Homily Lent 4B: God loves us with carrot and stick

 Homily for 4^th Sunday of Lent Year B 2021

2 Chronicles 36:14-16,19-23; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21

Introduction

John 3:16. This is the verse you will often see displayed on billboards, on hand-made signs held up in stadiums and on pendants worn especially by evangelical Christians. And what does John 3:16 say?  As we just heard in today’s gospel, it says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

You can perhaps see the reason why this verse is famous, because it describes the core message of the gospel, the message of God’s love for us.  We human beings show love for others using words, like “I love you”; or by doing things like cooking a really nice meal; or by our presence, by spending time with someone, especially when they are sick or down in the dumps.  And yet our love as human beings, even the love of parents for their children, spouses for each other, pales in comparison to the love of God.

Scripture and Theology

But first, what is love?  What does it really mean to love someone?  Does it mean all sunshine and roses?  Not really.  That is the superficial kind of love we hear in musical lyrics, read in tabloid magazines and see in the movies.  Love is not about how we feel; love is willing or desiring the good of another person.  And that is how God loves us.  He desires good for us.  In fact, this verse which we heard in our gospel today, is only the culmination of a long history of God showering love upon love on his people.  Sometimes he loved with the carrot, sometimes he loved with the stick. But in both ways he desires our good.

In the first reading we heard how the people of Israel sinned, adding infidelity upon infidelity.  Think of any sin against the Lord and they did it.  The most serious sin was that they practiced "all the abominations of the nations" and polluted "the LORD’s temple which he had consecrated in Jerusalem."  They turned away from their God and turned to other gods, even bringing their statues into the temple, God's holy house.  What does the Lord do in this situation?

He acts like any good and loving parent, who has someone speak to their wayward child, perhaps the school counsellor or the priest or a relative, someone who can speak to them and help them see the right path.  And so, God showed his love for the people by sending them prophets: the major prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the twelve minor ones including Hosea, Joel and Amos.  These prophets taught the people the way of righteousness.

But as we heard in the reading, the leaders rejected the prophets that God sent to help them, even killing some of them.  In this way they compounded the situation, by not only sinning, but also by refusing the help of those who came to heal them of their sinfulness, like a patient who rejects the doctor's advice.

How did God react to this further provocation?  He had had enough.  He sent the people into exile.  Back in the 8^th century B.C., he had sent the people of the northern Kingdom of Israel into the Assyria. Our reading today describes the situation in the 6th century B.C., when God also sent the people of the southern Kingdom of Judah into exile, this time into Babylon.

By this action of sending them into exile God was not giving up on the people, but was continuing to show them love.  Yes, God punished them severely, by allowing them to be enslaved like their forefathers had been enslaved in Egypt.  The exile was a time for the people to learn from their pain and suffering, that they must be faithful to God.  Think of the punishment of detention that you give your children.  As a parent or teacher, I would hope that you do not punish your children out of hate or vengeance, but out of love for them, out of a desire to see them grow and become better people.  And so, because he had used the carrot before, now with the exile God had to use the stick to help the people.

That is why the punishment was not to last forever.  After 70 years, God sent the exiles a saviour, a very unlikely saviour, the pagan Persian King Cyrus.  He freed the Jewish people from captivity in Babylon to return Jerusalem, to rebuild their temple and their community.  And on returning home, that is what they did.

And now when they had been back home for quite some time, God then showed them his utmost love.  If he sent King Cyrus to help the people return to their national homeland, in Jesus his Son, God sent them a Messiah to restore them to their heavenly homeland.  That is why John's Gospel of today proclaims loud and clear: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

This is wonderful news; this is God showing his love once again for his people.  For now, in Jesus Christ, final salvation has come not only to the people of Israel but indeed to the whole world.  Jesus is the new Moses telling, not Pharaoh this time, but the Evil one: "let my people go!"  That is why in John's First Letter he describes God's love in another way saying: "See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. . .. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 Jn. 3:1-2).  For those who know Jesus, fall in love with him, do his will, God has opened the gates of heaven.

Christian Life

But this love of God came at a cost, the suffering and death of God’s Son on the Cross.  That is why the verse about God so loving the world that he sent his son is immediately preceded by Jesus saying: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”  In other words, just like the Hebrew people were healed from the snake bites by looking to the serpent Moses lifted up for them, God's people will find healing by turning to Jesus who is lifted up on the cross.  By his Cross we are saved!  By his Cross we are loved.

How do we respond to this love, to this great love of Jesus on the Cross?  There is a scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan that might give us an answer.

You might remember, this movie is about a group of soldiers sent to save private James Ryan, who has already lost two of his brothers to the war; the army wanted his parents to remain with one son.  Anyway, many of these men die in the process of saving James, including their leader Captain Miller who just before he dies tells the now rescued Ryan, “James.  Earn this . . . earn it.”

Ryan seems to take these last words of the captain very seriously.  In a scene set with Ryan as an old man, he returns to Europe to the cemetery where Captain Miller is buried.  Staring at the grave marker he mumbles to his dead commander that every day of his life he has thought of Miller’s dying words.  He has tried to live a good life, at least he hopes he has.  He hopes he has earned the sacrifice that Captain Miller and his men made in giving up their lives for his.

But he is not really sure.  He wonders how any life, however well lived, could be worth the sacrifice of all those men.  The old Ryan stands up, but does not feel released.  Trembling and filled with anxiety he turns to his wife and pleads to her, “Tell me I’ve led a good life.”  Confused by his request, she asks: “What?”  He has to know the answer, so he asks her again: “Tell me I’m a good man.”  Finally, she responds to him and says: “Yes you are.”

Conclusion

Of course, we cannot earn God’s love, but we respond in a way commensurate with the very price paid by God to show us this love.  Are we using this Lenten season to respond to such wondrous love with equally wondrous lives?

Homily Lent 3B: Setting apart ourselves for God

 Homily for 3rd Sunday of Lent Year B 2021

Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25

Introduction

"Is nothing sacred anymore?" We use that expression when a person says or does something outrageous, something unbecoming, something that crosses the line.  When Jesus entered the temple, as we just heard, and saw the chaos and mess going on there, he too thought, “is nothing sacred anymore?”

Growing up in Uganda, I learnt about sacredness from a young age in different ways.  At home, like in most African homes, there were spaces considered sacred.  The graveyard in the back yard where members of our family were buried; that is not a place we kids played.  Our parents’ bedroom – that was completely out of bounds.  And you did not put your little behind on dad’s chair, unless you were looking for a spanking on that same behind. That was sacred ground, dad’s chair, not the little behind.

And when I became an altar server, the priests at my parish continued to teach me to respect God's house.  I remember Father Fred, this tall and burly no-nonsense priest pulling me aside one morning and giving me a stern talking-to.  And what was my big crime?  Well, instead of walking to the sacristy via the longer route, I marched right across the sanctuary like I owned the place.  I have taken many theological classes since; but Fr. Fred’s words were for me, the first true lesson in respecting the sacred.

Scripture and Theology

That is why I can understand why Jesus was pretty mad on entering the temple and finding money changers and people selling "oxen, sheep, and doves," basically a meat market.  Picture in our own Church here, perhaps at the back there in the foyer, an ATM machine on one side, a coffee dispenser on the other and a slot machine in the middle.  And then picture lots of traffic back there, people getting money, gambling and buying coffee.  That is still nothing compared to the spectacle Jesus must have seen in the Temple.

Now you might ask, what was wrong with having money=changers and merchants at the Temple?  What is wrong with having an ATM machine at the bank?  Perhaps it might even help in increasing the amount of the collection!  Well, thank you for asking.  These are good questions.

We know that many Jews travelled from very far to come to offer sacrifice in Jerusalem.  Think about Joseph and Mary who had to travel from Nazareth to Jerusalem, a three-day journey.  Surely, you wouldn’t expect them to drag along a sheep or an ox for sacrifice for 100 miles.  And even if they could, they might arrive at the temple with their sacrificial animal, only for it to be rejected as being unfit for sacrifice, perhaps because it had some teeny, tiny blemish.  So, the safe thing to do was to buy the animal from the temple precincts, from the “approved” merchants whose stock was certainly "kosher" and acceptable for sacrifice.

As for the money changers, they too served those pilgrims who brought money for alms and donations for the temple.  Again, pilgrims came from the whole world with foreign currency, especially Roman currency.  But this money usually had an icon of their pagan rulers, just like our dollar bills do.  So, since this currency bore those pagan images, it was not acceptable in the temple.  The money changers exchanged this unacceptable money for acceptable Jewish coins, again providing an important service for worshippers.

And yet, Jesus still asked: “Is nothing sacred anymore?”  And he went further.  He was so angry that "He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables . . ."?  And as for "those who sold doves he said, 'Take these out of here, and stop making my Father's house a marketplace.'"  In fact, this is one of the very rare occasions when Jesus is visibly angry in the gospels.  But why is he angry?  Why does he want these merchants out of his father’s house?

Some might think that what ticked Jesus off was the mess of a meat market and the chaos a stock exchange.

·        You can imagine the annoying bellowing of the oxen, the bleating of the sheep and the aggravating tedious bird noises, to say nothing about the awful smell that the animal waste must have left behind.

·        You can also imagine the mess caused by large numbers of people trying to get change from the bankers.  If you have ever gone shopping on Black Friday, you can certainly imagine the spectacle.

But it is not this disorder and pandemonium that upsets Jesus.

Some might think that what ticked Jesus off was corruption and cheating.  These money-changers and these merchants were not always on the up-and-up, and probably fleeced naïve and pious pilgrims to the Temple.

But still, that is not what really ticks Jesus off.  What upsets Jesus is much more profound. The temple, a sacred place, had been turned into an ordinary place. The house of God, had become a house of man. Yes, these activities of trade and money-changing were good things, that even served to enhance worship in the temple; but they are not sacred activities.  They must be done outside the temple of the Lord.  They must not rob the temple of its status as a place set apart for worshipping God.  Jesus rightly asks: "Is nothing sacred anymore?"  Jesus rightly acts to make the temple sacred again.

Christian Life

That we must set apart some things as sacred, is something we value as human beings, even apart from religion.  In this country we honour the sacred sacrifice of men and women who give their lives for their country.  We set apart as sacred some days to commemorate special events in our history: Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Martin Luther King’s birthday.  We set apart some spaces as sacred monuments such as the Capitol building, the Lincoln Memorial.

And so, if a purely secular, worldly society understands that some things have to be set apart as special, as sacred, surely all the more reason that we Christians must follow our Lord and master in respecting sacredness some things for God; for some things must be sacred.  That is what God tells us in today’s first reading.  We heard him say: "I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God."  He wants some things just for himself.  That is not too much to ask, after all he has created a whole wide world and is asking only for a little bit.

Let us see how we can live out this sacredness in the Ten commandments given to Moses, the first three of which, are really asking us to set apart some things for God.  He says:

1.    "You shall not have other gods besides me."

2.    "You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain."

3.    "Remember to keep holy the sabbath day."

In these commandments God is asking that he is treated specially, that his name is honoured and that we set apart some time, in fact, a full day, just for him.

We honour these commandments first of all by the way we treat the house of God and by the way we celebrate the liturgy.

·        Consider our church buildings; they are adorned and decorated differently from our living rooms, from our offices, from conference halls; they have images of Jesus, Mary and the saints, rather than our worldly heroes, have altars and pews, instead of tables and chairs, have a tabernacle instead of a cabinet.  And we do this to remind us of God's presence.

·        Consider the solemnity and seriousness with which we carry out our liturgy: the silence, the sacred rituals, the sacred Word.  That is why, for example, we don't read anything other than the word of God at Mass; not even at funerals or weddings do we read our favourite poems or sing our favourite pop songs, because the liturgy is sacred, set apart for God.

But observing the sacredness of the Lord's House, the Lord's Day, the Lord's name, the Lord's Supper, is not an end in itself; it is a means to something greater.  Just like my parents’ lessons in sacredness were really a lesson in respect for elders, so our observing of sacredness is really a lesson in holiness, a symbol of setting ourselves apart from sin, setting ourselves apart for God.

And so, having observed the sacredness of the first three commandments at Mass, for example, the priest or deacon dismisses us saying: “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your Life.”  He is asking us to continue living out sacredness by obeying the other seven commandments.  And so, God says:

4.        "Honor your father and your mother," because motherhood and fatherhood are sacred roles given by God to raise up humanity.

5.        "You shall not kill," because all life is sacred, from natural conception to natural death.

6.        "You shall not commit adultery," because sexuality and the covenant of marriage are sacred gifts from God.

7.        "You shall not steal," because even private property is sacred.

8.        "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor," because speech is the sacred vessel of truth.

9.        "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, once again because the spousal relationship is sacred.

10.    "You shall not covet your neighbor's property, once again because what belongs to others is sacred.

And so, we live out sacredness even as we live out the Ten commandments.

Conclusion

This morning when you came to Church, when you crossed the threshold of that door, you entered sacred time, sacred space, sacred ground. But unlike Moses and the burning bush, in this sacred ground, we can see God, we can receive him, in the Eucharist, in his Word.

When we came here this morning, we were like those African boys and girls who went through initiation rituals.  When boys or girls were about thirteen years old, they were sent away for a special period, to a special place, to go through special rituals so that they could learn the important values of society.  And when they returned from that seclusion, from that sacred time, that sacred place, those sacred rituals, they were no longer boys, but men, no longer girls, but women.

Do we experience a similar transformation whenever we leave a sacred place, a sacred occasion?  Are we more mature Christians after hearing God’s Word at Mass, after receiving the Lord in the Eucharist?  Are we more committed Christians at the end of the Sacred Season of Lent?  Have we in some way become sacred, set apart for God, as a result of the experience?

If so, when the Lord looks down on us from heaven may he not say: "Is nothing sacred anymore?”  Rather may he see us giving due honour and glory to the Lord's Name, the Lord's House, the Lord's Day, and most of all to each other, the Lord's People, the Temple of the Lord, a people he has set apart as his own, so that we might be holy and God is Holy, we might be sacred and God is sacred.

Homily Lent 2B: A sneak-peek to encourage our Lenten observance

 Homily for 2^nd Sunday of Lent Year B 2021

Genesis 22:1-2,9-13,15-18; Romans 8:31b-35,37; Mark 9:2-10

Introduction

Listening to the gospels of the last two Sundays, one might think that the Bible is taking us through a lesson in geography.  For last Sunday we saw Jesus in the desert and this Sunday he is taking a hiking trip up the mountain.

Many people think of the Middle East or Africa as being all desert, always hot and dry.  But if you came with me this summer to Uganda, after getting your vaccination shots of course, you would be surprised by the different environments you would see.  I would pick you up from Entebbe Airport on shores of Lake Victoria, where you would spend the night.  Next morning, we would then drive through very lush and green terrain, most of it quite flat and head eastwards where my family lives.  After a stop at the source of the River Nile for sightseeing and lunch, we would arrive in Eastern Uganda just in time to see the mountains off in a distance before the sun sets.  Perhaps a few days later, after you have gotten over your jet lag, I would take you up to the mountains.  If you are brave enough, you would climb up to one of the peaks and have a panoramic view of the beautiful surroundings.  To the northeast you would also see a desert; not to worry, we will not be going there.  Instead, we will head northwest to the wildlife park and do a safari, where you will see wild animals, antelopes, giraffes, lions, leopards in the savannah.  And then after feeding our eyes with a sight to behold, we would head southwards back to the airport.

Similarly, the Land of Jesus has a variety of topographies, with each environment also having a special meaning.  And so, in last Sunday's gospel we saw that the desert was the place where God prepared his messengers for their mission: Moses and the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, the prophet Elijah and Jesus for 40 days and nights in the desert.

Scripture and Tradition

Mountains too have a special role in the Bible.  There are the places where God reveals the most important things about himself.  In the Old Testament:

·        It is on Mount Sinai that Moses often met God and from where he came down with God's message, including the Ten Commandments.

·        Elijah too went to meet God on that same Mount Sinai (1 Kg. 19).

·        And today we heard that "Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves.”

But for Moses and Elijah, their mountain excursions only gave them a partial encounter with God.  For example, they only conversed with God, but did not get see his face.  God revealed himself to them partially, like in a shadow or a silhouette.  But just like he did with the desert experiences, Jesus also fulfilled the mountain experiences of Moses and Elijah.  His mountain expedition was a complete revelation to the disciples of himself, of his divine nature.

·        We heard that “he was transfigured before them and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.” Jesus did not just clean up a bit, but was entirely changed so that now they could see he was no ordinary man, but the Son of God.

·        As if having a facelift and a wardrobe change was not enough, we heard that “then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus.” The disciples saw these revered heroes of the Old Testament, messengers of God, symbols of God's Law and the Prophets, whose presence basically said: "look guys, this the one we told you would come and save God's people; he is the Son of God."

·        And to top it off, there was the voice of the Father himself from the cloud saying: “This is my beloved Son.  Listen to him,” thus leaving no doubt in their minds that Jesus is God, and fulfilling the purpose of the mountain expedition, to reveal to them what heaven would be like.

That is the reason that Jesus took this inner group of disciples with him up this mountain.  It is for the same reason the Church gives us this gospel on the Second Sunday of Lent.

Just before this field trip, Jesus had announced to his disciples for the first time that “that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days” (Mk. 8:31).  The disciples had found this message unthinkable.  How could their Messiah suffer?  How could he who should come in glory and power be killed?  In fact, Peter had even suggested that Jesus was out of his mind!  To which Jesus had responded quite sternly: ““Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Jesus even went further and told his followers that they too would have to suffer like him.  He said: “whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

And so, having proposed this rather stark picture of what it means to be a disciple, Jesus wanted to give his disciples a morale booster, an antidote, if you like.  That is why he took this inner group of close confidants, to show them that his suffering, their suffering would not be for nothing.  It would be the means by which they would share in the glory of the Father.  And so, on the mountain, they experience in the transfiguration a foretaste of that glory of Jesus, to which they must look forward and for which they must work hard. 

We could think of this mountain experience as being like the samples of delicious treats that Costco or Sam's Club gives customers, with the hope that you will then buy tonnes of the stuff.  We could also think of this experience as being like the sneak-peak of a movie enticing you to go and see the real thing.

But Peter did not seem to understand the purpose of the field trip. He told Jesus: “Rabbi, it is good that we are here!  Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  Peter wanted to stay there and just take in the experience.  It would be like a customer who just keeps eating the samples in Costco without buying anything, or watches only previews of movies, without seeing any of them.  And yet Jesus gave them the preview so that they would go back down the mountain and now do the hard work.

Christian Application

We too have just begun 40 days of the desert experience of Lent.  And we might be discouraged by the difficulty of fasting, almsgiving and prayer.  We might be discouraged by the suffering that comes with being faithful to Jesus Christ.  We too need to be encouraged by being given a sneak-peek of that for which we are going through this Lent, so we can carry our crosses daily.

It is like when a civil engineer is building a bridge, or an architect a house or carpenter making a couch, he or she starts of by having the final product in his mind and even on paper.  And then he begins working on the project.  We too need a mental picture of what the end will look like, so that we can go through Lent and indeed through life accordingly.  That end is what we just head described in the gospel, a life of glory with God for eternity.  If we think about heaven as our goal, then everything we do here will be geared towards that one goal, admission into heaven, thus providing a roadmap for our lives.

But wo we think about heaven at all or are we concerned just about this life?  Someone once said modern man, despite the advancement of science, has a shorter lifespan than our ancestors.  While we can live well into our eighties, that is it – that is all some people are concerned about.  But ancient man, while he lived only up to 40, if at all, that short life here on earth was followed by eternal life.  I believe 40 plus eternal life is much longer than 80 years.

Conclusion

And so, my friends, besides this gospel let us also turn towards several other mountain experiences to inspire and encourage us in our Lenten observance.  Which one will inspire you?  A devotional practice like, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Way of the Cross and the Rosary?  Going to your annual confession? Attending daily Mass?  What will strengthen you to continue carrying your cross daily and following Jesus?

Homily Lent 1B: Let us go into the desert with Jesus this Lent

 Homily for Lent – 1^st Sunday Year B 2021

Genesis 9:8-15; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:12-15

Introduction

The desert is a harsh environment: hardly any rainfall, limited plant life and extremely high temperatures.  Why then, as we just heard in today’s gospel, does the Spirit drive Jesus into the desert, where he stays for forty days?

I am reminded of a friend, who enjoys camping with his kids.  Every few months they will go off hiking and camping for a couple of days.  The first time they described to me what they did, I asked them: “why would you leave your nice house with indoor plumbing, a full pantry and air-conditioning to go camping?”

We can find an answer to this question of abandoning modern comforts to rough it, as well as why Jesus went to the desert, by recalling some desert experiences described in the Bible such as that of Moses leading the people through the desert for 40 years and the prophet Elijah fleeing into the desert for 40 days.

Scripture and Theology

As you might remember, Moses led the Hebrew people to the Promised Land, not via the shorter route through the present-day Gaza strip that would have taken a couple of weeks, but via the roundabout way through the desert that took them 40 years.  Surely, he did not do it for the scenery. 

For Moses and the Hebrew people, their 40-year journey in the desert was both a time and a place of testing.  Were they really ready and worthy to be God's chosen people?  And as we know from the book of the Exodus, often they failed that test, by being disobedient to God.  And yet even despite their disobedience, the Lord sustained them in the dire conditions of the desert, providing them with food and water.  And so, the Hebrew people emerged from the desert stronger in faith and ready to begin their life as God's people in the Promised Land.

Similarly, with the prophet Elijah, from the first book of Kings we learn that he fled into the desert to escape the death threats issued against him by Queen Jezebel.  He had thoroughly defeated her false prophets and showed that the God of Israel was the only true God.  Now she wanted his head for squashing her plans to turn Israel into a pagan nation.  Elijah therefore fled into the desert for forty days and forty nights, but only after he was given food for strength or viaticum by an angel.  His fasting experience in the desert prepared him for the mission that God was about to give him, the mission of restoring Israel to the Lord.

The desert experience of Jesus bears a striking similarity to these two experiences of Moses and Elijah, and fulfils them.

·        Like God provided for the basic needs of both Elijah and the Hebrew people, the angels ministered to Jesus in the desert.

·        Like the Hebrew people were tempted to turn away from the Lord and Elijah was tempted to give up on the Lord since all the prophets had been killed, Jesus too was tempted three times in the desert.  The difference is that unlike his predecessors, Jesus did not succumb to the desert temptations, but always obeyed God perfectly in all things.  He thereby proved that he was truly the Son of God sent to begin a new Israel.

·        Like the desert served as a training ground, a place of preparation for a great mission, for both the Hebrews and Elijah, Jesus too emerged from his desert experience ready to start his mission.  But his mission was much greater than that of the Hebrews or Elijah.  Simply stated his mission was to announce the Good News, which is: "This is the time of fulfillment.  The kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent, and believe in the gospel."

Our Lenten observance of 40 days is like the desert experience of Jesus.

Christian Life

Going to the desert is something Christians have done throughout history.

First, the desert Fathers, like St. Anthony the Great, literally went out and lived in the desert.  The story has it that one day Anthony heard a Sunday sermon stating that perfection could be achieved by selling all of one's possessions, giving the proceeds to the poor, and following Christ (Matt. 19.21).  So, he did just that and went to the desert to seek complete solitude and to be with the Lord.

His example has been followed throughout the centuries by monks and nuns, brothers and sisters, friars and hermits, whose life, even when not lived in an actual desert, is a kind of desert experience.  I am sure some of you remember being taught by the Sisters and Brothers like the Benedictine Monks, Carmelite Sisters, the Jesuits, Dominicans, Brothers of the Sacred Heart, Marianite Sisters of the Holy Cross, the Salesians and many other religious orders.

When a young man or young woman enters any of these orders it is like they are going into the desert, leaving behind the world that ordinary men and women know and live, to enter a life that demands much from them, just like the desert or the camping trip exacts much from those who dare to enter it.

·        They give up the perfectly normal gift of children and the intimacy of a spouse, trading their mother or father for a mother-general or father-general, and their siblings and children for sisters and brothers, and children with whom don’t share any DNA.

·        These men and women give up the life of autonomy and liberty to enter a life where they submit their will to the will of God mediated by their superior.  Like the desert environment restricts one's freedom, the life of the religious man or woman is no longer his or hers, but God’s.

·        And in choosing to live the vow of poverty the religious men and women literally live a desert lifestyle.  For they own nothing for themselves, sharing whatever resources they have in common, and thus experiencing a life of personal privation.

Now why do they this?  Why do they go into the desert?  Just like their very human Lord and Master, Jesus Christ went into the desert, to grow closer to His Father, the monks and nuns also “strive to follow more closely in the footsteps of your [God's] Son, . . . [so that] constantly seeking evangelical perfection, they may add to the holiness of your [God's] Church and increase her apostolic zeal” (Collect for Religious Profession).  This experience benefits them and us.

Conclusion

The rest of us are not off the hook.  We are invited to follow them and the Lord into the desert for purification and growing in intimacy with God.  It should be no surprise that the period of Lent is also 40 days, the same number of days that Jesus spent in the desert.  We should therefore consider Lent and its three main practices of fasting, almsgiving and prayer, as an experience of the desert.

And we too go into the Lenten desert for the same reasons Moses and Elijah and Jesus did, for the same reasons that religious men and women do.  And so:

·        May our Lenten observance of fasting and abstinence help us experience the deprivation of the desert and so “restrain our faults, raise up our minds, and bestow [on us] both virtue and its rewards” (Preface IV of Lent).

·        May our Lenten observance of almsgiving, sharing what God has given us similarly “humble our sinful pride, contribute to the feeding of the poor, and so help us imitate” God’s kindness (Preface III of Lent).

·        May our Lenten observance of more fervent prayer deepen our relationship with God and so prepare us to live fruitful Christian lives and ministry, strengthened by right faith, sure hope and perfect charity.

And like Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, may we come out of the desert stronger.

Homily for Ash Wednesday: Rending both our garments and hearts

 Homily for Ash Wednesday 2021

Joel 2:12-18; Corinthians 5:20-6:2 Luke 5:27-32

Introduction

Angels, human beings, dogs; all three are living beings that God created.  But only one of them needs ashes, needs signs; and that is us, human beings.

·        Angels are spiritual beings only; they have no bodies and so they don’t need signs like ashes or any rituals for that matter.

·        Dogs are material beings only; they have no souls; they have no spiritual nature and so cannot understand the meaning behind signs.

·        We human beings are in the middle; because we have both souls and bodies, we are both spiritual and material.  And that is why we need signs, which are material things, but which point to and represent non-material things, spiritual things.

Even in ordinary life, for example we have the flag, national anthem, civil rituals to represent the nation; we have family rituals as well.

As Catholics, our most important signs are the sacraments and other rituals like today’s ritual of imposing the ashes.

Scripture and Theology

But because we are caught in the middle, being both spiritual and material beings, there can be a tension, regarding how far to go in either direction.  For too much focus on the material and we have ritualism; and too much focus on the spiritual and we have spiritualism.

This tension is represented in the readings chosen for today’s Mass.  In the first reading the Prophet Joel is very adamant that the people have to fast.  “Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning” says the Lord. The Prophet goes on to tell Israel: “Blow the trumpet in Zion!  proclaim a fast, call an assembly.”  And to this assembly everybody had to go, even the elders, the children and nursing babies.  The bridegroom and bride also had to suspend their marital rights, for this business about fasting was really serious.  And the priests had to pray: “Spare, O LORD, your people.”  Moreover, the Old Testament is full of many other such passages, like the book of Jonah, which call for fasting as a sign of repentance.

But then we come to the New Testament, and Jesus seems to downplay this call to fasting.  In one passage when the Pharisees ask him why his disciples don’t fast but their do, he responds that “As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast” (Mk. 2:19).  And in today’s passage says: “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.” And so, we might ask ourselves: Lord what do you want us to do?  To fast or not to fast?  To put ashes on our foreheads, on our heads or none at all?

But this is only an apparent contradiction.  The Lord wants us to use rituals, signs, even external actions like fasting. But he wants us to have the right balance between the outside and the inside, the material and the spiritual, the sign and the reality it signifies.  That is why teaches how we are to do the three traditional penitential acts of almsgiving, prayer and fasting:

For Almsgiving he says: “When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before  you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others.”  He wants our almsgiving to focus more on the spirit of giving rather than on the external action and praise that we receive for it.

As for prayer he says: “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them.”  He wants our prayer to focus more on that inner devotion to God rather than the external words and rituals of our prayer.

As for fasting, he says: “When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting.”  Even our fasting must focus on the inner deprivation than externals.

Christian Life

The restrictions that we have put in place this past year to protect our vulnerable brothers and sisters have more than ever helped us realize how important the inner side of our rituals and signs compared to the externals.

·        While our family rituals that represent our familial love and mutual care, like gathering for birthdays, holidays and Mardi Gras has been changed, hopefully we have not stopped loving each other, but have found other ways besides these rituals to show that love.

·        While our access to the sacraments has been limited, hopefully the fountain of God’s grace has not stopped flowing through other ways like private prayer and personal devotions.

·        While our ways of worshipping God have had to change, such as sitting apart at Church, not sharing the sign of peace, not sharing from the chalice, and today, a different way of receiving the ashes, I hope that our inner devotion to God has not been diminished.

Today we are going to use a method of imposing ashes that until now has not been customary in the USA.  We are used to putting ashes on the forehead in the form of a cross.  But for about a thousand years the practice in the Mediterranean area has been to sprinkle ashes on the head.  This year we shall also adopt that practice to limit exposure to COVID-19.

This change might disturb some of us, since as human beings we don’t like change that much, especially change that affects our spiritual lives.  But we can rest assured that the more important thing to worry about is what those ashes represent, our conversion, not the manner in which we receive them.

In fact, the same words will accompany our receiving of the ashes: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  These words come from Genesis 3:19, where God pronounces sentence on Adam for his sin, telling him: “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, from which you were taken . . ..”  And then he concludes: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  In these few words God describes what the fate of man is: a life of toil and suffering ending up in death, until the Saviour comes.  That is the same message we are asked to hear when we receive the ashes, a reminder about our mortality, a call to repentance.

Conclusion

And so this Lent, like the rest of our Christian life involves both external signs and something spiritual happening inside us.  And unlike the Pharisees, for us, the two parts, the external and the internal must be in sync, in harmony.

Almsgiving: Are we going to share our material possessions with those who are less fortunate than we are, privately or through the Lenten campaigns that support Catholic Charities which helps the poor within the USA, and Catholic Relief Services which does so abroad?  And don’t forget the missions of Uganda; my people need a lot of help during this COVID pandemic.

Prayer: Although prayer is something that we do every day, during Lent are we going to kick it up a notch, saying prayers as a family, before and after meals, perhaps the rosary, coming to daily Mass?  Shall we go to confession?

Fasting and abstinence:  We are asked to fast by giving up all food and drink, so that in that experience of hunger, we might know what the deprivation of the poor man Lazarus means and what total dependence on God is.  We also abstain from certain foods or pleasures, so as to set our sights on the greater pleasures of God.  How much fasting and abstinence are we going to do?

As we return home today with ashes on our heads, and as we begin to carry out our Lenten almsgiving, prayer and fasting, let them not be empty signs, but signs pregnant with meaning, external representations of the devotion, conversion, repentance, helping us grow more faithful to the gospel.

And then at Easter, we shall joyfully celebrate our destiny, our dying and rising with the Lord.  For we are not angels who already enjoy God’s presence; for we are not dogs, who don’t have a spiritual nature; we are human beings, who need these material signs to help us on the road to our spiritual home heaven.

Homily Ordinary 6B: Seeking healing for our own leprosy and that of others

 Homily for the 6^th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2021

Leviticus 13:1-2,45-46; 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45

Introduction

As we have just heard in both our first reading and the gospel, lepers in Israel had a difficult life.  Last October I had a small peek into their experience.

A few of my community members and I got sick with COVID-19.  It was therefore decided that for the sake of the rest of the community, we who tested positive would quarantine in our rooms for about two weeks.  We were well taken care of, with people bringing food and other supplies to our doors.  But some of the food-servers were so scared of us, that they would drop the food at the door, knock once or twice and then run away.  I had a similar experience when I went to the doctor’s office.  There I was ushered into a special room, away from all the other patients and staff, and seen only by the doctor.

And when it came departing, I went out through a special door away from the others.  While I know why all these things had to be done, perhaps for the first time, I understood in a personal way, what being a leper was like.

Scripture and Theology

It is perhaps for the same reasons that in the book of Leviticus, the Law of Moses prescribed the ostracizing of lepers.  As we heard in the reading, after the priest had confirmed a diagnosis of leprosy, it was decided: “The one who bears the sore of leprosy . . .. shall declare himself unclean, . . . He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.”

Given the limited medical knowledge and medical resources of the time, this was the only way they could protect society from a contagious disease, whether this was any kind of skin disease or what we know as Hansen's disease.  This is the debilitating disease that St. Damien of Molokai would catch himself as he cared for those who had leprosy.

And so, like we did for Ebola patients a few years ago, or we have done for COVID-19 patients, the Law of Moses required keeping lepers outside the community, putting them in quarantine.  In fact, the word “quarantine” itself comes from the Italian phrase “quarantina giorni” which means 40 days.  In the Middle Ages, ships coming from countries with the plague were to remain in port for 40 days before they were allowed to dock and the sailors come on land.

But the exclusion of the lepers in Israel went beyond the physical and social separation of the contagious from the rest of society.  It was also a psychological and spiritual separation.  Like all illnesses, leprosy was considered to be a result of sin, a punishment for sin.  Lepers were therefore excluded from worship and indeed from all activities of society.  You might say that this emotional and spiritual exclusion was even worse than the physical exclusion.

Given this dire condition, it should not surprise us that this leper sought Jesus out and cried out "If you wish, you can make me clean."  The man could not bear the physical, social, psychological and spiritual isolation any more.  He had faith that Jesus was someone special, someone who could heal him.  And in healing the leper therefore, Jesus is not simply healing the man physically; he is also restoring this man to society.  That is why he tells the man: “go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them."  For the priest was responsible for diagnosing and excluding unclean people from society and for confirming healing and readmitting them.

Christian Life

An obvious lesson for us to draw from these readings is to reflect on how we treat today’s lepers.  For while we might be better at treating those afflicted with the actual disease of leprosy, we do have a whole host of our own lepers that we ostracize today: people with AIDS and Ebola, drug addicts and alcoholics, the homeless and pan-handlers, refugees and immigrants, Jews and Muslims, Protestants and Mormons and many others.  Like the people in the Bible treated those with leprosy, some in our society also operate out of an “us” vs “them” attitude. And yet Jesus clearly teaches us that Christians must find ways to invite all God’s children into his Kingdom, even as they protect themselves.

But the lesson that I would like to focus on instead is the fact that each of us here, is a leper in some way, especially because we are sinners.  You and I, like the leper really need to go to Jesus and cry out: “If you wish, you can make me clean."  For just like it was for the people of Israel leprosy is also for us a metaphor for our sinfulness, our human brokenness that needs healing.

Sometimes, like the lepers, we are excluded from the Church, from society.  This can be due to our own sins that exclude us for example from receiving Holy Communion.  Or we can be excluded through no fault of our own, because of our social, economic, and religious or other circumstances.  But at other times we exclude ourselves, like when we cling to our past sins.  Even when we have been forgiven, we don’t believe that Jesus could ever forgive us for our grievous sins.  We impose a quarantine on ourselves.

Whether we are excluded by others or by ourselves, Jesus is lifting the quarantine, through his Word, through his sacraments, but particularly through the sacrament of confession.  All he asks is that like the leper, we go show ourselves to the priest and we perform the offering for our cleansing.

We show ourselves to the priest and we perform the cleansing ritual when we go to confession.  Unfortunately, many Catholics today feel that this sacrament of confession is scary, uncomfortable and some even think it unnecessary.  As for being scary and uncomfortable, I would agree.  I feel the same way when I go to confession.  But again, who ever said being a Catholic was easy?  About being unnecessary, I don’t agree.  From the very beginning, God always uses other people to bring us back to him.  Think of Noah, Moses, Aaron, the prophets, the kings and of course the priests as we have just heard.  Think of John the Baptist, the Blessed Mother, the Apostles, all of whom God used to bring us salvation.

The sacrament of confession like the ritual performed by that leper is an occasion for God to forgive us through the Church.  This ritual has four elements.

First, Contrition: We are sorry for our sins; we arrive at this sorrow by examining consciences.  There are many tools to help us do this, for example by checking our observance of the Ten Commandments or by examining the health of our relationship with God, with each other and with ourselves.  And when we are sorry, for our sins, God will forgive us.

Second, Confession: We need to name our sins and let them go.  We tell them to the priest so that he can give us advice on how to avoid them in the future.  That is why we have confession to the priest.

Third, Penance: We accept the penance the priest imposes on us, which can be a prayer, an act of charity, an act of reparation, so that we can in an external way, show the sorrow inside us, repair any harm our sins have done, and firmly resolve with the help of God, to avoid the near occasion of sin.

Four Absolution: At the end of the ritual, the priest confirms that we have been forgiven.  Tells us who forgives us saying: “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.”  And then tell us how: “through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit.” The priest confirms what God has done for us.

Conclusion

After he was healed the leper began to share what God had done for him to anyone who cared to listen.  May we do likewise.  As the Responsorial Psalm response said: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.”  Let us share that joy of salvation with others.

Homily Ordinary 5B: Taking Jesus to the other villages so that he might heal them too

Homily for 5^th Sunday Ordinary Time Year B 2021

Job 7:1-4, 6-7; 1 Corinthians 9:16-19,22-23; Mark 1:29-39

Introduction

What happens when a beloved priest is moved from one parish to another?  Sometimes the parishioners at the first parish are up in arms and write scathing letters to the bishop or send him delegations to change his mind.  I am sure that none of you would ever do that. But if you did, the bishop or the priest might respond using the words of Jesus in today’s gospel and tell you: “Let me go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also.  For this purpose have I come.”

Scripture and Theology

Today’s gospel and that of last Sunday describe what had been a rather busy weekend for Jesus.  What had Jesus been doing?

1.    Well, being a faithful Jew, we can assume that Jesus began his weekend on Friday night, with the usual Sabbath dinner.

2.    And then as we heard in last Sunday’s gospel, on Saturday morning, he went to the synagogue in observance of the third commandment, to keep holy the day of the Lord. And while he was there, they randomly called him up to read the Word of God and to preach the sermon; and as we heard, he did a fine job that left an impression on them, for he taught with authority.  Moreover, while at the synagogue, he noticed a man possessed by an unclean spirit and healed him.

3.    That afternoon after church, as our gospel today tells us, Jesus went over to the house of Simon and Andrew, perhaps looking for a free meal, understandably since he had had such a busy morning.  But Simon's mother-in-law was sick and could wait not on them.  So, he healed her.  "He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up." And perhaps in gratitude, she got up and waited on Jesus and his friends.

4.    Jesus probably rested a while, since as a Jew he could do no work until that evening when the Sabbath ended.  We heard that "When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons . . .."  Basically, the floodgates opened and all this healing business must have taken him late into the night.

5.    After having gone to bed rather late, the next morning what did Jesus do?  "Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed."  Yes, ministry was important, but even more important was recharging his spiritual energy by prayer, maintaining his relationship with God.  But while he was praying, Simon came to him saying: "Everyone is looking for you."  For they wanted him to return to Capernaum and do more of those healings that he had done the day before.

6.    But Jesus refused to return to Capernaum.  That is when he said those words: "Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also.  For this purpose have I come."  Jesus refused to return to the place where he was already a celebrity, where he was being hailed as a hero.  Instead, he chose to go elsewhere, to the unknown, so that he might continue his ministry.  And as the gospel said, "So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee."

The mission of Jesus is not limited to a few, but is universal, is Catholic.

Christian Life

In a few moments we are going to profess in the creed, that, “I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.”  What does it mean to be Catholic?  The Catechism tells us that ". . . the Church is catholic because she has been sent out by Christ on a mission to the whole of the human race” (831).  Like Jesus told those who wanted him to cling to him in an exclusive manner, the Church is sent out, not just to one town or village, state or country, race or tribe, but to the whole world, to the whole human race.

This message is particularly important for us today, who live in a society that encourages exclusivism, encourages enclosing ourselves in the unholy trinity of “me, myself and I.” Such individualism could not be farther from the will of Jesus, who came to bring the good news of salvation to all God’s people.

This idea of going to the other villages to preach there also is perhaps one of the signature teachings of Pope Francis.  At one of the meetings of the cardinals preparing for the election of the pope, a Cardinal from Argentina said this to his brother cardinals.

Evangelizing pre-supposes a desire in the Church to come out of herself. The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.

The Argentinian cardinal went on to describe the dangers of not doing this.

When the Church does not come out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referential and then gets sick. . .. The self-referential Church keeps Jesus Christ within herself and does not let him out.

And then he concluded by describing the profile of the person he would have liked to be the next pope. He said:

. . . He must be a man who, from the contemplation and adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the Church to go out to the existential peripheries, that helps her to be the fruitful mother, who gains life from “the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.”

It seems that the cardinals liked what they heard.  For they elected the man who said these words, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who is now Pope Francis.

And indeed, Pope Francis, like Jesus, has taken the Church and the gospel to the other villages, going beyond the same old, same old practices.

Without abandoning the Church’s long-standing advocacy for the lives of the unborn, the elderly and terminally ill, Pope Francis has asked us also to advocate for those on death row, refugees, immigrants, the homeless and poor.

Without abandoning the Church’s teaching on monogamous marriage, Pope Francis has asked that we do not forget those who have in some way fallen short of this ideal, offering them pastoral care because they too are God’s children too.

Without abandoning the uniqueness of the Church, Pope Francis has asked us to reach out and enter into dialogue even with those don’t believe what we believe, other Christians, non-Christians, non-believers.

Conclusion

What does going out to the peripheries mean concretely for each of us? To which other villages does Jesus want us to go, does he want us to take him?

A story is told of a young lady, an artist and actress who lived in New York City.  She was obsessed with Mother Theresa and what Mother did and wanted to work with her.  Sometime in the early 80s, she found out that Mother Theresa was coming to New York to speak at the United Nations.  She searched high and low and found out where Mother was staying and went there to wait for her.

And as she is at the gate, Mother’s taxi pulls up and all these little nuns come out and then finally Mother Theresa comes out herself.  This young lady runs up to Mother and says: “I am so glad to meet you; all the work you do is so wonderful.”  Mother Theresa used to all this kind of attention is so nice and takes her hand and listens to her.  The girl went on: “The work you do is so wonderful that I want to come to Calcutta and do that work with you.”

But Mother Theresa shook her head and said, “No. You don’t do this work because you think it is wonderful. You do this work because you so love the poor people of Calcutta that you cannot be away from them; that is when you come.”  The young lady was a little disappointed, but she got the point.

Then Mother Theresa asked her: “But what do you do?”  To which the young lady replied, “Well what I do is not important.  I work in a theatre and help to put on plays.  What use is that?”

To which Mother Theresa said: “There are so many different kinds of famine in this world.  In my country of India, there is a famine of the body, in this country of America, there is a famine of the spirit.  Stay here and feed your people.”

As Mother Teresa rightly pointed out to this young lady, the other villages that Jesus wanted her to take him were right here at home.

And so, what famine, physical and spiritual have you noticed lately, in your parish, in your community, in the world?  How can you bring Jesus to that village on the peripheries, whether at home or beyond, so that with his life-giving Word and Sacraments, he can take care of that famine?