Take Up Your Cross

(The following is a homily given for the Catholic Community of Enid on the Friday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time, 8/7/15)

Reading 1 Dt 4:32-40
Responsorial Psalm PS 77:12-13, 14-15, 16 and 21
Gospel Mt 16:24-28

Sometimes I wonder if I really want to follow Jesus. He is a good example, yes; I’ll even give him the fact that he is God. He came to redeem me, and I’m grateful, but do I really want to follow him?

To follow Him means that my life will be turned upside down; it means that I will have to confront my sinfulness and work to rid myself of it. It means that I will be humbled and humiliated, by what is done to me, or by what I myself do. It means that I will experience great loneliness, great suffering, great sadness. It means that I will have to take up my cross.

Knowing all of this, I wonder if I really want to follow Jesus. My cross is painful and splintered. It is so heavy that it brings me to my knees. It is weighed down by my anger, my greed, my sloth, my pride, my lust, my envy, my indulgence. It reopens wounds in my soul that have begun to heal, as if in spite of any work on my part to bandage them.

I do not want this cross. And yet if I am to follow Christ, I must take it up. I must embrace it; I must cling to it; I must love it – because it is the same cross our Lord carried. He carried this very cross of mine to Calvary.

What we do in taking up our cross is allow our Lord and Savior to carry it for us. It is in taking up our crosses that we lay them down in front of Jesus; it is in dying to our fears that we find life in Him.

So, shall we follow Jesus? Shall we take up our cross? Shall we allow our cross to bring us to our knees, to humble us, to remind us of our need for God’s grace? Our need for God’s Love?

Prophesy and Witness

(The following is a homily given at St. Francis Xavier Church, Enid OK on the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, 8/6/15)

Reading 1 Dn 7:9-10, 13-14

Responsorial Psalm PS 97:1-2, 5-6, 9
Reading 2 2 Pt 1:16-19
Gospel Mk 9:2-10

Today’s Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord is a testimony to the power of witness.  Our readings today are prophetic readings: First Daniel, who foresees the coming of the “Son of Man” in splendor and power (see first reading).  Then the second letter of St. Peter, who here not only prophesies the coming of the Lord, but is a witness to His Life, Death and Resurrection.  He witnessed this particular marvel – the Transfiguration – and he came away with a truth he could not understand until Jesus fulfilled his purpose here on Earth, which was to die and rise for us.

Prophesy and witness must be based upon the reality of God  – not on any “devised myth” (II Pet. 1:16) that may propel our own agendas.  They must be grounded in a relationship with our God – not on personal gain or even personal interpretation.

Prophesy and witness are meant to be shared.  The benefits of hearing the truth will wither and decay in the darkness of personal greed – they require the light of generosity and evangelization.

We are called to be prophetic.  We are called to be witnesses to the Truth we have come to embrace in our Christian Faith.  It is the truth that we are no longer slaves to darkness, but follow Christ, who is “as to a lamp shining in a dark place,”(II Pet. 1:19) igniting our hearts with the fire of His love. 

May we be transfigured ourselves by his loving flame.  May we allow our God to consume our sins, transform our hearts, and prepare us for glory.  May our own transfiguration echo the transfiguration of our Lord, and so work to prophesy and give witness to our Savior and our God, Who lives and reigns forever and ever.

 

 

 

 

The Bread that Satisfies Our Loneliness

(The following is a homily given at St. Francis Xavier, Enid OK on the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Timer, 8/2/15)

We spend so much of our lives looking for things; things that will satisfy our curiosity, our longing, our incompleteness.  We look for things because we have an insatiable craving to know and to become more than what we are or have now.   And we will not stop this search until we are satisfied.

In my short time as a priest, I have been privileged to share with people some of their deepest spiritual experiences.  From praying the Mass with them, to hearing their confessions, to giving them the  Anointing of the sick, to presiding at their funerals.

These things – this sacramental life that I am honored to live – has allowed me to see the craving of the human soul for experiences beyond who we are. And it has made me realize how blessed we are, as a Church, to have the gifts of God’s Grace in such tangible ways as the Sacraments.  It also makes me realize how lonely our lives can be, even when we may have these gifts available to us.

This reminds me of a book I’ve been reading lately.  It is entitled “The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness” by Ronald Rolheiser.  In the book, Rolheiser discusses the natural inclination to loneliness for human beings.  In fact, at the very beginning of the book, he goes so far as to say that “to be human is to be lonely.”[1]   

We are, by our natures not only inclined to seek more, but indeed designed to be more than who we are.  And we are never satisfied with even the most generous, or extravagant, or fulfilling thing we happen to come across. 

To make things more complicate, though, we have a tendency to hold on to the things that only partially satisfy us, fearful of losing the little bit of respite they provide.   We baulk at St. Paul’s words today to “put away the old self of [our] former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires” (see Eph. 4) – desires that promise to satisfy this longing in our hearts when, in reality, they were only made to point to what can truly satisfy. 

We are afraid to let go of the “devils we know” because when we are presented with a “renewal of the spirit” through the gift of Grace, we initially only recognize it as “the devil we don’t know” – a variable “mana” – a “what is it” (see first reading).  We come to see our slavery to this world and its sinful trappings in the way that the Israelites saw Egypt in our first reading when they told Moses: “Would that we had died at the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread!” 

We do not see that the “fleshpots” of this limited existence have no correlation to the gifts our Lord wishes to bestow upon us.  There is no comparing God’s infinite grace to the finite realities this world has to offer. 

We seek for “full disclosure” – wishing to have control over the situation at least to that degree.  And for many of us, the signs and miracles we witness in the Sacraments are not enough precisely because they do not “lift the veil” of our human senses.  They’re not meant to – they are meant to unite us to the reality of God, not simply unveil Him to us – but that is small consolation in a world of instant gratification, unfettered desire, and broken promises. 

Going back to Rolheiser’s book, he talks about a foreign film he once saw entitled “Face to Face.” At one point in the movie, one of the characters reflects upon this state in which we all find ourselves.  He says:  

“Just once I would like to cut through all the veils and barriers, mirrors and fantasies, shadows and unrealities which separate us from each other and feel something as real as I am.  Just once I would like to see face to face.  Then life would be meaningful.”[2]

My brothers and sisters, this unmistakable desire for meaning that each of us crave at our core – the truth that we are meant for more; that we are made for a reality we cannot comprehend – leaves us yearning for a type of nourishment of the soul that endures.

Yet, as we reflect on the Gospel for today, we can see that we must use the experiences provided for us by our Lord to search beyond those same experiences.  We cannot be content to follow the example of those who followed after Jesus searching for infinite meaning in the finite.  They had heard of this man who did signs and miracles, and so they wanted to have him perform these same signs for them.  Finite, limited signs that only spoke of the temporary relief from the pain of loneliness.  They wanted to have the “food that endures for eternal life”; they wanted to have the ability to “accomplish the works of God”; they wanted to “see and believe” the transformation in their lives – But they wanted these things on their own terms – terms that, if they were honest with themselves, they knew had not power to satisfy.

That was the problem – for them and for us.  How often do we think that it is up to us to accomplish God’s works?  How often do we place our confidence, or lack of it, upon our abilities, our personal “food that perishes?” We make God’s ability to work signs and wonders in our lives contingent upon our personal “Moses’” of human weakness rather than upon the divine strength of our personal Christ.

When will we learn to ask for the reality of Christ’s eternal banquet instead of content ourselves with the moldy and insufficient imitations we try to muster?  Until then, our loneliness – our pining for the infinite – will never be satisfied.

We come looking for something because our desire to be filled is real and true. Let us allow Christ to answer our questions, to satisfy our longings, and to complete what is still under construction in our souls.  Let us cry out at the top of our lungs: “Sir, give us this bread – Your bread: You.  And give it to us always!!!” Then, and only then, will our searching be over.  Then will we have broken through “the mirrors and riddles, the shadows and fantasies, the facades and unrealities that separate us from each other and from [our] God.”(See Rolheiser, pg. 108) Then we will be dining on the true Bread from Heaven – Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. 

 

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[1] Rolheiser, Ronald. The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness. New York: Image Books, 2004. Pg. 3

[2] Ibid., pg. 108

 

"The LORD said"

(The following is a homily given to the Catholic Community in Enid, OK on the Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola, 7/31/15)

Reading 1 Lv 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37

Responsorial Psalm PS 81:3-4, 5-6, 10-11ab
Gospel Mt 13:54-58

 

When I first looked at the readings for today, I must admit, I was a little perturbed.  Who likes to read Leviticus, after all?  It’s a legal code, basically, of the people of Israel, telling them when to do what, and what to refrain from, and how much of this is used for that so that this ritual can take place on this time… my mind started going numb about a sentence or two into the reading.

When this happens, it usually means I’m supposed to find something in this reading.  It usually means that the devil sees somethings in this passage that he wants me to overlook. 

While I can’t say I didn’t overlook something… God knows I probably did, I must admit that on second reading I saw one little phrase that really spoke to me… in fact, it’s not even a complete phrase…

“The LORD said…” (Lv. 23:1)

Then it hit me that today was also the memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola.  Ignatius: the founder of one of the largest and most influential religious communities of the Church – the Jesuits.

Ignatius was originally a soldier in Spain, living a life of earthly valor and propelled by a desire for glory.  Then, after receiving a serious injury in battle and being bed-ridden to months, Ignatius came out of his convalescence with fists blazing for Christ and his Church.  He did this because, in the end “The LORD said,” and that was good enough for Ignatius.

Were there hurdles to following God’s Call?  Sure.  His physical condition alone was hurdle enough.  But he also dealt with political and social hurdles for himself and his community.  But in the end, “The LORD said…” and that was good enough for Ignatius.

that Ignatius heard God’s call; regardless of the mundane; regardless of the lack of support; regardless of the risk that it took to leave everything that he knew behind in order to help our Lord bring about one of the most instrumental societies the Western Church has ever known.  Ignatius shows us the truth of sainthood by his acceptance of God’s call.

My brothers and sisters, sainthood is not made in the extravagant; it is bestowed upon those who hear the will of God in their lives and strive for it, not counting the cost.

Sainthood comes through obedience – obedience to the seemingly pointless endeavors our Lord asks of us here in this world; endeavors that make us perturbed or leave us confused.  Sainthood comes from perseverance in the face of the everyday struggles that where us down.  Sainthood is realizing that we are loved despite the fact that these everyday struggles will cause us to fall and fail; that we are not defined by our successes or our failings but in the identity we have been given by our very creation and made manifest in our baptism – our identity as beloved Children of God.

And in the end, how can we know that this is what makes a saint?  Because: “The LORD said…”

Will we listen?