the word made flesh

Homily
3rd Day of Christmas IIB
Feast of St. John, Apostle
27 December 2017
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

The Church today celebrates Christmas especially with St. John, the beloved disciple.  It is good that another apostle appears as a special friend and help during Christmas alongside our Blessed Mother.  St. John wrote the Gospel chosen for Christmas Mass during the day - codifying the language of Word made Flesh as perhaps the Church's most apt description of the mystery of the Incarnation.

Today's Gospel selection interestingly zeroes in on St. John's faith in the empty tomb, reminding us even in the heart of the Christmas season of the necessary connections between faith in the Incarnation and faith in the Resurrection.  The first mystery leads ultimately nowhere new without the second.  John wrote about the first.  He was a witness to the second. 

John's close association with Mary makes him a beautiful friend as the Church tries to engage the Christmas mystery through the body, heart, eyes and mind of our pre-eminent member, our dear mother.  As the Lord seeks a place to be born in the Church this Christmas, it is so fruitful to remember John taking the Mother of God under his roof right in the midst of the paschal mystery.  It is no accident that this special relationship with the spouse of the Holy Spirit gave rise to the deepest and most spiritual contemplation of the Word Made Flesh. 

May John help us deepen our contemplation of Christmas.  

the most certain visit

Homily
Gaudete Sunday - 3rd Sunday of Advent
17 December 2017
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Are you ready for Christmas?  I bet this question caused some guilt and anxiety in you.  I pray that you don't hate this question as much as I do.  If you were to ask me the same question, I would resent your having asked it.  No, I'm not ready for Christmas.  I'm not even close - practically, spiritually, emotionally - the whole bit.  I'm not trying to be a scrooge, but it's hard to be ready for Christmas.  It's a hard question posed to us by the Church and by the great prophet John the Baptist on this Gaudete Sunday, the 3rd Sunday of Advent.

It doesn't help that pink Sunday falls just 8 days before Christmas this year.  Pink Sunday is supposed to be about rejoicing that the Lord is drawing ever nearer.  Just as often, and perhaps moreso, it's a painful reminder of what we already know to be true - we're not ready, and the chance that this Christmas will pass without it being our best Christmas is real.  Then the guilt can set in . . cause we know we cannot let this Christmas pass us by without anything changing in our heart.

Gaudete Sunday is a gift to us, not a threat . . so let's spend a bit of time getting this right, at least.  John the Baptist reminds us that of all the visiting that we are preparing for, the visit of the Lord is the most sure and the most important.  Rejoice in the Lord, always - again, I say rejoice - the Lord is near!  More certain than any other visit we make or receive this year, the visit of the Lord on the door of our hearts, his begging to be born in you and me, is the most dramatic and the most certain.  This is incomparably great news, and the proper response is not one of anxiety or fear, but one of joy.  The Church begs us to get this spiritual attitude right as we enter the home stretch of our Christmas preparations.

The Lord's visit this year at Christmas will not me that things are about to outwardly go perfectly for us.  The Lord's visit does not mean that we will win the lottery, nor does it mean that all of our problems will magically be whisked away. It does mean that everything that it means to be human is familiar to the Lord, and everything matters.  Watch It's a Wonderful Life if you don't believe me.  The Incarnation of Jesus, and His ensuing paschal mystery, ensure that nothing that happens to us is outside of God's providence or grace.  Jesus is present to everything, and everything matters.  This is the good news of Christmas for which we prepare.

More personally for you and me, Jesus wants to visit each one of us precisely where the prophet Isaiah says He will come.  Where is that place?  It is where we are brokenhearted or trapped.  Jesus wishes to be born in the weakest and smallest place in our hearts.  He begs us to allow Him to be born there this Christmas.  For if we know anything about the story of Bethlehem, the remaking of the world from the inside out begins very small.  Will you allow Jesus to visit you, and be born, in the smallest place of your heart?  You have 8 more days to figure it out.

The very thought that Jesus wants to be born in that place in your heart, is cause for great rejoicing.  St. Paul can confidently say then, that no matter what evils or darkness befall us, Jesus is present to all.  Pure religion is less about what you do and more about who you are with.  St. Paul leaves us with the proper spiritual attitude in these finals days of Advent - Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.  In all things give thanks!

who comes to a wedding

Homily
Nuptial Mass of Jordan McEntee and Justin Schmitz
St. Michael the Archangel Leawood, KS
16 December 2017
Saturday of the 2nd Week of Advent IIB

Justin and Jordan, you have invited the chaplain at KU to give your wedding homily.  So I hope you are expecting a homily wrapped in crimson and in blue.  So here it is, with no apologies in the least to anyone who doesn't like KU.

Justin and Jordan, this crimson and blue homily will actually be your fault, you see.  For you picked today's Gospel, not me.  Let's look at the scene of Cana together.  A lack of crimson wine is the problem at hand.  Jesus turns water into wine, and when Jesus and wine get together, a superabundance of divine love is present.  Jesus, divine love, and a lot of the very best wine foreshadow the crimson superabundant gift of Christ's own blood, made present through wine by the crimson fire of the Holy Spirit.  When the Holy Spirit shows up, guess who else is there?  Well, lookee here - it is the spouse of the Holy Spirit, a lady more glorious than the blue of the heavens, our blessed Mother, who is there. A crimson and blue scene indeed.  All this at a wedding, no less.  And dare I say that everything present at Cana, is even more present here.

Mom!  Are you seriously asking me to get involved in a wedding?  My first sign should be performed at a wedding?  I don't think this is a good idea.  You're killing me, mom.  It's fun listening to Jesus tease and test his mom, isn't it?  You can almost feel Mary's wink to her Son as she answer's Her Son's challenge with her last 5 recorded words of scripture.  Do whatever He tells you.  Yes, that's right.  Mary's last recorded words in scripture are said at a wedding.  Do whatever He tells you.  Yes, my son, here is where we are most needed, so this is where we will always be.  The recreation of the world from the inside out begins with the Holy Family.  So we will show up to help, not only today but everyday, not in small way but with a big superabundance of divine love and grace, at every wedding to which we are invited.  But mom, do we have to show up at Justin and Jordan's wedding?  Yes, son, we do and we will.  We will show up at Justin and Jordan's wedding.  You in crimson and I in blue.  We are here, for the start of this little holy family, from where the recreation of the world is destined to happen.

Justin and Jordan, you have invited Jesus and Mary to your wedding.  Good call.  Smart kids, you are! They are most certainly here, not taking anything away from your love for each other or the love of your family and friends for you, but elevating and transforming all the human love that we can muster, 6 jars worth filled to the brim with water, into wine, into the mystery of the divine love and divine plan.  So after vowing your human love to each other, you immediately allow that love to be subsumed into the mystical marriage of Christ the eternal bridegroom to us, his bride, the Church, and you proclaim immediately that your marriage is for nought if it is not a sacrament of Christ's marriage to His bride the church. 

My friends, the most unique beauty of a Catholic Mass is that the first thing that hits the lips of a newly married couple is not cake or champagne, nor even the lips of one's own spouse, but is the body and blood of our eternal spouse, Jesus.  Justin and Jordan, your great love for each other dissolves into His love for His bride, like a drop of water into the wine of the chalice.  In the words of the Mass we rarely mention you but keep talking about Him. And this is good!  For to make today truly your day, we must celebrate that of all the places in the world where Christ wants his love to be, starting at Cana and continuing to today, he wants His love to be here, at the heart of your marriage, at your wedding. That is what makes this wedding truly yours, that Jesus is here.  And by turning first to Jesus in the Eucharist you surrender to the way Jesus chooses His disciples.  It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will last.  By turning to Jesus first in the Eucharist as a married couple, you dare to answer his most challenging question:  Can you drink the chalice that I will drink?  Justin and Jordan, your great faith is about to empower the greatest 'yes' of your entire lives. Yes, Lord, we can drink of the chalice of which you drink.

Holy moly!  All this is pretty scary, right?  We better enlist reinforcements, lest the gravity of the moment before you scares you away.  Well, lookee here.  You already thought of that too.  Right after you receive the crimson blood of the Eucharist, the second thing you will do as a married couple is to consecrate your marriage to the lady dressed in blue.  Nice.  Smart kids, you are.  I am loving this crimson and blue wedding.  Thank you as well, Justin and Jordan, for inviting Mary to your wedding and for entrusting your marriage to the one who was not afraid to let it be done to her according to His word.

So I happily finish this homily using the final words of Mary and the first words of Pope John Paul II, whose crimson love of God entrusted totally to the lady dressed in blue inspired many of the vocations present in this Church today, including mine.  Justin and Jordan, I leave you with these words - Mary's last and John Paul II's first.  Do whatever He tells you.  And do not be afraid.

tell him to mess with your mess

Homily
1st Sunday of Advent B
3 December 2017
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings

You call me Father Mitchel.  I am humbled by that.  I want to be a great father.  I want to be worthy of that title.  I want to shepherd the best Catholic family the world has ever seen.

Yet try as I might I can't do it.  I need help.  I need God.  I can't do it without him.  It won't happen unless he does it within me.  To be a great father I need God to come closer, and to come sooner.  I need to have my best Advent.  Do you too?

The truth is that not only am I not a great father, I'm first of all a lousy son and a lousy brother.  To be a great father you have to put in the work and spend a ton of time with your family.  You have to put them first and sacrifice your own desires.  You have to build trust and vulnerability and do a ton of listening.  I do none of these things.  I am very prideful and selfish.  I am addicted to control, honor and pleasure.  I take my dad and siblings for granted.  And left to myself, I will not change.  I need help.  I want to be a great father, but not enough to first be a great son and a great brother.

My favorite question that gets asked here at St. Lawrence is this: what are you struggling with right now?  It's my favorite question because it names the human condition accurately.  We are all struggling with something, and the less we hide it, the better off we are.  Life is hard, and that's ok.  Our student leaders, who rarely wallow in self-pity or discouragement, but are super-fun and joyful people, when asked if they struggle significantly with body image, anxiety, loneliness, pornography, laziness, just to name a few, report that they struggle a lot.  And that's ok.  It's normal to struggle, and you're not alone.  This doesn't mean that life sucks or isn't worth living.  Not at all.  But it names the reality of original sin.  Life is amazing, but it's also hard.  It's both.  And we don't have to pretend otherwise.  We all participate in the dysfunction.  People who struggle are never alone.  We are all addicted to something that enslaves us, and we are all powerless to change.

But believe it or not, that's not bad news.  If everyone was ok, we wouldn't need each other.  Much less would we need God.  Yet it's good to need each other and to need God.  Self-sufficiency and self-improvement and do it yourself are boring.  Needing be loved and to love makes for much better stories.  We are made for relationship and love and dependence.  That good news of Advent is that the Lord, who is like us in all thing but who alone can rescue all from the dysfunction, is near.  He is coming, especially to those who watch and wait for him.  Advent is begging Jesus to come closer, and to come sooner, and actually meaning it.

Don't fear the Lord's coming into your life.  That's backwards.  Knock it off.  Our prayer of Advent is the opposite.  Instead of telling God we're not ready, that we need more time to fix ourselves, we trade this nonsense to beg God to get down here like he promised and to do something. Right here and right now.

Yes, that's right.  In Advent we tell God to hurry the hell up, and to mess with our lives as much as possible.  Cause what we're doing now isn't working.  Quit tinkering with your self-improvement projects.  Instead have the guts to pray a good Advent.  Tell God you need him.  Tell him you can't do it without him.  Tell him that what you're most afraid of is that he will leave you to your own devices.  Tell him he is welcome to mess with your mess.  Tell him to come closer, and to come sooner, and actually mean it.  Amen.