Who knows me?

Homily

4th Sunday of Easter B2

Good Shepherd Sunday

World Day of Prayer for Vocations

21 April 2024

AMDG

Who knows me?  Does anyone really know me?

What a pivotal question this truly is!  My need to belong, to be seen and known and and heard and chosen, is immense!  I don't make sense on my own, nor can I figure everything out on my own.  I am a mystery to myself, unless I come to know myself by first being known.

So, can there be a more critical question that this - does anyone really know me?

There's a guy in the Gospel who says He knows you.  He knows you just as He is known by His Father, so He knows you, and you know Him.  What incredible words by the most unique voice in human history, the voice of the Good Shepherd.

You know by now that nobody speaks like Jesus. No one in human history has even come close. Unbelievable and radical words that always cut to the heart, words that challenge us to metanoia, thinking not as human beings do but as God does.  Words that reveal the true and deep and hidden meaning of my life, a life I seek in greater abundance during this Easter season.

Good Shepherd Sunday and the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, is about finding the faith to let this voice find us, know us, desire us, choose us, and call us to new and more abundant life.  It's a critical moment in the Easter journey, for John 10 always invites us deeper into life that is not measured by safety or length of time, but by the vertical dimension of love, by the power to lay down one's life trusting that it can be raised again.

The Good Shepherd says He knows you.  What does He know about you?  He knows that the true and full meaning of your life will be found within His paschal mystery, the only story that ends in rising from the dead.  His voice will always invite you to lose your life before it is taken from you, in conversation with His suffering and death, while trusting the promise that it is precisely there that you will find a life that conquers all things and endures.

Yet the voice of the Good Shepherd will never dare you into this mystery.  No, He will simply invite you to follow where He goes before, where He is first shorn naked, killed and eaten, as the lamb of sacrifice Himself.

Do you recognize this voice?  I'm sure that you do, but do you trust it to really know you?  Is the voice of the Good Shepherd the voice you ultimately trust to lead you into the fullness of life?

+mj  

What's the point?

Homily

3rd Sunday of Easter B2

14 April 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What's the point of life?  Who can tell me?

When I ask you all this question, you always say 'I don't know - you're the priest!  Aren't you supposed to be telling me the point of life?

Well, I have an idea, which I am happy to share.  Yet I know as well that there is no better time than Easter to ask this very question anew.  What's the point of life?   Easter is the time when we are meant to experience to the depths of our being what it means to be fully alive.  The most pivotal news in human history, a victory greater than all others combined, that Christ my Lord has Risen indeed from the dead as He said, is announced to us anew! And what is the announcement, made forcefully by St. Peter in today's 1st reading - that there is a love stronger than death, a love worthy of the gift of your entire life, all that you are right now and all you ever will be.

So what's the point of life again?  The longer I experience the things that really matter, the more I'm zeroing in on this answer alone - the point of my life is to participate as passionately as I can in the paschal mystery, the only process by which a universe cast down in renewed, and integrity of life is restored.

I'm all ears, truly, if you can beat that answer.  But I just can't find anything else that comes close.

I've heard so often that life is about being with those you love, or about making a difference.  These are great answers, but near as I can tell, they merely participate in the ultimate thing, and that one necessary thing is the Easter proclamation.  That Jesus Christ has appeared, and invited you intimately and personally into his suffering, death and resurrection. to help Him advance the process by which all thing are made new.

You know I love sports the the source of the best stories, and as a metaphor for life. Sports are mini-dramas played out in real time, full of surprises and pivotal plays, hail marys and comeback from the dead stories, fraught with opportunities to act with confidence and courage, accompanied by countless cameras and stats that make it impossible to hide.  In the course of just a few hours, a drama with characters and conflicts and results is played out with greater clarity than the ambiguity which often afflicts reality.

Yet sports aren't the meaning of life, even if I wish it were so, and if I make them so I worship an idol.  What then is the ultimate win that truly redeems a human life?  It's trust in the Resurrection, but more precisely, it's conforming my life to the passion of Christ, His desire to empty Himself for love of another, all the while trusting that this sacrifice is the source of new life.

The drama of my life at every turn can be inserted into the mystery of this Passion.  

There's plenty of competing world views out there to consider, plenty of things vying for your heart and soul, plenty of course to distact us into thinking nothing ultimately matters, so just make up your own meaning.

Yet there's also this mysterious news our there, celebrated each Easter, that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is at the crux of the meaning of life.  There's more, that the meaning of your life can participate too as the raw material and nexus for the recreation of a new heaven and earth that cannot fade into oblivion.

The drama of my life at every turn fits nicely into this Easter mystery, this Passion.  The point of life, near as I can tell, is to be in anguish until this mystery is consummated and accomplished through me.

+mj

what's too good to be true?

 

what's too good to be true?

Homily

2nd Sunday of Easter B2

Divine Mercy Sunday

7 April 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What's too good to be true?  Well, it's the Resurrection - obviously!

Now don't freak out.  I haven't lost my Easter faith in one week. The Resurrection is still the one thing I know to be true out of everything I know to be true.  On this truth I am happy to bet all that I am and ever will be.

Yet the Resurrection is also the thing I most doubt.  It's also the one thing that's too good to be true.

Is there a contradiction here?  Yea, maybe.  Is there a paradox? Yes, more likely!  Is the Resurrection a huge risk of faith - pray God, I hope so!

It makes sense actually that my deepest truth will always be found where I have made the biggest risk of faith.  Don't take my word for it. Take the words of the holy martyrs, who are willing to risk death even today for the truth of the Resurrection.

So I say it again.  My deepest truth will always be where I make the biggest risk of faith.  That is what faith is for!  Faith never goes against my reason, but always goes beyond it, seeking to receive and understand truths that are beyond what my mind can figure out, manage or control.

That's exactly why my deepest faith in the strange, mysterious, profound, dramatic, and yes most true event in human history - the Resurrection of Jesus indeed from the dead as he said - is also the thing I most doubt.

On Divine Mercy Sunday, the Risen Christ greets the doubts of Thomas, and my doubts, not with disdain but with peace.  Three times He says to us doubters - peace be with you!  Then he invites us his disciples not to put away out fears and doubts, but to let them be penetrated by his forgiveness.  Jesus appears in the upper room not to condemn, but to show mercy.  The disciples discover that in penetrating the open wounds of Jesus with their own hands, that their own interior wounds, especially the deepest wounds of fear and doubt, are healed and forgiven.

Is Thomas a skeptic, a pessimist, and a doubter?  Maybe so, but so am I.  Yet his honesty led Him to have a dramatic encounter with the Resurrection.  With his own doubts and fears healed, the Resurrection will never be something he wishes or pretends to be true, but the one thing he knows to be true.

What he most doubted, becomes his firmest conviction.  St. John says the one who is indeed victor over the world is the one who testifies with Thomas that Jesus is my Lord and my God. Thomas ended up a martyr, emerging victorious through confession of this faith that he once doubted.

You too are victor over the world with a good confession during Easter.  Yes, you heard me right. Confession is an Easter sacrament, given by the Risen Christ to the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday.  You can go to confession during Lent all you want, but the best confessions are Easter ones, when not only sins are wiped away but the ways in which we do not trust God are healed by a rich experience of Divine Mercy that makes us new from the inside out.

Jesus is not put off by your doubts.  He invites you to a deeper experience of His mercy, so that the one thing that's too good to be true becomes the one thing you most know to be true.

The victory that conquers the world is our faith in Jesus Christ Risen indeed from the dead as He said - my Lord and my God!. Alleluia!

+mj

What's your word?

Homily

Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection

31 March 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG 

If you could only say one word for the rest of your life, what word would you choose?

I bet you can guess what mine is.  Risen!  Risen!  Risen!  Jesus Christ is Risen!  He is Risen from the dead!  He is Risen just as He said!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

That's my word, tonight and forever.  Risen!  On this word, I am happy to bet everything that I am and all that I ever will be.

Tonight I witness to you that this word - Risen - is the most mysterious, profound, dramatic and TRUE word that has ever been spoken in all of human history, or could ever be spoken. Tonight I sing this word - Risen - in liturgical concert with the angels, the saints, and yes, the martyrs who died for this word even today.  Today, I should into the darkness that threatens so much and so many that this word - Risen - is the one thing I know to be true out of everything I know to be true.

Risen - that's my word - now and forever.  What is yours?

Tonight my prayer is that you too will dare to shout into the world a word that is your destiny to proclaim.  Tonight my prayer is that each and all of us, led by our catechumens and candidates, and the great risk of faith they speak tonight, will get off the couch!  Tonight is not time for a virtual Easter!  To hell with that.  In this Church there is no sideline, no bench, no bystanders!

You have my answer - I dare you to proclaim yours!

Why this word for me?  Because without it, even the most heartfelt words of love I ever say, words first spoken by Jesus - this is my body broken for you - lose their power.  Without the word Risen even the greatest sign of love I have ever known, the cross on which I gave the most passionate kiss of my life last night, is powerless in the face of death.  St. Paul said it best - unless Jesus is Risen, we are all pathetic losers!

But I don't profess this word tonight because I need it to be true.  My conviction about the empty tom is not a vain wish that justifies my life or helps numb me to reality.  No, this word is the fruit of being a disciple of Jesus.  Jesus never invites you to a wishful faith. That's weak sauce!  No, He invites me to follow Him first to the cross to verify whether there is a love stronger than death.  I pray my discipleship has been a courageous one, filtered through the cross of Jesus where I have learned from Him how to face reality and fear nothing.

My conviction comes from the times I actually dared to be a real Christian, and I'll be damned if Jesus wasn't right - literally!  Every time I die to sin and to myself, I lay hold of a new, different and powerful life that does not fade.  Every time I suffer and die with Him, I also rise with Him!

It's real people!

Jesus Christ is Risen!  He is truly Risen!  Shame on me if this is ever something I have to pretend to be true, instead of something that as a disciple, through the risk of faith, I have discovered to be true.

On this truth - not this wish - but this truth - I am happy to bet everything that I am and ever will be. Not because I need to, not because I'm afraid not to, but because I want to.

My word is Risen!  You've got next!

You're invited shortly to beat me or join me.  If you dare join, renew your baptismal promises on Easter Sunday.  If you join, please don't do anything cheap, or easy or pitiable.  This is conviction Sunday - the word means 'with victory' - on our profession goes our participation in the greatest victory of all time!  So let's decide with sharp minds, and pure hearts and courageous wills.

So I propose to you now a word that has rocked the history of the world, and changed forever the meaning of life and the destiny of man, to be the word of your life.  On this most holy night set apart precisely for this decision, I invite you to say the most mysterious, dramatic, profound and true word that has ever been or could ever be spoken.  

Risen!  Jesus Christ is Risen!  He is Risen from the dead just as He said.  Alleluia!  Alleluia!   

What do I consider on Holy Saturday?

Meditation for Holy Week Retreat

Holy Saturday

30 March 2024

AMDG

Jesus is in a tomb. Creation considers whether death has the final say.  Today is the day to consider whether good turns to evil, light to darkness, life to death, everything to nothing.  God who cannot die is dead.  He let us have the final say as to whether we wanted to live or die.  We choose death, for ourselves and for him. Today we consider if this is truly the last chapter of the human story.

In Advent we wait to see if God will come to save us.  We wait, in hope and in silence, for the appearance of light in darkness.  On Holy Saturday we wait to see if darkness and evil and sin and death are victorious, and we give them the benefit of the doubt.  For God is dead, and we killed him.  Let's see if this is truly the last chapter of the human story.

It does us no good to skip today, to fast forward to tonight or tomorrow, to pretend like today isn't real or doesn't exist or can by avoided or escaped.  Holy Saturday is essential, and woe to us who pretend it doesn't matter.  

If you don't know how to consider whether bringing light from darkness, creation from nothing, was for nought, then learn how.  To know what is means to be alive means I must also consider death seriously, since the years I might lie in a tomb far outweigh the 

Today is the day to consider, which is to ponder as deeply as I can, if there was nothing, or if God regretted his creation and let everything descend back to nothing, or if there was not me instead of me, or not my loved ones instead of having them, or if I was already dead, whether the world would just be fine without me, or whether all the glory of the human experiment is just a mirage, vanishes almost immediately in the face of the eraser that is death.  

All this must be considered in the greatest of silences that is Holy Saturday.  All this must be considered, if we are also to embrace the reality of death as the necessary raw materials for a new creation.  We can't hold onto this life if it's meant to really participate in the paschal mystery.  Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat.

In the depths of the singular darkness that is Holy Saturday, there is also promised the hope that his tomb is filled with so much more potential for new light than that first abyss.

But for us to do more than wish this to be true, we must consider the possibility that Holy Saturday is my true end, and the one that I choose.

+mj

How would I give my last kiss?

Homily

Good Friday of the Lord's Passion

29 March 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

If I had one kiss left to give, how would I give it?

Would I give it here?

Would I give it now?

I can tell you for sure how I would NOT spend my last kiss - on the kiss cam!  I hate the kiss cam.  I don't go to sporting events for PDA.  The inventor of the kiss cam should be canceled.  I don't care if everyone but me loves it.  I live in perpetual fear that some camera operator far far away would think it funny to zoom in on a priest during the kiss cam.  So whenever it comes on, I make a beeline for the beer line.  The kiss cam - it's a hard no for me.

Yet I do have within me a passionate kiss.  I do have an expression of adoration that is ultimate within me.  How am I going to give my last kiss?  Will I spend it here?  Will I spend it now?

The last kiss in today's Passion story is that of Judas.  It's the kiss of betrayal.  It's the kiss of death.  You just participated in the drama.  Jesus is dead, and I killed him. I kissed him.  That's where the story is. That's where the story could end.

Yet what if you have one kiss left?  Would you spend it now?  Would you spend it here?

The Good Friday liturgy is famous for its liturgical kiss.  When you approach the crucifix in just a few minutes, you get to choose what your kiss means.  Will it be the most passionate kiss of your life?  Will it be the kiss of betrayal, the kiss of death, and where your story will end.  Or will it be a passionate kiss of devotion for a love that dares to die, and where you story truly begins?

The axis of the cross is a decision point for your kiss.  It can only mean two things.  It's either the final defeat of love, or the place where new and eternal life begins.

So what if you only had one kiss left to give?  Would you give it now? Would you give it here?

+mj  

Do I choose to kill or die?

Meditation

Holy Week Retreat

29 March 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

I love the next three mornings.  Nothing feels normal.  Everything seems different.  You know you're a liturgical warrior,  or addict, when you're bothered by subtle changes in the liturgy.  Today, the change is much more dramatic.  We see the empty sanctuary before us. We look at the remnants of the garden of agony.  Everything is empty.  Jesus is gone.  They have taken my Lord, and I don't know where they put him.  A time will come when the bridegroom is taken from you, and on that day you will fast.

Today is that day.

I love the next three mornings, for nothing is normal.  These three days are different because we try as we might to take nothing for granted.  The most dramatic moment in human history, the most intense news, the axis of the ultimate battle between life and death, is re-presented now. The story is played out before our eyes and our hearts.  That's liturgy at its best, as a space is opened up for us to participate in the mysteries that transform all reality.

Last night we experienced the depth of love.  Today the terrible and wonderful reality of death. Tomorrow the dramatic silence, of waiting to see what will happen.  Sunday the proclamation of the biggest upset our world has ever seen.  What a gift these days are, to have a time and space to enter deeply into the story of how things really are.

You know the drama of today well.  God is dead, and I killed him. Death is certain, and those who avoid it, try to escape from it, or hide from it, will never be able to face life as it really is, will never suffer reality courageously, will never write a great story with their lives.  

Today is an unbelievable day. The one thing God can't do is die.  He is immortal.  Yet there He is - dead, and I killed him.  What in the hell is going on?   And of course, that's the whole point of it.  Hell is being confronted, face to face.

The passion of our Lord gets personal when I look into my soul, and realize that ultimately, I am one of two characters.  I am the killer, or I choose to die.  At this moment, you might be in the lukewarm messy middle, and that's fine, but really it's not.  Living with real passion, especially on Passion Friday, means that I am in anguish until my real story is accomplished.  Jesus talks about this hour a lot, a chapter of my story when I pass over passionately with Jesus, for Jesus, through Jesus, who has opened up this sacred space for my passion to participate in something more.

Why do I kill?  Well that's easy, tongue in cheek. I kill because life is hard, suffering hurts, and it's just easier to numb out, check out and cancel anything that's too difficult to face.  This is too hard, and I just want it all to be over.

Why do I suffer willingly?  Because there is this promise, this hope, that when death is filled with love, it is defeated, and the gift of my life unto death is the new raw material for the Resurrection.

The point of today is to ask the Holy Spirit to burn like a fire and move you closer to your destiny.  In the end, I am the killer, or I choose to die. The cross is where my life ends, or where it begins.

what's my never?

 what's my never?

Homily

Holy Thursday 

28 March 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

No no no no no no no - never!  How many no's did you bring to Mass tonight?  What's your ultimate no? What's your never?

Mine is easy.  It's the same as Peter's.  Don't humiliate me, Lord.  Don't patronize me.  I can wash my own feet.  I don't need you to do that.  I got this.  You will never.

What's your last no?  What's your never?

Peter had multiple nevers!  You will never be crucified on my watch, Jesus!  Wrong!  Get behind me Satan.  You're not thinking as God does.  Jesus, I will never deny you - ever! Wrong!  Tonight is his final never never.  You will never wash my feet!  Ugh, wrong again.

Whatever no's you brought here tonight, whatever is your never, I doubt it will survive this night. For tonight you're up against a guy who is the absolute worst at taking no for an answer.  Hang onto your never tonight if you can.  I dare you.  In fact, I'm going to bet against you.

For whenever I tell this guy no, He moves, so that my every step away to escape from Him is transformed into a potential yes that can bring us together again.  And when this guy moves, he moves decisively and dramatically.

Our first parents said no in the garden.  No, I will not trust. No, I will not serve.  In response, He moves.  From the no of the garden He chooses to see the Fiat of the new Eve. So He moves, dramatically and decisively, from the abundant heart of His Father to the womb of a poor little girl.

What do I say to this baby?  No!  No, I will not hold you. I'm busy. Stop bothering me. Get rid of Him. Away with Him. Kill him. Crucify Him.

In response to the no of Calvary, from the denial of Peter who ran away scared, Jesus could see the pathetic yes of a priest like me.  So He moves again!  He moves not only through the yes of the Immaculate Virgin, but even more dramatically and decisively through my sin-soaked words, to be born on this altar!  Here I am!  You thought you got rid of me, didn't you?  But I'm really bad at taking no for an answer.  This is my body broken for you.  This is my blood, poured out for you!

What do I say to the gift of the Eucharist?  I say no!  What will you give me to hand Him over? My faith and my love can be bought! Yes, it is one of you eating with me at the table, the one who takes the morsel, who will betray me!  Surely not I, Lord?  You have said so.

What's your next move, Jesus?  From the no of the ways I abuse and betray Him at the altar, He can still see a yes in you, and He thirsts for it.  He can see your little yes, and He won't ever quit on it.  He doesn't know how.  Trust me, the guy is crazy.  Your yes means everything to Him, and He bets all that He is on you.

Lord, I do not deserve for you to come under my roof, but only say the word.  So He moves through your tiny yes, more dramatically and decisively than ever, from this altar into your body.

Still, the greatest distance remains.  Still, Jesus is just starting to move.  Unless I wash your feet too, you will have no part in me.  No way, Lord!  Never!  I can wash my own feet, for God's sake.   Leave my feet alone so I can walk my own path.  Don't humiliate me. You will never!

Take it from me, this dude will not listen.  Ask Peter if you don't believe me.  Unless I wash your feet, unless I get past your last no, your never, all of this is for nothing, and I have failed.  All of this. His moving from the heart of the Father, through the womb of Mary, through Calvary, to this altar, into the abyss of your body - none of it matters unless you also let Him wash your feet.

So what is your never?  Whatever it is, no matter how tightly you cling to it, just know what you're up against.  He's the absolute worst at taking no for an answer.

He has come all this way in case any of us might say yes to His washing our feet.  The sign that He got past our never, is that we will wash one another's feet.

+mj  

Where will I celebrate the Passover?

Reflection for Holy Week Retreat

Wednesday of Holy Week

27 March 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Where will the Passover be celebrated this year?  Well, of course here in St. Lawrence chapel, and in every Catholic Church throughout the world on Holy Thursday, the commemoration of the Lord's Supper will take place.  The passion of our Lord, re-presented in the sacrifice of the Mass, will be observed liturgically as the Sacred Triduum commences tomorrow night.

Yet there is another, better, deeper place where Jesus wishes to pass over from death to life.  You know that place well.  It's in the depth of your soul, where there are remaining no's because of the fear, pains and doubts that still afflict you.  Will I fulfill the purpose of my life?  Will I love and be faithful to the end.  Will the passover from death to life be accomplished in me?  Will that really be my story?

The gift of the Eucharist contains Jesus desire to reach that innermost part of your soul, where the battle against the ultimate enemies - sin and darkness and doubt and fear and evil and ultimately, death, is constantly played out.  

Your soul is invited to be the ultimate place where the passion of Jesus, his paschal mystery, is played out and accomplished.  Where will I celebrate the Passover with my disciples?  He wants to celebrate His story in you, should you give him permission.

You have said so.  Back to back betrayal days in the Gospel remind us of the gravity of our choice, the full influence and impact of my yes or no.  With my response to Jesus invitation to celebrate the Passover, goes my story and the story of those with whom I have influence.  

Isaiah invites us to set our faces like flint, knowing we will not be put to shame.  What a gift it is to find this dramatic edge in our souls, and to burn with fire and great anguish until the true purpose of my life is accomplished.  This is the fire of the Holy Spirit that years for the confrontation of this week.  Again, from Isaiah - if anyone wishes to oppose me, let us appear together.  Let him confront me.  Let us appear together.  What a wonderful moment this really is to face what I need to face.

May Jesus beg you for the permission to say yes in you, and to passover through you this week, so that you can ask him the question - is it me, Lord?  Is it in me that you want to celebrate your passover?  You have said so.

What does it cost?

Meditation for Holy Week Retreat

Tuesday of Holy Week

26 March 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

I'm not gonna lie.  This meditation today is no fun.  This holy hour is not for the faint of heart.  Meditate at your own risk.  For today is Spy Tuesday.  And that means something personal for me.  It means that I have to come to grips with the fact that my soul is for sale.  My faith can be bought.  There is something for which I would hand Jesus over.

This sin of betrayal pops up in the Gospel, and I usually try to avoid thinking about it.  But today I can't.  Today I must not.  At that moment, Satan entered him.  Woe to the man who betrays Jesus.  It would be better for that man if he had never been born.  All sins will be forgiven, except sins against the Holy Spirit.  Whoever does not believe has already been condemned, for He has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Ruthless passages.  Devastating truths from our Lord.  A reminder that I am free to create my own hell, if I wish.  Jesus desperately wants to save me from that hell I could choose.  He is desperate to save me.  He is in anguish about losing me. He doesn't know how to live without me.  Yet He will not take back my freedom to betray him.  If I am free to love Him to the end, to be faithful to the point of death, then I am also free to betray Him.

Yes one of you. Yes one of my most intimate friends will betray me. Yes, one of you.  Yes, one of you seated at my Eucharistic table.  The most intimate communion possible is also the locus of the greatest betrayal possible.  Satan entered him.  It would be better if he had never been born.

You know this hell well.  Jesus, leave me alone.  Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. I am not worth it, not good enough, and never will be.  I am the sum of my worst mistakes, and my judgment that I am a selfish loser, a coward and a quitter.  Leave me alone Jesus.  Let me go into the darkness, where I can be alone with my judgments, privacy and choices.  You couldn't possibly want to forgive me more than yesterday, not 70x7 times.  Your mercy is too scary, too real - leave me alone.  It doesn't matter anymore. I don't care.  I quit.

The battle played out at that first Eucharistic table is the same battle for your soul right now, that will never get less dramatic.  For the freedom to love always retains the freedom to betray.

Lord Jesus, let me bring to you my desire to despair, deny you and betray you.  In your mercy, hold me here at your table, hold me with the gaze of your merciful eyes, and have mercy on me.

What's my hour?

Homily

5th Sunday of Lent B2

17 March 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What's my hour?

If you look at the timeline of your life, it's not hard to come up with pivotal moments, crucial hours.  

I turn 50 today, praise God and thank you!  I'm so grateful.  I'm laughing today because I always promised myself I'd have life perfectly figured out, perfectly under control, by age 50.  God sure laughed at that plan. I know less than ever. I'm less in control that ever.  But you know what, that's a good thing.  It's more fun, and fruitful to live by faith anyway.

You can't just decide when you're going to have life figured out.  What you can do is learn from your mistakes and missed opportunities. What you can do is trust the things you have done well, with God's help.  What you can do is to keep moving forward, refusing to get stuck in fantasy or regret.  What you can do is face the reality of the hour that you're in, and to engage it with faith.

What's my hour?

Within the paschal mystery of Jesus, within the holy hour of his passion, I have been invited to write my own story.  God's story is the real story.  What's amazing is that I have a part to play, as do you.  This is the story of God's love - Jesus came to embrace the pivotal hour of His life.  He came to show how glorious God's love really is, by passionately emptying Himself, being made perfect through suffering.

That's Jesus' hour that I have been invited to write my story within.  That's Jesus' hour, and if I dare accept it, it's also mine.

Don't ever forget that you have been given the same dignity and vocation as Jesus.  You arrive at life through Him, with Him and in Him, by cooperation and participation is His passion, and like Him we are to be in anguish until this hour is consummated, and accomplished.  Don't ever forget that you have the capacity through the Holy Spirit burning within you to give witness to the glorious love of God, by finding a way to empty yourself.

Most likely you're in the middle of your hour right now, or at least you're trying to be.  To be good at life, to enter fully into life, is to have the courage to face what I need to face, to embrace conflict, and to commit to the process of repentance and conversion that is Jesus' way.

Jesus didn't have any other plan for becoming perfect than facing what he needed to face. He didn't have a plan. He only had a way.

So too I can do without fantasizing about a perfect set of circumstances where I finally get control of my life That's perfectionism.  It lacks faith.  It's worthless, and it's pointless.  Maybe we should all give up perfectionism for Lent.

To be perfect is just to trust that my hour is here, and to engage the passion of my life withing the redemptive passion of Jesus.  That's Holy Week, should I dare to enter in.

If I know the Lord, I'm pretty certain he's more excited to share this moment with you than He was to establish the new covenant in His blood with those men first gathered around His table.

This is his hour.  Is it also yours?

J

+mj

Why am I so upset?

Homily

3rd Sunday of Lent B2

3 March 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Why am I so upset?

In order to answer this question well, I can take my clue from what gets Jesus bent out of shape.  For He has taken on my nature to reveal me fully to myself.

It will pay all of us well today to pay close attention to what has Jesus fired up.  Let's notice when he cries, shouts, gets perturbed and is grieved, like He is in today's Gospel.  Jesus is angry at what He is looking it. He is consumed with zeal!  In this He is revealing something very important.  This is no moment for us to wish Jesus would calm down, play nice, and leave things as they are.

If I dare faith today, this is a Gospel to spark my own passion, lest I lose zeal for accomplishing the purpose of my own life.

I would do well to remember that Jesus is never selling tickets for me to merely watch His passion.  The cross is not entertainment, not a movie of what Jesus does for me so that I don't have to.  The paschal mystery is no spectator sport.  Instead, I am invited to participate with all my mind, heart and body, with reckless abandon.  This is His process, His way by which all things are made new.  He has invited me to be incorporated into His body, to participate in the passions of His sacred heart, and into the transformation that only comes when I too am conformed to the mystery of His holy cross.

Jesus has always taught me with clarity and conviction that there is one plan for every disciple.  Every person in this chapel is on a journey of faith up to Jerusalem.  The goal is to get ourselves killed.  Each one, without exception is to drink the cup and be baptized in blood as He is.  All are invited to empty ourselves through Him, with Him and in Him, with a love strong as death.  This love, this death, and nothing else, is the raw material of the resurrection, the new dusty from which God makes all things new.

There is only one way that does not end in death, and Jesus has shows us the way.  The process to new life is filled with zeal, anger at the way things are, passion for change, and anguish until it is accomplished.

If my Lent is not about cleansing the temple of my body so that I can participate more readily and more passionate in the paschal mystery of Jesus, then what the hell am I doing?  I may as well quit on Lent if it's anything else or anything less.

The goal is to be more upset, not less.  So we do well not to tell Jesus to calm down, but to be moved by his tears when He sees death having the last say in our lives.  We do well to share his anger that our bodies, built to be the most glorious temples of God, are instead filled with noise, junk and sin.

That's worth both Jesus and my being upset about - that my body is not empty, available and ready to be the privileged place where His paschal mystery will be consummated on those three days set apart for my life to be rebuilt.

I know how to clean house like Jesus does.  But will I make a good confession guided by the ten commandments? Will I fast so that my body is sensitive again? Will I give alms so that my heart is cleansed of pride and selfishness?

Why am I so upset?  The goal is to get more upset, not less.  I would do well today not to ask Jesus to calm down, to look away while I have a relaxing spring break, to quit on me or leave things the way they are.  I bet you Jesus my Lord, to be more upset, and to burn with a zeal that will consume me.

+mj

What's the most glorious thing I've ever seen?

Homily

2nd Sunday of Lent B2

25 February 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What's the most glorious thing I've ever seen?

For me, it's when suffers for love of me.  It's the most glorious thing I can ever see, or feel or experience.  It's also the most terrifying.

Father, let me help you.  Father, let me pray for you.  Father, let me offer this suffering for love of you.  it's all any of us ever want, for someone to love us like that.  Yet it's also the thing I'm most terrified to ask for, receive or look at - someone suffering for love of me.

The 2nd Sunday of Lent we are rocketed from the desert floor of temptation to the glorious heights of Mt. Tabor.  Jesus in His human nature is transfigured by a divine light that reveals fully who He is.  It's way too much, way too bright and terrifying for our buddies Peter, James and John to look upon.  Mercifully, the scene quickly disappears before our friends die of fright.  Jesus returns to His normal disguise, and we remain confused as to what He is saying.

The transfiguration was meant to encourage, so that the apostles wouldn't lose heart on the hard road to Calvary. I won't call is a failed experiment, but the scene seems to terrorize just as much or more.  If I am already too terrified to look at Jesus beautifully transfigured on Mt. Tabor, how could my little faith bear to gaze on the disfigured, terrible, and yes more brightly glorious body of Jesus on Mt. Calvary?  

Today's scriptures force a conflict, and I hope you feel it, setting the transfiguration against the horrible preview of Calvary that is the proposed slaughter of Isaac many years prior on that very same hill.  If I am terrified of the transfiguration, there's no way I'll keep my eyes fixed on the cross.

Abraham and Isaac show us what absolute faith really looks like, and it's terrible.  Imagine now if you will our heavenly Father's first look at Jesus on the cross, on that same spot where Abraham first looked with horror that his only-begotten son Isaac would willingly suffer slaughter sheerly for love of him.  Imagine that our heavenly Father, though horrified at what He sees, cannot look away.

At Mt. Tabor there were words for how beautifully glorious the scene way - this is my beloved Son, listen to Him.  Mt. Calvary is too terribly glorious for words.  Imagine that.  The Father, simultaneously horrified and infinitely pleased, hardly knows what to say.  The glory of the cross demands silence.

St. Paul saw it.  Our Father looking forever at His only-begotten suffering sheerly for love of Him, is a Father whose heart has been transformed from justice to mercy.  He can only and forever be for us, never against.

St. John finally saw it.  Though terrified at Mt. Tabor and drowsy in the garden, he mustered the courage to show up and look a the disfigured yet more glorious face of Christ on the cross.  Mary Magdalen was also there, she from whom the Lord had cast out 7 fearful demons.  Because John and Mary did not look away, they saw the most glorious thing one can ever see.  They were thus the first witnesses to the Resurrection, the first to see with faith, and believe.

So what is the most glorious thing you will ever see?  To gaze at one who loves you is glorious.  To gaze at someone suffering for love of you is more glorious, and more terrifying.  Look anyway.  Look with faith.  Look always, and don't look away. For looking at the most glorious thing you will ever see will transfigure your eyes, transform your heart and transport you from death to life.

+mj  

Why do I need a road win?

Homily

1st Sunday of Lent B2

18 February 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Why do I need a critical road win this Lent?

The men's basketball team finally got one at OU yesterday!  See ya Sooners have fun in the SEC. We won't miss you.  After starting 0-5 on the road this year, the Hawks will need a couple more really tough road wins to have a chance to win the Big XII.

You heard the knock against Patrick Mahomes, didn't you?  Before this year, he had never had to win a road playoff game.  He had rarely been a playoff underdog.  The criticism didn't make sense to me, since to get home field advantage in the playoff he had to win lots of road games.  Anyway, he won both playoff road games as an underdog, and that made this Chiefs Super Bowl more improbably and thus more glorious.  The best stories, if you're paying attention, are always the underdog, Hail Mary and comeback from the dead stories.  Fans of Jesus Christ ought to know.

So Mahomes got his road wins as the underdog.  Why do you need a critical road win this Lent?

The first Sunday of Lent sets the tone for a big road win.  It's necessary because Satan routinely kicks our tails on our home field.  This angers our Lord, and motivates Him to be a road underdog on our behalf.  There was no reason for our parents to listen to Satan's temptations in the garden.  None.  But they caved, and He got us.  He still gets the best of us, especially when we're complacent on our home turf.  When things get easy, we lose focus and motivation.  It's our fallen human nature.  Satan is still getting the best of us, and that needs to anger and motivate us.

Jesus shows us exactly how to reverse the curse, and redeem this fallen nature of ours. Right after His baptism, He goes to the desert where He has not advantage, no inherent comfort, control or status.  He prays and fasts and faces temptation, in silence, solitude and suffering.  That's Lent.  The time is at hand to learn from Him that the Spirit given me at baptism is enough to win even as a road underdog.

If the Spirit within me does not drive me into the desert this Lent, I'll never know who I am when everything is against me or how I'll respond when an active shooter is trying to kill me, when things are most intense.  I need the silence, solitude and suffering of Lent as a training ground, so that I know I will choose to trust and love even when I have every reason to lose heart.

For my own sake, I need to go get this road win, with and for Jesus and through His Spirit.  My true character is built on the road, in the desert, at practice, when no one is rooting for me or looking.  I need to know my story, and my nature, and face the fact that when I'm comfortable, I'm selfish.  Yet when my story begins in repentance, it ends in glory.

If the confetti is gonna drop on my head this Easter, and for the victory over evil and death to be real not fake, it will be because I had a real Lent as a road underdog.  Jesus leads me there in these first days of Lent.  It's up to me to know why I need this critical road win.

+mj  

why am I here?

Homily

Ash Wednesday

14 February 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Why am I here?  I don't have to be here today, and neither do you.  So why is everybody here?

For me, this is always the best question for Ash Wednesday, especially at KU.  Because today, everyone's first choice is to be here, even if it's Valentine's Day and the Chiefs SuperBowl parade is on.  Everyone wants to know why - why is Mass everyone's first choice on Ash Wednesday?

This day marks the greatest marketing strategy in Catholic history, apparently.  Come get free dirt, and free insults.  Of all the things we offer at St. Lawrence - community, entertainment, formation, prayer, and yes, even FREE BEER - you prefer to get all those things elsewhere better.

So what gives?   Today the Catholic Church apparently solves a unique problem for you, and gives you precisely what you most need.  Believe it or not, that's free dirt and free insults, letting a stranger remind you that you're not that great and you're gonna die real soon. 

What a strange, strange day.

I'm so glad we are here together the play the game of life for keeps. Still what gives? Why am I here?

The more I pray about it, I think it's honesty!  Jesus speaks so honestly directly to my heart in today's Gospel.  He gives voice to how exhausted I am with pretense, hypocrisy, fakeness and artificiality.  He knows I need more honesty to live from the inside out, to be more fully human and more alive.  He knows my heart, that getting along and getting by and getting away will never be good enough.

Here's what I'll say - every time I go to Mass, I get an honest encounter with someone who is real with me, and truthful, and who loves me better than anyone else because He reveals to me honestly who I am, and who He is, and the life we are meant to share together.  I know this much - every time I go to Mass I am able to live more honestly.  I know that Mass is the conversion and transformation I was made for.

Why am I here?  Because Jesus through the Mass has invited me to the most honest lifelong and lifegiving conversation I can possibly have?

Why am I here?  Because He solves a problem for me, and provides what I most need.  Yes, even by throwing dirt and shouting an insult, He invites me to more than what I'm afraid of, and what I've settled for.

That's why of all the places I could be, it's my #1 choice today and always, to be here.

a weight of glory?

Homily

Funeral Mass for Janet Copeland

Immaculate Conception Parish in Springfield, Missouri

13 February 2024

AMDG

Affliction produces a weight of glory, something so glorious that Jesus calls it a yoke that is easy and light!

St. Paul writes well of this experience of a soul being purified through suffering, through the process of conformation to the mystery of the Lord's holy cross.  For Jan, this happened in a particular way, for every human story is a unique, and precious one.  The outer self wasted away, and at times it can feel like a waste.  Yet there is a faith proposed that turns this agonizing process into a weight of glory, a renewal of the inner self, the purification of a soul until it shines like a diamond, a participation in the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus Christ that redeems all things and makes them new.

Jesus accompanies us, most blessedly and surely in the Holy Eucharist, and as our bodies slowly and surely participate in a death like His, He invites us to come to Him, those of us tired and burdened with the responsibility of living a worthy life, and begs that we might do it together.  In the Eucharist, which Jan was blessed to receive at the end of this process and journey, Jesus abides with us and for us, until His paschal mystery is accomplished.

It is finished!   There is rejoicing that Jan has rest from her labors!   Jan's story of faith has been written, and it ends in a weight of glory, in a love story that produced good fruit that remains forever.

Praised be Jesus Christ, who has invited us all to this yoke that is easy, and a burden that is light, for we do it always and forever together, through Him who strengthens us.  Amen!

How healthy is my community?

Homily

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

11 February 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

How healthy is my community?

We all sure hope the Chiefs have a healthy community today!  This pivotal question will fall right to our favorite team.  How healthy are the Chiefs? After a long season, are they still fast, strong, smart, together, passionate and determined?  Will they glorify God by writing an incredible story of faith at the Super Bowl?  It will depend on how healthy their community is - relationally, spiritually, psychologically, physically and emotionally.

I need a healthy community to fulfill my purpose too.  So did the leper in today's Gospel.  To be alone, to be cut off, is to be dead.  Social distancing is the original and precise definition of death.  As smart as it can be to quarantine ourselves to preserve physical health for others, ultimately to be alone is to die.  

Human persons are relational at their core.  Love only exists within relationship and community.  Relationships for bodily persons are necessarily sensory experiences, and this includes the healing power of life-giving touch.  This year at SLC we're talking about not being able to live without the Mass, for it is here that the health of our community is consummated by our teaching and becoming the body of Christ.

Too many people are unhealthy because they do not live in healthy communities.  Unhealthy behaviors thrive in isolation.  We can be addicted to choice and privacy when we are meant to experience life by seeking the good of others more than our own good.  Life depends on being a part of something bigger than ourselves.  Life is a gift with a responsibility and capacity to give life rather than take it.  Healthy communities consistently touch our lives in a way that is healing and freeing.

How healthy is my community?  And as much as I believe the Chiefs will win today, I'm not talking about the community that is the Red Kingdom.  I'm talking most of all about the Church, and the healing touch of Mass and confession especially.  The touch of these sacraments consummate the ultimate communion that is the body of Christ.  Are we healthy enough as a St. Lawrence community - relationally, morally, spiritually, psychologically and emotionally - to win together the ultimate victory that is the gift of new and everlasting life?

+mj

How will Jesus find me?

Homily

5th Sunday of Ordinary Time BII

4 February 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

How will Jesus find me?

In the Gospel today, everyone is looking for Jesus, and for good reason.  He has the words of eternal life.  He is the fulfillment of every human heart.  He speaks a word that heals and defeats evil.  I am made for a relationship with Him who is my life.  Anyone who is searching for life, in some manner is looking for Jesus.

Yet I want to flip this on its head.  What's more important is that Jesus is looking for you.  He came to seek and to save what was lost.  He can't stand the thought of losing you.  So He searches for you, relentlessly.  He initiates.  Yet He will not force himself, for love never does that.  He invites. He begs.  He desires to make His dwelling within me.

Yet I can be elite in my defenses against Him finding me, or at least I think I can be.  Whenever I want privacy, choice or control, I hide, praying that He won't find me.  In this I break His heart, for I was created to be loved, forgiven, redeemed and found by the Lord, not to escape and hide.

How will Jesus find me?  Today's Gospel shows the way.  In order to be online with His Father, in order to go deeper into the mystery of the Father's will, in order to relate the affairs of His heart with His Father, Jesus goes to a deserted place, and prays.  It is there too that He wishes an intimate conversation with me.  In the desert that is silence, solitude and suffering, He thirsts to look at me, and to be seen by me, through faith and from the heart.

Jesus retreats from the noise, where there is much good to be done.  He doesn't settle for the status quo, but wants to explore the more that His mission entails.  So He lets go of the present, and prays.  I need this too.  Prayer is always susceptible to become transactional, superficial and repetitive.  Job describes a malaise that is familiar to many in February, a hardening of the heart, a loss of hope that God's promises can still be fulfilled.

It's in the desert, in that place of solitude, silence and suffering, that intimacy can be restored and hope reborn.  It's in the desert especially that I can relate the suffering that is beyond my understanding to the mystery of the Lord's cross.  Complaints, so long as they are not selfish or childish, are welcome as part of our prayer.  Job complains, and it's a good prayer!  Our evaluation of things based on fairness needs to be placed within the wounds of Christ, for it is at the cross that the worst thing imaginable happened to the best person, and produced the greatest fruit of the resurrection.  That's where my questions and lack of hope are meant to be related, at the cross.  It's hard to relate suffering though, and not let it get the best of us, without a sacred space of silence, solitude and suffering in my life.

He went off to a deserted place, and prayed.  What does that space look like for me?  How will Jesus find me?

What word has authority over you?

Homily

4th Sunday of Ordinary Time B2

28 January 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What word has authority over you?  Unfortunately, it's not always the word Jesus wishes to speak to you.  Too often the lie that evil speaks to us has an authority over us it was never meant to have.  You know the voice of the enemy well.  It is the voice of the accuser and the divider.  It is the word of shame, that you're not good enough.  I have four demons, four words, that constantly threaten authority over me - selfish, coward, loser, quitter.

I need the authority of Jesus to speak a word that will cast out these demons.  I need to hear I'm worth dying for, that I'm enough, that I'm beloved and forgiven.  I can never hear these words enough, and I pray that one day I can trust them completely, and always.

Paul's word of authority in today's second reading is celibacy!  Nice word choice, St. Paul!  Our reading gives voice to the Church's 2000 year history of being obedient to the path of marriage and celibacy written in our nature, the way to authentic love and self-gift our Lord has marked out for us.

The Catholic moral teaching on sexuality is astoundingly simple.  Sex finds its fulfilment when shared between a man and woman promised to each other in marriage and open to a family.  Those who are unmarried are asked to witness to the sacred dignity of sex by loving and serving each other in non-sexual ways in the celibate vocation.  Celibates love and give life and bear fruit through witness, service and prayer.  The Church's teaching on sexuality is really as simple as that. It's never changed, for its written into our nature and confirmed by the teaching of our Lord Jesus.

Pope Francis is trying to speak an authoritative word of compassion in relation to the Church's clear moral teaching on sexuality.  A lot of people have asked me why Pope Francis is changing the Church's teaching.  He is not. He never has, nor do I think he will or can.  Yet his word of authority received from Jesus and spoken into the modern human experience is one of compassion.  Pope Francis reaches out.  He stays in touch.  He admits that many do not see an authentic path of love for themselves in marriage or celibacy.  Many others do not experience their human nature as an intrinsic and simultaneous unity of body and soul.  Still others feel rejected by the Church.  

Whenever someone feels rejected, Pope Francis considers it our problem, not theirs.  For everyone has dignity as a child of God.  Everyone belongs to the Church if we dare to believe our Lord has begged us to be the shepherd and mother of all of humanity. Therefore, everyone is to be blessed who asks for the Lord's help to live and love well.  Blessings are for sinners who are trying.  That's me, and that's you, and that's everyone.

The Pope can speak this authoritative word of compassion from Jesus without confusing or changing the Church's life-giving and compelling teaching on sex.  He can bless individuals without endorsing unchaste relationships or behavior.  He can do so without changing the intrinsic meaning of our sexuality, and without bending to gender ideologies that confuse human nature.  He can do so while rejecting intervention that harm the unity of body and soul, and destroy lives.

If only the Church stays the course, and shares her true teaching in both compelling and compassionate ways, most people will arrive at a mature sexual integration that frees them to live the marital or celibate vocation with conviction, joy and fruitfulness.  But if we betray our teaching, or discard our neighbor, things will only get worse.  The Pope has faith that together, we can fulfill our capacity to love authentically in accord with our nature, and so lay hold of the fullness of life and love we were made for.

I pray that I can live this spiritual and sexual maturity with conviction and compassion. I pray the same for you, that this word of authority spoken to us by our Lord will case out the evils that threaten to divide us.

+mj

What is most urgent?

Homily

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time B

21 January 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What has my attention?

Jesus is trying to get it.  His message at the beginning of his public ministry in the Gospel of Mark couldn't be any more straightforward.  Now.  Here.  Repent. Believe.  Does He have your attention?

I'm sure you're no stranger to things vying for your attention.  Because of the nonstop distraction and noise, we can find ourselves living virtually, far apart from reality.  I can get so off track, so out of touch with myself.   We can get stuck regretting the past, or obsessed about worrying about the future, that we miss being present to the reality right in front of us.  

A remedy is the word of God.  The word of God desperately wants your attention, to invite you into a sensitive and responsive mode of being, of engaging with reality.  That's where holiness and new life always is, for those who live in the here and now, with a desire to constantly change my mind and to discover new ways of doing things.

Pope Francis has given the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time to be forever known as Word of God Sunday. It's when we start meditating on a synoptic Gospel for the 30 weeks of Ordinary Time.  What's supposed to happen during ordinary time?  Well, if I dare to let the word of God have my attention above all things, whether that be the internal word of my conscience or meditating on the word Jesus is speaking to me through the Gospel, then a new ability to reorder my way of doing things can emerge!  This is what makes life exciting, a desire and ability to change in response to what I am hearing.

It's perhaps always the best new year's resolution, to let the word of God have my attention.  The Ninevites respond immediately to the preaching of Jonah.  St. Paul urges us to flee from attachments to the way things are now.  The apostles are radical and immediate in their response to the word Jesus speaks to them.  All who hear and respond gain a new and greater capacity to live.

So what has my attention in this new year?  For me, work and sports and my phone will try to dominate, and keep me stuck with the way things have always been.  Yet Jesus is speaking a word to me, inviting me not to be afraid to be an affectively mature spiritual father, one who can truly delight in fishing for Jayhawks, even though Jayhawks aren't fish, and in seeing my children grow spiritually into the fullness of life they are made for.

Jesus desires to speak a word of life to you too.  Can He have your attention?