Sin still matters

Homily: 26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B

Friends, as we continue our journey through Ordinary Time—the time in the Liturgical Year in which we focus on growing as missionary disciples—we are reminded of important truths that help keep us on track.  A full six months removed from Lent and Easter—in which we focused on acknowledging our sin and worked towards repentance—this Sunday the Church gives us a reminder that sin still matters, even when it isn’t Lent.

In the second reading today, Saint James issues a stern warning to the rich who have taken unjust advantage of those less fortunate than them.  He lays their sins before them and prophesies that the comforts and excesses that they are enjoying now God has permitted so as to “fatten their hearts” for the coming slaughter.  He is warning them because they have become complacent in their sin and because God will not overlook their injustices on the Day of Judgment.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus is just as deliberate and graphic.  He instructs his disciples to be vigilant against sin.  In fact, another way to describe Jesus’ teaching using some of our more modern parlance would be to say that Jesus instructs his disciples to be intolerant of sin.  God has laid down a law that must be obeyed and to choose against that law is to choose against God himself and will result in eternal separation from God, which will be the cause of eternal suffering; and so Jesus tells his disciples: “Be intolerant of sin!  If your hand causes you to sin, CUT. IT. OFF!  If your eye causes you to sin, PLUCK. IT. OUT!  Failure to do so will condemn you to a place of eternal suffering: much like being in the middle of the unquenchable fire of Gehenna.”

Gehenna, for those of you who may not know, is not just another name for Hell.  Gehenna was an actual place outside the walls of Jerusalem.  It was a valley on the outskirts of the city that had been used for human sacrifice in Old Testament times by the evil rulers of the Israelites who worshiped pagan Gods.  By the time of Christ, the valley had become a huge, outdoor public incinerator, of sorts, in which trash and refuse, including the dead bodies of animals and criminals, were thrown and eventually consumed by a smoldering fire that was constantly kept burning.  Obviously, this was not a pleasant place to be around; and, having seen it, Jesus’ disciples knew that this was not a place that you could imagine yourself living for all eternity.

Thus, the extreme images that Jesus uses to describe how intolerant one should be of sin in his or her life.  Sin is a deadly thing, in spite of the lies that Satan will tell you about it.  (Remember Genesis?  “You certainly won’t die...” the serpent said to Eve.)  Thus, Jesus, and Saint James after him, are adamant that sin be rooted out of our lives down to the very source.  Are they trying to scare us into conforming?  Well, yes.  Elsewhere Jesus will say, “Do not fear the one who can kill the body, but rather the one who has the power to send you into the everlasting fires” (Mt. 10:28).  If our goal in life is to make it to eternal life with God (and it is, by the way), then we should fear ever committing any sin that would keep us from achieving that goal; and, therefore, remove anything from our lives that leads us into sin.

In these past couple of months, some serious wounds have been reopened and we are facing once again the hurt and suffering that tolerated sin causes.  The sins of sexual abuse by anyone, but especially by the clergy of the Church, produce lasting effects that, for the victim of abuse, can make him/her feel as if he/she is already living in Gehenna: a horrible wasteland in which a never-ending fire consumes him/her.  With hindsight we can see that even one instance of this being tolerated is horrible (though we shouldn’t have needed hindsight to see that).  Nonetheless, these bigger sins were tolerated because many, much smaller sins of unchastity (and, in the case of the clergy, unfaithfulness to one’s promise of chastity) were tolerated for many years.  Like a cancer, the toleration of even one of these sins puts the whole body at risk for destruction.

Sad, though, how we wouldn’t hesitate to submit ourselves to treatment to eliminate cancer—treatment that often entails significant suffering and sacrifice—yet we look at sin and tell ourselves “Meh, it’s not that bad... I’ll be fine.”  Friends, just as the Church is in real need of chemotherapy to cleanse Christ’s Body of these cancerous tumors that have threatened to destroy it, so too each of us.  Millions of women have gone through mastectomies in the hope that, by removing this important part of their bodies, the cancer that threatens their lives will be removed completely.  How quickly we respond to doctors who urge us to act so as to prevent pain and suffering in this world (let alone, death), yet we refuse to respond to Jesus, the Divine Physician, who urges us to act so as to prevent eternal pain and suffering (that is, eternal death) in the world to come.

My brothers and sisters, sin still matters.  When we tolerate sin—even small sin—in our lives, we allow a cancer to grow within us—silent and sinister: a cancer that destroys us from the inside.  To root sin out, we must subject ourselves to intense therapy: fasting, prayer, and frequent treatments through the sacraments of Penance and Holy Eucharist; and we must be honest with ourselves about whether relationships and circumstances in our lives are leading us into occasions of sin—that is, occasions for us to act against God and his Divine Law and against our neighbor—and thus we must eliminate them.  Anything short of this leaves us in danger of being cast into the eternal fires of Hell.

I myself have voluntarily taken on a regimen of mortification over these last few months meant to help me root out the sources of sin in my own life and to make reparation for my sins and the sins of my fellow priests and bishops.  I will not prescribe one for all of you, but I do invite each of you to consider what you might voluntarily fast from so as to conquer the root of a pernicious sin in your own life.  By each of us taking responsibility for our own sins and by supporting each other in our efforts (accountability partners are great things!), we’ll begin to see that the larger, systemic sins in our Church and in our society are being rooted out as well.

Let us take courage, then, my brothers and sisters, to take up (or continue) this good work; so that we might discover what our Responsorial Psalm tells us today: that “the precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart”: the eternal joy made possible for us by Jesus’ sacrifice.  The sacrifice that is made present to us here on this altar.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – September 29^th & 30^th, 2018

Pentecost: the gratuitous warehouse explosion of the Christian life

          For those of you who don't know, I announced this past weekend that Bishop Doherty has decided to transfer my assignment from All Saints Parish to the Cathedral Parish of Saint Mary, the Immaculate Conception in Lafayette, effective June 27th.  Fr. Jeff Martin will take my place as pastor of All Saints, effective the same day.  I refer to this announcement in the homily.

Homily: Pentecost Sunday – Cycle B

          With the action-adventure film The Avengers: Infinity War already making more money than any other film worldwide (…ever!), it seems like the summer blockbuster season is already upon us.  Deadpool 2, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Ocean’s 8, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom… these are some of the other blockbusters opening in the coming weeks and, I can tell you, the list goes on and on.  As we know, a “blockbuster” is a movie with a lot of action, usually some sort of “end of the world” threat, and, of course, plenty of gratuitous explosions.  One of the classic clichés of these types of movies is what I call the “gasoline fueled warehouse explosion”.  This is where the character douses a warehouse with gasoline (or, some other flammable liquid that, conveniently, is being stored in the warehouse) with the intent of setting it ablaze and destroying the whole structure.  Then, just as he or she leaves, the character drops a lighter onto the fuel and walks away, while the flames quickly spread.  Then, the “money shot”: a wide angle shot where the character is walking towards the camera, away from the warehouse, when suddenly the warehouse explodes in the background, without so much as a flinch from the character.  You’ve seen this, right?  How many of you have seen some version of this scene in a movie before?

          In a way, the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, which we celebrated last week, is kind of like that.  Since Easter, the day of his Resurrection, Jesus, in his glorified body, walked among his disciples, teaching about how his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead had fulfilled all that had been written about the Messiah and prepared them for that moment when he would ascend into heaven to return to the right hand of his Father.  Then, he ascended: leaving them the promise of something dramatic that will happen soon.  This “something dramatic” was the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  In other words, for 40 days, Jesus “set the stage” by pouring the fuel of his teaching all over the warehouse, which was his disciples; and as he left he dropped the lighter, which was the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit; and on Pentecost, the warehouse exploded as the Holy Spirit descended and gave the Apostles power to witness to Jesus to the ends of the earth.

          In a way, this is exactly how it had to be.  The blockbuster “money shot” isn’t when the character spreads the fuel.  If the movie ended there, we’d all be disappointed, right?  Instead, the character has to set the blaze and get away for us to feel satisfied by the explosion.  Jesus knew that God’s plan for the human race was bigger than his band of followers from Galilee, that it was bigger than the Jewish people, that, in fact, it was so big that it would encompass the entire world; thus, it had to be that, after Jesus had accomplished man’s redemption, he would then return to the Father so that the Holy Spirit—the power by which God’s plan for the whole world would be accomplished—could explode forth into the human scene.

          To use another example:  Many of us have seen what it’s like when 5 year olds play soccer.  Even though their coaches try hard to teach them to play different positions, as soon as that ball is loose, it’s a free-for-all scrum surrounding it.  This is kind of like the disciples while Jesus was with them.  Even though, on occasion, Jesus sent them out to preach, they always came back around him and followed him wherever he went.  After Jesus’ ascension into heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit, however, the disciples looked much more like a professional team: spread out across the field, using their different talents towards one purpose, making them much more effective.  Jesus ascends so that his disciples could spread out and be more effective.

          I actually think that we can sum this up by referring to a statement Jesus made elsewhere in the Gospel.  One day, one of the Pharisees asked him “Why don’t your disciples fast like John’s disciples do?”  Jesus replied and said, “While the bridegroom is with them, they cannot fast, but when the bridegroom is taken away from them, they will fast.”  I don’t mean to change this into a homily about fasting, but rather to focus on how Jesus acknowledges that there will be different circumstances while he is here with us versus after he has been taken up from us.  Adapting this idea to today’s feast, I might re-write it that Jesus says “While the bridegroom is with them, they will be limited, but when the bridegroom is taken away they will succeed freely.”  Jesus ascends not to abandon us, but so that we can be “launched”, if you will, to fulfill the Father’s plan for all humanity.

          Thus, the Ascension, particularly in connection with Pentecost (and, by the way, it’s always in connection with Pentecost!), has something to say to us today.  Many of us are upset that I have been reassigned and, thus, will be leaving All Saints after 6 years of serving this parish.  But what if this is part of the Father’s plan to “launch” you all—the members of this parish—to the next level?  My job has always been to “set the scene”, so to speak, and I hope that I have done that; but now, perhaps, I must “ignite the flame and walk away” so that it can explode into new life for this parish.  My brothers and sisters, this is the hopefulness with which we need to step into this transition: that if I am going forth from this parish, it is so that you can continue to grow “to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ” as Saint Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians.

          Thus, today we celebrate and we look forward.  We celebrate that Jesus, Our Redeemer, has gone before us to prepare a place for us in heaven and to advocate for us eternally before the Father.  We celebrate that he has sent the Holy Spirit to us.  And we look forward beyond Pentecost: rejoicing that God has filled us more generously with his gifts—that is, the power of the Holy Spirit to explode into the world in order to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth for the building up of Christ’s Body “to the extent of the full stature of Christ”.

          Therefore, my brothers and sisters, let us not be afraid to worship with our whole hearts the Lord Jesus who, having risen from the dead so as to destroy death forever, has ascended into heaven and now stands eternally at the Father’s right hand; and let us not be afraid to pray fervently for God’s Holy Spirit to fill us more abundantly with his power: the power to witness to Jesus and his saving love to those suffering in mind, body, and spirit—the power of Jesus which has overcome the finality of death—the power that we encounter when we receive his Body and Blood from this altar.

          Friends, the summer blockbuster season is, indeed, upon us.  May our blockbuster—the feasts of Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost—be the live action film that tops the Box Office here in our community.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – May 20^th, 2018

Purified through persecution

Homily: 33^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          If any of us stopped to think about receiving a valuable gift, chances are that many of us would think of receiving something made out of gold.  Gold is a metal that we consider to be precious and valuable and so we only use it for things that will be valued and preserved.  In other words, we don’t make hammers out of gold because we expect them to be used, abused, and eventually discarded.  Wedding rings, the vessels we use at Mass, and gifts that we receive when retiring after a long career are made out of gold because they will be treasured, preserved, and valued for many years to come.

          What makes gold so precious to us is both its rarity and its beauty.  Its rarity is a characteristic inherent to gold itself.  There’s only so much gold in the world and to find a mine of it is valuable because it is a valued commodity.  Its beauty, however, is not something with which it comes naturally.  Rather, raw gold ore must be refined before it will begin to show the beauty for which it is highly prized; and this refining process is a violent one.  There are actually a few different methods of refining gold, but the two most common methods use either heat or chemicals.

          Refining with heat is one of the oldest methods of refining metals. Mentioned even in the bible, this form of refining involved a craftsman sitting next to a hot fire with molten gold in a crucible being stirred and skimmed to remove the impurities (or dross) that rose to the top of the molten metal. With flames reaching temperatures in excess of 1000 degrees Celsius, this job was definitely a dangerous occupation for the gold refiner. The tradition remains largely untouched today with the exception of a few advancements in safety and precision.

          In the chemical method of refining gold, strong acids such as nitric acid and hydrochloric acid are used to dissolve the impurities in the gold ore and, afterwards, are neutralized and washed away, taking the impurities with them. The resulting product is a muddy substance that is almost pure gold. This muddy substance is then dried until it is a powdered residue and then heated to melt the gold powder and fuse it so that it becomes a usable solid.  Both processes, as you can see, are pretty violent!  And I mention them here today because I think that they help us to understand what our Scriptures are trying to tell us today.

          Near the end of his time on earth, Jesus starts to say some disturbing things to his disciples.  He tells them that a time of violent unrest will come upon them and that no one, even his disciples, will be kept free from suffering.  In fact, he tells them, they’ll be persecuted, and some of them killed, even, perhaps, by their own family members!  This is not the image of triumph that his followers were hoping the Messiah would bring and so I can only imagine how disheartening Jesus’ words were to them.

          Nevertheless, Jesus makes a promise.  At the end of these words of “doom and gloom”, Jesus tells them, “…not a hair on your head will be destroyed.  By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”  In this promise Jesus shows his followers that there is a way through this time of tribulation and that is perseverance in faith.  Perhaps, however, this begs some questions: “If God is intent on preserving his faithful ones through this time of tribulation, why not just prevent the tribulation in the first place?  Is he just trying to test them to see if they will fail?  Is this a punishment for sins that they’ve committed, even though they were trying to follow him?”  The answer, I think, lies in our understanding of how gold is refined.

          The suffering that Jesus is predicting that his followers will experience is not the suffering of punishment or even the suffering of an uncaring God who just refuses to keep them safe from it.  I think, rather, that the suffering that is predicted is a suffering of refinement.  The tribulations that will befall Jesus’ followers are like the refiner’s fire: a violent aggression against the element that nonetheless purges its impurities so that nothing but the pure, precious element remains.

          The human person, marred by sin, is like raw gold ore: valuable more for what it could be than for what it is.  Unrefined, it is marred by the impurities that are mixed in with its chemical structure.  In order for its full beauty to be seen—and, therefore, its full value to be known—it must go through the violent and painful process of refining: stripping away its impurities, until nothing is left but pure gold, an element of striking beauty.  In preparation for the second coming of the Lord, the world—and, specifically, the human person—must also go through a refining process, because only those who are pure can stand in the presence of God.  Perseverance in faith through tribulations is like the gold maintaining the integrity of its chemical composition throughout the refining process: having endured the violent process, each person will emerge in the purity of his or her humanity and will be a strikingly beautiful creature to behold.

          The challenge, therefore, for Christians is two-fold: One, not to fall away from the faith when the tribulations come.  Remember, Jesus said “By your perseverance you will secure your lives!”  The second challenge for Christians is to hasten this transformation by living transformed lives here and now!  If we are truly anticipating Jesus’ return and the coming of God’s kingdom in its fullness, then we ought to be "stoking the flames" of the refiner's fire by living transformed lives and thus put into stark contrast the misdeeds of those who do evil.  Living the corporal and spiritual works of mercy beyond the close of the Year of Mercy is one major way to do this.  In other words, and this is counterintuitive, we prepare ourselves for the great tribulation—and, in a real sense, hasten its coming—when we readily seek tribulation in our lives: that is, opportunities to sacrifice ourselves in the name of Jesus to build up his kingdom and to purge all that is dark and impure within us.

          Another way that we can prepare ourselves for (and, thus, hasten) Jesus’ coming is our daily examination of conscience and our frequent celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation.  The examination is like a daily refiner’s fire that causes all of our impurities (that is, our sins) to bubble to the surface.  Then, in the sacrament, Jesus, the Divine Refiner, skims the dross of our impurities from the surface when we confess our sins and receive absolution.  As purified gold we then go forth to shine in the world to show it that purity is possible by the way we live our lives, now unhindered by the impurities that once discolored us.  Sure, impurities will begin to attach themselves to us once again as we intermingle with the world; and this means that this is a process that must be continually renewed until the end of time.  I believe, however, that this is what Jesus meant when he said: "By your perseverance you will secure your lives".

          My brothers and sisters, as human persons, many dark things separate us from one another and keep us from being the amazingly beautiful and pure creation that God intended us to be: a visible image of the communion of persons that he is in himself.  Therefore, let us use these frightful words that Jesus speaks to us today to inspire us to allow the refining process to work in our lives and then to be prophets in the world by which others come to acknowledge and accept their own need of refining.

          My brothers and sisters, the eternal salvation of many depends on the work that we do to bring them to accept this hard work of being refined.  Let us not fail them, but rather spend our lives for them.  In this way we will model our Lord's sacrifice for us and thus conform ourselves to his image, even as we help form the human family into the image of God on earth.  In doing so, we will secure our own salvation.  May the strength that can only come from God bring this good work to fulfillment in our lives.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – November 12^th & 13^th, 2016

The light and the water / La Luz y el agua

Homily/Homilía: Easter Vigil/Vigilia de la Pascua – Cycle/Ciclo C

          What an amazing night that God has blessed us with to celebrate this beautiful liturgy in which we stand watch for the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus.  It is a liturgy unlike any throughout the year which truly engages all of our senses.  We started with the fire outside and walked in procession into a darkened church, which nonetheless became bright with the light of the candles and we sang the praises both of this night, which alone knew the hour that our Savior arose from the dead, and of this candle, whose light we shared and broke through the darkness of the night, just like Christ’s resurrection broke through the darkness of death.

          Then we heard the Word of God proclaimed to us: the word which reminds us of the many ways that God has worked throughout history to bring salvation to the human race; and specifically how he has used water to bring it about.  Soon we will welcome eight of our brothers and sisters to be washed in the waters of baptism so that they, too, might “grow into union with him through a death like his” and thus “be united with him in the resurrection.”  So prominent are these two elements—the light and the water—that it bears to speak of them with a little more detail.  First, the light.

          Darkness is a fearful thing, isn’t it?  Anyone here still afraid of the dark?  It can also be a very disorienting thing.  If you find yourself in an unfamiliar place and experience true total darkness, you’ll find yourself becoming very anxious, very quickly because you soon realize that without the aid of light, you have almost no hope to escape.  You become frozen.  Light, therefore, removes darkness and gives us confidence to move and to find our way.  In the Gospel tonight, however, we heard of how the light shining off of the two men sitting in the tomb of Jesus was not a comfort, but a thing of fear; and so we see that even the light can terrify us when it is misunderstood.  We have been enlightened, though, to understand that the brilliance of this light is the glory of Christ shining upon us and so we are comforted.  Tonight, this light shines especially on our elect, who will receive this light into their souls through baptism.

          And what about the water?  Water, for all of us, is a sign of life.  Not too long ago, scientists identified what they thought were signs that there was water on Mars and they rejoiced because, for them, it means that life could exist on that planet.  Water cleanses us; it refreshes us; but it can also be destructive, right?  Think back to the recent tsunamis in the Philippines and in Japan.  Water has the power to cause massive destruction and the loss of life.  In our first reading from the book of Exodus, we heard how the Lord saved the Israelites from the Egyptians by holding the water of the Red Sea like a wall to their right and to their left while they passed through the sea to the other side.  Then, when the Egyptians tried to follow them through, the Lord allowed the water to flow back down and it covered them and destroyed them.  Christ, our Lord, calls our elect to pass through these waters—the waters of baptism—to be cleansed, to be given a new heart, and to come and drink freely of his goodness; and so with courage they enter into it.  The light and the water: earthly elements made powerful by God to bring new life to those dead in sin.

          Qué asombrosa esa noche con que Dios nos ha bendecido para celebrar esta hermosa liturgia en la que nos estamos en vigilia para la resurrección de Nuestro Señor Jesús. Es una liturgia como ninguna en todo el año, lo que realmente se involucra todos nuestros sentidos. Empezábamos con el fuego fuera y caminamos en procesión en una iglesia sin luz, que no obstante se iluminó con la luz de las velas y cantamos las alabanzas tanto de esta noche, la única que sabía la hora que nuestro Salvador se levantó de entre los muertos, y de esta vela, cuya luz que hemos compartido y que derrumbó la oscuridad de la noche, al igual que la resurrección de Cristo derrumbó la oscuridad de la muerte.

          Entonces oímos la Palabra de Dios proclamada a nosotros: la palabra que nos recuerda de las muchas maneras en que Dios ha trabajado a lo largo de la historia para salvar a la raza humana; y, específicamente, cómo se ha utilizado el agua para llevarla a cabo. Pronto daremos la bienvenida a ocho de nuestros hermanos y hermanas ser lavados en las aguas del bautismo para que también ellos pueden estar “íntimamente unidos a él por una muerte semejante a la suya” y así estar unidos con él “en su resurrección.” Tan prominentes son estos dos elementos, la luz y el agua, que merece hablar de ellos con un poco más de detalle. En primer lugar, la luz.

          La oscuridad es una cosa terrible, ¿verdad? También puede ser una cosa muy desorientador. La luz, por lo tanto, elimina la oscuridad y nos da confianza para seguir y encontrar nuestro camino. En el Evangelio de esta noche, sin embargo, hemos escuchado de cómo la luz que brilla fuera de los dos hombres que estaban en el sepulcro de Jesús no era un consuelo, pero una cosa del miedo; y así vemos que incluso la luz que nos puede asustar cuando es mal interpretado. Hemos sido iluminados, sin embargo, para entender que el brillo de esta luz es la gloria de Cristo brillando sobre nosotros y por lo que estamos consolados. Esta noche, esta luz brilla sobre todo en nuestros elegidos, que recibirán esta luz en sus almas por medio del bautismo.

          Y ¿qué hay del agua? Agua, para todos nosotros, es un signo de vida. El agua nos limpia y nos refresca; pero también puede ser destructivo, ¿verdad? Piense de nuevo a los recientes tsunamis en las Filipinas y en Japón. El agua tiene el poder de causar una destrucción masiva y la pérdida de la vida. En nuestra primera lectura, tomada del libro del Éxodo, oímos cómo el Señor salvó a los israelitas de los egipcios mediante la celebración de las aguas del Mar Rojo como una muralla a su derecha ya su izquierda, mientras que pasaron por el mar hasta el otro lado. Entonces, cuando los egipcios intentaron seguirles, el Señor permitió que el agua fluya de nuevo y que los cubrió y los destruyó. Cristo, nuestro Señor, llama a nuestras elegidos para pasar a través de estas aguas, las aguas del bautismo, para ser limpiados, para ser dado un nuevo corazón, y para venir a beber libremente de su bondad; y así, con el valor entran en él. La luz y el agua: elementos terrestres hechos poderosos por Dios para traer nueva vida a los muertos en el pecado.

          Al haber limpiado e iluminados nuestras hermanos y hermanas, nos reuniremos alrededor y compartir en la fiesta de nuestra salvación, el sacrificio de Jesús, resucitado de entre los muertos, hecha presente para nosotros en este altar; y vamos a abarcar una vez más el cielo y la tierra de una manera muy real, ya que comer el pan de los ángeles y compartir nuestra comunión con todos los santos en Cristo. Mis hermanos y hermanas, esto es una cosa alegre que celebramos y damos gracias a Jesucristo nuestro Señor, que murió para que nosotros pudiéramos vivir y que ahora vive y permanece con nosotros en estos sacramentos, sobre todo el sacramento de la Eucaristía. Que nuestra alegría por la celebración de estos sacramentos derrama de nuestros corazones en todos estos próximos cincuenta días para que nunca pueda dejar de alabar la gloria de nuestro Dios que ha venido a salvarnos por medio de Jesucristo nuestro Señor.

          Having cleansed and enlightened our brothers and sisters, we will then gather around and share in the feast of our salvation, the sacrifice of Jesus, risen from the dead, made present to us on this altar; and we will once again bridge heaven and earth in a very real way as we feast on the Bread of Angels and share our communion with all of the saints in Christ.  My brothers and sisters, this is a joyful thing that we celebrate and we give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord who died so that we might live and who now lives and remains with us in these sacraments, most especially the sacrament of the Eucharist.  May our joy at the celebration of these sacraments pour out from our hearts throughout these next fifty days so that we may never cease to praise the glory of our God who has come to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – March 26, 2016

Dado en la parroquia Todos los Santos: Logansport, IN – 26 de marzo, 2016

How to start a fire...

          Well, it's been a crazy weekend so far (and it isn't over yet!).  Confessions, wedding, baptisms, and catechism... I continually find it amazing that I'm constantly moving in and out of peoples' lives.  What a blessing for me!  I don't know if any one felt that way, but I hoped this week's homily would be a little challenging to people.  If you have any feedback, I'll take it!

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Homily: 20^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          A few weeks ago, I spent some time with my niece and nephew and we watched the animated film, The Lorax.  It is based on the Dr. Seuss children’s book of the same name and chronicles the story of a young boy who visits a strange isolated man at the edge of town who purportedly can explain why the area is in such a run-down state.  The man, named the Once-ler, explains by way of flashback how he came to this once pristine land full of blissful animals and beautiful trees and began to use the “tufts” of the trees to make a product—Thneeds—through which he would make his fortune.

          As the first tree was cut down, he remembers, a mythical figure appeared: the Lorax, the protector of the forest.  Instead of being some great, powerful being that will destroy by force any threat to the forest, the Lorax appears as a prophet (now, before you think “bor-ing” remember, this is a Dr. Seuss book).  Thus, he confronts the Once-ler about his actions and then warns him of the dire consequences that will result if he continues to march forward with his plan unabated.  The Once-ler, surprised that this strange, mythical creature hasn’t invoked any supernatural powers to stop him, ignores him completely and presses forward with his plan: eventually destroying the forest (and, thus, the habitat for all of the blissful animals who lived there) and leaving the land desolate.

          In many ways, the Lorax is not unlike many of the ancient prophets of Israel, including Jeremiah.  These prophets were men chosen by God to speak the truth about current events and to announce the consequences of continuing to pursue particular courses of action.  In the case of Jeremiah, he was called by God at the time when the people of Judah had fallen away from following the Mosaic Law.  At first, he called for repentance and predicted that if the king and the people did not change their ways that God’s protection would leave them and that they would thus be subject to being conquered by neighboring nations.

          In the reading we heard from the Book of Jeremiah today, we see those consequences being played out.  Jeremiah’s prophecies went unheeded by King Zedekiah and Jerusalem, thus, was under siege and losing the battle.  Jeremiah continued to prophesy, however, saying that the city would be overthrown unless the king and all the people would repent and turn back to the Lord.  The princes of Judah refused to hear him any longer and so they came to the king asking to be allowed to dispatch him.  The king succumbed to their wishes and left him in their hands.  It was only through the hands of a foreigner, Ebed-melech, that Jeremiah was saved from death in the cistern.  Thus we see that prophets, and their prophesies, are meant to make us uncomfortable.

          In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is claiming his role as a prophet.  He states in no uncertain terms that he has come to make us uncomfortable.  In fact, he’s come to “set the world on fire”!  Here we see that Jesus is more than a prophet: that is, a passive voice that speaks God’s truths and then leaves the consequences to the choices of those to whom he speaks.  His is an active voice that will challenge his hearers and force them to choose: either to repent and to follow him or to turn defiantly and definitively against him.

          His message, that he has come to establish division, instead of peace, makes us uncomfortable, because we want to believe that Jesus just wants us to be nice and to get along with each other.  Yet, his prophesy that households will become divided—that father will be divided against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother—is still very relevant for us today as we see it being played out in our own families.  The challenge of Jesus is so strong that one has to choose either to follow or to turn away and, sadly, we see many families that have become divided and separated because of this.

          Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a great abbot of the 12th century, wrote to one of his monks who had just been elected to be the pope in order to warn him not to become so accustomed to the hectic schedule demanded of him as the Bishop of Rome that he should become callous and unreflective.  In it he said: I am afraid that you will despair of an end to the many demands that are made upon you and become calloused and gradually suppress your sense of just and useful pain.  It would be much wiser to remove yourself from these demands even for a while, than to allow yourself to be distracted by them and led, little by little, where you certainly do not want to go.  Where?  To a hard heart.  Do not go on to ask what that is; if you have not been terrified by it, it is yours already.  A hard heart is precisely one which does not shudder at itself because it is insensitive…

          My brothers and sisters, if Jesus’ words today do not cause us some discomfort then perhaps we, too, have allowed our hearts to become hardened.  Maybe it is through our negligence as we allow the daily demands of our hectic schedules—the demands that world places on us—to gradually desensitize us from being stung by Jesus’ challenge to radical discipleship.  Or maybe our sin, like the greed of the Once-ler and the pride of King Zedekiah, hardened our hearts long ago so that we now despair of ever feeling true contrition once again.  Whatever the case may be, our call today is to acknowledge the state of our hearts, and, thus, our discipleship, and to recognize the call of the prophets to turn back to the Lord who, as the Psalmist says, “will draw us out of the pit of destruction to set our feet on secure ground.”

          Friends, I believe that Pope Benedict called for this Year of Faith and for a renewed focus on the New Evangelization because he saw Jesus calling out to us today using these same words that we heard in the Gospel reading: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”  This Year of Faith has been a call to us to shatter our hardened hearts and to return to the faith of the Church; and then to turn out and to set that flame of faith loose on the world so that the fire of Christ’s love will consume it entirely.

          Saint Catherine of Siena once said, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire!”  My brothers and sisters, God has called us to be prophets and evangelists who will set the world on fire for Christ.  But we cannot do this if we are clinging to our comfortable lives or to maintaining a “false peace” with our family members, friends, and neighbors who obstinately refuse to follow the truth.  We can only do it if we ourselves become living flames of faith by “ridding ourselves of every burden of sin and persevering in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes on Jesus,” as the author to the Letter to the Hebrews exhorts us to do today.

          Therefore, let us take courage.  For that same author also reminds us that “for the sake of the joy that lay before him [Jesus] endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.”  With his witness and with the witness of all the saints that have gone before us (the great “cloud of witnesses” spoken of in the second reading), we too can endure in our struggle against sin, even to the point of shedding our own blood.  For the promise of glory—the promise that is renewed for us every day on this altar—is already ours.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – August 17^th & 18^th, 2013