March for Life 2008

44 hours on the bus - no problem! Thanks to all the KU/KSU/ESU students who made the trip a blast, and to the many brother priests and seminarians who answered the call to stand up for life. I hope to always be in DC on Jan 22, to either stand up for life or to celebrate the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Thanks to all who made the trip so fun!

Homily for Ash Wednesday, 2008

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/020608.shtml

Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?' This passage from the prophet Joel in today's first reading urges us to use this Lenten season to distinguish ourselves from those people who hope only in themselves or hope only in the world. The perennial challenge to religion is this: prove to me that I have to be religious is order to be a good person. Of course, this is not something we can prove. The world God created is good, and it can and should be filled with good people naturally without any supernatural intervention. Our task, instead in this Lenten season, is to proclaim the truth taught by faith that we were not created simply to be relatively good people. Indeed, this is no reason to be religious at all. Our task this Lent is to be able to proclaim with our lives that this world, with all its goodness, can never completely satisfy the longings of the human person. We are made for God alone, and our hearts will remain restless until they rest in Him. As St. Paul implores us then through his letter to the Corinthians, now is the acceptable time to sell all that we have in order to be reconciled to God, for only through a loving and dependent relationship with the infinite yet personal God can a human person realize his desire for eternal life. This is eternal life, to know the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Our prayer, fasting and almsgiving this Lent is our vehicle for proclaiming that our goal in life is not simply to become a better person. Indeed, although not desirable, it is oftentimes a fact that a Christian will not become as 'good' in this lifetime as his non-Christian neighbor. And this keeps many people away from religion, and keeps them asking the question - 'Where is their God?' To them, religious people seem to be hypocrites and God Himself appears at best disinterested in His creation. But even if we do not become as good as we would like, our Lenten resolutions proclaim that a Savior has been born to us, one who does not love us more because of our goodness but who loves us completely despite our sinfulness. For our sake, He made Him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Our Lenten promises of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, then, are less about our readiness to make ourselves better than non-Christians, and more about our proclamation that despite our not being very good, because God is good, we can still be saved, if only we do not receive the grace of God in vain. This fast we begin today, then, is not the assertion of our human willpower to distinguish ourselves from sinners. Rather, quite the opposite - it is a humbling of ourselves to let the world know that we are not worthy of God's love, and yet He loves us nonetheless. Our proclamation of a fast is our way of saying that today is the day that we should begin readying ourselves for an encounter with a love beyond all human understanding, revealed through the paschal mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Those who seek holiness for the sake of being seen as holy have already received their reward. Today's traditional Gospel reading from Matthew is a reminder to us that greater than our desire to escape our sins is our desire to be loved by others. So deep is our need for intimacy, for the love that makes us fully human, that we can and do 'pretend' to be holy under the pretext of knowing that people love us more for our virtues than for our sins. But of course, this is the way of human love not divine love. Human loves starts from the outside and moves in. The divine love revealed through the suffering and death of Jesus is the opposite - it heals from the inside out, and is more interested in the sinner than in 99 righteous people who have no need of repentance. The Gospel for today reminds us that being ready to receive the love revealed and celebrated at its highest point during the Easter triduum requires mostly 'hidden' work on our part. Admirable is the disciple who begins Lent with firm resolutions and strict discipline. Indeed it is hard to have a good Lent without these. But the goal of Lent is not to successfully survive harder penances or to outdo your neighbor in piety. Remember that we will not change God's love for us through any sacrifice whatsoever. God is love. He cannot be anything else. He will not love us more if we have a good Lent nor love us less if we have a bad Lent by our own human standards. The prophet Joel assumes in our first reading that we have already given our garments. Now we must rend our hearts as well. Holiness, therefore, will not be measured by the one who prays longer, fasts better or gives the most to the poor - these are a means but not the end. Even the one who prays longer, fasts better or gives the most to the poor can do so in order to win the praise and affection of others, but may still withhold his heart from God. We pray longer, fast better, and give more to the poor not to receive the award of salvation from our neighbors, who do not have the power to save. No, we pray longer, fast better and give more to the poor in silence, so that our Father who sees what is hidden will repay us with the grace of the Easter sacraments. O most merciful Father, who desires not the death of the sinner, but that He might turn back to you and live, grant that we your sinful people may not receive this living water in vain!

The wedding of Thomas and Jayme

The guy in white - my youngest brother Thomas - was married January 5th (my mom's birthday) to Jayme Evans at Sacred Heart Parish in Park, Kansas. This is the same Church where my grandparents and parents were married, a beautiful Gothic Church on the plains of western Kansas. The bald-headed guys are my younger 'bachelor' brothers Rodney and Norman. This was taken before the ceremony, and unfortunately, my oldest brother Chad and brother-in-law James were not in this particular shot. Congratulations to Thomas and Jayme - we all love them and wish them every happiness and blessing. What an extraordinary privilege for me to be able to witness the vows of my youngest brother. What a great Christmas season it was this year! On to many more good things in 2008 - including many men applying to be new seminarians for the Archdiocese of KCK!

Homily for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/010108.shtml

I don’t know many Christians other than Catholics who go to Church on New Year’s. But ironically, we do not come together as a Catholic community to celebrate New Year’s at all – our new year began with the first Sunday of Advent, when we were told to look east into a bright future foretold by the prophets, a bright new future that would find expression in a babe born in Bethlehem to a virgin named Mary. In our liturgical and devotional life, then, we do not find ourselves this morning hoping merely for God’s blessing and for a ‘good year.’ Of course we find ourselves in a much different place, in the midst of a great Christmas celebration that will continue through Epiphany to the Baptism of the Lord. Long after the lights and trees are taken down from most Christian homes, they will persist in this place, the house of God, until the Christmas proclamation reaches its full maturity!
Today is the 8th day of Christmas. As we continue to celebrate the appearance of the Savior of the World in time, we turn once again to his mother, who had been chosen to be the first to experience the presence of the Savior in her womb, and now during the season of Christmas rejoices on behalf of the world at her chance to see His face! No one can celebrate Christmas as fully and as joyfully as the mother of Jesus. Today’s important feast that coincides with the secular hope that accompanies New Year’s Day finds the Church in great celebration that the world’s greatest hopes for prosperity and lasting peace have already been fulfilled in Jesus, the King of King and the Prince of Peace. For today our Savior has appeared on earth, who is Christ and Lord!
Today is the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, and as high as the heavens are above the earth, so much higher is this solemn celebration than any dropping of the ball in Times Square could ever be. To take nothing away from the optimism that can and should accompany the appearance of a new calendar year, so much more important is the appearance of eternity within time, made possible because Mary has been chosen to be the mother of the eternal God who has no Father. The earth on which we live is just a single thought of the Almighty, and to his eyes a thousand years are like a day. So much greater than should our solemn celebration be here tonight than any champagne, hors d’ouevres, toasts and friendships that we may enjoy later on. Because a Savior has been born of the Virgin Mother, man begins to restore to man during Christmas the gift of everlasting life, that is no longer measured in hours, weeks, months or years.
The Church never ceases to exalt this most blessed of all women. We celebrate with great consistency her role as the Mother of God, the greatest role given to any human person, man or woman, within the salvation history of any world religion. Through her, we celebrate the feminine genius of receptivity, and rehearse the truth that when God wanted to save the world, He received from this great woman the yes spoken on behalf of all humanity, man and woman alike. In salvation history, even though we know the grace of Her son’s resurrection was received in advance to prepare Her to be the mother of God, Mary’s ‘yes’ remains in many ways more fundamental than Her son’s sacrifice on Calvary. Just as Christmas is celebrated before Easter in the liturgical year, so also in our spiritual life it is our Marian receptivity to grace and to Jesus being born in our hearts that is prior to our ability to imitate Christ. Before we can serve Christ, we must know Him and receive Him as did His mother. Mary teaches us how to celebrate Christmas.
Without a doubt my own mother was the first to introduce me to Christ and to teach me how to welcome Him into my heart. My vocation comes through my own mother, and the Christian home she provided for me was my first seminary. Mary was worthy to receive Jesus, to have Him come under her roof, but because of her extraordinary humility we can ask Her to show us how to receive Jesus, especially in the Eucharist, even though we are not worthy to receive Him, nor to have Him come under our roofs. May the Mother of the God who has no Father show us how exalted is the humanity of one who allows Jesus to be born in his heart. May the Mother of God deepen and strengthen our celebration of the Christmas mystery, and help us to realize that this new year is already highly blessed because God is with us!

Christmas in Hoxie!

Alex, my oldest and only nephew, has been drafted in Jayhawk nation, as you can see. It is a bitter rivalry within the family, and there have been a few Wildcat victories within the newest generation, but we have the leader on our side! Go Alex - Rock Chalk Jayhawk! Rodney is the most religious of the Jayhawk faithful. Thomas is worried about his wedding more than the Jayhawks right now, but he will come back around in time for the NCAA tournament. And, it is hard to believe - I'm the oldest of the clan!

This post is really about the new Costello HDTV, which is fantastic, but of course it was also a night to celebrate friendship (Mike is banging his chest at this minute), Sharon's peanut brittle, and the birth of our Lord, who has fulfilled our deepest desires through the Incarnation by coming to save his beloved people! Merry Christmas to all! Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, to those on whom his favor rests!

Homily for Christmas

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/122507b.shtml

One of my least favorite songs on the radio goes like this – I’m only human, of flesh and blood I’m made. I’m only human, born to make mistakes! It seemed like this song was played every time I went to the health club that last couple of years. It seemed as if someone was watching from above waiting for me to enter the health club, just to make sure that they could annoy the heck out of me by playing this song – I’m Only Human. I kept saying to Fr. Bill Porter with whom I was usually working out – this song is bad anthropology – what a terrible view of the human person – born to make mistakes???
The solemnity of the Incarnation – the birth of Jesus Christ – that we are here to celebrate tonight, completely changes what it means to be a human person. The song I just mentioned implies that in order to become a person who no longer makes mistakes, we have to escape our humanity. The incarnation tells us just the opposite – our Salvation lies not in becoming something other than a human person, but in allowing the child born in Bethlehem to give a new hope and a new destiny to humanity. After the coming of Jesus, being human is not something to be escaped, but something to be embraced and celebrated.
Christmas is the season when we sense once again that everything is going to turn out the way it is supposed to. It is a season when hope is reborn. Pope Benedict wrote an encyclical to us just before the beginning of Advent – Spes Salvi – the hope of salvation. In it, Pope Benedict reminds us that if we hope in Jesus alone, everything will turn out well for us, because Jesus by his very name is the one who saves. Jesus is the one who heals us from our sins, and the futility they bring; He is the one who has power over sin and lasting death. Pope Benedict reminds us that a happy life is more than our ability to fulfill as many of our smaller desires as we can, however we can, within the context of this world. He says also that eternal life is more than just an extension of our days as we now experience them. It is more than another chance to pursue more of our smaller desires that were frustrated in this lifetime. No, Pope Benedict points us strongly toward the teaching found in the Gospel of John that this is eternal life: to know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (Jn 17:3). What is the Gospel of John saying here? It says that if we are honest with ourselves, the deepest desire our hearts is to see Jesus, and beginning tonight, in the child born in Bethlehem, this gift is given to humanity.
We desire so many things, we have so many expectations of how life should go for us and for others; but on Christmas night we are to recognize through the gift of the Christ child that our deepest desire has been fulfilled, even if many of our smaller desires have not been fulfilled. Tonight is the dawn of our salvation; it is seeing for the first time through the eyes of Mary, Joseph and the shepherds, this Jesus who will free mankind from his futility. Jesus is the one who saves, and He comes to save us not only from the original sin we inherited from Adam and Eve, from our endless series of mistakes. Even more importantly, Jesus comes tonight to save us from the futile condition of having to try to carve out a happy kingdom for ourselves by trying to fulfill as many of our smaller desires as we can during our brief time on earth. No, Jesus saves us from this kind of humanity. He saves us from having to become our own gods through pride, or even of having to try to make ourselves like God or to try to go to God. Instead, God comes to us to redeem and to elevate our humanity. Because of Jesus, it is now the worst sin to try to become like God, while it is glorious to allow God to come to us and to elevate what it means to be a human person. Jesus promises to be our everything, and to fulfill all our desires through a relationship with Him. The one who saves promises that if we have Him we lack nothing of eternal value. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of the human desire to live forever and to have lasting peace and happiness.
If Jesus is our hope, we do not have to hope in ourselves; much less do we have to hope in progress or material wealth. If He is our everything, then the gifts we give to each other this Christmas are filled with deep meaning. They are a reflection of the reality that we have received in the Christ child everything we have ever wanted or will ever need. Our gift giving, our generosity, is a reflection of the freedom that we have in Jesus. I don’t know about you, but in my own spiritual life I am so liable to skipping over this fundamental step of celebrating Christmas fully, of allowing Jesus to be born in my heart and to fulfill every desire I have there. In my discipleship, I can get so concerned on whether I am doing God’s will, or whether I am worthy to be doing what I am doing, or whether I have done enough to be saved. I so often skip over Christmas, and I need tonight’s celebration to remind me that before I can do God’s will, I must first receive God. This is why Mary is the Queen of Vocations – her reply at the annunciation was not to agree to do her vocation, but to receive it as a gift, to let it be done to her according to God’s word. We are to receive the Christ child tonight in our hearts with the same humility and extraordinary receptivity shown by our Blessed Mother. Our vocation in life is not to try to do God’s will first through our own determination, and then to let the chips fall where they may. No, our vocation is to receive Jesus, to let him be our Savior, to be dependent on Him for our happiness, and then to magnify the Lord and to share this relationship with Christ that has saved us in all that we say and do.
We now celebrate together Christ’s Mass; on this holy night the Lord comes to us most intimately not in the manger scene or in the nativity story, but through the gift of his body and blood. John the Baptist has challenged us through Advent that as we approach the altar tonight, we should not eat and drink judgment on ourselves. Make straight the path of the Lord to our hearts! As we receive Him tonight, may He find nothing in our hearts except a complete desire for Him! May we receive him with the same expectation and joy that were in the hearts of Mary and Joseph. And may we leave this great celebration of our faith, and our experience of the child born in Bethlehem, not afraid of Christ’s coming at the end of time, but more ready to join in his mission to save the world, and to reconcile everything to the Father. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, to those on whom his favor rests! Amen!