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Homilies

3rd Sunday of Advent

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What an interesting beginning to a gospel passage. Perhaps years from now, might some story teller begin with this line? “In the ninth year of the administration of George Bush, when his brother, Jeb, was governor of Florida, Christine Gregoire was governor of Washington, and Neil Colburn, mayor of Langley, during the high priesthood of Alexander Brunett and Benedict XVI, the word of God came to the Amish community. Like countless other victims of tragedy in the past year, they had sustained a desert experience. A deranged truck driver stormed into a one room school house in rural Pennsylvania last October and shot ten girls, killing five of them, before turning the gun on himself.

 
What was even more stunning than the killing was the response of the Amish community.  The parents of one of the murdered girls personally approached the widow of the shooter to offer their forgiveness. The self-reliant Amish insisted on establishing a fund for the killer’s wife and three children from the proceeds they received from donations to help the victims’ families.  And when the shooter was buried, half of the mourners in attendance were Amish.
 
The tragedy in Nickle Mines allowed the outside world a rare glimpse of the remarkable values of the Amish people. We tend to dismiss them as a quaint cult that avoids any interaction with modern technology. They isolate themselves from the consumer-centered values of mainstream America, not because they think they’re bad, but because the Amish see them as obstacles in their search for God.
 
What happened at their school affected them all deeply. They love their children as much as we love ours and the deaths of these five girls devastated their families. Their hurt was great but they didn’t balance that hurt with hate.  As one Amish woman said on the news, “We can tell people about Christ and actually show you in our walk that we forgive, not just say it…”
 
In their uncompromising living of the Gospel values of compassion and forgiveness, the Amish community have been nothing less than prophets, inviting us, in their simple, gracious generosity of heart and spirit, to heed the message of John the Baptist, whose call to repentance we hear every year as we await the coming of Christ. John challenges us to “prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” He urges us to make “straight” those roads made crooked by greed and hatred and “smooth” out ways made impassable by sin and death. There are so many wastelands and barren places into which we can bring life, so many crooked roads we can transform into highways if we would work for justice and reconciliation like the Amish did last fall.
 
Undoubtedly, you have a wish list of what you would like for Christmas, a thing or two that you would love to add to your worldly possessions, but John speaks to us of a gift worth far more than anything we will ever find under a Christmas tree: the salvation of God. To experience this gift, he urges us to think of what we need to let go of that stands in the way between God and us. Unlike the Amish, that would not be our modern conveniences, so what might they be?
 
In so many words, the prophet tells us that sin and apathy block us from having an honest and forthright relationship with Jesus Christ. They hinder us from savoring the gift of salvation that God so generously offers us in the person of his son, Jesus, through the Mass, scripture, prayer, and the teachings of our Church.  If we want this gift, John is telling us that we must first do some road construction in our lives.
 
We must fill our valleys and level our mountains, not literally with bulldozers but with attention to our relationships. The valleys he speaks of we create with kind words left unspoken, compassionate deeds undone, bread not shared, prayers unsaid, neighbors unwelcomed, the poor overlooked, the expressions of another person’s love ignored, or forgiveness withheld.
 
John challenges us to level our mountains of pride, blind ambition, arrogance, unbridled selfishness, domineering attitudes, all of which hinder us from experiencing and sharing God’s gifts of salvation and love. He calls on us to smooth the rough ways in our lives created by anger, impatience, intolerance, prejudice, racism, bigotry and favoritism that leaves anyone feeling excluded and unloved. Heeding his call to forgiveness and reconciliation could result in some of the best Christmas presents that you and your loved ones could ever receive.  
 
Granted, the task of moving our personal obstacles may seem overwhelming but just as God led the Israelites so long ago, God seeks to lead us in joy. One way God does this is through the sacrament of reconciliation. For a lot of us, that gift is like the Christmas present we didn’t appreciate or know what to do with so we’ve left it in the closet to collect dust. Instead of ignoring this beautiful gift, I urge you to come to our Advent Reconciliation service this Thursday evening and see for yourself what a wonderful gift God offers us in this sacrament.
 
Joy is what many of us seek in life, especially at Christmas and that is something both the giver and receiver experience when a gift is fully appreciated. But joy is more than an object. It is also the echo of God’s life within us. Joy will be ours when we seek God’s gift of salvation.

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2nd Sunday of Advent

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In the sixth year of the administration of George Bush, when his brother, Jeb, was governor of Florida, Christine Gregoire was governor of Washington, and Neil Colburn, mayor of Langley, during the high priesthood of Alexander Brunett, archbishop of Seattle and Benedict XVI, the word of God came to the Amish community. Like countless other victims of tragedy in the past year, they had sustained a desert experience. A deranged truck driver stormed into a one room school house in rural Pennsylvania last October and shot ten girls, killing five of them, before turning the gun on himself.

What was even more stunning than the killing itself was the response of the Amish community.  The parents of one of the murdered girls personally approached the widow of the shooter to offer their forgiveness. The self-reliant Amish insisted on establishing a fund for the killer’s wife and three children from the proceeds they received from donations to help the victims’ families.  And when the shooter was buried, half of the 75 mourners in attendance were Amish.
The tragedy in Nickle Mines allowed the outside world a rare glimpse of the remarkable values of the Amish people. We tend to dismiss them as a quaint cult; one that avoids any interaction with modern technology. They isolate themselves from the consumer-centered values of mainstream America, not because they think these values are bad, but because they see them as obstacles in their search for God.
What happened at their school affected them all deeply. They love their children as much as we love ours and the deaths of these five girls devastated their families. Their hurt was great but they didn’t balance that hurt with hate.  As one Amish woman said on the national news, “We can tell people about Christ and actually show you in our walk that we forgive, not just say it…”
In their uncompromising living of the Gospel values of compassion and forgiveness, the Amish community have been nothing less than prophets, inviting us, in their simple, gracious generosity of heart and spirit, to heed the message of John the Baptist, whose call to repentance we hear every year in advent as we await the coming of Christ. John challenges us to “prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” He urges us to make “straight” those roads made crooked by greed and hatred and “smooth” out ways made impassable by sin and death. There are so many wastelands and barren places into which we can bring life, so many crooked roads we can transform into highways if we would work for justice and reconciliation like the Amish did last fall.
Undoubtedly, you have a wish list of what you would like for Christmas, a thing or two that you would love to add to your worldly possessions, but John speaks to us of a gift worth far more than anything we will ever find under a Christmas tree: the salvation of God. To experience this gift, he urges us to think of what we need to let go of that stands in the way between God and us. Unlike the Amish, that would not be our modern conveniences, so what might they be?
In so many words, the prophet tells us that sin and apathy block us from having an honest and forthright relationship with Jesus Christ. They hinder us from savoring the gift of salvation that God so generously offers us in the person of his son, Jesus, through the Mass, scripture, prayer, and the teachings of our Church.  If we want this gift, John is telling us that we must first do some road construction in our lives.
We must fill our valleys and level our mountains, not literally with bulldozers but with attention to our relationships. The valleys he speaks of we create with kind words left unspoken, compassionate deeds undone, bread not shared, prayers unsaid, neighbors and strangers not welcomed, the poor overlooked, the expressions of another person’s love ignored, or forgiveness withheld.
John challenges us to level our mountains of pride, blind ambition, arrogance, unbridled selfishness, domineering attitudes, all of which hinder us from experiencing and sharing God’s gifts of salvation and love with others. He calls on us to smooth the rough ways in our lives created by anger, impatience, intolerance, prejudice, racism, bigotry and favoritism; anything that leaves anyone feeling excluded and unloved. Heeding his call to forgiveness and reconciliation could result in one of the best Christmas presents that you and your loved ones could ever receive.  
Granted, the task of moving our personal obstacles may seem overwhelming but just as God led the Israelites so long ago, God seeks to lead us in joy. One way God does this today is through the sacrament of reconciliation. For a lot of us, that gift is like the Christmas present we didn’t appreciate or know what to do with so we’ve left it in the closet to collect dust. Instead of ignoring this beautiful gift, I urge you to come to our Advent Reconciliation service this Thursday evening at 7 and see for yourself what a wonderful gift God offers us in this sacrament.
Joy is what many of us seek in life, especially at Christmas and that is something both the giver and receiver experience when a gift is fully appreciated. But joy is more than a reaction. Joy is also the echo of God’s life within us, which becomes very real when we dare to seek and celebrate God’s gift of forgiveness.

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1st Sunday of Advent

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Waiting is a fact of life, something that few of us can avoid. As part and parcel of living on this beautiful island, we usually find ourselves waiting in line to get on the ferry, sometimes long lines at that. We are accustomed to two or three ferry waits, as we call them, on certain days at certain times during certain seasons.

Waiting isn’t something we care to do, especially when our routines are disrupted as they were with lengthy power outages in recent weeks. As the hours ticked by, many of us found our patience being taxed, wondering why it was taking so long for the lights to come back on. That’s quite human, if you ask me. Saint Teresa of Avila is said to have once complained, “Lord, I want patience and I want it now!”
Waiting is defined as resting in expectation of something or someone.  For hours we expected the power to be back on. Naturally, the sooner the better, thank you, so that we could get on with whatever we were doing. But what did we do in the mean time?
Waiting can be done either passively or actively. Pacing the floor, staring out the window, sitting still, twiddling one’s thumbs are ways some of us wait passively.  As the expression goes, we “kill time,” essentially doing nothing and when there is nothing to do, time seems to pass so slowly.
Waiting actively on the other hand means finding something to keep us busy until the anticipated moment arrives.  Many of us actively wait for the next ferry by reading a book; others do so by writing a letter or using a laptop.  Without any TV during the blackout, did you read by candlelight?
Waiting actively is what advent is about, so what are we waiting for? Ask any child and you are likely to hear, “Christmas!” We tend to think of Advent primarily as a season of waiting for the first coming of Christ at his birth, but keep in mind, there are other comings of Christ…as the risen Christ at Easter, in our sacramental encounters such as the Eucharist, in our prayer life, at the moment of death, and as the readings point out, at the end of human history in what is called the parousia or the second coming.
Once again, we are hearing apocalyptic language, which isn’t to be taken literally, but the advice we are given is very much worth heeding. Jesus said, “Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.”
This is what the early Christian community twenty years after the death of Jesus was anxiously waiting for when Paul wrote his letter to the Thessalonians. The early Christians honestly believed that Jesus would return within their lifetimes but with the passing of time, they did not live to see this. By the time Luke had written his gospel, Jesus still had not returned in the manner they had anticipated.
Instead of witnessing the parousia as they had hoped, they encountered the second coming of Christ at the hour of their death.  Those who waited in the manner urged by Paul, conducting their lives to please God saw Jesus as “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” They had no reason to fear because their redemption, as Jesus pointed out, was at hand.
The bottom line is this: wait actively by conducting yourselves in a manner pleasing to God and you will find yourself someday standing before Jesus Christ, face to face. That could possibly be when his second coming takes place but in all likelihood, as was the case for faithful Christians in the past, this encounter will happen at the hour of our death.
So how might we wait actively for his coming? If you recall, a few weeks ago, I urged you to consider your stewardship of time.  Each week, God blesses us with 168 hours, so how do you spend them aside from eating and sleeping?  Are you giving at least two hours of your time back to God in the manner of prayer and service? If not, I again urge you to do so, especially in this season of waiting. Participating at Mass as you are doing now counts for one hour.  Other ways in which you could spend time with God include personal prayer, praying with your family, reading the Bible, studying the catechism, daily Mass, and Eucharistic adoration.  The Word Among Us, in addition to articles for spiritual reading, offers reflections on the readings at daily Mass.
One woman with good insight likened the season of Advent to being pregnant. She wrote, “Waiting is an impractical time in our thoughts, good for nothing, but mysteriously necessary to all that is coming. As in a pregnancy, nothing of value comes into being without a period of quiet incubation. Not a healthy baby, not a loving relationship, not a reconciliation, a work of art, and never a transformation. Rather a shortened period of incubation rings forth what is not whole or strong or even alive.”
On this first Sunday of Advent, we are reminded that we can spend all our time waiting and doing nothing, or we can wait actively, doing our Father’s business. As Jesus cautions, this is how we will be judged when he comes again. If we want to have a healthy, loving relationship with Jesus, like Mary, we need to sit quietly in prayer and let the Spirit do what it will. Do this and you will stand tall before the Son of Man.

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Christ the King

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For a sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll wrote Through the Looking Glass. One verse of his unusual poetry comes to mind as I think of today’s feast.
 
    “The time has come,” the walrus said,
        “To talk of many things:
    Of shoes –and ships –and sealing wax
        Of cabbages –and kings,
    And why the sea is boiling hot
        And whether pigs have wings.”
 
Perhaps some day the sea will be boiling hot or genetic engineering may create pigs with wings but those topics aren’t relevant to us here and now. Rather, the time has come for us to talk about kings, namely a certain king, the one who calls himself the alpha and the omega, “the one who is, and who was and who is to come, the almighty.”
 
Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King in 1925 when Europe was in real political upheaval; a time of disillusionment was sweeping the continent after WWI that led to fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany and communism in Russia.  The Holy Father’s motive was to remind us that Jesus Christ is our ultimate leader, king of the kingdom of peace and justice. No other king will defeat the evil in our midst or succeed in bringing us lasting peace.
 
Admittedly, the idea of Jesus Christ as a king is too foreign for some of us to grasp. After all, we overthrew a monarchy in our quest for independence, opting for democracy instead. Our nation does not have a monarchy, per se, but it has struggled with presidents who have at times proven to be self-serving rather than serving.
 
While Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin are long gone, greed, egotism, and hunger for ultimate power are not.
 
So, what comes to mind when you think of kings? Henry VIII? Louis XVI? Macbeth? King Lear? David of the Old Testament? King Arthur and his round table? Old King Cole? Burger King? The King of Rock, Elvis Presley? Whatever comes to mind matters, for your notion of king influences your reaction to viewing Jesus as Christ the King.
The conversation Jesus has with Pilate in the gospel is perhaps one of the most significant ones in the Bible. Throughout the ages, Christians have used this to better understand how Jesus viewed himself.
 
Pilate kept searching for the truth by asking many questions. “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus evades the question with one of his own. In turn, Pilate finally asks, “What have you done?” Again, Jesus sidesteps the matter, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.”  “Ah, then you are a king?” Pilate asks. Jesus replies, “You say I am a king…”
 
Pilate questions Jesus, wondering if he is about to mount an insurrection against the Romans.  While he doesn’t deny that he is a king, Jesus explains that he is a king in a manner Pontius Pilate or any of his critics or other contemporaries cannot comprehend.
 
Repeatedly through the use of parables, Jesus speaks of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, telling us that the reign of God is like yeast…a mustard seed….leaven…a treasure hidden in a field.
 
For Jesus, kingship does not mean political power or clout, certainly not in the manner that any king in history has welded power. Yet we are still dealing with authority here.  Are we allowing Jesus to rule us, that is, be the foundation for our lives?
 
Jesus said to Pilate, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  He is saying the same thing to us today. That, as we well know, cannot be said of earthly leaders.  If truth really matters to us, Jesus is the king we want in our lives.
 
Those who ignore the truth fail to see the harm of sin in our midst. They see God’s moral wisdom as being negotiable and arbitrary.  So long as they fail to see the truth of his teachings or refuse to heed them, however unpleasant that truth may be, they really can’t profess Jesus as their king. On the other hand, if they were to accept Jesus as their king, they could see the wisdom he offers us as the means to attain the peace and justice they yearn for.
 
To achieve the goal of bringing us into the kingdom of God, that is, salvation, Jesus conquered the three powers in our midst that have terrorized humanity from the very beginning: Satan, sin, and death.
 
The bottom line for all Christians is this: we are subjects of Christ our king to the extent that we acknowledge him as the lord of our lives. If we let God shape our free will then we are allowing Christ to rule over us. Until then, the real kings who assert influence in our lives are likely to be those whom Jesus came to conquer: Satan, sin and death.  I suggest that we think of Jesus as the king of hearts. Recognize him as the one to whom you ultimately belong. Allow him to be the foundation upon which you can build a better life for yourself. After all, he draws us into himself with nothing less than love. Can any other king make such a claim?

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33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Reflecting on these readings, especially the gospel, I was reminded of a song written by Curly Putnam and made famous by country singers, including the late Johnny Cash.
 
The old home town looks the same, as I step down from the train, and there to meet me is my mama and my papa. Down the road I look, and there comes Mary, Hair of gold and lips like cherries. It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.
 
The old house is still standing, though the paint is cracked and dry, and there’s the old oak tree that I used to play on.
 
Down the lane I walk with my sweet Mary, Hair of gold and lips like cherries. It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.
 
Yes, they’ll all come to see me, Arms reaching, smiling sweetly. It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.
 
Then I awake and look around me, at the four gray walls that surround me, and I realize that I was only dreaming. For there’s a guard, and there’s a sad old padre, Arm in arm, we’ll walk at daybreak. Again, I’ll touch the green, green grass of home.
 
Yes, they’ll all come to see me in the shade of the old oak tree, as they lay me ’neath the green, green grass of home.
 
The unexpected ending of this song resonates with I hear Jesus talking about in this gospel. In effect he cautions us, “The hour will come when you will die, just as that man did. No one knows when that hour will be except my Father, but it will come.” Unlike the convict, whose time is up, we are being given a second chance at life here and now.
 
When my mother died, I read a book entitled On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a doctor who worked extensively with terminally ill patients. Commenting on the reflections of their own lives as they awaited death, she writes, “They saw in the final analysis that only two things mattered: the service you rendered to others and love. All those things we think are important, like fame, money, prestige, and power are insignificant.”
 
Dr. Kubler-Ross’ conclusion tallies perfectly with what Jesus taught in his lifetime, a message he tells us that will never pass away. Just four weeks ago, we heard him say, “…the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve.”  Can we say the same about ourselves? Have we come to serve?
 
Using what is called apocalyptic language, Jesus is urging his followers to be ready for the moment when life as we know it comes to an end. Some of us will be given ample notice with the diagnosis of a terminal illness as my friend, Kay Keyes, was when she became ill months ago with cancer. Others will have no warning like those whose lives end abruptly in a tragic accident or on a battle field in distant Iraq yet ideally when the moment comes, we will be ready.
 
Imagine the moment being for you right now. How satisfied would you be with the quality of your record of service and love? Unlike the convict in Curly Putnam’s song, we have another chance, beginning today, so what shall we do?
 
Dare we follow the example of the psalmist who sings, “I set the Lord ever before me; with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.” He does so, knowing that God will not abandon him. “You will show me the path to life, fullness of joys in your presence, the delights of your right hand forever.” Clearly, he was not afraid to place God first in his life!  Are we?
 
In a nutshell, when Jesus arrives to greet us personally, he will want to know what we have done with our lives and with the many gifts we have received.  The only thing that really matters, as many a dying person has testified, will be the service and love we have given to God and neighbor. While we cannot undo the shortcomings of the past, we can ask ourselves, “How we better live the rest of our lives?”
 
We can easily put off answering that question just as we often tend to put off contemplating our own mortality, but that is a question we had better answer before it is too late.
 
Stewardship provides us with the tools for living that better life, namely, a life of total accountability and responsibility, acknowledging God as creator and owner of all. As stewards, we should see ourselves as caretakers of God’s gifts.  Stewardship pleases God because the good steward is careful of creation, is respectful of justice and charity, and is prayerful at all times.
 
Our offering of time, talent, and treasure is a statement that we belong to God.  It is an act of faith, an act of trust, an act of worship, and an act of belonging.  It is living out our commitment as disciples of Jesus to be Christ-centered rather than self-centered. If we value our eternal happiness, we will heed the warning in this gospel and put our books in order, making peace with God and our neighbors.
 
The prophet, Micah, provides us with a good summary for living this life, “This is what Yahweh asks of you; only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and walk humbly with your God.” Do this and you shall shine brightly like the stars forever.

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