Pentecost Homily

Last evening and today I celebrated four Masses in South Dakota prairie towns--Faith, Red Owl, and Mud Butte.  These places are served by a Polish priest who is part of the Rapid City Diocese and who went back home to visit his family.  He has quite a trek every weekend.  He lives in Faith and on Saturdays he drives over 60 miles to Red Owl for 4 PM Mass and then on Sundays he drives 40 miles to Mud Butte for 10 AM Mass.  Here's the homily I preached:

I want to begin with a question, but you're going to have to listen closely to it.  Do you have any "thems."  You know, as in "us" and "them." 

In the late 1960's when I was in high school, I was given a little reflection book by Malcolm Boyd entitled "Are You Running With Me Jesus?"  One reflection went like this:  "The definition of charity: No Them."

Our first reading (Acts 2: 1-11), the story of Pentecost, shows how diverse "Jews and converts to Judaism" from all over heard about "the mighty acts of God" in their own language as the apostles, uneducated Galileans, preached the good new of Jesus Christ to them.  The Holy Spirit had performed a miracle that brought about unity in the midst of the diversity of many languages.  All were able to hear and understand the Gospel.  All were included.

In the second reading from chapter 12 of St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, we hear that all--"whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons"--are chosen to be part of the Body of Christ.  No one is excluded.  The Church has no "them." 

This is God's plan for humanity--a unity amidst diversity.  Humanity is made in the image and likeness of God.  God, as we will reflect upon more in next week's feast of the Most Holy Trinity, is a mystery of  One and Three.  God is Three Persons and One God.  There is diversity in the Divine Nature and unity.  Thus humanity, made in this image, is meant to be diverse but one.  We are not created to be the same or to be isolated individuals. We are made to be a communion of persons.  In God there is no "them," only "us." 

This unity amidst diversity is the work of the Holy Spirit, the bond of Love between the Father and the Son.  The Spirit unites us to God and to one another, making us one.  No "them."

In the Gospel (John 20: 19-23) Jesus said that the Father sent him. He was sent to reconcile humanity to God and with one another. 

The word "reconcile" comes from a Latin word which means "to make friends again."  Where sin separates us from God and one another, causing a break in our friendship, Jesus came to restore friendship.  Friends do not see each other as "them." 

As members of the Body of Christ we are now sent by him and empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue his work.  The apostles and those ordained after them continue this work through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  However, all the baptized are sent to bring about reconciliation.  We do that by forgiving one another, by works of mercy, and by our penance.  The idea of penitential prayers and acts is to balance out the wrong in the world with good, to repair the damage of sin. 

But what about the last line of the gospel: "whose sins you retain are retained?"  What sins are retained? 

It takes two to reconcile.  People may hurt you and you go to them to tell them that you forgive them.  But if they look at you and say, "I didn't do that; I didn't say that" or if they minimize the hurt by saying "Hey, that was nothing; get over it," then reconciliation has not taken place.  The hurt, the sin, has been retained.  You were ready to forgive but they were not ready to receive your forgiveness.

There may be instances where reconciliation doesn't happen because people do not admit their sin or excuse it.  They are not able to receive mercy.  Neither God nor we can force them to accept it without their realizing they need it and want it. 

Our responsibility is not to impose reconciliation on others.  It cannot be forced.  However, we must always  be ready to forgive, to make sure there is no obstacle in our hearts to reconciliation--no resentment, no bitterness.  In other words, we must never see others as "them."  We must pray for their conversion so that they will see their need for mercy and receive it.  God wants everyone to be reconciled--to be friends of God and one another. 

In the end, in heaven there will be no "them."  There will only be "us"--humanity reconciled in the Body of Christ. 

St. Francis' Stigmata and the Year of Mercy

On September 17 I offered a spiritual workshop to the Sisters of the Third Order of St.Francis at their motherhouse in Peoria, IL.  While the universal Church remembers the Jesuit St. Robert Bellarmine in the liturgy that day, Franciscans celebrate a feast in remembrance of their holy founder’s receiving the stigmata.  However, there is an interesting connection which Fr. John Hardon, S.J.has noted:

“St. Robert Bellarmine had a great devotion to St. Francis of Assisi, and was especially devoted to honoring Francis' stigmata. Bellarmine urged that there be a special feast in honor of the five stigmata of St. Francis. Bellarmine had an important position in the Vatican and he made sure that the feast was introduced in the Church, despite strong opposition. As Providence arranged, Robert Bellarmine died on the feast of the stigmata of St. Francis, September 17.”

The readings for the Franciscan feast are Galatians 6: 14-18 and Luke 9: 23-26 and the following is the homily that I offered to the Sisters.

As Providence would have it, today, as we reflect on the Jubilee Year of Mercy, we are celebrating a feast in honor of St. Francis of Assisi’s stigmata, a gift that he received in the year 1224. The Year of Mercy and St. Francis’ stigmata go together quite well.  For if mercy is the greatest expression and embodiment of God’s love, and if the Church is the Body of Christ, then we are to embody God’s mercy and show it to the world in a visible way.  The greatest act of mercy is the Passion—the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

In his Message for the 2015 World Mission Day, Pope Francis wrote:  “Mission is a passion for Jesus and at the same time a passion for his people. When we pray before Jesus crucified, we see the depth of his love which gives us dignity and sustains us. At the same time, we realize that the love flowing from Jesus’ pierced heart expands to embrace the People of God and all humanity. We realize once more that he wants to make use of us to draw closer to his beloved people and all those who seek him with a sincere heart.”

Isn’t this what St. Francis did?  He prayed before Jesus crucified and experienced the depth of his love.  He shared Jesus’ passionate love for his people so much that he received the wounds of Jesus into his body. He embodied the Passion, the mercy of God.

On October 4, 1673, several months before Jesus appeared and revealed his Sacred Heart to her, St. Margaret Mary had a vision.  Here is how she described it: “On the feast of St. Francis, our Lord let me see in prayer this great saint, clad in a garment of light and unspeakable brilliance. He had been raised above the other saints to an extraordinarily high degree of glory, because his life was so like that of the suffering Redeemer who is the life of our souls and the love of our hearts. His glory was the reward of his great love for the Passion of our Lord, a love which rendered him worthy of the sacred stigmata and made him one of the great favorites of Jesus’ heart.”

In our first reading, St. Paul wrote that the world had been crucified to him and he to the world.  What does this mean?  I think it means that he shared Christ’s passionate desire for the salvation of the world.  This also describes St. Francis who took up the cross of poverty and labored for the salvation of souls.  He even risked his life in 1219 by going to Egypt to speak with the Sultan about Jesus.  Christian Crusaders were attacking the Sultan’s city and Francis was concerned as well for them because of their immoral life style.  Francis shared Christ’s passionate concern that no one be lost. 

The ultimate meaning of St. Francis’ stigmata is that he shared the desires and concerns of Jesus’ Heart so much that his body revealed the merciful wounds of Christ.  He was so configured to Christ that he embodied the mercy of God in a visible way.  

We too are called to be configured to Christ.  When we share his concern for the world and labor with him for the salvation of all, we embody the mercy of God.

We do so, always, with joy.  St. Francis once said: “It is not right for a servant of God to show a sad or gloomy face to anyone.”  More recently, in “The Joy of the Gospel,” Pope Francis said that Christians cannot be “sourpusses.”  The mercy which we embody is joyful.  Being “merciful like the Father,” as the motto for this Extraordinary Jubilee Year tells us, means sharing God’s joy in being merciful.  In the parables of Luke 15, Jesus tells us that there is great joy in heaven when the lost are found, when sinners repent and receive the mercy that God always has in store for them.  May our celebration of this feast and our ongoing Jubilee celebration help us to embody the joyful mercy of God.

Homily for Lent, Third Sunday, Cycle C

Do you ever pray when you read the newspaper?  Or watch the evening news?  In today's Gospel (Luke 13: 1-9) we get the 1st Century equivalent of this.  News spread by word of mouth back then and "some people told Jesus about" two tragic events.  In Galilee, where Jesus was raised, the Roman governor Pilate killed some Jews as they were offering a religious sacrifice.  Their blood "mingled with the blood of their sacrifices."  And in Jerusalem, eighteen people were killed "when the tower at Siloam fell on them."  Reflecting on this, the people sharing these news stories with Jesus wondered what sins these victims must have committed to have warranted such punishment from God.  Jesus tells them that they've got it all wrong.  God doesn't punish in this way.

I grew up with an image of God that was very negative and I can pinpoint where that image was planted in my consciousness. I was about five and my extended family had gotten together to visit my grandparents.  As the adults were conversing around the large (at least to a boy) dining room table, I was chasing my cousin Ronny. My father told me, "Cut it out," and being the good boy I was, I obeyed him.  But when the adults got busy again with their conversation, I poked Ronny and he poked me and we started fooling around again.  As I chased him I slipped on the rug, fell, and hit my head on the table and started crying.  My father said to me: "See! God punished you!"  In that moment God became a policeman just waiting to catch little boys when they were misbehaving, and the jury and judge who would pass sentence on them, and the executioner--all rolled into one.

This is not the God Jesus reveals to us. Not the God Jesus teaches us about.  We are not punished for our sins but by our sins.

God's creation has built-in laws.  They give order to creation.  They're not imposed from outside nor are they arbitrary.  God's laws are part of the nature of things.  For example, physical creatures follow the law of gravity. Humans are free to rebel against that law.  Now, we're not talking about flying in an airplane which still follows the laws of physics. We're talking about someone who decides the law of gravity is too restrictive and launches him or herself off a high place in order to fly.  They wouldn't break the law which is still there.  They would break themselves.  That wasn't God punishing them, but God maintaining the order of the universe and allowing them to suffer the consequences of their foolish choice.

But humans are more than physical beings. We are made in the image and likeness of God.  We are spiritual.  And just as there are physical laws that govern us because we are physical, so there are spiritual laws that govern us as well.  They are part of nature and are for our good and the good order of the universe.  If we choose to rebel against those spiritual laws, we end up hurting our relationship with God. We end up hurting others and ourselves.  That's not God punishing us, but allowing us to experience the natural consequences of our foolish choices.

Sin hurts.  This is why Jesus, in the Gospel, warns the people to repent lest they perish.  And worse than hurting oneself physically is hurting oneself spiritually, being alienated from God and God's other children, possibly forever.

In the first reading from Exodus chapter 3, God comes to Moses as fire in a burning bush. God reveals the Divine Name. God is "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob."  God is the God of merciful faithfulness.

In a recent interview book, "The Name of God is Mercy," Pope Francis says that going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation is not like going to a dry cleaner to get some stains removed.  Sin goes deeper. Sin wounds and the Sacrament is designed to heal the deep wounds, the consequences of sin.

In the Sacrament we encounter the merciful and sacred Heart of Jesus.  Images of the Sacred Heart portray a heart on fire with love.  The Letter to the Hebrews 12: 29 says that "our God is a consuming fire."  The fire of God's love brings healing to the sinner and destroys or consumes sin.  It is a purifying fire.

We encounter the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist and in all the Sacraments.  Not only does the fiery love of this Heart purify us.  It transforms us so that we in our turn can bring mercy into the world.  One practical way that we can do this is to pray when we read the newspaper or watch the news. Rather than getting negative and angry, we can pray and ask God to be merciful to the people and situations that we see.  Mercy is not only to be received; it's to be shared.  In sharing it we will show ourselves to be faithful and merciful children of the Father and members of the Body of Christ.

Homily for Third Sunday Ordinary Time Cycle C

In the first reading at Mass today, the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C (Nehemiah 8: 2-10), the scribe/priest Ezra addressed the Israelites after their return from exile.  For hours he read to them the Law, the covenant God had made with them. Their reaction?  Sadness.  Discouragement.  They realize they had not followed the covenant, the mutual love that would bring them peace and happiness. 

But Ezra tells them: “Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!”  He tells them not to look back or dwell on the past.  Look to the present moment when the people have gathered to express their desire to be faithful to the covenant.  On this present moment, build your future.  Be mindful of God’s faithfulness and have hope.

This hope was eventually fulfilled by Jesus who faithfully lived Israel’s covenant of love.  In the gospel (Luke 4: 14-21), Jesus returns to his home town of Nazareth after being baptized in the Jordan and battling Satan in the desert. Over the years he was accustomed to reading in the synagogue there. Handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, Jesus looked for the passage (61: 1-2) where the prophet spoke of his mission. 

After reading these words of hope and joy, Jesus did a shocking thing.  He applied the words to himself. He declared that they were being fulfilled by him.  He is the one of whom Isaiah wrote.  The authority with which he speaks is backed up by the deeds that he will soon perform—physical and spiritual healings that reveal the freedom of which Isaiah spoke. 

This gospel takes on greater meaning for us this year.  This is “a year acceptable to the Lord.”  This Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy is a year of favor.  The Church is called to focus, as Ezra did, on the present time in which God will shower his mercy on the world if we but let him.  Now is the time for us to experience God’s mercy in a deeper way and to share that mercy with the world through works of mercy. 

But even more, now is the time for us to witness to mercy by our joy.  More than works, joyful mercy is to be seen in who we are—people of joy in the midst of a world that appears so hopeless.  The loving covenant God made with humanity can be fulfilled because of Jesus who shared our humanity and unites himself to us in one Body, the Church.  As Jesus proclaimed a joyful message during a difficult time in human history—when Israel was occupied by the brutal Romans, when a Jewish puppet king named Herod colluded with the pagan occupiers, and when the Pharisees strove to live the Law perfectly but in a way that separated themselves from the suffering poor and sinners—so we are called to witness to joy and hope.

In his Apostolic Exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel,” Pope Francis challenged us as Ezra did. He wrote: “One of the more serious temptations which stifles boldness and zeal is a defeatism which turns us into disillusioned pessimists—‘sour-pusses’” (#85).  Various commentators have said that this is probably the first papal document to contain that expression.  But it is an accurate translation of the original Spanish, “con cara de vinagre”—with a face of vinegar.  Our faces are to beam with the joy of knowing that we are forgiven and, like Jesus, are beloved sons and daughters of God the Father who loves us with an infinite love which nothing can take away.  God’s love, like his mercy, is always offered to us.  God never stops loving because God is Love.  We, however, are the ones who reject God’s love or place obstacles to it in our lives.  Realizing this we should not become saddened like the Israelites, but rather turn to God and receive mercy as the sins we bring to him and confess are removed. 

Christians are joined to Christ who gives them the power to move away from sin and toward the freedom of the children of God.  All of us, members of his Body, have an important role to play in the ongoing work of proclaiming and living the Gospel of Joy.  We may be saddened by our failures, weaknesses, and sins.  But Jesus tells us, as Ezra did, “Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!”

St. Paul, in the second reading (1 Corinthians 12: 12-30), underscores the reason for our joy.  No matter how small, weak, or insignificant we may feel, we are all part of the Body of Christ.  We all have a role to play.  Reading this passage, St. Therese of Lisieux, who enrolled in the Apostleship of Prayer when she was twelve, became discouraged.  She did not see herself, a cloistered Carmelite nun, in Paul’s list of Body parts—apostles, teachers, those who do mighty deeds or have gifts of healing, those who offer assistance or are administrators or speak in a variety of tongues.  Reading the next chapter of Paul’s letter, the great hymn to love that we will have in next week’s Sunday readings, St. Therese found consolation.

She wrote: “And the Apostle explains how all the most PERFECT gifts are nothing without LOVE. That Charity is the EXCELLENT WAY that leads most surely to God.  I finally had rest. Considering the mystical body of the Church, I had not recognized myself in any of the members described by St. Paul, or rather I desired to see myself in them all. Charity gave me the key to my vocation. … I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was BURNING WITH LOVE. I understood it was Love alone that made the Church’s members act, that if Love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the Gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood.  I understood that LOVE COMPRISED ALL VOCATIONS, THAT LOVE WAS EVERYTHING, THAT IT EMBRACED ALL TIMES AND PLACES …. IN A WORD, THAT IT WAS ETERNAL!  Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love …. my vocation, at last I have found it…. MY VOCATION IS LOVE!  Yes, I have found my place in the Church and it is You, O my God, who have given me this place; in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be Love. [Emphasis in original]

St. Therese shows us that no one is insignificant nor is any moment of life meaningless.  We are filled with joy because we know that united to the Sacred Heart of Jesus burning with love, we too can be love in the heart of the Church and in the midst of the world.  This love, the love with which Jesus offered himself on the cross for the salvation of all, will enter today’s world through us.  It is the only power capable of overcoming the violence and darkness we see around us.  It is, as Therese wrote, “EVERYTHING” and “ETERNAL.”

A Sinner and Called

On this day, the feast of St. Matthew, sixty-two years ago, a teenager walked out of the confessional, relieved and at peace. The profound experience of God's mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation planted a seed.  He felt moved to offer himself to God in a religious vocation, as a Jesuit.

Years later he was ordained a bishop and he chose, as his episcopal motto, "Miserando Atque Eligendo."  This phrase comes from a homily of St. Bede that is the second reading in the Breviary's Office of Readings today.  Jesus saw the tax collector (Matthew, the sinner) and "because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him, he said 'Follow me.'"  

The Jesuit bishop, of course, was Jorge Bergoglio who is now known as Pope Francis.  At the age of seventeen in 1953 he experienced God's mercy in such a profound way that he, like Matthew, left the life he had planned and followed Jesus.  He saw himself as a sinner and called.  Not, "a sinner yet called," but "a sinner and called."

This is an important distinction.  Why?

First, as Jesus said in today's Gospel (Matthew 9: 9-13), he "did not come to call the righteous but sinners."  "Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do."  Jesus is God's mercy in the flesh.  He reaches out precisely to sinners and calls them to freedom, health, new life.

Second, God tends to choose "the weak" and "the lowly" in order to make clear that it is divine power at work and not human power, "so that no human being might boast before God" (1 Corinthians 1: 27-29).  Sinners know where they have come from and so can more easily remain humble.

Third, sinners make great evangelizers.  Having experienced the good news of God's mercy, they want to share that news with others.  And their sharing is more convincing because "they've been there."  Others can see in these sinners-turned-evangelizers the possibility and hope of their own freedom.

Thus it is no surprise that right after he leaves his job to follow Jesus, Matthew throws a party at which there were many tax-collectors and sinners.  

In his homily, St. Bede writes that this wasn't the only banquet. Besides the banquet in Matthew's house, there was another that was even better:  "But far more pleasing was the banquet set in his own heart which he provided through faith and love."  Matthew welcomed mercy into his heart which then opened to his fellow sinners.  And to Jesus.  Jesus, finding a merciful heart like his own, felt very comfortable there in Matthew's heart.

May he find such a welcome in our hearts as well.

Not Fair, but Generously Merciful

Today is the last night of a parish mission that I am leading at St. Justin Martyr Church in the St. Louis area. The following is a summary of my homily from last Sunday, the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A.


When I was growing up we played "Hide and Seek."  Everyone is familiar with how that goes. If you are "it" you have to close your eyes while the others all run and hide. Then you seek them and tag them before they can reach "goal" which we pronounced "gool."  If you put your hands over your eyes but then spread your fingers to see where people went to hide you might hear back "No fair peeking." 


Children have an innate sense of fairness. If a teacher plays favorites or treats the girls better than the boys they will complain that the teacher isn't being fair. And vice versa.  Children don't learn fairness, though they often have to be reminded. A victim of unfairness knows immediately that something isn't right.  This sense of fairness seems to be part of one's conscience--an innate sense of right and wrong.


That being said, most of us hear today's Gospel (Matthew 20: 1-16a) with the parable of the workers who labor for various numbers of hours in a vineyard yet get the same pay and we react, "That's not fair!"  That's especially not fair if we consider that perhaps the reason why the workers who were hired at five weren't there at the crack of dawn because they were sleeping in.  Should such laziness be rewarded?


Remember: the parables of Jesus were designed to shock people--his listeners then and all of us now--into thought and action.


What was Jesus trying to teach us with this parable? What did he want us to think and to know?

Our first reading (Isaiah 55: 6-9) gives us a clue. Through the prophet, God, "who is generous in forgiving," tells us "my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways." 


The parable Jesus told was a description of "the kingdom of heaven."  Every human being is created for heaven--for union with God and the communion of saints. But from the beginning we have rejected God's desire and plan.  Yet God persisted.  As the landowner in the parable is "generous" so is God.  To save us from our sins and the alienation and destruction they cause, the Son of God took flesh, suffered, and died.  He took upon himself the penalty of our sins.  Then he rose from the dead and shared the reward of his obedient love with disobedient humanity.


We did not earn it.  He did not deserve it.  This was totally unfair, but it was totally merciful.


This is our faith. It's what we celebrate every time we gather for the Eucharist.


But remember, parables are designed to not only shock us into thought but also into action.  What is the action Jesus hoped to achieve with this story?

That we would be as generous and merciful as our Landowner God is.  That we would desire and then pray and work for the salvation of all.  That we would want everyone in heaven as much as God does.

That's difficult. We all have people that we don't like.  We have enemies and the thought of being with them for eternity in heaven sounds more like hell!

It is difficult and perhaps impossible to be as merciful as God is merciful. Yet we are called to be such and the power to be merciful is a divine power that is given to us in the Eucharist.  There we receive the Heart of Jesus when we receive his Body and Blood.  There our hearts are transformed to be more like the generously merciful Heart of our Savior.

Mercy and Sacrifice

There is a story that the disciples of Jesus were criticized by the Pharisees for breaking the sabbath when they picked heads of grain and ate them as they walked through a field (see Matthew 12: 1-8, Mark 2: 23-28, Luke 6: 1-5). Jesus defends them by pointing to similar situations in Israel’s history. He also declares that as “Son of Man”—a title that appears in the book of the prophet Daniel (2: 13-14) and that indicates divine kingship—he is Lord of the sabbath. 

In Mark’s version of this story, Jesus declares that the “sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” The sabbath was instituted by God for the sake of justice: so that the human person could give God the worship that is God’s due. It was instituted by God for the sake of human dignity: so that human beings could have the rest and leisure they require and which imitates God whom Genesis said rested on the seventh day after all the work of creation (2: 3).

Matthew has Jesus quoting a verse from the prophet Hosea: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6: 6). What is translated here as “mercy” is also the word “love.”  God wants love and mercy and not the empty sacrificial rituals that Hosea inveighed against.  This is the “sacrifice” that God does not want. However, there is another “sacrifice” that is essential to love and mercy.  It is the sacrifice of self, the denial of self-interest, the rejection of retaliation.

The greatest sign of mercy and love is the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. He died not for the righteous but for sinners (Romans 5: 8). He died begging pardon for those who tortured and killed him and even made excuses for them (Luke 23: 34).

July 19 is the anniversary of Fr. Lawrence Jenco’s death in 1996. Fr. Jenco was a Servite priest who was the regional director of Catholic Relief Services in Lebanon in 1985. He was kidnapped and spent the next 564 days in captivity as a hostage. He was blindfolded most of the time and transported from place to place in a secret compartment under trucks where he was almost asphyxiated by the noxious diesel fumes. He was beaten. After his release he wrote a book—“Bound to Forgive”—and he began the first chapter with these words of Jesus as recorded by Luke: “But I say to those who listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (6: 27-28). This holy priest forgave his captors and tormenters and even asked their forgiveness for the times that he himself had harbored hatred and thoughts of revenge in his heart. (I wrote about this in another blog entry here.)

What gave Fr. Jenco the ability to forgive in this way? The Eucharist. He heard the Word of God and allowed it to enter his heart to transform it from a heart hardened by a righteous anger that had become bitter hatred to a heart of mercy and love. He received the Word of God-Made-Flesh in Holy Communion and allowed the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus to transform his heart. 

Past, current, and, no doubt, future events reveal a world desperately in need of conversion, of mercy and love. That will require sacrifice, a sacrificial mercy that begins here, with my heart and yours. Heart of Jesus, make our hearts like yours!

"The Caress of the Mercy of Jesus"

The mercy of God is a clear theme in the recent talks and past writings of Pope Francis.  Yesterday's Gospel about the woman caught in adultery (John 8: 1-11) gave me the opportunity to preach about mercy at the closing Mass of my retreat with 60 men at the Jesuit retreat house in St. Louis.  I was able to include some striking comments by Pope Francis on this topic.

In the Gospel we have a typical scene from the life of Jesus: a crowd gathers around Jesus who teaches them.  The Pharisees and scribes--Jesus' enemies--appear, thinking they will be able to trap Jesus by asking him whether they should follow the law of Moses and stone the woman they have caught "in the very act of committing adultery." They, like so many others, use her as an object for their own ends.  If Jesus agrees that she should be stoned, the crowd of sinners who have followed him will reject him.  If Jesus disagrees, he will prove himself "soft on sin." 

Jesus cuts through these two options by proposing that the one present who is without sin should throw the first stone.  "One by one" they leave, "beginning with the elders."  Jesus is the only one there who is without sin.  He is the only one who could stone her, but he doesn't.  He chooses mercy, not condemnation because, as John writes in another place: "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him" (3: 17).

Speaking about the mercy of God in 2001, Pope Francis said:

"Only someone who has encountered mercy, who has been caressed by the tenderness of mercy, is happy and comfortable with the Lord. ...I dare say that the privileged locus of the encounter is the caress of the mercy of Jesus Christ on my sin.

"In front of this merciful embrace ... we feel a real desire to respond, to change, to correspond; a new morality arises. ... Christian morality is not a titanic effort of the will, the effort of someone who decides to be consistent and succeeds.... No. Christian morality is simply a response.

"It is the heartfelt response to a surprising, unforeseeable, 'unjust' mercy.... The surprising, unforeseeable, 'unjust' mercy, using purely human criteria, of one who knows me, knows my betrayals and loves me just the same, appreciates me, embraces me, calls me again, hopes in me, and expects from me.  This is why the Christian conception of morality is a revolution; it is not a 'never falling down' but an 'always getting up again.'"

In these words Pope Francis follows a theme that was important to both Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI: Christianity is not so much a set of doctrines or an ethical system as it is an encounter. Once we have encountered the Person of Jesus and his love, we are moved to respond. Our response is to follow the way of Jesus, to love and to forgive as we are loved and forgiven.  As the 5th Century Greek bishop Diadochus said, the measure of our love for God depends upon how deeply aware we are of God's love for us. To live a Christian life, to follow Jesus, to forgive as he forgives, depends upon becoming more and more aware of the love and mercy of Jesus Christ. The mercy of God and our mercy are "unjust" in that they do not give people what they deserve, but what they need--the tenderness of mercy which alone can soften the sin-hardened heart. 

The Prayer of Abraham

Last Friday night I gave a short talk at the Archdiocese of Milwaukee's monthly All-Night Vigil. My topic was based on the May 18 General Audience of Pope Benedict--Abraham and the Prayer of Intercession.

How did you learn to pray? What were your first prayers like?

I recall my mother kneeling with me beside my bed each night and praying for her and my father, for my sisters and other relatives, and for friends. Later, when I was tucked into bed, I might add a secret prayer--asking for something for myself, like a certain toy for Christmas. Sometimes I prayed in desperation, like the time my sister accidentally splashed dish water into Timmy the Turtle's bowl and he got very sick. I prayed that he would recover. He didn't.

When those prayers of desperation are not answered as we want, our faith is tested. That's especially true when we pray for important and good things--like the health of a loved one. When the loved one dies we ask: "Doesn't God hear?" "Doesn't God care?"

The answer is that God does hear every prayer and does care deeply for us, but sometimes the answer he gives to our prayers is the one that Jesus received in a garden called Gethsemane. Didn't the Father hear the prayer of his Beloved Son? Most certainly. Didn't the Father care for his Son? Yes. Then why? Why did the Father not take the cup of suffering and death away from his Son? Because God had a greater good in mind. It's truly hard to imagine, but God loved the sinful human race so much that he saved us through suffering and death, by sharing in our own suffering and death.

We're made in God's image and likeness. God is a Communion of Persons and as such God is Love Itself. Made in the image and likeness of Love, we're made by love and for love. That is our nature and our destiny. Through baptism we become children of the Father, brothers and sisters of Jesus, temples of the Holy Spirit. We are called to believe this and to act on it.

What does that mean, to act on this belief about our deepest identity? It means loving as God loves.

Do you love God? Do you have God's love in your heart? Do you share God's concern for the world?

This is what brings us here to the monthly All-Night Vigil. We come together to pray for the salvation of all. We do so like Abraham who, according to Chapter 18 of Genesis, begged God to save sinful Sodom and Gomorrah. As Pope Benedict said last May 18: "By voicing this prayer, Abraham was giving a voice to what God wanted." What God wanted was not destruction but salvation. God wanted to save those two cities and Abraham's prayer gave voice to God's desire. Abraham's prayer opened, as it were, a channel for God's merciful grace to enter those cities. Unfortunately, that grace did not find a welcome, for there was no one to receive it. All rejected it, clinging instead to evil.

God desires to save. This is why God sent the Blessed Virgin Mary to Fatima in 1917. When she appeared in July of that year, the Mother of God revealed to the three children a terrible scene--Hell. Photos of the children that were taken afterwards show how badly shaken they were. They committed themselves to praying, fasting, and offering sacrifices for the conversion and salvation of sinners. The youngest, Jacinta, was particularly moved by what she had seen. She did not want anyone to go to that place of definitive alienation from God.

We are not so innocent. At one time or another we have held on to anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, and hatred. You and I have probably wanted to see our enemies--personal, ethnic, or national--rot in hell.

Not Jesus. He came to save humanity so that no one would rot in hell. He prayed for his enemies who crucified him. The New Testament calls us to bless those who curse us, just as Jesus did.

This is the prayer that unites us to God. This is the prayer that unites us to one another each First Friday and Saturday. Over the years it has united many, some who are no longer with us physically. They are with us spiritually now in a powerful way, praying and interceding with and for us. Good and gentle and holy Father Redemptus is with us tonight, praying.

Our prayer is that God may have mercy on all and give to all the grace to be converted, to accept the salvation that Christ won for us on the cross. We strive to make this a pure prayer, a pure channel for God's merciful grace to enter the world, a channel not clogged by rancor or bitterness.

This is the meaning of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These Two Hearts suffered for love of humanity, for sinners. The Heart of Jesus was pierced on the cross. The Heart of Mary was pierced by the sword of sorrow that only a mother could feel watching her own flesh and blood suffer and die that way. These Two Hearts continue to suffer for hurting humanity. They suffer for the terrible pains and sorrow people inflict on one another. They suffer for the consequences of sin that lead to self-destruction. Their suffering moves us to pray and do penance for the salvation of all those who suffer and for all who cause suffering.

Let us close with the words with which Pope Benedict ended his General Audience of May 18:

Dear brothers and sisters, the prayer of intercession of Abraham, our father in the faith, teaches us to open our hearts ever wider to God's superabundant mercy so that in daily prayer we may know how to desire the salvation of humanity and ask for it with perseverance and with trust in the Lord who is great in love.

Mark

Do you have a favorite Gospel? I don't know if I can answer that question myself. There are things that I like about each of the Gospels and each of them have unique stories or parables that aren't found in the others. So I have to admit, I don't have a favorite. Yet, going through Mark's Gospel these days in the weekday readings at Mass, I find myself admiring the concreteness of the details I find there.

For example, I find today's Gospel, Mark 5: 1-20, the story of the Gerasene demoniac, particularly vivid. I can just picture the poor man "crying out and bruising himself with stones." I can picture the terrified villagers trying to restrain him with chains and shackles which he pulls apart and smashes. I've often thought of this scene in conjunction with how I am tempted to "bruise" myself with past sins. I think this is common. Satan, who is also known as "the accuser," loves to get us thinking about past sins and beating ourselves up with them, even though we've confessed them and have been forgiven.

Today I learned something else about this passage. I subscribe to a bi-monthly booklet called "One Bread, One Body" which is published by a group in Cincinnati called "Presentation Ministries." They were founded by a great diocesan priest, Fr. Al Lauer, who died a few years ago of cancer. His daily one page reflections continue to appear in this booklet and online at their web site and I always find them very practical and rich in Scripture references. So here's part of today's reflection that got me thinking:

"Jesus left the district, as the people requested. However, by declining the request of the former demoniac to accompany Him, Jesus made sure that His truth, power, and love would stay in the area through the new life of the former demoniac.

"We have many places, businesses, cities, nations, families, and even churches where Jesus has been told to go away. As requested, Jesus left. However, He also has left us behind. We live in these cities and families. We work in these businesses and churches. Jesus is still present through us, the members of His body. We are to be "other Christs" in the Christ-less situations of our society. We are to be sacraments, signs of Christ's presence. We are to be walking tabernacles, invading the secular world by carrying with us God's presence."

I've always wondered about Jesus telling the healed demoniac to stay where he was rather than to follow Jesus. Now I have a better idea why He may have told him this. Also, knowing God's mercy and dropping the stones of past sins that I may be tempted to beat myself with, I find myself challenged anew to be a "walking tabernacle."

Thank you, Fr. Lauer and Presentation Ministries!

The Prodigal Father

Today's Gospel is from Luke, Chapter 15, the well-known story of the Prodigal Son. I looked up the word "prodigal." The first definition certainly describes the behavior of the son who grabbed his part of the father's estate and went off to a distant country "where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation." He was "recklessly wasteful."

But wasn't the father also "recklessly wasteful" in giving his son part of the estate? The son had demanded: "Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me." When should the estate come to the son? At the father's death. What the son says to his father is truly terrible. So how could the father give in to his son's demand? How could he divide the estate and give this unloving son half of it? Because he was "recklessly wasteful."

The other definitions of "prodigal" are: "extravagant" and "profuse in giving." Here we see how prodigal the father is. He is prodigal in love. His abundant love leads him to be "recklessly wasteful," at this moment in giving the estate away and later, in mercy. When he catches sight of the lost son he can't wait. He runs to embrace him and doesn't let him finish his speech. He doesn't put conditions on his return to the family. He doesn't tell the son that given his track record he better prove that he will be faithful before he's accepted back. Again the father is "extravagant" in his love which is revealed in his mercy.

Jesus uses this parable to teach about God the Father. He is a Prodigal Father who gave all He could to prove His love and to show His mercy. He was "extravagant" in His love. He was, we could say, "recklessly wasteful," giving His Son to be crucified in order to reconcile sinful humanity to Himself.

Now we are called to do the same. The older brother did not call the lost son "brother" but, speaking to his father he called him "your son." As we become more aware of the extravagant love and mercy of God, we are better able to see others, even our enemies, as brothers and sisters who are dearly loved by our one heavenly Father.