Sunday Readings

The Right Place

If you spend enough time in Church, you’ll soon notice something you can’t miss. You’ll notice that people miss Church. Or rather, they don’t miss Church; they just don’t go. It is an almost eternal problem like getting Altar Servers to hang up their vestments or asking folks not to leave right after Communion. Why don’t people go to Mass like they do on Christmas or Easter? Throughout the ages, we’ve tried everything. We hyped the entertainment with music; we set the stage with art-work; we even yell a reminder here and there. What’s the problem and is this another one of those “keep-going-to-Mass-or-you’ll-be-sorry” sermons?

I certainly hope not. I never liked hearing them and, to be honest, I never like giving them. So I am not going to try and answer the question of a crowd that’s not here. I’m sure they have their reasons and I have neither the time nor the energy to listen to them. Instead, you are here. Whether by love or fear, habit or routine, you are here.

So why? What has drawn you or at least allowed you to be in this sacred place on the Octave Day, the Eighth Day, of Easter? In the past few years, this has the added title of ‘Divine Mercy Sunday’ and that is the loudest answer to the question of why you are here today. This feast is the result of a particular devotion to God’s Mercy inspired by a Polish nun in the 20’s and 30’s of last century. It is a devotion which says that those who are most in need of God’s mercy are the most entitled to it. It says that the fruit of Easter is mercy itself. It is the risen Christ offering forgiveness to the world and to each of us individually. It gently screams that hope is greater than despair. And through the locked doors of fear and guilt, the mercy of God comes to us as if they were not there. So if this is a religion that truly believes this, where is the rest of Baptized humanity? Where is everyone?

Mercy is so often understood as the forgiveness of sins. I do wrong, God is not happy, I say I’m sorry, I go to Confession and now God loves me again. WRONG! That is a “get out of eternal jail card” or some sort of “immunity idol” that will keep us on the island of grace. Mercy is shown in the forgiveness of sins but it is so much more. Mercy says that God loves me even when I sin and God wants me to be happy. Mercy doesn’t end when the slate is wiped clean. It is the charity we try and – yes – often fail to show each other not because we’re so great at it but because God is so good. It is the patience we show – even as we fail – because God has shown us a long-suffering gentleness. It becomes the environment we live in, the air we breathe, and the living definition of we are.

It was this for the earliest Christian communities. They were so struck by the mercy of God that it drew them together and others from outside. It converted the pagans and inspired the nations. In a very cruel and brutal world, a faith that gave hope more than condemnation spread like wildfire. And ever since then, it still does. That’s why were still here. That’s why people go week after week to Mass.

But as I said, not every one. People, ourselves included, have a problem. We too often don’t mind being wrong but we hate being forgiven. We have a rebellion inside us that says we’ll do it on our own and if we can’t, we’ll just give up. We tend to reject mercy as nothing more than the forgiveness of sins. It’s so strange but look how many believe – even the Church-going crowd – that the Bible says: “God helps those who help themselves.” Really? I’ve read it cover to cover a number of times and I can tell you it’s not in there. In fact, the whole point of the Bible is that we couldn’t help ourselves. That’s why we sin and sin again. That’s why we fail to love and reject hope. The only possible answer was the grace of God’s mercy.

And people do not like being helpless. We want the apple from the tree of knowledge. We want to do it ourselves even when we proved, time and time again, that we can’t. We’ll condemn God himself but never Adam and Eve.

Mercy says to us “Peace to you. No, you don’t have to do what you can’t do. You don’t have to pretend you are God. You don’t have to impress Me because I have already impressed you on the palm of my hand. I forgive you for you haven’t even done wrong yet and I love you even more for what you have tried to do right. I loved you before you were born and will love you long after you have died. You loose yourself in your fears and your failures and I find you by giving you Myself. You’ll find my glory in your shame and my shame has given you the glory of hope. You may think you are too bad for My goodness but you are wrong. You may think that this life is all there is but I am the resurrection and the life – not this. You may fear the consequences of your wrong choices but I am greater because I am the way, the truth and the life. You may have opened Pandora’s box but I have opened the treasuries of My mercy. Your sins may have beaten you down but I win in the end. I may have conquered death, but I want to win your heart.”

When we forget this, when we fail to live it and to teach it, we become people of a moral code or a congregation of Christian culture. And I’d rather be doing a whole lot of other things than listening to that. But when the message of mercy, the Gospel, is the central and singular reason, how can we help but receive it, rejoice in it, and reflect it?

And this is the only decent reason to keep showing up: because of a mercy that is truly always there for us especially we are not in the right place. On this Divine Mercy Sunday, in the lingering glow of Easter glory, we are most certainly in the right place.

Sunday Readings

Homilies for Triduum 2008

Same Old Tune

Earlier this week, I looked through a listing in the NY Times of the music for Holy Week at some of the major churches in New York City. I was struck by something very obvious. Most churches had the same big Easter pieces like the Halleluiah chorus or the Widor Toccata. And these similar programs stretched across neighborhoods and denominations. With rare exceptions, there was nothing new. The cynical may call it ‘just the same old tune.’ The faithful have a different view. And while there is comfort in the predicable, there is always surprise in God’s grace.

The truth be told, we do sing the same old thing on Easter. This is, after all, the hymn of salvation and not some cute ditty. This is the victory anthem of those who are going to live forever. It is the rebel song that is raised in the face of death itself. The joy of the day is a revolutionary action against the despair humanity seems prone to accepting. The alleluia’s of this Feast proclaim that Christ is risen and because He is, so are we.

Does this mean that Easter should have nothing to do with chocolates, jelly beans or marshmallow peeps? God forbid! Is it licit to celebrate the winter’s end and the regeneration of the coming Spring? Without question. In fact these very physical things are more than appropriate expressions of faith. Of all religious festivals, this is the most and the least ‘spiritual’ holiday. It is the most because of the grace and new life given to souls reborn in Baptism. It is the least because it is the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ and not some navel-gazing symbolic renewal. The analogies of meaningfulness are fine and good, but this is no analogy. When we say ‘Christ is Risen’ that is not an invitation to discuss the meaning of the word ‘is’!

And we are not looking back at an historical event that was at the foundation of a religion. We are not exempt from Easter. That resurrected body is remarkably similar to the ones we happen to be in possession of right now. But unlike ours at the present time, this one is not going to be subject to death or illness or decay. If this is what the risen body of Christ is like in Easter glory, humanity begins to ask a question among the lilies and bonnets – could this be us? Could this be me?

Like the low rumbling of the stone in front of the tomb that starts to roll, humanity begins to hope. Facing death and diminishing, we look for a way out. Easter tells us to look for the way through. In the disaster that was Good Friday, and through it, Easter dawns on a world that too often and too agreeably accepts and affects these disasters. Through the suffering of the Son we come to the Father. In the silence of Calvary, we hear the trumpet call of glory.

So enjoy the jelly beans and be sure to share your Easter treats – with me! They tried to commercialize Easter, but it failed and they thankfully moved on to Halloween. Lent is over and the spring has come. This is our glory day because the glory we see in Christ is the hope that is our re-birthright.

So there is nothing more and nothing less than this: Christ is Risen!

And so are we!

Alleluia!




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Sunday Readings

Since the Liturgy of Palm Sunday is cenered round the Passion, there is no homily for today

Sunday Readings

All You Have To Do...

There is a phrase other people use that makes my skin crawl. They use it when they are showing me something that they believe will make my life better. In handing on their pearls of wisdom, they begin by saying, “now, all you have to do is…”. Normally that would be fine except it is usually one of many separate tasks in succession. We know this trend when we get the 156-page instructional manual. We read it in 74 steps to living a happier life. After all, the Bible has more than enough rules for figuring out a way to heaven, so why not a DVD player? We have a tendency to complicate the simplest and most important things in life by dictating to ourselves - and each other - a system rivaling the US tax code.

Throughout history, there is one mystery, one problem, that refuses a sure and easy answer. It presents itself to saint and sinner alike and it is the one thing we all share and all live with. It is death. We pretty-it-up and use euphemisms like “passed on”, “departed” and “in a better place.” We try not to focus on it and shield the little ones from it. We mock it with every roller coaster ride and trivialize it with every video game. But when faced with it, there is no quick solution and no one can rightly tell us “now, all you have to do is..”.

The Gospel of the raising of Lazarus enters this reality of life. Jesus mourns the death of His friend. He truly feels the pain of the family. He receives the anger of the neighbors. He sees the despair in the corner of each disciple’s eye. There is simply no way out of this. Just prior to His own death, Jesus enters a friend’s darkness.

Why? Why didn’t the Healer of Galilee just say the word and His friend would be healed? Why didn’t He work some divine miracle for the sake of Mary and Martha? What Jesus did was a little different. Not merely the power of life restored, Jesus worked a miracle of liberation. He says to the now-living Lazarus, “untie him; let him go free.”

Liberty, in the Christian sense, is not the unlimited permission to what we desire and hope it happens to fall in line with the Father’s will. Christian liberty is the freedom to live the Father’s will without fear. It means to be liberated from the numbing anxiety that God simply doesn’t care. And most of all, it is unbounded confidence that life does not end when it seems to. Lazarus was given life again to live. And having received it, he began to know the promised mercy of resurrection. There is a difference here. Lazarus was raised, not resurrected. He was given time but more than this, he saw eternity Itself standing outside the tomb ordering him to be liberated. The glory of Christ’s Easter resurrection was foreshadowed as Lazarus and his family and neighbors saw this miracle.

And that is what it is – a miracle. It was a visible demonstration of the power of God acting on the world to bring faith. There is no such thing as a ‘private miracle’. It may be a grace or a blessing, but a miracle is meant to be seen. It was a proclamation that something very new was about to happen. Life was no longer about extending itself beyond an apparent expiration date. It was not about existence only, but life in a new order of creation. To keep surviving is good but too often it is not about living. And a faith that is focused inordinately on avoiding death carries an ever-growing fear of it. In an old Twilight Zone with a young Robert Redford, an elderly lady lives in such fear of death she will have no human contact. She will not open the door to anyone in case the caller will be the awful specter of death. Redford is the handsome policeman who turns out to be the angel of death and before she knows it, he is leading her outside the door and asks her, “was it really that bad?” The woman had missed living because she was held captive by the dread of it ending.

Does the Gospel say that death is good or that we should forget about this life looking only to the life to come? Absolutely not. Life is good and we oppose, from abortion to euthanasia, any assault on it. But ours is a faith that says as good as life is, there is so much more. As we enter this final phase of Lent we begin to encounter the horror of Good Friday. In the symbolic sacrifices of Lent and the difficulties of life, we see the Cross rather near and very familiar. We experience the binding spell of delusion promising that nothing can hurt us or anything more will go wrong. We fear that life can pass us by or that we somehow may have missed it. And we can be constricted by conscience unforgiven and unrepentant.

The Gospel does not say ‘all you have to do is…’ It speaks, rather, to our fears and weakness and commands that we be untied and be freed. But this can only come from the One who can order it because He knew it. This emancipation can only take effect when it comes from the origin of life itself. And it is our heritage by grace because we walk through this sometimes dark valley with the One who walks through it each day with us.

Be not afraid’, after all, is not a prayer.

It’s a command.

And obeying it is, well, all you have to do!

Sunday Readings

An Easy Better

Couldn’t there have been an easier way? Whether we ask this with regret or desperation, we ask it. Couldn’t we have learned without making mistakes? Couldn’t we have just fallen in love without a getting a broken heart? Couldn’t we simply win and never loose? From Adam and Eve until today, the human story is one of lessons – learned, not learned and ignored. It’s remarkable how every generation, every individual experiences so many of the same things, in the same way over and over again.

The lessons of faith have a strong parallel to the lessons of life. The wisdom of the past stands the test of time. The truth remains regardless of how it is packaged. The reality of grace smiles at each new soul that discovers how amazing it is. As a Church, we have been Baptizing future saints and sinners for a long time. Each religion class covers what we have been teaching in the days before computers and indoor plumbing. And the cry goes up each time: couldn’t there be an easier way?

No.

I could tell you deal with it and leave it there. I could repeat the truth that it is in giving we receive, it is in pardoning that we find pardon and it is dying that we are born to eternal life. And I would be correct. But the Gospel today gives us more than a strong and blunt answer. The Gospel speaks of the Lenten and life-long journey of faith in this one man healed by the Preacher from Galilee. This is the story of a man who began by only hearing of Jesus and who came to call Him ‘Lord.’

There are two things that speak to us as we each struggle to embrace the faith that gives us eternal life.

The first is that this newly-sighted soul encounters opposition, insult and humiliation. Faith that is strong, fresh and powerful is a threat. The order of the world does not like to be disturbed. People are not easy with grace that refuses to confine itself. Religion, our world tells us, is a private affair. Study religion as an academic subject but don’t try living it. Respect all forms of belief but don’t believe any one of them too much.

And it’s not just the world telling us this. We repeat these things to ourselves. We permit a cafeteria-like selection of how we are going to live and what we are going to believe. We tell ourselves - and each other - that this is fine and intelligent. We oppose the healing of spiritual blindness because we grow used to the darkness too easily. And when the light of Gospel grows too bright we shy away ask if it could be easier.

Since the answer is already ‘no’, when you find opposition to the Gospel rising within you, ask yourself why you are avoiding it. Don’t be afraid or think that you are beyond hope. You’re not. Laugh at your silliness and ask for grace to guide you through the struggle. Look to Jesus, the healer and the fount of all wisdom.

And this is the second aspect of the healing today. In most of his discovery of new vision, Jesus is unseen. All the wonderful new things are great, but Jesus is not there. Or at least the man does not see Him. He has to find Jesus. This now-healed man has sight but must use it to find the one who gave it to him. Wouldn’t it have been easier if Jesus just instantly healed him and waited there to receive his gratitude? Wouldn’t it be lovely if Jesus was a bit more available to do His miracles rather than having the faithful wandering about the world? We’d all prefer it that way, wouldn’t we?

But faith that seeks nothing is no faith. It cannot grow if it is so satisfied with what it desires. Why read the book if you khow how the movie ends? Sure, there are forms of Christianity without the cross, Easters without Good Friday. Cathicism ain’t one of them! The cross is too real to ignore and the mercy it brought too powerful to reject. Faith requires a soul that seeks, not one that’s satisfied. As Garth Brooks once sang:

And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end
the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain

But I'd had to miss the dance.

Our faith is ultimately a dance with God. Our vision is a love story with all the intrigues and craziness that fill our lives. Coming to see our hearts’ desire is a struggle but in desiring, we find our God and ourselves. So, no, there’s no easier way but there’s also no better way.

Seek, and you will find.