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Homily

31st Sunday Ordinary Time – I love you

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Dt. 6: 2-6; Ps. 18:2-4, 47,51; Heb. 7:23-28; Mk. 12:28b-34

“I love you” are three of the most spoken words we hear in any relationship and three of the hardest to live up to.  The Lord is calling us to love him with all your heart…soul…mind…and with all your strength” and “your neighbor as yourself”.  The Father then sends his son as the perfect embodiment of this love “when he offered himself.”  Praise the Lord our God who is slow to anger, patient in love, and enduring in mercy waiting for us to grow in that perfect love. 

To love the Lord starts with fulfilling his statutes and commandments and is made perfect in offering ourselves up to do his will.  To love a spouse is to fulfill your marriage vows at all times.  To love your children is to bring them up in the love of the Lord that they may inherit the promises of eternal life.  Love is active.  An act of love opens the heart to all the emotions that reflect the giving of self but love is not the emotion. 

Love is guided by Godly principles, spiritual virtues, and wise morals and ethics.  Love is truth.  Truth is true to the law of God who keeps his promises.  Love is goodness.  Goodness speaks to the good of the other and the goodness of all of God’s creation.   Love is unity.  Unity recognizes the one body of God we belong to where sin entered into the world through the union of one couple and redemption through the sacrifice of one for all in Jesus Christ.  Jesus says, “he is always able to save those who approach God through him.”  Love is sacrifice.  Sacrificial love is godly love to die to oneself as Jesus died for us. 

We find the word “love” endless times in scriptures but how often do we find the words “I love you” in scripture?  In the Old Testament it appears 12 times.  Judges asks “how can you say “I love you when your heart is not with me?”  Samuel asks “Don’t I love you more than any…”.  Psalm 116 “I love you, Lord!” Psalm 123 “The way I love you is like…”.  Proverbs 7:4 “Say to Wisdom, I love you…”.  Song of Solomon “My darling, I love you” and “My sister, I love you!”  Isaiah 43:1 “That’s how much I love you” and “Because you are precious…I love you”.  Jeremiah “But Lord, you know me, you see…how I love you” and “Don’t I love you best of all?”  Three questions, one description, one command, four times in reference to a person, once to a virtue, once pleading with the Lord, and only once directly to the Lord.  In other words, love is more about what we are doing that what we are saying. 

In the New Testament the words “I love you” appear 12 times.  Eight of those are from St. Paul to the different communities in his letters.  Three times it is from Peter in response to Jesus when asked “Do you love me?”  Jesus then directs Peter to put his love into action.  Once from the 2nd Letter of John “I love you because of the truth”.  As many different books in the bible, love is mostly about love in action or failing to act.  Love is about being a witness to Christ not by what we say but by what we do. 

How often do we say “I love you, Lord”.  It is probably more common to say, “I love THE Lord” that to say it directly to him.  Love is active participation both in prayer and in doing his will.  The Lord desires intimacy with us in a personal relationship and intimacy can be intimidating.  When we come in prayer to the Lord we enter into intimacy with him.  The Mass is our prayer to the Lord in which we actively participate to deepen our relationship with him, otherwise we are on the sidelines more as witnesses than participants symbolically making “burnt offerings and sacrifices” but our hearts are far from the Lord. 

Doing the will of the Lord is active participation in salvation.  Some people say, “I can’t serve at the altar because I don’t feel worthy”.  To be in love with the Lord is to desire to serve him not out of worthiness but because he is there in the altar, in poor who come to the foodbank, in the children who come to catechism, in the sick and homebound who need to be visited by Christ who dwells in the Christian.  We actively love him by being in union with him and through him with our neighbors.

The Lord is calling us to deepen our love with him.  All that we are and all that we have is from the Lord.  Love is what widens the narrow gate to heaven.  Love takes everything out of us and then it returns stronger than before as a blessing from God. 

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Homily

Called by God

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Jer. 31: 7-9; Ps. 126:1-6; Heb. 5:1-6; Mk. 10:46-52

“Every high priest is taken from among men…but only when called by God”.  Jesus did not glorify himself but is called “my son: this day I have begotten you” to be our great high priest “forever”.  Even the blind man recognizes Jesus as “son of David” coming from the priestly lineage.  The priestly call did not end with Jesus as many Christian denominations have given over to only pastors of the flock.  Today the Church recognizes a shortage of priests and many are calling for change in who is called to the priesthood including for women and married men.  The Church however is governed by Jesus our high priest who has established his law of governance. 

As the Synod on Synodality progresses in Rome the one thing that does not change is that all calling is from God and not a people’s call.  The Church is an institution established by God for God’s purpose and some things are not negotiable.  Even as the Synod dialogues about the process of Synodality there continues to be circles that raise the topics of female priesthood, women deaconesses, and married priests.  Were there married priests in the early church?  Yes.  Where their female deaconesses in the early church?  Yes, but they were not ordained clergy.  Were there female priests in the early church?  Never.  What the Lord declares is not for humanity to change. 

All Christians by baptism are called by God to live as priest, prophet and king through our sacramental vows.  In this way we carry our unique calling by God to share in the Lord’s priesthood in our domestic church that is the family.  Humanity was created male and female to be the institution of family in which we live out our calling to love of God and neighbor.  If the institution of the family fails then the pews will become empty and we won’t have a need for more priests.    

The shortage of priesthood is not a lack of God’s call to men.  It is a lack of formation of faith that begins in the home.  If we don’t talk about God at home, we deny he exists by our silence.  If we don’t pray to God at home, we set him aside to live our lives as we choose.  If we are not growing in our own formation as adults and parents then we have little more to share about our faith to motivate our children in their faith.  The answer to the shortage of priests is not women priests or married priests but building up the domestic church at home, that is the active participation of the family in what we believe. 

The Synod on Synodality is more about the process of governance than hot topic issues.  It looks to the leadership of the laity and women in the church.  Hot topic issues have been set aside for continued “study” according to Catholic news reports coming out of the Synod.  If we look to leadership in the Church then rather than looking simply at who is called to clerical life, we can look to the call to be saints.  The Church has women, men and even children who have risen to sainthood.  There are great women as Doctors of the Church.  The great saints did not seek clericalism but holiness and they remain a great witness for us to learn from and follow. 

While the priest is “made their representative before God” he is also “beset by weakness” in need of forgiveness called to serve the will of God as we all are in our own state of life.  It is the Lord who does “great things for us” when we turn to him and accept our personal call to serve him in all states of life.  Our joy is complete in him and he comes to each of us when we call out to him “Master, I want to see” you and follow your will.  Let us come to him as we are and allow him to work in us and be our God. 

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Homily

29th Sunday Ordinary Time – Called to serve

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Is. 53: 10-11; Ps. 33:4-5, 18-20, 22; Heb. 4:14-16; Mk. 10:35-45

Jesus came to serve by giving his very life “as a ransom for many”.  We too are called to serve by the way we live our lives in imitation of Christ.  Who is the “servant” spoken of in Isaiah who “gives his life as an offering for sin”?  It is Jesus.  We are “justified by his suffering” not to boast for his cross but to pick up our cross and follow his call to serve. We go forth in Jesus and call upon him in our time of trial knowing how he suffered and died for us.  With confidence we cry out “Jesus, I trust in you!” 

When we approach the “throne of grace” we receive both uncreated grace and created grace.  Grace represents the free gift of Jesus and from Jesus.  In the sacramental life of the Church Jesus gives of himself to us, his uncreated grace that is transformative of our very being.  Simply said, receive the sacrament and receive Jesus himself.  He is the throne of grace from whom we receive from Jesus, mercy and timely help through his created grace working through humanity who is created and called to serve the greater good.  This is Jesus’ prayer of unity to God that we may all be one in him.

James and John come to Jesus in a spirit of a child, “do for us whatever we ask of you”.  This is what a child wants from his parents before the “ask” question is given, to agree unconditionally.  A wise parent can only agree unconditionally to their love of child, otherwise there is no “blank check”.  James and John’s request to be first is put to the test “Can you drink of the cup”.  Even though they do not know what they are accepting, Jesus accepts their openness to the “cup”.  It is a cup of sacrifice, suffering and even death.  Jesus however also gives us a sense that there is a plan at work, the plan of salvation that has a place at his right and left “for those whom it has been prepared.”  What are we to think then when it comes to us?

We are included in this plan of salvation and there is a place prepared for us at the table of the Lord but the invitation includes the call to “come and follow” him.  We are called to serve in his footsteps what has been prepared for us to fulfill.  The Lord places us in position to do his will but we have to respond to the call.  When we do we open the gates of heaven to receive his grace.  When we deny him, he will not deny himself but we have denied ourselves the grace and blessing he desired to pour into us.  This is when we shall ask when did we see him hungry and suffering and denied to serve him.    

Our call is always to love God and love neighbor.  It is an act of being filled with his love and acting in charity through his love.  We give because we have received and it is just and right to do God’s will.  This is why we can say we receive uncreated grace from Jesus in giving of himself to us who is uncreated but we also participate in created grace in the call to serve through the gift of charity in the giving of ourselves as created beings.  This is why the Church strongly defended that Jesus is true God and true man that we too may come to be one with him.  The divine has taken on flesh that the flesh may now enter into the divine as a new creation. 

For this reason, receiving the word is only the beginning of the salvation plan.  The word must take on flesh, be incarnated into our being through the sacraments and produce the charity that gives life in return. 

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Homily

28th Sunday Ordinary Time – All things are possible

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Wis. 7: 7-11; Ps. 90:12-17; Heb. 4:12-13; Mk. 10:17-30

“All things are possible for God”.  Praise be to God for his mercy is everlasting.  The man who ran up to Jesus seeking eternal life walked away “sad, for he had many possessions”.  He was put to the test that asks of him and us to place God first in our lives.  God is first asking of us to have a spirit of self-denial, sacrifice, and detachment.  Even when blessed with many resources our focus is on Jesus and not our material wealth.  We are to carry a spirit of poverty in the flesh for we are both soul and body with a fallen nature in need of healing.  

The living word is Jesus able to discern the heart of the man who remained attached to his possessions.  Is Jesus calling everyone to go and sell all their possessions if we want eternal life?  Jesus is seeking a heart of detachment from our possessions recognizing the limited purpose of material things compared to the greater reward of eternal life.  It is a message he repeats when he says “What profit is it for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mt. 16:26).   What is our priority, what or who are we living for? 

The riches of heaven are the gifts of the Spirit that make all things possible.  Prudence and wisdom are given to make Godly choices.  The commandments are given as foundation stones of love to build a holy temple for the Lord, the temple within our very being.  The commandments are also the guardrails against sin.  They are the clear markers of obedience to the law of God.  As the man points out his obedience to the commandments, Jesus points him to something greater waiting for him.  The man chose to walk away.  He is the arch-type of each of us who says “yes” but with limitations.  “Yes Lord, but only this far.”  God’s redemptive love on the cross was complete surrender and this is what he seeks from us. 

Thus, the question from Jesus disciples, “Then who can be saved?”  Jesus’ response, “All things are possible for God.”   As Jesus revealed to St. Faustina there is “an ocean of mercy” ready to be released to those who seek him and he reveals the prayer called the “Chaplet of the Divine Mercy” as a means of seeking his mercy.  We also receive the love and mercy of God when we go to confession and sacramentally are forgiven of our sins.  Our spiritual and corporal works of mercy are spiritual treasures for the sake of the gospel in which we will receive “a hundred times more now in this present age…and eternal life in the age to come.”  Jesus comes to save us but he cannot save us without us.  He provides the way but we must follow him. 

When the man called Jesus “Good teacher”, Jesus’ response includes saying “No one is good but God alone.”  Jesus wants us to recognize him in his divine nature. He also is making it clear our human fallen nature is marked by sin.  God is the fullness of good and in his goodness, he has come to save us.  All salvation history is God’s divine intervention in humanity to rescue his people.  One thing we can learn from the Bible is how often we fail and fall short of God’s divine plan but with God all things are possible. 

Even in death for the sinner who believes the possibility of purgatory awaits, for a final cleansing of sin.  This is our hope.  The imperfect is to be perfected in the image of Christ.  The image is by way of the cross.  Let us take up our cross and begin to offer it up as a sacrifice for our sin and that of the whole world.  This is the redemptive power that makes all things possible coming from the love of God.  Glory to God in the highest!  He makes the impossible not just possible but a promise. 

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