who do you trust?

Homily

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time BI

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

31 January 2021

AMDG +JMJ +m

Who do I trust?

One thing is for sure.  Only fools trust themselves.  Scripture could not be more clear.  There are too many things I can't know about myself, too many things I can't see nor can I fix.  To learn, to grow, and to lay hold of the gift of my life, I have to trust in someone else.

But who do I trust?

Before I venture an answer, I want to lay the conditions for trusting another.

First of all, they have to be able to see me, and to know things about me I can't know about myself.  My eyes point outward, and even with mirrors there's so much I can't see.  I am a blind spot to myself, in so many ways.  Is there someone else who can see and know me.

Secondly, trust is born in love.  Is there someone who desires my good for my own sake.  Is there someone who won't manipulate or use me, and love me more than I can love myself?

Finally, is there someone who can say something to me that will make a difference?  Is there someone who can tell me something I don't already know and could never discover?

That's it.  If you don't have someone who can see you, know you, love you, and speak something new to you, there's no reason to trust.

Yet even then, even if there is somebody, I won't trust unless I want to change.  If I am comfortable in my distraction and division, I'll just go with what I know.  St. Paul speaking 2000 years ago, long before smart phone notifications and the 24 hour fake news cycle, describes life as one big distraction!  Can I get an Amen to that?

So also with division.  What have you do to with us, Jesus of Nazareth. I know who you are!  Who is us?  There's one man talking, right?  Is it me or we?  The man is scattered, confused, divided, and so am I.  Jesus can speak a new word that makes a difference, one that heals division.

What is this?  A new teaching, with authority. It's something I have never heard before, a voice of wisdom, love and authority.  Yet do I even want to trust this voice?

I'm blessed with a spiritual director who is the voice of Jesus for me.  I obey him, not because I have to, but because I trust him.  I trust that he sees me, knows me, loves me and can say something new to me that makes a difference.  When I excuse and rationalize my distraction and division, he speaks with authority.  What the hell are you thinking?  How can you be so stupid?

If I want to change, to learn, to grow and to lay hold of the gift of my life, I have to trust someone other than myself.  Trust is not easy, but it's necessary.

Do you even want to trust?  If so, who do you trust?

what time is it?

Homily

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time B

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

24 January 2021

AMDG +JMJ +m

What time is it?  The time is now.  That's always true.  It's true literally, of course. What time is it now?  it's now now.  Yet it's just as true in the spiritual and moral sense.  When is the time of repentance and conversion?  Of course it's not limited to Advent or Lent.  The time is now.

The time we are in right now is ordinary.  Yet ordinary is not boring, unless I make it so. Quite the opposite, it's the best time to put our lives in order.  It's about making resolutions and forming habits in response to the Gospel that substantially change our lives.  Ordinary time is about increasing our freedom to live beautifully and differently.  It's true that in Ordinary time we do not highlight any particular piece of the Christian mystery.  Yet Pope Francis declared this 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time as Word of God Sunday.  It's an urgent call to take a new journey through the Good News, and to translate that encounter into doing the will of God.

This last week, for example, was not ordinary!  A practicing Catholic was inaugurated as President of the United States, for only the second time in history.  History is always being made, yet it always comes with the urgency and challenge of the moment.   President Biden stands publicly athwart of essential, fundamental, life-giving moral teaching of his own Church, regarding the sanctity of life, the definition of marriage and the meaning of sexuality.  For his own good, and the good of all, the Church cannot and will not stop seeking his conversion on these issues.  Guess what?  There's nothing new here.  We live in urgent, dramatic times. We always have, and we always will!  So we pray for, support and challenge each other to get better.  Now is the time, an urgent time for conversion and repentance.

Jonah was sent to challenge the morality of the secular society of his enemies.  He hated it.  He tried to excuse, avoid, escape, complain and procrastinate in the mission that came with the gift of his life.  His is like me.  Yet in the word of God, the time is always now!  The apostles instead fulfilled the call of St. Paul in our 2nd reading to be completely free and detached.  They heard the word of God in the voice of Jesus, and put that word into practice.

My job, and yours if you choose to accept it, is to receive the mission that comes along with the gift of your life.  You have a problem to solve.  You have a life to touch.  You have a path of penance and conversion to walk.  So do I. Now is the urgent time for me to put the word of God into practice.  Now is the time for me to set aside obsessions and excuses, and to order my days aright.

The time is now.

who is pursuing you?

 Homily

Solemnity of the Epiphany

3 January 2020

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG +JMJ +m

Who is pursuing me?

I'm going into this year wanting to be more present, more available.  When I dare ask people how I can get better, they usually say that they want to spend time and get to know me and be known by me.  It's very simple.  People want their father to be around.  Love is spelled t-i-m-e and h-e-r-e not g-o-n-e and b-u-s-y.

I think God is trying to get to my heart through the people he has given me to serve.  I don't know why He wants my heart.  It's who He is, I guess.   He wants yours too.  He will stop at nothing to get it.  

He pursues the hearts of the magi by teasing their minds.  It's a fantastic story, the story of Epiphany.  God lets Himself be pursued through the guidance of a star.  The magi are seekers, not skeptics.  They know that both faith and reason together lead one to the fullness of truth.  They are open. They are curious.  They are eager.  

Why does the universe exist if it is not necessary?  Why is there so much intelligibility to reality, so much mind embedded in nature?  Why does there seem to be a relationship and a story at the heart of things?

Herod is a skeptic.  He lives out of fear and control.  He knows well that space that we can all find ourselves in.  Skeptics take things for granted, are selfish in how they approach learning, and lose zeal for the great adventure of discovering the heart of things.

The magi want to know. God lets Himself be pursued by their minds so that He can eventually pursue their hearts.  When He finds them, the relationship of love that lies at the heart of all reality is revealed in the beautiful face of Jesus.  Sciences leads to worship, and worship reveals the true meaning of science.  It's not an either/or, it's a fascinating both/and.

The fourfold meaning of Christmas, that God want to pursue us by revealing Himself in our hearts, our families, our Churches and in our world.

Those who are open to his revelation will find a neat Christmas trick.  That in being a seeker, not a skeptic, you are the one being pursued by love Incarnate..

Who is pursuing you?