What way will I go?

Homily

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

27 October 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church Prairie Village

AMDG

What way will I choose? My way, or THE way?

Jesus tells Bartimaus at the end of his Gospel to go on his way.  Bartimaus instead follows Him on THE way?  What way will I choose?

I can't stand beggars.  In fact, I'm terrified of them.  I bet you are too.  Beggars are incredibly annoying.  I'm rarely ready to encounter them.  I'm not sure how to help, yet haunted by Jesus' saying to give to everyone who asks.  I usually conclude that I will pray for them, while concluding that allowing begging is enabling and dangerous.

I'm really annoyed by people that beg for a living.  Monday night I was asked to celebrate Mass for the Little Sister of the Lamb, a religious community from France that have established a convent and monastery in KCK.  I don't like to go there, but I suppose I chant their liturgy better than some other priests.  They are also concerned for my soul, which is why they keep inviting me.  They are professional beggars.  I can't say no.

These mendicants are annoyingly humble and small.  Around their necks they wear a wooden lamb, engraved with the words 'Wounded, I will never cease to love.' What a crazy way to live.  They live the Gospel precisely as Jesus teaches it.  They compromise on nothing. They don't have real jobs.  Their favorite thing to do is to beg from the violent, and even for prisoners. They intentionally live in dangerous neighborhoods, and prefer to hitchhike, while remaining unharmed and creating peace wherever they live.  

Because of their faith and love and courage, they are more secure than you and me, living in the Prairie Village bubble.

It's annoying as all get out, and terrifying.  I told them as much while I was there.  I asked why they kept inviting me, since they know I hate it so much and am terrified of poverty.  The lead sister said "We know, Father,, and we love you.  You're scared of poverty because you're so deeply attracted to it?"

I was so embarrassed that she read my soul so easily that I wanted to throw a fit and storm out of the room.  I hated that she was right. There's nothing more attractive, free, compelling, disarming or magnanimous that living the Gospel.  It's THE way that Jesus taught.

Bartimaus threw off his old cloak of sitting by the roadside to spring up and go beg Jesus, as annoyingly as He could.  If only I could start Mass with the same fervor, asking Jesus three times as Bartimaus did, to have mercy on me, a sinner.

Instead my prayer is to leave me alone, to let me try to fix everything myself, to let me be the exception to the human experience of vulnerability.  I just want to do things my way, instead of begging Jesus and all of you to forgive me, and to help me.

I'm terrified of begging because I'm so deeply attracted to it.  Still, I'll do almost anything to keep from being one, even though beggars always the heroes of the Gospel, of THE way that leads to new life.  

What way will I go from here?  My way or THE way?

+mj 

Who has paid the price for you?

Homily

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

St. Ann Catholic Church  - Prairie Village, KS

20 October 2024

World Mission Sunday

Who has paid the price for you?

I don't know if your life has ever been saved before, but mine sure has, over and over and over again.  I'm an inattentive driver, and always push the limits, and drive on an empty tank, so I know my guardian angels have had to work a lot of overtime.  I need to tip them well if I get to heaven!  The spend themselves for me, and pay the price for my life.

There are countless others, starting with my parents who sacrificed everything to have a family, and to give me life.  So many people have prayed for me and supported me and believed in me, especially when I haven't been worthy of it.  I'm alive and here today because of all of them, because of all of you.  Left to my own, I would have made different choices, but my life and my soul have been redeemed. So many people have paid the price for me.  

A few years ago, I was invited to play golf, but I turned it down because I had an important therapy appointment that I couldn't afford to miss if I wanted to stay healthy.  The guy who invited me initially poked fun, hinting that going to therapy was soft, and that the only therapy I really needed was an afternoon with the boys.  

The next day though, the guy called me and asked for the number of my therapist.  Not for himself, mind you, but so that he could pay for my therapy for a year.  His comment the day earlier bothered him a lot, for he had always been a friend who had asked what he could do to support me, and when I said what I needed, he had poked fun.  He realized that he now he had a chance to die to himself so that I could live.  He paid not only for that year, but for the next as well, a bill that totaled $10,000.  If you every wonder how much it costs to keep Fr. Mitchel healthy, now you know the number.

Who has paid the price for you?  I've confessed to many of you already that there was a time not that long ago that I was spiritually lost and morally dead, and I didn't care.  Yet the Lord had given me people who wouldn't quit on me, most notably my last two spiritual directors.  I've apologized to both for being so stubborn, so whiny, so hard to work with.  The first responded that if I was a faithful priest for just one more day, it was worth all the time we had spent trying to save my soul.  The second, after giving up his summer vacation to direct me in the spiritual exercises for 30 days, thanked me for having a front row seat to see how Jesus Christ fiercely ransoms a soul from death.

I've been ransomed from death.  How about you?  Who has paid the price for your life?

I wish St. Maximilian Kolbe was running for the next president of the United States.  Kolbe lived precisely as Jesus direct us in the Gospel, that whoever wishes to be first among us will join Jesus in taking the lowest place as a slave, and in giving his life as a ransom for many.  Kolbe like Jesus our high priest was able to sympathize with weakness.  He stepped forward to ransom the life of a young dad at Auschwitz by being executed in his stead.

St. Maximilian Kolbe is not on the ballot this year; still, each of us must vote to advance the common good and a more just society in the coming weeks.  It is a grave responsibility of ours to form our consciences and to make sure we are not voting to advance any fundamental or intrinsic evils, sins against the sanctity of human life or the dignity of human nature, marriage and the family.  In the absence of a great choice, we must be innocent yet cunning, and find a way to do the least harm.  To not vote or to vote wrongly is to give up on our neighbor and to despair of God's will being done on earth as it is in heaven. 

Still, the most urgent thing in the coming weeks will not change based on the outcome of a political election.  The most urgent thing is for me to know who has paid the price so that I can live, and to pray for the grace to give my life in turn through Jesus, with Jesus and in Jesus, as a ransom for many.

+mj  

What's my most treasured possession?

Homily

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

13 October 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village

AMDG

What is my most treasured possession?

I didn't really want to talk about sports this weekend, since I'm so heartbroken still about the Royals losing to the Yankees this week.  Yet something happened Friday that I have to tell you.  I saw a Holy-In-One.

Jon Arkin from our parish cut the corner on the 349 yard par 4 4th hole at Milburn Country Club on Friday afternoon, and did something that has never been done before in the 107 year history of Milburn He made a miraculous shot, and since a priest was there to see it, it may forever be known as the holy-in-one.

It was one of those incredible moments you never think you would see in 100 lifetimes.  It was an impossible shot, a camel through the the eye of a needle  kind of incredible.  A veritable albatross, double eagle, from 349 yards away.  I'm still incredulous.  No no no no way.

Chris Goodger was there, and he said something on the next tee that I'll never forget.  Chris said that this holy-in-one could not have happened to a better bunch of guys. At first. I thought that was such a silly thing to say, and I teased him for it.  It's was Jon's shot, not a group effort.  He's the only one who hit the ball.  But the more I thought about it, Chris said the right thing.  The best thing about this holy-in-one is that it happened within a group of guys who cared about each other, and were doing life and faith together.  Everybody felt so blessed to share the experience, and each of us was happier for Jon than if it had happened for one of us.

In short, the holy-in-one wouldn't have meant nearly as much if Jon didn't have someone there to share it with.  The holy-in-one couldn't have happened to a better group of guys.  Chris was right.  I learned a lesson from Chris - how about that?

What's your most treasured possession?  Jesus is clear in today's Gospel.  It's the people we get to do life and faith with, those we care about and show up for. A lot of us say our most treasured possession is our family, and that's a tremendous answer.  Yet Jesus is offering us 100x more family.  He says our true family is those we get to do faith with, the people who live together within the mystery of his passion.  Anybody that loves anything or anybody more than than the chance to do life together through Him, with Him, and in Him, is not worthy of Him.

Jesus calls us beyond our nuclear families into the family gathered around this altar of sacrifice, and around his passion.  As we suffer and die together, so we live together.  The guys I played golf with all said that going through the Journey retreat here at St. Ann has made the biggest impact on their faith, because it gave them people to do real life with through faith and through the passion of Jesus.  The guys have learned the lesson that Jesus was trying to teach the rich young man in today's Gospel?  What would it profit a man to have the whole world, but not have somebody to share it with.

What's my most treasured possession?  It's actually you, St. Ann, the people that I get to do real life and faith with.  Through you Jesus has given me 100x more than I could ever acquire on my own.  You are my most treasured possession, and Jesus' gift to me.  

What's your most treasured possession?  If we take Jesus at his word, it might be St. Ann.  How wise would we be if we really believed this?

+mj  

Can I be trusted to do my job?

Homily

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

29 September 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

Can I be trusted to do my job?

Guess what?  Everyone here today has a job!  Everyone has a role, a vocation.  By virtue of your baptism, you are each and all a priest, prophet and king!  It is out tremendous dignity to offer the sacrifice of our lives in and through the passion of Jesus Christ our High Priest, to participate in and make visible his Kingdom so that many can belong to it, and to give witness to his truth and love that defeats great evils and serves our neighbor. 

There is more. Each of us is a temple of God's love, for the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and if you have been confirmed, that Holy Spirit has been deepened, strengthened and sealed in all its fullness within you.  You have a missionary and prophetic character stamped on your soul!

There is even more.  Each of us is an integral member of the body of Christ, and no member can say to another I do not need you.  Each of you is critically important.  Each of us matters infinitely.  Each of us has a job is the most amazing mission ever attempted, the final defeat of sin and death through the passion of Jesus Christ. As the Father sent me, so I send you?  Yes, that's right, He sends you!

So, can I be trusted to do my job?

I choose to trust each and every member of of St. Ann's to do their job, and I don't ever want to know any differently.  That's my choice, now and forever as your pastor, to not give up on anyone the Lord has given me.  I not only need you to do your job.  I trust you to do your job.  Jesus first believes in you, so how can I not?  As the Father has sent Him, so He sends you!  Who am I to tell Jesus he's trusting the wrong person?  I tell Him all the time that He has the worst plan, but He doesn't budget.  He asks me to trust Him as He trusts me.  So I will.

Ned Yost taught me in 2014-15 how to trust others.  I'm a Royals nut.  Thank God we can talk about their return to the playoffs instead of the Jayhawks this weekend.  When the Royals made the playoffs for the first time in 30 year sin 2014, I wore a blue vestment with a crown above a monogrammed 'M' on the Feast of our Lady of Victory, our Lady of the Rosary.  It was the all-school Mass and the Royals were playing that day.  I asked the students who the 'M' stood for - and a third grader yelled out - Moustakas!  He was wrong - it stood for Mary - but I'll never forget it.

Anyway, Ned Yost trusted every member of those Royals championship teams to keep the line moving.  I thought Ned Yost was a terrible manager.  I was sure he was always trusting the wrong guys, and putting them in the wrong roles.  I disagreed with almost every critical decision he made.  Yet I was wrong.  Ned trusted against all odds that everyone could know their role, and do their job.  The result was a series of miraculous come back from the dead victories, because everyone kept the line moving!

It's a great metaphor for St. Ann.  I choose to trust each of you to know your role and do your job.  It's really not that hard, but I can make it so sometimes when I only trust myself, or a select few favorites.  Yet Jesus against all odds trusts me, and you, so how can I not?  He couldn't be clearer. When we show up and encourage one another in faith, we build heaven.  When we cancel or fail to show up for each other, or give bad example, we build hell.

The precepts of the Church are so easy, it's embarrassing when we don't follow them. Show up for practice every time.  Put your life on the altar. Give your best.  Pray and fast together, and restore trust through confession when trust is broken.  If we do these very simple things, we cannot fail to defeat the worst evils of our times.  St. Ann will fulfill its destiny to be light for the world and to give the fullness of life we have through Christ Jesus our Lord to each other.

Jesus says do whatever it takes to know your role and do your job.  He believe we are all prophets!  Can I be trusted to do my job?  Jesus trust you, and so do I!

+mj

Is it really about the kids?

Homily

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

22 September 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

Is it really about the kids?

For St. Ann's parish to fulfill its destiny, we must raise magnificent children.  It comes up in my prayer all the time.  It's our namesake legacy, for St. Ann was the mother of a child whose soul magnified the Lord!  St. Ann is the grandmother of Jesus, who gave us his little disciples, his children, the glory that He has with His Father in heaven.  What a compelling word - magnanimity - greatness of soul!  St. Ann's must not fail to raise the most magnificent children.  This includes children of all ages, for Jesus teaches so clearly, that unless each and all of us turn and becomes as a child - small, vulnerable and dependent - we will not enter the kingdom of heaven.  If we fail to see God and ourselves in our children, we will lose our souls.

It's easy to say it's all about the kids, but is this what St. Ann's is really known for, and what do we mean when we talk about raising magnanimous children.  It can't be about spoiling them, or only about insulating them from how life really is.  It has to be about teaching them courage by example, for greatness of soul, magnanimity, is the precise fruit of the passion of Jesus, His suffering and death.  The new, full, abundant and eternal life offered ultimately through Jesus Christ - true holiness and greatness - comes only through a tenacious participation in his paschal mystery.

Jesus is always inviting us his little ones into his passion.  But like the first disciples, we still don't get it.  We don't understand, and are reduced to silence in the face of His passion.  Instead of being meaner than hell, we too easily get scared to death.  When was the last time I faced adversity, suffering and danger with tenacity?  In our fallen world, everyone has to go through hell, one way or another, and nobody gets out of here alive.  So Jesus is always inviting us into His passion, and away from our attachments to wealth, power, pleasure and honor.  He begs us not to pass onto our children our politicking and judging, our ways of escaping, avoiding or hiding from life as it really is.  He teaches us courage, and invites us to be the martyrs of this generation, for true peace only comes when heroes are living dangerously, overcoming evil with good and hatred with love and despair with courage.

This is how a human soul is made magnanimous, through the passion of Jesus Christ.  If we dare to raise magnanimous children, we should protect them from as many evils as we can, but the safest thing we can do for them is to teach them to live courageously in the face of danger.  Only then can we say that St. Ann's is really about the kids.  

+mj

Do I play to win or lose?

Homily

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

15 September 2024

St. Ann's Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

Do I play to win or lose? 

The answer is yes!

In Jesus, every answer is yes!  Whenever his enemies try to trap him, Jesus escapes by turning questions on their heads, by exposing the one-sidedness of human politicking.  Jesus is a master teacher at how to see the fullness of reality, and to live in that fullness, rather than being trapped by narrow thinking.  He says to Peter - you are thinking way too small, as fallen human beings do, not as God does.

In Jesus the answer is always yes!  For us fallen creatures, its easier to make quick judgments based on what I think is fair.  Those judgments are always imperfect because my perspective is imperfect.  So I resort to politicking, quick judgments of who is in or out, who is right or wrong, who is better or worse.  I reduce reality to either/or and win/lose scenarios that are within my control. Yet reality is way more than this.  Jesus the master teacher instructs us in paradox, parables and mystery, for the fullness of reality is only approached in this way.

The paradoxes of Jesus draw us into His wisdom, the ability to see reality more deeply and fully, in color and in contrast.  What is more, the author of life teaches us how to lives; again, not according to what I can control but by how much mystery I can embrace.

Do I play to win or lose?  My grandpa always told my uncles after they lost a game that losing is a great teacher, that one learns more from losing than from winning.  My uncles were quick to retort that they wanted to be dumb, because winning is more fun!  That's all of us I'm afraid - all we want to do is win, win, win no matter what.  Yet this is not the attitude of our Lord.  He teaches instead that only those who know how to lose, for loss and suffering is an inevitable part of reality, will enter his paschal mystery, the process by which ultimate victories over sin and death are won.

Jesus teaches us to play with courage and unselfishness, but that doesn't always translate into easy wins. Yet it places our lives within his paschal mystery, so that only as we first suffer and die together, will we also live together.

So back to the question.  Do I play to win or lose?  The answer is yes!  Am I saved by faith or works?  The answer is yes!  Should I be poor or rich?  The answer is yes!  Should I cry or laugh?  The answer is yes!  Should I die or live?  The answer in Jesus is always yes.  Every yes finds its perfection in him.  

To win games, do you need to be good at offense, defense, or special teams?  The answer is yes!  Jesus plays offense, attacking sin with tenacity and venom, spurring us on to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.  Jesus knows how to play defense, fasting forty days in the desert so as to show us how to deny the evil one access to our souls!  Jesus is best at special teams, surrendering with mercy to the evil that has to be transformed by love into the energy and ground of the Resurrection.  

Whatever the moment requires, Jesus is ready to say yes to reality as it presents itself!  So should I fight or surrender?  You know the answer!  The answer is yes.  I see this is a priest all the time.  People will fight for their lives and for those they love with a fierce love. Still, there comes a moment for all of us to know what I will die for, and to choose death before it can choose us, saying precisely with Jesus - into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit.  

So at the same time, in real life, in the fullness of reality, we are fighting and surrendering, winning and losing, receiving and giving, crying and laughing.  Happy are those who can embrace reality, and what life requires at each moment, for they are truly children of God, and the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.  

Should I play to win or lose?  Don't think narrowly as human beings do.  In Jesus, the answer is yes!

+mj

Go for seven

Homily

Nuptial Wedding Mass of Max McElroy and Madilynn Charles

Our Lady of Sorrows, KCMO

7 September 2024

Saturday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

+BVM

AMDG

Go for seven.

Normally, when I say go for seven, people think of football. Madi - I know you've been watching more football, since you're about to marry a sports nut.  Maybe even you think that going for seven is a football metaphor.  It could be, and that could be a great homily about how to win championships, but I'm not going there.  Not even on a college football Saturday, not even in Kansas City, where Patrick, Travis and Taylor are treated like gods.

Believe it or not, going for seven is not about how many kids the church wants you to have either. Seven would be a great blessing, and if that's God's will, then go for it.  But that's not what I mean when I tell you to go for seven.

Go for the seven sorrows of Mary.  That's the seven to go for.

For whatever reason, Max and Madi, you have chosen to celebrate what could well be the happiest day of your life in a place dedicated to the sorrows of Mary.  An interesting choice, as was the idea for Jayhawks to get married in Missouri, but maybe life is just a little bit harder in misery, and here's a good place to celebrate Our Lady's Sorrows.  But what do these have to do with a wedding?

The sorrows of Mary have everything to do with happiness.  You know the Beatitudes - Blessed and happy are those who are weeping, for one day they shall laugh. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  It is in the devotion and tradition of our faith to pray through the joys and sorrows of life together. Only as we cry together do we also laugh together. Only if we suffer and die together, will we truly live together.

Jesus took on our flesh so that He could feel with us and for us everything contained in the human experience.  The passions of his sacred heart are reflected in his closest and best disciple, our Blessed Mother, and in the affairs of her Immaculate Heart.  So we embrace with devotion the suffering of our Mother in this Church, knowing that the fullness of life and happiness lies on the other side of a shared experience of suffering and death.  Here we mark the seven sorrows of Mary - the prophecy that her heart would be laid open for our sake.  We feel her anguish as a refugee, as one who lost her son for a time, as one who stayed with him in his scourging, crucifixion and being captured by death.  We celebrate here that although Mary's heart was pure, it was not sanitized from the human experience.

This is precisely that shared experience of life as it really is that you pledge to each other today.  In good and evil, for better or worse, no matter what, we are playing for keeps until I have nothing left to give.  That is the passion of Jesus, and the passion of our Lady, played out in the story of your passion for each other.  

Go for seven,  If you embrace the seven sorrows of Mary, and only if, you can be confident that you will also share in her seven everlasting joys.  The joy of conceiving new life, sharing the news with family and friends, seeing the face of God in your newborn child and God willing, in your children's children.  Seeing your child find the meaning of their life through their faith, and living a story where they too defy all odds and come back from the dead.  Receiving this fulfillment of all your desire in the kingdom of heaven.  

Blessed are those who mourn, for one day they shall laugh.  Today we celebrate the joining of your two hearts, knowing that the hearts that bleed and break and burn together, also play, and dance and sing together.  

How do your hearts become one?  That's right - by going for seven.  When you call down the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit upon each other shortly, you do something so powerful even the Pope can't do it.  You are ministers of the sacrament, the sign, the mystery of marriage, by which two people become one flesh.  Four gifts for your head - wisdom, understanding, knowledge and counsel - that you may see and think about human and divine things as God does.  Three for your heart, that you might live with courage, reverence and childlike wonder.  Go for seven, for the love that is the who spirit is creative, and makes the two of you a new reality!

Go for seven.  Thank you for allowing us to see God's desire to be with us and for us in a nuptial way, through the celebration of your sacrament in the context of this Mass.  I speak on behalf of all of us, we are so fortunate to support you and be inspired by you, as you go for seven!

+mj