Dancing at the ark

Homily
4th Sunday of Advent B
22 December 2012
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
Audio

It's hard to overestimate the Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth.  The magnitude of what is happening is mind-blowing.  Meditation on the scene of this Gospel should complete our Advent preparation.  It can make us perfectly ready for Christmas.  That's why it's placed here, the 4th and final Sunday of Advent.

Mary didn't have a smart phone to text Elizabeth the great news.  But she got the news to her cousin as quickly as she could.  Newly pregnant, Mary nonetheless ran to share the good news.  Filled with excitement, she went in haste to the hill country.

The visitation was also the chance for John to meet Jesus in utero.  Yet the scripture passage is clear.  There is no interaction between John and Jesus.  John erupted at the sound of Mary's greeting.  He responds to the voice of Mary.

John the Baptist as we know will soon be the greatest prophet in Israel.  Yet the forerunner of the word is small compared to Mary.  She is no mere forerunner of the word.  She is the the bearer of the Word.  She will give birth to the word.  Her fiat is the most profound word ever spoken by a prophet.  Her Magnificat is worth more than all the prophetic words that John will ever say.  So at her few words, John the Baptist leaps for joy in the womb. John the Baptist was foretold to be greatest man ever born of a woman.  Yet he is small in the presence of the Immaculate Conception.

King David danced a thousand years before when the ark of the covenant was brought triumphantly from the hill country to the holy city.  So too, John the Baptist dances because of the closeness of the new temple that is Mary.  The promise made to David that a son of his would rule forever, haunted Israel until this day, for the David kingdom had done nothing but fade since the time of Nathan's prophecy.

These promises dramatically reappear in the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary.  Just as the stump of Jesse, the least of shepherd boys in the forgettable town of Bethlehem, was chosen by the Lord to become the greatest King of Israel, so now in this time, the most hidden of all women, is chosen for the fulfillment of a promise that had seemed lost.  The angel Gabriel says to Mary.  Your son Jesus will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give him the throne of David his father, and of his kingdom, there will be no end.

Imagine the situation of Elizabeth.  Imagine telling the story of how she conceived in her old age, and of her husband Zechariah being struck dumb, and the prophecy of carrying in her womb the greatest baby ever conceived, and knowing the sex in advance without benefit of a sonogram!  Imagine telling the greatest story ever, only to find out it's the second greatest story ever.  Such was the incomparable good news shared by these two holy woman, our final Advent prophets.

If you've had a great Advent, let the scene just described to us be the perfect completion of this season.  If you've had a lukewarm Advent, let these ladies come to your rescue.  Ask Mary to give you just the tiniest piece of her Advent expectation.  Ask her to help you feel just a bit what was going on in her mind and heart and body in those final hours before giving birth to Jesus.  If Mary our mother will do that for us, we will be perfectly ready for Christmas.

Never stop rejoicing!

Homily
Gaudete Sunday C
16 December 2012
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
Audio

Call it what you will.  Gaudete Sunday.  Pink Sunday.  The Third Sunday of Advent.  Rejoice Sunday.  Whatever you call it, this Sunday is the Sunday we turn the corner in our Advent preparations.  We rejoice for one reason, and for one reason only - that the Lord is near!

Pope Benedict XVI in his new book commenting on the infancy narratives of Jesus says that joy is the distinctive mark of the new creation begun in Jesus.  The new creation's first word you might say is the word angel Gabriel said to Mary.  Hail, Mary!  Rejoice, Mary!  Be glad Mary!  The new creation's first word is rejoice, our word for the weekend. This Sunday is for us a particularly intense and precise meditation on why we are joyful, and why joy must be distinctive in Christians, if we are living our faith correctly.  Joy to the world.  The Lord has visited his people.  Rejoice! That is our Christmas anthem.

The joy of the new creation is the joy of knowing that Jesus is coming with his power to remake the world from the inside out.  The new creation is unlike the first, for the first creation begins in life but can end in death.  It begins in goodness but can be touched by evil.  It starts big but can end up really small.  The first creation remains overwhelmingly good, but as well know all to well, it is broken from the inside out.  The second creation is distinctively different, and the cause of much rejoicing.  It is a creation that begins in baptism, with a death to self, but ends in eternal life.  A creation that begins with the healing of sin and ends in everlasting goodness.  It is a creation that starts small but ends big.

The rejoicing that is proper to a Christian is that the Lord is near.  Jesus Christ has come.  He is coming.  He will come again.  His coming to be with us, the gift that He is to us, is the foundation of the reason why we continue with greater joy and fervor and generosity to visit each other, and to give to each other, in this holy season.  His coming is why we rejoice!

The truth of the new creation does not mean, as we know well, that external circumstances are about to get better.  They might, but they may not.  We all know that in many ways the new creation is still too small, is only beginning to take hold.  It does not mean that things are about to go my way.  Yet the new creation mysteriously can take hold even in times of great trial or distress.  Especially confusing and saddening and disheartening is the terrible tragedy that happened in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday. Children usually are some of our best prophets for Christmas.  They know the time and hour of Christmas.  They are fraught with anticipation and joy for all the visiting and giving of the season.  Indeed, can we imagine Christmas without children?  Tragedies like the one in Connecticut rightfully make people wonder if God is really close, or whether evil has taken hold in a more powerful way.

We can feel confused, guilty and discouraged by evil.  It is not the way things are supposed to be.  So evil will never make any sense.  Yet I must insist that our joy remain undiminished.  For the Lord's coming means that we are visited even in our discouragement and sadness.  We are not alone.  God weeps too.  Yet woe to us if we fail to participate in the process of evil being definitely conquered, and we must not stop fighting.  As John the Baptist the great prophet reminds us, we prepare room for the Lord's coming, and the time and space of our lives become instruments of the new creation in the Holy Spirit, when we take evil seriously, and when we repent of our sins with a perfect hate and have a true passion for righteousness.

There is Christian joy in not giving into discouragement and complacency, no matter how many times we have to pick ourselves up, and hold each other tight, in our fight against evil.  The response to evil is not to despair and not to doubt, but to fight.  John the Baptist teaches us this, and reminds us that while indeed we are engaged in a great cosmic battle against evil, the battle lines are most distinctively drawn in each of our hearts.  The helplessness brought on by encounters with evil must be met with prayer, and at the very least, a stronger commitment to winning the battle against evil in my own heart and in the time and space of my own life.

We become real instruments of the new creation when after true repentance, we allow ourselves to be visited by the Lord, who comes with the Holy Spirit and fire to transform us into the saints we deeply long to be.  This alone, the Lord's coming, is the cause of our joy.  Rejoice! Again I say rejoice! The Lord is near!

greater signs

Homily
Wednesday of the 1st Week of Advent I
5 December 2012
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings

In today's Gospel we see the fulfillment on the mountain of Isaiah's prophesy.  The sure sign of the Lord's arrival will be the removal of tears, the healing that is done by Jesus on the mountain.  Then there is the superabundance of food.  The circumstances on the mountain are humbler maybe, than the majestic prophecy of Isaiah, but the fulfillment is there, at least in part, through the miracles of healing and feeding.  The time of fulfillment has arrived.  The Messiah is here.

The story on the mountain told by Matthew follows beautifully the pattern of the Mass.  There is a gathering, a listening to teaching, a healing, an offering, a transformation and then a superabundant feeding delivered by the disciples.  The signs experienced by those on the mountain eventually give way, especially in the Gospel of John with its Bread of Life discourse, to the sign of the Eucharist.  Signs that lasted for a day gave way eventually to a great sign, the institution of a Sacrament; in this case, the central sacrament of the Eucharist that we have come to experience.

It should happen almost automatically that those of us who have access to the greater sign seek a greater transformation than than experienced on the mountain.  For sure, this greater sign must be assisted by greater faith, for this greater sign is more mysterious.  Yet the greater sign of the Eucharist leads to a greater gift, the coming of the Lord in more places, feeding and healing more people in more remarkable ways; in every way, the greater sign leads to greater superabundance.  If we leave here then, less changed by this greater sign than those who were present to the signs on the mountain, then we have much Advent work to do.

Let us pray for the Church, that the Lord may receive an eager welcome at his many comings among us, especially in this Advent season of preparation, we pray . . .

For the world, that it may recognize the time of its visitation, and get over its fear of the Lord's coming, we pray . ..

For the mission of St. Lawrence, especially for the piety of students wishing to observe Advent in the  midst of their many concerns, we pray . . .

For the healing of those who are sick and the feeding of those who are hungry, that charity might guide the actions of Christians and all mankind, we pray . . .

For for the perseverance of all those in holy vocations, and for new vocations to the priesthood, religious life, and the sacrament of marriage to be realized through the Lord's coming, we pray . .

Heavenly Father, help us to know that the fulfillment of desires comes less from the arrangement of circumstances and more from your Son's coming.  Help us to accept the good things that come to those who place their trust in Him.  We make our prayers known to you through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Happy New Year!

Homily
1st Sunday of Advent C
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
2 December 2012
Daily Readings


Check this out on Chirbit


The countdown on New Year's Eve.  Mario's 2008 miracle falling out of the air.  A critical exam about to start, a project deadline bearing down on you.  The powerball drawing.  That first kiss.  The birth of a baby. All these human moments, and many more, are filled with anticipation and excitement.  Such is the spiritual attitude of Advent. The countdown is over.  The new year is here.  Happy New Year!

A new year is always fun because of the feeling that through vigilance and resolution, the past no longer determines the future.  Of course, things are only really new if something has fundamentally changed, only if something substantial is happening.  New Year's is just a party that like everything in life, quickly fades, unless we are doing more than playing make-believe.

We are challenged not to turn the 1st Sunday of Advent then, into a make-believe New Year's Eve.  The Church's challenge comes to us from Luke's apocalypse, tonight's Gospel.  Jesus offers through his telling of the apocalypse what deep down, each one of us wants, an unveiling of how we can escape getting older and older with the world, until we fade away, and a chance through the Lord's coming to get younger and newer.

Yet Jesus tells us rightly that we are not prepared for what we want.  Indeed, all of us would die of fright if the world as we knew it crumbled.  We are prepared not for new things, but for holding on tightly to old controls and securities.  Our spiritual drunkenness and material attachments cause us to fear what we most want.  We fear the coming of the Son of Man, who brings the only thing that does not pass away - newness of life.

If you plotted the liturgical year on  the face of a clock, our first Sunday of Advent would happen not when most New Year's celebrations happen, not at midnight, but at about 9 o'clock, by my estimate.  We've held onto the light of last Easter's celebration as long as we could, and that light was not in vain and has not passed away.  Yet as the order of our redemption mirrors the order of nature, now is the time for us to stop looking at the light from yesterday, and to start looking for the light of tomorrow.  In Advent we are to begin looking east to the new Easter light of 2013.

You heard me right, and no, I haven't gone insane, at least I don't think I have.  Advent anticipates Easter.  It isn't enough to remind everyone to quit celebrating Christmas too early.  No, Advent begins a long night of vigil that will continue through next Lent to Easter morning.  Christmas will be a stop on the long night's journey, a celebration of a critical moment.  Christmas happens at midnight of our new year, when the light that is powerful enough to scatter every darkness begins to glimmer at the darkest hour of the darkest night.

Just at the time, 9 o'clock, when many people are reaching for a beer and the TV remote, thinking the most important part of the day is over, it is then, it is now, that Christians are called to become more vigilant.  Christians delight in the God who plans small surprises that come when many people are least expecting them.  Just as scientists look to smaller and smaller particles to help unlock the mysteries of the universe, so Christians look for small beginnings that change the world in radical ways.  We begin Advent by remembering that only a few people made it to the manger, while the rest of the world was asleep.  Even fewer made it to the empty tomb.  Whether or not anyone was there, these two events changed the cosmos more than the Big Bang ever could.

The same incarnation and paschal mystery of Jesus are fully present to the few of us who have come here tonight.  Who among us tonight might dare to let the old pass away, and be ready to recognize the Lord's coming in the hidden surprise that is the Holy Eucharist.  Come, Lord Jesus.  Come.

We are kings through the King of Kings

Homily
34th and Final Sunday of Ordinary Time
Solemnity of Christ the King
25 November 2012
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
Audio

Michael Jackson is the king of pop.  Elvis the king of rock.  Simba the king of the jungle.  Lebron is King James of the basketball world.  Perhaps, in a country whose freedom was gained through the toppling of a king, and who elects a president instead, talk of kings could sound anachronistic.  Yet we are not immune to anointing kings.  We love to point out who dominates in their particular area of reality.  We love to point out who demands submission, the one who reigns over his competitors, the one who has power and fame.  We still love kings, and what is more, we still love seeing them fall.

A king is different than a president.  A president serves at our pleasure.  He is elected.  A king commands obedience.  There is no kingship where there is divided loyalty.  Kingship is absolute.  It demands submission.  When we declare the Kingship of Jesus, and worship him on this solemnity, we do not do so lightly.  For one does not worship that which he elects or that which serves at his pleasure.  Worship demands submission.  So rightly, if we have come this morning daring to worship, it is fitting to proclaim the one we worship to be Jesus Christ our King.

Today we submit ourselves to the author of all creation, to the one more powerful than the Big Bang because he existed before it happened.  We bow down before one whose kingdom does not just occupy a vast portion of the time and space of the universe, but one whose kingdom is alone universal and eternal.  Because his kingdom is founded by truth and love, justice and peace, it is a kingdom that even one with the power to launch a nuclear weapon cannot destroy.  This kingdom belongs alone to Jesus.  So whenever we say the name of Jesus, we almost always anoint him king at the exact same time.  Jesus the Christ.  Jesus the Anointed.  Jesus the Lord.  Jesus our King.

Yet the incomparable power of Jesus our King lies not ultimately in his power to rule and to judge and to dominate, but remarkably, in its opposite. These last things belong to Jesus as King, but there is something more foundational, something about his kingship that comes first.  Jesus is King not just because He is greater than other Kings, but because His is a new category of kingship.  He is the only and ultimate definition of what a King is, and anyone else's kingship is illusory and fleeting unless it shares in His kingship.

For Jesus our King is powerful not just because He existed before, and is the author of, the Big Bang and all that comes after.  He is powerful even moreso because He can also make himself so small as to be born out in the cold, in abject poverty.  He is powerful enough to ride into his capital city not with a secret service or an army, but on a donkey.  He is powerful enough to hand himself over to his enemies, to allow himself to be judged by Pilate, and to be spat upon and mocked on the cross as Ieusus Nazarenus Rex Ieudaeorum.  This power shown by our King, to give oneself over in love to one's enemies, is a power greater than the Big Bang.  The power of sacrificial love shown by our King is the true ground of all reality.

This sacrifice of Jesus, his being a Lamb, precedes his ultimate coming on the clouds to judge heaven and earth.  We submit today to a King who allowed himself to be the Lamb who was slain.  On this solemnity of Christ the King, we bow down unequivocally and without reservation to the truth that is Jesus, the truth that he represents and that He is.  For anyone who belongs to the truth, sees the truth that is Jesus, and declares Him alone to be King.  By virtue of our baptism, we too are kings through Him, with Him and in Him.  Let us not shy away from the dignity we have as those sent out in the power of the Holy Spirit to help build His everlasting Kingdom by a similar gift of our own lives.  Amen.

The apocalypse of the past

Homily
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time B
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
18 November 2012
Year of Faith
Readings
Audio

Jesus told his disciples that he doesn't know when the world will end.  Even he, who through his power as Wisdom incarnate could know all things, has chosen to limit his knowledge and to reserve to the Father the knowledge of the final apocalypse.  Even Jesus says he does not know the time or the hour.  Yet one thing we can be sure of is that people will not let this fact get in the way of a good story.  People who are unhappy with things like global warming, terrorism and war, politics, religious arguments and conflicts, and the rise of atheism will never stop reading the signs of the times in their particular way and predicting the end of the world.  Even though they have proven to be wrong every single time, and even though Jesus told us to stop predicting the end of the world, it seems irresistible.  Atheists like to caricature Christians as feeble minded.  That we are the ones afraid of the man in the sky and his final rapture.  Yet secularists are not immune to apocalyptic predictions either.  There have been plenty of scientists who predicted overpopulation would long since have destroyed the world.  Hollywood loves the apocalypse as well.  Aliens are always on the way to destroy us, were it not for the Men in Black, Neo and the Avengers to save us.  There are movies being made not only of angels and demons swooping down in the great battle for souls, but Al Gore makes his movies as well, predicting that global warming will destroy us all in our lifetimes.  Even though nobody does, everyone thinks they know how and where and when the world will end.

Why are apocalyptic stories so irresistible?  Why does Jesus use apocalyptic language?  Well, for one thing, apocalyptic stories teach us spiritual lessons in ways no other stories can.  Nobody knows when the world will end, but everyone knows that the time to get ready is now. Everyone knows that the things we put off until tomorrow are the things that are most likely to be left undone.  Everyone knows that 'carpe diem' is a better life's motto than 'why do today what you can put off until tomorrow.'  It does nobody any good to pretend that we will live forever, when we will not, or that life is longer than it really is.  Whether or not you believe in God or fear God, and whether or not the apocalyptic story you're paying attention is about nuclear destruction, aliens or the rapture, apocalyptic stories work.  They deliver spiritual and moral truths.  Jesus uses apocalyptic stories because it really is true that actions have consequences.  That what we do today has a major impact on what we can and will choose tomorrow, and that there is indeed a great cosmic battle going on with consequences into eternity.  What is more, there is a point of no return for each one of us, a point where we either become the person we always wanted to become or we don't. There is a point for all of us when we run out of chances for do-overs, and we have to admit that we are who we are, nothing more.  The reality is that these decisive moments are much closer to us than we dare to admit. That, my friends, is why apocalyptic stories work.  Because they are spiritually and morally true stories.

Yet none of this is to say that the apocalyptic stories of the Bible are only spiritually useful and not based in material or historical reality.  Especially when Jesus is repeating the apocalypse of the prophet Daniel, he is describing something that is taking place, or is about to take place, immediately in the time of those to whom he is talking.  When Jesus goes apocalyptic, He is not just forwarding the apocalyptic story, He is fulfilling the story.  Jesus is the apocalypse.  He is the unveiling of all things as they really are.  Jesus tells his disciples that they are about to see THE GREAT COSMIC BATTLE OF ALL TIME as He goes behind enemy lines in His passion, proceeds all the way to the gates of hell, and emerges victorious with his angels and saints through a bodily Resurrection that real historical disciples and witnesses will be able to see with their eyes and touch with their hands.  The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus won the decisive and final battle once and for all, and that victory is waiting to be extended to the ends of the cosmos.  Jesus is not telling mythical apocalyptic stories for some minimal spiritual benefit for his disciples. He is preparing them to be the witnesses of the true and lasting apocalypse, and of the great battle and victory that is more than ever was or ever will be.

For us, then, when we hear apocalytpic stories, we look not only to the future but we remember the apocalypse of the past - the unveiling of how things really are and the victory that always will be, through the Paschal Mystery of Jesus.  We then look to the present time, as to how we might extend this great apocalypse and victory over sin and death in the time and circumstances of our own lives.  Finally, knowing that the kingdom of God is already fully among us, we move forward into that unknown day and hour not scared that the apocalypse will surprise us or scare us, but with the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love.    

Pray and vote and love

Homily
31st Sunday in Ordinary Time B
Year of Faith
4 November 2012
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings
Audio

1. On this year of faith commitment weekend in the Archdiocese, pray for all trying to learn their faith and respond with greater trust in God
2. Politics will never be perfect.  Yet Catholics have a moral obligation to vote if there is a candidate who can advance the common good.
3. Vote your conscience, which is not your inner voice, but the voice of God deep within you, and his law written on your heart.
4. Jefferson said rights are grounded not in man, but in our creator. True equality is God knowing and loving and willing every human person.
5. The right to life is fundamental. No society increases rights to equality, choice, privacy or opportunity when the right to life is at risk.
6. Archbishop Naumann has asked every Catholic to go to Mass, make a holy hour or offer a rosary on the day of Tuesday's election.  
7. When storms like Sandy happen, as a rule it's good to remember that despite the contingencies of life, life is still worth living
8. Praying, helping, giving defeat evil more than doubting God. God allows evil like the cross only as a means to a greater good. 
9. Ambrose - death is no longer bad, for in Christ it is now the means of our salvation.  Without Christ immortality is a burden not a blessing
10. Hearing and fearing God is the first stage of love. Would be Masters of their own destiny are not receptive to relationship and true love.
11. Takes thousands of rules to be a faithful Christian in real life, but they all flow from the core - love God totally, and your neighbor too.
12. God's ability to focus on you is greater than vice versa.  So use your freedom to surrender all to a love more powerful than you can control.

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