unforgivable sins

Homily
Monday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time
24 January 2011
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
Daily Readings

Most of us have encountered this biblical passage before about the unforgivable sin, but it appears so rarely in the Gospels that there can be large gaps between our meditation on what it really is. Over and over and over, we hear of Jesus forgiving sins, of his desiring that not one person be lost. This makes his words about the unforgivable sin all the more shocking to us. We are almost never ready to hear them. We might even say that they don't sound right coming from Jesus, almost as if he got up on the wrong side of the bed. Of course, we ascribe no such thing to Jesus nor to the Gospel authors. Jesus means what He says. Sins against the Holy Spirit truly are unforgivable.
The Catechism helps us to understand what Jesus must mean then. He doesn't mean just any blasphemy, but specifically a refusal to believe that the Holy Spirit can forgive sins. This makes sense in the context of today's Gospel. Even for Jesus, whose mission is to love sinners and to forgive every sin, there must be a sin, if our freedom is real and God respects our choices, that is unforgiveable. That sin against the Holy Spirit is a refusal to believe that forgiveness of sins is possible. This is a denial of the action of the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel, it is attributing the casting out of demons, and the forgiveness of sins, to the work of the devil, not the work of the Holy Spirit.
The unforgivable sin does not limit God's power nor His desire to forgive every sin. It preserves a correct anthropology of human freedom, and a correct understanding of salvation as something offered but something capable of being rejected by men who are made in God's image and likeness. Hell is a possibility not because God desires it, but because man can possibly desire it.
St. Frances de Sales is honored today for his zeal in defending the true faith agains the errors of the reformation. Along with great figures like St. Vincent de Paul and St. Jane Frances de Chantal, his special love for the poor, his expert defense of the true Church, and His zeal in teaching people how to live a devout life, saved the Church from losing many more souls, and helped Her to preserve the deposit of faith against all attackers. His example gives hope to all those who lament the endless splintering of Christianity, and who long to see the unity of Christ's Church which is a gift of the Holy Spirit working within Her.

A bruised reed He will not break!

Homily

Baptism of the Lord

8/9 January 2011

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center

The Church Fathers teach us that Jesus is not made holy by the waters that baptize him. He is already holy. Even John the Baptist knows this. He asks Jesus - what is the world are you doing? Holy people should baptize sinners, not sinners baptize holy ones. Yet Jesus' baptism was still necessary. He was not made holy by the water, but He made the water holy by allowing Himself to be baptized.

Jesus' first public act is not to perform some great sign. It is to allow something to be done to him. It is to accept his mission to be identified with sinners. In allowing something to be done to Him, Jesus shows Himself truly to be the son of Mary, who was not known for her great signs she worked, but for her great yes, her acceptance of a mission to let something be done to her according to His word. The name Jesus, which means the one who will save them from their sins, indicates Jesus' mission to prefer sinners, to love sinners, to be with sinners. Jesus does not need to be baptized, no more than he needs to die in punishment for sin, but He allows it to be done to him, to fulfill all righteousness, to fulfill the mission given Him by the Father to identify with sinners. Jesus' first public act mirrors His last and greatest public act. Although He is not a sinner nor will He ever be, He refuses to separate Himself from sinners, but prefers to be called a sinner Himself, even being spat on and mocked, so that sinners might have a chance once again to live. The prophet Isaiah tells us precisely the mission of Jesus. He will not discard a single sinner. A bruised reed He will never break. Rather He will allow Himself to be bruised out of love and in solidarity and in hope for sinners. Jesus the full revelation of God shows God's desire to save us rather than judge us. He is willing to be judged in our place. His baptism is a willing entering into his eventual suffering and death of the cross. Yet thankfully, the cross is not the end of the story. The story does not end in God's defeat, nor in ours. The appearance of the Holy Spirit at the baptism is a foreshadowing of the same Spirit that will raise Jesus from the dead.

The baptism of Jesus is the first full revelation of the Trinity, the central mystery of our Christian faith into which we were all baptized - Father, Son and Spirit. The Father declares that He is well pleased with His Son, and He sees the same in us who through baptism are members of His body and truly children of God. How easily do we believe the worst about ourselves, and fear the judgment of God, even knowing Jesus' great desire and mission to forgive us rather than to judge us? In my experience as a priest, most Christians dwell on their sinfulness much longer than they dwell on the dignity of their baptism. If only each one of us would hear the Father's voice at the beginning of every morning, before ever having a negative thought about ourselves. You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter, in whom I am well pleased. My brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, this is the dignity of our baptism, and the sure gift of faith, to be able to hear and to trust this voice in the depths of our being. You are my beloved sons and daughters, in whom I am well pleased. If only we could believe in how much God delights in us His children, before He ever counts a sin against us, I believe we would be different. I'm not saying that ours sins don't matter, I'm just saying that we will be converted by love far more than we will ever be converted by the law.

As we celebrate the great baptism of Jesus, and recall the greatest day in each one of our lives, the day of our baptism, the day when something was done to us that changed us far more than anything we could or will ever do to change ourselves, let us make it our goal this year to live out the Christmas mystery that we finish celebrating today, and to know how many times and in so many ways that the Lord wants to come visit us and make us holy by His presence in the coming year. No one who has been baptized into the death of Christ should turn his life into a self-improvement project. If we have been baptized, we are dead to this world. Nothing has to go our way in this world for us to be perfectly happy. If we focus on life in this world, and only hang around Jesus in case He has a lucky winning ticket for eternal life waiting for us after death, then we have no need of baptism. Those who are baptized only care about eternal life, a life that is not measurable but consists in depth of relationship with a person who Himself is the way, the truth and the life. If we have been baptized, life is not about self-improvement, it is about the self-forgetfulness that is the special mission of those who belong to Christ. Christ didn't worry one second about self-improvement. I dare say He never made a New Year's resolution. His mission was self-forgetfulness. That is all. Our only resolution in the new year, the only one that really matters for those who have celebrated Christmas, is to allow Jesus to come and visit us always as surely as He did on the day of our baptism. The only thing that matters to a Christian is to remember and most of all to believe in the dignity that we have as children of God, and to not allow the world to steal this dignity away from us. I'm not saying it is wrong to try to lose weight, or save money, or work on relationships. That is all fine and good. But for the Christian something else is primary. It is to use the gift of faith given at baptism to allow God to say to you at each moment of your life - you are my beloved son or daughter. In you I am well pleased. If we receive this dignity and truly believe in God and in ourselves, then we may not be perfect as the world judges things, but we will be the priests, prophets and kings in Christ that is the full dignity of our baptism. If we do anything new this year, let us be priests who pray for each other, let us be prophets who allow God's light to shine in new areas of the world, let us be kings who create a world in which people can believe in God and in one another. Amen.

Joseph, Mary , Jesus - the Advent inversion

Reflection
4th Sunday of Advent A
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
For daily readings click here



If you can't imitate Jesus perfectly,
be like Mary.
Allow Jesus to come into your life.
Make room for Him.
But if you can't be like Mary
always ready to receive Him.
If you need your space.
And tend to think about yourself a lot.
Then try to be like Joseph.
Not that He was selfish in any way.
But having neither Jesus' divine nature
nor Mary's fullness of grace
Joseph still found the way to do the right thing.
He is a righteous man.
Those who find it hard to be perfect
like Jesus or His mother
can still do the right thing
that is right in front of them.
They can be like Joseph.



Joseph spent more time with Jesus
than any apostle.
He spent years with Jesus
and Jesus was obedient to Joseph.
In this Joseph is more than an apostle.
We can go to him.
For Jesus is still dependent upon Joseph
and Jesus will do whatever Joseph asks.
Our imitation of Joseph in Advent
brings us closer to Mary his wife
so that with her and him
we can welcome Jesus into the world.
With Joseph through Mary to Jesus.
There is the way
for a perfect Christmas.



In the light of Abraham's faith,
knowing the promises made to David
and his posterity
Joseph confronts the apparent evil of adultery
as a righteous man
knowing that the law takes evil seriously
and demands that there be truth not deceit.
Still he sees the good
to which the law points
Joseph observes the law
but knows the good the law preserves
and he sees the good
of divorcing Mary quietly
and the demands of justice
doing the right thing
do not keep his heart from loving
his wife and this child.
His love that went beyond
the demands of the law
and the knowing of the good
his love that was beyond
what is reasonable and just
allowed him to believe
against great statistical odds
that what the angel said in a mere dream
that the savior would be born
from the house of David
and that the virgin would conceive
and bear a son.



Joseph in being righteous
and knowing the good
and cultivating love
and believing that faith
makes all things possible for God
was able to do the next right thing
in front of him.
He took Mary and Jesus into his home.


There would be more right things
to do tomorrow
Joseph did what was right today.
Joseph was neither perfect by nature
like his Son
nor full of grace
like his wife
yet he found a way to do the right thing.

John the Baptist tells us to repent
or we will miss the Lord's coming.
Mary shows us how to wait in silence
for the Savior to come to us.
Joseph guides us
to do the next right thing.



Listen to John the Baptist.
Make room like Mary.
Act like Joseph.
The Lord Jesus is surely coming!
He is coming soon!

where I am there also will my servant be

Reflection
Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent I
Memorial of John of the Cross, priest and doctor
14 December 2010
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center

John of the Cross
teach us how to desire the cross
how to want to be where the Lord is
especially when He is there.

Conforms our lives to the mystery of the cross
not to desire suffering for the sake of suffering
but for the sake of Him
for the sake of being where He is
for the sake of relationship with Him
and through Him
with everyone else
especially those who suffer now.

Conforming our lives to the mystery of the cross
not because life is suffering
but because life is joy
and knowing that this joy
is found far beyond superficial comforts
that this joy belongs to the pure of heart
whose hearts have been tried
in the crucible of the cross.

We can still expect things to go well for us
and thank God for everything
and rejoice in the goodness of the Lord's creation
and yet at the same time
not expect things to go my way,
but expect things to go His way
and to know that when a cross comes my way
He is present to me in a perfect way.

So we rejoice when things go well
and rejoice twice when they don't.
We rejoice in the Lord always,
again, I say to you rejoice
for when the cross comes
the Lord is near.

Where I am
there also will my servant be.
Anyone who wishes to be where I am
must deny himself
take up his cross
and follow me.

from least to greatest

Reflection

Gaudete Sunday

12 December 2010

St. Lawrence Catholic Center

For daily readings click here

Rejoice in the Lord always!

Again, I say rejoice!

The Lord is near.

Not anxiety today.

But rejoicing.

Pink Sunday is about rejoicing.

But don't call is pink.

It's rose - get it right!

Priests don't wear pink.

But rejoicing nonetheless.

Not the anxiety of finals at KU.

Not the anxiety of shopping days remaining

or how much money is left

or who is going where and why.

Not the anxiety of how to make Christmas perfect

from the outside in.

But rejoicing, because the Lord is coming.

Rejoicing that He will do what essentially needs to be done.

Rejoicing, for He is coming

to make our Christmas perfect

from the inside out.

Again, I say rejoice!

John the Baptist in prison

perhaps had a second thought

for he had decreased

so that the Lord could increase

yet now the Lord was decreasing.

Why is Jesus messing up the plan?

John the Baptist was not worthy to untie his sandal

yet the Lord who could change everything

was only changing the smallest of things.

The Lord who could change everything,

was healing people who could change nothing.

Is this the one who is to come?

The one who can change everything

has no interest in politics

or macroeconomics.

Is this the one who is to come?

He makes himself smaller and smaller and smaller,

healing people from the inside out

changing little from the outside in

content to teach the dumb not the learned

to heal one by one.

At this rate he could live a thousand years and never finish

yet he makes himself smaller

and smaller and smaller.

Patience St. Paul tell us today!

Patient rejoicing, like a farmer waiting for the fruit!

This is the one who comes.

He is coming with his power that could make us obey

yet he would not break a bruised reed

and he shows the power that once made the universe

not in annihilating us

but in redeeming us

in serving us

in making Himself smaller and smaller

until I believe that He came for me

and me alone

that He came not to be served, but to serve me

not in showing himself bigger

but by making himself smaller and smaller

until he is irresistible

not by his bigness

but by his smallness.

He becomes smaller and smaller and smaller

until it is just me and Him

until I can hold Him in my arms like Mary and Joseph

until He disarms my defenses

and heals me from the inside out.

Rejoice,

for the Lord our God is coming!

He is coming to heal us by relationship,

by dependence

by intimacy

by vulnerability.

These things alone heal from the inside out.

They free a person more perfectly

than self-help

self-esteem

or any gift under the tree that promises what it cannot deliver.

He alone is perfect gift.

He alone is perfect fulfillment and peace.

He alone can satisfy.

His coming is the reason we travel,

his giving is the reason we give,

his closeness is the reason for our wanting to be close to each other,

for closeness is healing

being together in Him is what will heal our hearts

and give us the hope

to endure with patience and perseverance and love

whatever may come

until God has redeemed the world in His way

according to His promise

to begin with the least of us.

The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Behold the lowliness of his handmaiden.

Behold Mary, the first to be raised from

least to greatest.

Mary, take now the baton from John the Baptist

and take us to Bethlehem with you.

John told us to be ready with his words,

but you show us how to be ready with your silence.

Remind us how to have a heart like a child

a heart that is not anxious for Christmas

but rejoices that it is near,

give to us all your immaculate heart

the heart of a mother expecting her first child

in just days

not with anxiety or fear

but with joy

in letting yourself always be made new by His coming

pure joy in letting it be done unto you according to His word!

Rejoice in the Lord always!

Again, I say rejoice!

The Lord is near!

from John the Baptist to Mary

Homily

Gaudete Sunday

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

11 December 2010

For daily readings click here

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice! The Lord is near!

We have rounded the corner toward Christmas. Pink Sunday reminds us of what we already know, that Christmas is coming fast. Pink Sunday means something else at KU. Most years, it means the start of finals week, and amazing amounts of stress, for it is the time of reckoning on campus. Know of our heartfelt prayers for you as you fulfill your responsibilities as students, while praising God for the abilities and opportunities He has given you.

Even though it falls during Finals Week here at KU, Gaudete Sunday is not supposed to be about stress. It is about rejoicing because the Lord is near. Gaudete Sunday is not supposed to be a warning bell that there are only so many more shopping days before Christmas, and is not to set off alarms that we are neither spiritually nor materially prepared for a perfect Christmas. The reality is that if a perfect Christmas was the fruit of our own labors, it would never happen. No, Christmas is perfect not because we are perfectly prepared, but because the Lord is perfectly ready to come into the world. The Lord with His presence makes every circumstance and every moment perfect, through His closeness to us. Once finals week is over, KU students should not trade one stress for another, the stress of finals for the stress of Christmas. No, Gaudete Sunday tells us that the time for rejoicing is near, not only because Finals are over, but because the Lord is perfectly prepared to visit us, no matter how unprepared we might be.

We can have a perfect Advent in a short amount of time by watching the children, for Jesus tells us that unless we turn again and again, and become like children, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven, nor will we recognize the kingdom coming among us. The kids know for certain that the gifts under the tree will satisfy their deepest desires. They know down to the minute when Christmas will arrive. We have to feed off of their joy this Christmas, for although no material gift can perfectly satisfy us when we grow older, the perfect gift of God's presence in Christ does satisfy. For a person is satisfied insofar as he has an opportunity to love perfectly, and at Christmas the God of all creation makes Himself as vulnerable as a newborn child, whom no one can hold in his arms without his heart changing for the better.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Again, I say rejoice! The Lord is near. Gaudete Sunday is a great Sunday for us to rejoice because the mystery of Christmas is a mystery that continues to change the world, and to change hearts, in the most profound of ways. The world is far from perfect, and frustration and despair and discouragement easily settle in, but on Gaudete Sunday we are asked to imagine a world without Christmas, a world that did not stop to contemplate and to celebrate that love is the reason there is something rather than nothing, love is the reason we are someone instead of no one, and love is the answer to the mystery of the human person, and love is what makes an outwardly imperfect world inwardly perfect.

It truly is amazing how much one baby changes the world. The mystery of God's being close to us, in taking up our flesh out of love for us, is the mystery that leads to our taking time to be close to each other. It is through the mystery of God's closeness to us that we choose to be close to each other, and exchange affections and gifts with each other that otherwise we might never exchange. Christmas shows that it is because God is close to us that ultimately, it makes sense for us to continue to be close to each other. Because God made Himself vulnerable to us, coming irresistably as a newborn child, that it makes sense for us to eschew every kind of independence, self-realization, self-esteem, self-help, and anything else that begins with the word self, and instead to seek above all things dependence, closeness, intimacy, vulnerability and love. For in this season we celebrate that love is our origin, love is our constant calling, love is what makes life worth living, and love is our destiny forever in heaven.

It is God's closeness to us; his willingness to visit us, that makes an outwardly perfect world inwardly perfect. On Gaudete Sunday we rejoice not in naive optimism, not because we can prove the world is getting better day by day, but we rejoice with supernatural hope, the virtue that says that God's closness makes life worth living, and being close to each other is the key to getting through the rough patches and pressing on toward the promises God has made to us. We rejoice that God's presence makes things better in this world, that His presence brings real healing, but also that His presence is assurance that every promise He has made will be fulfilled in the world to come.

John the Baptist then hands the Advent baton over to our Lady on this Gaudete Sunday. John the Baptist rejoiced from prison when he realized that his mission had been accomplished, that the long-awaited Messiah had arrived! John the Baptist has told us that our patient expectation and perseverance in hope would be rewarded. He has told us to be ready! Now on Gaudete Sunday Mary will take us the rest of the way, for as great as John the Baptist was, the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Mary is not only the least in the kingdom, she is the greatest in the kingdom, and with the expectation and joy that only a mother can understand, She leads us the Church, with an incomparable excitement for the coming of Jesus.

Today's Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is obscured somewhat by its coincidence with Gaudete Sunday. Our Lady's Appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 led to more people believing in God's closeness to them, and delivered to more people God's supernatural gift of hope, than the work of any other apostle. Mary, the Queen of the Apostles, proclaims the Gospel of her Son like no other, and she has personally watched over the growth of the faith in the Americas. She is the patronness of all Catholics in the Americas, and with 60% of Catholics in the United States under the age of 35 now being Hispanic, it will be nearly impossible in the future to be a Catholic in the United States in the coming years without having a devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Let us ask our Lady to help us to finish our Advent journey with the same heart that welcomed Jesus into the world!

Mary not a temp employee

Homily

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

8 December 2010

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

For daily readings click here

Today's great Solemnity celebrates a dogma of the Church, that Mary was full of grace from the first moment of Her conception. As St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, each one of us has been predestined and chosen, before the foundation of the universe, to be in Christ, and to be holy and without blemish before Him. Today we celebrate that of all those so predestined, Mary was the first to be fully in Christ, to stand before Him holy and without blemish. It is clear from Luke's Gospel that Mary was already fully in Christ, already full of His life, before She conceived Christ in Her womb. She alone, among all women, was perfectly in Christ, and so was perfectly and singularly chosen and capable of conceiving Him and carrying Him and being a mother to One who is perfect. It is clear that the grace given to Mary so that she might become the mother of God was given to her well in advance of Her conception of Jesus. The angel says to Mary that she is 'full of grace' before she is to conceive a son. So at what moment did Mary become full of grace? Today's dogma proclaims that if Mary was ever full of grace, she was always full of grace and always will be full of grace. Today we proclaim that the gift of this holiness began from the first moment of Her conception.

Through the prayer of the Church, we have come to understand Mary's fullness of grace to be a gift that was not meant not just for a temporary assignment but for an eternal assignment from God. If Mary had no such eternal assignment, she could have been perfected by God for the minimum amount of time with the minimum amount of grace needed for the job, to give birth to the Savior. Yet the Church in her prayer has come to understand this being full of grace to mean much more. Mary was already full of grace by the time the angel Gabriel appeared to her, a clue that her mission from God was not at all temporary, and this same fullness of grace accompanied Mary throughout her life and impelled Her to appear at the cross of her Son, where she was given the responsibility of being a mother to the apostle John. It is at the cross that we see Mary's fullness of grace just as surely as we hear of it at the Annunciation, and it is a fullness meant for the motherhood of the apostolic Church, as Mary, like Eve before her, becomes the mother not just of one son, but of all the living. Just as in the order of nature, anyone who has life can trace his beginning back to Eve, the mother of all the living, so in the order of grace God willed the same pattern, that there be a mother of all who have eternal life, and all who have eternal life can trace their beginnings back to her. In the economy of salvation, Mary appears before Jesus, and the Lord Himself is dependent upon Mary to receive His own flesh. Just as the Lord Himself was dependent upon Mary, so we too are always dependent upon Her who always mediates the coming of Jesus, who always mediates the world's welcoming of Jesus and the world's giving birth to Him, who always mediates His grace as pattern and mother of the Church. Mary is the one most like Her Son. She is the one closest to Him. She is the one He loves the most in all creation. She alone is pronounced full of grace. So if Jesus always was, is and will be important, so also Mary whom He always loves and always honors was, is and will always be important, in the mind and heart of Jesus, and in ours as well. It is right then, that the mother of God and the mother of the Church who is given such an eternal role in the economy of salvation, be understood by the faithful as being full of grace not just temporarily, in a minimum, way, but in a superabundant way, in a way that proclaims Mary to be most like her Son, the same yesterday, today and forever, always full of grace from the beginning to the end.

Today is a singularly important Solemnity in the United States, a solemnity that is never abrogated or moved, for any reason. Today's Solemnity outranks all the other Holy Days of Obligation here in the United States. Mary of the Immaculate Conception is the patronness of the United States. In a special way, Mary herself is the apostle to the Americas, for none of the original twelve apostles brought the Gospel to this land. We have always had a special devotion to Mary because it is she herself, who personally inspires and protects the proclamation of the Gospel in this land with a mother's care. The new bishops of our country, who were working with great sacrifice, to establish the Church in the United States, always had special recourse to Mary, and so they had the privilege of representing the Catholic faith of Americans, and our new Church here, and our own personal devotion to Mary our mother, at the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. This was a great achievement of theology, that almost 1900 years after the coming of the Lord, the theologians of the Church were able to proclaim with great precision, in a way that was reasonable and could be defended against every attack, what had been believed through the prayers of the Church, and in the hearts of the faithful, for centuries, that it was a matter of divine faith and sure revelation that Mary was conceived without sin. It is really theology at its best, not making up new theology as we go along, but the faith of the Church always seeking new understanding. Our young bishops of the United States were there, and Mary under the title of the Immaculate Conception became the patronness of our country soon afterwards. With Mary Herself as the apostle to the Americas, may we in the United States see our special responsibility and opportunity to be a mountaintop, from which the Church, under the powerful intercession of Mary, may shine the light of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Amen.