FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

30 JANUARY 2022

 

          When couples meet with Jeremy Hoy to plan their weddings, many couples choose this passage from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians as their New Testament reading.  As much as Paul’s words directly apply to married couples, his intended audience was the Church of Corinth.  The members of that Christian community had embraced the Gospel message given to them by Paul.  However, there were deep divisions within the community that threatened their unity as members of the Body of Christ.

            Saint Paul tells them that solution to their divisions is to love one another.  Unlike the word love in English, there are three different words for love in Greek.  He could have used the Greek word Eros for love.  This is the root word for our English word erotic. Eros is love with all the lights on self:  my wants, my desires, my lusts, and my passions.  Eros is not the word Paul uses here.  The second Greek word for love is phileo.  We define that word as “brotherly love,” or love given and received in friendship with others.  Phileo is reciprocal or exchanged love between human beings.  But phileo is not Paul’s word here.

            Paul uses the word agape, which is a self-less and self-giving love.  Agape is the Greek word to describe God’s selfless gift to us.  It is not self-centered.  It is not given with expectation of receiving anything in return.  Paul tells the community to embrace this still more excellent way of loving.  If they learn to love in this way, they move beyond a focus on their individual wants or needs.  They can love one another as God loves them.

            We see this type of loving in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah.  He expresses love for his people by telling them the truth about their behavior.  He knows that he will receive nothing but condemnation in return.  He trusts the love God had given him in forming him as a prophet.  Jesus expresses that same love when he announces to the hometown folks that the prophecy of Isaiah was finally fulfilled in him. He understands that they will find him too familiar.  They will be outraged when he announces that his message will extend beyond the limits of God’s chosen people.  They try to throw him off the cliff.  However, it is not his hour.  He will fulfill his agape love when he will be crucified on another hill outside of Jerusalem.

            Like the Corinthian community, we have our share of divisions.  We are divided along political lines.  We disagree on how to respond to COVID.  These past two years have put unusual pressures on all of us, affecting the ways we deal with one another. I have never seen so much bitterness in my years as a priest.  Saint Paul speaks to us and encourages us to put aside childish ways and embrace the wisdom of agape love.  He is very specific about what agape love looks like.  We can be much more patient and kind with one another, even when we disagree with each other.  We can surrender our jealousies about what others have to accept the different gifts each of us has received.  That will keep us from being pompous, inflated, and rude.  Agape love makes us more even tempered so that we do not brood when we are injured.  Instead of rejoicing over wrongdoing, we can more readily rejoice with the truth.  Agape love will keep us focused on actions on behalf of the other, instead of focusing on what we want or think we need.

            Practicing agape love will not resolve arguments or put disagreements behind us.  But it will enable us to engage each other with completely different attitudes.  All disagreements and divisions will eventually pass away.  But agape love will not.  It will enable us to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things.  It worked for Jeremiah.  It worked for Jesus Christ in the glory of the resurrection.  It worked for the Christian community of Corinth. It can work for us, if we have the courage to embrace it.

 

SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

16 JANUARY 2022

 

          The Prophet Isaiah speaks in God’s name to his people who have just been released from their captivity in Babylon.  It had seemed to them that God had been silent during those forty years.  Now, God rejoices over Jerusalem as a lover rejoices over his bride.  God no longer calls his people “forsaken” or “desolate” because of their sins.  Instead, God gives them new names.  He calls them “My Delight” and “espoused.”  Just as Adam had named all creatures in the Book of Genesis to reflect his stewardship of creation, God gives his people a new direction, a new mission.  God is the joyful bridegroom who sees his people dressed in the splendor of a bride.

            Saint John uses marriage imagery to describe Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding feast at Cana.  His focus is not on the bride and groom.  They are facing embarrassment because they ran out of wine.  His focus is on Jesus, the bridegroom who will form a new Covenant, replacing the Covenant mediated through Moses.  At the base of Mount Sinai, Moses announced that the Lord would reveal his glory on the third day and form them into a Covenant community.  On the third day, Jesus reveals his glory by changing water into wine.  He is the bridegroom who will form disciples and create a new community. The six stone water jars represent the Old Covenant.  In forming the New Covenant, Jesus exceeds all expectations by changing 130 gallons of water into wine.  That is an incredible amount of wine!  The headwaiter confirms that something new and unexpected has happened.  Jesus reveals his glory for the first time and invites his disciples to begin to place their trust in him.

            The mother of Jesus plays an important role in this first sign.  She informs her Son of the problem.  He appears to respond rudely when he calls her “woman” and asks how her concern affects him.  The text literally says, “What is this to me and to you?”  His hour will eventually come when the bridegroom will give himself completely out of love for his bride, the Church.  At this moment, he has established a new relationship with his mother.  She is now more than his physical mother.  She is a disciple who puts complete trust in her Son.  As a faithful disciple, she tells the servers to do what he says.

            The next time that the mother of Jesus appears in the Gospel of John is at the foot of the cross on Calvary.  In that terrible moment when her Son’s hour has finally come, she will remain a faithful and committed disciple.  Her Son will give her to the care of the beloved disciple, who also stands at the foot of the cross.  Her Son will also give his beloved disciple to his mother.  Because Saint John never mentions the name of the beloved disciple, he invites each one of us to see ourselves as his beloved disciple standing at the foot of the cross with Mary as our mother.

            The Lord formed us as his beloved disciples into the new community of the Church when we were baptized.  As we continue to recognize signs of his presence and deepen our trust in him, we follow the example of the Mother of God, the first and most faithful disciple.  We ask her intercession as we continue to discern what spiritual gifts the Lord has given us.  As Saint Paul points out to Corinthians, the Lord has given each of us individual gifts.  He gives these gifts not for our individual needs, but for the benefit of the community.  We can exercise our role as beloved disciples by putting these gifts at the service of this community.  We can better understand our role as beloved disciples, as our Lord’s Delight.  Espoused to him as his bride, we can work together to make a difference in a world torn apart by hatred, violence, racism, and lack of respect.

 

 

THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

9 JANUARY 2022

 

          The Prophet Isaiah speaks to his people who are in captivity in Babylon.  He shifts his tone from condemning his people for their past sins to giving them hope that they will be restored as God’s people in the future.  He speaks of comfort for Jerusalem with great tenderness.  He promises a new exodus back to the Promised Land, with road construction workers filling in the valleys and leveling the mountains and hills.

            On this last day of this Christmas Season, we see his prophecy fulfilled in the voice of John the Baptist.  John is extremely popular with the crowds.  But, he humbly insists that he is not the Christ.  Instead, he points to Jesus.  He tells the poor in spirit that their valleys will be filled in so that they can embrace their savior.  He insists that the mountains of the proud must be leveled before they can be saved.  He invites the crowd to be plunged into the River Jordan as a sign that they will make the changes in their lives to allow them to embrace the Christ.

            Then he baptizes Jesus in the dirty waters of the Jordan.  He does not baptize Jesus for the forgiveness of any sins.  He plunges Jesus into those same waters to say that he has shared everything of our humanity, both good and bad, except for sin.  He plunges Jesus into those waters to show the absolute love he has for all of us, despite our sins and many faults.

            Saint Luke does not describe the actual baptism of Jesus.  He says that after he has been baptized, he is praying.  Throughout the Gospel of Luke, Jesus prays at every important event in his ministry as a matter of faithful obedience to his Father.  The heaven is opened and the Spirit descends on him, much as the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of creation in Genesis.  Jesus initiates a new creation, a new way of living and existing.  The voice from the heaven calls him his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased.  Abraham had called Isaac his beloved son three times before taking him up Mount Moriah.  Jesus will be that obedient Son, giving himself to us out of love.  He is also the faithful servant of the Lord, bringing the ultimate comfort spoken by Isaiah.

            We became God’s beloved children when we were baptized.  Our baptismal font is a powerful sign of being plunged into the watery grave of Christ’s death.  We emerge from those waters completely free of sin and totally one with Jesus Christ.  We are loved, even though we are sinners.  The Father delights in us, just as he delighted in his Beloved Son.

            As we leave this Christmas Season, we can do exactly what Jesus did.  We can pray to have the courage to cooperate with the grace of our baptism.  We are part of a new creation.  We have been given new life and a new way of existing.  The Holy Spirit can empower us to live that new life more completely.  The suscipe prayer of Saint Ignatius of Loyola can be ours:           

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,

            my memory, my understanding,        

            and my entire will,     

            all I have and call my own.

 

            You have given all to me.

            To you, Lord, I return it.

 

            Everything is yours; do with it what you will.

            Give me only your love and your grace.

            That is enough for me.

 

THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD

2 JANUARY 2022

 

          The Prophet Isaiah speaks to his people who have just returned from forty years of exile in Babylon.  Despite their joy at returning home, they found Jerusalem in ruins.  Darkness had descended on the destroyed city and demolished temple.  Isaiah reminds his people that God had not abandoned his Covenant promises, even though they had not been faithful.  Isaiah promises that God will manifest his light in Jerusalem.  God will restore his temple and city to allow all the nations to see his glory.  As in the days when the Queen of Sheba brought lavish gifts to King Solomon, caravans of camels will come to Jerusalem from Sheba bearing the precious gifts of gold and frankincense, proclaiming the praises of the Lord.

            Saint Matthew sees this prophecy fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ.  The glory of the Lord shines forth in God taking on human flesh.  Led by a star, the mysterious magi from the east see an ordinary child in Bethlehem through human eyes.  However, by faith, they see much more.  They fall down and worship God in human flesh and offer him gifts of gold for his kingship, frankincense for his divinity, and myrrh for his humanity.  This child will save the world by entering into the fate of all humans:  death, to be destroyed by the resurrection.   

            Saint Matthew wrote his Gospel to Christians who had grown up in their Jewish heritage.  For that reason, his story of the magi makes an important point.  From the beginning, God intended the gifts of God’s presence and light to go beyond its Jewish roots to all of the earth.  We are beneficiaries of those gifts.  We encounter Jesus Christ in the same way that the magi encountered him.  When we come to the Eucharist, we see ordinary bread and wine through human eyes.  However, by faith, we see much more.  We recognize the risen Lord truly present  in the Eucharist.  We too can bring him gifts.  We may not bring him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  We bring the gifts of our hearts in praise and thanksgiving. 

            Nourished by the Lord’s real presence in the Eucharist, we can give at least three gifts of our hearts to our world.  First, we can be both light bearers and light reflectors.  Our world is wallowing these days in the darkness of hatred and mistrust, much to our own making.  We can dare to be people of light, allowing the light of Christ to shine through our actions.

            Second, we can give the light of acceptance.  It is easy to confuse “acceptance” with “condone.”  Of course, there are all kinds of behaviors in our lives and in the lives of others that we do not condone.  Instead of writing off those people whose actions we do not condone, we can work on those behaviors in our own lives which need to be changed.  We can work to accept others. We begin the difficult process of bringing the light of Christ to the darkness around us.

            Finally, we can give the gift of joy.  Throughout this holy season of Christmas, we have been praising God with joyful carols.  We can be people of joy when this season ends next Sunday.  Instead of dwelling in the darkness of negativity and despair, we can learn to live in the affirming reality of grace.

            Many people worry about how we will emerge from these two dark years of division and acrimony both in the Church and in our nation.  Satan has been having a field day with all the negative events of these last two years.  The Solemnity of Epiphany gives the answer.  We can emerge from this season as people who embrace the shining light of the Incarnate Word dwelling in our midst.  Then we can reflect that light to everyone, absolutely everyone!

 

 

THE HOLY FAMILY OF JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH

26 DECEMBER 2021

 

            Saint Luke gives us the only account in the Gospels of Jesus growing up as a child.  At one level, all families today can identify with the predicament of Mary and Joseph.  Even in a family where two of the members are without sin, there are difficulties because of confusion and lack of communication.  Most families can tell a story of a similar in losing track of a child, even for a short time.  All families with preteen boys can identify with Mary’s question:  “Son, why have you done this to us?”  Families today can take consolation in this story.

            Like your family, the Holy Family has religious customs to help their child grow in an understanding of the faith.  Like your family, the Holy Family has the support of their religious community.  Joseph and Mary rely on their family and friends to learn that their child must be back in Jerusalem and not in the caravan on the way home to Nazareth.  With the support of their community, they have the courage to take the risk of returning on a dangerous journey alone, making them vulnerable to thieves and villains.

            However, this story also gives us a preview of the Gospel of Luke which we will hear on most Sundays of this new Liturgical Year.  Once in Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph spend three agonizing days searching for their son.  When they find him, they are amazed at the response of the teachers.  These learned adults are impressed with his knowledge, much as the crowds would be amazed at the depth of his teaching as an adult.  When Jesus asks them why they were looking for him, he tells them that he must be in his Father’s house, a response that baffles them.  Their lack of understanding foreshadows the many ways in which his disciples could not understand the mission given to him by his Father.  However, he remains obedient to them as they return to Nazareth.  Mary keeps all these things in her heart, indicating her complete openness to God’s plan for her and for her son.  

Years later, Mary would spend three days grieving over her crucified son buried in a tomb.  Just as finding her son alive and well brought relief and joy, she would experience the incredible joy of his resurrection on the third day.  Mary never doubts the goodness and love of the Father.  That faith is rewarded with her own assumption into heaven as the first person to share fully in the bodily resurrection of her son.

The question which the adolescent Jesus asks of Mary and Joseph is the same he asks of us:  “Why were you looking for me?”  On this day after Christmas, we can understand better his response:  “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  Just as he needs to be in his Father’s house, we need to be here in his Father’s house with our families. 

I’ve often told stories about my human family gathered for Christmas on this Feast.  It is important that you know that my human family shares many of the same quirks as yours.  Today, I want to focus today on the family that is our parish gathered in our Father’s house.  I am truly humbled that you come here to find a home.  I am a sinner, and we who form this parish family are also sinners.  But this is your home.  As Jesus advanced in wisdom and age, he did what the religious authorities at the time considered unthinkable.  He dined with sinners!  That is what happens in this temple, in this house.  Pope Francis has shared that the Eucharist “…is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”  As the parish family of Saint Pius, we know that we will never meet the level of the holiness of the Holy Family.  Unworthy as we are, we celebrate the Lord’s presence here in our midst.  Saint Augustine reminds us that we become what we receive:  the Body of Christ.  We need each other, as the Holy Family needed the support of their community to be the Body of Christ in our world. 

 

THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD

25 DECEMBER 2021

 

          There are four different sets of readings assigned to the Solemnity of Christmas.  The Gospel determines the tone for each one.  For those who participate at the 4:00 or 6:30 Masses, the Gospel is from Matthew.  Saint Matthew tells the Christmas story from the perspective of Saint Joseph.  When Joseph learns in a dream that Mary has conceived a child through the Holy Spirit, he welcomes Mary as his wife.  If you come to Midnight Mass, Saint Luke tells the story of Joseph and Mary arriving in Bethlehem, where they find no room in the Inn.  The child is born in a stable, and angels proclaim to lowly shepherds the Good News.  At the 9:00 Mass on Christmas Day, Saint Luke relates what happens after the shepherds have left. Mary reflects in her heart all that has happened.  At the 11:00 Mass, we hear the magnificent prologue of the Gospel of Saint John.  He speaks of Jesus as the eternal Word of God without any beginning.  In the Christmas Miracle, the Word took on human flesh and dwells among us.

            Centuries ago, Saint Francis of Assisi realized that it is important to approach the Mystery of the Incarnation with a childlike faith.  For that reason, he established the first crèche.  He built a stable and brought in farm animals.  He invited the local community to play the roles of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the magi.  To this day, our children gaze on the crèche in the Parish Life Center.  They use their imaginations to put themselves into the drama of that first Christmas Night.  It makes the birth of Christ real to them.  The crèche invites those of us who are adults to reflect on this incredible Mystery with childlike faith.

            Saint John describes the birth of Jesus in his Gospel from a very different perspective.  Instead of picturing the events of the birth, he approaches the Mystery in a philosophical way.  However, Saint John also invites us to use our imagination and reflect on the Mystery of the Incarnation with childlike simplicity.  He tells us that the eternal Word has become flesh and made his dwelling among us.  In other words, Jesus Christ has pitched his tent and dwells among us.  The Word may have become flesh two millennia ago.  But John says that the Incarnation is not just a past event, but is a present reality.  At that time, people of faith saw his glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.  He invites people of faith today to use our eyes of faith and our childlike imagination to see that same glory dwelling among us.

            In a world filled with so much darkness, so much strife, in a world divided among so many different issues, it takes childlike faith to see this reality.  With our ears, we have just heard the Good News proclaimed in the Word of Good.   With our eyes, we see bread and wine transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ.  Much like children yearning to hold the newborn Christ in their arms when they look on the crèche, we actually hold his real presence in our hands when we receive Communion.  We recall his words that where two or three are gathered, he is present in our midst.  There are many more than two or three here!  Nourished by this Real Presence, we leave this Church to recognize how the Lord dwells in our midst. 

            The Word of God and the carols we sing at Christmas suggest the image of marriage.  God, our faithful spouse, has wedded heaven with earth.  God enters into this marital union, not because we are perfect, but because God loves us in all our sins and imperfections.  In this marriage, we can recognize the Lord’s presence in our ordinary lives and interactions with others.  We can recognize him in ways that are completely surprising and unexpected.  We can recognize him today in the places where we gather.  God has taken on our humanity, so that God can gradually transform us into his divinity.  When that happens, the true light of the world shines more brightly in the darkness of our world.  Merry Christmas.

 

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

19 DECEMBER 2021

 

          We hear the story of two incredible women of faith embracing one another.  Elizabeth is pregnant in her old age.  She had endured the pain of infertility for many years.  Now she is expecting a child so long desired.  We can only imagine how happy and exuberant she is.  Mary is young and unmarried.  She has only recently been told about a child she did not expect.  We can only imagine that she is frightened and unsure of what will happen. 

            In the midst of these contrasts, both mothers demonstrate that they are open to God’s work through them in a beautiful and profound way.  Elizabeth is from the priestly class of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Mary is a humble peasant from Nazareth, a backwater village in the north.  Despite being in a higher socioeconomic class, Elizabeth bows to the presence of the gift in Mary’s womb.  She points to the relationship of the child leaping for joy in her womb with the Son of God present in the womb of Mary.  Both of these women model a gift of faith that will literally nurture God’s presence on earth.  In ways that they may not understand in this moment, their children will alter the course of human history.  The Baptist will be the precursor, the one pointing to the Lamb of God.  Jesus will be the One named in the Letter to the Hebrews:  the Savior who will sacrifice his life out of love for all of us.

            In Elizabeth, we see the example of faith through long suffering.  How many of us can identify with her?  Perhaps you have suffered from an inability to conceive children.  Or maybe you have suffered from economic disappointment, or some kind of affliction.  Some may have struggled for years in vain trying to bring sobriety to a loved one who is suffering from a terrible addiction.  These difficulties can bring us near the brink of despair.  It is very easy to be angry in these situations, because it seems that God has not responded to our urgent appeals for help.

            In Mary, we see the example of faith in unexpected hardship.  Certainly, children are always a gift.  But, there are always difficulties, as any parent can testify.  All of us know what it is like to experience hardship that we could never have anticipated.  In the moment, we find it difficult to see that hardship as a gift.  We also know the fear of taking a step into the unknown and trusting God’s presence when we decide to leave our place of comfort and safety.

            That is why Mary goes in haste to the hill country to meet her cousin Elizabeth.  In their different situations, each of these women can teach us how to be open to God’s gift and trust that the Lord is present in that gift.  Each of these women, in her own way, can show us how to be open to how God can work in our lives, especially in unexpected and difficult situations.  Each of them shows us a deep faith that God can turn a hardship into a gift.

            That is the real Mystery we are preparing to celebrate later this week at Christmas.  God has become present to the world in a way that no one could have expected.  The prophets may have given hope to their people that God would send a messiah.  But they could not have imagined that God would actually take flesh and make his dwelling among us.

            Mary provides both a gift and a model for us.  On this last Sunday of Advent, she invites us to imitate her example.  Like Mary, we have listened carefully to the Word just proclaimed to us.  Like Mary, we can give praise and thanks for that Word, whether we receive it within the context of long suffering or unexpected hardship.  We can ask her intercession to find ways to respond in faith to God’s Word.  Then, like Mary, we can go in haste.  We go in haste to gather together with family and loved ones to celebrate the incredible Mystery of the Incarnation, embracing the Christ born in our midst today.