Sunday Readings

Shutup

Many of you have heard the expression: "don't blink or you'll miss it." If you have ever gone through a small town (or what they call a small town) you know how true that can be. I remember being told to take a right when I got to the center of a town in Ireland. It wasn't a four cornered town; it was a three cornered town! And yes, I did miss the turn.

It's easy to do isn't it? We can miss an awful lot even when it's right in front of us. These two stories in the Gospel today are perfect examples of that. The young girl was healed when only a few were looking. The older woman with a blood disorder was healed in the middle of a crowd. St. Mark places these stories together to show the sovereign power and authority of Jesus over illness and suffering. And in both cases, His authority is very different from the itinerant preachers and healers who crisscrossed the Holy Land during those times.

Perhaps, with our more modern perspective, we could offer Jesus a few pointers to make His ministry more effective. Let's begin our consultation with the first rule of real estate: location, location, location. We could tell Jesus He needs a stage; not a haphazard crowd or a darkened sickroom. Secondly, we can offer the suggestion that Jesus time this whole thing a little better. Send an advance team of disciples to gather the crowd at a specific time convenient to all. And, if we may be so bold, we could hint at a more representative demographic rather than simply a chronically ill senior citizen or the privileged daughter of someone from the higher end of the socio-economic structure of the day. And regardless of how well prepared and well presented our strategies might be, something tells me that Jesus would have done something else.

Actually, this is not as much about Jesus the Healer as it is about us as disciples. It is not about the spectacle of the miracle as much as it is about the grace of God really working. If we can so easily miss a left turn or a right turn we should not be surprised that we miss the subtle grace of God powerfully working in our own hearts. That's just human nature. The wear and tear of daily life can dull our senses. We have to be reasonable because there's no way we can be on full alert all the time.

As we become adults, we start to choose what we are looking for. A teenager, for example, would die of embarrassment if they left home with socks of slightly different shades of the same color. At 43, it is the least of my concerns. The young adult is very concerned with making a good impression; an older adult just is not impressed. If changing things like fashion and popularity are decisions we make to notice, what have we decided to notice when it comes to things spiritual? Is that power of God, flowing out from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, something we notice?

Each person, each disciple, has to answer this question for themselves. And in order to answer it, we need one indispensable tool. We need silence of soul. We need to do what Jesus did -- we need to silence the maddening noise of what crowds out our life and the din of negativity. We have to have that space without wailing and complaining about things we can never control. We have to have access to our souls where we will not fear or tremble before God. It is easy to think of silence as the absence of noise. But it is so much more than that. Yes, some find that silence in the early morning quiet of the church or in the fresh stillness of quiet park. Others (and I include myself in this category) will find it on a long car ride or staring out the rear window of a long subway ride.

But where ever it is, get it. You have to take medicine? You have to do homework? You have to clean the house? You have to pay taxes? You must have silence of soul. Are we too busy for silence? If so, that is right -- we are too busy. We may have more important things to do but this one is essential. On the natural level, the silence of soul is also called "rest." And without rest, we die. It is as if nature is saying to us in order to keep going, we must stop. If we do not stop, we will be stopped. How can we believe in God or His actions in the world if we never have the quiet to see them? If I see my spiritual life getting into a rut, you can bet silence is dying. It is hard to say we do not perceive the grace of God working in our days if our days make it hard to find the time when we say nothing at all.

Again, the absence of noise is a great help to quiet it is not the best indicator of silence. We're going to miss things because of the noise of daily life. Don't miss this one because we'd be missing God Himself. Silence of soul is not only a religious thing for folks in the cloistered beauty of the monastery. It is our privilege and one of those things no one has the right to take away from us. Personally, silence of soul is as addictive as coffee or chocolate. So to play on that song from the 80s: "you might as well face it, you're addicted to silence."

Go ahead and crave that stillness of soul. And when you have it, you will see things -- wonderful things.

Sunday Readings

Calm Down

Over the past few weeks, most of us have experienced exactly what the disciples experienced in today's Gospel. Okay, maybe not exactly but it sure seems like it! We are getting socked and soaked with one storm after another. It is really starting to interfere with our summer plans. Games are being rained out, barbecues are being canceled, and brides are being told it is ‘good luck.’ Storms are like that. We may need the rain but we do not need the disruption. They are big and they can be scary. And like many other things in life, there is absolutely nothing we can do about them. It doesn’t take a meteorologist or theologian to see that this storm on the lake is not only about the weather.

Job can give a hearty ‘amen’ to that one. He knew the storms of life as everything and everyone around him was taken away or falling apart. I don’t know why people call him “patient” if they mean patience as passive silence in the face of difficulties. That is one thing he is not. He, like the disciples in the boat, cry out to God. These are not noble martyrs defiantly staring sacrifice in the face. These are terrified human beings who are looking at a situation without hope. They are who we are at times.

Face it; life can be scary. We can all list those moments when we knew it personally or even as a nation. And yet, from that same deep place within us, we find our fear has a companion: our faith. Even self-professed atheists often call out "oh God" as disaster strikes. Does this mean our faith is merely a natural reaction to bad things? I think instead, that our fear and our faith reveal our humanity. It shows us that even with our technology and our best intentions, we are still ordinary people in some extraordinary situations. This can be life at its worst and humanity at its best. In this darkness, we turn to God.

Jesus commands the winds to be quiet. He stills the raging sea. His powerful authority leaves the disciples in a calm shock. It was something they would never forget. Job experiences this same majesty of God and is humbled before it. This is more than courage or long-suffering. It is the grace of God in a way we could never imagine.

We rightly admire heroes and our world, with its cynicism, certainly needs them. We are inspired by the example of those who are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. They rise to the occasion not because they're unafraid that because they are afraid. Today, we celebrate Father's Day and honor those who have the role of father in the heroic love that demands sacrifice, strength, and character in the face of the many circumstances of life – especially some very difficult ones.

Heroes are not rare; they are all around us. As people of faith, we believe it is our vocation to be heroes. Beginning with the example of someone who is a father to us, we find those who have the strength to be weak enough to call upon God. We discover the faithful example of what is possible in situations that are probable. We discover within ourselves the strength of conviction that while life may not always be good, God is always greater.

The storms will pass and the waters will recede. We will face struggles and suffer defeat. And regardless how barren the landscape, we find hope. We even dare to call upon God as Our Father and by his grace, we get through.

So have courage and be thankful for those who have shown us the way, remembering those who have had and continue to have the role of father in our lives. And pray for peace when things get rough. Trust that you are not alone because you are not. In this faith, we have the courage to pray:

O Lord, calm the waves of my heart; calm its tempests. Calm thy self, O my soul, so that the divine can act in thee. Calm thyself, O my soul, so that God is able to repose in thee, so that His peace may cover thee. Yes, Father in Heaven, often we have found that the world cannot give us peace, O but make us feel that Thou art able to give peace; let us know the truth of Thy promise: that the whole world may not be able to take away Thy peace. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Year of the Priest

A few years ago, I arrived for dinner at a house and rang the doorbell. The four-year-old opened the door, looked at me, and screamed, "Mom! God’s here!”

Welcome to the life of the priest!

I'm sure that many priests today will feel a little uncomfortable with what we are beginning. Many of us are present at the high points and the low points of everybody else's life. We are given the task of correcting in the quiet of concession and congratulating in the loud applause of achievement. But there is one thing we rarely do: we rarely talk about ourselves.

Okay that's not entirely accurate! We may talk about our individual self but do not shine the attention on what the priesthood means to us and to the church in the world today. Seven years ago we went through a very rough time. The sick infidelity of a few and the dereliction of leadership over many years was, to put it honestly, plain evil. It caused many to reflect on what it is and who we are when we say that we are Catholic priests. One man in particular had the job -- and a rather unpleasant one at that -- to sort through the most just, quick, and right way of handling this terrible situation. He was exposed to the disheartening and even foul details of a very dark chapter of the modern church. It is this man who has now declared today as the beginning of the "year of priests." Pope Benedict XVI -- the former Cardinal Ratzinger -- once described those dark days and his involvement in them as his "awful penance.” And while the disciplinary and juridical actions that he and many others took were necessary, they were also incomplete. These evils could not be managed by penalties and statements alone. What was needed, and is still needed, and what will always be needed, is prayer and reflection.

Prayer is obvious. The Catholic priest, whether surrounded by scandals or not, is ordained to be a target. The intercession of the entire church is clearly needed to the point that every Eucharistic Prayer contains an intersection for the clergy of the church. The "job" of a priest is like no other. Most everybody will admit this. And so prayer is not an option.

Reflection on priesthood seems to be another matter. It is a significant point of this year for both priest and layperson. And this is something, as I said before, we are not very good at doing. We naturally feel that priesthood is a mystery (and it is) and borders on the indescribable. We trip ourselves by holding up an ideal that we too easily and sadly do not embody. We have the added burden of so many discussions describing what the priesthood is not. It seems, when we speak of the priesthood, we are always on the defensive.

I believe it is the Holy Father's intention that we try something rather different in this consecrated year. It is time for the entire church to celebrate the gift of the priesthood to the entire church. This is not a time for self-congratulation. You know if you give a priest – especially me - a microphone that will come all too easily! No, this is a call to understand and appreciate what the church teaches about this sacrament. It is meant to be more than a dogmatic presentation of documents and quotes because every Catholic will be considering the theology of a human being they know or once knew. This will be a year of reflection that will mirror the Incarnation. We will try to come to the point of seeing what that four-year-old saw.

So what is a priest and why are we celebrating it? Today is the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is a devotion to the sacred humanity of Christ. It was promoted by the church because too many separated the Word made flesh. Some began to see a God was a wrathful overlord who was looking for an opportunity to bring on the Apocalypse. Or worse, God was a theory formed by philosophy and shaped in theology. Today, the other extreme seems to predominate. Jesus is "my bestest buddy who will never judge me.” Some images of Him come right out of Woodstock. And in books, movies, and sadly, in some homilies, the divinity of Jesus Christ is attacked and denied. The Sacred Heart, almost half a year away from Christmas, is a reminder of Bethlehem. “True God and true man” is a furnace of charity that a timid and sinful humanity desperately needs to know. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews says, with cries and supplications, Jesus entered our humanity so we could enter His divinity.

The sacramental priesthood continues to be that same exchange. The priest stands in persona Christi -- in the person of Christ -- at those sacramental moments when human beings need to know that. In Confession, it is Christ who forgives. In the anointing of the sick, it is Christ who heals. In the Eucharist, it is Christ who has offered all the pains and joys of this life to the Father. And while the individual priest is called to whatever degree they are capable to participate, it is Christ whose grace alone sanctifies this world.

In our prayer and reflection this year, all of us are invited to see the action of Christ in the world today. Through the ministry of priests, good and bad, engaging or boring, this action continues. Honestly, this is not about me or any one priest. The highest compliment a priest can receive is to be called "a priest’s priest." It is someone who deeply understands and even more deeply lives the mystery of grace. After the dark period we've been through, perhaps now is the perfect time to see this mystery.

I have been asked many times how do I go to confession. One child asked me if I just looked in the mirror. I told her, "no, I need to go to a priest, usually one of my friends." She needed no lecture from St. Thomas were the documents of Vatican II. She, and her classmates, just nodded their heads in silence.

And that is exactly what we should do as well.

Sunday Readings

A Necessary Feast

(Now I have completed a full three-year cycle of homilies on this format of my webpage. I'd love to hear from anyone with ideas on how to improve it. Ok, ok...I'm really wondering who actually reads it!!! Let me know even if just with an email saying hello. Click below for a contact that should open your email program.)

I remember after my sister had the twins, we were in the hospital room and the nurse came in whose job was to teach the basics of baby care. She asked what I thought at that time was a fairly silly and simple question. She asked my sister if she knew how to hold a newborn infant. I realized this is not a silly question. I've seen godparents holding the infant to be baptized as if they were holding a ticking bomb. The nurse was merely imparting the basics.

Today the church is doing the same thing and for the same precious reason. On the feast of Corpus Christi, we are literally handling the vibrant mystery of our new life in grace. Originally, and in some places still, this is celebrated on a Thursday after Pentecost. I think it is a very wise decision, given holy day of obligation attendance rates, that this feast is transferred to a Sunday. It is the hope of our church that speaking of the Eucharist will be more than just preaching to the choir.

The Gospel today recounts the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. What we do in this place, and in every church, is what was done by Jesus Christ - as we have heard today. The Eucharist has always been and continues to be the central activity of the Catholic Church. We are so emphatic about this that we can easily say without the Eucharist there is no church and there can be no church without the Eucharist.

It is easy to think this is a self-obvious fact. We may ask how could any Catholic think of the church in any other way? For arguments sake, let's ask if we really need the feast of Corpus Christi after all of these generations and years of Sunday Mass.

In the history of the church, we have had some interesting experiences with holy Communion. There was a time when people were so convinced of their unworthiness that the church had to command reception of holy Communion at least once a year. This is the "Easter duty" so many remember from their childhood. In some places the requirements to receive holy Communion were so rigorous you would have an easier time applying for U.S. citizenship.

Clearly, these are not problems we are dealing with today. In fact, it is the opposite. Catholics today seem to approach holy Communion as easily as they ask for the dessert menu. No one would dare even bring up the subject of worthy reception of the Sacrament as our supposedly Catholic pro-abortion politicians demand of us. And if anyone -- ordained, religious, or lay -- even considers the subject, we are cast into the fiery depths of being ‘throwback religious conservatives.’

How is it that we got to the point when asking someone whose hands are covered with bicycle grease to receive on the tongue is an offense against the rights and dignity of the human person? Why is it that some handle with so much care a new life but treat the Source of Life with total indifference?

The answer to that is why the feast of Corpus Christi is so necessary. It is not a question of customs or manners because it is a question of faith. And every statistical analysis today indicates that we are in trouble. Faith in the Eucharist has taken some serious hits over the past 50 years. Most Catholics do not consider it central enough in their spiritual and even cultural lives to make it a regular part of their week. Many were taught the Eucharist is "the happy meal of the family of God." I remember being told that Mass was a great opportunity to "chow-down with God." Eucharistic adoration was "cookie worship" and reverence was for "those crazy pious types." And while I never believed that, I did notice how easy it was to grow comfortable with this awesome mystery even to the point of questioning the need for reverence.

A recent study has shown that 85% of younger Catholics do not believe they need to go to Sunday Mass to be a good Catholic. And I may be cynical, but I suspect they believe this because they were taught a "happy meal" theology -- in lessons or practical experience.

The Eucharist is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present on the altar, in the tabernacle, and received by the faithful. Whatever mistakes -- intentional or otherwise -- have been made, this remains the teaching of the Catholic Church. The challenge is less clear. Trying to teach this to those who are not here is not exactly effective. It reminds me of the pastor who pounds the pulpit after Communion to admonish his parishioners not to leave after Communion.

Our challenge may not lie in the behavior and beliefs of others. Instead, this feast asks us who are here to challenge ourselves. We are the ones who are here receiving what we say so many are not. If that is true, how are we receiving? What do we believe we are receiving? Does what we are receiving actually make a difference in our lives? Are we handling the source of life as carefully as we try to handle a newborn life?

I would like to leave you with these questions because the answers are yours alone. They will be spoken not with words but with reverence. And not only for today. But I can tell you this, sincerity is as contagious as the flu. There are few things that can bolster the faith of someone as the example of another. Sadly, the opposite is also true. But when the disposition of the heart is right, the outward example becomes holy. And more than a quick and thoughtless genuflection to something we don't really know, we will find our hearts bowing before the awesome presence of God Himself as everything within us becomes a prayer that is our privilege to pray this day:

O Sacrament most holy, o Sacrament divine;

All praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine

Sunday Readings

Trinity

When I was in fourth grade, we read a series of books called "Two-Minute Mysteries." They were extremely short stories that presented a problem and asked you to come up with a solution. Back then, I thought the challenge was to come up with an answer. Now, I see they had another purpose; they were supposed to train us to think. Actually, a good deal of what we all did in school (or are still doing in school) is for this reason. I remember sitting in my logic class in college, and the professor said, "people: the reason you did math all those years was not to train you to balance a checkbook but to train you to think." I came out with a rather loud "really!" It was like a revelation.

So here we are on Trinity Sunday and it is easy to think that we have a mathematical problem to solve. In fact, most preachers begin our homilies today by stating the conundrum of the holy Trinity: three in one; one in three.

So what do we do? The first thing we try and do is to come up with a solution. We want to know how this works so we can know what it means. And that is something we should do. True faith always tries to find real understanding. A love of God necessarily asks us to know the God we love. Saints and theologians have been doing this for centuries. And almost every one of them has come to the conclusion that the following generations automatically reject and ultimately come to themselves.

The conclusion is very simply this: the holy Trinity is a mystery. And human beings find mystery a burdensome complication. Back in the book of Genesis when God gave dominion to Adam and Eve, we began to think that there was nothing we couldn't master using our minds and our will.

But like that fourth grade book, that is not the point. Human beings are not capable of conquering God. The mystery of God as Trinity cannot be captured or fully grasped. Instead, the mind and heart seek to understand something (or better, Someone) that is way beyond the simplicity of a solution. Even considering the holy Trinity today, is an exercise of “sacred futility." The triune nature of God is not a puzzle to be solved but a revelation of love.

St. Augustine often noted that our seeking to understand God is more an exercise of the heart than of the mind. From our perspective, it seems as if God is teasing us to go deeper. The mystery of God guides us closer and closer to the essence of God. The doctrine of the Trinity seems to say to us, "oh, you think you know Me or can know Me? You think this can be figured out and reasoned out? You are amazed when you fall in love with one another; you are shocked that love is possible even among your weak and sometimes unfaithful selves. You often wonder why you do the things you do and why you are the way you are. But still, you look in each other's eyes and you find love. Can it really be all that different with Me? Can you stare at the Trinity and see love itselfrather than some impossible puzzle?"

One of the blessings of Trinity Sunday is that despite the attempt (often heretical!) to explain the central mystery of the Christian religion, there is no "moral" message of the day. Instead, the church invites us to do what saints and scholars have always done. We are invited to simply consider the mystery of God. It is a call to rest from any attempt to control or confine the presence of divinity in the human sphere. And without doubt, we need to be reminded of this.

When Moses approached the burning bush, God called out to him to remove his sandals for the ground on which you stand is holy ground. We are on holy ground because we stand before a holy God who is an awesome mystery. If there is nothing in heaven or on earth that can separate us from the love of God, there is nothing in heaven on earth that will allow us to conquer Him either. At every moment, all of creation is on holy ground; all things exist because of Him. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the mystery of God remains.

And while we His creatures, limited as we are, may think ourselves confounded by this mystery, we discover ourselves loved by the same God. And this love, with all our questioning, is what brings us to a silent wonder before the divine holiness.

And there is no better place to be because being there is being in heaven itself.

(Now I have completed a full three-year cycle of homilies on this format of my webpage. I'd love to hear from anyone with ideas on how to improve it. Ok, ok...I'm really wondering who actually reads it!!! Let me know even if just with an email saying hello. Click below for a contact that should open your email program.)