Homily for 3d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
3d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Jan. 27, 2019

Luke 1: 1-4; 4: 14-21
Nativity, D.C.
Our Lady of Lourdes, Bethesda, Md.                      

I’m tardy posting this homily that was delivered twice last weekend—from a handwritten text that I was able to type out only on Wednesday.  We moved from Silver Spring to College Park on Saturday, and matters therefore were rather chaotic, on top of which I had to make a 2-day trip to New Rochelle on Monday and Tuesday.  So, at last, here’s last weekend’s homily.

“That you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received, most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1: 4).

St. Luke (Rogier Van Der Weyden)

In the 1st lines of his gospel, St. Luke tells us what he intends to do, and how.  He addresses his account of Jesus’ life, teachings, passion, and resurrection—and his 2d book, the Acts of the Apostles—to someone named Theophilus.  We don’t know whether this is a single, real person, or Luke is using a literary device to speak to everyone who will read his book.  For the name Theophilus means “Lover of God.”  Therefore, brothers and sisters, if you love God, St. Luke is writing for you.  When we proclaim his gospel, he’s speaking to you.  And to me too, of course.

What’s his announced purpose?  “That you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.”  What you’ve heard about Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the crucified Christ, Jesus the risen Savior, what “you have received,” i.e., not just heard but taken in and made your own—these teachings are certain.

Luke was a companion of St. Paul on some of his missionary journeys and learned the Good News of Jesus from him.  But he says he also consulted “eyewitnesses” of all that Jesus said and did “from the beginning” (1:1-2).  Tradition holds that Luke was a physician, based on what St. Paul wrote in Colossians 4:14.  Thus he should have had a scientific mind, one that questions and investigates evidence, not just of a medical variety but also of other matters like the truth of what Paul preached, of what we as Christians believe.

“The teachings” we have received thru Luke’s gospel, and the other sacred writings of our Scriptures, and the Tradition of Christ’s Church, come down to this:  Jesus Christ suffered death and rose from the tomb that we, following him, might be restored to the grace of a relationship with his Father (which means our sins are forgiven) and enjoy that relationship forever in eternal life.

Luke presents us today with the start of Jesus’ teaching.  He says 1st that Jesus preached in synagogs all over Galilee, his native country.  And then he came to his home town, Nazareth.  We don’t know from Luke’s account whether Jesus asked specifically for the Isaiah scroll that he read from, or whether it was some sort of assigned reading for the day, as we have in our lectionary.  In any case, Jesus selected the particular passage to read, and so announced his program, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  (Luke has already reported on Jesus’ baptism and the Spirit’s coming upon him, spiritually anointing him with wisdom and power.  When today’s passage says, “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit” [4:14], he’s coming from his baptism and his temptations in the desert.)

So now Jesus quotes from Isaiah about his Spirit-led mission of liberation, light, glad tidings, and acceptance by God.

The ultimate oppression of humanity is sin.  We witness it in the headlines every day, and all too often we experience it in our personal lives.  We are poor, not materially but spiritually.  Jesus says he’s come “to bring glad tidings to the poor” (4:18), and that means us.  Christ comes to enrich us by freeing us from our sins, empowering us to go free (ibid.) in lives of virtue, and ultimately to be freed from the darkness of death.

You, lovers of God, “may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received,” because they flow from Jesus Christ, who conquered death—as “eyewitnesses from the beginning” testified, and countless saints have borne witness by their own lives and their own experiences of the living Jesus for 2 millennia.

Your participation in this Eucharistic celebration, your participation in the sacrament of the Lord’s body and blood, is your response to that testimony, that teaching; and a sign of your yearning for the liberation Jesus offers, for his eternal life; and a sign of your commitment to be a witness of Jesus in your own life.

Homily for 2d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Ordinary Time

January 19, 1986

John 2: 1-12

Assumption, San Leandro, Calif.

Our community's opportunities to celebrate and preach at a parish (or convent) Mass have been pretty sparse lately. So, once again, I post an almost ancient homily.  We're hoping there may be more openings when we move at the end of this week to our new residence in College Park and will be closer to other parishes.

“There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there” (John 2: 1).

The Wedding at Cana (Gerard David, ca. 1500)

Here’s a beautiful gospel, one with many facets to it.  We’ll look at just two:  the wedding and the mother of Jesus.

The Church has traditionally seen this gospel as part of the Epiphany cycle:  Jesus manifests himself to his disciples and begins his public ministry.  Let’s consider a slightly different manifestation this morning, completing our Christmas cycle, as it were.

You’ve all been to weddings—and I hope you’ve never run out of wine or other spiritual liquids.  Mary and Jesus are celebrating a wedding, probably a relative’s.  When we remember that Palestinian weddings frequently lasted a week, we can appreciate not only what a festival it was but how much wine they all must have drunk before it ran out.  Isn’t it wonderful that the incarnate Son of God, the Word made flesh, is there!  A wedding is such a beautiful, ordinary but marvelous part of human life—and Jesus is there with his mother.  Anything that’s fundamentally human like marriage is noble, and Jesus graces it with his presence.  Not only that, but I imagine he and his rough fisherman and farmer friends had a good time—probably did their share to help the wine disappear!

It’s yet more significant that Jesus does his 1st sign or miracle at a wedding, 1st reveals his divine glory to the public eye in the privileged context of family life.  His action specially blesses married love in all its goodness, shows his eagerness to help with the problems of married life, and reminds us of marriage’s sacramentality:  it is an image of God’s eternal love for his people.  “As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you” (Is 62:5).

A parenthesis is timely here:  It’s because God’s love for his people is eternal and marriage is a sacrament or sign of that love, that marriage is a till-death-do-us-part covenant and the Church can never recognize divorce.  Close parenthesis.

Our parish here is called Assumption.  So our Lady, the mother of Jesus, has special meaning for us.  She’s at the wedding, she brings the wine problem to Jesus’ attention, she sends the waiters to Jesus, she fades into the background.

In this scripture and in the related crucifixion scene, John presents Mary as an image of the Church as well as a disciple of Jesus.  Like Mary, the Church shares “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted,” as Vatican II said (GS 1).  Like Mary, the Church always points to Jesus, saying, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).  Like Mary, the Church doesn’t always get clear answers, but she has faith in his concern, is ready for whatever he suggests or wherever he leads even if she’s unsure what that will be.  Like Mary, the Church seeks not herself but Jesus, keeps pointing to him for the salvation of others and the glorification of God in Jesus.

Mary’s personal role and Jesus’ dialog with her in the Cana story are a bit puzzling.  It’s enough to say that she notices a serious problem for her relatives or friends, and in some manner she brings this problem to Jesus and Jesus acts.  When we add the crucifixion scene of John 19, we see Mary as our mother, attentive also to our needs and bringing them to Jesus for us.  We can’t doubt that he’ll act for us, too.

May the mother of Jesus, our mother, watch over us and pray for us.

Homily for Thursday after Epiphany

Homily for the
Thursday after Epiphany

January 10, 2019

Collect
Nativity, Washington, D.C.

“O God, … grant that your people …, bathed ever more in [their Redeemer’s] radiance, may reach everlasting glory” (Collect).

from http://kpshaw.blogspot.com/2013/03/184.html 

In these days after the feast of the Epiphany, the liturgy continues the themes of light, glory, and splendor, of Christ our Redeemer revealed to the world.

Today we prayed in the Collect that we, the people of God, might “acknowledge the full splendor of [our] Redeemer” and be “bathed ever more in his radiance,” and that thru this splendor, this radiance of Christ, we might “reach everlasting glory.”

How is this to happen?  No angels appear to us announcing, “Glory to God in the highest,” and sending us to find a child in a manger.  No fabulous star leads us to his home.  How does Christ’s splendor bathe us?

We have heard the Good News announced to us, the same “glad tidings” of healing and liberation that Jesus announced in the synagog at Nazareth (Luke 4:14-22).  We encounter this Christ personally in the sacred mysteries of his Church:  in Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing, Matrimony, and Orders.  When we celebrate these with faith, we are bathed in the splendor of Christ’s glory and we anticipate a fuller glory when he brings us to everlasting life.  Christ himself is the fabulous star, the rising sun, who guides us to his home and will make it also our home.  The sacraments, wherein his radiance touches us, are our portals to the eternal glory of our Redeemer.

In the meantime, we acknowledge the splendor of our Redeemer by bathing others, our sisters and brothers, in his radiance; by loving them, as St. John says, loving all God’s children with the love that he has bestowed upon us (1 John 4:19).  The radiance within us, if it’s truly within, must burst out and shine upon the world.  Our faith in the glory of the risen Christ, lived out in daily, practical love, conquers the evil of the world (1 John 5:4).

The evil of the world isn’t something lurking at the southern border.  Yes, there are evils in the outside world:  drugs, human trafficking, nuclear weapons, people in power using that power to oppress others, abortion, religious persecution, sexual harassment, racism, and all the other stuff constantly in the news.  More immediately, we ought to be concerned about the evils of our internal world:  our own unfair or unkind judgments, spitefulness, gossip, laziness, lack of due attention to others, petty deceptions – well, you know the entire litany, don’t you?  This is the evil which needs the bathing radiance of Christ our Redeemer, so that we might “reach everlasting glory.”

Homily for Wednesday after Epiphany

Homily for
Wednesday after Epiphany

January 9, 2019

Mark 6: 45-52
Don Bosco Cristo Rey, Takoma Park, Md.

“On the contrary, their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6: 52).

As Bro. Bill would say, that’s harsh.

The disciples have just witnessed the m:iracle of the loaves and fish, and now Jesus comes to them walking on the lake and speaking encouragement.  But they don’t understand, for their hearts are hardened.

Christ Walking on the Water (Julius S. Von Klever)

Don’t understand what?  Hardened to what?  To who Jesus is.

Eventually Simon Peter will start to understand:  “You are the Messiah (8:29).  But even then his hardened heart won’t grasp what that means, and he’ll resist the message of the cross (8:31-38).

Why are their hearts hardened?  Well, when Jesus “went off to the mountain to pray” (6:46), where were the disciples?  Not with Jesus in prayer.  Never at prayer.

No disciple’s heart can be soft, pliant, receptive until and unless he joins the Lord in humble prayer, like Jesus seeking and trying to do the Father’s will.

Homily for Solemnity of Epiphany

Homily for the Solemnity
of the Epiphany of the Lord

Matt 2: 1-12

Jan. 8, 2006                                        
Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scarsdale, N.Y.

“We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage” (Matt 2:2).

Adoration of the Magi (Nunez del Valle)

A “Motley’s Crew” cartoon in the Daily News, Christmas Day 1999, showed a wise man (who looked like Motley) leaving the house at Bethlehem in dejection.  The caption read:  “Not many people know this, but there were actually four magi—one was turned away because his gift was a fruitcake.”  Come to think of it, we haven’t seen Motley lately, have we?

In the old days, Epiphany would have been the 12th day of Christmas, i.e., of the Christmas festivities.  In our revised liturgical calendar, tho, the feast has been moved to Sunday so that its solemnity might be more fully celebrated, and this year, in case you’re counting, it’s the 14th day of Christmas.  I don’t know what gifts to suggest for your true love on these 2 extra days.

In some cultures Epiphany has become 3 Kings Day.  If you listened attentively to the gospel reading from St. Matthew, you heard that they were magi, not kings, and you heard no reference to their number.  They’re usually numbered at 3 because of their 3 gifts.  Henry Van Dyke, an American writer of a century ago, gave us a beautiful short story called “The Other Wise Man” (1896) well worth reading and even meditating upon if you can find a copy of it.  This fictional 4th wise man wasn’t carrying fruitcake.

Who were the magi?  In the singular, what was a magus?  In the Acts of the Apostles (8:9-24), we meet a character called Simon Magus—“Simon the Magician” in our New American Bible.  He may have known how to do some kinds of magic tricks—the notes in the Bible refer to him as a sorcerer.  As you might have guessed, our word magic derives from magus.  Simon the magician or sorcerer is upstaged by the Apostles and the Holy Spirit.  His secret knowledge is no match for the power of God.  More generally, the magi of the ancient Near East were scholars, “wise men,” as we often call Jesus’ visitors.  In Jesus’ time they included also men who possessed occult knowledge, soothsayers and interpreters of dreams (you heard at the end of today’s gospel that they were directed in a dream not to return to Herod), magicians, charlatans, and men we would call philosophers.  Some may also have been doctors or natural scientists.  The magi of Jesus’ birth would mostly likely have been practitioners of the occult, perhaps astrologers.[1]  “At their best the Magi were good and holy men, who sought for truth,” writes biblical commentator William Barclay.[2]

As Matthew and the early Christians would have understood the story, the immediate significance of these magi coming to Jesus, rendering homage, and bringing him exotic, kingly, divine gifts, would be twofold.

1st, they’re foreigners, Gentiles.  They’re “from the east,” suggestive of Mesopotamia or Persia.  These Gentiles pay homage to the Jewish Messiah.  Their pursuit of his star, the “star rising out of Jacob” mentioned in prophecy in the Torah (Num 24:17), indicates that the Messiah is not for the Jews only.  He is, as the angel told St. Joseph, to “save his people from their sins” (Matt 1:21), and we Christians believe “his people” include all who come to him, whatever their national origin or heritage.  All who hear and believe the Gospel and are baptized become Christ’s people, saved from their sins by the blood of his cross.

2d, these wise men of the ancient world—priests, scholars, scientists, magicians, whoever they may have been—come to Jesus and pay him homage.  The divine Savior is their lord, as later Simon Magus also would understand when he witnessed the power of the Holy Spirit wielded by the Apostles.  Human knowledge and skill are wonderful gifts, but they are worthless in the scheme of eternity if they don’t lead us to God.  St. Paul tells the Corinthians that “God has made the wisdom of the world foolish” because “the world did not come to know God thru wisdom” (1 Cor 1:20-21).  Further on, he reminds the Corinthians, “If I comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge … but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor 13:2).

Both of these points—Christ’s coming for all nations, and Christ the Lord of all knowledge—remain relevant.  Regarding the nations, the Church has to be missionary, continuing to bring the Gospel to every place, every people on earth.  We respect every culture and other faiths, but we believe every culture, every faith, every person finds fulfillment and eternal life in union with God, brought about thru the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who came to save us from our sins.

Regarding knowledge—well, that certainly has been in the news plenty:  e.g., Christian objections to stem cell research and controversy over “intelligent design.”  The submission of the magi to Christ may serve as a guide for us.  Worldly wisdom belongs to God—who is ultimately the source and the goal of all wisdom.  This, however, is not to say that religion rules science or any other branch of human knowledge.  The scientific method, logic and other branches of philosophy, mathematics, the study of history, and so on have their own laws and principles, and it’s not theology’s, religion’s, or the Church’s place to govern those laws.  Sometimes, as the astronomy of Copernicus and Galileo, e.g., has demonstrated, or the discoveries of countless paleontologists and archeologists and the theories of Darwin as well as of astrophysicists—sometimes new knowledge may compel the Church and theologians to go back to their own drawing boards, so to say, and rethink their theories and teachings.

In the 11th century St. Anselm, monk, teacher, archbishop, and doctor of the Church, defined theology as “faith seeking understanding.”  That’s still a valid concept.  Certainly God, e.g., could have created the world as we know it in 6 days.  He could have done it in an instant.  But if the physical and astrophysical evidence compels a different explanation, then our faith has to look for such an explanation, has to take the concrete evidence as it is, and use that as part of how we understand the texts of the Bible, God’s nature as our Creator, God’s relationship with the human race.

On the other hand, it is the province of philosophy, religion, and theology to interpret what science or other branches of human knowledge may discover, particularly as regards ultimate meaning and morality.  The question of “intelligent design,” for instance, isn’t really a scientific one but a philosophical one—valid in those terms.  Where does the universe come from, beyond the Big Bang or whatever other theory of the beginning one may posit?  Where is it going?  Does it have any meaning?  Does it make sense?  What is the purpose of human life?  Where are we going?  Scientists go beyond their proper roles as scientists if they offer definitive answers to such questions—as they also do when they, or politicians or editorial writers, define the morality of particular projects.  Just because science or medicine can do or make something—e.g., performance-enhancing drugs for athletes, embryonic stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, artificial contraceptives, more powerful nuclear or biological weapons—doesn’t mean it’s moral to do so.  The philosopher, the theologian, the religious teacher has a proper role in asking, What does it mean to be truly human?  How do these discoveries or inventions affect our humanity?  How do they affect our relationship with our Creator and with one another?  Worldly wisdom belongs to God—who is ultimately the source and the goal of all wisdom.

The wise men of the 1st century sought Christ at his birth and did him homage.  21st-century wise men—and women—also seek him and pay him homage.  We submit ourselves to his wisdom, to his teachings, to his way of living in relationship to our Father in heaven and to one another.

---

     [1] John L. McKenzie, SJ, Dictionary of the Bible (Milwaukee, 1965), p. 534; William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series: New Testament Commentary (CD-ROM), at Matt 2:1-12.

     [2] Barclay, loc. cit.

Memorials of Salesian Blesseds Coming Up

Memorials of Salesian Blesseds Coming Up

On January 8 and January 15, the Salesian Family will celebrate the memorials of two recently beatified Salesians of Don Bosco.  One was a martyr who suffered for the faith, specifically for working on behalf of vocations to the priesthood and religious life behind the Iron Curtain; the other was a martyr of charity and obedience.

On Fr. Titus Zeman, beatified in 2017, see https://sdbnews.blogspot.com/2017/10/salesian-martyr-fr-titus-zeman-beatified.html. Photo at right.

Blessed Louis Variara (1875-1923) was beatified in 2002 by St. John Paul II.

Adapted from www.sdb.org

Early years

Louis Variara was born in Viarigi (Asti), Italy, on January 15, 1875, to a devout Catholic family. His father Peter had heard Don Bosco in 1856, when he came to the village to preach a mission. Four months before the saint’s death, Peter decided to take Louis to Valdocco to continue his studies. What Louis came to know of Don Bosco was sufficient to leave its mark on him for life. When he finished high school, he asked to become a Salesian and entered the novitiate on August 17, 1891.

Bro. Variara did his studies in philosophy at Valsalice, where he came to know Andrew Beltrami. He was impressed by the joy with which Beltrami underwent the sufferings of his illness. In 1894 Fr. Michael Unia (1849-1895), the famous missionary to the lepers in Agua de Dios, Colombia, visited Valsalice to choose a cleric who would look after young lepers.

The missionary at Agua de Dios

Fixing his gaze on Bro. Variara, among the 188 others who had the same intention, he said: “This one is mine.” Bro. Louis arrived in Agua de Dios on August 6, 1894. The mission numbered 2,000 people, of whom 800 were lepers.

As soon as he arrived, he became the life and soul of all who lived there, especially the children. He organized a band and brightened up peoples’ lives with unexpected festivity. In 1895 Fr. Unia died, leaving and Bro. Louis and Fr. Raphael Crippa (†1928) to carry on the work. In 1898 Fr. Variara was ordained. He became an excellent spiritual director.

In 1905 Fr. Variara finished building the Fr. Unia Kindergarten, a place that could accommodate up to 150 orphans and lepers and that guaranteed that they could learn a trade to live by and fit into society in the future.

The beginnings of a religious institute

At Agua de Dios, the Sisters of Providence had created the Association of the Daughters of Mary, a group of some 200 girls. Fr. Variara was their confessor. He identified some in the group who were called to religious life. A brave project was born – something unique in the Church – a congregation that would be allowed to admit people with leprosy. Inspired by the spirituality of Fr. Beltrami, he developed the Salesian charism of sacrifice and founded the Congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, which today numbers 400 religious women.

A man of complete obedience

Fr. Variara suffered much at the time of this founding through the lack of understanding of people, including some superiors, who several times thought he should be removed from Agua de Dios. Like Don Bosco, he was exemplary in obedience. Even in the face of calumny he said nothing. He was credible because he was obedient. Fr. Michael Rua encouraged him from Turin.

He died far from his beloved lepers, as obedience had demanded. Now his remains lie in Agua de Dios, in the chapel where his sisters worship. St. John Paul II beatified him on April 14, 2002.