Fr. Kirby Longo's Homilies: Recent Episodes
Fr. Kirby Longo
Fr. Kirby Longo is a priest of the Diocese of Helena and Pastor of Christ the King Parish in Missoula, Montana. These are his homilies. God bless you!
Sorry for the gap in posting homilies! Here is Fr. Kirby's homily from the 5th Sunday of Lent.
It’s the night of the last supper, the first mass. It's also the night we commemorate the ordination of the apostles to the priesthood and their commission to “do this in memory of me.” So it’s a special feast day for all priests and a special night to contemplate my vocation. It is the tradition, then, to preach on the priesthood. I am, afterall, a priest for you. Also, there are certainly other men here called to this great vocation, so it is worthy of our meditation.
We learn today that the things happening in silent monasteries, the things happening in your homes, the things happening on the streets of Missoula amongst our homeless are of much higher consequence in eternity than the endless power grasp we witness daily on the news. The home, the monastery and convent, the streets, that’s where the action is.
In the beginning, some 13.8 billion years ago, our universe was empty. Perhaps we can’t even say empty because there was no time, no space, no matter; there was nothing. Then came that wonderful moment we have titled The Big Bang, when there appeared the whole of our universe contained in a concentrated ball of energy smaller than an atom. That ball exploded outward in every direction. This explosion began as pure energy but quickly congealed to produce matter, and after some time (400k years), atoms appeared. Where these atoms were more densely compacted, the power of gravity increased and produced clouds of matter. As the density increased, temperature increased. When the temperature rose above 10 million degrees, protons fused, massive energy was released- boom, we have our first batch of stars.
Our first reading today speaks of God’s wisdom, saying “She hastens to make herself known in anticipation of their desire; Whoever watches for her at dawn shall not be disappointed, for he shall find her sitting by his gate.” God yearns to know us, he sits by the gate awaiting us while we insist he is far away, that we must go on a great journey and hope against hope that we might find him.
Growing up, perhaps more than any other thing in the modern world, is the difference between us (me) and the saints. If we look at the beatitudes, we see a collection of simple and mysterious blessings. We see Jesus raising up very particular states of life as makarios. This is hard to translate but we generally say blessed or fortunate. The word suggests those who possess these beatitudes possess something others desire but cannot, for whatever reason, attain. It is not some psychological state but a state of being.
It’s a subtle thing, a rising tide that fascinates us until it overwhelms us. Because again, we may grow in worldly respect, outward success, and education, yet we are nonetheless slaves to the world. What are we to do? What did the saints do? Soren Keirkergaard, the great father of Existentialism, when speaking to the beatitudes, said the saint is the one with a pure heart, and “purity of heart is to will one thing.”
We speak of women making the heroic choice to keep their child. It is heroic because they are moving forward into an unknown world- most likely poor and alone. Having a child is terrifying when you have a spouse, a stable home and a job.
If we are going to win the battle for the protection of the unborn, this most important and fundamental of issues, we have to step forward heroically, we have to sacrifice so women who find themselves poor and alone can do so confidently.
What does Jesus say today? “Whose image is this on the inscription? (Ceaser’s) Then render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” What belongs to the state? The things of the world. If we put our hopes in worldly things, we will put our hopes in the state and every new failure- the state always fails- will bring bitterness, rage, and resentment.
Jesus appears when the storm is peaking, casually walking upon the waves, and when they cry out in terror, he calls to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” When he steps into the boat, the storm dies. There is no battle, and Erasmo points out that this story is “restructured to deploy only one truth, the unquestionable and eternal supremacy of the incarnate Word.”
The only battle left is the battle within our hearts. Do we believe Christ has already won? Are we convinced the powers of evil have been overcome and subdued? Or are we cowering before the storm wondering if Jesus will ever show up? Look at the shift in the gospel when Peter realizes the implications of Jesus words. He yells out “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
Power is a fact of life, it’s a part of nature and will always be acquired by the capable and the ambitious. How we employ it will change the world. Do we employ the power we possess as Christ shows us? Do you wield it with charity, with mercy, and always with an eye to the poor? Or do you let your passions dictate your actions? Do we use the power we’ve been given to preserve our reputation, raise ourselves up at the expense of those around us?
Yesterday I had the opportunity to do the Butte 100 mountain bike race. I decided to give it a shot when quarantine hit and everything else had been cancelled. Still, until yesterday I had never ridden more than 57 miles. It was fascinating to see how my body handled the prolonged grind, because with experiences like that you are just running an equation. You burn more calories than you can take in, so it’s a matter of time before you are depleted. All I had to do was ride 100 miles before I was toast, and I made it. But this homily is not about the Butte 100...
The Parable of the Sower hits us anew each time we approch it. God works in our soul no matter our state. Let's dig in to see where we stand, and where we ought to go from here.
What a perfect first reading for my inaugural weekend at Christ the King parish. I think we need to hear those lines again: “Rejoice heartily, O Daughter Zion, shout for joy oh daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek and riding on an ass, on a colt the foul of an ass.” What a prophetic passage, planted on the 14th sunday in ordinary time awaiting my arrival at Christ the king to be fulfilled. Because, you see, Jesus comes to us, but he comes riding on an ass… that’s me. I’m young, in decent shape, and I may not be the best looking but I’m a hard worker.
Fr Kirby says goodbye to the parish and town he served for his first three years. Looking to the next generation, and looking back to martyrs from the past generation, he wraps up his time in Butte, America.
There is exactly one road to perfection for each of you from the BC class of 2020. It’s narrow, rocky, and difficult, but it’s possible. That road involves simply following Christ. Jesus tells us in the gospel, “I will not leave you orphans, I will send you the advocate, the spirit of truth to be with you always.”
It’s your choice, you’re free. You can go off to college and party, go hard, follow your bliss, whatever, and it will give you a shallow sense of rebellion, you will in fact be following the crowd in every single way.
To be Christian today is the true revolution. Christ is waiting for you. Sacrifice what he asks you to sacrifice and trust he knows where he’s taking you. That’s the road to greatness, to joy, and the world needs you to follow that road. If you do, you will find when you speak, the crowds around you will listen with one accord, unclean spirits will be cast out, the crippled and paralyzed will be healed.
Death. It’s not a pleasant word. I remember when I first began to understand the idea and I would try to imagine it. There I was, 7-year-old Kirby standing there with my eyes closed, imagining what it meant to cease to exist. It was physically disorienting, so much that I would occasionally get vertigo and just fall over. Then my mom taught me about heaven, about eternal life with God, and hell in it’s eternal torment and separation from God. I was just as dizzy and confused thinking about eternity as I was contemplating an end to existence. The idea of death for those without faith involves falling out of existence. For us with faith, we know it is eternal life. Yet both ideas are beyond us, too much to comprehend, and like everything we cannot grasp and measure, it terrifies us.
It's been a while but I'm back posting my homilies! I love preaching on Holy Thursday.
A priest once gave me a penance to pray for a particular family and he told me, “Kirby, I believe I was called to the priesthood- more than that- I believe I was born in order that this family could know God loves them. They have suffered a tremendous amount, so God created me and sent me to tell them they don’t suffer alone. Jesus Christ suffers with them and loves them.”
As it turns out, when we get the exact thing we want, it doesn’t make us as happy as we think it will. When we are denied our deepest desire, it’s not as disastrous as we assume it will be. You finally get your dream truck, that beautiful F350 Platinum, and a month later when the newness wears off, it’s just a truck with a lot of chrome and a substantial monthly payment. You get your dream promotion, yet you still have all the insecurities you thought would disappear when the announcement was made. Reverse the fortunes: you wreck your new truck or lose your great job. The initial shock wears off, it’s a year later and here you are, your life didn’t implode.
What does this tell us about happiness and who we are as humans?
What a role Joseph played! To care for and protect the crowned jewel of the human race- Mary, Queen of heaven, Seat of Wisdom, New Ark of the Covenant- and to foster the Incarnate God himself. My great love for Joseph comes not only from his faithful acts, but his willingness to be faithful in obscurity. To be faithful, then gladly forgotten.
Praised be Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe! Our last address to an earthly king was a collection of 27 grievances against his majesty, George III (which were promptly ignored), followed by Declaration of Independence which changed the course of history. Yet here we stand as Catholics declaring ourselves subservient to another king. Not just any king, but the King of the Universe! There is nothing democratic about this feast. We can make no grievances, declare no inalienable rights, nor can we rebel against him who admits he harvests where he has not sown and gathers where he has not scattered seed. So are we taking part in a fundamentally unamerican celebration? Should we rather name Jesus President of the Universe that we can maintain our dignity?
Can Christians reconcile the story of creation with evolutionary theory without compromising an authentic reading of scripture or Christian anthropology?
Is it necessary to see evolutionary theory with an openness to God in order if we are to explain the process reasonably?
I assert the answer to both of those questions is: Yes.
Listen in and let me know what you think!
Note: I purposely avoid the phrase Intelligent Design in my talk because of all the baggage it currently carries with it. However, David Galernter puts forth a formidable argument for it in his article Giving up Darwin. He is mostly citing Stephen Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt, which i have not had the chance to read yet.
Bibliography (not comprehensive but these were my main sources):
Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind. Yuval Noah Harari
The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How our Brains Became Remarkable. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, MIT Press, 2016
What is so Special about the Human Brain? Ted Talk, Suzana Herculano-Houzel
Giving up Darwin, David Galernter
Jordan Peterson, Various Talks and Lectures on brain development as well as his lectures on the creation story.
Did Adam and Eve Exist? Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, OP, this is a lecture series that Fr. Nicanor gives in various contexts,but I have listened to various lectures from him on similar topics.
Whenever Jesus talks about the end times, final judgment, heaven, hell, or anything in the field we refer to as eschatological, his advice to the disciples is to be vigilant, to watch, to be ready at all times. We must focus our lives on the Lord in a focused and vigilant way, listening to Paul’s two crucial commands to “pray unceasingly” and “Never grow weary in going good.”
Since the dawn of time, humans have yearned for immortality. Even Friedrich Neitzsche, certainly no Christian thinker, said “All joy wills eternity, wills deep, deep, eternity.”
Today’s reading ends with the proclamation, “I choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!”
If we pray without growing weary, and do so with an openness to whatever God has in store, we will know Him. That is, in the end, the only thing that matters. If I have Christ as my friend, a cancer diagnosis does not destroy my life, rather it becomes as beautiful opportunity to show those I know and love how to suffer joyfully. We look to Blessed Chiara Badano who, upon hearing her cancer diagnosis as an 18-year-old declared, "It's for you, Jesus; if you want it, I want it, too.”
St. Thomas Aquinas writes in his beautiful hymn Adoro Te Devote:
Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived: How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;
What God’s Son has told me, take for truth I do; Truth himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true.
The beautiful Hopkins translation speaks to the beautiful mystery of the mass.
This is the 1st of four lectures given to the Catholic Youth Coalition on Fundamental Theology.
This lecture was on the existence of God. Can we discard the idea of God without losing the ability to explain the world as it is? I don't think so, here are the reasons why:
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We cannot explain the origin of the universe.
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We cannot explain human consciousness.
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We cannot claim there is any meaning in the world.
With those questions to guide the conversation, we will explore it all more in depth in the next three lectures.
C.S. Lewis says it’s precisely the greatest moments of our life which make it clear that nothing in this world will ever make us happy. Looking back to the image in the gospel, we calculate the cost of the building and realize it’s beyond our means, we look at the battle of 10k v 20k and realize we can’t win. What are we to do? Sue for peace? Settle for mediocrity? That’s not the Christian way.
C.S. Lewis follows his insight with another saying, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
There is a certain relish in bitterness, cynicism and a feeling of helplessness that gives us an escape from culpability for our actions- or lack of action- and wins a certain amount of sympathy from our peers. If there is one thing this attitude toward life does not accomplish (there are more than 1), it is any real meaning or happiness.
But how can it be that striking out to find my personal happiness could be the thing that makes me unhappy? Let’s figure out why our current attempt is failing, then we might look to the gospel for an answer to the predicament.
“I have come to cast a fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already blazing!” Jesus doesn’t come to preach bland tolerance, but love, and love is an all-consuming fire. There are two fascinating and terrifying things I want to point out concerning fire: First, is its ability to annihilate everything in its wake. Second is its ability to transform what it consumes into itself. Both are at work in the gospel.
Is this gospel a threat? In a sense, yes, but not one based in fear. Jesus speaks strongly on this subject because the consequences are so great when we fail. When the gospel is not preached, young people’s lives have no meaning and it naturally follows that they will want others to feel the profound suffering and emptiness they feel, so we end up with this absurd violence.
Is Machiavelli in step with today’s scriptures? Yes and No. Ecclesiastes does, in the beginning, point to the inherent volatility of life, but it takes the problem much further and makes a much deeper and more profound claim than The Prince. For Qoheleth, the author of Ecclesiates, takes into account the possibility that someone could live as Machiavelli suggests and “labor with wisdom and knowledge and skill,” yet even that man must die.
I remember walking into the YMCA courts in BIllings when I was a kid and seeing one of the new kids fiddling around with a basketball. It was obvious he had never played the game. At best, he had maybe seen a few nba games on a bad TV, because what he was doing was not basketball. Me and a few buddies gave him the general overview of the game and played a bit with him. At first, giving him the rules just made him depressed, but he was an athletic kid so after a few months, he began to pick it up. By the following year that kid was a decent player, and continued on to love the game in all its beautiful minutiae.
That, brothers and sisters, is how we are in this life. If we don’t know the Lord, we are like a kid thrust out on a court with a ball in our hands, but no clue how to play. Our guides on how to live as a human being and raise a family are Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, and the best hope for happiness is making $1 million dollars or accruing 1 million followers. What a weak and pathetic existence, running around with no clue who we are.
Be courageous, trust that you are a member of Christ’s body, and no matter the mess in the Church, your mission as a Christian is always to preach the gospel and draw souls to Christ and his love. We find that love in the Church, we find our mission in the Church, and those outside may only hear that truth if they hear it from you.
The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few. Butte is 75% baptized Catholic, where is everyone? Let’s go out and get to work!
many of us witnessed Nathan Scheidecker from Butte give his life to Jesus Christ and his Church in the priesthood. He left everything to follow our Lord in this day and age. Just so all the young men out there and families of young children know, it will be at least three years before we have another ordination, and if you were there yesterday and saw our presbyterate, it was not the youngest crew.
Who will step up? Who will follow the Lord? And I don’t just mean in the priesthood, though that is an urgent example. I mean in the Church. In every age there is a crisis and in that crisis God raises up saints to renew the Church. We are called to be saints, anything short of that is a failure.
Roy and Aislinn: You realize all the sacrifices you will have to make in your married life together and you chose it anyways. Correction- You have NO IDEA the sacrifice that's involved in married life. If you think you have it figured out, good luck. But that’s OK, it doesn't matter that you don't know what's coming because one of the beautiful gifts we have as human beings is the capacity to commit our lives to a thing even when we don't have full knowledge of what the future holds.
You might know someone (Or you might honestly be this way yourself- You know, I have a friend) who thinks like this: I like the idea of God, I might even say he exists because the universe doesn’t make sense without some prime-mover, some uncaused-cause. But the Bible, the Incarnation of God as man, the Trinity, the Church, doesn’t it just seem a bit absurd!? We can’t prove any of that, there is not way to reasonable walk through the idea of a Trinitarian God- it’s faith without the verification of reason! How would you answer that friend?
Jarrett and Nicole. The love you have for one another- if you are willing to die to yourselves- will bring souls to Christ. Our culture loves the idea of mega- individualism, then we're all confused and sad when our relationships grow bitter and resentful. When anyone in that dark place sees marriage lived sacrificially as we're called to live it, they are immediately compelled.
Perhaps when you distill the teachings of Christianity you can glean something that strikes us as profound. That was, after all, the whole project of many modern philosophers and political scientists. Thomas Jefferson edited his New Testament to do exactly that. Yet, that isn’t what Jesus is saying!
The newness of the gospel comes, as Benedict XVI says, “From the gift of being-with and being-in Christ.” For the Christian, being always precedes doing.
We were created by God created by his Word. From the beginning to the end of our lives, God’s voice, his word, is the only one that satisfies. When we listen to any other voice, we know they are thieves tempting us to leave the fold and no matter how enticing the voice may be, we all know a thief can promise nothing good.
Western culture is no longer the relativist. The new cultural moral code is absolute, but certainly not based in natural law. The Atlantic published a fascinating article on this phenomenon called “The Death of Moral Relativism.” The author pointed out, “This new code has created a paradoxical moment in which all is tolerated except the intolerant and all included except the exclusive.”
You are baptized, you are sons and daughters of God and so you can do the same when you face the enormous dragon that has planted itself on the narrow way that leads to eternal life! Do not shrink from the great journey, do not shrink from the Christian life, it is the only life worthy of your dignity! Nothing else will make you happy, not a $100 million condo overlooking Manhattan, nor any amount of fame or power or pleasure. Only friendship with the risen Christ can satisfy our hearts, so face that dragon and become the saint you are called to be.
So many of our lives are defined, marked indelibly by the death of those we love. No matter when, whether it was your wonderful grandma who died when she was 90 or whether you lost a child or friend in their teenage years, we see so clearly the evil of death and we do not understand it.
Jesus is the only worthwhile answer to the question of evil. The only other alternative is to deny the existence of God, and in doing to declare that all suffering and evil is, in fact, meaningless. For without God there is no meaning at all. That is no answer.
It’s lent, the perfect season to seek out the Lord in new ways. Do something crazy and foolish for him. When I was at Carroll, my friends and I tried to fast in impossible ways, we did middle of the night prayer vigils at the grotto or up on Mount Helena, tried to pull all nighters during holy week. In almost all this we failed, but we did it because we loved Jesus and wanted to know him, and it was a blast. If you want to get in over your head on a great adventure, there is no better friend to do that with than Jesus Christ.
This, the final part of my four-part formation for the CYC board in the Diocese of Helena, addresses the moral life. The main question is: Does God want us to be happy? We need to ask this because what the Church demands often seems to go against our interests, against our happiness.
But is it worth it? If I'm gay or transgender, can I be happy in the Catholic Church? Listen in!
When we come to an impasse, when life presses in on us and we face some impossible trial or suffering that will surely overwhelm us, we frantically look around, and seeing nothing that will heal us or satisfy us, we begin to reach for things that can never satisfy. Our desperate imagination tells us this artificial thing can bring satisfaction, that some shadow is, in fact, real sustenance.
The beam here is sin, the only one who can remove it is Christ. So, before we judge our brothers and sisters, we turn to Christ and recognize our sins, our shortfalls, our total incapacity to live the charity he calls us to. When we do, we are forgiven, we are healed, and our sight is restored.
It is then that we begin to judge rightly and confidently because we judge with the judgment by which we are judged; we judge with forgiving hearts. As Christians we do not name the evil of the world for what it is out of superiority but to warn those around us it will never bring joy. We don’t judge the actions of others in condescension, but in hopes they will turn to to God for the same joyful forgiveness we have received.
Today western culture seems to have settled on an odd and contradictory mixture of ideas simultaneously. Our culture has embraced the sexual revolution of the 60’s which basically says- do what you want with your body, it’s yours and it’s just a body. While believing this, we also totally reject the body as a means of communicating any truth about our identity. So it seems our culture is saying that our body and its desires are the best guide to happiness while also saying it means nothing, it tells you nothing about who you are, feel free to reject it for another identity of your own choosing.
The beatitudes aren’t even commands. Look at the commandments, you will notice eight “shall not” commands and two positive commands. The Beatitudes, in contrast, are statements of fact: “Blessed are those.” They are not commands forbidding sinful activity, but invitations into deification, invitations to “become partakers in the divine nature.”
So as our culture slowly rejects Christian morality- as we see in the supreme court’s redefinition of marriage or the recent New York Abortion Laws, or in the growing indifference to the gospel and the Church amongst the general population- we cannot be surprised.
Why?
Because we are to blame. It’s our fault.
What is Jesus’ prayer more than any other? “Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.”
We are called to be one and we are divided. How can we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel which at its very core calls us to unite ourselves to God so intimately that we become partakers in trinitarian life if we are divided amongst ourselves. It’s a scandal to the world and it shackles us in preaching the gospel.
God calls us to obedience and abandonment to him. For some, this call may include the call to absolute poverty and chastity, and obedience. For all of us it must involve abandonment to divine providence. This idea of abandonment and obedience to God’s will is so foreign to us today that it may seem slavish and ridiculous.
Is it a virtue? or the attitude of a slave?
I want to give you two definitions of Faith, but I promise I’ll explain them. First, let’s look at the scriptures for a definition. In Hebrews, we are told, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This might not clarify things all to well, but let’s get one more working definition then begin our journey- though this might temporarily muddy the waters even more. Thomas Aquinas tells us faith is The habit of the mind (Intellect) whereby eternal life is begun in us making the intellect assent to what is not evident.
If you still need the explaination, listen in!
Do we believe the Church was founded by Jesus Christ? Do we believe that her demands- though heroic- will actually bring us joy? That’s a question we need to ask ourselves, because the world is certainly asking it of us. Not only are they asking, they have already condemned us hateful bigots.
I had the honor of presiding over the wedding of Garrett and Kylee Conners this weekend, a great Montana couple who who witnessed well to the power of this sacrament and are more than ready for this wonderful adventure together. Enjoy the homily!
Jesus, in his Baptism, gives us a direction forward into this difficult life. He makes very clearly to us that this life involves a death, that no one escapes this life without giving himself away, so why not give our lives for something worthy.
Our culture believes our relationships are fundamentally about me. Is this relationship making me “happy”? Does this person give me what I need? Are my hopes and dreams the main focus of this relationship? Why are these the questions we ask first? Because our fundamental disposition is that of taking. We all believe, to some degree, that our happiness is about taking- whether material, emotional, or spiritual.
So what is it really about?
We not only are a mystery to ourselves concerning our past, but our future is unknown as well. We tend to respond to this in one of two ways: either with a hyper-planned scenario that attempts to cover every possible outcome (older generations tended toward this) or to just say forget it-
Many in my generation, millennials, tend to say something like: we are 25 with too many degrees, mediocre job prospects and an insurmountable pile of student debt with compounding interest; forget planning and enjoy that $5 coffee right now.
I don’t think we realize how often we lie, gossip, and behave selfishly- especially in our work for that is where it is most easily justified. John the Baptist came to reveal to 1st century Galileans how utterly mediocre their lives were. Yet, he also made it clear that the life of a saint, the way of perfection, is right before you, it’s in your midst, it’s the call to true charity and humility in your everyday life and it’s not optional for the Christian.
This is the third part in a four part formation series for the Catholic Youth Coalition in the Diocese of Helena.
With only one session to look at the Church, I focused in on the martyrs and Desert Fathers and Mothers as an incredible witness to the power of the gospel. This is something that inspires us to give our whole lives, to give up the world. Here is the Audio from that talk.
The climate of western culture has created a new and unique form of dialogue which usually consists of carefully crafted homage to tolerance followed by a lambasting of anyone who disagrees with the personally held position.
When we look to ourselves for our identity instead of looking to the one who made us, we end up putting our whole identity in some trait, some feature that we think makes us unique or empowers us, or makes us worthy of love. Yet when we do that, we inevitably compromise who we are. We take a part of ourselves and make it the whole. We take something that may or may not tell part of our story and we make it our whole story.
What other option is there?
Why do the scriptures so often speak to us of the end times when God obviously doesn’t plan to tell us his plan for that day of judgment? In fact, it does not even seem a part of Jesus’ divine mission to know the day or the hour of that coming. In speaking of it, just he seeking to instill fear in his listeners? Or is he giving them hope for eternal life? Yes on both accounts.
Evil is framed according to a narrative that suggests it’s somehow all outside of us, it’s too powerful to be grappled with, and it might be on your doorstep soon. This is not, however, what our gospel today suggests. In fact, Jesus paints a very different picture than the news, and today’s gospel contains a truth which we both need to hear and don’t want to hear.
So each year the Israelites sent a goat into the wilderness on Yom Kippur with their sins, for a moment being free of the burden of sin, and shortly thereafter they would sin again, being broken humans like ourselves, and await the following year when Yom Kippur would come. More urgently, they awaited the messiah who would set things straight, he who “will arise, the sun of justice with his healing rays... To turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”
Jesus is the messiah, he is the one who takes all the sins of Israel- indeed the whole world- upon himself and dies for us. This sacrifice of Christ is the most fitting, the most perfect sacrifice. It need be only once, for Jesus is God and the great exchange which happens in this sacrifice sits outside of history- above history- we could say. It is Jesus let us lay hands on him, who take upon himself all the hatred, the venom, the sin of the world, and died with it. Thus it is swallowed up in Christ’s death.
To a man who has had success in all life’s endeavors, who excels in virtue and is without match in business savvy, Jesus declares, “It is you I want for myself, I do not care for your accomplishments. Empty yourself of all those things that I may fill you up!”
Jesus looks upon this man and loves him, calls him to discipleship- and he walks away!!
How could this happen, how does such a powerful scene end this way?
Jesus answers our question with something even more difficult: “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” Brothers and sisters, do we love Christ above everything? Would we leave everything to follow him? We must be brutally honest with ourselves on this, for we see in our gospel today that we can be good, even excellent people who earnestly seek God, yet in the moment of truth we can reject Christ’s loving gaze.
This is the 2nd part of a four part series I am giving to the CYC Board in our diocese, discussing the theology of the cross, what it tells us about God and about ourselves.
Unfortunately, I didn't record the first part of the series, but I will hopefully get around to typing up my notes soon enough, or perhaps will give the talk in a different context soon, and will record it.
Just a Note- this is 28 minutes long!
Who is saved? What is it necessary for salvation? We ask questions in this arena often, and rarely do the answers not make us uncomfortable. That’s because an easy answer to that question either errors on the side of universalism- basically everyone is saved so don’t worry about it. Or it begins to sound rigid, brutal, and nearly arbitrary when someone claims there is no salvation outside the Church, period.
Why are we often so wrapped up in these sorts of questions? This is because deep down, we all want a religion that is a matter of ortho-praxis. What is a religion of ortho-praxis? It presents us with a list of obligations, procedures, formulas and works, and we do them. If we do them, we go to heaven, and if we don’t, we do not go to heaven, it's that simple. How we feel while we do these things is irrelevant, what we believe in the midst of all that work is also irrelevant, because it only matters that we do the work demanded of us.
A few of the fastest growing religions in our world are that way, which is part of their compelling force for many people. If I do this, I go to heaven- it’s that easy. Christianity is not a religion of orthopraxy
What is the appropriate response finding to such a terrific evil planted in the institution founded by Christ to stand against this exact evil? How do we respond when looking upon these wicked men who go about in the light as though they will guide us in the ways of holiness while in the dark they go about their awful, pernicious deeds?
Where can we go from here? Many are furious and disgusted with the whole affair, as well as ashamed and disappointed with the Church. If those are your feelings, I am right there with you. I feel all those same things but most of all, I’m angry.
In all of this, we look to God for guidence in our anger and power in healing.
I am not sounding some apocalyptic horn announcing this the worst age. Every age, every generation has its struggles. We can just look to Paul’s letter today, “Brothers and Sisters, watch carefully how you live, not as foolish but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil.”
The evil we face today is subtle, confusing, and hard to pin down. That Struggle is the struggle with meaninglessness, and our young people are losing. 54% of young people considered themselves lonely, and suicide is now the third leading cause of death in young people between the ages of 10 and 24… about 4,600 kids in the U.S. each year.
What are we to do?
If we didn’t enjoy, at least in some shallow way, the iPhone’s ability to distract us for hours on end from the real world, from facing ourselves, we wouldn’t buy them and invest our whole identity in that platform. If we didn’t believe sports were the root of happiness, we wouldn’t sacrifice every second of our life running our kids from school sports to travel sports to dance to whatever.
I will tell you this for sure, none of those things will bring you joy- ever, no matter much time you put in or how successful you are, no matter the popularity and attention it brings you. In fact, in a horrible twist, the more we pour our identity into these things, no matter what they are, the emptier we become- because they have no power to give life!
Today, we bustle about like sheep without a shepherd. We must let the true shepherd, Jesus Christ, lead us into the wilderness daily to be refreshed, that he can give focus, energy and direction to everything we do.
The Blackfeet are predominately Catholic, and overwhelmingly Christian besides- in other words they are a faithful people. Yet they face dire poverty with 70% unemployment. Alcohol and drugs have wreaked havoc upon their people with a disproportionate amount of young deaths, as well as ½ the children in Browning being born addicted.
Where is God’s grace in this place? Where is he when his people so badly need him? Why does he not come to their aid? These were some of the questions on our young people’s hearts as the trip began- and on my own heart. Yet as we came to know the Blackfeet people and saw their faith, suddenly Jesus seemed to be everywhere, and different questions arose in our hearts.
Our ten year reunion is an interesting moment. The gospel, which I think is fitting, is a meditation on Death and suffering: what do they tell us about living a meaningful life?
This Sunday is the feast of Corpus Christi, the body and Blood of Christ. There are multiple layers to this feast, each of which reveals an ever deeper and greater mystery. This feast, when all is said and done, concerns the humiliation of the eternal Son of God.
So, we must understand what exactly Jesus is doing here- without trying to level out what is mysterious. Because I must be clear: this is mysterious- the eucharist is truly the body and blood of Christ, it is not an empty sign, it's not just a symbol to remind us WE are the body of Christ.
We can imagine: not only will our intellect constantly penetrating the mysteries of God, the great heavenly feast in the book of Revelation will be brought to life- imagine perfect, heavenly food, in overflowing abundance. Will our favorite activities still exist on the new earth? I don’t see why we will not ski powder every day or have perfect trails with perfect dirt for mountain biking and stunning rivers with huge fish surrounded by pristine mountains.
Imagine the music in heaven: the greatest composers in history working with the greatest musicians, all in peak form with their minds unhindered by any ulterior motives and their work unhindered by time restraints and poverty. Imagine the art and the conversations, the greatest minds of all time to converse with. Most of all we will have true rest- peace. We will not be occupied with the cares of the world or the stress of day to day life.
In this fallen world, we all face incredible suffering, sometimes what seems like unbearable, deeply unjust suffering. In these moments we must remain on the vine, take up our cross with Christ and let him strengthen us, or we will inevitably isolate, grow bitter, and eventually despair. We must remain in Christ if we want to weather the storm of this life- not only to weather it but to be joyful in the midst of it.
After 250 years of fighting relentlessly for the common good, for the idea that there is indeed goodness and truth, we have abandoned that struggle and chosen instead to just tolerate each other. Of fear of the tension that comes with diversity has crushed us, sent us into hiding. As a result, our faith is privatized, and we are afraid to bring it to bear in the world.
In this we can learn a lesson from our jr. high kids. It’s refreshing how willing young people are to offend someone with a blunt question. Now, is there often a lack of prudence, and even at times plainly inappropriate? Yes, but there is something raw and good there, we must risk offending people in the pursuit of the truth, and we also must be willing to be offended! Political correctness has robbed us of this courage.
Gregory the Great tells us, “The unbelief of Thomas was worth more to us than the faith of the others who believed.” If we make that great act of humility, humbling our sinful pride and coming before Christ, we find ourselves transformed in faith as Thomas was transformed, as all the saints were transformed. And it is then that we have the capacity and the courage to bestow God’s mercy upon others.
When St. Francis came before the Crucifix in the San Damiano Church, he asked three questions: Who are you, Lord? Who am I? And what would you have me do? With these three questions on our minds and hearts, I would like to dig into the scriptures from this Easter Sunday.
I realized the great leap of faith in the priesthood is this: When we are ordained, we are taken up into the priesthood of Jesus Christ, and along with that of course comes all the love of those who love Christ and the Church, yet what also must come is all the rejection of those who rejected Christ. All of us as Christians are called to take upon ourselves the Cross of rejection and scorn. Yet the priest is called into Christ’s victimhood in a particular way, in order that we may enter into solidarity with the poorest and most rejected in this world.
It is easy to pass over Jesus entrance into Jerusalem without looking into the detail and complexity of what is happening. If we do this, we miss the great magnitude of the event. Jesus fulfills a handful of prophecies in this single act, let's take a look!
The “You do you” life will never satisfy. As we move ever closer to Easter, to that great feast in which we proclaim boldly that Christ is risen, we look deep into ourselves and ask- am I living as if God is dead? Or can I truly say he is risen and lives in my heart- am I his servant, ready to follow his will.
Our God is mysterious. He acts in ways that we often cannot grasp, and we see his plan as those looking through a mirror dimly. Yet we know all the same that he is never unreasonable. His plan never requires an act of blind faith. The scholastics always spoke of fides quarens intellectum, faith seeking understanding! We will never grasp God completely, but we continue to seek, to learn, to know our heavenly father.
Ash Wednesday sits just three days away- we need to examine ourselves. We see continually in the scriptures that physical healing is always secondary for Jesus. What is most important is our spiritual healing. So, we ask ourselves: What are my addictions? What are my sins? Where do I need the Lord most?
This lent, let your penance be specific to that place you struggle most- if you are prideful, assign yourself menial, humiliating tasks. If you struggle eating too much, fast. If you are addicted to the tv or social media, put the tv in the storage room or switch to a dumb phone for lent.
This is not the health and wealth gospel, Jesus will not take away all our suffering and give us great riches if we turn our lives over to him. But he will give us joy in the midst of our suffering and thus make us holy witnesses to a world full of meaningless suffering.
No matter where we look today, we see angry talking heads. Flip on any news channel, right or left, and there they are, stirring up passion and hate.
We see whenever Jesus teaches, people are astonished. Look at the whole gospel, really dig into it, take it at face value rather than filtering it or assuming you understand it, and you will be astonished. Yet what is it about Jesus’ teaching that’s astonishing? I propose it is his promises and his demands.
John Paul II told us “the Church imposes nothing, she only proposes. What she proposes, however, is the truth, and the truth does impose itself.” So be courageous in evangelizing, and don’t worry about having the perfect answers before entering into the fray. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, he makes up for what is lacking in us- his word is the truth and is compelling in itself. He worked through Jonah, he can work through you.
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Sometimes I feel redundant in my preaching, just saying over and over again how important our relationship with God is- but then I look at my own life and realize how often I need to begin again in living the Christian life. Though the goal is always the same- to give our lives completely over to Christ- the result is our diverse and beautiful Church. The Divine call is fundamentally the same, but practically, it is totally unique for each Christian.
So, God spoke his definitive word by coming among us himself, both in his words and in his death on the cross he gave us the definitive revelation. Yet, that was 2000 years ago. When we look at that time, the chaos, wars, corruption, and instability, not to mention the shifts in language and culture. How can we even know we have this revelation St. Paul speaks of? Because of the Church.
There is, of course, some truth to the idea that we need to make our own way, make our lives our own. But the idea that our family is not a crucial part of that process, this lone ranger mentality we have in America, is foreign to the whole history of humanity! When Jesus came as a man, he chose to live his first thirty years as a part of a family, so he knows the struggles we face there. Mundane family life has been divinized, it is worth the fight!
Are we just animals, just another species, which happened to pack so much processing power in our cerebral cortex that we have aquired the capacity for self-examination? Or is there more to the story of humanity?
Is it not a massive injustice for God to create us such that our only happiness comes in relationship with him- our creator- and then go and promptly hide himself from us? Why does he not reveal himself in all his power? Because he respects our freedom. So, in his wisdom, God came among hidden- thus bringing about a great intimacy with us while also respecting our freedom.
THe world pulls us in so many directions. This Advent- Are you filling in the valleys of yoursoul, tearing down the mountains that stand between youand God? Are you making a highway for my God? Because if not, if everything in your life isn’t ordered toward that end- you will never be happy, you will never have rest.
What is with all these rules about worship? Why do I need to go to mass? Can I not just try and be an honest, good person? Can't I spend my Sunday in the mountains or at the lake or on the river? Is that not a way of giving fitting worship to God? True, Jesus divinized our everyday activity, everything can be a prayer, an act of worship. He also gave us very specific commands concerning our worship. I try to address why he did so in this homily.
We live in a dictatorship of relativism, yet we as Christians believe we have received not just any truth but the Truth. We choose Jesus Christ is our King not because he is our preference but because he is God. We know that he died and rose for us, that our sins have been forgiven, and that we are destined for eternal life.
The foolish virgins in this Sunday's gospel are the spiritual equivalent of my basketball life. They may have a vague desire to enter the heavenly feast, yet they stopped living in accord with that desire long ago, thus the oil- the fuel necessary to jump into action when called upon- has emptied.
We have to acknowledge our culture is tending toward post-Christian every day. And though we are called to Christian hope, we are not called to be naïve so I do not imagine we will change the trajectory anytime soon. So, we can identify ourselves as many things. Are you first- before anything else- a disciple of Christ?
God's absence is a sort of mystical vacuum that generates a trememdous moral crisis exposing the innermost heart of the tenants, revealing it in all its perversity. It is our work as Christians to make God present in the world- Are we doing it?
Do we actually believe that the Christian life will make us happy? More precisely, can it give us a happiness the world cannot give? If we do believe this, it has real consequences for our lives- serious consequences. Let’s look to the gospel for guidance
We know that we are in some manner responsible for our brothers and sisters, that we cannot create our own moral code, or any sense of community or solidarity would crumble.
It is naturally impossible for us, as people who live in time and space, to transcend our particular culture and worldview in hopes of getting a more objective perspective on this s.hort window in which we live. So what are we do do? Is it hopeless?
Happiness is not found in autonomy, in being the master of your own domain, rather true freedom is found in that definitive yes to the one you love- which demands a NO to all the others.
How could Jesus be silent in the face of a poor woman's plea? We can ask further: how could he be silent in the face of our pleas, of our petitions?
We ought to ask why Jesus allows tribulation and suffering? He purposely subjects his disciples to hours of imminent danger on the waters, and though he knew what the outcome would be, they didn’t.