Hello, Church Fans! This past weekend I was privileged to give the homily at the Memorial and Promotion Mass for the Northwestern Lieutenancy of the Knights and Dames of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. It is a great organization with its roots going back all the way to the first crusade. The mission is the same – to protect and preserve the Christian presence in the Holy Land. However, the methods have changed. These days our primary “weapon” is prayer. Our second is to support the Latin Patriarchate in the Holy Land with substantial financial assistance.
Please pray for the Christians in the Holy Land. The Israeli government does not distinguish between Christian or Muslim Palestinians. For more information on the work of the Order click here.
Here is homily.
Tomorrow you will likely get nice homily from the Bishop on what it means to be a Knight or a Dame of the Holy Sepulchre.
This morning I think we would do well to first look at what it means to be a Christian,
by meditating on the Blessed Virgin Mary.
She who is the first disciple.
First, that she is is rightly seen in the context of the Community of believers who pray – and so too should we.
Second, that within that for that Church, she received a special vocation – and so too do we.
Finally, that such a vocation sent her forth into the world to proclaim the Good News – and so too must we.
When the council Fathers were drafting the Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the question was debated for no little time as to whether the Blessed Virgin should have her own document or rather, should be included in the document on the Church itself.
Wisely they discerned that she be included in any discourse we use to describe the Church.
Much of their reasoning is made plain to us in our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles where we see
“…they went to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
We see then, that the first task of the Christian is twofold
To gather
and to pray.
“The whole community devoted themselves to prayer.”
When I left my last parish of St. Patrick’s at the end of June, the parishioner papered the wall with “Fr. Leo quotes” – very few of which are original to me. One of these stood out. It says:
“If it doesn’t begin with a prayer and end with a prayer, it ain’t got a prayer!”
Too often I think, especially for us professional Christians. We get so wrapped up in the work of the Lord, that we sometimes forget the Lord of the work.
We must pause. We must unplug. We must spend time with Our Lord in prayer.
I am adamant, that if you cannot find ten minutes a day for private prayer with Our Lord, your life is out of control and you need to make adjustments.
NO EXCUSES.
I shall say it again: if you cannot find ten minutes a day for private prayer with Our Lord, your life is out of control and you need to make adjustments.
NO EXCUSES.
In the wake of events in the Holy these past two years and in our own county in the last two weeks, we have once again entered the realm of “no excuses Catholicism.”
We can no longer as men and women of the Catholic faith simply try to fit comfortably and anonymously into an increasing secular society which sadly is becoming more and more antagonistic towards the Faith.
The Christian, the Knight or the Dame, cannot charitably engage such a society if we are not first and foremost people of prayer.
In so doing, we must never forget the words of a wise old monk named Aidan Shea, late abbot of St. Anselm’s in DC:
He said, “I have learned that so much of prayer is simply waiting on God.”
And, he added, “I have learned that if I am willing to wait long enough, insight always comes.”
So much of prayer is just waiting on God.
Time is an ingredient.
When I was in the seminary, we had a classmate who had been a very high level nuclear engineer. For some unknown reason, we gave him the task of making the birthday cake. He did some calculations and determined that rather than let the cake sit in the oven at 375 degree F for 45 minutes, it would be more efficient to put it in for 23.2 minutes at 578 degrees F. Well, you know what happened. It was black and charred on the outside and gooey and inedible on the inside. What he did not take into account is that time is an ingredient. So too with our prayer.
The early Church seemed to have a sense of this as they gathered in the Upper Room.
For nine days they prayed and they waited for what the Lord had said to them to be fulfilled.
It is the original novena, and the most powerful.
Time is an ingredient.
Insight comes, and we come to know what God is calling us to do hic et nunc, here and now.
The Blessed Virgin Mary enjoyed a particular, a difficult, and a glorious vocation within and for the Church.
In her immaculate conception she received the grace necessary to carry it out.
In her fiat to the Angel Gabriel, she embraced that vocation.
In the birth of the her divine Son, in his teaching and miracles, in this passion, death and resurrection, she saw that vocation come to eternal fruition for her and for all the faithful.
So much so that the author of revelation, reflecting on such things could say:
NOW have salvation and power come, the Kingdom and the authority of his anointed.
For our purposes today, I would emphasize the word “NOW” in that passage.
There is a temptation to think of the Kingdom only as something that is way off in some far distant eschatological future.
But we must not forget the very words of Our Lord, nor the words of the inspired writer of the Book of Revelation.
The Kingdom of God in our midst.
Now, have salvation and power come.
As Christians, the people in our neighborhoods, schools, places of work and our communities, the Christian in the Holy Land, cannot afford have us simply bank our charity in hopes of future resolution.
As Knights and Dames, we are called to act hic et nunc. Here and now.
I am reminded of the story of the young boy and the starfish – An oceanside village sat on four miles of sandy beach. One night a terrible storm raged and washed up thousands of starfish far up onto the shore. As an old man was walking down the beach and lamenting the tragedy he say a young boy picking up starfish and throwing them back into the sea before they perished in the sun.
“Young boy,” he said, “What are you doing?”
The young boy replied, “I am throwing these starfish back into the sea before they die,” the boy replied.
The old man shook his head, “Son, this beach of four miles long and there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of starfish washed up here. It is sad, but even by your efforts you can’t hope to make a difference.”
Looking defiantly at the old man, the young boy picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, and said, “It made a difference to that one.”
It’s a good lesson for us. Think about it, Christian, if your entire life is spent bringing only one other person to the gospel, is it not a life well spent?
We are called to make a difference, and this is what sends us forth.
In the gospel we see that after she conceived Our Lord in her womb, Mary does not just sit at home, happy that God had shown her such a favor, saying to herself, “I know something you don’t know!”
No, love by its very nature goes forth from itself
And when Love Incarnate is within you, how can you not take him to the world, or at least that little part of the world that you know?
The Visitation is one of my favorite passages in Sacred Scripture.
The Gospel of Luke is sometimes called the “Gospel of Joy”
Especially in its early chapters, it reads like a Broadway musical.
Time and again the action is punctuated as one or more characters just break into song, or dance as we see in the case of little John the Baptist.
how fitting, then, that the late Pope Francis entitled his encyclical, “The Joy of the Gospel.”
Our call as Christians is to take the joy of the Gospel in the world
And if not the whole world, then at least that part of the world with which we will come into contact.
To stand in the truth in love.
Knowing the whole while that if even we but try;
Knowing that even if do it poorly
If we stand in the truth in love, with joy,
There will be those who will find it very irritating.
We may be maligned, we may be slandered.
And God forbid, we may even be excluded…
Or like today’s saint, Andrew Kim,
or closer to home, dare I say Charlie Kirk whose memorial is tomorrow, even worse.
SO WHAT?!
The Christian who stands in the truth in love has no FOMO. (Fear of missing out.)
The Kingdom of God is in our midst.
In union with the Church, rooted in prayer, called to proclaim the Good News here and now,
Let us stand in the truth in love.
Let us proclaim the Good News with hope and joy.
Let us be faithful and true Chritians, Knights and Dames of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, here and now.
That the words of our lips, and the deeds of our hands may play their part in the unfolding of the Kingdom today and unto eternity.