April 7, 2019 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Isaiah 43, 16-21 + Psalm 126 + Philippians 3, 8-14 + John 8, 1-11

Today we get a report from St John about mob violence which is something that sadly is still too common. We have seen it over and over again in the past years from Charlottesville, Virginia to Suburbs of St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. It happens with gangs of bullies on school playgrounds and parks, and today we hear about it in the Gospel of John. It has become so common that we are almost insensitive to it, and that is dangerous. The danger lies in the fact that any of us could be caught up in this senselessness at any time or in any place. Mob action is always anonymous, and the mob can end up doing things that are as self-destructive as they are offensive. In that anonymity a mob can get away with doing things most of those people in the mob would never think of doing if they were in their right mind. What we see in the news if often good people who somehow have lost their bearings, have surrendered to some collective madness that leads them into behavior and thinking that is far from the reality of their lives and their goodness. That mass action of a mob generates feelings of indisputable righteousness even when the behavior is contemptible. We’ve seen this all through history to the shame of the human family and even the church. The Spanish Inquisition made the Roman Coliseum look like a picnic. A century later it was witch hunts in Salem, then came the mob lynching we are just beginning recognize here in this country only to move on to Selma, and Charlottesville.

These people who drag that woman before Jesus were probably good people angry and fed-up with something they abhor and something that strikes at the values of their lives and the community in which they live and want raise their children. The whole scene, ugly as it is, puts both of them, the woman and the mob on trial. The woman is exposed in public. There are witnesses, perhaps even the man with whom she committed that adultery was hiding the crowd. Imagine that. Anonymity is a safe place to hide. They want to force Jesus to choose between the law and mercy. He doesn’t choose. The fact is, and they knew it: the same law that required an adulteress be stoned demanded the same punishment for a rebellious child. They knew that, and no one among them had ever stoned their child for drinking, smoking, or wrecking the car!

What Jesus is doing here is get the crowd to come to its senses. He shows a merciless crowd what mercy can do. He gets them to realize that genuine religion invites people to ask for and rejoice in forgiveness rather than pretending or even attempting perfection. They left one by one John tells us. Perhaps in breaking up the mob, those people could only look at themselves in truth and in all honesty without the fake righteousness of the mob. Jesus does not let the woman off easily. He firmly instructs her to stop sinning, but his real focus is on those who accuse others and excuse themselves. Perhaps, when his successor assumes the burdens of the papacy, Pope Francis will be remembered for one thing he said that touches us all: “Who am I to judge?” When we finally embrace what that question means, we will be well along the way to have established peace, and build up the Kingdom of God.

31 March 2019 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Joshua 5, 9-12 + Psalm 34 +2 Corinthians 5, 17-21 + Luke 15, 1-3 & 11-32

We have just proclaimed familiar and much-loved verses from Luke’s Gospel. It is a complex story that explores much more than the dynamics of the human family. It is study inviting us to reflect upon freedom, duty, and love. Those two sons are really good people who in many ways reflect the reality of our lives, all of us. We are one or the other, or perhaps even a combination of both. The younger one lives his freedom. He leaves home when he chooses, and he returns when he chooses without a thought about how anyone else might feel about it. His older brother lives his duty. He serves loyally without complaint asking nothing in return.

It is easy to look down on the younger son. His disrespect comes through as he squanders what the father and probably the older son have worked to save. His return home is hardly admirable. He goes back because he’s hungry without a thought about what pain he has caused anyone else. His brother is no shining example of virtue in spite of his loyalty and the duty with which he has worked. He may never have complained, but you can hear his resentment. He does what is right as a way of gaining his father’s approval, not for some higher ideal like love. The return of his brother reveals his shallowness as he sees his brother receive on the easiest terms the affirmation and affection he wanted and worked to receive. Both of them are lost. They have habits that cut them off from others. Between them stands the father who lives with freedom and with duty because he lives with love. He is free of attachments to things which he generously gives away to someone who has not deserved it. He is free to forgive everything and welcome back this son. He knows what is more important, his son of the squandered stuff. At the same time, lives with a sense of duty when he leaves the celebration to speak with the older son who is outside pouting and angry. He knows that this one needs his love as well, maybe even more at that moment.

In a recent film called, “The Green Book” that many of us have seen, there is a line spoken that touched me deeply. In speaking to the musician who has revealed that he is estranged from his brother, the tough chauffer says: “The world is full of lonely people just waiting for someone else to make the first move.” My friends, God has made the first move in sending his son who waits for us all who stand outside alone in shame or resentment. Either way, the promise has been spoken: “All I have is yours.” It is a stunning promise made to all of us who sometimes feel resentment or anger when someone gets more than we think they deserve. We must remember and tell this story over and over again to remind ourselves of that promise remembering as we do that freedom and duty both serve a higher purpose that can get lost when they are exercised without love. Only those who turn all things toward love will be able to welcome back those who are lost and enter the joyful celebration that is the Kingdom of God. 

24 March 2019 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Exodus 3, 1-8, 13-15 + Psalm 103 + 1 Corinthians 10, 1-6, 10-12 + Luke 13, 1-9

Today, Luke calls them, “some people”; and we know how that goes. Some people say this, and some people say that, and some people told me something about someone I know and I can’t believe what some people are saying these days. On and on it goes. It’s always some people, and sometimes we are some people. In this case, they are coming to Jesus with a rumor about a man they all hated, Pilot. Was it true or not? No one really knows. There is not one hint in all of history that would confirm that Pilot ever did what they said. It’s all a trap to draw Jesus into a no – win situation. With it, they raise the age-old question about why bad things happen to good people. Jesus says not a word about that. Religion does not offer any answer to that question. It simply offers us Jesus, who shows us with his life how it ends when bad things happen to good people like him.

He twists their little trap around with a question that catches them off guard. He speaks about something that really did happen, a construction accident that killed innocent people asking them if they thought those innocent ones were being punished, and suddenly some people have nothing more to say as he points out that death can come any way at any time, and what matters is that one be prepared and that preparation he calls “repentance”. We pick up this Gospel almost half-way through Lent as a reminder that these are our days for repentance, and time is running out. We are all one week closer to our death than we were last weekend.

What is happening with us is addressed by the second part of this passage. Even a passing glance at this world ought to make obvious that as disciples and apostles of Jesus Christ, we have not born much fruit like that fig tree which is takes up precious water and exhausts the soil producing nothing. In an age when ethics, Gospel values, and morality are brushed aside by ambition and power, when fidelity and truth are mocked as fake for the sake of one’s own greed, when human life and this earth which has been given to our care are destroyed for the sake of convenience and immediate pleasures we cannot ignore a call to repentance which simply change: a change of heart, a change of thinking, and change of behavior.

The life of Jesus Christ demonstrates how human beings can live in communion with God, no matter what circumstances may come. For those with ears to hear, Jesus presents himself today as the gardener who is giving us just a little more time to bear fruit before being cut down.

17 March 2019 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Genesis 15, 5-12, 17-18 + Psalm27 + Philippians 3,17 to 4, 1 + Luke 9, 28-36

Now, as we put the pieces together, we have to realize this: Peter has previously made his profession of faith, just a few verses earlier at Caesarea Phillip. This is not about them. It is not an experience that reveals the identity of Jesus. That has already been taken care of by Peter. This experience is for Jesus, and it is for his sake that it happens. So, we have Peter, James, and John. These are the three apostles that Mark tells us were with Jesus in the Garden of Olives after the Last Supper. That connects with the piece that tells us what Jesus was doing; praying. When we add the next piece, the location, we should be getting the picture: it’s on a hill. To make sure we don’t get confused, Luke does not name the hill. Finally, there are two people on either side of Jesus. In today’s Gospel, they are Moses and Elijah. In the scene we are putting together with these pieces, they are two thieves who really have no names in the Gospels. When we put these pieces together, we have an image of the Passion and Death of Jesus that can lead us to conclude that what is being revealed is for the sake of Jesus. This experience is given to Jesus to encourage and strengthen him for what lies ahead. It is as though the Father tells the Son how his experience on the other hill will really end, with him being gloriously present to the Father in the company of the great ones, Moses and Elijah. Obviously, it works and is enough to keep him going all the way to Jerusalem and to that other hill top.

Today we have a puzzle, and we have to put the pieces together. When we do, a wonderful and hope-filled revelation lies before us. One piece is who among the apostles is there. Another piece is where this takes place. A third piece is Jesus at prayer. A fourth piece is Moses and Elijah, and the fifth piece is what is said by the voice.

Proclaiming this Gospel, early in Lent raises the hope that those of us who are found in prayer will be strengthened and encouraged enough by this revelation to keep us going all the way not just all the way to Easter Sunday, but all the way on to the day when we too shall be so gloriously transfigured and be found among the saints. If it is so for Jesus, God’s Son, so it shall be for all of God’s children, especially to those who listen to him. For as Saint Paul says today: we will be “changed to conform with his glorified body”. It is this promise, this image, revealed to us today that should keep us moving forward in this life and this season never discouraged or fearful about what lies ahead even if it is painful, tough and frightening. Jesus knew he would be betrayed and those who opposed him would gather their forces to stop him, but the Father gave him this insight into how it would really end to keep him going. There is no reason to think it would be any different for all of us who listen to his word, who are faithful in prayer, and who trust in his mercy.

10 March 2019 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Deuteronomy 26, 4-10 + Psalm 91 + 2 Romans 10, 8-13 + Luke 4, 1-13

It is Luke’s turn to open Lent for us this year, and he takes us into the desert as do Matthew and Mark in previous years. With Matthew, it is all about the identity of Jesus. In the simple two verses Mark devotes to this, it’s about the Spirit that leads Jesus. Now with Luke it is something else. These verses from Luke are not about Jesus. Luke’s focus is temptation. So, there is no point in sitting back and examining or admiring how skillful Jesus is in the face of temptation. We have to step into this Gospel and look carefully at these temptations Luke thinks are the most significant and perhaps the most dangerous for disciples of Jesus Christ.

What Jesus confronts in that desert is what we confront in the wilderness of this life. The response of Jesus to these temptations reveals how we must respond, because we are there with him. The temptation of isolating self-sufficiency seduces us again and again to believe that our needs and our wants can all be satisfied by our own ambitions and schemes. It sets us in competition with others for what we imagine to be a limited number of resources. “Take care of number one” is a mantra that isolates us from others, builds walls, and cultivates the fear that there is never enough to go around. That fear itself morphs into the second temptation with a desire to be free from danger, safe, and secure. In the face of such temptation comes a reminder that God is the only one who can protect. Then the third and perhaps most dangerous of temptation we must face, the allure of power, the power to rule the world, the desire to stand on the world stage in splendor being admired and accepted, respected and honored willing to sacrifice everything to be accepted and liked.

We have forty days in this desert season. Forty days to carefully examine our lives to remember the Providence of God who feeds and leads those in the wilderness of this life. We have forty days to look again at the fears lurking everywhere suggesting that God will not protect and save those who live in covenant. We have forty days to forget about being liked, accepted, noticed, and admired. We have begun a time of purification, a season of renewal, a time for pruning away whatever does not bear fruit. It is perhaps a time to take ourselves less seriously and take God more seriously, a time to look around and admit that we are not the center of the universe, and that alone we can do nothing. In this desert, like the people of Israel, we are drawn closer together, bound up in faith and in hope, humbly remembering that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Our best hope is that we shall emerge from this desert as a faithful people, a church more clearly and courageously bearing the light of Christ, living with confidence that God’s providence lifts all the fears of our lives freeing us to live with compassion, with joy, and peace.

6 March 2019 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Joel 2, 12-18 + Psalm 51 + 2 Corinthians 5, 20-6,2 + Matthew 6,1-6 16-18

As I have watched this date on the calendar draw near since Christmas, I have had countless memories of Lent’s gone by, and all the things I did and didn’t do to make the days go faster. Now at my age, there is an urge to slow things down. Days, weeks, and months fly by faster than I ever imagined. It seems like I just finished write thank-you notes for Christmas gifts two weeks ago! Those of us older than 70 will probably can remember Lent as a much more severe season than it is today. The fasting was more of a challenge. It was expected every day, not just today and Good Friday. Abstinence was an everyday thing, not just on Fridays. I think part of my girth is due to macaroni and cheese, and to this day I shy away from salmon patties! We gave up things like candy or alcohol for something else we really liked, and we did every day. We went to church more either to Daily Mass or Stations of the Cross. To this day I can hum or even play the Stabat Mater without looking. Since we have been encouraged to do positive things, many don’t give up much anymore, and so people do not find life much different during Lent than any other season. It still disturbs me a bit when parishes schedule dances, weddings, and parties during Lent. With all of that in our past, there is still the fact that Lent asks more us today as we have grown older and deeper in faith. We are now expected to accept adult for our spiritual growth.

Instead of being told how much fasting we must do and when, we are expected to take fasting seriously and do more than the minimum. That’s adult behavior. As kids we were always looking for the minimum requirement. We are not children any more in case you have not noticed. We’re old, at least most of us in this parish. We are also invited to abstain more seriously. Giving up meat and then ordering lobster is a joke that spiritually isn’t funny. What adults need to do is give up something that might be sinful or wasteful or extravagant. It isn’t just food. It is whatever keeps us from growing closer to Christ. When given up, it isn’t just for 40 days or the 960 hours I once counted up as child. The point is, we give it up for good.

Those Bishops at the Council most of us lived through decided to take a risk and to risk treating us like adults. While they removed many of the old rules, there was in place a challenge to observe this season with great seriousness, to take responsibility for our own spiritual growth which is a lot harder than just following a lot of rules. Now comes the potential of really making Lent a time to change our lives and become much more like Christ.

As you come forward shortly to accept the challenge through an ancient ritual, let it be a sign of true commitment to take this Lent seriously allowing the grace of God to truly change us in the next 40 days. Remember how the Lord called us through the words of the Prophet Joel at the beginning of this Eucharist: “Return to me with your whole heart.” The longing of God for us is never ending. Listen and respond this Lent as you never before.

3 March 2019 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Sirach 27, 4-7 + Psalm 92 + 1 Corinthians 15, 54-58 + Luke 6, 39-45

Baseball was once called, “The National Pastime.” It seems to me that this description assumes that there is leisure time to be passed. In the busy world of these days, there isn’t much time to pass, so baseball has become a big business in itself, and a way to advertise and sell lots of things we really don’t need. In place of baseball, there is a new pastime that has caught on everywhere. I call it, “The Blame Game.” From the great halls of political power to our classrooms and homes, we are perfecting the art of blame. Everything is someone else’s fault. Unless, of course, if it is something good, then we did it.

As Jesus continues the formation program for his disciples this weekend, it becomes clear to any of us that what he has proposed the last two weeks when speaking about the “Blessed” ones is that children of God are a people who have integrated lives in which the heart and the mouth are in synch. In other words, what is said by disciples comes from a heart that is in “synch” or “in tune” with God’s heart, and what they do matches what they say. It’s all integrated: the heart, the mouth, the deeds. Achieving that comes from realizing that the Gospel is given to us as a guide for our own lives not as a judgement tool to use on others.

There is a terrible, violent scene in a movie called: “Boy Erased” during which a group of “Gospel inspired” reformers are punishing a young man who is gay and by their judgement is a sinner. They beat him with Bibles. Later in the film, he takes his own life. The viewer is left to wonder who has the greater sin. There is a kind of pseudo religion going around that tries to make other people better, but real religion just makes one’s self better, that’s all there is to it. And that is the kind of religion in which you find Jesus Christ and his disciples.

Those of us who wish to be disciples of Jesus are not called to be critics. We must embrace the goodness with which we are blessed and gaze upon the world to behold what is good in humanity. Those who look upon the world with the eye of a critic find only the image of themselves. It’s as though they are always looking in a mirror. Perhaps that is the way it works in a narcissistic world, but we are citizens of something not of this world. Once our hearts are open to others, we discover good in them, even when it is hidden. I know it is true in my own life. The greatest people who touched me most deeply paid no attention to my faults and weaknesses; but encouraged, acknowledged, and enabled my best gifts. That is exactly what Jesus did with that rag-tag group of fishermen, tax collectors, and sinners. It is also, exactly what he is still doing with us. How could we possibly not learn the lesson that from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks?

24 February 2019 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Samuel 26, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 + Psalm 103

1 Corinthians 15, 45-49 + Luke 6, 27-38

For most of my 51 years as a priest, I have been involved in the lives of young people through Youth Ministry and through the Catholic Schools at parishes where I served. One thing I learned early on, and nothing ever contradicted it was that children resemble their parents. In my own family, I watch the children of my sister and brother-in-law, and it’s amazing how they reproduce again and again not just the things their parents have said, but how they act. My sister and I often would begin to laugh when one of us sounded like or reacted like our parents. Every now and then, my sister would say something just like Mom, and I would say: “Watch out! She’s back.”

That reality goes even beyond family systems and genes. The truth of the matter is that when we call ourselves “Children of God” we are expressing not just a fact of faith, but an expectation about our mind, our hearts, and our behavior. Today’s verses from Luke’s Gospel follow the Sermon of last week with a further description of the “Blessed” as Jesus continues to lay out the life-style of those who want to call themselves “Children of God” or “Christian.” What Jesus puts before us is an ethic that leads us quite beyond what is normal, civil, or reasonable. In fact, if we are going to understand this and shape our lives around, we have to accept the fact that there is nothing “normal”, “civil” or “reasonable” about this. Catholic Christianity is not primarily a moral teaching. It is the way to salvation. It is a way of sharing the power and freedom of God giving us resources to move deeply into the life of God himself.  In other words, when we begin to understand and act like God, we are going to begin to become extravagant, almost unreasonable, and by some judgement, mad, because God’s ways make no sense in this world.

It does not make any sense to do good to those who harm you. They will just harm you again. It makes no sense to turn the cheek and accept another slap once you’ve been hit. What sense is there in giving your cloak and your underwear. Now you’ll be cold. What we discover is what runs in our family: extravagant generosity. It shows itself in a simple formula Luke develops in these verses: Love, Do good to, Bless, and Pray for. We are going nowhere in terms of faith, spiritual life, discipleship, or salvation until we get serious about this. Luke is running a school of discipleship that is intent on changing the way we think as well as the way we act.

We can live without retaliation. We can be extravagant with everything we have including forgiveness. We can surrender our rights, and we can stop judging others all because God can. This is the source of our spiritual power and the model after which we shape our lives. For real disciples of Christ, these are not just performances done out of obligation. They will be a visible concrete manifestation of a deep inner reality: the transformation that has taken place in our lives as we die to self and rise in Christ. God’s plan and God’s ways will be our plan and our only way.

17 February 2019 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Jeremiah 17, 5-8 + Psalm 1 + 1 Corinthians 15, 12, 16-20 + Luke 6, 17, 20-26

In Luke’s Gospel, and in this church and every other church where it is proclaimed today, the challenge of faith is unfolded, and there is no hiding from it or playing word games to water it down. These holy scriptures, the very Word of God, are given to us as the plan and program of a life lived in faith. We do not inherit these scriptures to provide or empower us to condemn someone else. We are the only ones who can convict ourselves of living the truth in faith. What God says to us simply and directly today is that we may not do what we want with what we have, because everything we own we hold in trust. Anyone who does not believe that can try to take it all with them when they die. We are stewards in this part of our lives, and we have to get that right in spite of every advertisement and temptation that passes in front of us.

The second part of these verses today are really more important than the first part, because these “Woes” rightly understood make it possible to be “Blessed.” We have to stop thinking that “Blessed” is something you get, because it isn’t. Blessedness is not some Thing, it is some One. To be Blessed is to be like God. So, when we are “Blessed” we have the mind of God or the heart of Christ. That is Blessedness – being like God. In which case, we can say: “Blessed are you who are rich in money, in power, in talent, or time, because you can do so much for the poor and lift them out of oppression. It means using power for peace, wisdom to reconcile, knowledge to open horizons, and compassion to heal, and hope to destroy despair.

Blessed are you full now, who are sleek and well-fed, because you are strong enough to feed the hungry, touch empty stomachs with compassion. But, only if you have the mind of the hungry not taking food for granted, and always uncomfortable when your brother or sister cries in vain for bread, or justice, or love. Only when we experience our own emptiness can be know the hungry.

Blessed are you who laugh now, because you can bring the joy of Christ to others, to those whose days and nights are filled with tears. But only if you laugh at yourself and do not take yourself seriously knowing that the whole world does not revolve around you, your needs, and your fantasies. Only if you take delight in God’s creation, in the sun and shade, the flowers and the birds, the clouds and the sea can you have real and lasting joy to share. It means letting go of yesterday, dead hopes and disappointments that keep you from discovering what tomorrow will bring.

In the end, what all means is the Blessed are the free; free enough to be alive, to be in love, to experience the gift of mercy, and the richness of our faith. And Jesus raised his eyes not to heaven, but to us, his disciples, and he said: “Blessed are you”.

10 February 2019 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Isaiah 6, 1-2, 3-8 + Psalm 138 + 1 Corinthians 15, 1-11 + Luke 5, 1-11

All three of the people put before us today are reluctant: Isaiah, Paul, and Peter. Yet, they are all chosen by God. Each of them acknowledges their unworthiness and inadequacy, and from a spiritual point of view, this is a good starting point. God knew of their sinfulness, and God chose them in spite of it. Jesus knew Peter was no good as a fisherman. They caught nothing all night long, but Jesus chose him anyway showing him what he could accomplish when he did what Jesus asked of him. Isaiah, Paul and Peter eventually went on to do great things because they accepted God’s call, and did what Jesus asked. None of them excused themselves or used their sinfulness and weakness as a cop-out.

In this world today, most people who run for public office put themselves forward. They are not slow to advertise their qualifications, and it’s my opinion that such people are more likely to do more harm than good, because they rely upon their own resources usually out for their own glory and advancement. Pride and self-sufficiency are like sand, and a house built on them is sure to fall. On the other hand, when we meet someone who is fearful and hesitant in allowing their name to be put forward, we often find that person believable and more human. This reluctance is the essence of the matter. This is kind of people that God looks for.

We can all sit here today and listen to the story of these three and go home thinking it was all about them as though this is not about us, but we do not proclaim this Word of God to tell stories about the past. To do so is foolishness and faithless. We tell it to reveal the plan of God for today. Anyone called to faith, anyone who believes in the Lord, Jesus Christ is called to do something, called to live and serve in such a way that others are drawn to Christ, invited into faith, and inspired to seek the Kingdom of God in service and sacrifice. Excuses won’t do. Jesus will have nothing to do with Peter’s claims that because he is a sinner he can’t do what is asked of him. God ignores Isaiah’s claims that he is a man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips. As St. Paul says, it is precisely because he is a sinner that he is called. There is no excuse for doing nothing.

There is a great contrast between the call of Isaiah and Peter. With Isaiah’s call, there is a sense that something extraordinary is taking place. The Lord is seated on a high and lofty throne with the train of his garment filling the Temple. There is great shaking and house was filled with smoke, but in the time of Peter, our time, it is very different. The Incarnation has taken place, and now God is not on a lofty throne with flowing robes, but rather speaking through the Son of Man to people at work, doing what they do every day, people like you and me.

We must not miss the fact that Jesus began his mission and chose as his followers these fishermen, working people. He did not call priests from the Temple, or the rich and famous. He did not build this church on people who were somehow especially gifted, powerful, or special in any way. He chose real people, simple workers who were not even especially great at what they were doing. After all, they had fished all night and caught nothing. He still chooses sinners. He chooses you and me. There is no time to look around and see if he is looking for someone else. He is not. We all need someone who accepts us for what we are, but believes we can do more and challenges us to realize it. This is exactly what Jesus Christ does for us: accepts just as we are right now, and he asks more. In the end, the quality of our lives is not measured by what is given to us as much as it is measured by what is asked of us.