Fr. JC Maximilian

[The Raising of Jairus' Daughter, 1878, oil on canvas, by Gabriel Max (1840-1915)]

It is funny how a homily takes shape.  I usually read the readings for the next Sunday the Sunday or Monday before, and in prayer a theme or two will come to mind.  Then during the week, as I continue to pray on the readings a specific idea comes to the forefront, so that by the end of the week I can start to organize my thoughts for the homily.  Occasionally, however, at the last minute a new thought becomes pressing and sweeps away what I had been planning to speak on.

This was one of those weeks.  All week I kept thinking that I would talk about the meaning of Jesus’ miracles for our life of Faith.  Last night however, a completely different thought came to mind, and it really seemed to be more pressing, although I was somewhat reluctant to preach about it because I was concerned that despite my best effort, some people might get upset.  But Jesus tells us to not be afraid.

The Gospel this week gives us the account of two of Jesus’ miracles of healing.  Given the national debate that is going on in our nation concerning health care reform, I think that the Gospel is particularly fitting.  What does our Catholic faith have to say about health care?  It is important for us to know what the Church teaches, so that we, as responsible citizens and committed Christians can contribute to this national debate.

About 16 years ago the Bishops of the United States issued a statement called A Framework for Comprehensive Health Care Reform: Protecting Human Life, Promoting Human Dignity, Pursuing the Common Good, (FCHCR) which still provides a relevant framework for bringing important values to our national debate on health care.  As we heard in today’s first reading, “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.  For he fashioned all things that they might have being…. For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him.”  The Bishops emphasize, as the fundamental principle for grounding all discussion about health care, that the sanctity of human life and the dignity that all human beings have flows from the basic fact that we have all been made in the image and likeness of God.  From this most fundamental human dignity, flows the right that every human being has to adequate health care.  In other words, adequate health care is not just a nice optional benefit that can be provided to people.  Rather it is a basic human right.  It is rooted in the biblical call to heal the sick and serve “the least of these.”  The Bishops state, “We believe that our people’s health care should not depend on where they work, how much their parents earn, or where they live.”

Even back in 1993 when they issued their statement, the Bishops recognized that the existing patterns of health care in the United States did not meet the minimal standard of social justice and the common good.  Things have not improved in the last 16 years.  An estimated 47 million Americans lack health care coverage.  Most of these uninsured people, 64%, have full-time jobs.  In our current economic crisis, it has been estimated that 14,000 people each day are losing their health care coverage.  Clearly, this is one of the most pressing problems that we face as a nation.

The Bishops’ comments do not come from an abstract reflections on this problem.  The Catholic Church continues to be deeply involved in health care.  Catholic health care facilities are the largest network of non-profit hospitals and nursing homes in the United States; serving more than 20 million people each year.  Of course our Bishops are also employers who know first hand the importance as well as the difficulties of providing their employees with adequate, affordable health care.  It is from this experience that the Bishops identify four key policy priorities that we as Catholics should advocate in the current health care reform debate.

First, we must promote a look at health care reform from the bottom up.  “Genuine health care reform must especially focus on the basic health needs of the poor” (FCHCR).  This includes a call for universal access to health care.  There should not be a two-tiered health system:  one for the poor which is very minimal, and one for the wealthy which truly promotes human dignity.  The Bishops suggests that the best assurance of comprehensive benefits and quality care would be linking the health care of poor and working-class families to the health care of those with greater resources.

Second, “real health care reform must protect and enhance human life and dignity” (FCHCR).  Every human being has the right to quality health services, regardless of age, income, illness, or condition of life.  “Neither the violence of abortion and euthanasia nor the growing advocacy for assisted suicide is consistent with respect for human life” (FCHCR).  This means that any form of health care reform that would include abortion coverage, and would compel individuals, institutions or states to pay for or participate in procedures that fundamentally violate basic moral principles and their consciences would be inconsistent with what Jesus teaches us about the value of human life and the freedom we enjoy as God’s children.  This week I heard a doctor at the Mayo Clinic complain about the amount of money that is “wasted” – his words – on the elderly and sick who are going to die soon anyway.  Can we really put that kind of monetary value on human life?  Even at the end of life, people are made in God’s image and likeness, and their dignity must be respected.

Thirdly, we must guard against those things that can undermine real reform in health care.  There are powerful special interest groups who have a major stake in maintaining the status quo.  Neither those groups, nor unnecessary partisan political diatribes can be allowed to undermine real reform.  The Bishops wisely note that debate can be advanced by a continuing focus on the common good and a healthy respect from genuine pluralism.  Genuine reform must respect the religious and ethical values of both individuals and institutions involved in the health care system.

Finally, authentic health care reform must include effective mechanisms for restraining risings health care costs, while still promoting human dignity.  Without effective controls for constraining costs, the living standards of many working families will continue to decline.

Notice, the Bishops do not give us specific answers to this important problem.  They do not suggest specific ways of constraining costs while expanding coverage to include the 47 million people in our country who do not have health care coverage.  Rather the Bishops point out the important principles that must be considered while different reform plans are debated.  Our elected officials need to hear our voices.  We need to let them know about the values that we hold, especially concerning human rights and human dignity.  None of us can afford to remain uninvolved on the sidelines during this debate.  We are all called to participate in God’s work of healing the sick and serving the “least of these.”

[You can listen to this homily here]

[Stained glass in the chapel of Westminster College, Cambridge. The glass is by Douglas Strachan and dates from 1921.]

As you drive into town, you see signs welcoming you to Tuckerton Seaport. We live in a seaport, and we heard a lot about the sea in today’s readings. I don’t know how many of you still make your living from the sea, but I am sure that many of you go out on boats. I see a lot of boats as I drive around this area, so someone must use them. We are familiar with the conditions of living on the sea, maybe even making our livelihood from the ocean. This is an important image.

We see it incorporated into the design of our church here. The first time I came to visit this parish, Fr. Mick brought me into the church, and started to explain the architectural features of the church. The color of the floors remind us of the sand on the seashore. Then as you come in through the main doors we have the water of the baptismal font and pool as the first thing that you see. While we describe this church as being “in the round,” it is really an elongated circle, meant to remind us of being in a boat, with the walls bowing outwards, and the ribs on the walls. Then of course, we have the sails above us, hanging from the ceiling — one for each of the apostles. There, in the center, where the Altar is, is the compass star, showing that Christ has come to save all people — from the north and south, east and west.

It is important for us to listen and understand what the readings, which today speak so much of the sea, means for us, and the importance of the boat as a symbol for the Church. For anyone who spends time on the ocean, you know that conditions can change very rapidly as storms seem to come with little warning. The ancient people, especially those civilizations that arose around the Mediterranean Sea, often saw the sea as a place of danger and chaos, even evil. Marvelous to behold, but also dangerous. In Genesis, before the creation of the world, the chaos that existed before is described as waters — that God breathed on the water and brought order out of the chaos. This showed that only God had real sovereignty over the sea.

That is what we hear in today’s first reading from the Book of Job and in the Psalm. The sea is an image of chaos, an image of something dangerous that only God can bring order to. As we move into the New Testament, the sea is also seen as an image of conversion. Oh, it is still dangerous and seen as chaotic, but it is also a place of conversion. The first apostles are called along the seashore, and frequently we hear of Jesus being near the sea or references to fishing. Jesus is the Fisher of Men; He brings order out of that chaos, and sets men and women free from danger and evil.

We have this account from early in St. Mark’s Gospel of Jesus asleep on a boat as the apostles face a storming sea. St. Mark’s account does not sugarcoat it. In St. Matthew’s and St. Luke’s account of this incident in Jesus’ life, they kind of sugarcoat things; making it seem as if the apostles wake Jesus up to present their concerns. Scholars say that in the original Greek, St. Mark uses words that says that the apostles basically rebuke Jesus for being asleep while they are all in danger because of the storm. They say rather sarcastically “don’t you care”. They are rebuking Jesus for being asleep, while the sea has turned dangerous and violent. Jesus gets up and rebukes the wind and the sea, and not only do they become calm, they actually become still. Then Jesus rebukes the apostles, asking them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”

Jesus is trying to teaching them that He is the Messiah, that He is the Divine, the Work made Flesh. As God alone has power and authority over the wind and the sea, Jesus wants them to recognize that divinity in Him.

Aren’t we so often like the apostles? I mentioned before that it is very fitting that our church here is designed in a way to invoke the image of being in a boat, because a boat is a very ancient image for the Church — cast at sea, a sea that can often be turbulent. Isn’t that very much as our lives are often?

I often have people — whether they are converts to the Faith, or what we sometimes call “re-verts,” people baptized in the Faith but who had practiced the Faith until recently because they have had this encounter with Jesus — and they are on fire with the Holy Spirit, but then they are surprised because all the difficulties that they had before their life changing encounter with Christ are still there; they haven’t magically gone away. They still have that job that they do not particularly like, they still have those arguments with their spouse and children, they still have those aches and pains and illness, and they wonder why is Jesus asleep in the boat?

Job, who we hear about in our first reading, was like that. It is hard having the readings from Job, because you really need to read the whole story of Job to understand it. Job was a righteous man who lived the covenant with God very faithfully. He is very wealthy and respected. Satan comes to God and says that of course Job is faithful, because he has the good life. Satan says that if Job was made to suffer, he would curse God, so God allows Satan to do horrible things to Job — his flocks are killed or stolen, his children die in a horrible accident, Job himself becomes covered in painful boils, and his wife mocks him. Then these friends of Job come to support him in his time of need, but they basically say that Job must have brought all this on himself by his own sinfulness, so he best just repent of his sins, and perhaps God will forgive him and take away his suffering. Job says that he has been faithful to God’s covenant. Finally Job gets angry with God, and wants to know why all this has happened to him. In today’s first reading we hear part of God’s reply to Job. God asks Job, “Where were you when I made the sea? Where were you when I ordered the heavens and the earth?” God is trying to teach Job, and us, that we might not always understand God’s will, but we must recognize His sovereignty over nature, and more importantly over us. Further we must recognize that God’s sovereignty is a sovereignty of Love.

God loves us! God wants the best for us, and while at times what is happening in our lives may not seem to be for the best, we must learn to trust God. We must God as our guide, as our pilot. That is why the early Church Fathers often used the boat as a symbol for the Church. Jesus is not asleep in the boat. That even if it seems that Jesus is asleep in the boat, He really is in control of it all. It is when we are together, in the Church, allowing Christ to guide us, when we are following Jesus, that the sea can throw its worse at us and Christ will see us through to safe harbor. That is why the ancient symbol of the virtue of hope is an anchor. Because of our certainty based on our relationship with Christ now, our certainty that He loves us, that He cares for us, and that He is God, we can have certainty about our future. We can have certainty that because Christ who loves us now, that we are called to have a relationship with now, we know that our future is secure if we just follow Him. We just need to allow Him to lead us. That is what Hope is; a certainty about our future based on our certainty of something in the present. We must encounter Jesus now! When we have fear, when we are terrified, it is a sign for us to turn to Jesus now, and see Him present, right here and right now in our lives, and to turn that fear over to Him. Trust Him, and that is where we will find the calmness, despite the storm.

God loves you. Live in His love.

[For the first time in about 10 months, I am posting a podcast of this homily to my homepage, http://web.mac.com/frjcmaximilian/Fr._JC_Maximilian/Podcast/ Podcast.html.  With my new iPhone 3G and the new 3.0 software, there is a voice memo program that allows me to record my homily as I give it, and then import it right into iTunes.  If this works as I hope, I plan to record all my homilies and put them on my webpage as a podcast]

Corpus Christi, the great celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ, has long been one of my favorite solemnities. The Eucharist truly is the source and summit of our lives as Christians. It is in the Eucharist that we have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. As I was reading different things about this marvelous feast, I came across a homily that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger gave on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. It was so wonderful, that I thought I would share his main theme with you – hey, if you are going to borrow material for a homily, you might as well borrow it from the Pope!

The Holy Father reflected on three components, or actions, which especially make up the distinctive way that Christians have celebrated this feast. They are standing before the Lord thus standing together side by side, walking with the Lord or the traditional Corpus Christi procession, and finally the climax, kneeling before the Lord in adoration, rejoicing in His presence among us.

When our Christian faith was first spreading out across the world, there was a great emphasis on each city having just one bishop, and only one altar. It was by standing before the Lord around this one altar that the community of believers expressed their unity which was brought about through Jesus, our only Lord. The central meaning of the Eucharist is that by receiving the ONE bread we enter into the ONE heart, and become a new living organism, the ONE Body of the Lord.

The Eucharist is not a private affair. It is not celebrated only in a circle of friends, or in a club of like-minded people. The Eucharist is the public worship of all those whom the Lord calls. The Roman nobleman and the slave were brothers standing before the Lord around the one altar. The wealthy merchant, the prostitute and the sweaty, smelly Corinthian dock worker stood before the Lord as equals. Just look at our gathering here; I am sure we have doctors and nurses, teachers, bankers, tradesmen, and captains of industry – from a great diversity of backgrounds, yet all followers of Jesus Christ, who makes us sisters and brothers. I once read someplace that William F. Buckley, Jr., the conservative writer, and Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, where both daily communicants at the same parish in New York City. Standing before the Lord in the Eucharist makes us one.

When Christianity grew in numbers, it was no longer possible for all the faithful in a particular city to gather in one place for the celebration of the Eucharist, so the first parishes were established. There the priest would celebrate the Mass, but it was always done in union with the local bishop. This unity with the bishop was made visible by sharing from his altar. The deacons would assist the bishop, who always celebrated the first Mass on Sunday. Each deacon would be give a piece of the host from the bishop’s Mass, and they would take it to the priest in the parish, and the priest would place that piece into the chalice at the parish Mass. In fact there remains a symbol of this unity with the bishop in the Mass. During the Lamb of God, I will break the host, and put a small fraction of it in the chalice. This unity, was also expressed by the bishop processing to each parish in his diocese each year.

Of course, we can only stand before the Lord if we first allow the Lord to lead us, and we walk with Him. Each of us could tell our own story of our relationship with Jesus, of what brought us here together. Each of us walk with the Lord in our own way – rather in the way He leads us, but to the same goal – heaven. “We can come to the Lord only . . . in this moving out and moving forward, by transcending our own prejudices, our limits, and our barriers, going forward, going towards him, and moving to the point at which we can meet each other” (Ratziner, God is Near Us, Ignatius Press, p. 111). In the light of Corpus Christi, the Exodus event has new meaning. Not only are the Israelites set free from their physical slavery in Egypt, but they learn to rely on the Word of God to literally provide them food. We can only find our way if we allow ourselves to be led by God’s Word who gave His body for food and His blood for our drink. It is only when we are walking with Christ Jesus that we are free.

Lastly, this leads us to kneeling before the Lord: adoration. Since the Lord gives us Himself in the Eucharist, it is only fitting to bow before Him, to glorify Him, and to adore Him. What a joy and privilege it is to be able to kneel before the Lord, loving Him with all our mind, all our heart and all our soul. He is our freedom. He is our life!

I know that it has been a very long time since I wrote any reflections on Msgr. Giussani’s book, Is It Possible to Live This Way? Vol. 1: Faith. It does not mean that I have not been reading it — OK, it does a little — but it is more because things got busy, first with Holy Week, and then I had some trips away. I am not going to try to summarize what I have already discussed about this book. For that, just see my previous blog posts on this book: they started in January of this year.

The next section is the second Assembly. Again, this is when the participants in these talks, after a time of reflect, asked questions of Msgr. Giussani. Often they were questions concerning clarification of some point that he made in his talk (this last talk was all about Freedom). I am not going to go through all the questions. However, there is a section in the Assemby, pp. 101-104, in which Giussani discusses the significance of work. I thought that this was very interesting, especially in the light of the unemployment problems that the USA is experiencing right now.

For Msgr. Giussani, work is an “essential expression of man’s life and its the essential way he imitates God.” We will value our work the most when we are able to give all our energy to doing what God wants us to do. As has been mentioned in this chapter on freedom, freedom is one’s relationship with one’s destiny. Now we all have the same destiny. As the old Baltimore Catechism says, “Why did God make me? To know, love and serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him in the next.” We are made for happiness. That is our destiny. The only way in which we will perfect, or achieve, that happiness is when we are in perfect communion with God in heaven. In this life, we are on a journey. Everyone is heading to the same destination, yet along the way God has different tasks for us to do. Not to earn our way into heaven, but to perfect the Mystical Body of Christ, the community of the faithful.

Our work needs to be modeled on the work of Christ Jesus. And what was the work of Jesus? His great work was obedience to the Father. Ultimately, what matters is not what particular work we do, but rather that we obey God in our work.

One of the worse things is for a person to be not working. Of course there are circumstances beyond their control which might cause them to be unemployed, but a person must find work. Too often people hold out for the ideal job, but in doing so they are putting the value of life in the work. The value of life is not in any particular job, but rather the value of life is obedience.

Msgr. Giussani insisted that members of the “Adult Group” (much of what would later become Memores Domini, the secular institute that follows the charism of Communion and Liberation) find work. He did not want them sitting around with their hands folded while others worried about them. If you cannot find the work you want, take whatever work is available. It does not even matter if one is paid for it (well, of course it matters if you are the breadwinner, but the money is the the primary value).

I have even known people who, when they were unemployed (say due to a layoff), who made finding another job their job. They got up at the time they would normally get up for work, shower, shave, dress for their job, and then go to “work”. Maybe they set up a particular space in their home where they put in their 8 hours. My one sister, after she was laid off, her company paid for them to go to an office with a placement company, where she had her own cubicle, and she needed to work on her resume, attended workshops on job interviewing, had to identify a certain number of potential jobs each week, etc. I thought this was a great plan, of truly making looking for work a full-time, though temporary (while they were on severance pay) job. The key is not letting others look for work for us, but for us to look at the means and conditions that God is gracing us with for finding work. We search, with the help and support of the rest of the Christian community. “Until you find work that you like — that expresses you — it’s love and obedience to the Father to accept even work that expresses you less and that you like less.”

Right now, I have one friend who I know is looking for work. He really does not know what God is calling him to do right now. Of course there are people in my parish who are facing the same difficulty. How do I support them during this time? How do I help them see the presence of Jesus right now in their lives?