Intercessory Prayer

Homily from the 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year B

This weekend 22 men from our parish and beyond are taking part in our Christ Renews His Parish weekend.  Helping them are 20 men on the leadership team who are serving as witnesses, table leaders, spiritual directors, coordinators, liturgists and sacristans.  And working behind these scenes are many more women and men who are cooking food and serving at table.  Not that cooking and cleaning is “woman’s work.”  The men will take their turn cooking and cleaning at the Women’s Christ Renews weekend next month.

There’s another group of people hard at work throughout the weekend.  The people “next door” in the chapel.  You see, while the men are on their Christ Renews weekend in the Spiritual Center, there are people who come to the chapel next door, and offer intercessory prayer for them all weekend long.

Many prayers are petitions.  That’s when you or I pray to God and tell Him what you or I need.  A typical petition goes something like, “God, help me with “X.”

However, intercessory prayer is when we shift the attention away from our own needs and focus them on the needs of another.  A typical intercessory prayer goes something like, “God, help them with “X.”

Today’s Gospel shows the beauty, power and necessity of intercession.  It’s a fantastic scene.  The paralytic is helpless on his mat, unable to move by his own power.  So he must rely on the power, the intercession, of others.

Four others carry him on his mat to Jesus.  And it’s beautiful isn’t it, how these four will do anything to get the paralytic to Jesus.  The house is so crowded, they can’t get in.  So they climb to the roof, break a hole in it and lower the paralytic in.

Then we hear the most amazing verse.  The Scripture says, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Child, your sins are forgiven.’”  When Jesus sees their faith.

What an amazing gift we can offer to one another.  To offer Jesus acts of faith for the salvation of others.

Lent begins this Wednesday.  Offer up your prayer, your fasting, your almsgiving, all your acts of faith for one another.  Offer up your daily sufferings for a friend or family member or fellow parishoner who is seriously ill in body, mind or spirit.  We make spiritual offerings and intercede for one another all the time, don’t we?  I mean, how many times have you asked someone or has someone asked of you, “Pray for me”?  It’s nearly an everyday occurrence isn’t it?  “Pray for me.”  “I’ll pray for you.”  “You’re in my prayers.”

We intercede for each other within the Mass.  After our Profession of Faith, we intercede for a great many people in the Prayers of the Faithful as we pray for the Church, our nation, the sick and suffering, and for anyone in need.  I ask for your prayers when I place the bread and wine on the altar.  “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.”  We also offer intercessory prayers for others during the Eucharistic Prayer as we pray for the “pilgrim Church on earth,” for God’s “servant Benedict our Pope and Kevin our Bishop, the Order of Bishops, all the clergy and the entire people [God] has gained for [His] own.”

And not only do we ask our friends here on earth to pray for us, we also ask our friends in Heaven, the Saints, to intercede for us as well.  An entire section of the Eucharistic Prayer is our asking the intercession of “all the Saints, on whose constant intercession in [God’s] presence we rely for unfailing help.”

And sometimes we get everyone working together, our earthly and heavenly friends together.  In the “Confiteor”, the “I confess” we say, “Therefore I ask Blessed Mary ever-Virgin, all the Angels and Saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.”

I’ve been asked an innumerable amount of times by our Christian brothers and sisters who are not Catholic, “Why do you pray to Mary?”  And it’s a good question that deserves a good answer.  Well, to be accurate, we don’t pray to Mary per se.  Rather, we’re asking Mary to pray with us, to pray for us, to intercede for us.  After all, if I can ask you my sinful friends here on earth to pray for me to the Lord, our God, why can’t I ask the sinless Virgin Mary to pray for me too.  Plus, she’s right there, she’s in Heaven with God.  Mary and the Saints are the best prayer partners we’ll ever have.

When St. Peter’s tomb, located under the altar at St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, was excavated in the 1940’s, archaeologists discovered an inscription, along with many others, which read, “Peter, pray for the holy Christian men buried near your tomb.”

Which proves purgatory by the way, “Peter, pray for the holy Christian men buried near your tomb.”  If someone’s dead, buried and in Heaven they have no need of our prayers.  If someone’s dead, buried and in Hell, our prayers will do them no good.  The first Christians prayed for the dead so they would complete their journey to Heaven.

The early Saints and the Church Fathers spoke of offering intercessory prayer and sacrifice for the dead frequently.  In the year 216, Tertullian testified, “A woman, after the death of her husband... prays for his soul and asks that he may, while waiting, find rest; and that he may share in the first resurrection.”  In the year 392, St. John Chrysostom said, “Let us help and commemorate [the dead].  If Job’s sons were purified by their fathers’ sacrifice [Job 1:5], why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation.

I remember one time, a group of us were praying.  And at the end of our prayer one of the seminarians said, “Lord, we offer you these our prayers for the soul that has been in purgatory the longest.”  I hope someone prays for me that way.  What a great gift Jesus gives us huh?  Jesus gives us spiritual and even sometimes bodily healing, because of someone else’s faith offered on our behalf.

So, like the first Christians, we offer Eucharistic celebrations, the Mass, for our beloved dead as an offering on their behalf.  In the Eucharistic Prayer we ask God to “give kind admittance to [His] kingdom...to our departed brothers and sisters and to all who were pleasing to [Him] at their passing from the life.”

We offer intercessory prayer for the living and the dead. And we ask for intercessory prayer from our friends here on earth as well as our friends in Heaven.  Trusting in Jesus’ promise: that in seeing their faith and our faith, He will say to those for whom these prayers are offered: “Child, your sins are forgiven... Rise, pick up your mat, and go home.”

Role Reversal

Homily from the 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year B

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan priest who was a prisoner of the Nazis in the concentration camp at Auschwitz.  One night, a prisoner escaped.  When the Nazi guards learned of this, they decided that 10 other prisoners would be executed as a warning to anyone else who might be thinking of escaping.  And they started to count off those who would die.  1... 2... 3...

One of the men they counted off, Franciszek Gajowniczek, (Fran-she-sheck  Guy-yov-nee-check) began to weep bitterly.  He cried out, “My wife!  My children!” knowing he would never see them again.  Hearing this, Fr. Kolbe stepped forward and volunteered to take his place.  Fr. Kolbe gave his life so that Franciszek Gajowniczek would live.  He did live.  He survived the war.  He saw his wife again.  And in 1992, he was a guest of Blessed Pope John Paul II at the canonization of St. Maximilian Kolbe at St. Peter’s in Rome.

Franciszek and the Franciscan traded places.  Their roles were reversed.  In our readings today, we hear of two other men following suit.

In the first reading we hear of the horrible plight of lepers.  Not only did they suffer from a terrible disease that would cause the skin to ulcerate, resulting in oozing sores, disfigurement, loss of limbs and occasional blindness; they were also ostracized, cut off from the community.  The Law of Moses stated that they had to “dwell apart, making [their] abode outside the camp.”  Which meant not only that they were deprived of contact with other humans in a village community, they were also deprived of contact with the divine as they could not enter the community of worship such as the temple or a synagogue.

However, Jesus trades places with the leper.  Their roles are reversed.  Jesus did the unthinkable - “Moved with pity” the Gospel states, “he stretched out his hand, [and] touched him.”

Then we hear, that word of this quickly spreads making it “impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.”  It was the case that anyone who came into contact with a leper was also considered unclean.  Now whether Jesus was unable to enter the town for this reason or if was because his fame was so great that he was mobbed whenever he approached a town, the Gospel doesn’t specify.  However, either way, the Gospel shows us the love Christ has for humanity in his willingness to reach out and touch and heal the leper.  And in doing so, the leper returned to the worshipping community, while Jesus “remained outside in deserted places.”

Jesus trades places with the leper.  Their roles are reversed.

But before Jesus leaves for the deserted places outside the community, he reinserts the newly cured leper into the worshipping the community.  “Go, show yourself to the priest,” Jesus says, “and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed.”  The leper is able to rejoin the worshipping community and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God.

What did this sacrifice consist of?  It’s given in the Law of Moses.  In the 14th chapter of Leviticus, we read that if someone has been cleansed of leprosy, two live birds should be obtained for him.  The first bird is slaughtered.  The second bird is then dipped in the blood of the first, slaughtered bird and set free.  One bird dies while another lives.  Much as St. Maximilian Kolbe did for Franciszek Gajowniczek.  Just as Jesus does for us.

Jesus trades places with us.  Our roles are reversed.

He gives his life so we might live.  He takes on our sin so we might be freed from sin’s grasp.  St. Paul writes in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, “He who did not know sin, became sin, so we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor 5:21)

Christ did this from His Cross.  And He does this in this Mass.  His one sacrifice of Calvary is re-presented on this altar.  The Lamb of God gives his life for us.  And like the second bird, we are, in a sense, dipped in His Blood, are we not, through this Eucharist.  Dipped in His blood so we might be set free.

And in addition to being saved by the Blood of His Cross, Jesus knew we would require ongoing maintenance as it were.  So, on the day of His resurrection, He shared His authority to forgive sins with the Apostles.  “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.  Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them...’” (Jn 20:22-23)

This gift of Jesus, the Sacrament of Healing, comes through the Apostles to you and I to this day.  As you know, Lent is just around the corner.  Ash Wednesday is only a week away from this Wednesday.  I want to urge each of us to receive this healing gift of Christ through Confession.  We hear Confessions every Wednesday at 4:30 and every Saturday morning at 8:30.  And our Parish Lenten Penance Service is March 26th - a Monday night.  Before you go to bed tonight, go to your calendar, and circle either a Wednesday, a Saturday, or March 26th sometime between now and Easter, which is April 8th this year.  Circle one of those dates as the day you will come to Jesus and ask for His healing grace in confession.  And if you can't make one of those dates, know that you can always call a priest here at St. Vincent's and make an appointment to go to Confession.

Every single one of us, myself included, has a leprous side.  Those blemishes or blotches of sin.  Those wounds which need healing.  Jesus desperately wants to heal us of our wounds.  Like the leper, we have to approach Him and ask to be made clean.  And Jesus will respond to us just as he did the leper.  He will be moved with pity, he will stretch out his hand, he will touch us, and he will say, “I do will it.  Be made clean.”  He will restore us to our former selves and reintegrate us into the worshipping community.  He will take our sin upon Himself.

He will trade places with us.  Our roles will be reversed.

"Pray 60"

Homily from the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year B

It goes without saying that today is a big day for football fans as the Super Bowl is getting ready to kick off.  And what’s just as fun as the game itself are the commercials.  The Super Bowl may be the only television event where the vast majority of viewers wait for the commercials to end before getting up to go to the fridge.

Over the last couple of years the NFL has been airing a commercial campaign on television and radio promoting a program called “Play 60.”  “Play 60” is a public awareness campaign designed to fight child obesity by encouraging kids to get at least 60 minutes of physical activity everyday.

It’s a great idea. I know I’m carrying around more than my fair share of extra weight.  I need to take better care of myself physically and those commercials remind me of it everyday when I hear them on ESPN Radio as I’m getting ready each morning.  I identify well with Blessed Pope John XXIII when he said, “They say the body is a temple. Mine is a major basilica!”

We have to take care of the temple of our bodies.  We also have to take care of the temple of our souls. We need to be just as attentive, if not more so, to our spiritual health as our physical health.  Today’s Gospel talks about how dedicated Jesus himself is to his own spiritual health.  We hear how Jesus rises very early before dawn and goes off to a deserted place, where he prays.  Of course, Jesus set aside time every single day to enter into a good, deep conversation with his Father in prayer.  You’ll often hear in the Gospels that Jesus spends the entire night in prayer with the Father.

I’d like to suggest we follow Jesus’ example.  Now I’m not suggesting spending the entire night in prayer.  However, I’d like to suggest a practice my spiritual director insisted I adopt as a seminarian and a priest: the Holy Hour. 

My spiritual director told me he wanted me to spend an hour each day in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.  I guess you could call it “Pray 60.”  I was free to pray in any way I wanted during that time.  I might spend it doing Lectio Divina reflecting on a passage from Scripture, praying the Rosary, or simply just being there in the presence of the Lord without necessarily saying a word just sitting with Christ. Most often it was a combination of all these and more.

What do you think of making a Holy Hour?  Now I’m not suggesting you necessarily do it everyday (although some of you might be able to or do so already.)  Not many of you live a vocation that allows for an hour of prayer every day.  Many of you have families and careers that require so much of your time.  So a daily Holy Hour may not be realistic for your spiritual diet.  However, one Holy Hour a week might be exactly what you need.  Or maybe one every two weeks. Or one a month.

The Holy Hour was an integral part of Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s spiritual diet.  He said that the only time Jesus ever asked the disciples for something was the night of his agony in the garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus asked Peter, James and John: “Could you not watch one hour with me?”  Jesus asks not for an hour of activity, but an hour of companionship.

One time, during an exhausting day, Fulton Sheen fell asleep as soon as his Holy Hour began and woke up exactly at the end of one hour.  He looked up to the Lord and asked, “Have I made my Holy Hour?”  And he said he thought he heard God’s angel say, “Well, that’s the way the Apostles made their first Holy Hour in the Garden, but don’t do it again.”

The Holy Hour is of superb value, Sheen says, because it takes some time to catch fire in prayer.  Ever kneel or sit down to pray and you spend about five or ten minutes there and nothing seems to happen?  Perhaps that’s because we need time to shake distractions and collect one’s self.

How should you make your Holy Hour? What should you do during that time?  Well, the possibilities are limitless and what you do is ultimately up to you and the Holy Spirit.  Maybe you’ll want to spend 20 minutes of it reflecting on the Gospel for the upcoming Sunday? Wouldn’t that enrich your Sunday worship?  Maybe you’ll want to spend 20 minutes of it praying the Rosary.  Maybe you’ll want to spend 20 minutes of it just resting in silence in the presence of Jesus not worrying about saying anything. Just be there with Christ.

Come. Spend a Holy Hour this week in the Blessed Sacrament chapel. It’s open until 9PM.  Come ‘Pray 60.”

Jesus the True Authority

Homily from the 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year B

This year, we’ll hear from the Gospel of Mark for much of Ordinary Time.  And thus far, we’ve heard a kind of introduction or set-up to Jesus’ public ministry.  Over the last few weeks, we heard about the ministry of John the Baptist who prepares the way for Jesus.  The baptism of Jesus, in which he is announced as the Son and Lamb of God.  We hear the theme of Jesus’ preaching, the coming of the Kingdom of God.  And we see him call his disciples who would eventually carry on his work.

Today, we hear the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.  And it’s interesting to note that at this beginning, when people hear Jesus speak and see him act, they immediately notice something is very different about this Jesus than anyone else they’ve heard or seen before.

Today’s Gospel can be divided into two halves: Jesus speaking and Jesus acting and he does both with authority.  In the first half of the Gospel, Jesus speaks.  He enters the synagogue and teaches.  And the people are astonished because he teaches not as one of the scribes, but as one with authority.

Scribes would teach by quoting well-known Rabbis. They would pass on the words of another.  But Jesus does not pass on the words of another.  He teaches with his own words  With authority in the literal sense of the word.  As he is the author of the teaching.  We hear Jesus do this also in his Sermon on the Mount when he first quotes the Law of Moses and then rewrites it himself.  “You have heard… you shall not kill… but I say to you, [you shall not even be] angry with [your] brother.” (Mt 5:21-22)

In the second half of the Gospel, Jesus acts.  A man with an unclean spirit enters the synagogue.  Jesus casts the demon out of the man.  And the people react to this action the same way they reacted to Jesus’ teaching: with amazement.  Because, they say, Jesus casts out the demon with authority.

Jesus does not call upon the power of another God to cast out this demon.  He uses his own power.  He is able to act with authority in the literal sense of the word.  Because, again, he is the author of everything that is going on.  Just as Jesus was the author of his own teaching, so too he is the author of the life of this demon he casts out.  For God is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible.  Everything on earth and in heaven, including the angels and even the fallen angels demons.  So, since he is the author of this demon’s life, when Jesus says “Git!” the demon gits!

This is good authority. Very good authority.  Because it is authentic authority. Authority used according to it’s author.

Authority is not a word or concept that is always met with joy.  Sometimes you’ll hear it said of someone, “They have a real problem with authority.”  Monsignor says that of me on occasion!  Perhaps that’s because authority is often abused.

Take for example, the Department of Health and Human Services order that all employers and health care insurers, including Catholic employers and insurers, must soon offer contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, in violation of our religious beliefs and religious freedom.  I’ve got a real problem with that abuse of authority.

Authority, used rightly, is one of the greatest gifts at our disposal.  Because all authority, exercised properly, derives from the authority of God.  Any law enacted in this country, or any other for that matter, is only just if it is derived from the Eternal Law of God.

Our own Declaration of Independence, the very first words uttered by our infant nation, speak of the Eternal Law of God.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”  Our Founding Fathers recognized that God Himself has gifted “certain unalienable Rights” to his creatures; that God Himself is the author of these Rights and therefore, is the ultimate authority.

As Catholics, we recognize this authority not in a teaching, or a philosophy, or even a Constitution.  Rather, this authority is a person: Jesus Christ.  When Jesus and his disciples were in Caesarea Phillipi, he asked them, “Who do the people say that I am?” (Mt 16:13)  Notice he didn’t say “What are the people saying about my teachings?” Or, what are the people saying about my miracles?” He said, “Who do the people say that I am?”  He is the author of all that exists. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is the true authority.

And he continues to exercise his authority today, guiding each of us in our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.  Doing so through the Church which he established.  After Jesus asked the disciples who the people said he was, he then asked them, “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God.  Peter recognized Jesus as the true authority and thus worthy to possess this same authority.  Jesus said to Peter, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church… I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Before leaving this earth and ascending to his Father in Heaven, Jesus asked the disciples to exercise not their own authority, but his: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [Teach all nations] to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:18-19)  Then “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and who sins you retain are retained.”

The first and final authority over our lives is the one who speaks and acts with authority.  The one who talks the talk and walks the walk: Jesus Christ.  He will never lead us astray or demand more of us than we can handle.  For he is a good and loving author.

March for Life and Religious Liberty

Homily from the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year B

I have some very good news to share with you today as well as some very bad news.

First, the good news.

Today, a number of our teens did not attend Mass at St. Vincent’s.  Ordinarily this would not be good news.  But today it is. Because today, instead of attending Mass at St. Vincent’s, a number of teens from our parish and the diocese are attending Mass in Washington D.C. with Bishop Rhoades as they prepare to take part in the annual March for Life tomorrow.

Tomorrow marks the 39th anniversary of the infamous Roe Vs. Wade decision by the Supreme Court legalizing abortion in our country.  And sadly, since that decision, over 50 million American lives – unborn children in the womb, have been legally killed in our nation. 

Today, our nation’s population is approximately 312 million.  So do the math: one sixth of our nation’s population has been eradicated by abortion.

I’m so very proud of our young people, and Sarah Hill, our Life Teen youth minister, who will be sleeping on the floors of church gymnasiums throughout the Washington D.C. metro area.  I dearly wish I could be with them. I’ve been on 4 marches.  However, as Monsignor is visiting our sister parish in Honduras, I must be here.

The March for Life is truly one of the greatest displays of witness for the dignity of human life in our country.  Our teens will join over 400,000 people from across our nation on the march tomorrow.

And all of us must realize our Christian responsibility to defend with concrete action, and not mere sentiment, all human life from conception until natural death as well as our responsibility to reach out in love to mother’s and father’s who suffer the wound of an abortion; to let them know we have a merciful and loving God who offers forgiveness and healing.

So, the courageous and enthusiastic witness of our teens is very good news indeed.

However, as I mentioned I must also convey some very bad news.

Two days ago, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it is ordering nearly every employer and insurer in the country to provide in its health care plans sterilization, contraception and even drugs which induce abortions.

Furthermore, and this is most egregious point of all, the administration announced that it would not expand an exemption to religious employers who object to this move on the grounds of conscience.

Meaning that the federal government may be forcing many religious employers including Catholic hospitals, universities and other institutions to offer such things as sterilization, contraception, and abortion inducing drugs free of charge against their will, conscience and beliefs.

Now a religious exemption is offered. However, it is so narrow, to call it an exemption is laughable.  The federal government says that in order to qualify for a religious exemption, a religious employer must employ and serve primarily members of their own faith and must exist for the purpose of teaching religious values.

Of course, you can see how this so-called exemption is laughable.

A Catholic hospital for example does not, by mission, employ and serve primarily members of only their own faith.  A Catholic hospital serves all people regardless of faith.  Likewise, Catholic universities and other agencies provide education, health care and other services to people of all religions.

But nevertheless, the administration has stated that faith-based entities like hospitals and universities will have until August 1, 2013 to provide free birth control, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs as part of their health care plans.

Click here to see Cardinal-elect Dolan's video response.

The bishops of our nation, led by Cardinal-elect Timothy Dolan of New York have vowed to fight this unconscionable decision by our administration and I hope and pray you will too.

Last September, Fr. John Jenkins, President of the University of Notre Dame, wrote Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services objecting to this mandated government interference.

He pointed out, correctly, that the federal government is placing the University of Notre Dame and similar Catholic institutions in the “impossible position” of having to violate our Catholic beliefs, no matter what we do.

He stated that this mandate, “would compel Notre Dame to either pay for contraception and sterilization in violation of the church’s moral teaching, or to discontinue our employee and student health care plan’s in violation of the church’s social teaching.”

This is a clear attack on the First Amendment of our Constitution which guarantees religious freedom.  With this action, the federal government is saying it can force us to violate our religious beliefs.

So, let's do something so this can turn into good news.  Do not just sit back and watch.  Do what the Apostles do in today's Gospel: they hear the voice of Christ and they literally drop everything they are doing and follow him.  Do something today to speak out against this gross attack on your religious beliefs and freedom guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

Write your Congressman Marlin Stutzman tonight.  The contact page of his web site is here.

Write Senator Dick Lugar.  The contact page of his web site is here.

Write Senator Dan Coates.  The contact page of his web site is here.

Write the Department of Health and Human Services.  Their address is 200 Independence Ave, S.W. – Washington D.C. 20201.  Their contact page of their web site is here.

Write the President of the United States.  He lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W. – Washington D.C. 20500.  The contact page of the White House’s web site is here.

And between now and Election Day in November, give very thoughtful and prayerful consideration to voting for a candidate who will honor and respect your religious liberty and who will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States which they have sworn to do.

Click here to read an article about the HHS mandate.

A King Who Lives With His People

Homily from the Nativity of the Lord - Year A

I asked our young children at the 4PM Mass on Christmas Eve to imagine they were a great king or queen of a powerful nation. 

"If you were a king, where would you live?"  "A castle!" they responded. 

"If you were a king, what would you wear?"  "A crown!" one boy shouted.  "Robes." another child answered.  "Fancy shoes" said another.

"If you were a king, who would be your friends?"  "Rich people!" shouted one kid.

"If you were a king, what would you eat?"  "Anything I wanted" said one child.

When Jesus was born, there was a king who lived just like that.  We heard his name in the beginning of today's Gospel: Augustus Caesar.  Augustus Caesar was the king of the Roman Empire and he was the most powerful man in the world.  He lived in the best house.  He wore the best clothes.  His friends were the richest and most powerful men in the world.  And he ate whatever he wanted with just a snap of his fingers.

Then I asked the kids the following question: "But was Caesar the true king?"  "No!" they shouted.  "Who is the true king" I asked.  "Jesus!" they responded in enthusiastic unison.  (By the way, every young child answers "Jesus" to every religious question: "Who's the Son of God?"  "Jesus!"  "Who's the mother of God?"  "Jesus!")

However, Jesus did not have any of the things we say belong to a king.  He didn't live in a palace; he was born in a stable.  He didn't wear fancy robes: he wore swaddling clothes, strips of rags.  He wasn't surrounded by the rich and powerful; he was surrounded by poor shepherds. 

"So," I asked the children, "If Jesus is the true king, why was he born in such a poor way?  And one child answered, "Because he's humble."

Perfect answer.

Jesus was born in humble means so that we might know that we have a king who does not merely rule over us.  We have a king who loves us and wants us to know that no matter who we are or what conditions we're born in, we have a God who loves us, who cares about us, and who wants to live with us.

A long time ago, there was a king in Europe who use to put on a disguise, sneak out of the palace at night, and walked around with the poor people of his kingdom without their knowing it.  His servants warned him not to do this because it was unsafe for him, he wouldn't be protected by the palace walls.  The king responded, "I cannot rule my people unless I know how they live."

That's the kind of king we have in Christ Jesus.  

Jesus "humiliates" himself for our sake.  And I don't mean "humiliate" in the negative sense of the word as in "to put down," but in the true sense of the word, as in "to come down to earth."  That's where we get the words "humiliate" and "humble" from.  They both come from the same Latin root "humus" which means earth or dirt.  If you've ever eaten pitas and humus, you know that humus kind of looks like a sandy, wet mud.

God humiliates Himself, comes down to earth, as a small child so that we might know that we have a king who knows everything we're going through.  Like the good king mentioned above, He, who is God; He who is fully divine, put on the "disguise" of humanity, if you will.  And, while never losing any of his divinity, lowered himself to share fully in our humanity. Jesus didn't stay locked up in a palace.  He left his palace, the Kingdom of Heaven, so that he could live here on earth among us.  The only thing he ever owned was the simple robe he wore.  He befriended sinners so they could become Saints.

And he didn't eat fancy food.  Instead, he came to feed us; by giving us his Body and Blood in the Eucharist.  That's why Jesus was born in a manger, a feeding trough for animals, so that he could become food for us so that we might have eternal life.

That's the kind of king we have.  A king who loves us so much, he chooses to live among us, his subjects.  "Emmanuel" - "God with us."

Home! The Lord is With You!

Homily from the 4th Sunday of Advent - Year B

During the first three weeks of Advent, we have heard very definitive themes in our readings.  The theme of the First Sunday of Advent was “watch.” Jesus said three times in the Gospel to “watch” for we do not know the hour when the Son of Man will come.  In week two, our theme was “prepare” as John the Baptist called us to “prepare the way of the Lord” through repentance.  Last week, on Gaudete Sunday, the theme was “rejoice” for the coming of the Lord grows near.  This week, the prominent theme in our readings is “home.”

You could say that this week’s readings talk about God building a home for Himself.  In the first reading, David, the great King of Israel laments that fact that God is basically living in a tent.  God’s presence at that time was represented by the ark of the covenant which held the tablets of the Ten Commandments.  The ark was kept in a tent while King David lived in a luxurious house of cedar.  So David has it in mind to build the Lord God a more worthy dwelling place.

However, God has other plans.  God tells David’s servant Nathan to ask David, “Should you build me a house to dwell in?”  And then God goes on to present a litany of everything He has done for David and the people of Israel, pointing out that it was by God’s power, not David’s that these things were done: “It was I who took you from the pasture... I have been with you wherever you went… I have destroyed all your enemies before you… I will make you famous… I will fix a place for my people Israel… I will give you rest from all your enemies… I will raise up your heir after you… and I will make his kingdom firm.”

Basically, God is telling David, “All this has happened to you because of Me. You can’t build Me a house to dwell in, only I can.”

Now, jump ahead 1,000 years, to today’s Gospel and we hear the story of God building the house for Him to dwell in.  The angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will conceive and bear the Son of God.  Then, Mary, asks an interesting question: “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”  In a sense, Mary is asking, “How can I bear this child? How can I provide a place for him to be conceived and to grow? How can I build a house for him to dwell in? I’m a virgin!”

And the angel’s response to Mary is just like God’s response to David.  “Should you build me a house to dwell in?  No. It’s not by human powers that this house will be built. It’s not by human conception that this house will be built. I will build the house.”  The angel says to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you… nothing will be impossible for God.”

So in Mary, we see the House of God.  Built and prepared by God, she is the first place the Son of God calls home.  In her person, she and Jesus dwell together.  She is the first Church, the first House of God.

That’s what the Church is.  It's where God dwells.  It’s where God dwells with His people.

And if you are here today, perhaps after an absence of some time; if you’re here because you’ve accepted the invitation of a friend, or perhaps you’ve seen the “Catholics Come Home” commercials on TV, I want to say, “Welcome Home!”  On behalf of Monsignor John, Father Polycarp, and our entire parish family, welcome back to your home, the Catholic Church.  Our parish family is incomplete without out you. We want you here. We need you here. And we are overjoyed that you are here.

This is your truest home on earth for in this place where the Son of God dwells.  Jesus literally lives here. He is present in the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament of Holy Communion, which is reserved in the tabernacle in our Blessed Sacrament chapel and there he dwells 24/7.  Just as he tabernacled himself in Mary.  And just as he tabernacles himself in you through the Eucharist.  Think about that. Whenever you receive Jesus in the Eucharist, He finds a dwelling place, a home, in you.

Now, maybe you’re saying to yourself, “I’m not worthy to receive him.”  Well, none of us are, that’s why we say each time before we receive the Eucharist, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”  You’re not worthy, I’m not worthy, none of us are worthy. But Jesus chooses to enter under our roofs, to dwell within us.

But don’t fall into the trap of thinking that we make ourselves worthy.  Just like King David and Mary, we are powerless to build in ourselves a worthy dwelling place for Jesus to dwell. Only God can build the house.

So maybe there’s some cleaning up to do under our roofs.  Let God do the cleaning. Come to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Come to our parish Advent Penance Service Monday night at 7.  Let Jesus say those words through the priest: “I absolve you from your sins.”   Let Jesus only say the word, and your soul shall be healed.

Then, just as Nathan said to David and as the angel Gabriel said to Mary, “The Lord is with you.”  Then, the Lord will find a place to dwell within you.  He will find a home in you and you will find a home in Him.