St. Joseph Church (Cottleville)
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
October 26, 2008 - 12:15 p.m.
Ex 22:20-26
Ps 18
1 Thes 1:5c-10
Mt 22:34-40
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk to the youth group about some of my experiences of working with the Missionaries of Charity when I studied in Washington, D.C. As you probably know, they are the religious sisters who were founded by Mother Teresa. I was constantly amazed at what I saw in these sisters. They had quite literally given up everything to embrace their call to consecrated life. Not even the clothes they wore – their habit – really belonged to them. What is most amazing about these sisters, what draws the world’s attention to them, is the reason why they have given up everything they have given up. It is to serve those who are terribly poor and sick. The home where I worked in Washington was for homeless men and women who had terminal diseases. The sisters’ job was to care for them until their death. I never had the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa, but I felt like I was with her every time I went to volunteer with her sisters. It was clear that her spirit was living on in them.
The sisters were clearly living out our Lord’s command in today’s Gospel: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” They had a secret, though, a secret that is often missed in popular accounts of Mother Teresa. A lot of people in our world admired Mother Teresa for the incredibly difficult work that she did – and rightfully so! She got her hands dirty with some of the poorest and sickest people in our world. But what the world often has failed to realize is why Mother Teresa did what she did. She wasn’t just a social worker. She did it because she understood so well the first part of our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Did you know that Mother Teresa spent a minimum of two hours a day on her knees before the Blessed Sacrament? And that was apart from Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. And I learned when I volunteered with her sisters, that their prayer continued throughout the day. I remember doing laundry with them – in a sink, by hand, mind you – and instead of simply chatting while we did it, we prayed the Rosary. Mother Teresa was so heroic – and her sisters now are so heroic – because they understood well that these two commandments given to us by Christ, the commandments upon which the whole law and the prophets depend, are intimately related to one another.
How exactly does this inter-relation play out? What linked Mother Teresa’s adoration of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament to her loving care for the poor? I’ll let her tell you herself. She once said, “Christ is hidden under the suffering appearance of anyone who is hungry, naked, homeless, or dying. . . . There is but one love of Jesus, as there is but one person in the poor – Jesus.” Whether she was kneeling in prayer or binding the wounds of a leper, Mother Teresa was loving Christ. She saw in every person she met the image of God, for that is how each of us has been created. Every single human being on the face of the earth bears the image and likeness of God Himself. Mother Teresa didn’t miss it, because she knew the Lord so well. She became so familiar with Jesus in prayer, that she recognized Him immediately when she saw Him in someone in need. This is the fullness of love that each one of us is called to. We’re called to love God above all else. And in loving our neighbor, it is actually nothing more than an expression of the love of God, whose image each of our neighbors bear. These two commandments are linked because they are calling us to one and the same love.
What does it mean, then, for us to love our neighbor? A simple way would be to donate money to charities that help the poor and suffering. This is a good thing, a noble thing, but I don’t think this is exactly what our Lord was talking about with the Pharisees in today’s Gospel. Love isn’t just a generic gift to a group of people I don’t know. Love is particular. It is called for at particular moments in our day. We’re called to love people in our own home – fathers, mothers, spouses, brothers, sisters – people whose faults we are all too familiar with. We’re called to love that coworker or classmate who annoys us, whose idiosyncrasies drive us up the wall. We’re called to love the person who cuts us off in traffic. It is in these particular moments that this commandment to love our neighbor comes into play. In these moments, we must make a choice, for that ultimately is what love is. It’s not a feeling, but a choice – the choice to desire what is best for the other. To say, I know that God’s image is in you, even if I don’t see it now, even if you aren’t acting like it, and so I will love you. I will let go of my own desires, my own wants, and I will desire what is good for you.
We come here Sunday after Sunday because we know that here, from these Scriptures and from this holy altar, we receive what truly satisfies. We encounter One whose love for each one of us was so great, that He allowed His hands and feet to be nailed to a tree – out of love for us. Spiritual writers reflect upon this central mystery of our faith, and they tell us that our Lord’s love on the cross is for all people. He went to Calvary out of love for people of every time and place. But His love wasn’t for a generic crowd of people. It was for particular men, women, and children. If you were the only person who existed on the face of the earth, even then Jesus Christ would have taken the thorns, the nails, and the spear, just for you. As He hung on the cross, pouring forth His life, He thought of you, and He thought of me. That is love. Here, in this place, we receive Love Himself, and so we are equipped to love others.
In the end, love is the greatest gift Christianity has to offer the world. We can whine and complain to no end about the state of our society, about people who are hostile to God and to His Church, about how hard it is in our society to live out our faith. It’s important that we be realistic about the struggles we are up against in the world, but ultimately, whining and complaining gets us nowhere. If we Christians actually lived as Christians at every moment of the day, if, in every encounter of the day, we saw the image of God in our neighbor, if everyone who claims to be a follower of Christ conducted themselves constantly like the Lord, I think we would see amazing things start to happen. Love alone has the power to convert hearts. Love alone can convert a culture of death into a culture of life.
Just one more thought from Mother Teresa: “There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. . . . Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
"What belongs to God..."
St. Joseph Church (Cottleville)
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
October 18-19, 2008 - 5:00 p.m., 7:00 & 8:45 a.m.
Is 45:1, 4-6
Ps 96
I Thes 1:1-5b
Mt 22:15-21
Thirty years ago this month, in October 1978, Karol Wojtyla was elected by the cardinals of the Church as the 263rd successor of St. Peter. At his first public Mass as pope, on October 22, John Paul II spoke words that would mark the rest of his pontificate. He said to the people of the world, “Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid” (John Paul II, “Homily for the Inauguration of his Pontificate,” 22 October 1978).
These words of the servant of God might easily come to mind today when we reflect upon the words of our Lord in the Gospel: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” These familiar words probably surprised the Jews who heard them at the time of Christ. At a certain point in their history, the time of the kings, there wasn’t much of a distinction between the civil government and their practice of their religion. Kings like Saul, David, and Solomon were understood to be acting in the place of God in their rule of the nation. The people of Christ’s time awaited the return of a Messiah who they though would restore this kind of kingdom, a sort of theocracy. Christ’s words calling upon them to fulfill their obligations toward secular authority were a great challenge for them.
For us, this isn’t so difficult. We know well that we have obligations as citizens of this nation – duties like paying taxes or serving jury duty. We don’t look for our religious leaders to be the leaders of the state as well. In fact, I’m sure our bishops would be the first to say that they are not qualified to be secular rulers. Yet this passage is still very important for us. While the Jews of Jesus’ day needed to be told to fulfill their obligations to civil authorities, we often need to be reminded of the opposite. We need to be reminded of the second part of the saying: Repay “to God what belongs to God.” In our nation, so often, the separation of church and state has been interpreted to mean not a freedom for religion, so that I can practice freely the religion to which I choose to belong, but a freedom from religion. There is pressure from many directions to push faith aside, to simply make it a “private” matter. We need to be reminded that we have an obligation to repay to God what belongs to Him.
So the question is: What belongs to God? It doesn’t take us long to see that ultimately everything belongs to God. The fact that we have life, that we have air to breathe, comes from God. Everything that exists, including our very selves, ultimately belongs to God. God, then, deserves the first place in our lives. Against those who would have us push God aside in the public square, we must assert that God has the first priority in our lives. Every part of our lives should be open to Him and to how He wants to work in us. This is what Pope John Paul II was calling us to remember when he spoke those powerful words in St. Peter’s Square. So today, in calling us to render unto God what belongs to God, our Lord is asking us to open wide the doors of our lives to Him. He wants to be the Lord of every aspect of our lives, not out of a thirst for power over us but because He knows what is best for us. He knows what will bring us true happiness.
Over these past weeks, the bishops of our nation have been exhorting us time and again to repay to God what we owe to Him when we enter the voting booth on November 4th. They are asking us not to leave Christ outside when we enter to fulfill our duty. In a sense, they’re asking us to open wide the doors of the voting booth to Christ. In fact, it is by voting according to our conscience, formed by the teaching of the Church, that we will best serve our nation when we cast our ballots. Ultimately, when we do this, when we return to God what belongs to Him, we giving to the state, to Caesar, the best thing we have to offer.
Particularly, the bishops have asked us to vote in favor of life on that day. There has been much confusion among Catholics and non-Catholics alike about what can appear to be bishops meddling in affairs of the state. “How can they tell me how to vote?” we might ask. But when we really think about it, what the bishops are asking of us makes perfect sense. The Church teaches that life begins at the moment of conception. She doesn’t teach this from some special revelation from God. It is a fact of science that is taken up by the Church as proof for the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception. If we subscribe to this teaching, if we truly believe that what is conceived in the womb of a woman is a human person, then abortion suddenly becomes a chilling reality. It can be nothing other than the killing of an innocent human life, of a human person who has not even had the chance to breathe. Since the legalization of abortion 35 years ago, over 47 million lives have been ended before they could even see the light of day. 47 million… That means that for the last 35 years one out of every four children conceived in our nation have not even seen the light of day.
Here we can begin to see why the bishops are stressing life as the key issue for voting. It is true that there are many things to consider when voting. Our struggling economy is perhaps the most prominent right now. Perhaps many of us here today have felt the effects of it in our lives. There are many issues about the quality of life of people in our nation that are important, issues central to Catholic social teaching, but how can we hope to promote a quality of life when we don’t even defend the basic right to life in the first place? Mother Teresa said it well: “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but to use violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.” As people of faith, we believe that our bishops speak with the voice of the Church and that the voice of the Church is none other than the voice of Christ echoing in our world down through the centuries. Through our bishops, our Lord is crying out on behalf of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters, those who have no voice of their own. He is pleading with us in this election year to vote for candidates on the national, state, and local levels who will defend the dignity of human life. “If you love me,” our Lord is telling us, “listen to my voice. Choose life on November 4th.”
In the end, our Lord is asking us to trust Him. He’s asking us to trust that if we are faithful, if we do our part to defend the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters, we cannot fail to begin to prosper again as a nation. We will see rise up in our midst a culture of life and of love. As Pope John Paul II reminded us 30 years ago, He wants us to open every aspect of our lives to Him, to His saving power. At his first public Mass as pope, Pope Benedict recalled Pope John Paul II’s words in 1978. Let us listen to the voice of our shepherd and choose here and now to open our lives anew, ever more fully, to the power of Christ at work in us who believe:
“Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way?” Pope Benedict asked. “If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you,…: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life. Amen” (Benedict XVI, “Homily for the Inauguration of his Pontificate,” 24 April 2005).
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A
October 18-19, 2008 - 5:00 p.m., 7:00 & 8:45 a.m.
Is 45:1, 4-6
Ps 96
I Thes 1:1-5b
Mt 22:15-21
Thirty years ago this month, in October 1978, Karol Wojtyla was elected by the cardinals of the Church as the 263rd successor of St. Peter. At his first public Mass as pope, on October 22, John Paul II spoke words that would mark the rest of his pontificate. He said to the people of the world, “Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid” (John Paul II, “Homily for the Inauguration of his Pontificate,” 22 October 1978).
These words of the servant of God might easily come to mind today when we reflect upon the words of our Lord in the Gospel: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” These familiar words probably surprised the Jews who heard them at the time of Christ. At a certain point in their history, the time of the kings, there wasn’t much of a distinction between the civil government and their practice of their religion. Kings like Saul, David, and Solomon were understood to be acting in the place of God in their rule of the nation. The people of Christ’s time awaited the return of a Messiah who they though would restore this kind of kingdom, a sort of theocracy. Christ’s words calling upon them to fulfill their obligations toward secular authority were a great challenge for them.
For us, this isn’t so difficult. We know well that we have obligations as citizens of this nation – duties like paying taxes or serving jury duty. We don’t look for our religious leaders to be the leaders of the state as well. In fact, I’m sure our bishops would be the first to say that they are not qualified to be secular rulers. Yet this passage is still very important for us. While the Jews of Jesus’ day needed to be told to fulfill their obligations to civil authorities, we often need to be reminded of the opposite. We need to be reminded of the second part of the saying: Repay “to God what belongs to God.” In our nation, so often, the separation of church and state has been interpreted to mean not a freedom for religion, so that I can practice freely the religion to which I choose to belong, but a freedom from religion. There is pressure from many directions to push faith aside, to simply make it a “private” matter. We need to be reminded that we have an obligation to repay to God what belongs to Him.
So the question is: What belongs to God? It doesn’t take us long to see that ultimately everything belongs to God. The fact that we have life, that we have air to breathe, comes from God. Everything that exists, including our very selves, ultimately belongs to God. God, then, deserves the first place in our lives. Against those who would have us push God aside in the public square, we must assert that God has the first priority in our lives. Every part of our lives should be open to Him and to how He wants to work in us. This is what Pope John Paul II was calling us to remember when he spoke those powerful words in St. Peter’s Square. So today, in calling us to render unto God what belongs to God, our Lord is asking us to open wide the doors of our lives to Him. He wants to be the Lord of every aspect of our lives, not out of a thirst for power over us but because He knows what is best for us. He knows what will bring us true happiness.
Over these past weeks, the bishops of our nation have been exhorting us time and again to repay to God what we owe to Him when we enter the voting booth on November 4th. They are asking us not to leave Christ outside when we enter to fulfill our duty. In a sense, they’re asking us to open wide the doors of the voting booth to Christ. In fact, it is by voting according to our conscience, formed by the teaching of the Church, that we will best serve our nation when we cast our ballots. Ultimately, when we do this, when we return to God what belongs to Him, we giving to the state, to Caesar, the best thing we have to offer.
Particularly, the bishops have asked us to vote in favor of life on that day. There has been much confusion among Catholics and non-Catholics alike about what can appear to be bishops meddling in affairs of the state. “How can they tell me how to vote?” we might ask. But when we really think about it, what the bishops are asking of us makes perfect sense. The Church teaches that life begins at the moment of conception. She doesn’t teach this from some special revelation from God. It is a fact of science that is taken up by the Church as proof for the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception. If we subscribe to this teaching, if we truly believe that what is conceived in the womb of a woman is a human person, then abortion suddenly becomes a chilling reality. It can be nothing other than the killing of an innocent human life, of a human person who has not even had the chance to breathe. Since the legalization of abortion 35 years ago, over 47 million lives have been ended before they could even see the light of day. 47 million… That means that for the last 35 years one out of every four children conceived in our nation have not even seen the light of day.
Here we can begin to see why the bishops are stressing life as the key issue for voting. It is true that there are many things to consider when voting. Our struggling economy is perhaps the most prominent right now. Perhaps many of us here today have felt the effects of it in our lives. There are many issues about the quality of life of people in our nation that are important, issues central to Catholic social teaching, but how can we hope to promote a quality of life when we don’t even defend the basic right to life in the first place? Mother Teresa said it well: “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but to use violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.” As people of faith, we believe that our bishops speak with the voice of the Church and that the voice of the Church is none other than the voice of Christ echoing in our world down through the centuries. Through our bishops, our Lord is crying out on behalf of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters, those who have no voice of their own. He is pleading with us in this election year to vote for candidates on the national, state, and local levels who will defend the dignity of human life. “If you love me,” our Lord is telling us, “listen to my voice. Choose life on November 4th.”
In the end, our Lord is asking us to trust Him. He’s asking us to trust that if we are faithful, if we do our part to defend the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters, we cannot fail to begin to prosper again as a nation. We will see rise up in our midst a culture of life and of love. As Pope John Paul II reminded us 30 years ago, He wants us to open every aspect of our lives to Him, to His saving power. At his first public Mass as pope, Pope Benedict recalled Pope John Paul II’s words in 1978. Let us listen to the voice of our shepherd and choose here and now to open our lives anew, ever more fully, to the power of Christ at work in us who believe:
“Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way?” Pope Benedict asked. “If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you,…: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life. Amen” (Benedict XVI, “Homily for the Inauguration of his Pontificate,” 24 April 2005).
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Respect Life Sunday: "The vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel" (Is 5:7a)
St. Joseph Church (Cottleville)
27th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A
October 5, 2008 - 8:45 & 10:30 a.m.
Is 5:1-7
Ps 80
Phil 4:6-9
Mt 21:33-43
Today has been set aside by the Church as Respect Life Sunday, and there are any number of topics that would be good for our meditation this morning. We could reflect upon the sad reality of abortion-on-demand and the more than 45 million innocent lives that it has silenced over the last 35 years. At this time in our country, it would be especially appropriate to reflect upon our duty in a democratic nation to defend the sanctity of life by how we vote in national, state, and local elections. On these issues, I would refer you especially to Msgr. Callahan’s article in today’s bulletin and especially to the pastoral letter he references from the bishops of Kansas City. You will find there a very clear explanation of the Church’s teaching with regard to forming our consciences and exercising our duty to vote in accord with our conscience.
Indeed, it would be well and good to reflect upon these matters, but I want instead to take a step back and reflect more generally with you upon life itself. What do we mean when we use the word “life?” St. Irenaeus, a father of the Church, said that “the glory of God is man fully alive.” What does it mean for a human person to be fully alive?
On a natural level, it is clear that there can be no life without a man and a woman, a father and a mother. Life comes about as the fruit of their physical intimacy, and they share the responsibility for nourishing the life of their children as they grow and mature. I would like to suggest that this very basic understanding of human life is ultimately a kind of parable, a sign of something greater. By looking to human fathers and mothers, we learn something deeper about life. Each of us lives not only on the natural plane but also on the supernatural plane. We have natural life from our fathers and mothers, but they cannot in themselves give us supernatural life. They have a great responsibility to help us to come to receive supernatural life, but it is not something they can give in themselves.
To receive supernatural life, which means nothing other than communion with God, we must have God and God alone as our Father. Christ became man to reveal this to us, that God is truly our Father, our loving, caring Father, who wants to pour His life into our hearts. He wants us to live in communion with Him and to receive from Him everything for which our souls long. But then the question remains: if our natural parents are signs for us of what is also true on the supernatural level, and if, on the supernatural level, we have God as our Father, who is our mother? After all, we believe in one God. There cannot be a God who is our Father and a goddess who is our mother.
It didn’t take long after the death of Christ for Christians to figure out the answer to this question. St. Cyprian of Carthage lived from 190-258 A.D. Two centuries after the life of Christ, he wrote these words in his “Treatise on Unity”: “He cannot have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.” It is in union with Mother Church that God our Father pours His divine life into our souls. In her we find the source of grace opened for us above all in the sacraments. Just as we are born from the womb of our mother, so the Church gives birth to supernatural life in us when we are born from her womb, the font of Baptism. Just as our earthly mother nourishes us with physical sustenance, so the Church nourishes us with the spiritual sustenance of the Eucharist. Just as our natural mother forgives us when we rebel against her, so does the Church give us pardon in the Sacrament of Penance.
It is this life, supernatural life, that St. Paul is talking about in his letter to the Philippians. God’s life, poured out into our souls, is what is most true, most honorable, most just. It is pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, worthy of praise. It is this above all that we are called to think about. This is what should give meaning to our lives. This is what should shape every word we speak, every decision we make, every action we do. This is precisely why the Church tirelessly fights for the right to natural life, why she fights against abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia. As St. Thomas put it, grace perfects nature, the supernatural is built upon the natural. The Church wants to give to every human person the supernatural life of God our Father, but to do so, the right to natural life must first be preserved. That is the foundation for the supernatural life. The Church wants the unborn to be born and the lives of the elderly to be preserved so that she can give them the greatest gift of all, God’s very own life.
This life only comes to us in its fullness when we willingly make ourselves children of the Church, our mother. So often, when our mother the Church speaks to us, as we believe she does through the Pope and the bishops throughout the world, we listen to her with adolescent ears. We hear her like a rebellious teenager whose doesn’t understand the love that lies behind what his mother tells him. The Church speaks to us, and all we hear is “no!” Mother Church says, “The unborn child deserves to live,” and we hear, “No – a woman does not have the right to choose.” Mother Church says, “A human embryo is a life and not material for medical research,” and we hear, “No – you may not look for a cure for your debilitating disease.” Mother Church says, “When you go to the polls, choose life,” and we hear, “No – you may not vote for so-and-so.” Our mother, the Church, loves us with the love of God. She wants only what is good for us and for our society and world.
But we struggle to see the Church as a gift of God to the world. We struggle to put aside our own wants and our own opinions in order to receive life and truth from our loving mother. And yet, as St. Cyprian told us, if we refuse to take the Church as our mother, we cannot have God as our Father, for He has chosen to unite Himself to the Church and through her to pour out His abundant life upon the world. The Church is the vineyard of today’s readings into which we must be planted in order to see fruit borne into our own lives and into our world.
Let us now turn our hearts toward this holy altar, upon which the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary will again become present. From this sacrifice comes every good and perfect gift. Let us beg our Lord today for the grace to love our mother, the Church, more perfectly, to let go of whatever lies we cling to and to allow ourselves to be embraced by the arms of the Church. Let us open ourselves today to receive from her in Holy Commuion Him Who is Life Himself – our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, in union with Him, will we have the courage to foster in our society a respect for the sanctity and dignity of every human life.
27th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A
October 5, 2008 - 8:45 & 10:30 a.m.
Is 5:1-7
Ps 80
Phil 4:6-9
Mt 21:33-43
Today has been set aside by the Church as Respect Life Sunday, and there are any number of topics that would be good for our meditation this morning. We could reflect upon the sad reality of abortion-on-demand and the more than 45 million innocent lives that it has silenced over the last 35 years. At this time in our country, it would be especially appropriate to reflect upon our duty in a democratic nation to defend the sanctity of life by how we vote in national, state, and local elections. On these issues, I would refer you especially to Msgr. Callahan’s article in today’s bulletin and especially to the pastoral letter he references from the bishops of Kansas City. You will find there a very clear explanation of the Church’s teaching with regard to forming our consciences and exercising our duty to vote in accord with our conscience.
Indeed, it would be well and good to reflect upon these matters, but I want instead to take a step back and reflect more generally with you upon life itself. What do we mean when we use the word “life?” St. Irenaeus, a father of the Church, said that “the glory of God is man fully alive.” What does it mean for a human person to be fully alive?
On a natural level, it is clear that there can be no life without a man and a woman, a father and a mother. Life comes about as the fruit of their physical intimacy, and they share the responsibility for nourishing the life of their children as they grow and mature. I would like to suggest that this very basic understanding of human life is ultimately a kind of parable, a sign of something greater. By looking to human fathers and mothers, we learn something deeper about life. Each of us lives not only on the natural plane but also on the supernatural plane. We have natural life from our fathers and mothers, but they cannot in themselves give us supernatural life. They have a great responsibility to help us to come to receive supernatural life, but it is not something they can give in themselves.
To receive supernatural life, which means nothing other than communion with God, we must have God and God alone as our Father. Christ became man to reveal this to us, that God is truly our Father, our loving, caring Father, who wants to pour His life into our hearts. He wants us to live in communion with Him and to receive from Him everything for which our souls long. But then the question remains: if our natural parents are signs for us of what is also true on the supernatural level, and if, on the supernatural level, we have God as our Father, who is our mother? After all, we believe in one God. There cannot be a God who is our Father and a goddess who is our mother.
It didn’t take long after the death of Christ for Christians to figure out the answer to this question. St. Cyprian of Carthage lived from 190-258 A.D. Two centuries after the life of Christ, he wrote these words in his “Treatise on Unity”: “He cannot have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.” It is in union with Mother Church that God our Father pours His divine life into our souls. In her we find the source of grace opened for us above all in the sacraments. Just as we are born from the womb of our mother, so the Church gives birth to supernatural life in us when we are born from her womb, the font of Baptism. Just as our earthly mother nourishes us with physical sustenance, so the Church nourishes us with the spiritual sustenance of the Eucharist. Just as our natural mother forgives us when we rebel against her, so does the Church give us pardon in the Sacrament of Penance.
It is this life, supernatural life, that St. Paul is talking about in his letter to the Philippians. God’s life, poured out into our souls, is what is most true, most honorable, most just. It is pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, worthy of praise. It is this above all that we are called to think about. This is what should give meaning to our lives. This is what should shape every word we speak, every decision we make, every action we do. This is precisely why the Church tirelessly fights for the right to natural life, why she fights against abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia. As St. Thomas put it, grace perfects nature, the supernatural is built upon the natural. The Church wants to give to every human person the supernatural life of God our Father, but to do so, the right to natural life must first be preserved. That is the foundation for the supernatural life. The Church wants the unborn to be born and the lives of the elderly to be preserved so that she can give them the greatest gift of all, God’s very own life.
This life only comes to us in its fullness when we willingly make ourselves children of the Church, our mother. So often, when our mother the Church speaks to us, as we believe she does through the Pope and the bishops throughout the world, we listen to her with adolescent ears. We hear her like a rebellious teenager whose doesn’t understand the love that lies behind what his mother tells him. The Church speaks to us, and all we hear is “no!” Mother Church says, “The unborn child deserves to live,” and we hear, “No – a woman does not have the right to choose.” Mother Church says, “A human embryo is a life and not material for medical research,” and we hear, “No – you may not look for a cure for your debilitating disease.” Mother Church says, “When you go to the polls, choose life,” and we hear, “No – you may not vote for so-and-so.” Our mother, the Church, loves us with the love of God. She wants only what is good for us and for our society and world.
But we struggle to see the Church as a gift of God to the world. We struggle to put aside our own wants and our own opinions in order to receive life and truth from our loving mother. And yet, as St. Cyprian told us, if we refuse to take the Church as our mother, we cannot have God as our Father, for He has chosen to unite Himself to the Church and through her to pour out His abundant life upon the world. The Church is the vineyard of today’s readings into which we must be planted in order to see fruit borne into our own lives and into our world.
Let us now turn our hearts toward this holy altar, upon which the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary will again become present. From this sacrifice comes every good and perfect gift. Let us beg our Lord today for the grace to love our mother, the Church, more perfectly, to let go of whatever lies we cling to and to allow ourselves to be embraced by the arms of the Church. Let us open ourselves today to receive from her in Holy Commuion Him Who is Life Himself – our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, in union with Him, will we have the courage to foster in our society a respect for the sanctity and dignity of every human life.
First Friday Homily
Kenrick-Glennon Seminary
Friday of the 26th Week of Ordinary Time - Year II
October 3, 2008 (First Friday)
Jb 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5
Ps 139
Lk 10:13-16
I’m sure we all heard with great sadness the recent news of the professor from the University of Minnesota who issued an appeal, asking for someone to send him a consecrated host which he could desecrate. We know that he carried out this act and then posted pictures of it on the Internet for all to see. This professor made the Catholic news again this week because he has been promoting a series of YouTube videos posted by someone else who has also carried out similar acts of desecration. This news disturbs and saddens us. We can perhaps hear our Lord addressing these people with the words he addressed to Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum in today’s Gospel: “Woe to you…” It is tragic that, like those towns of Jesus’ day, people see great signs worked in their midst, the great sign of the Holy Eucharist, and yet they reject Him.
Today being a First Friday, we recall our Lord’s request of St. Margaret Mary, that His people make reparation for such sins against His Sacred Heart, present in the Holy Eucharist. So much does our Lord love us, so much does our Lord love even those who would reject Him, that He allows us to make reparation for their sins. So, today, let us do so by such things as praying the Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart or by making sacrifices for this intention. Of course, the greatest act of reparation we could make would be to humbly adore Him in this Mass and to approach to receive Him worthily.
This First Friday, however, is not only a call to make reparation for the sins of others. It is also an opportunity to examine our own attitude towards the Eucharist. Surely the thought of desecrating the Blessed Sacrament would not even enter into our thoughts, but we do offend our Lord in more subtle ways. For instance, what sort of language do we use to speak of the Blessed Sacrament in our conversations with others? How often do we come to Mass half-asleep, simply going through the motions and speaking the words thoughtlessly? How often do we approach to receive our Lord in Holy Communion while our minds and hearts are focused on the obligations that lie ahead of us that day?
For us who meet our Lord in this chapel day in and day out, the greatest temptation is to complacency. We can easily fall into a routine and fail to be fully engaged in what we say and do here. Today, let us beg the Lord for the grace to always come before Him with the attitude that Job had when faced with the wondrous presence of God, an attitude of humility and awe.
Tonight, throughout the world, Franciscans will be marking their founder’s Transitus, the crossing of St. Francis from this life to the next. Francis was a man burning with love for our Lord and for the Eucharist. He wrote to his brothers, encouraging them to approach the Holy Eucharist humbly. May these words of his inspire us to a more profound humility and more ardent love for our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament:
“Let everyone be struck with fear, let the whole world tremble, and let the heavens exult when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest! O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself that for our salvation He hides Himself under an ordinary piece of bread! Brothers, look at the humility of God, and pour out your hearts before Him! Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by Him! Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally in return” (Letter to the Entire Order, 1225-1226)!
Friday of the 26th Week of Ordinary Time - Year II
October 3, 2008 (First Friday)
Jb 38:1, 12-21; 40:3-5
Ps 139
Lk 10:13-16
I’m sure we all heard with great sadness the recent news of the professor from the University of Minnesota who issued an appeal, asking for someone to send him a consecrated host which he could desecrate. We know that he carried out this act and then posted pictures of it on the Internet for all to see. This professor made the Catholic news again this week because he has been promoting a series of YouTube videos posted by someone else who has also carried out similar acts of desecration. This news disturbs and saddens us. We can perhaps hear our Lord addressing these people with the words he addressed to Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum in today’s Gospel: “Woe to you…” It is tragic that, like those towns of Jesus’ day, people see great signs worked in their midst, the great sign of the Holy Eucharist, and yet they reject Him.
Today being a First Friday, we recall our Lord’s request of St. Margaret Mary, that His people make reparation for such sins against His Sacred Heart, present in the Holy Eucharist. So much does our Lord love us, so much does our Lord love even those who would reject Him, that He allows us to make reparation for their sins. So, today, let us do so by such things as praying the Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart or by making sacrifices for this intention. Of course, the greatest act of reparation we could make would be to humbly adore Him in this Mass and to approach to receive Him worthily.
This First Friday, however, is not only a call to make reparation for the sins of others. It is also an opportunity to examine our own attitude towards the Eucharist. Surely the thought of desecrating the Blessed Sacrament would not even enter into our thoughts, but we do offend our Lord in more subtle ways. For instance, what sort of language do we use to speak of the Blessed Sacrament in our conversations with others? How often do we come to Mass half-asleep, simply going through the motions and speaking the words thoughtlessly? How often do we approach to receive our Lord in Holy Communion while our minds and hearts are focused on the obligations that lie ahead of us that day?
For us who meet our Lord in this chapel day in and day out, the greatest temptation is to complacency. We can easily fall into a routine and fail to be fully engaged in what we say and do here. Today, let us beg the Lord for the grace to always come before Him with the attitude that Job had when faced with the wondrous presence of God, an attitude of humility and awe.
Tonight, throughout the world, Franciscans will be marking their founder’s Transitus, the crossing of St. Francis from this life to the next. Francis was a man burning with love for our Lord and for the Eucharist. He wrote to his brothers, encouraging them to approach the Holy Eucharist humbly. May these words of his inspire us to a more profound humility and more ardent love for our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament:
“Let everyone be struck with fear, let the whole world tremble, and let the heavens exult when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest! O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself that for our salvation He hides Himself under an ordinary piece of bread! Brothers, look at the humility of God, and pour out your hearts before Him! Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by Him! Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally in return” (Letter to the Entire Order, 1225-1226)!
Welcome
Welcome to my brand new blog. I must confess that I never had a desire to maintain a blog of my own, but, since I was ordained a transitional deacon this past March 15 and began preaching, people from time to time have asked me for written copies of my homilies. I figure that this will be an easy way to share them with those who are interested. For now, this will be the primary purpose of this blog. We'll see where it goes from there...
I chose the title for this blog from this passage from the Book of Revelation: "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.'" In our modern society, it is imperative for us Christians to open our lives in new and more perfect ways to the coming of Jesus Christ. He is the fullness of God's revelation, and He alone can give ultimate meaning to our lives. We must open our own hearts, our homes, our workplaces, and all of society to Him. This openness to Christ can only be done in union with His Bride, Holy Mother Church, who was born from the blood and water that poured forth from His Pierced Heart upon the cross.
I invite you to read and respond to what I post here. Together may we all respond faithfully to our Lord's call to further the spread of His Kingdom on earth, unto the fullness of its perfection in Heaven.
I chose the title for this blog from this passage from the Book of Revelation: "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.'" In our modern society, it is imperative for us Christians to open our lives in new and more perfect ways to the coming of Jesus Christ. He is the fullness of God's revelation, and He alone can give ultimate meaning to our lives. We must open our own hearts, our homes, our workplaces, and all of society to Him. This openness to Christ can only be done in union with His Bride, Holy Mother Church, who was born from the blood and water that poured forth from His Pierced Heart upon the cross.
I invite you to read and respond to what I post here. Together may we all respond faithfully to our Lord's call to further the spread of His Kingdom on earth, unto the fullness of its perfection in Heaven.
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