does love win?

Homily
Wednesday of Holy Week

Love doesn't always win.  Because it chooses not to.

Love never forces its way.  It proposes.  It gives.  It forgives. It sacrifices.  It does not dictate.

Love doesn't always win.  Not that it's not stronger than anything.  It is.  Yet love shows its ultimate strength in not controlling the outcome. In not having to have its way.  In not having to win.

Today's Gospel is the harsh reality of when love doesn't win.  It would be better for that man if he had never been born.  The voice of mercy speaks these words. Is there anything harder for us to hear?  For Judas is us.

Today's story does not have a happy ending.  Jesus is neither condemning for judging Judas.  He loves Judas.  But because love never forces, he allows Judas to condemn himself.

Surely it is not I rabbi?  You say so.

And so, Easter Sunday doesn't arrive for everyone.  It's doesn't have to arrive for me.  Tough news to hear, but the voice of mercy wants us, needs us to hear it.  Never moreso, when on the cusp of this Holy Week, each one of us is tempted to say.

I don't care.  I can't change.  I won't change.  I quit.

what's your deepest conviction

Homily
Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
12 April 2020

What's your deepest conviction?

I'm here tonight at the Easter Vigil to declare my deepest conviction.  I'll answer first. I doubt it's a surprise.  Maybe you've heard it before.

Jesus Christ is Risen!  He is truly Risen!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

On this most holy night, I, in liturgical concert with the angels, saints, and yes, the martyrs who died for this conviction even today, shout into the darkness that this is the one thing I know to be true out of everything that I know to be true.

I further profess these words to be the most mysterious, the most dramatic, the most profound, and yes, the most TRUE words that have ever been spoken or could ever be spoken in human history.

Jesus Christ is Risen.  He is truly Risen!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

On these words, I bet all that I am and all that I ever will be.

What is your deepest conviction?

Tonight, I just want to witness.  I'm not going to try to convince you or try to make you feel guilty for what you struggle to believe.  To heck with all that.  What I'm interested in is your real faith.  Your deepest desire.  Is there a truth that you would give your life for?  This is the night set apart for this conversation.  So let's have it . . over Facebook live.

Tonight my prayer is that everyone gets off the couch. Ironically, most of you right now are on a couch.  Yet if tonight is worth doing at all, then there can be no sideline and no bench.  No couch potatoes.  No wall flowers.  No bystanders.

Don't be afraid to answer the pivotal question of this night -  what is your deepest conviction?
Don't blow it off.  Don't be afraid.

You have my answer - Jesus Christ is Risen.  He is truly Risen!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Why these words for me?  Because without them, the most heartfelt words I ever say, words first spoken by Jesus - this is my body broken for you - lose their meaning.  Without the Resurrection even the greatest sign of love I have ever known - the cross to which I gave the most passionate kiss of my life last night - is powerless in the face of death.  St. Paul said it best - if Jesus isn't Risen, I'm pathetic.

But I don't profess these words tonight because I need them to be true.  My conviction about the empty tomb isn't a vain wish that justifies my life, it is the fruit of my being a disciple of Jesus.  Jesus invites faith, but also calls disciples to follow Him all the way to the cross to verify whether there is a love stronger than death.  I pray my discipleship has been a courageous one, filtered through the cross of Jesus where I have learned from him how to fear nothing and avoid nothing. 

My conviction comes from the times I dared to be a real Christian, and I'll be darned if Jesus wasn't right.  Every time I die to sin and myself I lay hold of a new, different, and powerful life that does not fade. 

Jesus Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen!  Shame on me if this is ever something that I pretend to be true, instead of something that I because I am a disciple have personally discovered to be true in my real life.

On this truth I am happy to bet all that I am and ever will be.  Not because I need to, or I'm afraid not to, but because I want to.

What's your deepest conviction?

You're invited to beat mine, by all means.  Or join me through the renewal of baptismal promises.  I just pray that none of us will do something cheap, easy or pitiable. On conviction night, let's decide with sharp minds, and pure hearts and courageous wills.

And so, I propose to you now words that have changed the meaning of life, and the destiny of man, more than any other.  On this most holy night set apart for this very decision, I present to you the most mysterious, dramatic, profound, and TRUE words that have ever been or can ever be spoken.

Jesus Christ is Risen!  He is truly Risen!  Alleluia! Alleluia!

who's the best kisser?

Homily
Good Friday of the Lord's Passion
10 April 2020
St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

Tonight, who will give the best kiss?

C'mon man.  We just tortured Jesus.
That's the pivotal question?
I'm not kidding.

Who will emerge from this night as the best kisser?

Tonight's liturgy involves the only liturgical kiss of the year by the faithful.  You only get one shot per year to get it right.  Pressure intended!  So who is going to win tonight's smack down?  Will it be me?  Will it be you?

You're invited to make the most passionate kiss of the year on Good Friday, because the cross is the ultimate sign of compassion.  I pray that at a minimum tonight's sacred remembering helps you to feel what He feels, and in turn deeply trust that He feels what you feel.  That alone is worth a kiss right there.

But there's so much more. And you will not win tonight's kissing contest if you stop there.

For the cross that you kiss is also the axis for the creation of all that is and will be.  Wait a second, you might say.  I know better.  Long before there was a me, God through a kiss of love created everything out of nothing.  True enough. 

But tonight destroyed all that.  That first kiss that created everything from nothing has been revoked by the kiss of Judas.  I have added my own betrayal to his regarding that first everything.  Crucify him.  I prefer the tree of death to the tree of life.  The author of life himself is dead, and I killed him.  It is finished.  That first everything is once again nothing.  The cross proves it.

And the new nothing of the cross is darker than the first abyss.  The victory of evil is a a more complete defeat than the mere absence of goodness.  What could negate being more than the death of God?

Wherever ground zero is, we're way south of there.  So where could we possibly go from this new nothing that is the cross?

That's where your kiss comes in.
What's the biggest difference between that first abyss and the nothing of the cross?
Surprisingly, it is this.
You weren't there.
But you are here.

God created from the first abyss without you, through a kiss that was just a piece of Himself.

From tonight on, he desires to creates from the nothing of the cross through you.  Through anyone who joins Jesus at the spot where He gave all of Himself.

Will I, on the same night that I betrayed him with a kiss on the lips, kiss his feet and tell him I'll suffer and die with him to create life that can never again be reduced to nothing? 

If so, the cross can never again be the place where my story ends, but precisely the axis where my life begins.

My kiss is my answer. 

So let the smackdown begin.

Who will give the best kiss?

what's the last no in your heart?

Homily
Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper
9 April 2020
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Jesus is the worst . . at taking no for an answer.

From the no of the garden, to the no of the cross, to the last no remaining in my heart, Jesus is the worst . . at taking no for a final answer.  Instead of accepting my no, he moves, so that every no which is initially a step away from him, might eventually be a step toward him.  And when he moves in search of my next yes, He moves dramatically.

From the no of the garden he hoped in the Immaculate Fiat of the Virgin, and so traveled from the abundant heart of the Father to be conceived poor, small and naked in her womb.  From the no of the cross he could see the repentant yes of Peter, and through him to the eventual, sin-soaked yes of a poor priest like me. 

And so he travels, allowing Himself to be moved even more dramatically by words than by her perfect Fiat, even though I have no clue what I'm doing up here.  He travels from the pure Magnificat sung in the soul of His perfect tabernacle into the pitiable liturgy of a Church that this year has to downsize and livestream on Facebook. 

From the no of all those who scourged him in the flesh he could see your desperate, half-hearted yes to adore His mystical sacramental presence on YouTube from your couch.  So he moves to be born for you on this altar.

See how bad he is at taking no for an answer?  He travels a span greater than the universe for the slightest chance of finding the most pathetic yes.  And still, he's just getting started.

For the greatest distance remains.  Here is where it gets most real.  All of that traveling, all of that refusing to take no for an answer, is worth nothing, if the final destination for Jesus is on this altar.  For the distance that Jesus is most desperate to travel on this most holy night is the distance between this altar and my heart.

What is that last no of my heart?  That's the pivotal question.  Where am I saying to him - Lord, you will never wash my feet.  I know, this year, this Lent has gone to shreds.  I haven't talked to a single person who had a good Lent.  Not one.  You're watching this on TV, for God's sake.  Maybe you're expecting nothing to happen this Triduum.  I don't know.

I do know this.  If this is not the year that I let him travel this final distance, and wash my feet, when can I honestly say I will ever let him?

Whenever it is, remember this.  Jesus will never give up on you.  For he is the absolute worst . . at taking no for a final answer.

He will keep moving, and moving dramatically, until the promise of this holy night is fulfilled - and he sees all of us washing each other's feet.

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.