For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/021308.shtml
A humbled, contrite heart O God, you will not spurn. It is important to remember that God does not need our prayers, our fasting and our almsgiving this Lent. He needs our contrite hearts, hearts ready to respond to the paschal mystery of his only Son. We do not pray more, fast more or give more this Lent to earn God’s favor, these are merely the first steps – the means necessary if we are to have any chance of rending our hearts to God. It is the rending of our hearts, not our garments, which pleases God, and He was pleased with the heartfelt repentance of the Ninevites in today’s first reading.
We spend forty days now praying, fasting and giving alms, as much as is necessary for us to enter into the sacred Triduum at the end of Lent with all our hearts. The more evil a generation is, the less readily it will recognize the presence of God, and the more readily it will demand irrefutable proof that erases the significance of human freedom before they will bow before the Almighty. Such an evil generation that seeks a sign from above is incapable of recognizing the sign of Jonah, for this sign is from below. God humbles himself beyond our imagination, and puts himself into the hands of sinners, and this is the definitive and everlasting sign of his love - the sign of the cross. No sign from above of God’s almighty power can surpass this revelation on the cross of God as love, and as the one who desires not the death of the sinner but that He might be converted and live. May we be humble enough through our Lenten penance to recognize the sign of Jonah, and to conform our lives to the mystery of the cross.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Homily for Friday after Ash Wednesday
For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/020808.shtml
The reading from Isaiah tells us that of the three Lenten practices – prayer, fasting and almsgiving, that almsgiving is to have pride of place in helping us to return to God, and to recognize His presence in our lives. The first two Lenten practices, prayer and fasting, are worthwhile, to be sure, but they can perhaps more easily be focused on self. To be free of sins is to have the self-forgetfulness that comes from being involved in the mission of building the kingdom of Heaven. The more readily we find our joy in building God’s kingdom, the less often we will return to the smaller joys that our sins bring us. The advice from Isaiah seems to go like this, if you want to escape your sins, don’t focus on yourself, it will only backfire – focus on others. For this reason, almsgiving should play at least an equal role to prayer and fasting, without neglecting any of the three. The most common way to give alms during Lent is to participate in the Rice Bowl, which reaches out to the poor through the work of Catholic Charities.
Even as we pray, fast and give alms during Lent, we do not really fast because we have Jesus with us along our Lenten journey. We do not, thankfully, have to fast from Mass, which would be the most sacrificial thing imaginable. Even as we go through Lent, we still have the bridegroom with us, and every Mass is still a celebration of the suffering, death, and yes, the resurrection of Jesus. This is why Sundays of Lent are, strictly speaking, not days of fasting, because even in Lent, we celebrate that the bridegroom is truly risen from the dead and that he has won the final victory over sin and death! Knowing this should make it even easier to follow the advice of Matthew, who told us on Ash Wednesday to go through Lent without appearing to be praying, fasting or giving alms, but to go through Lent joyfully. This is a special time to return to God with all our hearts. It is not a time to be gloomy and to complain. Jesus is there to support us – he makes fasting easy. For man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God!
The reading from Isaiah tells us that of the three Lenten practices – prayer, fasting and almsgiving, that almsgiving is to have pride of place in helping us to return to God, and to recognize His presence in our lives. The first two Lenten practices, prayer and fasting, are worthwhile, to be sure, but they can perhaps more easily be focused on self. To be free of sins is to have the self-forgetfulness that comes from being involved in the mission of building the kingdom of Heaven. The more readily we find our joy in building God’s kingdom, the less often we will return to the smaller joys that our sins bring us. The advice from Isaiah seems to go like this, if you want to escape your sins, don’t focus on yourself, it will only backfire – focus on others. For this reason, almsgiving should play at least an equal role to prayer and fasting, without neglecting any of the three. The most common way to give alms during Lent is to participate in the Rice Bowl, which reaches out to the poor through the work of Catholic Charities.
Even as we pray, fast and give alms during Lent, we do not really fast because we have Jesus with us along our Lenten journey. We do not, thankfully, have to fast from Mass, which would be the most sacrificial thing imaginable. Even as we go through Lent, we still have the bridegroom with us, and every Mass is still a celebration of the suffering, death, and yes, the resurrection of Jesus. This is why Sundays of Lent are, strictly speaking, not days of fasting, because even in Lent, we celebrate that the bridegroom is truly risen from the dead and that he has won the final victory over sin and death! Knowing this should make it even easier to follow the advice of Matthew, who told us on Ash Wednesday to go through Lent without appearing to be praying, fasting or giving alms, but to go through Lent joyfully. This is a special time to return to God with all our hearts. It is not a time to be gloomy and to complain. Jesus is there to support us – he makes fasting easy. For man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God!
Homily for Thursday after Ash Wednesday
For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/020708.shtml
Moses seems to threaten the Israelites to whom he is giving the law that if they do not keep the Lord’s covenant, ruin will come upon them. Without fidelity to the covenant, the Israelites will not have a long life in the land which the Lord gave to their Fathers. It is true that societies that lose their moral compass will eventually self-destruct. Human history demonstrates this. A kingdom divided against itself, one that does not work for the ultimate good of its people, cannot stand forever. Moses’ prophecy, then, is a good one, and one that must be heeded in our own American society lest our American way of life vanishes. Certainly politicians of all kinds appeal to this kind of a motif – unless we are true to the values on which America was founded, our country will not be great, and it will not survive.
But of course Moses’ admonition of the Israelites is true on a more personal level as well. The law he is giving teaches people how to choose life. The law provides a way of preserving life by teaching people how to live in harmony with God and with one another. The law in providing a means to live in right relationship with God allows the conversation, or covenant, which began with Abraham, to continue indefinitely into the future. But there then comes a time when this law open to life in an indefinite future finds its fulfillment at a definite time, in a definite place, and in a definite person, Jesus the Christ. When Jesus comes, he announces that the time for the fulfillment of the promises of life and prosperity given to Abraham and renewed to Moses has arrived. Jesus came that we might have life, and have it in abundance!
With Jesus we see that the most important thing is not God’s blessing of the life guaranteed by the success of our local society. No, Jesus claims that the kingdom of God has arrived in its fullness even as the Israelite nation and its land promised to Abraham and Moses was being dominated by the Romans. Jesus himself is the new Jerusalem – the kingdom of God come among us. Because Jesus is here, to be fully alive is not to have security and prosperity, although these cannot be dispensed with while we are on pilgrimage. To be fully alive is to be in conversation with Jesus, who fully reveals man to Himself. One who puts his faith in his homeland can never be more than partially alive; one that puts his faith in Jesus Christ, has begun a conversation with the one who lives forever, and is ready to receive the living water that wells up to eternal life.
Moses seems to threaten the Israelites to whom he is giving the law that if they do not keep the Lord’s covenant, ruin will come upon them. Without fidelity to the covenant, the Israelites will not have a long life in the land which the Lord gave to their Fathers. It is true that societies that lose their moral compass will eventually self-destruct. Human history demonstrates this. A kingdom divided against itself, one that does not work for the ultimate good of its people, cannot stand forever. Moses’ prophecy, then, is a good one, and one that must be heeded in our own American society lest our American way of life vanishes. Certainly politicians of all kinds appeal to this kind of a motif – unless we are true to the values on which America was founded, our country will not be great, and it will not survive.
But of course Moses’ admonition of the Israelites is true on a more personal level as well. The law he is giving teaches people how to choose life. The law provides a way of preserving life by teaching people how to live in harmony with God and with one another. The law in providing a means to live in right relationship with God allows the conversation, or covenant, which began with Abraham, to continue indefinitely into the future. But there then comes a time when this law open to life in an indefinite future finds its fulfillment at a definite time, in a definite place, and in a definite person, Jesus the Christ. When Jesus comes, he announces that the time for the fulfillment of the promises of life and prosperity given to Abraham and renewed to Moses has arrived. Jesus came that we might have life, and have it in abundance!
With Jesus we see that the most important thing is not God’s blessing of the life guaranteed by the success of our local society. No, Jesus claims that the kingdom of God has arrived in its fullness even as the Israelite nation and its land promised to Abraham and Moses was being dominated by the Romans. Jesus himself is the new Jerusalem – the kingdom of God come among us. Because Jesus is here, to be fully alive is not to have security and prosperity, although these cannot be dispensed with while we are on pilgrimage. To be fully alive is to be in conversation with Jesus, who fully reveals man to Himself. One who puts his faith in his homeland can never be more than partially alive; one that puts his faith in Jesus Christ, has begun a conversation with the one who lives forever, and is ready to receive the living water that wells up to eternal life.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Catholic Schools Week
Thanks to the kids at Holy Name KCK and Prince of Peace Olathe for welcoming me for vocations presentations during Catholic schools week - I had a great time!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
March for Life 2008
44 hours on the bus - no problem! Thanks to all the KU/KSU/ESU students who made the trip a blast, and to the many brother priests and seminarians who answered the call to stand up for life. I hope to always be in DC on Jan 22, to either stand up for life or to celebrate the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Thanks to all who made the trip so fun!
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Homily for Ash Wednesday, 2008
For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/020608.shtml
Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?' This passage from the prophet Joel in today's first reading urges us to use this Lenten season to distinguish ourselves from those people who hope only in themselves or hope only in the world. The perennial challenge to religion is this: prove to me that I have to be religious is order to be a good person. Of course, this is not something we can prove. The world God created is good, and it can and should be filled with good people naturally without any supernatural intervention. Our task, instead in this Lenten season, is to proclaim the truth taught by faith that we were not created simply to be relatively good people. Indeed, this is no reason to be religious at all. Our task this Lent is to be able to proclaim with our lives that this world, with all its goodness, can never completely satisfy the longings of the human person. We are made for God alone, and our hearts will remain restless until they rest in Him. As St. Paul implores us then through his letter to the Corinthians, now is the acceptable time to sell all that we have in order to be reconciled to God, for only through a loving and dependent relationship with the infinite yet personal God can a human person realize his desire for eternal life. This is eternal life, to know the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Our prayer, fasting and almsgiving this Lent is our vehicle for proclaiming that our goal in life is not simply to become a better person. Indeed, although not desirable, it is oftentimes a fact that a Christian will not become as 'good' in this lifetime as his non-Christian neighbor. And this keeps many people away from religion, and keeps them asking the question - 'Where is their God?' To them, religious people seem to be hypocrites and God Himself appears at best disinterested in His creation. But even if we do not become as good as we would like, our Lenten resolutions proclaim that a Savior has been born to us, one who does not love us more because of our goodness but who loves us completely despite our sinfulness. For our sake, He made Him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Our Lenten promises of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, then, are less about our readiness to make ourselves better than non-Christians, and more about our proclamation that despite our not being very good, because God is good, we can still be saved, if only we do not receive the grace of God in vain. This fast we begin today, then, is not the assertion of our human willpower to distinguish ourselves from sinners. Rather, quite the opposite - it is a humbling of ourselves to let the world know that we are not worthy of God's love, and yet He loves us nonetheless. Our proclamation of a fast is our way of saying that today is the day that we should begin readying ourselves for an encounter with a love beyond all human understanding, revealed through the paschal mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Those who seek holiness for the sake of being seen as holy have already received their reward. Today's traditional Gospel reading from Matthew is a reminder to us that greater than our desire to escape our sins is our desire to be loved by others. So deep is our need for intimacy, for the love that makes us fully human, that we can and do 'pretend' to be holy under the pretext of knowing that people love us more for our virtues than for our sins. But of course, this is the way of human love not divine love. Human loves starts from the outside and moves in. The divine love revealed through the suffering and death of Jesus is the opposite - it heals from the inside out, and is more interested in the sinner than in 99 righteous people who have no need of repentance. The Gospel for today reminds us that being ready to receive the love revealed and celebrated at its highest point during the Easter triduum requires mostly 'hidden' work on our part. Admirable is the disciple who begins Lent with firm resolutions and strict discipline. Indeed it is hard to have a good Lent without these. But the goal of Lent is not to successfully survive harder penances or to outdo your neighbor in piety. Remember that we will not change God's love for us through any sacrifice whatsoever. God is love. He cannot be anything else. He will not love us more if we have a good Lent nor love us less if we have a bad Lent by our own human standards. The prophet Joel assumes in our first reading that we have already given our garments. Now we must rend our hearts as well. Holiness, therefore, will not be measured by the one who prays longer, fasts better or gives the most to the poor - these are a means but not the end. Even the one who prays longer, fasts better or gives the most to the poor can do so in order to win the praise and affection of others, but may still withhold his heart from God. We pray longer, fast better, and give more to the poor not to receive the award of salvation from our neighbors, who do not have the power to save. No, we pray longer, fast better and give more to the poor in silence, so that our Father who sees what is hidden will repay us with the grace of the Easter sacraments. O most merciful Father, who desires not the death of the sinner, but that He might turn back to you and live, grant that we your sinful people may not receive this living water in vain!
Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?' This passage from the prophet Joel in today's first reading urges us to use this Lenten season to distinguish ourselves from those people who hope only in themselves or hope only in the world. The perennial challenge to religion is this: prove to me that I have to be religious is order to be a good person. Of course, this is not something we can prove. The world God created is good, and it can and should be filled with good people naturally without any supernatural intervention. Our task, instead in this Lenten season, is to proclaim the truth taught by faith that we were not created simply to be relatively good people. Indeed, this is no reason to be religious at all. Our task this Lent is to be able to proclaim with our lives that this world, with all its goodness, can never completely satisfy the longings of the human person. We are made for God alone, and our hearts will remain restless until they rest in Him. As St. Paul implores us then through his letter to the Corinthians, now is the acceptable time to sell all that we have in order to be reconciled to God, for only through a loving and dependent relationship with the infinite yet personal God can a human person realize his desire for eternal life. This is eternal life, to know the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Our prayer, fasting and almsgiving this Lent is our vehicle for proclaiming that our goal in life is not simply to become a better person. Indeed, although not desirable, it is oftentimes a fact that a Christian will not become as 'good' in this lifetime as his non-Christian neighbor. And this keeps many people away from religion, and keeps them asking the question - 'Where is their God?' To them, religious people seem to be hypocrites and God Himself appears at best disinterested in His creation. But even if we do not become as good as we would like, our Lenten resolutions proclaim that a Savior has been born to us, one who does not love us more because of our goodness but who loves us completely despite our sinfulness. For our sake, He made Him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Our Lenten promises of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, then, are less about our readiness to make ourselves better than non-Christians, and more about our proclamation that despite our not being very good, because God is good, we can still be saved, if only we do not receive the grace of God in vain. This fast we begin today, then, is not the assertion of our human willpower to distinguish ourselves from sinners. Rather, quite the opposite - it is a humbling of ourselves to let the world know that we are not worthy of God's love, and yet He loves us nonetheless. Our proclamation of a fast is our way of saying that today is the day that we should begin readying ourselves for an encounter with a love beyond all human understanding, revealed through the paschal mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Those who seek holiness for the sake of being seen as holy have already received their reward. Today's traditional Gospel reading from Matthew is a reminder to us that greater than our desire to escape our sins is our desire to be loved by others. So deep is our need for intimacy, for the love that makes us fully human, that we can and do 'pretend' to be holy under the pretext of knowing that people love us more for our virtues than for our sins. But of course, this is the way of human love not divine love. Human loves starts from the outside and moves in. The divine love revealed through the suffering and death of Jesus is the opposite - it heals from the inside out, and is more interested in the sinner than in 99 righteous people who have no need of repentance. The Gospel for today reminds us that being ready to receive the love revealed and celebrated at its highest point during the Easter triduum requires mostly 'hidden' work on our part. Admirable is the disciple who begins Lent with firm resolutions and strict discipline. Indeed it is hard to have a good Lent without these. But the goal of Lent is not to successfully survive harder penances or to outdo your neighbor in piety. Remember that we will not change God's love for us through any sacrifice whatsoever. God is love. He cannot be anything else. He will not love us more if we have a good Lent nor love us less if we have a bad Lent by our own human standards. The prophet Joel assumes in our first reading that we have already given our garments. Now we must rend our hearts as well. Holiness, therefore, will not be measured by the one who prays longer, fasts better or gives the most to the poor - these are a means but not the end. Even the one who prays longer, fasts better or gives the most to the poor can do so in order to win the praise and affection of others, but may still withhold his heart from God. We pray longer, fast better, and give more to the poor not to receive the award of salvation from our neighbors, who do not have the power to save. No, we pray longer, fast better and give more to the poor in silence, so that our Father who sees what is hidden will repay us with the grace of the Easter sacraments. O most merciful Father, who desires not the death of the sinner, but that He might turn back to you and live, grant that we your sinful people may not receive this living water in vain!
The wedding of Thomas and Jayme
The guy in white - my youngest brother Thomas - was married January 5th (my mom's birthday) to Jayme Evans at Sacred Heart Parish in Park, Kansas. This is the same Church where my grandparents and parents were married, a beautiful Gothic Church on the plains of western Kansas. The bald-headed guys are my younger 'bachelor' brothers Rodney and Norman. This was taken before the ceremony, and unfortunately, my oldest brother Chad and brother-in-law James were not in this particular shot. Congratulations to Thomas and Jayme - we all love them and wish them every happiness and blessing. What an extraordinary privilege for me to be able to witness the vows of my youngest brother. What a great Christmas season it was this year! On to many more good things in 2008 - including many men applying to be new seminarians for the Archdiocese of KCK!
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