November 4 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend on Sat. 4:00, Sunday 9:30 and 11:00

Nailing Jello to the Wall!

I am convinced that keeping the love of God and the love of neighbor together and integrated into one Christian life is as difficult and as challenging as trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. It is as if the wounded or broken human condition (read: Original Sin) is, of it's nature, inclined to one or the other of these virtues...but not both at once.

In fact, the competition between love of God and love of neighbor may very well be the specific manifestation of original sin. I am, of course, talking about the popular or customary understanding of what "love of God" looks like (read: devout, holy, pious!) And, of course, "love of neighbor" in our popular understanding is to never offend anyone else, tolerance, if you well.

Pope Benedict, in his first encyclical as pope, "God is love" tried to bring this point to bear. He said there that there is no such thing as love of neighbor that is not true (in the line with The love of God). Conversely there is no love of God, truth, that is exclusive of the love of neighbor. The Pope had to make this point because of my suggestion above that in the world today one cannot cling to the truth revealed by God and "appear" to be "loving" according to the standards of this world (read: tolerant).

Therefore, many of us are challenged today to be faithful to the love of God or the truth about God (who is love) and at the same time deal with the perceptions and the feelings of others who do not find the truth revealed by God to be loving.

I believe in popular culture we call this today "tough love". To know the truth and to do it in love in spite of the pain that it might cause us and those we are loving. I don't think there's any way around it. And it seems that all of us, who are planning on being faithful to the Gospel, have to go through it. It is as challenging as trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.

In a world whose greatest value is tolerance, how can we cling to the love of God (who is truth revealed) and avoid this pain in our emotional lives? Can't be done-check with Jesus on the cross. For me and my household, we will obey the Lord!

Homily Prep Oct 28

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at Sat 5:30 and Sunday 8:00am and 6:00pm

Faith is all about the approach!

In order to connect with my thoughts about the homily this week it's necessary to recall the gospel story from last Sunday. If you recall the Sons of Zebedee asked the Lord to "do for us what we ask of you". Contrast this approach to the blind man in this week's gospel who is asked by Jesus "what do you want me to do for you?"

Wow. These two stories right next to each other in the scriptures and in our liturgy beg for comparison. They instruct us in the process of faith and discipleship.
1. You must recognize Jesus as Lord and Messiah - both did that
2. You must be convinced that being close to Jesus can make a difference in your life - got that!
3. You must desire what Jesus desires not what you desire for yourself. Oops.

An act of faith by one who presumes to be a disciple of Jesus of necessity requires that you desire that Jesus do something in you that will further HIS life NOT that Jesus do something to guarantee the build up of your self/ego or esteem. Secondly, faithful discipleship obviously demands that you strive to see things the way Jesus sees rather than that you get Jesus to see things YOUR way. Duh.

I know it's obvious but obviously from the time of Jesus and even among his closest followers we've not been getting this. Maybe even today Christians think that faith is a process of trying to get God to see things our way (prayer, petiton, devotion, storming heaven)rather than growing into the gradual and graceful way of seeing our lives the way God sees them. Hmmmmm.

Unless and until we have our hearts turned by faith so that we begin to see Him and His way as the answer to life's question - we are going to remain blind and worse arrogantly imposing our short-sightedness upon God and of course following our own best ideas rather than Him.

Faith...seeing myself as he sees me. hmmmmm!

October 21 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Sat and 11:00 Sunday

Faith - access code

It seems that this year of faith, this political season, and the Scriptures are presenting me with the invitation to an essential connection with God for the transformation of my life and the world. That connection is accessed by faith first, faith essentially, faith alone.

It is by faith uniquely that we gain access to communion with God, God's great mercy, the throne of grace, the truth. It is only by faith and in authentic communion that one can be transformed from death to life, from isolated, nominal, Catholic to responsible conscientious voter, from simply observant Catholic to fully alive member of the body of Christ, the church.

Maybe I am starting to sound like Martin Luther with this faith alone stuff (you know the Protestant affection for the five alones), however, I think that this fundamental act of believing it is the inescapable foundational principle of our living life to the fullest in Christ. If you don't have faith - you cannot have a full human life.

Therefore, the question remains, "do you believe?". Yes, Lord, I believe, increase my faith!

October 14 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >>>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00 and 12:30 Sunday

Pusillanimous!

Small souled! That's what pusillanimous means. To be of a small soul. Magnanimous means to be of large soul. The condition of the rich young man is a oxymoron. He is large in this world's standard of success, But small in his capacity of soul.

We are beginning the year of faith, can we be enlarged in our soul? Jesus was clearly trying to grow the soul, increase the faith, stretch this good, young man.... of small soul.

Can we see the smallness of our soul? Are we interested in re-igniting our faith? I'm not sure we need it? I'm not sure we want it? I'm not sure we're capable of allowing it.

Wow.

Oct 7 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Saturday

Are You Disappointed in Love? Of Course!

The troubling and heartbreaking mystery buried in the text of this Sunday's respect life scriptures is that God has planted deep within us an unquenchable thirst for communion. In our broken human condition, there is no quenching that thirst. We are called to "settle".

The problem in the blindness of our broken human condition is that we have never accepted the inability of human fulfillment of love on this side of heaven. Therefore we romantically seek and don't find satisfaction in the relationships of this world. Whether it is in marriage, in the family, in the church! We go seeking that which is not promised to us. Only God can fulfill the hunger he has placed with us for communion.

Too many of us in the world spend our entire lives disappointed in the lack of fulfillment in love. We never accept in faith the limitation of our human condition and the fulfillment of our desires in God alone.

This is a tremendous waste of time, effort, and energy. Let us take a new look at the hunger of our hearts and accept the limited satisfaction that our human loving can accomplish and turn our desire to God alone.

Make sense? We don't have to be happy about it!

Someone Asked for this Quote

In the homily on Faithful Citizenship September 30th I read....

"Yes, America, all this belongs to you. But your greatest beauty and your richest blessing is found in the human person: in each man, woman and child, in every immigrant, in every native-born son and daughter.
For this reason, America, your deepest identity and truest character as a nation is revealed in the position you take towards the human person. The ultimate test of your greatness in the way you treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless ones.
The best traditions of your land presume respect for those who cannot defend themselves. If you want equal justice for all, and true freedom and lasting peace, then, America, defend life! All the great causes that are yours today will have meaning only to the extent that you guarantee the right to life and protect the human person:
– feeding the poor and welcoming refugees;
– reinforcing the social fabric of this nation;
– promoting the true advancement of women;
– securing the rights of minorities;
– pursuing disarmament, while guaranteeing legitimate defence; all this will succeed only if respect for life and its protection by the law is granted to every human being from conception until natural death.
Every human person – no matter how vulnerable or helpless, no matter how young or how old, no matter how healthy, handicapped or sick, no matter how useful or productive for society – is a being of inestimable worth created in the image and likeness of God.
This is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition for her survival – yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weakest and most defenceless ones, those as yet unborn.
With these sentiments of love and hope for America, I now say goodbye in words that I spoke once before: "Today, therefore, my final prayer is this: that God will bless America, so that she may increasingly become - and truly be - and long remain one Nation, under God, indivisible. With liberty and justice for all."
May God bless you all.
God bless America!”

–Blessed Pope John Paul II
Farewell Ceremony from the United States
Detroit Metro Airport
19 September 1987

Prophetic Citizenship!

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 on Sat and 8:00 on Sunday

Be not just "faithful, but Prophetic!

The Scriptures for this 26th Sunday in ordinary time as well as the context of the political season brings the question of "what is God doing in our midst and who is accomplishing God's will in our presence".

The role of the prophet is not to "announce the future" but rather to "reveal God present" - literally, to "speak for or on behalf of" God. The question presented in both the first reading and the Gospel text today is the issue of "who" is presenting God's truth or wisdom. Both Moses and Jesus teach and instruct us that the "who" is not the important question. The "what" is of the essence.

Therefore, in our Catholic life we might stop looking for a prophet and begin to search for the "prophetic" within the church. That would demand that we stop considering the person and start considering the message, the truth, the movement of the Spirit of God in our midst.

Our Catholic teaching and ecclesiology does not contribute to this understanding of prophecy. We, like the followers of Moses, are convinced and taught that certain persons, office holders, consecrated people speak on behalf of God. The office of Pope, for example, has swirled for centuries about infallibility: when the pope speaks. Our notions of obedience are referred always to the office holder or the authority figure who speaks on behalf of God.

We have not been trained or instructed to expect the prophetic action of God to come through just the ordinary believer. In spite of the instruction of Jesus and Moses, we give too much credence to person rather than prophecy.

If the truth be told, even the Holy Father or pastor or superior or head of the household must not be obeyed if what they say is not in conformity to the truth of God. That demands discernment by the people of God. Do we have such discernment?

If, in fact, we have all been anointed like Jesus as priest, prophet, and King at our baptism can we not and should we not expect the prophetic action of God to be at work in each of us and in and through all of us as a communal manifestation of the Body of Christ in the world? Should not the Catholic Church as a body be prophetic for the rest of the world-revealing the truth, speaking on behalf of God?

When we hear the call of our church leaders to be engaged in the democratic process of this year's election, we should hear the invitation to be prophetic. Rather than "faithful citizenship" I am hearing the call for "prophetic citizenship"! What I mean is that for a Catholic to discern and hear and know the truth and then to cast a ballot based upon that truth is to be a Catholic prophet to the nation. A vote is the most effective voice that an American citizen has in our democratic society. To vote as a Catholic Christian based upon the principles and values taught by the Church, the call to justice, especially the defense of life, the truth of the gospel, is to speak on behalf of God, which is the definition of prophetic.

Can and will you be a prophet for God, a prophet for the truth, a prophet for life, a prophet for justice, a prophet for freedom, a prophet to the nations? Vote as a believing, living Catholic - that is prophetic. Would that all God's people would be prophets!

September 23 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Sat, and 8:00 and 12:30 on Sunday

Tea Leaves

Folks I don't think we are reading the tea leaves correctly. At least not the way Jesus recommends. I am struck by the comment from Jesus in last weeks gospel "you are thinking not like God does but like human beings do".

What I am referring to is this business of "assessing success or greatness". My experience tells me (and my own temptation and proclivities suggest to me) that we are reading and estimating greatness, quality, success, etc. according to or through the lens of this world's values. The driving motivation of most everyone in the church and outside of the church Is to avoid losing, being last, failing, serving and to succeed in this world, to win at the game of life in this world.

My question is "has our Christian conversion made an impact upon our judgment?". Maybe you will agree with me, even the religious and pious people have a temptation to conclude or judge that when they are losing in the world that God has abandoned them.

What this tells me is that we have not adopted or been impacted by Jesus's "inside out" revolution on humanity's journey in the world and in the kingdom. Jesus says "if you want to be great you must be the least, last, servant of the rest". That sounds fine and well until it starts to happen to us. When we start to lose, when we fall down, when we are persecuted, when we are frustrated, when it looks like we have been defeated, we turn to God and pray that He would turn it around for us. That doesn't seem to me to be Jesus's message.

What God is calling us to, what God-thinking is all about is that we are assuredly going to lose in this world, we are definitely going to die, we are going likely to be downtrodden, persecuted, and disparaged. When those things happen to us we should rejoice for the kingdom of God is at hand. I don't think we're getting it. We are not reading the tea leaves correctly.

Maybe we have been confused by the notion that if we VOLUNTARILY become the last, if we choose to lose or serve or die THEN we can see it as a path to greatness in God's eyes. This is kind of like the Mother Teresa mentality of being holy and religious "if I elect to give up on success" then my failure is a sign of closeness of God to me. But when losing, littleness, last-ness, death, servitude, etc. is imposed upon us BY life and BY others THEN we don't get it. We don't read those tea leaves so clearly as the fact that we are great.

Is it possible that this success-in-the-world routine and standard of success is the reason that the Gospel has been so unsuccessful in changing the world? Maybe?

September 16 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 11:00am

Working: definition 5 : being in use or operation

The type of faith that St James is describing and Jesus is witnessing to is "faith that works". What I mean is that the effect of faith on one's real life is a "faith that works" - it is accomplishing the effect in life that it is intended to do.

When Jesus asked his disciples who people say that he is, he is asking if in fact his faith is effective, is it working? He also explains the need to allow faith to work in your life which is manifest by the cross. If the faith that Jesus has come to give us is working in our lives then we will pick up our cross and follow him. Losing our life is the symptom of faith at work in our lives.

Like a fever, laying down your life, detachment from life in this world, a lack of reliance upon success in this life - this is the symptom of a lively or living faith-as St. James would call it.

So, do you have works of faith in your life? Are there observable symptoms of a living faith in your life? Is the dying and rising of Jesus evident in your daily life? This is faith.

September 9 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00, (Sat), 8:00 and 6:00pm

Wince:
-to make pained expression: 
to make an expression of pain with the face because of seeing or thinking of something unpleasant or embarrassing
-to move body back slightly: 
to make an involuntary movement away from something because of pain or fear
-an expression of pain: a facial expression of pain or fear.

It seems typical for our broken human condition to squeeze our eyes firmly tight claiming that God is absent - rather than open up our eyes in faith and see the God who is with us.

Life hurts and can be startling. It makes us wince. Wincing is a reflexive squeezing of the face and eyes In the response to some threatening event. Did you ever wince in fear of something you perceived was coming after you or at you but then you realized there was nothing really there? Like being the passenger in a car of a driver who is reckless, we can live life jerking at every turn with our foot pressing against an imaginary brake pedal.

Pretty "uptight". I think that's the way we walk through life...eyes closed in a wince against the threatening appearances of the world. In that posture or disfigurement we cannot see what is because of the fear of what we see.

Today we hear that for people of faith, there is no need to walk so fearful and contracted. In fact, such contracted, uptight, posture is precisely the thing that blinds us from seeing the answer to our fears - the God who has come to save us.

Can you ease your heart, mind, your body and your eyes by faith? If so you will join me in seeing the God who has promised to be with us always. It is not that God is absent, it is our self-defensive misconceptions that blind us to the God who saves us in every moment. Emmanuel.

September 2 Pomily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at Sunday 11:00am

Litmus test!

We live in the era of empiricism and scientific method. We are all familiar with the analysis that can be done on anything: a liquid solution, the particulate matter in the air, the radioactivity in an object or area, the sugar in one's blood, the lumens of light in a room. Such analysis has called our attention to the invisible yet ascertainable quality of things.

St. James seems to have applied such discernment or empiricism to the quality of our faith and the efficaciousness of the Word of God. People of faith can discern, judge, or ascertain the efficaciousness of the word of God by examining the morality, righteousness, justice, goodness of one's works.

Some have suggested that this attitude of St. James is a corrective to the disengagement or dismissive attitude of St. Paul to the law and his emphasis on the freedom of the Spirit.

This has certainly, from the Reformation onward, been a great debate among religious people: the connection of faith to righteousness, morality, ethics, community, good works. Can we do an analysis of our faith and detect in it justice, righteousness, ethical behavior, compassion, peace?

Can our Christian lives be tested, "testify" to the effective work of the Word of God in our lives.? Is the litmus test of the Word in our lives a life of justice and compassion?

August 26 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30am and 6:00pm

No Reservations!

I believe the actors in the movie entitled "No Reservations" were Sandra Bullock and child-star Abigail Breslin . It was a rather tender story about the call to love-to self-Sacrificing love. This call to love was manifested in the movie by the "requirement of love" which is to lose everything for its sake and to gain everything by it's Grace. the reservations in the movie had to do with a meal. Interesting.

Our fifth and final homily in this series on the "bread of life discourse" presents us with that precise invitation, opportunity, and challenge. Jesus says to his listeners, his disciples, who murmur against him out loud and have silent reservation in their hearts "will you leave me too?". The entire homily that Jesus has been sharing in dialogue with his followers has been about the new and powerful life available through intimacy with Jesus IN his body from the living Father. When it has become difficult to understand they find it threatening to their sense of self and they leave him.

They are very interested in the miracles that Jesus works, they are very interested in the truth about the Father that Jesus proposes, they are very desirous of this bread for which they will no longer hunger, but they have serious reservations about a life of intimacy with God lived in Jesus' body. They protest. They like all the self-benefiting ideas about Jesus, the miracle worker and the man of faith. But they have serious reservations about his offer of communion.

The faith of the Catholic church, the power of Jesus' Eucharistic presence in the bread of life, our lives of faith in the church are complicated by these same reservations. The incarnate, fleshy, actual, real life complications of belonging to the body of Christ, the church, is actually the only problem or reservation that we as Christians have. Everybody loves Jesus, everybody is inspired by the word of God in the Bible, everybody is looking forward to living forever with God in heaven. It's the church, the vessel, the Body of Christ in which we are called to live our daily lives of faith that gives us pause-reservations. We find it "hard" and we are tempted to walk away. Even if we don't externally walk away, we dwell in and among the church believing, belonging, participating as if we are not IN communion with the body. We are "reserved".

St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians (that has been accompanying the bread of life discourse throughout these five weeks) comes to a culmination today in the image of life with God as a marriage. The embodied communion of two lives, no longer two but one flesh, is held up for us as a goal for our life of faith. The minister asks the engaged couple "have you come here freely, without reservation, to give yourselves to each other in holy matrimony?" No reservations.

That is the level of communion that the faith requires of us as Catholics. Communion is not simply intimacy with Jesus in the sacred host. It is a life of faith lived IN communion with the body of Christ, IN the church. It is a shared life with relative strangers. It is not a cozy fellowship of friends-it is rather a communion of faith-filled members! It is a process of clinging to one another under the conviction that our communion in faith reveals and possesses the grace necessary for salvation. That doesn't always feel like friendship-it is more like marriage or family for sure.

This is a hard teaching, we are tempted to "walk away". It does not always feel like a friendly relationship with Jesus. Will we protest against the embodiment of Christ in the church, the Catholic Church, the imperfect church called to holiness? We are tempted to walk away from what feels threatening to good-feeling self preservation. We are called to have "no reservation"! Are you in?

Bread of Life - August 19 Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-YThis Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30, 8:00am, and 11:00am.

Thriller and Sr. Helen Prejean!

Do you remember that first full-length TV music video entitled thriller? It was Michael Jackson's title song from his album in which a bunch of zombies, the living or walking dead, come to life and dance to Michael's music. I am recalling it because the bread of life discourse brings us to the question of, although we are walking (or even dancing) around, "are we really alive?" Our ancestors, Jesus says, "ate the bread from heaven but died nonetheless". We are offered and have eaten the living bread from heaven-but have we come to life?

Are we truly alive in Christ Jesus? This question of life in Christ, living, is the challenge of this fourth homily in a series on the bread of life. Is it not possible that we who have been baptized and have fed upon the living bread come down from heaven are nonetheless not alive? It is deceiving, because we seem to be alive as the Jews in the desert - we are surviving. To what extent is what we call our daily life surviving or truly living? How much of my daily existence is alive?

Is it not true that through sin death entered the world? Our ancestors were cast out of the garden, experiencing death, but they were still living in the world. They were challenged to work by the sweat of their brow and the labor of their childbirth. This death that entered the world was not human dying, meaning the cessation of respiration only, this death was separation from God and life lived for self. Dead men walking!

The life that Jesus offers us in himself is communion with the living father and a life that is given away(even when our hearts stop beating). We become "life livers" inasmuch as we are "life givers". So that is the litmus test - I am alive in as much as I am giving life to others. Living for self is a zombie experience, the walking dead.

Are you alive? Are you giving life? Have you eaten of the living bread? Are you a walking dead man? "It is no longer I who live, but Christ living within me!"

Bread from Heaven - August 12 Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 12:30 Mass

Hungry?

As we continue this series of homilies regarding the bread of life discourse, the third theme that we have identified is "bread from heaven". The first theme( the gathering assembly) and the second ( table fellowship) bring us to a fascinating aspect of St. John's Gospel: the double entendre. St. John's Gospel in its entirety and then in particular scenes and sections is using the language and imagery of one reality or level while it can be interpreted and should be completely on a second (a court trial vs. revelation of salvation; this world vs. the kingdom; light and darkness; sight and blindness; you will live vs. they are dead)

In the bread of life discourse we hear this type of speech and interpretation used by Jesus. Especially around the notion of hunger and feeding. In today's theme of the bread from heaven Jesus is using imagery and reality from the Hebrew Scriptures. As the Jews ate manna in the desert, bread come down from heaven, they died. His followers have pursued him not because of the sign that he worked but because they have had their fill of the bread-the loaves. That means that it is entirely possible to be eating the bread from heaven, who is Jesus, and to eat in the wrong way-Thus, to die

For what are we hungry when we come to table fellowship with Jesus? If in fact we understand the Eucharist to be miraculous bread from God only, we may be hungering and desiring it for an incomplete reason. Hungering for miraculous grace from God might be a very self centered religious activity. as usual, with us human beings, it is all about "me".

Following the themes of this series we would be encouraged to see, rather, that we the Body of Christ ourselves head and members gather and constitute the "whole Christ" coming to offer praise and sacrifice to the Father in the power of the Spirit. In that sacramental meal we find and receive communion with God's life and love and we are deepened in our communion with eternity..

In this case then the bread from heaven, is not something we hunger for in order to remedy our personal, worldly concerns. Rather, the bread from heaven is that graceful pathway to knowing ourselves in God AS the Body of Christ and remaining IN God as we journey in the world. We do not hunger for and consume the bread from heaven in order to have a successful, pain-free, problem free life in the world. Rather we come to celebrate and eat the bread from heaven so that we might know and cling to the hand of God which is extended to us in Jesus Christ now and unto eternity - a path to communion with God's saving love

So, for what are we hungering? Relief in our troubles, to fill our bellies with God's miraculous antidote? Or are we hungering for heaven itself and recognize such "communion" in the bread we eat who is Jesus Christ?

Do you come to church hungry at all? Have you ever come to church expecting and demanding to be fed for the wrong hungering?

Sharing a Meal

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at Sat 4:00, Sun 11am, and 6pm(during the picnic

Sharing, a Meal!

There really is supposed to be a comma in the title of this blog entry. By inserting the comma after "sharing" we can see that the notion of meal defines or conditions or interprets the act of sharing. We are invited and challenged as the disciples of Jesus to recognize that the importance of a meal is not so much the content or "what" is being shared, in this case bread, and much more that "sharing" itself is the mode of our salvation.

In these five Sunday sermons on Saint John's bread of life discourse we at St. Albert are reflecting on various aspects of the holy Eucharist. Last week we began with the "gathering or gathered assembly" and reflected upon the real presence of Jesus in the assembly and members of the Body of Christ. This weeks theme or subject is "table fellowship". As with the real presence of Jesus in the assembly/Body of Christ gathered, the context of the Eucharistic celebration as "table fellowship" is not our customary understanding or our first interpretation.

Most Catholics of a pre--Vatican II formation, are focused on the context of the Eucharistic liturgy as sacrifice: the sacrifice of the mass. Since the second Vatican Council, however, we have been encouraged to recognize the equally valid context of the celebration of the mass as a meal, table fellowship. The connection to Passover and the last supper, both of which are ritual meals, is the source of this expanded understanding. The fact that Jesus's sacrifice on the cross is communicated to the church as bread "blessed, broken and shared"(a meal) is a fuller understanding of what it means to live a self sacrificing life.

So, like the Jews in the Gospel text, Catholics today can be more focused on the bread that we eat-having our fill of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and fail to recognize that it is the self sacrificing sharing of God's life that the Eucharist makes really present- its a meal. Another word for fellowship is participation, sharing, "agape" -the love of God.

Can we benefit from expanding our understanding of the mass to include table fellowship or the self sacrificing sharing that Jesus communicates to the church in the form of bread and wine? He is the lamb who was slain on the altar of the cross for our salvation and our sins forgiven by the outpouring of his blood. The sacrifice of the mass. However, Jesus chose to make that sacrifice perpetually present to and in the church, his body, by a meal shared in the company of his disciples the Body of Christ - the gathered assembly.

Are we at church, then, with the obligation to witness an unbloodied sacrifice and to receive the miraculous bread from heaven only? Or are we called to be the Church, the Body of Christ present and sharing the self-sacrificing meal of love which is God himself? It has to be both!

Present! Homily prep for July 29

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 12:30 only

The "bread of life discourse"

We begin a five week series of gospel texts from St. John called the "bread of life discourse". It is a multiplication miracle story with a theological explanation by Jesus in the form of a discussion if you will. The priests of St. Albert have decided to collectively approach these five weeks with an agreed-upon focus.

Underneath the five weeks of homilies is the liturgical and sacramental truth of the four presences of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic liturgy. The gathered community, the priest-presider, the Word proclaimed, and the consecrated Eucharistic species are the four presences of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic liturgy. This first week in the series will focus on the gathered assembly.

How do we gather? I am trusting that a majority of Catholics are convinced that they, sinful and unworthy, are required to come to a Catholic church in which a validly ordained priest will say the mass validly and they will fulfill their obligation and avoid sin by showing up. They will principally participate in that mass by being present for at least the Gospel, offertory, and consecration. If properly disposed, they will encounter the only real presence of Jesus within that event by receiving the consecrated Eucharist- take Communion.

How, rather, do we as the individually baptized members of the church constitute the very Body of Christ, head and members, in our assembling for the Eucharistic liturgy? Other than touch the water in the mini-fonts at the doors of the church, do we recognize and offer reverence to the body of Christ in and among the members of the assembled community? I didn't think so.

Reconstruction Architects!

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00, 8:00, 9:30 and 12:30

Demolition or Reconstruction?

I think i might like being a Reconstruction Architects. I don't think I have the creativity to be an architect (design something from scratch), but I do think I have an interest and knack for analyzing what exists and proposing a more workable renovation. I see the salvation won for us in Christ Jesus as not a "new creation" so much as a re-creation - a reconstruction job putting things right.

What is this effect of Christ's Salvation? I am considering Paul's Letter to the Ephesians. The "blood of Christ" and the work of Christ "in his flesh" have accomplished some big reconstruction. That "new person" or "one person" from the two was created out of the demolition of the dividing wall between us and God and us and our neighbor. Whoa!

This makes salvation fundamentally reconciliation, that is, the taking of something broken and dysfunctional and healing it by a reunion. Did you realize that you were far off? Do you experience salvation as a "being put back together"? To what extent is EVERY Eucharist a re-connecting with this reconstruction process?

Let me know

Intimacy With Jesus - Homily Prep July 1

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 11:00am and 6:00pm

Touching

Through the literary technique of "framing", the author of Mark's Gospel points out to us the importance of "contact with Jesus" to the life of faith. The touch of Jesus, "if only I could touch the hem of his garment". He takes the little girl by the hand - touching.

I am certain that this feature of physical contact with Jesus is the most important lack of faith in the world today. It is the crisis of the impetus of the call for the "new evangelization". What I mean is the lack of desire by the human family to touch Jesus and be touched by him.

The incarnate physical embodied presence of Christ in the church, as Christ instituted it, is the feature of religion most challenged in the world today. The scandals of the church and the over-intellectualization of faith since the Reformation have eroded humanity's ability to find and to seek contact with Jesus in and through the place/person of the church.

In fact, the biblical disciples in conversation with Jesus about the bread of life, found his embodiment to be scandalous, meaning that they "walked away". Likewise, the scandal of the cross is an expression that refers to the in ability of the disciples and of course the Jews to endure the physical embodiment of God in Jesus. They walked away wagging their heads claiming "and this one claimed to be the son of God".

Almost everyone in the world and, I believe, most Catholics do not believe that the church, the institutional, human, embodied, social, divine sacramental body of Christ in the world is a necessary feature of their salvation. Actually, the majority of the people in the world see the church as an obstacle, a pain, difficult, boring, annoying.

In that lies the source of a lack of faith. God is so unable to be effective in the world because of a lack of confidence in and contact with the body of Jesus-the church. Do you feel and experience this lack of intimacy with the body of Jesus-the church? Can our eyes be opened and our hearts opened so that Jesus might touch us again today in and through the imperfect Church? Can we as the limited and imperfect church, his body, re-present ourselves to the world convincingly that they might simply long "to touch the hem of our garments"? It is there that the world will be healed and brought to life!

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00, 9:30, and 12:30

I Am Not He

Remember the television show "what's my line"? A person would present themselves with some sketchy details and a panel of experts would ask questions to determine what it was that this person did. Who is this person? What is his or her "line" of work?

What we do and who we are, role and identity, are at the heart of our human journey and thus our Christian journey. Carl Jung is quoted to have said "a man spends the first 30 years of his life finding out who he is, and the next 30 years finding out who he really is." Our recent high school and college graduates, no doubt, have been confronted this summer repeatedly with the question "so, what are you going to do?" This is the fundamental question of our lives not only who are you but what are you going to do?.

John the Baptist, whose birthday we celebrate on this Sunday, is a man whose life is a solemn celebration of identity and mission: a call. John is icon of identity and mission in God! Knowing who we are and what we are called to do is important and essential to our salvation. Who is God? What is God's mission in the world? Who are we in relationship to the truth of who God is? What role we will play in God's work of salvation!? Those are the basic religious questions we must ask and be asked.

If we have misread the "clues" (read here scripture and tradition, self-knowledge and God-knowledge) then we will misunderstand who we are. If we misunderstand who we are we will not take our proper role in the mission of the kingdom. Look around. It is apparent that we as a people, a culture, a church and as individuals are very unclear about who God is, who we are in God, what God is doing in the world, and how we share in that reality. As the prophetic (read: John the Baptist) mission of the church (read: new evangelization) is less and less effective in reaching the human family so the chance for identity and mission in Christ is threatened. God is frustrated!

Who are you and what are you going to do? Who is God for you and who are you in God? What's your line?! What, in the world, are you going to do?

June 17 Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >
-I will be speaking at all the masses this weekend regarding the Rooted in Faith campaign.