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Homilies

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

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I imagine this was not the only wedding reception Jesus ever attended but this one is remembered because of what happened. What could have been an ordinary reception became extraordinary because those present heeded Mary’s advice and did what Jesus asked of them.

When Jesus told the waiters to fill those six huge stone jars, they could have dismissed him and told him to get lost. “Fill those jars? Rabbi, why don’t you just mingle with the guests, get out of the kitchen and let us do our job?” Instead, they recognized the special gift which Jesus had. Fill them they did and the rest is history as they witnessed the first of seven signs in Jesus’ ministry we find in John’s gospel.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul makes the point that there are different gifts but the same Spirit and different forms of service but the same Lord. Everyone in the community has a unique gift to offer and no gift is more or less important than the others. The Spirit which gave Jesus the power to transform water into wine gives various gifts to everyone, including all of us, to do different works that ultimately benefit the community. What was true in Corinth back then remains true today in every
faith community.

Those who have wisdom help us map out the course of our actions. Those who express knowledge well help us to learn more about our faith. Those whose faith is strong serve as ideal mentors for others asking to be baptized or confirmed. Those with the gift of healing visit the sick and comfort the grieving. Those with the gift of prophecy remind us of how the gospel is calling on us to respond to whatever situation we find ourselves in. All these gifts have been given for our common good and growth as a faith community.

With responsibilities that are so varied, the wise pastor relies on others to get certain things done for they can better handle those tasks in which he may have little aptitude. Some of those gifts I lack and others have are quite obvious such as music. Others are less noticeable but just as important to a vibrant parish offered by those who serve on the various councils in the parish, host the coffee hour after Mass, or help to keep our campus beautifully maintained.

In making the point that everyone has a unique gift to offer, I hear Paul telling the church at Corinth that everyone’s gifts can transform any ordinary community into something extraordinary. Unfortunately, we don’t always appreciate or recognize the many gifts that the Spirit has blessed us with.

More than once, I have been disappointed when someone fails to appreciate what God is truly offering us through this faith community and its sacraments. Despite my efforts to help them understand that God’s love for us is the bottom line, sometimes whatever insight I offer, based on my study of theology, liturgy or canon law may not be enough to help them deal with certain church related issues. I don’t always succeed because that person just didn’t want to hear what “Father has to say.”

Their reluctance or refusal to broaden their understanding of their faith reminds me of a Danish movie I first saw 20 years ago, Babette’s Feast, which tells the story of a marvelous chef who escaped war-torn Paris. Babette becomes a cook for two elderly sisters who live in a somber pious Danish community. The members of this community lived quite simply. When Babette wins 10,000 francs in the lottery, she decides to put on an incredibly elegant memorable feast for these sisters and their neighbors.

At the start of the meal, the guests fail to fully appreciate what was placed before them until one of them, a general in the Swedish royal court who had been to Paris, begins to rave about the food and that this was truly a feast to be enjoyed. Before long, they are savoring this magnificent meal complete with superb wines and each other’s company. At the end of the meal, after the guests leave, the sisters are stunned to learn that Babette had spent all her winnings on this meal. She had given them all that she had.

The contrast between their ordinary meals of cod and ale-bread and Babette’s feast, as different as water and wine, comes to mind as I think of how each of us relate to the Eucharist and our faith community. Both can be seen as monotony or as a festive gathering. The startling news that we can live in an intimate relationship with God scares some people. By insisting that life be quite ordinary, thank you, they fail to taste the wine of God’s love made real by his son.

The imagery of those six jars, each holding at least 20 gallons of wine, suggests that just as there was more wine than the guests at that reception in Cana could drink, the immensity of God’s love is more than we can fully realize. We give ourselves the chance to better fathom the depth of that love when we dare to share, respect, and use the gifts and talents which the Spirit has given us for the common good of our faith community and one another.

Fr. Daniel Harrington observes that the challenge for us in these readings is to become more sensitive to the many signs of God’s power and glory around us and to open our eyes and hearts to perceive them as coming from God. I would agree. When we follow Mary’s advice and heed her son, we give God the opportunity to make our lives quite extraordinary.
 

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Epiphany

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I suppose by now you have taken down the decorations, removed the tree from your living room, and tidied up your home so that there is hardly a sign of Christmas left. Walk through any shopping mall like I did the other night and you aren’t likely to find much to remind you of Christmas other than the Christmas merchandise marked down 75 percent.  Here, however, in this worship space, most of the signs of the season are still in place. Only one small detail separates today from our celebration of Christmas.

Gone are the shepherds from the nativity scene. In their place, we fine the magi. Tradition tells us these three wise men, named Caspar, Balthazaar, and Melchior followed a star across a barren desert, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh for the newborn king of the Jews. Aside from their gifts, we really don’t know much else about them. Matthew doesn’t tell us their names, their occupation, how many there were or even where they came from. Because he mentions three gifts, many assume there were three visitors. Centuries later names were given to these men. However, the details of this story do not really matter. What does is that God revealed his son to these travelers from the east and how they responded.

On Christmas, Jesus was revealed to the Jews. He was born to be their Messiah, their leader, their redeemer. God could have ended the story then and there but as John tells us in the opening chapter of his Gospel, “his own people did not accept him.” Fortunately for us, God intended the gift of his son to be shared with more than the children of Abraham. The secret of salvation had to be let out and with this encounter between the magi and Jesus, God revealed the gift of his son to all peoples.

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh seem like rather odd gifts to give an infant but each one has meaning behind them. In those days, one brought a gift of gold or other valuable material when visiting a king. By giving the child a gift of gold, these dignitaries were recognizing Jesus, not Herod, as the rightful king of the Jews.

But they also saw him as more than just a king. They saw him as king of kings. Knowing that he was more than just a mere king, they gave him frankincense, used often in worship in the east, then and now, as a sign of divinity. With this gift, the magi acknowledged Jesus as God.

The last gift would probably have horrified any mother, for myrrh was used in ancient times to prepare a body for burial. While honoring his birth, the magi were also foreshadowing his death.

I first learned while living in Paraguay more than 40 years ago that epiphany was the day traditionally used in many countries for giving gifts, not Christmas, for many people follow the example of the Magi. In light of this custom, as well as it being the theme of the readings, a fitting question for us to ask ourselves should be, “What gifts would we give to Jesus had we been on this pilgrimage with the magi?”

The fact shows that you came here to pray in spite of the cold and the blackout shows God has gifted you with another day of life and good health. You made your way here, blest with the gift of freedom to do so. And when you leave here, you will have a shelter and a meal waiting you somewhere.

So, in response to how generous God has been to you, what gifts would you bring to his son?

We think of gifts as something that has to be purchased and wrapped. Not necessarily. Our gratitude for what God has done for us is best shown in being generous to others, just as God has been generous to us. Sometimes the best gifts are in a sense free. President Jimmy Carter recalls a gift he gave his wife that enhanced their marriage.

Being punctual was an obsession for the President. While Rosalynn was usually on time, that wouldn’t be good enough for Jimmy. If she was even five minutes late, the delay would prompt a bitter exchange of words between them.

For her birthday one year, the president asked himself, “What could I do that would be special for her?” He wrote out this note, “Happy Birthday! As proof of my love, I will never make an unpleasant comment about tardiness.”  Managing to keep that promise since then, he realized that it turned out to be one of the nicest birthday presents he had ever given.

In his book, 42 Gifts I’d Like to Give You, Douglas Richards mentions practical ideas as well, such as the gift of good advice, the gift of being optimistic, the gift of being patient, the gift of hanging in there and holding on, the gift of spreading smiles around. We could expand the list to include other gifts such as a kind word, the gift of our time, the gift of our silence, the assurance of our prayers, the gift of listening with undivided attention, the gift of forgiveness, to name just a few. Any of them, when given to someone out of love is an example of a fitting git we give to Jesus.

Epiphany is a time for us to celebrate the gift of God made real to us and there is no better way for us to do that then to recall another line from Matthew’s gospel, “Whatever you did for the least of my brethren, you did for me.”  This way, God can become real for them as well.

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Holy Family

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Whatever age we are, the feast of the Holy Family provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the role of family in our lives. For most of us no other group of people shaped us more than the family in which we grew up.
 
We tend to idealize Jesus, Mary and Joseph as the perfect family, but as today’s gospel reveals, their lives were filled with stress and strains, joys and sorrows, along with misunderstandings and the need for reconciliation. Yes, they had their share of heartfelt human experiences.  
 
Having never been awakened by a crying baby in the middle of the night, I won’t claim to be an expert on family life, but like the sportswriter who has never played football, I can offer some worthwhile insights.
 
Blood ties alone do not create a family. As a pastor, I have unfortunately encountered many examples of relatives who refuse to communicate with one another. What transforms a group of people into a family is love. That is why John urges us to love one another. Without love, there is little to really bind a family together. But what does love mean to you?
 
In one of his favorite lines concerning his love for Bing Crosby, the late Bob Hope often said, “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for Crosby, and there’s nothing Crosby wouldn’t do for me. But that’s the trouble. We spent our lives doing nothing for each other.”
 
By chance, is Mr. Hope describing your family? In your family, is love for one another expressed verbally or visually? Or is this love simply taken for granted, that is, never spoken or demonstrated?
 
When was the last time you told your spouse, child, parent, sibling or other relative, “I love you?” Failing to express love now can spell trouble down the road. Many marriages have failed because the love that once brought couples together grew silent over time.
 
Our children especially need to see and feel that they are loved. Many teens who feel unloved make their needs known too late by committing either suicide or a serious crime, sometimes even in the home, in the very place where they expect to find love. PD James put it this way, “What a child doesn’t receive, he can seldom later give.”
 
Dr. Lee Salk, author of numerous books on parenting, told of a moving interview he had with Mark Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon. At one point, Chapman admitted, “I don’t think I ever hugged my father. He never told me he loved me. I needed emotional love and support. I never got that.” If he could ever be a father, Chapman added, “I would hug my son and kiss him and just let him know, he could trust me and come to me.”
 
In his book, My Father, My Son, Dr. Salk wrote, “Don’t be afraid of your emotions, of telling your father or your son that you love him and that you care. Don’t be afraid to hug him and kiss him. Don’t wait until the death bed to realize what you’ve missed.” What is true for fathers and sons is equally true for mothers and daughters, and for that matter, mothers and sons along with fathers and daughters.
 
In the gospel, we witness just how real Joseph, Mary and Jesus are. Like any of us, they experienced great anxieties of family living. Still, they demonstrate with love, respect encouragement and affirmation for each other that every family can be holy yet real. 
 
In the coming year, I invite you to think of your family as a garden.  Planting those four values will bring forth a harvest of abundant life. I am not much of a green thumb but I have learned the law of a fallow field; if a garden is neglected, it will always revert to weeds. If nothing of value is planted, then nothing of value will be harvested.
 
Like any garden, the garden of one’s family needs time and attention if love is to be cultivated along with the sunshine of laughter and affirmation, which help to deal with the tense moments caused by anxieties and differences that are bound to arise like rain and thunder. Its soil of hardness, created by envy, bitterness, and anger often needs to be turned with tools of forgiveness and understanding.
 
Maybe you aren’t a green thumb either, but I invite you to plant and cultivate these 18 rows in your family garden:
•    Six rows of p’s: perseverance, politeness, praise, prayer, patience and peacemaking.
•    Four rows of “let us”: let us be faithful in word and deed, let us be unselfish, let us be loyal, let us love and respect one another.
•    Three rows of squash: squash gossip, squash criticism, and squash indifference.
•    Five rows of “turn ups”: turn up on time for events with your kids. Turn up for family gatherings. Turn up with a better attitude. Turn up with new ideas and the determination to carry them out. And turn up with a smile.
 
Any family’s survival depends on the shared sensibility of its members. If you plant and nurture these values in your family garden, you will bring to harvest a real family as well as a holy family.

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Christmas

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My friends, what an awesome mystery we celebrate tonight. Two thousand years ago Jesus was born in Bethlehem. So what does that mean to you and me? If Christmas is to have any meaning to us, we should ponder that question, as one man did in a manner he never expected.  
 
He didn’t believe in God and he didn’t hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays like Christmas. If you said anything like “Merry Christmas,” to him, he likely would reply, “Bah, humbug!” (Maybe you know such a person or maybe you were once that way yourself.) His wife, however, very much believed in God and she raised their children to also have faith in God and Jesus despite his critical comments.
 
One snowy Christmas eve, his wife was taking their children to Mass. She invited him to come along, but he declined. “The story of Christmas is pure nonsense!” he said. “Why would God lower himself to come to earth as a man? That’s ridiculous!” So she and the children left and he stayed home.
 
Soon, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he could see was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire to read. Then, he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the house. Then he heard another thump. He looked out the window but couldn’t see more than a few feet. When the snow let up, he ventured out to see what had hit his house.
 
In the field nearby, he saw a flock of wild geese. They must have been migrating south for the winter when they got caught in the storm and couldn’t go on. They were now lost and stranded on his farm with no food or shelter.
 
They flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. The man guessed that a couple of them had flown into his house and were injured.
He felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them, but how? ‘The barn would be a great place for them to stay,’ he thought to himself. ‘It is warm and safe; they could wait out the storm there.’ So, he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide. He watched and waited, hoping that they would notice the opening and venture inside but the geese continued to flutter around the yard aimlessly. They didn’t seem to notice the barn or understand what it could mean for them. The man tried to get their attention but anything he did just seemed to scare them instead. He went into the house and came out with bread. He broke the bread, making a trail of crumbs into the barn but they still didn’t get the idea.
 
Now he was getting frustrated and very cold. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn but they only got more scared, scattering in every direction except toward the barn doors. Nothing he did could get them to go toward the barn where they would be warm and safe. “Why won’t they follow me?” he muttered. “Can’t they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?” He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn’t follow a human. “If I were a goose, then I could save them,” he said aloud.
 
Then he had an idea. He went back into the barn, picked up one of his geese and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese. He then released his goose, which then flew through the flock straight into the barn. One by one, the other geese followed it to safety.
 
The man stood there silently watching what happened as the words he had said replayed in his mind. “If I were a goose, then I could save them!” He then thought about what he had said to his wife earlier in the evening. “Why would God want to be like us? That’s ridiculous!”
 
Suddenly, it all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the wild geese, the man realized. Blind, lost, and perishing, not in the darkness of a winter storm but in the darkness of sin. God sent his son to become like us so that he could show us the way and save us from harm. That he realized was the meaning behind Christmas. As the storm died down, he pondered this wonderful insight. Now he understood what Christmas was all about and why Christ had come into the world.
 
Years of doubt and disbelief vanished like the passing storm. He fell to his knees in the snow and prayed for the first time in ages. “Thank you God for coming in human form to get me out of this storm!”
 
Years ago, I recall the late Archbishop Oscar Romero saying that those who have no need of God will have no Christmas. Only those who need someone to come on their behalf will find the gift of Emmanuel, God with us. On a dark wintry night in a way he least expected, after madly chasing some geese, this man found the light of Christ. At last, he could see why God did what he did on that dark winter night in Bethlehem so long ago.
 
So what does Christmas mean to you? Do you see why God became one with us in this amazing way? He did this to set an example for you and me to follow, showing us the way to peace, by rejecting godless ways and worldly desires and living instead justly and devoutly. We no longer need to walk in darkness for we have seen a great light. Merry Christmas!      

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4th Sunday of Advent

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Perhaps you have read the story of the Little Prince. Simple enough to be enjoyed by children yet profound enough to be appreciated by adults, this delightful tale is about an alien from another planet, known as the little prince, who finds himself stranded here on earth.

At first, the little prince is lost and confused. One day he meets a fox who helps him. Eventually a close friendship emerges between them. At one point, the fox and the little prince must go their separate ways. Before they do, the fox insists that they set an exact time for their next meeting, so they agree upon 4:00 on a certain day. Once they are done, the fox observes, “If you come at 4:00 in the afternoon, then at 3:00 I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At 4:00 I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you.”
 
The fourth Sunday of Advent is like that. We find ourselves waiting in anticipation of Christmas and the coming of another little prince, one whom we call the prince of peace. Knowing that his birth is near, we ought to be happy as the fox, knowing that this prince is coming into our lives!
Hopefully on the eve of Christmas, our hearts are ready and we are filled with the same joy we witness in the fox and in the gospel, where we find Elizabeth telling Mary, “the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” What John experienced was the magnetic presence of his cousin, Jesus.
 
Can the same be said for us? Many people have felt the joy John experienced in his mother’s womb. Perhaps you have too. For me, one such profound moment happened 12 years ago when I celebrated Mass with my sister and our 86 year old aunt. I had sent Ruth a card telling her that we were coming to visit her before Christmas. When we arrived, we could tell that she had been eagerly waiting for us.
 
In her tiny neat apartment, we sat around a TV tray. The Mass was very low key; no music, nothing fancy, but when we were done, my aunt was overwhelmed. Because she was my godmother, the moment was deeply moving for both of us. As her godson, I had fulfilled my dream to celebrate the Mass in her presence.
As my sister and I drove back to Sacramento from Yuba City, we agreed that this had been the best visit we ever had with Aunt Ruth. Usually we would find her despondent and our visits would be short. She was a widow who had outlived all her siblings and had no children. Her nieces and nephews were her only family and few of them lived nearby. This time, because she knew we were coming, Ruth was in great spirits and our visit lasted all afternoon. She even called that evening to again thank us for coming to see her.
 
Because of her frail health, our aunt had not been to church in years, so the visit was indeed special for her. The joy she radiated made the trip so worthwhile for me. I left her, feeling that she had been transformed and uplifted. I could not have given her a better Christmas present.
 
On the eve of that first Christmas, the world for Elizabeth, Mary, and John was transformed; their lives were filled with joy. The same could be true for us. Both Christmas and the Eucharist have the potential to truly fill us with joy.
 
While we may never encounter Jesus in this lifetime with the same intense joy they did, we certainly can be open to the possibility, awaiting the coming of our prince with the same eagerness that the fox did as he looked forward to the coming of his friend.
 
Speaking from my own experience, I know a fair number of us take our relationship with Jesus too much for granted, passing up many opportunities to be with him in prayer because we have other so-called priorities in our lives.  When we do, we become the losers, denying ourselves the chance to be transformed by the gift of God’s presence in both scripture and the Eucharist because we are more captivated by other pursuits instead. A friend recently wrote me, “The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything.”
 
Thomas Aquinas once said, “No man truly has joy unless he lives in love.” That is the example Mary sets in the gospel, traveling to be with her cousin in spite of whatever hardship such a trip posed. She knew well that joy is found in serving others. Caring for and about others will provide you with more joy than anything you’ll find under the tree.
 
For countless generations, God has kept his promise to lead his people to the joy of his kingdom through good times and bad and God does so today, offering us the most precious gift he can, his prince of peace. Blessed are they who, like Mary, have trusted that God’s word would be fulfilled. For them peace and joy became quite real. For those whose hearts are ready, Christmas ought to be a season of light that will dispel the darkness of their world and a time of joy that will transform their lives.
Like the fox in the story of the Little Prince, may we eagerly greet another little prince, namely, our prince of peace, Jesus of Nazareth with hearts that are ready. 

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