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

Saturday, November 26, 2016

First Sunday of Advent


"Stay Awake!"

 Today begins Advent, a time of preparation to receive Christ at Christmas, but it is more than referencing the past. It also connects with our hope of Christ's return and the inauguration of God's reign. Jesus proclaims in Matthew: "Therefore, stay awake!" What are we watching for? Are our heads turned heavenward, searching the skies for Jesus returning in glory? Remember the angel's advice after Christ's ascension?

And as they [his disciples] were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you have watched Him go into heaven (Acts 1:11).
    
Our mission as watchers involves looking for the dwelling of Christ among us now by the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to be alert because it is often difficult to see Christ through the layers of sin that surround others that are unappealing. Perhaps we may have difficulty seeing Christ in others because we first must acknowledge Christ within ourselves as the lowly beggar, the control freak, or other undesirable.
     Let that be our beginning, then. Let us look for Christ where he is least likely to be found, both in others and in those places in our lives that need healing from sin. Let us not be afraid of venturing out into the dark or inwardly into the dark places in ourselves. Let Holy Scripture be a place to start, and let your prayer proclaim, "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path" (Ps.110:105). On this path, we will encounter Christ in the most unexpected ways as we journey in Advent, for Christ's appearance over two thousand years ago was equally hidden and unlikely. Who would expect God among us in a backwater town, among farm animals, shepherds, and pagans, in the middle of the night?

Friday, November 18, 2016

Solemnity of Christ the King



There is that famous line from Mel Brooks's movie History of the World: Part I, "It's good to be king!"  Being king brings up beautiful imagery of elaborate court ritual, absolute authority, and feasting; sounds a lot like the institutional church!   But Jesus' words to Pilate betray this image of opulence.  When asked about his kingdom, Jesus replies "My kingdom does not belong to this world" (New American Bible).  Another translation has it as "My kingdom is not of this world"(New International Version).  The sense of Jesus' reply is that his kingdom is neither the kingdom of Rome nor the kingdom envisioned by the religious authorities; both groups lose.

The Solemnity of Christ the King that embraces Jesus as king is relatively new.  It was established in 1925 to counter what the Church saw as an increasing tendency to worship human wisdom and power, which was loosely defined as modernism.  By later positioning the solemnity at the end of the Church's liturgical year in 1969, it further enhanced its standing as the summit of Christ's rule, andimplicitly, the Church as Christ's kingdom.

The songs and imagery associated with this celebration, however, often blunt the irony of Christ as king.  The common representation is a resurrected, non-bloody, Jesus hovering (rather than being nailed) on the cross.  The image of Christ as king is ironic because he is the king with a crown of thorns with a procession of humiliation and a knightly court of cowards.  It seems, as St. Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians  "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God."

The ironic image of Jesus as king nailed to the cross speaks of a different kind of power than the power of earthly kingdoms.  In a general audience at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI suggests power of God’ which is different from human power; it reveals, in fact, His love.” 

"The power of God's kingdom as embodied by Jesus' death isn't exclusively revealed by the resurrection, although the saving power of God is most apparent here. It is the magnitude of God's love for His creation in self-sacrifice that shows Christ's real power as king. " 

The ultimate love is the love that sacrifices self for another. This is the real power that defines Christ's kingdom.  This is why evil can never ultimately triumph over good; evil avoids self-sacrifice.  Evil always seeks what is best for the self over and against the other.  It destroys community and ultimately destroys itself.

Self-sacrificing love, on the other hand,  is the ultimate Christian act where one falls into the opened arms of Christ on the cross, trusting in the power of God's ability to bring life from death.  Christ's kingdom, indeed, is not of this world, but it is for this world.  Nothing is of more importance than conforming ourselves to this likeness of Christ as King.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost


Who Can Separate Us from the Love of God?
The list of “apocalyptic” world-ending prophecies is a storied history of disappointment beginning with Simon Bar Giora, an Essene, around 70 C.E. to Warren Jeffs in 2012.  It is probably not unreasonable to suggest that humanity has been predicting the “end times” since we could conceive of such a thing. Opening the lid (the meaning of apocalypse) on the date and time seems to be a way of expressing an ending one can control, a way of assuring the suffering that someday “every tear will be wiped away.”  Far from gloom and doom, the “end times” seem to suggest a great reconciling; good for the insiders, but sad for the ones who aren’t part of the “in-crowd.”  That’s the problem with much of how we understand recent apocalyptic predictions: we’re always saved.  Malachi’s vision of the apocalypse, however, brings judgment on his people as many of the Old Testament prophets did.  The “in-crowd” constituted those who remained faithful and obedient, honoring God’s law and worshiping God with sincerity and trust.  Let’s face it; it is a lot easier to sacrifice a diseased animal than a healthy one, to give a bit less than ten percent, or to go outside the Law when it was convenient.  The difficulty of remaining faithful is the history of salvation.
            In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is also declaring a vision of destruction; sometimes called the “Mini Apocalypse” because it deals only with the Temple destruction as a final event; however, the Temple was the world for the Jews.  Like the vision of Enoch, though, apocalyptic visions tend to accumulate events and expand as time goes on.  Nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, famines, and plagues were all a reality for the first century Jew. The early church knew much of being “hated by all because of my name” and the experience of standing powerless before one’s adversaries.  Indeed, Christians found themselves “led before kings and governors.”  In Iran and other places hostile to the Gospel of Christ, Christians continue to be jailed, tortured and killed.  In September of 2013, BBC Radio quoted Archbishop Welby speaking of persecution in Egpyt and Pakistan:  “The appearance is often deceptive but I think Christians have been attacked in some cases simply because of their faith,” he said.  “I think it is true to say – and also in Peshawar – that we have seen more than 80 martyrs in the last few days. “They have been attacked because they were testifying to their faith in Jesus Christ by going to church”(The Telegraph.co.uk). It is puzzling, then, when Jesus declares “…not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance, you will secure your lives”.  Seemingly, the suffering and death of tens of thousands of Christians stand in testimony against such an optimistic prediction.
            The turn comes in realizing that death is not equated with destruction for Christians.  Who can destroy us?  Who can destroy what connects us to the immortality and eternity of God? Our perseverance is being Good News, of finding refuge for ourselves in our community of faith that includes the Blessed Trinity, all the saints and our brothers and sisters of our faith community.  Martyrdom is a communal affair; perseverance is never in isolation of the support and community offered by the Church on earth. The sacraments tie us to this eternal source of grace and belonging that is tangible, physical, bridging the temporal and eternal.  Who can now separate us from the love of God?

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost


“Never put a period where God has put a comma”—Gracie Allen

Zacchaeus was just about the most despised Jew among the Jewish people living in Jericho. He was the Chief Tax Collector; he ran the crew of collectors that exploited the poor and grew rich off of the weakest of society. Is it any wonder, then, when Jesus decided to stay at Zacchaeus’ house that his disciples grumbled; they had good reason to grumble. Once again, we have a story that puts conventional wisdom to the test and puts on display “God’s foolishness”(2 Corinthians).
The structure of the story can help us enter the story and sort out this “foolishness”. First, Jesus calls Zacchaeus by name. No matter where we are in life, no matter how distant from what others recognize as God’s favor, we are being sought-out like a shepherd for a single lost lamb.
Zacchaeus climbed a tree to see Christ.  Earlier in Luke, just after Jesus responded to the disciples’ request “to teach us to pray” with the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says “So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (11:9-10).
Having been found, Zacchaeus’ response was to make reparation for his sins. Rather than simply confessing, he changed his life. Our response to our calling is a changed life; repentance means turning around.  Salvation is preceded by repentance, but it is the saving Grace of God that brings us to our knees; it is God’s loving us that allows such a repentant attitude. We can only repent if we can experience the depth of God’s love.

As Christians, our mission is the mission of Christ: Seek the lost and let them see God’s love for them, and the place to begin is with your own “lostness”. In our adoration of the Body of Christ, it is we who are in the tree trying to get a glimpse of Jesus, and it is Christ who speaks to our hearts: “Today I will come and stay with you”.