22nd Sunday Ordinary Time – Humble of heart!

Posted on August 27, 2022August 27, 2022 by Deacon Joe

Sir. 3:17-18, 20, 28-29; Ps. 68:4-7,10-11; Heb. 12:18-19, 22-24a; Lk. 14:1, 7-14

Humble of heart! The Lord calls us to be humble of heart with the courage to take up his “yoke” and learn from him. Humility raises the last to be first. This is the guiding principle in the kingdom of God. Humility of heart is the antidote to the sin of pride. A humble heart is open to the truth greater than oneself beginning with there is a God and we are not him. It is not about “my truth” but “the truth”. We are living in a time when society no longer accepts there is an absolute truth but preaches finding your own way. Being humble of heart is to return to the faith in one God, one truth, his way and to follow where it may lead us. Today it leads us to take up the “yoke” and learn from the Lord to carry the grace of humility of heart.

The meaning of the “yoke” is to become closely attached to each other such as the wooden crosspiece that unites two animals to work together in farming. Baptism unites us to Jesus on the cross to live our faith with courage in the midst of sin and suffering and work together for salvation. It takes courage to pick up the cross of Christ as Simon of Cyrene wrapped his arm across Jesus to help him lift up the cross and carry it. They were yoked together as a sign of living the Christian dignity with humility of heart even unto death.

The sin of pride is the desire to be first. Jesus is first in the kingdom and we learn from him true humility by loving our neighbor as ourselves, desiring what is good for the other as a blessing to oneself. Together we are yoked in one body that shares in unity both the joys and sufferings of life. We are to celebrate together, work together, suffer together, offer ourselves up together and gather together to be one in the Lord this day in the celebration of the Mass. The sin of pride looks to divide and determine who is the greatest in the kingdom. Jesus’ lesson is “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The grace of humility is a gift to pray for. When was the last time we prayed, “Lord, give me the grace of humility”? It will go a long way in fulfilling all the other virtues we ask for such as patience, perseverance, slow to anger, kindness and more. Start with humility as a foundational virtue and many of the other virtues will come easier. Prayer is for a conversion of self into the image and likeness of Christ. We often turn to prayer to ask for a change in others, a change of events, a change outside of ourselves and forget to ask for the change the Lord wants to make in us for we lack humility of heart. “Lord, change me! Lord, give me a humble heart.”

We can see in Jesus that humility does not deny the truth. Jesus never denied himself as the Son of God, or his kingship. With humility of heart, he dared to speak the truth and challenge the thinking of the Pharisees. It was his love of other, love of our humanity, love for the purpose he came to serve that came through in humility. What about us?

There is the expression “the more I know the less I know”. It expresses the humility of heart that comes with the maturity of time. When were young we feel we have “it”, whatever “it” is that makes us confident and powerful. Then we grow to realize how vast “it” is to come to the knowledge of the world and to understand “it” is all by the hand of God. Scripture is filled with humility of heart; Genesis 43:28 “They bowed down in humility”; Leviticus 16:31 “spend your day in quiet humility’’; Psalm 18:35 “your humility exalts me”; Proverbs 11:2 “with humility comes wisdom”; Proverbs 22:4 “The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord is riches, honor, and life”; Proverbs 29:23 “Too much pride brings disgrace; humility leads to honor” and 1 Peter 3:8 “Let humility describe who you are”. How are we doing on the path of humility?

I had just finished graduate school and was having my first professional interview for a job. There were two people interviewing me one said, “you are very proud”. It wasn’t a question but a statement. It hit me like a slap on the face as I asked myself “Is this how I am coming across full of myself?” When someone comes across as proud, they also can be called out as a “know it all”. Not exactly the face of humility. Does this ring familiar with anybody? The culture for males is especially drawn to be heroes and warriors but it can be misguided to be “macho” as in arrogant and bully versus a true hero/warrior who is sacrificial and humble.

As parents we lift up with pride our children, give them recognition for effort, teach them to keep their chin up, and place them on a pedestal and there are appropriate moments when they need this. There is also a time for a healthy dose of humility where love means “no excuses”, saying “I’m sorry” or giving credit to others. Whoever came up with the saying “love is never having to say you are sorry” is in a fantasy and not in God’s world. In God’s world we go in humility of heart to confess “I am sorry for all my sins and having offended thee”. Couples say “I’m sorry” more times in a day than “I love you”. Maybe if we said “I love you” more often we would not need to say “I’m sorry”, something to ponder.

What about “no excuses”? In 3^rd grade, I was the fastest runner in my class. One day I lost my first race and somehow the teacher heard about it. He brought it up in class and I said I was feeling sick. He quickly responded “no excuses”. All of a sudden, I felt humiliated in front of everyone, that is I was humbled by someone else and had to swallow my green beans, that is my pride. I hate green beans. Well, “hate” is a strong word so change that to “I love to give away my green beans”.

Parents’ love is teaching our children to grow in virtue and preparing for the realities of life with a healthy dose of temperance. It’s not all about them. This reality hits home with the first major rejection in life and have we prepared them for it with healthy dose of humility? Today suicide rates are up among the youth as they face social bullying, broken homes, access to drugs, and identity crisis in a world where anything goes. For the world humility is not a virtue of value but a sign of weakness and everyone is to wear a happy face of pride but ultimately, we cannot deny ourselves. We are dust and to dust we shall return but something greater is here and it is the love of God who created us for eternity and will raise us up to himself.

Today the lesson is clear “conduct your affairs with humility and you will be loved more…(and) the greater you are”. When we give the place of honor to others, we demonstrate we are living the greatest commandment. Our love of God with all our heart, mind and soul is seen in the love we give our neighbor. Let us be humble of heart.

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The Deacon Joe

1st Sunday of Lent – Repent and believe!

Posted on February 20, 2021February 18, 2021 by Deacon Joe

Gen 9:8-15; Ps: 25:4-9; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mk. 1:12-15

“Repent and believe in the gospel”. What is the gospel of Jesus? It is keeping the covenant of love and truth. What is “love” and what is “truth”? Love is not an ideology, an emotion, or a law. Love is an act that shows sinners the way, guides the humble to justice, and teaches the humble his way. Truth is love that suffers as “Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous that he may lead you to God.”

The first sign of love and truth is “humility”. We must first humble ourselves in order to be open to receive God’s love and truth. The proud seek love that begins with their needs and define truth by reason of their “thinking”. The humble recognize love is a gift of giving that returns when love exists. The humble recognize the more they know and understand how little they know of the mystery of God. We are limited but God is infinite.

Love is an act that shows sinners the way. We are all sinners so let us begin with ourselves this lent in recognizing the “dirt” of sin we carry in all those ways we “look the other way” while God is looking directly at us. Let us reflect on our attitude to sin in which we minimize, rationalize, and even deny what the word of God has revealed to us as an act of disobedience. For those times in which we have “not put to death in the flesh” our temptations and make a “appeal for a clear conscience”. This is a gift waiting for us in confession.

Love “teaches the humble his way” not ours. Love is of giving of ourselves for the purpose of life we have been entrusted. We receive the blessing of a spouse, children, work, family, and friends and this is the first call to “teach” within our homes “his way” when we give of ourselves in our domestic church. We have also been entrusted with a community of faith serving a greater purpose as a church universal to bear fruit in showing sinners the way to “remove the dirt” of sin through baptism and reconciliation. These are not archaic traditions but acts of obedience that fulfill the promises God made to Noah. Water will no longer be a sign of destruction of the world but of cleansing of the world “in this time of fulfillment” in Jesus Christ.

Love guides the humble to justice. In a world that recognizes only winners and losers putting our sense of justice into an ideology instead of into a person is misguided justice. That person is Jesus Christ, the source of justice who holds the keys of the kingdom and separates heaven and earth, the righteous from the unrighteous. True justice is by way of love and truth and it lies within a person, our Lord and savior. The way of love and truth comes to us this Lent as an invitation to receive mercy through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We are in the season of mercy but we must act out in love to open the gates of mercy.

Some will view justice as an act of strength in “standing for justice” but then view mercy as an act of weakness as “giving in” to an injustice. Does Jesus give in to our sins by his mercy? Consider the act of mercy he gave in his passion by way of the cross. It was the greatest act of strength and courage he suffered in his mercy for the unrighteous that some may be saved. Be merciful! Love is merciful, slow to anger, patient and kind yet strong in truth. Without truth love is weak and relative to the whims of a thousand voices in the wind blowing us in every direction.

Truth is the way of Jesus. When Pontius Pilate asks Jesus “what is truth” Jesus shows Pilate the way of truth in the silence of his suffering on the way of his passion and death for the sake of the unrighteous to lead us to God. Are we living this “truth” willing to suffer for the sins of others in ways that guide them to justice or gives testimony of the way by virtue of how we live our own lives? Today we have more than one pandemic in the world, we have a health pandemic and a sin pandemic born out of the sexual revolution that brought us an explosion of abortion, pornography, sexual abuse scandals, and the spread of addictions at younger ages. These are not sin that our children will “grow out of” in time but will become lost in time in a Godless world. Lent is calling us to stop “looking the other way” and begin offering our prayers of love and truth as sacrifice for the sins of this world that we may all be saved.

Our best teaching of the truth comes from the visible signs of our faith in action. It bears fruit not according to our expectations but in the working of the spirit as it is received in others who each are in their journey of faith and we have served as one more sign post on the way to salvation. Who will be freed by offering a Mass intention, praying for the souls in purgatory? It may be those we love the most who have gone before us waiting for this Easter to be set free if we only do an act of reparation for them.

It seems every era has had to live through a time of great suffering. For the past generation it was a Great Depression filled with its share of pandemics such as polio and tuberculosis. Many did not survive and others found themselves in institutional hospitals to separate the disease from the well. This tribulation lasted for many years and the effects much longer. We now have our tribulation of suffering in which we face a pandemic, economic losses, and death. This is our moment of truth in which dare I say is a “coming to Jesus” moment. In this moment we must return to the source of life, make our offering, and recognize our mortality coming from Genesis 3:19 “you are dust and to dust you will return”. We have a choice to make in either dying to ourselves that we may receive life or living for ourselves in the way of sin that brings us sure death. The choice is ours.

Some may say this teaching is hard but Jesus laid a path for us that is the way of the cross. It is not a teaching without hope. It is a teaching of hope for suffering was given to us as a gift of hope to bring us into the reality of a promise much greater than any suffering. It is a promise of the resurrection to begin living the true gift of life in spirit and truth regardless of any suffering. It is the promise that gave courage to martyrs, hope to the sick, and freedom to the slave of sin. It is time to claim our freedom and receive the bread of life coming from “every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” It is the word of love and truth.

Jesus remained “in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan” yet he was not alone. It was here that “the angels ministered to him”. Lent is an opportunity to be ministered to in the spirit by returning to prayer, fasting and almsgiving. No act of sacrifice goes unnoticed by the Lord and all our offerings build the capital of grace allowing us to face not only the temptation of Satan but to overcome the weakness of the flesh with a power greater than us, the power of his love and truth.

Father Mitch Pacwa on EWTN reminds us that grain is crushed and mixed with water to make bread and grapes are crushed to make wine and both are raised up in the mystery of faith to become the body and blood of Jesus. Today we may find ourselves having that moment of being “crushed” by our suffering. Jesus allows suffering to transform us into his love and truth, a more perfect image of the divine to come.

God works in mysterious ways and one thing this freeze across the nation is causing is for people to stay home enforcing our social distancing and hopefully contributing to the decline of the pandemic. It is a reminder that God is in control of not just our life but our wellbeing. God used the waters of a flood to devastate the earth and brought about a cleansing of sin. God is allowing us to pass through this time of suffering to bring about a cleansing of souls and bring us back to the gospel of love and truth.

As we make our decisions as to what act of love and truth, we want to do this Lent consider this. Traditionally we look to pray perhaps in the form of a rosary, spend some time in spiritual reading, and then there is the traditional act of deciding what we “want to give up” that is in line with our weaknesses. This is all good but let us also seek to respond to our challenges, suffering, and the “test” of faith, that moment of being “crushed” by seeking and waiting for the Lord to respond with his grace, how he uses every moment and situation to reveal to us his presence, his love, his truth.

Let us have an encounter with Jesus this Lent that bring us to true conversion according to his will. Repent and believe in the gospel of love and truth coming to us through the mercy of Jesus Christ.

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Homily

1st Sunday of Lent

Posted on February 29, 2020February 28, 2020 by Deacon Joe

Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Ps. 51:3-6, 12-13, 17; Rom. 5:12-19; Mat. 4:1-11

Get away, Satan! Jesus rebukes Satan from the three temptations of humanity in today’s gospel. In psychology terms it is called the Id, Ego, and Superego. The Id is the temptation of the flesh to hunger for self-gratification of the passions of the body, hunger being primary. The Ego is the temptation of the mind for self-gratification to “test and see” is there a God of truth, goodness, beauty and love? The Superego is the temptation of the spirit for self-gratification of a higher consciousness “to be like gods”. These are the weapons of Satan. Get away, Satan the father of lies and come to me Jesus, word of God.

The first man and woman’s eyes were opened “and they realized they were naked”. Their eyes were opened not to wisdom as promised by the serpent but to their sin and immediately tried to cover the naked truth of their disobedience. Can anyone believe they can cover their naked sin before God? The season of Lent is a process of admitting our nakedness of sin to God and returning to a state of grace for our disobedience.

Which is our greatest temptation to overcome this Lent? The sins of the flesh in our passions to indulge our appetites for food, sex, alcohol, drugs; the sins of the mind to indulge in gaming, control, obsessions; and/or the sins of the spirit for pride, power, prestige and profit. “A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.” The first step is one of humility, we need God to be our change agent, we cannot do this ourselves. It is in relationship with a power greater than us that change comes. Alone we are like dust in the air and Satan is the wind that stirs us up and lets us fall. Without humility we are still trying “to be like gods” with the false image that the power is ours alone.

The second step is one of confession. Our confession of faith requires us to go before God and before brethren that is who we have sinned against and ask for forgiveness. This too is an act of humility in order to seek reconciliation there is a humble testimony that is made after a fearless moral inventory of our sins. Our “acquittal” we do not give to ourselves. We are not judge, jury and executioner. Our acquittal is in the reconciliation with God and others.

“But the gift is not like the transgression.” The consequence of sin is suffering and death but the gift of forgiveness is beyond atonement for Jesus has atoned for our sins. The gift is “the abundance of grace and gift of justification” to reign with Jesus Christ. Jesus reigns and we are invited to reign through the power of the Holy Spirit not as slaves but as children of the light. A new child in Christ is our calling and Jesus does not give up on us, let us not be the one who gives up on ourselves because of the temptations of Satan. Get away, Satan!

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Homily

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted on January 18, 2020January 17, 2020 by Deacon Joe

“It is too little, the Lord says, for you to be my servant…I will make you a light to the nations”. God created us for greatness “a light to the nations”. He desires greatness for us just we desire greatness for our children. He is a Father of love with gifts of grace to empower us to greatness but he cannot be without our response, “Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.” This is true humility to recognize we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us and apart from God there is no “life” only the existence of being. Today the question is “Is our will united to God’s will?”

Along the spectrum of surrender to God’s will we lose our humility in exchange for our pride. The Lord desires greatness for us according to his will and we seek a lessor role of servant according to our desires. Our resistance is framed in false humility, “who am I Lord” as we focus on our limitations. It is because of our limitations that the Lord comes to demonstrate his presence and power in our being to give us “life”. False humility is a passive way of saying “no…not now…why me” to God. Our desire is to go about our life with God to follow behind us. In surrender to God we respond to his call “come follow”, be the light that reflects his image to the world, he is the way, the truth, and the life. The call begins with baptism.

First, there is baptism for our sanctification in Jesus Christ. Second is “call to be holy” with “ears open to obedience”. Third is the obedient response, “Here I am Lord; I come to do your will”. Baptism sanctifies us as we are buried in Christ death and rise into holiness. Sanctification is the removal of our sins to receive the light and power to go forth with courage and conviction. Holiness is an active process of avoiding sin, seeking grace, and responding to the call to do God’s will.

With “ears open to obedience” is part of the baptismal rite called “Ephphetha” the prayer over the ears and mouth of the child saying “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.” With ears open the Word speaks to our hearts calling us to respond to God’s call. The power is in obedience to the Word which in itself is a revelation personal and universal. The Word speaks to us in our spirit, confirms God’s call, and sends us forth in obedience. Perhaps it is one reason our bibles collect dust at home as we shut out the word during the week and open our ears on Sundays for a word of inspiration before retreating to our comfort zone to the “ordinary” of our week.

The church now enters into “Ordinary Time” but not a time for the ordinary. Ordinary time is a time for action, for conversion and change. New Year’s resolutions are a call for change in our lives, change for the better. We look to change our habits, improve our health and/or our lifestyle. We are introspective in search of our happiness. God’s call for greatness is in serving the greater good of the world we have been given where we stand. It begins with the ordinary decisions we make each day. Do we respond with the appropriate virtue for the situation, kindness, generosity, empathy, understanding or whatever is needed? Do we live with zeal for justice and reject sin? The is the call for the ordinary of life that opens us up to receive the greatness of the Lord.

God is ready anytime, anywhere since he is everywhere but it is our time now to say “Yes Lord, I come to do your will.”

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Homily

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

Posted on January 3, 2020January 3, 2020 by Deacon Joe

Num. 6:22-27; Ps. 67:2-3,5,6,8; Gal. 4:4-7; Lk. 2:16-21

The Blessing! The Church brings in the “New Year” with “The Blessing”, a revelation to the world, “Mary, Mother of God” in Greek “Theotokos”. In these few words blood has been shed, people become divided, and theologians debate. The conflict is not Mary but her title as Mother of God because she points to Jesus Christ as God. We are in the Christmas time of celebrating Emmanuel God is with us. He is with us in Jesus Christ. The argument is framed that Mary in her humanity in time cannot be the Mother of God who is eternal from the beginning in his divinity. Yet that is exactly who Jesus is the Word made flesh to be among us. Mary’s title is not to draw attention to herself but to who Jesus is as the second person of the Trinity.

In the Abrahamic religions Jews, Christians, and Muslims have no consensus on this core belief. Muslims venerate Mary but see Jesus as another prophet. Jews rejected Jesus as an anathema for claiming to be equal to God demanding his death. Even in some Protestant Christian churches Mary is simply the woman who gave birth to Jesus without any veneration. The central point is not Mary but who is Jesus? In Christology, the study of Jesus Christ the early church debated this issue. Was he fully human called to rise to a divine life, was he fully divine simply appearing as human or was he part humanity and part divinity? The answer comes in his name Emmanuel, God is with us, God in the second Person of the Trinity, the Word made flesh fully human and fully divine.

The Child Jesus in his humanity received from his parents two witnesses of holiness, Mary’s humility and Joseph’s obedience. Three times an angel appears to Joseph and he was obedient. First the angel tells Joseph to take Mary with child as his wife and he obeyed. The second to take Mary and child to Egypt and he obeyed. The third to return to Israel after Herod’s death and he obeyed. Jesus was an obedient child to his parents and to the divine purpose for which he came. Mary humbled herself at the annunciation giving her fiat to be with child. Mary remained by Jesus side in humility with the words “do as he says”. Jesus, fully divine, Christ the King humbled himself in humanity going forth proclaiming the Word.

Imagine a New Year’s resolution to practice humility and obedience. It would be awesome and terrible at the same time. Awesome to seek the ideal of love in Jesus Christ and terrible to experience our constant bruising from falling from the ideal repeatedly. The barrier to living the ideal is pride. Pride not in the ordinary acceptance of being a child of God but in the disordered desire to impose our will onto other including God. God says “come follow” and our pride says “God follow me”. Mary and Joseph provide us the ordered way to follow in humility and obedience to sanctity. The Blessing of the Lord is to “keep you” for his love, to let his face give us the light of truth that we shine with holiness, that he see us with his kindly mercy and receive peace as we invoke his name Emmanuel, God is with us and venerate his mother Mary the Mother of God.

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Homily

22nd Sunday Ordinary Time Christian Perfection

Posted on August 31, 2019September 1, 2019 by Deacon Joe

Sir. 3: 17, 18, 20, 28-29; Ps. 68: 4-7, 10-11; Heb. 12: 18-19, 22-24a; Lk 14: 1, 7-14

Inward humility manifests itself in outward charity for Christian perfection. The Lord speaks to our sense of justice and our call to Christian perfection in two statements. First is “God in your goodness, you have made a home for the poor” and then he says “Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you”. First, we recognize God is good and in his “goodness” he cares for the “poor” and we all share in being among the poor. Second in our poverty of humanity we are to demonstrate our humility by charity to the poor that is among ourselves for Christian perfection. When we do good we feel good because the goodness of Christ lives in us.

God’s home for the poor is the tabernacle in the sacred heart of Jesus. He is “the mediator of a new covenant” we receive in the Eucharist, “the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently” to live is us that we may be at home in our being in Christ. The poor is not a class system of disparities between the “haves and have nots”. We all share a poverty we bring to Christ as an offering and let his will be done.

The word of God was often spoken in parables to be understood by the spirit of God at various levels of understanding for “The mind of a sage appreciates proverbs”. There are for example the poor who suffer economic stress having to choose between buying food or buying their medications. There are the poor of health suffering from chronic illness, trauma, or genetic conditions. There are the poor in spirit who suffer from anxiety, depression, obsessions, and/or abandonment. There are also the poor in grace who suffer from separation from God crippled by sin, blind from God’s presence.

The Lord’s response to all the poor is, “you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God…and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus the mediator of a new covenant…”. In our poverty spiritual and corporal, we come to Jesus the just judge to be transformed into the “just made perfect”. How are we made perfect given our own weakness, sinfulness, poverty and brokenness? When we do good, we feel good because the goodness of Christ lives in us to be made perfect in Christ. Christ says, “My child, conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more…the greater you are, and you will find favor with God.” When we recognize our own poverty before God, we give life to our spirit of humility and our actions are transformed into charity for a greater good.

Our call is to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect and it begins in humility and leads to charity. Jesus says, “Learn from me, for I a meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt. 11:29) For this perfection we cultivate a temperance among all virtues, love without selfishness is not about what’s in it for me; obedience without servility is about what is good for both not one over the other; patience without weakness is standing firm in our faith, firmness without pride is honesty, courage without recklessness is prudence, and authority without haughtiness is justice with a heart of love.

Finally, I want to do a “shout out” for the souls in purgatory with the reminder that “alms atone for sins.” The souls in purgatory suffering in the “flames of fire” hunger for atonement of their sins. They thirst for water that quenches their suffering and our prayers, Masses, offerings of charity in remembrance of them is water that quenches. I just finished the book titled Hungry Souls on the apparitions of the souls in purgatory to many people. What all these souls have in common is they seek some form of atonement by the person they appear to while in purgatory to shorten their suffering and time in purgatory on their path to heaven. This is perfect charity to make atonement for the souls in purgatory “because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

I say again, “When we do good we feel good because the goodness of Christ lives in us.” We just may be shortening our time in purgatory in atonement of our own sins in perfect charity. We are all called to be saints and heaven is waiting to receive saints. Purgatory is waiting to purify the souls who died short of Christ’s perfect call. Let us pray to receive the grace to follow the call to perfection while there is time.

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