May 2, 2021 at St. Peter the Apostle in Naples, FL

Acts 9, 26-31 + Psalm 22 + 1 John 3, 18-24 + John 15, 1-8

Seven times in John’s Gospel Jesus says: “I am”. There might be a test on this, so pay attention. I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to me shall never hunger.  I am the Light of the World. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. I am the Door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though they may die shall live. I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Then, the final one spoken at the last supper: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Each of these statements can lead us deeper into the identity of Jesus which is exactly what he is doing as he speaks to the apostles and to us today.

The Last Supper is the only place where Jesus uses the image of the vine, but it repeats a theme that echoes throughout the Gospel of John. It is that Jesus “stays” or “remains in” his disciples, and that they “stay” or “remain in” him. For example, when Jesus asks the first disciples what they want, they do not ask him “Where are you going?” But they ask, “Where are you staying?” It is always about the ongoing presence of Jesus within his disciples. It is always the revelation through Jesus Christ that God is with us. God stays. And so, it is always about relationships. Jesus speaks of his relationship with the Father and the Father’s relationship to him, and then he speaks of our relationship to him and with and through him we have a relationship with the Father. In these verses today, Jesus uses an image those apostles could easily understand. They understood the mutual dependence of branches and vines. Each of the I AM statements is an invitation to relationship with him.

When we affirm and remember that relationship, just like the branches that remain on the vine, fruit will flourish. It is up to us. We are the ones who choose to bear fruit or to choke ourselves off from the vine. The vine that nourishes the branches an only do so if we remain on the vine. We have to continually choose who we want to be. We are offered the option of being fruitful branches. The vine, Jesus Christ in his church can only feed us when we choose to stay with the one who stays.

The image of Jesus as the vine with us as branches finishes all the other I AM proclamations. This image goes beyond all that he has said before, and it paints a picture of what he would later pray for: “May all be one, as you Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.” Our faith and our future rests up on our choice to be one, to be church, to be in Christ and through Christ return to the One who has made us and called us his own. In John’s Gospel, belief in Jesus is not an intellectual exercise. It is the motivator of all our activity. A people who are living like branches on the fine will be a people who do something and are identified not by a name like “Christian” or “Catholic” by what they do out of love, and the fruit will be the peace of God’s Kingdom. We must all be doers of the Word, not just readers or listeners, and that is our choice.

April 25, 2021 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Parish in Naples, FL

Acts 4, 8-12 + Psalm 118 + 1 John 3, 1-2 + John 10, 11-18

As we near the end of this Easter Season, there is no longer time nor any excuse for facing the dark reality that gave us this joyful season. It’s time to think about, reflect upon, and hear about death, which is challenge when these verses are turned into romantic ideas about a sweet and gentle shepherd. This is a shepherd who talks about laying down his life. In plain language. He’s talking about death.

This is something many will go to any extent to avoid. I can’t begin to count or recall how many times in my more than fifty years as a priest I have come to comfort survivors only to realize that they had never thought about death, never accepted the inevitable, and never put together a plan for how to approach this experience. In some ways, I have decided that this is the consequence of some bad thinking about death as though it was an end rather than a beginning or a transition to a different way of living in eternity. As I have aged and get closer to my own death, I occurs to me that giving some thought and actual planning for death is a kind of ultimate act of faith. Emphasis upon the word, Act. There are lots of words of faith. The Creed is an example of lots of words. At Baptisms and Confirmations, and at Easter after each article of the Creed, we say: “I Do.” I think it might be important to ask: “I Do What?” Sometimes it means doing something over and above meaning, “I Do Believe.” If we believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting, it means that we no longer see death as an end, and so, we might prepare for it just like we prepare for a vacation.

In this Gospel today, John proposes for us through the words of Jesus how it is we might prepare for life everlasting. There is clue when Jesus speaks of laying down his life insisting that he does this freely, voluntarily for his sheep. With that, we get one more grand revelation about the very nature of God. For the God Jesus reveals is a God who freely and willingly gives up his only son in order to embrace us all as God’s children. It’s all about renunciation. It’s all about a willingness to let go, to lay down anything and everything for the sake of this divine love.

Too often I have stood over a sick and dying child and heard a parent in desperate love saying they wished to trade places if they could keep that love alive, willing to die for their child. In that moment, through that experience, what Jesus reveals about the Father becomes real. Love is no longer an idea, a wish, or a dream. It takes flesh and becomes something we can understand and believe. It also become something we can do.

It’s all about renunciation, or call it sacrifice, if you wish. It is about the ultimate act of love. What is it we do? We renounce, we lay down, we cease to live for ourselves. It is how we prepare and how we can practice for death, by dying to self.

Our tradition is filled with stories of holy men and women who practiced and prepared for death by renunciation. Francis of Assisi renounced everything and so when it was time to pass over into new life, he could slip through that proverbial eye of a needle. Yet I have found that this model of Francis leaves us to think that it is material things we have laydown or renounce. With that thinking we are in trouble.

There are more things intangible that we lug around this life weightier and more cumbersome than clothes, shoes, jewelry, homes, cars, and all the stuff that fills our garages and storage facilities. Practice for death, preparation for that inevitable moment might be better served by renouncing our racism, our grudges, our prejudices, haughty attitudes and privileges. There is where it can begin, so that without these obstacles to love, we might enter more profoundly in the mystery of God’s love and ready ourselves for that moment when we shall become more like God living eternal life.

All of this is seen and revealed for those who stand in faith before the cross. There is radical frugality and simplicity in the modern world of consumerism and secular materialism. What can there be in all of us except a wave a deep gratitude. That sacrifice or renunciation is the royal path for all of us who want to know this love. It is the way we can recreate ourselves in the image and likeness of God. It cannot be done all at once nor is it a one-time deal; it is a daily decision, motivated by love as a response to Love’s invitation. St Francis new a secret: whatever he laid down willingly, the Father would honor and bless abundantly. During the remaining days of this Easter season, let’s set our hearts to discover that secret as well.

April 18, 2021 at St. William Parish in Naples, FL

Acts 3, 13-15, 17-19 + Psalm 4 + 1 John 2, 1-5 + Luke 24, 35-48

There are only three more verses to Luke’s Gospel. We’re at the end, but as with most endings, it is really the beginning. What begins now is another revealing story of God’s love and mercy. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have given the world their story. Now it is ours to tell for that is what Jesus has to say in this, his final appearance before the Ascension. The old gospels are a good start. They tell us what to look for, and they give some images with which to work as we respond to what is really more than a request. It really a command.  He doesn’t tell us to go to church. He doesn’t tell us to fast and abstain, and he doesn’t tell us to keep the rules. He opens our minds to the scriptures and tells us to witness to what we have seen. His instruction to those in that upper room was to remain there until they were clothed with power from on high.

My friends, I believe that this is why we are here. This is our upper room. It is here that we must be clothed with power from on high for one reason. To become witness to all we have seen and heard. We keep coming back not because we have failed to receive that power, but because we may have grown weary with the witnessing. We come back to remember when we may have forgotten. We come back to be refreshed by one another, to encourage one another, and to be renewed by the Spirit of joy and peace that we bring here sometimes and find here to share.

Day in and day out we get battered about by all sorts of things that can test our faith and challenge our hope. Bad news is all around. Friends get sick and some die. Relationships collapse. Jobs are lost. Lies are told. Dreams vanish. Where shall we go but back here to our upper room. Here we open our minds once again to the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Here again we come to understand the scriptures. Here once more, we celebrate the Christ/Messiah who suffered, died, and rose from the dead. Here we proclaim the forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations.

All of those things that test our faith and challenge our hope are still around. They are still out there. The death and resurrection of Jesus did nothing to change all of that. It’s all still there, but what can be changed if we continue to gather in this upper room is how we look at and live with all of that. People without faith or people who have nowhere to go, who have no upper room, quickly become cynical, negative, and defeated. But we who assemble here again and again even when we don’t want to slowly, year by year become a people of hope. We are a people who never need say: “We had hoped” with all the sadness and disappointment those apostles felt on their way out of Jerusalem. I’ve always thought that their problem was that they were going the wrong way. They were headed out of Jerusalem away from that place where they had experienced such a tragic challenge to their dreams. We can’t run from any of the tragedies of life, but we can fall back on what we have learned from the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Most of all, we can fall back on what we have learned from this Rabbi who is still with us, who has known every tragic disappointment this world could throw at him.

His risen living presence stirs our deepest hopes, restores our fondest dreams, and binds us up again when we have been broken, pulled apart, and abandoned. The hope with which we live our lives is the witness this Gospel needs. The Joy that should stir in us every time we gather together is the witness he asks for. Our readiness to forgive, and our readiness to ask for it bears witness to the truth of what we have found in the risen Christ.

The resurrection is the central core of our faith. It is our only reason to hope, and the more deeply we lose ourselves in this story and in this promise, the more we will have to share and the more our lives will themselves be witness enough to awaken those who are defeated and lost. The resurrection is no story of a victory over death or a promise of eternal life. It is a summons to live as a community led by the Spirit, practicing forgiveness and resistance to evil. It takes shape in the bond of our friendship that reaches across everything that can divide us, ideologies, racism, and the great economic divides between wealth and poverty. Christ has risen. With that, everything changes. With the power of that truth, the petty things with which we are so often so busy fade away. Death becomes little more than a stage of life not in any way a boundary or an end. The resurrection leaves us with so many more important things to think about and plan for.

Sunday of Divine Mercy

April 11, 2021 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Parish in Naples, FL

Acts 4, 32-35 + Psalm 118 + 1 John 5, 1-6 + John 20, 19-31

An excerpt from St. Faustina’s Diary says it well: “Help me, O Lord, that my eyes may be merciful, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearances, but look for what is beautiful in my neighbors’ soul and come to their rescue.”

Our Church has declared this day to be the Sunday of Divine Mercy, and with memories of Easter still fresh in our minds, we pick up the Gospel of John almost where we left off last week to reflect upon what God is doing among us and to express our gratitude for the gift of God’s Mercy. There is a risk with this celebration that can lead us away from whole purpose of Mercy Sunday. That risk is simply that some might think this is a day to pray for God’s mercy. I don’t think so. There is no need to pray asking to God be something other than what God already is. In spite of the fact that we often begin our sacred liturgy by crying out: “Lord, Have Mercy”, we are not begging. That’s not what why we say those words. We are proclaiming that a merciful God has already had mercy up on. It is an acclamation about the reason for our assembly: to give thanks for the mercy of God that got us through another week. We cannot say those words out of habit or just memory because that’s just what we do. We must worship intelligently, alert and mindful of who we are and what we are called to become.

The purpose and point of Divine Mercy Sunday then is to inspire or remind us that we who have been so mercifully gifted by faith and God’s forgiveness must become mercy itself just as Jesus was the very incarnation of the Father’s mercy. I am praying today for you to be merciful to me in spite of all my faults and failings. God already has been. I believe that. I am also praying that I will be mercy to everyone I meet no matter how I feel or what’s going on.

Mercy, is a quality of the Divine. The Greek word for Mercy means to get into another’s skin. As we sometimes put it in English, it means to walk in the shoes of another. That is what God did through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. God got into our skin, seeing things through our eyes, feeling them with our heart, knowing them through our experience. That is the only way mercy can work. We become the merciful when we begin to see, feel and experience what another sees, feels and experiences. When we do, mercy is easy. This day is about our mercy because God is mercy.

When Jesus was suddenly in that room as we heard today, it knocked the breath out of those disciples. All they knew was that the body of Jesus was not where they left it. They were fractured and frightened. In spite of what Mary Magdala had said, they did not believe her so deep was their doubt and their disrespect for the testimony of a woman. 

Having gathered there in fear and sadness, it is almost impossible to image how they felt and what their Joy was really like. I guess it would be what we might experience if someone we loved deeply suddenly was with us talking to us again after we had buried them. John tells us that Jesus breathed on them. It was a moment that brought them back to life just as God had once breathed on all that was created.

And then comes his final request, forgive. That is the finest gift of love, forgiveness. It is the most essential and necessary expression of love, the ability, the desire, and the readiness to forgive. That is what Jesus was doing in that room, he forgave them for leaving him, for denying him, for not listening to him, and for wanting to do things their own way. Forgiveness is the ultimate expression mercy. In a family and in a society, it can inspire and encourage radical change. It is the only way to Peace. It is the only way we can finally live as God intended, in peace. 

April 4, 2021 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Parish in Naples, FL

Acts 10, 34, 37-43 + Psalm 118 + Colossians 3, 1-4 + John 20, 1-9

There was an empty tomb, that’s for sure, and nobody seems to have denied it. For some there was no Christ to be found, yet for those whose testimony we hear today and, in the weeks, to come, there seems to be no doubt that he has risen from the dead. The change that came over those witnesses is unmistakable. After fifty days, at Pentecost, what came over them is nothing less than astounding. They had come to realize that while he had departed from them he had returned to them in their hearts. He left, but he is here and because of it, we are here. The power of the resurrection is not something to be experienced when we close our eyes in death or when Christ comes again. It is now.

The birth of God’s Son in time and in human flesh and blood shows us that we have within us because of our blessed human nature God’s loving presence. The Incarnation, the coming of God’s Son into human life is a powerful gift that can allow us to see God in all creation and in every other human being. God is one with God’s people is the mystery and the message of Jesus Christ. This is not something we earn or deserve. It is a gift of love from the source of love, and the gift transforms us into what we were meant to be, God’s dwelling place.

With the resurrection, we are drawn deeper into this wonder of God’s friendship. The very living glorified presence of Christ shows us that we too are much more than we sometimes think and show to others. There is about us depth and purpose that goes far beyond what we have, where we live, and what we look like. The resurrection touches the very core of who we are. The resurrection touches our very identity and our purpose for living from day to day as breath by breath we are transformed into Christ. We can’t stop it or resist it and remain in existence. It is what we were created to be and called into life to become.

The divinity of Christ in human nature brings us the corrective that we need to lift us above selfishness and sin. It turns us away from ourselves and awakens us to the divine spark, the divine life, the divine breath that is within us.  What we can celebrate today is that living presence of Christ pointing us to what we need in order to live in the Kingdom of God. Christ is not sitting somewhere up in heaven like some observer or some judge measuring what we say and what we do. When we proclaim that Christ has risen, we are proclaiming that he lives within us. By that faith, we can see, we can think and we can act as Christ, but it is not automatic. We must make a choice to act on the power within us.

What a real celebration of Easter demands is that we have begun to claim our identity as men and women chosen by God. Embracing that truth changes everything, and then everything we do has depth and greater meaning. God’s perfect love lifts us up and transforms us into what we really are not who we want to be or think we need to be.

Let this Easter celebration that draws you into this space and into this company give us all a fresh new way to think about Christ and God’s love for us. May it give us a new way to think about who we are and why so that we may come to realize how important it is to preserve or restore our relationship with God and all God’s children. This is the real cause for Joy today, and it is an even greater cause for us to work all the more tirelessly for the sake of the Gospel working to rid this world of injustice, making sure that everyone has a home and deserves defending at all costs because of the dignity and sanctity of every single human life. It is all because we believe that Christ is risen, and we find him and see him now in all creation and all of God’s people. This is ultimately what we mean when we say Christ is Risen, Alleluia.

Happy Easter, my friends. Like everyone else, I’m looking for Christ, and all I can find and see is you, and the more we come to realize who we are, that will be good enough for now and I won’t need to look into an empty tomb or any further than you living here with me.

March 28, 2021 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Parish in Naples, FL

Mark 11, 1-10 Before the Procession

Isaiah 50, 4 -7 + Psalm 22 + Philippians 2, 6-11 – Mark 14, 1 to 15, 47

She is the one who proclaims this Gospel Good news. She is the one telling us without a word who it is that has come among us. When all the others are avoiding the truth, living in denial or fear, she defies the inconsistent fickle crowd in which we too often find ourselves. We might let her lead us through this week, and renew our faith, our courage, and our spirits because we have nothing to fear from the truth, and everything to gain from the one who hangs before us, who loves us enough to die for us. Let her story be proclaimed to all the world today because we believe that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ……..

There is one person who stands out of the Passion account in Mark’s Gospel who has no name and says not a word. She is the one true believer who stands in sharp contrast to all the rest who in their cowardice, ambition, fear, and greed permit the greatest act of injustice in all of history: the murder of the Son of Man. The cast of characters is a cast of shame exposed by woman from Bethany with an alabaster jar.

It is no clay port. It is a precious jar, this “alabaster”. There is something about this jar and its contents that speaks of extravagance. She breaks it so that all the oil will flow out. It is not a common oil. Mark tells us that it was costly spikenard. All of it, every drop, flows over his head. Now he is the anointed one, the Christ. What others have denied, she has proclaimed. What others have refused, she has embraced, and he tells us that wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told I memory of her. We have just fulfilled that prophesy.

Yet, proclaiming it, telling the story, is not enough. We have to believe what she believed, and we have to act as she acted out of that belief. Unlike the disciples who ignored and lived in denial when he spoke of his death, she is there in public taking the ridicule of others. Unlike the fickle crowd who one day shouted “Hosanna” and then on another “crucify him”. She stands silent yet steadfast not the least bit concerned about their opinion or their judgement. She knows. She believes that this is God’s anointed one who taught and revealed that love was the only law of life.

She is the first of the women who stood at the cross and came to the tomb. The men were hiding. A woman who counts for nothing in the eyes of that world shames the power of Pilate, the greed of Judas, and the ambition of Herod. Unashamed to recognize the Christ that Peter himself denies, she steps out of that crowd easily manipulated by lies and fear. She is not threatened by the truth.

March 21, 2021 at St. Peter the Apostle in Naples, FL

Jeremiah 31, 31-34 + Psalm 51+ Hebrews 5, 2-9 + John 12, 20-33

If you count yourself among those who want to see Jesus, I invite you to join me three nights this week and explore how Jesus is to be experienced through initiation into the Church and into the Body of Christ, how Jesus is to be experienced through the church in mission, and finally how Jesus can be experienced through healing and forgiveness just as he was experienced at the beginning of his mission.

Let’s get this Gospel set in place. The context is important. When this twelfth chapter begins, Jesus has already entered Jerusalem with that great crowd and their palm branches. On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus stopped in Bethany and raised Lazarus from the dead. In writing this Gospel, John leads us to believe that the crowds that met Jesus at the gate of Jerusalem were there because of this last great sign. The two verses before today’s reading say this: The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. The Pharisees then said to one another, “You see that you can do nothing; look, the world has gone after him.”

With that, we have these Greeks coming up to Philip asking to see Jesus. We must pay attention to what happens. Philip goes to Andrew and then Andrew and Philip went to Jesus. What we have here is John’s suggestion that access to Jesus is through the apostles, and introducing these Greeks and their desire to see Jesus sets the stage for the universalism that will be the world mission of the church. And so, Jesus says: “This is the hour.” The drawing of all persons to Jesus now begins. As he predicted, the other sheep not of his fold are beginning to come. But, we never know if that day the Greeks got to see Jesus. They simply fade away in the narrative because it is not clear that seeing Jesus is the same as believing Jesus, and Jesus has already expressed his frustration over people coming to watch him and not make the last step to believe in him which is going to involve dying to self and rising to new life.

So, rather than just say: “Come on in”, Jesus launches into a powerful and faith challenging discourse on his death which might put some of the spectators off if they are not ready or willing to go deeper.

There is something in all of us a little bit like the Greeks. We want to see Jesus. In fact, a lot of people, more than us, would like to see Jesus. Some just for the spectacle, the signs and wonders. Some would like to see Jesus because they want to believe and experience the salvation he offers and the new life he has promised. If you count yourself among those who want to see Jesus, I am here to suggest that it’s possible, but like those Greeks, you’re going to have to go through the apostles. In this case, the apostolic church. The way to see Jesus for us today is through the church and her sacraments. These are what he left us. These are the tools the church has at hand to lead us all to see and to believe that Jesus is among us.

For three nights this week, I have been invited to explore the Sacraments of the Church with you as we move into the final days of this Lent. Our annual parish mission begins on Monday evening at 6:00pm here in the church. Monday I shall speak about the Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion. Tuesday night I will speak about the Sacraments of Service: Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony. Wednesday night I will speak about the Sacraments of Healing: Anointing of the Sick and Reconciliation.

Opening of the Lenten Parish Mission

March 13 & 14, 2021 at Saint Agnes Church in Naples, FL

2 Chronicles 36, 14-17, 19-23 + Psalm 137+ Ephesians 2, 4-10 + John 3, 14-21

A favorite and frequently recurring theme in John’s Gospel is the struggle between light and darkness. You may remember that Nicodemus first came to Jesus in the night, and as his faith grew stronger, he emerges from the darkness coming to Jesus again in the day for more and more instruction. He is drawn to the light. His experience and the struggle between light and darkness reveals the drama in every Christian’s life. We are all faced with an inescapable choice. We are constantly confronted with choices we cannot evade. We must choose and keep on choosing. Of course, the ultimate choice is to believe. Nicodemus made that choice, and we have too, or we probably would not be in this church. We also know that it is not a choice made once and for all, because time and time again we are tested by tragedies and plagued by doubts.

One of the most often quoted passages from the New Testament leaps out of our readings today. I can’t imagine anyone who has not been to baseball or football game and not seen it. It sometimes shows up on our TV screens when the cameras pan the crowd. Someone will be holding a homemade sign that simply says: John 3: 16. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” While I admire that enthusiastic evangelism, I also suspect that there is a serious misunderstanding about what exactly that “eternal life” means in John’s Gospel. In the language of John’s Gospel that Greek word: Zoe Aionios is not simply unending or posthumous life. This “ion-life” of John is “new life”, life with God that one enters with Christian Baptism. In other words, you don’t have to stop breathing to enter into Zoe Aionios.

I just gave you a preview of what you might experience and learn during the upcoming Parish Mission. I am going to talk about what this new life with God looks like, and what it is we actually become when we come to faith in Jesus Christ. We become Blessed. So, I am going to unfold the Beatitudes with you by paying close attention to the Greek words that Matthew uses in the Sermon on the Mount. Contrary to what many might want to think, his Beatitudes are not glowing prophecies or pious hopes of what shall be. They are exclamations of what is. It is not for some future world postponed either. Beatitude is the state in which a Baptized person has already entered. They proclaim the conditions in which people of the Covenant live. They are not about someone else or about some other time. They are about us. If you want to find out how to be holy? Internalize the Beatitudes. When you recognize someone who is holy, you have recognized the Beatitudes being live. So, that is exactly what I want to explore with you three nights this week: the Beatitudes that can lead us to a holy life just as they led Nicodemus to the light that was Jesus Christ.

The Beatitudes draw a strange and challenging picture of one who is blessed: they are poor and unimpressive, hungry and in mourning, trodden on yet able to make peace. Again, the Beatitudes are about me, now someone else. “Blessed are you” is the way it goes. It does not say “Blessed are those poor.” Nicodemus, a rich young man, and many others come to Jesus wondering what it is they must do to be saved. That question is asked by this world that always thinks you have must earn everything or deserve something because you did something. This is the kind of thinking that Jesus came to confront and challenge. With the God that Jesus reveals, it’s all about grace which is a gift not earned, but freely given. If it’s earned, it is a reward. That’s not grace. We must learn to live in the beauty of this grace and assume the attitude of someone who lives in the state of grace. When we feel ourselves poor, humiliated, desperate and all the rest of it, we will qualify for the label “blessed.” If you want to count yourself among the blessed and discover what it really means, come and join me this week. 

March 14, 2021 9:00am at Saint Agnes Church in Naples, FL

1 Samuel 16, 1, 6-7, 100-13 + Psalm 23+ Ephesians 5, 8-14+ John 9, 1-41

In a striking and confrontational contradiction to popular thinking, Jesus challenges the idea of the time that God punishes sinners by inflicting terrible things upon them, like leprosy or blindness. Sadly, that terrible idea has not vanished entirely from the thinking of some. A lot of people like to think that way about the tragedies that strike out of nowhere when they look at others, or sometimes in self-pity wonder “what have I done wrong” or “why is God doing this to me.” That kind of thinking continues in spite of everything Jesus had to say and done. He never says it more clearly than in the incident we have just proclaimed. That man was not blind because he did something wrong, was bad, or because of his parents. That blindness, as with many tragic events, was an opportunity for God to be revealed in glory and in mercy. I’ve seen it time and time again. When I was teaching in a Catholic High School, one of our seniors was thrown from his car in a tragic accident that left him a quadriplegic.  That young man’s courage and faith through it all transformed the most cynical and shallow classmates into awe-struck believers at how God could inspire and lift up someone whose whole future was changed in split second. Instead of raising money for their prom that year, and raised money to add a handicapped accessible wing on to his parent’s home. I stood in the midst of the smoldering wreckage of Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. In the middle of that chaos, a man with furry in his eyes ran up to me, got right in my face and said: “Hey Preacher, where is God now?” I said, can’t you see him crawling around in that rubble looking for his children?” That man stormed away, but I could see God, a God of mercy and compassion mourning the death of his people.

All those Pharisees and “leaders of the people” could see was a threat to their power, their prestige, and authority. They could not see the truth. They could not see what that blind man was gradually able to see. From a “man called, Jesus” to a “Prophet” to his “Lord”, that man began to see, and what had been his affliction became the means by which the visible works of God could bring someone thought to be a sinner or the son of sinners to believe. They threw him out of the synagogue. Jesus welcomed into the Kingdom where the Blessed are to be found.

Three nights this week, I am going propose to you how God’s works can be visible as I explore Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. Some might think that the poor, the mourning, the persecuted, the hungry and thirsty are to be pitied. I want to suggest something else to you. What I believe Matthew proclaims is that the poor, sad, persecuted and hungry are really a revelation of what God is, Blessed. After all, isn’t that what we proclaim when plate of bread and cup of wine are lifted and we say: “Blessed are you, Lord God…” What we have in the Beatitudes is a description of God. What I hope you might discover three nights this week is that the Kingdom of God is rooted in the mystery of the one who proclaimed it and proclaims it still, the Lord Jesus Christ. He, a poor and persecuted, suffering servant, was meek and pure of heart. He hungered and thirsted for his Father’s holiness He touched the depths of human and divine sorrow, and alone showed perfect mercy. 

My friends, it is only because we share his spirit that we can hear his words, accept them, and like the blind man today, gradually and painfully be ourselves transformed into the Blessed. There is only one place where the poorest and meekest of true humans is found, on the cross of Golgotha. The fellowship of the beatitudes is the fellowship of the crucified. With him his followers lose all and with him they find all. It is there, at the cross that we see the ultimate expression of Beatitude. It is there we see the poor the meek the merciful the peace maker and the persecuted. It is there that we see the ultimate beatitude. His Son, giving everything for us, is an ultimate act love. Dying to self makes our lives a Beatitude a full and free gift of ourselves to be the blessing of God to the world.

March 7, 2021 at St. William Church in Naples, FL

Exodus 17, 3-7 + Psalm 95 + Romans 5, 1-2, 5-8 + John 4, 5-42

The people are weary; they have been on the march for a long time, they are fatigued and have nothing, they have no sense of unity, no organization. They forget their past slavery in Egypt, and do not remember the Lord’s constant are for them. They grow angry and complain. They cry out “Give us water to drink.”

We tell their story today to open our minds and hearts to hear this Gospel when Jesus himself, fatigued and thirsty finds himself at well in the heat of mid-day in enemy territory. He has no bucket. His companions have gone off in search of something to eat. Then she comes. Probably not for the first time that day. She comes with her bucket at noon. It’s hot, and rather than come in the cool of the evening or early morning, she comes at mid-day when no one else is there to avoid the stares and whispering about her that is constant among the people of that place.  She is sinner. She is laughed at and scorned.

Two conversations are provided in this Gospel.  The first with the woman concerns thirst and water.  The second with the apostles concerns hunger and food.  In that first conversation, Jesus makes it clear what it means to be thirsty as he reverses roles with that woman.  In his presence, the one with a bucket becomes thirsty, and the one who came thirsty gives her a drink. She leaves that bucket behind because, she will not thirst again refreshed by his presence. Without a rude word, a scolding, or any hint of disrespect, he refreshes her and the thirst she had for love that led her through one relationship after another is satisfied as she faces the one is love. 

Then, they bring him food, but he is not hungry now because, doing the work of salvation which is the will of the Father is food enough for him. He hungers not for food, but for the lost and forgotten, the sinful and the thirsty. To the astonishment of those disciples, the whole town comes out in one great profession of faith just days after another crowd without faith full of fear at his power, begged him to leave. 

My friends, we are all weary these days, and some were weary before an invisible virus tested our patience and courage. Many of us have been on the march of life for a long time. We get tired. We get hungry, and we get thirsty. We complain to God like the Israelites, and we forget too easily how the Lord has cared for us. This place where we gather is like that well where sinners meet the sinless one. We hear no reproach, and are not shamed nor scolded by the one we meet here. We stand under this great cross remembering what flowed from his side: the water that bathes and refreshes, and the blood that give us life. We are called once again to worship in Spirit and in Truth, and to profess our faith, like those Samaritans, in the Savior of the World. 

In a moment, the Catechumens will stand before us for our blessing and our prayers. They have come here in one way or another because like the woman of this Gospel they have seen or heard about this one who knows everything they have ever done and loves them still. They are headed for the water. They are headed for the bread of life, and the cup of salvation. We rejoice in their presence. We see in them all own constant need for conversion. These catechumens are hungry and wait with great hope for the day when they shall be among those who are called to the supper of the Lamb.