St. Mary Parish, Manchester at 210 West Main Street, Manchester, MI 48158 US - Fall 2009 (Cycle B)

N.B. For the three weeks Nov. 8, Nov. 15, and Nov. 22 there is no homily by Fr. Tim to post.

THE SOLEMNITY OF ALL SAINTS
Readings: Revelation 7: 2-4, 9-11; 1 John 3: 1-3; Matthew 5: 1-12a
1 November 2009

“Let us all rejoice in the Lord and keep a festival in honor of all the saints. Let us join with the angels in joyful praise to the Son of God.”

The words that I just read are those of the Entrance Antiphon for today’s liturgy. These words remind us of why we have gathered in this sacred place today; we have gathered to celebrate all the saints. We could rightly look upon this feast as the feast of victory for all of our brothers and sisters in Christ who have gone on before us and now share in the glory of the crucified, risen and ascended Lord. 

Today’s solemn feast reminds us that there is a life beyond this life. This feast points us to heaven our true home. This feast also reminds us that how we live our very brief life on earth directly impacts where we will spend our life in eternity. This feast reminds us that through our baptism we were set on a spiritual path and given an eternal destiny, but not one that is to be taken for granted but rather one that requires a daily and intentional choice to keep moving in a heavenly direction. There is only one way to heaven, one way, that way is called the imitation of Christ. 

Many of us, many good people, while striving to do good and avoid evil don’t give much thought to sainthood. Many of us don’t give much thought to being a saint because we think that it is beyond our grasp. Many of us have decided that being a saint is for someone else, not for me. So we long ago gave up on the dream, the desire to strive to become a saint, maybe we thought that this kind of desire was only for children and as an adult we have become hardened and cynical and think that it is not attainable, so why bother, so we moved on and have shifted our focus from the vertical to the horizontal. 

But nothing could be farther from the truth. Sainthood is not for the few; it is for all the followers of Christ. Sainthood is not meant for an elite group, it is for everyone. Heaven is wide open and possible for everyone; this is the joyful news of the resurrection and ascension of Christ. The Second Vatican Council reminded the Church of a very important fact; that through our baptism we have all been called to the same thing, we have all been given the same charge; to strive for personal holiness. No matter what our vocation, no matter what our career, our work, we are all equally called to strive for the same goal. 

For awhile in our history we had forgotten this, and many, especially the laity never thought that they could become saints because they had thought that this could only be attained by priests and religious. But thankfully through the Vatican Council we have all been reminded that sanctity is to be the goal of every single Christian and heaven, sainthood is possible for every one. To be a saint is to be another Christ, therefore to become a saint one must strive daily to shed himself and to imitate Christ in all things.

I have told this personal story before, but it is most appropriate to tell again on the occasion of this most joyous feast. I will never forget that day when I was hearing the confession of a young man. I was impressed with how he had confessed his sins. He did not rattle off a list of things, like a grocery list that was somehow detached from his daily life. I could tell that he was genuinely striving for conversion, for personal holiness. This energized me. So I asked him, have you given any thought to what you would like to do with your life and he responded: “I want to be a saint!” Yes, I thought. And he inspired me. This, my dear friends, is what the saints in heaven do for us, they inspire us and they remind us of what we are all called to: sanctity.

So as we keep this great festival of heaven, as our eyes are lifted beyond the horizon and to that great expanse which is beyond our earthly sight may we thank all the saints for their faithful witness to Christ, may we implore their help and seek their intercession. May our brothers and sisters who are in heaven inspire us and motivate us to want to become saints.

Amen.

There are no homilies to post for October 18 and 25,  The Twenty-Ninth and Thirtieth Sundays in Ordinary Time. Fr. Tim was away.

The Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

TWO THINGS NECESSARY 
FOR US TO INHERIT SALVATION
Cycle “B” Readings: Wisdom 7: 7-11; Hebrews 4: 12-13; Mark 10: 17-30
10/11 October 2009

In the Gospel today we are presented with the story of the rich young man. This young man desires genuinely to have eternal life. When he sees Jesus, he runs up to him, kneels at his feet and asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life. Notice he uses the word “inherit,” which means to be given something that someone else has earned or brought about. This young man knows that Jesus is the only one who can pass this inheritance on to him.

There are two things that Jesus tells him that are necessary in order for him to inherit eternal life. The first is to be obedient to the commandments of the Lord. The rich young man excitedly tells Jesus that he has observed all of these since his youth. Then Jesus looks at the young man with love and tells him the second thing that is necessary for him to inherit eternal life: love, he must love God above all that he treasures in life. 

In order for the rich young man to be able to love God he must get rid of all that he has that is standing in the way of attaining that perfect love of God. Jesus tells him that he must sell all of his earthly treasure, give to the poor, and then he will have treasure in heaven. “At this his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.” In a few brief minutes the disposition of the rich young man goes from joy and enthusiasm to sadness, to walking away, to turning away from the inheritance that Jesus offered to him. This young man rejects a most priceless treasure: eternal life. The rich young man cannot make this act of love and sacrifice in order to inherit a treasure that is eternal and in recognizing this he is immersed into a deep sadness.

Dear friends in Christ, there are only two things necessary for us to inherit salvation: obedience and love. We cannot attain heaven without the successful acquisition of these two. Obedience and love is what Jesus is all about. Jesus is totally obedient to the will of his Father. And out of love for the Father he gives his life on the cross in order to save us. There is no heaven without obedience and without true sacrificial love. 

The rich young man had one advantage over the average Catholic of the twenty first century, he did not assume his salvation, and he did not think that eternal life was something that didn’t require any thought or personal participation. This young man knew that his salvation required something of him. The Gospel relays to us that it came easy for this young man to obey the commandments. But just maybe he had viewed God’s sacred law as the scribes and Pharisees did, as purely external acts. It is easy to perform the external act of the law of God. But it is a greater challenge to assent to God’s law with your entire being. This requires an interior change, a letting go, and a conversion of the heart.

It is sad to say but in our day many Catholic people presume their salvation. What I mean by this is to say that they don’t give any thought to it, or if they do it might be at the last minute of their life, that is, if they are fortunate enough to have time to prepare for their impending death. As Roman Catholic Christians we can learn a lesson from the rich young man. We too should run to the feet of our Lord with the same joy and enthusiasm as he had, and ask Jesus what do you want me to do for you so that I may inherit the priceless treasure of eternal life? Jesus will then respond to us in the same fashion as he did to the rich young man. He will look upon us with love and he will ask us to love God above every person and possession that is a part of our life.

Later in this Gospel lesson Jesus lovingly addresses his disciples as children and says to them “how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God!” Hear these words of Jesus again: “How hard it is to enter theKingdom of God.” We are told that the disciples are astonished by these words that they are at the edge of despair regarding their salvation. But Jesus calms them and quiets their fears and explains to them that they cannot save themselves, that only God can save them. But God needs them to participate and follow. We only have to fear for our salvation, our eternal inheritance if we are unwilling to try to do what God asks of us, if we walk away in sadness like the rich young man because we are so attached to the wrong things and have placed all of our security in possessions and solely in what the world has to offer.

Friends, the acquisition of heaven, the securing of our eternal inheritance, can only come about through sacrifice. We cannot enter heaven without the pain that comes through obedience, sacrifice, and self-denial. This is what love is, the giving up of something for something greater. Isn’t that what Jesus did on the cross? Didn’t Jesus give up his life so that we could have eternal life? This is the only way to heaven, and it is narrow, but not impossible.

There are two great temptations by which Satan tries to deceive us with and to lure us into accepting regarding salvation. These two temptations are called presumption and despair. The temptation of presumption means to presume, to take for granted that we are saved without our having to cooperate with God. The temptation of despair means to despair of salvation that is to believe that I am beyond redemption. These are important things to take to heart. Dear friends in Christ, may we never take for granted the spiritual treasure of salvation that we inherited from Christ. May we never doubt that eternal life with God is possible, but only with his help and our daily cooperation.

Amen.

The Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time: There is no homily by Fr. Tim to post for October 4. On that weekend, Deacon Dennis Walters gave the homily.

The Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

THE STRUGGLE: Exclusivity and Scandal
Cycle “B” Readings: Numbers 11: 25-29; James 5: 1-6; Mark 9: 38-43, 45, 47-48
26/27 September 2009

To put this Gospel passage into context, it follows immediately after the Gospel passage that was read last Sunday. The apostles are still very worldly-minded in their approach to Jesus and his mission. They had fallen into the worldly trap of fighting over position, over who would be the greatest, who would be number one in the kingdom that Jesus had come to establish. Then Jesus points them to true greatness. He teaches the apostles that greatness in his kingdom lies in becoming the servant of all, in being the last. 

This is not just the spoken lesson of Jesus but it is a living and credible lesson one that is evident in his life and public ministry. With Jesus it is not an exclusive “do as I say and not as I do” lesson in revealing the mysteries of the kingdom; it is a “get behind me and follow in my footsteps” lesson, which is the very definition of the word disciple. 

So the struggle of the apostles to detach themselves from their worldly view of life goes on. There are more lessons to be learned by the apostles, and they are contained in this next section of the Gospel of St. Mark. 

The first lesson has to do with the danger of exclusivity. Being a disciple of Jesus is not like belonging to a club, where you are either in the club or you are not. The kingdom of God is not to be viewed in a closed or limited way but in an expansive way. Jesus came to save everyone. In Christ, salvation will no longer be an exclusive possession of the People of Israel, but it will be extended to the Gentiles. 

Jesus explains to the apostles that they should not be jealous of anyone who performs a good work in his name and who might not be a part of their inner circle. They should rejoice in that charitable work done in the name of Jesus and not criticize it. God cannot be confined within our neatly designated perimeters, and he certainly cannot be limited by us in those whom he chooses to call and to save. 

Even today the Church teaches that salvation is not limited to the members of the Catholic Church. Certainly the Church is necessary in the world in order for the world to be saved. But God is not limited to the Church, and he can choose to save those whom he wills. The same can be said of Protestant and Orthodox Christians. While the historic conditions that caused this unfortunate divide within the Mystical Body to occur are complicated and painful, the restoration of full communion of all Christians should be an important work for us all. But both Protestant and Orthodox Christians believe in the same Jesus Christ as do Catholics. We should rejoice in the good works that these friends of Christ and our brothers and sisters do in his name.

We now proceed to the second lesson. Jesus explains to the apostles what they, and for that matter, any disciple should be deeply concerned about, and that is causing scandal. Scandal can be caused by word, that is, by teaching or propagating wrong doctrine or by giving sinful advice. Scandal can be caused by one’s own sinful deeds which may be imitated by others. This lesson is certainly not limited to the apostles; it is a lesson to anyone who is in authority over others whether it be clergy, religious educators, or parents.
 
Many of us have heard unfortunate stories of priests teaching and preaching about matters that are contrary to the faith or even far worse telling a penitent in the confessional that a sin that they were confessing was not a sin at all, when in accordance with the Church’s moral teaching the criteria for what determines sin was present. Priests are spiritual fathers. They are responsible for the souls of the parishioners entrusted to their care. They are charged with spiritually feeding and leading their people in the ways of the faith. They are not to be spouting off their own silliness or crazy opinions. 

There is no excuse for the negligence of a priest to teach the Catholic faith in all its fullness, truth, and beauty. If a priest does not believe in what the Church teaches, or if he is afraid to teach the faith for whatever reason, then he should be removed immediately from his parish before he causes any further damage. This is too serious of a matter to brush off as being unimportant. We are talking about damaging lives and misleading souls.

Not only is failing to teach the Catholic faith or teaching a distorted or heretical version of the Catholic faith a cause of scandal and an occasion to lead others into the slavery of sin, but the personal behavior of the priest can be a source of scandal as well. We have witnessed in recent years how the revelation of the abuse of children at the hands of some priests has not only caused tremendous damage to these innocent souls, but has rocked the Church at her very foundation causing some to lose their faith and trust in all priests, some even to the point of leaving the Church. 

Jesus uses strong imagery to make a most serious point about how the apostles should view the personal behaviors that could lead them to give scandal to others. They must be willing to cut them out, to amputate them, and to sever any immoral behavior that could be the cause for potential scandal. Jesus warns the apostles that if they are the cause of leading others into sin it is they who will have to face the eternal consequences, possibly losing their salvation and spending their eternity in Hell. 

This serious message of Christ is not limited to the clergy. This message is meant for parents as well. Parents have the serious duty of bringing their children up in the Catholic faith. Parents can give scandal to their little ones if they fail to truly live Christian lives. Christians parents who fail to live according to the faith will be held accountable not only for their sins, but for the sins of their children and perhaps their children’s children for generations to come. 

Much of today’s moral laxity and permissiveness can be blamed on parents who have failed to give the example of true Christian living in the home and in their dealings with their neighbors. To children of such parents Catholicism is only a label, it means nothing to them, it does not inform or inspire their lives, and hence they are only nominal practitioners of the faith.

My dear friends in Christ, we all need to come to the awareness that eternal life is worth any sacrifice which we may be called to make. In another place in the Gospel Jesus teaches that the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. If we wish to reach heaven we must be prepared to follow Christ. We must not allow others to lead us astray but be prepared and determined to conquer and resist our own evil inclinations as well. 

Amen.