April 22-Third Sunday of Easter prep

-Last week's Homily available by email
-Scriptures for this Sunday available at USCCB.org>>>
-I am preaching at the 8 AM and the 12:30 PM mass on Sunday

The devil is in the details!

Can you imagine a young couple falling in love with their perfect house, their dream home? They fall in love with it and they cannot imagine living in some other house-they have to have it! They go ahead to the bank, do the the loan application, and they get approved for their loan. The years begin to unfold month by month and the couple realizes what is actually involved in home ownership: a morgage payment, taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance, yardwork, repairs, remodeling, new furniture, baby's room,…

Sooner rather than later, they come to realize that the "idea" of living in their ideal home, the "notion" of their dream house, is a far cry and a distant journey from the actual "reality" of home ownership. If they are going to survive they have to do two things: hang on to the dream AND stick to the day-by-day implementation of their possession. It is in that two-pronged approach to home ownership where the devil lurks.

I am using this imagery of the dream of home ownership versus owning your own home as a metaphor for the difference between believing and understanding, according to the Scriptures. Jesus again is recorded to have opened their minds to understanding the Scriptures. This means or indicates that believing, "having faith", in the fact that "Jesus miraculously triumphed over death and grave and is risen from the dead" is not the full story of faith in our Christian religion. Believing that Jesus was raised from the dead is much different than understanding what God's Word and good news means in our lives, our real lives, our daily human complicated, difficult lives. In fact, the point and the purpose of the gift of faith is to transform our minds into understanding the mind of God and thus "conform" our living to the pattern of his cross.

The devil and the details that are troubling in this regard is that often times for many of us our religion, our faith, has been handed to us as simply a dream-like proposal, a miracle about a future reality, that is supposed to comfort and encourage us to be good - but it has no understanding built into it. To the well-educated contemporary mind this religion appears to be simply an irrational, emotional and disconnected fantasy far from the real world. The stuff that only children and grandmas can get excited about(oh, and there are the fanatics who are crazy about Jesus).

Do we have a faith that simply tells us that "with God everything will be alright in heaven on the last day"? Or do we have the gift of faith, the gift of resurrected life, that is an instrument of God for the opening of our mind to the truth that God intends for us to have and to know and to live in our daily lives? Don't we have faith so that we can figure out our human life in God?

Good question Lord!

Mercy Sunday Prep

-Last Easter Sunday's homily is available by email
-The scriptures for this Sunday are at usccb.org>
-I am preaching at the 5:30 and the 11:00 Masses

Re-creation of Reconciliation

This scene in John's Gospel is the first "communal celebration of the Sacrament of reconciliation". Jesus finds the apostles dead in guilt, fear, and sadness. He breaks into the bomb shelter of their "death in sin".

He extends to them the peace of God - "everything is 'good' between them and God" - shalom.

Then he does something (the word is the same as the creation story) that only God is known for doing: breathing into dead clay and creating a "new life". That is the effect of the healing mercy of God - new life, God-like life, where there was the emptiness and dead of sin. And then he "sends them" to do it again and again.

The identity, means or the mode, and mission of the Church is revealed as breathing the Spirit of Jesus into those who are isolated, separated, and dead in their sins, guilt, and sadness and re-creating them into instruments of mercy, life, and love - the Body of the Resurrected Jesus.

Wow.. Is that what you think you're doing in your Christian life? Or...not so much. Let's get it going.

The Triduum 2012

-The homily from passion Sunday/Palm Sunday is not available
-The readings for Easter Sunday are at USCCB.org >
-I will be preaching at holy Thursday evening mass at 7 PM and Easter Sunday mass at 9:30 AM downstairs and 11 AM mass upstairs

Holy Thursday

Are you up to celebrating Christian Passover? This question locates our reflections on Holy Thursday to what in fact Jesus was doing. It is clear that as a Jew, a rabbi, and a teacher that Jesus was celebrating the Jewish Passover meal with his disciples. However, it is also clear to the eyes of faith that he was transforming the experience of the Passover meal for his apostles. Jesus clearly was inviting his apostles and thus the church to experience a new Passover meal, a Passover meal with deeper significance: his saving death and resurrection. He was creating sacrament.

In considering sacrament, Eucharist, and the Last Supper,we must consider the Passover. Jesus had the attention of his Jewish brothers at the Passover meal. He knew that they were reflecting upon and celebrating in faith the liberation of God's people from slavery and death in Egypt by the "passing over" of the houses marked with the blood of the lamb. Thus, the function of the Passover ritual with unleavened bread and cup of blessing is the remembering the freedom from oppression and the new life with God (not the Re-dramatization of the Passover event) .

Jesus lays down on top of the passover in signs and words an anticipation of his saving death and resurrection which liberates the human family from the oppression of death and sin and ushers in the kingdom of God and eternal life in reconciliation with God. Onto the passover bread and cup he imposes and exposes the powerful presence of his own sacrificial life and love, his death and resurrection. He opens up and widens the window of the Passover bread and cup and turns them into access points for the church to be present to his saving grace. So the Eucharist is not simply the miracle of the Last Supper, it is not simply a dramatic and bloodless re-enactment of Calvary, but it is the sacramental sign and thus "access point" to the passing over from death without God to life with and in God through Jesus Christ. Paschal (of the lamb) Mystery!

Sacrament, then, becomes a passing over or passing through in which the believer is introduced into the life of God made accessible and the reality of God, Communion, is inserted into the life of the believer. That is liberating and saving grace. Communion!

Is that what we are doing here? I dont know. Are we simply re-enacting the Last Supper in order to get ahold of the Sacred and miaculous Body of Jesus Christ, the lamb who was slain? I think not. That would be to fall short of God's gift to all of us. What we are called to do in sacrament is to remember - to hear, touch, see, and taste the bread and wine of the new covenantv( now His Body and Blood) - Jesus' passing over from sin and death (which is the realm of this world) to life Eternal in the Kingdom of God - Salvation, Sacrament, grace, Communion.

And it is suppose to change us....every time! Woohoo. That's all I've got to say.

Easter Sunday

See Holy Thursday above. Not much else to say.

The Holiest of Weeks

I will be presiding at the 4:00 PM to 8:00 AM and 12:30 PM masses this weekend.

Enter in to the Mystery! Were you there?

Homily prep for March 25th

– the homily from last week is available by email
– The Scriptures for this Sunday are available at USCCB.org>>
– I am preaching at the 12:30 mass only

Hearing in action

I think hearing looks like something! Can you see what is being said?

I am captured by the second reading from the letter to the Hebrews. It is the word obedience or the concept of obedience that has captured my attention in this Lenten time. We are beginning the intensive period of penance and preparation known as the Passiontide.

The word obedience comes to us from the combination of two roots: "ob" "audiere" = to listen to. I am thinking that Jesus' obedience on the cross is "listening in the flesh". I am considering the call to "hear with my life."

It is fully possible to listen to someone and not truly hear what is being said. The concept of hearing is one that carries the response within it. Listening is possibly the intellectualizing of the words, of the concepts, understanding so to speak. But to hear what you're saying in plies that one responds appropriately according to the truth.

The theologians tell us that the cross of Jesus Christ was the end of human disobedience. We can see that Jesus' obedience was hearing the will of the Father, doing the truth in love.

I am wondering how obedient, how well I am hearing the truth of God in my life. Would I look differently if I were truly hearing what God is saying to me, calling me to in my life? Would I be more configured to the crucified Christ if I were perfect in hearing? Is there room for better hearing your life? How so?

March 18 Prep

I am preaching at 5:30, 11:00 and 5:00pm masses

This is Laetare Sunday. Joy. Do you believe that everything about your existence today is "gift of God"? What's not? Why not? How do you decide?

March 11 Prep

-Last week's homily is available by email
-This week's scriptures are available at USCCB.org
-I am preaching at the 4:00pm, 8:00 and 9:30 am Masses

Pixelation! A problem of imagining

All the buzz in the technology world is the rolling out of the New iPad. And the buzz on the New iPad is the retina screen - which I understand means a lot more pixels per inch(points of light and color) that go into the quality of the picture on the screen. Remember in the days we used to worry about dpi's: dots per inch on our matrix printers.

Pixels are electronic dots of color and light that make the images we see on our screens either duller or clearer. The secret of pixels is that the more pixels, points of light, that we put in a square inch of the screen, the richer the image is that we see. Pixels are really invisible, if you know what I mean....we don't see the individual pixels unless there's a problem. When pixels start breaking up, we call that pixelation.

Pixelation is that crazy, choppy, blocky, jerky, thing that happens on the screen that we're looking at. And we can no longer see the image but the difficult pieces that make it up.

The cross of Jesus Christ is the troubling and distracting piece of the self image that God is proposing to the world. For the Jews, they are looking for religious sign, and the Greeks they look for reasonable argument - the cross is stumbling stone and foolishness, weakness, and defeat.

So, the message of St. Paul and of lent for us may be that what we are looking for from God may have everything to do with what it is we find. What I mean is that many Christians look at life in the world, in the family, in the parish, in the marriage, and see only sadness, human conflict, boring ritual, oppressive teaching, emptiness and pain. They may be concluded that the Christian life therefore is not for them, it is not meaningful, it is not the answer or purpose of their lives.

What St. Paul might say to us is, "stop and ask what it is that we were looking for from the life of faith. What did we expect to find in the Christian life? Was that what God had promised?

The cross is the disturbing revelation of the manner by which God is going to save the world.....and we can't see it. Self-sacrificing love really blurs the vision of worldly-oriented eyes. If we are coming to religion so that we can win in the world - then we are going to be pretty disturb, confused, and disinterested in the religion of Jesus.

However, if we are converted to Jesus' religion, the golden rule, the downward mobility of holiness - then the crucified God comes into perfect focus.. We see and then we're saved.

Any Hope Out There?

-Last weeks homily available by email
-This weeks Scriptures available at USCCB.org >
-I am preaching at the 9:30 and 12:30 Masses on Sunday

Anything to be hopeful about?

In our parish lenten mission we were encouraged to understand our journey to God as being lived on four tracks...bodily gratification, ego-satisfaction, care for others, and communion with God. We have to get to God on all four tracks. And, of course, God has not left us alone to make this journey....he has planted his very self at the core of our being. So, we begin with the end in mind.

This presence of God is understood as grace and it is grown in us through virtue. We need the grace and we must build the virtues because the journey to God or holiness is tough. Jesus explained this to his disciples....about the cross and all - and he knew they were "feeling it". What does "feeling" the harshness of the human journey to God mean? Hopelessness!

So, he is transfigured before them. What? He is revealed to them as 1. God and 2. With them! Emmanuel! Well now that's precisely what they needed: to be reminded that in the challenge of human life - the Lord is with us as love, light and life. That's hope. Hope is a principal feature of fortitude. Fortitude is one of the cardinal virtues and is best understood as courage. Foritude is associated with level two and three happiness (ego-satisfaction and caring for others above). So, when we are feeling discouraged, failed, unloved or appreciated, weary in the long struggle of loving others - we need fortitude and it's friend HOPE.

So, regardless of how hopeless things appear, be strong, have faith, see things as they truly are, God is with us, Emmanuel....hope.

Does that make any difference to your difficulty at the moment?

Can You Be Happy With God?

-Last week's homily is available by email
-The Scriptures for this Sunday are at USCCB.org >>
-I will be introducing the Lenten Mission at all Masses this weekend (pray for me)

Drive(driv) vt, 1. to force to go; urge onward; push forward

Mr. Webster's first definition of the word "drive" is at the beginning, the heart, and the base of the Christian life.  I have come to this conclusion from this portion of Mark's Gospel, Chapter 1, in which we are told that following the baptismal experience of the Spirit.... "The Spirit drove Jesus into the desert.".  Think about that.  Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, is subject to the Spirit.  The Spirit moves him and he is subject to the Spirit.  Is that same Spirit the driving force of our lives, our church, our family, our parish?

What drives you?  ....to be driven. To go, urge, push...drive

The text then reveals that this same Jesus, who is Lord and Master of the Christian life, encountered other and contrary forces that attempt to "drive" him.  In this immediate case, Satan.  Jesus, of course, remains close to the angels of God and he demonstrates to his disciples that we can and must choose which powers, motivations, desires, compunctions, temptations we will submit ourselves to.

What drives you?  ....to be driven. To go, urge, push...drive

 That's, "Good News"!  Kind of.  What I mean is that Jesus (and we his disciples) are beloved children of God with whom God is apparently well-pleased...happy with us and we with God.  God's desire for us is our happiness....walking under his wings, "ever near to His side" (seasonal responsorial psalm).  This is NOT so Good News inasmuch as we are free and we are tempted to submit to "other" powers as our driving force.  Since Adam and Eve - the temptation has been there, Jesus showed us the "path to life" (seasonal responsorial psalm). 

What drives you?  ....to be driven. To go, urge, push...drive

Our lifelong call is to continuously submit to the Spirit as the driving force in our lives, that we may "walk ever joyful"  (seasonal responsorial psalm) clinging to the hand of God.  Happiness is God's desire for us - too often we choose to follow those forces that bring us nothing but ultimate unhappiness.  

What drives you?  

Our Parish Lenten Mission 2012 begins this Sunday evening at 7:00pm and we will spend three evenings reflecting upon this call to happiness with the Lord and how the Spirit might more and more be the driving force of our lives.  Mr. Jim Berlucchi will preach and teach, we will have wonderful prayer, and even enjoy the growing spirit of friendship among us through some social time.  

I urge you, prompt you, tempt you, dare you, to allow the Spirit to drive you to our Lenten Mission this year.  What are you driven to do the next three nights?  Come and be free!

Hi

Believe what's revealed!

Masses at 4:00, 8:00 and 5:00.

Sunday IV - January 29 Prep

-Last week's homily is available by email
-Scriptures for this Sunday at usccb.org >
-I am preaching at the 4:00pm and the 9:30am

"Without Distraction"

Two week's ago, the Lord Jesus himself turned around and asked those following, "what are you looking for?" Great question and not such a great answer for all of us. What I mean is that the issue or question of our motivation, our desire, what it is that we are seeking is a nagging one at best.

In the eighth grade this week we were talking about sacramental marriage and one young person cried out, "you can't help who you fall in love with". There may be some truth to that claim but we can certainly be sure about "what we are looking for". I begged them not to knowingly choose in a spouse what they were NOT looking for...holiness, heaven, communion.

St. Paul takes this conversation one step further and says that not only should we know what we're looking for "in" a spouse he warns that it may be hard to "share our hearts desire". He warns his listeners to choose carefully what they want in this world based upon how it will affect their "adherence to the Lord without distraction".

So, like last week, I guess there is more than one way to do everything...even be married. If adherence to the Lord is the goal and standard of our lives, then any other thing we voluntarily choose (yes, falling in love is voluntary) ought to be ordered to the first desire of our hearts...to cling to the Lord without distraction.

This isn't a rule Paul says, it's just smart. It just makes life ordered toward our highest goals. Think back about the most important decisions we have made in life. Did we even think to consider how they would affect our "adherence to the Lord"? Not so much.

I do now...how about you.

Jan 22 - Third Sunday Prep

-Last week's homily available by email
-This Sunday's readings available at USCCB.org
-I am preaching at the 11:00 and 12:30 Masses

More than one way to skin a cat!

St. Paul's repeated admonition to do something "as if....." tells me that it is obviously possible (if not expected) to do what we are doing from a new and different perspective. Those who are doing whatever it is, do it "as if" you were not doing it. The crux of the Christian life may very well lie in this "as if" possibility.

What I mean is that as human beings living in the real world we might not be able to completely change our reality - what it is we're doing. However, the power of Christ enables us do to it "as if" we are in Christ, because we are.

Jesus' call of the apostles in St. Mark makes this explicit but we may have missed it as just a catchy trip of a phrase. You fishermen will become fishers of men. There it is...you will be doing the same thing but for a different purpose, different intention, different meaning as if you were Jesus. Because you are.

This is important in our spiritual life, no? Those of you who are dying....do it as if you were not dying. Those of you that are grieving, do it as if you are not grieving. Those of you who are winning at this world's game of life, act as if you are not winning. Humility, joy, freedom, peace, these are all possible ways of doing the stuff of life that others do in resentment, fear, and sadness.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. Right?

Second Sunday of the year Prep. 1/15/12

-Homily from 1/8 by email
-Scriptures 1/15 at USCCB .org
-I am preaching at 5:30, 8:0 & 11:00

Destination Theology

"What are you looking for?" It really does determine what you see, what you find and where you end up. Test that aphorism against each aspect of your life. Let me know if it is true for you.

Epiphany Prep 1/8/12

-MMOG homily available by email
-Scriptures for Epiphany at USCCB.org>
-I will preside at 4:00pm and 9:30am Mass

Gotcha!

The fact of faith that the Epiphany presents is that the glory of God (read salvation) is not primarily something that we have to seek and find as much as it is someone who comes and finds you. Jesus Christ is not God who sits in heaven and waits for us...He is good shepherd who comes and seeks us in exile and lights us up turning our exile into home.

Do you see yourself in a place of exile and realize that God has come to make it a redeemed "home" for you? Gotcha!

Mother of God Prep 2012

-Christmas Homily didn't get recorded.
-scriptures for MMOG January 1 are at USCCB.org
-I am preaching at 9:30 and 12:30 Mass on Sunday

Salve Regina

This advent I started wondering about personhood and asking if we see the "personhood" of self and each individual. Personhood is the soul, the God-likeness of each one. Failing to see one as a person, like God, is to be blind to the truth and then we can think, feel, speak, and act crazy.

Failure to see personhood makes us inhuman....we wander off or we are dragged off by this blindness into exile. Jesus' birth is the healing of that blindness. Our humanity is the dwelling place of God. Even that humanity that it rough, wild, wilderness.

This feast of MMOG expresses at least twice in the readings that it is all about "looking, seeing, knowing". God looks upon us, His gracious face shines upon us, the virgin looks at her child, the shepherds look and see him, she shows him to them (and the world) and they see and rejoice.

Christmas is the loving gaze of God upon the human race that reveals the godliness of human life.

The Hail, Holy Queen Prayer summarizes these thoughts perfectly. Say this prayer slowly and think about it.

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
to thee do we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
thine eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this our exile,
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

How brilliant is our Catholic faith?!?!

Christmas 2011

-last weeks homily is available by email
-scriptures for Christmas masses available at USCCB.org
-I am preaching at 4:00 (up), 10pm and 9:30am Masses

He "tented" among us

I am using the Gospel of John at all the Masses I'm preaching. I am planning to raise the question as to whether or not we have shown up where God has come to dwell -at home in our most human living. God has come to inhabit our lives no matter where we choose to live them. The tent was a shelter that the people of God used in the desert as the wandered. God came and found them in the worst of circumstances. He not only found them but he joined them "in a tent". God is not afraid to get down and inhabit our human lives. Wherever we might be.

But we don't believe God will do it for us. Let's face it, so much of life in the world is lived on a base, material, empty level. Preachers like me can even be heard to say that we walk away from God in choosing such lives. However, God's message to us is that he has come as savior, redeemer, one born into our empty lives...and he comes to find us there, where we've walked away. He is mercy incarnate: Hesed in Hebrew.

Do you think that most people are feeling distant from God because of the complications of their lives? Do you think they would be challenged to see with faith that God has come "there" to get them? God would stoop to my level? ....oh yes He does. God behind enemy lines, stealing captives in exiles and carrying them back home!

Advent 4 Prep -12/18/2011

-Last week's homily is available by email request
-This week's Scriptures are at USCCB.org>
-I am preaching at the 5:30 and 8:00am Masses

A House: our humanity

The entire first reading centers upon the notion of house. It begins with the consideration of the physical shelter of house as in tent or temple and it moves to the consideration of "dynasty" ...house of David. This is an interesting connection to the Christmas mystery we are preparing to celebrate.

John's gospel uses the term "pitched his tent among us" which we translate as "dwelt". Mary is often considered the tabernacle or arc of the covenant, the container or house of Jesus' incarnation. While Jesus is known to us in the Eucharist as "bread of life" he is said to have been born in Bethlehem, which means literally "house of bread". And of course he was "laid in a manger (feeding trough) because there was no room for them at the inn." Jesus in John's Gospel promises that the Holy Spirit will make a dwelling place for the Father and the Son "with you".

Mary conceives of Jesus in her womb as a member of the household of David and she does so as a member of the household of God, the human creatures made in God's likeness.. She stands at that moment with her "fiat" as the gatekeeper on the household of humanity, God's house...human life!

God does not simply "enter the world" for a temporary journey through the pure womb of the Virgin Mary, God re-unites Divinity with humanity once again my and establishes my humanity as His household, a dwelling place secure. Or is it?

I am thinking that, from the beginning we have wandered away from that humanity and from God. We're not very good at sticking close to home(cfr: Adam and Eve). In our "material self-fullment" misunderstanding of what it means to be human, we are far from home. That's where God is -Emmanuel.

How human are you? How human is your family life? How human is your work life? How human is your experience of healthcare, for example? The economy? The church? How inhuman? How ungodly!

To find Jesus this Christmas...maybe we need to get back home....living our human lives. That's where HE is, Emmanuel!

Advent 3 Prep 12/11/11

-Last week's homily is available by email
-The Scriptures for this week are available at USCCB.org
-I am preaching at 4:00, 9:30am at St. Albert and 12:15 at the cathedral

You have to be Free to have Joy

Our hearts must be free in order to rejoice.  The biblical witness of the prophet Isaiah is that of returning exiles. The effect of the prophecy is liberation. One cannot truly rejoice when he or she is captive. This is true of our Christian hearts and spirituality as well. Joy requires freedom from selfish pursuits.

We must be liberated from self in order to cling to God and God's will.  There is no true happiness outside of God's will.  In our world and culture this is strange proposal indeed. Those who rejoice in the Lord are exiles in the foreign land of our self-satisfying cultures.

To what is your heart enslaved that is stifling your joy? Does your joy make you feel like you are a prisoner in a foreign land? Wadayathink?

Advent 2 Prep - 12/4/11

-Last weeks homily is available by e-mail
-The Scriptures for this Sunday are available at USCCB.org
-I am preaching at the 9:30 AM and the 12:30 PM mass


Here is your God!

I am most inspired by the line in the first reading from today that tells us that "here is your God". I am a realized eschatologist. What that means is that I am convinced of the real, ALREADY presence of God in our lives; the kingdom of God. Already, but not yet.

I was discussing the word Advent with the eighth-graders this past week it is best defined as "arriving or appearing". Because we see advent as a preparation season, we have a tendency to interpret those words as future tense. What our scriptures and church tell us is that this appearance of Jesus, Emmanuel, is in history, mystery, and in majesty (past, present, and future).

So, are we distracted by the Lord's future coming or past appearing from seeing his mysterious appearance now? It takes faith.

What do you say?

. 

Advent I Prep - November 27

-The homily of last week is available by email
-The Scriptures are available at USCCB.org>
-I am preaching at 5:30 and 8:00 Mass

The Good as Enemy of the Perfect

I know that the saying is usually stated "the perfect should not become the enemy of the good". However, I sense that the scriptures and the new church year in advent are inviting us to see it the opposite way. Yes, indeed it seems that even for us religious people that rather than the the good leading us into communion with the perfect love of God, the good stuff from God can cause us to wander away from Him. .

The first reading wonders "why do you permit us to wander from your ways, O God?". Well, the freedom to wander away is precisely the godlikeness of our human nature. God made us like Himself and that means we are completely free....like Him. Free to love. God's hope was that we would use that freedom to love Him as He loves us. But, noooooooo. We go and fall for every good but lesser thing that falls in our path. Even the religious stuff can be chosen by us and loved in a way that does NOT lead us to God but leads us away...hardened hearts..

The parable of the final judgment reinforces the point that even the good stuff that the master gives us to be "busy about" can draw us into hard heartedness. So...do you see it? Marriage, ministry, children, material possessions, studies, creative work, athletics, beauty, joy in life.....all of it can - if handled poorly - can draw us away from the Kingdom of God and into the dead center of self. That would put us to sleep...not awake.