Homily – Page 6 – Journeying Into Mystery

Welcome to the desert. A homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent, Year C

Every 1^st Sunday of Lent we encounter the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the desert. Traditionally, our understanding of Jesus’ temptations underscores 3 of the vices greatly experienced by humanity: gluttony (turning stones into bread), hubris or pride (throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple), and power (Jesus being shown all the kingdoms of the world). Other theologians and biblical scholars including Pope Benedict XVI see the temptation of Jesus as having to choose between being the Political Military Messiah, leading a Jewish army to victory over the Roman army, or being the Pastoral Spiritual Messiah. The way that Pope Benedict states this is that when Satan tempts Jesus, the temptation Jesus faces is choosing either the path of Messianic love and self-sacrifice or a path of Messianic Power and Success.

Note that in the very first sentence of this gospel story, Jesus is LED by the Spirit into the desert. Jesus does not seek out the desert. This is not something he chooses for himself. Deserts in most of the world are barren, nasty places. Against his better judgment Jesus feels this impulse to be pushed and dragged by the Holy Spirit out into the desert. I think it is safe to say, that like Jesus, very few of us willingly seek out the isolation and barrenness of the deserts in our lives. Yet, nonetheless, within our lifetimes we find ourselves in our own particular desert.

What are the deserts in our lives? Like the desert in which Jesus was tempted, they are not very welcoming places. Our deserts often involve pain and sacrifice on our part. The deserts in our lives are so scary and unpleasant that we frequently want to avoid them at all costs. Our desert might be a significant illness, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease or some chronic illness. The desert might be the loss of a significant relationship. It might be a death or a divorce. Our desert might be the loss of a job, being unemployed for a long time, or some other crises that puts a tremendous financial burden upon us. Our desert might be an addiction of some kind.

While we are in the desert, we, like Jesus, are open and prone to temptation. The three temptations that Jesus faced are placed at our feet. We may feel tempted to believe that God is somehow against us, plotting our ruin. We may feel tempted to turn our back on God or to deny God altogether; to live as if only we are God and only we have power and the ability to control all aspects of our lives. We may succumb to our own base desires, getting drawn into whatever satisfies our senses for the moment, whatever sensual pleasure that might be. Or we might fall into the darkness of despair, believing that God no longer loves us and has abandoned us. Yes our deserts are real and filled with temptation.

However, being in the desert can also be a time of great growth and transformation. It was only in his time in the desert that Jesus was able to define who he was as the Messiah, and what his messianic mission was to be. In March of 2002, I was involved in a head-on collision that led me into the desert of the trauma unit at North Memorial Hospital. Following surgery, lying in a bed, hooked up to all sorts of tubes, the priest for whom I was working at the time, came into my room and asked only one question, “Where is the grace in all of this?” Within our desert lies a tremendous amount of grace if only we allow ourselves to experience it. The desert has a way of emphasizing important beliefs and truths, and exposing the falsehoods or the misconceptions that are a part of our lives. In the desert, we learn to appreciate that which is truly important and essential to our lives and to jettison that which is not. The recovery from that accident took a long time. I spent a great deal of time in the desert, but discovered in so doing the abundance of grace that was present there.

As we are led into this new 40 days of our Lenten desert, let us pray to have the grace to see the potential to grow more authentically as Catholic Christians, and to grow more deeply and authentically in our relationship with Jesus.

Casting our nets into our own Lake of Gennesaret – homily for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Painting: The Miraculous Draught of Fish – Peter Paul Rubens

How many of you recall the scene in the “Wizard of Oz”, when Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion approach the Great Oz for the first time. As they draw closer to the Great Oz, they do so with great fear, afraid that they will be squashed by the mighty power and wrath of Oz.

Is this not how we often approach God? Great trepidation and anxiety fills our lives because, acutely aware of own imperfections, the sins we carry with us, we feel that we are unworthy to approach God in all of God’s goodness. We, like Peter in the Gospel, overwhelmed by the goodness and the greatness of God around us, fall to our knees in fear and say, “Depart from me, Lord, I am sinful.”
Jesus does not want our sinfulness and our imperfections to trap us, to prevent us from being in a relationship with God. What Jesus reminds us in the Gospel is that Jesus welcomes us into a deeper relationship with him, in spite of our sinfulness, in spite of all our imperfections. And, in having a deeper relationship with Jesus, we, in turn, are drawn into the love relationship that exists between Jesus and God the Father.

Jesus reminds us, as he does Peter, that as in all relationships, there are expectations on both parties of the relationship, to build up that relationship, to make the relationship stronger and permanent. The expectation that Jesus has of Peter, and the rest of his disciples, is that they build up the Kingdom of God on the Earth. Peter is expected to gather people, as once he gathered fish, only the net that he casts is a holy net that gathers people into a love relationship with Jesus, and in so doing, a love relationship with God who created them.

The expectation that Jesus has of Peter, is passed on to you and to me, today. We are not to stand idly by, but to be active into gathering people into a deeper relationship with Jesus. By our prayer, our words, our presence, our actions, we cast the Divine net of love over those we encounter, and encourage them into a deeper relationship with God. In baptism, we put on Christ; we became the hands, the feet, and the compassion of Jesus. Through us, Jesus continues to teach, to heal, and compassionately touch lives in a significant way.

Connecting Our Life’s Story With Jesus – Homily for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Painting, “The Wedding At Cana”, Giotto, 14th century.

Stories are very important in our lives. Stories impact our lives, whether they are in book form, in audio form, or in visual form like television or movies. We can travel to faraway places, experience different cultures, experience the world in the past, meet historical men and women, and dream of what might be in the future all through story. Stories can impact our emotions. My dad use to tell the story of coming home from school to find my grandmother all upset about the injustices heaped upon some poor woman, only to find that that poor woman was a character on one of my grandmother’s favorite radio soap operas. Stories can entertain and relax us. Ruthie use to unwind after working nights by climbing into a hot bath with a Harlequin Romance. How many of us were thrilled to be taken away to the imaginary world of Hogwarts with Harry Potter, Hermoine Granger, Ron Weasley and Professor Dumbledore?

Stories are so important that I would go so far to say that they are essential to our lives as human beings. Are not the stories which we share and to which we listen around the table at Christmas and Thanksgiving, at family reunions, weddings, and funerals important to us? It is these family stories that assist us in figuring out who we are as individuals and as people within the family. Of all the stories we know in our lives, the most important and essential story for us to hear and to know is the story told around this table (indicate the altar), the story of our Church family, that is, the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

The four Gospels are all about how the story of Jesus has interacted and connected with the life stories of the people in the faith communities who wrote the Gospels. In reading and listening to the stories of Jesus in the Gospels, we find there are some stories that were so important that all four Gospels tell them, the most important one of all, the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And there are some stories that are important in one Gospel but are slightly different in another, or may not even be present in other Gospels. What all four Gospels share is how strongly the story of Jesus impacted the life stories of the people in those faith communities, and how strongly those stories continue to impact our own life story.

Today we hear the story of Jesus at the wedding in Cana. If this story was just about Jesus turning gallons upon gallons of water into finest of all wine, it would be a remarkable story. However, what makes this story even more incredible is that at this wedding in Cana, Jesus, in a very public way, openly connects the story of his life with the story of all human lives, yours and mine included. At the wedding in Cana, Jesus announces to all who will listen that that for which humanity longed so much, the coming of the Messiah to save all people, has arrived. It is as if Jesus was telling the people of his time, “I am the Son of God and I am here to share my life with your lives. I am here to share in your sorrows and in your joys. I am here to be present to you during the dark times of your lives, and during the good times of your lives. I am here to give you happiness beyond all of your dreams if only you will connect your lives with mine.”

How important is the story of Jesus for us? I must confess that when I was young, it wasn’t on the top list of important stories for me. However, I remember very distinctly that first moment when my story and that of God interacted very strongly. It was at the moment when my first child was born. I was 22 years old, standing behind the doctor watching as the head and then the body of my son, Andy, emerged from Ruthie’s womb. It was at that very moment that I felt the presence of God in that delivery room. God’s presence was so strong and so filled the room that had I lifted my hand, I swear I would have touched the face of God. It was my Moses encountering the burning bush, St. Paul encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus moment of conversion. As I continued to reflect on my life from that moment on, I found that the presence of God intersecting with my life was not just an isolated occurrence but something that had been happening all along. I just was too self-focused or distracted to notice it happening.

When we are young we are so busy trying to discover just who we are, feeling the need for independence, that it is easy to miss or overlook the times that Jesus has entered into our life’ story. As adults, we are so busy or distracted by all the things we have to do to raise a family or to thrive and perhaps just survive, that we can miss or overlook the times that the story of Jesus has encountered our lives. There are two simple ways by which we can see the presence of Jesus in the story of our lives.

As I did following the birth of Andy, we need to find a time to quietly reflect on our life’s story from the time we were born to where we find ourselves now. While we may not have had the Cana experience of water being turned into wine moments anywhere along that continuum of time, look for the important events and the people that have been significant in our lives. As we deeply reflect on those events and people in our life, we will find the presence of Jesus there participating through those people or in those events in some way.

The second way is that at the end of each day before falling asleep, let us think about our day. Jesus Christ was present to us throughout the day. In the people and the events of the day, where did we encounter Jesus? Did we recognize Jesus and participate in his presence, or did we walk away and ignore his presence? Before falling asleep, using our own words, let us pray to Jesus that our five senses will be more open to his presence, inviting him to share his life more deeply with that of ours when we awaken in the morning and head out into the new day.

Stories are very important in our lives. Stories impact our lives, whether they are in book form, in audio form, or in visual form like television or movies. We can travel to faraway places, experience different cultures, experience the world in the past, meet historical men and women, and dream of what might be in the future all through story. My dad use to tell the story of coming home from school to find my grandmother all upset about the injustices heaped upon some poor woman, only to find that that poor woman was a character on one of my grandmother’s favorite radio soap operas. Stories can entertain and relax us. Ruthie use to unwind after working nights by climbing into a hot bath with a Harlequin Romance. How many of us thrilled to be taken away to the imaginary world of Hogwarts with Harry Potter, Hermoine Granger, Ron Weasley and Professor Dumbledore?

Just as Jesus was willing to share his life with the people at that wedding in Cana, so Jesus wants to share his life with us today. Let us invite Jesus to share his story with ours. Let us be willing to share and connect our life’s story with that of his. I invite you to open your hymnal to #651, and together let us prayerfully sing “Open My Eyes.”

Open my eyes, Lord. Help me to see your face. Open my eyes, Lord. Help me to see.

Open my ears, Lord, Help me to hear your voice. Open my ears, Lord, Help me to hear.

Open my heart, Lord, Help me to love like you. Open my heart, Lord, Help me to love.

I live within you, Deep in your heart, O Love, I live within you, Rest now in me.

Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family

As a kid, it was hard for me to understand the Holy Family. They were so unlike any family that I knew, including my own. As a kid, I thought of them as an idealized version of the Anderson Family from the television show, “Father Knows Best.”

We do not know much about the Holy Family. The gospels provide very little information. But then, the gospels are not biographies of Jesus, but a faith community’s understanding and experience of Jesus, which accounts for the differences and contradictions that we find from one gospel to another, and the different way Jesus is portrayed from gospel to gospel.

What we do know is that Joseph, Mary and Jesus do not quite fit our definition of the normal nuclear family. This is what we know. An angel of God asks to be the mother of God. Mary, a young girl, agrees. Mary who was engaged to Joseph is all of a sudden pregnant and Joseph, knowing that he did not father her child, decides to break off his engagement to her quietly, so that she would not suffer the severe consequences of her scandal. An angel intervened and Joseph agrees that he will wed Mary, and be the step-father of her child. The rest of the story we heard on Christmas and will hear on the feast of the Epiphany.

What the Church has always taught, being fully human, Jesus had to learn exactly as all human beings learn. He had to learn to walk, talk, eat, and dress himself. He had to learn how to write and read. And over time, he gradually came to know about the special relationship he had with God the Father, the gifts with which he was blessed, and how he was to use those gifts. When did he know who he really was? We really don’t know. Luke would say he had a good idea at the age of 12 years. Mark, the earliest gospel written, would say, at his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist. John’s gospel would say he always knew. We really don’t know, and the Church has never made a definitive statement about it.

Our faith teaches that Joseph, Mary and Jesus had the perfect family and are the Holy Family. However, I am pretty sure that their neighbors in Nazareth, knowing the situation behind their marriage probably didn’t think they were all that perfect or holy.

How can we, with our normal families, relate to such an extraordinary family? This is where the letter from St. John, which we heard proclaimed in the second reading is important. God doesn’t call our families to be perfect. God calls our families to be holy.

St. John writes, “Beloved, See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God. And so we are.” It is God and our relationship to God that makes a family holy.” St. John tells us in his letter that it is not the configuration of a family that makes it holy. Whether the family has both a mom and a dad, or is a single parent family (for whatever reason that may be), or whether the family has no mother or father, but a guardian who takes care of children, it is God that blesses that family and calls the family holy.

St. John writes that there are certain qualities a family has that makes the family holy. 1) Having confidence in God, 2) keeping his commandments, and, 3) doing what pleases God which is, “believing in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and loving one another just as he commanded us to do.” So how do we go about building these qualities into our own families?

There is a story about a newly ordained, young, unmarried Protestant minister who liked to preach a sermon entitled, “How to raise children.” The young minister got married and he and his wife began to have children, and the sermon was re-titled, “Suggestions as to how to raise children.” When his kids got to be teenagers, he quit preaching on the topic altogether.

At the risk of falling into the predicament of the young minister, I would like to offer 4 suggestions as ways for fulfilling the qualities of which St. John speaks in his letter to us today.

First, prayer is paramount. Parents, you must make prayer a priority in your family. It is important for your children to see you pray. Children learn by example. Lord knows, they copy all the bad things we do to our own embarrassment. If they see how important prayer is in your life, they will copy you. Pray as a family. Back in the 1950’s, Fr. Patrick Peyton ran a Rosary campaign with the slogan, “the family that prays together, stays together.” Find a prayer that is suited to your family and do it, whether it be reading the Bible and sharing your thoughts on the Sunday scriptures, reading the Bible, praying the rosary, praying a devotion, or gathering as a family and just making up your own prayers.

Second, bless one another. I lived at home until the day I got married. Every night before I went to bed, my dad would give me a simple blessing, “May God bless you and keep you.” Then, he would make the sign of the cross over me. Of course, on those occasions when I got home around 2 or 3 in the morning, it was not a blessing I received from my dad. All of my kids are adults, and I still bless them every night whether they are at home or not. Ruthie works night shifts as a nurse at the State Veterans Home in Minneapolis. On those nights that she works, I try to make sure I am home from work in time to wake her up and to bless her as she drives off to work in the night. Children, bless your parents. They need your blessings, too! If you need a resource, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has published a wonderful book entitled, “Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers.”

Third, express your love to one another not just in words, but in action. An expression of love can be anything from clearing off the dinner table and washing dishes, or taking out the garbage without being asked, to giving a loved one a big hug and a kiss. It can be calling a loved one up in the middle of the day to see how things are going, or just listening to a loved one’s day when he or she gets home from work or school. It is what we do for one another and how we express that love in action that we know God’s love for us.

Fourth, worship together at Mass. As important as a private and family prayer is to us at home, it is most important that we gather with our greater family here on Sunday to worship God together. We all are children of one large divine family, brothers and sisters of Jesus. We need to gather together, just as we do with our nuclear families, to deepen our relationship with one another, and to deepen our relationship with the God who loved us into existence, whose breath fills our lungs, and who feeds us with the words of sacred scripture and the Body and Blood of his Son, Jesus. God is the divine parent who loves us to death. As a family, we need to give thanks for having such a wonderful , divine parent.

Today, Ruthie and I celebrate the 41st anniversary of our wedding. Over our 41 years of marriage we have tried to create a holy family. Is our family perfect? Absolutely not. Is our family holy? Absolutely! Is this not what all families strive toward? My greatest experience of God has been in my relationship with her, and in our relationship with our four children, Andy, Luke, Meg, and Beth. On this feast of the Holy Family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus, may you celebrate the holiness of your families.

Homily For the 4th Sunday of Advent

When children are born into the life of a couple, life is utterly changed and transformed. It makes no difference whether it is the first pregnancy or a later pregnancy. Life takes on a new normal, a new way of being. The same happens when we give full assent to God to enter into our lives.

In today’s Gospel, we see two women, one about the age of 14 years and the other woman very elderly, pregnant for the first time. Both women, in giving full assent to God to enter into their lives, are utterly transformed. Their lives are turned upside down. That is what happens when God is invited into human lives. Over these weeks of Advent we have heard the prophets and John the Baptist proclaim that when God is invited into human history God’s peace will reign, mountains will be made low, crooked roads made straight, deserts will bloom will flowers and vegetation and dry places run with life-giving water. Wolves and lambs will lie down in peace, as well as leopards and goats, lions and cows. Little children will play with poisonous snakes and not be bitten. Nations will come to the mountain of God and feast around the table of God, weapons of war made into plows and pruning hooks, and war abolished forever from human life. Human life will be turned upside down and a new way of life begun.

In order for all this to happen we have to take the words of St. Elizabeth, spoken at the end of today’s Gospel, very, very seriously. She spoke to Mary, “Blessed are you who believed that was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” As we approach the celebration of the birth of Jesus, do we as his followers truly believe what he spoke to us, or do we not take Jesus’ teachings seriously? Are we to be counted among those “blessed” who believe and want our lives turned upside down by God?

The week prior to Advent, Pope Francis lamented humanity’s unwillingness to believe what Jesus taught. His homily generated headlines like “Pope Francis called Christmas a charade” or, “Pope Francis calls Christmas phony,” However some news agencies interpreted what the Pope preached that day, that was not what he preached. To clear up any misconception, the Vatican released the text of his homily. This is what Pope Francis said:

“Jesus approaches Jerusalem, and seeing the city on a hill from a distance, weeps, and says, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace–but now it is hidden from your eyes. Today Jesus weeps as well: because we have chosen the way of war, the way of hatred, the way of enmities. We are close to Christmas: there will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage war. The world has not understood the way of peace.”

The Pope went on to say, “Everywhere there is war today, there is hatred.” The Pope then asked, “What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now? What shall remain? Ruins, thousands of children without education, so many innocent victims: and lots of money in the pockets of arms dealers.” Pope Francis then said that Jesus called those who make money from war, weapon manufacturers, the dealers of weapons and the politicians who profit from war, cursed, criminals. The Pope went on to say that Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers!’ A war can be justified – so to speak – with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is today, at war – piece meal though that war may be – a little here, a little there, and everywhere – there is no justification – and God weeps. Jesus weeps.”

Pope Francis concluded his homily that day with these words, “It will do us well to ask the grace of tears for ourselves, for this world that does not recognize the path of peace, this world that lives for war, and then cynically says not to make it. Let us pray for conversion of heart. Here before the door of this Jubilee of Mercy, let us ask that our joy, our jubilation, be this grace: that the world discover the ability to weep for its crimes, for what the world does with war.”

With Pope Francis’ lamentation for our world, and the lack of human belief in the teachings of Jesus, in what can we find hope and joy for the upcoming celebration of Christmas this year? The hope lies in today’s gospel.
Our Blessed Mother, Mary, a young pregnant girl, walks alone without any fear through country populated by robbers and revolutionaries. She is armed only with the baby growing within her womb whom the prophet Isaiah, named long before “wonder-counselor”, “God-Hero”, “Father-Forever”, and “Prince of Peace.” Her belief and her trust in God make her fearless in the face of the violence and war that surrounds her.

Is not the best the way to honor Jesus this Christmas that of emulating the example of Mary and Elizabeth, giving full assent of our wills to the one whom Mary carries within her womb? Are we ready, like Mary and Elizabeth, to say to God, “May it be done unto me according to your word?” Are we ready to take the leap of faith necessary to trust and believe what the Son of God and the Son of Mary taught?

As the living, breathing, visible Body of Christ in the world, we can effect great change if only we as individual members of Christ’s body begin to transform our lives into being peacemakers of Christ. At Christmas we celebrate the light of Christ entering the dark world of humanity. Let us use the light of Christ to examine all the areas of conflict and hate in our lives that need to be transformed, that need to be turned upside down, and ask God and trust God to make us peacemakers of Jesus in our world. From this Christmas on, may our gift to the baby Jesus in the manger be that of being sowers of peace.

Baptized in Jesus Christ, we carry within ourselves the wonder-counselor, God-hero, Father-forever, and Prince of Peace. Without any fear, without any doubt, let us take to heart the words of St. Elizabeth today, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” As the lives of a couple are utterly changed by the birth of their children, so may our lives be transformed into God’s living presence of peace and love.

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