Submit to the Will of God

Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
11 August 2013

          I’d like to repeat the quote from our patron, Saint Teresa of Avila, which I used to close last week’s homily:

We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can – namely, surrender our will and fulfill God’s will in us.

          This quote is the perfect bridge between our Mass last week and the Mass we are currently celebrating. We remember how in last week’s readings Qoheleth, Paul and Jesus reminded us that our lives are not our own, that they belong to God. Today Jesus solidifies this point by blatantly telling us that if we truly believe that our lives are not our own, our will, likewise, is not ours, therefore the work we do day-in and day-out must be the work of the Lord.

          If we truly believe to be the people that the Lord has chosen to be His own, just like we sang about in our Responsorial Psalm, then we cannot be blind to the workings of God’s will all around us. And if we truly believe that we are part of that people, then we will be happy to “surrender our will and fulfill God’s will in us,” as our great patron teaches us.

          That’s the hard part: to surrender our will. But that’s why God gave us free will, so that we would freely choose Him and His will so that we will be able to choose a life that is centered and rooted in Him. To surrender to God’s will is not to become mindless automatons, but to recognize in our lives that there is something so much greater than we could ever hope for, and that only God can take us there. When we submit our lives to God, we open ourselves to possibilities that we never thought possible to have existed.

          Submitting our will to God’s will also prepares us for the inevitable time where we will finally see our Creator face-to-Face. It prepares us, as Jesus reminds us in the Gospel, to not only recognize God’s presence when the fullness of the Kingdom is made known, but also in the here-and-now. To surrender our will to God’s is to know that everything we do prepares us – and prepares others! – for the coming of the fullness of the Kingdom of God.

          And, so, brothers and sisters, do we submit to God’s will? Do we allow the Eucharist to be that vehicle in which we allow God to take our lives and transform them to what He needs them to be? Do we allow the celebration of Word and Sacrament to open us up to become the disciples of Christ, the chosen people of God that we claim to be?

                  My friends, I’d like to give once more some steps that will allow us to submit to God’s will in our lives:

·         First, we cast away all that disunites us from God . . . and that may include coming to the Sacrament of Reconciliation for those sins which are more severe and burdensome in our lives.

·        Second, we make prayer a routine practice in our lives.

·        Third, we seek solace in the support of God, the angels and saints, and the Body of Christ through regular, weekly participation at Mass.

·        Fourth, we allow our hearts to be softened, so that we may unite our hearts to the Sacred Heart of God.

·        Finally, after we have done all this – WHICH WILL BE SOME DIFFICULT WORK ON OUR PART! – we will have the ability to submit to the will of God in our lives.

As long as we believe ourselves to be part of the chosen people of God, we always have the chance and the grace to allow God’s will to be our will. If we TRULY believe this, then the words of Saint Gerard Majella ring true:

Here the will of God is done, as God wills, and as long as God wills.

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Enjoy the journey . . . 

Our Lives Are Not Our Own

Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
4 August 2013

        Nine years ago, on August 1, 2004, the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, these were the readings of that day. That day, August 1, 2004, was also my last day as Director of Music and Liturgy at Incarnation of the Lord Parish. It was on that day that I would begin to hear the one phrase repeated to me throughout my seminary career: “You’re life’s not going to be your own.” Even now, as a priest, I still receive that reminder.

        And as annoyed with that phrase as I am, it was the one thing that constantly came to mind as I read and reflected on all three of our readings for this weekend. This annoying little phrase came to mind BECAUSE IT’S TRUE! . . . It’s so very true!

        Qoheleth and Jesus point out to us that this life, though given to us by the grace of God, is never really “ours”. Our lives belong to God. Everything else, as Qoheleth reminds us in the First Reading, is vanity. But it’s only vanity if we’re not living for God. And that’s what Jesus is pointing out to us in the Gospel: When we allow our earthly possessions to possess us, then we leave little to no room for God.

        We then turn to Saint Paul’s words in his letter to the Colossians: “Think of what is above, not of what is on the earth. . . . [For] Christ is all and in all.” When we focus our lives on “what is above”, when we focus our lives on God, then the things of this earth are of little consequence. When we live our lives for Christ, and surrender our lives to God, we recognize that we have died with Christ in Baptism, and that life truly “hidden with Christ in God.” Through our participation in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, through our initiation into the life of the Church through Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, our lives are not our own!

        My brothers and sisters, we need to take an honest look at our lives. If we’re living our lives for anything or anyone other than God – for a paycheck, for a car, for a video game, for a cell phone, for the next big movie, for the next event on our schedule, for the good-looking girl or guy across the room – then we’re living our lives in vain. For when we live our lives in vain, we become more open to those sins which disunite our life with God: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry. And when we disunite ourselves from God and the graces He gives to us, then our lives are truly not our own, but, rather, we become slaves to sin and death; our lives become entrenched in the lies of the Devil.

        Yes, our lives are never our own, for they are either thinking of what is above, with Christ in Heaven, or they are tied to the things of this earth, which keeps one searching for the next “thing” to fill the desires of one’s heart . . . and that search is done in vain.

        What, then, can we do? First, we cast away all that disunites us from God . . . and that may include coming to the Sacrament of Reconciliation for those sins which are more severe and burdensome in our lives. Second, we make prayer a routine practice in our lives. Third, we seek solace in the support of God, the angels and saints, and the Body of Christ through regular, weekly participation at Mass. Fourth, we allow our hearts to be softened, so that we may unite our hearts to the Sacred Heart of God. Finally, we submit to the will of God in our lives.

        If our lives are truly never ours, but, in all honesty, belong to God – if we truly believe that we belong to God in our daily living, dying and rising, then we need to come to recognize that God only wants what’s best in and for our lives. And, in return, we offer the fullness, the totality of our lives – the good, the bad, and the ugly – back to God.

        Our patron, Saint Teresa of Avila, said it quite well as she reminds us:

 "We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.”

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Enjoy the journey . . .

Is It Sunday Yet?

That's the question that I've been asking myself since Monday.

I leave for my annual retreat this Sunday.


I'm so already there.


The last two weeks prior to this one, I was "acting pastor", since the pastor was away on his vacation. And I was away from the parish for three days this week due to my participation in the "Good Leaders, Good Shepherds" (GLGS) program. And these last weeks have been, on the whole, good ones.

I just got to the point that, on Monday, I basically checked out and started my "retreat mode". And while I attended GLGS this week, and have been attending to the parish duties and responsibilities, The evenings have become the time in which the interior preparation for my retreat has begun. 

But the message to me is clear: It's time for me to get away and take a break. I need to recharge . . . I need to, with love to the people I serve, get away from the parish so I can serve it better.


But, mentally, I'm already on retreat . . .



. . . And that's not a bad thing.






Enjoy the journey . . .
 

The Need to Encounter Christ

Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
21 July 2013

          “Okay, Father,” many of you might be thinking, “it’s the story with Mary and Martha once again. You’re going to tell us, ‘Don’t work too hard and spend time in prayer, listening to the Lord,’ right?”

        Yes, I could tell you that.

But I’m not going to.

What I am going to do is share with you something that Saint Benedict wrote down in his Rule: Let all guests be received as Christ.

My brothers and sisters, our First Reading and Gospel today explicitly present to us an over-arching theme of “hospitality”. However, we need to go deeper and understand that it’s what lies underneath the idea of “hospitality” is where we need to be . . . and that’s experiencing an encounter with the Living God.

While Abraham and Martha are doing those important tasks of hospitality, Mary cuts to the chase to show us what it’s all about. While taking care of our guests is a necessary, we need to provide them with an encounter that becomes supernatural – affirming that God is present throughout the course of our lives.

Yet Abraham, Martha, and Mary provide us with wonderful examples in what it is to be hospitable people of God. And even TO God! For once we have experienced that deeply unique and deeply personal encounter with God, we then want to share that with people. We want people to experience Christ in a similar fashion to us. And that is the mark of discipleship, of evangelization: To encounter Christ, so as to become Him and take His Presence out into the world, so that the world may come to know Christ.

However, this only happens when we encounter Him. How? Yes, through prayer, through the Scriptures, through the Sacraments. But there’s a more simple answer: through our interactions, through our encounters with each other.

Think about your experience of the Mass up to this point. Were you greeted by friendly people? Did you have to climb over people just to get a seat in the pew? Did someone cut you off in the parking lot to get the better spot? Or let’s flip it: Did you greet others with a friendly smile? Did you move out of the way so that others could sit down in the pew? Did you allow the other person to take that better spot, even if it caused you an extra step or two of inconvenience? Even these little gestures can mean so much in allowing people to experience an encounter with Christ.

To have that encounter with Christ, personally and interpersonally, allows us to encounter and share that peace of Christ which the world cannot give – that same peace we will share in a few minutes with each other, before encountering our Lord in the most intimate way possible: the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.

The more times we encounter the Lord – or, I should say, the more times we allow the Lord to encounter us! –, the more times we have the opportunity to know not only Who Christ is, but what He is asking of us in our lives. We must learn to become Mary before we can act like Martha. We must spend time in listening to the Lord before we can fully appreciate the mission and ministry He calls us to.

We must sit at the feet of the Lord ourselves before we can call others to do the same.

If we want all of our guests to be received as Christ, then we have to know Who Christ is. If we want to treat others like Jesus, then we need to evaluate how we ourselves treat our encounters with Jesus.

Yes – so do good things and be thoughtful like Martha and Abraham, and spend more time with the Lord like Mary. But in all our thoughts, words and actions, let us encounter the Lord, get to know Who He is, and then introduce Him to the world. Just because we spend time with someone doesn’t necessarily mean that we encounter them.

Let us heed the words of our parish patron, Saint Teresa of Avila: “Keeping Christ present is what we of ourselves can do.”

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Enjoy the journey . . .

Another Quote

Had I remembered this quote from Servant of God Dorothy Day before I wrote my homily, I would have used it. But I want to share it, nonetheless:

. . . It was human love that helped me to understand divine love. Human love at its best, unselfish, glowing, illuminating our days, gives us a glimpse of the love of God for man. Love is the best thing we can know in this life, but it must be sustained by an effort of the will. It must lie still and quiet, dull and smoldering, for periods. It grows through suffering and patience and compassion. We must suffer for those we love, we must endure their trials and their suffering, we must even take upon ourselves the penalties due their sins. Thus we learn to understand the love of God for His creatures. Thus we understand the Crucifixion.

Enjoy the journey . . .  

Love of God Equals Love of Neighbor

Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
14 July 2013

        Servant of God Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and social reformer of the Twentieth Century, once said, “I only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” This, my brothers and sisters, is a perfect summation of the Gospel we have just heard.

        Dorothy Day, who died in 1980, knew well and understood even better that one cannot separate the love of God and the love of neighbor. When the scholar of the law proposed to Jesus the question, “Who is my neighbor?”, he was testing Jesus in a way to see how Jesus might answer. Even to this day, whether we realize it or not, we’re asking Jesus the same question daily, because, in some way, we want Jesus to change His answer.

        My friends, our faith in Jesus Christ demands of us the constant action of love. That’s why we must come to understand that our actions and inactions have consequences. The way we put love into action or the way we fail to put love into action reflects our love towards God. If we say that we love God and fail to love our neighbor, then we are only proving that our love for God is self-serving. If we say that we love our neighbor, but have no use for God, then our love for neighbor becomes self-serving.

        Love is the universal language, something given to us by God that is “already in [our] mouths and in [our] hearts,” as Moses points out to us in our First Reading. We now HAVE to act on that love, to “carry it out”, as Moses instructed the Israelites. “. . . The love of God is revealed in responsibility for others”, Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI teaches us (Spe Salvi, 28). How do we carry out love, then? Through putting our faith in action.

Love comes to the Christian as an act of faith. It is part of that “Light of Faith”, that Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis reminds of in his first encyclical. Our current Holy Father, who continues to promote putting our faith into action, reminds us (Lumen Fidei, 54):

The boundless love of our Father also comes to us, in Jesus, through our brothers and sisters. Faith teaches us to see that every man and woman represents a blessing for me, that the light of God’s face shines on me through the faces of my brothers and sisters.

        It is recognizing the love that God has for us that we respond in kind through loving our neighbor. Even if we don’t like the person, what they stand for or how they act, we are called to see Christ in them – as difficult as that may be – and love them. And as we are called to recognize Christ in the other, so must another recognize Christ in us.

        “Everything a baptized person does every day should be directly or indirectly related to the Corporal or Spiritual Works of Mercy,” Dorothy Day reminds us. Our love for God cannot be a love for God alone. Our love for neighbor cannot be simply for our friends and family alone. How we treat the least and the greatest among us, how we treat the presence of Christ among us, is a response to our accepting God’s love in our lives, and is a reflection of our relationship to Christ as His disciple.

        As we recognize the continued binding of love of God to love of neighbor, let us make the statement of Dorothy Day our own: “I can only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”

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Enjoy the journey . . .