Fr. JC Maximilian

Again this week, after spending time meditating on the readings, and developing my thoughts for a homily, I just did not get a chance to write out my homily.  I did record it, so maybe I will be able to embed a link to the MP3 file so that all of you can listen to it, but I will try to reconstruct what I preached on below.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  Today we celebrate the great solemnity of Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church.  I hope all of us paid close attention to the beautiful sequence, sung by Jean our music director, for it really explains why we see the Holy Spirit as a gift given to us by Christ Jesus.

What do we mean by calling this the birth of the Church?  What is the Church?  Surely the Church is not a mere building.  Even though we gather in this beautiful, 3-year old church, the building itself, while referred to as a church, is not THE CHURCH whose birth we celebrate today.  The Holy Spirit did descend upon the disciples as they waited in prayer in an upper room, so a building, but that space was not the Church.  In fact, once they received the Holy Spirit, they rushed outside to proclaim the Good News.

The Church is not the teaching and administrative structures of the Church.  Jesus certainly established an hierarchical governing structure for the Church, that structure is not the essence of the Church.

What is the Church?  The Church is a life.  Namely it is the life of Jesus.  Jesus did not abandon us by His Ascension into Heaven.  No, He promised to be with us until the end of time.  And He is with us because He has poured out His Spirit to unit the members of the Church and to give them a new lift, His life.

I know that we have so doctors and nurses hear, so you can ask them, but there is a difference between a living body and a dead body.  The parts are the same — generally both have two lungs, a heart, etc — yet something, something intangible, is missing from the dead body.  LIFE is missing.  Our Christian Faith tells us that it is the soul that unites the parts of the body and gives them life.  In the same way, the Church is not merely a collection of people who share a common belief.  Rather the Holy Spirit unites us into a new reality, a new life.  The Holy Spirit unites us into the Mystical Body of Christ, extending Jesus’ incarnation throughout time and space.  This is why we say in the Creed that the Holy Spirit is the “Giver of Life.”  This new living reality, this new life, is the Church.

This week I visited a member of our parish who is in hospice.  He is a devout man, but he said that he really did not want to call for a priest, because he did not feel that he was ready for “Last Rites” because I felt he still had time to live.  But he wanted to put his wife at ease.  I told him that one of the reasons the Church now calls it the Sacrament of the Sick, is because we do not need to wait until the end to receive it.  Rather it unites us in a sacramental way to the suffering of Christ; a suffering that the entire Church takes up for the salvation of the world.  The Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick is a visible remider of the new life we have in the Church.  As a priest, anointing him, I was being Jesus’ loving, compassionate, healing presence to that man.  When the deacon goes each week to bring him the Eucharist and to journey with him during this last journey in this world, the deacon will be Jesus, again showing compassion, which means to suffer with, that man.

But participating in this new life of Christ which is the Church is not only for the ordained.  When Rose goes to visit those in Seacrest nursing home, she is being Christ’s presence to those elderly people.  The same goes for Jan and Earl who visit the residents in Arcadia.  Dan and Anna, and all those who volunteer at the Food Pantry are bringing the life of Jesus to the poor and hungry.  Yet it goes beyond just these more obviously “church” activities.  The parent who teaching their children their prayers and brings them to Mass, is Jesus crying out, “let the children come to me, do not hinder them.”  The child who tells their classmates or friends to stop picking on another child is being Jesus’ voice call out for justice for the downtrodden.  When at work we say we are not going to “fudge” the books or cheat in some other way we are being Jesus who is the Truth.  Living out our Christian Faith is participating in this new life which is the Church.  We do not do it on our own, we share in this new life only when we are united to the Church, following the teachings and commandments of Christ Jesus revealed to us by the Spirit of Truth.

This is what we celebrate today.  We celebrate a new life, the life we call the Church.  The continuing life of Jesus Christ in the world.  Truly the Holy Spirit is the Gift of Life, the life of Christ Jesus.

I did preach this weekend, so there will be a posting of it coming soon. It will not be the text that I wrote because I did not write my homily out for today.

This week was a bit busy. Being a priest in NJ, we do not move the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension to the Seventh Sunday of Easter. I am really glad that we do not. While I know that there are places in the USA where traveling to church can be a hardship (often more so for the priest in those parts who might have 3 or 4 missions to also get to), that is not generally the case in NJ. There are still plenty of Catholic churches to go to. Some times I fear we do too much to make things easy for Catholic. They start to forget about the importance of sacrifice, and putting God first in our lives.

That being said, I did have a homily to write for the Ascension. I then left on Thursday and drove about 500 miles to Durham, NC. My niece, Sydney, graduated high school on Friday, and I wanted to be there for that. But since I did have Mass this weekend, I had to drive back to NJ yesterday — a 9 hour drive.

Now, I had been praying over this weekend’s readings all last week, but when I got home last night I was too tired to write up my thoughts. So it was not really off the cuff, but it was more spontaneous. I did alright, and I recorded it. I should be able to write up a summary of it tomorrow.

Is Jesus’ Ascension into heaven an ending or a beginning?  Does it now mean that Christ Jesus is now, even if only temporarily, absent from the world?

If we listen closely to the final words of today’s Gospel reading from St. Mark it is pretty clear that the Ascension of the Lord marks a beginning:  “They went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.”  So Jesus is clearly still present in the world, and with His Ascension He begins a new chapter in Salvation History – the Church.

If Jesus had remained on earth in His physical body, even resurrected from the dead, the Good News would be too limited.  In assuming our human nature Jesus set aside His unlimited Glory, so to share in our limitedness, our finiteness.  It is estimated that Jesus never traveled more than 100 miles from where He was born.  In His physical, human body, He would be limited in how many people He could proclaim the Good News to.  Also, His Apostles would remain merely followers; allowing Jesus to do all the real work of preaching.

In Ascending to Heaven, Jesus assures His Apostles that He will send them the Holy Spirit who will empower them to go to the ends of the earth, and to the end of time, proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ.  In addition to being followers of Christ, the Apostles become Witnesses, spreading the Gospel far and wide.  As the Mystical Body of Christ all the baptized become the hands of Jesus as they heal the sick, the voice of Jesus proclaiming the words of eternal life, the back of Jesus helping people carry the burdens of their lives.  In the Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ, the finiteness of Jesus’ physical body is now set aside so that His Infinite Glory, which He has had for all eternity, can shine out into the world.

The Ascension of our Lord also makes clearer our goal, our real destiny, what will make us ultimately happy, or as it is put in the Gospels, Blessed.  While honoring the material world, Jesus always called His disciples to a deeper reality.  He reminded them, and us, that our real home is heaven, and therefore we need to look at things in this world with spiritual eyesight.  This supernatural – that is that which is above the natural – reality, perfect communion with Christ Jesus, is the ultimate destiny of every person.  Yet we can become so distracted along the way by the more immediate things of this world.  This is not to say that everything in the world is evil.  No, God created the world so all in it is good, but we cannot allow the things in this world to distract us from our destiny.  The people and things in this world should always be pointing us to Jesus, to our destiny.  When they cease doing that, and become the focus of our desires instead, they become idols.

Let us not merely be people “standing there looking at the sky,” as the Apostles did at first when Jesus ascended into Heaven.  Rather let us do the work of ministry, as St. Paul reminded us today, “for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God….”

There are just so many things that happen in a parish, that if you do not learn to laugh (often to yourself or with brother priests) you would be crying all the time. Here is an example.

My pastor, Fr. Mick, told me yesterday (as we were heading to the gym), that someone left the 11 a.m. Mass on Sunday very angry with me. I had that Mass, and from my posting of that homily, you can see it was all about loving in the same way as Jesus lives us. I had no idea what I could have said to make this person so angry that they sought out the pastor to complain about me. They told Fr. Mick that I had called a child dumb during the Mass. Fr. Mick said that that did not sound like something that I would ever do, so he asked for the context of the statement.

They told him, “right after he baptized that baby he called the baby dumb.”

Fr. Mick then had to explain that I was saying the Ephphetha Prayer, which goes, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father, amen.”

He went on to explain that I could not change the words of the rite, and that the word “dumb” in that context means “not able to speak”. He said they still seemed upset.

I guess they will need to take it up with ICEL (the group responsible for translating liturgical texts into English). But PLEASE let ICEL first finish the Missal.

“Love one another as I love you.” “Remain in my love.”

There is a lot of talking about love in today’s readings. Jesus tells us to remain in His love, and He commands – He doesn’t merely suggests – that we love one another as He loves us. It is important to note that Jesus does not tell us to love as we would like to love, but we are to love in the same way that He loves us. So, what is Jesus’ love like?

We get a big hint from today’s second reading. St. John tells us that love is not that we have loved God, but rather that God has first loved us. Love is the first and last thing about God. As St. John puts it, “God is love.” This seems so simple a thing, yet so many people seem to have a very difficult time with this simple truth, that God is Love. For too many people, God is a harsh judge, just waiting to catch us in doing something wrong. It is true that God is will judge us, but He will first be love in judging us. For many others, God is rather distant, and we need to say the right prayers, the right way, and the right number of them, to get God to do us a favor. When we do not get our way, often we treat God this way, thinking we are not praying enough or the right way to get God to notice us and do what we want.

However, all of these ways of looking at God fails to see that God is first, last and always LOVE! And what is even better, God freely gives us His love as a gift. We do not need to earn it – which is a good thing because there is nothing we could do to earn it. God’s Love is pure gift. We call this grace.

Naturally we see this in Jesus’ love. Right from the beginning Jesus, in His love, wanted to get as close to us as possible. In one of St. Paul’s letters, there is a hymn that speaks about how Jesus set aside the Glory which is properly His, so that He could humble Himself to become a Man like us in all things but sin. Jesus, purely in a gift of love, took on our human nature, our flesh, so that He could walk with us, talk with us, eat with us – just be with us. He did this so that we could experience God’s great love for us, and Jesus proved that His love was total, a total gift of Himself by suffering and dying for us.

We really need to ponder this truth of God’s love for us. Why? Because, if we do not allow God’s love to penetrate our hearts, which can often be hardened with sin and pride, then we will never be able to really love. We will never be able to fulfill Jesus’ command that we love one another as He loves us. We will never be able to have the completeness of joy that Jesus says that He wants us to have.

This seems like it should be the easiest thing in the world to do, but we do make it so hard at times. Many of us have a hard time allow someone else to take care of us, to love us. We think that that makes us weak, or is a sign of immaturity. We want to be independent and do things on our own. Yet Jesus tells us that we are to remain in His love, to let down our defenses so that we can be completely a washed in His love. This is the kind of closeness and intimacy that Jesus calls us to. This is what it means to be in communion with Jesus. We can only love God as he should be loved if we first experience His love for us.

God’s love is the fuel for Christian life. This past week we celebrated the sacrament of Confirmation in our parish. Msgr. Gene Reebeck came, representing the Bishop, to Confirm about 60 of our young people. Msgr. Reebeck gave a wonderful homily just on this theme. He told all those present that our Faith – which is our relationship with Jesus – gives us power. And where do we go to grow in this power? Right here at Mass. In the Mass we participate right in the ultimate manifestation of Jesus’ love. We see it right there (point to the crucifix). Jesus showed the depth of His love for us in His sacrifice for us. Sacrifice is the ultimate sign of love. Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

The Eucharist is that sacrifice of love. It is not a sign or symbol of Jesus. It IS Jesus’ love at its greatest. It is the unbloodied sacrifice, yet one and the same as the bloodied sacrifice of the Cross. When we receive the Eucharist worthily, we are made one with Christ Jesus. We truly are remaining in His love. The Eucharist reminds us that we cannot live our Christian life only by our own strength. In the Eucharist, God himself becomes our strength and nourishment. Receiving Holy Communion is receiving God himself into our very lives!

How can we begin to live this more deeply? First we can look forward to it during the week. We can also be sure to repent our sins and selfishness before receiving Communion. And if we have fallen into mortal sin, we have to give our souls a power-wash by going to confession before receiving Communion. We can dress in a special way for Mass, using our best clothes to express our awareness of the special, supernatural encounter that happens every time we receive Communion. We can come a few minutes early to Mass, so as to take some time to pray in the silence of our hearts.

One day two five-year-old children were praying together. One prayed, “Thank you for coming into our hearts, because now we can pray to you inside us.” The other child continued, “Yes, he’s really great company and we will never be alone.” May Holy Communion lead us to live the communion in charity, like those two preschool mystics (I got this story from, P.J. Cameron, Jesus, Present Before Me: Meditations for Eucharistic Adoration).

We have Confirmations tomorrow in the parish.  The bishop will be sending one of his Episcopal Vicars, Msgr. Gene Reebeck.  I am sure it is going to be a beautiful ceremony.  It will also end our Religious Education program for the current year.

One might think that with the summer things would begin to get slower, but I think we are going to have a very busy summer here at St. Theresa parish.  Fr. Mick, the pastor, met with the Diocese last week, and they told us to go to bid on our new building.  I am not sure if I have written about this on the blog, so here is a summary.  St. Theresa’s was established I think in the 1930s.  Originally the parishioners had Mass in a pool hall.  Eventually they bought some property and built a church, right on Main Street in Tuckerton.  That church was expanded once, but the Catholic population in the area continued to grow.  They had a mission on Mystic Island, but the parish continued to grow.  About three years ago, after much planning and saving, the parish built a new church on a new campus; about 2 miles away.  It is now in Little Egg Harbor, not the borough of Tuckerton, but it is a much bigger property and church.  The church is in the round and rather modern looking, but it has some beautiful features.

The old church property was sold, and the parish offices were moved into a former doctor’s office in a professional building; across from the old church so 2 miles from the new.  It is a very small space; the pastor and I do not even have our own office (we work out of our residence; a house in a neighborhood about half way between the offices and the new church).  We really do not have anyplace to hold religious education classes; so we use the gathering space, the sacristy, the church, etc.  Wherever we can make due.  We have little meeting space.  In other words we have a despite need for another building.  The new campus has plenty of land, so we are planning on building a Faith Formation Center and Parish Offices.  While a very efficient design, it will still cost about $2.7 million (we hope the bids, given the economy, will come in below that).  Our parishioners have been great; they have pledged about $1.5 million already.  The Diocese knows how much we need it, so they told us that we are going to build it.  The bids will be complete in about 3 weeks.  We will open them with the Diocesan  officials, and select one.  Then we will know how much of a loan from a bank we will need.  We cannot say for sure when we will break ground but we hope it will be soon.

In the summer we also have a parish carnival, which I am looking forward to.  I am sure it will be a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.

I really plan to start writing in this blog more regularly.  I do preach this weekend, so my homily will be here, as will be my homily for the Ascension.  I then leave for a very quick trip to North Carolina for my niece’s HS graduation.

I do want to restart my virtual School of Community on the book by Msgr. Giussani; Is It Possible to Live This Way? Vol. 1: Faith.  I left off at the assembly for chapter two; which is rather long and disjointed.  I might just pick up at Chapter 3.

I am always finding new things I like about my iPhone. I just found a free app that reportedly will allow me to post to this blog from my iPhone. This is a test of the app.

I arrived back from St. Louis, after attending my niece Deirdre’s First Communion, on Thursday afternoon. I arrived back with a cold. At first I thought it was just bad allergies (my car was cover in pollen), but yesterday I knew it was a cold or the flu. I did drive up to Yardville for my other niece’s First Communion. That niece is Moira. I did not stay for long as I was feeling lousy. It was hard driving home as I was so tired. Fr. Mick told me to take the weekend off so I slept most of the weekend. I am starting to feel better but am still tired.