Fr. JC Maximilian

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

August 31, 2008

Fr. John C. Garrett

The past couple of weeks the prophets seem to have been hard on me.  Last weekend, my last at my former parish, the Lord said through the prophet Isaiah, “I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station.”  This week the prophet Jeremiah is lamenting how the Lord has duped him and says, “All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me.”  Not really what you want to hear on your first weekend at a new parish.  Although, from all the good things that I have heard about the people in this parish, and from the warm welcome I have already received from many of you, I really do not think that I have to worry about being an object of laughter.

I am very excited to be here at St. Theresa’s.  While, of course, I have some sadness about leaving my previous parish, Our Lady of Sorrows-St. Anthony, there is always something exciting about meeting new people and learning new things.  One of the most valuable lessons that I have learned over the past few years is the importance of recognizing the Presence of Christ Jesus in all the circumstances of my life.  Often it takes some effort to set aside the blinders we all tend to accumulate in our lives, but God does give us the grace to recognize His Divine Presence in our lives, for Christ Jesus remains Incarnate in His Church in the community of believers who continue to make up His Mystical Body.  In coming to a new parish, I have the blessing of encountering Jesus in a new, beautiful way.

One of my homiletic professors really drilled into us that the homily is not really a soapbox for telling a lot of stories about ourselves.  In fact he would take points off each time we used words like “I” or “me” or “my”.  However, since this is my first weekend here, I think it would be a good idea to tell you a little about myself.  Of course I can’t tell you all about myself; not in one homily, and besides, just knowing facts about me does not allow you to know me, just as knowing facts about you will not allow me to know you.  It is only in developing a relationship with each other that we will really get to know each other, and that takes time, but it is also part of the excitement of a new assignment.

I was born in Trenton and I have three younger sisters.  One sister, Ann, is a pediatrician in St. Louis and is married with four children.  My sister, Jennifer, works for Congressman Smith in his Hamilton office.  She is also married and has two children.  My sister Mary is the baby in the family.  She is a teacher in North Carolina, and has a 16 year-old daughter, Sydney.  My mother still lives in Trenton, and my father passed away 2.5 years ago.  My sisters and I certainly learned about the Faith from our parents, who were always involved in the parish.  After they retired, Mom and Dad went to Mass daily, and since my father’s death, Mom has become a consecrated widow.

I have been a priest a little over four years.  Prior to that I had a variety of jobs, mostly while being in school.  I do have a Ph.D., and I worked as a college professor prior to responding to God’s call to be a priest.  Fr. Mick and I have known each other for years.  Not only was he the vocations director for most of my time in the seminary, but I also spent my deacon year with him at Sacred Heart in Trenton.

Probably the one thing I really want you to know about me is that I love being a priest, especially preaching.  However, there was a time, not that long ago, when I almost forgot that.  One of life’s great mysteries is the Cross.  In today’s Gospel reading Jesus says to His apostles, and to us, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  I think that many of us often forget about these words of Christ.  We often want a problem-free life, and we think that by being a disciple of Jesus we should have one.  Basically we want Christianity-lite:  Christ without the Cross.

This temptation to desire a false Christianity, came to me in a strong way shortly after I was ordained a priest.  A few months after I reported to my first assignment, right after my 40th birthday, I was diagnosed with cancer.  Oh, it was a very easy to treat cancer, and I am healthy now, but it was still hard to hear that I had cancer at age 40.  My first year of priesthood was largely spent in treatment, and I felt physically awful much of the time.  Then, just as all my “numbers” were getting back to the normal range and I was regaining my energy, my father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  He died two months later; 11 days after I moved to a parish closer to him and mom so that I could help him.  I felt that it was too much back to back.  I felt broken.  I had lost the joy in my life.

Then I met some wonderful people.  They were part of a church group called Communion and Liberation.  They offered me a true friendship by always reminding me of Christ’s presence in my life.  They reminded me that Jesus does not save us by taking away the cross.  Rather He saves us by taking up the cross, and when we unite our sufferings to His through faith and prayer, we plug into Jesus’ own saving love.  This uniting ourselves with the cross of Jesus gives our crosses internal meaning, even though externally they remain painful.  Then our crosses become part of the “living sacrifice” and “spiritual worship” that St. Paul tells us in today’s second reading pleases God and spreads God’s grace.

At the time that St. Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, most of the world was pagan, and pagan religions were based on the belief in the power of external rituals.  They thought that if they did not perform the ritual perfectly the gods would either ignore their prayers, or worse yet, get angry.  There was no personal relationship with the gods.  The people might know stories, which they thought were facts, about the gods but they would not know the gods.  Religion was just a set of ritual duties.

St. Paul constantly warned the early Christians against falling into this kind of thinking.  He taught them to have a close personal relationship with God, and not reduce their relationship with God to just some ritual duties.  As Christians, everything that we do is meant to be worship.  All of our actions, words and decisions — everything that we do in living our daily lives — are ways for us to show that we love Christ and want to follow Him.

And like all real relationships, things are not only one way.  As my friends in Communion and Liberation remind me, if we look with the eyes of faith, we can see the Presence of Christ Jesus not only in church, but in all the circumstances of our lives.  In fact, the only way we are going to experience the “hundredfold” life that Jesus promises His disciples in this life and the life to come, is to accept this radical new concept of religion; that God calls each of us to a personal relationship with Him, the one true God, by becoming man in Jesus, who still dwells among us.  This is what it means to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, as St. Paul says.

It is wonderful to have a great love for the Church’s liturgy, as I do.  However, if our faith, if our relationship with Christ is confined to just those rituals, no matter how beautiful they may be, then we are missing the real point, the real relationship, the real life that Christ offers us.  “The glory of God is man fully alive” (St. Ireneaus).  Let us live our lives fully with God.

This week Msgr. Gervasio came into my office, and with a chuckle said that he thought that today’s first reading was rather appropriate given that it is my last weekend here at Our Lady of Sorrows-St. Anthony; “I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station.”  I hope I was a little bit better servant of the Lord than the scribe Shebna, to whom the Lord said those words, and I certainly do not see going to St. Theresa’s in Tuckerton as a form of exile, as Shebna was exiled.

Rather, we should exclaim with St. Paul in our second reading today, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”  St. Paul takes up this triumphant note of joy and thanksgiving because of the marvelous ways that he saw God working in his life.  He would never have predicted nor planned the way his life turned out, but he did not see that as something to regret but rather as something to rejoice in.

Likewise, when I was assigned to Our Lady of Sorrows-St. Anthony’s over two and half years ago, it was not something I expected nor planned for.  I came here during a difficult time in my life, personally, as my father was dying of cancer.  Yet the Lord knew what was for my best.  When my father died 11 days after I arrived here, God knew that the people of this parish, in my hometown, would demonstrate such kindness and support that I would need to go through my grief and so that I could support my mother and uncle.  I will always be appreciative of the kindness and love that you have shown me, and for the opportunity that you gave me of ministering to you, of becoming a part of your lives.  All that I can say is thank you.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus asks His apostles, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  This is a critical question, and one that Jesus continues to ask His followers today.  Who do we say that Jesus is?  Is He merely a person of history?  A wise teacher?  A friend?

St. Peter boldly responds, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and in return Jesus gives St. Peter authority over His Church.  What do we mean by the word “authority”?  Was there something special about St. Peter’s character which merited the authority that Jesus gave him?

I don’t think so.  Peter was not perfect.  He often was very boastful, but then would fail to live up to his promises.  Just look at the Last Supper; when Jesus tells the Apostles that they will all abandon Him, Peter protests that even if all the others abandon Him, he would not.  Yet just a few hours later, Peter denied even knowing Jesus not once, but three times.  Even after witnessing the glory of Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead, Peter still seemed to have a weakness of character.  He caved into peer pressure by not associating with Gentile converts, after a group of Jewish Christians came to town, so St. Paul had to correct him.  And tradition says that when the Christians in Rome were being persecuted, St. Peter was fleeing the city, and it was only when he encountered Christ Jesus on the road and asked Jesus, “quo vadis?” — “where are you going?” — and Jesus said that He was going to Rome to be crucified again, that St. Peter turned around and gave the ultimate witness to Jesus by his martyrdom.  So, how is St. Peter an authority figure?

We often think of authority in terms of power, and an authority figure is someone who can tell others what to do.  However, Jesus teaches different understanding of authority.  Someone is an authority because we want to follow them.  We sense that they are on the right road, and while they may not have all the answers, we trust that they will not lead us astray.

One amusing example of this came to mind as I was writing this homily.  Have you seen the movie Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts?  Among other things, she plays a woman that did not have much in terms of the higher social refinements.  There is a scene in a restaurant when she is served escargot, and she has no idea how to eat them.  The elderly gentleman sitting at the table notices her uneasiness, and after making a small joke to put her at ease, without embarrassing her, he demonstrates to her how to eat escargot.  For her, in that circumstance, he was an authority.

So how is St. Peter an authority for us today?  It is not in a strength of character, but rather in being a model of faith.  St. Peter, through his confession of faith, demonstrated his trust in the One whose strength overcomes human weakness.  Faith in Jesus was something that St. Peter always manifested.  When many of Jesus’ followers left Him after He said that they would need to eat His flesh and drink His blood, and Jesus asked the apostles if they would also leave Him, it was Peter who said, “Lord, where would we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”  St. Peter may not have had all the answers, and he often did not fully understand all that Jesus said, but he knew that he had to follow Jesus because only Jesus could fulfill the deepest longings of his heart.  That confidence of faith is what makes St. Peter an authority for us.

Just as the Church has grown immensely from the time of Jesus, so has the office of St. Peter grown.  Yet there is a way in which all Popes are like St. Peter, the first Pope.  Like each and every one of us, all the Popes have been mortal human beings and sinners who must constantly seek the mercy of God, particularly through the sacrament of reconciliation.  All the Popes share the same weakness common to all of us and who, like St. Peter, are strong only as long as they continue to trust not in their own strength but in the power that comes from God alone, through His Son, Jesus.

As St. Peter strengthened his brothers after that scattered when Jesus was arrested and crucified, so the Pope today, through his witness to the Gospel, strengthen us during our journey of faith.  And as our heavenly Father revealed to St. Peter the truth of who Jesus is, the Popes have been given the special charism to teach infallibly in matters of faith and morals.  With St. Peter, let us pray for his successor today:

Almighty and eternal God, You guide all things by Your Word; You govern all Christian people.  In your love, protect the Pope you have chosen from us.  Under his leadership, deepen our faith and make us better Christians.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Why are gossip magazines and columns so popular?  Why do most of us seem so fascinated with the “Lives of the Rich and Famous”?  I suppose that some of it is wishful thinking; “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if I had what they have?”  Yet, I think a big part of our fascination is a feeling of incredulousness.  How is it that Britney Spears, Robert Downey, Jr., Paris Hilton and so many of the rich and famous still seem to be so unhappy?

In today’s second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, St. Paul is also dealing with feelings of incredulousness.  As I mentioned in a previous homily, one of the reasons that St. Paul wrote his letter to the Christian community in Rome was to address a sore spot in the community.  There was a lot of rivalry in the Christian community in Rome between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians.  In the first part of his letter to the Romans, St. Paul discusses the salvation of the world in general terms.  The middle part of his letter, which begins with the section we read today, turns to a discussion of the salvation of Israel in particular.

Apparently one of the arguments that were often thrown in the face of the Jewish Christians was the fact that despite all the privileges that God had shown the Jewish people, most of them had rejected Jesus as the Messiah.  This was a source of great sadness and embarrassment for many Jewish Christians.  St. Paul says that he has “great sorrow and constant anguish” in his heart because of this situation.  He acknowledges the many blessings and privileges that God had shown the Israelites:  “theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; theirs the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ, ….”

This situation causes St. Paul so much sorrow, that he goes so far as to say, “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.”  Now St. Paul, the apostle who said just a few lines earlier in his letter that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” is not saying that he would like to be permanently separated from Christ if that would bring all of Israel to faith in Christ Jesus.  No, in rather typical oriental exaggeration, St. Paul is saying that God’s love moves him, like it should move all of us, to love others so intensely that we are willing to suffer anything if it will mean the conversion of others to God.  St. Paul is saying that he is willing to renounce not only material favors for the sake of others, but even spiritual favors if it will lead others to an encounter and relationship with Jesus.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul does not give us the answer to this concern, the salvation of Israel.  Rather he will start explaining that starting with next week’s reading.  However, that does not mean that we cannot start to look this issue, as it applies to us today.

For, to be honest, the same argument or criticism that was directed towards the Jewish Christians of St. Paul’s time could be directed at us today.  How is it, with all the blessings and graces that God has given to us over the past 2000 years of Christianity that so many people who call themselves Christians seem to live their lives as if they have never encountered Jesus?  In the 20th century “Christian Europe” experienced two devastating world wars, and we do not seem to be doing much better now in the 21st century.  In our own country, we estimate that less than 25% of Catholics attend Mass each week — and that is more than double the percentage of Catholics in Western Europe who attend weekly Mass.  Just look at our own parish; we have approximately 4000 families in our parish, yet we do not have 4000 families attending Mass on the weekends, not even a 1000 families.  And even among those that come each weekend for Mass, look at how many who can’t seem to wait for Mass to be over so that they can rush out of church — actually over 25% do not even wait for the end of Mass.  It is as if Mass is just an unpleasant duty that one wants to quickly get out of the way.

Msgr. Luigi Giussani, the founder of Communion and Liberation, once said, “For most people (also for those who go to church) the relationship with God, with the divine, that is with what should be perceived as origin and destiny of everything, is words” (L. Guissani, “He exists, if He works,” supplement to 30Giorni, n. 2, February 1994, p. 68).  In other words, for too many Christians the Mystery which we call God is abstract and far away, instead of being a personal, intimate relationship with the real Presence of the Word-Made-Flesh, Jesus who promised to be with us until the end of time.  The reason that too many of us perceive the Mystery as being abstract and far away is because within many of us there is a breach between reason and experience.  Instead of seeing Jesus as being truly present in all the circumstances of our lives, we try to fit God into an one hour box each Sunday.  Faith is reduced to just a set of dogmas and duties, instead of being lived in the fullness of freedom as the children of God.

On our own, we could not close this breach between reason and experience.  Thankfully God Himself has closed the breach by Incarnating Himself.  By taking on our human nature, God has entered into the life of Man as a man.  “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a Person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est, #1).

Most of the Israelites at the time of St. Paul were too engrossed with the things of this world — politics, economics, just getting ahead — that they did not appreciate the blessings that God had bestowed upon them.  They treated the divine covenant that God had entered into with them as just a set of duties to be fulfilled, and not a relationship of love between persons to be entered into.  Then, when that loving God took on a human face they did not recognize Him.  They rejected the life of freedom as children of God, for the confines of life in this mundane world, which was the root of their unhappiness.

Too often we are not unlike those Israelites.  It is not just the “rich and famous” who fail to experience happiness because they are possessed by material possession.  We too can be so wrapped up in the things of the world that we reduce God and try to keep Him far away, abstract and distant.  And our souls are restless and unhappy.  We need to encounter Christ Jesus each and every day.  From the first moment we awake we should resolve with all our hearts to desire to recognize Jesus Christ present in our lives.

In commenting about today’s Gospel passage, St. Augustine wonderfully summarizes the life of the Christian, “If you love God you will have power to walk upon the waters, and all the world’s swell and turmoil will remain beneath your feet.  But if you love the world it will surely engulf you, for it always devours its lovers, never sustains them. . . . if, in a word, you begin to sink, say: Lord, I am drowning, save me!” (St. Augustine, Sermon 76).

Every day the sun rises and the sun sets, yet most of us take it for granted; we do not even notice.  Yet I am sure that all of us can remember a particular sunrise or sunset, one that was particularly beautiful or just meaningful to us, even it it was years ago.  Maybe it was part of a romantic get away with that someone special.  Maybe it was during a dark time of our lives, and it was the sign of light in that darkness.  It was in the beauty of that particular sunrise or sunset that we truly saw the sun for what it is.

In today’s second reading, St. Peter is remember such a special moment.  It had been many years early, and in a now far away land, but St. Peter could still vividly recall that singular moment of beauty when Jesus was Transfigured before him, James and John.  The Apostles already knew that there was something special about Jesus; that was why they followed Him.  Peter himself had already made his great proclamation, “You are the Christ, the Son of God,” yet they still did not fully appreciate who Jesus was.  Then, on that holy mountain, the glory of Christ Jesus was displayed to Peter, James and John and in that beauty they realized the singular presence of Jesus, the God-Man.  While they did not see Jesus always in that way, they could never forget what they had seen, and in remembering, they continued to see more clearly the reality of the Presence that they followed.

The Church gives us the Feast of the Transfiguration to help us remember and continue to recognize the real Presence of Christ Jesus in our lives.  While Jesus lived in history, He still lives among us.  He still walks we us, and we are still called to follow Him.  In remembering the Transfiguration, we recall that we are called to be “con-figured” to Jesus.  We are to recognize His singular, glorious presence in our lives, and be “figured with” Him, so that with St. Paul we can cry out that it is no longer we who live but it is Christ who lives within us.

We remember so that we can recognize now the Presence of the Lord.