overcome evil through communion

Homily
3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time A
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas
27 January 2019
AMDG +JMJ +m

If you're going through hell, keep going!

This quip from Winston Churchill describes how I'm feeling today.  It's been a helluva week, so much so that I want to say 'to hell with it.'

Yet for people of faith, quitting and discouragement are never options. Evil must always be met with opposition and determination.  So even though I'm not feeling it - and even though this slogan didn't work for the Chiefs last week - I say LETS ROLL!

What evil am I talking about?

Well, first this week, the witness of tens of thousands of joyful pro-life pilgrims at the March for Life in DC on the 46th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision was ignored by all the major media outlets.  That is no surprise and nothing new.  But this year, the normal news void was filled by a trumped-up (pun intended) narrative of hatred between Catholic school boys from Kentucky with MAGA hats and adult minorities.  So not only were the unborn again completely ignored and forgotten, a story of justice and love was flipped into the last thing the world needs - another fake news story of intolerance and hate.

What was celebrated last week instead of life?  That's right - death.  New York state greatly expanded abortion last week, making it ok for even a non-doctor to rip apart a viable baby up to and including the moment of birth.  New York's Catholic governor, a member of our Catholic family, led his state in the celebration of this horrific and disgusting evil.  Lord have mercy on us.

In case you were wondering, the week got worse from there.

Friday, Archbishop Naumann, after an independent law firm review of 1000+ clergy files spanning 75 years, released all at once the names of 22 priests with credible accusations of sexual abuse against minors in our Archdiocese. This represents 2% of priests during those 75 years.  It includes Fr. Don Redmond and Fr. Dennis Schmitz who both served at one point here at St. Lawrence.  Thankfully, none of those priests are in active ministry and there have not been any new substantiated allegations against minors in the last two decades.  Still, the report, which needed to be made for accountability and transparency, reminds us again that terrible evils were committed by the shepherds of the Church  There is a responsibility to pay for and correct and overcome these evils that must be met.

That was all bad enough.  Then this morning I awoke to news of religious violence in the Philippines.  Two bombs went off during Mass killing dozens and injuring many more.  At Mass, just like the one we are celebrating now.

Did I miss anything?  Oh yea, the Chiefs lost to the Patriots. That stunk too, and it didn't even make the top 5 this week. 

All this bad news threatens to drown out one of my favorite days in our Church.  Pope Francis celebrated Mass for hundreds of thousands in Panama at the World Youth Days, which showcase the vibrancy and universality of the Catholic Church.  I have attended 5 world youth days, and the ones in Denver and Paris are where I received signs to become a priest.  Still, I am struggling to celebrate today

I guess I could have ignored all this bad news and pretend like it doesn't affect us today at St. Lawrence.  Yet St. Paul in our second reading would beg to differ.  He presses us to realize not how isolated and inoculated we are, but how connected we are.  St. Paul brings home what it really means for us to be the body of Christ.  We are connected, and our unity, communion and intimacy could not run any deeper, invited as we are to become what we receive as we gnaw on Jesus' body and drink his blood.

The Eucharist is either the deepest and more real of all connections, or it is nothing.  There's nothing like it before, and nothing to follow after, that could be greater or more important.  And this connection we have as Christ's body is the starting point for answering this week's pivotal question - are you needed?

Are you needed?  Our first temptation might be to answer based on whether we have anything unique to offer.  St. Paul would scold us for thinking this way.  Are you needed?  St. Paul answers with a resounding YES!  You are a part of Christ's body, so you are needed because you are connected.  And no part of the body can say to another part - I do not need you. 

Nothing poisons the body of Christ faster than someone saying I am not connected and do not belong - that I do not need anyone and that I can do it better on my own.  Such self-reliance and privacy are the enemies of our communion.  Transparency and vulnerability are our friends.  We are needed because we are connected, so much so that when one part suffers, all suffer, and when one part rejoices, the whole body rejoices.

All the evils I mentioned at the start of this homily are due to the hatred and fear born of separation.  Those same evils are overcome through connection. Those same evils are more powerfully vanquished right here, right now, in the fullness of connection that is the Eucharist.  It is true that the world being destroyed by isolation will finally be saved in and through the ultimate connection that is the Eucharist.

To be Catholic is to be connected and to believe that the whole world will be saved through the connection we are here to celebrate.

Which is why your presence here today is needed.  You are needed.  There is nothing more important than our communion with God and each other.  Your simply being here counts a great deal in the war between connection and brokenness, between communion and isolation.

St. Paul has something more to say. He also tells us to give highest attention to the weakest members in the body. Did you catch that in the reading?  It's really a radical strategy, and one few of us dare to try.  Most of us would like to be needed because we highlight our strengths and mask our vulnerabilities.  St. Paul says the opposite - we will get stronger only insofar as we lead with transparency and vulnerability.

I am still learning this lesson the hard way.  A few years ago, there was a lady in my last parish that I got tired of visiting.  She was 60 years old, with terminal cancer, and when I first saw her she was given 7-10 days on hospice to live.  Yet this woman would not die.  She wasn't afraid and was right with God and everyone and ready to die, but the Lord wouldn't take her.  Neither of us could understand it. 

So what did I do when I got tired of visiting her?  I complained to God.  Great idea, Fr. Mitchel. Brilliant move.  Boy did I regret that complaint.  God shot back at me in a voice that I could only recognize as His - 'why are you tired of visiting her?  What if I want her to remain so that you will get over your stubborn selfishness?' Well, that answer made me really mad, but God was showing me something important.  That I needed this woman more than she needed me. That I was the weak one, not her, and that God was using her to teach me to lead with weakness, for the sake of His body.

So you and I are needed because we are connected, but what is most needed, and what will make us the most connected, is our transparency and vulnerability.  What kind of a Catholic family would we have here at St. Lawrence if each one of us today gave first attention to our weaknesses? What if we all said to each other - what do I need to improve upon today?  Strengths and talents are important in our body, but St. Paul has it right. Our greatest connectedness results when we lead with the transparency and vulnerability we see on the cross.

No one who hides his weaknesses will get stronger.  Ignoring problems doesn't make them go away.  In the end, ignoring our weaknesses will kills us.  A lack of transparency and vulnerability is killing the world, as we see in this week's news, starting with the most defenseless members of our body.  Those who should be given the highest honor are being discarded.

So Jesus begins his ministry in the Gospel today by giving the weak the highest honor.  He gives attention first to the poor and imprisoned and sick, and in so doing shows his body that we are the weak ones, not them.  Following Jesus in this way saves us all from the one disease that is sure to kill us - saying that I don't need anyone - I can do it better on my own.

Isolation is death.  So you are needed because you are connected. What is needed most is your vulnerability and transparency in this deepest of connections, as we receive the body that we become in today's Eucharist.  Your vulnerability and transparency here is what will ultimately win the war between life and death. 

Jesus over Chiefs

Homily
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time C
20 January 2018
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas.

How's your marriage going? Welcome to the first pivotal question of this semester. 

Now I know, I know.  Only 50% of us in this room are currently in a marriage to another person, a spouse.  That number is probably even less here at KU.  I don't mean to leave 50% or more of the room out of this homily. 

In asking how is your marriage going, I'm asking about your marriage to God.  Yes, that's right, your marriage to Christ.  How's your marriage going - the marriage that is celebrated right here and right now, and consummated as Jesus the eternal bridegroom becomes no longer two, but one flesh with us, as we eat his flesh and drink his blood.  That's the marriage I'm talking about.  How's that marriage going?

You see, not just half of us, but all of us, are called to be married.  Marriage is a huge deal, which is why Jesus performs the first of his signs at a wedding in Cana. This first sign of Jesus is not a warmup to his other signs.  This first sign might outwardly look like a trivial use of Jesus' power, a sign he reluctantly performs after his mom nags him to keep everyone drunk.  Yet this first sign of Jesus is no less significant than Jesus's final sign in the Gospel of John, the raising of Lazarus.  No, this first sign is the archetype of all signs, and a powerful announcement that we are all destined to be in a marriage that will always be celebrated and will never run out.

So how is that marriage going, the one between you and Jesus?

Now some of you might feel more married to the Chiefs right now.  There has been a definitely falling in love, and a dramatic coming together of the Chiefs and their city and fans.  I don't know who is the bride and who is the groom in this scenario, but after a long exile, this marriage is on fire.  Still, it pales to the marriage that Isaiah prophesies about in the first reading, the marriage between God and his people that will be consummated when the Israelites come out of centuries of exile, of being out of favor and out of love.  Nothing the Chiefs can inspire today could compare with that it would be like for a nation to come out of occupation and be married again to their homeland.

Still greater, however, is the marriage between Christ and his Church.  Which is why we never move or cancel Mass for a Chiefs game, no matter how much we love the Chiefs.  Remember two years ago when KU played Villanova in the Final Four, right during our most solemn celebration, the Easter Vigil?  Nobody is a bigger fan than I am of sports, and still I hardly remembered while celebrating Jesus' resurrection that KU was playing. There is just no comparison.  Shame on me if there is.  We all know that loving the Jayhawks in no substitute for this marriage which is for everyone and destined to never run out.

That is not to say, of course, that I will be celebrating the 5pm Mass tonight when the Chiefs play the Patriots for the AFC Championship, in an epic game the likes of which Kansas City hasn't seen in decades.  Even though there is no comparison between Mass and the Chiefs, every once in awhile my spouse, the Church, can say 'honey, you can go to the game.'  There will be a holier priest than I, our alumnus Fr. Vince Huber, celebrating the 5pm.  Sports and religion is not always a either/or zero sum game.  Sometimes you can do both.

Yet we never cancel or move Mass.  That's the rule.  And it's a great one.  Because as Jesus shows in his first sign, there is nothing more important than marriage.  And there is no more important marriage than the one in which we participate right here, right now.

We can marry the Chiefs for a moment.  We can consummate a marriage with a spouse and family for a lifetime.  Yet the ground of all marriage, of two becoming completely one, is the saying of Jesus that unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.  Yet if you are no longer two but one with me, you have eternal life.

You see for Jesus and his mother, it's not really about keeping people drunk at the party.  No, for them, marriage is a matter of life and death.  For unless these two reverse the great divorce between God and our first parents, Adam and Eve, we will all die.  Yes, that's right, unless we are married, we will all die.  Yet if we are married to Christ, through the intercession of his mother, we will live.

So there is nothing more important than marriage.  It's always a matter of life and death. So when the wine runs out at this wedding, it's a huge deal.  If everyone goes home early, they die.  Which is why Jesus makes an absurd amount of wine, as a sign that the wine that is ultimately Him, joined to his saving sacrifice at the Last Supper, will never run out.  At Mass we are invited to the new Cana, to receive the wine that is Jesus that will never run out.

I need this wine badly. So do you.  It's easy probably, to make fun of the couple that didn't make enough wine. But that couple is you and me.  We all run out of wine.  The demands of love are always too much for us.  We always run out of wine, no matter how hard we try not to. And that's ok. Jesus knew we would, which is why he is here today.

He is here so that we don't quit.  He is here so that we don't run out.  He is here so that we don't go home early.  He is here to offer marriage to us, lest we die.

Which is why we never cancel or move Mass.  For long after the Chiefs party has ended, and long after our love for each other has fallen short, the wine that is Jesus will still be here. It will always be here.  The groom has promised to always meet us here.

So - how is that marriage going?