Homilies from St. Anthony, Allston, MA

God With Us

There is a fascinating passage in the Bible, it is actually in the Gospel of John, which is not today’s reading, but it will lead us back to it. The passage is Jesus saying: “Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days.”

It is a fascinating statement, because in a sense it did not happen and in another sense it actually did.

When Jesus dies on the cross, he becomes the lamb of God. He is at that moment the ultimate sacrifice to God. The Father no longer requires the sacrifice of lambs in the temple. Forty years later the temple is destroyed by the Romans, never to be built again. The previous two times it was destroyed, it was rebuilt. The only place the sacrifice of lambs could happen was in fact in the Temple, so that practice stopped permanently with the destruction of the Temple. It started with Abraham.

What Jesus says, actually happens, just not in a three day period.

 

There is an important focus here: We can see it in our teaching: The Church is not the building, but rather it is the people of God. This is exactly what began at Pentecost fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection with the coming of the Holy Spirit.

What we can see in today’s Gospel is that transition beginning to happen. It begins not with Jesus’ Crucifixion but with John the Baptist’s proclamation.

Listen to what he says.

“I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” ^[1]

His message is: “Jesus is coming and He will baptize us in the Holy Spirit and Fire.” We see this happen at Pentecost and this happened to you at your baptism and confirmation. But what else happened. We became the Temple of the Holy Spirit by the indwelling of the Trinity which began at our Baptism and continued at our Confirmation. Now it is not the temple where we find God, but at the center of the meaning of Christmas. It is Emmanuel: “God is with us,” and has been with us since the First Christmas. 

This is significant because unlike the time prior to Jesus’ death and resurrection, God was separated from us.  You needed the Levite to be the intercessor for you. There was a curtain in the Temple that separated the people from the sacrifice given by the high priest and so that action was shrouded. However, that changed with the death and resurrection of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit. Now we have Christ within us, in our midst and so the Temple is no longer necessary to worship God.

Even this space, the Church is where we gather to worship Christ, to commune with him and be nourished by him through his word and his Eucharist his presence, but the space is still not the presence of God. He is among His people.

Our embracing Him and living as his disciples in such a way that we bear fruit in our lives is essential.

Our Catholicism calls us to live in communion with God that means daily united in Him and led by Him. In the Early days before the name Christian stuck, disciples were called prophets for that is our call. A prophet has an intimate union with Christ which transforms those around them. That is what Christ calls us to do.

We must be people of prayer.

Cardinal O’Malley is strongly rooted in prayer and wants his priests to pray two hours a day, but often I hear many bishops promoting different ideas, but I do not see them publicly speaking on prayer. However, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that you cannot live the rules if you are not a person of prayer, if you are not in union with Christ. Prayer has to be the central part of our experience because in prayer, we encounter Christ. Cardinal Sarah says we bargain with Christ, but we know Christ.

Even Pope Francis says that prayer is essential to live the Catholic life.

Without prolonged moments of adoration, of prayerful encounter with the word, of sincere conversation with the Lord, our work easily becomes meaningless; we lose energy as a
result of weariness and difficulties, and our fervor dies out. The Church urgently needs the deep breath of prayer, and to my great joy groups devoted to prayer and intercession, the prayerful reading of God’s word and the perpetual adoration of the Eucharist are growing at every level of ecclesial life. He Wrote in Evangelii Gaudium.

Cardinal Sarah teaches a parish without eucharistic adoration is dead, again the essential element of prayer.

Now let’s return to the beginning of the homily.

The AP published an article about the new line of lawsuits against the Church that are designed to bring the Church to its knees.

The article included a picture taken of one of the lawyers on the phone overlooking the spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan and literally asking “I wonder what that is wort?” The implication is obvious, he was looking to force the Archdiocese of New York to sell the Cathedral so that they can pay those he represents and for his fees as well.

Obviously, the scene was upsetting so I took it to prayer as I do anyway. This brought me to that scene of destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.

I think if we went to Jesus right now and said, what are you going to do to save St. Patrick’s Cathedral? He would say “Nothing. Destroy that temple and I will rise amidst the purified Catholic people of the United States.” God’s presence comes amidst His people and his people have a choice to bear fruit or be swept up in the secular wave that seeks to silence the voice of the Church.

The wave will be cast out to where God is not, but those who seek to bear fruit in Christ, will encounter Him in his full glory.

Those who want to create a world without God will find it and it will be their eternal home, but those who seek Christ no matter how much our culture seeks to silence us, will be welcomed by Him in the world where God actually is in our midst. Let us invite him to deepen his presence in our parish, in our families and in our lives by exploring our faith more and more through prayer.  

 

^[1] Catholic Daily Readings. (2009). Bellingham, WA: Faithlife.

A New Beginning

Today is the First Sunday of Advent, this makes it the First Sunday of the Liturgical Year and also the liturgical cycle. If you did not know, our Church reading calendar is on a three year cycle—Years A, B and C. We just finished Year C, so now we begin the cycle all over again. This cycle and in fact this year will include the national elections and all the hoopla that will surround them, so it may be an interesting time.

We need as always to look at this time through our liturgy.

Our second reading today is from Romans. St. Paul is writing to the formerly pagan Romans and explaining that their lifestyle prior to knowing Christ must now change to a whole new way of living in Christ. It is a good thought for us today. This is from chapter 13, but back in chapter 12 Paul calls all his readers to a renewal of their minds. This is putting that admonition into practice.

Many times, we can forget that the writings of the saints over the centuries were often to Christians, so the sermons against sins and calling people away from the path to Hell were spoken to whole cultures that already embraced our faith.

Now we are living in a culture more like the First Century Rome than Eleventh Century Europe. We live in a time where we are choosing Christ every day in the midst of a culture that truly does not understand Him.

We are also learning that how we live our faith today needs to be radically different than people expect. In fact, the problems in the Church may come from a loss of understanding of what it means to be Catholic. It is that false understanding that people call Catholicism.  

 

Cardinal Sarah, whom I quoted several times over the past several weeks, laments the fact that people assume Catholicism is nothing but morals. He explains that actually Catholicism begins with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This is why prayer is so important. It is through prayer that we understand where Christ is leading us and we change our lives accordingly. In fact, he, citing Pope St. John Paul II says that “The path marked out by divine Law is not a moral police ordinance, but the mind of God.”a [1]

This is the point of St. Paul’s teachings: Now that you know Christ, leave your past behind you, embrace Christ and allow him to lead you forward.[1]

He is teaching the pagans who sought out and found Christ that the life they are leaving behind is not compatible with a relationship with Christ. We miss the point if we figure that is the message of Paul. He is not just saying to let go of the past but more to embrace the future in Christ.

This has to be our message as well.

Our Church has been through a real cleansing over the past almost twenty years. However, the time to be cleansed needs to change to a time to walk anew in the Lord. This is especially true for this parish. Never forget whom we are. We are surrounded by Harvard Business School. We are just down the street from one of the powerhouses of the Public Broadcasting System. Not far from Boston University and of course from the Local CBS outlet. Of course, there are the Bruins and Celtics across the tracks. You living your faith by doing something as simple as being people of prayer and by coming to Church is powerful especially right here in this parish.

There are countless lives that are touched by your neighborhoods every day and many of those lives want to see Catholicism is in action.  

Many only understand it in terms of the morality police that Cardinal Sarah decried.

Our faith is something bigger and more powerful than just a system of morality which is why we need to look at what St. Paul is saying.

In about a month people will be talking about New Year’s Resolutions and all the gyms will have specials for the first month of 2020. This new liturgical year is not the time for a resolution but a decision to follow Christ more closely. To grow closer in Christ so that just doing that will change the rest.

I am going to invite you to make this your mission this year. Make it your decision to draw closer to Christ by making time daily for prayer, bible reading for example spend time with the daily readings of the Church and definitely do good spiritual reading. I obviously cannot recommend to you enough Cardinal Robert Sarah’s new book: The Day Is Now Far Spent. Many believe he is a reactionary, nothing could be further from the truth. His teaching is radical for our times.

I want to invite you to consider seeking Christ through contemplative prayer and Thomas Merton is a good writer for that material, especially New Seeds of Contemplation which fifty years on, is still a great book.

I read a great column on Medium by a woman who grew up in a Calvinist background[2], endemic in this area. She wrote that Calvin taught that humanity is nothing more than poor wretched sinners. Never forget the most famous American sermon was given in our own state: Massachusetts, enforcing that same idea of Calvin. The Sermon was Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Rev. Jonathan Edwards in North Hampton, Massachusetts. The title speaks for itself. None of that is Catholicism. However, many people who reject Christ, reject that understanding of Christ which is not Catholic. Christ calls us to know him through prayer and contemplation.

Make this new year, especially during Advent a new beginning in deepening our relationship with Christ. Leave the past struggles behind and let’s walk a new road to Christ. If possible, come visit the blessed sacrament especially on Wednesdays from 6pm-7:30pm after work. Because I have a feeling the next year will be a turbulent one, especially in light of the current upcoming election and the issues surrounding it. People will seek to know there is more to our existence than Green New Deals, Impeachment proceedings, walls on the Southern border and issues coming out of Eastern Europe.

There is everything that is Christ whom we experience personally, communally and profoundly. This year, let us do all we can to experience Christ to the fullest.

 

 

[1] Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Diat Nicholas, God or Nothing, 2015, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, Kindle Version, p. 156

 

[2]Hobbs, Allegra, The Self Help Movement is Upending American Christianity, Forge.Medium.com Citation does not constitute endorsement. I do not agree with use of the enneagram (ed.)

The Power of Christ's Presence in Our Midst

Today’s Gospel is a fascinating story that is only seen in Luke. Matthew and Mark only refer to Jesus  being crucified between two revolutionaries. In Luke, we see the interaction between the man who came to be known as the good thief and Jesus. If you imagine two camera angles one the long shot where you see Jesus crucified between two others and then dissolve into the close up where you see and hear the conversation between Jesus and the other two, you can get a good sense of the two different focuses.

There is so much in this little passage and it speaks volumes.

First let us look at the bad thief. He says if you are the son of God, then get yourself off the cross and us as well. Look carefully at that formula, it is the same that devil uses against Jesus in the temptation in the desert. If you are the son of God turn these stones into bread.

So, the bad thief in his intense narcissism is channeling the devil.

This confirms St. Maximus the Confessor’s teaching that the crucifixion was truly demonic—it is the devil at work trying the get Jesus not to love for just a millisecond so humanity would have been lost. It is here we can see what the devil manifestations really look like by his attempt to destroy all humanity through trying to get Jesus to fail. 

Now notice the good thief, he not only scolds the bad thief, but he also asks Jesus to remember him when he gets into his kingdom. Despite the overpowering prevalence of evil, the Good Thief by acknowledging Jesus for whom he is, becomes resistant to the worst of the devil’s power.

 

There are two powerful things there. One notice that even though the bad thief is channeling the devil, the good thief scolds him. He does not fear him and tells him off.

In Christ, we have power even over the devil when he is at his strongest. Christ conquered death and conquered evil. Nothing can defeat us in Christ.

Then he asks Jesus to welcome him when he gets into his kingdom. You may not realize how profound that statement is, but it is profound. You see this means that the good thief was the first human, besides Mary, to recognize Jesus’ true mission. Leading all repentant sinners to eternal life.

The apostles did not understand it until Jesus’ resurrection.

In the Sacra Pagina series on the Gospel of Luke, we see this powerful teaching that everyone rejecting Christ sees salvation only through the perpetuation of human existence. I would add—without transformation.

If Jesus did get the bad thief off the cross, he would not stop being a bad thief; he would continue until he ended up in the same place.

The pharisees continued being whom they were after Jesus died. Everyone continued being whom they were before they met Jesus because they rejected his promises of salvation. Their hope was in all the Earth had to offer them, but the Earth was passing away. In their case, it was quite literally so because forty years later the Romans destroyed the temple and wiped the political entity of Judah off the map. The Jewish state would not exist again until 1948.

How many people reject Christ every day because they want what this world has to offer and how many others warn that our world is in great flux?

However, notice it is those who discover that this world ultimately offers us nothing in the long run, as evidenced by the good thief on the cross, that discover Jesus’ promise.

St. Bonaventure points out that Jesus allows himself to be lifted up on the cross in order to ensure all understand that He is accessible to all. Once we recognize that Jesus came for even the worst of all sinners then we realize no one is outside the hope of Jesus. He offers himself even to the worst of all sinners. Remember, the good thief does what the bad thief does not—he acknowledges his sin repents and offers himself to Christ. The bad thief never acknowledges His sin, does not repent and dies outside of God’s graces.

There we see powerfully everything we need to know about salvation. We must never take our own salvation for granted and always be ready by frequenting the Sacrament of Reconciliation AKA Confession.

We must never despair of the salvation of even the worst of all sinners. In fact, I know of no saint who ever felt there was anyone had no hope of salvation. They knew that the repentant sinner, no matter how much of a sinner he or she may be would find Christ.

Finally, however, this also refutes a common belief that all are saved, for they cannot resist Jesus’ powerful grace once they encounter Him. If that were true, there would be two good thieves on the cross. One remember, never repents.

This is a powerful lesson. We are agents of God’s mercy. I want you to notice something. What did Jesus say on the cross before the good thief spoke to him? Nothing! His mere presence spoke volumes to both thieves. One who had a selfish hardened heart was revealed for whom he was; the other who recognized that his way of life offered him nothing repented. It was then he spoke to Jesus.

Until he spoke to Jesus, Jesus said nothing to either of them. He never spoke to the bad thief, never tried to convert him and by the way the bad thief remains one of the two people to whom he never responded the other is King Herod.

If you ever think that your coming to Mass is a waste a time, never forget you are as much a sign to the worst of all sinners by supporting this parish and attending Mass as Jesus was on the Cross itself.

Further, even the worst of all sinners who repents gets into Heaven as Jesus proclaims all the time. However, again it is not as some say that it is an automatic process and everyone gets in. No, it requires a desire to recognize Jesus as our Lord and King and to build our friendship with Him. We enter into communion with him and become powerful agents of his love and mercy.

Prayer is essential and in this case, the prayer begins with nothing more than Remember me Lord when you enter into your kingdom.

1. Discuss how your presence at Mass is a powerful witness to the world.

 

2. The good thief humbly accepted his fate. Why didn’t the bad thief? Describe as many attributes to his character you may find.

Oh Oh

Currently, we are at the beginning of the end of the liturgical year. There are thirty-four weeks of ordinary time and we are at the beginning of the thirty-third. If you look at our readings, they are a stark focus for this time: the end of our lives and in this case the end of the world.

It is a subject that comes upon us often in popular culture especially of late. We hear of NASA keeping an eye on asteroids and then we hear of wars, dissensions, fights and everything else and, of course, we hear of people saying that we have less than twelve years to live unless we stop using airplanes. Well you know I hate to fly, so I have done my part, don’t you know.

Notice that Jesus says to ignore all those rumors. What does He indicate is the actual sign of the end times? It is division. Everything that causes division between members of families, between nations and cultures, all of this on the extreme level is the sign of the end times. Remember, God’s greatest desire is unity not division. War is caused by disharmony. The greater this dispute, the larger the war. Many years ago, I saw the Church sign at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Holyoke, MA “God adds and multiplies, the devil subtracts and divides.” Always remember that formula.

One of the greatest problems in our country right now, something I warned about when it first became apparent back just after the turn of the century, is the attitude of people demanding our world their way. It has only gotten stronger and today when various mainstream publications are warning the division in this country is reaching its breaking point, people today ask me my opinion and my response is the same—I warned you seventeen years ago this is where we would be.

 

Why are we here, because what we believe is true! Remember what we believe is that we are humans and humans have a flaw that leads to division. Our original sin makes it impossible for us to create the perfect world. You cannot create a peaceful world unless you put an end to what causes disharmony. It is only in Christ we will find the ultimate form of unity. Therefore, we cannot build our world our way and create peace. We cannot create a world of peace on our own. It is just not part of our DNA. Over and over again, our race has tried to build a world of peace and over and over again it fails, what is the result: wars and rumors of wars.

What we believe is that when we focus on God and seek to do his will, then alone will we find peace, because in him is unity in his wisdom and grace. If we do not lay the foundation in peace then humans will accomplish great things but they will not create peace because we have a flaw that makes it impossible.

One of the greatest errors in our world happened in the 1930’s when then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain worked out a deal with Hitler to prevent war, that was in September 1938, less than 365 days later, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. Everyone believed they could create a perfectly peaceful world and instead the greatest war of the history of humanity happened. What was at the foundation of the war, the fundamental belief that humanity could build a perfect world. It has never happened and it never will happen unless we root ourselves in Christ.

Cardinal Sarah, an African, is warning the West that we are in the same spot that the Romans were at the fall of the Roman Empire. Remember, as an African he is looking at us from another perspective. However, what fell in Rome was a Christian structure that was shakily built upon a pagan foundation. Christianity was an evolutionary development in the Empire. What the west has now is a pagan structure that removed the foundation of the Christian, it is again on shaky grounds. The same shaky grounds on which 1938’s Munich Accord was built. They compromised with the pagan ideas coming out of the enlightenment because they promise peace.

Our faithfulness to Christ is a thorn in the side of the secularists who seek to build a world without God. However, it is a reminder that we are here when their world collapses again.

We cannot forget we are called to be signs of the truths that are Christ to a world that seeks what it cannot find, because it looks in the wrong places. It seeks from humanity what only divinity can provide.

We are the those called to remind people that Christ is the way, the truth and the life because that is our mission as Baptized Catholics. Those forces that reject Christ will do all they can to silence us and that is their current mission. Unfortunately, some of the bishops whom I also warned many years ago are lost and aloof to this.

You come to Church when the Catholic Church has suffered great pains. But notice something about the Church. Few remember that the Boston Globe reported numerous times that the abuse issue has always been at a lower percentage in the Catholic church than anywhere else. The Southern California school districts paid out one third of a billion dollars to settle lawsuits for the same issue since 2014. No one focuses on them or any other school district. One evangelical who is also an FBI agent declared that the Evangelical churches have a more serious issue with abuse than the Catholics. So why are they focused only on the Catholics? Their tactic is simple, taught by Saul Alinsky, if you want to silence the Church go after her sins. St. Paul warned that those trying to silence the Church would use the sins of her members to give them more ammunition. Let us not take any of that lightly.

There will come a time when all those who sought to silence the voice of Christ in the name of their demands to create their world their way will come close to their goal. It will be then as Jesus predicts, they will learn the truth and that they were on the wrong side against it, but it will be too late for them.

Until that time, our perseverance is an essential sign to the world that Christ is real, his teaching is true and our message to the world is urgent. Now is the time to lead all, especially those against us to embrace Christ and for us in unity to be signs that Christ is the way, the truth and the light.

 

Leading People to Encounter Christ

Today we see in the Gospel a story of conversion. Zacchaeus changes from living a sinful, money centered life to one that seeks to do the right thing. There is an important part of this story and if we miss it, we will do everything else people do in evangelization that turns the world off. We will focus on what he was doing and not how he changed.

What was he doing? He was extorting people, he was a miser and he made his god the money he gained by underhanded practices as a tax collector for the Roman Empire. I am sure the Romans would make it quite advantageous to be a tax collector. You realize it was an unpopular position within the Jewish community, especially if someone was Jewish. So, if the Romans wanted their taxes they would have to keep their tax collectors happy. What would make them happy? Make them rich.

Now, all of a sudden, Zacchaeus stops being the money hungry tax collector and instead becomes one who follows tax law and Jewish law and does what he is legally required to do. Notice by the way, he does not stop being a tax collector.

 

What brought this change of heart?

If you do not get this, and you want to evangelize others, you will only succeed in angering them. Ready???

He encountered Jesus.

 The best way to evangelize is to lead people to encounter Christ personally and intimately. That means to teach people to pray. Let Jesus do the conversion as He does here.

Cardinal Sarah in his latest book, which I highly recommend to you—I cannot emphasize how important that book is for our time—reminds us that we do not follow a system we follow a person and that person is Jesus Christ.

We encounter Him in prayer and understanding the Bible and in seeking Him in all we do. Once we encounter him, it is then we conform our lives, as Zacchaeus does because through Him, we begin to see ourselves and others differently and we change are way of living. Jesus, however, changes our self-understanding as we come to a deeper way of knowing Him.

Going back to the Gospel story, when Jesus encountered Zacchaeus, he was a crooked tax collector. We do not know what Jesus said to change his way at his dinner, but I am sure it was something that led him to understand himself in a new way. It was the encounter with Jesus that changes him.

St. John Chrysostom taught that it is through obedience to God a soul becomes filled with grace. A soul will obey God when it understands God is the source of its being. When it realizes God is leading the soul to the fullness of what He seeks it to be and that happens when the soul begins to know God.

I read a lot of material from secular sources of people who feel hated and despised by Christians including Catholics. What causes this, I realize is they learn that in order to know Christ they must live a moral life.

This is not what happens here. Zacchaeus encounters Christ and then He changes because his heart changed first.

You will find the same message written in a kind of code in the story of the Magi.

Once they encounter Christ they end up going home a different route. Matthew is teaching this is what happens. When we encounter Christ our life changes for good or for ill. Whose life changes for the bad? We may find that contradictory, however, the pharisees would not. They would say instead, this principle is true for they would be doing great until the Jesus came on the scene and tipped their applecart, literally in the terms of what He did outside the temple.

Many of us may remember the song Signs from our time growing up. It is not a Christian song at all. It is about a man who encounters one sign after another telling people things like if they trespass they will be shot, if they had long hair they would not be hired, etc., The song ends with the man fighting against all these signs and just sits down and prays. “Thank you Lord for thinking about me I am a alive and doing fine.”

If you want to evangelize you need to lead people to come to know Christ personally. Teach them to come to the Church and pray before the Blessed Sacrament and to believe in Christ.

You need to do this before you teach them any rules, because if they do this, they will ask you how to follow the rules. That is because the rules help us to deepen our relationship with Christ. If you teach them the rules first, what do they learn about Christ: rules.

It is kind of like when you go to a Catholic parish, not this one, you park your car and what do you see first? The beautiful architecture praising God and proclaiming his name? No. What you see first is:

No ballplaying

No skateboarding

No bike riding,

No overnight parking

No public parking

Why is that there? Because their insurance company is not in the evangelizing business.

The very reason for Jesus’ coming on the scene is for people to meet God face to face, to encounter Him.

Even if we tell people they are not ready to receive communion or not properly disposed. What we really say is when you come to communion encounter Christ on His terms and you will know him more. Do not encounter him on your terms or you will never understand your encounter. Again, it is not about rules first but about encountering Christ first.

That brings us to the rules.

The rules lead people to the path to encounter Christ more deeply. But if we teach them the rules first then they will not encounter him at all.

Let us teach people to encounter Christ taking Zacchaeus as our model and you will evangelize correctly because you will be taking Christ as your model.

Questions for discussion

at home or work:

 

1. Are there rules of the Church that you do not like?

 

2. What would you ask to Jesus about those specific rules? What would he respond? (Assume telling you not to obey them is not an option.)

 

Sorry, Charlie

The most disturbing conversation I ever had as a priest was with a man who went to Mass every day.  I thought of him when I read this parable again.

Notice what the pharisee says: How blessed he is that God did not make him like the others. He describes others as greedy, adulterous and dishonest.

When I spoke to this man about the need for him to consider confession, he would say how he did not need to go to confession: “I don't need confession, everyone else does because they are all pigs.”

Look how similar he is to the pharisee in today’s Gospel. "I thank you," he says, "for I am not like the others."

He then, of course, boasts of his devotion and their sins.

 

But the important part to notice is that he is worshiping God on his own terms, not on God’s.

He is doing many things to prove to God how holy he is.

He reminds me so much of the old icon for Star-Kist Tuna, Charlie, trying to prove that he had good taste only to learn that Star-Kist did not want tuna with good taste, but tuna that tastes good.

Here he is working to prove that he was worthy of being blessed by God, but Jesus is showing that he is far from deserving such recognition.

Now look at what the publican offers. All he offers is his sinfulness and a sense his repentance. Actually, he does not even offer this, he just comes before the Lord humbly as a sinful man and Jesus says that he received his blessing from God.

So often I read that people think we need to be proving our devotion, but Jesus calls us to be like the publican fully aware of God’s great mercy and holiness and aware of our humanness in great need of both. Jesus always said that it is the greatest sinner who is most appreciative of God’s mercy. That is why He taught that the tax collectors and the prostitutes were getting to Heaven before the pharisees.

We are on our way to eternal life by recognizing whom we truly are and we approach God out of our truth invite him into our truth and do not run from him when our weaknesses confront us with the truth we do not want to acknowledge. We are far from the Kingdom of God when we put up a false front that is actually a lie.

That is why it is so important to understand how the pharisee, who is a character we find in every parish, in every community, in every culture throughout time is a false understanding of what it means to be Catholic. The reason is the focus is exclusively on him. Notice how many times he uses the "I" word.

Jesus uses 44 words to quote him and he uses the I word four times. Almost ten percent of everything he says is the first personal pronoun. Notice something else, Jesus describes him as praying the words to himself.

He describes the publican as simply praying. That man says eight words and does not use the first person pronoun. He only uses one direct object pronoun to refer to himself. He is totally, humbly focused on the love and mercy of God and the pharisee is, as Jesus says, focused exclusively on himself.

So, according to Jesus, who gets to Heaven? The poor sinner, the poor publican. The pharisee is lost.

This highlights something that is essential within us. The pharisee is lost because he is self-deceived. Everything he does is on his own terms and the problem is that he does it all well. So he does not see that he is doing many things, none of them are actually serving God.

This remind me of a story my father used to tell, I think it was true. The baseball game was tied, there was one out, the bases were loaded and it was the ninth inning.

The star of the team was coming up to bat and the manager told him to make a sacrifice fly out. This would have driven in the winning run and the team would win the game.

The star hits a home run on the first pitch, it is a grand slam bringing in four runs. The whole crowd goes wild and cheers, the game ends in spectacular style.

The manager greets the home run hitter at the plate and fines him.

He won the game by not doing what the manager asked. He played not as a teammate but to glorify himself.

The pharisee is trying to win salvation by glorifying himself.

The publican is realizing Heaven cannot be won on his own power. Only by acknowledging his own humanity in the face of God’s glory can he understand the power of God’s love and mercy.

That same message is for us.

The most dangerous sin we can ever commit is the sin of pride. No other sin is so dangerous, none. It is the mother of all sins, literally. It is the sin that makes us think of ourselves greater than we actually are and leads us to replace God in our lives with ourselves.

The greatest virtue is humility, the polar opposite of pride. It leads us to see ourselves as we truly are: human, creatures of God and unable to know, love and serve God without recognizing our deep need of His grace leading us to be in union with Christ in order to be his disciples.

This is why true prayer is so important.  We may do many things to serve God, but the most important thing we must do is just experience his true friendship and we can only do that by praying to him as we would speak to any intimate friend and that is about everything.

The most important piece of advice I ever learned as a priest actually came to me as a seminarian. It was the words of Fulton Sheen who demanded that a priest spend one hour before the Blessed Sacrament. The same goes for everyone. Daily prayer of just in the presence of Christ and if it cannot be in front of the Blessed Sacrament then a special place where we can sit and build our friendship with Christ speaking to him mentally and if necessary physically and humbly as intimately and truthfully as we want. There we will find the true power of His grace in our lives and be able to share it with others through our lives.

Finally, we can take this message for ourselves, but never forget, that there are many publicans outside our doors, who feel they have to be like the pharisee to enter. They have no idea that they are closer to Christ than so many others, all they have to do is enter that door and pray. 

The Sacrament of Healing

You know that I do writing and occasionally I am contacted to do some volunteer writing usually for Catholic events. I was asked to interview a Fr. Kaz from the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, MA about Love and Mercy Faustina: a new movie that will be shown nationally for one night on October 28^th. It is about St. Faustina Kowalska and the origins of the Divine Mercy devotion. It is excellent and I highly recommend it to you. I can give you more details if you request them after Mass.

The first thing I said to him was that I know little about this devotion. They never taught it to us in the seminary and so I knew nothing about it until I ended up in my first parish in Dorchester and the Sisters of Divine Mercy rented the convent. That was the first I learned anything about it.

There is an interesting dimension to this teaching. If you have never seen the image, you will notice that it is of Jesus standing in front of black background with two rays of light coming from his heart. They represent the blood and water of his mercy extended to all who seek it.

I went to the National Shrine on Thursday and spent some time in prayer in front of the image and one thing struck me: It was not the image but the blackness that was behind it. If you look carefully at the image, you will see that this is Jesus, being exactly what he says He is, the light shining in the darkness. Purposely, there is nothing else in the painting besides the image, but the background is not not painted, it is instead a deep black.

So, if you were to encounter Jesus and just pridefully ignore him, where would you go? Deep into where there is no light and no presence of God. We know that through Jesus, we are forgiven of our sins, that there is no sin that he will not forgive, save the sin of refusing to be forgiven of our sins.

So then what sin is represented by the blackness? The sin of pride. The sin of refusing to humble ourselves before Christ and receive His mercy and forgiveness. The sin of saying, we are in no need of what He offers us.

Today’s Gospel features the lepers who humble themselves before Christ and receive his healing. They were lepers, they were ostracized from the community and had only themselves for companionship and support. One was a Samaritan, so among the lepers he was also an outsider because he was not a Jew.

They are all healed, but he alone comes back indicating just how appreciative he was at being healed. There was no other recourse. He had only Christ and humbling himself before Christ he was healed. The others did nothing wrong by not going back, but he demonstrates a full understanding of what he received.

The saints often related this to the sacrament of reconciliation also known as Confession. Never forget that this is a sacrament of healing. I think too often our teachings are made to be lifeless sets of rules. When that happens, they lose their meaning and their power. The Sacrament of Reconciliation does two things to us that we can also see in the story of the lepers.

 

Through the mercy of Christ, it gives us the freedom from the darkness behind his image in the painting. It is not only that we recognize that Jesus is the source of this healing but that when we humble ourselves before him, we become free from getting lost in the darkness—no matter how many times we need to approach him

But we need to look at something else. It is this great humor that is in the Gospels. What happens next to the lepers? They are healed. They go show themselves to the priests and now they are free to return to society. That is something that they cannot keep a secret. Now people will see that they are healed and they will spread the word and this is now Jesus’ notoriety happens.

The same can be said for us. What does Jesus save us from, that deep eternal mysterious darkness that you can see behind the image of the Divine Mercy. Every time we go to confession, regardless of the sins, this is the darkness from which we are saved. However, there are so many others that need to know that experience is real.

There are many people out there who believe they are beyond the mercy and love of Christ. Some people, like those who ostracized the lepers are telling them that they are evil sinners beyond the mercy of God, believe it or not. I have little hope for them going to Heaven compared to those they condemn.

I have dealt with people over time who believe that they are so bad that Jesus cannot forgive them, or they did some awful sin that makes them unable to be forgiven. It is a terrible thing to see someone who has been lost in that pain and it is a better joy when they learn they are wrong.

People can get lost in thinking that they are worse than they are. Every so often someone will come to me desiring to go to confession and tell me that it will be a long confession for they broke all the commandments. My first response to them is always: “Who did you kill?” They say no one. Then I respond, “then you did not break all the commandments.” They realize they are not as bad as they thought they were.

This is the power of Confession for what it does is opens us up to God’s mercy through His son, Jesus Christ and saves us from that mysterious darkness behind the image of the Divine Mercy. It the darkness of pride and may even be self-imposed because we thought we were something good or bad that we were not.

 

Be the Loving Face of Christ

Cardinal Robert Sarah in his new book: The Day Is Now Far Spent, addresses the issues of the current problems in the Church. He puts it squarely in failing to seek holiness, the theme of our second reading. Further, he says that what caused all this is that we stopped praying. He is especially addressing the priests and the bishops, but also the Church as a whole as well.

We have a mission to evangelize the world, but no one talks about how to do it, but he does. He says we do it by our living a holy life. It is an essential part of what it means to be Catholic and he suggests that this must be our focus now.

How do we do that? we simply fall in love with Jesus. We make him a part of our life and let his vision transform our vision as we grow closer to Him. We do that by being people of prayer above all else.

Our Church really does not speak much to the world if we are not focused on our own holiness. He explains we must people of prayer, real prayer, what Thomas Merton called contemplative prayer.

Prayer is what makes us different than others for prayer leads to holiness.

The problem, according to Cardinal Sarah, is that we have become lost in causes and social justice. That was never the mission of the Church. This does not mean that social justice is not important but being focused on causes and not on Christ is disastrous, especially among the priests and bishops.

 

Further, we can lose a sense of how to do social justice if we are not first in pursuit of holiness.

Let us take one example: There is a lot of talk in the church about being a welcoming church. So many Christians are focused on that ‘all are welcome’ message but there is no place in the Catholic Church for not being loving people to anybody. That is what is different. The question should not be whether one is welcomed in the church, but whether one experiences love, regardless of whom he or she is.

There is a horrible story out of Tennessee, you may have heard about it. A young teen about 16 years old apparently wrote some messages to a friend who was male. The content of the letters was not revealed but they indicated that they were in some form of a sexual relationship. You know we consider that sinful, but do not forget that God’s grace and mercy is bigger than all our sins combined. That was his reality. Apparently, a former girlfriend somehow got those messages and used them to cyberbully him by outing his as gay. She did this publicly on the internet. He was so devastated that this happened that he committed suicide using a gun by the way. His whole family is devastated. So now everyone is focused on him understandably and the stigma that caused him to feel so desperate that he committed this devastating act.

We Catholics seek to live our faith in holiness and love. As Cardinal Sarah says, we must be the
 face of Christ. Maybe if we were more focused there we might be able to see this picture with better lenses.

What would the saints do in this case? Well, let us take one saint, a parish priest: St John Vianney. Now, let’s imagine that the suicide did not happen and the parishioners gathered the teen up with his letter and they brought him to St. John Vianney. They may have realized quickly that was a mistake. St John Vianney saw more hope for salvation in people like him than those who lived an ersatz form of Catholicism. He probably would have told them he did not have time for such nonsense, and then spoke to the teen about holiness, sin and Christ. He would probably have scolded those who brought him. He would have told them that the cyberbully was the one who committed the far more serious sin.

Cyberbullying is a technological form of a sin he called detraction which is saying something bad about another person even if it is true. It is so severe that it is close to the worst sin one can commit, according to beloved saint.

Just because it is using technology and it has a 21^st century name does not mean it is not the sin of detraction. That was the same sin Queen Jezebel, the most evil woman in the Bible, used against Naboth in the time of Elijah the prophet so that she could steal his vineyard. Same sin.

No one mentions that maybe if people were actually seeking holiness and were teaching the truth about mercy and God’s love, and not just his judgement, when they spoke of sin, things like this might not happen.

A good, holy person as St John Vianney would recognize the need to balance awareness of sin with love. He sought to bring Christ to a sinful but human world that needed to know the face of  Christ.

The late Fr Rufus Pereira used to explain that the worst of all pain is the feeling of abandonment. Remember, Jesus says from the cross: “My God, My God why have you abandoned me.” Those feelings of being abandoned by the rest of the world can kill, especially at that age, and detraction is one of the causes of it.

Her actions led him to feel that pain. Whether he was accurate in his assessment, it does not matter. Her actions led to his suicide because he went down that dark hole of feeling isolated and abandoned. Now you understand the real tragedy of what happened in Tennessee.

We must be accurate on sin but through holiness we learn how to reflect, accurately, Christ’s love and not what passes for Christianity today,. Cardinal Sarah says it is bourgeois.

Holiness gives us a whole different vision and more accurately displays the true face of Christ not the bourgeois that many people think of today. We cannot be holy if we are not people deeply in love with Christ and people of prayer.

1. How much do we love Christ?

 

2. How do you pray?

Dr. Peter Kreeft, John's Gospel and Writing

Boston College philosophy professor Dr. Peter Kreeft is a prolific writer. He uses his Socratic writing skills to teach about how to come to know God and how to live as a Christian.

His latest book Probes: Deep Sea Diving into Saint John’s Gospel. (Ignatius) is written as a series of 1450 reflection questions to dive deeper into the message of the Gospel. The format is, actually, passages from John’s Gospel and then discussion questions that challenge one on all elements of faith and life in the world today. The intended audience is not any group exclusively, such as Catholics, but anyone interested in probing John’s Gospel including non-believers.

I spoke with Dr. Kreeft recently about Probes, his writing style, the Church and the unique format of his presentation of the Gospel of John.

Talking about your book Probes, I was fascinated by it, especially because it is not written like any other study on any other part of the Bible. Normally, one asks what led you to write this book, this is that question and more importantly what led you to write this book in the format you choose.

People often ask me questions like that and I can’t answer them. I don’t know where the inspiration came from. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I admire Socrates and the Socratic method and I write a lot of dialogue books where Socrates interviews the great philosophers. I have this habit of dividing my mind up into two halves each half asks the other questions and answers them. So, the method of question and answer I think is a good and natural method, especially from the Bible because it comes from the Rabbinic method which is similar to the Socratic method. Jesus participated in that at age of twelve in the temple. What was he doing there? He was asking and answering questions so I think it is quite appropriate.

I do not know if this had anything to do with it. It reminded me of some of the tests I had in college because it was all questions.

Yeah and the Bible tests us. Usually you look at it as a set of answers to puzzles, but equally a set of questions and we have to give the answer. The Epistle to the Hebrews says that the word of God is a sharp two edge sword piercing asunder the soul and the spirit (cf Hebrews 4:12). It actually questions you, when you read the bible right, that is when you read it as prayer. Reading and praying can be simultaneous. You don’t look at a dead picture hanging on the wall, you look at somebody looking at you from the other side of the window.

That is a great way to put it. I like that experience even in the fact of if you are looking at piece of art you are not just looking at just a dead picture you are looking at the whole communication of the person.

Unless the art is an icon and the icon in the orthodox theology mediates the actual presence and soul of the saint. So, there you are interacting indirectly with a person who is acting back on you. You are not just looking at it, you look along it.

One of the fascinating statements that you make on page 106 is: “Why do many feel threatened by great saints rather than great sinners?” I never thought of this, but now that is exactly what we see.

We obviously see it in Christ; people so threatened by him that they had to kill Him.

The Church is going through a hard time and we know some of the reasons for it but I also think there is a part that people feel threatened by the Church.

Of course, because the Church calls us to a higher ideal than we find comfortable. We like to sit on our laurels and take it easy and the Church keeps kicking us in the pants and says: “Get moving. God calls you to be a saint, you are along way from that yet.”

Something you wrote on page 135 describes miracles as an eyewitness account and what that means. It is done in the context of the previous question — interpretation is not the same as belief. So here you address the concerns of this discussion of many interpretations but then you say interpretation is not the same as belief.

Where are you going with that?

Well I am trying to counter a very common mistake that we make in reading, not just the Bible

 but in many other books too. The mistake is to interpret the book in accordance with our own beliefs and that is a confusion because the book comes from another person’s mind. You want to understand that mind before you decide whether to agree with it or not, to believe what it believes or to disbelieve what it believes. In order to decide whether to believe or not, you first of all have to understand it. Therefore, you have to interpret it according to the author’s mind not according to your mind.

Similarly when a Gospel writer says I was there I saw it happen and I heard these words being spoken you can’t interpret that symbolically as if he is only telling a story, a parable

When a Gospel writer says: “I was there. I saw it happen and I heard these words being spoken.” He tells us that, you can’t interpret that symbolically as if he is only telling a story, a parable.

As I was reading that, one of the thoughts I had is that this teaching plays a part in everything that has to do with people arguing over certain elements of doctrine.

Yes. Since the Church is the body of the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, when we deal with Church doctrine, we are not dealing with a personal abstract idea. We are talking about the mind of a person and, therefore, we have to interpret those words in the context of the knowledge of that person and all the rest of that person’s revelation to us — the person, of course, being God himself

Which is exactly your point with interpretation is not the same as belief.

Right first you read it, then you interpret it and then you decide whether to believe it. You cannot reverse that order.

I am here in Allston, Massachusetts and I have a Brazilian Community and the Brazilian Bishops are very much into the Bible. A few years ago, they had a financial drive to get the Bible into the hands of every Brazilian in the country. They also reserve September as the Bible study month and they offer one book to study. It just so happens that this month they are studying the Gospel of John. I found their work and their display of the Bible fascinating.

It seems the US Bishops are not as so focused. Obviously, they are a whole different group they are not the same.

I wonder if you feel that has any issue with respect to the culture or any source of that in the culture. Why would you think the Brazilian bishops are focused on the Bible this month where I don’t see that in the Americans.

I am not a sociologist and I cannot answer that as Brazil vs America but as an amateur theologian, I think that neglect of the Bible is inexcusable because here we have the very word of God — divine revelation. It is a touchstone for everything else. So instead of interpreting the Bible by anything else like our culture’s presupposition or our needs or your sincerely held but only personal beliefs, I think you have to interoll all other things by the Bible. Like Christ himself it claims to be the very word of God and if it isn’t, it is the world’s biggest fake and if it is, it is the absolute standard.

You write this book not just to Catholics but to anyone who wants to read it but you make it clear it does not matter if you are Catholic or not or if you even believe or not.

Right, Protestants and Catholics have at least the Bible in common. We disagree about the Church and the Church’s tradition but at least we have the Bible.

Thomas Aquinas says when you are arguing with someone else the first thing is to find out is what premises you share. So, for instance, he says that when you argue with Jews argue from the Old Testament and when you argue with Muslims argue from those passages in the Koran corroborated by the Bible and when you argue with pagans argue by natural reason.

You know I found the way you write this book, even though it is questions for discussion, you deal with just about every issue we deal with, not just in the Church but in the faith. For example, you address the issue of prosperity doctrine, you even address that Jesus calls God Father when in fact you mention that God has no gender. Maybe I should ask what led you to the different passages. As a writer myself, I am one of those seat of the pants writers. I write as I see it come together. Did you plan that out ahead of time?

Absolutely not. I don’t write that way. I don’t first of all identify a need and then write a book to fulfill that need. In this case, I find a great book, perhaps the greatest of all the books in the Bible and it just happens to cover these hot button issues and pretty much everything else that we need to know. That is why I address them. In other words, I don’t use the book as vehicle to go where I want to go. I am a passenger and I let the vehicle take me where it will.

So, you are almost as they call them a seat of the pants writer?

Yeah, I like to think it something like what the Jews call midrash — personal interpretation, intuitive interpretation of the book, trying to let the book speak through you.

What do you see is the greatest issue facing the Church today?

Same as it always was good vs evil, Christ vs Anti-Christ, light vs darkness. How to be a saint and how to combat the devil who does not want you to be a saint.

And what about the nation the United States?

Well in the Bible you don’t have a fundamentally double standard. The nation prospers when it is good and holy and individuals prosper when they are good or holy. So, the relation between the nation and God and relations between the individual and God, are obviously structurally differently but it is not ontologically different. It is the same God. So in so far as the nation would within its public and not private bounds and pluralistic and not singly religious identity in so far as that nation does God’s will, it will be blessed and as far as it doesn’t, it won’t. 

I think that is the main reason for the great decline in America today. If you read the Bible carefully, you find those basic principles reiterated over and over again. Obey my will and you will be blessed, disobey my will and you will be the opposite of blessed, cursed.

This usually comes up around Christmas, I always bring up that whenever you see first John the Baptist and then Jesus appear on the scene, imagine a big clock count down from forty to zero. I explain that forty years later the Romans are going to come in and destroy the temple and I think Masada happens a few years later. Do you see any similarities between that time and our current time?

That is a good question. No, because I don’t claim to have a crystal ball. We read the bible with Epimethean vision instead of Promethean vision that is we look back on things we know already happened rather than looking forward with the eyes of the prophet. No, I am not a prophet. All I know is that our future is open. There is free will. We can choose between good and evil and we can repent and convert and be blessed or we can continue to slide down the way of decadence into the garbage can.

Is this the first book in the series?

It is not a series I do not know if I am going to write another like it or not it is a one of kind as John’s Gospel is one of kind.

Dr Kreeft's Book Probes is available through Ignatius Press.

https://www.ignatius.com/Probes-P3367.aspx.

 

Interceding For Others

I am going to ask you to think a bit during this homily. I want you to look at well-known scenario of the Prodigal Son. We know that this reflects on the mercy of the father and the anger of the obedient son. So, let’s do an exercise.

First, let us remember that the son did not ask to be welcomed back into the family, but only to be treated like a servant. The servants were treated better than what he received at the hands of others after he lost everything.

The father welcomes him back as a son, which is obviously restoring him to his full dignity. But what would happen if he did not do that, if he just rejected him outright as did the older son and by the way the servant who stirs up trouble with the older son.

 

You have to realize that the son would be totally lost. He would have absolutely no hope of a future and would have to return to where he was with the pigs. It would be a devastating rejection for him, although he certainly deserved it.

Now let’s us look at the first reading. We almost have that exact scenario there. Moses is up on the mountain receiving the commandments and while he is there, for over forty days, the people lose hope in his return. So, they start returning to the lives of the pagans with which they lived. They melt down their gold and create a golden calf whom they worship most likely like the Egyptians worshiped their pagan idols. It is also possible that the Hebrews—when they were slaves in Egypt—worshiped pagan idols as well. Remember, the ten commandments have yet to be received.

So now the Hebrews start to devolve, they give into their passions, their anxieties and their fears and they live in a community that will begin to fall apart without any intervention. If Moses did not return, they would have eventually turned on each other.

God realizes this and decides that there is no hope for his people. He then decides to destroy them and start all anew. It is Moses who pleads with them not to do so.

Who is Moses? A lot of people do not know this, but God gave Moses a share in his personhood. He sent Moses as His representative. Aaron was Moses’ prophet. So, Moses is not God, but he is so close to God that he is a participant in God’s divinity. He is not divine, but he is as close to divine as one can get outside of Mary and John the Baptist.

It is this sharer of God’s divinity something that no one else does until Jesus, that pleads with God himself not to destroy the ancient Hebrews. It is not in the reading you see here, but Moses actually says how stupid it would look for God to save his people, lead them to the desert and kill them.

This is important.

That role of Moses is your role today. Unlike the prophets and Aaron, you have a share in the divinity of Christ. It is right in your Baptismal promises and in the book of the Colossians.

Our role is to do all we can to intercede for others that they too may be saved even if they have strayed away from God.

That is who we are.

So what we see in the first reading is a reminder of whom we are as baptized Catholics.

There are many who do not understand that role and so they have different understandings of whom we are. So they believe:

• We are just to be those who do good to others
• we are to be busy working to ensure we go to Heaven
• we are to just be what we want and go to Heaven anyway.
• We have to be saints or we all go to Hell.

All these ideas, which do not accurately represent what we truly believe.

However, if we truly look at our call, we are exactly what our Baptismal promises say we are: We are sharers in Christ’s ministry as priest, prophet and king.

This is important because our call is to seeking to be holy and to be holy is to live not as pollyannas but as those who testify to Christ’s existence by our lives.

Never forget that many times the prophets were told not to speak but to act in a way that speaks to the people where words did not.

I have begun a practice I have done in every other parish and that is to walk a few nights a week around the area for about a mile working eventually to several miles if I can. I am wearing my clerics.

It does two things, first gives me the exercise I desperate need, but also just represents the presence of the Church. During this time, it is a difficult thing to do, I will admit. But just by doing that, is enough to just be a sign of the presence of the Church.

There is a fascinating admonition from St. Alphonsus Liguori to priests. He warns that the priest who lives to just save his own soul, will lose it. Why, because he did not see his role in leading so many more to Christ.

One of the reasons we have the crisis in the Church today is there is a loss of sense of what it means to be Catholic. Our role has to be in working to save others. The most important work we do is by interceding for others that they may be saved.

Moses’ role shows us deeply what we must do. The thoughts of the disaster if the Father rejected the son and refused to forgive him reflects where we would all be.

God calls us to be signs of his forgiveness and reconciliation. Let us be that.