Holy Family

Readings: Genesis 15:1-6; 21:1-3; Hebrews 11:8, 11-12, 17-19; Luke 2:22-40

VIDEO

My son and his wife are awaiting the birth 
of their first child, any day now.
More importantly, 
my wife and I are awaiting the birth 
of our first grandchild, any day now.

Awaiting the birth of a child—
or a grandchild—
is a funny thing.
You know that this will be
a life-defining relationship:
this person you are waiting to meet
will be someone who, God willing,
you will know for the rest of your life;
this person will play a role in your life
unlike any other.
Your anticipation is so intense,
you feel as if you already know them.

In fact, however, you know very little
about this person you are awaiting.
What will they look like?
Will they be tall or short?
Slight or stout?
What will their personality be like?
Will they be quiet and bookish
or an extroverted thrill-seeker,
or—what is most likely—
will they possess a unique combination 
of interests and talents and quirks and traits
that combine to make them 
completely and utterly themselves?

You have some ideas, 
some guesses you can make
based on family traits and interests,
the lineage from which the child comes
and the environment in which they will grow.
But, to utter what may be 
the biggest understatement ever, 
children have a way of surprising you.
Their lives take paths unexpected 
as they become the person they will be,
paths that are not set for them
by their parent’s hopes and dreams.
And so you await a stranger
whom you must come to know,
someone who remains a mystery 
that must unfold itself in time.
This is why parenting
is one of life’s great adventures.

In today’s Gospel, 
Simeon and Anna also await a child.
The child they await is not their child,
nor even their grandchild,
but it is still a child of their family:
for they are Jews,
descendants of Abraham,
and the child to be born 
is to be the fulfillment 
of the promise made by God to Abraham
that through him and his offspring
all the families of the earth 
would be blessed;
the child they await will be 
the consolation and glory 
of the people of Israel.
Simeon and Anna 
have awaited this child
not for weeks or months
but for the whole of their lives;
the Jewish people
have awaited this child for centuries.
This child so long awaited 
is for the people of Israel 
a life-defining relationship,
he will play a role in their life 
like no other.
Their anticipation is so intense,
that they feel as if they already know him.
For this child is born of Abraham’s lineage;
he will grow and develop
within the stories and rituals and laws 
of the covenant God made with Abraham;
he will bring that covenant to fulfillment.

But Simeon and Anna also know 
that they await a stranger,
one whose unique existence
can in no way be anticipated,
can in no way be contained 
within their hopes and dreams.
Will he come as judge or a savior?
Will he defeat Israel’s enemies
or gather them into God’s covenant?
Will he restore David’s earthly kingdom
or transform the very fabric of the universe?
This child, like any child 
newly born into the world,
remains a mystery
that must unfold itself in time.
But even more so than other children, 
this child will burst the boundaries
set by any human expectation,
for the mystery his life will unfold in time,
is the mystery of the eternal God himself.

Simeon, filled by the Spirit 
with holy anticipation,
is able to truly welcome this child
because he embraces him as a mystery,
as one “destined for the fall and rise 
of many in Israel,”
as one who is “a sign 
that will be contradicted,”
as one through whom, 
“the thoughts of many hearts 
may be revealed.” 
Simeon embraces the child 
not as one who fits neatly 
into his hopes and dreams, 
but as the divine mystery 
who overturns his hopes,
so as to give to him a better hope,
a deeper grasp of the strangeness 
of a salvation that flows 
from God made present in the flesh,
and dwelling among us as a child.
Holding the very mystery of God in his arms,
Simeon prays, “Now, Master, 
you may let your servant go in peace,”
for he knows that, 
whoever this child turns out to be,
in him Simeon’s hopes and dreams 
have found their place of rest.

Though Jesus was born many centuries ago,
we too await his arrival in our lives.
Already born in us through baptism,
he also remains to us the stranger
whom we must come to know.
Though he is present to us
in his word, in his Church, in his poor,
in his sacramental signs,
we, like Simeon, embrace him as a mystery,
the one who will overturn our hopes
to give to us a better hope.
The life of each of us reborn in him
becomes part of the unfolding 
of God’s eternal mystery in time,
an unfolding whose outcome we await.
This is why the life of faith
is the ultimate adventure,
for it is a journey into 
the eternal mystery 
of God himself,
a journey in which we come to know
the one who has loved us into existence.
As we continue on that journey
let us pray that God who is merciful
will have mercy on us all.

Christmas: Mass at Dawn

Readings: Isaiah 62:11-12; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:15-20

At least for some of us,
Christmas disappoints. 
We hope to receive a gift that we will love
but did not know we even wanted.
We hope ourselves to give gifts 
that will delight the ones we love the most.
We hope to sing songs that will lift our hearts
above the sorrows that shadow every life
not just for a moment, but forever.
We hope to prepare a meal that will fill
not just our bellies with food
but our hearts with joy.
But as the morning passes
and turns into day and then into evening,
we might find our shining hopes turn bitter, 
like the aftertaste of too many sweets. 
Sylvia Plath, in The Bell Jar,
her memoir-disguised-as-a-novel,
wrote, “I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, 
the way I always do the day after Christmas, 
as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles 
and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents 
and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey 
and the carols at the piano promised 
never came to pass.”
Christmas disappoints 
as hopes grown great in anticipation
are gradually deflated with the passing of the day.

Were the shepherds disappointed in Christmas?
After the angelic array and the celestial songs
and the proclamation of good tidings of great joy
and the promise of peace to God’s people,
were they disappointed when they found
a quite ordinary looking infant
and his ordinary and no doubt exhausted parents
who probably were not at that moment
terribly excited to receive guests,
especially not a bunch of scruffy shepherds.
Did they look at the humble surroundings
in which their supposed savior was found
and wonder how this could possibly be
the fulfillment of their hopes—
hopes that had grown in anticipation
not just for hours or days or weeks
but through centuries in which 
their people had longed 
for a kingdom of God?
Did the shepherds leave there deflated,
their hopes disappointed 
by the ordinariness of it all,
regretting that they had ever 
hoped in the first place?

But Luke tells us that 
“the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God 
for all they had heard and seen.” 
Perhaps the shepherds were graced 
with sight to see beyond the ordinary.
Perhaps they could see already here,
in this tiny infant in the manger,
the light that had come into the world,
the light that enlightens all people,
the light that the darkness could not overcome.
The seventeenth-century poet Richard Crashaw,
imagined the shepherds speaking to the child:

We saw thee in thy balmy nest,

       Young dawn of our eternal day!

We saw thine eyes break from their east

       And chase the trembling shades away.

We saw thee, and we bless’d the sight,

We saw thee by thine own sweet light.

Christmas is not simply 
our feeble human endeavor
to find a bit of hope 
amid the dark days of winter’s gloom;
it is not simply our desperate attempt 
at convincing ourselves
that people are not so bad after all,
that we are not so bad after all.
It is not simply pine boughs and candles 
and presents and birch-log fires 
and the Christmas turkey and carols.
If that were all it was,
then, yes, we should be disappointed.
But if we can see the newborn Jesus 
by his own sweet light,
the light that he sheds abroad in our hearts
to chase the trembling shades away,
then Christmas will not disappoint.

Sylvia Plath, after recounting 
her disappointment in Christmas,
adds wistfully, 
“At Christmas I almost wished
I was a Catholic.”
It is as if she recognizes
that the only way 
that Christmas will not disappoint
is if we find in it the mystery of faith 
that we proclaim each week:
that God from God and light from light
has come down from heaven
and taken flesh
for us and for our salvation.
Christmas will not disappoint
only if we can see in it
what the shepherds saw:
the young dawn of our eternal day.
Christmas will not disappoint
only if Christ gives to us, here and now,
the unanticipated gift of eternal life;
if he fills our hearts with angelic song
that is endlessly delightful,
if he spreads for us the feast of his love
that is our foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

Christmas does not disappoint 
because it is the great act of God in Christ,
making himself what we are
so that we might be what he is—
beloved children of God,
and heirs in hope of eternal life,
“not because of any 
righteous deeds we had done
but because of his mercy.”
So let us pray 
on this Christmas morning
that God, who is merciful,
might show us Christ 
in his own sweet light,
chasing all shades 
of disappointment
from our hearts,
and revealing 
his mercy in us all.

 

Advent 4

Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

King David has big plans.
He has conquered the Canaanite city of Jebus,
renaming it Jerusalem—“vision of peace”—
and making it the royal capital.
He has brought the Ark of the Covenant,
containing the tablets on which
God had inscribed the ten commandments, 
to Jerusalem and placed it in a tent,
making his capitol city the religious,
as well as political, center of his kingdom.
And now he dreams of raising a noble Temple
that would house the Ark—
indeed, would be the House of God.
David, of course, couches his big plans
in pious terms of doing something for God:
“Here I am living in a house of cedar,
while the ark of God dwells in a tent!”
And maybe David even believes 
his own pious rhetoric;
perhaps he sincerely wants 
to do something great for God.

But God knows David’s heart
better than David himself.
God knows how often our big plans
of doing something great for God
are tied up with our desire 
for greatness for ourselves:
for renown in our own day
and a legacy that will last into the future.
And God knows the lengths 
to which we will go 
in order to secure 
that renown and that legacy.
In the version of this story found
in the First Book of Chronicles,
God says to David:
“You may not build a house for my name, 
for you are a man who waged wars 
and shed blood” (28:3).
God reminds David that it is not he
who has done great things for God,
but it is God who has done
great things for him:
taking him from his humble status 
and making him a king of great renown
ruling over God’s people.
Moreover, God promises him
that God will secure his legacy,
that God will ensure that his line 
of descendants shall not die out,
that God will raise up from his lineage
a kingdom whose throne will endure forever.

Mary has no big plans.
She is just a young woman
betrothed to a carpenter,
probably planning a simple wedding
and hoping for a happy marriage.
Whatever dreams she has
are dreams not for herself
but for her people—
seemingly impossible dreams—
dreams that God’s promises 
will come to pass,
that God will raise up from David’s line
one who will restore God’s kingdom,
will free God’s people from Roman occupation,
will make a world where people like her,
people who rule nothing and no one,
can serve their God
and live their lives in peace.

Mary has no big plans,
but God does.
Indeed, it is precisely because 
she has no big plans for herself,
no dream except the dream of God’s kingdom,
no hope except the hope of serving her God,
that God can draw her 
into his plan,
into his dream,
into “the mystery kept secret for long ages,”
but now about to be made manifest in her.
“Hail, full of grace!... 
you have found favor with God…
you will conceive in your womb and bear a son…
and the Lord God will give him 
the throne of David his father…
and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
These words will upend Mary’s life
and any plans she may have had,
for who could plan for such a thing?

Yet while Mary has not planned for this,
she is prepared for it,
because God’s grace has cultivated in her
openness to whatever God will do,
acceptance of however God might act in her life.
What God had promised to David—
a kingdom that would endure forever—
will come to pass within Mary,
because her plans are God’s plans,
her hopes are God’s hopes,
her dreams are God’s dreams. 
Indeed, something greater
than what was promised to David
will come to pass in her.
For she herself will become 
the Ark of the Covenant, 
the tabernacle enclosing God in the flesh,
the womb of God’s eternal kingdom.

And what about our big plans?
Probably most of us 
aren’t much like David;
we don’t think in terms of building 
an empire and an everlasting legacy.
But how much are we like Mary?
How much do we set aside 
our plans for securing our own, 
small-scale renown and legacy
within our own little empires—
our jockeying for promotions,
our amassing of nest-eggs,
our seeking of recognition,
our bending others to our wills?
How willing are we 
to hope God’s hopes
and dream God’s dreams,
to suspend our planning
so as to prepare our hearts 
to receive the living God,
to let him dwell in us
and upend our lives?

The Advent season is almost gone;
only a few hours are left.
But in God’s grace there is still time.
There is still time to prepare 
by setting our plans aside,
so that we might let grace open us up
to the eruption of mystery into our lives,
God’s dream kept secret for long ages,
but now revealed to us in Christ.
There is still time 
to dream God’s dream
because God is merciful.
So may the God of mercy
have mercy on us all, 
and to the only wise God, 
through Jesus Christ
be glory forever and ever. 
Amen.

Advent 2

Readings: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

We hear today from the Second Letter of Peter,
“The earth and everything done on it 
will be found out.”
St. Augustine, picking up on the idea
of everything being revealed, 
wrote that in the new heavens 
and new earth that we await,
“The thoughts of our minds will lie open 
to mutual observation…; 
for [the Lord] will light up 
what is hidden in darkness 
and will reveal 
the thoughts of the heart.” (Civ. Dei 22.29).

Now that’s a terrifying prospect.

Think of how you would feel about someone
looking at your internet search history.
Even if it contains nothing 
outright illegal or immoral,
it likely contains some things 
that are acutely embarrassing,
like when we searched for recent pictures 
of a high school girlfriend or boyfriend,
or when we Googled some stupid question
like “who is the governor of Maryland?” 
or “who would win a fight 
between Batman and Superman?”
or when we searched for 
some scrap of celebrity gossip, 
or even Googled ourselves to find out
if the world is taking notice of us 
(this apparently is known as “ego-surfing”).
And some of our searches 
are not just embarrassing;
some of our searches are heartbreaking,
revealing sorrows we hold deep within:
“How do I know if my spouse is cheating?”
“What are the signs of child abuse?”
“What is the survival prognosis 
for pancreatic cancer?”
“What happens after we die?”

Contrast your internet search history
with what you see on social media.
Whenever I look at Facebook or Instagram.
it seems like everyone I know
is living their best life.
They are eating in restaurants that serve
exquisitely prepared dishes;
they are visiting places 
of cultural importance
or great natural beauty;
they are celebrating significant milestones
and impressive career achievements;
and their kids and grandkids
are saying the cutest things imaginable.

The world of social media allows us 
to curate the self that we show to the world,
to hide our thoughts and actions 
so that no one knows our pettiness,
our vanity, our foolishness, our triviality
or the deep sorrow on which we put a brave face.
But, Peter tells us, everything done on earth—

every action taken, every thought thought—
will be found out on the day of the Lord,
which comes like a thief,
dissolving the elements in fire,
dissolving the pretenses behind which we hide,
dissolving the curated self-image 
that we show to the world,
and revealing the search histories of our lives 
for what they are:
searches for meaning and love and fulfillment
that have often been futile and misdirected
and tragic and sorrowful.

On the day of the Lord 
everyone will know
that I’m just faking it.
I’m not living my best life;
in fact, my life is a mess,
my dinner is burnt,
my vacation was stressful,
my career feels like a dead end,
and my kids drive me crazy.
And on the day of the Lord I will know
that everyone else is also faking it,
that they’re not okay;
that their lives are no less messy than mine.
The day of the Lord promises to be
profoundly uncomfortable for everyone.

But in the midst of our messy lives,
in the midst of our fears 
about them being unveiled, 
the word of God says to us today, 
“Comfort, give comfort to my people…
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.”
God is coming:
racing through the desert of our pretense,
crashing into the wasteland 
of the carefully curated lives 
we present to the world;
filling in the valleys and leveling the mountains
that we use to hide our messy realities
in all their vanity and foolishness, 
their triviality and sorrow.
God comes not to condemn
but to comfort;
not to scold or shame us 

for the messiness of our lives,
but to join us in the mess,
to show to us the love for which 
we have been searching, 
to bear the sorrow of our sin 
so that we might be saved,
to know the brokenness of our hearts 
so that they might be mended.

Everything done on the earth shall be known
because until it is known it cannot be healed.
Shame and secrecy are evil’s greatest weapons,
because they allow evil to hide from the light
that would destroy it.
It is no accident 
that the sacrament of Reconciliation
involves bringing into the light
everything that we would like to keep hidden,
laying openly before God, 
present through the ministry of the priest,
the search history of our lives,
the misdirected desires and foolish choices,
the secret sorrows and unspoken regrets.
Dorothy Day said of confession,
“You do not want to make too much 
of your constant imperfections and venial sins,
but you want to drag them out to the light of day
as the first step in getting rid of them” (The Long Loneliness).

In Advent we celebrate 
the coming of light into the world,
the light that reveals everything done on earth:
the search for love and meaning, 
the search that has so often gone astray
into vanity and foolishness, 
triviality and sorrow.
We celebrate the light
that comes to guide us to the truth,
the truth about ourselves,
and the truth about the God
who turns shame into glory 
through the power of his mercy.
So let us pray in this Advent
that God who is merciful
would have mercy on us all.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Prv 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1 Thes 5:1-6; Mt 25:14-30

VIDEO

“Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting.”
The Book of Proverbs offers this 
as advice for finding a wife,
and it is not bad advice.
In fact, it’s pretty good advice
for finding a husband as well.
Childhood tales of a happily ever after
with a Prince Charming 
or a Sleeping Beauty
may have lodged deep in our psyches,
and good looks and smooth talk
can give us a momentary romantic thrill,
but over time looks fade, 
and the challenges of daily life
are not typically met
by sweet nothings 
whispered in our ears.
Far better, Proverbs tells us,
to find someone 
who has practical skills
and a generous heart,
someone who possesses inner beauty
that time cannot bear away.

This, of course, is not just 
good advice for seeking a spouse;
it’s also good advice for living a life.
For experience tells us 
that time runs in only one direction,
and as it runs it takes its toll
on the superficially charming 
and the passingly beautiful.
And our faith tells us 
that time itself will one day end,
that “the day of the Lord will come
like a thief at night,”
and that we will not be judged
on the basis of our charm and beauty,
but on what use we have made of the time
that God has entrusted to us.
Like the master in the parable,
God has given us a measure of time,
and on the day of Christ’s return
we will have to give an accounting
of how we have spent that time:
whether we have hidden it away
in a futile attempt to preserve it,
or have taken the risk of spending it
in service to God’s kingdom,
reaching out our hands to the poor,
and extending our arms to the needy.

We know our time is limited.
We believe we will be asked 
for an accounting of that time.
Why, then, do we not feel 
more urgency about our lives?
Why do we continue to say, 
“peace and security”
as the tumultuous day 
of Christ our Master 
draws ever nearer?
Why do we dig a hole in the ground
and bury our lives beneath trivialities,
which may be charming and beautiful
but which time bears inexorably away?

This is a question that I ask myself.
If I truly believe the things I say that I believe—
things that I say every week in the creed,
things like “he will come again in glory 
to judge the living and the dead 
and his kingdom will have no end”—
why then does my life look 
pretty much like the lives of those 
who do not believe this?
Why, if I am a child of light and day,
do I live my life like a child of darkness and night?
I don’t mean by this that I am some great sinner;
in fact, my sins are somewhat embarrassingly mediocre.
No, to live like a child of darkness and night
is simply to live a life of drowsy indifference,
a life that might have a kind of 
superficial charm and beauty,
but which lacks a sense of urgency,
lacks a sense that eternal life itself is at stake
in what transpires in this brief span of time
that God has entrusted to me.
Why is God not at all times my top priority?
As one of the early desert fathers put it,
“Why not be utterly changed into fire?”

This is one of the great mysteries of the spiritual life.
What is holding me back from living a life
like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Ignatius Loyola,
like St. Teresa of Calcutta or St. Oscar Romero,
like venerable Mother Mary Lange 
or servant of God Dorothy Day?
How can I see the power of God at work in them
and not want God to work in me in that same way?

But I do want God to work in my in that way.
And I suspect you do too. 
We human beings, however, 
are complicated animals.
We are somehow completely captive 
to deceptive charm and fleeting beauty
even as we feel an urge 
toward a goodness that is true 
and a beauty that is eternal.
We say to ourselves “peace and security,”
even as we suspect that the Lord is coming
to overturn our lives.
We bury our time beneath trivialities
even as we long to hear those words,
“Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
How do I let the part 
that hungers for holiness
direct my life,
and not the part 
that drowses in indifference?

Alas, I fear I don’t have an answer.
Like I said, we’re complicated animals.
But I do know this:
I know we must lean 
upon the grace that comes to us 
through Jesus Christ. 
I know we must pray that his grace 
would grow in us a yearning for him,
a hunger for his holiness, 
a longing for the day of the Lord,
the day when Christ will speak to us
the truth about our lives.
I know we must pray 
that these will not have been lives 
of deceptive charm and fleeting beauty
but lives utterly transformed 
by the fire of divine love.
I know we must pray that God, 
who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Ex 22:20-26; 1 Thes 1:5c-10; Mt 22:34-40 

Writing to the Christians in Thessalonica,
converts from paganism,
St. Paul commends them for having
“turned… from idols
to serve the living and true God.”
Idol worship was common in the time of Paul;
indeed, the Jewish people 
were thought to be oddballs
because the temple where they worshipped 
contained no representations of their God.
But the Jews were adamant that their God,
the living and true God, 
could not be represented 
by something made by human hands,
and that those who practiced idolatry
worshipped gods who were dead and false,
glittering products of craft and ingenuity
that could neither see nor hear,
could neither give love nor receive it.

For St. Paul, as for all Jews,
the problem with idolatry 
is not that God has no image.
Indeed, the book of Genesis tells us
that human beings are created 
in the image and likeness of God,
so images of God are all around us.
The problem with idolatry 
is that it ensnares us in the illusion
that the images of God that we create
are the true image of God,
so that we are relieved of the burden
of having to honor
the image of God that God creates,
the human images of God 
we encounter in our daily lives.

The Jewish alternative to the worship of idols
is summed up by Jesus in today’s Gospel:
the true way to worship God
is to “love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind,”
and to “love your neighbor 
as yourself.”
Love of God and love of neighbor
constitute, in their unity,
what it means to worship God.
All other acts of worship—
prayer and fasting,
ritual and sacrifice—
are nothing without these two,
because we find the true image of God,
the image not made by human hands,
in the person of our neighbor 
and in ourselves.

Of course, avoiding idolatry
is nothing so simple 
as not making physical images of God.
We can craft idolatrous images of God
with our minds as well as with our hands.
We can imagine God 
as a heavenly police officer
enforcing our rules,
or a divine therapist
salving our consciences,
or as cosmic life-coach
telling us that we can have it all.
We can imagine God 
to be a god who suits our needs,
a god who serves us
rather than the God whom we serve.
Such a god, no less than a statue of Zeus,
is an image fashioned by human beings,
and to set up such a god
in place of the living and true God
is no less an act of idolatry.
Indeed, for most of us
it is a much more common, 
much more tempting, 
form of idolatry.

But even if we banish 
these false images of God 
from our minds,
this is not enough to avoid idolatry.
We must not only avoid honoring false images;
we must also properly honor the true image.

We honor the true and living 
image of God in ourselves
when we give up on the idea that we are self-made:
that our accomplishments are somehow our own,
that we owe nothing to anyone,
perhaps not even to God.
This is a false image of ourselves,
for a true image is one that always reflects
and is dependent on that of which it is an image.
No less than the human-made idols in a temple,
the image of ourselves as self-made 
is an image that is lifeless and false,
a glittering product of human craft and ingenuity
that can neither give nor receive love.
To know myself as an image of God
is to know my true worth and dignity,
it is to know my own existence as a gift
that I neither earn nor deserve.

We honor the true and living 
image of God in our neighbor
when we see that they too exist as divine gifts:
gifts to themselves and gifts to us.
Among the first laws that God gives to the Israelites
after they have been freed from captivity in Egypt
are laws protecting widows and orphans
and foreigners living among them.
These, whom scripture describes 
as the “little ones,”
are groups uniquely vulnerable:
foreigners have no tribe to protect them,
widows have no husbands,
orphans no father.
Each of them is subject 
to abuse and exploitation,
to being used by the powerful
to enrich their coffers
or indulge their appetites.
Even if not actively exploited,
they are all too easily 
overlooked and abandoned
by those who ought to come to their aid.
But God does not overlook them;
he says to the Israelites,
“If ever you wrong them 
and they cry out to me,
I will surely hear their cry.”

Perhaps the problem is that we presume 
that the image of God
is to be found only 
in the great and powerful—
in those self-made people
who have clawed their way 
to the top of the heap—
and not in those 
weak and vulnerable ones 
who lie crushed 
and shattered in their wake.
But this too is idolatry,
for it fails to see that the image
of the true and living God, 
is to be found in these little ones 
above all others.
For God has shown their image 
to be his image
by taking vulnerable flesh 
and dying on a cross,
abused by the powerful
and abandoned by his friends,
abandoned by all but his Father,
who heard his cry and raised him to new life.

God calls us today to turn away from idols:
the idol of a god who suits my needs,
the idol of myself as self-made,
the idol of my needy neighbor 
as one whom I am free 
to exploit or overlook.
God calls us to turn 
to the true and living God,
to love that God with all of our 
heart, soul, and mind
and to love our neighbor as ourself.
May this God—
living, true, and merciful—
have mercy on us all.

 

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 25:6-10a; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14

VIDEO

I am always struck, 
when reading Matthew’s version
of the parable of the wedding feast,
by how violent and disturbing it is.
Luke’s gospel includes the same parable,
but there it is a pretty straightforward story
of people refusing an invitation to a great feast
and other people being invited in their stead.
But in Matthew’s version
we have emissaries murdered,
cities destroyed,
and guests who are underdressed
being cast into the outer darkness.
Luke’s simple story of the abundant feast 
to which God invites us,
and the importance of accepting that invitation,
takes on in Matthew a dark and somber coloring.

Matthew’s parable shows a world 
in which people act 
against their own self-interest:
what do the unwilling invitees gain
by killing those servants
who brought them the invitation?
It shows a world in which people
more than match evil for evil:
why destroy the innocent
alongside the guilty
in retaliation for murder?
It shows us a world beset by,
as the prophet Isaiah puts it,
“the veil that veils all peoples,
the web that is woven over all nations.”
It shows us a world 
enclosed in the shroud of sin 
and entangled in the mesh of mortality.
It shows us, in short, our world.
It shows us how we reject and react and retaliate.
It shows us how even the joyous event
of a wedding banquet
can be turned into 
one more manifestation
of the evil in which we 
are enclosed and entangled.

But the parable does more that,
for if that was all it did 
then it would hardly be good news.
The image of the wedding feast
draws our minds to God’s promise
that this sad, violent world 
will one day be transformed.
It draws our minds to Scripture’s promise
that God “will provide for all peoples
a feast of rich food and choice wines,”
the promise that God 
will wipe the tears from every face
and that death itself will be destroyed.
And it draws our minds 
to our liturgy’s promise that, 
even now, 
in the midst of all this sin and sorrow,
we are blessed to be called 
to the supper of the Lamb,
who bears away the world’s sin
and gives to us his peace.
Even now, beneath the veil 
and within the web that death has woven,
the Lamb of God feeds us with himself,
sustaining us each week in his banquet of love,
a feast of rich food and choice wine.

Matthew’s version of the parable
weaves together in a striking fashion
the promise of the wedding banquet
with the violence and sorrow 
that shrouds our world,
as if to remind us that death’s defeat,
which is already won for us 
in the resurrection of Christ,
is something that is not yet 
fully realized in us.
It reminds us that the Lamb’s peace
is truly present to us in this meal,
but veiled under sacramental signs
that only faith can discern.

But what about that 
underdressed wedding guest
who is cast into the outer darkness?
How does he fit into the picture?
It does seem strange that someone
who was dragged in from the streets
should be faulted for not wearing
something suitable for a royal wedding.
But in Scripture, clothing 
is never merely clothing.
The Psalms speak repeatedly 
of the righteous being clothed
with joy and salvation,
and the wicked being clothed
with shame and dishonor.
In the New Testament, St. Paul speaks
of clothing yourself with compassion, 
kindness, humility, 
meekness, and patience.
He speaks, above all, 
of clothing yourself with love,
which, he says, 
“binds everything together 
in perfect harmony” (Col 3:12-14).

If the wedding banquet 
is the Lamb’s high feast,
then surely love is the festive garment
in which we should be clothed.
It is not enough to be invited
out of the sad world of sin and death
and into the joyous banquet of life; 
it is not enough even to accept the invitation
and to gather with others to celebrate.
As St. Paul says, 
“If I comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge…
but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own… 
but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor 13:1-2).
For it is love that carries us out of this world of death
and into the banquet of life,
and it is the lacking of love that leads
out of the banquet into the outer darkness.
In the face of the violence and sorrow of the world,
we who have been invited must clothe ourselves in love.

But where do we find this love?
After all, are we not those 
who have been called in from the streets,
who arrive unprepared and unworthy?
But, St. Paul says in our second reading today,
“My God will fully supply whatever you need,
in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
We come to the banquet with nothing,
but if only we ask 
God will clothe us 
in joyful wedding garments 
of compassion, kindness, humility, 
meekness, and patience.
Above all, God will clothe us in his love.
And finding ourselves in such bright array,
we can reflect the light of God’s love
to a world enclosed in the shroud of sin 
and entangled in the mesh of mortality,
so that every tearful eye might hope to see
that day when all the saints will sing
“This is the LORD for whom we looked;
let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”

 

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Sirach 27:30-28:7; Romans 4:7-9; Matthew 18:21-35

Does anybody lie on his or her deathbed and think, 
“Gee, I wish I had spent more time being angry”?
Do people reach the end of their lives
and regret not holding more grudges 
or exacting crueler revenge?
Maybe some people do,
but I suspect that most of us, 
facing the end of life,
find the things that angered us 
suddenly seem trivial,
and the grudges we held 
and the revenge we exacted
look like a petty waste
of our precious time.
These things, like us, 
are swept away by time.
So why do we live our lives 
cultivating anger, 
holding grudges,
and seeking vengeance?
For it seems as if our world
is awash in an epidemic of anger.

Perhaps this has always been the case,
but the public expression of our anger,
of our grudges and vengeance,
seems particularly prevalent in our day.
We live in an era of performative anger,
where what we call (without irony) “social media” 
is often the arena for 
the most anti-social sorts of behavior.
We have declared open season
on those who differ from us
in their political affiliations,
and in their racial and cultural identities
and vent our spleens at people
whom we don’t really know.
This epidemic of anger 
has even infected the Church,
with people hurling 
accusations of heresy at others,
turning difference into division
and positioning themselves 
as defenders of the true faith.
I can hate you because of
who you did or didn’t vote for,
what you did or did not do 
during the pandemic,
how you do or do not respond
to what I think is the most pressing issue
in the world or in the Church.
We live in a time
when unforgiving anger 
has become a virtue.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that there is 
a kind of zealous anger that is not sinful,
and may, in fact, be praiseworthy,
because it shows that we have 
a finely-tuned sense of justice.
But even if he is right about this,
let’s be honest:
most of the anger 
that we encounter in the world today
is not of the zealous, praiseworthy sort,
but is simply the impulsive aggression
that results from too much dopamine
and too little serotonin in our brains.
It can be addictive, however, 
since we tell ourselves it is
a manifestation of righteous zeal,
and don’t we relish feeling righteous?
Don’t we use our displays of anger
to proclaim to the world our righteousness?
I have a hunch that the unmerciful servant 
in the parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel
was convinced that he was simply 
displaying his commitment to justice,
even as he clamped his hands on the throat
of his fellow servant.
As the book of Sirach memorably puts it,
“Wrath and anger are hateful things,
yet the sinner hugs them tight.”

Perhaps we could medicate ourselves
out of this impulsive aggression,
out of our anger and grudge-bearing.
But the wise man who speaks 
in the book of Sirach 
offers a different sort of remedy:
“Remember your last days…
remember death and decay.”
He knows that few of us 
will lie on our deathbed 
and think, “Gee, I wish 
I had spent more time being angry.”
He calls us to live our lives 
conscious of that moment 
when all of our anger
will seem kind of pointless,
all of our grudges 
will seem kind of petty,
all of our vengeance
will seem merciless and cruel.
He exhorts us, as the old Latin adage goes,
momento mori—“remember that you will die.”
Remember that moment 
when everything will melt away,
including the pretense of righteousness
that is rooted in the poisoned soil of our anger,
and we will stand before the righteous judge.
“Could anyone nourish anger against another
and expect healing from the LORD?”

Remember death…
Not simply because it reminds us
of how everything ends,
even our anger and grudges.
Not simply because it reminds us
that we will one day face the righteous one
whose mercy will be measured out
according to the mercy we have shown to others.
Remember death because it reminds us that
“whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”
Sirach bids us “remember your last days…
remember death and decay”
so that we might remember Jesus Christ,
who “died and came to life,
that he might be Lord of both 
the dead and the living.”
We remember death 
so that we might remember
that Christ has conquered death,
has conquered wrath and vengeance,
and has made us his own.
We remember death because 
even there Christ claims us,
and to belong to the Lord Jesus
is to let his mercy flow over us 
and through us,
washing away our anger 
and its phony righteousness
and filling us with his gifts
of faith, hope, and love,
gifts that we are called 
to share with others.
To belong to the Lord Jesus 
is to show to others
the mercy he has shown to us.
May God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15: 21-28

VIDEO

The story we hear today from Matthew’s Gospel
is also found in the Gospel of Mark,
where the woman is identified
simply as “Syro-Phonecian,”
that is, a Gentile or non-Jew.
But Matthew specifies that she is a Canaanite,
and so draws our attention
to that long and deep history of hatred.
between the Jews and the Canaanites.

The Canaanites were the people 
who occupied the land 
that God gave to the Israelites,
and it was only after long years of bloody conflict
that the Israelites had come to possess that land.
And even then the Canaanites remained
a constant threat to the purity 
of Israel’s exclusive devotion to their one God, 
tempting the Israelites to worship 
the many gods of Canaan.
Of course, from the Canaanite perspective
the Israelites were invaders 
who had taken their land 
and destroyed their cities
and killed their people.
Such hatreds do not die quiet deaths,

and centuries of uneasy coexistence
had not lessened the enmity between
Canaanites and Jews.

All of which makes it surprising
that this Canaanite woman
would not only ask for help
from a Jewish holy man,
but would cry out to him 
as “Son of David”—
David, the Israelite king 
who had taken the city of Jebus
from the Canaanites
and renamed it “Jerusalem,”
the City of David.
What must the name of their conqueror
have felt like in her mouth?
How bitter must it have tasted?
And what hope could she have had
that a Jewish title of honor
on the lips of a Canaanite
might sway this holy man to help her?
What desperation could have led her
to such a seemingly futile act of border-crossing,
to step out of her place as a Canaanite
and into the world of the hated Jews?

Well, as much as she might 
have hated the Jews, 
she also loved her daughter,
and her daughter was in trouble.
Her daughter was not simply in trouble,
but was tormented by a demon,
captive to an evil spiritual power
and beyond human help,
beyond even the help of the gods of Canaan.
Her mother’s love led this woman
to think impossible thoughts:
perhaps the God of her enemies
could do what her gods could not. 
Her mother’s love led her 
to an impossible place:
the borderline between her world
and the world of her hated enemies.
Her mother’s love led her
to an impossible action:
to step across that border
and speak the language of her enemy—
“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!”

The reception she received was really 
pretty much what a Canaanite might expect.
The holy man’s disciples 
asked him to send her away, 
back across the border 
she had crossed in her desperation.
The holy man himself said 
everything one might expect 
from one of the Canaanites’ ancient enemies.
His concern was not with her
but solely with his own people:
“I was sent only to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.”
Precious resources should not 
be wasted on foreigners,
and particularly not on the hated Canaanites:
“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
Nothing he said gave hope
that anything she said
could break through the wall 
that separated their two peoples.

Yet her love for her daughter
pressed her forward in a desperate act of faith:
“Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.”
Perhaps, just perhaps, 
this man was not her enemy;
perhaps, just perhaps,
he could be her savior.
Impossible thoughts,
in an impossible place,
give birth to an impossible act:
an act of faith in the God of her enemies,
an act of faith in the God of Israel.
And he says to her impossible words: 
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”

The Gospels are full of miracles:
feedings of multitudes and walking on water,
healings of the sick and the calming of storms—
impossible things that so dazzle us 
that we might miss the quiet miracle
of this woman led by God’s grace
across the border of ancient hatreds
into the unknown country of faith.
The desperate love for her daughter
that pushed her forward
was no mere natural love,
but was God’s grace already at work in her,
awakening what seemed an impossible faith.
This is the great work of God,
which tears down walls of hatred,
which crossed borders of enmity;
which conquers fear and unbelief.

This miracle is given to us as well.
God’s grace can lead us across borders 
of hatred, fear, and resentment;
God’s Spirit can reconcile us to God 
and with one another;
God’s love can bind us into one body,
living stones that together form 
a house of prayer for all peoples.
We too find mercy unmerited 
and healing undeserved. 
May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us,
and may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52

VIDEO

We all want a lot of different things.
This seems to be part of what it is to be human.
Other animals have pretty limited sets of desires.
My dog, for example, seems to want food and sleep, 
twice-daily walks when he can sniff everything in sight,
and cuddles on the couch in the evening,
and all of these wants are, more or less,
controlled by instinct.
But we human beings are a different story.
We want food and shelter,
but also new cars and an end to world hunger,
recognition by our peers 
and something worth watching on television,
the latest cell phone and a happy marriage,
for our neighbor not to mow his lawn 
at 7:00 AM on Saturday
and for Vladimir Putin 
to withdraw his troops from Ukraine,
to enjoy eternal life in heaven
and to pay off our mortgage.

And each day we discover 

new things to want.
We are desiring machines 
who seem to desire most of all
more things to desire.

Now some people would tell you 
that all of this wanting is bad,
that it is materialistic or selfish 
or a recipe for disappointment.
But this doesn’t seem quite right.
God made us to desire the good,
and it is precisely because things are good
that we want them;
it is their goodness that draws our desire.
And we don’t want just material things;
we want spiritual things like joy and peace.
And we don’t want things just for ourselves;
we want good things for those we love,
and even for the world as a whole.
And while you can avoid disappointment
by avoiding desire,
you do this at the cost of losing
those good things that only come
to those who seek them out.

No, the problem is not with wanting things;
the problem is figuring out how to bring
some kind of order to our desires.
Because sometimes our desires 
are in conflict with each other.
Can we continue to consume 
a never-ending stream of products
and still hope to end world hunger?
Can I sacrifice all for my work
so as to gain recognition from my peers
and still have a happy marriage?
In the vast array of things we want
there is friction and conflict,
a need to prioritize our wants
and even to sacrifice 
some desires for others.
But how do we discern 
which of our wants is better,
which good is more worthy?
Unregulated by the instincts 
of our fellow animals,
our wants can come to seem
like a chaotic ocean 
in which we might drown.

This is why Solomon,
when invited by God 
to ask for whatever he wants
does not ask for a long life or for riches,
nor even for the defeat of Israel’s enemies.
He asks for an understanding heart.
He asks not for something 
from the long litany of wants
that we human beings can easily generate,
but for the gift of wisdom,
that gift of insight
into what is right and what is not,
what is good and what is better.
He asks for the wisdom 
that allows us to know our highest good
so that we can bring order to desire
by judging all things in light of God,
who is the source and goal of all our desiring.

This wisdom is the treasure 
hidden in the field of all our many desires,
it is the pearl of great price,
for which we should be willing to give up
everything that we have or want.
For all of those things,
as good as they may be,
are limited in their goodness.
They clash with each other,
they wear out and vanish.
Only the infinite goodness of God,
the eternal source from which flows forth
the manifold goodness of creatures,
can shed on us the light of wisdom
that will allow us to bring order to our desires,
to see what is good and what is better
by seeing them all in light of what is best.

Jesus does not simply teach this wisdom
in his parables of the hidden treasure
and the pearl of great price.
He lives it in his life,
which is wholly given over 
to the proclamation 
of the good news of God’s kingdom,
and he lives it in his death,
enduring the cross and its shame
for the sake of the joy that lay before him.
Jesus gives all he has for the love of his Father,
and in doing so he gains all,
not simply for himself,
but for all of us,
winning for us eternal life,
becoming the firstborn
among many brothers and sisters.

Being a Christian is not, in the end, 
simply about giving things up;
it is about gaining everything 
by gaining God.
St. Paul tells us that all things 
work for good for those who love God.
If we give our heart to God above all else
then we will know how to love properly 
all those things that are less than God
by desiring them for the sake of God;
we will see them in the light cast
by the eternity that Christ has won for us
and so be able to choose the better 
for the sake of the best.
So let us give our all 
for that pearl of great price,
the treasure of the wisdom 
revealed in Christ,
and may God who is merciful
have mercy on us all.

15th Week in Ordinary Time--Tuesday

Readings: Exodus 2:1-15a; Matthew 11:20-24

I recall meeting once with a couple 
that was preparing for marriage.
The groom was a convinced atheist
who liked to argue theology,
and his future wife,
an equally convinced Catholic Christian,
had spent many hours 
answering his objections
with saint-like patience.
The groom asked me,
“If God really wanted me to believe in him,
why wouldn’t he simply appear to me
and tell me that he exists?”
I replied that maybe God was not the kind of being
who appeared and disappeared willy-nilly,
that maybe there was something
inherently hidden and mysterious about God.
To which he responded: 
“Well then, why wouldn’t he send 
some kind of messenger,
someone truly trustworthy 
and without ulterior motive,
to tell me that God existed.”
At which point I simply 
pointed at his fiancée 
and asked him what more 
he was looking for.

My clever response did little to change his mind,
perhaps because it wasn’t as clever as I thought,
or perhaps because, 
even when we say we are looking 
for proof or evidence,
what really needs changing 
is not our minds, but our hearts.
Jesus does not say to Chorazin and Bethsaida
that if Tyre and Sidon had seen his mighty deeds
they would have taken up new opinions,
admitted that God was operating 

without secondary causes,
or adopted a properly orthodox Christology.
No, he says, “they would long ago 
have repented in sackcloth and ashes.”
So often our purported “intellectual difficulties”
are immune to proof and evidence
because it is our hearts 
that are mired in patterns of desire 
from which we cannot break free,
habits of self-love that we are loath to give up,
fears that hold us back from the risk of faith.
Pascal said of the probative power of miracles,
“[T]here is enough evidence to condemn 
and not enough to convince; 
and it seems that those who follow it 
are motivated by grace and not reason, 
and that those who shun it 
are motivated by concupiscence 
and not reason” (Pensées §423).

It is good for us who are theologians
to remember that the world
is not looking to be convinced
by a clever response or even a good argument.
The world is looking for the sign of Jonah,
the sign of love that empties itself
and emerges victorious from the tomb.
The world is looking for the grace of Christ
that alone can offer new life.
Let us pray that we ourselves
will receive that grace,
so that we can offer ourselves,

in union with Christ,
for the life of the world.
And may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

 

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-9

In the book of Genesis, 
after Adam and Eve have 
eaten from the forbidden tree,
God pronounces a number of “curses”
upon the human race—
conditions that will prevail
as human history moves forward, 
signs of our fallen state.
Among these is what God says to Adam:
“Cursed is the ground because of you!... 
Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you,
and you shall eat the grass of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you shall eat bread,
until you return to the ground,
from which you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:17-19).

This forms the background 
of Jesus’ parable of the sower.
The soil in which the sower sows
is stony, thorny, shallow, 
subject to scorching sun
and ravenous birds.
Farming such land was difficult, unrewarding work.
A peasant farmer in Jesus’ day could expect at best 
a four or fivefold return on the seed he sowed.
The world in which the parable unfolds 
is a world marked by the effect of human sin,
a world marked by the curse of Adam.

In our second reading, 
Paul describes the same world:
a creation, “made subject to futility”
and “groaning in labor pains 
even until now.”
We not only see the curse of creation
in the inhospitable earth 
from which we wrest our living; 
we feel it in ourselves:
“we also groan within ourselves
as we wait for adoption, 
the redemption of our bodies,”
the bodies of dust
that will to dust return.
The hopes and aspirations 
on which we live
bear meager fruit, 
if they bear any fruit at all.
Even we who have put our faith in Christ
and have been joined to him through grace
share in this universal groaning.
Our lives are not immune 
to the frustrations of living
in a world of stony, thorny, shallow soil.
We who have been joined 
to Christ the new Adam
still live amidst the devastation 
wrought by the old Adam.

In the context of the parable of the sower,
which Jesus goes on to explain as an allegory
of the scattering of God’s word in the world
and the mixed response it receives,
we might think of the frustrations found
in our own attempts to spread God’s word.

On a large, societal scale, 
there seems to be in our own country
an increasing indifference, 
and in some quarters outright hostility,
to the Gospel that the Church proclaims.
Some of this the Church has brought on herself,
through failing to live out the Gospel,
whether from laziness and lukewarmness,
or from preferring to protect our institutions
rather than embracing the radical call of the Gospel
to faith, hope, and love.
Some of it, however, 
is because the soil in which we sow
has become stony with cynicism,
thorny with self-indulgence, 
and shallow with false ideologies 
that promise salvation
but cannot save us from ourselves.

On a smaller, more personal scale,
we look around us and notice 
that there are people missing—
friends and acquaintances who once joined us in worship
but who must have found something that they think 
is more rewarding to do with their Sunday mornings.
I am mindful especially of those of us 
who are parents with adult children,
and who sometimes dutifully, sometimes joyfully,
sowed the seed of the word in our children
by bringing them to religious formation,
making sure that they received the sacraments,
praying for them and with them,
even discussing the faith with them 
and engaging in works of charity with them,
only to see them gradually drift away,
or even angrily and dramatically depart,
and join the ranks of those 
whom sociologists call “nones”—
those who are religiously unaffiliated,
and often claim to be religiously indifferent.
Parents can find themselves asking,
“Could I have done more?”
and groan in pain 
at a sense of having failed
to produce a rich harvest of faith 
within their children.
 
But the parable of the sower 
is not about the failure of the sower,
but about his success.
Despite the curse of Adam,
despite the devastated earth,
despite the groaning of creation,
the sower’s labors bring forth
not the usual four or fivefold harvest,
but thirty or sixty or a hundredfold.
Our psalm today speaks not 
of a cursed, devastated, groaning world
but of fields that “shout and sing for joy.”
God promises through the prophet Isaiah,
“my word shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.”
Threaded throughout the rather bleak assessment
of the world’s condition that our scriptures offer us
is a persistent note of joy and abundance,
a constant reminder that though the world is,
as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it,
“seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil”
still, by the grace of God and the gift of the Spirit,
“there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”

Our ability to believe in the freshness 
of these deep down things
even amid the world’s devastation
depends on seeing two things.

First, the sower in the parable is God, not us.
Of course, we all have our role to play
in sowing God’s word,
in giving an account of the hope that is in us
and bearing witness with our lives.
But were our hopes only in our own efforts,
then our groaning would be the whole story.
The point of the parable, however, 
is that it is Christ 
who sows the word in us 
and in the world,
Christ the new Adam 
who can bring forth an abundant harvest
even amid the curse wrought by the old Adam.

Second, we are still in the middle of the process;
we are not yet at the end of the parable.
Though no doubt there is unwelcoming soil,
we should not presume that we know where that is;
we should not presume that what we can see
reveals to us the still hidden work of the Spirit.
The time of harvest has not yet come
and the thirty, sixty, hundredfold yield
still remains in the future. 
We do not yet know 
where the seeds of the word
will take root and grow.
We do not yet know who will prove
to have been good or bad soil.

So when we look around us 
and lament the absence
of those who once were here,
of those who might be here but are not,
we should, even as we seek 
with patient persistence
to sow the word,
take heart from our faith
that the sufferings of this present time 
are as nothing
compared with the glory of God’s mercy 
still to be revealed for us,
in thirty, sixty, 
and hundredfold abundance.

Trinity Sunday

Readings: Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; John 3:16-18

VIDEO

In our second reading today,
St. Paul exhorts the Corinthian Christians,
“Greet one another with a holy kiss.”
Paul was not simply instructing them on etiquette,
but was referring to the ritual exchange of a kiss
as a part of their gathering for worship.
This is what we today refer to as the “sign of peace,”
though in the early centuries of Christianity
this took the form not of a handshake
or, as has become common 
in these post-pandemic days,
a friendly wave,
but of a kiss—a kiss on the lips.
In the ancient world, 
to exchange a kiss 
was to exchange breath—
what in Greek is pneuma
and which also means “spirit.”
To exchange a kiss, to share breath,
was to share with another
the very force by which one lives
and so to be bound together
(this is one reason we make a big deal
about the kiss between a bride and groom). 
Of course, in those early centuries
Christian worship was sexually segregated,
with men on one side of the congregation
and women on the other,
so that men only kissed other men
and women other women;
nevertheless, this practice 
raised some eyebrows
and led to rumors
about Christian worship
involving scandalous orgies.

You may be wondering,
what all of this kissing and scandal 
and breathing and bonding
has to do with the mystery of the Trinity,
which we celebrate on this day.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 
in a sermon on the Song of Songs,
sought to explain the verse 
in which the bride says
“let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth”
by way of reference to the Holy Trinity.
He wrote: “If, as is properly understood, 
the Father is he who kisses, 
and the Son he who is kissed, 
then it cannot be wrong 
to see in the kiss itself the Holy Spirit, 
for he is the imperturbable peace 
of the Father and the Son, 
their unshakable bond, 
their undivided love, 
their indivisible unity” (Sermon 8.2).
Just as the kiss shared by lovers
is something that 
comes forth from them both
and joins them together 
in one love,
in one life,
so too the Spirit comes forth
from the Father and from the Son 
and is the bond of love in which 
they live eternally as one God.
Bernard writes, 
“Thus the Father, 
when he kisses the Son, 
pours into him the plenitude 
of the mysteries of his divine being, 
breathing forth love’s deep delight” (Sermon 8.6).
If the Holy Spirit is the kiss 
uniting Father and Son,
then, according to St. Bernard, 
when the bride in the Song of Songs says
“let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth”
it is the soul asking to receive the kiss
shared between Father and Son—
that kiss of imperturbable peace, 
unshakeable bond,
undivided love, 
and indivisible unity.
Our souls cry out to be united to God
by sharing in the love uniting Father and Son,
the kiss of his mouth that is the Holy Spirit.

But the Spirit that unites Father and Son,
and unites souls to God,
also unites us to each other.
Paul wrote earlier to the Corinthians,
“in one Spirit we were all 
baptized into one body” (1 Cor 12:13).
The first Christians believed
that the breath—the pneuma—
that they exchanged in the holy kiss
was nothing less than the Holy Spirit, 
which each had received in baptism.
The ritual kiss spoke of peace
because it was the symbolic sharing
of the one Spirit that each had been given.
The kiss they shared with one another
was the kiss of imperturbable peace, 
unshakeable bond,
undivided love, 
and indivisible unity
that is the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit who with the Father and Son
lives an eternal life of peaceful bliss.

In the liturgy of the Byzantine Church
the peace is exchanged 
immediately before the creed is said,
the creed in which we profess 
our faith in God as Trinity.
Rather than our own 
somewhat pedestrian invitation—
“let us offer each other the sign of peace”—
in the Byzantine liturgy the deacon says.
“Let us love one another, 
that with oneness of mind we may confess,”
and the people reply, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: 
Trinity, consubstantial and undivided.”
To truly confess the Trinity
we must love the Trinity,
and to love the Trinity
we must love one another.
As St. Bernard puts it,
the Spirit as revealer of God’s truth
“not only conveys the light of knowledge 
but also lights the fire of love” (Sermon 8.5).
To truly confess the Trinity
is to share with one another 
the Spirit we have been given
by using the gifts that the Spirit 
has bestowed on us
in service to one another;
it is, as St. Paul tells us today,
to encourage one another,
to agree with one another, 
and to live in peace with one another.

I am not suggesting that we start 
kissing each other on the mouth
at the sign of peace.
But for us, no less than for the first Christians,
our ritual exchange of peace is a visible sign
of the unity in love that we celebrate
on this Trinity Sunday,
the love that unites Father, Son, and Spirit,
the love that unites our soul to God,
and the love that unites us 
within the one body of Christ.
So let us love one another, 
that with oneness of mind we may confess
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: 
Trinity, consubstantial and undivided.
And may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

Ascension

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-20

VIDEO

I once heard a story—
which may or may not be true,
but which I sincerely hope is—
about a folk Mass celebrated in the early 1970s
for the Solemnity of the Ascension
where one of the songs was 
“Leaving on a Jet Plane.”
You know the one:
written by John Denver
and popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary,
with the chorus,
“I’m leavin’ on a jet plane.
Don’t know when I’ll be back again.
Oh babe, I hate to go.”

I sincerely hope this story is true,
because it evokes so well the heady years
immediately after the Second Vatican Council
when Catholics everywhere were trying
to figure out what it meant
to open up to the modern world,
to breathe new life into our liturgies,
to find a way to unite ourselves
to the joys and the hopes, 
the griefs and the anxieties 
of the people of today—
a time when it actually seemed 
like to might be a good idea
to sing a song in which 
someone is referred to as “babe”
at the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

But I also hope it is true
because it captures how Christians 
have struggled, down through the centuries,
to grasp the mystery that we celebrate on this day.
People have always searched 
for words and images from our world
that might express the event 
of Christ’s heavenly exaltation.
During the Middle Ages, 
the Ascension was often depicted 
as a bunch of people 
standing looking up at a cloud
from which dangled a pair of bare feet.
This, in its own way, is as comically goofy
as singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane,”
and seems likewise to fall far short 
of the deep mystery
that confronts us on this feast.
For the Ascension of Christ is perhaps
the most mysterious 
of the mysteries of our faith.

Part of the problem for us perhaps has to do 
with our modern picture of the universe.
When people thought of the earth
as the center of the cosmos
and heaven located somewhere 
up there, beyond the sky,
it might have seemed natural
to think of the Ascension
as an act of celestial relocation,
and maybe feet hanging from a cloud
seemed a lot more plausible.
But we no longer think of the earth
as the center of the universe,
and it is harder to imagine 
that heaven is located 
somewhere beyond the sky,
or even that it can be thought of 
in terms of location at all.
Which does make you wonder 
why singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane”
seemed like a way to speak to modern people.
The account of the Ascension from Acts
suggests that even in the first century
this was not really 
about Jesus being in the clouds;
the angels say at the end,
“Men of Galilee,
why are you standing there 
looking at the sky?”
In some ways, 
our modern picture of the universe
only makes clearer that the Ascension
is not a puzzle about Jesus’s celestial location
but a mystery that is far, far deeper.

What makes the Ascension
the most mysterious
of the mysteries of our faith
is that it speaks of humanity 
being taken up into the eternal life of God.
The mystery of the Ascension 
is that the resurrection of Jesus
culminates in the fullness of his humanity,
both body and soul,
being enfolded in the life
of Father, Son, and Spirit,
that life beyond time and space
that gives life to all creatures.

But the mystery is greater still,
for by the enfolding of the humanity of Jesus
in the eternal life of the triune God
our humanity too 
beholds that ageless beauty
that makes all things beautiful,
hears that silent music
that sounds in all creation,
tastes that heavenly food
upon which angels feast forever.
In the Incarnation, 
the eternal divinity of God the Son
is enfolded in our humanity; 
in the Ascension,
our humanity is enfolded in his divinity,
so that his destiny is our destiny.
We pray today in the Eucharistic preface:
“he ascended, not to distance himself 
from our lowly state,
but that we, his members,
might be confident of following
where he, our Head and Founder,
has gone before.”

Dante Algieri, at the end of his Divine Comedy,
beholds a vision of the Holy Trinity,
represented by three colored circles
that are mysteriously one,
and looking more deeply within the middle circle
his eyes are transfixed by what he calls 
“our human likeness.”
He sees the ascended humanity of Christ:
he sees matter within spirit,
time within eternity,
creation within the creator.
And with this, words now fail Dante:
the poetic prowess of which he was so proud,
a prowess exceeding even that of John Denver,
collapses before the mystery he beholds,
not because his human mind
fails to fathom the mechanics 
of the celestial trajectory
by which Christ arrived in this place,
but because his human heart is seized
by the immensity of the love
that took on human flesh to be with us,
that sought us in our lostness to save us,
that sorrowed, and suffered, and died
so that we might have life 
and have it abundantly
within the very heart of God.

The mystery we celebrate this day
is not how Jesus could fly off into a cloud—
with or without a jet plane—
but how God could love us so much
that we poor creatures of clay 
could have hope to one day shine,
enfolded in the glory of eternal life.
The mystery of this day
is simply the mystery of every day:
the mystery of the love that is God
shared in mercy with us sinners.
May God who is merciful
have mercy on us all.

Easter 5

Readings: Acts 6:1-7; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12

VIDEO

I’d like to think that the sacred order of deacons,
into which I was ordained sixteen years ago this month,
had its beginning in some sublime and glorious moment,
perhaps in a vision of the heavenly liturgy
and those who serve at it.
I’d like to think that,
but our reading today from the Acts of the Apostles,
traditionally seen as the story of the appointing
of the first seven deacons, 
suggests instead that the diaconate originated 
amid squabbles among early Christians 
about food and language:
a moment not sublime and glorious
but mundane and messy.

The situation is this:
the Apostles continued the Jewish practice
of a daily food distribution (like a soup kitchen)
to those in their community
who were consistently in dire need:
orphans, landless immigrants, and widows.
A dispute arose between those disciples 
who spoke the Hebrew dialect called Aramaic
and those who spoke Greek,
who had likely grown up 
outside of the land of Israel.
The Greek-speakers felt 
that the widows of their group 
were being overlooked 
because those in charge were Aramaic speakers.
Even though everyone involved was a Jew,
and, moreover, Jews who shared the belief
that Jesus was the Messiah,
they still found that differences 
of language and custom
threatened to divide them. 
So the Apostles appointed seven Greek-speakers
to help with the daily distribution.
Tensions eased,
“the word of God continued to spread,
and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem 
increased greatly.”

Anyone who has worked in the Church knows
that this sort of thing is not unusual.
We may all be brothers and sisters in Christ,
but our fallen natures 
still tend to show themselves,
not least in our tendency to see 
those who do not speak our language
or share our customs
or hold our political views
or belong to our social circles
as outsiders whose concerns 
are not our concerns, 
those whom we can overlook.
We who are the Church—
which is all of us—
spend a lot of our time dealing
with the fallout 
of our fallen humanity.
The destiny of the Church 
may be sublime and glorious,
but what it takes 
for the word of God to spread
and the number of disciples to increase
is often mundane and messy.

The First Letter of Peter
seems to focus our attention
more on the sublime and the glorious,
speaking of the Christian community
as “a spiritual house” built of “living stones,”
with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone.
It speaks of how we have been called to be
“a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people of his own.”
The image of this spiritual house 
and this royal priesthood
is so sublime and glorious
that it is hard to believe that the path to it
could involve things as mundane and messy
as settling squabbles 
between Greek speakers 
and Aramaic speakers.
We might think 
that because this living temple is “spiritual”
it cannot involve concrete material concerns
like who gets fed and who goes hungry,
whose voice is heard and who is silenced,
who is empowered and who is disempowered. 
But repeatedly in the book of Acts
it is precisely the messy and mundane struggle
to resolve these sorts of issues
that defines what it means 
to follow the way of Jesus. 

When Jesus says that he 
is the way and the truth and the life 
that leads to the house of his Father,
we must remember 
that the way that is Jesus 
is the way of cross and resurrection.
Jesus is not a way around
the ordinary and extraordinary struggles 
of life together,
but he is the way through them.
He is the living stone rejected by the builders,
who endured the suffering of the Cross,
and if we are to be the living stones 
of which his spiritual house is built
we must become like him.
The way to the Father’s house 
is through the Cross,
and for us the Cross is often found 
not in great and dramatic suffering
but in life’s mundane messiness:
the struggle to love and live with 
those whom we can’t understand
due to language or culture 
or personality or life experience,
those whose needs 
are unfathomable to us,
those we find pushy or insensitive,
insecure or irritating, 
irrational or sometimes 
just plain weird.

If life in the Church has taught me nothing else,
it has taught me that I am the Cross 
that my fellow Christians bear.
In my unfathomable neediness,
my irritating insecurity,
my uniquely personal weirdness,
I am being borne by all of you.
And all of you are being borne by me.
And we cannot put each other down,
because while we are the Cross
we are also the living stones
from which God’s house must be built.
That is what it means to be God’s pilgrim people.
That is what it means to be the Body of Christ.
That is what it means to be the Temple of the Spirit.
It is to bear the Cross of each other 
in the mundane messiness of our common life,
as we walk the way that is Jesus Christ,
crucified and risen,
journeying together to our Father’s house.
Let us pray on this journey
that God, who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.