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?