Homilies & Reflections

More Homilies and Reflections:  
September 2020  
2020  /  2019  

Homily of Friday, October 23, 2020

The Imitation of Christ is a book that used to be very popular, and commonly read amongst Catholics and even among Protestants, though they left out the specifically Catholic parts, such as the Mass. But it has fallen into disuse, maybe disfavor, although Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, they say, had it practically memorized. And Robert Knox, the great convert preacher of the last century in England, read a chapter of it every day. In any case, this is a passage that I came across and had forgotten about. It is interesting. The author says, “You must beware of curious and useless scrutiny into this most profound Sacrament (that is Holy Communion, the body and blood of Christ), if you would not be plunged into the depths of doubt. He that is a searcher of majesty shall be overwhelmed by glory. God is able to effect more than man can understand. A devout and humble inquiry after truth is allowable, if it be ever ready to be taught and if it seek to walk according to the sound teachings of the Fathers. Blessed is that simplicity which leaves the difficult paths of questionings, and goes on in the plain and sure path of God’s commandments… Many have lost devotion whilst they would search into lofty matters. It is faith and an upright life that are required of you; not loftiness of understanding nor the profundities of the mysteries of God. If you neither understand nor comprehend those things which are beneath you, how shall you comprehend those that are above you?” (Bk 4.18) May we be given faith, and upright lives.

The text is from the second chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians and you may recognize it from today’s first reading.  It reads in part: You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone (Eph 2: 19-21). 

Portsmouth Abbey School is a Catholic school. That means it is part of the Catholic Church. And the Catholic Church is one because its founder, Jesus Christ, is one.  He speaks in the very person of God, one and the same God who created us by his Word and Spirit, won us back who belong to him and leads us to accomplish our destiny as we await our Master’s return. Søren Kierkegaard said that the saint is someone whose life is about one thing, centered on the one God of Jesus Christ.  And the business of the Catholic Church is the making of saints. What are the bonds of unity, the elements in the Church that foster this?  I reminded my students that they are the Nicene Creed we professed together every Sunday, the Liturgy, especially the Eucharist, where we shared together the means of accessing divine life.  We had become one in our shared commitment to our brothers and sisters through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and finally we remain united through our shared structure of order which comes from the Apostles.  Together we are one.  We share a common bond as members of the household of God with Jesus Christ as capstone. It was always a good moment to remind our seniors, about to complete their life with us and to begin their next steps into the world, that during that journey they will sometimes feel like strangers and sojourners, but they will never be strangers and sojourners here at Portsmouth Abbey School. They have become members of this one household of God, and that they will remain always.

Homily of the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 18, 2020

Once upon a time, we used to hear the advice about conversation in polite company: Never talk about politics and religion. It was too easy to degrade into an argument when everyone was supposed to be having a good time. But we live in strange times. It’s hard not to talk about those things and it’s hard to avoid arguments. Some years ago there was the Tea Party. Then came the Libertarians; Bernie Sanders made Socialism slightly fashionable for a while. Then Alt-Right and Alt-Left or Antifa were big. But none are as big as the plain old Democrats or the Republicans. And with the current presidential campaign, it’s very hard not to talk about politics If we ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” – I’m pretty sure Jesus would have nothing to do with any of them. That may be surprising given the moral self-righteousness of all sides, but Jesus was nothing if not humble and not at all self-righteous. 

In the first reading we hear the prophet Isaiah speaking the word of God about a great historical figure, Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire. He says the Lord speaks to his anointed, Cyrus. “The Lord’s anointed one” is a powerful term. In Hebrew the word for anointed one is Messiah, in Greek the word is Christ. The prophet Isaiah continues: I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not. It is I who arm you, though you know me not. So even though Cyrus is a messiah, he doesn’t know it (which was probably a good thing) nor does he know the God who anointed Him. Even though Cyrus has conquered Armenia, Persia, what is now Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Western India, it is the Lord God who has made him victorious for the sake of the people of Israel, who have been held in captivity in Babylon. Cyrus waged a clever form of psychological warfare against Babylon, the great Empire of the day. One by one he conquered all the nations around it, all those nations subject to Babylon,     all the nations that traded with Babylon. He slowly choked the economic life out of Babylon. It was only too clear to Babylon that Cyrus would conquer them too. When Cyrus finally came to the city of Babylon, he entered it without any resistance. His policy of religious freedom allowed the Jews who wanted to, to go home, to go back to Jerusalem carrying all the treasures from the temple looted by the Babylonians and carrying a blank check from Cyrus himself allowing the Jews to take from his treasuries and warehouses all the materials they needed to rebuild the temple.

The Lord certainly works in mysterious ways and uses surprising agents to accomplish his work. In Jesus’ day, the world was ruled by the Roman Empire, somewhat less liberal than Cyrus’ Persians. But the Jews were given a special privilege by the Romans, that they did not have to worship the emperor or any of Rome’s civic gods because they were so fanatically devoted to their One God. They alone among the nations conquered by Rome were allowed to be monotheistic. The Temple in Jerusalem had been rebuilt by Herod to be even more glorious than the first Temple of Solomon. Into this world came Jesus, the real Messiah, who does know God but who is not recognized by men.

In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees try to trap him with their question into either alienating his Jewish followers by approving the Roman tax or by rebelling against the Romans, risking arrest by condemning it. It was a trick question. To which Jesus gives a trick answer. “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” All too often people have taken this answer as a literal truth and a commandment. The problem is how to determine what does belong to Caesar, what really does belong to the State, the civil government, and we become endangered by false interpretations. For too long Christians were expected to submit to states & kings who were self-anointed or anointed by the Church under force, but not at all by God. Up until about 200 years ago, the heads of European states used to appoint Bishops. It is to our eternal shame that the Catholics of Southern Germany were Hitler’s biggest supporters in his rise to power. If we think about it, doesn’t everything, everywhere belong to God, whether we, like Cyrus, recognize it or not? In the second reading we hear Saint Paul praising the Thessalonians for their constant awareness of their work of faith and their labor of love and endurance in hope for the coming of God’s Kingdom.

Which brings us back to our contemporary political movements. Although they differ in many respects, they agree. In actually having no real respect for God or for persons, although they are really great at pretending to do so. Those on the right are like the Pharisees in mouthing praise for God with hardened hearts according to rules they have written, with no compassion for the burdens they place on the backs of common, esp. poor people. Those on the left are like the Pharisees in their sense of entitlement and in their opposition to any authority but their own. The Democrats uphold social morality and ignore personal responsibility. The Republicans are all about personal morality and ignore social responsibility. All sides are characterized by a lack of charity, by their harshness of their language, by their presumption to know and do better than God, certainly by their presumption to know and do better than the Church, and by their deliberate obfuscation of the truth. Even now politicians make the human plight of refugees from Syria, Myanmar & Central America a political issue to be exploited, and totally ignore the thousands suffering and dying in limbo and exile, totally ignoring not only what Christian charity requires, but also common human decency. Jesus would have no part of any of them. The focus on Nationalism here and in Europe is totally contrary to the Gospel that teaches us: You must put all away all anger, fury, malice, and slander. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all. Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Jesus was lucky. He was not able to vote. What is a citizen today supposed to do then ? Vote…for whom or for what? Or not vote? As citizens, we are responsible to the state for choosing our leaders and the courses of action they propose which are most needed now and which are more just. As with so many moral issues, we are faced with difficult choices. But to not choose is in fact to choose irresponsibility. We must inform, educate and then follow our consciences. Sincere, moral people may come to different conclusions, but together, keeping our eyes on God’s kingdom and prayerfully fulfilling our responsibility, God, who sees better than any of us what is good and right, will lead us to a good outcome. We would do best to follow the example of the Thessalonians, by our unceasing awareness and focus on our work of faith and labor of love and endurance in our hope of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ Gospel did not come to us in word alone, but also in his person and power and in the Holy Spirit. As we find ourselves in a time of elevated, accelerated, acerbic and acrimonious political rhetoric, let us give to God what is his due. Let us do all we can to care for children, the poor, those kept down and put out, the sick and the dying, the aliens and the refugees and protect them from the forces of evil and anger. Let us act in such a way that God will be on our side, that He who alone is judge will recognize our greatness that comes from being the body, the healing person Jesus Christ in our place and our time to all our neighbors. The Truth will set us all free.

Homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Vigil Mass), October 16, 2020

The gospel today is well-known because it teaches, first that there is a requirement for Christians, for Catholics, to pay their taxes; to do whatever good things the government wants us to do. To obey the laws of the government, unless, as has happened not infrequently, the laws themselves are bad or corrupt. Just because it is lawful does not mean that it is a good thing, that it is not a sin. The obvious example today is abortion. It is legal, but we regarded as a serious sin. What the people are trying to do (in this gospel) is to trick Jesus into saying something where, whatever he says, it will be used against him. If he says don’t pay taxes, well, then he is in trouble with the Roman government. If he says pay the taxes, well, then the really zealous believers will turn against him. And he looks at the coin and says, “Whose image is on this coin?” And they say, “Caesar’s.” That’s not Julius Caesar. This is decades after the death of Julius Caesar. But he was so potent a figure that the rulers in Rome took his name, Caesar, as a title for the current Roman emperor. Whose picture is on the coin? Jesus says, well, “It’s his coin, give it back to him. And you – give what is God’s to God.” 

So, there is that distinction. There are things we can legitimately be asked by Caesar, the government. But there are certain things that belong to God. What are they? Well in the early church, they said the answer to that is what bears the image of God, as a coin bears the image of Caesar. And the answer is that it is you and I, human beings, who are made in the image of God. It says that is the case in the Bible. God made man in his image, he made man and woman in his image. So, we are what we have to pay back or should pay back or get back to God. How do we do that? Well, Saint Paul says you are not your own, you were bought with a price, with our Lord Jesus’ passion and terrible death. He bought us, we are his, if we have been baptized. We pay him back by loving him, loving God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit: the Holy Trinity. How do we love God? It’s not an emotional thing, necessarily. People say: how can you be commanded to love somebody, God even? You can’t, in the sense of emotion. Jesus says repeatedly in the gospel that to love God is to keep His commandments. And what are those Commandments? Well, I will now read them to you, the Ten Commandments (And you say, don’t you know them by heart? I say, oh, yes, I do, but when I get up in front of the congregation and try to tell them by heart I always mix them up and make a mess of it, so I am going to read to you the Ten Commandments from the old law, the Old Testament):

1. I am the Lord your God: you shall not have other gods before me.
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
3. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day (that’s what we’re doing now – it’s a commandment to do that, and we do that, Catholics do that, by going to Mass).
4. Honor your father and your mother (That’s for you - my parents are dead, but as long as they were alive that was for me too).
5. You shall not kill.
6. You shall not commit adultery.
7. You shall not steal.
8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Well, I guess that is simply lying, but lying about other people especially).
9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods (covet in the sense of conniving to get them, by Hook or Crook.) 

Jesus says in the Bible that those Ten Commandments can be summed up in two: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind soul and strength; and the second is like it – love your neighbor as yourself.” By trying, by struggling for many of us, to fulfill those commandments, to live by those Commandments, we grow in love of God.

Homily of Thursday, October 15, 2020

Germany, the summer of 1921, a woman twenty-nine years old is visiting friends, gone off for the evening. She’s bored, so she goes to the library, she browses through the books there, pulls one down and starts to read. She’s o enthralled by this one book she reads al through the night. In the morning she’s done, and she says, “This is the truth! This is the truth!” The woman is Edith Stein who would become eventually Saint Edith Stein, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. An impressive lady: a convert from atheism; she was raised Jewish. An impressive mind, an impressive person, who would die in the camps, the concentration camps; canonized by Pope John Paul II. An impressive lady. What book could impress this impressive lady? The book in name was “The Autobiography of Teresa of Avila.” Her life. It is an impressive book. It is an impressive life. Much of church history is depressing, Much of church history is just pathetic and sad and mediocre. It is the saints and mystics like Teresa of Avila whose feast we celebrate today that impress us. This is the truth. If you read this life you know that this is the truth, the power, the majesty, the reality of the supernatural life is real and for all of us can be real. The great truth of the Catholic faith is all of us, no matter how pathetic we may be, can become saints, can become friends, intimate friends, of God, in this life to a remarkable extent. It is possible, it is doable. This life shows it, her life shows it, and our lives can also show it. So on this feast of Teresa of Avila, this great mystic, saint, reformer, etc., let us pursue holiness with all our hearts. Let us give real time, sufficient time to prayer, to virtue, to good works, the sacraments. And we will know powerfully, intimately, that God is real, the faith is real. This is the truth.

Homily of Monday, October 12, 2020

In the couple hundred years after the death of Christ, Christianity spread very, very broadly and widely. A number of Christian missionaries must’ve been carrying the Christian message all over the Near East and Italy, from England and Scandinavia clear to India. Missionaries whose names we do not know – by the dozens, by the hundreds probably. During this time, Christianity formed several different schools of thought and belief, basically founded on areas of influence of the various disciples. We have a Petrine school of theology, Johannine school of theology, one at Alexandria, one at Odessa, a Syrian school. Not heretical faiths, but forms of Christianity that stress certain aspects of Christ’s teachings. Paul, of course, we know very well his missionary journeys, but the unnamed hundreds of missionaries that scholars can discern – they can go into these remote valleys in Dalmatia, remote areas of Asia minor and eastern Asia, and find evidence that a missionary had carried Christianity of the Alexandrian version into this area and it became a church, and that church generated itself. At the same time as these large areas of Christianity (various versions of it, angles on it) a lot of pretty heretical movements were born as well, simply because these people were completely out of contact with Rome, either by sheer distance or geography, the impossibility of traveling, this sort of thing. And so, fairly independent churches, more or less, continued. And at the same time, during the succeeding centuries – during the first and second centuries as well, but right up until the seventh century, the church was blessed with an absolutely miraculous number of bishops who, to a man, held the primacy of Peter and the idea that there is one faith that has to be promulgated, and that their job was to pull the many, many hundreds of these small semi-independent churches, through no fault of their own, into line with Rome. It is really an astounding story of Christianity that scholars have been able to put together through deduction. [We have many important examples] of this kind of scholar.

Well, to make a long story short, our Wilfrid today is the one who pulled Celtic Christianity into line with Roman Christianity in the late seventh century. The Irish had been out of touch with Rome for a long period of time, but very faithful to the teachings of Christ. There were certain usages that had deviated, or which they had preserved from earlier church’s teachings carried to them that were pulled in line by Saint Wilfrid. He’s the one pulled Celtic Christianity into line with Rome. But he is, we need to remember, one of hundreds of bishops who did this heroic work and were not remembered. We don’t remember their names – certainly they are remembered in heaven, as we hope we all will be. A missionary like Wilfrid reminds us that, especially in the last fifteen years that, and Pope Francis has been extremely vociferous on the idea – you and I as baptized Christians have a very serious responsibility as missionaries ourselves. And he is very adamant in saying that is not just through the good example of our lives as Catholics. We are as baptized Catholics commissioned to go into the world and speak our faith to the people we work with, we live with, we see, whether it’s in season or out of season. So, I think Wilfrid is a good example of that, and a good reminder that we are all missionaries, not just the few that we revere like Saint Wilfrid today.
 

Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary time (October 10/11, 2020) 

Picture it. Boston. 1984. Three star players of the ‘84 NBA-champion Boston Celtics publicly reject an invitation to come to the White House to celebrate their victory with President Ronald Reagan.  Larry Bird, The star forward of the Celtics, said, “If the president wants to see me, he knows where to find me.” Larry Bird didn’t abuse the person who gave him the invitation, ​nor did the President send out henchmen ​​​​to punish him for refusing to come. Since then lots of big shots have refused invitations to come to the White House for personal, religious and political motives  without any significant repercussions. As you might guess, the Gospel today is obviously more than just a story about a king and a wedding banquet. It is the story of God sending prophets and evangelists with the Good News, which some people rejected and others accepted. That’s the story of salvation history. And it has two big lessons for us Maybe you’ve had a wedding in your family.​​​​​Preparing for an event like that is expensive & requires time, so you send & accept invitations well in advance. ​​The host then prepares for the number of people who accepted. So extending an invitation, obligates the host to prepare, and accepting an invitation obligates the guest to show up. Once this banquet described in today’s Gospel is ready, the host sends a second notice — sort of like how we make medical appointments in advance and receive a reminder call a few days before. It’s finally the day of the wedding. But the invited guests simply refuse to honor the invitation; they offer no explanations or excuses.  It was one thing for them to accept an invitation for an event to be held sometime in the future — to accept the invitation in principle. Accepting didn’t inconvenience them in any way, and it was an honor to be invited. But now that it is time to drop what they are doing, to change clothes, and to go to the wedding…​ Now that the invitation calls for action, they only see its inconvenience.

Likewise, our call to follow Christ, in its specifics, can be inconvenient. Like the invited guests, we can find it easy to accept Christ in principle… he was a nice guy, after all… But, like those guests, we find it less easy to accept the particulars. In this Gospel, the king makes a second appeal to persuade invited guests to attend. The story is a little exaggerated. A real king back then would not try to persuade people to attend but would punish those who refused to come. But since this is a story of God’s grace, exaggeration is appropriate. It’s good things, not bad things, that distract the invited guests. Their problem is not drinking or gambling, but the routine of daily life. Temptation always presents what appears reasonable and good. Those who were first invited, the business people and landowners, had rejected his invitation.​ So the king sends out his servants to the "main roads," which would include the town squares and markets. He "invites" people who would never be on a "respectable" guest list: peddlers, butchers, beggars, prostitutes, tax collectors, shoplifters, the physically impaired and sick, etc. These people would know a good thing when they heard it; they wouldn’t be so stupid to refuse. The king enters the banquet hall to meet the "guests." They are no longer merely street people, foreigners, thieves, etc. They are called "guests." Their situation has been completely been reversed. And they did nothing to deserve it! They were invited to a feast they, in their wildest imaginations, would never dream they would get to attend. That’s the way Gods grace works !  

The early church found an eager audience in those kind of people not welcome elsewhere. The result was that many church members were those considered undesirable in polite company. Some so-called “good” people were quite troubled by the presence of these “sinful” people in the church. So the king’s encounter with a man without his "wedding garment. You might think, "He was just rounded up from the streets, How could anyone expect him to be wearing formal clothes? ​​​​​Where would he get them anyway? But…the other guests from the main roads were wearing them! What it means is that the wedding robe equates to righteousness, righteousness in faith and love shown in good works. The book of Revelation says, “fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints." God doesn’t want to throw anyone out. He has made full provision for a wedding garment for us all. But only those who actually put it on will enter into the joy and kingdom of the Lord. This errant guest has declined to “put on Christ." He has seen no value in holiness —  has not chosen to work at being a saint instead of just a sinner. This parable warns us that God will no more tolerate the rebellion of the unrighteous than he will accept the rebellion of those who refuse the invitation.

So, How Will You Respond to God’s Invitation? It is not an invitation to a funeral, even though some people act as though being a Christian is equivalent to being soaked in formaldehyde for a week. It is an invitation to joy. It is not an invitation to some stiff formal dinner, but to a relaxed, cheerful, joyful occasion, a family meal. In other words, It is an invitation to the fullness of life. We really need to understand and grasp that! It’s simple. The key to our life in God is to show up, to be present. But that’s a lot easier said than done. To be present is hard work. Think how difficult it is to be really present to another person. 

• It means making the other person our priority. 
• It means seeing them for who they are and not who we want them to be or think they should be.
• It means opening ourselves to receive what they offer us.
• It means bringing and offering what we are and what we have.
• It means the vulnerability of trusting ​and giving our time to the other.
• It means really listening to what they say and not just what we hear or want to hear.
• It means letting go of our own agendas, distractions, fears, and prejudices.

But if you ARE present to God, if you listen with the ear of your heart ​​​​you will hear Him deliver that invitation to you. And If you hear that and continue to reject God’s invitation, I know that God will persevere, to continue to call and invite you. ​There’s a wonderful poem called “The Hound of Heaven” ​​that explores God’s perseverance in his invitation. But at some point, there is an end. God is patient. But he won’t wait forever. And none of us should reject God’s invitation and act as if he’s never going to take action. He will. Sooner or later, we will die on this earth and after that comes judgement. Now the community in Corinth founded by Saint Paul had its troubles and divisions that distressed St. Paul a lot. Jewish Christians & Gentile converts were together at their celebrations, rich and poor, widows, orphans, the sick and people from "the main roads," who responded and embraced Jesus’ message. This diversity was been hard for some to take, those used to being with their "own kind."  But they had Paul’s strong letters to correct them and there were the Gospel parables like today’s, to challenge their elitism and call them back to being a real community of Jesus’ followers. If we listen carefully to the Word of God we heard today, and take today’s Gospel to heart, then how could we fail to look around at everyone in our community and thank God for their being here with us? Let’s not judge anyone’s motives, their coolness, or their clothes,​​​​​or how athletic or smart they are.  Let’s not get hung up on whether they are dems or reps, ​right or left, pro Biden or pro Trump, ​​for guns or against guns, meat eaters or vegetarians. God alone will make the call on who is wearing the proper garment of righteousness.

Let’s celebrate them and the fact that we are all invited to the same event by God’s Word today. Each of us must do our best to be not just hearers but doers of that Word!

Homily of Saturday, October 10, 2020

God does not deny his grace to those who try their best. This was a commonplace in late medieval theology, that Martin Luther and the Protestant reformers despised as being works of righteousness. And nothing more Catholic was ever said. as the Letter of James in the New Testament says, “Faith without works is dead.” Yes, faith is important; faith is essential, faith is important. But if it’s not producing good fruit, good works, it is worthless, meaningless, and hell is your destiny. No one has lived that life of observance, of faithfulness, of good works more than Our Lady. In our gospel today, we see a lady who praises the person who gave birth to Jesus the womb, the breasts, etc. But he says in response, “Better those who hear the word of God and observe it.” And Our Lady, more than anyone else, was observant of the word of God, and lived it and produced abundant fruit, and still produces abundant fruits now n the world, by her intercession and her involvement, etc. So all of us are called to hear the word of God and observe it. Faith is good, faith is important, faith is nice - but faith without works is dead, meaningless, empty, hollow, worthless. You can fill all of the boxes you want, but if they don’t have real productivity, real fruits, it is worthless. So let us do on this day imitate Our Lady; imitate her in her faithfulness, to be sure, but more importantly imitate her is her productivity, her activity, her involvement, her observance - her fidelity to that faith and to Our Savior. And if we do so, she and we will be together in paradise.

Homily of Friday, October 9, 2020

This is from John Henry Newman’s “Meditations and Devotions,” on the subject of Holy Communion – it is a prayer: “Thou dealest otherwise wit others, but, as to me, the Flesh and Blood of God is my sole life. I shall perish without it; yet shall I not perish with it and by it? How can I raise myself to such an act as to feed upon God? O my God, I am in a strait – shall I go forward, or shall I go back? I will go forward: I will go to meet thee. I will open my mouth, and receive thy gift. I do so with great awe and fear, but what else can I do? To whom should I go but to Thee? Who can save me but thou? Who can cleanse me but thou? Who can make me overcome myself but thou? Who can raise my body from the grave but thou? Therefore I come to thee in all my necessities, in fear, but in faith.” Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us to have a lively understanding of Holy Communion.

Homily for Manor House Mass of Thursday, October 8, 2020

“O stupid Galatians, who has bewitched you!” (Gal. 3:1)

What made St. Paul so angry?  Statements like this: “Well, as long as I’m a good person, what does it really matter what I believe or how I worship?” This statement is the reduction of religion to ethics. It’s was the ‘stupid’ thing that the Christian community in Galatia was thinking. They felt that if they just followed the ‘rules’, then everything would be fine. And forget all the rest. Especially forget that they didn’t have all the answers. And that really made St. Paul angry. Like them, many of us today feel that everything else in religion - art, liturgy, prayer, mysticism, sacraments – centers around and leads back to ‘rules’, to morality. “Forget church, if I’m good I’ll go to heaven.” Let’s finally outgrow this childish view. First, we all know from experience how looking ‘good’ may cover vice. Second, our sad efforts to be ‘good’ are seldom as successful as we pretend. If you asked any Catholic teacher over the centuries what the central core of Christianity is, they would definitely not have said ethics or morality. Rather they would have said “deification”: becoming conformed to the divine nature, becoming like God. Only this allows us to act virtuously. Here’s how St. Athanatius described it:  "The Son of God became man so that we might become God." Righteous behavior is important, but our efforts to behave are not where it starts. Upright conduct is an effect, not a cause. It is caused by a change in our inner attitudes. And these change through prayer where we enter into communion with Jesus and access his divinity.  We become children of God. This goes for our personal prayer as well as the prayer we share in common with others in the liturgy and sacraments – both are vital.  So the pattern is not ‘be good’ – ‘go to heaven’.  
The true process is:  prayer - inner change - outer behavior.  …all borne by the grace of Christ crucified and risen. For a brief, shining moment on Mount Tabor, when Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James and John, he revealed the transformed, divinized humanity that will mark us as citizens of heaven: beautiful, elevated, outside the confines of space and time. Deification is what awaits us.

Homily of Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Today we remember Our Lady of the Rosary in our Mass prayers.  With these, Mary appears as the immediate content of the Rosary prayer.  Who is she?   Put simply she is the woman whose main purpose in life became Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Redeemer. Like the Incarnation itself, this fact is simple and at the same time far beyond our powers of comprehension. The angel’s message of the Annunciation already provides a lifetime of matter for pondering.  It was not a declaration that God’s will was to be accomplished in her. Rather it was an invitation for her to agree that it be so.  This was a moment into which men and angels will gaze for eternity.  Here stood the girl Mary in her freedom facing the decision on which all human salvation would depend.  What could it have meant for her when the question, “Will you support the Savior’s coming?” included the further question “Will you become his mother?”  What does it mean that she conceived the Son of God and our Savior? That she carried him for nine months; that she bore him?  That she feared for his life not once but many times?  That she wandered into exile with him?  How was it that she raised him in the tranquil home in Nazareth; that he left her on his mission; that she followed him with her love, finally standing, at the end, with him as he died on his cross?  And that, after all this, she knew of the Resurrection and waited after the Ascension with the Apostles for the descent of the Holy Spirit whose power had overshadowed her that day so long ago. It is Mary’s own voice we hear In the Mysteries of the Rosary.  From whom else would the authors of the Gospels have learned all these things?  The course of her life contains nothing fictitious, nothing legendary.  It is all quite simple, quite real.  Her life is as humanly true as it can possibly be, but in this human quality it’s filled with the mystery of divine union and love, the depth of which is unfathomable.  The Rosary guides us ever more deeply in this direction.  

Homily of Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Martha and Mary, these two sisters, have been seen as symbols by many Christian writers, as symbols of the active and contemplative life, and the priority of the contemplative life, the life of prayer and worship and adoration. I don’t think scripture scholars would go that far, but some very important points have been brought out for us: that all success in the Christian life, all success in Christian institutions and organizations, has to be founded upon a true attitude, a true contemplative attitude in what you do. We spend vast sums of money, vast amounts of energy and time to make things truly Catholic - to spread the faith, etc. And so often it produces little fruit, or even none, if it is not rooted truly in the one thing necessary: Jesus Christ himself and the spiritual life, and the supernatural graces that come from that. It’s easy to be active. It’s easy to do things and fill boxes. People do this all the time. It comes naturally to human nature, to do stuff, as if that’s going to solve all of these realities. But if it’s not rooted in Jesus Christ, not rooted in worship, true prayer, the supernatural graces, it will produce little or no fruit. And we see that in our present age and in earlier ages. We are easily taken to activity. To root ourselves in the truth, to root ourselves in the supernatural power of God, to be truly attuned to God and experience his energy and life, that will make our activity fruitful, fruitful for the conversion of souls, fruitful for making saints. Saint Bruno, whose feast we celebrate today, knew that instinctually. He saw much of the higher levels of the church and it was not pretty. Actually, it was quite ugly, repulsive. That was true then, it is true now, then being the 11th century, many centuries ago. Many things are not what they should be, because too many Catholics, too many Christians, are rooted not in God and adoration and worship and the supernatural, but in mindless activity that produces little fruit, and in fact the opposite in many cases: corruption, hypocrisy, lies, filth, and every sort of perversion. Bruno saw that you had to be centered in God, to serve God totally and completely. For him to do that, he had to retire to solitude. He founded the Carthusian order, one of the great eremitical orders, that still exists in the Catholic Church today. Not all of us, in fact very few of us, are called to that kind of life of solitude, but each of us, all of us, must be rooted in God, totally and completely. Our life, our energies, our vision, our activity must be rooted in Him, rooted in His power and His grace. And if we do so, great results will follow. Our activity will produce good fruit: conversions, transformations, happiness, joy, etc. If it is not rooted in those realities of God, in His power, in His life, it produces very little fruit, very, very little fruit. Let us imitate the life of the great Saint Bruno, in a life of intense prayer and the supernatural. Even in our lives in the world: it can be done. It is more difficult, to be sure, but it can be done. If you give yourself to prayer intensely, you will transform everything you do, even the things that are very active, that seem to be very active. We are called to do that, called to do that by God Himself. And if we don’t do that there is no good result. 

Homily of 27th Sunday, Ordinary Time, Sunday, October 4, 2020

In today’s readings, we heard two parables about vineyards, both of which failed to give the owner good fruit. In the parable told by Isaiah, in spite of the great care taken by Isaiah’s friend in choosing good soil, clearing stones and cultivating the field, then planting only the best vines, the field produced only wild grapes: grapes that are small and sour and do not produce good wine. Isaiah identifies these wild grapes with the People of God, Israel, the nation chosen by God, given His law and nurtured by His presence among them; the People God had prepared since the beginning of the world for the coming of His Son. Like the wild grapes, they have not allowed themselves to be improved, but continued acting like the other nations.

This can be seen in the major historical events in the Promised land during Isaiah’s lifetime. About 200 years had passed since the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah had divided after 10 of the tribes had rebelled against Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, and formed an independent kingdom, the northern part of the divided kingdom which was called Israel, with golden calves set up for worship so that the people wouldn’t have to go to Jerusalem. Jerusalem itself became the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, which continued to be ruled over by David’s descendants, in the southern part of what had been David’s kingdom. These kingdoms remained small, independent kingdoms, among a series of small, independent kingdoms in the small area of land called the Levant between the historically powerful Egyptians and the many empires that had risen and fallen in Mesopotamia. At Isaiah’s time, a new Mesopotamian power was threatening. The Assyrian Empire had taken over all of Mesopotamia, reached into Turkey, and was pushing South toward Egypt, through the Levant. A series of the small kingdoms from the Levant, including the northern kingdom of Israel, had allied to oppose Assyrian expansion. One notable exception was the kingdom of Judah, ruled over by Ahaz, a descendent of David. Seeking to compel him to join them, the kingdom of Israel, along with several other neighbors, invaded the kingdom of Judah.

Isaiah advised Ahaz to trust in God and ask him for a sign of what he should do, which was given as the Virgin conceiving. Ahaz ignored him, and instead contacted the Assyrians, bribing them for help against Israel and the other nations attacking Judah. By the end of this war, Israel was completely destroyed, and much of the population deported, a common practice used by the Assyrians to prevent rebellion. Judah itself was reduced to a state of vassalage, maintaining a quasi-independent status but forced to pay tribute to Assyria until Hezekiah, Ahaz’s son and one of the few kings of Judah portrayed positively in the Bible, successfully made Judah the only independent state within the large area conquered by the Assyrian’s, stretching from Egypt into modern-day Turkey, and over much of what we call the Middle-East. This independence would last until the Babylonian Empire, would rebel against and destroy the Assyrian Empire, and then conquer the small kingdom of Judah, which was ultimately restored by the Persians after the Babylonian captivity. God’s cherished plant, as Isaiah’s parable calls Judah, would survive the destruction of the vineyard.
Looking at this history, it’s easy to see what Isaiah is referring to when he says that Israel has become like wild grapes. The northern kingdom of Israel acts unjustly by invading the southern kingdom of Judah to force it into an alliance, which was ultimately doomed to failure. The southern kingdom of Judah acts unjustly against the northern kingdom of Israel by paying a strong, neighboring empire to invade and destroy it. Reading through the books of the prophets shows this pattern repeated throughout society, the rich preying on the poor, familial relationships ruptured by betrayal, and the prophets who denounce it regularly persecuted. Isaiah himself would eventually be executed by Hezekiah’s son and successor, Manasseh.

Here we pick up with the vineyard presented in the Gospel. This time, the parable is told to the chief priests and elders, and focuses on the tenants who are leased ownership of a vineyard while the owner who planted it is on a journey. The owner sends first a series of servants to the tenants to ask for the produce he is owed. The tenants, however, have decided that they do not wish to return what they owe, and beat, kill and stone the servants sent to them. The owner then sends his son, who is killed in an attempt to steal the inheritance of the vineyard. Jesus then forces the chief priests and elders into a corner by asking them what the owner of the vineyard should do to the tenants, before revealing that, in fact, they are those tenants, the servants are the prophets sent to Israel and Judah, who were persecuted and killed, with their message of justice ignored, and the Son who is killed by the tenants in an attempt to acquire the inheritance is Christ Himself. The vineyard that God has planted, however, is given to new tenants who will produce its fruit.
Like the vineyard in Isaiah, this vineyard represents the People of God, but, in Christ, this becomes a broader term. In the Old Testament, the People of God are a particular nation chosen by God and given His law and teaching. In Christ, the People of God becomes a part of the trinitarian formula that defines the Church: the People of God, the Body of Christ, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit: entered through baptism, through being re-made in Christ.

Re-made in Christ, the branches that had produced wild grapes and been under wicked tenants, are instead grafted onto the fruitful vine, Christ, and nurtured by the Holy Spirit. They can now produce good, well-cultivated fruit. But the question remains, what does this good, well-cultivated fruit look like? We find an answer to this in St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, the most positive letter he wrote, written while he was in prison. St. Paul tells the Philippians that, by praying and giving thanks to God, His peace, a peace that surpasses understanding, will come to them. He further urges them to focus on the good: on what is honorable, just, pure, lovely and gracious; to focus on excellence. I don’t need to make any more than a passing mention to politics to show the opposite: the connection between a lack of peace and a focus put on whatever is dishonorable, unjust, impure, ugly and ungrateful. This approach of focusing on how you have been wronged and attempting to force redress is the pattern of the world that led to the destruction of Israel, Judah, and the Assyrians. In contrast, St. Paul teaches virtue, a kind of lived excellence, and especially the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, as the way to true peace: a peace that lasts because it is found within us and cannot be taken away. This peace is given as a fruit of the Holy Spirit, a well-cultivated, good fruit that we return to God and our neighbors through our lives.

Living by virtue, living in Christ, restores the peace that was broken in the first garden, when Adam and Eve, the first tenants, ate fruit that they thought would make them like God. Instead, it took Christ’s death and resurrection, made present for us in the Mass and sacraments, for us to truly become grafted onto God, and part of the vineyard that produces good grapes, a good produce that can be seen in the holiness of the saints.

Homily of Saturday, October 3, 2020

Columbia Marmion was an Irishman who eventually became a monk. He was at Maredsous in Belgium and eventually became the Abbot of that community. He was renowned for his retreat conferences which were based on the New Testament and pure Catholic doctrine which was remarkable for retreat conferences in that time, and that was in the first half of the 20th century. His style is such that a lot of people today find it difficult, but his doctrine, if you can get to it, as one pope said, is the purest Catholic doctrine. This is one of the things he says about the Eucharist: “What indeed is required of us in order that we may sit down at the feast of the great king (the Mass), and eat with profit the heavenly bread – we come to it clad in the wedding garment, that is to say, that we should be in the state of grace and have a right intention. Nothing more is required on our side. But for Jesus certainly it was not without labor that he prepared this feast for us. He needed to suffer the abasement of the incarnation, humility in obscure labor of the hidden life, the fatigue of the apostolate, the preaching, the conflicts with the Pharisees, the combats against the prince of Darkness. Finally, that which contains and grounds all: the sufferings of the passion it was only at the cost of his bloodstained immolation and untold sufferings that Jesus Christ merited for us this wonderful grace of being so closely united to himself, in that he nourishes us with his sacred body and gives us his precious blood to drink. Therefore it was that he instituted this sacrament on the eve of his passion, as if to give us the utmost touching proof of the excess of his love for us. He so loved those, scripture says, who were his own whom he was leaving in the world, and he would give them the utmost proof of his love. It is because it is communicated to us at such a price that this gift is full of the sweetness of the infinite love of Jesus Christ. How can we fail to attend to these sacred mysteries with all our reverence and adoration?” Grant, we beseech you, O Lord, so to venerate the sacred mysteries of your body and blood.

A reflection on the memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels (October 2,  2020)
Exodus 23; 20-23; Matthew 18: 1-5, 10

“Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.”

In today’s gospel Jesus tells us that childlikeness is the prerequisite of heaven. What is it that Jesus praises in the child?  It is the exact opposite of the main negative characteristic of adulthood: grasping at power. The child’s orientation lies in his natural humility.  A child is born with the capacity to be perfectly receptive to the simple, revolutionary ideas in Christ’s teachings.  These teachings are met with reserve by the adolescent and usually rejected altogether by adults. What Jesus values is the child’s faith-filled clarity of vision, the capacity for wonder, the ability to sense, accept and return love.  The attitude of the child is exactly the attitude suggested by the word “believer”.   “…unless you turn and become like children…”  Jesus calls on us to do something few seriously attempt: to outgrow our bogus, fear-filled “maturity”.  He asks us to turn back to our beginnings and rebuild from the ground up.  This requires fortitude.  But it’s the “victory that overcomes the world” of which St. John speaks. (1 John 5:4) To become a child in Christ’s sense is to achieve Christian maturity.