bg-image

Homily

17th Sunday Ordinary Time – Kingdom of Heaven

Posted on by Deacon Joe

1 Kgs. 3:5, 7-12; Ps 119:57, 72, 76-77, 127-130; Rom. 8:28-30; Mt. 13:44-52

Jesus compares the Kingdom of heaven to a treasure we can hold, fine pearls to appeal to the eyes, and a great catch to appeal to the appetite and yet it is none of this.  Jesus has a way of drawing us in appealing to our interests yet taking us to a place we cannot imagine.  That is because the kingdom of heaven is not a “thing” we hold but a way of being.  Being in the kingdom of God is something that is lived.  We cannot grasp it with our hands but we can know we are there by living it and by the fruit of our lives where we can see the hand of God at work to sanctify us, save us and answer our prayers. 

There is the story of an atheist teacher who said to the class “There is no God.  Has anyone ever seen God?”  One student then asked the teacher, “Have you ever seen your brain?”  The teacher said “no”.  Then the student replied “then you have no brain”.  The kingdom of God come to us through invisible grace seen at work through visible signs.  We hear in the Old Testament how no one can see the face of God and live and yet God reveals himself indirectly through visible signs, the burning bush, the voice in the clouds, the angels as messengers.  It is the will of God to reveal himself to us but we have to seek him.  That requires our time to be in prayer, receiving the sacraments, and responding to the movement of the spirit in us. 

The Kingdom of God is reflected in what Solomon asked of God.  He asked for understanding as a way of being able to see, hear, and know how to lead his people.  The inspiration of understanding produced the fruit of a good leader.  The kingdom of heaven comes to us through the spiritual gifts from God while we are in this world.  They allow us to see him in our world and to serve him by our very being in this world.  The kingdom of God is transformative of our humanity into his divinity. 

God plants his law into the heart of a person to live in freedom within his kingdom.  It is a kingdom where two hearts are united as one.  The sacred heart of Jesus united to the sacred heart of Mary, the giving of self in the sacramental love of a man and a woman in holy matrimony, the call to Holy Orders for a priest consecrated to the Church and our baptismal vows for every Christian to be one with Jesus all reflect the real kingdom of God.  It is a kingdom of love in the giving of ourselves to the other.  This was the request of Solomon to receive the gift of understanding in order to give of himself to his people as a wise leader and servant of God. 

How do we reflect the kingdom of God in our lives?  Perhaps we don’t realize the great miracle of how God is working in and through us each day simply because from within the kingdom we have been sheltered by his grace not having lived outside of his mercy and love.  Recall the story of what is commonly known as the prodigal son who left his father and went outside the kingdom to live his own life.  How soon he discovered the consequences of mortal sin coming from being outside of the kingdom.  At the same time the other son who always stayed within the kingdom of the father did not appreciate all that was his and felt resentful of the father for his mercy to his brother.  The kingdom of God “revealed to little ones the mysteries of the kingdom” and in baptism we are all his little ones.  Sometimes we simply don’t know what to ask for that God is ready to grant us. 

The Lord’s desire is to enrich us with the gifts of the Spirit that we may all be saints.  This cannot be unless we ourselves come to him with the desire to serve and not be served as Solomon did.  Solomon was the prototype of Jesus who was to come to serve the Father for our salvation.  The love of God is the love of his commands.  It is to see in his commands the good seed of his word given to us in order to serve him by our lives.  Service is at the heart of being Christian. 

There is an expression in Spanish “cada cabeza es un mundo”, every head is its own world.  It implies that we are all a unique individual, and in many ways different than any other individual that has walked this earth.  Thus, we often focus on our differences and what separates us.  We should also recognize what unites us is that we are all created in the image of God.  Jesus prayed to the Father that we may all be one.  It is a prayer that we may all find our identity in Christ and follow in his footsteps.

In baptism we then all carry a new beginning with a Christ centered image and purpose.  Christ is the sower of the field and the field is our heart.  In our hearts he places his law to come to him, to know him and to love him.  The seed is his word that is to bloom in our hearts and the fruit of the bloom is our love for God and others.   The pearl of life then is our identity in Christ to know ourselves not only as a child of God but as a saint in the kingdom of God reflecting the image of Christ by the gifts we have received and live by. 

This all seems great until we recognize his image includes the wood of the cross, love through sacrifice and justice through mercy.  Can we really love our enemies?  How can this be?  It can only be in the heart of the one who knows “all things work for good for those who love God.”  Our God is a transformative God.  Recall those toys called “Transformers” of the 1980s, how they transform objects to come to life as action heroes and villains.  God is the ultimate transformer of lives from what is to what we are called to be. 

Whether in life or death, God promises “those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified”.  In the end it is not whether we live or die in this life but how we lived and died for the eternal promises of the kingdom of heaven. 

Tags
Shared this
Views

126 views


The Deacon

Accompanied by ..
Copyright by TagleStar 2016
Powered by TagleStar Website Development

bg-image

Homily The Deacon Joe

Pentecost Sunday

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Acts 2:1-11; Ps. 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34; 1 Cor. 12:3b-7, 12-13; Jn.20:19-23

“Come, Holy Spirit, come” to serve the mighty acts of God in us and through us.  This is an invitation for the Spirit to enter our souls and open for us the gates of heaven through the works of God.  Pentecost Sunday is a call to life in the Spirit, that is with the foretaste of heaven though not fully yet realized because we remain in a state of purification with the stain of sin.  As Jesus appears after the resurrection to the disciples, he breathes on them to give them the Holy Spirit of fire and truth and set them on their mission as a royal priesthood in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus appears in his glorified body to the disciples in today’s gospel behind locked doors yet he was able to pass through unrestricted by nature though his body was tangible.  This property we will all have is known as “subtlety” and is governed by the direction of the soul as one of seven properties of the glorified state described by St. Thomas Aquinas.  Jesus is one with the Father in the Spirit and we call on the Holy Spirit to come and be one with us in this mystery of the Trinity. Life in the spirit is the soul’s hunger and restless desire for holiness that is perfection as the Father in heaven is perfect beginning with us calling on the Holy Spirit to “come”. 

Jesus first words to the disciples are “peace be with you” showing them his hands and his side to erase all doubt of his physical presence.  Jesus then repeats his gift of peace now that the disciples believe and after breathing on them, they receive the Holy Spirit with the call to go forth with their mission “whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained”.  This specific spiritual gift is reserved for the disciples though we recognize “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God…To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.”  There is a path to holiness given to each of us coming from the gifts of the Spirit and our joy is in recognizing our gifts and multiplying them. 

The disciples first gift and power from the Spirit is to bring peace and healing through forgiveness of sins.  This for many other Christian denominations is a barrier to faith because of the belief “only God can forgive sins”.  This is the same issue the Jews had with Jesus boldness when he clearly took action to forgive sins, an apostasy to place himself equal to God.  Today we accept Jesus as the second person of the Trinity as one with and in God.  Jesus promised the disciples even greater things to come through them and it begins with this gift to forgive sins not on their own but in the person of Christ himself who is with them and acting through them as he does through the priesthood today.  What about our gifts, our calling, and service to God?

Today we are called to speak of the “mighty acts of God” through the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to us just as the disciples spoke in different “tongues” we speak through the different gifts of the mighty acts God is doing in our lives.  Each gift is connected to a service to fulfill a work of God and bring about a benefit that is a “fruit” of the Spirit.  How are we doing with our gifts to bring about this “fruit”?  It begins with an act of the will to call on the Holy Spirit to come and be with us as we respond to this day, the challenge of this moment, and to fulfill the benefit waiting to be achieved by our specific gift but it begins with us calling  on him, in spirit and truth to come and “take possession of my heart and strengthen me by your grace”.

Pentecost is the Greek name for Shavuot celebrated fifty days after Passover, the spring harvest festival of the Israelites sharing the first fruits of the harvest which was going on when the Holy Spirit came.  Many came from different regions and languages to celebrate and share their harvest.  Pentecost then is the festival of sharing the gifts of the Holy Spirit with each other bringing the fire of God’s love then going forth with the Good news of the gospel into our world.  Fire is transforming and the Holy Spirit is with us to bring transformation to our lives, our relationships, and our world. 

Our world is undergoing the “test” of faith as it battles the pandemic of a virus threatening our mortal lives.  “Fear” is not the response of faith of a believer nor is withdrawal into seclusion the response of faith.  Prudence is right judgement in responding as a people of faith to the crisis.  It is not if we are to open the doors of the church but how they are to remain open to the sacramental life.  Guided by the fire of the Holy Spirit we are to gather together in celebration to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, in the Holy Spirit, and in the communion with the people.   This is an essential service for the people of God and Jesus is calling, the Holy Spirit is waiting, and the Father is at our doors.  Let us welcome him into our souls by returning to his temple of love.    

Tags
Shared this
Views

294 views


The Deacon

Accompanied by ..
Copyright by TagleStar 2016
Powered by TagleStar Website Development

bg-image

Homily

Friday 8th Week of Ordinary Time 2018

Posted on by Deacon Joe

1 Pt. 4:7-13; Mk 11: 11-26

“Each one has received a gift, use it…use it with an intensity of love…love covers a multitude of sins.”  From the gospel we can add, “Pray with an intensity of love and it will be done for you.” 

The fig tree is a symbol of God’s temple.  Jesus our Lord “comes to judge the earth” and protect his temple.  Before the fig tree incident Jesus goes into Bethany to the temple and “looks around at everything” checking it out; after the incident he goes to the Jerusalem temple to check it out and finds it “a den of thieves”.  After Jerusalem he returns to the fig tree and it has withered away, the judgment of the Lord.  

In the gospel we see a hungry Jesus by the fig tree and an angry Jesus at the temple.  We are the temple of the Holy Spirit where is our fruit of the spirit?  Jesus is hungry today awaiting the fruit from the gift we have received.  Let us feed him with the intensity of our love bearing fruit.  Our church of St. Francis Xavier is the temple of the Eucharist and Jesus is hungry for our communion with him.  Let us feed him with the intensity of our prayer in adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication.  Jesus is in search of his “house of prayer for all peoples”.  Are we a welcoming temple in our hearts and as church community or do we live for ourselves and forget the other? 

Jesus is in search of disciples with a pure heart.  The purity of love is sacrificial love; it is what Dietrich Bonhoffer called “the cost of discipleship”.  Sacrificial love purifies the soul and spirit.  The self is always in search of a good for itself.  Recall how James and John expressed this human desire to be at the right and at the left of Jesus without considering the path of love on the cross.  Recall also the rich young man seeking a good for himself—heaven.  It is a worthy desire but the path Jesus offered was to sacrifice his riches and he went away sad.  Do not be surprised that the path of discipleship is a “trial by fire” says the Lord, a “share in the sufferings of Christ. 

Consider three principles to arrive at purity of heart.  The first principle is seen in the story of the rich young man.  It is a detachment from worldly riches. I saw a short clip in the news this week of an evangelist who had four private planes and was asking his followers for millions to buy another luxury plane.  When is “enough” enough and less is better?  Simple detachment is the first principle of discipleship. 

The second principle is Jesus’ call to “follow me”.  Let go and let God be the center of our search for happiness and he will fulfill the good of self, better than we could ever imagine.  Follow Jesus through the trail by fire and rejoice in the gift of sacrificial love, it purifies the soul and spirit.  Let go of self through surrender to God and fulfill the second principle of discipleship. 

The third principle of discipleship is “transformation”.  Be transformed to share in the sufferings of Christ.  Be transformed in the likeness of Christ by the use of our gifts for his glory.  Be transformed in our hospitality in our words, and in our service so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.  Do not be surprised by the trials of this day.  They are transformative. 

The angry Jesus disrupts the temple status quo, an attack on those in control and so they seek “a way to put him to death”.  The intensity of prayer leads to action in defense of love itself.  God is love who we are called to defend as a militant church on earth.  In Pope Francis, his words, writings and his actions are disrupting the status quo.  The movie on Pope Francis titled “Pope Francis a Man of his Word” is a documentary not of his life but of his faith, hope, and love.  I hope you make or made time to see it.  It is a love story of his relationship with Christ by responding to his call to be a Holy Father to others and to the world.  It is a man in search of purity of love and love covers a multitude of sins.  There are those who support his positions and those who oppose them with the same intensity of belief.  He is not a perfect man, Jesus is.  He is a man seeking perfection in Jesus.  Let us all follow the path, the Jesus way. 

Finally, the documentary ends with his prayer from St. Thomas Moore, “Lord give me a good digestion today and something good to digest.”  Food for the soul is the best meal we receive today, Jesus in the Eucharist.  Jesus came to tear down the walls of the heart in his temple and build up the body of Christ.  He did not come to establish a new world order in the political economy among nations as some seek to create.  We are not a people in search of an earthly king as the Jewish people hoped for.  We are a liberated people of the heart with a king in Jesus Christ.     Amen, Amen, be transformed. 

 

Tags
Shared this
Views

294 views


The Deacon

Accompanied by ..
Copyright by TagleStar 2016
Powered by TagleStar Website Development

bg-image

Homily

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted on by Deacon Joe

1 Kgs 3: 5, 7-12; Rom. 8: 28-30; Mt. 13: 44-52

How many lives do you impact?  We seldom stop to recognize the impact we are making in the world.  The lives that we encounter daily at home raising a family, at work serving a purpose, in our gatherings of celebration expressing our joy, in funerals expressing our compassion, and in the streets with the stranger, the store clerk, server, child, or elderly.  We impact many lives and make a difference in this world. 

Solomon was a youth who understood the impact his life would have on thousands of lives and he wanted to serve with an understanding heart to judge, distinguish right from wrong.  We too participate in the kingdom of God making an impact on many lives in the seen and unseen.  Until heaven will it be revealed to us completely.  We journey in the ordinary of life faithful to our state.  The ordinary does not imply insignificance.  To the contrary, if God is with us everything is significant.  We are here to make a difference in the history of salvation.   We must remain open to the work of the Spirit. 

One of the sad statistics of today is the rising suicide rates among the general population but especially among youth where it has doubled and even tripled in some areas in the last ten years.  One testimony of a father whose son named Will a talented boy, good grades, played sports, wrote lyrics for a band, successful in every aspect of his life, dead at 15 from suicide. Like Solomon this boy felt all the pressure to be perfect.  He took serious his responsibilities.  He also knew that if he made a mistake everyone would know about it by lunch time with all the social media at the fingertips of everyone’s phone.  Solomon desired to judge rightly.  Will feared being judged wrongly.  Will’s dad was thinking “everything is great!”  Today his message to youth is “Wow, this is really hard.”  The challenges of this world require faith, hope, and love, they require God in our lives.

There is a desert experience we must all pass through.  There is also a promised land.  The Old Testament daily readings this week have been from Exodus.  Moses leading the people through the desert and each hardship is a test of faith.  Our focus is on the Promised Land.  The Kingdom, the Promised land starts here in the present, in the ordinary, in Mass, in his body and blood, and in our struggles blessed to carry the cross. 

Even when there is a shared struggle in life like the loss of a loved one each experiences their own unique grief.  “Wow, this is really hard.  No kidding!”  Are we prepared to face the desert experience when it comes?  Solomon’s prayer to God is a servant’s prayer.  He understood who he was serving in all he would be called to do.  His prayer was for what he needed to be a good servant, not to grow rich or rule with power.  His desire was to build a kingdom for God, a treasure buried in a field unseen to others but discovered in his heart; a kingdom of fine pearls of wisdom, and a net that catches souls of every kind. 

“We know all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”  Do we walk in the steps we are predestined responding to the call, justified by conforming to the image of Jesus, glorified by the love of God?  How do we know?  When we walk in his steps says St. Paul in Galatians we gain the fruits of the Spirit.  We have and share our “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  (Gal. 5:22-23).  That is nine gifts which we can recall as, in the power of the Spirit he strengthens our faithfulness, gentleness and self-control to become the image of the Son in patience, kindness, and generosity and arrive at the Father’s love with joy and peace in our hearts.   

Fidelity to the word made flesh nurtures us into the gentleness of a child of faith to be obedient in self-control. Patience is also self-restraint with kindness giving of ourselves in generosity.  The heart of understanding comes to know the will of the Father and celebrates the truth of knowledge with joy and peace resting in the Father’s heart. 

All this lead us to an extraordinary life in the ordinary of life.  Here we are called to be the best we can be in his image.  Who shared in our humanity a fidelity to the ordinary and was called to the extraordinary?  It was our Blessed Mother Mary.  Until the angel appears Mary was faithful to her ordinary daily life. It is from this faithfulness that God sees the fruit of the Spirit and called her and many other Saints to an extraordinary life of greater sanctity. 

Today we have the “new and the old”, the completion of the Word in the Old Testament and the New Testament, in the law of obedience and in the law of the Spirit of fidelity, our love in action.  Each life leaves it legacy for generations to come.  It is the legacy of love that endures. 

Come to the Promise Land.  The invitation requires no RSVP, No Regrets, only Mary’s fiat, “let it be done according to your will” Lord. 

 

Tags
Shared this
Views

509 views


The Deacon

Accompanied by ..
Copyright by TagleStar 2016
Powered by TagleStar Website Development