Category: religion & theology

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Your Mission: Convert the World

Audio Version, recorded at the 5:15PM Mass on Sunday, July 28, 2019 at Blessed Sacrament.

If God could find even 10 innocent people within the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, he would have let them remain. I’d encourage you to read the rest of the story if you haven’t. Parents, just a warning, if it were a movie, it would be rated “R.” But as we continue to read the story, we find a few things: how a certain sin got its name, just how bad things were in those cities, and that—even after all Abraham’s pleading—God did destroy the cities. God is incapable of lying: similar to a square circle, it doesn’t even make sense to describe God as a liar—he is the essence of truth. If God did destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and he did make that promise to Abraham, that means he could not find even 10 people in those cities capable of being saved. “For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy it.”

Friends, I am concerned about our world today. Our societies seem to be plunging deeper and deeper into sin. There is so much confusion and sin around sexuality, the meaning of life, and simple basic morality that our society has, sadly, grown used to sin. It cannot stay this way. We cannot simply stand by and let it stay this way. As Catholics, as Christians who follow Christ, as human beings who love our neighbors, we cannot stand idly by and allow society to destroy itself. We know that God is infinitely merciful to those who follow him. He saved Lot’s family, the only innocent one in Sodom and Gomorrah; however, that does not mean he is not just. Lot’s wife, after having been warned of the destruction of the cities, why they were being destroy, and the consequences of turning back to the cities, was turned into a pillar of salt for turning away from God. Despite what many of the academic elites, the media, the politicians tell us: there is a God, there are universal truths, and there are universal moral norms by which we are bound. Despite what society would have us believe, every action we take matters. We do not get to start the level over as if life was a game or something like that. We do not have the luxury of getting a second try when we pass on from this life. We have one life, and the actions of this life have eternal consequences for our souls. As a side note, this is one reason that confession is so critically important for our souls—it is, in effect, a reset button for our lives, which allows us to cast off our sins and start back over on our path toward God. Sin is serious business: we must cast it out of our lives.

Brothers and sisters, it is not just our lives at stake. Our Lord called us to be the ones to lead others to him. Each of us was called to make disciples and to teach the faith, because every single person on this planet is in the same, eternally serious situation. If they aren’t Catholic Christians, they might not even recognize the stakes. While God won’t hold what they are incapable of knowing against them, they are capable of knowing universal truths. Everybody must follow those. If they are Christians, they are in a particularly dangerous situation. At our baptisms, we became bound to follow God in a uniquely Christian way. The Church knows the high standards to which God holds us, and those who refuse to follow her are refusing her help in reaching those standards. It is an even more precarious situation for those who have fallen away from their Catholic faith. Frankly, they have turned away from the mercy God is willing to offer, because, for one reason or another, they think the world has offers something better. These poor people have thrown away the “reset” button that God offers us through Confession, and they’ve denied the love God wishes to offer them in the Eucharist at Mass.

So what can we do about it? I know what we can’t do. We cannot sit idly by and allow our society to fall apart. We cannot sit idly by and allow our neighbors—who we are called to love—to turn away from God. We must do something.

We can start by getting our own lives in order. The first step is prayer. The Gospel today teaches us how to pray. In the Lords prayer, Jesus teaches us what we should ask God to give us: freedom from sin and the strength to follow his will. In the following parable, he teaches us how we should pray: persistently. Make time to pray. Included in prayer is the sacraments. Make use of confession, and attend Mass, at a minimum, every Sunday. There is nothing you could possibly be doing that is more important than going to Mass on Sunday. Sleeping in, sports, work—these things must be second in our lives to God. He really is that important.

Just by getting our lives in order, we bear witness to Christ, but we can’t stop there. Our faith must inform our every moment, our every decision. We have to read and learn about our faith so that we can respond to others who ask about it, and so that we can understand it ourselves—especially in those areas where we harbor doubts about Church teaching. The Church is right, and sometimes our emotional attachments to this world—and even to other people—prevent us from comprehending the beauty and consistency of Church teachings. We must stand up for what is good and right, publicly, even—no, especially—if it is hard. As if that weren’t a great enough challenge, we must do all these things with charity. It doesn’t help to beat others over the head with a Bible, but it also doesn’t help if we never bring up God and his teachings.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ and his Church need you. They need you to spread the Gospel, to stand up for the truth, to be beacons of light in a world darkened by sin. It is not just Jesus and his Church who need you. My brother priests and I also need you, because we cannot do this by ourselves. We need your help. You can reach people we can’t. When Jesus ascended, he left us in charge. The Spirit will be with us to help us, but we have been given the task to must teach the world to hallowed God’s name. We must help God’s kingdom come into the world. We must receive our daily sustenance from God. We must forgive others and help them to forgive. We must work to convert the world, teaching everyone around us to live their lives in a way that they are never subjected to the final test.

Note: This was written and preached for the weekend of July 27-28, 2019. It was published online on August 14, 2019.

Today’s Readings:
July 28, 2019
17th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 138; Colossians 2:12-14; Luke 11:1-13

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Mary and Martha

Note: Sorry for the (very late) posting of this homily.

Nearly every time I read this weekend’s Gospel, I find it incredibly frustrating. Martha is trying to be a good host, but she’s struggling to get everything done. She is obviously frustrated that her sister Mary doesn’t come to help. I feel her pain, as it seems many hosts across the country do. I must admit to you all, I have a subscription to Bon Appétit magazine. When I got tired of reading German theologians arguing about whether “People of God” or “Body of Christ” was a better image of the Church in seminary, (pro tip: it’s both!) I switched to lighter fare like Bon Appétit to give my brain a little break. From this scholarly journal, I’ve learned that hosting a dinner party or the holidays is on the same levels of stress as a root canal. If I remember correctly, the Christmas issue last year had a multi-week plan of attack for how to host a stress-free Christmas party for family.

What I’m getting at, I suppose, is that hosting people who come over to your house is hard. I’ve seen the trouble people go to when they invite us priests over, and it’s truly humbling. If I invited God Himself over for dinner, I can only imagine how perfect I would try to make the menu, how sparkling the appliance would be, how stuffed into closets all my junk would be. Like Abraham in the first reading and Martha in the Gospel, I’d be running around like a crazy person trying to get it all done. I read this passage, and I just want to give Martha big hug and say, “I feel you, Martha.”

But that’s not what Jesus does. Not even close. Instead he tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better part. She’s too anxious and worried about things, Jesus says. Jesus simply wants to share himself with his friends: the serving can wait. Jesus isn’t concerned with how clean the house is; he isn’t concerned about whether the lasagna is a bit burnt or whether the steak is medium-rare as opposed to medium (although I personally want to believe he does care that it isn’t cooked any more than that…); he isn’t concerned about the toys that the kids left out. Jesus wants us. When Jesus enters under our roof—as he does every moment of our lives, but in a special way at Mass—, Jesus simply wants us. He wants us to open the doors of our hearts to him. He wants us to listen to him. He wants us to follow him. He wants us to leave behind our concerns for the world—even for just a moment—and be with him.

You may have noticed, though, that I said Jesus is with us every moment of our lives. If he wants us to simply be with him when he is with us, and he is always with us, then how could we ever get anything done? Fantastic question. That is why the Church is so concerned about what Catholic do with their lives! In every action we take, Christ is with us. Every action, then, should in some way be oriented toward God. St. Josemaría Escrivá wrote that, “there is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it […]. There is no other way. Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or else we shall never find him.” (as quoted in The Navarre Bible: Standard Edition: Saint Luke’s Gospel, pg. 112)

We cannot avoid being a bit like Martha in our modern times, but the Lord reminds us to remember to imitate Martha’s sister Mary and stay close to Him. This is easy to say and hard to do, but nobody ever said living the Catholic life was easy: Jesus even promised us that it wouldn’t be! Then, though, he revealed to us the richness of his glory and his deep generosity. In return for living our lives as his disciples, Jesus promised us the Kingdom of Heaven, and that promise is worth everything we have, everything we are, and everything we might ever do.

Note: This was written and preached for the weekend of July 20-21, 2019. It was published online on August 14, 2019.

Today’s Readings:
July 21, 2019
16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
Genesis 18:1-10a; Psalm 15:2-3, 3-4, 5; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

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The abundant harvest

As the seventy-two disciples return from their mission, they are rejoicing! They tell Jesus that even the demons are subject to them. Jesus responds positively, saying he’s seen Satan fall like lightning, but then he cautions the disciples. “Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you,” he says, “but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” What does Jesus mean by this? Isn’t casting out demons a good thing? Shouldn’t we rejoice over that?

Imagine this scenario with me. A good man has run his own company for many years. He has many employees and has been very successful. He and his wife are getting older, though, and they have decided that it is time to retire. For years, the man’s daughter has been working alongside him, learning the business, but not really in charge. A few days after the man retires, the daughter—now in charge of the large and successful business herself—comes to visit her father. She says to him, “This is amazing! As soon as I decide something will be done, hundreds of people make it so!” The man says to his daughter, “This is good, as it should be. But never forget, that power you wield is for a greater purpose.”

Brothers and sisters, it is all too easy to rejoice in the gifts we have been given by God and to completely miss the whole point of the gifts. Why does God give us all the gifts he has given us? The answer is right in the Gospel: “the harvest is abundant but the laborers are dew; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for the harvest.” This verse is often used in reference to priestly and religious vocations, but it applies to each and every one of us here today. We are all called to be laborers for the Lord. We are all called to bring souls to the Lord. All of us, disciples of Christ, are called to be missionaries. God gives us our many gifts so that we can labor in his harvest. He gives us our many talents so that we can not only bring our own soul to him, but so that we can go out into the world and bring ever more people to Him!

You may be thinking, “I have no idea how to be missionary! I don’t know Catholic doctrine and church teaching nearly well enough to be a missionary! I don’t know the Bible nearly well enough to teach others about it!” I understand your concern, but the first part of being a missionary is becoming a living witness of Christ. Saint Pope John Paul II wrote, “People today put more trust in witnesses than in teachers, in experience than in teaching, and in life and action than in theories.”1 We don’t have to be Ms. Happy-all-the-time or Mr. Always-has-the-Catholic-answer. We must simply live in the hope that our Savior gave us when he wrote his law on our hearts and made us new creations at our baptisms. Maybe today, or this week, or this year, or even this decade, was rough, but I have something amazing waiting for me on the other side of this life. When we live this way, knowing what Jesus did to make that possible for us, we radiate an inner peace. That peace attracts people. Everybody is in search of that peace. They might ask us what it is that is different about us, or even about our faith. This is our chance to give a joyful witness to Jesus! If we don’t have answers, seek them out, but above all, trust that the Lord will supply what you need.

I mentioned a writing of Saint Pope John Paul II above. That wasn’t the end of the letter. He continued, writing, “Today, as never before, the Church has the opportunity of bringing the Gospel, by witness and word, to all people and nations. I see the dawning of a new missionary age, which will become a radiant day bearing an abundant harvest, if all Christians, and missionaries and young churches in particular, respond with generosity and holiness to the calls and challenges of our time.”2

The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.

Today’s Readings:
July 7, 2019
14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
Isaiah 66:10-14c, 19-21; Psalm 66; Galatians 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

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The yoke of Christ

Note: this homily was given on June 30, but not published until July 5. Sorry about the delay.

The readings today present two seemingly opposite ideas to us. St. Paul calls on us to break free of the yoke of slavery; meanwhile, Elijah and Jesus demand an immediate and drastic response to God’s call. It isn’t too much of a mental leap to hear what Jesus and Elijah are calling us to do and thinking that they are asking us to put on a yoke of slavery. Two questions come to mind. The first question is, simply, “which is it? Do we yoke ourselves or not?” The second question that some of us might be asking is, “What in the world is a yoke?!” The second question is a little easier to answer: a yoke is a piece of wood that goes across your neck and shoulders, and it allows you to carry pails and things. On animals such as horses, the yoke is fastened around their necks, and it allows them to pull carts. That first question, though, is the much more important question. The answer is the classic Catholic “both-and.” We must both throw off the yoke of slavery as St. Paul said, and take on the yoke of Christ. This doesn’t make sense until we realize that they are two different yokes.

St. Paul tells us to cast off our yoke of slavery to the flesh. This is St. Paul-speak for a very simple idea: stop sinning! Sin does not come from God, and only in God will we find true freedom. By casting sin out of our lives, we can be free to truly love God. By casting sin out of our lives, we can be free to be truly happy. Because we are flesh-and-bone, every time we do something, we become just a little bit better at it. If we do something many times, it slowly develops into a habit. When something is a habit, we don’t even think about doing it. The problem is that we can develop bad habits—we call these vices—which can take control of our lives. Addictions live in the realm of vice. Addiction is not just something that users of drugs have to fight. We all have things which we are drawn to despite our will. The internet has made these addictions even easier to feed. This is what St. Paul is calling us to cast off. St. Paul is telling us to cast off these “desires of the flesh,” so that instead of letting addictions and vices and bad habits and temptation and sin rule us, we can rule ourselves.

When Jesus offers us his yoke, he tells us it is light and easy. He is not talking about the yoke of sin, but the yoke of freedom. Christ calls us to follow him immediately and without reserve, because following him means getting out of our slavery to sin and living in the freedom and joy of God. Christ is calling us to live with him, to allow his Spirit to guide us toward him. As we do this, we will train ourselves in new ways to live. We will develop good habits if we follow Christ. We will grow in that wonderful thing called virtue. When we do that, it becomes easy to do the right thing without even thinking. This allows us to grow closer and closer to God. This allows us to love God more and more and to experience his love more and more.

We are creatures made of flesh and of spirit. Because of original sin, the two parts of us are often at war with one another. We get to decide which part of us is driving: the flesh or the spirit. If we let the flesh-blood-and-bone part of us drive, we cannot follow God and grow farther away from him. We will become slaves to our vices and addictions, and ultimately, that route leads to eternal damnation. Nobody wants that. If we let the spirit drive, we can follow God. We can grow closer to him every day and every moment of our lives on this earth. We will become truly free to love God, and ultimately, we will hear God say to us, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Enter into my joy.”

Today’s Readings:
June 30, 2019
12th Sunday of Ordinary Time
1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21; Ps 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; Galatians 5:1, 13-18; Luke 9:51-62

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What is the Mass?

What are we doing at Mass?

What is it that we’re actually celebrating at Mass?

To an outsider, I suppose, this would all look very strange.

All those strange things that the outsider would think we’re doing, well, we are doing them. But that’s the thing: we are doing those things. It’s not all just crazy talk from those weird Catholics. But we know that beneath the surface of the Mass, beyond the ceremony and the seemingly strange gestures and actions, something much deeper lives. One of the best summaries of why we do what we do at Mass can be found in the Mass itself, right in the heart of the Eucharistic Prayer, at the Memorial Acclamation. During this acclamation, which takes place immediately after the bread and wine have been consecrated and have become the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, we say to Christ who is in the Blessed Sacrament, “We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection, until you come again.” We say this because we know that through his death, Christ destroyed our death. Through his Resurrection, Christ restored to us the promise of eternal life. When Christ comes again, our bodies will be raised up, the Heavens and Earth will be renewed, we will see God in all his glory, and we will live with him for all eternity. Jesus asked us to do this in memory of Him at the Last Supper. It seems appropriate that we re-iterate what we are remembering. And then we thank God for such a great gift.

In the first reading we heard that Melchizedek offered bread and wine in thanksgiving to God on behalf of Abraham. (Fun trivia tip: The term for Melchizedek’s thanksgiving offering in Greek is eucharistia.) God had merely blessed Abraham. He died and rose for us, saving us from death and opening the gates of Heaven! How much more incredible, then, should our offering to God be? It is. When we offer our thanksgiving to God, we do not use mere bread and wine. We offer something far more precious for the gifts he has given to us: The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. There is nothing greater we can offer to Him. At every Mass, we remember Christ’s perfect sacrifice, and we offer the true Eucharist, the perfect thanksgiving to God for his mercy.

Fr. Matt elevates the Body and Blood of Christ
Fr. Matt elevates the Body and Blood of Christ at his First Mass

And then, as everyone offering thanksgiving to God must do to, we partake of the gifts we have offered to God. Christ told us that he would give us his Body and Blood so that we might have eternal life. Those who partake of his Body and Blood, then, shall live forever. The mere act of receiving our Lord brings us in communion with Him and with all of our brothers and sisters in the Church. In this communion, our Lord offers us salvation. It is through this communion, with our Lord and with those who belong to his Church, that we are redeemed. By this communion, we may be washed clean of our sins, drawn closer to our Lord, and invited to participate in the kingdom of Heaven. When we partake of these most precious gifts, God abides in us in a true and unique way. This is why we must prepare ourselves—especially by the sacrament of Confession—to receive Communion, to make a proper and holy dwelling for our Lord.

Today, we celebrate. Our Lord has given us his Body and his Blood so that we might have eternal life.

Today’s Readings
June 23, 2019
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)
Genesis 14:18-20; Psalm 110; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Lauda Sion Sequence; Luke 9:11b-17

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The limits of human comprehension

Note: Sorry this didn’t come out earlier. I just started my new assignment and have been very busy!

If you ever meet someone who says that they understand the Trinity, that person is either lying or his name is Jesus and the second coming just happened. Alongside the Eucharist, how Jesus is both God and Man, what the Church actually is, and a few other things, the Trinity is one of the mysteries of our faith. We’ll never fully understand these things on earth, and even in Heaven we’ll be pondering them for eternity, but while we’re here, we can try and make at least a little sense of this whole Trinity thing.

How anything can be both one and three at the same time is baffling. Many analogies have been made over the last 2,000 to explain the Trinity, but none really work. All we are left with to describe the Trinity is words: words which can sometimes be very abstract, very confusing, and, frankly, very boring. I’ll keep this part as brief and simple as I can, but I think that is very important to try to understand a little bit about our God. He is, after all, who we come to visit when we come to Mass on Sundays. He is the one we receive in the Eucharist. We try to get to know our spouses and our friends, understanding that we never will know them fully, often through words. Why should we try to learn about God any differently? OK. Buckle up.

Shield of the Trinity, a visual representation derived from the Athanasian Creed.
Shield of the Trinity

The Trinity is God. Specifically, the Trinity refers to the fact that God is both one and three: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That doesn’t mean we have three gods. The three persons—Father, Son, and Spirit—are not different things. They are one Trinity of Divine persons. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are, together, one God. But at the same time, they are each distinct. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father.

If your brain is hurting, that’s a good thing. So is mine. That means that your beginning to grasp how mysterious God is to us. It is strange and confusing. It doesn’t make sense to us. Only God will ever truly understand what it means to be the Trinity. For us, it is important to know that God is the Trinity. Even more importantly, we must know that this Triune God loves us. God loves us more than we could imagine. God created us. After we fell the Father sent his only-begotten Son to us; so, God became one of us and to suffer and die for us. The Spirit was breathed into the world and into our hearts at Pentecost; so, that God could remain with us every moment of our lives. With all of himself, our Triune God loves us from before we are created by our parents and through all eternity. Even when we turn away from God, and deny Him, and cause him anguish because we sin against Him, he continues to love us.

Paul tells us that we must boast of this glorious God we have. No other religion makes such audacious claims as ours! Who else believes in a God willing to suffer and die for our love? Who else has a God who calls them to such perfection, yet offers such great mercy when we fall? Who else has a God who promises—and yes, as Catholics we believe what I’m about to say—that when we die we will become like him? St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that “the true bliss of man and end of human life” is to fully participate in the very life of God. 1 St. Athanasius said it very clearly: “the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” 2

This is a glorious promise that God has given us! We can start living this way now, by emulating God in our daily lives. We do this by following the commandments, the teachings of Jesus in scripture, and the teaching of the Spirit through God’s Church. This is hard work. It will bring us suffering and affliction in this life. But God suffered through many afflictions for us, and he did it as one of us. Paul teaches us that these afflictions teach us endurance. Endurance proves our character. This character teaches us to hope in God, and this hope does not disappoint, because through this hope God pours love into our hearts and transforms us to be like him right now, in this very place, today.

Today’s Readings
June 16, 2019
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Proverbs 8:22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

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see, I am doing something new!

We are nearing the end of Lent. Next week, we celebrate Palm Sunday, where we read through Jesus’s Passion and Death. In just two weeks, we celebrate Easter Sunday, and we remember the most important event in the history of the universe. But we aren’t there yet. We still have time to prepare ourselves to celebrate these most sacred mysteries. We still have to root out the last traces of sin in our lives, ask God to forgive us, and to turn fully towards God’s loving mercy. There is time to turn away from the past and look toward the future.

God, through his prophet Isaiah tells us today to remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago. He calls us instead to look at his work, saying to us, see, I am doing something new! God tells us that he is bringing streams of living water to the desert, so that his people can live. But the water God gives his people is so much more than refreshment for our bodies. God’s water is refreshment for our souls. When we first encountered this water in Baptism, God built a river through the desert of the world leading directly to our hearts, so that his water of love and grace could flow directly into our souls. God is constantly sending his water into our souls, so that we can drink and live.

Sometimes, though, it is hard for us to perceive this stream of grace and love. The woman in today’s Gospel probably struggled to see these waters. She had been caught in adultery, still punishable by death at that time. The crowd wanted to stone her, or at least the crowd claims to want to stone her. Jesus does not even engage the question. He instead draws in the sand. We don’t know what he wrote. Too much ink has been spilled over 2,000 years trying to guess what Jesus wrote. If it was important, the Gospel writer would have told us. What the writer tells us is that Jesus did not engage the crowd. Instead he said let him who is without sin cast the first stone. This is so much more than calling the angry mob on their bluff. What he is really telling them is that they have no authority to judge this woman, because they too are sinners under the eyes of the law. The crowd eventually disperses, leaving only Jesus and the woman. I imagine that the woman was still quite terrified. Jesus, being totally sinless under the law, would have been justified in casting the first stone. Instead, he does something new. He tells the woman that she is not condemned. He tells her to go forth and sin no more. Jesus has forgiven her. He gives her a drink of his healing water. He builds a stream of living water into her soul so that she may stop sinning. But he also tells her to Go. Jesus tells her to go, and to bring his living water into the rest of the world.

The Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee, taken February 20, 2018.

We hear this same word, go, at the end of every Mass: Go in peace. Go in forth, the Mass is ended. Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your Life. Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord. Like the woman in her encounter with Jesus, our sins are forgiven when we encounter Jesus at Mass. The woman received living water, but we receive something even greater: the very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, which is truly, really, and substantially present in the Eucharist.1 The Eucharist feeds and nourishes, and it strengthens our souls to receive God’s grace. Finally, we are sent forth to the world, just like the woman in today’s Gospel. At every Mass, Jesus is doing something new. He is transforming us and sending us out, so that we might transform the world around us.

As we approach the culmination of Lent, as we approach the deepest mysteries of our faith, as we approach the holiest and most important days of not just the year, but of all time, let us remember that Jesus desires to do something new in us. He desires to forgive our sins, and he desires for us to go and be streams of living water that bring life back into the world.

Today’s Readings:
April 7th, 2019
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11

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The revealing cloud

The Sunflower Galaxy

Count the stars, if you can. So shall be the descendants God promised to Abram. So, Abram put his faith in the LORD. He asked God for a sign, and he made a sacrifice to Him. Then, when it was dark, a smoking fire pot and flaming torch appeared and passed between the sacrifice. God illuminated the darkness not just of the world, but of Abram’s faith. This isn’t the only time that we find God illuminating through the darkness.

In the Gospel, we hear Luke’s account of the Transfiguration. There are many similarities between these two events than are immediately obvious. We all know the Transfiguration story, but sometimes we forget the context in which it occurs. Peter, just one week earlier, proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah of God. Afterwards, Jesus promised discipleship, but also the Cross. The disciples were surely looking for signs from God to strengthen their faith. This is where our Gospel reading begins today. In this account, one detail is easy to miss: as Peter spoke, God surrounded the mountain in a cloud. In the darkness and obscurity of that cloud, God’s voice rang forth as a flaming torch in the night: This is my chosen Son; listen to him. St. Ambrose writes that this “overshadowing of the divine Spirit […] does not darken, but reveals secret things to the hearts of men.”1 As with Abram before, God made a promise and proved that he could do it by bringing light into the darkness of the minds of Peter, James, and John. God revealed secret things to the hearts of Peter, James, and John. Another important detail that is easy to miss is that Moses and Elijah, the representatives of the law and prophets of the Old Covenant, are no longer present when God reveals this to Peter, James, and John. Only Jesus, the Son of God and Messiah, remained. No questions remained over who this Jesus was.

God continues to work in similar ways in us today. God sent his Son to us, and has sent his Spirit to dwell with us, because he made each one of us a promise too. God promised us citizenship in Heaven. Paul reminds us to be imitators of him, to live the moral life that Jesus taught us, so that we may take on this citizenship. With this citizenship, God promised to transform us into new creations. We must have faith that God can transform us. This is the Good News: God can transform any one of us into bright, shining examples of his love. Our God, who can turn evil into good, loves us more than anything and wants to do this for us, but we must have faith in him. We must have faith, because faith is what allows God to work in us.

At times, it is hard to have this faith. When we look around us in the world today, we are constantly confronted with a society that is convinced that evil things are good. Society tells us that contraception and sexual license is true liberation, that gobs and gobs of money will fix any problem, that abortion and euthanasia are good things, that we must permit every bad behavior because to do otherwise isn’t nice, that there are people who have less value because of where they were born or because of some medical condition, and so many other lies. It is hard to have faith in such a society. The psalmist knows our struggle, “Hear, O LORD, the sound of my call; have pity on me, and answer me. […] Your presence, O LORD, I seek. Hide not your face from me.”

The Lord has not hidden his face from us. He gave us an amazing gift that allows us to encounter him even today. When we come to Mass, we all participate by laying our prayers, joys, sufferings, and desires on the altar with our Lord. Each of us here offer ourselves to God on the altar, alongside Jesus. Finally, we share in the Eucharist. At Mass, ordinary bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ. When we receive the Eucharist, we are united with God in a way otherwise impossible. Not only that, but we are united with one another and the entire Communion of Saints, living and dead.

Fr. H Setter and Deacon Matt Siegman elevate the Eucharist.
Fr. H Setter and Deacon Matt Siegman elevate the Eucharist.

We have the Eucharist. We have an entire church and community of saints praying for us constantly. Maybe God is not physically lighting the room, but he is always shining his light of grace and love into our hearts. As the psalmist writes, Wait for the LORD with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.

Today’s Readings:
March 17th, 2019
2nd Sunday of Lent
Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18; Psalm 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28b-36

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Reflecting like Mary

Merry Christmas! Today is the final day of Christmas, and we use it to celebrate Mary as the Holy Mother of God. The Church wants us to remember that Mary was the mother of Jesus, who is God, and so we can confidently call her the Mother of God. Mary gave God his human flesh. Her “yes” to God was the most important “yes” in human history, because Mary’s “yes” allowed God to become one of us and to save us from sin. Because of all these things, we greatly honor Mary. As if all of these things were not enough, there are even more wonderful things we can say about Mary. She is not simply the Mother of God; she is our mother too! As Jesus suffered on the Cross, he gave her to John and to all of us as the Mother of the Church. As we turn to our earthly mothers for help, protection, and unfailing love, we can also turn to Mary, the Untier of Knots, Refuge of Sinners, and Comfort of the Afflicted, for these same things.

In the Gospel today, it says that Mary kept all these things—that angels announced the conception and birth of her Son, that shepherds and magi worshipped her Son, that the angel told her that Jesus was the Son of the Most High who would take David’s throne and reign forever, that Simeon in the Temple said Jesus was a light to the Gentiles and the glory of Israel, and I’m sure there were other things—Mary kept all of these things and reflected on them in her heart. She did not start bragging on Jesus; she did not begin worrying about how she was going to raise the Son of God. No, Mary reflected on these things in her heart.

What a wonderful example Mary sets for us by doing this! In today’s society, how often do we immediately react to, well, everything? How often do we expect an immediate response or reaction from those around us? I catch myself doing this too. Perhaps in this new calendar year, we would all do well to imitate Mary’s example, and to reflect on things in our hearts. I understand that we can’t reflect on everything. It’s probably not healthy to meditate on which socks to wear on a given day for more than about 10 seconds, but we all most likely be well served to reflect on the things that happen throughout our day. Maybe we could spend 5 or 10 minutes at the end of our day, right before we go to bed, and thank God for his gifts to us that day. We could look at how our actions brought us closer to God or led us away from him. Then, we could ask God to forgive our sins, ask him to help us tomorrow, and go to bed with a clear mind. There are many ways to live a more reflective life, and the practice I just described, called the Examen prayer, is just one.

As we begin this new year, let us strive to grow closer to God. Let us allow him to enter into all our decisions. This year, as Moses and Aaron prayed for the Israelites, I pray for you that The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace! (Numbers 6:24-26)

Today’s Readings:
January 1, 2019
Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God
Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

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The Temple Example

Merry Christmas! Catholics celebrate 8 days of Christmas, ending on New Year’s Day with the celebration of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. Christmas isn’t over yet! During this week the Church asks us to meditate on the mysteries of Jesus’s early life. Today, on the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we hear the story of the Finding in the Temple.

This Gospel account must be terrifying for parents. Joseph and Mary lose track of Jesus. They assume he’s with relatives, when in fact he’s been teaching in the Temple. It would be something like traveling to Kansas City for a Chiefs game with some family, getting to Emporia, and realizing that Little Billy isn’t in Uncle Bob’s car, like you thought. Then you return to Kansas City, and after several hours discover that Little Billy is in the locker room, showing the Patrick Mahomes how to throw a football.

What astonishes me about this event in the Gospel is what happens at the end. Jesus returns home with his parents and was obedient to them. Jesus is teaching the teachers in the Temple—this would be something like a 12 year old teaching theology to the Pope—and then he returns home with his family and is obedient to them. God the Son, the Creator of the Universe was obedient to his human parents.

I guess God takes the 4th Commandment pretty seriously.

In case you’re a little fuzzy on the commandments, the fourth is, “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Ex 20:12 NRSVCE) When the Israelites were first given this commandment, they understood this as physical land of Israel, and the long days meant a long life on earth. We now know more. God has promised us a home in Heaven, and those long days refer to eternal life. So this commandment could be rephrased: honor your parents, so that you may enter into eternal life with God in Heaven.

I think that this can be one of the harder commandments to keep, but we must do our best. Our parents, in cooperation with God, gave us the gift of life. They raised us and taught us. For these gifts, we owe our parents a debt that we can never repay. Now, I realize that some parents are truly unfit for the job, perhaps due to mental illness or addiction, and we must protect children, and sometimes ourselves, in these cases. It’s a tragedy, really, and that’s not how it should be. In these cases, honoring our parents looks very different and can be incredibly difficult, but we can still do it. God calls us to do the hard things, and trust that he will help us. Getting back to my point, God has called us to honor our parents. They assisted God with giving us the gift of life; so, He reminds us that we owe our existence to them, and he calls us to honor them. God isn’t asking us to do something he was not willing to do, since he did it himself.

We also learn about the role of parents today. Parents have authority over their children, but we mustn’t forget Uncle Ben’s final lesson to Spiderman: “with great power comes great responsibility.” Parents have responsibility to love their children, and St. Paul goes so far as to tell fathers not to provoke their children. Parental responsibility is more involved than this, though. Parents must teach their children about God. They must by their words and examples teach their children who God is and how to love him. They must teach their children God’s commandments and his Gospel. They must show their children how to pray to God and to worship him. This might mean that you have to study your faith a little bit, but it is worth it! Knowing our faith makes us better Christians, and it helps us to love God more.

When we die, we will meet God. When we meet God, he is going to ask us how we lived our lives, and how we live our lives will determine how we spend our eternity. God doesn’t make this judgment based on what other people do. He makes this judgment based on our actions. May all the parents here be able to say confidently to God, “I taught my children wisdom and love for you as well as I was able.” May all of us children here be able to say confidently to God, “I followed your example from the Temple and honored my parents.”

Today’s Readings:
December 30, 2018
Holy Family Sunday
1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28; Psalm 84; 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24; Luke 2:41-52 (other options are available)