charity first

Homily
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
Christ the King Catholic Parish
21/22 September 2013
Daily Readings
Jesus shows us several times in the Gospels that we must be clever enough to get things done.  Specifically, we are to be clever enough to get to heaven using whatever means are available to us, even dishonest wealth.  He tells us since we find the resources to get many things done, we must also find a way to detach ourselves from material things, especially our money, and attach ourselves to things that last forever.  He tells us lovingly but plainly that there are no excuses for not getting it done.  We are to be children of heaven, not of the earth, and we are not to be owned by our insecurities and possessions.

In every parable there is something highlighted and something hidden.  The hero of today's parable is not an honest man. He is despicable.  A Scoundrel.  He cheats his boss. Then when he is fired, he cheats him more so that he will have friends to take care of him, so that he does not have to find honest work.  Yet Jesus gives this man to us as a hero.  Not for his honesty, but for his cleverness. Even the man's boss was impressed at how clever he was.  Jesus uses him to remind us that we don't have any excuses for not getting things done, especially in our spiritual life, for the things we prioritize and put our minds and hearts to, are the things that get done.

Specifically, Jesus tells us to make our way to heaven by making friends with dishonest wealth.  What in the world could he mean by this?  He means detaching ourselves from our money and stuff, and being known for our charity, especially to people who cannot pay us back.  Pope Francis has been challenging us in powerful ways in his time as pope. He tells us to be simpler, to be closer to the poor, to be more merciful and charitable.  Pope Francis is tired of other people telling the Gospel story for the Catholic Church.  He is tired of the Catholic Church being caricatured by those who don't understand her as a place of moral judgment - a Church that has all the answers and stands in judgment of the world rather than in solidarity with it.  Pope Francis is not wishing to water down our moral teaching.  The Catholic Church has the strongest moral teaching in the world, and she will never change or water down her teaching of the truth, especially in areas like marriage, contraception, abortion and religious freedom.  Yet Pope Francis says that we need to write our own story, and a different one, and that the Catholic Church must always first by known for its mercy and charity.  We are to be known not only for our moral teaching and incredible tradition, but also for our action.  We are to be known not as the Church that changes the least, but as the Church that through her charity changes the world the most.

Jesus reminds us today that money provides no lasting security. It is always something that passes away, so we should always be giving it away.  What is more, he calls wealth dishonest.  He reminds us that even though each one of us tries to earn our money honestly and virtuously, without taking advantage of the poor, that money properly belongs to a world that is broken, a world where things are not equal and people do not have the same opportunities, and a world that is passing away.  So we should never put our trust in money, or as he says it, to serve mammon.  Jesus tells us to give our money away, to show charity, to be detached from our money.  Specifically he tells us to give it to people who cannot pay us back - to make friends with dishonest wealth, friends with the poor, and marginalized, and vulnerable, friends who will one day welcome us to our secure and eternal home in heaven.

10% is the biblical standard for showing that we are not attached to our money, that we are not trying to serve God and mammon, that we own our money instead of our money owning us.  10% is the minimum standard, and yet it is a standard hard for many of us to reach, including myself.  I say this today not to ask you for more money, at least not today, but to remind us all, including myself, that we must be spiritually free in order to call ourselves children of the kingdom of heaven.  Even if the world was perfectly just, and everyone including the Church had everything they needed, still we would need to give away at least 10% of what we have, because giving is ultimately not measured by the need of others but by our internal need to love and to give.

One guy told me once that he wouldn't go to Church anymore until he met a priest who was poor.  So I'm not just preaching at you all, I'm also preaching to myself.  What if I as your priest started every confession of mine confessing the sin of greed - with a money sin - a sin that frankly I do not confess as much as I should.  Pope Francis, would like that, I think of all of his priests.

We can make a million rationalizations and excuses for not being more charitable.  We are constantly measuring what we need versus what we can do.  There are of course hardships and conditions that make it impossible for some to give money and be charitable. And that's ok.  But for the vast majority of us most of the time, it is true that the more we manage to give away, the more spiritually free we become, and we also become more prudent and less likely to waste money on things we don't really need.  So let us consider being more charitable, of making friends for ourselves with dishonest wealth.  May we as Catholic Christians be known first in the world for our mercy and charity, and let us be more clever in prioritizing our desire to attain to the kingdom of heaven.  Amen.

Desperate love

Homily
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
Christ the King Topeka
15 September 2013
Year of Faith

Daily Readings


Raise your hand if you're surprised that I chose the short version of the Gospel!  I know I'm a long preacher, and the fact that I chose the short version of the Gospel should make you not happy, but even more scared, for I may have chosen the short Gospel so that I would have more time to talk.  Buckle your seat belts.  Here we go.

No, I hope not to go on too long this morning, but there is a point in this weekend's Gospel that it is absolutely imperative that we get through our thick skulls.  At least we have to try.  For our skulls are as thick or thicker, than the scribes and Pharisees who were teed off that Jesus was paying more attention to tax collectors and sinners than them.  Yes, that's us. For we all understand the logic of justice, but few of us - no, I would venture to say none of us - not a single person in this church this morning, understands God's mercy.  We have no clue.

The parables that hit our ears try to resensitize us.  They try so hard.  Jesus is trying to break through with his mercy.  So he puts in front of us incredible parables - absurd parables.  The first - a ridiculously stupid shepherd risks losing an entire flock because he goes after one lost sheep.  And instead of scolding the lost sheep, the shepherd is giddy and wants to throw a party after he finds him.  This shepherd is out of his mind.  And that's the point.  He is dumb dumb dumb, because he is rich in mercy.  He grins even though that sheep he is carrying on his shoulders is probably peeing on his neck while he is being carried back.  Or worse!

Then there is the kooky woman - yes, kooky.  Weird. Absurd.  Out of her bloody mind.  The Greek says she spends an absurd amount of time looking for what amounts to a penny.  And upon finding a penny, she is not embarrassed that she spent so much time looking for so little - no, she makes it worse by inviting her friends and neighbors for a penny finding party.  Can you imagine the absurdity or being invited to such a party.  Yet that is the point.  For we have been invited to just such a party this morning . . . to feast on the love of a God who prefers sinners, who loves sinners, to the feast of a God who rejoices more over one lost penny than over a million dollars.

My friends, if these parables do not rip our hearts open, we are already dead, and all is lost.  For the God of glory and majesty - the maker of everything from the Grand Canyon to the Rocky Mountains - puts himself forward in these parables as a dumb shepherd and a kooky old woman.  That's how he wants us to think of him, so desperate is he to let us know how madly he is in love with us, and how much he wants his mercy to heal us.  If that does not move my heart, then I should stop celebrating Mass for you right now.  If it doesn't move your heart, we should go home.

Archbishop Keleher told his priests often that the one thing you can never fail to tell people in every homily is that God loves them.  For nobody really believes that God loves them.  That's the original sin, and the deepest damage that exists deep within each of us.  We do not believe that God loves us.  We have heard it a million times, and none of us believes it.  None of us.  Even if we've looked at a cross a million times, we still don't believe it.  Why?  I have no idea.  We just don't.  So I would even try to improve on Archbishop Keleher's advice:  there are three things you should say in every homily.  God loves you.  God loves you.  God loves you.  We have to keep finding new ways to say it, because we still don't believe it.

See, my friends, we try to turn life and religion into everything except the most fundamental thing - which is to accept that God loves us, and is desperately searching for the soul of each one of us, more than we can ever love him or search for him or please him - the most important thing is that God is searching for us, in an absurd way beyond our imagining.  We turn life and religion into everything but this most simple thing.  We come here looking to make adjustments in our lives, looking for answers, wondering if we're good enough, comparing ourselves to yesterday and to our neighbor.  We come feeling guilty for not doing more and living better.  And all is that is fine and well enough.  But the reason we must come, the reason we must always come, is to be found by God's love.  We show up to be loved by him, and this is always first, and deepest and the most urgent and necessary thing.

That is why Mary our mother is our pattern of holiness.  Before we dare to follow Jesus or act like Jesus as his disciples, which we will never do very well anyway, we have to be like Mary. She says in her Magnificat - the Lord has looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid.  Wow.  That's it. That the real source of her sinlessness and holiness.  Not that Mary was stronger or avoided evil more than us, which she certainly did, but most of all, that she allowed herself to be looked upon by God's mercy in ways we do not let God look at us.  She allowed herself to be searched for and found in ways we do not allow God to search and find us.  She dared to believe that God loved her, in ways that you and I will never allow God to love us.

Sometimes we make life and religion into something complicated.  And it is true that we have to work hard to set the stage for this love affair with God to happen.  We have to be disciplined, we have to pray, we have to fight against evil.  But in the end only one thing matters - not even that we have loved God, but that God has loved us, and has sent his Son as expiation for our sins.  That is the one necessary thing, and the thing we are most afraid of, and the thing we most avoid - allowing God to find us and to heal us from the inside out, from our weakest point to our strongest, where we cannot love nor change ourselves, with the uniqueness and power of his mercy.  The one necessary thing is to finally accept once and for all, that God is madly searching for us, and is desperately in love with us.  So even though it won't do any good.  Even though you won't believe it.  I have to tell you again . . . . God loves you!  He loves you. He loves you.  He loves you.  Amen.

Homily
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time C
Christ the King Parish, Topeka
7/8 September 2013
Year of Faith

I'll try to accomplish a lot quickly in this weekend's homily.  I know I don't have a reputation for doing that, so I wrote out this homily in the hopes of sticking to the point.  I want to address some changes in the parish, do some introductions and welcomes, and issue a challenge to the men of the parish.

Firstly, I think there has been quite a bit of buzz, and rightfully so, around the parish regarding the fasttrack improvements to the parish rectory and offices.  Especially when I was gone for a few days of end of summer vacation, I would receive periodic texts from friends telling me there were dozens of people at the rectory, and what was going on over there, and did I know that there were toilets out in the front yard?  I want to thank all the volunteers who killed themselves to surprise me with an extreme makeover while I was gone.  The parish should be so proud of those who stepped forward and asked me if the transition between me and Fr. Pete, and the welcoming of an associate pastor and seminarian, would mark a good time to do some updating to the parish offices and rectory.  There are some talented and generous and sacrificial people in this parish, and there is a deep faith and love for Christ the King, and some people who almost killed themselves on these projects.  I think we should all be proud of them and we owe them our thanks, most of all me.  I am humbled and emotional and deeply grateful for the quick and great renovations that took place, and the rectory and parish offices are working nicely already for myself and Fr. Sylvester and Daniel Stover our seminarian.  There is more work to be done in the rectory basement, but it's amazing that these renovations were substantially completed in such a short time.  Amazing is the only work that comes to mind.

There have rightfully been some questions about the expenses associated with these projects.  Thanks to Fr. Pete not being a spender, there was some cash available in the parish budget so that I was able to authorize these quick renovations.  I do realize that this opened me up to criticisms of the new guy needing nice things and liking to spend money.  I am sure I am different than Fr. Pete, but please be assured that I come from humble roots and do not like to spend or waste money.  I hope to prove myself over time to be a wise steward of the parish resources.  I of course intend in the future to take things more slowly with changes and improvements and renovations, and to get broad consultation and support from all of you.  But I do believe that with the amount of volunteers and donations that have come in, that it was the right thing to do these renovations at this time of transition, rather than waiting.  I do think that we added tremendous value to our properties, much more than was spent, and I hope when I report a full accounting of what was done, that you all will agree.  Certainly those involved in real estate and construction have commented almost unanimously that we are getting a lot of value for very little cash.

I'm most pleased that we have a good living and working space for myself, and for Fr. Sylvester D'Souza, and our seminarian intern Daniel Stover.  I've tried to be up front with you that it is my firm belief that welcoming more priests and seminarians to live and work here at Christ the King is a passion of mine, especially as I continue to serve the Archdiocese as Director of Seminarians while also your pastor.  I think these priests, transitional deacons and seminarians that will be coming will be great to learn from, and I think we have a great parish in which they can learn too.  So I'm so excited for what the future years will bring.  So thanks to all who made this welcome possible so soon by renovating the parish offices and rectory.

We should all be deeply respectful of Fr. Sylvester, who has taken the great risk of being a missionary from so far away, leaving a country that is only 1% Catholic to serve in a city now of Topeka that is over 30% Catholic.  We should be sending missionaries to India, not vice versa, but he is here to serve for the next 9 months, the last of his five year commitment.  So we will be welcoming a different priest in the summer of 2014, but this year we have Fr. Sylvester, and what a great opportunity to learn from a deeply joyful and faithful priest from so far away.  Thank you Fr. Sylvester, for your coming to be with us.

I also greet warmly Daniel Stover, originally from Silver Lake, who is on pastoral internship here in anticipation of his being ordained a deacon this spring.  Daniel knows Topeka well, having been a member at Most Pure Heart for many years.  He is here to work on a learning agreement, to shadow me, and to take on some projects that I will give him.  He is very knowledgable and generous, having substantially competed his theological formation and studies, so please join me in making him feel welcome, and give him a chance to serve.  My plan is to have a seminarian here most of the time . . . so I hope you enjoy Daniel and the other guys who will be training here to be our future priests.

Finally, to the Gospel, which is as challenging as it gets, given that Jesus tells us to hate family members and to renounce all our possessions, if we would dare be his disciples.  Jesus tells his disciples this while large crowds are following him - when he is popular and things are going well.  Yet out of love for them he does not want those who are following him during the happy times to fall away when things get tough.  Which is indeed what happened, since only a handful of his disciples made it from today's Gospel to the cross.  Jesus reminds us that the quest for holiness and the kingdom of heaven is nothing less than the most extreme adventure of our lives.  To treat Christianity as anything else, or to follow Christ only during the good times, is to do it all wrong, and a complete waste of time.  Christianity can never be anything less than to be in that tiniest of minorities of those who are able to take up their cross and follow him.  That is why no matter how big or small our gathering here in church is tonight, or how big or small or parish was, or is, or will become, the only membership option is an extreme and dangerous one.  We should all go home unless each and every one of us is here to put everything on the line - Christianity can only be about radical and total commitment to Christ, his cross, and his way of truth and love.  There are no other membership options.

This weekend I want to put a challenge out to the men of the parish, not to take the place of all the women in this parish who do an amazing job of leading and serving.  Without asking the ladies to do any less, I am challenging the men to do more.  Specifically, to get involved in the That Man is You program on Saturday mornings and the Knights of Columbus.  Jesus pulls no punches when he says that in drawing close to him, and giving your relationship with him absolute priority in your life, that you will find your truest and best and most sacrificial self, and become the man, the husband, the brother, the priest, the uncle, the grandpa and the spiritual father than you were meant to be.  Drawing close to the Lord will improve every relationship with your life. Don't take my word for it, take the Lord's who puts it to us as plainly and with as much challenge as he possibly can, out of love for us.

I am committed to participating in the That Man is You group this year, and I don't like to pray or be challenged or eat donuts alone.  To the families in the parish, the best thing you can do for your family is to encourage dad to participate in this group.  There are signups after Mass.  I'll see you guys next Saturday morning.  

for freedom we have been set free

Homily
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
30 June 2013
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Year of Faith

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  This word freedom should resonate with a particular intensity and focus on this week we prepare to celebrate our Independence as a country.  For we live in the greatest experiment of freedom ever tried on the face of the earth.  The destiny of the United States is to be a beacon of freedom for the whole world, for this country was founded at the price of many lives, by those seeking a freedom that has been denied, and is being denied yet today, to the vast majority of human persons living throughout the world.  We enjoy right now the greatest amount of freedom for self-expression and self-determination collectively as a nation of any people at any time in human history.  This is reason to celebrate, and to shoot-off fireworks, and something to never take for granted, but something to be grateful for.

As Archbishop Naumann reminded us last week, however, this freedom is either being fought for yet today, or it is slowly but surely being lost.  Human history should tell us that the freedom we enjoy right now is fleeting at best, unless it is purchased by sacrifice and courage, and defended to the utmost at each and every  junction and moment.  As St. Paul says to the Galatians: if you are free, do not submit again to the yoke of slavery!  Archbishop Naumann reminded us that a first and fundamental freedom of our country, one which should be guaranteed and defended not minimally, but to the utmost, is religious freedom.  It is the freedom to act as fully as possible on the convictions derived from conscience.  This religious freedom is at the heart of true liberty and lasting human dignity.  Archbishop Naumann informed us of the current threats to religious freedom in our country, and urged us to remain vigilant.  We should keep this in our minds and hearts as we celebrate July 4th this year.  Very few in human history enjoy the religious freedom that we have at this moment.  It must never be taken for granted.

Yet. St. Paul is talking about more than the freedom we enjoy as Americans, the freedom of self-expression and self-determination, the freedom to act in accord with our convictions.  No, St. Paul is talking about the spiritual freedom that comes to disciples of Jesus.  Specifically, St. Paul references the spiritual freedom of self-gift - a deeper freedom than that guaranteed by the Constitution.  It is a freedom that has its origin in God - a freedom to love another person more than ourselves - a freedom to make a complete gift of ourselves.  St. Paul says that whoever has been first loved by Christ, who always loves in this spiritually free way, is also free to make the same self-gift in response and in imitation of the Lord.

Today's scriptures show us what deep and lasting freedom looks like.  It is the freedom to love, and the freedom to obey out of love.  The scriptures show us that obedience is no burden for the one who is in love, for the one who is free.  True freedom is to allow one's self to be chosen for a mission and a love greater than what we can choose.  The freedom to be chosen is a greater freedom than to choose, though the latter can never be lessened or skipped over.

The scriptures remind us that being free as a Christian is an exciting adventure of being chosen for a mission that is beyond our ability to manage or measure or control.  What this means of course, that being a Christian is a never a conservative micro-managing of life as it is right now.  No, it is a radical freedom to be detached from the need for insuring my life, and to be detached from things going my way or going in the future as they have in the past.  A Christian enjoys a radical freedom to be more available in the future than he has been in the past, to be more ready for things to change more in the future than they have in the past, to live the adventure of being ready for anything even at the cost of sacrificing something very good for the chance at something greater.

This is not a reckless freedom of doing what I want, a license that ultimately leaves to slavery, and a caving into ourselves.  No, as we see in the scriptures, this freedom is a freedom to do exactly and only what God is asking of us - it is a purification of freedom through obedience, and a deepening of desire through the loving of something, and someone, more than I love myself.  This is a freedom, as St. Paul says, that comes first to us as a gift from Christ.  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  As we approach our nation's independence, let us receive this freedom in a new and powerful way, in the gift of the Eucharist, that is Christ's perfect and free gift of love to each of us.  Amen.

The one to whom little is forgiven, loves little!

Homily
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
15 June 2013
Year of Faith
Daily Readings


Audio

Complacency.  The first reading from 2nd Samuel about David being exposed by the prophet Nathan is a great lesson in complacency.  It is almost unbelievable after the career David had, first defeating Goliath and then Saul and then every other enemy of Israel, all the time trusting deeply in the Lord who called him and was with him at every moment, that David was capable of the awful sin that the prophet Nathan has found out.  David's infidelity with Bathsheba was one thing, but his sending of her husband Uriah to the front lines of battle to be killed was unthinkable for a man like David who was once so close to the Lord and so in love with the Lord.  Yet we find in this story the reality that the battle against sin in our lives is never complete.  It is a battle that goes on and on and on, requiring great effort and determination at every turn of our lives.  For we are capable of anything - good and bad - at every moment of our lives.  We all have habits, good and bad, but our freedom is so great the past does not predict the future.  We find David in this part of his life pretending to be better than he is.  He is king.  He is taking long naps in the afternoon while his soldiers are on the front lines in the campaign season.  David has stopped doing battle.  He is self-satisfied.  He is disengaged.  He is isolated.  He is complacent.  What is more, he has lost his dependence upon God.  These are recipes for disaster.

We learn in the other readings from this weekend however that there are worse things than being a sinner. David repents, as we all have to repent.  Sinners we all are.  It does little good to measure who is the greater sinner, and who is the least. This was the job of the Pharisees - to judge who was following the law.  They were experts at judging things from the outside in - they thought their job was to measure and to rank the goodness of people according to the law of Moses.  Yet as St. Paul says clearly in the letter to the Galatians, such measurement is rubbish.  It amounts to nothing.  For the law exists for the sake of relationship, to the sake of enhancing relationship and of increasing love.  The law does not determine who is worthy of love - it is there to teach people how to love.  Thus as St. Paul says, if the law does not enhance our relationship with Jesus, and make us more dependent upon him, and allow him to be with us and to do more with us, in us and through us, then the law is rubbish.


The Pharisees, as we have come to know well, get this important point backward.  In judging and measuring they are actually decreasing dependence upon relationship and increasing dependence on the law - the exact opposite of what is intended.  As a result, we find the Pharisees to be pathetic people - always having to pretend to be good from the outside in rather than from the inside out - always having to be fake and pretend to be better than they really are.  As a result the Pharisees are incapable of authentic love which must be vulnerable and dependent and honest.

Jesus points us to the sinful woman as an example of someone who has learned to love authentically.  Yes, she has learned the hard way.   But it is better than not learning at all.  As I said earlier, the worst thing in life is not being a sinner - the worst thing is being someone who has no need for love, and who has given up on love.  The sinful woman shows that she realizes she is loved from the inside out, beginning from her weakest point, where nobody else loves her, and where she cannot love herself.  She is loved there uniquely and powerfully by Jesus, and she shows that she knows who he is by her effusive tears and expensive perfume.    The Pharisees want Jesus to play their game of judging and measuring - they have no interest in being loved or forgiven by him, and this shows in the way they treat him.  So Jesus says to them what we all need to hear - the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.  (Lk 7:47).

don't lose hope

Homily
10th Sunday of Ordinary Time C
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Daily Readings


Today's readings give us great cause for hope, no matter the circumstances in which we find ourselves.  In each of the readings, the circumstances are dire - they are dramatic - much more so when we care to look deeply into the context of the readings.  In each case, hope seems to be lost - there seems to be no way to turn around - and yet God acts dramatically.  He brings new life out of hopelessness.  For he is the God who has, who can, and who does being something out of nothing.

Let's take the first reading as perhaps the most dramatic example.  Elijah was sent as a prophet to a faraway land, and in obeying the command of the Lord he finds himself at the mercy of the widow of Zarepheth.  It was during a severe famine, and the last place you would want to be in a famine would be far from home and security, and dependent upon a widow, who had nothing.   In fact, prior to today's reading, we learn that the widow of Zarepheth was down to her last bit of oil and flour.  Still, the Lord commanded Elijah to be dependent upon her, and he and the widow trusted in God, and they ate and ate and the flour and the oil did not run out.

Yet even after this dramatic miracle that saved Elijah and the widow, we see how quickly we can forget the power of God to bring something out of nothing.  Once her son falls deathly ill, the widow loses faith and hope quickly.  She accused Elijah of playing a trick - of coming first for food but ultimately to expose her sin and to kill her son.  The widow quickly loses hope, until Elijah prays to God to save the boy and he is made well.

The Gospel follows the same pattern.  The widow of Nain has lost her only source of support and her dearest relationship.  She has lost her son.  Yet Jesus intervenes dramatically to show that God can act in the worst of circumstances.  God has power over life and death.  Jesus shows as well that God cares about our condition, and there is no reason for us to despair in any circumstance, for God sees us and knows us and loves us and desires what is good for us.

We have just completed our 50 days of dramatic celebration of Jesus' Resurrection - the power and wonder of the Easter season.  We have celebrated the dramatic and final victory that Jesus has won over sin and death, a victory that only needs to be extended into time and space.  The victory is the fruit of a love that is beyond our imagination, a love stronger than anything, and a love that attends each one of us as we live on the edge of life and death, as we pass over constantly from this world to the world to come, a love that casts out all fear.  Yet even with the depth of our celebration of Easter, how quickly do we get frustrated when things don't go our way.  How quickly do we lose hope when our life in this world is messed up.  How quickly does despair set in when we lose control?  We are challenged by today's readings to not lose hope, for God has, and does, and will bring good things out of the worst of circumstances.  He can even bring life from death.

We take St. Paul as a great example as well that we should not give up on our mission and vocation in life either.  Wherever we are at this moment, St. Paul was further behind when he was called to be an apostle.  He says plainly that he was the greatest persecutor of the Church you could imagine.  He hated Christians perfectly and with great zeal.  Yet out of this God called him, and without ever meeting Jesus face to face he became the greatest of the apostles in evangelical zeal, having a greater impact perhaps than all the other apostles combined.  This is meant as an encouragement to us, wherever we are, to not quit, and to find hope that we too can fulfill our destiny and mission in life.

The readings today are straightforward.  Do not despair.  God is with you.  He can act in the worst of circumstances.  Do not lose hope!  Don't give up!

Corpus Christi

Homily
Solemnity of Corpus Christi
2 June 2013
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
Year of Faith
Daily Readings 



Today's Solemnity of The Body and Blood of Christ - popularly known at Corpus Christi - is the last of what I like to call the Catholic hangover solemnities.  It's as if the Church begrudgingly lets go of Easter, her most fruitful and meaningful time of year, when oceans of mercy and grace are opened up as the Church celebrates faithfully the suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord, and then the incomparable power that is Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Baptisms, weddings, first communions, confirmations, ordinations, graduations . .. the season grows stronger and stronger, at least it should, before begrudgingly giving way to summer.  The Church hangs on, wearing white as long as she can - tacking on, as it were, the solemnities of the Most Holy Trinity, and today, of Corpus Christi.

Today's solemnity is the traditional day for taking Jesus outdoors, taking the Blessed Sacrament to the streets to show at least a few things.  Firstly, it is to show that our Catholic faith that Jesus is fully present body and blood, soul and divinity, in the Eucharistic species, is not a private faith, but one meant for the whole world.  The Eucharist is not ultimately a private cultic trick for Catholics to get into heaven, it is the sacrament of salvation for all people.  Some of the largest crowds in human history have been gathered when Jesus is taken outside, and his Church has gathered millions at a single instant at the table of the Lord, and so fulfilled his promise that his Church would do greater thing than he himself did.  So we take him to the streets as an invitation to the whole world to come to know Jesus who gives himself so fully and humbly in the wonder that is the Blessed Sacrament.  What is more, we take Jesus to the streets not just for others, but to strengthen our faith ourselves.  For Catholics know all too well that we are the absolute worst at receiving the Eucharist casually, and taking the sacrament for granted.  Most of us have received the Eucharist thousands of times with little or no change taking place within us.  Yet the Eucharist can never become routine . . . it's not just an innocuous Catholic ritual.  No, the sacrament is powerful - the grace of one Eucharist is enough to save the whole world - and to break out of our apathy, it is important that we take our Lord in procession before the world, and to continue to dramatically change our Eucharistic piety.  Either our Eucharistic piety is growing stronger or weaker . . . there cannot be any staying the same.

The Church gives us this Solemnity begging us to realize the opportunity that is before us every time we receive the Eucharist.  On the surface, there doesn't seem to be enough here for me to become a saint.  How can ordinary bread and wine, and such a small amount it couldn't feed me for an hour, contain the superabundance of grace, Christ's love and power, that can transform me instantly into a saint?  How can it possibly be so?  We hear in the Gospel the same dilemma.  There does not seem to be enough.  No one in their right mind would think it is enough.  People who have eaten thousands of times were sure there was not enough.  Yet when the food is blessed and broken by Christ himself, there is a superabundance of food.  So too as this sign gives way to the greater sign of the Eucharist  - no matter how many times we have received the Eucharist and it wasn't enough, no matter how sure we are tonight that it is not enough, still the reality is greater than our faith.  Just as in the sign of the loaves and fish everyone was fed, so too we have heard and have seen that the Eucharist is the food of saints, and the grace is superabundant for those of us still daring to become more than we are right now.

What is most amazing about the Eucharist perhaps, is that Jesus gives himself more readily the more he is rejected.  Even if there is only a one in a million chance that a saint will be born through today's reception of the Eucharist.  Even if there's only a one in a billion chance - still Jesus will make himself available, and allow himself to be doubted, misunderstood, ignored and ridiculed, so that he can be present to us once again.  He never tires of loving us, and whenever we go away from him, he finds a way to get in front of us again, especially in the amazing condescension that is the Holy Eucharist.  The Lord who feeds you tonight believes in your more than you believe in yourself.  That's why he is here again for you.  Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.