Why do I want to worship?

Homily

Solemnity of Christ the King

26 November 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Why do I want to worship?

There were two other pivotal questions I considered for the Solemnity of Christ the King.  The first - what do I worship? The second - how do I want to be judged?  There are too many good options at the end of the liturgical year, when we consummate our celebration and practice of the Christian mysteries by focusing on ultimate things.  What a graced time of year, if not the easiest one to embrace.  

As we have said the last four weeks as we focus on the Catholic Final Four - death, judgment, heaven and hell - my freedom that makes me in the likeness of God is an awesome gift with a terrifying responsibility.  I get to choose my end.  I get to choose my destiny.  No parable makes this clearer than the one chosen by the Church for the liturgical year.  Look out!  Here comes Matthew Chapter 25!  Matthew 25 is about the particular judgment, a judgment that I am to look forward to, and to embrace, albeit with a dose of fear and trembling!

Why do I want to worship?  Today's Feast was instituted by Pius XI at the turn of the 20th Century to counteract the modern turn to the subject.  What's the modern turn to the subject? It's a focus on man more than God.  It's to flirt with the temptation to worship myself or an idol in this world.  Pius XI saw this conflict intensifying.  Gone was the assumption that everyone feared God in a holy way, and so everyone practiced their faith.  Instead, so many new ideas and things were proliferating, and vying for minds, hearts, wills and bodies.  So much was competing to be my ultimate concern, not the least of which was the idea that one day man would replace God.

Such is the original temptation, that never fades but instead intensifies in the history of man.  What's the temptation?  If I can somehow become God or replace God, then I don't have to worship to be in right relationship with truth and life.  If I can get out of worship, I can be the measure of God not vice versa, and maybe even I can escape judgment.  

The problem is that it doesn't work.  As much as I want to and as hard as I try, I can't make myself the center of reality or the author of life.  I am contingent, not necessary. As Bill Nye the science guy says, you're not special.  At most you are a speck on a speck on a speck against a seemingly endless and meaningless backdrop.  Even your deepest thought and most heroic act of love vanishes like smoke.  I am contingent, not necessary.  The only way I become significant is when I am in right relationship to the source of meaning; in other words, when I worship the true God.

So I worship today because I have to. That's true enough.  The only way for me to reach fulfillment is to worship reality, and to welcome judgment.  Otherwise, I can never reach my destiny, and as a kicker, the bad guys win in the end.  Matthew 25 is a terrible scene, to be sure, but it's better than the alternative.

Yet I don't just have to be here.  I can want to be here. Why do I want to worship?  It's because Jesus Christ is worthy.  It has been revealed in Him our King that ultimate truth, ultimate reality, and eternal life are grounded in what?  They're rooted in sacrificial love.  I worship a shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.  I worship a King who comes not to be served, but to serve.  There can be no better news on the planet than this!  That my destiny lies in the hands of this King, who is a most merciful judge, if only I want to worship Him and not myself or an idol.

I worship because I want to be judged by this King and no other.  I want to be judged now and forever only on Matthew 25, on whether I truly belong to His Kingdom.  I am here to worship not merely because I have to, but because with all I am, I want to.

+mj

What problem must I solve?

Homily

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time A

Anniversary of Chapel Dedication

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

10 September 2023

AMDG

What problem must I solve?

Does anyone else get sick and tired of solving problems?  It can seem like real life is just an endless series of conflicts.  As soon as you solve one problem, here come a slew of others to take its place.  Is it any wonder why privacy and independence are so highly prized?  People are problems.  Relationships are painful, and messy and costly!

Yet Jesus reminds us in today's Gospel it's all worth it.  We are made for relationship, not for isolation.  Jesus asks us his disciples to be the very best the world has ever seen at solving problems.  He Himself came to reconcile all that was lost and broken.  He includes us in this ministry, this mission of reconciliation, so much so that what we agree to on earth will redound to heaven.

Yes, the happiest people in life are not those who hide or escape from problems, but those who embrace conflict and navigate it well.  The happiest people never pray for easier circumstances.  They pray for the Holy Spirit to give them the wisdom, courage and charity to engage life as it really is, instead of quitting on life.  Pope Francis put it this way - it's not God who tired or forgiving, but we who tire of repenting.  There is not quit in God, we pray that there is no quit in us!

What problem must I solve?  That's easy for me.  I have been working for 7+ years now and how to get KU students to Mass.  If we take Jesus Christ at his word, that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we have not life in us, then to go to Mass is our life!  I for the life of me can't solve for students not feeling the difference that a living sacramental encounter with the Lord Jesus and His desire for us to live, would make in their lives.  I've received thousands of suggestions.  We have tried dozens of things.  The problem is complex, as any parent would tell you.  There's not an easy fix, saving making every day Ash Wednesday, when we are packed with KU students letting us throw dirt and them and tell them they're gonna die.

Jesus begs us not to lose heart or grow weary of the ministry of reconciliation.  The process is outlined in the Gospel.  We must start with ourselves, knowing that what most needs to change in the world is always me.  Each one of us must be committed to his own conversion, to embrace a life of penance, and while putting boundaries on unhealthy or abusive relationships, be open to criticism and to removing the plank in our own eye first.  

Then Jesus asks us to encourage one another in intimacy and charity, not settling for good enough but challenging each other to get better everyday, either in 1on1 conversations or in small groups.   The goal is never just to hang out with nice people who affirm the worst in you.  Quite the opposite, you want friendships that elevate your capacity to solve the problems that most vex you.

Finally, there is the communion of the Church, and our unity in faith and morals that is fostered through reconciliation at Mass and in the confessional.  Jesus says that if His Church can realize the unity in faith and morals, it will redound to heaven.  Like any team or group that wants to solve any problem or accomplish anything great, there have to be rules for being reconciled to one another.  Everyone on the team must show up and do their best.  Jesus says rightly that the unity in faith and morals in His body the Church is the sole hope of the world!  Reconciliation is important!  So we have to stay after it.

What problem must I solve?  Jesus shows us the way, and begs us not to lose heart!

+mj

What needs to get out into the open?

Homily

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time A

3 September 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

If you were pope, what is the first thing you would do?

That's a great question, but one I will leave for another day.  Let me just say this.  Don't do what Peter did.  In the Gospel of Matthew, in just a matter of moments Peter goes from making the great confession of faith in Jesus, and being named the first Pope, to being called Satan.  Why?  Because his first act as Pope, as royal steward of the kingdom of heaven, is to try to cancel the cross, to cancel suffering.  Jesus correct him, sternly.  

Yet in saying what he's really thinking, Peter mysteriously becomes a hero once again.  Because he is honest Peter gets his fear out in the open.  Even though his answer is dead wrong, because it is visible, in play, and not hidden, the answer is corrected by the light of truth.  Which leads to our pivotal question for this week - what needs to get out in the open?

A key to holiness is vulnerability.  Vulnerability and honesty is what makes Jeremiah such a great prophet.  He wears his emotions on his sleeves.  He relates the tensions and conflicts of his heart, instead of hiding, avoiding, escaping or coping.  In doing so, Jeremiah fulfills his destiny.  He saves his own soul, and perhaps the lives of those around him.  Simply for telling the truth.  I feel used by God, overwhelmed by him and his mysterious ways.  I hate the cross.  Yet there is still something that I need to get off my chest, something burning in my heart, something imprisoned in my bones.  It's the capacity to live the truth of my reality in love.  It's to believe in myself as God does.

The more we get the tensions, paradoxes and conflicts of life out in the open, the more they can be healed and find resolution in their relation to God and to reality.  You know those conflicts well.  I trust God but I doubt.  I want to live courageously and change but I'm afraid and stay stuck.  I want to be free but keep going back to my coping mechanisms.  I want to give my life away but I'm afraid to let go of who I am right now.  I want to embrace my cross but I like comfort.  I want to participate in the redemption of the world but I want my privacy, my choice, my control too.

When those tensions get out in the open, however they do - in prayer, in conversations in shared experiences, they are related in a way that saves our soul, and brings life.  When they are hidden, escaped or avoided, they get the best of us.

What do I need to get more out in the open?  It's the shared human experience, it's the conflicts and tensions of the heart that are the foundations of every great story that ends in life.  They are the emotions expressed by Jeremiah and Peter.

What do I need to get into the open?

What gate am I gonna smash?

Homily

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time A

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

27 August 2023

AMDG

What gate am I going to smash?

There appear to me to be two gates in play in today's Gospel from Matthew. There's a gate that needs to be smashed with a rock, and a gate that will be unlocked with a key.

Peter, you are a rock with keys.  One gate you will smash.  The other you will open.

I'm gonna leave the second gate for another homily.  It's the gate guarding the authority Christ gave to His Church in and through its first royal steward St. Peter, a gate that 2000 years later Pope Francis also has the key to unlock as our papa, the steward of our Catholic faith, the vicar or most visible representative of Christ in the world.

I want to talk about the first set of gates, the gates of hell.  They are the gates holding those who have lost their souls. Right after calling Peter a rock, Jesus says these gates will not stand!  Take that as you wish.  I take it to mean the faith of the Church will smash the damn things.

Do you remember that as a member of the Catholic Church whose founding we rehearse in today's Gospel, that you exist to save souls and defeat evil?  Yes you!  I'm talking to you, as a I talk to myself.  You exist to smash the gates of hell.  It's your legacy.  Permission granted today for you to be a criminal trespasser past the gates of hell.  I ask you to break and enter, please!

A part of the mission of the Church is to break down the gates of hell. It's my mission, and it's yours.

Too often I automatically interpret today's Gospel in a soft, weak, defensive way.  That even though my faith might be threatened, and I'm scared to lose faith, that someone I'll be able to hang onto it.  Jesus says so.  I don't think that's the interpretation of this Gospel at all.  Those afraid of losing faith in some ways have already lost it.  It's a losing mentality.  The faith we celebrate and lay hold of has the power to smash evil.  The Catholic faith is powerful and offensive.  If it's not, to hell with it, pun intended.

What gate am I going to smash this year?

I'm determined to witness that the Catholic faith retains its power to help me live fully, live differently.  I'm especially excited to profess the times the Holy Eucharist has rescued my soul from death, and to invite more and more to the transformative experience of the Mass, confident that KU students will respond to God's desire to change their lives through the sacrament of His Body and Blood.

The gate I am going to smash is my fear that I can't do anything to get people to Mass, that I have to accept the ways things are.  I'm tired of worrying whether students will show up for Mass.  I'm going to move past my fear and boldly witness my faith, confident in its power to defeat the evils that afflict us.

You got next.  What gate are you gonna smash this year?

+mj 

Who do I need to learn from?

Homily

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time A1

Transferred Feast of St. Lawrence

20 August 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Who do I need to learn from?

In today's shocking Gospel, Jesus learns from a nobody.  When's the last time you learned something from a nobody?

I know, I know, it's uncomfortable to say that Jesus learns, that Jesus is a student.  Yet in taking on our human nature, Jesus becomes like us in all things but sin.  He is obedient to human parents, meaning He listens to them.  The letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus learns obedience from what He suffers, until He is perfected in love.  Today He learns from a Canaanite woman that She deserves the scraps from the table.  He is wrong today in telling the Canaanite woman, an enemy of Israel, to bug off, just as He was wrong to tell his mother Mary to bug off when She asked Him to make wine as His first sign at Cana.  Jesus is wrong, not in a sinful way mind you, but that He might learn just as we do.

Who do I need to learn from?

In God's mysterious ways, which are so different than ours, our best lessons in life come from nobodies..  God uses the weak to shame the strong, the poor to convert the rich, the nobodies to change the somebodies, the outsiders to save the insiders.  It's prophesied throughout the history of Israel, that all the nations will come to adore the God of Israel.  It's foreshadowed by the magi from the east, men with presumably no faith, being the only ones with enough faith to recognize the newborn Savior of the world.  It's played out even today, where the Catholic faith is growing wherever it is most persecuted in the far corners of the world, whereas here at home where it's comfortable the faith is being lost.

Who does the St. Lawrence Center need to learn from?  This is a great question!  This Catholic mission to KU is not just to keep insider Catholics from losing their faith. That's a loser mentality, and Jayhawks aren't losers. No, the St. Lawrence Center is for everyone, and the most dramatic stories of faith written on campus again this year will come from outsiders like the Canaanite woman, those least likely to have faith.

In the radical prediction of St. Paul, the insiders will only come fully to faith after all the outsiders have come into the Church. That makes the most important people at KU those who are farthest from the Catholic faith. We call them the E's - those who are enemies of the Church and think that religion harms people and leads them astray and participates in white imperialist privilege and should be canceled.  Of all the audiences St. Lawrence wishes to reach with the goodness, truth, beauty and meaning of our Catholic faith, the E's are the most important.  If you're wondering what the other groups are, the A's are those who are sold out for the faith. The B's are those who are drifting away. The C's have decided they don't want to be Catholic. The D's havent' heard the Gospel.  Then there are the E's, those who hate the Church.

The Catholic Church is mother and shepherd of them all.  We pray equally for them all.  For anyone who concludes the Catholic Church is exclusive, they might want to take a second look.  The Catholic Church is filled with diversity, with Gentiles from all the races of the world.  The Church is filled with equity, where everyone is adopted equally into the family of God's beloved.  Then there's inclusion, as the Church is on mission to gather all people into one, for everyone has a part to play in the redemptive mission of Christ.  The Catholic Church had a DEI office long before KU thought of it.

Back now to the point of today.  I'm here to learn, and St. Lawrence is here to learn, and most importantly, Jesus is here to learn, from the least significant, from the farthest outsider.  The least likely person, the Canaanite woman, showed up with the strongest faith, and Jesus was amazed.  He learned from her.  This is not a loss of omniscience from Jesus, not a sinful mistake, but a humble move to draw out the faith of this amazing woman.  Jesus chooses to hide what he could have known to learn from this woman, and to teach us how to learn faith from the last significant.

Who do I need to learn from?

Who is trying to kill me?

Homily

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time A1

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

25 June 2023

AMDG +mj

Who is trying to kill me?

It's easy to miss the point of this weekend's scriptures, so I'm going to ask a dramatic question if I may.

Who is trying to kill me?

From the threats against Jeremiah, to the lament of the psalmist, to the reminder from St. Paul that we are alive only insofar as we participate in the death of Christ, to the teaching of Jesus to not be afraid nor shy away from those who will try to kill you, it's clear that our relationship with God is a matter of life and death.  It can't be anything else, always and without exception.

It's no accident that everywhere in the world where Christians are being killed, the faith is on fire, as are the lives of Christians who know that you're only really living if you know what you will suffer and die for.  Whereever showing up for Mass is a matter of putting your life on the line, true life is increased.  Wherever it's comfortable to go to Mass, the life of the faithful is in decline.  There are countless true stories of Catholics who were once arrested for practicing their faith, who stopped practicing as soon as it became easy.

To put another point on it, you're not really living your faith unless someone is trying to kill you.  That probably sounds like hyperbole, but it's not. It's a shame, actually that our relativistic culture tolerates Christians quite well.   We might say the Church is under persecution, but it's not really.  The Church can be mocked by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in LA, and by others, but more often, it's ignored.  See how easily we fell in line last summer during the decisive vote on putting reasonable protections on defending innocent unborn life.  The amendment lost 85% to 15% here in Douglas county, and we tolerated the defeat quite well and went on with our lives.

It's one of my greatest pet peeves how easy it is to ignore or cancel the Catholic faith here on this campus.

But it's my fault.  I'm not living my faith in such a way that anyone is trying to kill me.  Even the evil one has figured out that if he persecutes me, I might fight back, but if he makes me comfortable, I'll lie down.  The reality is that my Christian life is covered in fear, despite Jesus inviting me not to be afraid of those who kill the body. Why does he say this.  Because I am to have already given my life away, in my baptism I died to a comfortable, horizontal existence, and rose to a life marked by courageously suffering and dying for who I love.  This is how a soul is saved, and it's always going to offend someone, so much so that being a real Christian is always a matter of life and death.

Catholics' favorite lines in scriptures are the ones where those who sit in back are lauded, those who put in two cents are celebrated, and those who pray in secret are repaid. This is all true and good, but there's more.  There's the prophetic dimension of our lives that comes out clearly in today's Scriptures.  Anyone playing it safe is gonna lose.  Anyone afraid to share their faith has already lost.  For our relationship with God is our life, and so the practice of my faith can only be a matter of life and death.

As it is, nobody is trying to kill me.  In response to today's Scriptures, it's a good day to wonder why.

Am i made for this?

Homily

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

11 June 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I made for this?

Today is the day set aside by the Church to lift up the Eucharist and to present it as the sole hope of the world.  If you've ever been to a World Youth Day with millions of people gathered around the Eucharist, you get it.  Nothing is more unifying.  Nothing is more meaningful.  Nothing gives more life.  Nothing renews the hope of the world more than the Blessed Sacrament.

It's why Jesus said Do this in memory of me.

The problem is that none of us actually do it.  The problem is not that 70% of Catholics doubt the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. It's that 100% do.  It's hard to be all in. It's hard to trust completely.  It's hard to let the presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament to be everything it's meant to be.

So I must ask myself, am I made for this?

The longer I'm a priest, the longer I'm convinced that everyone is made for a daily holy hour.  Everyone and anyone who wants to be fully alive is meant to Do This in memory of me.  Today is the day the Church doubles down on her Eucharistic faith, and prays for help for her unbelief, for the Eucharist has been revealed as the source and summit of all life and every life.

Jesus makes his point abundantly clear.  Amen, amen I say to you.  Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you.  He really said that.  He really meant it.  Yet what else could He say?  If He is God, if He is the source of life, and if our relationship with Him is our life, what it means to be alive, then if that relationship is consummated and actualized in the Eucharist I must eat His flesh and drink His blood.  Jesus admits no exceptions.  I have no excuse, and nowhere else I could go, for He has the words of eternal life.

Jesus desires not just bios for you, but your zoe!  In the end, it's not just how long you live, it's how you live.  True life is measured vertically.  Jesus calls it eternal life, the life that never dies.  True life is measured by the depth of my love for God and my neighbor, and nothing else.

There is no greater love that to lay down one's life for one's friends - that is the sacrifice of the Eucharist in which we participate, through which we cooperate in the redemption of our souls and the fulfillment of our mission.  In the Eucharist alone is what it means to live.

Am I made for this?

So many people ask me what's my plan for keeping college students Catholic, for getting them back to Mass.  I don't care for the question, not do I find it meaningful.  

How do I show, by my life and my prayer, that I was made for this.  How I demonstrate that I can't live without the Eucharist, that I was made to engage the source of life each and every day?

It's the more important, and urgent question than keeping somebody else Catholic.

Ask yourself instead - am I made for this?  If so, what must change?

+mj