All Shall Be Well

The weather has been gorgeous this weekend, just perfect for late May. It made me think of a poem about spring by Robert Browning. It’s very short, so I thought I’d share it:

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in His heaven—
All's right with the world!

We all know the feeling Mr. Browning had when he wrote that, even if we haven’t expressed it poetically as he did. When we look out at the beauty of the nature, the splendor of the world around us, we might well be moved to say: “God’s in His heaven – All’s right with the world!”

But is that right? We see shocking, horrific events, like the school shooting in Texas this past week. We endure the sorrows of illness and the passing of loved ones. We struggle under private burdens and crosses, those perhaps unseen or unappreciated by others. We know the weight of our own sinfulness and experience the grief and loss of not always being what God calls us to be. It seems there are lots of things we could point to, and say, “Look here, Mr. Browning – clearly, the world is not all right!”

However, I think he spoke more truly than he knew. For the person of faith, there is a sense in which all is right with the world – namely, because “God’s in His heaven.” Because God reigns on high, we can believe that he sees everything, and so is taking care of everything, and so everything will be alright. It may sound like naivete, especially when have to face those really difficult sufferings and sorrows; but in fact, it is a truth of deep faith. Everything is okay. Yes, the world is not all good, all true, or all beautiful – but God is, and in the end, he will make all things like himself.

In the account from Acts in today’s first reading, the disciples ask Jesus if he is now going to restore the kingdom to Israel. They are ready for Jesus, having died and risen again, to now at last settle all scores, to right every wrong, to show openly his kingship over all the earth. Much to their surprise, perhaps, Jesus instead ascends to heaven – not to ignore their request, but to show them that he’s going to fulfill it in a far greater way than they could have imagined. Ascending to his Father’s right hand, Jesus shows them he is Lord of heaven and earth, the Lord of all time and history, who will return in glory to restore all of creation, with judgment and justice. God is in his heaven, but he will return one day to make all things like himself.

The Ascension of Christ (1912) – St. Stephen's Church, Bilwisheim, France

And until that time, Jesus gives his disciples a mission: he sends them to be his “witnesses” to the world. He wants all “the ends of the earth” to have the chance to know about him and believe in him as they do – so that our lives can, through him, may become more true, good, and beautiful. This is the mission of the Church, of all of us, still today – to give witness to the Good News of Jesus. A witness gives testimony about what is true, and as Jesus’s witnesses, we testify to his truth. By our words, actions, our whole manner of life, we give testimony that, despite the darkness and dysfunction that still hold so much sway in the world around us, Jesus truly reigns in heaven.

Often, the best way to give testimony to the Lord’s truth is by enduring our sorrows with hope, faith, and charity. In a culture where we often don’t know the value of sacrifice, we might be tempted to look upon our sufferings as signs that God has forgotten us, or is angry with us, or isn’t responding to our needs. But the opposite is often true – the Father often permits sufferings to those whom he most loves, because by them he draws us to know the love of Son more fully and to rely completely upon it, and not the things of this world. If we can unite what we suffer to the Lord’s Cross, then not only do we store up our treasure in heaven, rather than on earth, but we can have the confidence to work in building up God’s kingdom while also knowing that he has it all in hand.

So, friends, despite what external appearances might tell us – whether in the world around us, or closer to home – all is right because all will be *made* right, because the Lord Jesus who ascended to heaven will one day return. For the present, we must continue to hope and to have faith, but we can believe that a time known to him, in a way that only he knows, God will put all things right in the end. Or, put another way, to use the words of Jesus himself, as quoted to the mystic Julian of Norwich: in the end, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Ticket to Heaven

The word “apocalyptic” probably conjures up in our minds all kinds of negative images: wars, famines, natural disasters. Sometimes we use the word as a synonym for things that are catastrophic, cataclysmic, world-ending.

Interestingly, though, the Bible shows something different. At the end of time, after the wars and plagues and everything else, something else – something good – will be unveiled as the final reality of all things. Today’s second reading tells us what it is: the New Jerusalem. We hear it described in symbolic terms: golden streets, jeweled walls, twelve pearled gates, and no lamp except the light of the glory of God, coming forth from the Lamb. It is with the unveiling of this glorious city that the Bible ends, with God dwelling in the midst of his chosen People finally, for all time. Far from an apocalypse of doom, the New Jerusalem shows us what heaven will be like.

The Celestial City and the River of Bliss (1841) by John Martin

But how do we reach it? That’s the million-dollar question, because the Bible also says that not everyone will be found worthy to inhabit the New Jerusalem. In fact, the Book of Revelation describes the various trials by which the true members of Israel, the people of God, will be identified and confirmed to be worthy to dwell with God in his city. This notion turns on its head the traditional understanding of what it meant to be part of Israel. In ancient Jewish law, it was very clear who was part of the people of God: only those who had received circumcision, or for women, those who were part of their families. This created something of a problem for the early believers in Jesus, as they began to distinguish their Christian identity from their Jewish roots. Was it necessary to be circumcised in order to be saved? Did one have to be ritually Jewish in order to believe in Jesus and hope to dwell in the New Jerusalem?

The answer that the apostles gave, as we heard in today’s first reading, was “No” – one did not have to follow Jewish ritual laws in order to be a Christian. Instead, the early Church came to believe that the people of God could be distinguished in another way – not with a physical mark but a spiritual one. To be a member of God’s people, they decided, it wasn’t necessary to be circumcised in the body but it *was* necessary to be circumcised in the heart, in the soul. In fact, Saint Paul and others use this language in reference to what God had said he would do in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy: that he would purify their hearts so they would love him, follow his commands, and so live.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of the same thing: love, discipleship, and eternal life are all intertwined. To get to heaven, we must love God, and we show that we love God by following his commands. It’s for this reason that Jesus promises to send help to his disciples – not just help, but a Helper, an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who “will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” This Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, literally dwells within the souls of believers. So – it is by the very presence of God that we are circumcised in the heart, purified and made ready for the heavenly kingdom. In fact, it was because they discerned this divine presence of the Holy Spirit in Gentile believers, non-Jews, that the apostles made the decision that they did: that it was not necessary to be circumcised in order to be a Christian.

So, how do we get to the city where God dwells? By allowing God to make his dwelling within us now. It’s the presence of the Holy Spirit that is the true dividing line between those who will and won’t get to share in the heavenly Jerusalem, and Jesus is very clear that that presence comes only to those who share in his life, who participate in his love, and who follow his commands. The Christian religion is often criticized, and Catholicism, particularly, for placing lots of demands on its adherents – for requiring us to believe certain ideas, and abide by certain principles, and perhaps most difficult, *not* to do certain things that we may want to, or which worldly culture tells us is okay. However, these requirements are not arbitrary – there is a purpose for them, and that is to guide us in the truth. To live by God’s commandments, to follow the teachings of our faith – that’s the path to the New Jerusalem, Jesus says. And for those who do so, we have the presence of the Holy Spirit within us to guide us, to console us in difficult moments, and to be in the end, the very ticket to get us into the pearly gates.

Friends, Jesus promises peace to his disciples – to us. Let’s invoke that peace today, in whatever struggle we are facing, in whatever truth of our faith or teaching of our Church might be giving us some difficulty, in whatever area of healing we need. Perhaps that challenge, whatever it is, will be the very thing that will get us one day to the New Jerusalem – if we endure, and stay faithful, and find our peace in the way that the Lord gives it to us, not as the world does. May the presence of the Holy Spirit be renewed within each of us this day, to purify our hearts and guide our steps unto the heavenly kingdom.

The Big Takeaway

Every preacher has a certain style, and I imagine by now most of you have become accustomed to mine. Typically, I begin a homily with some common starting point: an experience or observation with which we’re all familiar, or occasionally a story or rhetorical question. And then from there I try to make a connection to our readings, to see what lesson or insight is contained therein that God wants us to hear for our lives now. And hopefully, by the end, there is some takeaway for us in the present moment.

This week I didn’t have to work too hard in coming up with a connection, because as soon as I read the words: “I will be with you only a little while longer,” I knew what the Lord wanted me to talk about. Many of you have heard by now, but for those who haven’t, I announced this week that I’ll be leaving our parish next month to begin a new full-time ministry in Little Rock. It is bittersweet for me. On the one hand, I don’t want to leave; I have come to love you all and this community. On the other, this is the life to which I have committed myself and this the test of the promise of obedience that I made to our bishop when I was ordained. So while I am certainly sad to be leaving you, in a real sense, my life and ministry are not my own. They are God’s, and He, through the bishop, guides me where he needs me to go.

But still, that means that I’ll be leaving Holy Rosary, and that brings sadness for me and perhaps in the short term for you too. That’s understandable, but we shouldn’t allow it to keep us from hearing what the Lord wants us to hear in this present moment, and I think he has some important words for us in our Gospel today. With a pastoral change taking place, how fitting it is that we should hear this passage, in which Jesus gives his disciples his final instructions. This is the big takeaway he wants to leave with them, what sums up everything he has taught them, by word and example — this new commandment to love, to love as he has loved them, to love sacrificially as he will show them on the Cross.

This one message sums up our Christian faith, and it is at the heart of everything we do. It is the foundation of everything about our parish: every Mass offered, every homily preached, every Bible study or catechism class held, every community gathering or potluck dinner, every child enrolled in our school. And it should be the foundation of everything about our family lives and individual lives, too: all of our labors, goals, efforts, sorrows, hopes, dreams – the purpose for all of them should be to help us to live out Jesus’s commandment to love others in the way that he loved us. It’s such a simple idea and yet we know living it out is not so simple, which is why we have to work at it, every day, every moment, examining our efforts, looking hard at ourselves to see whether we are really fulfilling it.

Alexander Ivanov, Leaving the Last Supper (c. 1850)

The good news is that Jesus doesn’t just command this of us, and then leave us on our own; he’s at work among us to help us carry it out. He is at work in the priest, who offers prayer and sacrifice to God on our behalf, who communicates the grace of Jesus in the sacraments, and who helps demonstrate his love by means of service. I am grateful to God for how he has allowed me to serve our community these past three years, even as I recognize I have done so imperfectly. But I am excited for you that in mid-June you will have a new shepherd, one who will model the love of Christ in a different way, with his own unique talents and gifts. The new pastor, Fr. Babu Battula, will be coming to our parish from India, and so much like Paul and Barnabas in the first reading, he is coming to us as a missionary, to proclaim the Good News and to help us to live it more faithfully. Fortunately, Fr. Babu also has plenty of experience of serving in Arkansas, and with many of the dynamics that make up our parish, so I feel confident that his wisdom and experience will be a blessing. That’s not to say that there won’t be a time of transition; Fr. Babu will have his own style, his own way of giving homilies and in handling other things. But if you trust in the Lord’s faithfulness, and look for where he is present, I am sure that soon enough you will see his hand at work.

If Jesus is at work in every priest, then he is also at work even more importantly in and through the people – that is, through you. The priest might lead the parish for a few years, but you *are* the parish, and to recognize that fact is to begin to see how Jesus calls you to love as he loved. I know our community here has had a succession of several pastors the last decade or so, and that has its challenges, which you have dealt with in patient and resilient ways. Still, with another change on the horizon, there might be a temptation to pull back or to become dispirited, and I want to encourage you not to give in to that feeling. There are a lot of exciting things on the horizon right now, and even opportunities for growth, and those don’t have to change, even if the pastor will. I’ll be working to help Fr. Babu catch up to speed on where we’re at, but you can do that, too, just as you did for me three years ago. Trust that the Lord is at work through you, and seek to love as he loved, and he will take care of the rest.

Friends, I look forward to these next few weeks with you, and I hope you will remind me as I remind you of what is most important for all of us: to keep loving Jesus, and to keep striving to fulfill his command of loving others – each other, Fr. Babu, everyone we encounter – in the way that Jesus has loved us. Let’s let that be the big takeaway for all of us, not just for this homily, but in all that we do – the Lord’s new commandment to live out newly each day.

Helpers to Holiness

A very happy and blessed Mother’s Day to all of you! I always find it something of a happy coincidence that this secular holiday falls during the joyful Easter season. I’m sure you agree that it wouldn’t be as nice to honor our mothers if we were all in the middle of the penitential practices of Lent. It’s also nice that Mother’s Day falls during May, the month traditionally dedicated to our Blessed Mother. We remember Mary, as well, on this Mother’s Day, honoring her as our heavenly Mother and we commend our earthly mothers to her protection and intercession.

There are some years, like this one, when Mother’s Day falls on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, also known as Good Shepherd Sunday, because of the Gospel we hear always on this day. The Sunday of the Good Shepherd is also always the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, and I’d like to say a little more about that last one. It’s probably less familiar to you than Good Shepherd Sunday, and certainly less so than Mother’s Day, but I think it gives us a good way of connecting the two. We honor our mothers because we are grateful for their example of love and devotion. But motherhood is also a vocation – that is, a calling from God to live out our Christian faith in a particular way. Mothers, and fathers, united together in marriage, commit themselves to mutual service and sacrifice, to each other and to their children. In this way, they become images of Jesus and the love that he has for the Church. And indeed, through their witness and the formation of their family, Christian mothers and fathers help to build up that Church and lead their children to Jesus the Good Shepherd.

Marriage and parenthood is the vocation most familiar to us, but there are others too, and it is to these that the Church especially draws our attention today. Male and female religious dedicate themselves to lives of prayer and service, removing themselves in some way from the rhythms of the world in order to begin living now the life of the kingdom of heaven. Those in other forms of consecrated life, such as secular institutes or consecrated virginity, are active in the world, working jobs, etc., but having personally devoted themselves to lives of prayer, obedience, and celibacy. And there are those of us called to ordained ministry – priests and deacons – who serve the family of the Church as spiritual fathers, teaching and preaching, ministering to those in need, and especially offering sacrifice and prayers to God on behalf of all his people.

All of these vocations are essential and interconnected, and we should speak about them to each other – especially to our children and young people – so that they can discover what God is calling them to. He uses the different vocations as unique instruments aimed at the same purpose – to help us, to help all the world come to know and love his Son, Jesus Christ. As the Lord Jesus tells us in the Gospel today, God the Father has sent him to be our Shepherd, to hear his voice and follow him, as he leads us back to the Father. That is Jesus’s purpose, that is the purpose of the Church, and you might say that is the purpose for any of our lives too – for our identities and our vocations that the Lord calls us to. Spouses and parents form and raise children to know and love God; monks and nuns pray for us and on behalf of the good of all the world; priests and deacons serve the spiritual needs of the faithful and encourage them to live their faith with boldness in the world. All of these have value; none of them are more necessary than any other. And even if our lives don’t fall neatly into one of the traditional vocational callings, God still calls us to play an active role in helping each other to holiness.

This may all sound very serene in theory, but as any mother can tell you, every vocation has its ups and downs, its joys and challenges. In a certain sense, God intends it that way. In calling us to follow Jesus, he asks us to grow in our identity with his Son, our Shepherd. That means, on the one hand, finding purpose, fulfillment, and peace in our vocations, but also accepting that times of sorrow and suffering will come too. After all, Jesus the Good Shepherd is also the Lamb of God who was slain for our sins, and so our Christian lives and vocations will not be immune from sharing in his Cross. We see this most fully in the life of Mary. She who was Mother to our Lord, the Good Shepherd, was also called to share in his Cross – not by undergoing it but by sharing in it spiritually. In that way, her sufferings were joined to those of her Son and so became redemptive. So too, we, if we see our lives through the eyes of faith, we can find meaning in the challenges of our vocations, whether motherhood or whatever else. Our sufferings can be redemptive for us, in that way that they conform us more fully to Jesus himself. In that way, every moment – even the very challenging ones – has an infinite spiritual worth, if we are but willing to see it and accept it for what it is.

Friends, in his message for today’s World Day of Prayer for Vocations, Pope Francis said this:

"As Christians, we do not only receive a vocation individually; we are also called together. We are like the tiles of a mosaic. Each is lovely in itself, but only when they are put together do they form a picture. ‘Vocation’, then, it is not just about choosing this or that way of life… It is about making God’s dream come true, the great vision of fraternity that Jesus cherished when he prayed to the Father ‘that they may all be one’ (Jn 17:21)."

As we honor for our mothers today, and as we pray those serving or those called to serve in other vocations in the Church, may we recognize how God has given us, in each vocation, in each person, a help toward holiness. May our Blessed Mother Mary help us to live out faithfully the vocation that Jesus the Good Shepherd has called us to, and may we find in it always a way of hearing his voice and following him more faithfully, so that he may lead us to our Father in heaven.

Let's Try Again

For young children, when they just can’t quite learn a new skill or grasp a difficult concept, it’s likely that sooner or later they’ll hear: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” That famous proverb also works the other way, though, as you know if you’ve ever had to teach young children. The first attempt to teach or explain something often doesn’t go over great, but if you keep working at it – if you keep trying – then usually children begin to catch on.

And not just children, but grown-ups too, as we hear in our Gospel today. For the third time now following his Resurrection, the disciples encounter the Risen Jesus. For so long, in his earthly life, he had been their Teacher and Master, and now, in his Resurrected life, it seems they are slow to catch on to what he wishes to impart to them. He came to them first on Easter Sunday evening, as we heard in last week’s Gospel, wishing them peace and offering them reconciliation. And then he appeared again a week later in the same place, as Thomas, who was present this time, was moved from unbelief to belief. And yet, as we hear today, it seems the disciples still are not quite sure what to make of this new reality of the Resurrection. They have gone back to what is familiar to them – back to their home region of Galilee, back to their prior occupation of fishing.

Isn’t that the way with us sometimes? When we encounter difficulty, when we struggle with some new reality in life, often we tend to revert back to what is safe and familiar. Even worse, sadness, confusion, and loss can often leave us spiritually yearning, and in our desire to be filled, we can turn to those things which occupy us but which don’t really satisfy – like spiritual junk food, if you will. Simon Peter and the other disciples turned to fishing, but maybe we turn to gossip, occupying our attention with the affairs of everyone else; or perhaps to dwelling on our resentments and grudges, brooding about who has slighted us or in what areas we feel wronged; or maybe to overindulging in sensible pleasures, like food or drink; or maybe it’s the internet, social media, hours spent watching nothing good on TV or online. Whether it’s in these things, or even others that are worse, when we seek to fill ourselves up, we will find what Simon Peter and the disciples found trying to fish – that there is nothing there good to eat, and we come away with even greater yearning than we had before.

James Tissot, Christ Appears on the Shore of Lake Tiberias (c. 1890)

Often, however, it is in just these moments that the Lord comes to us anew. Just as he was for the disciples, he is an ever-patient Teacher for us, not giving up on us, but always trying again to help us to see the newness of life that comes only through him. When we have understood again that what is tired and old does not satisfy us, he makes his presence known, often not directly but standing on the shore of our lives, close enough to be perceived but not so near as to be obtrusive. He wants us to seek him, with boldness and urgency, as Simon Peter does, but he also won’t force us to do so. He offers us newness of life, the brightness of the morning that dawns beyond the reach of sin and death, but it must be we who make the choice for him. And we must make that choice again and again, especially when we fall and fail, never losing heart at where we don’t succeed but trying again and again through the love and mercy Jesus continually offers us.

“Do you love me?” That’s the question the Lord asks Simon Peter in the Gospel, and he asks it of us too. He keeps asking it, each day, because each day the love that he gives must be accepted anew, and in the light of his Resurrection it is only in our friendship with him that our lives find their fullness of meaning. May we be attuned to where the Risen Lord is present on the horizon of our lives, standing on the shore – calling to us, patiently teaching us, inviting not to turn back to what is old and tired, but to turn more fully to him, to come and share more deeply in the abundance of his life.