Homily for Tuesday of the 4th Week of Lent

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/030408.shtml

Jesus takes sin pretty seriously. Remember when he said, ‘Until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter of the law will pass away.’ Do you remember when He said as well, ‘Anyone who teaches one of the these little ones to sin by breaking one of the least of the commandments, it would be better for that man to have a millstone tied around his neck and that he be thrown into the sea.’ Yeah, Jesus takes the law seriously. He takes sin seriously. Yet not so seriously that He could see that it is better to do good and to save life on the Sabbath than to destroy it. So he cured the man who had been ill for 38 years – told him to pick up his mat, and to go home, even though it was the Sabbath.

But then Jesus goes right back to taking sin seriously. He reminds the man not to sin, so that nothing worse would happen to him. That is like telling someone who is just being released from the hospital after battling a long illness not to take the Lord’s name in vain, so that something worse doesn’t happen to them. Does Jesus think there really is something worse than being ill for 38 years? Apparently so, and so we should think the same. We should never take sin lightly, for it blinds us to the presence of Christ, and this is far worse than suffering an illness in this lifetime. We should do everything we can to do good and to avoid evil, and to humbly receive the sacrament of reconciliation as often as we can, so that our soul does not become sick for eternity!

Homily for Monday of the 4th Week of Lent

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/030308.shtml

How easily we believe in Jesus when he improves our lives in exactly the way in which we ask him to improve them. There is nothing wrong with prayers of petitions, asking for good things from God, to be sure, but we are not supposed to be confounded by our expectations. Sometimes God gives us what is best for us by conforming our lives more fully to the mystery of the Lord’s cross, which is the everlasting sign of God’s love for us. Jesus gains more believers in today’s reading by working a wonderful sign, and healing the son of the royal official. But even in today’s Gospel he is cautioning those who are following him. They should not believe in Him simply because of his signs and wonders. The sign where we are to most recognize the identity of Jesus is the sign of the cross. It is there that we really choose whether or not to be his disciples. He tells us plainly, unless you take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. When we ask for good things from God that we truly need, let us also ask him to not make things too easy for us, lest we fail to recognize Him when He places himself into our hands, and is nailed to a cross for our offenses.

Homily for the 4th Sunday of Lent

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/030208.shtml

The man is blind so that God’s works may become visible in him. So says Jesus, who sees in the man’s blindness an opportunity for him to come to faith. Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This beatitude comes true in the life of the blind man. Because he is poor, he has the humility needed to long for the healing of Jesus. Because of his humility, he has the faith to trust Jesus and then to see him and to hear with his own ears Jesus proclaim himself to be the Son of Man. There are many things in this world that are hard to understand. Why are some people born blind? Why do so many good people get sick and die young and catch so many bad breaks, whereas the wicked seem to enjoy health and prosperity? Why? On many levels, these questions of why have no good answers. They are part of the mystery of the effects of original sin, and the reality of a broken world where everything breaks apart quite unpredictably. Anyone who has prayed for a young child to get well, however, knows that despite the meaninglessness of human suffering, there is a side to it that makes us yearn for the healing touch of Jesus. We yearn for that healing touch to make things better for us in this world. What is more, we yearn for that healing touch that will keep us believing in the reality of his resurrection, and in the life of the world to come.

The Pharisees, unfortunately, do not have the humility to admit, even after the great sign of the healing of the blind man, that they are blind, and so their sin remains. It is impossible for them to think that their fidelity to the law of Moses does not automatically make them more worthy of health and prosperity in this world, and more worthy of judging the works of God than this poor blind man, who is obviously a sinner. But the blind man is eventually incredulous that these Pharisees are so prideful and obstinate. The blind man is exasperated by their questioning – he says that it is amazing that those who sit on the chair of Moses do not know where Jesus is from, despite the fact that Jesus opened his eyes. Jesus rightfully points out to them at the end of today’s Gospel that it is their sinfulness that blinds them. They are not humble enough to allow their sins to come to light, and so they remain in darkness. What a powerful impetus today’s Gospel is for each one of us to do a better examination of conscience, and to make a good confession before we celebrate the Easter mysteries! What an incentive for us to intensify our prayer, fasting and almsgiving, so that we can recognize our sins, confess them with sincere repentance, and have our eyes opened before the great celebration of the Paschal mysteries that lies just before us!

The Scriptures during these Sundays of Lent foreshadow the great signs of new and resurrected life that will be present to us on Easter Sunday. The transfiguration from the second Sunday of Lent, and the raising of Lazarus which we will hear next week, prepare us to hear with great joy the proclamation of the empty tomb. The story of the woman at the well heard last week makes us thirst for the renewal of our baptismal promises, and to be sprinkled with the water that satisfies our deepest longing for eternal life. Today’s Gospel about the man born blind points us toward the Easter candle, and to our faith that the light of the Resurrection of one man, Jesus Christ, is powerful enough to scatter the darkness of sin and death forever.

My dear friends, if our eyes are truly open, we will be able to see not only the signs that Jesus performs in the scriptures for us, but also the eternal realities that these signs represent. Jesus came not only to open the eyes of the blind men, but to open the eyes of all men, so that you and I may recognize him most of all when he places himself into our hands, and takes our sins upon himself, and is nailed to a cross. Jesus says if we can recognize him in this darkness of the mystery of the cross, and if we have the courage and faith to conform our lives to the mystery of this same cross, we will also be able to recognize his resurrection, and to profess on Easter Sunday that Jesus Christ is the light of the world!

Homily for Saturday of the 3rd Week of Lent

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/030108.shtml

A saint is always the first one in the confession line. A saint is always the one most dependent on God’s mercy. There is courage, to be sure, in battling valiantly against our weaknesses, using whatever resources are available to us, before finally turning to Jesus for his mercy. The problem with this approach, as we see in today’s Gospel, is that it keeps us looking at ourselves. Looking to Jesus is a last resort just in case we are not able to become like him through our own power. The better way, and in the end, the more courageous way, is the way of the saints, who knew that lasting and meaningful conversion meant self-forgetfulness, an abandonment of self that allows one to look at Jesus as a first option. The goal is not to become like Jesus through our own power, but to let him love us at our weakest point, constantly, by humbly keeping our eyes fixed on Him. Jesus has lasting power over sin and death. We do not. So let us humbly come before him everyday seeking forgiveness for our sins. There is shame in being a sinner, to be sure, but there is more shame in hiding our sins from the one who is stronger than us, and is willing to place his life within our hands.

Homily for Friday of the 3rd Week of Lent

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/022908.shtml

This is a pretty straightforward Gospel. There is mutual agreement between the scribe and Jesus regarding the greatest commandments. Reducing the law to two commandments is not saying that the other commandments are any less important, only that in obeying these two commandments you are not far from obeying them all. More importantly, since Jesus refers to being close to the kingdom of God, He is saying that if you obey these two commandments you are not far from recognizing Him as the Son of God nor from recognizing in the paschal events the mystery of man’s redemption.

We must only refuse to ‘water down’ these two great commandments, and we will be close to the kingdom of God. Lest we think we are close without actually being close, we must not confuse loving God with all our hearts, minds and strength with simply keeping Him as a priority for our lives. The commandment says that it is not enough for our love of God to simply ‘trump’ all our other loves; no, our love of God must be total, which means there is no second place nor is their room for any part of us not to love God. In the same way, loving our neighbors as ourselves does not simply mean being kind and generous to them. No, it means believing that their lives are as real and as important as our own, and in many instances, sacrificing our own desires to make their lives better. This, as we all know, is much harder than it sounds. That is why it is easier to say we are close to the kingdom of God than for us to actually be close.

Homily for Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Lent

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/022608.shtml

Most of us confess being judgmental, harboring grudges, and gossiping about others. There is within us an unwillingness to forgive, to look past things we do not like about others, and to hold on to the hurt we feel we have experienced at the hands of others. Because Jesus knows this is a particular weakness of the human condition, he tells Peter to forgive and to forgive and to forgive. Just so, we should never consider ourselves ‘finished’ with developing a heart that is capable of forgiving others.

Jesus reminds us throughout the scriptures that the measure with which we measure will be measured out to us. He tells us not to approach the Eucharist if we hold a grudge against our brother. This reminds us that it is ok to go to Mass sometimes and not to receive the Eucharist, if we feel like we might receive the sacrament unworthily. While it is true that a few people might be suspicious that we have done something really terrible since we are not receiving communion, in reality we will be doing a great service to our brothers and sisters in helping them to form their own consciences. We will also point them toward a fruitful use of the sacrament of confession, which we should be receiving often, as the way for us to be fully reconciled with God and with our brothers and sisters in the Church.

So we are reminded that we will not be forgiven unless we forgive others. But today’s Gospel goes deeper, and asks us to consider whether the reason we do not forgive others is a lack of gratitude on our part for the forgiveness we have received. We should always assume that the debt we have been forgiven is much greater than the debt we should forgive someone else. This is the virtue of humility which the steward who owed the greater amount lacked. More importantly, we should ask the Lord in prayer if it is true that the reason we are having a hard time forgiving others is that we have not fully experienced or appreciated the mercy of Jesus in our own lives. Perhaps being more forgiving of others is dependent upon our making a better examination of conscience, and a better confession, and thus coming to a greater love for and dependence on the mercy of Jesus in our own lives.

Homily for Monday of the 3rd Week of Lent

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/022508.shtml

Today’s Gospel shows that the signs Jesus performs are not ends in themselves, nor are they meant to command faith in Him. The signs Jesus performs make faith in Him reasonable, but they do not command faith. As we hear often, for the children of this world, the only things signs do is to increase a desire for more signs, and so to create a dependence upon them. It was not Jesus’ mission to do as many signs as possible, only to do those signs that would make faith in Him reasonable, so that He could lead his disciples to the eternal realities of God’s kingdom that it was His mission to proclaim.
So we come to today’s Gospel dictum that a prophet is not without honor except in his own house. The reason signs were performed for the widow at Zarephath and for Naaman the Syrian was that these signs would lead to faith, whereas signs performed for those in Nazareth would only lead to a demand for more signs, because of their lack of faith.
God respects our freedom enough not to overwhelm us with signs, but he loves us enough to provide us with the signs necessary to elicit our faith. The sacraments especially are privileged signs of the presence of Jesus, and they point to the kingdom he came to establish through the great paschal events we are preparing to celebrate. Through the forgiveness of our sins and through our marriage to Christ in the Eucharist, we share in Christ’s eternal victory over sin and death. Any signs that point us away from the Eucharist are signs we would be better off without.