God

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 »

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 »

The Leper Inside

Jesus cured the leper. He wants to heal the leper inside.

I am sure you have heard of the Scottish novelist, Robert Louis Stevenson. He not only wrote wonderful adventure stories, like “Treasure Island,” but more serious works such as “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.” In that novel, he explored the odd combination of good and evil in one person.

As Stevenson observed dramatically… Continue reading »

The Gift of Freedom

Bottom line: By his birth Jesus brings the gift of freedom. / By his birth Jesus gives us beautiful – and unexpected gifts: hope in the face of despair, light in a world of darkness, comfort for troubled hearts and forgiveness of sins. This Christmas I would like focus on a specific and important gift: freedom. Jesus came to bring true freedom. You know, there is a difference between superficial freedom and profound freedom. It might surprise you, but someone who understood this was Steve Jobs. When he introduced the iPad, he made the decision not to include access to pornography. A man challenged him by quoting Bob Dylan and saying that “Revolutions are about freedom.” Steve Jobs shot back: Continue reading »

The Promise of God

Open yourself to God’s power, his mercy, his promise. For him nothing is impossible.

God can turn a liability into an advantage – not because we are so great, but because of his promise. In the first reading we hear about the promise God made to King David. The prophet Nathan tells David that his house and kingdom will endure forever. The amazing thing about this promise is that it does not depend on David’s worthiness. Remember that David had committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed. God punished David – and he repented. In the Psalms we hear echoes of David’s repentance. Even though David sinned greatly, God did not withdraw his promise. There is a message here for us: Not to go out and sin, but to know that every day we depend on God’s mercy – and his promise. Continue reading »

The Fundamental Freedom – Freedom of Religion

This Thanksgiving Day we express gratitude for all the blessing we have received and the freedoms we enjoy. We recognize freedom of religion as being the foundation stone for the other freedoms. And we re-dedicate to preserving that precious gift. Continue reading »