Can I be trusted to do my job?

Homily

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

29 September 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

Can I be trusted to do my job?

Guess what?  Everyone here today has a job!  Everyone has a role, a vocation.  By virtue of your baptism, you are each and all a priest, prophet and king!  It is out tremendous dignity to offer the sacrifice of our lives in and through the passion of Jesus Christ our High Priest, to participate in and make visible his Kingdom so that many can belong to it, and to give witness to his truth and love that defeats great evils and serves our neighbor. 

There is more. Each of us is a temple of God's love, for the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and if you have been confirmed, that Holy Spirit has been deepened, strengthened and sealed in all its fullness within you.  You have a missionary and prophetic character stamped on your soul!

There is even more.  Each of us is an integral member of the body of Christ, and no member can say to another I do not need you.  Each of you is critically important.  Each of us matters infinitely.  Each of us has a job is the most amazing mission ever attempted, the final defeat of sin and death through the passion of Jesus Christ. As the Father sent me, so I send you?  Yes, that's right, He sends you!

So, can I be trusted to do my job?

I choose to trust each and every member of of St. Ann's to do their job, and I don't ever want to know any differently.  That's my choice, now and forever as your pastor, to not give up on anyone the Lord has given me.  I not only need you to do your job.  I trust you to do your job.  Jesus first believes in you, so how can I not?  As the Father has sent Him, so He sends you!  Who am I to tell Jesus he's trusting the wrong person?  I tell Him all the time that He has the worst plan, but He doesn't budget.  He asks me to trust Him as He trusts me.  So I will.

Ned Yost taught me in 2014-15 how to trust others.  I'm a Royals nut.  Thank God we can talk about their return to the playoffs instead of the Jayhawks this weekend.  When the Royals made the playoffs for the first time in 30 year sin 2014, I wore a blue vestment with a crown above a monogrammed 'M' on the Feast of our Lady of Victory, our Lady of the Rosary.  It was the all-school Mass and the Royals were playing that day.  I asked the students who the 'M' stood for - and a third grader yelled out - Moustakas!  He was wrong - it stood for Mary - but I'll never forget it.

Anyway, Ned Yost trusted every member of those Royals championship teams to keep the line moving.  I thought Ned Yost was a terrible manager.  I was sure he was always trusting the wrong guys, and putting them in the wrong roles.  I disagreed with almost every critical decision he made.  Yet I was wrong.  Ned trusted against all odds that everyone could know their role, and do their job.  The result was a series of miraculous come back from the dead victories, because everyone kept the line moving!

It's a great metaphor for St. Ann.  I choose to trust each of you to know your role and do your job.  It's really not that hard, but I can make it so sometimes when I only trust myself, or a select few favorites.  Yet Jesus against all odds trusts me, and you, so how can I not?  He couldn't be clearer. When we show up and encourage one another in faith, we build heaven.  When we cancel or fail to show up for each other, or give bad example, we build hell.

The precepts of the Church are so easy, it's embarrassing when we don't follow them. Show up for practice every time.  Put your life on the altar. Give your best.  Pray and fast together, and restore trust through confession when trust is broken.  If we do these very simple things, we cannot fail to defeat the worst evils of our times.  St. Ann will fulfill its destiny to be light for the world and to give the fullness of life we have through Christ Jesus our Lord to each other.

Jesus says do whatever it takes to know your role and do your job.  He believe we are all prophets!  Can I be trusted to do my job?  Jesus trust you, and so do I!

+mj

Is it really about the kids?

Homily

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

22 September 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

Is it really about the kids?

For St. Ann's parish to fulfill its destiny, we must raise magnificent children.  It comes up in my prayer all the time.  It's our namesake legacy, for St. Ann was the mother of a child whose soul magnified the Lord!  St. Ann is the grandmother of Jesus, who gave us his little disciples, his children, the glory that He has with His Father in heaven.  What a compelling word - magnanimity - greatness of soul!  St. Ann's must not fail to raise the most magnificent children.  This includes children of all ages, for Jesus teaches so clearly, that unless each and all of us turn and becomes as a child - small, vulnerable and dependent - we will not enter the kingdom of heaven.  If we fail to see God and ourselves in our children, we will lose our souls.

It's easy to say it's all about the kids, but is this what St. Ann's is really known for, and what do we mean when we talk about raising magnanimous children.  It can't be about spoiling them, or only about insulating them from how life really is.  It has to be about teaching them courage by example, for greatness of soul, magnanimity, is the precise fruit of the passion of Jesus, His suffering and death.  The new, full, abundant and eternal life offered ultimately through Jesus Christ - true holiness and greatness - comes only through a tenacious participation in his paschal mystery.

Jesus is always inviting us his little ones into his passion.  But like the first disciples, we still don't get it.  We don't understand, and are reduced to silence in the face of His passion.  Instead of being meaner than hell, we too easily get scared to death.  When was the last time I faced adversity, suffering and danger with tenacity?  In our fallen world, everyone has to go through hell, one way or another, and nobody gets out of here alive.  So Jesus is always inviting us into His passion, and away from our attachments to wealth, power, pleasure and honor.  He begs us not to pass onto our children our politicking and judging, our ways of escaping, avoiding or hiding from life as it really is.  He teaches us courage, and invites us to be the martyrs of this generation, for true peace only comes when heroes are living dangerously, overcoming evil with good and hatred with love and despair with courage.

This is how a human soul is made magnanimous, through the passion of Jesus Christ.  If we dare to raise magnanimous children, we should protect them from as many evils as we can, but the safest thing we can do for them is to teach them to live courageously in the face of danger.  Only then can we say that St. Ann's is really about the kids.  

+mj

Do I play to win or lose?

Homily

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

15 September 2024

St. Ann's Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

Do I play to win or lose? 

The answer is yes!

In Jesus, every answer is yes!  Whenever his enemies try to trap him, Jesus escapes by turning questions on their heads, by exposing the one-sidedness of human politicking.  Jesus is a master teacher at how to see the fullness of reality, and to live in that fullness, rather than being trapped by narrow thinking.  He says to Peter - you are thinking way too small, as fallen human beings do, not as God does.

In Jesus the answer is always yes!  For us fallen creatures, its easier to make quick judgments based on what I think is fair.  Those judgments are always imperfect because my perspective is imperfect.  So I resort to politicking, quick judgments of who is in or out, who is right or wrong, who is better or worse.  I reduce reality to either/or and win/lose scenarios that are within my control. Yet reality is way more than this.  Jesus the master teacher instructs us in paradox, parables and mystery, for the fullness of reality is only approached in this way.

The paradoxes of Jesus draw us into His wisdom, the ability to see reality more deeply and fully, in color and in contrast.  What is more, the author of life teaches us how to lives; again, not according to what I can control but by how much mystery I can embrace.

Do I play to win or lose?  My grandpa always told my uncles after they lost a game that losing is a great teacher, that one learns more from losing than from winning.  My uncles were quick to retort that they wanted to be dumb, because winning is more fun!  That's all of us I'm afraid - all we want to do is win, win, win no matter what.  Yet this is not the attitude of our Lord.  He teaches instead that only those who know how to lose, for loss and suffering is an inevitable part of reality, will enter his paschal mystery, the process by which ultimate victories over sin and death are won.

Jesus teaches us to play with courage and unselfishness, but that doesn't always translate into easy wins. Yet it places our lives within his paschal mystery, so that only as we first suffer and die together, will we also live together.

So back to the question.  Do I play to win or lose?  The answer is yes!  Am I saved by faith or works?  The answer is yes!  Should I be poor or rich?  The answer is yes!  Should I cry or laugh?  The answer is yes!  Should I die or live?  The answer in Jesus is always yes.  Every yes finds its perfection in him.  

To win games, do you need to be good at offense, defense, or special teams?  The answer is yes!  Jesus plays offense, attacking sin with tenacity and venom, spurring us on to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.  Jesus knows how to play defense, fasting forty days in the desert so as to show us how to deny the evil one access to our souls!  Jesus is best at special teams, surrendering with mercy to the evil that has to be transformed by love into the energy and ground of the Resurrection.  

Whatever the moment requires, Jesus is ready to say yes to reality as it presents itself!  So should I fight or surrender?  You know the answer!  The answer is yes.  I see this is a priest all the time.  People will fight for their lives and for those they love with a fierce love. Still, there comes a moment for all of us to know what I will die for, and to choose death before it can choose us, saying precisely with Jesus - into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit.  

So at the same time, in real life, in the fullness of reality, we are fighting and surrendering, winning and losing, receiving and giving, crying and laughing.  Happy are those who can embrace reality, and what life requires at each moment, for they are truly children of God, and the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.  

Should I play to win or lose?  Don't think narrowly as human beings do.  In Jesus, the answer is yes!

+mj

Go for seven

Homily

Nuptial Wedding Mass of Max McElroy and Madilynn Charles

Our Lady of Sorrows, KCMO

7 September 2024

Saturday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

+BVM

AMDG

Go for seven.

Normally, when I say go for seven, people think of football. Madi - I know you've been watching more football, since you're about to marry a sports nut.  Maybe even you think that going for seven is a football metaphor.  It could be, and that could be a great homily about how to win championships, but I'm not going there.  Not even on a college football Saturday, not even in Kansas City, where Patrick, Travis and Taylor are treated like gods.

Believe it or not, going for seven is not about how many kids the church wants you to have either. Seven would be a great blessing, and if that's God's will, then go for it.  But that's not what I mean when I tell you to go for seven.

Go for the seven sorrows of Mary.  That's the seven to go for.

For whatever reason, Max and Madi, you have chosen to celebrate what could well be the happiest day of your life in a place dedicated to the sorrows of Mary.  An interesting choice, as was the idea for Jayhawks to get married in Missouri, but maybe life is just a little bit harder in misery, and here's a good place to celebrate Our Lady's Sorrows.  But what do these have to do with a wedding?

The sorrows of Mary have everything to do with happiness.  You know the Beatitudes - Blessed and happy are those who are weeping, for one day they shall laugh. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  It is in the devotion and tradition of our faith to pray through the joys and sorrows of life together. Only as we cry together do we also laugh together. Only if we suffer and die together, will we truly live together.

Jesus took on our flesh so that He could feel with us and for us everything contained in the human experience.  The passions of his sacred heart are reflected in his closest and best disciple, our Blessed Mother, and in the affairs of her Immaculate Heart.  So we embrace with devotion the suffering of our Mother in this Church, knowing that the fullness of life and happiness lies on the other side of a shared experience of suffering and death.  Here we mark the seven sorrows of Mary - the prophecy that her heart would be laid open for our sake.  We feel her anguish as a refugee, as one who lost her son for a time, as one who stayed with him in his scourging, crucifixion and being captured by death.  We celebrate here that although Mary's heart was pure, it was not sanitized from the human experience.

This is precisely that shared experience of life as it really is that you pledge to each other today.  In good and evil, for better or worse, no matter what, we are playing for keeps until I have nothing left to give.  That is the passion of Jesus, and the passion of our Lady, played out in the story of your passion for each other.  

Go for seven,  If you embrace the seven sorrows of Mary, and only if, you can be confident that you will also share in her seven everlasting joys.  The joy of conceiving new life, sharing the news with family and friends, seeing the face of God in your newborn child and God willing, in your children's children.  Seeing your child find the meaning of their life through their faith, and living a story where they too defy all odds and come back from the dead.  Receiving this fulfillment of all your desire in the kingdom of heaven.  

Blessed are those who mourn, for one day they shall laugh.  Today we celebrate the joining of your two hearts, knowing that the hearts that bleed and break and burn together, also play, and dance and sing together.  

How do your hearts become one?  That's right - by going for seven.  When you call down the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit upon each other shortly, you do something so powerful even the Pope can't do it.  You are ministers of the sacrament, the sign, the mystery of marriage, by which two people become one flesh.  Four gifts for your head - wisdom, understanding, knowledge and counsel - that you may see and think about human and divine things as God does.  Three for your heart, that you might live with courage, reverence and childlike wonder.  Go for seven, for the love that is the who spirit is creative, and makes the two of you a new reality!

Go for seven.  Thank you for allowing us to see God's desire to be with us and for us in a nuptial way, through the celebration of your sacrament in the context of this Mass.  I speak on behalf of all of us, we are so fortunate to support you and be inspired by you, as you go for seven!

+mj  

 

Am I pure of heart?

Homily

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

1 September 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church Prairie Village, Kansas

AMDG

Am I pure of heart?

Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God!

If you experience just one thing at today's Mass, I pray you will experience the mercy of Jesus cleansing and purifying your heart.  When we regard the heart of Mary, we name it Immaculate, or pure, or clean.  Our Lady is happy, and blessed, because she sees God from a pure heart.  Jesus came that your heart too might be cleansed from the stains that darken, and dull and harden our hearts.

Jesus' heart breaks for me often when He sees how scared I am to live from the heart.  When I speak about the heart, I don't just mean my feelings.  Jesus regards the heart as the inner core and soul of a person, where our senses, thoughts, will, memory and imagination coalesce.  The heart is where a person has a chance to become fully alive, spiritually, so much so that one can see God!  

Jesus sees, however, when I am a dead man walking.  He weeps when my heart is dull or gross or stubborn.  He knows how hard it really is for me to live from the inside out, with great honesty, integrity, vulnerability and courage.  He is always trying to write the laws of his love on my heart, so that I am free to love God and neighbor in purity of heart, just as He has first loved me.  

I broke my mom's heart once when I was afraid to live in purity of heart.  After my first year of seminary, at age 26, I was home for the summer since my mom's cancer had relapsed.  Yet when she most needed me to live from the heart, I got into a funk.  My heart grew cold.  I stopped going to daily Mass, and felt sorry for myself, wanting to go back to my old life before seminary.  Even though my mom would die nine months later, my heart wasn't there for her.  She had to tell me that if my heart wasn't in the priesthood, then don't do it!

Jesus has to say the same thing to us often.  If your heart isn't in it, then don't do it.  Don't pretend. Don't settle.  Don't let your fears get the best of you, so that you cope with life through sins that make your hearts dull, and gross and stubborn.

Though we have hundreds of rules that govern our common worship of God, as did the Pharisees, our Church has distilled them into just five precepts that free us to live from the heart together.  These are the minimum for a practicing Catholic.  Go to Mass together. Fast and abstain together.  Be reconciled to God and each other through confession.  Receive the Eucharist in purity of heart at least once a year during Easter.  Be a giver not a taker, or as St. James says today, be doers of the word not just hearers.  These five precepts suffice for reconciling us, that we can go through life together as Christ's body, in purity of heart.

These five precepts are easy, but because it's easier to live with pretense, from the outside-in, judging by appearances, I can struggle to fulfill them.  Because I am scared to let Jesus speak to my heart, and look into my heart, I can avoid them.  

Yet these five precepts save us from obsessing and judging about lesser things, so that our hearts are far from God. These five precepts save us from the twelve deadly sins Jesus lists in today's Gospel, that truly defile our hearts.

Go to Mass.  Fast and abstain together.  Confess your sins.  Receive the Eucharist in purity of heart at least once a year.  Be givers, not takers.

Blessed are we if we do these things.  For they will allow us to live together in purity of heart.

Happy are the pure of heart, for they will see God!

Am I pure of heart?

+mj