sign me up!

Homily

Easter Sunday 2011

24 April 2011

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Daily Readings

Jesus Christ is Risen just as He said! Alleluia! Alleluia!

This joyful Easter proclamation goes out from the Church to the whole world today, symbolized by the Holy Father giving his Urbi et Orbi (to the Church and to the World) blessing at noon on Easter Sunday in St. Peter's square. It goes out from St. Lawrence as well, as we with incomparable joy join in the Easter proclamation that has given new hope to the world for 2000 years and counting. Jesus Christ is Risen. Jesus Christ is truly Risen. Jesus Christ is Risen just as He said! Alleluia! Alleluia!

This proclamation of our faith should be easy to make on Easter Sunday. The earth is springing to life around us, and the Church is filled with new colors, new flowers, new sounds of Alleluias ringing. Beginning with Mary Magdalene, the first witness of the Resurrection of our Lord, through the apostles, through the countless martyrs of the centuries from every corner of the world, to the millions who are joining the Church this Easter, to the newly baptized here at St. Lawrence who have professed the faith for the first time, to my own parents and godparents who perhaps passed this faith on personally to me, the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ has come down to us who will renew our baptismal promises today. The truth of Easter has beautifully captured since the time of Christ the lives of men and women who yearn to become saints, to live a new and more meaningful kind of life, and has been passed down to us today at great cost. It is a gorgeous faith that brings incomparable hope and meaning to the world and to each person within it. Jesus Christ is truly Risen from the dead, just as he said. We are proud to profess this together, to the world today, in Christ Jesus our Lord!

We are richly supported in our profession of faith today, so much so that our proclamation of Jesus' Resurrection is not so much something we individually generate, but something we receive and pass on. It is a faith in which we live and move and have our being. It is a faith that today of all days surrounds us, and captures us. We should not hesitate to join in the chorus of faith. Yet this does not mean that the renewal of our baptismal promises today should be automatic, or thoughtless. We do not say I do because everyone else is doing it, or because today in this Church is the easiest time all year to proclaim with boldness that I am a Christian. Quite the opposite, today's proclamation should be the most personal and difficult and meaningful proclamation of our lives. We should only say I do if our faith in the Resurrection this year is stronger than it has ever been, only if I can say I do from the depths of my own heart. If Jesus is truly Risen, then the renewal of our baptismal promises on Easter Sunday is the most dramatic moment of the year for me personally. Far from automatic, to renew our promises is to profess that we will live out the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus in a more dramatic way in the days ahead of us. There is no other way to look at it. So although we renew our faith today not only as individuals, but with the support of hundreds right next to us, and in chorus with billions of those in the church who have gone before us and stand with us, still in the profession of faith today we must say a deeply personal 'I do.' It is not automatic, but a challenge to witness today through our baptismal promises our deep personal relationship with Jesus, whom we have come to know intimately as the way, the truth and the life.

For as St. John has taught us - this is eternal life - to know the one true God, and to know Jesus Christ whom he has sent. When we renew our baptismal promises, it is a proclamation that we personally know Jesus. Christianity is nothing if it is not intensely personal. It is the most personal of religions, for God in taking on our humanity made it possible to know him and to love him in the most intimate of ways, and through him to enter more deeply into relationship with one another. It is a faith of intense personal love, a love that is the foundation of life, so much so that the definition of eternal life is to know the love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. If we think that eternal life pertains to who gets to live the longest, then we have missed the boat. Eternal life is the fruit of an intense personal relationship - eternal life is more vertical, having to do with dying and rising, than horizontal, pertaining to more time. Eternal life is to know Jesus Christ with all our mind, and our heart and our strength, and so our profession of faith must be the most personal of any proclamation we can make.

Sometimes the Easter proclamation of the Church limps because we rob the Resurrection of Jesus Christ of its intense immediate meaning for us. The Resurrection is not some vain hope of Christians, that by following archaic formulas and doing what God says without questioning, we might get to fly off and be an angel or spirit in some far off place at a time to be determined. No, eternal life is an ever-present and ever-deepening reality. It is an entering personally into the depths of love, a love once powerful enough to create the world and each person in it, but a love shown even more powerful on the cross, the source of the world's redemption. Eternal life, the life of the Resurrection, is nothing else than a love that is stronger than death. What is more, it is not a fantasy. It is not bonus time in a far off place for those who are lucky. It is not time at all. Eternal life is born of an intense personal love that was present to us at our baptism, is perfectly present to us now in the Holy Eucharist, and will be present to us tomorrow in the loving promises God has marked out for us.

Once again, the Resurrection is not a vain hope. For a Christian, it is a present reality. It is something we dare to profess in a world that will never completely understand it. When we turn away from sin and toward love, we grow younger. When we stop measuring life, and instead with self-forgetfulness give and receive the love brought near to us by the blood of the cross, we enter into Jesus' promise that whoever loses his life will save it. When we fulfill Jesus' commandment to love one another as He first loves us, we enter into a life not measured by time but by the depth of our relationships, a life supported by a love that death cannot destroy.

Against those who say the Resurrection of Jesus is an outdated myth, and suffering and death are sure arguments against God, those of us who renew our baptismal promises today proclaim a life that grows stronger as we follow Jesus through his suffering and death, an eternal life that we know to be true because in our conversation with Jesus, he has shown us how to die to self and to live in true freedom. We proclaim the Resurrection to be true because we are right now in the middle of a conversation of love between Jesus and His Father, and know personally the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

The Resurrection is not a vain hope! St. Augustine was fond of saying that he who was willing to share in our death out of love for us, will surely also share with us his life! If our Easter proclamation limps, it is because we have only just begun to understand God's love for us. For Christ redefined life forever through the prism of the cross, and revealed that since God is love, love will always set the parameters for life, not life the parameters of love. The Resurrection then is not some trick, it is the fruit of God's love for us, and it is a certain truth and hope for those of us who have entered deeply into a communion of love with God and with one another.

So with great faith, in the most personal of ways, with more strength than we have mustered before, I invite you to dare to renew with me the promises of your baptism. I invite you to do so not only in the comfort of this safe and holy place, but in solidarity with the millions of Christians who stand in harm's way on Easter Sunday because of their faith in the Resurrection, and in remembrance of the Christian martyrs of the past century, the bloodiest century for Christians in history. I ask you to dare to renew your baptismal promises in the midst of a Church that is exploding in many parts of the world, but is in danger of dying out in other places because of the lack of faith. I dare you to renew your faith right here and now, in the midst of a church that needs to repent of her sins, so that the light of the Gospel may have a new chance to reach the fasting growing demographic in the United States, fallen away Catholics, and those who no longer practice any faith. In rejecting my sins today, and in promising to walk in the light, in the most personal of ways I confess that my sins have discouraged those who might meet Jesus in me, and with me and through me, those who through my witness are yearning to stand in the light of His Resurrection. Most of all, I renew my baptismal promises so that I might renew my vocation to be holy, to be everything I have promised myself I would be, and to bring Jesus' mercy to my own family by what I say and do. I promise to live Jesus Resurrection by bringing his life, his light, his redeeming love that remakes the world perfectly from the inside out, to those souls he has given me to save.

All this we dare to proclaim with unparalleled faith, hope and love, on this beautiful Easter Sunday morning. For Jesus Christ is Risen. He is truly Risen! He is Risen just as he said! Alleluia! Alleluia!

put your hours within his hour

Homily

Palm Sunday

17 April 2011

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Daily Readings

It would be better for that man if he had never been born.

Judas was not the only one who betrayed Jesus. All the disciples betrayed him. He taught them to pray, and when he needed them to pray the most, they fell asleep. They all promised to die with him, yet cowardice ruled the hour. None mounted a cross next to Jesus, and only John made it to Calvary. He taught them to build a kingdom without force, and his disciples drew a sword. He taught them to stand in the truth, and they all denied him.

All of Jesus disciples betrayed him. His blood was on them and their children. As we have gone through the season of Lent, our sloth, our indifference, our cowardice, our lying, and our greed have become known to us. His blood is upon us and our children. We crucified him. We are sinners, just like the first disciples. Yet this is not the end of the story. We have repented of these sins, so that something worse may not happen to us. It would be better for that man if he had never been born. Jesus points out the real possibility of our story ending in despair. May this never be said of us. The shedding of Jesus' blood unleashes God's mercy upon humanity. It is shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus' blood is shed for me and for the forgiveness of my sins.

This is what Judas forgot. This is what he did not hear at the last supper. That is why his life ended in despair, whereas the other disciples found a way to move forward. This is what we must not forget, that Jesus' hour of agony is for the forgiveness of sins. The other disciples eventually began again to pray. They began to tell the truth. They woke from their sleep, and found the courage to die with Jesus. They found the meaning of their lives, the opportunity to witness to a love beyond all telling, a love powerful enough to forgive sins, within the hour of Jesus suffering, death and resurrection. They found new life measured by the depth of God's love, and a new mission to build a kingdom not with money and swords, but a kingdom whose power is in its ability to hand itself over to its enemies.

Jesus' kingdom is beyond the understanding of the world, no more powerful than a pitiable man riding a donkey into the wrath of those who want to kill him. Yet this is the kingdom to which we are invited to return if we dare to go to Jerusalem with him. As an eternal kingdom, which the world is powerless to destroy, this kingdom has the power to come forward in history into our present hour. Jesus' hour has the power to help us reorganize our own story, and the haphazard circumstances of our lives, so that we can see through once again to the end. This is the time, Holy Week, where we learn with special attention how we are invited to live, to suffer, to die and to rise with Jesus Christ our Lord. May we see in our ending not the despair of Judas, but the new life won for the apostles by the paschal mystery of Jesus, and with our sins forgiven by the shedding of his blood, let us go with Jesus to Jerusalem.

he remained for two days in the place where he was

Homily

5th Sunday of Lent A

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

10 April 2011

Daily Readings

So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.

Jesus is not in a hurry, obviously. Lazarus is dying by the second, and he waits two days. Jesus would make a horrible first responder. As a 911 operator, he would be fired. And this is precisely the point.

In the raising of Lazarus, his penultimate sign before heading to Calvary, Jesus shows that his ultimate mission is not to be a superhero who rushes to prevent death. No the mission is markedly different; Jesus comes to conquer death, and to rob death of its power to make us panic. His ultimate mission is to show that love is stronger than death. Jesus waits for two days because in the raising of his friend, Jesus intends to show more love than he has shown in any other sign. In a most extraordinary moment, before Jesus raises Lazarus, he weeps for him. This is something, Jesus' weeping, that we would not see, if Jesus had arrived in the nick of time to save Lazarus, as he had saved many others. Jesus' weeping is critical. It shows that in this penultimate sign, we are seeing something more than what we have yet seen. We are seeing more than Jesus' power to manipulate the laws of the universe, doing favors for those who believe in Him. In this sign, we get a unique look at the love Jesus has for Lazarus, a love that weeps for a friend, and a love that is stronger than death.

When Martha and Mary talk about the Resurrection on the last day, Jesus corrects them and points them to a Resurrection that is much closer, a resurrection happening in the here and now. It is a resurrection measured not horizontally by the gift of more existence at the end of time, it is a resurrection measured vertically right now by the intensity of love that is present. Jesus does not panic when his friend Lazarus is slipping away, because for Jesus, love sets the parameters for life, not life the parameters of love. Jesus lets Lazarus die lest we never learn that love is stronger than death. Jesus loves Lazarus back into life, but the new life that is created is more than than Lazarus emerging from the tomb, it is the increased intensity of relationship with Jesus. The resurrection is more than bonus time. I am the Resurrection and the life, says the Lord. In saying this, Jesus reveals himself as more than a magician who can reverse death, he reveals himself as the one who is always alive because he always loves. Jesus reminds us what life is really all about, that we are only existing, not living, if we are not loving. Jesus is fully alive. He is the resurrection and the life because he always loves. His mission is to reveal that God who weeps over death, but allows it as the pathway to new life, is the one who is the source of life because he always loves us first, and loves us best, and loves us always.

This love that first created the world out of nothing by speaking a word, recreates the world by saying to us who are like Lazarus - Arise -, and makes the resurrection not a vain wish but a certain reality by making his resurrected body perfectly present to us right now in the word of the Eucharist. The raising of Lazarus is the penultimate sign of the love that is stronger than death, the love that makes all life possible. The ultimate and everlasting sign awaits us next week on Palm Sunday at Calvary, when in order to reveal completely the love that conquers death, Jesus will give up his own life, and himself lay three days in the tomb.

For Jesus' ultimate mission is not to hit the panic button, not to respond to 911 calls, not to be a superhero who merely prevents death whenever he can. No, his ultimate mission is to allow death as the pathway to new life, to enter into death himself, to conquer death from the inside out, and to do everything he can possibly do to help us to believe in the love that is stronger than death.

So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.

he opened my eyes

Homily

4th Sunday of Lent A

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

3 April 2011

Daily Readings

JMJ AMDG +m

"This is what is so amazing. That you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes."

These words, said out of frustration by the man born blind to those who would not leave him alone, are words that should be exciting for you and me to proclaim to the world. "This is what is so amazing. That you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes." If we are not proclaiming this, we have relativized a powerful Gospel, and we are no longer living in the light of our baptism. Jesus is not just one of many lights, he is THE light of the world. We would not follow him if he was anything less, and so we should not be ashamed to tell the world that he has opened my eyes.

On Easter Sunday morning, we will proclaim to the world as Christians once again that the day of our baptism was the most important and dramatic day of our lives. We will proclaim to the world that Easter Sunday is the day that changed the world and gave the world its light, more than any other day. It was a day, it is a day, that we began passing over from darkness to light, from death to life. The Transfiguration, the woman at the well, the man born blind, the raising of Lazarus - these Lenten stories are stirring up the reality of our baptism, when we became children of God, when we received living water that quenches every thirst, when we gained the ability to see with God, when we began to die to ourselves with Christ and to live an entirely different kind of life. The catechumens of the Church are going through scrutinies to prepare for their baptism at the Easter vigil; but those of us already baptized, should be this Lent trying to match their preparation in mind and body and heart to celebrate the highest point of our year as Christians - the renewal of our baptismal promises on Easter Sunday.

In the story of the man born blind, Jesus shows himself to be the one through whom all things are made. The Genesis story of creation is everywhere in this Gospel. Jesus proclaims himself to be the light of the world, reminding us that light was the first thing that God made. He rubs the same clay from which man was originally made onto the eyes of the blind man, and tells him to wash in the water of creation, and so shows his power as the one through whom all things are made, to heal the world and redeem it and remake it from the inside out. The man born blind knows this power, and says to the world what we should be saying to it - this is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. He remakes the world, which shows he is from the one who has the power to make it.

How are we proclaiming to the world that Jesus has opened our eyes? Not by assuming that we are better than anyone else, but in admitting that our minds and hearts have been darkened, but in being committed to allowing the one who first made light to be our light. At our baptism, our parents and godparents accepted the Easter candle and the ensuing hope that we would walk always as a child of the light. To be a Christian, then, is not to be perfect by our own power, but to allow the light of Christ to shatter our secrecy and darkness, and to try to walk each day more transparently, more generously, more freely, in the light.

The light of Christ not only exposes our sin as Christians, it guides us to the discovery of truth. Jesus to those who were paying attention, made outrageous claims about himself. He says not I am a way, a truth, a life, but that I am the way, the truth and the life. In saying he is the light of the world, Jesus proposes himself as the answer to every big question that man can think of - why is there something rather than nothing? what is real? what is good, and true and beautiful and eternal? Yet these are not the only questions Jesus proposes to shed light on. In Gaudium et Spes chapter 22 it says:

The truth is that only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to man, and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown.

Jesus in becoming man brought the wisdom that first made the world to bear on the mystery of man. He tells the man born blind that he is the son of man, and the answer to not only the mysteries of the universe, but the most personal of questions: who am I? who loves me and who should I love? what should I do to be happy? Jesus proposes himself to be the light, and the answer to these questions pertaining to the mystery of all things.

As we approach Easter, let us dare to join the catechumens of the Church in proclaiming anew to the world how much it means for us to have been enlightened by Christ, that by his entering into relationship with us we have the joy of seeing things newly and clearly, with him and in him and through him, who is light from light. In a world that refuses to see reality with the help of the one who first made light, let us proclaim with the man born blind: this is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes.

JMJ AMDG +m

forgiving from the heart

Homily

Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Lent I

29 March 2011

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Daily Readings

Jesus instructs Peter to forgive many times over, and from the heart. Obviously, Jesus describes forgiveness in the kingdom as distinct from a one-time superficial forgiveness. It is not enough to tell another person don't worry about it, it's no big deal. No, we are to forgive each other from the heart. Too often, the forgiveness we give another person is not true forgiveness, but a decision on our part to move away from that person, to limit the opportunity that they would have to offend us again. Too often our forgiveness comes with a healthy dose of judgment.

Jesus describes forgiveness in the kingdom as altogether different. When someone offends us, we must forgive them 70x7 times, and from the heart. When someone sins against us, we are to become more interested in that person, and in the pain, brokenness or emptiness in their soul that gave rise to the sin. In the kingdom, don't worry about it is not good enough; no, we must forgive from the heart, by giving the person true mercy that loves the person beginning at their most unlovable point, a mercy that sets a person free to be different.

This is a forgiveness that does not originate with us, but is poured into our hearts, most notably in the sacrament of confession. Jesus is ready to forgive us 70x7 times in the sacrament of penance; indeed, many of us will commit and confess the same sin at least that many times. In the sacrament, Jesus doesn't tell us it's no big deal; his mercy is there to heal us and to free us from the inside out. Yet we celebrate the sacrament at our own risk; the sacrament comes with a responsibility. It is not just a get out of jail free card; it obligates us to know and to live the mercy we have received by loving our enemies, not in a superficial way, but over and over again, and from the heart.

JMJ AMDG +m

give me a drink

Homily Third Sunday of Lent A St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas 27 March 2011 Daily Readings

JMJ AMDG +m

Jesus said to her, 'if you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." Jesus thirsts for the faith of this insignificant woman. She was at the well all alone, for she had been shunned, and had no friends. She was there at the heat of day, where her sins would be laid completely bare, where she could not hide. She was there not on behalf of a family, for she was on her sixth husband. What is more, she is discovered by a Jewish man who would surely scorn her even more since she was a Samaritan. Yet Jesus thirsts for the faith of this woman more than she thirsts for him. He is the wellspring of eternal life. Relationship with him means everything. Relationship with her on the surface means nothing. By the standards of her time, she was a virtual nobody. Yet he thirsts for her more than she thirsts for him. Jesus is the living answer to every deep human question: who am I? who loves me? what should I do to be happy? He is the answer to every question that remained unanswered in this woman's life. Jesus was one, who though needing a drink of water, would never thirst spiritually like this woman was thirsting. He is already the living water welling up to eternal life. Yet he begins by asking this woman for a drink. He makes himself, who is all powerful, dependent upon her bucket, and her answer. He thirsts for the faith of this woman more than she thirsts for him. The disciples eventually return with food, and even though Jesus is famished, he refuses it, telling them that his food is to do the will of the one who sent him. The Father's will was for Jesus to thirst for the faith of this insignificant woman, to love her beginning where no one else could, where she did not love herself, and to wait for her response, to thirst for her response. Jesus thirsts to do the Father's will, and it was the Father's will that he ask this woman for a drink, to ask this most insignificant of women, for a drink of faith. So too in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus is thirsting for the faith of his bride, the Church. The well is the place of engagement, the place of marriage, the place of new life, and in this scene of the woman at the well, we see Jesus thirsting for the faith of his bride, the Church. As we approach the Holy Eucharist tonight, we must remember that Jesus is thirsting for us his bride more than we will ever thirst for him. The Eucharist is not a take it or leave it proposition. Jesus does not offer himself, then remain indifferent to how we respond. Along with the gift of Himself comes a greater condescension; Jesus begs and waits for our response. He thirsts for us in this Eucharist more than we will ever thirst for him. He is the wellspring of eternal life, not us, but he thirsts for us more than we will ever thirst for him. For we are too easily satisfied with filling our bucket over and over with water that will never satisfy. Who of us can say that we do not return to the same sins, over and over and over? We are here at the Eucharist, but we have only barely begun to worship in spirit and in truth, only begun to thirst to do the will of the one who loves us more than we will ever love ourselves. Yet Jesus is here at this moment worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth, thirsting for the will of his Father with a perfect thirst, for he knows better than we that the Father's love is beyond all telling. So Jesus is here, not indifferent to our response, but begging for our faith, thirsting for us, for his Father's will is that Jesus waits for each one of us as long as it takes for us to respond. The Eucharist is not a dare from our Lord to respond in kind to him. No, even if our thirst for living water is imperfect, it is the Father's will that Jesus thirsts perfectly for our faith. Once Jesus offers himself, he waits for us. He thirsts for us. His food is to worship the Father in spirit and in truth not alone but with us, and in us, and through us. This is the food that sustains Jesus, his living water, to bring us home to the Father. Jesus desires the living water of our baptism to be not a distant memory for us, not a vain hope for a life that is unsure and distant. No, Jesus desires the water of baptism to be more than a baptism of repentance, a washing from the outside in, but he wishes that the living water of baptism be stirred up from within as water welling up to eternal life. In the Eucharist, which feeds our baptism, Jesus asks us to enter into his self-forgetfulness and perfect self-giving, that is proper to those who of who are passing with Jesus even at this moment from death to eternal life, into a life not measured in length of days but by the depth of our love for God and for one another. Jesus says to his bride, the Church, in this Eucharist: 'if you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Amen.

JMJ AMDG +m

almsgiving the key to a good Lent

Homily

Tuesday of the 2nd Week of Lent I

22 March 2011

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Daily Readings

JMJ AMDG +m

The Lenten readings keep emphasizing that Lent has to be a season of renewal from the inside out. God does not need our outward sacrifices. He has everything he needs. Rather, he desires that we be good from the inside out not for his sake, but for our sake. He wants us to be happy from the inside out, not barely escaping his justice from the outside in. He wants us to be free to pursue the deepest desires of our hearts. That is the kind of fast that he desires for us this Lent, not an outward show, but a true rendering of hearts, not just garments.

To this end, the prophets and our Lord himself keep pointing us toward almsgiving. Almsgiving shows that our Lent is not simply about self-improvement, so that God and others will look more favorably on us, or so that we will feel better about ourselves. Those who seek to be good only from the outside in, have already received their reward. No, Lent is less about self-improvement and more about self-forgetfulness, to the point that almsgiving becomes a key to having a good Lent, just as important as prayer and fasting. Helping other people to carry their burdens, looking after the most vulnerable. This is the kind of fast that is pleasing to the Lord, because it corresponds to the great commandment of love which completes the meaning of human person. Love one another, as I have first loved you.

JMJ AMDG +m