Whoever is begotten by God does not sin!

Homily for Saturday between Epiphany and Baptism

9 January 2010

Year for Priests

For daily readings click here

We who are baptized live two lives simultaneously. Two lives side by side. We live a natural life, and a supernatural one. We are begotten of this world by a natural birth, and begotten by God through baptism. St. John makes quite a claim in today's portion of his first letter. He says that one who is begotten by God does not sin! Well, even those who are baptized experience something quite the opposite. We sin all the time. And if we sin all the time, St. John shows us how much we prefer our natural life to our supernatural one. For he says that one who is begotten by God does not sin. Ever. St. John doesn't say that one begotten by God only sins rarely. He says never.

We can understand sin in this way. We usually understand it as our prefering evil over good. And this is true. We can also understand it as a forgetfulness of our being baptized, our being begotten by God. If we can bring this identity we have as a child of God to mind and to bear, then sin instantly loses its power over us. Those begotten by God do not sin. End of story. So it is only when we forget this identity, or choose to go away from it that we are capable of sin. And if we sin all the time, we know that we are unaware of our dignity, or we turn away from that dignity, all the time. Being begotten by God is not an ignorance of our natural life, but is an ability to always bring to mind and to bear the reality of our supernatural life. To put it another way, we not only sin because we are bad. More importantly, we sin because we forget, and haven chosen to forget, who we are.

In today's Gospel, we see John the Baptist doing something remarkable. As the Gospel passage hits my ears, I sense that people are reporting to John that Jesus is ripping him off. John was the first to baptize, and it is reported to John that Jesus is pretending to be John, doing the same thing, and taking customers away. John is not only comfortable with Jesus copying his baptism, he says that he is joyful that Jesus would do him the compliment of confirming his baptismal ministry as true. Not only that, John rejoices that he has fulfilled his mission to prepare the way of the Lord, since the groom has arrived as promised to bring joy and salvation to His bride. Let us remember the humble example of John, and imitate his joy at the success of others, the next time we are tempted to be jealous or envious. Let us pray earnestly that others around us become more holy than we are, and bear more abundant fruit, as long as we faithfully do what the Lord is asking of us! +m

water, blood, spirit

Homily for Friday between Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord

8 January 2010

St. Lawrence Chapel

University of Kansas

For daily readings, click here

Among other things, John's writing about Christ coming in water, blood and Spirit should remind us of our Christian initiation. Through this initiation, we share in Christ's life completely. Through baptism, we die to ourselves that we might live for God, we die to sin that we might live in goodness. We are given the gift of eternal life at baptism, a life that is fed best by receiving the body and blood of Christ. From the sacrament of water, we proceed to the sacrament of Christ's blood, and we become even more intimately and inseparably bound to Him. It is then by the gift of the Spirit, given in its fullness at Confirmation, that we are able to live in the world without being overcome by it, neither by its death nor by its evil. Who indeed is the conquerer of the world, says St. John, but the one who shares fully, as we do by these three sacraments, in the life of Christ, who was not conquered by evil or death?

St. John seems to be addressing in his letter the doubts of those who believe in Jesus but who do not always experience their sharing in his eternal life. This is our normal experience as well. Evil and death seem closer and more real than the gift of eternal life. St. John addresses how difficult it is to know one's self as sharing fully in Jesus' victory of sin and death. It seems like the two of them are winning more victories against us. He reminds us that we have no little or remote attachment to our Lord however. We have the reality of our baptism, a sacrament renewed when we detach ourselves from sin in the sacrament of penance. We have the Eucharist ever with us, where Christ has promised to make himself fully present to us as surely as he has ever been present, whether in Bethlehem or at Calvary. We have in our Confirmation the fullness of God's spirit, which reminds us in every circumstance of our lives of who we are, and how we can live as true conquerers of the world. These are no small gifts - the water, the blood and the Spirit. Let us not live as if we have not received them. +m

New Video by the Vocations Office - thanks Jaime!

Christmas vocation events!

Over the Christmas break, the vocation office was very busy, and the time spent quite fruitful! On December 28th, all the seminarians gathered at the Archbishop's home for Vespers, Dinner, sharing on how the last semester had gone, and new for this year, the opening of 25 gifts that the Archbishop himself selected for the seminarians. The Archbishop had already sent a card, gift and book to each seminarian, but on this night at his house, he had lots of surprises to share. A fantastic time was had by all. We ended the evening with the Salve Regina in his chapel.

On December 29th, the Topeka Serra Club hosted us at Corpus Christi parish in Lawrence for our annual seminarian/parent Mass and luncheon. The Archbishop celebrated and preached the Mass. We had the largest turnout ever as far as parents and Serrans. The food was outstanding! The seminarians received new shirts with the logo of the Archdiocese on them, as well as Christmas gifts from Serrans and others.

On the evening of January 1st, the Archbishop, along with the seminarians, hosted men for the annual Quo Vadis discernment retreat. 17 men from around the Archdiocese and beyond came for three days of prayer and reflection. Highlights included a trip to our Cathedral for the Solemnity of the Epiphany, and a chance to meet Sr. Marie, the foundress of the Sisters of the Lamb on Sunday afternoon. Please pray in thanksgiving for the fruits of this retreat, and for these men as they continue their discernment.

We hear regularly from Nick Blaha who is in the Holy Land via his photoblog. We are also very happy to introduce a new video that chronicles the transition of Jaime Zarse into seminary. Enjoy!

quick takes

1. The KU Game vs. Cornell. This was a lot of fun. Love close games. The Temple game was great but it is good to see a team play as well as Cornell did. I thought they were never going to quit draining those threes! But they did. And we were reminded that Sherron is the best player by far on the court. I don't know what Cornell could have done to hang on. We were deep and kept coming at them. In the end we finally caught them. Like the pack gaining on the breakaways in a cycling race. Anyhow, best of luck to Cornell. They really gave us a great game. KU is still really good, by the way!

2. The snow. It is sure better than looking at the same color of brown all winter. I know that the snow is treacherous, but it makes us all slow down, and puts everyone in a more contemplative state of mind. I think this is good. We know better how to love and serve when we have a chance to think about things, instead of running around so much trying to maximize our productivity. I think the snow is a graceful blessing. We probably won't have it again for decades, so we should be grateful for it. We will miss it next winter, especially after we get good at learning how to navigate through it. It still isn't that much anyway, at least not in Lawrence. There are piles of it, yes, but you can still see over the piles. My favorite snowstorm was the one when I was growing up where we could walk directly from the snowdrift to the roof of my house. Now that was snow!

Love of God and neighbor!

Homily for Thursday between Epiphany and Baptism
7 January 2010
St. Lawrence Chapel, University of Kansas
Year for Priests

For daily readings, click here.

Jesus in proclaiming Himself to be the anointed one in his hometown synagogue, announces as well his public ministry to go out and to proclaim liberty and to bring healing, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Jesus shows that his being the anointed one is not merely for his own benefit, but is for the benefit of all those to whom He will be sent. Jesus thus announces his intention to fulfill what we hear is essential in our letter today from St. John, that we if we say we love God, then we must also love our brother.

The love of God is always primary, and the love of brother secondary. But as St. John tells us, the love of our brother is no less essential. Whoever says otherwise is a liar. Our piety and the contemplation of God's love is always primary. We should love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our mind, and with all our strength. To do so is to cultivate an identity as one who is seen and known and loved by God, so that we might act always out of this dignity that we have as children of God. Our actions, how we relate to our brother, should always be a reflection of who we know ourselves to be. So our piety, our contemplation of God's love, should never take a back seat to the love of neighbor. We will not know how to perfectly love our neighbor if we are not contemplating the love of God. We may do many good things for them, but we will not love them perfectly. For as St. John reminds us, we do not know how to love perfectly on our own. For this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He has loved us, and has sent His Son among us to show us how to love perfectly.

Still, St. John corrects us from the notion that our piety can rightfully separate us from our neighbor. Circumstantially, this may be the case. The decisions we make about ordering our lives around the love of God, and making time to contemplate his glory and goodness and love, might change circumstantially the people we know and the people we relate to. Yet our love of God is only authentic if it puts us in deeper relationship with, and gives us a greater love for, our neighbor, whoever that neighbor happens to be. To put it another way, our piety can never be a refuge away from people we find difficult to love; rather, our piety and the contemplation of the love of God can only free us to love our neighbor more deeply.

And so we prepare ourselves now, as we near the end of the Christmas season and celebrate soon the Baptism of Jesus, to like him recommit ourselves to going out in the new year to not only love God more perfectly, but to be more generous in loving our neighbor, just as God has first loved us! +m

Homily for Epiphany

Homily for Epiphany
3 January 2009
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center, University of Kansas
Year for Priests

At the coming of Christ, myriads of angels announced his birth to the shepherds in the fields. As was told of this Christ child, he is to be a king whose kingdom will last forever. Even as a helpless baby, bound in swaddling clothes, with no weapons with which to fight, born in poverty and on the move, the appearance of the angels shows that this baby commands armies greater than those of Caesar Augustus. The kingdom of this baby reaches farther, and lasts longer, than any earthly kingdom imaginable. It stretches so far that even the stars obey the command of this small child. Thus three astronomers, perhaps three of the smartest men in the whole world, who understood well the movement of the heavens, bow down before the wisdom of this child. They know that all their knowledge is but sand compared to the knowledge and power possessed by this newborn king, whom even the stars obey. Today is the Feast of Epiphany, the manifestation of who Jesus really is. Today we celebrate that Jesus is not merely the Messiah of the Jews. He is the light of all nations. Today we celebrate that Christ is the light strong enough to scatter darkness from every corner of the world, from every place torn by sin, poverty, violence, disease, ignorance and doubt. In the magi, the powers of the world come to Jesus, to have their knowledge purified and deepened by His light. For they know that no darkness can ever overcome the light that obeys this child. Not the darkness of sin, not the darkness of ignorance and doubt, not the darkness of violence or poverty or disease. The light of the star shows that Jesus is pure light, and the darkness shall never overcome Him. He will be great, and his kingdom will last forever.

On Epiphany, we celebrate the fulfillment of the prophecy that Jesus came to be light not only to some of the world’s people, but came to be light for all nations. There is constant pressure to marginalize the light of Jesus, and what His coming means for the destiny of man. Beset as His followers are by every form of sinfulness, there are many who will not accept the light of Christ until you prove to them that they cannot live without it. There are some who will accept the light of Christ only as a last resort, after everything else has failed. Still more pressure comes from those who want to use reason to purify faith, but who will never allow faith to purify reason. Jesus came to bring to light the love of God in all its fullness and splendor, and to shed light wherever there was doubt that man’s ultimate vocation is to love even when it is not reasonable to do so. This universal vocation to love one another as God first loves us is the light that gives ultimate meaning to the destiny of man. Jesus’s light is the light of a God who will never stop trying to reveal man to himself, and to bring out from the darkness man’s ultimate vocation to love. That three magi come to see Christ even while many who knew about the promised Messiah remained in darkness, encourages us in the Church to never stop being a Church that evangelizes. Epiphany reveals the mission of the Church to be a light to the nations, and with Jesus to reconcile everything to the Father, always setting the light of Jesus Christ on a mountain for all to see, so that many people may see in Him their true destiny and true vocation. We must never tire nor fear of showing the light of Christ to the world. That being said, we must do so with prudence, and like the Magi who did not return to Herod, we must also guard this light of Christ from all those who want nothing except to put it out.

Finally, on Epiphany those of us who are devout followers of Jesus must not forget to continue our personal pilgrimage to see Christ. Epiphany is very much about making a commitment to give the light of Christ a chance to heal the darkness of the world. Yet it is just as importantly a reminder to us to be like the Magi, who considered all that the world values to be as rubbish compared to the richness of being able to see Christ. Not content with worldly knowledge nor worldly riches, the magi were attentive to the deepest desires of their hearts, to see the promised Messiah. The magi challenge all of us to stop living on the surface, fitting Jesus into our lives when it is comfortable for us, but to lay our treasures before Christ, trusting in the wisdom and power of this newborn King. The magi challenge us all to go deeper, and not to neglect the deepest desire of our hearts, a desire that goes deeper than the thousands of erotic desires that come in and out of our lives. The magi ask us the question, of whether we have been attentive to our desire to see God, and whether we have forsaken everything to so as to hasten the day when we are ready to see him face to face!