Homilies & Reflections

Homily of First Sunday of Advent, November 29, 2020

“Be watchful! Be alert! … You do not know when the lord of the house is coming. … May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.” This sounds almost like a line from a horror movie. In the British TV series, "Dr. Who," one of the villains the doctor encounters are called “Weeping Angels.” They appear as statues whenever someone looks at them, but as soon as they are not being observed, they attack. Any lack of focus, lack of alertness is punished. The episode where they are introduced is called Blink because even a quick blink is accompanied by them approaching their target with enormous speed. In a sense, this is what is described in today’s Gospel: don’t dare sleep, keep focused alertness, be watchful, because you never know when the lord of the house will come.

 Of course, this is not meant to be taken literally. Sleep is a necessary part of a healthy life. Through this hyperbole, Jesus is warning us that an essential part of the Christian life is a kind of watchfulness: an alertness that keeps our focus on the coming of the lord of the house. An attention to what we need to do to prepare for the Lord’s coming. And this is the primary theme of the season of Advent that we begin today: preparation for the coming of the Lord. In fact, in the Western Church, Advent has come to be associated with preparation for the three comings of the Lord: His coming in time, His coming into our lives, and His coming at the end of time. The general trajectory of Advent is to start by focusing on His coming at the end of time, gradually moving to His coming in time before we commemorate that coming itself: the birth of the Word made Flesh, the Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas. Today being the first Sunday of Advent, the day that opens the season, the primary theme of the readings is Christ’s coming at the end of time to judge the living and the dead.

Perhaps the most famous poetic depiction of the last judgment is the Dies Irae. Written sometime before 1250, this eventually came into liturgical use as the sequence, the chant sung just before the Gospel, in Requiem Masses, or Masses for the dead. The Last Judgment, following on a biblical text from Zephaniah, is described as a day of wrath, when all will stand before Christ and be judged according to their deeds. It is a terrifying depiction. In Verdi’s setting of the first stanza of this text, the use of massive drums, very fast strings, blasting brass and woodwinds and a double choir combine to illustrate this terror in the most dramatic way possible. The first line of the chant tune itself, “Dies irae dies illa,” is used as a shorthand in movies ranging from “It’s a Wonderful Life” to “The Lion King” to “The Shining,” to indicate death and impending doom.

However, there is another side to the Dies Irae. As the throne of judgment is approached, a new theme emerges: Christ’s mercy. This starts to gain prominence in the eighth stanza: “O King of tremendous majesty, / who of thy free gift saves them that are to be saved, / save me, O fount of mercy!” By the end, the final petition is addressed to the merciful Lord Jesus, “Pie Iesu Domine, / dona eis requiem.” “Merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest.” This day of destruction and resurrection is both a day of wrath and of redemption, a day of judgment and of mercy. Sin is destroyed and those who have assimilated themselves to it are condemned and leave God’s presence for all eternity. But also, those who have assimilated themselves to Christ receive their glorified bodies, cleansed from all our attachment to sin, and enter into the new heavens and the new Earth. The long journey back from the fall, led by Christ, is finally completed.
This duality can also be seen in today’s first reading. Isaiah prays for God to “rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you.” On the one hand, Isaiah asks God, “Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?” and adds “Behold, you are angry and we are sinful;” and “There is none who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to cling to you.” Isaiah reflects on the sins of Israel, and sees God’s justified anger, which lead to their condemnation to exile. Isaiah prays for God’s coming, and sees it accompanied by wrath and judgment. On the other hand, he introduces the prayer as directed to the Lord, “our father, our redeemer” and sees his return happening “for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.” The coming itself, as Isaiah sees it, in fact, is an act of mercy by a redeeming father, coming to save the tribes of Israel, and restore them to their proper place as the People of God, and not just an act of condemnation.

So, Christ’s coming at the end of time to judge the living and the dead is characterized by the duality of God’s justice, and God’s mercy. But how do we prepare for this? And what does it mean to be watchful for the second coming of Christ? How do we keep our gaze fixed on this so that the lord of the house will not find us asleep, so that sin cannot sneak up on us when we aren’t looking?

Our preparation must involve some way of submitting ourselves to God’s mercy, lest we reject God and leave ourselves attached to the sins that drive us away from Him. In other words, there is a requirement for Penance. This is both a sacramental Penance, through which Christ’s sacrifice is applied to our sins offered to him through confessing them to a Priest, as well as a general spirit of Penance. This general spirit is a part of the nature of the season. As during Lent, the liturgical color is purple, which signifies Penance. In several Eastern Churches, they call this the Nativity Fast, directly mirroring Lent with a 40-day fast. This general spirit of penance can take many forms, but some of the most essential are fasting, abstinence and prayer. The central aspect, however, is that these practices are taken to amend our way of life: to become closer to Christ, so that we can be prepared when he comes to us in the sacraments and through the Liturgical year, and when we come before Him as our judge at the Last Judgment.

An essential part of this Penance is the urgency with which it must be undertaken. There is no time to waste before amending our lives and approaching God. The Weeping Angels from Doctor Who that I was talking about earlier had an interesting way of attacking when somebody failed to observe them. As soon as they approached the person, they would send them back in time, to some time before they were born, and then feed on the lost potential of what their life would have been. They close one set of possibilities permanently and make it impossible to return. This is analogous to what sin can do. If we fail to keep watch: if we fail to do Penance and amend our way of life, sin will consume us, and close off the possibility of God’s mercy, because we will become fully assimilated into our sins. Failure to be alert results in the lord of the house finding us asleep, finding us separated from the path God marked out for us: the path of Penance, the path of mercy, and the path of salvation.

Homily of Saturday, November 28, 2020

This is from Saint Ignatius of Antioch who, when being taken to Rome to suffer martyrdom. He, the bishop of Antioch in the Second Century, wrote letters to various churches during the course of his journey. This is from the one he wrote to the Ephesians: “I offer up my life as a poor substitute for the cross, which is a stumbling block to those who have no faith. But to us, salvation and eternal life. Where is the wise man? Where is the philosopher? Where is the boasting of the so-called men and women of prudence? For our God Jesus Christ was, according to God’s dispensation, the fruit of Mary’s womb, of the seed of David. He was born and baptized in order that he might make the water holy by his passion. The maidenhood of Mary and her childbearing, and also the death of the Lord, were hidden from the prince of this world. Three resounding mysteries wrought in the silence of God. How then would he appear in time? A star, brighter than all other stars, shone in the sky and its brightness was ineffable, and the novelty of it caused astonishment. And the rest of the stars, along with the sun and moon, formed a choir about the star. But the light of the star itself outshone all the rest. It was a puzzle to know the origin of this novelty unlike anything else. Thereupon all magic was dissolved, every bond of malice disappeared. Ignorance was destroyed. The ancient kingdom was ruined, when God appeared in the form of man to give newness of eternal life.”

Homily of Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 2020

 “We know that all things work for good for those who love God,” so says Saint Paul in Romans 8:28. The ten lepers had faith; that was shown by their calling Jesus master, a title only his disciples used. So I wonder, is it possible that the tenth leper was thankful for the leprosy that brought him face to face with Jesus? It certainly worked for his good. His disease, his brokenness brought him to meet in person the one in whom he had faith, one whom he might never have met otherwise, one whom might only have heard about and thought about. Today, as we give thanks, we might consider what are we thankful for, and what are we not thankful for that we perhaps should be. The pandemic we are in the midst of has changed the way we live, at least for now. Might there be some blessing in that – blessing that we could be thankful for – the effects of creating some distance where things were too close; slowing us down when we were going too fast; making us think when we were prone to react; allowing us to appreciate what and whom we took for granted. The tenth leper was not only diseased, he was, to Jesus’ fellow Jews, a despised outcaste, foreign in blood and customs. That his faith saved him, as Jesus said, should make us supremely thankful that as Saint Paul told the Corinthians, through Jesus’ grace to us, we are not lacking in any spiritual gift. May His goodness toward us endure.

Homily of Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Our Lord says in the gospel today, “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” If you look it up in the Greek New Testament dictionary, the word for “perseverance” is “hupomone,” which means “unflinching endurance” or “patient endurance,” “patient awaiting”, “a patient frame of mind,” “perseverance” – which for Benedictines is a special meaning, then. “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” The meanings go on: “endurance in adherence to an object,” “an endurance of affliction and of suffering.” Saint Jerome translates that word as “patientia” – patience, suffering, “in multa patientia.” And all of this comes from the verb, “hupomeno” which means to remain or stay behind when others have departed. Which might well remind us of the sixth chapter of Saint john’s gospel, which speaks of eating His body, drinking His blood, and many of His disciples turn away and leave Him. And the apostles stay behind. They practice that verb, “hupomeno.”

Homily for the Solemnity of Christ the King (morning Mass, November 22, 2020) 

That he is a king is clear about Jesus because the angel Gabriel says to Mary that the child she was to bear will be the Son of David and will inherit the throne of David, and that will last forever and ever. And when king Herod hears that the king of the Jews has been born, he desperately tries to kill that child. And so, through his preaching career, our Lord is recognized by many as the king of Israel, and he himself speaks of his kingdom. He says, for example, “Hear then the parable of the sower” – when anyone hears the word of the kingdom, that is the gospel, it’s the word of the kingdom – “The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it, and the evil one comes and steals away what was sown in the heart. The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away. The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit. But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. 

Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” (KJV). 

Now you know the explanation our Lord gives of that parable. It is his kingdom, and the church, believe it or not, is his kingdom in the world now. And there are many difficulties and scandals, especially it seems at his time, but there always have been in the church. Saint Augustine, who my the way is always talking about the scandals in his time, says we should not be surprised at this, we should not be scandalized, because, he says (and this is not the only place), we were warned. We have been told the bad and the good will be in the church together; the reckoning will come at the end. And then in another place he says “The Kingdom of heaven is like the grain of a mustard seed which am an took and sowed in his field, it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and makes nests in its branches.” There are mustard seeds in the Middle East, they do become trees, all sorts of birds come and nest in them, and so it is with us in the church. He says, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and his in three measures of meal till it was all leaven.” Those parables have been fulfilled. The church which began as something quite insignificant, small, and unpromising, he filled the whole world. 

And his kingship in this world, so to speak, meets its summit, its apogee, in his passion and death. Remember, the condemnation that gets him crucified is that he claims to be king. He is claiming to be the king of the Jews, and there is only one king, Caesar. He is mocked because of that by the soldiers, who are not Jews, they are Roman soldiers, who are mocking this Jewish guy who thinks he’s the king. And then that mockery goes on at his crucifixion. The people stood off watching, but the rulers scoffed, saying, “He saved others, let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One! The soldiers also came up and mocked him, offering him vinegar and saying, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” There was also an inscription over him (written by Pilate): ‘This is the King of the Jews.’” This is our king. That is how he died. “One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation, and we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong.’ And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingly power.” The is a man who recognized our Lord’s kingship. 

One word about the gospel: why are the goats the bad ones, and the sheep the good ones? I recently read an explanation of that – I can’t find it now, of course – but, the difference is goats won’t obey. Goats won’t do what you tell them. Whereas sheep will. You need a dog or something to round them up and keep them rounded up, but they on the whole are obedient. And in our Lord’s time, they followed the shepherd, and they heard his voice and obeyed it. The goats, maybe they are too intelligent. The sheep are dumb; they’re dirty, they’re dumb, they’re unpleasant. They are cute when they’re young, but not very becoming when they are old. Goats remain sleek and beautiful when they are older, and they are smarter. But they won’t obey. Maybe that is a lesson for us.

Homily for the Solemnity of Christ the King (vigil Mass; Saturday, November 21, 2020) 

The kingship of Jesus is abundantly clear throughout the New Testament. The angel Gabriel tells Mary that “your son, the one you will bear, to whom you will give birth, will inherit the kingdom of his father David, a kingdom that will be everlasting.” And then, of course, when Herod the king finds out from the magi, the three wisemen, that the king of the Jews has been born, his reaction is to try to kill the newborn king. And so it goes, in a way, through his life. Jesus is God by his kingship which is real, which he acknowledges. And in the end he dies on the cross, crowned with thorns, crowned by soldiers who made fun of him as king of the Jews. With Pilate’s sign above him, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” So this is our king. We are his subjects. And there will be a reckoning for the whole world, he tells us in today’s gospel. And we will be questioned, we will be judged, and there is the terrible possibility of eternal loss, into what he says here is eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So today we celebrate the kingship of Jesus. And it should be a thing today to reckon how we live as subjects of this king. Remember, he has given us two great commandments: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. How do you show your love for God? Saint John tells us by keeping his commandments. And remember one of those commandments is to keep holy the Sabbath day. That is, keep holy Sunday. It is difficult, very difficult, in these times, because of the virus. But it is a reminder to us at least to pray on Sunday. And also because Jesus wants it to pray every day, and we should also keep that in mind during these relaxed, so-called, holiday periods.

Homily of Tuesday, November 16th

An old Scottish saying holds that “A nation is no more than what its women can make of its men”. A spectacular example of this adage is the life of the saint we remember today, St. Margaret of Scotland, renowned for her life-altering influence on her husband and through him on an entire people.   Both Scotland and its king became nothing less than new creations under the influence of her all-pervading holiness, wisdom and charity. Fleeing William the Conqueror’s Norman warriors by sea in an attempt to return to their refuge in Hungary, her royal Anglo-Saxon family was blown off-course and landed on the coast of Scotland where King Malcom III offered them protection.  To a teenage girl educated in the court of St. Stephen in the refined culture of Byzantium, the little royal castle at Dunfermline must have appeared provincial and barbarian and Malcom the king as uncouth as his bizarre warriors.  Malcom and Scotland were not her idea, but she saw that they were God’s, and she embraced both with everything she had.

The marriage day of Malcom and Margaret in 1070 began a new era for the Scottish people.  From the beginning, the 23 year old bride accepted her new position as a divinely appointed vocation.   Her religious piety and gentleness were entirely new forces to this land and its people. They were destined in time to influence profoundly the character of both the king and his land.  Malcom, a large, rugged man, ruthless in war, was well suited to the turbulent era in which his life was set.  But he was also an extremely intelligent, effective leader who placed the prosperity of his kingdom first.  And he was devoted to his young wife with all his heart.  To Margaret’s ascendancy we ascribe the introduction into Scotland of the orderly feudal system of society with its respect for the property of the church and the poor.  The intensity of her religious life molded every act at every stage in her career.  As she brought the Scottish church into step with Rome, she raised abbeys, rebuilt churches and transformed the court into a center for revived scholarship.  She corresponded with a list of scholars and churchmen that reads like of who’s-who of early medieval brainpower, and Malcom, who would deny her nothing, did all he could to welcome them to his court.  Malcom, who never learned to read, knew English as well as his native Gaelic, and often acted as interpreter for his queen. 

Margaret’s reign lasted 23 years. In the time given her, during which she raised eight children, an amazing change had come over the land.  A great revolution had been accomplished not by power, wealth and diplomacy as by sincerity, charity, and the prayers of a woman who, following her Divine Spouse faithfully, lived and made known the unlimited possibilities of Catholic womanhood; a wife and mother first, who set in order her own soul, her own house and her own family and became a transformative light that shone the length and breadth of her kingdom.

Homily of Monday, November 16

This is Donald Atwater on Gertrude the Great. She is one of the few saints called “The Great,” together with Gregory, Leo, and Basil. Atwater: “This Saint Gertrude is often called ‘the Great.’ At the age of five she was entrusted to the nuns of Helfta in Saxony to be brought up, and seems never to have left the convent; her mentor and friend there was Saint Mechtilde. Gertrude was given an excellent education, but she never held office in the community and her life was externally uneventful. She committed herself wholeheartedly to the contemplative life when she was twenty-five, in consequence of a vision of Christ; thereafter she lost interest in secular studies and gave all her attention to the Bible, the writings of the Fathers, and the liturgy. Her life became a succession of spiritual experiences, many of which are described in the collection of writings called the Revelations of Gertrude and Mechtilde wherein the Herald of God’s Loving-Kindness is mostly written from her notes or dictation but in part by herself. It forms an important contribution to medieval mysticism; in later times it has had a special interest because of Saint Gertrude’s adumbrations of devotion to the sacred heart of Jesus, now so widespread among Roman Catholics. This Gertrude has sometimes been confused with Gertrude of Hackeborn, who was abbess of Helfta when she was brought there as a child.” [So Gertrude the Great is sometimes pictured carrying an abbatial staff, but she never was the abbess].
 

Homily from Mass of the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Vigil and morning Mass; November 14/15)

If you go out to stores to do any shopping these days, you’ll see displays with Christmas decorations and maybe hear Christmas music playing over the sound system. It’s a sure sign…the end is near; the end of the Church year is just 13 days away and the end of 2020 not far behind, which no one will be sad to see go. Today’s readings are a sure sign too. In his letter to the Thessalonians, the 2nd reading, St Paul speaks of the day of the Lord coming like a thief in the night, suddenly and surprisingly. He was speaking of the end of all things, the end of the world, which the early Christians expected sooner rather than later. But he is just as accurately speaking of our personal end, the end of our individual lives, about which we don’t like to think. This comes too, suddenly, like a thief in the night. 

This has been brought home to me many times. On a Friday night in October 2001, two of our Form 6 students in Saint Louis were killed when their car went off the road on a rainy night. In November 2008, two of our parishioners, a husband and wife, who attended our daily Mass regularly, went to visit their son in Kentucky. And being friends of monks, early one morning they drove to Gethsemane Abbey, a Trappist monastery made famous by Thomas Merton. On the abbey grounds, they swerved to miss a deer crossing the road, lost control of the car and went into a ravine. Both were killed, suddenly and totally unexpectedly. In November 2010, the father of two of our students wasn’t feeling well at dinner so he went upstairs to lie down. A half hour later, the older son went upstairs to check on him and found his father was dead. In October 2014, a healthy 21-year old alumnus of our school died in his sleep. Suddenly these persons, young & old were called to meet their Lord, and give an accounting of what they had done with their talents, as Jesus describes to us in today’s gospel. Knowing them as I did, I’m not terribly worried about the outcome. I know they were ready. But most of us are probably not quite ready for the end. I know I’m not. And the parable Jesus tells us today can produce a little bit of anxiety. But keep in mind that the parable is a story teaching a lesson; it’s not a straightforward relating of facts. So we shouldn’t stress about all the details; we should just get the main message. We should recall Jesus other straightforward words to us in St Luke’s Gospel; Don’t be afraid; the Father is happy to give you the kingdom.

So what is the message of this parable today? We may misunderstand because Jesus speaks of talents. The talents Jesus speaks of are not the talents, the skills, that we have, although they are included in a metaphorical sense. A talent was a measure of weight, & the talents he speaks of are weights of silver or gold; if silver, a talent was about 150 lbs. or of gold, 75 lbs. I checked the latest prices, and today one talent would be worth $58,000 of silver and $2.25 million of gold. So even the servant with just one talent had a LOT of money. In the place of the master, we can see God, who gives each of us the gift of life and the many blessings that come with it. These blessings are represented by the silver and gold. We have many gifts, including our personal talents, which we use in our lives. We also have our family, our health, our economic security. Probably our most basic talent is the ability to relate to others, to be a friend and to be friendly, kind and charitable. Also the ability to relate to and be thankful to God for our lives, despite the inevitable problems that we have. We should be especially mindful of all of that as we approach Thanksgiving. We have other abilities of course; some have a talent for art, or for business, or for sports, for leadership, for scholarship. Some are physically strong while others are mentally strong; some are both.

Whatever we have, it is all an investment by God in life, not just in our own individual lives, but in the life of the world, in the lives of others. If we are blessed, we are meant to be a blessing for others God looks to us to enrich the world by using our gifts for others. And so two of the servants did. They put their talents and ability to work; they enriched the estate of the master, and so they were given even more to work with. But that servant with one talent did not. He buried his talent in the ground. He was too cautious, too afraid, not willing to risk anything, not willing to share. His thoughts were only on fear of his Master’s power and not on His master’s trust and high regard for Him. 

His talent did not do anyone any good, not the servant, not the master, not the society he lived in. So when the master took the talent away from him, the servant was really not deprived. The servant lived as if he never had that talent in the first place. So the master, God, was not a harsh, cruel judge. But the servant, while he was actually rich, lived like he had nothing and prepared himself only for the darkness, where the weeping is that of regret and realization of his own stupidity. The result could not have been any different. That servant judged himself and created the result that finally came about. And just so we create the results that come from the way we live our lives by our use of all that God has given us, all our advantages, talents and opportunities. God is looking to us for a return on his investment in us. It is all too human for us to think in strictly economic terms. We always think we have to succeed in human terms. The first reading says charm is deceptive & beauty fleeting, i.e. the appeal and goodness of things in this world. 

Jesus Christ was no success in the eyes of the world. Even if we do use all our blessings and gifts perfectly, we cannot all succeed in human terms. There are not enough parts in life’s play for that many stars, not enough Churches to be Pope of, not enough corporations to be president of; there is not enough money for everyone to be rich; and as we have learned over and over through time, even if you invest money wisely, it does not always work out here. The return on the investment that God is looking for is love our growth in selflessness and readiness to experience Him in heaven. So you see even the human being poorest in talents can be a spectacular success when it comes to that. One’s use of the ability to love necessarily shows itself in the quality of relationships he or she will have with other people and especially with God. Using, strengthening and growing our ability to love builds God’s kingdom here & builds our place in it for eternity. If we do not invest our talents here, we will have no home there. Fortunately, God is merciful and sees much more than we see. He sees the payoff from many of those little things we do, the small acts of loving kindness that cost us so little, but that can turn around some else’s day or even life. And he sees the good things we do without thinking, if we have good hearts. We can often get caught up in guilt, in seeing too much our sins and faults and failures; we may not think enough of the blessings we have & give and with false humility, hide or dismiss our talents. Genuine humility recognizes our gifts just as much as our imperfections. We forget how much God trusts us, even while he knows full well that we will make mistakes & sin.

At the beginning of Mass, we admitted our faults, failures and sins. Eucharist , what we are celebrating, means thanksgiving, and that’s what we are really here for. To rejoice, to thank God for the gifts of life and the gift of his love, the gift of his son. We thank God that we know about all this, that he feeds us in this sacrament so we can love as He does, so we can grow in His life and love and be ready to enter His kingdom whenever He calls us. Although the Eucharist, the thanks we give God never ends, at the conclusion of today’s Eucharist, today’s Mass, we are commissioned, we are sent out into our world to make our investments with everything God has given us. The Eucharist, the Masses we celebrate here this weekend are the last we will celebrate together this year. And we have no idea what next year will look like. So we should first be thankful, I know I am, that we could be together here this Fall term. We should be thankful for each other. We are gifts to each other, each one of us. Let’s pray that we are blessed to be together again in January. Thanks be to God, who has given us success and makes us all successes through our Lord Jesus Christ.
 

Homily of Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Saint Leo the Great, as he is called, along with Saint Gregory the Great, was a very clear and orthodox exponent of Christian doctrine, and also a great preacher, whose Latinity is supposed to be outstanding. Also, he was a great defender of the city of Rome. Here is a quote from one of his sermons. He is commenting on a passage in Saint Peter’s First Epistle. “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart.” (that’s a quotation from the epistle). All those who have been regenerated in Christ (that is baptized), are made kings by the sign of the cross; a consecrate priest by the anointing of the Holy Spirit (that is by Confirmation). All Christians who lead spiritual lives according to reason realize that they have a part in the royal race and priestly office (so that’s us, our part as the priestly people). What could be more royal than a soul subject to God, ruling over its own body? What could be more priestly then dedicating a pure conscience to the Lord, and offering spotless sacrifices of devotion from the altar of their heart?” So let us resolve to offer such sacrifices on the altar of our heart. 

Homily of monday, November 9, 2020, Dedication of Lateran Basilica

The Church of the Lateran, Cathedral of the Church of Rome, whose dedication we celebrate today has seen many great events, including five ecumenical councils. The fifth ecumenical council, in 1512, famously began with a sermon from Giles of Viterbo, a leading cardinal, a friend of the pope, the General of the Augustinians, a major theologian and preacher. And he preached a powerful sermon about reform. The church was in desperate need of reform – the man must be changed by religion, not religion by man. He saw the beginning of the decline of the church into worldliness, with the emperor Constantine, the very man who gave the Lateran palace to the pope, and built the great basilica there. In 1517, the council ended, proclaiming and decreeing various things of reform, many, many reform decrees. As historians point out, there were so many loopholes, and so few teeth, they were basically useless. Nothing happened. A few months or less after the ending of this council, in 1517, a young Augustinian friar named Martin Luther, of the same order of Giles of Viterbo, began the Protestant Reformation by his 95 Theses. The historians now say no one could have predicted, no one could have guessed the phenomenal success of the Protestant Reformation, and that half the church would be swept away so quickly, the other half quivering in weakness. It couldn’t have been seen, could not be foreseen, could not be predicted. It was not seen as possible: the church was too strong, too rich, to powerful, to well entrenched: how could that ever happen? No one could have seen that. The Jews of Our Lord’s day also could never have foreseen the destruction of the temple, this wonderful building, this extraordinary, this rich building, which Our Lord Himself predicted would be destroyed, in the day of the visitation. The church is not buildings, it is not institutions, it is not stuff. The church is Jesus Christ in each of us; each of us the temple of the Holy Spirit, the life of God, the love of God, the very reality of God within us in the state of grace. And we are called, as temples of the Holy Spirit, to grow, to be transformed, to transform others. Often buildings and stuff can be baggage that weigh us down, that keep us attached to worldly things, to sin, etc. Power, wealth, position, status – so all these things are not unknown in the holy, catholic church, unfortunately. But each of us can be our own transformation, our own church, our own temple, imitating Our Lord; being part of that vast church which is the body of Christ. We are called to eb that, to be truly transformed, to glow with that power and light of the Holy Spirit, and so renew the church. And God knows, it needs all the help it can get.
 

Homily of Sunday, November 7 (Vigil)/8, 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Our first reading is from the Book of Wisdom in the Bible. It tells us that wisdom is available for anyone who diligently seeks it. “Taking thought of wisdom” we read, “is the perfection of prudence.” In the next weeks our Mass readings will be directed at getting us to think more about the hereafter. The Church year is coming to an end in just three weeks, and our life in this world will someday come to an end as well. God has plans for us and he wants us to be in on them. Our Gospel will explain that for us.

Jesus message is an apocalyptic message. That means that he has come to reveal to us the Kingdom of God, and he wants us to be a part of it. In his parables Jesus used many images to describe the kingdom. In today’s Gospel he compares it to a wedding feast, a celebration. But the story in the gospel is not really about the particulars of a wedding celebration. It’s about the Kingdom of God, heaven, eternal life, a much bigger celebration. St Bernard describes it as an eternal feast day where, with our resurrected and transfigured eyes we’ll see God face-to-face in his overwhelming beauty. And the more we see, the more we’ll want to see. St. Gregory tells us that in that celebration the greater our desire for God’s love, the more of himself he’ll give us. And his gift will only increase our desire for him. And he’ll keep delivering – forever. St. Thomas has said that what we’ll at last grasp in heaven is just how stupendously boundless God is. And understanding that, we’ll understand just what an endless adventure life with him will be. 

I, for one, don’t plan to miss that party and I hope you don’t. 

The virgins with the lamps, the ladies in the parable, represent us. The wise ones remained vigilant and were prepared. Why was not being prepared so foolish? The answer to that question is what makes today’s Gospel a little frightening. It’s about a wedding feast that becomes a judgement. And it’s not about sharing. It’s not that the wise virgins wouldn’t share their lamp oil. It’s that they couldn’t. The virgins’ oil represents something that can’t be shared. It stands for personal sanctity and that is indivisible. That means it can’t be split into parts and given away to someone else. And Jesus, the Bridegroom, will do nothing with partial sanctities anyway. In a religious context, wisdom is the ability to please God. We can’t expect to obtain this ability from someone else. The holiness required for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven involves prayer and the sacraments. But first and foremost it requires our personal commitment to seek holiness and to avoid sin. With God’s help, we have to work diligently at correcting our own faults. Without this effort, everything else is empty show. No one else can do it for us. 

So the parable is about being prepared for the arrival of the groom. This represents the sacred moment at our life’s end when Jesus will arrive and call us into his kingdom. The closed door tells us that if we are not ready, it will then be too late. We really can miss the celebration of eternal life to which God invites us, and not by accident; only if we refuse. In our busy lives something keeps telling us we have plenty of time to prepare. We think we have too many other things to worry about right now. This clearly shows a lack of wisdom with regard to something as important as our eternal salvation. We’ll be here just a short while. We’ll be there for eternity. And above all, avoid the silly mistake of saying “Well, we’re all going to heaven anyway no matter how we’ve lived or what we’ve done”  If you think that, you’d better listen to today’s parable again - that’s certainly not what Jesus is saying. 

Remember two things. First, God is offering us the infinite gift of himself, his love, eternal life. And second, he has given each of us the tremendous gift of free will.  That means he has given us the freedom to refuse him. If we do that, he’ll take us at our word. Now this is a very important point: The foolish virgins didn’t miss the wedding banquet when the door was closed. They had said “no” long beforehand when they refused to prepare. It’s crucial that we understand that we don’t refuse to enter the kingdom in our last moments when our Bridegroom, Jesus, stands with us at that door. We refuse to prepare for his gift long beforehand, right now - every time we decide to leave some fault uncorrected, whatever it may be. We might gloss it over with excuses and plausible reasons, but just the same this resolution prevents in our souls any powerful operations on the part of God, and hinders the effects of the Holy Eucharist. The image of those who are turned away does not point to God’s hard heartedness. It says that our imprudence and indifference really can run up against a genuine “too late”. The Gospel presents this possibility so that we might grasp the seriousness of the final words of Jesus: “Therefore, stay awake”. Christian wisdom consists in this “staying awake”, this constant watchfulness. So be wise and be prepared, because the hour isn’t in some uncertain future, it’s right now.
 

Homily of Saturday, November 7, 2020

Here are the thoughts from Doctors of the church about Our Lady. The first is from Saint Anselm, who was a Benedictine: “Mary was raised to the dignity of the Mother of God rather for sinners than for the just, since Jesus Christ declares that He came to call not the just, but sinners.” The second comes from Saint Bernard: “Let us then cast ourselves at the feet of this good Mother, and embracing them let us not depart until she blesses us, and accepts us for her children.” And the third is from Saint Bonaventure: “She seeks for those who approach her devoutly and with reverence, for such she loves, nourishes, and adopts as her children.” Holy Mary pray for us, and keep us in your care.

Homily of Wednesday, November 4, 2020
 
In 1985, the University of California published a book by the historian Barbara Mcclung Hallman, Italian Cardinals, Reform, and the Church as Property, and it is quite an impressive book of scholarship. It says something quite striking. That all of the financial abuses, of which there are quite an egregious number of them, that were such a cause of the Protestant Reformation, not only not corrected by the Catholic Reformation that followed, were even institutionalized. This is quite shocking, quite appalling. But she also says though all these abuses were not corrected, there were also a lot more saints, a lot more saints. That somehow made it much better, at least more doable, feasible. You see both of these in the life of today’s saint. Saint Charles Borromeo, Carlo Borromeo. In 1559, at the age of 21, he found himself a cardinal and the Archbishop of Milan, one of the greatest sees in Italy, a massive see, a wealthy, lucrative see. And how did this happen? How did this happen? His family had hit the jackpot. His uncle, his mother’s brother Giovanni, was elected pope, Pope Pius IV. Now all the family members were beneficiaries of that. Lots and lots of things came their way. Lots and lots of things came their way. If you want to see how impressive that can be, look at the villa Borghese in Rome, that wonderful villa full of wonderful artworks, of Scipione Borghese  – all of that was built from church money, in all sorts of ways, church money. So you could really milk this if you wanted to, if you were that sort of person. And Borghese certainly was.  Carlo Borromeo, at the age of 21, is now a cardinal, an archbishop, but much more serious, thoughtful, hardworking, dutiful, diligent. His elder brother Federico dies, and everybody thinks that he will leave the clergy, leave the cardinalate and be married and have his own family. Since he is not a bishop, not a priest, not even a deacon; he is only in minor orders. It is very, very easy to do so and a lot of people have in the past. In fact, the expectation of his family was that he should leave all of this to continue the family line. And also continue the lucrative benefits of being the pope’s nephew, without being a cardinal or archbishop, at least a bishop in name. He does quite the opposite. He gets ordained a deacon, a priest, and a bishop, and becomes a very austere, zealous, pious holy man, and goes back to Milan, which had not seen an archbishop permanently for eighty years – they had archbishops but they were somewhere else, taking the income with them wherever they were. He goes back to Milan, and he works diligently, zealously in ways that no one had ever seen before in northern Italy or large parts of Europe.

He died at the age of 46, the age of 46, I would probably say of exhaustion. Everything that could have come to him he rejects. He follows our Lord; he gives up everything, He pours himself out, as Saint Paul does in today’s first reading, for the faithful. All of these phenomenal benefits could have come to him. Wonderful things: palaces and treasures and so forth, that he could have passed on to his family members. All of that is used for one purpose and one purpose only – for the faithful. He consumes every moment of his day to serve the faithful. He slept very little, he fasted a lot, he prayed a lot, and he worked a lot, a lot, a lot. An impressive man, a zealous man, a holy man. He could have had everything that the church could offer as a worldly inducement and instead followed the way of Christ. And that’s an example for us. It’s not that we don’t want to be saints, be good or virtuous or holy. We’re not consistent; we’re a little haphazard. We take two steps forward, one step back. Borromeo, who was not a man of brilliant intelligence or extraordinary skills, but he was terribly, terribly conscientious; very, very consistent. Whatever has to be done to be a saint, he would do. It's not rocket science, you just have to do it, and do it consistently.  And that is true of us also. We know the means of holiness: prayer, the sacraments, asceticism, and so on. Do them, and do them consistently, do them always, do them perseveringly – and we will be saints. We will be friends of God. We will change reality. And certainly Carlo Borromeo changed massively the reality of his diocese, which was a massive diocese. And he set a model for a lot of other bishops to follow – a very difficult model, but still a model. All we need to do is be consistent. All we need to do is be persevering. All we need to do is be faithful. And we will be friends of God and followers of Christ, and know eternal life.

Homily of  Tuesday, November 3 

Our religious education as young children at Saint Anthony’s grade school in Wisconsin was peppered very, very heavily with lives of the saints, by the Franciscan sisters who brought us up. St. Martin de Porres was one of the very, very favorites, whose life we heard about over and over and over. He literally became a part of the family, along with about a dozen saints, among the hundred we heard about from these sisters. As I say, the lives of the saints were an extremely important part of their teaching as Franciscans. St. Martin was born in the late 1500’s of a white father and a freed black mother, a freed slave, in Lima, Peru, and didn’t have any prospects socially, to say the least. He was unacknowledged when he was born, but when he was a teenager his father adopted him, so that he got a good education and a training as a barber surgeon. Late in his teenage years he realized that he had a religious vocation and applied to the Dominicans at the Sacred Heart Convent in Lima and was accepted as a tertiary, a lay Dominican helper. But after about nine years, he was encouraged to take his vows as a Dominican monk, which he did. He spent the rest of his life in the same priory as a barber surgeon and working in the kitchen and the sacristy. I think he lived to be in his sixties, which was quite a long time. The stories we heard of St. Martin, of course, were all of the hagiographical kinds of things that fill in the blanks, all the fun stories the kids love about the saints. A big favorite was the fact that St. Martin as sacristan, would collect all the mice out of the drawers and feed them and release them, telling them to not damage the crops, but also not to come back into the church. Stories like that – so the mouse became a big symbol of St. Martin and everything. I think when saints like Martin die, a lot of their achievements fade into obscurity very rapidly. And one that did fade into obscurity, that we never heard about as children, was that fact that he had an extremely extensive apostolate to the blacks in and around Lima, Peru, the freed and enslaved black population, to whom he provided medical aid, Catholic education so that they were baptized. His main thing was trying to convince first, second, and third generation black slaves and their children that they were every bit as equal in the sight of God as their white overlords. What has come to life with recent scholarship has been the really extensive work that he did in the area of Lima during all of those quiet years, as he acted as sacristan and kitchener to his own community. These records have provided a great inspiration to later generations, centuries later, who are now attempting to achieve the same goals to which Martin devoted his life.

Homily of October 31 (Vigil Mass) and November 1, 2020

Yesterday was Halloween, which is just an old way of saying All Saints Eve. Today, of course, is All Saints Day, and Monday All Souls Day. All Saints and All Souls are two sides of the same coin. Today the Gospel tells us how we should be, how to become blessed and happy, that is “saintly.” The word Saint means “holy.” Jesus tells us today how we can achieve this wholeness and this life in our lifetime by living the Beatitudes, which literally means ‘The Happinesses.” 

When I first began teaching, I used to ask my HS junior theology class, “Who here wants to be holy?” Only two or three out of twenty would raise their hands. Most of them obviously could not relate the concept of “holiness” to anything desirable. If holiness, saintliness, doesn’t sound like fun to us, that’s too bad, if holiness makes us truly happy; that all says we probably misunderstand what it means. There is, however, a story of a pastor who had better luck asking questions than I did. He went to talk to a class of school children 
about All Saints Day. He asked the class how many of them would like to be saints! All hands but one went up! He asked the one child why not be a saint? The child replied, "'Because they're all dead!" That’s another misunderstanding! Saints are not really dead. Sort of like Miracle Max said in the Princess Bride, they are MOSTLY dead, dead to this world. But there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Saints are quite alive as spirits.

Modern people have an aversion to spiritual reality and an undue attraction to material reality. There are over 10,000 saints, citizens of heaven, recognized by the Church. And for the last 1000 years each new saint has been responsible for at least two miracles in response to people’s prayers. Saint John Paul II himself, when he was Pope, from 1978 to 2005 canonized over 300 saints and beatified over 900 holy men and women, which attests to over 1200 miracles mediated by saints in our own time. We human beings are spirits with bodies. We begin our lives as saints. At our baptism, we are about as holy as any human can get. Officially canonized saints are people who took their baptismal commitment so seriously and heroically, they are held up as examples for us to follow! 

Is there an example for you? There are several teenagers who are saints. The most recent was just beatified by Pope Francis on October 10. Carlo Acutis was 15 years old when he died of Leukemia in 2006, and has been acclaimed by many as the patron saint of the internet. As a young child, he taught himself how to code using a university text book. He created his own website, and provided technical assistance for the websites of several Catholic organizations. He had a great devotion to the Eucharist. Carlo’s intact body lies in a tomb in Assisi, wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and Nike track shoes

In that first reading, very appropriate for Halloween with its bizarre imagery, the saints are described as those who have survived the time of great distress. But the official saints are not the only ones who survive. They are not the only saints. There are many, many more. Our destiny is to be saints; it is the destiny of every human being. Our family members and friends who have passed on, they are there waiting for us in that state of being we call the next world and they are here with us in this room too, now; because spirits are participating in eternity which is not limited by time or space. So all of us who are baptized are members of the "communion of saints," which includes not only ourselves, but also includes all those whose memory we celebrate on All Souls Day, tomorrow. 

All of us together are alive in Christ. Death here simply marks a milestone on the journey, not an end to it! Those whom we love stay with us whether they live in our time or in eternity. We share with all of them the baptismal call to holiness even if our struggles here can make us less worthy (sinful) at times. Even Saints like Carlo Acutis all had their weaknesses and struggles. A saint is someone who, when they fall, gets up and keeps trying. As Saint Augustine said, there is no saint without a past, and no sinner without a future. It is an inevitable truth that goodness will be actively opposed by evil. So we, who were created good by God, do struggle through this life. A human life is a time of distress, more or less, one way or the other, whether it was during the Great Depression here, during World War II in Europe, in Yemen now or right here right now trying to pass Calculus. This distress, this struggle, is a result of what we call original sin, the brokenness of our world and human life. Holiness as experienced by the saints is the original wholeness, the original goodness of life and creation as intended and designed by God. It is infinite fun. I really hope you get to enjoy it.