Fr. JC Maximilian

[Bernardo Daddi, The Assumption of the Virgin, ca. 1340] 

Two men went fishing.  One man was an experienced fisherman, and the other wasn’t.  Every time the experienced fisherman caught a big fish, he put it in his ice chest to keep it fresh.  Whenever the inexperienced fisherman caught a big fish, he threw it back.  The experienced fisherman watched this go on all day and finally got tired of seeing this other man waste good fish.  “Why do you keep throwing back all the big fish you catch?” he asked.  The inexperienced fisherman replied, “I only have a small frying pan” (Adapted from Hot Illustrations, copyrighted 2001, Youth Specialities, Inc.).

Sometimes, like that fisherman, we throw back the big plans, big dreams, and big opportunities that God sends us, because our faith is too small.  We laugh at the inexperienced fisherman for not figuring out that all he needed was a bigger frying pan, yet how ready are we to increase the size of our faith?  God has big hopes for us – Assumption-sized hopes.

The foundation of Christ’s Kingdom has already been laid, but Jesus has not finished building it up yet.  He is still extending the borders of the Kingdom and gathering more and more people into it.  This is the work of the Church Militant, the Church on earth; to build up Christ’s Kingdom by bringing more people into His friendship so that follow Him and find the meaning of their lives.

But what will happen at the end of history?  What will the Church become when the building of the Kingdom of God is complete?  One of the important lessons of the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary is precisely the answer to that question.  As Christians, we have always seen the Blessed Virgin Mary as an image of the Church.  Mary brought the Infant Jesus into the world, took care of Him as He matured into adulthood, and accompanied Him as He fulfilled His mission.  The Church has a similar relationship with the Mystical Body of Christ.  The Church continually brings Christ into the world through her many works of charity and apostolate, and through bringing more Christians into the world through Baptism.  With her teaching and the Sacraments, the Church cares for and accompanies her members as they grow to maturity and carry out their missions.  And so, just as God assumed Mary into heaven, body and soul, at the end of her earthly mission, so God will lift the whole Church into perfect communion with Himself in heaven at the end of history.  Mary’s Assumption is God’s promise to us.  Every Christian who follows Mary’s path of humility and fidelity to God’s will can look forward to following her into the joys and glories of heaven.  Seeing how God’s hopes for the Blessed Virgin Mary were so wonderfully fulfilled should help us increase our faith; it should stretch out our frying pan.

One of the practical repercussions of this truth is given special attention by today’s liturgical prayers.  In the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer for today’s Solemnity we hear, “Today the virgin Mother of God was taken up into heaven to be the beginning and the pattern of the Church in its perfection, and a sign of hope and comfort for your people on their pilgrim way.”

Why is it a sign of hope and comfort?  Because earth is NOT heaven.  Our lives on earth are often full of doubts, difficulties, pain and suffering.  We often encounter obstacle after obstacle as we try to follow Jesus.  At times we do not understand why God does not just fix things so that everything would go smoothly.  We are traveling through life in the midst of problems, frustrations and troubles, and sometimes we cannot see the way out.

This is life in a fallen world.  Our faith in Jesus Christ does not take away the cross, just as it did not take away the cross from Mary’s life.  As Simeon prophesied, her heart was pierced by a sword.  Yet the Mother of all Christians was snatched up into heaven at the end of her earthly journey.

When we lift our gaze to her, standing at the right hand of our Lord, we are given the assurance that our God is faithful.  If we stay true to Him, He will be true to us.  Mary’s Assumption gives us comfort and hope as we stumble through the hardships of life, enabling us to persevere through our trials, as she did.  Like Mary, Assumed into heaven, let us rejoice in the Lord even when the world gives us trouble.  [Inspired by “Your Homily for the Solemnity: The Assumption (C),” ePriest.com, 2007]

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[Fresco of the “Last Judgment” painted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel]

How many of us have a safety deposit box?  What treasures do you put in it?  I am sure that all of us have made some careful preparations for our retirement; setting up 401b’s and IRAs.  What is your most prized possession?  What special care to you take to protect that prized possession?

“For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”  In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that we need to ask ourselves, “What is my treasure?  What do I value most in my life?”  The famed Russian writer Anton Chekhov once wrote, “When I wanted to understand someone or myself, I considered not actions but desires.  Tell me what you want and I will tell you who your are” (A. Chekhov, “Storia noiosa,” in Racconti, vol. 1.  Milan, Italy:  Oscar Mondadori, 1996, p. 351).

We who call ourselves Christians should desire Christ Jesus above all other things.  Faith is what we should desire above all else.  By faith Abraham sojourned in a foreign land, and in the Letter to the Hebrews, from which we heard in today’s second reading, we hear that Christians are to continue that journey of faith that Abraham started, “as strangers and aliens on earth…seeking a homeland.”  The better homeland that Abraham, and all of us who call ourselves Christians, desire is a heavenly one.

Faith is what we should treasure more than anything else.  But what is faith?  God gives us His own definition of faith in the Letter to the Hebrews, “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”  Faith is a supernatural knowledge; we know with complete certainty that all the things that God has revealed to us are true.  Faith is not just belief in a set of dogmas.  Rather faith is belief in a person, namely Jesus Christ.  The essence of faith is accepting something as true, not because our own senses assure us of it, but because the person who tells it to us is trustworthy.

Many of today’s intellectuals and cultural elites consider faith to be childish.  They say that mature people do not depend on faith, rather they depend on science and reason.  For them the only way of knowing is through empirical, scientific knowledge.  Because they are so boastful of their opinion, many of us who still value faith are sometimes embarrassed about it.  We cover up our faith in conversations around the water cooler because we do not want people looking down at us.  But we should not be embarrassed by our faith, for faith is a necessary part of any fully human life.  In fact everyone lives by faith, even the intellectuals and cultural elites, to some extent.

What is this?   It is a can of Campbell’s soup right?  Are you sure?  How do you know that it is not a can of poison, or paint, or ink, or manure?  Because it says that it is a can of Campbell’s soup, and most of us have come to trust in this label.  But did any of us see what was put into this can?  We believe that it is tomato soup because we have faith in the label.

Msgr. Luigi Giussani defines faith as a type of knowledge about reality that comes to us through the testimony of a witness.  Just stop and think about how often we believe something because someone has told us it is so.  I read that a friend of mine mother has died and the obituary tells me when and where the wake is going to be, so I go and offer my prayers and support to my friend.  But why do I believe the obituary?  I wasn’t there when my friend’s mother died, nor was I there when my friend made the arrangements with the funeral director.  I have faith that the newspaper is telling me the correct information.  How do we know that any of the history that we learned about in school ever happened?  Without faith there would be no civilization, for each and everyone of us would need to re-invent fire, the wheel, everything on our own because we would not be able to take as true what was handed down to us.  Most of our knowledge comes through faith.  Human society is built on faith.  We could never eliminate faith, but even if we could, it would not make us more mature.  Rather it would make us less human.

The most important criterion of knowledge through faith is the witness.  The witness needs to be someone who knows what they are saying, and has no desire to deceive us.  It is here that we have good reasons to support our faith in God.  We were not eye witnesses to the creation of the universe, but the order and beauty of the cosmos makes it quite reasonable to believe that there was indeed an intelligent creator.  We were not eye witnesses to Christ’s resurrection, but there were eye witnesses who saw the risen Christ, and those eye witnesses founded the Church, which has endured longer than any merely human organization.

Abraham walked by faith, because “he thought that the one who had made the promise was trustworthy.”  Do we find God trustworthy?  To we trust in Jesus?  This cannot be a mere expression of our lips.  It must be a commitment of our heart; we must put our whole mind, our whole heart, and our whole soul into our faith in Jesus.  Even when things do not go the way we would like them to go, we must live by faith, trusting in the one who made us the promise.

This means that we must have an encounter with Jesus Christ.  It is not enough to know things about Jesus, and to fulfill the external obligations of the Church.  We must encounter the risen presence of Jesus in all the moments and situations of our lives.  We must desire Him.  This year, the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, which I and some others in the parish are involved in, will be reflecting on this simple phrase, “Christ in His Beauty draws me to Him.”  It is a call to notice the beauty around us and see in it Christ’s presence speaking to us.  It is a call to develop a true poverty of heart, which is an irrepressible desire for the ultimate and definitive truth that constitutes the human heart.  That truth is Christ.

Does the beauty of Christ Jesus draw you to Him?  Do you trust in Jesus?  Do you desire His kingdom more than anything else?  “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”

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[Picture of the Frankfurt Cathedral, built in the 15th Century, properly known as Dom St. Bartholomaus in whose chapels the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were elected and crowned for nearly 300 years. The church is also known as the Kaiserdom (Imperial Cathedral). ]

On August 9th, the Church celebrates the memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta a Croce, better known as Edith Stein, the well-known Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism, became a Carmelite nun, and then was killed in a concentration camp during the 2nd World War. Edith Stein often spoke about an incident that occurred in her life, years before she became a Catholic. For some reason, unknown to her, she had gone into the cathedral in Frankfurt, and as she was admiring the artwork and architecture, she noticed a simple woman come in from the marketplace, kneel down, and pray.

It does not seem to be a particularly unusual incident, but “according to Edith Stein’s own testimony, the impression that this scene made upon her was a decisive moment along her path to faith: a simple person kneeling and praying in the cathedral” (Christoph Schönborn, Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Volume 4: Paths of Prayer, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003, p. 13). In this very simple, common action Edith Stein recognized an inexpressible mystery – an intimacy with the invisible God. This was not some profound introverted form of contemplation or meditation. Rather it was a quiet resting that draws you to the mysterious Other. The sight of this simple woman at prayer became for Edith Stein a certainty: that God exists, and in prayer we turn to Him. Edith Stein did draw closer to God, eventually entering a life of contemplative prayer as Sr. Teresa Benedicta a Croce, and because she lived out her religious name, “Teresa Blessed by the Cross,” fully in her martyrdom we now celebrate her as a saint.

What an impression it must have made on the Apostles to see Jesus praying quietly for hours, sometimes throughout the night, in such intimacy with His Heavenly Father. “Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray….’” (Luke 11:1). Do we really think that the Apostles did not know how to pray? Of course not; the Apostles surely knew how to pray; in fact they probably had many of the Psalms memorized. What they wanted was to pray the way that Jesus did; to experience the intimacy, union and confidence that Jesus experiences when He prays. “’Teach us to pray.’ This expresses the yearning to enter into the realm of this quiet intimacy, this watchful reaching out toward the invisible Presence” (Christoph Schönborn, Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Volume 4: Paths of Prayer, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003, pp. 13-14).

In responding to His disciple’s request, Jesus takes him, and us, to prayer school. First, Jesus knows that because we are human beings, we tend to fall into routine. Jesus gives us the perfect words to use in prayer. How many of us do not know, by heart, the Our Father? How often do we just mindlessly rattle off the 55 words of the Our Father? Jesus teaches us two important attitudes that should form the background of our life of prayer, that if we keep them fresh will make sure that our prayer is always alive and powerful, and not empty and boring.

First, we must be persistent. We cannot allow prayer to become something we do just every now and then. “If we are persistent in prayer, as the friend was persistent in the parable, we give God more freedom to act in our lives, because our desires get more in synch with God’s” (“Your Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (C),” www.ePriest.com, 2007).

The second attitude we must have in prayer is confidence. We live in a fallen world, and often we project our own imperfections onto God. Sometimes we hesitate to open our hearts to God in prayer because we think that He is selfish, resentful, and easily angered like we too often are. Jesus tears down these misconceptions. He tells us that God is our Father, and He is a better father than even the very best earthly fathers. Therefore, if earthly fathers know how to be kind, generous and wise with their children, we can be certain that our Heavenly Father is much more like that with us.

Something else struck me about the incident that was so vivid for Edith Stein; it occurred in a cathedral. Contrary to what some people might say, environment has a lot to do with prayer. A few years ago the U.S. Bishops published a document which says, “Church buildings and the religious artworks that beautify them are forms of worship themselves and both inspire and reflect the prayer of the community as well as the inner life of grace” (Built of Living Stones: Art, Architecture, and Worship, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Inc., 2000, § 18). In fact, the medieval cathedrals, like the one in Frankfurt, embody all the characteristics of Christian prayer that we have been talking about in their very stones.

First we spoke about persistence. Some of the medieval cathedrals took almost 200 years to complete. Three generations of the same family often worked on them for their entire lives. The local people, despite their poverty, would make sacrifices just so they could contribute their few coins, year after year, to build their local House of God. That’s persistence!

These magnificent buildings also symbolize the confidence that Christ asks us to have in prayer. These cathedrals surround us with images of the saints, with scenes from the Bible depicted in stained glass and sculpture, and with relics in elaborate reliquaries. Nothing was too good for beautifying God’s house, so that it could reflect God who is Beauty itself. The cathedrals are visual symphonies of evidence that prayer is fruitful, that God has always been and will always be interested and involved in our lives.

Finally, the art and architecture of the medieval cathedrals embody the fruit of prayer – intimacy with God. Jesus taught us to call God our Father, to pray with the intimacy of children. The immensity of the medieval cathedrals reveals this intimacy; it seems to lift us up closer to heaven. It is as if God Himself is beckoning to us through the beauty of the building, taking the initiative to lead us closer to Him instead of staying far away.

So, how is your prayer life? Is it persistent, confident and intimate, or is it hit-or-miss, superficial and empty? Do we show God’s house the proper respect and reverence that it deserves? Sometimes I have to wonder. It might surprise you to see how dirty the church is left after the weekend Masses. We find used tissues, cereal, pages torn from the missalettes and hymnals – once we even found a dirty diaper – left in the pews. This is not respect and reverence for God’s house. Are we, who often are much better off financially than our medieval ancestors, as willing to make sacrifices so that nothing is too good for beautifying God’s house, so that we can be lifted up in prayer?

When we begin to understand what Christian prayer is, and give it its proper place in our lives, we become more stable, joyful, and energetic people. As we respond today to Christ’s reminder about the nature of prayer, let us renew our commitment to taking time to be alone with God every day, so that our lives can run more smoothly, according to God, our loving Father’s will.

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(The above picture of a stain glass window of Jesus, Mary and Martha, was taken by stainedglassphotography.com )

Is Jesus Christ the one Savior, the one Way, Truth and Life? Is He the one Lord of life and history? I certainly hope that all of you gave a resounding “yes” to both of those questions for He is our Lord and Savior; the Way, the Truth and the Life. With this being the case, then there is “only one” thing that is truly needed for a fulfilling, meaningful, and fruitful life, and that is to stay as close as possible to Jesus at all times.

Friendship with Jesus is the one thing needed to fill the deepest desires of our hearts. Yet, what is friendship? St. Augustine once commented, “I know what time is but if someone asks me to explain it, I no longer know what it is.” It is similar with friendship; it is often easier to intuit what friendship is than it is to explain it in words. The ancient philosophers described friendship as “one soul in two bodies.” St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of friendship as the love that wills the good of the other, a love of community, of treating one’s friend as oneself. At the heart of friendship is a common search for the Good and the True, and as the Book of Sirach says, “A faithful friend is a strong support; whoever finds one has found a treasure” (Sirach 6:14ff).

Today’s Gospel reading about Martha and Mary is often seen as examples of the active and contemplative life, or when considered with today’s first reading, to highlight the importance of hospitality. While both of these are very important lessons, I think that the readings are also meant to teach us about friendship, particularly friendship with Christ.

Jesus praises Mary because she has “chosen the better part.” More important than what we can do for Jesus is what we can BE for him, and what He can be for us. Remember, Jesus said that He did not come into the world to be served but to serve. By listening to Jesus, Mary was letting Him serve her, by being His close and intimate friend. That is “the better part.”

Martha was also a friend of Jesus; the Gospel of John makes it very clear that Jesus considered Martha, Mary and Lazarus very close friends, whom He loved much. However, Martha, in this episode, had a divided heart. She loves Christ Jesus, but she still depends on her own strength to earn His love in return. But there is nothing we can do to EARN God’s love; it is a grace freely given by God. Martha has not (at least not yet) learned that what matters is not what we can do for Jesus, but what He has done and wants to do for us. Jesus teaches Martha that the greatest thing she can do for him, the “one thing needed,” is to let Him rule completely over her heart; to take her place at His feet and listen to His words.

Mary made that choice. This is an important point; Mary CHOSE the “better part.” She chooses to submit to the Lord, to let Him be what He is for everyone – the one thing needed. Likewise, our task on earth is to also make a conscious choice for Christ Jesus. We need to choose to keep Christ first, to live FROM His love, and FOR His love, and then to shape our lives accordingly. Jesus offers us His Holy Spirit to be the one soul in many bodies. We need to choose to be a friend of Jesus.

St. Polycarp of Smyrna was a friend of Jesus. St. Polycarp was one of the early martyrs in the Church. In the middle part of the 2nd Century, during one of the waves of persecution against the Church, St. Polycarp was arrested and tried before the local governor. He was an old man, much revered as a bishop. The governor ordered him to renounce his faith in Christ Jesus. St. Polycarp answered, “I have served Christ for 86 years, and He never did me any harm, but much good; and how can I blaspheme my King and my Savior? Hear my free confession: I am a Christian.” As a result of his profession of faith, St. Polycarp was sentenced to be burned alive. However the flames failed to harm him. Many people witnessed how the flames encircled him by did him no harm. Finally one of the guards killed him with a thrust of a spear. From the pieced heart of St. Polycarp a dove flew out, a sign that Christ’s Spirit was in him. Out of his friendship with Christ, St. Polycarp helped to fill up, “what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of His body, the Church,” as we heard St. Paul say in today’s second reading.

The “better part” that we should all strive to seek out is to keep Christ Jesus first in our lives. Our highest priority should be keeping His friendship, and following His will should be our greatest desire. It will not always be easy to do. After listening to the Lord’s words, while sitting at His feet we have to go off and live them out. We must live according to the Lord’s standards, which are very different than those of the world around us. It means that when everyone else is cheating or “cooking the books” we must be honest. When others are gossiping and criticizing, we must always speak well of others. Being a friend of Jesus means governing our desires for pleasure when everyone else is just giving in to what they want and what feels good. It means staying faithful to our duties and relationships, always giving our best at home, at school, and at work, even when we get tired and when no one notices.

Most of all it means doing all things because we love Christ Jesus and we have chosen to follow Him. It is the grace of His friendship that strengthens us to follow His instructions. It is the grace of His friendship that makes following them worthwhile, and it is the grace of that friendship that will fill our hearts with the wisdom and joy that, as Jesus promised Mary, “will not be taken from us.” [Inspired by “Your Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (C),” ePriest.com, 2007]

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Today we celebrate the memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  This feast was started in the 13th century to remember the vision of St. Simon Stock, who received the Brown Scapular from our Lady, with the promise that whomever devoutly (this is the key word) wears the Brown Scapular as an external sign of their commitment and dedication to our Lord Jesus, through His most Blessed Mother, will be given special graces at the time of their death.  This is a celebration especially for members of the Carmelite Order, who have a historic root of being contemplatives on Mount Carmel in northern Israel.

Mount Carmel has a long history of being a special place for encountering the Lord.  Today we had a special coincidence, liturgically.  Typically on a memorial, when praying the Office of Readings, the first reading, which is from the Scriptures, is taken from the regular liturgical cycle, so today from Monday in the 15th Week in Ordinary Time.  It just so happened that that reading was from the First Book of Kings, where the prophet Elijah prevails over the false prophets of Baal and Asherah.  You probably remember the story; both the false prophets of Baal and Asherah, and Elijah prepare a sacrificial bull and call on their respective gods to consume the offering.  Of course when the false prophets of Baal and Asherah cry out nothing happens, but when Elijah calls out to the Lord his offering, which his doused with water, is immediately.  And where did this showdown occur?  On Mount Carmel!
As I prayed that reading this morning I was struck by the following words of Elijah, addressed to the people of Israel, “How long will you straddle the issue?  If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him.”  OK, I don’t think we have too many worshipers of Baal and Asherah around any more, but I am becoming more convinced that many people are de facto pagans.  How many different excuses have I heard of why a person has missed Sunday Mass — there was football, soccer, cheerleading, or we were on vacation.  I have startled more than a few parishioners when I tell them that they have made those things gods in their lives, above God, the Lord of the Universe.  We put ourselves above God when we cling to a favorite sin, “because it really doesn’t hurt anyone,” or because we disagree with the Church’s teaching.  Politicians who use the excuse, “I am morally opposed to abortion/homosexual unions/embryonic stem cell research/etc., but I will not impose my views on others,” are saying that their careers are more important that God.

In today’s Gospel reading at Mass Jesus tells us that the person who hears the Word of God and obeys that Word is His mother, brother and sister.  Clearly He is not diminishing his mother, Mary, but rather holding her up for all of us as a model.  Mary heard the Word of God and responded by saying, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according you your word.”  There was no straddling of the issue for Mary.  She clearly acknowledged the Lord as God and followed Him.  We are called to do the same.  Stop straddling the issue — the Lord is God!  Follow Him!

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[“The sending of the Twelve” by Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1282-1339. I tried to find a decent painting of the sending of the seventy-two, but found nothing. Of course the sending of the seventy-two flows from the authority that Jesus gave the Twelve]

In what do you boast?  Recently the New York Times had an article that boasted in the “fact” that science had disproved the existence of the soul, and therefore there was no need to believe in God.  According to the New York Times, which was reporting on an article that had appeared in the journal Nature, all behavior can be explained by brain physiology, which is basically the same for a human and a dog.  Of course this just demonstrates their erroneous, dualistic thinking, that things are either physical or spiritual so if something can be shown to be a physical process then they conclude that the spiritual does not exist.

As Christians we see the error of this type of thinking, for we do not see things in such a narrow “either/or” way.  Rather we recognize that the Truth is “both/and” — that God, who is Spirit, loved us so much sent His only-Begotten Son to save us.  Jesus is the perfect model of this “both/and” thinking, for He is the Word made Flesh.  In the Incarnation, God who is Spirit took on our human, physical flesh.

Boasting in merely human achievements – while minimizing, forgetting or denying God’s grace – is nothing new.  In today’s first reading we hear from the final chapter of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah.  The Book of Isaiah covers a period of nearly 250 years of Israel’s history, and the constant theme is a call to the people of Israel to remember the Lord.  It seems that the kings of Israel had started to rely too much on their own wisdom and knowledge, and had forgotten that it is the Lord who is the source of nourishment and life.  Isaiah pointed out how their pride was a great sin, that their sins had “become red as blood,” but that if they returned to the Lord their sins would be forgiven and they would become the just and righteous People of God they were called to be.  In today’s passage from the last chapter of Isaiah we hear God speaking passionately to His children in beautiful imagery, “as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.”

This image of God comforting His children as a mother comforts her child was the favorite of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, better known to us as the Little Flower.  In 1997, Pope John Paul II declared St. Theresa of the Child Jesus to be a Doctor of the Church.  Why?  Because he wanted to recognize not only her extraordinary holiness, but also to emphasize the special relevance of her teaching of humility and boundless confidence in God for our times.  Yes, we have made incredible scientific and technological progress in our own times, but we should never think that we can supply our own happiness and stability in life.  Despite what the New York Times says, scientific progress has not eliminated our need for God.  Only God is all-powerful, and only His friendship and grace can fully satisfy the human heart.  The Church has emphasized, in a special way for our culture, the need to foster a childlike simplicity and dependence on God’s goodness.  This is the spirituality of the Little Flower – her “little way” — and this is the message of the Prophet Isaiah.

The Church pairs this passage from Isaiah, which we heard today, with today’s Gospel reading that tells of the sending of the seventy-two disciples, because both speak about the kingdom of God.  When Isaiah says, “in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort,” he is not speaking about the city of Jerusalem on this earth.  Rather, it is a metaphor for the heavenly kingdom.  Our destiny is heaven, which is our true home.  That Truth is the message that Jesus tells the seventy-two to proclaim, “The kingdom of God is at hand for you.”  Notice that sends Jesus them out in pairs, not alone, “to every town and place HE intended to visit.”  Like St. John the Baptist, they are to “prepare the way” for the coming of the Lord, for Jesus Himself will come to all who accept the message of the kingdom of God.

Do you recall that I asked you, in what do you boast?  St. Paul in today’s second reading gives us his answer, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”  That’s right, we are all called to boast in the Lord Jesus!  Jesus has not limited the preaching of the Gospel to just the ministerial priesthood that He established (namely the Apostles).  No, the seventy-two disciples that He sent out on mission in today’s Gospel, represent all His followers.  During the Baptism Rite the priest or deacon touches the ears and mouth of the child and says, “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.”  ALL the baptized share in the responsibility of proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ.  Pope John Paul II said, “For the disciple of Christ the duty to evangelize is an obligation of love” (Ecclesia in America, #1).  Let me emphasize this point, to evangelize – that is to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ – is an OBLIGATION of love.   In other words, it is NOT loving to not witness our Faith in Jesus to others.  While this witnessing must certainly be done in words and deeds, we must keep in mind that it is BOTH – words and deeds.  Just doing acts of social justice without making it clear by our words that it is our love of Jesus Christ that impels us, is not sufficient.  Further in his letter to the Church in America, Pope John Paul II says, “In accepting this mission, everyone should keep in mind that the vital core of the new evangelization must be a clear and unequivocal proclamation of the person of Jesus Christ, that is, the preaching of his name, his teaching, his life, his promises and the kingdom which he has gained for us by his Paschal Mystery” (Ecclesia in America, #66).

We call this “giving our personal witness.”  We give our personal witness to the goodness of God by declaring to those around us what God has done for us.  This is how we introduce people to the Risen Christ.  Remember what we learned from the sending of the seventy-two; first we are not alone, we have the support of the Christian community, the mystical Body of Christ, and secondly, we are just making the introductions.  Jesus will come to visit those who hear our witness with an accepting heart.  He will offer His friendship to them, and enter into a personal relationship with them, sharing with them His mercy and grace.

So I encourage you to boast – boast in the Lord!

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[Pieter Paul Rubens. The Martyrdom of St. Stephen. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes.]

One of the books that had a significant impact on me, particularly when I was studying psychology, is the book by Dr. Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.  Viktor Frankl was a protege of Sigmund Freud.  Then World War II broke out, and like most of the other Viennese Jews at the time, Frankl found himself rounded up by the Nazis and shipped to a concentration camp.  The first half of Man’s Search for Meaning, is Frankl’s account of life in the concentration camp – it really is something that I highly recommend that you read.

At first Frankl was intrigued by the apparent randomness of inmate survival.  He started to ask why some prisoners just seemed to shrivel up and die, while others, under the same cruel and inhuman conditions, somehow seemed to survive.  Naturally, at first he thought it had to do with the prisoner’s physical fitness and health, but he soon noticed that often the most physically fit prisoners would die quickly under the horrible conditions of the camp, while those who seem weak, elderly, and/or unaccustomed to hard labor would survive the longest.  Frankl decided to occupy his mind with a psychological analysis of life in the concentration camp in order to try to unravel this mystery.  Based on his observations and professional reflections Frankl became convinced that the key to survival was meaning.  In other words, those prisoners who found a reason to survive survived, and those who did not find a reason to survive, did not survive.  I still remember his account of an older man who had been a watchmaker, and how he designed in his head, and on any scraps of paper he could find, a most beautiful clock that he wanted to make to replace the one in his home village’s clock tower which was destroyed in the war.  For Frankl himself, his reason to survive was to rewrite the book, based on years of psychological research, that he had written and the Nazis destroyed before his eyes.  All of us, deep down, strive to find meaning in our lives, and that meaning, that reason to survive, is what keeps us going.

As we come to the end of the Easter season, the Mass readings that the Church gives us directs our gaze upward.  In our first reading today, from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear about the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and we hear that he “looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”  St. John, in concluding the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, invites us to look up at Christ who is the morning star and pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.”  And in today’s Gospel reading, as he finishes the Last Supper, Jesus begins his prayer by “lifting his eyes to heaven.”

As we look up to heaven, what do we see?

“We see an embrace, a clasp of deepest friendship, a union of hearts and minds greater than the most satisfying earthly relationship could ever be” (“Homily Packs:  Seventh Sunday of Easter (C)” found at www.epriests.com, a service of Regnum Christi, 2007).  As St. Stephen breathes his dying breath, seeing Christ in his glory, whispers, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” and like his Divine master forgives those who are unjustly killing him.  In the Book of Revelation, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’”  Jesus, in the Gospel, prays that we will all share his glory, “so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.”

The message that God has for us as we come to the end of the Easter Season is the message of death – of Christian death.  The Church is reminding us that for a faithful Christian, one who actively lives their Faith in words and deeds, death is not the end but the beginning.  We are called to keep in mind that our real home, our ultimate destiny is heaven, not life on earth.  All of our prayers really should be, “Come, Lord Jesus,” let the fullness of your reign come now.

This is why as faithful Christians we should never be afraid to think about death.  In fact, the tendency to avoid thinking about death, to try to avoid facing that death is an unavoidable reality, is unchristian.  This does not mean that we should become obsessed about death, because the gift of life, which God has given us should also be celebrated.

How can we find a balance?  How can we learn to keep looking up, so that we do not lose sight of our ultimate goal, our destiny, while not becoming morbid?

It is enough to keep doing the small, normal things that the Church has always taught us to do.  It is enough to visit the cemetery and put flowers on the graves of our relatives and to pray for them.  This would be particularly fitting given that next weekend our country celebrates Memorial Day.  Now that the Mass Intention books are open for next year, we can have a Mass said for our deceased loved ones.  It is enough to follow the rhythm of the Church’s liturgy, which reminds us gently but firmly that this brief life on earth is not all there is, that our true home is heaven.  It is enough to care for the sick, elderly, and dying instead of ignoring them.

If we do these things now, then later, when we find our own death knocking at the door, we will not be afraid to look up and pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.”  We will have no regrets, only smiles, both for the beauty we have left behind, and for the Beauty still in store.

“Today, as Christ come to us under the mysterious veil of Holy Communion, let’s thank him for revealing the meaning of death, and like St. Stephen let’s look up and pray, ‘Come, Lord Jesus!’” (“Homily Packs:  Seventh Sunday of Easter (C)” found at www.epriests.com, a service of Regnum Christi, 2007).

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“Even after sharing their lives with Jesus for such a long time, after the disaster of Calvary and the mystery of Easter, after all that, the apostles understood little of Him.  Only a few hours before His ascent into Heaven, they still asked Him when he would establish the Kingdom of Israel, such as everyone conceived it at that time:  a kingdom of earthly and political power” (Luigi Giussani, The Journey to Truth is an Experience, Montreal & Kingston:  McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006, p. 53).

Clearly the Apostles did not understand Jesus, so why did they follow Him?  St. Luke apparently wanted to make sure that people understood that Jesus really ascended into Heaven, because he records that event twice; first at the end of his Gospel, which was just proclaimed, and at the beginning of his second work, the Acts of the Apostles, which we heard in our first reading.  Do we get it any better than the Apostles?  So, why do we follow Jesus?

Hopefully we follow Jesus, even in our lack of understanding, for the same reason that the Apostles did, because Jesus has become the focus of our affections.  Hopefully, in the midst of the darkness and confusion around us, as it proclaimed during the Easter Vigil, “Christ is our Life!  Thanks be to God!”  For the Apostles Christ Jesus enlightened them; He “was the only one in whose words they felt their whole human experience understood and their needs taken seriously, clarified” (Luigi Giussani, The Journey to Truth is an Experience, Montreal & Kingston:  McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006, p. 53).

So why did Jesus Ascend into Heaven?  Jesus wanted to come even closer to us, to be even more intimate with us.  If He had stayed on earth He would have remained limited in time and space.  Now that He has ascended into Heaven, by the sending of the Holy Spirit, Jesus dwells within our hearts.

More importantly, the Ascension is the establishment of Jesus’ Kingdom on absolutely unshakable ground.  Earthly kings and emperors, which the Apostles were still looking for, always remain vulnerable because even if their enemies do not usurp their power, death surely will.  However Christ’s reign will never come to an end; He is no longer vulnerable.  Because He has ascended into Heaven, God made Christ the everlasting King, and His kingdom is firm; His Church will never be destroyed.  If we stay faithful to Christ the King, our victory over sin, evil, and injustice is assured, and this will bring us everlasting happiness.  Christ’s ascension should fill us with joy, as it did His Apostles, because now we know for certain that the Christian cause is unassailable, and that Jesus’ lordship is unconquerable.

The fact – that Jesus Christ, true God and true man – by His Ascension has become the everlasting bridge between Heaven and earth posses a challenge to what Pope Benedict XVI calls the “tyranny of relativism” which threatens to enslave the world today.  Too often we are afraid of offending people who do not share our beliefs.  We are so very concerned about being tolerant.  There is a goodness in that tolerance because every human being does deserve our respect because everyone is made in the image and likeness of God, and Jesus came to save everyone.  However such respect and tolerance should never turn into indifference.  Indifference is easy and often more comfortable than actually defending and spreading the Truth.  Yes, I said Truth – a singular – and not “truths” a plural.  There is only one Truth, and Jesus tells us that He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6).  Only Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven, and He alone is the Savior.  True, God is gracious and His mercy is not limited in any way, but He has made His mercy known by sending His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  Finally, God desires to extend His mercy to every person through the spreading of the Good News of Jesus Christ.  This is why it is our mission, as His Church, to preach “repentance for the forgiveness of sins in his name to all the nations.”

As we receive the Eucharist today, the food that nourishes us, let us ask that we have the strength never to be ashamed of the truth of Jesus Christ, the only Truth that will truly set us free.

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[Painting by Fra Angelico, I am not sure of the title, it is something like “Christ the Judge.” In case you have not noticed, from the banner on this blog which is part of Fra Angelico’s “The Saints,” I am a fan of this Florentine, Dominican artist]

First of all, before I forget and get myself into trouble, let me extend my most sincere thankful prayers to all of our mothers here today. As the Blessed Virgin Mary served as the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle of our Lord Jesus during the nine months of her pregnancy, so our mothers are often the first source of our faith, continuing the life of the Church.

I am reminded of a story about a Roman soldier sometime during the first 200 years of Christianity. He had to set off on a long military campaign, leaving behind his wife who was pregnant with their first child. With her husband away, some local women took it upon themselves to help this soon-to-be mother. These women were Christians, and they had an inner joy that was very attractive. The soldier’s wife found herself wanting to know more about the secret of their joy, so they started tell her about Jesus. Soon her child was born – a healthy son. Not long after giving birth she asked her new friends if she and her son could become Christians, and they were baptized into the faith.

Meanwhile the soldier also had met some Christians during his travel. He too was attracted to their inner joy and strength; often enduring great pain and hardship all for the name of Christ Jesus. He listened to the stories about Jesus and explanations about this new Faith. However, he was not able to receive baptism before the campaign ended.

When he returned home, his wife was naturally overjoyed to see him home safe and sound. Yet she was nervous about how he would react to the news that she and their son were baptized into the Christian Faith. She decided to break the news to him gradually. First she showed him their son. As he held his son the soldier expressed his sorrow at not being there to help her during her need, but she said that she had made some new friends who had been a big help, and that they were Christians. Then in an offhanded way she mentioned that their son had in fact been baptized as a Christian. Her husband looked shocked and became very quiet. He looked at his son again very thoughtfully. Then he knelt besides the crib, bowed his head, closed his eyes, and silently began to pray. His wife was puzzled by her husband’s behavior, and knelt next to him and asked what he was doing. He looked at her and said, “I am praying to the one, true God, for if our son has been baptized, he has himself become a holy place. Christ the Lord, his Father the Creator of all, and the living Holy Spirit have made their home in his heart, so we can pray to God there.” [“Homily Packs: Sixth Sunday of Easter (C)” found at www.epriests.com, a service of Regnum Christi, 2007].

Today’s Gospel reading are some of Jesus’ words during the Last Supper, and they are mysterious and glorious. In today’s passage Jesus reveals one of the great secrets of Christian life; that when we are baptized, God himself – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – actually come into our souls and take up residence there. As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “We will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”

This week we will celebrate the Ascension of the Lord on Thursday; check the bulletin for the Mass times for this Holy Day of Obligation. Have you ever wondered why Jesus ascended back into heaven? Why didn’t he just stick around? By his ascension, Jesus is able to be closer to us; he is able to dwell deep within our hearts, beyond any earthly limits. If Jesus had not “gone to the Father,” he would have remained limited by time and space, as he was during his earthly life. Now that he dwells body and soul in heaven, Jesus can be present to each one of us at all times, through the Holy Spirit.

This is the gift Christ has given us. The prize Jesus won for us by his Passion, Death and Resurrection is the transforming, renewing, life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit within us. How many of you can tell me on what day you were born? What about on what day you were baptized? We all remember and celebrate our birthdays, yet how much more greater is the day we are baptized and made a child of God and given the gift of the Divine life within us!

Unfortunately too often most of us forget about this priceless gift for which Jesus paid such a great price. We often live as if our Christianity is like a membership in a club, like it is something outside of us. This forgetfulness handcuffs God’s power in our lives. The Holy Spirit is polite, and respects our freedom. The Spirit chooses to be a guest within our hearts, not a dictator. The Spirit sits in the living room of our soul, eagerly waiting for us to put our cell phones away, turn off the computer and/or TV, and pay attention to him for a few minutes. The Spirit wants us to ask him for guidance and strength. Whenever we do turn to the Holy Spirit for strength and guidance, the Spirit is able to increase what is good in us, and cleanse us from what is bad.

So why don’t we pay attention to the Holy Spirit dwelling within our hearts more often? The main reason is that we are surrounded by so many other voices, which because of their boastful pride are often louder than the Spirit’s gentle whisper. At other times we get so tangled up in our problems and responsibilities that we are not sure what God wants us to do, or how to do what we think he wants us to do.

God knows this, and he has given us tools to help discern his voice. One of these tools is the sacrament of Reconciliation, often better known as Confession. While the primary function of the sacrament of Reconciliation is to be a clear and undeniable way to receive the grace of forgiveness for our sins, it has a secondary function of helping us to grow in holiness. It gives us the grace of strength and light.

A priest is ordained to be God’s instrument; the advice and direction that he gives within the sacred space of this sacrament is of special value. Regular use of this sacrament quiets down the many other voices that are trying to drown out the Holy Spirit’s voice. The sacrament of Reconciliation makes God’s voice within us clear and stronger, and it gives us the strength to heed that voice.

Today, as Christ renews his commitment to dwell within us, let us renew our commitment to be his worth Temples. And let us thank our mothers who not only gave us the gift of life on earth, but through their faith and by their bringing us to baptism, shared with us the gift of eternal life won for us by Christ Jesus.
[Based on “Homily Packs: Sixth Sunday of Easter (C)” found at www.epriests.com, a service of Regnum Christi, 2007].

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Sts. Paul and Barnabas sure do cover a lot of ground.  In our first reading today, from the Acts of the Apostles, eight different cities are mentioned where they “proclaimed the good news,” and that is not counting the unnamed city from which they started the leg of their missionary journey that we heard today.  So a total of nine cities where they not only “proclaimed the good news” but also “made a considerable number of disciples.”

The Acts of the Apostles gives us a type of snapshot of the early Church, and it is marked with a lot of dynamism.  It is active and growing.  In fact, the Church has the very life of Christ Jesus, Himself.  Yet something else is needed, in addition to dynamism, and we start to see that something else in the early Church in today’s reading.

Dynamism without structure is like a firecracker – a lot of noise, but no lasting results.  However, if you add some structure to that dynamism then the energy can be channeled and directed.  The combination of structure and dynamism assures stability, growth, and fruitfulness.  Since the Church was founded to endure, grow, and bear fruit until the end of time, it needed a structure, and we call that structure the hierarchy.

The Church’s hierarchy has been part of God’s plan right from the beginning.  It is not a later human invention.  In fact we can see this hierarchy having its roots in the words of Jesus to St. Peter, after he made his profession of faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.  Jesus calls Simon, Peter which is a play on the Greek word “petros” which means “rock.”  Jesus goes on to say that upon this “Rock” He will build His Church.

We should recall that originally the Hebrews were nomadic desert-dwellers.  As such, they “were particularly sensitive to the point of reference provided by great rock formations, fixed as they are, compared with sand and dust which can be blown away and scattered by the wind” (Luigi Giussani, Why the Church?, Montreal & Kingston:  McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001, p. 78).  The word “rock” or “crag” is one of the most frequently used metaphors for truth and safety in the Bible.  In Psalms we hear, “Though my flesh and my heart fail, God is the rock of my heart, my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26), and “God alone is my rock and salvation, my secure height; I shall never fall” (Psalm 62:3), and one last example, “Let the words of my mouth meet with your favor, keep the thoughts of my heart before you, LORD, my rock and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:15).  In saying that He was going to build His Church on the Rock that is St. Peter, Jesus was saying that the papacy would be the visible sign of unity, stability and truth for His Church.

Of course this foundation was added to.  In today’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles we hear that Paul and Barnabas “appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, commended them to the Lord.”  Sts. Paul and Barnabas were not starting their own churches, for they knew that there is only one Church, the one started by Christ Jesus and entrusted by Him to the Apostles, with St. Peter as their head.  Those ordained by Paul and Barnabas were local church leaders who were entrusted to care for the local Christian communities, and to continue the mission of spreading the Good News.  Right from the start we see the hierarchy of the Church being established  — a Pope, bishops, and priests.

For us Americans the idea of the Church’s hierarchy can be difficult to accept.  We have a democratic mindset:  we vote for everything, from the President and Members of Congress, to laws, to local school boards.  We even vote for the captains of our teams.  While the democratic mindset can be very effective for organizations that are of strictly human origin, the Church is NOT of strictly human origin.  The Church is divine in its origin; it is a LIFE!  It is the Life of Jesus Christ.  The Church is the prolongation of the Incarnation, the Word Made Flesh, through time and space.

The Church is also like a family.  Children do not have the right to vote on what they will eat or when their bed-time will be.  They need their parents to teach and guide them into mature, responsible, generous, and virtuous adults.  Likewise, by our baptism we became the children of God.  Only God’s grace and revelation can enable us to grow into the saints we are meant to be.  We do not have the right to vote on how God should send us His grace, or about what path should lead to moral and spiritual maturity.  God is the one who has to nourish, guide, and teach us.  That is why we call Him FATHER!  He does this through His ministers in the Church, with whom He shares His authority.  As Jesus says in St. John’s Gospel, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21).

We may not always like God’s choice of human ministers, because since they are human they have flaws.  To make up for these human foibles and flaws, God has guaranteed that through the bishops in union with the Pope we will always have access to His grace, which strengthens us, and to the dependable truth about what we should believe (Faith) and how we should act (Morals) in order to grow up in the faith and reach the lasting happiness of Heaven.

Ponder these words from Msgr. Luigi Giussani, the founder of Communion and Liberation, “The authority of the Pope and bishops, therefore, is the ultimate guide on the pilgrimage towards a genuine sharing of our lives, towards a true civilization….  Where that authority is not vital and vigilant, or where it is under attack, the human pathway becomes complicated, ambiguous, and unstable; it veers towards disaster, even when on the exterior it seems powerful, flourishing, and astute, as is the case today.  Where that authority is active and respected, the historic pilgrimage is confidently renewed with serenity; it is deep, genuinely human, even when the expressive methods and dynamics of sharing lives are roughshod and difficult” (The Journey to Truth is an Experience, Montreal & Kingston:  McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006, p. 74).

As Catholics we are called to “pray and obey.”  At each Mass we pray for the hierarchy of the Church, and in our private prayers we should also pray for the Pope, and all the bishops and priests.  We need to pray that these ministers of God can overcome their flaws and foibles, so that everyone that they meet can encounter the loving presence of Christ Jesus.  Likewise we are all called to practice that most difficult yet most important of virtues – obedience.  God has guaranteed that despite all their imperfections, His ministers will not be able to obstruct the flow of His truth and grace through the Church’s ministry.  In its official teaching about faith (what we should believe) and morals (how we should live), God has promised that His Church will not lead us astray.  Obedience to Christ’s Church – whether in basic things like the Ten Commandments and coming to Mass on Sundays, or in more difficult and counter-cultural things like divorce, contraception, abortion, and embryonic stem-cell research – shows that we trust Chris, the one who established and guides His Church.  As Christ renews His commitment to us by giving us His Body and Blood at this Mass, let us renew our trust in Him, and ask Him to increase our desire to follow Him through the practice of the virtue of obedience.

[Much of this homily was inspired, and parts were taken from, “Homily Packs:  Fifth Sunday of Easter (C)” found at www.epriests.com, a service of Regnum Christi, 2007].

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