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

will I play my part?

Homily

Solemnity of Pentecost

28 May 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Will I play my part?

St. Paul says in the 2nd reading from 1 Cor that to each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.  I have received the 7-fold gifts of the Spirit, first in baptism then deepened and strengthened in Confirmation, and today stirred up by the celebration of Pentecost, so that I can complete my mission.  

None of us exists for our own sake.  It's the most evil lie destroying lives in the world around us.  It's not my privacy, my truth, my choice, my body.  I don't make sense on my own, for I am relational by nature.  My life is a gift with a responsibility.  This is the worldview stamped into our nature, yet also a truth drawn out so beautifully by the celebration of the Christian mysteries that reach their culmination today in Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

As Travis Kelce said to the trash-talking mayor of Cincinnati after the Chiefs beat the Bengals in the AFC Championship game - know your role!

Will I play my part?  It's a dramatic question that lies at the heart of every life, every story.  It's a question to be discerned in relation to the Holy Spirit, who is sent today to reveal all things, including the meaning of my life.  What is more, the Holy Spirit descends as a fire that puts my soul in anguish until my purpose in accomplished.

Will I play my part?

I pray that through the Holy Spirit you can say a confident yes to this question!  The courage to act with faith in God - to act with confidence - is another gift of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus gives through His Spirit in the upper room to the fearful disciples a courage and peace that will compel each of the apostoles to play his part.  The peace and unity manifested is that no matter how hard the circumstances, there is confidence that through the Holy Spirit each apostles has everything, certainly everything he needs, to empty himself and make a gift of His life.

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.  For my own sake, Jesus invites me through His Spirit, into a cooperation, participation and incorporation into his redemptive mission.  It is through my playing my part, that my own soul is saved, and I arrive at the new, different and abundant life of the Resurrection.

Here we are on day 50, with our Lord saving His best gifts, the 7-fold gifts of His Holy Spirit, for last.

May I confidently answer the question on this year's Pentecost - will I play my part?

+mj

what's your word?

Homily

Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection

9 April 2023

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 for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Can you guess what mine is?  I bet you can!

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

That will be the last word I speak tonight, and forever.  On this word - Risen - I am happy to be everything that I am and all that I ever will be.

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.

Risen is the word of my life.  What's yours?

Tonight my prayer is that you too will shout 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!  In this Church there is no sideline, no bench, no 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 power.  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, we are all pathetic losers!

But I don't profess this word tonight cause I need it to be true.  My conviction about the empty tomb 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 ever 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 from the dead just as He said.  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  

how would I spend my last kiss?

 Homily

Good Friday of the Lord's Passion

7 April 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Center at the University of Kansas

How would I spend my last kiss?

Would I spend it here?

Would I spend it now?

I can tell for sure how I wouldn't spend my last kiss - on the kiss cam!  I hate the kiss cam. I don't got to sporting events to watch PDA.  The inventor of the kiss cam should be canceled.  I don't care if everyone else loves it.  I live in fear that some cameraman far far away would think it funny to put a priest on the kiss cam.  So whenever it comes on I make a beeline for the beer line!  It's a hard no for me.

Yet what's my yes?  How would I spend my last kiss.  Would I spend it here?  Would I spend it now.

At this juncture of the Lord's passion, the last kiss is that of Jesus.  It's a kiss of betrayal.  It's the kiss of death.  Jesus is dead, and I killed him.  That's where the story is.  That's where the story could end.

Yet what if I have one more kiss, a kiss not of betrayal, not of death, but a kiss of reconciliation.

The Good Friday liturgy is famous for its liturgical kiss.  As you approach the crucifix in just a few minutes, you get to choose what your kiss means to you.  Is it the kiss of death, or the kiss of desire for new life.  Is it where your story will end, or where your story truly begins?

For the only love that could defeat death, is a love willing to suffer and lay down its life for it's beloved.  The axis of the cross can only mean two things - it's either the final defeat of love, or the place where eternal life begins.

What if you had only one kiss left.  Would you spend it here?  Would you spend it now?

am I sensitive?

Homily

4th Sunday of Ordinary Time A1

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

29 January 2023  Kansas Day

AMDG

Am I sensitive?

The longer I pray with the beatitudes, the more I'm convinced happiness lies in sensitivity?  How sensitive am I?  How in touch am I with what I am seeing, tasting, feeling, smelling, hearing?  If we look at Jesus's ministry, it affected the flesh as much as the spirit, for the incarnation involves the salvation not of angels, but of persons, who are a unity of body and soul.

The happiness described in the beatitudes counters the numbness and coping that deadens the senses.  Happy are those who can feel everything, the good and the bad.  Only for such people who are sensitive, can the truth that the best is yet to come be realized, and felt.

Blessed are those who are poor, and weeping, and meek, and hungry, and repentant, and chaste, who don't have to be right, and who are unpopular, for such people are feeling things that many people avoid and hide from.  Woe to those who have things, and comfort, and status, who get away with things, who have to be right, are lustful, who use others and who are popular, for such people cannot be alive because they are insulated from the full human experience of feeling.

Only the empty, the vulnerable, the ready, the faithful can feel not only the bad, but even more importantly, the good that God has in store for those who love him.  Only the sensitive can live the truth of our faith that the best is yet to come.

Jesus came not to anesthetize the senses, but to redeem them?   Am I sensitive.  Answering the question is key to real happiness.

what's my word for the year?

Homily

2nd Sunday or Ordinary Time A

15 January 2023

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Do you have a word for the year?  Mine is aggression!

Aggression? That doesn't sound very nice or pastoral, does it? Are priests supposed to be aggressive?  Well, in light of today's Gospel, I think aggression is a great word!

I'm tired of losing my own soul and the souls of those entrusted to me.  Good enough can't be good enough anymore.  John the Baptist tells us the difference.  A baptism of repentance merely cleanses us from the outside in, so we can get along, get by and get on.  A baptism by Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, and fire, leads to transformation, and makes all things new.

What do you want in this new year, and new semester?  Ask boldly for what you want!  I want to be a real spiritual father to the KU Catholic family, a father who weeps when his children weep, and rejoices when they rejoice.  I want to accompany my kids through the ups and downs of life, showing them how much God and I believe in their ability to write the greatest stories of this generation.

John the Baptist says clearly why he exists!  He exists to baptize with water so that we can recognize the one who will baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire!  John the Baptist point to the one who takes away the sin of the world!

Jesus comes to take away sin, not the punishment due to sin.  There's a big difference!  A baptism of water might save us from damnation.  A baptism by the Holy Spirit recreates us to participate in the very life of God!  The baptism we have all received is the latter - it is not merely a washing away of our sins, it is a capacity to sin no more, and to live the fullness of love and happiness for which we are made.

What do you want in 2023?  What's your word?  I want to aggressively pursue this new kind of life, that is not just getting by or getting away or getting along with sin, but leaving it behind, and participating and cooperating aggressively in the paschal mystery of Jesus for the salvation of my own soul and for the redemption of the world!

Aggression!  It's the way to use my anger at the way things are as energy to participate in something new.  

I invite you not to settle for a baptism of repentance, a cleansing on the outside only, a reprieve from the punishment due to sin.  Let yourself dare again the baptism by the Holy Spirit and fire, so that you can aggressively go forth as a missionary disciple, participating and cooperating boldy in the reason why you exist, and go forth into a future to sin no more!