Am I afraid of the 'phog?'

Homily

Solemnity of All Saints

1 November 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I afraid of the 'phog?'

Opponents of KU basketball are supposed to beware.  The message is clear.  The bad guys can't win here.  There is too much tradition to overcome, a culture of winning that spans generations, and a fan base that demands basketball is played at the highest level.

Beware of the phog!

The phog that we Catholics play in and pray in today goes much deeper.  The 'phog' of the Fieldhouse is a nice metaphor for the cloud of witnesses, the saints, who are urging each of us to victory.  The 'phog' which is the intercession of the saints is meant to be unstoppable, so much so that none of us can lose in the quest to become a saint, to participate fully in the eternal and ultimate victory of life over death.

Bill Self's dad famously told him that if he was afraid of losing at Kansas, he shouldn't be the head coach at Kansas.  So much so for us.  If I'm afraid of the phog, I should move aside and let someone else play for keeps.

Take courage, saints!  The victory is at hand to be had.  Each of the saints, many of them much worse off at one point than you are, prayed just like you are praying today, with access to the very same graces and mercies that are mine and yours in this Mass.  It was enough for them to do the impossible, to conquer fear with love and to pass over from death to life.  The transubstantiation of the Eucharist is enough for you too. It's enough for me to be transformed myself, into the saint I was made to be.

What am I ultimately afraid of?  I can't be afraid of my chance to truly live!  Yet in so many ways I am.  My sins show that I am not afraid of death, for I slowly and surely put myself to sleep every time I choose the fantasy of pretending to be someone I'm not.  Halloween is easy, putting on a costume to fantasize about who I could be.  All Saints day is scary!  For today I am confronted by the lives of the saints who are rooting me on to put away my excuses.  Today is a singular day for me to decide anew if I will dare to become who I really am, and embrace without excuse the wonderful and terrible responsibility that I have to become a saint.

Today is a singular day to renew my belief in the truth that the greatest tragedy is not to become a saint, and that the future of the world depends on my not being afraid of the phog.  This isn't hubris, putting myself at the center of the universe.  It's having the courage to engage the reality of who I am and what I was made for.

In the end I believer there are two fears.  I'm either more afraid of death, or life.  Pray God let is not be the latter.  Pray God let me not be afraid of the 'phog.'

+mj

Who have I quit on?

Homily

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

16 October 2022

AMDG

Who have I quit on?

I'll make this pivotal question multiple choice.  Who have I quit on?

a) myself

b) my family

c) my friends

d) God

e) all of the above

f) none of the above

Today's scriptures are about not giving up on anyone, for any reason whatsoever.  The reason is that there is no quit in God.  He doesn't even consider quitting on us.  Jesus is always praying to His Father for us.  He doesn't want to know any different.  So too his disciples.  We are to pray always, without ceasing, with patience and perseverance.

Who I have I quit on?  The answer lies in the ways I have stopped praying.

Firstly, don't quit on yourself.  You are made to be a master of prayer!  Yes, you!  I roll my eyes whenever my spiritual direction reminds me of this, but it's true.  You are made for a never-ending conversation with God.  So don't quit.  To quit praying is to quit on yourself, for nothing happens in life without prayer!

Have I quit on my family?  Yea, in many ways I have.  I forget so easily that every great story is a miraculous comeback story!  Look at your favorite story or movie.  I guarantee you it's a story of prayer, a story of faith.  There has to be a less than 1% chance of things working out, for the story to be compelling.  The hero has to dare faith, to attempt the impossible, or the story lags.  When the impossible happens, glory results!  It can happen in your family.  It will happen.  Believe and pray!  Don't quit.

Friendships are costly!  I have betrayed friends and let them down.  I've been beat up myself. There is such a temptation to quit, to stop praying for friendships, for it's easier to go it alone.  Don't do it!  You are made to have friends and be a friend.  Believe, and pray!

Finally, have I quit on God?  I get it that it's hard to tell if prayer is working a lot of the time.  God can seem distant and slow.  Yet Jesus reassures us that He is merely increasing capacity for something more incredible, some more, to happen sooner than we dare ask for or imagine!  Believe, and pray!

I wish I prayed like I rooted for sports.  I decided long ago to be the best fan in the world.  Without bravado, I don't think there's a greater fan of his teams than me.  I always believe.  I never quit.  There's always a way for an incredible comeback.  I never quit.  I get mad at people who do.  I've been a part of too many comebacks to lose faith, or to stop praying.  It's a big reason why I take interest!

+mj

Do I need to give thanks?

Homily

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

9 October 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Do I need to give thanks?

I'll never forget the time my dad showed up his priest son.  One Thanksgiving morning in Hoxie, Kansas, I confessed to my dad that I was in vacation mode, that I hadn't prepared for Mass.  Ninety minutes before Mass, I hadn't even looked at the Gospel for the day.  My dad told me on the spot without looking what the Gospel was - the 10 lepers being cleansed, with only the single Samaritan returning to give thanks to God.  I guess my dad has been going to Thanksgiving Mass a lot longer than I have.

My dad isn't particularly articulate about his faith, but he doesn't need to be.  He remembers more, and is affected by Mass more than I give him credit for.  Best of all, he walks the walk.  He never even considers missing Mass.  For him it is right and just to give thanks for the gift and responsibility of life.

There are two needs that I have that could use more attention.  There is the need to give thanks, and to give my life.  Notice that perhaps my greatest need is not to get, but to give.  The things I take for granted or hoard own me more than I own them.  I have been stuck in selfish mode more than once in my life, obsessed with what I don't have rather than responding with gratitude and generosity for what I do have.

The Mass is the ultimate thanksgiving.  It is the ultimate place to get more by giving thanks and giving our lives to God.  Eucharist means thanksgiving.  Is it any wonder that if my greatest need is to give thanks and my life, that the largest crowds in human history have been gathered by the Mass.  I've been blessed to have been a part of those crowds.

Mind you, nothing of my worship adds anything to God.  Yet, it brings me life by opening me to the truth that all is gift, all is grace, and my best freedom is to respond generously to said grace.  Worship brings me into right relationship with the source of all grace, and to the part I'm invited to play in the great battle for life everlasting.  

So let us give thanks to the Lord our God.  It is right and just!

Do I need to give thanks?  You bet I do, more and more!

Jesus calls out the nine who get what they need, take it for granted, and go back to their own way.  That sounds about right.  Ninety percent of the time I come not to truly worship, but to check a box before going back to my thing.  The Samaritan leper, and Naaman the Syrian, shame me as foreigners who worship better than I do.

Worship is right and just.  It's proper to our nature; it's what saves and heals more than anything.  May I resist an atheistic world view that takes life as a given, as only what I make of it.  The problem is that I didn't make the world.  I certainly didn't make myself.  Atheism by its incompleteness backfires where worship succeeds.

My dad still teaches me that life is about grace and responsibility.

For that, I want to give more thanks!

Who sees me?

Homily

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

25 September 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Who sees me?

I bet many of you here today are lonely.  If you're not, you might soon be.  It's a normal, common human feeling.  It's nothing to be ashamed of.

The feeling of loneliness is borne of rejection.  I have been forgotten, passed over, betrayed and let down.  I've done the same to others.  So the feeling of loneliness, and the resulting spiritual questions, come often and throughout the whole of life.  Am I alone?  Can anyone see me?  Does anyone care?  Can anyone help?

The key as we see in today's Gospel is to try to relate the feeling of loneliness to God. The Good News is that God sees, and cares, and accompanies us throughout the whole of life, as only He can, if only we let Him.  

That's why a prayer life, an intimate one of shared experience and pain, is critical to entering into life.  There are no shortcuts to relating our experience with God.  You have to put the time in, with vulnerability, if your trust in His care for you can grow.  

As always in the Gospel, my soul is at stake.  We see how easily the rich man, who remains nameless, loses his soul by trying to make a name for himself.  Instead of relating his experience to God, he indulges in self-care, which can never be as life-giving as begging someone to care for you.  In indulging in self-care, an insulated character results, and a soul is lost.

Instead, Lazarus prays.  Lazarus begs.  Lazarus relates.  If only my prayer life was like his.  Is anyone there?  Does anyone care?  Will anyone help me?  In the end that prayer is answered, through much perseverance no doubt, for the Lord hears the cry of the poor.

Why do I have a constant need to be seen, known, chosen and desired?  It's because I'm a relational being.  To be alive is to be in relationship, to be dead is to be alone.  The loneliness endemic to the human experience is a pining for life born of relationship.  It's ultimately a pining for God Himself, for He alone can fulfill what I am made for.  It's nobody's else's job, nor could it be, nor does it help to try to take care of myself, as tempting as that may be.

It's a spiritual question for the whole of life.  God, are you there?  Do you see me?

Who sees me?

Am I exceptional?

Homily

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time C2

18 September 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Am I exceptional?

When it comes to the Gospel, I think I am, but I'm not.

Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money.  Who wants to talk about money?  No one ever does, which is why the Gospel talks about it so much.  Greed is such an easy way to lose my soul, so this cardinal sin has to be confronted at every turn of my life.  Get used to the Gospel challenging my relationship to money for the rest of my life.  And thank God is does, for the sake of my soul.

Everyone thinks they can cheat in regards to money, that I can have my cake and eat it to, that I can have things yet not love them more than God.  Everyone thinks they are exceptional.  No one is.  The Gospel cannot be clearer.  If you cheat in small ways, you will cheat when all the chips are down.  You CANNOT serve both God and mammon.

Yea but what if I don't have as much as others? What if I'm more generous than the person next to me?  It doesn't matter!  There are no 'yea buts,' no exceptions, when it comes to matters of life and death, the salvation of my soul.  I can't have it all, but I can have one thing if I dare it. That thing is the salvation of my soul, which is nothing less than the capacity to suffer and die for who I love.

No one gets around this decision, no matter how much I try to excuse, avoid or put it off.  Will I suffer and die for who I love?  No one gets out of this world without deciding.  The salvation of my soul is always at stake, whether I like it or not.  At an hour I least expect, the chance to suffer and die for who I love will surely come.  The best predictor of whether I will give my life when the chips are down is to look at my bank account, my schedule and my stuff right now.

So how am I doing with that?  I'm not ready, everyone!  I have a cluttered life, one that has plenty of evidence that I am not ready or able to suffer and die for who I love.  I think I am the exception to the rule that you can't love both God and mammon.  Yet I'm not, and Jesus does me the great favor at every turn in my life of calling me out.

The Gospel standard is simple. Give 10% to God first. Then give to the poor. Then meet your responsibilities.  Do this and you will live.  There are no exceptions, no matter how much or little you have.  There are no exceptions, even if I have a hard time trusting the Church or the poor with my money.  It's not about the Church's need or the need of the poor.  It's about my soul.  If I cheat now I also will cheat when my soul is at stake. 

I can't have it all.  Yet the good news is that I can have one thing, the salvation of my soul by giving my life to suffer and die for who I love.

If only I don't try to be exceptional to the Gospel.

Am I exceptional?  In regards to the Gospel, I think I am, but I'm really not.

Who is looking for me?

Homily

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

11 September 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

Annual Feast of Dedication

AMDG

Who is looking for me?

Too often when I hear the 15th chapter of Luke, I zero in on the two sons.  Which one am I?  Who am I?

Yet I think there's a better question in play - not who am I, but where am I?

This is God's original question to man.  Adam and Eve, where are you?  It's the first question mankind has to answer.  The first question might also be the best.

Who is looking for me?

Too much of my life is spent searching for myself.  What is my true, authentic identity?  It can be a fool's journey, not unlike that of the prodigal son, who tries desperate to find himself by running away.  This approach can lead to a frustrating and endless mind game of labels and comparisons.  You know the drill.  You play this game all the time, as do I.

Am I the older or younger son?  Am I Judah or Ephraim?  Am I an old prude or reckless child?  Am I liberal, trying to cast off oppression real and perceived, or conservative trying to hold on tight to what I have.  Am I a prodigal or a Pharisee?  Am I Republican or Democrat?  Am I a modern Catholic or an old school radical traditionalist?  Am I a Pope Francis or Pope Benedict fan?  Do I watch Fox News or CNN?

The either/or label game can last a lifetime and never arrive anywhere.  It's not really the point of the parable.  Either/or comparisons never do justice to the mystery of a person in relation to a transcendent God.  As I am in the image and likeness of God, so also do I transcend human labels.  Either/or labels and comparisons can be interesting distinctions, but must give way to the both/and paradoxes endemic to the mystery of faith.  The point is that I am both the older and younger son.

Which makes room for the ultimate point of Luke 15, which are parables about a crazy shepherd, a kooky old woman, and a foolish Father.  That's who is looking for me, strange as it may seem.

The best identity available to me is to be dumb, worthless and lost.  Why?  Because God reveals Himself as a crazy shepherd who smiles when a dumb sheep pees on his neck.  He parties over a penny while not caring about millions.  He rejoices at the chance to forgiven even as His sons laugh in His face.

Who is searching for me?  It's a better question than who am I.  Apparently, there is someone who has decided He can't live without me, not matter the cost.  

Why would I search for an identity anywhere else?

Will I bet on myself?

Homily

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

4 September 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Will I bet on myself?

The cost of being Jesus' disciple is so high.  Will I pay it?

Hate your family.  Give away all your stuff.  Embrace what is most torturing you.  Then and only then you will be my disciple.  Blessed and happy will you be!

Is it any wonder that so many run from Jesus instead of following Him, that He has so few, if any, true disciples?  Jesus obviously failed sales in college.  Or did He/

Would Jesus even take his own advice?  Can you imagine him saying 'I hate you Joseph, I hate you Mary'?  I sat around a campfire with my family just last night.  It was hard enough to try to love each other as God commands, let alone trying to hate each other too.  

Isn't the cost just too darn high?  Do I even want to try to be Jesus' true disciple? 

Jesus' words in the Gospel are meant to get me just to this question which lies at the edge of faith.  Jesus is always extreme because He has to be, for how else could  my obsession with tinkering with my own life might give way to the question of how I will spend my whole life?

In case you didn't notice this week, sports betting is now legal in Kansas.  Don't do it. It's a tax on stupidity.  Still, if bookies were making odds of my being a real disciple, what kind of odds would those be?   Suffice is to say they would not be in my favor. Still, despite the worst of odds, would I bet on myself?

Thankfully, this question, though pivotal, is not the most important.  What matters is that Jesus would bet on you, no matter the odds.  What matters is that He already has.  You know well how it words.  He empties Himself here of everything given Him by His Father, then sends us just as the Father sent Him.  What a crazy bet.

Jesus is probably worse at betting than He is at sales.  Yet His foolishness is the wisdom of God we hear of in the first reading.  Jesus comes this morning not to buy life insurance or hedge a bet like I have, but to go all in on you.  He's too foolish to want to know any different.

It's in the context of His bet on you, that this week's pivotal question comes.  Despite all odds, will I bet on myself?

+mj