5th Sunday OT (Cycle B): Self Reflection in times of COVID

For a streamed version of this homily you can go here. 

 
  In today’s mass we hear about 3 very important men in the history of our salvation. In the first reading we meet Job, a man who's strong faith is an example to all believers because after losing his fortune, his home, his wife, his children even his health had the strength to famously say “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of Lord”.   On the second reading we met Paul, a former Pharisee, well educated, Roman Citizen, a well respected tent maker, and a persecutor of the Church. A man who after an encounter with the risen Christ, voluntarily gave everything he was and had in order to become a messenger of the Good News. Finally, in the Gospel reading we meet the Lord Jesus but not in all his glory. We meet him as a simple man who unlike Job and Paul, who in their lives had wealth and family, had nothing. In fact his parents were poor, so poor that he was born in a manger and as a baby became a refugee. We meet  him as a man that is beginning to fulfill his calling in life. Not worrying about what he had or what he gave up but focused on the task He received from the Father, to bring the good news to the world.. 

   We meet these three men at different stages in their lives. Job is at the end of his rope, he looks at himself and only sees failure, pain and disappointment. Paul is in the middle of his ministry reflecting upon why he does what he does, how he has given everything to the Gospel without expecting any recompense. And Jesus is at the beginning of his ministry, still trying to decide how to reach the people he had come to save, relying on prayer and contemplation to follow the way the spirit takes him.   

   The interesting thing about these three stories is that we meet each one of these men in a moment of self reflection. One of those moments in which we are forced by circumstance to take a good look at ourselves, reflect on where we had been, and decide how to move forward into the next step in our lives.  

    I would venture to say that every human being on earth, it doesn't matter from what culture or which time, has experienced moments like these throughout their lives.  The question for us today is :  In a time like the one we are living, in the middle of a pandemic, a time in which the act of wearing a mask, keeping our distance or even speaking loudly can be the difference between life and death for ourselves or for the ones we love.  What can we learn from these three men? What should our own moments of self reflection tell us?

    Well to the ones who have suffered great loss and now find themselves wondering what next, Jo(U)b teaches us that life is truly like the wind and that even when we feel that we will never feel happiness again, our faith doesn't end with what we have lost.  Winning or losing  the name of the Lord will always be blessed because as long as we have life, there is an opportunity for His eternal love and mercy to reach us and restore to us that which we have lost, even if we think this impossible.

    To the ones who day after day feel they give everything they have and are, and feel that they do not have anymore to give, St Paul reminds us that our efforts are not in vain. We have the assurance that some of the people we serve will be saved, but we should also accept the reality that some will be lost or not appreciate what we do for them. This is fine because our Father in heaven knows how much we love and care for the lives of others.

   To the ones who are starting on their efforts to help others, how have finally pushed fear out of the way and have taken the decision that this pandemic will not dictate the way we will live our lives, the Lord Jesus teaches us that only living a life of prayer and contemplation will give us the strengths and understanding we need to move ahead not where we want to go but where God the Father wants to send us.

  In today's readings we meet 3 very different men, in very different situations; each one reflecting on what lies ahead, what they should do, where they should go. Three men whose approach to dealing with the uncertainty of life have much to teach us.

    In these times in which we find ourselves wondering what comes next after COVID, let us focus our attention on the lives of these three men as a great example for us to follow. 

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13th Sunday OT (Cycle C): Jesus and Inclusiveness

    One of the Facebook pages I follow belongs  to a “made-up” personality who calls herself  “Susan from the Parish Counsel”. Now I have to tell you that this is a satire page and in no way, shape or form resembles any of our very hard working parish council members.
    Susan is not only a very active member of her Church community but she is also the council president. What makes this page so funny (To me at least) is that in her mind she believes that this position gives her the right and authority to run the whole parish conforming to her own personal idea of how the whole Catholic Church should be run by the Vatican.
   One of the favorite topics she likes to bring up with her readers is the fact (and she is convinced of this) that what defined Jesus ministry on earth was his compassion, his kindness and especially his inclusiveness.  Susan is always reminding us that Jesus welcomed everyone, and because of this we should all do the same. Compassion and kindness are the guiding lights which compel Susan’s to embrace all sorts of social causes and “wako” spiritualities, never mind what the teachings of the Church or the Bible are, in her mind the way she acts is the way Jesus would act if he in fact had the chance to be in Susan’s shoes, kind of like Jesus asking himself "What would Susan do"?

   I think this page is so funny because it disturbingly reflects the spirit of our times. Today the idea of Jesus accepting everyone without caring about the way they live their lives AFTER this encounter  has taken a hold of our society and culture. It is based on the erroneous idea that if we love someone we must accept everything they are or do because anything other than complete acceptance would be judgmental, unkind and even hateful.
  The problem is that under the shadow of gospel stories, like the ones I just proclaimed, this idea falls flat on it face. Yes, Jesus welcomed every one but he demanded something from everyone he encountered: Conversion. And not the one-time-thing kind of conversion that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, but real conversion, the type which makes us realize we are sinners and places us on the path of a day-to-day struggle towards holiness.
   At the end of the day, what Susan and the spirit of our times ignore completely is the way in which Jesus welcomed everybody. His welcoming was more than a welcome, it was an invitation to a deeper relationship with the divine, it demands our attention. Jesus welcome is transformative, it changes us. It gives us life, it is a welcome to forgiveness and conversion. In the presence of the divine we are supposed to realize there are things about us that need to be changed. If we don’t we are missing the point. And what is the point? No one is perfect, no one is capable of standing in front of Jesus and say, ”I live a perfect life I do not need to change anything about it after I meet you”. Encountering Jesus requires we ask ourselves every day: what do I need to change about me? What can I give to you Lord as a response to you welcoming to me, to you giving me new life?
   Jesus was not an enabler, or a manipulator or a liar. He was very clear about the type of conversion he expected from the people he welcomed as his disciples. In today’s Gospel we see a couple of good examples of this: “Do not expect a life of luxury, I do not even have a place to lay my head at night” he says to one and “If you are to follow me you have to be willing to abandon everything and not look back not even to your friends and family”  he tells another.  A truly converted heart values a relationship with God more than a life of comfort and luxury, safe sleep, and even the death of a loved one.
   Jesus loved and accepted his disciples but he also was not afraid of correcting them. In today’s reading we also see how when the apostles are offended by the way they are treated in a Samaritan Village and want retribution for this treatment they are rebuked, because this is not the expected behaviour of one who had an encounter with the living Lord.
   Regardless of what you hear, the church wants all to be welcome, from the same sex couples to the ilegal inmigrant, form the pro-choice to the pro-life, from the straight to the LGTBQ. But as his Church, Jesus expects a specific type of behaviour from each of us. Not judging or condemning but of loving fraternal correction.  And he expects from us, his disciples to be able to look at our own sins and recognize we need conversion and when we fail, to be able to  accept the loving words of correction from others. That is what it means to love each other. That is what being welcoming and loving really means.

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On the Crisis of Manhood in the Church; 20th OT Cycle B

    I was going to preach a homily about  how Jesus is the bread of life who comes down from heaven, but then on Wednesday, while I was on vacation, I started to see the news of the Harrisburg Diocese Grand Jury report. I have to confess that it pained me deeply that Cardinal Keeler, a man which I admired greatly, the man who ordained me to the diaconate, was in fact a big player in the culture of silence and  abuse that existed in Harrisburg. So I think that this Sunday, we the clergy of the Church can not ignore this devastating report from the pulpit.
   Since Wednesday I have been following the reactions of people in  social media and I have seen the pain, anger, and disappointment Catholics like you here today are feeling.  One of these commentators said something which stuck with me. He said: “It is not a good week to be Catholic”. At least for me, It’s been a brutal week. Just go to Facebook and look at the reactions Archbishop Lori’s statements referring to this report have generated, and you will see what I’m talking about.
 

    In my mind I am convinced that there is nothing we the preachers in this Sunday can say that will make you, the lay people, regain the trust of the men that are supposed to be our spiritual fathers and the successors of the apostles. So where do we go from here?  Well I feel that the only thing I can do is explore what in my opinion is the cause of why the horror stories in this grand jury report happened.
    I feel that this latest scandal reflects one of the great tragic realities of our times and our church. For decades, our church have been suffering from what I call a "crisis of manhood". The reason why our seminaries are empty is because we have forgotten as a church what the meaning of “being a man” is. The real tragedy is that we have ignored the one great example of manhood in front of our very eyes: Jesus the God man, dead on a cross. And what is this example? To give your life for the ones you love, to sacrifice self for the good of the other and to embrace and console those who suffer. This is what real men do and this is what we as clergy have failed to do.
   I feel that the only hope we have as a Church resides in the lay people. They are the ones who should keep us accountable and they are the ones who, like a mirror, should reflect to us what is lacking in us, where are we falling short from the real image of manhood, Jesus on the Cross. As a church we need to return to this image. This might not happen in one homily, or in a week or a year, it might take a generation or two, but once we return to this example, once we begin to reflect to the world the image of Jesus the Christ, we as a Church will return to be the moral beacon for our culture. We need men lay and clergy to embrace this image of Jesus Crucified for our sins, for the sake of ourselves, our families and our the world. God bless you my brothers and sisters.

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