Daily Homilies

Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.

 L ong before America's several "Great Awakenings," there was humankind's "Great Transformation," a story explored in Karen Armstrong's book of that name. As goods were exchanged from India and China to the Mediterranean basin, ideas moved even more freely. 

Discovering that every town and village had its own religious practices and notions, some speculated that there might be universal principles for everyone; that there might be "two ways." They are good and evil. Unlike that of other animals, human behavior can be assessed as good or wicked. Seeing that our decisions and actions have consequences, good behavior can lead to satisfying results, and wicked often does not. 

If the rewards or penalties of our behavior are not immediately apparent, the gods may be interfering or intervening in the process; or they might have decided to withhold judgment for a while. They might be playing with us as people play with pets. 

Amid this "Great Transformation," there appeared the Jewish religion. Historians can compare and contrast the various religions, as they still do with collegiates in "comparative religion" classes. The Lord's faithful people, however, know there is no comparison. God has spoken to his Chosen People through Abraham, Moses, and Jesus Christ. He speaks to us through the Church, "in partial and various ways." He also guides our hearts in the quiet of our private devotions. 

"the wicked scorn God, and say in their hearts, “God does not care”

...take note of misery and sorrow;

[He will] take the matter in hand.

"To you [God,] the helpless can entrust their cause;

you are the defender of orphans.

Break the arm of the wicked and depraved;

make them account for their crimes;

let none of them survive! (Psalm 10: 14)

Because we also believe that, after his crucifixion, the Father raised Jesus from the dead and gave him universal authority to judge the living and the dead, we believe the just will be rewarded with eternal bliss in God's presence, despite whatever suffering they endured on earth. 

We also believe the Judge will condemn the wicked, regardless of their wealth and high position in this life, to an endless punishment. (Acts 24:15, Daniel 12:2, and John 5:28-29) It may be no more severe than eternal regret for lost opportunities, or it may be worse. That is in God's merciful and just hands. 

...life and prosperity, death and doom.

If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,

which I enjoin on you today,

loving him, and walking in his ways,

and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,

you will live and grow numerous....

Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree....” (Galatians 3:13)

Saint Casimir

To keep the law is a great oblation,
and he who observes the
commandments sacrifices a peace offering.
In works of charity one offers fine flour,
and when he gives alms he presents his sacrifice of praise.
To refrain from evil pleases the LORD,
and to avoid injustice is an atonement.

 L ent begins tomorrow and I have often wondered what it means to practice penance. I do not forget the stern advice of my spiritual director, several years ago: "Ken, the greatest penance is to be joyful."

Her teaching keeps me from going over the edge into scrupulosity and humorless anxiety. "Religion is for those who are afraid of going to hell; spirituality is for those who've been there." I understand that form of religion as Pharisaism, and spirituality as penance. 

The practice of Catholicism is penance. Meaning, Lent invites us to full, eager, willing practice of our Catholic faith. Those who are aged, diabetic, or otherwise disabled might do better not to fast or take on extraordinary penances; but everyone can resume the daily practices of a devout Catholic. 

Many people attend daily Mass during Lent. Some people might take up the daily recitation of the rosary; some might even recite all four sets of mysteries of the rosary -- the Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious. We can always watch less TV and many of us can abstain from solitaire games and short videos that follow one after another like the cars of a train. We can read spiritual books and catch up with those Catholic magazines we've neglected. 

Twelve steppers share "How I work the Program and how the Program works for me." And their conversation is both serious and joyful. Catholics can do the same. We are grateful for this faith which connects us to faithful persons all over the earth, and with those who have witnessed that faith from ancient times until today. We can share our beliefs with those who ask, and suggest personal devotions that work for us. (e.g. "Tony, Tony, come around; something's lost and must be found!")

We can admit the wrongful attitudes we've outgrown without embarrassing anyone by disclosing confessional matters. We leave that conversation to daytime talk shows. (Do they still do that?)

Lent is a joyful following of Jesus to Calvary and Easter. How Good God is to forgive me, especially because He knows me so well! We acknowledge our desperate need for a divine. saving intervention since nothing in this world offers much hope. No party has the answer while technology marches toward Armageddon; and the climate crisis worsens, as predicted. 

We hope in the Lord; and our hope is a knowing faith that All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

Saint Katherine Drexel

Who in the nether world can glorify the Most High
in place of the living who offer their praise?
Dwell no longer in the error of the ungodly,
but offer your praise before death.

 E cclesiasticus (Sirach) offers a useful meditation today, comparing the state of the damned to the saved. 

As a chaplain in the VA hospital I found few patients, in hospice or anywhere else, who showed any curiosity about the afterlife. The septuagenarians and octogenarians more often expressed satisfaction with their life and experience. They had seen and accomplished enough; they had run the race and did not fear death. 

The Divine Authors, however, were more curious about the afterlife. Especially after their Hellenistic oppressors had savagely murdered faithful Jews, they believed that God would certainly deliver the martyrs into eternal bliss while their tormentors would suffer forever the pain they had so gleefully inflicted. 

Jesus's parable of the rich man and Lazarus reflected that conviction, although the rich man had not intentionally hurt the poor man. His indifference to the suffering that lay just beyond his front door was enough to condemn him to Hell. He had never invited Lazarus to pass over the chasm between them in life; and God's judgment made it impassable. Nor could anyone endure the flames of hell to carry a drop of water to the damned. 

That chasm has not disappeared since the first century. I know little of finances and the economy but I suppose that there is a continuous, unbroken flow of currency from the Roman Empire to today's international banking. Money may come in many different denominations but its worth and usefulness endures; and people make it work even as one government collapses and another appears. The wealthy class sustains its wealth even as some individuals go bankrupt and die in poverty. And the poor remain, along with the injustice and violence that accompany poverty. 

From the earliest days of the Old Testament, God had taught and Jesus insisted, "It shall not be like that among you."

Jesus summoned them and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt.

But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.

Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20: 25-28)

The Lord's challenge remains despite the intractability of injustice. Every generation is charged with the duty to bridge or narrow the chasm, allowing the free flow of services to the needy, regardless of their worth in the eyes of the world. If his eye is on the sparrow, it is certainly concerned for the poor.

A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good,
but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil;
for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”

 R ecently, a high school student noticed something amiss in a schoolmate. This odd person owned an AR-15 and was buying ammunition online; and, at the same time, speaking violently of personal enemies at school. Because the student was uncomfortable with the friend, they called a hotline and notified a reporting system operated by Sandy Hook Promise. The volunteer agency contacted local authorities in Morgan County, Indiana and an apparent tragedy was averted. 

No one can know what might have happened, and the lawyers will discuss that in court. But in America today the only thing unusual about the story is that someone intervened before a tragedy took place. 

We should all be alert; we should all be prepared to "judge" friends, acquaintances, and neighbors and, "If you see something, say something." We cannot know what goes on in one another's minds but we can be aware that a violently disturbed nation is engaged in a civil war, and many disturbed individuals are eager to kill someone, anyone. It has not happened in the chapel at Mount Saint Francis yet, and we pray that it does not, but no one can know and everyone should be alert. 

With that being said, we turn to today's scriptures and hear a different kind of warning. If we're looking for trouble, a good place to start is within our own hearts. If evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, and blasphemy come from the heart; and these are what defile a person, then our work begins within.  

The Season of Lent, which begins this coming Wednesday, offers us new opportunities for the satisfying, serious work of penance. Some of the happiest gatherings I have ever attended were sponsored and attended by alcoholics, drug addicts, and other social misfits. Some of them had committed crimes we do not describe in polite conversation. But they found peace of mind in admitting both the details of their wrongdoing and their enormity, because they had found the superabundant mercy of God. 

We would know nothing about sin if the Lord had not revealed it to us, and delivered us from it. Sin is, by definition, forgivable, just as shadows are defined by sunshine, and winter by summer. God, in his mercy, shows us how we sin against our own nature; and how we violate our own dignity by some of our attitudes, moods, words, and behavior. 

He shows us that we do not have to think, feel, or act that way; he shows us a better way; he opens the way before us; and then he gives us the courage and willingness to start walking -- one step at a time, one day at a time.  

More often than not, when I consider my sins, my bad habits, my discontent and unhappiness, I cannot see a choice. I am stuck and feel stuck and I believe this is the human condition; or this is my way. Perhaps I feel cursed or doomed, and I cannot imagine changing. This pathetic condition is not unlike that of the resentful student who owns an AR-15 and buys ammunition online. 

If someone points out my bad attitudes, I might say, "I will try to change!" but that only means I have no intention of changing. Promises to try are as worthless as Monopoly money. But when I turn to God and ask him to direct my life, things happen. 

We believe in God as our creator. That means that God is creating us at every moment and is not bound by our history. He is calling us out of nothingness into being at every moment; and should he take his loving gaze off us for a moment, we would cease to be. Although our past is quite real and cannot be changed, the ever present God can bring into this present moment something new, unexpected, beautiful, and good. 

Some people call them miracles. The Bible calls them mighty works. We find hundreds of them in the Old and New Testaments. Everything from the parting of the Red Sea, to the Wedding Feast at Cana, to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They're not miracles in the sense of being stranger than science, for they make all the sense in the world when you understand that our Creator can do something in this moment that was neither foreseen nor predictable a moment ago. People can change. Murderers can change. I can change when the Lord makes it so. 

Mass shootings in schools, shopping centers, churches, and streets might stop. Our civil war might be given a ceasefire. Our God is more than capable of that Mighty Saving Work. 

Ash Wednesday commands us to remove the wooden beams from our eyes. We will begin like the psalmist who goes forth weeping, carrying sacks of seed. But, after six weeks of sacrifice we will return with cries of joy, carrying our sheaves. (Psalm 126)

God from the earth created man,
and in his own image he made him.
He makes man return to earth again,
and endows him with a strength of his own.
Limited days of life he gives him,
with power over all things else on earth....

 E very religion must ponder the place, dignity, and responsibilities of the human being within our world. Native American, Celtic, and Greek: all have their myths which shape the imagination and give meaning to raw experience.  

What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals."

Even secularism, with its rites, meanings, and beliefs -- which it considers inerrant and unquestionably infallible -- imagines human beings as lords and builders of the earth, determining its meaning and destiny.

Christianity, with its roots in Judaism, is no exception. After hearing the Genesis accounts of creation, we hear a summation from Sirach (Ecclesiasticus).  We are created in God's image and must return to earth. We are endowed with unique strength; we have power and dominion over all things on earth; but our days are limited. 

I heard a comedienne consider that mysterious story. He noted that the human being has neither a natural weapon like a talon, horn, fang, or beak; nor armor and shield like turtles, rhinoceros, and most insects. Despite our naked defenselessness, we have recreated and dominated the Earth by our wits and clever cooperation with one another. After a million years of evolution, and a thousand centuries of building infrastructure, laws, and civilization, advanced, civilized human beings fear nothing. We have tamed the Earth. But there are some things that still terrify us: words. Certain words, often designated by an initial and blank underline, like n_____, make us run for cover. The audience caught his irony and applauded. 

Our faith reminds us to fear God; and those who fear God fear nothing else. Not even words. Man, dominion, power over all things, religion: we need not cower before these words, their depth and meaning. 

Sirach goes on to consider our mysterious authority and dignity, "...that they might glory in the wonder of God's deeds and praise his holy name." 

We alone can apprehend -- if not comprehend -- the meaning of creation. Christians are especially commissioned to announce the doctrine of creatio ex nihil, "creation out of nothing." By simple love and infinite courage, God called being from non-being. But the doctrine has been challenged since the beginning. 

Like the ancient Greeks, deists imagined a supreme god who formed and reformed matter into an infinite variety of shapes; but he did not create the original matter out of nothing. It was there before, and God only makes something of it. Deism believes that God deserted his work after a while, and left it to man to do with as he pleases. The deist cannot be sure that God ever was, or that he still exists. They doubt he'll return to assess whatever we have made of the world he abandoned.   

In that scheme, man answers to no god for what he's done -- nor to all the lesser creatures of earth. If it is wasted by pollution or withers under a nuclear winter, it might be a local tragedy but means nothing to the uncaring, indifferent galaxies. Deism might scientifically describe the origin of the universe, but it offers no reason for it; neither purpose nor meaning. 

Even more challenging -- deistic scientists can reckon the height, weight, and breadth of things but cannot explain why two plus two equals four, or why reality makes sense. Is there a reason it should make sense? Who said it should make sense? 

Even the appearance of man on the Earth among the creatures is totally arbitrary and unnecessary to the deist. Some have explained that if it were not so we would not know it. But that circular argument proves nothing. The scientist's world does not require our being here. As to the individual in this vacant, meaningless world, he is left with the question, "Why should I live; why should I not kill myself?"  

The Christian, with our Jewish roots, despises such nonsense. It is insulting and completely ignores the human demand for meaning. No sooner have we turned to prayer than we find our selves, our meaning, and God's sustaining presence. He holds us in the palm of his hand and should he take his eye off us -- should he stop loving us -- we would cease to be; we would never have been. Our very existence is proof of the Creator's generous, merciful, gracious, and purposeful love. It is proof of his joy in us, and the Cause of our Joy. 

And so our purpose is twofold: to give glory to God, and to glorify God through his works, as in Saint Francis's Canticle of the Sun: 

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,

Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor, and all blessings.

To You alone, Most High, do they belong,

and no man is worthy to mention Your name.

Praised be You, my Lord, with all your creatures;

especially Brother Sun, who is the day, and through whom You give us light.

And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,

and bears a likeness to You, Most High One.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;

in heaven You formed them clear and precious and beautiful.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,

and through the air, cloudy and serene,

and every kind of weather through which You give sustenance to Your creatures.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,

which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,

through whom You light the night;

and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,

who sustains us and governs us and who produces

varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Praised be You, my Lord,

through those who give pardon for Your love,

and bear infirmity and tribulation.

Blessed are those who endure in peace

for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.

Praised be You, my Lord,

through our Sister Bodily Death,

from whom no living man can escape.

Woe to those who die in mortal sin.

Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will,

for the second death shall do them no harm.

Praise and bless my Lord,

and give Him thanks,

and serve Him with great humility.

Amen.

"Because of the hardness of your hearts
he wrote you this commandment.
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two but one flesh.

 T he twentieth century, with its ultra-violent wars and revolutions saw a theological reawakening in apocalyptic literature with its ominous intensity, and I will confess to my own fascination with it. Since early in my priesthood, despite having little direct contact with those Christian sects whose spirit and theology are driven by that urgency, I have tried to understand what is meant by the word with its multiple depths of meaning. 

As I have experienced Roman Catholicism, our traditions, symbols, and even our Canon Law has come to terms with that dimension of religion. We retain the urgent immediacy of the apocalyptic -- expecting the Second Coming at any time, on any given day -- while sending missionaries to all parts of the earth to build new churches, open new seminaries, and plan for the next century. 

And I see dimensions of the apocalyptic in our celebration and practice of marriage. The Jewish religion of Jesus's time recognized the permanent quality of marriage. From the beginning God intended man and woman to be joined as one flesh, as if their two bodies were one despite their separation while Adam slept. Men and women share a reproductive system that produces offspring only when they come together. Their spiritual oneness is restored by their marriage, and their reproductive freedom should not be violated by separation or divorce. 

But things happen. People die, leaving young, desirable, lonely spouses. Sometimes external forces like war, exile, or the economy separate couples permanently and irrevocably. Some people marry prematurely, before they are ready for the serious responsibilities of marriage. Separations of husbands and wives happen; people need partners, orphans want parents, and leaders both civil and religious must deal with it. 

Whether "Moses" or "the Mosaic Law" recognized the problem hardly matters, it had to be addressed and so, "Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation...." it wasn't supposed to be this way. 

In God's kingdom there is no divorce. It is neither necessary nor good. And those who live as if they are fully, deeply aware of God's sovereign rule marry and remain married for life. They make it happen daily regardless of the demands of the world, their personal difficulties, and its extraordinary sacrifice. 

They practice that awareness of God's familiar nearness and judgment with habits of daily prayer, conscious study of their faith, practicing Church with its voluntary, social, and recreational opportunities, and so forth. They share their past life, present activities, and future possibilities; even as they recognize their need for apartness and space. They are present to one another even when they're on opposite sides of the planet. Marriage is a totally consuming way of life, and apocalyptic explains that dimension of totality. 

When the Lord comes there will be no time for hesitation. His coming will be seen from east to west, and north to south; "one will be taken and another left!" Everyone will cease whatever they are doing and recognize their God. Some for the first time in their lives; others as they have known him all along. Those who do not worship Him in that moment will regret their reluctance forever. 

Married couples know something about that urgent immediacy. There are moments when the spouse makes a demand that must be addressed now. It may be a medical emergency or an accident. It may be the unexpected death of a loved one, an emotional crisis, or a traumatic memory that suddenly comes to life again. (Combat Veterans and their spouses become very familiar with those crises.) It may be the spouse's issue but it's theirs because they are one and must empathically feel everything together. 

I believe marriage is one way Catholics know and experience the apocalyptic dimension of our faith. The Sacrament reminds the world of the presence, authority, holiness, and beauty of God.