Meat in the Middle

Seeing how Jesus teaches us visually and verbally

07/08/2025

Matthew 9:32-38 A demoniac who could not speak was brought to Jesus, and when the demon was driven out the mute man spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He drives out demons by the prince of demons.” Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

Have you heard of the old expression, “Don’t miss the forest for the trees”? It means don’t become so laser-focused on the minutiae of what’s right in front of you that you lose sight of the larger map showing you where you are headed. On the other hand, we can become so far-sighted that we cannot see what is right in front of our nose.

Who can forget when Yoda criticized young Luke Skywalker in the movie “Empire Strikes Back”, “All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.” So the point is to develop a beautiful balance by keeping one eye on the minutiae and the other eye on the map, one on the future and the other on the present.

In no other gospel writer do we find this delicate balance struck better than in the gospel of Matthew. In 28 chapters Matthew vividly recounts the life, ministry, miracles, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That narrative is the ostensible plot of the story.

But Matthew never once takes his eyes off both the minutiae or the map, nor does he forget the present for the future. And managing this rare balance is all thanks to his personal gifts as a writer and apostle, but even more so thanks to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as an evangelist.

First, let me describe how Matthew keeps an eye on the larger map. If you zoo out and survey the entire gospel, a very clear structure emerges. Matthew places two bookends, one at the beginning with Jesus’ birth (dreams of St. Joseph, visit of the Magi, flight into Egypt) and the other at the end in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

But in the middle you find the meat, like in every good sandwich. There are five distinct sections of narrative action each followed by a discourse of explanation of those actions. In other words, Jesus first teaches his apostles by his example, and then he teaches them by his exhortation.

I remember when Fr. Daniel was giving me tennis lessons, he would explain how to move my feet, how to hold the racquet, how to swing and hit the ball. But I always learned faster and better when I could watch how he did it. As they say I am a visual learner more than a verbal learner.

Matthew’s gospel likewise gives both the visual and the verbal in 5 successive lessons from chapters 3 to 25, the meat in the middle. These five great lessons that Jesus teaches are in fact often described as “books” within Matthew’s larger gospel. How so?

Well, just as Moses is credited with writing the first five books of the bible, the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), so Jesus in effect writes (visually and verbally) 5 new books. Why? Because Matthew wants his readers to see Jesus as the new Moses.

Jesus gives his disciples the new law – not only the 10 Commandments but also the 8 Beatitudes – and the new covenant – not animal sacrifices but his own sacrifice on the altar as our Eucharist. Can you see Matthew’s map – and how “all his life he has looked away…to the future, to the horizon”?

But now if we zoom in to today’s gospel, we find ourselves right in the middle of the visual and verbal of the second of the five books. That is, Jesus has just demonstrated visually by his actions of teaching, healing, and driving out demons what the apostles are to do.

And in the following chapter he explains verbally how they are to do it in his Missionary Discourse. Thus Jesus says: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Jesus teaches visually and verbally how to be a missionary disciple.

My friends, our take-home message today is to strike this beautiful balance in our own lives. To keep one eye on the minutiae of the daily grind, but not take the other eye off the map of where we are ultimately going. That is, we should not lose the forest for the trees.

As Stephen Covey once memorably said: “Don’t be so zealous on climbing the ladder of success that when you get to the top you find it is leaning against the wrong wall.” Jesus, the new Moses, is the only One who can teach us how to do both perfectly.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Textbook Funerals

Seeing how Jesus changes death into a doorway

07/07/2025

Matthew 9:18-26 While Jesus was speaking, an official came forward, knelt down before him, and said, ""My daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live."" Jesus rose and followed him, and so did his disciples. A woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the tassel on his cloak. She said to herself, ""If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured."" Jesus turned around and saw her, and said, ""Courage, daughter!  Your faith has saved you."" And from that hour the woman was cured. When Jesus arrived at the official's house and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a  commotion, he said, ""Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping."" And they ridiculed him. When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand, and the little girl arose. And news of this spread throughout all that land.

I presided at two funerals last week. The first one was for an older gentleman surrounded by his widow, his children, his grandchildren, and hundreds of friends. The funeral was here at the church and the man was buried at Oak Cemetery with a colorful Mariachi band to croon farewell songs while the family shoveled dirt on the grave.

It was sad, obviously, but also pervaded with a sense of peace and hope. He had lived a good Christian life and could look forward to his eternal reward, and the family could leave the cemetery fully expecting to see him again in the next life. It was a textbook funeral like they taught us in the seminary.

The second funeral was anything but textbook. It was tragic and doleful, even with a touch of despair that was hard to shake off. The man was detained by ICE agents and held in a local jail awaiting deportation. The cause of death? Suicide. The service was at the funeral home not at church, with only a handful of well-wishers. His widow and children are still in Zacatecas, Mexico. After the funeral the body will be sent back to Mexico for burial.

The funeral was sad, to say the least, and the circumstances made it tragic. They did not prepare us for these “non-textbook funerals” in the seminary. But regardless of how inadequate my homily was on that occasion, I hope people felt like Jesus was present in his priest and in the Scriptures. And that all hope was not lost.

After all, the man had been baptized and received all his sacraments, so I was able to bless his body and his casket with holy water, rich symbol of Baptism. He had sacramentally died with Christ so he can hope to rise with him on the last day. Otherwise, why bother with Baptism at all, if it does not open the door of death for us?

Now, this is not a homily about immigration, but rather about the difference Jesus makes in our lives and especially at the moment of death, surely the most critical moment of our lives. Today’s gospel highlights exactly the difference Jesus makes in that morbid moment of death. Did you notice the wildly different perspectives: that of Christ and that of the crowd?

We read: “When Jesus arrived at the official’s house, and saw the Mariachi band, I mean the flute players, and the crowd were making a commotion, he said, ‘Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.’ And they ridiculed him.” Now both perspectives are true, but one is truer. The crowds were right to mourn because the girl had indeed died. Her heartbeat had ceased, and her brainwaves had stopped waving.

Jesus’ perspective, however, is even truer than natural death, that is, he has come precisely to transform the specter of death into the doorway to real life. In that sense, the girl was indeed merely sleeping and Jesus had come to awaken her. And to prove that Jesus has power over death, he brings her back to life.

But of course, like Lazarus in John 11, and the son of the widow of Nain in Luke 7, this girl would have to die again in order to rise in eternity. Maybe that is why Jesus did not just go around raising people from the dead left and right: they would die again. Only the eternal life that is guaranteed by the sacrament of Baptism stops death dead in its tracks and makes it look like sweet slumber.

And that was my message in both funeral homilies last week. That is, thanks to their Baptism, we have solid hope that those two men will be in a better place than we are right now. And therefore our prayer should not be that they come back to us (as most people instinctively pray), but that one day we will be where they are.

They are not the unfortunate ones, we are. They have passed through the door of death and we should not want to make them go through it again. Rather, we should steel ourselves with the grace of Baptism and await our inevitable turn to turn that doorknob. In other words, the funeral of a baptized Christian is always a textbook funeral.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Our New Wineskin

Introducing Fr. Savio Arokia, associate pastor of I.C.

07/05/2025

Matthew 9:14-17 The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?" Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved."

I want to tell you a little about Fr. Savio Arokia, the new wineskin who has arrived as our new associate pastor at I.C. Every priest is a wineskin that carries the new wine of the Gospel. First, and most importantly, he’s a dog person! I was  little worried when he came straight from India. In my home country they don’t treat dogs like family members.

But Fr. Savio told me he had a German Shepherd for 14 years named Rinto. And he warned me: “It is very hard on you when they die.” That is why he did not get another dog. In that way, Fr. Savio reminds me a lot of Fr. Daniel Velasco who had a German Shepherd named Lola for 13 years.

It was very hard on Fr. Daniel when she died because she was living here with us at the time. That was the first time I gave Fr. Daniel a hug – he really needed it. But I won’t need a hug because Apollo and I have made a deal that he will stay young and handsome forever.

Fr. Savio has worked in the United States before, in the Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, from 2012 to 2024. So he is fully inculturated with baseball, apple pie, and oversized SUVs. But I noticed he has already found the Indian restaurants in town, cooked Indian food the last two days, and keeps the thermostat upstairs at 78 degrees. You can take the man out of India, but you cannot take India out of the man.

He said he comes from a traditional Catholic family, but that is an understatement. His parents – both deceased – had 8 children: 4 boys and 4 girls. Besides Fr. Savio, another brother is a priest, and one sister is a nun in the Bethlemite Religious Congregation. Fr. Savio was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Nellore (where Fr. Samy and Fr. Bala are from) back in 1983, which was before I was born.

Let me mention a few of the roles he has played as a priest for 42 years: pastor, director of communications and multi-media, youth minister, on the Human Rights Council of the state, on the diocesan Educational Committee, Director of Catechetics, Director of the retreat center, on the college of consultors for the bishop, rector of the boarding school, and the list goes on and on.

Most telling, though, for the past year while in India, he assisted the diocesan bishop as his secretary. That is perhaps Fr. Savio’s highest position because the bishop usually wants his best and brightest close to him. Notice how far away I am from the bishop in Fort Smith. That proximity to the bishop tells you a lot about Fr. Savio and about Fr. John. And incidentally, I am not complaining.

In just a few days after arriving Fr. Savio has already made a great first impression. People are pleased that his Indian accent is not too pronounced, and they can understand him. He said he likes to come to the office and be present to the people – not like your pastor who runs and hides from the people.

He asked to concelebrate the 4th of July Mass with me, even though he was not scheduled to be there. And most importantly, he spends time in personal prayer. If Fr. Savio has one weakness, it is that he does not speak Spanish. But that is no fault of his own; he has not had the opportunity to learn.

Perhaps he will pick up some Spanish in his time here. Spanish pairs well with Margaritas, I have learned. So, of the four English Masses we have every weekend, I will take two and Fr. Savio will take two. Please welcome Fr. Savio, our new priestly wineskin here at I.C. I am sure he will bring us more of the new wine of the gospel in his ministry.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

The Fence We Built

Appreciating American devotion to God and State

07/04/2025

Then the Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap him in speech. They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status. Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” When they heard this they were amazed, and leaving him they went away.

I have often wondered if the real American Revolutionary War was not the one fought at Yorktown, Boston, and signed at the Treaty of Paris in 1783, but rather the one fought in Philadelphia among delegates from the 13 Colonies and added to the U.S. Constitution as the Bill of Rights or the first 10 Amendments 7 years later in 1791.

And as you know, the First Amendment protects personal freedoms, and the first freedom our founding fathers listed was the “freedom of religion.” In other words, the real American Revolution was a religious one, and henceforth, we Americans would be free to practice any religion of our choosing, or to practice none at all.

I was having dinner at a family’s home a couple of weeks ago and we were discussing the great diversity of churches in Fort Smith. Have you noticed this religious plurality? There are some very beautiful Buddhist temples decorated with bright yellow and red colors. In some neighborhoods, you can hear the Muslim call to prayer ringing out from mosques here and there.

We are blessed to have a Jewish synagogue on North 47th Street with 22 families who worship there (I checked their website). And we have countless Christian denominations scattered all over town, with tall steeples pointing to heaven, and with the most prominent one towering at the head of Garrison Avenue, of course!

But before this American religious revolution, you never found such diversity of devotions in a country. Rather, you had the principle of “cuius regio, euis religio” meaning “whose realm, his religion.” Or as we sometimes joke, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do!” and that included “doing religion” as the Romans do. And if you did not do as the Romans did, what happened? You were persecuted, tortured, or thrown to the lions.

But for the first time in history, thanks to this remarkable American religious revolution, we created a country where there was no “state sponsored religion.” No “religio” of the “regio”, no religion of the realm. Each citizen was absolutely free to practice any religion, or to practice no religion at all.

This fine line of faith – to practice or not to practice – was drawn by Thomas Jefferson when he argued for “a wall of separation between church and state.” That is, “good fences make good neighbors," and that fence or wall of separation meant that church and state would not encroach into each other’s yards.

Our religious revolution is also an ingenious way to interpret Jesus’ words in the gospel today. Our Lord invites us to walk that “fine line of faith” when he teaches: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” What better way to put Jesus’ preaching into practice than what we find in the First Amendment?

Let me quote the beginning: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Or put simply: “Good constitutional fences make good neighbors of church and state.” Or as our Lord said it: “Caesar and God both receive the devotion they deserve,” not more and not less.

My family emigrated to the United States in 1976, which by the way, was the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. And we are so blessed to live in this amazing country. Among the many freedoms that all Americans enjoy, chief is our freedom for religion, or contrarily, freedom from religion.

In other words, the United States is not like communist countries (think of Russia and China) where the state tells the church what to do. And we are unlike religious monarchies (think of Iran) where the church tells the state what to do. Rather, we fought the American revolution in great part so that we “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God.” And both Church and State get along great because of a fence we built back in 1791.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Envelopes from Heaven

Giving Christ control over our pocketbooks

07/02/2025

Matthew 8:28-34 When Jesus came to the territory of the Gadarenes, two demoniacs who were coming from the tombs met him. They were so savage that no one could travel by that road. They cried out, "What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?" Some distance away a herd of many swine was feeding. The demons pleaded with him, "If you drive us out, send us into the herd of swine." And he said to them, "Go then!" They came out and entered the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned. The swineherds ran away, and when they came to the town they reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs. Thereupon the whole town came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they begged him to leave their district.

I don’t make it a habit to quote Protestants in my homilies, but I will today. The great Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther – who, by the way, was an Augustinian monk like Pope Leo XIV – once said: “Every Christian undergoes three conversions: the conversion of the head, the conversion of the heart, and the conversion of the pocketbook.” I will give you one guess which one is the hardest to turn over to Christ’s control.

That is, you can tell what is truly important to people by where they spend their time and on what they spend their money. A great way to do a penetrating examination of conscience is to review your calendar and glance at your checkbook. Those two metrics are infallible indicators of whether or not Christ is in control not only of your head and heart, but also of your pocketbook.

In the gospel today we hear about people who have not yet experienced the conversion of the pocketbook. Jesus performs the mighty miracle of driving out two demons from two tormented individuals. But it came at a cost because Jesus sent the demons into a herd of swine that “rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they were drowned.” No doubt you have heard that Archbishop Fulton Sheen joked, “That was the first occasion of deviled ham.”

But that was no laughing matter to the Gadarenes because they just lost their livelihood, a whole herd of swine. In other words, accepting the gospel imposed an economic hardship on the people. And how did the people react to the Good News of salvation, with joy and celebration welcoming Jesus as a conquering Hero? Quite the contrary, we read: “When they saw him they begged him to leave their district.” Conversion comes at a cost.

If there is one thing I have witnessed with great pride as your pastor, it is the complete conversion to Christ of I.C. parishioners. Your head, your hearts, your pocketbooks, and even your calendars are under Christ’s kingship. Let me give you some examples of this complete conversion. Yesterday I sent someone an email asking them to read something I had written and asking for their honest feedback. Here is what they replied: “Father, we have listened and are reading. Other than any input and prayers, how can we materially help you?”

Yesterday afternoon I went to the store to buy Apollo some dog food. I ran into three people who had been in church earlier that day. We chatted for a few minutes and talked about our dogs. They have two corgis. Later as I went to check out, one of them ran up and said, “Father, let me buy that for you. It’s not every day we get to help a priest pay for something.” Lucky Apollo, he gets to eat for free!

Two weeks ago some friends came down from Fayetteville to go to lunch. While we were eating a parishioner stopped by to say hello. Later, when we asked for the check, the meal had already been paid for. This past Spring I asked a parishioner if he would be willing to drive our shuttle van as a volunteer to take students to Ozark Catholic Academy in Tontitown. He not only said “Yes,” but added, “Let us take you to lunch so you can share the details.”

Again and again people in this parish give generously before I even ask. You support the capital campaign. One parishioner single-handedly underwrote the cost of the new back altar and another family was disappointed someone else beat them to it. You contribute to the Sunday collection, fill our poor boxes to overflowing, and remember us in your will. You continue to give even after you’re gone! I.C. parishioners are sending in their stewardship envelopes from heaven! And that is how the Gadarenes should have responded at the arrival of their Redeemer.

Praised be Jesus Christ!