Church. This is the homily I gave for that Word and Communion.

HOMILY FOR THANKSGIVING – 2017
Thanksgiving is a holiday in which we pause in our busy lives to be grateful. Grateful for the relationships we have in our lives, especially with those we love and befriend. Grateful for the blessings with which God has given us. Grateful for work and meaning to our lives. All of this part of our lives interacting with God.

For some, however, this day and the rest of the holiday season is a time of great sadness in which they find little to be grateful. This past Tuesday, I facilitated my separated and divorce support group. I ordered special made cupcakes for the meeting knowing that those cupcakes may be the only thing that is positive in their lives this week. Some families are so broken and so dysfunctional that they don’t even gather in fragments to eat a meal together. One participant will bring her blind brother to Perkins for a Thanksgiving meal. Many will sit home, alone, eating a turkey T.V. dinner.

This coming Tuesday I will co-facilitate a support group for families who have lost a loved one to suicide. Though the loss grows less as the year passes, they continue to mourn the absence of that loved one who has died, always wondering whether they could have done anything to help save their loved one’s life.

Oh, that all supplications to God for healing would have the happy ending of the 10 lepers in the gospel story today! And, yet the chronically ill, those acutely ill in hospitals will not have their illnesses so readily and completely cured.
The questions is how to give thanks when there seems to be little for which to be thankful? How do we give thanks when life appears empty of meaning, when our personal losses overwhelm all the good we have? How to give thanks to God in the midst of adversity and suffering?

St. Paul, in the second reading, answers this question. As we read many of the letters of St. Paul, he states the same answer to the questions I have just posed. St. Paul was arrested, whipped, schemed against, tortured, beaten, almost executed by stoning, and eventually would be jailed and martyred by the Romans. Yet, St. Paul always was giving thanks to God for all his suffering? Was he delusional? Was he serious? He was absolutely serious.

In the second reading, St. Paul writes to the Corinthians these words, “God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” That for which St. Paul is so grateful is the relationship he was with God through Jesus Christ. St. Paul knows that in the midst of his suffering, God is ever by his side, always in relationship with him. It is this intimate relationship with which St. Paul has with God that fills him with such great thankfulness and joy.

This is not an entirely new concept introduced by St. Paul. In Psalm 23, we hear the psalm writer express, “Though should walk through the Valley of Death, I fear no evil for you are at my side.” The writer of this psalm knows full well that his relationship with God will not prevent hardships in his life. However, the psalm writer knows that he will not have to endure those hardships alone, for God will be right by his side through all the suffering he may have to endure.

Back in 2002, I was involved in a head-on collision that altered my life. The severe injury to my left leg indirectly led to all the joint replacements I have had in recent years. However, the most life altering thing that occurred in that accident was the irreparable damage done to my right hand. Unbeknownst to me and the doctors, all the ligaments in the right hand had been shredded in the accident. Because the damage to the left leg was so severe, the surgeons had to focus on the leg. By the time they noticed the damage done to my right hand, they could do little to restore my hand to full function. The hand surgeon told me he could restore 60% of my hand, but not 100%. This was more devastating than the damage done to my left leg. I earned my living as a musician. I directed church music. I was a professional pianist, and, all of a sudden, my livelihood, the joy of playing music at a professional level ended. I was angry! This loss was too great.

Over time, while I continue to mourn the loss of being able to play well, (I can fake it, but it will never be as good as it once was), I began to give thanks to God for once having had the ability to play piano so very well. I give thanks to God for giving me a gift that not many people have. I once was able to play professionally and I am forever grateful to God for that wonderful time in my life.

Many of our stories at this Thanksgiving do not have the happy ending of the lepers in the gospel story. However, in spite of the losses we have in our lives, we are still able to give thanks for the relationships with others we once had. We are still able to give thanks to God for the gifts we once were able to use. And, most importantly, we give thanks for the relationship that we will always have with the God who created us and has loved us to death. As St. Paul states so very well today, “God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

With my wife’s knee replacement surgery and rehab, work commitments and other extra surprises in my life, I haven’t contributed much to this blog as of late. Below is the homily I gave for this weekend at St. Wenceslaus Church. The only inaccuracy is that in the homily I said that my sister, Mary Ruth, died 17 years ago. It has actually been 20 years ago … hard to believe it has been that long.

The gospel for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time is both positive and somber. As we approach the end of this liturgical year, and hear these “end-times” scripture readings, we are reminded of something that St. Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians. All things of earth, including us, are transitory and not quite real. That which is eternal and real, eternal life, lies just beyond the veil that separates this life from the next.

HOMILY FOR THE 33RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A, 2017

I was visiting my sister, Mary, in Intensive Care several days before her death. She knew she was dying. She turned to me and asked me, “Will I be remembered?” She was 42 years of age, not married, had no real significant person in her life other than her family. She asked me again, “Will I be remembered?” I pulled a chair up alongside her hospital bed, sat down and took her hand. Then I began to do a review of her life.

I recalled how she had valiantly battled her chronic disease for 25 years. How, in spite of her chronic illness, she received a degree as an Occupational Therapist from the College of St. Catherine. I reminded her of the great number of cardiac patients she helped during her career as a cardiac occupational therapist. I recalled how proud I was of her when she received her Master of Arts degree in Education from the University of St. Thomas, and how she was working toward receiving a PhD. I reminded her of the many places she traveled with her doctor friends throughout Northern Europe, Hawaii, and the South Pacific, even camping with them in the Boundary Waters. I talked to her about the children’s book she wrote and illustrated to help children suffering from chronic illness, and, when her illness forced her to go on permanent medical leave, how she began to produce and publish greetings cards that were sold in the gift shops around Roseville.

I reminded her as to how important she was to Ruthie and I and our kids. She especially loved my kids taking them to movies, the Christmas display at Daytons in downtown Minneapolis, the many family picnics and pictures she planned. I reminded her of how important she was to her friends and how much they loved and supported her throughout her life. I concluded, “Mary, you wonder if you will be remembered. How can you not be remembered?” She died three days later, her head cradled in the lap of her dear friend, Dr. Bob Conlin, and all of us standing around her bed.

She has now been dead 17 years. If you go to Navy Island in St. Paul, her name is memorialized in the paved stones along the walkway. Every year on her birthday, June 14th, Flag Day, her friends gather at her grave and sing all the songs she loved. My mother still receives cards from my sister’s friends on her birthday. On Thanksgiving, we will all remember how she hogged all the mushrooms in the turkey gravy, and recall stories of how the bees pestered us at those family picnics. We talk about the Santa Bears she bought for Meg and Beth when they were little. “Will I be remembered?” Mary, how could we ever forget you?

The Gospel for today is really about the importance of doing a review of our lives. It makes no difference whether we have many years ahead in our lives, for very few years left of our lives. Jesus reminds us in this parable of the talents, that when we were born, God blessed us with many gifts. How have we used the gifts God has given us in service to God and in service to others? To go back to the Great Commandment of Jesus, have we used the “talents” we have received by God in our lives in loving God and in loving others? Or, have we hoarded the “talents” we have received from God and buried them by using them only to benefit ourselves and no one else, not even our God?

It is important for us to do this review of our lives for ourselves now, before our lives are reviewed by God when we die. As St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians in the second reading, “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night. When people are saying, ‘Peace and security, ‘ then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman,
and they will not escape. … Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.”

While my sister’s question, “Will I be remembered?”  was important to her, in all honesty, the answer to that question is, “No.” Unless someone does something notable like Abraham Lincoln, or something notorious like Adolf Hitler, not a one of us will be memorialized for all time. All of us who remember my sister, Mary, Ruthie and I, our immediate family, will die. The friends who gather at her gravesite year after year will eventually dwindle, as they grow more frail in mind and body, and, then die. After the death of my own children, the memory of my sister will be remembered only in faded photographs and in government birth records and death records. The wind, snow, rain, and sun will eventually erode and erase her name from the paved stones of that walkway on Navy Island.

The question we must make a point to ask while we are alive, today, is “How will God remember me?” When we die, will we hear God say to us, “’Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.”? Or, will we hear God say, “Throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”? The answer will be determined by how we have used the talents, the gifts, God has given us in service to our God and in service to our neighbor.

Peter asks Jesus how many times must we forgive others. Jesus replies, not just 7 times, but 77 times. In Jewish culture, the perfect number was the number 7. In replying 77 times, Jesus is saying the number of times we, as his disciples must forgive, is an infinite number of times. In other words, we must always forgive others! This is not the way the world operates. Norm Peterson, a character from the T.V. sitcom, “Cheers”, summed it best up on one show. “It’s a dog eat dog world, and I am wearing Milk Bone underwear.” We live in a world in which the acceptable practice is to get even when someone wrongs us. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” is the rule by which our world operates.

Jesus tells us if we are to be his disciples, we cannot live by that rule anymore. Instead of getting even, as his disciples, we need to learn how to forgive. In another parish at which I worked years ago I knew a person I will call Marie, and she has given me permission to tell her story of forgiveness.

Marie had been married 12 years. She was a loving and caring mother of three children. One day she came to me very distraught. Her husband told her he wanted a divorce. Marie’s husband was known to abuse alcohol, and to be very emotionally abusive. He told Marie that he had been having an affair with another woman for over 5 years, and he wanted to dump Marie and his children, and marry the woman with whom he was having this affair.

Marie had worked very hard to make her marriage work. Like many married couples, Marie got married with the dream of building a life with her husband, having children, and growing old together. In cheating on her, he had betrayed the sacred trust of their marriage vows. Now all of Marie’s dreams of married life were now shattered like shards of broken glass on the floor. He moved out and filed for a divorce.

Torn apart by grief, Marie sought healing for her children and herself and they did extensive counseling individually and as a family. With the loss of her former husband’s income, Marie had to go out and find a job to support herself and her children. No longer able to afford it, Marie had to sell their family home, and she and her children moved into a much smaller, cramped townhome which she could afford on her salary. Little by little, over time, the family healed from this tremendous wound in their lives. After some time had passed, I asked Marie to help facilitate a separated/divorce support group in the parish. Having known the anguish of divorce, she was a source of hope to many who were overwhelmed by the nightmare that accompanies the initial stages of divorce. Though her children had their challenges as adolescents, they all survived them and grew into wonderful, faith-filled adults.

Ten years later, on a cold, wintery, sleety February night, Marie was preparing an evening meal for herself when she heard a knock at her door. She opened the door and found her ex-husband on her door step. He looked awful. His face looked thin and drawn. He was depressed, wet and cold. His second wife, tired of his abuse and his alcoholism, threw him out of the house. He had nowhere to go. He was suicidal. He came to Marie as a last desperate gesture for help. Marie invited him in. Took his wet coat and hat and hung them up. She invited him to sit down at her table and shared a warm meal with him. He poured out his heart and his sorrow to her. She listened, and worried that his mental state might endanger his life, convinced him to go with her so that he could seek help for his mental illness. On that cold, sleety February night, she drove him to St. Mary’s hospital in Minneapolis, where he admitted himself into the Psychiatric ward to receive the help he needed.

When Marie talked about this with her brothers and sister, they were angry with her. This man had destroyed her life and the life of their children. She would have been justified to have slam the door in his face. I asked her why she had helped him. She replied to me, “I saw in his face, the face of the suffering Christ. How could I say no to the presence of Christ within him?” I said to her that not many people in similar circumstances would not have been as compassionate as her. She replied to me, “I forgave him a long time ago the horrible wrong that he did to me and our children. However, I have not forgotten what he did. Forgiving is different from forgetting.” I replied to her, “Marie, the worst thing that ever happened to you was your divorce. And, the best thing that ever happened to you was your divorce. It was through that suffering you experienced that you have become the tremendous person you are today.”

How do we fulfill Jesus’ command to forgive others an infinite number of times? Marie’s words hold the key. When we are able to see in the face of those who wrong us, the face of Jesus, how can we not forgive as Jesus forgives and continues to forgive, an infinite number of times?

A Catholic priest, an Episcopalian priest, a Lutheran minister, and a Baptist minister went on a hunting trip together. One night at the hunting cabin, they decided to confess their worst sins to each other. The Catholic priest said, “My sin is alcohol. One time a month I binge drink.” The Episcopalian priest said, “My sin is greed. I only put a nickel in the collection basket.” The Lutheran minister said, “My sin is gluttony. Once in a while, I get in my car and go to a faraway town and go through the drive-up window and order four half-pounders and a bucket of fries.” And the Baptist minister said, “My sin is gossip, and I can’t wait to get back from this trip.”

Just like the four clerics in the story, we all have sins and faults that are our Achilles heals. Try as we may to avoid thinking about our sins and faults by keeping extremely busy or by finding all sorts of things to distract us, they are always there. It is impossible to runaway from them. These personal sins and faults are attached to us like our shadows, so much so, that many spiritual writers refer to the dark side of sin in human life they call it our shadow self. As faithful disciples of Jesus, we are called to be self-aware of our shadow self, knowing full well that every day we are in need of conversion. This is why we begin Mass acknowledging our brokenness and our need for healing before God and one another.

The scriptural readings today remind us that we do not live in isolation. We live in community with others. Our relationship with others is vitally important for our spiritual and emotional health. We may like to think that the affect of our personal sins and faults only affect us adversely. The reality is that our personal sins and faults have a ripple effect that impacts the lives of all with whom we are in relationship. Because of this God requires us to personally be accountable for them. We are held accountable to our family and neighbors. We are held accountable to our Church and our civic communities. And, ultimately, we are held accountable to God.

As we hear in all three readings, God’s expectation for us is to live lives of accountability. In the reading from the prophet Ezekial and the Gospel, we are told that if necessary, we are called by God to intervene with another person if that person’s sins and faults are destroying not only the person, but the lives of the people with whom the person is in relationship. Ezekial goes so far as to say that if we remain silent and do not confront the person who is self-destructing, we will be held accountable by God for that person’s demise. There will be times in our lives, when we must confront another person about his or her sins and faults. There will be times in our lives when we will be on the receiving end when others confront us about our sins and faults.

The accountability God requires of us is not based in vindictiveness or revenge, it is based on the law of Divine love. If we truly love one another, and want the best for those we love, we will confront them about those things in their lives that are destructive. Conversely, if they truly love us, they will confront us about that which is destructive in our own lives. As St. Paul writes to us today, “The commandments, ‘you shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, namely, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Loves does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.’”

Perhaps the best process in which conversion is lived out is in the 12 steps used by Alcoholics Anonymous, Alanon and many other 12 step groups. These 12 steps are: 1) We admit we are powerless over whatever behavior or sin we have and that our lives have become unmanageable. 2) We come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. 3) We make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God. 4) We make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5) We admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6) We are entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7) We humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings. 8) We make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to all of them. 9) We make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10) We continue to take a personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it. 11) We seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out. 12) Having received a spiritual awakening as the result of these 12 steps, we try to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Like the Catholic priest, the Episcopalian priest, the Lutheran minister, and the Baptist minister in the opening story, we all have sins and faults, something or perhaps many things in our lives that may be destructive not only to ourselves but to others as well. In humbly acknowledging these faults to ourselves, to our neighbors, to our community, and to God, we will find mercy, healing, wholeness and love.

This past weekend I had the honor of officiating at the wedding of Danny and Kylie. It had been a very long time since I have been to the chapel at the University of St. Thomas. It has changed much since my undergraduate days in the early 70’s, and my graduate school days in the 80’s. While I officiate at funerals quite frequently these days, it has been a couple of years since I last officiated at a wedding. Here is the homily I gave at the wedding this past weekend.

My wife Ruthie and I were married at 7 pm on December 27, 1974 at St. Bridget of Sweden, in Lindstrom Minnesota. It was a bitterly cold Friday night. The temperature was 24 below zero. As Ruthie was processed up the aisle alongside her father, she looked radiant. I was captivated by her beautiful face, framed by her long dark hair, and white hood. What I was not aware was as they were processing the aisle, her dad told her, “You can still get out of this if you want to. I won’t be mad.” Ruthie just smiled at her dad and kept walking up the aisle. That night was the beginning of an incredible life with someone who has utterly transformed and enriched my life.

The Gospel story of the wedding at Cana is not really about the wedding nor about water being miraculously transformed into wine. It was at this wedding that the world was introduced to a new creation, a new way of being human as Jesus ushers into human history the Messianic era. At the wedding of Cana Jesus began the process of transforming the world. Kylie and Danny, today through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus transforms your lives into a new creation. Christ transforms you into being a visible living sign of God’s love to our world. This is visible in the mutual love you have and express for one another. This reflects the mutual love that Christ has for the Church and that God has for our world.

Whenever we celebrate sacraments, we undergo a transformative change that the Church calls “the ontological change.” The transformation occurs very gradually, so much so, that the change that is occurring is barely noticeable. In the sacrament of marriage this ontological change is best described as two become one flesh, two hearts become one heart. Over time it is as if when one inhales, the other exhales. Another way to envision this change is a scene in an old Marx brother movie in which Groucho Marx is dancing with a pretty blonde woman. As they are dancing, she keeps whispering in his ear, “Hold me closer, hold me closer.” Groucho snuggles closer to her. She says again, “Hold me closer, hold me closer.” Again, Groucho snuggles closer to her. She whispers once more, “hold me closer,” at which he says to her, “If I held you any closer, I would be behind you.”

I hadn’t fully realized how close we had become until 2006 when we were separated from each as I was doing 3 weeks of Spanish immersion in San Antonio. The heartache I experienced over that 3 weeks was overwhelming. Even though I was busy learning vocabulary, practicing speaking, listening, and writing skills in Spanish 10 to 12 hours a day, my day pivoted around two significant events: 1) talking with Ruth by cell phone as she drove to work at the State Veterans Home at night (she works fulltime nights as a nurse there), and talking with her by cell phone when she returned home from work in the morning. By the time the last day of class was over, I could hardly wait to get back to the airport and get home to see her. My flight didn’t arrive till later in the evening, and Ruthie had to work that night, so I was fully expecting to be picked up at the airport by my daughter, Beth. My heart leapt for joy when I saw it was Ruth, not Beth, walking toward me at the airport. As we embraced I wept for joy. I was finally complete again.

In marriage we experience the presence of Christ in our spouse. The Jewish Theologian and rabbi, Martin Buber tells us that our relationships with one another are windows through which we look on the face of God. My greatest experience of God is in the person of Ruthie. From her lips I hear God saying to me, “I love you! I forgive you!” In her touch and in her arms I feel God embracing me. As I look into her brown eyes, I see the face of God.
Does all this happen overnight? Of course not, it is a gradual transformation into Divine love. Divine love is not a power over relationship. Divine love is a power with relationship in which both parties mutually and equally share their love with one another. It takes time to learn how to love at this deep a level. You must mutually invite the love of Christ that transforms all lives to be part of your new life together. This mutual love is the foundation of all for which you have been preparing these many long months. Mutually listening to one another in love. Mutually assisting each other through hardships and joys, triumphs and failures, always in love.

In the year 2011, I was on medical leave because of an infection I received when I got a hip replacement. 5 surgeries later, with Christmas approaching, still without a hip and because of my immobility unable to get Ruthie a Christmas present, I decided to start a book of poetry dedicated to her, recounting our courtship, our wedding, the birth of our children and the many joys and hardships we have experienced together. I called it “The Book of Ruth.” I sent it to my daughter-in-law, Olivia, to print out and put together so I could give it to Ruth on Christmas. I have since kept adding poems to this book. I would like to conclude with a portion of a poem I entitled, “Learning How to Walk.”

“To walk with you is
to learn how to love,
each measured step,
a grace-filled journey
to something greater,
far beyond and far better
than the stumbling steps
that I could have
made on my own.

To walk with you,
is to see the
world with different
eyes, colors bursting
through the grays,
warmth on the
coldest of days, your
voice floating, playing
delightfully in the air
alongside until the
sound settles gently,
gracefully in my ears.

We have walked many
steps together in life,
my gait now not as steady,
these days of uncertain
limbs, joints and cane,
reminiscent of my first steps.

 

In walking with you,
new discoveries never end,

new beginnings
abound, and that
with you, the first
and the finest of
all teachers, learning
to walk is never
fully learned.”

Kylie and Danny, as you process down this aisle as a married couple, you begin your walk today as a couple transformed in Christ’s love. You will walk many steps together, through good times and bad times, through challenges, through triumphs, through heartaches, and through joys. May the love of Christ transform your lives today. And may that Divine love through you transform the lives of all you meet from this day forward. May God bless you with many years of walking together, always learning to be the presence of God in our world.