The Homiliy that Never Was

I wrote this homily to preach last week. But I never did. I accidentally looked ahead on the music schedule, and planned for this song to be sung at the end of Mass - only realizing that it was a mistake after our Music Director corrected me prior to Mass. So I took the essentials of the homily and preached without notes. The people of the parish said they enjoyed it. I don't think it's a bad homily, and I don't want to see it "go to waste" . . . So here it is.

---------------------

Homily for the 2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
18 January 2015

You walk along our shoreline, where land meets unknown sea,
We hear your voice of power, “Now come and follow me.
And if you still will follow through storm and wave and shoal,
Then I will make you fishers, but of the human soul.”

       Our First Reading and Gospel this week speak to us, once again, of the invitation to listen to the voice of the Lord and follow Him. He walks along the shoreline of our hearts, of our souls, and beckons us to follow, promising that, if we do, our lives will be changed.

       But we must first learn to truly listen for and to His voice. The voice of the Lord can only be discerned if we truly desire to spend time with Him. Thus, the only way we can be effective evangelizers of the Gospel, the only way we can effectively and truly carry out our vocation to bring others to Christ, is if we leave what is comfortable in our lives and take that leap of faith to follow Him, no matter what the consequences may be.

       You see, we gather here today to ponder the voice of the Lord in our lives, continuing the discernment of what He is calling us to, to how we are to follow Him. Our initial response to the promptings of the Lord must be that of Samuel: “Here I am. You called me. . . . Speak, for Your servant is listening.” Often, we may not like what the Lord is asking us to do. Out of fear, we may try to run away from the Lord.

       The Lord continues to call; the Lord’s invitation is eternal. We must learn to trust the Lord’s invitation.

You call us, Christ, to gather the people of the earth.
We cannot fish for only those lives we think have worth.
We spread your net of gospel across the water’s face,
Our boat a common shelter for all found by your grace.

       The call to evangelization is at the heart of the Lord’s invitation, for the invitation to follow Christ is not meant for a select few, but for all the peoples of the Earth. We must learn to be The Church Alive! before we are The Church Evangelizing. The opportunities that arise to share the Gospel must first be internalized within ourselves before we can truly share the Person and message of Jesus Christ with others.

       This is something that our own Bishop has asked us to do. This weekend, our beloved Diocese of Pittsburgh celebrates the success of Our Campaign for the Church Alive! The overall success of this campaign is a reflection of the faithful of our Diocese to accept the Lord’s invitation to follow Him through a specific way in which we support – through the stewardship of our gifts of time, talent and treasure – the ways in which we as the Church of Pittsburgh spreads the Good News and invitation of the Lord so that others may want to share in His Life.

       Yet, Our Campaign for the Church Alive! is the diocesan example of what we should be doing in our individual lives: using those gifts and talents God gave us to attract and draw others to a life lived in Christ. The success of the campaign is due to the fact that we, not just at Saint Teresa of Avila Parish, but the faithful from across the Diocese, made a concerted effort to “spread the net of the gospel across” the six counties of our Diocese, not just for today, but for years to come.

       And so must it be in our lives.

       We, as individuals and as members of Saint Teresa of Avila Parish, are obliged by our baptism to invite others to not only seek refuge in the ship of the Church, whose course is steady towards the fulfillment of the Kingdom of Heaven, but also to seek consolation in Her Captain, Jesus Christ, who continues to invite all to not only travel with Him, but to announce to the world that He invites all to know of His mercy, love, peace and joy.

We cast our nets, O Jesus; we cry the kingdom’s name;
We work for love and justice; we learn through hope and pain.
You call us, Lord, to gather God’s daughters and God’s sons,
To let your judgment heal us so that all may be one.

       Ultimately, the work of The Church Evangelizing is the physical proof that we are The Church Alive! For to be a Church that IS alive, we have to be living IN Christ. And to be found living in Christ means that, at some point, we have accepted His invitation to follow Him; that we have listened to His voice. We have accepted the call to “come and see” where He is staying, always present in the Word and in the Sacraments; housed here and everywhere the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the tabernacle.

       It is this Presence that we carry into the world.

       It is this net of the Gospel that we cast at the invitation of Jesus.

       “We work for love and justice; we learn through hope and pain” – but only because in the voice of the Lord, there is the fullness of love and justice; there is the consolation of hope for our pain.

       It is because we have heard the voice of the Lord that we have accepted His invitation. It is because we have accepted His invitation that we invite others to come to know Him through Word and Sacrament. This is how we witness that we are The Church Alive!

       Let us pray:

Gracious and merciful God,
we pray that through the Holy Spirit
all Catholics may hear the call of the New Evangelization
and seek a deeper relationship with your Son, Jesus.

We pray
that the New Evangelization
will renew the Church,
inspiring all Catholics to “go forth and make disciples of all nations”
and transform society through the power of the Gospel.

We pray
for all members of the Church,
that we heed the words of Christ
—“do not be afraid”—
and strengthened by the Holy Spirit’s gift of courage,
give witness to the Gospel
and share our faith with others.

We pray
that we may become
like the father of the prodigal son
—filled with compassion
for our missing brothers and sisters—
and run to embrace them upon their return.

We pray
that all people
yearning to know Christ
and the Church
may encounter him through the faithful
who witness to his love in their lives.

Loving God, our Father,
strengthen us
to become witnesses
to the saving grace of your Son,
Jesus, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

------------------------


Enjoy the journey . . .

God's Plan for the Beautiful Letdown

Homily for the 3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
25 January 2015

       A wise man once said: God has a plan for you . . . but so does someone else!

       Our Gospel today reminds us of this fact by telling the story, once again, of the call of Andrew, Peter, James and John. This call is, of course, a call that is extended to us today, just as it was to the first disciples two thousand years ago. It is a reminder of the invitation to “come and see” that Jesus extended in last week’s Gospel.

       Yet, Jesus was calling these men to something more than just simply to “follow Him.” If we take a look at the first part of the Gospel, and set it in the context together with our First Reading and Responsorial Psalm, then we come to understand that the call of Andrew, Peter, James and John was just not simply to follow Jesus along journeys of becoming faithful disciples of this Man from Nazareth. Rather, Jesus walked along the shoreline and invited these men to follow Him so that they would witness firsthand the mercy of God; Jesus called these fishermen to life of continual conversion.

       Yes, it’s true that God had a plan for these men. Yes, it’s true that God has a plan for each of us! Yet, someone else also had a plan for the disciples, just as someone else has a plan for us.

       My brothers and sisters, the Devil is real. Satan DOES exist, despite what our society may believe and preach. And Satan has a plan for each of us.

       God presents to us every day the opportunities to follow His plan. However, God also presents to us each day the gift of free will, which allows us to freely choose His plan or another. We can freely choose His grace, or we can struggle in our own humanity. We can also freely choose to recognize the struggle as a means to trust more on God, or we can freely choose to allow the struggle to overwhelm us, and we cave in to the emotions of frustration, anger and despair. We can freely choose to revel in the beauty of the struggle, or give in to the overwhelming sensation of apathy. Remember, though: The Devil won’t strike us in the middle of the struggle, but wait until we’re overwhelmed, apathetic and lukewarm in our faith.

       Yes, just as much as God has a plan for us, so does Satan.

       And as much as God had a plan for Andrew, Peter, James and John, so did Satan.

       Nevertheless, following Jesus, the disciples came to know the very essence of His message: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

       This is the very message we’re confronted with today.

       Satan doesn’t want us to repent. Satan doesn’t want us to believe in the Gospel. He wants us to remain apathetic in our struggle; he wants us to remain lukewarm in our faith.

       God, on the other hand, desires our repentance. God desires our belief in His Son and in His Gospel. God desires us to trust Him amidst the struggles of our lives; He desires us to be on fire with the Faith.

       Again, God gives us the opportunity to choose whose plan we’ll follow: His or Satan’s.

       If we follow Satan’s plan for our lives, then we remain in the lukewarmness of our faith. We refuse to hear the call to conversion, to believe in the Gospel, and we wallow in the self-defeating apathy of our prideful and selfish choices. Satan continually whispers in our ear that we are a letdown to God, to our neighbor, and to ourselves – that we have let down because we’re not good enough, nor will we ever be.

       This is a lie that the disciples had to come to grips with, even as they accompanied Jesus during the years of His public ministry. Though our Lord continually preached the mercy of the Father, He also preached that we have to choose that mercy. And we know, from knowing the story in Scripture, that Peter learned this lesson the hard way; that Peter and Judas both had the opportunity to repent, to answer the call for the conversion of their hearts, and to recognize and receive the mercy of God. Peter, even in the midst of the struggle, continued to seek repentance and conversion; Judas allowed the apathy to overwhelm him. The other ten Apostles witnessed – firsthand – the duality of hearing Satan’s lie that one can be a letdown to God, neighbor and self, with one friend seeking repentance and the plan of God, and another friend overwhelmed by Satan’s lie and forgoing the call to conversion and accepting Satan’s plan, instead.

       Even to this day, we have the choice to believe Satan when he reminds us that we are a letdown to God, neighbor and self; or we have the opportunity to stand before God, seeking conversion of heart, knowing that we have let down those whom we love the most.

       Seeking conversion, then, is not just following Jesus or trying to become a better person. Seeking conversion and believing in the Gospel is allowing ourselves to be open to the call to strive for holiness in our lives. Seeking conversion is recognizing that we are a beautiful letdown.

       Yes, I said that we ARE a beautiful letdown.

       “The Beautiful Letdown”, by the band Switchfoot, is the title of one of my all-time favorite songs. It recognizes that struggle within the journey of life and of faith. This song recognizes the brokenness that is ours, and how that is okay. The opening lines of the third verse really reflect well what we’re speaking of today:

We are a beautiful letdown
Painfully uncool
The church of the dropouts, the losers, the sinners,
the failures, and the fools

       Yes, we ARE “the dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools.”

       But that truly is a beautiful thing.

       Our Lord, as exampled by today’s Gospel, chose men and women to follow Him who were, by the world’s standards (as well as their own), dropouts, losers, sinners, failures and fools. Peter, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Jude were men who were broken. Mary Magdalene, Martha and Mary were women who were broken.

       But they were found to be beautiful letdowns by the Lord because, in their brokenness, they sought repentance and conversion of heart.

       They chose to believe in the Gospel.

       They chose God’s plan over Satan’s.

       So must we understand that when we, in our brokenness and pain, turn to the Lord, we, too, are beautiful letdowns. For our belief in the Gospel allows us to recognize that God came to gather the nations into the peace of His Kingdom; that He comes in Word and Sacrament to strengthen us in holiness; that He will come again in glory with salvation for all His people.

       For us, then, to rejoice in our brokenness, we seek the conversion of our hearts. For us, then, to recognize that we are the dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures and the fools, we allow ourselves to be those beautiful letdowns who accept God’s plan over Satan’s.

       We, then, need to seek the grace of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. For it is in this Sacrament do we come face-to-face with our own brokenness, our struggles, our acceptance of Satan’s plan over God’s and allow ourselves to repent and believe in the Gospel. Just as the people of Nineveh repented at the words of Jonah, and just as the followers of Jesus repented at hearing the Gospel message, so, we, too, must come before the Lord – especially and explicitly in the sacramental realm – to receive His mercy and grace.

       This is how we become that beautiful letdown.

       This is how we answer the call to conversion.

       This is how we accept God’s plan over Satan’s.

       Don’t wait for Lent to get to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Beat the lines and go now. Start Lent off on the right foot. Continue the journey of Ordinary Time refreshed and renewed by the grace of God. Accept God’s plan by being transformed in His mercy and grace. Answer the call to conversion so that you may truly know the peace, love and joy of God when the priest says, “I absolve you of your sins.” Acknowledge the fact that we are the Church of the dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools – and that Jesus Christ continues to call us to follow Him knowing of that “painfully uncool” fact of humanity.

       Remember: Even though we are a beautiful letdown, God has a plan for each of us. But so does Satan. Heed, then, the call to conversion, repent and believe in the Gospel.

---------------

Enjoy the journey . . . 

Come to the Water!

 

Homily for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
11 January 2015

       The great Saint Ambrose of Milan reminds us: The Lord was Baptized, not to be cleansed Himself, but to cleanse the waters, so that those waters, cleansed by the flesh of Christ which knew no sin, might have the power of Baptism.  

       We have, once again, come to the waters flowing from the Body of Christ. We have come to celebrate this great Feast of His Baptism, for it is the impetus and beginning of our own baptism in Christ, our vocation to follow Him, and our mission to proclaim His Gospel.

       The power of baptism, symbolized in the cleansing water, is to further reveal just Who this Jesus Christ is. With the revelation of the Trinity in today’s Gospel, we see the necessary action of how our lives need to be rooted in the Person and Essence of God – becoming the sons and daughters in whom the Father is well pleased.

       Yet, our baptism must be for us something that is more than a spiritual pool party. Our baptism must be for us that which it was for Christ: A public declaration of our relationship with God; a “yes” to the invitation to develop that relationship; and becoming that same invitation for others to come to know Christ.

       Going down deep in the waters and arising anew in Christ is not a one-time event, although one can only receive baptism once in their life. We recommit to those promises of baptism when we reach for the holy water upon entering or exiting the church. Though mostly done out of habit, that conscious or unconscious action is a recommitment to the promises we renew every Easter – in opposing the Devil, rejecting the false allurement he seduces with, and reconfirm our belief in the tenants of the Faith (just as we will be doing in a few moments).

       The Baptism of the Lord was the beginning of His public ministry. Our baptism compels us into public ministry, as well – becoming examples of what it is to live as a follower of Christ. Our baptism becomes for us a constant call to conversion. It signals to the world that we are marked – signed, sealed and delivered – for and unto the Lord. Our being washed with water, anointed with oil and clothed in Christ is the first step in being that son or daughter of the Father, in whom He is well pleased.

       As we remind ourselves of that call to conversion – a call that is continuous, and not just found in the seasons of Advent and Lent – we are reminded of the cost of discipleship: Our very life. The Baptism of Jesus reminds us that His mission and ministry cost Him His very life – which is why He came to Earth: to die that we may live. The cost of our baptism is our very lives, as well. Though maybe not physically, our constant turning over of our lives allows Christ to be placed at the very center of our hearts. This conversion, then, is our heeding of the words of the Prophet: Seek the LORD while he may be found, call him while he is near.

       The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord isn’t just a random celebration that we tack on at the end of the Christmas Season just because we want to get our money’s worth out of the poinsettias, sing another Christmas carol or two, or just because we’ve become too lazy to take down the decorations. Rather, it’s the culmination of the reason of the season: Our Lord became flesh and dwelt among us so that we could come to understand and witness the fullness of the Love of God. Just as Easter doesn’t make sense without Christmas, Good Friday doesn’t truly make sense without the Baptism of the Lord.

       The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord should force us to reflect upon our lives in Christ, see where it is we need conversion, and work with the grace of God to seek Him in all things.

       The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord should remind us that just as Jesus now begins His public ministry, so we, too, minister in the public sphere, whether we’re the so-called “professional religious” or not. Our lives are to reflect the joy that we have hopefully been living out this entire season, allowing it to become the beginning of a relationship that invites others to know of the joy and reason of why Christ came to Earth. As Pope Benedict XVI reminds us: The rediscovery of the value of one's baptism is the basis of the missionary commitment of every Christian, because we see in the Gospel that he who lets himself be fascinated by Christ cannot do without witnessing the joy of following in his footsteps… we understand even more that, in virtue of baptism, we have an inherent missionary vocation.

       We come to the waters today because we know the power of Baptism. We come to the waters today because we have come to know Him who, through Word and Sacrament, continues to empower us through the Holy Spirit to strive and struggle for holiness. We come to the waters today because by the One who clothed Himself with our flesh, we hope to drink from the River, flowing from His Sacred Heart, which pours forth eternal life.

       I would like to conclude with the great words from a sermon by Saint Gregory Nazianzen:

Today let us do honor to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – though not in its fullness – a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

-------------------

Enjoy the journey . . .