do Jayhawks fight?

Homily

5th Sunday of Easter C2

Graduation Weekend

15 May 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Do Jayhawks fly?

Heck if I know.  On the one hand, the answer seems a hard no.  Have you ever seen a Jayhawk fly?  Certainly not the dozens of Jayhawks affixed to pedestals all over campus.  There are vulgar legends on what it would take for those Jayhawks to fly, that we won't get into here.

On the other hand, Jayhawks sure seem to fly through the air at Allen Fieldhouse.  I dare anyone to tell me that Ochai Agbaji doesn't fly, and he's a Jayhawk!

So do Jayhawks fly, or don't they?  Heck if I know.  Maybe it's a question best left to the Aerospace Engineers in our midst.

Actually, there's a better question than whether Jayhawks fly.  That question is this.  Are Jayhawks fierce?  If you know the history of the Jayhawk, our mascot was created to be meaner than hell.  The Jayhawkers were the ruthless fighters ensuring Kansas came into the Union in 1865 as a free state.  Two feisty birds, ferocious actually, the blue jay and the sparrow hawk were combined into a singularly nasty hybrid known as the Jayhawk.

So the best question for our graduates is not whether you're gonna fly, but whether you're mean, whether you're nasty, in a good way.  Is that you, class of 2022?  You'll always be known as the class that won the 'natty.'  Will you also be known for your tenacity  As you graduate from Jayhawk U, do you know what you're gonna fight for?

Our dream for all of our graduates is that your capacity to write a great story with your life has been greatly enhanced through your education and experience at KU.  Thank you for trusting us here at the St. Lawrence Center to help guide your story.  It has been a great privilege!  We love you, believe in you and will miss you!

I pray that you all have a fierce capacity for commitment, communion, risk, vulnerability, self-gift and contagiosity! These are the hallmarks of a great story.

Jesus personally desires even more for you.  He prays that his disciples will fiercely pursue their capacity to love, as He has first loved us.  Look at the St. Lawrence cross one more time.  See His trust in you.  He believe you can do THAT!  Love one another as I have loved you.  

If you education and experience at KU has freed you to fight for your capacity to love to the end, then you are not only a Jayhawk, you're also a true and real disciple!

So I don't care if you fly.  I just want you to be meaner than hell, and to defeat many evils by the love stories you're gonna write from here.  

Be tenacious, Class of 2022. Give 'em hell Jayhawks!

Your last pivotal question from me is this - do you know what you're fighting for?

How much do I care?

Homily

4th Sunday of Easter C2

WDPV and Good Shepherd Sunday

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

How much do I care?

I can't imagine a more pivotal question for me or for you at this point in history.  It's the perfect question for Mother's Day, Good Shepherd Sunday, and the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.  This is a super busy weekend, and we are cramming as much meaning as possible into today's liturgy.  

How much do I care?  I hope this question holds all the pieces together.

My short answer is, not enough!  I don't care enough.  I don't care enough to fulfill the meaning and purpose of my life, my vocation.  I want to care more than I do.

Why don't I care enough?  To mine the answer to that question is to plunge into the mystery of sin, which I'm not gonna do here.  Suffice it to say that I don't care enough because I'm scared.  I'm scared that nobody cares for me, that I need to grab whatever I can for myself.  This fear affects my care for others.

We're in the fourth week now of the Risen Christ telling us not to be afraid. Today on Good Shepherd Sunday we always hear from the 10th Chapter of John's Gospel.  Jesus desperately wants to reveal to me how much He cares for me.  I am yours.  You are mine.  Nobody can take you away from me.

The problem is that I don't trust this care.  It's too much, too good to be true.  Mary, our Mother in faith did, and so was fearless.  I really stink at it.  Maybe you do too.  It can be the scariest thing, to entrust one's self to the care of another.  I'm good instead of hating to need other people, at my obsession with self-sufficiency.  I'm good all by myself.  I got this.

Again, I don't care enough in life because I'm afraid to let someone care for me, least of all God.  Yet I'm not going to try to fix this problem today either.

Let's just answer the question at its face value.  How much do I care?

No matter how afraid I am, my life still comes with this inherent capacity and responsibility to care for others.  So let's talk vocation.  I have a calling.  It's the same calling given by Jesus to Mary from the cross.  Care for my sheep.  It's the calling given at the end by Jesus to Peter.  Feed my lambs.

It's a calling shared by Jesus to you, if you dare accept it.  Once again, the future of the world runs through not just through my answer to the question, but just as much so yours.  How much do I care?

Can we all agree that we're tired of fighting over who's right and who's in control?  It's been fifty years of Roe v. Wade and legalized abortion in this country, and we're still at war as much as ever.  I'm sick of it.  We're still at war with each other.  We're still at ware with our children. We're still at war with the nature of our own bodies.  We're still at war over what it means to live and what it means to be free.

Why are we still at war?  It's because I don't care enough. I'm afraid to.  I didn't learn this from my mom.  She showed her care through countless sacrifices.  Perhaps my favorite is that my mom made some damn good pies!  My mom could save the world with her pies!  The problem is that me her son is obsessed instead with getting my slice of the pie, and I'll kill anyone who threatens to take my slice.

Yet I'm tired of fighting.  Wouldn't it be better if I was like my mom, and just baked some more damn pies?

The only way that life wins is if there is more care in the world that fear.

How much do I care?

how long is a million hours?

Homily

Funeral Mass of Jake Zimmerman

2 May 2022

St. Agnes Church

Grainfield, KS

AMDG

How long is a million hours?

Grandpa Jake almost found out.  I was doing the quick math on 104+ years last night.  Jake was well north of 900,000 hours.  I'll leave it to the other grandkids to do the precise math.  There's no question that 104+ years was an incredible run.  A good life, a true gift from God.  Well done, good and faithful servant!

I don't think I ever heard grandpa give a speech, not that I can remember anyhow.  My dad has pulled a few off in his days, a toast here and there that were pretty good actually!  I can't remember any from grandpa.  So I don't suppose a long speech to match a really long life is in order here.  I doubt that's what grandpa wanted.  He was pretty measured with his words, at least to me.  Maybe his kids could tell a different story.

How long is a million hours?  It seems like forever, but it's not.  Against the backdrop of creation and human history, it's just a blip. That's why how long you live is less important than how you live.  Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it's just a grain.  But if it dies, it produces rich fruit.

Jake died to himself as much as anyone I ever knew.  He didn't talk about himself, at least not to me.  He didn't pretend to be the center of the world.  He was glad to be alive, to the end for sure, trusting that life has meaning cause God wills it, whether or not we can figure it out.  

The thing is Jake did figure life out.  A million hours for him is just a string of doing the next right thing, and seeing what comes of it.  The world changed a lot during his 104 years and his membership in the greatest generation.  Work hard, go to church, put your seed in the ground, and provide for others.  It's a simple recipe, in sharp contrast to the 'you do you' culture around us.

We all have so much because Jake kept it simple.  We have our faith.  We have our responsibility. We have our family. We have an example of how to do it right.  That's the gift and legacy of grandpa's life, and for it I am most grateful to God.

What if grandpa hadn't gotten off Okinawa and met Helen?  Thankfully we don't have to find out these answers, which makes me ever more in awe of Jake's story, and grateful that I got to be his grandson in person for 48 years.  

I think each one of us knows exactly how to honor the gift of his life, by living by the example he left us. 

I am so blessed to be able to send him home with our love and prayers today.

How long is a million hours?  It's not that long if you go to church, work hard, put your seed in the ground, and see what comes of it.

am I stuck or am I free?

Homily

3rd Sunday of Easter C2

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

1 May 2022

AMDG

Am I stuck, or am I free?

What a dramatic Gospel for the 3rd Sunday of Easter. Good grief! So many different things could affect us at this turn of our lives.  John again recognizes Jesus first, before Peter, just like he did at the empty tomb.  Peter the impetuous one is up to his stunts again, losing his mind and jumping half-naked into the sea with abandon.  Peter then finds superhuman strength and like Popeye drags a net ashore, a net the other apostles combined could not move.

There's a ton going on here.

What's affecting me most is Jesus telling Peter he's gonna be stuck, led where he least wants to go.  This intimate conversation gets to me.  These two characters have been through a lot to get to this point of the story.  How many times has Peter over-promised and under-delivered?  Peter was the one remember who asked Jesus how many times one must forgive.  Ironically, Peter is the one who needs mercy 70x7 times.  Still, Jesus chooses Peter.  He trusts Peter to feed his sheep.  Today we arrive at the only promise that Peter will ever keep.  Lord, you know that I love you.  In response, Jesus says Peter will die with arms outstretched, where he least wants to be.  Powerful stuff!

Peter is finally able to respond, not from overconfidence, not from rash pride, but from that place where his fears and doubts have been redeemed by love.  At this point of the story, love as been fully revealed, fully poured out, and mercy delivered from the Risen Christ.  Finally, Peter is able not to betray, but to love.

Peter receives the news of his death in a place he least wants to go not as a challenge, but as an invitation.  Peter has failed every challenge to date.  From humiliation, Peter this time receives the invitation with humility.

Peter has a passionate desire to love to the end.  It's what he is made for.  It's something that Jesus never gives up on.  The final conversation between these to is about passion, about the love that Peter has to give.

Guess who else has a passionate desire to love to the end?  Yes, you do!  Jesus hasn't given up on your capacity to love either, and begs you this Easter not to be afraid of it.

As you look at the cross right now in light of this conversation between Jesus and Peter, at this turn of your Easter journey, ask yourself this question.  Is the cross before me a challenge or an invitation.

As Jesus asks me what He asks Peter - Fr. Mitchel, do you love me more than these?  I could receive it as another challenge to be stuck now but free later, to suffer through and offer the things I least want and can't change in case there's a resurrection later.  Or maybe there's a deeper invitation in the question - Fr. Mitchel, do you love me more than these?

Maybe Jesus is thirsting for me not to be afraid of my passion to love to the end.  Maybe He is inviting me to a place that I least want to go, but the place where my desire to love is fulfilled now, a place where I am not stuck but free to give my life now, a place where death is already giving way to new life.

Look at the cross again.  Do I have an answer to the question - am I stuck or am I free?

what's too good to be true?

Homily

2nd Sunday of Easter C2

Divine Mercy Sunday

24 April 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

What's too good to be true?

Well, it's the Resurrection, obviously!

Now don't freak out.  I haven't lost my Easter faith in one week.  The Resurrection is the one thing I know to be true out of everything I know to be true.  On this truth I am still happy to bet all that I am and ever will be.

Yet it's also the thing I most doubt.  It's also the thing that's too good to be true.

Is there a contradiction here?  Yea, maybe.  Is there a paradox?  Yes, more likely!  Is there a risk of faith here?  Pray God, I hope so!

It makes sense that your deepest truth will be found where you have made the biggest risk of faith.  Don't take my word for it.  Take the words of the holy martyrs, who are willing to die even today for the truth of the Resurrection.  

Let me say it again.  Your deepest truth will be where you make the biggest risk of faith.  That's what faith is for!  Faith never goes against our reason, but strives beyond it, seeking to receive and understand truths that are beyond what my mind can figure out, manage or control.

That's exactly why my deepest faith in this strange, mysterious, profound, dramatic, and yes most true event of the Resurrection is also the thing I most doubt.

Even more strangely, Jesus is not put off by this!

On Divine Mercy Sunday, the Risen Christ appears in the Gospel to give peace, and to invite his disciples not to put away their fears and doubts, but to let them be penetrated by mercy. The disciples discover that in penetrating the open wounds of Jesus with their own hands, their own wounds, especially their doubts and fears, are also healed.  

This experience had most profoundly by Thomas makes him more than a doubter!  His honesty led Him to the most dramatic encounter with the Resurrection. That makes him my hero.  I dare say he is yours too.

Let's make sure we notice what kind of witnesses the disciples become after their experience of the Lord's mercy on Divine Mercy Sunday!

So it is with a good confession made during this Easter season.  Yes, you heard me right, confession is an Easter sacrament, given by the Risen Christ to the Church on Divine Mercy Sunday.  You can go to confession during Lent all your want, and this is all fine and good, but the best confessions are Easter ones, when we not only have our sins wiped away but the fears and doubts that give rise to sin are healed by a rick experience of God's mercy that makes us new from the inside out.

Jesus is not put off by your doubts.  He invites you into a deeper experience of His mercy.  Through it, the thing that is too good to be true may remain the one thing you know to be true more than anything you know to be true.

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

what's your word?

 

Homily

Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection

17 April 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG 

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 Risen.  He is Risen from the dead.  He is Risen 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 I ever will be.

What's your word?   Tonight is a night set apart to have this conversation, so let's have it!  What's the 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 sing this word - Risen - in liturgical concert with the angels, the saints, and yes, the martyrs who died for this word even today.  Tonight, I 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 all of us, led by our catechumens and candidates and the risk of faith they speak tonight, will get off the couch!  Tonight is no time for a virtual Easter!  To hell with that!  Tonight there can be no sideline, no bench, and no room for bystanders.

You have my answer to the one word that I was made to speak into the world!  What's 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 ever known, the cross on 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 cause I need it to be true.  My conviction about the empty tom is not a vain wish that justifies my life.  No, this word is the fruit of my being a disciple of Jesus.  Jesus never invites his disciples to a wishful faith. That's weak sauce!  No He invites me to follow Him first to the cross to verify 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 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.  Every time I suffer and die with Him, I rise with Him!

It's real people!

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 discovered through the risk of faith to be true.

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. You got next!

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.  This is conviction night - it means 'with victory!' So 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.

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

what if you only had one kiss?

 

What if you only had one kiss?

Homily

Good Friday of the Lord's Passion

15 April 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG 

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

How would you spend it?

I can tell you how I wouldn't spend mine!  On the kiss cam!  I hate the kiss cam.  I know I"m the only one, but I hate it.  Whoever invented it should be canceled.  I don't go to games to watch PDA.  I live in constant fear that some cameraman far far away will get a kick out of zooming in on a priest.  When I feel the kiss cam coming on, I make a beeline for the beer line.

So not there. That's a hard no for me.  Still, where?

What if you only had one kiss left?

Until now, the famous kiss of Christ's passion is a kiss of betrayal. Today we stare the result in the face.  God is dead, and I killed him.  A new nothing is the result of that infamous kiss.  The cross - it's so much darker than the darkness before the dawn of creation.  The cross - it's a new nothing so much more hopeless than the absence of that primal abyss.  Back then, evil just wasn't.  Right now, evil conquers all things, even the love of God!  What could possibly be darker than the death of God?  Wherever ground zero is, at Calvary we are way south of there.  God is dead, and I killed him with a kiss.

That's the end of God's love story, and of mine. We can all go home, unless there is another kiss that counts.  Good Friday is pure evil unless my kiss of betrayal gives way to a more passionate kiss.  That kiss can only be where God died, where He emptied Himself, where He became nothing.  This last kiss must mean nothing less than I want to die with Him.  This last kiss can only be  my embrace of the chance to suffer with, and for and in each other.  The kiss must mean that my mission is His, to to swallow up evil and transform it by kissing my cross, embracing what I least want, what I least understand, and what I cannot control or avoid.

Only a kiss like this could turn the tree of nothing into the axis for the recreation of everything.  Only a kiss like this can transform the tree of ultimate death into the tree of eternal life.

You're invited to kiss tonight only if the cross is never again how your story will end, but only and always and forever where you story truly begins.

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

Would you spend it here?

Would you spend it now?