No condition is permanent – not even the condition of sin.

Homily for 26^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A 2014

Ezek 18:25-28 • Phil 2:1-11 or 2:1-5 • Matthew 21:28-32

Introduction

As a visiting priest, you don’t always have the chance to correct mistakes you made before; but this time I can do so.  Take last week, when the message was imitating God’s generous ways.  But in my excitement, I may have said: “let us make our ways the ways of God.”

I also gave some examples of how we too could be generous like God, especially as Matthew 25 says: feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.  But again I may have asked you to do the bizarre: to clothe the hungry and feed the naked.

I hope that today, I will not make such boo-boos again with my words.  For today’s gospel turns our attention from God’s generosity towards our readiness to receive this generosity, especially by changing from bad to good.

Scripture and Theology

In the gospel the Lord continues to address himself to the religious leaders of the time.  The Chief Priests and elders of the people were complacent in their own righteousness – thinking that they had it all.  At the same time they were cynical about conversion for sinners and denied that it was possible at all to change.

That is why Jesus compares these Jewish leaders to the second son who initially said “Yes” and the sinners to the first son who initially said “No.”

·        The Jewish people had said “Yes” to the Lord when they accepted to be God’s people, when they believed in his promises, when they worshipped him and when they followed his laws and precepts.

·        The sinners, that is, the tax-collectors and prostitutes had said “No,” to God when they refused to believe in his promises, when they refused to worship him and most of all when they refused to follow his commandments and instead chose to live in sin.

But then with the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, things changed.  He brought the Good News of Salvation.  He came to reveal God the Father to the world. Jesus came to reveal God’s will to men and women.

·        Unfortunately for the Jewish leaders, instead of continuing to say “Yes” to the God of Jesus who is the same God whom they have been believing, worshipping and obeying, now they say “No,” like the second son.  They reject the Way of Jesus, the Son of God.

·        Fortunately for the sinners, the tax-collectors and prostitutes, this message of Jesus touches a chord in them and they reverse their previous “No” and turn it into a “Yes,” just like the first son. They stop their sinful ways and turn to the ways of God.  Throughout the gospels we hear of many tax-collectors like Matthew and Zacchaeus and prostitutes like the woman with the perfume, turning to the Lord and leaving behind their old lives of sin.

Jesus is teaching the Jewish leaders that change is possible; conversion is possible.  This is the message that both John the Baptist and Jesus himself had preached loudly: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;” or as the gospel of Mark puts it: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.”  Some had believed that change was possible and had done it.

This failure to believe in change was not unique to the people of Jesus’ time.  Centuries earlier, in one place Jeremiah writes that a leopard cannot change its spots.  That is probably why during the time of the Prophet Ezekiel, the people had complained that the Lord’s ways, of forgiving people who changed from bad to good were unfair.  But the Lord says: “Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?”  The Lord punishes those who turn “away from virtue to commit iniquity.”   But The Lord forgives and preserves the life of the person who “turns from the wickedness he has committed, he does what is right and just.” 

Christian Life

This message of change and conversion is just as relevant for us today as it was for the Jewish people and their leaders.

On the one hand, we can just as easily fall into the same complacency of thinking that our original “Yes” to the Lord will carry us all the way to heaven.  Our “Yes” at Baptism, confirmation, matrimony and other occasions was only the beginning of our commitment.  We must continue saying, “Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Lord” every day of our lives.  We must say this “Yes” by continuing to believe in his teaching, by continuing to worship him and by continuing to live according to his commandments, every day of our lives.

I recall a story I had told by the best man at a wedding a few years ago. He advised the newly married couple to compare their love for each other to one million dollars.  But rather than give it to each other in one big check of one million dollars, he advised them to go the bank and get 1 or 10 or 20 dollar bills and give them out to each other one day at a time.  In this way, they would be saying "I love you" every day of their lives.  Our Yeses also need to be the same - saying "Yes" to the Lord every day of our lives.

On the other hand, we can just as easily fall into the same despair of failing to believe in the possibility of conversion; we forget that even when we or others say “No,” by our failure to believe, to worship and to live by the Lord’s ways, that “No” is not permanent.  We must believe that change from evil to good, from sin to virtue, from the wrong to the right path is possible.

Each of us needs to ask himself or herself:

1.    Do I live in despair for myself and cynicism in others or do I live in hope, hope that change is possible?

2.    Do I easily give up on myself and others, letting sin and addictions keep me down or do I harbour the hope that conversion to the Lord is possible?

3.    Do I concrete take steps to bring about change in my life and do I take steps to help others turn their lives to the Lord?

We all remember the great Nelson Mandela!  Do you know that he began his life in violence and would be called a terrorist today?  In his later years, however, he was to become a great ambassador of peace and reconciliation among races.

I have been teaching at the Seminary here in New Orleans now for five years.  So I have seen two classes of seminarians graduating after their four-year course with us and going to be ordained priests.  I am often happy to see that the scruffy, ignorant, stubborn young man who came to us four years earlier has morphed into this presentable, knowledgeable and humble man who is now a priest of God!  Brothers and sisters, with God’s help, change is possible!

Most families have their black sheep, a sibling, an uncle, a niece; my family is no different.  And I must confess that there is a time when we had given up on this one member of our family, who didn’t cooperate with the rest?  But the Lord spoke to us and invited us to see him in her!  While she is still difficult, we continue to try to make her a part of our lives.  Do you have such a person in your family?  Have you called them recently, even if only on their birthday?

But the best example of change is in our personal lives. Only you know what you need to change in your life.  This gospel passage is speaking to you about your life and giving you the hope, that although you once said “No” to the Lord, you can turn that “No” into a yes.  Did you have an abortion, an act of marital Infidelity, an addiction, a lie that damaged someone’s life?  There is nothing you could have done, which God cannot forgive, if you turn your life around to him.

Conclusion

Yes, leopards cannot change their spots because those spots are genetic.  Human beings can change from sin to virtue, evil to good, wrong to right, because the Lord helps us with the grace we need to do that.  The Lord left us the sacrament of Penance as a means to make that change concrete, to receive the assurance from God: “The Lord has freed you from your sins.”

Let us go home with the words of Isaiah 1:18, who assures us: “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be red like crimson, they may become white as wool” (Is. 1:18).  Conversion is possible.

The Generous ways of the Lord

Homily for 25^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A 2014

Isa 55:6-9 • Phil 1:20-24, 27 • Matthew 20:1-16

Introduction

Do you remember when you were in school and the teacher gave you group work or group projects?  And then perhaps, like me, you were the kid, who did all the work, but the whole group got the same grade, even the lazy kids.  Do you remember that feeling of injustice and outrage that you boiled within you, that those kids who worked less received the same grade as you?

Scripture and Theology

We can therefore understand how the workers in the gospel parable felt.  They had worked the whole day in the hot sun, and yet they were being paid the same as those workers who arrived at the eleventh hour.  For us human beings, such as a situation seems totally unjust and completely outrageous.

But then we heard in the first reading, the Lord saying: “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.”  In other words, is it possible that our feelings of injustice and outrage might be mistaken?

This parable that we have just heard shows how different God’s ways are from our ways.  Like the Master, God is not only just, but also generous.  The workers, men, are envious of the Lord’s generosity.  Let us look at the parable again.

The Master keeps his end of the agreement and so we can call him just.  He agreed to pay a day’s wage to each of the workers, let’s say $100 and at the end of the day he does exactly that; he pays them $100 each.  We call that justice: giving each person what they deserve, treating every person as they deserve.

But our God often does not treat us merely in the ways we deserve; he goes beyond justice and is generous to us.  In the parable we saw that the Master, paid the late arrivals, more than they deserved; he paid them a day’s wage, for less than a day’s work.   While this might seem unfair to us human beings, for God it was generosity.  These men were heads of families, and they probably needed a day’s wage to put feed their families.  “Give us this day our daily bread,” like we pray.  So, he still gives them what they need for their families. God is both just and generous.

But let us now look at the attitude of the workers.  While God is both just and generous, human beings are envious and jealous.  They are not concerned about justice, since in truth the Master was just to them; giving them what he owed them.  Their feelings of outrage begin when they think that they should get more than the others.  Their ways are not God’s ways.

This parable of Jesus was aimed at the Pharisees.  Like you and I felt outrage at the lazy kids in the group getting a good grade, the Pharisees also felt that it was unfair for Jesus to invite into God’s Kingdom sinners who had broken God’s law such as tax collectors and prostitutes and he was also inviting foreigners into the Kingdom, non-Jews who were considered unclean and unworthy and who did not even know God’s law, much less keep it.

With this parable Jesus teaches the Pharisees that God’s love is much more generous that their human love could ever imagine.  God has promised eternal life to those who do his will.  The Pharisees and all those who are faithful throughout their lives will receive eternal life.  Should they receive twice the amount of eternal life simply because they were faithful longer? That is nonsense.  Eternal life is eternal life.  There is no extra eternal life for doing good.

These workers who arrive late, represent those who come to the faith later, the sinners and gentiles.  But at the end, thankfully they turn to the Lord.  They too need eternal life.  So God gives it to them, not because they deserve it, but because God is generous.  After all eternal life is God’s to give.  God’s justice is often far more generous than our human understanding of justice.

I once read the story of a mobster called Dutch Schultz whose criminal enterprise flourished during Prohibition.  A son of Jewish immigrants, he carved out a life of crime for himself almost throughout his life. He was as brutal and murderous as mobsters come, perhaps as murderous as ISIS in Iraq and Syria today.  Then his life of crime caught up with him.  As he emerged from a restaurant one day, he was showered with a hail of bullets.

But before he died, he was taken to hospital where a priest came to him and explained the tenets of the Christian faith to him.  Dutch repented of his sins and asked to be baptised.  The priest baptised him and soon after that Dutch died.

You can imagine what an outcry there was about what this priest did.  For as Catholics we believe that baptism washes away all our sins and if somebody should die right after baptism, he will go straight to heaven.  And so, people were angry that Dutch got off so easily, that he found his way heaven so easily.  This was not fair to all those good Catholics who went to Mass Sunday after Sunday, who tried their best to keep all the commandments all their life long.  “Is this justice?” they asked?

But as we know, our ways are not the Lord’s ways.  The Lord chose to give Dutch the same reward he is giving us cradle Catholics.  That is his way!

Christian Life

But the Lord’s ways must become our ways.  Elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus teaches us to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.  Especially in this country, we have been raised to pull our own weight, to work hard in school and at our jobs, for a better life.  That is the true go-getter American spirit and there is nothing wrong with it, except that it is incomplete and imperfect.  We must add to this deep of sense of justice and hard work, the generous ways of the Lord.  We must change our ways so that we taken on the ways of the Lord.

We can start by examining our own lives and seeing how extremely generous God has been to us.  He has not paid us exactly what we deserve according to the human understanding of justice.  If he paid us only what we, who are sinners deserved, well, none of us would be here to tell of it. Sometimes when I praying privately and meditating on the Lord’s goodness to me, I realize that God has been extremely generous to me, especially through the various people he has put in my life.  Perhaps each of us feels the same generosity from the Lord.

In gratitude to the Lord’s generosity to us, we might want to extend the same generosity to others, a generosity that goes beyond justice.

I recently heard a story of a father whose son did something wrong that deserved punishment.  The punishment given was to do some chores, but that meant the son would miss the Saints Football game.  The father, in his generosity, decided to help the son with the chores, so that he would finish them quickly and together they would watch the second half of the game together.  This father method of punishment was both just and generous, like the Lord’s ways.

I also know of a family with three adult children; rather than split their inheritance among all three children equally, the children decided to give half to one child and let the other two split the other half.  Why?  Because this one daughter had really hit hard times and needed the money and the family home.  These siblings were not only just, but also generous, according to the ways of the Lord.

Conclusion

Throughout history we Christians have been known for our concern for the weakest members of our society, not because they deserve it, but because they need it.  And we do this because we try to be generous as the Lord who gives food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, welcome to the stranger, clothing to the naked clothing, care to the sick, visit to the prisoner, renewal and forgiveness to the sinner.  As we carry on this excellent care of the least deserving, may the generous ways of Lord also be our ways.

Am I my brother’s keeper?

Homily for 23^rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A 2014

Ezek 33:7-9 • Rom 13:8-10 • Matthew 18:15-20

Introduction

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”  This is the answer that Cain gave to the Lord, when he asked him where his brother Abel was.  With this response Cain denied responsibility for his brother.

That is why today, we also say: “Am I my brother’s keeper,” when we want to wash our hands off helping others, not just with their physical needs, but also with their spiritual needs.

Scripture and Theology

And yet in today’s readings, the Lord wants us to be our brother’s keeper and our sister’s keeper, in matters concerning sin.

The Lord tells Ezekiel: “You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me.”

·        And then he goes on to tell Ezekiel, that if Ezekiel does not speak to the wicked man about his wicked ways, of course the wicked man will be punished for his wickedness; but so will Ezekiel, who failed to warn him.

·        But if Ezekiel warns the wicked man and yet the wicked man still remains in his sin, Ezekiel will be absolved of the wicked man’s guilt; only the wicked man in this case will be punished for his wickedness.

The Lord is very clear here; Ezekiel and indeed all people are responsible for helping others to turn away from sin.  Each of us is: “my brother’s keeper; my sister’s keeper;” each of us can help keep a brother or sister away from sin.

In the gospel passage we have just heard, the Lord expands the message given to Ezekiel.  He expects of Christians, like was expected of the prophet Ezekiel, to help sinful fellow Christians.  But even more, Jesus provides a template or blueprint showing exactly a four-step, gradual process of bringing back the sinner to the correct path.

Jesus says: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”  This is the first step, a one-on-one interaction.  We call this fraternal correction.  We might say to Maggie, “you were kind of brush with me yesterday.”  And in this way we help a brother or sister realise that they have done wrong.  There is great hope that the sinner will realise his mistake, change his  or her behaviour and return to the right path.  This is the hope that Jesus expresses when he says:  “If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.”

Unfortunately, some sinners will not accept this personal fraternal correction.  That is where the second step comes in.  Jesus says: “If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’”  This is more like calling for backup or doing an intervention.  The backup of more people is needed for two main reasons.  First of all, in the Jewish legal system and probably in ours today, the witness of two or more was required to sustain a case in court.  And so, two or three people were necessary to give evidence about the wrongdoing, should that be needed later.  But a second and more important reason is that two or more members of the community might help the sinner see his bad ways more easily than one person.  There is strength in numbers, so they say.  One or two more people bring a slightly wider perspective to the situation and often, the person realizes the error of their ways and returns to the path of righteousness.

When the person refuses to listen to the small group, Jesus provides a third step. “Tell the Church,” Jesus says.  This step involves bringing in the wider Christian community, especially the Church leaders.  In our language today, we might call this step: “Bring in the big guns.”  For our sins affect the community; our sins give a bad example to others in the community, especially to the young; our sins make the community weaker; our sins often hurt other members of our community.  And so if the first two steps, the personal and the small-group intervention have failed to take care of the problem, the whole community, especially through the church leaders, need to get involved.

Unfortunately, as you and I know, some people will persist in their sin and will never accept the advice of one person, a small group of people or even the whole Church.  And here Jesus prescribes the ultimate measure: “If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.”  To a Jewish listener at Jesus’ time, a gentile or tax-collector represented a person who was not usually a part of the community; he was an outsider or someone to be expelled and excluded.  And this is the medicine he recommends for the adamant sinner, who has refused the three other attempts to treat him.  This last measure is what today we might call the nuclear option.

Christian Life

My friends, the call to be our brothers’ keepers and our sisters’ keepers is most urgent today.  We live in times of political correctness, when we are extremely reluctant to butt into the affairs of other people.  While individualism and privacy might be values for society, they are not Christian virtues.  Christians take care of each other, not just attending to each other’s hunger, thirst and illness, but we also take care of each other’s sins. And when we do help each other to overcome sinfulness, we must do so, as Jesus taught us.

1.    That is why our one-on-one fraternal corrections must be done with love and with the intention of helping each other become better.  We must not become nitpickers.  Especially as parents, we must learn what is important enough to correct in our children and what we can let slide by.  For if the only time they hear us speak to them is to correct this or that, they will stop listening at all and we shall have failed in our job.  We must speak truth, with love.  It often bring me joy to see when families are gathered together, all the adults, are responsible for the discipline of the children present, be they nieces, nephews, grandchildren etc.

2.    When we have to use the second step, the small group intervention, we must resist the temptation to gossip.  Again involving other people in this process is not a time to fan the rumour mill, otherwise the sinner will become ashamed, defensive and be pushed further into sin.  Our intervention must be done in genuine love for the sinner rather than the desire to bring them down.  How often I am pleased to see friends intervening to stop someone from falling further into alcohol or drugs.

3.    When we use the third step, reporting the matter to the Community, we must once again resist the temptation to become snitches.  This step is only used when the first two have failed; but it is also only used so that the community might bring to bear its collective influence and wisdom on the person and bring them back to God.  Often the community does this through praying for the sinner and leaders admonishing the sinner, sometimes even publicly.  That is why sometimes our bishops have to remind politicians and even theologians of their errant ways.

4.    Finally, the last step, the exclusion or expulsion or excommunication of the sinner should be used as a last resort, only after everything else has failed.  This expulsion is meant to help the person change.  While he or she is temporarily cast out of the community, Jesus hopes that the person will come to their senses, see the light and return to God.  The expulsion is therefore more of a medicine than a punishment.  I have seen this step used in families, when Uncle Jimmy is not invited to Thanksgiving dinner, because despite repeated warnings, he refuse to stop his vulgar language in front of the kids.

Conclusion

We are on this journey of salvation together.  That is why we must cover each other’s back, not by covering up their error, but by bringing it to their attention so that they might change.

I will end with a quote from someone much wiser than me, about our journey to salvation:

We need to save ourselves together, to arrive together at God’s door, to present ourselves together.  We must not enter the Good Lord’s house, only some of us without the others.  We need to return to the house of our Father, all of us together.  What will he say to us, if we arrive there without our brothers and sisters?  What shall we say to God if we arrive there without our brothers and sisters?

Mission Appeal Homily for Little Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi

MISSION APPEAL – 22^nd Sunday Ordinary Time

Introduction

Good morning/ afternoon.  My names are Fr. Deogratias Ekisa.  I am grateful to Fr. Ken for allowing me to come and speak to you about and appeal for the work of the Little Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi of Uganda.  I am currently assigned to teach at Notre Dame Seminary, here in the city.

A few years ago when I was making an appeal at a parish like this one, I was concerned that because of my foreign accent, the people did not understand my message.  So I asked the Pastor: “Did your people understand my message?”  The Pastor, a nice man, said: “No, I don’t think they understood half of what you said; but they still gave you the money anyway.” I have been practicing to speak more clearly and I hope that today besides being generous, you will also understand what I have to say.  For my visit today is not just about money, but it is also about sharing my experience of the universality of the Church.

I would like to speak first about today’s readings and then secondly about the mission work of the sisters.

Scripture and Theology

When the Lord in today’s gospel teaches that, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” he is really raising the bar for all Christians.  He is essentially saying that all his disciples, all his followers, all Christians must live a life of self-denial, sometimes suffering, even persecution.  And this is something we all do, day in, day out, as Christians.  We deny ourselves things that are perfectly normal for the rest of the world.

·        Christians choose to deny themselves multiple marriage partners.

·        Christians choose to promote life from conception to natural death.

·        Christians choose to spend time in worship, like we are doing today.

But we choose to live differently, because we follow the way of the Lord.

My friends, although this path of the cross is a path for all Christians, some Christians take it a step further and live very radically.  Among these Christians are religious men and women who give up marriage altogether, give up the owning personal property and most important of all, surrender their personal will; they do these things in service of God and their brothers and sisters.

Mission Application

The Little Sisters of St. Francis of Uganda are just one such group among the many thousands of religious congregations in the world that follow the Lord in this radical way.  The Little Sisters were founded by Mother Kevin Kearney, an Irish religious herself, in 1923.  She realized that although the missionaries had brought the faith to Uganda in 1879, that work would only succeed, if there was the service and witness of African sisters themselves, working with and alongside the missionary priests and religious.

When, a few weeks ago, the superior of the Little Sisters asked me to come and speak on their behalf, at first I thought it was all about saving some money on flights.  After all, I live here in New Orleans and rather than fly one of their sisters from Philadelphia or even from Uganda to come and speak to you, why not use someone like me on the ground.  Being Franciscans, these sisters certainly know how to use wisely the resources God has given them.

But then I realized that the reason they asked me to come here today was more than good stewardship and convenience.  It is actually payback.  Let me explain.

You see my family has been the beneficiary of the work of these sisters for three generations; and it is about time for me to repay their generosity.

My maternal grandfather, Joseph, was a school teacher back in the 1940s and he taught in the sisters’ school.  But then he suddenly died when my mother was just a few years old.  So the sisters took in, not only my orphaned mother, but also my grandmother who was now a widow.  Unfortunately the cultural practice at that time, was to force widows to marry one of the other relatives or to leave. My grandmother did not want to become a second wife; so she went to leave at and work with the sisters to support herself and her daughter.

My mother went to the sisters’ school until she finished the eighth grade.  Knowing her family situation they waved her tuition.  And then they sent her off to a teacher’s college run by their order, where she trained as a primary school teacher.  Fortunately for me, she did not choose to become a nun after she finished school – otherwise I would not be here speaking to you.  She chose to serve God as a mother and wife.

The sisters’ help did not stop with my grandmother and mother.  When I was in the fourth grade, in a rather run-down village school, the sisters once again came to the rescue.  They asked my mother if they could take me to a better boarding school and would find funds to pay for me there.  And that is what happened.  So I went to St. James Primary School, where I finished primary school under the watchful eye of the sisters who cared for me; later I would join high school seminary.  I might add that during these years my mother and I made several trips to the hospital run by the sisters, to treat my malaria, scabies, measles and all kinds of childhood and tropical diseases you can think of.

And so, you can see that in sending me here to you today, it is like the sisters are putting me on display and saying: look here is an example of the fruits that our ministry produces.

·        The sisters keep people alive with medical care, food and water and that is why my grandmother, mother and I have life.

·        The sisters educate children and give them a solid education for life, an education that has been the essential foundation for my other studies.

·        The sisters nurture faith in the children they teach and also in my case nurture vocations to the priesthood.

And the sisters do this great work all in the name of Jesus, denying themselves families, material things and their personal freedom.

Mission Appeal

My friends, there are many other children just like I was, who could benefit from the work of the sisters; you can see some of their cute little faces in the pictures at the back of the Church.  But the sisters need your help to do this work.  Your donation in today’s second collection helps them bring Christ to others.

·        Can you consider helping Sr. Bernadette, the Principal of the School at my home parish, with tuition for some of her poorest children who cannot otherwise attend school?  It costs 40 or 50 dollars a month.

·        Can you consider helping Sr. Beatrice, the Principal of the School that I attended, with funds to buy some office and teaching equipment?  As one of their alumni, she recently sent me a letter asking for help to buy a printer for the school.

·        Can you consider helping Sr. Agnes who works with the youth, teaching them about good health habits, music and generally counselling them in those troublesome years of adolescence and early adulthood?

There are many things you can do for them, and I will be glad to share them with you after Mass.

Conclusion

But the photographs alone and even my words are not enough to show you how much of a difference, your generous donations make in the lives of the people in Uganda.  And that is why I am extending an invitation to you to come and visit us in Uganda.  I promise we shall not put you to work, unless you want to.

I would like to end by asking you for the most important thing, your prayers.  Please pray for the safety and success of the work of the missionaries throughout the world, and especially the Little Sisters of St. Francis.  I also promise you the grateful prayers of these wonderful sisters, who follow Christ in their chosen calling, by bring him to others, especially by their example and by their work.  Thank you again for your welcome.  May God continue to bless you.