Too Small?

   Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time   B 

Readings

Reflecting on this Sunday’s gospel,

someone shared the following story:

            Years ago, I had to change a flat tire at night.

            While attempting to remove the tire,

            the jack shifted unexpectedly, and the car fell off the jack.

            My fingers were pinned underneath the tire.

            Because the full weight of the car

            kept my fingers pressed to the road,

            I could not pull my fingers free, no matter how hard I tried.

            After some time, praise God, some passersby found me

            and lifted the van just enough to allow me to pull my fingers free.…

            Although my fingers are a small part of my body,

            they prevented my entire body from being free.

            If no one came to help me, I would have faced two choices:

            1) cut off my fingers so my body would be free to live, or

            2) keep my fingers and have my whole body die

            because a small part of it was captive.

(OneBread, One Body, Aug-Sept 2015)

Just hearing that story makes your hand ache, doesn't it?
It also takes some difficult—even disturbing—words of Jesus

and makes them much clearer.

What’s pinning you down? 

What’s holding you captive?

Is there some persistent sin you cling to, or that clings to you?

We must not deceive ourselves;

we must abandon all our little compromises.

We must not regard any sin as so small,

treat any occasion of sin so lightly,

as if it didn’t have the potential to do great harm to souls.

Jesus pulls no punches with us this Sunday:

we need to root out from our lives

whatever threatens our relationship with God—

and spare no pain in doing so.

It may feel like we’re cutting off one of our own limbs,

but if we want to know real life and happiness, real freedom and peace,

such things simply have to go.

A certain horror of sin and fear of its high cost

is a rather healthy thing.

But we mustn’t allow it to immobilize us—

afraid to act at all, as if everything were probably sinful.

While it’s true that no sin is so small

that we shouldn’t make every effort to avoid it,

neither is any act of charity so small

as to not be worthy of our efforts:

“Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink…

…will surely not lose his reward.”

If God is love, then wherever true love is found,

there is God—even if his presence is unrecognized;

and wherever you find the love of God,

there is Jesus Christ—even if his name is unknown;

and wherever you find Jesus Christ,

there is his body, the Church—

even in the most hidden manner—

standing as the gateway to eternal life.

St. Dominic Savio—a student of St. John Bosco—

died at the tender age of 14 back in 1857.

When he received his First Holy Communion at the age of 7,

he made four promises to the Lord

that he wrote down in a little book

and read again from time to time;

the final one was a resolution

to always choose death rather than sin.

Jesus warns us about causing one of his little ones to sin;

here’s one of his little ones 

showing us an altogether different path.

The choices we make now—

for good or for evil, and no matter how small—

have eternal consequences.

So don’t allow any sin to pin down your soul.

And never let any opportunity to act with love

needlessly pass you by.

  

Really Great

   Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time   B 

Readings

Two names seemed to dominate the news this week:

Donald Trump and Pope Francis.

Tempting though it is,

I’m not going to tell a joke about either one of them;

truth be told…I couldn’t find any appropriate for repeating in church.

But as Fr. Scott has been saying in recent days:

just imagine being a fly on the wall

if those two ever sit down together to chat!

Donald Trump and Pope Francis

are two men both striving for greatness…

…but they’re working from very different definitions

of what it means to be great,

and therefore taking very different paths to get there.

I suspect we’ve all heard plenty

of the things Mr. Trump has had to say lately.

But did you hear what the Holy Father said near the end of last week?

While preaching at daily Mass last Friday, the Pope said:

“If you were to find a person

who has never, ever spoken ill of another,

[that person] could be canonized immediately.”

That’s quite a statement!

The Pope was speaking about the temptation we all face

to point a condemning finger at others…

…and I’m afraid there won’t be too many of us—myself included—

ready for immediate canonization.

The Pope is reminding us—much like St. James—

that the source of disorder and conflict in the world

is our jealousy and ambition, our possessiveness and insincerity.

If we could just eliminate speaking ill of one another,

we’d be well on our way to a world marked instead

by peace and mercy and the good fruits of righteousness.

Much, much easier said than done!

As Pope Francis continues,

“All of us could say, ‘This is beautiful, eh! 

But Father…how does one do it?  How does it start? 
What is the first step in order to take this path?’”

The Pope’s answer is straightforward:

the first step is finding “the courage to blame oneself.”

When I find myself dwelling on another’s faults,

I need to stop and consider my own errors and weakness.

When I feel the need to comment on some else’s flaws,

I need to stop and instead think about my own.

Most of the time,

when we speak harshly or critically of others—

whether it’s someone near and dear to us,

a religious or political leader,

or someone famous we only know from the Internet or TV—

it says much more about us than it says about them.

How clearly that plays out this Sunday

in our reading from the Book of Wisdom!

Speaking ill of my neighbor

actually speaks more to my own insecurities:

a poor attempt to build myself up by tearing someone else down—

a strategy, although often tried, that’s never been known to work.

And so Pope Francis’ advice to blame yourself

means asking,

“Why does this person make me feel and think this way?

What is it that’s inside of me that causes this strong reaction?”

When the Son of God came in our human flesh,

he turned the world’s notion of greatness upside down.

Society—both ancient and modern—

says that greatness is about having power;

it’s about having possessions;

it’s about having people to do your bidding;

it’s about taking the first place

and getting everybody to listen to whatever you have to say.

Jesus, on the other hand, teaches us—

by his example even more than his words—

that real greatness has nothing at all to do

with popularity or power.

Real greatness isn’t about selfish ambition,

but about freely taking the last place.

It’s not about being served,

but about serving others—

and being unafraid to do so even to the point of suffering and death.

To be great is to be “the servant of all”:

serving not only the influential,

but those of no importance, those most vulnerable;

serving those who—like a little child—

will have no way to ever repay us;

even serving those of whom we’re tempted
to speak with harsh words.

“In order to recognize a person as a saint,” said Pope Francis,

“there is a whole process, there must be a miracle,

and then the Church proclaims him a saint. 

But if you were to find a person

who has never, ever, spoken ill of another,

he could be canonized immediately. 

It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Yes, Holy Father: beautiful, indeed!

When Jesus catches the Twelve

arguing amongst themselves on the way,

they’re actually partly right:

we are all called to greatness—

we’re all called to holiness, all called to be saints.

May the Lord give us the courage to strive for the highest goals

and flee every temptation to be merely mediocre.

May God free us from the fear of failure

and enable us to aspire to true greatness,
following Jesus Christ on the pathway of humility:
humble enough to blame ourselves,
humble enough to be the servant of all.

  

180 Miles

I don't have many photos to share (there's no room for a camera when there's already a paddle in your hand), but this is how I spent last Sunday morning...

Who?

No homily this Sunday, since right now I'm somewhere paddling my way across the Adirondacks...

   Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time   B 

Readings

Open Up

Fair warning: there will be no homily for you next Sunday, as I will be paddling again in the Adirondack Canoe Classic (the "90-Miler"). If you're at the finish line in Saranac Lake on Sunday afternoon, I'll be the one in the big red hat...

   Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time   B 

Readings

The news the other day reported on the latest survey 
about the place of religion in American life.

Have you ever noticed how such surveys

almost always single out Catholics?

I don’t recall ever hearing about an analysis

on what modern Methodists feel about Martin Luther…

…but if there’s been a study of Catholics somewhere

on how they feel about the Pope or Church teaching,

the media seems to make sure everybody knows all about it.

This survey, predictably, was about Catholics, too,

in anticipation of Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to the United States.

And what, pray tell, was this survey’s great, newsworthy revelation?

That U.S. Catholics are pretty much like other Americans.

According to the survey results,

Catholics in this country are increasingly accepting

of non-traditional family arrangements,

and less and less likely to view contraception,

remarriage after divorce, or homosexual acts as sinful.

(The report also pointed out—imagine!—

that Catholics who regularly go to Mass

are more likely to align what they believe

with what the Church actually teaches.)

Of course, that’s not exactly what I’d consider a “news flash!”

Such a shift isn’t very surprising at all.

America has long functioned as a “melting pot”:

spend enough time in this country,

and you’ll become more and more like those around you—

whether it’s the language you speak, the food you eat,

the clothes you wear, or the doctrines you hold to be true.

We human beings have a natural desire to fit in—a need to belong—

and so we’re often willing to sacrifice those things

that would make us stand out from the surrounding crowd.

Why then does the press still consider such a survey to be “news”?

Because non-Catholic, even non-religious America,

still expects us Catholics to be different from the rest.

And they’re exactly right to do so.

In the gospel reading this Sunday,

Jesus says to the deaf-mute man, “Ephphatha!  Be opened!”

This healing word of Jesus can sound an awful lot

like the message we get from the surrounding culture:

Be open!

Be open to new experiences!

Be open to other people!

Be open to ways of thinking that are different from your own!

It’s kind of hard to argue with any of that:

such openness to the world

and the rest of the people who inhabit it

is generally rather enriching.

But such an attitude of openness without a firm foundation—

keeping an open mind without first possessing a sure set of values—

can be a recipe for spiritual disaster

because not every new experience is healthy for our souls,

and not every other person is looking out for our eternal welfare,

and not every different way of thinking is good or true.

How are we to know the difference?

And what difference should that make?

Jesus instructs those who witnessed his miracle

not to tell anyone about it.

It’s not that his mission was top-secret;

it’s that the healing Jesus came to work in the world

has a lot less to do with our outward senses,

and much more to do with the openness of our hearts—

and that’s something the crowd wasn’t quite ready to understand.

The openness of the heart to which Jesus calls you and me

is by no means an uncritical one.

We see this rather clearly in the Rite of Baptism.

Going back to at least the fourth century,

it’s been standard practice in some parts of the Church

to do as Jesus did with the deaf-mute man:

to touch the ears and the mouth of the one being baptized.

(Thankfully, we do so without the groaning and spitting!)

This visible sign points to an invisible grace

as the priest or deacon says,

“The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. 

May he soon touch your ears to receive his word,

and your mouth to proclaim his faith,

to the praise and glory of God the Father.”

Jesus is still touching us

so that we won’t be spiritually deaf or mute;

and Jesus is still praying that we’ll be opened—
but not open to just anything:

open to hearing and speaking the Word of God.

Now, that’s not to say

we ought to be closed-minded to everything else.

While there’s certainly evil present and at work in the world,

it can only harm us if we allow it to penetrate our hearts.

Recall what Jesus said last Sunday:

What defiles us isn’t what enters from outside,

but what emerges from within (Mk 7:14-15).

At the same time, 
neither can this openness be an excuse for indifference.

God gave you a mind and a conscience on purpose;

he expects you to form them both well and use them both wisely,

so that you’ll be able to flee from all that’s evil

and cling to whatever is genuinely good (Rm 12:9).

You see, when the Word of God

has already entered and filled your heart or mine,

we can be open to the world without condoning what’s wrong in it.

It helps no one to call bad good,

or to be casually accepting of anything immoral.

Nor is it up to us mere mortals to redefine what is sinful.

Ours is the delicate task of hating sin while loving sinners.

Spending too much of our time

loudly denouncing the evils around us

tends, paradoxically, only to strengthen them.

Instead, we need to constantly encourage true goodness—

particularly by being and doing good ourselves.

As G. K. Chesterton once said,

“The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth,

is to close it on something solid.”

What most forms your thoughts and opinions,

your deep feelings and beliefs?

Is it the surrounding culture?  The expectations of modern society?

The unspoken pressure to be “like everybody else”?

Or are you actively open to the Word of God—

as it is read in the Scriptures, and enfleshed in the Sacraments,

and applied by the Church’s official teachers and her Saints?

What steps have you taken

to inform your mind and form your conscience

from an authentically Catholic point of view?

The rest of the world expects us Catholics to be different.

So let’s be sure not to disappoint them!

Be more open than they ever imagined you’d be:

open to receiving and proclaiming the Word of the Lord.

Indebted to Fr. J. Philippe, Interior Freedom, I.4

A Little Green

Just a quick report on a quick overnight last Thursday-Friday: I camped out on one of the sites on the shores of Little Green Pond, near the fish hatchery just outside of Lake Clear.  (I've been on a couple of other adventures in this area before.)  It wasn't my wildest night out (I drove right up to the campsite), but it was a pretty sunset, a quiet night, a great fire...and some very welcome peace.

Just Do It

   Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time   B 

Readings

My brother priests in the house are very kindly giving me (and the congregation) a little break this Sunday after concluding my five-part series on the Precepts of the Church.  (I clocked in at 18 minutes in the pulpit last Sunday!) So no homily for you today...

Then Comes Marriage

   Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time   B 

Readings

The Precepts of the Church

Part V

“Marriage is a wonderful institution,” quipped Grocho Marx.

“But who wants to live in an institution?”

This fifth Sunday in my series of homilies on the Precepts of the Church

brings us to the final one:

6. To obey the laws of the Church concerning marriage

The Code of Canon Law—the “rule book” of the Catholic Church—

contains 111 different laws concerning marriage—

more than for any of the other sacraments.

(Don’t worry: we will not be reviewing each one of them today!)

They cover to whom and how, when and where,

a Catholic can be wed.

This should come as no surprise,

since even secular governments carefully regulate marriage.

The Church’s many laws on the matter

are not because she’s got a hang up about sex—

although that charge is often brought against her;

it’s because marriage is the God-given vocation

of the vast majority of Catholics,

and it has such a very, very crucial place in God’s plan.

There may be a lot of specific rules,

but most of them boil down to some principles

which are really rather simple.

Back in grade school,

when we thought one of the boys

was getting a bit too close to one of the girls,

we had a little rhyme we’d chant that included the verse, 

“First comes love, second comes marriage,

then comes a baby in the baby carriage…”

It wasn’t lofty poetry, but it showed that, even at a young age,

we understood that romantic love, marriage,

sex (although we’d have never said the word), and babies

were all rather intimately connected—

in fact, should even come around in a particular order.

Nowadays, these once linked realities

have grown rather independent of each other:

we have love without marriage,
marriage without babies, babies without sex,

and sex without marriage, or babies,

or sometimes even without love.

And folks say the Church

is making all this stuff too complicated?

Human sexual love has two natural ends:

the union of the partners and the procreation of children.

These are easily seen from the first days of creation,

when God says both, “It’s not good for man to be alone,”

and, “Be fertile and multiply”  (Gen 2:18, 1:28).

Together they also point to sex’s logical, natural setting

within the context of marriage:

a union that is faithful and enduring,

providing the best possible environment for the rearing of children.

So if you want to determine if something is OK

with God and with the Church in this arena,

simply test it by these two essential criteria;

if either one is missing, then you’re out of bounds.

Sex outside of marriage? 

You might get pregnant,

but there’s no lasting commitment to staying together.

Contraception?

The couple may be committed, but they’re not open to life.

Pornography?  Masturbation?

Let’s just say they fail on both accounts.

(Allow me to note that this does not mean

that every act of intercourse—to be licit—must intend pregnancy.

But it must remain open to the possibility.

Let’s not forget that Abraham was 100- years-old and Sarah 90

when Isaac was conceived!  We believe in miracles!)

What I’ve spoken of so far is purely in the order of nature.

By God’s original design,

there’s a physical and emotional complimentarily

between men and women

that’s built right into fabric of our being.

But for the Church, it doesn’t stop there.

Jesus raised the natural institution of marriage

to an entirely new level—

just as he elevated eating and drinking when he gave us the Eucharist.

Among the baptized, marriage is more than a lawful union

for the reproduction of the human race.

Christ endows it with a new beauty, and a new power.

Matrimony becomes a source of holiness

for the couple and their children, for the Church and the world.

It becomes a sacrament.

The love of husband and wife is to be a living image

of the love of Christ and his bride, the Church.

For Christian marriage to be authentic,

the love of husband and wife

must be free and full—without any force or reservation;

it must be faithful—dissolved only by death;

and it must be fruitful—open to the gift of children.

The love of Christian spouses must be thus

because God’s love for the human race,

as revealed most clearly on the Cross,

is free and full—motivated only by love and holding nothing back;

God’s love is faithful—enduring even when we’re not;

and Gods’ love is fruitful—a love which once

breathed life into the dust of the earth, forms life in the womb,

and even draws life up from the grave.

This is the “great mystery” of which St. Paul writes to the Ephesians.

How often his words are misread!

We usually get them completely backwards!

We get all excited by Paul’s advice to women,

“Be subordinate to your husbands”…

…but those words wouldn’t have shocked the Ephesians one bit;

they merely repeated the common thinking of the age.

But Paul’s advice to men, “Love your wives,”

was actually quite revolutionary—

especially when the measure of that love

is the self-sacrificing love of Jesus!

Paul tells men and women alike, “Be subject to one another.”

Don’t treat others (or even yourself) as an object for gratification.

You were made for much more than fleeting pleasure!

You were made for Paradise!

Be subordinate to each other—

giving of yourself, surrendering yourself—

not for the good of society,

and not with a view to personal gain,

but “out of reverence for Christ.”

Christ is the one to whom we must all submit

if we hope to form a household that will serve the Lord.

And so, in Christ, human marriage 
is to be a window onto God’s love.

That’s a mighty high calling!  
Do we do this perfectly?  No, not always.

But with this sacrament comes the grace to live it.

There are two particular related issues in the air these days.

Whether the news is coming out of the U.S. Supreme Court

or the Synod of Bishops in Rome,

there’s plenty of talk about same-sex marriage

and Communion for Catholics

who’ve been divorced and civilly remarried.

“The Church needs to be more like Jesus!”

I’ve heard said on both accounts—
and it's hard to argue with that sentiment.

Yet, what does Jesus have to say on these subjects?

He says that God made them male and female from the beginning

so that these two might become one flesh,

and that remarriage after divorce is equivalent to adultery (Mt 19:1-12).

These are Jesus’ own pronouncements, not merely human rules.

Which means it’s not up to us to alter these things.

It’s true: Jesus broke through lots of barriers

and embraced many who lived outside the bounds of the law.

But we need to be sure we read through to the end of the story,

when—out of love for them—Jesus also called them to change:

“Go,” he'd say, “and sin no more.”  (Jn 8:11)

Catholics who have been divorced and civilly remarried

often say they feel “punished” 
because their irregular situation

(like anyone married outside the Church

or living together without marriage)

cuts them off from the sacraments.

Pope Francis has made it clear:

these men and women must not be shunned,

and any appearance of that sort ought to be avoided.

You continue to belong to the Church!

But it’s important to remember

that what keeps you away from Communion isn’t a punishment;

it’s just the Church holding you to your word—

a solemn, public commitment once made before God,

“till death do us part.”

A sacrament simply can’t be undone.

Yes, the Church acknowledges that, sometimes,

there wasn’t a true sacrament in the first place—

that one of those essential elements was absent from the start.

But when dealing with something this crucial,

that’s not a determination the Church can afford to make lightly.

Similarly, Catholics who experience same-sex attraction

often say they feel like the Church wants to force them

to deny their true self and live without love.

Some protesters recently said it’s “unrealistic and cruel”

for the Church to expect her LGBT members to remain chaste.

Actually, the Church expects chastity of all of us—

which means one thing for those of us who are married,

and another for those of us who are not.

Chaste celibacy is not only possible;

it can actually be quite fulfilling.  
I know firsthand!

No, it’s not easy…but, from what I hear, neither is marriage.

This isn’t about denying anyone’s true identity.

When did sexual attraction become the measure of who we are?

Our truest identity as Catholics, after all,

is that we’ve been adopted as sons and daughters of God.

I’m always deeply moved 
to see those who struggle in these areas

still sitting here in the pews—

in particular, those who cannot receive Holy Communion

and yet remain faithful to Sunday Mass.

That takes a whole lot more courage, a whole lot more faith,

than have those many Catholics who—unthinking—

just go through the motions.

I have no doubt that God responds to that grit

with an outpouring of his grace.

But grace isn’t magic; it requires our active response.

What ought to be done, what can be done,

differs in each unique circumstance.

I urge all of you who are in such situations

to come to the Church to discuss your options.

Christ loves you!  The Church loves you!

Let’s see what we can do.

For four Sundays, 
Jesus has been teaching—by word and deed—his doctrine of the Eucharist:
that his flesh and blood are food and rink for our souls;
that he himself is the true Bread from heaven.
This Sunday, like Joshua and the Israelites at Shechem,

we find the disciples who’ve been listening to Jesus

at a clear moment of decision.

Some walked away, returning to their former lives.

How that must have broken Jesus’ Sacred Heart!

The Church’s teachings on marriage are hard, too.

Some—many—will not be able to accept them.

But Jesus won’t change direction,

he won’t re-phrase his words to make them easier to swallow.

There’s too much at stake!

The point of true religion—the pathway to salvation—

is not that God yield his will to ours,

but that we yield our will to God’s.

“It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.”

Yes, Jesus’ words are pretty demanding.

They promise eternal life…but they also ask quite a lot,

challenging us to let go of things we’ve thought and believed,

to fight against drives and desires

we’ve been told are perfectly “normal.”

Yet when we get close to Jesus,

we start to see everything—including ourselves—rather differently.

This new way of seeing, this new way of living,

might sometimes makes us a bit uneasy.

But where else could we turn 
once we’ve truly come to believe
that Jesus is indeed the Holy One of God?