June 2021: Homilies & Reflection

 Homily of Thursday, July 1, 2021

Christianity can be a great blessing on humanity, or it can be a great curse. As we see in today’s gospel, where the power and truth of Christ is made present, great blessing is given. Unfortunately, in the modern age, It’s more the mediocrity and weakness of Christianity that we see than its strength and truth and majesty. And that’s unfortunate for all of us. Why this reflection this day? Two things.Yesterday, a fascinating article that I read about how all of these public intellectuals, a slew of them, agnostics all, that is unbelievers, they have no belief in Christianity, see the importance of Christianity for western civilization and for our coherence today. Some of these names you may know. Some of these names I certainly knew, and I knew as supporters of the faith though not believers. Others were a surprise to me. The second is today’s feast, the feast of Junipero Serra, who has been very controversial more recently, as you may know.. He is famous for creating most, not all but most, of the missions in California in the 18th century, these Franciscan missions - they are so famous. He is not, perhaps, our present ideal, that is for sure. But his zeal, his holiness, his piety, his goodness, his charity, far outweighed the imperfections and limitations of his time and place. Although he is very controversial now and has been desecrated and humiliated and insulted frequently more recently, I think perhaps misguidedly, still he inspires us to be better Christians . And that is the most important thing of all. All of us, or most of us, I can only speak for myself certainly, fall short of the ideal. The power of Christ is not really present in us as it should be. All that is lacking is a firm resolve, as a great saint once said. Insofar as we live Christ more truly, we manifest his power and the power is there more truly, our institutions, our places, become more Christian and more beneficial to everybody. For time and for eternity. Unfortunately, the vast majority of places or not very Christian. The vast number of Christians are not very Christian, and that’s  unfortunate. But that can change and each of us must do our part to make that different, to change that reality, to make it the opposite of what we see around us.

Homily of Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Today we celebrate the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul, the greatest, I guess, apostles. Paul, after he was converted, early in his career, went to stay for two weeks with Saint Peter in Jerusalem so that he could tell Peter what he was teaching, and see if it was all right. Apparently it was all right, because Paul went on teaching as before. The famous moment which a lot of people like to emphasize, it seems, when they are about to criticize a certain pope or some other member of the hierarchy, is when Paul rebuked Peter in Antioch, because Peter had been eating with Gentile Christians as well as Jewish Christians: a group of pharisaical, I guess, Christian Jews came down from Jerusalem to visit and Peter withdrew and ate only with Jewish Christians again. Paul rebuked him for that as hypocritical and denying the truth, in a way, of the faith, that the Gentiles and Jews were equal in the sight of the Lord and through their baptism. As I say, that is the encounter that often gets talked about between Peter and Paul. There is, however, another thing to keep in mind. In the Second Letter of Saint Peter, he is talking about the end times, the end of the world, the end of time and all that and he says, “Therefore, beloved since you wait for these (that is, for the kingdom to come down upon earth), be zealous to be found by him (that is, by the Lord) without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the forbearance of our Lord as salvation.” That is, he is putting up with us bad as we are. “So also, our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him. Speaking of this, as he does in all his letters, there are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.” Well, I am glad Saint Peter said that, because I find some things in Saint Paul’s writing difficult to understand. If he did also, I guess I am in good company.

Homily of Monday, June 28, 2021

“The glory of God is man fully alive.” Let me say that again. “The glory of God is man fully alive.” This beautiful quotation comes from Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, whose feast we celebrate today: the second-century bishop of Lyons. People who investigate further this fellow are surprised, or shocked even in many cases, to see that the most famous work of this figure is “Against the Heresies.” That is false doctrine, contrary to reality, to truth, to Christian truth. The doctrine here, the heresy here, or “heresies” plural, being that of various gnostic figures - Basilides, Marcion, and so on. If I were a PR specialist of the second-century, a handler, or one of these other folk we hear so much about today, I would have told to Saint Irenaeus in the second-century: Gnosticism is the hottest thing going. You have to understand what is successful, what will get you numbers and money and converts, etc. You don’t have to “go full gnostic” on it: use certain catchwords, certain phrases, etc., tone down a few things, ignore a few things, say things a certain way and you’ll be great. You’ll bring them in. The numbers will come in; the cash will come in; you’ll be a successful bishop. And don’t most bishops want to be successful: in numbers, in cash, and converts, etc. And I am sure there’s a place for that kind of compromise, that kind of modulation. Sometimes it is not the message but the manner in which it is given that is the impediment. But Irenaeus understood fully, more fully than we do today perhaps, that truth will set you free. He understood that only the fullness of who Christ is will heal us, will redeem us, will transform us, make us happy, make us fully alive, as we see from that phrase. That Gnosticism, however attractive it may be, however popular it may be, and God it was really popular from the second century and following, is not the way to go. It is a false teaching; it is a heresy; a poison; death. So we preach the true doctrine of who Christ is: that God became man fully, in body and soul, not just spiritually speaking. We can have the fullness of life. It is a very beautiful thought, but the fullness of life does not come by doing anything and everything. It does not come by believing anything and everything. And that is the great temptation to us: to modulate, to confuse, to mitigate, obfuscate the truth, for success or acceptance or something similar to that. Irenaeus is a doctor of the church. He is a great confessor. He is a martyr of the faith because he knew only the truth could set you free. As our Lord said in today’s gospel: Let the dead bury the dead. The dead cannot bring us life, the fullness of life; cannot set us free, cannot make us whole, cannot give us the highest reality. Gnosticism, then and now, is death. Jesus Christ is life.

Homily of the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (June 27, 2021)

(Readings: Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24; 2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mark 5: 21-43)

Today is the 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time.  The liturgical color of Ordinary Time is green as you see on the tabernacle veil and the priest’s chasuble. Green is the color symbolizing hope, the attitude that carries all of us through life.  We either live lives of hope or we live lives that are hope-less, lives of despair.  Our readings today remind us that hope is built on faith. 

The first reading tells us that God did not make death.  Rather it came about through the envy of the devil.  This is obviously a commentary on the story of Adam and Eve in the garden – how they abandoned their Maker and cast in their lot with the devil instead. When the reading tells us that those who belong to the company of the devil experience death, it’s referring to the spiritual death undergone by those who deliberately abandon their faith in God and with it any hope for salvation, left with nothing but despair.  On the other hand, today’s gospel shows us what happens when hopeful people place their faith in the Lord.  It tells of two desperate people: one a woman with a serious, long-term illness and the other, the father of a dying child. Their anxiety must have been monumental, but neither was hope-less.  Both had enough faith in Jesus to seek from him a miracle.

And that’s the lesson today’s two miracles have in common: the importance of faith.  Jesus tells the woman that her faith has saved her and he tells the little girl’s father: “Don’t be afraid, just have faith.”  In last Sunday’s gospel we heard of Jesus calming a storm on the Sea of Galilee.  This Sunday’s gospel continues the account with his landing and calming a pair of storms of another sort.  As he arrived, he was urgently approached by the leader of the local synagogue whose 12 year-old daughter was dying.  As Jesus was on his way to the house of the synagogue leader, he was delayed by a woman who had been ill for many years. For me, a really striking highlight of these accounts is the very human tenderness and sensitivity of Jesus. He turned to see who had touched him and saw the distressed woman.  He didn’t reprove or embarrass her, which he could have done since by Jewish law, she had just made him ritually unclean.  Instead he called her ‘daughter’ and he made sure she was perfectly healed as he dismissed her saying: “Go in peace”.  He took time to speak with her even though he was already on an urgent mission. Notice too, that after the heart-stopping miracle of restoring the little girl to life, he actually thought of reminding her overjoyed parents to feed her.  He knew that she would have been weak from her ordeal.

We are created as a profound union of body and soul.  Our souls are affected by our bodies and our bodies reflect the state of our souls.  So when our first parents sinned by turning their backs on God, the condition of sinfulness which deformed their souls impacted them bodily as well.  It became the source of fleshly corruption and illness, as well as the harsh fact of death which we have inherited from them. Jesus’ mission among us was the reversal of this hideous process.  His healing of infirmities of the body formed a kind of prelude to his forgiveness of sins of the soul.  He could not have been more clear about this when, in another place, he asked some scoffers: “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk?’ (Matt 9:5)   His point, of course, was that for him, both were equally tenable. Likewise, his raising the dead to life was a kind of preview of his final victory over death itself.  Of course the realization of this deeper significance of his miracles was not fully grasped at the time.  Things became more clear only after his Resurrection when at Pentecost he sent the Holy Spirit to help things along a bit! 

What does faith do? What is its power, its effect?  The result of faith is always divine life in the believer’s soul: the life of God himself.  This is why he came into the world: in his own words “that they may have life, and have it more abundantly .“(Jn 10:10)  The gift of faith enlarges us. It makes us more and more capable of accommodating the astonishing gifts of God.  We’re not by nature able to contain the graces God sends.  But as our faith deepens, as St. Augustine says: “We may hope to receive what God is prepared to give.”  “Daughter, your faith has saved you.”  When Jesus spoke these words to the woman he healed, we hear him speak a principle often repeated throughout the New Testament: that, like her, if we have faith, we will be saved. Many different expressions are used for this effect of faith: “salvation”, “eternal life”, “supernatural life”, “sanctifying grace”, and “being born again” are just a few.  Faith is necessary for salvation.  If we let God into our souls (and that’s what faith is) then we will indeed have God in our souls (and that’s what salvation is).  If we don’t, we won’t.
 
In a few minutes we will. Jesus heals and gives life because the power of divine life is in him. That’s because he is God.  In the Holy Eucharist, when we receive his sacred body and precious blood into our bodies, we at the same time welcome him into our souls. After death those whose souls are imbued with the life of God (that’s what grace is) will find themselves in eternal union with him (that’s what heaven is).   Those who decide to abandon their faith, and losing one’s faith is always a choice, risk with death a second, spiritual death, leaving them forever without him and without hope of return.  That’s what hell is.  The biblical imagery of hell with its fire and brimstone, is probably not meant to be taken literally, but it is most certainly meant to be taken seriously.  What could be more serious than the loss of God forever?

There is simply nothing that makes a greater difference than faith.

Homily of Thursday, June 24, 2021

“Shed blood and receive the Spirit.” Though this line comes from the Desert Fathers, it encapsulates so well why, in so many ways, John the Baptist, John the Precursor as the orthodox call him, is so honored. For which there are many feast days – and even today a creed (so be prepared). “Shed blood and receive the Spirit’ is the epitome of what asceticism, what Christian asceticism really is. By our self-denial, self-sacrifice, by our training, we become full of God, full of the power of the supernatural, full of the Spirit. By emptying ourselves, we become full of God, who transforms us to the fullness of what we were made to be. And the world through us. And that’s pretty incredible. It is a great temptation to think we can have everything for nothing. “Three hots and a cot”: we can do whatever we want and we can still have paradise too. It doesn’t work that way, unfortunately. Nothing can come of nothing. Our self-sacrifice, our self-denial, our asceticism, our training, our preparation, that is what is necessary for divine power, for divine grace, for the life of the Spirit, the life of God. But we are not the losers for doing this, quite the opposite. We are the gainers. We gain everything, and God. And what more can one ask. John the Precursor is so important for so many reasons we can’t get into today, in this short homily, in this short service. But one thing he certainly is, is the paragon of asceticism. Of self-denial and of transformation by the divine power, by the supernatural grace. We must decrease, as John decreased, so that Jesus Christ in us can increase.

Homily of Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Dorothy Day had a teacher and mentor, Peter Maurin, whom she said always was the true founder of the Catholic Worker, though most people continue to believe that she is the real force behind the Catholic Worker. But, Peter Maurin was without a doubt for her a teacher and thinker, and he would produce what he called, “Easy Essays” that got published in the Catholic worker paper and in little books, and this is his “Easy Essay” called “The Spirit of the Mass, the Spirit for the Masses”: 
    
        The central act of devotional life
        in the Catholic Church
        is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
        The sacrifice of the Mass
        is the unbloody repetition
        of the Sacrifice of the Cross.
        On the Cross of Calvary
        Christ gave His life to redeem the world.
        The life of Christ was a life of sacrifice
        The life of a Christian must be
        a life of sacrifice.
        We cannot imitate the sacrifice of Christ
        on Calvary
        by trying to get all we can.
        We can only imitate the sacrifice of Christ
        on Calvary
        by trying to give all we can.
 

Homily of Monday, June 21, 2021

Today’s patron, Aloysius Gonzaga, was an unusually tenacious young man in terms of correcting his own faults, in terms of accepting correction and working with correction, cooperating with it. He inspired a lot of people because of that. He died in 1591, nursing plague victims in Rome. He finally died of the plague: he got it himself and died. He always likened himself to a piece of bent and twisted iron that had to be heated up and bent back into the right shape. That’s a very powerful analogy, when you understand the particulars of it. In the forge, when a bent piece of iron is heated up to a red-hot or a yellow-hot state, it becomes extremely malleable, extremely soft. If the iron weren’t so hot, one could simply hold it with one’s fingers and pull it back into shape. But, of course, we need the tongs and we need the hammer because we can’t handle a red-hot piece of iron: “Only once,” according to the blacksmith’s saying. The iron becomes extremely soft, and the strike of a blacksmith’s hammer is more akin to a gentle nudge than a hammer blow. Visitors to blacksmith’s shops are often very disappointed because they expect to see lots of noise and sparks and violence, and what they encounter is something very quiet, very thoughtful: an interesting disappointment that people have. When I was doing blacksmith work for twenty-some years, I used to arrange those rare days when I had noisy sparks flying and kinds of work like forge welds to do: that’s when visitors would come so they could see what they wanted to see. But, the idea, the analogy, is powerful because as we accept correction, as we accept the love and God-sent corrections that come our way, we are heated up, we become malleable, and when the time comes that the message arrives of what God wants from us, we are in fact quite easily formed back into shape. One of Aloysius’ favorite little adages he got from Saint Augustine, to the effect that when you see faults in other people, find those faults in yourself and accept the correction that they require. When you have overcome those faults, you no longer see those faults in other people. It’s just kind of the opposite of having a plank in your eye. The plank has been removed and you become unaware of other people’s faults if you no longer carry them in your own heart.

Homily of the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time (June 20, 2021)

Storms, like the one we experienced last night are very impressive. They’re impressive for lots of reasons. They are impressive because there is something elemental about them. They are impressive because there is something deeper about them. They are impressive because there’s something beyond human strength about them. There’s something uncontrolled and uncontrollable about them. They terrify and they fascinate. They impress us most of all because they are powerful. The same is true of God. It is not surprising in today’s first reading that God speaks to Job out of a storm. The same is true of Jesus. It is not surprising that Jesus rebukes the storm, so much so that the apostles say: Who is this man that the wind and the sea obey him? Storms are powerful. God is powerful. Jesus Christ is powerful. 

And Christ tells us in the gospels that that power is not just for him. You see it manifested his way of speaking, in his miracles, in his healings, etc., etc. But, all his disciples, after he has left this world, will experience and have this power, and even more so: more impressive miracles will follow. He says that. We see that in the saints. Many of you have probably heard of Padre Pio, the great Italian Capuchin who died in 1968. Very impressive. The best book, oddly enough, on Padre Pio is by an American Lutheran minister, Bernard Ruffin, whose third edition, expanded and revised, came out in 2018. And it’s a very impressive book. And it’s impressive not only because Padre Pio was impressive: the stories of his healings, bi-locations, reading of souls, etc., etc., are so impressive. And they are terribly, terribly impressive and well-documented. But because we see him “in the round.” The great danger of many saints’ lives is that they idealize and idolize their characters, eliminate all the difficulties and temptations, and the things that would kind of confuse us, which is wrong. A saint’s life is only useful to us insofar as it is true. And Padre Pio and his family and his time period experienced lots of things all of us experience every day: stupidity, ignorance, cruelty, selfishness; in the church, outside the church; within his order, outside his order; in his own person. Stuff happens. And yet, it’s extraordinary. This is not to say that every saint should be imitated in every respect. They are all singular, all unique. 

But we are called, according to the gospel, to an extraordinary existence. We should experience divine power, and if we are not experiencing some divine power, some element of this power that Christ gives to all of his disciples, then there is something wrong with us. I think we have to admit this and say this. And correct it. All of us are guilty. No one is innocent. All of us have failed so often to become the people we should be. We know this. Knowing this is the first step to becoming better. He offers enormous power to be different, to be better, to be transformed, to be a new creation in Christ as we see in today’s second reading. We are made to experience powerfully, truthfully, the supernatural existence that God offers us in Christ, His Son. This is our destiny; this is our path. And if we are not experiencing that, then something is amiss in our lives. We can admit this, that something is amiss. We could be better than we are. We could do more than we are. We could be very different than we are. But today Christ calls us through his gospel, through today’s Mass, through the readings we experienced today, and the Mass itself, a power, a life, an existence that transcends this world. 

All we have in this world, we’ve been gypped. This is not enough. This is not sufficient. This is not satisfying. It never was, it never could be. No matter how full our bellies are, no matter how much we have, no matter what we have, it’s not enough. Pain, suffering, death, confusion, etc. happen. Everybody, the whole universe, is called to something much more. And people like Padre Pio prove this. They show it is possible that all of us can experience in certain degrees the supernatural existence. If we pray, if we pursue virtue, if we do the things we should do. It is for us, for our happiness: true holiness makes us whole, makes us perfect, makes us complete, gives us joy. But nothing comes cheap, and nothing comes easy. Our Lord told us in the Book of Revelation: Behold, I make all things new. And that is true. This is not a lose-lose world, where nothing you do can give you happiness, ultimate transforming happiness. It is the opposite. If we will, if we wish, it will become a win-win world. There is always happiness available. There is always success available. For everyone, the most pathetic of us, the most undeveloped among us, the most small, the smallest among us. That’s amazing! That’s extraordinary! That’s what we’re called to experience. So, though holiness is not easy, it is available. God is always sending His grace and power to make us partakers of the divine nature, to transform us, to fulfill us, to complete us, to bring our virtues to their fullness. It is really up to us, which is the kind of scary thing. It is really up to us to fulfill that destiny, follow that path, to walk as a as a true disciple. I wish it were easy. I wish God would give me the battleplan and say just do this and do this and do this, but He doesn’t, unfortunately. Maybe for a few people he does, but not for me, certainly. Not for most people, in my experience. But we are called to holiness. This is not enough, this is not sufficient, this is not good enough. We are called to the best, the best, which is God himself. Yes, he does make all things new. And in Christ, we are a new creation.

Homily of Saturday, June 19, 2021

This is the feast of Saint Romuald the Abbot and this is what Donald Atwater says about him: he was born at Ravenna around 950 (and he was I believe a monk of Cluny not of the Abbey itself but of one of its dependent monasteries); eventually he felt called to the life of a hermit. It is said that he fled the world as a young man in horror when his father killed a relative in a quarrel about property. Romuald became an important figure among those 11th-century monks who sought to reform contemporary monasticism in the direction of greater solitude. (Of course, the other saint notable for that is Saint Bruno, who is the founder of the Carthusians.) Romuald eventually left the Cluniac monastery of San Miniato and for many years went from place to place preaching the values of the solitary life and establishing a hermitage here and a community there. The two most important of these foundations were the hermitage of Fonte Avellana in the Apennines and the semi-eremitical monastery Camaldoli near Arezzo. Saint Romuald had considerable influence in his time and after his death, Camaldoli became the head of an organized group of houses. These hermit monks still exist as a small independent order of Benedictines. Saint Peter Damian was a disciple of Saint Romuald and wrote his biography, and he was a great reformer of the church at that time. (I think there are two Camaldolese monasteries in this country; I think the best known is Big Sur in California.)

Homily of Wednesday, June 16, 2021

It is clear in the gospels that Our Lord does not like hypocrisy, especially in religious people. And all of us this morning here are, just by definition, so to speak, religious people. So, we have to be more cautious, more careful to avoid hypocrisy, that is doing good things not to honor God or to help our neighbor, but for our own benefit, for our own reputation, for our own self-esteem. Well, how do you avoid hypocrisy? The thing that comes to mind is clear, definite, daily examinations of conscience. People go to confession less and less these days, it seems, which probably means people are not examining they are consciences as much as perhaps people once did. And that is something we should watch in ourselves. What are our motives? Why do we do this, that, and the other thing? And you may find that your motives are mixed. In that case, then one would have to try more and more to purify one’s motives.

Homily of Monday, June 14, 2021

God is always sending grace. God is always offering opportunities for spiritual growth. But it is a quality of human beings to always wait for the best moment, the most propitious moment, to do something. That’s a mistake. There are better times and worse times in the spiritual life, to be sure; greater opportunity and lesser opportunity. But there is always opportunity. There are always graces; there are always gifts. There are always chances. And to wait for the most propitious time, the best time, etc., is misguided. If we want to follow Saint Paul, as we heard about in the first reading, and from Our Lord himself, every moment is a day of salvation. Every moment is the time: the time of grace, the time of opportunity; good times and bad times, all times. Let us use every opportunity to grow in grace – some more, some less; some more difficult, some a lot easier. But we will become the people we wish to become. Saint Paul is extraordinary; Saint Paul is not us, for the most part. But all of us will meet difficulties and temptations and trials, as well as blessings and gifts. Know that no one follows Christ without following him in everything, the good and the bad both. But every moment, every time, every opportunity is an opportunity. And every time is the time. So, this is the time for our salvation; now is the time for our salvation. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the day and acceptable time for our growth in grace.

Homily of Saturday, June 12 (Immaculate Heart of Mary)

The feast of Our Lady’s Immaculate heart has a special place in the Fatima story because, according to Lucia, our Lord wants his mother's heart to be specially honored. That is because, of course, her heart was united with his, even, as we have in today's gospel, in moments of perplexity when she did not know, really, what he was up to. This is from a discourse by Pope John XXIII: “My dear brothers and sisters in Christ and in the love of Mary: the sacred altar is the meeting point of all that is, for the Christian and the Catholic vision, a vision of heavenly doctrine inspired by divine grace, the inexhaustible source of strength, holiness, and joy in our life here below and in the certainty of the eternal life to come. Follow me (Pope John speaking of himself) to the blessed altar of my sacrifice, which is a sacrifice offered for you and with you, for all that is dearest to you in the innermost sanctuary of your souls and in your family life, and in the various relationships of your civil and social activity. The land where we were born, which is so dear to us, is also always, even when resplendent with natural beauty, full of thorns and of things which cause us distress and pain. True comfort is found only in union with the cross of Christ and his sufferings, united with the sorrows of his mother, who is our mother, also. O how beautiful it is, and how consoling, to believe, live and pray with our mother Mary, sharing in her love with son, the Word of God made man for us, as a sign of blessing, prosperity and peace amid the uncertainties of this present life, in the certain hope of the eternal joys which await us.” 

Homily for Friday, June 11, 2021 (Sacred Heart) 

Today's feast marks a particular emphasis for us on the infinite, unconditional, eternal love of God for us. As our culture, and we along with it as part of it, seem to be entering a phase of greater contentiousness all of the time, this is a very important idea, a very important concept - something I think we have trouble getting our hands around every day. It is worth thinking about. In 1989, Pope John Paul II did a series of Wednesday conferences that were devoted to each of the points of the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As everything that this great saint wrote, this series of Wednesday audiences is studded with absolutely shocking and stunning and attractive insights into, in this case, the heart of Jesus. Here is one for today that I think is a real dandy. It describes his heart in relation to the heart of his mother, Mary. This is just part of it that I am reading, this isn't the entire meditation for the day. John Paul says: “The Spirit molded the Heart of Jesus in the womb of Mary, who collaborated actively with him as mother and educator. As mother, she adhered knowingly and freely to the salvific plan of God the Father, accepting with trepidation and silent adoration the mystery of the life which had germinated and was developing within her; As educator, she had molded the Heart of her son; with Saint Joseph she introduced him to the traditions of the Chosen People, inspired in him a love for the Law of the Lord, communicated to him the spirituality of the ‘poor of the Lord.’ She had helped him to develop his intellect and exercised a sure influence in the formation of his character. Although knowing that her Child surpassed her because he was "the Son of the Most High" (Lk 1:32), the Virgin was no less solicitous for his human upbringing. Therefore we can truly say: in the Heart of Christ there shines forth the wonderful work of the Holy Spirit; in it there is also reflected the heart of his Mother. May every Christian heart be like the Heart of Christ: obedient to the Spirit’s action and to the Mother’s voice.”

Homily of Wednesday, June 9, 2021

On this feast day of the great Saint Columba of Iona, great apostle, great missionary of Christianity to northern Scotland, to pagan northern Scotland, we should ask ourselves: why is the church and why should we be missionary? And lots of answers have come about in the past. Some would say to spread Western Civilization, Democratic Capitalism, Modernity – or to spread the virtues of hygiene, public toilets, or better farming methods, or something of that sort. Some might believe or might think unconsciously that it is by doing stuff that we achieve stuff, we become relevant, we become significant, more scalps in our belt. The only reason why we should be missionaries, why we should give or try to give Christ to others, as Saint Columba did, is because we have received a gift, the gift of Christ himself, the gift of salvation, the gift of power, the power from on high. That we are in a sense really Spirit-bearers. We have been touched by the Holy Spirit; somewhat transformed by the Holy Spirit (there is always more room for improvement, to be sure) – and want to share that with other people. That is the only and best reason we should be missionaries, why the church should be missionary. In the past, we’ve said lots of things: Western Civilization, this, that whatever. And those have been lures to try to get people to attend our schools, to do this, to do that, to convert, etc. and that is really not right. The only reason why you should become a Christian is because you believe in Christ, you’ve been transformed by his power; or, you could be transformed by his power if you let him. So, on this feast of this great saint, this apostle of Christianity, this great missionary, let us become true missionaries, and the best missionaries “are,” they don’t “do.” By being what they are they become missionaries. By being true Spirit-bearers, being true followers of Christ – which is not always easy as we know – the more we pray, the more we go to the sacraments, the more we’re transformed, we automatically, without effort, without thought, become true missionaries. We become like Saint Columba, a true missionary. On this feast, let us ask God for the grace let us use our means, our free will means, of trying to achieve that grace which God is always sending. And before we know it we will be a different people, happier people, better people. It doesn’t end suffering, it doesn’t end pain, it doesn’t end failure, disappointment, defeat, etc. Those things will still happen in this world, but we will do better at them, and we will be better at them. And we will convey to people something powerful, something transcendent, something beyond this world, something truly supernatural. And that is where we have failed in the most recent era. We have forgotten that it is the supernatural that attracts people, the transcendent, the powerful, the awesome, the healing, the fulfilling. As Christ came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, so we can fulfill all of that in ourselves, in our own lives, more and more so every day.

Homily of Monday, June 7, 2021

Today’s gospel is the well-known Sermon on the Mount, which forms part of the central core of Matthew’s gospel. Very often the Sermon on the Mount is kind of a hard sell when one is teaching catechism, because of the poor attitude people have – not just young people, but their parents as well – since Vatican II regarding the commandments. I remember one parent saying to me once, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was ‘No!’” That was his whole attitude toward the commandments. It’s funny, but I remember explaining to that person that that really indicated a very sad attitude toward rules, regulations, laws, things like that. When we look at the Sermon on the Mount, basically, it does not introduce any new precepts that were not already in existence in the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament. The magic word is the first word of each of these: “Blessed are the…” The word translated as blessed is the Greek “makarios”, which literally means a simple happiness. It isn’t just happiness from having a big car and a good friend and everything. It has a much larger meaning for the word “happiness” than we often think. It’s the ability to spread love. It’s the ability to transfer the goodness that you are to other people. Blessed are the peacemakers Blessed are the humble.  

What Christ is saying with the Sermon on the Mount is a very clear message with each of these: that the rules, the law, the lessons that we learn are basically the condition of our freedom. They don’t stifle our freedom. I taught art for many years, and one always had to get over that little berm of resistance with people who, really beginning in the late 1950s, began to believe that learning rules and regulations stifled their creativity. So, we had a whole generation of artists who never learned to draw, never learned the laws of perspective, all producing pretty much the same boring work, identical to each other. They never learned grammar, so their writing was boring, things like that. Never learned to sing, so they’re singing sounded more like car horns than human voices. Basically, the condition for our freedom is the Law; it really is. That’s a different attitude toward the Law. I think one of the best expressions of it is a single line from a poem by one of my favorite poets, Dylan Thomas. One of his poems ends with the line that I always think of when I read the Beatitudes: “I sang in my chains like the sea.” I think that’s a very beautiful thought: singing in your chains like the sea. The chains are not something that keep you from singing. They make the singing possible, they really do. So, the Beatitudes are really worth their weight in gold in terms of a new look at what are in essence the Ten Commandments. 

Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Sunday, June 6, 2021)

There are three feasts that the church celebrates at this time of the year, all of which depend more or less on the date of Easter, which of course changes from year to year. And those three feasts are Mercy Sunday – the Sunday directly after Easter, the first Sunday after Easter. That goes back to revelations of God’s great mercy to a nun – Sister Faustina. The next feast is the feast of the Sacred Heart, which we celebrate this coming Friday, which is the result of revelations of divine love and mercy to Saint Mary Margaret Alacoque. And then there is today’s feast, the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, or now we say the Body and Blood of Christ. And that goes back to the 13th century (Sacred Heart is from the 17th century). Corpus Christi is from the 13th century in Liège, Belgium, to a nun, Sister Juliana, Saint Juliana. All three women are canonized saints. The Lord said to her he wanted a feast in honor of the Mass, the Eucharist, Holy Communion. And Sister Juliana got her bishop in Liège to celebrate such a feast. Then her friend, a priest of the diocese, eventually became pope and extended the feast to the whole of the church. The emphasis of all three feasts is summed up, in a way, in what Our Lord said to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. He showed her his wounded heart and said that that heart is what suffered and died because of God’s love, His love, for the human race. In a sense, that’s the meaning of these three feasts – to put before us the love of God for us. Of course, today the emphasis is on the presence of the sacrifice of Christ in the Mass, and his presence – his real presence – in the Eucharistic elements, the bread and wine which become his body and blood.

These are catechism questions which are based on Catechism of the Catholic Church. These are drawn from what is called the Compendium of that greater catechism:

• The question is: What is the Eucharist? What is the Mass? The answer is: the Eucharist (which means thanksgiving, remember) is the very sacrifice of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, which he instituted to perpetuate the sacrifice of Christ throughout the ages until his return in glory. Thus he entrusted to his church this memorial of his death and resurrection. It is a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace and a pledge of future glory is given us.
• Another question is: In what way is the Eucharist a memorial of the sacrifice of Christ? And it says: the Eucharist is a memorial in the sense that it makes present and actual the sacrifice which Christ offered the Father on the cross, once and for all, on behalf of mankind. The sacrificial character of the Holy Eucharist is manifested in the very words that Jesus used at its institution: This is my body given for you. Given is a sacrificial word in that context. And: This cup is the new covenant in my blood which will be shed for you. “Given” and “shed.”
• And then finally: How is Christ present in the Eucharist? Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist in a unique and incomparable way. He is present in a true, real, and substantial way, with his body and his blood, with his soul and his divinity. In the Eucharist, therefore, there is present in a sacramental way, that is, under Eucharistic species, appearances of bread and wine, Christ, whole and entire, God and man.

That is a great teaching, that is a stumbling block for many. We are told that about 50% of people who say they are Catholic in this country don’t believe that. They believe that the bread and wine are a symbol to make us think about, maybe, Jesus’ body and blood, but they are not in fact what it is. But, the teaching of the church has always been that they really become, in spite of appearances, the body and blood of Christ. This is difficult. This is a doctrine we accept and believe by faith. Saint Paul says we live by faith and not by sight.  

There is another Saint who was a nun, Catherine of Bologna, who lived in the 15th century. She was severely tempted to disbelieve the teaching of transubstantiation, the belief that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ. Of course, she fought against that temptation. She said that she heard Jesus say (and, by the way, of course, not all of us must believe all revelations, but the church obviously, in all the three feasts, accepts something very real about those revelations about Jesus) – Saint Catherine of Bologna Jesus said to her: Always keep in mind that the real effects of receiving the Blessed Sacrament have nothing to do with your feelings, your sensibility, your emotion. Those who are patient and undergoing such trials (that is, not feeling those things – maybe feeling dry, uninterested, bored), those who have the trials of doubt gain more by continuing to receive Me (Jesus is speaking) in Holy Communion, than if they had been favored by great spiritual consolations.

    Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Boniface, the Apostle to the Germans and a patron saint of Germany. This is also an important feast for the English Benedictine Congregation. Before St. Boniface was given the name “Boniface” and sent to the province of Germania as a missionary bishop by Pope Gregory II, he was Winfrid, a Benedictine monk in Nursling, a village in southern England. However, he turned down the opportunity to become their Abbot, and instead ended up changing the entire continent: converting many in Germany, and working on reform of the Frankish church, and especially its clergy, under Charles Martel and his son Carlomon, before ultimately meeting his end in Frisia, in the modern-day Netherlands. This work would help to create the medieval world of Christendom, exemplified by Charlemagne, the grandson and nephew of the Frankish kings St. Boniface worked with, who would unite all the lands St. Boniface worked in under a new Roman Empire, although that would only last through his lifetime.

    In some ways, St. Boniface is the model of a type of English Benedictine monk, the missionary. Like St. Augustine of Canterbury, the Apostle to the English, and St. Willibrord, the Apostle to the Frisians, St. Boniface went to Rome, where he received a commission and was ordained as a missionary Bishop. When he reached Germany, he preached to the people, and the rulers, and established a monastery near Fritzlar, in Hesse, as a base of operations. According to the lives written about St. Boniface shortly after his death, the chapel, the first part of this monastery built, was built from the remains of the sacred tree, Donar’s Oak, after St. Boniface, helped by a miraculous gust of wind, chopped it down, leading directly to the conversion of many in the area.

    As monks of the English Benedictine Congregation, and heirs to the legacy of St. Boniface, we share in the obligation of the Church to evangelize the world, converting those who have never heard the Gospel, and restoring to the faith those who have lost it. As a monastic house with a school, our primary method to achieve this is through teaching the faith through our classes and our way of life. I will end with some words written in a letter by St. Boniface that can also serve as instructions for us in our mission. “Let us be neither dogs that do not bark nor silent onlookers nor paid servants who run away before the wolf. Instead let us be careful shepherds watching over Christ’s flock. Let us preach the whole of God’s plan to the powerful and to the humble, to rich and to poor, to men of every rank and age, as far as God gives us the strength, in season and out of season.” St. Boniface, pray for us.