who's for dinner?

Homily

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

17 July 2022

AMDG

Who is for dinner?

That sounds cannibalistic, but it's not.  If anything is clear about today's Scriptures, it's that every meal is less about the food, and more about the people.  Ultimately, meals are about feeding on God and each other.  The right question is our pivotal one.  Who is for dinner?

Tell me about your dinner table?  Is it one of the most important places in the world?  It's meant to be.

Your dinner table is meant to participate in the one right before us now.  At this Mass, this table is your table.  It's also your tomb.  The Mass is the place where you put your life on the line, that as St. Pauls says, your sufferings might be taken up and fill out the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the world.  This altar is your table, and your tomb.  

Your dinner table at home is a participation in this. Don't take my word for it.  Look at how Abraham and Sarah hosted God at their table, and were blessed in turn with the conception of Isaac their son.  Then go straight to Mary, Martha and Lazarus' table.  From there go to the table of the Last Supper.  Then don't tell me that your dinner table doesn't matter.

You won't hear this on the news, but the future of the world runs through your dinner table.  It doesn't run through your phone, nor through the ballot box.  To be sure, a historical vote as consequential as any in Kansas history, a matter of life and death, has already started.  Voting has a critical place in affecting the common good.

Still, the ballot box is less important than your dinner table, and it's not even close.  Conversation, relationship and communion, the ultimate sources of love and of life, are meant to run through your dinner table.

The reason the world is so messed up, the reason we have to vote on the right to rip children out of their most intimate relationships, is because we don't have dinner like we used to, like we are meant to.  I stink at dinner.  Maybe you do too.  Dinner is not just a bodily function, a checking of the box, something else to worry about.  If it's just that, than to hell with it, as Jesus tells Martha.  

Unless I feed on God and my family and my neighbor at dinner, I have no chance for the communion, conversation and relationship that gives life.  I neglect giving attention and intention to dinner at my own peril.

If not dinner, than what's your thing where you experience that depth and intimacy of conversation and communion?  

What's been revealed to us is that we can't live without it.

Let's face the pivotal question.  Who is for dinner?

am I lost?

Homily

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

10 July 2022

AMDG

Am I lost?

The Samaritan certainly was, as lost as a Missouri Tiger in Lawrence, Kansas.  There is no reason in the world that a Samaritan from the north, one who hated Jews and vice versa, to be heading further south in enemy territory, down the steep path from the heights of Jerusalem to the depths of Jericho.  Yet there he is.  Jesus points him out as a hero.

Kansas is lost too, not completely, but getting closer.  In a terrible twist of history, the state of Missouri is more free today than Kansas. Free to choose life over death.  You heard me right.  In Missouri, a state that fought to preserve the right to own slaves, it's now illegal to kill unborn children.  Not in Kansas, a state that fought for just the opposite, to be a free state where human dignity is upheld.

Voting starts this week to see if Missouri of all places remains more free than Kansas.  At the moment, Kansas is lost.

I never thought I'd see a day like this, when Missouri, or Oklahoma even, showed Kansas what it means to be free.  For to be a free and just society is to begin by protecting the right to life to every person without exception.  You can't expand rights to autonomy, privacy and equality by killing children.  It makes no sense at all.

I don't care what our problems are.  Taking an innocent human life is never a solution and is never just.  The denial of the right to life has led to the greatest holocaust in American history, and it's not close. No one has been harmed in American history more than unborn children, and it's not even close. 

The right to life is not complicated or confusing. Human personhood and dignity can never be relativized for any reason.  Period.  This law is very near to us.  It's not hard.  It's written in our minds, our consciences and our very nature.

I beg you to vote YES August 2nd.  There could be no vote since the founding of our state in 1861 that affects more lives in a more fundamental way.  A YES vote protects Kansans, especially its women and children, from the most evil, predatory, racist, violent and inhuman industry ever known, the abortion industry.  A YES vote removes the right to kill children from the original Kansas Constitution.  It once again makes Kansas free.

All that being said, still the fullness of life that is the destiny of every person, including the unborn, will be granted not ultimately through the law or voting, or politics, as critical as these are for the common good. Ultimately, it will be granted by courageous Jayhawks who recognize that with the gift of life comes the responsibility to give life rather than to take it. That responsibility falls to each and every Kansan.

Those who instead value secondary rights to privacy, autonomy and equality over the right to life are lost and scared.  So am I.  I get scared when I come face to face with the responsibility of my life.  I too am obsessed with my body, my choice, instead of the opportunity to expand human rights for others by making a gift of my life.  I too am lost, and scared to live unselfishly, chastely and responsibly.  I too harm others because I am lost and afraid.

Jesus still shines light in today's beautiful parable on how a culture of life will prevail over a culture of death.  See yourself in others who are lost and afraid to choose life.

Love your enemies.  Pray for those who persecute you.  Do good to those who hate you.  Its' ok to be lost.  Don't be afraid to be a stranger who suddenly finds and sees Himself in an unlikely stranger on a road neither of you should have been on.

For the culture of life and love and salvation is built most of all by people who are lost, people like the Good Samaritan, strangers who do good in a strange land in the most unlikely of ways.

Am I lost?

on dobbs

Statement 

On the Occasion of the Supreme Court of the US Decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Co.Women's Health

11 July 2022

Dear Jayhawks:

As the mission of the Catholic Church to the University of Kansas, the St. Lawrence Center (henceforth SLC) embraces the opportunity to respond to the recent Supreme Court decision in the matter of Dobbs vs. Jackson Co. Women's Health, a decision that has the attention of the KU community. So too does the upcoming proposed Constitutional Amendment on the ballot August 2nd in Kansas that would allow restrictions to abortion that are currently deemed unconstitutional by the Kansas Supreme Court per the Nauser & Hodes vs. State of Kansas ruling in 2019.

SLC recognizes that many at KU are upset by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling.  Some Jayhawks  perceive the overturning of Roe v. Wade as detrimental to women's rights to privacy, autonomy and equality.  Not only this, but many in the KU community have been personally involved with or affected by abortion.  SLC seeks mutual respect, conversation, reconciliation and relationship with all at KU, including those who disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in this case.

At the same time, St. Lawrence invites recognition  that there are many others in the KU community who see the court's recent decision as a just and necessary one, if there is to be a meaningful chance to build a just society founded on the right to life for every human person without exception.  In fact, there are numerous Jayhawks who have worked many years with the hope of seeing the ruling just rendered.  Roe vs. Wade is considered by many Jayhawks to be an unjust and unconstitutional ruling that has contributed to the greatest holocaust of human life in American history.

SLC furthermore invites respect for members of the KU community who have pro-life convictions that rely not merely or primarily on faith, but on right reason and good conscience, convictions founded on the following principles:

• That a unique and unrepeatable human life exists from the very moment of conception, a fact verified by the most vigorous sciences.
• That the decision to relativize the value of any human life for any reason historically leads to the most monstrous of human holocausts.
• That any sincere effort to care for children must begin with not killing them.
• That a society which fails to grant the right to life to each of its persons should not pretend to justly deliver the rights that proceed from the right to life to any 
• that a society shows its strength by extending its best protection and care to its weakest and most vulnerable persons, especially its children.
• That the ability to see ourselves in our children, and to prioritize their rights over the will of adults is critical to a nation with a hopeful future.
• That the right to life for all must entail the responsibility of all to never kill an innocent person for any reason.

SLC admits that one of the most serious responsibilities a state can require is for women to carry children to term, especially in the worst of circumstances. Such a responsibility, though necessary for the common good, must be supported by the best resources that can be made available by the state and its people, with exceptions granted when the life of the mother is gravely at risk.

This responsibility to always choose life must fall not only to pregnant women, but to each of us in this decisive moment.  Each of us must ask ourselves - what more must I do to give life rather than to take it?  This is a question of special meaning for Jayhawks.  KU takes its mascot from those ferocious fighters in Civil War times who risked their very lives so that Kansas came into the union as a free state, one where no person is owned, controlled or discarded.   

Giving life rather than taking it means participating as much as I can in building a chaste society whose virtue is shown in granting more children the dignity of being conceived in relationships where there is commitment, care and support.  It means knowing that the right to life for all can only be extended if I am responsible for living an unselfish life that gives more than it takes.  That's how Jayhawks build a culture of life where abortion is never the best option.

SLC envisions our free state not as an abortion destination for the Midwest, but as a generous society where every Jayhawk embraces the responsibility to give life to others. To this end, we encourage all Kansans of right mind and generous heart to vote YES on the upcoming Constitutional Amendment on the ballot August 2nd, a vote that will keep alive the hope of our state remaining free to be a place where no person is owned, controlled or discarded.  To the stars through difficulties, Jayhawks!

The Catholic faith has always shown light into the responsibility of all to choose life, and will always deepen and strengthen the commitment to do so.  SLC is honored to bring this faith to bear on the KU educational experience.  Yet once again, the convictions herein shared do not in any way depend on religious faith, but can be embraced by anyone who wants to expand human dignity and rights for all.

With a commitment to partnering with KU to lift students and society by educating leaders, and with equal commitment to making amends and asking for forgiveness for any and all ways the our Church has violated these same principles and harmed life rather than serving it, still SLC appreciates any and all persons of good will who receive these remarks on their own merit.

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

1631 Crescent Road

Lawrence, Kansas

  

am I absolutely poor?

Homily

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

3 July 2022

Independence Day Weekend

AMDG

Am I absolutely poor?

I don't know how long you've been listening to the Gospel, but there's no way around this question.  It keeps coming from Jesus, over and over.  It arrives again today.  Am I absolutely poor?

He asks for my good.  He thirsts for my faith.  For the Kingdom of Heaven can only be entered through faith, by those who are available, detached, ready, open, vulnerable, empty and generous. He sends the 72 in just this way.  He wants to send you in just this way.  His Kingdom cannot be lived if I am attached, addicted, afraid of losing, trying to control, manage and figure out my life.

Am I absolutely poor?

I'm sorry folks.  It's the only way.  It's how Jesus lived, hand to mouth, owning nothing.  It's how he instructs us in true freedom.  My life can only grow in the measure I give it away.  Every gift hoarded is lost.  Every gift given is multiplied.  You cannot be a disciple without also being a missionary.  There is no faith without action.  Most of all, the only way to be a missionary is through poverty.

The biggest criticism of the pro-life movement is that pro-lifers don't put their money where their mouth is, that there couldn't possibly be enough care for every child who is born.  I take this criticism with a grain of salt, for skeptics are impossible to satisfy.

Still, Jesus invites us win or lose, to put it all out there.  I was blessed last weekend to witness a Jayhawk vow poverty with the Sisters of Life in New York, an order that wants to own nothing but the chance to walk with moms struggling to choose life for their children. I was not merely inspired by Sr. Miriam's Bethel's vow of poverty, I felt small knowing how much I hoard what I have.

Am I absolutely poor?

The laborers are few because all of us in some way calculate what I'm willing to give, and what is not going to work, instead of simply trusting the path Jesus has invited us on for our own good.

Each of us will live poverty in our own way, not recklessly, but yes absolutely.  Everything I have that I do not need or am not using is a gift that comes with the responsibility to place it at the service of the Gospel of Life and the Kingdom of Heaven.

It's how I will be truly free, through poverty.  The freedom we celebrate in the US this weekend is like any gift.  It can only grow the the measure it is given away.  May I celebrate this weekend not a freedom from anybody getting in my way, but a freedom to give my life to someone I believe in.

To do that well, I have to be absolutely poor.  The Gospel of Life could not be clearer.

Am I absolutely poor?

what can I do?

Homily

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (formerly Corpus Christi)

19 June 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What can I do?

A comment made at our last Board of Director's meeting has been messing with. We were discussing St. Lawrence's mission to respond to the hopelessness and helplessness that settles into the minds and hearts and bodies of more and more of our young Jayhawks.

The comment was this.  We react more than we respond.  In the face of chaotic circumstances and the cacophony of data, we feel tossed around and lost.  Too many of us feel stuck, knowing this is not the life I chose but not knowing what to do.  Too often the loss of agency leads to desperate and destructive grasps for control.  

What can I do?

Jesus answers the question in two words.  Do this.

Do what, Jesus?  Do this! Do this in memory of me.  On Corpus Christi, the Church holds up the Eucharist as the sole hope of the world.  If you've ever been to a World Youth Day, the largest gatherings in human history, not 5,000 but millions upon millions gathered around the Eucharist, you know what I mean.

Do this, Jesus says.  It's the one thing everyone can do!  We can all go to Mass.  We can all visit Jesus in the Eucharist.

When I feel lost, or stuck, or helpless, what can I do?  I can receive the Body and Blood of Christ.  I can bring Him to others.  It's that simple.  It's how the world will be saved.  It's the only way.

It couldn't be simpler, really.  Just go to Mass, and invite others, and the results will be superabundant.  I dare you to show me someone who has come up with a more trustworthy plan for your life.  It's in the Gospel of the loves and the fish, which foreshadows how God wants to save the world.

So why don't I just do it?  That's the million dollar question!  It's because when I feel lost, or stuck or helpless, I don't trust in the Real Presence.  I grasp for control, not seeing in the Eucharist a vision for what is possible, but that it might not work.  It might not be enough.

Why do we need this Feast?  It's because not just 70% of Catholics doubt the real presence.  It's that 100% do.  None of us, least of all me, fully believes that trusting in the Real Presence of Jesus alone will be enough.

So we don't try.

I need this feast to help my unbelief.  Today I discard my grasping, my doubts, my backup plans.  Today I simply try to trust Jesus at His word.

I feel alone. I feel helpless.  I feel stuck. I feel lost. What can I do, Jesus?

Do this in memory of me.

I can receive the Body and Blood of Christ, and give Him to others.

what truth sets me free?

Homily

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

12 June 2022

AMDG

What is the truth that sets me free?

Jesus promises us today a Spirit that will guide us to all truth.  So what?  I don't want to marginalize Pentecost just a week after we celebrated it.  Yet so what?  What good is knowing truth? 

It's so that I can be free to live!  A truth, a wisdom that sets me free to fully live is the pearl of great price. For that truth I should sell everything!

What is the truth sets me free?

Today the Church highlights Her deepest and most essential mystery as the truth that will set me free!  That's right!  Today we declare that no idea, no mystery, no truth is more important or practical than the truth that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit!  There is no truth more real, more personal, more practical or more life-giving than knowing this, and living by it.

It's a truth gifted to us by faith!  It's a truth revealed by a God who not only loves us enough to reveal Himself, but enough to invite us to dwell forever in the heart of this mystery, in the heart of reality, in the heart of truth, in the heart of relationship.

How does this truth set me free?

Well, before I answer that. let's just do a quick quiz to make sure you all can pass a graduate-level course in the theology of the Most Holy Trinity.  You ready?  It's a multiple-choice final!  You got this Jayhawks, even though there's no theology department at KU.  I believe in you!

1.  Which of the following is false?  God is . . 

a.  a single substance

b.  two processions

c.  three persons

d.  four relations

e.  all of the above.

If you answered e, you may proceed to the next question.

2.  God has revealed Himself as . . 

a.  family

b.  self-gift

c.  personal

d.  relational

e.  All of the above

If you answered e, you may proceed to the next question!

3.  At the heart of reality there is . . 

a.  physics

b.  choice

c.  communication

d.  nothing

If you answered c, you have passed a graduate course in theology!  Way to go!

At the heart of reality is communication.  If you live by any truth less than this, I dare say you are not free!

For the truth that sets me the most free is the truth that lies at the heart of reality, a truth that pre-existed and will out last choice, or atheism, or physics. It is a truth that both grounds and surpasses all the truths of created reality that higher education seeks to unlock.

The truth is this.  All reality communicates itself by nature.  Reality doesn't choose to communicate.  It just does.  So God, who is ultimate reality, is ultimate communion through communication.

So I, made in God's likeness, am more true and real and live when I communicate.  All sin, evil and death can be seen through this lens.  Death is a lack of sharing,  a stoppage of communication, a choice to be alone.

That choice to stop communicating is never in God.  It is a choice not even possible in Him, only in us whose freedom is gifted by the original communication of who God is, which led to our being created in His likeness.

What is the truth that sets me free?  Feel free to look anywhere else if you want.  But I'm telling you, the truth you desire has been communicated to you by a God who loves you and invites you into the heart of reality!

God is communion through communication.  I dare say this is the heart of everything that sets you free.

Beat my answer if you can.

What is the truth that sets you free?

am I confused?

Homily

Solemnity of Pentecost

5 June 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I confused?

I hope I am.  I hope you are too.  

Not hopelessly and helplessly confused, mind you, but confused in such a way that I yearn for the Spirit's gift of understanding to reveal deeper truths than I could ever figure out on my own.

I was certainly confused a couple weeks ago talking to Diane.  On a mission trip to Peru, the language barrier was tough. But like the Pentecost narrative, in the end, Diane and I arrived at understanding!

I traveled to Peru with 12 KU students and missionaries. The real miracle of the trip was 26 negative COVID tests out of 26!  Praise God!  

Yet guess how many of us spoke Spanish?  None of us, of course.  Silly Americans!  We had all piddled with languages but mastered none.

Well, on the rocky hills overlooking Lima, we couldn't rely on others to speak English. Diane, as I came to find out, is a mother of four and grandmother of four.  There she was with us, grandma, building a retaining wall by hand trying to make these desolate hills a little safer and better.

During a lunch break, the Spirit told me to go talk to Diane, despite the language barrier.  I was scared too, but I did anyway.  I am fascinated with the politics, history, economy and faith in Peru.  Yet all these things ran through the story of Diane in a very personal way.  As different as we were, it turned out that we are the same. Imagine that.  As St. Paul says, we are both children of God through the Spirit of God dwelling in us, both of us united in caring more about the life of the Spirit than that of the flesh.  In the end, the Spirit guides both of our desires to live not for ourselves but for love and relationship.

So we had a chat, though most of the communication was non-verbal.  Thank goodness I had a data signal, and could look up a few farming words on google to keep the conversation moving.  We talked for an hour, maybe my best conversation of the year, the one that converted me the most.  We ended the communication with communion, the Spirit's gift of understanding.

Am I confused?

The gift of going to Peru was the gift of confusion.  Why go so far, when there are plenty of problems here at home?  It's to be confused as much as possible, to be disoriented so that I can unlearn my own limited self-understanding.  Being bothered, confused and uncomfortable is a good place to be, for the understanding the Holy Spirit can gift from this experience moves me beyond my self-reliance on what I can figure out on my own.

Kyler, one of our students, was bothered by people who were not ashamed to share their poverty with us.  He learned how not hiding my weakness allows the Holy Spirit to reveal new things.

That's Pentecost, friends.  A new understanding that is gifted out of confusion, a truth that is encountered in relationship that is far beyond my default selfish quest to figure out how to get greater control of my life.

The way of the Spirit instead is to engage the questions I don't have the answers to yet.  It's to rely on the Spirit to reveal the hidden mysteries of God. It's ever more amazing to me what God chooses not to be in control of, that He might, as Jesus says, make His dwelling with us, experiencing things as we do.  God could control whatever He wants, yet the Spirit guides a path of patience and weakness, revealing a greater love and understanding out of the messy circumstances of life.

I hope this Pentecost I am more confused that ever.  That would bring a new hunger not for what I can get figured out by myself, but for the Spirit's gift of understanding.

I invite you to ask yourself this Pentecost.  Am I confused?