Holy Family, Suffering Family

There is a reason why we form children as much with images as with words. Images can be a powerful teacher. When I was growing up, my family had an image of the Holy Family that hung on our wall. When I was still very young, I remember asking my mother about it: “Who are they?” I asked. She responded: “That’s the Holy Family: Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.”

I think that image fascinated me because I could see that my family looked something like the Holy Family. My dad was like Joseph, my mom was like Mary, I was like Jesus, and best of all my little sister and brother didn’t fit in at all! That picture told me something about what God intended my family to be like, and when I didn’t go along with that – when, for example, I was mean to my sister and brother – it was as if I could feel that image of the Holy Family urging me to be better.

Today’s Feast of the Holy Family has a similar purpose. We can see in the Holy Family the purpose God has for family life: a community of persons formed and united in love. God intends the family to be the basic unit of human society, founded on the self-gift of spouses united by marriage and ordered to the good of their children, raising them and educating them in virtue. In the family home, the fruits of love and joy and peace are born forth: taught, learned, and shared.

Sadly, we know that our human families often fall short of that ideal. When we experience tragedy or difficulty, the Holy Family may sometimes feel like a distant ideal, very far removed from the reality of our own family lives. Perhaps today’s feast even causes us pain, as we compare the Holy Family with our own family’s sufferings and shortcomings. But lest we think that the life of the Holy Family was completely idyllic, the Gospel today reminds us that they were not immune to suffering. When Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem, the righteous man Simeon prophesies to them that their Child will be the glory of Israel, a light to all the nations. But he also tells them he will be a sign of contradiction – words that were proven true true when he was rejected, arrested, tortured, and murdered. And Simeon tells Mary that she too will be pierced by "a sword" – not a physical suffering and death, like her Son, but the spiritual cross of experiencing his death with him.

The Scene of Christ in the Temple (1516) by Fra Bartolommeo

Today’s Gospel tells us quite pointedly that suffering was right at the heart of the Holy Family. Consider the other things we know the other very difficult things they experienced: Mary was called to become the Mother of the Savior at a young age; Joseph was called to accept a woman pregnant with a Child that he knew was not his; they were forced to give birth in humble circumstances, far from their own land; they had to flee to Egypt because a king wanted to murder their son; Mary and Joseph even lost Jesus for three days on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. All of these experiences would have been difficult, most of them traumatic, and yet all of them are merely a prelude to what comes later: Christ’s own passion and death.

What sustained the Holy Family in their trials? The same thing that can sustain us and our families when we suffer: grace. God allowed the Holy Family to suffer because it too was part of the mystery of redemption for which he sent his Son. That mystery of redemption culminates in Christ's cross, which is also the font from which every grace is given. In this way it was fitting that Jesus's family would experience suffering, since his own suffering was the source by which they also lived in grace. 

In other words, Jesus was born into our world to redeem every part of the human experience, and that includes the lived experience of the family. For our families to also experience his redemption, we will also experience the mystery of redemptive suffering. Sometimes that suffering comes from outside the family – e.g., death, illness, infertility, debt, unemployment – and sometimes it comes from within – e.g., marital strife, abuse, infidelity, addictions, loneliness, resentments, abandonment, and more. In all of it though, the grace of Christ can be made present. God can give to our Christian families the grace we need not only to endure the sufferings that come but to give witness in them to his Son, through our faith, hope, and love. It is for this reason that the Christian family can often be a place of both great love and great suffering – but never suffering hopeless or meaningless, but always suffering that can bring forth even greater love through the power of grace.

Friends, I hope you have an image of the Holy Family in your own homes; if you don’t, consider getting one. It can be a great way of forming your children, your grandchildren, and even yourselves – not just as a model to strive for but as a reminder of the power of grace in the midst of suffering. Just as God sustained the family of Nazareth by his grace so too he can sustain yours, but always in the degree to which you seek to unite your lived experience – whether as spouses, as parents and grandparents, as sons and daughters – to that of Jesus, and that is true especially for your sufferings.

As we continue our Christmas celebrations, may the grace of this Eucharist renew us so that we can help make alive again the mysteries of faith, hope, and love in our family lives.

The Heavenly Light

[This homily refers to John 1:1-18, the Gospel for the Mass During the Day of Christmas]

Did you get to see the Christmas Star? If you know what I’m talking about, chances are good that you probably did. If it doesn’t ring a bell, then perhaps you at least heard about the phenomenon they called “The Great Conjunction”: on Monday night, the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Saturn aligned at their closest point in centuries, so much so that for the human eye they seemed to form one single point of light in the sky. Because it happened so close to Christmas, for many of us it is reminiscent of the star that the Gospel of Matthew says appeared over Bethlehem and guided the Magi to find the Christ Child.

It’s hard to know for sure if the astrological event this week is what the wise men saw. But there’s still something fascinating about the idea that it might be, something that captures our imaginations and brings home the reality of what we celebrate today. Human beings have long looked up into the heavens to contemplate their own place in the universe and even to try to understand something about the One who created it. In the desire to know about God, many believed that God could communicate to human beings through the movement of stars and celestial bodies, and that these events signified something about what was happening on earth. It was as if the lights of the heavens could also be a light for our minds as well, to understand the universe and our place in it. The great difficulty, of course, is that that’s really hard to do, and perhaps impossible to do. The orbits of the stars and the planets are fascinating, but in the end, they don’t really tell us anything more about ourselves than what we might read into them.

But – and if you’ve been wondering, “Father, why all of this astronomy stuff on Christmas?”, here’s what I’m leading up to: God’s message to human beings *has* been communicated to us from the heavens. He did send a light from on high to illuminate us, but it came not in the form of a star, but in the Person of the Eternal Word, as we heard in the Gospel for our Mass. This passage, known as the Prologue to John’s Gospel, may seem like a strange choice for a reading on Christmas, since it doesn’t mention any of the things we are used to hearing: a star, angels from on high, shepherds, Mary and Joseph, a child born in a manger. What it does do though is clearly communicate what those other stories all mean: that this Child Jesus born in Bethlehem is the Eternal Son of the Father, the Person of the Divine Word of the Holy Trinity. He who is literally Life, through whom all life and all things were made, has now himself come from heaven to dwell with us. 

Gerard von Honthorst, The Adoration of the Shepherds (1622)

That is who Jesus is, but the question still remains: why has he come? To redeem us, to save us from our sins, to make it possible for us sinful human beings to go to heaven? Yes, certainly. But even more fundamentally: Jesus has come to reveal God’s love. John’s Gospel puts it so beautifully: “this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” I don’t need to tell you how dark this year has been: a global pandemic; devastating financial crisis; massive job loss; social isolation; fear and anxiety; racial and political tensions; increase in incidence of addictions and mental illness; millions getting sick; hundreds of thousands, including members of our own families and communities, dying. So many people have suffered, and so many of us are still suffering. We think, “Why, God? Where are you in the midst of all of this?” And I think if we are honest with ourselves those questions always come from this vague, underlying fear that we all share to some degree: that the universe is a cold and unfeeling place; that our short human lives are insignificant; and that, if there is a God, he has better things to do than worry with us.

Christmas, in its essence, is about assuring us that those fears are flat wrong. God *loves* us – not just collectively, but individually. He loves *you*. In Jesus, he has given you the fullest possible assurance of that love; Christ is God’s messenger of love, who is also the message of love himself, who is also God himself. Every question and desire and struggle and doubt that we have – and think for a moment about the ones you have experienced this year, or in any year – all of them find a response, an answer (sometimes, a very mysterious one!) in the Person of Jesus Christ. In truth, we could even say that he is the Great Conjunction of divinity with humanity; his coming tells us what God truly wants us to know.

Now, that is the beginning of the mystery, not the end. To understand that Christ has come out of love for us doesn’t eliminate our sufferings and woes, but it does allow us to begin to see with eyes of faith. At times, the darkness of the world can be thick and oppressive; it blinds so many still. Even we who profess faith, at times we can cast around in the darkness, grasping onto all kinds of things, desperate for something to illuminate our blindness, to assure us that God does love and wishes to communicate that love to us. But the fact is the Light is here; we just need to see it. We need to behold anew its coming – not as a star that appears only every few centuries, not even just in the Birth that we celebrate once a year, but in the presence of a Person always here with us – Really Present among us all the time. He is the Light shining always for us, and not just for us but for all. Having seen the Light, we can bear it also for others – to illuminate the path of those in darkness, to show them a Light no darkness can overcome.

Friends, there is no getting around that this Christmas feels different. Many of the things we like to do are not possible; the warm and fuzzies of the season may feel largely absent. But rather than let that lessen the joy of the season, I suggest it makes it sharper, all the more powerful and meaningful. Jesus is the Light of the World, born for us to show us God’s love, and perhaps we recognize that most clearly when the lights of this world are dimmed, when it’s only his heavenly Light shining in the darkness. May this Christmas be for all of us an opportunity to see that Light anew – not in the sky, not in a manger scene, but present in our minds and hearts, shining even in our darkest moments. Because “the light shines in the darkness” and now we see “his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”

God's Greatest Secret

How good are you keeping a secret? That word often has a negative connotation; we think of secret societies, government secrets, secrets that we don’t want others to know. But some secrets are good, and it is good to keep them – planning a surprise party, for instance, or knowing about a special gift that someone has no idea is coming. Sometimes the hardest secrets to keep are the good ones, the ones we are tempted to share out of joy and excitement.

In the Gospel today, we hear God’s greatest secret – that he himself will be born as a Son to the Virgin Mary in order to save humanity. This reality is, of course, the very reason for the coming Christmas season celebrated by the whole world. Because we know it so well, it can be easy for us to forget that it was originally a secret. From the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, God had planned to save his people: he formed a covenant with them through Abraham; in Moses he gave them a law to follow; in David he raised up a king to rule over them. All of this was to prepare them for the final redemption, in which a Messiah would come to form God’s people to be a light to the rest of the world. But the wondrous secret – the greatest secret since the foundation of the world – was that this Messiah would be none other than God’s own Son. He would be born into time and history so that in a human way he might show us the depths of divine love, even by dying on a Cross, so that by rising again he could also raise us mere humans to the divine light of heaven.

And that is the Christmas story in a nutshell – the Christian story, too. It is what St. Paul describes as the “mystery kept secret for long ages” now revealed for all the world to believe. It is the realization of the the promise God makes to David to establish his line as unfailing; as the angel says to Mary, Jesus is the true heir to David and “of his kingdom there will be no end.” That God would plan, from all of time, to save his people by himself becoming part of his people, by desiring to walk among us – that is the joyous secret at last revealed, because of which we celebrate, in which we rejoice, by which we have our hope.

The Annunciation by George Lawrence Bulleid (1903)

That God’s greatest secret has at last been made known does not meant that he does not still have joyful secrets to share with us. In Christ, he has revealed his great plan of salvation but how that plan unfolds for each of us is still a mystery to be encountered, to be lived out each day. His plan of redemption came to life in the birth of his Son, but it must be born anew in our lives – in the desires of our hearts, in the pursuits and endeavors of our day to day, in our relationships and encounters with each person we meet. All of that and more takes on a new character in light of this greatest secret made known, the great birth that announces God’s saving plan for you and for me.

The Christmas season feels very near now, but until it arrives we are called to continue our Advent preparation. Perhaps we do that best not by taking away from today’s readings a Scriptural insight or moral teaching, but an invitation to reflect anew upon the mystery of Christ’s birth – maybe according to how we are familiar with keeping a secret. Have we marveled at how God, the master planner of this surprise, has ordered all things well? Do we share in the mystery with eager anticipation, like a man planning to propose to his beloved? Do we treasure it with joy, like a couple who has not yet shared with their family that they are expecting?

Friends, in the end, God’s greatest secret is the one he wants us to share with everyone: the joy and love of his Son Jesus Christ. But perhaps we do that best only when we have taken time to reflect upon it ourselves, and thereby come to a new appreciation for its mystery and grandeur – this secret from long ago that still means so much for us today.

May this Eucharist, itself a mystery of the Lord’s coming to us, inspire us to await with joy and with faith the salvation that Mary’s Child has come to bring.

A Year of Favor

I have said it often enough lately that you may be tired of hearing me say it: it has been a difficult year. Thankfully, it is drawing to a close, and it does seem as if good news is coming. The first approval for a vaccine has now been given, and so perhaps we can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel for this pandemic. Of course, it hasn’t ended yet, and we know there will still be difficulties ahead; nonetheless, I imagine we all will be very ready to turn the page on this year and start fresh in a few weeks.

I have remarked to a few people that I hope 2021 is everything that 2020 has not been. Can you imagine if instead of what we experienced this year, when it felt like there was wave after wave of difficulties and discouraging news, instead we had a year of good news, happy occasions, and one long continued celebration? Maybe we can even imagine what particular thing we would want to happen, or whom we would like to visit with, or what blessing we would want to receive. To have a year of favor would be a blessing indeed.

In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah announces just such a year to God’s people. What he prophesied was more than just the end of sorrows: it was a revitalization, a spiritual and moral renewal that would touch every part of their lives. And it would be ushered in by a particular messenger, a righteous one through whom God would act – the Messiah, the Anointed One. It is he who will come “to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God.” If that passage sounds familiar, it is because it is claimed by Jesus, who in the Gospel of Luke quotes this very passage from Isaiah in his home synagogue in Nazareth. Jesus is the fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied; it his coming into the world which communicates God’s favor and revitalizes his people.

And yet, Isaiah didn’t live to see that day; Jesus was born several hundred years later. John the Baptist, about whom we heard once again in the Gospel, did live to see Jesus, but he didn’t live to see the revitalization that Jesus began; it’s only after John’s arrest by King Herod that Jesus begins his public ministry, and of course he is executed shortly afterward. And even us today – who live 2000 years after Christ, who believe that he is the Messiah, the Lord’s Anointed, the very Son of God – we have not yet seen the full manifestation of his power and glory, the final restoration of all things. We believe that is coming, but in the meantime, we wait.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Preaching of John the Baptist (c. 1490)

In order to wait well, we need something, something that John the Baptist had, something that Isaiah had. It’s a virtue that could be said to sum up the entire season of Advent, maybe even the entirety of our lives as Christians: hope. The word “hope” today often is used to mean little more than wishful thinking. We say, “Let’s hope so,” or “I hope that’s the case,” and we mean a vague notion that perhaps what we want will come true. But that’s not what Christian hope is. St. Thomas Aquinas defined the virtue of hope as “the certain expectation of future happiness.” The hopeful person believes, and believes with *certainty*, that the good thing they are waiting for *will* be fulfilled. They believe it so completely that they have, to a certain degree, the joy of that good thing. It hasn’t come yet, but because it surely will, it already brings joy to those who have hope.

Maybe we can think of this in relation to what I mentioned earlier: about what it will be like when this pandemic comes to an end and when life can go back to normal. We’re not there yet, but even now we can feel a whisper of joy at the idea. Hope is always that way; it must always involves something that hasn’t yet come to fulfillment. As St. Paul says in the Letter to the Romans (8:24-25) who hopes for something they already have? No, hope has to involve an act of faith – to believe, to fully *expect* that happiness is coming, even if it can’t yet be seen.

Isaiah had hope for Christ, even though he never saw his coming. John the Baptist did, too, even though he never saw the extent of his power. Hope is always what sustains us – through this long and difficult year, but also in any form of suffering, public or private, that we have to endure. To hope is to believe that despite the sufferings of the present moment, God will surely give us happiness. Perhaps we ask – but what about those things that we can't hope for: a relationship that has has broken, a loved one who has passed away? How can I hopeful about those things. For the Christian, hope is never rooted in a particular good – a thing, even a person, – but must be rooted ultimately only in the happiness of the life to come. It is only in salvation, in the happiness of eternal life, where sorrow and suffering will be no more. 

Perhaps, therefore, a good exercise for us at this point in Advent is to ask ourselves a few questions: What am I hoping for? Is that hope related to Jesus? Where in my life do I need to be revitalized, to receive what God can give me: glad tidings, healing, liberty, favor, vindication? Do I expect to receive those things, or does it just seem like wishful thinking? Can I trust God enough to believe that he will give me what I need – maybe not always what I want, but what will bring me closer to eternal life?

Friends, in a year as difficult as this one, it may seem hard to be hopeful, and even harder to be joyful, especially with the many difficulties we face. And yet that’s what the Church bids us today – to be renewed in hope, to be joyful. Whatever the new year will bring, nothing will happen that is not permitted by God, and so we can be hopeful, even joyful, because we know he is faithful. May this Eucharist strengthen us to endure the sufferings of the present so as to anticipate with joy and hope the salvation that is to come.

The Grace Not to Hide

It is part of human nature perhaps to hide from our mistakes. A child who breaks something might try to hide the evidence, hoping to not get caught, or will hide themselves, delaying the moment that they will. We adults are often not much better. We avoid those with whom we have had disagreements, and we’d rather make excuses than admit our faults.

This is not a new problem. In today’s first reading, we hear that our first parents behaved the same way with God when they broke the one commandment he had given them. If we struggle with understanding why this was so terrible, it’s important to focus less on the action itself – eating the fruit of a particular tree – and more on what the action was: blatant disobedience. And what’s more, it wasn’t like the disobedience of a child; Adam and Eve had greater powers of intellect and will than we have, and so they truly *knew* what they were doing went against everything they had been given by their friend, the God with whom they dwelled in the garden. And so, having been deceived, having realized their sin, Adam and Eve hide in shame and fear from God.

The rest of the reading is really about God’s mercy. He seeks out his sinful creatures, not to destroy them as he could have done, but to assure them that all is not lost. It is true that their sin has some definite ramifications. They have to leave the paradise of the garden, and as a result of their sin, things that weren’t originally part of God’s creation enter the world: sin, concupiscence, suffering, and death. But, despite their infidelity, and despite ours too, God does not abandon us. In fact, we might say that the rest of history is God’s great rescue mission to save human beings from sin and death.

Today we celebrate the feast which marks the first glimmer of God’s plan of salvation coming at last to its culmination. Long before Jesus died and rose again in Jerusalem, or was born in Bethlehem, or was announced by an angel in Nazareth, his Blessed Mother was herself conceived without sin in the womb of her mother. In other words, from the moment of her conception, Mary was Immaculate, and that spotlessness stayed with her throughout her life, the free gift of grace from God that accorded completely with her will. We often think of Mary’s most glorious moment as her fiat to the angel Gabriel – her response, “Let it be done to me according to God’s word.” And while it was indeed the shining moment of her faith and her humility for the Lord’s plan, it was also possible because she was, as the angel said, “full of grace.” It was God’s gift of grace from the moment of her conception that made it possible for her to say “Yes” to being the Mother of our Lord. 

The Immaculate Conception (c. 1628) by Peter Paul Rubens

This truth of Mary’s life has significance not just for what we believe but also how we live. The serpent had told Eve that disobedience would make her “like God”; but that was a lie. It only led to shame and hiding, and all of humanity suffered as a result. Sin is always that way; whatever attraction it holds in the moment, it always is a letdown, an illusion. And yet God does not abandon us, but he offers us his grace anew. Through her obedience made possible by God’s gift of grace, Mary received what Adam and Eve had desired – to be like God, and even more, to become the Mother of God, and all of humanity has benefited as a result. So too in our lives, God’s grace never restricts our freedom; rather, it perfects it, and it makes it possible for us to obediently follow his will – so that we can be like him in this life and even live with him in the next.

Friends, in a few weeks we will celebrate the birth of our Savior, but we can be celebrate already today the grace of Christ which redeems us – the grace given to Mary at the moment of her Immaculate Conception, and the graces he offers to us as well. May we never hide from the Lord but allow him to find us, to make us whole, to give us his grace anew, so that like Mary, we can glorify him in all that we do.

God on the Move

The shortest path between two points is a straight line – that is, unless an obstacle is put in the way. For example, a highway is going to get you where you want to go much faster than a country road. But if a pileup happens, that thoroughfare can quickly become a bottleneck, or worse. Just a few weeks ago, I saw an accident on the interstate that led to a complete standstill for miles and miles in the opposite direction. No one could get through because the path was obstructed.

In today’s first reading, Isaiah prophesies to Israel that God is preparing to come to rescue his people, and so they should build a highway in the desert to make straight his path. This text dates from the end of the Babylonian captivity, that period about six hundred years before the birth of Christ when much of Israel had been forced into exile to live under the rule of a foreign kingdom. It was a devastating experience. However, after some seventy years, the Babylonians were themselves defeated by the Persians. Sorrow turned into joy, as the people were permitted to return to Israel. We hear that elation in the reading today, when Isaiah prophesies that God himself will come through the desert to accompany his people back to their native land. In exuberance, he says, “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight… a highway for our God!” The Lord comes to bring comfort and peace.

In many ways, this is the central message of Advent, and sometimes I think we lose sight of it. Our preparations are important, and we should make straight the paths of the Lord. But we do so not because we are the ones striving to reach him, or because we must labor to be in his presence. No, God is the one who is on the move! John the Baptist, in the Gospel today, purposefully echoes the words of Isaiah to announce the Lord’s coming – not his coming through the desert to bring his people out of exile, but his coming in the flesh, into time and history to redeem all the world from sin and death. Jesus is the Savior and he seeks to come to us anew, in this season and every season, with the salvation we so desperately need.

It’s important, therefore, that we consider our Advent preparations not so much in terms of the things that we are doing for God – as if we are doing him a favor – and more in terms of how we need to get out of his way. What spiritual blockage is obstructing his path? What crooked twists and turns need to be straightened out for him to deliver what you need? Often, it seems, we complain about not being able to find God in what is happening in our lives, in feeling distant from him. But do we ask ourselves in what ways we are throwing up roadblocks to his coming? Are we doing something to hinder his coming? We have nothing to fear except the things we cling to in lieu of his comfort and peace. 

Desert Road (c. 1940) by Jean Mannheim

So, my friends, how will you prepare the way of the Lord in these next few weeks? Perhaps you will do it by fasting from a favorite food or from TV or social media so that you have more time for prayer or reading Scripture. Or perhaps you will want to get to the sacrament of reconciliation, so that you permit God to unburden you of your sorrows and sins to experience anew his healing and mercy. Or perhaps it will be by sharing more of what you have with those who are in need, especially the poor and the stranger, so that the obstacles of pride and selfishness will be removed from you heart. Let the Lord speak to you in this season; take time to listen to him! In whatever he says, he wants to bring you his comfort and peace, so don’t be afraid to do what it takes to build a highway for his coming – not out of sluggish compliance but with exuberance and joy.

Even in this Mass, Jesus our Savior comes to bring us his salvation. May we prepare the way of the Lord to receive him in this Eucharist so that by his strength we may make straight his paths in all facets of our lives.

Our Work and Our Waiting

We are all familiar with the experience of feeling suddenly very sleepy. It might even have happened to you this week: after a big meal, for example; or reclining in a comfy chair; or listening to your uncle pontificate about something around the dinner table; or sitting through a long and boring sermon. Sleep is a basic human need, and sometimes drowsiness rushes upon us in an almost uncontrollable away. But there are certain times in which we *can’t* fall asleep – in which it is vitally important to stay awake. For example, a person who is driving or operating heavy machinery can't afford to fall asleep, nor can a security guard or soldier who is out on patrol, nor a college student pulling an all-nighter in order to finish a term paper. In those circumstances, sleep becomes an enemy of sorts – something that tempts us to not fulfill our task.

In the Gospel we just heard, Jesus also warns us against drowsiness: not of the body but of the spirit. He says, “Be watchful; be alert!” Elsewhere, he puts it more directly: “Stay awake!” He doesn’t literally mean that we can never lay down to sleep; rather he wants us to be on guard against the drowsiness that comes from worldliness. This Gospel, along with those we have heard the last few weeks, is ultimately a reference to the Lord’s Second Coming, when he will return at the end of time for judgment. But that raises a question: *how* are we to be watchful for such an event? What exactly are we supposed to *do*?

There’s a clue in the parable that is easy to miss. Jesus says that the Master of the house has gone away on a journey, but that he “places his servants in charge, each with his own work.” The servants attend to their labors as they await the Master’s return. What Jesus describes is the image of the Church – that is, of us, as we are now – caught up in the middle of the story, hard at work at present tasks, but awaiting eagerly his return. In other words, our work and our waiting are not opposed to each other; rather, we await Jesus’s coming precisely by attending well to the work presently before us.

Carl Spitzweg, The Night Watchman Asleep (c. 1875)

What is the “work” Jesus gives to us? It differs from person to person, but generally it is how the Lord calls us to holiness each day: 1) our devotion to him, first and foremost, by daily prayer, participation at Mass, and regular sacramental confession; 2) our fidelity to our vocations, which for most of you means your marriage, your children, and your family more broadly – to love them as Christ, to serve them as he serves the Church, and to teach and encourage them by word and example to come to love the Lord themselves; 3) our witness to the world of the truth of the Gospel, which involves everything about our lives: how we live, the goals we strive for, and especially how we attend to the poor and the needy, those with whom Jesus has a special solidarity.

The details of these vary for each of us, but broadly speaking, that is the work that Jesus has left us to do until he returns. Those tasks are not particularly extraordinary, and they are certainly not glamorous, but they are not supposed to be. It is in our daily duties – to the Lord and to each other – that we expectantly wait for the Lord’s coming. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to acknowledge that at times these duties become difficult, even mundane, and we in turn become lax in our attention to them. In short, we become drowsy – inattentive to our tasks and forgetful of just who has entrusted them to us while he is away.

So it is that Jesus says to us today, “Be watchful; be alert!” His words are a call to be roused from our drowsiness – not only to remember that he is coming, but to look more attentively to the work that he has given us. We have begun the season of Advent once again – a new liturgical year in the Church, and an opportunity not just to get ready for Christmas, but to apply ourselves with renewed focus and energy to the work the Lord has given to us.

Take a moment this week to consider those three tasks I mentioned earlier, what the Lord has charged us with. First, consider how Christ might be calling you to be renewed in your relationship with him. How is your relationship with God? In what ways could it be better? What could you give up to make more time for communication with him, for prayer? You’ll find in the back of church a small gift from our parish that might help you answer those questions. Second, are you being faithful to your vocation? Where is the Lord calling you to improve your love for your family, especially as a spouse or as a parent? Are you helping your family to love Jesus and his Church more deeply? Where can your love be more like the love of Christ: selfless, sacrificial, even suffering, if necessary? And finally, third, look to your witness to the world: how you spend your time, how you spend your money, what priorities you keep, and what relationships you prioritize. Ask yourself, do these things show the world that I am a serious Christian, or not? Am I living to serve the Lord, or myself?

Friends, we are all servants of the Master and to each of us he has entrusted important work until he comes again. Sleeping on the job is simply not an option, so let’s use this Advent to throw off the drowsiness that can creep in at times for all of us. We may not always have the Second Coming in the forefront of our minds, but our alertness and our attention to our daily labors – to *what* we do and *how* we do it – might make all the difference for how the Master will repay us when he returns.

"¡Viva Cristo Rey!"

In the living room of my rectory, I have on one wall an assortment of images and icons of saints that I have collected over the years, each of whom has a certain importance for me personally. There is St. Andrew, of course, with his X-shaped cross, as well as St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Benedict, St. Francis of Assisi, and more. The newest image though is of someone who lived much more recently: Blessed Miguel Pro.

Do you know that name? He was a priest of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, who lived and ministered in Mexico at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, the government had adopted a new constitution aimed at the secularization of the country, which imposed atheism as the official state doctrine, and which sought to break the power of the Church. Church property was seized, priests and nuns were imprisoned, and monasteries, convents, and schools were closed. A groundswell of resistance, peaceful at first but ultimately armed as well, plunged Mexico into a period of civil war, known as the “Cristero” conflict, which lasted for more than three years.

In the midst of the persecution, Fr. Miguel and other priests continued to minister to people in secret, celebrating Mass and bringing them the sacraments. Fr. Miguel was eventually falsely accused of being part of an assassination plot, and without trial or evidence, was executed in 1927. He was one of dozens of priests, and tens of thousands total, who lost their lives in the Cristero War. The reason that I mention Fr. Miguel’s story today is because of his very famous last words. As he faced the firing squad, he held out his arms in the shape of a crucifix and shouted, “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” – “Long live Christ the King!” Those words were something of a rallying cry for those who resisted the Mexican government’s persecution, but they are most often remembered now in association with Fr. Miguel, who was declared a martyr and a Blessed by John Paul II in 1988. 

“¡Viva Cristo Rey!” “Long live Christ the King!” Those words are a reference to the feast we celebrate today. The Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe had been instituted by Pope Pius XI just a few years before the Cristeros, as a reminder to Catholics to hold true to this essential message of our faith: that Jesus is King. By that, we don’t only mean he is king for us in a spiritual sense, or that he will be our king in heaven. We mean rather that he is King *now*, and that this world, and all that is in it, is part of his kingdom – most especially, we ourselves, all that we have and all that we are. We acknowledge him as sovereign of all; we submit ourselves to his reign and authority in all things. That kingdom is not yet fully manifest, but it is already present. As St. Paul says in our second reading, all other powers and authorities are being made subject to him, with death as the final enemy. The world awaits that final revelation of the Lord’s victory, but as Christians we declare now that he is King, living out that truth – and if necessary dying for it, as Fr. Miguel did.

The martyrdom of Blessed Miguel Pro, SJ

While we may nod our heads in agreement to all that, if we are honest with ourselves, I think we have to admit that we are pretty fickle in actually living it out. We may well *believe* Jesus is King, but too often we *live* differently. We say he is King, but we use our time and energy to prioritize other things – to pursue other goals that have little to nothing to do with him or, even worse, stand in direct conflict to him. We say he is King, but we make choices that acknowledge other authorities – often, our own, by compromising our consciences and rationalizing what we know is wrong. We say he is King, but we fall short in the daily habit of prayer that is our lifeline with him, and we allow ourselves to be distracted or delayed or detained completely from coming to Mass, where he is present above all. We say he is King, but we allow ourselves to get swept up by earthly movements and worldly figures, who promise us happiness in ways apart from him, or who prey upon our fears such that we grow to doubt his providence and care.

All of those things are important areas for growth in our relationship with the Lord. I certainly include myself in all of it! But the Gospel today reminds us that there is an even more important measure by which we can demonstrate our fidelity to Christ: by loving him in others. The passage is interesting insofar as neither of the two groups recognized who had been present before them; both have to ask, “Lord, when did we see you…?” If Jesus were to appear before us today, as hungry or naked or as a strange or imprisoned, we would, I hope, immediately do whatever we could to help him – whatever he needed, we would provide, because we recognize he is our King! The point of the Gospel today is that he *is* appearing before us, not in such a way that we see him, but in no less real of a sense. In those who are hungry, in the naked, the stranger, the imprisoned … in the homeless, the depressed, the single mother, the unborn, the addicted, the sorrowful, the penitent, in anyone else in need, Jesus himself is present. And the standard of our fidelity to Christ as King – the standard upon which he will judge us – is not in any lip service we might pay, or any good intentions we might have, but whether we actually help him: whether we feed him, clothe him, visit him, welcome him – truly him, as he is present in those who are in need. How we minister to him is left to us, to do in different ways – but we have to actually *do* so, or else he will hold us accountable.

The Last Judgment mosaic (6th cent.), Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna

Friends, we all know it has been a difficult year, and so many people are in need, including many of us. When we are the ones who hunger and thirst, who are ill or imprisoned, then it is a comfort to believe that Christ is our King, because we know that he will heal every sorrow and right every injustice, in the end. But that belief is also a challenge because to hope in him – to say “¡Viva Cristo Rey!”, “Long live Christ the King!” – means also that we are putting the challenge to ourselves to live out that belief now, to serve him now, especially his presence in those who are in need. 

May the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist that we will celebrate open our eyes and open our hearts to serving him in the least among us.

The Right Kind of Fear

When I was pastor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, one of the topics I most often discussed with our students were their plans for the future. Their dreams and expectations always inspired me: for example, to become a great doctor, to heal people; or to start a business, in order to build something of their own; or to be an engineer, to discover new technologies to make the future better. Often, I found that along with their dreams and hopes, these students were also motivated by a certain kind of fear: a fear of *not* reaching the goal they had. They knew that their goals were lofty and difficult to achieve, and so that fear also motivated them to work hard, to keep striving through difficulties in order to achieve what they desired.

Most of the time, we think of fear as bad, but a certain kind of fear – the right kind – can be good. Good fear motivates us; it challenges us. It spurs us onward to achieve what is difficult – what we might not do otherwise. We see the difference between these two kinds of fear in the Gospel today. Each of the three servants know that they have a demanding Master, one whom they are afraid of disappointing. The ones who receive five talents and two talents, respectively, have the right kind of fear; they intuitively understand that their Master expects a return on what he has entrusted to them, and so they get down to business. On the other hand, the servant who receives one talent is afraid in a bad way; he doesn’t know what his Master wants, and so his fear becomes crippling, leading him to do nothing. When he returns, the Master is angry with the idleness of the servant; he knew his Master was demanding, but instead he did nothing. And his inactivity is made all the worse when it is compared with the industriousness of the other two.

What the unfortunate servant lacked was a desire for greatness, and the right kind of fear that comes with it. In most areas of our lives, we want to be great. We don’t aim for mediocrity in our jobs, in our friendships, in our family relationships – we want greatness, whether we end up achieving it or not. But when it comes to our relationship with God, too often we settle for being just okay. We don’t want to be *bad*, per se, but we’re alright with not being the best. The question is why? What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of appearing foolish to others? Or perhaps the problem is something else. Perhaps we are afraid of being great – great disciples, great friends of Jesus, great servants of the Lord? Perhaps, like the servant who only received one talent, we are afraid of taking action, of being decisive in striving for greatness?

Andrei Mironov, The Parable of the Talents (2013)

The truth is that the Lord desires our greatness. He wants us to be great, but great in what really matters – in knowing and loving him, and in giving witness to him in how we live. Greatness in the earthly things of our life – our careers, our friendships, our families – are not in the end what he is truly interested in, because they don’t last beyond this world. But we were made for something beyond this earth; we have been created with an immortal soul that has the ability to know and love and serve him so that we may be with him in the next. In the end, that is the only kind of greatness that matters – the greatness of sanctity, of striving to serve the Lord at every moment and with every aspect of who we are. To do that we need a certain kind of fear – the kind that inspires us to boldness, to action, to strive through difficulties to achieve what we desire. It may be that we will make mistakes along the way; that’s okay – God offers us the chance always to begin anew. But what can’t be tolerated is inactivity, slothfulness – when we are afraid to seek his will or assuming that we have done what is necessary to satisfy him. It is then that we have to remember the warning of this parable: that the Lord expects us to be working hard until he returns because he will demand an account of what we have been given.

Friends, the Christian writer Léon Bloy once wrote: “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.” That may seem like a high standard to strive for, but it is the same one Jesus gives us in the Gospel today. Jesus himself is ready to help us, of course – to give us the grace we need. But maybe he also is calling us to dream big ourselves and, like the students at the university, to be motivated by the fear of not achieving what he calls us to. As we prepare to celebrate the Eucharist in a few moments, let’s just make sure that what we are striving for, in the end, is not the greatness of earthly success, but the greatness of love, of sanctity, of Christian witness that will carry us to the life to come.

Word to the Wise

Can you tell me: what is the population of the state of Arkansas? How about: when was the city of Stuttgart founded? Do you know how many Catholics live in our diocese? You may not know the answer to any of those question of the top of your head, but with a few clicks on your phone or computer, you could find out very easily.

We live in an age of extraordinary access to information. Right at our fingertips, we can discover loads of facts about any topic that interests us. Indeed, experts say that information has become so available and omnipresent that it’s becoming like a drug – not only are we becoming overloaded with information, we are becoming addicted to it.

That’s not a good thing, obviously; too much information can overwhelm us or distract us from something more important. The poet T.S. Eliot once asked, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.” If he could write those words nearly a hundred years ago, how much truer we know them to be today. We may have access to all kinds of data but it seems increasingly our society collectively, and even we as individuals, are losing the ability to discern what is good and true, what is meaningful and beautiful – in short, wisdom.

Our Old Testament reading today, often attributed to have been written by King Solomon, describes how wisdom is the key to a life well-lived. Unlike plain information, wisdom forms the individual, helping us to choose well, to discern, to be prudent about the situation before us. Interestingly, the writer of the reading says that just as one seeks wisdom so too one finds that wisdom also seeks to be found; to seek wisdom is not a vain pursuit but the discovery of something precious and life-changing.

Often in the Old Testament, including in today’s reading, the virtue of wisdom was personified – treated less as a thing to acquire and more as a relationship with a divine being. Early Christians saw in this a foreshadowing of the Incarnation, of God becoming Man in the person of Christ. We gain wisdom, in other words, not so much by acquiring a certain kind of knowledge or by following a set of ethical principles, but by encountering a Person – the Person of Jesus Christ. As our reading today describes, the more we seek Wisdom – Christ – the more we realize he also is seeking us, seeking relationship with us, to teach and form us about how to live. 

Peter von Cornelius, The Wise and Foolish Virgins (c. 1813)

If true wisdom is this relationship with Jesus, then we also have to be aware of what can distract us from him. Today’s Gospel might be thought of as Jesus’s word to the wise about this very thing – how not attending to what is truly important can have disastrous consequences. We hear that the parable is set at a Jewish wedding feast with ten virgins awaiting the arrival of the bridegroom. In the ancient world, it was common for the groom’s family to prepare a wedding banquet. At the appointed time, the son would arrive and the bride with her attendants would process with lighted lamps from where she had been waiting to the wedding feast, where all would join in the joyous celebration.

In Jesus’s parable, the bridegroom is delayed; he has not yet arrived, and so the bride and her attendants, the ten virgins, must wait. The attendants know what their task is: they are to light the way for the bride when it is time for her to go and meet her husband. However, as the story tells us, while they know he is coming, they do not know when. Five of them are well prepared, bringing extra oil to light their lamps; five are unprepared. When the bridegroom finally arrives, the first five can fulfill their task and the second five do not. The five prepared virgins enter the wedding feast, while the foolish five lose their place in the procession and are locked out.

The early Church saw this parable as a stark reminder of how mere knowledge about Jesus – information about him, even faith in his coming again – was not a guarantee that one would be prepared for his return. Early Christians saw that some of their brothers and sisters, like the virgins who knew their task but failed to wisely prepare, became distracted, misguided, drowsy in their vigilance of waiting and preparing for Jesus’s coming. The same can happen for us. We can become overwhelmed with the information of the present world, of the world of the here-and-now, and so forget to stay focused on where true wisdom can be found: in praying fervently each day, in reading Scripture, in studying our faith, in practicing works of charity and forgiveness. All of these build up our relationship with God and reveal to us his wisdom. 

As we move into the latter weeks of the liturgical year, our readings look ahead to the end times. This is not because the end times are necessarily coming – they might be, I don’t know – but rather because we are called to hope in the coming of Christ and not the things of this world. Christians should *always* be living as if it were the end times, as if Jesus might come back next month, next week, tomorrow, in ten minutes. Why? Because by doing so, we live wisely, because we focus on Jesus, on he who is true Wisdom, Wisdom made Flesh. It can be easy to be distracted by the loudness of the events of this world, by the daily sources of endless information. But we must make sure we do not become like the foolish virgins, who grow distracted and drowsy to what really matters, and who find out too late they are unprepared. Instead, let’s use well whatever time we have, to prepare our hearts for the Lord’s arrival: to practice virtue, to grow in faith, to do works of charity, to serve the Lord where he is present in the poor and those in need.

Friends, may this Eucharist give renewed light to the lamps of our souls, so that like the wise virgins, we may not be found unprepared when the Bridegroom arrives.

Why We Pray

All Souls' Day (1888) by Jakub Schikaneder

The second of November is not a day that usually stands out on our calendars. But, as we know, this year is anything but usual. Each of us has had to consider in a new way the fragility of our lives – the fact that we are mortal and that tomorrow is not promised to us. And each of us knows persons who have died this year, from the COVID pandemic or from some other cause. In a special way today, as we celebrate this All Souls Day, we lift them up in prayer.

Grief is the natural consequence of our familiarity with death – both experiencing that of others and anticipating our own. We deal with that grief in different ways: we communicate with others about how important that person was to us; we hold on to our fond memories with them; sometimes we even continue to talk to them. As Christians, and especially as Catholics, we do something more, something even better and more loving for them: we pray for them.

Your presence at Mass today shows that you understand this. Our culture doesn’t know how to deal with death. It wants to tuck it away out of sight in denial; it can’t wrestle with it without falling into despair. But our faith teaches us that death, as painful as it is, is part of life, and specifically that part of life that leads us to eternal life. To pray for our deceased loved ones then is to express our desire to God that they should now participate in that eternal life. In other words, prayer for them is an act of love, and prayer at Mass – especially the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – is the greatest gift we can give to another. In prayer, and especially at Mass, we commend the faithful departed to the One who has conquered sin and death and who now lives forever.

I think we sometimes don't want to pray for the deceased because we think that means admitting they had faults; that they weren’t perfect. But to pray for our loved ones who have died doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Far from it! We live in a broken world, full of wounds and hurts, and that includes also all of us who live in it. We all have our sins and regrets and sorrows. While we pray to be free from those and absent of any guilt at the close of our lives, the reality is not always that way. We pray for our loved ones not because we do not trust in God’s mercy, but because we trust he might use our prayers precisely as a means for his mercy. And if, by the greatness of God’s mercy, our loved ones are not in need of our prayers because they are already in heaven? God doesn’t let those prayers go to waste; he helps us with them, or perhaps a soul who has been forgotten, who has no one else to pray for them.

Friends, in this very challenging year, it is good that we are here to pray for our loved ones, and to pray also for ourselves, that we might remember always what our faith teaches us about trials, grief, and especially death and eternal life. As we prepare to receive the Lord in this Eucharist, may he have mercy on all of us, living and deceased, and grant us his consolation and peace.

Our Friends, the Saints

What is your idea of happiness? Try to picture it. Maybe it is sitting on a warm beach with a cold drink in your hand; or spending time in nature, in the forest or the mountains; or about to sit down to a holiday meal. Pretty nice, huh? But now imagine that you’re alone – no friends, no family members, no relatives. That takes away some of the enjoyment, doesn’t it?

As human beings, we are innately social creatures. It is part of our nature to engage with our fellow human beings – to cooperate, to care for, to learn from and enjoy. To be sure, we all need and want “alone time” at times, but generally we need the companionship and solidarity of others. Our happiness here on earth– our flourishing as human beings – depends upon our association with others.

We don’t just need other people for happiness here on earth; we also need them to get to heaven. None of us can get there on our own. First and foremost, of course, we need Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, through whom God has made it possible for us to be friends with him. Every grace that we receive and any spiritual merit that we have is the free gift of God given to us in recognition of his what his Son has done on our behalf.

While friendship with Jesus is what saves us, God desires to give us even more. He gives us the love of Mary, who besides her Son is our greatest helper and example. And, especially important for today, he also gives us the friendship of all of Christ’s friends, those whom we call the saints: the men and women up and down the ages who, though human like us, fulfilled the Lord’s will for their lives and so attained both happiness and holiness.

We have a tendency sometimes to think of the saints as relics of history, distant and unrelatable; yes, they were holy, but that holiness feels very far off from our reality, more like an idea than an example. That’s a mistake. The saints may have lived in times and places different from our own, but the fundamental human condition has not changed. They were much more like us than we might expect. We should think of them instead as our heavenly friends, real persons who walked this earth and who knew what it was like to struggle in the same ways that we do. And as the friends of Christ, as those who are with him in heaven, they not only provide us with an example but are ready to help us along our way.

The Holy Trinity and the Saints in Glory (c. 1735) by Sebastiano Conca

Like our earthly friends, we need the heavenly friendship of the saints both in good times and in challenging ones. In good times, the saints can help us grow in wisdom, learning more about their lives and how they sought holiness according to the circumstances of their day. By their example, we can understand more fully the call to holiness the Lord has given to each of us. And when times are more difficult, the saints do the same thing but they also intercede for us, helping us to receive the particular gifts that God gave to them in their journeys. That’s why, for example, St. Rita and St. Monica are great intercessors in difficult marriage and family situations, and St. Augustine or St. Vitalis of Gaza for those who struggle with purity, and St. Dymphna or St. Therese of Lisieux for those suffering from anxiety or fear. St. Francis can teach us about poverty of spirit; St. Teresa of Avila, how to pray; St. Isidore the Farmer, how to find God in your daily labors. 

And lest we think that all the saints lived long ago, some of the most powerful stories are those who lived in our own times. St. Gianna Beretta Molla teaches us about the value of self-sacrifice, when she refused to abort her child even though it meant her own death from cancer. Blessed Chiara Badano, born just a decade before me, showed us how to suffer illness joyfully. St. Josemaría Escrivá, a priest, wrote short aphorisms on how to find God in daily life. St. John Paul II, the great pope, was also a great disciple, showing us how to live one’s vocation as an adventure with Christ. I’d be remiss not to mention also Fr. Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus and just beatified yesterday, who surely has a lot to teach the Catholic men of today about the importance of helping immigrant families and living out an authentic Catholic faith in the face of injustice. 

The point, my friends, is that whatever your need or interest, there is a saint for you – there is a friend for you, waiting to guide and help you. Because greater than any image or idea of earthly happiness is the eternal joy of the saints in heaven. Jesus invites us to share in that – each of us, individually. But we don’t pursue that call by ourselves; we do it together, as the Body of Christ, and especially with the heavenly help of our friends, the saints. 

As we prepare for the Sacrament of the Altar, may their example and intercession encourage us to keep striving, that one day we may join their company.

The Answer to Everything

This past week, I watched some of the third and final presidential debate. Don’t worry; I said all that I want to say about our political and civic responsibilities in my homily last week. But watching that debate, I noticed how both candidates always had a response to anything they were asked. Sometimes their responses actually answered the question, sometimes not, but no matter what they were asked they always had something to say.

In the Gospel today, Jesus is asked to answer a question, and just like the question in last week’s Gospel about paying the census tax to Caesar, it is a question designed to trip him up. In fact, at this point in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is asked a whole series of questions, all of which are antagonistic. They come at the very end of his earthly ministry, after he has triumphantly entered Jerusalem to the acclamation of the crowds, and after he has cleansed the Temple by throwing out the moneychangers. The scribes and Pharisees have long been annoyed by Jesus, who has criticized them, called them hypocrites, and eroded their authority with the people. For that reason, they’ve been repeatedly trying to discredit him, but to this point they’ve failed. The questions they ask him in Jerusalem, then, including the question we hear today, are a last ditch effort to trip him up – to get him to say something that will undermine his moral authority with the Jewish people.

Jesus, though, is always ready to meet their questions with an answer – not a pat, flippant response, not an avoidance of the question, or a harsh dismissal of it, but an honest and direct answer. Jesus’s answers were also incredibly insightful – far more insightful than the wisdom of the scribes and Pharisees, the supposed religious authorities of their day. In Jesus, the Jewish people saw that God had sent them the One who could answer all of their questions. As Christians, we go one step further. Jesus doesn’t just have the answer to all of our questions; he is himself the Answer – he is the “Logos” of God: the Word, the Reason, the Design. As the Second Person of the Trinity who has come to share our nature and reality, he speaks with an authority that is at once divine and human. He reveals to us the mysteries of God but also the deepest truths about ourselves.

The Pharisees and Sadducees Come to Tempt Jesus (c. 1892) by James Tissot

You and I also need to hear the answers Jesus provides, and what only he can teach us. What God wants us to understand from his Son are not just truths and revelations from long ago; they are things we still must understand and live out today. And, indeed, today’s Gospel tells us that what God commands us is not something distant or esoteric, but straightforward. “The whole law and the prophets,” Jesus says – everything that is contained in what we call the Old Testament – consists in loving God with our whole being and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

The principle is just that simple: to love God and to love others. But as we know, living it out is much harder. We know all too well how hard it can be to love in practice not just in principle. We are aware of the different circumstances in our homes and family lives that can make it difficult to keep ourselves focused on loving God above all and to loving others in the way that we should. In our workplaces, in our relationships, in the particular questions that make up our lives in the here and now, we know the different scenarios that don’t always provide an easy answers about how to love. Even in our Church, we wrestle at times with uncomfortable realities, painful pasts, and uncertain futures that can distract or discourage us from the simple if challenging command to love. In short, when Jesus tells us that the whole of the moral life can be summed up by loving God and one another, it feels that often we might find ourselves prompted to respond, “Yes, Lord, but *how*?”

Let me share two thoughts that might be helpful. The first is to keep asking ourselves questions and keep striving for answers. One of the greatest dangers to loving well is becoming satisfied with our where we are at – becoming lazy spiritually. We think, “Oh, I’m too old or too set in my ways to seek God, or to grow in my faith, or to learn how to love more deeply.” There is a spirit of indifferentism that can afflict us when we don’t want to keep striving to grow and to deepen our faith, when we take it for granted in search of other goals. Jesus calls us all of us to holiness, and holiness according to the standard of loving well. If we want to reach it, then we will have to keep asking ourselves important questions – questions like: “Do I love God?”; “Do I love him with my whole being; my heart and soul and mind?”;“Do I seek to love my neighbor, whoever that may be – not just the persons I like, or admire, or who make me feel good about myself, but even the persons I don’t like, the persons who bother me, the persons who have aggrieved me?” Asking those questions isn't easy, and we won’t always like every answer to them, but that’s okay. It’s important to keep asking them, because they point us toward where we have room for further growth.

The second thought is to repeat what I said at the start: Jesus is himself the Answer to all of our questions. In the end the love of God and the love of others is united in the love of Christ. In him, we fulfill both of the commandments of this Gospel: we love God in the Person of his Son who reveals to us his love for us each day; and we love others by loving Christ present within them. If we really want to learn to love well, not just in principle but in action, we must learn to love Jesus wherever we find him: in the face of one who is suffering, in the cries of those who demand justice; in the encouragement of one who calls us to growth and conversion; in the mercy of one who forgives us our faults and transgressions; above all, in the Church, in the sacraments we receive, especially the Most Holy Eucharist.

Friends, seek out the Lord Jesus this week in prayer: in your home, here in church, or in any place you find conducive. Seek him not out of obligation, and not out of malice as the scribes and Pharisees did, but with humility and love. Ask him some questions – about your own life, about how you can love more deeply – and listen for what he says in response. It may be that you will come away with some answers, with insight into what he is asking of you right here and now. If nothing else, you will have spent time with the One who loves you, who is himself the Answer to all your questions, and who gives you the strength to love in return.

What Belongs to God

Have you ever heard the phrase “between a rock and a hard place”? It comes from The Odyssey, the epic of ancient Greece. In the story, the Greek hero Odysseus is trying to sail back to his homeland when his ship must pass between two terrible dangers: on the one side, a dangerous cliff, on which dwells the man-eating monster Scylla, and on the other side, a treacherous whirlpool, known as Charybdis. To be between a rock and a hard place is to be caught between two undesirable outcomes, or to be forced to choose between them.

In the Gospel today, we might say that Jesus is between a rock and a hard place. The Pharisees are plotting to trap him and they decide to do so around the question of political authority: they ask Jesus how Jews should relate to their Roman occupiers. It’s a question without an easy answer; in fact, it’s designed so that Jesus can only give an answer that will get him into trouble. To deny Caesar’s power would be to risk putting himself in danger with the Roman political authorities, perhaps even to the point of being arrested for sedition. On the other hand, to acknowledge Caesar’s authority too blithely would be to risk betraying his identity as the Jewish Messiah and the religious mission his Father had given to him.

Of course, Jesus escapes their trap, and in doing so he gives us an important teaching: “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” Caesar, or any political authority, or politics in general, can make a lot of demands on us: they ask for our involvement, our decision making, and our allegiance. As Catholics, we have a responsibility to participate in political decisions, but never to the point of forgetting that we have a higher allegiance to God.

The Tribute Money (c. 1612) by Peter Paul Rubens

As you know, our city, state, and national elections are just a couple of weeks away. In fact, early voting begins tomorrow. As a pastor, to speak about political matters, especially in advance of an election, is to be caught between something of a rock and a hard place. If I do so too directly, or not in the right way, I risk running afoul of the law and perhaps more importantly overstepping the proper role I have to guide and teach you, but not to tell you what to do. However, to not speak at all about the elections would be to shirk the responsibility I have as your pastor to address the moral issues that impact our lives and to form you about how we should view them.

And so, while it may be uncomfortable to do so, and while I may risk saying something that upsets you or is misunderstood, I think this weekend’s Gospel presents just too plain of an opportunity to speak on some of what our political responsibilities are as Catholics. I’d like to do so in the lens of what I mentioned above: yes, political matters and the issues related to our citizenship have certain claims on us, but God has a higher claim. At times, we can forget that; in fact, I think today especially political matters often present a particular threat to understanding rightly who we are in the eyes of God and what we owe to him.

I realize most of you have already decided how you will vote, at least in some of the bigger races and issues; maybe some of you have already done so by absentee balloting. If that’s the case, or if you think it’s unlikely my words will be helpful, then think of these comments as not so much about this election, but rather about choices we make in general, whether in politics or in any other moral arena.

So how should we look at this election, and more broadly at political matters in general? Always in a way that ensures we don’t end up giving to Caesar something that is due to God. I think there are three ways – or, at least three – that our involvement in political matters can sometimes threaten what we owe to God.

1.    The first is when we fail to view political issues as moral issues, or don’t think about our political choices as also moral choices. To understand how we should vote, it’s not enough to study the different issues at stake, or the different political platforms of the candidates. We also need to form ourselves by understanding what our Church teaches. In their document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the bishops of the United States have outlined the values that should be foremost in our mind when we are considering our political choices. Those values are: the defense of human life, especially against the evils of abortion and euthanasia, which the bishops call “the preeminent threats to human life and dignity” in our day, but also genocide, torture, human cloning, and more; the promotion of peace and avoidance of war; the support of marriage and family life, including providing all workers with a just wage; freedom of religion and freedom of conscience; preferential concern for the poor and a commitment to economic justice; access to affordable health care for all persons; the rights of migrants; support for education, especially for Catholic parents to form their children according to their faith; promoting justice and non-violence, and combatting unjust discrimination; and global solidarity and care for the earth, as our common home. If you’ve never read the document, I encourage you to look it up and to consider how your own political views align with the priorities outlined by our bishops.

To weigh all of those different factors appropriately in order to actually make a decision in regard to a particular issue or candidate – that’s an individual responsibility left up to each of us, to our own prudential judgment and also to our conscience. By conscience, I don’t just mean our firmly held opinion or belief; rather, our conscience is our understanding of the teachings of our Church applied to the present reality and the issue at hand, especially about how we are to act. To rely upon our conscience also means we have to form our conscience, and to form it primarily by what our Church teaches, and not the voices of political pundits and secular commentators.

2.    A second way that our political involvement can obscure what we owe to God is when we feel forced into choosing something, or someone, that we think is wrong. Political decision making is often challenging, both for elected officials and for voters. We have to take our choices seriously, and wrestle with the issues we’re asked to vote upon, or the candidates we’re asked to choose. It’s not a morally acceptable option to not care, to be apathetic. But at the same time, sometimes it’s perfectly legitimate to make the choice of refusing to choose among bad options, especially after serious deliberation. Don’t get me wrong –sometimes we use the language of “Well, it’s just a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.” If by that we mean that among these candidates or ballot issues or amendments, neither option is ideal, but that one is still good in itself, and better than the other, then that’s fine. But, if our conscience has determined that neither option is good or morally acceptable – indeed that both or all options are bad, evil – then we shouldn’t make a choice between them. It’s something of an unusual circumstance, but in such cases, to refuse to choose is actually the morally correct choice. Why? Because whether it’s in politics or any other area of our moral lives, a good outcome does not justify an evil means. In other words, we can never do evil for the sake of good, and that includes choosing a lesser evil – if it really is an evil –over a greater one.

3.    A third and final way that we can give to Caesar what really belongs to God is when we become so hyper-focused on politics and political matters that it dominates our worldview. We have created a religion out of politics in this country, and not only has it obscured our devotion to God, it’s tearing apart our social fabric. We need to get back to doing politics well, and that means putting it in its proper place: as important, with real consequences that we must wrestle with, but not as something that is going to define the fate of the world. Only God can do that, and he has done so, in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. He alone is the Savior of the world, and if we don’t really believe that – and live out that belief daily – then we’re going to go astray in how we look at politics, because we’re going to be looking there for our salvation and our saviors. 

Friends, in a few weeks, we are going to celebrate the last Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Feast of Christ the King. In that feast we state our belief in Jesus as not just the King of heaven, but the King of earth as well. Indeed, we say that he is the King of the universe, and of all things within it, which includes our hearts, our minds, and our souls. Perhaps what we should really ask ourselves this election is not just how are we going to vote, but what do we believe, and who do we believe in. Our political choices are important, and we should take them seriously, but never so much so that they distract us from or substitute for belief in the One who rules over all.

May this Eucharist give us strength to focus ourselves in prayer and praise of God above all else, so that with his grace he might assist us to choose well in the affairs of this world. May God bless us all, and may he bless our country.

Highway to Heaven

I’m very happy to be back with you, after a period of being away that was longer than I had anticipated. I very much appreciate your prayers while I was gone. I certainly felt them, and I hope you felt my prayers for you too. 

The coronavirus pandemic has changed a lot about how we live. There are the day to day effects of having to social distance and wear a mask, but we experience how things have changed perhaps most profoundly at the bigger moments of life. Think of a wedding, for example. In normal times, it’s maybe the most joyous occasion we know of, a chance for the friends and relatives of two different families to come together in celebration. In a pandemic, though, plans have to be changed, and precautions have to be taken to keep people safe. Fewer guests might be invited; some guests who might have come before will decide not to. Such is life in the middle of a pandemic. 

In the Gospel today, Jesus gives a parable about a wedding feast that is affected not by a pandemic but by the apathy of its invited guests. The idea of celebrating joyfully at a wedding probably sounds great to us, especially because we can’t do that right now, but even in normal times, we know that conflicts come up, and different obligations prevent us from what doing what we want. But the invited guests in the parable are different — they don’t *want* to attend. They make excuses about needing to attend to their farm and to their business. Those things can wait — after all, it’s the king who is inviting them! It’s the king’s son who is being married! But they’re not interested. 

The Parable of the Great Banquet (c. 1525) by The Brunswick Monogrammist

This parable comes shortly before Jesus’s final entrance into Jerusalem. It’s very clear that he is the son for whom the wedding banquet has been prepared. What is this wedding banquet? It is the union of heaven and earth, the final fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation of the human race through the person of his Son. We might say that in Jesus, and especially in his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, God has married himself to us — he has joined himself to our reality and redeemed it. And he has made us worthy of himself; he has invited us to dine forever in the eternal banquet of heaven. Ultimately that is the only thing that will last – not the world we see around us, certainly not the present pandemic – but the joyous celebration of the union of our reality and God’s in the eternal life of heaven. 

The question is: are we interested? Are we preparing for that final heavenly banquet? Or do we take it for granted, or worse, are we missing the chance to RSVP because we are focused on the things of this life, like the invited guests in the parable? This is perhaps especially a temptation in times of suffering, whether general suffering like a pandemic or particular suffering like a personal struggle or private tragedy. In those moments, when it can be so very hard to look beyond our present grief, we especially have to remember that the final reality will be one of joy, where “the Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face,” in the words of Isaiah. 

The good news is that each time we come to Mass we have a chance to refocus ourselves again on that joyous celebration to come. Why? Because in the Eucharist, we have a preview of the Son’s wedding feast; by receiving this Sacrament, we receive him — his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity — and we remember that there is nothing more important we do on earth than to united ourselves to him, he alone who can carry us from the sorrows of the present world to the eternal joys of the world to come. The Eucharist is nothing less than a foretaste of that heavenly banquet. 

Blessed Carlo Acutis, pray for us!

Friends, yesterday in Assisi, Italy, an Italian teenager named Carlo Acutis became the Church’s newest blessed. He died in 2006 at the age of 15. He was a pretty regular teenager; he loved games and computers and the internet. But more than anything else, he loved Jesus and he loved receiving him in the Eucharist. When he was diagnosed with leukemia, he knew that his sufferings were as nothing compared to the joyous celebration of heaven. He said that the Eucharist was his “highway to heaven” and yesterday that was proven to be true. May this Eucharist, and every Eucharist, be the same for us – a preview of eternal life, and the very means of getting us there.