Finding Jesus in the Fray

They say that children grow up fast. In fact, when referring to some particular age or event in the life of a child, I often hear parents and grandparents say, “Don’t blink – you’ll miss it!” I’m sure it can be hard to treasure those precious moments because, in the moment, they are so fleeting.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is twelve years old. Yesterday, we heard about his birth in Bethlehem and today he’s already practically a teenager. Talk about growing up fast! Of course, this jump in time has a purpose – to show us a particular moment in the Lord’s life that was important not only for him but for his family too, because today is the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Looking at their family, centered around Jesus, we learn also something relevant for us – about how our families also should be centered on this Child who is God.

We might think the Gospels would relate to us some idyllic account of the Holy Family at home in Nazareth: perhaps Jesus helping Joseph in his carpenter shop, or assisting Mary in preparing the family meal. But today’s story is nothing of the sort. Indeed for anyone who has lost a child, or even just couldn’t find one a few moments, we can imagine the anxiety and heartache that must have filled Mary and Joseph as they searched for Jesus in a large, bustling city unfamiliar to them. Finally, after three whole days – imagine! – they find him in the Temple, conversing with the wisest and most learned of all Jewish scholars. And then he tells them something astonishing: that they should have known to look for him there, “in my Father’s house.”

Jan Steen, The Child Jesus in the Temple (c. 1660)

Why this story? What does it teach us about the Holy Family? You know, we remember this story when we pray the Rosary; it’s the Fifth Joyful Mystery, and we call it the Finding of Jesus in the Temple. Is that really an accurate way to describe it? It’s only a finding if Jesus is really lost. But the point he seems to be making to his Mother and his foster father is that he’s exactly where he is supposed to be. Even more than Jesus himself, what is really being discovered in the Gospel is a new and heightened awareness for who he truly is, and for what his Presence among us truly means. And that is why it is joyful too – despite the real anxiety and heartache that Mary and Joseph would have experienced, by the end of the story they would have rejoiced at being reminded, again, that their Son was truly the Son of the Father in heaven.

And that truth is what we recall and celebrate today ourselves. If Mary and Joseph may have needed a gentle reminder about the identity of the Son born to them, and what that identity *means*, then certainly we do all the more so. Christmas was literally only yesterday, but I bet if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s possible that we have already begun to mentally move on to the next thing – to get ready for the work week, or for the return to school and after-school activities, or for our New Year’s resolutions, or for whatever else is currently our priority. Perhaps our lives feel very disorganized right now, and we feel as if we've missed Jesus somehow, as if we want to find him but we don't know where to start. 

Here's the crucial question for where to begin: has our celebration of Jesus’s birth changed us in some way? Has the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation moved us to new and deepened praise and thanksgiving? And, perhaps most importantly for today, are we inviting that mystery into our lives, into the lives of our family in a new way? Are we seeking to make our families focused on Jesus, just as the Holy Family was, living out our relationship with him not just individually but communally, in our homes, in the relationships of family life, practicing our faith and forming our families so that no matter what anxiety or heartache we may face, the joy of his Presence among us will never be dampened? 

Friends, if we can begin to ask those questions, and answer them, we will know where to find the Lord anew in the fray of our busy lives. I pray that the Lord will truly bless you and your families in this Christmas season. Its moments and memories may be fleeting, but we can hold on to its mystery and its grace, and with the Lord’s Presence in our hearts and in our homes, ask him to form us and our families to be like him – holy.

The Child Born in Our Hearts

I want to share with you a story.

Imagine that we are outside – not in the balmy 75 degrees or whatever we had today, but in the cold night air, not here on the Grand Prairie, in the 21st century, but in the hills of the Italian countryside in the 13th century. We are walking, following a religious man, a preacher who wants us to see something special, and we are hiking behind him on a mountain trail, heading up into the hills. Our way is lit with torches and candles, and we are bundled up to stay warm as we walk. Finally, we arrive at our destination: a niche in the side of the cliff that forms a cave of sorts. There we see that our preacher has prepared straw, where a few farm animals lie and graze. A crib made out of rough wood sits in the middle. As we approach the spot, this preacher begins to sing a song, reciting a story, one that is set in a manger like the one we see before us. It is the story of a child’s birth, and as he speaks, we can see that he is overcome with emotion, full of joy and peace, almost to the point of tears. So tenderly does he describe the child that we notice how he does not even dare to say his name, but calls him only “il Bambino di Betlemme” – “the Babe of Bethlehem.” As he preaches about the birth of this child, some of us even think perhaps that we can see him, a heavenly figure, weak and small and yet radiating a heavenly light.

That, more or less, is the account of how St. Francis of Assisi created the first Nativity scene in the mountain town of Greccio in Italy in December of 1223. He had journeyed to the Holy Land a few years before, and when he returned, he decided to recreate the spot in Bethlehem where Christ had been born. He prepared a manger, filled it with hay, and borrowed local animals from nearby farms. He had his spiritual brothers – the Friars Minor, whom we know better as Franciscans – to gather the people and lead them by song and candlelight to the scene. And for their part, the townspeople of Greccio went along and trekked up into the hills, not because they didn’t know what awaited them there, but because they wanted to experience what they already knew in a different way. In the outdoor Mass they had there, as they heard Francis the deacon chant with great reverence and love the Gospel account of the birth in Bethlehem, that story came alive for them, so much so that some even believed they saw the Child there in their midst.

Of course, the story that they heard is what we heard in our Gospel: the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, the One whom the angel called “Emmanuel, God-with-us.” We know that story well – and yet every year, we gather together to hear it anew, to let it come alive again, to reflect upon it and seek to understand its significance more deeply. What Francis wanted to show in the hills above Greccio, what our readings seek to describe, what we have come to celebrate in church this evening/morning is that that humble birth – poor really, by any measure – was nothing less than the coming of the living God into our world. In Jesus, God has taken to himself our reality and, in doing so, forever changed it. God has, in effect, wedded himself to us – with all of our warts, in all of our sinfulness, he has made his love visible in the Person of his Son in order to redeem our humanity and let it share in his divinity. He has done this, glory be to Him, through this little Child. This Babe of Bethlehem is Emmanuel, God-with-us, and he has come to reveal the depth of God’s love for us by going to the Cross for us, to put to death our sin and dysfunction once and for all, and forever reclaim us – as Isaiah says, changing us from “Forsaken” to “My Delight,” from “Desolate” to “Espoused”.

That is what the birth in Bethlehem meant. And what it still means – because at its heart, the birth of the Christ Child is more than a spectacle or a theological reality, it’s an invitation to ponder the love of God and to ask ourselves whether we have encountered it, and been changed by it, and shaped our lives around it. St. Francis told some of his friars that he worried the people of Greccio had forgotten the meaning of their Christian faith: some had become materialistic and focused on worldly pleasures; others had become cold and bitter because of the hardships they faced; others didn’t practice their faith and had stopped coming to weekly Mass to encounter the living God in the Eucharist; and others were good people who had just become stale in their prayer and loose in their morals and who needed a reminder of God’s love for them. And that’s what God wants for us too – to adore his Son’s birth not just with a brief prayer or remembrance, not just by sitting in a pew for an hour on Christmas Eve, but being opened anew to his love. He wants us to look inside ourselves, to look at our lives, and realize where we need to be *changed* by the love of God in Christ. His birth changed the world, but will we ourselves be changed by it?

Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, “There are two births of Christ, one unto the world in Bethlehem; the other is in the soul when it is spiritually reborn.” God has done the first, all by himself, in the birth at Bethlehem. But for the second, he won’t act without you. The God who created the heavens and the earth, who entered our human reality to shatter the darkness of sin and death – he won’t enter your heart, unless you invite him there – unless you let Christ be born *within* you as truly as he was born in the manger. The humble child born in the stable is an invitation to love, and to be loved, by the God made Man. It is this inward coming that Jesus most fully desires – indeed, it is the reason for his coming altogether. If all Christmas is for us is another event on the calendar, a holiday to be marked and then to move past, then we will entirely miss its point, which is this: the Lord Jesus awaits us, even now, at the door of our hearts, asking if there is room enough for him to be born anew.

Gerard Seghers, Saint Clare and Saint Francis of Assisi in adoration before the Child Jesus (c. 1640)

My friends, some time tonight or tomorrow, take a moment away from your family and friends, and make a little interior journey of your own. Close your eyes, and imagine yourself not in Greccio, but at the real manger scene in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. See there, in a humble stable, the Holy Family, and in the crib, the Christ Child himself. You have come to see him, but he was born for you – to die for you, willingly and joyfully, in order to raise your humanity so that you can share in his divinity. He has done for this you; what will you do for him?

Draw close now and kneel down. He looks at you, the Lord of heaven and earth, made a humble Child. Feel his peace. Encounter his joy – a joy that only he can give, and that he desires to give you all year round. It is a joy like a flame, one which cannot be snuffed out, but which shines brightly in the dark, with warm and light. The Babe of Bethlehem is born for you. All he desires from you is Everything, and he will give you Everything in return.

Note: A prior version of this homily was preached a few years ago. The original can be found here.

Joy to Be Shared

One of the best parts of my week is on Thursday mornings, when I stand in the vestibule and greet our schoolchildren as they leave the sanctuary after our school Mass. I love it because often one or more of them are practically bursting to share something about what’s going on in their world — in their classroom, in their family, et cetera. There’s something joyful about seeing others filled with joy.

In the Gospel we just heard, Mary journeys to visit her cousin Elizabeth. She does so following the announcement of the angel Gabriel that she would become the Mother of God. It was news that had surprised and amazed her, but also must have filled her with great joy, a joy that she would have wanted to share as soon as possible. Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth out of charity, wanting to help her older cousin with her pregnancy. But we can also imagine how much she would have desired to share with her the joy of her secret, what what the angel Gabriel had told her would soon happen for her.

Of course, the amazing thing in today’s story is that Mary doesn’t have to share it. Her joy, and the reason for her joy, was so evident that Elizabeth immediately knew the full story; as she says, the child in her womb, whom we know as John the Baptist, leapt for joy at the presence of Mary and her greeting. What Elizabeth understands is that Mary is not just full of joy, full of grace, but also filled with the very presence of God – the Lord Jesus whom she carried inside her. Mary is the first evangelist, the first bearer of the Good News, literally bringing the presence of God to those who were in need.

The Visitation, Anonymous (16th cent.)

In these final days of Advent, the Church gives us these two women as a model for how we are to be as well. We too must be like Elizabeth, who rejoiced at the Good News that a Savior was to be born for us, and who shared in the joy of that news even before his appearing. Often our world can feel very dark and gloomy, and the news that fills our headlines, and even the situations and realities of our own lives can leave us troubled and searching for reasons to hope. But the Good News is that there is a Savior present among us, and although we may not see him visibly, we can like Elizabeth discern his nearness with eyes of faith and through the power of grace. The darkness is not so dark when we perceive the Light.

Even more, we are also called to be like Mary. She had the unique privilege of bearing the Son of God in her very body. But we too can be – and indeed, are called to be – God-bearers, bringing the presence of Christ to all whom we encounter. By means of the sacraments, most especially the Eucharist, we receive sanctifying grace, which means not only Jesus, but the Father and the Holy Spirit as well – the Triune God – dwells in our souls. And this gift is not just for ourselves, not just to console us, and give us reason to hope, but also that we too can be evangelists, sharing the Good News of Him who was born for us, to save us. It is with that knowledge, with his Presence, that we go into the darkness and gloominess of the world, not to be overcome by it but to bear the light of Christ into it.

Friends, let’s each of us think this week about who we can share the Lord’s joy with. Who needs to hear from us the Good News? Into what situation or reality is the Lord calling us to be his missionary, his evangelist? May our joy always be so evident that others may discern in us the Presence of the very God who became Man, the Savior born of Mary.

Mary, Joseph, and God's Bigger Picture

We have gathered here today to praise God for the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to ask for her intercession on this Solemnity of her Immaculate Conception. But I know our Blessed Mother won’t mind if I also talk today about her Spouse, St. Joseph. You may know that all this year we have been in the Year of St. Joseph – a time that Pope Francis has invited the whole Church to reflect upon and ask for the assistance of the Head of the Holy Family. That year concludes today, and since I don’t believe I have preached yet specifically about St. Joseph during this year, I thought “Better late than never”.

In today’s Gospel, Mary says yes to the message of the angel about what God wills for her life: to give birth to our Savior, Jesus Christ. In doing so, her life changed in a major way; so too, did that of St. Joseph. Mary didn’t ask Joseph’s permission to become the Mother of God; she accepted her life’s vocation on the spot, but her choice also affected that of St. Joseph. We know from the Gospel that Joseph was hesitant about Mary and Child into his home. Understandably so! Who was he to have the Mother of God, and her Son, the Incarnate Word, in his home? But God knew what he did not: that he was the right man for the job. And so, Joseph’s life too was radically changed from what he might have expected. Whatever Mary and Joseph might have intended for their own married life, they set those plans aside in order to accept the will of God.

Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus (c. 1840) by Vincent López Portaña

Of course, neither of them did these things by themselves, by their own powers. They did them only by God’s grace. Mary received that grace in a unique way, a belief we celebrate today: that at the moment of her conception God applied to her the redemptive merits of her Son’s passion, death, and resurrection. Joseph received that grace sometime after his own conception – when exactly, we don’t know – but he too came to understand and to accept what God was asking him to do, even if he didn’t fully understand how or why. God was at work in a far deeper way than Joseph realized.

Pope Francis puts it well, in his apostolic letter Patris Corde (“With a Father’s Heart”), for this Year of Joseph: “Even through Joseph’s fears, God’s will, his history and his plan were at work. Joseph, then, teaches us that faith in God includes believing that he can work even through our fears, our frailties and our weaknesses. He also teaches us that amid the tempests of life, we must never be afraid to let the Lord steer our course. At times, we want to be in complete control, yet God always sees the bigger picture.”

Friends, there’s a great truth at the center of our liturgy today: aligning our will with God’s will is always the best way. Think today about where God might be asking you to align your will to his. What seems scary or difficult, but nonetheless the right thing to do? What feels overwhelming, but something you know you need to accept? Ask for the grace of Christ – the same grace that sanctified Mary, the same grace that redeemed Joseph. And ask for their help, too: they can be wonderful intercessors in helping us to generously accept the Lord’s will – to say “Yes,” to his plan, as they did. For Mary, for Joseph, and for us, too – God always sees the bigger picture.

Abound in Love

Springtime (1902) by Wincenty Wodzinowski

Here at the end of November, spring feels like a long time ago. Perhaps it’s hard to even recall it, what with the leaves falling from the trees and the days turning colder and darker. But if you can think back to what it felt like in, say, early April – with the first hint of green appearing, and the trees beginning to flower – you might get a sense of the spirit of today’s liturgy.

As we start a new liturgical year, and beginning the season of Advent, the Church wants us to feel just like we might the early days of spring: a certain freshness and vigor, a certain anticipation for what is coming to life around us. In today’s first reading, we heard the prophecy of Jeremiah that a righteous shoot would spring forth for God’s People – a reference not to flowers blossoming or trees budding but to the coming of the Messiah, the Son of David, who will bring newness to God’s People and justice for all of creation. We read this passage (and similar ones like it from Isaiah, Zechariah, and other prophets) as a prophecy of the coming of Christ. Jesus comes into the world bringing righteousness, making things news, and so in anticipation of his coming, we eagerly make ready for what he comes to bring. We prayed to do just that in the opening Collect of today’s Mass: “Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to *run forth* to meet your Christ”.

We tend to think of Advent as the time to get ready for Christmas, the celebration of Christ’s birth. But in these early days of Advent, the Church encourages us to think more of the Lord’s second coming at the end of time. That’s what the Lord himself speaks to his disciples about in today’s Gospel. Jesus tells them that despite the fact that his return will be preceded by terrifying sights, even people literally dying of fright, he wants his disciples to act differently than the rest: not cowering in fear, but standing erect, with raised heads, awaiting their redemption. Again, we see: Jesus himself brings newness and righteousness, and so to await his return is to prepare also for what will come with him.

The question then is how to prepare? How do we run forth to meet Christ, especially if we don’t know when he will return? There are many things we might consider, but perhaps we can focus on two things that St. Paul suggests in our second reading. Writing to the Thessalonian community, he first asks God to make them “increase and abound in love.” He phrases it as a prayer, but it is clear he wants them to grow in charity. And so too should we. To love – as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus – has to mean more than the ordinary, generic loves that we all know and enjoy: loving family, loving friends, loving people that love us. Christian love must be something much harder and more dogged: loving the people we don’t like; loving the people who don’t like us; loving the people who have hurt us, who annoy us, who talk bad about us; loving those whom we think are selfish, or prideful, or rude. To love as a Christian means treating people charitably on the outside – even when we are having a bad day, or running low on energy, or feeling as if we have been mistreated – but also seeking to be truly charitable toward them on the inside: in our thoughts, in our judgments, even in our emotions. To love as a Christian means to try to see Jesus in everyone, always, without exceptions.

Perhaps you are thinking, “Father, I already do all that.” If so, great! But listen to the second thing that St. Paul tells the Thessalonians: “do so even more.” Advent is a great time to double down on our efforts to show charity, and to really consider where the Lord is calling us to “increase and abound” in love. Maybe it is a specific individual whom we know, who pushes our buttons or with whom we have a difficult history. Maybe it is not someone we know personally, but rather some government or civil leader that we disagree with politically, or members of some group or organization that we think is doing bad things to our society, or maybe it is some whole class of folks based upon language, or skin color, or religion, or even sports affiliation. A good way of asking ourselves whom we can love more is asking ourselves, “Is there someone I am tempted to hate – some person or group that I am tempted to scorn, or talk bad about, or dismiss out of hand?” If the answer is yes, then we’ve found our answer as to who the Lord is calling us to love. For the Christian, our efforts to show charity are expressions of our love for God; if we are struggling to be charitable to others, it may be because we need to first grow in love for him.

Friends, to increase and abound in love sounds great, but it’s no easy thing; it requires us often to swallow our pride, to humble ourselves, to realize that we all have a lot of room still to grow in charity. But the good news is that if we seek to let our love increase and abound, we often experience something like a spiritual springtime, a certain freshness and vigor of the Lord’s grace empowering us to love others and, in so doing, preparing us well for his return. There’s no better gift we can offer him in this Advent season than to live out more faithfully his commandment to love, the commandment that he tells us should be our defining characteristic: “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

May the grace of this Eucharist inflame our hearts with the charity of Jesus that our love for others may abound in this season, in every season, until the day the Lord returns in glory.

The King Appears

Appearances can be deceiving. That’s a lesson we have all learned a time or two, most importantly about people. Perhaps you’ve had that experience of meeting someone and finding them at first a bit gruff or taciturn, but after getting to know them better, you discover that there’s a warm and kindly heart beneath their rough exterior. Or take the opposite case. Often those who laugh and seem carefree can be going through a difficult interior struggle on the inside. In the age of social media, and hyper-interest in the lives of celebrities, we quickly learn that appearances can be deceiving.

We could say that same lesson is at the heart of today’s Solemnity of Christ the King. In today’s Gospel, Jesus and Pontius Pilate discuss whether he is a king, as his followers claim him to be. It certainly doesn’t seem like Jesus is a king. Yes, he had ridden into Jerusalem to great fanfare and acclamation, but he had quickly been scorned, betrayed, arrested, mocked, and tortured. And now he stood bloodied and humiliated before Pilate, the governor of the Roman province of Judea and Caesar’s personal representative to the region. To believe this was a king would appear to be something utterly ridiculous.

And yet, remember – appearances can be deceiving. Pilate himself wonders if there is perhaps more to this battered and broken man than meets the eye. He puts the question to Jesus: Are you a king, as your followers believe you to be? He’s thinking however in earthly terms, wondering where Jesus’s kingdom could be and trying to figure out what kind of king could let himself be treated this way. Jesus’s response – “You say that I am a king” – is intentionally ambiguous. He speaks of a kingdom, but one not of this world.

Pontormo, Christ Before Pilate (c. 1525)

Jesus himself will not settle the question. He says he has come into the world to bear witness to the Truth; it is up to those who hear him to make up their minds about him. That means not just Pilate, but us too. Many people today can’t accept Jesus as their king. Some end up rejecting him explicitly, as Pilate did. Many more do so implicitly – because his kingdom is not of this world, because his reign does not bring an end to suffering now, nor perfect justice on earth. Whether consciously or unconsciously they move on from Jesus – they relegate him to the past, or to dusty theology books, or at best give him an hour on Sunday then spend the rest of their time seeking happiness and trying to deal with their problems in the way they think best.

It is only to those with the gift of faith that we see those precise questions – suffering, injustice, how to seek happiness, how to find meaning in a broken world – can’t be answered apart from Jesus, but only with him, and precisely by his kingship. Two thousand years on, it is by the power of faith, it is in the faith of believers that the kingship of Jesus is revealed – not an earthly reign, as Pilate was expecting, but a kingship given to him from on high and one day to be revealed to all. As the Church, we hear the voice of the Risen Lord speaking to us, bearing witness to the Truth, and by his grace we too bear witness to him as Truth. We cannot yet see the full extent of his kingdom, but we don’t let contrary appearances dissuade us. Many may have given up on Jesus, but not us. And what’s more, for those who haven’t come to believe in Christ, we won’t come give up on them either, because the Lord won’t give up on them. He wants us to continue to proclaim his kingship to all – both by what we profess and more importantly by the manner of how we live – awaiting with hope that day of final revealing, and experiencing even now, in mystery, the spiritual gifts of kingdom.

Friends, as we say in the baptismal liturgy, “This is our faith. This is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord.” So much might appear to suggest there’s no way Jesus could be our King, but we know appearances can be deceiving, in his case above all! Let’s recognize the Lord as king now, and live like it, so that when he appears we shall be ready. As we celebrate this Eucharist, let’s examine our hearts to ensure we are not deceived with what’s going on in our lives, so that by the grace of his Sacrament, the Truth of the Lord will be visible for all to see.

A Joyful Calling

It is great to be back with you after having been away for a couple weeks. This weekend, along with the usual Mass schedule, I have the special privilege of celebrating not one, not two, not three, but four baptisms. Three were yesterday morning, and one is today after Mass. If we took a poll among priests about which sacraments we most enjoyed celebrating, baptisms would probably be near the top of the list. A baptism is always a joyous occasion – always, even when it’s a little frenzied: if the family is running a little behind, or the child is fussy, or perhaps big brother or sister is squirmy and disobedient. The externals are not always perfect, but baptism is beautiful, not because of what’s going on the outside, but because of what’s happening on the inside.

I wonder sometimes if we talk about baptism enough, especially what happens on the inside when a person is baptized. We believe that, at baptism, the human being is spiritually remade: through the washing of the water, he or she participates, in a very real way, in the death and resurrection of Jesus. And from those waters of rebirth, whatever sin is present – original or personal – is washed away; grace fills our hearts; we become a part of the Body of Christ; and God the Father comes to love us in a wholly new and supernatural way, for he sees in us the image of his Divine Son, Jesus Christ. For that reason, we can say that all who are baptized are truly sons and daughters of God, able to share – if we persevere in his grace – in something that before would have been completely beyond our reach: the eternal joys of heaven.

We believe those things as just basic parts of our Christian faith, but if we’re honest with ourselves, I bet we’d admit that rarely do they enter into our consciousness. Sure, we all know baptism is important, but if pressed, we probably have difficulty in explaining why. Perhaps because it is usually celebrated outside of our communal worship times, baptism as a sacrament can sometimes be out of sight, out of mind. We may go years without participating in a baptism, and even if we are invited to a baptism of a family member or a friend, we might be tempted to treat it as a one-off – a joyful event, to be sure, but one which, after having been celebrated, is rarely if ever thought of again. What we need is to get back to seeing baptism as the defining experience of our life – not just for babies, or young children, but for all of us. We are baptized in a particular moment in time, but the foundational reality of baptism, the new identity that we take on in baptism, stretches beyond that moment to shape every moment that comes afterward.

Today’s Gospel gives us a great example of just what I mean. No one who saw what happened to Bartimaeus could have easily forgotten that experience or been tempted to treat it as a one-off. The fact that St. Mark names him is itself a clue that people in the early Church clearly remembered this man who had been healed by Jesus: they probably knew him and interacted with him in their communities. And certainly Bartimaeus himself could never have been the same; his whole world changed when he received his vision. Not only was he able to see with his physical eyes, but he began to perceive things anew with spiritual sight. That’s why the Gospel tells us explicitly that Bartimaeus too began to follow Jesus. He became the Lord’s disciple – his identity, the whole course of his life shaped by and rooted in that healing encounter.

Healing the Blind Man (1832) by Václav Mánes

You might say, “Father, that sounds great, but surely it’s different for those of us who haven’t been personally healed by Jesus like Bartimaeus was.” But to that I would say, actually we all have experienced just this kind of healing. How? Precisely in and through our baptism. Our Gospel writer St. Mark uses baptismal imagery throughout today’s Gospel precisely because he wants us to understand it as not just the story of one of Jesus’s miracles but as the basic pattern of conversion that informs the life of every Christian. Before our baptism, we were like Bartimaeus – spiritually blind, idle, not on the road to anywhere. Seeing our need, the Lord called out to us. And when we were asked what we wanted the Lord to do for us, we responded – either ourselves or our parents on our behalf – to be baptized. And then, through the healing waters of the sacrament, the Lord transformed our lives as profoundly as he did that of Bartimaeus – and, yes, even more so. And with that grace, we now have the ability, and the calling, to be the Lord’s faithful disciples.

Friends, the beauty of baptism is that while it happens once, the pattern of it continues to play out in our lives over and over again. Whenever our lives become a little frenzied – when we find that we are spiritually running behind, or find ourselves to be a little fussy or disobedient in our relationship with God – we need only be renewed in the grace of conversion, which we first received in baptism. It was through the healing waters of that sacrament that we first encountered the Lord, and because of that encounter, we can encounter him anew, each day – we can continue to call out to him, receive his healing where we need it, and like Bartimaeus, live out our joyful calling to follow after him.

Our Families & Our Faith

A few months ago, I was looking through the online archives of our diocesan newspaper The Arkansas Catholic – actually, The Guardian, as it used to be called. I can’t remember exactly what I was looking for, but I stumbled upon the obituary of Fr. Joseph Schlatterer. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he was the pastor of this parish in the early part of the twentieth century. His grave is in the middle of our parish cemetery, under the big cross; next year will be the 100th anniversary of his death. Reading through his obituary, I got a little bit of a sense of this man who served our parish a century ago. He was born in Germany and ordained a priest there, eventually coming to Arkansas to serve the German immigrants who worked along the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Eventually, he made his way to the Grand Prairie and became pastor here at Holy Rosary. For brevity's sake, I'll leave it there, but suffice to say I was impressed and moved really by what I learned in Fr. Schlatterer’s obituary. I came away not only with a greater understanding of our parish’s history, but also with a deeper love for our community now and a deeper sense of commitment as your pastor. 

Remembering the origins of something can help us better understand our realities today. That’s an important thing to keep in mind, especially as we celebrate our parish feast day today. As the Catholic community in Stuttgart, we very much share in and build upon those who came before us, including Fr. Schlatterer and the community he served. What we do and who we are is rooted in what they began; and for those who will come after us, our children and grandchildren, and future generations, they will be shaped by what we do and how well we live out our faith now. Every year, as we celebrate the community of faith that we are, we also have an eye toward history – an eye toward the past, grateful for the witness of those who came before us, and an eye to the future, aware of the responsibility we have to provide them a good foundation and example.

Fr. Joseph Schlatterer, b. 1853, Baden, Germany; d. 1922, Stuttgart, Arkansas

All of this resonates well with what we hear in today’s Gospel. The Pharisees ask Jesus a question about divorce, a complicated issue both then and now. They ask the question intending to put Jesus in a tight spot, but instead of answering them directly, Jesus reminds them about the more fundamental reality of marriage and what God’s plan for it is. We hear about this more in the reading from Genesis. Among all of God’s creation – the earth and the heavens, all the creatures in them – God declares all of them to be “good.” The only thing that is “not good” is that the man is alone. And so God creates woman, not as a secondary human being but as man’s complement and equal. Together, they complete the picture of what human beings are, and in their union as husband and wife, and their love bearing fruit in their children, we see the plan of God realized: the fullness of life and love in this world, and a reflection of his own life and love for the world to come.

It goes without saying how important all of these realities remain for us today: marriage, family, human life and love. With the exception of our love for God, they are what we care most about, and for that reason they can be the source of both great joy but also at times difficulty and sorrow. But it’s important to remember these are not just merely human realities; they are also given to us by God, and so because they are rooted in our faith, it must be our faith that shapes how we live them out. The foundation of our parish – past, present, and future – is the family and family life: the married love of spouses, the relationships between parents and children, and grandparents and children, and also the relationships of family to family, especially here when we come together as the Body of Christ. In all of these relationships, the choices we make in how we live affect the larger whole – the way that we as a community proclaim the Gospel to the world around us.

If our Catholic faith shapes the parameters for how we live family life, then it also certainly helps us to do that as well. By living out our faith, by practicing it in the way that God calls us to, we also receive his grace – the gift of his love to strengthen us in our relationships. We receive that grace especially here at Mass; how important it is that we adults make sure to always bring our families to Mass every week, making sure that no other activity takes priority over the responsibility we have to bring our children to to Jesus, as he exhorts us in the Gospel today. We receive his grace in all of the sacraments, and indeed every time that we pray, as a parish community and as individual families. We also receive it via the help and intercession of others. Today we invoke the help of our patroness, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and also her spouse St. Joseph, whom we celebrate with the universal Church in this Year of St. Joseph. Mary and Joseph knew the realities of family life, its joys and its sorrows, including the difficulties of marriage and parenthood. Yet they also lived out those realities according to God’s plan and via God’s grace. They can help us to do the same.

The Baptism (c. 1940) by Carlos Reis

We also can look to the example of those who came before us who specifically provided us with the witness of faith: previous pastors, like Msgr. Janesko whom many of you remember, or Fr. Schlatterer whom I mentioned earlier; perhaps catechists and teachers who taught and formed us; and maybe especially our parents and our grandparents and other family members who valued their faith above all else, who gave us an example of how to live it out, and in doing so laid the spiritual foundation for our parish that we continue to build upon. We remember these people, and by looking to their example for strength and inspiration, God helps us to continue what they started so that we can hand on to future generations what they handed on to us.

Friends, on this our parish feast day, let us together pray for God’s blessings: for our parish, for our marriages and our families, for all of our relationships. In all of these earthly realities, may God come to aid us, helping us by his grace to live out his plan for our lives and our loves, so that through them we might fulfill his purpose in this life and be prepared for the life to come. It is ultimately there, in that heavenly family, that we will find the happiness of which the joys of this life are only a glimpse. May our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph guide us safely there. Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, pray for us!

Who's in Charge?

“Who is in charge here?” If you have ever participated in a team environment, or a group setting, or even an informal meeting, you know that question inevitably comes up. Who is the person responsible? Who has been charged with authority? Who can I turn to for some answers?

That question is at the heart of our readings today. Throughout the history of mankind’s relationship with God, human beings have struggled with wanting to be in charge of how and when we relate to God. We want God’s love and presence and assistance, but only on our terms. But this week, our readings remind us that our covenant with God is one that necessitates we understand that he is the one truly in charge, and that is for our benefit.

The reading from the Old Testament – about the Spirit coming down to rest upon the various members of the Israelite community – is a foreshadowing of the event we call Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Apostles and the other disciples after Jesus’s Ascension. This is not an abstract reality, but something that really happens even today – that by means of the sacraments, especially baptism and confirmation, the Holy Spirit doesn’t just dwell among us, as the Christian community, but *within* us as individuals.

But this returns us to the question I asked at the beginning: “who's in charge?” God wants us all to share in his authority, which is why he gives us the graces of the Holy Spirit, the very presence of the Spirit to lead and guide us. But while we are his instruments, the authority always remains his. It is the Lord who must be in charge of our lives, not us. When we forget that, we become like the apostle John in the Gospel. He is dismayed, perhaps even jealous, that those who were not explicitly followers of Jesus were displaying signs that they too had received the Holy Spirit. Take note of Jesus’s response – basically, he says, “Leave that to me – I am in charge here, not you.”

Contemplation (1896) by Jozef Israëls

Jesus wanted his disciple John to be attentive to his own self, and so does he ask the same of us. We must be on guard against causing scandal, and giving others a reason to sin. We must be aware of how even things we consider small or unimportant can separate us from the love of God and prevent the Holy Spirit from being active within us. We need to be careful in our attitude toward acquiring wealth and focusing on material things, as St. James tells us in the second reading. Often, we acknowledge the Lord’s authority in simple, concrete ways: by resisting temptations to jealousy, by committing ourselves to sharing what we have with those who are less fortunate, by examining our own attitudes to see where we might be living hypocritically, not in accord with what we profess in faith. If we are going to acknowledge the Lord’s authority, then we have to be committed to submitting to the Lord’s authority in all things.

So, brothers and sisters, when we think about our lives, our futures, our daily interactions with others, we can ask, “Who's in charge?” The answer must be God – not that we should abandon all agency and action, but rather that we should always be aware of how we must make space in our lives for the Lord’s action in us. Let us pray that his Spirit, whom he has given to us in baptism and confirmation, and who prepares us now to receive the Sacrament of the Altar, may the Spirit strengthen us to live in the truth of Christ and give witness to him in all things.

Attentive to Whom We Receive

Human beings, especially adults, have an innate attentiveness to children. This has been shown even scientifically. We are naturally attuned to hear the voice of a crying baby over other noises, and people innately know to watch their language or what they’re discussing, if a child is present. If a person sees a child struggling with something, like opening a door or carrying a heavy package, they are more likely to stop and be of help. None of this should be surprising, of course, but it does show us something interesting: we treat children – even those who are not our own – differently than we tend to treat others.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tries to get the disciples’ attention by placing a child in their midst. He has been telling them, both in last week’s Gospel and again today, that he is going to Jerusalem to suffer and die in order to rise after three days. But they aren’t getting the message. They are too busy discussing their own achievements, their own greatness, and most likely arguing with each other about it. They probably are doing exactly what James warns us about in today’s second reading: existing in “jealousy and selfish ambition,” with conflicts and covetousness and envy dominating their attitude.

Perhaps we can see now the point that Jesus makes at the end of the Gospel. He doesn’t correct their attitude by words so much as by drawing their attention to the presence of that child. How silly they must have felt with all of their boasting and jealous ambition, compared to the tender innocence of the child in front of them. His point is this: true greatness comes not from striving to inflate ourselves, by focusing on what we have achieved and what others haven’t, but by adopting an attentive ness to those who are lowly and seeking to serve them.

Fritz von Uhde, "And Calling a Child to Him..." (c. 1904)

Notice that this is not the Gospel where Jesus encourages us to be childlike ourselves, to become like children in order to inherit the kingdom of heaven. That certainly helps! But what he’s really saying here is that we must seek to receive in his name those who are children, and all others like them: those who are vulnerable, who are insignificant in the eyes of the world, those who are not playing the game of trying to get ahead, those who are the “nobodies” of the world. It’s with precisely those folks that Jesus identifies because he will be one of them himself, especially when he is rejected, accused, arrested, tortured, and put to death. That’s why he tells us that whenever we receive them – whenever we are attentive to them, seek to serve them, try to meet their needs and thereby accord them the dignity they have – when we receive them, we really receive him, and his Father who sent him.

This Gospel gives us a lot to reflect upon. If a child asked for our help, or if we saw one in need, we would assist right away; and if Jesus himself were the one in need of aid, even more so. But why do we fail to see the presence of Jesus in those who are childlike: the poor, the migrant, the addict, the mentally ill, the teenager who is rebelling, the spouse who is emotionally frayed, the young person who wishes to be validated, the elderly person who is lonely and forlorn. In each of these, and more, Jesus offers us the chance to turn outward from ourselves a bit – to detach from our own inward self-centeredness and our striving to be great – and to receive him and to serve him, to love him, in the presence of those with whom he identifies. And eventually this should become our default way of relating to everyone: to be truly great by serving everyone, especially the least.

Friends, in this and every Eucharist, the Lord becomes humbly present for us. Under the appearances of Bread and Wine, he nonetheless draws us to profess our belief that what we see, and touch, and receive is really him: his Body and his Blood. And he gives us this gift not just for ourselves, but so that with his Presence in us we can then go and find his presence elsewhere, in the needy, the lowly, the childlike, all of those with whom he identifies – so that by receiving them we might receive him, by loving them we will love him.

Following Jesus in Suffering

Any form of entertainment – watching a movie, reading a book, turning on the ballgame – usually needs some twists and turns along the way to keep our attention. If the plot happens just how we expected, if the game goes just the way we thought, we probably won’t find it all that interesting. What usually entertains us are the things that keep us guessing.

Plot twists in real life though are very different. Unexpected occurrences and surprising events are often not entertaining, but instead traumatic and even disorienting. For example, many of us this weekend have been thinking back to the 9/11 attacks, and to where we were twenty years ago when we heard about them. The great loss of life was devastating, but perhaps just as traumatic was the shock of it – of being attacked here on our own soil. That was a painful plot twist that perhaps we could not have imagined before the attacks twenty years ago.

In the Gospel today, Peter also experiences a painful shock. Having just confessed his faith in Jesus as not just a wise man or holy preacher, but as God’s chosen, anointed Messiah, Peter finds out that Christ is going to Jerusalem to suffer and die, and to do so knowingly and willingly. The idea of God’s own Son dying at the hands of sinners was surely not a plot twist that Peter anticipated. But as Jesus himself says, any suggestion to the contrary – to think that such couldn’t happen or shouldn’t – is to think “not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Jesus then takes this plot twist one step further. Turning to his disciples, and the crowd at large, he says that his followers must also deny themselves and take up their cross. It’s a pretty clear rebuke of the mindset that Peter had: that suffering was somehow incompatible with what God wills. That attitude is still around today, and it presents an ever-present temptation to us who say we are followers of Jesus. Sometimes, we can fall into the trap of thinking, “Jesus suffered so that I don’t have to.” There is an element of truth there, but it needs a little expanding: Jesus suffered death so that I won’t suffer eternal death – eternal separation from God in hell. That is the deepest and most joyous truth of our faith. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to suffer at all. In fact, as we hear today, we should instead say, “Jesus suffered, therefore I will have to suffer also.” To follow him, we must follow the path he took – not by avoiding the Cross, or finding some way around it, but by passing through it.

Titian, Christ Carrying the Cross (c. 1565)

Suffering, of course, is never pleasant. However, it can have meaning when we approach it as Jesus approached his Cross. Jesus went to the Cross out of love and a sense of purpose: he knew it would be the manner by which God would remake the world, opening the doors of salvation for all of humanity. That work of redemption that began with Jesus continues in our lives and helps remake us in the image of the Son, especially when we intentionally unite our sufferings to those of Christ. For the Christian, life’s unexpected turns are never just cruel twists of fate: losing a job, being diagnosed with an illness, or a family member passing away suddenly. These are not just random traumas, but opportunities to embrace the Cross, to share more deeply in the redemptive love of Christ. Or when we consider the more routine but nonetheless painful experiences of the day to day: stress at work, challenges in our marriage or in raising children, betrayal from those who should be our friends, discouragement or emptiness in our spiritual life. These sufferings don’t mean that God is absent or doesn’t hear our prayers; rather they are invitations to learn how to be remade into Christ’s image, and to bear well the Cross in order to share what comes after.

It’s essential not to forget there is an after. On Tuesday of this week, we will celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross – a chance to remember that the Cross was the instrument by which Christ defeated sin and death. Jesus’s victory came not by avoiding the Cross, or trying to go around it, but by passing through it into what followed after: the Resurrection. That’s the best plot twist in history, of course, and Jesus assures us that if we join him in his Cross, we will share in his victory: “whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” If we try to save our life by avoiding suffering, going around the Cross, then we will end up losing everything. But if instead, we enter into our sufferings knowingly, and willingly, and lovingly, then the difficulties and sorrows of the present moment will be more than made up for in our sharing of Jesus’s victory, the Resurrection.

Friends, Jesus assures us today that the mystery of suffering is not meaningless, as if God delighted in keeping us guessing. Rather, it’s through suffering that the Lord redeems the world, and he invites us to look deeply into our hearts today, to see whether we believe that. Maybe, like Peter, we face the temptation to reject the idea of suffering. If that’s the case, let’s ask the Lord for his encouragement, maybe even for a little of his rebuke, as he gave to Peter, to learn to think beyond our human way, but to think as God does – as Jesus did. Let’s ask the Lord to help us to see his presence in the crosses we face, and to find in them an opportunity to love him more deeply, to be remade in his image – so that following him now in our sufferings, we may hope to be exalted one day in his victory.

Opened to Life

The name Anne Sullivan is probably not one that rings a bell for most of us. But the name of her famous student might. Helen Keller became blind and deaf before the age of 2 as a result of illness; deprived of sight and sound, she was more or less cut off from the outside world. However, through her remaining sense of touch, and through the patient and persistent instruction of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, a new world opened up for Helen. She learned to read, write, even to speak, and eventually became a world-famous author, lecturer, and human rights activist. It was all possible because of the gift that she had been given by her teacher: not just to learn to read and speak, but to experience life in a totally new way.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives a man a similar gift: not just to heal his physical impediments, to make it possible for him to hear and to speak, but to open him to experiencing life in a totally new way. All of Jesus’s healing miracles have this dynamic: the lame man given the ability to walk again; the woman cured of the hemorrhage; Peter’s mother-in-law cured of a fever; blind Bartimeus made able to see. All of these persons and more received from Jesus some true, bodily healing, but in a certain sense, that healing was a means to a higher end: to open those persons to new life, to experiencing the fullness of life in a way that they had not known before.

The Healing of a Deaf and Mute Man, Ottheinrich Bible, c. 1420

Today’s Gospel probably brings to mind the people in our lives whom we wish to be healed. Maybe we think of someone sick with Covid, or a friend or family member who is battling cancer, or a loved one who is struggling with depression or addiction or some other form of mental illness. We might even think of ourselves! But while we can and should pray for God to heal these persons, we shouldn’t despair if he does not. Why? Because the true healing that God desires is not a bodily reality but a spiritual one. We see this even in the Gospels. Jesus doesn’t stay in every town and village until all the sick people are well. Rather, he works particular miracles at particular times to show everyone that he has the power to communicate life, to transform a person’s life, opening them to something greater.

In a very real sense, that something greater is Jesus himself. When he says, 'Ephphatha', “Be opened,” to the man in today’s Gospel, what he wants to open him to is not to hear any old thing, but to hear *him*; not just to speak any old thing, but to respond to *him*. Jesus wishes to communicate a new and deepened experience of life precisely so that we may encounter him at the center of our life, as our Life itself. In this way, then, this Gospel is applicable to all of us. We might be inclined to think of our friends and loved ones who are in need of healing, but really, we should think of ourselves – *we* are in desperate need of the spiritual healing that only Jesus can give.

Perhaps we might reflect on two questions this week, in light of this Gospel. First, where in my life do I need the transformation that Jesus can give? Where do I need to be spiritually opened to his life – to hear him, to respond to him – in some deeper way: in my prayer, in my relationships, in my moral life? And second, where can I help others to experience the same? Anne Sullivan helped transform Helen Keller’s life through her patient and persistent teaching. Today’s Gospel says the deaf man was brought to Jesus by others, and after his healing, he went out and proclaimed what had happened to him to others. Who is Jesus calling me to speak to, to witness to about the transformation I have received, about the new life that he has given to me?

Friends, this is the basic rhythm of the Christian life: to encounter Jesus, ever more deeply, and then to go and help others to do the same. Our previous pontiff, Benedict XVI, once said, “The happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: Jesus of Nazareth.” May we seek and find that Happiness ourselves, so that finding it, like the man in today’s Gospel, we also can proclaim the newness of life we have found in him.

Seeking the True, Good, and Beautiful Online

When we look at how the world has changed since the time of Jesus, there is no doubt a lot that is different. New continents have been discovered since then, historical events and technological innovations have changed how we live, and we have new social, cultural, and political frameworks for how to understand the world.

At the same time, human beings are still human beings. In many ways, the things we care about today aren’t all that different from what mattered to the people of Jesus’s day. Our Gospel this morning is a good example. The Pharisees come to Jesus, concerned that his disciples were failing to comply with a basic external practice of the Jewish law: to ritually wash one’s hands before eating. Jesus, in turn, criticizes the Pharisees for failing to adhere to the interior precept of that same law: to maintain a clean heart, so that in all things God may be glorified.

At first glance, the debate of this Gospel may seem very distant from our lives today. But while you and I may not be familiar with the particulars of the ancient Jewish ritual of hand washing, we are certainly familiar with the more fundamental questions involved here – things like: minding someone else’s business rather than our own, of keeping up appearances in order to look good to others, and of failing to actually live out the values we impose on others. The dangers of gossip, judgmentalism, and hypocrisy are ever-present in our modern world. And that’s maybe especially true for us who are Christians – not because we are naturally worse in those regards than others, but because our Lord specifically calls us to be better than others. If we want to follow Jesus, we have to keep our heart clean, as well as our hands.

Jan Luyken's Bible, The Dispute about Eating with Unwashed Hands (early 18th cent.)
(From the Phillip Medhurst Collection of Bible Prints)

One area of our lives where these questions often converge is in our interactions on the internet. Jesus said that “nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person.” Perhaps we might be tempted to object when we consider what can be found online: on message boards and blogs, on social media apps, and even far worse things from other corners of the internet. It’s enough to make anyone feel defiled! But even here, the wisdom of Jesus holds up: the internet is a human invention, and so what we find there is ultimately a reflection of ourselves. The problems of the internet are all too real, but they too originate from within our own hearts.

How should we as Christians behave online? The simple answer is: the same way we should behave offline. If the things we read, or the things we watch, or the things we post or like or share, are in any way inconsistent with our commitment to Christ, then we should stop doing them, simple as that. In practice, that may not always be simple to figure out. That’s why I think there are three general principles that can guide our online behavior, to keep it consistent with our Christian faith:

• “Is it true?” The internet is a forum for all kinds of facts and viewpoints, but unfortunately this also means it’s rife with false information, speculation, and outright conspiracy theories. As Christians, we have a commitment to the Truth, and so we should constantly be asking ourselves: Is what I am reading/watching/posting true? Is it consistent with what I know to be true, from my faith, my values, and my lived experience? Is it leading me and others closer to the One who is Truth itself?

• “Is it good?” As Christians, we have a duty to pursue goodness, for ourselves and others. This includes our interactions online. There’s a lot that can be found online which is good: information, communication, recreation. But as I mentioned, there’s a lot that isn’t good, too. We should ask ourselves: Is what I am reading/watching/posting aligned with what is good? Is it beneficial to me in being a better person, a holier person? Is it conducive to helping others in their own pursuit of goodness?

• “Is it beautiful?” There’s a lot on the internet, especially on social media, that is about appearing beautiful, or having a life that appears to be beautiful. But often those concerns can lead to a disconnect between appearance and reality; they can distract us from what is truly beautiful – Christian virtue, the human heart conformed to the image and likeness of God. If we all strove to be a little more spiritually beautiful in our dealings online – more charitable, more forgiving, more understanding, more Christlike in all that we say and do – then we could take great strides in making even that part of our lives to conform with our Christian identity.

Friends, whether we are very active online or not, Jesus provides all of us with a good examination of conscience today. The evil things we see in the world and on the internet have their origin within us. That’s why, as Christians, we must be especially careful online and in person not to fall victim, as the Pharisees did, to gossip, to judgmentalism, to hypocrisy, or to any other way of attending only to externals and not to the interiors of our own hearts. Let’s be sure instead to seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful in all that we do, or say, or post – so that in all things God may be glorified.

Meeting the Lord Halfway

Recently, I was talking with a friend who is also a priest. We haven’t seen each other in several years, and we discussed trying to find a time to meet up. The problem is both of our schedules are pretty busy, and neither of us have time to travel all the way to where the other lives. So, I suggested, “Okay, what if we tried to meet in the middle?” Meeting halfway might be a compromise that could work for both of us.

Life, in many ways, is all about compromise, about making adjustments when what you want and what someone else wants aren’t both possible. Whether it’s in business, or in social settings, or even in handling our own expectations of ourselves, the ability to compromise, to meet someone halfway, is an important skill to have.

But is compromise always good? Aren’t there some things for which compromising might actually lead us away from what is good? Today’s readings point us in this direction. In the first reading, Joshua tells the people of Israel that there can be no compromise in their worship of the Lord God; to worship the idols of the country they found themselves in was necessarily to betray the worship of the true God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. And in the second reading, St. Paul encourages husbands and wives to not give up in striving to love each other in the fullest possible way: in fidelity, in self-sacrifice, in mutual respect. Compromising any of those goals is to betray is promised in marriage, and indeed, to fall short of the ideal of married love, the love that Christ has for the Church.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is also unwilling to compromise. The sixth chapter of John began with the passage we heard four weeks ago: when Jesus multiplies the loaves and the fish to feed the five thousand. But it ends with today’s passage, when many people walk away from Jesus – even many of his disciples, we are told, stop following him because they found his teaching too hard to accept. Perhaps we might think: Why couldn’t Jesus soften his teaching a bit? Maybe compromise a little on what he was asking of his followers? Surely, that would seem to be a better way to maximize the number of his disciples? But Jesus, it seems, isn’t interested in merely winning people over. He has come to lead them to the Truth, and just like in worship and in the goods of marriage, the Truth is not something that can be compromised. Jesus himself *is* the Truth, as we know from another part of John’s Gospel: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” If we want to receive the fullness of He who is Truth and Life, we can’t be satisfied with half measures.

Gustave Brion, Jesus and Peter on the Water (1863)

For that reason, in our own path of discipleship, it is important to understand that eventually we will all be tempted to compromise our faith. At some point or another, we will run up against something that challenges us, that seems hard to accept, and we will feel the inclination to walk away. For some people, it is believing in the truth of the Scriptures themselves: can the Gospels really give us an accurate portrayal of the life and death of this man who lived two millennia ago? Or maybe, it is the authority of the Church: does the Catholic Church really speak with the Lord’s spiritual and moral authority? Most often, though, especially for those of us in the pews on Sunday, it is something more subtle. Maybe we are willing to come to Mass each week, but when the Lord invites us to deepen our prayer life, or study his Word in the Scriptures, or meet him in the sacrament of reconciliation, we are hesitant. Maybe we are proud to call ourselves Catholic, unless it means risking the esteem of others or accepting those teachings of the Church that we find difficult. Maybe we are glad to believe in everything Jesus commanded us to do, except for those bits about loving and praying for our enemies, or forgiving from our hearts those who hurt us, or renouncing our possessions, or cutting out of our lives whatever causes us to sin.

As I said, at some point or another, we will find that something about ourselves – some belief or behavior or attitude – is opposed to the One who is Truth and Life. The question then will be: are we willing to change, to adapt to what Jesus calls us to, or will we walk away? Can we accept what the Lord offers, even when it is hard, or will we let our faith be compromised? What we need in those difficult moments is the humility that Peter showed. Maybe, like him, we don’t understand everything right then, maybe we struggle to believe what Jesus or the Church teaches, but it’s right there in that moment that our Father in heaven can give us the grace to say what Peter said: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” To hold on to our faith in the hard moments, to resist the urge to walk away, is to take one step further in the path of discipleship, one step closer to heaven.

Friends, maybe at times we wish God would meet us halfway – and in truth, he has. Jesus himself is our Mediator with the Father, the gift God has given to us to meet us halfway. By his life on earth, by his Presence still among us, he comes to meet us – especially in the reality of the Eucharist, the celebration of the very sacrament which many found difficult to accept. When we meet the Lord here, in the humility of faith, then we trust that he will lead us the rest of the way: to eternal life.

The Queen of All Saints

One of the things I love most about our Catholic faith is that it is truly universal. The Catholic Church has reached all corners of the world such that, no matter where you go, you can find evidence of our elder brothers and sisters in the faith, the saints. For example, in Italy, you can venerate the relics of countless saints, including St. Peter, St. Benedict, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Catherine of Siena. In India, many people make pilgrimage to the tombs of St. Thomas the Apostle and St. Francis Xavier. In Africa, you can visit the shrines of St. Charles Lwanga and his fellow martyrs in Uganda, of Bl. Benedict Daswa in South Africa, and of Bl. Cyprian Tansi in Nigeria. And here in the western hemisphere, there are the tombs of St. Martin de Porres and St. Rose of Lima in Peru; St. Jose Sanchez del Rio and Bl. Miguel Pro in Mexico; and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Katherine Drexel, and St. John Neumann right here in the United States.

All of these saints, and every saint in heaven, gave glory to God by the way they lived and died. And since the earliest days of the Church, Christians have had their own faith strengthened by honoring and venerating the mortal bodies of those saintly men and women who came before them. But there’s one saint for whom we *can’t* do this. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is the greatest of the saints – we call her the Queen of All Saints. And yet, there is no church or shrine that claims to have any of her relics. In all of our two-thousand-year history, there has never been a tradition of Christians venerating her bones or mortal remains.

And that is because, as we celebrate today, Mary’s body is *not* here on earth but in heaven. Our faith teaches that, at the close of her life, not only Mary’s soul but also her body entered heaven, and thus she was preserved from the corruption of death. The mortal fragility of our bodies, as well as the fact that our mortal bodies decompose after we pass away, is a result of human sinfulness. But because Mary was conceived immaculately, and thus preserved from all stain of sin, it was fitting that she would not be subject to the corruption of death. And, as our Church has solemnly defined, her Immaculate Conception resulted in the Assumption of her body and soul into heaven at the close of her earthly life.

 

Jerónimo Jacinto de Espinosa, The Adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist (c. 1650) 

So, why does this matter for us? For at least two reasons. First, it tells us what we believe about the Mother of God. All of the saints in heaven are, as I said before, our elder brothers and sisters in the faith; all of them can help us here on earth, not only by their example but also by their intercession for us. But above all, Mary can help us because she enjoys the fullness of the Resurrected human life, just as Jesus enjoys it. The other saints in heaven? They are perfectly happy, since they behold God face to face. But in a certain sense they are also incomplete, since their souls are still awaiting final reunion with their bodies; like us, they look forward also to the Resurrection, when their earthly bodies will be resurrected and glorified to join their beatified souls. Mary, on the other hand, already enjoys the fullness of that blessed reality. Because God has crowned her with the fullness of every possible blessing, she is able to intercede for us in the fullest possible way.

The second reason today’s solemnity is important is that shows us the final end of our faith – what God wants for all persons who believe in his Son. Mary is the Mother of Jesus but she is also the disciple par excellence, and by means of the blessings she received – in this life and especially in the life to come – she shows us what God intends for every disciple of Jesus. In her, we see that our faith is not just a nice idea – something to give us comfort in difficult moments but which isn’t really true – and certainly not a luxury, something that is beneficial to have but which can be left aside when it’s inconvenient. No, our faith is the most absolutely essential, life-or-death thing that we have; it is what really will save us, not just our souls but our bodies too. We see in Mary what God’s final purpose is for our human lives: to dwell with him in heaven, in the fullness of our human life, body and soul. What we hope for is something far greater than to be angels, because angels do not have bodies. We hope to be like Mary – beholding God, worshiping him with our souls and our bodies, in perfect happiness forever.

Friends, if we weren’t celebrating today’s feast we would have heard today these words of Jesus in the Gospel: “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.” Because we come here to partake of the Lord's Body and Blood, we can therefore await with firm hope and eager joy that Day of Resurrection which Mary now enjoys. For on that Day, our bodies and the bodies of all the saints, from wherever they rest on earth – from Italy, and India, and Africa, and from here in our own country – all of them will be raised up and, we pray, glorified in heaven, as Mary’s body is now. 

May this Eucharist be the pledge of that salvation for which we hope.

Sealed with the Spirit

Authenticity is important. Whenever I receive a letter, or an email, or a phone call, I make sure it is authentic – that is, that the person contacting me really is who they say they are. Recently, I’ve noticed this happen to me as well. When I call or email someone I don’t know well, people sometimes want to make sure it’s the real me, and not just someone pretending to be me. Very wise in this day and age of fake messages and spam calls!

Spiritually, authenticity is also important. We say that we are the beloved children of God, created by him and redeemed by him, and who now share in a mystical way in his own divine life. But how do we verify that? Who’s to say we aren’t just pretending all of those things? When times get tough, when people question us or we question ourselves, perhaps we need some sign of assurance that we really are who we say we are.

In today’s second reading, Saint Paul gives us an answer to the question of how we can be sure of our spiritual identity. Writing to the Christian community in Ephesus, he says that God has placed his seal upon all who believe in his Son. In ancient times, a seal was a unique sign of ownership: it verified the authenticity of the object or person that carried it. St. Paul says that we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption, and so it is by his presence that we are who we claim to be. We receive the Holy Spirit at our baptism, when our souls are marked with the Lord’s seal and he claims us definitively as his own.

It’s important not to pass over this idea too quickly. How do we know we are really God’s beloved children? First and foremost, by *his* action, by what *he* has done. We tend to think of holiness as something primarily dependent upon us; whatever our relationship with God might be at the moment, we think of it as determined mostly our efforts, strivings, prayers, etc. In fact, the opposite is true. It is always God’s action that is first and foremost. In baptism, he claimed us definitively as his sons and daughters and we remain marked with that seal forever.

Saint Paul the Apostle (c. 1620) by Claude Vignon

Of course, having been marked with his seal, having been given the authentic presence of his Holy Spirit, God calls us to cooperate with him in living out that authentic identity he has given us. That’s why St. Paul is encouraging the Ephesians to not give into what is out of step with the identity they have in the Holy Spirit – “bitterness, fury, anger, shouting… reviling… along with all malice,” – but instead to “be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.” Those may sound like just nice platitudes, but they’re not. They are the real abilities to do what we would otherwise not be able to do, precisely because we have been marked by the Holy Spirit. By his grace and presence, our thoughts and desires, our attitudes, our actions, and above all how we treat one another can be transformed into those of Jesus, into the very identity of Christ.

That matters, not just for us but also for others. We can think about all the ways in which we want a better world: more peaceful, more loving, more oriented toward the truth, more forgiving. At times, we may wonder, “Where is God; why is he not acting to bring about such a world?” The answer is he is: he is precisely in and through us, and through all those whom he has marked as his sons and daughters. With the Holy Spirit within us, we are the instruments by which he seeks to remake his creation. That’s why it’s so critical for us to not be fake or pretending in our Christian identity, but to live out that identity authentically. When we choose to give up bitterness, fury, anger, malice, when we choose to be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving others because God has forgiven us, then we aren’t just choosing to be holier for ourselves alone – we are helping to bring about the very transformation of the world, the very world that God wants to give us.

Friends, to help us to do all of this, our heavenly Father also gives us his constant assistance. He gives us the Living Bread come down from heaven, the very Body and Blood of his Son, who recreates us with his Presence, who gives us a renewed share in his identity each time we receive him. May the grace of this Eucharist assist us to authentically live out the identity with which we were sealed in our baptism – to be faithful to the name of Christian until the day of redemption.

Stubborn Faith

One of the things about ministering to a community that has two language groups is that I’m constantly working to make myself better understood. To do that, I have to keep learning. Recently, I learned – or probably, relearned – the Spanish word for “stubborn”: “terco.” It’s an important word to know, if for not other reason than that I have been described as “terco” myself a time or two.

Stubbornness, “la terquedad,” is often a hindrance to growth in the spiritual life. Today’s readings give us good examples of this. In the reading from Exodus, the Israelites are journeying in the desert. Having been led out of slavery in Egypt, they are now undergoing a period of trial before they enter the Promised Land. However, rather than rely upon the God who rescued them from bondage so dramatically, they resort instead to grumbling. God is trying to test and deepen their faith, but out of stubbornness for what they knew before, the Israelites only complain.

Something similar is going on in the Gospel. Jesus has been performing miracles all around the region of Galilee, culminating in the one we heard about last week, the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. But despite all the signs that have been given to them, the people are stubborn. Despite just being fed miraculously by him, they ask Jesus again for a sign for why they should believe in him. He chides them for not looking beyond their physical hunger to see what God is doing right in front of their eyes.

Peter Paul Rubens, The Israelites Gathering Manna in the Desert (c. 1627)

What might these readings tell us about ourselves? We face trials, too – perhaps we feel we are being tested right now, in some way specific to ourselves, or just generally with all that is going on around us. When these arise, we can resort to being stubborn in the way that the Israelites and the people of Galilee were. We can grumble and complain, we can focus on what we don’t have or yearn for what we used to have, and we can even demand that God give us some sign for why we should believe in him.

But that’s not really the best response, is it? Not only does it not actually help meet our needs, but that kind of stubborn grumbling usually leads us even further away from God, perhaps forever. The Christian author C.S. Lewis once wrote: “Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others... In each of us there is something growing, which will BE hell unless it is nipped in the bud.” What Lewis recognizes is that we need to cut off at the root that temptation to grumble and be bitter or else it may very well lead to our own damnation.

A better response to any trial or testing is intentional perseverance in faith. In a sense, this is a kind of stubbornness, too, but not one that comes from grumbling or focusing on what we don’t have – or demanding that we be shown proof for why to believe – but rather a remembrance of and reliance upon the goodness of God. Recalling the blessings of God, present or past, can inspire in us a gratitude for what he has given and ward off temptation to abandon hope in a time of current need. Blessed Solanus Casey, a Franciscan priest from Detroit who lived in the first half of the 20th century and whose feast we celebrated this past week, used to give a simple bit of advice to those who were undergoing trials: “Thank God ahead of time.” When we give thanks to God for what we have received, or even (strange as it may seem) for what we have not yet received, we look beyond our present need and become open to what he is doing right in front of us. This sort of stubborn faith – refusing to give into discouragement, rejecting any temptation to complain or become ungrateful – is just the sort of faith that God wants to grow and deepen within us in order to lead us to something greater. In this way, our trials can become little periods in the desert, by which he teaches us to rely upon him as we journey ever closer to his Promised Land.

Friends, in this life, the Lord wants us always to keep learning – not new words of a foreign language, but new ways of trusting in him and seeing what he is doing right in front of our eyes. Let’s ask the Lord to make us all “terco,” stubborn – but stubborn not in our grumbling but in our faith in him. Whatever trial or difficulty we may be facing, let’s take the advice of Fr. Casey and “thank God ahead of time,” even as we keep asking him for what we need. As we prepare to receive the Bread of Life, our Daily Bread, may this Sacrament strengthen our faith and increase our gratitude so that we may never stray from God’s grace.