Communion with Christ brings us true comfort

Homily: 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

In my six-plus years as a priest, I’ve celebrated a good number of funerals.  It is a graced experience to walk with families who have lost loved ones and to help them say “goodbye” in a sacred way.  There is one thing, in particular, about celebrating funerals that has stood out to me as interesting: that as we mourn the death of a loved one and after we celebrate his or her life in the funeral liturgy, we gather to share a meal; and that this is somehow comforting to us.

Of course, there’s a perfectly good scientific explanation for this.  The death of a loved one is often stressful and full of negative feelings of loss and separation.  When we eat—especially when we eat warm food that we enjoy to eat—our body releases chemicals, called endorphins, that help relieve the stress our bodies have been under and help us to relax and so give us a feeling of comfort.  Yet, we are more than just bodily creatures.  Rather, we are also spiritual.  And so there has to be something more than just the biological to explain why eating provides comfort.  Indeed, there is.

Sharing a meal with others creates or renews spiritual bonds that last long after the food and the endorphins disappear.  Those feelings of comfort caused by eating become associated in our hearts with the presence of those with who shared the meal, and a bond, a relationship, perhaps we could even say a communion is formed.  And it is this sense of communion, I would argue, that causes our true comfort. ///

As we continue to reflect on the “Bread of Life” discourse in John’s Gospel, we come to face the notion that the Eucharist is a Sacred Meal.  Beyond—or, better yet, in tension with—the notion that the Eucharist is Sacrifice, Anamnesis, and Epiclesis, we must also hold that the Eucharist is a meal: a sacred meal in which the bonds of relationship are either forged or strengthened.

Every week, we gather around this object that is both the altar of sacrifice and the table of communion.  And every week, as we gather as a people set apart by God, we renew our relationship to one another as the People of God when we share in the meal we receive from this altar.  But this is not only a renewal of our relationships with each other.  For when we receive the meal offered on this table, we receive also Christ, who makes of himself the meal that we share, and so renew our relationship—our communion—with him, too.

The Church teaches us that this renewal of communion is actually the sole purpose of our gathering.  In the Catechism of the Catholic Church it says that “the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice is wholly directed toward the intimate union of the faithful with Christ through communion” (CCC 1382).  What this reveals is that the communion we receive in the Eucharist is first and foremost communion with Christ, and that it is through our communion with him that we experience communion with all those who likewise receive him. ///

As I mentioned last week, most of us struggle, to some degree or another, with believing that the bread and wine that we offer on this altar truly becomes the Body and Blood of Christ that we then receive in communion.  I also said that, if we have doubts, our responsibility is to bring those doubts to God in prayer and to ask him to reveal the truth about the Eucharist to us.  For those of you who heard my homily last week, hopefully you’ve been practicing that prayer.  If you didn’t (or if you haven’t been practicing it) our readings today invite you again to see the truth about what we receive from this altar

In the first reading, the author of the book of Proverbs describes a scene in which “Wisdom”-- who is the personification of the creative force of God by which he designed and ordered the world rightly (and who could be referred to equally as “Logos” or “The Word”, as in “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us...” in other words, an image of Jesus)--sets her table in order to invite those who are simple to come and receive from her the riches of wisdom.  “Come,” she says, “and partake at my table that we might be in communion with one another.”  For the ancient Jews who lived before Christ, “wisdom” was sought and valued as the way to live in communion with God.  To feast at Wisdom’s table, and, thus, to be in communion with her, was, therefore, to enter into that desired for communion with God.

In the Gospel reading we should immediately hear the connection: Jesus has set the table of his Flesh and Blood so that those who partake of it can be in communion with him: and, through him, with the Father in heaven with who he is eternally in communion.  “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”  In the Last Supper narratives Jesus will show us how he will give us his flesh to eat and blood to drink when he takes the bread and says “This is my Body, take and eat...” and the wine and says “This is my Blood, take and drink...”

My brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ presents us with this same offer today.  He desires greatly to be in communion with us and so he invites us to this table to partake of this “living bread that came down from heaven”: his Body and Blood.  And so, we should not be afraid to step forward even if we have some doubts.  Rather, we should let our “Amen” be shorthand for “Lord, I believe, please help my unbelief.”  If we can say even that much, then we can feel confident that we have the faith that we need to receive the communion that Christ so deeply desires to have with us. ///

Friends, in our grief over the scandals that continue to plague the Church we gather here in this sacred meal called the Eucharist to seek comfort in our pain.  May our communion with Christ and, through Christ, with one another provide us with the humility, courage, and fortitude to remain hopeful in the midst of darkness; and so continue to proclaim the Good News: that life beyond this life of suffering and pain is possible through Christ, the true Bread of Life.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral Parish: Lafayette, IN

August 18^th & 19th, 2018

Your faith has saved you

Homily: 13^th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

          One of the more “epic” moments in television in the last twenty years occurred in 2004 on the Oprah Winfrey show.  In many ways, Oprah was at the height of her popularity at this time and she was using it to great advantage for others.  Now, I don’t recall of the background of that day’s show, but I remember that Oprah started by gifting eleven teachers, who were reputed to be extremely self-giving and, thus, were in financial trouble, with a new car.  This was an incredible gesture by itself, but Oprah wasn’t finished.  She then told the audience that she had one more car to give away and that one of them in the audience would receive it.  The staff then brought out identical gift boxes for each member of the audience and Oprah instructed them that in one of these boxes was a key to the twelfth car and whoever had that key in their box would take that car home.

          What happened next, of course, is what launched this moment into “epic” status: when Oprah commanded that the boxes be opened, the audience members found that each and every one of them had a key in it.  No, this wasn’t a trick.  Oprah intended to give each audience member a brand new car.  Because there was so much excitement—screaming and crying—mixed with confusion about whether or not this could be real, all you see is Oprah screaming over and over again: “You get a car, you get a car, you get a car… everybody gets a car!  Everybody gets a car!”  Now, perhaps none of us were in the audience that day, but you would have to have a pretty cold and hard heart not to feel a sense of joy for those audience members who received such an undeserved gift from someone that they didn’t even know.

          I can imagine, too, that every audience for every show after that day walked in wondering “Will today be another day like that one?  Will I walk out of here with something I never dreamed of getting?”  None really have since then, of course, which is what makes that moment in 2004 so epic.  Sometimes, however, I wonder if this isn’t how we approach Jesus, especially here at Mass.

          As we read the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, we learn of how Jesus often healed the sick and even brought back to life those who had died.  Most of us, I’m sure, were already following him before we came to understand his incredible power to heal: in other words, we were coming to Mass and trying to follow his teaching.  Perhaps one day we came to know that Jesus worked a healing in someone else’s life.  And perhaps, once we learned of this healing, we began to expect a healing for ourselves.  And so, perhaps, we began to come to Mass hoping that this time would be one of those times that Jesus would appear before us and, like Oprah that day, dole out healings to everyone: “You get a healing, you get a healing, you get a healing… everybody gets a healing!”

          Perhaps, however, we aren’t even expecting anything that dramatic.  Perhaps, we are more like the woman in the Gospel today, who had been afflicted for twelve years with a hemorrhage.  Since a bleeding like that made her “ritually unclean”, she was excluded and needed to refrain from coming in contact with others for fear of making them “unclean” also.  And so, it’s understandable that she would approach Jesus in the way that she did.  “I’m embarrassed enough to have this defilement,” I imagine her thinking, “so instead of approaching Jesus directly, I’ll simply sneak up behind him and touch his clothes: surely his power to heal will come to me.”  Surely enough, it did.

          Having been healed, the woman then tried to slip away; but Jesus wouldn’t allow it.  You see, Jesus didn’t come just to bring healings: that is, just to spread joy by doling out healings to anyone who approached him, without concern for who the person was.  Rather, he came to bring forth the kingdom of God, which was a restoration of God’s original plan for each of our lives.  Therefore, when the woman was healed—that is, when the power of healing had “gone out of him”—Jesus took notice and decided to make this moment a teaching moment.  He wanted people to see this woman—whom they all knew to be the one who had been afflicted by hemorrhages for twelve years—and to see that she was now healed by her faith in him and thus restored to her status in the community.  In other words, for Jesus it wasn’t enough that she was healed; rather, he desired that her life also be restored; and for that, he needed to address her personally.

          This is also true of the young girl whom Jesus brought back to life.  Jairus, the synagogue official, came in faith to ask Jesus to heal his daughter, who was sick and at the point of death and Jesus agrees to come.  Even though the delay of addressing the woman healed from hemorrhaging meant that the child died before he arrived, Jesus remained unperturbed.  When he arrived and saw the mourning of those already in the house, he invited them to see this situation with the “eyes of the kingdom” when he said “the child is not dead but asleep.”  It was a reality that wasn’t visible to them, but that he would soon make visible to them: for in the “eyes of the kingdom” worldly death is no longer death, but rather a temporary sleep; and to prove this, Jesus resuscitates the twelve year old girl.

          As incredible as this was, Jesus once again proved that he didn’t come simply to dole out healings or to resuscitate people after they died.  He came with a concern of restoring people in the fullness of the kingdom of God.  Therefore, Jesus didn’t simply give the breath of life back to the little girl; rather he then saw that the girl was hungry and demanded that she be given something to eat.  In other words, his healings were never functional only; but rather they always came with a tenderness—a deep and abiding concern for the one who was healed: that he or she would not only experience healing, but also have his or her life restored completely.

          This, my brothers and sisters, is God’s plan for us.  We heard in the reading from the book of Wisdom that “God did not make death”; and in the Gospel reading Jesus proves to us that, even though God did not make death, he certainly isn’t powerless before it.  No, death was never part of God’s plan for us.  Death, rather, entered the world because of Satan’s envy, which led him to deceive our first parents into sinning against God.  God sent his Son, though, not just to demonstrate his power by doling out healings to anyone who asked for it, but rather to restore us to life—that is, to his original plan for us—by freeing us from eternal death.

          This restoration, however, isn’t automatic.  Like Jairus, the synagogue official, and like the woman afflicted with hemorrhages, we must first come to Jesus in faith to seek this healing if we ever hope to receive it.  This faith, however, must not only be in Jesus’ power to heal—though that is fundamental—but it must also be faith in his will: faith, that is, that Jesus’ will is wiser than my will so that, if his will is that I not be healed at this time, I might not despair and thus lose all faith, even in his power to heal.

          Ultimately, my brothers and sisters, the choice is ours.  When we choose to place our faith in Jesus—and in his power to save us—we choose God’s original plan for us: which the book of Wisdom tells us is a plan “to be imperishable; the image of God’s own nature…”  When we do otherwise—placing our faith in ourselves or in someone or something else—we place ourselves in the company of the devil, through whose envy death entered the world.  The book of Wisdom tells us that to keep company with him makes us susceptible to it: death, that is, in the “eyes of the kingdom”, which is eternal suffering and sorrow… eternal separation from God.

          You know, Oprah did a great thing that day back in 2004.  Her gift, however, was a momentary thing and could not restore the lives of the people in her audience that day.  Through Jesus God offers us so much more than a one-time gift can give us: he offers us the opportunity to have our lives restored to his original plan: a plan where death—and the sorrow and suffering that comes because of it—no longer has any place.  Ultimately, we must choose this plan over the many others that the world offers.  We choose it by saying “Amen” to Jesus when he appears on this altar; and when we live our lives with the “eyes of the kingdom”, looking beyond our life in this world to our life in the world to come.  My brothers and sisters, God desires to give us this life, because we matter to him.  Let us choose this life for ourselves today—and everyday—so that we, too, may go in peace, healed and ready to proclaim this Good News.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral Parish: Lafayette, IN  - July 1^st, 2018

Asking for the right thing

Homily: 17^th Sunday, Ordinary Time: Cycle A

          I grew up with an older brother and sandwiched between two sisters.  My brother was the oldest and so I wasn’t all that close to him.  I ended up being closer to my older sister and, being somewhat of a mama’s boy, I often found myself watching things like beauty pageants on TV, because that’s what my mom and my sister wanted to watch.

          I don’t hear much about them anymore, but back in the ‘80s the Miss America, Miss USA, and Miss Universe contests all had that allure of pageantry and glamour that made it all seem fascinating to me.  For me the highlights were the talent portion, where these women would display their incredible abilities to play instruments, to sing, or to dance, and also the evening gown competition, as each tried to outdo the other in having the most luxurious dress.  Then, there was the interview portion, where these women had to respond to questions with extremely complicated answers with poise and alacrity to prove that they could represent the best of our nation (or the world, for that matter) on a world stage.  Inevitably, the “one wish” question would come up.  “If you could have one wish for anything in the world, what would it be?”  After watching a few of these you quickly learned that if a contestant even hinted at wishing for something for themselves, that their chance at winning the crown was gone.  And, as years went on, the answers to these became somewhat rote and always altruistic.  “I would wish that there would be world peace.”  “I would wish for an end to world hunger.”  “I would wish for a cure for cancer.”  While these are all wonderful things to wish for, the fact that they became the “pat” answer to this question made these young women seem to me to be rather fake and inauthentic.

          In today’s first reading, we see God putting King Solomon through a similar “interview” as he is taking over the reins of the kingdom from his father David.  As we hear the dialogue between God and Solomon, we can almost feel the tension building as Solomon discerns what it is that he should ask from God.  Waiting with abated breath we hear his answer: “I wish for ‘an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.’”  “Wait, ‘an understanding heart’?  He asked for wisdom?  Something for himself?  NO!  He is supposed to ask for world peace or an end to hunger or that everyone in the world would be as rich as he is!  What was he thinking!?!?”  Yet, what do we hear as God’s response?  We hear that God was pleased with his answer… Why?

          Well, first Solomon acknowledged his relationship with God.  He acknowledged that the kingdom that he has been given is really God’s kingdom and that the people he is ruling are really God’s people and that, in actuality, it was God who had made him ruler over his people.  Because he had a relationship with God, Solomon knew that God wasn’t just some divine magician who could be called upon to magically make everything wrong in the world right.  Instead, he knew that God had called him to rule over his people and that God had given him the great responsibility to care for and to provide for his people.  With such a great task—and the shadow of his father, king David, looming over him—Solomon humbly acknowledged that he couldn’t handle this task alone and that he needed God’s help to fulfill the work to which he was calling him.  Thus, he didn’t ask that there would be no problems, but rather that he would have the understanding—the wisdom—to lead his people well in both good times and in bad.  And God was pleased with his answer.

          I think that many days we find ourselves in a similar situation to Solomon yet we hardly recognize it.  Daily we are surrounded by the needs of God’s people and yet (if we manage, first of all, not to ignore them) all we can think to do is to pray that God will wave his hand over the earth and make it all go away.  We fail to recognize that the task of caring for God’s people here on earth has been given to us.  Certainly, God doesn’t need us to care for his people—he is all-powerful and can handle it himself; but in his desire for a relationship with us, he invites us to participate in the work of caring for his people here on earth.  With this in mind, perhaps we can look to the example of Solomon to see how we ought to pray and thus know for what we ought to ask when we come before God with our needs.

          When we come before God we must first acknowledge our relationship with him.  Solomon acknowledged before God that he was God’s servant, called to care for and to rule over God’s people.  And so, we too must acknowledge that God has called each of us to be his servant and has given each of us a particular task in the care of his people.

          Next, our task is to ask God for the understanding to know how he has called us to participate in alleviating the problem or issue that we are bringing before him.  Solomon, recognizing the great responsibility that God had given him, asked for understanding to be able to judge God’s people well and to distinguish right from wrong.  First time parents, I suspect, are quite familiar with this prayer.  Faced with the responsibility of caring for and raising a child, new parents ought to find frequent recourse to pray for the understanding they need to raise their children.

          Finally, as we begin to take responsibility for the tasks that God has given us, we will find the things for which we truly need God’s intervention—such as a miraculous healing from an addiction for a friend (or even ourselves) or the conversion of a family member long-estranged from the Church.  Then, we can come again before God, bringing these things to him, and trusting that he hears and answers these prayers too.  Friends, when we pray in this way, taking responsibility for the things to which God has called us and asking for God’s wisdom to fulfill them, we not only engage in our relationship with him, but we also make ourselves open to uncovering the hidden treasures that are the kingdom of heaven. 

          My brothers and sisters, the characters in the parables from today’s Gospel reading were “surprised by joy” to find the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value.  When we accept the particular way that God has called us to serve his people here on earth, then we too will be “surprised by joy” when we find the ways in which the kingdom of heaven is being realized in our midst: a family healed after the leaving off of an addiction or the deathbed conversion of that long-estranged family member.  This is the same kingdom that each week we come together to realize and to celebrate when we come here to worship at this altar; and the meal that we share from it is a participation in the eternal banquet of heaven: the banquet of God’s kingdom yet to come.  Let us pray, then, for God’s wisdom to take up the task that he has given us as his servants and thus prepare ourselves to be surprised by joy when his kingdom appears like a great treasure before us.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – July 30^th, 2017

Three reasons why marriage is unique

          Ok, so I'm very late in posting my homily from last weekend.  It's kind of heavy lifting, but give it a shot.  I think that it reads better than it preaches, so perhaps this is a better medium for it.

(P.S. Doug and Jenny... I hope you don't mind me using you as an example!)

----------------------------------------------

Homily: Trinity Sunday – Cycle C

          As human persons, we all know love in some way, and we know that love always involves at least two things: someone who loves and an object being loved.  Further, I would guess that most of us can tell the difference between the superficial love we have of things, such as coffee, chocolate, or a delicious steak, and the love that we have for other people.  I would even venture to say that those of us self-styled as “pet lovers” would still be able to distinguish between the love we have for Snoopy, Rufus, Fluffy, and Mr. Pickles and the love we have for our wives, our husbands, our children, and our close friends.  We recognize that the deepest, most authentic love is something that is shared equally, and that even the most loyal dog or loving cat, or even the most decadent slice of Ghirardelli chocolate cheesecake, cannot return our love to us as equally as we can give it.  Thus, for us to say that “God is Love” should strike a chord in us.

          Throughout the centuries, many theologians (most notably Saint Augustine) have come to the realization that for God to be perfect, he must be love, because there is nothing more perfect than love.  And that for God to be love, fully and completely within himself, there must be a plurality of persons within the one, singular Godhead.  If there wasn’t, God would have to go outside of himself in order to love, which would mean that at best he would be someone who loves, but that he couldn’t be love itself.  But God is love in himself, as Saint John reveals to us.  What this means then is that God somehow—mysteriously—must be more than one person, otherwise he couldn’t be love—fully and completely—in himself.  Still further, for love to be perfect it must be shared between persons who are equal to each other.  Since God is perfect, the persons who are somehow mysteriously within the Godhead must both be perfect, otherwise the love that is God would be incomplete, which is impossible, because he is perfect.  Confused yet?  So am I.  Let’s see if we can bring this closer to home.

          When Jenny loves her husband Doug, she does so “perfectly” (inasmuch as she can, since none of us can really do anything perfectly, per se).  This is because the love between two people who are married is a love between equals, a man and a woman, a husband and a wife; that is, two people.  Because Doug and Jenny are equal, Doug can receive the perfect love that Jenny gives completely and he can return his own perfect love to Jenny, which she can receive completely.  Now when Doug loves his cat Smokey, he does so “imperfectly” (though I’m not sure Doug would agree with me on this one).  This is because love, in order to be perfect, must be shared by equals.  Obviously Doug and Smokey are not equals; Doug is a human being created in the image of God and Smokey is a cat, created to be at the service of man (if you don’t like that, don’t get mad at me… take it up with God).  This doesn’t make Doug’s love for Smokey any less real, but it does make his love less than perfect, because Smokey cannot fully receive Doug’s love—that is, he can’t know it for what it is—and he certainly cannot return to Doug his own love, at least not in the way that we understand love.  I would venture to say that all of us understand this: that love, in its most deep and authentic form is the love between persons, between equals.  Yet, there is still something even more wonderful here.  In the human world, perfect love is always between two persons who are different beings.  In God, amazingly, awesomely, mysteriously, perfect love is between persons within himself.

          While this image of the “perfect” love between husband and wife does a lot of work towards making the Trinity comprehensible for us, there is still something missing.  Let’s continue by stating something that we might think is pretty obvious: that if God is perfect love within himself, he must be supremely happy.  Just as Doug and Jenny know that with their perfect married love, they need nothing else in this world to be happy (besides God, of course), so God, because he is perfect love within himself, needs nothing else to be happy.  Did you hear that?  God needs nothing else to be happy, not even us.  Even if God hadn’t created anything, he would still be perfectly happy in the perfect love that he is in himself.  Sounds kind of selfish, doesn’t it?  Well, rest assured, it is.  Love between two people that is closed off from being shared with others is self-serving; in a sense, the couple is “hoarding” the delight of their love all for themselves.  For love to be perfect, and if it is to be the highest level of happiness that one can experience, there must be a “going out to another,” that is, an openness to being shared.  In other words, the perfect delight that results from perfect love would not be possible if a) the two were not open to sharing that delight with a third and b) if there wasn’t a third person to share it with.  This sharing is what certain theologians have called, “fellowship.”  And just as the two who love must be equal in order for love to be perfect, the third, in order to fully share in the delight, that is, the fellowship, of the two, must also be equal to them.

          Doug and Jenny were having difficulty conceiving a child.  This was a great burden for them because their married love literally ached for there to be a third person, equal to them, who could fully participate in the delight of their love.  After a while, they decided to get a puppy, Daisy.  They knew that Daisy could never participate fully in their delight, but their desire that there be fellowship in their family was so great that they were willing to compromise with an incomplete fellowship until God’s will granted them the grace of a more perfect fellowship in having a child (which he did, by the way, giving them a baby boy, George, last year).  For God, however, this isn’t a problem.  We know that he is perfect love.  And so we know that he is a plurality of equal persons in himself.  And, thanks to the work of various theologians, we know that this plurality of persons must be three: the One who loves, the One who is loved, and the Fellowship of their love; that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

          I know that this has been a lot to take, but there is one last thing that needs to be said.  There is good reason why the example of Doug and Jenny works here, because the very nature of a family, formed by the marriage of a man and a woman, is itself an image of the Trinity.  And it is in the differences, differences which are complementary, between a man and a woman that makes this image possible.  Just as the differences between the Father and the Son complement each other and make possible the outpouring of love that literally begets the Holy Spirit (a begetting that would not be possible if it were “the Father and the Father” or “the Son and the Son”), so to the differences between men and women complement each other to make possible the outpouring of love that begets, that is, co-creates with God, a child, a person equal in dignity that delights in the fellowship of love with his or her mother and father.  Anything else, quite frankly, is a knock-off: it’s artificially creating something God never intended.  Can co-equal love exist outside marriage?  Sure.  But it cannot be marriage, and therefore an image of the Trinity, if the possibility of total self-giving, to the point of the natural creation of another, does not exist.  To think otherwise is to fall victim to original sin: believing that we can have it our way, instead of adhering to the wisdom with which God created the world (the Wisdom that spoke to us in our first reading today).

          My brothers and sisters, marriage truly is “Unique for a Reason”: because when we truly live it out according to God’s plan it draws us into a mysterious participation in the life of the Trinity and it also witnesses the mystery of that life to the world, which is of great value.  Objectively, that is, scientifically speaking, marriage (as God has defined it) is good for us, for our children, and for our society and therefore ought to be defended from any attempts to alter its nature, attempts that are occurring right now in our country.  Let us, then, courageously come to its defense: for in doing so we will not only be defending the good for ourselves, but we will also be giving glory to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – May 26^th, 2013

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Taking Responsibility for the Kingdom

This is my homily from last weekend given at Saint Ambrose Parish, Anderson, IN (St. Mary's got a shortened version because it was oppressively hot and they do not have air conditioning in the church):

I grew up with an older brother and sandwiched between two sisters. My brother was the oldest and so I wasn’t all that close to him. I ended up being closer to my older sister and, being somewhat of a mama’s boy, I often found myself watching things like beauty pageants on TV, because that’s what my mom and my sister wanted to watch.

I don’t hear much about them anymore, but back in the ‘80s the Miss America, Miss USA, and Miss Universe contests all had that allure of pageantry and glamour that made it all seem fascinating to me. For me the highlights were the talent portion, where these women would display their incredible abilities to play instruments, to sing, or to dance, and also the evening gown competition, as each tried to outdo the other in having the most luxurious dress. Then, there was the interview portion, where these women had to respond to questions with extremely complicated answers with poise and alacrity to prove that they could represent the best of our nation (or the world) on a world stage. Inevitably, the “one wish” question would come up. “If you could have one wish for anything in the world, what would it be?” After watching a few of these you quickly learned that if a contestant even hinted at wishing for something for themselves, that their chance at winning the crown was gone. And, as years went on, the answers to these became somewhat rote and always altruistic. “I would wish that there would be world peace.” “I would wish for an end to world hunger.” “I would wish for a cure for cancer.” While these are all wonderful things to wish for, the fact that they became the “pat” answer to this question made these young women seem to me to be rather fake and inauthentic.

In today’s first reading, we see God putting King Solomon through a similar “interview” as he is taking over the reins of the kingdom from his father David. As we hear the dialogue between God and Solomon, we can almost feel the tension building as Solomon discerns what it is that he should ask for from God. Waiting with abated breath we hear his answer: “Wisdom.” “Wisdom? NO! He is supposed to ask for world peace or an end to hunger or that everyone in the world would be as rich as he is! What was he thinking!?!?” Yet we soon hear that God was pleased with his answer… Why?

Well, first Solomon acknowledged his relationship with God. He acknowledged that the kingdom that he has been given is really God’s kingdom and that the people he is ruling are really God’s people and that, in actuality, it was God who had made him ruler over his people. Because he had a relationship with God, Solomon knew that God wasn’t just some divine magician who could be called upon to magically make everything wrong in the world right. Instead, he knew that God had called him to rule over his people and that God had given him the great responsibility to care for and provide for his people. With such a great task and the shadow of his father, king David, looming over him, Solomon humbly acknowledged that he couldn’t handle this task alone and that he needed God’s help to fulfill the work that he was calling him to. Thus, he didn’t ask that there would be no problems, but rather that he would have the understanding—the wisdom—to lead his people well in both good times and in bad. And God was pleased with his answer.

I think that many days we find ourselves in a similar situation to Solomon yet we hardly recognize it. Daily we are surrounded by the needs of God’s people and yet all we can think to do is to pray that God will wave his hand over the earth and make it all go away. We fail to recognize that the task of building God’s kingdom here on earth has been given to us. Certainly, God doesn’t need us for the building of his kingdom—he is all-powerful and can handle it himself—but in his desire for a relationship with us, he invites us to participate in the work of building up his kingdom here on earth. With that in mind, then, perhaps we can look to the example of Solomon to see how we can pray and thus know what to ask for when we come before God with our needs.

When we come before God we must first acknowledge our relationship with him. Solomon acknowledged before God that he was God’s servant, called to care for and to rule over God’s people. And so we too must acknowledge that God has called us to a particular task for the building up of his kingdom. Next our task is to ask God for the understanding to know how he has called us to participate in alleviating the problem or issue that we are bringing before him. Solomon, recognizing the great responsibility that God had given him, asked for understanding to be able to judge God’s people well. First time parents, I suspect, are quite familiar with this prayer. Faced with the responsibility of caring for and raising a child, new parents ought to find frequent recourse to pray for the understanding they need to raise their children. Finally, as we begin to take responsibility for the tasks that God has given us, then we will find the things that we truly do need God’s intervention for—such as a miraculous healing from an addiction or the conversion of a family member long estranged from the Church. Then, we can come again before God, trusting that he hears and answers these prayers too. When we pray in this way, taking responsibility for the things God has called us to and asking for God’s wisdom to fulfill them, we not only engage in our relationship with him, but we also make ourselves open to uncovering the hidden treasures that are the kingdom of heaven.

My brothers and sisters, the characters in the parables from today’s Gospel reading were “surprised by joy” to find the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value. When we accept the particular way that God has called us to build his kingdom here on earth, then we too will be “surprised by joy” when we find the ways in which the kingdom is being realized in our midst—a family healed after the leaving off of an addiction or the deathbed conversion of that long-estranged family member. This is the same kingdom that each week we come together to realize and to celebrate when we come here to worship at this altar and to share in the meal that is a participation in the eternal banquet of heaven, the banquet of the God’s kingdom yet to come. Let us pray, then, for God’s wisdom to take up the task that he has given us for the building of his kingdom and thus to be surprised by joy when his kingdom appears like a great treasure before us.