Father Bloom

A New Beginning

Homily for Easter Sunday 2012 – April 8, 2012

Bottom line: Ask Jesus to come into your life – to get rid of your sins – so he can give you a new identity, a fresh start, a new beginning.

A Blessed Easter to you – and your families. For those visiting, my name is Fr. Phillip Bloom and this is my third Easter at St. Mary of the Valley. I love being your pastor, your spiritual father, and I hope that we will have many Easters together.

I would like to begin this Easter homily with something from G.K. Chesterton. Perhaps you have seen pictures of him. He was big. Chesterton used to joke that he was the politest man in all of England – because when he stood up in a bus, he could give seats to three ladies!

Well, Chesterton was big not only in girth, but in intellect. Many considered him the most brilliant and most popular journalist of his day. It caused quite a stir when, after many decades of searching, he entered the Catholic Church. Friends asked him why he became a Catholic. Chesterton replied, “To get rid of my sins!”

That is what we see in our Easter readings. Peter recounts Jesus’ death and resurrection and then concludes: “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” When Jesus first appeared to the Apostles, he breathed the gift of the Holy Spirit and said, “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them.”

The forgiveness of sins enables a person to make a new beginning. French writer Henri Barbusse (1874-1935) tells of a conversation overheard in a dugout full of wounded men during the First World War. One of them who knows he has only moments to live says to another man, “Listen, Dominic, you’ve led a bad life. Everywhere you are wanted by the police. But there are no convictions against me. My name is clear, so, here, take my wallet, take my papers, my identity, my good name, my life and quickly, hand me your papers that I may carry all your crimes away with me in death.”

Jesus want to give you and me a new identity, a new beginning, a fresh start – by the forgiveness of sins. Now, you don’t need to have huge sins to seek forgiveness and make a fresh start. After he became Catholic, Chesterton said that one of the beautiful things about Confession was that a person could tell very ordinary sins: laziness, careless words, uncontrolled anger. Those sins seem pedestrian, but they can bring a person down just as much as adultery or abortion. The truth is, all of us need a new beginning.

The forgiveness of sins brings something new into our world. Without forgiveness human history is very bleak. Frederick Nietzsche, the philosopher who stated “God is dead,” thought the driving force of history is resentment. In one sense he is correct. Anger, resentment, bitterness, envy — those things go on and on. We know in our own lives how difficult it is to get rid of resentment. And sometimes even the person who say, “I love everyone” in reality, is seething with bitterness inside.

The only way to overcome bitterness and resentment is by receiving forgiveness of sins. If we do that, something new enters the world, something new enters our own lives. I am not saying it is easy. On the contrary, nothing is more difficult that receiving forgiveness – and all that it implies for our relations with others. It is not easy, but that is the reason we before our eyes the cross – and the Divine Mercy image.

Brothers and sisters, we are in a crucial, defining moment for our society and our church. The question is: Will we stand with Jesus or pull away from him? Are going to allow Jesus into our harts or are we going to drift with the current? A dead fish goes with the flow. A strong, live fish swims against the current.

I would like to ask something of you this Sunday: Give Jesus fifty days. For us as Christians, Easter is not a single day, but season that lasts until Pentecost Sunday – this year, May 27. We have 50 days to explore the Resurrection. We cannot take in everything at once. It is enough this morning to go with the apostles to the tomb of Jesus. Join them in looking inside and feel the surprise that the tomb is empty – only burial shroud and few stips of cloth remain behind.

What does it mean? You do not need an answer now. Come back next Sunday so we can explore this mystery together. Meanwhile, ask Jesus to come into your life – to get rid of your sins – so he can give you a new identity, a fresh start, a new beginning. Amen. Continue reading »

The Newness of Jesus’ Death

Homily for Good Friday 2012 – April 6, 2012

Bottom line: Jesus’ death is the power to overcome bitterness, hatred and violence…in spite of our weaknesses and sins, we can be channels of divine mercy, we can help bring that newness to others.

Brothers and sisters, today is Good Friday – the day Jesus gave his life for us. His death has brought something new into our world. To understand this newness, we need to begin with the fact this is the second day of what we call the Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.

On Holy Thursday we celebrated the Mass of the Last Supper – when Jesus instituted the Eucharist: His Body given for us, His Blood shed for us. In the homily I mentioned how Christians continue to follow Jesus’ example by offering their lives, that in many countries today Christians are being put to death for their faith. This happens not only in Communist and Islamic nations, but also in countries with a Christian tradition. I used the example of Blessed Luis Magaña. I told you a little bit about his life, especially his concern for social justice for the poor, his devotion to Jesus in Blessed Sacrament and his marriage to Elvira Camarena.

This evening I would like to tell you about his death. Only twenty-five years old, he had a successful business which sometimes took him away from home. One day soldiers came for him, suspecting him of being involved in the armed rebellion against the government. Not finding Luis, they arrested his younger brother, Delfino.

When he returned home, Luis heard the news. Maintaining his calm, he took a bath, shaved and put on his best suit. He gathered his family and told them he was going to the police station to ask for Delfino’s release. He knelt down and his parents gave him a blessing. He picked up his little son, Gilberto, and embraced him. Elvira, who was pregnant with their second child, he enveloped in his arms and gave a final kiss.

After saying good-bye to his family, Luis walked to the main square of Arandas and asked the general to allow him to take the place of his brother. The general accused him of being an armed rebel. It was not true. Luis had not taken arms against the government. The general, however, refused to believe him and ordered him to be summarily executed. They led him to a spot before the parish church. A crowd gathered. They heard Luis say:

“I have never been a Cristero rebel, but if you accuse me of being a Christian, then, yes, that I am. You soldiers who are going to shoot me, I want to tell you that from this moment I pardon you, and I promise that on arriving in the presence of God you are the first ones for whom I will intercede.”

These final words of Blessed Luis help us understand the newness of Christ’s death. The newness is this: To not only die for loved ones, but also for the salvation of enemies, those who do harm. This is something new – what Jesus brought into the world by his death.

Fr. Robert Barron – the priest who did the video series on Catholicism – has a powerful reflection on the newness of Christ’s death. Fr. Barron uses an unexpected starting point – a movie titled “The Hunger Games.” The movie is about something common in history – selecting someone for the spectacle of public execution. The Romans did it, the Aztecs did it; many cultures used human sacrifice to consolidate power.

Christ was such a victim, but his sacrifice was unique. We see that uniqueness, that newness, in our Good Friday readings: The Prophet Isaiah foresees a man of suffering who would give his life as “an offering for our sin.” The Letter to the Hebrews describes Jesus as both priest and victim. In the Gospel, Jesus stands before Pilate. As commander of Roman troops, Pilate could free Jesus or send him to a horrific death. Yet Jesus tells Pilate, “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above.” Pilate, in fact, would fall as quickly as he had risen. (Josephus reports that the emperor recalled Pilate after an unwarranted massacre of Samaritans.) Jesus knew that the ones persecuting him would vanish, but that his sacrifice would endure.

So, we see the uniqueness of Jesus’ sacrifice in that he freely offered himself – not just for loved ones, but even for persecutors. This is major. Fr. Barron argues that Christ’s death changed history: it eventually put an end to human sacrifice among the Romans and later among the Aztecs. And – if we allow it – it can drive violence, bitterness and resentment from our hearts.

We see this in the way Blessed Luis died. He rescued his brother, but he didn’t want to save only one person. He wanted to save the very people who killed him: “You soldiers who are going to shoot me, I want to tell you that from this moment I pardon you, and I promise that on arriving in the presence of God you are the first ones for whom I will intercede.”

On November 20, 2005, Luis Magaña was beatified – recognized as a “blessed” in heaven who intercedes for us. A huge crowd filled the sports stadium in Guadalajara – including his daughter. He had blessed little Luisa in the womb before going to his martyrdom. It must have been a powerful blessing because when Luisa married she had ten children – seven who live in Mexico and three here in the United States. The grandchildren listened to the beatification homily.¹ They heard Cardinal Martins mention the moment of their grandfather’s death: February 9, 1928, at three in the afternoon – the hour of the Divine Mercy.

So appropriate because Blessed Luis Magana was a channel of divine mercy. Divine mercy is another name for the newness that Jesus’ brought to our world. His death is the power to overcome bitterness, hatred and violence. As Blessed Luis’ martyrdom shows, by Jesus’ power, mercy can triumph over evil. Now, you and I may not have a death like Blessed Luis. Still, in spite of our weaknesses and sins, we can be channels of divine mercy, we can help bring that newness to others. Amen.

¹ – In December of 2008, had the opportunity to meet two of Blessed Luis’ granddaughters. In a homily I describe how the meeting came about. I spoke first to the oldest granddaughter, Juanita Garcia Magaña. She told me about their Grandma Elvira, her struggles and her tremendous faith. As often happens, when a widowed woman has a positive experience of marriage, she desired to remarry. She eventually met a man named Juan Cruz. They had four children, so in addition to Gilberto and Maria Luisa, it was a family of six children. In 1958 the family moved to Leon in search of work – and seven years later, at the age of fifty-nine, Elvira died. Her body was brought back to Arandas where she was buried in the cemetery next to Luis. Her second husband, Juan Cruz, died in 1982.

But what about Luis and Elvira’s children? What happened to one-year-old Gilberto and the unborn child, Maria Luisa? The other granddaughter, Marta, gave me the answer. Gilberto married and had four children. He died about 2002, just a few years before his father’s beatification. But Maria Luisa lived to see her dad beatified. Her dad had blessed her in the womb before he went to his death – and that blessing stayed with her all her life. It must have been a powerful blessing because, when she married, she had ten children. Three live here in the United States and the other seven in Mexico. Marta – who is the ninth child – did not marry and takes care of her mom. With great emotion Marta spoke to me about the confident, cheerful and calm faith her mom transmitted to his children and grandchildren. They witnessed their grandfather’s beatification on November 20, 2005. Continue reading »

Blood Shed For Us

Homily for Holy Thursday 2012 – April 5, 2012

Bottom line: At the Last Supper Jesus offered his Body and Blood for us. Christian martyrs likewise have shed their blood for us. We see the examples of Fr. Marek Marius Rybinski and Blessed Luis Magana. As we face challenges to freedom of religion and conscience, they inspire us to give our lives for Jesus and for service to others.

I will give this homily mainly in English, but I would like begin with a summary in Spanish: Gracias por venir a esta Misa de la Ultima Cena. En la Ultima Cena Jesus ofrece su Cuerpo y Sangre por nosotros. Martires cristianos nos ayudan a entender el significado de su muerte salvadora. Voy a dar el ejemplo del Padre Marek Marius Rybinski que dio su vida el año pasado y tambien el ejemplo del Beato Luis Magaña Servin. Mientras enfrentamos retos a la libertad de religion en este pais, nos inspiran dar nuestras vidas por Jesus y el servicio a otros.

Thank you for coming to this Mass of the Last Supper. At the Last Supper Jesus instituted two Sacraments: The Eucharist and the Priesthood (Holy Order). He established the Eucharist when he said “This is my body…This is my blood.” And he established the Priesthood with the words, “Do this in memory of me.”

Along with these marvellous sacraments, the Last Supper has strong element of foreboding. Jesus speaks about his body “given up” and his blood “shed.” And as we just he heard, he performs an act of astonishing humility – he washes the apostles’ feet. All of this leads into what will immediately follow the supper: Jesus’ agony in the garden, his betrayal by a trusted apostle and his arrest.

Tomorrow, Good Friday, we will hear a full account of what happened after Jesus’ arrest: the mockery at his trial, the cruel torture by Roman soldiers and his public execution.

These events happened almost two thousand years ago, but I want to underline that they continue today. In many countries Christians follow the footsteps of Jesus by the shedding of their blood. For example last year, Fr. Marek Marius Rybinski, a 34-year-old Polish priest serving in Tunisia, was murdered.¹ They cut his throat and left his body at the School of Our Lady of Manouba where he worked. Such killings are so common that our media barely report them. In the past three decades over 1000 Catholic missionaries have been killed. That does not include the hundreds of other Christian missionaries and thousands of Christians in places where our faith is persecuted.

We are used to hearing about persecution of Christians in Communist countries like North Korea and Vietnam. And, of course, we know that Christians face martyrdom in Muslim nations, like Turkey, Egypt and Iraq. Persecution of Christians in those countries does not surprise us. What does suprise many is to hear about persecution in supposedly Christian countries. I would like mention one of them: our neighbor to the south, Mexico. The history is complex and the Catholic Church certainly has her sin and failings. But she also has sons and daughters who give amazing testimony for their faith.

This Holy Thursday, I would tell you about one of them: Blessed Luis Magana Servin. People who see his picture are struck by his eyes. He has the appearance of someone who could captivate just by looking at you. When Luis was a boy, a painter came to his town to do a portrait of the Blessed Virgin with the Christ child. Noticing Luis’ lovely eyes, the artist used him as a model. That painting of the Virgin Mary with the child Jesus still hangs in the parish church of Arandas, Mexico.

As a teenager Luis joined the Association of Catholic Mexican Youth. As a member of that group, he helped organize all night adoration in the parish. You might think such a young man would become a priest, but he realized that his vocation was marriage. He fell in love with a beautiful girl named Elvira Camarena Mendez. They had two children, the second born after Luis died.

I will tell you about his death tomorrow. (Mañana les contaré de la muerte del Beato Luis.) His death will help us understand the meaning of Jesus’ death for us. Blessed Luis Magana represents thousands of Christian martyrs in the past one hundred years. In those ten decades more Christians shed their blood for Christ than in the other nineteen centuries combined.

Blessed Luis Magana also will help give a broader context for the challenge we are facing in our own nation – as we work to defend freedom of religion and conscience.

This evening I ask you to take home this message: At the Last Supper Jesus offered his Body and Blood for us. Christian martyrs likewise have shed their blood for us. We saw the examples of Fr. Marek Marius Rybinski and Blessed Luis Magana. As we face challenges to freedom of religion and conscience, they inspire us to give our lives for Jesus and for service to others. Amen.

¹ – The motives behind the murder of Fr. Rybinski are unclear. It could have been a simple robbery by a lone man, but before the murder Salesians in Tunisia had received death threat letters with swastikas drawn at the bottom. Continue reading »

A Loud Cry

Homily for Palm Sunday, Year B, 2012 – April 1, 2012

Bottom line: On the cross Jesus took our evil on his shoulders, he bore the full consequences of sin, including the sense of abandonment – separation from God. But in the end he gave a loud cry – a shout of victory.

Welcome to Holy Week. Today we received a palm branch – in memory of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Then, in terrible contrast, we heard about the betrayal of Jesus, his humiliation by public scourging and then…the cross.

Those standing near the cross heard these words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That plea affected them so deeply that they remembered the words in Jesus’ own language, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabacthani?” Christians throughout the centuries have puzzled about these words: How could Jesus – who is God – feel abandoned by God? Dietrich Bonhoeffer – a Christian pastor imprisoned and executed by the Nazis – wrote about the reality of Jesus’ desolation on the cross.¹ Jesus took upon himself our sins and he experienced the worst consequence of sin: separation from God.

When we feel desolate, abandoned, defeated – when we wonder where God is – that is the moment to come to Jesus, come to the cross.

When we come to Jesus, feeling abandoned, something unexpected happens. We see it in the Gospel: After expressing abandonment, we hear that “Jesus gave a loud cry.” Many Scripture scholars see this as a cry of triumph. William Barclay points out that St. John’s Gospel (as we will hear this Friday) Jesus cries out, “It is finished.” In English three words – “It is finished” – but in Greek one word, “Finished!” Jesus’ loud cry is a shout of victory.²

At the beginning of Mass, you received a victory symbol – the palm branch. Please take home the blessed palm. Place it behind a crucifix as a sign that if we embrace the cross we will triumph – not because our own strength and cleverness – but because of Jesus’ Resurrection.

Next weekend we begin a fifty day celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection. I especially invite you to the Easter Vigil. I also encourage you to attend the Holy Thursday Mass of the Last Supper and the Good Friday veneration of the Cross.

On the cross Jesus took our evil on his shoulders, he bore the full consequences of sin, including the sense of abandonment – separation from God. But in the end he gave a loud cry – a shout of victory. Amen.

¹ – For a fresh look at Bonhoeffer’s life, his years in Jim Crow America and Nazi Germany – and his struggle for soul the Chistianity in Europe, I recommend Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas.

² – See The Gospel of Mark (New Daily Study Bible) by William Barclay Continue reading »

To Know the Lord

In recent Sundays we have heard about the covenant: How God – by his initiative – establishes a relationship with human beings. We learned about the covenant with Noah after the great flood – when God made a new beginning. Jewish scholars call this the “Noahide Covenant.” It has certain norms that apply to all human beings: setting up law courts, repect for marriage and human life – and the prohibition of idolatry.

After many generations God made a specific covenant with Abraham – who is the father of the Jewish people. That covenant has laws which God spelled out in detail through Moses. Those laws guided the Jews in their relation to God and to others.

Today, in our first reading, we hear about a further covenant – a “new covenant.” The prophet Jeremiah says God will place his law within us. The new covenant is not a new law. Rather, God by his Spirit helps us interiorize his ancient eternal law. He will write that law upon our hearts. Then, He says, “All shall know me.”

All shall know me. How does that happen? How do we know the Lord? Not only know about him, but actually know him?

We have a cue in this Sunday’s Gospel. It begins with some Greeks who approach the Apostle Philip with this request, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” To see Jesus, that is the key to knowing God. To see Jesus is to enter the “new covenant.”

Before talking about what it means to see Jesus, I would like to say something about these “Greeks” who wanted to see Him. They had “come to Jerusalem to worship at Passover time.” They were not necessarily people from what we today call the country of Greece. In Jesus time, “Greek” applied to the people who spoke that language – and Greek had become the common language of the Roman Empire and beyond. Some of those “Greeks” had adopted partial or full Judaism. And many first century Jews lived outside of Palestine and had immersed themselves in Hellenistic culture to the point that their first (or only) language was Greek. The Jews of Palestine refered to them as “Hellenists” or simply “Greeks.” These two groups (Greek converts to Judaism and Hellenized Jews) were large.

So, the “Greeks” were a broad group. A few from this vast number wanted to see Jesus, to know him. How would they do it? We see the steps in today’s readings.

First, of course, someone has to introduce them to Jesus – in this case the Apostle Philip, together with Andrew. It is not an accident that they both have Greek names. (Philip means “friend of horses” and Andrew simply means “man.) The important thing about them, however, is not their names, but that they are Apostles. They represent the Church. We need to be introduced to Jesus – and that happens through the Church, particularly by the sacraments of initiation: baptism, confirmation and Eucharist.

Along with that initiation (or introduction) comes repentance. Jesus says the grain has to fall to the ground and die in order to produce any fruit. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “love, as mortals understand the word, isn’t enough. Every natural love will rise again and live forever in this country: but none will rise again until it has been buried.”¹

We must repent – die to sin – if we are to know the Lord. Jeremiah tells us that we will know the Lord because he will forgive our evildoing and remember our sins no more. When we see the Lord – and not our own reflection in a mirror – we become aware of our sins. And we open ourselves to his mercy. As we say in the Psalm, “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.”

So, repentance and initiation. Then we begin the exhilarating work of daily prayer: conversation with God. Prayer, of course, does not happen by our own power. God has to lift our minds and hearts to him. Prayer is God’s work in us. There are, however, certain things that facilitate prayer.

Regarding prayer, I recently read an interview² with Fr. Liam Cary – the new bishop of Eastern Oregon. Bishop Cary emphasized having a place for prayer. He admitted that sometimes people grab a cup of coffee and sit on the porch in an easy chair. “You can do it,” Bishop Cary said, but he added, “one should be more careful and attentive to the details of prayer.” He told how a sacred image can help: “when you have holy images,” he said, “you have someone looking back at you, as it were, you’re conscious of being seen.” Bishop Cary encouraged people to use the Book of Psalms, maybe reading three psalms in the course of a day. Finally, he underlined the importance posture: moments when a person sits, stands or kneels. I quote:

“Then, for example take the prayer of the monks or the sisters, you begin standing up and then you kneel, and then sit down for awhile. You kneel while you pray the psalms, sit down when you read a little bit of scripture, stand up for certain parts of the office. Bow down, bow your head like the Muslims; I think the first thing they do in the morning is to bow their head to the ground as a sign of worship.”

From what Bishop Cary says about prayer, we take home three things. They begin with the letter “P”: place, a space that has some sacred image, psalms that provide inspired models for prayer and finally posture: kneel, stand, sit and bow. Place, psalms and posture can help us know the Lord.

To sum up: To know the Lord – to experience his new convenant – requires introduction, initiation, repentence and prayer. A sacred place, the psalms and the use of posture can help us pray – to see Jesus, to know the Lord. Amen.

¹ – From The Great Divorce. The dialogue between Lewis and McDonald continues:

² – Here is an extended quote from the interview:

Continue reading »

Everthing Matters – Except Everything

My homily this Sunday is about our human tendency to forget God. To put this tendency into context, I would like to begin with an observation by G.K. Chesterton. He said that one of the characteristics of the modern world is our willingness to talk about everything – nothing is off the table. He added, though, that there is one thing we are embarrassed to talk about: everthing! As Chesterton says, for us “everything matter – except everything.”

What does Chesterton mean when he says that we talk about “everything except everything”? Well, people have opinions about politics, movie stars, crime, fashions, climate, the causes of illnesses and the latest scandals – you name it and people have their opinion and they express it freely. But we shy away from talking about everything itself: What is this universe, this existence we have been thrown into? And what – or who – is behind it all?

We steer away from those questions. Our reluctance – even our embarrassment – to talk about everything itself has had an effect on us. We are busy about many things. We are concerned about many things – but we have forgotten everything.

The Israelites were in a similar situation during the Babylonian Exile. We heard about it in the first reading. In Babylon the Jewish people encountered new problems – and new opportunities. Many of them prospered in Babylon. Perhaps because of that prosperity, they tended to forget their home – to forget Jerusalem. The Psalm writer gives a warning, “If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand be forgotten.” To forget Jerusalem would be to forget God. That would be fatal.

Now, Babylon on the banks of the Tigres and Euphrates Rivers was attractive, even exciting. The exiles faced a temptation to get comfortable in Babylon. If they did that, however, they risked losing the one thing that really mattered – their home, Jerusalem, God himself. The Psalmist, therefore, speaks out: “May my tongue cleave to my palate if I remember you not, if I place not Jerusalem ahead of my joy.”

You and I can also forget our true home. We can get so busy, so concerned with everything that we forget everything itself. Like the exiles we need a reminder. Let me give you an example (this is a true story):¹

Once a middle-age priest had a visit from two young nuns. Since he didn’t have any food in his refrigerator, he invited them to a nearby restaurant. It was a nice a day and they walked. As they were going down the street, the priest noticed heads turning. At first the priest thought they were looking at him, but he quickly realized they were not looking at him, but at the Sisters. It was not that there weren’t other nice looking young ladies or even strangely dressed ones. There was something about the veil those Sisters were wearing. They were calling attention not to themselves, but to the Bridegroom. Some weeks later the priest ran into a lady who said, “I am not a Catholic, but I saw those Sisters the other day with you. I just felt something good inside of me.”

Those young Sisters – simply by the authenticity of their lives – they helped people remember God: To pause from all things worrying them, to forget about everything happening and to think about everything itself. To remember God.

How do we remember God? It’s not like trying to recall where I put the keys. It’s not a question of racking one’s mind. The truth is that none of us can remember God unless he remembers us. God has to take the intiative. And he does. As we heard in the Gospel, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”

To remember God, the first thing is to recognize that He is other. He is distinct from us and we from him. We are not splinters of God. We did not emanate from him – like rays of the light from the sun. We are, rather, his image – like a reflection in a mirror. When I look in a mirror – after I get over the initial disappointment – I recognize that is me. But of course the image only exists if I continue in front of the mirror. The image is distinct from me, but it does not exist apart from me.

So it is with us and God. Our existence depends on him. But we did not ooze from him. He made us in his image and likeness. And He gave us all, including the great gift of freedom – but we used our freedom to turn our backs on Him. In a word, we sinned.

Because of our sins, we try to hide from our Maker. We want to forget Him, pretend we have some existence apart from Him. That has become our natural tendency. We have spent so much time forgetful of God we cannot now remember Him unless He remembers us. That is why the Bible has so many prayers such as, “Remember your people, O Lord” or more simply, “Remember me.” Those are good prayers, especially these last weeks of Lent. It’s not because God has to be reminded, but we certainly do. Remember me, Lord, that I might remember you.

We need silence to remember God. We need something else – a willingness to let light shine on our lives. That can be a little scary. All of us have things we would rather others did not know about – and maybe we are even afraid for God to know about. For that reason Jesus says, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” God does not want to condemn us. He wants to save us. He has saved us – in his Son Jesus. Remember me, Lord, that I might remember you.

To sum up: We have opinions about everything at all, but we shy from everything itself. As Chesterton says, for us “everything matters – except everything.” This is fatal because it causes us to forget our true home. “If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand be forgotten!” Remember me, Lord, that I might remember you.

Bottom line: As Chesterton says, for people today “everything matters – except everything.” This is fatal because it causes us to forget our true home. Remember me, Lord, that I might remember you.

¹- The middle-aged priest was me. I adapted the account so any homilist can use the illustration. Continue reading »

The Coming Tsunami

This Sunday Jesus has some bad news. He speaks about a coming disaster, a disaster that has implications for us today: the destruction of the Temple.

In his Catholicism video series, Fr. Bob Barron tries bring home what the Temple meant to people of that time. “In an American context,” Fr. Barron says, “we’d have to imagine a violation of some combination of the National Cathedral, the Lincoln Center and the White House.” But it was even more personal than that. For a first century Jew, the Temple was his beloved. To destroy the Temple would be to destroy him.

But the destruction of the Temple did take place, as Jesus predicted. In 70 A.D. the Roman army surrounded Jerusalem and eventually the people inside ran out of food. The historian Josephus describes the horror as people even resorted to cannibalism.¹ Eventually, the army breached the walls, set fire to the city and – what was most terrible – entered the inner sanctuary of the Temple and looted the Holy of Holies.

Could something so terrible happen today? Please God, no, but we do see signs things are getting worse in our world, in our American society – and perhaps even in some of our families. We have come to accept evils that we could barely imagine a few decades ago. And let’s be honest – some who are listening to me, may be caught in a downward spiral. G.K. Chesterton said, “Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down.”

We fool ourselves thinking we can bracket evil. No, it seeps through everything. At first it may not seem so. People say things like, “Well, the sky hasn’t fallen. Everything will continue like before.” But – as was the case with the destruction of the Temple – there comes the moment of no return. It is like the tectonic plates under the ocean bed slowing reaching the breaking point. As Jesus tells us today, it would be naive to think that no disaster could come upon us. Unless we radically repent, a tsunami will overwhelm us.

The question is: what can we do to prepare for a possible tsunami? Let me draw a lesson from one of the ship captains when that huge tsunami struck the Pacific rim. His boat, filled with passengers, was in a harbor. The warning came that a moving wall of water was on its way. The radio told people to seek high ground. But this ship captain took a different course. He put out to see. The deep waters absorbed most of the shock. His ship and passengers survived. The great destruction took place in the shallow waters.²

There is a lesson here. With a tsunami coming, we need to put out to the deep waters. If we stay in the shallows, we will be washed away. I would now like to tell you where to find the deep waters.

At the beginning of the homily, I mentioned that the Gospel contains bad news – the imminent destruction of the Temple. It represents all the inconceivable disasters of human history – perhaps one looming for us. That is the bad news. Besides this bad news, the Gospel contains good news. Jesus speaks about the rebuilding of the temple – in three days. He means his body, his Risen Body. There we find the deep waters – a relationship with Jesus through his Church, his body. Don’t be deceived. You cannot have a disembodied Jesus – a relationship with Jesus must include his body, the Church. St. Joan of Arc expressed it this way: “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter.”³

So come to the deep waters. Come to Jesus. Come to his Church. In a few moments we will have the First Scrutiny. It reminds us that the power of Jesus is greater than any spiritual or earthly power.

With a tsunami coming, we must put out to the deep waters. Come to Jesus and his Body, the Church.

¹- Jewish Wars

²- Credit for this illustration goes to Fr. William Joenson, writing in The Magnificat Lenten Companion.

³- 795 Christ and his Church thus together make up the “whole Christ” (Christus totus). The Church is one with Christ. The saints are acutely aware of this unity: Let us rejoice then and give thanks that we have become not only Christians, but Christ himself. Do you understand and grasp, brethren, God’s grace toward us? Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ. For if he is the head, we are the members; he and we together are the whole man. . . . The fullness of Christ then is the head and the members. But what does “head and members” mean? Christ and the Church.230 Our redeemer has shown himself to be one person with the holy Church whom he has taken to himself.231 Head and members form as it were one and the same mystical person.232 A reply of St. Joan of Arc to her judges sums up the faith of the holy doctors and the good sense of the believer: “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter.”233 Continue reading »

Two Steps to Glory

In today’s Gospel we hear about the Transfiguration – that moment when Peter, James and John glimpsed Jesus’ glory. Something similar applies to us. We have within ourselves a certain glory – not absolute, of course, but potential. C.S. Lewis expresses it this way:

“It is a serious thing,” says Lewis, “to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ‘ordinary’ people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously — no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner — no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.”

The question is: How do we avoid becoming an everlasting horror? How do we become an everlasting splendor? How do we realize our true potential – the glory that is within each of us?¹

There are two steps. The first is by following the covenant. Last Sunday we heard about the covenant with Noah (and this Sunday we hear about the even deeper one with Abraham). In the covenant with Noah, God made a new beginning for the human race. That covenant has certain commandments – certain ways of behaving that enable a person to realize his potential: respect human life, respect the good of others, respect marriage, give first place to God. These represent basic precepts of the covenant. The prophet Micah summed up the covenant with these words: “He (God) has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8)

Justice, kindness, humility – those basic virtue enable us to realize our potential.

That is the first step, but there is something else, a second step – something we have to face about ourselves: No matter how hard we try, we fall short. We might be basically truthful, but we sometimes fudge, we equivocate, we cover up. We all – I hope – reverence marriage, but who has not committed what Jesus calls “adultery in the heart”? I could multiply examples, but you know what I mean. We each have a potential for truth, goodness, beauty and justice, but we fall short. We need outside help.

Let me make a comparison to illustrate the second step: Once a man bought a new suit of clothes. With his tie and white shirt, he looked great. In fact, he noticed how he shone in relation to others. He held his head so high that he didn’t see an edge in the pavement. He fell – straight into a puddle. Fearing that people would laugh at him, he did not want to get up. But instead of laughter, there came a hand. The man felt reluctant to extend his own muddy, bleeding hand, but he did. As that strong hand lifted him up, he felt a gratitude, a peace, a joy he had never experienced before.

So it is with us. We must do everything we can to realize our potential, whom God made us to be. But sooner or later – for some us much sooner than later – we come to a point where we cannot do it ourselves. That’s why, after his Transfiguration, Jesus immediately speaks of his humiliation – his suffering and death at the hands of cruel men. You see, we realize our true glory only by joining ourselves with Jesus’ humility. In the end there is no other path to the resurrection.

To sum up: Each of us has within a glory, not an absolute glory, but the potential for glory.² We realize that potential by taking two steps – first, following the commandments and second, facing that we need outside help. That only through the passion of Jesus can we realize our glorious potential – the resurrection. Amen.

¹- Regarding human potential, in his Ten Universal Principals Fr. Robert Spitzer has a thought provoking appendix titled “Evidence of the Transmateriality of Human Beings.” Here is his opening statement: “Human beings have an awareness of and desire for five Transcendentals: perfect and unconditional Truth, Love, Goodness (Justice), Beauty and Being (Home). The following is a brief explication of this assertion, which explains why human consciousness is distinct from animal consciousness, why humans have creative capacity beyond present rules, algorithms and program (Godel’s proof) and why human beings have a natural propensity toward the spiritual and transcendental.”

I highly recommend not only the appendix, but the entire book. Fr. Spitzer writes very lucidly and this book will richly repay a careful reading.

²- Sometimes people shy from talk about human potential because it seems like a put-down of animals. It is not. I love my dog for his innocence, his exuberance, his sincerity and his amazing acceptance of me and other very flawed creatures. But I can only go so far with him. Once I showed Samwise a picture of him as a puppy hoping to reminisce about those days. The results were disappointing. He barely glanced at the picture, but instead began sniffing it. As much as I love Sam, I have to recognize that between him and me there exists what Chesterton calls a “division and disproportion.” Continue reading »

The Convenant with Noah Today

As we focus on baptism, we remember the covenant God made with Noah – a covenant that God continues in the voice of conscience.

Today we celebrate the First Sunday of Lent. It is significant that in the opening reading we hear about the covenant that God made with Noah. Our Jewish brothers and sisters refer to this as the Noahide Covenant. This covenant does not just apply to Jews, but to the whole human race. You will remember that in the Bible Noah and his family were the sole survivors of the great flood.

According to Jewish scholars, the Noahide Covenant has seven pillars. They include the prohibition of idolatry, murder, theft, sexual immorality and blasphemy. This applies to us today. Sometimes people ask if there are moral rules that all humans must follow. We have an answer in the Noahide Covenant: It is wrong to kill, to take innocent human life. It is wrong to steal – to do violence to another human being by robbing his possessions. It is wrong to engage in sexual immorality. Do I need to go into details? These teachings are not… Continue reading »

An Aggressive Attempt to Deny Sin

Today we are witnessing an agressive attempt to deny sin. More than ever this Lent we need a personal meeting with Jesus who is God, the only one who can forgive sin.

A popular myth about Jesus runs along these lines: The original Jesus was a kindly man who wanted to help people face their problems, feel good about themselves and get along with each other. (Kind of a first century version of Dr. Phil.) But his followers began… Continue reading »