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