Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Sometimes, as St. Paul reminds the Romans today, we do not know how to pray as we ought. In fact, learning how to pray as we ought is a discipline that takes a lifetime to perfect. The saints have done it, and maybe you even know some living saints whose prayer is pretty close to the way we ought to do it. But for the rest of us, prayer is a discipline that takes hard work and constant attention. It’s a good thing then, that the work and attention it requires is so joy-filled and rewarding.
But no, we don’t know how to pray as we ought, do we? I remember back when I was in college, all the way through probably my early thirties. I thought I had the prayer thing all figured out. When we’re young, sometimes we’re misled that way. Of course, I was off the mark by a lot, but that’s to be expected. So I have a confession to make, and it cannot leave this room, okay? My confession is that I always thought I never had to go to confession because:
- I never did anything all that bad … or
- The stuff I did was so bad that the priest would be shocked … or
- God already knows my sins, so why do I have to tell him and a priest about them? … or
- God has long forgotten my sins, so why bring them up again?
Maybe you’ve heard these arguments, or others like them before. Maybe those arguments have even come from your own lips. But sticking to my own confession here, I made all of these arguments myself at one time or another. And like a lot of people who grew up in my day, I didn’t go to confession hardly ever at all. But then, fast forward to about my mid-thirties, during a time when I was having a crisis of faith. I was trying to figure out at the time if I would stay in the Catholic Church, or whether I’d go join Willow Creek along with some of my friends. I had gone to a few of their services and found them inspiring, and was seriously giving thought to joining that church.
I prayed about it and really felt that God told me that he didn’t care which Church I was in, as long as I was committed to it. But there were some obstacles to my joining Willow Creek. One of them is that I would have to be rebaptized, which I think the Scriptures tell us is totally off-base. The other is that they only had communion once a month, and it wasn’t actually Jesus but only a symbol, and that didn’t work for me. But we’ll bracket those two obstacles for now – they are the stuff of other homilies. The issue that finally settled it for me was my long-neglected friend Confession.
During a sermon on one of the nights, one of the elders of the Church, who apparently was an ex-Catholic, talked about his experience of Confession as a child. He talked about the terrifying dark box he had to go into, and how he had to tell all his sins to someone who didn’t really have any authority (apparently he missed Jesus’ the passing on of the keys to the kingdom to St. Peter in Scripture, but we’ll leave that alone). And finally he said something like “after that, I got a penance and the priest said something that I guess was supposed to wipe my sins away.” It was very condescending and really flew in the face of what I believed about the Sacrament of Penance, even though I had not gone to confession in years.
To make a long story short, that really tugged on me, and I finally decided to stay in the Catholic Church (well, obviously, right?). But God’s call to make sure I committed to the Church I chose stayed with me, and I knew that meant I had to go to Confession. So I went to a Penance Service at my church and went to a priest that I knew there. I confessed I hadn’t been to Confession in years, and I’ll never forget what he said: “Welcome back.” That confirmed for me that the Sacrament of Penance was incredibly important to my prayer life – to any prayer life, and it’s been part of me ever since.
Why is it so important? Well yes, it’s because we all mess up here and there in little and big ways every day. By doing that, we separate ourselves from God and the Church and we need to be brought back. But more than that, the Sacrament of Penance puts us close to God in the most intimate way possible: by experiencing his mercy. The Wisdom writer in our first reading today makes this clear: “you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.” And it is that hope that we so much need, isn’t it? Because we are in a world that sometimes causes us to let go of hope, to lose sight of hope, and finally to give up on hope. The joy-filled Sacrament of Penance gives us that sacramental encounter with God’s hope which is a hope that nothing can destroy.
So what about you? How long has it been since your last Confession? If it’s been a long time, what is it that is keeping you away? I encourage you to go back soon, and in order to make that easier, here is Fr. Pat’s consumer’s guide to the Sacrament of Penance:
- If you have been away a long time, say that to the priest when you go in. Tell him, “Father it’s been years since my last confession, and I might need some help to do this right.” If he doesn’t welcome you back and fall all over himself trying to help you make a good confession, you have my permission to get up and leave and go find a priest who is more welcoming. Because it is my job to help you make a good confession, it is my job to make sure the experience is meaningful for you, it is my job to make you want to come back, and I take that very seriously.
- Tell the priest whatever sins you can remember. Don’t worry if you forget one or two, you can always confess them later if they still bother you. If there’s something that you think there’s no way you can say, say it anyway. We have heard just about everything, and we are not there to judge you. Our presence in the Sacrament is to help you find the way to God’s mercy, nothing more than that.
- Sometimes people feel like they can’t go to a priest they know because maybe the priest will think less of them after it’s over. Well, that would be true if I had never sinned, but let me tell you, I have plenty of my own sins, and I am humbled whenever I hear another person’s confession. Because I am a sinner too, I am more motivated than you could possibly imagine to help you find God’s mercy. I am always so humbled that people come to me and unburden themselves to find God’s mercy. I couldn’t possibly think poorly of you for confessing whatever was on your heart. If anything, I would think more of you.
- People sometimes worry that a priest will remember their sins. As you know, we are not permitted, under penalty of excommunication, to reveal anything you say in Confession, or even to confirm or deny that you have spoken with us in Confession. But we also pray for the grace of forgetfulness. This is a grace that God grants us: because God has forgotten your sins, we do too. The last time I told a group of people this, someone came to me afterward and said, “Father, I’m so relieved to hear that forgetfulness is a grace – I thought I was losing my mind!” But seriously, God forgets your sins, and we do too.
The Psalmist has the right words for us today: “You, O LORD, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and fidelity.” If you haven’t had a sacramental experience of that in a while, I urge you to do it soon. We’re here every Saturday from 4-4:45pm. If you need to see us at another time, you can always make an appointment with me or Fr. Ted. We are here to put you in touch with God’s mercy, and, as Jesus says in the long form of today’s Gospel, to help you become one of t hose who “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
Fifteenth Sunday: Rite of Acceptance into the Order of Catechumens
This was the alternate homily that I gave at 10:45 Mass, during which we accepted a young man into the Order of Catechumens.
In the ancient Church, there were several so-called orders within the assembly. The main group or order was, of course, the believers. These had been baptized and had come to accept Jesus Christ, to live within the Church and celebrate the sacraments. Other orders included the Order of Widows, those women whose husbands had died and had no supporting family members. These women were taken care of by the community, and in turn served the community as they were able. Another order was the Order of Penitents. These people had sinned publicly, usually through some violation of the sixth commandment, and were unable to partake of the sacramental life of the Church. They usually confessed their sins, and were given a lengthy penance to accomplish, and then were reunited with the Church on Holy Thursday.
The other order, which we still have today, is the Order of Catechumens. These are unbaptized people who desired to become one with the Church and live the life of faith. This is the order into which we accept Aaron today. His search for Truth has led him here to us, and we have accepted him in our ritual. This rite of acceptance into the Order of Catechumens is one that symbolizes a kind of first official step for Aaron. He has been inquiring into the faith and now wishes to join us. His formation will continue in the months to come, and he will be baptized, receive Confirmation and First Eucharist at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night.
We are blessed to have Aaron with us today, because his presence indicates that our faith is alive and vibrant. His presence shows us that God still searches for his people, calling them out of darkness into his own wonderful light. As he continues to journey toward baptism, he will be with us in the assembly, being dismissed with candidates for Full Communion, until that day when they can all join us at the Table of the Eucharist.
We accept Aaron publicly today, not just for his benefit, but also for ours, and for two very specific reasons. First, we as a community have a responsibility to bring the faith to all people until the day of the Lord’s return. It’s not just the RCIA team and catechists, not just the priests and staff, but the entire community that makes this happen. Our faith must be a witness to Aaron and to others that Christ is alive among us and longs to lead us all to salvation.
Second, we have a need to grow in our own faith. Every day, we come up against new obstacles, new darkness, and our faith must shine light into all of these situations. We have a need to come to know our Lord Jesus in more intimate and meaningful ways. And so Aaron isn’t journeying in faith alone here; we are all journeying and growing with him.
Just like that seed that found its rootedness in the good soil, so too may our own faith, and Aaron’s, take root in the good soil of instruction and prayer and earnest longing for Christ. May God’s Word go forth from us and never return to God void, but instead achieve the end for which he sent it, yielding a harvest of a hundred or sixty or even thirty fold.
Sphere: Related Content "Cherish God’s vocation in you.
Let it be constant,
efficacious,
and loving."
Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
So Jesus goes over to Matthew, who, at that time, was anything but a saint. He was sitting at the customs post, collecting the required taxes. He was a Jew acting as a representative of the Roman occupation government. He didn’t have a fan club, to say the least. It wasn’t just that he was a tax collector – probably that would have been bad enough, but it was also that he was an employee of the Roman oppression government. It was almost like he was giving up his heritage. This is the Matthew who Jesus approaches and gives a fairly simple, two-word command: “follow me.”
We could be in wonder about why Jesus would pick such a man, and plenty of homily time has been spent examining that issue, I think. What has me in wonder these days is Matthew’s response. “And he got up and followed him.” That’s it. He left the table, didn’t even clock out, left all the money there, and took off to follow Jesus. He didn’t cash out the register or finish up with the customer he was working with, or even take a minute to record the current transaction in a spreadsheet. He followed right then and there. He left his whole considerable livelihood behind. And that livelihood was as rich as he wanted to make it, since all he had to return to Rome was the tax that was prescribed. Anything else was his to keep. But on the strength of a two-word command, he gets up and leaves his responsibilities to his employers, his family, and all he ever knew behind.
What was it that caused him to do such a thing? It certainly wasn’t some kind of solidly-worded argumentation or beautiful preaching or rhetoric, because all Jesus said to him was “follow me.” So did he know Jesus before this? Had he indeed heard him preach before and experienced a stirring in his heart? Had he witnessed one of Jesus’ miracles and always wanted the opportunity to know more about this man? Was there something going on in Matthew’s life that was calling him to make a change? Was he unmotivated by his current situation or had he felt God tugging at his heart? Of course, we don’t know the answers to any of these questions. All we do know is that Jesus said “follow me” and Matthew did. Simple as that.
Yesterday I was at the Cathedral of St. Raymond in Joliet, for priesthood ordinations for our diocese. Three young men were ordained for service to the Church of Joliet. They, of course, looked elated, and had an excitement that I clearly remember myself. This past week, I received a letter from a young woman I knew from the parish where I served my internship back in my third year of seminary. She has finished her first year of formation for service as a Dominican nun. Her letter told me about the richness of her experience of formation, including classes, prayer and ministry experiences. Just a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated the forty years of wonderful service that Fr. Ted has given our diocese, including his work for the last six years at our parish. In his homily at his celebration Mass, he reflected on the many experiences he had over the last forty years, and said that if he had it to do over again, he would enter the priesthood again “in a heartbeat.” Later this year, we will have the opportunity to celebrate the fifty years of service that Sr. Anne Hyzy has given as a nun. She is a woman whose faith and spirituality have been a beacon for so many of us, and we look forward to celebrating her anniversary. And just this past week, I celebrated my second anniversary as a priest. So this has been a time when I have had the opportunity to reflect a bit on God’s call.
What is it that gets any of us to respond to that call: “follow me?” Because – and let’s be very clear about this – every one of us gets that call in some way, shape or form, at some point in our lives. We are called to rich vocational lives in so many different ways. Some are called to be priests, deacons or religious. Some are called to the married life and give of their lives as parents. Some are called to the single life, sacrificing the promiscuity and worldliness of our current culture to be a witness to God’s power in the world. We may be church workers, or doctors, or lawyers, or construction workers, or grocery store clerks, or any of a million different things. But the one thing that unites us – our baptism – also unites us in its effect: we are all called by our baptism to do something specific, something heroic, something very significant for Christ. To all of us – every one of us without exception – Christ is saying: “follow me.”
In a perfect world, it should be enough for us that God has forgiven us of our sins and made us one with him in baptism. It should be enough for us that Jesus says, despite the myriad of ways that we are unworthy of any kind of call, “follow me.” It should be enough that we are forgiven, and graced, and called, and loved to respond just like Matthew did, giving it all over so that we can follow the Lord wherever it is that he is leading us. But lots of times, that isn’t enough. Because we are sinful people who are afraid of commitment or are too bogged down in the world, or have turned away for so many reasons. Sometimes, it takes a while for that “follow me” call to work its way through our hardened hearts and restless spirits. I should know: it took thirty-six years for me.
So what about you? Is there a customs post that you need to walk away from? Is there a call to “follow me” that you’ve been hearing from the Lord for some time now that you have not had the courage to answer? Because I think the real question is not what is it about Jesus that would make someone follow him with just a simple command. No. The real question is, what is it about us that would turn down the life of grace and happiness and adventure and joy that Jesus has in store for us? I can’t possibly imagine how terrible it would have been to say “no” to Jesus at this point in my life. I always tell people that if you really want to be really happy, then you have to do what God is calling you to do. Nothing else will make you that happy. And I should know, because the last two years of my life have been the most wonderful I can remember.
Jesus comes to all of us today, in the busy-ness of our lives. Right in the middle of taking the customs tax from a traveler, we are called: “follow me.” What does that call look like for you? Are you ready to get up and follow him, without another word being spoken? If you’ve been on the fence, consider this homily the sign you’ve been looking for. God is calling. “Follow me.”
Sphere: Related ContentFourth Sunday of Easter: Following the Good Shepherd
Every year on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, we celebrate “Good Shepherd Sunday.” And every year on this Sunday, I protest inwardly about how awful it is to be compared to sheep! I think a lot of priests look forward to preaching on this day, but for me the analogy just doesn’t seem to work. Maybe that’s because I didn’t grow up in the time and place Jesus was preaching. They might have been more prone to get the point than people in our modern time and suburban place. I mean, you don’t see a lot of sheep around Naperville, do you? I think the reason I protest against this whole sheep metaphor is because it is usually preached as encouraging a kind of blind acceptance of what we’re being taught. Sheep are usually thought of as animals who accept whatever they’re being told blindly, because they are not able to think for themselves. That’s what makes me kind of bristle at the whole idea of being compared to sheep. I don’t think we’re supposed to check our brains at the door when it comes to living our faith. I can’t imagine God wanting us to do that since he created our ability to think and gifted us with free will.So I’m thinking that this is not the picture we are supposed to be getting from these readings, and that the problem here is that your preacher doesn’t really know anything helpful about sheep that would explain the analogy. So I read a commentary about this reading, and I think it helps sort out the analogy that Jesus is making here. In Jesus’ day, the shepherds would gather several flocks in the same fenced-enclosure. The sheepfold might be constructed in a pasture using brush and sticks; or, it would adjoin a wall of a house and have makeshift walls for the other sides. Owners of small flocks of sheep would have combined them in the secure enclosure at night. Someone – the gatekeeper – would then guard the flocks. The "gate" would have been a simple entrance, but the gatekeeper might even stretch out across the opening and literally be the "gate." The shepherds would arrive early in the morning and be admitted by the gatekeeper. They would call out to their sheep and the members of the flock recognize the voice of their own shepherd, and that shepherd would “lead them out.” The shepherd then walks in front of the flock and they follow. (Jude Sicilliano, OP)So then, I think the point that Jesus is making is that sheep know their shepherd’s voice and they follow him. This shepherd is one who takes care of them and leads them, keeping them safe. So maybe sheep aren’t so dumb after all. Their ability to know their shepherd’s voice helps bring them to the place where they belong, and their desire to follow the shepherd keeps them safe, keeps them from stumbling off the path into who knows what kind of dangerous situations.
It pains me to say this, but you know, maybe we need to be a little more like sheep after all. I for one find that I am often distracted by the plethora of competing voices out there, so much so that it can be hard at times to hear the voice of Jesus our Good Shepherd. Some of the distracting voices that we are subjected to include:
• voices of temptation that call us to covet more than we need or embroil us in heartbreaking addictions;
• voices of intolerance that call us to accept war and terrorism as legitimate ways to deal with disputes;
• voices of self-importance that call us to turn our back on God or trick us into thinking that we don’t really need God;
• voices of isolation that divorce us from family and community
• voices of apathy that divorce us from our world, the needy, and the marginalized
• voices of discouragement that lead us to give up on ourselves or on others, or that convince us that our efforts don’t really matter
And these are just a few, aren’t they? There are so many voices out there that can distract us from our Shepherd, so many enticing things to drag us off the path to God. And we follow them all the time. All these voices diminish our life, lead us away from our families, communities, church, even God. Even if we follow them in the hopes of leading a more exciting life, we may find that the momentary thrill of turning away from the Good Shepherd only leaves us feeling diminished and alone. The only way to a more exciting, fulfilling life is to follow Jesus who “came so that [we] might have life and have it more abundantly.”
So does this mean we have to leave our brains at the door, and follow blindly? No. Of course not. Following those other competing voices out there is what requires blind acceptance. The thinking person follows the Good Shepherd, and faces the many challenges of life not with some kind of delirious, unthinking, debilitating faith, but instead with a faith that is informed by Scripture, upheld by Tradition, and nourished in the Eucharist. The most abundant life we can have is a life in Christ.
On this Good Shepherd Sunday, the Church also asks us to pray for vocations. Because without people dedicated to their vocation – whatever it may be – so many people will never hear the Gospel, never hear the Shepherd’s voice. We know that every person has a vocation. Every person is called on by God to do something specific with their life that will bring not only them, but also others around them, to salvation. Parents help to bring their children to salvation by raising them in the faith. Spouses bring their husbands and wives to salvation by upholding their faith and living for each other in good times and in bad. Teachers help bring students to salvation by educating them and helping them to develop their God-given talents. Business people bring others to salvation by living lives of integrity and witness to their faith by conducting business fairly and with justice and concern for the needy. The list goes on. Every vocation, every authentic vocation, calls the disciple to do what God created them for, and helps God to bring salvation to the whole world.
Six years ago on this very Sunday, I was struggling with my vocation. I knew that God was calling me to give up my comfortable life and go to seminary to study for the priesthood. But I did not want to go. I had heard the Shepherd’s voice but was in some ways choosing to ignore it. I was already doing what I wanted to do with my life and thought it was going pretty well. But on some level, I knew that life as a disciple required me to do what God wanted, and not necessarily what I wanted. There was an open house that day at the Diocesan Vocations Office. I wasn’t interested in going – at all. And that day, the celebrant, who is now one of my brother priests, preached on vocations and made the point that living as a disciple meant that at some point we have to stop asking the question, “what do I want to do with my life?” and start asking, “what does God want me to do with my life?” And I knew that God wanted me to go to that open house that day, so I did. Four months later, I was in seminary.
What about you? Are you doing what God wants you to do with your life? Maybe your answer won’t require such a radical change as mine did. Maybe it means you renew your commitment to your family, your work, your life as a disciple. But if you’re a young person out there and have only been thinking about what’s going to make you successful and bring in lots of money so you can retire at age 35, maybe God is today asking you to stop thinking only of yourself and put your life’s work at the service of the Gospel. Maybe you’re being called on to be a teacher, or a police officer, or a health care professional. And maybe, just maybe, God is calling you to enter the priesthood or religious life. On this day of prayer for vocations, I’m just asking you to pray that God would make his plans for your life clear to you, and that you would promise God to do what he asks of you. I can tell you first hand that nothing, absolutely nothing, will give you a more abundant life.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Easter Vigil
Next Sunday, I will have the wonderful privilege of baptizing my brand-new niece Katie. This past Thursday, I anointed a parishioner who is very close to death. On Monday, I will preside at the funeral of my mother’s aunt who was over 90 years old. This past year has been a roller coaster of emotions for me, rejoicing here in ministry at St. Raphael’s and burying my own beloved father. I thought about all of these things this week as I prepared for this Holy Vigil. It is always so amazing for me to see Christ’s presence in all the stages of life, from birth to death, in good times and in bad.
Did you hear what we prayed at the very beginning of tonight’s vigil? Listen again: “Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega, all time belongs to him, and all ages, to him be glory and power through every age forever. Amen.” And these are important, even brave words for us to offer on this most holy night. Because it is certainly the position of our world that time is to be endured, that it is fleeting, and that it ultimately meaningless. But tonight’s vigil proclaims that all time is holy, sanctified by our God who has walked with us through our yesterdays, remains with us today, and forges on with us toward our tomorrows. There is not a single moment of our life, not a single moment of our history that is not holy because every moment has been, is now, and always will be imbued with the presence of our God who is holiness itself.
As we have walked through Lent, and especially through this Holy Week, there is even a temptation, I think, to come to think that the world, and especially human history, was a creative experiment that went horribly wrong, that God sent his Son to clean up the mess only to have him killed for it, and then in a last move of desperation raised him up out of the grave. But that’s not what we’ve gathered to celebrate tonight. Salvation was not some kind of dumb luck or happy accident. The salvation of the world had been part of God’s creative plan all along. Humanity, given the grace of free will had, and has, certainly gone astray. But God did not create us simply to follow our own devices and end up in hell. He created us for himself, and so sent his Son Jesus to walk our walk, to die our death, and to rise up over it all in the everlasting promise of eternal life. That’s what we celebrate on this most holy of all nights.
Our world would have us believe that everything is futile and that the only possible way to endure this world is to cultivate a kind of cynical apathy that divorces us from our God, our loved ones, our communities and our world. We are conditioned to believe that time, and life itself, is meaningless, that there is nothing worth living for, and certainly nothing worth dying for. But tonight’s vigil debunks all of that. Tonight we are assured by our God that our present is no less redeemable than was our past, nor is it any less filled with promise than is our future.
Tonight we have heard stories of our salvation. Each of our readings has been a stop in the history of God’s love for us. God’s plan for salvation, and his sanctification of time, began back at the beginning of it all. Each of the days was hallowed with precious creation, and all of it was created and pronounced good. Then Abraham’s faithfulness and righteousness earned us a future as bright as a zillion twinkling stars. Later, as Moses and the Israelites stood trapped by the waters of the red sea, God’s providence made a way for them and cut off their pursuers, making the future safe for those God calls his own. Keeping all of that in mind, the prophet Baruch sings of the wisdom that God makes known to us, extolling the greatness of God who leads his people in understanding and splendor. St. Paul rejoices in the baptism that has washed away the stains of sin as we have died and risen with Christ, and has brought us into a new life that leads ultimately to God’s kingdom. And finally, our Gospel tonight tells us not to be afraid, to go forth into the Galilee of our future and expect to see the Lord.
We Christians have been spared the necessity of a cynical view of the world and its people. Our gift has been and always is the promise that Jesus Christ is with us always, even until the end of the world. And so, just as God sanctified all of time through his interventions of salvation, so too he has sanctified our lives through the interventions of Sacrament. We are a sacramental people, purified and reborn in baptism, fed and strengthened in the Eucharist, and in Confirmation, set on fire to burn brightly and light up our world. Tonight we celebrate these three Sacraments of Initiation, all of us recalling and renewing our baptism, Kelli being Confirmed in the faith, and all of us strengthened with the Eucharist, Kelli for the very first time tonight.
These days of Lent have been a sanctifying journey for our sister Kelli who joins us in faith tonight, but it has been no less sanctifying for all of us, as we have celebrated the Stations of the Cross together, gathered for fish fries, attended our parish mission, spent time before the Eucharist in our Forty Hours Devotion, and so much more. Christ has definitely sanctified this Lenten time for all of us, and has now brought us to the fullness of this hour, when he rises over sin and death to bring us all to the promise of life eternal.
And it is this very night that cleanses our world from all the stains of sin and death and lights up the darkness. The Exsultet, the Easter Proclamation that I sang when we entered Church tonight tells us: “Of this night, Scripture says, ‘The night will be clear as day: it will become my light, my joy.’ The power of this holy night dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy; it casts out hatred, brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride.” What a gift this night is, not just to us gathered here in this church, not just to all the Catholics gathered together throughout the world on this holy night, but to all people in every time and place. Our world needs the light and our time needs the presence of Christ, and our history needs salvation. Blessed be God who never leaves his people without the great hope of his abiding presence!
And so, having come through this hour to be sanctified in this vigil, we will shortly be sent forth to help sanctify our own time and place. Brightened by this beautiful vigil, we now become a flame to light up our darkened world. That is our ministry in the world. That is our call as believers. That is our vocation as disciples. “May the Morning Star, which never sets, find this flame still burning: Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead, and shed his peaceful light on all humankind, [the Son of God] who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.”
Sphere: Related ContentForty Hours Devotion: Closing Mass of Thanksgiving
Readings: Sirach 50:22-24; Mark 5:18-20
Have you ever had an experience that was so wonderful you just never wanted it to end? Maybe you were on a vacation and the place where you spent your time was really beautiful, and you had all kinds of fun, you got to swim and do all sorts of really great activities, and your whole family had a really good time. Or maybe you were at a party and all your best friends were there, and the food was delicious, and there was great music and games. Or maybe you went to a movie that was the best you’ve ever seen: the jokes were funny and the story was great and the filming was top-notch. You can probably think of other examples, too, of experiences that were so wonderful.
When we have these kinds of experiences, we don’t want them to ever come to an end, do we? We wish we could stay on vacation forever, or we want to have a party like that every week, or we wish we could stay and watch the movie over and over and over. The man in the gospel who had been cured of evil spirits had an experience sort of like that, only a billion times better!
He had lived his whole life plagued by evil spirits. They got him into trouble, made him sick, got him injured, and probably made everyone around him think he was crazy and were afraid of him. His life had to be lonely because his behavior, instigated by those nasty demons, pushed people away. So just imagine what an incredible relief it had to be for him when Jesus came along, and with just a few words, cast the many demons that were in the man into a herd of swine, who ran over a cliff and drowned! The man was able to walk around and act normal, and be healed of all the sickness that was in him. Can you imagine how wonderful that was for him?
Well, it was so wonderful, that in the Gospel reading we have today, he asks Jesus if he can stay with him forever. And that’s completely understandable because how would he ever want such a wonderful experience to end?
We’ve come to the end now, of our Forty Hours Devotion. It has been a wonderful time of grace for all of us. We have had beautiful Masses and prayer services. You all got to spend time with Fr. Nathan and learn new ways to pray. We have had opportunities to come to Reconciliation and start our spiritual life all over again, new in the Spirit. We have had the opportunity to see the Lord and come into his presence in a very special way. This has been a beautiful time of prayer and there has been such an incredible spirit of quiet and reverence in the whole building. We have truly been so blessed to have these Forty Hours to pray together and to be with our Lord together. We wish, in lots of ways, that it would never end. We’d like to sit in our Lord’s presence forever.
Except that’s not what our Lord wants for us. He loves it when we are here and spend time with him. But he doesn’t want us to sit here forever. He wants us instead to go back into our school, back into our workplaces, back into our families and our communities, and to be his presence to others.
Because the Lord is with us in all sorts of ways. Of course, he is uniquely present to us in the Blessed Sacrament, in the Eucharist we adore which is the same Eucharist we receive at Mass. But he is also present to us in one another. And when we look at someone, we are called to see Christ in them in much the same way as we see Christ in the Eucharist. If we spend our time here looking at our Lord in Adoration and then go out of church and ignore his presence in other people, then we have wasted our time. Adoration teaches us to see our God. To see him present in the Eucharist, yes, but also to see him at work in our world and present in each person he puts in our lives. Even the people who irritate us beyond belief!
And just as we respect and reverence Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, we absolutely have to respect and reverence Jesus present in each other. So now we have to treat each other with dignity and honor, and love them no matter what. And if we cannot see the good in someone, we have to pray to see Christ in them. Because there is nothing good in anyone than is better than Christ in them.
This is a Mass of Thanksgiving. So as we offer our gifts today, we must also offer our thanks. We thank all of the committee who worked so hard to plan these hours, and to plan the prayer. We thank everyone who read at Masses or prayer services, everyone who sang or distributed the Eucharist, or put together worship aids or prayer books on the tables our back. We thank all those who stayed up late or got up early to adore the Lord. We thank those who were present all day long, and those who could only come for an hour. We thank those who could not come at all, but supported all of us with prayers.
But most of all, we thank God. We thank God for being present to us in the Eucharist. We thank God for giving us the grace of these Forty Hours. We thank God who is nearer to us than our own hearts, and who never fails to show up when we call on him. We thank God who works great wonders everywhere: here and in our own hearts. And we thank God for all the blessings we’ve yet to see, the blessings he will give us as his presence continues to grow in our midst. Thank God!
Sphere: Related ContentForty Hours Devotion: Solemn Vespers
Reading: Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24
What is so wonderful, I think, about these Forty Hours is that we truly do have the wonderful ability to approach our God who is enthroned on Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering. That wonderful worship scene of which the writer of the letter to the Hebrews speaks this evening is where we are right here, right now. We won’t obviously be in it in all its fullness as we would like, until that great day when we are gathered to the Lord. But here in these Forty Hours, we have a little taste of that sacred space, which is the heavenly worship.
I dream a little, sometimes, of being in that heavenly worship and what it might be like to have that heavenly worship here on earth. I think we’ve seen a little of that in these hours, and it is my prayer that the fruits of this time will continue to unfold in the days and weeks ahead. What if the peace of these hours could be rolled into our daily living? What if the calm of being before our Lord helped us to deal with the crises of our day, at work, at home, at school? What if our worship led us to a better understanding of who we are, and who God is, and what God wants for us? What if our meditation led us to a direct encounter with God’s call in our lives and moved us to embrace God’s will in new and life-changing ways. Those things happen all the time when we make adoration of the Blessed Sacrament part of our prayer.
And the transition of worship to the practice of our lives is one we desperately need to make. Our worship and our prayer can’t be just words. It can’t even just be about sitting here before the Blessed Sacrament. Our worship has to have an effect on how we live our lives. Because yes, we worship Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Yes, we receive Christ in the Eucharist. But we are also called to be Christ to one another and to receive Christ in them. As we serve one another in gratitude, we are Christ for them. As we allow others to minister to us in our need, they are Christ to us. As we gather in faith, we become the presence of Christ for one another. As our service to the poor, needy, or afflicted radiates hope to those in need, we become the presence of Christ to others. As we love one another into a community of grace, we are Christ to a world that desperately needs God’s presence. The Christ in us is the same Christ in the Eucharist we receive and the Eucharist we adore. By worshipping and receiving the Eucharist, we become a divine presence in our world in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with our own efforts or worthiness, but is all about our Jesus.
And probably you don’t feel worthy of that kind of unique calling. You may not in fact feel worthy of being the presence of Christ to others. And that’s because you’re not worthy. None of us is: not you, not me, not anyone. As we worship the Blessed Sacrament, as we receive our Lord in the Eucharist, we become filled up with his presence and our living of that call becomes all about letting God be God and letting his grace flow through our lives.
We just sang in our response “May we who eat be bread for others. May we who drink pour out our love.” The age-old theology of the Eucharist is that we become what we receive - taking the body of Christ, we become the body of Christ. And our worship of the Lord in Adoration is an opportunity to reflect on that heavenly calling, an opportunity that beckons us to leave behind our false humility and instead be filled up with the grace that can make a tiny light of grace shine on the world grown dark in sin. And don’t sell it short. That tiny light of grace can provide a whole lot of illumination to a very dark place.
As we continue to adore our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament as we observe these forty hours, may our worship unite us ever more as families, ever more as a community of faith, ever more as the Body of Christ we have been called and created to be. May we set aside our unworthiness to instead take up, with incredible humility, the grace so freely given to us in this Blessed Sacrament. May we become ever more aware of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and in one another. May we open ourselves to the challenge of reaching out to others in love as we contemplate the great Charity of Christ in this Saving Sacrifice. May we receive with gratitude the bountiful graces of our God in every moment of our lives.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Baptism of the Lord
Today is the last day of the Christmas Season. What a wonderful gift we have as Catholics to celebrate the birth of our Lord for an extended period of time! Last week was the Epiphany of the Lord, a time to celebrate Christ manifested in the flesh, the greatest gift of God to his creation. On the occasion of the Epiphany, we have three traditional readings. The first is the reading about the magi visiting the Christ Child. The second is the wedding feast at Cana, where Christ turned water into wine, the first of his miracles. And the third is the Gospel we have today, of Christ being baptized by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. So today is the octave day of the Epiphany.
As we heard last week, Epiphany means “manifestation.” In each of these Gospels, Christ is manifest in our world in a different way. The magi celebrated that this baby was truly the manifestation of God in our world, because no other birth would have been occasioned by such great astrological signs. The wedding feast at Cana celebrates that Jesus is no ordinary man, that he had come to change the world by the shedding of his blood, just as he changed the water into wine. And today his baptism celebrates that Christ is manifest in the weakness of human flesh to identify himself with sinners through baptism.
So if Jesus Christ identified himself with us sinners through baptism, then we who have been baptized must also identify ourselves with him. We must manifest him in the world through living the Gospel and following in his ways. Today we hear in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles that Jesus, having been anointed with the Holy Spirit, “went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil.” That’s the model he set for all who would be baptized as he was. So we baptized ones must do the same.
It is easy to see how we can go about doing good. There are thousands of opportunities to do that in our lives. Children and young people can do good by obeying their parents, being kind to brothers, sisters and friends, attending to their school work, and praying for those who are needy. Adults can strive to lead godly lives, raising families in peace, working diligently at their jobs, and being of service to the community. Every day there is an opportunity to do good in ordinary and extraordinary ways. All we have to do is decide to live our baptismal call and do it.
Healing those oppressed by the devil might seem harder to do. But there are lots of ways to cast out demons. Teaching something to another person is a way to cast out the demons of ignorance. Reaching out to an elderly neighbor is a way to cast out the demons of loneliness. Educating ourselves on the evils of racism is a way to cast out the demons of hatred. Buying fair trade coffee, or bringing food to Loaves and Fishes, or volunteering at Hesed House is a way to cast out the demons of poverty and hunger and homelessness. Visiting the sick, or picking up medication or groceries for a sick neighbor, is a way to cast out the demons of illness. We have opportunities to heal those oppressed by the devil all the time. All we have to do is decide to do it.
On this Epiphany Day, on this Christmas day, Christ, born among us, enters the waters of baptism to sanctify them through his body. Our own baptism is a share in this great baptism and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We who have been baptized then are literally INSPIRED - given the Holy Spirit - in order to continue to make Christ manifest in our world. All we have to do is decide to do it.
Sphere: Related ContentAdvent Penance Service
Readings: Romans 7:14-25; John 1: 35-39
St. Paul's instruction from his letter to the Romans this evening can seem a little confusing, I think. But the point that he is making is one that I think every Christian disciple can resonate with, at least a little. He says that he intends to do what is good, that he really wants to do what is good, that he knows doing what is good will give him ultimate happiness. But unfortunately, through the weakness of his humanity, that's not what happens. He doesn't do what is good, instead, he does wrong, he does what he hates, and this makes him frustrated and ultimately unhappy. This happens to disciples. Just because you know what to do doesn't mean that's what you'll end up doing. We are weak, sometimes doing what is right is just too hard, too exhausting, too inaccessible. We find ourselves struggling with the same sins over and over again, and it seems that we are just hopeless. I hope that you find that's the case for you, because I sure know I've been there often enough!
The ultimate question is the question Jesus asks the two followers of John the Baptist in this evening's Gospel: "What are you looking for?" St. Paul would say he was looking for the good. Maybe we might say we are looking for a peaceful life, or success, or whatever we think is good. But often enough, we settle for far less than the incredible good that God intends for us. We settle for having this or that trinket, or a promotion that takes us away from our families a few more hours every week, or a relationship that is not supportive of our relationship with Christ. We intend the good, but we settle for what we hate. When we do that, we diminish our capacity to receive the wonderful gifts God wants to give us. St. Augustine says, "Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey; but if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey?"
Pope Benedict uses that quote in his latest encyclical, Spe Salvi. He explains what St. Augustine means: "The vessel, that is your heart, must first be enlarged and then cleansed, freed from the vinegar and its taste. This requires hard work and is painful, but in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined" (Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 33). And what we are destined for is God himself, because God made us for himself. There is nothing in this world that will fill us up the way God will. And every time we settle for something that is less than God, we diminish our capacity for God that much more, and are that much more unhappy. We must, as His Holiness reminds us, purify our hearts of every evil, everything that takes us away from God. That's not an easy thing to do and it absolutely cannot be accomplished apart from a prayerful relationship with God himself.
And so we come before God tonight to ask for what is truly good. We ask for forgiveness and the grace to desire what is truly good. Pope Benedict says, "We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and comfortable things that we desire at this moment-that meager, misplaced hope that leads us away from God. We must learn to purify our desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. God sees through them, and when we come before God, we too are forced to recognize them (Spe Salvi, 33)."
And maybe that's the grace we'll receive tonight. Maybe we will stand before God and confess that there are times we've settled for a whole lot less than what he longs to give us. Maybe this Christmas we will have cleared away enough of the vinegar that Christ can be born in our hearts in a way that has not happened for a long time now. Maybe we will find that our desiring isn't a bad thing, and that we can fill up that desiring with the One who longs to satisfy our every longing.
We will still struggle with our desires, and the temptation to fill those desires poorly. It's the practice of prayer and the constant work of penance that can ultimately give us some victory over them. Because ultimately, the victory cannot be through anyone other than Christ. St. Paul recognizes that at the end of this evening's first reading. "Who will deliver me from this mortal body?" he asks. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Jesus is our hope, he is the hope of reconciliation with God, he is the One through whom we will be filled up with what is good and what will make us ultimately happy.
One of my favorite Advent carols is "O Come, Divine Messiah." It reminds us that there will come a day when Christ will bring hope to its completion:
Sphere: Related ContentO come, divine Messiah!
The world in silence waits the day
When hope shall sing its triumph,
And sadness flee away.Dear Savior haste;
Come, come to earth,
Dispel the night and show your face,
And bid us hail the dawn of grace.O come, divine Messiah!
The world in silence waits the day
When hope shall sing its triumph,
And sadness flee away.
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Amateur Catholic
