Innocent Suffering

Understanding how God orchestrates our salvation

10/26/2024

LK 13:1-9 Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. He said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them– do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” And he told them this parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.’”

One of the hardest questions you will ever attempt to answer is, “Why do innocent people suffer?” Have you ever tackled that? And that question becomes very personal and more pertinent when we face our own suffering, “Why am I suffering?” For example, in 1981 Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a New York Times bestseller called “When Bad Things Happen To Good People.”

He wrote it as a response to the tragedy of losing his son when the boy was only 14 years old. He suffered from a rare disease called progeria, which causes premature aging. The young lad died as an old man. Now, Rabbi Kushner writes well and makes many good points, but he also commits a big theological blunder. See if you can catch what is wrong with this statement from the book.

Kushner reflects: “God does not, and cannot, intervene in human affairs to avert tragedy and suffering. At most, He offers us His divine comfort and expresses His divine anger when horrible things happen to people. God, in the face of tragedy, is impotent. The most God can do is to stand on the side of the victim, not the executioner.”

In other words, God has no direct control over the events of our lives. He can only react and try to help pick up the pieces after Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall. Now, the benefit of seeing suffering like Kushner does is that it lets God off the hook. God is not to blame because he did not cause Kushner’s son to be afflicted with progeria.

Now, I cannot judge if that is the authentic Jewish understanding of the suffering of the innocent. But I can say a word about the Christian perspective, as Jesus articulates it in the gospel today. The Jews ask if certain examples of extreme suffering and even sacrilege were caused because God was punishing their sins.

That is, they presume God’s wrath is directed at sin, which you may recall was one of the theories presented in the Old Testament book of Job. By the way, that book was the original New York Times bestseller on the topic of innocent suffering. But while that answer addresses the suffering of the sinner, it leaves aside the question about the suffering of the saint.

But Jesus’ answer is decidedly different from Kushner’s. He unflinchingly affirms that God is in control of the universe, and nothing happens without his directly willing it, or at least not without his indirectly permitting it. In other words, Fate and Chance are not the masters of the universe while God remains an innocent and impotent bystander.

Rather, God is the great Conductor and the universe is his symphony orchestra. No one plays a note without God’s knowledge and his head nod to do so. And what is this universal symphony’s musical score – by hitting high notes as well as low notes – trying to achieve? Simple: our salvation.

And so Jesus responds in the gospel, “But I tell you if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did.” In other words, everything that happens in our lives – the good, the bad, the ugly, and yes, even the suffering of the innocent – is all orchestrated by God for our salvation. Put differently, everything happens – even the movement of a molecule – for our ultimate happiness, attaining heaven.

Perhaps the famous poem called “The Weaver” by Grant Colfax Tullar will help to weave together these different and divergent threads of theology. Listen carefully: “My life is but a weaving, / Between my God and me, / I cannot choose the colors / He weaveth steadily. / Oft’times He weaveth sorrow; / And I in foolish pride, / Forget he sees the upper, / And I the underside. /

Not till the loom is silent / And the shuttles cease to fly / Will God unroll the canvas, / And reveal the reason why / The dark threads are as needful / In the weaver’s skillful hand, / As the threads of gold and silver / In the pattern he has planned. / He knows, He loves, He cares; / Nothing this truth can dim. / He gives the very best to those / Who leave the choice to him.”

I know that poem does not take away the pain of our losses, but it is a little more theologically rigorous and more spiritually satisfying than taking shortcuts answering the question, “Why do the innocent suffer?” Or more urgently, “Why do I suffer?”

Praised be Jesus Christ!

 

Election Interference

Preaching the gospel during a presidential election

10/23/2024

LK 12:39-48 Jesus said to his disciples: “Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Then Peter said, “Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?” And the Lord replied, “Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so. Truly, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, to eat and drink and get drunk, then that servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish the servant severely and assign him a place with the unfaithful.

Several parishioners have asked me if I would speak about the upcoming election and I have been hesitant to do so. Why? Well, we live in such a toxic and polarized political climate that words and thoughts are ripped out of context to serve the listener’s political agenda. Some people will walk away from this homily thinking: “Ha! Fr. John only wants Trump to win!” or others will say, “I knew it! Fr. John secretly wants Kamala to be the next president!”

Like Jesus said, “This generation has ears but they cannot hear” (Mt 13:15). In spite of that concern, I still feel compelled to say something. After all, St. Paul urged his disciple Timothy: “Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort” (2 Tm 4:2). So, for those with ears to hear, let me make 3 observations about the November election.

The first observation in any election is prioritizing the protection of human life from conception to natural death. But sadly neither party can pass that litmus test. The Democratic ticket advocates abortion on demand, while the Republican ticket readily makes exceptions for rape, incest, and danger to the life of the mother. Not to mention the practice called IVF, and the so-called “snowflake babies” that result from it.

Catholic morality would not be 100% in agreement with either party’s platform and approach to the prolife issue. Sam Sicard recently sent me an article about a new party, a third party, called the American Solidarity Party, which upholds the full spectrum of the prolife position. That third party might be a better option for the more conscientious Catholic voter.

The second observation is that both parties engage in making patently false or contradictory statements, but are unaware of their own prevarication. For example, Democrats maintain that the embryo in the woman’s womb is a part of her body, and as such, she can deal and dispose of it as she wishes, like trimming your fingernails.

On the other hand, these same Democrats unflinchingly insist that embryo is a baby, and cherish it as a human life, and paint the unborn baby’s room and pick out the unborn baby’s furniture, and are devastated if the unborn baby dies before birth. Can you hear the contradiction? Is the embryo the woman’s body or is it the woman’s baby? It cannot be both.

300 years before Jesus Christ, Aristotle the Greek philosopher articulated his famous principle of non-contradiction: a thing cannot both be and not be true in the same sense and at the time same. In other words, the embryo cannot simultaneously be both the woman’s body and the woman’s baby.

But some Republicans engage in equivocation and making false claims that do not align with reality as well. It is beyond a reasonable doubt that the presidential election of 2020 produced a clear winner, namely, President Joe Biden. Joe Biden is indubitably the 46 president of the United State of America.

And yet, an October 2022 Washington Post article found that 51% of Republican nominees for House, Senate, and key statewide offices in nearly every state that year denied or questioned the 2020 election outcome. Can you hear the self-contradiction, or at least the incompatibility with reality?

A thing cannot both be and not be true at the same time and in the same way. But both parties routinely ignore basic logic for political expediency. And the real tragedy is that the American people are not smart enough to hear it.

A third observation is that both campaigns claim the other candidate is an “existential threat to democracy.” Have you heard that rhetoric? For instance, the Harris campaign asserts that if Donald Trump is elected he will scrap the Constitution and declare himself a dictator. On other hand, the Trump campaign insists that Kamala Harris desires open borders and that she will let our country be flooded by illegal aliens who will destroy our modern society.

Both campaigns take tid-bits of information and exaggerate them so much that fear motivates people to vote. Each side paints the other person as the Anti-Christ for America. Personally, I do not believe that Donald Trump will become a dictator, nor do I believe that Kamala Harris desires open borders.

But still, I am convinced that one day our democracy will come to an end. All great civilizations eventually end. The wise Greek civilization ended. The Roman Empire crumbled under barbarian invasions. Charlemagne’s French Kingdom, who boasted being “the eldest daughter of the Church”, is a mere memory today.

All empires, kingdoms, nations have a life cycle – a birth, a rise to full stature, a decline to senility, and finally a death. Our nations has reached full stature and is declining into senility - just listen to the political rhetoric. The Letter to the Hebrews said prophetically: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek one that is to come.”

In other words, the true existential threat to democracy is not Trump or Harris but the inexorable march of history. Put differently, the brave men who signed the Declaration of Independence were not only signing our country’s birth certificate, but also our nation’s death certificate.

When I celebrate a funeral Mass, I give a word of explanation about the “Our Father.” I say that when we utter the words, “Thy Kingdom come,” we are really praying that Jesus will come back and establish his kingdom, definitively and permanently. And the sooner the better – Thy kingdom come! And Christ's Kingdom is where we should put all our marbles.

Indeed, Jesus says in the gospel today: “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” So what does all this mean for our upcoming election? Well, first, pray for our nation, and then vote according to your best lights. But don’t get derailed by all the distractions. And finally, maintain your peace. How? Remember that America will not save you, only Jesus will.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

 

The Stones Will Cry Out

Exploring the Eucharist through the Eyes of the Holy Land

10/20/2024

The most memorable place I have ever celebrated Mass was on a train traveling through the Canadian countryside. My parents and I boarded a five-day, scenic excursion train from Toronto to Banff. It was breath-taking gazing upon the crystal clear lakes, peering up at the snow-capped mountains, and catching sight of the skittish wildlife. I felt like I had glimpsed the Garden of Eden looking out the frosty window. Canada, as Gerard Manley Hopkins, the Jesuit poet, remarked in his poem "God's Grandeur" still does not "wear man's smudge and share man's smell."

We spent a week on the train, which included Sunday. I planned to say Mass with my traveling Mass kit in our tiny cabin with just my parents for parishioners. But suddenly it occurred to me: surely there must be more than three Catholics in Canada! So like a conductor I went up and down the train inviting perfect strangers to Mass. A generous couple kindly offered their spacious double-cabin for the Mass, so I thought, surely there will be plenty of space. But by the time Mass started, a flash mob of Catholics had converged, and lined up far down the hallway.

As the earthly Garden of Eden flashed by outside, we enjoyed the eternal Garden of Eden inside. Indeed, Rv 2:7 hints at this Eucharistic connection between Eden and the Eucharist, saying: "To him who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." That is, Genesis’ tree of earthly life in Eden turns out to be Revelation’s Tree of Eternal Life which is the Eucharist. That unforgettable train ride taught me something profound: the land reveals deep secrets about the liturgy. You know how traditionally Catholic churches were built so that priest and people were facing east – ad orientem – toward the rising sun, which symbolized Jesus Christ, the Risen Son. In other words, land and liturgy are always mutually illuminating.

Today I want to take you on a tour of the birthplace of the Eucharist, namely, the Holy Land. Just like the untarnished beauty of Canada helped us passengers appreciate the untarnished beauty of the Mass, so I am convinced the topography of Israel can help us Christian appreciate the theology of the Mass. Pope Benedict XVI, in his apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini referred to the land of Israel as "the Fifth Gospel." He observed: "The stones on which our Redeemer walked are still charged with his memory and continue to 'cry out' the Good News. For this reason the Synod Fathers recalled the felicitous phrase which speaks of the Holy Land as 'the Fifth Gospel'" (VD, 89). In a sense, the stones of the Holy Land are almost as inspired as the saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Analogous to the traditional four gospels, the Holy Land is a unique fifth gospel, giving us even more good news.

Last Spring Bishop Erik Pohlmeier invited me to accompany him and some pilgrims on a tour of the Holy Land. Since then, of course, the events of October 7, 2023, and the ensuing retaliation in Gaza have shelved any tourism or pilgrimages to Israel. Nonetheless, true pilgrims can still take a virtual tour of the Holy Land with the Bible as our infallible tour guide. Like I walked through that train offering tickets to Canadian Catholics to come to Mass (where the land sheds light on the liturgy), so this morning I would like to offer you a ticket in this talk to tour the Fifth Gospel, the original land of the liturgy. Specifically, we will hear how the stones will cry out to help us penetrate the mystery of the Mass.

***

Our first stop on the tour of land and liturgy is the prototypical Mass of Melchizedek and Abram recounted in Genesis 14:18:20. Incidentally, in my master's thesis in seminary I investigated the identity of this mysterious Melchizedek and called it, "Who the Heck is Melchizedek?" But I didn't get any extra credit for the catchy title. Notwithstanding his obscurity, the Bible nonetheless punctuates critical junctures of salvation history with cameos of Melchizedek, like Alfred Hitchcock unexpectedly appeared out of nowhere in his movies. Besides Genesis 14, Melchizedek shows up again in Psalm 110:4, rubbing shoulders with royalty, King David and his son Solomon. He enters the scriptural stage a third time in the Letter to the Hebrews, where Jesus is said to be "a high priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek" (Hb 6:20). You know, if you associate with scriptural hall of famers like Abraham, David, and Jesus, your name is not nobody.

Whatever his name on his real driver’s license, one fact remains indisputable, this priest-king brings out bread and wine as a thanksgiving offering to God on behalf of Abram. Now, what was Abram feeling so grateful for? Well, if we read the verses of Gn 14 before Abram’s meeting with Melchizedek, we discover the details of an against-all-odds military campaign Abram wages against four kings who had just vanquished five kings, and rescues his nephew Lot. Within the confines of Canaan, therefore, Abram stood tall as the king of kings and the one who brought peace or "shalom" (a variation of Salem) to a war-torn land. And Melchizedek's Mass of bread and wine was how Abram thanked God for his impossible victory and his rise to patriarchal prominence. 1800 years later the archangel Gabriel would assure Mary not to be overwhelmed by the against-all-odds chances of her being the Mother of God, saying: "For with God nothing will be impossible" (Lk 1:37).

I will never forget how Scott Hahn once illustrated how God's grace accomplishes everything good or great we do. One afternoon he was going for a jog in his neighborhood. He saw a man trying to mow his front yard. But his small son, who was pretending to mow the yard with his toy mower, kept crossing in front of him, and getting in the way. Hahn decided to make another loop around the neighborhood to see how the father would deal with his diminutive dilemma. When he came around the corner, he saw that the father had now picked up the son with one arm, and was steering the mower with the other arm. The small boy, meanwhile, had both his hands on the real mower and a huge smile across his face. Can you guess why he was grinning from ear to ear? The little lad thought he was moving the yard.

Abram, through Melchizedek's Mass, humbly acknowledged that he was just that little boy in God's arms, and that ultimately, God had mowed down his enemies. That is why Abram is called the Father of faith; he knows who's really responsible for all our so-called "good works." And that is also what the stones would cry out, who witnessed that first Mass of Melchizedek: "For with God nothing will be impossible”; that 318 men can overcome the combined power of nine armies.

And by the way, no place on earth is more fraught with fighting than the Middle East, especially the Holy Land, particularly the family feud between the sons of Abraham: the Israelis (those born from Isaac) and the Palestinians (the issue of Ishmael). That is, the stones around Jerusalem would not be surprised by today's war in Gaza. Why not? Well, these stones have been watching silently for millennia how "no one fights like family." But more importantly, they stand as eyewitnesses of how only Jesus Christ, the Eucharistic King of Kings, will one day end all war and bring lasting peace (shalom) as it was one betokened in the meal between Melchizedek and Abram. And so surely, the Eucharistic Lord can bring peace to the infighting in our own families.

In case you think I am making a theological mountain out of a Melchizedekian molehill, consider these sober reflections by Bishop Robert Barron on the significance of the Promised Land from his recent book The Great Story of Israel. Listen now: "Throughout the history of Israel, this particular plot of earth, east of the Mediterranean, west of the Jordan, from Dan in the north to Beer-sheba in the south, would be of crucial importance. Whether they were loving it, longing for it, fighting over it, defending it, planting it with cities, counting its peoples, mourning its loss, or singing of its beauty, the Promised Land would be a unique obsession of the descendants of Abram. This, of course, is because it was much more than a piece of real estate; it functioned as a symbol of the divine favor, the land flowing with milk and honey, the base of operations for the announcement of God to all the nations, and ultimately, an anticipation of the ultimate homeland of heaven" (The Great Story of Israel, 19-20).

In the movie, "Gone with the Wind," Gerald O'Hara taught his spunky daughter a similar love for the land. He gently chided her: "Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, that Tara, that land, doesn't mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts." Of course, we Christians know the only land that truly lasts forever is the old earthly Jerusalem when it is finally transformed into the new, heavenly Jerusalem, when stones of sand and dust will glitter as “the streets paved with gold." And the stones of that Promised Land cry out that God's grace will ultimately defeat all foes and establish lasting peace. Why? Because these stones have seen it happen before and saw it celebrated in the Mass of Melchizedek.

***

The curious thing about saying Mass on board a moving train is that the place where we start the Mass with the Sign of the Cross is always miles away from the location where we end the Mass with the dismissal "Go in peace." My parents and I started celebrating our Canadian train-Mass with that flash-mob of the faithful in the peaceful prairielands of Manitoba. But we did not finish the liturgy until we reached the borders of Saskatchewan. By the way, have you ever noticed how Mass in our local parishes can feel a lot like traveling on a train. Some priest--conductors are driving furiously fast, while others go agonizingly slow. I know one priest who can celebrate a Sunday Mass, and give a homily, in 15 minutes. I’m not going to tell you what parish he is located in.

Well, I want to suggest that the second Eucharist we will explore, the Lord's Supper, was also surprisingly a traveling Mass. That is, the liturgy of the Last Supper commences in one location but it concludes in an entirely different place. The Last Supper of Jesus begins in the Upper Room but ends on the heights of Calvary on the Cross. Further in this way, the Holy Land – upon which this liturgical procession took place - bears a unique witness to how movement is indispensable to the Mass. If you carefully watch the choreography of the Sunday liturgy in your home parish, you will notice how the Mass also visually travels from the Liturgy of the Word at the ambo to the Liturgy of the Eucharist at the altar. In other words, movement is constitutive for the Eucharist. Every Mass is a traveling Mass.

Now, in order to grasp how every Eucharist travels, we need to take a detour and do a deep dive into the rubrics of the Last Supper. You may know the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) present Jesus celebrating the Last Supper as the fulfillment of the Passover meal. But you may not know that the Passover, or Seder, consisted of consuming four cups of wine, each highly charged with historical and spiritual significance. The first cup was consumed after the initial blessing, called the kiddush. The second cup was drunk after reciting the Exodus story, "Why is this night different from all other nights?" The third cup followed eating the lamb and the unleavened bread, and was called the cup of blessing. Fourthly, and climatically, the Great Hallel was sung, Psalms 114-118, and 136, after which the fourth cup was consumed, fittingly called the cup of consummation.

Scott Hahn, in his book The Fourth Cup, draws attention to the astonishing fact that Jesus interrupts the Seder Meal by not drinking the fourth cup. That is the equivalent to a priest celebrating Mass and stopping right before Holy Communion. It is unthinkable. Rather, he takes the Last Supper, in effect, on the road. Hahn observes: "Among the difficulties presented by the Last Supper narratives is the way they end the Seder prematurely, leaving the liturgy unfinished. Jesus and his disciples exit the room and go off into the night singing a hymn (see Mark 14:26). But they neglect to drink the cup of wine prescribed to accompany the hymn - the fourth cup" (The Fourth Cup, 106).

Then Hahn answers the burning question on everyone's mind: well, did Jesus finally drink the fourth cup, and if so, when? In order to find the answer, Hahn takes us to the scene of the crucifixion and comment: "Finally at the very end, Jesus was offered 'sour wine' or 'vinegar' (John 19:30; Matthew 27:48; Mark 15:36; Luke 23:36). All the Synoptics testify to this. But only John tells us how he responded: 'When Jesus had received the sour wine he said, 'It is finished'; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit' (19:30)" (The Fourth Cup, 116). In other words, at the moment he took that sip of Wine, Jesus not only concluded his passion and death by announcing, "It is finished", but he also finally finished the suspended Seder supper. By doing so, he also gave the Eucharist its definitive form, that is, as a traveling Mass: always moving between the Upper Room (the supper) and Calvary (the sacrifice).

In The Spirit of the Liturgy, Pope Benedict XVI insisted that these two foci (locations) of the Eucharist could be detected in ancient church architecture. He wrote: "Thus, in the early church buildings, the liturgy has two places. First, the Liturgy of the Word takes place at the center of the building. The faithful are grouped around the bema, the elevated area where the throne of the Gospel, the seat of the bishop, and the lectern are located. The Eucharistic celebration proper takes place in the apse, at the altar, which the faithful 'stand around'" (The Spirit of the Liturgy, 72).

Now, with this liturgical roadmap of the Mass in mind, let's return to look at the land during the Last Supper. Along the road between his supper and his sacrifice, Jesus stops to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. And here I would propose the land gets a very privileged taste of the liturgy. How so? Well, the ground of Gethsemane was the first to sip from the chalice of the Blood of Christ, the fourth cup.

In his classic work, The Life of Christ, Archbishop Fulton Sheen described the dark and dangerous scene in the Garden: "No wonder, then, with the accumulated guilt of all the ages clinging to [Jesus] as a pestilence His bodily nature gave way...He now sensed guilt to such an extent that it forced Blood from his Body, Blood which fell like crimson beads upon the olive roots of Gethsemane, making the first Rosary of the Redemption" (The Life of Christ, 321-22). The name "Gethsemane" literally means "an olive press," because presses were present there in the garden to squeeze out the juice of the olives. In like manner, Jesus' Precious Blood was squeezed out of him in that spiritual olive press called his Passion. And the land drank deeply of the Blood of divine love as our Lord traveled from his supper to his sacrifice.

You know, in the 2,000-year history of the Church, great liturgical wars have been waged about the road between the ambo and the altar, between supper and sacrifice. In other words, what form should the Eucharist take? And liturgists – those who study and argue over the shape and structure of the liturgy – have staked out positions on all sides. You have heard the old joke, what's the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist? You can negotiate with a terrorist. For example, the way we celebrated the Mass before Vatican II is markedly different from the way we celebrate it today. Before the Council we emphasized its sacrificial nature, now we highlight the supper side of the Mass. This debate gets so heated that some have left the Church over that dispute. It is no small matter. My home state of Kerala, India, for the past two years has seen such serious skirmishes over the liturgy. It has gotten so bad that the archbishop had to close the cathedral for a time to cool things down.

But in the land of the liturgy, the stones would cry out, "Don't lose the forest for the trees!" Don't fight over the minutiae of the Mass, and miss the main point: the drama of our salvation enacted between the two foci of the liturgy, ambo and altar, supper and sacrifice. The liturgy not only travels between Word and Sacrament, but also travels down the ages with different emphases but always remaining the same Eucharist. In other words, the stones would cry out repeating Psalm 34:8, "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!" The land would remind liturgist to stop acting like terrorists, because the Mass is always in motion, from ambo to altar, and from age to age.

***

Now in order to learn the third lesson the land has to teach us about the liturgy, we need to open the book of Revelation or the Apocalypse. Until now we have focused on the land under the earthly Jerusalem. But now John the Seer invites us to gaze upward toward the heavenly Jerusalem. He writes: "And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God" (Rv 21:2). But why should we avert our eyes from the old Jerusalem at all? One of the main motifs of the book of Revelation is not only the retirement of the old Jerusalem, but its replacement by the new Jerusalem.

Scott Hahn summarizes how Revelation records his retirement:

The details of the destruction described in Revelation correspond closely to the history of Jerusalem's destruction [in A.D. 70]. In Revelation 17-19, John shows a city destroyed by fire; Jerusalem was entirely destroyed by fire...Revelation closely tracks the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, and Ezekiel's single outstanding message is that the curse of the covenant will come upon Jerusalem. We see this curse fulfilled in the Book of Revelation" (The Lamb's Supper, 95).

In a word, Jerusalem had an expiration date, namely, 70 A.D. when General Titus led the Tenth Roman Legion and leveled the Holy City, and burned it to the ground. You all have visited Jerusalem and know better than anyone, all that remains of the Great Temple Mount is the West Wall, the Wailing Wall. The extinction of the Temple was not an accident of history, but the deliberate design of divine providence, at least according to Revelation.

But the book of Jerusalem's story was not entirely closed. It has an epilogue in eternity. Just like Jesus' death on Calvary was not the end of his story, so John would see these earthly stones transformed – indeed resurrected – into streets of gold in Rv 21:21, paving a glorious heavenly Jerusalem. Jesus had already intimated how his body and the Jerusalem Temple would share a similar fate when he prophesied: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (Jn 2:19).

By the way, are you familiar with the fifteen psalms called "The Songs of Ascent"? They are Psalms 120-134, and were sung by the pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem for the three major Jewish feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. For example, Psalm 122 begins: "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord!' Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem! Jerusalem, built as a city, which is bound firmly together, to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord..." You see, the topography of Jerusalem at an elevation of roughly 2,500 feet above sea level reinforced the theology of the psalms of ascent. In other words, the land – and even the stones the pilgrims stumbled over – point pilgrims to the place of the truly liturgy, and invite them to raise their eyes to look beyond the earthly Temple to the heavenly Temple.

Pope Benedict put it perfectly in Verbum Domini: “The Holy Land today remains a goal of pilgrimage, a place of prayer and penance, as was testified to in antiquity by authors like Saint Jerome. The more we turn our eyes and our hearts to the earthly Jerusalem, the more will our yearning be kindled for the heavenly Jerusalem, the true goal of every pilgrimage…” (VD, 89). That is, the stones, like the psalms, cry out: “The tribes go up,” and we must indeed go up as high as heaven to celebrate the true and lasting liturgy.

Sometimes on my day off, I celebrate Mass by myself in a little chapel we have in the rectory. It feels like I am talking to myself because I say, "The Lord be with you." And I reply back to myself, "And with your spirit." A priest friend of mine insists that I should not say "And with your spirit" because my guardian angel supplies that response. We priests suffer from spiritual schizophrenia when we celebrate Mass by ourselves. But it is theologically inaccurate to say "I celebrate Mass by myself." Why? Well, if we were to peer inside that rectory chapel with the eyes of faith, we would behold it is crammed with all the angels and saints of heaven. Vatican II taught: "In the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims" (Sacrosanctum concilium, .

In other words, during every Eucharist we mere mortals stand spiritually in that Holy City and rub shoulders with the glorious heavenly hosts, St. Peter and St. Paul, with St. John Paul II and St. Teresa of Calcutta, with our deceased grandparents, and my beloved nephew Noah. The Eucharist sacramentally - but no less really! - unites us not only with those we can see (you and me), but especially with those we cannot see, because the Sunday Eucharist is also the Mass of the heavenly hosts. And therefore, the stones on the slopes of Jerusalem cry out the words of Ps 122:4, "There the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord!" to inspire ascending pilgrims to look up and raise their minds and hearts to the heavenly liturgy. The land has much so teach us about the liturgy.

***

Now if all this is true - and it is! - then why do so many Catholics find the Mass so boring? Because we bring little knowledge to the Mass. And you cannot love what you do not know. Golf is boring to those who know nothing about birdies, eagles, and bogies. They don't know "How you drive for show but putt for dough." Chess is boring to those who know nothing about how knights and bishops move, and how the most powerful piece is the queen. Chess is an elegant analogy for the Catholic faith. Cooking is boring to those who know nothing about spices and seasonings, and side dishes. And why Emril Lagasse shouts, "Bam!" when he tosses spices into his dishes. But when you know these things suddenly you fall in love with golf, and chess and cooking.

This, then, is how the land can help us fall in love with the liturgy, that is, when we listen to and learn from what its very stones cry out. The land teaches us in the Mass of Melchizedek that God mows down our foes and makes ultimate victory and lasting peace possible. The land teaches us in the traveling Mass of Jesus to desire to drink of the Lord’s love in the fourth cup, and not be distracted by the minutiae of the Mass, the liturgy wars. And the land teaches us, as we scales the sides of the Holy City that the true home of the liturgy is heaven. In other words, by studying the terrain and the topography of the Holy Land we learn the theology of the liturgy. Well, so what? Well, so that we can bring a little more knowledge of the liturgy when we go to Mass next Sunday. And once you know the meaning of the Mass, you cannot help but love it. And then the stones will cry out: “Bam!”

Praised be Jesus Christ!

 

No Unfinished Homework

Learning wisdom from the example of our parents

10/14/2024

Wis 7:7-11 I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her, nor did I liken any priceless gem to her; because all gold, in view of her, is a little sand, and before her, silver is to be accounted mire. Beyond health and comeliness I loved her, and I chose to have her rather than the light, because the splendor of her never yields to sleep. Yet all good things together came to me in her company, and countless riches at her hands.

Several years ago, a psychiatrist gave the talks at the Continuing Education for Clergy. He mentioned the best description I have ever heard of how parents influence and impact their children. He said, “Children are their parents’ unfinished homework.” That is, parents get a lot of things right, but they also get some things wrong.

No set of parents is perfect. The children’s life-long task, therefore, is to learn these lessons and finish their parents’ homework. You know, parents help children with their homework when they are small. But the children help parents with their homework when they are big.

This year my father turns 90 years old, and by that age you have mastered virtually all of life’s lessons. My dad doesn’t have much unfinished homework left to do. In honor of his 90th birthday, therefore, I would like to share some of these life-lessons – his homework – that my father has taught me and my brother, Paul, and my sister, Mary.

One profound lesson was something Dad says in Malayalam, our native language from the state of Kerela, India. Dad often says, “innu njaan, naale nee,” meaning “today me, tomorrow you.” In other words, be kind to older people who may be slower or more forgetful. Why? Become one day you will be walking in their shoes.

I remember talking with an 12 year old altar server before Mass one Sunday morning. I had just turned 54. I asked him if, “Do you think 54 is very old?” And he replied diplomatically, “No, not at all.” Figuring he was just trying to be nice, I asked him the same question differently, “Do you think you will ever be 54?”

He immediately shot back, “No way!” Now, that was a little more honest. I said to him, “Innu njaan, naale nee,” but I he didn’t understand. And it wasn’t just my Malayalam he didn’t understand. You see, I was trying to pass along some of my father’s finished homework to him.

My father came to the United States when he was already 42 years old in 1976. He had to learn a new culture and strange customs, and even driving a car was different. Once while driving down the highway at night, dad noticed there were light bulbs on the road that would light up as he drove by them.

But when he looked in the rearview mirror, the road lights had suddenly gone off. He thought, “What an amazing country: lights come on and off for every car!” But later he learned they were just reflectors, not lights. And he shared with us his great discovery. So no unfinished homework there, meaning, we would not make the same mistake.

Before he left India, he confided in a dear Hindu friend how scared and nervous he was to transplant his family in a new country. And that friend gave him some sage advice, saying: “The same Christian God you worship here in India will be with you when you arrive in America. You will not be alone.”

In other words, you may lose your home country, but you will never lose God. Those words gave him profound courage to embark on our family’s great adventure in America. And every time my father has shared that story, he was making sure to finish his homework. God is with us wherever we go.

Perhaps one of the greatest accomplishments of my poor immigrant parents was to send their three children to Catholic schools. As far as I know my parents never asked for tuition assistance because they believed that was for poorer families. Or, maybe on the other hand, they just wanted to remind us how much they sacrificed to send their kids to Catholic schools. Why?

So that good ole Catholic guilt would motivate their lazy children to study hard and make good grades. And it worked! My siblings and I have done the same. My brother sits on the board of Ozark Catholic Academy, I’ve written three books to raise money for Catholic schools, and my sister has sent five children through Catholic schools.

My father would often say, “The best inheritance you can leave your children is a Catholic school education, because that is something they can never lose.” I’m not sure if by that he meant that we should not expect any monetary inheritance! But he was spot-on: growing in faith, self-discipline, and love of neighbor is the best education anyone can receive. Why? Because it will benefit us in this life and in the next. No unfinished homework regarding Catholic schools.

The first reading from the book of Wisdom beautifully echoes how my father did not leave any unfinished homework for his children. We read: “I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison to her.” And isn’t that what our homework is: to seek the wisdom from above and pass it along to our progeny?

The highlight of my parents’ week these days is being able to celebrate Holy Mass, and receive Holy Communion. At Mass they pray and prudence is given to them, and they prefer Jesus in the Eucharist to scepter and throne, and they deem riches nothing in comparison to Christ. If we three children, and nine grandchildren, can have half that much devotion to the Mass, perhaps we will leave a little less unfinished homework as well.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Aquinas for President

Trying to look, listen, and learn from others

10/09/2024

LK 10:38-42 Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.”  The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

One of my favorite anecdotes about St. Thomas Aquinas was while he was studying to become a Dominican friar. He was rather large in stature and rarely spoke, so his Dominican brothers gave him the nickname, “the Dumb Ox.” One day, they decided to pull a prank on Thomas. Three brothers stood by the monastery window looking outside with eyes wide open and pointing in amazement. When one saw Thomas walking down the hall, he shouted: “Thomas come quickly! Look! Cows are flying!”

Thomas lumbered to the window as quickly as he could to look at this unusual sight, but alas, he saw nothing strange. The three brothers laughed loudly and guffawed at Thomas’ gullibility. Then the Dumb Ox turned back from the window and said, “I would rather believe that cows can fly than that brothers would lie.”

A few days later all the Dominican students were in class, and their teacher was St. Albert the Great. He was aware of the nickname and jokes the student played on Thomas. He said to the class of future mendicants: “You may call Thomas the Dumb Ox. But I tell you that one day this ox will bellow so loudly that he will be heard all over the world.” Indeed, we still study the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas in the seminary today, 800 years after his death.

I mention this anecdote about Aquinas because even though he had a lot to say, he was first of all silent. That is, his first instinct was to be quiet, to listen, to look, to learn, to perceive, to penetrate, to understand, long before he opened his mouth to speak.

There is an ancient Latin maxim that teaches: “nemo dat quod non

habet,” meaning “you cannot give what you do not have.” Thomas Aquinas gave the world great treasures of wisdom, but first he adopted a posture of quiet contemplation and receptivity. First silence, second speak.

Both readings today touch on the topic of quiet contemplation. In Galatians 1, St. Paul recounts what he did shortly after his dramatic encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus. The Apostle to the Gentiles writes: “I did not immediately consult flesh and blood…rather, I went into Arabia and then returned to Damascus.” St. Paul first traveled to the site of Mt. Sinai where Moses spoke to God so that St. Paul could receive his marching orders directly from God, too.

And we are all familiar with the gospel, where Mary strikes a pose of quiet contemplation while her sister Martha is over-busy with housework. In other words, the great saints always had the attitude of the Dumb Ox and desired first to listen, to look, and to learn. Why? Because “nemo dat quod non habet,” you cannot give what you do not have.

Let me make a brief application of this attitude of quiet contemplation to our toxic political environment today. What makes it so difficult for me to listen to the rhetoric from both Republicans and Democrats is that everyone is talking and no one is listening, or looking, or trying to learn from each other. Each side is behaving like the immature brothers of St. Thomas, trying to make fun of the other party and make them look foolish.

Both sides are guilty of doing whatever it takes to get into office and maintaining that power. And we, you and I, are complicit in encouraging this rhetoric to the extent that we are only interested in promoting our own agenda. Very little civility or sanity is left in our modern political discourse.

My recommendation, therefore, would be to take a page out of the book of Dumb Ox, that is, instead of shouting or more campaigning, take time to stop, to look, and to listen. Try to hear what both sides are saying and sift the wheat from the chaff, and then blow away the chaff.

I believe both parties promote issues that have value and protect the common good, especially in serving the most vulnerable in our society, the unborn baby and the undocumented immigrant. But the way things currently stand, I am afraid no one would vote for him if Aquinas ran for president. They would just call him, “the Dumb Ox.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Cavalry We Can Call

Cavalry We Can Call

10/07/2024

Luke 1:26-38 The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, "Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you." But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end." But Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?" And the angel said to her in reply, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

October 7 marks the day for us when Hamas extremists massacred 1,200 Jewish civilians and sparked the Middle East war we have witnessed for the past year. But long before this October 7, 2023, we Catholic Christians remembered October 7 for another important battle, namely, the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

Christian forces, called the Holy League, fought a naval battle against Muslim Turks off the shores of Greece. The Turks were threatening to take over Europe, and the Battle of Lepanto marks the decisive battle that not only repelled them but changed the tide of the war.

The night before the battle Pope Pius V had asked all the Christian sailors to pray the rosary. And they devoutly did. When the Christians won, Pope Pius named October 7 the feast of Our Lady of Victory. Later, however, it was changed to Our Lady of the Rosary. And that is what we celebrate today, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which was built on a day of battle. Why is that?

Well, because the battle is always the Lord’s, and when he marches with our armies, we are sure to celebrate victory. Someone said that I prayed for the Razorbacks to beat Tennessee at the Saturday evening 5 p.m. Mass, and that’s the reason the Hogs won. But I had just said that “we believe in a God of miracles.”

And this divine assistance in battle should not surprise us because it is a recurring theme throughout the Bible. One note-worthy instance is the famous fall of Jericho in the Book of Joshua. You know how the impregnable walls of Jericho miraculously collapsed. But the cause of the collapse was the powerful prayers of the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant for seven days around the city.

And the Ark of the Covenant that carried God’s promises inside was a perfect symbol of Mary, who carried inside her womb Jesus, God’s greatest promise of salvation. In other words, the battle first and foremost belongs to God, and only by praying for his divine succor can we hope to celebrate any victories.

In the gospel today we witness the profound moment in which Mary accepts the responsibility to become the new Ark of the Covenant. The angel Gabriel explains how this transformation will occur: “The Holy Spirit will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” In other words, the true Commander of the Lord’s armies is not Mary but the Son whom she carried in her womb. It is to him to whom she gives all the glory for victory, and so too should we.

My friends, sometimes we engage in decisive geo-political battles like on October 7 in Israel, or at the Battle of Lepanto. But far more often we wage spiritual wars in our own hearts and that we observe in those we meet every day. Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to say, “If we do not turn the sword of war against our own hearts we will surely turn it against our neighbor.”

So, let me ask you: what are all the spiritual and moral enemies you do battle with daily? Maybe you battle versus lust or alcoholism, maybe your foe is gambling or gossip, perhaps your enemy is laziness and greed. Then enlist the aid of Mary, the Ark of the Covenant, our Lady of the Rosary, to be victorious in these battles.

Perhaps you are trying to help others in their struggles and against their enemies. You may worry about children or grandchildren who no longer go to church. Maybe a son or daughter has lost his or her moral way, and wanders “the valley of tears” of drugs, or gangs, or atheism, or same sex marriage, etc. I worry about the increasing homeless population and that more and more street corners are populated by panhandlers.

Surely, all these people have enemies every bit as powerful and dangerous as Hamas extremists and the Muslim Turks. Well, there is always one great Cavalry we can call, namely, Mary, the Mother of God, the Ark of the Covenant, who will give us victory over our foes. Pray the rosary daily because the battle is ultimately in the Lord’s hands. Remember, long before October 7 was known for the massacre in Israel, it was called the feast of Our Lady of Victory.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Ups and Downs

Seeing our marriages through the eyes of children

10/06/2024

Mk 10:2-16  The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, "Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?"  They were testing him. He said to them in reply, "What did Moses command you?" They replied, Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her." But Jesus told them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate." In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this. He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries  another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." Then he embraced them and blessed them, placing his hands on them.

Someone sent me this little joke last week. The two-letter word “up” in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word.  It is listed in the dictionary as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v]. It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?  Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election, and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?  We call UP our friends, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers, and clean UP the kitchen.  We lock UP the house and fix UP the old car.

At other times, this little word has more special meanings.   People stir UP trouble, we line UP for tickets, we work UP an appetite, and we think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special. And this UP is also confusing:  A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

If you are UP to the task, try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.  It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more examples. One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP! Oh . . . one more thing:  What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night? Can you spell the word “up”? U --- P! Hey, why are you laughing? I am just spelling a word.

Today’s gospel deals with what causes the greatest ups and downs in life, namely, marriage. Think about it: the happiest day in your life is your wedding day. But the saddest day in your life is the day you get divorced. Indeed the Pharisees ask Jesus precisely about these two great ups and downs, marriage and divorce: “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” And Jesus answers: “What God has joined together no human being must separate.”

And then Jesus seems to lose his train of thought, and changes the subject by talking about children. Not at all, I think he’s still laser focused on the topic of marriage, namely, children, marriage’s greatest up. How so? Well, children are literally the embodiment of the one-flesh union of their mom and dad.

I remember Scott Hahn saying once: “The two become one and the one is so real that nine months later you have to give it a name!” That two (husband and wife) become one flesh, a baby. And isn’t this why some parents wait until their children are adults and out of the house before they divorce? That is, children remind us of the responsibility of marriage; what God has joined no one must separate.

Every week I spend several hours a day working on annulments for the diocesan marriage tribunal. On the tribunal staff, I am called the Defender of the Bond, but a better title might be “the devil’s advocate." Why? Well, because I try to think of all the reasons someone should NOT get an annulment. Yeah, people really love me. That is, I examine all the ups and downs in someone marriage, and make observations about why the ups outweigh the downs – especially if there are children – and why the couple in question should still be married.

Folks, I am convinced that the toughest teaching of the Catholic Church is not what we believe about Mary, or the infallibility of the pope, or even the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Rather, our hardest doctrine has to do with what we mean by marriage. Why? Well, think of all the people who struggle with divorce and remarriage, with same-sex marriage, and remember how King Henry VIII separated from the Rome and started his own church because Pope Clement VII would not give him an annulment?

And people today are still leaving the Church over her teaching about marriage. In other words, the ups and downs of our marital relationships often reflect rather accurately the ups and downs of our spiritual relationship with the Church, which is to say, with God. The question: “Where am I in my marriage?” is often a profoundly an insightful way to understand the question, “Where am I with God?”

Perhaps one way we can approach what the Church means by marriage and why she insists on its indissolubility is to see it through the eyes of children – surely the greatest “up” of married life. That is, when we feel the natural responsibility we have for our children, we begin to sense the supernatural responsibility we have for keeping our marriage vows. And then we glimpse why the Church’s teaching is so rigorous and uncompromising.

In the gospel today, Jesus says “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Then he embraces, blesses, and places his hands on little children immediately after his tough teaching about marriage (arguably his hardest). It is almost as if he says to their moms and dads, “The reason you endure all the ups and downs of married life is more for them than for you.” Children are your most precious Up.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Closet Christians

Opening the doors of our hearts and homes to Christ

10/03/2024

LK 10:1-12 Jesus appointed seventy-two other disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way. Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment. Do not move about from one house to another. Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.’ Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the Kingdom of God is at hand. I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.”

As you all know well by now, one of my favorite past-times as a priest is to visit people in their homes. Usually the evening includes dinner and a house blessing. Now this past-time is ironic for me because growing up we never invited the priest over to our home because we put priests on a high pedestal. And my family felt that our humble home was not worthy to have Jesus’ ambassador come for dinner.

So, I can understand why some people get super nervous when I come over for supper. One mother, however, greeted me with a big smile at the door and said, “We are so happy you came for a visit! Our teenage son finally cleaned his room because he knew you were coming!” So, there can be many reasons to invite a priest over for supper.

But the main reason I love to visit parish families is because I finally get to know my parishioners. That intimacy is hardly possible after Mass with a five-second handshake and a hurried “Hello!” One way I symbolize this getting to know you is by blessing the family’s home. And when I bless a home, I bless the whole home, including the closets. By the way, you never know someone until you look into their closet and see where they throw everything right before the priest arrives.

But I sprinkle holy water in every room of the house, including bathrooms, closets, laundry rooms, garages, and even front and back porches. And what the family is really doing (in a spiritual sense) is not only opening their closets to me but opening their closets to Christ. Why is that so significant?

Well, so that nothing is hidden from his loving eyes, his gentle touch, and his transforming grace. In other words, when we open our homes to priests, we really open our hearts to Christ, especially those cluttered closets where we throw all the stuff we don’t want anyone else to see.

Part of the ritual of blessing a home includes today’s gospel from Lk 10:1-12. Notice the first verse where it says, “Jesus sent 72 other disciples ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit.” That is, Jesus is sending these disciples as his personal ambassadors so that the people who welcome them, in effect welcome Christ. So, my family was not far off to put priests on a pedestal. Priests are indeed Christ’s ambassadors.

My friends, whether or not you invite a priest over for dinner and to bless your house, no one is exempt from inviting Jesus into the deepest recesses of their hearts. Today, therefore, ask yourself: is there some corner or crevice of my life that I have not asked Jesus to be the King and Lord of? Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, “We all cultivate little gardens in the back of our hearts which are just for us and not for Jesus.”

One Protestant friend of mine remarked: “I find it easy to tithe 10 percent of my income to the Church because I know that all 100 percent already belongs to Jesus!” That is the right attitude of someone who has opened all his closets to Christ. But I am convinced there are three perennial closets we keep closed to Christ, and inside are lurking our love for money, sex, and power.

By the way, this opening our closets to Christ is precisely how we live the third Luminous Mystery, commonly titled, “The Proclamation of the Gospel and the Invitation to Conversion.” If you have trouble meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, think about Luke 10:1-12 and priests coming to dinner and blessing your closets when you pray that third luminous mystery. That is the meaning of that mystery.

Every time I visit a family for dinner and walk across the threshold of their house I say “Peace.” Why? Well, because that is what Jesus told his 72 disciples today: “Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household’.” And that is what Christ’s ambassador brings to our homes and our hearts, namely, Christ’s peace. But only if we open our doors to him, especially our closet doors where we hide things from the eyes of the world.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Reluctant Carmelites

Understanding how everyone becomes Carmelites

10/01/2024

Lk 9:51-56 When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.

Before I came to Immaculate Conception, I spent 3 months considering becoming a Carmelite friar, and people laughed at me because they said I couldn’t stay quiet that long. But I believe in the latter stages of life, we might all consider becoming Carmelite friars and nuns. Why is that? Well, I visit my parents on Fridays, and their home has virtually become a Carmelite monastery.

They do not drive so they are stuck in their home, their cell. They watch Mass daily, or when the priest (me) comes to visit them. They have scheduled hours of prayer at morning, noon, and in the evening. They do not receive lots of visitors. Their life now consists of long days of silence, solitude, and suffering as they deal with the aches and pains of older and weaker minds and bodies. They have become reluctant Carmelites.

Today on the feast of St. Therese of Lisieux, arguably one of the greatest Carmelite mystics and doctors of the Church, I want to share my discernment to become a Carmelite in the hopes of encouraging people like my parents who have become reluctant Carmelites. Sooner or later we all become reluctant Carmelites.

One way to understand the unknown Carmelite vocation is to contrast it with the well-known vocation of diocesan priests. Everyone knows what we diocesan clergy do: we baptize your babies, we hear your confessions, we celebrate your marriages, and we finally send you home to heaven at your funeral Mass.

Think of diocesan priests as electricians who fix your electrical problems at home. If your power goes out at home, you call an electrician and he investigates where the power outage occurred and remedies the problem. You are pleased, you pay him, and you go on with your life. But did you ever think: where does the electrical power originate that finally ends at your house?

It is generated in a far-away hydro-electric plant, a dam in a river, that sends power to hundreds of thousands of people in an area. No one ever hears of these hydro-electric plant workers. They spend their days in silence, solitude, and suffering because no one thanks them or pats them on the back after a long day. Nonetheless, they work at the very source of the power that we use – and take for granted – every day.

And that describes the life of Carmelites – even reluctant Carmelites like my parents – whose lives of silence, solitude, and suffering (and prayer) bring them close to Christ, the source of spiritual power that Christians rely on. Just like civilians cannot live without hydro-electric plant workers, so Christians cannot live without Carmelites dedicated to lives of contemplative prayer and penance.

In the gospel today Jesus prepares himself to launch a new chapter in his ministry as the Messiah, namely, traveling to Jerusalem for his suffering and death. We read in Lk 9:51 (a very significant verse): “When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.” Another more literal translation has it, “he set his face like flint.”

This section of Luke’s gospel, from 9:51 to 18:14, is called the Lukan Travel Narrative, or LTN for short, where Jesus travels from Galilee in the north to Jerusalem in the south. In a spiritual sense, Jesus prepares himself for his final days when he too will experience intense solitude, silence, and suffering, becoming in essence, a Carmelite at the end of his earthly life.

My friends, God calls a few chosen souls to the religious vocation of a Carmelite friar or a nun. But I believe he eventually calls everyone, especially in the latter stages of our lives, to become Carmelites, spiritually-speaking. When I visit hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living centers, or even my parents living in their own home, I feel I am visiting a Carmelite friar or nun in their cell, their little cubicle of contemplation.

They spend long swaths of time alone, often they are in pain or suffering, and when they turn off the television, there is golden silence. One elderly friend of mine likes to say, “Getting old ain’t for sissies.” And he has good reason for saying that because we all eventually become reluctant Carmelites, which ain't for sissies. And we would do well to “set our face like flint” as we, too, travel to Jerusalem.

Praised be Jesus Christ!