will you hold me?

Homily

Christmas 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

25 December 2022

AMDG

What do I want for Christmas?

I invite you tonight to be bold, aggressive even, if what you dare to ask God.  Can we all agree that this Christmas is too important to approach with a tepid faith, and measured expectations?  If I don't dare faith this Christmas, when will I ever?

A couple years ago I confessed in my Christmas homily that for Christmas I wanted someone to hold me.  It didn't work.  A lot of people felt sorry for me. I got a lot of pity hugs.  .

It's still what I want for Christmas.  I think it's what we all want.  It's the first need and desire we all have, the first question from every baby that enters the world.  It's the question that perhaps makes us most human.  Most importantly, it's what Jesus wants for Christmas, as we mark the mystery of His taking on flesh just like us.  

Even if you aren't here tonight to ask boldly for what you want for Christmas, Jesus is.  He is here to dare you to answer the pivotal question of Christmas - will you hold me?

At the moment of our birth, our desire and need are the same.  So also tonight want and need are blurred in the mystery and paradox of Christmas.  Jesus disguises His desire for you as need.  He helps tonight by being helpless.  He loves you by begging your love.   And on this ridiculous night, He is just getting started.  He feeds the world by getting eaten.  He finds us by hiding from us.  He restores life by getting Himself killed.  He crushes the enemy by becoming as weak as possible - by being poor and naked, and homeless and cold and forsaken, ad nauseum unto infinity.  Jesus makes sense of our world by becoming an absolute joke on this most ridiculous of nights.

Jesus reveals His desire to save the world disguised as need in the ultimate Christmas question - will you hold me?  Yet the scene in Bethlehem only sets the stage for Jesus' most stupid move ever.  He is here to bet all of Christmas on your answer to the question, and yours alone.

Try to talk Jesus out of this absurd strategy if you can, then let me know how it goes for you.  I have no idea how my holding Jesus makes any difference. I have no idea how His begging for my touch saves the world.  Don't ask me!  Ask Him!  He is right here, and his why for this Christmas is to ask you the question as desperately as He can - will you hold me?  Feel free to ask him what difference your answer will make.

When I ask Him for myself, His answers baffle me.  He can't imagine a life without me in it.  He says He doesn't want to save the world without me.  He wants the future of the world to pivot on my faith, and my touch.  He doesn't want to know any different.  For Him, that's just the way it is.

His last hurdle on this night is to find a way to slip past my defenses, which are elite.  If Jesus were to ask me what I want for Christmas, my tepid faith conditioned by my fears, doubts and pains want to tell Him I'm fine.  I got this.  I don't need or want anything for Christmas.  I'm fine!

To reach that place where I still hide and escape and avoid, that place where I think no one can see or care or understand, and that place where I think nothing will ever change, He has to wear the best of disguises.  Which tonight He does, disguising His desire to be my savior as need, not being ashamed to beg for my love in the pivotal question of Christmas - will you hold me?

As the scene of Bethlehem gives way to this altar, and the cave where Jesus is born gives way to the place in my soul only the Eucharist can reach, I have the chance to put the Mass in Christmas, and approach the Blessed Sacrament with Jesus desperately begging my love in the question - will you hold me?

If a dare say yes with all my heart, the miracle of Christmas is new tonight, and I may even discover that I am the one being held, and the dream of what Jesus and I both want for Christmas, might really come true.

+mj

Am I afraid of the 'phog?'

Homily

Solemnity of All Saints

1 November 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I afraid of the 'phog?'

Opponents of KU basketball are supposed to beware.  The message is clear.  The bad guys can't win here.  There is too much tradition to overcome, a culture of winning that spans generations, and a fan base that demands basketball is played at the highest level.

Beware of the phog!

The phog that we Catholics play in and pray in today goes much deeper.  The 'phog' of the Fieldhouse is a nice metaphor for the cloud of witnesses, the saints, who are urging each of us to victory.  The 'phog' which is the intercession of the saints is meant to be unstoppable, so much so that none of us can lose in the quest to become a saint, to participate fully in the eternal and ultimate victory of life over death.

Bill Self's dad famously told him that if he was afraid of losing at Kansas, he shouldn't be the head coach at Kansas.  So much so for us.  If I'm afraid of the phog, I should move aside and let someone else play for keeps.

Take courage, saints!  The victory is at hand to be had.  Each of the saints, many of them much worse off at one point than you are, prayed just like you are praying today, with access to the very same graces and mercies that are mine and yours in this Mass.  It was enough for them to do the impossible, to conquer fear with love and to pass over from death to life.  The transubstantiation of the Eucharist is enough for you too. It's enough for me to be transformed myself, into the saint I was made to be.

What am I ultimately afraid of?  I can't be afraid of my chance to truly live!  Yet in so many ways I am.  My sins show that I am not afraid of death, for I slowly and surely put myself to sleep every time I choose the fantasy of pretending to be someone I'm not.  Halloween is easy, putting on a costume to fantasize about who I could be.  All Saints day is scary!  For today I am confronted by the lives of the saints who are rooting me on to put away my excuses.  Today is a singular day for me to decide anew if I will dare to become who I really am, and embrace without excuse the wonderful and terrible responsibility that I have to become a saint.

Today is a singular day to renew my belief in the truth that the greatest tragedy is not to become a saint, and that the future of the world depends on my not being afraid of the phog.  This isn't hubris, putting myself at the center of the universe.  It's having the courage to engage the reality of who I am and what I was made for.

In the end I believer there are two fears.  I'm either more afraid of death, or life.  Pray God let is not be the latter.  Pray God let me not be afraid of the 'phog.'

+mj

Who have I quit on?

Homily

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

16 October 2022

AMDG

Who have I quit on?

I'll make this pivotal question multiple choice.  Who have I quit on?

a) myself

b) my family

c) my friends

d) God

e) all of the above

f) none of the above

Today's scriptures are about not giving up on anyone, for any reason whatsoever.  The reason is that there is no quit in God.  He doesn't even consider quitting on us.  Jesus is always praying to His Father for us.  He doesn't want to know any different.  So too his disciples.  We are to pray always, without ceasing, with patience and perseverance.

Who I have I quit on?  The answer lies in the ways I have stopped praying.

Firstly, don't quit on yourself.  You are made to be a master of prayer!  Yes, you!  I roll my eyes whenever my spiritual direction reminds me of this, but it's true.  You are made for a never-ending conversation with God.  So don't quit.  To quit praying is to quit on yourself, for nothing happens in life without prayer!

Have I quit on my family?  Yea, in many ways I have.  I forget so easily that every great story is a miraculous comeback story!  Look at your favorite story or movie.  I guarantee you it's a story of prayer, a story of faith.  There has to be a less than 1% chance of things working out, for the story to be compelling.  The hero has to dare faith, to attempt the impossible, or the story lags.  When the impossible happens, glory results!  It can happen in your family.  It will happen.  Believe and pray!  Don't quit.

Friendships are costly!  I have betrayed friends and let them down.  I've been beat up myself. There is such a temptation to quit, to stop praying for friendships, for it's easier to go it alone.  Don't do it!  You are made to have friends and be a friend.  Believe, and pray!

Finally, have I quit on God?  I get it that it's hard to tell if prayer is working a lot of the time.  God can seem distant and slow.  Yet Jesus reassures us that He is merely increasing capacity for something more incredible, some more, to happen sooner than we dare ask for or imagine!  Believe, and pray!

I wish I prayed like I rooted for sports.  I decided long ago to be the best fan in the world.  Without bravado, I don't think there's a greater fan of his teams than me.  I always believe.  I never quit.  There's always a way for an incredible comeback.  I never quit.  I get mad at people who do.  I've been a part of too many comebacks to lose faith, or to stop praying.  It's a big reason why I take interest!

+mj

Do I need to give thanks?

Homily

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

9 October 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Do I need to give thanks?

I'll never forget the time my dad showed up his priest son.  One Thanksgiving morning in Hoxie, Kansas, I confessed to my dad that I was in vacation mode, that I hadn't prepared for Mass.  Ninety minutes before Mass, I hadn't even looked at the Gospel for the day.  My dad told me on the spot without looking what the Gospel was - the 10 lepers being cleansed, with only the single Samaritan returning to give thanks to God.  I guess my dad has been going to Thanksgiving Mass a lot longer than I have.

My dad isn't particularly articulate about his faith, but he doesn't need to be.  He remembers more, and is affected by Mass more than I give him credit for.  Best of all, he walks the walk.  He never even considers missing Mass.  For him it is right and just to give thanks for the gift and responsibility of life.

There are two needs that I have that could use more attention.  There is the need to give thanks, and to give my life.  Notice that perhaps my greatest need is not to get, but to give.  The things I take for granted or hoard own me more than I own them.  I have been stuck in selfish mode more than once in my life, obsessed with what I don't have rather than responding with gratitude and generosity for what I do have.

The Mass is the ultimate thanksgiving.  It is the ultimate place to get more by giving thanks and giving our lives to God.  Eucharist means thanksgiving.  Is it any wonder that if my greatest need is to give thanks and my life, that the largest crowds in human history have been gathered by the Mass.  I've been blessed to have been a part of those crowds.

Mind you, nothing of my worship adds anything to God.  Yet, it brings me life by opening me to the truth that all is gift, all is grace, and my best freedom is to respond generously to said grace.  Worship brings me into right relationship with the source of all grace, and to the part I'm invited to play in the great battle for life everlasting.  

So let us give thanks to the Lord our God.  It is right and just!

Do I need to give thanks?  You bet I do, more and more!

Jesus calls out the nine who get what they need, take it for granted, and go back to their own way.  That sounds about right.  Ninety percent of the time I come not to truly worship, but to check a box before going back to my thing.  The Samaritan leper, and Naaman the Syrian, shame me as foreigners who worship better than I do.

Worship is right and just.  It's proper to our nature; it's what saves and heals more than anything.  May I resist an atheistic world view that takes life as a given, as only what I make of it.  The problem is that I didn't make the world.  I certainly didn't make myself.  Atheism by its incompleteness backfires where worship succeeds.

My dad still teaches me that life is about grace and responsibility.

For that, I want to give more thanks!

Who sees me?

Homily

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

25 September 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Who sees me?

I bet many of you here today are lonely.  If you're not, you might soon be.  It's a normal, common human feeling.  It's nothing to be ashamed of.

The feeling of loneliness is borne of rejection.  I have been forgotten, passed over, betrayed and let down.  I've done the same to others.  So the feeling of loneliness, and the resulting spiritual questions, come often and throughout the whole of life.  Am I alone?  Can anyone see me?  Does anyone care?  Can anyone help?

The key as we see in today's Gospel is to try to relate the feeling of loneliness to God. The Good News is that God sees, and cares, and accompanies us throughout the whole of life, as only He can, if only we let Him.  

That's why a prayer life, an intimate one of shared experience and pain, is critical to entering into life.  There are no shortcuts to relating our experience with God.  You have to put the time in, with vulnerability, if your trust in His care for you can grow.  

As always in the Gospel, my soul is at stake.  We see how easily the rich man, who remains nameless, loses his soul by trying to make a name for himself.  Instead of relating his experience to God, he indulges in self-care, which can never be as life-giving as begging someone to care for you.  In indulging in self-care, an insulated character results, and a soul is lost.

Instead, Lazarus prays.  Lazarus begs.  Lazarus relates.  If only my prayer life was like his.  Is anyone there?  Does anyone care?  Will anyone help me?  In the end that prayer is answered, through much perseverance no doubt, for the Lord hears the cry of the poor.

Why do I have a constant need to be seen, known, chosen and desired?  It's because I'm a relational being.  To be alive is to be in relationship, to be dead is to be alone.  The loneliness endemic to the human experience is a pining for life born of relationship.  It's ultimately a pining for God Himself, for He alone can fulfill what I am made for.  It's nobody's else's job, nor could it be, nor does it help to try to take care of myself, as tempting as that may be.

It's a spiritual question for the whole of life.  God, are you there?  Do you see me?

Who sees me?

Am I exceptional?

Homily

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

18 September 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I exceptional?

When it comes to the Gospel, I think I am, but I'm not.

Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money.  Who wants to talk about money?  No one ever does, which is why the Gospel talks about it so much.  Greed is such an easy way to lose my soul, so this cardinal sin has to be confronted at every turn of my life.  Get used to the Gospel challenging my relationship to money for the rest of my life.  And thank God is does, for the sake of my soul.

Everyone thinks they can cheat in regards to money, that I can have my cake and eat it to, that I can have things yet not love them more than God.  Everyone thinks they are exceptional.  No one is.  The Gospel cannot be clearer.  If you cheat in small ways, you will cheat when all the chips are down.  You CANNOT serve both God and mammon.

Yea but what if I don't have as much as others? What if I'm more generous than the person next to me?  It doesn't matter!  There are no 'yea buts,' no exceptions, when it comes to matters of life and death, the salvation of my soul.  I can't have it all, but I can have one thing if I dare it. That thing is the salvation of my soul, which is nothing less than the capacity to suffer and die for who I love.

No one gets around this decision, no matter how much I try to excuse, avoid or put it off.  Will I suffer and die for who I love?  No one gets out of this world without deciding.  The salvation of my soul is always at stake, whether I like it or not.  At an hour I least expect, the chance to suffer and die for who I love will surely come.  The best predictor of whether I will give my life when the chips are down is to look at my bank account, my schedule and my stuff right now.

So how am I doing with that?  I'm not ready, everyone!  I have a cluttered life, one that has plenty of evidence that I am not ready or able to suffer and die for who I love.  I think I am the exception to the rule that you can't love both God and mammon.  Yet I'm not, and Jesus does me the great favor at every turn in my life of calling me out.

The Gospel standard is simple. Give 10% to God first. Then give to the poor. Then meet your responsibilities.  Do this and you will live.  There are no exceptions, no matter how much or little you have.  There are no exceptions, even if I have a hard time trusting the Church or the poor with my money.  It's not about the Church's need or the need of the poor.  It's about my soul.  If I cheat now I also will cheat when my soul is at stake. 

I can't have it all.  Yet the good news is that I can have one thing, the salvation of my soul by giving my life to suffer and die for who I love.

If only I don't try to be exceptional to the Gospel.

Am I exceptional?  In regards to the Gospel, I think I am, but I'm really not.

Who is looking for me?

Homily

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

11 September 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Annual Feast of Dedication

AMDG

Who is looking for me?

Too often when I hear the 15th chapter of Luke, I zero in on the two sons.  Which one am I?  Who am I?

Yet I think there's a better question in play - not who am I, but where am I?

This is God's original question to man.  Adam and Eve, where are you?  It's the first question mankind has to answer.  The first question might also be the best.

Who is looking for me?

Too much of my life is spent searching for myself.  What is my true, authentic identity?  It can be a fool's journey, not unlike that of the prodigal son, who tries desperate to find himself by running away.  This approach can lead to a frustrating and endless mind game of labels and comparisons.  You know the drill.  You play this game all the time, as do I.

Am I the older or younger son?  Am I Judah or Ephraim?  Am I an old prude or reckless child?  Am I liberal, trying to cast off oppression real and perceived, or conservative trying to hold on tight to what I have.  Am I a prodigal or a Pharisee?  Am I Republican or Democrat?  Am I a modern Catholic or an old school radical traditionalist?  Am I a Pope Francis or Pope Benedict fan?  Do I watch Fox News or CNN?

The either/or label game can last a lifetime and never arrive anywhere.  It's not really the point of the parable.  Either/or comparisons never do justice to the mystery of a person in relation to a transcendent God.  As I am in the image and likeness of God, so also do I transcend human labels.  Either/or labels and comparisons can be interesting distinctions, but must give way to the both/and paradoxes endemic to the mystery of faith.  The point is that I am both the older and younger son.

Which makes room for the ultimate point of Luke 15, which are parables about a crazy shepherd, a kooky old woman, and a foolish Father.  That's who is looking for me, strange as it may seem.

The best identity available to me is to be dumb, worthless and lost.  Why?  Because God reveals Himself as a crazy shepherd who smiles when a dumb sheep pees on his neck.  He parties over a penny while not caring about millions.  He rejoices at the chance to forgiven even as His sons laugh in His face.

Who is searching for me?  It's a better question than who am I.  Apparently, there is someone who has decided He can't live without me, not matter the cost.  

Why would I search for an identity anywhere else?

Will I bet on myself?

Homily

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

4 September 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Will I bet on myself?

The cost of being Jesus' disciple is so high.  Will I pay it?

Hate your family.  Give away all your stuff.  Embrace what is most torturing you.  Then and only then you will be my disciple.  Blessed and happy will you be!

Is it any wonder that so many run from Jesus instead of following Him, that He has so few, if any, true disciples?  Jesus obviously failed sales in college.  Or did He/

Would Jesus even take his own advice?  Can you imagine him saying 'I hate you Joseph, I hate you Mary'?  I sat around a campfire with my family just last night.  It was hard enough to try to love each other as God commands, let alone trying to hate each other too.  

Isn't the cost just too darn high?  Do I even want to try to be Jesus' true disciple? 

Jesus' words in the Gospel are meant to get me just to this question which lies at the edge of faith.  Jesus is always extreme because He has to be, for how else could  my obsession with tinkering with my own life might give way to the question of how I will spend my whole life?

In case you didn't notice this week, sports betting is now legal in Kansas.  Don't do it. It's a tax on stupidity.  Still, if bookies were making odds of my being a real disciple, what kind of odds would those be?   Suffice is to say they would not be in my favor. Still, despite the worst of odds, would I bet on myself?

Thankfully, this question, though pivotal, is not the most important.  What matters is that Jesus would bet on you, no matter the odds.  What matters is that He already has.  You know well how it words.  He empties Himself here of everything given Him by His Father, then sends us just as the Father sent Him.  What a crazy bet.

Jesus is probably worse at betting than He is at sales.  Yet His foolishness is the wisdom of God we hear of in the first reading.  Jesus comes this morning not to buy life insurance or hedge a bet like I have, but to go all in on you.  He's too foolish to want to know any different.

It's in the context of His bet on you, that this week's pivotal question comes.  Despite all odds, will I bet on myself?

+mj

Is life just a potluck dinner?

Homily

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

28 August 2022

+Augustine

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Is life just a potluck dinner?

As strange as it may seem, I think Jesus' answer is yes.

In Luke's Gospel alone, there are 10 meal stories.  10!  What did Jesus do all the time?  Well, he was accused of being a glutton and drunkard.  He ate and drank with people a lot.  What is more, we know He did so with great intentionality.  Jesus asks us to notice things at dinner.

More often than not, these dinner stories that Jesus uses to describe the Kingdom of Heaven are baffling.  They go against social convention.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but at the end of today's story, Jesus tells us to host a potluck, where you're never sure what you're gonna get!

People ask me often what priests do all day.  Well, we're just like you.  We gotta eat.  How we eat, especially how we do dinner, says a lot if not everything about us.  Jesus set it up that way, in case you're not keeping up.

Yesterday, I had four meals!  The first was pathetic.  I was running behind schedule, so I did a 'sinky!'  I ate breakfast standing up over the sink, wharfing down a few calories all alone without relationship or intention.  

First lunch was with my nephew, who came into town with his girlfriend to talk about how to navigate a relationship with different faith backgrounds.  We really got into it!  The poor server - we hadn't even look at the menus in the first 45 minutes.  I apologized profusely, though this happens to me all the time.  This lunch was like most meals.  It's not ultimately what's for dinner, but who's for dinner.  Our deepest hunger is for meaningful conversation.

Let me skip ahead to dinner, which was supposed to be drinks, but ended up as a four hour dinner.  Again, I had to apologize to the server.  We were 90 minutes in before we ordered anything.  Mark me down as the worst customer ever.  Though maybe not, since at the end of the four hour conversation with a friend the server complimented us for talking so intensely for four hours without looking at our phones.  She noticed.

Let's return now to my 2nd lunch, which was truly a potluck, with college students!  Last Thursday I did an open patio at SLC and told students to BYOB.  A lot of them showed up with no beverage. Their excuse was they didn't know the acronym, or they thought the night might be a scriptures study so Bring Your Own Bible!  But I digress.

Having college students do a potluck is pretty risky. My grandma was likely rolling over in her grave, since potluck for college students likely means just an assortment of chips.  We probably could have been more organized. A-F brings salads, G-L a starch, M-R a protein and S-Z a dessert.  We didn't have all 4 food groups covered.  But you know what, it didn't matter.

Jesus instructs us to get a motley crue of vulnerable people together over a meal to share faith.  He tells us to go potluck. The only four essential food groups are the poor, the blind, the lame and the crippled.  So you have to make sure you have someone who is lost, someone who is broke, someone who is stuck, and someone who is sick.  It's not that hard.

Jesus promises to show up and to join his suffering, death and resurrection to the conversation.  He promises that all of reality and salvation will pass through this potluck party.

Turns out, life indeed is just a dinner potluck.

+mj

am I an underdog?

Homily

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

21 August 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I an underdog?

You better believe it!  I'm not sure Jesus could make the answer any clearer in the Gospel.  When it comes to salvation, the odds are not in my favor!

Jesus exposes the question of the bystander as one of the worst questions one could ask. Will many be saved?   Jesus doesn't engage it at all, for it's a fearful question.  If I am worried about the score, I'm not fully engaged in the game.  If I am scared of losing, I've already lost.

How could any human person possibly be assured of his own salvation?  We are talking salvation here!  This is not a magic ticket to a vacation carpet ride that that God gives out willy-nilly.  No, Jesus talks about a narrow gate.  Jesus knows to be fully alive, to grow in the likeness of God, to be holy, to have a capacity to love as God does is the most impossible thing for me.  What makes me think I could bathe others in sacrifice, prayer, tears, compassion, patience, virtue and even my own blood?

If I have any chance of salvation, it will be the greatest of upsets, for when it comes to laying hold of eternal life, I couldn't possibly be ready or worthy by my own efforts.   

When it comes to salvation, I am the biggest of underdogs, and so are you.

Remember though that the 3 latest national championships for KU were huge upsets, miraculous comebacks.  In 1988, Danny and the Miracles came out of nowhere.  In the championship game, the announcers were screaming that KU wasn't good enough to keep pace with Oklahoma.  But we did!  In 2008, we were down 9 with 90 seconds left. Enter Mario's miracle!  Then in 2022 -yeah baby - the biggest 2nd half comeback in the history of the tournament.  Natty Champs baby!

What do I have going for me?  That God desires my salvation more than I am scared of it.  What more?  That Jesus is betting it all of me, even though I am the worst of bets.  It's who He is.  It's how He does things.  He doesn't want to know any different.

An underdog has to start a hero's journey and a great story by believing that anything is possible.  There's hope for salvation in that!

am I in anguish?

Homily

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

14 August 2022

AMDG

Am I in anguish?

I'm not.  Are you?  Jesus is.

You may have noticed that I'm experiencing a little discomfort. I wish I could tell you that this cut above my left eye was for a noble purpose.  The same for the apparent stigmata on my hands.  You all know me well enough to know I'm not holy enough for a stigmata.  I'm too cowardly to sustain these scars through defending the honor of a friend or the Church.  So I must have done something stupid.  Yes I did.

After three days in Colorado discussing with our students that if we dare to truly see and experience life in all its color and fullness, we need to put down our screens, I pulled my phone out while biking down Vail pass to get footage of one of our students who was screaming down the mountain in a KU Catholic shirt right next to a gorgeous rapid.  This was a very dumb move.  I must have hit the brake with my left hand and before I knew it I went flying over the front handlebars.  At 48, I'm too old for such a spill, but luckily like I always do, even though I'm rarely a safe or careful person, I got away with it.  Just a few scratches.  I landed on my head, but the helmet did its job.

We talked to the students about consequences as well.  Do I love consequences?  Well, I deserved much worse from my careless mistake than I got.  This is the norm for me.  I usually get away, get by and get along.  I always have.  Yet I'm not better for it.  One of our students on the trip said she loved consequences cause she loved getting better.  We all looked at her like she was crazy.

Am I in anguish?  That's the question I want to pivot to now.  Well, if Jesus is, and I'm his disciple, perhaps I should also be.  Not in a joyless or skeptical way, mind you, not in a way devoid of hope or the enjoyment of life.  But yes, in anguish as a default position, to share in Jesus's passion for a baptism of fire, to long to accomplish the great purpose of my life.

To be in anguish is not to be negative, but is to not hide or dampen my deepest desires.  It is to grow weary of tinkering with my life, and to have a great impatience not for the things of God, but for my petty excuses and procrastinations.  As St. Paul says, to be in anguish is to want to accomplish the holy purpose of my life to the point of shedding my blood.

As Jesus makes clear, to be in anguish is the opposite of getting away, getting by or getting along.  It's to be unsatisfied with anything less than the consequences that will lead the the conversion and purification of my soul, that I might have a heart of fire capable of great love.

To be in anguish means that nothing has to go my way today to have a great day, for the fiery baptism of Jesus is disgusted with micro-managed projects of self-improvement, but hungers for so much more, the fulfillment of all desire!  To be in anguish is to welcome the adversity that will purify the spiritual gifts of faith and courage!

Am I in anguish?  Ask yourself this pivotal question!

am I an alien?

Homily

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

7 August 2022

AMDG

Am I an alien?

Well, I voted yes on the amendment Tuesday, which makes me quite athwart of almost all my neighbors.  My beloved Douglas County was #1 in the state in voting against Value them Both.  So I am an outlier, a stranger, an alien in my own community.

So be it.  In case you haven't noticed, things are changing fast.  Which makes these times great times for faith!  Questions that were perhaps once settled are up for grabs again.  When does life begin?  What is a human person?  What does it mean to be free?  What is man and woman?  What is marriage?  What is a human right, and does it entail responsibility.  I could go on.

One thing is for sure.  The Catholic Church and her great tradition of reason and faith is not in the driver's seat when it comes to defining what is true, good and meaningful.  To be Catholic in Lawrence for sure is to be an alien.

Abraham our father in faith was well attested as an alien.  Which means I have a chance right here, right now, to have a faith like his.  I may not recognize where I am or how I got here, nor where I am going or what difference it makes.  Yet before me is a chance to live a faith that goes beyond my doubts and fears, beyond what I can manage or figure out.  By faith I can keep going.  By faith I can refuse to hide or escape or settle, but can move forward into a wonderful future of exploring new and fuller dimension of life. 

Faith explores reality more deeply!  When speaking of faith, I never mean a naive, cowardly or reckless faith, one that is afraid to engage these times and tries to escape to a galaxy far, far away.  No, it's a faith that hates instead what I have settled for, and refuses a life that is nothing more than managing what I can control or figure out. It's a faith that is unafraid to desire more that what I can worry about! 

Best of all, faith is not something I have to pretend to manufacture.  No, it's a real gift I have already received.  Faith is a response to the revelation that God has bet it all on me.  Through the patience and compassion revealed in Jesus, God begs me not to be afraid to trust in the love that hope and believes and conquers all things.  By faith in me, God dares me to go on a hero's journey into the heart of reality and the true meaning of life.

For the kingdom of heaven is not built through a ballot box.  I can assure you that God is not discouraged by what happened Tuesday.  God is bigger than that.  His kingdom is built by prayer and martyrdom.  Which is to say it's built by faith.  His kingdom of more is built by you, who by faith are ready to give your life before it can be taken, and to die for what you believe in, before death can choose you.

All of this is to say.  It's a great week to be an alien.

what's the point?

Homily

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

31 July 2022

AMDG

What's the point?

Last Christmas, my five siblings and I had a meeting with my dad.  It was to go over the family assets, my dad's really, so that everyone was on the same page.  It was a great meeting!  There was no greed, only gratitude.  I appreciate my dad trying to have his affairs in order, though he's in good health at 72 years old.  My affairs are not in order!  I could die tomorrow and leave a mess. Maybe you would too.

Still, what's the point of it all?

Quoheleth puts forth this question to us today.  He reminds me of what I know but like to conveniently forget.  Anyone I love I'll have to eventually let go of.  Anything I have will one day belong to someone else.  Is life just vanity, he says?  Is it nothing more than evanescence?

A true Christian cuts this question off at the turn.  Long before I consider this question, I am invited to aggressively give my life and all I have away.  A Christian refuses to be a victim in the face of this seemingly desperate situation.  If he is a victim, he's a most willing one.  In short, the life of a Christian is nothing but a holy sacrifice, chock full of courage and generosity.  It's really as simple as that. Multiply the gift of your life by risking faith and daring courage.  Then give it all away, so that nothing can be taken from you that is not already given.  A Christian always choses death long before death sneaks up on him.

Since I have died with Christ in baptism, my human experience is not something to cling to, but something that is free to be elevated into the very life of God which cannot fade.  My life can be transformed from fear of loss into divine love, which endures and conquers all things.

What's the point?

The point is to not let this doubt and fear of Quoheleth get the best of you.  Instead, through your freedom to live courageously and generously, turn the question on its very head.

That's the point.

does second place suck?

Homily

Monday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time C2

Feast of St. James the Greater, Apostle

25 July 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

Does second place suck?

It certainly can.  There are worse things, for sure, so long as one gives his very best.  Yet there is a unique sadness to coming up just short, as a runner-up.  Think if KU had lost to North Carolina this year, how devastating that would have been.  Can you remember the last time you finished second, and how it felt?  I bet not so good.

James and John have some work to do, given that they had their mom give voice to their ambition, instead of risking the question to Jesus themselves.  Yet their boldness in saying that will do whatever it takes to be first, leads to the prophecy by Jesus fulfilled in St. James that he would be the first of the apostles to give all in martyrdom!

Be careful what you ask for, especially if you ask Jesus to be first.  Still, dare to ask boldly. It sure as hell beats being second.

will I pray?

Homily

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

24 July 2022

AMDG

Will I pray?

In the 2018 Final Four, the Jayhawks seemed to be the least Catholic team left.  Sr. Jean was chaplain for Loyola. Fr. Bob for Villanova.  Coach Beilein for Michigan went to daily Mass, it was reported.  Reporters called the Catholic Center asking if Catholics were praying for the Jayhawks.  I have to admit I wasn't.  Basketball is not something I pray about.

As you perhaps know, KU was blown out by Cathoilc Villanova right during the Easter Vigil.  Not fair, not fair at all.

If KU had lost to Villanova this year, I was going to call Coach Self and see if he was open to a different approach in playing Catholic schools.  I never had to make the call. We're the National Champs, and the system seems to be working.

Will I pray?

I don't think basketball is worth praying over, at least not for victories. That in all things God will be glorified, including sports, now that is a worthy prayer.

Jesus invites his disciples to pray more personally, more intimately, and for relationship.  He says to cry 'Daddy' and promises the answer to be nothing less than the love that lies at the heart of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

Will I pray?  Not for outcomes, for that is too little, but for relationship?  Prayer is our relationship with God who is life itself.  Prayer is always and nothing less than a matter of life and death.

You can distill life down to one question if you wish.

Will I pray?

why am I weeping?

Homily

Friday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time C2

Broomtree Retreat Center, South Dakota

22 July 2022

Why am I weeping?

It's not right to say there's no crying in Christianity.  Jesus wept.  He wept for the same reason as Mary Magdalen, over a tomb, over the loss of a loved one.

Yet when I do lose someone truly?  It's when I lose hope in the resurrection. It's when I conclude a story is over, when I conclude a person, even sometimes myself, will forever live in the grave I assigned to them.  The people I give up on are the only ones that are truly lost.

Yet Lazarus and Jesus are risen!  It is the mark of love to feel and mourn a loss.  Yet that weeping is not a conclusion, it's the seedbed of new life, if only I stop holding on to the boxes I put people in.

Including myself.

who's for dinner?

Homily

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

17 July 2022

AMDG

Who is for dinner?

That sounds cannibalistic, but it's not.  If anything is clear about today's Scriptures, it's that every meal is less about the food, and more about the people.  Ultimately, meals are about feeding on God and each other.  The right question is our pivotal one.  Who is for dinner?

Tell me about your dinner table?  Is it one of the most important places in the world?  It's meant to be.

Your dinner table is meant to participate in the one right before us now.  At this Mass, this table is your table.  It's also your tomb.  The Mass is the place where you put your life on the line, that as St. Pauls says, your sufferings might be taken up and fill out the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the world.  This altar is your table, and your tomb.  

Your dinner table at home is a participation in this. Don't take my word for it.  Look at how Abraham and Sarah hosted God at their table, and were blessed in turn with the conception of Isaac their son.  Then go straight to Mary, Martha and Lazarus' table.  From there go to the table of the Last Supper.  Then don't tell me that your dinner table doesn't matter.

You won't hear this on the news, but the future of the world runs through your dinner table.  It doesn't run through your phone, nor through the ballot box.  To be sure, a historical vote as consequential as any in Kansas history, a matter of life and death, has already started.  Voting has a critical place in affecting the common good.

Still, the ballot box is less important than your dinner table, and it's not even close.  Conversation, relationship and communion, the ultimate sources of love and of life, are meant to run through your dinner table.

The reason the world is so messed up, the reason we have to vote on the right to rip children out of their most intimate relationships, is because we don't have dinner like we used to, like we are meant to.  I stink at dinner.  Maybe you do too.  Dinner is not just a bodily function, a checking of the box, something else to worry about.  If it's just that, than to hell with it, as Jesus tells Martha.  

Unless I feed on God and my family and my neighbor at dinner, I have no chance for the communion, conversation and relationship that gives life.  I neglect giving attention and intention to dinner at my own peril.

If not dinner, than what's your thing where you experience that depth and intimacy of conversation and communion?  

What's been revealed to us is that we can't live without it.

Let's face the pivotal question.  Who is for dinner?

am I lost?

Homily

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

10 July 2022

AMDG

Am I lost?

The Samaritan certainly was, as lost as a Missouri Tiger in Lawrence, Kansas.  There is no reason in the world that a Samaritan from the north, one who hated Jews and vice versa, to be heading further south in enemy territory, down the steep path from the heights of Jerusalem to the depths of Jericho.  Yet there he is.  Jesus points him out as a hero.

Kansas is lost too, not completely, but getting closer.  In a terrible twist of history, the state of Missouri is more free today than Kansas. Free to choose life over death.  You heard me right.  In Missouri, a state that fought to preserve the right to own slaves, it's now illegal to kill unborn children.  Not in Kansas, a state that fought for just the opposite, to be a free state where human dignity is upheld.

Voting starts this week to see if Missouri of all places remains more free than Kansas.  At the moment, Kansas is lost.

I never thought I'd see a day like this, when Missouri, or Oklahoma even, showed Kansas what it means to be free.  For to be a free and just society is to begin by protecting the right to life to every person without exception.  You can't expand rights to autonomy, privacy and equality by killing children.  It makes no sense at all.

I don't care what our problems are.  Taking an innocent human life is never a solution and is never just.  The denial of the right to life has led to the greatest holocaust in American history, and it's not close. No one has been harmed in American history more than unborn children, and it's not even close. 

The right to life is not complicated or confusing. Human personhood and dignity can never be relativized for any reason.  Period.  This law is very near to us.  It's not hard.  It's written in our minds, our consciences and our very nature.

I beg you to vote YES August 2nd.  There could be no vote since the founding of our state in 1861 that affects more lives in a more fundamental way.  A YES vote protects Kansans, especially its women and children, from the most evil, predatory, racist, violent and inhuman industry ever known, the abortion industry.  A YES vote removes the right to kill children from the original Kansas Constitution.  It once again makes Kansas free.

All that being said, still the fullness of life that is the destiny of every person, including the unborn, will be granted not ultimately through the law or voting, or politics, as critical as these are for the common good. Ultimately, it will be granted by courageous Jayhawks who recognize that with the gift of life comes the responsibility to give life rather than to take it. That responsibility falls to each and every Kansan.

Those who instead value secondary rights to privacy, autonomy and equality over the right to life are lost and scared.  So am I.  I get scared when I come face to face with the responsibility of my life.  I too am obsessed with my body, my choice, instead of the opportunity to expand human rights for others by making a gift of my life.  I too am lost, and scared to live unselfishly, chastely and responsibly.  I too harm others because I am lost and afraid.

Jesus still shines light in today's beautiful parable on how a culture of life will prevail over a culture of death.  See yourself in others who are lost and afraid to choose life.

Love your enemies.  Pray for those who persecute you.  Do good to those who hate you.  Its' ok to be lost.  Don't be afraid to be a stranger who suddenly finds and sees Himself in an unlikely stranger on a road neither of you should have been on.

For the culture of life and love and salvation is built most of all by people who are lost, people like the Good Samaritan, strangers who do good in a strange land in the most unlikely of ways.

Am I lost?

on dobbs

Statement 

On the Occasion of the Supreme Court of the US Decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Co.Women's Health

11 July 2022

Dear Jayhawks:

As the mission of the Catholic Church to the University of Kansas, the St. Lawrence Center (henceforth SLC) embraces the opportunity to respond to the recent Supreme Court decision in the matter of Dobbs vs. Jackson Co. Women's Health, a decision that has the attention of the KU community. So too does the upcoming proposed Constitutional Amendment on the ballot August 2nd in Kansas that would allow restrictions to abortion that are currently deemed unconstitutional by the Kansas Supreme Court per the Nauser & Hodes vs. State of Kansas ruling in 2019.

SLC recognizes that many at KU are upset by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling.  Some Jayhawks  perceive the overturning of Roe v. Wade as detrimental to women's rights to privacy, autonomy and equality.  Not only this, but many in the KU community have been personally involved with or affected by abortion.  SLC seeks mutual respect, conversation, reconciliation and relationship with all at KU, including those who disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in this case.

At the same time, St. Lawrence invites recognition  that there are many others in the KU community who see the court's recent decision as a just and necessary one, if there is to be a meaningful chance to build a just society founded on the right to life for every human person without exception.  In fact, there are numerous Jayhawks who have worked many years with the hope of seeing the ruling just rendered.  Roe vs. Wade is considered by many Jayhawks to be an unjust and unconstitutional ruling that has contributed to the greatest holocaust of human life in American history.

SLC furthermore invites respect for members of the KU community who have pro-life convictions that rely not merely or primarily on faith, but on right reason and good conscience, convictions founded on the following principles:

• That a unique and unrepeatable human life exists from the very moment of conception, a fact verified by the most vigorous sciences.
• That the decision to relativize the value of any human life for any reason historically leads to the most monstrous of human holocausts.
• That any sincere effort to care for children must begin with not killing them.
• That a society which fails to grant the right to life to each of its persons should not pretend to justly deliver the rights that proceed from the right to life to any 
• that a society shows its strength by extending its best protection and care to its weakest and most vulnerable persons, especially its children.
• That the ability to see ourselves in our children, and to prioritize their rights over the will of adults is critical to a nation with a hopeful future.
• That the right to life for all must entail the responsibility of all to never kill an innocent person for any reason.

SLC admits that one of the most serious responsibilities a state can require is for women to carry children to term, especially in the worst of circumstances. Such a responsibility, though necessary for the common good, must be supported by the best resources that can be made available by the state and its people, with exceptions granted when the life of the mother is gravely at risk.

This responsibility to always choose life must fall not only to pregnant women, but to each of us in this decisive moment.  Each of us must ask ourselves - what more must I do to give life rather than to take it?  This is a question of special meaning for Jayhawks.  KU takes its mascot from those ferocious fighters in Civil War times who risked their very lives so that Kansas came into the union as a free state, one where no person is owned, controlled or discarded.   

Giving life rather than taking it means participating as much as I can in building a chaste society whose virtue is shown in granting more children the dignity of being conceived in relationships where there is commitment, care and support.  It means knowing that the right to life for all can only be extended if I am responsible for living an unselfish life that gives more than it takes.  That's how Jayhawks build a culture of life where abortion is never the best option.

SLC envisions our free state not as an abortion destination for the Midwest, but as a generous society where every Jayhawk embraces the responsibility to give life to others. To this end, we encourage all Kansans of right mind and generous heart to vote YES on the upcoming Constitutional Amendment on the ballot August 2nd, a vote that will keep alive the hope of our state remaining free to be a place where no person is owned, controlled or discarded.  To the stars through difficulties, Jayhawks!

The Catholic faith has always shown light into the responsibility of all to choose life, and will always deepen and strengthen the commitment to do so.  SLC is honored to bring this faith to bear on the KU educational experience.  Yet once again, the convictions herein shared do not in any way depend on religious faith, but can be embraced by anyone who wants to expand human dignity and rights for all.

With a commitment to partnering with KU to lift students and society by educating leaders, and with equal commitment to making amends and asking for forgiveness for any and all ways the our Church has violated these same principles and harmed life rather than serving it, still SLC appreciates any and all persons of good will who receive these remarks on their own merit.

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

1631 Crescent Road

Lawrence, Kansas

  

am I absolutely poor?

Homily

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

3 July 2022

Independence Day Weekend

AMDG

Am I absolutely poor?

I don't know how long you've been listening to the Gospel, but there's no way around this question.  It keeps coming from Jesus, over and over.  It arrives again today.  Am I absolutely poor?

He asks for my good.  He thirsts for my faith.  For the Kingdom of Heaven can only be entered through faith, by those who are available, detached, ready, open, vulnerable, empty and generous. He sends the 72 in just this way.  He wants to send you in just this way.  His Kingdom cannot be lived if I am attached, addicted, afraid of losing, trying to control, manage and figure out my life.

Am I absolutely poor?

I'm sorry folks.  It's the only way.  It's how Jesus lived, hand to mouth, owning nothing.  It's how he instructs us in true freedom.  My life can only grow in the measure I give it away.  Every gift hoarded is lost.  Every gift given is multiplied.  You cannot be a disciple without also being a missionary.  There is no faith without action.  Most of all, the only way to be a missionary is through poverty.

The biggest criticism of the pro-life movement is that pro-lifers don't put their money where their mouth is, that there couldn't possibly be enough care for every child who is born.  I take this criticism with a grain of salt, for skeptics are impossible to satisfy.

Still, Jesus invites us win or lose, to put it all out there.  I was blessed last weekend to witness a Jayhawk vow poverty with the Sisters of Life in New York, an order that wants to own nothing but the chance to walk with moms struggling to choose life for their children. I was not merely inspired by Sr. Miriam's Bethel's vow of poverty, I felt small knowing how much I hoard what I have.

Am I absolutely poor?

The laborers are few because all of us in some way calculate what I'm willing to give, and what is not going to work, instead of simply trusting the path Jesus has invited us on for our own good.

Each of us will live poverty in our own way, not recklessly, but yes absolutely.  Everything I have that I do not need or am not using is a gift that comes with the responsibility to place it at the service of the Gospel of Life and the Kingdom of Heaven.

It's how I will be truly free, through poverty.  The freedom we celebrate in the US this weekend is like any gift.  It can only grow the the measure it is given away.  May I celebrate this weekend not a freedom from anybody getting in my way, but a freedom to give my life to someone I believe in.

To do that well, I have to be absolutely poor.  The Gospel of Life could not be clearer.

Am I absolutely poor?

what can I do?

Homily

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (formerly Corpus Christi)

19 June 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What can I do?

A comment made at our last Board of Director's meeting has been messing with. We were discussing St. Lawrence's mission to respond to the hopelessness and helplessness that settles into the minds and hearts and bodies of more and more of our young Jayhawks.

The comment was this.  We react more than we respond.  In the face of chaotic circumstances and the cacophony of data, we feel tossed around and lost.  Too many of us feel stuck, knowing this is not the life I chose but not knowing what to do.  Too often the loss of agency leads to desperate and destructive grasps for control.  

What can I do?

Jesus answers the question in two words.  Do this.

Do what, Jesus?  Do this! Do this in memory of me.  On Corpus Christi, the Church holds up the Eucharist as the sole hope of the world.  If you've ever been to a World Youth Day, the largest gatherings in human history, not 5,000 but millions upon millions gathered around the Eucharist, you know what I mean.

Do this, Jesus says.  It's the one thing everyone can do!  We can all go to Mass.  We can all visit Jesus in the Eucharist.

When I feel lost, or stuck, or helpless, what can I do?  I can receive the Body and Blood of Christ.  I can bring Him to others.  It's that simple.  It's how the world will be saved.  It's the only way.

It couldn't be simpler, really.  Just go to Mass, and invite others, and the results will be superabundant.  I dare you to show me someone who has come up with a more trustworthy plan for your life.  It's in the Gospel of the loves and the fish, which foreshadows how God wants to save the world.

So why don't I just do it?  That's the million dollar question!  It's because when I feel lost, or stuck or helpless, I don't trust in the Real Presence.  I grasp for control, not seeing in the Eucharist a vision for what is possible, but that it might not work.  It might not be enough.

Why do we need this Feast?  It's because not just 70% of Catholics doubt the real presence.  It's that 100% do.  None of us, least of all me, fully believes that trusting in the Real Presence of Jesus alone will be enough.

So we don't try.

I need this feast to help my unbelief.  Today I discard my grasping, my doubts, my backup plans.  Today I simply try to trust Jesus at His word.

I feel alone. I feel helpless.  I feel stuck. I feel lost. What can I do, Jesus?

Do this in memory of me.

I can receive the Body and Blood of Christ, and give Him to others.

what truth sets me free?

Homily

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

12 June 2022

AMDG

What is the truth that sets me free?

Jesus promises us today a Spirit that will guide us to all truth.  So what?  I don't want to marginalize Pentecost just a week after we celebrated it.  Yet so what?  What good is knowing truth? 

It's so that I can be free to live!  A truth, a wisdom that sets me free to fully live is the pearl of great price. For that truth I should sell everything!

What is the truth sets me free?

Today the Church highlights Her deepest and most essential mystery as the truth that will set me free!  That's right!  Today we declare that no idea, no mystery, no truth is more important or practical than the truth that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit!  There is no truth more real, more personal, more practical or more life-giving than knowing this, and living by it.

It's a truth gifted to us by faith!  It's a truth revealed by a God who not only loves us enough to reveal Himself, but enough to invite us to dwell forever in the heart of this mystery, in the heart of reality, in the heart of truth, in the heart of relationship.

How does this truth set me free?

Well, before I answer that. let's just do a quick quiz to make sure you all can pass a graduate-level course in the theology of the Most Holy Trinity.  You ready?  It's a multiple-choice final!  You got this Jayhawks, even though there's no theology department at KU.  I believe in you!

1.  Which of the following is false?  God is . . 

a.  a single substance

b.  two processions

c.  three persons

d.  four relations

e.  all of the above.

If you answered e, you may proceed to the next question.

2.  God has revealed Himself as . . 

a.  family

b.  self-gift

c.  personal

d.  relational

e.  All of the above

If you answered e, you may proceed to the next question!

3.  At the heart of reality there is . . 

a.  physics

b.  choice

c.  communication

d.  nothing

If you answered c, you have passed a graduate course in theology!  Way to go!

At the heart of reality is communication.  If you live by any truth less than this, I dare say you are not free!

For the truth that sets me the most free is the truth that lies at the heart of reality, a truth that pre-existed and will out last choice, or atheism, or physics. It is a truth that both grounds and surpasses all the truths of created reality that higher education seeks to unlock.

The truth is this.  All reality communicates itself by nature.  Reality doesn't choose to communicate.  It just does.  So God, who is ultimate reality, is ultimate communion through communication.

So I, made in God's likeness, am more true and real and live when I communicate.  All sin, evil and death can be seen through this lens.  Death is a lack of sharing,  a stoppage of communication, a choice to be alone.

That choice to stop communicating is never in God.  It is a choice not even possible in Him, only in us whose freedom is gifted by the original communication of who God is, which led to our being created in His likeness.

What is the truth that sets me free?  Feel free to look anywhere else if you want.  But I'm telling you, the truth you desire has been communicated to you by a God who loves you and invites you into the heart of reality!

God is communion through communication.  I dare say this is the heart of everything that sets you free.

Beat my answer if you can.

What is the truth that sets you free?

am I confused?

Homily

Solemnity of Pentecost

5 June 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I confused?

I hope I am.  I hope you are too.  

Not hopelessly and helplessly confused, mind you, but confused in such a way that I yearn for the Spirit's gift of understanding to reveal deeper truths than I could ever figure out on my own.

I was certainly confused a couple weeks ago talking to Diane.  On a mission trip to Peru, the language barrier was tough. But like the Pentecost narrative, in the end, Diane and I arrived at understanding!

I traveled to Peru with 12 KU students and missionaries. The real miracle of the trip was 26 negative COVID tests out of 26!  Praise God!  

Yet guess how many of us spoke Spanish?  None of us, of course.  Silly Americans!  We had all piddled with languages but mastered none.

Well, on the rocky hills overlooking Lima, we couldn't rely on others to speak English. Diane, as I came to find out, is a mother of four and grandmother of four.  There she was with us, grandma, building a retaining wall by hand trying to make these desolate hills a little safer and better.

During a lunch break, the Spirit told me to go talk to Diane, despite the language barrier.  I was scared too, but I did anyway.  I am fascinated with the politics, history, economy and faith in Peru.  Yet all these things ran through the story of Diane in a very personal way.  As different as we were, it turned out that we are the same. Imagine that.  As St. Paul says, we are both children of God through the Spirit of God dwelling in us, both of us united in caring more about the life of the Spirit than that of the flesh.  In the end, the Spirit guides both of our desires to live not for ourselves but for love and relationship.

So we had a chat, though most of the communication was non-verbal.  Thank goodness I had a data signal, and could look up a few farming words on google to keep the conversation moving.  We talked for an hour, maybe my best conversation of the year, the one that converted me the most.  We ended the communication with communion, the Spirit's gift of understanding.

Am I confused?

The gift of going to Peru was the gift of confusion.  Why go so far, when there are plenty of problems here at home?  It's to be confused as much as possible, to be disoriented so that I can unlearn my own limited self-understanding.  Being bothered, confused and uncomfortable is a good place to be, for the understanding the Holy Spirit can gift from this experience moves me beyond my self-reliance on what I can figure out on my own.

Kyler, one of our students, was bothered by people who were not ashamed to share their poverty with us.  He learned how not hiding my weakness allows the Holy Spirit to reveal new things.

That's Pentecost, friends.  A new understanding that is gifted out of confusion, a truth that is encountered in relationship that is far beyond my default selfish quest to figure out how to get greater control of my life.

The way of the Spirit instead is to engage the questions I don't have the answers to yet.  It's to rely on the Spirit to reveal the hidden mysteries of God. It's ever more amazing to me what God chooses not to be in control of, that He might, as Jesus says, make His dwelling with us, experiencing things as we do.  God could control whatever He wants, yet the Spirit guides a path of patience and weakness, revealing a greater love and understanding out of the messy circumstances of life.

I hope this Pentecost I am more confused that ever.  That would bring a new hunger not for what I can get figured out by myself, but for the Spirit's gift of understanding.

I invite you to ask yourself this Pentecost.  Am I confused?

do Jayhawks fight?

Homily

5th Sunday of Easter C2

Graduation Weekend

15 May 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Do Jayhawks fly?

Heck if I know.  On the one hand, the answer seems a hard no.  Have you ever seen a Jayhawk fly?  Certainly not the dozens of Jayhawks affixed to pedestals all over campus.  There are vulgar legends on what it would take for those Jayhawks to fly, that we won't get into here.

On the other hand, Jayhawks sure seem to fly through the air at Allen Fieldhouse.  I dare anyone to tell me that Ochai Agbaji doesn't fly, and he's a Jayhawk!

So do Jayhawks fly, or don't they?  Heck if I know.  Maybe it's a question best left to the Aerospace Engineers in our midst.

Actually, there's a better question than whether Jayhawks fly.  That question is this.  Are Jayhawks fierce?  If you know the history of the Jayhawk, our mascot was created to be meaner than hell.  The Jayhawkers were the ruthless fighters ensuring Kansas came into the Union in 1865 as a free state.  Two feisty birds, ferocious actually, the blue jay and the sparrow hawk were combined into a singularly nasty hybrid known as the Jayhawk.

So the best question for our graduates is not whether you're gonna fly, but whether you're mean, whether you're nasty, in a good way.  Is that you, class of 2022?  You'll always be known as the class that won the 'natty.'  Will you also be known for your tenacity  As you graduate from Jayhawk U, do you know what you're gonna fight for?

Our dream for all of our graduates is that your capacity to write a great story with your life has been greatly enhanced through your education and experience at KU.  Thank you for trusting us here at the St. Lawrence Center to help guide your story.  It has been a great privilege!  We love you, believe in you and will miss you!

I pray that you all have a fierce capacity for commitment, communion, risk, vulnerability, self-gift and contagiosity! These are the hallmarks of a great story.

Jesus personally desires even more for you.  He prays that his disciples will fiercely pursue their capacity to love, as He has first loved us.  Look at the St. Lawrence cross one more time.  See His trust in you.  He believe you can do THAT!  Love one another as I have loved you.  

If you education and experience at KU has freed you to fight for your capacity to love to the end, then you are not only a Jayhawk, you're also a true and real disciple!

So I don't care if you fly.  I just want you to be meaner than hell, and to defeat many evils by the love stories you're gonna write from here.  

Be tenacious, Class of 2022. Give 'em hell Jayhawks!

Your last pivotal question from me is this - do you know what you're fighting for?

How much do I care?

Homily

4th Sunday of Easter C2

WDPV and Good Shepherd Sunday

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

How much do I care?

I can't imagine a more pivotal question for me or for you at this point in history.  It's the perfect question for Mother's Day, Good Shepherd Sunday, and the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.  This is a super busy weekend, and we are cramming as much meaning as possible into today's liturgy.  

How much do I care?  I hope this question holds all the pieces together.

My short answer is, not enough!  I don't care enough.  I don't care enough to fulfill the meaning and purpose of my life, my vocation.  I want to care more than I do.

Why don't I care enough?  To mine the answer to that question is to plunge into the mystery of sin, which I'm not gonna do here.  Suffice it to say that I don't care enough because I'm scared.  I'm scared that nobody cares for me, that I need to grab whatever I can for myself.  This fear affects my care for others.

We're in the fourth week now of the Risen Christ telling us not to be afraid. Today on Good Shepherd Sunday we always hear from the 10th Chapter of John's Gospel.  Jesus desperately wants to reveal to me how much He cares for me.  I am yours.  You are mine.  Nobody can take you away from me.

The problem is that I don't trust this care.  It's too much, too good to be true.  Mary, our Mother in faith did, and so was fearless.  I really stink at it.  Maybe you do too.  It can be the scariest thing, to entrust one's self to the care of another.  I'm good instead of hating to need other people, at my obsession with self-sufficiency.  I'm good all by myself.  I got this.

Again, I don't care enough in life because I'm afraid to let someone care for me, least of all God.  Yet I'm not going to try to fix this problem today either.

Let's just answer the question at its face value.  How much do I care?

No matter how afraid I am, my life still comes with this inherent capacity and responsibility to care for others.  So let's talk vocation.  I have a calling.  It's the same calling given by Jesus to Mary from the cross.  Care for my sheep.  It's the calling given at the end by Jesus to Peter.  Feed my lambs.

It's a calling shared by Jesus to you, if you dare accept it.  Once again, the future of the world runs through not just through my answer to the question, but just as much so yours.  How much do I care?

Can we all agree that we're tired of fighting over who's right and who's in control?  It's been fifty years of Roe v. Wade and legalized abortion in this country, and we're still at war as much as ever.  I'm sick of it.  We're still at war with each other.  We're still at ware with our children. We're still at war with the nature of our own bodies.  We're still at war over what it means to live and what it means to be free.

Why are we still at war?  It's because I don't care enough. I'm afraid to.  I didn't learn this from my mom.  She showed her care through countless sacrifices.  Perhaps my favorite is that my mom made some damn good pies!  My mom could save the world with her pies!  The problem is that me her son is obsessed instead with getting my slice of the pie, and I'll kill anyone who threatens to take my slice.

Yet I'm tired of fighting.  Wouldn't it be better if I was like my mom, and just baked some more damn pies?

The only way that life wins is if there is more care in the world that fear.

How much do I care?