Doing Greater Works as We Climb

In the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Cycle A (John 14: 1-12), we see Jesus at the Last Supper getting impatient with his apostles.  He has been with them for several years.  He is giving them his final discourse and they clearly do not know him.  In response to Philip who asks Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus says: “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”

Right before this Jesus had declared: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Jesus, fully divine, is the truth about who God is.  God is love, a love that is willing to give all for the good of humanity.  Jesus, fully human, is also the truth about what humanity is meant to be.  Jesus is the way to live.  Following Jesus and the trail to heaven that he has blazed, we will come to the eternal life for which we were made.

In his Ascension Day homily in 2013, Pope Francis compared Jesus to a mountain-climbing guide: “In Christ, true God and true man, our humanity was taken to God. Christ opened the path to us. He is like a roped guide climbing a mountain who, on reaching the summit, pulls us up to him and leads us to God. If we entrust our life to him, if we let ourselves be guided by him, we are certain to be in safe hands, in the hands of our Savior, of our Advocate.”

Jesus is not only ahead of us on our journey through life, having arrived at life’s goal, he is with us.  He is present in the Eucharist.  He is present in his Body, in our brothers and sisters.

This latter presence is what some of the early Christians missed.  The first reading (Acts 6: 1-7) shows that the early Church wasn’t always the idyllic picture of harmony that is painted in earlier chapters of Acts (see 2: 42-47 and 4: 32-35).  There was racism and division.  The Greek-speaking Christians were being neglected by the Jewish Christians.  In response, a new ministry developed to care for the poor. 

But without a change of heart that leads one to see in every person a brother or sister in Christ, new ministries are not enough.  A deeper vision of unity is required.

The second reading (1 Peter 2: 4-9) provides that.  The Church is a “spiritual house” that has Jesus as its cornerstone.  Members of the Body of Christ are “living stones.”  We are “a holy priesthood,” “a royal priesthood.”  Through baptism we share in the priesthood of Jesus who replaced the old animal and grain sacrifices before him with his one perfect offering of himself on the cross.  This offering is made present every time we celebrate Mass.  There we offer the “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.”  We offer ourselves with Christ for the salvation of the world.  Then we go forth from Mass to live the “spiritual sacrifices” in our daily lives.  

This is the spirituality of offering that is at the heart of the Apostleship of Prayer.  We begin each day offering ourselves—all our prayers, works, joys, and sufferings; all our thoughts, words, and deeds; every breath and every heartbeat.  This offering of our day to God with Jesus is very important and can work wonders.

Jesus promised this when he said in the Gospel: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones that these, because I am going to the Father.” 

Really?  Do I believe that we can do greater works than the ones Jesus did during his earthly life?

Three events of the last one hundred years should convince us that our faith-filled prayers can work wonders.  All three are connected with the Blessed Virgin Mary’s appearances at Fatima, Portugal in 1917.

First, there is the story of Jesuit Father Hubert Schiffer about whom I wrote August6, 2016.  He and several other Jesuits, living near the epicenter of the first atomic bomb, survived and lived for several more decades.  A Defense Department expert could not find any physical reason for their survival.  He concluded that a power greater than that of an atomic bomb protected them from harm.  According to Father Schiffer, “we believe that we survived because we were living the Message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.”

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down and I’m convinced that prayer was behind its destruction.  See my blog post of October 3, 2016 for a photo of a section of the wall that can be seen at Fatima.

Lastly, on October 13, 1991, a movie about Fatima was shown on Soviet television.  The movie was repeated on November 7, the anniversary of the Russian Revolution.  On Christmas Day, the flag of the U.S.S.R. at the Kremlin was lowered for the last time.  The Soviet Union broke apart and Communism ended its stranglehold on that part of the world.  Since then, 29,000 churches have been built or reopened, the number of monasteries has grown from 15 to 788, the 500 theological seminaries are full, and the Russian government spends over $100 million a year for the restoration of churches. 

I believe these are miracles wrought by prayer. 

But wars and conflicts continue.  The threat of nuclear war remains and has perhaps intensified.  The Message of Fatima is as essential as ever—prayer and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners.  When he visited Fatima a year after the assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square, Pope John Paul II said: “In the light of a mother’s love we understand the whole message of the Lady of Fatima. The greatest obstacle to man’s journey towards God is sin, perseverance in sin, and, finally denial of God.  The deliberate blotting out of God from the world of human thought. The detachment from him of the whole of man’s earthly activity. The rejection of God by man.  Can the Mother, who with all the power of her love nurtured in the Holy Spirit, who desires everyone’s salvation, keep silence about what undermines the very basis of their salvation?  No, she cannot.”

Nor can we keep silence.  We pray and we offer our lives, one day at a time, for peace in the world and the salvation of all.

Easter Sunday Homily

The Gospel for Easter Sunday (John 20: 1-9) offers a contrast between Peter and “the other disciple whom Jesus loved,” traditionally identified as John.  Both ran to the tomb of Jesus, peered into it, and saw “the burial cloths there,” but no sign of Jesus.  Or rather, they did not see Jesus but they did see a sign that pointed to his resurrection.  One saw the sign and that was all while the other saw the sign with the eyes of faith and believed that Jesus had risen from the dead.

Peter saw the cloths and believed what Mary of Magdala had told him—“they have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”  But why would anyone remove the corpse and leave the burial cloths behind?  Peter saw but did not connect the dots.

John, on the other hand, “saw and believed.”  The cloths pointed to the fact that the dead body of Jesus had not been removed but that Jesus had risen from the dead as he had promised. 

Peter sees from a purely physical perspective, without faith.  John sees with the eyes of faith. 

We too walk by faith and not by sight.  We see signs of the resurrection, but do we believe?  Really believe that Jesus is alive and is present and at work among us and through us? 

Paul wrote that our “life is hidden with Christ in God” (second reading, Colossians 3: 1-4).  Just as Christ, who at this point in the Gospel who has not yet appeared to the apostles in his risen glory, so the full glory of the new life we have in baptism is hidden.  Yet there are signs of this new life already present in us.  What are they?

In the first reading (Acts 10: 34a, 37-43), Peter says that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”  The Holy Spirit and the power to do good and heal those burdened by evil in our world—these are the signs.

In baptism we were anointed with the Holy Spirit and empowered to continue the work of Jesus.  We do good in our lives and bring healing to those wounded by sin.  In the renewal of our baptismal promises we reject the devil and his works and profess our faith in God and the new life we were given when we were joined to the Body of Christ.  But we need faith to believe, really believe, that we, joined to the Risen Christ, have the power to do good and avoid evil.  We need faith to believe that in the midst of the world’s darkness, the light of Christ shines through us. 

In “The Joy of the Gospel” Pope Francis wrote about faith in Christ’s resurrection:

Christ’s resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world. Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. Often it seems that God does not exist: all around us we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference and cruelty. But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life and sooner or later produces fruit. However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world beauty is born anew, it rises transformed through the storms of history (#276).

Do I really believe this?  How can I believe this when the daily news presents a picture of death rather than new life and beauty?  This is where faith enters.  Faith does not remove the struggle.  It requires surrender—to see the signs of death, like the burial cloths, and to believe that this death is not the end. 

Pope Francis continues:

Faith also means believing in God, believing that he truly loves us, that he is alive, that he is mysteriously capable of intervening, that he does not abandon us and that he brings good out of evil by his power and his infinite creativity.

“Good out of evil!?”  Yes.  We can believe this because God took the worst thing that humanity could do—nailing the Son of God to a cross—and brought about the greatest good—forgiveness of sins and the salvation of the world.  If God can do that, God can do anything.  And so Pope Francis challenges us:

Let us believe the Gospel when it tells us that the kingdom of God is already present in this world and is growing, here and there, and in different ways: like the small seed which grows into a great tree. Christ’s resurrection everywhere calls forth seeds of that new world; even if they are cut back, they grow again, for the resurrection is already secretly woven into the fabric of this history, for Jesus did not rise in vain (#278). 

We do not want to simply see, as Peter did, and hold fast to faithless theories. We want to see and believe as John did.  This faith in the power of Christ’s resurrection at work in the world through me and through you leads us to live the new life we’ve been given.  It empowers us to be light in the darkness, to reject evil and to do good.  In that way we answer the challenge that Pope Francis presents at the end of this particular section of his exhortation:

May we never remain on the sidelines of this march of living hope!

"Every Life is Sacred"

Last Sunday was Pro-Life Day in Italy.  With that in mind, Pope Francis chose for his February “Urgent Prayer Intention” that the sacredness of human life be recognized.  At the end of his Angelus Address he asked that “we pray for the children who are in danger of the interruption of pregnancy, as well as for persons who are at the end of life — every life is sacred! — so that no one is left alone and that love may defend the meaning of life.” 

From the beginning of his papacy Pope Francis has expressed his concern that all human life—from the womb to a natural death—be protected and honored.  In his first Apostolic Exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel,” he wrote: 

 “Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this.”

He went on to link the unborn child’s right to life with all human rights, saying:

 “Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church’s effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. Yet this defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems.”

In his Encyclical on creation Pope Francis also wrote:

 “Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?”

The theme for Italy’s Pro-Life Day this year was “Pro-Life Women and Men in the Wake of Saint Teresa of Calcutta.”  Mother Teresa frequently said that if the basic right to life of unborn children was not safeguarded, all human rights were at risk.  In her acceptance speech for the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa connected world peace to ending abortion, saying:

 “And I feel one thing I want to share with you all, the greatest destroyer of peace today is the cry of the innocent unborn child. For if a mother can murder her own child in her womb, what is left for you and for me to kill each other? … I ask His Majesties here before you all who come from different countries, let us all pray that we have the courage to stand by the unborn child, and give the child an opportunity to love and to be loved, and I think with God's grace we will be able to bring peace in the world.” 

As we pray with Pope Francis this month that all human life be recognized as sacred, we ask for hearts like the Heart of Jesus which saw each person as precious and died for all.

Jesus' Secret of Happiness

What was Jesus’ reaction when he saw the crowds that followed and gathered around him?  According to Matthew 9: 36, “at the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”  We have to imagine that Jesus had the same reaction before he preached the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 1-12a): “When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.  He began to teach them….”   He teaches them the Beatitudes.  Jesus, whose heart is moved by the sight of the crowds, teaches his followers the secret of true happiness.

Pope Francis called the Beatitudes the “guide for the journey that leads us to the Kingdom of God” (see his daily meditation for June 6, 2016).  They are “the ticket, the guide sheet for our life so as to avoid getting lost and losing ourselves.”  Another translation of the word “blessed,” which introduces each of the Beatitudes, is “happy.”  They are the “guide” and “ticket” to happiness, to the ultimate joy of heaven. 

The Beatitudes are counter-cultural.  The world has a very different plan for happiness and it leads to the opposite, to the loss of self.  The world says you will find yourself and find happiness by making a name for yourself, rather than being “poor in spirit.”  It says your happiness depends upon using other people for sexual pleasure, rather than being “clean of heart.”  It says that if you are meek and merciful, people will step all over you. 

While Pope Francis was reluctant to say that there was a “key” Beatitude, he did emphasize one in particular.  It was “Blessed are the meek.”  He said: “Meekness is a way of being that brings us very close to Jesus.”  Why?  Because after inviting people “who labor and are burdened” to come to him for rest, Jesus said: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Matthew 11: 28-29).  Our hearts are closest to the Sacred Heart of Jesus when they are meek and humble. 

The world thinks of meekness as weakness.  The reality is that meekness comes from great inner strength.  The meek and humble are secure in their identity and do not need to boast or to prove themselves. 

In 1 Corinthians 1: 26-31, St. Paul writes against self-promotion and boasting.  These really come from insecurity.  People who promote themselves in front of others aren’t really sure of themselves and so they have to tell others that they are worthy of admiration and praise. 

Jesus shows us a different approach.  It’s humility.  Humility isn’t self-depredation, putting oneself down.  Sometimes people do this simply to elicit praise from others.  Humility is truthful.  It recognizes the truth that no one is a “self-made” person.  Everything we are and have is the result of God’s goodness to us.  We would be nothing had God not brought us into existence and given us the health and talents that have allowed us to acquire the possessions and relationships we have.  God is the source of our life and gifts.  All praise ought to go to God, not to ourselves.  We can graciously acknowledge compliments but not rely on them for our sense of self-worth.  Deep inside we know that all praise ultimately echoes to God’s glory. 

Focusing on yourself leads to unhappiness.  True humility is not thinking less of yourself (having a negative opinion of yourself, putting yourself down, beating yourself up), but rather, it is thinking of yourself less.  As long as you are the center of your world and attention, you are not humble.  When you put the focus on God and your neighbor, then happiness has breathing space in your life.  The world says happiness is found in “getting.”  The Peace Prayer, attributed to St. Francis, says that “it is in giving that we receive.”

When you focus on yourself your heart fills up with anxiety.  You are either locked into the past, which cannot be changed, or anxious about the future.  You look at the past with regret or sorrow or shame and you develop a negative attitude.  Boasting about present success is like whistling in the dark to distract yourself from the fear that in the future you may not be so successful.  And as you encounter weakness and even failure, your image of yourself plummets.  You feel worthless and unappreciated. 

Jesus reveals the secret of happiness.  He was secure in the knowledge that he was the Beloved Son of God the Father who loved him with an infinite love.  He had nothing to prove and no fear of the Father ever not loving him.  He was secure in his identity and did not depend on what others thought of him.  He had no need to impress people with his possessions or talents.  This gave him great freedom and peace.  It attracted crowds of people who followed him not only because he fed them with a miraculous multiplication of loaves and fish and not only because he healed them.  They wanted to know the secret of his joy and vitality. 

The “Spiritual Exercises” of St. Ignatius are designed to help us grow in the knowledge that we too are beloved sons and daughters of God the Father who loves us with an infinite love, as though each one of us were “the only one,” the sole focus of God’s attention.  Knowing this love, we naturally want to love in return.  As God has given all, we return all.  Thus the “Exercises” culminate in St. Ignatius’ prayer known as the “Suscipe” in which we offer to God all we are and have, our memory and understanding and entire will.  All that we ask is for God’s grace and love.  With these we are rich enough and want nothing more. 

 St. Paul, in his Letter to the Romans 8: 38-39, shows that he understood the Beatitudes, the secret to true happiness.  He wrote: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

Jesus concluded his teaching about what makes for true happiness by saying that even insults and persecution are not cause for sadness.  Knowing God’s deep and intimate love for us frees us from being concerned about the opinions of others and their rejection.  The only opinion that matters is not public opinion or even self-opinion but God’s opinion.  And nothing can change that. Not even sin, for “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5: 8).  

On the Streets and in the Cold

While it's very mild (59 degrees F) today in Springfield, IL where I am helping with a retreat for seminarians from Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis, the U.S. has experienced some very cold weather recently.  Perhaps not as cold as Russia where the high temperature the other day was minus 18 F; nevertheless, one member of the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network in Arkansas was not happy as I offered to share Wisconsin's cold with him.  And it's been unseasonably cold in Italy where the temperatures dipped below freezing.

With the cold and how it affects people who are homeless in mind, Pope Francis, in his first urgent monthly prayer intention, asked us to join him in praying for them.  At the end of his Angelus Message on Sunday, January 8, he reminded the world of his monthly prayer intentions and he invited all “to join the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network which spreads, even through social networks, the prayer intentions that I propose every month to the whole Church.”  He said that in this way “we carry on the apostolate of prayer” and foster “communion.”

Then he went on to offer his first urgent intention, saying, “In these days of such great cold I am thinking, and I invite you to think, of all the people living on the streets, hit by the cold and by the indifference of others. Unfortunately, some have not survived. We pray for them and ask the Lord to warm the hearts of others to help them.”

Throughout his service as pope, the Holy Father has confronted "the culture of indifference."  He has challenged all people to open their hearts to suffering humanity everywhere, but especially right in front of us--in our families, in our parishes, and on our streets.

One way that we can keep those who are suffering from the cold in mind and pray for them in a powerful way is to "offer it up."  I thought of this on Sunday when I stopped for gas on my way from Milwaukee to Springfield.  The temperatures were hovering around 20 but the wind made it feel like single digits.  My initial reaction upon leaving the warmth of my car was to complain, but that negative attitude quickly changed when I remembered the Holy Father's urgent intention for this month.  There are some people for whom the cold and wind are not a minor inconvenience or pain but a grave suffering and threat of death.  I allowed my own minor pain to remind me of them and to pray for them.

As Pope Francis reminded us in "The Joy of the Gospel" (#279): "No single act of love for God will be lost, no generous effort is meaningless, no painful endurance is wasted.  All of these encircle our world like a vital force."

Changes in Pope’s Monthly Intentions

Since the late 1800’s the Pope has given a monthly prayer intention to the world through the Apostleship of Prayer, now known as the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.  In 1929 he added a second intention for the missions.  Today these are called his “universal” and “evangelization” intentions.  

The process of soliciting suggestions from Vatican Congregations and from members around the world, then proposing them to the Holy Father, then receiving his final versions and translating them from Italian into various languages, then publicizing them via print—is a long process.  That is why the intentions for 2018 will be chosen and translated in early 2017. 

But a significant change has been made. Pope Francis is returning to the practice of one monthly intention; the twelve intentions for 2017, which alternate between evangelization and universal intentions, have already been published. However, given the speed of communication in the digital age, he is adding a second, urgent prayer intention that he will make known during his Angelus Address on the first Sunday of the month.  As soon as we hear what they are we will be publicizing them on our website and other social media. 

Fr. Frederic Fornos, S.J., the international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, sees this as a way that Pope Francis wants to confront “the culture of indifference” by focusing our prayerful attention on situations that are “more concrete, precise, current, related to actual circumstances.”

Joseph's Quandary

The First Reading (Isaiah 7: 10-14) and the Gospel (Matthew 1: 18-24) for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Cycle A, contrast two figures—King Ahaz and Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Ahaz was King of Judah from 735-715 BC. He resisted God’s direction as it was proposed to him by the prophet Isaiah and chose, instead, to rely on human ingenuity and power.  He did not want a sign from God and so he hypocritically declared “I will not tempt the Lord!”  But God gave him the sign anyway.  It was that God will send “Emmanuel” and will save his people.  Human resources are powerless.  God alone saves.  Therefore, trust God!

Joseph is an example of this.  He trusts God’s guidance and is open to God’s direction even in the most confusing situations.  Joseph is described as “a righteous man.”  He is “Law-abiding” and committed to doing God’s will. 

God gave the Chosen People a Law to help them on their journey through life.  But the Law did not cover every conceivable situation and so the religious leaders and scribes “fine-tuned” the Law with many additional laws to cover every eventuality, to spell things out in black and white in order to avoid any confusion and to help people faithfully follow God’s Law.

But life is not black and white.  There is a lot of gray.

In Joseph’s case, the laws were clear.  Deuteronomy 22: 20-21 states: “if evidence of the girl’s virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her townsmen shall stone her to death because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.”  Mary, Joseph’s betrothed,  was to be stoned.

But Joseph cannot do this.  His love for her is greater than this law.  In a quandary, he chooses a middle path: he will not allow the full force of the law to be carried out, but will quietly renounce his relationship with her.

Speaking about this in his Angelus Address of December 22, 2013, Pope Francis said:

“The Gospel does not explain what his thoughts were, but it does tell us the essential: he seeks to do the will of God and is ready for the most radical renunciation. Rather than defending himself and asserting his rights, Joseph chooses what for him is an enormous sacrifice. And the Gospel tells us: ‘Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly’ (1:19).

“This brief sentence reveals a true inner drama if we think about the love that Joseph had for Mary! But even in these circumstances, Joseph intends to do the will of God and decides, surely with great sorrow, to send Mary away quietly. We need to meditate on these words in order to understand the great trial that Joseph had to endure in the days preceding Jesus’ birth.”

Then Pope Francis went on to compare Joseph and Abraham:

“It was a trial similar to the sacrifice of Abraham, when God asked him for his son Isaac (Genesis 22): to give up what was most precious, the person most beloved.

“But as in the case of Abraham, the Lord intervenes: he found the faith he was looking for and he opens up a different path, a path of love and of happiness. ‘Joseph,’ he says, ‘do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 1:20).”

Faith in God who is Love, faith in the Law of Love, wins the day.  Joseph, open to the Word of God that came to him through an angel, follows God’s will. 

Some say that Joseph knew the origin of Mary’s child and chose to break off the engagement because he felt himself unworthy to be the foster father of the Son of God.

Either way, true humility means obedience to God’s will even in the midst of confusion and the disruption of one’s own plans.  Pope Francis continued:

“This Gospel passage reveals to us the greatness of St Joseph’s heart and soul. He was following a good plan for his life, but God was reserving another plan for him, a greater mission. Joseph was a man who always listened to the voice of God, he was deeply sensitive to his secret will, he was a man attentive to the messages that came to him from the depths of his heart and from on high. He did not persist in following his own plan for his life, he did not allow bitterness to poison his soul; rather, he was ready to make himself available to the news that, in a such a bewildering way, was being presented to him. And thus, he was a good man.”

Joseph was the perfect man to be the husband of Mary and the foster father of Jesus.  He had the freedom to surrender to God’s will perfectly and to follow the Holy Spirit’s direction in the midst of life’s complexities. 

“Life father, like son.”  Jesus showed similar freedom in following the Law of Love even when it conflicted with the many laws that were designed to offer black and white answers to life’s complex and morally confusing situations.  He was accused of breaking God’s Law by ignoring purification rituals and working miracles of healing on the Sabbath. 

Life is not easy.  It’s filled with competing “goods” that create confusion.  But if we focus on God’s Word, discern the movements of the Holy Spirit, and ultimately trust in God rather than in ourselves and our ability to figure everything out, then, in the words of St. Julian of Norwich, “all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Advent Thoughts

Advent began this year with a beautiful reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (2: 1-5).  Isaiah presents us with a picture of the world at peace, writing: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.”  

This is a vision that all people of good will share.  It is a hope that the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, came to fulfill.  Jesus is God in the flesh who came to enlighten us with wisdom, to show us the way that leads to peace, and to empower us to follow that way. 

Advent—a word that means “coming”—is our preparation time for the celebration of the fact that the Son of God came to live among us, to share our suffering and death so that we could one day share his risen life. That was his first coming.

But we are reminded this time of year that there will be a second coming.  Jesus will come again to establish his kingdom of peace once and for all.  Sin and death will be destroyed forever. 

Between these two “comings” there are others.  Today Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist. He is the Bread of Life who feeds our hunger for true love.  As the Jewish people longed with deep hunger for the Messiah to come and save them, so we hunger for Christ.  This hunger can help us “stay awake” for Christ’s second coming.  And if that second coming does not occur in our lifetime, then our hunger for Christ can help us “be prepared” for the day that he will come for us when our life on earth will end.

The coming of Jesus in the Eucharist also prepares us for another “coming” between the first and second.  St. Teresa of Kolkata understood this “coming” well.  She once said that when we look at a crucifix we see how much Jesus loved us and when we look at a tabernacle or monstrance we see how much Jesus loves us now.  Time spent in Eucharistic adoration helps us see Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  Time spent seeing Jesus under the appearance of bread and wine helps us recognize him in the “distressing disguise” of the person in front of us who needs our attention, care, and love.  Jesus comes to us every day in one another.

In his Apostolic Letter for the close of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis wrote: “We are called to promote a culture of mercy based on the rediscovery of the encounter with others.”  This, he said, “can set in motion a real cultural revolution, beginning with simple gestures capable of reaching body and spirit, people’s very lives.” 

This is the only revolution that will change the world and make Isaiah’s vision of peace attainable.  Political changes will never change the world.  Only a revolution of the heart will bring about true change.  It begins one heart at a time.  It begins with your heart and mine.

Unfortunately Advent is such a busy time that there is a tendency to forget the various “comings” of Jesus—the real meaning of Christmas, the second coming of Jesus at the end of the world or the end of our life, the way Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist, and the way he comes to us in one another, especially those most forgotten or in need.  It’s a good idea to slow down by spending some time in Eucharistic adoration this Advent.  This will help us to be alert to meet Christ when and where he comes to us.  

Tears from the Heart of Jesus

Yesterday I finished leading a retreat for 75 women at the White House 

Jesuit Retreat House on the Mississippi River just south of St. Louis.  Here is my closing homily, based on the readings of the day—Revelation 5: 1-10 and Luke 19: 41-44.

Both of our readings contain tears.  John’s vision, in which no one can be found to open the scroll which will reveal God’s plan, leads him to weep.  In the Gospel, Jesus, as he approaches the city of Jerusalem, weeps over it.  He predicts the city’s destruction and cries.  Its future could have been one of peace, but in rejecting Jesus, the people rejected the one who came to show the way to that justice which alone is the basis for peace.

On July 8, 2013, Pope Francis visited an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea—Lampedusa.  He went there after many men, women, and children had drowned as they tried to get from Libya, North Africa, to Italy.  He asked:

“Has any one of us grieved for the death of these brothers and sisters? Has any one of us wept for these persons who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men who were looking for a means of supporting their families? We are a society which has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion – ‘suffering with’ others: the globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep!”

If we have hearts like the Heart of Jesus, we will be moved to weep for such suffering and death.  Our prayers will be accompanied by tears. 

We weep but we do not despair.  As John’s vision continues in the first reading, he sees one who is able to open the scroll—the “lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David”—Jesus.  He is the Lamb of God who was slain.  He perfectly fulfilled God’s plan for creation and in doing so became the victor over sin and death.  The vision ends with worship and hope.  Jesus has triumphed.  He has purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue, people and nation.”  He has “made them a kingdom and priests for our God, and they will reign on earth.”

We, the baptized, are now a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2: 9).  We are royalty not as the world thinks of it but as Jesus does. At the Last Supper he said that the kings of this world “lord it over” their subjects but it must not be so among his followers. “Rather, let the greatest among you be as the youngest, and the leader as the servant” (Luke 22: 25-26). 

We share in Christ’s priesthood by offering prayers and sacrifices.  The Sacred Chrism used to consecrate the walls and altars of new churches and the hands of newly ordained priests and everyone at their baptisms and confirmations—this sacred oil consecrates each of us for the sacred purpose of offering worship to God.  We do that at the Eucharist and in our daily lives. 

Moved, as the Heart of Jesus is, at the suffering in our world, we offer ourselves as He did for its ultimate salvation and peace.  

Pray Always and Don't Give Up!

The readings at Mass today (Twenty-ninth Sunday Ordinary Time Cycle C) challenge us to pray with persistence.  In the Gospel (Luke 18: 1-8) Jesus tells "a parable about the necessity to pray always without becoming weary."  It's about a widow and a judge who refuses to take her case, but finally does because her persistence is wearing him out.  If uncaring people respond to persistence how much more will our caring God?

But we've all had experiences of praying and not receiving the good things for which we pray--like the health of loved ones.  A few years ago I prayed and prayed for Fr. Will Prospero, S.J. and he died of cancer at the age of 49.  My administrative assistant, Stephanie, died of leukemia at the age of 31.  Last April my good friend Fr. Ray Gawronski, S.J., 65 years old, died one month after he was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. But one of my most painful losses was my sister Judy for whom I prayed fervently for years as she struggled with depression; she died of suicide two days before Christmas in 2003.

When we pray and nothing happens we ask: "Where are you, God?  Why don't you hear my prayers? Why don't you answer them?"

The truth is that God hears every prayer and knows what is in our hearts before we even put words to our desires and concerns.  Moreover, God answers every prayer.  Sometimes the answer is the one that Jesus received from his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane--"No."

"Why?" we ask.  We don't know why God answers some prayers in this way.  It challenges our faith that God is there and loves us.

Jesus ended his teaching in today's Gospel asking, "But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

What's the point of praying for specific intentions if God knows our desires and concerns even before we articulate them?  God does not want to act alone or apart from us and our cooperation.  God's love always respects our freedom.

We see that in the First Reading (Exodus 17: 8-13).  God chose to work through Moses and his prayer, symbolized by his upraised hands.  But he grew tired.  He needed others to help him pray. God shows us that when we grow weary in our prayer we have a community of believers to rely upon.  Prayer builds community.

The Apostleship of Prayer, now also known as the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, is a community of millions of people around the world who pray each month for specific and important needs of the world and the Church.  There is power in this prayer, but it requires faith.  It requires persistence even when nothing seems to change or when things only get worse.

Pope Francis wrote about having the faith that empowers our prayer in his Apostolic Exhortation "The Joy of the Gospel" (#278-9):

"Faith also means believing in God, believing that he truly loves us, that he is alive, that he is mysteriously capable of intervening, that he does not abandon us and that he brings good out of evil by his power and his infinite creativity. … Because we do not always see these seeds growing, we need an interior certainty, a conviction that God is able to act in every situation…. We may be sure that none of our acts of love will be lost, nor any of our acts of sincere concern for others. No single act of love for God will be lost, no generous effort is meaningless, no painful endurance is wasted. All of these encircle our world like a vital force.  It may be that the Lord uses our sacrifices to shower blessings in another part of the world which we will never visit."

Through the daily offering of our lives--every prayer, work, joy, and suffering--we can "pray always and not grow weary."  

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.

World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation

Today is the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.  In 1989 the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople Dimitrios I initiated this special day of prayer for September 1 because on this day the Orthodox liturgical year begins with a reading and commemoration of God’s creation of the world.  In 2015 Pope Francis asked that the Catholic Church join in this special day of prayer.

In 2007 a proposal was made and accepted at the Third European Ecumenical Assembly to foster a greater awareness of the need to care for creation during a special five week period from September 1 to October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. 

This fits in very well with Pope Francis’ Universal Prayer Intention for the month of September.  We are praying that each person “may contribute to the common good and to the building of a society that places the human person at the center.”  Some may think that by focusing on the care of creation we are making the earth more important than human beings.  That is clearly not the case.

The earth, creation, is the home of the entire human family. It provides what we need to live.  Protecting the earth is necessary for the health and well-being of the human person.  And this means every human person, for all are made in the image and likeness of God.

This is what is meant by “the common good,”  which refers to the good of all people. The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” #1907 states that “the common good presupposes respect for the person as such.” 

Concern for the common good of every human being counteracts the exaggerated individualism of modern culture.  In his encyclical “Laudato Si” #204 Pope Francis wrote: “When people become self-centered and self-enclosed, their greed increases. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume.”

Concern for the common home in which we live is an essential part of reverencing human life in all

its stages.  Pope Francis clearly stated: “”Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?” (#120).

On this annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation we join billions of Christians and other people of good will in committing ourselves to pray and work for the care of God’s gift, creation—not just one day or five weeks, but always!

A First Mass Homily

Homily for the First Mass of Fr. Vincent Strand, S.J. 
St. Bruno Parish, Dousman, WI -- June 5, 2016

1 Kings 17: 17-24;  Galatians 1: 11-14a, 15a,c, 16a, 17, 19;  Luke 7: 11-17

Two women.  Both are heart-broken. They have lost their husbands, and now, their own flesh and blood, their sons.

The Prophet Elijah was a boarder at one widow’s home during a time of drought and famine.  God miraculously provided food for the three—the prophet, the widow and her son—but now the son dies.  Elijah feels her pain.  He prays.  And God brings the boy back to life.

Jesus was recognized as “a great prophet,” in the tradition of Elijah.  He feels the widow of Nain’s pain and is moved with pity. Then, with his own power because he is Son of God, he brings the youth back to life.

Commenting on this story, Pope Francis said:

This “compassion” is God’s love for humanity, it is mercy--thus the attitude of God in contact with human misery, with our destitution, our suffering, our anguish. The biblical term “compassion” recalls a mother’s womb. The mother in fact reacts in a way all her own in confronting the pain of her children. It is in this way, according to Scripture, that God loves us. What is the fruit of this love and mercy? It is life! … The mercy of Jesus is not only an emotion; it is a force which gives life that raises man.

The restoration to life of the two sons is beautiful, but temporary. They will die again.  Their being raised to earthly life is a sign of something better. Because Jesus rose from the dead, he has power to give not just a temporary extension of life, but eternal life.  He can raise people from the dead to live forever with him in heaven.  This is part of the Creed which we proclaim together:  “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”

Jesus shares this power to give new and eternal life with the Church, his Body. 

Vincent, Jesus shared this power with you yesterday. Jesus called you and yesterday he empowered you to heal broken hearts and souls.  Pope Francis, in a recent interview book entitled “The Name of God is Mercy,” said that the Sacrament of Reconciliation is not like going to the dry cleaner to get stains removed.  It’s much more, much deeper. It involves healing wounds.  You are now an instrument of this healing and life-giving grace.

St. Paul, as we heard in the Second Reading, experienced the merciful love of God that took him from being a persecutor and zealot to proclaiming the love of God revealed in Jesus.

Pope Francis, at age of seventeen, on September 21, 1953, went to confession and had such a profound experience of God’s merciful love—and the healing and peace that it alone can give—that he chose to become a Jesuit priest.  You have also experienced the profound merciful love of Jesus that has drawn you to this vocation.

In the Novitiate you wrote:

As I grew more and more aware of God’s great love for me, suddenly my vocation seemed simple: to bring the love of Jesus to the world. For me, the love of Jesus was symbolized by the love of his Heart. I felt Christ calling me to share the love of his Heart, to be an apostle of his Heart. This, it seemed to me, was at the core of what it means to be a Jesuit. I knew it was to the Society of Jesus that God was calling me.

The image of the Heart of Christ that you chose for your ordination card is striking.  It’s not pretty, not sentimental. It was etched into a wall in one of the cells in the starvation bunker in Auschwitz. It’s just down the hall from St. Maximilian Kolbe’s cell. 















And on the wall opposite this image is another—
the one that is spoken of in the quote from Pope

Benedict XVI that you chose for the back of your card.  It’s a crucifixion scene—the Cross.

[We know that in the end—as Saint Ignatius of Loyola saw so clearly—the only real “standard” against which all human reality can be measured is the Cross and its message of an unmerited love which triumphs over evil, sin and death, creating new life and unfading joy. The Cross reveals that we find ourselves only by giving our lives away, receiving God’s love as an unmerited gift and working to draw all men and women into the beauty of that love and the light of the truth which alone brings salvation to the world.]

In that place of darkness—symbol of humanity’s inhumanity, of sin, and the hatred and violence it brings, there are images of love—the Cross and the Pierced Heart

You were ordained yesterday to bring the light of Christ’s love into the darkness. You will do this through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 

You will do this through the prophetic ministry of the Word, speaking words that challenge us to believe in the love of God and to have hope when it is so easy to despair; to, as some have said, comfort the troubled and trouble the comfortable; to speak and write the truth that saves and to do so with love.

But more, you are now able to bring to people the very One who forgives, heals, and gives eternal life.  When you celebrate the Eucharist, Christ makes himself present through you. He makes present his life-giving death on the cross and his resurrection. Through you the bread and wine become the Body and Blood for us to receive and to be transformed. 

Pope Benedict XVI spoke of this in Cologne Germany at World Youth Day 2005. Your brothers were there, but you were not able to go because you had just entered the Novitiate.

Speaking about the Last Supper, Pope Benedict said:

By making the bread into his Body and the wine into his Blood, he anticipates his death, he accepts it in his heart, and he transforms it into an action of love. What on the outside is simply brutal violence - the Crucifixion - from within becomes an act of total self-giving love. This is the substantial transformation which was accomplished at the Last Supper and was destined to set in motion a series of transformations leading ultimately to the transformation of the world when God will be all in all.

In their hearts, people always and everywhere have somehow expected a change, a transformation of the world. Here now is the central act of transformation that alone can truly renew the world:  violence is transformed into love, and death into life.

To use an image well known to us today, this is like inducing nuclear fission in the very heart of being - the victory of love over hatred, the victory of love over death. Only this intimate explosion of good conquering evil can then trigger off the series of transformations that little by little will change the world.

All other changes remain superficial and cannot save. This first fundamental transformation of violence into love, of death into life, brings other changes in its wake. Bread and wine become his Body and Blood.

But it must not stop there; on the contrary, the process of transformation must now gather momentum. The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves will be transformed in our turn. We are to become the Body of Christ, his own Flesh and Blood.

Through your service at the altar, Vincent, we receive the Bread of Life, the food that transforms us, in Pope Benedict’s words, into “the Body of Christ, his own Flesh and Blood.”  As “the Body of Christ, his own Flesh and Blood,” all of us are now empowered to bring the merciful love of God into our own little corners of the world. The Eucharist, of which you are now a special servant, makes this possible.

We thank God for the call that you received and the grace with which you were able to accept the call. 

St. John Vianney, patron saint of all priests, said:

"The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus.”

This love involves sacrifice, something you’ve obviously learned from the beginning, from the sacrifices that you’ve seen your family make. Thank you for offering yourself to be a priest, a Jesuit, an apostle of the Heart of Jesus.

Most Holy Trinity

At the heart of Christianity is a great mystery--the Most Holy Trinity.  It's not a mystery to be solved, but one before which we stand with humble faith.  St. Augustine once said that if we could understand this mystery of God who is one yet three Persons, we would not be talking about God any more.  "Si comprehendis, non deus est."

Throughout history people have tried to help us better appreciate this mystery.  As he catechized the Irish people, St. Patrick showed them a three-leaf shamrock to illustrate that God is both one and three.  But such a physical illustration makes it seem as though God can be divided into parts. Our faith, though, tells us that where one Person of the Trinity is all three are present.  This is known as "circumincession."

Rublev's famous icon of the Trinity, based on Abraham's encounter with three angelic beings (Genesis 18: 1-15), is one of the most beautiful representations of the Trinity, but it can also be misleading as it depicts three individuals.  Western art follows a similar path, showing the Trinity as Jesus with a cross, and the Father as an old, white-haired man, and the Holy Spirit as a dove.

Perhaps St. Ignatius Loyola is more helpful.  He once had a vision of the Holy Trinity as three keys of an organ or a piano being played together and creating one perfect harmony.

We believe that God is one and three because Jesus said so.  We see this especially in John's Gospel. Pope Francis said: "Jesus revealed this mystery to us. He spoke to us of God as the Father; he spoke to us of the Spirit; and he spoke to us of himself as the Son of God."  We believe because Jesus promised to send "the Spirit of truth" who "will guide you to all truth" (John 16: 13). The Spirit continues to teach us through the Scriptures and the Church.

Pope Francis went on to speak of the practical implications of this great mystery.  "Today's solemnity, while making us contemplate the amazing mystery from which we come and toward which we are going, renews for us the mission of living in communion with God and living in communion among ourselves on the model of the divine communion."

In other words, because our origin is from God who made us in the divine image and likeness, we're made by and for love--union with God and the communion of saints.  We are not isolated individuals. No one sins alone, nor is anyone saved alone.  From our ancestral parents to the present, what one person made in God's image does affects the whole.  This is why we all inherit the sin of Adam and Eve.

Pope Francis went on to say:  "The Trinity is the communion of Divine Persons who are one with the others, one for the others, one in the others: this communion is the life of God, the mystery of the love of the living God."

Again, since we are made in the image of God who is a Trinity of Love, we are called to live in communion with others.  As Pope Francis put it: "We are called to live not as one without the others, above or against the others, but one with the others, for the others, and in the others" [emphasis in the original]. We know what it means to live with others and for others, but what can it mean to live "in the others?"  One way of looking at this is through St. Paul's teaching on the Body of Christ. He writes: "God has so constructed the body ... so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy" (1 Cor. 12: 24-26).  This is the meaning of compassion.  We live "in" others when we see things through their eyes and experience the pain and joy that they experience.

Pope Francis continues: "This means to accept and witness in harmony the beauty of the Gospel; experiencing love for one another and for all, sharing joy and suffering, learning to ask and grant forgiveness. In a word, we have been entrusted with the task of building church communities which increasingly become families, capable of reflecting the splendor of the Trinity and evangelizing not only with words but with the power of the love of God that lives within us" [emphasis in original].

This is the work of the Holy Spirit which theologians tell us is the love between the Father and the Son.  St. Paul wrote that "the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" (Rom. 5: 5).

Ultimately the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the mystery of love.  God is, by nature, Love.  Before creation God was a perfect communion of love, but it is the nature of love to share.  God chose to share existence, life, and love with human beings.  Though God was perfectly happy, God wanted, as it were, to have "playmates" (see Proverbs 8: 30-31).  God wanted to share the delight of existence, life, and love with creatures made in the image and likeness of the Trinity.  God created and "found delight in the human race" (Proverbs 8: 31).

All this raises several questions to use as we reflect on our day:

• How did I reflect the love of the Trinity today?
• How did I live with, for, and in others today? 
• How did I give delight to God today? 

The Hope and Joy of Easter

St. Paul wrote to the Colossians (3:1): “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above….”  In other words, live in the light of Easter.  Live with the hope and joy of Easter.  You have been baptized and given a new life.  Live with the hope and joy that this new life in Christ brings.

Our temptation is to live in darkness and despair.  There is so much “Good Friday” in the world today.  So many tragic deaths. So much abandonment on crosses made, in Pope Francis’ words, by “the globalization of indifference.” 

In his Apostolic Exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel,” Pope Francis wrote about the serious temptation to “defeatism which turns us into disillusioned pessimists, ‘sourpusses’ (#85).  People who give in to this temptation “think that nothing will change” (#275).  But because of Christ’s resurrection, we have hope. 

Pope Francis writes: “If we think that things are not going to change, we need to recall that Jesus Christ has triumphed over sin and death and is now almighty. Jesus Christ truly lives” (#275).  This means that “Christ’s resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world” (#276).  Because of the resurrection, we have hope and confidence. 

But holding fast to hope requires work.  We have to strengthen the hope that Christ’s resurrection gives, to believe that it “is not an event of the past,” but a force at work in our lives and in the world.  “Faith means believing in God, believing that he truly loves us, that he is alive, that he is mysteriously capable of intervening, that he does not abandon us and that he brings good out of evil by his power and his infinite creativity” (#278). 

That is where our faith is challenged: to believe that evil is not the final word and that God can bring “good out of evil.”  Yet this is what we have just celebrated.  God took the worst evil possible—the crucifixion of the Son—and brought out of it the greatest good—our salvation from sin and death.  This is the reason for our hope and joy. 

Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York has identified four threats to joy. 

The first is self-pity which puts “me” first, at the center.  Joy comes when God is first, others are second, and I am third.  Self-pity inverts that order and leads to unhappiness.

Secondly, joy is threatened by worry which fosters a negative attitude toward the future, feeds pessimism, and again places “me” at the center.

The third threat to joy is the belief that my happiness depends on something outside of myself.  I believe that certain things or people or situations will make me happy whereas, in the words of Jesuit Fr. John Powell’s book, “Happiness is an Inside Job.”  But what about God?  Shouldn’t God be the source of my joy and isn’t God transcendent?  Yes, but through baptism God is also within.  As baptized temples of the Holy Spirit, we find God within the secret chamber of our heart.

Finally, the fourth threat to joy, according to Cardinal Dolan, is complaining which not only saps our joy but spreads negativity to others who often in turn reinforce our own negative attitude.  The antidote?  Gratitude.  Seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty and being grateful for what fills the glass. 

In our case, we are filled with the light, hope, and joy of Christ’s resurrection.  Having spent forty days of Lenten preparation for the celebration of the Easter Triduum, we now have fifty days in which to savor its hope and joy. 

But we must do more than savor the hope and joy of Easter.  We must live it in our daily lives.  We were made new through baptismal waters.  The world was made new by Christ’s resurrection.  As Pope Francis wrote in “The Joy of the Gospel”: “Christ’s resurrection everywhere calls forth seeds of that new world; even if they are cut back, they grow again, for the resurrection is already secretly woven into the fabric of this history, for Jesus did not rise in vain.  May we never remain on the sidelines of this march of living hope!” (#278).

Our lives are a journey to the Kingdom of Heaven where we will live forever.  We will live body and soul sharing in the glory of Jesus Christ, our Risen Savior.  May we not, as Pope Francis said, “remain on the sidelines,” but may we march forward with hope and joy.  

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.”