Sunday Homilies: Recent Episodes
Father Kevin Laughery
A priest of the Catholic Diocese of Springfield in Illinois offers his thoughts on the Word of God as proclaimed throughout the world, Sunday after Sunday.
2025 Aug 31 SUN: TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Sir 3: 17-18. 20. 28-29/ Ps 68: 4-5. 6-7. 10-11/ Heb 12: 18-19. 22-24a/ Lk 14: 1. 7-14
Wednesday morning, Andy Schwierjohn sent me an email. He had received word of the shooting at the Catholic parish in Minneapolis.
He remembered that my sister Kathy is a teacher in a Minneapolis Catholic school. So I turned to the news and it was not my sister's school.
In fact, I had spoken with her just a couple days before and I knew that her school was not starting till this week. But Kathy did inform me after this shooting that she has a number of acquaintances and connections with Annunciation Parish and School.
And we can repeat the words of many being heartbroken over this very sad event. To orient ourselves with today's Scriptures, we might think about what is described in the Letter to the Hebrews.
That writer is making a contrast between the things that were experienced in Old Testament times such as the dark cloud coming over Mount Sinai. He contrasts that with what he describes as the heavenly kingdom whereby we find ourselves in a place of light and peace, a place of joy.
And really every time we gather for Mass we are experiencing a preview of heaven itself. And so it is all the more painful that we find such a gathering interrupted in a lethal way.
We can also think about our first reading, our Psalm and our Gospel today. And we see that all of these passages are making connections between humility and what we might call solidarity.
There is a union with people who are suffering in various ways. And so we don't simply have an etiquette lesson from Jesus.
We find ourselves with that concept of humility. And as we reflect on who we are, we realize a number of things.
In light of the horror that many parents have felt, they realize that it is difficult, if not impossible, to say to a child, "I will always be able to protect you." We know our limits and we know how great a problem we are facing.
And I just read a very thoughtful column by someone who said when something of this nature occurs, our tendency is to want to blame some deficiency in the political positions of those we consider the opposition. But we know that that simple blame does not get at the heart of the matter.
It also happened this week that Pope Leo announced the theme of the World Day of Peace coming up this January 1st. The theme is "Peace be with you" -- one of the first things that Jesus himself said once he was risen.
We have to consider, and this is another bit of the work of humility, is to consider the aggression to be found in all of us. And we know that an energy toward defending ourselves is, to some extent, needed in all of us.
We must, however, consider that we are inclined against actually showing aggression. We don't want to use our fists, for instance, but we can also use words that cut and damage.
And in light of Pope Leo's theme for the World Day of Peace, he is speaking of that peace with a memorable phrase. "Peace which is unarmed and disarming." I consider that phrase, and I have said to myself, "That's a striking phrase." And right away you say, "Well, striking, there's aggression even in that word." So we have much work to do in exercising humility, and there is one more thing that we can consider.
I seem to have heard this in the news reports, but I can't say that I can confirm it. I do know what the Psalm was on that Wednesday, and it was Psalm 139. It is said that the gunfire began during the Psalm.
It happens that Psalm 139 is the great psalm about God's intimate knowledge of each of us, and his love for each of us, and the invitation that we have to grow in self-knowledge by which we can learn to have peaceful hearts, and encourage peace in others.
2025 Aug 24 SUN: TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Is 66: 18-21/ Ps 117: 1. 2/ Heb 12: 5-7. 11-13/ Lk 13: 22-30
I remember, from about 20 years ago, being at a meeting with a number of non-Catholic Christian pastors and I was explaining to them what the Second Vatican Council had to say about the possible salvation of people who've never heard of Jesus Christ. And Vatican II, in the Constitution on the Church, says that such people, if they are seeking what is true and good, they can be granted entrance into the heavenly kingdom. And I remember one of the pastors objecting to this. He says, "That's universalism." Universalism traditionally has been the idea that everybody is saved. And I suppose that it kind of tore at his idea of religion. I guess he had this idea that there are winners and losers. I don't know. But we have this question posed today. It says that someone asked Jesus, "Lord, will only a few people be saved?"
Well, Jesus does not give an answer -- a numerical answer. He does tell us that we need to pay close attention because this is a relationship we are talking about. A relationship into which every one of us has been invited. He says it isn't enough to say yeah we knew you, you taught in our streets, you should know us.
That is not sufficient. We are called to cultivate a truly personal relationship with the Son of God who came among us truly human as well as truly God -- in order to bear on our behalf all that we find ourselves having to bear in this often painful mystery of our earthly existence. Saint Teresa of Avila wrote that Jesus is our best friend precisely because he chose to take upon himself what we find ourselves having to suffer in a sinful world.
The pastor I remember from 20 years ago could be confronted today with what we hear from just about the very end of the prophet Isaiah. There is universalism being expressed here. You heard all those unfamiliar place names. In fact there's one in there that is so unfamiliar that nobody can identify it with anything. They don't know which nation Isaiah is talking about but they are converging from the east and the west and from the north and the south.
And those are Jesus' words today in the Gospel. Yes, there is something universally offered. We have the responsibility of really accepting this gift of the God who became one of us and we hope that, by the way we live our lives, many others will be attracted to this Kingdom of God announced by Jesus.
Of course we might talk about these things in ways that do not open themselves to relationships. We've heard it in the news over the past week about people reflecting and worrying, I guess you could say, about whether they would get to heaven. And that's a very American way of putting things. We can find it if we pick up a great American novel, Huckleberry Finn, and discover that Huck is being taught about the "good place" and the "bad place." Well, it's not so much a place; it is a relationship. It is coming to love the God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who first of all created us and then recreated us through the sacrifice of Jesus. So Jesus, when he speaks about the narrow way, is talking about what the Letter to the Hebrews is illustrating. Yes, we find ourselves disciplined, but this is so that we may be strong. He refers to our hands and our knees. Hebrews is saying you can keep traveling this path because you are on a path in which you discover that you are being healed.
2025 Aug 17 SUN: TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Jer 38: 4-6. 8-10/ Ps 40: 2. 3. 4. 18 (14b)/ Heb 12: 1-4/ Lk 12: 49-53
We have heard in the book of Jeremiah about the lot of the prophet. People didn't like what Jeremiah was saying, and he was essentially saying, "You had better become more faithful to the Lord, the one God. Otherwise you will be taken captive and carried off to Babylon." People didn't want to hear that -- the princes, it says. So they threw him into a muddy cistern.
Well, it is said that the purpose of a prophet is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And there is a prophetic element in preaching. And we must be clear that primarily a prophet is not someone who foretells future events. The prophet speaking on behalf of God might refer to future developments, but they are rooted in what is going on in the here and now. And it is interesting to hear reactions. I've sometimes heard people say, "I have chosen this parish instead of another parish because over there they're too political." I would propose that it is the listener who is being political. The listener hears basic principles that derive from our Christian faith principles of justice. But the listener is being political because that listener is clinging to his or her own certainties, things that they have decided upon, and that no one -- not even a word from God -- must contradict. People are uncomfortable when we say such obvious things as war is a bad idea, and people should not be deliberately starved to death. People are uncomfortable when they are told that from the time of the Holy Family's flight into Egypt, the Church has had a deep regard for people who have to migrate. And there are those who say, "Oh, you can't talk about racism. That's controversial." Racism is perhaps the most obvious thing in the world.
Jesus refers to splits among family members, but I think we can go deeper even than that to look within our hearts and to discover the contradictions that we hold within our hearts.
We say that we live according to the Word of God. But so often we reject the obvious applications of the Word of God. So we must consider, in accord with the exhortation in the Letter to the Hebrews, that Jesus embraced the cross. He did so out of love for people who are filled with contradictions. We act with love as we receive the Word of God and as we discover how to apply it. We have been given true gifts. The Son of God certainly did not have to become one of us, but he was pleased to do so because he has loved us in our misery and, often, self-imposed misery. So we welcome the love of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and we pray that his example will move us to act in accord with the Word of God and to live lives reflecting justice.
[The homilist was away on August 3.]
2025 Aug 10 SUN: NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Wis 18: 6-9/ Ps 33: 1. 12. 18-19. 20-22 (12b)/ Heb 11: 1-2. 8-19/ Lk 12: 32-48
About 60 years ago, there was a popular song that began "Don't Know Much About History." Well, as we think about that opening line, we must understand that you and I, in fact, must know much about history.
There are people who say that history repeats itself. We've heard people say that it doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme -- an interesting thought. And we also heard it said that those who do not know the mistakes of the past will be condemned to repeat them. So we have all these ideas about history, and in the case of believers in Jesus Christ, we understand that God intervenes in our history in surprising ways.
We start today considering Old Testament times. In Hebrews, we do have an account of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who came to know God. And in the case of Abraham and Sarah, it came about in a most remarkable way by their having a son, Isaac, in their old age.
The Book of Wisdom describes the Exodus from the slavery of the children of Israel in Egypt. Again, God is intervening in human history in a surprising way. And then we come to the Gospel, and we understand that these words of Jesus have to do with His bringing all things to completion.
You know, we talk about that quite a bit during the season of Advent. People talk about the end of the world, and the idea that seems to be behind that is, well, everything's over, but that's not what it means. When we come to what we call the last day, it is the last day because time is over, and we enter into timelessness. And we forever will be able to praise our God. We will be able to behold Him.
Now, again, we tend to think of this as somewhat forbidding, rather scary. We think of a judgment, and we imagine that we will just squeeze in by a hair. But we have to consider what is going on in this Gospel passage, in this parable. Jesus is setting up a situation in which we imagine ourselves as servants at some great estate. And we are hoping that it appears to the Master that we are at our jobs, and we hope that He will look favorably upon us and not fire us and allow us to keep our jobs.
Jesus is describing something utterly different. He is saying that when the Master meets the servants, He will surprise them. He will say, "I am so happy to see you that I want you to recline at the table, and I will wait on you." That's something we do not expect.
But if we are truly to appreciate the love that our God has for us, we need to reflect on that idea. So as we think about the course of history and our brief moments within it, we remember that time is followed by timelessness. And that timelessness as we gaze upon the loving face of our God forever will be filled with great joy.
2025 Jul 27 SUN: SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Gn 18: 20-32/ Ps 138: 1-2. 2-3. 6-7. 7-8 (3a)/ Col 2: 12-14/ Lk 11: 1-13
We can take the second reading today to provide a foundation for what is being discussed in the first reading and the Gospel. So from St. Paul's letter to the Colossians, we have a statement about the death and resurrection of Jesus and the sacrament of baptism. He says that each of us in our baptism has been joined with the death of Jesus and with his resurrection. So these are gifts. This is a mystery which we are living now. And if we are aware of how great this gift of baptism is, we will understand how to pray and particularly we come to understand that we must pray in order to emphasize and affirm the relationship which is set up because of this entry into Jesus' Paschal Mystery. So in the first reading we have Abraham bargaining with God. And there really is no definite conclusion here and in fact Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. But this bargaining that Abraham carries out is a sign to us of the mercy of God. And we must have mercy on our minds when we pray. We say God is merciful; we must be merciful as well.
So we come to the Gospel. We have a parable and we are called to imagine someone who has called it a night and locked the door and gone to bed. And then at midnight somebody comes knocking with this request. And it is a perfectly normal thing to say, "I can't do that." But Jesus says it is because of persistence that the man in bed will get up and give what the petitioner is asking for. I always want to edit one of the lines in here. Jesus says he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence. I always want to read it: He will get up to give him whatever he needs just to get rid of him.
And then we have the promise from Jesus. Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. We understand that [in] living the mystery of being united with our God, prayer is essential to that relationship. And yes, we ask for many things, but again going back to our foundation in baptism, we come to understand that our God has given us many things, many things which we never thought of asking for. We have our life, we have our health, we have the company of the people that God has put into our lives and they are gift to us. Jesus says if you ask, you will receive the Holy Spirit and that could be like looking at a box we haven't unwrapped. We still need to find out who that Holy Spirit is and what strength God the Holy Spirit gives us. So we need to consider these things about prayer and realize that prayer is not merely petition, it is also thanksgiving. And we enjoy and indeed revel in our relationship with our God as along with the petitions we give thanks for everything.
2025 Jul 20 SUN: SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Gn 18: 1-10a/ Ps 15: 2-3. 3-4. 5 (1a)/ Col 1: 24-28/ Lk 10: 38-42
We may have been confused last week by some words of St. Paul in this letter to the Colossians, and today he provides us with another puzzle.
He says, "In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His body, the Church." And we have to ask, what could that possibly mean?
We understand and we teach consistently that the suffering, the passion of Jesus, His death, His resurrection, these things are sufficient for our salvation, that free gift we often talk about.
So what could Paul mean by this? It seems that he is thinking about the growth of the Church, and feeling a sense of solidarity, we might say, with all the people who will come into the Church, the People of God. As he makes his way around various communities along the Mediterranean Sea, he witnesses growth, and he knows that sufferings will have to take place as a result of this growth.
And we turn to the first reading today, and we have a demonstration of a quality to be expected in that world at that time. The quality -- the virtue -- of hospitality.
And we find this to be a somewhat strange story, because it's kind of disjointed. First it says that Abraham met the Lord, and then it says that there are three men before Abraham.
So this is rather confusing. As Christians, we have tended to look back on this incident of Genesis chapter 18, and we see here a foreshadowing of the revelation of God as Trinity, one God, three persons. And of course the Trinity was not revealed until the time of Jesus. So that is a thing that we as Christians can do when we reflect on the Old Testament, that there are things there that are pointing to the Christian revelation.
And so Abraham and Sarah exercise hospitality. Their world was a bit different from ours. And we can reflect and realize that you and I have time itself sort of chopped up into little pieces, because we are going here and there and meeting social responsibilities of various kinds.
Abraham's world was not like that. They had the time to pay attention to somebody who would just show up. They had traveled long distances themselves, and they knew that there were very, very few stops along the way for refreshment.
So they exercised hospitality, and then comes the message: "By about this time next year, Sarah will have a son." And if we go on further in chapter 18 of Genesis, we find out that Sarah is listening and she's laughing. And later Abraham said, "You were laughing." And she replies, "No, I wasn't." So it's quite a thing, and an obvious thing to laugh about if you are past childbearing. But yes, they had their son, Isaac, and that name comes from a root meaning laughter.
Hospitality is at work in the Gospel as well. And this time, Martha, the one offering the hospitality, is consumed with anger, not anger, with anxiety. Yeah, there's anger mixed in there too, definitely, as she thinks that Mary ought to be helping her. But what prevails in Martha is anxiety. And Jesus speaks to calm her.
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things. Only one thing is needed, and Mary has opened herself to that one thing necessary."
Every one of us knows that we have a lot of anxiety. This is kind of well an unorganized feeling, you might say. We know that we believe that much is expected from us, and we go about meeting various obligations, and we wonder whether we have met them all.
And so, like Martha, we can be filled with anxiety. I know I have been in such circumstances, and there is no contrast like the contrast between anxiety and peace.
And we know that our God wants peace for every one of us. And so, with Martha, we trust, we learn to know what really matters, what things are peripheral, so we can settle ourselves in great peace.
Remembering that we can have this gift because God does care for us as Jesus expressed it to Martha. You are anxious and worried about many things, and all you need is my peace.
2025 Jul 13 SUN: FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Dt 30: 10-14/ Ps 69: 14. 17. 30-31. 33-34. 36. 37 OR Ps 19: 8. 9. 10. 11/ Col 1: 15-20/ Lk 10: 25-37
We have all heard from teachers and other people that there is no such thing as a dumb question. No such thing as a stupid question.
We may find ourselves having to ask quite fundamental questions, for instance, if we're in an unfamiliar situation and we just have to get ourselves oriented. We have a case here of someone who is afraid that he has asked a dumb question.
This scholar of the law reminds me of the wealthy man that we also find in the Gospel who asks the same question. And it seems as if both of them want to figure out how to get this salvation thing sewn up, because it is such an inconvenient thing to have to be thinking about salvation all the time.
This man has to give himself credit, because when he answered Jesus' question about what is in the law, he took two laws that are in different books of the Torah and put them together. That is actually something to be proud of.
But after he receives that answer from Jesus, he feels embarrassed. He thinks, "I just asked him a dumb question." And so he had to justify himself by going deeper, and he latches on to that word "neighbor." He asks, "Who is my neighbor?" And Jesus definitely has an answer for him.
So we have this man who has been robbed, stripped, beaten up, and is in a terrible condition on the road. And then along comes what we could call a professional religious person.
And what does that professional religious person do? He says, "I didn't see that." And likewise, another, a Levite, likewise a priest, comes along, sees what has happened in the road. And he says, "I didn't see that."
And then Jesus says that a third person comes along, and he is a Samaritan.
Now it's kind of strange. The origins of the division between Jews and Samaritans is rather obscure. But it may be somewhat like the situation of our own families, where maybe there's one branch of the family that we don't have anything to do with.
And someone might ask, "Why is that?" And the reply may come back, "I don't remember." But there was this split.
Well, the Samaritan who is looked down upon by the Jews acts with compassion. He is reading the law which is in his heart.
He's in an unexpected situation, but he knows that he has the time and he has the money to address this situation. And he is doing precisely what Moses is talking about. When Moses says, "The law is not up in the sky. The law is not across the sea. It is right here in your heart. You have only to carry it out."
So we have to think very deeply about the answer that Jesus gives to this scholar of the law. And it is interesting that this man cannot bring himself to say "the Samaritan." He says: "the one who treated him with mercy." And Jesus says, "Yes, that is what it means to be a neighbor." And he says, "I respond to the common humanity of all of us in spite of any barriers we may put up."
In addition, we're beginning to read from St. Paul's letter to the Colossians, which begins with actually a hymn, a canticle, which describes Jesus as the firstborn of all creatures. That line has caused us a lot of trouble. It was especially troublesome in the very early Church. People read that line and said, "Oh, Jesus is not God. There was a time when he was not." But we corrected that mistaken notion.
In fact, it's been said that it's probably well to translate that line, the firstborn OVER all creation. And we remember that there is another line in there that echoes that line. It is the line, "He is the firstborn from the dead." It's good for us to keep those two lines of this canticle in our mind and in our heart, remembering that Jesus toward us has been the good Samaritan, responding to the sorry state, the state of sin that we find ourselves in. He has responded to us on the road and he has lifted us up.
2025 Jul 6 SUN: FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Is 66: 10-14c/ Ps 66: 1-3. 4-5. 6-7. 16. 20 (1)/ Gal 6: 14-18/ Lk 10: 1-12. 17-20
Our Scriptures begin today with an image from the prophet Isaiah of the most natural thing in the world: a mother feeding her child with her own milk. It is an image of comfort. And comfort is something that we all need. We turn then to the Gospel and it seems as if there's not much in the way of comfort. These 72 disciples are to go out on Jesus' command to proclaim the Kingdom of God in various towns. And Jesus himself seems to foresee, well, you're going in among wolves. That doesn't sound very comforting. They go in pairs and if we, if we reflect on this, we realize that if two people can get along with each other that would seem to be a proof of the integrity of what they are talking about.
And it happens that they come back rejoicing. They are proclaiming and in so many cases successfully proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Now that expression is something that we hear very often but we may not have a good grasp of it. We know the kingdom of the world. We know that our world operates according to many rules that need to be discarded. We proclaim the Kingdom of God to the extent that our own hearts are changed, to the extent that we bring God's peace and love into our own social situations. And in fact we are instruments of this kingdom. Our hearts have been changed and from those changed hearts we bring comfort to the world and we ourselves find comfort. So we must all live on behalf of the Kingdom of God and we must all be disciples like these 72. We take responsibility for bringing good news to a world which needs to be healed and comforted.
These 72 came back rejoicing. You and I, as we carry out our own discipleship, may find that the process is wearying; but we know that our God gives us the perseverance which is necessary for us to keep going. A perseverance which has a goal in mind: our own fullness of life. We hear today from St. Paul at the end of his letter to the Galatians and he is reflecting on the ways in which God has changed him and how he has found that he is to preach freedom to people across the world that he knows. And he is looking at his history of doing this and he says, I bear the brand marks of Jesus on my body. He is speaking about what can be seen. We have to look deeper and remember that, yes, with those brand marks in place there is also a heart which is overflowing and again saying I am here to give comfort to God's people.
2025 Jun 29 SUN: PETER AND PAUL, APS S Vigil: Acts 3: 1-10/ Ps 19: 2-3. 4-5/ Gal 1: 11-20/ Jn 21: 15-19. Day: Acts 12: 1-11/ Ps 34: 2-3.4-5. 6-7. 8-9/ 2 Tm 4: 6-8. 17-18/ Mt 16: 13-19
When we think of Peter and Paul, we think of their leadership in the early Church. They did different things. They both found themselves in Rome, we believe somewhere between the years 64 and 67, and they were martyred while Nero was emperor. They had differing personalities and they did different things. And it is instructive for us to consider how they led the earliest believers in Jesus.
We see, of course, from the Acts of the Apostles that Peter spent a good deal of time in Jerusalem and the area surrounding it. And what we hear today from the Acts of the Apostles is the threat of death that he was under there. And in fact that passage from Acts 12 begins with the martyrdom of St. James, the brother of John. He was the first of the apostles to be put to death. And it appeared that Peter himself was going to be part of that deadly process. We read about how he was freed from prison in spite of all those guards and all those locks. The locks and the chains fell away and he felt like he was in a dream. And I think we can apply this to ourselves.
Peter did not have an instruction manual for how to lead the People of God. And I'm sure it has occurred to most, if not all of us, that as we carry out our work, it does end up being a case of on-the-job training. We find out for ourselves how to flourish in our chosen work. And we have to get used to that idea for all the dimensions of our life. There are things we feel called to do that we may not dare to do, but the Holy Spirit is giving us strength, giving us the grace to live authentic lives. And we know that that always comes at some risk to ourselves. But we do find ourselves affirmed as we carry out the commands of love and witness to justice for all people. In Peter's case, he became the first bishop of Rome, that is the first of the Popes. And it was with that leadership role that he was put to death.
Paul had a different journey. He was far more educated than Peter was. He was zealous in persecuting the first Christians. But he met the risen Jesus on the road. He experienced conversion. And in fact, when we are engaged in on-the-job training, that is what is offered to us. Conversion, by which we know that we belong to God and to the God who became human out of love for us. And that truth has to work on us every day. Paul became, as we call him, the apostle to the nations. And he traveled around the Mediterranean world to various places. He founded churches, Corinth in Greece, for instance. And as we hear his words today, which we believe were written from prison in Rome, he says he has fought the good fight. Now this doesn't necessarily mean aggression in the sense that we think. He has fought the good fight by witnessing to the one who has completely changed his life.
And we seek to do the same thing. In our day, the bishops who have succeeded Peter and Paul are lifting up their voices on behalf of justice, especially for people who are poor and utterly vulnerable in our country. They are lifting up their voices. And this is something that Peter in particular had to learn.
To be a leader is not to say I have all the answers. To be a leader is to say I am carrying out a service for the people. And in fact, I do not have all the answers, but I can give witness to what I know is real, to what I know is necessary to live by. I know that the Redeemer of humanity laid down his life out of love for us. And we must ask ourselves every day, in order to be good leaders: Why has God loved us in this way? It is something that just stops us in our tracks. How is it that the Son of God, who did not need to go anywhere near our misery, how would he embrace our misery? Well, he has done so. He has given his life for us. And in submitting to death and to all that would seem to reduce us, in submitting he has been victorious over death. And we give thanks for this sort of leadership.
2025 Jun 22 SUN: THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST S Gn 14: 18-20/ Ps 110: 1. 2. 3. 4/ 1 Cor 11: 23-26/ Optional Sequence Lauda, Sion/ Lk 9: 11b-17
This solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ was instituted in the 13th century. There were people at that time who said, "There needs to be a celebration of the Holy Eucharist which is apart from Holy Thursday." Apparently they had the idea that celebrating the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, the day it was instituted, made things too somber because Jesus' betrayal and arrest and condemnation and crucifixion immediately followed.
Well, I don't think that we can separate the mystery of the Holy Eucharist from those events because Jesus was instituting the Eucharist so that, as Saint Paul says today, we can proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again. So we have from Saint Paul this most ancient account of what the earliest Christians did right away after the resurrection and after Pentecost, after the Pentecost event: they gathered together to celebrate the Lord's Supper.
We also have today this very brief passage from the book of Genesis. There is a concept in Scripture study and it's called typology. In other words, when we examine the Old Testament we can discover things that seem to point to persons and things that happen in the New Testament; and probably the strongest example of typology is Melchizedek. We have to think about this figure who very quickly appears and then just as quickly disappears. He is described as the King of Salem or Jerusalem, so he can [also] be understood as king of righteousness.* That's what we get out of Melchizedek or from the name of Salem, Jerusalem, a king of peace, Shalom. He is described as the king of Salem or Jerusalem and this is more than a thousand years before David claimed Jerusalem as his city. We don't know the origins of Melchizedek and we don't know where he goes after this incident recorded for us in the 14th chapter of Genesis; and he offers bread and wine. So this is a very powerful image of Jesus himself, king of righteousness, king of peace, eternal high priest. These are the many things that we find in Melchizedek which point to Jesus himself.
So then we come to the Gospel, and I believe that every one of us is always conscious of our need for food such that we will not wander out somewhere where we can't eat or drink. But this is exactly what the people following Jesus did, and I think that this is an indication to us that the people who were following Jesus were well aware of a hunger that went much deeper than the hunger for physical food. They considered all the woes and griefs of their life and they said, "I am in fact hungry for something deeper. I am hungry for my life to make sense and especially for interactions among people to make sense." And so we have this incident recorded. This is actually one of many in the four gospels of Jesus multiplying food. And we see that it is saying, "Yes, we have the deepest needs and hungers of them all. We hunger for life to make sense, for our relationships to make sense, and we find the fullness of sense, of peace, and of love." As Jesus says, "I will not simply feed you with loaves and fishes. I will feed you with myself."
*The "tzedek" of his name refers to righteousness.
2025 Jun 15 SUN: THE HOLY TRINITY S Prv 8: 22-31/ Ps 8: 4-5. 6-7. 8-9 (2a)/ Rom 5: 1-5/ Jn 16: 12-15
Last evening I spoke about current events and I'm not sure that everybody got the context. And the context is this. There were shootings in the Minneapolis area early yesterday morning. A state representative and her husband were killed. A state senator and his wife were badly injured but it is believed that they will survive.
You know I've talked in the past about my sister Kathy. Kathy lives in Minneapolis and teaches at a Catholic school, three blocks from where George Floyd was killed.
So yesterday morning I texted her: "How are things where you live?" And she said "quiet" and I said "good." And she said, "My friends and I were going to protest but we have decided against it." And I just replied to her, "There will be time to protest and plenty to protest about."
We have to lift up our voices.
I refer you to today's bulletin and it ran in last weekend's bulletin as well. And that notice amounts to a protest by the bishops of the United States, and their organization Catholic Relief Services. And it is protesting what I believe is legislation already passed. Cutting back feeding programs in many countries. And all I can say to that is that feeding the hungry is simple humanity.
We must lift up our voices.
Regarding the Blessed Trinity: We have this beautiful thing from the book of Proverbs. Wisdom always existed with God and we may say that wisdom is the Holy Spirit because after all we list wisdom as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We have this description of wisdom as craftsman: One who is playing in the midst of creation. Finding delight in it.
We go on to Saint Paul and he says that the love of God has been poured out upon us in the Holy Spirit. We need to consider whether we are allowing ourselves to receive the Holy Spirit. Maybe we have armor on. Maybe we tell ourselves that we are self-sufficient and we have the right opinions and nothing can touch us. Well, if nothing can touch us, we suppose that God does not need to touch us. Romans talks about being justified by faith. There are too many of us, maybe all of us -- we have the idea that salvation is about getting God to notice us and be favorable to us. Well, God has always known us, has known us for eternity and there is no putting on an act with God. In our vulnerability, and this is a vulnerability that we all must be in touch with, in vulnerability we do allow a small space at least and our God will take advantage of that small space in order to touch us, to love us, so that we will be overwhelmed with what we may have been guarding against. We will trade in doing good things to get God's favor. We will trade that in for the love of God for us and we will do good things simply out of thanksgiving.
And finally, Jesus speaks with his disciples about the activity of both the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus, of course, is our point of easiest access. We find it so easy, even though we are filled with wonder that God would become human. But Jesus in his very humanity invites us to see how God loves us. And so we rejoice in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, not a puzzle to be figured out, a mystery simply to be lived. We pray that being loved by the Holy Spirit we will find the way to true justice.
2025 Jun 8 SUN: PENTECOST S Acts 2: 1-11/ Ps 104: 1. 24. 29-30. 31. 34/ 1 Cor 12: 3b-7. 12-13 or Rom 8: 8-17/ Sequence Veni Creator Spiritus/ Jn 20: 19-23 or Jn 14: 15-16. 23b-26
We come today to the conclusion, and you might say the crown, of the season of Easter: Pentecost -- what we also refer to as the Birthday of the Church.
And if you were following in Breaking Bread, you may have found it somewhat difficult because of a variety of options for our Scriptures. In fact, there are a variety of options both today on Pentecost itself and also yesterday on the Vigil of Pentecost. Because there are a great number of images of the Holy Spirit, and it's good for us to appreciate those images and discover which are most helpful to ourselves.
On the banners we have the dove which is associated with the baptism of Jesus. We have other images as well. When the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles, it was with a driving wind and with tongues of flame. And in the Gospel today, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the Advocate. We can imagine ourselves being sued or otherwise finding ourselves in court. And we want someone to plead our case for us. So this image might be useful as well.
And St. Paul today speaks of the Spirit as opposed to what he calls the flesh. Now human flesh is not a bad thing in itself. And we remember that the Son of God took on our human flesh out of love for us in order to raise us up, to lift us up. When Paul speaks of the flesh, he is referring to the tendency to think of the self alone. And we know that that sort of self-centered thinking is the cause of much distress in human life. Instead of thinking about the self, we are to understand ourselves as brought together in the Holy Spirit, who makes us here and now into the Body of Christ.
So we have heard many examples of how we might imagine the unimaginable Holy Spirit. And we take comfort in the fact that the mystery of the Holy Spirit -- like the mystery of the Trinity which we will celebrate next week -- this mystery is not a puzzle to be figured out. It is a gift which we are to live. We think of the gifts of the Holy Spirit poured out upon us in the sacrament of confirmation. And we think as well of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, the ways in which the Holy Spirit makes us new people. In fact, I sneaked St. Paul's list of the fruits of the Holy Spirit into the June birthday blessing today. So be sure to listen for those. And we know that there is a difference in our lives. We can find ourselves in a state of agitation or anxiety because a particular situation is affecting us in some way. And we feel powerless in many respects. But we can allow the Holy Spirit to grow within us and to bear fruit so that in similar situations we are not unnerved. We can have peace even when everyone else is in a state of agitation. So we know the working of the Holy Spirit in our own lives. And we are thankful for the difference as we accept God's peace and the understanding of His Word.
2025 Jun 1 SUN: ASCENSION OF THE LORD S (Seventh Sunday of Easter) Acts 1: 1-11/ Ps 47: 2-3. 6-7. 8-9 (6)/ Heb 9: 24-28; 10: 19-23/ Lk 24: 46-53
As I mentioned last week, I am intending to concentrate through the 15th of June on God the Holy Spirit.
And we have another help today in the passage from the letter to the Hebrews. He is asking us to imagine the heavenly sanctuary itself, which of course is beyond imagining. I know it exists. It is the proper place for the blessed Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are to picture God the Son returning to that heavenly sanctuary with His own blood offered in sacrifice for the salvation of all of us. And we are called to understand the difference between offering sacrifices over and over, as opposed to the one great sacrifice which is effective for all of us for all time.
And we understand that once the Son of God has returned to that heavenly sanctuary, He does send power from on high, and this is God the Holy Spirit. I mentioned last week that I think of the Holy Spirit in terms of what you and I experience as we get to know one another and seek to live together according to the love of God. We know that we can put two people together and they can feel very isolated from one another. They can also feel hostile to each other, but the Holy Spirit is in our midst and that Spirit allows us to become friends, to appreciate and love one another.
We understand that the Holy Spirit comes to form the body of Christ here and now in our earthly existence. Today we have also been given two accounts of Jesus' ascension, one from the end of Luke, the other from the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. And we understand that we are in fact to be the body of Christ here and now following the Apostles. And of course next week we celebrate that strange and beautiful event in which there's a mighty wind and tongues of flame and the ability to communicate across barriers.
This is what we seek to receive and to exercise. This is the gift won for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus in his breaking of the power of evil, in his giving us an invincible power, the power of love.
2025 May 25 SUN: SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 15: 1-2. 22-29/ Ps 67: 2-3. 5. 6. 8 (4)/ Rv 21: 10-14. 22-23/ Jn 14: 23-29 (In the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, the Ascension of the Lord supersedes the Seventh Sunday of Easter. Therefore, the following second reading and gospel may be substituted today: Rv 22:12-14. 16-17. 20/ Jn 17: 20-26)
Given that today is the fifth anniversary of the murder of a man named George Floyd in Minneapolis, we do need to keep in mind all of the ways in which humanity must keep growing. And that includes growing out of cruelty, growing out of race-based conclusions about people. We come together and we hear of the love of the Son of God, and we know we still need to be transformed into His loving likeness.
What I intend to do for the next few weekends is consider the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit may well be the person of the Blessed Trinity which we have the hardest time knowing.
The Scriptures today will help us, but as I say, we will take several weekends through Trinity Sunday on the 15th of June to really focus on the Holy Spirit within God who is Trinity. And of course we all know that the Trinity itself is the mystery in the most strict sense, because it had to be revealed to us. It was not something that our intellects would reach. It had to be revealed to us, and we need to consider how it has been revealed.
In this Gospel passage, Jesus is speaking as He does so many times of His relationship to the Father. We can consider the relationships we know of Father and Son, of mother and daughter, and we can name many, many more. And as much as we know the love which is shared in these relationships, we must understand that in the Blessed Trinity between the Father and the Son, it is all the more intense. And we have to keep that in mind as we consider the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So Jesus is introducing to the disciples the Holy Spirit whom He describes as the Advocate, the one who speaks on our behalf. And this is one of many images of the Holy Spirit. I believe that we can look at the other two Scriptures today to gain an appreciation of the Holy Spirit.
First of all, we have from the Acts of the Apostles the first great controversy which the early Church had to work through. That is the question of whether non-Jewish people who come to believe in Jesus are bound to various Jewish laws. The answer came back, no. It had to be worked out at a council in Jerusalem, and we have heard some of that account today. You can read it in full starting in the 15th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. And happily, those who met realized that this was not a time to cling to opinions and to dominate by saying that the opinions that one holds must be right and you must be wrong. It was a process of thinking and praying together, and they came forth with that result. And I like to think that the Holy Spirit is the thing that makes the difference when we think of relationships between two people. The difference between the awkwardness or hostility that we may see there. And the love that can and must develop. We see the Holy Spirit there.
And then in our passage from Revelation today, once again a beautiful image of the new Jerusalem descending from heaven. It says that there was no Temple in the city because God was everywhere within it, and there was light everywhere. And those images can likewise help us with appreciating the Holy Spirit. So we can think on these things and we will continue to stretch our imaginations and come to this deeper appreciation of the Holy Spirit, which is in fact the love shared between the Father and the Son. We know we need love to heal us. We welcome a love that has loved us from the beginning, which we then can apply for healing the world.
2025 May 18 SUN: FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 14: 21-27/ Ps 145: 8-9. 10-11. 12-13 (see 1)/ Rv 21: 1-5a/ Jn 13: 31-33a. 34-35
The word "love" is sort of tricky. We have to consider that we give two main meanings to the word "love." And one of them really is a starting point, whereas the other is the goal. We use the word "love" to refer to a simple attraction, such as, "I love ice cream." And that's what we're saying, that ice cream is an object which is desirable to us. It doesn't do anything for the ice cream, so it's not relational. The ice cream has its own fate, which does not build it up in any way. So we have to consider that that is a starting point. There's nothing wrong with it, but we have to build on it.
We find with experience and with, above all, the grace of God, that love is a virtue which recognizes the dignity and worth of all the people in our life. And we respond with love as we say, "Yes, God has given me this dignity, and I want others to respect me and therefore I respect them." And in fact, if I have a responsibility to a particular person, I am utterly committed to that person, and I accept that person even with his or her faults. This is difficult, and we know we need a lot of practice. And we know we need to make mistakes, and the mistakes teach us very well what the opposite of love is.
I think of some history that I am listening to right now. This has to do with the civil rights movement, and in particular I was listening to people who were known as "freedom riders" back in 1961. They confronted unjust segregation laws, witnessing to the injustice, but acting with love, non-violently confronting people. And of course, if we think about that, to respond to violence with non-violence is to cause the violent person to have many, many questions. To ask, "What does this mean? That these people are, first of all, standing up to us, and then not even responding to our force with force." This was a powerful witness in those days, and we see that this applies to our own lives and our own situations, even today.
This requires a lot of practice and a lot of discipline to be so focused on the virtue of love. And this is what Paul and Barnabas were attempting to do. We read today about their visits to various cities along the Mediterranean Sea. They found that there were many people who accepted the good news of Jesus, and there were those who quite flatly rejected them, but they kept at it. They kept going, and we know that that sort of persistence is necessary for us as well.
We have again a beautiful image from the Book of Revelation of the new Jerusalem coming down from the heavens. We may be puzzled by a statement of John that the sea was no more. We have a reference to this actually in the opening hymn today, which refers to God as the master of the sea. And we may wonder, "Why is the sea no more?" It is because the sea was looked upon as the source, a source at least, of chaos, and it was supposed that there were great sea monsters in the deep.
So "the sea was no more" simply means that God is doing away with chaos and threats. And we ourselves must consider what is chaotic or what is monstrous in the ways in which we respond to one another. And as we reflect and as we accept the grace of God, we will find that we can live out this command: Love one another.
2025 May 11 SUN: FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 13: 14. 43-52/ Ps 100: 1-2. 3. 5/ Rv 7: 9. 14b-17/ Jn 10: 27-30
In my junior year of high school at Decatur St. Teresa, I was in a religion course called Social Justice. And in that course I learned about the social teaching of the Catholic Church, which began in 1891 with a writing called Rerum Novarum, that is, "of new things." And in this document, the new things being treated were the changes in society having come about as the result of the Industrial Revolution. And this writing championed the rights of workers so that they might not find themselves as mere cogs in a money-making machine, but that they might be respected in the fullness of their humanity, in the depth of their gifts. This caught my attention because my father was a factory worker at the Decatur Plant of Caterpillar Incorporated. And this is what I needed to hear because I was thinking about the priesthood, but apparently I needed to hear something which would secure for me a sense of the credibility of the Church. And I found it when I heard about this social teaching. The Pope who issued Rerum Novarum in 1891 was Leo XIII.
Now we have all experienced some amazing events in these past few days, and I can well imagine that you are expecting to hear from me something like, "Oh, Pope Leo, personal friend of mine." No. We are two years apart in age. The thing that we have to keep in mind is that we were on different tracks: he as a member of a religious order, the Augustinians, while I was studying to be a diocesan priest. And it is of some interest that there is some overlap. Two instances. I went to St. Louis in 1977 for my third and fourth years of college seminary. And in that same year, 1977, Pope Leo went to St. Louis for his novitiate period. And no, we did not run into each other. And then we were also studying canon law in Rome at the same time. But we were at two different universities. So there is no possibility of my claiming some kind of closeness.
But I go back to the thing that sparked my sense of the credibility of the Church back when I was in high school. Robert Francis Prevost took the name Leo XIV because of what Leo XIII wrote about justice. And he said as much to the Cardinals yesterday. And for that reason, I feel a kinship with Pope Leo because our minds and our hearts are on the same thing. We want to see every human being in the world realizing their dignity first of all as being created by God the Father and by being lifted up by the love of Jesus for all of us.
Now, our bulletin deadline is Tuesday. And I realized, well, I won't have anything about a new pope. And I suspected we'd have a new pope by Friday. Well, it came on Thursday. But I had the bulletin deadline. So I wrote something about the writings of Pope Francis. And it turns out again yesterday as he was addressing the Cardinals that the first apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis, which I mentioned on the front of the bulletin today, was also cited by Pope Leo yesterday. And he intends to continue all that Pope Francis has taught. I am grateful for that.
Now, this happens to be Good Shepherd Sunday, quite aptly. And we have an account of the difficulties that Paul and Barnabas ran into in proclaiming the Good News. We also have a very joyful image from the Book of Revelation about all the people in white garments who have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb. And again, the Lamb who had been slain is at the center there. And then Jesus, speaking about shepherding, notes the fact that sheep are very good at distinguishing voices. And we pray that we, every one of us, will be attuned as we get to know this new pope and as we consider all the teaching of the People of God, the Church. That we will hear the voice of the Shepherd.
2025 May 4 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 5: 27-32. 40b-41/ Ps 30: 2. 4. 5-6. 11-12. 13 (2a)/ Rv 5: 11-14/ Jn 21: 1-19
Many people look upon the Book of Revelation as a rather forbidding sort of writing, full of things that can cause terror in people's hearts. But today we have an utterly joyful passage from Revelation. We have a description of heaven itself. And there is mention of the creatures of earth, all creatures, on land and in the sea. And in the center of it all is the Lamb that was slain. We need to think about this. The reason for the great joy is that the Lamb, who is Jesus, was slain, but has overcome death and lives forever. So this is the joyful image of heaven which we receive from the Book of Revelation.
And as we turn to the other readings today, we see further cause for joy. In the Gospel we find Peter in some sense wishing that he could just disappear. And we're familiar with how he feels. He demonstrates embarrassment when John says it is the Lord. Peter is embarrassed. He says he needs to tuck in his garment. And it says also that he jumped into the water. Now, if he wanted to obscure his presence, he could have done one thing or the other. But he does both. And all of us who are familiar with our own embarrassment can recognize that we can have an exaggerated response to our sense of embarrassment.
Now, embarrassment is particularly tough because we feel powerless when we feel it. And we also feel its connection with shame. And we need to know that shame does not do us any good, whatever. If we feel guilt, we are saying to ourselves, "I did something wrong." But when it's shame that we feel, the message is, "I am something wrong." And that, of course, is something that we must allow to die within us.
Although we've heard that many times, it's not true. And if we experience embarrassment, it's uncomfortable just to feel that way. But we can also kind of torture ourselves by anticipating that we might be embarrassed somehow. And that keeps us in a state of tension which is definitely not creative tension. It is tension which damages us, really. And then we think of Jesus asking Peter three times, "Do you love me?" This is for Peter an occasion for embarrassment because he is remembering the three times he denied even knowing Jesus at the time of his arrest and his passion.
But Jesus is setting Peter free. He is telling him, "You can go forward and you can proclaim the good news of my death and resurrection." It's expressed in somewhat forbidding terms here that there will come a time, Jesus says, when you will be led where you do not want to go. And it's fitting for us at this time when the See of Peter is vacant that we consider what Peter did in laying down his life. And by tradition we understand that this was around between the years 64 and 67 on the Vatican Hill in Rome that Peter was crucified. And this was during the cruel reign of the Emperor Nero. And every successor of Peter, including the one we will probably receive later this week, every one of the successors of Peter is a human being with faults and sins.
Nevertheless, because of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we as a church have been able to carry on and not go completely wrong. And we see that Peter goes on in the Acts of the Apostles today to say, "We will obey God rather than men." They received their warning and they said, "We have to keep doing what we've been doing, proclaiming the good news of Jesus." So that was quite a step forward from wanting to sort of hide himself. He and the other apostles were happy to witness and we benefit from their witness. And in this season of Easter, we banish shame from our hearts and we embrace the joy of all that has been won by the Lamb who was slain, but who lives.
2025 Apr 27 SUN: SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER Acts 5: 12-16/ Ps 118: 2-4. 13-15. 22-24/ Rv 1: 9-11a. 12-13. 17-19/ Jn 20: 19-31
Well, a week ago was Easter Sunday, and after Holy Week and the Easter Triduum, I was ready to get away for a few days. That's exactly what I did.
And awakening Monday morning and learning that Pope Francis had died, I was shocked. Now, we all knew that his health was precarious. We had heard from his doctors that he needed at least two months of recovery. In other words, not doing very much. And at least I had a prediction that came true, and that was that he did not do the washing of feet on Holy Thursday, as much as that act means to him. But on that Holy Thursday, he did visit a prison very close to the Vatican. And we are aware that on Easter itself, he was present and made himself present. He was with us through Easter Sunday itself. And then, as we know, he died.
And we have had a great gift from Pope Francis in his 12 years as Bishop of Rome. I am planning to give you information on his various writings over the past 12 years. They are utterly beautiful and they are very easy to access. You just have to go to vatican.va. Of course, one difficulty with papal documents is they always have, or most of the time, have a Latin name, sometimes an Italian name. So that's always a bit difficult, but we have the bulletin at our disposal so we can make those very precious documents known to all of us.
And here on the Second Sunday of Easter, we're getting started in the Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Revelation. And it is especially significant that this first passage we have from Revelation includes Jesus. This is the one like a Son of Man, amid the seven lampstands that St. John sees.
And of course, Jesus is present in this Gospel.
We have to understand that the good news, which we proclaim Sunday after Sunday and indeed day after day, is absolutely precious to us. In fact, our own faith in resurrection relies upon the witness of these people.
And we know that they were not just making something up. They tell us that they were surprised and amazed that this had happened, that Jesus was risen from the dead. He had told them this many times, but they were afraid to question him further about that. They were already in great sorrow when he said he had to lay down his life: he had to die. And so they are bringing us this greatest of good news as people who weren't expecting it.
There's a theologian I rely upon a great deal who explains that you and I live in a world mediated by meaning. Well, what does that mean? We know we have our own personal experience of things, and that personal experience is extremely important. We also have what we call common sense, and then there is the world mediated by meaning.
We can't personally experience everything that goes on in the world. Our ability to reason out particular things, that is quite limited as well. But then we have mediation by meaning, and by this is meant that so many things that we know are given to us by people who have had the personal experience. And for this reason, we understand the witness of the apostles to be utterly precious to us. This is the basis on which we have faith in Jesus' resurrection.
Jesus said to Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." Well, this is the vast majority of all Christian believers, all through the nearly 2,000 years since these events occurred. We want to develop a sense of being profoundly gifted. And in this way, we will be happy to keep passing on the gift.
2025 Apr 20 SUN: EASTER SUNDAY. The Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Acts 10: 34a. 37-43/ Ps 118: 1-2. 16-17. 22-23/ Col 3: 1-4 or 1 Cor 5: 6b-8/ Sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes/ Jn 20: 1-9 or Mk 16: 1-7 or, at an afternoon or evening Mass, Lk 24: 13-35
On this day of resurrection, we remember how we came here. We remember that it was through a remembrance during the weeks of Lent, a remembrance of how the Son of God [had] taken on our human nature and be[come] truly human, as well as truly God.
Submitted to all the sufferings which every human being encounters in this world which is twisted by sin, he offered his life. He accepted the cross, and he said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." And then the incredibly surprising thing occurred. It was something that even those closest to him were not grasping and did not grasp until it occurred.
When he rose victorious from death, he conquered all the griefs of this world. We may want to question how he did it. We may want to say, "Well, in an instant at the time that you rise from death, why didn't you banish all suffering?" One partial answer to that is the fact that we have to turn our hearts over to him.
We read at the Easter Vigil last night Ezekiel's words about a new heart and a new spirit, exchanging our stony hearts for truly living responsive hearts of flesh. And we must remember that the resurrection is not some otherworldly thing.
As Peter told Cornelius in the Acts of the Apostles, "We ate and drank with him after his resurrection." We profess every Sunday that we believe in the resurrection of the body. Our God loves us as we are, body and soul.
And as we turn our hearts over to him, and as we recognize the meaning of the baptism by which we ourselves have died and are risen with Jesus, so we are called, as Colossians says today, to live out that baptism, and we can do so because, in fact, we have died with Jesus.
If the resurrection is something that we find we have a hard time with, we have to remember that those closest to Jesus did not dare to ask him what he meant. When he said, "I must be put to death and then rise from the dead," they never pressed him on that question.
The news of his death stopped them in their tracks. It was something that it seemed impossible to believe. They would not dare to believe it.
But in our baptism, in our conversion, as our stony hearts become hearts of flesh, we discover that we are willing to bear the griefs of this world in witness to Jesus' resurrection. So this is our great joy and promise this day, and throughout all the Sundays of the Easter season leading up to Pentecost.
We have before us a world which obviously has not been rid of suffering. We look at the human family across the world, and we see wars, and we see policies of government which in no way speak of the inheritance of all the people of God, an inheritance into resurrection and eternity.
We must, as we witness to resurrection, witness to the human dignity which leaves wars behind as something curious and cruel, things that we cannot abide. This resurrection is for the sake of our changing and of the world changing.
Jesus has given us his death and his resurrection. We are called to act with courage, to witness to truth and goodness and love in this world of sorrows.
2025 Apr 13 SUN: PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD'S PASSION Procession: Lk 19: 28-40. Mass: Is 50: 4-7/ Ps 22: 8-9. 17-18. 19-20. 23-24/ Phil 2:6-11/ Lk 22: 14 -- 23: 56
We have heard from a suffering servant song of Isaiah and also from the great hymn of St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians regarding the self-emptying of Jesus, true God, and true man. And there is so much that we could comment on in St. Luke's Passion, but I will point out just one detail. Anyone else who addresses Jesus in Luke's Gospel uses terms such as Lord and Master. But the man who is crucified along with Jesus, the man who rebukes the other criminal, this man says, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And this is the only time in Luke's Gospel* in which Jesus is addressed by his name. So there is a great intimacy to be found in this strange spectacle. He must have heard Jesus teach at some point. And now as both are dying, he makes this request with his first name, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus replies, "This day you will be with me in paradise."
We remember that the reason for Jesus' death was that he might open the gates of heaven, the gates of paradise, so that all could enter. And we think very kindly of the first man who proceeded [there] with Jesus.
- [in fact, in ANY Gospel]
2025 Apr 6 SUN: FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT Is 43: 16-21/ Ps 126: 1-2. 2-3. 4-5. 6 (3)/ Phil 3: 8-14/ Jn 8: 1-11
Last week I spoke of the Easter Triduum and specifically the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper. That will be 7 p.m. Thursday, April 17th right here. I mentioned foot washing and, along with the sign-up for the chicken dinner, I have a sign-up for people who will commit to having their feet washed at that Holy Thursday Mass. So I hope you will sign up. I think I had, last time I looked, I had four out of the twelve. So please give that careful consideration.
I have something rather disturbing to talk about first of all. I, just yesterday, I read about a priest in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas who was shot to death on Thursday. He was from India and specifically the Diocese of Cuddapah. Now just in the past couple of weeks I have been in touch with another priest of the Diocese of Cuddapah, one who works in South Carolina, because the Diocese of Cuddapah is to be the recipient of our offerings on the occasion of our Mission Co-op weekend. When we do this once a year we have someone make an appeal to aid the church in places that really need it. The priest in South Carolina, Father John Bosco, said, "Well, I won't be coming, but I will be finding for you a priest working in the States to come to your parish." And we think it will be in July. But that's particularly shocking because we already feel a connection with that particular diocese in India. So we pray for the priest who was killed and for the shooter and for all who are in mourning over this tragic act. And we want to remember that as a matter of fact there are numerous [such] priests working in the United States. We refer to them by our shorthand as international priests and they are serving us so very well right here in our midst. And we are grateful for them.
Well, the prophet Isaiah says today that God is doing a new thing. And we might consider a new thing that comes to be in our own hearts. This is the gift of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness which is exercised by Jesus himself in this very tense Gospel incident. It's unclear what particular law these experts in the law were referring to when they said, "This woman should be stoned. What do you say, Jesus?" Well, we have Jesus going much, much deeper than looking at observed behavior. He is looking deeply into the hearts of this woman and the accusers and in fact all of us. And it's interesting that these men go away one by one beginning with the elders. I trust that that is a sign of the wisdom we all hope to gain as we reflect on our lives.
So Jesus and the woman are there and Jesus exercises complete mercy. And this is a mercy that you and I all count on. And it does settle our hearts, makes them very, very peaceful. We grow in a sense of personal connection with the one who died for us.
We also hear today from St. Paul and he is saying that his conversion experience, his Damascus Road experience -- when he turned from persecuting the Christian way to embracing it -- Paul says that in light of that, so many other things in life are just so much rubbish. "Rubbish" is the polite translation. You go back to the original; he is actually talking about earthier stuff. But we want to develop this attitude as well: to learn to value all the gifts we have received from our God, especially the forgiveness of our sins.
We accept the peace which comes to us and we proceed to celebrate the gift of Jesus' death and resurrection.
2025 Mar 30 SUN: FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT Jos 5: 9a. 10-12/ Ps 34: 2-3. 4-5. 6-7 (9a) / 2 Cor 5: 17-21/ Lk 15: 1-3. 11-32
Well, we are coming close to the celebration of Holy Week and the Easter Triduum. And I ask you especially to keep Holy Thursday in mind. We'll have the Mass of the Lord's Supper here Thursday, April 17th at 7 p.m. And you know that there is an element of Holy Thursday which is very, very dear to the heart of Pope Francis. And obviously he is not going to be doing this himself this year. But we need to do it, all the while praying for his good health and his recovery. It's the washing of feet. And you know that Pope Francis has gone to various places in Rome on Holy Thursday to perform the foot washing. And very often he goes to prisons when he washes the feet of men and women alike. And many of the people are not Catholic or Christian. But he has gone and he has performed this singular demonstration of service as a prelude to his ultimate service of offering himself on the altar of the cross. So please keep the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper in mind. And think of the fact that our God does go to people who think they are abandoned or who think they have lost any chance of being united with God. I believe that makes for a very powerful prayer.
So today we have heard a very well-known story told by Jesus. And I consider it his second most annoying parable. I think the most annoying is the one about the workers in the vineyard who get surprised at the end of the day by the way in which the owner of the vineyard pays them for their day's work. Jesus meant for these parables to be annoying, to be provocative. And we find ourselves in this parable saying, "What would we do if we were in this situation? What if I were the younger son? What if I were the older son? What if I were the father?" These parables are intended to work on us. And as we are reminded here today, Jesus directed this parable to the scribes and Pharisees: people who had hardened their hearts against Jesus, who thought that they had no need to listen to him.
I've been thinking about the connection between this parable and the first reading from the book of Joshua. And it is a somewhat obscure reading and it does require a certain amount of explanation. Joshua was Moses' aide. And when Moses died, Joshua took over as the leader of the people, and at long last they emerged from their 40 years in the wilderness. They emerged into the land which God had promised to them. And I think the connection between Joshua and the parable is that it has to do with the expression we have, "coming into one's own." And we use that expression to mean that after much preparation and much anticipation, the person finally comes into his or her vocation and is able at last to use the abilities God gave to them.
I believe that this parable is about a man who had a strange idea of what it meant to come into his own. He said, "Give me the share of the estate even though you're not dead yet." And then he took all that wealth and yeah, his life was a never-ending party. Well, of course, never-ending parties come to an end. But this is what is going on. He has a very maladaptive idea of what life is about. And he discovers what it really is as his father welcomes him back.
We also have from St. Paul a discussion of the uniqueness of Jesus. And of course we will be celebrating his uniqueness as our Savior, particularly in the Easter Triduum. St. Paul says, "God made him who did not know sin to be sin," which may be a rather puzzling statement to us. We can actually develop it by saying he became a sin offering, and in fact he became THE sin offering. It was he who bore our sins and all the effects of the sin of this world in order to liberate us.
And so we have something pointing us directly toward Easter. And we open our hearts in thanksgiving to this personal gift of the Son of God who became one of us and has loved us sufficiently so that we too can come home.
2025 Mar 23 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT Ex 3: 1-8a. 13-15/ Ps 103: 1-2. 3-4. 6-7. 8. 11 (8a)/ 1 Cor 10: 1-6. 10-12/ Lk 13: 1-9
It is good to learn that Pope Francis has been released from the hospital. He was going to do -- so this would have been almost four hours ago, a noon praying of the Angelus that is a Sunday noon day custom, there in Rome. And following that he was going back to his home in the Casa Santa Marta. And the doctors say that he will need at least two months of recuperation. It's remarkable that the doctors also said he's been a very good patient. Well, I hope so. [Laughter] But, you know, we're talking about repentance today, and from what I can tell, Pope Francis has this deep, deep urge to be active. And when you have that attitude, it is a hard thing to acknowledge your limits. And you've probably heard this more than once from me that word "limits" is a very big word in my own spirituality. Because I remember that I am God's creature. I am necessarily limited. I am not the one God who is unlimited. So we continue to pray for Pope Francis, and we are grateful that he will remain with us. And we look forward to everything which comes from the next years of his papacy.
These readings seem to be about time. We have this second reading in which St. Paul is making connections between the Exodus of the Israelites and our own Christian sacramental life, particularly baptism and Eucharist. He is comparing baptism to the escape through the parted Red Sea and connecting the Holy Eucharist with the manna from heaven.
So this is a profound encounter between God and Moses. When it comes to fast and slow, Moses saw this bush that was aflame, and he was assuming that the flame would very quickly consume the bush, but that did not happen. God told Moses of his concern for the people, and that he would deliver them from their slavery. When we think about the events of the Exodus, the tenth plague upon the Egyptians was the death of the firstborn, and this happened in one night. And the Israelites had to leave in great haste. On the other hand, once they escaped, they wandered in the desert for 40 years.
So we find various expectations about how long something is going to take. And we have to acknowledge that as we move from our slavery to sin, it seems to us to be a long process, particularly, I believe, because we know that we have to change certain habits of ours, and the habits have been long in the making, and undoing them takes a long time as well.
But as we turn to the Gospel, we understand that repentance, in the sense of being a turning toward God, that turning cannot be delayed on our part because the gift of forgiveness, the gift of mercy, is such a precious gift that we must not presume upon it, even though we know we drag our feet in many ways.
And Jesus is saying, don't conclude just from your observation that something terrible happened to someone, that this was God's judgment upon them.
In fact, he directs us to this parable, the fig tree which is not bearing fruit. And the owner of the orchard wants to do away with this tree, but the gardener says, "Give it another year. We'll give it some special attention." Well, this is our time to give ourselves special attention. We know we must quickly orient ourselves toward our God. God does give us time for this cultivation, for this fertilizing.
As we sang in the psalm, "The Lord is kind and merciful." We welcome the time which God gives us, and we want to recognize that this moment is a most acceptable time for the turning of our hearts.
2025 Mar 16 SUN: SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT Gn 15: 5-12. 17-18/ Ps 27: 1. 7-8. 8-9. 13-14/ Phil 3: 17 -- 4: 1 or 3: 20 -- 4: 1/ Lk 9: 28b-36
My brother had a friend when we were growing up, and my brother passed along to me some of the things that he heard from this friend about their family.
So apparently it was kind of a ritual with them: that they would start on a vacation getting into the car and driving and their dad was driving. He would at some predictable point exclaim, "Isn't this great, kids?"
The kids did not know what was so great. I'm sure that the dad was enjoying the fact that he was not at work and he was looking forward to some time where he could just be present. And really I think that's what he was expressing. Just being present to the moment. But his kids thought it was funny.
St. Paul says to us today, "Our citizenship is in heaven." And we in fact can be aware of heaven in our midst. The more that we are just present to a moment of relaxation and rest and contemplation, we can be filled with wonder as Peter, James and John were so filled at the time of Jesus' Transfiguration. Luke says that Jesus was preparing for his "exodus" which he would accomplish in Jerusalem. Exodus, of course, refers us to the freeing of the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt. And Jesus' death and resurrection are properly referred to as the exodus: deliverance from the evils of this world.
So we are likewise called to a sense of wonder. Before he was Abraham, he was Abram, and the Lord said to him, "Look up into the night sky. Try counting the stars. Can you do that?" Well, you can be filled with wonder because as numerous as the stars are, will your descendants be. And this was a cause for wonder.
On the part of Abram who was unsure whether he would ever have a child by his wife Sarah, he was furthermore filled with wonder. When he saw this eerie thing taking place, the Lord had told him to cut some animals in two. And a representation of the Lord, a fire pot and a torch, passed between the halves.
This was the establishment of the covenant, the bond between God and his people. And it was saying on the part of the Lord, "If I go back on my covenant, may I be as these animals that have been split apart." So there was cause for wonder in the life of Abram, later to be called Abraham.
And we in this Lenten time can cultivate our own sense of wonder. We can look at God's creation. There are things in God's creation that call us to a sense of wonder. We think of the people in our life and the fact that we share love with these people.
Yes, it is great. Our preparation for the Easter mystery is one which includes the favor given to Peter, James and John so that they might not completely lose heart at the time that Jesus was crucified. We saw them weaken, particularly Peter, but they did not completely lose heart. And they had had the opportunity to gaze upon the evidence of Jesus' resurrection.
So we are called through the Word of God today to be present to the wonders which surround us and realize the degree to which we have been loved by the God who has made us and brought us together. And he has made an unbreakable covenant of life and love with us.
2025 Mar 9 SUN: FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT Dt 26: 4-10/ Ps 91: 1-2. 10-11. 12-13. 14-15/ Rom 10: 8-13/ Lk 4: 1-13
Our Scriptures begin today with an account from Deuteronomy of some of the history of God's chosen people. It refers to slavery and liberation. We move on to St. Paul, and he is telling us that the gifts of salvation and liberation, which come from our God, are not exclusive. He says that everyone, whether Jew or Greek, calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus, will enter into salvation and a great sense of peace in the presence of God. And we see through the Gospel that Jesus has embraced our difficulties to the ultimate degree because he has been subject to temptation. Now as we mentioned at the beginning [of Mass], we might say, well of course he resisted temptation because Jesus is God. Well, we have to understand that Jesus really did embrace our human nature, and as Paul says in Philippians chapter 2, he emptied himself. He did not cling to his identity as the Son of God. He entered into our miseries.
We can recognize something here in the temptations which Jesus is experiencing. You and I are all proud of our identity, and someone could come along and question that identity and say, "If you are so great, do X, Y, or Z. Show who you are." And you and I would tend to take the bait. We'd say, "Yeah, I'll show you." And that's the sort of temptation that Jesus experienced. We have no idea how the consciousness of Jesus as God and human worked itself out. That is perhaps one of the deepest issues of theology. We don't know, but we see that there is a resistance to claiming that glorified identity, and staying with the lowly human identity. And this is a call to ourselves to refrain from glorifying ourselves, instead saying, "I know I am human. I am not God. I am not self-sufficient. I rely upon my God and on the people around me who love me." These are practical thoughts which must occupy us during this season of preparation for celebrating the Easter mystery.
2025 Mar 2 SUN: EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Sir 27: 4-7/ Ps 92: 2-3. 13-14. 15-16/ 1 Cor 15: 54-58/ Lk 6: 39-45
Have you ever heard this expression: "Just sayin'"? I hear that and this is how I translate it. "I'm going to pass along some information to you and it may be distasteful to you, but I am distancing myself from it. Please don't hit me." That's how I feel about that statement.
And it certainly goes against the idea which we hear very clearly from the book of Sirach and from the gospel today, that every one of us is responsible for the words we say.
There's another example. In the online world, there is a lot of reposting that goes on, reposting done by people who don't even know for sure if the original post is true. So we have to consider how we take responsibility for what we say. And as Jesus tells us, it comes from what is stored in our heart. And he gives us another image of a good tree bearing good fruit. We have to ask ourselves, "What is my participation in my social situations doing? Is it building up or not?"
And of course, I'm sure that Jesus was having fun with these images that he gives us, especially the one about seeing the splinter in someone else's eye when your own vision is impaired. You say, "Let's take the splinter out of your eye" when all the time you have a 2x4 in your own eye. That's pretty obvious. It certainly means that before [we] seek to criticize, it is necessary for us to examine ourselves and recognize that there is much to be corrected in our own personality. Therefore, we can have that experience and, "Okay, yeah, that's out of my eye. I'm seeing a little more clearly. And maybe I am in a position to correct." But then again, we come around and we realize that every one of us has faults, and we might do people a lot of good if we are patient with them. That often is much, much better.
We think about these things as we conclude St. Paul's reflections on the gift of resurrection. He reflects on the mystery of Jesus and says, "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" And he's pointing us to Jesus who won the victory for us, and we can never forget that the victory was won because he truly died. He died with us and for us. He chose to undergo what you and I have no choice about, and he has lifted us up.
2025 Feb 23 SUN: SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Sm 26: 2. 7-9. 12-13. 22-23/ Ps 103: 1-2. 3-4. 8. 10. 12-13 (8a)/ 1 Cor 15: 45-49/ Lk 6: 27-38
HOMILIST'S NOTE: I ran afoul of Pope Francis's directive from his general audience of December 4, 2024, when he said that a homily should be in the six-to-eight-minute range. This one ran over 12 minutes.
We all know that at every weekend Mass following the Profession of Faith, we have a prayer that goes by a lot of different names. You've heard it called the Prayers of the Faithful. It's also called the Universal Prayer. If you go to other English-speaking countries, you may hear it called the Bidding Prayers. My favorite term for it is the General Intercessions.
Now for some months I have been writing the general intercessions and I believe in keeping them concise and for the lector who has those prayers, I want to make sure it's on just one sheet of paper, one side of the one sheet of paper. And in fact when I'm keeping it concise, I'm able to present it in a pretty good-sized font. So much the better for the lectors.
But this weekend they're running a little bit longer and they're in a little smaller font. I had some parishioners of Saint Jerome say to me that they wanted to supply some intercessions of their own for this particular weekend, the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, the year of Luke, because of the emphasis we have today on the mercy of God. We've heard this in the first reading. We're aware of how King Saul, the first king of Israel, was obsessed with his belief that David was a rival to him and that he had to kill David. And so we have this Scripture today about that deep slumber that the Lord put Saul and his men into and in which David and his assistant were able to come right up to Saul and they could have killed him, but they did not.
We also hear from First Corinthians today about the fact that you and I have to move from being the first Adam to being the second Adam. That is, we need to be transformed by the gift of salvation in Jesus. We must be transformed. We must experience conversion. And, you might say, become a surprise even to ourselves.
So there is an awful lot in the gospel and it starts with love your enemies. Three years ago I think I said that I misread that for a very, very long time. I was thinking it said "don't have enemies" and I put it on myself to go make peace. No, that doesn't work. No, if you are a genuine Christian you will have enemies. And what you can do for them is love them. Particularly as we think about what we're witnessing in our country these days, we do have to ask about God's gift of mercy and about whether it has taken hold. And I'm thinking of two of the principals right now in this process we're seeing. And based on the reading I have done about the upbringing of these two people, it appears to me that in their upbringing they never had mercy shown to them. And that is a serious deficiency in character. They may never have known mercy as they were growing up. And it's possible that in more recent times people have attempted to show them mercy but they didn't understand it. So we need to acknowledge these facts and we need to look at the rest of the things here in this gospel. There's an awful lot.
turning the other cheek and giving to people. These are things that, again, I tended to misinterpret these. I thought it meant I had to be a doormat. Actually when you turn the other cheek you're offering a challenge. You give the attacker something to think about. And then, yes, with giving, it doesn't mean that you abandon any sense that you have rights and dignity of your own. It means that you know that life is much more than your possessions. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Now that's been called the golden rule, but Jesus didn't call it the golden rule. We know that Jesus as an infant received gold but he demonstrated through the course of his life that he was not interested in gold. So I don't know whether calling it the golden rule is any great compliment; but this is something that makes total sense to us as we try to grow in a sense of empathy, to see our neighbor as another self and to respond to them as we would like to be responded to. And I think that keeps us at a level of realistic, kind interaction which does respect the other. And that gifts will be given to you that full measure falling into your lap: For me that is quite simply the sense of peace which I have discovered in myself, and it is a wonderful thing when we discover it, because all of us can enter into an anxious state in which we are placing pressure on ourselves. When we are saying we have to do A, B or C in order to prove that I have the right to be here, that anxiety is existing in all of us and we are greatly blessed when we can come to see that as something that we use to block the very peace of our God. It is wonderful when we can lay that anxiety aside. So we have so much to think about and as we sang in the Psalm, "The Lord is kind and merciful." And we need to reflect on the people who have shown us mercy, and realize that it [mercy] is real and that it is transforming and that as much as so many people in the world are moved by other influences, we know we give a witness that says peace is possible and peace begins with what is going on in your own heart.
2025 Feb 16 SUN: SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Jer 17: 5-8/ Ps 1: 1-2. 3. 4. 6 (40: 5a)/ 1 Cor 15: 12. 16-20/ Lk 6: 17. 20-26
We know that in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount gives us eight or maybe nine depending on how you count them, eight or nine beatitudes. They are promises that people are going to be happy in unexpected ways. We remember the first one, "Blest are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God."
Well, we turn to Luke's Gospel and this is called the Sermon on the Plain. It says there that they're on a level stretch of ground. And it's interesting that Luke has Jesus proclaiming four beatitudes and four woes. And you know I've been in the habit recently of referring to people to whom I believe the woes reply -- [rather,] to whom the woes refer. But to some extent every one of us has sold out to one of these things that Jesus warns are woeful. We trust in wealth and we trust in not missing very many meals. And instead of developing a genuine sorrow, we do try to treat life as a joke. And we rely on people speaking well of us. So we need to consider how we are to be among the people who enjoy the beatitudes, the people who are blessed. We have a hint from the first reading and the Psalm today. Jeremiah talks about the need for a tree or some other plant not to be just out in some salt and empty lava waste. Instead that plant must rely upon a steady source of water. And this is the same thing we just sang about in Psalm number one. We know that we cannot rely upon ourselves. We must be rooted in the God who has given us all things and who is calling us to fullness of life, to eternal life, to heavenly life. We know we can do this because, because Jesus is risen from the dead.
And we hear this truth proclaimed effectively by St. Paul. He is responding to people who they probably have gotten their Christianity mixed up with some other philosophy. And there are some who are saying there is no resurrection from the dead. And St. Paul says you have to get rid of that idea. The faith stands or falls on the fact of Jesus' resurrection, or not. We come together on the day of resurrection every Sunday to celebrate the fact that Jesus did die for us and he had to die before he could rise. He died for all of us. He is risen for all of us. We take this to heart and we are happy to reevaluate the things that bring us true happiness.
2025 Feb 9 SUN: FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Is 6: 1-2a. 3-8/ Ps 138: 1-2. 2-3. 4-5. 7-8 (1c)/ 1 Cor 15: 1-11/ Lk 5: 1-11
If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? You've heard that expression. And it seems that in our culture, the test of whether you are intelligent is whether you make a lot of money. Now, in fact, there are plenty of intelligent people in the world who go about their lives doing things for which money is not the main object.
But what do we have today? We have some people who consider themselves very smart and who happen to be very rich, and who say, "It's my riches that prove to me and to you that I am the most intelligent and I will go about doing things from my mind alone." These people are so full of themselves that they allow no room for some other inspiration, perhaps the voice of God Himself.
In contrast, as we turn to the Gospel here, we find Peter with his net empty. And obviously he identifies with his net, and he feels himself empty. And that is a good thing for him, because in his emptiness, he does make room for the God who gave him life in the first place to surprise him and change him.
And so the nets are tearing and the boats are in danger of sinking. And what does Simon Peter say to Jesus: "Depart from me, I am a sinful man." This is similar to the call of Isaiah when Isaiah responds, "I am a man of unclean lips." He is likewise empty and ready to receive what God gives him. And the gift is symbolized by the use of a burning coal on his lips, and the angel says, "There, now you are ready."
We cannot understand ourselves by means of our own projects. We must understand ourselves as being converted and remade by our God. And we have a very good example of this in what Paul has to say today. He says, "I do not deserve to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Christian way, but by the grace of God I am what I am." And it is important -- indeed it is necessary -- for us to understand ourselves as being defined by the grace of God which has changed us, has given us peace, has given us a sense of generosity. And we can use that Psalm that we've sung today, Psalm 138. One of the lines in that Psalm is, "I thank you for your love for me which excels all I ever knew of you."
We are not to go through life full of ourselves. We recognize our emptiness and we make room for the love of the God who transforms us, who changes us, who gives us peace.
From time to time I have heard people speak of what is called an elevator speech. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. If you are in some sort of group that is sponsoring a cause of some kind, for instance, the elevator speech is the way you summarize and distill your message to such a brief amount of time that you can give this speech during a journey in an elevator.
I don't think I've ever succeeded at this, mainly because the things that I care about I think require a lot of explanation. But it occurs to me that today's feast of the Presentation of the Lord gives us something close to an elevator speech about who Jesus is and what he came to do.
So we have this remarkable Gospel, a moment when Mary and Joseph are bringing the child Jesus, when he is 40 days old, to the Temple in Jerusalem.
And then we have the figure of Simeon. Simeon who has waited into old age so that he himself can gaze upon the consolation of Israel. He takes the infant Jesus in his arms, blessing God, and he offers a prayer which in the official daily prayer of the church we offer every night at night prayer. It is what you might call a prayer of submitting to our own limits and remembering that God is carrying out salvation. Simeon says, "Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace. Your word has been fulfilled. My own eyes have seen your salvation which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel." We say this prayer when we are about to retire for the night, and it's saying, "Yes, I have my human limits and I have to go to sleep and someday I will die, but your salvation will be carried out."
Then we have his words to Mary, and we have this image of the fall and rise of many in Israel. And I think it's good to connect this with what we heard in the first reading about purifying gold and silver. Now that to carry this out, the gold or the silver must reach a very, very high temperature. So it is, if we imagine ourselves in the place of gold or silver, we find this to be a real test, a true stress. And I believe we can say that when we think of the fall of people, that this fall is not permanent; that in the process of conversion, as God changes our hearts and makes us more alive to His very presence, as He does this, we find that we can be truly ourselves as God created us to be.
We also have the passage from Hebrews, from chapter 2 of that 13-chapter letter. And it is saying, and we cannot say this too many times, that the Son of God was absolutely pleased to enter into our existence, to take on our human flesh, to suffer for us so as to lift us up.
And there we have, I believe, the elements of an elevator speech. We know that the Son of God has been pleased to show mercy to the human family, and to do so by being completely one with us.
2025 Jan 26 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Neh 8: 2-4a. 5-6. 8-10/ Ps 19: 8. 9. 10. 15/ 1 Cor 12: 12-30/ Lk 1: 1-4; 4: 14-21 (I added 4: 22-30, which would have been heard next Sunday, were it not for the feast of the Presentation of the Lord.) It happens that we have some really wonderful Scriptures prepared for us here in the early Sundays of Ordinary Time. One difficulty, however, is that a week from today we will be celebrating the feast of the Presentation of the Lord and some really good Ordinary Time readings are going to be skipped. So I commend to you the reading on your own of First Corinthians 13. This follows on what we've heard -- this really utterly understandable analogy of the body which St. Paul has given us. It goes on to say that, yes, we have many gifts but without love our gifts are nothing. And if you were following along there in Breaking Bread you noticed that the gospel went a little long because I included the Gospel which we would have heard next Sunday, had there not been the Feast of the Presentation and it follows immediately upon what was prescribed for today, and we find Jesus at the beginning of his ministry provoking people and we consider why they were so provoked. But I'd like to give you three principles which will explain the rest of what I say today. First is that truth is not anyone's possession. Truth is something which we discover together. The second one: If friendship were based on people agreeing completely with one another, there would be no friendships. And third: in our day it is unfortunate that we have become used to hurling opinions at each other as if they were rocks. And it is on the basis of these principles that I share with you how grateful I am for the act of the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, when she lifted up her voice and pleaded for mercy. We are living in difficult times -- difficult for so much as the communication of truth with one another. We think of this analogy of the body which even very young children can grasp. But we ask whether the point of this analogy is understood: that the whole Christian people is a body and truly the entire world is a body and we each have our contribution to make. There are those who would look upon themselves as the brain, saying, "I know everything; just follow my orders." If you were only a brain disembodied you would have a hard time getting your inspirations carried out. And again we look at this Gospel and people are complimenting Jesus. And then he mentions that in the Scriptures God showed favor to foreigners, and this enrages the people in the synagogue and they want to throw him off a cliff. But it was not his time; he escaped them. But this is all the foreshadowing of the fact that his ministry would end in his death. Now if you disagree with me in any respect on any topic whatever that's good; that's natural; that's normal. We must recognize that we must not take up the position of those who hug their opinions to themselves when they are not hurling them like rocks. Disagreement is the first step toward finding the truth together. And we have a very big task before us as we in fact listen to one another and discover how we act as a healthy body of human beings acting on behalf of mercy and love.
2025 Jan 19 SUN: SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Is 62: 1-5/ Ps 96: 1-2. 2-3. 7-8. 9-10 (3)/ 1 Cor 12: 4-11/ Jn 2: 1-11
We are getting started on a course we will pursue during this entire year, and that is we are getting started on Ordinary Time, which is actually a favorite time of mine because we hear the Scriptures in a continuous fashion. Now during this year of Ordinary Time, we will be reading primarily from the Gospel of Luke. But we haven't heard from Luke yet today because we have some business yet from the Christmas season. Two weeks ago we celebrated Epiphany, which means manifestation. And associated with Epiphany are three events by which Jesus manifested himself to all of the human family. First of all, the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus. And then what we celebrated a week ago, Jesus' baptism by which he expressed solidarity with all human beings. And then finally, as John calls it, the first of his signs, the changing of water into wine at this wedding. So these are ways in which Jesus manifested himself to all peoples.
And you hear the use of that word "sign," which is really a better word than the customary miracle that people will use to characterize certain actions of Jesus. To me, miracle sounds like a performance, but this is a sign. And it comes to us actually very quietly. It was just the servers who filled the water jars who knew about it. And the head waiter did not know. And we don't know exactly whether it is as a compliment or as a puzzle to him that there's still good wine. But this is the first of the ways in which Jesus was beginning to reveal his divine identity.
We also have, as always at this time of year, readings from St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. And this is a letter discussing many practical issues which arose in this early Christian community at Corinth, Greece. And we're reading from the last part of First Corinthians now. And St. Paul is bringing up a theme which will be developed further next week. And that is the theme of the gifts of the community. And we understand that this really is the proper way to think about the people in our life. That every one of us is a gift to the community. And we have to recognize those gifts.
Now you and I have been hearing about the possibility of a lot of deportations from our country. And yes, we can argue back and forth about what is to be done. But you and I have to recognize that our starting point is a principle of Catholic social teaching: which is that every human being has a fundamental right to migrate. It seems to me that this is not in keeping with the idea that everybody has gifts. It seems to be a process of judging that people are first of all problems. And we have to start from another point of view: that people wherever they're from or wherever they find themselves are a gift to the community.
So we consider the gift of Jesus. And we do it in the context of a wedding. This is an image that we hear from the prophet Isaiah as well: that God has chosen his people and we are to discover that in our relationship with the bridegroom, our God, we discover the gifts that we are to share with one another, so as to build up the beloved community.
2025 Jan 12 SUN: BAPTISM OF THE LORD F Is 40: 1-5. 9-11/ Ps 104: 1b-2. 3-4. 24-25. 27-28. 29-30 (1)/ Ti 2: 11-14; 3: 4-7/ Lk 3: 15-16. 21-22
We have had an interesting few days. We received more snow than we're used to. And from my point of view, it's a hardship. It's tough to get around.
Of course, we can think of the inconvenience of the snow and realize that there is no comparison with what people are undergoing with these fires in the Los Angeles area. We know that real hardship is common to the human family generally.
Today we are completing the season of Christmas. And this is a time for merriment. But I believe that as year after year gets added to our ages, we are all the more aware that even merriment does not do away with hardship. And we want to make sure that our hearts are united with those who are suffering for any reason, whatever. And of course, that leads us to prayer. And we can all increase both the time we spend in prayer and its intensity. We see very, very clearly how much we need those words from the first reading today.
"Comfort. Give comfort to my people." This is an acknowledgment that comfort is needed and it is a universal need. Really, these scriptures taken together are kind of a summary of the Christmas season. Isaiah is, as we know, associated with Christmas and with Advent. The letter of St. Paul to Titus is used at two different Christmas Masses. And it is always remarkable to hear those words. To hear "God and Savior Jesus Christ," to know how early in Christianity the divinity of Jesus was affirmed.
And then we come to the Gospel, one of the portrayals of Jesus' baptism. As we said at the beginning of Mass, Jesus had no need of a baptism of repentance. But he submitted to baptism just as he submitted to the human nature that he assumed. He wanted to be completely united with us. And this baptism is a sign to us of the fact that he intends and he remains completely united with us in our human nature.
So we reflect upon both the merriment and the pain which are associated with the season of Christmas. And especially how it must have been incredibly strange for the Son of God himself to take our griefs upon himself. And we can look at this as a preparation for what the rest of the year brings.
Easter is relatively late this year. It will fall on April 20th. That means that Ash Wednesday is not until March the 5th. We see the baptism of Jesus as a boundary between his hidden life, of which we know practically nothing, but what we heard two weeks ago on the Feast of the Holy Family about Mary and Joseph searching for Jesus who said, "You know I had to be in my Father's house, in the Temple." We have just that little window on his youth. But then when he was about 30 years old, he received this baptism and he began his public ministry, which we think was about three years. We are led into sober thinking. That is, in our lives of prayer we are developing an awareness of the needs of the whole human family. And we find ourselves moving more deeply into the mystery of Jesus embracing our state of life and lifting us up by dying for us. So we have several weeks of Ordinary Time and then in early March we enter into Lent, which will prepare us to celebrate more fully the Easter mystery of death leading to resurrection. We give thanks for these gifts and as we remember Jesus' baptism, we seek to be immersed more deeply into his mystery.
2025 Jan 5 SUN: EPIPHANY OF THE LORD S Is 60: 1-6/ Ps 72: 1-2. 7-8. 10-11. 12-13/ Eph 3: 2-3a. 5-6/ Mt 2: 1-12
I want to start by looking at two words. It seems to me that more recently there has been some confusion between these two words, and I think it is helpful for all of us to maintain a distinction between them.
The words are epiphany and insight. Very often, and I believe this is the source of confusion, you will hear people say from time to time, "Oh, I've just had an epiphany." Well, I think they're really talking about an insight, and I want to explain the distinction that I see.
As we said at the beginning of Mass, epiphany means manifestation. It means something external that people can see.
An insight, however, is something that goes on within us when we are looking at what appears to be the same reality we've always known, but somehow we see something quite different about it.
And that is a change within ourselves. I think that insight is really the proper word for that concept.
And in the Word of God today, we see that St. Paul is saying that an epiphany is an external event happening, the manifestation of the Savior to the nations.
This external event prompts insight. And what is the insight St. Paul says? Gentiles, the nations, the foreigners, they are coheirs with the Jewish people. They also receive the gift of salvation in Jesus.
Really, the Epiphany is a time for us to be aware of an insight we probably receive many times during our earthly lifespan. And that insight has to do with breaking down something that we tend to suppose. That is that we look at our own people, the people we are familiar with, who look and talk and believe like us. And then we think of foreigners and happily, because of the great increase in our day of communications and travel, we are much more in contact with peoples of other nations. And we have this insight that amazingly, they are just as human as we are. And it's a kind of an insight that has us saying, "Oh, why didn't I know that before?" Or, "Why didn't I think of that before?" But it's an extremely important insight.
And we see what happens in the words of Isaiah today. "You shall be radiant at what you see, your hearts shall throb and overflow, because you begin to understand that people of all nations are a gift to us." We build one another up. And that's certainly a good alternative to what I would call caricaturing people of other nations. And indeed, I believe that is a major source of the troubles we have in our world community: that we don't see other peoples as being quite human. And then we have a pretext for doing inhuman things to them.
So this is the thing that can carry us through another year, as we reflect on the mysteries of the Epiphany. There has been an external manifestation which causes us to rethink what's going on in our hearts and to develop the insight that far more than the symbolic gifts which the Magi gave to Jesus, we have gifts in one another as fellow members of the People of God.
2024 Dec 29 SUN: HOLY FAMILY F 1 Sm 1: 20-22. 24-28 or Sir 3: 2-6. 12-14/ Ps 84: 2-3. 5-6. 9-10/ 1 Jn 3: 1-2. 21-24 or Col 3: 12-21/ Lk 2: 41-52
I find that these readings today can be summed up by quoting another reading, not found among these. I'm thinking of a verse in St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 6, in which he says, "You are not your own. You have been purchased and at a price." Paul is referring to the mystery of Jesus' death and resurrection, by which all of us have become new people who absolutely belong to God.
We turn to these readings and it seems as if they are saying, "Your children are not your own." There is a universal tension behind these words. They are felt in every family, these tensions.
Because we know what the normal response of parents is to their children. They want to exercise some sort of control over them. At the very least, even though they won't say this outright, parents will be hoping that their children will not repeat their own mistakes. They may be hoping that children will achieve a success which is beyond their parents'. They may subtly or less subtly be placing expectations upon their children as to whom they marry or what sort of career they have. And we know, again, this is founded in a desire to see the best things come about for children. But as much as we want to direct our children, the more we find that each child is a mystery. And it is necessary for parents to stand back, stand back and see what happens, because the ways in which children grow and mature will always be surprising.
We have read from the Old Testament about a woman who understood very well that her child belonged to God. Hannah had prayed for a son, and Samuel was born to her. She remembered the fact that she prayed earnestly for this child when she went to the sanctuary in Shiloh. It is perhaps better described as a tabernacle or a tent. And Hannah could not forget the fact that she would see to it that this child would be dedicated to the Lord's service.
We go then to the Gospel, and we can see that by the time Jesus was 12 years old, that is, one year before he would be considered an adult, we can see that Mary and Joseph settled into comfortable parental roles, and they were not willing or eager -- eager is probably the better word -- they were not eager to see that this child would grow and become something beyond their imaginations. Luke tells us that when Jesus says to them, "You knew I had to be in my father's house." Mary and Joseph did not understand. I believe, however, that at least in Mary's case, at some level of her awareness, she knew what Jesus was talking about. That indeed, if you were in Jerusalem, you would know that he would be in the house of God, whom he would begin to call "Father." And it must have been painful for Mary and Joseph alike. But we have this window, a very brief window, into the childhood and youth of Jesus. And we see that he was on the path of his mission to love human beings as the Son of God and to do so by giving himself completely for our salvation.
And we can take all this and come to understand better the words of the first letter of Saint John. We are God's children now. What we shall be has not yet come to light. But somehow we will be like God, for we shall see him as he is. We are reminded again, we all belong to God, absolutely. Our children are gifts given back to God and given, in fact, to the whole human family that we might all mature together. So this is the tension and the difficulty of considering family. And we find it even in the Holy Family. And we trust it will be a creative tension.
2024 Dec 22 SUN: FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT (O Rex Gentium) Mi 5: 1-4a/ Ps 80: 2-3. 15-16. 18-19 (4)/ Heb 10: 5-10/ Lk 1: 39-45
You know that for several weeks we have been looking at Scriptures which have to do with what are called the last things. Again, that technical word is eschatology. We've been thinking about the fact that people find something quite emotional in a concept called the end of the world.
And we learn to understand that what people call the end of the world is simply the beginning of eternity. And therefore we take comfort in all the things that we are hearing, especially about the definitive, glorious coming of the Son of God when God brings all things to completion and perfection.
And we read from the prophet Micah a mention of a place called Bethlehem. In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Bethlehem is noted as the place of the birth of Jesus.
And remember that Bethlehem is associated with King David -- that he came from that area. And remember that the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew's gospel traces the lineage -- that is to say the legal fatherhood -- of Jesus, and it goes through David who is looked upon as the ideal king.
The letter to the Hebrews speaks to us about the definitive thing that Jesus did in laying down his life. He did the will of his Father. He offered himself for the salvation of all human beings.
And as we heard very clearly this morning, he did that once for all of us. And therefore it is not necessary for any of us to do something extraordinary or extravagant in order to get the attention of God the Father so that he might smile on us. That is, all of that is accomplished already.
In the Gospel we have two women sharing the favor of God upon them. Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, is the one who brings this child to birth even though she is past the age. Mary is the mother of the Word Made Flesh, the Savior, and in her case she does not know man.
So these two women know of God's special favor upon them. God favors us as well.
In the case of Elizabeth and Mary, these are things that could not be easily shared really with anybody. And in our case as well, God brings us peace in ways that are hard for us to explain to another person.
But as it's been said, each of us has the same secret -- that idea refers initially to the same secret of wondering how inadequate we are. We can also take that phrase, each having the same secret, and apply it to the fact that in various ways, in unique ways, our God signals to us in our daily living that our humanity is blessed.
It has been consecrated because we have received the gift of the one who laid down his life so as to conquer death and give us all resurrection and eternal life.
2024 Dec 15 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT Zep 3: 14-18a/ Is 12: 2-3. 4. 5-6 (6)/ Phil 4: 4-7/ Lk 3: 10-18
Very quickly, I want to let you know that we have a number of people who are coming forward and seeking to enter the Catholic Christian way of life, and therefore we are planning to reform our team for what we properly call the Order of Christian initiation of adults, the OCIA.
You'll remember it used to be called the RCIA for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, but now we're told that Order is the proper word rather than Rite.
So we'll be making plans to come together after the first of the year, so you have time to consider whether you might want to participate in the process of bringing people into the Catholic Christian faith.
Obviously, today the theme is joy, and we hear this very clearly from St. Paul. We also hear it from the prophet Zephaniah.
He wrote a very brief book of about three chapters. It is surprising that he ends up talking about joy, because Zephaniah is also the source of a hymn which we don't sing very much anymore.
In Latin it's called the Dies Irae, English is Day of Wrath, and it emphasizes God's anger. So it's surprising that this same prophet should talk to us about our cause for joy for the coming of a Savior.
And in the Gospel we find cause for joy as well. We may think of John the Baptist as a severe sort of person, but it says at the end of today's Gospel passage that he preached good news to the people.
Well obviously we need to consider joy. Some of you may know that I have made a study on my own of what has been called emotional intelligence.
The idea behind that is that we seek to understand our own feeling states. To recognize that, for instance, anger can be channeled into steady work to undo injustice, for instance.
When we understand and are at peace with our own feelings, we can look at other people and develop what we might call fellow feeling or empathy with the people in our life, understanding ourselves as feeling people who are necessarily pushed around by the circumstances of life.
And we remember at all times if we can be pushed around we are limited creatures of God and we always remember our relationship with God, our Creator. In recent times we've been given a sort of vocabulary for understanding feelings.
There have been a couple of animated films that have come out in recent years. The first one, Inside Out, came out in 2015.
And then there was a sequel just this last summer: Inside Out 2. And the feelings in one person are characters in the film.
And in both, there is the character called Joy, and Joy is understood to be kind of a coordinator among all the feelings. We can think about this and realize that, for any one of us, to have joy is to have a sense of the whole of life, the entirety of life.
And we might ask ourselves where is joy when we are feeling sad? -- For instance, when we lose someone close to us.
One thing that sadness can do for us is demonstrate to us how important that person was, what a gift he or she was to us. And ultimately it informs a sense of joy, which joy is about the whole picture of life, the whole variety of life.
So as we come together on this day of Advent called Rejoice Sunday, Gaudete Sunday, we seek to understand that we can be joyful as we look ahead to our God, specifically Jesus, the Son of God, bringing all things to completion and perfection. We've said in recent weeks that we know of people who just think of that occurrence as "the end of the world."
We all have limited imaginations and the notion of the end of the world particularly limits our imaginations because, when all is brought to perfection, that is really the beginning. We step onto the threshold of eternal life itself and an unending joy.
So we give thanks that this season of Advent is preparing us to step onto the threshold of eternity, to find our complete vocation in praise of God who created us to praise him without end.
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I left out a lot from Saturday evening. I left out John the Baptist almost entirely, and he is described as bringing "good news" to people. The fact that he tells people, essentially, to do what is expected of you, is a response against elaborate sacrifices for supposedly getting God's attention.
2024 Dec 8 SUN: SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT Bar 5: 1-9/ Ps 126: 1-2. 2-3. 4-5. 6 (3)/ Phil 1: 4-6. 8-11/ Lk 3: 1-6
I imagine that many of us, when we're trying to read the Bible, find a particular frustration in that we would like for the Bible to be sort of like journalism or a history book that mentions dates. We want to know when certain events happened. And the Bible is not good about that. These [issues] are not a priority.
We do, however, have today the Gospel of Luke. It is using a lot of different data points to fix a particular event in history. And essentially to say that this event is for the sake of rewriting all of human history. Luke does this in the beginning of chapter two. We always hear at the Christmas Mass during the night about the first census of the Roman Empire and the fact that Jesus was born during that time. Luke then turns to a much more recent event, and he has a lot more data points. So we hear about who the emperor was and who the empire's governor was and various kings and high priests. So he fixes a particular time when John the Baptist began his proclamation of good news. And people have studied this, and it would seem then that John the Baptist began his work in the year that we call AD 27 or Common Era CE 27. And scholars have further determined that Jesus must have been crucified in AD 30, thus allowing for what we have traditionally understood to be a three-year public ministry by Jesus.
And Luke is saying, pay attention. God is entering human history definitively through the Son of God, the Word made flesh. And thereby human salvation is assured, union with our God is assured. And that is the way in which history gets rewritten. This passage quotes Isaiah, who uses an image similar to the prophet Baruch in the first reading. And it must have seemed utterly fantastic what he was describing. I mean, we in our day have earth-moving equipment. But the idea of leveling mountains and filling up valleys, that's still a stretch for us to imagine.
And these images are being used to say God wants to give us a straight path to Himself. And this is cause for joy. You know that in recent weeks I've been talking about the idea of the end of the world, which idea really does not appear in the sacred scriptures. The Bible does not focus on an end so much as the beginning of eternity. And we know that our hearts must be convicted of this joy that is open to every human being. And we know we are preparing ourselves well to welcome the fullness of the kingdom of God when in accord with St. Paul we seek to discern what is of value. There's another translation I like that says to discover what really matters. And that is the good news that you and I are hearing today. I need to make a transition now because Keith Detmer is going to speak to us about the Centennial Campaign, which is the responsibility of every one of us to participate in. So I will stop there and let Keith continue.
2024 Dec 1 SUN: FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT Jer 33: 14-16/ Ps 25: 4-5. 8-9. 10. 14 (1b)/ 1 Thes 3: 12 -- 4: 2/ Lk 21: 25-28. 34-36
I have been thinking about how the events of our life present a variety of contrasts. Things we may desire, things we may not desire so much.
Yesterday I have to say I was not happy to see the snow come, Although I know that many people like to see the snow. For me it's one more thing to get through and try to live with.
On the other hand, my nephew scored three touchdowns yesterday.
So this is how we all experience life. It's a series of things.
And I think especially the good things just take us by surprise. And we understand that we do not have to be the ones who die of fright, as Jesus says in the Gospel today. In fact all the Scriptures today are very encouraging.
We have the promise from Jeremiah. This is really a promise and a prophecy related to Jesus. The last shoot shall come to establish justice.
And likewise St. Paul tells the Thessalonian Christians that they can look forward to what God is bringing.
Again we think of what is coming as something to dread. We can look back two weeks.
You never actually find in the Scriptures the term "the end of the world." But we have that popular notion. And of course most of the time when we hear the word "end" we think that something is over. It is not proceeding further.
And in fact all these blessings that we find in the midst of our sufferings are hints. They are pointing to something far greater than ourselves.
And really the season of Advent is about the good things that are coming to be. As we witness and recognize the fullness of God's Kingdom.
We know that here and now we struggle. So that God's grace might be at work within us. So that we might not be working against ourselves. Allowing the very life of God to show its love and its general goodness in what we do.
So as we enter upon this season we remember that even as we prepare to celebrate the humble coming of our Savior, we look ahead to His glorious coming and realize, "No, we don't have to die of fright." We can be the ones who welcome everything that our God intends to work for us and give to us.
2024 Nov 24 SUN: CHRIST THE KING S (Thirty-fourth and Last Sunday in Ordinary Time) Dn 7: 13-14/ Ps 93: 1. 1-2. 5 (1a)/ Rv 1: 5-8/ Jn 18: 33b-37
This Gospel is a part of the passion according to John, which we read every year on Good Friday. And we need to take note of the overriding quality of that we find here. And that quality is the fact that Jesus is presented to us as someone who, though about to be condemned to death, is in fact in charge of the situation. Pilate is troubled, even though he goes ahead and condemns this man to death. He really doesn't know what is going on. And he is in fact just caught up in events which seem to be of his making because he makes that decision to have Jesus crucified. We heard at the end of this passage Jesus' words, "Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." And we may remember that immediately after Jesus makes this statement, Pilate asks, "What is truth?" He is not asking as a sincere seeker. He is asking as a cynic. Because Pilate gave up his search for truth long before this moment. We must understand the kingship of Jesus. Really, Jesus is saying that titles such as king do not do him justice. Very likely Pilate in his conversations with the religious leaders heard them translating Messiah, the anointed one, to mean a king because they thought that was the only way that Pilate would understand what they considered to be the crime of Jesus. So we come to this celebration of Jesus as universal king. And we understand that he reigns over us because he is completely our servant. He has laid down his life for all human beings. And we understand that if we are to serve as Jesus served, we will be looking for ways to aid our brothers and sisters. This is a surprising kingship, and it causes us to feel great surprise within our own hearts every time we think about our crucified king who won for us resurrection.
2024 Nov 17 SUN: THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Dn 12: 1-3/ Ps 16: 5. 8. 9-10. 11 (1)/ Heb 10: 11-14. 18/ Mk 13: 24-32
So this is the time of year when in our liturgical calendar we find ourselves thinking a lot about what theologically we would call the last things. More popularly people will refer to the end of the world, although that specific phrase is not found in the Scriptures. But obviously the idea of the end of the world works upon our imaginations. I was thinking about the fact that there are a number of popular songs that in fact have the end of the world in the title.
For instance you may be familiar with a 1987 song, "It's the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine." I found the lyrics; they go on for a couple of pages and I really couldn't do anything with that song. [Laughter] I would stress that it seems that a lot of the imagination surrounding the end of the world has to do with things happening outside. And it seems these days as if there are some people who want to see it happen, they want to see upheaval and a change of what we expect and they'd like to go and break things to help it along. I don't think that's a good idea.
But in fact I believe that we can take some of these words of Jesus and other parts of the Scriptures and realize that internally each of us undergoes various upheavals that feel to us like it's the end or we have to start over or we don't really know the way.
And when it comes to saying oh, it's upon us, well, yes, God is all-powerful, he is the master of his creation and he could intervene at any time and say, well, this is over. But we have to appreciate the fact that God who is the author of time has been operating on a scale of time which is vast. I once put together what you could call kind of a "convincer" so we could get a feel for how vast the expanse of time has been since the Big Bang, which by the way this man did not give it that name, but this astronomer about a hundred years ago found evidence, and he aided this theory, and it happens he was a Catholic priest. Well, what I have here is a little notebook and instead of having a lot of pages it has just one long page of stiff paper and I used both sides of the paper in order to visualize how vast the expanse of time has been. [Shows whole expanse of timeline; laughter] And I like to ask people what one millimeter stands for on this timeline in all the time since the Big Bang, and I do it multiple choice: is it 300 years or 3,000 years or 3 million years and the answer is 3 million years and you only go a millimeter on this. So that's a good thing to think about, and you know the cosmos will take care of itself, but we have to in fact consider what is going on within us; what are the upheavals that we experience within; what are our insecurities; how do we find that there are things that just don't sustain us. And with regard to those concerns I did find another song about the end of the world which I think really gets to the heart of things. This song is from 1962.
Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore? Don't they know it's the end of the world? 'Cause you don't love me anymore
Why do the birds go on singing? Why do the stars glow above? Don't they know it's the end of the world? It ended when I lost your love
I wake up in the morning, and I wonder Why everything's the same as it was I can't understand, no, I can't understand How life goes on the way it does
Why does my heart go on beating? Why do these eyes of mine cry? Don't they know it's the end of the world? It ended when you said, "Goodbye"
Well, happily, we have been reading from the great promise that the Letter to the Hebrews gives to us, and we have come today to the last portion [in the Sunday Lectionary] of that amazing book. We've been talking about Jesus as the great high priest and we hear a summary today. Jesus is the great high priest: the one who is at one and the same time the priest offering sacrifice and the sacrifice being offered. He has offered the sacrifice for all of us, once for all, and this is something that we need to search out in our own hearts. Have we accepted that this gift has been given to us? Do we accept that it is personal? Do we accept that it is the opposite of the lyrics of the song that I just recited? We can think about endings all we want but we do in fact have the good news today that accepting this gift is for us the beginning.
2024 Nov 10 SUN: THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 1 Kgs 17: 10-16/ Ps 146: 7. 8-9. 9-10 (1b)/ Heb 9: 24-28/ Mk 12: 38-44 or Mk 12: 41-44
Abundance and scarcity are on our minds as we consider the Scriptures today. We may have a variety of attitudes toward the gifts with which we have been entrusted.
We may think of our situation here and now and say, "There isn't enough for me and for everybody else. I have to hug everything I have to myself." On the other hand, there is the attitude of abundance which recognizes that God gives us gifts and does so unfailingly.
We also have the theme of widowhood in the first reading and the Gospel. We understand widowhood in our own day to be precarious, certainly from an emotional standpoint.
From an economic standpoint, we see that there are many things which make up what we call an economic safety net. But in the times of Elijah and Jesus, such a safety net did not exist.
So the widows we read about here are in an especially precarious position. We may think, "How can it be that a jar of flour will remain filled likewise for a jug of oil? How can that be?"
Well, you and I are very much accustomed to looking at life in economic terms. We think almost constantly about buying and selling and storing up lest there be a shortage. But we are invited to think in different terms.
And we can gain something from a consideration of today's second reading. We have been reading for several weeks from the letter to the Hebrews, which makes a powerful argument that the sacrifice of Jesus is the one great sacrifice, which frees all of us and allows us to recognize abundance rather than scarcity.
We hear about the sacrifices of old: people slaughtering and burning up livestock. It may seem to us that this is kind of a crude way of thinking we have to get God's attention or we have to demonstrate how sorry we are for our sins.
We may think that this is antiquated behavior, but in fact, you and I engage in similar behavior. Somehow we want to prove that we have a right to be here. We want to prove, for instance, our competence or our closeness to God.
And this leaves us in a place which I would call nervous and unsettled. And in this case, there is an alternative. Jesus has offered the sacrifice of Himself.
He is a great high priest, and He does something that no one else can do. He acts as priest offering the sacrifice, and He is the sacrifice itself. And as Hebrews says, He enters the unique heavenly sanctuary with His own blood.
And therefore, He has given us salvation and everything that flows from that gift, including a mentality of abundance. So we can use our imaginations and think of ourselves perhaps finding every sort of goods, every sort of services in our lives, but then we still don't have a direction.
Now that is scarcity, but abundance is knowing that we are God's beloved children, that we can count on abundance in anything that we find making its way into our hands.
We are people, not of scarcity, but abundance.
It appears that I have copied over my November 3 homily. It was about the great commandments of love of God and love of neighbor as you love yourself.
You may know that I and the various liturgical ministers get ready for Sunday Mass in a little room back in this corner. It's called the prep room. And it is a relatively small space for the number of people who gather there. So I find myself getting vested for Mass and I try to catch a glimpse of myself in a full-length mirror, to make sure that the chasuble is on straight. And yesterday before four o'clock Mass I was having a bit of trouble because there were so many people and someone remarked to me, "Ah, you can do it blind."
Well, perhaps I can, but I just find this to be an instance in which I am very well aware of how much I depend on my sense of sight for this and for so many things. And we can all reflect on how we rejoice in our gift of vision. We can think at this time of year -- even if we've seen it year after year -- we still marvel as we watch the colors of the leaves changing at this time of year.
Now Bartimaeus had a clear understanding of what he wanted to do with the gift of sight, which came to him as Jesus said, "Because of his faith." He wanted to follow Jesus and the gift of sight permitted him to do this easily. And he did it.
We know that our eyes can be fixed on a variety of things, some of which are a good deal more important than other things. We know we want our very soul to be filled up with what our God presents to us to be seen. And of course that includes all of God's people, the dignity of every human being and our call to help one another to know that God is in our midst. At the same time, we understand that there is something that goes beyond mere seeing. We can find a hint of it in the Hebrews reading today, where we come to understand that our Savior, who is truly God and truly human, has tremendous mercy and compassion for all of us. And that really is something which goes beyond seeing. Actually, seeing can sometimes get in the way of understanding. We tend to equate knowing with seeing an image of something. But in fact, we're just seeing an image. Understanding goes deeper. And at times, we just have to look away from things in order to understand.
Now you remember on Easter Sunday, we have that gospel of Peter and John inspecting Jesus' empty tomb. They did not see him there. They looked around the tomb and saw various burial wrappings. They were strewn about, and there was the one that had covered Jesus' head, rolled up in a place by itself.
They didn't see the risen Jesus right away, but they looked around the tomb. And finally, they understood so many things that they were afraid to ask him about -- things that they tried to ignore, in fact, because they didn't want to think about his death. And they didn't know what to do with rising on the third day. Finally, they understood. And this really went beyond seeing.
Likewise, in the psalm today, the people are exclaiming that the Lord has done great things for us. We are filled with joy because they were set free from their captivity in Babylon. You don't have to see something in order to understand. We are going home. So we recognize how much we depend upon the gift of sight. And likewise, we see that we are led to something that goes even deeper, to understanding who our God is. And really, we can equate understanding with faith. Jesus says to Bartimaeus, "Your faith allows you to see." We must understand our own understanding and see that understanding is a function of faith. And it feeds faith as well. We give thanks, as Peter and John did, for all the things that have been told to us that maybe we can't quite put into place.
The witness of the People of God, the Church throughout the centuries and today: we take it all in. We understand. We grow in faith.
The homilist was away last week.
Well the young people sitting up front here spent a night -- I don't know how comfortable it was because they were sleeping outside during the night. It's what we call cardboard city. It is an opportunity for them to have an experience of homelessness. And I wonder whether at school you know people who are similar to what I am going to describe to you.
In high school I had two classmates who had this ongoing feud about which one of them was taller. It happened that they were the two shortest guys in the class. And right there we find something about the futility, the nonsense of seeking distinction. Or trying to prove that someone is somehow superior.
Well this is what we find in the Gospel. James and John want distinction. I suspect that if Jesus gave them their wish, and I don't know which of them was the older, they might have decided that these places were dissatisfying because the right side is considered preferable to the left. So there may well have been some kind of dispute over that.
We see the folly of this. We understand that we must begin our understanding of ourselves by knowing that our God loves each one of us to a degree we cannot conceive. And it is from that awareness of God's complete love for us that we can carry out our life unconcerned about distinctions: that we will make our lives acts of thanksgiving.
Jesus asks them, "Can you drink the cup that I drink?" The Old Testament passage and the selection from Hebrews today remind us of that cup that Jesus drank. He laid down his life.
He did something which only he could do. As God, he was able to take the initiative. As human, he was able to offer up human nature itself.
This is a summary of what I preached on Sunday, October 6, 2024, the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
So we had a Gospel about marriage accompanied by Genesis 2 and the creation of a woman.
This is always an occasion to talk about marriage, and I have to say the main point I was driving at that day was that before people can be spouses they have to be friends; they have to enjoy a deep friendship.
I used once again the exchange in Act 2 of the play "Our Town" in which George and Emily are coming close to saying to one another that they are to be married.
I did not record the homily as I got distracted that day. That was the day that we held the Mass in the Grass in the Troy Park at the Gazebo.
And it was a beautiful, perfect day to be out, and that was what distracted me from the duty to record the homily.
2024 Sep 29 SUN: TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Nm 11: 25-29/ Ps 19: 8. 10. 12-13. 14 (9a)/ Jas 5: 1-6/ Mk 9: 38-43. 45. 47-48
Very briefly I want to talk about some things in the second half of this Gospel and in the second reading. We know that Jesus is not calling us literally to maim ourselves. He is making a point that it is better to enter the kingdom of heaven one way or another rather than fail to do so. In the second reading -- this is our last selection from the letter of James -- James is already bemoaning the fate of those who cling to their riches. If they cling to them they cannot with open arms receive the gift of the kingdom of heaven. You and I may not consider ourselves especially wealthy but actually our economic standard of living is the envy of billions. We have to keep in mind that we are called to live lives of sharing with those in need.
The main thing I want to get to here is the theme that is obviously set up by the passage from Numbers and by the Gospel today. And it has to do with the question who is in and who is out. And we hear that Jesus is talking about inclusion. And that's especially important to think about because very recently Pope Francis made some statements about non-Christian religions and a lot of people were bothered by it.
But the Pope was saying something that was entirely consistent with the Second Vatican Council: that all who are yearning for and seeking what is good and true and holy will find themselves united with the Son of God who offered himself for all people, past, present, and future. I call this the anthropological principle of the Christian faith. It's something we find in no other religion.
And it's entirely based upon the fact that the Son of God saw fit to unite himself with our human nature and with every one of us individually. I can remember at the end of my first semester of working on a degree in theology that I had an oral exam. And the professor asked me, "How do we know that people are united with Jesus?" And I found myself struggling to come up with an answer. But the professor provided the answer for me. And I look upon this still as a great moment of wisdom, by receiving great wisdom, when he said, "By the very fact that the Son of God has taken on human flesh, all people are united with Jesus."
And whenever I think about his telling me that, I find myself looking at my hands. I'm looking at my human flesh, and I think of the human flesh of all people. And I realize the gift has been given.
You and I, especially as we witness a baptism today, have the joy of explicitly proclaiming faith in the Word-made flesh. And we can be confident that people who are earnestly seeking what is true and what is good, people who have never heard of Jesus, and even people who think they know Jesus and reject Him, all these people can be welcomed in. I am sure that it has occurred to many of us that God becoming human is the way that humans need to be loved. We all have our bad days, and sometimes those bad days can extend to weeks and months. We're just not sure of what this is all about, being human, but we have the good news that the Son of God has been absolutely the opposite of indifferent to our human state and to our struggles. And of course, He laid down His life and rose victorious. In all this we trust.
You may have been aware that the priests of the diocese were taking part in our annual convocation this past week. In addition, I attended a meeting of the Diocesan Pastoral Council in Springfield yesterday. And some months ago, there was a group of priests set up to study what you might call the use of priest energy in the 28 counties of our diocese. They gave us some interesting figures. First of all, that our weekend Mass schedule is such that we are ready for 112,000 people every weekend. The fact is, however, that we have only about 36,000 people at weekend Mass in our 129 parishes. So one recommendation which they are making is that across the board, across all parishes of the diocese, we consider dropping a Mass on our weekend schedule. So I have some ideas about this, and I'm not going to talk about them until I have conferred with neighboring pastors. I want to give you some reasons for this. They also gave us a statistic that a church feels full to the people assembled when we are at about 65% of seating capacity. And we think that this is a desirable goal.
The reason for that is if you are in an assembly, if you are in a church that feels full, there is a sense of energy, we feel more alive, and those who are here will be more motivated to enter more deeply into the life of the local parish. So we are, as we say, studying this, and we are not going to be making any changes for a number of months. But when we hear this, we say, "Oh yeah, okay, well, we need to reduce the number of Masses, but don't mess up my schedule."
In the Gospel today, the Twelve cannot fathom this thing that Jesus is telling them that He has to be killed, and He will be raised up after three days. They don't want to go anywhere near this thing that Jesus is telling them. Now, dropping a Mass is not the same, but we find ourselves very likely doing exactly what the Twelve are doing. They change the subject. They get into an argument about which one of them is the greatest. Do we recognize ourselves? I think we can recognize our reluctance to look at things which may be difficult, which may require extra sacrifice on our part. This goes along with the Old Testament passage. This is from a very late Old Testament book, the Book of Wisdom, and we hear the resentment that is residing in the hearts of the people who feel threatened by one who acts justly.
The passage from James is also of great interest. It talks about being enslaved by our passions, and that's an important thing to look at. These days it seems that we use the term "passionate" quite a bit, and we're sort of congratulating ourselves as we say we're passionate about one thing or another. Well, we keep in mind that very word "passion" comes from a root meaning "to suffer." A passion is something that we undergo, either more or less willingly. When I hear someone say I'm passionate about something, I find myself, at least, saying to myself, "Oh, that's good." To say that we're passionate is pretty much the same as saying we have a pulse or we have a blood pressure, or we have feelings. Yes, these are all things that remind us of our humanity, including our limits. But we need to remember that we can praise ourselves for being passionate, let's say about the religious formation of our children, or we're passionate about hunting, or passionate about a particular recipe we like. Well, these have various degrees of importance, and we need to keep that clear in our minds.
Now, Jesus, when he confronts the Twelve with their changing the subject, when he does this, he calls a child to him, and he says to the Twelve, "If you want to be great, you remember that your mission is to receive even this child." It is a call to us that says, "We all have been children." How have we turned out? What is our wish? What is our prayer for this child? What gifts do you want this child to accept? Maybe there are gifts that we were slow to accept, which took us a long time to come around to recognize as valuable. We pray for every one of us that we might accept what is truly valuable.
As I think of a word by which to sum up all of the scriptures today, I believe that word is denial. Denial is a very common aspect of our consciousness. We decide that there are many, many things in life we would prefer to avoid.
And so we exercise denial over them. One example is in the letter of James. We have here the image of a brother or sister, and we need to remember those words, "brother" and "sister" who does not have enough to eat or to wear.
Denial puts distance between ourselves and this person whom we could help. Somehow we manage to say to ourselves, "It does not concern me. I cannot do anything." And I suppose that this denial is rooted in an unexamined fear, really an irrational fear, that says, "Well, if I start giving, I won't have anything." That's how our minds can work. We also find denial as Peter has this exchange with Jesus.
Mark does not tell us exactly what Peter said, but we can look at other Gospels and see that Peter says, "God forbid that any such thing should happen to you." And we know that Jesus then turns to Peter to say, "Get behind me, Satan." He's using the term "satan" to mean "adversary." The adversary is trying to get in the way of Jesus' mission to lay down his life for the sake of all of us.
We have from the prophet Isaiah the third of the four suffering servant songs. We hear this every year on Palm Sunday that the servant of God has set his face like flint, knowing that he will not be put to shame.
And that is another irrational fear that many of us have, that suffering is shameful. But when we know the purpose of our suffering, it is anything but shameful.
Anyone of us can embrace suffering out of love, as Jesus did. So how do we emerge from a state of denial?
We can start by realizing how common denial is. We tend to associate denial with addictions of various kinds. If alcohol is one's thing, for instance, there is a lot of rationalization going on, "Oh, I'm not drinking that much," or, "Oh, I'm only drinking beer," things like that.
But once you get started, it does become completely absurd, the things that we tell ourselves. So we have to be aware of the denial we are submitting to.
And then take a look at what human life is about. It is not about self-absorption, which is common to all kinds of addiction.
We know that we are here to be present to one another, to love and serve one another, to affirm our dignity as human beings. It is a dignity which we may not have recognized ourselves, but we give thanks that the Son of God has affirmed our dignity.
Well, here we are, gathered together in one place. Someone once said that the church could be described as "Here comes everybody." Because we understand this assembly is for everyone.
We think in territorial terms, and we say that the people in a particular territory who are Catholic Christians come to this particular assembly or church, because they are members of this particular parish.
And we know that we are to find out who we really are when we come together for this assembly, for the Sunday Eucharist, on which we give thanks for the resurrection of Jesus on a Sunday.
But there are many questions that could be raised about our coming together here. And we hear some questions in the letter of James.
And it's good for us to remember that in the very early years of Christianity, people came together for the Eucharist, for the breaking of the bread, for the most part, in private homes. So we need to imagine this. And James suggests that you might pay a lot of attention to someone with gold rings and fine clothes, and give this person some kind of privilege.
Whereas there might be someone that you judge to be less important. And you say, "Well, there's room to stand over here, or you can sit at my feet." And James is pointing out that this is how we carry out discrimination among people, when we are to understand that we enjoy a radical equality, because we are the children of God, we are the ones redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We are equals. And we realize that as we come to this Eucharist, there is no one among us who has life figured out.
And the one great riddle for all of us is our mortality, the fact that we are subject to death. And we come here because the Son of God has addressed this riddle of death, and he has done so definitively by laying down his life and then rising from the dead and bringing all of us with him into resurrection.
Now we have to help one another. We think of the various liturgical ministers who volunteer to take on various roles in our celebration.
We think of lecturers and servers and Eucharistic ministers. It is important for us to know that the people you see carrying out these functions are on a very short rotation.
And we can easily have many, many more people assume these roles. And if we are not inclined to volunteer in this way, it is important for us to ask ourselves, "What are we afraid of?" Being seen?
Well, you find out when you let yourself be seen, you can relax. Again, we are not here to impress one another or engage in some sort of one upmanship.
We are all pilgrims on this great journey, and we learn to be at ease and at peace with one another.
In the Gospel, we have related social concerns.
We take note of the fact that Jesus, in carrying out this healing of this man, takes him away from the crowd, gives him some privacy.
And when you think about the various things that Jesus does, which seem very, very crude to us, putting his fingers into the man's ears, spitting, touching his tongue, and groaning.
I think if we were receiving this service, we'd just as soon not have anyone see us. And we take special note of the groaning, because sometimes when it comes to prayer, yes, we have words for prayer.
But there are times when all we can do is groan. And St. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit himself groans along with us.
It's strange, of course, that although Jesus told the people to keep this quiet, they announce it to the world. Jesus' point is that he only does healings when there is an expression of faith.
And people have faith in Jesus to do this. And when we have received some benefit, some great healing, it's not the first thing we do to tell everybody, we have to reflect on the meaning of this healing.
And among other things, we realize that if we're given the power to speak, we don't have to speak all the time. We also must take time for listening and listening to our Lord and what he wants us to do with our various powers.
So keep all this in mind as we give thanks for our various gifts. And remember that those gifts are for the sake of service.
Have you ever had the experience of someone telling you a joke and you had to think about it for a little while before you got it? I'm thinking about something which I would say is not strictly a joke; it was an exchange between me and a student at a school I ran.
This was about 30 years ago. And I asked a student, "What is a defibrillator?" And the student replied, "Is it a lie detector?" I thought that student was pretty sharp. There are things, and we hear this from Jesus today, that you try to say something and make something sink in.
It might take a while. And that's what Jesus is saying here. And he uses some language here in Mark's Gospel. We've returned to Mark after hearing from John. Jesus is saying, "Hear me, all of you, and understand." I think I've seen some translations that say, "And try to understand." In other words, give it your attention so that a new idea might kick in.
Now, we could think that these scribes and Pharisees had something important to point out. You and I have been through a global pandemic, and we all know the importance of cleanliness when it comes to our food.
So, in these laws that they observed, they might have been developing this according to an insight by which they equated lack of hygiene with disease. But Jesus is not going in this direction. We have to follow his argument here.
And what he says you have to try to understand is, that food goes in, waste passes out. It really does not have anything to do with you. What does have to do with you is whatever comes from within your heart. And that's the point he is trying to get across.
And he gives us this list of the things that may be residing in our hearts, which are sinful and are really ruinous to relationships with one another and with our God. So, Jesus is also saying that there are laws that are much more important than other laws.
We know when we think about the great, real multiplicity of laws that we find in every aspect of our lives, we know that some laws are more important than others. And all laws can be summed up by the two great commandments. Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself.
And Moses in speaking about law, is saying in this passage from the book of Deuteronomy, that laws are based upon wisdom. And if we understand and carry out the laws, we are conforming ourselves to wisdom, provided again that we know what the really important things are and how various laws connect to the great commandments.
We begin to read today, and we will do so for a total of five Sundays, from the letter of James, which has been a source of controversy among Christians for at least 500 years. You've heard of the controversy over faith and works.
James seems to be very much focused on the works we do, the good things we do. And some have said you have to focus on the fact that God loves us and frees us from our sins.
Well, it's not an either-or situation. It's not faith or works. If you do things that you see are good in order to make God love you, that's the wrong direction. It's the wrong emphasis.
On the other hand, if you say God loves me and forgives me and that doesn't lead to a change in how you conduct your life, well, that's useless as well. It's not faith or works. It is faith. Yes, that incredible awareness we have of God's love for us.
It is that faith which gives us the energy to make our lives a work of thanksgiving. So it is faith leading to works.
And we need to keep that in mind as we hear from a portion of the New Testament which is distinct, which has its own set of issues to address. We are here allowing ourselves to be enveloped in the love that God has for us, a love that's been shown to us through various people in our lives.
We welcome this opportunity to celebrate that love and then to allow our gratitude to form our works.
I hope that everyone has read the cover story of the latest issue of our diocesan magazine Catholic Times. It has to do with a person who was addicted to pornography, and this person is very, very forthright in describing the things which go on in the minds and in the feelings of all of us. And we realize that this is one example of the way in which people chase after various objects which we think will provide us with contentment and turn out to be anything but. We have read from the Book of Joshua near the end of that book. Joshua was the immediate successor of Moses. Now the people are in the long promised land of their own. And Joshua questions the people about their intentions. He asks whether they will continue to serve the one true God, the Lord. They say, "We will." We know, however, that many, many people did forget about the Lord, and we can understand why. The Israelites were surrounded by neighboring peoples who had various gods and these gods had images, and there were people who were convinced that their various gods took care of things like the weather and fertility and the growth of crops. And they said, "You should pray to this god." And many people did so. It is hard for the Israelites and for us to remain fixed on the one true God who cannot be captured in any image. And so we struggle, and at times we find ourselves caught up in worship, you could say, of objects which are far from God. We think about our primary commitments, our marriages, and we have heard a teaching of St. Paul in Ephesians about how marriage is intended to be a reflection of the love that Jesus has for his bride, the Church. There is a lot of context to be aware of as we come to understand the meaning of these words. And I would say statistically, when it comes to matters of abuse in marriages, statistically it's more often the men abusing the women rather than the other way around. But it is possible to apply it both ways. There are multitudes of men who do not know anything from the Bible except "Wives, be subordinate to your husband." And that's where they stop, and that's what they think the wife should respond to in the sense of, yes, you have to be totally my servant. Well, it is not correct. The context is very clear. Husbands are to love their wives as Jesus has loved the church, sacrificing himself completely. So we need to be clear about that because if a spouse is merely an object, you are not treating the spouse or yourself with dignity. And finally, we come to the end of our five Sundays of reading from John chapter six about the bread of life. And it is disappointing to hear of all the people who abandon Jesus. It is encouraging, however, to hear the faith-filled words of Peter: "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life." He is expressing a faith which remains fixed on the God who cannot be seen. Now, God the Son did become human. That's who Jesus is. The full mystery of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit remains hidden from us. So we struggle as the Israelites did in the time of Joshua. We have God's Word. We have the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist by which we remain united with the mystery. So we continue as people being fed by Word and sacrament, encouraging one another not to fall for the various objects we find in life, even if they happen to be good. We can reach a point where we say, yes, there are many good things in our life and I can enjoy them. I don't have to possess them. In fact, if I just keep my heart on the gift of God himself, other things will become much less important. And that makes for a life of great simplicity.
I believe many of you know, because I've spoken about this at times, that I have been helped greatly by the sciences of psychology and psychiatry. And we recognize that these disciplines are addressing the human person in our complexity.
And we are the most complex creatures of God. And I bring this up because our readings today mention wisdom. And I am thinking about one school of thought in psychology and it's okay to have many, many different schools of thought. Again, it's because of our complexity. There are so many ways that we can approach the human person. And I'm thinking about stages of normal human development. And I'm going to the end. I'm going to the last couple of stages. There are maybe eight or nine, or it looks like some people have added more. But anyway, according to my references, the second to the last stage of personality development is called generativity. And we hear that and we think, "Oh, yes, having children." That is obviously one way to be generative. But for those of us who do not have children, we can also exercise generativity by being creative, for instance, in the arts in one way or another. And generativity leads to what is considered the final stage.
And that's called wisdom. And it is interesting that our Scriptures today in the first and second readings mention wisdom. You may also have noted in the fourth verse of our opening hymn ["Here at This Table"] that there is a reference to wisdom. It's not as if through the course of our life we were totally without wisdom. But the final stage of our earthly life is for the sake of summing up, recognizing the wisdom we have acquired. It might have been at many different turning points during the course of our life. And it may have been through mistakes we'd made. In any event, wisdom is saying to us, "Yes, you can look upon your life as worthy." You can recognize that you have lived on behalf of very, very important values.
And so we have in Proverbs the invitation to the banquet offered by wisdom. There's also a banquet offered by folly, by foolishness. And we didn't read that, but you can read it on your own. Just go to the ninth chapter of the book of Proverbs. And then St. Paul in Ephesians goes on to address wisdom as well. And he specifically indicates the problem of getting drunk on wine, as he says. Apparently such behavior did upset many of the earliest Christian communities. So we take all this into account and then we return to Jesus' instruction on himself as the bread of life. And he is very, very earthy in this particular passage. He is saying, "You must eat my flesh and drink my blood." And people just don't know what to do with this. They say that's impossible. At the same time, they're probably thinking it's disgusting as well to say that. And all the more they're saying, "Drink my blood, that's impossible." The dietary regulations totally forbid the ingestion of blood. It may seem as if there is no wisdom to be gained here. You and I are thankful that we have been introduced and exposed to this incredible gift of the Son of God who became one of us. He has loved us completely, all the way to death, followed by resurrection. And we are united with his love in a most intimate way, the most intimate way that we can imagine through our partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. So we give thanks for the gift of wisdom. And we know that next weekend, the last of our five weekends in which we have detoured from Mark into the Gospel of John, we look forward to hearing the profession of faith of Saint Peter, when people go away, but Peter says, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of everlasting life."
Jesus ratchets up the tension as he makes declarations which are hard for most of his listeners to accept.
We will get to "the bread of life" next week. Today, I call on a teddy bear to help us focus on "bearing with" each other (Ephesians).
Ephesians, on the "assembly," fits in well with the other readings' emphasis on shepherding.
Five minutes of music at the beginning of a Mass at the Cathedral of the Apostolic Vicariate of Izabal, Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. The entire country was celebrating the 500th anniversary of the first Mass in Guatemalan territory.
First Sunday homily with, perhaps, better audio quality. On standoffishness and its opposite.
I have determined that the iRiver digital recorder, given to me by my friend Brian and which I have been using for 19 years, has expired. Shortly I will be switching to a phone app. The homilies currently on the dead recorder will not be retrieved.
"Christ learned obedience from what he suffered." This statement from Hebrews may be hard to accept. But Jesus' experience of suffering allows us to bear our own.
There are many indications in Mark's Gospel of an aspect of Jesus' personality: that he is eager for solitude and quiet.
The deacon preached on January 21. -- Can we appreciate the peace and calm arising from being freed from mental illness?
The touching call of Samuel gives all of us hope that we will hear the call of God, even if many times we mishear it.
Ephesians: The nations beyond the Chosen People inherit the Good News of Jesus' death and resurrection.
On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, I left the recording device behind, and when I remembered it, I said to myself that I would be mad to run home for it on this absolutely crazy weekend, with Christmas on Monday. -- We'd like to see around the bend, beyond our capacities. But we remember: "Lord, your words have been fulfilled."
We make many decisions about who we think is impressive and attractive. We might want to re-think our criteria.
I remember why December 3 did not get recorded. My recording device had a dead battery. -- Where are we to find comfort and joy?
"The least" is not Jesus' concept. It is something we have devised so we can tell ourselves to whom to pay attention. Jesus confounds our strategies.
I cannot recall why I did not record November 12. -- There is more to life than being industrious.
Peter professes faith in Jesus ... having no idea what his adherence to Jesus will mean.
I cannot recall why I have no recording for August 13. -- I reflect on a discussion of the nature of interfaith friendship. These words seem quite prescient as we consider the agony in Gaza/West Bank and Israel.
We consider the feelings of Peter, James and John as they behold their Master transfigured.
I regret that next Sunday's feast of the Transfiguration keeps us from hearing "What can separate us?" (Romans 8.) So I have included what we otherwise would have heard the following Sunday!
Do you often rebuke temerity? Are you frustrated by a lack of explanation of Jesus' parables? Why does prayer seem to be so much like groaning?
I was on vacation on July 9. -- We must open ourselves to the gift of insight, a way of seeing more deeply the meaning of life.
My best guess is that the deacon preached on June 25. -- A return to Romans 6 and the core teaching on baptism.
It appears that I have copied over the Fifth Sunday of Easter and following so that they are lost. My apologies.
The First Letter of Peter thinks about Jesus' death and resurrection as our "ransom" from eternal death.
We must take note of the First Letter of Peter, our second reading for the Sundays of Easter this year. There are many statements of encouragement which make us feel more alive.
The raising of Lazarus was a sign of the coming resurrection -- and also a provocation.
On the Second Sunday of Lent, the deacon preached. -- We must be aware of our various thirsts.
This homily ran a lot longer than usual, mainly because of late word of the homicide by firearm of an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles. The focus is mainly on our misunderstanding of what Jesus means when he says we are to be "perfect."
Jesus says, "Let your light shine"; but he also says "Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." Does he contradict himself?
Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes: promises that we will be happy even if it seems we are out of step with what most of the world is doing.
This is the Sunday of the Word of God, and we begin our year-long reading from the Gospel of Matthew with Jesus' choosing of his first four disciples.
We are getting started with the long expanse of Ordinary Time and particularly with a continuous reading from Paul's first letter to the Christians of Corinth, Greece.
The Bishop of Rome Emeritus, Pope Benedict XVI, died yesterday. His resignation in 2013 provided an example to all of us that we all must acknowledge our limits. Mary's identity as "Mother of God" means that she is pointing to her Son and encouraging us to greater amazement at his identity as truly God and truly human.
In our age of information, the Scriptures for Christmas Day are all about the Word who says everything to us.
Advent points us to completion and fulfillment. What do we think such fulfillment will look like?
Entering the privileged time of Advent, we are invited into timelessness and the possibility of doing something productive with our swords.
Please note: A number of Sundays are missing. I know that I left the device at home on the Third Sunday of Advent, when I pointed out a crescendo in what the prophets and the Gospels were saying about "the one who is to come." Other Sundays, the deacon preached.
Kingship and kinship: Christ is King of humanity because he has identified with our lowest ebb.
Last weekend, the deacon preached. -- If we think about sin, we must also think about mercy, forgiveness, and healing.
Prayer is not for the sake of controlling God. We must immerse ourselves in prayer so that we may discover how to be united with our God.
The story of Naaman inspires us to consider failures of imagination and the concept of local gods.
Again, the homilist must have forgotten to record September 18. Too bad; it built on an earlier Sunday's pronouncement that life is not a game. On September 25, the deacon preached. -- We need to become more comfortable with the statement "We are unprofitable servants" so that we will wait actively for "the vision."
The weekend of September 4, the homilist was in Paris and North Arm while their priest made a Mission Co-op appeal in the homilist's parishes on behalf of his diocese in Rwanda. -- The stories of Luke 15 can be revisited countless times, and they do not get old. God's mercy does not make sense -- but we know we need it.
Jesus is not giving an etiquette lesson. He is asking us why we are so concerned about status when people who cannot gain any such status need to be responded to.
The homilist must have failed to record August 14, shortly after his mother's funeral. -- Anyway, LIFE IS NOT A GAME and is, in fact, BETTER than a game.
The homilist preached on the short formof the Gospel, seeing no need to talk about beatings.
After three weeks away, because of a visit to Guatemala and the souvenir he brought back (Covid), the homilist returns and considers the vanity-content of our lives.
Do you think that perhaps Jesus was seeking new recruits because he was having second thoughts about James and John?
The return to Ordinary Time and a consideration of vocation was somewhat overshadowed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision and its implications.
This separate celebration of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist can never be separated from Holy Thursday and the Passion of Jesus.
Two persons of the Trinity are called "Father" and "Son." Therefore I decided to stick with family relationships.
The Christian people began with a small number; Revelation promises that this nucleus will grow into a vast throng.
What sort of conversation can be held among three people condemned and dying? Saint Luke's Passion gives us an example, and it is the opposite of futile.
Our lives are not games. We must not manipulate people. We must treasure the gift of forgiveness which our God has given us, and allow that gift to make us compassionate.
The story of the father and his two sons never fails to agitate us as we marvel at the behaviors therein portrayed.
The "problem of evil" is best addressed by our looking at the evil within our own hearts, and opening ourselves to conversion.
How are promises to be fulfilled? What is our reaction if we simply see no way to fulfillment?
Beware the polarities of "I am God" and "I am nothing." If we understand ourselves as God's beloved creatures, we will be less likely to succumb to temptation.
The Third and Fifth Sundays of Easter, and the Ascension, are missing. In the case of the first two, I had left the recorder at home and did not feel like running back for it. The Ascension marked the return of Deacon Bob Crosby, who preached.
As I recall, on the Third Sunday of Easter, I preached about our need as Christian community to grow comfortable with one another -- which Peter obviously was not when he discovered himself to be in the presence of the risen Jesus. On the Fifth Sunday of Easter, I focused on the word "elder" in the Acts of the Apostles and the fact that I am technically a presbyter or "elder," and became an elder before I had turned 26.
There was a lot to talk about, including the Russian attack on Ukraine, in light of the image of having a block of wood in your eye.
"Blessed are you who are poor": may there be no obstacles to our accepting this promise of Jesus. (This file runs a little long; I remembered to turn off the device after I dismissed our catechumen.)
I don't like to be startled. Peter, I suppose, needed to be startled. I trust in God's gentle revelations to me of his presence.
The Magi, the baptism of Jesus, the wine at Cana: all these are connected with Epiphany, the manifestation of Jesus to the world.
In the midst of uncertainty, we have a "theophany" -- God showing himself to us. Sorry, this file runs a little long; I forgot to turn off the device.
There are tensions even within the Holy Family. We must not be surprised at the tensions within ours.
The account of the visit of Mary to Elizabeth is crowned by the Canticle of Mary, the Magnificat.
As we try to appreciate the gift of everlasting life, we find that anything having to do with love will help us.
Six months away from the Easter Triduum, we read two Scripture passages associated with Good Friday.
Hebrews: The Word of God penetrates even the spaces within ourselves where there is no space.
No recordings exist for the last three Sundays of September. -- Take note of the argument of the Letter to the Hebrews, to be presented during the next seven Sundays.
As Jesus respects the man he heals, so we must be cognizant of the private and public spheres of everyone's lives.
We must credit the ancients with insight into disease, even if they did not have direct knowledge of microorganisms. Jesus is making a different point: to be concerned, not about what passes through you, but rather about the evil which emerges from you.
To whom shall we go? Our reception of the Holy Eucharist is personal, not conventional.
Mary's immaculate conception and assumption follow from our understanding of her as "Mother of God."
If one is interested in being an "influencer," Jesus' method is not the way to go about it.
Jesus begins to talk with people who did not perceive the "sign" of the Kingdom but simply want some ready source with which to be sated.
What good are five loaves and two fish for a crowd of five thousand? Do we perceive the "sign" in this merciful act of Jesus?
Let us go rest in an out-of-the-way place -- but it's not out of the way if throngs of people come there.
Going out on mission: Do we recognize that our not clinging to our property is the sign of the truth of the treasure of the Kingdom?
Jesus was not accepted in the place where he grew up. And the homilist gets lots of pushback when he attempts to state that Americans are in the same sinful state as all other human beings.
I don't recall why there is no recording for June 6.
Take a risk -- it's a small step, like a mustard seed, and you will experience much growth.
We note how Peter and John, entering Jesus' empty tomb, reach a moment of insight which convinces them of his resurrection.
Barabbas is "son of the father." Jesus, "son of the father" in the deepest sense, takes the place of every last one of us.
Jesus is the grain of wheat which loses its identity in order to bring forth an unexpected harvest.
Jesus revives Lazarus because he is God and can do so, but also because he is human and he feels the bitterness of bereavement.
You'd think those beholding the healing of a man born blind would rejoice. Instead, he is a problem.
The man who is healed talks too much. We need to consider whether we, likewise, talk too much.
A discussion of the mysteries of time, on a recording which I think runs on until almost the Eucharistic Prayer.
On the "Sunday of the Word of God," we have to consider the context of the Scriptures we hear at Mass. Jonah was called by God, but he was quite an unwilling prophet!
An irony: We who have been given the good news may, with great strength, resist it. Thank God for crises.
On the unexpected power (not the expected male power) which results in the world's salvation.
At first I heard an echo in this recording. I have, to my great relief, found that the recording was just playing twice on my computer.
Joy springs from within.
Considering the meaning of "the end," "it is finished," and so forth, in terms of completion rather than demise.
The word "talent" presents difficulties, since it seems to refer to performance. Our God in fact wants us to go deeper than performance and recognize essential qualities which are not easily subject to observation.
"Stay awake!" In fact, the point of the parable is the exercise of forethought, as opposed to vigilance.
Perversity -- and a tribute to Joaquin Lavado (Quino), noted for his comic strip "Mafalda."
"The parable that everybody hates": proof that Jesus intended his parables to be provocative.
Campus minister Emily Rogers of the Newman Center of Eastern Illinois University interviews Fr. Kevin Laughery on racism.
Sorry, no audio for this Sunday. You can hear the homily by viewing the St. Jerome live stream. (My wearable mic wasn't working, but the ambo mic was.)
Part 2 of two parts. Peter doesn't understand that the Messiah (and those who proclaim his name) has to suffer and die.
Part 1 of two parts. Peter expresses faith in Jesus and Jesus calls him the "rock" on which he will build the Church.
Jesus is not the "victim" here. He has something in mind when vast throngs come to him.
This was the weekend when we added a public Mass. -- Does everything work out for good? If we keep in mind the human family instead of a narrow focus on ourselves, we will be pleasantly surprised!
I can't recall why I don't have a recording for July 12. -- Have you rebuked temerity lately?
As important as family ties are, we must not allow them to impede us from proclaiming the Kingdom of Godl
We began having public Mass. We are the assembly, and have always been such. Fear no one.
I think that, for a time, I thought my recorder wasn't working, and I missed recording audio for two Sundays. You can find the video recordings. -- We focus on the physicality of eating and drinking and recognize that this food and drink feeds us more deeply than other nourishment.
My apologies to all who are looking for more homilies. Particularly during this Easter season, I have been forgetful and have not always brought my digital audio recorder to church. You can see and hear videos on Facebook, St. Jerome Catholic Church, Troy, Illinois. The videos are archived on YouTube, St. Jerome Church, Troy, Illinois.
Heaven is not "up"! Indeed, heaven is as close as the human heart when our God has made his dwelling there.
My apologies for not including Palm Sunday and the Second Sunday of Easter, neither of which I recorded (things have been weird here; have they been weird for you?). Anyway, the theme of insight continues: things begin to come together and make sense for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
Insight is something which occurs within us and which we must pay more attention to. The fragments of life coalesce and begin to make sense. This was the experience of Peter and John at Jesus' empty tomb.
"Untie him and let him go free." These words of Jesus, regarding Lazarus, apply to us as well.
The Year A readings of the Fourth Sunday of Lent are loaded with irony -- all the more so in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
News was changing by the hour. This homily ended up a little disjointed. I meant to add -- to complete the thought about not being irrational -- that the current challenge is an opportunity for us to bring forth all that is most precious and beautiful within us. As Jesus thirsted for the faith of the Samaritan woman, we thirst for an outpouring of love from us all.
"It's a good thing the world is far, far away!" No, the world is with us, and we are with the world. Jesus' Transfiguration is his pledge to be with us, whatever the world is suffering.
We must keep posing to ourselves the question: "Jesus -- he became human -- just like me?" Yes, he is one with us when we are in the midst of temptation.
We take a look at St. John XXIII and all the renewal he initiated by calling Vatican II.
Generosity or codependency?; and why Easter should be one week later. Also, my apologies for not including the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. I left the recorder on and the file ended up being 2.5 hours!
The One presented in the Temple comes with the power to change us, and his influence will feel astringent! But he derives his authority from his complete union with humanity.
It's not just these four fishermen who are called by Jesus. Every one of us has received a call to holiness.
Some housekeeping matters, and these readings feel like a repeat of last week. First Corinthians feels familiar to us, because all church is local!
As we survey the diversity of the nations, we recognize the ironies of people, supposedly of one community, to fail to communicate. We talk to one another about projects before us, and we recognize the value of silence.
Getting a church dedicated, and the strangest conversation imaginable. BONUS: I forgot to turn off the recorder, so you get to hear a baptism also!
It's time to examine the "interior monologue" that each of us carries on with ourselves.
Jesus' parable is hilarious. For one thing, it is almost as if the unjust judge can overhear the narration about his turpitude.
The homilist was off last weekend. -- The Naaman incident gives us a picture of the evolution of the idea of God, who is supreme and not a "local god." Naaman still requests two mule-loads of earth from Israel, so he can have a "local connection."
This was our "Mass in the Grass." You may remember from last year that my homily was interrupted by a football game and the national anthem. This year it didn't happen. I did not say to the congregation, though I was sorely tempted to do so: "Well, they didn't do civic religion, but they did have whistleblowers."
Cats have nine lives. People re-invent themselves. But our God wills that we be simply a person, not a persona.
I've never done this before. I am giving you two versions of my homily, focusing on planning, with a specific reference to planning at St. Jerome. I left some things out of one, and I left other things out of the other.
People are waiting for the return of the Master. But will they recognize him? Some thoughts on the vacuous, stupid idea called "white supremacy."
I registered displeasure with a lack of silence at the beginning of Mass, as we considered the honesty of Ecclesiastes.
I am using "Amazing Parish" with my pastoral staff currently. I am finding that ASKING is a big part of my pastoral leadership. Jesus says, "Ask and you shall receive."
What is our treasure? What is abundance? We consider the empty-handed 72 disciples and our own volunteerism.
There's no "problem" with Jesus' Ascension. We must take seriously our incorporation as the Body of Christ, alive and animated.
Sorry -- I forgot to turn the recorder off until I had reached the intercessions. Jean Vanier, who died May 7, is the embodiment of Jesus' command "Love one another."
We gather following coordinated Easter Sunday attacks on Catholic churches in Sri Lanka.
We must consider the woman caught in adultery in light of the never-ending abuse of women -- and where is the man?
Jesus addresses the issue of "theodicy," or the problem of evil and what God does about it.
"Let my people go!" How did Moses find it possible to respond to that voice from a burning yet unconsumed bush?
Is life a pie or the sky? (This is unrelated to the concept of "pie in the sky when you die," which we will have to treat at another time.)
Listen for Jesus' sly sense of humor as he proposes the image of a wooden beam in someone's eye.
The people who know their poverty will always remain connected with their God, in accord with the tree whose roots have a reliable source of water.
Can we find a hitherto unnoticed strength in ourselves? Paul's reflection on love celebrates love as a strength!
A government shutdown is the opposite of the harmony described by Saint Paul in his description of the Christian community according to the "analogy of the body."
We want to know that we are "chosen" and "espoused." Our God assures us that his love for us is of this quality.
Uncertainty about the identity of the Magi does not impede us from appreciating their role in "manifesting" the Savior to all nations.
Families allow children to become themselves. Pain is necessarily part of the process, even in the Holy Family.
Joy is not anesthesia. Joy acknowledges the depth and complexity of human life, including grief and pain.
What kind of kingdom is this "kingdom of God"? It is not merely a glib bit of religious jargon. It announces itself through the relationships we form.
My malfunctioning phone was good for some laughs. It's working now. Law makes sense when it is actually forming our lives.
What do we do with joyful words of Scripture, when people are gunned down as they are worshiping?
In honor of St. Jerome, we replaced the hard-hitting statement of the Letter of James with the reflection from Second Timothy on the value of Scripture.
This was our "Mass on the Grass" in Troy City Park. I was distracted and did not start the recording right away. At a nearby football game, the national anthem began to be sung, and I said, "I guess we have to pause." This recording begins toward the end of the national anthem.
We have the classic text of James about faith and works, Peter's act of faith in Jesus, and the context in which Peter's faith will be tested: the mission of the Suffering Servant.
Our interactions with strangers and with those whom we should know well: these interactions can be evaluated in light of the Word of God today.
From Bishop Paprocki, September 2, 2018
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
The past few weeks have seen an unprecedented unfolding of a highly disturbing series of events in the Church here in the United States. In June, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a former priest of the Archdiocese of New York and Archbishop Emeritus of Washington D.C., was removed from public ministry for credible and substantiated allegations of abuse of a minor. In July, Pope Francis accepted McCarrick’s resignation from the College of Cardinals.
On August 14, a Pennsylvania Grand Jury reported that more than 300 priests across Pennsylvania sexually abused children over seven decades, protected by church leaders who covered it up. Then, on the heels of that devastating report, On August 22 the Vatican’s former ambassador to the United States—officially called an Apostolic Nuncio—wrote an extensive letter claiming that Pope Francis knew about the sex abuse allegations against former Cardinal McCarrick for years, but chose to cover up the charges.
The reaction to hearing this convergence of distressing reports has been very understandable anger and even outrage on the part of many people—including myself. While I felt compelled to respond immediately to the news, since that time, I have only experienced increasing anger, disgust, and a desire to act.
The words from Jesus in the Gospel of Mark about the evils that come from the violation of the natural law are critical to keep in mind as we reflect on the recent revelations of what can only be described as horrifying abuse and neglect of authority among some priests and bishops of the Church in our own country. We may notice that all the things Jesus lists are the subjects of the Ten Commandments: “From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”
As Saint Thomas Aquinas tells us, the original and proper use of law is to help people to live virtuously. It is to encourage their basic goodness, and to help them live together in harmony. The basis of all Gospel teaching about law is that there is the eternal law of God, and the natural law within humans, which shares in the eternal. The summary of the natural law for us is the Ten Commandments. These are not arbitrary rules imposed upon us by a stern God. They are reminders of the best part and highest aspirations of the natural human law that lives within all of us. Given that we are fallen creatures, we sometimes forget how to live in harmony with each other and with God. The Ten Commandments remind us of how to do this. Unfortunately, too many people have forgotten or ignored these basic precepts.
In light of this current distressing situation, I have called for a response that must include several components, namely, public prayers of repentance and acts of atonement, new measures for review of bishops’ handling of cases and a reaffirmation of my own commitment to a zero-tolerance policy in our diocese, and a call for spiritual renewal at all levels of the Church. I would like to share additional detail and perspective on each of these three components of response — especially the first.
With regard to public prayers and acts of atonement, I am personally committing myself to a period of prayer and fasting in reparation and atonement as a way of confronting this crisis in our Church on spiritual grounds. Specifically, I am abstaining from all meat and alcohol (except the sacramental wine used at Mass) for forty days, which I began on August 28, the Feast of Saint Augustine, and will continue until October 7, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. During those weeks, I will also fast between meals on Fridays. On October 7, I plan to run a marathon in Long Beach, California, with the LIFE Runners, a pro-life running group. There is a lot of pain involved in training and in the actual running of a marathon. In the past, I have offered up that pain for various intentions. This year I am offering the pain of my marathon training and running in repentance for the sins of all clergy—bishops, priests and deacons. I will also include this intention in the many rosaries that I will pray in the course of my running.
Further, at 7:00 PM on Monday, October 1, the Feast Day of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus — known as the “Little Flower” — I will lead a liturgical service of “Repentance and Prayer for those Harmed in the Church” at our Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield. Each of our Deans will conduct this liturgical service of “Repentance and Prayer for those Harmed in the Church” at the same time at a location to be designated in each of our deaneries. As sins of sexual depravity and complicity in their cover-up have deeply infected and wounded the Church, it is crucial that we pray for these evils to be eradicated from the whole Church.
Our priests will also gather for a liturgical service of “Repentance and Prayer for those Harmed in the Church” at the beginning of our upcoming Convocation of Priests on Monday evening, September 17, at 7:00 PM at Mother of Perpetual Help Church in Maryville, Illinois.
As I have previously said, we bishops of the United States must offer public prayers of repentance and acts of atonement for the sins of all bishops, priests and deacons. Having spoken with Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), it is my understanding that we will have prayers of repentance and acts of atonement at our next meeting in November in Baltimore.
I humbly invite all of you to join me in the holy battle for purification of our Church throughout the world and here at home by participating in prayers of repentance, by fasting, and by coming to the prayer service on October 1 at 7:00 PM at the Cathedral or at the location in your deanery. The nature of the battle at hand can be seen in these well-known verses in Genesis: “Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel your brother?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the Lord said, ‘What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground’” (Gen 4: 9-10). There is no such thing as private sin. The horrible sins that we have all endured learning about — and the souls of those damaged by them — hurt us all in the mystical body of Christ. In the same way, the prayers and sacrifices of the faithful are effective in bringing about spiritual healing to the whole Body of Christ.
In addition to public prayers of repentance and acts of atonement, I reiterate my increased resolve and continued commitment to a zero-tolerance policy in this Diocese, and all the practical steps outlined in my statement of August 19. I pledge our diocese’s full cooperation with law enforcement officials to make every available effort to protect our people. We will review the firm commitments we have made and the concrete steps we have taken to protect against clergy misconduct in our diocese. We are also willing to consider any additional actions that would be helpful in making our safe environment program more effective.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I have called for a profound spiritual renewal at all levels of the Church. When I say all levels, I include not only bishops, priests and deacons, but also the highest level of the hierarchy, the Pope. In his August 20th letter to the People of God, Pope Francis writes, “With shame and repentance, we acknow-ledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.” I presume that he includes himself among the “we” to whom he refers. Indeed, in a letter this past April 11 to the bishops of Chile, Pope Francis asked forgiveness for his “serious errors of assessment and perception.” In a meeting with abuse survivors in Chile this past May, Pope Francis said, “I was part of the problem, I caused this and I’m sorry.”
Now, with reference to the situation in our own country, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, has revealed a set of facts and circumstances that are deeply troubling as they relate to the awareness, actions, and inactions at the very highest levels of the Church. Archbishop Viganò has provided his written testimony stating that Pope Francis “must honestly state when he first learned about the crimes committed by McCarrick, who abused his authority with seminarians and priests. In any case, the Pope learned about it from me on June 23, 2013 and continued to cover for him.” When asked about this aboard the papal plane on his return flight from Ireland on August 26, Pope Francis said, “Read the statement carefully and make your own judgment. I will not say a single word on this.” Frankly, but with all due respect, that response is not adequate. Given the gravity of the content and implications of the former Nuncio’s statement, it is important for all the facts of this situation to be fully reviewed, vetted, and carefully considered. Toward that end, Pope Francis, Vatican officials and the current Apostolic Nuncio should make public the pertinent files indicating who knew what and when about Archbishop (formerly Cardinal) McCarrick and provide the accountability that the Holy Father has promised.
Over the past few days I have given several media interviews to reporters inquiring about these matters. I have pledged to share as much information as possible and work for solutions to rectify the situation. One reporter asked what I would say to people whose faith in the institution of the Church has been shaken by these scandals. I answered by saying that, ultimately, we are not called to put our faith in an institution; we are called to put our faith in Jesus Christ. Our Lord gave us the Church as a means to help us to get to heaven, but the Church is not an end in itself. Our Lord also gave us bishops, priests and deacons to help the Christian faithful on this journey of faith. We must never forget that this is a ministry of service and not of privilege.
Even in the face of adversity, we must remain convinced that Christ has not abandoned us, and so we must not give up on our commitment to live as His disciples. We must recognize that this is exactly what Satan wants, for he is the prince of darkness. He wants us to turn our back on our Lord and His Church. On the contrary, like the disciples in the early Church, we must use this unfortunate set of circumstances to commit ourselves to live ever more fully for Christ as His disciples. We must keep saying “yes” to God for the rest of our lives.
May God give us this grace. Amen.
The anguish of the People of God is met by the utterly personal gift of Jesus' very flesh and blood.
This was recorded at St. James. The acoustics are quite different. I recall the image of the pelican feeding her young with her own blood.
If people get paid to speak on God's behalf, do they just end up saying what the employer wants to hear?
The definition of slavery might well be what Psalm 123 presents: always having one's gaze upon the master, never turning away. But this figure is given to us because we must not miss God's mercy and love toward us.
The Kingdom of God is manifested in the surprising growth which occurs within and among us.
The Holy Eucharist cannot be separated from the Easter mystery and all which occurred as Jesus gave himself for our salvation.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit lead to the growth in us of the Spirit's fruits. Surely we must want to live this way: carried and calmed by joy, peace, and all the other fruits of the Spirit.
"God is love." We may struggle to understand the pull of love. We find our answers as we appreciate that "God is love."
In our polarized society, we must recognize our absolute need to be branches on the one vine, Jesus, who leads us out of tribalism into life-giving union.
This was First Communion weekend in my parishes. "This is the church, this is the steeple" leads to a discussion of the Church as the people,and of our need to be shepherded.
We used the Gospel from the Easter Vigil: Mark's account of the discovery of the empty tomb. We can identify with the fear which the women felt when they were charged with announcing Jesus' resurrection to the world.
As we near the celebration of the Passion of the Lord, the image of the grain of wheat becomes very helpful to us.
I never was able to do an audio re-creation. Here is my outline.
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Catholic Diocese of Springfield in Illinois
Parishes of St. Jerome, Troy; St. James, St. Jacob; St. Elizabeth, Marine
2018 LENTEN SPEAKER SERIES
Thursday, February 22, 2018, 6:00 pm
St. James Catholic Church
Second of six speakers:
Father Kevin Laughery, Pastor, St. Jerome and St. James Parishes
Topic: Abraham and Isaac.
This weekend’s Scriptures (Year B) are: Gn 22: 1-2. 9a. 10-13. 15-18/ Ps 116: 10. 15. 16-17. 18-19/ Rom 8: 31b-34/ Mk 9: 2-10
(Mass reading citations for every day are at kevinlaughery.com/lc.html; the texts for every day are at usccb.org/bible/readings/.)
I. Theological orientation
A. Our need to be familiar with Scripture (the Bible)
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Review of our need for context
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Awareness of various origins of specific Scriptures
B. The “theology of story” has influenced me deeply.
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“Truth” is not to be equated with, say, journalism.
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Very little of Scripture could be called “journalistic.”
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All of Scripture is true!
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Book Tellers of the Word, by Navone and Cooper (available online, including through amazon.com)
C. Why do we tell and listen to stories? Because of the truth in them!
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Again, truth is not to be equated with journalism.
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We remember and tell stories because of their dynamism, and how they demonstrate necessary change (conversion) in people as they enter into relationship with God.
D. Truth and conversion
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We are all seeking truth together.
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Conversion is the fundamental experience of the Christian on the path to fullness of relationship with God (Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology).
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We have intense, dramatic moments of conversion by which we find that our very orientation toward God is fundamentally changed!
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We have less dramatic moments of conversion which, I trust, we take in stride.
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We formulate narratives (“stories”) by which we make sense of God’s work upon us, and share them with fellow Christians (but, please, learn to summarize!).
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Our process of conversion, as lived out among non- Christians, leads to possible conversion for such people, but more on the level of the perception of our integrity of life than on “heady” arguments.
II. Transition to Abraham and Isaac
A. Teaser: Langston Hughes and his phrase “a raisin in the sun” (used by Lorraine Hansberry as title of play)
B. Teaser was chosen as a 20th-century expression of the futility which we find as a theme of the Abraham-Isaac incident; see also the Book of Job and “the triumph of impotence.”
III. Abraham and Isaac: Genesis 22: 1-18
A. In our 1969 (current) Lectionary for Mass, this Sunday’s Old Testament reading is Genesis 22: 1-2. 9a. 10-13. 15-18.
B. Many non-Catholic Christians, although they have adapted the Catholic lectionary for their own needs, are somewhat scandalized by the heavy editing Catholics have done.
C. Besides occurring on this Sunday of the three-year Lectionary cycle, this incident is the second Old Testament reading of every Easter Vigil, on which occasion one may repeat the edited version or the straight narrative, Genesis 22: 1-18.
D. It is believed that Genesis and the other books of the Pentateuch were compiled from several sources (probably four) which themselves were written between the 900s and 400s B.C.
E. Abraham is believed to have lived at the beginning of the second millennium B.C. (2000 B.C. or later).
F. Need we add that this is not journalism?
IV. Fundamental themes of Genesis 22
A. Futility: This is what I believe stands out to most of us as we come to know and appreciate this story.
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The birth of Isaac was a great wonder which Abraham and Sarah had yearned for.
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So now he is to be offered up as a holocaust?
B. The singularity of the believer’s relationship with the one God.
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Other nations had a multiplicity of gods.
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Abraham’s insight: there is only one God.
C. The absolute character of this same relationship.
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Life itself comes from God alone.
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God, the Lord of life, justly takes back life once given.
D. Sacrifice
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When we read the Bible all the way through, we cannot help but wonder about Old Testament customs of sacrifice.
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We suppose that such practices are backward.
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Do we not engage in such practices ourselves?
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Sacrifice would seem to arise out of the believer’s sense of insecurity about our relationship with God.
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Temptation to offer human sacrifice (see Micah 6).
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Perfectionism
a. Religious practice as “being good”
b. Perfectionism as self- defeating behavior
c. Perfectionism as a state of arrested personality development
d. New Testament discussion of sacrifice: Hebrews (esp. chaps. 9, 10)
E. Light shed on the Christian mystery
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“God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust” (22: 8 — not in this Sunday’s edited version)
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Do we see how appropriate this reading is for the Easter Vigil?
F. Connection with the other readings of this Sunday
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Psalm 116: I will pay my vows
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Romans 8: God did not spare his own Son
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Mark 9: Transfiguration: Wondering about the meaning of “rising from the dead.”
I told numerous people to find here a recording of my February 22 presentation in the "Lenten Speakers Series" of my parishes. It was on Abraham's resolve to offer up his son Isaac as a burnt offering/ sacrifice. I turned on my recording device but apparently did not then press "Record." I will try, in the next few days, to record an equivalent of my talk; it will not, however, include the numerous occasions of riotous laughter.
On February 4, I apparently did not turn off the recorder, so that homily was part of a several-hours-long file. Sorry. February 11, I did not preach.
This homily was preached at a retreat for 7th- and 8th-graders, just after the mass shooting at Parkland, Florida. If we are to understand human behavior and, especially, the ways in which we succumb to temptation, we cannot demonize even the most egregious sinners; we must understand ourselves as being on a continuum which includes those who do unspeakable things.
Can gift cards heal? We need to consider all the various ways in which people need to be healed, and we will grasp this possibility.
The homilist did not preach January 14. -- We certainly need to know the context of this episode in the book of Jonah if we are going to appreciate how God works with an unwillingprophet.
Imagine being embarrassed on behalf of one's entire country, as we try to negotiate the boundaries of unity and diversity.
We consider the impossibility of counting the stars, the impossibility implied in sacrificing one's son, and the impossibility of having one's heart pierced by a sword.
The homilist did not preach on the Fourth Sunday of Advent (it was the deacon's turn). Imagine the figurines of a Nativity scene being set up on a battlefield. That's the whole point of Jesus' Incarnation.
The Book of Consolation (beginning at Isaiah 40) aids us as we remember that God never tells us, "You are something wrong."
"King" or "Queen" tends to imply some distance from the people they rule. Our King sympathizes with us; indeed, he completely identifies with us.
The pastor did not preach last weekend. -- The "worthy wife" helps us to consider how we place our gifts at the service of God's Kingdom.
The homilist was away October 8, and did not preach on October 15. -- Caesar's coin occasions a discussion of how everythingis political and everythingis religious.
We all need to resign from "The Good People's Society," and breathe the fresh air of mercy.
"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new." We take time to consider a time factor in "the parable that everyone hates."
The Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor requires little commentary. We consider protests in St. Louis and our diocesan synod in light of the immensity of God's mercy and the possibilities for healing human hearts.
We must not exaggerate the role of "watchman." We must develop our trust in our one-on-one interactions, which strengthen communion in our Church.
Peter did not understand Jesus' "business model." Of course, the path which Jesus walked is hard to grasp. As we ponder our own labors, we seek to unite ourselves with our Suffering Servant.
Last week it was my deacon's turn to preach. -- The imagery of keys moves us to reconsider how Christians of Rome understand themselves and their relations with other Christians.
1 Kgs 19: 9a. 11-13a/ Ps 85: 9. 10. 11-12. 13-14/ Rom 9: 1-5/ Mt 14: 22-33
On the basis of the readings above, I worked in a commentary on yesterday's events in Charlottesville, Virginia.
We must learn to trust our own religious experience, which includes accepting the testimony of Peter and others in the history of the People of God.
Wisdom is not the same as shrewdness. Wisdom calls us to take in realities beyond our own self-interest.
The homilist's first weekend in his new parishes has him considering "little things" which are necessary steps toward being enrobed in the love of the Kingdom of God.
We return to the Sundays of Ordinary Time. "You are worth more than many sparrows" -- we are indeed precious in the sight of God.
"What is it?" Manna means "what is it?" "Not by bread alone do we live" -- therefore, we must plumb the depths of the mystery of the Body and Blood of Christ.
God is, fundamentally, relationship. The Trinity gives us insight into the various relationships to which we are committed.
A number of people noticed that I seemed to be touching on politics in this homily. I certainly was. Isn't everything political?
When we part from one another, and we are sad, the sadness points to the value of what we have shared. This value is not lost as the Holy Spirit binds us together into the Body of Christ.
"With gentleness and reverence," we share with others the reason for our hope in the risen Lord.
"Once you were no people, but now you are God's people. Once there was no mercy for you, but now you have found mercy." The assurance of 1 Peter 2: 10.
The Emmaus incident is the most moving of the post-resurrection experiences in the Gospels. We consider how surprised Jesus' friends were. Our faith is not a mere wish-fulfillment.
Let us pay special attention this Easter season to the First Letter of Peter, a letter which is all about "belonging."
The difference between living and nonliving is something we expect to remain stable. We are startled if the nonliving seems to be living and vice versa. But we expect the living to remain alive.
"You have said so." All of creation cries out the identity of the one who laid down his life to reconcile us with our God.
Our faith is utterly personal. Jesus raises Lazarus as he draws upon his human feeling.
To be given sight as an adult would be overwhelming. But why is there so little rejoicing when Jesus gives the sense of sight to a man born blind?
This is a privileged time in which adults to be baptized make their immediate preparations for Christian initiation.
We are on a journey. We must not trivialize the reality of this journey. We simply live mystery as we go places we may not care to go.
"Be perfect." This command is very easily misunderstood. We need to consider a distinction between "perfect performance" and being a complete, well-rounded person.
Is law something imposed upon us, which we have to work around? No, law is based on principles we find deep within ourselves.
Hear the homilist sigh as he ponders the current counterexample of "believing in oneself," the person who will make everything "great." Ponder the real meaning of being salt for the earth and light for the world.
We consider why there was such controversy in 1517, and what Christians are called to do to attain unity.
Christians may seem to be a tiny "remnant" in our world. Surely the Beatitudes, which open Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, do not quickly reveal the joy to be had by living them.
Saint Paul speaks of factions within Christianity as we read of the call of Jesus' first disciples.
Baptism is not something you can do to yourself. Even Jesus had to be in a passive state as his baptism was done to him. Surrender is necessary for living the Christian life.
Mary reflected upon many things in her heart. We must follow her example of reflection upon the mysteries which we are living.
The reality of John the Baptist challenges the glib contemporary adage that "perception is reality."
"The Peaceable Kingdom" always inspires us to imagine the reconciling of "natural" enemies.
One of the strangest conversations imaginable comes from three men crucified together. Christ the King rules from the instrument of his execution.
We are mortal. We have no control over our dissolution. We cast our lot with the Savior who reached out to us by taking mortality upon himself.
Does the promise of eternal life encourage us to suppose that the here and now does not matter? No; for eternity is found in every passing moment.
The charming story of Zacchaeus assures us that conversion can come to our household as well.
The homilist was away on October 9 and 16. -- If we can offer the prayer "Be merciful to me, a sinner," and if we steel ourselves for the long haul of faithfulness, we will be properly oriented toward our God.
The homilist was not supposed to be here today: explanation is on audio. We must struggle to see that an honest day's work contributes to the entire vision.
The rich man with Lazarus at his door: was he unaware of him? The rich man convicts himself, demonstrating his acquaintance with this poor man. We likewise know that Lazarus and his fellows are at our door.
Initiative: it is applied for evil and for good. If we are dedicated to the Kingdom of God, we will exercise initiative on its behalf.
Toward the end of the Year of Mercy, we consider the golden calf, the fatted calf, butter calves, and Paul's self-description as not knowing what he was doing in his unbelief.
The homilist did not preach on August 28. -- What does the Kingdom of God demand of us? Great flexibility. We think of the slave Onesimus and the sacred character of human labor. We remember the inner struggle of St. Teresa of Kolkata.
"Enter through the narrow gate." Jesus has gone through the narrowest gate of all: the death we all must face. We therefore enter into the love which led him there.
We are called to trust that our God is eager for us to enter into his Kingdom. Faith bids us perceive that every moment of our existence is an opening into eternal joy.
We must reconsider the fantasies our minds have woven. We must affirm that God holds our life in his hands.
Is it possible to bargain with God? Abraham thought so. Our pleading in prayer leads us to purify our intentions. God is eager to give us the help we really need.
The homilist was away the past two Sundays. -- Hospitality need not lead us to anxiety. Paying attention to our guests in fact leads us to the peace of contemplating the goodness of God. Our sufferings are united with those of Jesus.
Elisha eliminated obstacles to his answer of the call of Elijah. We must turn from the half-hearted responses of would-be disciples of Jesus. Renunciation leads to the deepest freedom.
Our classifying, labeling, and dismissing of people leads to such things as the Orlando mass shooting last Sunday. Saint Paul calls for no such classifying.
Every Catholic Christian must become intimately familiar with the Scriptures. David and Bathsheba are linked today with Jesus' proclamation of forgiveness for the woman who approaches him.
Saint Paul, in Galatians, calls us to an appreciation of the ways in which God is changing and converting us. Elijah and Jesus proclaim resurrection as they act in favor of the sons of widows.
It is well for us to appreciate Melchizedek as a "type" of Jesus: both offer bread and wine.
I think this is the first time I ever got an "Awww..." over something I said in a homily. And on Trinity Sunday?!?
Our existence in the flesh is good. Spirit supplies what we need when flesh can go no further.
Let us be especially aware of the description, from Hebrews, of Jesus entering the heavenly sanctuary, and know that his gift of self is utterly personal.
Borrowing from the Seventh Sunday of Easter, we read Jesus' aspiration "that all may be one" and consider, in light of the first reading, that unity is achieved and maintained painstakingly.
From day to day, as in the case of the Apostles, it may seem that few are being gathered in. We hold before us the image of the "multitude" of the Book of Revelation.
I may have recorded Easter, but it may have been part of a recording which did not get shut off for hours. -- Doing right by Thomas, and the perils of having chewing gum in school.
A consideration of a strange and wonderful conversation: "This day you will be with me in paradise."
We tend to be our own judge, jury, and executioner. God does a new thing: setting us free from our self-imposed prisons.
The annoying parable of the Prodigal Son. (I can't remember why I don't have a recording for Feb. 28.)
"Isn't life awful -- and wonderful?" The Transfiguration prepares for the fullness of the mystery of death and resurrection.
More calls. Our vocation is founded upon Jesus' resurrection; Paul hands on to us the testimony of the earliest witnesses to Jesus' rising.
An exercise in avoiding perfectionism: So what if the blog page is a little bit out of chronology? -- The importance of feelings in human life.
The call of Jeremiah and Jesus' rejection at the beginning of his ministry, as well as the reflection on love as the greatest gift, cause us to consider our giftedness.
Epiphany is always a good time to look at xenophobia. Have you any idea why we might want to look at xenophobia?
Imagine the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth, and consider the awareness of God's favor which these women enjoyed.
In the midst of further horror (San Bernardino), we join with the ancients who longed so deeply for a straight path to God.
What is truth? We refrain from the cynicism of Pontius Pilate and embrace the fullness of truth to be found in our suffering servant.
The end of the world? In light of the griefs of the past week (Paris massacres), perhaps God is giving us a chance to beginthe world!
"The widow's mite" and our concerns about being good "stewards" of the temporal affairs God has entrusted to us.
The homilist was away from the ambo throughout October. -- We consider our call to holiness as we remember Pope Francis and his evocation of Dorothy Day.
"Whoever is not against us is for us." As we reflect on the visit of Pope Francis to the United States, we are to find every strength and advantage in a principle of inclusion.
Unsettled, dispiriting things are swirling around within us. We must seek divine healing for our various resentments and accept the peace which allows us to be gifts to one another.
Peter professes his faith in Jesus, but also reveals that the concept of "suffering servant" eludes him
The refugee situation in Europe is another proof that we can never escape the xenophobic tendencies pointed out today in the Letter of James.
If you think that what passes through and comes out of you is repulsive, apply your feeling of disgust instead to the evil attitudes which you harbor in your hearts.
Decision and commitment move us to stand with a spouse and with the God who promises his intimate presence.
Ephesians touches upon singing as a fundamental Christian activity, while Proverbs gives us the image of the banquet as the preferred way to describe how God loves us.
A man named Donald Trump was in the news; this led to my comments about respect, as alluded to in the Ephesians passage.
It is the most reasonable thing in the world to ask "What is it?" when presented with unfamiliar food. "Manna" means "What is it?" We are still asking "What is it?" when we are given the Bread of Life.
The homilist was away last week. We consider what we hunger for, and what will satisfy our hunger.
How do we evaluate the reliability of a prophet? Consider whether or not he is enriching himself.
"He can't be any good, because he's from here!"We have to consider this very common and very strange way of thinking.
The homilist was away last week. Today, in light of God's address to Job, we consider the encyclical of Pope Francis on the environment, and the murders in Charleston, S.C.
I believe that, in the last dozen or so posts, there may be a couple of inaccuracies as to labeling. At some point (but not right now) I will review them and make any corrections necessary.
God, in his dynamism, demonstrated in the relationships of the Trinity, enters into human affairs, definitively so in Jesus.
The fruits of the Holy Spirit are amazing and peaceful indications that conversion has occurred.
The homilist was away on May 10. Let's be careful when interpreting the snakes and poison of the conclusion of Mark's Gospel. The one who ascended did so because he had first descended to the depths of human misery.
A vine and branches are the same substance, just as Jesus is truly human and thus of the same substance as ourselves. We see, in the case of the converted Saul/ Paul, how important community is for certifying who has experienced conversion.
First John hints at our exalted dignity. Peter comments on the uproar over the healing of the beggar at the Temple gate.
Jesus resurrected our enfleshed humanity. We must take this seriously as we seek to appreciate how God affirms the goodness of the way he made us.
The earliest Christians "had everything in common." We who are invested in the notion of private property may find this practice challenging. If we are heirs to the resurrection, other possessions become less of a concern.
I accidentally left the recorder on after the homily. I don't think there's anything ugly or shameful in the forty-some minutes which were inadvertently recorded. You may enjoy this for its capturing some of my typical Sunday morning.
Jesus makes a statement about the death of the grain of wheat, applying it to himself. We seek properly to apply it to ourselves.
There's no recording for March 1, since I cancalled Sunday Masses due to heavy snow. Today we are introduced to the scandal which leads to Jesus' crucifixion: the scandal of his affirming that he is the Son of God.
We must be well aware that the sufferings of Jesus have meaning because he willingly took them upon himself
Jesus demonstrates his own weariness, which is quite similar to what is described by Job. We need refreshment in the midst of activity.
"Predictions are always difficult, especially about the future." Prophecy is not necessarily about the future; God, speaking through prophets, has a lot to say to us about how things are right now, and how they must change.
Satire is in the news, and it's in the Bible. The Book of Jonah gives us the portrait of an unwilling prophet and as we laugh at Jonah, we learn to laugh at our own resistance to God.
Can "foreign" people really be as human as we are? Somehow we resist this obvious fact of life. The manifestation of Jesus to the nations helps us break through our self-imposed barriers so that we appreciate our kinship with all people.
The family of Abraham and Sarah, and the Holy Family, help us to see how God's promises are fulfilled in history and through crises.
We understand Mary of Nazareth to have been the most free person of all. We consider whether we will dispose ourselves to cooperate with God as Mary did.
Break open the heavens and come down among us, that we might be roused from our dullness.
The last judgment is carried out according to criteria which leave us absolutely depending on God's mercy.
The notion of "industry" as a virtue must not obscure the simple fact that even our ability to work is the gift of God.
It's the cathedral of Rome and therefore the mother church of the world! Popes Innocent III and Leo XIII are buried there. Father Augustus Tolton of our diocese, a candidate for sainthood, was ordained there in 1886.
The homilist was away throughout the month of October.
Bear with the idea of a school having a mausoleum.
Crucifixion as an act of terror, and Jesus' embrace of his crucifixion as the dispelling of terror for his faithful people.
Humor is a form of communication. We are challenged to hear the humorous banter between Jesus and this woman.
Sitting in Fiumicino Airport, I discover that there's free wi-fi. U.S. airports ought to take a hint.
Some may be wondering whether I got any closer to Pope Francis than St. Peter's Square with him up in the window. The answer is NO. Fr. Pedacchio never corresponded with me.To be quite honest, I am pleased that there was NOTHING in the three weeks which resembled work. Being at a papal affair would certainly have felt like work.
Today I traveled no further than around the block for a midday meal of prosciutto and melon, fettuccine with sausage and mushroom, roast lamb with potatoes, spinach in butter. A farewell meal in a country where you can't get a bad meal.
We went off Daylight Saving Time last night. So now I'm only six hours off from home.
I have been resting up for tomorrow's trip and using Wikipedia to read up on 1950s and 1960s U.S. TV trivia.
The last three weeks have amounted to a wonderful rest. Now it's back to work!
Earlier today, I took a walk to the Pincio park. The sky was cloudless and the temperature was hovering around 70.
This evening, Fr. Daren Zehnle, Fr. John Nolan (in Rome for the Institute for Continuing Theological Education), and seminarians Michael Friedel and Dominic Rankin got together for dinner.
Tomorrow is my last day in Rome before I fly back on Monday.
Friday is my normal day off, so it's fitting that I didn't do much today. I sat at the Quirinal Palace for a while, went into the "center" of town, had a leisurely lunch (rigatoni all'amatriciana, pollo alla romana), strolled into the area of Piazza di Spagna, and came back to the hotel.
For old times' sake, I bought an International New York Times. I used to read its predecessor, the International Herald Tribune, when I lived here. Of course I have the paper online. I was interested in seeing its hard-copy format. With the crossword, there's Jumble, sudoku, Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes. and Peanuts.
Following yesterday's post, I did some shopping in the Vatican area. I found a very nice restaurant near my hotel (rigatoni alla carbonara, saltimbocca alla romana, spinach in butter).
This morning as I checked the weather, it was 41F in daylight here, while it was 43F in New Berlin in the dark. I am reminded of the Italian expression "Fa freddo" which literally means "it makes cold" or "it does cold." Thursday was a day off for me when I was at the university here. We'd have classes Monday through Wednesday, then Thursday off, then classes Friday and Saturday, then Sunday off. No weekends, therefore. Today was like a typical Thursday in seminary days. Often I would take a long walk. Today I had a very nice walk in the Villa Borghese, a big park on the north side of Rome. Tonight I went back to the same restaurant as yesterday, since I liked it so much (penne all'arrabbiata, steak in pepper sauce).
You may be wondering whether I did a gondola ride. The answer is no, although I did take a water taxi (motorboat) from St. Mark's Square to get to the train station, thus sparing myself a lot of trudging through the city with luggage as on my arrival.
After a night train ride from Venice, with transfer in Verona, I arrived in Rome today at 6 am. I walked to my hotel (the same one where I had stayed during my first week here), and I was amazed to discover that my room was ready. At 8 am I took my laundry to the fellow around the block, and at 10 am I had it back.
I'm doing a lot of reading. I am a fan of Tom Wolfe, and last night I finished I Am Charlotte Simmons-- an uplifting story, if you can stomach the cruelty inflicted on the title character, and the language. I've started another Sinclair Lewis novel, Cass Timberlane.
Today I am going to see whether I can at least find our two seminarians, Michael Friedel and Dominic Rankin. Lunchtime at the North American College would be the most likely point of intersection.
The line for St. Mark's Basilica begins to form well before the 9:45 am opening time. This being my last full day in Venice, I knew I had to hustle, and I did. There is in New Berlin an establishment called "Capone's Hideout," with a very eclectic decor, including a poster of "The Horses of San Marco." These ancient bronzes were on the facade of St. Mark's -- reproductions stand there now -- and the original horses are now in the museum within the walls of the basilica. To say they are beautiful is a great understatement. Their beauty is in a way heightened by the awareness of how old they are -- perhaps as many as 1800 years old.
I feel a bit of sadness at departing from Venice, which I look upon as a place of great beauty and mystery. I will perhaps return, but only with maps of the greatest intricacy.
As I report on yet another evening with spaghetti alla carbonara, this time followed by a pork chop, French fries, and tomato salad, I have been wondering whether my travel-blog is similar to what people do on Twitter, which has never made sense to me, because if you are telling everyone what you are doing, how do you get anything done? It does seem to make sense to me that the readers of this blog are simply enjoying with me a moment of leisure in surroundings I enjoy very much. I know you wish for me a good rest before going back to the work which will always be there. And I thank you.
Tomorrow night, a night train from Venice to Rome (by way of Verona). I don't anticipate being able to post anything on Tuesday. Look for the next post Wednesday.
My shoes hit the pavement about 10:30 am, and I have been out walking around all day.
This afternoon I visited the original "ghetto," that is, the Jewish quarter of Venice. I took part in a tour which included the German, French, and Sephardic (or "Levantine") synagogues. Can I help it that the soundtrack in my mind is playing the Elvis song "In the Ghetto"?
This Sunday is sunny. I am finding more straight streets and direct routes. I walked along the lagoon again -- this time with a view of an obviously artificial square island which serves as the city's cemetery.
I did not have the greatest luck with dinner. Again I had spaghetti alle vongole, which I love, and then fried shrimp and squid. At this particular restaurant, they were serving something I found unappetizing -- I think it was the heads of the squid. Whatever it was, everything that looked similar I pushed to the edge of the plate. Their artichokes were strange, too -- my serving was two discs. I think of artichokes as being made up of many leaves. Whatever.
I have referred already to the difficult task of navigating the streets of Venice. I had another experience of this, this afternoon.
One thing to be said for the streets of Venice is that there are NO CARS. In fact it's quite a rare thing for any of us these days to have such an experience.
This evening, after penne with four cheeses, roast chicken and fries, and sorbetto al limone, I walked down to St. Mark's Square and discovered that I could walk freely, seeing where I was going, to a great length along the shore of the lagoon.
I am in my hotel's lobby, reading the local papers. There was an accident yesterday, a vaporetto (floating city bus) colliding with a barge, and seven people were hurt. I was not there.
Thursday evening was seafood night. I had spaghetti alle vongole -- the signature pasta around here, with clams in garlic and oil. I loved it. Then, fried shrimp and squid, which was likewise very tasty. I learned that sorbetto al limone is to be drunk, not spooned out.
Not much to report regarding Friday. This hotel room has the comfort I found lacking in Rome. I ended up sleeping a lot. Friday's dining: prosciutto and melon, spaghetti alla carbonara, salad, and an Averna amaro.
It's Saturday morning (I was up in time to partake of the hotel's breakfast, served on very nice china) and my task was to find a laundry. I found one close by, but it is closed Saturday and Sunday. In 1997 I forgot to pack any socks, and so I was washing my socks in my room every night. I may have to resort to similar arrangements until I get back to Rome and the friendly neighborhood laundry.
My hotel is very close to St. Mark's. I must confess that I have little ambition to sightsee beyond this area. I do want to get to the original ghetto, but today is not the day, since it's the Sabbath.
As it turned out, the packaging is shinier but the product is the same. Wednesday-Thursday was my night train ride to Venice. No internet; no electrical outlet. I had enough power, however, to finish reading Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here. Entertaining, but gruesome. In the "trains-running-on-time" department, we arrived in Venice just one minute late.
Get ready to laugh. It took me nearly three hours to get to my hotel. Take a look at a map and you can appreciate how baffling the job of navigating Venice is.
The Blue Guide says that the best time to observe Venice is early in the morning. I arrived at 5:30 am and at that hour I had the city to myself. After finding my hotel, I wandered for a while since I had to wait for my room to be ready. The view of the Grand Canal from the Rialto bridge is stunning. And then there's St. Mark's Square, which has to be one of the great public spaces in the world.
With every passing hour, the streets of Venice become ever more crowded. I have been taking it easy this afternoon, and when I'm good and hungry I will find a place to eat. Besides the numerous restaurants, Venice is sort of an endless shopping mall.
... but was not in a position to upload it until now.
Believe it or not, I have been spending a number of very pleasant hours in the Rome train station!
There has been a big change here from my younger days. Back then, you entered this vast building and saw nothing but the interminable windows (some of them with bureaucrats inside) where you stood in line interminably, waiting to be told of various complications.
By contrast: today there is scarcely a window of this sort to be found. Everything is done with self-service computers. Before I left for this trip, I paid my fare for Rome-Venice-Rome on the RailEurope website. All that remained for me to do at the station was to use one of the computers to retrieve my ticket for Venice! Nothing to it!
The space the bureaucrats used to take up is now filled with cafes, restaurants and shops where I have enjoyed myself. Even the passenger waiting area is less grim. Besides having a breakfast pastry and a couple of cappuccinos, I am now at the end of my meal at the "Roadhouse" where I had a ribeye and a baked potato, Italian draft beer, fruit salad with vanilla ice cream, and espresso.
The Italian passenger rails used to be known as FS of "Ferrovie dello Stato" (Ironroads of the State). This name has been abandoned in favor of the breezier "Trenitalia."
They tell me that there is wi-fi on the train. I hope this is true. I hope there are also electrical outlets, so I can use my iPad all through the nighttime trip. I chose night trips so I can save a couple of nights of hotel rooms.
I have, of course, been reading up on Venice in my Blue Guide. They say that Venice can be compared only to itself. I've been studying the maps so as to figure out how to get from the train station to my hotel. This should be tricky.
Quickly: I have arrived in Venice. I will write more once I have resolved a keyboard problem.
Today was quite a full day. I spent a good bit of time at St. John Lateran, which is the cathedral church of Rome (St. Peter's ISN'T). They have done some wonderful restoration to the facade, and the Latin inscriptions declaring this to be the "mother and head" of all Christian churches really jumps out at you now. I kept in mind Fr. Augustus Tolton, whose priesthood ordination was here, and two popes buried here: Innocent III, who approved the establishment of the Franciscans, and Leo XIII, who engaged the modern world with his teachings on the rights of workers.
I found a great place for lunch, between the Lateran and the Colosseum, and then inspected the Colosseum area. It is undergoing restoration and the restored stone is noticeably cleaner.
This evening I met Fr. Daren Zehnle for dinner. He is in the second year of a three-year canon-law program at my alma mater, the Gregorian University.
There was a little rain this evening. My main recollection of this day is that I seem to do nothing but sweat.
Today was a time for taking it easy. Yesterday I developed a blister on my left foot. Tomorrow promises a good bit of running around. I stayed within a couple of blocks of the hotel all day. I dined on pizza and salad.
The climate of this hotel room is curious. There is an air-conditioning unit above the door, and it does keep the room cool, but it seems that the air stays humid. Rome has had 100% relative humidity the last couple of days, although no rain. I decided that the thing needed was a fan, in accord with my dictum in the title of this post. I bought a small fan (some assembly was required), and the air in motion will make for better sleeping.
I downloaded a Sinclair Lewis novel, It Can't Happen Here,and have been enjoying it. There's always a connection! Sinclair Lewis died in Rome. This is a 1930s novel about prospects for fascism in the U.S.A.
Today's main object was to get to St. Peter's Square (actually, it's an oval) for the 12 noon Angelus appearance of Pope Francis at the traditional window of the Apostolic Palace -- a tradition which continues despite the fact that Francis doesn't actually live in the Apostolic Palace. It was cloudy in the morning, but the clouds soon gave way to the typical sunny weather of these parts. The high was supposed to be 80, and I believe we reached it. Francis's appearance lasted about 14 minutes. The crowds in the Square were pretty big, but orderly! Currently in the Square they have a couple of giant TVs, which are a help because, from the Square, the figure in the window is tiny. I should also note that the famous colonnade of St. Peter's Square has been restored to a shade of white which I thought was not natural. Most of the travertine stone of Rome has a brownish cast to it.
After the Angelus, I peeled away from the crowds and had ravioli "alla gorgonzola" (with blue cheese), chicken breast with mushrooms, zucchini, and peppers, and a big salad which I ordered specifically because it contained fennel. This vegetable resembles celery , but the short description of it is that it "tastes like licorice." For dessert: pineapple.
Once one acclimates to the concentrated urban environment of Rome, one cannot help but develop a survival/comfort strategy: figuring out routes for avoiding the crowds. Today I came up with a pretty good route for getting from my hotel to the Vatican: it involved the piazza (square) of the Quirinal Palace. It worked on my way to the Vatican, but coming back there was a restriction of movement because Army and Navy marching bands were doing what marching bands do.
I found a laundry very close to my hotel, and I will pick up clean clothes tomorrow around noon, alleluia, alleluia!
I am quite pleased with my use of Italian. I seem to make myself understood, and, just as important, I understand what people are saying to me! Not bad after 17 years of non-use!
I have come to a conclusion which began to be clear to me in Israel last year. The traveler's cheque is DEAD. (Come to think of it, Karl Malden is dead, too.) I exchanged some on my arrival. There are limited opportunities to change these, and the commissions are pretty hefty. It's far more convenient to go to a "Bancomat" and, with a debit card, cause euros galore to emerge!
Today in Rome, I spent some time in the Campidoglio or Capitoline Hill, then walked to Trastevere (the old neighborhood "across the Tiber") for lunch. I had a backpack with laundry (the place I wanted to take it to was not open) and a couple of books. With time, the backpack, which was not especially heavy, began to weigh on me. On my way back to my hotel, I visited an area of Rome especially familiar to me, as I had various paths for walking from the North American College to the Gregorian University. The "northern," "central," and "southern" routes all cross Piazza Navona, where I lingered briefly, and only briefly, since the crowds were so great. Once again, the weather was 70s and sunny.
You can't beat Italy for bread. I buy so-called "Italian" loaves at Schnucks, but they don't compare to the real thing here. There is something about the slightly burnt quality of the crust here. I had an LOL moment at lunch today. The bread I was given was the hollow panino which we always had at breakfast at the College and which we always called "moon rocks."
I woke up at 9:30 am, so I am making progress in getting synchronized. It will have to be early to bed for me tonight. I have yet to make it to breakfast here at the hotel, and I have plenty of time for it, as it runs from 7 to 10 am!
As I reported yesterday, I did resist the temptation to go immediately to sleep. That did not keep me from sleeping till noon today. (A tribute to how quiet this hotel is!) Upon getting my feet in gear, I walked up to the Via Vittorio Veneto for a big lunch outdoors; then I walked in some areas which I particularly enjoyed so many years ago: the Pincio park, the Spanish Steps, and Piazza del Popolo. The temperature is 77 degrees and it's sunny. There was supposed to be a big demonstration here at 3:00 pm in Piazza Venezia, but I avoided that area.
I arrived in Rome today and had to face down a big temptation. I had to resist the urge to go right to bed as soon as I entered my hotel room. The only way to adjust to the seven-hour shift is by staying on schedule with everybody else. I did successfully get myself out of the room and into the streets. From my hotel near the train station, I walked to my old university, the Gregorian. I was pleased to see that the lecture halls have been updated. It appears that they have everything for computer audio-visual stuff. Even so, an overhead projector was very prominent. The old coffee bar is now called "Greg Cafe." I wandered over to the Trevi fountain (in process of restoration) and stepped briefly into the Pantheon, which is my favorite thing in Rome. No matter how many times you've been there, you can't help but be awed by the vast space under the dome with the hole in the top. Rome is heavy with tourists; the weather happens to be ideal. This evening I dined outside.
Rome is as I remember it: people and traffic and celebration of itself. These characteristics may well have intensified since the last time I was here, seventeen years ago.
We get rattled. Elijah and Peter are our kinsmen in this sense that life is asking too much of us. Our God offers us the way to peace.
The mystery of the Eucharist, foreshadowed in the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, was cherished by Flannery O'Connor, who died fifty years ago today.
We consider the gift of wisdom and the modern prayer about the interplay of serenity, courage, and wisdom.
Beware misinterpreting the parable of the weeds and the wheat! If we see "good people" and "bad people," we do not allow for the fundamental experience of the Christian life: conversion.
Is life about "becoming somebody"? No; from the very beginning, we are already "somebody," because we are loved by God.
The homilist did not preach on June 22, the Body and Blood of Christ. I misspoke, saying "Peter" when I meant to say that Paul died by the sword.
Appreciating our diverse gifts as we are formed by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ.
Heaven isn't physically "up." We need to develop our ability to interpret Scripture so as to understand our kinship with and differences from the people from whose midst Scripture emerged.
The Way, the Truth, and the Life: We bring to our God our anxieties about going the right way.
We can read into the "walk to Emmaus" our anxieties and confusion about ultimate meaning, and our discoveries about fulfillment "in the breaking of the bread."
Be aware of the First Letter of St. Peter as it is proclaimed through the course of the Easter season.
A reflection on the possibility that Barabbas' first name was Jesus, and on Jesus' "everyman" role.
If God is who we think he is, he wouldn't be much of a God if we could not praise him eternally. Jesus, for the sake of mortals, saw fit to get close to death, and to succumb to death, for our sake.
We are dependent upon the sense of sight; sometimes, however, it gets in the way. We are called to a deeper appreciation of insight.
The homilist did not preach last week. This homily is on human thirst, and also on details of Christian initiation.
We reach an extremely important part of the Sermon on the Mount: Jesus' admonition against worry.
Jesus says a number of very provocative and memorable things in today's passage from the Sermon on the Mount. We find freedom in understanding that Jesus is calling us to cultivate a healthy respect for our brothers and sisters.
We are set free when we understand that the people in our life are not objects to be manipulated but persons of inestimable worth in the sight of God.
The Sermon on the Mount, over the Sundays leading up to Lent, will help us to attain a sense of freedom as Christians. Are you ready to pep up the flavor of this world?
Consider the drama of the Christ Child entering the place that was understood to be the unique dwelling place of God on earth.
I remember now that at Epiphany, January 5, which somehow did not get recorded, I simply read a column of Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ. I'll try to point you toward a transcript of that column.
"Has Christ been divided?" Rips in the fabric of Christianity go back to the time of St. Paul. We consider the absolute need for Christians to be woven back together.
My apologies for not being able to present Jan. 5 or Jan. 12. During the "polar vortex" blizzard of January 5, my recorder remained on for over an hour. The next Sunday, I wasn't thinking ahead when Bishop Paprocki was the presider and homilist at the Mass where I usually record the homily. Consider the sober majesty of "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."
Lest you suppose that your family doesn't fit some kind of societal norm, remember that the Holy Family itself was far from typical.
In spite of the four-century struggle to state dogmatically who Jesus is, St. Paul, at the beginning of Christianity, demonstrates his awareness of Jesus as truly God and truly human.
Give me patience -- right now! We must turn from our demands of immediate results and allow our God to lead us into a new consciousness of how the Kingdom of God operates.
Advent will most likely be a matter of our inner experience. We remember the significance of the passage from Romans in the dramatic life of St. Augustine.
Yes, Americans can appreciate the concept of kin(g)ship. We have a God who rules from the cross, where he intersects with all the griefs of the human condition. "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
The way to be in touch with eternity is to be absorbed in our present duty and to know why we are so devoted.
We are called to cultivate a sense of wonder that we are here in the first place. This wonder helps us enter into a deeper faith in the eternal life by which God is rightly praised.
Do we see life as a bunch of random happenings? Our loving God does not consider us as random occurrences. We may apply to ourselves the surprise which Zacchaeus felt when Jesus looked up into the tree and called him by name.
Are we to be concerned about who enters a place of worship and what they pray for? God can sort out the sincere from the specious. We accept the discipline of prayer as a process of laying bare our soul, and healing it.
With comedy, Jesus makes the point: If scoundrels can come around to doing what is right, why should we worry about God providing for us?
Wonder and awe lead to thanksgiving and an awareness that the source of our being knows no barriers or borders.
"Peace, love, Bombers!" Whatever our slogan, we need to write it large so speedy people can read it. The vision still has its time -- faith lived out is steadiness and consistency in meeting the tough challenges.
Are our personal energies directed toward establishing a "force field" to shield us from what we think will sadden us? Better to drop the force field and be energized through relationship.
Pope Francis consistently proclaims the power of God's mercy. We are recipients of this gift, which puts us in a position to exercise initiative in response to the healing which comes from God.
The great parable of Luke 15 is our context for considering the element of ignorance which is to be found in sin, and how mercy brings us out of ignorance.
In the midst of anxiety about the Syria situation, we consider what it means to live in this world with requisite presence of mind.
Jesus teaching table manners? Isn't our faith about something deeper? For sure! Consider what he has to say about whom we invite to the table.
The homilist was away the previous two weekends. The process of conversion is the "narrow gate" for every Christian. We consider conversion in the life of Pope Francis.
"All is vanity" or "In the long run, everybody dies." These are different ways of saying the same thing. We must turn away from any activity which amounts to tearing down our barns to build larger ones.
The challenge of prayer is that we must be absorbed in it, fulfilling the petition "Your will be done."
Let's get away from stereotyping Martha and Mary, and instead consider that we need the qualities of both for living a full, rich life.
The law by which we are to live is not up in the sky or across the sea. It is planted within us. Jesus gives an example of someone who acts spontaneously, in accord with the principle of love planted within him.
I am not sure why I do not have a recording of last week's homily. Whenever we consider our task of journeying to fulfill God's call to us, the most important travel is the journey inward.
Last week, the homilist was away. The lectionary is supposing that we all know the story of David and Bathsheba, given that we are walking into the play rather late. Of course, we all need to pick up our own Bibles!
Last week, I think I had a low battery. Today, a consideration of the Holy Eucharist through the concepts of priesthood and sacrifice.
The undoing of Babel is our invitation to emerge from confusion about ourselves into the clarity of God's love.
Last Sunday I celebrated Mass on a kibbutz in northern Israel. What is our understanding of peace? Can peace be something deeper than a stalemate between warring forces?
We celebrated First Holy Communion today. We use "Here is the church, here is the steeple," to remind us that God the Shepherd wants to gather all of us in.
Embarrassment is often accompanied by irrational, exaggerated response. Here is an example from St. Peter.
Finally, several weeks after his election, a reflection on the startling and soothing presence of Pope Francis.
"Peter was amazed." The resurrection of Jesus is, for him and for all of us, the occasion for a complete overturning of the meaning of life.
On March 17 the homilist was taking some time off. The Palm Sunday scriptures proclaim the compassion of the Suffering Servant of humanity.
What do we expect from inheritance? Have we dedicated and opened ourselves to the ultimate inheritance of mercy and belonging?
In the middle of Lent, the Scriptures today lend themselves to contemplating the normal human experience of being "in the middle" of the vast enterprise of life, and feeling ourselves to be quite limited and creaturely.
There was a baptism at this Mass, so the child baptized entered the People of God during the pontificate of Benedict XVI -- just barely. Transfiguration is an occasion to ask: what's ordinary and what's extraordinary?
This time of papal transition moves us to a consideration of the title "Vicar of Christ" and the humility of the Christ who withstood temptation so as to carry out the ultimate act of love for humanity.
When we presume to offer a word for the good of the public, we must be sure that we are acting with love for our listeners.
A sense of belonging is necessary if we are to understand ourselves as members of the Body of Christ. We keep in mind that our differences contribute to the health of the entire body.
We are called out of the narrowness of Herod to be radiant at what we see when we perceive the gifts of all nations being given to us.
There is tension in every family, especially in the Holy Family, as Mary and Joseph do not know what to make of the 12-year-old Jesus and his desire to be in "his Father's house."
Considering the remarkable meeting of Elizabeth and Mary, we approach Christmas not sentimentally but soberly, aware that the birth of the Son of God is the opening act of the drama which is Jesus' sacrifice of himself for our salvation.
The function of the prophet: To help us be in touch with things which are already in our hearts, that the resonance of these things might lead us to change.
Introducing a distinction between a prophet and a scold, so that we may see more clearly the liberating function of the prophet.
As we consider the work of God in bringing creation to completion, we must recognize that what we do in this life has everlasting significance.
Along with the authority we recognize in Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, we must also recognize the authority residing in our own hearts.
We must take some time for organizing ourselves so that we are doing what we can to achieve a safe environment for our children, remembering the personal character of the gift of the Son of God to us.
Which shall we choose: the smugness of the scribes or the widow's entrance into the struggle for meaning?
Let us put law in perspective: as something which, if it is meaningful, becomes a natural part of us.
I lost the Sep. 30 recording because the file actually continued recording for several hours. Oct. 7 and 14, I was away. It seems that this file, too, suffers from a technical difficulty, namely, that it got turned off before I had concluded. At least I am not having a Cuban missile crisis!
In our insecurity, we indulge in the game of comparing ourselves with others. If we accept the security of God's kingdom, we can cast aside the useless habit of tearing people down.
These powerful readings speak to us of the ways in which we misunderstand our relationship with God. Although good works are important, we must understand that they are the fruit of the faith which God has established in us.
"Be opened!" We must open ourselves to influences beyond ourselves; we must in particular be open to the fact that our human nature is as it is described today in the Letter of James.
Law is not going away. In fact, we need to develop a proper appreciation of law in its role of advancing human society. As Christians we evaluate law in terms of its function of bringing people to "think together" for the common good.
Have the troubles of life made our "taste," our "palate," more mature? We might be ready for the Bread of Life.
The gift of the Son of God to us is an utterly personal gift, given at an incalculable cost.
The homilist was away the last two Sundays. Our need to move out of a "care" model of living our faith and into a sense of discipleship.
Why do we suppose that nothing worthy can come from where we're from? Our reliance upon the strength of God allows us to see ourselves realistically: as suffering the "thorn in the flesh" and reliant upon our God for power to love.
A historic Supreme Court decision is handed down, and three days later our readings are about health, healing, and human dignity.
John the Baptist as the boundary between the prophetic age and the fulfillment of prophecy.
If you want everything explained to you, you will always be disappointed. There are fundamental things which we must come to understand simply by living our challenges.
The shedding of blood, and the sacrifice it represents, has its fullest meaning as the Incarnate Word embraces the cross.
We must take seriously the personhood of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and ask how our sense of connection to God is thereby enriched.
The fruits of the Holy Spirit amaze us because we are far too familiar with their opposites.
The significance of the Ascension of Jesus is better appreciated when we consider what it meant for him to "descend."
Let us make sure that we distinguish "love" from mere admiration. Love is of another order entirely.
What do you do when someone who had been your sworn enemy now wants to share in your life? The "good man" Barnabas provides an example.
On Good Shepherd Sunday, we ponder the multiplicity of religious beliefs and ask how God brings people into one fold with one shepherd.
Consider the personal character of the transmission of the good news of Jesus' resurrection, as we ponder also the personal step forward of an entire people in the Second Vatican Council.
First Holy Communion was celebrated at this Mass. We consider how we are to depend upon one another in accepting the good news of Jesus' resurrection.
An exalted slave has set his face like flint, knowing that he will not be put to shame.
The "grain of wheat" is not a botany lesson. It should be quite clear to us, however, that this image proposes to us an understanding of the surrender which is essential to the Christian life.
The homilist was on vacation the weekend of March 4. We confront the scandal of Jesus, who alone could speak authentically about his Father's house and can indeed be understood as "a law unto himself."
Healing takes place in many dimensions of our life. We can resist healing, but if we are sufficiently disgusted with ourselves, we might open ourselves up.
We may not be acquainted with leprosy, but there are a variety of other ailments of human existence. We can think about our own attitudes toward life and indeed toward ourselves. We find healing and wholeness in the Son of God, who opens to us our full humanity.
A meditation upon the weariness of this earthly existence. Jesus has plunged into our life as we know it, with all that is dismaying and disheartening, so that we can find peace.
A consideration of the meaning of prophecy and authority, and the diversity of states of life.
In our commerce-driven society, we might be forgiven for concluding – after seeing, when we are out shopping, the sign “Easter is April 8” – that the date of Easter is determined by Hallmark Cards.
In fact, Easter is the greatest Christian solemnity, and the Christian churches determine the date for Easter.
Very early in Christianity, there was no annual celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, since every Sunday had the character of a resurrection celebration. (To this day, we understand our regular Sunday observance as a continuation of the understanding of every Sunday as Easter.) In Rome, Pope St. Soter (166-175) established an annual resurrection celebration.
In establishing the annual celebration, Christians considered it important to link Easter with the Jewish celebration of Passover. The Gospels place Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection in the time of Passover. Our theology of the “Paschal Mystery” encourages us to see Jesus as the fullness of the liberating “lamb of sacrifice.” The Hebrew calendar contains lunar months, and the effect of this linking was to make Easter an irregular occasion within the solar calendar.
Some early Christians were so strict about this link between Passover and Easter that they did not necessarily observe Easter on a Sunday. There was an obvious tension between Passover and the new Christian meaning of Sunday.
At the first ecumenical council, Nicaea I in 325, it was determined that Easter would be celebrated on a Sunday. Without getting too technical, we can describe the determination of the date of Easter as the Sunday following the full moon following the March equinox (when day and night are equal). Rome’s adoption in 1582 of the Gregorian Calendar (named for the contemporary Pope Gregory XIII) was motivated by an awareness that the equinox was not stable against the calendar of Julius Caesar, but was apparently occurring ever earlier.
The Gregorian Calendar, of course, is the civil calendar used in our day and adopted throughout the world. Western Christianity (including our Church and Protestant ecclesial com-munities) keeps to a calculation of Easter in accord with Nicaea and the Gregorian Calendar. Easter thereby occurs within the period March 22 to April 25 inclusive. Many Orthodox Churches, however, apply Nicaea and the Julian Calendar. This means that not all Christians necessarily celebrate Easter on the same day. This year, for instance, Eastern Orthodox Easter is April 15.
We Christians might display to the world at large a better sense of our unity by reaching a consensus on a common day for celebrating Easter. The World Council of Churches has made a proposal in this regard. The proposed calculation is very close to the current calculation of Western Easter in most years.
As we ponder these complicated matters, we as speakers of English might want to reconsider our use of the name Easter, which derives from the name of a Germanic pagan goddess. Many modern languages use as their word for Easter a term derived from Pesach, the Hebrew name for Passover. The Latin term is Pascha. Adherence to a link with the “perpetual institution” of the Passover celebration helps us appreciate the imagery of our risen Savior as the Lamb of God whose blood has been shed for our salvation.
A parish adult-education event on the importance of understanding ourselves as feeling people and allowing the power of anger, fear and love to make us the persons we want to be.
A parish adult-education event on Christianity and its relation to the other four most prominent religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam.
We will not prevent God from using us for his purposes, even if that means we end up becoming, like Jonah, an example of how not to be a prophet or disciple.
God's call of all the faithful to holiness is not otherworldly. We need to be aware of the call being worked out in the social situation in which we find ourselves.
Can a childhood friendship change the world? On Epiphany, when we consider the frontiers of our contacts with the human family, we examine the friendship of Karol Wojtyla and Jerzy Kluger.
My apologies, first of all, for not recording a Christmas homily. -- As we contemplate Mary's role in the coming of the Savior, and as we consider the Savior's act of sacrificial love, we come to understand how personal the gift of salvation is, and we know that we must respond to this gift in our personal commitments.
Warning: About four and a half minutes into this homily, I have a coughing fit. Joy is not found in arranging the circumstances of our life according to our taste. Joy is found when we acknowledge the source of life, God, and as we celebrate the Creator-creature relationship.
The egos of some -- kings, for instance -- can expand to the point that they think they can do favors for God. We consider today the ways in which God, who is in need of nothing from us, reaches out to us in our helplessness and provides for the birth of the Son of God into our world.
We may muse about "the end of the world," but our God is calling us to consider how he is pleased to re-create us and preserve in us the love which alone endures.
"Advent" denotes an arrival -- but how often do we protest that God is absent from human existence? We can consider the ways in which we have been inattentive to God's presence.
What do we seek when we are powerless? We hope that someone will exercise personal kindness toward us. This is the very tenor of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, who is united with all who are cast down.
God is demanding. He did not create us idly. He created us for a purpose. Are we willing to find out this purpose?
We must keep sufficient oil with our lamps so that we can keep peering into what seems to us to be obscurity, and thus to welcome the clarity which emerges.
In light of the scriptural expression of tension regarding religious leadership, a reflection on the sexual-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.
I was on vacation for two weekends.
What is our principle for conducting our lives? We may be stuck in a childhood mode, assuming that "good behavior" or "conformity" is equivalent to living the great commandments, which call for an entrance into relationship when the childhood carry-over essentially has us saying, "I'm good; now leave me alone!"
The focus is on the word "anxiety" as we find it in Philippians, so we can find our way through the vineyard of life's challenges and appreciate the Savior who willilngly entered it on our behalf.
The Scriptures today call us to take seriously the need of all of us to undergo ongoing conversion to the God who emptied himself for the sake of our salvation.
There's a lot going on: Catechetical Sunday, Appeal Sunday for our diocesan services assessment, and so on. Only at the end of a litany of "business" did I comment on "the parable that drives everyone crazy." The challenge of this tale of the workers in the vineyard can be met only if we drop our tendency to analyze every element of the story (allegorizing) and focus on the gift of the day's wage as expressive of the Kingdom of God, offered in its wholeness to people who can't earn it.
In case we are tempted to harbor resentment on this tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Sirach warns against holding on to an embittered spirit, and Jesus asks us to consider to what extent we act as the unforgiving debtor does.
We take a look at a geometric figure in order to consider the ways in which we communicate -- or fail to communicate -- about difficult matters.
What does it mean to be a fulfilled person? Is it enough to have the esteem of others? Do fame, wealth, or accomplishment fulfill us? Jesus bids Peter to look at the Cross and to see that the suffering and death of the chosen one of God is the way to fulfillment.
No homily for the 20th Sunday; it was our Mission Co-op weekend.
The Church is not a completed institution but rather a work in progress. We still must strive for the unity Jesus intends for his people, especially since we are in the midst of the challenges of disunity and misunderstanding.
Something on a computer telling you to turn off the computer? That's exactly what this is. We must move out of a world of distraction and "noise" (and information can be "noise" even if it's silent) and into a sea which the Lord has calmed.
"Nothing can separate us from the love of God." We have this pledge in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The Son of God becomes our very food and drink.
The homilist was away on July 17. Solomon's prayer for wisdom in governing could not have come at a more apt time, given the pathetic posturing going on in Washington. We pray that lawmakers will recognize the common good of our country and the world as the treasure buried in the field, the pearl of great price.
God provides that human freedom is always in play, so that we may accept or reject his invitation to enter into his life. It is easy for us to resist the invitations coming from our God. Let's consider how we can grow and flourish through an acceptance of the invitations.
What does it mean to be "in the flesh"? How can I not be "in the flesh"? We find some answers as we consider how our God wishes to establish peace within us.
The idea of eating and drinking someone's flesh and blood is utterly offensive. But the anxieties of those who feel they must sacrifice something to God are likewise quite raw. In the Eucharist we encounter a God who pays attention to our bewilderment.
"God so loved the world ..." We understand that God, within himself, is relationship, is dynamism. It is in keeping with who God is that he immerses himself in human existence.
Catholics, obviously, are quite focused on the mystery of "the Church." On the "birthday of the Church," the homilist rambles on for 15 minutes! Presumably we are captivated by our own experience of this mystery!
After the Springfield Young Adult Mass on the evening of June 5, a congregant confirmed for me (on the basis of her Holy Land pilgrimage earlier this year) that there are tour guides who point out a "pushing-off" place on the Mount of Olives.
We consider today's words from the First Letter of Peter about how to witness to our faith -- not by proselytizing, but by being in touch with our own experience and the ways in which God has changed us.
A bit of housekeeping, having to do with the just-published diocesan pastoral plan. "No one comes to the Father except through me" -- what does this imply for non-Christians?
The homilist was away from the parish on May 8; therefore, no homily. The sentiments expressed herein were influenced by the strange weather being experienced at that time: cool and rainy and seemingly unending.
Thomas speaks for all of us who rely upon the testimony of a few witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus. Keeping in mind the validity of our own religious experience (as alluded to at Easter), we understand that we are part of the immense majority of believers who rely on the privileged witness of a few close associates of Jesus.
The resurrection accounts in the Gospels differ from the passion narratives; the former emphasize the personal experience of individuals. We can come to understand that our own personal experience of the mysteries of life opens us to encounter with the Resurrected One.
"His blood be upon us and upon our children." Can this line from the Passion of St. Matthew be understood as a blessing rather than as a curse?
God has revealed to us that he intends his people to live forever and glorify him. Jesus, proclaiming this truth in the raising of Lazarus, moves deliberately toward the death which secures human salvation.
The themes of "the man born blind" are rather obvious. I took this opportunity to advance our sight into the future, and especially to consider the needs of our worshiping communities to have a presider at Eucharist.
Imagine lugging all the water you need for your household purposes. Then consider the woman's longing for a spring to which she did not have to travel. With all who are preparing for baptism, we meditate on water and we recognize that Jesus establishes a fountain of life within us.
Life as a journey with a variety of experiences, and our need to make sense of these varied elements in light of our truest identity.
The temptations Jesus experienced were real and appealing. He wasn't play-acting; he entered fully into the human experience and the tensions we know all too well.
I'm afraid I did not make a recording of the Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time homily. I waited until the Young Adult Mass (Sunday at 8 pm) and then discovered the dead battery.
It has always been my conviction that it is unnecessary and morally questionable to apply capital punishment. Catholic social teaching, while holding that in principle a body of civil society has the right to exact the ultimate sanction, affirms that the circumscribed situations in which the death penalty would be called for do not exist in society today. We in Illinois can be proud of joining a number of U.S. states and many, many countries in affirming that alternatives to capital punishment are called for by a developing morality which looks beyond vengeance in applying sanctions.
Alfred E. Neuman as an example of Christian living? Yes, at least insofar as freedom from worry is concerned. "Seeking first the Kingdom of God" does, however, require some explicit concentration.
Our Christian faith does not call us to be doormats. Every one of the challenges Jesus describes is an opportunity to stress the reciprocity implied in every social situation.
The church was cold, so we moved to the parish hall -- hence my nostalgia for my childhood worship environments. Today's Gospel gives a good opportunity to consider our feeling life, and how to be at peace in the presence of God as feeling people.
Salt and light are familiar substances. As we consider how Jesus is applying these images to ourselves, we may ponder their servant quality.
All parish activities for Tuesday, February 1, and Wednesday, February 2, are cancelled. This includes the adult-education event scheduled for Tuesday; also Wednesday's Mass, PSR, and liturgical-minister trainings.
I have received word that the Franklin Area Service Association meeting scheduled for this evening has been cancelled.
What are the qualities of the individuals who make up Christian communion? They are people who are hungry, and who have learned what is worth being hungry for.
Today's readings suggest an emphasis on the concept of communion: the goal of all members of the Body of Christ; something achieved with difficulty; something far from complete.
My message changed a little bit because at this Mass I was particularly moved by the setting of Psalm 40, "Here I Am, Lord," by Rory Cooney.
I have decided to cancel the Mass and pastoral council meeting scheduled for this evening. I am rescheduling the pastoral council meeting for Thursday, February 17, 2011, 7:00 pm, at the New Berlin office building.
Given the worsening weather conditions, I have decided not to hold any of the scheduled liturgical ministers' training sessions this evening.
I have decided to cancel the 6:30 pm lector training at Waverly. I will still do server training at 4:00 pm and SCAP training at 8:00 pm (both at New Berlin) for any who may come.
Baptism is an immersion into all human concerns. The baptism of Jesus is the promise to us (if his birth does not already signify this!) that, for the sake of our salvation, he does not shy away from any of the griefs of humankind.
This was the Young Adult Mass in Springfield. In this homily I mention my niece Erin, who is currently doing volunteer work in Guatemala.
"That thing in our brain" -- Why is it that we make such a sharp distinction between "my people" and "not my people"? Recorded at New Berlin.
Christmas on Saturday followed by Sunday Masses proved too crazy even to do any recording. Today I present three homilies from one day. This first one may suffer from some audio competition. Recorded at Franklin.
December 24, 2010
To the Editor, The Franklin Times:
I, as a Christian, found the December 16 “guest editorial” to be profoundly offensive, both in its religious bigotry and in its incoherence. Christianity, as I understand it, has a breadth and depth transcending the pitiful xenophobia expressed in this “editorial.”
Before going public with such unthinking expressions, the writer might have reflected upon the kinship among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – all of them rooted in the Abrahamic faith in one God.
Christianity, indeed, stands distinct from Judaism and Islam in affirming the Incarnation of the Son of God. We Christians find ourselves to be, not smug in feeling that we “know better” than others, but humbled by the astonishing gift to humanity of the Word Made Flesh. We know that this gift came to us because of our sinfulness, including our tendency, arising from insecurity, to seek to assert superiority over other people. The birth of Christ speaks to the common poverty of human beings and our need to embrace a humble God by becoming humble ourselves.
The Rev. Kevin M. Laughery
Pastor, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Franklin
Ecumenical Officer, Catholic Diocese of Springfield
Board Member, Greater Springfield Interfaith Association
The Franklin Times has no web presence. If you're wondering exactly what I was responding to, I can only say that it was someone shooting from the hip, decrying "political correctness" while calling for "keeping Christ in Christmas" and suggesting that religious sensitivity is akin to engaging in a vulgar action.
We have three very important but quite difficult Scriptures here. The homily includes comments on the major difficulties to be found when reflecting on each of the readings.
It is not only the farmer awaiting the yield of the soil who learns patience. Everyone staring at a computer screen also comes to appreciate the virtue of patience. Patience liberates us to look at our life and its blessings in its fullness.
Amazing images of peace assure us that peace can conquer even our own hearts. The call to repentance is an invitation to an astonishing peace.
What is our concept of time? Do we simply find a succession of events without relation or meaning? The coming of the Kingdom of God breaks through the tedium and leads us to a moment of conversion, when things unthought of become possible.
How does Christ the King govern? Consider how humbly he tends to his realm: from the throne of the cross.
On the fourteenth anniversary of the death of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, we consider how his example accords with the scriptural call to be confident in the face of the "ultimates" of life.
Resurrection is real. If there were no resurrection, God would not be God. As Jesus assures us, God is not a God of the dead but of the living.
There was no homily for October 24 as I was in Guatemala.
A man climbing a tree: an absurd image? Maybe. But maybe also it could be a helpful image as we consider the fundamental experience of the Christian life -- conversion -- and our need to open ourselves to new points of view (even up a tree!).
Im sorry not to have posted anything till now. Online resources have been somewhat limited. To follow up on what I wrote for the bulletin last Tuesday -- Wed. thru Fri. we were on a road trip to western Guatemala where Fr. Joe served in his earlier years. He met many people he knows. The trip was kind of tough because of mudslides and speed bumps (this would be equivalent to having speed bumps on I-55). We took it easy over the weekend and attended two of Fr. Joes four weekend Masses. It was gratifying to see big crowds of people of all ages. Today we toured the original Spanish settlement, Guatemala Antigua, where St Brother Pedro lived in the 17th century -- he was the first Guatemalan canonized, in 2002. Looking ahead to a fierce night of Scrabble games.
Never mind mowing down Amalek with the edge of the sword. The preceding image, of Moses' arms being supported by members of the community, is a beautiful reminder of the ways in which our prayers are enhanced when we are praying together.
Having proposed that I might plan to do some sort of adult-education event on some topic in theology, I have received word from several parishioners that they would be interested in this. I am thinking that I might plan such an event for January.
Possible topics: Since salvation is, you may say, the "bottom-line" concern of Christians, I have been thinking about presenting something about "what Scripture says about salvation." I could also consider a survey of world religions and their relationship to Christianity. Another possibility is Christian unity and how various groups of Christians are related to one another. My official specialization is canon law, which, while not strictly theology, is built upon theology; I could certainly present something on canon law as it governs marriage. If any of these topics is of particular interest to you, please let me know what you'd like me to speak on.
Time and place: Should this be four weekly sessions? Just one session? Weeknights or weekends?
It seems to be a very slow process. How do we expand our concept of God? How do we move beyond the "local gods" that Naaman imagined? How do we get beyond our constant denial that God is the God of all peoples? Good questions.
We are four parishes and we have four parish feast days. Let's review them:
January 20 is the memorial of Saint Sebastian, martyr. He may have died in 286, which makes his the youngest of our parish's titles, since the others are related to Jesus and Mary. The image of Sebastian shot through with arrows has been very popular through centuries of European art. Interestingly enough, the arrows didn't finish him off! We have a 6:30 pm Mass scheduled at St. Sebastian on Thursday, January 20, 2011, followed by a meeting of the pastoral council of the four parishes.
May 31 is the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary's Visitation of Elizabeth -- the marvelous event, recorded in the first chapter of Luke's Gospel, in which two pregnant women share with each other their experience of the mercy and marvels of God, which few other people could appreciate. In 2011, May 31 falls on a Tuesday.
The other feast days depend on the date of Easter, and in 2011, Easter falls on the second-latest day possible: April 24. (Later on, I will present a discussion of the determination of the date of Easter.) The solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Friday after the second Sunday after Pentecost, falls in 2011 on July 1. Given that 2011 is the 125th anniversary year for Sacred Heart Parish, we need to begin planning for this celebration, which, coincidentally, is very close to the Franklin Fourth of July celebration! Immediately following Sacred Heart, the Immaculate Heart of Mary memorial (the more common rendering of the name "Sacred Heart of Mary") is Saturday, July 2, 2011.
We often find our existence to be dreary. We are encouraged by the prophet's words: "The vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint. If it delays, wait for it. It will surely come. It will not be late."
Each of us wants to be assured that we are properly integrated into the society we believe we are a part of. Such integration, of course, requires that many people know us by name and are willing to have some acquaintance with us. We prefer not to be addressed as "hey you." To be known and called by name means that we have attained a certain level of respect and acceptance within our social circle.
On the other hand, one must also admit that, under some circumstances, being known by name is not much of a compliment. We chafe under people who call us by name only to order us around. We know very well that our purpose in life is greater than simply being someone's lackey. We wish that the imperious people in our lives would develop a sense of perspective and see us as human beings just as worthy as they.
At the beginning of Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus, it is unclear whether these two are acquainted with each other. Lazarus languishes at the rich man's door; it is conceivable that, even in spite of such proximity, they are strangers to each other. After each has died, however, the rich man betrays himself. From his torment in the abode of the dead, he looks across the chasm to Lazarus in heavenly bliss, and he calls out to have Lazarus (he knows his name!) sent to run an errand for him.
Out of all the non-historical characters in all the parables of Jesus, only the wretched Lazarus is assigned a proper name. We must consider our own habits of learning or failing to learn the names of people, examine our motives for remembering or forgetting, and find comfort in being known by the God who reveals to us our true dignity.
On this weekend, when the Gospel refers to believers as servants doing their duty, I'd like to explain the major duty which takes up most of my working hours.
When I entered the seminary in 1975, I knew that, following two years of studies at our own diocesan seminary in Springfield (it closed in 1986), I would have six more years of seminary in St. Louis. Shortly after entering the seminary, however, I saw a list of all our seminarians and discovered that two of them were studying in Rome. I said to myself: "I think I'd like to do that, too." At the end of college seminary, Bishop McNicholas told me: "Well, Kev (bishops can get away with calling me Kev), I'll send you to Rome, but you'll have to get a canon law degree." So I ended up living in Rome from 1979 to 1985, and I did get my licentiate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1984.
As of the end of 1983, when a new code of canon law went into effect, it became necessary for diocesan tribunals to have judges with canon law degrees; no longer would there be a loophole by which judges at least had to be "truly expert" in the law. I remain one of the very few priests of our diocese with a canon law degree. Throughout my 27 years of priesthood, I have been involved in the work of our diocesan tribunal, as well as the interdiocesan Court of Appeals of the Province of Chicago. Bishop Lucas put me in charge of the tribunal on an interim basis in 2005, and in 2006 I became judicial vicar.
Theoretically, a diocesan court or "tribunal" could litigate any matter which parties might care to bring before us. In practice, however, our work is almost completely devoted to the petitions of persons who seek to be declared free to enter a new marriage in the Catholic Church following a divorce. In weeks to come, I will write more about this work.
Jesus speaks about a wily business manager who uses initiative to prepare for a decent future, now that his boss is firing him. Apparently what this man is doing -- for which his boss compliments him for resourcefulness -- is lowering the interest rates which he had originally proposed to his boss's debtors, so that these people might look upon him favorably when he is searching for a new situation.
Do believers show as much initiative as this man? Our relationship with God is about eternity, something encompassing even more than the future! We relate to God in what is for us the hard-to-imagine realm of timelessness. We can hide nothing from God. Do we show God at least as much devotion as the manager did toward the debtors?
A relationship with God is something truly personal. Christianity teaches us that God the Son established an unbreakable bond with human beings by himself becoming human. If we who understand ourselves to be Christians do not take initiative in exploring the relationship which our God is opening up to us, we impoverish ourselves.
Christianity is a communal experience. We must participate in shared worship with Christian brothers and sisters, and open ourselves to opportunities for service. When we commit ourselves to what we know we must do, we will find a variety of doors opening up to us. We come to discover who we really are.
It is curious that the word "prodigal" is used in the English language almost exclusively in reference to this parable of Jesus, popularly known as "The Prodigal Son." Many of us have learned the parable without learning the meaning of the word "prodigal."
Many of us identify with the "prodigal son" (the word "prodigal" means "wasteful" or "spendthrift"), and yet he is the least interesting figure in the parable. We can imagine wanting to do what he did, and we are amazed that he got away with, essentially, pretending that his father was dead and getting his inheritance in advance. He is a fool who, when he is starving, has only the cunning which comes from an urge to survive. He figures that he would be better off a servant of his father than dead, so he heads home.
More interesting than this younger son are the father and the elder son. We wonder: Why does the father enable the younger son to pretend that he is dead? Why did he allow him to rip him off? And now, why does he welcome him home? Furthermore, we are anxious about what the elder son has to say, because has a very good point!
Jesus gave us parables to make us uncomfortable. This is probably the second most aggravating parable, after the one about pay scales for workers in a vineyard (Matthew 20: 1-16). As in the parable of the vineyard, you and I have a reaction reflecting a deeply felt sense about justice and retribution. Why the lavish welcome? We don't get it. But such is the nature of God's mercy, which provides healing, affirming surprises for fools like you and me.
From the Vatican, Wednesday, September 8, 2010:
"The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue received with great concern the news of the proposed 'Koran Burning Day' on the occasion of the Anniversary of the September 11 tragic terrorist attacks in 2001 which resulted in the loss of many innocent lives and considerable material damage.
"These deplorable acts of violence, in fact, cannot be counteracted by an outrageous and grave gesture against a book considered sacred by a religious community. Each religion, with its respective sacred books, places of worship and symbols, has the right to respect and protection. We are speaking about the respect to be accorded the dignity of the person who is an adherent of that religion and his/her free choice in religious matters.
"The reflection which necessarily should be fostered on the occasion of the remembrance of September 11 would be, first of all, to offer our deep sentiments of solidarity with those who were struck by these horrendous terrorist attacks. To this feeling of solidarity we join our prayers for them and their loved ones who lost their lives.
"Each religious leader and believer is also called to renew the firm condemnation of all forms of violence, in particular those committed in the name of religion. Pope John Paul II affirmed: 'Recourse to violence in the name of religious belief is a perversion of the very teachings of the major religions' (Address to the new Ambassador of Pakistan, 16 December 1999). His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, similarly expressed, '…violence as a response to offenses can never be justified, for this type of response is incompatible with the sacred principles of religion...' (Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI, to the new Ambassador of Morocco, 6 February 2006)."
As president of the Greater Springfield Interfaith Association, as ecumenical and interreligious officer of our diocese, and as your pastor, I have sent a letter of greeting to the Islamic Society of Greater Springfield on the occasion of the end of the Ramadan fast this weekend. I am happy to speak with individuals or groups regarding our responsibilities as Catholic Christians in seeking Christian unity and in appreciating what we have in common with people of other religions.
Hate your family? No -- Jesus is talking about subordinating cherished aspects of our life to the goal of the Kingdom of God. We do have to deliberate carefully about this, as in the examples of the builder and the king.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/us/politics/05conrad.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
The N.Y. Times obituary feed brings news of the death of Paul Conrad, editorial cartoonist. During my high-school years, I myself did editorial cartooning for a weekly paper where I grew up. Paul Conrad was always my favorite. It could be said that he lacked subtlety. There were some issues, however, in which he displayed nuance. He was anti-abortion, but he also tired of pro-life sanctimony. He once portrayed a grim soul with a sign "Protect the Unborn" near another person with a sign "Protect the born, too!" My brief career was during Watergate -- no better time to be an editorial cartoonist -- and Conrad too reveled in those times and events.
Every year, the bishops of the United States make a Labor Day statement, reminding us of the rights of workers in the economic system. Read this year's statement at usccb.org, search term "Labor Day."
Again I encourage Sangamon County residents to complete the surveys regarding a rural transportation service. Surveys may be picked up and deposited at the entrance of St. Mary's Church (above the missal storage area).
The "Mass of Welcome" for Bishop Paprocki in the Jacksonville Deanery (in which Sacred Heart, Visitation BVM, and St. Sebastian are found) takes place this Wednesday, September 8, at 7:00 pm at St. John's in Carrollton. The parallel event for the Springfield Deanery (St. Mary's is in this deanery) takes place Tuesday, September 28, at 7:00 pm at St. Joseph's in Chatham. The liturgy planners for this event are asking that a St. Mary's parishioner act as a giftbearer for this Mass. Please let me know if you are interested in serving in this role.
Two UIS professors will speak on "Lincoln and Race" at the Brookens Auditorium of UIS on Thursday, October 7, 7:00 to 9:00 pm. I am active with an anti-racism team of the Illinois Conference of Churches, and I consider it vital to be aware of racial issues, because such awareness is an extremely important form of self-knowledge.
"It's good to be humble." There's no subtlety in these readings; they hit you over the head as if with a 2x4. So what is the complete meaning of humility? It has to do with our connection with people we would prefer to overlook.
It's not enough to be acquainted with our God; we must enter into the challenge of relationshipwith the author of our being. The challenge will feel like discipline, so we must be careful to recognize that discipline is for the sake of growth, not shame.
The Diocesan Adult Enrichment Conference will be held in Decatur on November 7 and 8. For the upcoming edition of this biennial conference, I especially recommend the presentations by Father Paul Turner on the new English translation of the Roman Missal.
http://www.dio.org/catechesis/diocesan-adult-enrichment-conference.html
It amazes us to think that the strange imagery of Revelation and other apocalyptic literature was part of the purpose of encouraging people! But in fact, this writing is for the sake of comforting people under persecution. They are invited to recognize the cosmic significance of their own sufferings. The woman was given a place of refuge in the desert; this is a fitting image of Mary's assumption into heaven. Recorded at Sacred Heart, Franklin.
The Assumption of the Mother of God calls to mind the presence of the Son of God in this world. Awareness of the presence of God focused, among the people of Israel, upon the Ark of the Covenant. The title "Mother of God" is literally translated "God-bearer." Recorded at St. Sebastian, Waverly.
I already noted Alveda King's visit to Springfield. There is another event to tell you about. Alveda King will be the featured speaker at Springfield Right to Life's annual benefit dinner, to be held this year on Friday, September 24, 6:30 pm, at Northfield Center, 3280 Northfield Drive, Springfield. Reservations: adults $50, students $25. Anyone who is interested in attending may contact me by Thursday, September 2.
The feeling dimension of our lives is of the greatest importance. I invite you to take a look at some materials I've prepared: http://www.kevinlaughery.com/feelings.html
Effective Sunday, August 22, the Sunday Mass schedule will be: 8:00 am at Sacred Heart; 9:45 am at St. Mary. Again, my thanks to all parishioners who offered ideas.
A consideration of the concrete experience of faith. This was recorded at the end of my current weekend schedule, at New Berlin St. Mary.
Thanks again to all Sacred Heart parishioners who worked at Vacation Bible School. Franklin can be very proud of its ecumenical spirit. Next year is Sacred Heart's turn to provide a director for VBS.
Here is more complete information on the Franklin Christmas musical. An initial meeting will be held this Wednesday, August 11, 7:30 pm, at Franklin Christian Church. The contact for further info. is Nita Reese, 675-2221.
Our diocesan Social Concerns Office has helped to organize a couple of pro-life events involving Dr. Alveda King, a niece of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. More info.: http://mm.dio.org/aug_10/item08h.pdf
Recently I was captivated by an image connected with an ecumenical event in Germany. You can see it too. Go to my home page, kevinlaughery.com, and click on "Walking on Water."
I can now announce my decision regarding the Saturday Masses.
Effective Saturday, August 14, Mass will be at Visitation at 4:20 pm, and at St. Sebastian at 6:05 pm.
I want to take one more week to consider two possibilities for the Sunday schedule. We could have 8:00 am at Sacred Heart and 9:45 am at St. Mary; or, we could flip the schedule, with the earlier Mass being at St. Mary.
With thanks to all who have offered their ideas.
I recorded this homily at the beginning of my weekend schedule, at Visitation BVM Church in Alexander, an unincorporated community on Old U.S. 36 between Springfield and Jacksonville. We hear from Ecclesiastes the word "vanity," which perhaps for you and me is better rendered "foolishness."
Last Saturday at Visitation, parishioners experienced a "Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest." It happens that we have ritual books for leading this sort of service; I am leaving them in the sacristies this weekend. In weeks to come I will plan for one or more training sessions for parishioners willing to be designated to lead a "SCAP." If it is at all possible, we want to avoid having to resort to SCAP; but, as Saturday proved, we need to be prepared for emergency situations.
The Region 12 (ourselves, Chatham, Auburn, Virden, Girard) planning group met on Wednesday; we will meet again on Wednesday, September 15, 6:30 pm, at our parish office building in New Berlin. Before too long, you will begin to see in the bulletin a number of regular communications regarding shared activities and ministries, including coordinated schedules for Christmas and other holy days of obligation.
Vacation Bible School in Franklin will take place Sunday, August 1, through Thursday, August 5, 6:00 - 8:00 pm, at Franklin Christian Church. Franklin is only the second town I've pastored (the first was Girard) where several churches collaborated on VBS. This is a very powerful sign of willingness to seek unity among Christians. In 2011 it will be Sacred Heart's responsibility to designate a VBS coordinator. Thanks to all Sacred Heart parishioners who are working to make the 2010 VBS possible.
The weekly confession schedule has now been implemented. The bulletin will always state explicitly whether or not I will be available on the coming Saturday. Whenever there is a visiting priest, there are no scheduled confessions times. The schedule is: 8:00 - 8:30 am at Visitation; 8:45 - 9:45 am at Sacred Heart; 9:30 - 10:00 am at St. Sebastian; 10:20 - 11:00 am at St. Mary.
An initial meeting in preparation for the Franklin Christmas Musical will be held Wednesday, August 11, 7:30 pm, at Franklin Christian Church.
After a couple of head-scratching sessions with my recording device, I have succeeded in getting the thing to work again. I'll post my August 1 homily and we'll be back in business!
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2267.htm
Paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses the right of society to make use of the death penalty; it mentions qualifications which render almost nonexistent the situations in which capital punishment is necessary. We must stress this teaching as our state legislators consider the possibility of abolition of the death penalty.
Last evening I attended the Songfest of the Franklin Area Service Association at the United Methodist Church. Sacred Heart parishioners can be proud of the fact that our parish participates in this organization. I'm interested in learning more about the activity of this organization.
I have learned that members of the Christian Church are attempting to organize Vacation Bible School for the week of August 2. If you have worked on VBS in the past, you will probably be hearing from someone. We must remember that it will most likely be our responsibility to provide a director for the 2011 VBS.
Feedback: I would advise emailing me at kl@kevinlaughery.com, instead of leaving a comment on this blog. I am being deluged with dozens of apparently automated comments per day.
This morning I found that my recording device was completely unresponsive, not giving any sign of life, even after a battery change. I'll work on finding alternate means for recording my Sunday homilies.
I am receiving comments regarding changes in the weekend Mass schedule. So far I have not received much feedback on the prospect of moving Saturday Mass at Visitation from 4:30 pm to 4:00 pm. There seems to be a good deal of contention, however, over the Sunday schedule. Thus far I have received numerous communications attesting to the difficulty of getting young families ready for 8:00 am Mass, and the aggravated difficulty if Mass should be scheduled earlier. I have not heard many compelling arguments against changing 9:30 at St. Mary. I will be publishing my decisions on Wednesday, August 4. Until then, please give me your ideas.
http://www.usccb.org/romanmissal/ is an online resource which all of us can use to familiarize ourselves with the new English translation of the Order of Mass, which will go into effect the weekend of the First Sunday of Advent, November 26-27, 2011. In May I attended one of the workshops on the new Roman Missal offered by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. In weeks to come I will take a little time before the homily to focus on some of the changes in language and the reason for these changes.
Hello parishioners of the four parishes,
I am going to use this blog (http://exsult1.libsyn.com) as the fastest and most convenient way to put my thoughts in writing. I welcome parishioners' email addresses; please send your addresses to me at kl@kevinlaughery.com.
On this blog I post not only text, but also recordings of Sunday homilies. If you want to set up an RSS feed so that you know when I've updated the blog, the address is http://exsult1.libsyn.com/rss
I have become aware of an immediate need in Franklin regarding Christian initiation for a young lady seeking to be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church. I would like to develop a team whose purpose will be to work with such persons and prepare them to become Catholic Christians. I am interested in receiving word from parishioners who are interested in engaging in this activity.
I am afraid that I could not readily put my hands on the iRiver in order to record this weekend's homily. (I still have a lot of organization to do in my new rectory.) I talked about how the word religion has shrunk in esteem, about the importance of the distinction when people say "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual" (religion as being bound to some practice -- one might say "stuck," vs. spirituality as spontaneous response to the presence of God in our lives), how Moses and Jesus today call us to a natural, spontaneous exercise of religion/spirituality; and I also threw in the controversy (Arians asserting that Jesus is not God) facilitated by St. Paul's expression today of Jesus being "the first-born of all creatures."
Dear parishioners,
My name is pronounced LOFF-ree or LAW-free (this last is an apt pun, since I am a church lawyer who sometimes would like to find a law-free zone, if such exists). I answer to Fr. Kevin.
Confessions:
Before and after Masses seems to me a bit too casual, and could keep me from plain old visiting with parishioners after Mass. I propose the following schedule for Saturday mornings:
8:00 to 8:30 am at Alexander Visitation BVM; 8:45 to 9:15 am at Franklin Sacred Heart; 9:30 to 10:00 am at Waverly St. Sebastian; 10:15 to 11:00 am at New Berlin St. Mary.
It appears that I will have to wait until Saturday, July 31 to put this into effect. Mission Co-op is July 24-25. Whenever there is a visiting priest, I announce in the bulletin that there are no scheduled confession times that Saturday, but of course individuals always have the right to ask the priest to hear one's confession. I may not offer the schedule every Saturday; the bulletin will say definitely whether the schedule will be in effect for the coming Saturday.
Weekend Mass schedule:
An hour and a half between Mass start times makes for far too tight a schedule. It is my plan, effective Saturday, August 14, to set the schedule as follows:
Sat. 4:00 pm at Visitation; 6:00 pm at St. Sebastian; Sun. 8:00 am at Sacred Heart; 10:00 am at St. Mary.
Please let me know your thoughts on these proposals.
Hello to my new parishioners! The task of moving was accomplished on Monday and Tuesday, June 28 and 29. As of Thursday, July 1, I am taking a little vacation. I look forward to presiding at Eucharists on the weekend of July 10 and 11 as well as to a new schedule of weekday Eucharists.
On the evening of Wednesday, June 30, a number of representatives of our parishes attended the pastoral planning meeting for Region 12 (ourselves, Chatham, Auburn, Virden, Girard) to keep discussing how we will be in collaboration in our region. From one point of view, the region has already accomplished its task. With Fr. Angel's move from the parishes, my arrival, and Fr. Daren Zehnle's taking on Auburn in addition to Virden and Girard, we have reached the goal of having three priests in the region instead of four. Now, however, we must continue our discussions about how to collaborate. It was noted that the "Quad Parishes" already have a history of self-understanding as a pastoral unit. This history is something we can build upon. The next meeting of Region 12 is set for Wednesday, July 28, 6:30 pm, at the Holy Cross Parish Center, 125 East Washington, Auburn.
For the last time at Holy Cross, a summary of the strangeness of the Christian faith, and its power to shatter all distinctions among human beings.
Walking in on the second act of "David and Bathsheba," as we do today, is proof that our appreciation of our worship depends on our taking time to be more familiar with the Bible. The second reading and Gospel make abundantly clear the gratuitous nature of mercy, forgiveness, and salvation.
When I tried to record this, I failed to turn it off until it had been recording for about four hours. So here's a summary. "Eating helps." This was my discovery in the midst of the pain of facing up to a move. The eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ keeps sustaining us.
Aspects of God as Trinity may be reflected upon when we say the Profession of Faith. The new English translation highlights the "consubstantiality" of Father and Son, and the incarnation of the eternal Word of God.
The flesh is not evil. We must understand Saint Paul's use of the term "the flesh." Perhaps a contemporary equivalent is the modern concept of "addiction."
"What's up, Doc?" What is the meaning of "up" when we consider the Ascension of the risen Jesus? Clues may be found in the Hebrews passage, about Jesus' entrance into the heavenly sanctuary, and in the Gospel passage, about the Apostles frequenting the Temple of Jerusalem.
Of all the things that promise to unite people, jokes have a lot of promise -- although we have to be careful that the humor is not in mere ridicule but in a common sense of absurdity in human life.
On the occasion of First Holy Communion, a reflection on "love one another" and the fact that we can concretely love one another if we engage in the small act of listening.
On April 18, the Third Sunday of Easter, I had to catch a plane right after the last Mass, and I just didn't want to mess around with recording. On the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday, I took a look (again) at the unrelenting aftershocks of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. Crises can make us stronger if we give up our denial and confront the dysfunction in our midst.
Even though I have spoken about the issue of clergy sexual abuse many times in the past, I had a hard time with this homily, and its length (16 minutes plus) reflects my difficulty. My RSS feed of The Tablet has just reported that the Vatican has published on its website, in English, norms for handling such cases; there is stress upon the requirement that police be contacted.
The apostles and the other witnesses of Jesus' resurrection found this event to be an inner as well as an outer experience. His resurrection meant that so many things which they did not understand beforehand made sense now.
Our anxiety about whether "things are going to be OK" hangs on the meaning of the death of the man in whose Passion we participate today.
On my tenth anniversary in Divernon and Auburn, a consideration of the fact that we would like God and his people to respond to us with mercy rather than harshness.
Grow or die. Bear fruit or be rejected. We know that our God is not the rejecting type; nevertheless, we need to be attentive to the spiritual imperative before each of us.
It is difficult for us to hold in our minds any thought which would embrace the wholeness of any person. We use mental shorthand and categorize people into "like us" and "not like us." The transfiguration of Jesus is a response to the tremendous difficulty the disciples would undergo when it seemed to them that their master was utterly isolated from all human society.
This is about a guy who takes a funny-looking stick and hits a tiny little ball and people pay him lots and lots of money for doing this.
Every one of us has need of God as a tree needs to be rooted in a place with an unfailing supply of water. We must not behave with presumption, as if we could casually postpone a bond with God until the time that suits us.
Our call from God makes itself felt when we are caught up in wonder and awe. Our sense of awe may well be connected with a sense of unworthiness, as in the case of Isaiah, Paul, and Peter. We are aware of our absolute need for God, and thus God can take command of our life.
Our feelings, including feelings of love, must become integrated with our sense of values and of relationship to God and the world. We must move from the "childish" reaction of the crowd in Nazareth to a realistic sense of our limits and our call to love.
We consider the strong feelings surrounding the reading from these scrolls in the books of Nehemiah and Luke. Awareness of our feelings keeps us in touch with our full humanity and our relationship with the Creator. Our being subject to our feelings is a fact which we can carry to our sense of wonder over Jesus, God become human.
"Jesus approved of marriage" -- this is like saying "Jesus approved of sunshine." In the analogy of the Church as the Body of Christ, all Christians in their various states of life contribute to the well-being of the whole body.
Solidarity with the human race is what Jesus expresses, both in his birth at the beginning of the Christmas season, and in his baptism on its last day. We are called to exercise solidarity with one another as well, for the sake of securing justice.
Making your child a public figure in infancy is probably not what you want to do. The Christ Child, on the other hand, was a public figure from birth, because of his identity as the unique Savior of all the nations of the earth.
All of us, by reason of our baptism, are living out our call to holiness. There are some highly visible vocations (e.g. priesthood) which we need to pay special attention to. All of us, living out the universal call, act with freedom so that, with the help of God's grace, "what we shall later be" can joyfully surprise us.
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/daniel/daniel13.htm
The lady who attacked Pope Benedict and injured Cardinal Etchegaray happens to be named Susanna. So we have another, quite different story of "Susanna and the Elders" from the one referenced in the above link. On Sunday, December 27, at the last Mass, I made ready to record, and I didn't recognize that the device was signaling that I had "hold" on. Some time today I will record an audio summary of my homily for Holy Family.
The Christmas Curmudgeon of the 21st century asks: What does it mean when people say, "I can't believe that Christmas is here already!"? It may be a good experience for us to perceive the recurrence of great feast days and to lift our gaze to the eternal truths that they reveal to us.
"Your redemption is at hand." Instead of denying the fact that each of us faces a moment of ultimate truth before God, we who acknowledge our God as the Lord of all time and history look forward to God's work of fulfilling all of creation.
"You say I am a king." We are challenged to imagine a different sort of kingship in the Son of God who in ruling us has become the ultimate servant.
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pope0261i.htm
The above takes you to the speech of Pope John XXIII which I referenced in today's homily. We all seek meaning in the span of days which is ours. We trust in the one sacrifice of Jesus, as discussed in today's passage from the Letter to the Hebrews.
Money is the reward for our personal labors, and we consider the disposition of our money to be quite a personal (and painful!) undertaking. We seek to trust that, if we are devoted to the Kingdom of God, we will discover that God is more devoted to us than we had imagined.
Human history is loaded with anonymity. Think of your multiple-great grandparents whose names you do not know. Think also of how Christian faith was passed on to you, and realize the greater difficulty of tracing your faith-genealogy. All Saints is about the witness of anonymous people, upon whom we depend absolutely for the gift of faith.
James and John last week did not perceive what Bartimaeus this week does perceive: that before one makes elaborate plans for the future, one must make sure of the way that he is traveling.
Christians must not settle for "generic religion," but must plumb the depths of the shocking, personal nature of faith in Jesus Christ.
Fr. Kevin has given this talk dozens of times to engaged couples; it's time he recorded it so he won't have to keep giving it.
The Word of God cuts through joints and marrow. We are more than naked in the sight of God: our most hidden thoughts and attitudes are known to him. Let us take advantage of this direct and frank relationship, opening ourselves to the help of the one who knows us well.
High ideals for marriage are accompanied by the assurance that the Word Made Flesh is pleased to be called our brother.
Seek consensus and unity, not division. This is a fairly obvious expectation for human collaboration. We have a maddening propensity toward ignoring this expectation, however.
It is typical of all of us that, when someone brings up a topic we don't want to think about, we change the subject. The Twelve can do this just as well as we can.
It is permitted to move a popular solemnity or feast of the Lord to a nearby Sunday. What could be more popular than the parish's own feast day?
As we hear of Jesus' healing of a deaf and speechless man, we ask how well we are hearing the Church's teaching of the truth about economic matters.
In the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, today was set aside for special readings and prayers for a new bishop. The readings were from Isaiah 61, Hebrews 5, and John 17. The podcast includes a few thoughts on the bishop as someone who is first a good administrator of what's going on in his own heart.
Our affiliations speak about our life priorities. We are free to join ourselves to God or not. Whether we do or not makes all the difference for the direction and meaning of our lives.
We open ourselves to wisdom as we acknowledge how little wisdom we have. We develop our hunger and thirst for Jesus. Some thoughts today on health care and the common good, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and Buzz Aldrin.
The above is the number of articles in English listed by Wikipedia. It would appear that the total will reach three million in a matter of days.
Although many are wary, thinking that a "do-it-yourself" encyclopedia cannot be accurate, the principle of millions of eyeballs making for an ever-more-accurate public knowledge font is sound.
I have found much that is of interest to me as I look around Wikipedia, and I am sure there is a great deal for everyone.
If we speak of something as "merely a symbol," we don't understand symbolism and its power. Some etymologies say that the word "manna" itself means "what is it?" God's people keep on asking for the food that nourishes to eternity. When Jesus said, "I am the bread of life," he meant it, absolutely.
What can we define as "a lot of food"? Given the insatiable appetites of human beings, it's hard to say that any quantity is a lot. Obviously, our God is calling us to be less concerned about stockpiles and more concerned about our relationship with the one who feeds us.
This afternoon, the College of Consultors elected Msgr. Carl A. Kemme Administrator of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois. Msgr. Kemme had served as Vicar General of the Diocese since 2002, and continues as Moderator of the Curia. He remains the pastor of St. John Vianney Parish, Sherman.
There were no homilies the last two weekends, as I was at work camp. Gathering the flock together and making sure that they are fed: these are the responsibilities of the shepherd. Even the shepherd is changed by his interaction with the sheep.
Evil is not a "force." It is a lack, a deficiency. We find our confidence in knowing that the Author of Life supplies for all the deficiencies we find in ourselves.
Is there an incident that better captures the humanity and the divinity of Jesus than his calming the sea? He makes short work of the subduing of nature ... because he wants to get back to sleep!
http://www.sj-r.com/archive/x986608316/Seeking-forgiveness-is-key-in-many-faiths
Thoughts on forgiveness: I was interviewed for this a few weeks ago.
On June 3, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI transferred Bishop George Lucas of Springfield in Illinois to the Archdiocese of Omaha. We will be experiencing at least a few months of "sede vacante" and waiting for a new bishop. Life is messy, so why should we be so surprised by Moses splashing blood all over the altar?
The Bible is not the Book of Lists. There are a few lists in the book, and today's celebration highlights a couple of lists: the fruits of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5 and their antitheses.
This is a big year for weddings for me; I have six scheduled. I thought I might record the homily for my first wedding of the year.
The Lord Jesus ascended because he descended -- into the depths of the misery humans experience because of the broken, sinful situation we are in. He is on his throne but he has also embedded himself in our anguish.
How can anyone talk about love? The subject overwhelms any human being. God is love, and we discover who we are in being loved by God.
Regular listeners know that I do not go out of my way to bring politics into my preaching. Issues of religion in human society, of "church and state," of infusing the social order with the fruits of faith, are the toughest issues one can preach on. And yet it must be done. The complexities must be grappled with. And I do not relish the task.
Today is the forty-fifth anniversary of my first Communion. I speak about the "Obama-at-Notre-Dame" thing, questioning the outraged response of some Catholics. The unity that St. Paul sought was not immediate when he made his debut as a converted person. Vine and branches, mother and child -- these say much about the organic unity of the Body of Christ.
Profound things are found in each of the readings. "Salvation is in no other name." "We are God's children now. What we shall later be has not yet come to light, but we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." "There will be one fold, one shepherd."
The novel I refer to is The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler; I find the lives of Theobald and Ernest to be a caution against the establishment of religion. When religious faith is one with the postal service and internal revenue, what sort of faith is it?
Your homilist still doesn't understand how a Sunday of Easter can be named for a private devotion.
Get rid of the old yeast and become unleavened. St. Paul's Passover imagery is applied to the change that comes about when we acknowledge the sense of human dignity that follows from the treasure of the resurrection.
The amazement of the women at the tomb may, very usefully, be compared with the amazement of the brothers of Joseph when they found that one they thought dead was in the position of saving them from starvation.
The Passion of St. John is most emphatic about Jesus "laying down" his life, as opposed to having someone snatch it from him. The calm silence of Jesus unnerves Pontius Pilate.
Was "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" a cry of despair? We must consider the source of this expression in order to understand properly why the writer of Mark's Gospel put it on Jesus' lips when he was on the cross.
The image of the grain of wheat "dying" may not be botanically satisfactory, but we certainly know what Jesus means. Conversion means entering into an existence that cannot be foreseen. It demands abandonment of self so that one's true self can be found.
An extremely important characteristic of our conversion into Jesus Christ is its personal nature. God as Trinity is personal. We come to understand that, as precious as any of our personal relationships is, there is infinite richness in the relationships among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was truly a personal sacrifice when the Son of God became human.
Tell a psychiatrist what Jesus does in today's Gospel, and you will get a diagnosis affirming that he is suffering from delusions. That's the scandal of Christianity: we acknowledge that anyone else in this circumstance would be delusional, but in the case of Jesus, his identity and his special relationship with the Father are real.
What sort of God gives a couple a child -- miraculously -- and then says, offer up the child as a sacrifice? The same God who gave his son as the sacrifice which achieves humanity's salvation. Glory is found in the midst of suffering. God is truly personal.
Conversion means becoming who we really are? Strange as it may seem, this is a very helpful way to look at conversion. Conversion is from sin, which distorts our best and truest self. So the "change" of conversion is not into something alien to us; rather, it is ourselves becoming as God has intended us to be.
My friend Brian Noe has posted his concerns about recent U.S. Catholic mobilization against some federal legislation:
http://noebie.com/blog/2009/02/21.html
I concur with him that prophecy can only be based on the reality of possible laws -- not on extremes of speculation.
Ah, performance anxiety! I had said exactly what I wanted to say at the 8 am Mass. Regrettably, I had not recorded that one. So at 10:15 I was trying to duplicate the earlier delivery. I was way off. And it is a complicated thing to think about -- the qualitative difference between sight and insight. I find I sound better than I think I'm sounding, so this one is probably not bad. Anyway, we trust in the power of the Word for our deepest healing.
Catholics are hearing a lot about a bill before Congress called the "Freedom of Choice Act." I recommend your checking out a couple of recent articles in the Catholic press:
Commonweal The Tablet
This homily is a little different from the other one because of a rite of acceptance for a new catechumen.
I do recall that I made mention of the historic character of Barack Obama's assumption of the Presidency.
Again, I am uploading this on 2/14/09 and I do not recollect the substance of this homily.
Once again, this homily has disappeared into the mists of history, at least as far as my own mind is concerned.
Hello, Fr. Kevin is back in business. The other six will upload shortly. I have to run. I'm sorry I can't remember exactly what I was talking about on this occasion.
I am indeed taking a little break from tribunal business. It has been a long time since I have posted anything.
I am recording my Sunday homilies; I am currently experiencing a technical problem which prevents me from uploading them. Friday I will be engaging in some troubleshooting.
Blogs, I know, tend to be brief opinion-pieces. I am not necessarily comfortable with such, because I find that important societal issues require more than a statement of opinion. Indeed, I was recently reading a Commonweal article from a Catholic legal expert who finds the blogosphere odious because of the unthoughtful way in which so many super-Catholic bloggers respond. He finds it difficult to see charity being practiced.
I can get into this frame of mind -- the short, sharp opinion! -- when I want to: say, when it comes to English grammar???
Garrison Keillor once did a sketch in which his character asks whether there is some kind of rule about the use of "whom." I find that there are a lot of people who vaguely know that "whom" is supposed to be used in certain cases. They have no idea, however, what the rule is.
And then there's "between you and I." I'm told that President Obama is an egregious offender in this department.
These situations are related, because both require a working knowledge of the objective case.
English-speakers are not well aware of the case of nouns and pronouns. We tend to rely upon the order of words in a sentence as our indication of what's the subject and what's the object. Inflected languages, on the other hand, have noun endings which remove all doubt about the case.
In English we encounter some inflection in "who/whom," "I/me," etc. The second of each pair is the objective-case form, while the first is what we call the nominative case. Direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of prepositions are to be in the objective case. So, for instance, it's always "between you and me."
"I was heard by whomever was in the room." Sorry! This statement has to be analyzed so we see that "I was heard by whoever was in the room." We can rephrase this as "I was heard by anyone who was in the room." "Who" is the subject of the clause "who was in the room," and the form of "whoever" follows the case of "who"'s function -- as the subject of the clause -- and therefore it is in the nominative case: "whoever," not "whomever."
I've been wanting to express this for years. If you've enjoyed this, tell all your friends you seen it here.
It may seem insignificant that John the Baptist answered "no" to the question, "Are you the Christ?" In fact, his "no" shines a light on our tendency to say "yes" and to act as if we are our own saviors.
While on a conference call this morning, I took a look at "Kevin Laughery" on Google and found a number of references to my having expressed concerns last week about setting up a Nativity scene in the Illinois State Capitol.
I repeat my sense of the situation: that one must be wary of getting into the religious-symbolism business in the halls of government.
I have been told that this is a free-speech matter; I still hold that there are also serious non-establishment concerns.
I will be happy to discuss this issue.
Can we hold together the words "comfort" and "repent" in the same thought? If not, we need to open ourselves to the chastening received by God's people when they returned from the Babylonian Captivity.
For four weeks I failed to get my software to recognize my hardware. This morning, at last, it worked. Off the top of my head, I can't remember exactly what I was talking about in these earlier ones.
Why does all the world celebrate the dedication of a church near a subway station on the southeast side of Rome?
How many schools have their own mausoleum, and must one assume that such schools are pretty tough?
It isn't wrong because it's forbidden; it's forbidden because it's wrong. It isn't right because it's commanded; it's commanded because it's right.
I was on vacation, and therefore dodged the bullet: the "Caesar's coin" incident just before a presidential election. I'm good for another 12 years.
As of this Friday, October 31, AOL is no longer hosting websites. I have therefore moved my site to a new service provider. You can find the site at http://www.kevinlaughery.com.
Did I say "have moved"? It's a process. Besides uploading the files, I have to edit out the old URLs referring to the old service provider. I am just back from vacation and have a lot of tribunal work before me. So I am working on the site as I have the chance. I will do my best to address the most popular parts of the site (liturgical calendars and "What Really Matters") with expedition.
(I am reminded of a comment by a Rome classmate of mine. He said, "When waiters in Italy say subito [right away], they say it without any reference to time. When they say it, the meaning is: 'I heard you.' ")
If you're wondering about Sunday homilies: I have two recorded. The process of transferring them to my computer is at a standstill. I plug the thing in and the software doesn't recognize that the device is connected. I'll look into it ... subito.
AOL is discontinuing web hosting as of 10/31/08. This podcast page is currently redirected from http://www.kevinlaughery.com, which will be the website's proper URL after it is moved.
Today is "Vineyard III." Am I coming across as genuine? Why be preoccupied with whether people perceive us as "good people"? We need to free ourselves from maintaining our image, and let God change us. Conversion -- a dynamic process -- is the fundamental reality of the Christian life.
I did not record myself on this "Vineyard II" weekend. We had a presentation regarding our sister parish in Guatemala.
Somebody said economics is the "dismal science." And I can't help sounding less than peppy when trying to talk about economics, even in the light of the Gospel. Of course, we have to stress that the parable of the workers in the vineyard has nothing to do with everyday economics. It is describing the Kingdom of God. Even so, we keep in mind that everyday economics is not divorced from the Gospel. "Greed is good" is wrong. Those involved in our economic system must concentrate on the good of all in the "law of the household" -- which is the meaning of the word "economy." The household is the whole world, including the poorest and most vulnerable.
This feast also happens to be our parish feast day. Consider the inconsistency: The people of Israel were not to make a golden calf, but Moses was instructed to make a bronze serpent.
I did not preach this past weekend because of the presence of a visiting priest.
I did participate in an interfaith service commemorating the 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois, on Saturday, September 6, in the Hall of Representatives of the Old State Capitol, Springfield. I gave the welcome; here are my remarks:
Welcome to a place which people call "historic."
We can think of the time when this was the lawmaking center for the entire state, and when a man of this city grappled with our nation's prospect of becoming "a house divided."
We can recall that the body of this slain President was viewed here by the people for the last time.
Later, this place became this county's seat for seeking, but not always finding, justice.
Today we remember justice denied and justice miscarried here.
And we remember what "history" means.
History is not a charming tale that we contemplate from a distance.
For as surely as we are in this place, we are history, whether we want to be or not.
So today we turn from the expression "You're history," as meaning that one is over and done with, and embrace instead the identity of ourselves as history, as the cause of a just and loving future, as people whose repentance, conversion and dedication build a future worthy of the dignity of human beings.
The calendar cycles have aligned ... to provide a recollection of what I was doing 33 years ago, the weekend I entered the seminary. It is amazing how the very Scriptures I read at my last Mass at home have grown in significance -- especially Paul's instruction to "be transformed by the renewal of your mind."
We are all familiar with abuses of authority. Christians are called to a counter-intuitive sort of authority, modeled for us in Jesus himself, who came among us as one who serves.
I'm having difficulties uploading files from my recording device. I hope to resolve this by Sep. 14 (next time I preach on a weekend).
When he speaks of throwing the food of the children to the dogs, Jesus lays bare a nativism which we carefully hide from ourselves. The fact of a child's illness breaks through the barriers we erect so we can create for ourselves that "comfort zone" we so frequently refer to. The human need for health -- for salvation -- is universal. May our self-imposed barriers crumble beneath God's outstretched arm (Alternate Opening Prayer).
I love the Olympics. I always have to see the opening ceremony. Friday night, in addition to the spectacle, we saw a little boy with the towering Yao Ming. I find a connection with Elijah in the cave and Peter trying to walk to his master on water.
Our duty to foster communion and dialogue; our assurance that nothing can separate us from God -- these are a few parts of the great variety of thoughts presented to us through the Scriptures.
What is your heart's desire? It becomes obvious to any Christian that we must keep revising our idea of that heart's desire as it comes to embrace nothing less than the Kingdom of God.
Rely not upon the "explanation" of the parable of the weeds in the wheat. Let the parable itself carry you to a consideration of the patience of God.
You need an explanation of the parables of Jesus ... if you want to make them safe and domesticated and toothless. Jesus probably did not provide explanations; somebody in the early Church considered this necessary. Jesus intended his parables to have teeth -- to keep gnawing at us as we consider how we enter into the kingdom of God.
Saturday, July 12, 2008, at the Catholic Pastoral Center, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.
Saturday, July 12, 2008, at the Catholic Pastoral Center, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.
Saturday, July 12, 2008, at the Catholic Pastoral Center, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.
Saturday, July 12, 2008, at the Catholic Pastoral Center, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.
You need to decide whether the homilist is conscious. After a week spent at Catholic HEART Workcamp, I was suffering from severe sleep deprivation. I seem to recall talking about CREATURELINESS. Believe me, I was feeling like a creature, not a creator.
This was the homily given on the occasion of my silver jubilee. This homily is unusual because I am interrupted by people explaining to me how funny it was for me to say "You don't know one another ... and it's a good thing." They didn't let me complete my thought -- it's a good thing (for me, at least) that all these people from across nearly 51 years can come together for something very meaningful. It was especially good for me.
Since Easter was the earliest we'll ever see it, we have before us twenty-six weeks of Ordinary Time, and that means six months of a more or less continuous reading from the Gospel of Matthew. Today's passage is the conclusion of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Does the exhortation to "build your house on rock" contradict St. Paul's teaching that salvation is a free gift?
The "homily" on this day was largely devoted to the in-pew fundraising campaign for the Cathedral. I don't want to subject anybody to any more of this. I promise a real homily next week!
We were baptized into "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." The communitarian being of God Himself helps us to understand why it is absolutely necessary for us to live our lives in relationship.
See the Vigil of Pentecost for references to harrowing experiences (does even St. Paul have the right to be the one talking about "labor pains" on the weekend of Mother's Day?). Going through crises may perhaps purify our sense of what really matters in life. We may be more responsive to the Holy Spirit.
This one features yours truly trying to talk about four different things; the third part is the homily proper. Jesus commands the Eleven to "go and make disciples" -- in other words, bring people around so that they are as excited about their faith as anyone devoted to a particular teacher.
I had a Koinonia weekend going this weekend, I was just reconfiguring my computer, and I was between trips for conferences, so, I'm sorry, but no recording this week.
The resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, create community. The first letter of Peter proclaims our new birth in baptism. Birth means we belong to someone. We eagerly claim our relationship to the crucified and risen one.
Resurrection is real; we just have a hard time perceiving it. Resurrection, in fact, is a challenge held out to us. Do we accept the challenge? Do we submit to the dying that is necessary if we are to rise?
"What is truth?" Pilate doesn't know. Pilate very likely doesn't want to know. Truth includes an acknowledgment of human suffering. Jesus in his death does this very thing.
Through the Passover, and then through the Eucharist, ancient memories are alive and active in our midst, helping us to "remember forward" regarding our dignity and our call from God to service.
I was a bit distracted on Palm Sunday and did not manage to record a homily. This is a summary.
"If I can survive death, I can survive anything." But how does one survive death? Jesus himself succumbed to death -- but this death was the conquest of death. The raising of Lazarus prepares us to celebrate Jesus' resurrection.
On Laetare Sunday, I was looking for a "respite" from this sorry winter we've been experiencing. On that particular day, the temperatures got up around 70. I'm uploading this the following Tuesday, and we've been hit with several inches of blowing snow. Maybe I should have prayed for more than a respite.
I'm sorry to be late with this upload. As I recall, I looked at Jesus and the Samaritan woman as a way of identifying various anxieties of human life.
How can we act with true hope, and not give in to a despairing attitude? Jesus gave an answer through his transfiguration. We can perceive, along with Peter, James, and John, that the good is triumphant, even when we can see only evil surrounding us.
Yes, this year we are going to talk about sin. Jesus' resistance of temptation is a good occasion for us to think about sins of recklessness, as well as their opposite extreme: sins of shrinking fearfulness toward all the challenges of life.
I am somewhat slow to get this past Sunday's homily uploaded. I was feeling quite tired all weekend and right up to today. The recording device is in Auburn and I am in Springfield. I hope to have uploaded it by this evening. At last, audio Lent will begin.
I enjoyed yesterday's Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes in Decatur, marking the 150th anniversary of the apparitions at Lourdes, France, and the beginning of Lourdes Parish's 50th jubilee year observance. My parents and I were charter members of the parish when it was created on October 28, 1958 (the same day Angelo Roncalli was elected Pope John XXIII!).
Today we are "searching for Bobby Fischer" and thereby presenting a counterexample for the Beatitudes. We are all tempted to make the activity that most gratifies us our only goal in life. If we accede to the temptation, we tell ourselves that we are providing ourselves with happiness, but in fact we cut ourselves off from the deeper acceptance of the world and our place in it which in fact brings joy to us.
DISCIPLES are people who submit willingly to a certain DISCIPLINE. We can think of certain people or ideas that have excited us. At one time or another, we have wanted our lives to be reflections of the thing that fascinates. To be a disciple of Jesus means to be open to the many ways in which he calls us to re-think our own existence.
This was the first sermon for Auburn's observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in its centennial year. The venue: Cornerstone Community Church. I forgot about recording until a couple of minutes into it. Before turning it on, I got a good laugh when I said: "The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was started by Episcopalians who shortly thereafter became Roman Catholics. In mentioning this, I do not mean to presuppose any outcome."
We, the church, the assembly, are called to holiness. "Holy" is a word rich in significance; yet it can be an obstacle to us when we seek to understand ourselves before God. We welcome the encouragement of all who have accepted the challenge of the call to holiness.
Baptism is death. This is not the sort of polite conversation that one expects when an infant undergoes baptism. But this is precisely why Jesus underwent baptism: to be in solidarity with us who face this very strange thing called mortality.
We live in accelerated times. Today we attempt to grasp what is of value in this time and for eternity. We accept the challenge of accepting a gift of universal significance to humanity.
http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/PDF%27s/evangelisation_note_english_141207.pdf
I am happy to pass along this document, more conciliatory in tone when speaking of other Christians and people of other faiths than what I refer to as "the July thing."
Family brings to mind familiarity -- and from ancient times it has been held that "familiarity breeds contempt." Today's scriptures affirm that this does not have to be. As we appreciate the growth of our family members, we find that learning to forgive is liberating.
I am quite certain that this homily, at the first Mass of Christmas, will be my best effort for the solemnity of the Incarnation. The mystery of the Word Made Flesh calls us to look deep within ourselves to discover the joy which can emerge from misery as we ask what it means to be human, and ask as well why the Son of God would will to enter this life of ours.
We men like to assert our power. The power or potency to beget children is greatly esteemed. Today we hear of power being wielded in a way which calls all our power-posturing into question.
As I was uploading this, the host admonished me: "Please be patient." Patience provides a near-universal challenge to human beings. It is difficult to see what patience gives us. Perhaps if we slowed down the processes of our minds, and simply stood quietly before the incredible images supplied by the prophet Isaiah, we might discover that in the slowness God gives much to us.
On a weekend of difficult weather and general distraction, a brief reflection on knowledge of God covering the earth as water covers the sea.
This somewhat windy homily takes the image of the man hammering his sword into a plowshare and applies it to the dream of the parish's becoming more completely a faith community.
Let's get past the reflexive response, "We're Americans -- we don't need kings!" There is a great richness in the concepts of kingship and kingdom, and we can enrich ourselves by considering these concepts. Jesus, truly God and truly human, subjected himself to ultimate degradation and made the cross his throne. If we are in the midst of degradation, his presence there can mean everything to us.
Well, I was listening to the "Mass in Slow Motion," and I found a misstatement. I said "Archimedes" when I meant "Aristotle." Archimedes was a mathematician and engineer; Aristotle was the philosopher who theorized about the structure of being as "substance" and "accident" and whose ideas theologians borrowed -- for better or for worse -- in applying the concept of "transubstantiation" to the Holy Eucharist.
This recording is close to an hour and a half. I provide explanations of the various parts of the Mass. We must conduct our lives remembering that we are the ancestors of the people of the future. Will they be able to look back upon us with gratitude?
I received some highly gratifying positive feedback on this one. I was happy to hear from people who said that it made them think! That's what we must do if we are going to have an adequate appreciation of our relationship with God and what time and timelessness have to do with it. We must rouse ourselves out of a "pie in the sky when you die" mentality.
After two weekends on vacation and some hassles with keeping my account activated, I am back with Sunday homilies.
We all appreciate a quiet, loving hint so that we can be informed of a need to change something. We don't appreciate it when this need becomes a topic of common conversation and we end up being the last to know. Jesus was giving Zacchaeus that quiet, loving hint that leads to conversion.
Does the internet make place irrelevant? Our deepest feelings say no. Each of us is from somewhere. We have a lot invested in particular places. It is taking believers a long time to work through these feelings.
"How long, O Lord?" This cry from the sixth century B.C. resounds in every age, wherever human beings are. We experience time now as dragging, now as racing. We are challenged to understand that God is drawing us from time into the timeless. If we wonder about the virtue of patience, let us consider the patience of Jesus in casting his lot with humanity.
A somewhat different take on the rich man and Lazarus. I consider what it means to take anyone's name in vain. How do people instrumentalize each other?
Jesus' parable of the devious steward is not teaching us to be devious! Rather, we find here an invitation to "work" a "system" as this man worked the economic system, which was all he could see. Our "system" to "work" is creation itself. We are to develop a sense of wonder toward God who, in his creation, constantly expresses his love for us.
Self-righteousness is hard to get rid of; after all, it feels so good! But we can trade it in for something better. May we confront ourselves in a healthy manner so as to accept the sense of peace which is far better than self-righteousness.
The death of Madeleine L'Engle; the ideas of C.S. Lewis regarding heaven; our upcoming parish feast day (Friday, September 14) and the prioritizing that occurs when we take up our cross.
Might heaven be boring?; a mistranslation of Hebrews; one of Jesus' least important parables; Mother Teresa couldn't control God.
I have to apologize for the strange appearance of this page. I have to scroll down quite a bit through blank space to see the latest posts. Libsyn has sent me some advice on how to correct this, but I don't have it figured out yet.
Apparently Libsyn has been having some problems over the last few days with access to their site.
Anyway, here's my first theology-bite on heaven, and my thought on responding to what is ultimately a meaningless question. Accept discipline and stand up straight!
After two weekends away doing ecumenical training, the crusty old pastor is back. This homily starts from a reflection on the practice of dueling.
Due to technical difficulties, this homily is appearing rather late. The Scriptures give us a lot to consider regarding prayer. It is most important to note the communal nature of prayer (even when we think we're "alone") and to take confidence in the strength of praying liturgically with people all over the world. Does it help to tell people that the Tridentine Mass was never abrogated? Does it help to treat the Christians of the Reformation as some virus in a test tube, on which you hope to put the right label?
We finish our reflection on the meaning of hell. We also consider the virtue of hospitality, acknowledging that activity (of whatever kind) can get in the way of our focus on why we engage in various activities.
Treatment of eschatology continues with a consideration of hell, where jokes fall flat. There has been a lot of name-calling in state government lately; we must consider the fact that labeling people is a foolish excuse for not responding to people spontaneously with love.
Today is my fiftieth birthday. It's a time somewhat like Dante's mezzo del cammin di nostra vita (the middle of the walk of our life) and it was then that he looked into the "last things" in writing The Divine Comedy. Today I complete my look at Purgatorio. We also consider the meaning of fulfillment in life. -- Well, I found an English translation of yesterday's motu proprio of Pope Benedict XVI and I can tell you that I don't like it one bit.
Freedom is the opportunity to choose a direction for one's life. Jesus knew that he was proceeding resolutely to Jerusalem and an appointment with a cross. Our challenge is freely to embrace everything that comes with the path of holiness.
Zechariah was unable to speak. That doesn't mean he was unable to hear. So why are the good fellows around him communicating in some sort of sign language? Self-consciousness in difficult social situations can lead us to to do strange things (may I say "dumb" things?). We recognize the un-self-consciousness of John the Baptist, whose vocation was to point to Jesus, Messiah and Savior.
Finally we get to a post-death "destination" -- although it's not a final destination. Purgatory is the antechamber to heaven, and the concept of this state of purification is difficult to understand. More to the point are the words of Jesus to Simon the Pharisee and of Nathan the prophet to King David. God is merciful.
Last night at 9:40 pm I finished reading The Word of God and the Word of Man by Karl Barth, thereby finishing my reading of the entire 1990 edition of Great Books of the Western World. My goal had been to finish by my fiftieth birthday. I made it with 22 days to spare.
I had bought the set in 1993; I did not begin reading in earnest until early 1996 -- over eleven years ago.
Now that I have read the "Great Books," I have the rest of my life to engage in scholarship: dipping back into these books for the sake of my ongoing enrichment. It's going to be good.
In this time-bound existence of ours, we touch the timeless as we open our hearts to our God. The Holy Eucharist proclaims to us that we are fed and nourished in Jesus' Paschal Mystery in ways which are not readily perceivable. We remember that sacrament and mystery are equivalent terms.
How well developed is your sense of play and celebration? Can you experience life with the enthusiasm of God the Creator? He made us that we might in some way reflect the love shared among the persons of the Trinity.
The Holy Spirit is at work through the words of Sacred Scripture. It is important for all of us to read the Bible in its entirety. We also need to let Scripture guide our prayer. Our liturgical experience of the proclamation of Scripture is a dramatic way in which we experience the Word of God being addressed to us in a way that responds to the drama of our life.
A lot was going on today. We begin "Eschatology" with "Limbo." What experiences do we have that give us a sense of the peace of "dwelling in the house of the Lord"?
Since, in my locality, the Ascension falls on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, we are permitted to use readings of that Seventh Sunday on this day. I used the Gospel from next Sunday: "That all may be one." How does the incident in the Acts of the Apostles demonstrate for us the manner in which we should seek communion among all believers? How are we preparing to enter the New Jerusalem?
A different take on the same readings. NOTE: Next weekend I will again be away from the parish; therefore no homily for May 5-6.
You who are listening to the podcast know very well the concept of "multitasking." Can people multitask and do justice to any of the work they do? Jesus' attention was fixed on one matter alone. His singleness of heart led to the salvation of all of us and each of us.
Recorded at Divernon on Saturday, April 14. Personally I will always have esteem for Thomas in his unwillingness to be deceived -- though I grant that we can improve upon him and learn to appreciate the need to accept the testimony of witnesses. -- NOTE: I was not in my parish April 21-22 and did not preach.
Resurrection allows us to accept our memories -- even the most bitter. Our participation in Christian baptism means that we have accepted the invitation of Jesus to accept all the good that comes from his confrontation of the contradictions of human existence -- especially the contradiction called death. We are grateful for the invitation we've been given -- the invitation to live fully.
As I attempted to record my homily for Holy Thursday, I discovered that the battery was dead. Sorry. You will note that my Triduum homilies are building upon the concept of memory.
Luke is my favorite Gospel, and likewise the Passion of Luke is my favorite of the narratives of the death of Jesus. It seems to me that Luke has an eye on the universal implications of the sacrifice of the Word Made Flesh. When he says to the one crucified alongside him, "This day you will be with me in Paradise," we understand that God in fact brings into the Kingdom those who seem to be irrevocably excluded. Recorded at the 8:00 am Sunday Eucharist at Auburn.
Well, is this a stretch or not? In the incident of the woman caught in adultery, can we see an element of class consciousness? I will leave it to you to form your opinion. Anyway, this passage from the Gospel of John is unfailingly powerful.
This is the Sunday 10:15 am Mass in Auburn. Once again, we consider the parable of the Prodigal Son -- this time, without reference to etymology.
Is there a connection between the words prodigal and prodigy? I said so in this homily, but without checking a dictionary. Now that I have, I find I can't verify this. At least I know that prodigal doesn't mean "repentant" but rather "wasteful." And it is an open question how repentant the prodigal was. Recorded Saturday evening in Divernon.
I preached on these readings only once today. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Sundays of Lent have two sets of readings in Years B and C (this year is C) when the scrutinies are celebrated for people preparing for baptism at Easter. There is a richness to the Gospel of Jesus and the Samaritan woman which could lead to a very long homily. Mine is rather brief.
This has nothing to do with the homily; I merely present this as a public service. -- People apparently are up in arms about "In God We Trust" not being on the new dollar coins. Think again. "E Pluribus Unum," "In God We Trust," and the minting year are on the rim of the coin (I remember this sort of thing being done on one-pound coins in the UK). So all you people who love to be sanctimonious: find something else to be sanctimonious about.
Jesus underwent temptation just as we do. But he never sinned. So how much like us is he, really? Can we relate to him? Can his fidelity to his Father be attributed to superhuman powers? These are vital questions which we must answer if we are to make our way through Lent to the celebration of the Easter Mystery. Recorded Saturday evening, February 24, in Auburn.
I have limited time to upload the homily, since I left my power cord at my office last week and I have only 46 min. of battery and the uploading is ridiculously slow today.
How do we view people? Can we expand our vision so we can see people more in the way that God sees us? It is possible, and we can develop an appreciation for human beings which is a step toward the vision of Jesus in his challenging command to love our enemies.
The blowing-snow conditions are making travel treacherous. I have decided to have today's 4:00 pm Mass at Auburn rather than at Divernon. The rest of the schedule will proceed as usual: Sat. 5:30 pm, Sun. 8:00 and 10:15 am, all at Auburn.
Travel safely if you must travel, and remember, especially in regard to coming to Mass, that no one is bound to the impossible.
I uploaded the file and listened to it from Libsyn. I am pleased to be podcasting again.
We're back, thanks to Brian Noe's expertise. For this first attempt with a new recording device, I'm a little bit self-conscious wearing the thing on my wrist. We cast aside all distracting thoughts and extend our roots so we will always be one with the source of life.
Thanks to those who alerted me to the fact that I had been uploading silent audio files for the past couple of weeks. The problem is not with the microphone battery or the microphone, so the recording device itself must be the problem. I will be checking shortly with the manufacturer and I hope to have the homilies back before too long.
Don't you get angry when people tell you how to feel? I thought so. It seems that Ezra is doing this very thing in the first reading. Jesus, on the other hand, does not try to manipulate us.
Marriage is a process of embracing the ordinary. Our God calls us to discover how wonderful the ordinary is.
I'm still sick, as you can hear. Considering the word "epiphany" as meaning coming to a new insight or an "aha" moment.
I have been sick for over a week -- hence the late upload. The gist of my thoughts for the Holy Family is that we as a Church thought we had all the answers to what families are supposed to be. We have been proven wrong.
I waited till my last Mass to make a recording. It turns out that that Mass was the one where I had the stiffest "competition." The Scriptures for the Mass of Christmas Day have us considering messengers and messages and our need to distinguish between them.
Do you enjoy being visited? Mary and Elizabeth visit each other in order to proclaim that God has visited his people.
How do we find joy in being reminded over and over that we are merely human beings? PRECISELY in embracing our identity as human beings.
This year we observe the briefest Advent possible. Seize the moment and consider what a coating of ice and snow has to say to us about God, our beginnings, and our fulfillments.
In the ice and snow which we experienced as November faded and December began, I had power and all the comforts of home -- EXCEPT internet. My ISP got us back in business today.
Very shortly I will upload my homily from the weekend of the First Sunday of Advent.
This is relatively lengthy, starting as it does with an issue I'm going to be talking about for several weeks: dismal weekend Mass attendance. -- My time in London helped me to consider the matter of kingship; I think I have some helpful insights.
I was sick and this homily was very brief. I believe that this was the Gospel of "the widow's mite."
OK, I got the problem figured out and I am ready to podcast again. Two new homilies will appear here in a few minutes.
Hello,
Given that I bought a new computer recently, I am a bit delayed in making all the transitions from old to new. In the case of the homilies, my recording software seems to be clashing with the version of Windows XP that came with this new computer. I am checking with the software company on this. I did not record last Sunday, 33rd in OT, but I do have 32nd OT recorded, and I will keep recording so there will be plenty to listen to after I have resolved the problem.
I'm sorry for the delay in getting last Sunday's homily uploaded. I had a cold over the weekend. I'm amazed that I am over it already. I am accustomed to colds that go on for weeks. Meanwhile, my new laptop arrived yesterday and I am in the midst of all the business of transferring data from the old laptop to the new one. I'll catch up before too long!
I was just watching the BBC's coverage of the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as U.S. Secretary of Defense. I cannot describe my relief over this sign that the Bush Administration is, however feebly and however late, responding to reality.
I heard Mr. Rumsfeld's parting words. He is unrepentantly arrogant to the end. His comments informed all of us who oppose his precious "first war of the twenty-first century" that we misunderstand it -- as one might misunderstand a gifted child, I suppose. How can we fail to understand that this war in Iraq was conceived because of this administration's fatal hubris and willingness to lie to the world about the existence of weapons and the nonexistent connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001? How can we fail to understand bloodshed for no reason? But this quality is inherent in arrogance: to suppose that those who disagree, if not disloyal, are, at the very least, stupid. But this is the chief and mortal flaw of the arrogant person: the unwillingness to see that he does not have a monopoly on wisdom -- the resistance to the fact that others perceive truth without its being "managed" or "spun." Someone once said that the truth will set us free. There is freedom in acceding to the fact that truth is accessible to all human minds and hearts. But the arrogant one denies this. And so he condemns himself to self-inflicted deception.
If you desire a break from American politics, try Church politics. We now have an order from on high regarding a perceived need to keep lay people from purifying sacred vessels. As of January 1, an ordained person must do it. (So can an acolyte, but in practice such officially-installed acolytes are not to be found; women cannot be acolytes, so we refrain from making acolytes. The official acolyte is a "lay ministry," supposedly; but in practice it is treated as the minor order it once was.)
This reminds me of something I once said when at Mass a seminarian and I were struggling with getting incense to burn: "This is why we spend eight years in the seminary: to learn to light charcoal!" More to the point, we as the Catholic Church are experiencing a rollback of the great liturgical progress we were making following the Second Vatican Council. The Council taught us that each believer (not just the ordained) has an active role in the liturgy. Further, we learned that the sign-value of each sacrament must be used to the fullest. Cardinal Arinze's comments on intinction, on the other hand, belittle the importance of actual eating and drinking in the sacrament of the Eucharist. We will comply, but that doesn't mean we have to like it.
"Love God with all your heart" -- this is the first and greatest commandment. But it is certainly not the first commandment of which we have a practical grasp. Let us consider how we learn to love.
Those of us who use computers must be impressed with the visual nature of the interaction between ourselves and these devices. We equate seeing with understanding. The word of God today encourages us in our understanding. As Hebrews declares today, God understands us, not because he is standing by and looking on from a distance, but because in Jesus he experienced the effects of living in the obscurity of a sinful world.
Hello everyone, Monday morning I got an Oyster. You may ask, "What's so exciting about that?" Oyster is what they call the London universal pass for the Underground and the buses. You "touch in" and "touch out" on entering and leaving the Underground -- that way, the system calculates the proper fare and deducts it (even if the visitor to London has made his journey in a roundabout way). It's been extremely convenient for all the running around I've been doing the last three days.Monday I proceeded to go to Greenwich and hence make a "journey to the beginning of time." The Royal Observatory gives you the opportunity to stand on the Prime Meridian, and to find out just what exactly determined it. (Waverly: keep in mind that the ninetieth meridian west, halfway between the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line, crosses Route 104 just a little bit west of Waverly.) It was at an international conference in Washington in 1884 -- there was quite a bit of rivalry between London and Paris on this -- but the U.S. helped to swing the decision toward London (Greenwich Observatory). The prime meridian was defined by the crosshairs of the "Great Transit" telescope at the Greenwich Observatory. I watched the time ball drop at 1 pm -- this is/was for the benefit of ships on the Thames. The observatory is found at the top of a steep hill. After my journey up that hill, I found myself kind of lightheaded and my adherence to the 1200-calorie diet immediately became less strict. (What a sacrifice.) Among other things, I fortified myself that evening with a pub meal of roast chicken, veggies and "chips." I was pleased to find out that pubs in London do have non-alcoholic beer. So far I have had a Guinness brand called "Kaliber" and the German Beck's NA. I liked them. I still haven't found them in grocery stores, however. Tuesday it was another trip to Leicester Square for a theater ticket. Then I went to the Tower of London. (That's another of those things that brings forward the question "Why didn't you see it in '82?" because, indeed, the Tower is the key to the history of London for the last thousand years.) I took the yeoman warder's tour. They really play up all the executions that took place there or at nearby Tower Hill. (It will cause me to think differently about a certain small town in central Illinois. Thomas More was one of those executed on the Hill. The yeoman warder's talk belittled Henry VIII in this matter.) And of course I saw the crown jewels, including the world's largest diamond, the Cullinan I "Star of Africa" at the top of Elizabeth's scepter. The Tower was a very full day, followed by a full evening at The Producers, which of course was very successful in its initial New York run with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. The two guys in the main roles were likewise superb -- tremendous singers. And yes, it was very funny.Today I got a late start. I had a wonderful salmon dinner at a seafood restaurant about a block away from where I am staying (French management apparently). I visited the Roman Catholic cathedral, Westminster Cathedral, and two nearby Catholic bookstores. I walked by Buckingham Palace, through either Green Park or St. James Park and then the east end of Hyde Park. Tomorrow I plan to work in another show. I've never seen Les Miserables, so that might be a possibility. It's been playing in London for 21 years. While I was at The Producers, Spamalot was having its gala opening, with all the living Pythons (except Cleese) present. Spamalot tickets are not being sold at the half-price booth.I am, in fact, having a thoroughly carefree time. I may get used to it, and stay carefree whether or not circumstances warrant!
Thursday afternoon I had an interesting walk which included what the guidebook says was George Orwell's inspiration for the "Ministry of Truth" building in the novel Nineteen Eighty-four. (Turns out Orwell died close by, at the University College Hospital where I worked in '82.) I also saw an exhibition of editorial cartoons. Friday I did the whole "queue-up-for-half-price-theater-tickets-in-Leicester-Square" thing and did go to a musical that evening. (I'll tell you about it when I get home. I guess I will have to pay full price for Spamalot.) I am still amazed at so many things close to Ogle St. that I never got around to seeing. You remember the theme from The Patty Duke Show? About how Cathy Lane had been "everywhere, from Zanzibar to Berkeley Square"? ("But Patty's only seen the sights/ A girl can see from Brooklyn Heights ...") Maybe I'm the only one in the universe who remembers those lyrics -- but I have viewed Berkeley Square and its beautiful old plane trees. This is in the Mayfair area of London, which I think can be classified as the "rich" part of town -- and again, I was really close to it back in '82 and didn't know about it! Also found an excellent Italian restaurant just a block away from Ogle Street -- I assure you I am still keeping to the diet!The next observation will be especially appreciated by Democrats. Saturday I went again to the Mayfair area. The U.S. Embassy (designed by Eero Saarinen, who also designed the Gateway Arch) is at the west end of Grosvenor Square. On the north side of the square is a statue of FDR. Then one must consider the northwest corner of the square. The U.S. ambassador during the Reagan Administration saw fit to erect a statue of Eisenhower, as if he couldn't stand that the square was dominated by the FDR statue!!! Saturday's walk also included Savile Row, with the upper-crust men's tailors.Today, Sunday, I took a quick walk to the Hyde Park area and promptly turned around. I decided that Hyde Park was too congested. I have an idea that there may have been a rally or protest or something there. I wonder what it could have been about? Let's sum it up by saying that neither Tony nor George is popular here. (After church today a man said to me, "I hope someday you get the President you deserve.") And I am getting a lot of reading done.Finally, about the caffeine I mentioned in the subject line. I have been having a terrible time (a "Dickens" of a time?) getting to sleep at the proper hour. I still need to confirm this with Alan, but here's the deal. I looked around the kitchen and saw that Alan had lots of decaffeinated instant coffee. I drew the conclusion that his store of coffee was exclusively decaffeinated. So I have been getting instant coffee out of a yellow jar on the counter ... but now I strongly suspect that I have been ingesting caffeine for several days.More soon. KML
Hello All, Yesterday and today (Wed. and Thu.) I have been sticking close to Ogle Street. Yesterday was a long long walk in Regent's Park (I used to run the entire circumference of it). I continue to be amazed at all the things I don'tremember about the environment just a block or two from me. I am very close to the main building ("Broadcasting House") of the BBC, but do I remember it from 1982? No way. I needed a jacket this morning, but this afternoon it's probably in the 50s and sunny. Yesterday morning there was a very hard rain. I sleep late every morning. I have the impression that if I am sleeping, I need to sleep. So I do. I should be looking into getting tickets for some plays. But if I'm lazy, so be it. That's the purpose of time off. Be assured that I am doing plenty of reading too.
Tuesday, Oct. 10, 5:13 pm. Mary and Greg, Happy Anniversary! Yesterday I woke up a few minutes after noon. I did not leave the presbytery. I did get my laundry done. Could not get to sleep until some time after 4 am. Today I woke up before 9 am. (My room in the presbytery is very quiet.) I wandered through bookstores in the morning. There was a little rain. The weather is unseasonably warm, in the 60s. This afternoon I did what could be considered my first tourist bit. You know, I had thought I had seen London pretty thoroughly when I lived here for nine weeks in 1982. Then again, I had only one day off per week and at the end of my stay, I didn't hang around London and instead spent a few days in Yorkshire. Now, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of London? The Houses of Parliament? I would say that that is the most universally recognizable symbol of London. But I have to tell you that I really have no recollection of having seen the Houses of Parliament back in 1982. I corrected that omission today. The best view of the building is from the south side of the Thames (and I do remember for sure that I never made it to the south side of the Thames -- Southwark or "Sutherk" -- back then). Well today I took in the whole beautiful vista. Near Parliament is Westminster Abbey, which I think I visited in '82 (so then why wouldn't I have seen Parliament back then? -- maybe I do need to take pictures). Over the main door of Westminster Abbey there are sculptures of ten 20th-century saints, including Martin Luther King. I think I'll go inside the Abbey tomorrow; having read The Da Vinci Code, I am interested in seeing the monument for Newton.Having done a lot of walking today, I hope that getting to sleep tonight will be no problem. I think my 1200-calorie diet can be bent today. Fr. Alan doesn't appear to keep much fresh fruit around. I've bought some clementines and Braeburn apples.
After an uneventful air trip, I am in London where I worked as a deacon in the summer of 1982. I arrived at the parish for the 9:00 am Mass with three minutes to spare. I have located an internet cafe, from which I am sending this message. I am walking around the old neighborhood. Both of the hospitals where I worked have undergone great changes. The parish church has a completely remodeled interior, in keeping with guidelines on providing for baptism of adults by immersion. I will write some more after I have done some more.
I have an extraordinary opportunity before me. A recently-retired priest of my diocese is providing weekend coverage for me for four consecutive weekends. I will be away from my parish and from tribunal for nearly five weeks. I will not post another homily until Sunday, October 29.
When we are faced with the unpleasant or the perplexing, we do our best to distract ourselves -- even if that means taking a flight into fantasy. So Jesus' disciples did in trying to ignore his words to them that he must be put to death, and launching into a discussion of who is the greatest among them. Let's put aside fantasy and acknowledge what truly gives meaning to our life.
Powerful readings: Isaiah 50, the third Suffering Servant Song; from James, the "faith-works" controversy; from Mark, "Get behind me, Satan!"
How good it is for our ears to be opened once again to hear Sunday reflections on the Word of God. Reflecting on the life of my first seminary spiritual director, I add the image of the "heart of stone" (Ezekiel 36: 24-28) to the prescribed readings.
After consulting FAQs regarding my voice recorder, it appears I have solved the software problem and will have today's homily available for you. I'm sorry for the couple of weeks without homilies. Tribunal demands have been heavy, and after a day's work there, I am not inclined to stay in problem-solving mode.
The program that comes with my recording device is malfunctioning. I will try to get it working again so we can listen again.
The Holy Eucharist responds well to our humanity. It is the satisfaction of an immediate need alongside other immediate needs about which we are frequently reminded during the course of a day.
I was away last week. In the meantime, our bishop made a long-awaited announcement regarding an investigation. We as the People of God are called to recognize the strength that allows us to make our various life-journeys, especially in adversity. "Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you."
I was much happier with this homily, given at 10:15 am. What happened at the "multiplication of the loaves and fishes"? Did Jesus just get everybody to share? Would that have served his purpose completely? We consider the abundance of God's love and accept the challenge, given today by St. Paul, to rely upon a deep source of love and patience in our hearts.
I am somewhat dissatisfied with this homily, given at 8:00 am, so I will give it another try at 10:15 am. For one thing, the homily goes 11 minutes. I am consistently urged to preach no more than 10 minutes (in seminary, I was taught that eight minutes is enough!).
Having returned from vacation, Fr. Kevin sounds as if he'd really like to be with Jesus and the Twelve, going to that out-of-the-way place to rest a while. He got very accustomed to the relaxation! He sounds kind of tired. Pray for peace.
Today I share a story of an incident which occurred back in 1970, when I was thirteen. It's a good complement for today's readings and a continuing matter of wonder for me, as I find myself looking deep within to consider the obstacles in our hearts which could constitute a "thorn in the flesh."
The way of the world is death, but we have the audacity to believe in a Creator who preserves us to eternal life, and in a Savior who came quietly into this world to triumph over death and to give that full life to those who exercise faith.
People are reaching this page thanks to the purchase of kevinlaughery.com. The purchase was not by me but by my lifelong friend Brian Noe (http://www.noebie.com) of Mattoon, Illinois. Thank you, Domain Angel!
Fear can be a good thing, if it's the reverential fear that we owe to God. We lift up our hearts to God who gives us life and all good things, and we remember, with Job, that God even tells chaos how far it can go.
I have just started reading a five-volume history of the Second Vatican Council. These days, many people assert that Vatican II was an aberration. They are utterly wrong. Vatican II changed us forever with its orientation toward the world as it is. It changed our understanding of ourselves as members of a pilgrim people, each individual enjoying a radical equality with all others. It changed our worship with its admission that praying in our mother tongues might be better than trying to do this in Latin. It acknowledged the brokenness of Christianity and set us on an irrevocable journey toward unity. It affirmed that Christians must do much rethinking in relating toward non-Christians and especially toward the Jewish people.
Check back here for occasional book reports.
The readings in Year B focus greatly on the blood of Christ. Let us acknowledge the differences between the ancient mentality and our own, and appreciate their understanding of blood as a sign of atonement for sin.
The dynamism of the Holy Trinity should be reflected in the dynamic action of love in our lives.
"Now, listen up; this is the Holy Spirit talking. Everybody start talking Latin!" This is not the way the Holy Spirit works. Unfortunately, the recent unpleasantness regarding English liturgical texts would lead one to believe that some highly-placed people in the Church do think that this is how the Spirit operates. Today's passage from Acts contradicts them. -- I do have one retraction of something I said. I do believe that God deals with sinners with respect for the sinner's individuality.
After you hear this homily, you may find yourself humming the Beatles' "In My Life." I am.
I recommend this editorial from the London Tablet:
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/archive_db.cgi/tablet-01193
Hello. I am enjoying the extremely unusual weather we've been having during May. In this part of the world, spring is understood to be a period of about two days between winter and summer. This year, however, I've definitely set a record for being able to leave my windows open and just let the cool air in. It's 65 here on Sunday morning.
I am in the midst of an experiment to figure out how to get tribunal work done smarter and faster. I may actually get some time today to work on some work I've brought home. But I also have to get in some serious back-porch time!
Where I live, we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord on the Seventh Sunday of Easter. Therefore, on the Sixth Sunday of Easter we can use readings from the Seventh Sunday which we otherwise would never hear. Today I used the Seventh Sunday's Gospel, Jesus' prayer "that all may be one." Catholics need to watch their language when they refer to Christians of different denominations.
Today we consider the image of the vine and the branches, which, if you think about it, may suffer from some inadequacies. We also consider the awkwardness of a former attacker coming over to the enemy.
Even Jesus cannot provide a perfect analogy. It's just the nature of an analogy that it is always in some way inadequate. And in the case of the Good Shepherd, the deficiency is this: WE'RE NOT SHEEP.
Lately, my recreations have been of a cerebral nature. I find great enjoyment, for instance, in proceeding with my "Great Books" project and in doing sudoku puzzles.
I hit a wall about a week ago. I was extremely tired, and I wondered whether I needed a change in my antidepressants.
I began to consider whether my brain just needed a rest. I have been trying to rest my brain and I seem to be doing OK.
You there, staring at the computer: Are you thinking too much?
My take on The Da Vinci Code. Also, is it true that, after the Resurrection, you still get to eat? This was from the 8:00 am Mass at Auburn (10:15 was First Communion).
OK. The photo I tried to post here was calling attention to itself way out of proportion to its importance. I have removed it from here. If you want to see it, go to http://hcp.dio.org and click "Fr. Kevin." I'm the guy on the left.
I have very little skill with manipulating digital images. The image in the previous post is definitely too big. Anyway, I'm on the left and my bishop is on the right.
I have not posted homilies for Easter Sunday or the Second Sunday of Easter. I have some time right now to recover from Easter, and I have to say that Easter was pretty exhausting.
I found myself, these last two weekends, deciding that doing the recording was one multitask too many. I hope that a homily will appear here on the Third Sunday of Easter.
On Easter Sunday, I gave a brief homily which concluded: "The tomb is empty. Our hearts are full." On the Second Sunday of Easter, I talked about the earliest Christians having all their goods in common, and I extended this idea to our need to care for our one household, the planet Earth.
I am definitely discontinuing my AOL blog. It is much handier for me to write ideas in the same place where I put my spoken ideas.
I had a little competition at the beginning of this homily. These are some thoughts on the various titles given to Jesus and their meaning. Recorded at the late Mass in Auburn.
The Covenant ... and how it is expressed to its fullest degree in the one who was lifted up and draws all to himself.
A week ago I was having problems with uploading. Now, I am having problems remembering what I talked about. Having referred to a lectionary, I recall now that I talked about the Babylonian Exile. Also, of course, about John 3:16.
I was windy today -- this is over 14 minutes, at the early Mass at St. Benedict. I am covering various aspects of participation in liturgy. I would love to go deeper into the social situation of "convenient sacrifice" at the time of Jesus. My personal spirituality is founded upon the notions of sacrifice as discussed in Hebrews 9 and 10.
Is anxiety necessary? Was Abraham's imperative to kill his son all in his mind? We will try to answer these questions today. Recorded at the 8 am Mass in Auburn.
I supposed I would simplify things a bit for myself if I discontinued the blog at AOL and started blogging here. Anyone who has tried to follow my blog knows that I have not been very active with it, and with good reason. I am the pastor of a newly created parish -- a merger of three parishes. I have been serving since July as judicial vicar (head of our diocesan tribunal). I am ecumenical officer of our diocese. Bishop Lucas told me that if I have to cut back, I am to cut back on the ecumenical and interreligious activity. I have resigned from the board of the Greater Springfield Interfaith Association, and I am finding other ways to respect my limits. Being at a computer feels, to me, essentially like work. That is unfortunate, because I have some hobbies that involve the computer. Maybe I am reaching the point where I need two separate computers so I can better separate work from play.
Anyway, I seem to be taking some advice I gave a week ago. I told my parishioners that there is a lot of chaos in our lives right now, and one helpful thing we can do is to "enjoy the chaos." I seem to be doing this. It's not too bad!
Once I finished this homily, I realized that I had not mentioned the date of Easter; it's April 16. Lent does not exist for its own sake; rather, it is our preparation for Easter.
Where was I the previous two weeks? Well, I was at the ambo ... but I don't have recordings to prove it. I know I inadvertently erased Feb. 19 -- but I don't know what happened to Feb. 12. Today's reflection continues with practical matters of living as a parish community, and it focuses on that church staple put together with staples: the humble missalette.
Today I talk about money. Listen to determine whether I make a convincing case for money being "boring."
The early Mass at St. Benedict. The man crying out in the synagogue makes me think of 1) kids in church -- an emotionally-charged issue, and 2) mental illness. Listen to my thoughts.
The last and best-attended Mass. A familiar theme of mine: We don't go to Mass to make God happy. Rather, God makes us happy (repentance/conversion) and then we, out of thanksgiving, are present for worship.
You were perhaps looking for the "First Sunday in Ordinary Time"? Sorry -- it doesn't exist! A bit of housekeeping, plus a look at the built-in eagerness for God that all of us have.
This was a week ago. I don't remember much. Mainly I was, I think, talking about the officialization of the new parish.
Two listeners noted that my original recording was truncated. Here, I believe, is the complete recording.
Earlier I had posted an explanation of my absence on the Second and Third Sundays of Advent -- but that recording was blank, because I had not turned the microphone on. I'm back with a homily recorded at the early Mass at Auburn.
Rather, where was my microphone? The explanation, and a summary of my thoughts for the Second and Third Sundays of Advent, is on the recording.
This was the early Sunday Mass, held at the St. Benedict Parish Center because the church interior is being painted.
I am still not used to turning on my recorder AFTER I have proclaimed the Gospel. November 13 I was one sentence into the homily (at my last Mass) and I said to myself, "No, I'm not going to stop now."
I goofed and recorded the Gospel passage. Is this illegal, or am I just PREMATURELY RIGHT?
I note some extraneous noise; I think the mic must have been rubbing against fabric. On "Priesthood Sunday," there are some pertinent readings! Fr. Kevin recalls his interview for the seminary. Recorded in Auburn, Sunday morning.
"You can't have everything you want." See whether this glum pronouncement leads to anything good. Recorded Sunday in Auburn.
The copyright cops have spoken! Until further notice (because the USCCB is still looking at the phenomenon of podcasting), I am not to podcast the proclamation of the Scriptures from the New American Bible. So we go straight to the homily.
As Americans, we are wired to take the incident of Caesar's coin and project onto it all of our anxieties about the delicate balance of church-state relations. This homily was delivered Sunday morning in Auburn.
In observance of 2005 as the Year of the Eucharist, Fr. Kevin spoke during the older kids' PSR time about the meaning of the sacrament.
Fr. Kevin recalls his recent high-school reunion and considers the inclusiveness of God.
Recorded in Auburn on Sunday morning. I can't make many connections with "Murders at the Vineyard." Our minds are on the likely development of a new parish being formed from Pawnee St. Mary, Divernon Sacred Heart, and Auburn St. Benedict (with Waverly St. Sebastian under the care of the pastor of New Berlin).
Recorded Sunday morning in Auburn. A reflection on how a relationship with God "works." The example of Jesus' emptying of himself (Philippians 2).
"The parable that everybody hates." This is the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Consider the deliberate provocation that Jesus is making by telling this story. Recorded Saturday, September 17, in Waverly.
Recorded in Waverly, Saturday, September 10. I am now uploading using a high-speed wireless connection. This cuts the upload time dramatically. I am also using a new microphone. Unfortunately, my voice is not at its best.
Recorded in Auburn. A look at leadership through the life and death of Brother Roger Schutz of the Taize ecumenical monastic community in France.
Recorded in Auburn at 7:50 am Sunday. The selection of readings steers us toward a consideration of "who are foreigners?" and "who are God's people?" This is a common and very important theme in the Scriptures. I seek to expand beyond the idea of "nationality" and think of other ways in which we needlessly divide people up.
Recorded in Waverly on Saturday. I had some difficulty in turning off my recording device, so the Gospel and homily are in fact much briefer than this recording.
Recorded in the Waverly basement. This is my introductory summary of the challenges facing us in having priests for parishes.
On developing a taste for God. Recorded in Auburn.
Later today: audio of some remarks at parish meetings on inevitable changes in parish arrangements.
Recorded Sunday in Auburn. My RCIA coordinator spoke right after the Gospel. My local ISP keeps disconnecting, so I have uploaded a brief sound file to indicate this. I hope before the day is out to upload by alternate means.
Recorded Saturday, July 2, 2005, in Waverly, Illinois. Faithful Listener, do you find any difference in recording quality between Waverly and Divernon?
I began this liturgy by talking about how much I dislike the word "meek." There was once a comic strip about mice called "Eek and Meek," and "meek" sounds to me like a sort of squeak coming from a mouse. It's a wimpy, doormat-like, mousy word, to me. But listen for a new and positive take on "meek."
Recorded in Auburn. Goes into tedious detail about these recordings, the Catholic Times newspaper, and Catholic marriage law.
This one runs a little long. I was examining a recent tragic local event. Recorded in Waverly.
Once again, I did not preach. Fr. Phil Kraft covered my weekend schedule. I am feeling fine and look forward to posting a homily on May 22.