Slow Your Roll! (1st Sunday of Advent, Year A)

To listen to this homily, click here.

As some of you know, I recently went on retreat for 6 days. Every priest is required to go away each year for at least 5 days, not only for his well-being but also for the good of his people. The wisdom of the Church has found that in the course of a year, we priests can pick up some bad habits and cut some corners in our prayer life. These get passed along to our parishioners if we aren’t careful. My six days of silence and solitude were wonderful. Retreat has a way of slowing things down and making me appreciate little moments of God’s presence I often overlook. A few examples I experienced were: Eating a meal without rushing or worrying about the next appointment on the calendar. Going for a walk and not worrying how long I would be out. Driving back to the parish in absolutely no hurry in the right lane, unconcerned if I had to slow down below the speed limit to let in merging traffic!! Every year on retreat, I am amazed at how peaceful it is to step back and slow down. And I am always humbled by how easy it is to allow the hectic pace to re-enter my life and soul. 

Hopefully each of us has been able to experience this sort of peace for ourselves. Certainly a Christmas or summer break does this for our students, vacation provides a breather for families, and possibly the weekend can offer some relief from the daily grind. However, as a society, we Americans are pretty lousy at slowing down and relaxing. We rank among the highest in the world in average hours worked each week. People seem to take a twisted pleasure in sharing how full their schedules are and comparing how they are much busier than everyone else, as if running around like a lunatic was some sort of status symbol. Certainly, for most of us, life moves fast, the day, the week, flies by, and we end up saying things like: “I can’t believe it is Thanksgiving already” or “How can December be just around the corner?!” The sobering truth is that it is not difficult to fly through a year, a decade or even a significant portion of our life at warp speed, without much reflection or appreciation for the subtle blessings and beauty of God.

Wisely and mercifully, our Church hits the brakes each year and invites us to “slow our roll” for the season of advent. Part of this is to prepare us to celebrate once again that momentous occasion when God became one of us with his birth at Bethlehem. Just as important, this season has the potential to knock us out of our routine and the trance with which a busy life places upon us. Advent is an invitation to take a breath, narrow our scope a little, and remember that waiting and anticipating are healthy and normal parts of our lives. It makes us realize that there is a part of us that cannot be fulfilled by the things of this world. The key element of being spiritually filled and fulfilled can only be Christ. We are continually refilled if we let ourselves be. Strange to say, waiting for fulfillment is also itself a fulfillment. It lets us be what we are—not God but human.

Advent is all about the joyful anticipation for our savior and being mindful that he completes us in a way no one or nothing else can. Advent doesn’t try to rush things or take a shortcut. It doesn’t attempt to cover up the spiritual hunger that is present in every human heart. Instead, it tells us to relish in that hunger and build up anticipation for what Christ’s birth will mean for us and our lives.

So how can this wonderful season, which begins today, make a practical difference over the next 4 weeks? Clearly, there are many things we cannot step back from or “slow down”. Students cannot say, “sorry professor, I can’t study for the test or write the paper because it is advent”. Parents can’t tell their children they will pick them up from school when they get around to it or cook dinner sometime. A large portion of our lives will continue moving at the hectic rate we are used to because of our obligations. However, if we are honest with God and ourselves, there is a whole dimension of our lives and schedule that is busy and unreflective because we have chosen it. Have we recently paused to consider how often we turn on the tv for background noise or distraction even though whatever is on doesn’t really interest us or we have seen that show or movie before? Do we realize how often we pick up our phone to check Facebook, Insta, Twitter, text messages or news? A while back, I limited myself to checking the phone once an hour and I was horrified by how many times I picked it up compulsively. 

There is room in each and every one of our lives to slow down and relish this advent season of anticipation. More than likely, it will be by changing something small, subtle, seemingly insignificant. But who knows what that little slowing down or shift will teach you. The salvation of the world started very small; a little baby born in a little town called Bethlehem….

Make the deliberate choice to slow down somewhere in life this Advent season. Let’s not be so arrogant to think that we cannot afford to change something during these 4 weeks of waiting and preparation for Christ’s birth. Choose something small but concrete. For example, take 10 minutes of your lunch break to walk with God or talk to him in a quiet place without your phone or tv competing with Him. Quit saying you’ll get to confession; put it on the calendar and go! Pray with your family before bedtime, get to church 5 minutes early for Mass or stay a few minutes after to thank God for your blessings. These, of course, are just a few of the practical possibilities out there. No one is too busy or important to slow down. May we enter fully into this Advent season and benefit from the transformation it offers us.

Christ the King (34th Sunday, Year C)

Once again, we’ve arrived at the end of another church year. Leading up to today, you may have noticed how the readings have become increasingly apocalyptic and speak of the end times and the divine judgment of the earth. To mark the conclusion of this liturgical year, the Church gives us the feast of Christ the King.

But for us Americans, the notion of a king, is odd to say the least. And to our forefathers, it would have seemed troubling indeed. We live in a democracy, founded in reaction to the abuses of kings, queens, and other royalty. So we might wonder why we celebrate such a feast, which seems so outdated and unrelated to our social experience.

Now this feast is relatively new in the life of the Church. It was founded in 1925 by Pope Pius XI for a very practical reason. At that time, a dictator named Mussolini seized control of Italy and another young man named Adolph Hitler was gathering support for the Nazi Party. Across the world, the economy was beginning to fail and peace was faltering only a few years after the devastating First World War. These were dark times and many were wondering if God was present or if evil had finally conquered the world. So Pius XI founded the feast of Christ the King to remind Christians that Jesus was in charge of the world and history, not evil people and their destructive plans.

This sounds like a great idea, at least in principle, but consider the odd mixture of readings that the Church gives us today. Our first reading comes from second Samuel and tells us about David and how he is anointed King of Israel. The second reading, from Colossians, follows this kingly theme and talks about Jesus as the head of all creation, the image of the invisible Father. But then we have the gospel. The Church doesn’t give us the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, she gives us the passage of Jesus hanging on the cross, talking with the good thief. At first glance, this gospel doesn’t seem to fit here! How does a description of the victorious and majestic King David, along with Paul’s theological portrait of the eternal Christ, fit with Jesus hanging on the cross? Isn’t the cross the sign of Jesus’ defeat? Doesn’t it prove the weakness of our Lord and King? How can we celebrate a king hanging on a cross, disgraced and broken next to two common criminals?

But this is certainly no mistake. The Church gives us this gospel to show us the wisdom of God, which is infinitely wiser than our own human understanding. The Church gives us this gospel to show us true power and real kingship. So while Hitler and Mussolini and so many others were snatching up power for themselves and building armies and waging wars; the Church offered another view of power. This type of power is eternal and humble and self-sacrificing. It saves, heals, comforts, and brings new life. It shows mercy to those who repent of their sins and not even death can defeat this power, shown to us by Christ on the cross. This sovereignty of Christ the king comes from putting others first and caring for the weak. This is why the Church gives us the gospel we hear today!!

Now our times aren’t so different from the 1920’s. We often experience the effects of modern-day Mussolini’s and present-day Hitler’s; evil people still seize power and oppress the weak. Our world hopes for peace even while wars rage and terrorists murder the innocent and defenseless. So many in our world are affected by the struggle for earthly power and dominance, which causes abuses in marriages, families, and whole societies. Our times have seen some horrendous attacks on human life and dignity. People still go hungry; the rich still oppress the poor, good so often appears to be defeated by evil. We need the message of hope and comfort given to us by Christ the King just as people did in 1925!! We need to be reminded that Christ still rules over history, even when things look terrible and depressing. We need to recall the fact that this world is passing away and the kingdom of God is coming to take its place for all eternity.  

This is the truth of Christ the King. He is Lord of heaven and earth. He will return to make things right and to destroy evil once and for all. But for now he waits and despite his unlimited power, he gives us a choice, he doesn’t force us to serve him. He asks us to choose between serving him and serving the world. But we cannot do both.

Do we allow Christ to be Lord of our lives and king of our hearts? Or do we allow a desire for earthly power, personal autonomy, and worldly comfort to take hold of us? Do we choose Christ’s version of power, with its mandate to serve others and sacrifice ourselves? Or do we seek the power of this world, which so often crushes and dominates.

The perfect image of our King and Lord is found in the gospel today with Jesus on the cross. And even while he is dying on the cross, he finds the strength to show mercy and compassion to the repentant thief. Despite the fact that Jesus was humiliated and crucified, the good thief recognized him as a true King and as the Lord of heaven and earth. I hope that in the midst of all the confusing things of our society, all of the different elements that compete for our allegiance, that we too will recognize Christ as our king and make him Lord of our lives. Our actions already say that this is true; when we walked into Church today we genuflected and when we receive him in the Eucharist, we will bow. Both are signs of reverence given to a king. May our hearts do the same and enthrone Christ in our lives so that when our lives are over we, like the good thief, might hear him say, “this day you will be with me in paradise.” 

What is the Center of your Universe? (33rd Sunday, Year C)

To listen to this homily, click here.

For about nineteen hundred years, there was a theory that the earth was the center of the universe. In this geocentric notion of the world, the planets of the solar system were thought to revolve around the earth. So, from the time of Aristotle in 300 BC to the 16^th century people generally held this view. But in the 1500’s, things began to change. A man by the name of Copernicus formulated a theory that the sun, and not the earth was the center of the solar system. This observation caused quite a controversy that would reach its height with Galileo a few years later. The theory of Copernicus caused a stir because it challenged something that had been held as “truth.” It took something that had been accepted for hundreds of years, something that was thought to be eternal and made it obsolete.

We have something like that in our gospel today. Nothing was more precious to the people of Jesus’ time than the temple. For them, it was the very center of their lives as the people of Israel and the chosen people of God. The temple was not simply a building or another structure; it was way of life and a sign of God’s presence and love. The temple, in ancient Jewish thought, was a like a mini-earth. It was the model for all society. As long as there was a temple, the Israelites were at home. They were no longer slaves, or exiles, or a persecuted people. The temple in Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus, was magnificent. It had been expanded by King Herod and was even more beautiful than the temple built by Solomon. The gospel tells us that it was decorated with beautiful and precious stones. And it was massive. Some of the stones for its foundation were as big as a bus and it took more than fifty years to complete this incredible building. The temple was the pride of Jerusalem. It symbolized how the world should be and it was the guarantee of God’s presence with them.

So you can imagine the reaction of the people when they heard Jesus say the time was coming when there wouldn’t be a single stone left on top of another from the temple. Not only did this prediction seem unlikely, it was also offensive. He was basically saying that the one thing that was at the center of their lives and gave meaning to their world would completely disappear. And yet, it would indeed happen, less than 50 years after the crucifixion of Christ.

In both the example of Copernicus and the prophecy of Jesus in the gospel, people were devastated by the fact that something they held as absolute truth was false or soon to be destroyed. The lives of these people revolved around these beliefs. For those living at the time of Copernicus, their entire understanding of the earth and how it fit in the universe was turned upside down and inside out. And for the Jews, the very center of their culture, their livelihood, and their worship was about to be completely destroyed.

Can you imagine the devastation and disbelief? It would be like someone telling you and me that the White House would soon be destroyed and everything that America stood for would no longer exist. It would also be similar to someone predicting that St. Peter’s basilica and everything it symbolized would soon be wiped off the face of the earth.

But what is the reason for all of the doom and gloom that Jesus predicts in our gospel today? Why does Jesus predict the destruction of this most sacred building of his own people? One reason was to wake up the people of Jerusalem. They had become so focused on the temple itself that they had lost sight of what it pointed to: God. They had decorated the temple with jewels but they had ignored God who was present in their very midst. The people of God became so absorbed in the building of the temple that they thought it would last forever. This building became the center of their spiritual solar system; the thing that everything else revolved around. Jesus makes it clear that they cannot put their trust in anything made by human hands because it will eventually crumble and disappear.

We can look at these people in the gospel and shake our heads at their attachment to the temple. And we might chuckle at the folks who believed, for almost 2000 years, that the earth was the center of the universe. But we can and often do make the same mistakes in our spiritual lives. Think of the ways we often make something other than God the center of our universe. How often we think that our lives revolve around our work, our money, our house, other people rather than Jesus Christ himself.

And what are the temples that we have built in our own lives? Things that are good in themselves but are meant to lead us to God, not take his place. Like the people of Jerusalem, we can spend a great deal of our time and energy building magnificent temples in our lives, whether that is a career, a retirement, our marriage, a family, you name it. Something, which was meant to lead us to God, can become the sole focus of our lives.  And when these things end, and eventually they will, whether that is because of death, downsizing, economic downturn, divorce, or the million other surprises we can never predict, we can feel there is not a stone left upon a stone in our lives.

But Jesus gives us hope at the end of our Gospel today. He assures us that if we are faithful, if we make him the center of our lives, then not a hair of our heads will be destroyed. He can say this because he is the new temple, not made by human hands, which can never be destroyed. We are safe with him. Let us make Christ the center of our lives this day and every day of our lives. We know the world revolves around the sun; no one has doubted that for many years. But our lives are meant to revolve around the Son as well, the Son of God Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Courage (32nd Sunday, Year C)

To listen to this homily, click here.

It was rumored that Mel Gibson, after the runaway success of his movie, “The Passion of the Christ”, wanted to make another religious film about the book of Maccabees. I’m still holding out hope for that because the whole book is full of amazing stories of spiritual courage, people doing the right thing even when it was difficult, dangerous, and even deadly. I want to reflect on the quality of spiritual courage but first, we need a little background information so we can fully appreciate what is going on in the reading. The story of the seven brothers really begins with the conquests of Alexander the Great, about 330 years before the birth of Christ. Not only did Alexander conquer the military of the nations of the world, he conquered their cultures as well. By his victories, he introduced Greek philosophy, Greek language, Greek art, and Greek religion to his massive kingdom. Some parts of the world adapted quickly to Greek culture while other areas resisted its influence. One of the areas where this resistance was strong was in the region of Palestine, where many of the Hebrews were trying to hold on to their faith and their way of life.  

When Alexander died, his empire was divided up among his generals. The Hebrews happened to be in the section that became one of the largest of the Greek kingdoms.  It extended all the way to India, Persia, Turkey, as well as Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. Perhaps, because the empire was so large, the Jews were left alone; that is,  until about 165 BC. At that time, a new King, Antioches Epiphanes,  decided that everyone in his domains should worship the Greek gods and follow Greek practices.  Many of the Jews in Palestine were ecstatic.  They were tired of being left out of what they called modern society.  They wanted to be Greek, part of the exciting Hellenistic culture.  They built gymnasiums where they would exercise in the rather immodest Greek style. This was very much against the Law of Moses. They began to refuse those things which set them apart as God’s Chosen people and many even rejected the Law of God.  They were now modern men and women.  They built Greek temples, worshiped Greek gods, dressed and acted like Greeks. Worst of all, Antiochus had a statue of the Greek god Zeus put right on the altar in the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem. Right there, in the holiest part of the Temple where a chosen priest could only enter once a year, right there on the most sacred altar of Israel, Antiochus put a statue of a pagan god.  

But there were faithful Jews who were appalled and refused to give in to the emperor’s decrees. Enraged, Antiochus issued a proclamation that anyone who kept the Jewish practices and did not worship the Greek gods would be tortured and put to death. This is where today’s first reading comes in. Seven brothers and their mother are arrested  for their faithfulness to the law of Moses. They are whipped and scourged and then the evil king tries to force them to eat pork, which was against the Jewish law. One by one the brothers refuse and endure horrible tortures and death. In each of their final statements, these seven courageous men and their mother affirm their faith in God and testify to the hope of the resurrection in the the life to come. This hope in the resurrection gives them the spiritual courage necessary to witness to the Law of Moses and to be faithful to God, even when others might have given up or given in. 

So what does this grisly story of torture, death, and courage have to do with us? Unless the United States is conquered by a brutal people determined to persecute and kill all who do not renounce their faith, we are not going to be put in the position of the seven brothers and their mother. But while we may not have to worry about enduring incredible physical pain and torture for our faith, there is another persecution going on that is just as damaging to our Catholic beliefs. To many in our culture, faith is old-fashioned and silly. Those who are religious are often mocked as naive, simple, or even un-educated. The laws of our Church are often ridiculed as worthless, restrictive, and perhaps most dangerously, as optional. I think most of us here in church today know about this new persecution which mirrors the persecution of the seven brothers and their mother. There are may powerful forces in our world today that want us to abandon our Catholic laws, practices, and identity because it threatens the way they approach life and makes them feel uncomfortable. How many of you have experienced this persecution at school, at work, even among your friends, family, or co-workers? How easy it can be to remain silent when someone begins attacking the Church for her stance on morality, or marriage, or life issues! How difficult it can be for any of us to speak up when someone begins to make fun of our faith or insults the character of the many good leaders that serve as shepherds of Christ’s flock!

The reality of the matter is this: we have chosen to be different from those elements of our society that exalts what is essentially a pagan lifestyle. There are people who simply can’t stand holiness. Evil will always attack good. In fact, when we are attacked for what we believe or how we live our Christianity, then we know that we are doing something very right: we are giving witness to the Kingdom of God.  But how often we are afraid! We are afraid that we will not fit in, that people might think less of us or even cause a scene.  Isn’t it true that we sometimes keep our mouth shut when we should be standing up for Christ and his Church because we are embarrassed or afraid.

Our first reading reminds us today that we are called to the same courageous witness as the 7 brothers and their mother. We must witness to the gospel, even when it means ridicule, embarrassment, and even suffering. We can only imagine how appealing the temptation must have been to the seven brothers to keep quiet about their Jewish faith and just eat a little bit of the forbidden pork. How simple and painless it would have been to take the path of least resistance, to go along to get along! However, they knew that the things of this world are passing and the approval of man means nothing if it comes at the expense of God and his precepts. The bottom line is this: Christ will give us the grace we need to remain faithful, even in the face of suffering, shame, and death. 

We need to make the decision as to which side we want to be on. Do we want to live for the world or do we want to live for God? Each side will have its trials and each side will have its rewards. But only one will have eternal rewards and resurrection. So let us pray for spiritual courage in the many trials and situations that we encounter in our daily lives. Let us be strong, let us be unafraid, let us give witness to the truth of the gospel and the life that it brings!