13 March 2022 at St. Agnes, St. William, St Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Genesis 15, 5-12, 17, 18 + Psalm 27 + Philippians 3, 17-4, 1 + Luke 9, 28-36

I like to imagine that when Abraham told Sarah, his wife, about the vision he had that l day, she looked at him, shook her head and said: “You’re seeing things. You smell like dead animals. Wash up and come in for supper.” I can also just as easily imagine that when Peter, James, and John rejoined the other apostles telling them what they had seen, one them, probably Thomas said: “You guys are seeing things.”

Seeing things is part of what this Gospel scene is all about. Matthew and Mark tell of the same event, but they concentrate on how it affected Peter, James, and John. Luke’s presentation is directed more to the effect this experience had on Jesus. In this chapter, just verses before, Peter has made his declaration that he believes Jesus to be the Messiah.  With that, Jesus begins to clarify what kind of Messiah he would be as he tells them that the “Son of Man” will suffer, be rejected, killed, and raised on the third day. Only Luke’s Gospel tells us why Jesus went up that mountain. It was to pray, he says.

All the major events in the life of Jesus are preceded in Luke’s Gospel by a period of prayer: his baptism, the choice of the Twelve, the mission of the 72 disciples, his prayer in Gethsemane and even at the moment of his death. All the “breakthroughs” in the whole history of salvation occur while people are at prayer. The major figures of the Gospel, Mary, Zechariah, Anna, Simeon, the Apostles at Emmaus, the Apostles in an upper room on Pentecost are all people of prayer. So, we are left to wonder about ourselves and how we move forward in life, make decisions, and what kind of things we see.

At this point in the narrative of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is in Galilee where things are going rather well. Crowds are coming around all the time. They follow him everywhere with great enthusiasm. The carping Pharisees are nowhere to seen. No scribes and picky lawyers are trying to trap him. It’s nice there in Galilee, but he is faced with a decision: stay there or take up his mission and move on to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a place that kills prophets. It’s not all about him either. He knows that his closest and loyal friends may well suffer more than just disappointment in Jerusalem, they may well suffer the same fate he will likely have. Faced with that decision, he goes up the mountain to pray.

All of us are constantly confronted with choices and decisions we cannot avoid. We have to make choices some of them big and some not so big. We sit in front of computer screen and we have to choose whether or not to click on that site that in the end just makes us more lonely. The mail comes and there is one more appeal from a charity. We have to choose whether to toss it or be just a little more generous. A doctor tells a couple that the child they have been waiting for has something wrong, and it’s time for a choice, the easy way or the right way? 

What we learn from Jesus today is that when it’s time for a choice the easy way may not be the best way according to God’s will. What we learn from Jesus today is that when it is time for choices big and small, prayer is the way to move forward.

For Jesus that day, mindful that going on to Jerusalem was going mean a lot of suffering and even his death, thoughts of Moses and Elijah came to him with an assurance that passing over, an exodus, made with trust in God would ultimately set him free and lead to the victory of his mission. These three apostles are the same three that will be invited to the Garden of Olives when the suffering begins. By sharing this time of prayer with them, Jesus prepares them for what it is they see that night in Jerusalem.

This then is the lesson of the Second Sunday of Lent as it seeks to bring about our conversion: We must change our ways and make choices. Often not making a choice becomes one and it is usually the wrong one. Disciples of Jesus can never think that fidelity, commitment, and perseverance will be possible without a great struggle. Love is never possible without suffering and sacrifice, and that is a choice otherwise you’re just a victim.

Moving into the second week of Lent, we probably ought to start seeing things, not things that are not there, but things that actually can be if we make the choice to go all the way even to Jerusalem with Jesus Christ. What we will soon see there is an empty tomb. Some may think we are just seeing things, but the eyes faith not it to be true.

Micah 5, 1-4 + Psalm 80 + Hebrews 10, 5-10 + Luke 3, 10-18

March 6, 2022 at St. William Church in Naples, FL

There is always a risk when we think of Jesus. It is the risk of magnifying his Divine Nature at the cost of his Human Nature. It is serious risk because it mutes the very revelation his incarnation provides for us. That man in the desert, a man baptized and called Son of God was a real human being. What he experienced in the desert was a real temptation no different at all from the kinds of temptations you and I face every day of our lives. Baptism does not keep any of us from temptations. Being children of God provides no safeguard from temptations if you forget who you are. What Luke provides for us in these verses is a look at what Jesus did in the face of temptation so that we might do the same.

Luke implies that the struggle Jesus had to understand and live the vocation of being “Son of God”was both unique to him and applicable to every one of us who are also “Children of God.” What we hear of in these verses is a mighty struggle on the part of Jesus to live as a faithful Son of God.  That is the great challenge all of us face day in and day out; to live as Children of God. The temptation that Jesus faces, and so do we all, is the temptation to put self-preservation ahead of everything else. Thinking that he must take care of himself rather than trust in the loving care of his Father. Jesus knew how to prioritize his needs and wants by placing the Will of God before his own because he was the Son of a loving and provident God.

The devil’s bargain offering Jesus all the kingdoms of the world implied that he would rule as did all the rulers of the day with power and fear believing that being mighty is all there is because “might is right.” Being “Number One” in that thinking is all that matters regardless of what or who you step on, oppress or dismiss to come out on top. That is not the way God works, and neither do his children.

The clever thing about these temptations is that they always seem like good ideas at the time. Satan is a master at disguise slick like fake news, subtler than ads that suggest love comes from having the right car or the right skin. Why not change stones into bread when you’re hungry? What will it hurt? Why not eat that apple if it’s going to make you wise? It’s the easy way. Why not cheat a little here or there? No one’s getting hurt? 

Unlike Matthew and Mark, Luke reminds us at the end that temptation is not a one-time event. Luke gives us a Jesus who, in the face of every temptation, knows that the challenge is to always remember and remain a child of God. That is what Jesus did and we must do the same. As this reality came to me preparing for this moment, I suddenly remembered something my father would often say to me when I would get out of the car at school and even more often when I began to drive. “Don’t forget who you are”, he would say.  What lies at the root of every temptation becoming the cause of all our sins and failures?  The failure to remember. Remembering who we are might be what this Lent is all about as we grow in wisdom and grace to face every temptation that comes at us again and again.

2 March 2022 at Saint William and Saint Peter Catholic Churches in Naples, FL

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

There is a paradox we must face today.  As the Gospel warns us against external signs of devotion, we make one with Ashes.  Fasting, almsgiving, and prayer are the boot camp of every serious religion, not just Christianity. We must enter this season today with solemnity and determination or not do it at all lest we become fake, nothing more than shallow empty shadows of what we could be. This is no “self-improvement” program. It is a real adventure into a desert place like the one Jesus walked into as the Son of God emerging as the Son of Man.

What happened to him there must eventually happen to us all. He faced down the temptation to use his power and gifts for himself. He accepted the role of a suffering servant as must we all suffer and serve others. The forty-day desert we enter must strip us of distractions, appetites that tempt us for treats and entertainment when we could be caring for others. In the desert of these forty days, we must be quiet and listen carefully to the deepest voice within us waiting to hear the voice of the Spirit. It will never be heard above the noise of this world with its advertisements and seductions to feel better and look better. The blaring sounds of entertainment distract us or silence the cries of those who are hungry and homeless. Those sounds must be silenced so that we can hear and answer their call.

We are all temples called this day to leave the noisy outer courts, enter the inner courts, and on to the sanctuary, the holy of holies. There we must kneel in silence before the tabernacle where God dwells. This is the real prayer in which God can speak because we are silent and listen. This is how and where we discover who we really are and why God has called us into existence, given us each a mission, and loved us into the future. Without this, we will never know ourselves and simply be trapped into believing that we are not good enough or are only what others think of us. What matters is what God thinks of us.

This season is serious for us. It is as serious as the biopsy of a tumor might be for the sick. It is the season when we will discover what we are made of in the life-long contest with evil. It is the season that may predict how that contest will end in our victory or our defeat. In that Palestinian desert, Jesus is challenged to follow a path different from the one willed by his Father. It is not different for us. Our culture offers infinite possibilities for remaking ourselves with a priority put on personal fulfillment and material success. We are challenged to live “not on bread alone” or money alone but on the Word of God.

In the end, the same Spirit that drove Jesus into the desert drives, protects, and inspires him to emerge from the desert renewed, strengthened, and ready for his journey to Jerusalem which is not a place, but the Kingdom of God. It can be the same for us filled with that same Spirit. This is the Lenten journey ever remembered and ever renewed. Don’t take these Ashes if you don’t mean to take the journey.

27 February 2022 at Saint William & Saint Agnes & Saint Peter Catholic Churches in Naples, FL

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

A wise Jesuit once taught me that what Jesus warns against is the danger of judging not actions but the human heart.

With that in mind we take up one last time a part of the great Sermon on the Plain from which we have read for the past four weeks. What we have today is a series of three unrelated separate sayings of Jesus gathered into one place. Shorter than Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, this is a short list of absolutely essential components of authentic Christianity. No matter how we may try to restrain ourselves or control our thinking, inevitably, what we think and what we believe gets said.  We talk, and when we do, we reveal more about ourselves than we do about whatever or whoever we are talking about. Our speech reveals our inner nature. 

This Gospel warns that one who is blind to the goodness in others, and who speaks of evil of them instead, reveals their own puny measure of God’s openness to goodness. Those who see only their neighbor’s tiny faults and rush to point them out expose the logjam that blocks their own hearts from receiving and giving God’s love. 

The good tree is not the tree that looks good. It is the tree that bears good fruit, and as Jesus says: “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good.”  The abundant heart expresses itself in abundant deeds, not abundant words which suggests that perhaps, as the Old Testament reading suggests, we all ought to say less and do more. 

Those of us who want to take seriously these essential components of authentic Christianity must truly believe that Christian life is not about searching out the faults of others, but about attacking the greater faults in ourselves.  Our faith is about practice, not theory. It’s about doing, not saying. Religion in the end is a way of walking, not a way of talking. It is about the good deeds of faith, hope, and love, and an abundance of them.  When we cultivate our inner goodness only kind speech will well up and pass from our lips.

In these days when human discourse, courtesy, respect, and honor seem to sink to a new and intolerable low, we must be on guard. One of the surest indications of good or bad in the hearts of people is their speech. The first reading tells us wisely that in adversity one’s inner disposition is revealed. It said: “When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear.” Anyone can speak well of others when all is going smoothly. But those who can resist returning insult for insult when others speak harshly or make false accusation show their real dignity. In every one of us there is a storehouse of evil and of good. What we say and what we do will reveal which is the greater as we look for the good in all those around us.

20 February 2022

As I am out of the country this Sunday, the homily below will not be delivered in person 

It is provided here simply for reflection.

1 Samuel 26, 2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 + Psalm 103 + 1 Corinthians 15, 45-49 + Luke 6, 27-38

It is very important to know and understand the first reading today and the story there describing the conflict between David and Saul. It sets the scene for what Jesus has to say to us in the Gospel today. They both wanted to kill the other, and David has every opportunity to do so, but he does not. He explains this by insisting that the “Lord’s anointed” (King Saul) should not be harmed. What Jesus has revealed to us is that “the Lord’s anointed” is no longer King Saul. It is every mother’s child. 

What Jesus proposes in the verses of today’s Gospel goes against every basic instinct in human nature, but not against divine nature. Do good to those who hate you. That makes no sense at all. If someone steals your coat, give the thief your shirt as well. That’s crazy! As soon as that gets out to the world, you will have nothing left to give. Yet, four ringing commands spring out of this text: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who maltreat you. This is a nothing more than a total rejection of the culture of violence so characterized by a “tit for tat” mentality.  What Jesus gives us is a strategy for breaking the cycle of evil. 

The Love expected of us is not an emotion. It is a fundamental attitude that seeks another’s good and responds to their need. The source of love and the example of love is not found by looking at others like us. It is found by looking at God. It is only by thinking of and examining God’s love that we can find the inspiration to get beyond self-concern and suspicion. God’s selfless love for us is our motivation for loving others even though we know that our love of others will never quite match the depth and the breadth of God’s proven love for us. A people made in the image and likeness of God must exhaust themselves in the effort to be that image.  Only if we love our enemies and expect nothing back will we be acting like God. 

What we are faced with as this Gospel is proclaimed is the most radical obedience that Jesus asks of his disciples. Loving those who victimize us makes us no longer victims but free people whose behavior is now determined by Christ himself rather than the enemy. 

Perhaps the biggest obstacle that gets in the way when we face the challenge of what Jesus asks of us is that we have failed to believe. The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved.  Thomas Merton wrote that “Until we discover that we are loved, until this liberation has been brought about by the divine mercy, men and women are imprisoned in hate.”  We who are often ungrateful and wicked, but who receive God’s mercy and love, can now see in the face of the enemy the face of God.  

13 February 2022 This homily will not be delivered. It is prepared for this reading only. 

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

There is something very important to notice in Luke’s Beatitudes that differs from Matthew, and I suspect that hardly anyone would notice if no attention was given to the exact words. We have so easily blended together the two that we hardly notice that Luke says, “Blessed are you who are poor, or hungry, or weeping, or hated”. Matthew says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” In Luke there is no nuance or need to reflect on what it means. It’s right out there in plane language. Both Matthew and Luke have adjusted their precise wording to their own communities.

Luke’s community was very diverse in social, economic, and probably ethnic background. For Luke, the coexistence of genuine wealth and true poverty in any Christian community is a scandal, and so he cries out with a warning to the rich that what they have now is all they are going to get. Nothing in the future. 

The happiness he speaks of is found among those who are poor because poverty creates interdependence, a sense of the common good. The poor know that they need each other so much so that the only wealth they treasure is the richness of human relationships. They know that when one person is hungry, all people are malnourished. 

The happy people Jesus describes are those who weep, because they never weep alone. There is a solidarity among them while the rich end up isolated, anxious, and defensive fearful that some of what they have amassed be lost or taken from them. They lead a lonely life, distrusting others, suspicious, and often in denial, offended by the Gospel.

Luke teaches us that material poverty is a condition of blessedness, and he warns that passivity in the face of others’ needs leads to everlasting woe. With this teaching on the part of Jesus, he is turning upside down the thinking of the time that still seeps into our time. Poverty then, and sometimes now, was never an indication of blessedness. It was regarded as evil. The poor were thought to be bad or sinful, not favored by God; while those not in poverty were thought to be blessed.

Jesus addresses these words today to disciples who are not among the destitute poor. They are the ones who have the means to be agents of divine blessing to those who are needy. His invitation to disciples is to embrace some form of being poor as an essential aspect of their commitment to Jesus. As the Gospel continues, Luke presents many examples of how to respond and embrace poverty. Fishermen and Tax Collectors leave everything behind to follow Jesus. Zacchaeus will give half of his possessions to the poor. In Acts of the Apostles he will describe how the pooling or resources leads to a community that cares for one another. What is never an option in the Gospel is hoarding for one’s self. 

This blessedness that Jesus holds up is not something for the future. It is for the here and now, and it is a foretaste of what it will be like in the Kingdom of God. No wish for the future for an abstract and unknown group of the “poor”, but a concrete possibility when the needs of real people are known and the resources of the community are shared. I find it interesting to note that in the Acts of the Apostles, when the young church is really living the Gospel mandate, the word “poor” is never mentioned.  There are no poor when people live as one.

6 February 2022 at Saint William & Saint Peter the Apostle Churches in Naples, FL

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

The mission is never dependent on the worthiness of the minister. That is the message we hear three times today, from Isaiah, from Paul, and from a fisherman called Peter. He and his companions have been hard at it all night long. Jesus walks up and suggests that he knows something these professionals do not know. Instead of scoffing at the idea, they try something new. The result is surprising. It is not their first encounter with Jesus. Just a few verses earlier, Jesus has been at the home of Peter and cured his mother-in-law. So, their willingness to let him in get into one of the boats is not too surprising. When Jesus tells them to put out into deeper water after his teaching of the crowd. There is brief moment of hesitation as Peter reminds Jesus that a full night of fishing has brought nothing, and then he says something that is important: “At your command, I will lower the nets.” 

Two weeks ago, we heard the Mother of Jesus say to stewards at a wedding, “Do whatever he tells you.” When they do, water jars filled to the brim become more wine than they could ever consume. Isaiah, Paul, and Peter are three people who did what God told them to do with surprisingly successful results. We do not tell their stories today to sit back and admire them. We tell their stories today because they are not the only ones who can overcome obstacles, discouragement, and a weariness that comes from working without results. We tell their stories today because we believe that their experience is not unique to them or that it takes some great skill to produce surprising results. What it takes is what Peter shows us: let Jesus get in your boat, and do what he asks no matter how you feel about it.  

All of us have come up against what seem to be impossible challenges with regard to our calling in life, our health, our jobs, our families, and sometimes we have given up and quit. The Good News we proclaim today is that it might be possible for us to face that challenge one more time with Jesus in the boat listening carefully to what he tells us. It might very well be something we never thought of before or had dismissed as too hard or too risky. The story of Peter, the story of Paul, and Isaiah ought to give us just enough courage or hope to try one more time or try an approach we had not thought of before.

Those three people put before us today all thought they were not worthy of what God asked of them, but they discovered that worthiness has nothing to do with it when it comes to the mission to which we are called. What I find remarkable and admirable about Peter and Paul is that they never thought they knew it all. They were willing to take the sage advice of trying things in a different way under the direction of Jesus. When they did, grace came. It was the grace of peace. It was the grace of knowing that in spite of unworthiness, or maybe because of knowing and admitting it, great and surprising things happen. 

                                    30 January 2022 at Saint William & Saint Peter Catholic Churches in Naples, FL

Jeremiah 1, 4-5, 17-19 + Psalm 71 + 1 Corinthians 12, 31-13, 13 + Luke 4, 21-30

Chapter after Chapter of Luke’s Gospel Jesus is revealed as a prophet and the fulfillment of all the prophesies before him. So, it should be no surprise that Jesus, the prophet, should suffer the same fate as those before him. Today’s conclusion of the Nazareth Synagogue visit is a preview of how it will all end for Jesus. There is also a warning for all of us who listen to the word of God just as they listened; first with satisfied pride, and then with rage. That crowd drives Jesus beyond the city-walls to a hill from which they can either throw him down or stone him.  It’s a preview of Jesus being taken outside the city walls to another hill where he will hang until he is dead. In this episode today, Luke says the saddest thing anyone might ever hear: “He passed through their midst and went away.” Luke speaks a warning to a church and a people that it could happen again. Jesus could pass through us and go away. We have no claim on Jesus.

The Gospel still has the power to enrage listeners. The Gospel still has that prophetic power that enraged people against Jeremiah, Isaiah, John the Baptist, and Jesus Christ, because the Gospel and all prophesy speaks about what is right and what is wrong. It still exposes injustice and its consequences. Easier to understand because we know the story better is the rage that came from John the Baptist exposing the marriage of Herod whose wife with quiet rage had John’s head on a platter, silenced forever. In our own time we have seen this rage silence prophets who speak about Justice: Archbishop Romero in El Salvador assassinated at the altar in 1980, and a priest from my home in Oklahoma murdered by government forces in Guatemala the next year. 

The rage of the Nazareth crowd was fired up as they realized that what Jesus was saying was about them. They didn’t like it that their privileged position as his townsfolk and as Israelites was not so privileged after all. He was working signs and wonders for people they didn’t like. When they heard that the poor, the blind, and the oppressed were receiving glad tidings and God’s favor, it made them mad.

We have to be careful with our expectations in here. The Gospel is not always proclaimed to make us feel good. Sometimes it challenges us and provides something for our consciences to rethink and examine again. Sometimes the Gospel may force us to change the way we think about things or how we feel. It often challenges us about warfare, about the sacredness of all human life, about how we treat, respect, and defend others who are different from us in sexuality, race, or nationality. My friends, the Word of God is always about love, but sometimes it’s “tough-love”, that kind of love parents know about when their children begin to think they know it all, are perfect, and can do whatever they want.

We just heard about a very sad day in Nazareth. If we fail to accept all the challenge of the Gospel, Jesus himself may just pass through our midst and go away too. So, we must listen even when we don’t want to or don’t like the message.

23 January 2022 at Saint William & Saint Peter Catholic Churches in Naples, FL

Nehemiah 8, 2-4, 5-6, 8-10 + Psalm 19 + 1 Corinthians 12, 12-30 + Luke 1, 1-4, 4, 14-21

If you look at this gospel in the Bible or a Missal, you may notice that what was just proclaimed is actually two parts of Luke’s Gospel put together. What the Church gives us today is two introductions; first to the Gospel as a whole from the first chapter and then to Jesus of Nazareth in the fourth chapter. What was skipped in between was the whole Lukan story of the birth of Christ which we heard in December. 

Now, the hometown boy comes to the Synagogue as he had all his life. The leader of the Synagogue could pick any adult Jewish man to read the scripture of the day and comment on it personally. Sometimes visitors would be chosen just to have a fresh “take” on things, so it is not surprising that the leader invites Jesus to read from the assigned book for the day. He’s been away for a while. The reader could choose the passage. This young man has become a Rabbi, and all eyes are fixed on him. He grew up. He’s been listening to John the Baptist, and he has spent some trying time in the desert. Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit prompted him to return home to Galilee which is up in the northern part of Palestine with a very temperate climate where many things grow easily because there is plenty of water. Life is sort of laid-back.  Nazareth, tucked into the side of some fairly rocky hills might have had about 2000 people, and for the region was somewhat cosmopolitan because three important roads: to the sea, to Damascus, and to Jerusalem passed nearby.

Jesus does what we just did, he takes two separate sections of the Prophet Isaiah and puts them together and reads, then he sits down which is what Rabbis does to talk. His homily began with a simple declaration that this prophesy was being fulfilled in the present. He told them he had arrived as a special one to bring good news to the poor. In his mind he intended to say something revolutionary about a whole new order. The people did not understand. They thought he was saying that they would become masters of their own land again and the Romans would be out. When he spoke of the oppressed going free, they thought it was them who would be set free. They had it wrong. They put themselves on the wrong side of the prophecy.

What was proclaimed that day in Nazareth is still proclaimed in this house of prayer, a mission, a plan, a prophecy about what must be for the Lord’s favor to be known. They thought it was about them, but it was really for them.  When Jesus lays out his plan, his vision of what is the Will of the Father, it’s not just for him. It is for us all. We are the ones who proclaim liberty to captives. We are the one who give sight to the blind who cannot see the goodness of God. We are the ones who give freedom to the oppressed, and we are the ones who proclaim what is acceptable to the Lord. Saint Paul got the point, and we heard what he had to say about it to the Corinthians.

With all of our diverse gifts, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. 

Today is an important word in Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s theology of “today” shows us a way of bridging the deep ditch of history and experiencing the event of Jesus today. As Isaiah informed Jesus about his mission, Jesus, like the prophet of old, informs us of our mission. Jesus concludes by saying that the prophesy is fulfilled in their hearing. It may have been so at that time with Jesus, but what about now with us and with our church? Luke says that the people in that synagogue had their eyes fixed on Jesus. The fact is, the poor remain in our streets, our prisons are overcrowded, and more than half this world is sick with no hope for medications or cures. Their eyes are fixed on us. 

We live in a time that witnesses many terrible attacks on human life. Warfare and genocide have accounted for the deaths of millions of human beings. Abortion attacks 4,000 human lives every day; eliminating an unborn infant only because it is alive. Who, after all, deserve to be born? It has all led to a coarsening of our entire culture’s respect for life: the increasing acceptance of assisted suicide for the elderly and ill; experiment on living embryos, abuse of women, children and the old, irresponsible sexual license; the weakening of families; and the further victimization of the poor to whom society is willing to give abortion rights in place of real justice.

Today ought to be the day when we use another word that Luke uses several times in his Gospel: “enough.” Today we ought to be able to celebrate the favor of God upon us and in joyful gratitude, and take up the mission to which Jesus Christ has led us. Grateful hearts are contagious hearts. The gratitude that draws us into the house of God, this house of prayer, must make us wonder how we can lift up those who are oppressed and how we can gather them in to the bounty of God’s love. I would like to imagine that when we do, their eyes will be fixed on us with joy and with hope, for they will have been touched, healed, and set free by Jesus Christ who lives today in all of us.

16 January 2022 at Saint William & Saint Elizabeth Seton Catholic Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 62, 1-5 + Psalm 96 + 1 Corinthians 12, 4-11 + John 2, 1-11

As I have said over and over again when we proclaim these words of Jesus, we must ask, “What does this mean?” not “How did he do that?” At the same time, we must remember that in John’s Gospel there are no “miracles”. That word is never used. There are “signs”, and this is the first of seven. Remembering that helps in asking the right question, “What does this mean?” In John’s Gospel, these signs, like road signs, point to something. In this case, the signs point to Jesus, and they suggest that there is more here than meets the eye.

In our own reflections, this event may have had several different motives: respect for his mother’s request, kindness to host, care for people, approval of a happy occasion, or even some suggestion of a Eucharistic preview. These are all worth some reflection, but what happened because of this event is probably the most important thing in John’s mind and comes clear in the last verse: “The Disciples began to believe in him.” The bringing of people to faith may well be more important and more significant that changing water into wine. After all, we might ask ourselves, what’s more important, Faith or Wine?

Wine is often an important part of any great celebration. They didn’t drink water. It was not clean in those days. Water was for washing. That is why those jars were there. So, when the wine runs out, the joy is over, and for those hosting the party, it’s a shameful embarrassment. In some ways, that’s the way it is with life these days, there is not a lot of joy, and given the conditions in most of this world, there is not much to celebrate. Wine won’t change that, but Faith will. I like to imagine that Mary and her son were in a rather respectful argument. When he calls her “woman”, the term he uses is the term often used to describe Israel, God’s own bride. John uses that term in this incident to describe God’s people who have run out of joy. In the argument with his mother, he says it’s not time, and she says it is time simply telling the servants to do what he tells them. 

So often, we are slow in responding to the needs of others with the excuses that we don’t have time, or that it’s just not the right time. We put off making changes that might be important or make a difference in this life waiting for the right time; and when it comes to conversion, to changing our lives, or our priorities, that time never seems to arrive.

As we step into this new year, we might let this Gospel and Mary urge us to believe that the hour has come. It might well be the hour when we come to believe that it is time to speak up, shape up, and maybe act up for the sake of people who live without joy or peace or hope. It might well be time to listen the Gospel, look at Christ, and do whatever he tells you. When that time comes, and we can decide when it is, all will know the joy that God intends for all God’s people.