Alas Poor Yorick

Praying for the resurrection of the body and soul

11/02/2023

Jn 6:37-40 Jesus said to the crowds: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

Today on the Commemoration of All Souls, the Church invites us to reflect on the experience of death. Death is certainly a sad subject, but it can also be very spiritually fruitful. Many years ago seminarians were encouraged to keep a human skull on their desk in their room. That may seem morbid to the modern mentality, but the idea was to remember that we will all one day die and to be prepared for the next world.

I would like to mentally place a skull in front of you in this homily, and reflect on the reality of death. I want to be like Hamlet holding the skull of his friend and saying, “Alas poor Yorick! I knew him well!” I would like us to get to know death well. Let me suggest four observations about death.

First, we cannot scientifically pinpoint the moment of death. Of course doctors write the time of death on a person’s death certificate. But that medical judgement is based on signs of the body: the prolonged cessation of a heartbeat, or the irreversible end of brainwave function. But death is not primarily a biological event, but a spiritual event. That is, the real moment of death is when the soul leaves the body, and that is beyond the acumen of the most brilliant medical mind.

I remember they taught us in seminary that if you come to the hospital and the doctor has already pronounced the patient dead, you should feel the person’s arm. If his or her arm is still warm, you can still give the anointing of the sick. Why? Well, because we do not know the mysterious moment when the soul leaves the body, so err on the side of hope – hopefully the soul is still there – and anoint anyway. So the first point is that the death of a human being – unlike the death of an animal – is a spiritual event, the separation of the body and soul.

Secondly, the moment of death is the mirror opposite of the moment of life. That is, just as death is the separation of the body and soul, so the moment of life is the union of the body and soul. This fact is why Catholics are adamantly prolife. We are convinced that a new human being has burst onto the stage at the moment of conception. Why do we hold that view? Because we believe conception is when God infuses a spiritual soul into that union of a sperm and egg called a zygote or embryo.

In other words, new human beings do not come into existence simply by the sexual act of a man and a woman, but also requires an act of God. Each parent provides 23 chromosomes, but only God can supply the soul. The moment of conception, therefore, is the union of the body and soul. And consequently, the true moment of death is the separation of the body and soul. The second point is that conception and death are opposite but closely related human experiences.

The third point as we stare at this skull, and this is based more on faith than fact, more on Scripture than science, is that if Adam and Eve had never eaten the forbidden fruit, human beings would not have experienced death. For most modern people that statement causes a brain cramp because it seems ludicrous to believe that humans would not have died. This is why I said this observation about death is based more on faith than fact, more on Scripture than science.

But if we grant that death is essentially a spiritual experience, the separation of the body and the soul, then sin, like the original sin of Adam and Eve, created a fissure in that intimate bond between body and soul. And every time we commit personal sins (gluttony or greed, lust or laziness), that fissure grows into a fault line.

Think of the fault line in California called the San Andreas Fault. One day that geological fault line may make California into an island in the Pacific Ocean when it is entirely separated from the mainland. In the same way, our sins contribute to the spiritual fault line between the body and soul, until one day we die, when the soul is separated from the mainland of the body.

If human beings had never sinned, there would never have been a fissure or fault line between the body and soul, and thus no death. Why? Because death is essentially a spiritual event: the separation of the body and the soul. The fourth point, therefore, is the causal connection between sin and death: if we didn’t have sin, we wouldn’t have death.

And the fourth point is what we are doing today: praying for the dead. We have erected an altar for the poor souls in Purgatory. But notice our prayers are not only for the salvation of souls (although we often say that). Rather, our real hope and prayer is for the resurrection of bodies. In other words, the end goal of human existence is not for the soul to make it to heaven and the body to rot in the earth. Instead, our final beatitude in heaven will be the resurrection of the body from the grave and the reunion of the body and soul like at the first moment of conception.

Can you see how all these four points fit tightly together? They are logically inseparable. Death is the separation of the body and soul. Conception is the initial union of the body and soul in our mother’s womb. Sin causes a fissure and fault line between body and soul leading to death. Finally, we pray for the glorious reunion of the body and soul on the great day of resurrection. Jesus said in today’s gospel: “And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it (raise the body) on the last day.” We pray that even alas poor Yorick’s skull will be reunited with his soul.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

 

Opposite Day

Learning the difference between earth and heaven

11/01/2023

Mt 5:1-12a When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven."

When I was a little boy my friends and I would play a game called “opposite day.” Have you ever played that game before? Whatever someone said we would try to think of its opposite. If I said, for example, “black” they would say “white.” If I said, “It’s super cold this morning,” they would say, “It’s super hot this morning!” If I said, “Oh, I’m just a poor priest,” they would counter with “Oh, you are just a rich priest.” If I said, “The answer is yes,” they would say, “The answer is no.”

That reminds me of that scene from the movie “Pink Panther.” Inspector Clouseau checks into a hotel and talks to a man seated at the desk. There is a dog next to the desk, and so Clouseau asks, “Does your dog bite?” The man answers, “No, my dog does not bite.” So Clouseau reaches down to pet the dog, who growls and bites him. Clouseau says, “Hey, I thought you said your dog does not bite.” The man replies, “That is not my dog.” In other words, the man at the desk was playing opposite day with Inspector Clouseau. He should have said “yes” but instead he said, “no.”

In the Bible readings today we find another example of opposite day. In the first reading from Revelation saints make their robes white when they wash them in the Blood of the Lamb. If you get some blood on a white shirt, will it become white? No. But in the Bible the opposite happens: Blood cleans, washes, and makes perfect, when we are dealing with the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus.

In the gospel Jesus plays opposite day when he teaches his beautiful Beatitudes. The poor in spirit will be rich in the Kingdom. Those who are sad will be happy. Those who are hungry will be fed (probably chicken nuggets). Those who are rejected for doing the right thing will be praised by God. In other words, the Bible teaches us that opposite day is not just a game for small children to learn the difference between synonyms and antonyms.

Instead, opposite day gets to the heart of the gospel and what it means to be a Christian. Why? Because that is what it means to be like Jesus. How so? Well, people thought Jesus was poor, but he was really rich in mercy. They thought he was naked but he was clothed in grace and glory.

Everyone believed he was left alone on the Cross, but he always enjoyed the company of his Heavenly Father and his earthly Mother, Mary. The Roman soldiers thought he was beaten, bloody, and helpless hanging on the Cross, utterly defeated, but that was the moment of Jesus’ greatest victory and triumph, when he flexed his real muscles by being obedient to God’s will.

Boys and girls, I want you to keep this opposite day game in the back of your mind as you go through the day, and go through your life. Why? Well, because the way things look on earth may not be how they will look in heaven, in fact, they will look the opposite. For example, if you see a girl who does not look very pretty on earth, they will be prettier than Taylor Swift in heaven.

If you see someone who is clumsy or can’t play sports on earth, they will play tennis better than Roger Federer in heaven. If you see someone who has suffered and is sad a lot on earth, they will be super happy in heaven. If you see someone poor and homeless on earth, one day, they will have the biggest mansion in heaven.

You see, boys and girls, opposite day is not just a game for children to play to learn the difference between synonyms and antonyms. It is a game all people need to play to learn the difference between heaven and earth. So, when I say, “I am just a poor priest who doesn’t have two pennies to rub together,” and when you answer, “No, you are a rich priest who has more wealth than the whole world,” both statements are absolutely true. Why? Because opposite day is every day.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

 

Drink Deeply

Rediscovering the day we fell in love with God

10/31/2023

Mt 22:34-40 When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law tested him by asking, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

Jesus teaches us the greatest commandment in the gospel today: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your mind.” So, let me ask you today: when did you first fall in love with God, and start loving him? Now, why is that first falling in love so important? Well, just like married couples should go back to the day they first met and fell in love – have you ever taken that walk down memory lane? – so, too Christians should return to the day we first met and fell in love with God.

In other words, that original encounter with God – when our eyes met across a crowded room – carries all the love that will later spill out from our hearts to his, and from his heart to us, like the first sentence of a great novel always contains the whole novel in a nutshell. Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick opens with the memorable line, “Call me Ishmael.” That small sentence is the whole book in three words.

May I share with you when I first fell in love with God, and perhaps it will jog your memory of how and when that magical moment happened for you. God actually reached out and touched me through a traumatic event when I was seven years old and living in New Delhi, India. That is where I was born and raised “as you can tell from my very thick Indian accent.”

I loved my young life in New Delhi: sitting in a balcony seat in a movie theater down the street from my house; eating spicy Indian food every day; riding on the back of my uncle’s motorcycle and dodging the sacred cows in the middle of the street, and fluently speaking three languages: English, Hindi, and Malayalam. My life was great, but suddenly in 1976 it was all taken away. How so?

My family moved to another country where I knew no one, attended school with stranger little kids who did not look like or talk like me, where I could not find decent spicy food. I did not enjoy the meals, or music or movies; and movie theaters do not have balcony seats here! I felt like I had lost everything I loved or cared about.

I began to see this seven year old trauma repeating itself through life: we keep losing the people and things we love, and ultimately we lose our own bodies in death. At the same time, however, it hit me like a revelation of light in that darkness and despair, like St. Paul being knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus by a blinding flash of light. I discovered there is one Thing I can never lose, namely, God.

That is, the same God who had been the source of my joys in India would sustain me through all my new adventures in America. In fact, a Hindu friend gave my father the same advice before we left. He said: “The same God whom you worship here in India is the same God who will be with you in America.” In other words, in 1976 I first fell in love with God, the God who would never leave me, even when I would lose everything else.

And I have gone back to that first experience like a deep well and drawn out much water of grace, like the Samaritan woman who fell in love with Jesus at a well. Do you remember what Jesus promised her? He said: I will give you living water that would be “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14). Let me share with you when I took an especially deep drink from that well of God’s love that I discovered back in 1976.

I was 17 years old and thinking about becoming a priest. Like most people, I wanted to help others, but I wanted to help people in the best and most permanent way possible. It occurred to me – this is the well water now – that I could help people in two ways. One, is materially by giving the food, shelter, and clothing. Or second, I could help them spiritually by giving them the love of Jesus, his grace and mercy in the sacraments.

Then I asked myself: which of these two ways of helping people lasts longer? You know the answer of course. Material needs are only earthly but spiritual needs are eternal. And who provides for people’s spiritual needs? Bingo: priests do. But can you taste the well water of God’s love for me 10 years later when I was 17? Ever since I was seven and left India, I have not been concerned so much with things that don’t last – and nothing earthly ultimately lasts.

But rather my concern was with God who lasts forever and the One I can never lose. Just like couples should go back to drink deeply of their original encounter and experience of falling in love, so, too, we Christians should frequently return to our first experience of falling in love with the Lord and drink deeply of that well water. I wonder how often the Samaritan woman returned to that earthly well where she met Jesus, not to draw water from it, but to remember “the spring of living water” that was now “welling up to eternal life within” her heart?

My friends, I would urge you to try to return to the day and way you first fell in love with God. I cannot guess how that happened for each of you, just like you probably could not have guessed how it happened for me five minutes ago. In other words, divine love is as unique and unrepeatable just like a kiss is. No two people kiss exactly the same. I’m just guessing about that; I did a google search on that to make sure I was right.

But I hope by sharing my own story of falling in love with God may sparks some memories of how that happened for you. Don’t discount that you can fall in love with God even in a traumatic moment. Sometimes when we think we are farthest from God, surprisingly, that is when God is closest to us. It’s like that old bumper sticker that asks: “Do you feel far from God? Well, who moved?” And when we remember his closeness, we can love God a little more with all our hearts, soul and mind.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Elevator or Stairs

Not blaming our birth for virtues and vices

10/29/2023

Rom 7:18-25a Brothers and sisters: I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I have a little riddle for you to see how smart you are. Since you attend OCA, you should all be very smart. A few days ago I went to visit someone in the hospital and the patient was on the fourth floor. I decided to take the stairs because I figured I needed a little exercise and because I had biscuits and gravy for breakfast and I needed to work it off.

But have you ever noticed how it’s always the skinny people who always take the stairs? Now, here’s my riddle: is it because people take the stairs that they are skinny, or is it because they are skinny that they take the stairs? Put differently, which comes first, the skinniness or the stairs?

Now, sometimes we blame our birth for our vices as well as our virtues. We say, “Oh, she’s just skinny because she was born that way, not because she takes the stairs at the hospital.” Or, sometimes we say the opposite: “I am overweight because I was born that way.” And there may be some truth in accidents of birth.

But here is the deeper biological and theological fact. We are all born lazy, we are all born gluttonous, we are all born lustful, we are all born proud, we are all born envious, we are all born greedy, we are all born angry. In other words, we are all born with a tendency to sin called original sin, that is, we are all born with a tendency to take the elevator rather than the stairs, even the skinny people.

In the first reading today we find the “locus classicus” (meaning the classic location) in the Bible where St. Paul speaks about original sin and concupiscence. He writes to the Romans: “The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.” In other words, I know the good thing to do would be to take the stairs, but I end up in the elevator and do not do the good I want. Even though we know Baptism washes away original sin, there remains the tendency to sin called concupiscence.

Boys and girls, can I offer you some additional examples of fighting concupiscence like taking the stairs rather than the elevator? Why? Well, because we are all born lazy and lustful, greedy and gluttonous, and our Christian life is a constant battle against this concupiscence. Let me give you ten examples.

One, if you like to drink coffee, take it black without an sugar or creamer. Two, when you sit in a chair (or a pew in church), practice good posture, sit up straight and don’t slouch. Three, when your alarm clock goes off in the morning, get up the first time it rings, don’t keep hitting the snooze button. Four, When someone asks you a question, answer “Yes sir,” or “No, ma’am,” or “Thank you, ma’am,” or “No thank you, sir.” I did that going through the McDonald’s drive through last week, and it put a huge smile on the server’s face.

Five, Take your hat off when you walk into a building and put it back on when you walk back outside. Ladies can keep their hats on inside. Six, when you park your car look for a spot far from the door so others can take the closer spots. Seven, at dinner always fill other’s iced tea or water or soda glass before you top off your own.

Eight, try to limit your screen time on your phone, or laptop, or Ipad to 2-3 hours a day; instead, get outside and play sports, or read a book (written on a dead tree), or visit a friend. Homework does not count toward the 2-3 hours. Nine, when you drive, try not to go more than five miles over the speed limit.

By the way, our bishop always drives exactly the speed limit. I know that because one day I passed him on I-49, and I felt worse than passing a state trooper. And ten, when you get up in the morning make the Sign of the Cross before you run to the bathroom. And say an Act of Contrition every night before you lay down, close your eyes, and fall asleep.

Now let me ask you that riddle again but in a different context. Is it because someone practices these things that they are a Christian, or is it because they are a Christian that they practice these things? Which comes first, being a Christian or living as a Christian? Well, it’s both – we learn by doing. But mostly it is because we know we are born with a tendency to sin, and we are constantly at war with ourselves. As the Pogo cartoon strip famously said: “We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.” Elevator or stairs?

Praised be Jesus Christ!