throw in the towel?

Remarks on Holy Week during COVID
4/6/20

Should we just say to hell with it?
Should we just throw in the towel?
And cancel Holy Week?

If sports are canceled, shouldn't Holy Week be?  For Catholicism, if it is anything, is a full contact sports.  It always is.  It always will be.

Yet this is hard.  If Catholicism is a full contact sport, who gets to play during this year of social distancing?  Is everyone except a couple people in Church just playing a video game from home?  Are we playing for keeps this year or just producing the latest reality TV show, that hides more than it shows?

I think these are legitimate questions.  Obviously, if we have any faith whatsoever, we can't cancel Easter.  We can't skip Holy Week.  Yet I'm not sure we are nailing our response as a Church to COVID-19.  If McDonalds can stay open and deliver food, I think there has to be a way for us to safely deliver sacraments even in the worst of pandemics.  But this is above my pay grade. I trust and support the decisions that have been made.  What isn't above my pay grade is my advice on how to still make Holy Week a full contact sport, as it always must be for us, even without us being physically together.

Let me emphasize again why this is so hard for the Catholic faith to be delivered this week.  The Church understands that to be human is to be a unity of soul and body.  To turn Holy Week into something virtual is to divorce soul and body. That can't be an option. 

The Church teaches as well that grace builds upon nature.  So we are saved according to the same pattern by which we are created.  That is to say, we are saved not by the separation of soul from body, but by their full healing and integration.  So Catholics have to profess more than anyone, COVID or no COVID, the central truth of Easter, the Resurrection of the Body, for the Catholic Church is physically part of the Body of Christ that rises.  Our celebration of the Paschal Mystery can never be less sacramental, then, it must ALWAYS, this year included, but mediated in and through our bodies.

Furthermore, the sacraments are how we consummate (non-sexually of course) our marriage to God. They are the greatest treasures given by Christ to His bride, the Church.  So again, it's the hardest thing imaginable -  to go online this year. It seems to go against everything that makes us Catholic Christians - to have a virtual Holy Week.  It could come across as fake to its very core.  So why not just mail it in this year - and if Catholicism can never be anything but a full contact sport, to cancel like every sporting event is canceled, and wait for a better day?

It's because the mystical body of Christ includes a physical dimension that we can and must go forward this year into the celebration of Holy Week as a full contact sport.  No, you will not be allowed in the Church this year.  I'm sorry.  But you will mysteriously be just as physically present as if you were. 

It's because we are a sacramental Church that ironically we are together even when we are apart.  When we go to confession, Christ shows up in the person of the priest.  Even moreso at Mass, Christ shows up in the word, the priest, the bread and wine, and yes last but not least, in the ASSEMBLY.  So if Christ is made mystically but physically present when you show up for Mass, so you are made mystically but no less physically present in Him when He shows up for Mass.

We know this to be true in our bones - that we are really and physically present to each other, even with those who we can no longer see because of death or distance, in the Eucharist.  See you in the Eucharist.

So even though you won't be there on Easter Sunday, I promise you will be there. 

St. Paul delivers this truth this way.  If one part of the body suffers, then everyone suffers. If one part rejoices, all parts rejoice.  The Church is made of individual members, but all mysteriously and no less physically present to each other.  We are in this together.  They mystery of faith and the grace of the sacraments are delivered physically to a bride that is also a communion of persons, a family and a Church. 

When you are watching a priest receive the Eucharist on your laptop TV, you are there. You really are.  The nourishment that enters the head is distributed to the whole body.  While the expression and the actualization of the salvific and sacramental grace will be vastly different this year, it will be no less available.  The grace of one Eucharist, which is enough to save the whole world and everyone in it, will reach the bodies of all her members who prepare to receive Jesus. All members will be physically present and invited to rise bodily with Christ this year.  There is no such thing as a merely spiritual or virtual Easter.

Yes, it will be hard.  But you will be in solidarity with vast numbers of Catholic Christians throughout the centuries who have had to rise bodily with Christ on Easter, and become saints, without being able physically and individually to go to Mass.

Yet it doesn't mean that Catholicism is not still a full contact sport.  It doesn't mean that Holy Week is canceled.  The grace of this Easter is as real and physical as ever.  And the same holds true for this Easter as every Easter.  If I do not rise physically and totally with Christ to the fullness and newness of life this Easter, can I honestly say that I ever will?

what are you all in for?

Homily
Monday of Holy Week
5 April 2020
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

What are you all in for?

I spent $3K on the 2014 World Series. The Royals lost.
I spent $800 to go to the 2019 AFC Championship game versus the Patriots.  The Chiefs lost.

I didn't really have the money in either case.  But I was all in.  And I didn't care what anybody thought.  Nothing could keep me from being there for my team.  It's the only way I know how to be a fan.

What are you all in for?

Hopefully not sports. They can be an idol.  But what is it for you?

Mary spilled the whole jar of perfume on feet.  Pretty ridiculous. Very wasteful.  She was ridiculed.  Yet she bet it all on Jesus.  She didn't care what anyone thought.  Devotion does not count costs.

What are you all in for?

Jesus is apparently all in for us.  He's all in for this most Holy Week of the Year.  Because half measures are lame.  And they never work.

Jesus is all in for this week.  Is anyone else?


What are you all in for?

what have you been most wrong about?

Homily

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

4 April 2020

Crucify him.  Crucify him.
Those words used to hurt me a lot.  I can remember how they felt when I was 7 years old.  My heart would break. Tears would well up in my eyes.  It would stick with me for days after. I was so sorry for hurting Jesus.  Really sorry. I never wanted to hurt him again. It was maybe the last time I had perfect contrition, when I was 7.  I knew that I wanted to spend my life trying to stop people from hurting Jesus. There was nothing I was more sure of.
I don’t know how things changed or when I lost that heartbreak.  When those tears stopped. When I got used to crucifying Jesus. When I became ok with it.  I just know that I’ve lost it. What I don’t know is how to get it back.   
Our pivotal question this week is:  what have you been most wrong about?  I think the coronavirus is showing us that there’s a lot we don’t know, and that we are wrong about most things.  I never thought I’d be hearing Holy Week confessions outside six-feet apart wearing a mask. I don’t like it. It seems dumb.  Life is upside down right now. A reminder that we’re wrong about most things.
But what have I been most wrong about?  It’s that I would spend my life trying to stop people from hurting Jesus.  I was certain of that, and I still want to live my life for that. But I lost it.  I was wrong. What is worse, instead of learning how to stop hurting Jesus, I’ve learned instead how to stop caring, how to shout all the louder, and how to lead the band.
The greed of Judas?  Check.
The betrayal of Peter?  Check
The sloth of James and John?  The cowardice of every disciple? Check and check.
The scapegoating of Caiphas?  The envy of the Pharisees? The injustice of Pilate, the unrepentance of the chief priests?   Check. Check. Check. Check.
The bloodthirst of the crowd?  The violence and scorn of the soldiers.  Guilty as charged.
Last and certainly not least - the despair and self-destruction of Judas - the final sin against the Holy Spirit?  Yes, I do that too. Most of all, I do that. I’m quite good at giving up and giving in.
Crucify him. Crucify him.
When I hear it now, at age 46, the flutter in my heart is barely noticeable.
The rationalizations are near at hand.  It’s the way things go. It’s a part of life.  It’s fine.    
Crucify him. Crucify him.
Even standing here in persona Christi at the altar, no tears are welling in my eyes.    
It’s who Jesus is.  It’s what he wants. It’s what he chose.  It’s fine.
Crucify him.  Crucify him.
My contrition is lukewarm if I feel any at all.  I’m used to hurting him. I doubt I’ll ever stop.  I love myself, not him, too much to want to change.  Things are good enough the way they are. It’s fine.
Crucify him. Crucify him. 
I thought those words would always break my heart.  It’s what I’ve been most wrong about. I honestly don’t know if they will ever break my heart again.
Still.  Jesus. Comes.  
Even knowing I’m lying in wait for him.  Even knowing my inoculation to his passion. Even knowing that through the social distancing and sanitization of my heart that I would be leading the band this year.  Still he comes into the cacaphony of my sins and yours, to be bludgeoned in every way we can conjur up.
You know what I really want for Holy Week this year?  For him to stop coming. I do. Yet here he is.
Crucify him. Crucify him.
What happens to your heart when you say those words this year?
At least Peter weeps bitterly.  At least Mary and John, Mary Magdalen, Simon of Cyrene and Joseph of Arimathea don’t social distance.  Even Judas deeply regrets and tries to make amends, which is more than I can say for me right now. And you know how his story ended.
Today’s story does not end well.  A sober reminder that Holy Week doesn’t have to change anything. Not even during the coronavirus pandemic.  And it won’t change anything, unless we allow our distant and sanitized hearts to break.
Crucify him.  Crucify him..
I don’t know if those words will ever break my heart again.  But at the end of this story, that’s what I want to be most wrong about.

what does your heart break for?

What does your heart break for?

Homily

5th Sunday of Lent A

St. Lawrence Center KU

29 March 2020

Lazarus was a dead man.  Dead dead. Deader than dead.  Stinky dead. In the age of the coronavirus, we’d love to sanitize this story. The Gospel refuses.  Lazarus is stinky dead. Jesus made sure of it.

Jesus is an epic fail as a first responder in this case.  Has he never heard of 911? Upon hearing that his best friend was ill, he does nothing.  He waits for two days, until he is sure he will be too late. Jesus has nothing to learn from KU students who get masters degrees in procrastination.  He puts things off quite well himself. And for his best friend. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

Lazarus would be the third person Jesus resuscitated.  But he was clearly the most dead. Jesus made sure of it.  The first was the little girl, Jairus’ daughter, who had just barely passed before Jesus arrived.  The second was a young man on the way to his burial, the only son of the widow at Nain. Lazarus was old. And deader than dead.  He had been in the tomb four days. Jesus made sure of it.

Jesus also weeps three times in the Gospels.  The first was for a city - Jerusalem - and its loss of faith.  The last time was for himself, at his terrible agony in the garden.  This time was for a friend.

To shed tears is another reason Jesus waited.  Because to cry for a friend who is really dead is different than for a friend who will be fine.  And to feel the great tragedy that real life is not Disney, and not every story has a happy ending, and that death can be the final end.  It’s enough to bring Jesus to tears.

In this penultimate sign before he goes to Calvary just a few miles away, Jesus avoids nothing and feels everything.  He waited two days because Lazarus had to be dead. Deader than dead. Stinky dead. If the ultimate mission is to enter deeply into the reality of death and transform it with divine love.

Jesus wanted to teach his disciples how to follow Him courageously right into the heart of death, for only after a disciple wishes to lose his life will he find it.  Thomas gets it right this time - let us go to die with Him.

Today’s penultimate sign prepares us, Jesus’ disciples now, to enter into Holy Week - to go the short journey from Bethany to Jerusalem.  The tomb, the stone, the shroud, the Marys . . will reappear there in two weeks time.

Jesus waits. Then he enters the scene, the story and the mystery.  He calls us to follow Him. Let’s not panic, not sanitize, not run away, prevent or avoid, the chance to let His story rewrite ours.

Jesus waits, then he feels everything.  He weeps. What does your heart break for?  This is our pivotal question this week. What does your heart break for?

In this I must confess feeling more like Lazarus than Jesus.  My heart feels dead, looking for ways to be safe from reality.  The bad news is that once you’re dead, you can’t do anything about it.  If you’re thirsty like the woman at the well, you can keep trying to find a drink that will satisfy.  If you’re blind, you can still pretend to be able to find your own way. But if you’re dead, you’re screwed. There are no self-help books for that.  I bet most of you know what I’m feeling and talking about. Your only chance is to be touched by a love that is stronger than death.

But here’s the good news.  Some stories do have happy endings.  Prophesied in Ezekiel today, and actualized in the Gospel, is the desire of God for you.  I will open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people.  

That would be a coronavirus Holy Week and Easter worth entering into. It’s the one that Jesus desires for me, if only I might desire it too - to raise a heart that is dead into one that can be broken.  

Where are you most dead?  There, I changed the pivotal question.  Where are you most dead?

Wherever it is, Jesus waits to meet you there this Easter.

where are you stuck?

Homily
5th Sunday of Lent C
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
7 April 2019
AMDG +JMJ +m

How many of you came here today to be humiliated?  Probably no one.

But it's how we started Lent, some 40 days ago.  By having 'humus' - dirt - thrown on our foreheads, followed by the dual insult of being called a sinner who is going to die.  Fun stuff.  Yet you showed up in droves on Ash Wednesday to be humiliated.  Why?

It's because I don't want to be stuck.  None of us do.  We are made to change, and to grow, not to get stuck.  Not to settle or quit.  We are made to live, not to die.  As we learn again today, humiliation is the path.  It's not fun, but it works.

Can you remember the time when your greatest sin was exposed?  The time when the weakness you wanted to keep hidden was revealed?  The time when your deepest secret became known?  I bet you thought you were going to die. 

But you didn't die.  You changed.  You grew from that experience.  It was a pivotal moment in your story.

Last week the prodigal son was at rock bottom.  Humiliated.  Proven to be a fool and no longer worthy to be called a son.  Where did he end up?  In the embrace of his Father.

This week is 100x worth.  A woman is caught in the very act of the most despised crime - adultery.  A sin that causes so much damage to love and family and communion that the law commanded that it be eradicated through stoning.  Presumably she was drug out naked before everyone in the temple.  She is the worst of the worst.  Humiliated beyond imaging. 

Where does she end up?  Face to face with mercy incarnate.  One one one with Jesus. 

When we're humiliated we feel like we're going to die.  But it's at that place where Jesus does something new, and we get 'unstuck', and begin to truly live.

Why don't we follow the spiritual principle of counting ourselves as the greatest sinner?  What but good can come from this?  Now I'm not asking you to become scrupulous or enter into self-hatred.  That's pride masked as false humility, and it will backfire.  I'm just asking you to be a disciple of Jesus, who counted himself as the greatest sinner.

When the adulterous woman is brought before Him, he refused to look down on her.  He bends close to the 'humus' - the earth, and looks down.  He humiliates himself, and writes on the ground, perhaps in desperate search of a humble heart on which he can write His law of mercy.

How can we receive this Gospel and look down on anyone ever, and call ourselves a disciple of Jesus.  I don't think there's a way we can.

When we count ourselves as the greatest sinner, we get a one-on-one with Jesus, who as Savior and the one who came to forgive sins, always leaves the 99 and searches for the most contrite heart.  Is he searching for your heart. There is nothing more pleasing to Jesus than a humble and contrite heart, on which he can write His law of mercy.

So I hope you came here today to be humiliated.  I hope I did to.  I don't actually wish that we all get caught cheating, and fornicating and masturbating, but it's better than being stuck.  Humiliation is better than allowing our sins and secrets to kill us.  Humiliation hurts, but it is where new life begins.

At the very least you're invited to confession, into the circumstance of the adulterous woman.  Exposed as the greatest sinner, she ends up one on one with mercy incarnate, who only looks up at her, and tells her that He does not condemn her.

Do you still doubt that humiliation leads to new life?  Is there anything that changes us more than confession?

I dare say that we are stuck when we hide and look down on each other.  The scribes and the Pharisees bailed when they had a chance to be honest and show mercy.  How about you?

Where are we free?  It's where we are most honest and vulnerable.  It's where we are most humble - in our humiliation.  It's where we started Lent.  More importantly, it's where we need to end up.

mercy is intimacy

Homily
Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Lent
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas
26 March 2019

Jesus always loves us where we need it most but deserve it least.  It's the most beautiful thing in the world.  That we are loved over and over and over, with God never losing patience, never giving up on us, never tiring of forgiving.  Here is what is perhaps my favorite line of Pope Francis' pontificate so far - Jesus doesn't tire of forgiving.  Jesus' mercy is the most beautiful thing in the world.  But so what, unless it is also for us the most real thing.

What is more, Jesus forgives us from his heart.  His forgiveness is the total gift of himself.  It is not a superficial tolerance . . .don't worry about it . it's no big deal . . . while at the same time plotting not to allow himself to be betrayed or hurt by us again.  No, his forgiveness always costs him everything.  He bleeds for us.

So we are forgiven where we need it most but deserve it least, and from the heart?  What is our response to this mercy, if we know it to be real?  Jesus says the litmus test is our forgiveness of others. Have we ever for given anyone the way that Jesus forgives us, let alone 70x7 times?  I'm not sure I ever have.

Tolerance is easier.  Don't worry about it. Do your thing.  But give me space to do my thing.

Tolerance is distance.  Mercy is intimacy.  Mercy lies at the very heart of God.  If we dare mercy, we are at the heart of all reality  Do we run away or draw near to those who need our forgiveness?  And when we confess, do we grab our get out of jail free card and run back to who we were before, or do we give his mercy permission to enter a new place in our heart, those places of presumption, complacency, stubbornness and despair?

what word describes you?

Homily
3rd Sunday of Lent C
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas
24 March 2019
AMDG +JMJ +m

My mom died when she was 49 years old.  I just turned 45 this last week.  If I live as long as my mom, I've only got 4 years left to live.  That's kinda scary.  On the other hand, if I live as long as my grandpa Jake, I'm not even halfway home.  He turned 101 in January and is still kicking strong.  He has no idea why he is alive.  He should have died with his entire company on Okinawa during World War II.  Instead he was shot in the hip and got out.  If he hadn't gotten out you'd be listening to a better homily.  .

Life is worth living, but it's hardly fair.  My mom caught a bad break with cancer.  As a priest I've buried lots of people who caught worse breaks, and were younger than her.  Life can be hard.  On the other hand, my grandpa couldn't die if he tried.  Jesus calls out life as it really is in today's Gospel.  Life is worth living.  But it's not fair.  It's good, but beyond our control or understanding.  Real life is a crazy mix of urgency, vulnerability and mercy.  Is there any way to tell why my mom got 49 years and my grandpa 101 and counting?  Jesus says no. There's no way to tell. The news that Jesus is commenting on - towers falling on the innocent and religious persecutions, may just as well have been the plane crashes or terrorist attacks that happened just this last week.  Nothing much has changed.  All we know is that we have today, and that today matters, and that today is the day for us to bear fruit with our lives.

What word describes you today?  What word do you want to describe you tomorrow?  On my mom's tombstone are the names of her husband and kids.  My favorite word on my mom's tombstone is Mitchel.  The names of her family are my mom's final words.  What word describes your life?  On my mom's tombstone as well is the image of a fisherman.  She loved to fish, and I'm hoping she's catching some whoppers in heaven.  What image would go on your tombstone?

Do you even know what image and words will go on your KU diploma?  I hope you do.  Your diploma won't be the final word of your life, but I hope it's an important word, one you're working hard for and one you're proud of.  I for one am proud of my KU degree.  But at any rate, the seal of your nurturing mother, your alma mater, the University of Kansas, is the scene from today's first reading from Exodus - Moses and the burning bush.  Videbo visionem hanc magnam quare non comburatur rubus.  (Sorry if I butchered that . . just be glad I'm not saying Mass in Latin.).  I will see this great vision of the bush that does not burn.  That's right.  On your diploma will not be the Jayhawk or the Campanile or Allen Fieldhouse.  It's a word and an image from revelation.  A theological and supernatural scene.  Your Rock Chalk diploma will have a scene from the second book of the Bible.

Does this surprise you? Theology is not an official science at KU.  Smith Hall and its statue of Moses and stained glass window of the burning bush is not a prominent building.  In fact, KU is officially secular, and describes its own seal not as God visiting his creation and revealing Himself as I AM WHO AM - with all of this phrase's concomitant philosophical depth.  No, KU describes the seal pretty tamely, as a student's undying thirst for knowledge.  KU, despite the seal, has no official theological stance on whether creation becomes more alive, more fruitful, more on fire, when it is visited by God.  In fact, most people assume the opposite, that KU is a is a hill unlike Mt. Horeb, where God does not visit his people.  For example, last week we asked what makes it hard to believe in God here at KU.  We got plenty of responses on our chalkboard - the most prominent of which were questions about God posed by evil and science.  .

Today's scriptures tackle both objections to believing in God.  Jesus answers the question of evil in the Gospel.  Although life is far from fair, and the reality of the moral and natural evil that God allows makes life vulnerable, the truth is that life is good and worth living. The truth of today's parable is that God visits his creation most often not by allowing evil but with his mercy, and he prefers to give the forgiveness and time we need to write a fruitful story with our lives.  Not all of us, but most of us, will get one more year to bear fruit.

The scene from Genesis tackles the question of science. The scene shows God and creation not in conflict, but in harmony.  The bush is on fire but not consumed.  So when God visits his creation, He does so in a non-competitive way.  God comes not to be measured by science, nor to reject the science of creation, but to elevate his creation.  The bush and the fire prefigure Pentecost, the end of our Easter journey, when the fearful apostles were elevated not destroyed by the ultimate fire of the Holy Spirit, and sent to go beyond their former limitations.

So your KU diploma will speak of this greater mystery that is accessed through a unified search for truth, and the integration of your faith with your reason.  I invite you into this full adventure of faith, then, and into your supernatural destiny that ironically is written if not on the cover, then at the heart of your KU education.  St. Lawrence exists to help guide this story that you are writing with your life, and the word that you alone will speak into the story of the world.

So finally, what is this word?  Our pivotal question this week is this - what word describes you?  I haven't made a complete wreck with my life, I hope you will agree, but I'm afraid that the word that best describes me is coward.  I'm scared of what it means to be on fire, and to allow God to call me beyond my control and limitations.  Yet I'm hopeful that 'coward' is not the final word I will write with my life.  I may not live as long as my grandpa Jake, but I'm grateful that I get one more year to write a new word.

What word describes you today?  If you are given another year to grow and bear fruit, and to be visited by the fire of the Holy Spirit, what word will describe you tomorrow?