Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent - Year C

The readings for the Third Sunday of Advent - Year C may be found at:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121221.cfm

This weekend we celebrate Gaudete Sunday, which means, “joyful Sunday”.  

It’s that time of year when clergy wear rose-colored vestments.  

I know that to the untrained eye, it looks pink, but take my word for it - it’s rose and it’s worn to represent the joy and gladness we should all feel because Salvation is coming to light up the world.  

Because, Jesus is coming.  And pink, well, is just pink.  

 

We are joyful this weekend, because our Savior is about to come on Christmas and through His birth, lift up all of humanity and save us from the power of darkness.

A reason for all of us to be joyful, indeed.

That same spirit is reflected in our readings at Holy Mass today.

Both the Prophet Zephaniah and Saint Paul, tell us that we are to “Shout for Joy”, “To be glad and exult with all our heart”, to rejoice because the Lord is near.

But I think it’s important for each of us to reflect on this next point.

Our Lord may be near.  We may be close to Christmas…but are we close to Christ?

We’ve made great progress on our Christmas shopping, menus and holiday plans.  

Our lists are made and we’ve checked them twice, because we are close to Christmas.

But are we close to Christ?

And what does it mean - exactly, to be close to Christ?

I think Saint John helps explain it in the Gospel.

When asked by the crowds, “What should we do?” John the Baptist, moves them to action - to what they can do to make way for the Lord.

I’m not sure any of us want to be lounging around waiting for Jesus to come.   It reminds me of the old bumper sticker that used to read, “God is coming.  Look busy.”

John The Baptist challenges the crowds - and he challenges us.

John The Baptist tells us that to prepare for the coming of Christ, 

to live as faithful disciples, we have to do things that show our closeness to Him, because actions speak louder than words.

This Advent, have we done things that bring us closer to our Lord? 

Have we treated people with charity and justice?

Have we been honest in our dealings?

Do we do for others, especially those who can’t do for us in return?

Do we act out of generosity, with honesty, with integrity and with humility?

Do we have a renewed sense of conversion from sin?

Do we have a greater awareness of God among us?

Do we share what we have and not make a federal case out of it?  

Speaking of which - I was selected for Jury Duty this past week and will serve on a jury in Boston all week next week.  It’s a criminal case.  And Saint John got me thinking.  

If it were a crime to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ,  if our actions were truly necessary to prepare the way for the coming of our Lord - would we have done enough this Advent to be found guilty?

Can anyone tell, by watching us and what we do outside the walls of this Church, that we bear the mark of Christ and are living as His faithful disciples?

I know I have some work to do to meet that standard.

Have we made a good examination of conscience?

Have we made a good sacramental confession or plan to make one before Christmas?

Christmas is less than two weeks away.

Much like John The Baptist, our job is to make way for the Lord by our actions. 

This week, let us pray that we can move from having generous hearts to concrete, unselfish acts of compassion.

Let us pray that our faith and repentance be genuine and move us in ways that make the love, kindness and mercy that our God has for every living person - 

visible and real for everyone we come in contact with.

And if we do that.  

Not only will Christmas be close, 

but we will be close to Christ.

Happy Gaudete Sunday!

Homily for The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

The readings for The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe may be found at:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112121.cfm

Next week, we start Advent.

It’s also 34 shopping days until Christmas, in case you were wondering.

But today, we celebrate the last Sunday in this Church Year B with the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.  

Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925 with an encyclical, 

a papal letter written in response to growing movements 

trying to remove God from day to day life 

and promote atheism in Mexico, Russia and parts of Europe 

following World War I.  

These were real threats, 

not only to our world, 

but to our Church and all its faithful.  

As governments were taking more power away from the people, 

they were simultaneously pushing God out of our daily lives. 

But, to paraphrase the late Patrick Swayze in one of his movies, “Nobody puts Jesus in a corner.”

The feast of Christ The King was put in place to give Catholics hope, while the world was crumbling around them. 

Christ the King cannot be pushed out.  He is permanent.  He is outside the bounds of time or any earthly control.  

This feast reminds us that Jesus Christ is truth, not the independent fact checkers or social media or the news media or the heads of our political parties.

And while it’s been a hundred years since this feast was instituted, 

there are more powers than ever, trying to divide us, 

continuing to push Jesus Christ and his holy law out of public life 

with the sole goal of separating us from one another 

and separating us from the truth.

Now, we are not perfect.  

The people around us are not perfect.  

We’ve seen enough to know that The Church is not perfect.  

Father is not perfect.  

Well, maybe Father is pretty close to perfect…

but the point is that no matter what barriers, 

excuses or choices we make, 

none of us can prevent Christ 

from carrying out his mission to testify to the truth.

The feast of Christ The King 

reminds us that while governments come and go, 

Christ is 100% King 

beyond the reach of any earthly authority to take away.

Even in the face of suffering, Christ’s reign is undefeated, 

because He and all who are conformed to him testify to the truth.

And what does that really mean?

It means that when our hearts are attuned to God, 

we are on the right path. 

It means that as good citizens of God’s kingdom, 

we are doing things each and every day 

to make the kingdom of God present in this world through our prayers and actions.

Jesus said in today’s gospel that “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Belonging to the truth is to welcome all people with God’s love.

We act on this truth when we welcome strangers into our Church, 

• when we shelter the homeless on cold winter nights, 

• when we say grace out in public before eating our meal at a restaurant, 

• when we live out our Catholic beliefs publicly for all to see based on the truth, 

• not by what we are told is real by the powers of this world that exist to serve their own purposes.  

We belong to the truth when we live our faith as part of who we are.

• The truth is that God is a God of love and that God loves you and me. 

• The truth is that God loves us without hesitation, forgives us unconditionally and acts with overwhelming grace in our lives.

• The truth is that Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

• The truth is that we must live our lives in ways that testify to that truth, that testify to Jesus.

No matter how hard the world tries to convince us that Jesus is too good to be true. 

The truth is not too good to be true. 

The truth is the truth. 

• We are free to live in God’s love, grace, forgiveness and in the power of the resurrection.

• We are free to love, 

• free to serve 

• and free to live in God’s kingdom - 

because as we celebrate today, 

Jesus is not only the truth, 

He is Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe.

And the good news is you still have 34 day left until Christmas to make a good sacramental confession.

Homily for The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

The readings for The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time may be found at:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102421.cfm

Today, Jesus and the crowd are on their way to Jerusalem where they come across a blind beggar sitting by the road, named Bartimaeus.

And when this blind beggar hears that Jesus is passing, he cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Bartimaeus may have been physically blind - but he saw - he saw who Jesus was - even when most around Jesus did not yet understand who Jesus really was.

Now, Jesus had a reputation that preceded Him.    Bartimaeus had heard about Jesus, but when he called out to Him, he did so with insight and understanding.  He cried out to Jesus as someone who could heal him and make him whole.

Now, the crowd and many of the disciples following Jesus, thought Jesus was way too important to stop for a blind beggar and many people told Bartimaeus to be silent.

Imagine that…someone in desperate need, calling out to Jesus,  surrounded by people trying to quiet him down.

I hope none of us would ever prevent someone else from coming to Jesus.  But we might do that sometimes, without recognizing it.

We may not stand in the way of Jesus explicitly, I mean we’re all here in church today.  But as they say, “actions speak louder than words”. 

We’ve all done the right thing by coming to Mass, but thinking about what we’re going to do after Mass or someplace else we’d rather be, or visibly annoyed by a crying baby or chatty child or being outwardly judgey about someone else’s appearance - do we move from “Peace be with you” to “Peace Out” and blow it before we even get out of the parking lot?  

Too many times others who would come to Jesus could say, “If that’s what being a follower of Christ is, I want no part of it.”

To Jesus, Bartimaeus was not a speed bump in the road, he was the reason Jesus had come.

Jesus did not go to Bartimaeus, but rather called him. 

And in much the same way, Jesus calls us.  Do we drop what we are doing immediately and go to Jesus?  

Tossing aside his garment, basically, all he has, this blind beggar rose and went to Jesus.  His garment is what he laid out on the ground for people to toss their scraps into. His garment is what kept him warm at night. His garment was everything he had.  But nothing was going to stand between him and Jesus. 

So Jesus answered and said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?”  To which the blind man answered, “Master, I want to see.”

In humble trust Bartimaeus asked not for wealth, power, or success, but only for sight. 

Then Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.

Pretty awesome, isn’t it?  

But this is where it gets hard because this story is not about Bartimaeus - it’s about us.

In the course of our troubles in life, do we see Jesus?  

Do we call out to Jesus or do we sit on the side of the road held back by our own blindness, in the form of the wounds, hurts, and diseases that we have? 

Do we inadvertently get in the way of others around us trying to get to Jesus?

And if we did take our problems to Jesus, and He were to ask us this very second, what could He do for us, what would we say?

Would our faith be strong enough for us to ask?  

Would our faith be strong enough to save us?

Like Bartemaeus, we can all ask Jesus for the power to see.  

This week, let us pray that our Lord strengthen our faith so that we more readily bring our brokenness to Him.  

Let us pray that our faith be made strong enough to save us and those around us.

And let us pray that by doing this, we can become better followers of Jesus and be reminded that there is nothing in our lives, no matter how big or small that God cannot use to save us.

Amen.

Homily for The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

The readings for The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time may be found at:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092621.cfm

If you cause someone else to sin, go drown yourself.

If a body part causes you to sin, lose it.

Does that strike anyone else here as a bit harsh?

I think the answer is absolutely - yes, it is harsh…but maybe that’s the point.

After hearing these words, I think all of us need to ask…how seriously do we take the Word of God?

As I look around - it seems that most of us have our bodies largely intact with our full complement of arms and legs and eyes.  

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t sin, because in the eyes of God we are all sinners.

That is why Jesus gave us the sacrament of penance - confession so we can get right with God.   

But if Jesus isn’t telling us to maime ourselves to keep us from sinning, there must be something else that He’s getting at.

As I reflected on this week’s gospel, I was reminded of the climber several years ago, who during a solo descent of a canyon in Utah - got pinned between two large rocks.  Perhaps you remember him.  After five days of being pinned, he decided to break his forearm so he could free himself by cutting off his arm using a dull pocket knife.  

After that he had to rappel down a 65 foot drop and hike 7 miles alone to safety.

He was in a difficult situation where he had to choose between life and death.  

I’m sure his choice was not easy, but - he chose life.

What Jesus is talking about today, is a life and death struggle.  

And we are in one right now.

Jesus uses the images of cutting off a hand, or a foot, or plucking out an eye because he wants to emphasize how high the stakes are when it comes to sin and Heaven and Hell.  

Now, we don’t talk about Hell a lot.  

In fact, one of our defense mechanisms is to convince ourselves that Hell is only for the very worst sinners, like Adolf Hitler and a handful of others.

But this is not reality, we have the numbers all wrong.  It reminds me of the difference in the title between two, well-known classic rock and roll songs - A Stairway To Heaven and a Highway to Hell.

So Hell is real and none of us really think we’re going to Hell, because if we did, our lives would be different and we’d have at least as many people going to confession as we have going to communion.

So, what if Jesus were to use different words to get his point across?

What if He said, “Do you want to be with me? Or would you rather stay as you are, even if it means eternal separation from me and my Father?”

What if He said, “Would you rather keep doing what you please and risk not being with me forever?”  

You would think that these would be easy questions for us to answer. 

But they’re not, - because it means admitting we need to face some unpleasant truths - and none of us like to do that.

Hopefully Jesus’ words get us to make a solid examination of conscience and to make a good sacramental confession and to change our ways.

Remember, Jesus didn’t say these words about cutting off an arm or a leg or plucking out an eye if it causes you to sin to the unconverted…

He was speaking to His disciples…  

He was speaking to us.

Jesus was not exaggerating to make a point.  

Jesus was demonstrating how seriously God takes sin.

Like that pinned climber in Utah, we have the power to choose between life and death.  

But do we have the courage to make the same choice he did and choose life, even if it means making a hard choice and enduring short-term pain and giving up something that has been part of our lives for as long as we can remember? 

This week, let us ask our Lord to give us the humility to see our situation as it truly is, and regardless of how hard or painful it is in the short-term, to choose to stay close to Him and to always choose life.  

Homily for The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

The readings for The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time may be found at:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082921.cfm

We all heard it growing up, I’m sure.  

“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.”   “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”  

I heard both of those quite a few times growing up.  

And as a parent, I might have even said them a few times.

We are all often caught up in appearances.  

So we go through the motions.  We develop a routine.  We follow social norms.

We put on a facade and pretend about this or that because we want other people to think well of us.

We are here at Mass, we could be anywhere else, but we are here,  we must be good people.  

We have clean clothes, our hair is brushed - well, mine isn’t because I really don’t have any - but that’s besides the point.  

We have clean hands.  But do we have clean hearts?  

That is the point that Jesus is making to us all today.

The Pharisees get called out in holy scripture yet again for being caught up more in man-made rules, in appearances - than what God wants.  

So they freak out when the disciples eat without clean hands.

But Jesus makes it clear, it's what’s on the inside that matters most.

Jesus says that “ Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”

Now, thankfully, Jesus is not saying that our personal cleanliness doesn’t matter. 

But, He is emphasizing that the condition of our heart is a much bigger deal. 

Our heart is directed toward what we love the most. 

Our heart is the place that evil comes from when we rebel against God and devote ourselves to things He has forbidden. 

And in the process, our hearts get stained and dirty from compounding sin.

So we should take care to wash our hearts and not just our hands. 

And how do we do that?  How do we wash our hearts?

Jesus, as usual, gives us the answer.

He freely offers His mercy and power to cleanse our heart through the Sacrament of Penance, when we confess our sins to a priest and receive absolution for our sins.

But we complicate things.  We don’t just put on airs and pretend for other people do we?

We sometimes actually pretend for ourselves.

“The things we have done are not so bad.”

“Jesus is merciful and good, He’ll look the other way.”

“I talked to Jesus already, I don’t need to confess my sins to a priest.”

So many times, we pretend we are already clean.  Even when we know we are not.  

Of course, Jesus wants our hearts. But, He also wants us to avoid the double life that the Pharisees are living - full of selfishness on the inside, while appearing to be role models on the outside. 

Jesus doesn’t care what we look like; He cares only about who we really are.

If we want to be truly clean and grow in holiness, we need to allow God’s Spirit to transform us.  

We need to be more concerned about what is inside of us than what is on the outside.

If it’s been a while, we really should pray to our Lord to help give us what we need to get us to confession, so that we can get clean, really clean.

So this week, as we pray, Let us ask Jesus, that our outward behavior and appearance reflect the joy, the purpose, and the goodness He has put in our hearts. 

Let us ask Him to help us care more about what He thinks than what others think. 

Let us ask Him to take care of our hearts and give us the strength to return to the sacrament of confession so that we can be closer to Him and better love as he loves. 

Because, after all - it’s what’s on the inside that counts.