Made in the Image of the Trinity

 Homily for Trinity Sunday 2021

Throughout history people have believed in many deities, numerous gods.  The Jewish people were unique.  God revealed Himself to them as one and only.  We see that in today’s first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 4: “you must know now, and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on the earth below, and that there is no other.” This one God is the Creator.  But God is not a clock-maker-god, as many people known as Deists thought.  God did not simply create, wind creation up, and then step back, putting creation on a shelf and no longer caring about creation or being involved in it. 

No, God is not simply a creator but a Father who cares about and for creation.  God is intimately involved in creation.  God does not ignore or reject creation.  In this sense, God is for us, not against us.

God is so involved in creation that when sin led to its alienation, God did not destroy creation but entered into it more deeply.  God took flesh and, in that way, became “Emmanuel,” or “God-with-us.”  Through His Incarnation and Birth, God became one with creation to the point of even suffering the death that all flesh must undergo.  But His death was not the end.  Rather, it was a new beginning.  He rose from the dead and promised, as we hear in today’s Gospel, the last verse of Matthew: “behold, I am with you always.” 

God is with us always in the Most Blessed Sacrament, a mystery which we will celebrate next Sunday.  But even that was not enough.  At Pentecost, the feast we celebrated last Sunday, the Holy Spirit came into the world and entered into all the baptized, making them, as we hear in our second reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, true “children of God.”  As Paul teaches elsewhere, we are “temples of the Spirit.”  Now God dwells within us.

This is the great mystery of the Christian faith that we remember and celebrate today.  God is for us, with us, and within us.  This is the mystery of the One and Three: One God and Three Divine Persons.

Unfortunately, we tend to hear the word “mystery” and think of something that can be “solved.”  If we get enough clues we will get to the “bottom” of it.  The mysteries of our faith are very different.  We will never get to the bottom of them.  They are not problems that are to be solved.  They are realities into which we can only go deeper and grow in appreciation but, on this side of eternity, never fully understand.  They require humility and a sense of child-like wonder, rather than a “prove-it-to-me” attitude.  This is faith, rather than proof.  It requires accepting the revelation of One who loves us more than any human being can, rather than scientific analysis.  Believing, rather than fully “seeing” or understanding.

Now all this may seem very esoteric or abstract and, perhaps, impractical.  But our belief that God is One and God is Three, that God is a Communion of Love and not an assembly of isolated individuals, has profound and very practical implications for us. 

In the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, Genesis, we read: “God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them” (1: 27).  In other words, human beings are made in the image of the Trinity.  We are made to be a “communion of love” rather than an assembly of isolated individuals.  We are made to be one without losing our distinct personalities. 

The Lakota have a saying with which they end their prayers: “Mitakuye Oyasin” or “All My Relatives.”  In other words, as human beings we are all related and connected.  We are not disconnected individuals but a family.  We are all God’s children, made in the image of the Creator who is One and Three.

This Communion of One and Three is the meaning of Love.  It is why St. John can write in his First Letter that “God is Love.”  God’s very nature as One and Three is Love. 

Now we humans made in the image of Love itself need to be true to our nature.  We are made by Love and for love.  It is who we are and what we do.

Years ago, the author Malcolm Boyd wrote that the beginning of love or charity is, very simply, two words: “No Them.”  In the Unity of the Trinity there is Diversity, but there is no “Them.”  There is only “We” or “Us.” 

We live in such a divided and polarized Church, nation, and world.  We see other people as “Them” and not “Us.”  Our celebration today reminds us that this is not what it means to be made in the image of God.  For a true child of God, there is only “Us,” never “Them.” 

What is Justice?

Homily for the 27^th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle A  -- October 4, 2020
Broomtree Retreat Center, Irene, South Dakota

 In our second reading (Philippians 4: 6-9), St. Paul writes: “Have no anxiety at all.”  Yet today there is so much anxiety in our world.  It accompanies Covid, the election, the state of our nation, and the state of the world.  How can we not be anxious!?

Paul goes on to tell us how.  He writes: “but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Then that peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ.” 

When anxious and negative thoughts come our way, Paul says we should pray.  We should petition God and bring to mind those things for which we are thankful.  In other words, we are to replace the negative with the positive.

Elsewhere (2 Corinthians 10: 5), Paul tells us to bring every thought captive to Christ. 

Today, in our reading from Philippians, Paul writes: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”  In other words, fill your mind with good things.  Not T.V., not 24/7 news, not blogs and social media, but things that are “worthy of praise.” 

And the most “true,” most “honorable,” most “just,” most “pure,” most “lovely,” most “gracious,” most “excellent,” and most “worthy of praise,” – what, or rather Who, is that?  God. Fill your mind with Godly things.  Replace the things that make you anxious with what draws you closer to God.  This is not escapism.  God is the goal and end of our lives and we want nothing to draw us away from God.  In a world filled with injustices, God is the most “just.”  God’s way is the way of justice.

In many of the recent demonstrations you can see signs that read: “No Justice, No Peace.”  At times those words seem like a threat.  Yet they are true.

There is a similar phrase that over the years appeared frequently on signs and in brochures and on bumper stickers.  It comes from Pope St. Paul VI: “If you want peace, work for justice.” 

Some years ago I was preaching about this.  My congregation was a group of Jesuit scholastics (seminarians).  After quoting Pope Paul, I asked: “And if you want justice, work for …?”  They were befuddled.  One offered a circular answer, “Peace!”  “No,” I said, “if you want justice then you have to work for faith.”  I reminded them that our 32^nd General Congregation in 1975 declared that the Jesuit mission today is “the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.” 

What is “justice?”  Justice is defined as giving to others what is their due.  Given human dignity, what is due to others?  First of all life, the most basic right of every human being.  What follows from this, then, is all that sustains life: food, shelter, health care, protection from violence.  These are basic human rights.  They are required by justice. 

The Church has taught that with rights come responsibilities.  We have a responsibility to care for our own life and the lives of others.  We are required to give to others what is their due, what human dignity demands. 

But what is the ground, the basis, the foundation for this responsibility to act justly, to give to others their due?  What is the basis for justice?

Giving God His due.  And what is God’s due?  What do we owe God?

Everything. 

Our first reading (Isaiah 5: 1-7) speaks of Israel, God’s People, as a vineyard that belongs to God.  In the gospel (Matthew 21: 33-43), Jesus tells a parable that picks up on the theme of God’s People as a vineyard.  He promises a New Israel, the kingdom of God to which all people are invited. 

No human being is his or her own creation.  There is no self-made person.  Our life and the health and talents that have allowed us to continue in existence and to acquire all that we possess—these are not our own.  They are gifts from God to whom we owe everything. 

There is no peace without justice, and there is no justice without God.  We cannot create a more just world on our own.  Justice, without the most basic justice of giving God what is due to the Creator, has no foundation.  Such justice is incomplete and is built on sand. 

Those who signed our nation’s Declaration of Independence understood this.  They wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights….”  The Declaration of Independence is actually a declaration of dependence: dependence on God who “created” humanity and “endowed” it with its rights. We are creatures who are given dignity and rights. 

Without the Creator there is absolutely no basis for human dignity and rights.  Without the Creator, the basis for justice is power.  Justice becomes a matter of  “might makes right.”  Popular opinion determines what is just or unjust.

The challenge is to see and to treat others justly.  That means seeing the human dignity of all people and giving them that which is their due.  It means seeing others as made in the image and likeness of God.  For the Christian, it means seeing others as precious because Jesus shed His Precious Blood for them.  Even those who hate us or whom we consider our enemies.

This is so important to Jesus that He sends His own Mother from time to time to tell us to pray.  At Lourdes and Fatima and Champion, Wisconsin, Mary appeared with a message of peace.  She called on us to pray for the conversion of sinners, including ourselves.  Only when the world is converted, when God and the children of God, our brothers and sisters in the human race, are given what is due to them, only then will there be peace. 

Does Jesus Really Want Us to Hate?

Is Jesus serious?  In today's Gospel (23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C: Luke 14: 25-33) he is quoted as saying "If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."  I thought Jesus followed the 10 Commandments, one of which is "Honor your father and your mother."  I thought Jesus said to love our neighbor and even our enemies.  What's this about hating others in order to follow him?  How are we to understand this?

Not everything Jesus said is to be taken literally.  For example, in the Sermon on the Mount according to Matthew chapter 5, Jesus said that if our right eye causes us to sin, we should pluck it out and if our right hand leads to sin we should cut it off.  His point is that it is more important to be in a right relationship with God and other people than it is to have two eyes and two hands.  Jesus was exaggerating in order to make this point and the people of his time knew it.  They didn't stop following him over this "hard saying" the way they did when he taught about the Eucharist in John 6 where he did indeed want to be taken literally.

This is why it's very important to have the Church with the guarantee of the Holy Spirit for an authentic interpretation of Scripture rather than the many individual interpretations that arise if we depend on just ourselves.

When Jesus speaks of "hate" in today's Gospel he is saying that if we love another person or a thing more than we love God we have become idolaters.  We have made that person or possession an idol in our lives and thus more important than our relationship with God.  We should hate the idolatry that we are so prone to and commit ourselves to loving God above all.

When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment he said: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22: 37).  Notice, he said to love God totally and above all else.   What follows from that, though, is that if we love God, we will also love what God loves--his other human children.  Thus what flows from loving God totally and above all is love of neighbor.  This love is an "ordered love."  In other words, we don't love others more than we love God.  We don't "idolize" them.  We love them "in the Lord."  We love them because God loves them and we love them as God loves them--unselfishly, sacrificially, willing to even show the "tough love" that desires their ultimate good--salvation.

Jesus also speaks about the importance of planning. He wants us to make sure that we have our priorities right so that we make good choices.  There are shelves of books about being successful in business and they include clever slogans like "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."  It's important to plan our lives, our use of time, in such a way that we are loving God above all and our neighbors as God loves them.

That is true wisdom, the subject of our first reading from the book of Wisdom (9: 13-18).  Wisdom is not technical knowledge, nor the accumulation of facts and data.  Computers may have lots of that but they don't have wisdom.  You can know how a GPS or smart phone works, but if you don't know the name of the destination to which you want to go, you will not get there.  Wisdom is about knowing the purpose of our lives and where we are headed.  We're created not just for life on earth but life forever with God and neighbor in heaven.  The Holy Spirit is the source of wisdom.  The Spirit knows the purpose of human life and knows our destination.  The Spirit is that voice which speaks in our conscience, telling us when we have taken a wrong turn and need to adjust in order to get back on track.  The Spirit is not only the power that guides us on this journey through life but also the energy that moves us toward eternal life.

Finally, in today's second reading from St. Paul's Letter to Philemon, we see a concrete example of having the right priorities.  Paul is in prison and is writing to a fellow Christian, Philemon, about a runaway slave named Onesimus.  Paul met this slave of Philemon's in prison. He catechized and baptized him.  Onesimus is about to be let out of prison and Paul encourages him to return to his owner.  His letter encourages Philemon to receive Onesimus back not so much as a slave who had broken the law by running away, but as a brother in Christ.  Paul is basically telling him: If you love God you will love Onesimus and treat him with charity. 

So, back to the original question: does Jesus really want us to hate others?  No.  But he wants us to really love them.  That doesn't mean treating them as something they are not.  It doesn't mean making them an idol or treating them as a god that is more important to us than the Living God, Creator of all.  Nor does it mean hurting them.  As followers of Jesus we are to love God above all and to love our neighbor as God loves them.  That means loving them with a love that is willing to sacrifice everything for their good, just as the Son of God did when he took upon himself the punishment for sins that was due to humanity and died on the cross.

What is Real Humility?

The first reading for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C, from Sirach chapter 3 and the Gospel from Luke chapter 14 are about humility. 

Do you have friends or family members who have a hard time accepting a compliment?  When you praise the delicious meal they have served they say, "Oh, it was nothing."  I'm tempted to respond, "You're right.  It really was pretty mediocre.  I've had a lot better." 

Why do some people reject compliments or deny them?  The reason is called "false humility."  It's false because it denies the truth of the goodness that's being recognized and praised.  It's false because it's often motivated by a desire to receive more attention and praise.

But what about the parable Jesus tells in today's Gospel?  In it he recommends taking the lowest or worst seat at a banquet so that the host will come along and seat you in a better place and "you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table."  Isn't that "false humility?"

The key to understanding all this is to ask about one's motivation. 

True humility is honest.  It's truthful, not false.  And the ultimate truth is that we are nothing.  There is no "self-made person."  We didn't create ourselves nor did we endow ourselves with the talents we use to do things that gain us recognition and praise.  All that we are and have is ultimately a gift from God. 

We are nothing and we are great.  We are great because we are important to God.  We are so precious to God that the Son of God shed his Precious Blood "that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel" (see the second reading).  The blood of Abel, the Bible's first murder victim, called for justice, for vengeance.  The Blood of Jesus calls for mercy.  It says to each human being: "You are precious to me.  Precious enough to die for.  I would rather die than to live without you." 

Because Jesus underwent what he called a "baptism"--his suffering and death--we are freed from sin and death.  We are saved and baptized into God's family. We are joined to the Body of Christ.  Now, as God's beloved daughters and sons, we share in the same relationship with God the Father that Jesus has.  The Father loves us with the same infinite love with which he loves his only begotten Son.

This is what makes us great.  Not our looks.  Not physical beauty.  Not what we do or accomplish.  Not the awards we win.  Not our wealth or power.  Not what others think of us or say about us. 

False humility is motivated by insecurity.  We wonder, "Am I really good.  Am I really lovable?"  Seeking praise from others tries to answer those questions in the affirmative.  But we can't depend on what others say or think about us for our sense of self-worth.  Human praise disappears like the sound of the words. Physical beauty does not last.  Success comes and goes. 

Our true self-worth is much deeper and secure.  It comes from a daily and prayerful awareness that I will always be precious to God, that I am a beloved son or daughter from whom God will never take away his love.  It's been said, there is nothing you can do to make God love you less. Nor is there anything you can do to make God love you more.  God's love for us is infinite and there is no more or less when it comes to infinity. 

True humility can admit: I am not perfect.  I am weak.  I am not God, but I am beloved by God.

Ultimately true humility leads to gratitude.  With it I can say: "I am nothing, but God has done great things for me.  I am great in God's eyes so I don't need to prove anything to anyone."  True humility can accept compliments and give the glory to God. 

That's what the Blessed Virgin Mary did.  According to Luke chapter 1, when Mary went to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth she was greeted with: "Most blessed are you among women."  Mary accepted the praise and gave all credit and glory to God, saying, "Behold, from now on will all ages called me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me." 

God has looked on all of us in our lowliness, our nothingness, and has done great things for us. 

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. 

Union with God and One Another

I am at St. Nicholas church in Valentine, Nebraska this weekend.  All of Nebraska celebrated last Thursday as a holyday of obligation, the feast of the Ascension.  So today we are celebrating the 7th Sunday of Easter.  Here's my homily:

Imagine: at the Last Supper Jesus thought of you and prayed for you.  That's what today's Gospel (John 17: 20-26) tells us.  It says: "Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying: 'Holy Father, I pray not only for them [the apostles], but also for those who will believe in me through their word...'"
And what was Jesus' prayer for us?  "That they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.  And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me."

These are Jesus' last words to his apostles, his farewell address, before going to his death. Jesus prayed that they and we might be one with him and one with each other.

That makes sense.  If, as the first book of the Bible Genesis says, we are made in the image and likeness of God, then we are made not to be isolated individuals.  Rather, reflecting the loving communion that is the divine nature, we are made for communion.   We are created for union with God and the communion of saints.

And this communion is essential to evangelization, to spreading the good news of God's love.  Jesus said that the world will believe that Christianity is true when it sees Christians in loving union with one another, a union that is grounded in their union with God.

What makes this union possible?  First of all, the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son.  This is the mystery of the Holy Trinity which we will celebrate in two weeks.  Next week we will celebrate Pentecost, recalling the day when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary gathered in prayer in the upper room.  The Spirit came with great power in the form of tongues of fire.  It was the fire of love that united those who received that outpouring of the Spirit.  Those who saw the effects of the Spirit were amazed to hear the apostles preaching the good news and to understand them, even though they came from diverse countries and spoke and understood diverse languages.

The Spirit brought them together.  The people understood the preaching because the apostles spoke a universal language, the language of love.

Love usually involves feelings, but it is more than an emotion or sentiment.  It is ultimately an act of the will in which one desires the ultimate good of the other person no matter how one feels about him or her.  We see this in the First Reading (Acts 7: 55-60), the story of St. Stephen's martyrdom.

I don't know how Stephen felt about the people who stoned him to death, but I would suspect he didn't like them.  Yet, he loved them.  How do we know this?  Because he prayed for them, saying "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."  He prayed for their salvation, not their condemnation.  He prayed that they would experience God's mercy and be converted.

This was a powerful prayer for their conversion that was joined to Stephen's sacrificial suffering.  And it had a great effect on one of those present--Saul.  Stephen's prayer was a channel for God's mercy to one day reach into Saul's hear.  It led to a conversion.

Do you remember that conversion?  Saul was on the road to Damascus intending to round up Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem in chains to be imprisoned and tried.  He encountered a blinding vision of the risen and ascended Christ on that road.  And what did Jesus say to him?  "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"  He didn't say, "Why are you persecuting my Church?"  Nor did he say, "Why are you persecuting my followers?"  He asked "Why are you persecuting ME?"  He was confirming a teaching that he gave in a parable that we find in Matthew 25: whatever we do or do not do for or to one another, we do or do not do for or to Christ himself.  Jesus was teaching Saul that we and Jesus are one.  He is the Head and we are the Body.  We are in union with Jesus and one another just as the parts of a physical body form a one flesh union.

And that brings us to the second way that we enter into union with God and one another--through the Holy Eucharist, a mystery that we will be celebrating three weeks from today, after we have celebrated Pentecost and the feast of the Most Holy Trinity.

See how it all fits together, these three feasts?  We have the mystery of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit to whom Jesus was referring when he said in today's Gospel: "Righteous Father, ... I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them."  The Holy Spirit is, as we said, the love between the Father and the Son. The Spirit reveals to us the mystery of God, Three in One, the Holy Trinity in whose image we are made.  And in addition to the Holy Spirit bringing us into union with God and one another, there is the Holy Eucharist which brings about a one flesh union with Jesus, God-made-flesh, and communion in the Body of Christ, the Church.

Now the challenge is to live this oneness with God and God's other children.  This is what Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper.  There are so many divisions among Christians. There is so much conflict in the world.  The answer to Jesus' prayer begins here, with you, with me.  Like Stephen we are called to pray for our enemies, those who have hurt us.  We are called to let go of resentments and pray that there may be healing in our relationships.  And we are to pray for those people in other parts of the world who hate us and want to see our destruction. We pray for their conversion, that they may come to know the love of God, receive that love, and be brought into union with God and us.  We pray for their ultimate salvation..

This was so important to Jesus that in his final words to his apostles, before going to his suffering and death, he made this his prayer.  It is so important to him that from time to time he sends his own Mother to beg us to pray for the conversion of sinners.  Only when the prayer of Jesus is realized in us, in the Church, and in the world will there be peace.

B.I.B.L.E.

In today's first reading at Mass (from the Book of Nehemiah, chapter 8) the Israelites gather to listen to Nehemiah proclaim the Word of God.  They hear God's Law, the way that God showed them to live so that they would be safe and prosper.  What was their reaction when they heard the Word proclaimed?  They break into tears.  Why?  They grieve because they realize that they had not followed God's Law and the result was disastrous. God's Law gave them directions but they ignored the directions and lost their way.

How do Nehemiah and Ezra respond?  They say, "Do not be sad, and do not weep."  They tell them to celebrate: "Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength."  Basically they are being told: "Don't look back.  Don't dwell on the past, nor on your failures.  Learn from your mistakes but don't dwell on them.  Be joyful because now you know better.  You can make a fresh start."  

Every Sunday God's Word is proclaimed in the Church.  In fact, every day we have an opportunity to hear or read God's Word.  But do we listen?  The statistics say "no."  In 2008 the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) took a survey of U.S. Catholic adults.  The good news is that when asked if they had a Bible in their home 87% answered "yes."  The bad news is that when asked how often they read that Bible in the past year 32% answered "never" and 31% answered "a few times."  Apparently their Bibles were heirlooms in which to record significant family events and then to sit on a shelf gathering dust.  

Another, informal survey found that the average Christian, including those who described themselves as "Bible-based" Christians, spent more time in one evening watching T.V. than the rest of the week reading the Bible.  In other words, if one watched 3 hours of television on any given night, 3 hours or less were spent during the entire week reading God's Word.  What does that say about what is forming the minds, the hearts, the attitudes and values of the average Christian?  

We need to hear God's Word as much as the people of Nehemiah's time did.  I have a CD that was created with music from the Great Jubilee Year 2000 World Youth Day.  It's called "One" and it includes a song written by Steven Delopoulos and John Philippidis called "Basic Instructions."  The "basic instructions" are found in the Bible which can be said to stand for "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth."  The Bible--God's Word, God's Law--is our guide book for how to live in a way that leads to the Kingdom God has prepared for humanity from the beginning.  

The Bible is not the sort of book that one can say, "I've read it several times.  I know what's in it.  I know the story and how it ends.  There's nothing new there for me."  The Bible is unlike any other book.  We do not read the Bible for information nor for entertainment.  We prayerfully read the Bible for "formation"--to have our minds and hearts formed by the "living Word" (see Hebrews 4: 12).

With today's technology there are new and convenient ways to make Scripture more a part of our lives.  I have an app on my phone that can be found at www.downloadjesus.com.  I also receive  two daily email messages that briefly reflect on the Mass readings.  One is from a group called "Presentation Ministries" ( https://www.presentationministries.com/obob/obob.asp ) and the other is from Bishop Robert Barron  ( https://dailycatholicgospel.com/sign-up-daily-gospel ).  

But the Eucharistic celebration is a special time and place where Jesus is alive, speaking to us through the Scriptures.  Then, having our hearts set ablaze by the Word present in the Scriptures, Jesus opens our eyes to His special presence in the second part of our celebration, the breaking of the bread (see Luke 24: 30-32).  The Word becomes flesh on our altars.  The bread and wine are transformed into Christ's Body and Blood.  

In this way today's Gospel (Luke 1: 1-4; 4: 14-21) is fulfilled.   Jesus proclaimed a passage from the prophet Isaiah and announced "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."  It's as though Jesus is saying: "Today you are not only hearing the Word of God you can see that Word in the flesh.  You can see the one about whom Isaiah was speaking. You can see this Word standing in front of you accomplishing what was described."  

At Baptism we were joined to the Body of Christ.  This was not a mere enrollment into a human organization.  A divine and organic union took place.  And when we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, His very flesh, in Holy Communion, that baptismal union is nourished and strengthened.  We are not individuals alienated from one another.  We are, in the words of the second reading (1 Corinthians 12: 12-30) parts of One Body, the Body of Christ.  We belong to one another.  We need one another.  We cannot exist apart from one another and our Head, Jesus.  We are one and a sign to the world that unity and the peace that follows from it are possible.  Only sin separates us from the Body, from Christ and one another.  

Hearing this Word that God speaks to us today and seeing this Word made flesh and joining Himself to us, we go forth to fulfill the Word as Jesus did.  We go and live the Word that is spoken, seen, and received.  We hear God say to us through Nehemiah "Do not be sad."  Do not look back.  Do not live in the past regretting and resenting.  Be joyful.  Live in the present and be God's Word in the lives of others, one day at a time.  

Giving All with Love

I became an uncle at the ripe age of seven and so I wasn't much older than my nieces and nephews.  Sometimes when I played with them and had a toy of theirs, they would grab for it even if their own hands were filled with toys.  They had to let go of one in order to have the one they wanted, the one that I had.

I thought of that in the light of today's Mass readings which teach us that it is only the empty hand that can receive.  Or as the Peace Prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi goes: "It is in giving that we receive."

Our first reading (1 Kings 17: 10-16) tells the story of how a non-Jewish widow helped the great prophet of Israel, Elijah.  She was dirt poor.  She had only a hungry child and a little oil and flour.  There was no "safety net" in her society.  A terrible drought had ravaged the land.  She was about to prepare a final meal when Elijah came along and asked her for water and food.  Something about the prophet moved her to give away part of her food.  She could have held on to it, not shared, and then, it would indeed have been her last meal.  But her charity to the wandering Jewish prophet opened the way for God's power to perform a miracle.  The jug of oil did not run dry and the jar of flour did not go empty for an entire year.

In the gospel (Mark 12: 38-44) we see another widow.  We see her in contrast to religious leaders and wealthy people who make a show of putting large amounts of money into the temple treasury.  Ashamed of how little she has to give, she tries to put two small coins into the treasury hoping no one will notice her meager offering.  But Jesus notices and praises her.  The others gave vast sums from their surplus, from what they could afford to give and not experience any threat to their lifestyle.  She gave sacrificially, from what she could not afford to give.  They gave for show, to win the attention and admiration of the crowd.  She gave for one simple reason--for love of God.

Perhaps Jesus saw in her a reflection of himself.

Like her, Jesus did not hold back.  He gave all.  He gave his very life, sacrificing it on a cross.  And he continues to give all.

Every celebration of Mass makes present that total offering of Jesus on the cross.  As the second reading (Hebrews 9: 24-28) says, he gave "once for all."  He does not need to die again and again.  But in a mysterious and miraculous way he makes that "once for all" offering of himself present in every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  And after making this offering present to us, he gives himself totally to us--body and blood, soul and divinity--in Holy Communion.  He holds nothing back but gives himself totally to each one who receives him in the Eucharist.  This gift of himself, which we receive with open hands and hearts, gives us the ability to love as he loved.

How can we give all to God?  Let me make a few practical suggestions.

First, at every Mass, as the bread and wine are placed on the altar and then lifted up as the Body and Blood of Christ, we place ourselves on the altar and join ourselves to Jesus' perfect offering of himself to the Father.  It is important to be aware of this, to consciously unite ourselves to Jesus' offering as he is lifted up and makes his total, self-sacrificing offering of himself present to us.  It's also important to have an intention for which we are praying as we join our offering to that of Jesus.

Second, we are called to live, in our daily lives, the offering we make with Jesus at Mass.  This is where a Daily or Morning Offering Prayer can help us.  It can be as simple as waking up and, before getting out of bed, thanking God for another day and offering that day to God.  We can tell God in our own words that we want to offer every thought, word, and deed of the day; every breath and beat of our hearts; every prayer, work, joy, and suffering of the day in union with his total offering on the cross and at Mass.  Then, during the day, especially when we encounter something challenging and difficult, something frustrating and painful, something we would rather not have to face or do, we can renew the offering, telling God that we are going to do this thing we have to do out of love for God and neighbor, as an act of love and for the salvation of every human soul.

Those things that we offer to God may seem very small in comparison to great acts of love for God, like martyrdom.  They may seem very insignificant.  But remember the two widows.  The widow of Zarephath offered the little she had and her charity led to a miracle.  And Jesus said the widow in the temple gave the most because she gave her all out of love.  What matters to Jesus is not the amount, but the love that motivates the giving.

A Spiritual View of Anorexia Nervosa

When I was given a copy of the book "Little Girl Crying" by Belinda Rose I was intimidated.  Not by the subject: anorexia nervosa and how the author came to complete healing through prayer.  I was intimidated by its length.  I wondered how I could squeeze in the time for this large book in the midst of my busy life.  I can honestly report that finding time was not a problem.  This book reads like a thriller but instead of "who done it?" the question in this fast-paced account of the causes and the struggle of anorexia is "how will she ever come out of it?"  In the course of 450 pages I came to a better understanding of anorexia and more.  Let me highlight three other lessons that can be learned by reading "Little Girl Crying."

First, the struggle with anorexia nervosa is a paradigm for all human struggle.  Deep down, in every human being, there is a hunger, a hunger to be loved, a longing to know that one is lovable.  Human loves can satisfy that hunger for a while but they do not ultimately fulfill us, for, as St. Augustine wrote: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."  We are made with a hunger for an infinite love that no finite, human love can satisfy.  Only God's love can because God is an infinite love by nature.  Until the author discovered this truth through contemplative prayer she continued a self-destructive cycle of binge eating and purging, always convinced that she was fat and unlovable even at 70 lbs.! Whatever one does or does not do to fill the hunger for God will fail unless God is the object of one's desire. 

Secondly, I was reminded of another book, "Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood" by Wayne Muller.  As a drought forces the roots of a tree to go deeper or the tree will die, so the struggles of childhood can lead one to sink deeper roots.  Deeper into what?  One's relationship with God, certainly, but also into one's relationships with others.  Belinda Rose's struggles ultimately led her into deeper relationships with her three sons, her mother, and others who struggled with psychological illnesses.  From deep pain can come, with God's saving grace, greater compassion and more joy, so much so that Rose can say, like many in 12 Step Recovery Programs, she is ultimately grateful for how her disease led her to these deeper relationships. 

Thirdly, one of the key elements of healing is forgiveness.  Past hurts can leave one bitter.  But bitter unforgiveness and resentment are the fuel that drives the engine of addictions and anorexia.  When it is not dealt with, emotional hurt festers and grows, morphing into an anger which, for those who feel vulnerable and helpless, is turned in on itself.  It's been said that resentment is like drinking from a bottle of poison and hoping that the person who hurt us will die.  As she began to deal with the painful memories that stoked her disease, Rose developed empathy.  A key moment came when she began to understand what led her father to hurt her as he had done.  She learned the truth that "hurt people hurt people."  She prayed and forgave and healed.  In time she learned to imitate Jesus in his redemptive suffering.  Jesus--totally innocent--was hurt and abused.  He suffered terribly but offered his suffering as a powerful prayer to the Father and saved the world.  Rose learned to use her sufferings for others as Jesus did. 

I highly recommend "Little Girl Crying" in order to understand anorexia nervosa and so much more.  Its lessons are universal, for hurt and the need for healing--both individually and globally--are universal. 

"That These People May Live"

Today's Gospel (Mark 10: 35-45) is preceded by Jesus' third prediction in Mark's Gospel about his impending suffering, death, and resurrection.  What is the apostles' reaction?  Confusion?  Upset?  No, they are only focused on themselves.  James and John want seats on either side of Jesus when he comes into his reign.  The others are jealous and angry at this request. 

How sad Jesus must have felt at all this.  Yet, he uses this moment to teach the apostles and us about true greatness.  It does not involve honor and power.  It does not seek a position in which people look up to you.  That is not the way of Jesus, nor is it the traditional Lakota way.

Last night I finished reading a book about the great Lakota leader Crazy Horse--"The Journey of Crazy Horse" by Joseph Marshall III.  Marshall emphasized the humility of Crazy Horse that led him to sacrifice himself for his people.  He wrote: "He understood that what is accomplished in the name of and for the people belongs to the people." 

This is the spirit behind the Sun Dance, the great Lakota ceremony in which people make offerings of their flesh or a pierced so that the people may live.  They offer themselves and their flesh for the good of the tribe. 

Jesus did this so that all people may live.  He sacrificed his flesh so that all people would be freed from sin on their earthly journey and freed from death when it ended. 

Jesus humbled himself.  He--the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity--emptied himself of glory, position, and power and came among us as a weak one.  As the second reading (Hebrews 4: 14-16) says, he was a compassionate high priest, able "to sympathize with our weaknesses" because he "has been similarly tested in every way" that we are.  He knows the struggle. 

In the end, he sacrificed himself on the cross.  In the words of the Gospel, he gave "his life as a ransom for many."  He took our place, freeing us from slavery to sin and to death.

Our first reading (Isaiah 53: 10-11) comes from the fourth "Suffering Servant Song" in which the prophet predicts the Passion of God's Son.  A few verses earlier, Isaiah wrote that the Servant of God would be "pierced for our offenses."  He offered his flesh that all people may live.

Every celebration of Holy Mass makes this sacrifice present.  Jesus, the Head, renews his perfect offering and invites us, the Body, to offer ourselves with him that "these people"--those present, family and friends, national and ethnic groups, and even our enemies--may live.

On October 29 we will remember the first anniversary of the death of a good man who offered himself for others.  Fr. Bob Gilroy, S.J., was born in 1959.  After college he worked in a school for the blind.  He went back to school, earned a degree in art therapy, and then entered the Jesuits.  For ten years, at one time or another, he served the Lakota people at St. Francis Mission on the Rosebud and at the Sioux Spiritual Center where I worked with him.   He was a hospital chaplain, a spiritual director, and instructor in art therapy.  Like Jesus, he was a compassionate priest because he shared in people's weakness.   He suffered childhood diabetes, many resulting health problems, and a kidney transplant. Throughout, he kept his smile and distinctive laugh.   

In closing, let me share with you a poem that he wrote to accompany one of his paintings.  In its simplicity it reminds me of the lyrics of Lakota songs:

Christ is everything.
Stay close to him.
There is nothing else to do. 

Your Choice: Gehenna or To Be With Jesus Forever?

In the Gospel at Mass today (26th Sunday, Ordinary Time, Cycle B) from the 9th chapter of Mark, Jesus mentions "Gehenna" three times.  What's this "Gehenna?"  It's an actual place.  Before the Israelites arrived in the Promised Land, other peoples had used this valley outside of Jerusalem as a place to offer child sacrifices to their idols.  The Jews considered it such an unholy and unclean place that it was good for only one thing--burning garbage.

Jesus used "Gehenna" 11 times in the Gospels as an image for hell. 

Hell is not something you hear about much.  It does show up as an expression of anger or hatred.  We use it to condemn our enemies or someone who has done a particularly heinous crime: "I hope they rot in hell!" 

For many it's hard to reconcile hell with a good, all-powerful, and infinitely loving God.  How could God send anyone to hell?

God doesn't.  People choose it. 

The "Catechism of the Catholic Church" says that the "state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called 'hell'" (#1033). 

And Pope St. John Paul II said that hell "is not a punishment imposed externally by God" because "God is the infinitely good and merciful Father" who "can only desire the salvation of the beings He created" (General Audience, July 28, 1999).  God can only will or want our good.  But God cannot force that ultimate good of heaven upon us.  Love must be free.  God cannot force people into heaven.  They must freely choose to go.  And if they choose not to go, then there must be another option for them. 

There are some things that are simply incompatible with heaven.  There is no room for the jealousy that we see Joshua exhibiting in our first reading (Numbers 11: 25-29).  Nor is there room for the injustice and greed that James talks about in the second reading (James 5: 1-6).  There is no room for sin in heaven. 

Professor and author Peter Kreeft, who teaches at Boston College, has a shocking remark about this.  In his book "Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing," he says that "God does not forgive sins."  Then he goes on to explain that God "forgives sinners and destroys sins" (186).  That makes sense.  God loves sinners and hates sin.  God sees how much sin damages our relationship with him and with one another.  It hurts and damages our very selves and leads to all kinds of misery.  So God wants to free people of their sins and throw them into the garbage dump of the cosmos--hell. 

I grew up fearing God, that God would send me to hell.  I thought that if I were running to church for Saturday afternoon confession in order to get rid of a moral sin and got hit by a car I would hit the greasy shoot to hell. 

I have a different idea now.  It seems more and more clear that death is a process rather than a moment.  We see this from near death experiences in which people have, for all practical purposes, died; their brain waves have stopped as well as their hearts.  And they somehow return to tell stories of an experience of a life beyond this life. 

I believe that no matter who we are and what we believe we all meet Jesus face to face as we die.  And he asks us one question: "Do you want to be with me forever?"  We might hesitate, feeling shame and unworthiness for our sins.  But Jesus presses on, asking us again, "Yes, I know, but do you want to be with me forever?"  Or we might ask if we can be with him on our terms, holding on to something that has no place in heaven.  Jesus will tell us we can't bring that in; we have to let go.

This is so important to Jesus that in today's Gospel he tells us that if we're holding on to something sinful, it would be better to cut off our hand so that it and the sin we cling to do not prevent us from entering his Kingdom.  Or if we hold on to sin with our eyes, we should pluck them out because that sin does not belong in heaven.  It's garbage that needs to be thrown away.

We might wonder: how could anyone say "no" to Jesus' invitation?  I think of how people can hold on to bitter resentments.  I can imagine people answering "yes" but then, as they cross the threshold of heaven they see someone who has hurt them terribly or an enemy.  "What's he doing here?"  Jesus answers: "He admitted he had done wrong and asked for my forgiveness and I forgave him."  And the response could be: "Well, you may have forgiven him for what he did to me but I will never forgive him. I would rather rot in hell than to spend one minute much less eternity with him." 

We are here on earth for one thing: to learn how to live in heaven.  In heaven there is no selfishness, no lustful using other people for one's pleasure.  There is no greed and injustice, no envy or deceit.  There is no racism and hatred.  There is no unforgiveness. 

We have to let go of those things here.  We need to throw out the garbage, lest we end up clinging to it in the cosmic garbage dump that Jesus called Gehenna.  We don't want anything to stand in the way of answering immediately and whole-heartedly "YES!" when Jesus asks us "Do you want to be with me forever." 

Tom Burnett's Offering

In the Gospel at Mass today (Mark 8: 27-35) Jesus asks his disciples what people are thinking and saying about him.  "Who do people say I am?"  People think he is the reincarnation of John the Baptist or Elijah or another of the prophets of old.  Then Jesus asks, "but who do you say that I am?"  Peter gets it right.  Having spent some time with Jesus, he can rely on his own experience and not on what others say about him.  He answers correctly: "You are the Christ."  You are the Anointed One of God, the Messiah.

But then Peter gets it wrong.  As Jesus teaches the disciples that "the Son of Man must suffer greatly, and be rejected by" the leaders, "and be killed, and rise after three days," Peter "rebukes" Jesus.  This must never happen to you!  Jesus in turn "rebukes" Peter, calling him "Satan," the tempter who tries to prevent humanity from following God's will. 

Peter and the disciples think that the Messiah will exhibit great military might and overcome the oppression of the hated Roman occupying force.  Jesus teaches that instead the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies of Isaiah, one of which we have in our first reading from chapter 50, in which the Anointed One of God will save through suffering. 

We too are called to know Jesus and not simply know about him.  This knowledge comes from a personal relationship with him.  How do we find that today, so many years after Jesus walked this earth with his disciples?  First, we encounter Jesus in the Scriptures.  There we not only read about Jesus but we meet him.  He speaks to us.  We encounter him in an intimate way in the Eucharist where Jesus renews his total offering of himself for our salvation and gives himself to us in a holy communion.  And we encounter Jesus in the Church, the Body of Christ.  We meet him in one another.

We too are "anointed ones of God."  At baptism we became part of the Messiah's Body, the Body of the Christ and we were anointed.  We became "Christians" or anointed ones through the sacred chrism which we received.  We are anointed as Jesus was and so we share in the work of the Messiah who came not to save Israel from the Romans but to save humanity from sin and from death.  Being Christians does not mean that we will be free from suffering.  Instead, through our own sufferings and daily crosses we will work with Jesus to free the world from sin. 

Last week we celebrated the anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001 when terrorists commandeered four planes.  Three of them hit their targets--the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  One did not; because of the heroes on board it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

Some years ago I spoke about these events at a retreat and after my talk a man named Vince came and
told me that his college roommate was Tom Burnett, one of those heroes.  When Vince went to the memorial service for Tom back in his hometown of Bloomington, MN, he thought at first that he had the wrong person.  The man described by those who offered eulogies was someone who went to Mass every day.  The "Tom Burnett" Vince remembered was someone who had drifted away from the practice of the faith. 

After the service Vince introduced himself to Tom's widow Deena and asked what had happened in the years since he had last seen Tom.  Deena explained that Tom had returned to the practice of his faith. She said that several years before his death he had stopped coming home for lunch.  His job, at a medical technology company in California, was close to where he lived and he used to come home for lunch.  When he stopped coming home for lunch, Deena thought he was just putting in longer hours.  Six months before his death he told Deena that he had been going to daily Mass at a local church.  He explained that he felt God was calling him to do something but he didn't know what.  He figured that if he went to Mass and prayed he would receive an answer.  He had a growing sense that he was going to do something big that would impact a lot of people.  And, Deena told Vince, he knew one more thing: it had something to do with the White House.

You can just imagine this ordinary guy having a sense that God was calling him to something that he hadn't planned.  And that it had something to do with the White House.  Imagine him thinking: "I plans to go into politics, much less run for president.  What's my life got to do with the White House?"

On September 11, 2001, thousands of feet above the earth, Tom Burnett knew what his life had to do with the White House.  He knew where that plane was headed.  He and the others acted, sacrificing themselves so that a greater tragedy would not occur.  They couldn't get control of the plane but they were able to crash it in a field near Shanksville, PA.

What Tom and the others did was heroic. 

As Christians we are all called to be heroic--to sacrifice ourselves, like the Messiah, like Tom, for the good of others.  When children put aside their own desires to obey their parents, they are being heroic.  When parents love their children in difficult circumstances, they're being heroic.  When grandparents care for grandchildren because the parents are not there for them, they are heroes.  When spouses care for their husbands and wives afflicted with Alzheimer's, they are loving heroically. 

Where do we get the understanding, the courage, and the strength to be heroes?  Where Tom Burnett did.  From the Word and Sacrament, from the encounter with Jesus, that is available every Sunday, in fact, every day. 

Listening Versus Hearing

If you had to make a choice, would you rather be blind or deaf?  I count among my Jesuit friends one who is blind and one who is deaf.  Having lived with both of them at various times, I'm hard pressed to answer my own question.

If you are blind you have less independence.  You need others to help you get around. But often that leads to greater sympathy and help.

If you are deaf you are able to get around and to be more independent but you are also more isolated.  Communication can be a big problem.  When I lived with a deaf man our community took turns mouthing the words of lectures and homilies and what was being said at large community meetings.  And some people, because they had to make exaggerated lip movements in order to be understood, were too proud or impatient to do so.  There is also a prejudice associated with people who are called "deaf and dumb."  In the book and movie "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" there is a deaf man whom some refer to as "Dummy."

In the Gospel at Mass today (Mark 7: 31-37), Jesus opens the ears and mouth of a man.  He facilitates that man's ability to communicate--to hear and to speak.  But there is a deeper meaning to what Jesus did and we see it in a short ceremony within the Baptismal rite.  At one point the priest or deacon touches the ears and mouth of the one being baptized and says: "The Lord Jesus made the deaf to hear and the dumb speak.  May he soon touch your ears to receive his Word and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father." 

This little ceremony shows us that it is not enough to hear and to speak.  We must listen and act.

Recall last week's second reading from chapter 1 of the Letter of James: "Be doers of the word and not hearers only." 

In today's second reading from James (2: 1-5) we hear about the prejudices and judgments that people make between those who are rich and those who are poor, those who are well-dressed and those who have shabby clothes.  We must not only "hear" the words of James.  We must listen to them and respond, making sure that we do not treat our brothers and sisters, all of whom are made in God's image, differently based on their race, country of origin, or economic status.

And in the first reading from Isaiah (35: 4-7) we hear the challenging words: "Be strong, fear not!"  It's not enough to hear those words.  We must listen to them, take them to heart, and live them.  In other words, the best way that one can "proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father," as the Baptismal rite prays, is to receive this Word of God, allow it to transform one, and then live the transformation one day at a time. 

"Be Doers of the Word"

In the summer of 2006 I made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  Our group of about 45 stayed in various hotels around Israel where every morning we enjoyed a fabulous breakfast buffet.  One thing was invariably missing at those meals--bacon and ham and pork sausage.  We were clearly in Jewish territory.

In today's Gospel from Mark chapter 7 Jesus says that it is not the food we eat that makes us "unclean" but rather what we think and what we do--"evils [that] come from within and they defile." 

Jesus also confronted the purification rites of the Jewish religion.  Eating a meal with "unwashed hands" was a not a matter of hygiene.  At the time of Jesus it was a religious ritual by which people purified themselves of the "unclean" world before sitting down to share a meal with other believers.  In going against this purification ritual Jesus was declaring that the Creator made the world "good."  We find God not just in temples or churches but in the goodness and beauty of creation. 

Tomorrow we will celebrate Labor Day, the last holiday of the summer, a day on which we honor the dignity of human labor.  It's a good time for us to remember that we give worship to God not only when we gather in church but in every moment of our lives.  Our entire life, including our work and our recreation, is meant to give honor and glory to God. 

This is where our Second Reading from the first chapter of the Letter of James comes in.  James writes: "All good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights...."  Creation is a gift from God and shares in the goodness and holiness of the Giver.  Human talents and skills are also gifts from God, given so that humanity can be good stewards of creation, caring for it and developing it for the good of the entire human family.  When James writes "Be doers of the word and not hearers only," we can remember the word God spoke at the beginning--to labor together in caring for good creation. 

Thus we come to our First Reading from chapter 4 of the Book of Deuteronomy which speaks of obeying God's "statutes and decrees."  These are God's commandments and not the human rituals regarding unclean foods and purification rites.  God's Law goes deeper and affects our well-being on earth and in eternity. 

We are all familiar with the laws of nature.  We do well to follow them, for if we don't, we end up hurting ourselves and others. 

For example, physical objects follow the law of gravity.  It's built into their nature as physical creatures.  Humans are physical creatures and need to follow this law or get hurt and even die.  We are free not to follow it, to rebel against this law that restricts our freedom to launch ourselves off a high tower and flap our arms hoping to fly like a bird.  God's law of gravity will still be in force.  We won't so much break that law as break ourselves in thinking that we are above God's law and don't have to follow it. 

But we are more than physical creatures.  We are more than bodies that need to follow the law of gravity for their own good.  We are bodies with immortal souls.  We are spiritual creatures.  And just as there are physical laws built into our nature as physical beings, so there are spiritual laws built into us because we are spiritual beings.  We are free not to follow those laws but if we rebel against them we end up hurting ourselves and others.  Like physical laws, these spiritual laws are not arbitrary, nor are they imposed from on high to restrict our freedom.  They are part of nature, part of the reality of who we are. 

Ultimately, Jesus summed up the spiritual laws of nature in one word--love.  Love God and love your neighbor.  It's not enough to hear this word from the Son of God who only wants our good.  We must be "doers of the word" and put it into practice.  Following the law of love means being true to our nature as creatures made in the image and likeness of God who is Love itself.  If we do this then we will, as Deuteronomy says, "give evidence of [our] wisdom and intelligence." 

Latest Scandals: How Could This Happen?

The following is the homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, which I gave this weekend. 

Bishop Robert Gruss has asked the priests and of his diocese (Rapid City, S.D.) to share with you a letter that he wrote to us in response to the latest round of scandals involving Cardinal McCarrick and the Pennsylvania grand jury report which was released this week. 

In his letter he quotes Cardinal DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who said that the abuse and the ignoring or hiding of it "have caused great harm to people's lives."  Then Bishop Gruss agreed with the proposal of the Bishop of Albany, N.Y. that an independent panel of lay people should be created as "an important step forward in making lasting reforms in the Church in regard to the investigation of Bishops." 

He concluded his letter: "In the meantime, members of the Body of Christ are suffering.  The Church is suffering.  Let us all turn to prayer and sacrifice and ask the Lord Jesus, who gave his life for his Church, to lead her to holiness, true healing and conversion."

I'm sure the question on everyone's minds these days is "How?  How could priests and bishops do such things?"

In 2012, in a video message to the Eucharistic Congress that was held in Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI asked a similar question.  He asked: "How are we to explain the fact that people who regularly received the Lord's Body ... have offended in this way?  It remains a mystery." 

Yes, it is the "mystery" of evil and sin.  But I think our readings today can be used to reflect a bit more on this "mystery" of evil.

Our first two readings (Proverbs 9: 1-6 and Ephesians 5: 15-20) speak of wisdom and foolishness.  What is "wisdom?"  It's not mere knowledge.  Not facts and data.  Computers can store vast amounts of data and facts--knowledge--but they do not have wisdom.  Wisdom is more than technology.  I'm reminded of something that the Archbishop of Philadelphia, who was once Bishop of Rapid City, wrote: "Fools with tools are still fools." 

Wisdom is something deeper that knowing a lot of information.  It is a deeper knowledge.  To have wisdom is to know the ultimate reason or purpose of a thing.  It is to know the ultimate reason or purpose of life and to choose accordingly. 

Our purpose or end in life is to know, love, and serve God.  It is, as Jesus said in response to a question about the greatest commandment, to love God and love our neighbor.  The choices we make in fulfilling this purpose of life lead us ultimately to the Kingdom of Heaven. 

St. Ignatius of Loyola helps us understand wisdom in the "First Principle and Foundation" of his "Spiritual Exercises."  It means holding on to whatever helps us fulfill our purpose and attain the goal for which God created us.  And it means rejecting whatever hinders us from fulfilling our purpose and attaining our goal. 

Those who committed the sins and crimes that we are hearing about these days, or who ignored or covered them up, were fools.  And by that I mean not simply stupid people who made mistakes.  They were fools in a deeper sense.  They did not keep both their own and the victims ultimate end in mind. They were fools who did not consider the brevity of earthly life and the eternity that follows it. 

Pope Benedict XVI, after asking how the scandalous and sinful crimes could have occurred and answering that it was a "mystery," went on to say: "Evidently their Christianity was no longer nourished by joyful encounter with Jesus Christ: it had become merely a matter of habit." 

In other words, they did not think of the sacrilege of celebrating Mass after what they had done, nor did they allow the transforming power of the Eucharist to change them.  They were simply going through the motions of celebrating Mass with little or no attention to what they were doing.

I think there are two important implications and challenges for us.

First, be wise!  This life will one day end.  Choose well.  Choose what leads to heaven and not what leads to that state of eternal alienation from God that we call hell. 

Second, pray the Mass.  Don't let your celebration of Mass "become merely a matter of habit."  It's not enough to simply be physically present at Mass, just as it's not enough for a lamp cord and plug to be physically in the presence of the outlet.  In order for the power to reach the bulb and light it up, the cord needs to be plugged in.  Just so, we need to "plug into" the transforming power of the Eucharist.  We need to allow the power that transforms the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ to transform us. 

Feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha

Today is the feast of the Native American saint, Kateri Tekakwitha.  At St. Francis Mission we have an outdoor statue of her and this morning, at St. Thomas church in Mission, S.D. we celebrated Mass in her honor.  Fr. Jacob Boddicker, S.J. serves this parish and here is the homily he gave. 

Feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha
July 14th, 2018

Is. 6:1-8 Mt. 10:24-33

Today we celebrate the life and witness of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks, and our sister in Jesus Christ. We see in her a beautiful testament to the truth that the Son of God came to save the people of all nations and to bring them together as one people, as brothers and sisters of our Father in Heaven.

There are some who see her as a sign of the conflict between the Church and the native people of this country; some worry that she can be used as a symbol to convince native people to abandon their traditions and culture. But even from the time of her death she was always known as a Mohawk, as a daughter of her people; even in the earliest image we have of her, painted ten years after her death, she is wearing the beaded moccasins of her people.

She kept much of the outward signs of her Mohawk heritage; but what of her Mohawk heart? Did she abandon the beliefs of her people in favor of Christianity? I would say no. Her conversion is not the conversion of a person who was convinced by an argument, but rather of someone who encountered the God in whom she already believed in an entirely new way: she came to know a God she could fall in love with, and realized that this same God already loved her more than she could ever have imagined. Kateri came to love God so much that her final words were, “Jesus, Mary, I love you.”

When she was four years old she lost her parents to smallpox, a disease that almost took her own life as well but instead left her scarred and mostly blind. Her uncle, the chief of a nearby clan, took her in and raised her. It wasn’t until she was nineteen that she was baptized, after years of her uncle forbidding her to study Christianity. Yet ever since she was eleven years old she was attracted to the faith; something about it spoke to her, and we might suspect that it had something to do with the scarred man on the wooden cross: a God that knew suffering and abandonment like she did.

Kateri watches over SFM dental clinic

Her family constantly pressured her to marry and to take on the traditional roles of a young Mohawk woman, but her heart wasn’t in it: she didn’t desire to marry, and this was before her conversion. A few years after her baptism, however, we see in her words the fruit of a relationship with God that had existed throughout her life, but had in recent years deepened and matured radically:

“I have deliberated enough. For a long time my decision on what I will do has been made. I have consecrated myself entirely to Jesus, son of Mary, I have chosen Him for husband and He alone will take me for wife.”

She had always worshipped God, at least as she had understood God. She understood her place as a creation of a Creator, a creature in a world that was made with a sacred order. Kateri could never have guessed that this Creator could also one day become the Father she had lost in her childhood, that He had a Son who could satisfy the deepest longings of her heart and understand her suffering and loneliness in a way no one on earth could: she could never have guessed that His own Mother—the Blessed Virgin—would become her Mother. In God she had found everything she desired in her heart of hearts; she came to see a God that not only was to be worshipped and thanked, but loved and served.

This nearly-blind girl now saw God more clearly than she ever had, and with this new love filling her heart she began to live as a disciple of Jesus her Teacher, as a servant of her gentle Master. As Jesus demands of us in our Gospel today, she endeavored in all things to become more like Him, fearing not nothing in this world that might cause her harm or difficulty. She feared only what could kill her growing soul, what could turn her away from God, and so she lived a life of prayer and penance. The prayer practices of her people, such as piercing her flesh with thorns as a prayer sacrifice for those in need, or in thanksgiving to God for a favor she’d received, were not entirely abandoned, but given their fullest meaning. Even the meaning of her suffering was transformed as it drew her closer to Jesus who had suffered for her, the Jesus whose own Body, like hers, was covered in scars.

Through her words and deeds Kateri spoke in the light what God had spoken to her in the private darkness of her heart: she became a light to her people, and even to the Jesuits in her village. When she realized that she could no longer live among her people, as their frustration with her had become too great, she fearlessly journeyed through the wilderness to Canada to live with other native Christians, knowing that just as a sparrow does not fall to the ground without our Father’s knowledge, she, too, was looked after: every strand of her dark hair was counted.

Base of the statue

Because she acknowledged Jesus before others we know that Jesus acknowledged her before our heavenly Father: she would not be a saint of the Church if it were otherwise. Now she beholds the angels swarming about the throne of God and joins in singing their prayer-song—“Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Hosts…”—a song which we sing or recite with her at every Mass.

Kateri, the Mohawk girl who heard the call of God in her heart and said, “Here I am!” Kateri, who once covered her head with a blanket to hide her scars and now is more glorious than even the greatest angels because she is redeemed by the Son of God. Kateri, our blind sister who saw the path to God and invites us to follow her in the footsteps of Jesus. Kateri Tekakwitha: a daughter of her people, a daughter of God and of Mary, a daughter of the Catholic Church, our sister and our friend.

St. Kateri, pray for us.

Finding God on a Golf Course

For more than sixteen years, around the 4th of July, I've been going to a Jesuit vacation house near Waupaca, Wisconsin.  Every day, unless it rains or our bodies need a break, a group of us plays golf.  Recently I was on Relevant Radio and talked about finding God on vacation.  We all need a vacation,

Fr. Ed Mathie, S.J. 

but not a vacation from God who never takes a vacation from us.  In talking about finding God while on vacation I thought about all the ways that I encounter God on the golf course.

First, God is there in the beauty of Nature: the trees, the water, the sun, the bright blue skies the day after it rains, and the puffy clouds which my friends from Washington, DC tell me can't be found there.  All creation reveals something of the Creator's beauty.

Second, God is present in my friends whom I haven't seen in a year.  In the time we have together--a  chance to catch up on what we have been doing and to support one another, and in good-natured joking,  and in the generosity we share allowing one another "gimme" putts (which one guy says are putts "within the circle of friends") or the inevitable "mulligans" (on the first tee and tenth, or travelling, or when one really needs one), and in the praise we have for one another's good shots--God is present supporting, joking, being generous and forgiving, and giving compliments.

But I think the most important way that God is present to me on the golf course is in the lesson that I need for every shot.  When I golf my temptation is to think that I can control the outcome: that if I just put a little more "oomph" into the shot or direct it, then I'll have a good shot.  That never works. With every shot I try to practice the lesson of letting go of control, just taking an easy swing, and allowing the club to do the work. 

I need that lesson away from the golf course.  I can't control the outcomes of my prayer, my work, my life.  I can only take an easy "swing" and leave the outcome to God.

Golf is another way that I practice the popular saying, "Let go. Let God."

Happy Birthday, John!

Usually the Church celebrates a feast on the death date of a saint.  That is their "birthday" into heaven.  But for three people we also celebrate their earthly births--Jesus (on Christmas Day), the Blessed Virgin Mary (on September 8, nine months after a celebration of her Immaculate Conception), and John the Baptist (today, June 24).  Three months ago we celebrated the Annunciation when the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she would conceive and that her kinswoman Elizabeth was sixth months pregnant with a son, the one who has come to be known as St. John the Baptist.

You and I celebrate the days on which we were born and we also, at the end of our lives, are remembered and prayed for by our friends and relatives.  In between those dates--our birth and our death--we live our earthly lives.  John the Baptist is a great example for how to live those days.

What is the most important lesson that we can learn from John?  Humility.  In the second reading at Mass today (Acts 13: 22-26), in a speech of St. Paul, we hear how John told the many people who had come to follow him that he was not the Messiah, the Anointed One.  In fact, he said, he was even lower than the Messiah's servant: "Behold, one is coming after me; I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet."

Yet our first reading (Isaiah 49: 1-6), in words that the Church applies to John the Baptist, says that "it is too little for you to be my servant.... I will make you a light to the nations...."  That sounds pretty glorious.  However, light is humble.  We don't turn a light on and then focus our attention on it.  Light is not there to be stared at. It does not draw attention to itself.  Rather, it humbly enlightens a place so that one can find one's way in the dark.

We too are called to be light for others, not to draw attention to ourselves but to help others find their way through the darkness of the world.

There is an expression: "to make a name for oneself."  Those who try to make a name for themselves want to become famous so that many people will recognize their name.  They want to draw attention to themselves.

John the Baptist did not try to make a name for himself.  He was given a name by God.  He should have been called "Zechariah," after his father.  But on the day of his circumcision, his parents made it clear that in obedience to God's will, which came to them through the Angel Gabriel, their son was to be named "John."  It's a name that means "God is gracious."  John's identity was to show the graciousness of God who sent the Son to live our life, suffer with and for us, and even share in our death so that we could share in his resurrection.  John prepared the way for the One who embodied the graciousness of God, the goodness and generosity of God.  John pointed to Jesus, the Incarnation of God's graciousness.

You and I were also given a name by God.  It wasn't the name our parents chose for us but the name that we received when we were baptized and joined to the Body of Christ.  We were named "Christian."  We became "other Christs."  The name "Christ" means "Anointed One."  At baptism we were anointed with the Sacred Chrism which is used to consecrate the altar and four walls of new churches, setting that space apart for the sacred purpose of worship.  When I was ordained, the bishop anointed my hands with Sacred Chrism, consecrating them for the sacred purpose of offering worship to God.  And when we were baptized and then confirmed, our foreheads were anointed with that same Sacred Chrism, consecrating each of us for the sacred purpose of offering worship to God.

We do that when we celebrate Mass and offer the perfect worship, joining ourselves to the perfect offering of Jesus as he renews his greatest act of love for the Father and for us.  But our worship doesn't end there.  We go forth and continue our worship in our daily lives, offering every thought, word, and deed, every prayer, work, joy, and suffering to God as an act of love and for the salvation of souls.  Our Daily Offering prayer helps us remember to offer the worship of daily life for which we have been anointed.

Like John, we are now called to live up to our name--Christian.  We are called to be true to the anointing and name that we received at baptism.  We are called not to make a name for ourselves but to make the Name of Jesus known and glorified.  For it is in this Name alone that the world has come to know salvation.