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