4th Sunday of Lent – Taste and see!

Posted on March 26, 2022March 25, 2022 by Deacon Joe

Josh. 5:9a, 10-13; Ps. 34:2-7; 2Cor. 5:17-21; Lk. 15:11-32

“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” In Christ we are a “new creation; the old things have passed away” and we are called to be “ambassadors for Christ”. As baptized Christians we all have a calling to reconciliation. From the ministry of the priesthood and the sacrament of reconciliation to the baptized faithful we carry a message from Christ “as if God were appealing through us”. The message is to seek reconciliation with God and with each other so we may taste and see, through reconciliation the goodness of the Lord. We are to pray for our enemies, bring peace into our homes, and spread the good news of reconciliation to our neighbors.

“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” in our neighbor. It is not that hard to love thy neighbor in the abstract until they move into our neighborhood living close enough, we hear their music outdoors, their dog poops in our yard, and their yard starts to look like a jungle. We’re suppose to love “that”? We’re suppose to love “them” not “that”. We’re suppose to seek reconciliation to support the peace and the God of peace will work through us so we may taste and see how something negative can be transformed into the goodness of the Lord. Ambassadors speak for the one they represent and we represent Christ first before it becomes about “us” and not all about us.

Our Protestant brothers and sisters are much more accustomed to asking others “are you a Christian?” In asking it seeks to find common ground as a believer with what unites us before we ever look at what separates us. Then as ambassadors for Christ they will refer to bible passages to share their faith and their love of God as an invite to join in a faith discussion. If you have ever been asked the question what was the response? Hopefully it was “yes, I am Catholic” and able to speak for the faith we carry as One, Catholic and Apostolic Church. We are ambassadors of the Church and we can bring reconciliation to our separated brothers and sisters by the message we deliver of faith, hope, and love through an understanding of our Catholic faith with others. We want others to taste and see the goodness of the Lord by spreading the faith in God under his church.

One of the blessings out of media resources is Catholic programming in radio, television, podcasts, social media, internet, and even audio books. Programs specifically targeting either a return to the Catholic church or the apologetics of the church in understanding our faith are having a great impact. I hear callers say they are not Catholic but enjoy listening in or by “chance” they tuned in and began to listen. Often it is Catholics who are being catechized further in understanding our faith through media. Every week I post the Sunday homily to the webpage www.thedeacon.net to share the gospel message because it may be the word that someone needed to hear to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord”.

Catholic media can be a bridge to spiritual direction. The Church supports and believes in the value of a spiritual director but how many of us have a spiritual director? I suspect not many and one reason is there are few available to provide that one-on-one guidance on a regular basis. Pastors are generally “fire fighters” for crisis situations. I met with a priest for spiritual direction recently and he informed me he would probably be leaving the diocese. Given the reality that there are few priests available to meet with he suggested using Catholic reading material as a form of reflection, prayer, and guidance. If you give me a book, I’m good and happy. We need to grow deeper roots into our faith and media resources is one form of feeding the soul so we can have a well-informed conscience.

Taste and see the healing power of God. In the gospel, Jesus gives us a parable of the mercy of God in the Father and the fallen nature of humanity in the two sons. The son who squanders his inheritance in a life of corruption “was dead” says his father, an indication of living in mortal sin. By his return to his father, he “has come to life again”. In our day we have many sons and daughters being lost in corruption of addictions of all types, alcohol, drugs, sex, money, even to power. They live in the culture of death dependent on what is evil and separated by mortal sin rejecting the love of God. Their inheritance of heaven has been lost but hope is the last to die for their return home through the mercy of God. God’s love heals the broken, sick, and lost when our senses recognize only a power greater than us can heal us, lift us from the pit of sin, and restore us in right relationship with our God, our family, and our friends.

Taste and see in the “older son” the danger of the sin of self-righteousness. When we judge ourselves better than others, more deserving, and entitled we fall into the pit of pride slowly eroding the image of God by the denial of all our venial sins creating separation not unity. What is the “taste” the older son had? It was a taste of “bitterness”, bitter that his brother had returned and was being welcomed back with love by his father. The bitterness of pride creates a false sense of self-righteousness.

The older son believed by his obedience he had earned his entitlement and was never even given “a young goat to feast” with his friends. His error in judgment was in comparing himself to his brother and expecting a reward based on his merits. Perhaps the older son may have even felt there was favoritism by the father if you recall the story of Cain and Abel. The jealousy of Cain for his brother Abel caused him to shed the blood of his brother, just like the jealousy of Joseph’s brothers caused them to want to kill him. Do we celebrate the success and blessings of others or do we taste and see with bitterness their joy?

Let us compare ourself to no one else but if we are tempted to compare ourself then let us look to Jesus and ask ourself “are we living the life example and message he gave us?” We take a tea cup and fill it to the top and we take a beer mug and fill it to the top, both are 100% full but each has a different capacity and purpose for what it is capable of holding. Each of us is given a gift and possibly more than one gift that we can taste and see what good our gift can produce. For example, my gift as a deacon is a great blessing but it is not the gift of priesthood. So much more is expected from a priest that is not my calling. Pray for our priests because they will give account of all the lives they served or failed to serve. Let us be humble and thankful for what God is asking of us in our state of life for to who more is given more will be demanded. We may only have one talent but one talent can move mountains when it comes from God.

This Lent let us “taste and see the goodness of the Lord…in the land of the living” by faith and action to our calling. Let us be among the living in the presence of God and pray for those among the dead in the darkness of sin. This is our time to bring reconciliation into our lives by taking the first step towards mercy…that is to God himself in the act of penance for our sins.

“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” in the Holy Father’s consecration of Russia and the Ukraine and of all humanity this week on the day of “The Annunciation of the Lord” what miracles the Lord can bring to these nations and for all of us as we pray for peace and an end to war. It is our calling to join in with our prayers asking God to reveal to us his goodness and by his mercy and love bring also our conversion. Amen.

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Homily The Deacon Joe

Palm Sunday – It has begun, the final journey!

Posted on March 27, 2021March 26, 2021 by Deacon Joe

Palm Sunday, it has begun! The final journey to “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Death is a human experience of being “forsaken”, a fear of total separation “abandonment” to suffer the final battle for the soul at the hour of death with the evil one, the final test of faith. Jesus walked the walk of death in his humanity though not in his divinity to leave us with the hope of salvation when the final hour comes calling for our souls may we be faithful to the end. Palm Sunday is our remembrance not simply of his passion and death for our salvation but also of our readiness to undergo the test, the final battle and finish the good fight.

It has begun with Palm Sunday, the beginning of the end not just of Holy Week in which we recognize the time has come to “walk” in the steps of the Lord’s Passion but of our own test of faith. Do we walk the walk or do we deny? From the agony of “tears and supplications” to the final breath Jesus taught us the way of faithfulness and obedience to the Father. Jesus taught us there is suffering in which we feel alone and forsaken in order to testify to our faith. We are greater than our feelings and our weaknesses. We are being made perfect as we are transformed into the divine nature through death to self but not all. “Not all” we shall consider later.

It has begun are we ready to follow? Jesus requested his disciples to go and bring him a “colt tethered on which no one has ever sat.” Jesus has walked for years and has the strength to bear the weight of the cross to come but now he desires a colt to ride on. What does this mean? In short it means obedience to the Father in all of the smallest details foretold of his coming. A king does not come into his kingdom on foot “see your king comes, seated upon an ass’s colt”. As Saint Leo the Great pope wrote “Lowliness is assured by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that was incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer…was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other.” He humbled himself in our human nature to bring us into his divine nature out of love.

Jesus was not only fulfilling the prophesies of centuries past that pointed to his coming, he was fulfilling the law and the prophets the Father’s way while making all things new in himself. The Father’s way is one of surrender to the divine will to become a new creation. The Father’s way of obedience is not to create pawns out of humanity as puppets on a string. Jesus came “taking the form of a slave…obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” to deliver us from the slavery of sin into the freedom of God’s glory. The Father’s way is to bring about a new creation in us perfect in his image with power and love beyond all understanding in order to go forth and make disciples of all nations. Not our way but the Father’s way of humble service. For this reason, the world cannot accept the Father’s way.

The world looks to create its own power and define its own love, a temptation from the evil one from the beginning of time. It was the free will of the angels that produced the fall of Satan and his dominion of angels. It was the free will of Adam and Eve that allowed temptation to overcome them. It is the free will of even Jesus’ followers to complain “Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil? It could have been sold for more than three hundred days’ wages and the money given to the poor. They were infuriated with her.” “They” how quickly even one act of love from the “woman” with the costly jar of alabaster oil turned future saints into sinners and into a movement spreading anger, lack of understanding, and one of them, Judas Iscariot into a traitor to hand him over to the chief priests. Let us consider how the evil one is quick to turn good upside down into evil. Why “not all will enter the kingdom of heaven”.

First, have you noticed how the Catholic church is criticized by some of the faithful for all the beauty of art it possesses in its shrines, cathedrals, and museums? The criticism is that “it could be sold to help the poor.” Sound familiar? God granted a few a gift of grace to create a masterpiece not to be auctioned to the highest bidder but to serve as a gift of spiritual awakening accessible to all who come with an open heart of love. We are blessed by those he has blessed so that the temples of our hearts may be enriched with faith, hope, and love.

Second, consider how social justice in the “woke” culture. What is “woke”? “Woke” is slang for “awake” that is to awaken to social awareness of injustice. The “woke” world of today’s culture has found a powerful weapon in social media to bring awareness to issues of racial injustice. This has quickly been captured by some to weaponize with hate speech in order to shame others into silence. When we listen to those who proclaim justice for some and not for all, when some lives matter more than others, when hate is seen as justice in the hands of some who desire to “woke” others into shame then the evil one is prowling about seeking the ruin of souls. This is not the means sought by Martin Luther King, Jr., or Cesar Chavez, or Mahatma Gandhi who understood awareness does not come through hate, violence or oppression. These are the weapons to gain power not unity and peace.

If the goal of “woke” culture is to awaken us then let us be also awaken to the evil means that seek its own ends in a culture of death. The world is quick to reject good for evil and create a “herd” mentality of rebellion. “They” did it to Jesus then “they” can quickly become “us”. Let us all become “woke” to the kingdom of heaven like the five prudent virgins in the gospel of Mathew (Mt. 25:1-13) who were prepared waiting for the bridegroom. Stay awake! Stay awake because the battle is raging institutionally in education, health care, in the church, and its coming home to divide Father against son, brother against sister. But sin cannot hide in its darkness because the light of Easter has come into the world and we follow the light of truth.

It is our free will that leads us to consider “not all” will be transformed and made perfect into a new creation. Death separates the souls who died with the stain of sin waiting a final cleansing in purgatory. Death also separates the “grain from the weeds”, that is those destined for the fire of cleansing from those destined to the fire of damnation. Who will we follow, the Father’s way humbled as Jesus did unto death or the way of the past world that is the way of a fallen nature? The freedom to choose is now before us before it is too late. Are we ready to bend our knees and confess “Jesus Christ is Lord” of my life?

This Passover will be different not from the big “T” of Tradition but from the little “t” traditions of how we celebrate this coming week as directed by our Bishop, Daniel Flores. It has already begun with the manner we entered without a procession to receive our palms. Holy Thursday there will not be any washing of the feet and Good Friday we will not be touching or venerating the cross with a kiss, and Holy Saturday the darkness will not be lighted by candles but the light of Jesus will shine even brighter. In the midst of all the darkness this world has endured this year faith, hope, and love never dies.

This is our Passover from death to life. This is our calling to rise above the earthly pilgrimage and enter the kingdom of heaven in the “Via Dolorosa” and shed our sins before the mercy of God. How will it end?

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Homily

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Posted on March 30, 2019March 30, 2019 by Deacon Joe

Jos. 5:9a, 10-12; Ps. 34: 2-7; 2Cor. 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

To be called Christian is to be ambassadors for Christ in the proclamation of the good news. The good news for our times is God’s love and mercy and it is emphasized in today’s gospel reading in the parable of the Prodigal son. In this triangle between the Father and his two sons we each can see ourselves being called to respond to the God’s love.

Often in men’s retreats I have attended come a group of men at all stages of their conversion and commitment to the faith. The son who asked for his inheritance and then squandered it in a life of sin is the retreatant who comes in hope of reconciliation but their sin makes them struggle with a sense of unworthiness until they witness the testimony of a sinner who like them has found forgiveness, peace within themselves from God and through God are able to stand and share their journey of conversion. They see the God of mercy in the love of others and approach the Father’s love with fear and uncertainty until the Holy Spirit is received as confirmation, they are a new creation born of the spirit.

The rebellious son is a spirit of the human condition that by our actions says, “I have no need for God for I choose to do it my way.” This predates to the original sin of Adam and Eve we would define as egoism where we define morality as “my truth” and I determine reality in a sea of relativism. In my reality then I must have “my space, my choice, my freedom, my everything” otherwise I am a victim of your hate, your intolerance, your racism, your bigotry. To avoid you my enemy then I must retrieve into the bubble of my isolationism or you must be destroyed as the evil one. My choice for freedom of you is your extermination.

We may accept that “God is there” somewhere but we go our way trusting in our own “goodness and wisdom” until we have squandered our inheritance of faith in a God, hope in a power greater than us, love unconditional, and compromised all our values in search of success defined by the values of the world. By then relationships have been hurt or even broken without hope of reconciliation. What is left? Do we simply “try again” or do we return to the God of mercy and love? “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord”.

The retreat also brings men who have remained close to the Church, following in obedience as the son who remained in the Father’s house and does not understand the “injustice” the world has delivered them. “How can a good God allow for the suffering in their lives?” The heavy burden of sickness, death of a loved one, the loss of work, the tragedy from abuse as a child all weigh upon the soul, hidden by their actions is the anger and resentment to the Father. What has obedience done for me, “not even a young goat to feast on” while other sinners seem to have the “better life”.

The response of the Father to his son, “everything I have is yours” is a reminder God is ready to pour out his blessings on his sons and daughters but our rebellious spirit is holding on to our sense of “injustice” in its own rebelliousness to the Father. We can be in the Church but not of the Church without the “agape” love which is unconditional ready to be the ambassador of mercy “as we forgive those who have trespassed against us”. The retreat is a conversion of love and mercy for the sinner called beyond the spirit of obedience to grow in the image of Christ, the God of love.

Then we have the Father whose relationship with his two sons gives the impression of bias in favor of the younger over the elder. As parents no two children are the same and the discipline and or leniency in which the children perceive of their parents is often questioned as perhaps also the expectations of them as they are growing up. In the human condition we feel “its not fair”. In the context of the culture of the time the younger son’s actions by daring to ask for his inheritance are a betrayal and the death of a relationship. The Father never loses hope and “while he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion”. The Father longs for the return of his son because his love is an unconditional love. This is the Father’s unconditional love for both sons as he explains to the elder “everything I have is yours”. In this statement Jesus reveals the kingdom of God belongs to his faithful as our inheritance.

If we have the kingdom of God to celebrate as faithful followers from the Father how are we living with this treasure? The elder son did not have a sense of ownership from his Father’s inheritance. There remained a separation with the Father created by the son who remained obedient but not living an intimate relationship with his Father. For us the question to ask ourselves from our baptism promises is what relationship do I have with our God and Father? If we come to Church and leave the same without a deeper conversion what is keeping me away from his love leaving his graces at the altar. God is ready to pour out his graces into our lives to live our inheritance and we don’t ask, don’t seek, and we don’t trust.

The younger son “was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” In the fifth commandment, “You shall not kill”, it is not the Father who kills but the son who commits the crime against himself in dying to sin. In returning to the Father he is born again of the spirit. This is our Lenten call today to free ourselves from the bondage of our own sins and return to the Father whose arms are waiting to receive us. He remains outside the door of our hearts with his sight on us filled with compassion and mercy. Come, receive and live the kingdom of God, let us live our inheritance to the fullest.

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