Homilies & Reflections

Homily for Holy Family Sunday, December 27, 2020
Gen. 15:1-6, 21:1-3; Heb. 11:8, 11-12, 17-19; Luke 2: 22-40

Today is Holy Family Sunday. The entire liturgy for this feast is dominated by the theme of faith, an appropriate subject for these difficult times. In both readings, the family, which is rooted in both the Old and the New Covenants, results from God’s renewed activity. Abraham has grown old and Sarah is infertile. Then God alters destiny. The parents become fruitful and the son, Isaac, is given as a pure gift from God. This episode came to represent all marriages in Israel. A child was God’s gift. Every child pointed toward the Messiah. No family dare close itself off to God’s purposes. The family is to remain faithful, open and at God’s disposal. Such openness was widened to a humanly unbearable and inexplicable point when God tested Abraham by asking him to return the son to which he had attached his promise of potential descendants numberless “as the stars of heaven”. 

God intervenes in the very family he has miraculously founded and apparently intends to shatter it. From a human perspective God has obviously contradicted himself. But because it is God who is contradicting himself Abraham in faith obeys. On Mount Moriah he prepares to give back to God the most precious gift he had ever been given. Israel retells this story as one of the most important in its history. It is the event that founded Israel as God’s own people in faith. This event achieved its final fulfillment in the Holy Family. God does not make St. Joseph physically fruitful. But St. Joseph reaches the highest level of human fruitfulness by stepping aside. He gives way to God’s generative potency. In the Temple, Simeon’s prophecy defines the inner shape of this family. On the one hand, the Child will open and spread this family unspeakably beyond earthly limits. On the other, a sword will pierce his mother’s soul. She will in faith offer her child up and be herself drawn into the offering when her child’s time of sacrifice, on Golgotha, arrives. The family of flesh and blood finds completion in the spiritual family where Mary will become the Mother of many. Especially in this difficult year of pandemic, when many families must suffer painful separations, it’s well for all of us to recall that the Holy Family is no romantic idyll in Nazareth. Neither is the family life of any of us as generous Christians.

Let us remember that, marked by unshakable faith in God, our Christian family life, like that of the Holy Family, is located squarely between the sacrifice on Mount Moriah and the sacrifice on Golgotha. 

Homily of Saturday, December 26, 2020

Today we celebrate the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, directly after the celebrations of Christmas. Each year it takes me by surprise me that so quickly after the great celebration of Our Lord’s Incarnation we’re brought up with this intense reminder of what its cost is, or should be, for all of us. This Christmas in particular the greatest gift I could have possibly received was from a friend. For forty years we’ve exchanged greetings, but my friend and I have never thought of exchanging any real particulars other than the general facts of our progress in life. We have always felt familiar and close. To me, he is himself and to him I’m just the same me. He has been a parish priest for many years.  We always remained who we are for each other and that meant that we never even sent each other photos of ourselves. This year he sent me a picture of himself, so I sent him one of me. 

I was surprised at how much he has aged, of course. But I was absolutely stunned at the holiness I saw written in that smiling, vibrant, aged face. Written in the lines of that face were a thousand stories of devotion and loyalty to the persons to whom he had been dedicated for so long. Without words, I could read of the victories, the losses, the joys and the tragedies he must have lived as holy encounters of salvation history; The sort of thing you could never put into words, except indirectly in a little homily like this. 
This feast of Saint Stephen reminds us of the fact that so quickly after Christ’s life on earth, martyrdoms were already happening. There were already thousands of Christians, including the Marthas and Marys; the Saint Johns; there were Saint Stephens. And there were the Judases. We are reminded that these have always have been present to the Church and always will be to the end of time. 
It puzzles people that Pope Francis isn’t immediately changing the organization of the church, firing and hiring and doing all of the things that an executive does in an organization. It is because the Church is not an organization, it’s a body. It’s the body of Christ and it progresses along the paths of grace like those trodden in quiet devotion by the likes of my friend Fr. Dan.

And I can tell by looking at his eyes that my friend he has dealt with all the Peters, the Pauls, the Judases, the Mary Magdalenes, the Marthas and Marys, the Lazaruses, the Johns many times in his years of ministry. The untold stories written on that face are incredibly edifying, beyond words. You will never meet him, but you know him now. Pray for him and his work which continues every day.  He’s a faithful worker in the vineyard, seldom if ever giving any thought to what he has done and what he has accomplished. 
Related to this is the case of a friend of mine who one time found her grandmother’s journals in an attic of their farmhouse. She said to her grandmother, “These are astounding; what you accomplished in your life; it’s just miraculous.” Her grandmother looked at her and said, “I have no idea what you are talking about. I just took it day by day. I couldn’t care less about those diaries. I just took it a day at a time.”  And I am sure that is exactly what my friend Father Dan would say as well. Please pray for him and for all parish priests on this feast of Saint Stephen, that they will continue the great work that they do for the salvation of us all. And pray too, that we in our turn will accept more perfectly our God-given positions, as Saint Stephen and so many Christians before us and after us have done and will do.

Homily of Christmas Morning, 2020

As we celebrate this morning the birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Mary and Son of God, God with Us, our Savior, the Anointed One – Messiah – Christ, our readings this morning are very theological. This is to emphasize that what we celebrate today is the foundational element of the Christian faith. If not for this event some 2000 years ago, we would not be in this church this morning. There would be no church here or anywhere; and we would not be Christian, but probably druids or something like that. Among the many titles given to Jesus, one of the most frequent is King. We are told in scripture and taught thru our liturgy that Jesus Christ is King. “The Lord is King” – Isaiah says to us this morning. Jesus is the descendant of David, of his royal line, the King of the Nations, the King of Kings, the Prince or King of Peace. The title is so frequent and recurring, that it must be important for our understanding of the meaning of Jesus Christ in the human history that he, as God, entered as a very human baby, in the same way each one of us does. The Magi who traveled around a vast desert to honor him understood. Herod, who was threatened by the news of a new king’s birth, he surely understood. 

But we in 2020 may have a hard time coming to grips with the concept of a king. Kings today are not what they were. And even what they really were we cannot adequately know from history alone, since much of it was written by the king’s own men. But the human office of kingship and kingdom was a very significant development in the growth of human culture and civilization, which in a very real way created the world we live in. With kings and their armies, along with any benefits, came, taxation, exploitation, expanded war and all its suffering. So in many ways, a king was bad for the quality of human lives but great for civilization, and the accumulation of wealth and power. Now the children of Israel were a tribal people. But they insisted that the prophet Samuel anoint for them a king, just like all the people around them had. Samuel was outraged; God had always been king of Israel. And he told them outright what a bad deal for them it would be to have a king. But they were adamant, and so he anointed king Saul (whose only qualifications were his height and good looks). Just as Samuel expected, Saul didn’t work out. And so he was replaced by David, anointed king as a youth of maybe 13 or 14. Now David was a good king. He made a few mistakes, but was just and pious and pleasing to God, and his kingdom grew and prospered. And his successor son Solomon was wise and righteous, but a little too fond of wealth, women and power and in the end that undid him and his son. The kingdom split, and there came lots of wars in addition to lots of bad kings. Evils and injustice flourished. Finally, the biggest kings around, of Assyria, Egypt and Babylon put an end to the kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

It was in this time of really bad kings and rampant evil that the prophets became inspired to look forward to a new son of David, royal and righteous, who would set things right. So the chosen people dreamed with the prophets for centuries. Their savior king would come. Our liturgy makes it clear this morning that it happened at last. With the birth of Jesus, “The Lord is King” again. Back the way it is supposed to be. “They see directly…the Lord, see him restoring Zion.” The Lord Jesus is a King like only God can be. Not a warlord who burdens his own people and spreads devastation, but a protector, a comforter, the Sun of Justice and the Prince of Peace, who beats swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. As King He restores the original rights and freedom of our humanity, all lost to sin and given up to earthly kings. Scripture scholars would call Him a contrast phenomenon, so utterly different from the kings before him. Or, I might add, so different from all the kings after him, Christian or otherwise. 

The story of Jesus birth is but the first chapter in the story of this surprising King. God likes surprises and defies our human expectations. Not born in a palace or fortress like the others, not surrounded by walls, not born rich or powerful with an army. He was born to be God with his people, and the king of men’s hearts…because a real change of heart is what it takes to realize and actualize His kingdom. As a lawgiver, His sermon on the mount is radically different from any kings’ laws before or since. The child born today, St John tells us in the gospel, is the Son, all grace and all truth, through whom God created the universe, the Son whose very imprint is on the universe; the Son who will inherit all things, to whom all things will return at the end of time. And of course, to whom each of us will return on our leaving this world. We would say…Jesus rules! This little child. The prophet Isaiah says …A little child will lead them. St. Matthew tells us unless we become like little children, Jesus cannot be our king. It is a known thing, that children judge with the heart. And Christmas in our society especially belongs to children. All the symbols of Christmas speak to children, and to the child in each of us Jesus wishes to restore. Jesus born today is the king of hearts. None of us would be here if we didn’t claim to be citizens of His kingdom. So as we celebrate His birthday, may we each give Him His rightful place in our heart and allegiance in our way of living, this Prince of Peace, just as truly as we give our allegiance to the kings, presidents and powers of the earth, those who have replaced them and their laws. 

King of Kings and Lord of Lords. From His fullness we have all received, so following Him let us carry His light into the dark places not only of our own lives (for we all have dark places), but those of our world, which has innumerable dark places waiting for His light that we carry. And He shall rule forever and ever.

Homily of Midnight Mass, 2020

It is finally Christmas, Christmas 2020, probably unlike any in our lifetimes, more solitary, quiet and reserved just as it must have been for Mary and Joseph until the gang of shepherds showed up. Still for us, everything is supposed to be ready. All gifts bought and wrapped. All Christmas cards in the mail. Everything ready to celebrate for the coming into this world of ours, ready for the entrance into human history of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Because God so honored us with the gift of his presence, we honor others, those we love, with gifts too. I’m not sure how many of us think of that as we do our Christmas shopping. The merchants and the media put other ideas into our head.

As a child, there were always a lot of gifts under our Christmas tree. On Christmas eve, my parents best friends always came over for dinner, music and socializing. I would be put to bed about ten o clock and eventually everyone else went off to midnight mass. I could never sleep. There was too much excitement and anticipation. I’d entertain myself with the radio, and every now and then there would be something entertaining outside, like hearing the lions roaring in the zoo in the park across the street. Or the night the train coming out of the park hit a car in the crossing right in front of our house. When I got older, my father changed the Christmas rules. Instead of opening all the presents on Christmas morning, I could pick out one present to open on Christmas eve. The first year of that I picked out an interesting looking package from my sister and brother in law. When I opened it, was I ever surprised. It was an array of long skewers attached to a circular disk with a square hole in the middle. I had no idea what that was about…my sister wasn’t there to ask. I just chalked it up to bad luck. There were lots of other packages under the tree for the next morning. But I did not know, one box wasn’t there. It was too big. My parents brought that out for me the next morning. Since I had been learning the joy of cooking the foods I liked the way I liked them, they gave me a barbecue grill with a motor driven spit. That made sense out of the previous night’s gift, and it was a gift I could share with everyone by barbecuing for the whole family. 

To be a human being is to be gifted, not only by those we love, but by God himself. And to be fully human is to share our gifts. One of the gifts that Jesus gave us when he ascended 2000 years ago is the Church. Not this building, which was built in the 1960’s, but the whole Catholic Church, so we could stay close to him forever. It is a gift we still have and can make good use of all our lives. The Church is all the baptized persons in the World, but for us it this Abbey family, the people we see all around us here. It’s not easy being a member of the Catholic Church.  I know, because I myself left the Church and stayed away for 20 years. It’s not easy. We’ve all seen how religion, any religion, sometimes brings out the worst in human beings. Many members of the Catholic Church do not come to church regularly. Others have drifted away from the Church as their lives have become complicated and filled with responsibilities. And some have simply left altogether, quit, because something happened or because there is something or things they don’t like. Nevertheless, the Church consists of all baptized persons, even those who have drifted away into the outfield and even those who have left. Jesus Christ still loves us all and wants to be close to everyone. That is why He was born, to bridge the infinite distance between God and man, every man and every woman…and child. 

Children are really important to the Church. In many ways the most important people in it, not only because the church and the world will belong to them in the future, but most of all because Jesus has told us adults that we must be like them. We are supposed to follow their example. They are happy; their lives are not too complicated. They know how to have fun rather simply and easily. They learn new things very fast and they notice things we overlook because we have seen them so often. They ask lots of good questions because they really want to know. They say what’s on their minds. They make friends easily. They trust other people, especially their parents. They sing and pray easily. All those things become more difficult for adults.

I think that Jesus really enjoyed being a child. It must have been a big relief to put aside all that responsibility of being God, to experience the fun of playing, learning and growing. We don’t hear in the Bible about Jesus as a child because his childhood was so normal and he didn’t do any miracles to call attention to himself. He just wanted to be a child like any other while he could. And that means that what we experience as human beings is what God himself experienced. Because he became one of us, He understands us from the inside. 
He is not only God our Father, but God our brother, and God our friend who gave his life to rescue us. That all started at Jesus birthday, which we celebrate together today.

May the LORD bless us and guard us. May the LORD make His face shed light upon us and be gracious to us. May the LORD lift up His face unto us and give us all peace and a happy Christmas.

Homily of Thursday, December 24, 2020 

The wait is over. Our God is at hand. He keeps silence no longer. Zechariah, the father of the forerunner to Jesus, the father of the man who Jesus would call the greatest of the prophets, a Priest of the Old Covenant, forms the last connection between the Old and New Testaments. The Priest, who doubted the angel who appeared to him in the Temple, has had his voice restored after naming his son John, as the angel had told him to. Immediately, he gives praise to the God of Israel, the God who comes into the world, the God who reveals Himself as the one, true God of the world, who comes to redeem us from our sins, the  eternal Word, spoken from eternity, made flesh.
    These events happen just west of Jerusalem, in the hill country of Judea. Meanwhile, perhaps passing by Zechariah’s home, 12 km from the end of their journey, is the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. They have been travelling to Bethlehem, to the Royal City of David, just south of Jerusalem, where Joseph, a descendant of David, an heir to a throne seemingly lost to history, must register for the census. Mary travels with him. In her womb is the God of Israel who is on the verge of being born. When they reach Bethlehem, they will find no room at the inn, and be forced to take shelter in a manger. There, among the animals, shepherds and angels, Christ is born.
    Today, we commemorate the end of the Old Covenant, the last preparation for Christ. God, the Eternal Word, waiting in the womb of the Virgin, has also been waiting in the womb of Israel. Zechariah’s son John, a priest by inheritance, the greatest of the prophets by God’s call, brings together two important offices of the Old Covenant. He prepares the way for the Messiah, the son of God, born of the house of David, the great king with whom God made a covenant. We can join Zechariah in confidence, as we do at the end of Lauds, a prayer said by all priests and religious that forms part of the core of the prayer of the Body of Christ, saying, “In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us. To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Tomorrow, Christ comes.

Homily of Wednesday, December 23, 2020

This is from a talk of Pope Saint John XXIII: "St. Augustine gives a name to the divine Word which appeared at Bethlehem: he calls him the Truth, because he is the Only-begotten of the Father, shining in all the glory of his divine nature to enlighten the whole created world, visible and invisible, material and spiritual, human and superhuman.
  "The two Testaments contain the revelation of a doctrine which is from eternity, the essence and splendor of truth, shining through all the ages and revealed to man, because he is considered the masterpiece and high priest of the visible world. It is truly the living substantial doctrine of the development of both the natural and supernatural orders.
  "In fact the first words of the Old Testament describe the origin of the world; the last words of the New Testament: “Come, Lord Jesus,” are the summary of the whole history of law and grace.
  "It is natural that the souls created by God and destined for eternal life should seek to discover the truth, the primary object of the human mind’s activity. Why must we speak the truth? Because truth comes from God, and between man and the truth there is no merely accidental relationship but one which is necessary and essential."

Homily of the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 20, 2020

We have nearly reached Christmas. The waiting period of Advent is almost over. Since December 17, the Advent liturgy has shifted into a higher gear: fully shifting the focus from Christ’s coming at the end of time to Christ’s coming in a particular place and at a particular time, from the long wait for the final establishment of Christ’s Kingdom, to the imminent celebration of the Word Made Flesh. 

In today’s Gospel, we see the mysterious way in which Christ, the Word made Flesh, has come into the world. Gabriel, an angel, a messenger from God, goes to visit a virgin named Mary, and tells her that she will conceive and bear a son, named Jesus, which means the Lord saves, and he will inherit the throne of David, he will be the Son of God. Ultimately, Mary responds with some of the most important words ever spoken by a human being: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” 9 months later, Jesus Christ, is born in a manger, in Bethlehem, the city of David.

That moment is the one, true turning point of history. All of Salvation History hinges on the words of a young virgin betrothed to a Galilean carpenter. In that moment, she holds the fate of humanity in her hands. Because of her, God becomes man, and human beings are made capable of receiving God; because of her, Jesus Christ, like us in all ways but sin, dies to free us from our sins, and is risen from the dead, conquering death.

These events, however, do not come from nothing. As St. Paul tells us, this is the revelation of “the mystery kept secret for long ages but now manifested through the prophetic writings and … made known to all nations.” This preparation for the coming of Christ begins with the creation of Adam and Eve in the image of God, and relies on God’s choice of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the Patriarchs for a chosen nation, Israel. Through Moses, God reveals Himself and His law to this one particular nation and leads it back to the specific land that he has chosen for it. Throughout the long history of Israel, God prepares it to be the one place where Christ can come, the people to whom he belongs.

This is seen through the first reading, where David discusses building a Temple for God’s tabernacle with the prophet Nathan. That night, Nathan receives a message from God instructing him to tell David not to build the Temple. This Temple eventually would be built by David’s son, Solomon, according to instructions set down by David, and would not be built during David’s reign. Instead, the Temple that David builds is his line: God will raise up an heir to take up the throne of David forever. In the end, what happens must be beyond even David’s wildest dreams: God Himself becomes part of David’s line when Mary says yes. When Jesus Christ is born, he doesn’t just take on a human appearance and body, as a Greek god like Zeus would. He truly becomes a descendant of David, an heir to David’s throne, which is transformed beyond what David could have imagined. Jesus Christ is not an abstract model. He is not a myth that shows us how to live. He is a full flesh and blood human being, with a human reason and will that are fully conformed to, but not mixed with his divine will. 

All of this happened at a specific time in history, and at a specific place, which makes it fitting for us to celebrate these events on specific days each year. In the early Church, there were a number of arguments between different groups on when to celebrate Easter. There is much less clear information about the establishment of a date for Christmas. There is a common theory about the dating of Christmas that it comes from the Christianization of the Roman, pagan feast of the unconquered sun. This theory makes a powerful point of the way in which Christianity can transform and transfigure the natural world, taking a pagan feast and reorienting it towards Christ, however it also leaves the date of Christmas itself entirely arbitrary, without any particular reason why it should be on December 25, as opposed to any other day. According to this theory, the date of the Annunciation, the date of the events of our Gospel today nine months before Christmas, is then given the date March 25. 

There is no particular reason why this couldn’t be the way the tradition developed. However, there is another theory I’ve read that better helps to explain the way January 6 also developed as a date for the Nativity of Christ in the East, and gives our date of December 25 itself more theological weight. According to this theory, the dating for Christmas came directly from the process of dating the crucifixion. In the west, this date, the 14th of Nisan, was eventually established as March 25. In the east, taking the 14th day of the first spring month in the local Greek calendar gave April 6 as the day of the crucifixion. The Annunciation, the date of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary, was then established as being on those same days because it is fitting that Jesus Christ be conceived and die on the same day. He conquers sin and takes on our nature on the same day. Adding nine months gave Christmas on December 25 or January 6. Over time, in both the East and west, these two days merged into two separate feasts, giving us the 12 days of Christmas.

This theory makes explicit the connection between the two key Christological mysteries: God becomes man, and the God-man dies for our sins and is raised from the dead that we may have new life. As Fulton Sheen puts it, whereas every other person came into the world to live, Christ came, in some sense, to die. Within the mystery of his incarnation, the focus of our attention during the Christmas season, is the mystery of his death and resurrection, the focus of our attention during the Paschal Triduum and Easter. It goes the other way too: within the mystery of the death and resurrection of the heir to David’s throne, the Messiah, the Son of God who is truly man, is the mystery of the incarnation, the mystery of God becoming man.
 
Giving specific dates for these events helps to emphasize their historicity: Jesus Christ, God and man, really did die and rise again. He really was conceived and born of a virgin. Connecting these dates helps emphasize the theological connection between the beginning and end of Jesus’ life. There is also a poetic beauty to the specific dates used. March 25, the day of Mary’s fiat, and Christ’s crucifixion, the day that restores life, is fittingly at the beginning of spring, at the point when life begins to return in the Northern Hemisphere. It is not accidental that JRR Tolkein chose March 25 to also be the day that the Ring and the tyranny of Sauron are destroyed in the Lord of the Rings. Similarly December 25, during the middle of winter, when the days stop getting shorter and the long process of returning to spring starts, is a fitting day to celebrate the birth of Christ, the turning of the tide against the powers of sin and death. In our joy as we celebrate Christmas, let us make sure we remember Jesus Christ, true God and true man, whose birth we celebrate. 

Homily of Saturday, December 19, 2020

We should note that Zecharaiah and Elizabeth are reckoned as just and upright people in the sight of God. They are like Saint Joseph: they are the flowering of the old Law, righteous in the yes of God. And note too that Elizabeth is barren, and she has lived a long life in what she considered disgrace. To be barren, sterile, was considered to be a disgrace; something was wrong somewhere. This is a theme that goes through the Old Testament: the barren woman who bears a notable son, who in some sense rescues the holy people of Israel. The most obvious example of that is Abraham’s wife, Sarah, who cannot, cannot, cannot have a child, although God has said to her the line of Abraham would continue, and of course eventually she does conceive Isaac by God’s power. And so it goes. We’ve heard of Samson’s mother’s situation, and there is the mother of Samuel, and so it is in what we think of as the Old Testament. And then, the culmination of all this is seen in the barrenness, it can be seen that way, the virginity of the holy virgin. She, it seems, had decided to remain a virgin in some sense, for the glory of God. But it is out of that consecrated virginity that she becomes the fruitful woman, the fruitful mother of the savior, not only of Israel, but of the world.

Homily of Friday, December 17, 2020 
Gen 49:2, 8-10; Mt 1: 1-17

“Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.”

Matthew’s narrating of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus gets off to a rousing start and speeds us along so effectively that we barely realize that we have just been given an extraordinary glimpse of the man Joseph, husband of Mary, as he was before he heard from an angel for the first time. We meet Joseph, an Israelite who has just discovered that his young wife is pregnant with a child, and it’s not his. Biblical law in that day mandated the death penalty for 36 offenses. One of them was adultery. The death penalty was rarely carried out, though, for fear that an injustice might be irreversibly perpetrated. Nevertheless, Joseph had every right under the law to pursue this or some lesser chastisement. But he didn’t. He resolved instead to divorce Mary quietly. How he expected to manage this is hard to imagine in a local country setting like Galilee where everyone’s business was everyone else’s. At any rate, it’s important to give him full credit. Joseph, the righteous man, had extended himself well beyond the bounds of his “just” nature. Why?  Maybe his reputation, maybe his love for his young wife, maybe the obvious goodness of her nature made him lenient. We don’t know. But whatever the natural occasion, for Joseph, contrary to any feelings of offended justice, a not-to-be-stilled small voice must have insisted that somehow a sacred opportunity was in danger of being missed.

Justice is good. It’s the foundation of existence and puts all things in their place as they should be. But as the saying goes: “Justice supreme may be supreme injustice”. To know what someone really deserves, we would need to be able to see to the bottom of the soul. Not having that capacity, the only way to be sure that injustice is not being done, is to place supreme value on the possibility innocence, of extending the benefit of the doubt, of extending mercy. Justice regulates, mercy creates. Justice is the foundation of life. From mercy leaps the joy of transformed life. Joseph’s refusal to enter a cycle of offense and retribution was already a great grace. His positive response to this gift was his “fiat”. With it he released a counter-cycle of grace upon grace, coming almost immediately when the angel spoke to him, and when, accordingly, he took Mary into his home as his wife, a counter-cycle that traversed the birth, passion, death and resurrection of his foster son, and continues for each of us to this day. St. Joseph is for us an example of one who reveals the unity between justice that puts all things in their proper place and mercy that raises everything from its place and gives it a radically greater value.

Homily of Wednesday, December 16, 2020

The question, to me at any rate, in today’s gospel is: who is having trouble with Our Lord’s messiahship? Is it John the Baptist, or is it the disciples? …I have to admit that, at least among the Fathers of the church and even later, there is the tendency to say no, it’s the disciples who are having doubts about Jesus as the messiah, and John sends them to Him for confirmation. But it sounds to me really as if it is John who is the one who is beginning to have doubts. And why shouldn’t he? He’s in prison. This isn’t where the forerunner of the messiah is supposed to be. He is in prison, and he is in prison for a really small, quibbling matter – the jealousy of Herod’s wife. And he will eventually die a rather squalid death because of that woman’s jealousy, and because he stood up for the Law, and because Herod was too squeamish to let him off execution. So, is it not reasonable to believe that he was having doubts? Except that it is hard for us to say that the greatest of the prophets, the last of the prophets, the greatest born among men, was having doubts about Our Lord as messiah. And I think you can say that for many people, and maybe for many of us, Jesus is a disappointment as the messiah. After all, most of us, what we really want for our messiah is somebody like Superman who, when we are in trouble, will come in, get us out of it, with not too much trouble for ourselves, and then go away and leave us alone. But that is not the way Jesus is the messiah. Quite a different way. And so he tells the disciples, “Go tell John what you see.” And he quotes from the prophet Isaiah, a quotation which is understood to apply to the messiah. The only thing he adds, or the only is added here to the text of Isaiah is raising the dead. So Our Lord’s answer here, in one of the few places where he acknowledges that He is the messiah – but he does it obliquely – is “Yes, I am the messiah.” So, I think we – at least I – can feel sympathy with John the Baptist, and I ask him to pray that my faith will not fail.

Homily of the Third Sunday of Advent, December 13, 2020
(Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11; Thess. 5: 16-24; John 1: 6-8, 9-28)

Today is the Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday. Our liturgy today lays special emphasis on joy as we await the great mystery of our Savior’s birth.  The flowers at the altar, the music of the organ, the rose vestments, and the Scripture passages all contribute to a sense of joyful hope. For instance, Isaiah, in today’s first reading, rejoices as he sees the day coming when God’s kingdom will bring peace and justice.  “The Spirit of God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.”  It was on this segment of Isaiah’s prophecy that Jesus based his very first homily in the synagogue at Nazareth, when he actually announced the arrival of the Kingdom. (Lk 4: 16-20). The Responsorial, sung after the first reading, is almost always from the Book of Psalms.  But today it’s Mary’s hymn of joy which she proclaimed when her cousin Elizabeth recognized her as mother of our Lord. In our second reading St. Paul makes the connection between joy, prayer and gratitude when he tells us to pray without ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances. “Rejoice always.”

We learn that all of Judea had been hearing the powerful voice of John the Baptist in our Gospel today.  At this time Messianic expectation was at a fever pitch among the people.  The rumor had begun to circulate that John might be the Messiah, so priests and Levites are sent from Jerusalem to inquire.

“Who are you”? They ask.
He tells them plainly: He’s not the Messiah. 
“What then? Are you Elijah?”
“No, I’m not”
“Are you the Prophet promised by Moses?”
“No…” 
“Who are you then?  We need to give in answer to those who sent us.”

John tells them that he’s the one foretold by Isaiah: “The voice of one crying out in the desert; ‘make strait the way of the Lord.’”

He is in fact a prophet.  He is the last and the greatest of them.  We commonly see John as a fierce ascetic and a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher. But specifically as prophet, he emerges for us as a forceful bringer of hope and joy. John the Baptist’s preeminent distinction lies in his function of announcing the immanence of the Kingdom.  He is so close to that stupendous event that he actually brushes it. We know nothing of John’s life in the wilderness across the Jordan where he had been living for years. Like his cousin Jesus in Nazareth, John’s young life was a hidden life. Then we learn from Luke that the word of God came to John in the desert. (Lk 3)  Without giving details, he marks this event as an Old Testament prophetic call and in this way identifies John with the long line of Israel’s prophets whose ministries began in a similar way.  

There was a pattern to God’s call of a prophet in Israel.  Different as they were in their personalities and their missions, the word of God came to each in ways that were alike.  The manner of John’s later ministry indicates that the pattern held for him as well. A permanent one-sidedness fundamental to revelation was central to God’s manifestation of his divinity.  It could never have been anticipated by human imagination, which was quickly overwhelmed by God’s act in the coming of his word.  For instance, in the great epiphany on Sinai, Moses’ drops to his knees and bows his face to the earth. Likewise, in the encounter with God’s glory, Elijah veils his face, Isaiah fears he is doomed, Ezekiel falls to the ground and Daniel collapses in a swoon. Yet at the same time, the event is greeted by each with an almost unbelieving amazement. “This day we have seen that God speaks with man, yet man lives.” (Dt 5:24) But it also involves something like a death.  The word of God discloses his absolute holiness.  But in the same moment the abysmal depths of human un-holiness are devastatingly exposed.   Facing this, the fallen nature of the beholder is tremendously mortified.  Hence the saying that traverses scripture: “a man cannot see God and live.”  Here surely, are the roots of John’s vehement hatred of sin. 

Instantly after this, the spirit of God places the thunderstruck visionary back on his feet, no doubt well prepared to listen.  Only then does God speak, investing him with his prophetic mission. John’s was to direct fallen humanity to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. He was to be the precursor of Jesus, who would call him “a prophet, and more than a prophet.”  Indeed, more than a prophet, he was that transitional figure who would inaugurate the final, resplendent period of fulfillment of prophecy itself.  “the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!” John calls us over the centuries to repent and make straight the way of the Lord.  This is still our Advent task.  And it’s the only path to authentic joy. In Scripture and especially in the Eucharist we encounter God’s splendor, the divine quality that attracts and rouses us, the splendor that makes the gospel the Good News.
  
So today on Gaudete Sunday, let us reflect revelation’s quality of shining forth joy from which radiates the gladness of the Glad Tidings.

Homily of Saturday, December 12, 2020

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the queen and patroness of the Americas. How does it happen that the mother of our savior should come to visit us? It is a cultural start for us to realize that the Virgin who in 1531 miraculously appeared to an Aztec Indian in Mexico whose name was “Cua-uh-tla-toa-tzin,” meaning "eagle that talks" whom we now know as Saint Juan Diego, that she spoke to him in the Indian language and Mary asked to be called by that name “Coa-tlax-sope-uh,” which means “the one who stamps out the serpent.” “Coa-tlax-sope-uh” was Hispanicized as “Guadalupe”. It is a cultural start for us to realize that we are the minority in the Americas, that the Americas are more Latin than Anglo, and that it was once more Indian, than anything else. Because the Aztec religion, whose sacred image was the serpent, thrived on human sacrifices, tens of thousands a year, Our Lady of Guadalupe has been taken as the patroness and protector of the unborn children, hundreds of thousands of whom are sacrificed every year in our society. Today’s gospel relates the visitation of Our Lady to Elizabeth. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the visitation of our Lady to us in the Americas. Her message of mercy and grace is needed more today than even then. The conquistadores put an end to Aztec human sacrifice by eliminating the Aztec people and culture. How will we save today’s victims? Certainly, our culture of selfishness and death must change. May God help us do that. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners.

Homily of Friday, December 11

A Reflection from Pope Saint John Paul II.

"What does Advent mean? 
"Advent is discovery of a great aspiration of men and women and peoples toward the house of the Lord.
    'The Lord is the God of peace, He is the God of the Alliance with mankind. When, during the night at Bethlehem, poor shepherds will set off to walk to the stable where shall be accomplished the first coming of the Son of Man, the song of the angels will lead them, “Peace on earth to those on whom His favor rests” (Lk 2:14).
    "This vision of the divine peace belongs to all the Messianic expectation in the old Alliance, “One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again” (Is 2:4-5). Advent brings the invitation to the peace of God for all mankind.
    "It is necessary for us to construct this peace and continually reconstruct it in ourselves and with others; in families, in relations with neighbors, in workplaces, in the life of the whole of society.
    "To serve such peace with manifold dimensions, there is need to listen to the words of the prophet as well: “Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain.… That he may instruct us in his ways, for from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Is 2:3).
    "Advent is the time when the law and the Word of the Lord must again penetrate hearts, must find once more confirmation in social living. They serve the good of man. They build peace!"

Homily of Tuesday, December 8, 2012

Today is the feast day of the patron of the United States. Mary, under her many different titles, is the patron saint of more nations than anyone else. And it is most appropriate that Mary is our patron as the Immaculate Conception. When it was founded the United States was a new conception in a world of different but old nations. We conceived a new idea about government, about the workings of democracy, about the God given rights of human beings that a worthy nation must protect. For us, Mary was a good choice. Mary we know suffered and the first suffering for Mary was her reputation. An angel may have appeared to Joseph to tell him that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but no angel appeared to her neighbors, her relatives, or her rabbi in the synagogue at Nazareth. They all could see that Mary was going to be a unwed mother, and they knew she was not yet married. And just because Joseph appeared to make an honest woman out of her by marrying her anyway, that would not have removed her social shame. That applies to us as a country too. New and good as this country is, it has suffered in the past, from wars, recession and depression. It suffers now from uncertainty, worry and division. And it will suffer more in the future. The U.S. has many problems and has made many mistakes. Our reputation suffers now, our motives are often suspect. But if we trust in God, we will be virtuous and successful. God does not judge as humans do. God judges each person by his or her heart, each nation by its ideals and deepest aspirations, and He works miracles with what each person offers, with what each nation offers, little or much, to God. It doesn’t matter what mistakes we made in the past, present or will make in the future; we don’t have to be perfect. And it doesn’t matter what other people think. What matters is that we seek to know God and do his will in the unique circumstances of our individual lives. In this Mary is our perfect example. So let it be done to us according to God’s word.

Homily of Monday, December 7, 2020

There’s much that can be said about Saint Ambrose, a very important person, and bishop and doctor of the church. But I will tell you this, from Donald Atwater’s account: “A group of senators tried to get the statue of the goddess of victory restored to the senate-house in Rome [of course, these are the pagans; the Christians were just, as it were, coming into their own]; Ambrose intervened, and persuaded the young emperor, Valentinian II, not to give permission. The empress-regent, Justina, ordered him to hand over a building to the [heretic] Arians for a church: Ambrose refused. At Salonika, in 390, rioters killed the Roman governor, and the Emperor Theodosius I in punishment ordered a murder of monstrous savagery [hundreds of innocent citizens were put to death]: Ambrose wrote and told him that such a crime needed to be expiated by public penance. The emperor submitted to it. Ambrose always acted on the principle that he himself enunciated: ‘The emperor is within the church: he is not above it.’ [and that is why you have those references to his courage in the opening prayer today, because he took a courageous stand against authority. And that conflict between Caesar and the Church throughout the Middle Ages, and it seems, really, goes on in our own time.] … Ambrose is numbered among the four great Latin doctors of the church, with Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great. His teaching, as befitted a bishop, was more by his sermons than his writings; his primary business was not with emperors or theologians but with the people, and his discourses were very practical. His writings on doctrinal subjects include ‘catechism lessons’ (De mysteriis) to the newly baptized on baptism, confirmation, and the eucharist, and his few letters are valuable for the history of his time. He was the first teacher in the West successfully to make extensive use of hymns as a popular means of divine praise and of fostering right belief. A few have survived and are still in use, e.g. Aeterne rerum conditor, and his influence is found in many others. On the other hand, the Te Deum is not his work [although I think Saint Benedict says it is], though the so-called Athanasian Creed possibly is [his work].

Homily of the Second Sunday of Advent, December 6, 2020

Today is the Second Sunday of Advent, and today the church gets serious about the coming of Christmas, not about the arrival of Christmas. That of course doesn’t happen until December 25, but serious about the process of its journey to us, which happens while we wait. Last Sunday, the first of Advent, the liturgy set the tone of watching and waiting by the readings from the Old and New Testaments. That picks up in intensity today. In Advent we are asked to relive psychologically this period before Jesus Christ, which was for Israel a period of ups and downs, good kings and bad kings, successes and failures, triumph and humiliation, exile and homecoming, faithfulness and betrayal expectations and hopes raised and dashed. It’s not too hard to relive that. In many ways this is the way life flows for all of us. It’s the way the economy works in our society. At any given time, some people are up, while most are just hanging on. Now many people are in the down part of this cycle because of the effects of the pandemic.

The people of Israel were desperate to know when will the Messiah, the one anointed by God to set things right for good, the one who will provide the meaning for all the turmoil that had gone on before when will He come? Today’s liturgy gives a hopeful answer to us. The prophet Isaiah’s beautiful words of comfort are thrilling, especially when put to music as they are in Handel’s Oratorio “The Messiah.” To the Jewish people of the first century, however, they were ambivalent words. They were beautiful and hopeful words, but they were over 500 years old and that prophecy had not yet been fulfilled. In the second reading, St. Peter tells us not to judge God by our standards. 500 years is a long time to us, but is nothing to God. God is not slow, it’s simply that we want things too fast. As a species we have significant problems with delaying gratification, and that gets us in a lot of trouble. 

Peter’s letter tells us that God was being patient with humanity and waiting for the right moment, the fullness of time as the scripture says, when people – some people at least – were ready to receive the Messiah as He was in himself, and not as they wanted him to be or thought he should be. Today’s beginning of the Gospel of Mark gives a concrete sign that Isaiah’s prophecy was on the verge of fulfillment. That sign is the appearance of John the Baptist, a prophet. To be a prophet was not a career choice. There was no school for prophets and going to the rabbinic academies availed for nothing in making a prophet; as a matter of fact, it would work against becoming a prophet. A prophet was one whose life was totally caught up in and by the Holy Spirit; a prophet answered to no man or king, only God. There had been no prophet in Israel for hundreds of years. The messages from God had stopped coming. And suddenly a real prophet appears. He is a sign and he reminds the people that yes, the Messiah is coming, and soon, although at first he doesn’t say exactly when, but that they – the waiting people – had better be ready for him. And the people who listened and followed John were those who needed the Messiah because they literally had nothing else. Those who were self-satisfied and self-righteous, who had everything they needed and wanted in this world, they did not listen or follow. 

The Pharisees and the Sadducees had their religion and worship and God, so they thought, all figured out and a Messiah right then would just upset their system and their privileged place in society. We know how the story ends, but during Advent we are asked to linger for a while in this waiting mood, to savor the joy, and pain, of anticipation, knowing that God is faithful to his promises and that the Savior will come. But what if we had been living then rather than now? Would we have recognized the very ordinary man who came up to John at the Jordan River asking to be baptized? Would we have known what John was talking about when he said “Look – here is the lamb of God who will take away the world’s sins.” We and everyone else would have been looking for something like a kingly son of David, the great warrior and conqueror. In every human respect, Jesus was a nobody. The odds are we wouldn’t have recognized or followed him, at least not immediately. Most people today do not recognize or follow Jesus. They have the same problem as the Pharisees and Sadducees had. They think God would never send a nobody to rescue his people and, in their eyes, Jesus did not rescue his people. The Romans were still there, the great kingdom of David was not restored. The kingdom Jesus talked about did not and does not seem to be anything at all.

God would never allow his Son to be executed in a scandalous way, never mind have him born in a stable and laid in a feeding trough. And most people don’t recognize their need to be saved from their sins because they don’t recognize sins and are too busy enjoying them. Sure, some would like to be forgiven, just in case, perhaps but nothing more. For that matter, almost none of us today do a really good job of following Jesus Christ, even when we do have faith, like me and you. Advent is a time for us to clean up our way of looking at things, a time to try to see more through God’s eyes, who looks at every human being in this world, handsome or ugly, believer or atheist, Muslim or Jew, Buddhist or Hindu, Mormon or Catholic, Fat Cat on Wall St. or starving child in Somalia, White citizen of Sioux Falls or Black Citizen of Detroit, American born or illegal immigrant, God looks and says: “He looks just like my Son. She is the twin of Jesus Christ.” 

Advent is a time for us change what we need to, to clean up our way of looking at ourselves, our lives and our world. That is what repentance is all about. Certainly, the hardest thing in life is to be honest with one’s own self. We’re not hopeless, but we are each of us a sinner, and a pretty good sinner at that. Sin can take over our lives surreptitiously, and the younger we are the more impossible that seems but the more likely it can happen. I’m a witness to that in my own life. We each need saving. And the way we are saved is to place our gifts, because each of us is also pretty gifted and talented, at God’s disposal, for His work. In this is our happiness, because we are identical twins of Jesus Christ. Advent is a time to dream about how this world could be if all of us Christians did just that, to put ourselves at God’s disposal like the Prophet John, and Advent is a time to renew our commitment to do our part. Today we are here at this Eucharist to do our part to build up this part, your part, of Gods kingdom. May God who has begun this work in us bring it to successful completion while we watch and wait and work.

Homily of Wednesday, Advent I; December 2, 2020

The first reading, from the Book of Isaiah the prophet, is at least one and maybe the major source of the idea that the Jews had and many have of the messianic banquet. That is, that when the messiah comes, he will provide an endless supply of food and drink for the people, for the Jewish people, there will no longer be anyone who lacks good food and good drink. And Our Lord, as it were, in today’s gospel, fulfills that idea of the messianic banquet in that he performs the multiplication of the bread and fish for the people, and they are fed and are delighted by that food. And, of course, the idea of the messianic banquet was is there, and that messianic banquet is really given to us in the eucharist, which is the fulfillment of the promise of the kingdom in our life and time, looking forward to its ultimate and complete fulfillment at the coming of the Lord, his advent at the end of time. Pope John Paul II said of the eucharist: “The church draws her life from the eucharist. In the holy eucharist she rejoices in the Lord’s presence. The eucharistic sacrifice is ‘the source and summit of Christian life’ (he’s quoting the Council there). It contains the church’s entire spiritual wealth, which is Christ Himself, and it is the full manifestation of His boundless love.” And the Russian/American orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann says, “The eucharist is the sacrament of the church. It is the act which makes the church what it is: the people of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the body of Christ, the gift and sanctification of the new life of the new age.”