March 11, 2012 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK

Exodus 20: 1-17 + Psalm 19 + Romans 5: 1-2, 5-8 + John 4: 5-42

Lent’s Third Sunday leads us once more into a reflection on Covenant. Today a third and last old covenant is revealed and offered through Moses. This time there are conditions beyond the covenant of Noah and Abraham. God’s gradual self revelation now becomes exclusive, direct, and personal. God has a part in the covenant, and people who wish to be God’s own have a part. God promises liberty, land, prosperity, God’s special care and love. What is expected of the people who wish to be God’s own is what we find in today’s readings.

What we hear in the Book of Exodus reading is not a set of recommendations or suggestions. We hear the absolute conditions, non-negotiable expectations of what God will look for in a chosen people. The arrangement is obvious: God at the top. These are God’s rules, not ours. When we make our own rules, we make ourselves god, and that’s where Adam and Eve got into trouble. Over the centuries, Israel learned the importance of ordering their society in relation to God and others. This was the key to building and maintaining a great nation, as well as a holy nation before God. When Jesus comes along, he synthesizes these expectations of God into a simple and concise format: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Now the age in which we live admires those who with clever intent find a way around the law, every law. Their example is tempting to the point that we feel justified and proud of ourselves when we find loop holes and ways to get around the law excusing ourselves with a wink and a nod from doing what is right. What is “right” then becomes what is easy, clever, and least demanding. Ancient Israel considered the law a form of wisdom gained from reflection on life. This wisdom from insights is what led to happiness and what did not. They cherished this law as much as the Greeks cherished their philosophy. 

In bringing the law to its fulfillment, Jesus he showed us that external observance is not enough. He called for a commitment that is deeper, that goes to the heart of our covenant with God. In cleansing the Temple, Jesus did not destroy it, he cleansed it. In the stories of John’s Gospel, what Jesus does is never the point. It is what Jesus is that John wants to reveal. In today’s Gospel story the point is not a conflict with money-changers or Pharisees. The point is that Jesus is the new Temple. Jesus is where the human and the divine meet, not in Jerusalem’s Temple.

This truth is what makes this place so holy: not marble or gold, candles or incense. What makes this place holy is that here the divine in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ meet the human in you and me. It is for this reason that we come here with reverence and awe, in need, and in thanksgiving, in joy and in sorrow, in faith and hope. It is why being anywhere else when the divine presence comes to us is such an unimaginable disregard for this sacrament. It is here in this covenant that we become what God has made us to be. The place is irrelevant. It can happen here, in a tent, on the back of truck, in the simplest of places or the grandest of Cathedrals but what happens is the Eucharist, the covenant in which God and God’s people dwell together, and we become what God wills and desires.

I am coming to understand in these years of my life what an ancient Christian writer once said: God does not see what we have done, or what we have thought. God only see what we will become. The only way to go to hell is to fail to become what God has willed and desired us to be. What Jesus gave his life for was the will of the Father, not that he should die, but that we should all be one as he was one with the Father and the Father with the Son. Here we become one, when we leave behind our private little lives to come together as God’s people. Here we enter into the new Temple: the Body of Christ, and in that Temple, we become what God has from the beginning wished us to be. That will not happen if we are somewhere else. To let this happen while we are absent is to place ourselves outside of the covenant, alienated and distant from the divine. In an age and time of individuality and a “do your own thing” style of life, this sounds a bit odd and perhaps silly. In that way thinking, the life, the words, and the Spirit of Jesus sound a bit odd, impractical, and silly.

We run the risk of becoming a people given to exceptions and excuses. Individuality, personal choice, and private fulfillment dominate our moral discourse. We are becoming utilitarians and libertarians. No wonder commandments that disregard pleasure seem cranky and unpleasant. We are mocked as being guilt ridden, but the truth of the matter is, there is no guilt anymore. Real guilt leads to healing reconciliation, growth, and reform. We have made exceptions to every commandment. There are more excuses for killing others than you could sit here and count, and that is only one example: revenge, security of our way of life, are our latest excuses. It’s still killing. We are uncomfortable with all the commandments, and we should be. Law, duties, and responsibilities make us uncomfortable. What is wrong with that? There are some who seem uncomfortable with any law they have not cooked up, but this is a matter of nobility and greatness.

Which is greater and more noble, a spouse who is faithful because they are content, fulfilled, and happy, or the spouse who is faithful in the midst of difficulties, sickness, or hurt? Which is greater? Someone who stays alive because they enjoy living, or someone who continues to live in pain and sorrow because it is their duty to honor the gift of life God has given? 

We must be true to what we are no matter what. Remembering what we are and who we are as God’s people, God’s chosen ones, is what will lead to the fulfillment of God’s will. All God wants is that we be his and his alone; and in fulfilling that wish and will, we shall become one, loving one another as much as we love ourselves. For some that may seem foolish, but God’s foolishness is wiser than our schemes. We will always struggle with this, but since Jesus has promised to remain with us, we can look to him to heal our guilt, and be our joy and our strength as we share in his victory.

March 5, 2012 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK

Genesis 22: 1-18 + 116 + Romans 8: 31-34 + Mark 9: 2-10

The first reading last weekend that opened the word of God for our Lenten Sundays was the story of Noah. Today the story of Abraham speaks to us, then will come Moses, Cyrus, and finally Jeremiah. Central to our prayerful celebration of Lent is the truth and the reality of Covenant. This holy season begins with the first Covenant and ends with the final Covenant on Holy Thursday. As we work our way toward that Holy Night when the God makes his final covenant with us through the Body and Blood of his Son, we shall remember all the covenants that have taken human kind deeper and deeper into the mystery of God’s love for us. The story of Noah is a story of salvation and recreation. It is the story of life’s triumph over death for the obedient faithful. It is a story full of promise through which God is revealed as a promise maker and promise keeper. Nothing is asked of Noah in that covenant. There are no conditions. It is pure gift. It simply introduces God’s promise, and with rich powerful images that speak to every Christian sensitive to the symbols with which we speak, water covers the earth, sweeps away all that is evil, and creation begins a new with God’s promise that death will never come again.

Today it is the story of a father and a son that reveals to us a God who will provide. It is about way more than Isaac’s death. It is about the death of us all. Abraham is not the first nor the last to be put to test. He is not the first asked for a sacrifice, and neither is Isaac. Each of us is required to make Abraham’s sacrifice. We must all face letting go of our most beloved person, task, accomplishment, possession, or joy. Everything dear to us, everything we love, everything given to us by God is subject to death; it’s own and our own.

The essence of the story is this: “Is God good?” and “Will God Keep the Promises?” It is the question that will rise up in our face every time we are separated from what we love. The death of a spouse, a child, a parent, a brother or sister puts that question right in our faces: “Is God good?” We lose a job, we lose our home, we lose our dignity to old age or some terrible illness that robs us of our independence and freedom, and there is one question: “Is God good?” and “Is God going to keep God’s promises?” A physician says to us: “There is no hope, nothing more to do.” and the question in front of us is: “Is God good.”

Abraham is our “father in faith” because he embodies the final act of faith that all of us must make. We all make sacrifices, and we all stand before the terrible separation from all we hold most dear.

The point of remembering this profound yet simple truth is that our God does the same. “This is my beloved Son.” God says from afar. “The only begotten” one of a kind, is not held back by God. God does not ask what God has not done. God asks for mercy, God give mercy. God asks us to forgive. God forgives. God asks us to sacrifice and serve. God sacrifices and serves. God makes a promise, we make a promise. If God keeps that promise, then we shall keep that promise

Just about ten days ago we marked our faces with ashes that remind us that we are going to die, every single one of us. We are going to be separated from one another and from life itself. The simple message in those ashes is: “Get ready.” We also marked our faces with a cross because by that cross we know we shall live. The simple message of that cross is: “Get worthy of it.” which is exactly what this season of Lent is all about: getting ready to die, and getting ready to live forever.

January 29, 2012 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20 + Psalm 95 + 1 Corinthians 7: 32-35 + Mark 1: 21-28

Two weeks ago the Gospel led us to consider the first recorded words spoken by Jesus. Byron led us to reflect even more upon them last week, and today we hear the first miracle story in Mark’s Gospel. It is important for us because it directs us toward what is to follow. Days ago when I sat down with this gospel, I was fascinated by this sick man wondering what in world he was doing in that synagogue. Given the way that society was arranged, I am surprised he was allowed in. He was sick. He was unclean. He was disruptive, unpredictable, frightening, and it seems odd to me that he would have been there. When I got nowhere with wondering about that, two things came to mind: it’s not about him; and when it comes to people being possessed by evil spirits, they were more comfortable than we are. This whole idea spooks us. It is an idea we would rather not talk about unless we’re sitting around a camp fire and want to scare someone. It is the subject of movie thrillers to be viewed late at night, and always with someone else.

But evil and possession is exactly what this story is about. The the first miracle story is a conflict that casts Jesus in the role of an excorsit. In Mark’s Gospel, there are more exorcisms and references to exorcisms than in all the other Gospels. Mark casts Jesus in two ways: a teacher and an exorsit. We get that in this story becasue of where it takes place: a synagogue. It is in the synagogue that teaching happens, and Jesus is there both as teacher and as exorcist. Through these exorcisms, Mark will lead us not just to the revelation of who this man is, but to a growing awareness of who we are in relation to Jesus.

In this conflict story the crowd simply comes to wonder who he is. They do not make up their minds. They go away wondering where he got the power he has, becasue they can tell it is unlike any power and authority they have ever seen. In a later conflict story, they will continue to wonder, but among them will be some who have decided that his authority comes from: “Belezabub” or “Satan”. But that is going to come later. What gets their attention and causes their wonder is that he simply speaks and the evil spirit obeys.

At this time in human history, all illness was considered a possession, and exorcists were to them what doctors are to us. The exorcists of the time worked hard to cure and expel the evil. They would use incantatons and all kinds of dances, and herbs, potions, and tools to drive out the evil. They would sometimes even beat and scream at the person they were curing. Jesus does non e of that. He has no formula or incantation. He invokes no higher power or authority other than his own. He says: “Be still.” “Quiet”. “Come out.” This is the cause of great amazement. Jesus accomplishes by his word what others might spend days or nearly kill someone trying to accomplish.

Making matters more amazing is the fact that he does this without any reference to the Law or the Prophets. Teachers and Exorcists at that time always based everything they did on the scriptures. This made him a controversial figure. He did not behave like every other teacher. In fact we get a further and more clear sense of this when we remember the Sermon on the Mount with his repeated use of the phrase: “you have heard, but I say to you…..” He is claiming personal authority relying not on the Law and the Prophets nor on any other Rabbinical figure.

Now we like to think of Jesus as teacher, and we are programed to think of ourseleves as his disciples. I believe that thinking only of Jesus as “Teacher” and ourselves as “Disciple/Students” is to get only half the gospel. Mark would have us also see Jesus as “Exorist” leaving us to be the “Posssessed.” We must not shy away from that idea and cannot afford to refuse the role. We are possessed. We need the exorcist. We are possessed by all manner of evil that leaves us helpless and disoriented. We are possesed by materialism, consumerism, selfishness, all kinds of idiologies that compete with Gospel values. We are possessed by infidelity, immorality, laziness and pleasure. We are addicted to commercialism, technology, poronography, gambling, alcohol, drugs and way more besides. 

It would be well for us to take seriously our own possessed condtion for none of these evils is cast out easily. A month from now Lent will be begin. There will be no better time to call upon the exorcist, and perhaps letting His Word set us free. What he says to that man in the synagogue, he still says to us: Be Quiet. Be Still.

December 18, 2011 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK

2 Samuel 7: 1-5,8-12 + Psalm 89 + Romans 16: 25-27 + Luke 1: 26-38

In the first chapter of Saint John’s Gospel the future apostles are spreading the word about a man they are calling “teacher”, and some of them are getting their friends and some family members to join them after hearing John the Baptist’s testimony. Two of them named, Andrew and Peter are from Bethsaida, and a friend of theirs named Philip from the same town has become interested, and he goes out to find a friend of his named, Nathanael. When Philip says: “We have found the one Moses spokeof in the law, the prophets too – Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” Nathanial says: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” John 1:46

This little comment in the formation of the apostolic community reveals something about the world into which the “teacher” was about to emerge and the people with which he would begin his mission in obedience to the Father. It was a world that worshiped power, a world that functioned and communicated in a network of infuence, control, and manipulation; where authority came not so much from what you did as who you were like scribes or pharasees, chief priests or elders.

So, the expectation for the one Moses spoke of was one of power and influence. How in the world could God hope to accomplish anything unless God looked for a man with some credentials, some back ground, some connections, some power? The one Moses spoke of was surely going to come from Rome or Athens or Damascus, or maybe even Egypt, but Nazareth? Impossible. Nathanial speaks for everyone. Not only was the world so taken by power and authority, people themselves judged others by how they spoke, their accents, how they dressed, by the friends they had and of course, by where they came from.

It is not difficult to understand this thinking because we still do it. The rich and the powerful, the influentian and the glamerous are still too often our hero images, and it is to that level of personalities that we still look for values, style, and too often leadership, at least in the sence that we often immitate them, and if that isn’t leaderhip, I don’t know what is. When someone comes along like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, we act surprised, and their fame startles us as though we should not expect anyone like a plain looking old lady to affect the lives of millions across generations!

In this was of thinking and this social context, we have to realize that not much has changed in the past two thousand years when it comes to human beings and their expectations. At the same time, not much has changed when it comes to God and how God chooses to work.

God could have chosen from all of creation the most beautiful, influential, and powerful woman. God could have looked into palaces or into the homes of great traders, high priests, and merchants; but no. God looked toward Nazareth. God looked at a virgin promised to another and to an elderly woman who had given up hope of ever being a mother. There is nothing that would recommend them for the role they would play in God’s plan. To me, it seems like the Gospel would have had more credibility and been more acceptable if John and Jesus had been born into well-established families with the means to help their sons impact the world with their messages; but no.In the new world order, the new creation, the beginning of which we are about to celebrate, expected and traditional values, old ways of doing things, and long established expectations are turned upside down, and the process of that has its theme song on Mary’ lips in Luke’s Gospel. For us this Christmas comes as a time to look again at our expectations not only of where Christ is to be found as I suggested with you last week, but more deeply and personally. Christ Jesus is not found among the powerful, influential celebrities of this age. God has not chosen them to reveal God’s plan for this creation. We cannot look to Washington, to New York City, London, Paris, or any of the great seats of power for our messianic hope. We will do better to look in the most unlikley places, perhaps rather than look around and look out, we might do well to simply look within. That is ultimately what God asked those first to do. 

December 11, 2011 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 61: 1-2,10-11 + Psalm is from Luke 1:46-50 + 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24 + John 1: 6-8, 19-28

For a long time I have thought that this incident in John’s Gospel was about John and some curious Pharisees, Priests, and Levites, but I have learned to think otherwise. John’s Gospel more than the other three is certainly no history. By the time this Gospel was put together, the other three were already in wide circulation with their bits and pieces and fragments of history, sayings, and miracle stories. John is a Gospel for today and everyday. What happens in John’s Gospel is still happening: the Word is becoming flesh, the light of the world is still among us, and there are those who testify to the light. Among them are the catechmens and candidates who have seen the light of faith and draw near to it sometimes to the shame of those of us who take it all for granted, and are so inconsistent and shallow in the witness of our lives and so shallow.

One sentence in this passage today leaps off the page and into our face with a challenge that is both intimidating and troubling. “…there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”  There is one among you whom you do not recognize! This Gospel is address to us. This Gospel is proclaimed today as it has been for generations for the sake of asking us and insisting that we look around and realize that we have not yet recognized the one among us! When we do, things are going to be different.

Christ Jesus, the anointed one is still among us, and John calls us to pay attention, to look around, to live with the understanding and the belief that Christ is among us, and perhaps to confess that we have not always recongnized that sacred presence. If this is true and if this Gospel shapes our belief, then our behaviors and attitudes toward one another can bear some scrutiny, and our easy dismissal of others, our disinterest in their plight, their needs and wants, even their human dignity betrays that fact that Christ goes unrecognized, and therefore what he brings and what his presence provides is incomplete.

This is a real issue here. Understanding this Gospel, getting deeper into these verses might raise some issues when it comes to our thinkng and behavior with regard to immigration, to those who live on welfare, to those of different ethnic origins, color, or religion. There is one among you whom  you do nor recognize! If this is so, we need to be careful. We need to be watchful, attenetive, and more open to how Christ presents himself to us. That one among us we don’t like, refuse to forgive, hold in contempt, refuse to acknowledge or take seriously may be the one! If we do not recongnize him, we might need to be a little more careful about how we treat everyone lest in our failure to recognize the ONE AMONG US and end up letting the one starve, or be deported, or go homeless and live with no jobless benefits just because we don’t think they deserve it.

Our preparation for Christmas might be a lot more well done if we ponder these words a bit carefully, for they Gospel words, they are God’s word spoken again today. “There is one among you whom you do not recognize.”

Let me tell you simple little story about a monastery that had falled on hard times. The monks did not talk with one another. No new young people were among them, and people had stopped coming to them for spiritual solace and direction. In the woods surrounding the moastery lived a rabbi in a small hut. On occasion the monks would see him walking in the woods as though he were in a trance, and they would say to each other: “The rabbi walks in the woods.”

The abbot of the monastery had done everything he could think of to improve the spirit in the monastery, but nothing made a difference. One day he saw the rabbi walking in the woods, so he decided to ask his advise. He alked up behind the rabbi. The rabbi turned, and when the abbot adn the rabbi faced one another, both began to weep. The sorrow of the situation affeect them both deeply. The abbot knew he did not have to explain the decline of the monastery, so he simply asked, “Can you give me some direction so the monastery will thrive again?”

The rabbi said: “One of you is the messiah.” Then he turned and continued his walk in the woods. The Abbot returned to the monastery. The monks had seen him talking with the rabbi, and they asked, “What did the rabbi say?” “”One of us is the Messiah”, the abbot said slowly. The monks began talking to one another. “One of us? Which one? It is Brother John or Andrew? Could it even be the Abbot?”

Slowly things began to change at the monastery. The monks began to look for the Missiah in each other and listen to each other’s words for the Messiah’s voice. Before long, younger monks joined, and people returned to the monastery for spirit comfort and direction.  End of the story.

Or is it?  What would it be like in this parish if we all began to wonder which one of us is the Messiah? If we began to really listen to each other listening for the voice of the Messiah? What would this city and this world be like, if we were waiting and looking and really expecting the Messiah to return, and allowed that John’s idea is right: there is one among us who is not recognized.

December 4, 2011 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11 + Psalm 85 + 2 Peter 3: 8-11 + Mark 1: 1-8

 It is very likely that you have never realized that John the Baptist’s promise of one who will baptize with the Spirit is never fulfulled in Mark’s Gospel. Jesus never baptizes anyone. Instead, Jesus is Baptized by John who announces a promise of another Baptism. This unfulfilled promise tells us something important about the gospels: the story of Jesus continues into the future. Mark wants us to understand that we are part of the Gospel story. We do not read this Gospel like a history book. We proclaim this Gospel because it is about all people and all times. This Gospel tells us about the beginning of something that has not ended, and it will not end until the “owner of the house returns”.

A baptism of repentence in water and the promise of a baptism in the Spirit, a Baptism of Fire, is what John puts before us at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel in the beginning of a new year of faith. More than repentence is expected. The Baptism of John is not enough. More is to come, and what is to come is not something that Jesus will do, but something we must do. Until we awaken the fire of the Spirit that is within us, we shall not be ready and prepared. This world needs more than repentance.

What we do at that font is awaken the potential, proclaim the promise, raise the hope, and acknowlege who we are and where we are going, but there is more to come. The very presence of Jesus, his word and his work brings the fire of a new Baptism, and lest we think in his absence that it’s all over, Pentecost affirms that there is more to come after the earthly time of Jesus.

Repentance turns us away from sin, and affirms a change of life. In our repentence we acknowlege our anger and hatred, our desire for revenge, our obsession with power, our manipulation of others, our greed and unwillingness to   really help others in need by changing oppressive systems that hold people in the bondage of poverty and ignorance. But acknowledging these things is not enough. That doesn’t change anything. It simply recognizes the mess in which we have been living.

The Spirit reveals that new world, that new heaven and the new earth. The Spirit into which we have been Baptized by Jesus Christ reveals what we have been waiting for and leads and teaches us how to get there. The dawning of the regin of God is not in the future for those who are truly Baptized in the Spirit it has come. It is at hand. 

This is not something done to us like the Baptism of John. This is a gift given to us; the promise of the Spirit that proposes a new way of living in this world: a way of life that revives and lifts up the weary and the worn, forgives, heals, and frees. This is a way of life we can choose, and when we do, watch out! The power of the Spirit will be unleashed upon this world.

What we proclaim in this place now and every time we assemble here is that the Master is coming and we must be ready. While we await the return of the “one who owns the house” as one of the parables puts it, we are busy about things that matter, about what we know he must find when he comes: peace, justice, forgiveness, joy, and charity. He does not make these things happen, we do. It is what we are about now since Jesus has shown us what to do and how to live. 

Our faith, this Advent, our very existence in this world is to transform this whole life into the Kingdom of God, into paradise, into the very holy garden where we live without shame, in obedience, in peace, and in the most intimate presence of God whose plan from the beginning was that we should have no fear, no need or want, and no death.

Our wilderness time is at an end. The voice in the wilderness has spoken the word of repentence. Now it is time to stir up and awaken that Spirit which Jesus has sent to those who are Baptized. In this news, we find reason to rejoice and be glad, for out time has come.

January 13, 2013 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 42, 1-4,6-7 + Psalm 29 + Acts 10, 34-38 + Luke 3, 15-6, 21-22

The culture and the age in which this event takes place believed that a person’s identity depended completely upon the father. This even carried over into biology. They had no sense or knowledge of genes and chromosomes. They thought that at conception the an entire human being was passed from the father to the mother for her nurturing. In other words a tiny but complete human being smaller than the eye could see was passed from father to mother for a time of nurturing. Then at age twelve, the relationship with the mother was over, and the two men began their relationship. When you understand that cultural/historical fact, then the story of Jesus in the temple begins to make sense as a rite of passage, and this story takes on even greater significance, because here, the Father is claiming his son. By this time, Joseph is our of the picture. The work of the Holy Spirit at the conception of Jesus is now acknowledged and settled. This is the Father’s Son. Notice the words: “The Holy Spirit descended upon him in a bodily form.”  In other words, the Holy Spirit was already there, but now visible, active, and effective. Luke will make an issue of the Holy Spirit again and again throughout this Gospel.

We proclaim this Gospel to confirm who we are, and what has become of us because of our Baptism. We proclaim this gospel to one another because those who share faith and life with us are Spirit Born people made holy by the Spirit that has filled us and burns in our hearts when we are together and recognize the risen Lord at this table. We proclaim this gospel to acknowledge and remember that we are claimed by God as His own no less than God claimed Jesus Christ. For having been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we have been, as it were, grafted into Christ and in communion with Him we are God’s own. Because of that, every time we acknowledge the presence of God and pray, we begin In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. When we do that in public, we are signaling to everyone who sees us that we are Baptized. We are God’s own children. We make that sign to draw brothers and sisters who are baptized into prayer with us as God’s claimed and chosen ones.

Young people, hear this. When others look at you and make so bold as to ask if you are saved, or suggest that because you are a Catholic you are not a Christian, get in their face with the Sign of the Cross. It is the fullest witness to your companionship with Christ and fellowship among the Baptized and Saved that God has called His own. If they who question you have any memory at all of their Baptism, they will recognize the sacred formula of that rite for they too were Baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. That is how Jesus commanded us to embrace one another and gather God’s children together.

This world is full of lonely and sad people who do not know or feel claimed by God or by anyone, and this is the surest sign that the work of Jesus Christ is not yet complete. Who is to do it? Who is to claim them, to embrace them, to hold them except God’s own children. This in the end was exactly what Jesus came to do, and it is exactly why we have been privileged and called into this faith.

Once Jesus realized, knew, and understood who he was and what he was as God’s Son, he was free to act with courage, to stand up for the poor, to reach out to sinners, the unpopular, and heal those others feared. Belonging to God frees us all. Once we begin to exercise and live in that freedom, we will have no need to impress others or seek their approval. We will know our gifts and what a difference they will make when we use them for God’s purpose and God’s will.

So today is not just the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. It is the Feast of our Baptism as well. It is the day when we remember again and remind one another that we are God’s chosen ones. We are claimed by our God. We have a purpose, a mission, and everything we need to accomplish that mission. We have a God/Father who will not ask more than he has given. We have a God/Father who will seek and find us even if we stray. We have same Spirit that moved Jesus Christ into his mission which began as soon as he stepped out of that water. We know how to do it by watching our brother Jesus Christ. We know what it will cost. We also know that nothing can stop that Spirit-driven mission, not even death itself for we are a people who live and pray, play and rejoice always In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

May 5 2024

Acts of the Apostles 10: 25-26, 34-35, 44-48 + Psalm 98 + 1 John 4: 7-10 + John 15: 9-17

There is something very profound being proclaimed in this Gospel today. If we really understood it, it might take our breath away at the sheer intensity of what it means for our understanding of God and of the Incarnation. You can’t really have someone as a friend that you do not know, and we don’t make friends with someone for what we can get out them. We know what that’s like, being used.

I am beginning to believe that this failure to understand and know God is the cause of the kind of secular atheism that marks the age in which we live. There is something incompatible with the idea of God as a good and loving Lord and Master and our modern age idea that we are our own masters who work out our lives, choose our values, and what rules to live by. You can’t be that kind of person and be a “slave.” So, God is incompatible with that idea of liberty.

When Jesus says today “I shall not call you servants anymore”, it is God speaking through his Son who is not the same as God. Jesus is the Word Made Flesh. He is “God from God” as we say in the Creed. If we keep thinking that Jesus is the same as God, then forget about the Holy Trinity. 

The mission of Jesus Christ, the very wish of the Father was to restore what is lost through sin, intimate friendship with the Father. Remember how in Book of Genesis the writer describes the relationship between God and those first humans. It was friendship. They walked in the garden together. They talked. They listened. Those first humans before they sinned understood God because they knew they were made in God’s image, and they knew what that was because they were friends. God wanted that restored, and salvation history began.

God’s desire was never to makes us slaves, not even to make us happy, comfortable servants looked after by a kind master who provided anything needed. The aim of the Incarnation was to make us friends, to take us into divine friendship. Think how awesome that is! Yet to really get it, we have to clear about what friendship is.

In friendship there is a very unique kind of love that is not based upon need. Friendship love reaches out to another just for the sake of that other, not for any satisfaction, need, or pleasure. This is the kind of love that unites the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It has been going on for all eternity because, God is friendship, perfect friendship. 

God does not need human beings to be God’s friends, but God chooses to love us with that true and real kind of friendship. God does not get something out of this relationship, and we ought not accept it with the expectation that we are going to get something either. If we say we love God for what we can get out of God, it isn’t love or friendship. At the same time to stop loving God because we didn’t get something is proof positive that there was no friendship love to begin with. We love God because God is God. God loves us because of who we are, not because of what we have done. That is why God keeps on loving us even when we are less than what God has created us to be. 

There is a wonderful kind of high nobility in being a friend, and never more so for us than being a friend of God. Being reminded of that today with this Gospel gives us every reason to rise up with joyful and grateful hearts knowing every minute of every day that we are loved just as we are and that we were loved even before we were born. 

April 28 2024 at St Elizabeth Seton and St Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Acts of the Apostles 9: 26-31 + Psalm 22 + 1 John 3: 18-24 + John 15: 1-8

Not long ago I was reading an article that stopped me at the end of a sentence. I had to put the book down for a while and think about what I just read. “The Catholic religion is a hard one to live in but an easy one to die in.” The writer went on to say that we have to be careful as a church not to turn that saying around. We can fail the Gospel by making the practice of our faith too easy, by sugar coating everything with talk of love, love, love like the Beatles’ song or a Hallmark greeting card. It is about love alright, but when you listen to today’s Gospel, you begin to see that it is about what we might call, “Tough Love.” 

That business about pruning a vine is tough. It’s real, and there is no way or reason to soften it up. Wine can mark an occasion one of great joy and celebration, and a true disciple of Jesus Christ becomes just that for others, a source of joy and celebration. But we cannot be that if we do not allow the vinedresser to prune us. Without being cut, without the hardship of sacrifice and service, without following the Way of the Cross in our lives it is likely that we will become spiritually unproductive, shallow, and just simply pious without any real passion.

When I was leaving the seminary at ordination time, my confessor and mentor for several years advised me to find someone to take his place who had suffered if I really wanted to grow in my faith and spirituality. I have learned the wisdom of that advise. There is just something about being knocked around, about falling down, or suffering some insult or injury that can make a person truly noble, wise, and holy. I think that is why so many of saints had periods of suffering and sadness. It’s not that holiness means being miserable and sad. Those kinds of people could never be a source of real joy and celebration. On the contrary, people who have suffered, who have known pain are really the ones who know and have something to celebrate.

Five weeks ago, we celebrated the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was not until he suffered surrendering his will to the Father’s Will, not until he died abandoned and in disgrace did he become for all of us a source of joy and celebration. Before that he was, to those around him, a wise rabbi who was condemned by the very ones he taught, healed, and wanted to lead to the Father. 

My friends, we follow one who called himself the “vine,” and was himself pruned by the vine grower. Our unity with Christ Jesus must lead us into the mystery of loving service, of sacrifice, and even into the mystery of some pain, suffering, and sadness. Without it, we will have no share in the Resurrection. When we finally surrender to the Father’s will as Jesus did the night before he died, the Father will be glorified, and then we shall know why we are here, not just in this church, but why we are here on this earth and in this life. Every now and then, it might be a good idea to ask that question and remember the answer: for the glory and the honor of God. This is a hard religion to live in, but an easy one to die in if we can just remember why.

April 21, 2024 10:00 a.m. Sunday at St. Elizabeth Seton

St Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Acts of the Apostles 4: 8-12 + Psalm 118 + 1 John 3: 1-12 + John 10: 11-18

Not often I stop and ask myself why I am doing something. That question came to me on Holy Saturday afternoon, twenty-two days ago. If you remember, it was an absolutely glorious day without a cloud in the sky. There was a very light breeze just enough to make the palm trees swish around with that sound I find rather pleasant. A flower bed needed to be dug up, there were dry clothes in the dryer and dirty dishes in the sink. I’m sitting at a desk with this Gospel text open wondering why I’m doing this, and I decided that I don’t ask that question often enough. It must be the same for you. I don’t think we ever ask that question often enough. If we did, I suspect we might do a few things differently or maybe not all.

In that reading we just heard from Act of the Apostles, Peter answers the question about why he is doing something, and he learned the answer from the man who called him away from fishing for fish. He did that for pay. With this Gospel today, Jesus contrasts a good shepherd with one who works for pay rather than for love of the sheep. That’s not necessarily bad except that the one who works for pay may not be much good if danger comes along. He may well be more interested in taking care of “number one” than any of those sheep that probably belong to someone else.

This weekend an invitation is extended to us all suggesting that we give some thought to why we do things: for that matter, why we do anything. Why we are here? first of all, why we use the time we have left in this life the way we do.? There is an attitude that all of us, especially those of us retired, might be find challenging by what we hear today. That attitude is about “deserving.” I can’t count the times I have heard people say to me, “Oh Father, after more than 55 years, you deserve your rest.” 

My reflection on this Gospel lately is that I’ll have eternity for that rest, which seems like a very long time. Right now, the one who is deserving is God, not me or you. What we deserve is sometimes frightening if I think about it seriously. What God deserves is our attention not just in this church. What God deserves is way more than most of us have been willing to provide.

The shepherd working for pay is concerned about what he’s going to get out of it. The shepherd who works for love gets nothing but love in return which is far more valuable. When we start deciding what to do in this life and the question of what we are going to get out of it comes along, it’s time to ask that question, Why?” with God in mind. It might be time to stand alongside Peter and search our hearts until we can explain why it is that we do what we do. 

We can believe a lot about Jesus, but the real invitation and real choice we have is to believe in him, through him and with him which will surely lead us to become identified with him by loving whom he loves and allowing him to work through us. The Jesuit-trained priests who taught me in High School, and many of the Sisters before them always insisted that the letters: AMDG be written at the top of my assignments. It was then, and still is, a very good reason for doing something: For the Honor and Glory of God. If what I’m doing does not somehow very clearly glorify God, I need to stop doing it and do something else that will.