Welcome to CatholicPreacher! I use this page as a type of archive of my thoughts for my Sunday homily.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Fourth Sunday of Easter


We are the Good Shepherds; We are the Sheep

In today’s gospel, Jesus famously proclaims “I am the Good Shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep”. We are, perhaps, so familiar with this image of Jesus that it doesn’t make much of an impact.  However, if we consider who Jesus is, and who we are, it provides a powerful image of God’s love for us.
Shepherds not only watch over the flock, they share the pasture and the danger of being attacked by predators; they live with the sheep. We “like sheep have gone astray”(Is.53:6), but our shepherd is the one who will “lay down his life”. God is chasing us all over this world in the person of Christ through the Holy Spirit. This may sound a bit ephemeral—being looked over by the Holy Spirit—-but the Spirit makes her dwelling where the name of Jesus is invoked, and we, the faithful, are each of us both shepherd and sheep.

The power of Jesus’ name lives in each of the faithful, and we share in the relationship of God’s divinity. Our salvation is, in the Greek word for salvation, “being made whole” is not being rescued from a fiery pit and enjoying a bacchanal in heaven, but sharing in the life of the Trinity, as members of His family.  As St. Peter affirms, “There is no salvation through anyone else….” In no other religious belief or philosophy does God seek out the “lost sheep” and invite the sheep to share the life of the shepherd.  Christian salvation is being invited to enter the life of the Triune God and share in the intimacy of this relationship. Each of us has been called by our true name (Is.43:1) uttered by Christ, God’s Word to humanity.

Following Christ, we find fellowship and communion with one another; we speak the language of God to one another. We seek out the lost sheep because we are all of us “found sheep”, and through Christ, have become shepherds living with the sheep for whom we will lay down our lives.


Sunday, April 19, 2015

Third Sunday of Easter


Understanding Scripture and the Breaking of Bread

     Reading the Bible is not like reading other books. For one thing, the Bible is more of an anthology, a collection of books, rather than a single book. In it are stories, prophecies, histories, wise sayings, songs, letters, religious tracts (1 John), and the life of Christ as recorded four times. Needless to say, studying such a collection is a life-long effort; however, for us, studying is only part of the Bible’s role.
     As suggested today in the progression of readings, the witness of prophecy (Acts) sealed the deal for Peter with Jesus as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53.  For us who did not witness the historical reality of Jesus’ presence in the Upper Room, however, our belief is aided by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the other Paraclete, or advocate, sent to us that we might believe. Our faith is not something that originates solely within ourselves; it is a gift. It is this gift sent by Jesus from the Father that we realize most fully the deeper realities of Holy Scripture. Our understanding is more than intellectual, our understanding is complemented and guided by a profound connection to the Holy Trinity.
     The Holy Spirit is the spiritual link to the reality the disciples experienced in the Upper Room. It is through the Spirit that we experience the reality of Christ “in the breaking of the bread” at Eucharist, and it is in touching the very real wounds of humanity that we touch the wounds of Christ and are able to join Thomas in last week’s reading and declare “My Lord and my God.”

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Second Sunday of Easter



Resurrection and Woundedness

It was important in the early Church that the account of Jesus' resurrection not become a "ghost story".  Some followers of Christ could not reconcile the divinity of Christ with his humanity, and came to the conclusion that Jesus, being divine, could not have truly suffered on the cross; a wounded God is much more difficult to worship.  Luke writes in the tradition of Christians who share the conviction, handed down by the Apostles, that Christ's humanity and suffering did not detract from his divinity.

When Jesus invites his Apostles to touch his wounds, and then to give him some cooked fish to eat, his intent was clear: "It is I myself".  During Good Friday, we venerated the Cross and meditated on the wounds of Christ as those wounds were the sins of humanity being put upon Christ.  Today we see Jesus, the resurrected Christ, but we also see his wounds.  Jesus was resurrected with his wounds.

Being resurrected doesn't mean we jettison our wounds, or, as Hamlet put it "shuffle off our mortal coil"; the resurrection has transformed our wounds, not removed them.  We carry our wounds through our baptism into our new life in Christ, and we often take on new wounds.  What is markedly different, though, is as Christians we live with our wounds visible, proof of our resurrection.  We can share the painful wounds we've received because we live in a new body, the body of Christ.  Love has conquered death, our wounds are no longer harbingers of death, but proof we have not died, but that we live.

In a sense, our wounds, when not hidden, become the agent of connection with a wounded world.  The bumper sticker "Not Perfect, Just Forgiven" comes to mind.  Our wounds make us human, the freedom from having our woundedness lead us into despair, hate, anger, greed, etc.. is our release from death--our resurrection with the risen Christ.  Chuck Coleson's prison ministry, which has led so many to not let their wounds define them, had its genesis in the wounds of his ambition and lust for power.

What being resurrected means for us is living with the confidence that love overcomes death.  That our wounds present in our new life in Christ become a source of great hope for whom woundedness has led to death.  Like Christ, we can live a life that removes the defensive imperative to cover our wounds and move to dominate, control, and accumulate wealth.  Our life in Christ shows the world another way, the way of Jesus displaying his wounds to his followers at the beginning of their spiritual journey as people of the resurrection.
Reprinted from April 2, 2012

Saturday, April 4, 2015

The Resurrection of the Lord: Easter Sunday


From Death to Life

The older I get, the less concerned I am about the historical facts of my faith.  Don't get me wrong, if I could know some historical fact regarding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, I'd jump at the opportunity; it's more a matter of accepting the inherent limitations of living a life of faith regarding the type of knowledge faith reveals.  I see so many folks trading their faith for a type of intellectual dishonesty that makes bizarre claims in an attempt to find an empirical backing to what they claim to already believe.  Harold Camping comes to mind, as do the like-minded who, based on this man's "mathematical" calculations, predicted the end of the world and the Parousia on a specific date.  The time came and went.  Nothing.  Another date was set; it seems his calculations were a bit off the first time.  The time came and went.  Nothing.  Finally, Camping admitted he got the whole thing wrong and is no longer going to make any further predictions.  Humiliated, alone, pilloried in the press, Harold Camping takes his first step towards resurrection: crucifixion. 

There is no other way to resurrection than through crucifixion.  This is the substance of my faith when I proclaim each Sunday "He was crucified, died and buried.  On the third day, he rose again in accordance with the scriptures."

Crucifixion forces our hand, breaks our plans for an orderly and carefully controlled life and puts us at the feet of the cross, or on it.  We will likely never have empirical, historical evidence of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, but one thing is eminently probable: Jesus was killed on the cross by Roman and religious authorities who were threatened by the instability of challenged metaphors: Jesus said he was a king and Jesus said he was the Messiah.  The only possible way Jesus could walk to the cross was a faith born not in what would come after, but in the sustaining relationship of love he had with the Father.  Jesus' fear, and feeling of dejection in murmuring the 22nd Psalm "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" ends with the 31st Psalm: "Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." 


The Resurrection is what happened after.  The disciples witnessed it according to the accounts of Scripture.  But what my faith finds its foundation upon are the resurrections I've experienced in others and in myself that have their origin in The Resurrection. This yoking of death with birth is an incredibly rich source of imaginative literature and art. Easter is the "difficult birth" of a faith borne on the cross of a two-thousand-year-old man who claimed to be a king and Messiah; but the millions of new lives hewn from the roughness of the Cross is witness to a deeper and more profound truth than an historical event, and The Resurrection has endured long after Jesus walked the earth.