What's a Holy Family?

Homily

Solemnity of the Holy Family

31 December 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

What's a Holy Family?

As far as I can tell, it's a family that stays fights for the will of God, and makes the risk of faith.

To live our faith is to take great risks.  Our faith is a passion for the impossible, and a trust in what lies beyond what I can control or understand.  Abraham is our father in faith, as is well attested in today's readings.  He travels to an unknown place by faith.  He receives a miraculous son by faith, along with the promise of countless descendants.  He is willing to sacrifice that same son Isaac, IN FAITH, trusting that God creates even from the dead.

That's crazy faith.  Abraham takes the risk, and is thus the father of a holy family.

The Holy Family of Mary, Jesus and Joseph also took great risks!  It does us not good today to idolize or idealize them, placing them on a shelf only to admire them, knowing deep down that my family will never be like that.  Quite the opposite, we invite this family in our Christmas experience, asking them to help us stay in the fight to love God's will, and to show us how God can bring holiness from the mess of our family life.

Yes, we have an idyllic scene of Jesus's consecration in the temple today, and we do well to remember that a family that worships together, stays together.  Yet we shouldn't for a second forget that this same family was once homeless refugees, setting off amber alerts as they went.  Jesus' ancestors and cousins were every bit as sinful and dysfunctional as my family is.  His family was destined to have their hearts ripped open by a sword, as they risked living vertically so that we could relate our human experience to theirs.

Yes, there was great care, silence, prayer and learning in the Holy Family, no doubt.  There was also great risk from a family that by faith dared to fight for the will of God.

If your family is toxic or abusive, by all means set the boundaries that you need to.  Yet to quit on family altogether is to quit on ourselves, for the risk of faith is meant to run through the family, as does the salvation of the world.  To trade family for tribalism, loving only those that affirm us, is a betrayal of Jesus' family example and the path of holiness He set for us.

What's a Holy Family?

It's a lot of things, but most of all, it's a family that fights for the will of God, and makes the risk of faith.

+mj

Why a bloody Christmas?

Homily

4th Day in the Octave of Christmas

28 December 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Why such a bloody Christmas?  Isn't is supposed to be Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright?  The lovely carol notwithstanding, the Christmas message was not just proclaimed gloriously by the angels on high.  It was made known as well by blood-curdling screams as the Holy Infants too gave witness to the presence of the newborn King.

Jesus was born to shed his blood for us, and to die.  That's a fact, not only for Him, but as predicted, so too for  his disciples.  For those in our world who do not belong to Christ, who perceive Him as a threat to privacy, choice and control, will try to cancel Him, and anyone who belongs to Him. Terribly, this has always been true.  The sacred dignity of children was elevated through the appearance of God as a helpless baby. So those who kill innocent, vulnerable, children even today are those who have rejected the Christmas message.

Yet we rejoice on this bloody Christmas day, for Jesus through the shedding of his blood manifested a love stronger than death.  To God who is love, all are alive, most especially these Holy Innocents who testified to the real presence of the love of God, by  being the only martyrs who died in Christ's stead.

 

What does Jesus want for Christmas?

Homily

Solemnity of Christmas

25 December 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

What do I want for Christmas?

Well it's equal parts scandalous and pitiful to say.  For the fourth year in a row, I want someone to hold me.  When I first confessed this desire during COVID, people assumed social distancing has gotten to me.  I got more than a few pity hugs.

But I'm not ready to give up on this Christmas wish, at least not yet.  It's still what I want.  It's a primal need and desire for every baby born into the world.  I'm still a baby, maybe we all are.  I can't live without love, without someone to hold me.  It's what makes me most human. Maybe it's what you want too.

More importantly, I dare say it's what Jesus wants for Christmas.  His pivotal question is the best one for Christmas.  He appears most intimately as a baby on Christmas night to ask you a deeply personal question. Will you hold me?

For a baby, need and desire are blurred.  At Christmas, Jesus dons the disguise, inviting you into the paradox of this strangest of nights.  Jesus disguises His desire for you, as need.  He helps you by being helpless.  He loves you by begging your love.  On this ridiculous night, when everything is turned upside down, He doesn't stop there.  He feeds you by being consumed.  He finds you by hiding, betting on your faith to search for Him.  He restores life by getting killed.  He crushes enemies through the defeat of poverty, nakedness, homelessness and rejection.  Jesus makes sense of you by becoming an absolute joke.

Yet the already too foolish scene of Bethlehem is about to give way to Jesus' most surprising disguise.  How will He ask you the ultimate Christmas question - will you hold me?  In just moments, the cave gives way to this altar, and the manger to that place in your soul where only Jesus in the Eucharist can reach.  You're about to put the Mass in Christ's Mass, you see, for the original and precise and only meaning of Christmas is what you let happen when Jesus asks you through the gift of his body to the very depths of yours - will you hold me?

I have no idea how your touch and your answer will save the world.  I just know that's what Jesus wants for Christmas.  His whole trick tonight is designed to slip by your defenses to reach that place where you're still afraid, alone or stuck.  If He asked you what you wanted for Christmas, you might get scared and say I'm fine. Don't worry about me. So instead he asks for what He wants, and begs you to hold him.

The fate of Christmas turns on your answer, and your touch. That's His decision to bet it all on you, not mine.  So He is born for you tonight, just in case any or each of us may dare to say yes, Lord.  I will hold you.  On this strangest of nights, my yes might be flipped into the discovery that I'm the one being held. The dream of what Jesus and I both want for Christmas, might really come true.

+mj 

Do I expect surprises?

Homily

23 December 2023

Late Advent Weekday

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Do I expect surprises?  Do I live for them?

I can find myself too often guarding against surprises.  Out of fear of new things, things beyond my control, I tend to play things too safe, constantly falling back to self-reliance on the familiar.  

Lots of surprises are exploding in the hill country in today's Gospel.  Amazement and fear attend these events in tandem.  What will this child be?  Such surprising signs accompany the birth of John the Baptist.  

It's said that whenever a child is born, it's a sign that God won't give up on the world.  Upon seeing a new face enter the world, wonder at the love story that is possible for this young one touches us all.  It's a source of great hope.   

Christmas belongs to children and the rebirth of those of us grown too attached to the careful.  Christmas is a plunge into the faith that expects surprises, and welcomes them.     

Any chance God could surprise me this Christmas?   

+mj

Am i afraid of what's about to happen to me?

Homily 

4th Sunday of Advent B

24 December 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I afraid of what's about to happen to me?

Two key phrases leap out from the Gospel of the Annunciation.  Do not be afraid!  Let it be done! The first is spoken by a fearsome Archangel; the second by a fearless maiden.

From this Gospel emerges my final question of Advent.  Am I afraid of what's about to happen to me?

I'll admit.  I'm quite afraid of Christmas.  I always have been.  I'm afraid of not being ready, of missing it.  Nothing turns me into a grinch faster than asking me this - Father, are you ready for Christmas?  What am I most scared of?  That is my heart isn't changed this Christmas, it never will be.

Yet it's backward to think this way, as if it's within my power to prepare perfectly for Christmas.  I can't build a place in my soul for Christ to be born, any more than David could build the Lord a worthy temple.  I'm not ready, and I'm not worthy. There I said it.

Even Mary couldn't build a worthy place for Christ.  The difference is that she was ready to admit this.  Mary fearlessly gives permission to let it be done, and so has the best response to our Advent question.

I'm terrified of what's about to happen to me this Christmas.  Yet Mary isn't afraid.  Which is why I must turn to her, the savior of my Advent, at this final hour, and permit her to say fiat for me.

She's my only hope to not be afraid of what's about to happen.  

What does God think I'm capable of?

Homily

Late Advent Week Day 

Dec 22 - O Keystone

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

What does God think I'm capable of?

This is perhaps the scariest thing of all.  God thinks I'm worth putting great faith in.  He is happy to bet it all on me, which has to be the worst plan ever concocted.  Yet God is pleased to let the world turn on my faith.

This is the season of miraculous babies!  We encounter a litany of them.  Today's scripture features Hannah's boy Samuel's dedication to the Lord. Samuel will pick David to be the anointed king of Israel.    Elizabeth's boy John, also a miracle baby, will point to the new anointed one, who is Jesus.  Mary sings her Magnificat in response to God putting His faith in her, and doing the impossible through her.

The whole story moves toward fulfillment through God placing his faith in the capacity of women to believe in the impossible.  Does God want to advance the story of salvation by placing faith in me, if only I don't get scared of the impossible? 

What does God think I'm capable of?

How can this be?

Homily

Thursday of the 3rd Week of Advent B2

21 December 2023 Late Advent Weekday

AMDG

How can this be?

This question keeps popping up in the early chapters of Luke. First Zechariah, then Mary, and now Elizabeth.  The latter two ask the question in faith.  Zechariah asked in doubt.

How can this be?

True faith is an openness to what is beyond our understanding.  It's a passion for the impossible, and a desire to explore the unknown.  As the story of the incarnation develops in these Advent Gospels, we encounter God's desire to redeem and renew starting with our faith.

As I approach Christmas, is my heart open to what is unfamiliar, and beyond my control?

Do I have the faith to receive something new, and to say with wonder - how can this be?

+mj

Am I skeptical?

Homily

Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Advent B2

19 December Late Advent Weekday - O Root of Jesse's Stem

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I skeptical?

Zechariah was, and suffered the consequence of being mute.  Mary believed, and thus sang of the greatness of the Lord!  They both received similar messages regarding a miraculous conception.  They were both told by the same angel not to be afraid.  Yet Mary responded with the readiness of faith.  She knew that nothing is impossible for God.

It is easy enough to be skeptical of Pope Francis.  Today he approved a spontaneous blessing on same-sex couples, risking further confusion regarding the meaning of marriage.  Marriage has been consistently understood to be between a biological man and woman, promised to each other for life and open to conceiving children in a natural way, and raising them.  Marriage is elevated by our Lord to a sacrament, a participation in and and sign of His marriage to the Church.  No other human relationship can be equivocated to marriage.  Pope Francis cannot change this truth, nor would he.  Yet he recognizes that those not called to marriage are also responsible for entering into relationships that give life by serving God and neighbor. Though the Church cannot endorse sex outside of marriage, she can recognize that unmarried persons need encouragement to fulfill their purpose in life.  Hence his approval of spontaneous, non-liturgical or sacramental blessings, similar to those given regularly to persons in every state in life.

This is why we need not view his decision today with skepticism.  Pope Francis's pastoral program will always reach out in compassion to those who feel excluded from the family of God, the Church.  He will always work on the margins, oftentimes to the consternation of those insiders who yearn for more clarity, not less, regarding the Church's unified teaching on faith and morals.  Pope Francis is not threatening this unity.  He simply reminds us that the Church prays for and blesses people all the time, no matter their state in life, to encourage each and all.  The Pope desires that we pursue the fullness of life and love together, not separately.

Am I skeptical?

+mj

What do you have to say for yourself?

Homily

3rd Sunday of Advent B2

17 December 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What do you have to say for yourself?  

John the Baptist gets peppered with questions today, one after another.  He's asked - who, what, why - in rapid succession.  I just picked one for our pivotal question for the 3rd Sunday of Advent. 

What do you have to say for yourself?

John's answer is nothing, at least he says nothing for himself.   Imagine that, the greatest man born of women, according to Jesus, has nothing to say for himself.  We're always debating who's the greatest of all time, who's the true GOAT.  Jesus says John is.  Yet John, filled with the Holy Spirit, as the greatest of prophets, has full knowledge that it's not about him.  

What does John say for himself?  I am not worthy.  He says the same thing you will say as you approach Jesus, today in the Eucharist, and next week at Christmas.  I am not worthy.

John points only to Jesus.  So does Mary, in her gorgeous Magnificat that serves as today's psalm.  She says not one thing about herself, not one.  My spirit rejoices only in God my Savior, for He has looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid, and done great things for me.  

Do I want the joy of Gaudete Sunday, the grace of rejoicing always, praying without ceasing and in all things giving thanks?  It's easy.  Just say I'm not worthy.  You'll receive the grace of living for someone besides yourself.  You'll be out of the way to receive a visit from Him who alone brings true joy to the world.

+mj

How do I patiently hurry up?

Homily

2nd Sunday of Advent

10 December 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

How do I patiently hurry up?  It sounds impossible, yet the scriptures this weekend require it.  To do Advent well, I must patiently hurry up.

Once again this weekend, my faith leads me into a mysterious paradox.  It ought to feel familiar by now, so I may as well embrace it.  God is rarely an either/or, but most always a both/and.  He leads us into mysterious paradoxes that unlock the fullness of reality.  He loves us too much to invite us to anything less.  So this weekend, I am invited to patiently hurry up.  What does this even mean?

St. Peter is our second reading is the one who lays it out.  He says that to God a thousand years are as a day, and a day is as a thousand years.  St. Peter names the life of faith accurately, it is a patient process that is full of surprising, disruptive moments.  It's a both/and.  St. Peter reminds us that God is never distant nor delayed, but He is patient.  Yet at the same time the coming of the Lord is like a thief in the night, a sudden and pivotal disruption that requires the utmost readiness.

Patience is not sleepiness. No, it is long-suffering with attention and sensitivity.  St. Peter puts it another way, that I should be a person who simultaneously waits for and hastens the coming of the Lord! What, St. Peter? Are you crazy?  Aren't those things opposites - waiting and hastening?  Yet as I look at my life, and the life of those around me, I see what he is saying.  To be really good at life is to embrace that it is a patient process that is full of surprising, disruptive moments.  It's not an either/or, but a both/and.

John the Baptist appears this weekend kicking and screaming as only He can to awaken us to this same reality!  He dresses me down because He announces not just a word, but THE WORD that will change all of history.  He introduces not just a person but THE PERSON who alone can save us.  He readies us not just for a pivotal moment but THE MOMENT at which the world will receive its savior.  He kicks my rear end because he knows that the likelihood that I will miss the true meaning of Christmas this year is very high.

John the Baptist tells us to repent.  I will be repenting of two things this week.  The first is anything that makes me less patient.  The other is anything that makes me less sensitive.  For if I'm going to have my best Christmas, I have to figure out a way to patiently hurry up.

Who really wants a Savior?

Homily

1st Sunday of Advent B

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

3 December 2023

AMDG

Who really wants a Savior?

This pivotal question is easy - it's hostages!

Can you imagine for one second being a hostage?  Being held against your will, with no means of escape, with your only hope being if someone can negotiate your freedom or miraculously rescue you?  It's the most hopeless of circumstances, one in need of a Christmas miracle, a terrible reality that some people are in right now.

Can you imagine praying as a hostage for anything other than a Savior?  Can you imagine praying instead - don't come rescue me, I'll figure this out on my own?  

Yet this is how most of us approach Advent.  Lord, don't rescue me - at least not yet.  I'll solve this problem by myself.  Don't worry about me.  I don't want to bother you or ask for help.

Such a prayer is sheer madness, isn't it?  Especially for those of us who are hostages.  If I am honest about my human condition, I am a hostage.  Life is hard for everyone, and we are all enslaved to something.  I'm kidding myself if I pretend any differently, that I can solve my deepest problem through self-reliance.

Yet believe it or not, it's good news to be a hostage. If I was ok and able to rescue myself, I wouldn't need you, much less would I need God.  Being limited to what I can fix myself is a boring story. A great story is being rescued from my hostage situation, against all odds.  Great stories need not do-it-yourselfers, but heroic miracles. What's my prayer gonna be this Advent?

The Good News is that the One who alone can rescue me is near.  I need only admit that I'm a hostage. Who screams at God to come closer, and to come sooner, and actually means it?  That's right, only hostages do, and only hostages dare the real prayer of Advent.  

What's holding me hostage?  It's the same old thing for me. I still think there's a way to have it all. It's all I know and trust, and I'm helpless to change it, but it's never worked.  As my spiritual director tells me all the time, to try to choose everything is to choose nothing.  I'm addicted to trying to have it all, but I won't be free until I am able to choose one thing.  

What's holding you hostage?  In answering this question, I dare you to have the guts to have a real Advent.  Do not repeat what has not worked in the past!  Do not ask God for more time, more distance, more privacy or more control.  Tell God instead this Advent that you need Him.  Tell Him you're a hostage.  He has promised to be motivated by your prayer, and come to your rescue.  It begins with my facing what's holding me hostage.  Only then will I dare God to come closer, and to come sooner, and actually mean it.

Why do I want to worship?

Homily

Solemnity of Christ the King

26 November 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Why do I want to worship?

There were two other pivotal questions I considered for the Solemnity of Christ the King.  The first - what do I worship? The second - how do I want to be judged?  There are too many good options at the end of the liturgical year, when we consummate our celebration and practice of the Christian mysteries by focusing on ultimate things.  What a graced time of year, if not the easiest one to embrace.  

As we have said the last four weeks as we focus on the Catholic Final Four - death, judgment, heaven and hell - my freedom that makes me in the likeness of God is an awesome gift with a terrifying responsibility.  I get to choose my end.  I get to choose my destiny.  No parable makes this clearer than the one chosen by the Church for the liturgical year.  Look out!  Here comes Matthew Chapter 25!  Matthew 25 is about the particular judgment, a judgment that I am to look forward to, and to embrace, albeit with a dose of fear and trembling!

Why do I want to worship?  Today's Feast was instituted by Pius XI at the turn of the 20th Century to counteract the modern turn to the subject.  What's the modern turn to the subject? It's a focus on man more than God.  It's to flirt with the temptation to worship myself or an idol in this world.  Pius XI saw this conflict intensifying.  Gone was the assumption that everyone feared God in a holy way, and so everyone practiced their faith.  Instead, so many new ideas and things were proliferating, and vying for minds, hearts, wills and bodies.  So much was competing to be my ultimate concern, not the least of which was the idea that one day man would replace God.

Such is the original temptation, that never fades but instead intensifies in the history of man.  What's the temptation?  If I can somehow become God or replace God, then I don't have to worship to be in right relationship with truth and life.  If I can get out of worship, I can be the measure of God not vice versa, and maybe even I can escape judgment.  

The problem is that it doesn't work.  As much as I want to and as hard as I try, I can't make myself the center of reality or the author of life.  I am contingent, not necessary. As Bill Nye the science guy says, you're not special.  At most you are a speck on a speck on a speck against a seemingly endless and meaningless backdrop.  Even your deepest thought and most heroic act of love vanishes like smoke.  I am contingent, not necessary.  The only way I become significant is when I am in right relationship to the source of meaning; in other words, when I worship the true God.

So I worship today because I have to. That's true enough.  The only way for me to reach fulfillment is to worship reality, and to welcome judgment.  Otherwise, I can never reach my destiny, and as a kicker, the bad guys win in the end.  Matthew 25 is a terrible scene, to be sure, but it's better than the alternative.

Yet I don't just have to be here.  I can want to be here. Why do I want to worship?  It's because Jesus Christ is worthy.  It has been revealed in Him our King that ultimate truth, ultimate reality, and eternal life are grounded in what?  They're rooted in sacrificial love.  I worship a shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.  I worship a King who comes not to be served, but to serve.  There can be no better news on the planet than this!  That my destiny lies in the hands of this King, who is a most merciful judge, if only I want to worship Him and not myself or an idol.

I worship because I want to be judged by this King and no other.  I want to be judged now and forever only on Matthew 25, on whether I truly belong to His Kingdom.  I am here to worship not merely because I have to, but because with all I am, I want to.

+mj

What problem must I solve?

Homily

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time A

Anniversary of Chapel Dedication

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

10 September 2023

AMDG

What problem must I solve?

Does anyone else get sick and tired of solving problems?  It can seem like real life is just an endless series of conflicts.  As soon as you solve one problem, here come a slew of others to take its place.  Is it any wonder why privacy and independence are so highly prized?  People are problems.  Relationships are painful, and messy and costly!

Yet Jesus reminds us in today's Gospel it's all worth it.  We are made for relationship, not for isolation.  Jesus asks us his disciples to be the very best the world has ever seen at solving problems.  He Himself came to reconcile all that was lost and broken.  He includes us in this ministry, this mission of reconciliation, so much so that what we agree to on earth will redound to heaven.

Yes, the happiest people in life are not those who hide or escape from problems, but those who embrace conflict and navigate it well.  The happiest people never pray for easier circumstances.  They pray for the Holy Spirit to give them the wisdom, courage and charity to engage life as it really is, instead of quitting on life.  Pope Francis put it this way - it's not God who tired or forgiving, but we who tire of repenting.  There is not quit in God, we pray that there is no quit in us!

What problem must I solve?  That's easy for me.  I have been working for 7+ years now and how to get KU students to Mass.  If we take Jesus Christ at his word, that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we have not life in us, then to go to Mass is our life!  I for the life of me can't solve for students not feeling the difference that a living sacramental encounter with the Lord Jesus and His desire for us to live, would make in their lives.  I've received thousands of suggestions.  We have tried dozens of things.  The problem is complex, as any parent would tell you.  There's not an easy fix, saving making every day Ash Wednesday, when we are packed with KU students letting us throw dirt and them and tell them they're gonna die.

Jesus begs us not to lose heart or grow weary of the ministry of reconciliation.  The process is outlined in the Gospel.  We must start with ourselves, knowing that what most needs to change in the world is always me.  Each one of us must be committed to his own conversion, to embrace a life of penance, and while putting boundaries on unhealthy or abusive relationships, be open to criticism and to removing the plank in our own eye first.  

Then Jesus asks us to encourage one another in intimacy and charity, not settling for good enough but challenging each other to get better everyday, either in 1on1 conversations or in small groups.   The goal is never just to hang out with nice people who affirm the worst in you.  Quite the opposite, you want friendships that elevate your capacity to solve the problems that most vex you.

Finally, there is the communion of the Church, and our unity in faith and morals that is fostered through reconciliation at Mass and in the confessional.  Jesus says that if His Church can realize the unity in faith and morals, it will redound to heaven.  Like any team or group that wants to solve any problem or accomplish anything great, there have to be rules for being reconciled to one another.  Everyone on the team must show up and do their best.  Jesus says rightly that the unity in faith and morals in His body the Church is the sole hope of the world!  Reconciliation is important!  So we have to stay after it.

What problem must I solve?  Jesus shows us the way, and begs us not to lose heart!

+mj

What needs to get out into the open?

Homily

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time A

3 September 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

If you were pope, what is the first thing you would do?

That's a great question, but one I will leave for another day.  Let me just say this.  Don't do what Peter did.  In the Gospel of Matthew, in just a matter of moments Peter goes from making the great confession of faith in Jesus, and being named the first Pope, to being called Satan.  Why?  Because his first act as Pope, as royal steward of the kingdom of heaven, is to try to cancel the cross, to cancel suffering.  Jesus correct him, sternly.  

Yet in saying what he's really thinking, Peter mysteriously becomes a hero once again.  Because he is honest Peter gets his fear out in the open.  Even though his answer is dead wrong, because it is visible, in play, and not hidden, the answer is corrected by the light of truth.  Which leads to our pivotal question for this week - what needs to get out in the open?

A key to holiness is vulnerability.  Vulnerability and honesty is what makes Jeremiah such a great prophet.  He wears his emotions on his sleeves.  He relates the tensions and conflicts of his heart, instead of hiding, avoiding, escaping or coping.  In doing so, Jeremiah fulfills his destiny.  He saves his own soul, and perhaps the lives of those around him.  Simply for telling the truth.  I feel used by God, overwhelmed by him and his mysterious ways.  I hate the cross.  Yet there is still something that I need to get off my chest, something burning in my heart, something imprisoned in my bones.  It's the capacity to live the truth of my reality in love.  It's to believe in myself as God does.

The more we get the tensions, paradoxes and conflicts of life out in the open, the more they can be healed and find resolution in their relation to God and to reality.  You know those conflicts well.  I trust God but I doubt.  I want to live courageously and change but I'm afraid and stay stuck.  I want to be free but keep going back to my coping mechanisms.  I want to give my life away but I'm afraid to let go of who I am right now.  I want to embrace my cross but I like comfort.  I want to participate in the redemption of the world but I want my privacy, my choice, my control too.

When those tensions get out in the open, however they do - in prayer, in conversations in shared experiences, they are related in a way that saves our soul, and brings life.  When they are hidden, escaped or avoided, they get the best of us.

What do I need to get more out in the open?  It's the shared human experience, it's the conflicts and tensions of the heart that are the foundations of every great story that ends in life.  They are the emotions expressed by Jeremiah and Peter.

What do I need to get into the open?

What gate am I gonna smash?

Homily

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time A

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

27 August 2023

AMDG

What gate am I going to smash?

There appear to me to be two gates in play in today's Gospel from Matthew. There's a gate that needs to be smashed with a rock, and a gate that will be unlocked with a key.

Peter, you are a rock with keys.  One gate you will smash.  The other you will open.

I'm gonna leave the second gate for another homily.  It's the gate guarding the authority Christ gave to His Church in and through its first royal steward St. Peter, a gate that 2000 years later Pope Francis also has the key to unlock as our papa, the steward of our Catholic faith, the vicar or most visible representative of Christ in the world.

I want to talk about the first set of gates, the gates of hell.  They are the gates holding those who have lost their souls. Right after calling Peter a rock, Jesus says these gates will not stand!  Take that as you wish.  I take it to mean the faith of the Church will smash the damn things.

Do you remember that as a member of the Catholic Church whose founding we rehearse in today's Gospel, that you exist to save souls and defeat evil?  Yes you!  I'm talking to you, as a I talk to myself.  You exist to smash the gates of hell.  It's your legacy.  Permission granted today for you to be a criminal trespasser past the gates of hell.  I ask you to break and enter, please!

A part of the mission of the Church is to break down the gates of hell. It's my mission, and it's yours.

Too often I automatically interpret today's Gospel in a soft, weak, defensive way.  That even though my faith might be threatened, and I'm scared to lose faith, that someone I'll be able to hang onto it.  Jesus says so.  I don't think that's the interpretation of this Gospel at all.  Those afraid of losing faith in some ways have already lost it.  It's a losing mentality.  The faith we celebrate and lay hold of has the power to smash evil.  The Catholic faith is powerful and offensive.  If it's not, to hell with it, pun intended.

What gate am I going to smash this year?

I'm determined to witness that the Catholic faith retains its power to help me live fully, live differently.  I'm especially excited to profess the times the Holy Eucharist has rescued my soul from death, and to invite more and more to the transformative experience of the Mass, confident that KU students will respond to God's desire to change their lives through the sacrament of His Body and Blood.

The gate I am going to smash is my fear that I can't do anything to get people to Mass, that I have to accept the ways things are.  I'm tired of worrying whether students will show up for Mass.  I'm going to move past my fear and boldly witness my faith, confident in its power to defeat the evils that afflict us.

You got next.  What gate are you gonna smash this year?

+mj 

Who do I need to learn from?

Homily

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time A1

Transferred Feast of St. Lawrence

20 August 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Who do I need to learn from?

In today's shocking Gospel, Jesus learns from a nobody.  When's the last time you learned something from a nobody?

I know, I know, it's uncomfortable to say that Jesus learns, that Jesus is a student.  Yet in taking on our human nature, Jesus becomes like us in all things but sin.  He is obedient to human parents, meaning He listens to them.  The letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus learns obedience from what He suffers, until He is perfected in love.  Today He learns from a Canaanite woman that She deserves the scraps from the table.  He is wrong today in telling the Canaanite woman, an enemy of Israel, to bug off, just as He was wrong to tell his mother Mary to bug off when She asked Him to make wine as His first sign at Cana.  Jesus is wrong, not in a sinful way mind you, but that He might learn just as we do.

Who do I need to learn from?

In God's mysterious ways, which are so different than ours, our best lessons in life come from nobodies..  God uses the weak to shame the strong, the poor to convert the rich, the nobodies to change the somebodies, the outsiders to save the insiders.  It's prophesied throughout the history of Israel, that all the nations will come to adore the God of Israel.  It's foreshadowed by the magi from the east, men with presumably no faith, being the only ones with enough faith to recognize the newborn Savior of the world.  It's played out even today, where the Catholic faith is growing wherever it is most persecuted in the far corners of the world, whereas here at home where it's comfortable the faith is being lost.

Who does the St. Lawrence Center need to learn from?  This is a great question!  This Catholic mission to KU is not just to keep insider Catholics from losing their faith. That's a loser mentality, and Jayhawks aren't losers. No, the St. Lawrence Center is for everyone, and the most dramatic stories of faith written on campus again this year will come from outsiders like the Canaanite woman, those least likely to have faith.

In the radical prediction of St. Paul, the insiders will only come fully to faith after all the outsiders have come into the Church. That makes the most important people at KU those who are farthest from the Catholic faith. We call them the E's - those who are enemies of the Church and think that religion harms people and leads them astray and participates in white imperialist privilege and should be canceled.  Of all the audiences St. Lawrence wishes to reach with the goodness, truth, beauty and meaning of our Catholic faith, the E's are the most important.  If you're wondering what the other groups are, the A's are those who are sold out for the faith. The B's are those who are drifting away. The C's have decided they don't want to be Catholic. The D's havent' heard the Gospel.  Then there are the E's, those who hate the Church.

The Catholic Church is mother and shepherd of them all.  We pray equally for them all.  For anyone who concludes the Catholic Church is exclusive, they might want to take a second look.  The Catholic Church is filled with diversity, with Gentiles from all the races of the world.  The Church is filled with equity, where everyone is adopted equally into the family of God's beloved.  Then there's inclusion, as the Church is on mission to gather all people into one, for everyone has a part to play in the redemptive mission of Christ.  The Catholic Church had a DEI office long before KU thought of it.

Back now to the point of today.  I'm here to learn, and St. Lawrence is here to learn, and most importantly, Jesus is here to learn, from the least significant, from the farthest outsider.  The least likely person, the Canaanite woman, showed up with the strongest faith, and Jesus was amazed.  He learned from her.  This is not a loss of omniscience from Jesus, not a sinful mistake, but a humble move to draw out the faith of this amazing woman.  Jesus chooses to hide what he could have known to learn from this woman, and to teach us how to learn faith from the last significant.

Who do I need to learn from?

Who is trying to kill me?

Homily

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time A1

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

25 June 2023

AMDG +mj

Who is trying to kill me?

It's easy to miss the point of this weekend's scriptures, so I'm going to ask a dramatic question if I may.

Who is trying to kill me?

From the threats against Jeremiah, to the lament of the psalmist, to the reminder from St. Paul that we are alive only insofar as we participate in the death of Christ, to the teaching of Jesus to not be afraid nor shy away from those who will try to kill you, it's clear that our relationship with God is a matter of life and death.  It can't be anything else, always and without exception.

It's no accident that everywhere in the world where Christians are being killed, the faith is on fire, as are the lives of Christians who know that you're only really living if you know what you will suffer and die for.  Whereever showing up for Mass is a matter of putting your life on the line, true life is increased.  Wherever it's comfortable to go to Mass, the life of the faithful is in decline.  There are countless true stories of Catholics who were once arrested for practicing their faith, who stopped practicing as soon as it became easy.

To put another point on it, you're not really living your faith unless someone is trying to kill you.  That probably sounds like hyperbole, but it's not. It's a shame, actually that our relativistic culture tolerates Christians quite well.   We might say the Church is under persecution, but it's not really.  The Church can be mocked by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in LA, and by others, but more often, it's ignored.  See how easily we fell in line last summer during the decisive vote on putting reasonable protections on defending innocent unborn life.  The amendment lost 85% to 15% here in Douglas county, and we tolerated the defeat quite well and went on with our lives.

It's one of my greatest pet peeves how easy it is to ignore or cancel the Catholic faith here on this campus.

But it's my fault.  I'm not living my faith in such a way that anyone is trying to kill me.  Even the evil one has figured out that if he persecutes me, I might fight back, but if he makes me comfortable, I'll lie down.  The reality is that my Christian life is covered in fear, despite Jesus inviting me not to be afraid of those who kill the body. Why does he say this.  Because I am to have already given my life away, in my baptism I died to a comfortable, horizontal existence, and rose to a life marked by courageously suffering and dying for who I love.  This is how a soul is saved, and it's always going to offend someone, so much so that being a real Christian is always a matter of life and death.

Catholics' favorite lines in scriptures are the ones where those who sit in back are lauded, those who put in two cents are celebrated, and those who pray in secret are repaid. This is all true and good, but there's more.  There's the prophetic dimension of our lives that comes out clearly in today's Scriptures.  Anyone playing it safe is gonna lose.  Anyone afraid to share their faith has already lost.  For our relationship with God is our life, and so the practice of my faith can only be a matter of life and death.

As it is, nobody is trying to kill me.  In response to today's Scriptures, it's a good day to wonder why.

Am i made for this?

Homily

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

11 June 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I made for this?

Today is the day set aside by the Church to lift up the Eucharist and to present it as the sole hope of the world.  If you've ever been to a World Youth Day with millions of people gathered around the Eucharist, you get it.  Nothing is more unifying.  Nothing is more meaningful.  Nothing gives more life.  Nothing renews the hope of the world more than the Blessed Sacrament.

It's why Jesus said Do this in memory of me.

The problem is that none of us actually do it.  The problem is not that 70% of Catholics doubt the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. It's that 100% do.  It's hard to be all in. It's hard to trust completely.  It's hard to let the presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament to be everything it's meant to be.

So I must ask myself, am I made for this?

The longer I'm a priest, the longer I'm convinced that everyone is made for a daily holy hour.  Everyone and anyone who wants to be fully alive is meant to Do This in memory of me.  Today is the day the Church doubles down on her Eucharistic faith, and prays for help for her unbelief, for the Eucharist has been revealed as the source and summit of all life and every life.

Jesus makes his point abundantly clear.  Amen, amen I say to you.  Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you.  He really said that.  He really meant it.  Yet what else could He say?  If He is God, if He is the source of life, and if our relationship with Him is our life, what it means to be alive, then if that relationship is consummated and actualized in the Eucharist I must eat His flesh and drink His blood.  Jesus admits no exceptions.  I have no excuse, and nowhere else I could go, for He has the words of eternal life.

Jesus desires not just bios for you, but your zoe!  In the end, it's not just how long you live, it's how you live.  True life is measured vertically.  Jesus calls it eternal life, the life that never dies.  True life is measured by the depth of my love for God and my neighbor, and nothing else.

There is no greater love that to lay down one's life for one's friends - that is the sacrifice of the Eucharist in which we participate, through which we cooperate in the redemption of our souls and the fulfillment of our mission.  In the Eucharist alone is what it means to live.

Am I made for this?

So many people ask me what's my plan for keeping college students Catholic, for getting them back to Mass.  I don't care for the question, not do I find it meaningful.  

How do I show, by my life and my prayer, that I was made for this.  How I demonstrate that I can't live without the Eucharist, that I was made to engage the source of life each and every day?

It's the more important, and urgent question than keeping somebody else Catholic.

Ask yourself instead - am I made for this?  If so, what must change?

+mj

will I play my part?

Homily

Solemnity of Pentecost

28 May 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Will I play my part?

St. Paul says in the 2nd reading from 1 Cor that to each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.  I have received the 7-fold gifts of the Spirit, first in baptism then deepened and strengthened in Confirmation, and today stirred up by the celebration of Pentecost, so that I can complete my mission.  

None of us exists for our own sake.  It's the most evil lie destroying lives in the world around us.  It's not my privacy, my truth, my choice, my body.  I don't make sense on my own, for I am relational by nature.  My life is a gift with a responsibility.  This is the worldview stamped into our nature, yet also a truth drawn out so beautifully by the celebration of the Christian mysteries that reach their culmination today in Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

As Travis Kelce said to the trash-talking mayor of Cincinnati after the Chiefs beat the Bengals in the AFC Championship game - know your role!

Will I play my part?  It's a dramatic question that lies at the heart of every life, every story.  It's a question to be discerned in relation to the Holy Spirit, who is sent today to reveal all things, including the meaning of my life.  What is more, the Holy Spirit descends as a fire that puts my soul in anguish until my purpose in accomplished.

Will I play my part?

I pray that through the Holy Spirit you can say a confident yes to this question!  The courage to act with faith in God - to act with confidence - is another gift of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus gives through His Spirit in the upper room to the fearful disciples a courage and peace that will compel each of the apostoles to play his part.  The peace and unity manifested is that no matter how hard the circumstances, there is confidence that through the Holy Spirit each apostles has everything, certainly everything he needs, to empty himself and make a gift of His life.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.  For my own sake, Jesus invites me through His Spirit, into a cooperation, participation and incorporation into his redemptive mission.  It is through my playing my part, that my own soul is saved, and I arrive at the new, different and abundant life of the Resurrection.

Here we are on day 50, with our Lord saving His best gifts, the 7-fold gifts of His Holy Spirit, for last.

May I confidently answer the question on this year's Pentecost - will I play my part?

+mj

what's your word?

Homily

Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection

9 April 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG 

What's your word?

If you had one word to proclaim to the world for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Can you guess what mine is?  I bet you can!

Risen!  Risen!  Risen!  Jesus Christ is Risen!  He is Risen from the dead!  He is Risen just as He said!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

That will be the last word I speak tonight, and forever.  On this word - Risen - I am happy to be everything that I am and all that I ever will be.

Tonight I witness to you that this word - Risen - is the most mysterious, profound, dramatic and TRUE word that has ever been spoken in human history, or could ever be spoken.  Tonight I sing this word - Risen - in liturgical concert with the angels, the saints, and yes, the martyrs who died for this word even today.  Tonight, I shout into the darkness that this word - Risen - is the one thing I know to be true out of everything I know to be true.

Risen is the word of my life.  What's yours?

Tonight my prayer is that you too will shout a word.  Tonight my prayer is that each and all of us, led by our catechumens and candidates and the risk of faith they speak tonight, will get off the couch!  Tonight is no time for a virtual Easter!  To hell with that!  In this Church there is no sideline, no bench, no bystanders!

You have my answer to the one word that I was made to speak into the world!  What's yours?

Why this word for me?  Because without it, even the most heartfelt words of love I ever say, words first spoken by Jesus - this is my body broken for you - lose their power.  Without the word Risen even the greatest sign of love I have ever known, the cross on which I gave the most passionate kiss of my life last night, is powerless in the face of death.  St. Paul said it best.  Unless Jesus is Risen, we are all pathetic losers!

But I don't profess this word tonight cause I need it to be true.  My conviction about the empty tomb is not a vain wish that justifies my life.  No, this word is the fruit of my being a disciple of Jesus.  Jesus never invites his disciples to a wishful faith. That's weak sauce!  No He invites me to follow Him first to the cross to verify whether there is a love stronger than death.  I pray my discipleship has been a courageous one, filtered through the cross of Jesus where I have learned to fear nothing and avoid nothing.

My conviction comes from the times I actually dared being a real Christian, and I'll be darned if Jesus wasn't right.  Every time I die to sin and myself, I lay hold of a new, different and powerful life that does not fade.  Every time I suffer and die with Him, I rise with Him!

It's real people!

Jesus Christ is Risen!  He is truly Risen!  Shame on me if this is ever something I have to pretend to be true, instead of something that because I am a disciple I have discovered through the risk of faith to be true.

On this truth I am happy to bet everything that I am and ever will be.  Not because I need to, or I'm afraid not to, but because I want to.

My word is Risen. You got next!

You're invited to beat me or join me.  If you dare join, renew your baptismal promises.  If you join, please don't do anything cheap, easy or pitiable tonight.  This is conviction night - it means 'with victory!' So let's decide with sharp minds, and pure hearts and courageous wills.

So, I propose to you now, a word that has rocked the history of the world, and changed the meaning of life and the destiny of man, to be the word of your life.  On this most holy night set apart precisely for this decision, I invite you to say the mysterious, dramatic, profound and true word that has ever been or could ever be spoken.

Risen!  Jesus Christ is Risen!  He is Risen from the dead just as He said.  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  

how would I spend my last kiss?

 Homily

Good Friday of the Lord's Passion

7 April 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

How would I spend my last kiss?

Would I spend it here?

Would I spend it now?

I can tell for sure how I wouldn't spend my last kiss - on the kiss cam!  I hate the kiss cam. I don't got to sporting events to watch PDA.  The inventor of the kiss cam should be canceled.  I don't care if everyone else loves it.  I live in fear that some cameraman far far away would think it funny to put a priest on the kiss cam.  So whenever it comes on I make a beeline for the beer line!  It's a hard no for me.

Yet what's my yes?  How would I spend my last kiss.  Would I spend it here?  Would I spend it now.

At this juncture of the Lord's passion, the last kiss is that of Jesus.  It's a kiss of betrayal.  It's the kiss of death.  Jesus is dead, and I killed him.  That's where the story is.  That's where the story could end.

Yet what if I have one more kiss, a kiss not of betrayal, not of death, but a kiss of reconciliation.

The Good Friday liturgy is famous for its liturgical kiss.  As you approach the crucifix in just a few minutes, you get to choose what your kiss means to you.  Is it the kiss of death, or the kiss of desire for new life.  Is it where your story will end, or where your story truly begins?

For the only love that could defeat death, is a love willing to suffer and lay down its life for it's beloved.  The axis of the cross can only mean two things - it's either the final defeat of love, or the place where eternal life begins.

What if you had only one kiss left.  Would you spend it here?  Would you spend it now?

am I sensitive?

Homily

4th Sunday of Ordinary Time A1

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

29 January 2023  Kansas Day

AMDG

Am I sensitive?

The longer I pray with the beatitudes, the more I'm convinced happiness lies in sensitivity?  How sensitive am I?  How in touch am I with what I am seeing, tasting, feeling, smelling, hearing?  If we look at Jesus's ministry, it affected the flesh as much as the spirit, for the incarnation involves the salvation not of angels, but of persons, who are a unity of body and soul.

The happiness described in the beatitudes counters the numbness and coping that deadens the senses.  Happy are those who can feel everything, the good and the bad.  Only for such people who are sensitive, can the truth that the best is yet to come be realized, and felt.

Blessed are those who are poor, and weeping, and meek, and hungry, and repentant, and chaste, who don't have to be right, and who are unpopular, for such people are feeling things that many people avoid and hide from.  Woe to those who have things, and comfort, and status, who get away with things, who have to be right, are lustful, who use others and who are popular, for such people cannot be alive because they are insulated from the full human experience of feeling.

Only the empty, the vulnerable, the ready, the faithful can feel not only the bad, but even more importantly, the good that God has in store for those who love him.  Only the sensitive can live the truth of our faith that the best is yet to come.

Jesus came not to anesthetize the senses, but to redeem them?   Am I sensitive.  Answering the question is key to real happiness.

what's my word for the year?

Homily

2nd Sunday or Ordinary Time A

15 January 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Do you have a word for the year?  Mine is aggression!

Aggression? That doesn't sound very nice or pastoral, does it? Are priests supposed to be aggressive?  Well, in light of today's Gospel, I think aggression is a great word!

I'm tired of losing my own soul and the souls of those entrusted to me.  Good enough can't be good enough anymore.  John the Baptist tells us the difference.  A baptism of repentance merely cleanses us from the outside in, so we can get along, get by and get on.  A baptism by Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, and fire, leads to transformation, and makes all things new.

What do you want in this new year, and new semester?  Ask boldly for what you want!  I want to be a real spiritual father to the KU Catholic family, a father who weeps when his children weep, and rejoices when they rejoice.  I want to accompany my kids through the ups and downs of life, showing them how much God and I believe in their ability to write the greatest stories of this generation.

John the Baptist says clearly why he exists!  He exists to baptize with water so that we can recognize the one who will baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire!  John the Baptist point to the one who takes away the sin of the world!

Jesus comes to take away sin, not the punishment due to sin.  There's a big difference!  A baptism of water might save us from damnation.  A baptism by the Holy Spirit recreates us to participate in the very life of God!  The baptism we have all received is the latter - it is not merely a washing away of our sins, it is a capacity to sin no more, and to live the fullness of love and happiness for which we are made.

What do you want in 2023?  What's your word?  I want to aggressively pursue this new kind of life, that is not just getting by or getting away or getting along with sin, but leaving it behind, and participating and cooperating aggressively in the paschal mystery of Jesus for the salvation of my own soul and for the redemption of the world!

Aggression!  It's the way to use my anger at the way things are as energy to participate in something new.  

I invite you not to settle for a baptism of repentance, a cleansing on the outside only, a reprieve from the punishment due to sin.  Let yourself dare again the baptism by the Holy Spirit and fire, so that you can aggressively go forth as a missionary disciple, participating and cooperating boldy in the reason why you exist, and go forth into a future to sin no more!