February 15, 2009
Posted in Homilies
at 9:00 am
Sixth Sunday, Year B, February 15th, 2009
“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” This is from an add campaign on buses in London, England, Toronto, Calgary and perhaps coming soon to Ottawa. “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” I’m so glad this is finally out – what a relief! Now I can stop being a priest, stop worrying and working so hard for no reason, and finally start enjoying my life!
As I mentioned (yesterday/Friday at Mass), the people promoting this add must be referring to a false god, who at worst is a cruel tyrant who likes to control and condemn people, and at best is a spoiler, of whom people complain: “stupid god . . . won’t let us have any fun.” (Because we all know how fun it is to lose our freedom and become a slave of our sins). These people have no idea how truly “stupid” and “foolish” God is, to the point of taking all the sickness and sin of the world into His own body, and suffering and dying on the Cross out of love for His creatures. These people must have never really heard the Gospel, and still need to be evangelized by their Christian and Catholic neighbours.
As for me, I don’t see how it is possible to stop worrying and enjoy life apart from God. Think of all the different kinds of sufferings in the world that can make it difficult to enjoy life: it could be something relatively minor like a bad cold, the flu, a migraine headache, a sore stomach or back, or something more serious like heart disease or cancer – you name it. It could be emotional or spiritual suffering like anxiety, discouragement, depression, loneliness, fear of death, and so on. How is it possible, apart from faith in God, to continue to enjoy life in the midst of so much suffering?
Consider the leper in today’s Gospel, who humbly kneels before Jesus, as if in confession and begs him: “if you choose, you can make me clean.”
Could you imagine Jesus responding, “True, if I choose . . . what would I like to do . . . just give me a minute . . . enee meenee minee moe . . .“ No.
What is the real reaction of Jesus? What is the response of God to all human suffering? First, I think that Jesus truly “looked at (this man) and loved him” (Mk 10:21). And we read that he was “moved with pity” (splagchnistheis) – he was deeply moved in his gut, in his heart, suffering with and for this man covered in leprosy. (We must never forget this – Jesus always suffers in love with and for us).
So He immediately responds, “Of course I want to heal you. I do choose. Be made clean.”
We have no idea how long this man was suffering from leprosy – perhaps years. Jesus healed a woman suffering from hemorrhages who had been sick for 12 years (Mk 5:25-34), and another woman who had been ill for 18 years (Lk 13:16). Who knows how this leper coped with his suffering. Did he begin to doubt God’s love, and wonder if God were punishing him for his sins? He probably was severely tempted by discouragement even depression, but he never lost his faith or his hope . One day, someone told him about Jesus, (someone evangelized him!) and told him about this prophet and miracle worker (could He be the Messiah?), so this man looked for Jesus and found Him. And he was not ashamed to make known his misery, to kneel and beg, and to trust in the mercy of God.
In all our sufferings – physical, emotional or spiritual – we must continue to have faith and hope, and to be absolutely convinced of God’s love for us. I remember Pope Benedict once commenting about the source of St. Paul’s strength: that he knew himself to be loved by God. “Be imitators of me” (1 Co 11:1) Saint Paul tells us in the second reading. We should not only imitate him in doing everything for the glory of God and seeking the advantage of others (second reading: 1 Cor 10:31-11:1), but his great trust in God’s love, as St. Paul himself testified: “the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
So why does God in His love let us suffer? We should re-read the Passion of Christ, and contemplate this mystery of why God the Father allowed His own beloved Son to suffer so much. We should also re-read Hebrews Chapter 12, where we are told to suffer patiently for our training as sons and daughters of God (Heb 12:7).
Some of the best advice I’ve heard on what to do in the midst of any kind of suffering is from . . . the angel at Fatima speaking to the children. He encouraged them to offer prayers and sacrifices in reparation for sins against God and for the conversion of sinners, saying: “above all, accept and bear with submission the sufferings God will send you.” Last weekend at the Seminary in Toronto, I had a terrible cold all weekend, but I still went around smiling, shaking hands, trusting that God was using the pains of my sickness for an increase in vocations to the priesthood! So I did my best to be joyful in the midst of my sufferings.
As Christians, we can always be happy and enjoy life even in the midst of suffering – something that baffles people who do not believe in God, the people who say: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” It’s only because there is a God who loves us, who suffers with and for us that we can stop worrying and enjoy life, and trust in the power of our sufferings offered to God, that through them God will accomplish great good that could not have been achieved any other way.
In healing the leper, Jesus said very simply: “I do choose. Be made clean.” In other healings, Jesus would often say, “you faith has saved you” (Greek sozo). God wants us to have faith in the midst of suffering when we are not healed, but also faith in order to be healed, especially in those moments when we personally meet Jesus . . . at Mass! For most of the Mass, we are speaking collectively to the Father: “We lift up our hearts. We give you thanks and praise.” But in the moment before communion, it becomes more personal, one-on-one, focused on the Person of Jesus. Like the leper who said, “if you choose, you can make me clean,” we also kneel before Jesus present in the Eucharist; we acknowledge our spiritual leprosy, our sufferings, our desperate need for God, and we say: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word (you’re God – that’s all you have to do is say the word!) and I shall be healed.”
Remember that the Gospel stories of the healings of Jesus were read at Mass from the very beginning. The early Christians remembered, retold and wrote down these stories in part because the risen Jesus was continuing to work the same miracles in and through the Eucharist! In the early Church, there were lepers being healed at Mass, just like in the time of the earthly Jesus! What was read at Mass actually happened at Mass – imagine that! (“The various texts read at the eucharistic service express the various aspects of what the Lord does in and through the Eucharist” (Roch A. Kereszty, Wedding Feast of the Lamb, p. 16))
So what has changed? Is Jesus less present in our Mass than in their Mass? Is the presence of Jesus like radioactive uranium, that decays over time until no energy is left, only a piece of rock? No way! Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb ): when He walked the earth, in the Eucharist of the early Church, and in the Eucharist in 21st century Canada. The same Jesus with the same power, the same compassion for the sick, for sinners, for us. So may God increase our faith, and give us a more “expectant” faith in the Eucharist!
I don’t see how miraculous healings in body or soul could be possible at Mass without also including confession. This may shock you, but St. Paul even told the Corinthians that one reason that so many of them were sick was that they were receiving the Eucharist unworthily (1 Co 11:29-30 a verse we can look at during our Lenten Bible study). And one way to receive the Eucharist more worthily is to confess our sins in the sacrament of Reconciliation.
Every Mass includes a general, exterior confession of sin – the penitential rite. We cannot omit this from the Mass and just jump right into the Glory to God. We can’t expect to really meet Jesus without really admitting who we are, and confessing our sins. In many Gospel stories, those who were healed first asked Jesus for mercy (“Have mercy on me, son of David!” Mt 9:29, 15:22, 20:30) And isn’t it interesting that in today’s Gospel that Jesus says, “Go, show yourself to the priest.” In the Old Covenant, the priest would merely confirm that this man was healed of his bodily leprosy (and thus welcomed back into the community). In the New Covenant, we are actually healed of our spiritual leprosy (our specific sins) by Jesus through the priest, in the sacrament of reconciliation.
I would like to emphasize the personal dimension of this sacrament. In the confessional, we kneel before the same Jesus before whom the leper kneeled. I hope and pray that more people will discover in reconciliation a sacrament of immense joy, of liberation, of being lifted up by the Lord, of the deepest affirmation and assurance that God really . . . notices us! (He has counted the hairs on our heads (Lk 12:7)); He knows us better than anyone else does. In this sacrament, he truly looks at us – individually — and loves us.
If we live these sacraments well, of Reconciliation and the Eucharist, there will be miracles, healings of body and soul, conversions of hearts, and hearts on fire to evangelize those who say, “there’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” When you hear that, you tell them: “What do you mean ‘no God’? I talk to Him every day – we’re like this (two fingers together). He lives in me, and I in Him (cf Jn 15:4). It is precisely because there absolutely is a God, who knows me and loves me, that I don’t worry about my life (or at least not as much as I used to) because He told me, ‘do not worry about your life,’ (Mt 7:25). And it is precisely because of Him that I can “enjoy life” with deep and abiding joy because He told me, ‘I have come so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete’ and “nothing, no one, no suffering will take my joy from you” (cf. Jn 5:11, 16:22).
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February 1, 2009
Posted in Homilies
at 9:00 am
Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, Feb. 1st, 2009
The teaching of Jesus and the Church, far from being a burden to us, is actually an invitation and a path for us to discover the face of the Lord.
In his book Jesus of Nazareth, which he called his “personal search for the face of the Lord” (cf. Ps 27:8, p. xxiii), Pope Benedict begins by quoting from today’s first reading from Deuteronomy 18, explaining that it is of “decisive importance for understanding the figure of Jesus” (1).
Moses himself declares:“A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you” (Deut 18:15). The Messiah will be a new Moses. “What was so special about Moses?” the Pope asks. His intimacy with God; he spoke with God “face to face” as a man speaks with his friend (cf. Ex 33:11) (3-4). Jesus is the new Moses, an even greater prophet who continually sees the face of the Father, and dwells close to the Father’s heart (Jn 1:18).
Jesus’ perfect intimacy with the Father is expressed in his teaching “with authority” as we hear in today’s Gospel: “the crowds were amazed and asked: ‘what is this? A new teaching with authority’” (Mark 1:27). Benedict remarks that the crowds were not primarily “amazed” at the “rhetorical quality of Jesus’ discourse” but rather “alarmed” (a better translation of “ekplesso”) by his “open claim that he himself is on the same exalted level as the Lawgiver – as God” (102).
Just think of the Sermon on the Mount in Mt 5, where Jesus begins each teaching by saying, “You have heard it was said to your ancestors . . . but I say to you” (Mt 5:21-22 ,27-28, 31-32, 33-34, 38-39, 43-44). You have heard it said, “you shall not commit adultery,” but I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:27), and so it is with Jesus’ teaching on divorce, on anger, forgiveness, and so on. It amounts to Him saying, “God said to your ancestors, but I say to you.” Of course the crowds were alarmed! Jesus is claiming for himself the authority of God.
Seeing Jesus as the new Moses helps answer the question posed by Benedict, “What did Jesus (the Messiah) actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? . . . He has brought God” (44). Jesus brings us into his own intimate, face-to-face relationship with God the Father.
Therefore, the teaching of Jesus and the Church, far from being a burden, will challenge us to be converted, yes, but if we follow this teaching, like following a stream back up to its source, we will find that it originates in this intimate, face-to-face dialogue with God – to which we are called to participate!
When faced with the counter-cultural teaching of Jesus and the Church, for example on purity, sex, marriage, divorce, Natural Family Planning, and so on, some people react with hostility, (like the possessed man in today’s Gospel who was very hostile to Jesus’ teaching in the synagogue). Others react with indifference. But I’ve been noticing that more and more people in today’s culture are so busy and over-burdened, and they feel that they simply do not have the time nor the energy to learn more about the teaching of Jesus and the Church, to embrace it and live it more deeply.
I don’t know if it has something to do with uncertain economic times, or the stress on commuters during the 51 day bus strike (now mercifully ended) but it seems to me that more and more people are living on the edge, stretched to the breaking point, ready to snap, one more straw of another demand could break their backs. One hour for God a week at Mass, for some people, is their absolute maximum commitment, and even that feels too much at times.
And if you suggest that they might do something extra like read part of the Bible or the catechism (or something from the Pope), or attend a Catholic talk or listen to one on CD, it’s impossible, like the weight of the world on their shoulders. Some people are just coping, surviving until Friday night, when they barely have enough energy to turn on the TV or rent a movie – the content doesn’t matter; it’s just distraction from our burdens. (I believe in healthy leisure and entertainment, but not continual escapism from reality and responsibility).
Jesus did not come to help us survive, or give us coping mechanisms. He himself said, “I came so that people might have life, and have it abundantly.” And neither did Jesus come to add to our burdens. He said, “Come to me, all you that labour and are (over)burdened, and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy and (the burden of my teaching) is light” (Mt 11:30). The teaching of Jesus and the Church does not add to our burdens, but sets us free. “You will know the truth,” says the Lord, “and the truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32). Jesus came to set us free from our sins, to make us a new creation, to transform human nature through his death and Resurrection, to divinize us, and to make his power and love continually available to us in the Eucharist.
Is there some aspect of Church teaching that you find difficult? Remember where it comes from and where it leads – to Jesus and a sharing in his intimate face-to-face relationship with the Father. The essence of preaching is Jesus Christ and his message of love, Jesus Christ who brings us God. But preachers must also cover the content of the Church’s teaching, in part because some people actually want to know the fullness of the truth, and they desire to hear more about what the Church teaches about controversial issues and why. But others are too busy, indifferent, or even hostile. To these people I say that it is not the intention of Jesus or the Church to burden you or make you feel guilty for not measuring up.
Think of a teaching that you find difficult and realize that it does not represent a criticism of you, but an invitation: it is “yours to discover.” The motto on the Ontario licence plate can also be applied to the teaching of Jesus and the Church: “yours to discover.” I’ve never been to western Ontario, to Sault-Ste-Marie or Thunder Bay, because the only places in Ontario that matter are Ottawa and maybe Toronto, and everybody knows that there’s nothing to see or do in western or northern Ontario. Just let them be annexed and absorbed into Manitoba . . . who cares? Do you think that’s a good attitude to have? There’s always more to see and do beyond our narrow little world, and there’s always more to learn, whether we are talking about the province of Ontario or the catechism of the Catholic Church. Yours to discover. You might actually discover that what you may initially have perceived as a burden, may actually set you free and lead you to greater intimacy with God.
Take Natural Family Planning as an example. You begin to learn about it, and follow it, like a stream back up to its source, and discover the origin of this teaching in Jesus and his intimacy with the Father. And in this pure spring there’s a clear and calm pool of water where you discover your own reflection and your deepest identity. The value of human life and of the human person created in the image of God (a near infinite value in comparison with the rest of creation). The dignity of the human body and human sexuality. Marriage and family as a reflection, an icon of the love of the Holy Trinity. The mystery of finding your true self in the gift of self in love. I could go on and on; there’s so much to discover.
And finally a few words to all of you who already appreciate and embrace the teaching of Jesus and the Church. The Church needs your help in evangelizing and teaching others. There is a website from the States designed to evangelise lapsed Catholics called “Catholics Come Home.” They found that only 10% of Catholics who have stopped attending Mass had a problem with Church teaching. Only 10%. Any guess what the major reason was why most Catholics had lapsed in the practice of their faith? 90% had been “inactive due to social stresses,” the busy-ness of modern life (see Columbia magazine, December 2008, p.10).
I see this in our own parish. People who are so busy and over-burdened that they have stopped attending Sunday Mass altogether. Or people who used to come every Sunday, now come once/month, or every once in a while. You know what else this study found? When asked why they did not come back sooner, you know what most people said? No one had invited them.
That’s where you come in. These people are your friends and neighbours. You see them at the arena or the supermarket; they are your children’s friends parents. They might be waiting for an invitation from you. Those who no longer attend Church at all might need an invitation from you to come back to the practice of their faith. Those who are sitting on the fence, semi-committed, might need an invitation from you to discover more of the Church’s teaching that will relieve their burdens and set them free, guiding them on their personal search for the face of the Lord.
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