ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

14 JUNE 2015

            Saint Paul says that we need to be courageous and walk by faith, not by sight.  In saying that, he is really telling us to walk through life with the conviction that God is in charge.  That is what the prophet Ezekiel had told his people some six hundred years earlier.  He was among the 3,000 movers and shakers who had been taken into exile in Babylon.  While in Babylon, he and his fellow exiles heard that the Babylonians had completely destroyed Jerusalem, torn down their temple, and murdered their king.  That royal tree of David which had grown strong from the root of Jesse had been cut down.  In the midst of their grief and despair, Ezekiel assures his people that God is in charge.  He tells them that God will take the top part of what is left of that majestic tree and transplant it back on Mount Zion.  Because God is in charge, people from every nation will be drawn to the reconstructed Jerusalem and dwell in God’s shadow.

            We see Ezekiel’s prophecy fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  Jesus proclaims the Kingdom of God:  that God is in charge.  In sending out his disciples to proclaim that Kingdom, he instructs them to spread the Word as well as they can, like a farmer sows seed in a field.  Once that work is done, disciples need to trust that the Kingdom will grow, because God is in charge.

            For those who first heard the Gospel of Saint Mark, the parable of the mustard seed spoke strongly to them.  They had chosen to follow a peasant from Galilee who had been murdered like a common criminal outside the walls of Jerusalem.  They came to believe that God was in charge, because the Father had raised Jesus from the dead.  The initial growth of the Church was as small and insignificant as a tiny mustard seed.  But because they believed that God was in charge, they gradually watched as those humble beginnings begin to grow and attract new members, even in the face of persecution by a state that saw this movement as dangerous to the culture.  This new Church spread throughout the Mediterranean Sea and took root in Rome.

            This has been the way the Church has grown throughout history.  This pattern has repeated itself over and over again.  In the late 19^th century, a group of young men were invited to become pages of a powerful king at a place called Namugongo in Uganda.  These young men had recently become Christian.  Some were still Catechumens.  When they discovered that the king wanted sexual favors from them, they resisted him, under the leadership of Charles Lwanga.  In the face of his threats, they trusted that God was in charge.  He ruthlessly murdered all of them, and the situation was desperate.  It seemed like a mustard seed.  But the word of their courage began to spread and brought other people to believe in the Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus Christ.  We celebrated their Feast Day on June 3.  My friend, Father Larry Kanyike, e-mailed me to say that a million people gathered at the Shrine of the Martyrs in Namugongo on that day to celebrate Mass.  Christianity has become the fastest growing religion in sub-Saharan Africa and has grown into a very large shrub, attracting many people to dwell in it.

            Saint Paul wants us to walk by faith, not by sight, trusting that God is in charge.  We must do whatever we can to further the Kingdom of God.  We need to practice our faith and teach our children.  We need to work for a more just world.  We need to share our resources with those in need.  We need to pray for those things which we think we desperately need.  But, then we need to trust that God is in charge, even when we watch our world descend into violence, and even when it seems like our prayers are not being answered.

            It takes courage to walk by faith, not by sight, because our sight alone cannot see the ways that God is in charge.  What seems like a mustard seed grows eventually into a very large bush.  We may not see that bush now.  But it exists.  We trust that through faith.

THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

7 JUNE 2015

            On the Sundays during the Easter Season, our liturgy expressed the truth that we are members of the New Covenant through our Baptisms.  We began every Mass by sprinkling the congregation with Holy Water.  It is my favorite time of the year, watching people remove their glasses and shielding their heads from the dousing of the water which they know is coming.

            If you are glad to see the Easter Season gone because you are tired of being doused with water, you can be glad that you were not part of the congregation when Moses sealed the First Covenant at Mount Sinai.  During that liturgy, Moses took the blood of two young bulls and sprinkled part of the blood on the Altar, and the other part on the congregation.  That is much worse than being doused with water at Saint Pius!  Blood signified life.  The blood of sacrificed animals symbolized the life which God has now shared with his people through the Covenant.

            The Letter to the Hebrews uses the image of this First Covenant Liturgy to help us understand what Jesus Christ has done.  By shedding his blood on the cross, Jesus gave his entire life for us.  He established a New Covenant, sealed in his blood, which promises eternal life for those who participate.  That perfect Sacrifice is made present every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist.  On this Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, we rejoice that we have been formed into the Body of Christ and nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ at every Mass.

            This is also a perfect day for a new priest to celebrate his First Mass. Father Bill, as a priest configured in a unique way to the person of Jesus Christ, you now have the task of pouring out your very life in the service of the people to whom you are assigned.  As you pour out your life, the celebration of the Eucharist will be central to everything you do.  It will be your greatest joy.  It will be your greatest comfort.  It will be your greatest strength as you learn to live the implications of pouring out your life in humble service.

            We, the people of Saint Pius X, cannot tell you how happy we are that you have been assigned to us.  You are no stranger to us.  We know your wonderful strengths and talents, and we love to make fun of those character quirks which you so prominently display.  We will have to figure out how to distinguish two Father Bills.  “Father Bill the Greater, and Father Bill the Lesser!”  “Father Bill the senile and Father Bill the young one!”  We’ll see!

            But that great joy of ours is balanced by the real sadness of losing Father Terry.  He has been a much beloved priest here for four years, and we will miss him.  This mixture of joy and sadness will be an integral part of your priestly ministry.  You will help a family mourn the tragic and unexpected loss of a young person at a Funeral Mass on one day.  On the next, you will share the joy of two families coming together to celebrate the wedding of their children.  A couple will come to you for help, because their marriage is falling apart.  Within an hour, another couple will approach you with the good news that they are expecting a child.  Fourteen people will come to you after Mass to congratulate you on the great homily you just gave.  One person will criticize you, and you will freak out for weeks!

            In your priestly ministry, trust the power of this Eucharistic Sacrifice.  As you pour out your very lifeblood for your people, the death and resurrection of the Lord will be made present to you in the Eucharist.  You will identify with the dying of the Lord in the tough situations.  You will rejoice with the rising of the Lord in the joyous times.  It is that Mystery which defines the New Covenant sealed by the Blood of Jesus Christ.  It is that Mystery which you will proclaim in so many ways.  May God bless you and keep you as you begin this great ministry.  May God bring to completion the good work in you which he is beginning today!

Stewardship of Service

My name is Phil Hayes.  I've been a CCD teacher at St Pius for 9 years.  I've taught 3rd, 4th, 7th and 8th grades.  But I'm not a teacher by trade, so how did I start doing this?

Well, 15 years ago, I attended a Christ Renews retreat.  If you haven't done it yet, it's a powerful experience.  That weekend, I learned that the Holy Spirit is very much present and acting in each of our lives!  I also learned that we need to serve others, just as Christ instructed us when he washed the feet of his disciples.  So after the retreat, I was ready to get involved in the Church.

St Pius offers about a hundred different ways that we can serve!  Many of you do so much more than I do.  Thank you for your wonderful work!  My wife, Claire, is active in four ministries.  But I work full time as the General Manager of a Bus Manufacturing company, so I had to find things that fit with my schedule.  I decided to sign up for Eucharistic Minister on Sundays, Eucharistic Adoration, and The Great Bible Adventure - what an a fantastic adult bible-study course, right here at St. Pius!  I highly recommend it.

In that class, I learned that before Moses died, he told the Israelites that the most important thing we can do is to pass our faith on to our children and grandchildren.  So I decided to fill out that little card that I would be willing to teach CCD.

My first class of 4th-graders had just 6 students.  4th graders soak up every word like a sponge, and they love to participate.  In fact, when you start to ask a question, all their hands are high in the air, saying "call on me, call on me!"  And they don't even know the question yet!  It's a great blessing to see that joy in a 4th grader's eyes.  4th grade studies the 10 commandments, so it was very humbling....I was reminded of my own sins every week!

Four years ago, I was "promoted" to 7th and 8th grade, with classes of 20-25 students.  Much more challenging!  The older children are beginning to question the various teachings of the Catholic Church.  For example: Why is abortion so wrong?  Why is human life so precious?  Why is marriage defined as between 1 man and 1 woman?  Is Christ truly present in the Eucharist?  I learn as much as they do along the way.  If you want to really know something, try teaching it!

During the school year, we go through a journey together. Two years ago, a very difficult thing happened.  My oldest daughter, Jeannie, died of a sudden illness, very unexpectedly.  My 8th grade class stuck with me.  They cried with me.  They prayed with me.  They were just one part of a large support group from St. Pius that helped me and my family to increase my faith in God.  That's what service is - helping someone in your community who is in need.

I teach CCD on Monday nights, and when I get home from class, I often have this feeling that I might have just made  a difference in some of those children's lives.  It's a rewarding feeling.  I'm sure that people in all types of service work have that same feeling.

When you give of yourself, you receive so much more in return.  Serving others, and serving God, bring us the highest level of happiness we can have in this life, and bring us closest to what we hope to experience in the next.  Thank you for listening.  May God bless you and your families.

THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD

17 MAY 2015

            Saint Luke tells us that Jesus was taken up into heaven.  This taking up of Jesus is an essential part of the Paschal Mystery.  Jesus showed incredible trust in his Father during his earthly ministry.  He trusted that his Father knew what he was doing when he carried his cross to Calvary.  He could trust, because he had learned detachment.  In being removed from his physical existence in this world, he trusts his disciples to carry on his mission, even though he knows they are clueless.  He trusts them even when they ask a really dumb question about when he would kick out the Romans and restore the Kingdom of Israel.

            As Jesus is taken up, two men dressed in white tell the disciples to take a journey within.  In taking a long, sobering look within their own souls, they begin the process of learning to be detached.  They are like young parents who are holding their first newborn child in their arms.  Filled with joy, they suddenly ask themselves, “What now?”  As the reality of a new child sinks in, they will eventually learn how to detach themselves from so many things they had considered important to focus on the needs of their child. 

            That is why the two men dressed in white garments tell the disciples that they now need to take the journey out.  Saint Mark tells us that they went forth and preached everywhere.  Filled with the Holy Spirit, they could speak the language of love, which drove out demons, allowed them to handle slippery situations, bring the healing power of Jesus to people, and not be afraid to swallow insults from others. 

            As we reflect on the Mystery of the Ascension, the Lord invites us to respond to the trust he has given us.  He has been taken up.  We respond by taking a journey within.  In taking that long and sobering look at our souls, we will discover the gifts and talents God has given us.  Then the Lord sends us on the journey outside ourselves.  He wants us to trust him and learn detachment, so that we can be free to proclaim the Kingdom of God through our service to our families and to our parish.

            That is why the message of stewardship is so important.  Stewardship gives us a structure way of responding in faith to the Mystery of the Ascension.  During Lent, we renewed our stewardship of prayer.  Today, we are invited to renew our stewardship of service.  Please read the materials in your stewardship of service packet.  Please consider renewing your commitment or making a new one.  As you take this journey within and pray over how you can move out, please listen to Phil Hayes.  Phil has been a faithful catechist in our CCD program for many years.  As he speaks of his humble service, listen to the Holy Spirit nudging you to take a step in faith and allow the Lord to work through you, as he worked through those first disciples.

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

10 MAY 2015

            People often speak of taking a journey to find God in their lives.  People sometimes do crazy things like biking from Canterbury to Rome to search for God.  While there are many good things to be said about making efforts to find God in our lives, the First Letter of Saint John gives us a very different perspective.  He says just the opposite.  He tells us that God wants to find us.  God is love.  Because God IS love, and not just a God who has one of the attributes of love, God wants to give that love to us.  We do not earn it.  We do not deserve it.  It is a gift, and God invites us to accept the gift and give it to others.

            Saint Peter understands that truth well.  The Son of God had found him and invited him to follow him.  Peter had responded and listened to Jesus teach the essentials of God’s love.  Peter would certainly remember the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel spoken at the Last Supper.  He knows that he has become a friend of Jesus and understands the command to love others as the Lord had loved him.  Peter witnessed the ultimate expression of that love when Jesus had washed his feet, given his life in expiation for Peter’s sins, and then forgiven him when he was raised from the dead.  Peter realizes that love is not some overpowering emotion that makes him feel good.  Rather, love is seen in action, in making sacrifices out of love for other people.

As Peter continues to reflect on this incredible love, he comes to understand that the risen Lord has not chosen to love a select few of his best friends.  Through the Holy Spirit, the risen Lord was finding pagans, people outside Peter’s comfort zone, and calling them to be included in the circle of friends. The pagan soldier, Cornelius, is one of them.  As a faithful Jew who had never have entered the home of a pagan, Peter has the courage to walk into the home of Cornelius and welcome him to the community of believers.  He does not make Cornelius wait in line until everyone else had been chosen (as I had to wait until everyone else had been chosen as a kid to be part of a team!).  Instead, Peter listens to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and welcomes Cornelius and his family into the community of believers.

To use the image of Jesus from last Sunday’s Gospel, Cornelius and his family are now branches connected to the true vine of Christ through the waters of Baptism.  As disciples, they too are given a command, a mission:  go out and bear fruit; go out and love others as I have loved you.  Those of you who have the vocation of being a mother understand what Jesus is talking about.  You have responded to the Lord’s call to love your children as the risen Lord has loved you.  So many times, the many sacrifices you make for your children are taken for granted.  Children simply presume that their needs are taken care of.  They presume that they will have clothes to wear, food to eat, and tender loving care when things go badly.  They can even become resentful and rebellious when mothers try to teach them lessons that they do not want to learn.  Today, within the context of the truths we hear about the love of God, we get a chance to thank our mothers for showing us so many ways in which they make visible the love which our Scripture readings describe.

At the end of Mass, we are told to go in peace.  Our English words, Go, the Mass is ended, translate the Latin command, Ite, Missa est!  In other words, get out of here and continue the mission of spreading the sacrificial love made present in the Eucharist.  We are sent to bear much fruit, to continue to show that the way we behave reflects the Mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Our response is appropriate, Deo gratias, or thanks be to God.  We do not imply that we are glad that the Mass is over.  Instead, we are glad to get another chance to show the world that the risen Lord has chosen us to love as we have been loved.           

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

3 MAY 2015

            When this community gathered for Mass on Palm Sunday, we prayed the beginning verses of Psalm 22.  Those verses spoke of God’s servant being mocked, abandoned, and murdered.  Today, we prayed the later verses of that same Psalm, telling us that God vindicated his servant.  The earliest followers of Jesus Christ connected the first part of the Psalm with the passion of Christ and these later verses with his the Mystery of his Resurrection.

Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles gives us insights into how they lived that Mystery.  Filled with the Holy Spirit, those early believers boldly proclaimed their faith that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  That bold proclamation brought death to Stephen and scattered the community.  It infuriated Saul of Tarsus, who dedicated himself to eliminating this new movement.  Having encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul was equally bold in proclaiming the truth from his encounter with the risen Christ, causing fear in the Christian community and so much anger that the Hellenists tried to kill him.  His friend, Barnabas, had to take him back to Tarsus to save his life.  And yet, in the midst of all of this chaos and conflict, Saint Luke tells us that the Church continued to be built up and was at peace!

            This peace that Saint Luke describes is obviously not an absence of conflict or problems.  Rather, that peace is the result of the indwelling of the risen Christ.  Those earliest believers knew that Christ was keeping his promise and that he remained in them.  They understood the image presented by Jesus in today’s Gospel.  They saw themselves as branches which had been grafted onto the true vine of Christ when they were baptized.  They were being fed by his Body and Blood when they gathered to break bread.  They realized that their efforts to keep the commandments to love God and neighbor were connected with their faith that Christ was remaining in them.  They also believed that God was using the conflicts and difficulties to prune them, to cause them to bear more fruit by the ways in which they were keeping his commands.

            As we continue to reflect on the implications of the resurrection in our own time, our first communicants remind us that we too have been grafted onto the life giving vine of Jesus Christ through the waters of Baptism.  As they march to the Baptismal Font clothed in the white garments that speak of their putting on Christ at their baptisms, we join them in renewing our efforts to resist the temptations of the Evil One and to live the faith we profess by making new efforts to love God and neighbor.  As they come forward for the first time to be fed by the Body and Blood of Christ, they remind us of the Sacrament we can take for granted.  They remind us that we need to come to Mass on a regular basis, not because of some arbitrary law, but because we need to be nourished as branches on that true vine.

            When most members of the Christian community were afraid of Paul of Tarsus, Barnabas stepped forward and vouched for him.  Barnabas (his name means “Son of Encouragement”) was able to see the surprising ways in which God works in the conversion of his strong headed friend.  He encouraged the earliest believers to trust Paul and to protect him from those who wanted to do him harm.  Boys and girls, you are “Barnabas” to us.  Your uncomplicated faith and obvious joy on this day encourage us as we renew our Baptismal Promises with you.  You remind us that Christ wants to remain in us.  You remind us that the indwelling of God in our lives will continue to give us that incredible gift of peace.  With that gift of peace, we can take another look at the conflicts and difficulties which we face in our daily lives, and even at the ways in which we fail to keep the commandments.  That peace remains, even when God uses these difficulties to prune us and help us to produce more fruit.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

26 APRIL 2015

            As we continue to reflect on the transforming power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and apply that Mystery to our lives, our Scripture readings offer us two interesting images today.  Saint Peter gives the first in his speech to the members of the Sanhedrin.  Peter is clearly changed by the power of the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  When the Sanhedrin had interrogated Jesus on Holy Thursday, Peter was so filled with fear that he denied knowing him.  This time, he stands without fear before that same hostile group.  He defends his healing of a crippled man, asking why anyone would condemn him for performing an act of kindness.

            Then he explains how this healing occurred.  He insists that the miracle was not a result of his own power.  Rather, he boldly proclaims the truth that Jesus the Nazorean is the promised Christ, whom they had condemned to death.  He quotes Psalm 118, the psalm we pray today as the Responsorial Psalm, and uses the image of Jesus being the stone rejected by the builders.  That stone, Peter argues, has been raised from the dead by the Father and has become the cornerstone of a new structure being built of living stones.

            That image takes on new meaning for our parish.  Last weekend, Bishop Rhoades led us in the groundbreaking of our new church.  He blessed the cornerstone, the most important part of that structure.  You can check it out after Mass – the stone weighing two hundred pounds in the back of church.  That cornerstone reminds us of the centrality of Jesus Christ in our lives and in our parish.  Our new church may be very beautiful and more spacious.  As we watch the new church being built and put up with the inconveniences caused by construction, we connect that emerging structure to the living members of our parish.  Just as that cornerstone will be the most significant stone in that structure, the risen Christ remains the most important part of ours, inviting us to be transformed through the power of the resurrection, as Peter was transformed.

            The second image comes from the Gospel, and our children receiving their First Holy Communion can tell you all about it.  Jesus says that he is the Good Shepherd.  He addresses this image to the religious leaders who are more concerned about their own welfare than the welfare of those entrusted to their care.  As the man born blind comes to see the truth about him, they close their eyes to the truth.  Jesus uses this image to help us understand that he knows us each of us by name.  He recognizes our voice.  He invites us to recognize him speaking to us in the Word.  He invites us to renew our faith in his life giving death and resurrection.  He has laid down his life for us on the cross to rescue us from the wolves of death and sinfulness.  He has laid down his life so that we can share in the transforming power of the resurrection.

            That is why this First Communion Mass is so important.  These children have been preparing anxiously to be fed by their Good Shepherd, who knows each of them by name, and who feeds them as the Lamb of God under the form of bread and wine.  Boys and girls, we pledge our support to you as you take this important step in faith.  In a moment, you will walk back to the Baptismal Font to renew your Baptismal Promises.  It was at the font that you were incorporated into the risen Christ through the waters of Baptism.  You were clothed with a white garment to indicate that you had put on Christ.  As you renew those promises, we promise to support you and your families as you continue to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd speaking to you every Sunday.  We promise to walk with you as you approach this Sacrament, trusting its power to conform you slowly and gradually into the Body of Christ, of which you are an important member.