Father Scott Hurd's Homilies

Monday of Ordinary 7

2012-02-20T09:07:00.000-05:00

A busy bishop wrote of a time in his ministry when he gave greater priority to work than to prayer. He would often speak to others about the importance of prayer, but he didn’t practice what he preached. It wasn’t until fellow priests challenged him about this that he made “quality time” for prayer a daily priority.
Today’s gospel speaks of the importance of prayer. The apostles had been trying very hard to cast out a demon- but they had failed. When they asked why, Jesus said, “This kind can only come out through prayer.” The apostles had seemingly placed prayer on the back burner because they had been so preoccupied with their “work.” Ironically, their work suffered as a result.

We fall into the same trap, whenever we become so focused on getting the job done that prayer becomes an afterthought. When this happens, we might take a cue from Mother Teresa. As we all know, she could move mountains. But only because she was a woman of constant prayer.

“Because I cannot depend on my own strength,” she confessed, “I rely on him twenty-four hours a day. My secret is simple: I pray.”

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

2012-02-18T14:14:00.000-05:00

Today’s gospel finds Jesus forgiving the sins of a paralyzed man, much to the astonishment of those who looked on. This episode reminds us that forgiveness was at the heart of Jesus’ ministry. It reminds us also that forgiveness is at the heart of our life as Christians. God offers his forgiveness to us, and he calls us to extend forgiveness to others.

However, for us to be forgiving people, it’s essential that we be able to forgive ourselves. At first, this may strike us as self-indulgent and narcissistic. Shouldn’t forgiving others be the first priority? Not necessarily, because if we’re unable to forgive ourselves, we’ll find it much harder to forgive anyone else.

When we don’t forgive ourselves, our absorption in shame and guilt leads us to become withdrawn, defensive, and critical. In such a state of self-condemnation, the tendency is for us to condemn other people as well. And ironically, this only adds to our guilt, because as Christians we know that we should forgive them!

When we don’t forgive ourselves, everyone around us suffers- our family, friends, co-workers, even the dog, who might be subjected to a swift kick. And we suffer too- not just spiritually, but also physically. Our guilty feelings generate corrosive chemicals in our bodies that increase heart rates, raise blood pressure, disrupt digestion, tense muscles, dump cholesterol into the bloodstream, and reduce our ability to think straight. Therefore, it’s imperative that we learn to forgive ourselves- for our sakes, for our relationships with others, and for our relationship with God.

Yet at times, this can be very difficult. We live with regret over choices we’ve made, saying things like “If only I’d done this,” or “If only I hadn’t done that.” Perhaps we’ve engaged in self-destuctive behavior like heavy drinking or compulsive gambling. Maybe we made poor choices when raising our children or taking care of elderly parents. Possibly we’re tortured over past sexual indiscretions, or an abortion. Some people fail to forgive themselves for poor financial or career choices, for rushing headlong into an ill-advised or abusive relationship, or for their contributions to a relationship’s failure. Or it could be that we didn’t do something we thought we should have, like intervening in a family crisis, or stopping a friend from driving drunk.

Whatever the specific details might be, past mistakes and sins can eat away at us. For consolation we might turn to alcohol or food. We might even wallow in our guilt, using bad feelings to ward off the consequences of our actions. In effect, we end up saying: “Hey, look how bad I feel! See how I’m suffering! I’m pitiful and pathetic! I can’t be punished any more than this- it wouldn’t be fair!” In the words of Dr. Fred Luskin, director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project, this type of behavior is “a crazy form of penance.” He says: “Instead of taking responsibility for what we’ve done by trying to repair the damage or make things right, we punish ourselves by feeling miserable.”

Forgiving ourselves, then, may involve a long and difficult struggle. However, there are several things we can do to begin the process. First, we can make a good confession in the sacrament of reconciliation. The experience of grace and the knowledge that God has forgiven us can greatly help us to forgive ourselves. Confession can also prevent us from slipping into denial or repression. We might also share our troubles with trusted friends who can offer support, care, and advice.

It’s also helpful to apologize to the person or persons we may have hurt. Even if they don’t accept our apology, we’ve at least taken responsibility for our actions and accepted the blame. Similarly, we can try to make amends for the things we’ve done. As we’ve added to the world’s hurt, we can add to the world’s goodness in response. Perhaps we can do something kind to the person we’ve offended. Or if this isn’t possible, we can do something kind to someone else. As Dr. Luskin says: “Do good, rather than feel bad.”

It’s also important to be honest about who we are. Sometimes we have unrealistic expectations about ourselves and set impossible goals. We expect perfection, and when we fail to be perfect, we beat ourselves up in response. In addition, we need to realize that we may have been receiving negative messages from important people in our lives. We’ve been told- both verbally and non-verbally- that we’re stupid, inept, or unimportant. Over time, we begin to believe that this is true- even if it isn’t- and we punish ourselves as a result.

Another thing we can do to help forgive ourselves is to change the way we think. Instead of thinking over and over again about our past wrong, we should instead try to think about God’s love and mercy, or some act of kindness we may have performed. This isn’t a denial of what we’ve done. It’s just a realization that thinking about our misdeeds isn’t going to help the people we’ve hurt. We should never deny our sins, but we shouldn’t become obsessed with them, either.

Finally, it’s essential that we pray, asking God for the grace to forgive ourselves and to learn from our mistakes instead of being crushed by them. If we try to forgive ourselves through the force of our own willpower, we will fail and become exhausted and discouraged in the process. Forgiveness- even forgiveness of ourselves- is always a gift of God. God wants us to forgive ourselves; it is God gives us the desire to forgive ourselves; and it is God who will give us the grace to do it.

Saturday of Ordinary 6

2012-02-17T17:17:00.002-05:00

Should we suffer a tragedy or heartbreak, or experience the loss of a loved one, our faith can be deeply shaken. We might wonder why God would allow such a thing to happen, or if he really cares. We might even doubt that he exists at all.

Jesus knows that any of us can be tempted to think this way. Even his disciples weren’t immune. After his death, they were devastated, scared and confused. They hadn’t really understood Jesus’ words about resurrection. The crucifixion, they assumed, was the end of the story.

Our Lord anticipated this. That’s one reason why he allowed Peter, James, and John to witness his transfiguration. He wanted to give them something to hold on to, when all else seemed lost. Should they fall into the pit of despair, Jesus wanted them to recall that mountaintop. Their darkness, he hoped, might be broken by his light.

That’s Jesus’ hope for us too. He invites us to recall the times he’s broken into our lives, whenever we feel that our lives have been broken. It’s always better to light a candle than curse the darkness. Yet when we can’t even light a candle, we can still cherish our glimpses of the Light.

Friday of Ordinary 6

2012-02-17T11:57:00.002-05:00

For many of us- and I include myself- the first thing we do in the morning is reach for the snooze bar on the alarm clock! However, I know of some who make it a practice to immediately rise from bed, kneel on the floor, and pray the word “Serviam,” which is Latin for “I will serve.”

This single word, “Serviam,” reminds those who pray it that our Christian vocation- our purpose in life- is to serve God, serve the Church, and serve our fellow human beings. Our Lord stressed this very point in today’s gospel: If we wish to follow him we must deny ourselves; we are to lose our lives for his sake and that of the gospel. To put it another way, Christianity is more about what we can do for Jesus, than it is about what Jesus can do for us. The Christian life is one not of selfishness, but surrender; not of self-fulfillment, but of self-sacrifice; not of self-service, but of service to the Lord.

So perhaps the prayer in our heart today might be “Serviam,” as we leave this Mass with the dismissal, “Go forth to love and serve the Lord.”

Wednesday of Ordinary 6

2012-02-14T11:43:00.002-05:00

Rome wasn’t built in a day, we often say. And neither, as a matter of fact, are the saints of God.

We see this hinted at in today’s gospel. Jesus touched a blind man to restore his sight, but his first attempt was only partly successful. The man could see, but his vision was blurry; people looked like "walking trees." It was only after Jesus touched him a second time that his sight was fully restored.

What happened here? Did Jesus need a "do over" in order to get it right?　 Not at all. Instead, this story is meant to remind us that it takes time to become the saints Jesus wants us to be.　 To see the way　Jesus wanted him　to see, Jesus had to　touch the blind man twice. For us to see　the way Jesus wants us to see,　he’ll need to touch us　many, many　more times than that.

When it comes to sainthood, you and I are works in progress. If we ever think the work is complete, we’d better think twice! There’s always much more to be done. We need patience with ourselves; we need patience with others, too.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. 3,000 years later, it’s still under construction! And "pardon our dust," so are we. But that’s okay: Our Lord was a carpenter. He knows how to finish the job.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2012-02-11T08:40:00.000-05:00

After curing a leper of his disease, Jesus him not to tell anyone about what had taken place. However, the man was understandably so excited and grateful that he simply couldn’t restrain himself, and he spread the good news of his healing far and wide. As a consequence, so many people wanted to meet Jesus that he wasn’t able to openly enter a town, and he chose instead to stay outside, in deserted places.

This gives rise to certain questions. Why did Jesus insist that the leper not tell anyone about his cure? Why wouldn’t Jesus have wanted to enter a town openly? Why was he trying to maintain such a low profile by staying in the desert? It’s not because Jesus avoiding publicity or running away from responsibility. Instead, Jesus was concerned that people were getting a mistaken idea about who he was and what his ministry was all about.

Of the great numbers of people who were seeking Jesus, many of them were searching for a wonder-worker or a miracle-maker. It could be that they were sick and hoping for a cure, or maybe they just wanted to witness something spectacular or sensational. Others were looking for Jesus because they had heard he was powerful- a person who might be able to advance their cause, whatever it might have been.

And who can blame them? We too look to Jesus to work wonders for us, especially when we’re sick or in trouble, and we certainly ask him to bless our plans and projects. There are legitimate things to pray for, and Jesus invites us to pray for them. And Jesus does indeed work miracles. He did so in gospel times, and he continues to do so today.

However, problems arise when we understand Jesus as nothing more than a wonderworker. For instance, we might be tempted to give him our time and attention only when we needed something- hardly the basis of a loving relationship. And what if the miracles we seek don’t materialize? Does it mean that Jesus is unhappy with us? Is it a sign that Jesus doesn’t care? Does it suggest that God doesn’t exist at all? Or is it a reflection that we don’t have enough faith?

In a sense, it is a matter of faith, because faith in a Jesus who is simply a wonderworker is simply incomplete. Jesus is God’s fullest revelation of himself to us. If we want to know what God is like, we need to look to Jesus. And Jesus reveals God to be far more than just a performer of miracles. The God revealed by Jesus is a God who entered our world in great humility, and who suffered alongside us by dying on a cross.

As Christians, it’s critically important that we understand this. If we don’t appreciate Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion, we’ll never fully understand Jesus. And if we don’t understand Jesus, we certainly can’t hope to really understand God. And if we don’t understand God, our whole perception of reality and the meaning of life will be terribly and fundamentally out of whack. This is why Jesus is so concerned that people truly know who he is. And the key to this knowledge is his suffering. In the words of Blessed Charles de Foucauld, "It was not by his miracles, (and) not by his good works that Jesus saved the world, it was by his cross."

The disciples struggled with this, however, as is especially clear in Mark’s gospel, from which today’s reading was taken. Time and time again we hear of Jesus’ frustration over their incomplete and sometimes misguided faith. And of course, we can and do wrestle with the very same issue.

Most of us expect God to be able to perform miracles. After all, he is the almighty creator of heaven and earth, as we profess together whenever we recite the Nicene Creed at Mass. The same was true in Jesus’ day- people expected gods to hurl thunderbolts and things like that. Indeed it’s because Jesus was able to perform miraculous cures that attracted so much interest and attention.

However, nobody really expects God to suffer, and that’s why we can get so confused. Because he is God, we expect Jesus to do certain things and act in a certain way, and when he doesn’t meet our expectations, we can became perplexed and even angry. Yet through his suffering, Jesus transcends the idol we sometimes mistake for the real God.

But why did God in Jesus choose to suffer alongside us? He certainly didn’t have to! God is absolutely free- he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want. We’ll probably never know the whole truth of the matter, this side of heaven. We simply have to accept that the answer is ultimately shrouded in mystery. We do have a few clues, however. We know that God is love. And we know that all of us suffer- it’s part of the human condition. And in a suffering world it would be hard to conceive of God as love, if God himself were aloof or removed from the suffering. If he were, it would be very easy to write him off as uncaring and indifferent.

Indifference and love, however, are complete opposites; they are mutually exclusive ways of thinking and being. Love is never indifferent. On the contrary, love is always concerned; love is always involved. So maybe it was inevitable, then, that Jesus would suffer with us, to express his love for us. As Pope St. Leo the Great once wrote: "There was no other reason for the Son of God to be born, than that he might die on a cross."

Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes

2012-02-10T18:14:00.002-05:00

Because we Americans are so fond of caffeinated drinks- not to mention beer and wine- it’s said that up to three quarters of us live in a mild state of dehydration. Our bodies don’t have enough water, and we suffer as a result.

I have a feeling that equal numbers of Catholics walk around in a similar state of dehydration. Not because we’re physically dehydrated, but because we’re spiritually thirsty.

Perhaps this is why Our Lady of Lourdes, in her appearances to young St. Bernadette some 150 years ago, directed her to a spring of water- a spring which in the years since has drawn over 200 million pilgrims, looking for this water to heal them and quench their thirst.

The water of Lourdes speaks to us of another water. During his own pilgrimage to Lourdes, Pope Benedict recalled Jesus’ words that rivers of living water would flow from the hearts of all who believe in him. More than anyone else, this is true of Mary. The living water which flows from her heart is her love for us as mother, which heals and purifies us, and draws us closer to Jesus her son. It is to "quench their thirst at this spring of love," the Holy Father concluded, that ultimately draws people to Lourdes, and this "living water" is the greatest blessing they receive when they come.

Yes, there are miraculous healings at Lourdes- the church officially recognizes 67, and there have been countless other "phenomenal events," as they’ve come to be called. But the greatest healing is to be filled with the hope and strength which comes from experiencing the love of Mary, which flows from the love of Jesus.

We might say then, that Our Lady of Lourdes’ words to St. Bernadette are also directed to us: "Go, and drink from the spring."

Thursday of Ordinary 5

2012-02-08T13:42:00.002-05:00

One Super Bowl TV ad from a few years back featured men being whacked by bowling balls, 2 x 4’s, and golf clubs, in addition to being zapped with electricity and smacked on the head by a highway overpass. The point of this was to demonstrate that, with the exception of the taste of diet cola, “men can take anything.” Now, women who have gone through labor make take exception to this claim! However, regardless of who has a higher threshold for pain, men or women, the truth is that most of us, as human beings, don’t want to “take anything.” We don’t wish to suffer, and we don’t like to see others suffer either. This might explain why Peter, in today’s gospel, reacted the way he did when Jesus revealed that he would soon suffer, and die.

The fact remains, however, that suffering is an inevitable, and unavoidable, part of human existence. As Catholics, how do we come to terms with this? We might take a cue from Jesus’ words to Peter: We need to think as God does, and not as human beings do.

God created us in his image: to be like him; to love like him. But for us to love like God, we actually need to suffer. Suffering is part of the “core curriculum” in the school of love. Pope Benedict said as much in his encyclical letter on hope, Spe Salvi. “(We) suffer,” he wrote, “in order to become a person who truly loves.” In fact, to love is to suffer, the Holy Father explained, because love involves sacrifice, patience, forgiveness, and the risk of sharing ourselves with others, who may reject us or hurt us.

In his love for us, the Son of Man insisted that we needed to suffer. And so do we, if we wish to love, like the Son of Man.

Wednesday of Ordinary 5

2012-02-07T21:16:00.002-05:00

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, hearts are in evidence just about everywhere. And that’s understandable, because for us, hearts are a symbol of love. Hearts come to mind when we think about our "sweethearts."

Jesus wants us to think about hearts too. In today’s gospel, he’s concerned that our hearts be clean, and not filled with things that "defile" them. We might say that Jesus is concerned with the condition and health of our hearts, because he wants our hearts for himself. Jesus wants us to open our hearts to his love; he wants our hearts to be united in love; he wants to fill our hearts with the pure and perfect love that only he is able to give.

That’s why, at this and every Mass, we’ve invited to "lift up" our hearts – to raise our hearts to Jesus and place them in his hands, that he might take our hearts, and place them next to his.

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2012-02-04T14:41:00.002-05:00

Jesus was busy and in demand, in today’s gospel Great crowds were seeking him out day and night. It seemed like everybody wanted something from him- a moment of his time, a word of wisdom, a healing touch. At the same time, Jesus was on the move, traveling from town to town. Yet we also heard how, in spite of everything he had to do, Jesus rose early before dawn, went off to deserted place, and there he prayed alone, in solitude.

In doing so, Jesus sets an important example for us. Like him, most of us are very busy people. Our days are filled with exhausting demands on our time and energy. But if we don’t make time for solitary prayer, like our Lord did, we can conclude that our commitments, duties, obligations, and our other various pursuits are the "sum total" of our existence. We’ll come to sound like Job in the first reading, lamenting that our days are a drudgery, we work like dogs, living from paycheck to paycheck, and that the days just fly by without any real purpose, and without any real happiness.

However, when we do make time to pray, we’re reminded of "what it’s all about," and we learn about who it is we really are. I say this because the world does its best to convince us that we are someone who we really aren’t. And if we listen, we end up with a false self-understanding, a misguided sense of identity.

Specifically, our unredeemed world places a great deal of importance on several things: Money, reputation, occupation, position, beauty, busyness, and our contacts and connections. In other words, the world values who we know, how much we have, what we’ve accomplished, what we do, and what we look like doing it. And because the world considers such things to be so important, we can conclude that our value as people depends on our having such things. And that’s when we begin our exhausting quest- a quest not only of desire, but also of fear of failure, of the world writing us off as worthless.

This quest, however, also gives birth to the two main enemies of the Christian life: Anger, and greed. When our sense of self depends on what we can get, greed flares up when our desires are frustrated. And when our sense of self depends on what others think or say of us, we get angry when others don’t see us or speak of us in ways we think they should- either because of who we think we are, or at least because of who it is we want to become.

This is why, as Jesus himself shows us, we need a discipline of regular, habitual, solitary prayer. In solitary prayer we struggle to be liberated from this false self-understanding- this ultimately unsatisfying and even destructive way of living our life- by a grace-filled encounter with the gentle, healing presence of the Lord.

Solitary prayer shouldn’t be confused with that time we spend alone, with ourselves. We talk these days of having "me time" in which we can rest, relax, do things we enjoy, and "recharge our batteries," so to speak. And all things considered, "me time" can be good. Indeed, we have a God who has commanded us to rest- every week- from our work and other duties. However, time for ourselves is simply an opportunity for refreshment. In contrast, solitary prayer is an exercise in conversion.

Regular, solitary prayer leads to conversion in which our old self dies, only to be replaced a new self- a new self rooted in Christ and animated by the Holy Spirit. In solitary prayer we’re forced to leave behind all those things we normally cling to in order to give our lives meaning: Friends, associates, work, projects, telephone and e-mail. We don’t have a mirror to gaze into or anything to entertain and distract us like books, music, and TV. In prayer, it’s just us and God.

We may resist this encounter. We’ll often want to run back to these things we’ve been clinging to, because they’ve been our security blanket. We’re afraid to cross the "bridge of change," as author Peggy Rooney has put it, and we don’t want to make the determined effort that real change requires. Being alone with God may make us feel weak, vulnerable, broken, and sinful- qualities we don’t like to recognize or acknowledge about ourselves. We’re afraid of what God may say to us or what he may ask of us to do. Anxiety and complacency, anger and resentment, may very well rear their ugly heads when we pray.

However, if we maintain our discipline of solitary prayer, God will shatter the shell of our false self, and a new person will emerge- a person that God created us to be, a person not driven and shaped by the demands and expectations of the world around us. In the words of the great spiritual writer Henri Nouwen, "We can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to experience the freedom of the children of God. And then we can look back and see with a smile and realize that we aren’t even angry or greedy anymore."

Friday of Ordinary 4

2012-02-02T20:55:00.000-05:00

King Herod was a terribly conflicted man. He enjoyed listening to John the Baptist, but at the same time, he wanted to kill him. Herod knew John to speak the truth, but he feared truth’s consequences. So instead of facing the truth, Herod tried to sweep it under the carpet by having John thrown into jail.

But don’t we sometimes know the truth, but fear its consequences? Maybe we know we have to break that bad habit, but we don’t want to make the effort. Maybe we know we need to work on a problem in a relationship, but we’re worried about getting into a big fight. Maybe we know we need to make a difficult decision, but we procrastinate out of fear. Or maybe we know that we were wrong about something, but we won’t admit it or apologize, because we’re too stubborn.

In situations like these, we’re tempted to ignore the truth, instead of dealing with it courageously and constructively. The problem is: Whenever we try to avoid the truth, it’s going to come back and haunt us. King Herod actually thought that John had come back from the dead in order to haunt him! For us, we’ll be haunted by mental anguish, spiritual anguish, and even physical anguish in the form of ulcers, headaches, and backaches. Our lack of peace will affect our work and our relationships, because we’ll either become short-tempered and irritable, or we’ll retreat into our shell, and isolate ourselves. In short, whenever we deny the truth, we are denied peace.

Today’s gospel, then, presents us with a choice: We can walk Herod’s path, and become a captive to our fears. Or we can follow John the Baptist and discover that it is only the truth, even with its price, that can release us, and set us free.

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

2012-02-01T16:09:00.000-05:00

There’s something wonderful about candlelight, isn’t there? It’s mysterious, comforting, joyful, simple, and relaxing. For we Christians, candlelight can speak to us of Jesus himself- he who is the light from light, the light of the world, the light that shall not be overcome by darkness.

Today we celebrate the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, traditionally known as “Candlesmas,” because the liturgy begins with our bringing blessed candles into the midst of the church.

We do this in memory of what we heard in today’s gospel: How when Mary and Joseph brought their child into the great Jerusalem Temple, Simeon, a faithful man filled with the Holy Spirit, proclaimed Jesus to be the “light of the nations.”

This occasion of Jesus’ coming to the Temple is symbolic of Jesus coming to us, his people, because Scripture speaks of us as living stones of a living temple, of which Jesus himself is the capstone.

Through the Holy Spirit, Simeon and Anna recognized Jesus coming to them as a baby. Through the Holy Spirit, we recognize Jesus coming to us in so many ways: in his word proclaimed in Holy Scriptures, in our sufferings and our joys, in the faces of the poor and vulnerable, in the faces of our Christian brothers and sisters, in the midst of this liturgical assembly, in the person of the priest standing at the altar, and supremely in his Body and Blood given to us in the Eucharist, the one pure sacrifice foretold in the first reading, from Malachi.

When Jesus came to Simeon at the Temple, Simeon rejoiced and burst into song. We rejoice today that Jesus comes to us, we who are the temple, and that we have a loving savior who is so close, so intimate, and so near.

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2012-01-30T09:38:00.001-05:00

As a young man sixteen hundred years ago, St. Augustine sought meaning and purpose in his life. He had been raised by a Christian mother, St. Monica, and although he had drifted away from the Church, he was still fascinated by Jesus. That’s why, in his quest for truth, he early on turned to the Bible. But as he read it, he felt disappointed. In its pages, he didn’t find the scholarly philosophy he was used to reading. He found instead, especially in the Old Testament, tales of conflict and very imperfect people. It didn’t help that he was reading a poor translation. Augustine concluded that the Bible was of no use to him, so he put his copy aside to gather dust.

Years later, in Milan, Italy, he encountered the magnificent preaching of St. Ambrose, the local bishop. Ambrose’s homilies led Augustine to view the Bible in an entirely new way, especially the Old Testament, which he had previously found so unsatisfying. Augustine came to appreciate that the Old Testament shouldn’t be approached as a philosophy textbook, but as a reflection of the great sweep of God’s plan in human history, culminating in Jesus himself. All of which the Old Testament spoke, was but a journey toward Jesus.

The real turning point was when Augustine, sitting in a garden, heard what sounded like a child’s voice urging him to “take up and read.” A Bible was nearby. Augustine opened it, and his eyes came to rest on words that cut him to the heart. At that moment, he knew that not only was Jesus the key to understanding the entire Bible, but that Jesus himself could speak with him through the Bible. In other words, the Bible wasn’t simply a resource for understanding God; it was instead a book in which one could encounter God.

Elements of St. Augustine’s conversion story echo the experience of many people today; perhaps it strikes a chord with us. Like Augustine, so many of us are looking for meaning, purpose, hope, something that makes sense. And again like him, so many of us raised in Catholic households have turned to the Bible from time to time, looking for a clue or inspiration. But then we found it to be confusing or overwhelming or unhelpful or a “turn-off.” Perhaps, again like Augustine, the Bible we’ve picked up is a poor translation for our needs; that Gideon’s Bible in the hotel dresser was translated 400 years ago, after all. So we’ve written off the Bible as irrelevant, and our copy, should we have one, gathers dust.

But that need not be the final word. St. Augustine ultimately met Jesus in the Bible, and we can too. How? First of all, like he did, we need to “take up and read”- something not all Catholics are especially used to doing. There was a time not all that long ago when Catholics weren’t necessarily encouraged to read the Bible, and many Catholic homes probably didn’t have one anyway. But times have changed. A few years ago, Pope Benedict led a meeting in Rome, called the World Synod of Bishops on the Word of God. Our own Cardinal Wuerl was there. The synod concluded that every Catholic should have a Bible – a good Catholic translation, of course- and read it regularly. We should read the Bible in the same way we would approach Jesus if we were to meet him face-to-face: humbly and prayerfully, so we can be transformed into more loving, faithful, generous, and compassionate people. In a word, to become more Christ-like. Something to think, as we consider what we’re going to do this Lent!

When we read the Bible, we should try to understand it as the Church understands it, because the Bible can’t be completely understood outside of the Church. Remember: When he ascended into heaven, Jesus didn’t leave behind a book; he left behind a Church, filled with the Holy Spirit. The Bible sprang from the Church as part of its living Tradition; for us to fully benefit from the Bible, we need to be immersed in the Church and its teaching. St. Augustine, for instance, only began to comprehend Scripture when he listened to the homilies of St. Ambrose in church, at Mass.

And that raises another good point. Although we Catholics don’t always read the Bible as much as we might, we do hear it regularly proclaimed at Mass. Just moments ago, we heard a selection from the Old Testament, a psalm, a New Testament reading, and a passage from the Gospel. We refer to this as the “Liturgy of the Word.” Think back to today’s gospel. Jesus himself was teaching God’s people as they worshipped on the Sabbath day. Jesus taught with authority- and the people were astonished! We can have the very same experience in our Sabbath worship. We too can be astonished- especially if we make an effort to pay close and careful attention during the “Liturgy of the Word.” Hearing Jesus’ voice in his word at Mass can especially prepare us to receive Jesus under the forms of bread and wine, when we receive Holy Communion.

Indeed, Holy Communion and the Holy Bible should go hand-in-hand. It used to be said that Protestants were all about the Bible while Catholics were all about the sacraments. But it’s not an “either/or” situation. It’s “both/and,” because Jesus gave us both. In Communion, Jesus feeds us with himself; in Scripture, Jesus reveals himself. In the Bible, we hear him speak; in Communion, we share his life. Moses, in today’s reading from Deuteronomy, foretold of a prophet whom God would raise up to speak his word and tell his commands. He was speaking, of course, of Jesus. “To him you shall listen,” said Moses. And that’s the challenge for us: to turn to the Bible and listen to Jesus, that we might become more like Jesus. Today’s psalm put it well: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas

2012-01-28T18:04:00.000-05:00

While celebrating Mass one day near the end of his life, St. Thomas Aquinas was blessed with a vision of God. This revelation affected him so profoundly that he stopped all work on his great Summary of Theology, or Summa Theologica. When he was asked by a friend to reconsider, Aquinas replied that after his experience, all his writings seemed like nothing more than “straw.” This famous statement is a key to understanding why Thomas Aquinas is a saint.

We know that this Dominican friar was one of the greatest theologians of the high Middle Ages. It is for good reason that he is a Doctor of the Church! However, it is not because of his great intellectual abilities that he is a saint.

Instead, Thomas Aquinas is a saint because he lived an authentically holy life, a life that we can imitate, even if we aren’t great intellectuals or scholars. For instance, Thomas was a man of deep and disciplined prayer who loved the Lord, knew his Bible well, and had a devotion to the Mass and our Lord’s presence in the Blessed Sacrament. And in spite of his academic gifts, Thomas was a humble man, because he knew it was the Lord who had given him his abilities in the first place.

Once while he was praying, Thomas heard the voice of the Lord say to him: “You have written well of me, Thomas. What reward would you have?” Thomas replied: “Lord, I would have you.” As a saint, he knew that he should ask for nothing less. But then, neither should we.

Friday of Ordinary 3

2012-01-27T15:12:00.000-05:00

It’s been said before that if God wants to make a mushroom, he can do so overnight. If, however, he wishes to make a giant sequoia, it takes him 150 years!

So too with us. God wants to make us into saints. And saints aren’t mushrooms: they’re giant sequoias. Saints aren’t made overnight; saint making takes time- usually a lifetime.

We can see this in today’s gospel. Jesus spoke of God’s kingdom as seed scattered on the ground. With time, and rain and sunshine, the seed becomes a stalk, which then produces full ears of corn, and then, at the end of the season, is ready for the harvest. This takes months- the full life cycle of the plant.

You and I can be slow learners, and when it comes to being a saint, we often have a lot to unlearn. We resist change; we can be stubborn and proud; we prefer to trust in ourselves than trust in God; we get stuck in bad habits that are hard to break; we’re sometimes fearful, sometimes ignorant.

But God knows this, and God is patient. He’s more patient with us than we are with ourselves! He knows that saint-making takes time. Thankfully, he has all the time in the world.

Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus

2012-01-26T13:26:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine works in a very tense work environment. Nevertheless, she’s always been able to maintain her composure and a sense of peace on the job. During one especially hard day, a colleague came to her in tears and asked her how she was able to handle all of their workplace stresses. My friend explained that she could do so only on account of her Catholic faith. As it was, she was on her way to the lunchtime Mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, and she invited her co-worker to come along. One year later, that co-worker was baptized at Easter- and my friend was her sponsor.

I share this story of evangelism because Sts. Timothy and Titus, whose feast we celebrate today, were great evangelists during the earliest years of the Church. Many people came to embrace the faith because of their evangelistic efforts. Titus himself probably came to faith through the evangelism of St. Paul, who was a friend and mentor. Timothy, however, as Paul acknowledged in today’s first reading, came to faith because of the witness of his grandmother Lois, and Eunice his mother. Just like my friend’s co-worker, Timothy came to faith thanks to the witness of those close to him.

This is something for all of us to keep in mind. As Pope Paul VI once said, “The church exists to evangelize.” Unfortunately, evangelism isn’t something we’re always comfortable with. That’s why Paul’s encouragement to Timothy, “do not be ashamed of our testimony to our Lord,” is good advice for us too.

Maybe we’re not called to be a Timothy or a Titus. But we can be like Lois, Eunice, and my acquaintance, and share our faith with those in our lives. They remind us that evangelism, like charity, begins at home. Beginning from there, let us, in the words of today’s psalm, “Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations!”

Memorial of the Conversion of Saint Paul

2012-01-25T13:54:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine once preached a homily in which he stood before an altar with a big green trash bag stuffed full with paper. He held the bag up and said, “This bag is our life.” “As Christians,” he continued, “we seek to give our lives to Christ.” He then turned around and reverently placed the bag before the altar. “But then,” he said, “we always try to take our life back again,” and he unceremoniously snatched the bag up.

Corny, I’ll admit, although I’ve remembered it for fifteen years. It does, however, happen to be true. All of us intend to surrender our life to Christ in trust and obedience. But we inevitably hold something back or take something back. There are always parts of our life we haven’t given to Jesus, are unwilling to give to Jesus, or we find really difficult to give to Jesus. Often, we don’t know ourselves well enough to give all of ourselves to Jesus. That’s why giving our lives to Jesus involves a process of ongoing, lifelong conversion.

Maybe that’s something to keep in mind on this Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. It might be better to call it, “The Feast of the Beginning of the Conversion of St. Paul.” What we recall today was St. Paul’s conversion to the Faith, which was a key event in the worldwide spread of the Church. For Paul, however, it was only the beginning of his conversion to Christ.

Paul’s conversion process was a struggle. In his letters, he speaks of fighting the good fight, running the race, beating his body, growing from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity, engaging in battle with the armor of God, and pressing on toward a prize he had yet to reach.

Yet Paul did reach the prize. His experience of lifelong conversion reminds us that while there are no overnight saints, there are saints nevertheless. A saint is what Paul became, and with the grace of God, so can we. St. Paul, pray for us!

Memorial of St. Francis de Sales

2012-01-24T11:04:00.000-05:00

Jane de Chantal's pain was understandable. Her beloved husband had been shot to death by a close companion in a tragic hunting accident, leaving her a single mother at the mercy of a tyrannical father-in-law. Her best friend was now gone; her whole world had been turned upside down; she sank into depression. In her heartbreak, she was unable to forgive the man who shot her husband, whom she would encounter in town.

But then the Bishop of Geneva, Francis de Sales, came into her life as a spiritual director. By appreciating the depth of her pain, he knew that forgiveness would take time. In fact, it would take six years. Throughout, Francis was patient with Jane, because Francis knew the patience of God.

We sometimes speak of people who have "the patience of a saint." Francis de Sales had that type of patience. But then again, he is in fact a saint. And helped by that patience, so is Jane de Chantal.

We're called to be saints too. That requires patience. And don't we all need more of that? We need more patience with others; we need more patience with ourselves; we need more patience with God too.

Thankfully, patience is a virtue. Which means that, at the end of the day, patience is a gift from God. And if patience comes from God, then we can certainly ask him for it. Indeed, we should. St. Francis de Sales knew that well. "You need patience..." he once wrote to a friend. But then he added: "...and God will give it to you."

Monday of Ordinary 3

2012-01-22T06:31:00.002-05:00

If you’ve ever worked with adult candidates in the RCIA, you’ve probably noticed how they act around the time of their first confession. Beforehand, they’re often afraid, anxious, and embarrassed, but when they’re done, they’re walking on cloud nine. They often feel as if a great weight has been lifted from their shoulders, and you can literally see the joy on their faces.

These people experience in a very real way the good news we heard in today’s Scripture readings, the fact that Jesus died to deliver us from our sins, and that every sin will indeed be forgiven. They can remind us of what a tremendous and priceless gift God’s forgiveness really is.

And we do need to be reminded from time to time, because we can all be tempted to take God’s forgiveness for granted. That’s why Jesus warned us in today’s gospel about the unforgivable blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. With these words he challenges us to take the Father’s forgiveness more seriously.

Our Lord knows that even we who are committed Christians can become comfortable with our sins. You know: when the things we used to wince become the things we now wink at. We shrug our shoulders about our sins and say, "That’s just the way I am." Or we "pass the buck" by blaming society or our circumstances. We can convince ourselves that our sins are a reward for being so good, kind of like time off for good behavior. We can get to the point where we don’t want to change our behavior, or think that we don’t have to. Our hearts become indifferent, and then our hearts become hard.

The bottom line is: We need to take our sins seriously, because God takes them seriously. So seriously that he died, that we might be forgiven.

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

2012-01-21T07:25:00.002-05:00

Today’s gospel describes for us Jesus’ having called two sets of brothers- Simon and Andrew and James and John- to share in his ministry of preaching the good news. As Mark describes it, these four men literally dropped everything and immediately became followers of Jesus on the spot.

To do such a thing was a great risk for these men. People of their culture were expected to stay within their given place and occupation in society, and expectations of clan loyalty ensured that family ties were very strong. To branch out one one’s own, leaving family and livelihood behind, was not something undertaken lightly, and was done only for an exceptional reason. That being said, we can only guess why these first four apostles did what they did.

It could be that they were compelled by Jesus’ call to repentance. Perhaps they were convicted in their hearts that they needed to turn their lives around and start living in a more righteous manner, and Jesus’ preaching was the real catalyst for change.

Or maybe they were inspired by Jesus’ proclamation that the kingdom of God was breaking into the world. The kingdom’s promise of justice, liberation, and peace would have certainly appealed to first century fishermen in Galilee, who typically worked under oppressively difficult conditions. The fish they caught would have been traded for processed fish or sold for cash. Either way, ancient records show that they were chronically underpaid. What’s worse, they were highly taxed, up to forty percent of their catch.

We’ll probably never know exactly what inspired Simon, Andrew, James, and John to become disciples of Jesus that day. It wouldn’t be surprising if each of them had a different reason, because that’s true of all of us here today. Each one if us came to follow Jesus for slightly different reasons, because each one of us has our own unique faith history and experience of conversion.

Perhaps our parents had passed on the faith to us, and now we’ve come to embrace it on our own as adults. Maybe it happened after we became parents, and we started thinking about what are the truly important things in life. It could be that we reached a hand out to God during a period of crisis or suffering, only to realize that God’s hand was already reaching out to us. Faith may have come as the end result of a long intellectual and spiritual quest. Or possibly we were first introduced to Jesus through the witness and example of a spouse or a close friend.

Regardless of how we came to faith, or whether we lived in the first century or the twenty-first, there’s one thing that all Christian have in common: All of us has found in Jesus a person- or more specifically, a personal God- in whom we could place our hope. In Jesus, we find a hope for love; a hope for healing; a hope for justice; a hope for happiness; a hope that our deepest aspirations might be fulfilled; a hope for reconciliation; and a hope for everlasting life.

However, I’ve heard it said, and very rightly I think, that in our day we’re witnessing a theology of hope being replaced by a psychology of advertising. In response to the powerful images and messages sent through the media, many people in our day seek meaning and fulfillment, not in a relationship with a personal, caring God, but in materialism, sensuality, worldly achievement, and the pursuit of endless youth and physical beauty.

It’s often claimed that media is a reflection of culture, which is true. But it’s just as true to say that media shapes culture. The attitudes and values of our culture in general, and of ourselves as individuals, is greatly influenced by how the news is reported, the music we listen to, the books and magazines we read, and the films and TV shows we watch.

Advertising can have an especially negative influence, when it seeks to distort reality or promote lifestyles beyond people’s reach. A recent Vatican document laments that advertising "frequently (and) deliberately appeals to such motives as envy, status seeking, and lust." At its very worst, the document continues, it’s designed to "shock and titillate by exploiting content of a morbid, perverse, and pornographic nature."

Now it’s easy to view this problem as an "us-against-them" type of scenario; a situation of "church versus the world." However, we Christians are by no means immune to the negative influences of the media. Like it or not, we’re surrounded by, if not immersed in, our wider, secular culture, and it’s very hard not to be affected by it.

Henri Nouwen, the famous spiritual writer and Catholic priest, one wrote: "When we speak of our age as a secular age, we must first of all be willing to become aware of how deeply this secularism has entered into our own hearts… and corrod(ed) our relationship with God."

In other words, we should stop ask ourselves: Has the media in any way compromised our ethics? Has it warped our worldview in ways not consistent with our faith? Has it enticed us to live beyond our means or poses what we don’t really need? Has it affected how we view our physical appearance? Has it compromised the way we approach the opposite sex and the expression of intimacy? Has it seduced us into seeking happiness in what we have, instead of who we are?

In short, today’s gospel of hope challenges us to keep watch that the world doesn’t darken our faith, so that our faith may illuminate the world.

Friday of Ordinary 2

2012-01-19T20:58:00.002-05:00

When I drive to St. Hugh’s each Friday morning, I always ask the Lord that more people might answer his call to come to daily Mass. I mention this in light of today’s gospel, because Jesus’ actions with his twelve apostles call to mind Jesus’ actions toward us when it comes to our participation in the Mass.

First, we were told that Jesus "summoned those whom he wanted and they came to him." In a similar way, Jesus has summoned us to this Mass, and we have come to him here. This is important to remember, because sometimes we think that we’ve come to Mass because we felt like we needed it or that it would be a good thing to do. The truth is, however, that we’ve come to Mass because Jesus has called us to be here, and we answered.

Next, today’s gospel says that Jesus sent his twelve apostles forth to preach and drive out demons. Jesus hasn’t made us bishops like he did with the twelve. But he does send us forth into the world- to witness to his love, to extend his forgiveness, to spread his compassion, to proclaim his truth, to offer his healing, and to build up his kingdom. And Jesus does this at every Mass, at the dismissal.

Some of you may recall that Mass used to end with the words, Ite, Missa est, which is Latin for "Go, you are sent"- sent into the world as witnesses to Christ. The words we use today are English, but they mean the very same thing. I would invite you then to join me in my daily prayer that more people might answer Jesus’ call to come to Mass, so that there might be more of us sent forth to renew our world.

Thursday of Ordinary 2

2012-01-18T15:48:00.002-05:00

“The only worse thing than bad publicity,” they like to say in Hollywood, “is no publicity at all.” In our hyper-competitive, information-overloaded, celebrity-obsessed society, there are those who will do whatever it takes to generate “buzz” and remain in the public eye.

But not Jesus. His healing ministry was bound to generate attention. Yet when demons shouted out, “You are the Son of God!” he warned them to stay silent. We might say that he didn’t want his enemies to take charge of his “branding,” to use a modern marketing term. It’s not that Jesus was denying that he is God’s Son. Far from it! But he wanted to ensure that people came to understand his identity on his own terms, not theirs.

Throughout his ministry, people speculated that Jesus was a king, a prophet, an insurrectionist, a miracle worker, even his deceased cousin, John the Baptist. Not bad guesses, all things considered, but none of them hit the mark.

Jesus can only be properly viewed through the lens of his death, resurrection, and ascension. That’s why he only wants those who know of and believe in such things to proclaim him to the world. In other words, the Church. And that means us. By what we say and do, our lives should proclaim, “You are the Son of God!” Same words as those demons, to be sure. But they spoke from fear. We speak from love.

Wednesday of Ordinary 2

2012-01-17T14:48:00.000-05:00

“Nothing you can do or say will ever change my mind!” It’s frustrating to encounter stubbornness like that. Jesus was certainly frustrated in today’s gospel. In fact, he was “angered” and “grieved” at those who insisted that it was wrong to heal on the Sabbath.

Jesus tried reasoning with them, but they remained silent. Then he performed a healing before their very eyes! Surely they must have witnessed the man’s joy at being cured. But to no avail. They continued to maintain that what Jesus was doing was wrong. Jesus, for his part, continued to proclaim that what he was doing was right.

Isn’t that our experience in the Church today? We bear witness to the world the truth about many things: from marriage to the environment; immigration and religious freedom; economic justice and the sanctity of human life; war, peace, and sex; the very existence of God.

We’re under no illusion that we’ll change every mind. Human nature and human history make that clear. Jesus himself didn’t change every mind. But he did change some. And that gives us hope and encouragement to “keep on keeping on” in trying to change minds today. But most importantly- changing hearts, and changing lives.

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

2012-01-14T14:09:00.000-05:00

Early in life, St. Francis of Assisi found himself at a crossroads. One the one hand, he thought that perhaps God was calling him to a cloistered life of prayer and contemplation. On the other hand, however, he wondered if God wanted him to be a travelling missionary and preach the gospel. To help him with his decision, he turned to two friends: Saint Clare and Brother Sylvester, whom he asked to pray and then get back to him. They did, and sent a messenger to St. Francis. When the messenger arrived, St. Francis asked, “What does my Lord Jesus Christ want me to do?” The messenger replied: “He wants you to go about the world preaching.” Upon hearing these words, St. Francis jumped up and exclaimed: “Let’s go, in the name of the Lord!”

St. Francis knew that he needed to consult others to discern God’s will. The same is true for all of us. Our relationship with Jesus takes place within the community of the Church, the body of Christ. Catholic Christianity is not just “Jesus and me.” It’s also “Jesus and we.” And Jesus often uses our brothers and sisters in his one body to point us in the right direction. He especially can use those persons who are further along the spiritual path than we are; people who can offer us guidance based on experience that we don’t yet have.

Consider today’s Old Testament reading from First Samuel. At the time, Samuel was a young disciple of Eli, who was training him to be a priest in the great Jerusalem Temple. One night, Samuel twice heard a voice that he thought was that of Eli. But Eli knew better, and was able to identify the voice as that of the Lord himself. We’re told specifically that Samuel was “not familiar with the Lord,” meaning that he was new and inexperienced. But Eli, who had been a priest for many years, knew better, and he could share his maturity with Samuel.

This little story is instructive for us. God, as he did with young Samuel, wants us to hear his voice. And all of us should want to be more “familiar with the Lord.” To do that, we can, and should, seek help from others more experienced, more holy, than we are. But who, specifically, can we turn to for help?

First, we can look for guidance from the lives of the saints. By considering their stories, we can be guided and instructed in how to become saints ourselves. How they lived out their faith in often challenging situations can inspire us to live out our faith in the challenging situations we ourselves face. Some of the holiest saints started out as pretty hopeless sinners, but with the grace of God they were radically transformed. Their witness can remind us that there’s hope for us too; if it can happen for them, then it can also happen for us. As Pope Benedict has written, “(The saints’) human and spiritual experience shows that holiness is not...an impossible goal for a normal person.”

In addition to studying the lives of the saints, we can also study their writings. The saints, old and new, have left us a rich legacy- a treasure trove of writings that can greatly benefit us in our journey of faith. In the Creed at Mass we profess belief in the communion of saints; it only makes sense that we benefit from the wisdom of the saints! We can tackle entire books like St. Augustine’s Confessions, which, along with the Bible, the Holy Father said would be one of the two books he would want with him if he were marooned on a desert island. There also any number of websites and devotional books which can give little daily doses of saintly wisdom. I myself have two handwritten notebooks of quotes from the saints that I’ve collected over the years.

Our “spiritual reading” might also include good and helpful books, websites, magazines, even blogs from brothers and sisters in Christ who have valuable insights, knowledge, and experience to share to us:. Whenever I visit someone’s home, I often take a look at what’s on their bookshelves. Typically I’ll see novels, biographies, travel guides, cooks books, do-it-yourself manuals, and parenting advice, but very little that can qualify as true “spiritual reading.” But we need such reading to grow in faith. Jesus taught us that the truth will set us free. But we’ll never experience that liberation unless we make the effort to study and learn what that truth is.

Finally, we can grow in faith by seeking out a spiritual mentor, a guide who can help us find and stay on the right path. Sometimes we need another person to help us see what God is doing in our lives. In today’s gospel, Jesus walked right in front of two followers of St. John the Baptist. But they wouldn’t have recognized him at all, if John hadn’t pointed out to them that Jesus was the “lamb of God.” All of us can benefit from another person helping us to identify Jesus as he walks through our lives, because we can so easily fool ourselves, lose our perspective, get carried away by enthusiasm, become attached to unhelpful or unhealthy things, or be held back by fear. As St. Theresa of Avila once said, “The person who has himself as a spiritual director has a fool for a director!” A spiritual guide can be a priest, but not necessarily so. It can be anyone who is further along in their spiritual journey than we are, and who happy to walk alongside us in friendship and trust.

If the likes of St. Francis of Assisi sought spiritual help from others, then it would certainly benefit us too. With help from the saints, good writing, and flesh-and-blood spiritual guides, we can more clearly see God’s plan for us and say, like St. Francis: “Let’s go, in the name of the Lord!”

Friday of Ordinary 1

2012-01-12T14:46:00.000-05:00

If we were to meet Jesus face-to-face today, what would we want him to say to us? “Well done, good and faithful servant?” “I love you?” “Everything’s going to be okay?” “I want to spend eternity with you?”

I imagine that many of us would want to hear Jesus say: “I forgive you.” We long to hear these words, not just because we’re broken and sinful people, but because sometimes we can wonder whether Jesus really forgives us or not. We know what a struggle it can be to forgive other people, and sometimes we find it difficult to forgive even ourselves. Because of this, we can conclude that Jesus probably has a hard time forgiving us as well.

Today’s gospel, however, assures us otherwise. As we heard, Jesus told a crowd that it’s easy for him to say, “I forgive you.” And if you remember, Jesus loved that paralyzed man so much that he forgave him even before the man had a chance to speak.

You see, Jesus knew what that man needed; Jesus knew what was in his heart. And he knows what’s in our hearts too; he knows that we long for his forgiveness. We might say that he’s dying to give it to us. But then again, dying to forgive us, is something he already did…

Thursday of Ordinary 1

2012-01-11T18:30:00.000-05:00

I imagine that most of us have had the experience of really looking forward to getting together with family or friends, and then not being able to join them because we got sick. Magnify this experience by an entire lifetime, and that will describe the plight of those who suffered from leprosy in Jesus’ day. Because people were so afraid of catching their illness, lepers by law had to live completely separate from the community of their family and friends. We can only imagine how painful that must have been.

The leper we encountered in today’s gospel actually had to break the law in order to approach Jesus and ask for help. Yet Jesus didn’t turn him away. Instead, he was “moved with pity,” and he healed him. Jesus then sent him to see a priest, who was one person who could legally re-admit him to the fellowship of family and friends.

The experience of lepers reminds us that sickness, in addition to causing physical pain, can also lead to loneliness and alienation. Often the sick are unable to get out like they used to, because they’re confined to their home or a hospital. Perhaps they can have few or no visitors because of their condition. Sometimes people intentionally avoid the sick out of fear or ignorance, as can happen to people with AIDS. And it can happen that the sick are forgotten altogether, especially the elderly and nursing home patients.

This loneliness can be even more painful than the physical pain of sickness, because loneliness can lead to hopelessness and despair. “When we feel cut off from the human family,” wrote Fr. Henri Nouwen, “we quickly lose heart.” That’s why Jesus’ example should challenge us to reach out to those we know who are sick, with prayer, cards, visits, and offers of help. In this way, we express our love, lift spirits, ease burdens, generate hope, and touch people’s lives with the compassion of Jesus himself.

Wednesday of Ordinary1

2012-01-10T09:26:00.001-05:00

Have you even known someone who recovered from a life-threatening illness? Perhaps someone who beat
cancer or who survived a serious heart attack. Often times, their experience of having been healed changes
their entire perspective on life. They live more simply and gratefully. They have a different appreciation for
what’s really important. And they have a greater concern for the welfare of others. They want to “give
something back.” They want to serve.

We see this in today’s gospel. Jesus cured Simon’s mother-in-law of a serious illness, and her response was to become a servant. We’re told specifically that she rose from her bed, and waited on Jesus and his friends.

Simon’s mother-in law is a model for us. Not all of us have received a gift of God’s healing as she did. However, all of us have received gifts from God- more than we often imagine or appreciate. Indeed, we will receive a great gift from God just moments from now- the gift of Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist. In response, we too need to be servants. Just as Simon’s mother-in-law served Jesus, his friends, and her family, so we too can serve the needs of our families, the Church, and Jesus himself, especially in the faces of the poor. The Closing Prayer from today’s Mass puts it well: “God, you renew us with your sacraments. Help us to thank you by lives of faithful service.”

Tuesday of Ordinary 1

2012-01-09T13:33:00.000-05:00

When people were introduced to Jesus for the first time, as in today’s gospel, they were often quite literally astounded by what he said and did. His teaching held people spellbound, and his miraculous deeds filled them with awe.

Maybe we too were astonished at our first encounter with Jesus. Perhaps we once were enthralled by One whose promises and gifts seemed too good to be true. But then, with the passage of time, we lost our sense of wonder. Jesus became a little too familiar to us. We convinced ourselves that we had him all figured out, wrapped up in a neat, tidy package, and we ceased to be amazed.

What once we found providential we now dismiss as coincidental. Moments of grace we write off as wishful thinking or naïve ignorance. The sacramental became empty symbol, and the super-natural something to rationalize or explain away.

And what we ended up with is not faith in the living God, but a dead and lifeless idol. Today’s gospel invites us to embrace once more the mystery of Jesus, that we may be amazed, yet again.

Solemnity of the Epiphany

2012-01-06T07:48:00.000-05:00

The three wise men, or magi, take center stage today. Yet, in spite of their importance, Scripture doesn’t give us much information about them. In fact, we're not even told that there were three of them. It wasn’t until later that they were numbered and identified by the traditional names of Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Scripture also doesn’t tell us exactly where they came from. Scholars tell us that Persia was a likely country of origin. The mention in today’s psalm of kings from Sheba, or present day Ethiopia, led to the ancient belief that Balthasar was a black African. Scripture, however, is content simply to tell us that they came from the East.

This vague geography is significant, however, as it identifies the wise men as Gentiles, or non-Jewish people. They foreshadow the truth that God in Jesus would gather people from every corner of the world into one, universal, catholic community that we know as “Church.” No one would be excluded from this assembly. Instead, all men and women, regardless of race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, or country of origin, would be invited to take their place within the new people of God.

Indeed, we discover this theme throughout our entire liturgy today. The Opening Prayer reminded us that, through the guidance of a star, Jesus was revealed to people of every nation. The reading from Isaiah and the psalm which followed spoke of people from all nations coming to Jerusalem to praise the Lord. And we heard St. Paul explain to the Ephesians that the good news of the gospel and membership in the church are meant for everyone- both Gentiles and Jews.

It could be that Paul had to stress this point because some people resisted it or found it difficult to accept. Unfortunately, this continues to be a problem today, and that’s what makes Paul’s words so relevant to our contemporary situation. They speak directly to the continuing scourge of racism and discrimination in the world, in our nation, and in the Church.

As many of you know, Catholics have been victims of racism and discrimination throughout the history of our nation. Here in Maryland, Catholics suffered greatly from 1690 to 1776 under unjust “penal laws.” In the first half of the nineteenth century, anti-Catholicism was a strong social and political force. For instance, the American or “Know-Nothing” party, which sought to exclude Catholics from public office and block Catholic immigration, received one fifth of the vote in the presidential election of 1856. In the 1920’s, the revived Ku Klux Klan vented their rage against Catholics and burned crosses in their yards. “No Irish Need Apply” was a warning seen in help wanted ads as late as the 1940’s. And according to some, anti-Catholicism is still a potent force today, especially in the media.

Perhaps in response to this experience, American Catholics- especially recently- have often been on the front lines of efforts to end discrimination and promote religious freedom and racial justice. The second Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal O’Boyle, courageously integrated our parochial schools before the public schools were. He stood on the stage near Dr. Martin Luther King when he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. And standing in the crowd that day was the future Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal McCarrick, then the Dean of Students at Catholic University, who carried a sign calling for equal employment rights. Today, our Church advocates the rights of recent immigrants to our country, many of whom are Hispanic, Asian, and Africa. And our official Catholic Catechism states clearly that discrimination and racism are wrong. It says: “Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design.” (CCC 1935)

Yet it also must be said that our Catholic record on this issue is mixed. Maryland Jesuits held slaves during the colonial era. Until 1948, the Archdiocese of Washington had a dual parish structure- some churches for blacks, some for whites- because blacks weren’t welcome at white churches. Many religious orders refused to admit blacks. So at one time did the Knights of Columbus- an organization of which I’m a proud member- leading to the creation of a black group, the Knights of Saint Peter Claver. And racism still plagues our church today. It’s been said that Sunday is the most segregated day of the week in America. As our U.S. bishops recently wrote: Racism is “an evil which endures in our society and in our Church.”

As Catholic and American individuals, what can we do to fight racism and discrimination? First, we can pray for racial reconciliation. Second, we need to examine our consciences and attitudes. For instance, do we see ourselves as superior to those of other backgrounds? Do we hate or have animosity towards those of different races? Do negative racial stereotypes contaminate our thoughts, words, and deeds? Do we belong to groups or institutions that subtly reinforce a sense of racial privledge, or at least diminish the contributions of other peoples and cultures? Based on our answers to these questions, we might seek God’s forgiveness in confession and the Holy Spirit’s help in changing our ways. Third, we can vote and advocate for justice and equal rights, and support those groups that promote them. And fourth, we can strive to be welcoming and hospitable to those in our parish and communities who are culturally different from us.

Racism and discrimination divide and wound the one body of Christ, the Church, a body which Christ calls to be lovingly, harmoniously unified in its rich diversity. On this feast of the Epiphany, we’re reminded that Jesus loves everyone, and that everyone should be loved, by those who follow Jesus.

Friday before Epiphany

2012-01-05T05:55:00.001-05:00

A deacon I work with once teased me about a radio program he heard which claimed that men with beards are trying to hide their identity. I don’t know about that; I had a beard for nine years because I don’t like to shave and, most of all, because my wife liked it!

However, the reality is that all of us here this morning have an identity that is far too precious to ever try and hide- either with a beard or anything else. We’re reminded of this by today’s gospel. It spoke of Jesus’ baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon him and God the Father proclaimed him to be his beloved son.

This calls to mind our baptisms, when you and I were adopted as God’s beloved sons and daughters. Through baptism, we are the children of God; we are brothers and sisters in the Lord. That is our identity. That is who we are.

Yet sometimes the attractions, temptations, and attitudes of the world we live in can lead us to forget our identity through sin, or to try and hide it because of embarrassment. As today’s first reading explained, however, we Christians are called not to conform to the world, but to be victorious over it.

We would be wise, therefore, to heed the words of St. Leo the Great in a famous Christmas homily. “Christian, remember your dignity,” he wrote. “Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit.”

January 3

2012-01-02T12:03:00.000-05:00

While registering for a 5k road race at a local community center, I noticed that one of my parishioners – someone I know very well- was one of the race volunteers. I went over and started speaking with him. He was acting a little strangely until suddenly his eyes widened and he said, “Oh- you’re Father Hurd. I didn’t recognize you!” You see, I was dressed in running gear and a baseball cap, not my black clerical clothes, and we weren’t in a church. My parishioner didn’t expect to see me in that context, looking the way I did. He wasn’t even able to recognize me, even though I was standing right in front of him.

But don’t we sometimes do the same thing when it comes to Jesus? We expect, of course, to find him in the obvious places- Scripture, prayer, the Sacraments, at church, maybe even in the beauty and wonder of nature. But we fail to recognize him in other places and other contexts- situations where we don’t expect to find him- like the humdrum of our daily routine, at the office, in the midst of our difficulties and sufferings, in the faces of the needy and the poor. Indeed, Jesus is present in every situation in our lives. We just need to open our eyes, and look for him.

In today’s gospel, John the Baptist twice says that he did not know Jesus. Instead, he explained that Jesus’ presence was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. Maybe we should take a cue from him, and ask the Spirit to reveal the presence of Jesus to us- not just in those places we expect to find him, but most especially in those places where seeing his face would come as a surprise.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/010312.cfm

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

2011-12-30T17:02:00.000-05:00

When he was 3 ½, my son Charlie stunned Stephanie and I by announcing that when he grew up, he wanted to be a fireman, an astronaut, and a librarian- all at the same time! Of course, all kids look forward to being something in particular when they grow up. And most parents look forward to what their children might grow up to be as well.

Some parents want their children to choose specific professions. Maybe they want them to follow in their footsteps or take up the family business. Some hope their children will grow up to be a priest or a religious brother or sister. Most parents, however, are probably more concerned not with what their children become, but with whom they become. A few will imagine their children leading a so-called “perfect” life of wealth, fame, success, and beauty. The majority of parents, however, are far more realistic. They know their children won’t have “perfect” lives. But they still want good things for them.

A recent Google search revealed that parents want a variety of things for their children. They want them to grow up to be happy, healthy, safe, strong, independent, and confident. They want them to feel good about themselves, enjoy inner peace, find a purpose and meaning in life, learn from their experiences, respect nature and humanity, feel successful and significant, and to be loving people who are loved in return.

I would imagine that many of us here want or have wanted such things for the children in our lives. And it has to be said that most of those things are, in and of themselves, good things. However, as Christians, we should want something more for our children. Over and above all everything else, we should want our children to grow up to be holy; we should want them to become saints of God who live to serve him and build up his kingdom. Saints are what God created them to become. Saints are what we should want them to become.

Today is the Church’s feast of Mary, the Mother of God. As we continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus, we celebrate in a special way today the motherhood of Mary. The gospel appointed for this Mass, as he heard, spoke of the entire Holy Family- Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. They were gathered together in the stable at Bethlehem, when all of a sudden, shepherds burst in with the wonderful news that angels had proclaimed their child to be the savior, Christ and Lord. For her part, we’re specifically told that Mary “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”

In other words, Mary, Jesus’ mother, made it a point to think about what God had created her child to be. Today is a good day for us to do the very same thing. We should reflect on what God wants our children to be- and this includes not only our sons and daughters, but also our grandchildren, our godchildren, our nieces and nephews, and in fact all the children of our parish, because since we’re all one big family in Christ, we all have a responsibility for each other. We should ask ourselves: Do we want these children to become saints? Or have we been aiming and working toward something less?

At the end of today’s gospel, we’re told that eight days after Jesus was born he was circumcised and given his name. This, of course, is an ancient Jewish custom. We might think of our Catholic practice of infant baptism as being a rough equivalent to this. At a Catholic baptism, parents and godparents promise publicly, before God and the Church, that they will do everything in their power to raise the newly baptized child in the faith, so that he or she might greet Jesus with joy on that day when he comes again in power and glory.

Many of us have made such a promise at some point. The question is: are we keeping that promise as best we can? If not, then maybe we need to make some New Year’s resolutions. First of all, let’s resolve to worship at Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation. Let’s resolve to pray together every day: not just at mealtimes and bedtimes, but other times as well. We can regularly go to confession together, perhaps once a month. We can read the Scriptures together. We can place Catholic symbols in our homes to identify it as a sacred space where God’s children dwell. We can teach our children about the saint or feast of the day in the Catholic calendar. We can share with our children what our faith in Jesus means to us and talk with them about what God has done in our lives. We can celebrate the anniversaries of our children’s baptisms or their special saints days. And we can make our best effort, with God’s grace, to model for our children the virtues of faith, hope, love, forgiveness, patience, generosity, compassion, gratitude, affirmation, simplicity of life, and self- sacrifice.

Experience has shown that parents are four times more effective than clergy, and ten times more effective than teachers in passing on the faith to children. The reality is that these days, the burden of this responsibility seems to fall upon the shoulders of mothers. But dads need to do their share too. One study concludes that if the primary religious influence in the home if the father, 93% of those children will follow into that faith as adults. Yet if the primary religious influence is the mother, only 17% will follow.

I would hope that everyone here today would say that they love the children in their lives. But what is love? Love is doing whatever is necessary to help those we love to become what God create them to be. We know that he made them to be saints. If we really love them, that’s what we’ll help them to grow up to be.

Seventh Day of Christmas

2011-12-30T16:37:00.000-05:00

Christmas is often described as a season of song. Carols, hymns, and popular tunes surround us this time of year, and we all have our favorites.

Today's gospel presents us with what we might call one of the first Christmas carols. The evangelist took an ancient Christian hymn or poem, and made it the prologue to his entire work.

This hymn celebrates the light and life brought to us by the Word of God, who made his dwelling amongst us as a fellow human being, that those of us who believe, might be born again as children of God. In other words: God became a human being, in order that human beings might become united with God.

And that, without a doubt, is something worth singing about!

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

2011-12-28T17:19:00.002-05:00

Poor ol’ Charlie Brown. In his TV Christmas special, he has to contend aluminum Christmas trees, his sister’s greedy letter to Santa, Snoopy’s tacky decorations, and a true lack of “good will toward men” on the part of his friends. Finally he cries out in frustration: “Can anyone tell me what Christmas is all about?” Whereupon Linus calls for a spotlight, and beautifully recites the story of Jesus’ birth from Luke’s gospel. This familiar story warns us of the danger that the commercialization and stress associated with Christmas can sometimes obscure the fact that “Jesus is the reason for the season.”

However, you and I face another danger too. Not that the season’s distractions will drown out the Christmas story, but that we’ve heard it so many times that it no longer touches our hearts. It’s become so familiar to us that we’ve become jaded and indifferent. We hear the Christmas gospel proclaimed and think: “Tell me something I don’t already know.” It’s become to us like a song we really liked when it first came out, but then it got overplayed. When we hear it now, we don’t turn up the volume, we roll our eyes and change the channel.

I would imagine that many of us have felt this way, even if just a little bit. So maybe today, like Charlie Brown, we should take a good hard look at what Christmas really is all about. Let’s put aside for a moment all the shepherds, angels, wise men, mangers, and stars shining in the East. They’re all important- don’t get me wrong! But at the heart of Christmas is the amazing, astounding, breathtaking truth that, in Jesus, God became human. God- all powerful, all knowing, the creator of a cosmos billions of light years across- became a fragile, weak, tiny, and completely helpless baby on the first Christmas day. By his own choice, he became one of us.

The proclamation of this wonderful truth struck those who first heard it as a lightning bolt- both the Romans and the Jews. The Romans had their gods of course- Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and the whole lot. But by Jesus’ day, no one really cared about or believed in them. There were temples and religious holidays, and people went through the motions, but there was very little in the way of personal faith and devotion. These gods failed to inspire because they were too human, in the negative sense of the word. Their number included murderers and rapists, and they all fell prey to the whole range of human temptations- pride, envy, anger, jealousy, lust. Many Romans understandably found the God of the Jews- our God- as far more attractive. After all, there was only one of him. He was an ethical God who commanded respect, and was worthy of worship and obedience.

Unfortunately, by the time of Jesus’ birth, God was seen as being very far removed from everyday human life. Keeping the law and religious traditions were important, but that had become burdensome and oppressive. There was little appreciation of a personal relationship with God who involved himself in human affairs. God was silent. God was remote.

But with the coming of Jesus, everything changed. In Jesus, God was born, lived, worked, sweated, made friends, had enemies, experienced joy, knew disappointment, laughed, suffered, and died. In Jesus, God became a member of a family- the Holy Family- Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, which we remember and celebrate today. Jesus was fully human! But he wasn’t human in the sense that the Roman gods were human. Jesus was perfectly human. Through the life he lived, he showed how God wants us to be human.

Deep down, this is how all of us want to live our lives. We could see this reflected in a fad from a few years ago in which people created “avatars”- animated characters- to represent themselves in popular computer games. Through their “avatar,” a person playing the game could become anyone he or she wanted to be. Nevertheless, most players created characters that were simply better versions of their real selves- the people they would like to be, or wish they were, in real life. This, I think, is evidence of a desire we all have to be our best selves. And this is what Jesus has shown us how to do. To be the best we can be, we need to live in imitation of Jesus.

However, Jesus does much more than show us how to be human. He shows us, and enables us, to become like God. Did you catch that? God the Son became one of us so we could become like God. In Jesus, God united himself with our humanity so we could be united with his divinity- for all eternity. Because of Jesus, it’s our hope that in heaven we’ll not only be with God, we will be one with God, and share the same nature. “For the Son of God became man,” wrote St. Athanasius, “so that we might become God.” How amazing is that? How awesome is that? Yet that’s the truth that lies at the heart of our Christmas celebration.

The Washington Post once ran a nice story about how the cloistered Carmelite nuns in Southern Maryland celebrate Christmas. One nun, Sister Clare Joseph, said: "I just want to tell people, 'Don't you realize God became a man? Do you realize how astonishing that is?'” Then she lamented: "I don't think people even think about that. . . in our society."

She’s right. And sometimes we in the Church are guilty of the very same thing. So perhaps we all need, this Christmas season, to think about the true meaning of Christmas, and reflect on the magnitude of what God did for us when he became human in Jesus Christ. Because if we do, we won’t yawn with boredom. We will fall on our knees with awe.

December 23

2011-12-23T09:37:00.000-05:00

Zechariah and Elizabeth's neighbors knew something wonderful was happening as the events of John the Baptist's birth unfolded before them. As today's gospel tells it, at first they rejoiced; then they were amazed; and finally, they were filled with fear because they could see that the hand of the Lord was at work.

The witness of these neighbors can challenge us as we commemorate the north of our Lord. It's easy to trivialize and sentimentalize Christmas and fail to appreciate how awe-inspiring the Incarnation truly is.

We can forget that in Jesus, God-made-man, the creator of the universe shivered in straw; that the all-knowing had to learn how to crawl and walk; that he who needs nothing became dependent upon a mother; that the all-powerful became helpless; that the all-holy dwelt amongst the unholy; that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords entered our world in obscurity and poverty; that divinity joins with humanity.

This Christmas, let's reflect on these things, and see if we aren't filled with joy, amazement, even holy fear- at the magnificent deeds of our all-holy God.

December 22

2011-12-21T18:01:00.002-05:00

Music is one of the things that makes the Christmas holiday so special. More than any other season, Christmastime is filled with song, and we all have our particular favorites.

We just heard what might very well be the first Christmas song- Mary’s Magnificat. Interesting thing for a Christmas song, however: Christ isn’t even mentioned. Mary sings about herself a little bit. More specifically, she sings about what God the Father has done for her. But most of all, her song is about what God the Father is does for all of us.

Mary’s Magnificat is a celebration of God’s breaking into the world, in order to stand the world on its head. God comes in Jesus to remake the world in the way he intended it to be in the first place, before we messed things up. The mighty are cast down; the humble are exalted. The hungry are fed; the rich are sent away hungry.

This is a hopeful message but it’s a challenging one too. It’s hopeful in that it celebrates God’s coming to set things strait. But it’s challenging to those who might need to be set strait- especially we who are citizens of the world’s richest nation, living in the most powerful city on earth.

So often our Christmas songs are comforting, but that’s only half of Mary’s message. Her Magnificat recalls that while God came to comfort the afflicted, God also came to afflict the comfortable.

December 21

2011-12-20T17:41:00.000-05:00

Traveling out of town to visit relatives; family members of different generations coming together; children getting excited over all that’s happening. Many people- perhaps many of us- will be experiencing these things over the next week and a half, just as Mary and Elizabeth did in gospel story of the Visitation. As we heard, when Mary arrived from out of town to visit her older relative Elizabeth, the infant in Elizabeth’s womb leapt for joy. Indeed, everyone in the scene is filled with joy.

Most of us, I imagine, hope to experience joy at Christmas. However, as we all know, there are many things this time of year that can rob us of joy. There’s the stress of trying to get everything done; the family baggage that can get unpacked; the headache of holiday travel; relatives that ruffle our feathers; worries about money; and the disappointment when our plans for a lovely holiday don’t exactly pan out.

When these negative forces bear down upon us, we need to take a cue from Mary and Elizabeth. When they came together, they spoke about their faith, the wonderful things God had done for them, and the coming birth of Jesus. It is in these things that they found their joy. And the same should be true for us. So if the holiday blues come knocking at our door this year, let’s let our faith be our focus, and hold on to that simple truth that Jesus is the reason for the season. At Christmas there is indeed “joy to the world,” but it’s only because “the Lord has come.”

December 20

2011-12-20T14:45:00.000-05:00

My first ancestor to come to these shores was Ebenezer Hurd, back in 1742, I think. When my son was born and I called my mother to inform her that we would be naming him Ebenezer, there was a profound silence on the other end of the line. I was joking, of course- my son’s name is Charles- but her response reflects that child is named is very important.

This is especially true of the child whose birth we will commemorate in just five days time. Ultimately, this child would wind up with many names. I remember seeing a poster once that listed about sixty of them: names like “The Great I AM” and “Alpha and Omega.”

Today’s Scripture readings and the Alleluia verse before the gospel give us five of the names that this child is called:

“Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.”
“Key of David,” which speaks of kingly authority;
“Jesus”- Hebrew for “God saves”- because he would save us from sin and death;
“Holy,” because of his perfect virtue and righteousness; and
“Son of God,” because he is by nature divine.

A traditional Christmas carol asks us, “What child is this?” His names provide the answer: He is our great and perfect king, God himself who came to live with us, that we might live with him forever.

Third Sunday of Advent

2011-12-17T14:22:00.001-05:00

“If you want to make God laugh,” said St. Teresa of Avila, “just tell him your plans!” What God laughs at
is when we put our cart before our horse. We make our plans, we do whatever it is we want to do, and then
we expect God to accept our decisions, bless them, and help them to be successful. As Christians, what we
should do first is ask what God’s plan is, and then pray for the grace to carry it out.

This was a lesson king David had to learn in today’s first reading. He had decided that he would build for God a great and beautiful Temple in Jerusalem. This seemed to everyone, including the prophet Nathan, like a good and worthwhile and noble thing to do. The problem was that this was not God’s plan for David. God did have plans for David- very great plans that included a covenant with David’s family that would culminate in the birth of Jesus. Nevertheless, God wanted David’s son Solomon, and not David, to be the one to build a Temple. So David had to surrender his plans to the plans of God.

This is what God calls us to do as well. He asks us to surrender our plans and take on his. Consider Mary. I wonder what plans she had as a young girl. Did she want to have lots of children? Did she imagine growing old in the company of a husband and a big family? We’ll never know, but it’s possible. However, whatever plans she may have had all came to an end when the Archangel Gabriel appeared and announced that she would conceive and bear a son named Jesus.

Mary might have said no. She was a free person who could make her own decisions. Some of the earliest Christian writers spoke of all heaven and earth holding their breath, sitting on pins and needles as they awaited Mary’s decision. But of course Mary did say yes. “I am the handmaid of the Lord,” she proclaimed. “May it be done to me according to your word.” Mary had surrendered her plans for God’s. As the Opening Prayer for today’s Mass said, “…the Virgin Mary placed her life at the service of (God’s) plan.”

In a word, Mary was obedient. Her obedience is an example to us of how we should be obedient to the plan of God. In fact, in a certain way Mary’s obedience made it possible for us to be obedient. In today’s second reading, from his letter to the Romans, St. Paul told us that the Jesus’ revelation of God was made “to bring about the obedience of faith.” Yet that would not have been possible without the obedience of Mary.

Mary willingness to surrender her own plans for the plans of God presents a challenge to us. Mary challenges us to think about whatever plans we’ve made and dreams for the future we have. Consider, for instance, the plans you have for the new year about to begin. Plans about your job, your family, your relationships, your education, your home. Think about the purchases you plan to make, the vacations you hope to take, the volunteer commitments you expect to accept, any medical or health procedures you intend to undergo. Then ask yourself: Is it really God’s will that I do these things? Have I placed these decisions before the Lord? Did I ask if they will help build up God’s kingdom and help me and or my family grow in holiness? Were my plans prayerfully made? Did I ask for God’s help and direction when I made them?

We can’t automatically assume that whatever we’ve planned is consistent with God’s plan, even if our plans were made with the best of intentions. That’s the way King David thought, and he wound up being surprised. We need to have the openness, and the humility, to accept that some of our plans may not necessarily be the same as God’s. As has often been said, our God is a God of surprises and he acts in mysterious ways. Just ask a guy who wound up being a married Catholic priest. Or better yet, ask my wife!

Another question we should ask ourselves is: Am I willing to surrender the plans I have to God? Am I
willing to give them up if he wants me to? For instance, what if our health changed and prevented us from
carrying out my plans? What if we had to suddenly care for a sick relative? What if God blessed us with a
new child? What if our circumstances changed or the money just wasn’t there? What if a long-time plan
and our conscience came into conflict? Would we be willing to give up our plans with peaceful
resignation? Or would we resist, run away, make bad compromises, or sink into anger and bitterness? If
that’s the case, then we don’t just have a plan. We have an idol.

It can be hard to surrender. Surrender involves sacrifice; saying “Yes” to God often means saying “No” to something else. Sometimes our pride gets in the way. We want to call the shots in our life. We believe we know what’s best for us better than everybody else, even God. At other times, our fears hold us back. We’re afraid of the unknown and we don’t like moving out of our comfort zones. Surrender can require a lot of courage and trust and love. Even Mary had questions. And Gabriel had to tell her not to be afraid.

Thankfully, God always gives us the strength we need; his grace is always sufficient to the task. As we heard St. Paul say: “To him who can strengthen you…be glory for ever and ever!” Gabriel assured Mary, “nothing will be impossible for God.” And nothing will be impossible with God. God may indeed laugh at our plans. But he smiles when we embrace his.

Readings for today's Mass:http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121811.cfm

Friday of Advent 3

2011-12-15T14:57:00.002-05:00

A big change has taken place in my household: no longer do plain white lights hang on our Christmas tree. They’ve been replaced by good old-fashioned colored lights- big ones! And I love it.

We see lights everywhere this time of year. That’s why it’s sometimes called a “season of light.” But all these lights should serve to remind us of the great light who entered our world at the first Christmas. All other lights point to him.

Jesus said as much in today’s gospel. He spoke of those who rejoiced in the light of St. John the Baptist, whom he described as a “bright and shining lamp.” But then Jesus explained that John’s light was meant as a beacon for the greater light which he came to bring. A light which, as Isaiah told us in today’s first reading, revealed God’s salvation and justice, and extended God’s covenant of love to people of every race and nation.

I hope we enjoy all the lights we see this season- white and colored, blinking and not. But let’s not forget that the light we rejoice in above all others is Jesus Christ. Because in Jesus, to steal a phrase from today’s psalm, God let his face shine upon us.

Memorial of St. John of the Cross

2011-12-14T11:54:00.000-05:00

Latin men have a reputation for being romantic lovers. That’s why it’s somewhat ironic that the most cherished love poetry in the Spanish language has come from the pen of St. John of the Cross, a simple monk who lived a life of chastity and celibacy.

There was indeed an important woman in St. John’s life: St. Teresa of Avila, with whom he enjoyed a close friendship and helped renew the Church in 16^th century Spain. However, St. John’s love poem, the Spiritual Canticle, was not about St. Teresa or any other woman. It was instead about the love between a Christian and God, who in his poem are represented by a bride and groom.

The Spiritual Canticle, along with St. John’s other works, The Dark Night of the Soul and The Ascent of Mt. Carmel, led to his being named a Doctor of the Church. Because his works are concerned primarily with prayer and the spiritual life, he has come to be known as the “Mystical Doctor.”

In his teaching, St. John stresses the need for every Christian to spend time in quiet, solitary prayer, so that the distractions of this world don’t lure us away from God. St. John may have used beautiful, romantic language to tell us of God’s love. But when it comes to our telling God of our love for him, wrote St. John, “the language he hears best is silent love.”

There are many things this time of year that can easily distract us from God. Perhaps then it might be good for us to heed St. John’s teaching, and make time to speak to God the language of silent love, as we prepare to celebrate God’s coming to us, one silent night.

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

2011-12-12T08:55:00.000-05:00

On a small hill outside Mexico City nearly a half a millennium ago, Our Lady of Guadalupe’s appearances to St. Juan Diego were a sign of the birth of Christianity in the

Americas

. It’s for this reason that she appeared as an expectant mother, wearing a traditional native maternity belt. And that she appeared as a young Aztec woman, a member of a conquered and oppressed people, was a sign that through the Christian faith there was hope for unity and peace between the recently-arrived Spaniards, the native peoples of Mexico, and those of mixed ancestry- three groups who were separated by animosity, prejudice, and the wounds of history.

This hope for unity and peace is as needed today as it was back then. Hostilities, divisions, and prejudices between peoples is found on every continent, sometimes simmering under the surface, at other times erupting in open conflict, even combat. This is as true of the Americas, whose patroness is Our Lady of Guadalupe, as it is anywhere else. Thus, the message and the mission of Our Lady of Guadalupe is both universal and contemporary.

The hope Our Lady of Guadalupe came to bring is grounded in love. As she explained to Juan Diego, she came to “show and make known and give all my love, my compassion, my help, and my protection to the people.” In our broken world this day, we cry out to Our Lady of Guadalupe, that the love she came to bring, may heal and unite was hatred and ignorance has driven apart.

Third Sunday in Advent

2011-12-09T15:35:00.002-05:00

Today is a day for us to rejoice! Of course, every Sunday is a day of rejoicing because it’s the day on which we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. On this third Sunday of Advent, however, joy and rejoicing are special themes that run throughout the prayers and Bible readings appointed for today’s Mass. That’s why today is traditionally called “Gaudete” Sunday, from the Latin word for “rejoice.” And that’s also why the candle we lit on the Advent wreath today is pink, a more festive and joyful color than purple.

Joy is something that all of us long for and search for. Deep down, every one of us wants to be a joy-filled person. “God made us for joy,” said Pope John Paul II. That’s why it’s important, I think, that we give careful consideration to what today’s scripture readings suggest that we do. For instance, the first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, doesn’t tell us simply to rejoice. It tells us instead to rejoice “in the Lord.” That’s a critical distinction, because so many people today try to find joy in something other than the Lord.

Yet that’s a hopeless quest. Because while there are many things in our world that can bring us some passing happiness, true and lasting joy can only come about through a personal, life-giving relationship with the Lord. As Isaiah said, “In my God is the joy of my soul.” This means two things. First, joy is God’s gift to us when we’re in relationship with him. Second, if we want to be joyful people, we need to work on our relationship with God. Joy, then, is something we need to cultivate.

One way we can cultivate joy is to remember, on a regular basis, all the wonderful things that God has done for us. We heard Isaiah do this when he rejoiced that God had clothed him with a robe of salvation and wrapped him in a mantle of justice. And we heard Mary, the Mother of Jesus, do the same in today’s responsorial psalm, which is a selection from her Magnificat, the song she sang after Jesus was conceived in her womb. “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” she sang. “The Almighty has done great things for me.”

Attending Mass frequently, even daily if possible, is an excellent way we can remember the great things that God has done for us. In fact, this is one of the reasons why Jesus gave us the Mass. “Do this in memory of me,” he said. And every time we honor that command, we recall Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension- all done out of love for us, for our salvation, and for our joy.

Praying the rosary is another excellent way we can bring to mind the great things that God has done for us, because it helps us to reflect upon the significant events in Jesus’ life, and Mary’s too. It’s also essential that we read the Bible. If you don’t do so already, I would recommend, during the week, prayerfully reading and studying the Scripture readings appointed for Sunday Mass.

A second way we can cultivate joy is by counting our blessings. This is what St. Paul tells us to do in today’s reading from I Thessalonians. “In all circumstances give thanks,” he said, “for this is the will of God.” So often, however, we go through our day taking things for granted and being bombarded with materialistic messages. We wind up envious of the things we don’t have, and ungrateful for the things we do. This can rob us of our joy. That’s why we should follow St. Paul’s advice to give thanks for anything and everything. We can give thanks for even the littlest things: A morning cup of coffee, the fact that the toilet flushed, a smile from a stranger. We can even give thanks for difficult and painful things, because they’re opportunities God gives us to exercise patience and forgiveness. If we give thanks for all things, we’ll recall how much God loves us and provides for us, and our joy will grow.

St. Paul also told us today to “pray without ceasing.” This is another way we can grow in joy. Praying without ceasing may seem like an unattainable or unrealistic goal. But ask yourself how much you pray now, and you’ll be sure to find that you can pray even more. One way to pray more is to make it a habit to pray at the beginning and the end of regular daily events. For instance, say a prayer when you first wake up. Instead of saying, “Oh no, it’s morning,” say “Oh God, it’s morning” and then ask for his blessings upon your day. Prayer also when you go to bed at night. We can also pray at the beginning and end of meals, commutes to and from our jobs, and when starting and finishing our work. We can pray when we tuck our kids in, pray when we drop them off at school, and pray when we pick them up. We can pray in the shower, in the car, and while we fold laundry and do the dishes. And many people today pray Morning and Evening Prayer from the Church’s official “Liturgy of the Hours” or devotional magazines.

The bottom line is that we joy for which we seek can only be found through a relationship with God. And anything we do to grow in that relationship will help us to grow in joy. Because with God, we’ll receive the joy of being forgiven. We’ll experience the joy of being unconditionally loved. We’ll know the joy of being promised an eternity of happiness. And we’ll find joy in the assurance that God is in control, that he walks by our side, and that he has a purpose and plan for our lives. Truly, in the words of John Paul II, “Our God is the God of joy!”

Friday of Advent 2

2011-12-08T21:35:00.000-05:00

This time of year is an especially noisy one, wouldn’t you agree? Some of this noise we might call “good” noise: Christmas carols, the sounds of our favorite movies and shows, the excitement and laughter of children. Other noise, however, we might characterize as “bad,” namely the full-scale marketing assault we’re bombarded with “24/7.”

The danger with all this noise- both “good” and “bad” is that it can drown out the voice of God- a voice that rarely shouts, but usually speaks in whispers. That’s why we need to make a special effort to listen amidst the hubbub of this season.

Consider today’s gospel. Jesus laments that the people of his generation didn’t make an effort to listen- either to John the Baptist, or to him. As a consequence, they robbed themselves of the wisdom that only they could give.

Jesus dearly wanted them to listen, and he dearly wants us to listen as he speaks to us in the silence of our hearts. Yet in this season, silence isn’t going to find us. We have to go and find it, by making the time for quiet time with God. Just think about it: When were the abiding shepherds able to hear the herald angels sing? In the middle of a silent night.

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

2011-12-07T16:11:00.000-05:00

Have you ever seen “The Family Man,” a film starring Nicholas Cage? Cage’s character is an wealthy businessman who’d made a choice thirteen years earlier to leave behind the woman he was to marry to pursue his professional dreams. But then one day he wakes up to find he’s been given a glimpse of what might have been if he’d made a different choice. He’d married the woman instead of having left her. She’s loyal and loving, and they have two beautiful children and a supportive network of friends. Having experienced this, Cage comes to regret the choices he’d made. So when he’s returned to his real life, he fights valiantly to restore what he had lost, and make a reality the glimpse he’d been given of what might have been.

In Mary, our mother, you and I are given a glimpse of what might have been if different choices had been made, if the choice to sin had never been made, leaving us with a fallen human nature. Through the Immaculate Conception, God preserved Mary from this condition, allowing us to behold in her a life of perfect faith, love, and obedience to God’s will. We see in Mary what we might have been today.

However, Mary’s witness should give us, not only a longing for what might have been, but also a sign for what might yet be. This is because Mary’s Immaculate Conception made possible the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ, who came to heal us, and restore what had been lost. Through Jesus, we can hope that the perfection Mary enjoyed on earth might be ours to enjoy one day in heaven. Which makes our commemoration tonight, not an occasion of longing and regret, but a celebration of gratitude and hope.

Memorial of St. Ambrose

2011-12-06T16:56:00.000-05:00

At celebrations of Mass, two individuals are typically prayed for by name: the Pope and the local bishop, which in our case is “Donald.” This is a sign that Mass is celebrated in union with them. Yet I’ve heard bishops joke that they need to be prayed for at Mass because they need God’s help more than anyone else. And even though they mean this in jest, there’s a measure of truth to what they say.

To be a bishop is no easy task. Great things are expected of them because they’re successors of the apostles, and great demands are placed on them as a result. It’s a critically important and public ministry. It can lead to stress; it can lead also to pride. And, as one old saying goes, it can get “lonely at the top.” It’s been speculated that, because they’re the church’s leaders, the devil singles them out for special attention. As a result, our bishops need our prayers; they need our support.

Today we celebrate the memorial of St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, Italy, some sixteen centuries ago. He wrote magnificent homilies and composed beautiful hymns. He gave generously to the poor and lived very holy life. He openly challenged emperors and courageously defended the truth in spite of stiff opposition. And he administered a large diocese with effectiveness and skill. It’s for good reason that he is a saint and one of the original four Doctors of the Church.

St. Ambrose was a talented man, to be sure. However, we can imagine that he accomplished what he did only because he enjoyed prayerful support of the people of his diocese. Indeed, it was they who called for him to be their bishop in the first place- even before he was baptized- , and they surely lifted him up in their prayers throughout his ministry. Like them, we too should lift up our bishops and our Pope in our prayers. They might just need God’s help, more than anyone else.

Second Sunday of Advent

2011-12-03T17:51:00.000-05:00

Recently, while leaving a confessional here on a Saturday afternoon, a person turned to me and said, “Father, I just have to ask: How much business do you get in here?” Thankfully, at St. Hugh’s there are many people who regularly go to confession. However, this person’s question reflects that fact that far fewer Catholics make their confessions today than they did a generation ago.

There are many reasons for the decline in confessions. Some people are too embarrassed, ashamed, afraid, or proud to come. Maybe they’ve had a bad experience in the past with a cold or angry or foolish priest. There are those who don’t see a need for confession because they haven’t heard it stressed or preached about. Then there are some for whom the “old way” seemed too mechanical or impersonal, and they haven’t bothered to come back. I imagine that some of us here today fit into one of these categories.

However, one objection to confession sometimes made today is, “I’m basically a good person. I don’t do anything that wrong. So why should I bother?” The implication is that if we’re decent, well-intentioned, fundamentally responsible human beings, there’s no real reason to go to confession. With this understanding, confession isn’t for those who are “basically good.” It’s only for those who are “basically bad.”

It’s true that all of us have our good qualities. Just the fact that we’re here today and not sleeping in says something positive about us! All of the good things we do are signs that, to some degree, we are open and responsive to the Holy Spirit in our lives, and we can celebrate and be grateful for that. However, when we focus exclusively on our good qualities, we can obscure the fact that all of us, without exception, are sinners.

We don’t like to think of ourselves as sinners. It’s easier to think of ourselves as victims of society, bad parenting, unfortunate circumstances, an insensitive spouse, or lousy DNA. In our therapeutic culture, preoccupied with self-esteem, we may refer to what we do as shortcomings, mistakes, symptoms, or even failures, but certainly not sin. Yet Jesus didn’t die to save us from our shortcomings. He died to save us from our sins. As Pope John Paul II once said, “When we forget we are sinners, we forget our need for Christ. And when we forget we need Christ, we have lost everything.”

In today’s gospel reading, St. John the Baptist calls all of us to “repent”- which means we need to turn our lives around! We must turn away from sin and turn toward God. We heard how in his day many people embraced his message by acknowledging their sins. We too need to repent. We too need to confess our sins.

Admitting that we’re sinners isn’t a negative or morbid or self-hating thing to do. In fact, in a certain way it’s an act of healthy self-love! Because when we confess that we’re sinners, we accept reality, we take responsibility for who we are and what we’ve done, and we recall our fundamental need for the love and mercy of God. To say that we’re sinners doesn’t mean that we aren’t good people. We can be sinners and good people at the same time. It’s not a question of either/or. It’s really a question of both/and. The truth is, however, is that Jesus hasn’t called us to be good people. He calls us to be more than good. He calls us to be holy. And that requires a serious struggle with sin.

Think of it this way: If we’re concerned with simply being good, it’s tempting to think that all we need to be is “good enough.” And if all we need to be is “good enough,” it’s easy to become morally and spiritually lazy. But God didn’t become man in Jesus at the first Christmas just so we could be “good enough.” He came so that we could become much more. One time a bishop, after a Mass at our local church, stunned Stephanie my wife by walking up to her and saying: “Be a saint!” Yet that’s why God became man in Jesus: so that we can become saints.

We should ask ourselves today: Are we saints? Probably not, which means we have sins to confess. Yet even real saints on earth knew their need for confession. In fact, the holier they became, the more aware they were of their distance from God. That’s why, for example, Pope John Paul II went to confession every week. Just like Mother Teresa.

If you’ve been away from confession for awhile, allow me to challenge you. Sometime this week, take the time you’d spend watching one holiday movie or TV program and review your life instead. Find a quiet place, and call upon the Holy Spirit to help you examine your conscience and bring to mind those things the Lord wants you to confess. If it’s been a long time since your last confession, begin by looking at the past month. This will reveal sinful patterns that you’ve probably struggled with for a long time.

Ask yourself: Where do I need to grow in order to be holy? How have I failed in being a saint? What parts of my life do I need to turn around? What do I need to turn away from? Have I loved God above all else? Have I loved my neighbor as myself? If we’re honest, we’ll uncover selfishness, greed, laziness, prejudices, bad habits, resentment, dishonesty, envy, indifference to others’ needs, pride, and a lack of trust in God which leads to fear and anxiety.

Next, pray for courage and humility and come to confession. Don’t make excuses for your sins, don’t explain them away, and don’t blame them on others. Just confess them receive the gift of God’s healing and forgiving love. Think of it as a little Christmas gift to yourself. Or better yet, think of it as God’s big Christmas gift to you.

Memorial of St. Francis Xavier

2011-12-02T14:03:00.000-05:00

Over the past eight years, my parish of St. Hugh’s Greenbelt has changed dramatically. People of Asian, African, Caribbean, and Hispanic descent have begun to fill the pews; different cultures are coming together to form one parish, which is a beautiful thing to behold.

Sometimes, however, when different cultures meet in the same parish, there is friction, fear, racism, and resentment. Instead of one community being formed, what results is an “us and them” type situation. One hears comments like: “They’re taking over our parish!” Thankfully, a better way for Catholics of different cultures to meet is suggested by the witness of the saint whose memorial we celebrate today: St. Francis Xavier.

St. Francis Xavier was one of the first Jesuits nearly 500 years ago, and a missionary in Asia. Before journeying to Japan, he met a samurai who spoke with him about Japanese culture and customs. He explained that the Japanese wouldn’t embrace Christianity overnight. Instead, they would wait to see if Francis practiced what he preached. He would need to be patient and respect the culture. St. Francis took this advice to heart. He attempted to learn Japanese, he studied Japanese philosophy, and he observed local customs, such as wearing a silken robe. This approach, Francis came to learn, was successful.

Whenever we encounter Catholics from different cultures, we would do well to follow the example of St. Francis Xavier. We can try to learn their languages; we can respect their cultural norms; we can encourage their religious traditions and devotions; we can welcome them instead of ignoring them; we can be patient with them and with ourselves; we can love them as the brothers and sisters that they are.

More than anyone since St. Paul, St. Francis Xavier brought the gospel to those of different cultures; may we live that gospel when Catholics of different cultures come to us.

Friday of Ordinary 1

2011-12-01T16:10:00.000-05:00

In one ancient Christian story, a desert monk ordered a disciple to plant a stick in the sand and water it every day. The only water source was far away, so the disciple made a long walk each night to obey the command. After doing this daily for three years, the stick blossomed! The hermit rejoiced and gathered his community to eat what he called the “fruit of obedience.”

Watering a stick in the desert can seem unreasonable, almost crazy. Most of us would probably refuse to do it on those grounds. Maybe that’s what happended in today’s gospel, in which Jesus healed three blind men because they believed that Jesus could make them well. But when Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone, they disobeyed him and spread the news far and wide. We don’t know why, but I’ll bet it’s because they thought it was unreasonable, considering their excitement, and in light of all the questions others surely must have asked.

This gospel story teaches that faith is more than simply believing. Faith also requires obedience to God’s commands and trust that God knows what he’s doing. Even when his commands seem unreasonable.

Do we disobey God’s commands, because we think they don’t make sense? Things like forgiving a hurt, loving an enemy, living simply in a materialistic world? Do we struggle with teachings about marriage, sexuality, medical ethics, or abortion because the world around us says they’re unreasonable, even cruel? Do we fail to persevere in faith when life gets hard, because we can’t understand why we should? Do we do things that make us uncomfortable, but try to convince ourselves that they’re okay?

If so, then today’s gospel reminds us that just because something may seem reasonable, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s right.

Thursday of Advent 1

2011-11-30T16:34:00.000-05:00

Some two hundred years ago, a Cherokee Indian named Drowning Bear (1759-1839) allowed a missionary to read to him several chapters of the Bible. His reply? “It seems to be a good book; strange that the white people are not better after having had it for so long.”

The implication here is that if people actually lived in obedience to the Word of God, their lives would be dramatically better as a result. This was precisely our Lord’s point in today’s gospel. Jesus invites us not only to hear his Word; he wants us also to act on it.

God’s Word was spoken not simply for our information. Instead, it’s meant for our application, that our lives might be blessed with transformation.

Yet in our noisy world, we can be deaf to God’s Word. In our selfish world, it’s tempting to resist God’s Word. In our skeptical world, it’s fashionable to dismiss God’s Word. In our overscheduled world, it’s easy to neglect God’s Word.

And when we don’t let God’s Word impact our lives, God lets us live with the consequences. He does so not in vindictiveness or passive aggression, but so that we can learn to want what it is we’ve been missing- the freedom, the peace, and the wisdom that can come only from building our lives in obedience to the rock of his Word.

Let’s accept the challenge of today’s gospel to obey God’s Word, as we prepare to celebrate at Christmas, the Word-made-flesh.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/120111.cfm

First Sunday of Advent

2011-11-26T12:37:00.000-05:00

While standing in a supermarket checkout line, I noticed a little sign warning that tobacco products would not be sold to anyone not born before today’s day in 1990. My first kneejerk thought was: “People born in 1990 are still in preschool!” But then I did some quick math in my head and realized that, no, people born in 1990 are now young adults. I was reminded quite forcefully of the old saying “Tempis fugit!” – Time flies.

Time does fly, and we need to be always mindful of the time. Not just so that we know what time it is, which is always important, or so that we’re not late, which is important too. We need to be mindful of time so we can appreciate how quickly it passes, realize how little of it we really have, and accept how short life is.

Before a Sunday Mass once, I was standing in the back of the church. I wanted to know if it was 8:00 o’clock yet so I could start the procession, but for some reason I had forgotten my watch that day. So I asked two different people walking past if they knew the time, but they didn’t have watches either. Then I turned to one of our regular ushers, and asked if he know the time. He held up his forearm, showed me his wristwatch, and said with a smile, “I’m watchful!”

I thanked him and said I would be using his words in my homily on this First Sunday of Advent, because in today’s gospel our Lord tells us very directly that we all need to be watchful. Not just in the sense of being aware of the time, of course, but being watchful for his coming, which could come at any time. We need to be alert and prepared to meet the Lord- whether it be at his second coming at the end of all time, or our meeting him and the end of our time, when we pass from this life into eternity. At both of those times we’ll be judged on how we’ve conducted our lives. We know it will happen; it’s an article of our faith. But we can’t be exactly sure when. And because time flies, the time when we meet Jesus may come more quickly than we think, or expect.

That’s why we need to be prepared; that’s why we need to be watchful.

At a deacon's funeral I attended, an Irish priest preached the funeral homily in which he recalled a parish mission he had attended in Ireland as a boy. The priest who was leading the mission reminded the entire congregation that one day, everyone in the parish would die. When he said that, however, one woman in the pews began to giggle uncontrollably. At the end of the talk, the priest greeted everyone at the door as they left. When he met the woman who had giggled, he asked her why she had laughed when he said that everyone in the parish would die. “Well you see Father,” she explained, “I’m not from the parish!” The serious point was, however, is that one day we will indeed all die and be judged by the Lord, and for that we need to be prepared.

Preparing to meet the Lord means repenting- turning our lives around, seeking to grow closer to God, opening ourselves more to his grace, striving to follow his will more faithfully, and eliminating those attitudes, habits, and lifestyles that we know to be sinful. I’m reminded of the story of “Easy Eddie” O’Hare, who was the lawyer for Chicago mafia boss Al “Scarface” Capone. Easy Eddie was a crafty attorney whose legal skills managed to keep Capone out of jail and continue his illegal bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution operations. In gratitude for his services, Capone paid O’Hare lavishly and gave him plenty of extra perks, including a massive home that filled an entire Chicago city block.

O’Hare knew who he worked for and even took part in illegal activities himself. But he had a son for whom he wanted a better life. He was able to provide him with fine clothes and an expensive education, but he knew that he couldn’t give his son an honorable name or a good example. And so he made a decision to turn his life around. He met with federal authorities and testified against Capone. This led to Capone’s arrest. It also led to O’Hare’s assassination on a Chicago street. Police removed from his pockets a rosary, a crucifix, a religious medal and a poem clipped from a magazine. The poem read: “The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour. Now is the only time you own. Live, love, toil with a will. Place no faith in time. For the clock may soon be still.” O’Hare had seemingly realized that time flies, and that he needed to turn his life around while he still had time- both for himself and for his son. And as for his son, Butch O’Hare, he grew up win the Congressional Medal of Honor as a Navy pilot. Chicago’s O’Hare Airport is named after him today.

Now, we here this morning aren’t lawyers for the mob, at least I don’t think so. And turning our lives around will probably not place us at risk of being assassinated. But not turning our lives around will place anyone at risk of death, because death is a consequence of sin, and a life lived at odds with God leads to eternal death. This shouldn’t scare us, because God is merciful and wants us to live in hope! But should instead motivate us to conversion, not later, but now, because time, whether we want it to or not, always flies.

Wednesday of Ordinary 34

2011-11-22T17:00:00.000-05:00

I once spoke with a guy whose wife of many years announced that she didn’t love him any more and that she wanted a divorce. She’s not open to counseling or working to salvage their relationship. Instead, she’s decided that she wants it to end, and end soon.

This fellow, as you might imagine, was absolutely heartbroken. Yet he found the strength to keep going, because he’d learned to stay close to Jesus through regular, frequent, and honest prayer. Thanks to Jesus, he wasn't completely crushed by his crisis.

Today’s gospel speaks of Christians in crises: Rejection by family, betrayal by friends, injustice at the hands of various institutions, imprisonment, abandonment, hatred, physical pain- situations that all of us can probably relate to, in one way or another. Yet Jesus promises that through these crises he will never leave our side. Instead, he will be there in the midst of it all as our advocate, filling us with wisdom, and consoling us with his presence.

But it’s up to us, he explains, to persevere in faith, if we wish to receive these blessings. But isn’t that what we’re doing here, at daily Mass? Yes, we’ve come here to hear God’s word, receive God’s grace, and give him thanks and praise. Yet at another level, I’d contend that all of us who come to daily Mass do so to keep our lives together. We’re seeking to keep our personal and professional balance, by keeping God at the center of our lives. We don’t want to lose our focus; we don’t want to lose our grip. So we keep our eyes on Jesus and place our hand in his- because he promised that he’ll never leave our sight, and that he will never let go.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/112311.cfm

Presentation of Mary

2011-11-21T11:14:00.000-05:00

There’s a lot of talk these days about how kids are “over-scheduled” with too many activities: sports, music and dance lessons, clubs, Scouts, and all sorts of other extra-curricular activities. This can be stressful and detrimental to both children and their families. Nevertheless, many parents overschedule their kids because they want, above all else, for their children to be successful. And in doing so, they mirror the top ambition of a great majority of our fellow citizens.

This is why I think that today’s memorial of the Presentation of Mary is so important. We recall the tradition that Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anne, presented their young daughter to God in the great Jerusalem Temple, and dedicated her to his service forever. They didn’t dedicate her to the pursuit of success. They dedicated her to the Lord.

The story of Mary’s Presentation reminds all of us that our lives should be dedicated, not to the pursuit of worldly success, but to the service of God. This is not to say that success is necessarily a bad thing. But it is to say that life is, above all else, about learning to love God and building his kingdom in the process. Some famous words of Mother Teresa sum it up well. “God has not called us to be successful,” she said, “He has called us to be faithful.”

Solemnity of Christ the King

2011-11-18T17:29:00.000-05:00

On my daily commute a few weeks ago, I passed by Holy Redeemer Catholic Church on New York Avenue in the District. From my comfortable car as I sipped my coffee, I saw in the church doorway a rough-looking homeless man who had obviously spent the night there. And to my shame, I have to confess that my first thought was: “Thank God I don’t have to deal with that.”

Today’s gospel reminds me, as it reminds all of us, that we do have to deal with that- or with “them,” to be more precise. As we heard, Christ our King calls us to serve him by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting prisoners, caring for the sick, and welcoming the stranger. Our tradition refers to these as the “Corporal Acts of Mercy.”

Throughout his ministry, Jesus taught that there can be no real relationship with him if we neglect the poor and ignore the needy. Unfortunately, we don’t always take our Lord’s words seriously enough. As the well know priest Fr. Benedict Groeschel once wrote: “I am astonished when I see so many sincere Christians afraid or disinclined to find Jesus) where he teaches he can be found, namely, among the poor.”

If we don’t avoid the poor and needy outright, we can sometimes avoid our responsibility to help them by “spiritualizing” our response. What I mean by this is expressed by a well-known anonymous passage. It says, “I was hungry, and you formed a humanities groups to discuss my hunger. I was imprisoned, and you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release. I was naked, and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance. I was sick, and you knelt and thanked God for your health. I was homeless, and you spoke to me of the spiritual shelter of God’s love. I was lonely, and you left me alone to pray for me. You seem so holy, so close to God. But I am still very hungry and lonely and cold.”

We hear things like this, and we probably feel a little bit guilty. We think of all the people we aren’t helping, and we feel frustrated. The needs are so great, and we don’t even know these people. Just what does Jesus expect us to do?

Jesus expects us to begin at home. You and I learn to love one another and to meet each other’s needs from our families. The expression “Charity begins at home” is true. We will not have the compassion and generosity we need to serve the poor and the needy unless we first learn and practice those virtues in the community of our relatives and friends.

Possibly we grew up in families in which members served one another and the community. Hopefully, we have learned to be servants from them. However, it is very possible that we did not, especially since we live in such a selfish culture. The first sentence of a very popular book is: “It’s not about you.” The author says this because our culture so often tells us: It is about you! Our culture breeds selfishness. And selfish people aren’t inclined to serve the needs of others.

This selfishness can be reinforced by some of the choices families make today. Because their kids are so over-scheduled with sports, clubs, and other activities, their parents feel guilty about giving them chores. The effect of this, however, is that kids don’t learn to serve the needs of the family by helping around the house. All of their activities are about their development, their advancement, and their amusement, and not about the common good. And they become selfish. So if you have children at home, I strongly encourage you to give them age-appropriate chores.

Another simple thing families can do to teach and create an atmosphere of service can be done around the dinner table. Each family member, one at a time, thanks the other family members for the ways they had served them or met their needs that day. For example: “I’m grateful to Charlie for helping me pick up my toys. I’m grateful to mommy for helping me with my homework. I’m grateful to Dad for taking me to Cub Scouts. I’m grateful to Winnie for having been so cooperative when it was time to leave the playground.” Doing this reinforces the idea that family members should cooperate with each other, help each other, and serve one another. We did this in my family after having been introduced to it at a family retreat, and it was a real blessing to us.

I would encourage you to think today about your families and friends in light of Jesus’ words in today’s gospel. Hopefully they’re adequately fed and clothed. If they are, then those needs have been met. But there are so many other needs. Needs that maybe we don’t recognize. Needs that maybe we’ve been ignoring. For instance: Do they need to be nourished by our presence? Are they starving for our affection? Do they hunger for our forgiveness? Have we stripped them naked by our insults and negativity? Do they need to be clothed with our encouragement and affirmation? Have they become strangers to us? Do we need to welcome them back into our lives? Do they feel imprisoned by dehumanizing jobs or the overwhelming demands of family life? Do we need to visit them with our help, understanding, and compassion? And when they’re sick, how do we respond? Is it an inconvenience to us? Do we get annoyed? Or do we heal them with our attention and loving care?

These are just some of the needs of those we love. And when we learn to serve them by meeting these needs, we’ll come to find ourselves far more willing and open to serve the needs of others, as Christ has commanded us to do. Instead of saying, “Thank God I don’t have to deal with that” maybe we’ll say “Thank God I can!”

Friday of Ordinary 33

2011-11-17T17:21:00.000-05:00

Do you ever worry about the Church? Lots of people do these days. Depending on who you speak with, they worry that the church is either too liberal or too conservative, too worldly or out of touch with the world. Many are worried about attacks on the Church from the media and politicians. Church scandals are a source of worry too.

All of this we might call the “bad news.” The “good news” is that God is in control. He never abandons his Church. And he’s always reforming it.

This is clear in today’s Scripture readings, in which God protected the great Temple in Jerusalem from a threat from without and a threat from within. In I Maccabees, the people praised God when worship in the Temple was restored, after an oppressive foreign government tried to force everyone to worship other gods. And in the gospel, Jesus himself was in the Temple, driving out those who had turned it from a house of prayer into a corrupt marketplace.

To fully understand this, we need to appreciate that the Temple is a symbol of the Church, because God dwells in his Church today, as he was once believed to dwell in the Temple. And how God defended and purified his Temple back then, reminds us that he does the same for his Church today. So there’s no need for us to worry about it. The Church may go through rough times, but God will never let it fail. It’s like G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew his way out of a grave.”

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111811.cfm

Thursday of Ordinary 33

2011-11-16T16:32:00.000-05:00

“Jesus Wept” is the name of a statue near where the Oklahoma City federal building stood before it was bombed, and over two hundred people inside were killed. It reminds us that our Lord weeps over the senseless loss of innocent life, and that he weeps too for the anger and hatred which causes it.

This statue was obviously inspired by today’s gospel. As we heard, Jesus wept over the coming destruction of Jerusalem and for all the innocent people who would suffer and die. But we’re also told that he wept for another reason. Jesus wept because the people of Jerusalem were blind to what makes for peace. The implication here is that if they did know what makes for peace, things might have turned out very differently. And what does make for peace? Working toward reconciliation; seeking and striving for forgiveness.

You and I are sometimes blind to what makes for peace. When we’re at odds with someone or have been hurt by them, we don’t always seek reconciliation and forgiveness. Instead, we get stuck in bitterness, anger, and self-pity. We “demonize” the other person or persons, which only makes matters worse.

As Christians, however, we are to be peacemakers. It’s up to us to take the initiative in forgiveness; we need to take the first step toward reconciliation. We might protest this and say: “That’s not fair! Especially after what was done to me!” And we would be right, because forgiveness and reconciliation isn’t fair at all.

But think of it this way: God doesn’t treat us with fairness, either? Instead, he treats us with mercy. That’s even better! That’s what makes for peace! And that’s how our weeping Lord calls us to treat others.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111711.cfm

Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

2011-11-12T14:00:00.000-05:00

A California university recently introduced a new publication entitled “The Journal of Mundane Behavior.” It features scholarly articles that study the ordinary and routine things that people do. Recent issues have explored the significance of shaving, running errands, the table arrangement and background noise of a neighborhood café, and the making of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The sociologist who created this journal did so because he was concerned that his professional colleagues virtually ignored the study of the everyday behavior that fills most people’s lives.

The same might be said of many people’s attitudes about the practice of religion. They give much attention to what they think are the “big issues’, while they write off the seemingly small, trivial, and routine things as being insignificant or unimportant. Jesus, however, suggests otherwise. In today’s gospel parable, servants were praised and blessed precisely because they had been faithful in “small matters.” In other words, Jesus stresses that when it comes to our journey of faith, it’s the little things that can mean a lot. Small, unnoticed acts of faith, kindness, service and generosity, and fidelity to our daily routines and duties, are essential for our spiritual growth and are important in the eyes of our Lord. Yet this is a truth that is tempting to forget, immersed as we are in a culture which esteems public recognition and the grand gesture.

Sometimes we’re tempted to think that since God is so “big,” so to speak, and we are so insignificant in comparison, God can’t really be bothered to pay attention to many of the things we do. This was the case with David, a young social worker who served at a homeless shelter in San Francisco. As a Roman Catholic, he was deeply committed to the social justice teachings of the church, and he was quite generous, at some cost to himself, in helping the poor. However, he attended Mass only occasionally, had basically no private prayer life, and he openly flaunted the church’s teachings on sex and marriage.

One day he asked a priest: “Do you really think that God (cares) whether you say your prayers, whether you hold a grudge against someone who’s hurt you, and whether you share a bed with someone you aren’t married to? We Christians are always so hung up on these little private things that we neglect the big picture- the fact that half the world goes to bed hungry every night and nobody cares.”

The priest responded that while God does care very deeply about the “big picture,” he also cares about our private prayer, our private grudges, and our private morals. These things make a big difference for God because they make a big difference for us- they reflect who we are as individuals and the state of our relationship with God. Doing these things shapes our character, and they can show God how much we love him. And whether or not we do them always involves a choice between virtue and vice. (1)

For other people, it’s not a question of God not wanting to be bothered with little things, it’s that they themselves can’t be bothered- often because they think that they’re just too busy. One Christian author recalls how he was annoyed when a friend, temporarily without a car, asked him for a ride so he could do a few essential errands. He agreed to do it, but inwardly he grumbled, because he had some things that he himself had wanted to do. However, as he ran out the door, he grabbed a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a prominent German Christian who was executed by the Nazis during the final hours of World War II.

He picked up his friend, and through each errand he fretted and fumed about the loss of his precious time. Finally, while waiting at a supermarket, he picked up the book by Bonhoeffer, and read these words: “The service that one should perform for another in a Christian community is that of active helpfulness. This means, initially, assistance in trifling, external matters. Nobody is too good for the meanest service. One who worries about the loss of time is usually taking his own importance too seriously.” (2)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is right. We often avoid doing “small things” because we think that we’re just too important. Yet the example of Jesus tells us otherwise. As Rick Warren says in The Purpose Driven Life, “Jesus specialized in menial tasks that everyone else tried to avoid: washing feet, helping children, fixing breakfast, and serving lepers. Nothing was beneath him, because he came to serve. It wasn’t in spite of his greatness that he did these things, but because of it, and he expects us to follow his example.”

Archbishop Timothy Dolan recalls how as a teenager he was thrilled to go on afternoon rounds with his pastor. This priest was a monsignor- a highly respected man with a great deal of responsibility. When they stopped at a nursing home to see an elderly parishioner, they discovered her lying on the floor in a pool of her own urine. Yet without missing a beat the priest took off his coat, grabbed a mop, cleaned up the mess, dressed the woman in some clean clothes, kissed her on the head, and gave her a little bottle of lotion as a Christmas present. To this day, Archbishop Dolan continues to be inspired by this example of humble love. (3)

And indeed it is love that Jesus calls us to when he tells us to be faithful in small matters. True love doesn’t ask if something we need to do is important or not. True love simply does it. Because no act is too small in the service of God. As St. Francis de Sales once wrote, “Great opportunities to serve God rarely present themselves, little ones are frequent. And you will profit greatly in God’s sight by doing all these things, because God wants you to do them.”

(1) From Ronald Rolheiser's The Holy Longing
(2) From A Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
(3) From Priests for the Third Millennium by Archbishop Timothy Dolan

Friday of Ordinary 32

2011-11-10T10:18:00.000-05:00

Have you ever known anyone hopelessly stuck in the past? People like this are typically unhappy people, filled with resentment, regret, loneliness, and an unhealthy nostalgia for the way things used to be. That’s why our Lord wants us to live in the present moment- the now- and work toward a future that’s full of hope.

We can see this in today’s gospel. In speaking of the future “coming of the Son of man,” Jesus insisted that we “must not return to what was left behind.” Then he concluded, “Remember the wife of Lot.”

Remember her? When Sodom was being destroyed, God insisted that she move on and not look back. But she did look back, and turned into a pillar of salt. God wants us to keep moving forward too, and not look back in nostalgia or regret, Because if we do, we’ll get stuck in a place that God doesn’t want us to be. Just like that pillar of salt.

Salt, of course, is a preservative- it’s meant to keep things just the way they are. Which is fine for food, but not for human beings. Jesus said: “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it.” In other words, life doesn’t stand still. Time marches on. And so must we.

With regard to the past, we need to grieve whatever we may have lost, give thanks for everything that was good, and then we need to let it all go, that we may live the life that Jesus is calling us to live today. Indeed, Jesus wants us to live- forever! That’s why he doesn’t want us looking backwards in bitterness. Instead, he wants us to move forward- in faith.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111111.cfm

Wednesday of Ordinary 32

2011-11-08T14:22:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine recently experienced some real tragedy. First, his brother died from cancer. Then, six weeks after that, both of his parents died in a terrible car accident as they were on their way to visit their son’s new grave. When my friend arrived in Buffalo before the funeral, a freak snowstorm paralyzed the city. His car broke down while there, and he contracted a bad case of poison ivy to boot. In an attempt at humor, he said, “Job has nothing on me!”

Nevertheless, my friend said that the overwhelming feeling amongst his family was one of gratitude. They were grateful for the wonderful rich life their parents had enjoyed; for the outpouring of concern and sympathy they received; for the good professional assistance of police officers, attorneys, and insurance agents; and for the love they share as family. This isn’t to say that they aren’t sad, because they are. But they’re grateful at the same time.

Not everyone, however, would have found gratitude in these circumstances. Consider today’s gospel. Ten lepers were healed by Jesus, but only one returned to give thanks; only one was grateful. Why was this person different? He viewed life’s events through the lens of faith. “Stand up and go,” said Jesus; “your faith has saved you.”

Today’s gospel challenges us to be grateful people- regardless of what life may throw at us. Because we’re people of faith, we can find good where others find only evil; we can see the hand of God’s providence where others see only cruel fate; we can discover a silver lining while others can’t see beyond the clouds; we can hope while others despair; we can be grateful when others are simply bitter. All because we have faith that nothing can ever separate us from the goodness and love of God. And we can always be grateful for that.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110911.cfm

Tuesday of Ordinary 32

2011-11-07T16:11:00.000-05:00

When at a hockey game with our sons, a fellow dad bought me a beer (for seven bucks!). When he handed it to me, I tried to insist on paying for it, as I honestly felt kind of guilty accepting it from him. But the other dad, for his part, was equally insistent that I accept it as a gift from a friend.

On later reflection, I realized that I had bought into the “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” mentality that if someone does something nice for us, we need to pay them back. Or if we do something nice for someone else, we expect something in return. In practice, this means that when it comes to our relationships with other people, there are no free gifts of love or sacrifice. Only down payments. Or repayments. Either the other person is in debt to us, or we are in debt to them.

Unfortunately, this is a relationship killing mentality, both in relationships between people, and in our relationship God. This is what Jesus tells us in today’s gospel. He explains that we don’t serve God with the expectation that he’ll repay us or that we’ll be entitled to something in return. The truth is that God doesn’t need anything from us anyway. But the good news is that he’s happy to give us everything we need, not because he has to, but because he wants to- as his free gift.

Readings from today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110811.cfm

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

2011-11-04T17:32:00.000-04:00

A few years back my family sat down and made a plan about what we would do should there be a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. We determined where we’ll meet, where we’ll go, who our out-of-town contact will be, how much food and water and other supplies we need to stockpile, and we decided to get one of those hand-crank radios and cell-phone rechargers. After having lived through 9/11, the anthrax scare, that hurricane that knocked out our power and water for days, and in light of all the talk about avian bird flu, we want to be prepared as best we can, should something ever happen again.

As citizens, our government tells us that we should all be prepared. As Christians, however, it’s even more important that we prepare for the second coming of our Lord. This is the central message of today’s gospel parable of the wise and foolish virgins. Because while a terrorist attack or a natural disaster may never affect us, we know for a fact that one day Jesus will indeed come again in power and glory, to judge the living and the dead, and to establish his kingdom in its fullness. We “know neither the day nor the hour,” as Jesus said. But his return is guaranteed, and we need to be prepared.

But are we prepared? Ask yourself this: If you knew that Jesus would be returning later today, what would you do? Would you rush to tell certain people that you love them, especially those you hadn’t told in a while? Would you go to church; pray your rosary; open your Bible; or make an act of contrition? Are there people to whom you would apologize? Is there a favorite charity to which you’d make a hasty donation? Would you start refining your excuses for when you met Jesus face-to-face? Would you weep with regret? Would you be afraid? Or would you be overcome with joy and go out to greet the Lord, just as the wise virgins ran out to meet the bridegroom when they heard he was coming? How we answer this question is probably a good indication of whether we’re really prepared for Jesus’ return or not.

It’s been said before that we should live every day as if it’s the first day of the rest of our lives. And that’s not necessarily bad advice. But from a Christian perspective, maybe it’s better to say that we should live each day as if it’s the last day of our life. Because it might just be! And if it is, there might be some things we need to do in order to truly be prepared. For instance, is there a sin we need to confess? A wound we need to heal? A restitution to make? Priorities we need to shift? A habit we need to kick? A resentment to let go of? A good intention we need to act upon? A relationship to restore? If there are, we should never put off until tomorrow what we can do today. Because when it comes to preparing for the Lord’s return, there is no better time than the present.

Preparing for Jesus’ second coming will involve challenge, change, and some painful sacrifice on our part. However, Jesus’ return is not something we should anticipate with fear. Instead, we should look forward to it with joy and eager expectation. This is why the New Testament ends with the prayer: “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” This is also why, at every Mass, at the end of the Our Father, the priest offers a prayer that says “we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” Today’s gospel parable spoke of Jesus’ return in terms of a bridegroom coming to begin a wonderful wedding banquet to which all of us have been invited. Surely, that is a celebration that we should want to begin sooner, and not later. As St. Augustine once wrote, “When (that day) puts an end to our exile, frees us from the bonds of the world, and restores us to paradise and to a kingdom, we should welcome it.”

Sometimes, however, people are afraid of the prospect of Jesus’ return. This may be because they know in their heart that they just aren’t prepared. Or maybe it’s because they imagine Jesus, not as a merciful, loving Lord, but as one who seeks only to destroy and condemn. Or it may be because they misunderstand the Bible. We saw this misunderstanding a great deal amongst some Christian groups as the year 2000 approached, as they preached a message of fear and coming calamity.

But do you remember what Pope John Paul II did before the year 2000? He encouraged everyone to prepare for the third Christian millennium with more fervent prayer, greater devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a renewed love for the Mass, and greater acts of justice and charity for the poor. But he didn’t forecast doom or preach a message of fear. Instead, he told us all to “Be not afraid!” and he declared 2000 to be a “Jubilee Year” – a special year of celebration and grace. And when 2000 finally came, he led us in joyful prayer, and then he enjoyed the fireworks in Rome.

Pope John Paul’s approach to the coming of the new millennium is a model for how we should anticipate Jesus’ return. We do need to prepare, but with hope and joy, not worry and fear. Because if we’re really prepared, there’s really nothing to be afraid of. Consider St. Francis of Assisi. While he was working in a garden, someone asked what he would do if he knew that today was the last day of his life. He smiled and said, “I’d keep hoeing this row of beans!” He was so well prepared that the prospect of meeting his Lord didn’t change his plans one bit. May we be as well prepared, as together we say: “Come, Lord Jesus!”

Thursday of Ordinary 31

2011-11-02T17:09:00.000-04:00

Have you ever felt like just another face in the crowd? A very small fish in a very big pond? Just a number?

If you have, you’re not alone. Many people have struggled with the feeling that they’re worthless or insignificant. As Mother Theresa once said, “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody.”

However, whenever we think this way, we can take heart from today’s gospel, because it tells us that everyone is important and significant to Jesus. Especially those who are lost. Especially those who feel lost.

Through his parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, Jesus tells us what we’re worth to him. If we’re lost, he’s not going to shrug his shoulders. He’s going to find us and carry us back on his shoulders. And then there’s going to be a celebration!

In Jesus’ eyes, we aren’t just one of the crowd, we’re one of a kind, and he loves us in a way words can’t even begin to describe. As St. Augustine once wrote, “God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love.”

Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

2011-11-01T17:53:00.000-04:00

Every morning, as I get ready for my day, I pray by name for all the people who have died in my or my wife’s family. Many of them weren’t Catholic; some weren’t even Christian; and a few did some pretty terrible things. Yet I pray for them, because our Catholic faith teaches that we can hope that all of them might ultimately be saved.

Other religions and other Christian traditions might say with great confidence that some or even all of my relatives and in-laws are now separated from God for all eternity in hell. But that’s not how we understand things. We do believe in the possibility of hell. Yet there is another possibility too. As Pope John Paul II wrote, there is “a real possibility of salvation in Christ for all humanity.” Because God is love. Because love hopes all things. Because God desires everyone to be saved. Because Jesus died and rose again.

We might say that this possibility is possible, however, only because of the reality of purgatory. Heaven is only for the perfect. And no one, when thy die, is perfect-even the saints. Everyone needs to be purified…to be made whole…to be stripped of all that is ungodly. Change like this can sometimes be painful, because we’re defensive, proud, stubborn, addicted, angry. That’s why tradition speaks of the pains of purgatory. Yet at the same time, those in purgatory are friends of God, and they know it.

And so we have hope for “all souls” who have gone before us in death. That is why we celebrate this Mass. And that is why we pray for them, every day.

Solemnity of All Saints

2011-10-31T13:27:00.000-04:00

Imagine my wife’s surprise when, after Mass on All Saints Day two years ago, a bishop walked straight up to her and said with a smile: “Be a saint.” As she did not know this bishop, she was surprised, to say the least. But she took the message to heart as a serious call to holiness.

Jesus challenges each one of us today to be a saint. Today of course is All Saints’ Day, when we celebrate the “holy men and women of every time and place,” and ask their prayers that we might become saints ourselves.

But what is a saint? A young boy once asked this question of his parish priest as they were standing together in church. The priest pointed to the saints on the stained glass windows and said, “The saints are those people who let God’s light shine through.”

I think that’s a good a definition as any. Pope Benedict agrees. “Nothing can bring us into close contact with Christ himself,” wrote the Holy Father, “other than the…light that shines out from the faces of the saints, through whom his own light becomes visible.”

Today, the whole company of saints says to us: “Be a saint.” The light of Christ shone from their faces. And the light of Christ can shine from ours.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110111.cfm

Saturday of Ordinary 30

2011-10-28T03:09:00.001-04:00

As the great English Catholic G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.” Chesterton was trying to be witty, of course, but his point was that humility is a hallmark of holiness- both for angels, and for us.

Consider an episode from the life of Dorothy Day, who founder of the Catholic Worker Movement who is now a candidate for sainthood. The sociologist Robert Coles once went to meet her at one of the soup kitchens she ran. When he arrived, Dorothy Day was in a conversation with a homeless woman who was drunk and mentally ill. The woman rambled on and on in a loud voice and kept nervously touching a large mole on her face. Only when the woman was finished did Dorothy Day politely excuse herself. She walked over to Coles and asked, “Do you wish to speak with one of us?”

Coles was astonished. He had expected her to say, “Do you wish to speak with me?” as we might have been tempted to do. But Dorothy Day was humble, and she didn’t assume that she was somehow more important than the homeless woman.

Jesus speaks of humility in today’s gospel, and promises that the humble will be exalted. In his parable about taking the lowest seat at a wedding banquet, Jesus warns us not to think too highly of ourselves at the expense of others. Because if we do, we’ll find it difficult to truly love other people. When we look down on other people, we might pity them, but pity is not love. And if we don’t think that they look up to us as we think they should, we’ll get huffy and bent out of shape.

In short, arrogance alienates, but it’s love that unites. And people that are full of love, are never full of themselves.

Thursday of Ordinary 30

2011-10-26T03:06:00.001-04:00

A woman I know of was mistreated by her husband. For years he had put her down, would snap at her after coming home tipsy, and then one night he actually hit her. Her counselor urged her to protect herself by leaving the house for a safer place. She refused, however, as she thought that would be an unchristian thing to do. She loved her husband, she said; she reasoned that he was stressed and that she needed to meet his needs better. And after all, she concluded, Jesus calls us to embrace suffering for others- just like he embraced suffering for us.

Thankfully the counselor was able to help her appreciate the difference between necessary and unnecessary suffering. Necessary suffering springs from the loving choices we make to help others or ourselves become the people God created us to be. Unnecessary suffering perpetuates another person’s illness or sin, and it destroys the person who is trying to help.

Consider Jesus in today’s gospel. He said that he would indeed suffer in order to “accomplish his purpose” of dying and rising for our salvation. And for him to do this, he explained, his suffering had to happen at the right time- not today or tomorrow, he said- and in the right place- the city of Jerusalem. Meanwhile, he avoided that suffering which would prevent him from carrying out his mission. Jesus never suffered just for the sake of suffering. He was abused, but he was not a doormat; he was a victim, but he was not co-dependent.

For us, this means that sometimes, in our relationships with others, we may need to draw a line in the sand, say enough is enough, put our foot down, blow the whistle, change jobs, leave the house, defend ourselves, distance ourselves, maybe even end a relationship. Both for our good- and for theirs. Because love without suffering is sentimentality; but not all suffering is consistent with love.

Wednesday of Ordinary 30

2011-10-25T15:03:00.000-04:00

In an old Peanuts cartoon, Linus says to Charlie Brown: “I’ve got this whole Santa Claus thing licked. If there is a Santa Claus, he’s going to be too nice not to bring me anything for Christmas, no matter how I act, right? Right! And maybe Linus is right, because I’ve never heard of any kid really getting the threatened lump of coal.

However, sometimes we can think about God the way that Linus thought about Santa Claus. We know that God is love, and that he loves us regardless of what we do! But then we can conclude that because God loves us no matter what we do, we can go ahead and do whatever we want. Classically, this has been referred to as the “sin of presumption.”

Jesus knows that sometimes we’re tempted to think this way; he’s well aware that sometimes we try to excuse our behavior and get morally lazy. That’s why he cautions us in today’s gospel to strive to enter God’s kingdom through the narrow door, if we wish to be saved. Salvation is our hope, and salvation is God’s free gift! But salvation is not a guarantee. As believers, this shouldn’t scare us. But it should motivate us- to repentance, to conversion, to love.

Saint Pope Leo the Great once offered some wisdom about this. “What does the Lord recommend,” he says, “except that no one should presume upon his own justice and no one distrust God’s mercy.”

Tuesday of Ordinary 30

2011-10-24T16:58:00.000-04:00

When you and I think of kings and kingdoms, more often than not what comes to mind are things grand and majestic: palaces, thrones, crown jewels- things like that. In today’s gospel, however, Jesus describes his Father’s kingdom in much humbler term- a mustard seed, a lump of yeast. Humble images for a humble God.

Let’s face it: God’s humility is a concept we can sometimes find difficult to grasp. As Mother Teresa once wrote,” We can understand the majesty of Go, (but) it is very difficult to understand the humility of God.”

We expect God to be powerful- and he is! As we profess in the creed, “We believe in one God the Father almighty.” But we don’t always imagine God being humble, do we? However, it’s very important that we do.

Think of it this way: If we only knew God as all-powerful, would we really be able to believe that he is all-loving? Probably not, because in our experience power dominates, power corrupts, and power creates distances and barriers between one person and another.

That’s why God has to remind us of his humility. We might say that God reveals the depths of his humility, so we might know the depths of his love- a humble love revealed in a manger, at an altar, and upon a cross.

Monday of Ordinary 30

2011-10-24T08:17:00.000-04:00

A non-churchgoer once said to a priest: “I don’t go to church because there are too many hypocrites.” To which the priest said, “That’s okay, there’s always room for one more.”

We encountered hypocrites in today’s gospel. They were the religious leaders Jesus challenged because they told the people to do things that they themselves did not do.

But in a sense, the label of hypocrite can be applied to all of us. We don’t always practice what we preach; we don’t always live in a manner consistent with the faith we profess. This not only harms our relationship with God; it can harm other peoples relationship with God too. They can see the way we act, and it can put them off God and religion.

Not long before I was to leave for seminary at age 22, I went out for the evening with some old college friends. I was carousing a little too enthusiastically, I think, when one friend turned to me and said, “Some priest you are.” She meant it in jest, but it was a fair comment, and it cut me to the heart. I’ve never forgotten it.

Each one of us is a public representative of Jesus. Which means that people will evaluate Jesus, to a certain degree, based on their evaluation of us. That’s why today’s gospel challenges us to live a way of life consistent with the gospel, so that others won’t be turned off from the gospel way of life.

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2011-10-22T12:46:00.001-04:00

We live in a very competitive culture, don’t we? This competitiveness is reflected, I think, in the popularity

of today’s reality TV shows, in which people try to beat each other through raw power, manipulation, and

humiliation. Just consider their names: “Survivor,” “The Biggest Loser.”

Don’t get me wrong: competition can be a good thing. The down side, however, is that it can make us think that life is all about getting ahead of others. This worldview turns us into very selfish people, who concerned only about our needs and our goals. We encounter this selfishness today when children, the sick, or the elderly are seen as burdens who get in the way of our plans or our lifestyle. We see it in the resentment, envy, and depression people struggle with today because they don’t think they’re getting everything they deserve. And we see it reflected in the fact that fewer and fewer people these days enter the “service” professions of teacher, nurse, or priest- jobs concerned with giving, instead of getting.

This selfishness can also affect our relationship with God. It makes religion and spirituality nothing more than an exercise in self-fulfillment and self-discovery. It reduces forgiveness to a therapy which we do only when we’re ready, and only so we can be at peace after having been hurt. It turns helping people in need into an effort to feel good about ourselves. And I heard a bishop recently complain that whenever he preaches about Christian sacrifice today, he feels a need to explain what its benefits are, because so many people are concerned only with “What’s in it for me?”

Such selfishness can make us lonely, because it leads us to view other people as either the competition to

be beaten or as the means to an end- our end. And if we don’t think they’re helping us to achieve our

goals, we drop them like a hot potato. That’s why the famous Christian writer C.S. Lewis once described

hell, not as a fiery pit, but as an existence of supreme selfishness, in which people become more and more

separated from each other, until they wind up in a terrible, eternal isolation.

Of course, selfishness is by no means unique to our culture. A tendency toward selfishness is a universal quality of our fallen, sinful human nature. That’s why in today’s gospel Jesus taught us to love our neighbor as ourself. Love is the antidote to selfishness- and the loneliness that comes with it. However, because selfishness can be such a powerful force in our lives, Jesus had to actually command us to love.

When I was younger I didn’t understand how love could be a commandment. But that’s because I was confusing “love” with being “in love.” Being in love is a wonderful thing. But it can also be a selfish thing, because by it we feel needed, wanted, accepted, and loved. However, the being “in love experience” doesn’t last forever, and it usually lasts less than two years. It’s when it ends that the real work of love begins- the love Jesus commands us to give. This love is not a feeling, but a choice. It’s a gift of our self that we make for the benefit of others so they can become the people God created them to be. It’s a choice to meet another’s person’s need, instead of focusing exclusively on our own. It’s sacrificial, not selfish.

Today’s gospel challenges us to give this kind of love. We should ask ourselves: Do we love others as much as we love ourselves? Consider the people in your life. Do we serve them, or do we expect them to serve us? Do we ever consider their needs? Do we even know what they really are? And if we do know, what should we do to meet those needs?

For instance, do we need to spend quality time with them? Do we just need to be with them- instead of being somewhere else? Do we need to talk with them and share our feelings? Do we need to really listen without judging, interrupting, or giving advice? Do we need to give them a hug or physical affection? Do we need to tell them that we love them? Do they need our forgiveness? Maybe they need us to help with the kids, repair the house, or read them a story. Maybe they need us to get professional help for a problem or addiction. Maybe they need a token of our love- a little gift, a night out, a note.

Everyone’s needs for love are somewhat different. We can’t just assume we know what they are. And we can’t assume that they’re the same as hours. We have to ask, then we have to act. Even if doing those things doesn’t come naturally to us. Even if we don’t feel like doing them. Even if we don’t think the people we’re doing them for really deserve them.

Sometimes it’s hard to love other people this way when they’re being difficult, or when we feel they don’t love us back. It’s tempting to withhold our love from them or shut ourselves off from them, because that’s a way we can punish them. But Jesus hasn’t called us to punish. He has commanded us to love. Let’s face it: Lovable people are easy to love. Difficult people are hard to love. Sometimes they require tough love. As disciples of Jesus, however, they are the measure of our love.

Loving others can indeed be a challenge. Our selfishness tries to prevent us from considering others’ needs in addition to our own. That’s why Jesus commands us to make the choice to love. Because life is not about getting ahead of others. And life is not just about us. As Christians, life is about loving- in the same way that Jesus loves us.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102311.cfm

Friday of Ordinary 29

2011-10-20T16:49:00.000-04:00

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Never leave that ‘till tomorrow which you can do today.” It’s good advice, and it also happens to be Jesus’ message in today’s gospel. First he told us to look at the signs of the times and see that the kingdom of God is at hand. Then he spoke of the need to settle with one’s opponent before it’s too late, and we be thrown into prison. This was Jesus’ way of saying that when it comes to matters of faith, religion, and conscience, don’t put off until tomorrow what we should do today. For instance,

· Do we have a sins we need to confess?

· A wound we need to heal?

· A restitution to make?

· A good intention to act upon?

· Priorities to shift?

· A relationship to restore?

If so, Jesus says to us: “What are you waiting for?” Do what you need to do today! Because one day, there will be no tomorrow.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102111.cfm

Thursday of Ordinary 29

2011-10-19T17:00:00.001-04:00

A priest from

Nepal

once shared with me his amazing conversion story. Born and raised a Hindu, Fr. Silas Bogati became involved with the American “hippie” drug scene of Katmandu in the 1970’s. He was headed down the wrong path until he was introduced to Jesus Christ by a street preacher.

Fr. Silas was ultimately was ordained the first native-born Nepalese priest. But his conversion came at a terrible cost. When he became a Christian, Fr. Silas was shunned by his Hindu family because, according to the caste system, he had become an “untouchable.”

Many of the earliest Christians, who were Jewish, experienced much the same thing, because when Jews became Christian, they were expelled from the local synagogue and effectively cast out of their families. Jesus’ words in today’s gospel about divided families spoke directly to their situation, and to their pain.

However, these early believers must have been consoled by the fact that by following Jesus they received a new family: the Church, a family of brothers and sisters in Christ, united not by blood ties, but by the unbreakable bonds of the Holy Spirit.

The same is true today. We Christians, throughout the world, are one big family. And in a world full of broken families, families separated by great distances, and those who have no families, this reality should fill many people with inspiration and hope.

The task for us, however, is to act and live as if we are family. In our parish communities, we need to work at being welcoming, friendly, and inclusive. We need to serve one another, respond to one another’s needs, and challenge, support, and pray for each other. In short, we need to make our parishes feel like family to attract those who are looking for a new family to call their own.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102011.cfm

Memorial of St. Isaac Jogues and Companions

2011-10-18T15:44:00.000-04:00

You’ve heard the old expression, “Once bitten, twice shy?” It means that if we’ve been hurt by something, we’re going to stay away from it in the future. It’s probably true for us in lots of circumstances. But not for St. Issac Jogues. At least when it came to this young Jesuit’s serving as a missionary in what is now Quebec and upstate New York, during the earliest years of European settlement.

Once he was captured by hostile natives who brutally tortured him and actually chewed his forefingers off. He was held captive for some time until he managed to escape and return to his native France. He had been so abused that he was unrecognizable to those who knew him.

One would think that, after his horrific experience, Jogues might have chosen to stay at home- safe, comfortable, and admired by those who thought him a hero. But Jogues willingly chose to return, and he was ultimately martyred with a tomahawk.

Why would Jogues go back to a place where he had been harmed and could possibly die? The answer, I think, has to do with love. St. Isaac Jogues loved God, he loved people, and he wanted the people he loved to love God. It’s as simple as that.

His witness challenges us to ask ourselves: How much do we love God? How much do we love people? Truth be told, I’m not sure my love would measure up to that of St. Isaac Jogues. Perhaps you feel the same way. But should that discourage us, we can find encouragement from the words of St. Isaac himself: “My confidence is placed in God,” he wrote. “Our single endeavor should be to give ourselves to (God’s) work and be faithful to him, and not spoil his work by our shortcomings.”

Feast of Saint Luke, Evangelist

2011-10-17T15:22:00.002-04:00

Have you ever picked up a book and thought: “Wow! This was written just for me! This is exactly what I needed to hear.” I have a suspicion that this is what St. Luke wanted each of us to think about the gospel he wrote.

In the very first line, he addressed his gospel to a person named “Theophilus.” In Latin, Theophilus means “Lover of God”- which is what we are! Luke, it would seem, wrote his gospel just for us. And as we read it, I’d bet he’d want us to think: “This is exactly what I needed to hear!”

Luke’s gospel is distinguished by themes of thankfulness, joy, and praise. It paints for us a portrait of Jesus who is prayerful, merciful, forgiving, concerned for the poor and outcast, and welcoming of all people- men and women, Jew and Gentile- into the kingdom of God. And Jesus is depicted as teaching at a series of meals as he journeys toward Jerusalem, where he celebrates a final meal- the Last Supper- at which he gives us a meal, the Holy Eucharist.

Like Jesus, we are on a journey to Jerusalem- the heavenly Jerusalem. And as we walk with Jesus, Luke would have us be nourished by the Eucharistic meal, so we can become more prayerful, joyful, thankful, compassionate, merciful, forgiving, and welcoming like Jesus- in other words, a true “Theophilus,” or lover of God.

Deep down, this is what we all want to become. That’s why Luke wrote his gospel, just for us. So we might say: “This is exactly what I needed to hear!”

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2011-10-16T08:48:00.000-04:00

A cartoon I once saw featured a boss speaking to his staff. “Honesty may be the best policy,” he said, “but
it’s not our company policy.” And while it may be funny, this cartoon reflects the sad truth that lying in
our society has reached epidemic proportions. For instance, newspaper headlines speak of corporate scandals, fraudulent accounting practices, and insider trading. In schools today, surveys have shown that a majority of students cheat on tests or download research papers which they try to pass off as their own work. Job seekers pad their résumés with fake or exaggerated information. Car odometers are rolled back, expense accounts are padded, and spouses fib about how much they spent on that new dress or set of golf clubs. A recent university study revealed that a quarter of people’s “most serious lies” related to an affair. And considering that Jesus in today’s gospel spoke of the need to pay one’s taxes, it needs to be said that tax cheating is all too common.

Jesus gave this teaching after he had been approached by his opponents. They said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.” The irony is, when they said that they believed Jesus to teach the truth, they were lying through their teeth. In a sense, all of us can relate to this experience of our Lord, because all of us have been lied to. And let’s face it: We’ve probably told a few lies ourselves.

People tell lies for all sorts of reasons. In our highly competitive society, , lies can help one gain an advantage over others and stand out from the crowd. And if everyone else is doing it, that makes it all the easier! Some people lie to get their “fifteen seconds” of fame- like the guy a few years ago who made up the story about witnessing one of the sniper attacks.

Other people, seeking revenge against someone they believe has hurt them, may start a vicious rumor. Some experience a thrill from lying because it gives them a feeling of having power over others. It’s not uncommon to lie in order to avoid punishment. You may remember Susan Smith, who in 1994 strapped her two boys into her car and then sent them into a lake to drown. If you recall, she tried to stay out of trouble by going on TV, saying her sons had been kidnapped, and pleading for their safe return. Finally, low self-esteem can lead some to exaggerate or even make up accomplishments or achievements, in order to feel better about themselves or impress others. For instance, phony war stories allow people with feelings of inferiority to be linked with the virtues of loyalty and courage.

Most of us believe that we do what we do for good reasons and with honest intentions. Therefore, when we lie, it’s easy to rationalize that what we’re doing is justified or even the right thing to do. We can think things like: “Nobody’s really getting hurt, so there’s really nothing wrong.” Or “I cheated on taxes or insurance- but only to get the money I rightly deserve.” Or “If everyone else lies on their resume, I better do it too so I won’t lose that job offer I want.” Or “If I told the truth about the way I feel, we’d just get in a fight and things would become even worse.”

As Christians, however, we are called to honesty and truth. This doesn’t mean that we have to be a bull in a china shop. We do need to be prudent and discrete in revealing the truth, because we don’t want to needlessly hurt or antagonize others. And this doesn’t mean that everyone has the right to hear the truth from us. To give an extreme example, no one would have to tell the Nazis where a Jewish family was hiding.

Nevertheless, God insists that we be honest people. As we all know, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” is one of the Ten Commandments. Indeed, God himself is truth, Jesus his Son reveals the truth, and they have sent the Holy Spirit of truth into our lives that we might walk in the truth and bear witness to it. Any lie, then, is really an offense against God himself.

Honesty and truthfulness are also requirements for justice and are essential for a civil society. “Men could not live with one another,” wrote St. Thomas Aquinas, “if there were not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another.” This is because lies always hurt those around us- even when we think they don’t.

In addition, Jesus has promised that the truth will set us free. It will free us from having to cover our tracks, live with shame and guilt, and the fear of our lies being discovered and exposed. The truth will liberate us to take off our masks and just be ourselves. It will also result in better relationships, less stress for ourselves, and less anger from others.

There is a cost to being honest! We may lose that job offer to the person who lied on their resume. We may have to “face the music” for something we’ve done or accept the reality of who we are, and not who we’ve been pretending to be. Our co-workers may resent us, because as one human resources expert has said, “employees who operate honestly and ethically often inspire anger, guilt, and resentment (from others).” Maybe we’ll end up with less money than we may have had if we’d fudged our tax returns. Nevertheless, we’ll be blessed with the assurance that God smiles upon our honesty, and we can unite our suffering with those of Jesus upon the cross.

As Mother Teresa once wrote, “If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101611.cfm

St. Teresa of Avila

2011-10-14T22:52:00.000-04:00

My kids were once playing with an electric keyboard in our house, and it sounded to me like they were making “spooky music.” “We must be in a haunted house,” I said. “Oh Daddy,” came the reply, “it’s not a haunted house. It’s church!”

This reminded me that some people think of Christianity as a somber, glum affair. For some people it is a somber, glum affair. It’s not without reason that popular songwriters say that they’d “rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints!”

But the saint we celebrate today would have none of that. St. Theresa of Avila, the sixteenth century Spanish nun, was a woman who radiated joy, and who had a good sense of humor to boot. There were certainly plenty of things in her life that might have caused her to become somber or glum. "Oh, my Lord!,” she once cried, “How true it is that whoever works for you is paid in troubles!” She suffered a lot of physical pain. She was reported to the Spanish Inquisition. She met with stiff resistance to her reform plans, both inside and outside the Church. At times, she found prayer to be extremely difficult. And she sometimes found herself surrounded by pious but gloomy individuals. But none of this could dampen her joy in being a child of God.

St. Theresa can certainly teach us about many things. She is, after all, a Doctor of the Church! She had much to say and write about the life of prayer and friendship with God. It’s for good reason that she’s called the “Doctor of Prayer.” But perhaps today we can allow her to remind us that joy should be at the heart of our life as Christians. As St. Teresa herself once said, “From sour-faced saints, Good Lord, deliver us!”

Friday of Ordinary 28

2011-10-13T16:54:00.000-04:00

“Everyone has a little dirty laundry.” Or so proclaimed an ad for a popular TV show about desperate housewives. Well, I don’t know if everyone has a little dirty laundry, but I do know that today’s gospel speaks to us when we do. Jesus reminded us that while we might keep secrets from other people, we can’t keep them from God. He sees and knows all that we do, and he holds us accountable for it.

Yet at the same time, God wants to forgive us of these things. We might say that while God sees all our dirty laundry, he wants to wash it for us too! Or as St. Augustine once said, “The one who made you is watching you, and the one who called you is helping you.”

It’s important that we me realize this, because sometimes our “dirty laundry” can fill us with so much shame that we become afraid to bring it to the Lord. We worry that we’ll be rejected or condemned. Then we avoid confession, we avoid Holy Communion, and sometimes we avoid church altogether.

But this is not what God wants us to do. He wants instead to release us from our shame and lift the burden of our guilt so he can fill us with his peace and joy. As the author of today’s psalm wrote, “I said, ‘I confess my faults to the Lord, and you took away the guilt of my sin.’”

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101411.cfm

Thursday of Ordinary 28

2011-10-12T15:36:00.000-04:00

Many applicants to become permanent deacons confess that they don’t think they’re worthy enough to answer such a high calling. They often say this as if such a belief is a bad thing. In reality, however, it’s a good thing. It means that a person is approaching ordained ministry with reverence and humility, and not with pride, indifference, or a sense of entitlement. To be a deacon is a wonderful privilege. But it is also a great responsibility. To him whom God has given much, much will be expected.

I think we see this reflected in today’s gospel. Jesus spoke very stern words of judgment to certain scribes and Pharisees. Here, as always, Jesus harshest words are for those in religious authority. Jesus could be very gentle with thieves, prostitutes, adulterers, even his own executioners. But he was very different when dealing with religious authorities- the bishops, priests, and permanent deacons of his day.

He held them to a higher standard, because they should have known better, and because their attitudes, practices, and beliefs harmed many other people’s relationship with God. Think about what we have seen and experienced in our own day: If ministers are arrogant or lazy, their parish suffers; if they teach false doctrine, the sheep are led astray, and divisions are created; if they cause a scandal, the church is wounded, and the world laughs.

Today’s gospel should challenge all of us to be always mindful of the great trust God has placed in us as ministers of the gospel. This shouldn’t fill us with fear, because God is merciful and all things are possible with him. But it should fill us with awe for what God expects of us, and commit us to do his will and seek his kingdom above all else, that we might be faithful servants of the one who came only to serve.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101311.cfm

Wednesday of Ordinary 28

2011-10-11T16:49:00.000-04:00

My sister-in-law chuckled as she told me about her job interview, because she was asked all of the textbook interview questions, such as “What are your weaknesses?” and “Tell me a mistake you’ve made and what you learned from it.”

Her experience reminded me, however, that job-hunting today forces us to identify areas for growth and improvement in our work life. Today’s readings from Scripture call us to do the same for our spiritual life.

For instance, we heard St. Paul speak of God’s impartial judgment that we’ll all face one day. Our psalm response was, “Lord, you give back to everyone according to his works.” And in the gospel, we heard Jesus challenge the behavior of certain religious people of his day. We might ask ourselves how our Lord might challenge our behavior.

The truth is that all of us have room to grow. That’s why we should regularly examine our conscience, make changes, pray for grace, and bring our failures before the Lord in confession. As C.S. Lewis once said, “There is no standing still in the Christian life. We’re either moving forward, or we’re sliding back.”

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101211.cfm

Tuesday of Ordinary 28

2011-10-11T10:08:00.000-04:00

St. Francis de Sales once said that all of us should pray for a half hour each day. Except, of course, when we’re busy- then we need an hour!

I think that most of us smile when we hear St. Francis’ words, because we can see his point: Prayer is indeed essential, especially when our plates get full and things seem a little crazy. When we’re overburdened by life’s demands, we know we need to pray so we can keep everything in perspective and not become too absorbed with the things of this passing world. We also know how important it is to lift up in prayer those stressful situations that threaten to make us anxious or angry.

You and I understand these things. But do we actually take St. Francis’ advice? For many of us the answer often is “No.” As pastoral psychologist Robert Wicks once said, “You’ve been promising yourself a half hour a day for years- and you still aren’t doing it!” So what does he recommend? Two minutes of silence with the Lord each day. If we can do more, that’s great, but two minutes is a promise and discipline that everyone can keep, regardless of their circumstances. As one popular slogan puts it, we need to “Pray as we can, and not as we can’t.”

I raise this point because in today’s gospel, Jesus laments that committed religious people- the Pharisees- have been neglecting their interior life- the life of the prayer. Jesus actually calls them fools, because they of all people should know better. But listen to Jesus’ advice: “As to what is within,” he says, “give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.” In other words, Jesus said that they really needed to pray, because prayer is what they really needed.

Like the Pharisees, we too are committed religious people. And what Jesus said to them, Jesus says also to us: We need to pray, every day- be it for sixty minutes, for thirty minutes, or maybe even just for two.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101111.cfm

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2011-10-07T17:24:00.000-04:00

At a retreat my family attended, one evening the adults gathered for a social, and the conversation turned to how we had come to know our respective spouses. It was great fun listening to how, after their initial introduction, our new friends had come to know each other by spending time with each other.
All people- be they spouses, friends, family and workmates- need to spend time with each other in order to truly know each other. The same is true if we really want to know the Lord. We see this in today’s gospel. Jesus’ disciples told him that people thought that he might be one of the great prophets from of old. Which was a good guess, but not quite right. But when Jesus asked them who they thought he was, Peter answered on their behalf and proclaimed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

To most people who encountered him, Jesus was a distant acquaintance. They knew a little about him, but not enough to really know who he was. It was only the disciples- those who travelled with him, ate with him, listened to all his teaching- who could correctly identify who he really is. They knew Jesus, because they had spent enough time with him to get to know him.

What about us? Do we really know who Christ is? Have we spent enough time with him? I recall a banner that hung outside a church in the District, trying to encourage people to attend Sunday services there. It read: “One hour a week puts the other 167 into perspective” it said. Which is true! To know Jesus, we need to worship him on Sunday. Indeed, we’re commanded to do so! But is one hour a week really enough?

To really get to know Jesus, we need to give him the gift of our time. We’ve all heard talks at Mass about the importance of “stewardship,” and how we need to give of our time, talent, and treasure. We listen as we should, but we all really know that it’s a “sermon on the amount,” if you know what I mean, and that we’re ultimately going to be asked to contribute money. And fair enough! We all know that the church needs money to fund its mission. But in a very real sense, time is the most important and valuable gift we can give to our Lord. How we spend our time shows what’s important to us. Time is a finite resource; we have only so much of it. We can’t make any more of it, like we can make more money. To give a gift of time is to give part of our lives we’ll never get back. It’s a sacrifice. And sacrifice, of course, is the essence of love.

But do we really make a sacrificial gift of time to the Lord? A 60 year old priest, Fr. Dan Callahan, competes in Iron Man Triathlons to raise money for a Catholic rehab hospital. Fr. Dan has always been an athlete. But in college, he became obsessed with sports while he neglected to practice his faith. Then one day, while he was taking a daily swim, a voice said to him, “Dan, do you believe that I am in the Eucharist?” He said that he did and got the reply, “So why are you swimming so religiously and not going to (Mass)?”

What is it for us that keeps us from spending time with God as we should? Sports? TV? A hobby? Friendships? Work? Volunteering? A special project? Statistics show that we Americans are hard workers. But other statistics show that many of us make poor use of the leisure time we have. For instance, the typical American, both kids and adults, watch 28 hours of TV a week, on average. Video gamers, again both kids and adults, play video games on average of ten hours a week. Golfers, runners, and other sports enthusiasts can spend equally as much time on their passions. And let’s not forget all the time many of us spend mindlessly surfing the web.

How do we spend our time, especially our free time? Might we not spend some of it differently? Would it be possible to spend more of it getting to know our Lord? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to face our Lord at the end of my life and tell him I couldn’t spend time with him because I was too busy watching American Idol or goofy videos on You Tube. In other words, I wouldn't want to tell him that I didn’t think he was worth the time. Because at the end of the day, nothing should be more important to us than our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Pope Benedict had something to say about this at a missionary congress in Quito, Ecuador. “There is no greater richness,” he said, “than to enjoy friendship with Christ and to walk beside him.” However, he stressed that such a friendship, like all friendships, requires time. In his words, “It is worthwhile to consecrate our best energies to this beautiful endeavor.” While on vacation recently, the Holy Father spoke to a group of local priests in the Italian mountains. He taught that we need to “structure our life so that God has access to us all the time” so that “we are in continuous contact with Christ.” But we can only do this, he cautioned, “if we are not too lazy, undisciplined, or sluggish.” Challenging words, but a challenge we need to hear.

We’re all busy people. Our time is precious, as it should be. But then, our Lord should be precious to us too. Perhaps then, we might need to make it a priority to spend more of our precious time with our precious Lord. So that when he asks: “Who do you say that I am?” we will, like St. Peter, know exactly what to say.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100911.cfm

Our Lady of the Rosary

2011-10-06T02:02:00.001-04:00

As far as I can tell, today is the only day in the Church’s calendar which commemorates a military battle. Specifically, we remember that on October 7^th, 1571, a Muslim naval fleet was defeated at the Battle of Lepanto.

Because the pope, Saint Pius V, had called upon the church to pray the rosary for a victory, the battle’s outcome was seen as a direct response to Mary’s intercession. In gratitude, Pius V established the memorial of Our Lady of Victory, or as we refer to it now, Our Lady of the Rosary.

Just as in 1571, there are today tensions, hostilities, and misunderstandings between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world. And, just as in 1571, it is imperative that we pray, and lift up this unhappy situation to the healing light of God’s love.

We need to pray for “respectful dialogue” and peaceful coexistence between Christian and Muslims;
We need to pray for the health and protection of the Church in predominantly Muslim countries;
And as we recall the Battle of Lepanto, at which over 22,000 people died, we need to pray for peace.

It can be tempting for us to think that our relationship with the Muslim world will never change, and that praying for it is simply a waste of time. But Our Lady of the Rosary reminds us otherwise, because she is also Our Lady of Hope, and Our Lady, the Queen of Peace. May she pray for us to the Prince of Peace, that the blessing of peace, may come to our world today.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100711.cfm

Thursday of Ordinary 27

2011-10-05T06:13:00.001-04:00

On a road trip one summer, my family and I ate pancakes in our minivan from a fast-food drive-through. When we were done, several little packets of maple syrup remained unopened on the center console. After a long while, my six-year old daughter piped up and asked, “Mommy, may I drink syrup?” Stephanie laughed, turned around and said, “What do you think the answer to that is going to be?” The answer, just in case you’re wondering, was “No!”

Jesus, in today’s gospel, spoke of a parent giving a child food that he had asked for: specifically, fish and eggs. Our Lord’s point is that our heavenly Father gives “good gifts” to us, his children, when we ask. However, two elements are critical in this teaching. First, we have to ask. And second, God only gives us gifts that are good. We have to ask because he’s not going to force things on us we don’t want. At the same time, he’s not going to give us things that aren’t for our own good. Six year olds shouldn’t be given syrup to drink, even though they think it would be good. And in his wisdom, our loving Father refuses us certain things we ask for too.

Sometimes God says yes; sometimes God says no; sometimes God says wait ‘till later. Only he truly knows what is best for us. But we’ll never know, until we ask.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100611.cfm

Wednesday of Ordinary 27

2011-10-04T18:10:00.000-04:00

When he was six, I asked my son what I should say in a homily about the Our Father. He said, “Tell them it’s a word Jesus gave us to unlock the gate of heaven.”

This, of course, warmed my fatherly heart, but it also reminded me that this profound prayer, called “the most perfect prayer” by St. Thomas Aquinas, is also simple enough to be appreciated by young children.

But then that’s the point, isn’t it? We call this prayer the Our Father because regardless of our age, all of us are children of God our Father. We acknowledge in this prayer that we are completely dependent upon God as his sons and daughters: For our daily bread, for our daily grace, for forgiveness, and for the ability to forgive. We recall that the purpose of our life is our Father’s glorification, not ours, and that we’re to build up his kingdom, and not our own. And while he’s a parent who commands our obedience, he at the same time seeks to meet our needs with attention and love.

One ancient writer called the Our Father “the summary of the whole gospel.” because it says so much in so few words. Words simple enough for a young child. Yet so essential for all of us.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100511.cfm

Monday of Ordinary 27

2011-10-02T02:53:00.003-04:00

On my commute to the Pastoral Center one morning, I passed by Holy Redeemer Church on New York Avenue. I saw in the church doorway a homeless man who had obviously spent the night there. And to my shame, I have to confess that one of my first thoughts was: “Thank God I don’t have to deal with that.” Of course, as I prayed with today’s gospel before Mass, I realized that my attitude was identical to that of the priest (go figure) in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.

Through this story, Jesus challenges all of us to help heal the needy and hurting people who happen to cross our path- be they the squeegee man at the stoplight, hurricane victims on TV, or the people under our own roofs who are in pain because of our selfishness or lack of attention. Our Lord calls us, not to pass judgment, make excuses, or look the other way, but to have compassion and extend some of the mercy that Jesus has shown to us.

As Mother Teresa once said, “The very fact that God has placed a certain soul in your way is a sign that God wants to do something for (him or) her. We are bound in conscience to help.”

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100311.cfm

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

2011-10-01T03:16:00.002-04:00

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. You’ve heard of “preaching to the choir?” Sometimes we preachers are guilty of that. More often than not, however, the words we preach are directed primarily at ourselves- whether we’re conscious of it or not. One of the great preachers of the early church, St. John Chrysostom, said that if a preacher doesn’t practice what he preaches, he shouldn’t be stopped him preaching, because his own words might convince him to change.

I have a suspicion that St. Paul’s words in today’s second reading were intended for himself as much as for the Philippians to whom he was writing. He encouraged his readers not to have anxiety, but instead to pray and think about positive and lovely and true things. Certainly this was advice that the Christians of Philippi needed to hear! But Paul himself had worries too. He admits as much in his first letter to the Corinthians, in which he speaks of his “anxiety for all the churches.” He worried that they would be torn apart by divisions or led astray by false teaching. It’s possible that he was concerned about his own acceptance as an apostle, as he wasn’t part of the original twelve selected by Jesus. And because his was in constant danger of being imprisoned and tortured, we can imagine his sometimes being worried about this too. On one trip, for instance, Paul admits that he and his companions “were utterly weighed down beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life.”

How Paul dealt with his own anxiety is surely reflected in the advice he gave the Philippians; he was preaching to himself as much as he was preaching to them. Of course, he’s preaching to us too. And we would do well to pay attention, because many of us, in some way or another, struggle with anxiety, worry, and fear- particularly these days. People worry about the economy, their jobs, retirement, house values, terrorism, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the effects of global warming. And let’s not forget worries about health, kids, reputations, the effects of growing older, and the inevitability of death.

Such worries can paralyze us, consume our thoughts and energies, ruin our mood, strain our human relationships, and effect our relationship with God too. We get angry with God, forget all the good things he’s done for us, lose sight of his presence in our lives, and worst of all, come to doubt his care and love for us. Yet this doesn’t need to be the case. St. Paul, in spite of everything he might have worried about, never lost his trust in God. He always remained grateful even in the most difficult circumstances, and he never failed to persevere in faith. The inspired advice he gave the Philippians certainly worked for him. Perhaps we should take it to heart too.

To begin with, Paul explains that when we begin to worry, we should lift up prayers and petitions to God. This may sound simple, even naïve. But have you ever been so consumed with worry that you forget to pray? We wring our hands, but forget to fold them. Not praying, however, only makes our worry worse. Yet when we pray, we put the whole matter in God’s hands, ask him to give us the help that only he can give, are reminded that he loves and cares for us, and allow him to give us direction on how to deal with the things we’re worried about. Have you heard the slogan, “Give your worries to God each evening; he’s going to be up all night anyway?” It’s corny, but true. Whenever we find ourselves worrying, we should turn that into a prayer opportunity. Even if the only prayer we can muster is “Help!”

In addition to praying, St. Paul says, we also need to change the way we think. Instead of letting our hearts and minds be filled with anxious thoughts, we should think instead of those things which are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, and excellent. Paul knew that we can lose sight of these things when we’re worried, and in so doing, it warps our view of the world. We see only the darkness, and are blinded to the light. Have you ever been so consumed with worry that you failed to notice the sights and smells of a beautiful morning when you stepped outside? However, when we make an intentional effort to think of those things Paul mentioned, we’re reminded of what’s good and beautiful in our world, all of which comes from God’s loving hand. And whenever we remember the good things of God, we remember the goodness of God himself.

It’s important to recall that Paul didn’t make any false promises or create unrealistic expectations. He didn’t say that praying and changing the way we think would take away our difficulties. He wrote his advice, in fact, while he was in prison and in great danger. He knew full well that sufferings and hardships are inevitable for anyone who chooses to follow a crucified Lord. We can’t avoid it. What we can do, however, is avoid losing sight that God can bring good out of evil, and that Jesus’ victory over evil offers us an eternal life without it. Praying and thinking won’t erase our problems. But they can replace anxiety and despair, with trust and hope.

Paul may very well have been preaching to himself as much as he is to us. But we can be grateful for that, because his advice is so timely and true, and we can see the good fruit that Paul’s practices bore in his life. He is, after all, a saint! However, there is one final thing Paul wrote today that’s intended exclusively for us: his request that we imitate him. For if we do, “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100211.cfm

Memorial of St. Therese of Lisieux

2011-09-30T02:42:00.002-04:00

After a school Mass, a young girl walked up and asked me point-blank: “Father, who should I believe in more: God or myself?” With hesitating I said, “Definitely God, because we can fool ourselves.” She paused for a moment, said “Thank you,” and quietly walked away. I have a feeling that she found my answer less than convincing.

Young people today are told over and over again that they need to believe in themselves. Popular books and movies like High School Musical encourage young people to resist peer pressure so they can be themselves with confidence, because everyone is unique and special. And that’s a good message: we should want young people to love themselves and approach adulthood with a healthy confidence. What we don’t want is for them to believe or trust in themselves more than they believe or trust in God.

Today we celebrate the life of a saint, Therese of Lisieux, who would certainly tell young people that they’re unique and special. “Our Lord takes a special interest in each soul,” she said, “as if there were no other like it.” She would also tell young people to be themselves with confidence. “Perfection,” she wrote, “consists simply in…being just what (God) wants us to be.” But you’ll note that all her advice springs from her belief in God: We’re special, because God made us special; we can be true to ourselves, when we’re true to what God wants for us.

And that’s a message that everyone needs to hear today, both young and old. St. Therese says: Be yourself by believing in God, who loves you, just for being you.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100111.cfm

Memorial of Saint Jerome

2011-09-29T02:32:00.000-04:00

One night when she was three, my eldest daughter was getting ready for bed, when all of a sudden she exclaimed, “Daddy, we forgot the read the Bible!” We had been reading from a children’s Bible each night before bedtime, and I was delighted that she enjoyed it enough to ask for it when it was missed. I want her to grow into an adult who reads Scripture and is nourished by God’s Word, as I am blessed to do.

Forty years ago, the Second Vatican Council strongly encouraged Catholics to read the Bible, because it’s God living Word through which he speaks to us as friends. Unfortunately, recent surveys reveal that many Catholics rarely read their Bibles, often because they think that it’s a book for the clergy, and not for laypersons like them.

Today we celebrate the life of a saint who loved the Bible very much: St. Jerome. He was a great commentator on Scripture, and he was responsible for having translated the Bible into Latin, which was the common language in his day. His Latin translation, the Vulgate, is still the official text of the Scriptures used by the Church even now.

St. Jerome passion for the Bible is an inspiration for us to become acquainted with Holy Scripture, and if we already are, to become acquainted even more. Because as St. Jerome himself said: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/093011.cfm

Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael

2011-09-28T02:09:00.000-04:00

Angels are present with us right now, and at each and every Mass. We join our voices with theirs when we sing “Holy, Holy, Holy.” We echo their Christmas song of joy when we proclaim: “Glory to God in the highest!” In the first Eucharistic prayer we ask that God’s angel may take our sacrifice to his altar in heaven. And the Body of Christ we receive at Holy Communion is known to us as the “bread of angels.”

However, we honor the angels in a particular way today, especially the three archangels mentioned by name in Scripture: Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. And perhaps it’s a good thing for us to be reminded today of their power and their presence amongst us, because we cannot see them! Angels are invisible, spiritual beings.

We also know that angels distinguish themselves in three ways. First, they are servants of the Lord who do his will. According to Scripture, they protected Jesus in his infancy, ministered to him after his wilderness temptations, strengthened him during his agony in the garden, and will assist him at the final judgment. They continue to serve him today, and we can and should ask for their help and protection.

Second, angels tell the good news of Jesus. Indeed, the very word “angel” means “messenger.” Angels announced our Lord’s birth to Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds; they proclaimed his resurrection at the empty tomb; and they will herald his return in glory.

Third, the angels praise and adore God’s name for all eternity in heaven, and they continually worship God before his throne.

You and I are not angels; we are human beings. However, we too in our own way are made to love, serve, worship, and bear witness to the glory of God. This is our purpose for living and our hope for all eternity. Yet so often we get sidetracked from this by ambition, distracted by trivialities, or derailed by life’s problems. Perhaps then the angels can remind us, today and every day, of what’s really important in life. At our funeral the congregation will pray: “May the angels of God lead you into paradise.” In the meantime, in imitation of the angels, let’s try to make a little bit of that paradise, here on earth.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092911.cfm

Memorial of St. Lawrence Ruiz and Companions

2011-09-27T13:51:00.000-04:00

A recent survey revealed that a majority of Americans approve of torture under certain circumstances, and Catholics approve of it more than the general public! That’s ironic, since so many Catholics saints have been victims of torture. One such victim was St. Lawrence Ruiz, whose memorial we celebrate today.

Although he is the first native-born Filipino saint, Lawrence Ruiz was martyred in Japan during the persecution of Nagasaki Catholics in the early seventeenth century. Before he was martyred, St. Lawrence was subjected to unspeakably painful torture. He was forced to drink mass quantities of water, after which a board was placed on stomach. Soldiers then jumped on ends, forcing water from his ears, his nose, nose, and his mouth. Bamboo needles were forced under his fingertips. Then, after having been bound tightly to restrict breathing and circulation, he was hung upside down in a pit. Lawrence lasted three days like this, and was finally beheaded.

Such horrific cruelty should impress upon all Christians the unacceptability of any torture. True, not all people being tortured today are saints. But regardless of who is being tortured, it’s a crime against human dignity. Sometimes torture is promoted in the name of national security. When it comes to torture, however, the ends never justify the means. Sometimes torture is defended as a fair punishment for serious crimes. But two wrongs never make a right. As Pope Benedict has said, “I reiterate that the prohibition against torture cannot be contravened under any circumstances.”

Our faith challenges us to work for the end of torture. So that what happened to St. Lawrence Ruiz- so that what happened to Jesus our Lord- won’t have to happen to anyone else.

Monday of Ordinary 26

2011-09-25T12:00:00.001-04:00

Toward the end of his life, Albert Einstein removed from his wall the portraits of two famous scientists, Isaac Newton and James Maxwell. In their place, he hung pictures of Mahatma Gandhi and the medical missionary, Albert Schweitzer. When asked why he did this, Einstein explained that it was time to replace the image of success with the image of service.

This is precisely what Jesus tried to do for his disciples in today’s gospel. The disciples were preoccupied with success. That’s why they argued about who was the greatest. But Jesus challenged their attitude by placing a child in the midst. To serve a child, you see, could in no way bring them any worldly success. But it would make them great in the kingdom of God.

Like the disciples, our culture today often seems more concerned with success than it does with service. We see this attitude whenever children are perceived as obstacles to lifestyles and careers; it’s seen in crumbling relationships where people are focused only on their own needs; it’s seen whenever the workplace becomes a “dog eat dog” rat race; it’s seen whenever people do things simply to enhance their resume or college application; and it’s seen in the church whenever worship and prayer take a backseat to meetings, quotas, and agendas.

This may be the world’s way, but it is not our way. Jesus calls each one of us today to lives of service, and not the pursuit of success. As his disciples, we’re to be concerned not with self-promotion, but self-donation- with giving of ourselves for the benefit of others. Just as Jesus did for us on the cross; just as he does for us in this Eucharist.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092611.cfm

Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2011-09-23T13:11:00.000-04:00

As I watched a young boy play a popular video game, I was surprised at how many times his character could be killed and come back to life. He’d fall into a fiery pit, get chomped by alligators, and be crushed by a boulder, but it didn’t seem to matter. It fact, the boy thought it funny to make these things happen to his character! He explained that although his character might lose points, it couldn’t really be killed, no matter what he did. Another adult with me said, half in jest but half seriously too: “What is this teaching our kids?” She was worried that perhaps they’re being taught that actions don’t have consequences.

That actions do have consequences is a primary point of today’s first reading, from Ezekiel. Simply put: Sin is punished and virtue is rewarded, and it’s up to us to choose between them. Evidently people back then needed to be reminded of this. But perhaps we need reminding too. These days we place a great deal of emphasis on God’s mercy. As well we should, because God is merciful! But there’s a danger that emphasizing God’s mercy can lead us to take it for granted, something the Church has traditionally referred to as the sin of “presumption.” When we presume upon God’s mercy, we figure we can do whatever we want, and it just won’t make a difference what we do. Kind of like the character in my son’s video game. We think: God is so forgiving, that at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter what we do.

But what we do does matter to God. Consider today’s gospel story. Jesus told a parable of two sons. One said initially that he would do his father’s will, but then didn’t do it, while the other son said at first that he wouldn’t obey, but then changed his mind and did. When he explained this parable’s meaning, Jesus raised a few eyebrows, because he said that “tax collectors and prostitutes”- the obvious public sinners of the day- were entering the kingdom of God before the chief priests and elders, who considered themselves to be decent religious people. The former heard God’s call to change their ways, while the others did not, as they thought there was nothing to change. They were presumptious.

Most of us, I imagine, probably consider ourselves to be decent religious people. That’s why we need to listen to Jesus words today, because they’re directed at us. It’s easy for us to look down upon the “tax collectors and prostitutes” of our day and think: “Boy are their lives a mess!” We compare ourselves to them and conclude that, all things considered, our lives are pretty much in order. And maybe they are. But we need to be careful, because it’s easy when we think this way to fall into presumption and conclude that since we’re fundamentally good people, it doesn’t really matter what we do, because God is so good and forgiving. Like the chief priests and elders in today’s gospel, we become deaf to God’s call to continued conversion.

In all fairness, it’s sometimes easier for the “tax collectors and prostitutes” of the world to hear that call. It can become very obvious to those stuck in serious sin that something’s not right with their lives- especially if they hit rock bottom and realize there’s nowhere else to turn but to God!

With us, we may not feel such a need for conversion. In fact, we may actually feel rather good about ourselves. One of the myths of modern pop psychology is that feeling good about one’s self is a sign of health. But that’s not always the case. It seems that that’s how the religious people in today’s gospel were feeling. That’s why they were so shocked and angry when Jesus suggested that they weren’t as close to God’s kingdom as they thought they were.

The truth is, as taught by the saints down through the ages, that that the closer we get to God, the more aware we become of our own sinfulness, and our distance from God. This means that if we aren’t aware of our sinfulness, we might not be as holy as we think we are. In today’s responsorial psalm, the author recalled his sins and cried: “Remember your mercies, O Lord.” Today, maybe God is saying to us: “Remember my mercies, O my people.”

Now, this isn’t meant to make us hate ourselves or become discouraged. Instead, God is calling us to action, repentance, and continued conversion. God doesn’t want us to be lulled into complacency and presume upon his mercy. Instead, he wants us to accept our need for change.

To do this, there are three things we might do. First, we can consult a good examination of conscience and use it regularly. This will help us become more aware of areas of sinfulness in our lives that we may have been overlooking, or never were aware of in the first place. Second, we can ask others to help us. As the sixth century spiritual writer St. John Climacus once observed, “God has arranged so that no one can see his own faults as clearly as his neighbor does.” Third, we can ask God to help us, because God knows us better than we know ourselves. We can pray to God: “Show me where I need to grow. Reveal to me what I need to change. Help me to see myself as you see me!”

And what does God see? Yes, he sees sin and brokenness. He sees someone who needed redeeming, and who needs guidance and grace. But more than this, he sees someone he loves. Someone for whom he has plans. Someone he created to become a saint. Someone with whom we wants to spend all eternity. God is indeed merciful! And he wants us to receive his mercy. Just not take it for granted.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092511.cfm

Thursday of Ordinary 25

2011-09-21T16:24:00.001-04:00

King Herod, both Scripture and history tell us, was a cruel and immoral ruler. Today’s gospel tells us that he was “greatly perplexed” by Jesus’ ministry, because he understood Jesus to be a threat to his authority.

Herod, of course, was no friend of Jesus. However, even Christians can sometimes think of Jesus as a threat. This is because most of us have little corners of our lives in which we’re afraid to let Jesus enter in.

Maybe we don’t want to make the effort to live the life that Jesus wants us to live;
Maybe we fear the changes that conversion and discipleship demand of us, because we don’t want to step out of our “comfort zones;”
Maybe we know that Jesus will ask us to cast aside certain things we’ve become attached to- be they habits, attitudes, possessions, even relationships;
Maybe we’re unsettled by the fact that Jesus knows and loves us as deeply as he does, because we’re afraid of intimacy;
Maybe we dread the crosses we may be called upon to carry.

And so we try to keep Jesus at a safe distance. We rationalize that we’re doing the best we can and that our relationship with Jesus is fine, just as it is. We try to convince ourselves that we’re a “good enough” Christian, relatively speaking, when in reality we’re lukewarm at best.

The problem, however, is that when we keep Jesus at arm’s length, he remains a distant acquaintance, instead of becoming a close friend. But Jesus wants far more for us than this; he longs to be our close friend. And deep down, we all want him to be our friend too.

Jesus challenges us today to surrender all of ourselves to him, as he surrendered all of himself for us; he invites us to replace our fears with his courage, that he might fill us with himself.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092211.cfm

Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle

2011-09-20T13:04:00.000-04:00

St. Matthew knew what it was like to feel excluded. Although he was Jewish, he was shunned by other Jews, because his work as a tax collector made him a collaborator with the hated Romans. Socially, he was an outsider, and outcast. His fellow countrymen wanted nothing to do with him.

We can only imagine that this exclusion filled him with loneliness and pain. Maybe that’s why, when Jesus said to him, “Follow me,” Matthew jumped at the chance. He wanted desperately to be welcomed and included. Which is precisely what Jesus does.

When Jesus dined at Matthew’s house later that day, Jesus was happy to sit and eat with more excluded people- other tax collectors and people identified only as “sinners.” Jesus welcomed them as well- something he does throughout the gospels, including the one that bears St. Matthew’s name.

Jesus invites everyone to be his disciple and enter his kingdom- regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, education, income or appearance. Jesus welcomes all people without exception, because all of us are sinners in need of redemption, and all of us are equally loved by God the Father.

Jesus challenges us today to be as welcoming and inclusive as he is. This may involve examining some of our actions and attitudes. For instance, do we harbor racist thoughts or tendencies? Do we look down on people we think are beneath us economically or socially? Do we envy or resent those we think are above us economically or socially? Do we see members of the opposite sex as equals? Do we scorn the young or marginalize the elderly? Are we intellectual snobs or athletes who mock non-jocks? Are we indifferent to the needs of persons with disabilities? Are we the pious who scorn the unbelieving or unrighteous? Do we ignore or avoid those who are different from us in some way?

If we answer “Yes” to any of these questions, it’s time for an attitude adjustment, so we can each do our part to bring about the vision St. Paul spoke of in our first reading: that we be one family, celebrating one faith, united in one Lord.

Readings for today's Mass:http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092111.cfm

Memorial of Saint Andrew Kim

2011-09-19T16:46:00.000-04:00

Whenever I think of religion in Asia, Buddhism and Confucianism automatically spring to my mind. How surprised I was to learn that in South Korea today, a tiny fraction of the population is Confucian, 26% is Buddhist, and 26% is Christian- 10% of whom are Catholic. This means that Christianity is tied, numerically speaking, as the largest religion in that Asian nation. Which is remarkable, considering that Christianity was introduced there just over 200 years ago, and the first native-born priest was ordained only in 1846.

That priest was St. Andrew Kim Taegon, whose feast we celebrate today. But it’s not just his feast. We also honor St. Paul Chong Hasang, who was a lay catechist, and his companions, the 103 Korean martyrs of the 19th century, the vast majority of whom were lay people. Indeed, it was the laity who first introduced Catholicism to Korea. It was lay leaders who helped it flourish before the first priests arrived decades later. And Korean Catholicism continues to flourish with a strong and committed laity.

Today’s celebration gives us the opportunity to rejoice, be challenged, and make a commitment. We can rejoice in the Church’s growth amongst the Korean people; we (as clergy and clergy candidates) can be challenged by the fact that the Korean church’s strength has come largely from faithful lay people; and we can commit ourselves to build up the Church in our nation, that the fruits of the Spirit manifested in Korea, may be enjoyed in the United States.

Monday of Ordinary 25

2011-09-18T09:45:00.001-04:00

A few years back, I wrote a children’s poem about the Christmas story. As it took shape, I thought that my little poem wasn’t half bad. That’s when the temptation arose for me to switch my focus from writing it for the benefit of my family, to writing it so I could make some extra dough. In writing, I was using a gift God had given me, but with the wrong intention.

God gives to each of us special gifts, talents, and opportunities. They’re given so that we might serve God, bless our neighbors, and grow as people. In receiving them, the question we should ask is, "How can I use them to glorify God?" Sadly, in our materialistic culture, the question we typically ask is: "How can I use them to make some money?" That may be good capitalism, but it's poor Christianity.

God wants us to use the gifts he gives us. That’s what Jesus meant when he said that we need to set our light on a lampstand instead of hiding it under a bushel. But, as Jesus continued, we let our light shine, not so that we might be able to see, but so that “those who enter may see the light.”

In other words, God’s gifts aren’t simply for our own benefit, but are for the benefit of others. They’re to be used primarily to help people, instead of helping our bottom line. They’re given that might be prophets, instead of seeking a profit.

Today's gospel challenges us to see and use all of what God has given us, not to build up our bank accounts, but to build up the kingdom of God.

Readings for today's Mass: http://usccb.org/bible/readings/091911.cfm

St. Robert Bellarmine

2011-09-16T13:18:00.000-04:00

St. Robert Bellarmine’s parents had vastly different visions of what they wanted their son to be when he grew up. His father wanted him to become a wealthy politician. His mother, a devout woman and a niece of a pope, had other plans. She dreamed her son would become a Jesuit.

Guess who won? St. Robert did indeed become a Jesuit. Even more, he was appointed a cardinal and distinguished himself as one of the most influential theologians of late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, advising popes and engaging kings, Protestant leaders, and scientists in the pressing debates of his day. In honor of his work, he was named a Doctor of the Church.

But I wonder if things might have turned out differently, had St. Robert been born in 2011, instead of 1542? I wonder if his mother would have hoped he’d become a priest at all. Parents today are far less willing than they were in the past to encourage their sons to be priests, in part because they fear that priests wind up being unhappy people. Scientific studies have shown, however, that on average, priests are among the happiest men in America, because, first and foremost, they understand themselves as servants of the Lord. Yet that’s an understanding that all of us can apply to ourselves, whether we’re priests or not, because we’re all called and created, in whatever we do, to be servants of God. As St. Robert himself said: “If you are wise, then know that you have been created for the glory of God and your eternal salvation. This is your good; this is the center of your life; this is the treasure of your heart.”

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/091711.cfm

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

2011-09-15T16:46:00.000-04:00

A very committed Catholic man once shared with me an experience he had with his dad, who was adamantly not a Catholic, or even a Christian of any stripe. The two of them were watching together a movie called The Scarlet and the Black. It’s the true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, a courageous Irish priest who worked at the Vatican during WWII and helped hide thousands of refugees from the Nazis.

The local Gestapo chief, Colonel Kessler, tried in vain to have the priest assassinated. When the Allies occupied Rome, however, and Colonel Kessler was taken into custody, Monsignor O’Flaherty actually helped Kessler’s wife and children, and he visited Kessler in jail on a weekly basis. Thanks to O’Flaherty’s demonstration of Christian love, Kessler himself eventually converted to Catholicism.

At the end of the movie, a text appeared on the screen which contained an appeal for forgiveness. When my lunch companion’s father saw this, he absolutely hit the roof. He was a WWII vet who had fought the Nazis, and he had decided long ago that under no circumstances would he ever forgive them. They had done too much harm and committed too much evil, he said. To forgive them would be wrong, he concluded, because it wouldn’t be fair.

And you know what? He’s absolutely right!! It wouldn’t be fair for him to forgive the Nazis. That’s because there’s nothing “fair” about forgiveness at all. Think about the times someone has hurt you and you’re found it difficult to forgive. Part of us wants to retaliate and get even, right? We want them to know how we feel and to give them a taste of their own medicine. We think: They’ve hurt us; we should be able to hurt them back! After all, it’s only fair…

But forgiveness, as we Christians understand it, is not fair. Remember today’s first reading, from Sirach? It called sinners to repent and seek reconciliation with God. Why? Because God is merciful, and “generous in forgiving.” Not because he’s fair.

Jesus in today’s gospel makes it quite clear that God isn’t fair. In his parable, God the Father is the landowner who paid workers the same wage whether they had worked all day in the fields or only the last hour. Fairness would dictate that those who worked more should get paid more. But this isn’t a story meant to teach us about salaries in the workplace. It’s a story about salvation. And salvation, as Jesus concludes his parable, is not about fairness. It’s about the generosity of God.

To say that God isn’t fair can sound rather strange to us, can’t it? This is because so often life isn’t fair. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We conclude that in contrast to all of this unfairness, surely God must be fair! But God isn’t fair. And this has to do with a difference between what we might call human fairness, or human justice, and the justice of God.

Human justice is about people getting what they deserve. I’ve head it described as a “nicely dressed ‘eye-for-an-eye’ philosophy.” But God’s justice is entirely different. It’s one of the ways, as the Sirach reading reminded us, that God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts. Do you recall the Opening Prayer we offered together at the beginning of this Mass? It said that “the perfection of justice is found in (God’s) love.” In other words, God’s justice is about love. And love is about giving of one’s self for the good of others. Love isn’t concerned with getting what we think we deserve; it isn’t preoccupied with getting our so-called “fair share.” It’s about giving without counting the cost.

It is this love, this “divine justice,” that we as Christians are called to give. But so often, we fall short of this standard, all in the name of “fairness.” We only love those who love us back. We’re only kind to those who are kind to us. We limit our patience to what we think is reasonable. Such as, “I’ve been patient long enough- you’ll do what I want now!” We restrict our forgiveness with a “three-strikes and you’re out” mentality-which really is probation and not forgiveness at all. We say, “I’ll change- but only if she changes too.” After all, it’s only fair, right?

Fairness also leads us to “keep score” in our relationships. We keep track of our how often we’ve been hurt, how much sex we have, how much housework we do, how money is used (Such as: she bought a new sweater; I should get a new TV), and how time is spent (Like: he went fishing on Saturday, I should get a day off too).

When we act this way, we tell ourselves, “It’s only fair!” In reality, we’re just being selfish. Thank God that God isn’t fair with us! Because he loves us, God doesn’t give us what we deserve. Instead, God forgives us! And, as we’ve already established, forgiveness isn’t fair at all. The fact is that we don’t deserve anything God gives us, because everything God gives us is his free gift of grace. As I’ve heard it said many times: Justice is getting what we deserve; mercy is not getting what we deserve; grace is getting what we don’t deserve. Mercy and grace are what God gives us. And neither one of them is fair.

God doesn’t call us to be fair either. Instead, God calls us to be more than fair, because God calls us to love. He asks us not to keep score and focus only on getting our fair share and giving only what we think other people deserve. He invites us instead to be people of generosity, kindness, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. Just like he is with us.

Our Lady of Sorrows

2011-09-14T15:36:00.000-04:00

How did Mary show her feelings as she witnessed her Son’s Passion? Was she numb with shock? Did she try to be stoic and stifle her tears? Did she crumple in a heap and sob uncontrollably? Or did she express her anguish in all of these ways?

Scripture doesn’t answer these questions. However, if Mary is human, which she is, and if she loves her Son, which she does, then surely the Passion must have filled her with sorrow. It is this sorrow that we recall today, the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows.

We recall especially that Mary suffered while Jesus suffered. When we suffer, Mary invites us to gaze at Jesus on the cross. Jesus, however, refers us back to Mary and says: “Behold your mother.” It’s as if he says, “Look at Mary; she’s your example; do as she did.” And what did Mary do? She stayed with Jesus at the foot of the cross. She didn’t run away. We can learn three things from this.

First, when we stay at the foot of the cross, we realize that we’re not alone in our suffering. We have a Lord who has suffered for us, and who suffers with us. This can be for us a source of consolation and strength.

Second, staying at the foot of the cross helps us to think not only about ourselves, something so easy to do when we suffer. By being at the cross, Mary was able to comfort her Son, in spite of her own pain. Her witness can teach us to be compassionate too.

Third, keeping the cross in sight reminds us that it was followed by an empty tomb- which is a cause for joy. As Mary learned, sorrow and joy can coexist, and sorrow will never have the final word. Through her witness, Our Lady of Sorrows embodies for us what Mother Teresa once wrote so beautifully: “Never let anything cause you so much sorrow that you forget the joy of Christ risen!”

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/091511.cfm

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

2011-09-13T17:11:00.000-04:00

Lamin Sanneh is a Gambian who teaches at Yale Divinty School. His grandfather and uncle are influential Muslim clerics, and Sanneh himself grew up a strict Muslim. He ultimately converted to Catholicism, however, primarily because of his fascination with the cross of Jesus. Specifically, Jesus’ crucifixion led him to conclude that suffering is not alien to God’s nature, as Islam teaches, but is at the heart of God’s compassion.

As Lamin Sanneh came to appreciate, we have a God who humbled himself on a cross, as today’s Scripture readings remind us, that we might have eternal life. This is why we need to exalt the cross. We need to lift it high and proclaim the good news it signifies for everyone to hear. It changed the life of Lamin Sanneh. It can change the world. And the world desperately needs to hear of the cross, especially during these days as we recall an anniversary of terror and violence.

Pope Benedict has said: “Precisely in this moment… we need the God who triumphs on the Cross, who wins not with violence but with his love. Precisely in this moment we need the face of Christ, to know the true face of God and thereby to carry reconciliation and light to this world.”

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/091411.cfm