The way of mercy

Homily: 5^th Sunday in Easter – Cycle A

“Do not let your hearts be troubled...” I kind of wish we had this message back on March 18^th, when we first entered into this situation!  It feels, perhaps, a little late now, because our hearts have been long troubled by this extended lockdown.  But let’s step out of the context of our own situation, and back into the context in which Jesus originally made this statement.  Perhaps, then, we’ll be able to make more sense of how Our Lord’s words can speak to us.

This passage comes at the close of the Last Supper.  Just prior to it, Judas Iscariot has left to betray Jesus to the Jews, after which Jesus announces to the remaining eleven that he’s “going away” and that where he is going, they cannot follow him.  Peter finds this awfully strange and makes a bold statement (as he’s wont to do): “No way! I’m going wherever it is that you are going. I’ll even lay down my life for you!”  Jesus corrects him and says, “LOL, not only will you NOT do that, you’ll do the opposite! In fact, you are going to DENY me... three times... TONIGHT.  You can imagine the “stunned silence” that followed.  Imagine with me back to the beginning of February.  Now imagine if I said to you, then, “Hey, things are going to shut down completely in a month and you won’t even be able to come to Mass.”  You would have all been like Peter and said, “Ha! Yeah right! We will never let that happen!”  Fast forward to March 18^th and... stunned silence.  Friends, this is where Jesus starts this passage with his first and closest disciples; and this is where he starts this passage with us... Do not let your hearts be troubled...

Now, let’s look at the disciples in the ensuing hours: The disciples would watch Jesus be arrested, tortured and murdered... Do not let your hearts be troubled...  They discovered that his body had been buried and the tomb closed... Do not let your hearts be troubled...  They would hear that “murderous threats” were being spoken about them... Do not let your hearts be troubled...  I imagine that they all felt pretty helpless to do anything and that they were despairing that what they had hoped for would ever be possible again.  But has this not been our experience?  Some of you have lost loved ones during this time (whether to the coronavirus or for other reasons).  Perhaps you didn’t even get to attend the funeral.  Many more of you are desperately separated from loved ones because of a need (yours or theirs) to be protected from infection.  Some of you have lost jobs and more in terms of material security.  Some of you have lost milestone experiences (like prom and graduation).  In all of this, we’ve experienced our own helplessness and, perhaps, despair that we’ll ever get back that for which we had hoped and into that Jesus says, Do not let your hearts be troubled...

In Matthew’s gospel, we hear Jesus say, “Blessed are those who mourn...”  Perhaps, in the midst of all of this, this “Beatitude” seems much more like a “pious platitude”, unhelpful in the face of real suffering.  Trappist Monk and spiritual writer Thomas Merton has something to say about that, however, and I’d like to share a bit of an extensive quote from him that might help put this into perspective.  In his book, No Man is an Island, Merton wrote:

“’Blessed are they that mourn.’ Can this be true? Is there any greater wretchedness than to taste the dregs of our own insufficiency and misery and hopelessness, and to know that we are certainly worth nothing at all? Yet it is blessed to be reduced to these depths if, in them, we can find God. Until we have reached the bottom of the abyss, there is still something for us to choose between all and nothing. There is still something in between. We can still evade the decision. When we are reduced to our last extreme, there is no further evasion. The choice is a terrible one. It is made in the heart of darkness, but with an intuition that is unbearable by its angelic clarity: when we who have been destroyed and seem to be in hell miraculously choose God!”

He continues:

“Only the lost are saved. Only the sinner is justified. Only the dead can rise from the dead, and Jesus said, ‘I came to seek and to save that which was lost.’”

Finally, he adds:

“Some men are only virtuous enough to forget that they are sinners without being wretched enough to remember how much they need the mercy of God.”

Friends, could it be that God is allowing this to remind us of our desperate need for his mercy, to remind us that we are lost and in need of saving, to remind us that we are sinners who need a redeemer?  My friends, let us be in agony because of this pandemic and the sacrifices it has demanded of us (most especially separation from the Eucharist).  Yes, let us be in agony, but let us not despair!  Remember the crucifixion: Jesus went to the depths of the darkest place of humanity and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!?!?”  Yet he had already told us what it was all for: “Do not let your hearts be troubled... I am going to prepare a place for you.”

My friends, this time is not a time for despair, but a time for mercy.  Do not let your hearts be troubled by this time of chaos, confusion, and sorrow.  Rather, have faith in God; have faith also in the one whom God has sent, Jesus.  Where he is going in this time, you know the way.  Wait, we know the way?  Yes, Thomases, we know the way: “I am the way...” Jesus said.  The Way, is the way of mercy.

Jesus has entered the depths of humanity in order to redeem it in its depths: in your depths and in my depths.  Our way, therefore, is the same.  We must enter into the depths of our own humanity to find the wretchedness that still exists there so that God’s mercy might penetrate to it.  And we must enter into the depths of others in their sins against us so as to bring God’s mercy there when we forgive their offenses.  Merton says that, “We must forgive them in the flames of their own hell, for Christ, by means of our forgiveness, once again descends to extinguish the avenging flame. He cannot do this if we do not forgive others with his own compassion.”

Friends, soon enough Jesus will return to “take us to himself”.  Perhaps even sooner, we will be returning to him, here in our churches.  When we do, will we truly be seeking him?  Or will we be seeking the comfort of the familiar?  Our challenge is to be sure that we are seeking him.  We can do this by embarking (or re-embarking) on the Way of mercy, in Truth, who is the Life: the way of deep forgiveness that comes from a place of true humility and compassion—that is, the way that brings deep and lasting healing—the way that leads into the life, who is Christ.  To do so will not only make our return to him joyful in the depths of our souls, but will also be the cause of a great renewal in our Church and in our world.

Friends, Jesus promised his disciples that “whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and will do greater ones than these.”  This is the crux of why we need to set ourselves on the Way that is mercy.  For what are the greatest works that Jesus did?  Without doubt, the conversion of souls; and he brought souls to conversion by forgiveness, by mercy.  Thomas Merton wrote, “God has left sin in the world in order that there may be forgiveness: not only the secret forgiveness by which He Himself cleanses our souls, but the manifest forgiveness by which we have mercy on one another and so give expression to the fact that He is living, by His mercy, in our own hearts.”  What is the point of evangelization except to give witness to the fact that God is living and among us and that he wants to give us life, through mercy?  The conversion of even greater numbers of souls through mercy are the greater works that Jesus has promised that we will accomplish.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled... I am the way, the truth, and the life... whoever believes in me will do greater works than these...”  Friends, may we today, even in the midst of our ongoing sufferings, find the grace to echo the words of Our Lady and say, “Father, let it be done unto me according to your word.”

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – May 10^th, 2020

God's mystery in the unexpected

Homily: 3^rd Sunday in Easter – Cycle A

Friends, as we begin this third week of Easter, we are taken back, once again, to Easter Sunday.  After viewing the experience of Christ’s resurrection through Mary and her encounter with the empty tomb, then the disciples gathered in the upper room, we now view the experience of the resurrection through the eyes Cleopas and his companion as they travel back home to Emmaus.  One of the things that strikes me today as we encounter this very familiar story once again, was that these two disciples thought that they had it all figured out: the Messiah was going to be a great king who would rid them of the Roman occupation and restore the kingdom of God’s people.  Surely this Messiah would be recognized by all of Israel who would rally behind him, glorifying God and rejoicing that he, after many centuries, had finally fulfilled his promises to his faithful people.  When many of the Israelites, especially the religious elite, rejected Jesus as the Messiah—going so far as to have him killed as a blasphemer—many of Jesus’ disciples began to think, “Well, we must have been wrong about him.”

Striking about this conclusion is the fact that not only had these two heard the testimony of the women who went to the tomb, saw it empty, and received a message from two angels that Jesus had been raised, but they also heard the testimony of others who went to the tomb and found it as the women had described (perhaps one or both of them were in that group).  Not only is this evidence that they were not expecting the resurrection (something for which Jesus will chide them along the way), but it is also evidence that, for them, resurrection from the dead was so implausible that they didn’t wait around to find out whether it was really true or if there was some other “foul play” at work.  No matter how they came to the conclusions to which they came about the Messiah, Jesus’ death and resurrection didn’t play into them and so they turn away from the community of believers and walk back to their home: their former way of life.

The great 4^th century bishop and theologian, Saint Augustine, reminds us (and I paraphrase) that “If at any time we feel like we have come to some conclusion to our inquiry about God, we are wrong.”  What he is saying is that it is impossible for us to have God completely figured out.  God is mystery.  Of course, a mystery is not just something that is unknown, but rather something that is unknown yet knowable.  As a mystery, therefore, God is knowable—infinitely knowable, in fact.  Our human minds, however, can never know him completely; and so, whenever we find ourselves coming to a conclusion about how God is going to respond in a certain situation, we should pause and make room for God to surprise us with something unexpected.  The (presumably honest) error of Cleopas and his companion was that they didn’t allow for the unexpected resurrection of Jesus.  God’s loving kindness, however, wouldn’t leave them in their error.

One of the things that always surprises me about this passage is that the “eyes” of Cleopas and his companion “were prevented from recognizing” Jesus as he walked with them.  “Prevented?  Why?”  Let’s think about that for a moment.  Last week we heard Jesus tell Thomas... what?  “Have you believed because you have seen me?” he said, “Blessed are those who have NOT SEEN, YET BELIEVE.”  This incident with Cleopas and his companion happened before Jesus spoke these words to Thomas, but they can help us make sense of why their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.  Looking back at Jesus’ ministry, we’ll see that his goal was always to demonstrate that he was not some “new thing, come to shake up the establishment”, but rather that he was the fulfillment of all of the promises that God had made over the centuries: for if he was just a “flavor of the day”, and if there was no scriptural foundation for his claim to being the Messiah, he’d be quickly forgotten.  But if he is the fulfillment of God’s promises, well then his disciples would have a solid foundation on which to build.

Therefore, Jesus spends his time walking with the disciples explaining how he (whom they don’t yet recognize as him, remember) fulfilled all of the ancient prophesies.  In other words, he invites them to “unravel” the mystery.  By their own admission later, the disciples’ hearts were “burning within them” as they recognized that, indeed, Jesus was the Messiah as they came to understand that the Messiah had to suffer and then be raised from the dead.  Now that they understood how the Scriptures all pointed to him—that is, now that they had solidified the foundation for their belief—they were then ready to recognize him in the breaking of bread: that is, the Eucharist.

Friends, we are now more than one month under this “stay at home” order, which has separated us from the sacraments: a separation made especially painful because it comes during the time of year that we most have cause to celebrate.  Perhaps some of you are starting to feel a little confused about your faith.  Perhaps you’re starting to feel comfortable with livestream Masses and that realization is unsettling to you.  Or perhaps the opposite: you cannot get comfortable with livestream Masses and so want to abandon them, and that is unsettling.  Or maybe it’s just the prospect that this could go on for a much longer period of time that makes you question where God really is in all of this (or even if he is in it at all!).

No matter what you are experiencing today, the message of our Gospel reading is this: go back to the scriptures—that is, the source and foundation for what you know and believe—and seek the assurances that God does indeed work in unexpected ways to lead his people through uncertain times and look for the clues that he is present in our own time (trust me, they’re there!).  (The “Lectio” series on Formed.org has a collection on the biblical foundations of the Eucharist.  I recommend you watch it.)

Perhaps you’ll find your heart burning within you as you encounter these familiar sources in the context of our novel circumstances.  Regardless of whether your do, make yourselves open to the sometimes unexpected ways of God and your efforts will make you ready to see Christ with renewed eyes in the breaking of the bread here in the Eucharist, ready to receive him into your bodies once again, and ready to rush back into the world to proclaim what you have seen and heard: that “The Lord has truly been raised and we have seen him!”

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – April 26^th, 2020

Worship in spirit and truth

Homily: 2^nd Sunday in Easter – Cycle A

Friends, as we come to this second Sunday of Easter, the eighth (or octave) day since we celebrated our Lord’s resurrection, I’d like to take some time to reflect on a few scenes from the video series titled “The Chosen”.  Most of you have heard me refer to this series already, but they recently made the whole first season available through “livestreaming” events, the recordings of which can still be found on their YouTube channel.  I made it a point to watch one of the episodes each day this week and every one of them was very moving.  In my opinion, the producers have done an impressive job portraying the truths of the Gospel scenes while giving each of the “players” very well-rounded personalities.  In other words, for me, the writing, acting, and production have all helped me to see into the hearts of these persons, which in turn has helped me to enter into these Gospel scenes a little more deeply.

I bring this up today because I think that there are three scenes from these first eight episodes that can help us to interpret and enter into this our celebration of Easter amidst these very unique circumstances.  The scenes are these: the Shabbat dinner, Nicodemus the Pharisee, and the Samaritan woman at the well.

One of the early episodes, perhaps the second one, begins nearly 1000 years before Jesus’ birth, showing a family, living in tents out in the countryside, who are preparing for the Shabbat dinner (“Shabbat” being the Hebrew word for “Sabbath”, the day of rest).  A child, probably the age of 8, is questioning his mother about the Shabbat meal: why are they doing this (and why every week!), why are all of these extended family members invited, etc.  The mother’s responses are both generous and instructive: God commanded that we rest and so remember and give thanks for all that he has done for us, all are invited because in God’s eyes we are all one family, “peculiarly chosen to be his own”, etc.  The episode continues to show the different ways that the Shabbat dinner was continued in Capernaum in the time of Jesus: showing the very elaborate dinner hosted by the Pharisees, the simple dinner of Simon Peter, his wife, and his brother Andrew, and the awkward dinner provided by Mary of Magdala for a disparate group of people in town.

What struck me about this episode was that the dinner was liturgical.  What I mean by this is that it had a form that was to be followed, but which also allowed for adaptation to the means of the household and the circumstances under which it was performed.  It also meant that this was not just a dinner party, but rather a sacred event: a meal consecrated to giving thanks.  Beyond being liturgical, however, what struck me was that it was celebrated in the home.  This latter part is why I am sharing this with you today.  I see in our current circumstances a great opportunity to grow and develop liturgical prayer in the home, especially around meal times.  Parents (or elders in a household), during this time, be intentional about setting aside at least one time a week to engage in liturgical prayer with your family or those in your household.  This could be done around a meal, by using one of the meal blessings meant for households that can be found online and then having each person speak of what they are thankful for, or it could be taking time in the evening to pause and read from scripture and to talk about it with each other.  If you are a household of one, I encourage you to seek ways to do this virtually through the many video conferencing programs available on the internet.  The point being: that we apply ourselves during this time to making our homes into sacred places for prayer once again.

Throughout these first episodes, we are introduced to Nicodemus the Pharisee.  Honestly, he’s my favorite person throughout these episodes and I’ll show you why.  Nicodemus was a leading Pharisee: kind of like an Archbishop for us—a “teacher of teachers” among the Pharisees.  At first, he seems like the consummate “corporate man”, holding the corporate line and managing the “politics” among the other Pharisees.  We discover in this portrayal of him that he is also a man of deep faith.  He knows the Law and he teaches it faithfully.  But he also knows that the Law is not an end in itself, but rather the means that God had given them to keep them in right relationship with him, lest the people fall out of favor with God.  We see that he believes that God is a living God and, thus, looks for him to work in the world around him.  Finally, we see that he is someone who is truly awaiting the Messiah, but yet still surprised when he appears.

In our circumstances I see an invitation to be like Nicodemus.  Most of us have a great desire to serve God in the way that he has laid out for us in the Church: daily prayer, worship in community on Sundays, and the works of mercy.  As we are deprived of some of those things, we are being called to trust that God is still working around us and that he is ready to make himself manifest to us in ways that we, perhaps, are not expecting.  It might be as simple as an insight about God spoken by one of your children or a friend who calls unexpectedly; or it could be something bigger, like a healing that has long been prayed for.  If we get caught yearning only for things to go back to the way in which we’re comfortable, then we may miss the ways that Jesus wants to share his resurrection joy with us here and now.

In the last episode of this first season, the scene of the Samaritan woman at the well is portrayed.  It is presented really well as it first gives us a glimpse of this woman’s life before she meets Jesus, and it “fills-out” the interaction between her and Jesus at the well.  The exchange, as it is portrayed, is a rather argumentative one as the woman wants nothing to do with this Jewish stranger while Jesus wants nothing less than for her to see him for who he is and, thus, to be set free from her past and so live in the freedom of the children of God.  In the climax of the scene, she accuses the Jews of keeping God for themselves because they claim that worship can only be done in Jerusalem at the Temple (a place where Samaritans are forbidden to go).  Jesus speaks the famous line: “The hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth...”  He tells her that he has come to make it so that true believers won’t be limited by mountains and temples in their desire to worship, but rather will worship in the freedom of the spirit.  She is overjoyed by these words and, having come to believe that he is the Messiah because of how he revealed his knowledge of her heart to her, she runs off to tell whomever she can in the city.

In our present circumstances, I see that we, too, are being called to this kind of worship: that is, to discover (or re-discover) our capacity to worship God right from where we are; and to do so “in spirit and in truth”, which we are capable of doing because of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us who have been baptized.  In other words, while we cannot worship in our churches (as we’d prefer), we have not been prevented from worshiping God with our hearts and our voices.  When we sing hymns that we know or even just read the Psalms out loud, we praise God.  When we kneel in prayer from wherever we are, we praise God.  When we console and support one another, we praise God.  My friends, now is a time for each of us to worship God “in spirit and truth”.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus declares those “blessed” who have not seen his resurrected body, but who yet believe that he is the Messiah, who died but now lives.  We who live today and who believe may count ourselves among the “blessed”.  More than that, we have been given a share in his Spirit which enables us to worship God from wherever we are “in spirit and truth”.  Let us be grateful for this gift.  And let us increase our trust that God is with us in this time of isolation, turning towards making our homes sacred places in which every day occurrences can become liturgies in which God is praised, thus opening ourselves to encountering our Lord in new ways.  Finally, let us commit ourselves to rejoicing, so that, as Saint Peter wrote, “the genuineness of our faith... may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."  My brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is alive and we have life in him.  Let us rejoice and be glad!

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – April 19^th, 2020

Our Risen Lord comes to us

Homily: Easter Sunday – Cycle A

“They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”  These words of Mary of Magdala perhaps ring in our ears and our hearts today as we enter this Easter solemnity.  They resonate in our hearts because we, perhaps, can sympathize with her feelings on that first Easter morning, even though our situation is quite different.  Instead of coming to the tomb of our Lord and finding it empty (misunderstanding, as she did, that the Lord’s body had been taken, instead of raised from the dead), we long to come to our churches to find our Lord, yet we cannot.  Thus, in a sense, we, too can say “They have taken the Lord … and we do not know where they put him.”

Thus, in a sense, we have great solidarity with those first Christians who, absolutely bewildered by the events of Good Friday, now, in their grief, and trying to come to terms with the loss of their Lord and Teacher, are bewildered once again by this news of the empty tomb.  Peter, whom Jesus acknowledged as the head of his disciples, after receiving this news, runs to the tomb himself and finds everything as Mary had described.  The Gospel writer does not give us his reaction, but we are left to infer that he remained bewildered at the sight.  Perhaps we, too, remain bewildered by this situation in which we cannot enter our churches today to proclaim with one voice the good news of Jesus’ resurrection: showing that we have not been slow to understand the meaning of these events, but rather have understood and believed.  This, to state it mildly, is a great suffering for us.

Yet today we are called to rejoice that Christ is risen from the dead.  And I believe that the suffering that we are experiencing this year highlights for us a great truth that lies underneath the surface of this celebration—a truth, I hope, that will bring consolation and a depth of joy to our commemoration today—and that truth is this: that the way to resurrection is through suffering.

Most of us, perhaps, live relatively comfortable lives.  We have places to live, clothes to wear, food to eat, a job that provides for us (or has provided for us, if we are retired, or parents or others who have jobs that provide for us).  We have family and friends that support us and add joy to our lives. Nevertheless, if we’ve lived long enough, we realize that even those comforts that we enjoy haven’t kept suffering completely out of our lives.  Rather, we have all experienced suffering in some way.  We’ve lost loved ones through death and we’ve watched loved ones suffer; we’ve been hurt by those closest to us: our spouses, our family members (perhaps even our own children), and our friends; we’ve lost jobs (or, perhaps, failed to get the job that would help us fulfill our dreams).  In these and countless other ways, suffering has touched each of our lives.  And, now, because of the pandemic, suffering is touching each of our lives in a unique way.

Suffering, for many people, is a thing of despair; and if we think about it even for a little bit, we can see why.  We instinctively know that our life spans are limited; and so, if suffering becomes too great a part of it, we begin to despair that there is any hope of enjoying this life that we have been given.  For those for whom daily suffering is intense, this lack of hope can be stifling: leading them to isolate themselves from the world and, in some cases, to contemplate ending their own lives (for, they believe, to end their lives would finally bring an end to their suffering).

This is why today’s celebration—the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead—is such good news: because not only has Jesus redeemed us from the punishment due to sin, but he has opened for us a life beyond suffering: one into which we enter precisely through suffering.  Yes, Jesus’ resurrection is a thing of wonder and awe; but it would be much different if he had lived a comfortable and full life and died at a ripe-old age of natural causes, wouldn’t it?  We’d certainly be overjoyed to see him at his resurrection, but would it truly be the victory we had hoped for?  No, Jesus’ resurrection holds such great power because it comes precisely after he suffered horrendously: that he, the only truly innocent man ever to live, suffered the full brunt of evil that the world could produce and defeated it by rising from the dead.  In doing so, he demonstrates for us that suffering in this world is not meaningless; but rather that, when it is accepted and endured in innocence of heart, for the love of God and our neighbor, it will speed us along the path that leads to the life beyond suffering that Jesus has made possible for us.

This is so important to say today: and why?  Well, because it wasn’t enough for Jesus to be a “good person” throughout his life—one who tries not to hurt others and otherwise doesn’t create problems—and then to die of natural causes only to be raised again.  Rather, he had to contend with this world—and the evil-inflicted suffering within it—in order to open for us the way to a life beyond suffering.  Notice, that this contention wasn’t to push suffering down and overcome it by his cunning or his power; rather, his contention was to stay pure within the suffering, so as to show that even the worst suffering that the evil in this world can inflict is no match for the power of God.

My friends, we do not proclaim an easy salvation.  Rather, we proclaim a salvation won for us through suffering: a salvation in which we participate through suffering.  And this, as I’ve said, is the great truth hidden beneath the surface of today’s celebration: that if we embrace the sufferings that come to us in this life—the sufferings that we are experiencing now, as well as all of the daily sufferings that we experience because of our sins and simply because this world is broken, and most especially the sufferings that come to us precisely because we are disciples of Jesus...  If we embrace these sufferings, then we are uniting ourselves more perfectly to Christ in his suffering.  And when we are united to Christ in his suffering, then we will also be united to him in the fruits of his suffering: the new life beyond suffering that he has made possible for us.

Friends, this involuntary suffering that we are being forced to endure—seemingly being separated from our Lord on this day when we most desire to draw close to him—is not fruitless.  Rather, for those who embrace it for love of God and, especially, for love of our neighbor whom we are protecting by our social distancing, this suffering is uniting us more perfectly to Christ and, thus, preparing us to experience the resurrection with him.  This truth that, through suffering, we are bringing forth new life could not be more evident to us than here in this Mass: in which we offer back to God the perfect sacrifice of his Son in thanksgiving for the salvation that his suffering has won for us.

You know, one of the things that struck me this morning as I reflected, was that Mary and the disciples went out, seeking to find Jesus’ body, but it was not there.  In other words, they went out looking for him, yet did not find him.  If we read further in Gospel, however, we see that it was not they who found him, but rather he who came to them.  Perhaps today, in this bewildering situation in which we are prevented from seeking him, we can, like the beloved disciple after stepping into the empty tomb, nonetheless believe; and, thus, make ourselves open to the ways in which he will come to us and make his risen presence known to us.

My brothers and sisters, from wherever we may be today, in whatever sufferings we may be experiencing, let us open our hearts to the encounter that Christ wants for us today by putting our whole hearts into this offering: for Christ is risen and we have life in him.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – April 12^th, 2020

Let us go also to die with him.

Homily: Palm Sunday – Cycle A

“Let us also go to die with him.”  These were the words of Thomas the Apostle from last Sunday’s Gospel reading.  You’ll recall that it was the recounting of the miraculous raising of Lazarus from the dead.  Lazarus, who with his sisters, Martha and Mary, was a great friend of Jesus’, fell ill and died.  Martha and Mary had sent word to Jesus that he might come and cure him (for surely, as great friends of Jesus, Jesus would come quickly to heal him).  Jesus, however, delays and Lazarus dies.  It is only then that Jesus turns to go to Bethany, announcing to his disciples that Lazarus’ death will be for God’s glory and so that he, the Son of God, would be glorified, too.  Thomas—the one whom we often deride as the “doubter”—is quick to believe what Jesus has said and courageously announces that he, too, is ready to go and to die so that God might be glorified and Jesus, too, might be glorified.

When he and his fellow disciples, along with Martha and Mary and the Jews who were accompanying them in their grief, saw Lazarus—the man who was surely dead after spending four days in the tomb—walk out alive, he, along with them, must have had a profound sense that he was part of something big: something, perhaps, that he couldn’t quite comprehend at that moment.  Then, some time later, when he and the other disciples accompanied Jesus as he made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, I imagine that he looked with wonder and delight as great crowds of people acclaimed Jesus as the Messiah.  Perhaps for him and his fellow disciples, it was the final confirmation that he was, indeed, part of something big—the biggest, in fact: the definitive restoration of the throne of David, their great king, and the ushering in of God’s eternal kingdom.

Soon after, however, their assurance would begin to wane as they came to know that not everyone in Jerusalem was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah.  The religious elite, in fact, were so unconvinced that Jesus was the Messiah that they were plotting ways to arrest Jesus and put him to death for the sin of blasphemy.  Thus, by Holy Thursday night, the joyful, triumphant spirit of Sunday had turned into a spirit of tension and uncertainty, which then would quickly transform into a spirit of shock, fear, and grief as Jesus was arrested, condemned, tortured, and crucified.

As we recount the Passion of our Lord today, we see this kind of rapid change in spirit in Jesus.  We can imagine the excitement, the joy in Christ’s heart as he entered Jerusalem to the shouts of “Hosanna” from the great crowds.  We can imagine him feeling very energized by this display.  Then, as the events of Holy Thursday night unfold, we find Jesus’ spirit turn and he becomes emptier and passive.

Jesus “emptied himself”, Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, and he took “the form of a slave.”  Typically, a slave is someone who is very passive and who will often speak as if he has no voice of his own.  Multiple times in this account from the Gospel, we heard Jesus respond as he was pressed to give an answer: when Judas asked if he would be the betrayer, when Caiaphas ordered Jesus to say whether he was the Messiah, and when Pilate asked whether he was the king of the Jews.  In each, Jesus said, passively, “You have said so,” instead of directly responding to their questions.  In fact, most everything in this account of Jesus’ Passion is showing us how completely Jesus emptied himself, making himself a slave, and becoming obedient even to the point of the most shameful kind of death: death on a cross.

Friends, every year Lent is a time in which we are called to “empty ourselves”.  This year, we’ve been called to an emptying that, perhaps, we never imagined.  A spirit that I’ve had to fight in the last couple of days has been the spirit of “let’s just get this over with”.  This is a bad spirit.  Bad because it causes us to step out of the present and into a future that isn’t yet real.  But God isn’t in the future.  God is here, right now, in this mess with us; and he wants to encounter every turbulent emotion that you are experiencing so as to speak into them: “Do not be afraid, I am with you”.

Friends, if you heard my homily from the first Sunday of Lent (remember? way back when “normal” was still normal?) you'll remember that I said that the physical discomforts that we voluntarily embrace during Lent—that is, the things we enjoy that we give up or the things that we do not enjoy that we take up—are meant to create a space in us in which we can encounter our spiritual discomforts: mainly, the realization that we are not yet fully the disciples of Jesus that he has called us to be.  Our challenge this week, therefore, is to embrace the words of Thomas the Apostle: “Let us go also to die with him.”  Friends, let us let go of our anxiety to wrest control over this situation and instead empty ourselves, like slaves, and bear the cross of this pandemic in solidarity with our brothers and sisters throughout the world; and let us go also with Jesus to die with him, so that we might glorify God—and be glorified by him—on the day of Resurrection.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – April 5^th, 2020

Letting Go

Homily: 2^nd Sunday of Lent – Cycle A

          One of my favorite preachers is Father Larry Richards and in one of his most well-known talks he tells the story of a man from Crete, which is one of the islands of Greece.  This man, he says, was a great man and he loved his land.  Not only did he love his land, but all the people of his land loved him.  Whenever somebody died, he was always the first person to come and offer condolences.  Whenever a new baby was born, he was always the first person to come and offer congratulations.  And all of this because he so deeply loved his land and his people.

          Finally, when he was ninety-nine years old, it was time for him to die.  Surrounded by his ten children, he asked them to carry him out to the secluded spot in the back of his farm, which was his favorite spot to pray, and to lay him down on the earth.  There, as he closed his eyes for the last time, he clenched in his hands the dirt of the land he so dearly loved and he died.

          He awoke to find himself standing at the gates of heaven and when God came forth to welcome him in, he first asked the man what it was that he had in his hands.  “This is Crete,” he said, “it is all that I ever loved in the world.”  God looked at him and said, “Sorry, no dirty hands in heaven.”  Upset by this, but unable to let go of the one thing he held so dear in his life, the man turned away and God went back into heaven and closed the gate behind him.

          As the story goes, God would return two more times to implore the man to let go of the remnant of his beloved land so as to enter into heaven.  At the first, the man still refused to let go.  But at the second, the man found that the dirt in his hands had become so dry that it was now slipping uncontrollably out of his hands.  So, at God’s prompting, he opened his hands and just then the Spirit of God blew forth a strong wind that swept away every last remnant of the man’s beloved land.  Then, taking the man’s hand, God led him through the gates of heaven.  And when the man entered heaven what do you think that it was that he saw, but the land of Crete laid out completely before him.

          I share this story with you today because it is a great story and a great reminder that God never takes anything away from us, but rather only asks us to let go of some things so that he can give us more.  I also share it with you because I think it demonstrates for us just how short-sighted our vision can be at times.  This man thought that he had everything that he had ever wanted in the land of Crete and thus he let the vision of his life become limited to the years that he spent on earth.  He couldn’t imagine heaven being anything better than what he enjoyed on earth and so he tried to take his greatest joy on earth with him into heaven.  He had lost the vision that God promised to give him the “fullness of joy” in heaven and so stubbornly clung to the passing joy of the earth until it finally (and literally) passed out of his hands.

          In a way, this is the same lesson that Jesus is giving to his disciples Peter, James, and John in our Gospel reading today when he invites them up onto a high mountain to reveal to them the fullness of his nature.  Now, when the Scriptures speak of going up onto a “high mountain” they are always referring to the place where man encounters God.  There, Jesus reveals the fullness of his nature—the divine nature that coexists with his human nature—in order to point to the transcendent end of his being on earth (that is, to the fact that his coming in this world wasn’t meant for this world alone, but rather to re-open the possibility for man to enter the glory of God in the next world).  The disciples, however, are slow to see the meaning behind this and focus, rather, on clinging to the event in this world.

          “Well, this is nice,” Peter said, “why don’t we build some tents and stay here?”  Jesus, however, intended for this to be a lesson that would extend their vision beyond an earthly end and towards the end that he came to establish: that is, the return of man to perfect communion with God.  Thus, the cloud (which, in biblical terms, always indicates the presence of God) descends upon them and overshadows them, and the voice from the cloud speaks to them, and it is then that they realize that something otherworldly is happening to them and they fall down in reverence and in fear of the absolute power that has overshadowed them.  Thus, we see that Jesus didn’t take them up on that mountain to have a “nice” experience or to show off his divine nature to them (good as that was!), but rather to have an experience of the absolute holiness that he possessed and that he was calling them to enter into.

          I think that if we look at our own lives that we, too, will find that our vision of what we are here for has become somewhat limited.  If I asked you what you thought is the prevailing moral norm that governs our society, many of you might say “To love your neighbor as yourself”: and that’s good!  But if I asked you to tell me what that means in real life, I suspect that the answer many of you might give would be “To be nice and try to get along with everyone.”  Well, this is fine if all that you are concerned with is trying to have a peaceful life here on earth.  If, however, we are placing our vision on our eternal end in heaven, then we need to take just as seriously Jesus’ other, very strong moral mandate: “Be yourselves holy just as your Father in heaven is holy!”  This goes beyond being “nice” and sometimes means that we will have to act rather harshly with others.  It reminds us that while harmony in this world is a goal, it isn’t our end.  Our end, rather, is the vision of Jesus’ glory and being overshadowed by the presence of God!

          My brothers and sisters, Jesus did not say “just be good and nice to each other and you’ll be fine.”  Rather, he said “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the rest will be given to you.”  And what is God’s righteousness?  Well, nothing short of the absolute holiness that he revealed to Peter, James, and John on the high mountain that day!  Don’t just be nice, then, but be holy!  And what does that mean?  Well, it means overshadowing the world with God’s presence: with his uncompromising love for each and every one of his creatures, most especially our brothers and sisters who live among us.

          Friends, this time of Lent is a time for rediscovering this incredible gift that God has given us in restoring our humanity to full glory in Jesus; and for reconciling ourselves with, and re-conforming ourselves to, that truth so that we might overshadow the world with God’s love and one day enjoy the Easter glory of Jesus in heaven; the glory that we encounter in sacrament here in this Eucharist.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – March 7^th & 8^th, 2020

Pop quiz for the 1st Sunday of Lent

[My format looks weird today because of the way that this homily was set up and presented.  It just worked better this way.  Sorry if it is hard to read in this format!]

Homily: 1^st Sunday in Lent – Cycle A

          Okay, friends, today, on this first Sunday of Lent, we are going to shake things up a bit and start off with a little pop quiz based on the readings we’ve just heard.  Don’t worry about it, though, because you’re going to know most of the answers and there are no grades.  Ready or not, here we go!

•         Is humankind responsible for the presence of suffering and death in the world, yes or no?  [YES]

o   Even though it wasn’t included in the reading today, we all know “the rest of the story”, that Adam and Eve were punished and expelled from the garden so that they couldn’t eat from the tree of life and, thus, would have to suffer death.

•         Has humankind been able to eliminate suffering and death from the world, now that they are present in it, yes or no?  [NO]

o   Just look around.  Suffering and death are still very present here.

•         Is there any reasonable hope that humankind will ever eliminate suffering and death from the world, yes or no?  [NO]

o   Suffering and death have been part of the human condition for as long as history has been recording it.

•         Who is the only human being that ever existed who died, but then raised himself back to life?  [JESUS]
•         Is it reasonable to expect that this could be possible for any human being ever, yes or no?  [NO]

o   Again, human beings have been around for 200,000 years and we ain't figured it out yet!

o   Why then do we stubbornly act like we will?  DON'T ANSWER THAT!

•         If this Jesus has done something that no human being has ever been capable of doing nor will ever be capable of doing, then he must have super-natural powers (that is, powers beyond natural powers), true or false?  [TRUE]
•         Since this Jesus has done something that no other human being has ever been capable of doing, something that we cannot reasonably expect any present or future human being as being capable of doing, is it, therefore, reasonable to think that this Jesus could also do the other thing that humankind has been incapable of doing: that is, is it reasonable to think that Jesus could also eliminate suffering and death from the world, yes or no?  [YES]

o   It is reasonable to think that because we don’t know the limit of his powers.

•         Has this Jesus revealed the secret to unlocking resurrection (that is, the secret for overcoming suffering and death) for each and every one of us, yes or no?  [YES]
•         What is that secret (hint: it’s in the Gospel reading today)?  [OBEDIENCE TO THE WILL OF THE FATHER.]

o   Saint Paul said it in his letter to the Romans:

o   “For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.”

§  The one who was disobedient was Adam and we were reminded of that in our first reading today.

·        Eve said, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’”

·        They ate it, in clear disobedience of God, and suffering and death entered the world.

§  The one who was obedient was Jesus and we were reminded of his first great act of obedience in our Gospel reading today.

·        Satan said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down… Jesus answered him, …'You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”

·        Jesus countered Adam and Eve’s disobedience by his perfect obedience.

·        His final and culminating act of obedience was his passion and death.

•         Friends, this is what Lent is about: returning to the garden through obedience.

o   If our Lenten practices are not freeing us to give our obedience more fully to the Father, then we should stop them and choose practices that will!

o   The first practice, of course, is giving up sin!

§  None of us should be giving up chocolate unless we have first decided to do the work of giving up sin!!!

o   Once we’ve done that, however, we take on physical discomfort (that is, giving up something good that we enjoy or taking up a good task that, perhaps, we don’t enjoy), so as to do two things: a) to show God that we are truly sorry for our sins, and b) to face our spiritual discomfort that God is calling us to still greater holiness (...a call, by the way, that never ceases!)

§  I think that we get “a)” no problem, but how many of us have ever really faced “b)”?

§  Not sure what I mean?  Let me give you an example. 

            Last Friday afternoon, I was working in my office and I had an e-mail that I had to write that was important and complicated to compose.  I was tired and really didn’t want to do it.  So there I am, staring at my computer screen, not wanting to do the thing that I knew I needed to do, and so what did I do?  Well, I opened up a new tab on my browser and hovered over the Facebook link.  Before I clicked on it, however, I remembered that I decided to fast from social media on Fridays during Lent and so I stopped myself and went back to my e-mail.  Soon, though, I was in a new tab hovering over the Facebook link again.  Once again, though, my commitment to what I was giving up one over and I went back to my e-mail.  Finally, I dug in and wrote the e-mail.  The point being that, if I hadn’t chosen to give up a physical comfort (checking out what was going on with my friends on Facebook), then I wouldn’t have confronted my spiritual discomfort (completing the work that I had been given to do).  Fasting from social media, therefore, showed both that I was sorry for my sins and made it so that I could confront this spiritual battle.

o   We have to give up sin, of course, but then we should give up (or take up) something good, both to show God that we are truly sorry for our sins and to face our spiritual discomfort that God is calling us to greater holiness and so put ourselves to work to do it!

§  THIS, in a nutshell, IS OBEDIENCE!!!

§  Obedience, Jesus has shown us, leads to resurrection and eternal life.

          Okay, a couple of more questions a then we’ll call it a day.

•         Is Jesus still alive, yes or no?  [YES]
•         Will we meet him, face-to-face, one day, yes or no?  [YES]
•         What, then, should we do during Lent?

o   A question you must answer yourself.

o   Whatever your answer is, it should be something that leads you to deeper obedience to the will of the Father so that, when Easter comes, you’ll be ready to die with Christ and so rise with him again.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – March 1^st, 2020