Sunday Homilies

By Monsignor Patrick Gaalaas

Homilies delivered by Father Pat while pastor of St. Benedict's Parish in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

June 3, 2007

Trinity Sunday - Cycle C

John 16: 12-15

Farewell

The three readings today each focus on one of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. In the first reading, from the Book of Proverbs, we hear about the work of creation, which we attribute to the Father. The second reading, from the Letter to the Romans, speaks of our redemption, which was won for us by the Son. And in the reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks to us of the Holy Spirit, who will guide us to all truth.

It's so appropriate that we celebrate the feast of the Blessed Trinity on this first Sunday after Pentecost. It was at Pentecost that the third Person of the Trinity, promised by Jesus as the Gift of the Father, was clearly revealed. And so now, at our first opportunity, we celebrate the full mystery of the Godhead – that there are three Divine Persons in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It is a great mystery how the Three can be One and the One can be Three, and we might be tempted to ask, "What's all that got to do with us?" The truth is that it's got everything to do with us. It's the mystery of our own origin, and it's the mystery of our destination: We were made by him, and we were made for him. We were made for God, for that blissful communion with God we call Heaven.

And not only that, but we were also made in his image; he has, as it were, put his fingerprints upon us. It's commonly said that he's done so by giving us intellect and will. For God in his essence is a pure Spirit; and he has endowed our spirits (our souls) with the ability to know and to love, in some measure as he knows and loves.

But there is another way in which he's made us in his image, and it has to do with his "Threeness" and our relationships with one another. Everything I have to say about this is shrouded in mystery as it applies to God. But the Father is the Father because of his relationship with the Son; and the Son is the Son because of his relationship with the Father; and the Holy Spirit is who he is because of the relationship between the Father and the Son. And we also, who are made in God's image, are who we are, in many important ways, because of our relationship with others. Isn't that true? For example, I'm very closely related to my mother and father; I am who I am because of that relationship. I am also who I am because of the friends I've made. They have, without even knowing it, shaped me, put their fingerprints on me. My parents, my friends, and the relationships between us, have made me who I am.

But most of all, God has made me and shaped me. He is my Father, my Savior, and my Friend. He is my Father, and He loves me more tenderly than any mother could. Not content to love me "from on high," God took my nature as His own and laid it down on the Cross to be my Savior. And he so wants to draw me into his life and love that he is my constant Companion and Friend, who has poured forth his love into my heart.

I spoke just a moment ago about the relationships between us and our families, and the relationships between us and our friends. All authentic relationships, don't they, invite us into a community and a communion, a community of persons and a communion of love: the community and communion of a family, for example, or the community and communion of friends. In this, don't you think we see the fingerprints of God, who is the Origin of all this? In the infinite mystery of his absolute Oneness, God also is a community of Persons and a communion of love. And we were made in His image.

In addition to the community of family and the community of friends, there is also a community of faith; we call it the Church. And it was given to us by God so that we might be drawn into communion with him.

We, who are made in God's image, should strive to be a community of loving persons, too. Because in this way, by God’s grace, he shapes us into his own likeness. And we know what that looks like – his likeness is Jesus. And as each of us strives to be like Jesus, we inevitably influence those around us, and influence them for the better.

Twelve years ago I came to this community of faith as your pastor, and I'm a better priest because of it.

Pope Benedict XVI has written that all believing is a "believing-with," a believing in company with others. By the witness of our faith, we strengthen the faith of those around us. A priest has a special responsibility to strengthen the faith of his people. But a priest is only human, and he needs to be strengthened, too.

Thank you for being there when I needed it, so as to make me strong enough to be there when you needed it.

Father Valentine and I know that you'll be there in that same way for your new priests, Father Joe Townsend and Father Orencio Mumar. Let's continue to pray for one another – and to strengthen one another. And may God, who made us for himself, unite us all again one day in that thing for which we were made, that all-blissful communion with him in Heaven.

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May 6, 2007

Fifth Sunday of Easter - Cycle C

John 13: 31-35

First Communion

The Gospel today speaks about love. Jesus tells his Apostles that he has a new commandment to give them: to love one another - "As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

When you love someone, you want to be with them, you want to give them good things, and you want to help them be good. This is true of our parents, isn't it? They want to be with you, they want to give you good things, and they want to help you be good.

It's also true of Jesus. He wants to be with us, he wants to give us good things, and he wants to help us be good. And these are three reasons why he gave us himself in Holy Communion.

On that night before he died, he didn't give us something that was merely "good." He gave us the very best thing of all – himself. God gave to his creatures the gift of himself!

Why? Because he wants to be with us, and he wants to help us be good.

He wants to be, not just with us, but also inside us – inside our bodies and inside our souls. He wants to live in our hearts and minds; he wants to be the great love of our lives.

Because, in this way, he knows that he can help us be good: he can help us be like himself.

St. Augustine said that the Eucharist is different from other kinds of food. We change ordinary food into ourselves; but, in the Eucharist, Jesus changes us into Himself. He will if we receive Him worthily and with love.

The prayer of St. John Gabriel Perboyre, C.M.: "Lord Jesus Christ, transform me into yourself. May my hands be your hands. May my tongue be your tongue. Grant that every faculty of my body may serve only to glorify you. Above all, transform my soul and all its powers; that my memory, my will, and my affections may be the memory, the will, and the affections of you. Destroy in me all that is not of you. And grant that I may truly say with St. Paul, 'I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me.'"

This is a prayer such as each of us should pray in preparation for Holy Communion and in thanksgiving afterward. Jesus wants to be with us, because he loves us. And because he loves us, he wants us to be good – he wants us to be like himself!

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April 22, 2007

Third Sunday of Easter - Cycle C

John 21: 1-19

Feed My Sheep

"Love is a many-splendored thing" and "Love makes the world go round," they say. And they're absolutely right – especially if that love is the love of God. "God is love," says St. John. And God shares His love (that is to say, He shares Himself) with us, through the Holy Spirit. "The love of God," says St. Paul, "has been poured forth into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:5).

And it's this love that makes the Church alive today, just as in the time of the Apostles. The one thing Jesus wanted to hear before assigning St. Peter to the role of chief shepherd of the Church on earth was Peter's answer to His question, "Do you love Me; do you love Me more than these?" And it was the love of God, the Apostles' love for God, that enabled them to rejoice "that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of (God's) name" (see Acts 5:41).

This love for God supernaturally overflows to our neighbor, to our every neighbor; because Christian love isn't just for those who love us in return, or just for those we feel especially close to. It's meant for everyone. And, in that, it's like God's love for us – which it is. It's God's love poured into our hearts - to overflowing!

We're supposed to be good stewards of God's love. And if we are good stewards of it, then we're going to dispense God's love as He wants, when He wants, and to whom He wants. And that means that we're going to dispense it generously, always, and to everyone.

Blessed Mother Teresa once said, "Love is a fruit that is always in season, and it's within the reach of everybody." It's also a gift that's appreciated by those who receive it, and especially by those who are the most hungry for love because they experience the least of it.

This love of God and neighbor should be practiced by each one of us privately and by all of us collectively. Another name for love is charity. The name of our collective work of love is Catholic Charities.

Not all of us see the poor on a daily basis, but the people at Catholic Charities do. Not all of us can meet the many needs of the poor on a daily basis, but the people at Catholic Charities can - and do. But Catholic Charities is not supposed to be the love of a few, but the love of us all.

We can think of Catholic Charities as the hands of the local Church. But hands can't work unless they’re attached to arms, and the arms to a living body; and that body is the Body of Christ. Catholic Charities is our corporate work, and our common responsibility.

The very first thing Jesus said to Peter, when Peter was confessing his love, was "Feed My lambs." Lambs are the little ones of the flock, or, we could say, the least ones of the flock. The least ones. It would seem that the first assignment of love given to St. Peter is the same as the first assignment of love God's given to us: to care for the least ones, to care for the poor; to do so for the love of God and neighbor; and to do it with joy.

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April 8, 2007

Easter Sunday - Cycle C

Luke 24: 1-12 and John 20: 1-9

Seeds of Eternal Life

A happy and joyous Easter to you! I think I've told you before that spring and Easter have become my favorite season and feast. I think my age has had something to do with that. I'm getting older, and the promise of victory over death becomes a little more personal when you get to be my age. But there's something else that comes with age, and that's a growing sense of the mystery of life. You see it in the eyes of older people in nursing homes when young children come to visit; and you see it in grandparents when they talk about their grandchildren and even begin to plan their lives around them.

What is it that makes new and young life more and more attractive to us as we age? Is it nostalgia for our own lost childhood? Is it admiration for the vitality and energy we no longer possess? Oh, to be young again - but without all the troubles of youth! If only we could be young and strong again, but at the same time wise and without worries of any kind. It would be pure Heaven, wouldn't it? Well, almost. Pure Heaven, of course, will be much more wonderful.

I wonder if, as we grow older – and we're all getting older, aren't we? – I wonder if God isn't preparing us for something. I wonder if God is not only bringing us to appreciate the mystery of life as we've known it in this world, but is also preparing us for something beyond this world: preparing us for the deeper mystery of that life which is to come, the Risen life, the life of Christ risen from the dead, which one day we hope to share in Heaven.

What will it be like when our bodies are raised up from the grave? What will life in Heaven be like? Most of us don't have first-hand experience of that. But all the same, we can't say we don't have any idea of what it will be like; we can't say we've never been told about it, or that no one's ever witnessed it. Haven't the Apostles witnessed it, and haven't they told us about it?

And why have they told us about it? They've told us about it so that we could share their joy and their hope, the joy and hope that come from Christ's victory over death, the joy and hope born from faith in His Resurrection. Jesus lives! He is alive! And as we grow older, there is more and more in us that responds to that message (as I say, Easter has become my favorite feast). But the Risen life of Christ isn't something only for the future. It begins here on earth in the new life of grace.

The seed of Eternal Life was first planted in our souls on the day of our Baptism. It was strengthened in us through Confirmation and nourished in Holy Communion. And, please God, it will flower one day - in Heaven.

But a flower doesn't appear all at once or all by itself, does it? Take the dogwood, for example. We speak of a dogwood tree; it's the tree that blossoms. But it doesn't begin as a tree; it begins as a little seed. The seed, planted in the earth, puts out little tendrils. Some of them grow into roots; others become the trunk. And from the trunk branches grow; and on the branches, tender buds appear. And then, one day, the blossom. And what a blossom! If we'd never seen one before, we would never have guessed the beauty of the thing it was to become, the beauty that was all this time hidden inside it from the time it was a little seed.

And so it is with us. The seed of Eternal Life is sown in us at Baptism; and if it doesn't suffer the blight or hard frost of sin, it grows larger and larger in us. Our spiritual root system (our life of prayer) develops the confidence of our faith and the strength of our virtue. And these grow as strong as the trunk of a tree and put out branches of good deeds; and it's then that those tender buds appear. And that's all we see of it in this life: those little buds - of love, joy, mercy, peace and patience, a willingness to endure for God's sake whatever may come. In this life, that's all we see.

But after death, and with full beauty on the day of resurrection, those tiny and seemingly powerless little buds will break forth into such beauty that we cannot now even imagine it.

"Dearly beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall later be has not yet come to light. We know that when it comes to light we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). Those are the words of the Apostle John, a witness to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. To these let me add the words of another witness, the Apostle Paul, his words of advice to us: "Brothers and sisters: if then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is of earth" (Colossians 3:1-2). "We have our citizenship in heaven; it is from there that we eagerly await the coming of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will give a new form to this lowly body of ours and remake it according to the pattern of his glorified body. For these reasons...continue, my dear ones, to stand firm in the Lord" (Philippians 3:20-21; 4:1).

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March 25, 2007

Fifth Sunday of Lent - Cycle C

John 8: 1-11

Jesus Wept

Today's Gospel contains the shortest verse in the Bible. It's only three words long: "And Jesus wept." The Holy Spirit doesn't need many words to convey powerful messages, and that little verse is worthy of a lifetime of meditation: on Jesus and the truth of His humanity, and also on the importance of friendship and the good of the emotional bonds that friendship implies.

Jesus had true friends in Martha and Mary and Lazarus, and He could not contain His emotions at the moment He approached Lazarus' tomb. He "became perturbed and deeply troubled," Scripture says; "And Jesus wept." But His emotions didn't immobilize Him; nor were they a sign of a lack of faith. Quite the opposite: They were a spur to action.

Some people at the death of a friend or loved one experience a crisis of faith. They begin to doubt the goodness of God, and sometimes even His existence. Just as tears make it difficult for us to see physical things clearly, so also emotion and friendship can sometimes cloud our spiritual vision. Not so in the case of Jesus. Why? Because human emotion and human friendship, although real and deep, were not of primary value to Jesus. Of primary value were His relationship to the Father and the mission the Father had given Him.

And that would explain Jesus' strange behavior on first hearing the news that Lazarus, His good friend, was gravely ill. He didn't rush to his side, as we would have done. No, He remained where He was for two more days, a humanly inexplicable thing. It caused puzzlement to his disciples, and (we can easily read it between the lines) it also caused consternation and anger to Martha and Mary. But Jesus knew what the Father wanted Him to do, and that, if He did what the Father wanted Him to do, everything was going to be all right.

It seems Jesus had a reputation for caring most of all about what God wanted. We see that in the remark of Jesus' enemies when they were setting a trap for Him: "Teacher," they said, "we know you are truthful man and teach God's way sincerely. You court no one's favor and do not act out of human respect." (Matthew 22:16)

"Human respect." What does that mean? It means wanting to please others more than to honor God; it means compromising our faith and love for God in order to win the approval of others. It sounds like a sin, doesn't it? It is. And, sad to say, we're all very prone to it.

This is the Fifth Sunday of Lent, the day of the third and final "scrutiny" involving those we call our elect. Through the season of Lent, they've been examining their consciences, wanting to be truly repentant for their sins as they approach the sacrament of Baptism. On the occasion of this last day of their public examination of conscience, I thought we might examine our consciences, too – especially on this subject of human respect.

It's a problem we seldom talk about, but experience on a daily basis; and it's been so from the very beginning, from the time Adam took a bite out of the forbidden fruit, in part to please his wife, Eve. What are some of the temptations human respect may pose for us?

Well, for example, the temptation to miss Mass on Sunday and holydays for relatively unimportant family reasons. Or the temptation to use illegal drugs, or indulge in under-age drinking, because we feel a certain peer pressure to do so. To speed or engage in reckless driving to look cool to my friends. To use bad language, to join in uncharitable conversation or sinful activities, to hide my faith or stifle my conscience, sins of unchastity in marriage, or allowing a boyfriend or a girlfriend to go too far – all because we don't want to hurt other people's feelings or make them mad. This is what we call acting out of human respect. It means doing something we know God doesn't want us to do, because some human being does want us to do it.

It's dangerous to "dis" God. We put our salvation at risk; and we deprive ourselves of God's wisdom and guidance by choosing the foolish guidance of another. We allow a fellow human being to lead us down a primrose path to unhappiness and destruction.

One of the great classics of the spiritual life is a book titled The Imitation of Christ. Here's what it says about human respect: "Why do I long for people to think well of me?" It's a "groundless conceit," "a canker of the soul," and "the height of foolishness." As long as one "covets the good opinion of others, he deprives himself of true virtue." (Book III, chapter 40)

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, his friend came out of the tomb wrapped in burial cloths. He must have walked with some difficulty, and I imagine him also groping his way out of the tomb because of the cloth that covered his eyes. Jesus said, "Untie him, and let him go free." Jesus knows the true need of every one of us. He knows that human respect is like those burial cloths that hinder our journey to God and obscure our spiritual sight. He wants us to be rid of it, because He wants us to go free.

Dear Jesus, Divine Savior and true Friend, deliver us from fear of what others think. Help us to keep our eyes fixed on You and to run freely and happily toward the prize of eternal life with You. And, dear Jesus, help us bring many others with us. Amen.

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March 11, 2007

Third Sunday of Lent - Cycle C

John 4: 5-42

Meet the Lord of Mercy

We've just heard one of the great stories of the Bible, about the tender love of Jesus shown for this woman of Samaria. We see Him leading this sin-sick woman, little by little, to deeper and deeper faith and to a change of heart. From the first moment He saw her, Jesus knew this woman through and through, while she came to know Him only little by little.

She thinks of Him at first as just another man, in fact a Jew, an enemy of her people. But as Jesus engages her in conversation, she begins to see that He is a different sort of Jew, one who isn't afraid to speak to a Samaritan, even to a Samaritan woman; nor is He afraid to ask her for a drink of water, and to drink it from a Samaritan cup. This is a different sort of man.

But then He says that if she really knew Him, she'd ask Him for a drink, and He would give her living water. This puzzles her, because He doesn't have any apparent means of obtaining water; and there He is, sitting at the well of a Patriarch – doesn't He have any respect? Who does He think He is, someone greater than Jacob?

And then the Lord gets, as we would say, really personal. "I'll give you water that will satisfy your thirst forever. Go call your husband." "I have no husband," she said. "You’re right," Jesus responded; "you've had five husbands, and the man you're living with now isn't your husband." "Sir," she said, "I see you are a prophet."

At first, she saw Him only as a man; now she sees Him as a prophet. And soon she begins to suspect He is the Messiah.

This is a story of progressive conversion. And her story is our story. Jesus thirsted for her faith (St. Augustine), and He thirsts for ours too.

And just as her coming to faith required a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, so does ours. He doesn't sit down at a well and speak to us as He spoke to her, but it's a personal visitation all the same. It's often a very quiet one, even a hidden one, so that sometimes we mistake His identity. We think we're Catholic just because our moms and dads were Catholic, or our wives or husbands were Catholic; and that probably had something to do with it. But if faith is a gift from God, if faith is a gift which only God can give, then it was primarily God who had something to do with it.

And God has been so patient and tender as to allow this faith of ours to grow from shallow to deep, and from deep to deeper. My own faith has grown in this way, I can tell you – and the Lord's not finished with me yet. Nor is He finished yet with any of us.

And as we grow in our knowledge of Him, we also grow in our knowledge of self. We see ever more clearly our great potential and our high calling; but we also see more clearly our shortcomings, our frailties, and our outright sins.

We find this so often in the lives of the Saints, that as they were drawn closer and closer to God and His infinite holiness, they saw more and more clearly just how far from His holiness they were. So as the Saints grew in holiness, they grew also in humility – and often in the use they made of the Sacrament of Penance.

Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II might be good examples of this. Mother Teresa and John Paul II went to confession every week; and toward the end of his life, John Paul went to confession every day. Why did they do that?

In a famous book called Christ, the Life of the Soul, a Benedictine abbot said about Penance that "each time we receive this sacrament worthily and with devotion, even if there were only venial faults to be confessed, the blood of Christ is poured abundantly on our souls to revive them, to strengthen them against temptation, to make them generous in the struggle against attachment to sin, and to destroy in them the roots and effects of sin" (Abbot Marmion).

Those are powerful graces, given in a powerful sacrament. They are powerful because that sacrament puts us in touch with the Source of all power: Every celebration of the Sacrament of Penance is a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, true God and true man. As He sat by the well and ministered to the Samaritan woman in His sacred humanity, He sits with us in the Sacrament of Penance through the ministry of His priests. That woman at the well could be touched by Jesus only because she was in personal proximity to Him. And the same is true for us. He was waiting for her at the well and was thirsting for her faith and love. He is waiting for us in the Sacrament of Penance and is thirsting for our faith and love.

This Sunday's Gospel about Jesus' tender love for a sinner invites us to reflect on the place of confession in our lives. There will be a Penance rite tonight. Jesus will be there. And He'll be waiting there for you. Come meet the Lord of mercy.

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January 28, 2007

Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time - Cycle C

Luke 4: 21-30

Better Than a Miracle?

Last Sunday we heard in the Gospel that Jesus had gone to the synagogue in Nazareth and had read from the book of the prophet Isaiah:

And Jesus said to them, "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

This Sunday we hear the rest of the story, how the people "were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth" and "spoke highly of him" – until He told them that the miracles He had worked in Capernaum were not going to be worked among them. And with that, the mood of the crowd changed. They became so angry that they wanted to kill Him.

What do you think of that? It seems to me we shouldn't be too hard on them. They didn't know who Jesus was, really. This was the town where Jesus had grown up, and the people were very familiar with Him; but they didn't really know Him. They had heard that He had worked many miracles in Capernaum, and they were apparently expecting that He'd do the same thing among them. After all, they'd been His friends and neighbors for 30 years; the people at Capernaum were relative strangers. Perhaps there were some ill people right there in the synagogue. And what a lead-in He'd given them, saying that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him to bring glad tidings to the poor and recovery of sight to the blind. "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing," He said. Apparently it was going to be fulfilled only in their "hearing": they weren't going to see these miracles; they were only going to hear about them. They'd been worked in Capernaum, but they weren't going to be worked there in Nazareth. And so the crowd became angry at Him.

And so do we. We get angry with God, too, sometimes, don't we? We pray and we pray, and the thing about which we pray doesn't seem to change. We've heard about the miracles God works for others, and we don't doubt them. We believe in miracles. We believe in miracles so much that we want them to happen to us, too. But we don't always see them; we don't see them happening to us. Sometimes we pray and we pray, and the cancer just gets worse, or the bills accumulate, or the burdens get heavier – and we get angry with God, not remembering what St. Paul said: "We walk by faith, not be sight."

And we forget also what Jesus said: "Unless you take up your cross each day and follow in my footsteps, you cannot be my disciple." It seems to me that we need greater faith to carry the cross than to be relieved of it. When, for whatever reason, bad things happen to good people, or when other people seem more blessed than we, it takes great faith to keep trusting in God’s goodness and love. And maybe it's for that reason that God allows these things to happen to us – to help us grow in faith, faith that God loves us.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say that, when we suffer, it's "Jesus bending down from the Cross to give us a kiss." It's Jesus encouraging us by His love to unite our sufferings with His.

The Church teaches us that suffering is a mystery; that is to say, it's something we cannot fully comprehend. There was suffering in the life of Our Savior Himself. And didn't that suffering of His, which He bore with patient obedience, accomplish something wonderful? We say that we love Him. If we love Him, why wouldn't we want to share in that suffering? Or at the very least, when suffering cannot be avoided, why wouldn't we want to join our sufferings to His?

What Mother Teresa of Calcutta was getting at was put into other words by (if I may say so) another great Saint, St. Francis de Sales, who had this to say about the crosses that we bear. He said:

The Everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost Heart. This cross He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with loving arms and weighed with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His grace, perfumed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God.

There is almost more mystery here than the human mind can bear, but it would seem that for most of us a share in the cross is better than a miracle. Miracles are rare, and suffering is common. We'd like it to be the other way around; but, for reasons that escape us, God permits it to be so, at least during the time of our earthly sojourn. But whatever the suffering, there is one miracle that has given all of us hope. And it's made present at every Mass; and that's the miracle of Christ's Resurrection – His triumph over suffering and death forever. If we suffer with Christ, we shall also rise with Him; if we suffer with Christ, we shall also be gloried with Him.

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December 25, 2006

Christmas

Matthew 1: 1-25

A Sign Unto You

Merry Christmas! When the angel appeared to the shepherds, he told them that he was bringing them tidings of great joy. And so he was. A Savior was born for them that night in Bethlehem. And this would be the sign for them: The Baby would be wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

The message of the angel is still remarkably relevant, because we’re all in need of that Savior. And I've pondered the meaning of that "sign" the angel spoke about – the swaddling clothes and the manger. I think it has something to do with who Jesus was, and with how we encounter Him even today.

That the Baby would be wrapped in something warm, you'd expect; there's nothing strange about that. There might have been ten or twenty Bethlehem babies wrapped in swaddling clothes that night. But that a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes would be lying in a manger (a feed box for animals) – that would be unusual, very unusual. That would be a sign, indeed.

So, the angel told the shepherds to look for their Savior in circumstances that combined the usual and the unusual, the familiar and the strange. Wrapped in swaddling clothes, He'd look like any other baby. But, lying as He was in a manger, He'd be different. And Jesus would carry these two qualities with Him throughout His entire earthly life: He would look like any other man, but He would say and do things that were remarkably different. He was both God and man; how could He not have been different?

But He broke so many of our human expectations. We were expecting the Messiah to come as a king, a conquering warrior-king, like David; but Jesus came as a meek and lowly man. He was born in poverty, lived in poverty, and died in poverty. Frankly, we were expecting something a little...better.

The crowds followed Him for a while, because of the miracles He worked; but then left because of the things He said. He was different, and the differences didn't entirely please them. The authorities were against Him from the beginning, because they feared Him; they feared what He might do. Herod feared Him as a baby; Caiaphas and Pilate feared Him as a man. They feared Him because He was different, dangerously different. They didn't understand just how different He was; but the differences they did see didn't please them at all.

In many ways, you and I are a lot like the crowds and the authorities. We encounter Jesus on a daily basis, don't we? And He doesn't always please us either. It's easy to see Him in the things that break our way; in the minor miracles and answered prayers. For example, our cancer disappears, or our house sells, or we win the lottery. But it's a lot more difficult to see Him when our human hopes are disappointed; when the cancer continues to grow, or we lose our job. It’s then that faith is needed.

Imagine, for a moment, the Christmas story without the angel. Or imagine that, having seen the angel, the shepherds developed amnesia and forgot what the angel said. Jesus would still have been just as real, wouldn't He? He'd have been born in Bethlehem and laid in the manger. But the shepherds wouldn't have come to see Him. Or if they'd happened to wander through the streets of Bethlehem that night and had seen the Child in the manger, they might have thought: "How odd! A baby in a feed box. How sad. How sad." And they might have been critical of Mary and Joseph for not taking better care of that baby. Christmas would have been a little different for the shepherds, wouldn't it? Sadly different.

Father Bill Swift, one of our retired priests, sent me an e-mail the other day. It was titled The Best Prayer I Have Heard in a Long Time; and, in part, it goes like this: "Heavenly Father, help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and was rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children. "Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester. "Remind us, Lord, that the scary-looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares…."

Father Swift added a note to say that this prayer gave him, as it were, a new pair of eyes during those days before Christmas. Sometimes all it takes for us to be Christ-like toward other people is to exercise a little imagination and a little sympathy. But over the long haul and in the hard cases, it takes, not imagination, but faith. And faith has a lot to teach us about the people we meet and the things that happen to us.

How many times do we miss Jesus, because we've forgotten what the angel said? Or have forgotten even what Jesus Himself said? He said, "Whatever you do to the least of My brothers and sisters, you do it to Me;" and likewise He said, "This is My body," and "This is My blood."

Not every tabernacle looks like the manger, but the Desired of the ages truly lies within it. And there is no star to shine its heavenly light on every person we meet, but there should be. Nor is there an angel to announce that the sad things that happen to us may really be blessings in disguise. Because Jesus is present in all those places, isn't He?

The Savior came never to leave us, but to be with us always: supremely in the Eucharist, but also in every person we meet and in every sad or happy thing that happens to us. Glory to God in the highest for that, and peace to His people on earth, now and forever.

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December 10, 2006

Second Sunday of Advent - Cycle C

Luke 3: 1-6

Grow Strong and Immense

There are certain people in the Bible whom we associate with the season of Advent. There are Isaiah and other Old Testament prophets, and of course there's John the Baptist. But the greatest of them all is a woman. As far as we know, this woman never wrote a thing, as the prophets did; or spoke to a large crowd, as John the Baptist did. But she was far greater than any of them, and she has much to teach us. That woman is our Blessed Mother.

She's our Mother, because she's Christ's Mother. And I want to contemplate her as Christ's Mother, as His pregnant Mother, and to draw from this some lessons for ourselves.

There is something, I think, especially beautiful about a pregnant woman, and also something especially joyful. She is "expectant"; that is to say, she is looking forward with joy to the birth of her child. The child is alive and moving inside her, and everyday he makes her aware of his presence. This would have been true for Mary, too: she must have looked forward to Jesus' birth with expectant joy.

We look forward to His birthday, too; some of us with truly eager longing (the children, for example); but it's nothing, nothing compared to that of His Mother. This Child was the fruit of her body, but also the fruit of her faith. Jesus was conceived in Mary's heart, St. Augustine said, through faith before He was conceived in her womb. And He was being formed in her both physically and spiritually: physically, He was being formed in her womb; spiritually, He was being formed in her soul.

In some ways, it was all happening secretly and out of sight. But, in other ways, it couldn't be hidden. Jesus would have grown in her to such a size that, at a certain point, it "began to show." Physically, it would have been obvious; people could plainly see it. But no less obvious would have been Mary's spiritual fruitfulness; that is to say, the holiness of a life lived in such close communion with Christ. In what ways would that have begun to show?

It would have shown in such things as her chaste humility, the promptness of her love of neighbor, her patience and honesty, her simplicity, and her peaceful submission to the will of God.

So, this is my contemplation of the Virgin Mother. What lessons are there here for you and me? I think the biggest lesson is that, if Jesus is inside us, then we should begin to show in some of the same ways Mary did.

I have a small prayer card inserted in my breviary. On this prayer card are the words of a holy monk of the twelfth century, Blessed Isaac of Stella. The words are these: "May the Son of God who is formed in you grow strong and immense in you and become for you great gladness and exultation and perfect joy."

Certainly those words could have referred to Mary in the time of her pregnancy: "Mary, may the Son of God who is formed in you grow strong and immense in you and become for you great gladness and exultation and perfect joy." But they can also be addressed to you and me.

Christ has been formed in us, too, through grace: the grace of our Baptism, the grace of the Holy Eucharist, the graces of charity and prayer. Through this Sanctifying Grace Christ is being formed in us. So, may the Son of God who is being formed in you grow strong and immense in you and become for you great gladness and exultation and perfect joy!

May the Lord Jesus Christ whom we carry in our souls not be aborted or stillborn. May we carry Him to full term and give birth to Him for the sake of others as Mary did. And may we too one day have the joy of seeing Him face to face – in glory. And what great gladness and exultation and perfect joy that will be!

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August 13, 2006

Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - Cycle B

John 6: 41-51

Heavenly Food

I feel especially blessed today. It’s the anniversary of my First Mass; it’s my turn to preach; and the Scriptures are about the Eucharist!

The Eucharist is important to all of us. It’s centrally important, of course, in the life of a priest – but no less so in the life of every Christian.

I want to talk today about the Eucharist under two headings: the Eucharist as a miraculous Food and the Eucharist as a miraculous Moment; the Eucharist as Christ’s True Presence and the Eucharist as Christ’s True Sacrifice.

The Eucharist as Miraculous Food

The Eucharist is a miraculous Food, miraculously provided. You remember the story of Elijah the prophet in 1 Kings 19: how he lay down to rest and when he awoke, there at his head were food and drink provided by God, a hearth cake and a jug of water; and then how, on the strength of that food from heaven, he walked forty days and forty nights in his journey to God. It’s an amazing thing to walk even one whole day, let alone a whole day and a whole night. But Elijah walked for forty days and forty nights – on the strength provided by that one little cake and jug of water!

You and I are on a journey to God, too. We’re going to meet Him face to face someday, and for this journey we need a miraculous Food provided by God, called the Eucharist. Ours is a journey, not of days and weeks, but of years and years. Like Elijah, we walk through a desert where nothing grows to sustain the true depth of the inner man – nothing but this miraculous Food provided by God, this Food which is God Himself. “I am the living bread come down from heaven,” Jesus said; “whoever eats this bread will live forever.” The Eucharist is, indeed, a miraculous Food.

The Eucharist as a Miraculous Moment

The Eucharist is also a miraculous Moment. It’s Christ’s death on the Cross made present to us. Each and every Mass brings us to the foot of the Cross and to the first appearance of the Risen Christ. Just as there is no food that can be compared to It, so also there is no drama that can be compared to It: It is actually happening as we watch and pray, at every Mass.

There are many Catholics who say they’re bored at the Mass. I think it’s because they don’t really know what’s happening; no one’s ever told them, perhaps, or they’ve never fully “realized” it.

In my thirty-four years as a priest, I have celebrated the Mass thousands and thousands of times and never been bored. Oh, that’s easy for a priest to say, you might be thinking; a priest always has something to do! But so do you. Did you know that you are co-offerers of the Mass with me? A priest may have most of the lines, but he prays a good many of them as a spokesman for you. “We bring you these gifts … We ask you to make them holy … We offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.…”

And what is it we offer? What is “the holy and living sacrifice”? It’s Christ Himself – and ourselves with Him.

Among of the prayers composed by St. Ignatius of Loyola is one called the Suscipe. It captures the spirit of our self-offering. “Lord Jesus Christ, take all my freedom, my memory, my understanding, and my will. All that I have and cherish You have given me. I surrender it all to be guided by Your will. Your grace and Your love are wealth enough for me. Give me these, Lord Jesus. I ask for nothing else.” We can offer ourselves like this every day of the week, but we do it most excellently when we gather for Mass.

Every Sunday is to be a time of rest and of strengthening, of Sabbath rest and Eucharistic strengthening. (Remember the story of Elijah.) The rest we can get on our own; but the strength that comes from the miraculous Food, the bread come down from Heaven, the Bread of the Eucharist – this we can get only in the Mass.

We all know people who aren’t here with us at Mass. If we love them and if we believe that what Jesus said is true, then we won’t neglect to pray for them, and, as God gives us the opportunity, to invite them. So that one day the whole world will be gathered at altars such as ours, to celebrate these sacred mysteries, and to be strengthened by this Heavenly Food for our journey to God.

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June 18, 2006

Corpus Christi Sunday - Cycle B

Mark 4: 26-34

Time in His Presence

Today is the feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord, and Father’s Day. Let me begin by telling you a story.

My father died in 1977 at the age of 58. Several years after his death, my sister Cathye and I were talking about something I no longer remember, and I said something I no longer remember. The point of the story is what my sister then said. She said, “Pat, you sound just like Dad!” I remember agreeing with her. I had sounded just like Dad, in what I had said and in how I had said it.

Now I ask you, what made it possible for me to do that? What made it possible for me to be authentically me, to express my own opinion in my own way, and yet to sound “just like Dad”? Obviously, something of my father had rubbed off on me. Why and how did that happen?

As I see it, there are two reasons. First, Dad was a very important person in my life. And, second, I spent a lot of time in his presence.

Let me try to apply this now to the Eucharist and our journey to God.

My father worked to put bread on the table. Jesus worked to put Bread on the table, too. His work was our redemption, and the Bread was Himself; the Bread was the Eucharist.

We would all like to say, I think, that Jesus is a very important Person in our lives. Assuming that’s true (and it could always be more true), what else is needed for us to become “just like Him”? Spending time in His Presence. Spending time in His Real Presence. Spending time with Him in the Eucharist.

We do this at Mass; and we do this in quiet visits to the Blessed Sacrament, such as those quiet moments we spend in prayer before Mass begins and after Mass has ended, kneeling here in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Today, though, I want to recommend especially an extended visit to the Blessed Sacrament. It’s called making a Holy Hour.

There are over a hundred of our parishioners who now make a weekly Holy Hour. They do this as individuals, or as couples, or as families. If you’re not one of them, I’d like you to consider doing it. It would be good for you. Some people have described it as getting a spiritual suntan. When you lie in the sun, you don’t have to think much about it. Most people don’t think about the sun, do they? But they are very much aware of its presence; they bask in its presence. That’s a little like how it can be before the Blessed Sacrament. In the very center of the monstrance, visible through a small glass window, is a circle of blazing love, the Divine Son (S-o-n).

You don’t have to strain much for it to do you good. All you have to do is close your eyes and bask in His Presence. Spending time like this in His Presence, you should find yourself becoming, more and more, just like Him. More gentle, more wise, more courageous; His thoughts becoming your thoughts; and your heart becoming like His.

Saint Augustine said that the Bread of the Eucharist is not like ordinary bread. When we eat ordinary bread, he said, we change it into ourselves. Through the process of digestion, our bodies change its carbohydrates and other elements into bodily tissue. With the Bread of the Eucharist, it’s the other way around. He changes us into Himself. But it doesn’t happen automatically, as with ordinary bread. With ordinary bread it’s enough to open our mouths to receive it. With the Eucharist, we must also open our minds and hearts. We must open our minds by faith, and our hearts by love. This is what it means to bask in the Presence of the Lord.

Let me address a final word to the fathers among us. I am at Mass every Sunday as a priest, because my father was at Mass every Sunday as a layman. Fathers, you have a great influence on your children. Learn from the perfect Son what it means to be a perfect father. Let Jesus be the most important Person in your lives and then spend some quality time in His Presence. If you do those two things, you’ll be an everlasting blessing to your families. And they will be eternally grateful.

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May 28, 2006

Seventh Sunday of Easter - Cycle B

John 17: 11-19

Heaven Is Our Home

Our Holy Father the Pope, in a talk he gave last Sunday, said that the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven “reveals the ‘supreme vocation’ of every human person.” The Pope said we are “called to the eternal life of the kingdom of God,” the “kingdom of love, light and peace.”

You and I don’t think often enough of where we’re going – even when we know that our final destination is Heaven. If I asked you (or if you asked me), “Where are you hoping to go?” we would probably say something like, “The lake,” or “Colorado,” or “Disney World.” We wouldn’t even think of answering, “Heaven”! That’s why I say we don’t think enough of where we’re going – or, rather, of where we hope to go.

Because you and I are Christians, our whole life can be summed up in two Latin words, “Sequela Christi,” the following of Christ. We know that we’re supposed to take up our cross each day and follow in His footsteps. But to where are we following Him? We follow Him to the Cross, yes; but, thanks be to God, there’s more to it than that: We die with Christ, so that we may live with Him! But where are we to live with Him? We are to live with Him in grace on earth, yes; but, thanks be to God, there’s also more to it even than that: We hope to live with Him forever in Heaven!

We’re to die with Christ, and we’re to rise with Christ, so that we may ascend with Christ into Heaven! That’s what it means to follow Him the whole way. But we don’t often think of that last part, the heavenly part, even though it’s our “supreme vocation,” as the Pope says. And, sad to say, that forgetfulness can have serious – even deadly – consequences.

There is a danger in forgetting that Heaven is our true home. The danger is that we’ll settle for a kind of “heaven on earth,” a false heaven, a heaven we can understand, a heaven of our own making, a heaven now instead of a heaven later. Our ambition then becomes almost indistinguishable from the ambition of the world around us. We begin to hope for worldly success and earthly happiness: Success in business means to grow rich. Success in sports means to become famous. Success in family life means to have a trophy wife, a rich husband, and one child or, perhaps, two children who are perfectly healthy and beautiful and, if possible, brilliant, so that they can grow up and become rich and famous, too.

But how elusive that ambition is, and, even if attained, how disappointing! Because you and I, and every human person, were made for something more. We were made for something this world cannot offer. We were made for communion with God, and only God will make us happy; and we’ll be happy with Him forever only in Heaven.

So it’s this hope of Heaven that should guide our way on earth. Pope St. Gregory the Great said that we must not allow “the charm of success to seduce us, or we shall become,” he said, “like a foolish traveler who is so distracted by the pleasant meadows through which he is passing that he forgets where he is going” (see The Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings, Fourth Sunday of Easter). Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “God did not call us to be successful, but to be faithful.”

What will Heaven be like? Most of us have never seen Heaven, but it must be a “really cool” place. Saint Paul, who had been taken to Heaven in a vision, said, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as entered into the thoughts of men, what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

One thing we know – it’s a place of love. The love of God fills the hearts of all who are there. They love God with all their hearts, and they love us, too, with an overflowing love. And you know the definition of love: love is to will what is good for another and to do everything possible to achieve that good (St. Thomas Aquinas). So the saints in Heaven, because they love us, are active on our behalf. As St. Theresa of Lisieux said, “I’ll spend my heaven doing good upon the earth.”

The eagerness of the saints in Heaven to do good for us on earth is a part of what we call the Communion of Saints. Heavenly love surrounds every one of us. They think of us as their brothers and sisters; none of us is a stranger to them. But in the love and the assistance they offer to us on earth, they are simply following the lead of Christ -- they are still “following” Him.

We see in today’s Gospel how Jesus, from His place in Heaven, was still active here on earth. After He’d ascended into Heaven and taken His seat at the right hand of the Father, the Lord still “worked with them [His Apostles on earth] and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.” In other words, He worked miracles through them.

And He is still doing it. He continues to “confirm the word,” at each and every Mass, through the miracle of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the closest we’ll ever come to Heaven on earth. It’s the closest thing to Heaven on earth, because it is Heaven on earth! The One who is seated in glory at the right hand of the Father in Heaven is enthroned now in our hearts and bodies, too. In Holy Communion we receive the Body and Blood of the Living One who has ascended into Heaven, so that where He has gone we may hope to follow.

Heaven is our true home, and from it we await the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ -- in a few minutes, in the Holy Eucharist. One day may we see Him face to face! To Him who has died, and risen, and ascended into Heaven, be glory and honor and power, forever and ever. Amen.

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May 7, 2006

Fifth Sunday of Easter - Cycle B

First Communion Sunday

John 10: 11-18

First Holy Communion

To the Children

When I was a little boy, I had a best friend. His name was Peter Dolan. I loved to visit Peter’s house; but, more than that, I loved it when Peter would visit my house. Children, your best Friend of all is Jesus Christ, and today He is going to visit your house, the temple of your body, for the first time in Holy Communion! What a joy it will be – for both of you.

To the Adults

Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and we are all His sheep. But we can well imagine that He has a special love for these little children, who are His innocent lambs. He recognizes Himself in them, who was Himself an innocent and unblemished Lamb; and He said, “The kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.”

Someone once said, “The only thing holier than the last Communion of a Saint is the First Communion of a child.” What is the reason for all these cameras and all this commotion if not the joy that comes from contemplating the holy innocence of a child? The First Communion of these children is an invitation to all of us older ones, an invitation to recapture our innocence through a changed and repentant heart. It is especially an invitation to you parents who have been commissioned by God to shepherd these lambs in His stead.

Children are sometimes told that they should live their lives in such a way as to be worthy of their parents. But I think the real truth of it is just the other way around: parents should live their lives in such a way as to be worthy of their children.

Parents, you have brought your children to their First Holy Communion. You will soon bring them to their second, third, and fourth Holy Communions. May you have the joy of one day seeing them make their thousandth Holy Communion!

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November 13, 2005

Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time - Cycle A

Matthew 25: 14-30

Many years ago, before there was an RCIA, I was telling a convert class that God had given each of us many gifts and that He wants us to put them to good use. One of the group, a young woman named Mary, raised her hand and said, “Father, I don’t think God has given me any gifts, at least not any special ones.” Obviously I have remembered Mary’s remark all these years; and I thought that today, in light of this Gospel parable, I might respond to Mary’s concern, because many of us may be thinking, just as she did, that we haven’t been given many gifts – and that would be very wrong.

Jesus tells a story today about “talents.” What is a talent? It was an ancient measure of money. It wasn’t a certain amount of money; it was a certain weight of money. A single talent of gold, for example, would have made a person fabulously wealthy. So the man in the story who’d been given just one talent had been given, we could say, a ton of money! But he did nothing with it, nothing at all.

What has God given to us? What had he given to my friend Mary, and what was He preparing to give her? He had given Mary her five senses: the gift of sight, the gift of hearing, the gifts of taste, and touch, and smell. He had given her a world in which to exercise them, and many years of life to enjoy them. He had given her the gifts of speech and mobility; gifts of intellect and will – the ability to know and to love. But God has given these gifts so universally that we tend to take them for granted, until perhaps we lose them.

One of my favorite authors, G. K. Chesterton, once wrote a very short poem he titled “Evening.” It goes like this: “Here ends another day / in which I have had hands and ears and eyes / and the wide world round me. / Tomorrow begins another. / Why am I allowed two?” One day, or even a single hour, in which to exercise such magical talents as seeing and hearing and knowing is already an almost unimaginably great gift.

But God had prepared even richer gifts for my friend Mary. He was preparing to bestow upon her the fullness of those three gifts that St. Paul says are the only gifts that will endure. He was preparing her heart to embrace the fullness of faith, the fullness of hope, and the fullness of love, which He would personally pour into her heart through the Holy Spirit: Faith to know Him, Hope to pursue Him, Love to embrace Him.

These gifts He had given to her in holy Baptism. Soon they would be strengthened through the sacrament of Confirmation, in which the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit would also be hers: the gifts of Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding and Counsel, Fortitude, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.

If Mary had stopped to think about it, there was another gift she had already received, for which she was very grateful, but which she didn’t think of as a personal gift. And that was a sacrament of Matrimony. Mary had a wonderful husband and beautiful children. She would certainly have thought them among the most precious things in her life.

But there was one more thing God was preparing for her, the most precious thing of all – the gift of His own Self in the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. To be wholly and personally united to the incarnate God in His humanity and in His divinity – God Himself as our Best Friend into whose awesome and tender presence we may come at any time we wish – it’s the beginning of heaven on earth.

Every one of these gifts that God had given or was preparing to give Mary He has also given to us. What are we doing with them? Are we using them at all? Some of these gifts can be lost if they’re not used.

If we are using them, how generously and courageously are we using them? Is our exercise of faith so timid and so private that no one would notice? Is our marriage and family life so like everyone else’s that no one would ever think there was anything supernatural about it at all? Have we taken our living union with Christ and the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit and buried them in the ground?

If we were accused of being a Christian and put on trial for it, would there be enough evidence to convict us? And if there weren’t, and an earthly judge let us off scot-free, what will the heavenly Judge do?

We’ve been given a ton of riches, a boatload of gifts. Let’s make up our minds to use them for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Let’s put our faith into practice.

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