Mark 10:45

Category: Homily

  • The Paradox of Love: Friday of the 19th Week in Ordinary Time

    Joshua 24:1-13; Psalm 136:1; Matthew 19:3-12

    Today’s readings remind me of that famous scene in the musical Fiddler on the Roof when Tevye asks Golde, his wife of 25 years, do you love me? She replies, “Do I love you? For 25 years I’ve washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cow, after 25 years, why talk about love right now?” He repeats, do you love me? “I’m your wife.” I know… But do you love me? She thinks out loud, “Do I love him? For 25 years I’ve lived with him, fought him, starved with him, 25 years my bed is his, if that’s not love, what is?” Then you love me? Finally, she replies, “I suppose I do…”

    Why does this scene remind me of the readings? Because today Scripture focuses on what love is in its essence, and that scene highlights three key aspects of it.

    First, love is a verb. We love not in what we say but in what we do. Through Joshua, God speaks to people who, from the time of Abraham, through the oppression in Egypt, the fleeing, struggling, and starving in the desert, might well have asked, “God, do you love us?” Today we hear God reply: “Do I love you? Remember all the things I’ve done for you, and look what lies before you: You’ve made it to the Promised Land!”

    That reply echoes through the ages to today, to every one of us. We each have our own struggles, physical and spiritual. Through all of them, God isn’t sitting silently in the background; he is in every moment, working in ways beyond our understanding. His work may be unknown to us this moment, this month, or this year, but like the Promised Land, its fruit lies waiting. We must never mistake silence for inaction or indifference; God is eternally vigilant, eternally loving, always acting for our good.

    This brings up the second point: Love is timeless. How fitting that we hear Psalm 136 today, especially the antiphon, His mercy endures forever. The Hebrew word translated as “mercy” is hesed, which includes mercy but implies action, things we do when we are motivated by love and loyalty to someone else. In the scene from Fiddler on the Roof, remember that Golde replied, “After 25 years, why talk about love right now?” To her, the amount of time was not the point; she had committed her life to her marriage.

    Jesus speaks of this kind of commitment in the gospel when he quotes the passage from Genesis that a man is joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). Again to go back to the ancient language, the word for “joined” literally means, “glued.” Imagine gluing two pieces of paper, allowing them to dry, then trying to tear them apart. We know what will happen; the kind of pain and suffering that only such tearing can bring.

    This leads us to a third aspect of love, which in the words of venerable Fulton Sheen is that love is the soul of sacrifice. Recall how Golde replied when Tevye asked if she loved him: all the sacrifices she had made, the things she had endured, for him. But not just for him, for herself as well. Only those willing to make the greatest sacrifice for love’s sake can know the deepest joys that love brings. When it comes to love, joy and sacrifice can never be separated; in married life, in ministry, in whatever kind of service we are called, only those who are most fully open, who risk the greatest vulnerability, can know the deepest, most fulfilling joy: to know and to be known, to accept and be accepted; to love and to be loved.

    As in all things, the best model for all these aspects of love is our Lord, Jesus Christ. Who performed greater works of love than he? Whose love is more timeless? Who is the soul of sacrifice more than he who was willing to empty himself into his own creation to show us that those who risk the ultimate sacrifice of themselves are given the ultimate joy of resurrection to eternal life? Only Christ could most perfectly show us all this, the great paradox of love: that giving is receiving; that most fully knowing means to be most fully known; and that only by dying to ourselves can we reach the promised land of eternal life.

  • Change in His Native Place: Friday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

    Matthew 13:54-58

    For me, social media is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it’s been the best way to find out what my kids are doing; you know, things they hadn’t gotten around to telling me yet, like if they were pregnant or had a new job. Dads really are last to know. But social media can also be problematic. I decided to reconnect with people I knew over 50 years ago at St. Peter’s school. I found one of the kids I hung out with and sent him a note saying, “Hey, it’s me! Do you remember me?” He responded, “Yeah, I remember you. Those poor nuns and priests.” And that was that.

    I wanted to write back and say, “No, no, I’ve changed! I’m not the same kid,” but I let it go. I’ve done the same thing he was doing, maybe we all do – tending to paint people with a broad brush, stereotype them, see them as unchanging. I don’t like it when people do that to me, but I do it to them all the time. Maybe it’s human nature.

    This is similar to what I think happened to Jesus when he went back home. To them, he was just the carpenter’s kid, Mary’s son, who they remembered from the neighborhood. They couldn’t believe that he is or was anything else. And we know the result; Matthew tells us that Jesus did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith.

    Of course, the irony is that Jesus hadn’t changed. As Scripture says, he is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). We can’t blame the people for not seeing that; his years in Nazareth are called “hidden” for a reason. The problem was not the peoples’ failure to learn about Jesus in the past but their failure to learn from him in the present. They were right to believe he hadn’t changed; they were wrong to believe that their knowledge of him didn’t need to change, either. Like my old classmate, like me, they failed to realize they didn’t know everything they needed to know about him. As Jesus showed them, for the sake of their own salvation they needed to change their minds.

    Change of mind and its relationship to faith is clearly important to Christ. It was among the first words he spoke in Mark’s gospel: Repent, and believe (Mark 1:15). Repent is a translation of a Greek compound word that means “change your mind.” As I’ve said before, it’s one thing to hear Jesus tell tax collectors or prostitutes to change their mind; we expect that. What we don’t expect, whether it’s people in ancient Nazareth or us in the modern day, is for him to tell us to change our mind when we think we’re already doing exactly what God wants!

    But he does say that to every one of us, and I think I know why. Remember the reaction Jesus got after the Sermon on the Mount; Matthew tells us the crowds were astonished at his teaching (Matthew 7:28). In both cases, astonishment. But at the Mount he was the new sensation; here in Nazareth, just the same, familiar Jesus. We must ask ourselves which Jesus we follow. Is his teaching still challenging us, or have his words become too familiar to us? Do we find new ways to apply them, or have they acquired a sameness? Are we continuing to grow in our knowledge and love of God, or do we think we know and love him as well as we need to?

    Regardless how well we think we know him or his message, Jesus challenges us because he’s looking for a reaction. He wants us to challenge him and to challenge ourselves. Although the questions he got in Nazareth were tinged in irony, they lie at the heart of all the gospels and the heart of our faith: Is he not the carpenter’s son? Where did this man get all this? These are just another way of asking the question that also appears in every gospel, Who do you say that I am?

    One final point. Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard these questions, he was in his native place (Matthew 13:54). We could say that the Church is our Lord’s native place, but it is also true that his native place is within each of us, where God has written his image. Certainly as we receive Jesus in Holy Communion he takes up residence in the most special way inside us. That is where he meets us, counsels us, urges us constantly to change our mind, to know him more deeply, and to contemplate that crucial question, Is he not the carpenter’s son? We do well to remember that every one of us, every day of our life, is challenged to answer those questions, and that everything we do from the time we wake up until the time we go to bed is our answer to them. Let us make it our most fervent hope and prayer that Christ is most truly honored there, in his native place.

  • To Seek, To Find, To Give, To Possess: Wednesday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

    Exodus 34:29-35; Matthew 13:44-46

    The French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, a Catholic, once said that he would have written a shorter letter but didn’t have time. Anyone who has tried to say exactly what they want to say in as few words as possible knows how hard that is.

    Our Lord is certainly a master of it. In two sentences he gives us a wonderfully deep insight into the spiritual life. The idea is simple; hidden treasure is found, the finder sells everything and buys the field. But there are really four things: Seeking, finding, giving up, and owning. God does them, we do them, and the result is what Israel saw with Moses in the first reading; when we are touched by God, our very being changes.

    First, seeking. In the parables, a man finds a treasure. Who is the seeker, man or God? Before answering, consider: the treasure had to be hidden first or there would have been nothing to find. The reality is that God is not hidden; he has written his image into us and around us all creation proclaims his glory. Yet as St. Augustine once said, “You were with me and I was not with you; created things kept me far from you.” Sinfulness keeps us from seeing him; we feel the emptiness, the hunger, but look to worldly things to fill it, only to find that everything the world has to offer leaves us as empty and unfulfilled as we were before. Still, God is faithful and always ready; when we turn to him with our whole heart and soul to do what is right before him (Tobit 13:6), he comes and finds us.

    No wonder the man in the parable was filled with joy! I see that kind of emotion often in people who are new to or returning to the faith; they are so happy to have finally found what their hearts had been searching for. There is great joy knowing that God is near, has our good in mind, and loves us. But we should remember too, as Scripture reminds us, of God’s joy, for he first loved us (1 John 4:19) and greatly rejoices when one is found who had gone astray (Zephaniah 3:17; Luke 15:7,10).

    Of course, joy and good feelings aren’t enough. In any relationship built on genuine love more is asked, and when that comes to the greatest of all, our relationship with God, the greatest is asked. Jesus made it a point in the parables to say that the men who found the treasure didn’t give up part of their wealth to obtain it; they gave up everything they had. As with both seeking and finding, God has given up everything first. Anyone who doubts that need only look at a crucifix. But to quote St. Augustine again, God made us without us but will not save us without us. The questions for us today are: What are we willing to give up? What stands between us and complete devotion to doing God’s will?

    Finally, possession of the treasure. For our Heavenly Father, this flows from the greatest sign of his infinite love for us – the passion and death of his only Son. As St. Paul said, you are not your own… you have been purchased at a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). As for us, note that the man in the first parable buried the treasure and bought the field. Why do that? In those days, owning the land meant that you owned anything that was found on it or in it; he could not claim the treasure until he claimed the land it was found on. For us, the land is our faith. When we have the faith, we possess the kingdom whole and entire; what our gospel acclamation said: all that the Father has told us (John 15:15).

    In the first reading, Moses became radiant in the presence of God and while proclaiming his word to Israel. This was the same the man who once made excuses to God to avoid being sent by him to do anything, let alone proclaim his word. But then, it wasn’t the same man; he had allowed God to work within him and through him, to “possess” him if you will, to so transform him that he became the man God called him from all eternity to be. When we are touched by God, we too should show it, and that is the other question we have to ask ourselves today: Can anyone tell that we are Christians, not by our being here, not by our rosaries or prayer books, but by the way we live our lives? Can anyone tell that we have sought God, and that he has found us?

  • One of the “Do Nots”: Friday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time

    Exodus 20:1-17; Matthew 13:18-23

    Even though I’ve gone through it countless times over the last 35 years, each time still amazes me. I look at one of my kids, say, “Do NOT do that,” then find myself standing there incredulous, less than 5 minutes later, saying, “Didn’t I just tell you not to do that? Will you ever grow out of this?” But it was just recently, as I was going through it yet again, that I heard a voice in my head say, “You do the same thing.”

    Now, that could have been an echo of my mother or father, for I definitely did the same thing to them. It could also have been any of a number of nuns or priests, for I did it to them, too. Come to think of it, it could have been any of the adults who had to deal with me as a kid. It could have been, but I had the distinct feeling that it wasn’t. No, this was my conscience speaking, and not about past behavior, either. The voice didn’t say, “You did the same thing,” it said, “You do the same thing.”

    It’s true. Day after day, year after year, God has taught me through his word. It couldn’t be clearer than on a day like this when we literally read the 10 Commandments. Yet time after time, year after year, sometimes not 5 minutes later, I do exactly what God just said not to do. Why? If I understood the gospel today, our Lord has wrapped the reason in a parable which teaches me that I have a hearing problem.

    My ears work fine, that’s not the issue. The problem seems to be an inner, spiritual sort of deafness. When Jesus begins his explanation of the parable by saying, Hear the parable of the sower, he clearly wants his disciples to do more than use their ears; he wants their hearing accompanied by an attitude that says, ‘Lord, I am ready to be taught.’ Ask yourself how many times you’ve heard a gospel begin, thought, ‘Oh, I know this one,’ and then tuned out or paid little attention? This is the seed that falls on rocky ground; we hear but lack the docility, the teachable spirit, needed to help the word take root and endure. The gift of docility inclines us to remember that no matter how familiar a passage may seem, there is always something new to be learned.

    Our Lord also relates our hearing problem to a lack of understanding. We hear the word, but like the seed that falls on the path, let it go because we don’t understand it. In and of itself, lack of understanding is nothing to be ashamed of. Scripture can be hard to understand; it refers to cultures, peoples, and times far removed from our own. The problem comes in when we make no effort to learn more; to ask for help; to set time aside for study and contemplation of God’s word. Those who do this will find their time and effort well rewarded.

    Other times we can’t hear God because, as Jesus implies, his voice is drowned out by our own anxieties. We all know what it’s like to come to Mass or prayer with problems weighing us down. They distract us and before we know it the time has slipped by. It helps to begin preparing for our time with the Lord before leaving home, or if we’re praying at home to sit and recollect ourselves in silence before we begin. I find it helpful to repeat one of the old aspirations of the Church: “Let go and let God.” Not to forget or minimize what is on our mind but to make it part of our prayer, our offering to God, laying it on the altar and offering it as our sacrifice to the only One who can bring good out of it. I can’t think of a better way to quiet the inner voices so we can hear what God is saying.

    In years past, I thought of this parable as referring to different kinds of people: Those who hear the word of God and those who do not. That’s fine as far as it goes, but when God reminded me that I am one of the “do nots,” I looked a little deeper and saw the parable referring not to different kinds of people but different states of the spiritual life. That is great news for all of us, for it reminds us that conversion is possible; we can do something about our hearing problem. It is true that in the deafness of our sloth and arrogance, we are in the path; in our ignorance and shame, the rocky ground; in our anxieties and temptations, the thorny ground. But we don’t have to stay there; these grounds aren’t meant to be passively endured but to be grown out of. Christ ends the parable in the place we all want to be, so let us all today resolve that we will show him the humility, docility, and perseverance it takes to be transplanted into the soil that, truly hearing his word, bears fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.

  • I Will Make You Great: Friday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time

    Genesis 46:1-7, 28-30

    An important part of getting to know someone is finding out about their background – their childhood, family, whatever details they’d like to share. It gives us a fuller, richer picture of the person, puts what they say and do in context, and helps us come to a better understanding and appreciation of them.

    Of course, we’re much more limited when it comes to getting to know people in the bible, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing to learn. Sometimes, important details lie hidden between the lines, and knowing them helps us not only to learn more about that person but also more about us and God. This is true for one of the most important, indeed foundational, biblical characters we have heard about this week – Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham.

    As we study the chapters of Genesis that tell us about his life, one thing is clear: Jacob came from a dysfunctional family. It began from the twin brothers’ birth. The name Jacob means “to supplant” or “replace,” and that is what he did, first duping Esau out of his inheritance, then tricking his father into giving him the blessing intended for his slightly older brother. But their parents, Isaac and Rebecca, are the real problem; they play favorites, Rebecca going so far as to help her favorite (Jacob) steal from his brother and get away, while Isaac sat idly by as his favorite (Esau) plotted murder against Jacob. Not what anyone would call a healthy family dynamic.

    Sadly the problem followed Jacob into adulthood, for he too played favorites. We heard this week how his favoritism of Joseph led to such envy in Jacob’s other sons that like their uncle Esau they too plotted to kill their brother – and nearly succeeded.

    Yet we also saw that things don’t always work out the way we think they will. Where in Jacob’s family revenge would be expected, by the grace of God Joseph took a different tack; just yesterday we heard him say to his brothers, It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you (Genesis 45:5).

    And therein lies the lesson: With God’s help, the unchangeable can change. Like Jacob, we are born with problems, born into problems, problems plague us all our lives. They may be dysfunctional relationships, addictions, abuse, the list is endless. Whatever they are we feel powerless to change them, and on our own we probably are. But the story of Jacob teaches us that we are not alone, that no matter what the problems are God has ways of dealing with them that we do not, and that as St. Paul once said, all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

    Although Jacob may have taken too much pride in himself and his own schemes over the years, he never forgot God’s purpose and to humble himself before it. In today’s reading we find him doing exactly that at Beersheba. He’s been there before; recall on Monday Scripture told of him fleeing from Esau as a frightened young man. Then, God spoke to him in a dream and, although the words are slightly different, the main points are exactly the same today: I am God… do not be afraid… I will make you great… I will be with you… I will bring you home. Through all that had happened to him from that first moment on – the joys, the sorrows, the love, the loss, the bliss, and the agony – Jacob was never alone. God was right there with him, doing what he said he would do.

    So let us resolve to respond as Jacob did. Scripture tells us that he took everything he owned and everyone in his family with him to Egypt (Genesis 46:6-7). That is, he was totally committed to whatever God wanted him to do. This takes great faith but that is ours for the asking. Jacob asked for it at Beersheba; we have the present moment, here in His presence. And let us remember too that God is never outdone in generosity. For his act of faith, Jacob was rewarded not only with the joy of holding his long-lost son in his arms once again but also, through the great prosperity and growth that Israel, the nation named after him, would come to enjoy, he could rest secure in the knowledge that God’s plan is far above any of human schemes and His merciful love infinitely bigger than any of our problems.

    The best news of all is that to those who commit themselves to Him as Jacob did hear the same words that Jacob heard. Keep them with you today and everyday. Here they are again: I am God… do not be afraid… I will make you great… I will be with you… I will bring you home.

  • All Things to One Man: The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

    All Things to One Man: The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

    Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8c-9; Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19; John 19:31-37

    In high school we once did an exercise on self-perception. Sister began by asking us to take out a sheet of paper and write down 3 negative things about ourselves. After a couple of minutes she said, “Alright, now write down 3 positive things about yourself.” I can’t remember what I wrote but I know I didn’t list three; I’m not sure I even wrote two. That was Sister’s point; self-conscious teen-agers aside, people in general tend to be very good when it comes to focusing on their negative qualities but not so good when it comes to the positive.

    The same goes for our relationship with God. If you’re anything like me, it’s probably much easier to come up with reasons why He shouldn’t think very highly of you than reasons why He should. Today, on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, our Lord gives us at least three reasons to focus on the positive.

    First, listen again to his words in the 11th chapter of Hosea: When Israel was a child I loved him… I taught Ephraim to walk… took them in my arms… fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks… stooped to feed my child… I will not let the flames consume you (Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8-9). This isn’t the imagery of a God who loves from a distance, impersonally, or until we leave or hurt him; no, this is a God who loves intimately, with a deeply personal, boundless, and most of all, healing and merciful love.

    Second, as St. Paul makes clear, this is a love that goes beyond all words except the one, Eternal Word – Jesus. We can hear Paul struggling to express the inexpressible as he prays that we may have the strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:18-19). This is the key; divine love surpasses human knowledge and can be known only by faith (Ephesians 3:17), the gift of the Father possible only by the strength that comes from the Holy Spirit (CCC §683). To those who have faith, all the riches of grace are available.

    Finally, every image of the Sacred Heart reminds us with its crown of thorns of the cost of this love. We hear in the gospel of the soldier who thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out (John 19:34). There is no love worthy of the name that is not asked to endure insult, temptation, and suffering. From the dawn of humankind it is written into our nature; it’s in our blood. But it isn’t in the blood of Christ, either from his Heavenly Father or his holy Mother, the Immaculate Conception. He willingly took it on. This is perhaps the greatest and most positive of all – that God, purely out of his infinite and merciful love for us, gave his only Son that we would be raised to life eternal. As Christ himself said, there is no greater love than this.

    St. Pio of Pietrelcina, Padre Pio, understood that very well. While passing through a crowd of people all clamoring to get near him, someone shouted, “Padre, you are all things to all men!” He replied, “No, I am all things to one Man.”

    May we all come to that kind of understanding! May we all see the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a day to set aside the negatives and focus on the overwhelming positive – that we too are all things to one Man. We are loved infinitely, personally, and mercifully; we are given the gift of faith which alone can make this love known to us beyond any human understanding; and finally, that as the ultimate expression of this love the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity took human form and allowed his own heart to be pierced that we may not only look upon him in mourning for the sinfulness that put him there but with rejoicing that divine love can take even the passion and death of Christ, the greatest insult of all time, and transform it into the greatest victory the world will ever know – the resurrection to eternal life for all who believe and return to God with their whole heart (Joel 2:12).

    Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

  • Sheep and Shepherd: St. Augustine of Canterbury

    Sheep and Shepherd: St. Augustine of Canterbury

    1 Thessalonians 2:2b-8; Matthew 9:35-38

    During a parish mission years ago the homilist asked the congregation, “Do we live the Christian life as sheep or shepherds?” At the risk of oversimplifying, his point was that being a true follower of Christ requires us to be both. Key moments from the life of St. Augustine of Canterbury beautifully illustrate that point.

    The first occurred on the French side of the English Channel in the late 6th century. Reality had taken hold; Augustine, the leader of a group of 40 Benedictines sent by Pope Gregory the Great to re-evangelize England, learned from the locals that across those choppy waters lived not only pagan but also hostile Germanic tribes. If they landed, they stood an excellent chance of being killed.

    So at that moment, was Augustine a sheep or shepherd? We might think “sheep” when we hear that he sent men back to the Pope to ask if the mission should be abandoned. Is he a coward? Shouldn’t he obey orders no matter what? Perhaps, but perhaps it’s prudent for a sheep to pause if he thinks he’s walking off a cliff. Better still, perhaps as the shepherd of 40 missionaries it would be foolhardy to blindly go forward if the pope did not know what Augustine now knew.

    Like the balance between sheep and shepherd, the virtues are also a balance, in this case a balance between extremes. For example, courage is the virtuous balance between cowardice on the one hand and foolhardiness on the other. Knowing the balance is one thing, finding it another. We need the grace of God to do this; to face down our fear of rejection, failure, inadequacy, or harm. St. Paul knew this; in the first reading he says, We drew courage through our God to speak to you the Gospel of God with much struggle (1 Thessalonians 2:2). Augustine was graced with courage in abundance, for when he received the reply that Gregory wished them to set sail, he immediately did so.

    His courage was rewarded. They landed in southeastern England, which was ruled by King Ethelbert, a pagan but married to a Catholic. After Augustine met with him, the king allowed them to preach the Gospel to his people. A year or so later, he himself was baptized and went on to become a saint in his own right. What’s more, when Ethelbert converted, thousands of his subjects came with him.

    But a second trial remained. Although England was largely pagan, small bastions of Catholicism remained in Wales and on the western shore. The ancient remnants of Irish missionaries, these Catholics were angry that the Roman Empire had left England and abandoned them. Although Gregory wanted them reunited, Augustine was unable to do so. Some accuse him of going against the Pope’s advice, or blame him for being tactless, arrogant, unwilling to compromise, and ignorant of their culture. Did he fail as both sheep and shepherd to them?

    I think it’s truer to say that like Christ, Augustine saw them as troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). When the Good Shepherd felt pity for such a flock, he ministered to them but did not change his teaching. Similarly, Augustine may have pitied or sympathized with the Celts, but in his role as shepherd he wasn’t going to give in on doctrinal points such as the date to celebrate Easter, which these groups demanded. No good shepherd can allow the flock to set the terms for following, even if it costs his reputation and means separation. In this, Augustine was ultimately vindicated; years after his death, the Celtic Catholics were united with Rome.

    The life of St. Augustine of Canterbury reminds us that the saints did not get where they are by being either a good sheep or a good shepherd; rather, they learned and they teach us how to be both.

    As sheep, we follow Christ wherever he leads and do whatever he asks. This tempts us to focus on the unknown: where is Christ leading us and what is he asking? But these are the wrong questions. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is our trust that the God who leads us won’t abandon us, and that we are praying for the grace to be faithful, to follow him no matter what, for he always leads the way to victory. Like the saints, we’re only human; as Augustine showed, even saints are sometimes afraid. But he also showed that he was a sheep who knew his Master’s voice, and when his vicar encouraged him to keep going, Augustine’s faithfulness emboldened him to follow Christ beyond his fear. His obedience was rewarded with many converts.

    Yet we are not only sheep, we are shepherds. This may sound odd because, as the Gospel acclamation reminds us, Christ is the Good Shepherd; what’s more, if he has vested anyone with a shepherd’s staff it is the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church he established. Nevertheless, by our baptism we are anointed to the prophetic role of teacher. At the end of Mass we hear “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord;” whether by word or action, we are charged to preach the Gospel to the world. This is what Augustine did; to anyone who would listen, from kings to the lowliest peasant. No one is universally successful and Augustine lost some battles, but Christ won the war; eventually and in one of the great ironies that define the faith, England, saved by the continent, would in time send missionaries back to Europe to save it, like St. Boniface who became patron saint of Germany. None of this would have happened without the groundwork laid by St. Augustine of Canterbury, true sheep and true shepherd.

    St. Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us.

  • How Lows Become Highs: Memorial of Pope St. Martin I, Martyr

    How Lows Become Highs: Memorial of Pope St. Martin I, Martyr

    2 Timothy 2:8-13; 3:10-12

    In C.S. Lewis’s brilliant work The Screwtape Letters, the senior devil (Screwtape) teaches his apprentice what he calls the “Law of Undulation.” In a nutshell, this is the idea that people experience highs and lows in their relationship with God. The “highs” are those peak times when we feel especially close to God, while the “lows,” are the times when we feel dry, uninspired, and God seems far away. The “wise” demon waits out the highs and strikes during the lows.

    Of course, the genius of this is that we can all relate to it. Think back on times, perhaps a Mass or contemplative moment, when you felt a spiritual high. It felt as if God was all around you; a time of almost indescribable joy. Then think of those other times, the lows; you felt alone, your prayers dry, your faith stagnant.

    In a sense, this is part of what it means to be human. In friendship, marriage, and work, there are times we feel close to people or the job and times we don’t. It’s only natural that in our relationship with God we would experience the same thing. But as Lewis notes, sometimes those with evil intent manipulate this law to drive us away from God.

    Such was the case with Pope Martin I. His reign came at a tumultuous time; it was the 7th century, and for over 600 years people had struggled to understand the persons and natures of Christ. Was he only human? Only divine? A mixture? Did he have a human will, a divine will, or both? There were as many opinions as there were people.

    Then as now, some opinions mattered more than others, especially when it was the opinion of the highest civil power – the Emperor. Unfortunately, his opinion was heretical. Like many inside the Church, he believed that Jesus did not have a human will, or that if he did it was completely absorbed into his divine will like a drop of water in the ocean. Pope Martin disagreed, publicly and in council, holding the Church to the truth we profess to this day, that Christ had both a human and a divine will.

    Angered, the Emperor had the pope hauled to Constantinople and ordered to endorse the “official” position or face a charge of treason. When Martin refused to obey, he was imprisoned and starved for several weeks. Again he was ordered to obey, and again he refused. When it became clear that the pope would never agree, he was sentenced to death for treason. Stripped of most of his clothing, he was mercilessly whipped, then dragged in chains through the streets. The abuse he suffered was so horrific that even the residents of Constantinople, accustomed to violence, were disgusted. Eventually the sentence was commuted and Martin was exiled, where he was neglected and starved.

    When we think of the Holy Father’s situation, it seems ripe for the kind of spiritual low that demons would relish: Cut off from his flock; in prison; in chains; beaten; humiliated; vilified; starved; exiled; neglected. Who would blame him for turning inward, giving up, and spiraling down? Yet his letters written from prison and exile read like someone moving toward a spiritual high. The pope prayed not for himself but for his flock, especially the heretics, that they would repent and return to the one true faith. When he did write of himself, it wasn’t to bemoan his own suffering but to glorify God in it; he spoke of his abandonment to the will and mercy of God, and his hope that Christ would come soon to bring him home. Finally, after two years, Martin was delivered from the starvation and neglect of exile. He is the last pope (to date) to die a martyr.

    In the first reading St. Paul wrote to Timothy, If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him (2 Timothy 11-12). This reminds us not only of the glorious destiny of Pope St. Martin I, but of the need for us to pray for and practice the virtues of fortitude and perseverance. Both the spiritual highs and lows are gifts from God that are meant to be used. Although we want to hold onto the highs and treasure them, they provide the grace we need to look beyond ourselves and see how we might strengthen others, and to look within ourselves to see where we need strength, where God is working in our lives, and where he may be calling us. And if God feeds our virtues in the highs, he tests them in our lows. But again, as St. Martin shows, we don’t run from those times; rather, we persevere through them by focusing not on ourselves but on others and not by complaining about our suffering but by uniting it to the suffering of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church. To paraphrase St. Martin, throughout the highs and lows, remember that Christ is at hand, and hope in His mercy.

    Pope St. Martin I, pray for us.

  • The Invitation to Dare: Divine Mercy Sunday

    The Invitation to Dare: Divine Mercy Sunday

    Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31

    The gospel according to John has been called the gospel of encounters. Each follows the same basic pattern: Jesus encounters someone, they test him, there is an exchange, and the encounter ends with those who tested Jesus finding that in reality they are the ones being tested: Will they believe or not? Of course, Jesus wants them to rise to the challenge but he never forces them; it’s their choice and a test of their faith.

    Between last Sunday and this, John gives us five encounters, each posing its own challenge to faith. First, the Beloved Disciple: Will he believe in the resurrection based only on the testimony of an empty tomb? No; he has to see the tomb himself and the burial cloths neatly arranged, perhaps as proof that the body of Jesus was not stolen. Then Mary Magdalene: Will she recognize the risen Lord if she sees him? No; she must hear his voice. Next, the Apostles: Will they believe if they see and hear? Only when Jesus shows them his hands and side. Then Thomas: Will he believe his brother Apostles, now eyewitnesses? No; he needs to touch the wounds of Christ. The fifth challenge is from the evangelist to us: Will we believe without being able to see, hear, or touch Jesus?

    We might be tempted to say no, for if the Beloved Disciple, Mary Magdalene, and the Apostles struggled with faith, what hope do we have? But that’s not the attitude of Christ; he calls us “blessed.” Why? Because his encounters with us are not about human failure but about the triumph of divine mercy. Jesus didn’t resent the Beloved Disciple going to the tomb; rather, he used it to inspire John to recall the words that made that trip unnecessary: Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19). He wasn’t disappointed that Mary Magdalene needed to hear him; he is the Good Shepherd whose sheep follow him because they recognize his voice (John 10:4). He wasn’t angry that the Apostles had to see his wounds; rather, he bid them peace and gave them authority to forgive sins, so that others may know the same peace and all might take to heart his words at the Last Supper: Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me (John 14:1). He was perhaps kindest of all to Thomas, that from he who seemed weakest in faith came the greatest affirmation of Christ’s divinity in all the gospel: My Lord and my God (John 20:28). Finally, Jesus spoke encouragingly to us, calling us blessed because we have not seen and have believed (John 20:29).

    This is how God shows mercy: By encouraging rather than cajoling, inspiring rather than depressing, and building up rather than putting down (although justice sometimes demands the whip). For his goal is and always has been to raise us up to himself. God is love and as one spiritual writer has noted, “mercy is love bending over misery to relieve it, to redeem it, to raise it up to itself.”[1] Time and again God has shown that this is what he will do, even to the giving of his only Son, that in his infinite mercy, he might draw us closer and closer to himself.

    Today we have the opportunity to draw very close indeed, for on the Feast of Divine Mercy, Christ offers us a great gift: The renewal of baptismal grace; the complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. This grace is usually received only through baptism itself or a “perfect” sacramental confession – one made purely for the love for God.

    Of course, like all encounters with Christ, there is a challenge. We can only obtain this extraordinary grace if we worthily receive the Eucharist on the Feast of Divine Mercy or its vigil Mass. Since we are at that Mass now we’re off to a good start, but that’s not all; worthily means that we have made a good sacramental confession in the recent past (say, Lent), that we’re still in the state of grace, and that we trust in the infinite mercy of God. Also, our Lord revealed to St. Faustina that if we are to receive mercy, we must show mercy. We don’t have to do what the Christians did in the first reading – sell our homes and give the proceeds to the poor – but we do have to practice the works of mercy listed in the Catechism: Spiritual works such as teaching the faith, advising, consoling or comforting others, forgiving and bearing all wrongs patiently, and the corporal works such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and respectfully burying the dead.

    Fr. Michael Gaitley, who has dedicated himself to spreading the Divine Mercy devotion, advises us to remember that we do these things out of love and gratitude to God, not to try and earn his mercy. Asked what the biggest misconception is about Divine Mercy, he said that many active Catholics have somehow gotten the idea that “God’s love must be earned by following all the rules, saying all the prayers, and giving money to the right causes… that the more perfect we are, the more worthy we are to draw close to Jesus. The reality is that Jesus invites us spiritually poor, weak, broken, and overburdened people to draw as close as we dare…”[2]

    Every encounter with Christ is an invitation to dare; to “become who we are.” It requires us to face who we are – poor, weak, and broken – but also to see ourselves as God sees us – eternally willed, infinitely precious, and worth any sacrifice. In this lies the wound to our pride, the admission that there is nothing we can do to earn our own salvation but also the healing truth that there is nothing we need to do, for God has already done it. All he asks is that we accept it and, on this feast of Divine Mercy, show our gratitude for it. The only question is, will we?

    1 Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, #236, Section 1.

    2 Catholic Digest, April/May 2020, page 16

  • The Heart of the Law: The 3rd Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

    The Heart of the Law: The 3rd Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

    Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25

    At first, today’s readings might not present themselves as a unified whole: Moses receives the Ten Commandments; St. Paul speaks of the cross; our Lord cleanses the Temple. But if we look a little below the surface, a theme does emerge.

    First, the Ten Commandments. As significant as they are on their own, these are only the first of a series of commands that God used to define the terms of his covenant with the Hebrews. The agreement was this: If the people obeyed God’s law, they would not only be his treasured possession but God would have a sanctuary built and dwell among them. This was truly momentous, for God hadn’t dwelled among people since the Garden of Eden (recall him walking in the Garden in Chapter 3 of Genesis).

    This is why several chapters of Exodus then go into great detail about the sanctuary’s construction. Much of it symbolizes the Garden of Eden, that first sanctuary of God, including the tree in the center of the Garden – the tree of life. And that explains why, down to the time of Jesus and beyond, the Temple held such pride of place among the Jews: The Temple was an icon of the universe, including paradise, and its center, the holy of holies, the place where God Most High dwelled among his people. It was as if God was re-creating Eden and restoring his people to their place near the tree of life.

    The only thing more incredible than all this was how little time it took the Hebrews to break the covenant. Just weeks after agreeing to have no other gods they melted jewelry to make a golden calf. But then we shouldn’t be too hard on them; it’s human nature to want our own way, to determine for ourselves what is good, and then, after we’ve sinned, to rationalize or minimize it.

    We see that in the gospel story. Jewish law did stipulate a census tax and the securing of an animal for sacrifice, but neither of those things had to be done on Temple grounds and there is little doubt that at least some profiteering went on. But come on, what’s the harm? People paid the tax and sacrificed their animal. We see it in our own time as well. For example, the Catechism teaches that it’s a sin against the 2nd Commandment to say God’s name when we’re not praying. God’s name is holy, and we are to speak it only to bless, praise, and glorify him (CCC §2143). Still, we’re tempted to think, “No way. Everybody says, ‘OMG’ when they talk. I can’t believe God really cares about that!”

    But we forget the ancient principle of law that says that the seriousness of an offense is determined not by the person who commits the crime, but by the dignity of the victim. For example, in civil law, if a man assaults someone he might be arrested or fined, but if he assaults the President of the United States he will definitely go to prison for a very long time. Why? Because of the dignity our society bestows on the office of President.

    So with God’s law; when we sin God is offended, and because God’s dignity is infinite, every offense against him is infinite. From that perspective, think how arrogant it is for us to tell God when he should or should not be offended, or demanding that God explain himself to us. That’s exactly backward. Only God gets to say when he is offended and, as Christ implied in the Temple, only God is in a position to demand anything.

    This at last brings us to the cross. For God does demand something – justice – but in his infinite mercy demands that it be satisfied once and for all through the sacrifice of his only Son. As much as the commandments mean, as much as the Temple ever meant, infinitely more was given to us by this gift. For as he implied in today’s gospel, Jesus is the Temple, and only in his cross do we find the true tree of life, the highest expression of what we are called to be, how we are are called to love.

    In these remaining days of Lent, make time to contemplate the cross. If you do not pray the Stations of the Cross, consider doing that. Regardless, pray the words we begin with – the Act of Contrition: “O my God,” (said in prayer!) “I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin.”

    This prayer helps us remember what God wants most: That his law be written on our hearts; that from our heart we are sorry for offending his infinite dignity; and that we are committed to avoiding the situations or places that have helped lead us into sin. All this strengthens within us the Holy Spirit’s gift of fear of the Lord, through which we come to love God so much, to respect his dignity so deeply that we never want to do anything to offend him; to say as little St. Joan of Arc said at her trial, “I would rather die than do a thing which I know to be a sin or against the will of God.”

    That is the heart of Christ, whose love is the heart of the law.