who loves you unconditionally?

Homily

6th Sunday of Easter B

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

+mj

Who loves me unconditionally?

Just my mom, I think.  I miss her more than I let on. 

It's in the DNA of moms of love unconditionally.  Moms aren't perfect, yet they're setup to fulfill what Jesus says about the greatest love. It's to lay down one's life.  Moms are wired to give everything.  My mom would die for me in a second.  I know because she did in so many ways.  Again, not all moms are perfect, but it's in the definition of motherhood to give life.  I don't expect anyone to love me as unconditionally as my mom did.

This capacity of my mom is grounded in God Himself, or so the scriptures propose to us.  Being love itself, God has no need to receive our love.  He can be pure grace, pure gift to us.  St. John puts it right.  Only God can initiate unconditional love.  In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loves us, totally through the gift of only begotten.  Jesus says the same.  You don't choose me.  I choose you.  My mom needed to receive love before She could give it.  Unconditional love must start with God Himself.  We can only respond to the commandment, to love others just as He first loved us.

Still, unconditional love doesn't make a friendship.  Did you catch that?  Friendship is conditional, very much and quite so.  Jesus is friends with His Father because He keeps the rules of the relationship.  Jesus says we are His friends not through unconditional love, but only as we keep His commandemnts.

Mind you, this is not a slave/master relationship.  Jesus is clear.  Master's don't give everything first, without condition.  Still, unconditional love cannot make a friendship.  Only conditional love does that.  There is no relationship without rules.

If I have taken my mom's love for granted or hoarded it, I am not her friend.  Jesus talks about the conditions not for receiving but for remaining, abiding, and bearing fruit.  Every gift given, especially unconditional love, requires a response.  Friendship is a responsibility.

So which is better, unconditional or conditional love?  It's hard to say atually.  It's hard to see unconditional love wasted. Which is why I would like to add a second pivotal question.  It's not just about who loves you unconditionally.  It's about your response in friendship. Love only bears fruit that will last, if you remain and abide.  Only if you truly become a friend.

am I safe?

Homily

4th Sunday of Easter B

World Day of Prayer for Vocations and Good Shepherd Sunday

25 April 2021

AMDG +mj

Am I safe?  

There's been so much talk about safety.  Am I safe?  Are you safe?  Is anybody safe?  Who is safe in this dangerous world beset by violence, disease and disaster?  

Are we safe now that we have a COVID vaccine?  Maybe a bit, but plenty of danger remains.  You can't take the vulnerability out of being human, no matter how hard you try.  Try to avoid, hide or insulate yourself for a lifetime, and let me know if it works.

The Gospel presents generosity and courage as the path to safety.  Salvation is the word used.  Instead of offering safety which is mere protection from evil, Jesus offers salvation, which is the only real safety.

Jesus, are you safe?  He flips the question on his head.  Those who wish to save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives will save them.  Jesus, are you safe?  Of course I am, because no one can take my life from me.  I freely give it.

Am I safe?  The Gospel says this - only if you receive your life as a gift, and courageously give it away.

where is my peace?

Homily

2nd Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

11 April 2021

AMDG +mj

Where is my peace?

My peace comes when I am free to be myself.  It comes when I can explore my fears and doubts, never having to pretend to know something I don't.

My peace comes from honesty.  My anxiety from pretense.  Where is your peace?

It's a word chosen by the Risen Christ in response to fears and doubts.  Jesus is not back from the dead for revenge, though He deserves it.  He is back to reveal wounds transformed by divine mercy.  Peace is His chosen word.

Jesus says that if my peace comes from being able to explore my fears and doubts honestly, it's game on!  Start digging, Thomas!  Let's engage my wounds, then yours.  Because Thomas is honest about his fears and doubts, his reward is getting to feel the Resurrection.

Last week I said that of everything I know or will ever know to be true, I know that Jesus is Risen! I know it for lots of good reasons, most of all that I have tried to be a real disciple of Jesus. When I die to sin, fear and myself, I begin to truly live!

Yet Jesus invites me and you not to stop there!  Keep digging!  For faith in the Resurrection is meant only to increase, insofar as I let more of my fears and doubts be healed by divine mercy!

John Paul II showed us how it's done.  He died in 2005, on the eve of this great feast that he gave the Church.  He died not in hiding, but showing us his open wounds until the end, letting them be filled with divine mercy.

That's peace.   I have peace because my doubts and fears are never something I have to put away.  I never have to pretend to be more or better than I am.  My faith in the Resurrection instead rises up precisely from the point of my wounds which I know to be redeemed by divine mercy.  Amen.

what's your word?

Homily

Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection

4 April 2021

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG +mj

What's your word?

If you had one word to proclaim to the world, what would it be?

Can you guess what mine is?  I bet you can! 

Risen!  Risen!  Risen!  He is Risen.  Jesus Christ is truly Risen.  He is Risen from the dead, just as He said!  Alleluia! Alleluia!

That's my word.  That will be my last word tonight and forever.  On this word - Risen - I bet all that I am and all that I will ever be.  

What's your word?  Tonight is a night set apart to have this conversation, so let's have it!  What is the one word that you were made to shout into the world?

Tonight I witness to you that this word - Risen - is the most mysterious, profound, dramatic, and TRUE word that has ever been spoken in human history or could ever be spoken.  Tonight I speak this word - Risen - in liturgical concert with the angels, the saints, and yes, the martyrs who died for this conviction even today, shout into the darkness that this word - Risen - is the one thing I know to be true out of everything I know to be true!

Tonight my prayer is that you too will speak a word.  Tonight my prayer is that each and everyone of us, led by our catechumens and candidates and the word of faith they speak tonight, gets off the couch tonight.  There is no virtual Easter!  To hell with that!  Tonight this is no sideline, no bench, and no room for bystanders.

You have my answer to the one word I want to speak to the world!  What is yours?

Why this word for me?  Because without it, even the most heartfelt words of love I ever say, words first spoken by Jesus - this is my body broken for you - lose their meaning.  Without the word Risen even the greatest sign of love I have every 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.  Unless Jesus is Risen, nothing else matters.

But I don't profess this word tonight because I need it to be true.  My conviction about the empty tomb is not a vain wish that justifies my life.  It is the fruit of my being a disciple of Jesus.  Jesus invites His disciples not to a wishful faith.  He invites them to follow Him all the way to the cross to verify for ourselves 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 how to fear nothing and avoid nothing.

My conviction comes from the times I actually dared being 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 I have to pretend to be true, instead of something that because I am a disciple I have through the risk of real faith discovered to be true in my real life.

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

My word is Risen. What is yours?

You're invited to beat me or join me.  If you dare join, renew your baptismal promises.  If you join, please don't do anything cheap, easy or pitiable tonight.  On conviction night, let's decide with sharp minds, and pure hearts and courageous wills.

So, I propose to you now, a word that has rocked the history of the world, and changed the meaning of life and the destiny of man, to be the word of your life.  On this most holy night set apart precisely for this decision, I invite you to say the mysterious, dramatic, profound and true word that has ever been or could ever be spoken.

Jesus Christ is Risen!  He is Risen!  He is Risen from the dead just as He said.  He is Risen!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

How will you use your last kiss?

Homily

Good Friday of the Lord's Passion

2 April 2021

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG +mj

What if you only had one kiss left for the rest of your life?

Would you use it tonight?  

How would you use it?

The celebration of Good Friday is marked with a liturgical kiss.  Why would I waste it?  How can it be anything less than the most passionate kiss of my life.

Just last night I betrayed Jesus with a kiss on his lips.  Tonight the consequences are splayed out before me.  Evil triumphs.   A new nothing results.  It's a nothing so much darker than before the creation of the world.  It's a new nothing so much more hopeless than the absence of that first abyss.  Back, then evil was just absent.  In this new nothing, evil reigns.  For what could be a deeper darkness than the death of God?  Wherever ground zero is, we are way south of there at Calvary.  God is dead, and I killed Him.

That's the end of God's love story, and of mine, unless there is another kiss that counts.  Good Friday is pure evil unless my kiss of betrayal gives way to a more passionate kiss.  This kiss must be precisely where God emptied all of Himself.  It must mean nothing less than my deepest embrace for that cross of mine that I least want, least understand, and that draws out a love that empties all of myself.

Only this kiss could turn the tree of death into the axis for the recreation of the world.  Anything less, and death wins forever.  Only a kiss that holds back nothing, can reverse the new nothing of the cross.

You're invited to kiss tonight only if that cross is never again the place where your story might end, and only and always and forever where you story begins.

What if you had one kiss for the rest of your life?

Would you use it tonight?

If so, how would you use it?

got any no's left?

Homily

Holy Thursday of the Lord's Supper

1 April 2021 No Foolin'

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG +mj

No no no no no no no . . . never!  How many no's did you bring to Mass tonight?  What's your last no? What's your never?  That's our pivotal question for Holy Thursday.

Whatever your never is, know this.  You're up against a God who is the worst at taking no for an answer.  So hang onto your never tonight, if you can.  I dare you.

For whenever I say no, this guy moves, so that my every no that is initially a step away from him might eventually be a yes that takes me to Him.  And when He moves, He moves decisively, and dramatically!

Our first parents said no in the garden, and as their child so do I!  No I will not love.  No I will not obey.  No I will not serve.  In response, He moves!  From the no of the garden he can see the Fiat of the greatest member of our race.  So He moves, decisively and dramatically, from the abundant heart of His Father to the womb of a poor little girl.

What do I say to this baby?  I say no!  I will not hold you.  Away with Him.  Crucify Him.  Yet from this no of Calvary, from the denial of Peter who ran away scared, Jesus could see the meager courage of a man like Fr. Dan, and the pathetic yes of a priest like me.  So He moves.  He moves not only through the yes of the Immaculate Virgin, He moves even more dramatically, and decisively, through my sin-soaked words, to be born anew on this altar.  This is my body, broken for you.  This is my blood, poured out for you.

What do we say to the gift of the Eucharist?  We say no!  What will you give me to hand Him over to you?  Yes, one of you eating with me is the one who will betray me! Surely it is not me, Lord?  You have said so!  What does Jesus say to this no?  That's right, He moves.

From the no of those who rejected Him in the flesh to the no of those who reject His sacramental presence at table, He can see your yes.  He can see your little yes.  Lord, I am sorry for hurting you.  I do not deserve for you to come under my roof, but only say the word.  In response to all these no's, He moves tonight through your Amen from this altar into your body.

Still, the greatest distance remains.  Still, Jesus is only getting started.  For there are more no's to be overcome with love.  Unless I wash your feet, you have no part in me.  Unless He gets past your last no, your never, all of this is for naught.  All of this, His moving from the heart of His Father, to Mary's womb, to Calvary, to this altar, and into your body, doesn't work unless you also let Him wash your feet. You will never wash my feet. What is your last no?  What is your never?  Whatever it is, just know what you're up against.  You're up against the guy who's the absolute worst at taking no for an answer.

He has come all this way, in case just one of us might allow Him to travel past our never, and wash our feet.  The sign that our never has been conquered once and for all by His love, is that we will wash each other's feet.

what is hard rn?

Homily

5th Sunday of Lent BI

21 March 2021

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG +mj

What is hard for you right now?

Originally, I was asked to comment on what stinks right now.  I think we ought to go deeper that just improving our hygiene or taking out the trash.  So how is this question instead?  What is hard right now?

Life doesn't have to be easy!  It's often better when it's not.  Heroes defeat evil by facing the enemy with courage.  When the hour of Jesus' crucifixion arrives, He is troubled. This is hard.  Yet what should He do?  Should He run from this moment?  No, for He is made for this moment, to be lifted up for all to see.

A sound rarely heard in the Gospel, the Father in His own voice, booms at this critical moment.  The Father announces Jesus' identity at His baptism, and echoes it at His Transfiguration.  Now the Father announces Jesus' mission clearly, not for His sake by for mine.  Jesus is to be raised up so all can see the Father's glory!  What glory is this?  It is the glory of loving to the end, holding nothing back, until all is emptied and accomplished.

What's hard for me right now is to be and do what the Father says.  Who am I?  I'm God's beloved Son.  What is my mission?  It is to love to the end.  So is yours. Where is the equality in this chapel tonight?  It's that we are all equal in dignity and vocation.  We are God's children.  We are chosen to empty ourselves.  For whoever seeks to save His life will lose it.  Wherever I am my servant will also be.  Unless a grain of wheat dies, it produces no fruit.

That's hard for me.  I wonder what's hard for you?  Whatever it is, I know Jesus thinks you can face it.  I know that when you face what you least want and understand, you help defeat evil at its root, where it scares us deep down inside.  I know that when you face it, you will be truly free, and people will see the glory of God in you.

Naming it is the beginning of facing it. What is hard for you right now?