There is the story about a teenaged boy who befriended some missionaries in a small town in Africa. For several weeks they chatted about their work and life in the mission. At one point, the boy asked them about Jesus. So they described the life and ministry of Our Lord to him. At the end of the conversation one of the missionaries gave him a small New Testament and suggested that he read it. To their consternation, the boy did not return for several weeks. Finally, one day he showed up on the steps of the church, asking to speak with the missionaries. They invited him in. He looked them straight in the eye and said, “I have read the gospels that you gave me and I need to ask you one question. Is it true that Jesus rose from the dead?”
“Why, yes,” they said.
To which he replied, “This changes everything! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?!” The young man is right. It does change everything. So why are we Christians so timid about proclaiming the resurrection of Christ? Perhaps it is that we have not stopped to understand what it really means for us and for the world. Let’s start at the beginning.
Principle #1: Whatever Christ encounters, Christ transforms. He did this when he transformed the waters of the Jordan into the waters of baptism. He did the same at the wedding at Cana and at the Last Supper, transforming those rituals in the sacraments we know today. But he did this most profoundly when he took flesh of the Virgin Mary. Christ entered fully into our humanity and thus all humankind is transformed and perfected.
Principle #2: To be a human being is a wonderful thing. We have a body and a soul. No other being in creation is like us. For example, angels are spiritual beings. They do not have a body. We do. There is a strange heresy out there that when we die and go to heaven, we become angels. It makes for great Christmas stories, but it falls flat theologically.
Principle #3: The passion, death and resurrection of Christ not only restored humanity, but transformed and perfected it. By his passion and death we have been redeemed and reconciled to Almighty God. But it is his resurrection which is the kicker. By rising from the dead, he shows us that we too shall rise with him on the last day, body and soul.
Therefore: At the end of the age, if we have died with him in baptism, we will rise with him on the last day. Our final destiny is not to morph into something else. Instead, we become what God has created us to be—perfectly human, body and soul. There is a tendency to think of the resurrection as some future, far off reality, but that is not the case.
As St. Paul says, if we have died with him in baptism, we rise with him in his resurrection. From the moment of our baptism, our life of grace is unfolding, Even now, we are becoming what God has created us to be,
Let us allow God to continue to transform us into what we have been created to be…now.
Christ is risen. This changes everything, right here and now. Let us be people of the resurrection…now.
I’m told that children are no longer taught penmanship anymore, nor are they taught how to write in cursive. What further need have we of proof of the decline of western civilization? I bet Jesus knew how to write in cursive…in Hebrew! Still, I wonder what he was writing on the ground as the religious leaders confronted him with the woman caught in the act of adultery. First of all, we know that they are not genuine in the encounter. They could care less about her offense. If they did, then where is the guy?! The last I checked, it took two person to commit this sin. No, they are simply using her situation to try to trap Jesus so they can have something to accuse him of. They think they have him in a “Catch 22.” If he says they should stone her, then they can denounce him to the Roman authorities as an insurgent. If he says they should not, then they can discredit him as one who does not know or follow the Law of Moses. It’s not so easy to fool the Incarnate Word of God. Instead, Jesus simply bends down and starts writing on the ground. Many scholars have speculated about what he was writing. Was he writing the passage of the Law to which they were referring, thus showing his knowledge to them? Or was he writing down the sins of the religious leaders? The sacred text does not say. It does say that when Jesus says, “Let the one without sin be the first to cast a stone,” they have no response and drift away one by one, starting with the elders. Jesus is the only one present who could cast a stone, but he choses not to. Her guilt is not in question, but neither is the love and the mercy of Christ. This Lent, do I have the courage to stand before Christ honestly and admitting my sins? Can I trust in the love and mercy of Christ who came not to condemn, but to save the world and to show us a better way?
This past week was the annual Statewide Convocation of all the priests serving in Alaska. It concluded with the Chrism Mass for the Archdiocese of Anchorage – Juneau. The Archbishop asked me to give a reflection to the priests before the Chrism Mass. Here is the audio. The text is below. NB, as always, the text is not as expansive as the audio. I hope you find it helpful. Feel free to share.
It was some weeks ago that the Archbishop asked me to share a few reflections with you at the end of the convocation.
I am more than happy to do so, but I am painfully aware that doing so is always a daunting task in the midst of one’s colleagues. As we heard in the gospel Monday evening when Our Lord preached in the synagogue in Jerusalem, “No prophet is without honor except in his native place.”
Never did that become more painfully clear to me than shortly after I was ordained in 1994. I spent the first four months serving here at my home parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe, now the Cathedral, before I headed back to Rome to finish up a degree. It was right here in this very building, which my own father built, that I was confronted my Mary Monahan out in the vestibule before Mass. She stopped and looked at me up and down in my spiffy vestments and said, “I’m supposed to go to confession to him? Hell, I used to change his diapers.”
You are just not going to get a lot of respect from someone who knows you that well.
Still, here I am and happy to be here.
Tonight the Archdiocese will be celebrating the Chrism Mass. As you know two important things will happen.
The oils will be blessed,
And we priests will renew the promises we made at our ordination.
Some of you have done this four times, some fifty-four times. I have done this 31 times. The words and the promises are very familiar to us, but I wonder how much attention to we really pay to these promises that define our lives.
Have we prayed and reflected over them as often as we should?
Perhaps we should do so now.
Because I believe in my hearts of hearts that by doing so we not only prepare ourselves to renew just our vows, but also our priesthood and our ministry exercised within its embrace.
You may recall that on Monday, the Archbishop reminded us that we are in a Jubilee year and the Holy Father has called the Faithful to be Pilgrims of Hope
Many of you have been on pilgrimage at various times with your parish or order or whoever.
And what is one of the first things you do when you arrive in the place where the pilgrimage will take place?
You meet your guide.
So I submit to you that if the people of God have been called to be pilgrims of hope, and they have,
Then they need guides who can show them where hope can be found.
And that, my brothers, is you and I.
But to be a good guide you have to have an intimate knowledge of the holy space to which you bring
We cannot guide others to hope, if we have not been there ourselves.
Furthermore, a good guide must also know his proper role, so that others may come to experience the power of the destination to which he brings them. He must know who he is, so that he may help others become who God has created them to be.
Our vows define us.
They define how we shall live, how we shall love and whom.
So, in understanding them, we understand ourselves better and are of greater service to the People of God whom we are called to serve.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
Why were we first ordained deacons before being ordained priests?
One must be configured to Christ the servant before he can be configured to Christ the Head
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached him with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to her, “What do you wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.”
Jesus said in reply, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.”
He replied, “My cup you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left [, this] is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
When the ten heard this, they became indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus summoned them and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt. 20:20-28)
We can forgive Mrs. Zebedee. She is simply looking out for her two boys. She wants them to have nice cabinet posts when Jesus sets up the government in what she expects will be the new theocracy in the reestablishment of the Kingdom of Israel. Like all the people at that time, she has yet to understand the immensity and transcendent nature of the Kingdom God preached by Jesus.
But Our Lord is very clear, the exercise of authority in the Kingdom can only be understood within the context of service.
Abbot Jeremy pointed out very eloquently yesterday this same thing when he explained the meaning of the Ritual of the Washing of the Feet during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper.
Like Christ, the priest does not come to be served, but to serve. Thus, we are ordained deacons, configured to Christ the servant, if you will, before we can be configured to Christ the head.
Authority in the Church, or anywhere else for that matter, can only be exercised in the context of service. Any attempt to do otherwise is doomed to failure and as we have seen so painfully since 2002, will have devastating consequences for the people of God..
At our diaconate ordination, we made three promises:
For celibacy,
For prayer
For obedience.
These are lifetime commitments to God and to his People. They are the foundational promises on which is built the framework of our priesthood.
The ordaining prelate asked us:
“In the presence of God and his Church, are you resolved, as a sign of your interior dedication to Christ, to remain celibate for the sake of the kingdom and in lifelong service to God and mankind?”
Now you and I both know that this entails more than simply foregoing marriage and promising to live a single life.
It is the total a commitment of oneself, body and soul, to the People of God.
In a way, it is a type of covenant.
Covenants, as you are aware bind persons, or groups of persons – families, clans, tribes, nations. In the Old Testament, covenants were serious business. They still are. They were always established in blood. On the second Sunday of Lent we heard these words:
The Lord God took Abram outside and said,
“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.
Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”
Abram put his faith in the LORD,
who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.
He then said to him,
“I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans
to give you this land as a possession.”
“O Lord GOD,” he asked,
“how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
He answered him,
“Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat,
a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought him all these, split them in two,
and placed each half opposite the other;
but the birds he did not cut up.
Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses,
but Abram stayed with them.
As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram,
and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.
When the sun had set and it was dark,
there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch,
which passed between those pieces.
It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram,
saying: “To your descendants I give this land,
from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.”
Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18
What we have here in the Covenant with Abram is a very good description of the Covenant ritual. After the contract was pounded out between the parties, you took the best from your herd and flock and coop and split them in two. Making a path between the animal halves.
Then you walked down this path of gore as you said, “If I break this covenant, may what has happened to these animals happen to me!”
The amazing thing here in this passage is that when the smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passes through the pieces, God completes the ritual with Abram and binds himself to a people.
Covenants were always established in blood. They are still serious business. When we made our promise of celibacy, in a very real way, we bound ourselves to the People of God, saying in effect: “All that I am, I give to you, body and soul, without reservation, without condition.”
This finds its deepest, most profound, most intimate covenantal expression when we say the words of institution in the greatest moment of union in the life of the Church,
With Christ we say, “This is my body…this is my blood…which is given up for you.”
Configured to Christ, we too give all that we are to the People of God,
so that we may be available to them without incumbrance, in a fidelity that is infinite in its scope and eternal in its consequences.
We hold nothing back.
We do not make compromises
We cannot make excuses
To do otherwise does violence to our relationship with our people
And if we do this well, we become so identified with Christ as to become unrecognizable in another context.
It was my day off, and I was getting ready to fly the little airplane out to the cabin. On the way to Lake Hood Seaplane Base, I stopped into the grocery store to pick up a few provisions.
Since I was going to be cutting wood and other manly Alaskan things, I was in a flannel shirt and some Carharts. As I went down the aisle this woman starts to stare at me very quizzically. She knows she knows me, but she can’t figure it out. I let her stare at me for a moment and then I said, “Mary, I’m Fr. Leo. I’m your pastor. You sit in the third aisle on the left at the 10:30 Mass.”
Her face lit up and then she exclaims loudly a phrase I will never forget, “Oh Fathah! I didn’t recognize you with clothes on!”
Realizing what she had just said, she tried to back it up, “No, I mean with real clothes on! I mean you don’t have your collar!
“Please…please,” I said. “Just stop talking.”
Our promise of celibacy is not an external discipline that Church imposes upon us
It is a total gift of self that we give to Christ and to his People for the building up of the Church and the world.
Let’s move on to the second promise, the promise of prayer. As we stood there, the bishop asked:
“Are you resolved to maintain and deepen a spirit of prayer appropriate to your way of life and, in keeping with what is required of you, to celebrate faithfully the Liturgy of the Hours for the Church and for the whole world?”
We set aside three things in the Church, that is, we set them apart as sacred to God:
We sanctify people – through Baptism, confirmation, consecrated life, Holy Matrimony, Holy Orders.
We sanctify places – churches, shrines, religious houses, Cemeteries …homes.
(A quick aside:) I bless a lot of homes. I hope you do as well. I have to tell this story of one home that I blessed. Now, as you know, many times when you go to bless a home, the family will invite you over for dinner following the blessing. It makes for an enjoyable evening and people are delighted to take part in the “Feed-a-priest” program. So, I’m speaking with the mother of the family before heading over and she asked, “Is there anything special we need to get ready?” and I said, “Not really, just your favorite dish.” “Great!” she replied.
So I go to the home. As always, we started at the door of the house and then worked our way through the various rooms. Finally, I came to the dining room, and there, in the center of the table, on hand made lace doily, was the most beautiful porcelain soup tureen I had ever seen. It was in the shape of a swan and the ladle (not a silver one) resting in a way that it blended in perfectly with the tail feathers.
Here in all its glory was her favorite dish.
It was completely empty, and I ate at home that night, but by golly, I shall never ever forget that woman’s favorite dish!
So, we sanctify people, we sanctify places, but perhaps most important of all, we sanctify time.
For the priest this is perhaps one of the most important promises of all. Why? Because you and I know that the Kingdom of God is made of relationships, the deepest and most intimate of which we call being in “full communion” with Christ and the Body of Christ, the Church.
It is our particular relationship with Christ which defines us, his priest. And we know that relationships are not rocket science.
If you want a relationship to grow, you give it two things: time and attention.
I have said this thousands times to my parishioners and I say it again to you today,
If you cannot find at least ten minutes a day for private prayer with Our Lord, then your life is out of control and you need to make adjustments. NO EXCUSES.
I SAY IT AGAIN:
If you cannot find at least ten minutes a day for private prayer with Our Lord, then your life is out of control and you need to make adjustments. NO EXCUSES.
You need to fight for this time. It is the second of the great gifts you give to Christ and his people.
To be honest with you, it goes far beyond just setting good boundaries as Deacon Bernie shared with us.
You have to plan for this time. You have to fight for this time.
What do I mean? If I was the Evil One, I would fill your life with so many good things…not evil things…good things like:
Sacraments and confessions and marriage preps and bible studies and liturgy planning and catechetical sessions and pastoral counseling and marriage preps and school events and so much more
I would fill your life with all these good things so that soon you literally do not have time to pray at any time, let along be faithful to the Liturgy of the Hours.
My brothers, the reality is that relationships do not die because of conflict
Ironically, healthy relationships get deeper and more intimate as a result of the resolution of conflict.
No, relationships die because we fail to give them the two things that make them deepen and grow.
Time and attention.
Do you want your relationship with your family to grow?
Give it time and attention
You want your relationship with your friends to grow?
Give it time and attention.
You want your relationship with your brother priests to grow?
Give it time and attention.
Do you want your relationship with Christ to grow?
Give it time and attention.
And that means prayer.
One of the great experiences I had was to work with the Missionaries of Charity in their various houses in Rome. My favorite was their house of formation. It was also the house where they served many who had chronic diseases and conditions.
Part of their rule of life in the Order is to spend one hour a day in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. They take this very seriously.
I found out how seriously one day when I went there to celebrate Mass. Now Mass for them happens at 6:00 AM. Every day. On purpose. (Now as you may be aware there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who wake up with a smile on their face and say, “Good morning, God!” and those who wake up and say, “Good God! Morning.”
Anyhoo, I arrived at 5:45 and the Superior said to me, “Now, Father, if some of the younger sisters fall asleep during Mass do not take it personally. They were up until 3:00 AM ministering to one of our residents.”
“Oh,” I said sympathetically, “So they have only had two and have hours of sleep.”
“Oh no, Father!” she exclaimed, “After that, they still had to do their holy hour.”
In their service to Christ in the poorest of the poor, the Missionaries of Charity live a very intense and austere life. But they know that they cannot do what they do for any length of time, if their ministry is not animated by a deeply intimate relationship with Our Lord.
So they give it time and attention.
They make no excuses.
And neither should we.
Let’s move on to the third promise, that of obedience.
Finally, each of us went up individually and knelt before the bishop. We put our hands inside of his, and the bishop asked, “Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?”
There is a reason why this one is separated from the other two, and repeated.
This is where the rubber hits the road.
The first two lay the foundation on which our ministry stands.
Obedience gives the framework, the form, and the details of our ministry.
What obedience gives us and the Church is unity of heart, mind and action.
It is not a repression of our own will, desires and opinions, but as one writer puts it, “the fruitful redirection of them to a common goal.”
In paragraph 1567, the Catechism puts it this way:
First, quoting Lumen Gentium 28 § 2, it says:
“The priests, prudent cooperators of the episcopal college and its support and instrument, called to the service of the People of God, constitute, together with their bishop, a unique sacerdotal college (presbyterium) dedicated, it is, true to a variety of distinct duties. In each local assembly of the faithful they represent, in a certain sense, the bishop, with whom they are associated in all trust and generosity; in part they take upon themselves his duties and solicitude and in their daily toils discharge them.”
Then it makes a commentary: priests can exercise their ministry only in dependence on the bishop and in communion with him. The promise of obedience they make to the bishop at the moment of ordination and the kiss of peace from him at the end of the ordination liturgy mean that the bishop considers them his co-workers, his sons, his brothers and his friends, and that they in return owe him love and obedience.
This is when we are at our best. This is the image of a true Christian community—united and all working together in their respective roles for the glory of God and the proclamation of the Kingdom.
In one sense, obedience is saying yes at the very beginning of our priesthood to anything that will be asked of us from that point onwards. Sometimes it is easy to say yes, sometimes it is very difficult.
However, my brothers, we must never let difficulty devolve into disobedience.
On Tuesday, we heard these words in the Gospel:
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her. Luke 1:26-38
The Blessed Virgin Mary gives us a beautiful example of the distinction between difficulty and disbelief.
In his depiction of the Annunciation in 1921, the American artist Henry Osawa Tanner has the Virgin sitting on the side of her bed, barefoot. The blankets are in disarray. The angel is portrayed as a pillar of light, which illuminates the whole room, but especially her face. It is the face of one pondering how everything has changed, can change, and her future will never be the same. Tanner captures beautifully the most pregnant pause in human history, that moment when heaven and earth await the decision of a 16 year old girl who has been asked to bear the Incarnate Word of God. It will mean the death of all that she was expecting up to that point entry into a new life and an uncertain future.
Will she say yes to God?
Will we?
As we knelt before the bishop, our future was no less uncertain. Yet in that moment when the bishop asked, “Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?” we joined our “yes” to hers, trusting in the God who called us then and calls us still.
Now, you and I know that obedience is easy when things are going great.
But there is nothing virtuous about that.
The true test of obedience is when it is unexpected and difficult.
It was February, 2016, at this very convocation. We were walking out of morning conference when Archbishop Schwietz pulled me aside and said, “Hey, Leo, can I talk to you for a minute?” It was not unusual for him to do so. He was always asking me to help him with this or that from time to time.
So I said. “Sure, Archbishop! What can I do for you?”
He said, “Well, you know that Tom Brundage is no longer here in the Archdiocese and we need another priest to be a canon lawyer in the chancery. Would you mind going back to school and studying Canon Law for the Archdiocese.”
I stood there and just looked at him for a few moments. I wonder what the expression on my face was.
What I wanted to say was, “Archbishop, you know I already have my doctorate in Theology. What part of ‘terminal degree’ do you not understand?!”
But what came out was, “You know, Archbishop, I can honestly say that the idea has never crossed my mind. You are going to have to give me the day to get my head around this one.”
So I went down to the chapel that we had set up in the hotel at that time and sat there for some time. While unexpected, the idea was not abhorrent. However, I was loving life at St. Benedict’s. We had reached a great place in the life of the parish and we were hitting on all cylinders. So I just said to Our Lord, “Okay, Lord, you know what’s best. Let’s see how the rest of the day plays out.”
I didn’t have to wait long. Mass was right before lunch in those days. And what was the Gospel? The call of the first disciples in Luke: “And they left everything and followed him.”
“Thanks, Lord. Thanks a lot.”
And then Bishop Burns got up to speak, oblivious to what was going on and in the course of his homily said, “And you gotta be ready for God’s little surprises because you never know what he is going to throw your way.”
“Okay, Lord. I get it. I get it.”
And again, later in the day, the speaker picked up the theme about how certain saints redirected their lives to follow God’s call.
“Alright, Lord! Enough already! I get it.”
So that evening when we had recreation and cocktails, I pulled Archbishop aside from the group and we sat down at a table in the corner.
“Okay,” I said to him, “The answer is yes.”
His response? “Your mother is going to kill me.”
And so at the tender age of 50, I headed back to school to study a very expansive subject in a foreign language I had not spoken in 20 years.
And you know, Our Lord seems to know what he is doing.
I really liked Abbot Jeremy’s resurrection questions and his comments on about the multivalent aspects of the Paschal Mystery, namely, the Passion, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost.
And by and large, we priests are very comfortable preaching about the Passion death and resurrection.
But are we willing to apply that to ourselves and our ministry?
A priest will die and be raised several times in his lifetime. Each new assignment means a conclusion a death to what he knew and a new life in a new place.
Sometimes it is easy. Sometimes it is unexpected and difficult.
But Our Lord knows what he is doing.
And our ‘yes’ given in the promise of obedience at the beginning of our priesthood allows us to follow him in a way like no other and to be of service to the people of God in a way like no other.
To live a life fraught with possibilities
of endless opportunities and grace-filled surprises.
The promises we make define who we are, how we shall love, and whom. The first three vows we made at our ordination to the diaconate laid the foundation and the framework for the vows we made at our ordination to the priesthood.
For your personal reflection for the rest of this afternoon, I have provided a sheet with those vows along with a few questions that may help you in your contemplation.
For now, I leave you with a short poem by the great 20th century Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner whose work on priestly identity continues to inform our understanding of the holy priesthood in the modern world.
‘A Prayer for Priests’ by Fr Karl Rahner SJ
The priest is not an angel sent from heaven
He is a man chosen from among men,
A member of the Church, a Christian.
Remaining man and Christian, he begins to speak of you the Word of God.
The word is not his own.
No, he comes to you because God has told him to proclaim God’s Word.
Perhaps he has not entirely understood it himself.
Perhaps he adulterates it.
But he believes, and despite his fear he knows he must communicate God’s Word to you.
For must not some of us say something about God,
About eternal life; about the majesty of grace in our sanctified being?
Must not some one of us speak of sin, the judgement and mercy of God?
So, my dear friends, pray for him, carry him,
So that he might be able to sustain others by bringing to them
The mystery of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ.
May God who has begun this good work in us bring it to fulfillment.
Questions for Reflection from the Rite of Ordination to the Presbyterate:
Do you resolve, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to discharge without fail the office of Priesthood in the presbyteral rank, as a worthy fellow worker with the Order of Bishops in caring for the Lord’s flock?
What does it mean to be a worthy fellow worker with my bishop? Do I respect him and his office at all times or just in his presence? Am I charitable in my words, thoughts and deeds?
Do you resolve to exercise the ministry of the word worthily and wisely, preaching the Gospel and teaching the Catholic faith?
How much time do I spend preparing my homilies, my presentations? Is it enough? What am I reading to keep my preaching fresh and engaging? Do I really believe what I am preaching? Does my preaching delight, inform, convince, and inspire?
Do you resolve to celebrate faithfully and reverently, in accord with the Church’s tradition, the mysteries of Christ, especially the Sacrifice of the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation, for the glory of God and the sanctification of the Christian people?
Do I celebrate the Holy Mass, Reconciliation and the other sacraments with joy or with resignation? Do I work with others to plan faithful liturgies that engage the People of God so that they may fully, actively and consciously celebrate the great mysteries of the Faith? Have I ever resented someone asking for sacraments? If so, what was the cause?
Do you resolve to implore with us God’s mercy upon the people entrusted to your care by observing the command to pray without ceasing?
What is my prayer life like? Do I get my Holy Hour in every day? Am I faithful to the Divine Office? Do I need to make adjustments?
Do you resolve to be united more closely every day to Christ the High Priest, who offered himself for us to the Father as a pure Sacrifice, and with him to consecrate yourself to God for the salvation of all?
Do I make that total gift of myself, body and soul, to Christ and his People every day, or am I holding something back? Do all of my thoughts, words, and deeds reflect the dignity of my vocation and the gift of self that I have made to the People of God.
Then the elect goes to the Bishop and, kneeling before him, places his joined hands between those of the Bishop. Bishop: Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?
What is the best assignment you have every had? What has been the most challenging? What has been your greatest joy? Your greatest difficulty? Where has Christ and the Holy Spirit been at work in all of this?
There is a lot going on in the scriptures this weekend. While we are in Year C of the three-year lectionary cycle, various Masses will be using the A Cycle readings for the next three weeks as we celebrate the Scrutinies for the Elect in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA).
While the burning bush is a neat attention getter, it is the parable of the fig tree that should really give us pause. It’s notable that it comes in the context of two recent tragedies, the folks whose blood Pilate mingled with the pagan sacrifices (a terrible sacrilege and curse) and the death of 18 people who died when a tower collapsed.
Whether we admit it or not, we still carry with us the notion that “what goes around comes around.” Namely, if you do something bad, something bad is going to happen to you. It was even more prevalent in the days of Jesus. Many in the crowd assumed that those who suffered these tragedies must have done something to deserve it. While our Lord is quick to disavow them of this, he uses it as a way to remind them and us that an even greater tragedy looms for our souls if we don’t repent of our sins and believe in the Gospel. Dying is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Eternal damnation is.
So how does this tie into the fig tree that does not bear fruit? Simple. A disciple who does not repent is not much of a disciple. Repentance, not perfection, is the fruit that Christ is looking for. If we are too proud or too busy to repent, then there’s not much he can do for us, no matter how much he cares for us.
Lent is a time that reminds us that the first fruit, the first gift, we give to God is sorrow for our sins. Doing so opens the door for the healing grace of God to enter our lives and lead us down the path of reconciliation leading to the joys of the resurrection. May our Lenten prayer, fasting and almsgiving guide our steps into the way of true discipleship.
Hey, Church Fans, this is the basic text, but there is a whole lot more on the video from the 8:30 Mass, including a little explanation of the Sacrifice of establishing the covenant with Abram in the first reading. I would have put a clip of it here, but Microsoft has decided that making a video clip should take at least 45 minutes instead of just two or three like it used to. You can see the homily by clicking here and then just fast forward. It is at 18:50 in the video. Sorry to make you work harder. You may want to tell Microsoft that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Right in our backyard in Anchorage is the most climbed peak in North America. It is 3510 feet high and has a peak roughly the size of a football field. Easily accessible from the Glen Alps trailhead, it is scaled by young and old, humans and canine. In the old days, they would even haul a polka band and a few kegs of brew to the summit on the summer solstice. I am talking of course, about Flattop Mountain.
Most people climb Flattop because it is a quick and relatively easy hike, but also because on a nice day the view from there is really spectacular. It puts all of the Anchorage bowl, and sometimes life, into perspective.
You’ll notice that the encounter of Abram with God and the Transfiguration of our Lord both happened on the top of a mountain. In the ancient world, this is where one went to encounter God, presumably because it got you that much closer to heaven, but also I suspect that, just like on Flattop, the view puts everything into perspective.
It was certainly true of the ministry of Jesus. From this vantage point, we see by the presence of Moses, that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. By the presence of Elijah, we see that he is also the fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecy. From the mountain top, we can see all the way back to the origins of God’s people, and we can look ahead to “what he would accomplish in Jerusalem” by his passion, death and resurrection.
It is good to pause once in awhile either in prayer, or even by climbing to a place like the peak of Flattop, to put things into perspective. It is good to look back on where we have come from, how God has accompanied us and guided us on this journey of life and then to try to get a glimpse of where that is leading, what God might be calling us to as individuals and as a parish “and what we will accomplish in 99504.”
Temptation is an interesting thing. No one ever pursues something because they believe it to be evil. Rather, they pursue it, because it is something that they perceive to be good, or at least benign.
As humans beings, it is part of our very nature to pursue the good. As Christians, we understand that the greatest good is God. The problem is that there are all these other lesser goods out there vying for our attention. Some of these will lead us to God. These we call “real goods.” Others will lead us away from God and ultimately into perdition. These are called “apparent goods.”
So how do you tell the difference? The temptation of Christ in the desert depicted in this week’s gospel (Luke 4:1-13) can help us out.
Let’s take the suggestion of the Devil that Jesus turn the stones into bread. Is a bread a good thing? You bet! All things being equal, there’s nothing better than a big hunk of warm sourdough with a slab of melting butter on it. And Jesus was hungry after fasting for forty days, so what’s the harm? Well, there’s lots of harm, actually. He who is able to turn water into wine can certainly turn stones into bread, but that is not why Jesus has that ability. Rather, it is to bring others to faith in God and in himself. To do otherwise would be a misuse of God’s gift.
Likewise, understood and used rightly, political power can be a very good thing for the building of a just society. However, the power that the Devil offers Jesus comes only if he turns from the Creator and worships one of the created. Secondly, the Kingdom that Jesus has come to proclaim is “not of this world.” To pursue worldly power would be to subvert the very reason of the Incarnation.
Finally, reliance on the providence of Almighty God is a very good thing. However, there is a not-so-fine line between faith in God’s providence and presumption of the same. When we cross that line, we say “MY will be done.” not “THY will be done.” Remember, God has three ways of answering prayer: “Yes.”, “Not yet.”, and “I have something better in mind for you.” Who are we to presume that we know better than Almighty God?
Keeping in mind the grand scheme of things helps us to distinguish between apparent goods and real goods. Something may be good in itself, but if it is not what God intends for us, then it is not a real good that will lead to our fulfillment and salvation, but an apparent good that will lead to our doom. May we have the grace of prayerful discernment to know the difference.
St. Luke must have been an interesting guy. We don’t know much about him personally, but based on what we do have, I gather that he must have been a bit of a renaissance man. He was at once a doctor, an artist, an historian, and an author, among other things. I also get the idea that he was a very practical man.
A good example of this is his presentation of Jesus’ teaching commonly known as “the Beatitudes.” Unlike Matthew who has nine, Luke only has four. Luke also has an accompanying “woe” for each beatitude. Why is this teaching of Our Lord so important to Luke?
Perhaps it’s because as a physician and an historian, it was very important for him to highlight the practicality of Jesus’ teaching. Matthew was a Jew writing to other Jews. Luke on the other hand, was a Gentile writing to other Gentiles. As such, he tailors his message to his audience. Luke knew about the deepest desires of people in the Greek and Roman societies of his day. He also knew that such desires were often as out of reach for most as the pagan gods to whom they were obligated to pay homage. The great fears of the day were poverty, hunger, death and persecution.
It was in just such a social and spiritual environment that the paradox of the Paschal Mystery could bring hope. This paradox is expressed clearly in the Lucan beatitudes and woes. It is the poor who are blessed; the hungry, the mourners, the persecuted. In his life and ministry as well as in his passion, death and resurrection, Jesus had experienced all of these things and emerged triumphant and glorious. For the pagan Greeks and Romans, the good news was that there was a better way. That the limits of this world, including even death itself, no longer had the final say, and thus has no lasting power over us in this life or the next. Christ has shown us that our final destiny is far greater, far more triumphant, far more glorious, as we enter into communion with the Divine in this life and into the next.
As human beings, we are made by God, for God. Our Deepest longings can only be satisfied by God. We are all born with what Ron Rolheiser calls a “holy longing” that can only satisfied by communion with God.
Sadly, though, so many try to fill that holy longing for God with the very things Our Lord says will bring us woe: wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. None of these are bad in and of themselves, but if we place them in our heart before God, they will lead to our ultimate destruction.
The Christian knows that when Christ is the center of one’s being:
Wealth finds its expression in charity.
Pleasure is found in feeding the hungry
Power is used in service to others.
Honor comes from leading others to glory.
Thus, the paradox. blessed are the poor, blessed are the the hungry, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who are persecuted.
Things have not changed all that much in the last 2000 years. Our way of doing things has changed, but we humans still seek ultimate meaning and the revelation of our final destiny. We still have the same fears and desires; and these fears and desires are still overcome by the power of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.
Luke helps us to see that salvation is still a practical matter. Despite the passage of time, we humans have not changed all that much, and neither has the salvation won for us in Christ so that we may enter into the realm of the Blessed.
Merry Christmas, Day 12! Today (and tomorrow) we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. As we do every year, we get Matthew’s gospel account of the Magi coming to visit the Holy Family in Bethlehem. These Magi are interesting characters. We really don’t know how many of them there actually were, but pious tradition has settled on three, given that they brought three types of gifts. I’ve spoken before about how the gifts represent that Jesus was a king (gold), a priest (frankincense), and how both of these would be manifested in his passion, death and resurrection (myrrh). Let’s chat a little about the Magi themselves and what they represent.
First, they are not kings. That notion developed over time in art and popular piety over the centuries for a variety of reasons. But strictly they are magi. Magi were interesting folks. They were scholars and astrologers who looked to the heavens to discern what was going on in the world. Interestingly enough, about the time of Christ’s birth, the planet Jupiter, which represented kings, moved into Aries, the constellation that represented Israel at that time. This would make sense to magi, but would probably have gone unnoticed by others.
Also very notable is the fact that they are all Gentiles. Matthew saw them as the first fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah in today’s first reading, as well as echoing today’s Responsorial in Psalm 72, “Lord every nation on earth will adore you.” In time, the characteristics of the magi in artistic expression, such as their skin color and their style of dress, have them representing the three known continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. This was a way to help people understand, as Paul says very clearly in today’s second reading from Ephesians, “that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” The good news is truly universal in scope.
Finally, the magi also help show us that the nature of the Kingdom which Christ ushers in is very different than any earthly Kingdom. Sadly, Herod, being the despot that he is misses this point entirely. Like so many rooted in the world, he sees Jesus as a threat, not as a Savior.
The world has changed quite a bit since a long time ago in a Galilee far, far away. Sadly, human nature has not. Thus, those of us who understand who Jesus really is have the special task of making him known to the world of today. Wise men still seek him. May we all have the grace to be heralds of the good news.
Many of you know Deacon Jim Lee and his wife Mireya. Deacon Jim is more or less retired from the deacon biz now, but I always appreciated his homilies. I remember him preaching once on this very Feast of the Holy Family many years ago. He was chatting about his own family and quipped, “I used to wish that my kid would be more like Jesus. Then I realized that my kid would probably be more like Jesus if I were more like St. Joseph.”
As we celebrate the Feast of the Feast Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, we can learn a lot from them on how we can each be “holy families.”
They faithfully practiced their faith — The scriptures tell us that the Holy Family did all the things a good, pious Jewish family would do…and more. They were faithful to the Law when they dedicated him in the Temple. We see today in Luke how they would go up to Jerusalem each year for the Passover. Something Jesus did well into adulthood all the way up to the end of his public ministry when he celebrated the Passover with his disciples in the Upper Room at the Last Supper.
They were each open to the will of God—Each member had to grapple with what God was asking them and then go forward living their lives accordingly. Mary was probably envisioning a very different life with Joseph when the angel Gabriel announced to her that she would be the mother of the Savior. Yet, she responded in faith, saying, “Let it be done to me according to your will.” Joseph also had to change his plans when Gabriel told him that it was by the Holy Spirit that Mary had conceived. Then again, when he was told to flee into Egypt…and again when they returned to Nazareth. Finally, in his agony in the garden, Jesus asked that this cup might pass, but in the end said, “Not my will, but yours be done.”
They dealt with hardship and kept their faith in God and in each other—The circumstances of his birth in the stable and becoming political refugees fleeing from Herod are just two examples. I am particularly struck by how the Blessed Mother remained with Jesus all the way through his passion and death on the Cross. Even later, she stayed the course and remained with the disciples in the Upper Room. She was with the disciples in the Upper Room at Pentecost.
There are many, many other examples of how the Holy Family can teach us holiness, but let’s go with these three for now.
First, let us practice our faith.
Now, you have heard me say a few times this year that to be Catholic in the United States these days is to be countercultural.
Sometimes we may think that this is a recent phenomenon, but it has ALWAYS been so.
So, how can we live our faith in today’s world? Pretty simple really. The Church sanctifies three things: people, places and time. To sanctify someone or something, means to set it aside for God. Each household, such as it is, should do the same.
Realize that you have been sanctified by your baptism. You are a holy people, a holy family, a household of grace, set aside by God for the sanctification of the world. And if not the whole world, then at least that little part of the world which with come into contact each day. Be the animators of grace in your neighborhood.
This season, or next, put up a manger scene in your yard. John Thomas Williamson has a really cool one that he came up with made out of plywood and a few lights. It is really cool. If we are nice to him, maybe he will share with us the plans so we can each have one next year. Imagine the difference that would make?
Sanctify space: Where does prayer happen in your home every day? You have a place to eat, a place to sleep, a place to watch TV, hopefully a place for your vehicle. Where is the space set aside for prayer each day? Get creative.
Sanctify time:
When does prayer happen each day in the home. This will change as the life within the home changes. Prayers that once took place at bedtime may move to right after dinner as the household gathers around the dinner or moves into the family room for a quick decade of the Rosary.
Celebrate the holy seasons and feasts of the Church as part of the life of the home. Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, feast days of the patron saints of members of household.
2. Living our faith and building that deep relationship with Christ and one another allows us to be open to the will of God for each member of our family.
In doing so, we are able recognize the gifts of others in the household and encourage those gifts to be used in a way that is pleasing to the giver within the family and the Church for the greater glory of Almighty God.
For ten years I was the Vocations Director for the Archdiocese. Do you know what the greatest biggest obstacle was for those who were discerning a vocation to the priesthood or religious life?
Parents. Specifically fathers who wanted their family name carried on and mothers who wanted grandchildren.
Now, neither of these are bad things, but if they are not the will of God for your child, you are doing them a great disservice and will find yourself fighting against God himself. Personally, I would not want to be in that position. You want your kid to be happy? Want the same thing that God wants for them. You’ll be glad you did. Celebrate each others gifts and vocation within the family and within the Church…for the world.
3. Finally, if we live our faith, if we are open to the will of God, then we are we may bear hardships that lead us and those around us to salvation.
I’ve said it many times.
Life is messy…and…God is faithful.
You can count on it.
Still, I cannot say how I have been inspired and lifted up by those who seem to be going through the worst of times. Yet through it all, they literally glow with the light of faith.
It is real and it is undeniable.
It was true for the Holy Family, who seemed to know no end of hardship in those early years.
Why would it not be true for us also?
The world and everything and everyone in it has limits.
Sometimes those limits manifest themselves in very tragic and troubling ways. So what?!
We have God and one another.
I know a woman who has had cancer two times, who has a 6’4” autistic son, who sometimes is more than a handful, and who by many measures of the world has had more than her share of heartbreak and hardship.
And yet she radiates a joy that is unmistakable.
When I asked her about it once, she said, “Well, you just have to realize that you are held.”
And so we return to the Holy Family
As Jesus was held in the arms of Mary and Joseph so too each of us is held precious in the arms of a loving God.
So let US be a holy family.
Let us practice our faith with courage and constancy,
Let us celebrate each other’s gifts for the glory of Almighty God
So that none of the troubles of this world or of anyone in it can ever separate us the love of God or one another.
The feast of Christ the King is always a bit puzzling for us Americans. Since we do not have any practical experience of a king, our notions of royalty are principally governed by our observations of the British royal family, (a most puzzling institution), or from fairy tales. Thus, our perception (rightly and wrongly) is that it is either irrelevant or the stuff of fantasy. Either way, we are left wondering what this “king” thing is all about.
It helps to remember what kings and sovereignty are really all about. In the best sense, as sovereign, the king was a messiah, an anointed of God, ordained as steward over the land as well as everything and everyone on it. If he understood his vocation well, he understood that he was not an owner, but a steward. Thus, at the end of his life, he would be judged by whether the land and the people thrived or not. To carry out this duty, he was given authority. But just as in the Church, that authority only made sense if it was used in the context of service to those in his realm. To act in his own interest was to become a despot. It was an abuse of the gift of authority from God.
So when we speak of Christ, the King of the Universe, first we are saying that he has been given authority by God over all of creation. That means everything and everybody; and by his life, death, resurrection and ascension to the Father, where he makes intercession for us, he continues to be the ultimate steward and servant. Truly, he is the greatest among us because he is the servant of all.
It’s a good reminder for us on many levels. Our Lord has our best interests in mind and will do all that he can for our salvation in this life and into the next. Should we allow him to reign in our hearts and lives, there is no limit to how much we can love him and others in return. May we have the grace and humility to make it so.
