St. Mary Parish, Manchester at 210 West Main Street, Manchester, MI 48158 US - Summer 2009 (Cycle B)
| Summer 2009 (Cycle B) |
 |
The Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
WE WERE CREATED FOR AN ETERNAL DESTINY
Cycle “B” Readings: Wisdom 2: 12, 17-20; James 3: 16, 4:3; Mark 9: 30-37
19/20 September 2009
If you recall last Sunday Jesus took his disciples away from the crowds in order to question them about what the people were saying about his identity. Then he asks them directly “But who do you say that I am?” Peter speaking on behalf of the twelve, making his profession of faith declares: “You are the Christ.” You are the Messiah of God. “Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.” I explained last Sunday that the reason for this response for what appeared to be a strange command of Jesus had to do with the apostle’s notion of the messiah.
The apostles and the entire Jewish nation were looking for the messiah to come to establish an earthly kingdom. Jesus knew this so he wanted to keep his identity a secret and reveal it in time through the great signs and wonders that he performed. Once the people heard the word ‘messiah’ Jesus knew that they would not even listen to anything of what he had to say about the true messiah and his mission, which had to do with establishing an eternal kingdom, a kingdom not of this world. Jesus begins to reveal his messianic identity to the apostles through the prediction of his passion and death. But they could not reconcile this kind of talk with their worldly notions of the messiah. They did not want to hear that the messiah would be defeated by his enemies and be destroyed. Their response was to shut Jesus off in their hearts and minds they would not accept the reality, they denied the truth of divine revelation.
Between the events of the Gospel of last Sunday and the Gospel of this Sunday almost an entire chapter was passed over. What are contained in these passages are events that further reveal the messianic identity of Jesus; the Transfiguration of Jesus on
For a second time Jesus predicts his passion and death. At this point he apostles are still very worldly minded. They were full of hope that Christ would establish an earthly kingdom, so much so that they started to fight among themselves as to who would be the greatest in this new kingdom. After telling Jesus what they had been discussing Jesus lovingly reveals to them what is going to constitute true greatness in the kingdom that he had come to establish. It would not to be found in power, in privilege of position, or in honors, and certainly not in being the master of all. Membership in his kingdom, for them as future bishops of the Church, would be found in service. Jesus tells them that their greatness would be found in becoming the servants of all. Another message, at least for now, that fell on deaf ears.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, how many of us find ourselves trapped in the same mentality as the apostles at this particular stage of their spiritual development? How many of us are totally fixated on the things of this world? Are we so worldly that it is hard for us to even entertain thoughts of the kingdom to come? How much time do we give to prayer and meditation on spiritual things such as the destiny of our immortal soul? Are we so rooted in the things of this world that it is hard for us to even contemplate divine truths?
And when we come to the holy Mass on Sunday are we so tuned into the language of the world that when the priest or deacon speaks about spiritual realities and moral truths that we tune them out just like the apostles did Jesus because the message does not jive with our worldly, with our heavily secular influenced thoughts? At least the apostles had a partial excuse; they were not yet Christians. Jesus had not yet suffered and died and rose from the dead. The apostles had not yet received the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Church had not yet been established. But you and I have received the gift of the Holy Spirit in holy Baptism and we are part of the Church, the vehicle that Jesus established as the means of our salvation. We do not have a legitimate excuse as to why we might be so worldly in our approach to the Catholic faith and to life.
In our day, the Catholic Church faces a serious problem with her own members. Many of the baptized are more worldly than other worldly minded, their lifestyle is more in line with secular society than with the society of the Church. This is confirmed in the great numbers of Catholic people who use artificial contraception, who see no problem with legalized abortion and the destruction of human embryo’s in the name of science. There are many Catholic people who are ignorant of the teachings of the Church on marriage and family life, who find themselves in multiple marriages where children are shuttled between broken homes. This is a tragedy. I could go on, but our time is limited. I think that you understand my point.
What is the answer to this crisis of faith, the crisis of Catholic identity? It is the same answer that Jesus gave to the apostles: the cross. The cross is the denial of the self and the pouring out of the self for others out of love for God. The cross and what it stands for is an absurdity to the world. So if we are repulsed by the cross, if we find ourselves worldly and more accepting of the ways of the secular culture than the culture of the Church rejecting her moral and spiritual teachings than we must remedy this. Christians are called to be in the world, but not of the world.
Friends, the cross points us to heaven. The cross reminds us that we were created for an eternal destiny. The cross reminds us that this world is passing away and that our lives are fleeting, they will be over in the blink of an eye. Without our embrace of the cross we are doomed to spend eternity without God. The cross reminds us that this is not the ultimate life, it is the penultimate life, the one before, and only a place for us to earn, notice I said earn, the merits that will secure our entrance into the glory of heaven.
Amen.
The Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
JESUS
Cycle “B” Readings: Isaiah 50: 5-9; James 2: 14-18; Mark 8: 27-35
12/13 September 2009
Every time that I hear this passage from the eighth chapter of the Gospel of St. Mark I am taken back to my days in the seminary and in particular the class that was taught to us on the synoptic Gospels. This passage, which is located at the heart, the very geographic core of the entire Marcan narrative, marks an important shift in the life and ministry of Jesus. It is often referred to as the revelation of the messianic secret. Up until this point after Jesus had performed a healing or an exorcism he told those whom he healed not to tell any one about what had just happened. Doesn’t this seem odd to you?
Jesus also silences Satan when speaking through those he had possessed publicly declares Jesus to be the holy one of God. The fact that the devil is declaring Jesus to be the messiah should raise a red flag. Satan is not making a profession of faith; Satan is trying to throw the ministry of Jesus into chaos. So for seven chapters, for at least the first entire year of his public ministry Jesus desires to keep his divine origins a secret, to keep them hidden. But why?
It has to do with the Jews understanding of the messiah, or I might add their misunderstanding. Over time and due to the occupation of their land their expectation of the promised messiah had evolved into one of an earthly ruler who would come in power and might to slaughter the Romans and to restore to them their land. But this was not the messiah that God had planned to send. Jesus would not come to liberate those occupied by the Romans; he would not be a political figure or an earthly king.
Jesus came to fight a far greater battle; he came to enter into spiritual combat with Satan, the one who had enslaved the souls of men from the time of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Jesus came not to liberate
When the time was right, Jesus takes his inner circle, the apostles, away from the crowds. After a year of their being with Jesus twenty four hours a day, after witnessing his miracles, and after listening to his preaching and teaching, Jesus was looking for a response from them as to his identity. “Who do people say that I am?” Jesus first wants to know what they have heard others saying about him, not because he has an ego that needs to be stroked. Jesus wants to know if they are beginning to see him as their promised messiah.
Then Jesus turns to them, his closest companions and asks them “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus is looking for their profession of faith. Peter, speaking as head of the apostles and inspired by the heavenly Father replies: “You are the Christ”, meaning, you are the messiah. “Then we warned them not to tell anyone about him.” Jesus does this because they too had to be shaken from their expectations and hear the reality. Jesus who is the messiah of God would become the suffering servant that Isaiah had foretold.
The messiah of God would be rejected, abused, scourged, spit upon, crucified, die and rise victorious from the grave on the third day. On the cross the Christ of God would win the spiritual warfare and redeem man, pulling him out of the grip of Satan. Do you think that Satan is going to sit quietly by when Jesus reveals the messianic secret to the apostles? Of course not!. Satan attempts to get in the way in order to create dissension and chaos among the apostles and to stop Jesus from mounting the cross. Satan wants to stop the sacrifice that will end his reign of evil and terror. The passion and death of the messiah, who is God in the flesh, will open the gates to a land and a kingdom ruled by God, it is the only way to salvation.
Until the end of time the cross, which symbolizes the humble submission of Jesus to the Father’s will will become the most powerful weapon in the spiritual arsenal that will protect us from eternal destruction and lead us to heaven. Even though Christ has won the victory over Satan do not think for one minute that he is going to give up on trying to destroy as many people as he can by diverting them away from the cross and keeping their sights set only on this world.
The prayer to St. Michael the archangel reminds us that until the end of time, Satan will prowl about this world seeking one thing: the ruin of souls. His mission is to destroy as many people as possible. He is clever and he is a liar. And we need to be aware that he will tempt us away from thinking about our salvation, he will lure us away from the cross by dangling before us all kinds of earthly distractions that will keep our minds set on this world and our hearts consumed with selfishness.
Satan hates the cross and he hates anything associated with it. Satan hates the Church just as much as he hates Christ. He is tirelessly attempting to enter into the Church and throw it into chaos. He does this through dissent from her teachings and by dividing the bishops who are the direct descendants of the apostles. After Jesus and his Church, Satan hates the Blessed Mother for she is the one who gave us the messiah and who tirelessly points us to him. The rosary, the weapon that she has given to her spiritual children, is hated and despised by Satan, and he will try to stop us from praying it, for in our praying the rosary he is continually beaten down by our meditations upon the mysteries of the life Jesus, the messiah.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus is asking us the same question that he posed to the twelve: “But who do you say that I am?” What will be our answer? If we believe that he is the savior, then we must set aside all of our false notions of what that means and follow Jesus. The criteria for discipleship is clear and is to be found in the very words of Jesus himself. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life from my sake and that of the gospel will save it.”
Amen.
The Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time: There is no homily to post for September 6. On that weekend, our new deacon gave the homily.
The Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time: There is no homily to post for August 30. On that weekend, Fr. Laurence John, a priest from the Archdiocese of Trivandrum in
The Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
WHAT WILL OUR ANSWER BE?
Cycle “B” Readings: Joshua 24: 1-2; 15-18; Ephesians 5: 21-32; John 6: 60-69
22/23 August 2009
We have reached the fifth and final week of our reading from the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to
“Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, This saying is hard; who can accept it?” It is hard to get around because there is nothing to compare it to except what they know. Ultimately it is only in faith that a person can accept Jesus not only as the Son of God, but the Son of God wrapped in human flesh. The acceptance of the teaching on the Blessed Eucharist will determine who will remain a disciple of Christ.
In a final attempt to elicit faith in the crowd, Jesus speaks about ascending into heaven. Earlier he had taught them that he is the bread that came down from heaven. Jesus is once again revealing his divine origins. Then Jesus proceeds to declare that the words that he speaks are from above, they are spirit and life, and they are not of this world. Jesus speaks a language, that although distantly familiar to the crowd through the voices of their prophets, his words are foreign, they are a new.
Jesus not only speaks God’s word, he is the Word of God come down from heaven and veiled in human flesh. The Eucharist will continue to make present this saving mystery in order to feed the members of the Church on their journey to eternity. The Blessed Eucharist is the Word made flesh and dwelling among us. In the midst of this teaching there is also a foreshadowing of the cross. Because Jesus is God, he is omniscient, meaning all knowing.
Jesus knew that there were many who would reject him and thus reject his teaching on the Blessed Eucharist. He also knew that in the midst of instituting this great sacrament, one of his inner circle, one of the Apostles, would leave that sacred meal and turn him over to be crucified. In the midst of his deep sorrow, Jesus still holds out hope that the multitude of souls who will reject him that day and thus reject the food that gives eternal life would one day open their hearts to receive the gift of faith and be saved.
“As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” As the multitude turn their backs on him and leave, Jesus then turns to the twelve and asks, “Do you also want to leave?” Jesus asks for their response to his teaching on the Bread of Life. Peter, speaking as head of the Apostles, makes a profession of faith. “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” In other words, we have accepted your word as truth. We believe that you are the Word of God come down from heaven, therefore we move forward in faith we cannot turn our back on you; we cannot walk away from you, Jesus. St. Peter shows us the way to respond to the teaching of the Blessed Eucharist; we must assent to it in faith and submit in all humility even though we do not understand the details of how this mystery could be.
My dear brothers and sisters, for five weeks now we have contemplated the words, the teaching of Jesus on the Bread of Life. Hopefully we have taken the words of Jesus and not only digested them but pondered them deeply as well. The rejection of Jesus Christ as the bread that came down from heaven, the Bread of Life, is a sad reality that continues to replicate itself through the course of history. This rejection has caused one of the greatest divisions in the Church: the Protestant Reformation.
At the foundation of this radical sixteenth century movement was the rejection of papal authority, the rejection of Peter and his successors to lead the Church in her response to the words of Christ. Without St. Peter and his successors, who are the guardians and interpreters of the Holy Scriptures, it all falls apart. Jesus gave his solemn guarantee to St. Peter and to his successors that Satan would not be able to destroy his Church. But once you disconnect yourself from Peter, then it becomes like a house of cards; the whole structure begins to crumble. The reason why tens of thousands of Protestant denominations exist today is because of the ongoing battle over scriptural interpretation, the fight over the meaning of the words of Jesus. If you disagree with how your minister interprets the words of Jesus, then you just break away from that church and start another.
We are not exempt within the Catholic Church from our own struggles in this regard. There are many in our day who reject the magisterial authority to interpret the words of the Gospel as well. Not only did Jesus know that many in the crowd at the synagogue in Capernaum would reject his teaching, and that Judas would sell him to the authorities, but Jesus saw as well the multitude of people throughout the centuries until the end of time, both within and without the Church, that would turn their backs on him and walk away. Yet out of love, Jesus moved forward and gave his life on the cross and placed the entirety of his sacrificial gift into the sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist.
At the end of this five week session on the Blessed Eucharist Jesus asks for a response from us today. Are we shocked by the teaching of Jesus that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood? Is this a hard teaching for us to accept? Do we even believe in this teaching or do we think that the Blessed Eucharist is a mere symbol just like those in the crowd who thought Jesus was a mere man? If we accept the Eucharist as just a symbol this explains a great deal. It explains why it might be so very easy for some Catholics to justify their not coming to Mass every Sunday. It also explains the thoughtless marching up to receive Holy Communion without first going to sacramental confession after rejecting the Table of the Lord for weeks, for months, or even for years.
Jesus says to us today, “do you also want to leave?” Jesus is waiting for our profession of faith. What will our answer be? Will we respond as the crowd? Or will we be convinced like St. Peter and the Apostles that Jesus is the Holy One of God and that the Blessed Eucharist is the Bread of Life mystically containing his body, blood, soul and divinity?
Amen.
The Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
THE DEPTH OF THE MYSTERY
Cycle “B” Readings: Proverbs 9: 1-6; Ephesians 5: 15-20; John 6: 51-58
15/16 August 2009
We resume our reading from the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to
The Church is taking us through this teaching at a measured pace so that we might better contemplate and savor the depth of the mystery of the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist. The lengthy reading of the sixth chapter of the fourth Gospel is being done for us with the hope that we will grow in our love and understanding of this great gift that Christ has given to his Church.
Once again we hear Jesus saying to the crowds: “I am the living bread come down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The murmuring and the quarrelling continues among them. The reaction of the crowd is the greatest proof that Jesus meant what he said. Jesus was not speaking figuratively or symbolically about giving to them his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. If this were the case then why did they respond with such vehemence and even hostility? If Jesus did not mean what he said regarding eating his flesh and drinking his blood, then he would have been bound to clarify that he meant something different.
Again Jesus directs the crowd back to the manna that their ancestors ate in the desert and reminds them that that bread was sent down from heaven by God in order to sustain them while on their sojourn to the Promised Land. That bread was given by God in order to help them to reach an earthly destination. They ate that bread and eventually they died. The bread that Jesus would give to the Church at the Last Supper is bread that would have the ability to give souls eternal life. Jesus is that bread. Jesus is the Bread of Life.
On the cross Jesus would give his life as a sacrificial offering, as the Lamb of God, in order to take away our sins and the sins of the world. His flesh and blood, which would be mystically concealed under the forms of bread and wine, would be the spiritual food that would sustain man on his earthly sojourn leading him to a Kingdom that would never pass away. Unlike the bread that their ancestors ate and died, Jesus promises to those in the crowd and to us as well, that whoever eats this bread they will live forever.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Second Vatican Council teaches us that the Eucharist is the source and the summit of the Church’s life. What the magesterium teaches in that statement is that contained in the Eucharist is Christ our life. Without the Eucharist, there is no Church, and there is no hope of eternal life. If the Eucharist were just a symbol of the body and blood of Christ, then how would it be any different than the bread that we purchase at the grocery store or the bakery? Like the manna in desert that the people of
Like those in the crowd, those who refused to believe that Jesus was more than a mere man, that he was the Son of God, there are some who profess to be Catholic who vehemently object to the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. They declare that the Church has misinterpreted the words of Jesus. They insist that the Eucharist cannot be anything other than a symbol. It is intellectual arrogance that doesn’t allow them to accept that God can do anything and that he has the power to change bread and wine into the body, blood, soul and divinity of his only begotten Son.
In the synagogue in Capernaum Jesus prepares the people for the sacrament of his Real Presence. The crowd once again is unable to move beyond the limited scope of the natural world to the supernatural world. They can’t get around both the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of the Eucharist. Once a person in faith accepts that Jesus is the Son of God and therefore not limited as human beings are, then the ‘how’ is answered very easily. Jesus can give us the Eucharist because he is God. It was Jesus’ intention that the Bread of Life not be limited to that particular time and place. The intention of Jesus is that the Bread of Life, the Holy Eucharist the food of immortality be consumed by the entire world. For Jesus’ intention is to offer salvation to all. He desires that all people make it to the Kingdom of heaven. This is the ‘why’ he would give us the Eucharist.
So on Holy Thursday night in the midst of the Passover meal Jesus will institute the Holy Eucharist. He will transform the sacred Passover meal of
On that night Jesus will confer upon his apostles and their successors his priesthood. This is how Jesus will continue to provide the Bread of Life to mankind until the end of time. In continuing to provide the Eucharist for his pilgrim people they in turn are commanded to eat of it lest they die. This is why you and I must eat the Bread of Life as often as possible, at least every Sunday, so that we can get to heaven. May Jesus help us to believe that the Eucharist is his precious body and blood and may we long to have him dwell in us through this mystical supper.
Amen.
The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
IT TAKES FAITH
Cycle “B” Readings: 1 Kings 19: 4-8; Ephesians 4: 30, 5:2; John 6: 41-51
8/9 August 2009
Today we return for the third consecutive week to our reading from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John. This chapter is referred to as the “Bread of Life” discourse. This chapter is very important for us as Catholics for contained in this chapter is the teaching of Christ on the sacrament of his body and blood, the doctrine of the Most Holy Eucharist.
The main point that is contained in these eleven verses is the necessity for belief in Christ who has come down from heaven. Jesus has revealed to the crowd that had been following him that he is the bread that came down from heaven. The crowd begins to murmur, to refute this claim of Jesus. They are convinced that they know his origins, that he is the son of Joseph. They know his mother as well. In other words what Jesus is claiming they do not accept based on their knowledge.
Granted what Jesus is claiming is most challenging and hard to accept. The Jews were strict monotheists; this was the center of their faith. So for this man, Jesus, to come into their midst and claim that he is God and then for them to accept this teaching would mean for them to turn their backs on Judaism. What Jesus was proposing was blasphemous to them. Yet how could they reconcile his miracles? Would God grant such divine power to a sinner?
Before they can accept the teaching on the Eucharist they would first have to assent to the divinity of Christ. To all appearances Jesus was a mere man. At the heart of this teaching are two vital doctrines: the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity and the doctrine of the Incarnation. The doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity has to do with the very nature of God. God is one in three divine persons. He is not three gods, but one. Jesus would gradually lift a corner on the veil of this mystery by referring to the oneness that he shares with the Father.
The second doctrine that is being revealed by Jesus is what is called the Incarnation: God becoming man, God taking on human flesh. In the Incarnation God knits together two distinct natures in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary: human and divine. In the Incarnation God, the eternal One, the timeless One, steps into our time, into human history and into human flesh. Once the event of the Incarnation took place, it could never be reversed. Jesus, the second person of the Most Holy Trinity, reigns now in heaven in a risen and glorified human body and soul. These are profound mysteries that Jesus has revealed, which require faith in order to believe.
The reasons for the unbelief of many in the crowd persist in our day. Man is proud of his intelligence which he did not give to himself. Whatever he cannot grasp within the limited confines of that intellect, he treats as non-existent as far as he is concerned. In addressing the crowd, Jesus insists that they stop murmuring among themselves. They seemed to have forgotten that in making reference to their ancestors being fed by God with manna in wilderness that it was their constant murmuring and complaining against God that deprived that generation from entering into the Promised Land. It will also prevent the current generation from receiving Jesus’ great revelation of himself as the “Bread of Life.”
Dear brothers and sisters, our belief in what the Church teaches as the Real Presence of Christ contained in the Most Holy Eucharist is dependent upon our belief that Jesus Christ is true God and true
When it comes to the miracles of Jesus, those murmuring in the crowd have all the answers. They explain his miracles away as somehow occurring by people sharing their food with others or by natural phenomenon. Many Catholic people no longer believe in the divinity of Christ; this I believe is due to the heavy influences of the murmuring secular anti-religious culture and the arrogant intellectual elite that mock people of faith and label them as backward and superstitious.
When Catholic people no longer believe in the divinity of Christ, they are certainly not going to believe that he could be miraculously present in the Most Holy Eucharist. Thus the reason for the great exodus of people who no longer attend holy Mass on Sunday, who are no longer fed with the food of eternal life, or who no longer recognize the need to cleanse their souls from sin in the sacrament of Penance.
Friends, it takes faith to believe that the divinity of Christ is veiled in his sacred humanity. It takes faith to be able to look beyond the sacramental veil of the consecrated bread and wine on the altar to see that same Christ. If we have lost our faith, we should not lose hope: it can be restored by imploring God for this supernatural gift. If our faith is weak, then we must pray to God that he would strengthen it. And if our faith is confident and strong, then in all humility we must guard against the sin of pride, and in vigilance not allow arrogance to overcome it.
Jesus says: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
Amen.
The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
THE FOOD OF FAITH
Cycle “B” Readings: Exodus 16: 2-4, 12-15; Ephesians 4: 17, 20-24; John 6: 24-35
1/2 August 2009
Last week we began our five week journey through the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John. Contained in this chapter is what is called the “Bread of Life” discourse, the teaching of Christ on the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist that he will institute the night before his death. Let us briefly call to mind what occurred in the Gospel last week. Many people were following Jesus because of the signs, the healings, that he performed on the sick. This multitude had a deep hunger that they were unable to put into words. They were drawn to Jesus because he had something to offer them that was different. They just couldn’t put their finger on what that difference was.
That day five thousand men had gathered to hear Jesus speak and to seek healing for themselves. Moved with pity for the crowd Jesus performs a great miracle of nature: he multiplies five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus provides an abundance of earthly food for them, so much so that there were twelve baskets of fragments left over.
Many in the crowd were not able to move beyond the natural event of the sign to its supernatural meaning. They mistook the earthly bread that Jesus provided for their immediate physical needs as the remedy for their deeper spiritual and emotional hunger. Therefore they wanted to make Jesus into their earthly king so that he could keep their stomachs full. In order to escape from their plans, Jesus flees from their midst and proceeds to the mountain alone to pray in order to feed his soul and to further understand the will of his Father.
Now we resume were we left off. Today in the Gospel we hear that the crowd is in a frantic search for Jesus. They get into boats, cross the Sea of Galilee and arrive at the city of
Jesus says to the crowd: “Do not to work for food that perishes but for food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” This work is the work of cultivating and nurturing faith in Jesus. “For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” Their response is once again limited to the natural realm; they want Jesus to perform for them another sign, another miracle.
As a side note: the reason why Jesus performs signs, or miracles, is not for the entertainment of man but rather to draw man into faith and belief that he, Jesus, is the Son of God and Savior of the world. Through the miraculous feeding and the teaching that will follow Jesus is inviting these hungering souls to a deeper reality. The miraculous feeding of the five thousand reminded the people of the manna in the desert that God had sent down from heaven in order to fill the stomachs of the Israelites.
The bread sent from heaven was in response to their grumbling against Moses and Aaron for taking them out into the desert. Jesus reminds them that “it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Still fixated on the wrong bread they say to Jesus “Sir, give us this bread always.”
Instead of giving them a loaf of bread to fill their stomachs Jesus points to himself and says “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” Faith in Jesus is what will allow man to truly be filled up and satisfied. It will take faith to believe in the teaching of the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, the food that gives eternal life, that Jesus is about to reveal in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Today as we contemplate the gift of the Most Holy Eucharist, we are reminded of an essential element that must be present in our lives: faith. Faith in Jesus is the food that will satisfy our deepest longing, our deepest emotional and spiritual hunger. It is also the necessary element to believe in the Real Presence of the Christ in the Holy Eucharist. If a person is lacking faith in God they are doomed like the crowd to be on a frantic search for earthly food, earthly gratification in order to satisfy them.
Notice that many in the crowd that were following Jesus were never satisfied. They kept wanting more and more. Without faith in God, man is limited, he is trapped in a worldly view of life. Without faith, man fails to be able to understand the totality of his own human nature. The human person is both flesh and spirit, and both are in need of food. But it is the food of faith that allows man to see beyond himself, that pulls him out of his selfishness and allows him to recognize the needs of others. It is also faith in God that prevents man from using others for his own gratification.
It is a sad reality that there are many of our brothers and sisters who were baptized into the Catholic faith who have left the Church. I would venture to say that many have left the Church because they were not properly taught the fullness of the faith; they were not properly taught about the richness of the Church’s sacramental and devotional life, they were not taught how to pray or to have a personal relationship with Jesus. Many of our clergy and religious educators have allowed themselves to become very secular in their approach to the sacred liturgy and to religious education. As a result there are many Catholic people who find themselves wandering through life lacking direction and frantically chasing after the things of this world, as if this life is all that there is.
The answer to the current crisis of faith in the Catholic Church is not to be found in the using of secure lingo and secular gimmicks in order to attract people. The solution to the crisis of faith is not to be found in failing to teach the moral teachings of the Church. The solution to the lack of belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament is not going to happen by continuing to build churches where the tabernacle cannot be found, or by continuing to make the holy Mass into a secular event where we end up worshipping ourselves. The answer to the current crisis of faith is to be found in making acts of faith and then in believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Son of Mary. Performing frequent acts of faith will then lead the person to a response of fidelity to Jesus who is the Bread of Life.
Amen.
The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
THE FOOD TO SUSTAIN OUR SOUL
Cycle “B” Readings: 2 Kings 4: 42-44; Ephesians 4: 1-6; John 6: 1-15
25/26 July 2009
For the next month we will take leave of the Gospel of St. Mark and the Church will direct us to the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John. It is in the sixth chapter of the fourth Gospel that Jesus Christ lays out the teaching on the Bread of Life, the Eucharist that he will institute on the night before his Passover from death to life. This teaching is extremely important for our understanding of this great sacrament of the altar. So for the next month we will, once again, be taught by Christ himself about the Bread of Life. Let us picture ourselves among the crowd that followed him and like them let us listen attentively to his teaching.
Today I would like to reflect on hunger. There are different kinds of hunger. There is the obvious one: physical hunger which comes from the lack of eating. Physical hunger can be both voluntary, such as through fasting, or it can be involuntary, as a result of not having enough food, or any food for that matter to eat. Fasting can be done for religious reasons or for health reasons. But involuntary hunger is just that involuntary. This mean that the person has no choice over the matter and is usually lacking the adequate financial resources in order to purchase enough food to sustain their body.
Another form of hunger is emotional hunger. Emotional hunger is the hunger that comes from the lack of love and healthy attachment, especially during the years of early childhood development. If a child does not receive the proper love, attention, and affection during these critical years, then they will seek it out by drawing attention to themselves, usually through unhealthy, unruly or immoral behavior. Most of us have heard the phrase applied to a child, a teenager or even an adult that “they are starved for attention”. This attention seeking is as a result of a deep emotional hunger, the craving to be loved.
Then there is spiritual hunger. Spiritual hunger comes about as a result of the failure to properly care for and to feed the interior life. To be a human being is to be in the body and in the soul. Body and soul form the totality of the person. Human nature is not dualistic: it is one. So like the body, the soul is in need of being fed, lest it starves and dies. When we forget this, when we forget that we have a soul and therefore place all of our attention on our physical needs, then we will experience spiritual weakness and even spiritual death.
The signs of spiritual illness are; loss of hope, despair, lacking in joy and lacking interior peace. If a person is unable to recognize spiritual hunger they will think that it is a physical or emotional hunger and try to fill it up with things that will only cause the soul to be in further distress. This is why I believe we have an obesity epidemic in our culture. Many people are starved for love, starved for emotional attention and starved spiritually. In an attempt to fill up that pit, in an attempt to deaden the pain they eat. But no matter how much they eat it never satisfies the depth of their hunger.
In the Gospel we hear that “a large crowd followed (Jesus) him, because they saw the signs that he was performing on the sick.” They were starving, they were longing to be fed, to have their deepest cravings for healing satisfied. Most likely they were incapable of putting this hunger into words, most likely they didn’t realize the depth of their hunger but in the preaching and teaching that would soon follow Jesus Christ would reveal to them what they were searching for and how he would satisfy their deepest longings.
Moved with pity and compassion Jesus realizes that amidst their emotional and spiritual hunger that they were physically hungry as well. So he feeds them. He performs a great miracle of nature in multiplying the five barley loaves and two fish. This great physical sign, this feeding with earthly food will point to the great miracle of the Eucharist which will fill the deepest of hunger pains.
The Eucharist will be the spiritual food that will sustain the soul and preserve it for all eternity. The Eucharist will satisfy man’s deepest emotional hunger as well because contained within it is not only the Real Presence of Christ, but the love of the Most Holy Trinity as well. The Eucharist will also form a community of love: the Church that will, in the name of Christ, feed man in his body, his emotions and in the depth of his soul.
At the end of this great miraculous event there were many who became fixated on the earthly or natural dimension of the miracle and could not more beyond it to its deeper supernatural meaning. They wanted to limit Jesus by making him into an earthly king so that he could be their bread making machine. But Jesus would have none of it, so he flees to the mountain alone in order to feed his human soul by communing with his heavenly Father.
At the beginning of this homily I asked us to picture ourselves among the crowd that followed Jesus. We too like them are hungry and many of us, like them are at this time incapable of identifying the root of that hunger. We have come here to this church to attend holy
In the midst of our gathering Jesus Christ performs a great miracle out of pity and compassion for us. But this miracle is not of nature, it is not of the natural order, the miracle, which is about to take place upon this altar, is of super-nature, above nature; it is a supernatural event. Jesus Christ will not multiply the bread and the wine that he asks us to bring to him in this holy Mass in order to satisfy our physical hunger. But rather Jesus will change the bread and the wine into his very self, into his body, his blood, his soul and his divinity.
We then encounter him personally in the reception of Holy Communion. It is in this mystical encounter and in this sacred food that our souls are filled up and sustained by his love. “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”
Amen.
Note: Fr. Tim was on retreat the weekends of July 12 and July 19 so there are no posted homilies for these weekends.
The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
GOD’S GRACE IS SUFFICIENT
Cycle “B”
4/5 July 2009
Last Saturday evening, during the celebration of Solemn First Vespers for the Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul, Pope Benedict XVI concluded the Year of St. Paul. It had been the hope of the Holy Father that during the Pauline Year, which commemorated the 2,000th anniversary of his birth, that Christians through out the would come to know this great apostle to the Gentiles more intimately, especially through the reading and study of his letters. It is to the second reading of the holy Mass and to
In the section of the Second Letter to the Corinthians that was just proclaimed,
This weakness, this personal flaw, this thing that he was battling was serious and was deeply troubling to him, to the point that it had the potential to threaten his work of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”‘ In other words God was not going to take away whatever it was that he was battling. God was going to allow whatever it was that he was struggling with to continue on in order to bring forth a greater good to
When we acknowledge our sins, our weaknesses, our powerlessness, therein we find our strength. In the eyes of the world and to those who are lukewarm and mediocre about the practice of the Catholic faith this behavior is madness, but in truth, in reality, it is where life are strength are to be found.
Friends, we live in a fallen and broken world and our bodies and souls are vulnerable and often fall prey to such things as loneliness, weakness and tribulations. Left to ourselves these things, these difficulties, can overcome us, and we can find ourselves powerless over them. They can leave us in a state of despair. We are surrounded by mixed messages. The world tells us to deny these realities. The denial of reality is madness.
But nonetheless the world, which sees absolutely no value in suffering, tries to avoid it with all its might by turning to things that promise to take it away. That attempt comes through the abuse of alcohol and drugs, the abuse of food, the viewing of pornographic images, the abuse of sexuality and the unlimited pursuit of self-gratification. But instead of these things relieving the person of their struggles, their sufferings, they compound them thus pushing the person into a desert of alienation and despair.
Obviously the answer to life’s struggles and difficulties is not to be found in the world, but in the response of
Let me pose this question. Over the past 40 years has the world improved because the vast majority of Catholic people have abandoned the frequent use of sacramental confession? NO. Quite to the contrary, it has gotten worse. Instead of going to sacramental confession, where we admit our sins, confront our human weaknesses, and are healed, truly healed in the depths of our soul, many avoid the sacramental confession of sin like the plague, thus refusing the grace of God. The lack of frequent sacramental confession has rendered two generations of Catholics incapable of being able to identify their sins, their weaknesses, their frailties and to recognize and avoid temptation.
How many Catholic people are searching for answers to life’s hardships through the pursuit of such anti-Christian practices as following the teachings of the New Age movement, the reading of horoscopes, the use of Ouija boards, or by consulting fortunetellers and psychics? Have you taken note of the ever increasing rate of people being medically treated for depression and going to psychotherapists? I believe that seeking the grace of God and relying solely upon him in this life would help many people to know the joy and freedom that
May we learn from our brother
Amen.
The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
WHAT JAIRUS AND THE WOMAN BELIEVED
Cycle “B” Readings: Wisdom 1: 13-15; 2: 23-24; 2 Corinthians 8: 7,9, 13-15; Mark 5: 21-43
27/28 June 2009
The readings today place before us something that we often try to avoid facing, that we usually give little to no thought to: death. I am not sure why we don’t give much thought to death, even those of us who are believers in the resurrection. But ultimately each and every one of us has to face death, either first through the death of those closest to us, a friend, a parent, a sibling, a child, a spouse, or by finally facing our own. The thought of our own death is something that we usually try to ignore, to deny, or to put off for as long as possible as if somehow it isn’t going to happened to us.
Even when we start growing old and our bodies start to break down a great deal of our time and energy is usually placed on what we need to do in order to live and not on our mortality. We have this interior conflict occurring within us regarding death. Yes we are mortal which means that we all must die, but yet we have implanted within us this desire to live, this strong drive to live for ever. We are creatures of life! It is in this inner conflict between the strong will to live and the mortality of the human person that the author of the Book of Wisdom provides us with a reflection on the origin of human beings and the origin of death.
The Book of Wisdom makes it very clear that death is not of God. The Wisdom author draws this conclusion by going back to the beginning of time and to the creation of man and woman. The Wisdom author reminds us that God created man to be imperishable. This is where our strong drive to live comes from, it comes from God. Then we are given the answer as to where death comes from, it comes from the envy of the devil. The devil was and still is jealous of human beings. The devil hates the fact that God created human beings in his image and likeness and bestowed upon them immortality. Satan lost his place in heaven when he said no to serving God and thus he was cast out for all eternity. Satan then becomes the opposite of God; he becomes death.
It is in paradise that Satan and death appear. Satan bears the responsibility for the upheaval of death; he seduces the first couple into spurning God’s command with the assurance of immortality. “You shall be like gods.” Satan says that he will give divinity to them if they but follow him. But Adam and Eve already were like God! For that very brief moment, a moment long enough for Satan to deliver the fatal blow, Adam and Eve had forgotten that they were created in the divine image, in God’s image, and that they were immortal and so they said yes to the lie. This is how Satan operates; he tries to trick and to deceive human beings. And so Adam and Eve fall, they sin, they deny God and they deny themselves.
So God’s plan was thwarted by sin, and death then becomes a seed planted in every human soul and it grows in human beings like a weed next to the seed of life, the desire to live. The author of the Book of Wisdom has the answer, but he offers no solution. How does God rescue the pinnacle of his creation from the clutches of death? A day will come when Christ, the God-Man, who is the perfect image of God, whom Satan will assault with all his might, will, through his obedience, redeem the sin of the world and will conquer death.
The author of life, God, will confront death by becoming the target of death. Jesus, God’s co-eternal Son, empties himself of his divine splendor and takes on our frail humanity, so that God could attack death head on. In the second reading
So Jesus allows himself to die so that he could go to the place of death and pull human beings out of the clutches of death, and the spiritual hands of Satan. It was Satan who was tricked by his own trick on Good Friday. He thought that when Jesus died that he joined the ranks of every other human being and was lost forever. But in the resurrection it was all over for Satan and for death. In Christ’s death and resurrection death is not taken away, it is transformed. Instead of being the end of human beings, death becomes the entranceway into immortality.
To reiterate the words of the book of Wisdom; God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the death of human beings. God loved us so much that he gave us his only begotten Son to save us from death and to give us eternal life. If we truly believe this then we must approach life and death differently from the world. Jairus and the women with the hemorrhage believed in this. They saw in Jesus life, so in faith they ran to him, they knelt down before him in the midst of the crowd, they sought his touch, they had hope, they sought the light of life amidst the darkness and despair of death and it was because of their faith that the little girl and the grown woman were given life which was a foreshadowing of what they would receive as the result of the death and resurrection of Christ.
In the face of our mortality many of us who claim to be Catholic, who claim to believe in Jesus, act in quite the opposite way. Instead of running to him, we run in the opposite direction, we try to find the fountain of youth, to find that doctor who will allow us to live longer. In keeping our full attention strictly on our ailing or aging bodies, we often neglect the soul and the graces of the sacraments. This is one of the greatest temptations of Satan. He knows, and so should we, that the state of our immortal soul upon our death will determine where both body and soul will spend eternity. Yes we should care for the body but never to the neglect of the soul.
For many Catholic people seeking the personal touch of Jesus is the last thing they think of when they are sick in the body or in the soul. There are still some older Catholics who are afraid to call the priest when they are sick for they fear, fear, that when the priest comes to anoint them that he is the grim reaper, that he is the bringer of death, their death, so they keep him away as long as possible and maybe even too long. Then there are the young people who because their bodies are in great shape give no thought to the care for the soul. To live this way is to live as a pagan, it is to live without hope, and it is to deny Jesus and to deny his healing power.
Friends, God hates sickness and death a trillion times more than human beings do. We cannot escape from this sad mess on our own, but God can get us out and he has in Jesus. So let us not deny our mortality let us embrace it with hope and in faith run to Jesus like Jairus and the woman with the hemorrhage, so that he can heal our souls and give us eternal life.
Amen.
The Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
THE GUARANTEE OF OUR SAFE PASSAGE
Cycle “B” Readings: Job 38: 1, 8-11; 2 Corinthians 5: 14-17; Mark 4: 35-41
20/21 June 2009
The Gospel that we just heard according to St. Mark contains an invaluable teaching about the Christian life. For me this text is like a life preserver and one that I go back to over and over again in order to bring me security and peace when I am over come with fear when facing difficulties or even tempted to despair. So let us look at this sacred text and this important teaching that applies to each and every one of us.
Let us first call to mind that Jesus, who is the Son of God, knows everything that is about to unfold in this event. What is about to occur is no accident. Notice that it is night when Jesus instructs the disciples to get into the boat and to cross to the other side. The darkness is symbolic of the world in which the disciples must live, a darkness that doesn’t allow one to see clearly, a darkness that obscures truth. The disciples must maneuver about in this world without allowing themselves to be over come by its darkness and deception. It is Christ alone who can safely lead his disciples through this transitory life to the glory of the life that will never end, the glory of heaven, in which there is no darkness. Heaven is one eternal day where the Son of Righteousness shines for ever.
So the disciples enter a boat, and they take Jesus with them. The boat is a symbol for the Church, which is often referred to as the barque of St. Peter. The Church is the vessel of salvation; it is the ship that assures our safe passage through the storms of life. From without the Church is tossed about and at times severely battered even to the point of what appears to be its total destruction by the evil forces that constantly seek her destruction. But Jesus is always in the boat; Jesus is always within the Church. Jesus never abandons his Church. Never! And he has promised us that the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against her.
Amidst the darkness of night a violent storm blows up, so severe that it frightens the apostles, who themselves were experienced men of the sea and accustomed to facing such forces of nature. But this storm was more then they had ever encountered. This storm was beyond their ability to handle. Notice what Jesus does in the midst of the destructive forces that threaten to tear the ship and its occupants to pieces. Jesus sleeps! The disciples overcome with fear wake him and in panic question his concern for them. He then commands the sea to be quiet and to be still. And after all is calm he questions them “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”
This night of terror for the disciples was meant to strengthen them for the future and what they would encounter as members of his Church. It was a lesson that they would come back to over and over again when they experienced hardships, sufferings and for some, martyrdom all out of love for Christ. The teaching, the reality, is that no matter how powerful the storms the disciples might face Jesus will always be with them. This confident assurance was meant to bring to them, and to us as well, the same peace and calm that Christ exuded when he slept in the boat during the great turbulence of the storm.
Today we are once again reminded that we were created by God to dwell with him for ever in the glory of heaven. We were not created to live forever on earth. There is more to life than this life, there is a life that never ends. But in order to get to that life we must enter the vehicle of salvation and stay on board for our entire lives. The Church guarantees our safe passage from this life to the next. If we set our sights on heaven and on the glory that waits for us then we will understand that the journey at times will be a rough one. But Christ is always at our side loving us and protecting us. He will not let us perish; he will not abandon us to the forces of darkness and despair.
Like the terrified disciples in the ship on the troubled sea, we too might react in the same way. When we experience difficulties in this life, we might cry out and wonder where God is. We might blame God for our problems, we might curse him when death comes and claims a loved one, we might wag our fist and curse him when we are diagnosed with a chronic or terminal disease, we might even turn our back on him and renounce him because he does not stop all the evil that envelopes the world. This approach might be understandable if this life were all that there is, but it isn’t. Thank God!
My fellow disciples of Christ, the Gospel is telling us that we will experience turbulence and struggles in this life, it is part of the mystery of evil in the world brought on by original sin. But God sent his only begotten Son to save us from all of this and to be with us on this earthly sojourn and to bring us safety to where we were meant to be: heaven.
So, my dear friends in Christ, when difficulties come, when sickness comes, when physical and emotional suffering come, when persecutions come and the Church is attacked from both inside and out, instead of crying out in despair and wondering where God is amidst the storm, we must use these opportunities, notice I said opportunities, we must use these opportunities to depend more deeply upon God and to trust in him. This is the response of the disciple who has faith.
Amen.
The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Cycle “B” Readings: Exodus 24: 3-8; Hebrews 9: 11-15; Mark 14: 12-16, 22-26
13/14 June 2009
Last Sunday the Church celebrated the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. We reflected upon the central truth of Christianity; that God is Triune. Within the Godhead there is three divine persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are equal in glory, equal in majesty, yet one true God. This Triune God lives not in isolation, but rather in a permanent state of self–giving. The mission of Jesus, the Word of God and Son of God was to reveal the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, which would form the pattern for the life of his disciples and the foundation of the Church.
This Trinitarian mystery is not something distant and far removed from the lives of human beings, but rather through the conferral of holy baptism the Triune God, the God of love, takes up residence in the human soul and forges an intimate relationship with the baptized person, a relationship that is to be lived out within the Church. For it is in the Church that God, through his Son, and in the power of the Holy Spirit continues to reveal the divine mysteries of his inner life. It is in the Church, which is the redeemed family of God, that Christ heals from sin, strengthens with his grace and nourishes his flock with the Bread of Life, the food of salvation. Today the Church, in a most solemn way, sets its gaze on the Bread of Life and ponders this great mystery of the Christian faith.
The feast of
Dear friends, Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus Christ is the second person of the Most Holy Trinity. His word has the power to raise the dead to life and to heal the sick. Jesus, the Eternal Word of God, whose word brought forth the universe and all it contains, whose word brought forth the supernatural order and the natural order, and whose word created man from the clay of the earth, has the power to change bread and wine into his very own body and blood. What Jesus says that the Eucharist is, it truly is!
Today the Church gives us a much-needed opportunity to contemplate the great mystery of the Holy Eucharist. Each and every Sunday we are summoned by the risen Christ to come to the holy Mass and to worthily partake of the food that promises eternal life. But in the hectic, fast paced lives that often consume us, coming to holy Mass can quickly become something to get done on the checklist of an overloaded, over scheduled day. Unfortunately for some, the priority to come to Sunday Mass has lost out over other activities.
Often we come to holy Mass with our minds preoccupied and racing, our bodies might be here but our thoughts, our minds, might be miles away, far removed from the sacred event that is unfolding before us in great mystery. Without quiet contemplation, without time for meditation and reflection, we can so easily become trapped into living a life on the surface taking for granted the people whom we love as well as the Catholic faith, which is a gift from the Most Holy Trinity handed on to us through the Church.
The great feast of
If we believe that Christ is truly present in the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist, then our lives must reflect this truth. Let me make an important point, our belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist does not make this a reality. We do not have the power to make this a reality. God is the one who makes this a reality whether we believe it or not. We then are called in faith to ascent to this truth.
That ascent above all must be an ascent of the interior life, which then radiates out by external actions of devotion and adoration. But one cannot ascent to truth of the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist unless they open themselves up to the mystery of God through a life of prayer and contemplation in front of the Blessed Sacrament either reserved in the tabernacle or exposed in the monstrance for adoration.
The interior ascent to the truth of the Real Presence also leads the individual to the frequent participation in the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. For in contemplating this great mystery the Holy Spirit reveals to the individual how often that they fall short of the mandate of Christ to become what they partake of in Holy Communion. If a person is always receiving Holy Communion and rarely to never going to sacramental confession there is something wrong. This lack of care for the soul reflects a lack of examination of the conscience, which dulls the mind rendering it incapable of judging actions and identifying individual sin.
As we contemplate the great truth of the mystery of the Real Presence of Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist commemorated in this sacred feast, this year we have been given a special grace: the
The
Lord Jesus Christ,
We worship you living among us
in the sacrament of your body and blood.
May we offer to our Father in heaven
a solemn pledge of undivided love.
May we offer to our brothers and sisters
a life poured out in loving service of that kingdom
where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Cycle “B” Readings: Deuteronomy 4: 32-34, 39-40; Romans 8: 14-17; Matthew 28: 16-20
6/7 June 2009
We have just left behind the great ninety days. The first forty of these were the days of Lent and were marked by penance, renewal, and conversion in preparation to celebrate the great fifty days of Easter. The season of Easter, the season of the resurrection, began with the solemn renewal of our baptismal promises. The resurrected life of Christ touches each one of us most intimately through our baptism. In these great ninety days, which concluded on Pentecost Sunday, we encountered once again the mystery of God, the God of love, who through Jesus makes visible this unseen God of love.
Jesus reveals the love of the Eternal Father for His co-eternal Son; it is a love which burns fiercer than the hottest fire known to man. This love between the Father and the Son is also a divine person, the Holy Spirit. On Pentecost Sunday Christians celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit which was thrown down from the Father and the Son upon the Church so that the community of believers could go forth and spread the love of God to the ends of the world. The full mystery of God’s inner life was revealed in the sending forth of the Holy Spirit.
On the first Sunday after Pentecost, during the Ordinary Time Cycle, the Church gives us another great feast to celebrate: the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. Now that the fullness of the God of love has been revealed, it is important that Christians celebrate the unity of the three persons of the One True God. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the feast of the Most Holy Trinity is an important feast for us to ponder. Belief in the Most Holy Trinity is what makes us Christians. While it is true that both Judaism and Islam believe in one God, that they are monotheistic religions, they do not believe that this one true God is a trinity of persons.
Some might say, big deal, what difference does it make if Jews and Muslims don’t believe that God is a trinity of persons. Well it is a big deal! It is such a big deal that God became man in order to reveal this mystery to the world. And it does make a big difference and that difference is found and felt on the most basic level of the mystery of each and every human life. In the Book of Genesis, which is the infallible divine Word of God, it teaches us that man and woman are created in God’s image. The Christian, the Jew, and the Muslim would agree on this point, but there are profound differences how a Christian would understand the divine image.
The mystery of God revealed to the world through Jesus shows us the fullness of the inner workings of God’s life. Jesus reveals to the world not a God of power and might, but rather a God of love. The only way that God could be love is if he were a communion, a community of persons within himself.
Christians believe as has been revealed by Christ himself that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Therefore the inner mystery of God’s life is dynamic, it is active and it is always in a state of giving. Christians believe that God does not live in isolation, that God is not closed in upon himself, and that God is not narciistic. Christians believe that God is a community of persons, a community unto himself.
This is where the uniqueness of Christianity differs from Judaism and Islam. Yes we all believe in one true God, but the difference how we see this one true God affects the way that we live our daily lives. If Christians believe that that they are made in the divine image of a Triune God, then that means that they too are called to live their lives within a community of love for that is what the Church is.
One cannot be a true Christian if he or she lives in isolation from the Church. But often you might hear a Christian say that they can find God in the forest, in nature, in isolation from others. There are some who refuse to go to Church because they think that their fellow parishioners are hypocrites and sinners and they use this for an excuse, as if we were all immaculately conceived. We are all sinners in need of redemption. For Catholic Christians our salvation our experience of being saved, which is a lifelong process, is worked out in the community of believers. For it is only in the midst of living and being in relationship with others that true love can immerge. It is here that we are challenged to grow, to forgive those who have harmed us, to apologize to whom we have sinned against, and to care for one another.
Spiritually healthy people are those who are connected to others. Likewise the unhealthiest people, unhealthy spiritually and mentally, are those who amputate themselves from life and relationships with God and human beings. If you were to study the lives of those who have committed some of the most heinous crimes against human beings, most likely they were people who lived lives of isolation.
In the first Letter of St. John we find a beautiful treatise on God’s love and a lesson on how that love continues to take on flesh in the way that the community of believers lives out God’s love. I encourage you to read this brief letter; it is both challenging and inspiring and reminds us what it means to believe in a triune God.
So on this great feast of the unity of God, let us rejoice in the God of love, who is a trinity of persons. Let us thank God that he has made us in his divine image and likeness. Let us thank God for his divine life that has been poured forth into our souls through holy baptism. And let us ask the Most Holy Trinity to help us to be able to live and to witness their burning love by remaining closely tied to the Church, the visible community of God’s love and his chosen vehicle for bringing his love and salvation to the whole world.
Amen.