what do you need to let go of?

Homily
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
24 February 2019
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

I am the enemy.  You are the enemy.  We are the enemy.

We have to start here.  Before we begin a conversation about loving our enemies, which we will indeed have in a moment, we have to acknowledge that we are the enemy.  We have sinned against God, whom we should love above all things.  He has forgiven us.  God shows his mercy in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  There can be no question that before Jesus dares to ask us to love our enemies, he has first loved us in this way.  Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.  Talk about a guy that walks the walk.

Each week I try to dare you and myself to be real Christians.  I hate lukewarm Catholicism.  It is so worthless.  I hate it in myself.  So I try to preach to myself and then to you each week, daring us together to be real Christians.

This week the dividing line between real and fake Christians is love of enemies.  The commandment is repeated twice by Jesus.  Jesus asks us to imitate him by giving and forgiving without counting the cost.  Without expecting anything back.  This is the brand promise that we strive for here at St. Lawrence.  There is never a hidden agenda.  We try to give because that is who we are.  We forgive because that is who Jesus is.  What happens next is up to God, and we happily place judgement in his hands.

Believe it or not - but I hope you believe it - the Catholic Church is not here at KU to control your behavior and make you perfect little Catholics, so we can tell everyone how great we are in getting you to go to Church, when nobody expects you to come.  Gee whiz that would be a pathetic goal.  No we are here to give and to forgive, without a hidden agenda, without counting the cost, so that everyone here is known and seen and loved.  We are here to invite you to the freedom and fullness of following Jesus.  That's it. That's our brand promise. Call us out if we don't live up to it.

What does this freedom and fullness look like?  Here's a stab at it.  Listen to Jesus.  'Nobody takes my life from me.  I freely give it.  Can you repeat these words of Jesus honestly in your own life?  'Nobody takes my life from me. I freely give it.'  If you can drink this cup that Christ drinks, I dare say that like Him you are truly free.  I dare say that you are a real Christian.  I dare say that you get in your bones what my hero John Paul II described as the 'law of the gift.' 

It was no surprise when after being shot in an assassination attempt in 1981, John Paul II personally forgave and reconciled with the man who shot him, face to face.  It was a no brainer for a saint like John Paul.   For the Gospel teaches us how to love our enemies, how to throw a pre-emptive strike that robs the ability of anyone to take our life.  'Nobody takes my life from me.  I freely lay it down.'

This is real and powerful Christianity.  To choose what to die for long before death can choose us.  To choose love long before hatred can ever gain a foothold in our heart.  To choose giving long before anyone can take anything from us. To choose mercy long before an enemy can hurt us.  This is the ultimate pre-emptive strike, and the hallmark of a real Christian. 

To be free is to be able to tell anyone who would hurt us that it's too late.  Everything is already given and forgiven. In the law of the gift, all is grace and all is mercy. These gifts from God are never meant to be stifled by hatred or rivalry, but are to freely flow in and out of us.  This is the meaning of true freedom.

iGen or Generation Z - a generation born after 1997 which makes up the largest percentage of you all in the pews today, reports to be the most anxious generation in history.  What the heck are you so anxious about?  I dare say it's because too much is measured.  The Gospel says everything is mercy and grace - all if gift..  Around us though, everything has a price, with strings attached.  .  Without thinking we judge everyone and everything.  We compare without end.  It all leads to terrible anxiety - fear of not being enough or having enough, of running out of love, relationship, time, energy, status, money - the list never ends.  Which is why Jesus' words have to find a way to take hold in this generation, your generation - somehow, someway.  Stop judging, and you will not be judged!

Our pivotal question this week is a good one. What do you need to let go of? I'll kick off the reflection with two answers.  The first is that I need to let go of the fear of running out.  The law of tonight's Gospel is simple but hard to trust.  If we want more of something, then give what we have away.  I need to let go of my fear of really trying this.  Of course we all need to be prudent, but we need more to dare the truth that unless we are generous, we are going to run out - of time, energy, faith, hope, love, relationship, status and money.  It will all run out, unless we let go of our need to control.

The second thing I need to let go of is my grudges.  I bet you have some too.  So I'm going to put it to myself and to you straight tonight.  You ready?  You're going to get hurt badly in life.  You will hurt others badly too.  It is scary what we are capable of.  I dropped a good friend a few years ago cold turkey because I wasn't getting what I wanted out of the relationship.  I stopped giving, and hurt the person really badly.  A couple years later a good friend did the same to me.  I was dropped and betrayed and dumped as a friend.  It sucked and I thought I deserved better.

Guess what?  Jesus feels and is present to all of it.  We can take all of this junk to the cross, where he knows betrayal.  He feels the worst thing we have done and the worst thing that has happened to us. And he says so what - there is something greater.  He says we really do have the power to forgive in advance.  If we are real Christians nobody takes our lives from us.  We freely give them.  Not counting the cost, and expecting nothing in return.  We can do this, because He has done it for us, and wants to do it now through us.

St. John Vianney described this pre-emptive strike in this way.  Jesus forgets how we will hurt him tomorrow so that He can forgive us today.

I invite you now to make a similar consecration to mercy with your life.  Give everything that you have or are or ever will be to Jesus, and give to him anyone that you have harmed or will harm, and everyone who has harmed or will ever harm you. I am asking you for the rest of your life to live this Gospel - give to everyone who asks of you, and love your enemies.

I know I'm asking you for a lot.  But didn't we come tonight to dare a real Christianity?  Didn't we come to become truly free?

What do you need to let go of?

where do you find hope?

Homily
6th Sunday in Ordinary Time C
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas
17 February 2019

You were not made for comfort.  You were made for greatness.  This quote from Pope Benedict XVI can't be repeated enough.  At least not for me.  I get so easily seduced by what the world tells me to want.  By the instant gratification that is always at my fingertips.  I get duped by my ability to purchase and be entertained.  I lose my soul in the endless ways that I can make my life easier by getting what I want when I want it.  Yet it's not what I was made for.  I am not made for comfort, but for greatness.

Is your Christian faith exciting?  Has it in any way lost its zip?  It's scary how easily our religion can become dull or dead, simply a checkbox or an insurance plan.  Yet that's not what faith is for.  Faith if it is worth anything is about daring greatness.  It is about taking risks.  It is about going for more.  If being a Christian is anything less than a call to the most compelling kind of life, then the religion is worthless.  Christianity can never be an escape for naive cowards. If it's not the religion that writes the greatest human stories of all time, then to hell with it.

St. Paul reminds us as much, alongside Pope Benedict, in today's second reading.  To be a Christian can never been anything less than a call to a supernatural greatness not confined to the limits of time and space and matter.  If for this world only we have hoped in Christ, he says, then we are the most pitiable people of all.  I don't want to be pitiable.  I want to be great.  Don't you?

Fear and doubt are always creeping in though, trying to turn our religion into something tame and predictable.  Against these, we must dare always two things if we dare to call ourselves Christian.  First, we must dare to love in a way that conquers all things, even death itself - a love that shows its power in the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  Second, we must stir up that desire to see God face to face in heaven.

Unless we dare these two things, which are uniquely Christian, and unless we dare them greatly, our story is not a Christian story.  Here at St. Lawrence we are passionate about guiding great stories - your story if you will let us.  Yet it's our equal conviction that our stories can take on a fuller and more dynamic dimension when they are written in conversation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

What are the marks of a great Christian story?  Of course there has to be a hero who dares greatly.  Nobody should or would watch our story if the goal is to get comfortable.  The beatitudes from the Gospel of St. Luke today add another critical dimension to story.  The beatitudes say there is no great story unless the hero overcomes great conflict.  Happy is the one, says the Lord, who is poor or hungry or crying or discouraged.  Blessed are they, because only such people are moving in their story from comfort to greatness.

In Christian speak this great pattern of every story is also known as the universal call to holiness.  It's easy to forget this call - we have to be reminded over and over and over.  How easily we forget that our faith only comes alive, and we are only Christians, when each of us and all of us as Catholics together, receive this invitation to become the saints of this generation as only we can.  A hero that dares greatness and dares Christian things is a saint.  It is a call inherent in our baptism.  It is a call that always needs to be stirred up.  Our faith is only compelling insofar as we pursue with great risk and self-abandonment the call to love exactly like Jesus and to become fully alive in God.  Our faith is worthless unless it also honestly embraces the great tragedy our life is if we fail to become a saint.

So again, we are to dare two things.  First, to conquer death through love, and second, to never stop striving to become more like God.  These two supernatural goals do not detract from the hopes and dreams that find their fulfillment in this world.  Yet they ensure that our lives never end in comfort, but in greatness.  The beauty of being a Christian is that there is always something more.  We are made in the image and likeness of God, so our capacity to become like Him admits of no final resting place unless and until we arrive where He has finally invited us - to see Him face to face.

This is why the beatitudes are the commandments for saints.  For as the Lord tells us, if we are full already, we have failed to set our hearts on the greater things that last forever. If we are comfortable now, we have settled or quit in some way that is deeply disappointing for a Christian.

God loves me and believe in me too much to let me settle or quit when I am made for more.  Yet it takes hope to set our hearts on the two things a Christian must dare.  Hope is that supernatural virtue that corresponds to our supernatural end.  Hope confirms that we will persevere in a love that is stronger than death, and we will see God face to face, when we are tempted to settle or quit.

Our pivotal question is this . . where do you find hope?  We all need it.  I can feel when life is inviting me to the couch instead of to the battlefield.  I bet you can too. So where do we find hope to overcome this pull toward comfort and away from greatness? Where do you find it?

Thankfully, this question is easy for me to answer again this week.  Last week, I told you I find strength in those who believe in me, pray for me and sacrifice for me.  This week God fills me with supernatural hope again through the people around me.  I can think of so many people who fit the beatitudes-  who are poor, hungry, crying and discouraged at this time, but who refuse to settle or quit.  Shame on me if I quit when those who have it harder than me are striving toward the greatness for which they are made.

I hope your friends give you as much hope as my friends give me.  If not, get some better friends.

Where do you find hope?

overcome evil through communion

Homily
3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time A
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas
27 January 2019
AMDG +JMJ +m

If you're going through hell, keep going!

This quip from Winston Churchill describes how I'm feeling today.  It's been a helluva week, so much so that I want to say 'to hell with it.'

Yet for people of faith, quitting and discouragement are never options. Evil must always be met with opposition and determination.  So even though I'm not feeling it - and even though this slogan didn't work for the Chiefs last week - I say LETS ROLL!

What evil am I talking about?

Well, first this week, the witness of tens of thousands of joyful pro-life pilgrims at the March for Life in DC on the 46th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision was ignored by all the major media outlets.  That is no surprise and nothing new.  But this year, the normal news void was filled by a trumped-up (pun intended) narrative of hatred between Catholic school boys from Kentucky with MAGA hats and adult minorities.  So not only were the unborn again completely ignored and forgotten, a story of justice and love was flipped into the last thing the world needs - another fake news story of intolerance and hate.

What was celebrated last week instead of life?  That's right - death.  New York state greatly expanded abortion last week, making it ok for even a non-doctor to rip apart a viable baby up to and including the moment of birth.  New York's Catholic governor, a member of our Catholic family, led his state in the celebration of this horrific and disgusting evil.  Lord have mercy on us.

In case you were wondering, the week got worse from there.

Friday, Archbishop Naumann, after an independent law firm review of 1000+ clergy files spanning 75 years, released all at once the names of 22 priests with credible accusations of sexual abuse against minors in our Archdiocese. This represents 2% of priests during those 75 years.  It includes Fr. Don Redmond and Fr. Dennis Schmitz who both served at one point here at St. Lawrence.  Thankfully, none of those priests are in active ministry and there have not been any new substantiated allegations against minors in the last two decades.  Still, the report, which needed to be made for accountability and transparency, reminds us again that terrible evils were committed by the shepherds of the Church  There is a responsibility to pay for and correct and overcome these evils that must be met.

That was all bad enough.  Then this morning I awoke to news of religious violence in the Philippines.  Two bombs went off during Mass killing dozens and injuring many more.  At Mass, just like the one we are celebrating now.

Did I miss anything?  Oh yea, the Chiefs lost to the Patriots. That stunk too, and it didn't even make the top 5 this week. 

All this bad news threatens to drown out one of my favorite days in our Church.  Pope Francis celebrated Mass for hundreds of thousands in Panama at the World Youth Days, which showcase the vibrancy and universality of the Catholic Church.  I have attended 5 world youth days, and the ones in Denver and Paris are where I received signs to become a priest.  Still, I am struggling to celebrate today

I guess I could have ignored all this bad news and pretend like it doesn't affect us today at St. Lawrence.  Yet St. Paul in our second reading would beg to differ.  He presses us to realize not how isolated and inoculated we are, but how connected we are.  St. Paul brings home what it really means for us to be the body of Christ.  We are connected, and our unity, communion and intimacy could not run any deeper, invited as we are to become what we receive as we gnaw on Jesus' body and drink his blood.

The Eucharist is either the deepest and more real of all connections, or it is nothing.  There's nothing like it before, and nothing to follow after, that could be greater or more important.  And this connection we have as Christ's body is the starting point for answering this week's pivotal question - are you needed?

Are you needed?  Our first temptation might be to answer based on whether we have anything unique to offer.  St. Paul would scold us for thinking this way.  Are you needed?  St. Paul answers with a resounding YES!  You are a part of Christ's body, so you are needed because you are connected.  And no part of the body can say to another part - I do not need you. 

Nothing poisons the body of Christ faster than someone saying I am not connected and do not belong - that I do not need anyone and that I can do it better on my own.  Such self-reliance and privacy are the enemies of our communion.  Transparency and vulnerability are our friends.  We are needed because we are connected, so much so that when one part suffers, all suffer, and when one part rejoices, the whole body rejoices.

All the evils I mentioned at the start of this homily are due to the hatred and fear born of separation.  Those same evils are overcome through connection. Those same evils are more powerfully vanquished right here, right now, in the fullness of connection that is the Eucharist.  It is true that the world being destroyed by isolation will finally be saved in and through the ultimate connection that is the Eucharist.

To be Catholic is to be connected and to believe that the whole world will be saved through the connection we are here to celebrate.

Which is why your presence here today is needed.  You are needed.  There is nothing more important than our communion with God and each other.  Your simply being here counts a great deal in the war between connection and brokenness, between communion and isolation.

St. Paul has something more to say. He also tells us to give highest attention to the weakest members in the body. Did you catch that in the reading?  It's really a radical strategy, and one few of us dare to try.  Most of us would like to be needed because we highlight our strengths and mask our vulnerabilities.  St. Paul says the opposite - we will get stronger only insofar as we lead with transparency and vulnerability.

I am still learning this lesson the hard way.  A few years ago, there was a lady in my last parish that I got tired of visiting.  She was 60 years old, with terminal cancer, and when I first saw her she was given 7-10 days on hospice to live.  Yet this woman would not die.  She wasn't afraid and was right with God and everyone and ready to die, but the Lord wouldn't take her.  Neither of us could understand it. 

So what did I do when I got tired of visiting her?  I complained to God.  Great idea, Fr. Mitchel. Brilliant move.  Boy did I regret that complaint.  God shot back at me in a voice that I could only recognize as His - 'why are you tired of visiting her?  What if I want her to remain so that you will get over your stubborn selfishness?' Well, that answer made me really mad, but God was showing me something important.  That I needed this woman more than she needed me. That I was the weak one, not her, and that God was using her to teach me to lead with weakness, for the sake of His body.

So you and I are needed because we are connected, but what is most needed, and what will make us the most connected, is our transparency and vulnerability.  What kind of a Catholic family would we have here at St. Lawrence if each one of us today gave first attention to our weaknesses? What if we all said to each other - what do I need to improve upon today?  Strengths and talents are important in our body, but St. Paul has it right. Our greatest connectedness results when we lead with the transparency and vulnerability we see on the cross.

No one who hides his weaknesses will get stronger.  Ignoring problems doesn't make them go away.  In the end, ignoring our weaknesses will kills us.  A lack of transparency and vulnerability is killing the world, as we see in this week's news, starting with the most defenseless members of our body.  Those who should be given the highest honor are being discarded.

So Jesus begins his ministry in the Gospel today by giving the weak the highest honor.  He gives attention first to the poor and imprisoned and sick, and in so doing shows his body that we are the weak ones, not them.  Following Jesus in this way saves us all from the one disease that is sure to kill us - saying that I don't need anyone - I can do it better on my own.

Isolation is death.  So you are needed because you are connected. What is needed most is your vulnerability and transparency in this deepest of connections, as we receive the body that we become in today's Eucharist.  Your vulnerability and transparency here is what will ultimately win the war between life and death. 

Jesus over Chiefs

Homily
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time C
20 January 2018
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas.

How's your marriage going? Welcome to the first pivotal question of this semester. 

Now I know, I know.  Only 50% of us in this room are currently in a marriage to another person, a spouse.  That number is probably even less here at KU.  I don't mean to leave 50% or more of the room out of this homily. 

In asking how is your marriage going, I'm asking about your marriage to God.  Yes, that's right, your marriage to Christ.  How's your marriage going - the marriage that is celebrated right here and right now, and consummated as Jesus the eternal bridegroom becomes no longer two, but one flesh with us, as we eat his flesh and drink his blood.  That's the marriage I'm talking about.  How's that marriage going?

You see, not just half of us, but all of us, are called to be married.  Marriage is a huge deal, which is why Jesus performs the first of his signs at a wedding in Cana. This first sign of Jesus is not a warmup to his other signs.  This first sign might outwardly look like a trivial use of Jesus' power, a sign he reluctantly performs after his mom nags him to keep everyone drunk.  Yet this first sign of Jesus is no less significant than Jesus's final sign in the Gospel of John, the raising of Lazarus.  No, this first sign is the archetype of all signs, and a powerful announcement that we are all destined to be in a marriage that will always be celebrated and will never run out.

So how is that marriage going, the one between you and Jesus?

Now some of you might feel more married to the Chiefs right now.  There has been a definitely falling in love, and a dramatic coming together of the Chiefs and their city and fans.  I don't know who is the bride and who is the groom in this scenario, but after a long exile, this marriage is on fire.  Still, it pales to the marriage that Isaiah prophesies about in the first reading, the marriage between God and his people that will be consummated when the Israelites come out of centuries of exile, of being out of favor and out of love.  Nothing the Chiefs can inspire today could compare with that it would be like for a nation to come out of occupation and be married again to their homeland.

Still greater, however, is the marriage between Christ and his Church.  Which is why we never move or cancel Mass for a Chiefs game, no matter how much we love the Chiefs.  Remember two years ago when KU played Villanova in the Final Four, right during our most solemn celebration, the Easter Vigil?  Nobody is a bigger fan than I am of sports, and still I hardly remembered while celebrating Jesus' resurrection that KU was playing. There is just no comparison.  Shame on me if there is.  We all know that loving the Jayhawks in no substitute for this marriage which is for everyone and destined to never run out.

That is not to say, of course, that I will be celebrating the 5pm Mass tonight when the Chiefs play the Patriots for the AFC Championship, in an epic game the likes of which Kansas City hasn't seen in decades.  Even though there is no comparison between Mass and the Chiefs, every once in awhile my spouse, the Church, can say 'honey, you can go to the game.'  There will be a holier priest than I, our alumnus Fr. Vince Huber, celebrating the 5pm.  Sports and religion is not always a either/or zero sum game.  Sometimes you can do both.

Yet we never cancel or move Mass.  That's the rule.  And it's a great one.  Because as Jesus shows in his first sign, there is nothing more important than marriage.  And there is no more important marriage than the one in which we participate right here, right now.

We can marry the Chiefs for a moment.  We can consummate a marriage with a spouse and family for a lifetime.  Yet the ground of all marriage, of two becoming completely one, is the saying of Jesus that unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.  Yet if you are no longer two but one with me, you have eternal life.

You see for Jesus and his mother, it's not really about keeping people drunk at the party.  No, for them, marriage is a matter of life and death.  For unless these two reverse the great divorce between God and our first parents, Adam and Eve, we will all die.  Yes, that's right, unless we are married, we will all die.  Yet if we are married to Christ, through the intercession of his mother, we will live.

So there is nothing more important than marriage.  It's always a matter of life and death. So when the wine runs out at this wedding, it's a huge deal.  If everyone goes home early, they die.  Which is why Jesus makes an absurd amount of wine, as a sign that the wine that is ultimately Him, joined to his saving sacrifice at the Last Supper, will never run out.  At Mass we are invited to the new Cana, to receive the wine that is Jesus that will never run out.

I need this wine badly. So do you.  It's easy probably, to make fun of the couple that didn't make enough wine. But that couple is you and me.  We all run out of wine.  The demands of love are always too much for us.  We always run out of wine, no matter how hard we try not to. And that's ok. Jesus knew we would, which is why he is here today.

He is here so that we don't quit.  He is here so that we don't run out.  He is here so that we don't go home early.  He is here to offer marriage to us, lest we die.

Which is why we never cancel or move Mass.  For long after the Chiefs party has ended, and long after our love for each other has fallen short, the wine that is Jesus will still be here. It will always be here.  The groom has promised to always meet us here.

So - how is that marriage going?

survive and advance

Homily
6th Day in the Octave of Christmas
Solemnity of the Holy Family
30 December 2018
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

Survive and advance.  That's the key to March Madness.  You don't have to win pretty.  You just have to win, and live to play another day.

We too often think of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as a icon to put on the shelf and admire.  Yet they too had to survive and advance.  Just like you and I do.  It's really not a terrible motto for living a holy life.

Yes, the Holy Family is an icon, but that doesn't mean that their lives weren't a risky, bloody mess like our families are.  An immaculate mother, a fearless father who always finds a way to do the right thing, and the Son of God who cannot be anything but perfectly obedient are good ingredients for a Holy Family.  Yet we must remember equally that the Holy Family was non-traditional in many other ways - they were homeless refugees on the run from murderous threats and setting off amber alerts. They also fought - in a holy way!  Jesus talks back to his parents who accuse him of disobedience, and this won't be the last time that Jesus outwardly ignores his mother.

What makes a family holy?  That's our pivotal question that comes to us each Christmas.  Is your family holy?

Most of us laugh at the thought, right?  Are you surviving and advancing this Christmas season.  I spent 9 hours on the road and 7 hours visiting my family.  I got in and got out.  I survived and advanced.  I saw my three grandparents, my dad and all my siblings, nieces and nephews, alongside various other aunts, uncles and plus ones.  It was great to see everyone and to wish everyone well, but my goal was to survive and advance.  I didn't want to reveal my mess or ask about theirs - only to pray that everyone finds a way to persevere in knowing, loving and doing God's will.

Most, if not all great human stories, run through the family.  If you don't believe me, meditate on today's Feast, and Jesus' story as written in relationship to his family. First, with his mom and dad. Next, through the family that is his Body and Bride, the Church, which He feeds with his won blood.  Think about all the great Christmas stories and movies that touch our hearts.  They all run, one way or another, through the family.  You see, families are the indispensable schools of love, through which every person learns to write their stories.  Is it any wonder that of all places that Jesus wants to be born this Christmas, the Church celebrates with Her first Solemnity of Christmas that He wants to be born in our families.

He wants to born in our families as they are, as surely as His own family was marked with tremendous risk and vulnerability at every turn.  Woe to us if this feast is celebrated merely as the admiration of the impossible standard that is the icon of the Holy Family.  The real good news is that Jesus wants to born in our families as they really are.

The Holy Family didn't get to sing Silent Night, Holy Night, All is Calm all is bright for very long. Many times they just had to survive and advance.  That's what can make our families holy as well.  Not that they are outwardly perfectly, but that inwardly we still year to know, to love and to do God's will.

Sometimes, we simply need to survive, and advance.

bloody Christmas is happy Chrsitmas

Homily
4th Day in the Octave of Christmas IC
Feast of the Holy Innocents
28 December 2018
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Have yourself a bloody little Christmas!  First the martyrdom of Stephen, on day 2.  Next, the blood-curdling screams of the holy innocents on day 4.  So much for silent night, all is calm, all is bright. 

Is the Church trying to steal our Christmas joy?  Hardly.  For us, a bloody Christmas is always a happy Christmas.  Celebrating martyrdom during Christmas highlights an ultimate reason that Christ was born.  Christ was born to die.  He was born to transform death to victory.  So today is a preeminent and glorious feast of victory, the triumph of the holy innocents who died not only first for Christ but uniquely in his stead.

So too we disciples of Jesus are born to die, and this is part of the happy Christmas message.  Our joy is lessened if we instead fear and kill like Herod.  We are like him whenever we kill those who threaten our control.

Children are the key to Christmas - welcoming children and remaining like children - this is the Christmas and the Christian story.  Our stories gain strength through relationship, not fear.  So let's heed the Christmas message of the angels - do not be afraid of this baby!

not seeing but believing (at Christmas)

Homily
3rd Day in the Octave of Christmas
Feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist
27 December 2018
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Strange, isn't it, that the Church celebrates not a Feast of St. Joseph, but a Feast of St. John, during the days of Christmas.  St. Joseph, poor guy, who was not afraid to take Mary under his roof and who busted his tail to provide us the Christmas mystery, gets lumped in with his Holy Family this Sunday.  Yet St. John, who was nowhere to be seen at Bethlehem, gets day number three all to himself.  Why celebrate an apostle or evangelist at all during Christmas? The dudes were not around.  Only St. Joseph and mangy beasts and shepherds.

The Church begs us to recall by this Feast that every Mass, while perhaps highlighting a particular mystery, always contains all the mysteries of Christ.  Bethlehem is always joined to Calvary and the empty tomb, and vice versa, with the mysteries always interpenetrating during the Mass.  Was John physically and historically present at Bethlehem?  No, of course not.  Was Bethlehem present in the upper room, when John rested his head on the breast of the Word Incarnate?  Absolutely.  Was Bethlehem present at Calvary, the wood of the manger and the wood of the cross informing each other, with John alone among the apostles standing with Mary?  Yes, for sure.  Was Bethlehem present when Jesus himself asked John to replace Joseph, and take her into his home?  I dare say so.

St. Joseph is necessary for the best Christmas contemplation for sure, but so is St. John.  Why? Because when we say Merry Christmas, we can translate this popular phrase piously as - to Christ in the Mass through Mary. Mary-Christ-Mass as it were.  Since the Mass always joins all mysteries, the Church gives us not only the eyes of St. Joseph but also the eyes of St. John.  Yes, even during Christmas, and especially so. 

It is no accident that John gives the Church her deepest spiritual expression and contemplation of the Incarnation in the prologue to his Gospel, read on Christmas day.  John the evangelist writes from , from the unique vantage point given in today's Gospel, from the empty tomb.  Looking at the manger from the tomb and with Mary disposes us all for the deepest receptivity for the Eucharist as we say Mary-Christ-Mass.  That's why we need St. John today.

So John is like us.  He wasn't there, but Bethlehem came under his roof and deeply into his heart, his family and his Church.  Is it any wonder that John alone among the evangelists records the words of the incarnate and resurrected Jesus that we most need to hear, not only at Easter but too at Christmas - Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed!