The Kingdom of God is at Hand...whether we want it or not (7/03/16)

There are many interesting points about our scriptural readings this week.  For one thing, the Gospel passage from Luke about the sending of the seventy-two disciples is unique to him. Mark and John do not include a similar story about the “sending out” of Jesus’ followers to proclaim the good news and Matthew’s Gospel speaks only about sending out the 12 Apostles.  Luke, however, describes both the sending out of the 12, which he does in Chapter 9, and the sending out of the “72” in Chapter 10, which we are reflecting upon today.  This is very significant, because one could say that what this means is that Luke is trying to say that not only priests (represented by the 12 Apostles) share in the work of evangelization, but that lay people do as well, because “the harvest is great, but the laborers are few.”  It also means that Luke is teaching that the good news is not only for the 12 tribes of Israel, again represented by the 12 Apostles, but for everyone-it was believed in Jesus’ time that there were 70 countries in the entire world. It is also interesting to understand that many of the instructions that Jesus gives them has to do with the fact that He was indeed sending them out “like lambs among wolves.”  In Jesus’ world the traveler’s life was literally in the hands of thieves and robbers and was totally dependent on the hospitality of those that they met. That’s why Jesus told them not to carry with them anything of value but to trust in the kindness of those in the towns they visited. The law of hospitality was taken vary seriously because it was literally a matter of survival, not just being polite as we think of it today. To violate this rule was to commit a most grievous sin. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because they failed to show hospitality to Abraham. It was so important to Jesus that He ordered His disciples to publicly “shake off from their feet” the dust of any towns that were inhospitable to them.  But even then, they were still to proclaim the good news while testifying against them.  As they were shaking the dust off their feet they were still to cry out that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand for you” whether those people wanted it or not.

Plow Much? (6/26/16)

That is an interesting question, isn’t it?  I ask it because the topic of plowing comes up in both the First Reading and the Gospel today, which is certainly very unusual. I, while I never considered myself to be a prolific plowman, have plowed a few fields in my day, so I feel like I can say a little something on the topic.  It is an activity which requires focus, yet which can be very relaxing as well. It takes a lot of time and patience. Plowing is not an end in itself, but it must be done before the planting can take place. No field can ever plow itself, nor can plowing ever be undone. A field cannot be “unplowed.” Once one field is plowed there are only two choices. One can either stop plowing altogether, or move on to another field. And by the way, plowing is real work.  Jesus shows us in today’s Gospel that He knows something about plowing as well.  He actually compares plowing to discipleship. Jesus says that if we are going to follow Him, our lives will change and we can never look back, we can only look forward. As Jesus says, and I know from experience, one never plows in a straight line if he/she keeps looking back over where the plow has just been, and it is so very tempting to do just that.  The only way to plow in a straight line is to keep one’s eyes focused in a forward direction. Likewise, the only way to be a disciple is to keep our eyes focused on Him. Jesus is not static, He keeps moving.  If we keep looking back to former ways of life we will lose sight of Him.  Becoming a true follower of Jesus is not a whimsical proposition. It is a serious choice which can only be made after much practical thought and much prayer.  And a little background in plowing just might help us in our discernment process.

Stress, the Saints and the Eucharist (6/19/16)

Stress, the Saints, and the Eucharist:

 Forty Hours Devotions, St. Aloysius Parish

June 19-21, 2016

I first arrived as pastor of Saint Aloysius Parish on June 21, 2010, the feast day of Saint Aloysius.  I immediately noticed that the parish did nothing to celebrate its own feast day and also immediately decided that the week of the parish feast would be a week of celebration including Forty Hours Devotions and a Parish festival. I am very happy to say that this year will mark the sixth consecutive that the dream of the Pastor who arrived 6 years ago on the day of the parish feast has been made real.  This week’s Pastor’s Corner will serve as a bit of a “sneak preview” and promotion of our annual Forty Hours Devotions which begins this Sunday, June 19 and concludes on the evening of June 21, which is our parish feast day. The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed at the close of the noon Mass on Sunday until the Evening Prayer Service at 7PM, and then all day Monday and Tuesday as well. All of you are very much encouraged to try to spend some time in prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament during this most special time. There is no better way for you to feel God’s love in your life. If you can commit to a half hour there are sign up sheets available in the Gathering Center. We would like to make sure that Jesus is not by Himself at any time. There will be Evening Prayer services each evening at 7PM. This year I will be preaching during these services. I have entitled my talks “Stress, the Saints and the Eucharist”.  Do you experience stress? Would you like to experience some relief from it? Do you think that maybe the Saints experienced stress and perhaps may have some insights as to how to overcome it?  Do you believe in the wonderful gift of the Eucharist? Do you think that it might hold a key for us to managing stress in our lives? Would you like to learn how we might benefit from the Eucharist in the same way that the saints did? If some of these questions piqued your curiosity even a little bit, then maybe these talks will be helpful to you. Please give yourselves a break and come out. At the close of the Tuesday evening prayer service, will process down Hanover Street to King Street and back with our statue of Saint Aloysius, a relic of Saint Aloysius and the Blessed Sacrament as wonderful witness of faith to our larger community. When we return to Church, the Blessed Sacrament will be reposed and we will enjoy light refreshment in our Gathering Center.  If you have been part of this wonderful celebration before, you know how uplifting it is. If you have not, this is the time to treat yourself and celebrate with us.

Do You Want to Invite Jesus Over for Dinner? (6/12/16)

When I was teaching high school students, we would spend the first 5-10 minutes of class reading and discussing the Gospel that was proclaimed at the previous Sunday’s Masses. After our discussion, I would pose a question for my students’ reflection and ask them to write an answer in their copybooks. For today’s Gospel I asked them to talk about whether or not they would invite Jesus to come to their home for dinner?  Many of the students did in fact indicate that they either did not want Jesus to come to dinner or that they would at least have to think about it after hearing this Gospel. Why would that be, you might ask?  Well, Jesus did take Simon the Pharisee to task while He was at dinner with him, even though Simon had graciously invited Him for that purpose.  Jesus’ behavior was reminiscent of that of Nathan, who was David’s personal prophet. Nathan called out David for committing adultery with Bathsheba and for murdering her husband Uriah.  I wonder if David ever had any second thoughts about keeping a prophet of his very own after that happened?  In any event, I do think that perhaps even if we would still not think twice about having Jesus over for dinner, it would be wise if we did a little, or a lot, of spiritual house cleaning before we did so.  Jesus, like Nathan, will feel compelled to point out the ways in which our relationship with Him is not where it should be.  He will not waste whatever precious time we give Him on anything else. Of course it is true that whatever He tells us is for our own good and for our salvation; it will probably be a bit uncomfortable when He makes us aware of our shortcomings.  So what are we going to do?  Are we still going to invite Him into our homes and our hearts?  Be aware that it will probably be a little bit messy while we are with Him. And then do it any way.

Nothing Better to Do (5/29/16)

The feast of Corpus Christi, which we celebrate today, reminds of a lesson I learned from a First Communion about 18 years ago.  It was a Sunday morning right after Mass; the day after he had received his First Communion.  During the Mass that day I had encouraged all First Communicants to come back to Church on Sunday in their First Communion attire to receive their “second” Communion and to allow the entire parish to celebrate with them.  I was very happy that many of them did indeed come back in all their finery.  Right after one of the Masses, as I was going to the sacristy, I saw one of the First Communicants, dressed in his white suit kneeling so reverently with hands prayerfully folded in front of the tabernacle.  It was such a wonderful sight to see that I stood and watched from a distance for a few minutes.  But, after a while, I went up to him, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Daniel it is so wonderful for me to see you, just after receiving your “second” communion praying to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament! You have made my day.”  He then looked up at me from the kneeler and with the simple, blunt honesty of a child said, “Yea, well, my Mom’s still back there talking, so I really don’t have anything better to do.”  Perhaps it might sound like a typical response that a child would give-but he was absolutely correct.  He taught me a lesson that I try not to ever forget.  He didn’t have anything better to do.  I don’t have anything better to do.  You don’t have anything better to do.  It is a lesson that we all need to learn, to believe and to put into practice: When we have the opportunity to pray before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament there simply is nothing better to do. 

Three is Not A Crowd (5/22/16)

The practical lesson of the doctrine of the Trinity is that since we are made in the image and likeness of God, the more we understand God the more we understand ourselves. Therefore, the question for us to ask today is: What does the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity tell us about the kind of God we worship and what does this say about the kind of people we should be? On this, I have two points to share with you. (1) God does not exist as a solitary individual but in a community of love and sharing. God is not a loner. This means that a Christian in search of Godliness (Matthew 5:48) must shun every tendency to isolationism. The ideal Christian spirituality is not that of flight from the world like that of certain Buddhist monastic traditions where the quest for holiness means permanent withdrawal away from contact and involvement with people and society.  (2)   Three is not a crowd. You remember the old saying “Two is company, three is a crowd.” The Trinity shows us that three is community, three is love at its best; three is not a crowd. Taking an example from the human condition we see that when a man (A) is in love with a woman (B) they seal the loving by producing a baby (C) Father, mother and child -- love when it is perfected becomes a trinity.  We are made in God’s image and likeness. Just as God is God only in a Trinitarian relationship, so we can be fully human only in a relationship of three persons. The self needs to be in a horizontal relationship with others and a vertical relationship with God. In that way our life becomes Trinitarian like that of God. Then we discover that the so-called “I-and-I” principle of unbridled individualism which is acceptable in modern society leaves so much to be desired. The doctrine of the Blessed Trinity challenges us to adopt rather an I-and-God-and-neighbor principle. I am a Christian insofar as I live in a relationship of love with God and other people. May the grace of the Holy Trinity help us to banish all traces of self-centeredness in our lives and to live in love of God and of neighbor.

Pentecost: It's Why I Believe

Well folks, I might as well come right out with and finally say it, and maybe you have already figured it out, but I tend to be a rather skeptical person. I definitely would fall into the “trust but verify” category.   It is not my normal way to just accept things, especially those things that seem to defy reason and logic without at least some kind of serious scrutinizing on my part.  In my late teens and young adulthood, which is probably at least somewhat typical, I did not know what I believed; I wasn’t even sure if I believed in God. I questioned pretty much everything. And I truly questioned the Resurrection; I was not impressed by the fact that the stone was rolled away or that Jesus’ body was not there.  I mean, really, if you were Mary Magdalen, would those circumstances have led you to conclude that Jesus was alive? I don’t think so.  Than we get into the eyewitness accounts, and while they do give more substance, I probably would still remain a doubting Thomas. I mean, after all, like Thomas thought, if the other apostles had seen the risen Jesus, then why did they stay locked in theUpper room?  As a matter of fact, they stayed in that room until guess when?  Pentecost would be the answer.  I have no doubt something really big and really special happened on that day. And whatever it was that did happen put their hearts on fire and allowed them to change the world and literally bring us to our pews today.  I have no other explanation for what happened after Pentecost, except that the apostles were literally transformed on that day.  It is pretty clear that they were going nowhere before Pentecost happened. But after Pentecost there was nowhere they didn’t go. Furthermore, it only makes sense that what they proclaimed was the truth and the inspired Word.  For me, Pentecost is what makes it all make sense. Just look at what didn’t happen before and what did happen after.  I challenge any one to come up with another explanation.  The long and the short of it is that because of Pentecost I believe, and it just might be why you believe as well.

When You Get Caught Between the Ascension and Pentecost (5/8/16)

With today’s celebration of the Seventh Sunday of Easter we find ourselves between the time when Jesus has left His mission completely up to His Apostles and before they were fully empowered by the Spirit to accomplish that mission.  That will not come until Pentecost. For now it is good for us to reflect on what Jesus says to us today:  “Holy Father, I pray not only for my disciples, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.”  It seems to me as if what the Lord is saying is that if His teaching and presence to us on this earth are to be of any enduring value they must be put at the service of the Lord’s will to bring all people together in faith in God the Father so that the world may know that the Father has sent the Son, and that the Father loves all of us just as He loves His own Son.  Right here, Right now we need to ask ourselves in a very practical way, how the Lord’s gift to us can help us to accomplish the mission that the Lord has put before us. To help us to answer this question we need to look no further than the Words that Jesus will speak to us next week on Pentecost Sunday: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you always. “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Those who do not love me do not keep my words.” Yes, it always comes down to this: loving Jesus means keeping His commandments. Any accomplishment that we achieve through the grace of God is fulfilled when we give to it the purpose of helping us to better keep His commandments and love Him which by definition means to love all people as one in union with the Father and the Son.  We do need to ponder this truth, and even be awestruck by it, but at the same time we need to understand one of the lessons of the Ascension.  Of course, the apostles were completely dazzled and utterly speechless as they saw Jesus ascend into heaven, but they were soon brought back to earth by the words of the angels who said to them:  “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking up at the sky?”  While we must reflect on the awesomeness of God and His message and His commands and how they relate directly to our accomplishments, we must not fall into the trap of admiring and marveling at Jesus so much that we forget to follow Him that we forget that we must do what He does.  As Jesus forgives, we must forgive; as Jesus heals, we must be agents of healing; as He loves, we must love. When we get caught between the Ascension and Pentecost, we cannot allow ourselves to become so awestruck by the glory of God that it prevents us from doing His will.  Instead of just “standing there” we need to do His will, in the faith that that the Spirit of Pentecost is right around the corner.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. (5/01/16)

Let’s remember the setting. We are at the last supper.  Judas, washed feet and all, is on the way back to hand Him over. The cross looms just behind the foreground. Occupying soldiers are ready to flex their Roman muscle at any time, and the disciples are moments away from seeing their friend and leader arrested and running for dear life. So what does Jesus speak to them about? Safety? Protection? Evil? Betrayal? Failure? Defeat?  No, He speaks to them of peace. His Peace.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  And He does not speak of a distant peace in a golden age gone by, nor does he speak of a future peace yet to be realized in days to come. Quite the contrary, Jesus speaks in the present tense: He speaks of Peace now. Jesus is doing much more than simply saying good-bye. He is affirming the gift of peace that is made real for the disciples because of His relationship with them. It is a peace that He can give to them now, even in the midst of their unbelievably precarious circumstance. Even in the midst of life’s trials and difficulties, Christ’s peace can be experienced. The challenge, of course, is to pay attention to our relationship with Christ in the midst of lives that are often hurried, harried, and hassled. In such a context, it is critical for us to engage our world with great energy and vigor, while at the same time carving out priority time for reflection and prayer. No relationship can be healthy if we do not invest time in it. Hence, our need to be intentional and proactive about making time for meditation and prayer in order to cultivate an inner stillness in the midst of busy living. In so doing, we become more able to sense how Christ is present in the midst of the world’s need, and thereby become more able to receive the peace of Christ, even in the presence of great turmoil. Also, we need to understand that His understanding of peace is radically different than ours. What we consider peace and what God considers peace are two different things.  For us, peace means not to have conflict.  But Christ calls us into conflict with the world.  Still, He gives us peace.  A different peace, a peace within ourselves, a peace that only comes through union with Him.  We are not to be troubled.  We are not to be afraid.  Rather we are called to embrace the Lord and His Way.  Then the Father and Son will be with us and make their dwelling with us.  But we are afraid.  We are afraid that if we abandon our pre-conceived notions of happiness we will be left with nothing.  So we work frantically in order to obtain happiness.  But happiness cannot be bought obtained or acquired. It is a huge step for us to trust that only radical union with and surrender to God can bring us true happiness and true peace. An integral part of the struggle of our lives is to come to terms with and live in conformity with the truth that it is only in unity with God and His will that real happiness and peace can be ours. Once we take that step; once we realize that truth, the peace that Jesus gives can truly be ours no matter what turmoil surrounds us.

How Will They Know that We are Disciples of Jesus? (4/24/16)

Well, that certainly would be a wonderful question or us to ponder, that is, if we did not already have the answer.  In John 13:35 Jesus says this: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another,” but of course we all knew that, correct?  Love is the Christian identity. Love is the Christian uniform. You see, Jesus does want the world to recognize us as Christians. We need to evangelize and witness to people around us. But effective evangelization and witnessing has less to do with how fluently we speak and more to do with how faithfully we live and love.  What we need to do is to love one another as Jesus loves us: then the world will know that we are His disciples. But these are not mere words; Jesus doesn’t just say “Love one another,” He says, “Love one another as I love you.”  And how does Jesus love us?  Well, He poured out every last drop of His precious blood, for us, He forgives us for our sins and pays the penalty Himself, He gives us everything He has and is, without ever thinking of asking any thing in return.  That is how we are called to love. That is what is new about His commandment and it is what makes all things new. In the second reading today we hear about a new Jerusalem that was literally recreated and made new by the fact that its citizens loved one another in the way that Jesus loved them.  Would you not feel totally new if you felt that everyone around you loved you as Jesus does? And how do you think that those God gave you would feel if they truly could see that you love them as Jesus loves them?  His commandment is always new because it has never been carried out nearly to the extent to which Jesus longs.  If we love one another as Jesus loves us, the world will know that we are truly His disciples and the world will be made completely and totally new.

Good Shepherd Sunday (4/17/16)

Near the end of last Sunday’s Gospel Jesus asked Peter three times “Do love me.” Each time that Peter answered, Jesus responded by saying either “Feed my sheep,” or “Tend my lambs,” and finally by saying. “Follow me.”  He was calling Peter to follow Him out of a deep profound love and to lead His people in the same way that Jesus had done while He was on the earth. This call of Jesus to Peter very nicely sets the stage for us this week, on this Good Shepherd Sunday, to reflect upon the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd that Jesus gives us the metaphor of the relationship that exists between Him and us

In Jesus’ time, sheep were the people’s main source of meat, milk and cheese.  They provided wool for clothing and were used for sacrifice in their liturgy.

The relationship of a shepherd to his sheep, resembles that of a mother to her several small children. Just as toddlers depend on their mother’s care, the sheep depend on the care of their shepherd, and the shepherd, who usually, had dozens of sheep, is kept busy all hours of every day.

Each night, a number of shepherds would come together with their sheep and put them in a common pen.  As they slept one shepherd would stay awake to guard the sheep.  In the morning, each shepherd would call out for his own sheep to follow him to pasture.  The sheep knew the voice of their own shepherd and would follow only his voice when they were called.  They would ignore the calls of the other shepherds.  Remember, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me.

We may not like to admit this, but we are like sheep. We need God’s constant care at all times and not just when we are aware of our great need for Him

Meanwhile, we live in a society in which it seems like everyone is trying to get our attention.  We are constantly bombarded with commercials on radio, social media, TV etc. as well with all kinds of signs, posters and billboards all over highways, streets and buildings trying to catch our eyes and ears.  Sometimes, we have a tendency to simply follow the latest message we’ve heard, or, because we hear so many, we might just follow the crowd.

But, if we want to follow Jesus, we have to be able to hear and to recognize His voice, from among the many others.  We have to make a conscious effort to shut out all kinds of noise so that so that we can listen to Him.  If we don’t, we can easily lose touch with Him.  We need to take time to be quiet, to be still, and to pray, so that we can stay in touch with our Good Shepherd.

Our Lord does not want to lose any of us.  He wants us to be with Him forever.  He leads us through the Mass.  He speaks to us in the Scriptures and feeds us with His own body and blood.   Sheep may not be the most intelligent of creatures, but they are smart enough to know that they need their shepherd and that they need to recognize his voice.  May we also be intelligent enough to know that we need Jesus and smart enough to recognize His voice so that He might lead us to the eternal pasture of Heaven.

Do You Love Me?.....Do You Love Me?.....Do You Love Me? (4/10/16)

I remember as a young boy I could not wait for the day when my father would let me finally take the lawn tractor all by myself and mow the lawn.  I’ll never forget the first time, during the spring of the year that he finally let me cut the grass on my own. I was so excited and so happy with myself.  But then just a few days later, as you might say, a real growing up moment took place.  My dad saw me and said, “Boy, get that tractor out; that lawn ain’t gonna cut itself!”  Well that’s when it really hit me. Just like that something I had wanted to do for so long, suddenly became something I had to do. And not only did I have to cut my own lawn, I had to cut my grandmother’s lawn, which was right next door, as well.  I quickly learned that I better had cut my grandmother’s lawn when I was supposed to do so, or else there would be consequences. Unpleasant consequences! Eventually, I came to realize that I should mow her lawn not just to avoid punishment, but because it was the right and just thing to do.  Further down the road, I think I even matured beyond that. I think I can say that eventually I cut her lawn, notto avoid gettinginto trouble or even because it was justifiably and logically the right thing to do.  I believe I came to the point where I could honestly say that I cut my grandmother’s lawn because I loved my grandmother. I tell this story because it reminds me of a lesson which I believe comes from the Gospel story we just heard.  This beautiful story comes from the 21st and last chapter of St. John’s Gospel. And what a wonderful last chapter it is.  It follows immediately after the story of doubting Thomas that we heard last week from John’s 20thchapter, but I wonder if we remember exactly how John closed that chapter out.  After finishing the story of Jesus’ encounter with Thomas and the apostles, St. John says the following: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in His name.” Those words certainly are a wonderful way to bring a chapter to a close, but, we may think not only are they wonderful words with which to end a chapter, they also would have been wonderful words to close out an entire Gospel.  Well then, it might be interesting for you to know that originally, the Gospel of John did indeed end with the 20th chapter and with these words as its conclusion. The 21st chapter, from which we just heard was a later addition to John’s Gospel and the reason for its addition provides the subject matter for our reflection todayand actually provides us with a wonderful story of how the early Church overcame and resolved a painful situation which may have led to a permanent separation of the community of St. John, the beloved disciple from the Church of Rome. As we may know, John, who was the youngest Apostle, lived long after the other Apostles had been martyred and a devoted community of believers developed around him. The leaders of the Church in Rome which of course had developed around St. Peter saw this as very troubling and a possible threat to the authority of the leadership of St. Peter and his successors.  This threat seemed to become very real to them when they read the first version of John’s Gospel without the all important, 21st chapter. They feared that it gave primacy to St. John, “the disciple who Jesus loved,” instead of sufficiently accepting the legitimacy of St. Peter as head of the Church.  Remember, even, in the account of the Easter story, it was “the beloved disciple” who out ran St. Peter to the tomb, and it was the beloved disciple who first “saw and believed in the resurrection. For this and other reasons, the Roman Church was not comfortable with including the original Gospel of St. John into the Bible. It seemed as though the first schism might be at hand.  But then something wonderful happened.  And that wonderful happening was the 21st chapter that we just heard. The community of the Beloved Disciple added this chapter to the original and it was accepted by the Roman Church as giving sufficient adherence to the primacy of Peter as the head of the Church.  At the same time it allowed John’s community to make its point that love for Christ must be the primary basis for the legitimacy of leadership of the Church.  We might say it was a classic struggle of the head and the heart, of the dominance of the right brain an the left brain, or the primacy of Peter and John. But the Church did not choose between one or the other.  It chose “both and.” Both the head and the heart, both right brain and left brain, both Peter and John and actually set a precedent for Catholic theology that is in place even to the present day.  The Church learned early onthat in many instances we are called to embrace the tension of two great realities (i.e. Jesus is both human and divine, the Trinity is made up of three persons yet one God, the Mass is both a meal and a sacrifice, etc. etc) and learn from the truth which lies within that tension.  And so we have Jesus asking Peter three times “Do you love me?” Do you love me? Do you love me?”  Jesus is almost desperately expressing the fact that He knows He needs Peter’s leadership to establish His Kingdom or His earthly mission would have been for naught while at the same time understanding that if and only if He has the love of Peter’s heart than He can accomplish anything.  Clearly at least two very important points are being made here.  First, Jesus is indeed establishing Peter as the head of the Church and Peter is being accepted as such by John’s community.  Secondly, The Church of Rome is accepting that the legitimacy of the leadership of the Church must be based on nothing other than love for Jesus Christ.  We might say that the early Church avoided what would have been its first Schism by coming to the realization perhaps somewhat painfully, and not totally unlike the young boy who wanted so much to mow the lawn all by himself, that true discipleship, more than any thing else is indeed a matter of the heart.

Sacrificial Love Never Dies (3/27/16)

And so, it is Easter. Perhaps it seems to have arrived a little earlier than usual this year, maybe a bit too early for some of us but here it is, and here we are.  Once again.  It is amazing how we are, we human beings. We have an ability to get bored by just about anything eventually.  Don’t tell me it’s not true. Try to think of something that you have been given that after a while you haven’t gotten tired of. You know it’s true. It would be a very interesting little experiment to see if we can even remember the Christmas gifts we received just three months ago.  It is my theory that we can even get bored by a resurrection. I mean, you know, we hear about it all the time. We agree that it’s very nice and all that, and it’s kinda good that we are going to live forever, we guess, but it is kind of old news by now. Sure we come to Church every Easter Sunday and all that, but we know it’s not like we are going to hear anything new.  That, my friends is what any preacher is up against, just so you know. And so yes, it might be a little vain of me, but I actually try to do it, I try to say something that maybe my congregation hasn’t heard before; to give them a new perspective because I understand that pretty much all of us, eventually will get bored with pretty much everything. So I tried to come up with something that pretty much always stays new with us, something that will never bore us, something that truly never dies, so that we might better understand, Jesus’ Resurrection, so that we might truly be inspired by it. Wat I have come up with is this: Sacrificial love never dies.  Hopefully, we have been the recipient of true sacrificial love from someone. If we have been, than we know that that kind of love never ever dies. It is eternal. By the same token, if we have ever loved any one sacrificially, we know that it never dies. To love sacrificially is to love eternally. The Resurrected Jesus is the embodiment of sacrificial love.  His entire life was a life conceived in sacrificial love and lived in sacrificial.  Such a life cannot die. That’s what the Resurrection is about. That’s what it is. For us to share in eternal life means that we live a life of sacrificial love. We will never be bored because it never dies.

Holy Week at Saint Aloysius - Do Not Miss It

Believe it or not, it is Palm Sunday, 2016!  We are about, once again to enter into holiest of all weeks of the year, as we begin by commemorating the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and His Passion. Next Sunday of course, we will celebrate His Resurrection. But what about all the days in between-remember it is “Holy Week”; it is made up of seven days, not just one or two. Our invitation and challenge is to make sure that we do not miss it, that we accept the invitation and challenge of Jesus to walk with Him from the time of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, through His sorrowful passion to His joyful Resurrection.  I firmly believe that here at Saint Aloysius Parish you will have ample opportunity to do just that.  Of course, we will begin by participating in today’s celebration of the Mass of Palm Sunday. Note that we are invited to leave from Mass in silence as a sign of the fact that we are beginning the most solemn journey with Jesus through the holiest of weeks. Perhaps you would consider participating in daily Mass at 8:00AM on Monday or 6:30AM on Tuesday or Wednesday, so that you might continue walking with Jesus as He moves closer and closer to the Upper Room and Gethsemane.  On Tuesday, March 22 at 6:30PM in church our eighth grade students will present the “Living Stations.” They have been working so hard and they have done a fantastic job; you will not want to miss it! Wednesday, March 23 Stations of the Cross will be prayed at 6:30PM. Then, on Holy Thursday we will celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at 7:00 PM. Join us as we present the newly blessed sacramental oils, celebrate once again with Jesus the Last Supper, the First Mass, the institution of the Eucharist and of the Priesthood.  At the end of Mass the altar will be stripped, statues, etc. will be covered in black and we will process the Blessed Sacrament down Hanover Street and back into the Gathering Center to the Altar of Repose.  As the Triduum continues we will commemorate Christ’s passion and death with our Good Friday service at 3:00PM. This is an absolutely moving service which includes the most powerful ritual of the veneration of the Cross.  On Holy Saturday morning (8:00AM), we will pray morning prayer in the barren church. At 8:30AM you may bring your Easter food to church to be blessed. Then we wait with heartfelt expectation for the blessing of the Easter Fire at 7:19PM on the evening of Holy Saturday as we begin the Easter Vigil and celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus.  As you can see, this is indeed the holiest of weeks.  Do not miss it!

Caught in the Act (3/13/13)

They thought they had Him this time. Here was a woman caught in the act of adultery. The law demanded that she be stoned to death.  But what about Jesus’ message of mercy? Note how the Pharisees did not care at all about the woman or the sin. They only cared about putting an end to Him.  And this time they thought they had Him dead to rights. If He let her go, He was clearly breaking the Mosaic Law.  But if He did not let her go, then what about all of His talk about mercy and forgiveness?  They thought for sure there was no way out for Him. So what does Jesus do?  Well, basically He turned the law on them.  The law also called for two witnesses who were known to be free from any suspicion of wrong doing to make the official accusation.  They did not have two such witnesses.  Therefore there was no one to cast the first stone at her.  They could not fulfill the prescriptions of their own law so the woman was not condemned; she was off the hook on a technicality.  But what about the law-it called for death.  Where was the justice? The woman would not die for her sin but the story was not over.  Jesus knew that when He saved this woman’s life and let her go free that He had sealed His own fate.  He knew He had not seen the last of the Pharisees.  He knew that they would be back in force, especially after this latest humiliation and would not stop until He was gone.  He knew that because of His action He would most definitely die.  But He saved her life any way and upheld the Law by choosing to die in her place.  What He did for her, He does for us.  We commit sin, and because of our sin He dies and sets us free, urging us to sin no more. We might wonder about the woman in this story. Did she turn away from her sin? But really we should wonder about us. Will we ever turn away from ours?

On the Outside, Looking In (3/06/16)

We have all heard the story of the prodigal son countless times. I’ll bet that it’s probably one of the parables of which we are most familiar. That is good but, at the same time the fact that it is so familiar to us might prevent us from really listening to it and grasping the full meaning that Jesus and St. Luke are trying to get across to us. If you’re like me, there’s a chance that you might hear the first few words, and then your mind quickly identifies it and moves on because it’s already “been there and done that”.  The problem with this rapid subconscious process is that it could prevent us from either reaffirming an understanding that needs to be reaffirmed or coming to a realization of an insight that we did not see before or both.  I am constantly amazed, even after nearly 25 years of scripture study, that I still come to new insights all the time, even though to my knowledge the scriptures have not been changed for nearly 2,000 years. This pattern holds throughout the bible, and I find it to be particularly true of the more familiar passages, like the parable of the Prodigal Son, which are identified very quickly by our minds and kind of put to rest at the start, without allowing us to seek new insight or understanding.

So let’s begin by trying to look at the core message of this parable. However it needs to be made clear right at the outset, that it is impossible to discuss this parable completely in any one setting because it is so full of symbolism and has so many layers of meaning.  In order to understand this parable’s bottom-line lesson we have to ask what Jesus is saying to the scribes and Pharisees.  It is to them that this parable is addressed, and it is to their complaint and concern that He is responding.  We can trust that whatever He is saying to them He is also saying to us.  That’s another one of those little tricks that our subconscious minds can play on us.  We might hear the words, “Pharisees and scribes” and quickly think, “OK they are the bad guys, I don’t really have to worry too much about them,” and lose at least part of Jesus’ message to us. What I try to do is train my brain to remember all the time that when Jesus speaks to the scribes and Pharisees, He is speaking to us. We know about Toys-R-Us-well the scribes and Pharisees are us too.

The scribes and the Pharisees make the charge against Jesus that He “eats with sinners and welcomes them.”  It is this charge that prompts Jesus to tell them this story.  And what happens in the story? Well a man not only welcomed a sinner and ate with him, he threw a tremendous banquet in his honor, had the fatted calf killed for him, dressed the sinner in fine robes, put a ring on his finger and embraced and kissed him as soon as he saw him.  Of course the man who welcomed the sinner was the sinner’s father, and the sinful son had sinned against him in an unbelievable and unimaginable way. But not only did the father forgive him, he grieved, longed for, and searched for the lost son day and night and ran out to greet him when he saw him coming from a far off.  The father didn’t even let the son speak his sins. It was as if the Father didn’t even care that the son had sinned at all. All he cared about was that his son was back home and safe.

Jesus is saying to the scribes, the Pharisees, the older son and us:  My sons, and daughters you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But we must celebrate and rejoice; each time that anyone confesses their sins because they are my children and your brothers and sisters. 

Jesus is saying that we are all invited to His heavenly banquet each and every day and that He so longs for us to join Him but the choice is ours.  There are two realities that keep us from joining the celebration.  The first is the inability or refusal to recognize and confess our own sinfulness.  The second is the inability or refusal to forgive.  These two realities usually go hand in hand.  The scribes, the Pharisees, and the older brother, either refused to or could not see their own sinfulness and refused to forgive their brothers and sisters even when they saw their father rejoicing in the opportunity to do just that.  To the extent that we behave in a similar way we will find ourselves just like the older brother at the end of the story: on the outside, looking in.

Lent, Third Sunday, Year "C", The Burning Bush and the Barren Fig Tree

My guess is that most of us remember Simba, the little lion cub who grows up to be the Lion King in the movie of the same name.  He had found a pretty good life for himself after the murder of his father and the violent takeover of his homeland by evil forces. He very much enjoyed frolicking around in the jungle with his new found friends Timone and Pumbaa, and all seemed to be good. But something was missing.  His homeland needed to be saved; his “people” needed to be set free. Unless he went back, his life would remain like that of the fig tree at the end of today’s Gospel; barren and fruitless.

I’m also pretty sure that we remember Jonah, who is one of my favorite biblical characters.  Jonah found peace in a rather strange place- the belly of a whale. But before we chuckle, we should take a moment to reflect on the rather odd places where we have either found or have attempted to find peace, albeit a peace that was at best only temporary.  You see Jonah had sinned against God.  God called him to preach repentance to the people of Ninevah, but he hopped onto the first boat going in the opposite direction instead. But then a great storm erupted, as storms do erupt when we try to run from God, and Jonah had himself, thrown overboard so that his shipmates might be saved.  That’s where the whale enters the scene and rescues him. Inside the whale, Jonah was basically able to go on retreat: he offered praise and thanksgiving to God and repented for his disobedience. He found a kind of peace, for a while.  But what about the Ninevites?  They were still there, and they still needed to be saved, they needed to be set free of their slavery to sin.  If his story ended here we would not be talking about Jonah, he would have been just like another barren fruitless fig tree.

And so we come to Moses.  Moses had found a kind of peace as well.  He had gotten himself into trouble back in Egypt because he murdered an Egyptian who had struck one of his people, an enslaved Israelite.  So he fled that land and found a home and solace tending the sheep of his father-in-law.  Isn’t that just a little bit ironic- I mean, Moses was indeed supposed to be tending sheep, just not the sheep of his father-in-law.  He was meant to tend to the Israelites, the sheep of his heavenly Father, who was indeed about to reveal Himself to him.  The Israelites, his Father’s sheep, his people, needed to be set free.  If Moses’ story ended here, not only would we not be talking about him today, we would not be here at all. He too would have remained as useless as a barren fruitless fig tree.

But we know that the stories of Simba, Jonah and Moses did not end where we have left them.  In the case of the soon-to-be Lion King, the messenger from his kingdom found him and called him back to fulfill his role and the kingdom was saved because of his positive response. After Jonah repented, the whale immediately spewed him out onto dry land and God once again called him to go to Nineveh.  This time he went and the Ninevites were saved.  And as for Moses, well he ran into this rather strange bush.  He noticed it not so much because it was on fire-as a shepherd he had seen many burning bushes before and probably had set many bushes on fire himself. Rows of bushes were often used as boundary lines to separate one flock of sheep from another, and were burned down at times when sheep needed to be moved to different pastures.  But this bush was different. It was burning, but it was not being consumed.  There probably was no smoke, no smell and no ashes. That’s what drew him to this bush.  Little did he know as he approached it that his life would be changed forever.  What did he find when he arrived at where the bush was?  Well, he found that he was on holy ground, that God, his God who calls himself “I AM,” not “I was,” or “I will be,”  was calling him back to the place from where he was fleeing, the very epicenter of his fear to set God’s people and his people free. Simba was called back to his kingdom, back to the place of his fear so that it could be set free. Jonah was sent back in the direction that he did not want to go so that the Ninevites could be set free. But Simba and Jonah are fictional characters.  Moses is for real. And so are we. We can be sure that God calls us to do pretty much exactly what He calls Moses and the barren fig tree to do: To bear fruit.

He calls us to face our fears, to conquer them, and thereby to fulfill the purpose for which we were created:  to set ourselves free and to become an agent of freedom for those around us. That is the fruit He wants us to bear.   And how do we do that?  For starters we can take a hint from the very name, “I am,” that He gives Himself.   We are called not to live in the past-the place of regret, resentment, grievance, sadness, bitterness and all forms of non-forgiveness or to live in the future-the place of unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry and all forms of fear, but to live in the now, the present.

We are called to be here in the world now, to love now, to see things as they are now, to face our weaknesses now, to forgive now, to seek forgiveness now, to heal ourselves now, to help others to heal now, to carry our crosses now, to live with full awareness and consciousness now, to see the burning bushes that are all around us now.  That’s how we free ourselves, from slavery to sin, from our slavery to fear and help others to do the same. We need to realize the presence of God in the present and respond to that presence- whether it comes to us in the form of a messenger from our past, the voice of God coming through our hearts and souls, the amazing form of a burning but unconsumed bush or the manure that was placed around a barren fig tree. 

You see the difference between those who were either killed tragically by the falling tower in Siloam or the Galileans who were horribly and violently killed by Pontius Pilate and the fig tree and us at the end of the Gospel, is that, at least for the moment, we still live, we still stand.  Those people were cut down and no longer have a chance to repent or to bear fruit.  The fig tree still has a chance, and so do we.

In this Year of Mercy, we need to live in God’s healing presence now and bear fruit now.  We do not have the luxury of knowing if we will be cut down in an untimely manner or how or when we will be called from this life like the fig tree, our story will either end as barren and fruitless; or perhaps it is just about to begin.

"Lord, It's Hard to be Humble..." (2/21/16)

As we journey through this season of Lent, I think it is very important that we reflect on what I have come to see as perhaps the most important virtue of all.  I believe that it stands before and provides a foundation for all the others. It comes from the Latin word “humilitas,” which means “ground.”  We can say that one who lives by this virtue is well “grounded.”  The virtue that I am talking about is humility. Being humble is very hard for us even when we want to be and are trying to be humble, and let’s face it, there are lots of times that being humble is the last thing we want to try to be. We see humility as presenting weakness or a low or even negative opinion of ourselves. We see it as a sign that we have very little or no ambition and therefore not much hope of achieving or accomplishing much in our lives.  But that is not what it means at all. To be humble does not mean to see ourselves negatively, it means to see ourselves clearly, too see ourselves as God sees us and for us to see God as He truly is. In the brief moment of the Transfiguration that is exactly what happened. Peter, James and John saw Jesus clearly, exactly as God the Father saw Him. If we truly live by the virtue of humility, we would see ourselves and others as God sees them, as His children, as we and others truly are. The humble person does not lack ambition or leadership ability. Indeed studies have shown that the most successful leaders are those who practice true and sincere humility but who are able to channel their great strength and ambition onto their mission or those they are leading. Please pray for me as I strive to learn, apply and live this virtue. We need to learn to channel our strength and our ambition onto something greater than ourselves. One of the major lessons of God’s relationship with the Israelites is that without God, they were nothing and nowhere. That needs to be our starting point. We need to see humility as a starting point to success and as strength because that is what it is. Scripture clearly teaches that success with God rests on humility. He exalts the humble and scatters the proud. It grounds us in the reality that there is a God and that we are not Him, that everything that we achieve and everything that we are gifts from Him. It also teaches us the reality that we need others; that we are made for relationships. It helps us to be kind, merciful, forgiving, and compassionate. It might be hard to be humble, but it is much harder to exercise these other wonderful virtues if we are not humble first. Humility makes us attractive to others. Just ask yourselves, who is it easier for you to be with, someone who is humble or someone who is proud? Yet we find ourselves moving away from humility so very often! The humble person recognizes as Peter did that when we see ourselves and God and others clearly, it is indeed “…good for us to be here.” Let’s strive to get and stay there.  Remember, it is not that humble people think less of themselves. They just think of God and others more.

FIGHTING TEMPTATION...IS IT EVEN RELEVANT ANYMORE? (2/14/16)

Once again, on this First Sunday of Lent, we hear the story of Jesus being tempted in the desert. Of course, we know He knows that He won a dramatic victory over Satan and that His victory is meant to inspire our own victory over temptation. However, I can’t help wondering: does anyone ever fight temptation anymore?  I mean, really, does anyone see any value in such an arcane struggle in the present day?  Perhaps I am seeing the glass as half empty, but I do think I have valid reasons to be concerned. We are so affected by the modern culture that I even wonder if we recognize sin any more or the value of trying to stay away from sin – and that is the very reason that Jesus died on the cross! Have we actually gotten to the point where we no longer value trying to stay away from the very thing (sin) from which Jesus came to save us?  Honestly, I am very worried. It would take many books to analyze the negative effects that modern culture has on us, but I can at least mention what I call “the four big lies” by which we are tremendously affected, whether we can admit it or not.  The first lie, or fallacy, is that any action is perfectly acceptable as long as no one gets hurt. This is the old “victimless crime” theory. The problem with this is that there is no such thing. If we commit sin, no matter how “private” someone always gets hurt. It is not okay to hurt ourselves, or God, or anyone else and sin always hurts all three. The second lie is that it is psychologically harmful to deny ourselves of anything that we want-and really, if we want something, we need it; don’t we? Therefore, if I want something, I am hurting myself if I don’t act to get it. This kind of thinking is so pervasive that I actually know of multiple cases in which professional counselors tried to explain to the wives of their unfaithful clients, that they had to be unfaithful, or else they would be unhappy! The third lie is that human beings cannot overcome temptation. Therefore parents should supply their teen children with means of birth control, and provide them with “safe havens” to abuse alcohol because they would not be able to refrain from sex or beer, etc.  This kind of thinking denies young people of the human dignity to which they, believe it or not, want to be held. Last, but certainly not least is the lie that because we are living in modern times we need a whole new set of moral guidelines. Because things have changed so much and because we are have learned so much and have become “enlightened,” we simply can no longer abide by the antiquated values of the past. Therefore, no one can be expected to refrain from sex before marriage, and certainly we now realize that same sex marriage is to be regarded in the same way as traditional marriage.  What is amazing about this one is that, while we think we are so enlightened, we are not quite enlightened enough to realize that countless cultures bought this lie before us. And guess where they are now?  Well they are exactly where we will be if we also buy it-on the ash heap of history just like the Romans at the hands of the barbarians. You see, the bottom line is this:  there is good, there is evil, there is right there is wrong, and they are here to stay. And human beings are always tempted to sin. But Jesus gives us the means to victory. His lesson is that we don’t have to be slaves to sin. All that we have to do is struggle to resist temptation, and when we fall we turn to Him and keep on striving-and the victory is ours. The only question is does any of this matter to us anymore?

"Here I am Lord, Send Me" (2/07/16)

Those words from Isaiah haunt me till this very day.  I remember when I first felt the call to the priesthood.  I could not get the words of the hymn, “Here I am, Lord” out of my mind.  What I remember so clearly during that time was the sobering realization that I/we only have one shot at life.  We only get one life.  We need to make the very best of it– we need to get our vocation right.  We need to serve God in every aspect of our lives.  Some of you might be asking yourselves, as I often ask myself, “Am I good enough to serve God in the way that He wants me to serve Him?”  All three readings this week answer that question.  Isaiah was not good enough at first.  Then an angel touched Isaiah’s mouth with the ember from the fire.  He was made clean.  In the second reading, Paul reminds us that he started off by persecuting Christians.  He would round up men, women and children and bring them to the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem.  He watched and approved as an innocent and meek Stephen was stoned to death by a mob.  Paul was a spectator at the lynching, but he cheered on the mob and left excited to find the mob’s next victims.  But despite all this Jesus transformed Paul into an apostle.  “I am who I am,” St. Paul says, “through the Grace of God.”  In the Gospel, Peter wants Jesus to leave him because he is so aware of his own sin.  Jesus basically says, “No way.  I have work for you.  You will be catching men.”  And Jesus says to you and to me, “Stop hiding behind your human failures.  How dare you say that I cannot send you?  I am God. I have work for you to do.  I will cleanse you.  I will send you.”  I remember when I left home to go to the seminary, my pastor; the priest who inspired me said to me that the priesthood is the life.  I do believe that over the years I have come to a deeper understanding of what he meant when he spoke those words but I have also learned something else: when it comes right down to it the only life worth living is the life into which the Lord sends us.  Therefore, our response to Him should always be, “Here I am Lord, send me.”